Ondřej Krátky: Only the axis of resistance can stop Israel’s machine for conflict escalation in the Middle East

Veronika Sušova-Salminen, Vladimir Mitev

Czech Middle East expert Ondřej Krátký, founder of the website rebuildsyria.cz, spoke to Cross-border Talks’ Veronika Sušová-Salminen and Vladimir Mitev about Israel’s wars in the Middle East – in Gaza, Lebanon and the conflict with Iran. Krátky doesn’t believe that Iran will be able to overcome its international isolation. On the other hand, the Iran-led axis of resistance is the only force that could stop or limit Israeli excesses, which manifest themselves in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and the bombing of sovereign states such as Lebanon.

Ondřej Krátky was in Beirut this autumn during the Israeli air campaign and shares his impressions and experiences of the situation on the ground.  He rejects the popular notion that there is an ongoing struggle between the secular, democratic, civilising West and ignorant and violent Islamism. In his view, the people of the region are engaged in a legitimate struggle of resistance for their land and cultural heritage.

Hello everyone, welcome to a new episode of Cross-Border Conversations. Our guest today is Czech Middle East expert and owner of the website rebuildsyria.cz, Ondřej Krátký, and we’re going to talk about a very topical and very difficult subject, which is the current developments in the Middle East, or West Asia, if anyone doesn’t like those old colonial names. Ondřej is a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and he is a graduate of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic, and we are going to talk with him about the broader issues in the region, but we are also going to talk about a particular development in relation to Israeli policy, the current escalation towards Lebanon and other issues.

My name is Veronika Sušová-Salminen and I’ll be conducting this interview with my Bulgarian colleague Vladimir Mitev. And we have to say at the beginning of our interview that this interview is a little bit special, because Ondřej is joining us from Jordan, from the capital of Jordan, Amman, and he was actually staying for several days or weeks in the middle of today’s crisis in Lebanon. He was also staying in Syria So this time we are really talking to somebody who is not only an expert, but who has also been a witness of the current situation in this region. This is, I think, something that we don’t often have in our interviews. So we will see that this is not just about theoretical knowledge, which is of course important, but also about some practical and experience-based information. And with that, Ondřej, I welcome you to our interview.

Good morning, thank you for the invitation.

And I would like to start with a simple question based on the introduction, and that is, I would like to ask you about your experience of the situation in Lebanon, what you have experienced there, because we know that Lebanon is now becoming the target of several Israeli attacks on its territory, including Beirut, where you have been staying for some days.

Well, I was in Beirut between about the 23rd of September 2024 and about the 10th of October 2024, so I had the honour of witnessing all of these, let’s say, actions or operations that took place there, which lasted about two weeks and consisted mostly of, I would say, relatively very precise strikes on apparently pre-selected targets, in what is mostly considered to be southern Beirut, the southern suburbs of Beirut, the so-called Dahiye, which itself consists of several districts.

Yes, I mean, that’s what was going on, mostly in the evening or at night. And despite the fact that my place is relatively not very far from there, I had a certain feeling, which is definitely not in praise of what the IDF or the Israeli forces are doing. I had a certain feeling of the limitedness of these strikes that emerged after a couple of days, which may have been broken only by, let’s say, the unexpected targeting of Bashura, which is still relatively very much inside or close to the centre. But in general, let’s say, despite one or two nights out on two occasions or one occasion, nothing has prevented me from continuing my stay in my usual place, even though it is just one kilometre away from the nearest affected areas. What happened locally, is that the inhabitants of the affected areas basically moved out, in most cases, before this whole series of attacks took place.

And the rest of the country, of course, tried to cope with the situation by carrying on with normal life. What do I mean by affected communities? I am obviously referring mainly to the Shia communities or the inhabitants of the southern suburbs of Beirut. I can’t speak for towns like Sidon or Tyre in the south because I haven’t been there.

And the south as such, according to all the indices or news, has been quite badly affected. Of course, the question is, again, despite the fact that I said that all the rest of the country is trying to carry on with normal life, the question is how long is this going to last. Some or many institutions, like schools, are closed. Many businesses are shut down or are starting to be shut down. It’s not something that’s just happened now, but it’s been going on for a long time.

So, in a nutshell, this is the state of things at the moment I left the country.

Yes, perhaps we can say that these Israeli attacks on Lebanon were not so surprising in a way, if you look at the larger Israeli strategy these days. But I would still like to ask you about the reasons or the aims of Israel in attacking the other sovereign state, because Lebanon is a sovereign state and these are attacks against the sovereign state. So what is behind it?

Some commentators, for example, claim that Hezbollah is not really the key or the main target of Israel. Israel’s main target in the current situation is the Iranian nuclear programme. What do you think about that, or are there other motives for such a violation of international law?

You’re right. I mean, there’s a variety of theories ranging from scenarios of, let’s say, Israeli retaliation to the Iranian nuclear programme. If we take off the table the face value of a direct attack or counterattack, which is what Hezbollah practised last year after the Hamas attack, and of course all the history that’s been going on before that, there are scenarios circulating on social networks, of laying the groundwork for something called a Greater Israel. It should stretch from somewhere in the Nile to somewhere in Iraq, for example. 

