Tuesday, September 03, 2019

  • Tuesday, September 03, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon


Israel's National Library blog has a very interesting story about the passenger of the Marine Carp USNS:

The USNS Marine Carp was originally built for the purpose of transporting military forces to Europe and back. Following the conclusion of World War II, the vessel was repurposed as a  passenger ship and set on a regular, commercial route. She embarked out of New York, crossed the Atlantic, and docked in Athens, Beirut, Haifa, and Alexandria. At the end of the route, she returned to New York via Italy. During the post-war period, the Marine Carp transported many American Jews to the Land of Israel in order to volunteer on kibbutzim, attend youth gatherings, or simply immigrate to the Land of Israel legally (if they were able to make it past the border checkpoints successfully). The ship set out from New York every five weeks. On May 4th, 1948, Marine Carp embarked on its regular route. There were many Jewish travelers aboard, including Jews from the Land of Israel studying or living in the United States who were answering a general enlistment call put out by the Hebrew Yishuv which was already fighting for its life in the War of Independence.

When the ship reached Beirut, a stop on its regular route, 400 Lebanese soldiers were waiting for the passengers at port. The Lebanese authorities did not want to allow Jewish men of military age to continue on to Israel. Indeed, 69 passengers, all Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 50, were forcibly removed from the ship. Among the detainees were 41 American citizens, 23 fresh Israeli citizens, 3 Canadians, and 2 others.

The ship’s crew tried to resist, but their efforts were in vain. Daniel Doron, another passenger (and a great-grandson of Zerah Barnett, co-founder of the city of Petah Tikva). testified:

“Most of the ship’s crew were black. We made friends with them. We would sing with them, drink with them and eat with them. They refused to leave Beirut. They said, ‘We are not leaving, not moving the ship. We are not leaving Beirut without the Israelis.’ It was only when the ambassador convinced them that the incident would be resolved within a week that they agreed to continue on their way.”

The detainees were taken by truck to the city of Baalbek, where they were held in an abandoned French military camp.

The detainees were taken by truck to the city of Baalbek, where they were held in an abandoned French military camp. Daniel Doron reflected on the drive to the camp:

“We drove all night. We departed at 10 o’clock or 12 o’clock at night. That was the most dangerous part because the trucks – Lebanese military trucks – were in bad shape. The brakes did not work very well. They bounced up and down, you know…”

Some of the passengers complained about how the U.S. was handling their detention, and even accused the U.S. consulate in Beirut of anti-Semitism. The United States condemned the refusal of the Lebanese to release the detainees, causing a minor diplomatic incident between the two countries.

So, what was the catalyst that eventually led to the liberation of the captive Jews? What finally contributed to stepping up U.S. efforts to end the affair? The official answer has never been revealed.

According to testimony from Daniel Doron, a family member was able to speak to then-US President Harry Truman about the issue. Truman was, apparently, able to find a solution to the crisis over the course of the two weeks that followed the meeting.

“Truman said, ‘What?!’ Then he told him the story. Truman fumed and went to the red phone. He picked it up, and the head of covert services was on the other end. He said, ‘Listen, my friend, either you free these people within two weeks or you can look for another job.’”

The American detainees refused to accept the release that had been arranged for them without their Israeli counterparts. Lebanese attempts to separate the populations had failed. Finally, on June 30th, almost a month and a half after the incident, the Lebanese agreed to release all of the detainees. They were sent back to New York, but many of them were unable to obtain a visa and were forced to stay on Ellis Island. From there, they again departed with the Marine Carp. Some of the passengers, anxious to return to Israel, had not waited to arrive on American shores. They chose to hop off the ship at other ports and found creative ways to get back to Israel.
Some details are filled in by a passenger on the ship,  Elihu King, including the antisemitism of the US Consul in Beirut:
The Marine Carp was a semi-converted Liberty ship, and accommodation was frugal. The women were bunked six to a cabin, two tiers of three bunks. The men slept in huge bays with racks of pipemetal framed steel spring bunks five high. By tacit understanding or something, we Jewish men, about 75 of us, were given one bay to ourselves though it was not full. Some were Israelis going home. A few were from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere, off to fight in Palestine. There were some old religious Jews. About 24 of us were native born US citizens fully covered with passports, visas, and blue jeans. Oded Bourla was the designated commander of us Americans including 5 of the women in the "first class" cabins.

The Atlantic was very rough and most of us on board were badly sea sick. I avoided being sick by sleeping on deck and never going below until I got my sea legs. There were some deck chairs lashed to a rail on a hatch cover and that was my place for the first three days and nights.

While cruising through a now calm Mediterranean we got the news on the ship's radio that the STATE OF ISRAEL had been declared. Somehow the Arab passengers on the "Marine Carp" disappeared, maybe they moved away from where we were. Us Jews gathered in the dining hall and roared out our joy and pride. We sang "Hatikvah" and a thousand other anthems and songs, danced the hora until we dropped, cried, laughed, and carried on. The fears and doubts were kept inside, for that evening.

The crew joined us. Their union was Communist led and they were radicals all, and they were very much on our side.

...

The captain of the "Marine Carp" (we later learned) was concerned about the well being of his Jewish passengers when the ship called in at Beirut on its way to Haifa. It was an American ship and so we were unlikely to be bothered, but still...... He contacted the US Consul General in Beirut by radiotelephone and asked for instructions. The story I heard, from good sources, is that the Consul told him that there would be no trouble, he was to bring the ship in.

At 5 in the morning we pulled into the harbor at Beirut and tied up alongside a pier. The US Consul was there to greet us. So were about 400 Lebanese Marines, in tight uniforms of blue wool - must have been awfully hot for them, when the sun came out fully. The Marines came up the gangplank and set up machine gun posts in the main corridors. An announcement was made on the loudspeakers: all Jewish passengers were to assemble in the main lounge.

We didn't do that. We bunched up in little groups throughout the ship talking and trying to work out what to do. My group crowded around Oded Bourla in the shower room next to our sleeping bay. Some of the wild ones said we should fight. Two of them had pistols. We gabbled like a bunch of geese. There were an awful lot of the Lebanese. Then another announcement on the PA system: if the Jewish men would come along and be "interned" in Lebanon, the Jewish women would be allowed to continue their voyage to Haifa unmolested. The women were under Lebanese guard while we decided. This was clearly a serious threat. Most of the women were wives of husbands on the ship; couples had been separated because of the barracks-like sleeping arrangements.

