Nasrallah Totally Misread Israel’s Mindset

 Israel’s campaign in Lebanon over the last 10 days has been a remarkable display of intelligence, technological skill, and above all political will. The sabotage of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies wounded or killed scores of fighters. Its targeted bombings against Hezbollah’s terror masters showed how much Israeli intelligence has penetrated its communications.

Israel, as it turns out, was not the only entity to have underestimated the enemy on October 7^th and fallen prey to mistaken assumptions, and an entrenched mindset. So was Hezbollah.

Hezbollah’s head, Hassan Nasrallah, prided himself on what he thought was a good understanding of Israeli society. He radiated a sense to his own people and the region that he – more than any of Israel’s enemies, knew Israel, understood its DNA, figured out what made it tick, grasped its fears and insecurities, and knew exactly what buttons to press and when.

In August 2018, this self-professed know all of Israeli society said this: “The Israeli leadership knows that it is difficult to convince people to enlist in the elite units and the combat units. Everyone prefers to serve in the rear units. They lost the will that they once had to sacrifice; they have no motivation to endanger their lives.”

His confidence in his ability to read Israel was behind the propaganda videos he periodically put out to frighten the country, the maneuvers of Hezbollah terrorists on the border, and, in the early part of the century, the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. He thought he had found the country’s Achilles’ heel and could exploit that weakness to victory.

Nasrallah obviously did not believe that Israel would dare take the type of military action it has in the last ten days, essentially crippling his organization. This is the Israel of the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s – confident, brazen, daring, and taking the initiative.

Israel, he assumed, would not take serious action. It was too bogged down in Gaza, too wary of a frontal confrontation with his 150,000 missiles, and unwilling to provoke a confrontation with Iran.

Nasrallah assumed that Israel’s spirit was broken, that its confidence in its leadership was nonexistent, and that its faith in the future was shaken. And where could he have gotten that idea? By tuning into Israeli media and concluding that what he saw nightly on the news – massive protests, reports of internal division, fighting among government ministers, endless bickering and criticism – was a true reflection of Israel. He mistook the defeatism reflected in some of the media for the overall mood of the country and its soldiers. Nasrallah did not realize that this only reflected the mood of a small portion of the population.

Likewise, Nasrallah was reading – and misreading – Israel from the debates swirling in the media, thinking the country had lost its way and its will. It is understandable how he could have drawn that conclusion. But the country’s strength, will, and determination are much stronger than how this often appears on the nightly news. 

It is probably a forlorn hope to expect the news reporters to become reporters and not purveyors of their personal ideologies.

For fuller analysis of this see https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-822427

Beautiful Homes Become Missile Storage Facilities

  IDF strikes somebody’s nice home in Lebanon, which suddenly
 EXPLODES WITH MISSILES HEADED ALL DIRECTIONS.

It was also a missile storage site.

How the Christians Lost Control of Lebanon

 

Another Day In Haifa, Barrages of Missiles

 (From my friend Jeanine Hirschhorn 24.09.24)

07:45 Hezbullah clocks in. 17 consecutive explosions.  Nothing to see. No siren.  There were rocket alerts this morning in the north of the country around Nazareth and Afula.  As well as alerts in the towns along the border, Metulla, Tel Hai, Kfar Giladi and just a few minutes ago Avivim.  Making use of short range mortars/rockets. Just to keep a toe in.  As it were. 

Things your govt/media won't tell you: According to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbullah is barred from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani River. Obviously neither the UN, nor Hezbullah nor your govt/media paid any attention.

And all those "panicked Lebanese fleeing Israeli bombings" and "horrific traffic jams heading north" headlines are rubbish.  Southern Lebanese have been thru decades of incursions/wars/bombings . They know the drill well, have been heading north toward Beirut for weeks.  For the past 48 hours, Israel has been calling households in the Beka'a, a Hezbullah stronghold east of Beirut, warning them to evacuate.

