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“Our” Man in Israel

By Ted O’Keefe | The Occidental Observer | July 7, 2024

The issue of dual loyalty is an ancient one. As noted in a previous TOO article,

[Stephen] Walt points out that [Dennis] Ross has a long involvement with pro-Israel activist organizations, such as being director of WINEP [Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank headquartered in Washington, DC].

But Ross’s ties to Israel are even deeper than that. Until his appointment as Middle East envoy in the Obama Administration, from 2002–2009 Ross was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. This organization has assumed the role of long term planning for the Jewish people, not only in Israel but also the Diaspora. The JPPPI is an independent think tank that reports to the Israeli government and has close ties with other Jewish organizations. Its mission is “to promote the thriving of the Jewish people via professional strategic thinking and planning on issues of primary concern to world Jewry. JPPPI’s work is based on deep commitment to the future of the Jewish people with Israel as its core state.”

The JPPPI’s report Facing Tomorrow 2008 is interesting because it focuses on the threat of Iran and but also because it sees people like Stephen Walt as a threat to Israel:

The Jewish people must, as the highest priority, develop an appropriate response to the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and to global stability as a whole. While there is no ambiguity about the need to do so in Israel, it is necessary to mobilize Jewish opinion around the world as well. The American Jewish community cannot be intimidated either by a post Iraq syndrome in the United States, or by the false and pernicious allegations of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, or former President Carter.

In other words, Jews around the world are encouraged to mobilize to combat the threat to Israel represented by Iran. The assumption is that Jews have common interests as Jews no matter what country they happen to live in. Dennis Ross is doing his best to promote exactly this view within the Obama administration.

One might think that such a view would leave Jews in the Diaspora open to the charge of disloyalty, but the problem is easily finessed: Jews in the Diaspora are told to frame Israel’s concerns about Iran as a global threat, not simply as a threat to Israel.

Of course, that’s what we are seeing now. But we needn’t be naïve. Jews like Dennis Ross are clearly far more loyal to Israel than to the US. Speaking as a psychologist, they wouldn’t be able to see a conflict of interest between the US and Israel if it was staring them in the face. Indeed, as Gore Vidal said of Norman Podhoretz, they are unregistered agents of a foreign government.

In a sane society, there would be a huge groundswell of public opposition to Ross’s appointment–as there has been for a number of Obama’s appointments. But that won’t happen.

Since there has been no groundswell of media or public opposition to pro-Israel operatives like Ross at the highest levels of the U.S. government, it’s not surprising that the practice continues. Amos Hochstein is a good contemporary example. Israel and the powerful Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah militia are on the brink of open warfare, conflict that could trigger U.S. intervention and escalate to a regional or even a world war. To date these dangers have attracted little notice from the American mass media, ever eager to divert and dissemble from the direr consequences of the Washington regime’s one-sided support for Israel. Small wonder, then, that the media should evince the same reluctance in investigating the shadowy past and dubious allegiance of Hochstein, the emissary the U.S. recently dispatched to “mediate” between Hezbollah and Israel. The following is a brief foray into the workings of the Israel Lobby in the Biden Administration, as well as a primer on the perks of being Jewish in America.

Hochstein’s importance

To be sure, media reports have not slighted Hochstein’s great influence in the Biden White House or his meteoric career. He has been described as “one of President Biden’s closest confidantes [who] has worked with him for many years,” while another Washington insider calls Hochstein “the person who bridges State, Treasury, the White House and Energy”

Fittingly, one of Hochstein’s titles is “Special Presidential Coordinator.”

Yet the media have underplayed, and often ignored, a key fact about Hochstein in his role as an impartial arbiter between Hezbollah and Israel: his birth, youth, and military service in Israel.

Beyond those bare facts about his origins, Hochstein has been remarkably unforthcoming about his life before he arrived in the United States in 1974. While nearly every successful denizen of the D.C. is eager to brandish Ivy League/Seven Sisters (or the equivalent) educational credentials, one may scour the internet (including his page on the usually resume-rich LinkedIn job-hunting site) without finding anything about Hochstein’s education, college or secondary.

Just as murky are the circumstances by which Adam Hochstein, a 21-year-old immigrant with unknown credentials, became a congressional staffer within a year of his arrival in this country, working for Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) who, like Hochstein, is a Jew.

Despite his youth and inexperience, Hochstein carried out important assignments for Gejdenson. Not yet 25, he traveled to North Korea in 1997 to report on its economic and military situation; still in his twenties, he undertook negotiations with the Iraqi government (against the advice of the U.S. State Department) aimed at “resettling” thousands of Palestinians there in exchange for loosening some of the crippling sanctions then in force there.

Well before 9/11, Hochstein advocated acting against Iraq for harboring “weapons of mass destruction” in a press release issued by Congressman Gejdenson, and soon afterward he was serving as senior advisor to a senator and a governor. Like many members of the permanent government, Hochstein has used hiatuses between his party’s dominance to work in lobbying and industries close to government, in his case capitalizing on energy policy expertise that he seems to have acquired with no expertise in the field. He’s evidently done well, at some point becoming a partner in two D.C. restaurants and a movie theater.

Under Obama, Hochstein (without known diplomatic training or experience) rapidly climbed the ladder at the State Department to become America’s chief energy negotiator, deeply involved in efforts to block Russian natural gas from Europe and to facilitate Israeli access to energy.

During the Trump presidency, Hochstein served on the board of Ukraine’s natural gas company, Naftogaz.

Hochstein’s knowledge of the ins and outs of Ukraine’s shady corrupt energy industry is evidently considerable. In his testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, Hunter Biden stated that Hochstein had advised him merely to be “very careful” in serving on the board of the notoriously corrupt Burisma corporation.

Hochstein also seems to have had a role in the “whistle blowing” that led to Trump’s first impeachment resulting from a phone call interpreted by Democrats as pressuring Zelensky to investigate Biden family corruption in Ukraine, and to have been advising Zelensky before his election.

