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מקור בכיר בצה”ל: כדי להימנע ממלחמה שאיש איננו רוצה בה, הסכימו ישראל וחיזבאללה מראש (בתיווך רוסי) על חילופי אש ללא נפגעים
Ron Ben Yishai, the military affairs correspondent for Yediot, dropped a bombshell when he reported that the Israeli navy is patrolling the Bab al-Mandab strait off the shores of Yemen. It marks yet another regional military intervention, this time on behalf of its new Sunni allies, specifically Saudi Arabia. Last week, Israel attacked four of its Arab neighbors in two days (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Gaza). It’s an almost breathtaking set of coordinated attacks attempting to showcase the IDF ability to conduct multi-front operations in the event of a war with Iran and its allies. It is an escalation of hostilities in a region already sitting on a powder keg.
One of the attacks involved two Israeli drones targeting a Hezbollah position in Beirut. Israel claims it was targeting an advanced device used to upgrade missile propellants and improve their precision. The Lebanese group has denied the Israeli claim.
This marked the first Israeli attack on Lebanese soil in years, and a violation of the UN-brokered ceasefire negotiated at the conclusion of the 2006 Lebanon war. Hassan Nasrallah promised revenge at a time and date of his choosing. The first act of apparent retaliation came Sunday when Hezbollah fired two missiles into Israel. It claimed to have destroyed an armored personnel carrier and killed several soldiers. The IDF denied any casualties and returned fire, shelling southern Lebanon with 100 salvos in response.
Hezbollah released a video of its attack which appeared to contradict Israel’s version of events. It shows two missiles fired at what Israel says was an armored military ambulance. The first missile appears to be a near miss and the vehicle continues at high speed. But the second missile appears to strike the vehicle, though it’s difficult to say given the dust that swirls around it.
The IDF then dispatched a helicopter which apparently pretended to evacuate two wounded soldiers. They were brought to an Israeli hospital, where video footage showed them arriving on a stretcher. Later, the army said this entire episode was a ruse designed to make Hezbollah believe it had drawn blood on Israel. It apparently believed that if Lebanese could see they’d caused casualties that it would lessen their desire to continue attacks on Israeli targets.
Whatever happened, this was a near miss that could have led to all-out war. If the five soldiers in the ambulance had been killed, Israel would have launched a massive retaliation targeting Hezbollah positions throughout Lebanon. In turn, this would’ve forced Nasrallah and his Iranian allies to make a fateful decision about how far they were willing to take the fight. In 2006, a similar incident in which several IDF soldiers were kidnapped and then died, led to Israel invading the country. Nearly 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians, died. All of northern Israel was evacuated for nearly a month and there were scores of Israeli military and civilian casualties from Hezbollah rocket fire.
Israeli media and military sources have released a flurry of narratives of how the incidents of the past few days played out. One report says that Israeli war planes were airborne and poised in the sky around Lebanon for an all-out attack on Hezbollah positions in case the militant group mounted a massive rocket attack against Israel.
But a confidential Israeli source reported to me that the entire episode was an elaborate ruse agreed in advance by both sides under the mediation of Russia. Neither side seeks a war. But the Lebanese in particular needed to appear to have successfully avenged the Israeli attack on its Beirut headquarters. The agreement called for the Lebanese militants to shell Israeli bases which had been evacuated previously. When Hezbollah fire struck, the IDF pretended to evacuate the “wounded” to an Israeli hospital. Israel agreed that it would direct its fire on barren Lebanese hills. In support of this version of events, it’s worth noting that the two Hezbollah units which mounted the original rocket attack appear not to have been targeted during Israeli return fire.
Will There Be a War?
Israel appears convinced eventually there will be war with Hezbollah. Of course, its military strategists claim that the cause of the war will be the enemy’s aggression. But the problem with believing your neighbor wants to go to war, is that you will almost inevitably do things that ensure such an outcome.
Add to that, an upcoming Israeli election in which Netanyahu fights as never before for his political survival. He is beset by parties even farther to the right than his own, all of whom are seeking to peel off voters who believe the prime minister is too soft on Arabs, Palestinians in particular. No Israeli politician ever lost an election by being too bellicose and too hard on “the Arabs.” Standing up to the enemy, kicking him around on the battlefield, is a surefire way for a prime minister to establish his security bona fides.
