According to the security policy expert, Israel could never win peace regardless of its military achievements

Hamas said its political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed "in an insidious Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran." It all happened shortly after three people, including two children, were killed and 74 injured in what the Israeli army called a "targeted attack" on the outskirts of Beirut. A commander of Hezbollah was liquidated.

György Nógrádi evaluated the events and their effects for Magyar Hírlap.

- With the murder of the best-known leader of Hamas during the inauguration of the head of state in Tehran, Iran received a huge slap in the face. But what do we see? We see that Hamas has not been destroyed. Let's start at the beginning: after October 7, what did the Israelis say, what did Netanyahu say? That it has two strategic goals. One: destroy Hamas. I have said from the beginning that Hamas can be weakened, but not destroyed. Two: release all the prisoners. Nothing came of that either. They were able to free some prisoners, the rest either died, remained prisoners, or were exchanged, Nógrádi pointed out.

The killing of Haniyeh, whose several sons and grandsons were killed a few weeks ago, means that Israel has taken up the gauntlet.

However, the question whether it was expedient is raised by the security policy expert, who also touched on the fact that presidential elections will be held in the USA on November 5, where the Democratic and Republican conceptions of the Middle East, as well as of the Russian-Ukrainian war , and almost everything else is completely different.

- Israel must take into account that the war is currently being waged on three fronts, even if it does not say so.

One of them is the Gaza Strip, we talk about it every day. The other is the West Bank, where about 86-87 percent of the population is Arab-Palestinian, about 13 percent is Jewish; where there are daily clashes, only the world press does not report on it, because there are two wounded and three dead, so it does not reach the stimulus threshold. The third is the Lebanese front, emphasized Nógrádi.

The analyst explained: of the two forces opposing Israel, Hezbollah is Shia, Hamas is Sunni, but both receive support from Iran.

"Hezbollah has more than a hundred thousand rockets, they can be destroyed. Yes, all you have to do is get into a general war in the Middle East. And what did Erdogan say a few days ago? That Turkey will intervene. It's unlikely he will, but if he did, it would be a very ugly war. The Turkish army is completely different from Hamas or Hezbollah," Nógrádi stated.

Iran has said many times that if Hezbollah is attacked, it will intervene.

“Well, there was just a strike against Hezbollah in Beirut, and there was another strike against Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, which humiliated Iran. So now the Middle East and a Middle East war can break out at any moment, obviously a lot of people don't want it. Many people want the West to curb Israel, but only one country can curb Israel. All the others are not in that situation," emphasized Nógrádi.

Despite the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, the Netanyahu government does not enjoy the broad and unconditional support of the West, such as Ukraine.

It is noteworthy that even Trump, who previously called himself the most pro-Israel president, wants peace in the Middle East.

– The situation in Ukraine also divided the West, but now we'll leave it at that! In the case of Israel, many Western politicians, especially Europeans, say that wars have been going on since 1948, when Israel was established, that is, for 76 years. In 1967, Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights in the Six Day War. At that time, there were very serious discussions about whether Israel would give territory for peace. That didn't work out then. Today's Israeli policy is rejected by a wide range of Western Europeans in view of its history. It starts from the fact that Israel is its strategic ally. But this is interpreted differently by various political actors, and the war also divided Western public opinion, said György Nógrádi.

 Israel has won all its wars militarily, but it cannot win in the press and PR. "You win your wars, you lose your peaces - it's always been like that," added György Nógrádi.

the interview in its entirety in the Magyar Hírlap .

Cover photo: György Nógrádi
Source: Mandiner/Árpád Földházi