Tag: Hezbollah

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Toxic Relationship: Nazis and Islamists Are United in Their Hate for Jews

A few weeks ago there was a report that the video game Steam platform was being used by neo-Nazis and Islamists to link up with each other and express anti-Semitism. According to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, over 11,000 Steam users have the account name Adolf Hitler, while a further 3,000 go by the name Osama Bin Laden. There are many thousands of other accounts which are “brazenly anti-Semitic,” the CAA added. The CAA found that “Islamists and neo-Nazis [are] even discussing what it might be like to kill Jews in real life.”

This type of collusion between the two groups seems strange as one would expect the neo-Nazis to hate anyone not like them, especially non-whites, but many have actually found a common cause with the Islamists, especially with regards to hating Jews.

This has been going on since shortly after 9/11 and was seen when white supremacist web sites like National Front, Combat 18 and White Nationalist Party were reproducing articles from the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahir.

The anti-Semitic cartoons and caricatures printed in the Arab world have been reproduced by these white supremacists.

When the Malaysian President, Mahathir Mohamad, announced in 2003 to a summit of Islamic leaders that “Jews rule the world through proxy” and “have others fight and die for them,” the White Nationalist Party urged members to phone the Malaysian embassy in London to express their support for him.

On the website of the white supremacist Aryan Nations, August Kreis posted a letter to offer his thanks to Islamic terrorists:

“We as an organisation will also endeavour to aid all those who subvert, disrupt and are malignant in nature to our enemies. Therefore I offer my most sincere best wishes to those who wage holy Jihad against the infrastructure of the decadent, weak and Judaic-influenced societal infrastructure of the West. I send a message of thanks and well-wishes to the methods and works of groups on the Islamic front against the Jew such as Al-Qaeda and Sheik Usama Bin Ladin, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and to all Jihadis worldwide who fight for the glory of the Khilafah and the downfall of the anti-life and anti-freedom system prevalent on this earth today.”

The same website has a quote on its main page from SS-Obergruppenführer (Lieutenant General) Gottlob Berger, “a link is created between Islam and National-Socialism on an open, honest basis. It will be directed in terms of blood and race from the North, and in the ideological-spiritual sphere from the East.”

A neo-Nazi group in America, the National Alliance, published an essay written by William Pierce who claimed that the 9/11 attacks in New York had forced the whole subject of US policy in the Middle East into the open. He writes about the subject of American interests versus Jewish interests, of Jewish media control and its influence on governmental policy. He claims that Osama bin-Laden broke the “taboo” about questioning Jewish interests, which “in the long run may more than compensate for the 3000 American lives that were lost.”

In addition, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, in 2005, from Defence for Democracies has brought to light several attempts by neo-Nazis to reach out to Islamists. His findings include people like William Pierce, James Wickstrom, Ahmed Huber and William W. Baker. An American neo-Nazi website ADLUSA says that the attempts by the ADL to have the Hezbollah official TV channel banned for being part of a terrorist organisation is a campaign of “smear, corruption and harassment”. On this website, there was also a plea directed towards Islamists: “Moslems, lay down your guns and join our mission to remove Jews from positions of power from which they persecute one people after another; killing Americans misled by Jews only incites endless wars.”

In 2006 it was reported that one of the former leaders of the neo-Nazi group Combat 18 and the founder of the British National Socialist Movement, who had been jailed for racist attacks, had converted to Islam. He seemed to have jumped from a lunatic anti-Semitic fringe group to the more popular band wagon of anti-Semitism and had declared that:

“The pure authentic Islam of the revival, which recognizes practical jihad as a duty, is the only force that is capable of fighting and destroying the dishonour, the arrogance, the materialism of the West . . . For the West, nothing is sacred, except perhaps Zionists, Zionism, the hoax of the so-called Holocaust, and the idols which the West and its lackeys worship, or pretend to worship, such as democracy. They want, and demand, that we abandon the purity of authentic Islam and either bow down before them and their idols, or accept the tame, secularized, so-called Islam which they and their apostate lackeys have created. This may well be a long war, of decades or more — and we Muslims have to plan accordingly. We must affirm practical jihad — to take part in the fight to free our lands from the kuffar [unbelievers]. Jihad is our duty.”

David Myatt is a classic example of the crossover from neo-Nazi to Islamist. Although he subsequently changed his tune, and in 2012 left Islam, announcing that he now viewed Hitler as a man who “caused great suffering and whose actions and policies where dishonorable and immoral.” He has also denounced Holocaust denial and praised the victory of the Allies over Nazi Germany as a “moral necessity”. Nevertheless, the gateway transition that the far-right provided for him to convert to extremist Islam through common interests, is worthy of note and should be used as a warning of how others can and have done the same.

The neo-Nazi political party Jobbik in Hungary found common cause with the Iranian regime in 2013 based on their hatred of Jews and Israel.

The white supremacist Glen Miller who killed three Jews in Kansas expressed admiration for Louis Farrakhan, the extremist Nation of Islam and said he had “a great deal of respect for Muslims.”

This admiration is not just a one way street. There seems to be a reciprocation of support and understanding from some Islamists, this is not a new phenomena. As is well known, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, during World War 2, went to visit Hitler and pledged to work with him to destroy the Jews and established Bosnian Muslim Wafen-SS units to fight for the Nazis. He wasn’t the only one to make use of fascism for the Muslims. Muhammad Navvab Safavi’s manifesto that foreshadowed the Iranian revolution was a stark resemblance to Nazi propaganda and others have also made use of fascism for bloody nihilism.

The Arab Nationalists in the 1930’s modeled themselves on German fascism, as seen with the Ba’sthist movements in Syria and Iraq, in the way that the Arab world was to become one nation bound by military discipline and heroic individual sacrifice, a very fascist belief.

In more recent years, in 2010 the American Muslim Association of North America featured on its website a video by David Duke, the former KKK leader and now white supremacist. Another David Duke video, a conspiracy theory about “Zionist running dogs”, was found on the website belonging to Canadian Shia Muslims Organisation. An organisation that supposedly “supported multiculturalism” and “interfaith dialogue.”

One of the founders of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Asghar Bukhari, from the United Kingdom, supported the infamous Holocaust denier David Irving and raised funds from Islamists for him to defend himself.

The neo-Nazi William Baker has been invited by several Muslim groups in both America and Canada to talk to large crowds of Muslims. This includes groups such as Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), Muslim Student Association of Western Michigan University, the Muslim Student Association at the University of Pennsylvania and several others.

This alliance is a seemingly strange one but when the principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is applied, their hatred for Jews binds them together. Not only that, but both wish to see the destruction of the current liberal democratic system in the West replaced with one of their utopia. The Nazis believe they can rid the world of corruption whilst the Islamists believe they can bring the Kingdom of Allah to the world. With these two fanatical groups finding common ground, can there be a more toxic combination?