Netanyahu faces an equally grim accounting with the attorney general, who will decide sometime after the election whether to charge the PM with bribery and other corrupt acts in three different criminal cases. Israel’s leader feeds off adversity and victimhood. In this way, AG Avichai Mandelblit, who was once Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary, is a perfect foil for him. He can rail against the police and state legal authorities persecuting him, seeking to paint himself as a victim of what Trump would call the Israeli “deep state.”
Israeli intervention in the Gulf on Saudi Arabia’s Behalf
Just as journalists were shocked at Israel opening a new military front in Iraq, a country it had not attacked since 1981, they will be equally surprised that Israel is providing naval security in the waters off Saudi Arabia.
Ron Edelist, a Maariv columnist, is one of the critics of this Israeli projection of power. He writes:
“What the hell is Israel doing there [in Yemen]? What did we lose in the Strait of Hormuz? As if we don’t have enough raging security problems of our own to contend with right here and now.”
While Netanyahu appears to be distracted in saving his career, his foreign minister and chief yes-man, Israel Katz, has stepped once more unto the breach. After returning from his own tour of the Gulf, he told the Knesset defense committee that Israel was a partner in the U.S. coalition to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf.
What a change 30 years and four presidencies has wrought! In 1991, the first Bush administration pointedly told Israel to remain on the sidelines, so as not to antagonize Arab states in its “coalition of the willing,” which opposed Saddam Hussein’s takeover of Kuwait. Today, Israel is a welcome member of this club, as its Arab members abandon their former Palestinian brethren in order to fight the new bully on the block, Iran.
Edelist is shocked that Israel appears not to have learned its lesson from its bad bet on ISIS and al-Qaeda (creatures of the Saudis), who sought (and failed) to dislodge Bashar Assad from power. After hundreds of Israeli air attacks on Hezbollah weapons convoys and Iranian bases; multiple assassinations of Hezbollah, Iranian and Syrian generals; and supplying weaponry to its Islamist allies in the Golan, Israel has precious little to show.
Now, as if to confirm the definition of insanity, it seeks to repeat its previous failure with a new ambitious project equally likely to fail. Edelist quotes Ben Yishai on the Israeli intervention:
“Our major contribution [to the U.S. military coalition] involves the security of the Bab al Mandab straits. There Houthis threaten the tankers of the Arab oil states…We have a presence of our missile frigates, stationed there to, at first glance, [protect] against pirates. But the mission is actually to protect civilian shipping from the Houthi, who operate from the western coast of Yemen, damaging Saudi tankers and firing on American destroyers.”
In response, Edelist asks: “do the activities of the Houthi threaten Israel?” Of course, the answer is “no.” Israel has far more pressing problems than whether a Houthi fighter damages a Saudi oil tanker.
Yes, he notes, Israel should mobilize to address “ticking bombs.” That is, threats that pose immediate and mortal danger to the State and its citizens. But does a secret preventive war, in which the IDF effectively becomes a mercenary force on behalf of the Saudis and Americans, really offer such a threat?
He closes his piece with this emphatic rejection of Israel’s military gamble:
I don’t see a single good reason for being there. Don’t tell us about intelligence secrets and exciting partnerships with Arab “lovers of Zion.” We’ve already been there, done that. All in all, this is a presumptuous initiative that reeks of political-imperialist motives. It mixes pure politics and a childish delight in showing off our military capabilities…This is a Yemenite step we’re dancing to the tune of a Saudi flute.
The truth is that there is no covert or overt operation of ours that will change the outcome [of the war there]. But it will involve us on the wrong side in the slaughter of a people.
Imagine a scenario in which the Houthis attack an Israeli naval ship either by missile (they have already launched missile attacks on Saudi airports) or an act of sabotage like those that damaged several tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Imagine Israeli sailors wounded or killed. What would happen then? Israel might feel the urge to retaliate. Even if Netanyahu didn’t want to escalate, the pressure from Israeli hardliners night be too much for him to resist. That would not only suck Israel further into the Yemen quagmire, it would be another lit match held over the oil roiling the waters of the Persian Gulf, waiting for an ignition source.