We decided to submit. The Israelis among us were fearful but they led in that decision. Us Americans felt confident we'd be repatriated in a few days at most.

The two guns were stripped down to small parts and hidden on (in, actually) the bodies of a number of the men, as was ammunition. Somebody had a compass. Each took from his bags what he thought best. And so we slowly shambled up to the main lounge. The US Consul was there, and he collected the passports of the US citizens (and, it transpired, turned them over to the Lebanese commander). Some of us passed notes to the crew, for our families. In glum, defeated dribs and drabs we went down the gangplank and climbed onto Lebanese Army trucks. The Lebanese left behind some old, sick men, but 69 of us were taken away. The Jewish women waved and called to us as the trucks drove away from the pier.

The trucks drove through the city of Beirut and out through its suburbs. Through small towns and valleys and villages we drove, until the pressure on my bladder became extreme and I pissed off the rear of my truck after getting sign-langauge permission from the Marines who guarded us. After what seemed like about four hours, the last parts climbing high into the cool hills, we arrived at Baalbek. We were taken to what had once been a French Foreign Legion barracks, a handsome building with large rooms opening out onto a long balcony on the second floor. At the head of the stairs, a washroom with a water tap, a pissing trough, and an Arab squat latrine.

In the three large barracks rooms were piles of boards of nice, soft pine. Three of these for a sleeping pallet and a thin blanket, a tin bowl and a spoon - these were issued to each of us. The guards turned out to be Palestinians, refugees. The Lebanese themselves acted frightened of us, very nervous. Some of the Palestinians were allright, some were sadistic bastards.

We were given a meal: a small cube of goats' milk cheese, a radish, a green onion, two pitas (the large flat kind, not the pocket kind). We could get water from the tap. That's what we got every day for our three meals though sometimes we each got a large spoonful of beans in tomato sauce for dinner instead of the cheese. I weighed 150 lbs when I got there, and 110 lbs when we got out six weeks later.

And so to bed, worried and fearful about what tomorrow would bring.

The morning brought the US Consul, all the way from Beirut. We all gathered together to meet with him. He told us that were a real nuisance, that the Lebanese were treating us very well, and that the families of the Americans were working for our release. He heard our requests for medicine for the two of us who were down with severe measles, and agreed to get us what we needed, we could give him the money now.

We had elected some leaders from among us, and they mentioned that the last time an American citizen had been taken by force from a ship (not even a US flag ship, at that) the US Navy had a cruiser in the harbor the next day and the citizen was released under the threat of our guns. The Consul assured us that there was no danger of that happening now. The Consul showed a marked distaste for Jews; of course he was accredited to an Arab state, so that would explain it.

(It was not until the 1960s when I subpoenaed my files from the US State Department in connection with my citizenship case that I felt the reality of the discrimination. The important document about me started out thus: "This obstreperous member of a despised race.......". The US Consul in Beirut had endorsed it thus: "Right!"). So much for the Consul. When we read in the local French language newspaper that he had been on the podium at an anti Israel rally at the American University of Beirut and had seen fit to stay there while a resolution calling for our (the US prisoners) death was passed by acclamation, we were not really surprised.)

The next big event for us was the Selection. (That term refers to the procedure in the concentration camps in Europe, where those who were to be killed that day were separated from the rest). We had contacts with some of the guards, who would bring us news and stuff for money, so we were prepared. The camp commander showed up with a specially big and tough retinue of guards, and called us all together. He had all our passports before him, and told us that the Israelis would be taken to a different location. We had discussed this possibility and it seemed to us that this would enable the Lebanese to kill the Israelis without risking the consequences of killing citizens of the USA or Canada. So the night before we had all - Americans, Canadians, the two with Argentinian passports, and the Israelis (who had British passports) - shaved our heads so we would not be easily identified from our passport photographs.

The first man was called forward and asked his name. "Yisrael ben Yisrael", he said, "Israel son of Israel". And so said the second shaven-headed man, and the third, and the Selection was called off.

After we'd been there for a month, and our families' efforts to get the US State Department to move on our case seemed to be stuck despite the best efforts of then-Congressman Jacob Javits of New York, we started to plan an escape. We had some Israelis among us who knew the topography pretty well, and they worked out a route to Israel (though we had no idea where the actual front line might be). We had the weapons we'd smuggled in, and accepted the fact that we would have casualties. We were tired now from poor nourishment, and dispirited from being prisoners, but we felt we had to do it.

Just as we were getting ourselves ready, storing food at the expense of eating it and so on, we got some hints that we might be released. Then the US Consul came to visit. The Lebanese offered to release us and let us go back to the USA, providing we would each swear never to attempt to go to Israel. That included the Israelis. We agreed. An oath under duress is okay.

Then we waited some more.

One morning, the Lebanese Army trucks came grinding into the courtyard. We needed no further notice, put our belongings into our pockets and lined up with the weakest and sick ones at the head of the line....just in case. But no, they took us all. Huddled together in heaps at the bottom of the truck, we were too weak to sit upright and too scared that it might not be for real to sing or joke around. But yes, they took us to the pier, and there was the same "Marine Carp", this time on its way back to the USA on another round trip.

Weakly, still very fearful that the ordeal was not really over, we climbed up the gangplank. Crew members helped us on board and down to the sleeping bay and up onto the bunks. Later they gave us a festive meal of turkey and all the trimmings, ice cream, the lot. We gorged ourselves and soon returned the goodies, which our shrunken and tender tummies refused to hold.

The ship now carried many refugees from the war zone, Americans going home, many of them Jews. I met some politicals who told me with great excitement that they had a message for us from Haganah!!! Special arrangements had been made, they said, and the ship would make an unscheduled call at Palermo where Haganah awaited us and would take us off and on to Israel! Huzzah!

As they say in Israel, "Lo dubim v'lo yaar", "No bears and no forest".

Yes, we did pull in at Palermo. But nobody, it seemed, awaited us. Of those who decided to make a break for it anyway, some bought their crew papers from crew members, some went over the side and swam ashore. Three of us, lacking in funds or anyway experience or imagination, pried fillings out of our teeth and went to the captain and begged to see a dentist. The captain agreed, and called an escort of eighteen Carabinieri to take us to the dentist. Foiled!