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TRUMP’S GREATEST DEAL

The Iran deal Trump needs to make with the Russians is clear.

What can be done about Iran? In Israel, a dispute is reportedly raging between the IDF and the Mossad about the greatest threat facing Israel. IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot thinks that Hezbollah is the greatest threat facing Israel. Mossad Director Yossi Cohen thinks Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest danger facing the Jewish state.

While the media highlight the two men’s disagreement, the underlying truth about their concerns has been ignored.

Hezbollah and Iran’s nuclear program are two aspects of the same threat: the regime in Tehran.

Hezbollah is a wholly owned subsidiary of the regime. If the regime disappeared, Hezbollah would fall apart. As for the nuclear installations, in the hands of less fanatical leaders, they would represent a far less acute danger to global security.

So if you undermine the Iranian regime, you defeat Hezbollah and defuse the nuclear threat.

If you fail to deal with the regime in Tehran, both threats will continue to grow no matter what you do, until they become all but insurmountable.

So what can be done about Tehran? With each passing day we discover new ways Iran endangers Israel and the rest of the region.

This week we learned Iran has built underground weapons factories in Lebanon. The facilities are reportedly capable of building missiles, drones, small arms and ammunition. Their underground location protects them from aerial bombardment.

Then there is Hezbollah’s relationship to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

For more than a decade, the Americans have been selling themselves the implausible claim that the LAF is a responsible fighting force capable and willing to rein in Hezbollah. Never an easy claim – the LAF provided targeting information to Hezbollah missile crews attacking Israel in 2006 – after Hezbollah domesticated the Lebanese government in 2008, the claim became downright silly. And yet, over the past decade, the US has provided the LAF with weapons worth in excess of $1 billion. In 2016 alone the US gave the LAF jets, helicopters, armored personnel carriers and missiles worth more than $220 million.

In recent months, showing that Iran no longer feels the need to hide its control over Lebanon, the LAF has openly stated that it is working hand in glove with Hezbollah.

Last November, Hezbollah showcased US M113 armored personnel carriers with roof-mounted Russian anti-aircraft guns, at a military parade in Syria. The next month the Americans gave the LAF a Hellfire missile-equipped Cessna aircraft with day and night targeting systems.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun is a Hezbollah ally. So is Defense Minister Yaacoub Sarraf and LAF commander Gen. Joseph Aoun.

Last month President Aoun told Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, that Hezbollah serves “a complementary role to the Lebanese army.”

And yet the Americans insist that it continues to make sense – and to be lawful – to arm the LAF.

You can hardly blame them. Denial is an attractive option, given the alternatives.

For the past eight years, the Obama administration did everything in its power to empower Iran. To make Iran happy, Obama did nothing as hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed and millions more were forced to flee their homes by Iran and its puppet Bashar Assad.

Obama allowed Iran to take over the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military. He sat back as Iran’s Houthi proxy overthrew the pro-US regime in Yemen.

And of course, the crowning achievement of Obama’s foreign policy was his nuclear deal with the mullahs. Obama’s deal gives Iran an open path to a nuclear arsenal in a bit more than a decade and enriches the regime beyond Ayatollah Khamenei’s wildest dreams.

Obama empowered Iran at the expense of the US’s Sunni allies and Israel, and indeed, at the expense of the US’s own superpower status in the region, to enable the former president to withdraw the US from the Middle East.

Power of course, doesn’t suffer a vacuum, and the one that Obama created was quickly filled.

For decades, Russia has been Iran’s major arms supplier. It has assisted Iran with its nuclear program and with its ballistic missile program. Russia serves as Iran’s loyal protector at the UN Security Council.

But for all the help it provided Tehran through the years, Moscow never presented itself as Iran’s military defender.

That all changed in September 2015. Two months after Obama cut his nuclear deal with the ayatollahs, Russia deployed its forces to Syria on behalf of Iran and its Syrian and Lebanese proxies.

In so doing, Russia became the leading member and the protector of the Iranian axis.

Russia’s deployment of forces had an immediate impact not only on the war in Syria, but on the regional power balance as a whole. With Russia serving as the air force for Iran and its Syrian and Hezbollah proxies, the Assad regime’s chances of survival increased dramatically. So did Iran’s prospects for regional hegemony.

For Obama, this situation was not without its advantages.

In his final year in office, Obama’s greatest concern was ensuring that his nuclear deal with Iran would outlive his presidency. Russia’s deployment in Syria as the protector of Iran and its proxies was a means of achieving this end.

Russia’s alliance with Iran made attacking Iran’s nuclear program or its Hezbollah proxy a much more dangerous prospect than it had been before.

After all, in 2006, Russia supported Iran and Hezbollah in their war against Israel. But Russia’s support for Iran and its Lebanese legion didn’t diminish Israel’s operational freedom. Israel was able to wage war without any fear that its operations would place it in a direct confrontation with the Russian military.

This changed in September 2015.

The first person to grasp the strategic implications of the Russian move was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu recognized that with Russian forces on the ground in Syria, the only way for Israel to take even remedial measures to protect itself from Iran and its proxies was to drive a wedge between President Vladimir Putin and the ayatollahs wide enough to enable Israel to continue its raids against weapons convoys to Hezbollah and other targets without risking a confrontation with Russia. This is the reason that Netanyahu boarded a flight to Moscow to speak to Putin almost immediately after the Russian leader deployed his forces to Syria.

Israel’s ability to continue to strike targets in Syria, whether along the border on the Golan Heights or deep within Syrian territory, is a function of Netanyahu’s success in convincing Putin to limit his commitment to his Iranian allies.

Since President Donald Trump entered the White House, Iran has been his most urgent foreign policy challenge. Unlike Obama, Trump recognizes that Iran’s nuclear program and its threats to US economic and strategic interests in the Persian Gulf and the Levant cannot be wished away.

And so he has decided to deal with Iran.

The question is, what is he supposed to do? Trump has three basic options.

He can cut a deal with Russia. He can act against Iran without cutting a deal with Russia. And he can do nothing, or anemically maintain Obama’s pro-Iran policies.

The first option has the greatest potential strategic payoff. If Trump can convince Russia to ditch Iran, then he has a chance of dismantling the regime in Tehran and so defusing the Iranian nuclear program and destroying Hezbollah without having to fight a major war.

The payoff to Russia for agreeing to such a deal would be significant. But if Trump were to adopt this policy, the US has a lot of bargaining chips that it can use to convince Putin to walk away from the ayatollahs long enough for the US to defuse the threat they pose to its interests.

The problem with the Russia strategy is that since Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, the Democrats, their allied media outlets and powerful forces in the US intelligence community have been beset by a Russia hysteria unseen since the Red scares in the 1920s and 1950s.

The fact that Obama bent over backward to cater to Putin’s interests for eight years has been pushed down the memory hole.

