270. Will Israel go to war with Hezbollah?

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0:20Welcome to The Restless Politics special edition with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alex Campbell, and what's special about it, Rory, is that we did a live stream yesterday, which we stuck with it, even though you were on a train with a bit dodgy Wi -Fi, and we talked about all sorts of things beyond the election. But the sound qualities have been irritating for people to put out on the general feet, so we're going to briefly recap not the election stuff, because that's already kind of slightly out -of -date, frankly, some of it. But we're going to talk about Israel, Hezbollah, Russia, North Korea, China, and also stuff that's been going on in Germany.

0:57So kick off with Hezbollah. Well, so the big news there is that senior Israeli generals have now signaled that they're bringing together plans to launch a campaign against Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is this very large terrorist armed group located in southern Lebanon, much larger than Hamas, much better armed, much more directly supported by Iran. And that would represent a huge transformation in Israel's war plans. So at the moment, they're responding to October 7th by going to Gaza, where the attacks came from. Instead of going west, they would shift north and go into southern Lebanon. And the foreign minister has said, in a total war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be hit hard.

1:46So there's a real stepping up of rhetoric. Many, many things to talk about here. There's the question of what would that campaign look like? Can Israel do it? How would the international community respond? But first of all, your thoughts and your sense of this whole thing? Well, I think the point about how the international community would respond, I suppose it depends partly where they are already on this. I think it does make it harder for the Americans, for example, to maintain the level of support. Because essentially what Israel's saying is that they're having to open, even though there's been quite a lot going on on this front already, but open a new front.

2:24And in a situation that will make the region even more difficult, even more dangerous. And I think, you know, there will be parts, I'm assuming there will be parts of the American system that will be thinking, you know, isn't it, you know, who just kind of now, I don't mean this in a bad way. Well, I suppose I do in a way using the war to that made that the utterly defining purpose of his government, because of course, everybody you talk to in Israel, including people that are quite close to that, you know, basically thinks that as soon as the general election, he's gone. And meanwhile, you've got what's going on in Gaza continuing to do a lot, quite a lot of damage to Israel's standing in the world.

3:05Just yesterday, UN Human Rights Office saying that I think they picked, they focused on the seats, what they called emblematic air strikes, which they are saying systematically violated the laws of war, requiring that civilians and civilian infrastructure are properly protected. So that's the kind of, I think, the part of the backdrop to this, we should always point out, and lots of our, as pro -Israeli people point this out, always point out, as it were, this is all in direct response to what happened on October 7th, which was unforgivable. But I think this now gives the sense that they're taking it to a different place, and it's going to become much, much more difficult for the world to deal with it.

3:45Yes, the reason why Israel might do it is firstly that there have been a lot of hispola missiles firing into northern Israel. Tens of civilians have been killed, 15 soldiers have been killed, and about 60 ,000 Israelis living in settlements, sorry, living villages in northern Israel have have moved south. The second reason they might do it is a sense that hispola represents a much bigger threat to Israel than Hamas. And so there are people in the Israeli government who think, we're going to have to go after them sometime, and we might as well go after them now. But one of the reasons, Rory, they represent a bigger threat is because they have bigger support from players in this region who, frankly, what will the Iranians think of it as ham?

4:36Will they think it sort of brings them further in, or will they try and stay further out? I mean, it just, I think, poses an awful lot of very difficult. It's incredibly dangerous. I'm going to be incredibly dangerous thing to do. So stepping back from the rationale of doing unbelievably dangerous. So firstly, hispola is a very considerable enemy, much better equipped, much better trained than Hamas. I mean, their fighters have really active combat experience in Syria. They were the people who turned the Syrian war. They have a lot more anti -aircraft missiles. They're able to shoot down UAVs.

5:08If a full war started, they would try to be landing rockets right in the middle of Haifa. Iran has been a very strong supporter of his. They've created his, they've funned his, but I don't remember. The Iranian rockets were flying over a few weeks ago. Remember the standoffs around the killings of Iranian diplomats in the embassy in Damascus. So there's a big question about dragging Iran further, and particularly at a time when almost certainly the next Iranian president is going to be somebody closely connected with the revolutionary guard. So very, very dangerous. Also, Israel will almost certainly lose its remaining connections to a lot of the other regional countries that won't support this.

5:48And it's going to be very difficult for Israel to do. The reservists have been called up three times already, and this means that we're in a position in which people are talking about having to conscript the ultra -autorox community, and Israel will only be able to go into Lebanon with equipment support from the United States. This will be all about the United States, and it's going to play deeply into the question of is America getting behind this at a time when Biden's special envoy has been in Lebanon, calling for peace, and trying to get people back to this peace plan that Biden announced two weeks ago, which is meant to be about the release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza.

6:24So could lead to a much more militarized situation, could lead to Israel being ever more marginalized, than ever more violent fight. But of course, from the point of view of the Israeli far right, and many people in Israel, they increasingly see this as an existential fight for survival. Over to you on North Korea. Well, so this kind of is related, because of course, the other thing that it does is it further reduces, if you like, Ukraine in terms of the international agenda. And Zelensky, I think, does an extraordinary job at keeping Ukraine as close to the forefront of other leaders' minds as he can, but it gets harder when all this other stuff's going as well.