 The truth your govt and media refuse to hear:  At the conclusion of her interview yesterday on France 24, Stéphanie Khoury, political journalist at l’Orient Le Jour, a Lebanese newspaper in French, stated:  ". . . the reality, the Lebanese political class has been helpless in front of Hezbullah, which is today a militia and a party controlling the state and (it) is completely helpless in the face of this organization".

A very bold and brave statement to make publicly for someone living in Lebanon, given that criticizing the thugs in power can get you murdered or worse.  

Mme Khoury's audacious statement reiterates what President Yitzhak Herzog stated on Sunday during an interview with Sky News: "There are many enemies of Hezbollah out there, quite a few these days. Hezbollah has been choking Lebanon, destroying Lebanon, creating havoc in Lebanon again and again and again. We are here simply to defend ourselves. That's all we do"

When asked about whether Israel is now at war with Lebanon, Herzog emphasised the country is "not interested to be at war with Lebanon... but Lebanon has been hijacked by a terror organisation which is also a political party called Hezbollah. It's been armed to its teeth by the Iranian empire of evil."

13:08 11 explosions. Nothing to see.  Missile alerts in Yagur (a kibbutz right down the road from me), Yokneam and the Druse village of Daliat el Carmel, 20 km south of me.

13:58 Two explosions. So few, after so many. Maybe Hezbullah's eking out what little it has left.  Alerts in Abu Snan, Sheikh Danun, Klil,  Kfar Yassif, Jadeidi
Makr, Muslim/Druse/Xtian Galilee villages.  We're ALL Hezbullah targets.

15:04 8 explosions. Got to window just in time to vaguely see 3 tracer rockets quietly exploding.  Tough to see the tracers in bright sunlight. No siren.

15:13 12 explosions. Missile alerts at kibbutzim/moshavim and Arab villages along border.

The above in addition to both missile and drone alerts all day from the border communities to Arab villages in the Galilee to Safat and Rosh Pina.

. . . and yet daily life in the north continues as usual.  Here in Haifa, people go to work, markets are full, public transport is running, Schools are closed, so there are more children in the malls and on the streets.  And what I didn't notice until this morning, Haifa Bay is full of cargo ships awaiting their turn in port.  So I guess that despite the day-long explosions, Lloyd's is far from nervous.  And if Lloyd's ain't nervous, then neither am I.

That's all from a quiet evening in Haifa on Day Two of Operation Northern Arrows

Private Homes in Lebanon Store Missiles for Hezbollah

 The multiple explosions clearly show many missiles are stored in one location.

Note one secondary explosion result the destruction of an adjacent home.

IDF Kill Armed Gunmen Stealing Humanitarian Aid

The IDF is trying to eliminate terrorists who are 
stealing humanitarian aid and create more confidence

in the Gazan citizens

Just Another Afternoon of Missiles

 (From Jeanine Hirschhorn, a resident of Haifa)

At approximately 16:45, I heard 8 explosions in succession.  Ran to my living room window, nothing to see. No tracer rockets, no impact dust. No siren.

At approximately 17:05, I heard 11 explosions, a few louder than the rest.  Ran to my window, saw impact dust pillar somewhere in a field before Akko. No tracers. No sirens.  It may help to remember that the apartment building that  

At 17:15, 5 explosions, except faint, distant.  Nothing to see.

17:25 11 explosions, faint, but I can feel their concussion when I put my hand on my living room window frame.  Nothing to see. 

17:44 9 explosions, rattling my window frame.  Nothing to see.

18:06 6 explosions.  Didn't even rattle my window frame.  Nothing to see.

I'm guessing that, due to the something that passes for regularity between explosions, Hezbollah has put rockets/mortars on timers, same as Hamas did in Gaza.  Terrorists set the timer, then take off, so that they're long gone to avoid capture and when the air force gets around to bombing the site. 

I also know that today's explosions will stop, that Hezbollah will clock out at sunset, in about half an hour.  Same as they did during their 2006 bombardment. Hezbollah clocked in about 06:30, clocked out at 20:00 at sunset.  The origins of the rockets/mortars/missile launchings are harder to see in daylight.  After the sun goes down, easier to see and destroy.