Also ignored is the fact that during her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton approved deals with the Russians that were arguably antithetical to US interests while the Clinton Foundation received millions of dollars in contributions from Russian businessmen and companies closely allied with Putin.

Since November 8, the Democrats and their clapping seals in the media and allies in the US intelligence community have banged the war drums against Russia, accusing Trump and his advisers of serving as Russian patsies at best, and Russian agents at worst.

In this climate, it would be politically costly for Trump to implement a Russian-based strategy for dismantling the Iranian threat.

This brings us to the second option, which is to confront Iran and Russia. Under this option, US action against Iran could easily cause hostilities to break out between the US and Russia. It goes without saying that the political fallout from making a deal with Russia would be nothing compared to the political consequences if Trump were to take the US down a path that led to war with Russia.

Obviously, the economic and human costs of such a confrontation would be prohibitive regardless of the political consequences.

This leaves us with the final option of doing nothing, or anemically continuing to implement Obama’s policies, as the Americans are doing today.

Although tempting, the hard truth is that this is the most dangerous policy of all.

You need only look to North Korea to understand why this is so.

Seemingly on a daily basis, Pyongyang threatens to nuke America. And the US has no good options for dealing with the threat.

As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged during his recent trip to Asia, decades of US diplomacy regarding North Korea’s nuclear program did nothing to diminish or delay the threat.

North Korea has been able to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles while threatening the US with destruction because North Korea enjoys the protection of China. If not for the Chinese, the US would long ago have dealt a death blow to the regime.

Israel has moved Russia as far away from Iran as it can on its own. It is enough to stop convoys of North Korean weapons from crossing into Lebanon.

But it isn’t enough to cause serious harm to Tehran or its clients.

The only government that can do that is the American government.

Trump built his career by mastering the art of deal making. And he recognized that Obama’s deal with Iran is not the masterpiece Obama and his allies claim but a catastrophe.

The Iran deal Trump needs to make with the Russians is clear. The only question is whether he is willing to pay the political price it requires.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

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REAL ANTI-SEMITES AGAINST FAKE ANTI-SEMITISM

The left opposes bombing synagogues except when it supports it.

Keith Ellison is suddenly very concerned about anti-Semitism.

The former Nation of Islam member who appeared on stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammad (“that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating… just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe, so-called damn Jew”) and defended the anti-Semitism of Louis Farrakhan (“Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET?”) is worried about the hatred of Jews.

The leading candidate to head the DNC who used to rant about, “European white Jews…  trying to oppress minorities all over the world” denounced President Trump for having, “taken… so long to even say the word ‘anti-Semitism.’”

How long did it take Ellison to stop defending the anti-Semitism of Farrakhan or of Joanne Jackson?

And Ellison isn’t through yet. He associates with CAIR, a hate group that has defended terrorists who target synagogues, and touts an endorsement from Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson.

Keith Ellison put out a press release after the bomb threats to Jewish centers declaring, “To all those who have felt threatened: I stand with you.”

Speaking of threats, the Minnesota Daily opinion editor, Michael Olenick, had described Ellison’s writing as “a genuine threat to the long-term safety and well-being of the Jewish people, a threat that history dictates must not be ignored.”

Except it was ignored.

Ellison is currently opposed to bomb threats to Jewish centers. That’s progress. But he’s closely allied with CAIR and other Islamist groups that have defended actual synagogue bomb plotters. CAIR has spread claims that the Muslim terrorists who plotted to bomb the Riverdale Jewish Center and Temple were really the victims of government entrapment.

When Ahmed Ferhani was arrested for a plot to attack a synagogue, CAIR held a rally to support him.

Linda Sarsour, who had described throwing stones at Jews as “the definition of courage”, accused the Trump administration of anti-Semitism. Sarsour claims to be raising money to repair a vandalized Jewish cemetery. While the campaign was touted by the media, it is unclear who the actual donors are.

What is clear is that Linda Sarsour supported Ahmed Ferhani. Sarsour insisted on calling the anti-Semitic terrorist a “boy” or a “kid”. She also defended the Riverdale Jewish Center bomb plotters.

At his trial, Ahmed Ferhani had boasted, “I intended to create chaos and send a message of intimidation and coercion to the Jewish population of New York City.”

“Look at the Jewish guy. You’re not smiling no more, you f___r. I hate those bastards. I hate those m______s. Those f____g Jewish bastards. I’d like to get one of those. I’d like to get a synagogue. Me. Yeah. Personally,” James Cromitie had ranted.

This is what Linda Sarsour and the left have been defending for some time now. The vast majority of the accounts you will read about Cromitie, the Newburgh Four, and Ahmed Ferhani, will be positive. Their innocence has been defended by CBS, HBO, the New York Times and countless other media outlets.

Like Keith Ellison and Linda Sarsour, the media is momentarily opposed to burning and bombing synagogues.

It wasn’t always.

In New York City, a year before September 11, Muslims threw firebombs at a synagogue in the Bronx. “A bias-motivated attempt to firebomb a synagogue?” the New York Times asked. “Or a misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?”

If the cemetery vandals or JCC callers turn out to be Muslims, the media will ask whether desecrating Jewish graves was bias or a “misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?”

That is what makes the sudden outpouring of concern about anti-Semitism shamelessly opportunistic.

Real anti-Semites are fighting fake anti-Semitism as a publicity stunt to attack the first administration to question the wisdom of financing the anti-Semitic mass murder of Jews by Islamic terrorists.

Linda Sarsour is a bigot who supports the anti-Semitic BDS movement and assorted Islamic terrorists. At a pro-Hamas event, she called for limiting friendships with Jews to opponents of the Jewish State. She is expected to share a stage at a BDS event with a woman who played a role in the murder of two Jewish college students.

This is anti-Semitism.

The left has a studied disinterest in true anti-Semitism. It views Linda Sarsour and Keith Ellison as heroes. It makes excuses for Ahmed Ferhani or James Cromitie. It has opportunistically decided to exploit accusations of anti-Semitism to attack President Trump. But if the bomb threats to Jewish centers or the cemetery vandalism turn out to be the work of Muslims, then the hot potato will fall.

Stories about the incidents will quickly go away. The Muslim perpetrators will become victims of entrapment. HBO will air a documentary blaming the whole thing on overzealous FBI agents.

Anti-Semitism also has its fellow travelers. These are the people who are very selective about the anti-Semitism that they reject. They will oppose bombing synagogues only as long as the wrong sort of people are doing it. If the right sort of people bomb synagogues, the issue will become nuanced.

Bombing synagogues will suddenly cease to be a “black and white” issue.

The media has decided to spend a few weeks accusing President Trump of anti-Semitism. Its sudden concern about fake anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with normalizing real anti-Semitism.

Fighting fake anti-Semitism consists of fake left-wing organizations, like the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a group run by two gay rights activists from New Jersey that no one in the Jewish community had ever heard of before, getting airtime on the Fake News media to attack Trump.

