Read a news flash a couple of days ago and was simply amazed at the inanity of the acts reported. According to the report, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu held a brief press photo op with the Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in Jerusalem. Initially, after Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini was escorted into the office, Prime Minister Netanyahu can be seen pointing to a map of the region in or about the Israel-Lebanon border (video posted below). Then they exchange greetings and the Israeli Prime Minister thanks the Italian government for providing one of the commanding officers for UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon) and stated that he has a difficult position but needs to step up and fulfill their mission and prevent such incursions and other threats posed by Hezballah in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 limiting actions and presence of Hezballah south of the Litani River. The UNIFIL forces are positioned along the border with Israel well south of the Litani River tasked to prevent the militarization of the border by Hezballah, not an enviable task. The closing statement was a quasi insistence for the international community to address the recent incursions via infiltration tunnels by Hezballah into Israel. Israeli Defense Forces have recently uncovered several of these tunnels using the same technology they used to uncover the tunnels out of Gaza dug for the last several years by Hamas with assistance by Islamic Jihad. The reality of the situation is that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezballah are all in the service of Iran and share their technology of tunneling while also providing rocket technology, and have lately been providing Hezballah with guidance systems to transform their lonest range rockets into precision guided missiles capable of striking any location in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has already stated that this providing of these guidance systems to Hezballah is the crossing of a red line, which is endangering Israelis, and the safety of Israel and her future.
The pleading for international assistance in addressing the threats posed by Hezballah with Iranian assistance is almost laughable. Turning to the United Nations for assistance, even if it is to enforce their own United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, will fall on deaf ears. As it is, reports by the Wall Street Journal of the ineptitude of the UNIFIL forces in fulfilling their mission of preventing Hezballah from reestablishing their rockets, weapons, bunkers, tunneling and other infrastructure including stashing weapons in residential homes. The people who reside in these homes have no say in the decision, they either allow Hezballah to store rockets, launchers and weapons in their homes or they are evicted or worse, murdered. Iran has been utilizing civilian flights into Beirut International Airport to supply Hezballah with advanced weapons and the guidance systems. Iran has even gone so far as to upgrade weapons factories in Lebanon originally utilized by the IRGC to manufacture weapons for the Syrian civil war. Hezballah has weaponized the entirety of the region across the border from Israel and, for those paying attention to international news, have realized that Israel has uncovered at least two infiltration tunnels reaching into Israel from houses in Lebanon. All of this despite the presumption that Hezballah has been observing the limitations of UNSC Resolution 1701, which makes the entirety of the region of southern Lebanon pictured in the map below, supposed to be denied them by the UNIFIL forces.
Map of UNIFIL Demilitarized Region
It is the completely ridiculously ineffectiveness of the United Nations forces in southern Lebanon. To be entirely honest, we can understand that they would not care to fight a war for Israel in southern Lebanon, which is exactly what it would take to prevent Hezballah from doing whatever they desire. The main deterrence the UNIFIL forces pose is on Israel, preventing any intervention by Israel to weaken Hezballah or to use rockets, missiles, tank fire or other explosives to destroy the Hezballah munition stores. They also prevent any infiltration into Lebanon by Israel for reconnaissance or other means of sabotaging Hezballah positions. Israel is left to attempt to mitigate tunnels and other means of infiltration being built by Hezballah and worse, wait until Hezballah chooses the time of the next war. When Hezballah does attack Israel, which very well could come at the end of the Syrian civil war, they could very easily be supplemented by IRGC forces with heavy weapons attacking across the Golan Heights or even sweeping through northern Jordan and attacking from south of the Sea of Galilee. Israel would also be facing endangering those very same UNIFIL forces which are providing Israel no enforcement of the UNSC Resolution 1701 and simply watching as Hezballah rearms and rebuilds their military infrastructure south of the Litani River and upgrading their weaponry with generous assistance from Iran. Israel would be unable to immediately respond to any Hezballah offensive strikes until the UNIFIL forces have been provided ample time to remove themselves from the battlefield. They might even be held to their position by Hezballah in order to use them as human shields preventing any proper and all-out Israeli response. Israel need learn the simply lesson, nobody is going to risk their troop’s lives to enforce anything imposed on any terrorist group be it Hezballah, Hamas or any of the Arab militaries which the nations surrounding Israel have attacked with in the past. Israel should never again seek United Nations “protective services” as that only opens up other nations to becoming victims of Israeli fire, even more so should they be kept from leaving to serve as human shields. Those who may wish to mock such an idea really need to reconsider their position as they are dealing with terrorists who largely do not care about the lives of the children they use as human shields, do you believe they value UNIFIL troops’ lives with any greater regard? There will be another war started by Hezballah when they decide it is to their advantage or when Iran decides it is to their advantage. Should Iran make good on their threat to disallow any oil shipments to leave through the Straights of Hormuz should President Trump place an embargo on Iranian oil shipments, it would be tantamount to a declaration of war. Were Iran to follow through on their threat and sink even a single supertanker or the United States Naval vessels escorting such a tanker, they would be really needing something which would grab global attention and fast. Having Hezballah start a war with Israel while preventing the UNIFIL forces from departing just begging for a single Israeli round of artillery, tank fire or aircraft fire to strike any UNIFIL forces and Iran with whomever allies with them screaming about Israel murdering international observers in the United Nations General Assembly; that would be the perfect foil to take the heat off of Iran, at least for a moment or maybe a week or two. What the world has in place in southern Lebanon is a ticking bomb simple waiting for Iran to light the fuse with the full intent of sacrificing every last UNIFIL troop stationed in southern Lebanon so as to get the maximum protection against the Israeli Defense Forces and to have the world denounce and scold Israel for not simply absorbing six to ten weeks of rocket and missile fire and infiltrations from Lebanon by Hezballah while the United Nations attempted halfheartedly to extract the UNIFIL contingents all while demanding Israel stand down to protect these precious lives. After all, is not every UNIFIL troop worth at least five or six hundred Israeli’s lives? Trust me that the world will demand exactly such from Israel while they argue in futility with Hezballah to release the UNIFIL troops which Hezballah will claim are protecting the lives of Lebanese from Israeli military actions which Hezballah has been responding to as Israel started it by existing. And yes, there is absolutely no room for sanity in any of this as any other nation in the world would not stand for such on their border. If you want proof, we give you the Islamic State which Russia and the United States plus the European nations traveled as far as half way across the globe to address that terror problem which was not threatening any of these nations. There is your truth and in the meantime Israel has been searching out tunnels used for infiltration from Gaza and Lebanon and will only be a matter of time before Israel will be required to check along the Golan Heights for tunnels made by the IRGC when Iran deems it necessary. Do not get this wrong, all of these forces sitting perched to attack to try and destroy Israel are under the puppet-master’s strings and that puppet-master is the Iranian Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. He may also hold the lives of the UNIFIL forces stationed in southern Lebanon as they may end up hostages serving as human shields.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 