It’s also interesting that there is a lack of definitive information on Hochstein’s current citizenship:

According to one report, a State Department source has claimed that he is “not a dual national,” but refused to state if he has renounced his Israeli citizenship, and in fact gave no [details as to Hochstein’s American citizenship.] So the question raised, unanswered— Hochstein’s citizenship is evidently a “carefully guarded secret.” Not acknowledging Hochstein’s Israeli citizenship would be useful because, for example, in Lebanon, where Hochstein has been involved as an American negotiator on the Israeli conflict with Hezbollah, “it is normally illegal for an Israeli” to visit Lebanon.

Even Hezbollah at the time did not comment on the mediator’s nationality or military past, with leader Hassan Nasrallah saying they will “not express an opinion or position related to the demarcation of borders”.

Given all this, it’s hard to disagree with this quote originally from Ha’aretz:

… the American brokerage farce, whose players are almost all American Jews, some of them former or future Israelis. If the United States is a side in the conflict, then it should say so and conduct the negotiation as though Israel is its protégé. And if it really wants to be an honest broker, then come on – Amos Hochstein?…

July 7, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanese Prime Minister Says His Country in State of War Due to Threats From Israel

Sputnik – 29.06.2024

Lebanon is in a state of war due to threats and aggression from Israel, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said.

“The threats we see are a kind of psychological warfare. The question that is on everyone’s lips ‘Is it a war?’ Yes, we are in a state of war. Due to Israeli aggression, there are a large number of civilian and non-civilian casualties and destroyed villages,” Mikati said in a statement on Saturday.

On June 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had approved operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz later said that Israel was “very close” to a decision to “change the rules” against Hezbollah and Lebanon, threatening to destroy the movement “in an all-out war” and to “severely hit” Lebanon.

Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said that the movement could invade northern Israel if the confrontation intensifies further.

The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border worsened after the start of Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The IDF and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters fire at each other’s positions in areas along the border on a daily basis. The Lebanese Foreign Ministry said that around 100,000 people had to leave their homes in border areas, while the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that 80,000 Israelis had to do the same.

June 29, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

If the war expands, will western facilities become the new target banks?

The Cradle | June 28, 2024

Israel’s brutal, nine-month military assault on Gaza has full support from several western-allied states, not only in supplying the occupation army’s war machine with a broad range of armaments and ammunition but also through direct military participation. The United States and Britain, for example, have provided vital reconnaissance and intelligence data and have sent their special forces to assist Israel in military operations.

An 8 June New York Times report revealed that US forces assisted the Israelis in retrieving four Israeli captives from Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 274 Palestinian civilians and three additional captives and leaving over 698 wounded. According to the paper’s Israeli sources, the US and UK provided intelligence from the air and cyberspace that Israel could not obtain on its own.

On 29 May, the Declassified UK media project reported that London authorized an unprecedented 60 Israel-bound flights using cargo planes that took off from the UK’s RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus, a facility covertly used by the US Air Force to move weapons to Israel.

The British government has not revealed the content of the air cargo transported – and maintains that no “lethal aid” is included. London instead claims that RAF flights to the occupation state are used to support its “diplomatic engagement” with Tel Aviv and repatriate British subjects – an odd use of military aircraft when Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport is still operational for regular passenger travel.

London has vigorously invoked its D-Notice since just after the war’s onset, a military and security directive aimed at preventing media outlets from publishing information that could harm national security, specifically relating to British airborne Special Forces (SAS) operations in Gaza. No further information has been revealed since the directive was issued on 28 October 2023.

How western intel penetrates West Asia

But all those concealment efforts were cracked open during Israel’s disproportionate military operation to secure the release of captives during the recent Nuseirat camp fiasco. Trending videos appeared of an Israeli helicopter landing next to the recently-installed $320 million US’ aid pier’ and of ‘aid trucks’ carrying special ops teams that were flanked by armored vehicles during the operation.

Media then reported that dozens of US and UK drones assisted in the Nuseirat camp assault, ostensibly by providing reconnaissance services to the Israeli military.

These incidents highlight not only direct western military participation in the war on Gaza but also the brazen exploitation of diplomatic cover or humanitarian work to prepare and carry out military actions that have led to mass civilian casualties and war crimes, as described by many United Nations institutions.

The question now is whether western facilities and troops will come under target as the war expands, potentially to Lebanon, given the evident collusion of western states in Israel’s aggressions – especially those in flagrant violation of international norms and law.

Although the use of embassies and civilian institutions – in the modern sense – as bases for intelligence gathering and launching special missions is not a new practice and dates back to at least the nineteenth century, current developments in technology and computing have enabled these facilities to act as spying and eavesdropping centers, monitoring and storing information for an entire country.

What was previously impossible has become reality through wireless communication and the Internet. Signal intelligence formerly gained by planting eavesdropping and listening devices can now be accessed via the common smartphone – with data funneled to these centers inside sovereign states.

Aerial view of the US embassy complex, northern Beirut.

‘Second-biggest US Embassy in the world’

Spawling approximately 174 thousand square meters, around 13 kilometers from the Lebanese capital of Beirut, lies the second largest embassy in West Asia – and the world. The new US Embassy in Beirut is surpassed in size only by its counterpart in Baghdad’s “Green Zone.”

Subtracting from the massive size of the embassy and its cost of nearly a billion dollars, there are many questions about the need for such facilities and what they contain.

The computer-generated images published by the embassy show a complex featuring multi-story buildings with tall glass windows, entertainment areas, a swimming pool surrounded by greenery, and views of the Lebanese capital. According to the project website, the complex includes an office, representative housing for employees, community facilities, and associated support facilities.

