An Israeli official has vowed that Iran would be “wiped off the face of the earth” if Hezbollah opens up a northern front for Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire along the Lebanon-Israel border since the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. There have been dozens of casualties, mainly on the Lebanon side, but Hezbollah has not launched a major assault on Israel.
Nir Barkat, Israel’s minister of economy, told The Mail on Sunday that if Hezbollah enters the war, Israel would not only “eliminate” the group but would also target Iran. “The plan of Iran is to attack Israel on all fronts. If we find they intend to target Israel, we will not just retaliate to those fronts, but we will go to the head of the snake, which is Iran,” he said.
Barkat’s warning comes as an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza appears imminent. Israel is stepping up its airstrikes on the besieged enclave and has already killed over 4,000 Palestinians, including over 1,000 children. Barkat threatened Iran with a similar fate.
“Lebanon and Hezbollah are going to pay a heavy price, similar to what Hamas is going to pay. But that’s not enough. The very clear message is that we are going to be going after the heads of Iran as well. When will we do that? When we decide,” Barkat said.
“Israel has a very clear message to our enemies. We are saying to them, look what’s happening in Gaza – you are going to get the same treatment if you attack us. We are going to wipe you off the face of the Earth,” he added.
Israel does not have the capabilities to sustain a bombing campaign in Iran without US support, and both Iran and Hezbollah have formidable militaries with advanced missiles. But Barkat’s threat is not hollow since Israel possesses a secret nuclear weapons stockpile, making it the only nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East.
The Greeks called it Hubris leading to Nemesis …
The Bible called it pride leading to the fall …
Yes, and it’s difficult to see how this path leads to anything other than disaster, for Israel and the region.
The entire situation seems entirely fragile, which adds much to my own concerns…
Relax Donna. Keep your quick thinking self free of doubt. Idiot Israelis and rapturists may have a death wish but they are a small blemish on human spirit.
So, the whole world gets threatened with death and destruction just because American blowhard “leaders” cannot and will not hold Israel accountable for its actions, including a FALSE FLAG event that was steered to maximum death count by having a military stand down during Hamas incursion into Israel! This wasn’t Israel’s 911 (another OBVIOUS false flag!) but it’s J6! Many people are being punished/murdered for the actions of the false flaggers! And if there ARE enough sane people in Israel who can avoid the anger and think clearly, they too will eventually try to hold their own “leaders” accountable for this! Let’s just wait and see who gets “fired” for this alleged “intelligence failure”! No one in W’s administration was fired for the “intelligence failure” that allowed 911 to happen!
Took 7 hours to respond to the breach. Everything fishy about that.
I think they didn’t believe such a peaceful Hamas organization would never do such a thing.
Those young men who broke out of the concentration camp to do what they did, which was an atrocity, did it knowing full well they were not coming back. Some 1500 (Israeli count) died. Every one of them were probably born in that concentration camp. It was all they knew. I am not defending what they did. It was inevitable.
dude
So when Israeli and US intelligence gets it right you call them warmongers but when they fail is a false flag?
How convenient.
Cannot reason with your contradictions.
Don Julio, Don Bacon and Leominie Alpaca, how are you three today.
No – they are warmongers even when they rarely get it right, which has nothing to do with false flags and outright lies.
Master in paper tigering…!
This “war” will never end unless the Israelis and the Palestinians can find a way to move forward with a peaceful coexistence. Until that happens, other parties will interfere or inject themselves based upon their own self-interest. By that, I mean countries like Iran and the U.S.
Well good luck with that. I do suggest that we don’t waste 4 billion a year on aid to Israel. If they weren’t quite so militarily dominant they might have to adopt different tactics
$38 Billion.
slow down there brother – – i just googled that sh*t and this is what i got = https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/
freakin Israel gets the lion’s share of US money even though our own US children could use some new schoolbooks and school lunches.
what
US federal spending on the Department of Education, 2022: $102.8 billion And that’s just federal spending. It doesn’t count state spending, which is much larger.
US aid to Israel, 2022, according to your link: $3.3 billion.
Not a very big lion’s share.
ok then, that is $3.3 billion that U.S. children are not getting.
but some other dude’s children on the opposite side of the planet are getting that $$, courtesy of U.S. tax dollars.
edit) = but let’s pretend that uncle sam does not play favorites when it comes to everybody else’s children.
what
Absolutely right. But it is good for our arms dealers.