7:03And meanwhile, Vladimir Putin flies off to Pyongyang. First visit to Pyongyang in 24 years, almost a quarter of a century, at which he and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, signed lots of sort of diplomatic and military relationships. Essentially, almost it seemed to me taking the NATO principle and attack on one is an attack on all, just the two of them, but an attack on one of us, that means an attack on the other. Kim Jong Un doing something that Xi Jinping has not done, essentially saying full support for Putin in his invasion of Ukraine and his claims on Ukraine. So, and pretty extraordinarily kind of theater to this, Putin arrived at 3am, right in the dead of night.

7:56Kim Jong Un is there to give him a big hug, honor guards, the whole of Pyongyang, just huge posters of the two leaders together, very, very kind of, you know, flaunting this newfound special relationship. And of course, part of it is about the continuing suspicions that Russia is taking ammunition and other military supplies from North Korea in its change for money, and its change for further support, and Xi Jinping, little bit skeptical about the whole thing. Yeah, it is traumatic. I mean, we're so far and deep into this that we almost take it for granted, but the point is that Russia was prepared to criticize North Korea relatively recently, to criticize its missile tests.

8:43It's one of the few subjects where the security counts actually stayed together. You know, North Korea being a nuclear threat destabilizing the region. This is a big change, and it's not just Putin turning up. He turns up with his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and as you say, first for 24 years, and the Russians could involve themselves in providing support for North Korean submarines, support from ballistic missile launch. So, given that North Korea is one of the most dangerous tender boxes in the world, putting the support of Russian technology behind it is really going to destabilize further.

9:14Yeah, and the responsive China is absolutely fascinating in this, because of course, they both want to have close relations with China, because China is so powerful. But I was told that when Putin went to Beijing last May, I think it was, that the original plan was for Putin to fly back to Moscow via Pyongyang to drop in and see Kim Jong -un then. And the Chinese said, no, hold on a minute, you're not doing that, because that looks like we're too much part of things. And this is interesting, what China will be thinking of this, because it goes China has its own problems economically in trying to deal with some of the political fallout from decisions that are made in the West.

9:56So, this is one that I don't know, I've been in Germany in France, as you know, so I don't know how much coverage this has been getting in the UK, but it's quite a big deal. And just quickly before we bring you on to Germany, why has this all changed? It's changed because, as Russia gets more and more isolated as the sanctions build up, as is excluded from world trading systems, payment systems, it is falling back on the only allies it's got left, which are places like North Korea. And this is all part of the world solidifying into these much more violent confrontational blocks than would have been the case before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

10:34Over to you on Germany, tell us a bit about Germany. So, briefly on Germany, talking of increasing violence, there's an organization in Germany, it's called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And they, as you know, have a post -war written constitution, they take it very, very seriously, constitutional courts and so forth. And this organization, BFV, which is sometimes compared to MIFI, but they're similarities, but there are also differences. But they produce an annual report, and this annual report, which is published a few days ago, is reporting with data, a surgeon far -right violent, surgeon islamist extremism, and also increasing cyber attack from Russia and China, which led to the interior minister, Nancy Faezer, actually talking about what she called a significant threat to German democracy.

11:27And so, for example, far -right offences, the number of extremist crimes, as they're called, increased to almost 40 ,000, 25 % rise in offences of far -right people and organizations, quite a considerable growth in people that they believe are prepared to use violence. And above all, both on the hard left and the hard right, hostility to Germany's rule of law, which of course includes things like the constitutional court. So, genuinely quite worrying, and also the fact that both the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, that these are being exploited on both sides, both to, if you like, fan the flames of anti -Semitism, but also to fan the flames of Islamism as well, of anti -Islam.

12:21So, really quite a disturbing read. It's a long, long report. I read the summary, and it's really quite a worrying thing, particularly, as we see the far -right operating pretty successfully in America. The role that Farage is playing in the UK election right now, some of the changes that have been in the European elections, I think people should take this pretty seriously. Well, just to conclude then, so thank you, and a reminder that while we're all focused on the UK elections, there is an enormous amount going on around the world. The stakes for democracy are very, very high, and we're going to have to get back into these subjects in more detail when we come through this electoral period, but thank you, Alistair, for that short update.

13:02Now, just on a lighten outroi, that was all a bit heavy, but I've just noticed in this room that I borrowed to do the podcast, look what's sitting in front of me. Oh, it's a very beautiful blue and white Chinese pot in the shape of a pomegranate. I mean, the pots are just, and it blends very well with your lampshade and with your bed cover, but many people are listening to this on the podcast, so just finish in your mind's eye, if you're listening with a vision of Alistair posing like somebody from Antique's Roadshow with a rather interesting pomegranate -shaped blue and white. It's exactly the same color as your 1000 pound pots.

13:37Yeah, so there's an in -joke running here again for international listeners. On the fact that I was grumbling that I had to pay a huge amount of tax, importing from Holland, and this was an example of the costs of Brexit. Okay, Alistair, thank you very much. Good luck. Have a good time in France. I will. And the final reminder, listeners, we'll put this out. This is going out, well, this, sorry, this is already out, otherwise you'll hear it. So next up on the rest of this politics, we've got rest of this US on Friday, on Monday, great thanks. We've finally got a survey member of the cabinet during the campaign to come on.

14:09It's Alex Chort, the Justice Secretary. West Street will be following that a few days after that. And we should also let people know. We've just recorded this morning a fabulous interview with Lord Gasodon or former cabinet secretary. I was a lot to say about a lot of things. So we'll look forward to. Thank you, Alistair. Good luck with everything. Bye -bye.