On the Northern Command (Pikud Haoref) site, there is an on-going list of towns, mostly Galilee Muslim/Xtian villages (something neither your govt/media will report), where missiles were detected.  Including the one I saw hit just outside of Akko.  

When the explosions started, none of my neighbors could be bothered to look north.  After the last round of explosions, a few are now looking out their windows, of course with their mobiles glued to their ears.

I'm a tad more nervous about missiles because I live in a top floor flat.  In 2006, a missile went thru the roof of a bloc of flats 4 blocks west of me, as well as a block of flats about 2 blocks south of me (for those of you familiar with Haifa, Hess Street and Leon Blum Street).  The black smoke from the fire caused by the missile direct hit on Hess poured in to my living room thru the open window. 

There are several cargo boats out in the Bay, waiting to enter Haifa port.  Can't imagine what the captains/crews must be thinking as they hear the explosions.  Since they haven't hightailed it out of here, it means that Lloyds (of London, the famous marine insurer) isn't nervous.  Yet.

Pagers, Walkie Talkies Explode in Hands of Terrorists

Thousands of Hezbollah members and the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, were injured in Lebanon on Tuesday when their handheld pagers explode in what appears to have been an Israeli attack. The Lebanese Health Ministry has estimated high casualties, the vast majority of them in the Hezbollah strongholds of Beirut and southern Lebanon. Even higher numbers have been reported but not confirmed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the exploded pagers were from “a new shipment the group received in the past few days,” raising the possibility that the Israelis intercepted the shipment and modified the devices or directly infected them with malware. Others have suggested that Israel was able to either hack into the pagers and force their lithium batteries to overheat or somehow activate self-destruct mechanisms that Hezbollah had built into the devices. What the Israelis did not do is tell the United States of the plan, per U.S. officials quoted in Axios—probably a good idea, given that the highest-ranking White House intelligence official, Maher Bitar, used to sit on the executive board of Georgetown’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. 

The attack was a brilliant technical display, of course, but did it mean anything strategically? On Tuesday morning, Israel declared the return of civilians to the north as an official war goal, and Israel Hayom reported, citing a “high-ranking security official,” that Israel was “on the precipice of conflict with Hezbollah.” The same official said that Netanyahu had been working to overcome “resistance [to a Lebanon operation] from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and [the] military leadership,” who were resistant to defying American requests to delay any invasion until after the Nov. 5 U.S. election. So, was this attack a prelude to an invasion?

For help understanding that one, the Tablet News Editor Tony Badran said: 

The question is what was the purpose of this operation? Why now? What now? 

Timing wise, it’s difficult to overlook the fact [that] it coincided with Amos Hochstein’s visit to Israel and him telling the Israelis that the U.S. continues to oppose an invasion of Lebanon.

This brings us to a point made by Tablet’s geopolitical analyst: 

They set off the pagers because they decided not to invade, which was the original purpose of these capabilities.

In a separate email to The Scroll, Tablet’s geopolitical analyst expanded:

I highly doubt this was intended as a one-off. Logic says this was supposed to disrupt the enemy’s communications as part of a larger invasion plan. The word is that the invasion was called off “until after the election.” So then you’re left with a degrading asset that was either already discovered or would likely be discovered the moment one of these guys brought their pager for repairs. So either you use them or you lose them.

In other words, as with everything we’ve seen so far from Israel, its actions are still within the U.S.-imposed parameters pertaining to the special province of Lebanon and the U.S. protective umbrella it extends to Hezbollah.

Sweden Gives Prize to Israeli Eurovision Star

 Even though the Swedish Jury felt it necessary to play

 political games during the 2034 Eurovision song contest, 

the people protested and gave Eden Golan a prize.

Hamas Warehouses in Gaza Overflowing with Stolen Humanitarian Aid.

For full article see https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-820030 

Hamas terrorists have confiscated so much humanitarian aid that the terror group is struggling to find space in warehouses to store all of it, according to intercepted communications between Hamas operatives that were played during an episode of N12's "Ulpan Shishi" on Friday.