Israel was always the Shadow Director of the Saudi-led coalition
[comment deleted: This comment is off-topic. This is not the place for smearing Houthis.]
Retired Israeli Admiral Chorev says that Israel must join other nations to help keep the Bab al-Mandab open.
“A full third of Israel’s global trade is with the Far East, Chorev noted, billions of dollars’ worth of Israeli imports and exports pass through Bab al-Mandab, and Israel thus “needs to worry” about what plays out there. In a recent strategic overview produced by his maritime research center, he urged that Israel formulate an overall strategy to face up to the threat “via a naval coalition with Western forces that operate in the area, or independently.”
So what’s the problem with joining a coalition in order to maintain ‘freedom of the seas’?
@ Benyamin: Because the naval coalition Israel is joining is raping and pillaging the people of Yemen. The Saudi ally is a kleptocratic brutal regime which enslaves women.
Not to mention that the vast majority of Israeli tradeis not with the east, but the west. With the vast majority of commerce by sea entering and existing via Haifa and Ashdod. Not to mention there are no threats whatsoever against Israeli shipping going through the Gulf.
So all this is fabricated and you’re participating in the fakery.
Excellent article, thank you.
Does any of this make any sense to you, Richard? If your goal was to “trick” Hezbollah into believing that it had drawn blood on Israel.so as to lessen their desire to continue attacks on Israeli targets, why would you subsequently claim that you suffered no casualties and then trumpet your OMG amazing “trick” to Hezbollah across the entire length and breadth of the media?
In 2015, in response to an earlier attack by Israel in Quneitra, Hezbollah ambushed an Israeli military convoy In the Israeli occupied Shebaa Farms and destroyed two Humvees, which killed 2 and wounded 7 Israeli soldiers according to Israeli military. Lebanese TV reported fifteen Israeli soldiers killed in the attack. None of this resulted in Israel launching a massive retaliation targeting Hezbollah positions throughout Lebanon.
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_Mazraat_Amal_incident
Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_Shebaa_farms_incident
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With “flurry” probably being the key word! 😀
Have you seen this bizarre Times of Israel article about the Lebanese reporter who casually crossed the border into Israel, apparently unhindered, and did a live report from an abandoned Israeli military base there?
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I tried to find a version of the video with English subtitles, with no success; I did, however, manage to find the same unsubtitled video on YouTube:
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@MuslimJew: I’m not pretending to be able to mold this incident into a coherent narrative. I think that to an extent the IDF is putting out multiple narratives, some of which contradict each other. I offered one narrative conveyed to me by a security source. It probably contains some, and perhaps a great deal of truth.
As for what happened in the APC incident. Amos Harel of Haaretz says the APC should not have been traveling on this road as it was too near the borner and within rocket range. So it’s possible when this target appeared to the Hezbollah unit, they took advantage. That may not have been part of the original scenario.
But the fact that the Israeli base was evacuated prior to the firing incident and that there was a vehicle containing dummies indicates to me that this may have been part of the ruse. That incident in which the RT Arabic reporter toured the empty base indicates to me that Israel deliberately withdrew forces so they would not be in the line of fire. IN other words, they knew and anticipated an attack and in an act of theater, withdrew so that Hezbollah could attack and the IDF would not susstain casualties. If there had been no agreement, I strongly doubt the IDF would withdraw from such a strategic location while it anticipated a possible real Hezbollah attack. Perhaps Hezbollah was meant to attack these vehicles containing the dummies, and the phony evacuation of wounded was meant to allow Hezbollah to say there had been casualties.
I don’t think the IDF meant to this exercise to be exposed as fake. I think their original plan was to present this as real. But journalists and regular citizens found out that it wasn’t real and they exposed it. Then the cat was out of the bag. So they decided to boast about the fakery.
At any rate, the entire episode is shrouded in mystery and it’s hard to say with any certainty what the original plan was. We only know that there was cross border fire, that no Israelis were harmed, and that IDF response also caused no known damage or injuries. We dodged a bullet I’d say.
Israel’s has joined an international coalition as a ‘junior partner’ in order to protect ‘freedom of seas’ and to protect Israeli sovereignty.