In short, the real goals are unclear, but they could possibly be deduced from some comments or remarks or methods of working or carrying out the operations and their side effects or by-products. In reality the case is, if we take it from the point of view of Israel, because in this case it’s clear that Israel is the initiator of this retaliation, no matter who or what the retaliation is in response to, if we speak from this point of view, then I would say that their goal, their face value, and at the same time their real goal, is primarily the detailed elimination of everything, which from the Israeli point of view, constitutes or could constitute elements of threat to them. And it is almost uniquely linked to the so-called axis of resistance. 

But regardless of this, another question is of course why the Israelis were allowed to do this, to carry out these retaliatory steps or eliminations step by step, one after the other, let’s say Gaza, then Hezbollah, possibly the UN’s West Bank, and so on, Iran of course.

And here we come to your first questions, whether or not they would reject any possible, “positive by-products”, which here means mainly territorial gains, made for the real reason of really getting the territory or using it as a possible buffer zone. So, on this occasion, I have said several times, and I will say it again, that the Israelis or the IDF will always go only as far as they are allowed to go. So it’s very much up to the local people to what extent they are prepared or willing to stand up to them and defend themselves against these attacks, even preemptively.

Okay, this brings us perhaps to another question, you said, why is Israel allowed to do these retaliations and why does Israel have such a margin of manoeuvre so far? I would actually like to ask you about your assessment of the current or recent balance of power or great power constellation in the region of West Asia, because there is still one important player, which is the United States of America. Okay, we can say that maybe they have retreated a little bit in the last few decades, but the United States of America is still an important ally of Israel.

There are Arab states, there is the Axis of Resistance, as you say, and there are such less traditional but expanding, I would say, players like China. And what Israel is doing, of course, is taking place in this regional context of different balances of power and different relationships between all these players. So could you tell us something about how you see this balance of power and whether there are any particular risks that the recent Israeli policy can create in the region?

I think what’s happening locally is definitely happening in the shadow of America or the United States being a little bit weaker, which has definitely created a situation in which local aspiring hegemons are trying to rise to the occasion and prove themselves. But in any case, to frame it, I’d say it’s a local reflection of this multipolarisation or a tendency towards this multipolarisation of the previously unipolar, which is to say US-controlled or hegemonised world. Or in a broader sense, it’s still one of the branches of the struggle of the global oligarchs against the local oligarchs in one way or another, which may not be exactly the case here, which may have been the case in Syria or elsewhere, but here at least things are happening a little bit in the light of this process.

And of course, local oligarchs or these global oligarchs fight against those who don’t obey or listen to what the still dominant western structures, which consist of accumulated liberal, capitalist, fascist and bourgeois currents and their clients want, and those who don’t listen or obey or comply or toe the line, they usually call renegades. So this is the usual, this is perhaps the great plan in the light of which this is happening. But if we apply this situation, this constellation or this constant struggle, which has only become a little more strengthened or grown with the weakening of the United States, if we come back to the case of Israel versus resistance or Palestine, there is a very important point, and that is that, in my opinion, Israel has long tried to sell this struggle, this conflict, as a conflict between a relatively secular, modern European or Western like country, in this case Israel or the Jewish state, and radical Islam.

So they have tried to portray it as a fight against radical Islam. But what I think is happening is something quite different. It’s just local people or indigenous people whose land has been stolen and who are under pressure, in which Israel definitely has a hand, who are facing an imported enemy whose doctrine is purely religiously dogmatic.

And that is Israel. And in this religious dogmatic doctrine, of course, there is the right to claim some land, some, let’s say, not more or less arbitrarily chosen land.

You ended with the conflict in the Middle East. And now there is a curious development in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where a moderate president has been elected after the start of the Israeli war in Gaza. This is Massoud Pezeshkian, whose government says it will try to end Iran’s isolation and renew the nuclear deal with the West.

So how likely is it that, in the context of rising anti-Israeli sentiment among people in the US and Western Europe, Iran will somehow manage to return to international relations as a partner, particularly of the EU, as a force for stability and perhaps even regional cooperation in the Middle East when war is raging in the region?

Vladimir, I may disappoint you, but I’m perhaps a little conservative on this issue. Or let’s say I prefer to be consistent on this issue. You know, the actions of the Axis of Resistance and the export of the revolution and the doctrine Velayat-e-Faqih and so on, they have largely taken their legitimacy, they have largely represented the sources of legitimacy of not only Iran, but mainly the Islamic Republic component of it, which is basically what Iran is these days.

So my basic thesis here is that if Iran abandons the Axis of Resistance now, if it betrays the Axis of Resistance, it will be the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, I’m afraid we’re already in the period of paying off debts. I mean, it is a hot war period.

So, again, in my opinion, the only chance for Iran is to form a solid background with selected BRICS superpowers. You know which countries I’m talking about. And in this way, make sure that they support each other, while at the same time, or later, fully support the anti-Israeli regional resistance.

Otherwise, Israel will take advantage of the vacuum, of this lack of support, of this feeling of lack of support. I mean, this may or may not change, this situation or constellation may or may not change with the US presidential elections or after the US presidential elections. But today’s dither is often tomorrow’s weeper, you know.

