Looking for Help in All the Wrong Places

 

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

 

The Eternal Middle East Question

 

This eternal question is what will bring an end to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The question presupposes that the question has an answer and the world has been chasing this presumably illusive answer for the past hundred years. They had the first worst answer initially as the British along with many others did everything they could to prevent the Jews from reaching the critical mass for them to declare Israel’s birth. The British realizing they could no longer prevent this inevitability simply left as quickly as they could arming the Arab forces while disarming the Jews as they left in one final attempt to prevent the success of the birth of the Jewish State. The Arab war of 1948 was best described by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League at that time, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” Obviously, his expectations were not met and the nascent state of Israel survived the year and a half of war. The main reason that there has not been peace came later as a result of the Arabs to their losses in the 1967 Six Day War. September, after the war, the Arab League met in Khartoum where they passed the Khartoum Resolution which included the Three No’s, “No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, and No negotiations with Israel.” This has continued to be the driving core of the Palestinian Arabs who will refuse any peace in which Israel remains ruled by any other than the Arab Muslims. This conflict has never been altered from the original stated desire of Azzam Pasha, the complete annihilation of the Jews and the total destruction of Israel.

 

So, the question is still being at the center of the Western World in their attempts to placate the implacable. They treat the conflict as a territorial conflict rather than a conflict of annihilation, the view the Arabs still cling to despite the seeming warming by the Sunni Arab states seeing Iran as a greater threat than posed by Israel. Just because they see Iran as a greater threat, this does not mean that they are willing to accept the existence of Israel in any permanence. Should Israel face some disaster leaving it vulnerable, the Arab nations would leap at the opportunity to destroy their nemesis. This is the reality which is not well understood in America and ignored by the Europeans and the United Nations, both of which know the truth. This is the reason that the Europeans are currently warming up to Iran as they see the Iranian nuclear program as the answer which will bring the Arab-Israeli Conflict to an end. They have little problem with the Ayatollah’s declaration that Israel is a one bomb nation. Of course, Europe plays both ends dealing with Israel to gain from their technological advances and soon receiving natural gas from Israel. On the other side, they also continue to provide much of the funding for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.

 

The Arab view of the conflict, as we have seen, is easily defined, the complete and utter destruction of the Jewish State and the Jews within her. The Israeli side of the conflict is also easily defined, peace. We would very much like for the international community to keep their promises made after World War I and allow Israel the boundaries agreed upon under the British Mandate resulting from the San Remo Conference. That would give Israel an eastern border of the Jordan River and would technically include Gaza. The real problem is what is to be done with the throngs of Arabs who came after the Jews provided a thriving economy, at least under Middle East standards for a nation without large oil reserves. This problem was further exacerbated by the British importing additional Arabs in their never-ending efforts to prevent the Jews from ever reaching a majority. Then there are the Arabs from Jordan transferred from Jordan often without their agreement and the Arab land giveaways to prominent Arab Jordanians who never resided in these lands, they were assigned to provide status and to place virtually over the land Jordan occupied illegally for nineteen years under Arab titles. These land giveaways are used by NGOs currently in order to prevent Jewish building beyond the Green Line. The Arabs will continue to refuse to absorb even a single Arab making any Arabs who might be deported due to their being illegally placed in the region by Jordan would be placed into even more refugee camps which would be claimed were illegally separated from their rightful lands. Any honest history from 1800 forward would document the fact that Arab presence in Israel was a trailing fact, not a leading fact. The Arabs came to Israel after the Jews had already built irrigation and businesses making for the Israeli rudimentary economy. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century there was a burgeoning economy resulting from increased Jewish settlement despite the attempts by the British to choke Jewish immigration into Israel. This was on top of the British making a present of 78% of the British Mandate to the Arabs which is the initial and actual developing of an Arab state separate from the Jewish state. In the intervening years while all remained under British protectorate rule, Jewish settlement in the area of Transjordan (today Jordan) was absolutely forbidden which meant that Jews who owned land east of the Jordan River were robbed of their lands. On the other hand, Arab settlement west of the Jordan River within what was to be the Jewish State was encouraged and often forced upon Arabs. This is the main reason for the current conflict which presents the world with a modern Gordian Knot.