The coalition, includes Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Pakistan and they are upholding maritime law. By joining the coalition Israel is helping to prevent another ‘Straits of Tiran’ crisis the sort of which was a causus belli back in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Unlike Iran’s direct support of the Houtis, Israel is not directly supplying the Yemeni government in their war against the Iranian-backed and Iranian-armed, Houti rebels.
I won’t violate your injunction and ‘smear the Houtis’, but I hope you’ll allow me to point out that the Houtis have been indiscriminately attacking civilian and maritime vessels in violation of international law.
Houtis have even attacked aid ships bringing food and supplies to relieve suffering Yemeni civilians.
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2019/08/analysis-houthi-naval-attacks-in-the-red-sea.php
Bottom line, Iran has done exponentially more to stir up war in the Yemen then Israel has.
@ Benyamin: Spare me the bullshit. THe so-called coalition is the U.S. and its Sunni lackeys from the region. Again, whatever the coalition may be doing, Israel has nothing to do with that. Israel is intervening on behalf of the Saudis and against the Houthis.
As for what Iran is doing in Yemen, it is supporting Shia Houthis who are under siege and brutal assault by their Sunni Saudi enemies. Had the Saudis not invaded, there would be no need to Iran to be involved in Yemen. THe problem with propagandists like you is that you cherry pick bits of information convenient to your argument, while deliberately obfuscating the full context of such a conflict. But your strategy is a lie. And no one here falls for it.
As for Houthis attacking maritime vessels, that hasn’t been proven. It’s been claimed, but not proven. But even if true, the Saudis are starving millions to death in Yemen. Epidemics rage. Thousands of civilians murdered by your & Israel’s Saudi pals. It’s immoral, it’s disgusting. And to have you pimp for slaughter is the height of moral bankruptcy.
Did you really have the chutzpah to link to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies here? As if this is a credible source? Really? You are an embarrassment to hasbara…
Once again, do not publish another comment in this thread.
@Richard
“Not to mention there are no threats whatsoever against Israeli shipping going through the Gulf. ”
No one said Israeli is shipping through the (Persian) Gulf.
Rather, Israel is protecting shipping through the Red Sea.
@ Benyamin: There is no threat to Israeli shipping via any southern route. Period. And the Israeli naval force is not “protecting Israeli shipping” as you claim. As both Edelist and Ben Yishai make clear, the Israelis are there to gather intelligence on Iranian shipping, weapons, going to the Houthis. It is there at the behest of the Saudis. It is there to intervene in the Yemen war.
You are done in this thread.
Just to point out that this article appears to contradict itself.
Here: “Later, the army said this entire episode was a ruse designed to make Hezbollah believe it had drawn blood on Israel.”
And here: “But a confidential Israeli source reported to me that the entire episode was an elaborate ruse agreed in advance by both sides under the mediation of Russia.”
It is axiomatic that the only way that Hezbollah are going to be taken in is if they didn’t know that it was make-believe. Which would be fine except your source is telling you that they were part and parcel of the pantomime all along.
Conversely if they were in cahoots with Israel then there is no point in the IDF then running around shouting “relax, everybody, it was all just a joke” since, obviously, that makes the whole thing an exercise in pointlessness.
Looks like a real APC to me, and those look like real Kornet missiles to me.
And those Hezbollah soldiers were trying real hard to smack those Kornets into that APC.
@ Yeah,Right: I’ve commented in reply to another commenter raising similar questions that it’s possible the armored ambulance was not supposed to be there. That the doctor commanding the vehicle didn’t know for some reason he wasn’t supposed to be there.
It’s further possible the Hezbollah unit saw an IDF target of opportunity and took advantage of it.
The fact that the IDF base had been emptied of defenders and the IDF responded with salvos that damaged nothing inside Lebanon indicates some sort of plan in the Israeli view not to escalate the situation further. BUt I do think the IDF is deliberately obfuscating the entire incident so no one really knows what happened or why. That may be intended to deflect from the original Israeli drone attack in Beirut. But this is speculation…
I’ve managed to find a subtitled version of the video of the Lebanese reporter who crossed the Lebanese border into Israel and did a live report from inside an abandoned Israeli military base. It’s only a segment, not the full 9 minute 22 second long video from the Times of Israel article I linked to earlier, but it’s still mind blowing:
At 1:10, you can even see what appears to be an abandoned Israeli tank and another military vehicle! 😮
I think the reason for the contradiction is that the reports coming out of Israel about the Hezbollah response have been all over the place, haven’t been very believable, and the “official” story keeps changing to fit the mood. Conversely, friends of mine in Lebanon and Palestine have told me that the Lebanese/Arabic media coverage of the Hezbollah response has been coherent, believable and appears factual.