And look, Israel didn’t wait for US approval to invade Lebanon and so on. So we come back to the old famous or infamous Putin saying, if the fight is inevitable, make sure you strike first.

Okay. You mentioned that Iran is not going to give up its proxies in the region. And I’m curious to ask you to expand on that a little bit, because usually or almost everyone talks about Israeli-Iranian confrontation or even war in the Middle East.

But I’m wondering, don’t the interests of the two countries or elements of them somehow or sometimes coincide? For example, wouldn’t Iran be in a better international position if Israel somehow freed it from its proxies?

These proxies, who are they? They represent, first of all, the goodwill of otherwise ordinary people who have dared or volunteered or simply offered themselves to help the Islamic Republic in what it has long claimed to be its anti-imperialist, anti-neocolonialist, anti-Zionist and pro-revolutionary struggle, and not the other way around. These people didn’t come to Iran asking for help and so on. So it was Iran that initiated this and dragged these people into this situation. 

So to talk about these people as a burden just for the sake of two stubborn and abusive regimes like the Iranian and the Israeli, is at the very least very ungrateful or cynical. I know what you mean, but you just don’t tell these people – “It’s over. I am turning off the lights and going home. Thank you very much.”

I mean these people have been, you know, in many cases it has been the meaning of their lives, you know, and it has been something very essential and important in their lives and there are many things to it. 

They’re not a burden. They’re not a burden created out of thin air.

I mean these people have been, you know, in many cases it has been the meaning of their lives, you know, and it has been something very essential and important in their lives and there are many things to it. They’re not a burden. I mean they’re not a burden created out of thin air.

Somebody came up with the idea of, forming these battalions and this is where we go back to Iran in the first place. So it was these people who made the biggest sacrifices, not the often vain and self-absorbed Iranian mullahs or the berserk Israeli war cabinet members. So, if the members of the regional resistance understand that Iran has let them down, then that is the end of the legitimacy of the Iranian revolutionary regime, as well as the legitimacy of the mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards for what they use the people’s money for. These two things are connected, interrelated.

I mean, in such a case, the Iranian regime will find itself empty and it will implode. This means that it is in their own interest to see that the work that they claimed to be their ideological child has been done. And last but not least, the Iranians may wish to see Israel obliterated or defeated. Israel may wish to see the Shah return to Tehran, return to the throne and so on. Both countries may have other aims and plans. But the fact is that the world does not revolve around these two countries.

For me, the best conclusion would be if all their current leaders, who I simply call toxic, this whole generation, and it’s not just them, it’s others too, would leave the scene once and for all. That there would be a moral, financial or other settlement with those Palestinians who have historically been robbed or killed, and that normal people would just be allowed to breathe normally. That would be the perfect solution.

I mean, at least from my point of view.

Finally, in July 2024, the Israeli parliament voted overwhelmingly against the creation of a Palestinian state, rejecting the two-state solution. And in early October 2024, Israel banned the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, from entering Israel. So, in this context, what are the scenarios or the variants for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the future of the Middle East from now on?

Again, I mean, I may be looking at things in a very, very simplistic way. But again, I just think that the Israeli cabinet, which is obsessed with violence, will only go as far, again, they will only go as far as the Palestinians, the resistance, the Iranians, and the world will allow them to go. It can mean literally anything, from stopping now to, for example, razing everything Palestinian, including the West Bank, which has been more or less untouched so far, to the ground. Look, already about 30% of Czechs, including our politicians, would do the same as the Israelis. That’s obviously very telling, or it tells you something, I mean, that maybe I’m not fantasising or exaggerating at all.

Again, a certain role may be played by the US cabinet after the elections, or by the US after the presidential elections. But again, we’ve already seen, or we’ve already seen in 2016, that IPAC, the main body that represents Israeli interests in the United States, has been able to very instrumentally jump quickly from Obama to Trump and back toBiden, when it was necessary to jump, or where it is still necessary to jump. So, once again, in the face of this unleashed, dogmatic, religious and almost apocalyptic Israeli killing frenzy, I would very much recommend to the resistance, the Iran-Tehran-operated resistance, to finally consolidate both externally and internally, to open as many fronts as possible, and to deal the enemy such blows that would clearly mark his place and his limits, and perhaps also announce the character of possible future talks, future mutual talks. I’m not talking about destruction, but I am talking about setting the limits for negotiations.

And for these talks, and ideally for an agreement that will lead to a normal regional coexistence for everyone, but most of all for the ordinary people, for the ordinary citizens who are totally tired, broken and fed up with the state of affairs that has come to this point, and for whom, unfortunately, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

Okay, for the last 28 minutes we have been discussing with Ondřej Krátký, a Czech expert on the Middle East, and we have been looking for some hypothesis or hope that there might be some light at the end of the tunnel, as he said. And after that conversation, we were left with the impression that the only thing that matters is brute force.

And that is not optimistic, but in any case, Cross-Border Talks is here to continue the search for complex interpretation, and we thank Mr Krátký for his participation.

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