 

The problem can be easily explained using as an example recent events since the arrangement of a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas forces in Gaza. Israel used a very carefully planed and executed selective bombing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad bases and other tactical locations using roof knocking in order to clear the targeted buildings of any Gazans inside including Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants. This method minimizes civilian and combatant casualties but Israel is so intent on preserving the lives of Gazans that the IDF literally sacrifices opportunities to kill Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants as well. This is one of the tactics used by Israel that the rest of the developed world militaries are somewhat upset and claim that these Israeli tactics are beyond anything that the Western militaries are willing to employ as their intent to kill their adversaries outweighs the concern for innocents who might be caught up in their bombing. Israel is so dedicated to not harming any unnecessary individuals that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have too often protected their most important strategic buildings by placing women and children on the roofs which prevents IDF fighter jets from delivering their bombs to the target. This is also how they prevent the IDF from targeting their rocket launchers by inviting children to watch the rockets being fired and how they are reloaded and everything keeping them close to the launchers making it a safe zone free from Israeli fire. These are just a few of their tactics which they utilize and then claim that they defended these sights proudly and with great vigor and strength which prevented the Jews from being able to strike them. But these are the small things compared to what came after the ceasefire was agreed upon and the fighting ended.

 

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (pictured below) on the Friday after the ceasefire issued threats against the Jewish State. He spoke at a memorial service for Hamas terrorists who were killed during the clash with Israel. He was quoted as having stated, “I advise Israel not to try and test us again. This time you did not have a lot of casualties and you managed to rescue your special forces. You should not try again, because next time you will have to release thousands of prisoners.” This is a reference of the Hamas strategy of holding the bodies of any IDF soldier killed which the IDF was unable to retrieve hostage demanding thousands of terrorist in Israeli prisons be released in exchange for each body. They currently hold two IDF soldier’s corpses which they are refusing even to name a price for an exchange knowing that it pains their families leaving them without closure. It is just another attempt at torturing Israelis by any means they are capable, pollution of burning tires blown into Israel by the offshore breeze, burning of crops with incendiary kites and balloons, rockets launched into Israeli residential centers in the middle of the night, rioting which is covered on news internationally and boasts of their superiority to Israel in every field of endeavor and particularly in fighting a man’s war.

 

Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar

 

But Yahya Sinwar was not done exchanging insults as he continued by stating, “Our hands are on the trigger and our eyes are open. Listen Netanyahu, and listen whoever will receive the defense portfolio. Anyone who tests Gaza will find death and poison. If we are attacked, we will let the barrage on Tel Aviv do the talking. Our missiles are more accurate, have a longer range and carry more explosives than before.” He is not bluffing on this threat as Israel knows well that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been provided with larger rocket engines allowing for greater ranges and larger payloads. The one limiting factor is the greater the range to their target, the smaller the warhead can be as it is a trade-off between the two regarding the limitations of the fuel. Still, Iran has found the means of providing ever-improved rocket engines and has started to provide Islamic Jihad and Hamas with rudimentary guidance systems just as they are providing for Hezbollah in Lebanon where they are modifying their longest range and largest payload rockets with these guidance systems in preparation for the next Lebanon offensive against Israel. This may come once the fighting in Syria has reached a point where Iran can also provide IRGC forces to attack the Golan Heights simultaneously. They may even attempt to coordinate having Hamas and Islamic Jihad attacking from the south as a preliminary front and then launch their combined attacks in the north from Lebanon and Syria. Such a conflict would inflict likely severe damages in Israel but these would be minor compared to what the response would do to Lebanon, Syria near the Golan Heights and Gaza as Israel would have little choice but to wage all-out war. In such a situation there would be no roof knocking before striking sites, this would be a war to end these threats permanently. Anything less would enrage the Israeli public who are growing impatient with responses which do little to end the threats and make the regions safe permanently, not just for a few months or possibly a year if we are fortunate.

 

Beyond the Cusp