Fighting real anti-Semitism would mean holding Linda Sarsour and Keith Ellison accountable for their long history of hating Jews instead of providing them with a platform for their publicity stunts.

The previous administration sent billions of dollars to two terror states, the Palestinian Authority and Iran, which finance the murder of Jews. Not a single of the organizations attacking Trump said a word of protest when our tax dollars were used to pay the salaries of Islamic terrorists in proportion to how many Jews they killed. None of them had a word to say when Obama sent billions in illegal payments to the Iranian paymasters of Hamas and Hezbollah in foreign currency on unmarked cargo planes.

Previous administrations had funded the Palestinian Authority. Obama was the first to fund the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. It’s quite an accomplishment for a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Opposing anti-Semitism doesn’t mean opposing it from people you don’t like. That’s no great challenge. It means opposing it from those you do like. And the media likes Keith Ellison and Linda Sarsour.

The left has always celebrated its anti-Semites. Stop by an event celebrating the literary legacy of Amiri Baraka (“I got the extermination blues, jew-boys. I got the Hitler syndrome figured”) or Alice Walker (“May God protect you from the Jews”… “It’s too late, I already married one.”)

The left doesn’t oppose anti-Semitism. It opposes the right. It will accuse the right of anti-Semitism when convenient even while its ranks swell with the blackest and ugliest bigotry imaginable. It is rotten with anti-Semitism. It can’t and won’t reject it. It won’t even reject the murder of Jews, the bombing of synagogues and membership in anti-Semitic hate groups when its own heroes are doing it.

Behind the fake outrage is a real outrage. Behind the fake anti-Semitism is real anti-Semitism.

Originally Published on FrontPageMag.

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The Trump way of winning the war

The PLO is disoriented, panicked and hysterical. Speaking to Newsweek this week, Saeb Erekat, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s chief conduit to Israel and the Americans, complained that since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, no administration official had spoken to them.

“I don’t know any of them [Trump’s advisers]. We have sent them letters, written messages. They don’t even bother to respond to us.”

The Trump administration’s shunning of the PLO is a marked departure from the policies of its predecessor. For former president Barack Obama, together with Iran, the Palestinians were viewed as the key players in the Middle East. Abbas was the first foreign leader Obama called after taking office.

Erekat’s statement reveals something that is generally obscured. Despite its deep support in Europe, the UN and the international Left, without US support, the PLO is irrelevant.

All the achievements the PLO racked up under Obama – topped off with the former president’s facilitation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 against Israel – are suddenly irrelevant. Their impact dissipated the minute Trump took office.

Israel, in contrast, is more relevant than ever.

While Trump occasionally pays lip service to making peace in the Middle East, his real goal is to win the war against jihadist Islam. And he rightly views Israel as a woefully underutilized strategic ally that shares his goal and is well-placed to help him achieve it.

During the electoral campaign, Trump often spoke derisively of Obama’s nuclear pact with Tehran. And he repeatedly promised to eradicate Islamic State. But when asked to explain what he intended to do on these scores, Trump demurred. You don’t expect me to let the enemy know my plan, do you?

Trump’s critics dismissed his statements as empty talk. But since he came into office, each day signals that he does have a plan and that he is implementing it. The plan coming into focus involves a multidimensional campaign that if successful will both neutralize Iran as a strategic threat and obliterate ISIS.

Regarding Iran specifically, Trump’s moves to date involve operations on three levels. First, there is the rhetorical campaign to distinguish the Trump administration from its successor.

Trump launched the campaign on Twitter on Wednesday writing, “Iran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq even after the US has squandered three trillion dollars there.”

Shortly before his post, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Abadi appointed Iranian proxy Qasim al Araji to serve as his interior minister.

At a minimum, Trump’s statement signaled an abandonment of Obama’s policy of cooperating with Iranian forces and Iranian-controlled Iraqi forces in the fight against ISIS in Iraq.

At around the same time Trump released his tweet about Iranian control of Iraq, his National Security Adviser Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn took a knife to Obama’s obsequious stand on Iran during a press briefing at the White House.

While Trump’s statement related to Iran’s growing power in Iraq, Flynn’s remarks were directed against its non-conventional threat and its regional aggression. Both were on display earlier this week.

On Sunday, Iran carried out its 12th ballistic missile test since concluding its nuclear deal with Obama, and its first since Trump took office.

On Monday, Iranian-controlled Houthi forces in Yemen attacked a Saudi ship in the Bab al-Mandab choke point connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

Flynn condemned both noting that they threatened the US and its allies and destabilized the Middle East. The missile test, he said, violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that anchored the nuclear deal.

Flynn then took a step further. He drew a sharp contrast between the Obama administration’s responses to Tehran’s behavior and the Trump administration’s views of Tehran’s provocative actions.

“The Obama administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions – including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” he noted.

“The Trump administration condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East and place American lives at risk.”

Flynn ended his remarks by threatening Iran directly.

“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” he warned.

While Flynn gave no details of what the US intends to do to Iran if it continues its aggressive behavior, the day before he made his statement, the US opened a major, multilateral, British-led naval exercise in the Persian Gulf. US naval forces in the region have been significantly strengthened since January 20 and rules of engagement for US forces in the Persian Gulf have reportedly been relaxed.

Perhaps the most potent aspect of Trump’s emerging strategy for defeating the forces of jihad is the one that hasn’t been discussed but it was signaled, through a proxy, the day after Trump took office.

On January 21, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a remarkable message to the Iranian people on his Facebook page. Netanyahu drew a sharp distinction between the “warm” Iranian people and the “repressive” regime.

Netanyahu opened his remarks by invoking the new administration.

“I plan to speak soon with President Trump about how to counter the threat of the Iranian regime, which calls for Israel’s destruction,” the prime minister explained.

“But it struck me recently that I’ve spoken a lot about the Iranian regime and not enough about the Iranian people, or for that matter, to the Iranian people. So I hope this message reaches every Iranian.”

Netanyahu paid homage to the Green Revolution of 2009 that was brutally repressed by the regime. In his words, “I’ll never forget the images of proud, young students eager for change gunned down in the streets of Tehran in 2009.”

Netanyahu’s statement was doubtlessly coordinated with the new administration. It signaled that destabilizing with the goal of overthrowing the regime in Tehran is a major component of Trump’s strategy.

By the looks of things in Iran, regime opponents are taking heart from the new tone emanating from Washington. Iranian dissidents have asked for a meeting with Trump’s team. And a week and a half before Trump’s inauguration, regime opponents staged a massive anti-regime protest.

Protesters used the public funeral of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to denounce the regime. In 2009, Rafsanjani sided with many of the Green Movement’s positions. His daughter was a leader of the protests.

Among the estimated 2.5 million people who attended the funeral, scores of thousands interrupted the official eulogies to condemn the regime, condemn the war with Syria and condemn the regime’s Russian allies.

