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Well let’s start with the obvious:
Two days of dizzying escalation, and there can be no illusions: Israel is at war.A tactical failure by the IDF on the Gaza border barely two weeks ago prompted a drastic escalation on that front. Wednesday’s still-graver tactical blow in the North has now led to a confrontation affecting immense numbers of civilians on either side of the Lebanese border, with the potential to impact other nations as well.
There are those who have branded this latest conflict a continuation of Israel’s War of Independence, and there is no little truth in the assertion. On both of the fronts on which Israel has been drawn into heavy fighting, its enemies can make no legitimate claim to be pursuing a territorial dispute: as of last summer, Israel relinquished its hold on the Gaza Strip; in Lebanon, it pulled back to the UN-certified international border six years ago.
Except that, in both cases, the Jewish state’s assailants are indeed pursuing a territorial ambition - to unseat Israel from its own sovereign lands.
Missiles have rained on Israel for over 24 hours. Not even Haifa was spared:
A simultaneous wave of missiles struck Tzfat and Nahariya at around 7:30 PM. Twenty people were injured in the Tzfat attack and one man killed. As the 8 PM news programs began and Israelis prepared to break the Fast of the 17th of Tamuz, two long-range missiles struck Haifa’s Stella Maris neighborhood - though no injuries resulted.Throughout Thursday, nearly 100 Katyusha missiles were fired at various towns and cities in northern Israel, injuring 90 people and killing two.
In retaliation residents of Beirut got a warning:
Israeli officials have said that south Beirut, a densely populated neighborhood of Shiite Muslims where Hezbollah has its political headquarters, could be targeted. Leaflets dropped in the evening warned people to stay away from Hezbollah offices.Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has his office and residence in the district of Haret Hreik in south Beirut. Hezbollah’s Shura Council, its decision-making body, and the TV station are also located in that area, a section heavily guarded by Hezbollah.
They weren’t kidding:
Night attack in Beirut: Israeli planes struck a bridge in the southern suburb of Beirut, a Hizbullah stronghold, and the fuel stores of the Jiyyeh power plant south of the city early on Friday, witnesses and security sources said.
Hizbullah’s television station al-Manar said there were several injuries from the attacks, which started fires in the area.
The Lebanese Army responded with anti-aircraft fire. Residents heard at least three strikes. Lebanese security sources also reported that Israeli planes struck the main highway leading to Beirut’s international airport and south Lebanon.
Other news reports said a playground where Hizbullah leaders hold rallies for thousands of their supporters was also targeted.
Israel Defense Forces officials confirmed that the army had struck targets in Beirut.
Earlier, Israeli planes struck the main highway linking Beirut to the Syrian capital Damascus, a Lebanese security source said.
Petrified Truth points to a suprising New York Times piece that calls out Iran:
The expansion of the Gaza crisis into southern Lebanon, confronting Israel with a conflict on its northern and southern borders, has demonstrated that the central issue at stake is regional, not local.For Israel the issue is not simply the Palestinians and their actions, including the rocket fire into Israel. It is the broader problem of radical Islam — of Hamas, as a part of the regional Muslim Brotherhood, and of Iran, a serious regional power with considerable influence on Syria, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the military wing of Hamas.
While Israel and the United States still hope that Hamas, which is a largely homegrown Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, will respond to the responsibilities of elected leadership and moderate its rejection of Israel to bring a better life to its people, they have no such hopes for Iran.
Iran’s president has famously denied the Holocaust and made countless provocative statements about Israel. But even before his election, Iran committed itself to undermining any prospect of real peace between Israel and the Palestinians through proxy forces like Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
Iran is also considered to be the main sponsor of Khaled Meshal, the exiled Palestinian leader of Hamas’s political bureau and the man widely considered to be in charge of Hamas’s secretive military wing — which was instrumental in carrying out the seizure of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, touching off the latest explosion.
Austin Bay makes a case for an Israeli strike on Iran:
The madmen do not gain if Israel decides to launch a relentless, multi-front offensive, that includes an Iranian front.Risky? Of course. But Iranian nukes are also risky, and even Russia and China acknowledge that.
In the context of an on-going war with Iranian proxies in Lebanon, if Tehran’s mullahs threaten mass anihilation one too many times the Israelis could strike several Iranian nuclear facilities. This would not be a “pre-emptive strike” but a “deep strike” on Hezbollah’s deep pockets ally and supplier.
The diplomatic component of this scenario: the Israelis make the case that in the post-Saddam, post-Beirut Spring Middle East, proxy wars are no longer tolerated. The Iranians will not be able to respond to Israeli strikes in kind. They will be exposed as weak hotheads and they will have lost at least part of their nuclear investment.
“No targets are immune.” Will Israel continue to restrict that statement to Lebanon?