The three of us, scrawny young Dave from Montreal, hulking Big Joe ("Gonna kill me a thousand Ayrabs!") from New York, and scrawny young me. We were taken in a truck to the center of town. Off we got and went upstairs to the dentist's office leaving two Carabinieri to guard the downstairs entrance. Once inside, Joe offered to go first. Dave and I sat in the waiting room, with two Carabinieri guarding the door and the rest sitting around in the room with us.

What the hell, I thought, what the hell. I can't get out of this. But I can give it a try, and then won't be so ashamed when they drag me back to the ship. I had stuffed my pockets with packs of American cigarettes before I left the ship, primo currency in Europe in those days. I stood up, walked briskly to the door, handed a pack of cigarettes to each of the guards, said "Vino, vino" with great brio, and walked out. To my surprise, nobody stopped me. (Why did I say "Vino"? Well, I couldn't think of anything else, that's why). I walked briskly down the stairs. The guards at the street door barred my way with their carbines. I handed them each a pack of cigarettes and said my magic "Vino" at them. They seemed confused but did not stop me. I marched down the main street of Palermo with calm and confidence until after a minute I heard them yelling and their pounding feet behind me so I picked mine up and ran like hell.

I ducked into a shop, a pharmacy, and the woman behind the counter, quickly seeing that I was running from the police, grabbed my arm and pulled me down to a crouch behind a counter where I couldn't be seen from the street. After a minute the chase seemed to have passed me by so I got up, said "Grazie" to the woman, and walked out of the shop.

Turns out that all the Carabinieri ran down the street after me, so Dave Sidorsky, finding himself all alone in the waiting room, stuck his head into the dentist's office and told Joe Nagdimon and then he walked out and down the stairs and out the front door and away. Nagdimon chose to stay and be taken back to the ship.

There were over twenty of us who got off the ship in Palermo, but ten went back to the ship before it sailed. The rest of us were rounded up into a cheap restaurant by street urchins who seemed to understand what was going on. We had a meal, and decided to look for Jews to help us. In Palermo there were none left so we took a train up to Naples where we found some but they wanted nothing to do with us because the police were after us and sent us up to the Jewish Agency in Rome where we finally found people to take care of us.

After some more adventures in a DP camp near Rome, I was assigned to lead a bunch of sturdy young Bulgarian Jews on their way to Israel in a chartered airplane. This was about 9 July.
Later trips of the Marine Carp avoided stopping in Beirut and Alexandria as a result of this incident.

(h/t Irene)




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Monday, September 02, 2019

From Ian:

One Holocaust descendant's fight for justice: 'They stole not just our land, but my family's history'
Melbourne doctor Ann Drillich, the daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, is a rare kind of Jew who owns a Catholic church. The brick structure, Our Lady of the Scapular, stands on Drillich’s ancestral property in the medieval town of Tarnów, near Kraków. Her late mother, Blanka Drillich née Goldman, inherited the land at the end of the second world war. Aged 18, Blanka was the sole living heir to the Goldman estate, all others perished in the town’s ghetto: she found her mother shot dead in her bed.

But Drillich has never been inside her church.

“I tried to enter it once,” she recalls. “It was locked.”

The reason: in 1987, with the help of a trusted friend of the Drillichs, the Catholic church in Poland effectively stole the land and built the house of worship on the site. The Drillichs didn’t know. Ann Drillich only learned of the theft in 2010 when, as heir, she ordered a public records search about her family’s estate.

“At first it took a while to settle in, the shock of the betrayal,” she says. “And the idea that behind the injustice is a church.

“My mother’s family was one of the most prominent in town. It was like they had stolen not just our land, but my family’s history.”

And so after the shock settled, she sued.

“How could I not?” she asks.

So began an expensive, traumatic and escalating battle that pitched this meticulous woman with a scientific sensibility against a powerful religious institution.

The church appealed. Stalled. Obstructed. Counter-sued. The Polish courts, meanwhile, delivered justice to Drillich, again and again. And yet again, in a final ruling in 2016 when three district court judges found the church had acted in “bad faith” when it acquired the “abandoned” land. (h/t Yerushalimey)

Rockland County GOP plotted 'anti-Semitic' ad months ago: sources
Numerous Rockland County Republican elected officials in February previewed the controversial video put out by the party that critics have branded as anti-Semitic for warning of a “takeover” by the Hasidic Jewish community, The Post has learned.

The early look at the digital attack ad — some six months before its public release — shows that the targeting of the ultra-orthodox community was a well-thought-out, deliberate strategy, sources said.

No one in the room objected to it, a GOP source who attended the February meeting told The Post.

“The video was introduced by Lawrence Garvey [the county GOP leader] and played in front of a room of 20-35 people. The entire video was played with Ed Day [the Rockland County executive] there,” the source said.

“We were told we are raising money for the county legislators’ races and unveiling a strategy and we saw the video then. I thought it was a bad strategy,” the source said.

But the source didn’t raise an objection at the time.
New York State Republicans Remove Video That Roils Local Jewish Community
In a tweet, the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote, “This video is absolutely despicable. It is pure anti-Semitism … . The Rockland County Republican Party is an embarrassment and has no place associating itself with our party.”

Dov Hikind, a former Democratic New York state assemblyman from Brooklyn, tweeted that the video is a “shocking & brazen display of antisemitism! [sic]The Republican Party of Rockland Cty [sic] has the audacity to put out this vile trash that amounts to ‘the Jews are taking over’ with ‘Jewish money and power’!”

Following the criticism, the video was removed from the Rockland County Republican Party’s Facebook page, although others have downloaded it, and it can still be found online.

Despite the backlash, Rockland County Republicans insist their message must be heard. Lawrence Garvey, the county’s Republican chairman, claimed the issue is not a religious one, but a matter of “right and wrong.”

“For those not living in Rockland, it is harder to see a real and unique problem that exists here. The people of Rockland have become desperate for attention to the problems facing our communities and many live every day with the threat of losing their homes and neighborhoods,” he wrote in a statement. “Anyone who dares speak up about overdevelopment, corruption or education is immediately labeled as anti-Semitic without any concern for facts or without any idea of the true issues at hand.”

Fellow Republican, Rockland County Executive Ed Day, said in a statement, “While the content of the video is factual, the tone and undercurrent is unacceptable. … I have a great deal of respect for our Jewish neighbors and want them to know that as their county executive, I will always stand up against hatred. That said, the concerns raised about overdevelopment are accurate, well-grounded and desperately need to be addressed, but must be done in a way free of rhetoric and rancor.”