This then brings us to Syria, where the war against ISIS and the campaign against Iran are set to converge. To date, Trump has limited his stated goals in Syria to setting up safe zones inside the country where displaced Syrians can live securely. Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have agreed to cooperate in these efforts.

Trump is now engaged in a talks with the Kremlin both above and below the radar about the possibility of coordinating their operations in Syria to enable safe zones to be established.

It is fairly clear what the US objective here would be. The US wishes to convince Moscow to effectively end its alliance with the Iranian regime. Trump repeatedly stated that the entire spectrum of US-Russian relations is now in play. Talks between the two governments will encompass Ukraine, US economic sanctions on Russia, nuclear weapons, Russian bases in Syria and Russia’s alliance with Iran and its Hezbollah proxies.

Everything is on the table.
Trump understands that Russia is threatened by Sunni jihadists and that Russia views Iran as a counterweight to ISIS and its counterparts in the Caucasus. A deal between the US and Russia could involve a Russian agreement to end its support for Iran and Hezbollah in exchange for US acceptance of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, cancellation of sanctions and perhaps some form of acquiescence to Russia’s military presence in Syria.

Russia and the US could then collaborate with Arab states with Israeli support to defeat ISIS and end the Syrian refugee crisis.

Combined with actions the Trump administration is already taking in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and its telegraphed aim of backing a popular Iranian insurrection, Trump’s hypothetical deal with Russia would neutralize Iran as a conventional and non-conventional threat.

This then brings us back to Israel – the first target of Iran’s aggression. If Trump’s strategy is successful, then the PLO will not be Israel’s only foe that is rendered irrelevant.

Earlier this week it was reported that in the two and- a-half years since the last war with Hamas, the Iranian-backed, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliate terrorist group has rebuilt its forces. Today Hamas fields assets and troops that match the capabilities it fielded during Operation Protective Edge.

Hezbollah, with its effective control over Lebanon, including the Lebanese military, is a strategic threat to Israel.

To date, Israel has demurred from targeting Hezbollah and Hamas missile arsenals, but not because it is incapable of destroying them. Israel’s efforts to avoid conflict with its enemies, even at the price of their rearmament, also haven’t stemmed from fear of European or UN condemnation or even from fear of the so-called “CNN-effect.”

Israel has chosen not to defeat its enemies – not to mention the EU-backed NGOs that whitewash them – because the Americans have supported them.

The Clinton administration barred Israel from taking decisive action against either Hezbollah or the Palestinians.

The Bush administration forced Israel to stand down during the war with Hezbollah in 2006.

The Obama administration effectively sided with Hamas against Israel in 2014.

In other words, across three administrations, the Americans made it impossible for Israel to take decisive military action against its enemies.
Under Obama, the US also derailed every Israeli attempt to curb the power of EU-funded subversive organizations operating from inside of Israel.

Trump’s emerging strategy on Iran and ISIS, together with his refusal to operate in accordance with the standard US playbook on the Palestinians, indicates that the US has abandoned this practice. Under Trump, Israel is free to defeat its enemies. Their most powerful deterrent against Israel – the US – is gone.

Israel has long argued that there is no difference between al-Qaida and Hamas or between ISIS and Hezbollah. It has also argued that Iran threatens not only Israel but the world as a whole. Hoping to co-opt the forces of jihad rather than defeat them, successive US administrations have chosen to deny this obvious truth.

Unlike his predecessors, Trump is serious about winning. To do so, he is even willing to take the radical step of accepting Israel as an ally.

The PLO is right to be hysterical.

Originally published in the Jerusalem Post.

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Is Israel Preparing for War?

According to reports, Israel’s Home Front Command is preparing for thousands of rockets to hit Israel during the next war.  Hezbollah is said to have a stockpile of 120,000 rockets.  Many of these rockets can hit anywhere in Israel. In preparation, the Home Front Command is revamping its entire warning system.  It currently divides the country into 264 polygon alert zones in which a siren is activated once the flight path and expected landing area of a missile or rocket is calculated.

According to the Jerusalem Post “Israel’s already state-of-the-art alert system is being upgraded, as the number of polygon alert zones is set to increase to a few thousand by April 2018. The increase in zones means that, as opposed to a siren sounding for an entire city, individual neighborhoods or streets will be alerted to take shelter.”

How Close Is War?

With the new detente between the Trump Administration and Putin actively changing the dynamics in Syria, Hezbollah and Iran sense an abrupt change in their relationship to Russia. The divergent interests of Iran and Russia are beginning to come to the surface as Putin looks to not only force a peace on Syria, but forge a long lasting alliance with the USA. Iran wants none of this. Its entry into the civil war had the goal of safeguarding its supply route to Hezbollah as well as creating a defacto Iranian presence on Israel’s northern border.

With Putin looking to quiet down the conflict most reports from the region claim that his next move is to force Iran out of Syria altogether. In an article published in December of 2015 we predicted this very situation:

Putin has never ascribed to Iran’s goal of establishing a Persian controlled Middle East. Russia would like to be in control of the region in as far as the oil and its military bases are concerned. A strong Iran provides Putin with a serious challenge down the road.  The problem is that Putin needs Iranian troops and ground support in Syria so he does not repeat the Russian mistakes of Afghanistan in the 1980s.  Right now because he has placed very little Russian soldiers into the fray, he is receiving huge support from the Russian citizenry.

While Russia needs Iranian troops, it does not need Iran exploiting the partnership in hopes it gets an edge up on Israel.  Putin knows a cornered Israel could create a far bigger problem.  Russia is also receiving advanced intelligence from Israel on ISIS positions.

While Iran is a formidable power, with Putin and Trump working together the Mullahs understand their ability to affect Syria maybe becoming to an end. An Iran with nothing to lose is a very dangerous Iran.  Expect the Ayatollahs and their henchman Hezbollah to throw the Levant off course.

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Test Is The First Push Back

Iran fired its first ballistic missile test since Donald Trump was sworn in as president.  The missile flew 500 kilometers before crashing. Bibi Netanyahu reacted immediately to the test by stating “it must not go unanswered.” The White House is still looking into the matter and will decide upon its response.  More importantly, the ballistic missile test is a message the changing alliances that are catching Tehran off guard: We will not go quietly.

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‘TACIT CONSENT’ IN ISRAELI-RUSSIAN RELATIONS

Moscow is not interfering with Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Syria.

One of the most interesting stories, if not the most puzzling, is the close understanding and amity between Jerusalem and Moscow.  While the Russian Air Force pounds the civilian population in Aleppo on behalf of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his Iranian allies, Russia is coordinating the moves of its Air Force in Syria with Israel’s Air Force.  Moscow is not interfering with Israeli attacks on Hezbollah convoys carrying lethal arms shipped to Syria by Iran, as the Shiite terrorist group is attempting to move these arms to Lebanon.  Walla, a Hebrew language Israeli news outlet wrote on December 1, 2016 that “Russia’s silence following reports that the Israeli Air Force bombed an arms depot and a Hezbollah bound weapons convoy in Syria on Wednesday might signal ‘tacit consent’ to such action as long as they do not harm Kremlin’s interests.”  Israel, on its part, is staying out of the civil war in Syria, but provides medical assistance to wounded opposition fighters combatting the Assad regime.