These intercepted communications feature Hamas operatives discussing the movement of goods from overflowing humanitarian aid warehouses to Khan Yunis.

“We’ve got trucks filled with goods alongside the diesel trucks,” one operative said. “At this point, we have everything... The warehouse is at full capacity. We’re just waiting for the green light to start transferring.” The second operative responded, “Coordinating with Samer is difficult due to a reception issue. If you can move them elsewhere, go ahead.” The first operative then asked, “Can you take them to Khan Yunis, or will that cause a delay?”

This short exchange illustrates the significant flow of aid into Gaza, broadcasters said during the episode. What began with two trucks entering Gaza before the agreement has now grown into 200 trucks arriving daily. Hamas seizes these supplies, gaining complete control over the warehouses without resistance, they said.

They also mentioned how the recordings not only expose how Hamas takes control of these shipments but also highlight the absurdity of the situation—the terrorist organization is running out of space to store the aid. Clearly, this aid is not being used for humanitarian purposes but is instead aiding the enemy.

Circumventing Hamas and including local Gazans

Hamas exerts full control over food and medicine distribution. Meanwhile, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian attempted to regulate the aid by involving Gaza-based merchants who had been active before the war in managing the inflow of supplies.

Hamas exploited this by taking 20% of the merchants' profits. As a result, it was decided that starting next week, Alian would halt the aid transfer to these merchants. 

Israel destroys underground Iranian missile factory, Iran fuming

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

IDF elite forces undertook a raid last week in Syria to eliminate an underground missile factory created by Iran, three sources told Axios.

Although Israel has undertaken airstrikes in Syria for specific targets since October 7th, the ground operation in Syria was highly unusual.

The destruction of the weapons factory was intended to frustrate Iran’s and Hezbollah’s efforts to produce weapons on Syrian soil.

Israel did not confirm the operation to avoid conflict with Syria and a further escalation with Hezbollah.02:1502:23

The IDF and Israel’s Defense Ministry declined to comment on news of the operation.

Syria reported heavy airstrikes last week in the West, particularly in Masyaf, close to the border with Lebanon.

The airstrikes were meant to give cover for Israel’s ground operation in Syria.

Syrian state media called the operation “blatant aggression” and claimed that 16 people were killed and 40 others were wounded.

Iran’s state media called the operation “criminal.”

Two of the sources said Israel informed the White House prior to the operation, and it was approved, although the Biden Administration has not commented on the incident.

The operation began when IDF special forces surprised and killed the Syrian guards at the facility before placing explosives in the factory, blowing it up.

Israel fired from the air to prevent Syria from sending reinforcements to the area.

Sources say Iran began building the facility in 2018 with the cooperation of Hezbollah and Syria after most of its weapons facilities were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

The goal was to produce precision missiles in Western Syria that could be delivered quickly and easily to Hezbollah and to avoid discovery by the Israelis.

Israel detected the site and monitored it for five years under the code Deep Layer.

The IDF realized they would not be able to destroy the facility with airstrikes alone and would need a ground operation to carry it out.

Israel had attempted the operation several times, but plans were canceled given the high risk.

UN, there is a genocide going on, are you not interested?

 In Bangladesh there is on-going genocide. Why is the UN not interested?

" Jamaat-e-Islami has made a list of Hindu houses and businesses, and they are systematically targeting Hindus. I am also being told that JeI has blocked several roads with mobs walking around with guns. The network is also intermittently down and they are hardly able to contact each other. Essentially, the Hindus are boxed in a situation where they are not being allowed to communicate with each other and form groups to help each other. The situation, according to them is extremely dire. There is also news of at least 3 Hindu girls being abducted by the Muslims. There are probably far more..." — Nupur J Sharma, a journalist in Delhi, X, August 7, 2024

 "[T]here has been a long history of violence and repression against Hindus in Bangladesh including genocide of an estimated two million then East Pakistani citizens (mostly Hindu), the ethnic cleansing of 10 million ethnic Bengalis (mostly Hindus) who fled to India, and the rape of 200,000 women (also mostly Hindu) in camps set up for the sole purpose of raping and terrorizing." — The Hindu American Foundation.