In May 2023, the Intelligence Online website reported that the massive billion-dollar complex will include a data collection facility, preparing the site as the new regional headquarters for US intelligence. The report says that because of its proximity to Syria, “Lebanon is considered a safe and strategic location for the deployment of intelligence agents already in the region as well as new personnel, who are selected directly from Washington-based agencies.”

Construction of the new US embassy, 13 kilometers north of the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

Although it is not possible to obtain precise information about the design of this embassy, the excavations below surface level, the use of reinforced concrete in the structure, and its fortified location on top of a hill suggest that there is more to its operations, especially since several precedents of the US Beirut diplomatic mission being implicated in the work of intelligence services exist.

The 1983 bombing of the American Embassy revealed a high CIA death toll, with eight killed, including the CIA’s chief West Asia analyst and Near East director, Robert Ames, station chief Kenneth Haass, James Lewis, and most of the CIA’s Beirut employees.

The embassy was not only used as a CIA hub but also as a key regional intelligence base due to Lebanon’s proximity to both the sea and two British NATO bases in southern Cyprus, Dhekelia and Akrotiri, from which reinforcements or helicopter transfers can arrive rapidly onto Lebanese soil. A recent example, in 2020, is Washington’s smuggling of its agent Amer al-Fakhouri from the US embassy using an Osprey helicopter.

British Watchtowers on Lebanon’s borders

On 3 May, Lebanon announced the visit of an official delegation and a senior British intelligence officer the previous month to discuss the construction of new UK-built watchtowers. These are in addition to the more than three dozen watchtowers built by Britain during the Syrian war along the sensitive border between Lebanon and Syria.

According to leaks reported by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, the British delegation had asked the Lebanese army “to approve a plan to establish watchtowers along the border with occupied Palestine, similar to those existing on the eastern and northern borders with Syria.”

Following the low-profile visit, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati disclosed: “Establishing the towers and taking measures along the border are Israel’s conditions for stopping the war with Lebanon.”

Last February, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry received an official Syrian protest note classifying the British watchtowers as a threat to Syrian national security on several levels. The main threat is the tower systems’ sensitive intelligence and espionage equipment, which “shines deep into Syrian territory and collects information about the Syrian interior.”

According to Al-Akhbar’s report, “the information output from this equipment reaches the hands of the British, and the Israeli enemy benefits from the output to target Syrian territory and carry out strikes deep inside Syria.” The Syrian memorandum also refers to “the presence of some British officers at the towers.”

 A 30-foot British watchtower near the Lebanese-Syrian border

Security cameras monitor the surrounding area at a border point on Lebanon’s border with Syria (Photo by the Lebanese Army Command, Orientation Directorate)

The 38 British watchtowers that claim to assist Lebanese authorities in “combating smuggling” raise many questions instead, among them the reasoning behind the erection of such a large number of these structures. Why, too, do the towers contain thermal monitoring, eavesdropping, signal intelligence, and communications equipment – especially in light of the close relationship between Tel Aviv and London and the periodic presence of British officers in these towers under the pretext of training the Lebanese army?

A commanding officer of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), interviewed at length by The Cradle in August 2021, contradicts London’s public claims about the towers, saying: “The aim of the towers today is to monitor the movements of Hezbollah and the Syrians.”

Dutch special forces in Dahiyeh

In March, Hezbollah captured several Dutch military forces operating covertly in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, which hosts several offices of the Lebanese Resistance. The detainees claimed they were operating under cover of the Dutch Embassy in Lebanon and were found with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of military equipment and advanced communications devices on their persons and in their vehicles.

During investigations, the Dutchmen claimed they had entered the southern suburb as part of a training exercise for evacuating Dutch citizens and diplomats in the event of a war. However, no Dutch nationals of the embassy resided in that area. It was also found that the servicemen had not communicated about their mission with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lebanese security services, or their country’s embassy.

That same month, a Spanish citizen was arrested for filming inside the same southern suburb of Beirut, only to discover later that he had a diplomatic passport and that his phone contained advanced software that prevented access to its data.

These events and a myriad of other examples show that some western governments continuously use western diplomatic and civilian facilities to gather intelligence or conduct special missions training in sovereign Lebanon.

These actions constitute a clear violation of the Vienna Convention on International Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which prohibit embassy diplomats from carrying out espionage activities. These actions don’t only place civilian populations in danger but also the thousands of professional diplomats in the country, all diplomatic missions, and the civilian facilities used as cover for illicit operations. They also drag otherwise immune diplomatic facilities into the legal framework of “hostilities,” intentionally or accidentally.

This danger is reinforced by Israel’s repeated violations of diplomatic and international norms, which are either ignored or protected by western allied states. Israel’s unprecedented military strikes against Iran’s consulate building in Damascus in April, for instance, did not receive the deserved condemnation from most western capitals, which helped it avoid the requisite UN Security Council censure.

Since the basic value of international norms is the precedent and event on which this law is built, the possibility increases that such western-supported attacks will backfire wildly and lead to the retaliatory targeting of western facilities and embassies – all in the context of new legal precedents and customs created that no longer prohibit strikes on suspect non-military facilities.

It is yet unknown to what extent western governments can expect to maintain their double standards in the application of international law and customs, especially if the Gaza war they are materially supporting expands to Lebanon or other West Asian regions.

The Resistance Axis, which has, in the past nine months, normalized military strikes on Israel, missile attacks on Israel-destined shipping vessels, and weekly strikes on US and UK naval fleets, are but one escalation away – as in, a declared war on Lebanon – to create a new set of target banks that surpass their last ones.

Does that then include the US embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the region – and the world – hosting 10 thousand American employees and troops, or, closer to home, the second largest embassy in West Asia, the US embassy in Beirut?

It is difficult to imagine that such facilities will remain immune if western involvement remains apparent, which we already know to be a constant, daily flow of armaments to fuel Israel’s war machinery and provide Tel Aviv with military intelligence and target banks.