The Obama administration failure to act on its announced “Red Line,” (on Assad’s use of chemical warfare on fellow Syrians) and subsequently leaving the Syrian arena in Russian hands, has damaged U.S. credibility in the region.  It has also encouraged Russia to take aggressive action against opposition forces supported by the U.S., and Syrian civilians.

Gen. Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian defense ministry said according to Russian RT-TV(11/29/2016) that, “Over the past few days, well planned and careful action by the Syrian troops resulted in a radical breakthrough.  Half of the territory previously held by the militants in eastern Aleppo has been de facto liberated.”  Konashenkov’s cynical statement referring to the Assad regime’s brutal actions in attacking (along with Russian aerial support) civilians in homes, hospitals and schools with barrel-bombs to be “well planned and careful action,” sharply contrasts with Israeli hospitals opening their doors to perform truly humanitarian work by treating wounded Syrian civilians and fighters.

Konashenkov also stressed that “over 80,000 Syrians, including tens of thousands of children, have been freed.  Many of them, at long last were able to get water, food and medical assistance at humanitarian centers deployed by Russia.  Those Syrians served as human shields in Aleppo for terrorists of all flavors.” That statement is turning the truth upside down.  After relentless bombing by Russian and Syrian jets that have killed thousands (mostly Sunni civilians), these Syrians do not consider Russia’s role as “humanitarian.”

Putin’s Russia has saved Bashar Assad’s skin, and has done so for purely Russian interests, including air and naval bases in the Latakia Governorate of northwestern Syria, bordering the coveted Mediterranean Sea.  Putin’s Russia has planned to sell, and according to Russian and Iranian sources, already delivered to Iran the highly sophisticated S-300 air defense system.  Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his many meetings with Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, implored the latter not to sell such weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Thomas Shannon, U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said that, “We have made it very clear to the Russians that we consider this (the sale of the S-300) to be a bad move, that we consider it to be destabilizing and not in keeping with what we’ve been trying to accomplish, not only through the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal) , but broadly in terms of our engagement with Iran.”

Putin’s Russia alliance with the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and the repressive Islamic Republic of Iran notwithstanding, to watch the warm reception Benjamin Netanyahu received in the Kremlin by his host Vladimir Putin is most certainly eyebrow raising, if not an amazing phenomenon.  Considering decades of Soviet support for Israel’s enemies, and oppression of its Jews, Putin’s Russia has a rather warm spot for the remaining Jews in Russia, and satisfaction with the Russian cultural enclave in Israel.  In fact, outside the former Soviet Union, Israel has probably the largest Russian speaking population.  Putin felt at home when he visited Israel, first in April, 2005, as he met for discussions with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.  In June, 2012, Putin was in Israel again on an official visit.  This time, he unveiled the national monument honoring the memory of Jewish soldiers in the Red Army who fought the Nazis in WWII.  He also met with PM Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.  Reuter’s story by Josh Cohen on January 14, 2016 was headlined, “Vladimir Putin is the closest thing to a friendIsrael has ever had in Moscow.”  And yet, Putin’s Russia has continued to vote with the Palestinians at the UN, has helped Iran with its nuclear program, and sold missiles to both Iran and Syria.

Stalin, the Soviet Union murderous tyrant was one of the first to recognize the Jewish state in 1948, and sold arms through Czechoslovakia to the nascent Jewish nation.  At the same time, Stalin ordered the murder of Jewish anti-fascist leaders in Russia, and made anti-Semitism a state policy.  Following the Six-Day war in 1967, the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with Israel, and during the War of Attrition (1969-1970), Soviet pilots flew missions for the Egyptians.  Israeli pilots engaged and downed a number of Soviet pilots (Israel never publicized it in order not to inflame the Russians).  During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Soviets were heavily involved with the Arab war machine against Israel, providing Egypt and Syria with huge quantities of arms, including lethal missiles.

The last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, renewed diplomatic ties with Israel in 1991. Putin’s personal admiration for Israel elevated its profile in Russian foreign policy.  The Arab market for Russian arms is a lucrative one, and it is therefore pragmatism that motivates Putin along with personal sympathy for Israel and Jews.  Israel’s experience with Islamist terrorism made it sympathetic to Russia in its 1999 war in Chechnya, which dealt with combatting Islamist terror.  The Jerusalem Post quoted Putin telling Netanyahu that Israel and Russia are “unconditional allies” in the war against terror. In fact, Putin was one of the few world leaders to support Israel’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in 2014.  Putin is quoted as saying, “I support Israel’sbattle that is intended to keep its citizens protected.”

In 2008, Israel made significant gestures towards Putin’s Russia.  It transferred to Russia parts of the Russian Orthodox compound (Sergei courtyard) in Jerusalem.  In the same year, Israel halted military supplies to Georgia (at war with Russia at the time) for a Russian promise not to sell the S-300 air-defense system to Iran.  Israel has also been neutral in the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. It did not condone Russian aggression there, but seeks to avoid alienating Moscow.  For the same reason, Israel abstained on a UN vote that condemned Russia for its annexation of Crimea.

The Obama administration’s open dislike for Netanyahu’s government, has forced Israel to look elsewhere for support.   Avigdor Lieberman, (a native of Moldavia, part of the former Soviet Union) Israel’s former Foreign Minister and current Defense Minister greatly enhanced Russian-Israeli relations.  The incoming Trump administration, seeking to reset relations with Russia, might find Israel to be a trusted go-between in dealing with Putin. This might aid the incoming U.S. administration, while at the same time further strengthen Israeli-Russian relations.

Originally Published on FrontpageMag.

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Israel’s First Move with the Trump Administration

Israeli officials are thrilled with the national security team that US President-elect Donald Trump is assembling. And they are right to be. The question now is how Israel should respond to the opportunity they present us with.

The one issue that brings together all of the top officials Trump has named so far to his national security team is Iran.

General John Kelly, whom Trump appointed Wednesday to serve as his secretary of homeland security warned about Iran’s infiltration of the US from Mexico and about Iran’s growing presence in Central and South America when he served as commander of the US’s Southern Command.

Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s pick to serve as Defense Secretary and Gen. Michael Flynn who he has tapped to serve as his national security advisor were both fired by outgoing President Barack Obama for their opposition to his nuclear diplomacy with Iran.

During his video address before the Saban Forum last weekend, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that he looks forward to discussing Obama’s nuclear deal with the Iranian regime with Trump after his inauguration next month. Given that Netanyahu views Iran’s nuclear program — which the nuclear deal guaranteed would be operational in 14 years at most — as the most serious strategic threat facing Israel, it makes sense that he wishes to discuss the issue first.