 Terrifying videos of riots, lynchings, and arsonists setting fire to houses and offices are being shared on social media platforms. Will the United Nations or anyone intervene and stop the atrocities? Or will the world once again see and ignore yet more crimes against humanity with no accountability for those Islamists who perpetrate them?

 

Letter to UK Foreign Minister David Lammy

(The letter below was written by one in my mailing network.)

I am writing to you to express my disgust and shock that you have taken the egregious and cowardly decision to suspend export licenses to Britain's only true ally in the middle east, Israel.
 
You make the claim that it cannot be proved that British weapons are not being used "in breach of international law". And yet your government knows perfectly well that Israel is exercising extreme restraint in its conduct of the war in Gaza, and is applying standards and procedures for avoiding harm to non-combatants in enemy territory that have never been applied in the history of urban warfare.
 
The absolute proof that Israel is taking more precautions to avoid civilian deaths than any other army in history is in numbers: A civilian to terrorist ratio of 1.5 - 2 to 1 (even if you believe hamas casualty figures which are the only source of the number of civilian deaths, unquestioningly repeated by the media and the UN). Compare this to the Iraq war which the Labour party dragged this country into, where the best Britain and its allies could achieve was 4.5 to 1.
 
That you also chose to make this announcement on the day that six Israelis hostages were being buried after their brutal sadistic murder by Hamas terrorists is doubly outrageous.
 
But you know this and you made the decision anyway. Why? I can think of no other reason than to appease the far-left and Islamist mob that threatens your MPs' security and your party's vote share.
 
And furthermore, this comes on the back of two other disastrous decisions in recent weeks:
 
- The resumption of funding to UNRWA, which is clearly a terrorist front group with a vested interest in perpetuating the conflict with Israel and brainwashing the Palestinian youth into Jew-hatred and violence. Your government is literally taking money from pensioners and giving it to terrorists - unbelievable.
 
- Your back-tracking on the UK government's commitment to oppose the ICC's arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu, the democratically elected leader of an allied country.
 
I can only assume that you think that by giving the extremists in your party and in the country at large these concessions it will stop their threats, their violence, their intimidation. It won't. It will have the opposite effect, it will embolden them to increase their pressure. Where will you stop Mr Lammy?
 
Israel is a democratic nation state fighting a war for its survival against a vicious, cruel, cynical and bloodthirsty terrorist regime. A regime that murdered, tortured, burned alive, raped, kidnapped thousands of Israelis - an initiation of Total War if there ever was one. Yet Israel did not retaliate with total war as some countries no doubt would have done. It is fighting a just and necessary war to free hostages and to defeat the terrorist regime, under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, under intense international pressure, in a theatre where its enemy has deliberately embedded itself in the civilian population, turned civilian infrastructure into military infrastructure, dug 500 km of tunnels under every school, hospital, mosque and home. In spite of these challenges Israel is very clearly adhering to the laws of war.
 
Additionally, given that the UK also exports weapons systems to the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, India, etc etc, what proof do you have that those are not being used "in breach of international law"? How many have died in Yemen from Saudi bombardments? How many Kurds have been killed by Turkey? Will you also be suspending exports to those countries? I certainly look forward to finding out.
 
Mr Lammy I urge you to own up to your mistake, to reverse this decision, to show some backbone and leadership, and to stand up to the extremists who are pressuring you by telling the truth loudly and clearly: Israel is NOT committing genocide, genocide is what Hamas promise again and again to do to Israel's Jews (and demonstrated exactly how they will do this on October 7), and that Israel is a peaceful nation which respects international law. Because you know this to be true.