  • Monday, September 02, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Amnesty International made a short video about how to avoid being racist (and Islamophobic) and how to call out when others act that way:



I want to concentrate on #4, Watch Your Language, about how grouping people together can fuel stereotypes and strip people of their humanity.


There is a major exception to this rule, that every progressive and woke person seems to happily violate, all the time.

Here's a quick look at a search on Amnesty's site for the word "settler" used in the context of Israel.



Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are a monolith of rowdy gangs who attack Arabs for no reason and steal land. They are never humanized - even in the rare instances that Amnesty condemns an attack on a settler, it is combined with an Amnesty attack on settlers themselves (using a "both sides must avoid violence" formulation that never occurs when Jews can be blamed alone.) 

Settlers are stereotyped, demonized and scapegoated all the time - without looking at their point of view, without differentiating between religious or secular or even mentioning the many Arab Israelis who have also moved across the Green Line. 

Amnesty won't change, and neither will the self righteous progressives who are quick to accuse others of bigotry and who remain stubbornly blind to their own.



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Rhetoric – Outrage

One of the most interesting things about the rhetoric used by the BDS “movement” and similar Israel-disliking organizations is that the BDSers’ life on the psychological extreme means that the rhetorical tactics they employ also tend towards the extreme.

When one is dealing with a “normal” political situation, there have traditionally been forces that keep discussion within general bounds of civility.  Until recently, candidates primarily dropped innuendos about their opponent’s inadequacy for the job, while surrogates got much more specific and accusatory.  But the simple fact that most of those running for office still feel the need to be perceived as even-tempered and fair implies an understanding that public discourse needs to follow certain civilized rules. 

The public is also interested in variety, which means using the same tactic over and over again is likely to bring diminishing returns, especially if that tactic is perceived as controversial or extreme.  And one of the rhetoric tactics that tends to wear out its welcome fast is Argumentation from Outrage.

Argumentation from Outrage is considered in informal fallacy, that is a fallacy not based on breaking any formal logical rules (such as All Dogs are Animals, All Cats are Animals, therefore all Dogs are Cats – a formal fallacy which is wrong even if you substitute letters, imaginary animals or nonsense words for Cats, Dogs and Animals).  But with an informal fallacy, the actual content of the argument is relevant or, in the case of Argumentation from Outrage, how that content is presented.

Argumentation from Outrage is usually brought up in discussions of cable TV or radio political talk show hosts who seem to be able to break into a screaming fit at the slightest provocation, although in our current political culture it has travelled from this venue to the candidates themselves (at least as of now).

In the contexts of shock-political media, Argumentation from Outrage is meant to short circuit reasonable debate by raising the temperature to such a degree that the only choices an opponent to the screamer has are to (1) capitulate; or (2) begin screaming back (usually a losing proposition for a talk show guest inexperienced at public howling who does not control the microphone or editing booth).  And while such a tactic may play well to a talk show’s fan base which gathers to watch their hero put wrong-minded guests in their place, most people who play in politics put the brakes on such tactics (especially when playing before a mixed audience of friends, foes and undecideds).

But as we have seen, people playing the BDS game have no such brakes for the simple reason that “the audience” for them are not real people, but simply props in a fantasy-laden drama going on in the boycotters own heads.  Which is why if you point out the inconsistencies in their arguments, they’ll fly into a rage.  If you point out their hypocrisy of snoozing while Hamas missiles fly but rousing themselves into righteous fury when Israel shoots back, they’ll fly into an even bigger rage.  If you point out that their “movement” draws its strength from being aligned with the needs and goals of wealthy and powerful states, they will burst a blood vessel. 

In fact, doing or saying anything that challenges their self-perception as courageous and virtuous human-rights champions speaking truth to power means it’s just a matter of seconds before someone’s face is two inches from yours shrieking abuse and spewing saliva (either literally or virtually – although without the saliva when this dynamic plays out in online debate – as it inevitably does).

The point of Argumentation from Outrage is to raise the discomfort level so high that people will avoid further attacking (or even questioning) the person having the tantrum.  Most normal people, after all, don’t like being in situations where emotions are running red hot.  And a boycotter losing an argument knows this, which is why they tend to explode so readily in hope of making it impossible for normal debate to continue. 

This helps to explain why anti-Israel “dialog” tends to be so shrill.  I have occasionally teased certain anti-Israel writers for starting their writing in a snit and then working themselves into frenzy of accusation and fury.  But if you think about it, starting an argument in a state of outrage is yet another way of avoiding a debate you know you cannot win. 

The trouble (for the BDSers anyway) is this perpetual outrage is used to justify all kinds of behavior that tends not to play well with a general audience which does NOT like to be patted down on the way to class by a bunch of Israel haters dressed up in Israeli soldier costumes during some campus protest, does NOT like to have their concerts or theatre performances interrupted by people shrieking slogans and waving banners, and does NOT trust people who seem to be shouting, even when the situation doesn’t warrant it.

The good news is that the boycotters’ outrage tactic has done little to further their cause.  The bad news is that they have help mainstream Argumentation from Outrage to the point where it is now becoming the tactic of choice for people on all ends of the political spectrum, an outcome that puts in peril the normal human deliberation upon which democracy depends.


Thanks guys!



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From Ian:

Netanyahu: 'The man in the Beirut bunker knows exactly why he's in bunker'
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu referred to Sunday's barrage on Hezbollah positions in retaliation for their attack on an IDF vehicle on the northern border: "We acted with determination and responsibility yesterday. We kept our citizens safe and also our soldiers.

"The man in the Beirut bunker knows exactly why he's in the bunker. We will continue to maintain Israel's security - at sea, land, and air, and continue to act against the precision missile threat."

Yesterday, Hezbollah operatives fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israel, after which the IDF fired 100 shells in response.

The exchange of fire over the Lebanon-Israel border comes one week after Hezbollah accused Israel of committing a drone attack on its southern Beirut position.

On August 24, Israel also said it had carried out strikes in Syria to avert an Iranian drone attack on the Jewish state. Hezbollah said those strikes killed two of its members.

Israel has carried hundreds of strikes in war-torn Syria, mostly against what it says are Iranian or Hezbollah targets.