All the bizarre Israeli stuff about helicopter evacuations of “dummies” to “trick” Hezbollah and whatnot was widely reported, discussed and ridiculed in the Lebanese media. It was also widely reported in the Lebanese media that the Israelis had upped sticks and fled the scene, and there was lots of live reporting from the Lebanese border verifying this, with reporters doing things like sticking their hands through the border fence and saying “Look at my hand, my hand is in Palestine”, only to then step through the border fence and proclaim, “Look! Look at me! All of me is in Palestine!”, and all without a single Israeli in sight.
I mean we all know what happens to Palestinians if they wander too near the Gaza fence, or too near an Israeli military installation, or too near an illegal West Bank settlement, don’t we? Therefore, would someone please explain how a Lebanese reporter was able to cross the Lebanese border and into an empty Israel, do a live report from a deserted Israeli military base, where abandoned weapons and military vehicles can be clearly seen, and still live to tell the tale?
Thanks for that Yeah, Right. You did a far better job than I did in expressing just how unbelievable the “flurry of narratives” coming out of Israel have been since Sunday.
Hello Richard,
I pretty much share the scepticism of MuslimJew, and for much the same reason – the (frankly, bizarre) flip-flopping from the Israelis reeks of panic. It does not look at all like a choreographed response to a pre-prepared pantomime.
I guess it is possible that this happened: the Israelis and Hezbollah came to an agreement which would leave honour satisfied on both sides. Creative ambiguity at its best. But Bibi panics on the campaign trail and feels compelled to blurt out “I can make an important announcement – we have no casualties, no wounded, not even a scratch.”
Well, there goes the choreography, exit Stage Right……
Maybe, but I don’t believe that. It reduces the Israeli leadership to a Clown Car.
Any agreement between the IDF and Hezbollah would be so politically-sensitive that it would be signed off at the cabinet-level. Bibi would have known all about it, and would be well aware of the need not to waddle onto the middle of the stage and drop a huge turd during the First Act.
I think it went like this: The Israelis knew Hezbollah were serious about revenge, so they cleared the border. No consultation. No collusion. Just upped and ran. Too late, BOOM! BOOM! and a Wolf APC is pulverized and anyone inside is toast.
Shit, meet fan. Not at all what Bibi needs right now.
So Netanyahu insisted the two missiles missed. Hah! Hah! You stink!
Only that video of the evacuation then comes out, plus the footage at the hospital.
Err… ummm…. yeah, OK, OK, but that was all a trick. Fooled Ya! Hah! Hah! You stink!
Or, in short: the Israeli “reveals” all seem to be scrambling to catch up with the videos as they are released. They don’t look at all pre-planned.
Now, maybe I’m wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. But I don’t think so.
I think everything we are seeing is exactly what it looks like: Hezbollah fired two missiles at an Israeli APC, and hit it. After which the IDF evacuated whatever survivors they could scrape together.
And everything the Israelis are saying amount to nothing more than an increasingly pathetic attempt to convince us to not believe our lyin’ eyes.
@Yeah Right: The ambulance/hospital videos are definitely a fake. You can see the lackadaisical manner in which the driver gets out of his cab and goes to the back to evacuate the “patient,” that the thing on the stretcher is not a wounded man.
I don’t know whether the Koronet hit the ambulance driving along the border road or not. But I doubt there were any serious casualties if it did.
Hello Richard,
The IDF will definitely use a helicopter to recover a corpse, but no medic is going to waste their effort rushing a dead body into a hospital.
After all, what would be the point?
As for the APC, I agree that we don’t know for certain that it was hit by one of those Kornet’s.
But if it was then the occupants could not have escaped serious injury. Kornet is designed to defeat the armour of a main battle tank. It would turn an APC to slag.
I guess we will just have to differ.