Israeli soldiers raid Lebanon, latest sign Netanyahu is ignoring Biden

• Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu launched a series of devastating attacks on Hezbollah.
• He has rejected or ignored a number of US attempts to avoid a wider conflict.
• Biden has been criticized for trying to stop a wider war while still sending weapons to Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is rapidly intensifying Israel’s campaign against its regional enemies and trampling on US diplomatic efforts in the process.

In the latest sign that it is ignoring US warnings, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli special operations forces are conducting raids in southern Lebanon ahead of a possible ground incursion this week.

The raids were aimed at gathering intelligence and uncovering Hezbollah’s weakness, the Journal said.

Amir Avivi, a former senior Israeli military official, told the publication that a ground invasion was imminent, a major escalation that Israeli officials have been threatening for months.

“The IDF has made a lot of preparations for a ground incursion,” Avivi said. “In general, this always includes special operations. This is part of the process.”

The raids follow an unprecedented series of strikes in Israel. In the early hours of the month, Israel struck central Beirut for the first time since 2006. It also confirmed that it had killed Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, a Hamas leader, in Lebanon.

It came after the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in a massive explosion in a Beirut suburb on Friday, dramatically raising the stakes in Israel’s year-long war against Iran-backed militias following the October 7 terror attacks.

Israel’s stepped-up campaign against Hezbollah could be preparations for a ground invasion of Lebanon and risks triggering another direct confrontation with Iran.

The US is trying to deter a wider war

US President Joe Biden has long sought to prevent Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza from escalating into a larger war, potentially drawing in the US and regional powers.

However, some critics argued that his approach failed because US-supplied weapons allowed Netanyahu’s embattled government to continue escalating and expanding the war.

“Without US support, this war would not have been possible,” Gilbert Achcar, professor of international relations at London’s SOAS University, told France 24. “It is actually a joint US-Israel war.”

“It’s not so much that the Israelis treat him as an irrelevance,” Jazmine El-Galal, a former Pentagon adviser during the Obama administration, told The Independent.

“It’s that Biden is not seriously trying to effect any change. They’ve been complaining about Netanyahu for almost a year,” she said, “but in the meantime, the U.S. continues to send weapons and funds to Israel.”

Last week, the US appeared to be on the verge of negotiating a cross-border ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah – but just 24 hours later, Israel assassinated Nasrallah.

It was a strike that, according to The Journal, shocked American officials. The publication, citing unnamed US officials, said Israel did not inform its most important ally about the attack before it was carried out.

The White House described the killing as “a measure of justice for his many victims”, although it again urged against further escalation. Hezbollah was involved in the 1983 bombings of the US Embassy in Beirut and the US Marine Corps barracks.

“We are shocked,” a US official told CNN after Netanyahu rejected a ceasefire proposal before Israel launched all-out attacks.

It is the latest in a series of incidents in which the Israeli leader has ignored or rebuffed President Joe Biden’s attempts to curtail Israeli military actions in Gaza and, more recently, Lebanon.

Netanyahu thinks he is ‘winning the war’

A former British military chief said this may be because Netanyahu believes he is winning the war in the Middle East.

General Lord Richard Dannatt told Sky News on Sunday that Netanyahu believed he could “get on” with the conflict.

“A ground invasion of Lebanon is increasingly threatened,” he told reporters.

He said the US had called on Israel to withdraw but had not done enough to “effectively” stop Netanyahu.

“They still provide weapons and many things that Israel needs,” Dannatt said.

“On the one hand. The US is asking for restraint, but on the other hand. they are not effectively stopping Netanyahu and he thinks he is winning this war.”

Ignoring the red lines

The US is by far the largest arms supplier to Israel.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas on October 7, 2023, the US has enacted legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel.

Overall, it has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in missile defense funding since 2009, including $1.3 billion for the development of Israel’s Iron Dome system, according to figures from Office of Political-Military Affairs.

It is also a great trading partner outside of weapons. US exports to Israel last year totaled just over $14 billion, according to figures from the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.

Despite this, Netanyahu has ignored a number of red lines from Biden about how Israel is running its campaign and rejected US pressure to reach a cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, in an article for Foreign Policy in September, argued that Biden’s reluctance to hold Israel accountable undermines the rules-based international order the president claims to uphold.

Some argue that as his term draws to a close, Biden is stepping down. The White House has denied these claims.

“No, it absolutely has not caved in,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN of the deal to end the war in Gaza last week.

After the devastating blows Israel has dealt its enemies in recent days, revealing the limits of their power and the capacity of Israeli intelligence and weapons, Netanyahu probably believes the impetus is his.

But a widening conflict would likely not come to a quick conclusion, US officials warn.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned after last week’s collapsed US peace effort that if Israel rejected diplomacy it would result in “greater instability and insecurity, the ripples of which will be felt throughout world”.

“The choices all parties make in the coming days will determine the path this region takes, with profound consequences for its people now and possibly for years to come.” Blinken said.