Senior official: Nasrallah sought ceasefire as IDF responded to Hezbollah strike
The Lebanese government reached out to three countries on Sunday on behalf of Hezbollah in an effort to convey to Israel that it was not interested in any further escalation, as the IDF hurled some 100 shells at targets across the border in response to the terror group’s firing of anti-tank missiles at Israel, a senior defense official said Monday.

The message from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was relayed by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to the governments of France, Egypt and the US, the official told Israeli reporters in a phone briefing.

“We received inquiries from Lebanon through three countries that implored us that there was no need to respond,” he said.

At 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, the IDF released a statement saying a barrage of Hezbollah anti-tank missiles hit an army base as well as military vehicles near Avivim. The army then launched heavy retaliatory fire.

The senior official briefing reporters said that Israel had not taken Nasrallah’s message into account in its eventual decision to hold its fire. “Nasrallah’s considerations do not bother me, as long as we advance our goals against the threats.”

“The bottom line is that Hezbollah sent us messages to hold our fire,” the official boasted.
Top defense official: In 24 hours, Israel attacked various 'fronts'
Hezbollah’s precision missile program is the State of Israel’s top priority, right after working to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability, a top defense official said on Monday, admitting, for the first time, that Israel has carried out attacks against different fronts beyond Syria.

According to the official, Israel has been operating against Iran in several arenas and operated in several additional fronts within a recent 24-hour span of time. "In recent days, we were attacked from several fronts," the official said. "We were in simultaneous attack mode in multiple places."

“Had we had not acted correctly we would be in a different reality today,” he said.

"To prevent this consolidation by Iran, we are carrying out many operations that nobody knows anything about,” he said, adding that the operations are carried out by the IDF and the Mossad.

"Everything we have done during the last few weeks and days was planned and executed exactly how we wanted," he said. “Everything is part of our overall strategy that we are managing in several different ways and in several different arenas.”

The official spoke a day after Hezbollah and Israel exchanged blows along the Lebanese border in an attempt by the Iranian-backed guerilla organization to exact a price from Israel for the bombing of a terrorist cell in Syria in late August. While no IDF troops were injured, Israel fired over 100 artillery shells towards targets in south Lebanon in response to the attack and airlifted two uninjured soldiers to Rambam hospital in Haifa.

“We can’t hide injured troops in Israel for half an hour,” he said, disputing claim in Lebanon that troops had been injured in the attack.

  • Monday, September 02, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
(parts 1 and 2)

Advice for Pro-Israel Students

If you cannot stand being unpopular or if your priority is to participate in social justice causes with groups who are hostile to Israel supporters then don't get involved in pro-Israel advocacy and hide your pro-Israel sympathies. This may seem like a contrarian advice, but not every student has the stomach for facing haters and not everyone wishes to invite tsuris for supporting those who do. Many Jewish students are in college to learn and to get a degree. Nothing's wrong with that. On most campuses, Jewish students who do not express pro-Israel sentiments publicly are not going to be harassed. Not yet, anyway. If this applies to you, sorry for having wasted your time, please skip the rest. Otherwise, read on...




- Find a support system on campus. Forget Hillel, which on many campuses is at best wishy washy, catering to everyone, including J Street U and, at worst, is an "Open" Hillel that is actively anti-Israel. Instead seek out Chabad or a strong pro-Israel student organization like Students Supporting Israel (SSI). Don't try to confront bigots alone.

-·         When confronted by anti-Israel students, ascertain whether they are good faith interlocutors or propagandists with closed minds before engaging in a discussion. Ask why they believe in what they believe. Ask where they learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ask whether they are willing to consider opposing fact-based arguments. Ask what information, if any, would change their minds. Challenge the sources of their beliefs if they were acquired from biased media, from Arab propaganda speakers or from websites like Al Jazeera and Electronic Intifada or from anti-Israel organizations, including the Jewish ones; it is quite possible that fair-minded students have been misinformed. However, if the anti-Israel students do not appear to be open minded, if they cannot articulate what would change their opinion, then no productive conversation is possible. Label them as Jew haters either publicly or in your mind and don't waste your time on engaging them.

·   
The brave students of Columbia University's chapter of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) 
      
Win hearts and minds by appealing to emotions first. The traditional advice to rely on knowledge and reason does not work well. Until the hearts are won the minds are closed and unprepared for the required intellectual heavy lifting. The anti-Israel brigade has understood a long time ago that when appealing to the indecisive you are engaging in psychological warfare rather than in a dry academic debate. Try either to earn sympathy or to undermine the sympathy for the other side before marshalling facts and logical arguments. Don't be afraid to offend. Unless you engage on an emotional level you will not earn respect and love. As Elie Wiesel had said, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." The only way to influence the "followers" is to make following the other side appear unacceptable or at least uncool.

·         And if you are really ready for a fight then fight fire with fire. You cannot win with exclusively defensive tactics or positive—but unfortunately often tone deaf—messages when the other side is hurling endless fake accusations. During the annual antisemitic hate fest at Columbia known as Israeli Apartheid Week, I have seen pro-Israel students extolling Israel's technological advances while the other side hysterically yells false accusations that Israeli Army is killing babies with sophisticated missiles and indiscriminately burning civilians alive with white phosphorus incendiary bombs. It is hard to imagine a more tone deaf pro-Israel advocacy! Do you think that this example is atypical, extreme or absurd? Consider the recent article "Letter to Rashida Tlaib: Join Us for a Day in Israel" where "the author, an entrepreneur from California and a Zionist activist" invited[1] antisemitic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to "visit the future site of a world-class Culinary Institute in the north of Israel that will be the finest in the Middle East. It will bring people of all walks of life and religions together through a love for food." How does an invitation to a hoity-toity culinary school sound when juxtaposed against fake claims that the Palestinians are systemically starved to death in their "open air prison" while Israel is stealing their water? These are just awful, tone-deaf optics. And to what end? Would a high class cooking establishment convert unsympathetic bystanders or a staunch antisemite like Rashida Tlaib, who believes that her grandmother was dispossessed? We are conditioned to believe that we need to be the mature ones, the moderate ones, the reasonable ones. This may work fine in a controlled debate setting with fair and open minded opponents of good intentions. But it does not work in a street fight, which is what Israel advocacy has unfortunately become on campus. Do not be afraid to call out BDS supporters as genocidal terrorists, for they are not afraid of calling you "Nazis", "colonizers", "baby killers" and worse. And if you think that this is not the way to go, ask yourself why the anti-Israel climate on campus is getting worse and worse and why the anti-Israel sentiment appears to be gaining influence and popularity if the anti-Israel brigade is using all the "wrong" tactics? Ask yourself, do you prefer to win or to be a gracious loser?



