BEIRUT: Tensions between Israel and Lebanon rose Sunday as Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that a third war between the two countries has become “inevitable.” “A fourth operation in the Gaza Strip is inevitable, just as a third Lebanon war is inevitable,” Lieberman told Ynet news, the English-language website of Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, in an interview.
“There’s no doubt the rules of the game have been changed, what Hezbollah forced upon us. We don’t respond, but rather decide to contain this incident. I think that’s completely unreasonable,” Lieberman said. “Hezbollah is bolder, more determined, more provocative.”
Lieberman said that Israel’s deterrence had been compromised following Hezbollah’s attack on an Israeli envoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms last week and he labeled Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response insufficient, Ynet reported.
Lieberman had immediately called for a “harsh and disproportionate,” response to Hezbollah’s attack that left two Israeli soldiers dead and seven others wounded. Israel responded by shelling villages in south Lebanon, causing no casualties to Hezbollah but killing a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeper.
Hezbollah’s offensive came in response to an Israeli strike on Jan. 18 on a convoy in the Syrian town of Qunaitra in the Golan Heights which killed six Hezbollah fighters and a high-ranking official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
One of the Hezbollah members killed was Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of the slain Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh.
Lieberman’s comments came a day after U.S. publications The Washington Post and later Newsweek revealed how the CIA and Israel’s spy agency Mossad were behind an elaborate plot to kill Mughniyeh in 2008.
Both publications detailed how the two spy agencies executed a pinpoint operation using a car bomb to take down Mughniyeh in a restaurant parking lot in Damascus on Feb. 12, 2008.
The CIA led the operation, carrying out tedious tests on the car bomb at a facility in North Carolina to ensure that the bomb would have a small radius and cause no collateral damage, both publications said.
After deciding on the right bomb, CIA and Mossad agents had to wait months to carry out the operation, monitoring Mughniyeh’s movements and waiting for a moment when he was alone to carry out the strike.
However, there is a stark difference between the two publications on one detail of the operation regarding who actually detonated the bomb that killed Mughniyeh.
The Post reported that operatives on the ground monitored Mughniyeh’s movements but the device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv.
“The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” a former U.S. intelligence official told the Post.
They added that the Israelis wanted to pull the trigger as payback with one former official describing it as “revenge,” but the Americans didn’t care.
However, Newsweek reported that the CIA operative that was monitoring Mughniyeh’s movements with a Mossad agent in Damascus would “press the remote,” to detonate the bomb.
Newsweek reported that this Mossad agent was present to identify Mughniyeh while the Post said that facial recognition technology was used.
Both publications scrutinized the legality of the operation. Following a 1981 executive order, the CIA was banned from carrying out assassinations. Therefore, in order to authorize this mission the CIA had to receive permission from former President of the United States George W. Bush as well as several senior figures, the Post said.
The CIA justified the operation by stating that Mughniyeh was a threat to American national security as he had been involved in a number of operations that killed Americans and was also thought to be training Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeting American troops at the time.
Newsweek reported that it only took the U.S. president 30 seconds to agree to the order when former CIA Chief Michael Hayden brought him the request, telling him to “Go with God.”
Hayden was nonetheless nervous about carrying out the operation due to its precarious legality but eventually agreed, Newsweek said.
Mughniyeh had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for decades after being involved in operations such as the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the kidnapping and murder of Beirut CIA station Chief William Buckley and the bombing of U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut airport in the 1980s.
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