According to Tel Aviv's account, the Adaisseh clash between the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israeli Forces (IDF) started with sniper fire that originated from the Lebanese side. This account claims that fire was then returned against the military post of the LAF, in order to evacuate the injured Israeli soldiers. Regardless of the facts, details and causes of the clash and the ensuing threats against Lebanon, its government and the LAF, and regardless of the Israeli complaint at the Security Council and the diplomatic campaign to undermine Lebanese politics – despite the significance of all of this in general – it is clear from the Israeli account that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet decided to get involved in a full-fledged confrontation. It seems then that Israel will not exploit an armed skirmish with Lebanon to launch a full scale aggression, for now at least. Even the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, despite threatening to respond decisively against such a clash, expressed his hopes that the upcoming few months will pass quietly. The issue here is not about intentions, but the political calculations of confrontation across the region. In other words, Israel, which needs no proofs of its aggressiveness and bids to impose certain facts on the ground, does not deem it suitable at present to start a military confrontation with Lebanon, or rather sink into one. This is especially valid when Israel is suspicious of the ‘neutrality' that Hezbollah has shown during the Adaisseh clash, as stated by its senior military and intelligence officials. Israel believes that its involvement in a new military campaign against Lebanon at present, might threaten its abilities in a possible confrontation with Iran, a confrontation that Israel is procuring every possible mean for. Just as there are those in Iran who believe that Lebanon is an Iranian front line against Israel and the United States, Israel also believes that any battle in Lebanon will be a front in the confrontation with Iran. In this sense, the Adaisseh clash was possible to contain there and then, even if Israel managed to exploit it to launch the broadest diplomatic campaign against Lebanon, its government and its army. In this sense as well, the Adaisseh clash cannot in itself be taken to be an omen of the war looming in the region, especially when it was the Lebanese army, not Hezbollah, that was the party directly involved in it, and also since the Lebanese official calculations are different from those of Hezbollah. On the other hand, leaks through the Israeli press indicate that Hamas-affiliated groups that are directly influenced by the Iranian position are being accused of launching the rockets, including those that were recently fired at Aqaba and Eilat. This strengthens the Israeli hypothesis that Iran is seeking to move the fight to the borders of Israel, if not to within it. This is while the Israeli military doctrine considers that the success of its military campaigns is linked to fighting the battle in enemy territories, which are the Iranian territories here. This link in the nature of the battle was expressed by Netanyahu when he threatened both Lebanon and Hamas simultaneously, as they are both proxies of the confrontation with Iran. In this portrait, Syria remains the ever present-absent party. It is thought that the Israeli calculations, in all cases, are stressing the need to pacify Syria when it comes to the conflict with Iran, because the Syrian front is very costly in any major clash. However, this will be difficult to maintain in the event of a wide-scale Israeli war in Lebanon or the Gaza Strip. Politically, the card of the Syrian track remains a diplomatically useful channel in light of the deadlock on the Palestinian track. This did not escape President Nicolas Sarkozy. It was not a coincidence that the latter appointed a special envoy to tackle this track, in these days of extreme tensions.