·         Relentlessly expose and ridicule propaganda lies. Don't shy away from portraying the other side as bigots and haters who lie about their goals (they say that they are for human rights but want nothing short of destruction of Israel and death or the Jews) and methods (they pretend that they are want a dialogue but when approached refuse claiming "non-normalization" BDS policy).

·         Tirelessly call out inherent contradictions of intersectionality, specifically the underlying cynicism and illogic of the unholy alliance between Islamists and progressives. Don't shy away from pointing out that unlike Israel, the Arab and Muslim states are illiberal dictatorships headed by kleptocratic and despotic tyrants who massacre their own people (as is the case in Syria) and deny routinely them rights, where gays are persecuted and hung from cranes, black slavery exists to this day, women have no rights and are forced to wear hijabs, burkas and undergo barbaric FGM rituals, freedom of expression is forbidden and dissenters are hurled off the rooftops, freedom of religion is non-existent and medieval blasphemy laws are still applied, Christians, Yazidis, Jews, Kurds, Assyrians and other ethnic and religious minorities are slaughtered by genocidal Islamist maniacs, cradle-to-grave indoctrination starts in kindergartens and antisemitic sentiments are expressed by over 90% of the population, etc. Demand to know how can any liberal person support this? Attack, attack, and attack because their position is intellectually indefensible.


An excerpt of Amanda Berman formerly of The Lawfare Project explaining the importance of filing Title VI complaints during WZO-AZM Law and Policy Symposium: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Challenges on the American Campus Today. (The symposium is well worth watching in its entirety; the link to watch from the beginning is here).

·         Another and even more powerful option is to file a complaint against the school with the Office of Civil Rights. This is the ultimate weapon! The Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos, who recently participated in the Justice Department's "Summit on Combatting Anti-Semitism" (well worth watching: part1part2part3) and the Office of Civil Rights under the leadership of Kenneth Marcus have been actively investigating schools for Title VI violations. However, in the recent interview "At US Department of Education, Kenneth Marcus tackles anti-Semitism in all its varied forms" Kenneth Marcus stated, "So I would say that the No. 1 issue is the cases we don’t get. The fact that we are aware anecdotally and through survey data that there are many Jewish students [who] feel they are experiencing anti-Semitism, and yet very few of them are submitting complaints to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). One of the issues for us is awareness..." If you really want to bring change to your school and move the needle, this is what you should do! This is the single most effective thing you can do to fight antisemitism on campus. A number of organizations such as The Lawfare Project and Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law are there to help.

Advice for the Parents of Pro-Israel Students


First, realize that academia has been poisoned against Israel and that Jews are treated differently from every other marginalized group on campus. Not only are anti-Israel views promulgated by the very professors that you hope will educate your children, but such professors may damage your child's prospects. The student body is hostile to Israel and is infiltrated by professional anti-Israel agitators (can anyone believe that this slick 66-page BDS presentation was actually developed by students?) who are sponsored by deep-pocketed anti-Israel organizations. And the administration that is supposed to ensure fairness and compliance with Title VI is, at best, ineffective. It hides behind the excuses of "academic freedom" and "free speech." Yet we all know that similarly bigoted vitriol directed towards any other marginalized group on campus would end the career of anyone who says or does a fraction of what is directed against Israel and Jews. At worst, administrations actively encourage and participate in such anti-Israel behavior.

The uncomfortable truth is that the pro-Israel students are too few and lack the power to change the climate on campus. The pro-Israel faculty are also outnumbered and powerless despite valiant efforts. Hillel and most other Jewish organizations on campus are afraid to antagonize the administration and their donors on whom they depend. These three groups have too much to lose. The alumni have no agency on campus and, therefore, no influence, except for those who donate millions but they are only interested in having buildings named after them. Moreover, students and academics often work separately; their aversion to combine efforts renders them even less effective (for instance, even as a leader of Columbia's chapter of ACF my request to attend an AEN conference was declined because I am not an academic). To hope that the school administration will step in is like hoping that the inmates can run an asylum; every attempt at self-policing has failed. The Jewish mainstream organizations are too busy with infighting, competing for funding and worrying about their organization's brand to be effective; when they do get involved, with few exceptions, they are too timid and insist on fighting with white gloves on.

Furthermore, trying to cover every school under the sun in a reactive whack-a-mole mode is a losing strategy because it spreads our resources too thinly and fails to apply sufficient pressure anywhere. Instead, the pro-Israel organizations should focus all their combined resources on a few influential schools with well-known antisemitism history. It is better to have a few successes than a lot of failures. Making a warning example of a few school by applying maximum and unrelenting pressure to them is a more effective deterrent. It is a provent strategy under resource constraints that is successfully used by the IRS to prevent tax evasion and by the SEC to curb insider trading.

So what is a parent or an alumni to do? Based on my experience the only effective options that remain are:

·         Help create legal pressure on the schools and demand government scrutiny of the school. Work with students, other alumni and pro-Israel community to bring lawsuits or to attract government scrutiny to the school with highly Zionophobic campuses.

·         Stop donations and do so with maximum publicly! But be aware that for a large and well-endowed school like the ones in the Ivy League, it will work if you are a huge donor only and/or if you can influence other huge donors.

This may sound grim but it is an honest assessment. And we cannot hope to start winning if we continue deluding ourselves that the same old techniques that failed thus far will suddenly work.

 This was written before Congresswoman Tlaib was denied entry to Israel.

For more information about Zionophobia in academia and specifically at Columbia University and Barnard College, please visit https://www.cu-monitor.com/



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  • Monday, September 02, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
A previous meeting between the two terrorists


Iran's AhlulBayt News Agency reports that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has written a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader filled with praise for the financial and military help that Iran is providing to Hamas.

In the letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, Haniyeh "expressed his appreciation and gratitude for the unequivocal support of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution for Palestinian resistance during his meeting with the Hamas delegation, and announcing Iran's readiness to equip the Resistance with whatever it needs for fulfilling its duty."