It will be even harder to protect diplomatic missions if they reveal themselves to essentially act as military command centers or intelligence hubs during the conduct of war. Targeting these facilities – which are already in breach of the Vienna Convention – can easily fall within the framework of self-defense and reciprocity as long as western states and Israel continue to normalize these illicit activities.

If the Gaza war established entirely new rules of engagement throughout the region, do Israel’s western allies expect to escape unscathed in an expanded war? How do they think they can arm military aggression against a country and yet remain safely in its capital city?

June 28, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Over 80 UK war planes deployed from Cyprus to Lebanon since 7 Oct: Report

The Cradle | June 28, 2024

The UK has sent over 80 military transport planes to the Lebanese capital of Beirut since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza nine months ago, Declassified UK reported on 28 June.

All the flights have gone from the UK’s massive Akrotiri airbase on the nearby island of Cyprus, long a staging post for UK bombing missions in West Asia.

Declassified UK notes that the number of UK military flights to Beirut has risen dramatically in recent months. The group tracked 25 flights in April and May and 14 so far in June.

Flights from the UK base take around 45 minutes to reach Beirut, which Israel has increasingly threatened to bomb in a possible full-scale war with the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.

The Ministry of Defense declined to disclose the number of UK military flights to Lebanon since the start of the war on 7 October or their purpose.

A defense source told Declassified UK that the flights “have been primarily for the purpose of facilitating senior military engagement” with the Lebanese army.

But it is widely assumed the planes are carrying weapons to Beirut to arm anti-Hezbollah militias. The US, UK, and Israel would presumably use these militias to attack Hezbollah from within the country in the case of an Israeli invasion from the south.

Declassified UK notes that nearly every Royal Air Force flight to Lebanon has been the Voyager KC mark 2, which can carry a payload of 45 tons and 291 personnel or provide air-to-air refueling. Another flight involved a vast C-17 cargo plane.

Israeli threats to invade Lebanon have accelerated in tandem with the increase in flights.

Israeli military leaders have increasingly warned of a Lebanon campaign to push Hezbollah away from the border and past the Litani River.

Last week, the Israeli army approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon,” and the US pledged to support Israel with weapons if a full-scale war breaks out.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the resistance movement will use its massive rocket and missile arsenal to hit targets across Israel in a “total war” if Tel Aviv decides to launch an invasion.

Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus, noting its role as a US, UK, and Israeli staging ground.

“The Cypriot government must be warned that opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war and the resistance [Hezbollah] will deal with it as part of the war,” he said.

Nasrallah’s threat appeared to include the Akrotiri base, which lies in territory retained by the UK when Cyprus gained independence in 1960. The territory now hosts vast military and intelligence hubs for Britain and the US, Declassified UK notes.

June 28, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Israel is Unprepared for War With Hezbollah

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 24.06.2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the country’s Channel 14 Television that Tel Aviv is ready to move some forces to the north to confront Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. Could Tel Aviv wage a war on two fronts?

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah fighters have increasingly exchanged strikes across Lebanon’s southern border since the beginning of Tel Aviv’s Gaza war launched over Hamas’ attack on October 7 2023.

“From an Israeli perspective it would be very hard to imagine a double front war, even though we know that within the Israeli Cabinet of war, there are many ministries who are willing to try to open the second front with Hezbollah,” Dr Lorenzo Trombetta, Beirut-based scholar and analyst specialising on the Middle East, told Sputnik.

Hezbollah has repeatedly warned it would step up military actions unless Israel stops killing Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has intensified attacks over Israel’s Rafah invasion.

Last week Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah played down Israel’s threats to launch an all-out war against the resistance group, warning that it has a 100,000-strong military force capable of waging military actions against Israel in all three domains – land, air and sea.

Nasrallah added that the movement does not want a “total war” with Israel and called for a complete and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Hezbollah released a nine-minute video last week, filmed from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which penetrated Israeli air defenses and returned to Lebanese airspace without being detected. The footage shows sensitive civilian and military locations in and around Haifa, one of Israel’s largest cities.

According to some estimates, Hezbollah has up to 150,000-200,000 rockets and missiles and has also mastered the use of unmanned vehicles.

But Dr Hasan Selim Ozertem, an Ankara-based security and political analyst, told Sputnik that a repeat of the Israeli invasions in 1982 and 2006 would bring “catastrophe” to southern Lebanon.

“The plot is valid for a possible operation against Lebanon because looking in the past, in 2006, Israel also could carry out another operation against Hezbollah and, as you remember, left behind a kind of catastrophe in the Lebanese terrain,” Ozertem said. “Israel has all the capabilities, especially the air capability and also land capability to carry out an operation.”

While conceding that the Israeli military capabilities are “very strong and very high,” Trombetta expressed doubts about Tel Aviv’s chances of succeeding in a war against Hezbollah.

“Technically speaking, Hezbollah has drones and mainly it showed recently, during May and June, its abilities to launch soil-air missiles that can hit or can counter not only Israeli drones, the Hermes 450 and Hermes 900, but also Israeli jet fighters,” the pundit said. “So first of all, Hezbollah could try to increase its abilities to defend the Lebanese territory with these surface-to-air missiles.”

“Secondly, they also showed in the last weeks the ability to offend, to pose a threat within the Israeli territories with armed drones, suicide drones, and other flight weapons that breached the Iron Dome system on more than one occasion, even recently,” Trombetta continued.

The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published analysis in March describing how a potential Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2024 could be more challenging for Tel Aviv than the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war.

The think-tank drew attention to the fact that Hezbollah has for years built upon its successful 2006 tactics of “decentralizing its command and control and reorganizing to force the IDF into more urbanized terrain where [Hezbollah] fighters can take advantage of concealed, fortified positions.”

