Shadow Foreign Secretary defends Israel's Lebanon invasion: ‘What would our government do?'
| Updated:
As Israel continues its ground invasion of Lebanon, shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell tells The News Agents why “no government” would have allowed Hezbollah activity to continue.
Listen to this article
“This is the moment, in a way, that everybody has been holding their breath for,” says Lewis Goodall.
Israel has invaded Lebanon, following months of shelling across the border with a "limited, localised and targeted" ground operation.
Israel's goal, it says, is to push Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group, back in order to return displaced Israeli people to their homes in the north of the country.
Among several key members of Hezbollah eliminated in recent Israeli attacks, the group recently confirmed its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, was killed on 28 September 2024 in an airstrike. According to the Israel Defence Force, it is now targeting the capital city of Beirut.
Israel and Lebanon have been engaged in warfare numerous times since 1978.
The UN estimates that more than a million people in Lebanon have been displaced by the ongoing Israeli strikes in the country.
Hundreds have been killed since Israel began targeting people in Lebanon. The dead include several Hezbollah leaders, but there have also been numerous child casualties, including two in its mid-September attack using pager devices.
"There was UN resolution 1701, after the 2006 Israel/Hezbollah war, which said that Hezbollah forces should go North of the Litani River – and it's never happened," says Jon Sopel.
"And so Israel is saying: 'right, okay, we're now going to come in and we're going to try and enforce that.' The problem, of course, is that it's easy to start something like this, but where does it lead?
"And look at Gaza, nearly one year on – are Hamas destroyed, no. And the rockets are still coming into northern Israel, fired by Hezbollah."
Lewis Goodall describes the humanitarian situation in the region as “completely dire”.
“Both sides have some legitimacy to be able to say that their citizens are living in fear and living under the constant terror of military incursion and rockets,” he adds.
Who is Hezbollah? And what is this war?
Why it's believed eliminating Hezbollah is key to peace in the Middle East
Israel's advances in the Middle East have been endorsed by the four Tory leadership hopefuls (Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat), and all spoke at a Conservative Friends of Israel fringe event at this week's party conference.
Also speaking at the event – and the only Tory to endorse a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and Gaza – was shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell, who told The News Agents it is "very hard" to criticise Israel for its current advances on Hezbollah inside Lebanon.
"There is no government which has the power to act which would willingly allow a terrorist movement, Hezbollah, to shell over the border, destroy people's lives and homes and push tens of thousands of people south within Israel," Mitchell says.
This, he adds, is the position of the Conservative Party on the situation.
Comparing previous Israeli incursions in Lebanon, Mitchell describes its current assault as "more surgical" than its 2006 assault on Hezbollah, which resulted in thousands dead and injured.
He says removing Hezbollah is key to achieving peace in the region, because of its violent and disruptive activity inside Lebanon.
"The United Nations (UN) cannot operate where there isn't a plausible peace," he continues.
"They have to have something to work with."
He says peace can only only be achieved with the "elimination" of Hezbollah which he says are working to destabilise both the UN and the Lebanese army.
What’s The News Agents’ take?
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Natenyahu has been “deeply out of favour” on all sides since the war with Gaza began. But the tides could be turning, says Emily, with much of Israel supporting the attack on Hezbollah.
“He has now turned his own fortunes around by doing something militarily that actually most of Israel does agree with. They don't mind Hezbollah being targeted, and they do want Israelis to be able to move back into their homes by the border.”
However, the situation leaves Western governments in a complicated place, she adds.
“On the one hand, they're saying ‘Hezbollah, known terrorists. Known child and drug traffickers. Yeah, you go out and do what you want Israel, nobody is going to mourn the loss of Hezbollah.’
“But on the other hand, they are embedded in so much of Lebanese society and Lebanese life and the country itself… The people who are now picking up the pieces are, of course, the Lebanese civilians who will be hit.”
And it’s not just the Lebanese civilians, it’s the Lebanese army also, who “aren’t trying to pick a fight with Israel,” says Emily.
“They don't like Hezbollah any more than Israel does, but they are now having to defend the country.”
“Hezbollah is much better funded, much better organised, has much greater weaponry than the Lebanese army,” Jon adds.
“You have got an army within a state and it is a non-state actor, Hezbollah, prescribed as a terrorist organisation who made life ever more difficult for the Lebanese government, which is trying to hold together this fragile coalition in Lebanon.... For the past 40 years, it has always been a tinderbox that could erupt at any moment.
“And Israel is now saying, ‘this is the moment where we have to deal with it, because of the fact that we've had to move so many Israeli citizens out’.
"It's a dangerous moment,” he adds.
Listen in full on The News Agents.