I think they’d still prefer to keep up the charade…for now.
Michael Ledeen, like so many of us, would rather fight the inevitable war sooner than later:
The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it.Last week, President Mikheil Shaakashvili of free Georgia came to Washington and reminded us–not that it was much noticed — of America’s revolutionary mission. But President Bush heard it. “I just sent over to President Bush the letter that Georgian freedom fighters sent…seven years ago, and it never made it to the White House. It was intercepted by KGB and all the people who wrote it were shot,” Mr. Saakashvili said during a visit with the president in the Oval Office. “I’m sure lots of people out there in Korea (and he might well have added, Syria and Iran) are writing similar letters today. And I’m sure that those letters will, eventually, (arrive)…because that’s a part of the freedom agenda that President Bush has and we strongly believe in.”
As do millions of Syrians and Iranians. And you know what? Millions of Arabs all over the Middle East do too. Give them a chance to fight for their freedom, as we did with the Georgians. The longer we dither, the more likely it becomes that we will sadly and unnecessarily find ourselves in a military confrontation of some sort, with all the terrible consequences that entails.
Faster, please. Your options are narrowing. You cannot escape the mullahs. You must either defeat them or submit to their terrible vision. There is no other way.
Ahmadinejad is talking tough:
Iran’s president warned Israel against extending its offensive in Lebanon to neighboring Syria, saying such a move would be regarded as an attack on the whole Islamic world and be met with a “crushing response,” the official Iranian news agency said Friday.Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon to put pressure on the government and force Hezbollah to free the two Israeli soldiers it captured Wednesday. Syria and Iran are the top backers of the Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla group in Lebanon.
“If the occupying regime of Jerusalem attacks Syria, it will be equivalent to an attack on the whole Islamic world and the regime (Israel) will face a crushing response” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by IRNA.
I think we should call him on it. He can’t respond with force and he’s already spouting craziness. Why not, as others have suggested, call his bluff and expose him?
Meanwhile it’s not recommended that you vacation, or work, in Lebanon:
This Travel Warning is being updated to alert American citizens that, due to ongoing security concerns in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy has been granted authorized departure status. Family members and non-emergency American employees have permission to depart Lebanon. American citizens are urged to evaluate their personal security posture and consider departing in light of the current situation in Lebanon. The Department of State urges American citizens to defer travel to Lebanon. This supersedes the Travel Warning issued on May 2, 2006.
You have to love this:
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush called him overnight and promised to press Israel to stop its offensive.“President Bush expressed his readiness to press Israel to limit its ongoing military operation in order to reduce the damages on Lebanon,” according to a statement from Siniora’soffice.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also called on Israel to restrain from military escalation after a telephone conversation with Seniora.
Someone please tell the President and Condoleezza Rice there’s a war on terrror.
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July 14th, 2006 at 9:01 am
hi, my name is shir and i write from israel. tomorrow be more good,i am hope. the war is big shit, but forbidden to lost the hope. i invite you to write me- shirshurina@walla.co.il
July 14th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Murdoc’s Israel theories
Everyone’s got their theories on exactly what is happening around Israel right now, many of them pointing the finger at Iran. While I don’t find…
July 14th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Israel at War
IDF bombs Hizbullah anti-aircraft missile base
The IDF continued its bombardment of southern Lebanon on Friday afternoon, bombing two bridges over the Hazharani river as well as a Hizbullah anti-aircraft missile base and a fuel depot in Talusia.
Earl…
July 14th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
RE: “The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus.”
I wholeheartedly agree. Of course, this is the short term view.
Long term, I would have to remind us of something said during a TV interview by Yossef Bodansky, a couple of days after 9/11. He said that 9/11 was the start of the next Great War after WW2. The only way to win in the long run was to go after any and all sponsoring states. There are multiple tiers of them. Yes, I do mean what you think I mean. Yes, we must be prepared to face both Russia and China, actually, the entire SCO. Our eventual opponent in this is the SCO.
July 14th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Also following Iran war plans — connection to middle east.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2006/07/14/the-iran-war-plans/
July 24th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
oooooooooo
July 24th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Most Europeans criticize Israel. Does it seem like FUN sending again and again your country’s young ones to death? Who’s doing this world’s dirty job of trying, at least TRYING, to get rid of terror and that terrible Iranian government?Who’s brave enough and measures no losses for its ideas? Yeah, that great country,Israel.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:18 am
I am sick of hearing about how Israel shoud stop the aggression(nice word, huh?) aginst Hezzbollah. I mean really , who started the whole thing???? I don’t want to hear about the poor Lebanese. If they didn’t like what was going on then they should get rid of those idiot terrorists and quit complaining when Israel defends her peolple. Just had tosay that.
H Mullin