But Netanyahu may be better advised to first address the conventional threat Iran poses to Israel, the US and the rest of the region in the aftermath of the nuclear deal.

There are two reasons to start with Iran’s conventional threat, rather than its nuclear program. First, Trump’s generals are reportedly more concerned about the strategic threat posed by Iran’s regional rise than by its nuclear program – at least in the immediate term.

Israel has a critical interest in aligning its priorities with those of the incoming Trump administration. The new administration presents Israel with the first chance it has had in 50 years to reshape its alliance with the US on firmer footing than it has stood on to date. The more Israel is able to develop joint strategies with the US for dealing with common threats, the firmer its alliance with the US and the stronger its regional posture will become.

The second reason it makes sense for Israel to begin its strategic discussions with the Trump administration by addressing Iran’s growing regional posture is because Iran’s hegemonic rise is a strategic threat to Israel. And at present, Israel lacks a strategy for dealing with it.

Our leaders today still describe Hezbollah with the same terms they used to describe it decade ago during the Second Lebanon War. They discuss Hezbollah’s massive missile and rocket arsenal. With 150,000 projectiles pointed at Israel, in a way it makes sense that Israel does this.

Just this week Israel reinforced the sense that Hezbollah is more or less the same organization it was ten years ago when — according to Syrian and Hezbollah reports — on Tuesday Israel bombed Syrian military installations outside Damascus.

Following the alleged bombing, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told EU ambassadors that Israel is committed to preventing Hezbollah from transferring advanced weapons, including weapons of mass destruction from Syria to Lebanon. The underlying message is that having those weapons in Syria is not viewed as a direct threat to Israel.

Statements like Liberman’s also send the message that other than the prospect of weapons of mass destruction or precision missiles being stockpiled in Lebanon, Israel isn’t particularly concerned about what is happening in Lebanon.

These statements are unhelpful because they obfuscate the fact that Hezbollah is not the guerilla organization it was a decade ago.

Hezbollah has changed in four basic ways since the last war.

First, Hezbollah is no longer coy about the fact that it is an Iranian, rather than Lebanese organization. Since Iran’s Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1983, the Iranians and Hezbollah terrorists alike have insisted that Hezbollah is an independent organization that simply enjoys warm relations with Iran.

But today, with Hezbollah forming the backbone of Iran’s operations in Syria, and increasingly prominent in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither side cares if the true nature of their relationship is recognized. For instance, recently Hezbollah commander Hassan Nasrallah bragged, “We’re open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets are from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

What our enemies’ new openness tells us is that Israel must cease discussing Hezbollah and Iran as separate entities. Israel’s next war in Lebanon will not be with Hezbollah, or even with Lebanon. It will be with Iran.

This is not a semantic distinction. It is a strategic one. Making it will have a positive impact on how both Israel and the rest of the world understand the regional strategic reality facing Israel, the US and the rest of the nations of the Middle East.

The second way that Hezbollah is different today is that it is no longer a guerilla force. It is a regular maneuver army with a guerilla arm and a regional presence. Its arsenal is as deep as Iran’s arsenal. And at present at least, it operates under the protection of the Russian air force and air defense systems.

Hezbollah has deployed at least a thousand fighters to Iraq where they are fighting alongside Iranian forces and Shiite militia, which Hezbollah trains. Recent photographs of a Hezbollah column around Mosul showed that in addition to its advanced missiles, Hezbollah also fields an armored corps. Its armored platforms include M1A1 Abrams tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers.

The footage from Iraq, along with footage from the military parade Hezbollah held last month in Syria, where its forces also showed off their M-113s makes clear that Hezbollah’s US-platform based maneuver force is not an aberration.

The significance of Hezbollah’s vastly expanded capabilities is clear. Nasrallah’s claims in recent years that in the next war his forces will stage a ground invasion of the Galilee and seek to seize Israeli border towns was not idle talk. Even worse, the open collaboration between Russia and Iran-Hezbollah in Syria, and their recent victories in Aleppo mean that there is no reason for Israel to assume that Hezbollah will only attack from Lebanon. There is a growing likelihood that Hezbollah will make its move from Syrian territory.

The third major change from 2006 is that like Iran, Hezbollah today is much richer than it was before Obama concluded the nuclear deal with the ayatollahs last year. The deal, which cancelled economic and trade sanctions on Iran has given the mullahs a massive infusion of cash.

Shortly after the sanctions were cancelled, the Iranians announced that they were increasing their military budget by 90 percent. Since Hezbollah officially received $200 million per year before sanctions were cancelled, the budget increase means that Hezbollah is now receiving some $400 million per year from Iran.

The final insight that Israel needs to base its strategic planning on is that a month and a half ago, Hezbollah-Iran swallowed Lebanon.

In late October, after a two and a half year fight, Saad Hariri and his Future movement caved to Iran and Hezbollah and agreed to support their puppet Michel Aoun in his bid for the Lebanese presidency.

True, Hariri was also elected to serve as Prime Minister. But his position is now devoid of power. Hariri cannot raise a finger without Nasrallah’s permission.

Aoun’s election doesn’t merely signal that Hariri caved. It signals that Saudi Arabia – which used the fight over Lebanon’s presidency as a way to block Iran’s completion of its takeover of the country – has lost the influence game to Iran. Taken together with Saudi ally Egyptian President Abdel Fatth a-Sisi’s announcement last week that he supports Syrian President Bashar Assad’s remaining in power, Aoun’s presidency shows that the Sunnis have accepted that Iran is now the dominant power in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

This brings us back to Hezbollah’s tank corps and the reconstruction of the US-Israel alliance. After the photos of the US’ armored vehicles in Hezbollah’s military columns were posted online, both Hezbollah and the Lebanese Armed Forces insisted that the weapons didn’t come from the LAF.

But there is no reason to believe them.

In 2006, the LAF provided Hezbollah with targeting information for its missiles and intelligence support. Today it must be assumed that in the next war, the LAF, and its entire arsenal will be placed at Hezbollah-Iran’s disposal. In 2016 alone, the US provided the LAF with $216 million in military assistance.

From Israel’s perspective, the most strategically significant aspect of Hezbollah-Iran’s uncontested dominance over all aspects of the Lebanese state is that while they control the country, they are not responsible for it.

Israeli commanders and politicians often insist that the IDF has deterred Hezbollah from attacking Israel. Israel’s deterrence, they claim is based on the credibility of our pledge to bomb the civilian buildings now housing Hezbollah rockets and missiles in the opening moments of the next conflict.

These claims are untrue, though. Since Hezbollah-Iran are not responsible for Lebanon despite the fact that they control it through their puppet government, Iranian and Hezbollah leaders won’t be held accountable if Israel razes south Lebanon in the next war. They will open the next war not to secure Lebanon, but to harm Israel. If Lebanon burns to the ground, it will be no sweat off their back.