Hezbollah has beefed up its military stockpiles with new weapons over the past 18 years. It has also gained extensive military experience during the war against ISIS and other Islamist terrorists in Syria and has had “access to capabilities and competencies used by conventional armies.”

The CSIS also noted that the geography of southern Lebanon offers advantages for Hezbollah guerrillas, including positions on rocky hills where they can hide and fire rockets, unmanned aircraft systems and anti-tank guided missiles at Israeli positions on the border.

The Israeli Reichman University Institute for Counter-Terrorism assumes that Hezbollah could fire up to 3,000 missiles a day and overwhelm Israel’s air defenses.

The researchers warned that intensive attacks would deplete the Israeli stockpiles of surface-to-air missiles within a few days of combat, exposing the nation to further Hezbollah missile and drone attacks. They argued that Tel Aviv is unprepared for an all-out war with the resistance force.

“We should include also the fact that in case Israel will launch a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is very possible, it is very likely that Iran and other Iranian allies in the region will activate their forces against Israel and the US interests,” Trombetta said, adding that Yemen’s Houthi-led government, the Iraqi Islamic Resistance and others could come to Hezbollah’s aid in the event of an all-out Israeli attack on Lebanon.

June 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of war

By Steven Sahiounie | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 23, 2024

The Middle East is sitting on a powder keg, and every minute that passes brings heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

Canada, the U.S., Great Britain and Kuwait have all warned its citizens in Lebanon to evacuate.

The impending war is caused by Israeli refusal of a ceasefire in Gaza. Hezbollah says they will continue to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza as the continuing genocide is perpetrated by Israel, but as soon as a ceasefire begins, Hezbollah’s response will cease.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese resistance group which is heavily armed. Most experts agree that the military might of Hezbollah and Israel are quite comparable on many levels, but Israel has air superiority.

Israel has a sophisticated air defense system, the ‘Iron Dome’. However, this system can be overwhelmed by Hezbollah if they were to launch a massive amount of missiles at Israel, and all agree that Hezbollah has a huge arsenal of missiles.

If the ‘Iron Dome’ was inundated by missiles launched from Lebanon, the effectiveness of the Israeli defenses would stop, and Israel could suffer destruction on a scale it has never experienced before. We have witnessed the destruction of Israeli missiles on Gaza, and homes and buildings across Israel could face a similar disaster.

Hezbollah demonstrated it has an air defense system, but it has been secretive in showing the capabilities of its defense from Israeli jets; however, on at least one occasion Hezbollah utilized their air defenses to repel an Israeli jet flying over Lebanon.

Amos Hochstein, the U.S. special envoy dispatched recently to Israel and Lebanon in hopes of averting a war between Israel and Hezbollah, came back empty-handed. Hochstein had been successful in a negotiation between Israel and Lebanon in 2022 over the maritime borders, but this time he was not negotiating with the Lebanese government alone, but with the most powerful resistance group in the Middle East.

The root cause of all conflicts in the Middle East emanate from the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine, which has stripped away all human rights, and civil rights, from about six million Palestinians, while the six million Jews in Israel live in a quasi-democracy with human rights and civil rights comparable to most western democracies.

U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have repeatedly told Israeli officials the U.S. does not want to see a wider war in the Middle East, where other nations could be involved should Lebanon face destruction.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israel would “turn Beirut into Gaza” in the event of a war.

Experts agree that Biden would continue to support Israel even in the face of a war on Hezbollah. The international community has come out against Israel and its genocide on Gaza, but Biden continues to support war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel.

Biden has sponsored a ceasefire plan, but Israel refused it, and experts suggest that the Biden plan was not designed by Washington to succeed, but was drafted only as an exercise in buying time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli public and military are divided on the war on Gaza. Many are demanding Israel stop the war and get the hostages out after almost 9 months of captivity. Others support the war on Gaza as part of the Zionist plan to eliminate all non-Jews and create one Jewish nation from the ‘river to the sea’.

Netanyahu firmly demands the continuation of the war on Gaza and demands that Hamas be destroyed, but his military leaders have said that is an impossible task, as Hamas is an ideology, that of resistance to occupation, which is guaranteed to all people through the Geneva Convention.

On June 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said plans for an attack in southern Lebanon had been approved and steps had been taken to “accelerate readiness in the field.” The statement came from Major General Ori Gordin, the head of IDF Northern Command, and Major General Oded Basiuk, who heads the IDF’s Operations Division.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened Hezbollah that they faced “destruction” amid “all-out war” at the Israel-Lebanon border.

Katz’s threat came after Hezbollah published a surveillance video that it took by a drone over various Israeli military, infrastructure and civilian installations, including some in the Israeli port city of Haifa.

“In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit,” Katz wrote on X.

On June 21, Hezbollah said it fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for a deadly air strike in south Lebanon that Israel said killed one of the group’s operatives. Hezbollah also claimed several other attacks on Israeli troops and positions over the course of the day.

In a meeting with visiting Israeli officials in Washington, Blinken underscored “the importance of avoiding further escalation in Lebanon and reaching a diplomatic resolution that allows Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes”, according to a statement.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had warned “no place” in Israel would “be spared our rockets” if a wider war began, in a TV address on Wednesday. He also threatened Cyprus if it opened its airports or bases to Israel “to target Lebanon”. Cyprus houses two British bases, including an airbase.

Israel invaded and brutally occupied Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. Its withdrawal was a victory for Hezbollah. In 2006, Israel launched a second war on Hezbollah which saw Israel prevented from invading by the might of Hezbollah, and in the following years the resistance group has gotten much stronger militarily.

Dozens of Israeli towns are now deserted, with around 60,000 Israelis evacuated to temporary accommodation, while about 90,000 have also fled from southern Lebanon.

Israel has launched roughly four times as many attacks as Hezbollah over the course of the conflict, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a Wisconsin-based research group specializing in conflict data analysis. Last week, Israel made its deepest attack yet into Lebanon, striking 75 miles north of the border.