‘Bring Them Home’ Is Bringing Us to the Brink

For the full article go to https://tinyurl.com/ycxxyx62

Israelis are engaging en masse in the most rank American-style lunacy. Slogans like #BringThemHomeNow, for example, demonstrate just how hollow and inflamed Israeli public discourse has become. To whom, exactly, is this exhortation addressed? Surely not to Hamas, the only group with the actual power to release the hostages. Instead, it’s a bombastic bit of emotional manipulation, daring anyone to defy it while at the same time giving cover to political movements with unclear aims and means. Just like Black Lives Matter—and who would ever argue that they don’t?—the Bring Them Home movement in Israel is now an amalgam of anti-Bibi activists who’ve been marching for years under a host of different banners, bolstered by sheer emotionalism that argues for a deal at any cost, even if it means leaving Hamas victorious.

Thankfully, not all Israelis agree with this defeatist madness. In recent days, a post from an unnamed reservist in Gaza has been going viral in Israel for making a very different argument than the one you hear parroted by self-appointed experts on TV or hear shouted in the streets of Tel Aviv. “The Philadelphi Corridor is more important than hostages,” wrote the reservist. “It’s more important than me and my entire battalion, which has been fighting in Gaza since the beginning of the war.” Approximately every 100 meters, he explained, a tunnel passes through the fence, openings used for smuggling massive amounts of contraband. Therefore, the reservist continued, “leaving Philadelphi for one day means a death sentence for thousands more Israelis … Our blood is no less red than the blood of the hostages, although we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of defeating the enemy.” Take a deep breath, the reservist concludes, “and think again about your rhetoric. Now you are on the side of our worst enemy.”

The clashes unfurling all over Israel these days, then, aren’t really about the hostages, or the war, or even about Bibi Netanyahu. They’re more ontological than political, a referendum on how Israelis see the world and their role in it. For those who can’t imagine life outside of the global maze of governments and corporations and cultural commissars, the chief duty is to return posthaste into alignment with the dictates coming out of Washington. For those who understand that Zionism was always meant to guarantee freedom, not safety, now’s the time to make difficult choices, choices that would almost certainly lead to fresh waves of international condemnations but that would very likely save Israeli lives. But like with every civil war, all we can see now is how it begins, not, alas, how it might end.

Palestinians Can’t Even Agree Amongst Themselves

 (From the Al Qabas newspaper, Kuwait, August 22)

 On February 8, 2007 Fatah and Hamas agreed to sign the Mecca Agreement. This historic accord was brokered under the auspices of the late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Four pivotal agreements emerged from these discussions.

a)     a) Halting and preventing further bloodshed among Palestinians and unifying the stance against occupation through dialogue to resolve political differences.

b)    b) forming a Palestinian unity government.

c)    c) revitalizing and reforming the Palestine Liberation Organization, and accelerating the efforts of the Preparatory Committee in line with the Cairo and Damascus agreements.

d)    d) upholding the principle of political partnership based on existing Palestinian Authority laws, emphasizing political pluralism.

Only weeks later, Hamas staged a coup against the Palestinian Authority and seized control of the Gaza Strip, rendering the Mecca Agreement seemingly ineffective.

In 2009, Egyptian mediation attempted to reconcile the factions, giving rise to the Egyptian Paper, followed by the Cairo Agreement in 2011. Yet, these efforts too yielded no meaningful results.

The Doha Agreement in 2012, facilitated by the former emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, sought to accelerate Palestinian national reconciliation. This was succeeded by the Beach Camp Agreement in 2014. The negotiators agreed to form a Palestinian consensus government and conduct elections within six months, a promise that fell through. Accusations continued to be exchanged between the factions, perpetuating the division.

In October 2017, the Cairo Agreement emerged yet again, and both parties agreed to empower the Government of National Accord, led by Rami Hamdallah, to assume full responsibilities in Gaza. They also agreed that the Presidential Guard would oversee the crossings and the Rafah border with Egypt. However, the division remained.

Now, in 2024, driven by urgency and the relentless war on Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, the Palestinian factions have turned their hopes to Beijing. They are seeking to sign yet another agreement, the Beijing Declaration.

Neither the Mecca agreement nor the 13 subsequent agreements over the years were honored. Will the Beijing Agreement be any different?