With the very real possibility that the assassination of Hamas figure Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut earlier this week could expand the ongoing war, Israel seemingly increased the odds Thursday with a flurry of attacks on Hezbollah targets in Southern Lebanon. These hit an observation post and multiple infrastructure targets. They also reportedly struck an anti-tank squad.
Arouri was instrumental in brokering the major Israel-Hamas hostage exchange, and was reportedly trying to get another one going before Israel killed him. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in a televised speech that the assassination would not go unpunished and hitting Beirut was a very big deal indeed.
But while top Likud figures were crowing about the killing, many Israelis were openly expressing concern that the death of Arouri effectively put to rest the hope of a second hostage exchange. For those who still have family members held by Hamas, this is clearly nothing to celebrate.
And yet that may have been the point for Israeli hawks, who are not really on board for the exchange, and are more than happy to put the kibosh on a clear path to peace. If that means expanding the war into Lebanon, some of them are very much also on board with making that happen too.
Perennial hawk Avigdor Lieberman is openly calling for a 50-year occupation of Southern Lebanon to punish Hezbollah and establish a permanent buffer zone, effectively another occupied territory. This isn’t exactly official Israeli policy right now, but if it were to become so, nothing would facilitate it so much as provoking a full war with Hezbollah.
It’s not clear how many open-ended wars Israel can fight at once, but with the US openly supporting them with all the weapons they want, it seems at least some officials are trying to put that question to the test to find out.
Israel’s always pouring gasoline on the fire………………………………………
And Biden is filling their gas cans. With our $
And Biden is filling their gas cans. With our $
Is Israel provoking Hezbollah into firing off several thousand rockets into Tel Aviv, and the military airfields? Hezbollah has been careful not to escalate. This interview with Max Blumenthal on Judging Freedom is one to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nENBRE8ykvM
The insanity of all of this is that none of this warmongering is going to defeat Hamas or make Israel one iota safer.
I think the idea is to drain the ocean, the medium in which they live. Still it is as you say beyond insanity. Clearly the Washington/Israeli Zionists’ genocidal rampage is gathering steam at a ferocious pace for at least regional war. The arab war councils must be intense right now. And the Zionists are not in a strong position. The whole world is outraged, the US arsenal depleted, the USM an uneliable fighting force, and the US population in deep war fatigue.
The genocidal rampage is the plan of Israel’s enemies.
No it is Israel. They have not exactly held back in their effort to make any doubt about that completely and utterly untenable by any person in the least bit sane. Not in deeds, nor in words. Very few, or more accurately extremely few Israeli dissent from the pro-genocide stance. So it’s a bit of a package deal: you support Israel, you get to defend genocide head on or get to become mad with the cognitive distress of denying reality.
Indeed. Quite the contrary, in fact. But the crazies don’t want to make Israel safer in any reasonable way. They want to establish Eretz Israel, from the river to the sea (some of them would take Jordan, too, if they could), and they believe, bizarrely, that provoking a wider war might give them cover for additional ethnic cleansing/genocide.
It is the axis aligned against and planning to destroy Israel that are the warmongers. Look how they persecute their own citizens-dissidents,women,gays ect.
No, Israel and all their backers are not trying to deceive you. It is not a grand conspiracy involving Israel and the entire West and all the Israel Lobby in their respective countries who are trying to lull you into a false picture that they are genocidal maniacs hell bent on war and betting on the US to be drawn in to fight for them. They actually are. All of it is actually true. I know you cannot accept it and still regard yourself as a good person, that is not possible. The cognitive dissonance you must experience testifies to your struggle to cling on to your bleak and fading moral fibre.
Israel/US is losing this war very badly. They therefore need to escalate – to try and lure Hezbollah out of its current highly effective strategic posture of restraint, strategic patience & symmetric/proportionate response (eg Israel kills 3 Hez, Hezbollah kills 3 IDF).
It’s exactly the same playbook that the US/NATO/ Kiev have been trying in Ukraine (and like Israel, failing to achieve their objectives) vis-a-vis Russia.
Like the Russians vis-a-vis Ukraine, I get the sense that Hezbollah knows exactly what the Israelis/US are up to & will continue maintaining their strategic posture, as while it will cause pain and they’ll lose guys, it will also inevitably lead to Israel’s defeat.
I agree, except that I don’t think the US wants to escalate, mostly because there’s no way that escalation can help the Biden administration. Israel, though, appears almost desperate to escalate, in large measure because the wackos in Tel Aviv want to drag the US into a regional war, with Iran as Enemy #1.
“Israel/US is losing this war very badly” They are? How?
They have destroyed much of Gaza. But Hamas is still operational. The Red Sea has been closed to Israeli shipping. Hezbollah hasn’t even attempted to play rough. Israel has lost the moral high ground.
Israel has lost the moral high ground,as there is a perception in this world that Jews deserve to take it, matter what the circumstances.
The conflating of Jews with Israeli, which is a Zionist effort is no longer being bought anymore. And with the exception of the US and former colonalist hasbeens of the EU the world has gotten pretty exhausted with the eternal charade of Israeli playing the victim while extremely brutally oppressing, occupying, starving, murdering, torturing and dehumanizing another people in a brutal Apartheid state of Jewish supremacism that exceeds that of the sordid past of white supremacism in South Africa. So yeah that and the lecturing of the West on human rights and such aldrady had pretty much lost all of it’s credibility, but with the support for Israel’s genocide that has even lost it’s comical content.
Hamas is winning in Gaza. So much so that the IDF has withdrawn. The so called ‘elite’ IDF Golani Brigade had been torn to shreds.
Hezbollah has Israel on the ropes in the North. No surprises there, they kicked Israel’s butt in 2006 and will do so again if needed.
The war is killing Israel’s economy. That’s before the Houthi blockade of all Israeli bound vessels to Eilat via the Red Sea.
This is a disaster for Israel. It will only get worse the longer Netyanahu & Co remain in power. Good riddance.
3000 Hamas casualties versus 300 Israeli soldiers killed-but in a sense yo are right,as jihadists love death more than life.
Hezbollah has a tunnel network that far surpasses Hamas’. Considering the strike today on the Meron airbase on Mt Jarmaq was just a trailer for what is to come, the Zionists are biting off more than they can chew.
They can’t even deal with the angry yellow jacket nest warfare of the Palestinians, now they want the Lebanese too? Lemme know how that works out for ya!