Gilad Cohen, owner and operator of the most watched Arab affairs Telegram channel in Israel, Abu Ali Express, on Sunday, reminded his thousands of followers that Hezbollah and the Iran axis have quite a few enemies, both inside Lebanon and in Iran.
Cohen suggested that the ingenious thing about the plan hatched by Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force who was eliminated by the Trump administration in January 2020, was his success in planting the belief in the heads of the members of the Iranian axis that Israel is transient and that together they have the power to make it disappear.
Soleimani succeeded in uniting elements with opposite characteristics (Sunnis and Shiites) against Israel under the pretext of liberating Al-Aqsa and the “Palestinian” issue, which constitute a broad common denominator among many diverse populations in the Middle East, Cohen noted.
“But….the coin has two sides,” Cohen continued. “Iran and Hezbollah also have quite a few enemies in the Middle East:
- The Sunnis, the Druze, and the Christians in Lebanon
- The rebels and the Druze in Syria
- The opposition inside Iran
“All of these have a common denominator with Israel – they are interested in the elimination of Hezbollah and the Ayatollahs’ regime,” and, he recalled, “Israel has previously succeeded in forging alliances with each of these groups, each one separately.”
Of course, it didn’t always end up well for Israel or for those groups. Lebanese Christian President allied with Israel in August 1982 and was assassinated, most likely by the Syrians, the following September. The South Lebanon Army was a faithful ally of Israel until in July of 2000 then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak beat an unannounced and shamefully hasty retreat back across the lines, leaving Israel’s SLA buddies to fend for themselves against Hezbollah.
Nevertheless, Cohen insists that if and when Hezbollah decides to join the war (and maybe even earlier), Israel should call on all the enemies of Hezbollah and Iran, publicly and through secret channels, to join the great campaign to destroy Hezbollah and inflict damage on the Iranian regime.
He offers two examples of the readiness of some Lebanese minorities to join the fray against Hezbollah: In August 2023, a Hezbollah truck was overturned in the Christian town of Al-Kahala. Hezbollah operatives were killed by Christians who shot them in broad daylight; and in August 2021, when Hezbollah was moving more than 20 rockets to be shot across the border with Israel, the Druze in southern Lebanon prevented the vehicle carrying the rockets from passing through their village.
“Israel has many partners and Arab public support for an anti-Hezbollah coalition. They too are waiting for the day when Hezbollah can be exterminated. You just need to instill in them the belief that this day is coming,” Cohen concludes.
