Why Lebanon can’t be saved A full-scale evacuation might be the only option

The central conceit of the Abraham Accords was that, irrespective of Hamas, Hezbollah and the occupation of the West Bank, once the Israel-Saudi axis was formed, Iran could be pushed back and contained without direct American involvement. But, then, the depth of Hamas’s murderous brutality on 7 October shattered that assumption, leaving not only a traumatised and vulnerable Israel, but also a traumatised and vulnerable Western order forced to confront the stark realities of the Middle East.

Today, Lebanon is a dead state, eaten alive by Hezbollah’s parasitic power. The scale of the catastrophe in the country is hard to comprehend, much of it caused by the disruptive nature of Syria’s civil war. Since its neighbour’s descent into anarchic hell, some 1.5 million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon — a tiny country with a population of just 5 million. But, more fundamentally, with Hezbollah fighting to protect Bashar al Assad, the opposing countries — led by Saudi Arabia — began withdrawing funds from Lebanese banks. This sparked a financial crisis that left Lebanon with no money for fuel. 

By spring 2020, the country had defaulted on its debts, sending it into a downward spiral which the World Bank in 2021 described as among “the top 10, possibly top three, most severe crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century”. Lebanon’s GDP plummeted by around a third, with poverty doubling from 42% to 82% in two years. At the same time, the country’s capital, Beirut, was hit by an extraordinary explosion at its port, leaving more than 300,000 homeless. By 2023 the IMF described the situation as “very dangerous” and the US was warning that the collapse of the Lebanese state was “a real possibility”.

With Iranian support, however, Hezbollah created a shadow economy almost entirely separate from this wider collapse. It could escape the energy shortages, while creating its own banks, supermarkets and electricity network. Hezbollah isn’t just a terrorist group. It is a state within a state, complete with a far more advanced army. “They may have plunged Lebanon into complete chaos, but they themselves are not chaotic at all,” as Carmit Valensi, from the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Jerusalem Post.

Then came 7 October, after which Hezbollah tied its fate to that of the Palestinians, promising to bombard Israel with rockets until the war in Gaza was brought to a close. We have witnessed the frightening scale of its power over the past year, its bombardment forcing some 100,000 Israelis from their homes in Galilee to the safety of the Israeli heartlands around Tel Aviv. For the first time since modern Israel’s creation, the land where Jews are able to live in their own state has shrunk; the rockets are a daily reminder of the country’s extraordinary vulnerability, threatened on all sides by states who actively want it removed from the map — even from history itself. The pretence that the Palestinian and Lebanese questions could be contained, ignored or bypassed as part of a wider grand strategy to contain Iran has been shattered. 

Israel, of course, has not let Hezbollah’s missile attacks go unpunished, replying with raids on Southern Lebanon which have forced 100,000 to flee their homes for the apparent safety of Beirut and its surroundings. But as Israel escalates the war, the Lebanese population — already impoverished and abandoned — are having to flee again. This fight to the death leaves the 5 million people of Lebanon with nowhere to go, trapped on all sides by anarchy and war. The only escape is by sea — which is controlled by the West.

Any worries that Western forces are once again being “drawn in” are moot — we are already involved. In the days following 7 October, Washington redeployed an aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean to cover Israel’s northern flank which would allow Netenyahu to wage his war in Gaza. Since then, Iran itself has launched a direct rocket attack at Israel, prompting an armada of Western forces to intervene. And in the event of a humanitarian disaster, prompted by an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon, it would fall to Britain, France and the United States to organise the mass evacuation of Lebanese civilians that would be required to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.

Such is the scale of that impending catastrophe that I am told that David Lammy, our new Foreign Secretary, has spent around a third of his time dealing with an operation so complex that it resembles a full-scale war plan. Because Lebanon borders Syria to its north and east and Israel to its south, the only option for a mass evacuation would be by sea. And the only powers capable of delivering such a mission are the United States, France and Britain — each of whom is currently distracted by its own domestic political dramas. And in each case, the rise of the nationalist Right makes any mass refugee scheme a political nightmare. 

The French government is locked in a particularly acute fiscal crisis; the Biden administration is limping towards its end; and our Starmer government is only just coming to terms with the anti-refugee riots which gripped the country over the summer. No country could easily cope with a mass influx from another war-torn country in the Middle East.

Hence the extraordinary diplomatic push now underway to avert a full scale war. Yesterday, a joint declaration from Britain, France, the United States and Saudi Arabia called for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon. Israel, though, quickly rejected its terms: a ceasefire would only leave Hezbollah in place, free to continue growing in strength, armed by Iran, capable of making much of northern Israel uninhabitable. With Gaza lying in ruins and Hamas devastated but not defeated, Israel has concluded that it is now strong enough to wage war on Hezbollah, and that any delay only serves the interests of its enemies, principally Iran. 

The stakes today are far higher for Israel than the war it has been waging in Gaza for the past 12 months. This war against Hezbollah is one that must reestablish the ability of Israel to be able to shelter its citizens within its own borders. It is, then, a battle for the very purpose Israel was founded.

In its ignorance and arrogance, the West believed it could contain the appalling disorder of the Middle East. But it has simply allowed Iran to grow in strength. Not only did 7 October shatter the failing assumptions of Benjamin Netenyahu’s grand strategy, it also revealed the Western world’s myopic passivity too. Today, the world is reaping the whirlwind.

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Tom McTague is UnHerd’s Political Editor. He is the author of Betting The House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election.

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