Hello and welcome to another episode of Realpolitik. I am your host, Fidas Badaad. And today we're going to be

talking a little bit about the resumed war in the Middle East. Does it actually escalate more?

Does it subside and Trump succeeds in reimposing the ceasefire? What are the prospects for a deal?

And what kicked this whole thing off to begin with?

Let's start a little bit with the last question and the incentives of the two sides,

especially Iran and Hezbollah and Israel actually, to escalate the conflict again.

So the first bit, if you look at the map here is that the Israelis are trying to establish a new buffer zone in Lebanon. They've announced this yellow

line all over southern Lebanon that is intended to become a buffer zone between them and Hezbollah.

Here it reaches the Littani River, which runs along the border between the dark red area and the light red area.

And the idea in an ideal world for the Israelis might be to connect to the critical area. And the idea in an ideal world for the Israelis might be to connect to the Christian town

of Jezine here. And then that means that they can fully intervene in Lebanon's politics.

And that would be a restoration to the line of control that existed in Lebanon before 2000

when the Israelis occupied a pretty big chunk of South Lebanon

with the aim of just keeping Hezbollah away from the border.

Remember, Hezbollah was created because Israel invaded.

It's a long story.

But let's not get into that.

And so the Israelis are occupying bits and pieces of territory along the border. They're trying to stay away from

some of the Christian villages like Ramesh here. But the idea is to clear Hezbollah out. And Hezbollah's

been receiving a pretty bad beating, all things considered.

It's been fighting back and inflicting some casualties.

And it's decided to sacrifice some territory in the belief that over a long enough time period,

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