Israeli troops have also deployed white phosphorus in Lebanon, a substance that burns at high temperature and can be used to create smokescreens to obscure troop movements, but can cause respiratory damage and deadly burns. Its use near civilian areas is a violation of international humanitarian law.

“It’s not a question of if it will happen but when it will happen,” Avichai Stern, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, the largest town in Israel’s north, said in an interview, and added, “We have to wipe them out.”

The war between Israel and Lebanon can be avoided if Israel will stop the unrelenting attacks on Gaza, which have resulted in over 36,000 deaths, mostly women and children.

June 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanon denies Telegraph claims, invites officials for airport tour

Al-Mayadeen | June 23, 2024

The Air Transport Union in Lebanon (UTA) denied in a statement The Telegraph’s report in which it claimed that “Hezbollah stores missiles and explosives at Lebanon’s main airport,” saying that these clams were made without any proof offered.

The UTA called The Telegraph’s unfounded claims “mere illusions and lies aimed at endangering Beirut Airport and its civilian workers, as well as travelers to and from it, all of whom are civilians.”

Moreover, the Air Transport Union held the media outlet, as well as “those who report on it and spread its falsehoods” responsible for the safety of those who work at Beirut Airport in all its facilities “including the passenger terminal, departure and arrival, the apron, maintenance, and civil air cargo.”

Additionally, in its statement, it called on all Lebanese, Arab, and foreign media outlets to come to Beirut Airport “with their camera crews and verify for themselves, otherwise, we consider what is being promoted by suspicious media outlets as incitement to kill us.”

On his part, Lebanon’s Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ali Hamieh, proclaimed, in a press conference, that “Beirut Airport has been subjected to disinformation for years,” adding that instead of publishing a “ridiculous” and baseless report citing anonymous sources, the British daily “should have opted for checking in with the British Department of Transport, which conducted a field visit of the airport on January 22, 2024.”

“This is the primary authority responsible for transportation matters at the airport,” he stated.

Questioning the paper’s credibility, Hamieh asked, “Is it conceivable that a reputable newspaper would change its sources within an hour?”

Additionally, the caretaker minister called on all media outlets and all ambassadors or their representatives to visit the airport tomorrow at 10:30 am for a tour of all airport facilities to make sure that the airport is strictly a civilian infrastructure and that no weapons are being smuggled through it.

“We have nothing to hide,” he maintained.

Moreover, Hamieh informed the press, “We are in the process of filing a lawsuit against the newspaper and we will announce the details later.”

June 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

US vows ‘security support’ for Israel in all-out war with Lebanon

The Cradle | June 22, 2024

Senior US officials confirmed that if Israel wages a full out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Washington is fully prepared to back its ally in Tel Aviv, CNN reported on 22 June.

According to a senior administration official speaking with CNN, the US officials gave the assurances in person to a delegation of Israeli security officials visiting Washington this week.

The Israeli officials, including Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, met with US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and White House Middle East affairs coordinator Brett McGurk.

The face-to-face assurances come amid heightened tensions between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group. In recent weeks, Hezbollah has escalated its attacks on Israel’s military infrastructure near the Lebanese border.

At the same time, Israeli officials have issued multiple threats claiming they will launch a major attack on Lebanon, including attacking civilian areas such as in the capital, Beirut.

Israeli officials are frustrated that they are not able to provide security for some 100,000 displaced Israelis to return to settlements in the north.

When discussing the prospects of a major war, US officials said they would offer Israel the security assistance it needs but would not deploy US troops to the ground.

If Hezbollah were to significantly expand the scale of its attacks on Israel, resulting in the deaths of Israelis, US officials expect Israel to respond with full force, CNN added.

Earlier this week, US officials warned that in the event of an all-out war, Hezbollah would be able to overwhelm the Iron Dome with its powerful arsenal of over 100,000 missiles and rockets.

“Israeli officials have told the US they believe the Iron Dome could be vulnerable, particularly in northern Israel, and have been surprised at the sophistication of Hezbollah’s strikes to date,” the US officials went on to tell CNN.

One Israeli official cited by the outlet confirmed that Hezbollah attacks could be “challenging for the system to defend against.”

It is also unclear whether Israel will have the troops to launch a full-scale war with ground troops. Israel faces a serious enlistment crisis and shortage of soldiers in the Israeli army and has lost many troops to death and injury fighting Hamas in Gaza.

On 21 June, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to schedule an urgent meeting to discuss extending compulsory military service to three years.

“The new security reality requires finding means to continue the war effort,” Gallant was quoted as saying. Gallant has requested that Netanyahu approve this in government within the coming days.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraqi resistance vows to assist Hezbollah if new Israeli war on Lebanon waged

Press TV – June 22, 2024

Fighters from Iraqi anti-terror resistance groups have expressed their full solidarity with Hezbollah, stressing they will fight alongside their comrades in the Lebanese group in case the Tel Aviv regime decides to wage a new war on Lebanon.

Lebanon’s Arabic-language al-Akhbar daily newspaper, citing unnamed sources at the Islamic Resistance in Iraq – an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, reported that Kata’ib Hezbollah, Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba groups have announced their readiness to participate alongside Hezbollah in confronting any possible Israeli aggression against Lebanon.

The sources added that the Iraqi resistance groups are awaiting Hezbollah’s approval.

Kadhim al-Fartousi, the spokesman for the Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror resistance group, stated that Hezbollah enjoys great prowess, powerful and effective weapons, and large numbers of fighters, which are sufficient to repel Israeli aggression irrespective of its extent.

“Should the need arise for Iraqi fighters in southern Lebanon, we will be the first to face up to the Zionist enemy’s act of aggression [alongside Hezbollah]. This is a Muslim and Arab issue,” he pointed out.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that “no place” in the Israeli-occupied territories would be spared from the group’s weapons in case of a full-blown war.