The reason a new war hasn’t begun has nothing to do with the credibility of Israel’s threats. It has to do with Iran’s assessment of its interests. So long as the fighting goes on in Syria, it is hard to see Iran ordering Hezbollah to attack Israel. But as soon as it feels comfortable committing Hezbollah forces to a war with Israel, Iran will order it to open fire.

This then brings us back to the incoming Trump administration, and its assessment of the Iranian threat.

Trump’s national security appointments tell us that the 45th president intends to deal with the threat that Iran poses to the US and its interests. Israel must take advantage of this strategic opening to deal with the most dangerous conventional threat we face.

In our leaders’ conversations with Trump’s team they must make clear that the Iranian conventional threat stretches from Afghanistan to Israel and on to Latin America and Michigan. Whereas Israel will not fight Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the Americas, it doesn’t expect the US to fight Iran in Lebanon. But at the same time, as both allies begin to roll back the Iranian threat, they should be operating from a joint strategic vision that secures the world from Iran’s conventional threat.

And once that it accomplished, the US and Israel can work together to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

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Hezbollah Readies its Missiles on Israel’s Border

It has been revealed by the IDF that Hezbollah has its missiles trained on Israeli villages and cities with launching pads in 200 villages on the Lebanese Israeli border.  The IDF released a previously classified map detailing the precise location  each launching pad.

With the Israeli airforce working overtime to mitigate weapons transfers between Iranian commanders in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the real question is not if there will be a war, but when.

Israeli Airforce Primary Mission is to Prevent Arms Shipments

With the flurry of air attacks on Syrian targets, one can observe how the IDF stretches the understandings with Russian leader Putin.  The only atacks he allows are ones that directed at potential arms transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The goal of these transfers is to strengthen the armanents in Southern Lebanon in preparation for al out war with Israel. Now that the Syrian army seems in control of the war efforst, Hezbollah has energy to spare to turn its sites once more on Israel.

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HIGH-STAKES GAME OVER SYRIA AS KHAMENEI-PUTIN AXIS ADVANCES

The news out of Syria this week is, as usual, complex—and seemingly contradictory.

On the one hand, the Russian-Syrian-Iranian-Hizballah alliance appeared to have overcome rebel resistance in Aleppo—a major turning point that would shift the war’s momentum in the alliance’s favor.

On the other hand, Arab and other media reported that on Wednesday the Israeli air force struck a Syrian weapons depot west of Damascus and a weapons convoy headed for Hizballah in Lebanon.

As of Thursday evening there had been no retaliation against Israel, and Israeli analysts generally saw a retaliation as unlikely.

Media outside of Israel have, of course, often reported in the past on Israeli airstrikes—usually against Hizballah-bound weaponry—in Syria.

Israel’s policy has been to keep mum, neither denying nor confirming the reports. Last April, though, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel had carried out “dozens” of strikes in Syria against “game-changing weaponry” for Hizballah.

It’s no secret that, since the 2006 war between Israel and Hizballah in Lebanon, Hizballah has massively rearmed and now harbors tens of thousands of missiles. But Israel regards some kinds of weapons—precision rockets, advanced antiship and antiaircraft systems—as out of bounds for the terror group.

What has changed in the Syrian arena, though, is that late last year Russia deployed its powerful S-400 radar and antiaircraft system there. It covers Syria, Lebanon, and much of Israel and can track Israel’s northern airspace.

Since then there have been far fewer reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria. In one of them, last September, the outcome seemed ominous when Syria—not a military match for Israel by itself, but backed by Russia and Iran—fired missiles at two Israeli aircraft.

Why, then, the Israeli strike this week? Why no military response this time?

One conjecture: the weapons Israel struck in the Syrian depot and in the convoy would have been particularly unacceptable weapons in Hizballah’s hands.

Another conjecture: the much-touted Israeli-Russian coordination, whereby Netanyahu and Russian president Vladimir Putin are said to have worked out arrangements to avoid clashes, is still operative.

Other possible mitigating factors are that Israel reportedly hit the targets from Lebanese, not Syrian, airspace, and that no Syrian or Hizballah fighters appear to have been killed.

The larger question: what happens if Syria’s Assad and his backers have indeed turned the tide and will be looking to keep extending their control over Syrian territory?

Of interest here are remarks to the Algemeiner website by Yossi Kuperwasser, who has held major positions in Israel’s Military Intelligence.

Kuperwasser, as the site paraphrases it, says that

Iran is stepping up the speed at which it is arming its proxies in the region due to its fear that after Donald Trump assumes the US presidency in January, its room to maneuver in Syria will be greatly hampered….

And regarding Israel and Russia, in Kuperwasser’s own words:

There is a mutual understanding of each other’s interests. Though Russia and Iran are backing Hezbollah combat rebel forces fighting against the Assad regime, Russia understands that Israel cannot allow weapons from Hezbollah in Syria to be moved to Lebanon, where they will be aimed at the Jewish state.

How long can this relatively tolerable—for Israel—situation continue?

Indications are that its days may be numbered. Even if Putin’s strategic goals are not identical to those of his allies—he is clearly not a Shiite ideologue like the Iranians and Hizballah or a Shiite-aligned Arab like Assad—his steps have been increasingly brazen.

Along with the transfer of major weapon systems to Syria, and an aircraft carrier to its coast, they include major weapons sales to Iran, joint provision with Iran of weapons to Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen, and reports of Russian aid to Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq.

As Kuperwasser puts it, Israel’s most serious concern is “Iran’s increasing territorial contiguity—crossing Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.”

For the incoming Trump administration, stemming this tide should be an urgent priority. Whatever Putin’s real motive, he is helping create a situation of unacceptable danger to Israel and a Middle East bifurcated between Shiite and Sunni blocs—a recipe for ongoing war and explosive instability.

Originally Published on FrontpageMag

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BREAKING NEWS: Israel Attacks Multiple Targets in Syria

Although the IDF has no official comment on the air force raids into Syrian territory. Arabic media is reporting Israeli airstrikes on multiple targets.

London-based Rai al-Youm stated the following on it’s website:

“The Israeli air force launched two raids by 4 missiles. The first targeted an ammunition dump inside the 38 Brigade of the Fourth Infantry Division, in the Syrian army and sources said the second targeted a number of cars near highway between Beirut – Damascus. The sources said the second raid was not targeting any security or political personnel, but rather a convoy of vehicles who are mostly likely affiliated with Hezbollah arms shipments.  According to local media the attack occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning with Syrians waking to hear the sound of explosions west of the Syrian capital Damascus.”

The attack follows a similar attack against ISIS targets after they engaged with the IDF on Monday.  The Israeli government continues to follow a policy of neutrality in regards to the Syrian Civil War and will only attack when arm shipments are destined from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon or if ISIS directly confronts Israel, which happened for the first time earlier in the week.

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