Twenty-six years ago this week, Israel was forced to end an 18-year occupation of south Lebanon. Much has changed since, yet Lebanon and Israel still cling to the very policies that dragged them into today’s war, a war that has engulfed Iran, drawn in the United States, and now threatens the global economy itself.

Palestine remains the central issue reverberating across the region and the world. It is why Israel began attacking pro-Palestine forces in Lebanon in the 1970s, years before Hezbollah formed, and why that local conflict has widened ever since. Iran’s backing of Hezbollah after 1982 turned Lebanon into a front line between Iran and Israel; today, with the United States fighting alongside Israel, that front has grown into a regional war. At its heart stands Hezbollah, the central pillar of the Iran-anchored “Axis of Resistance” that opposes Israeli-American hegemony.

Lebanon might seem like a sideshow in this regional and global frame. But it deserves greater scrutiny precisely because it was, and remains, the spark that expanded 78 years of Israel-Lebanon-Palestine friction into today’s regional war.

Much has changed in Lebanon since 2000. Advanced missile, drone and radar technology now shapes the balance of power, above all Iran and Hezbollah’s growing ability often to evade US-Israeli air defences. Lebanon’s economy has been shattered, its people driven from their homes again and again, and Israel........

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