Nasrallah emphasized that an incursion into the Galilee region remains an option on the table should Israel invade southern Lebanon.

He also said they would attack any other country in the region that assisted Israel in the war effort, citing Cyprus, which has hosted Israeli forces for training exercises.

Hezbollah has been carrying out almost daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions in retaliation for the regime’s aggression against Lebanon and in solidarity with Palestinians.

The genocidal war in Gaza has killed at least 37,551 Palestinians, predominantly women and children so far.

At least 455 people have also been killed on the Lebanese border, including more than 80 civilians, according to a tally by AFP.

Two Israeli wars waged against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006 were met with strong resistance from Hezbollah, resulting in the retreat of the regime in both conflicts.

June 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Israel, White House Lives in ‘Parallel Reality’

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 19.06.2024

On Tuesday, US special envoy Amos Hochstein met with Lebanese officials, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a day after visiting with Israeli officials. The trips were made in an attempt to prevent a full-on war between the two countries after exchanges escalated in the region.

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since Israel launched its siege on Gaza following Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7. Hezbollah said it launched its campaign in response to Israel’s actions in Gaza and that it will stop once a ceasefire is implemented in the area.

Hochstein stated that Hamas needs to “just say yes and accept” the ceasefire deal outlined by US President Joe Biden nearly three weeks ago. Those comments are part of a trend among high-ranking US officials that Israel has accepted the ceasefire deal and only Hamas is preventing a pause in fighting.

“[With] the statements from the White House officials, they seem to live in a parallel reality from everyone, including Israeli officials,” Esteban Carrillo, a Beirut-based journalist and the editor of The Cradle, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

While Hamas has reportedly made some amendments to the deal, it has responded positively while Israel has refused to say if it will accept it and promised to keep fighting until Hamas is defeated. Israeli officials have also refused to confirm if the ceasefire deal presented by Biden was their creation, as US officials claim.

“Just today, a top Israeli negotiator told the Israeli media that there would be absolutely no room to negotiate any of the amendments that Hamas asked for in response to the ceasefire proposal,” Carrillo explained, adding that the negotiator said the war will continue after the Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah is completed. “These are their words. This is not anybody putting words in their mouth.”

While the US continues to provide political cover for the Israelis by insisting that Israel has accepted a deal, its officials have been clear that they expect their actions in Gaza to continue for the foreseeable future. The day after Biden gave his speech outlining the ceasefire deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that their conditions for ending the war “have not changed.” Days earlier, Israeli national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi said Israel expects at least “another seven months of fighting,” extending the killing until 2025.

An estimate by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said that they expect the war to continue until 2026 and that a full-scale war with Lebanon will begin in September.

“[US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken and [US Defense Department spokesperson Matthew] Miller [are] saying that Hamas is the one being intransigent. No, it’s Israel that is being completely intransigent and they have been so for the past several decades,” Carrillo argued.

In 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought to what is generally described as a tie, with more than 1,200 IDF soldiers wounded and another 120 dead, including the two soldiers who were captured at the Zar’it-Shtula incident, Israel failed to meet its objectives in that conflict and in the meantime Hezbollah has become increasingly sophisticated and powerful.

“This is what the US has also been warning them,” Carrillo said. “It’s time to de-escalate the North because you’re going to get your asses kicked.”

On Tuesday, Hezbollah released drone footage of Haifa and other parts of northern Israel, highlighting critical Israeli military and civilian infrastructure, including weapon depots, military bases and sea and airports.

Netanyahu said earlier this month that his country is “prepared for a very intense operation” against Lebanon.

Haifa, about 17 miles (27km) from the closest Lebanese border, is Israel’s most active port. Its importance has increased since the Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement in Yemen successfully shut down the Port of Eilat through its blockade of Israel in the Red Sea.

More than 60,000 Israelis have been ordered to evacuate from communities near the border with Lebanon, and many of the towns have been virtually abandoned since October.

June 18, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah’s Undetected Drones: All Israeli Installations Within Sight, Reach

Hezbollah releases aerial footage of northern occupied Palestine

Hezbollah Military Media | June 18, 2024

The compelling 9-minute video prominently reveals aerial footage of the city of Haifa, showing the Rafael Military Industries Complex and the Haifa Port area, which includes the Haifa Military Base (the main naval base of the Israeli occupation forces), the Haifa Civil Port, the Haifa Power Station, the Haifa Airport, oil tanks, and petrochemical facilities.

The video also highlights key military assets, including the submarine unit’s command building, the Sa’ar 4.5 logistical support corvette, and the Sa’ar 5 corvette.

Earlier on Tuesday, the group’s military media promoted this episode under the title “Stay tuned… for what the hoopoe has brought back” as the American presidential envoy Amos Hochstein visits Lebanon, holding Israeli threats to the country.

Hebrew Media Panic

Israeli media commented on the footage, with the Yedioth Ahronoth Hebrew newspaper stating that “Hezbollah published an exceptional drone recording that filmed northern ‘Israel’, including Haifa Bay.”

Other Israeli media outlets raised the question: “The Air Force must provide an answer to the following query: How did X manage to reach and fly over the Israeli army’s battleships in Haifa Bay?”

The military correspondent for Israeli Channel 14 reported that “Hezbollah has released extraordinary footage from deep within “Israeli territory,” showcasing Israeli targets, including those at the Haifa port and naval base.”

“The capabilities demonstrated by Hezbollah have left a significant gap among military and security personnel,” he added.

In addition, the Israeli occupation army has requested that the defense industries develop a technological solution to better intercept Hezbollah’s drones, according to the Hebrew Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Monday.

The footage released by Hezbollah has dominated social media discussions, with users describing the video as “a clear message to the entire Zionist entity.” They highlighted that “hundreds of targets within occupied Palestinian lands are now under Hezbollah’s surveillance, and any reckless action by the Zionists against Lebanon will come at a high price.”