First, stop Israel from grabbing more Palestinians lands. I believe Israel will reduce Gaza and Gaza City to rubble, force more Palestinians to go South, then shoot at them again. Israel will have Egypt open he jail cell at the Rafah crossing. The Egyptian leader, Sisi, will not allow the Palestinians to integrate into Egyptian society, instead, will usher them to the Sinai desert, to die. What will be done then. Nothing. The world will not come to the aid of the Palestinians. They will be forgotten. Historians will omit them in History. Genocide, pure and simple.
Yeah yeah, but but not Ukrainians.
Russia can kick them out of their own country and that’s alright.
Hypocrite.
What Russia has done is send a loud message to the U.S. and NATO to stop sabre rattling in the form of gathering up countries to surround Russia, and to protect the Russian speaking UKRAINE CITIZENS in the Donbas from further bombing by Kiev.
oh give it up finally Julio. all Russia has done so far is to prevent Ukraine from further menacing the regions between Russia and Ukraine where the people actually speak the Russian language. and in fact most of that region expressed a desire for their independence from Ukraine. Russia freakin said what they were going to do beforehand and then they did exactly that and no more.
Most of the people from that region?
Dude, GTFOH. Have you ever heard of demographics. It’s free on google.
You need to stop watching RT news.
Really, Russia invaded and sacrificed a quarter million of its troops to “prevent menacing the region”?
What a dumb move.
Russia said it would never invade Ukraine. That it was all a Western hysteria
I wont give it up, man. i will call up your Russian team BS.
wow you are not even pretending to be smart any more, are you.
how many agents post comments under your moniker Don Julio ?
Until the root cause which is the occupation of Palestine by zionist apartheid israeli regime is resolved. Brace for more wars.
Or one major war. Little agreements and skirmishes added up to WWI. Both of my grandfathers served during that war. One had a lung affected by gas (our gas) that blew back on our soldiers. We, the U.S.,entered not for any altruistic motive, but to prevent JP Morgan bank from losing more money.
I must agree with that
And just maybe Russia & China.
Yes, Russia and China, and who knows who in the next 50 years.
And Louie, just how is that meant to happen when Israel is in violation of dozens of UN mandates and articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention and not held responsible?
All the Palestinians want is the Israeli retreat from the ‘67 borders and to be left in PEACE. Send those West Bank settlers back to under the rocks from whence they came.
The current State of Israel vs 1939 Nazi Germany: In the 21st century, the former became what they beheld.
Iran has had a long time to prepare. What I worry about is Israel hitting Iran with a tactical nuke or two. How will the world react? Iran does not have nuclear weapons.
Iran does not need nuclear weapons to obliterate chosen Israelis.
According to US Marine Scott Ritter: if Israel nukes Iran, Israel will then cease to exist. “It’s not a big country, folks!”
Israel may hesitate, but it would nuke Iran
and US will wring its hands and excuse it.
There is NO WAY Israel would engage full bore
with conventional weapons (unless US does 98% )
The Beirut barrack bombing that kills something like 300 Marines might be a reality at every base.
220 US Marines, 18 sailors, three soldiers. The rest were French military personnel and civilians.
Subsequent such attacks have been less effective due to e.g. Jersey barriers and other methods of keeping vehicles more distant. The Khobar Towers bomb had to be detonated outside the base fence.
No, but they have ten thousand missiles aimed at very precise points in Israel.
The scariest spot is somewhere in Tel Aviv where there are chlorine plants.
No one is nuking anybody.
We will see if you are right.
Israel has a mad man as a leader. He has said that if Hezbollah gets involved (Hezbollah has 100,000 rockets and who knows what), Israel will attack Iran.
Nuclear terrorism is old hat. Israel is terrorized by tens of thousands of missiles able to hit chosen windows and tens of thousands of inexpensive unarmed decoys, Israel and the US combined do not have the nuclear capability to blanket destroy decentralized and ready to go missile swarms.
Terrorist Israel is behind the times.
Some say that after leveling Northern Gaza, killing many thousands, forcing the remainder through the Rafah opening into the Sinai desert to die, Israel may use tactical nukes on Iran. If Hezbollah gets involved, which they have to if they want to remain a viable organization, then all bets are off.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/lszAB3TzFtRaU/giphy-downsized-small.mp4
Nice people to have as friends!
God’s given right to brag but needs US backup to fight Hamas.
