Earlier this week, Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah gave his usual blustery, threatening speech against Israel.
Nasrallah said if a war is "forced" on Lebanon (fyi, Lebanon jumped into this on its own initiative and without provocation, to support Hamas in attacking Israel, and has escalated their fight every few weeks) they will fight "without laws and without restrictions." He said a massacre in Israel’s Galil, like what Hamas did in the south and which Israel has been worried about from Lebanon since then, “is still on the agenda."
But for the first time since October 7 when Lebanon began its unprovoked attack on Israel in solidarity with Hamas, there was a deviation from the script.
Nasrallah, for the first time, threatened nearby Cyprus.
Cyprus, Nasrallah claimed, has allowed Israel to use its airports and bases for military exercises. Lebanon, Nasrallah said, was going to consider Cyprus “part of the war,” if it again allowed Israel to use its logistical infrastructure.
Cyprus sees itself as neutral in the conflict, though they do have warm feelings towards Israel. They have given refuge to civilians fleeing the Lebanese civil war in the 70s, supported the faltering Lebanese economy, and more recently helped transfer aid to Gaza.
Just for the record, Cyprus doesn’t give Israel any land support, but they have in the past let Israel use its airspace to drill, though never during a war.
So what was that capricious threat to Cyprus all about? No one seems to know.
Cyprus' President, Nikos Christodoulides, though clearly caught off guard, responded by calmly announcing Cyprus was neutral and would remain uninvolved in any war.
But following Nasrallah’s speech, according to Sky News in Arabic, the Cypriot embassy in Beirut announced they would be freezing visas for Lebanese to enter Cyprus.
An EU spokesperson said a threat to a member state (ie, Cyprus) is a threat to the European Union.
Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis called Lebanon’s Cyprus threat “absolutely unacceptable” and said the European Union would stand together against such threats.. "We stand by Cyprus and we will all be together in all kinds of global threats coming from terrorist organisations."
Will the EU actually support Cyprus against Lebanon, as they’re supposed to? Will it be necessary?
Cyprus has a complicated history. Besides being a member of the EU, Cyprus still hosts a substantial British military presence from Britain’s anti-ISIS days, so theoretically this conflict and threat to Cyprus could also implicate England. There is also some Cypriot fear of Turkey, which invaded north Cyprus in ‘74 and which to this day owns roughly a third of Cyprus. Turkey, though a NATO member, is effectively allied with Iran.
After almost 9 months of non-stop attacks by Lebanon on Israel, and 100,000 Israelis still displaced from their homes in the north, Israel, while it is still talking about a diplomatic solution, has mostly given up hope of that, and war is writ large, now presumably a question of when, rather than if.
The new question now is, whether Cyprus will be targeted by Lebanon, why, and if so, what that means for the larger conflict?
I’m guessing we’ll soon find out.