June 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Gaza ceasefire push is a road to fatal escalation

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | June 14, 2024

US President Joe Biden’s ceasefire push has so far led to further violence in Gaza and threatens to spill over into a war with Lebanon. Washington is either asleep at the wheel or is willing to push the entire region off a cliff in order to avoid ditching its “unconditional support” for Israel.

The speech delivered by Joe Biden on May 31, in which he presented an Israeli ceasefire proposal, urging both Hamas and the Israeli government to accept it, provided a glimpse of hope that finally the US was putting its foot down. The US President gave what seemed to be a reasonable roadmap to secure a lasting cessation of hostilities in Gaza and a prisoner exchange.

The immediate Hamas response was to view the speech “positively,” while still maintaining that it required an Israeli withdrawal of its forces from Gaza and a complete end to the war, in order to agree to any proposal. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stuck with his previous rhetoric about the need to destroy Hamas, was indicating that he was not going to agree to a ceasefire.

Netanyahu took things even further by asserting that Joe Biden’s description of the Israeli ceasefire proposal was ”not accurate,” also making it clear that there would be no ceasefire until his war goals were achieved. Giving legitimacy to the Israeli PM’s assertions was an article published in The Economist that revealed details of the proposal, in which it became clear that the three-phase ceasefire would be more difficult to conclude, beyond its first phase, than Biden had let on.

Although a series of articles have been released in the Western media, including a Reuters interview with an anonymous Biden administration official, portraying the president’s actions as a bold attempt to pressure Israel to agree to its own proposal, it appears that this move is failing. As the daily death toll rises in besieged Gaza, the Israeli government continues to declare its intention to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian Party that it is supposedly about to conclude a deal with. This as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is being sent on yet another Middle East trip to try and help conclude a ceasefire deal as the effort nears collapse.

Israel, meanwhile, continues to escalate its assault on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, while renewing incursions and aerial assaults throughout the strip. All of this flies in the face of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s recent ruling that ordered Israel to halt its military operation in Rafah. On top of this, the tit-for-tat battles that have been going on since October between Hezbollah and the Israeli military along the Lebanese border, have also escalated to what many consider to be a point of no return; making a new Israel-Lebanon war nearly inevitable.

All of this is very reminiscent of what happened before, when Hamas announced, on May 6, that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal. The proposal was admitted to be almost identical to the one that was repeatedly lauded by Antony Blinken as a ”strong” deal during his last visit to the region.

On that same day, the Israeli military immediately launched its long-threatened offensive in southern Gaza, seizing the Rafah Crossing between the Palestinian territory and Egypt. At that time, the Israeli PM reiterated what he had been consistently saying beforehand about pursuing the destruction of Hamas and his government decided to signal their refusal to agree to the ceasefire.

Again, with the US now bringing forward Israel’s own ceasefire proposal, the predicament does not seem to have changed much. Benjamin Netanyahu is in a difficult position domestically, after failing to achieve any of his war goals in Gaza, he faces the prospect of his governing coalition collapsing if he accepts a ceasefire agreement with nothing to show for eight months of war. The Israeli people also heavily favor re-occupying the strip, with 0% of Israeli Jews polled saying they would like to see Hamas continuing to govern the besieged coastal enclave after the war.

Therefore, Netanyahu knows the political repercussions for him and others in the Israeli ruling class if he accepts a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. However, he also knows that, despite US pressure on his government to bring the war in Gaza to an end, the American government has no teeth behind its forceful statements and will indefinitely continue its “unconditional support” for Israel.

Not only that, when the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, called for the issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, the US government threatened the court. US lawmakers immediately began to draft legislation to sanction the ICC. When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its provisional rulings, as a result of the so-far successful South African genocide case against Israel, the US announced it disagreed with the conclusions.

Even though the US abstained from a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vote that called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza until the end of Muslim Holy month of Ramadan, the Biden administration illogically called the resolution ”non-binding” and gave the Israelis the greenlight to violate it. American lawmakers have even just drafted legislation to condition aid to the Maldives, after that nation made an independent decision to stop Israeli citizens from entering their country due to war crimes committed in Gaza. Now the UN has added Israel to its infamous blacklist for killing Palestinian children, and the US has implemented another double-standard in continuing to provide weapons to a nation added to this list.

Despite the mountains of reports of war crimes from international human rights groups, the decisions made by the UNSC, UN general assembly, the ICC and ICJ, the United States government works to protect the Israeli government at all costs. This has to be kept in mind when we look at the American approach to implementing “red lines” with their Israeli allies, which the Biden administration still cannot find the words to actually define. Even when it comes to the invasion of Rafah, which Washington openly said would be a “disaster,” it was simultaneously preparing another military aid package worth 14 billion dollars.

Understanding all of this, Benjamin Netanyahu was still invited to Washington to address the US Congress and faced with some pressure to conclude a deal. He can rest assured that the Americans will stand by his side no matter what he chooses to do. So, if you are Netanyahu, what incentive is there to stop the war at this point? The Biden administration is filled to the brim with empty and vacuous strategies, which have led to public calls for ending the war, while privately refusing to ever hold Israel accountable.

The big problem this time around is that the continuation of the war will not only mean an escalation of the horrors in Gaza, but is heading towards a massive conflagration with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah possesses the missile capabilities to respond to Israeli airstrikes with devastating effect that could lead to the deaths of hundreds, even thousands, of Israelis. Under great domestic pressure to launch an assault on Lebanese territory, Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be closer to opening a catastrophic conflict with Lebanon, instead of concluding a ceasefire and prisoner exchange with Gaza. In his eyes, a war with Lebanon could even provide the perfect lethal distraction that would enable him to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, but at the expense of triggering a much larger and deadlier war.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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