Haniyeh and Hamas have long ago swallowed their pride at being dependent on the hated Shiites who once cut him off for not supporting genocide in Syria. Money talks and Syria's victims are dead already (well, most  of them,) so Hamas has again fully embraced Iran - and the Ayatollah is willing to divert whatever funds Iranians might need for their own economy to Hamas because, you know, killing Jews is more important than life itself.

Haniyeh effusively praised Khamenei, writing, "Once again we declare our unwavering approach to partake in the stronghold of sustainable resistance alongside all forces of righteousness, justice and freedom, including the pioneer of them all, the Islamic Republic of Iran, until the final victory; and we trust divine assistance and promises."

In other words, he is pretty much calling Khamenei God. Which is the surest way to keep his cash flowing into Hamas coffers.

Haniyeh's brown-nosing doesn't end there, as he wrote, "I praise Allah for bestowing us your existence and supplicate Allah to shower you with blessings, and protect you from harm, and from the ruse and mischief of the oppressive and arrogant enemies. "

The terrorist leader went on to thank Khamenei for his "unequivocal remarks on special and extensive support and assistance for the Resistance and the Palestinian brothers, as well as announcement of readiness to supply them with whatever they will need for performing their duty of resisting. These remarks significantly delighted us and opened vast horizons to us, and it will have significant impacts on strategic dimensions as well as on the realm of action against the Zionist enemy. "

The would-ge genocidal Palestinian terror leader  ended off his letter saying, "We ask Allah, the Exalted, to bestow blessings and fulfill all prayers by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Ummah for victory, sovereignty, security, well-being, elimination of enemies, and freedom of Palestine and the holy Quds. "






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  • Monday, September 02, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon
Rashida Tlaib tweeted:



The article, by a female of Palestinian ancestry, is truly amazing in doing everything to exonerate Islam, and Palestinian/Arab culture, from worldwide honor killings like Israa's:

Honor killings are not Muslim and they are not Arab. This is a universal phenomenon which takes places in nearly all corners of the globe, from the United States to Europe. The US president stands accused of rape. Honor killings were legal in Italy until the 1970s and still happen today. Do not use this narrative to reinforce dangerous stereotypes of Arab culture and Islam. Patriarchy exists every where. 
It is true that honor killings are not exclusively a Muslim phenomenon - they also occur in Hindu and Sikh cultures and occasionally elsewhere (as she almost says, southern Italy specifically tolerated such acts until the 1980s. Every notable example of honor killings of women in Italy since the 1960s has been done by Muslims.)

But the author and Tlaib are simply lying by implying that it is a universal phenomenon, or that it is an inevitable result of the patriarchy. Patriachical societies are literally everywhere but honor killings are not. They are specifically in societies whose culture is based on the honor/shame dynamic, not the guilt dynamic of nearly all of Western culture. In honor/shame societies, one's sense of self-worth is tied up in how one is perceived by others, while in guilt societies, it is largely based on one's perception of oneself.

This article calls for "justice for Israa." It in fact is a major injustice for Israa Gharib by diverting the blame on everything but the real causes of her death: the honor/shame culture in Arab, Muslim and Palestinian society. If one wants justice for Israa, one must tackle the actual causes of her death, not whitewash them.

The article in fact blames everything but Palestinian society - including blaming Israel, as if the "occupation" is responsible for the honor/shame culture throughout the Middle East and other parts of Asia.

In Palestine, our legal system is the result of a century of occupation and political turmoil. It is a combination of Ottoman, British, Egyptian (in Gaza), Jordanian (in the West bank), and even no system (Area C). Despite various and continued efforts over the last decade, there has been very little reform to this outdated and dysfunctional legal system for two reasons: Israeli military occupation and a corrupt Palestinian Authority both hinder any legal, economic, and social progress. 
 Israel has literally zero influence over Palestinian law. More importantly, honor crimes are no more prevalent in Palestinian-controlled territories than in the surrounding Arab states.

The author mentions pinkwashing - and in so doing, shows that she is guilty of X-washing far more than Israel is:

When it comes to power structures, women’s bodies are always tools to reinforce some sort of ideal, whether honor, or pink-washing...doubtless some Hebrew articles being published by some Zionist news outlets to try and pink-wash occupation (again lol). 
The entire point of this article that Rashida Tlaib recommends is to whitewash the responsibility of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims to rid their societies of the honor-based thinking that caused the murder of Israa Ghareb by universailizing - and therefore minimizing - the real reasons for her death.

This article recommended by Rashida Tlaib reinforces and justifies Palestinian violence against women by blaming everything but Palestinian culture for her death.

That is injustice for Israa.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)



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Sunday, September 01, 2019

  • Sunday, September 01, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon


For the past week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been threatening Israel with an attack as retaliation for last weekend's IDF attack against Hezbollah targets in Syria, and, reportedly, in Lebanon.

What is the point of such retaliation? It is purely to restore Hezbollah's honor. it serves no strategic interest, and in fact could easily escalate into something Hezbollah doesn't want. But the Arab concept of honor is so strong that logic is not important - the shame of being attacked is too great to go unanswered.

Unlike most of the West, the IDF understands Hezbollah's honor.shame dynamic. And it devised s plan to use it against them.

This morning, Hezbollah claimed that it hit an IDF patrol and killed or injured at least two soldiers. It based this on its own pbservations, which may have included this video apparently taken from Lebanon:



But it was all a ruse. The IDF faked blood on the soldiers' shirts, faked an evacuation and faked a helicopter taking them to the hospital.



The obvious question is, why admit to the trick? Won't Hezbollah want to attack again once it finds out? Doesn't it cancel the advantage?

But that logic doesn't work in an honor/shame universe.

Hezbollah already announced it achieved its objectives of successfully attacking the IDF and injuring soldiers. It said "the group of the martyrs Hassan Zbeeb and Yasser Daher destroyed a military vehicle on the road of the Avivim barracks, killing and wounding those who were inside" the vehicle. It would be shameful for Hezbollah to admit that it was tricked, and therefore it won't say a word further about it. If it attacks again as a response to last weekend's strikes, it is tacitly admitting that its first attack did not kill anyone as they claimed - and that would be shameful!

So, in this case, the IDF was a step ahead of Hezbollah. It appears it may have even placed the empty vehicle there just to attract fire, making a calculated risk that Hezbollah won't attack the actor medics and helicopter - which would also be shameful.