This is very disturbing news because i have never heard Hezbollah nor Israeli officials chanting “Death to Israel and Death to America”
Too busy with Palestinian genocide to take time out.
“look what’s happening in Gaza”
Exactly and now you know why Iran invests so much missiles, precisely because they DON’T want to become the next Gaza (or Syria).
Oh look – Israel proclaiming what they accuse Hamas of saying re “wiping off the face of the earth” exaggerations. That has been used by the Israelis referring to Hamas (that Israeli created as a counter to the PLA) so they could say “we have no one to negotiate with” as the land theft and settlement encroachments continued unabated.
This is frightening talk from a nuclear power. Netanyahu is a terrible man. But his excesses are a danger & threat to Israel too now that Russia & China have been drawn in to this humanitarian crisis. Where this goes nobody knows…!!!!!!!!!!
I’m not up on the Israeli political structure- can anyone confirm or refute that the Israel Minister of Economy has the power to ‘wipe Iran off the face of the earth’? How far down the chain of command is he? I have a feeling that the Palestinians (and Hezbollah, and many other assorted players) are ready to call Israel’s bluff.
Question to Israel:
How sure are you that Iran does not have nuclear bomb technology?
Be a damned shame if you thought that they didn’t when they do have that technology by now.
IAEA and the Pentagon argue that they do not have the bomb. Yet. How would they deliver one? No ICBM. No high speed bombers. No subs.
Okay, this direct threat of massive nuclear first use as pure aggression requires Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.
Was that the goal?
I think policy and the ultimate goal is made in Hell. The whole world is going mad, not just overseas, but in the US as well. There is a break from reason as seen in denying science, changing axioms and pronouns and forcing people to adhere to the irrational at expense of their jobs and reputations. Note the US is heading into a helter skelter mode and a racial free for all may come also. Bananas all around!
Remember Gen. Wesley Clark said Iran is the last country to be taken out. And, all the countries he mentioned have lots of oil.
New York Times blog (Lede, 4/18/12) wrote up the Al Jazeera interview (“Israeli Minister Agrees Ahmadinejad Never Said Israel ‘Must Be Wiped Off the Map.’”) Though the Lede‘s lede was somewhat grudging, suggesting the Persian language was partly to blame for the confusion (“In a reminder that Persian rhetoric is not always easy for English-speakers to interpret…”), it nevertheless indicated a clean break from earlier media insistence that the threatening remarks, coupled with a supposed Iranian nuclear weapons program, posed an existential threat to Israel.
The Times has used the shopworn Ahmadinejad canard on several occasions. “Wipe Israel ‘Off the Map,’ Iranian Says,” was the paper’s October 27, 2005 headline; a January 19, 2010 report stated matter-of-factly: “The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. He has also denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.” Other Times stories have acknowledged doubts about the claim (6/11/06, 1/8/11), but the paper has never conclusively established the context and meaning of remarks, despite the fact that Jonathan Steele, an Iranian expert who writes for the London Guardian, tried to explain it to Times reporter Ethan Bronner (6/11/06) :
Nothing but frustrated whining…!
Oh well, then they don’t need the carriers from the US.
1–When Iran speaks of wiping Israel off the map, it doesn’t mean the mass slaughter of the country’s Jews but rather eliminating the Jewish state’s “imposed regime,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday.
“The disappearance of Israel does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people, because we have nothing against [Jews],” Khamenei said, speaking alongside senior Iranian officials at the so-called 33rd International Islamic Unity Conference.
1–Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor acknowledged on Al Jazeera English (4/14/12) that Iranian leaders have never called for Israel to be “wiped” off the map.
Meridor agreed with interviewer Teymoor Nabili’s suggestion that the supposed remarks were never actually made; Iranian leaders, Meridor said,
come basically ideologically, religiously, with the statement that Israel is an unnatural creature, it will not survive. They didn’t say “we’ll wipe it out,” you are right, but [that] it will not survive, it is a cancerous tumor, it should be removed.
Hostile words, to be sure, but not the menacing threat endlessly reported in corporate U.S. media in recent years. (Iran, Israel and “wiped off the map” occur together more than 8,500 times in the Nexis news database in the last seven years.)
https://fair.org/home/now-they-tell-us-iran-didnt-actually-threaten-to-wipe-israel-off-the-map/
If Iran plays their cards correctly, they may get a Nuclear weapon sooner than they expect. With free delivery included.