Understanding how the enemy thinks is a huge advantage in warfare. In this case, Israel seems to have done it perfectly, in a way that saves lives on both sides of the Blue Line.





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  • Sunday, September 01, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon


Mohammed Saif Al Dawla started a three part series on myths and lies in the Middle East. The first part is "Zionist" myths and the second part is going to be "Israeli" myths, followed by Arab myths.

As much as I would like to wait for part 3, here is a synopsis of what Arab media is saying are "Zionist myths":

The most prominent of these myths are:

1) Allegations of the promised land; Palestine is the promised land that God gave to Abraham and his descendants.

2) The lie of a land without a people to a people without a land.

3) The myth of the Jewish people, which turned the religion of Judaism into nationalism, and did not recognize any national affiliation of any Jew other than belonging to the land of Palestine, which they call (Israel).

4) The Diaspora lie that lasted from 70 AD (as they claim) after the Romans demolished the Temple and took the Jews out of Palestine and sold them in the markets of Rome.

5) The racist myth about God's chosen people. Its incitement to the ethnic cleansing of non-Jews, based on which contemporary Zionist rabbis call in all their rulings the legitimacy of killing and liquidating Palestinians.

6) The myth of anti-Semitism, from which they took the cornerstone of the call for the establishment of a national national for them in Palestine, they mean anti-Israel (Israel).

7) The lie of hostility between Zionism and Nazism.

8) Exaggeration of the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

9) Last but not least, their claims that the establishment of the State of Israel is the answer and the right solution to compensate for the Holocaust as stipulated in what they call the Declaration of Independence.


I hope that their list of Arab myths include:

1) Mohammed flew to Jerusalem on a magic steed.

2) Jerusalem has always been important in Islam.

3) Palestinians have been a people for hundreds or thousands of years.

4) There was a political entity called Palestine that Israel displaced.

5) Arabs and Muslims have never been antisemitic.

6) Middle East peace is linked to Israel giving Palestinians everything they want.






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From Ian:

IDF: Hezbollah fires anti-tank missiles at army base, ambulance; no injuries
The Hezbollah terror group fired several anti-tank guided missiles at an army base and a military ambulance in northern Israel Sunday afternoon, causing no injuries, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Miiltary sources said that the ambulance was empty when it was struck, but that soldiers had been inside half-an-hour earlier.

In response, the Israeli military said its artillery cannons and attack helicopters fired approximately 100 shells and bombs at Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the IDF considered the “tactical event on the ground” to be over as of Sunday evening, but that the larger strategic threat posed by Hezbollah on the border remained.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no Israelis were so much as “scratched” by the Hezbollah attack. “There were no Israeli injuries, not even a scratch,” Netanyahu said, smiling, at the opening of a Honduras diplomatic office in Jerusalem.

The military said Hezbollah operatives fired two to three missiles at a battalion headquarters outside of the Israeli community of Avivim and at military vehicles nearby shortly after 4:15 p.m. Sunday. Several of the projectiles struck their targets but did not cause any casualties, despite claims to the contrary by Hezbollah, the IDF said.

The Iran-backed terror group took responsibility for the missile strikes, saying in a statement that its fighters “destroyed an ‘Israeli’ military vehicle on the Avivim barracks road [in northern Israel]… and injured those in it.” Hezbollah later said it targeted an armored personnel carrier.
Report: Israel launches artillery shells into disputed land on Lebanese border
The Israeli military fired artillery shells into a disputed portion of land on the Lebanese border on Sunday, amid soaring tensions along the frontier, a Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet reported.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed conducting “activities” in northern Israel, which sparked a fire near the border, but refused to comment on the nature of those actions.

According to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar news outlet, the IDF fired the shells into the hills outside of the village of Kfar Chouba, next to a contested area along the border, known in Israel as Mount Dov and in Lebanon as Shebaa Farms.

The Lebanese Armed Forces said in a statement that an Israeli drone also dropped an incendiary device nearby, sparking a small fire that was extinguished by residents of the area.

Al-Manar also shared photographs of artillery shells it said were fired by the IDF into the area.

Residents of northern Israel reported seeing increased military activity in the area on Sunday morning, with soldiers establishing roadblocks along local highways and large numbers of aircraft flying overhead.
Israel and Hezbollah Exchange Fire on Border — What's Next?
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire on the Israel-Lebanon border. Will it escalate to an all-out conflict? What's behind these types of incidents? Our Adi Koplewitz and Owen Alterman analyze.


Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq watching Israel-Hezbollah crisis closely
From the moment Hezbollah’s members fired their anti-tank missiles at Israel the entire Middle East was glued to what might happen next. This is because what is happening in northern Israel pits Iran’s ally against Israel, a key ally of the US. It has regional implications because Iran’s allies and proxies, from Syria to Iraq and Yemen, are all impacted by how Hezbollah performs and how Israel responds.

For instance, in the last month Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitaries linked to Iran have blamed Israel for a series of explosions at their munitions warehouses. In addition, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have been using Iranian technology to increase their drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. They also say they have new air defense systems and that they shot down a US drone recently. It would be the second US drone downed since June.

In January, Israel’s former Chief of Staff said that Israel carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria over the last years. That was a major declaration that built on two years in which Israeli officials had hinted at a widening campaign against Iran in Syria. Israel has only admitted several of these strikes directly as they happened or after. In September an air strike in Latakia led Syrian air defense to shoot down a Russian plane by mistake, causing a crises and ending with Moscow sending S-300 air defense to Syria’s regime.

That means that Syria’s regime and other forces in Syria are watching closely. For instance, the August 24 airstrike Israel carried out against an IRGC “killer drone” force in southern Syria killed two Hezbollah operatives. For the IRGC and for other Iranian-backed groups in Syria, the escalation in Lebanon is important. They wonder if it could spill over to Syria. Iran’s bases in Syria have been used to fly a drone into Israeli airspace in February 2018 and also to launch missiles at Israel in May 2018 and January 2019. Iran’s IRGC is entrenched in Syria and Iran has benefited from the weakness of the Syrian regime to spread influence and move forces and munitions. This has included the deployment of Iraqi-based Shi’ite militias such as Kata’aib Hezbollah. A Kata’ib Hezbollah base in Albukamal was mysteriously hit with an airstrike in June 2018. No one claimed responsibility for that but Kataib Hezbollah has blamed both Israel and the US for attacks on it. It is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who has worked with the IRGC since the 1980s.

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