Before Netanyahu addressed an empty hall at the United Nations, claiming that every kitchen in Lebanon hides missiles, he ordered a massive bombing of a whole neighborhood in Beirut.
Israel must be expelled from the UN immediately! pic.twitter.com/oUQmOupkAR
— Manolo De Los Santos (@manolo_realengo) September 27, 2024
Speaking of Iran, Israel’s attacks have certainly persuaded Iran’s leadership that they must not only achieve nuclear capability, but that they must make this explicit in ways they have so far chosen not to do. To defend itself from precisely the duty of attack today in Lebanon, Iran must have such a doomsday weapon. The certainty of such a development is a tragedy for the region.
The bombs used in the attack on Beirut southern suburb were 1-ton MK-84 bombs.
🇺🇸 US-supplied Bombs
🇺🇸 US-supplied Aircrafts
🇺🇸 US-supplied Intelligence“We’re not involved” they say. https://t.co/aO6OsjraNL pic.twitter.com/H1tnOdouCP
— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) September 27, 2024
The NY Times now confirms the 2,000 lb. bunker buster bombs used to assassinate Nasrallah in the fortified underground bunker, were US-Made. US F-35s armed with JDAM bombs. Supplied by Joe Biden and the American taxpayer. We are implicated. Biden has the blood of Gaza and Lebanon on his hands.
The Israelis certainly sought permission from the US before using these munitions. This is further confirmed by Biden praising the murder in today’s statement. Not to mention that the Times was able to ascertain that the bombs were US-made via a video made public by the IDF, in which the war planes and their payloads were clearly visible.
300 Lebanese civilians were murdered in this attack. Yet the president offers nothing but rhetoric: calls for ceasefires Israel summarily rejects. Biden refuses to do what must be gone to stop this maelstrom. The result of his paralysis will be a regional war of shattering proportions. Attacks by Iran on Israel, Israeli retaliatory attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.
Nor will we escape unscathed. The evidence is now before the entire world. The Arab and Muslim world will take notice. We will pay a price. Probably in lives, certainly in reputation. We are no different than the Israeli war criminals. Biden and Austin deserve ICC arrest warrants no less than Netanyahu and Gallant (where are those warrants by the way, ICC judges?).
I have no faith that Biden will act. We are the only party that can stop this. Yet we have a president who does nothing but mouth platitudes.
Finally, as I note below in text I began writing earlier this week, the IDF will launch a ground invasion. Tens of thousands of Israeli troops will attack and occupy southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has been awaiting this moment for the past 30 years. It is ready. The two sides will decimate each other. In the end, Israel will never destroy Hezbollah no matter how many leaders it assassinates. As it did in 1982, it is walking into a war it cannot control and that can never end on its terms. No matter how much bravado and threats the generals and prime ministers offer.
***
IDF chief tells troops to expect invasion
IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi told his troops on the northern front to prepare for battle. An Israeli ground invasion appears to be imminent. Global media have only translated excerpts of his speech. I am translating the entire original statement here which clearly indicates an intent to mount an invasion:
“The goal is a very clear: to return the residents of the north safely. To do this, we are making preparations for a [military] maneuver, and that means your army boots, the boots for this operation will enter enemy territory, enter those villages Hezbollah has prepared as a major military position, with tunnels, resting points, with places to infiltrate our territory in order to conduct attacks on Israeli citizens.
Your entrance there in full force, the confrontation with Hezbollah fighters there, will show [them] what it means to meet a professional, highly skilled and battle-tested fighting force. You come much stronger than them, more experienced than them. Enter, with full focus on destroying enemy infrastructure. That’s what will enable us to return the residents of the north afterward.”
Halevi’s bravado about how combat-ready his troops are ignores that they will face a professional, highly skilled, and battle-hardened Hezbollah force. In fact, far more experienced than the IDF, due to its years of combat in Syria.
What will the US and Iran do?
What stance will the US take toward this Israeli attack on a sovereign state? Surely the same misguided approach it has taken toward Gaza. We will fuel this new looming genocide, providing all the weapons Israel needs to perpetrate it.
What stance will Iran take? Hezbollah is Iran’s most important ally in the region. Will it join in its defense of Lebanon? Will it launch hundreds or thousands of missiles as it did after Israel assassinated a top IRG commander? Is it willing to risk an Israeli counterattack? My guess would be that tempted as it may be to enter the fight, it will hold back; or respond in some form short of all-out war.
But there is always the danger of a full-on regional war. Israel certainly has provided provocation enough to warrant such a potentially catastrophic event.
Earlier this week, Israel launched a massive attack on Lebanon, including locations as far north as Beirut and as far east as the Bekaa Valley, though the primary attacks were in the south. 500 people were murdered including 21 children.
This comes after Israel launched a widespread cyberattack on pagers used by Hezbollah fighters and their families. 37 were murdered and 4,000 wounded (many of them losing eyes because they were looking at the text message which caused the devices to explode.
Former secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, speaking (at 32:20) about the cyber-terror attack said:
The ability to be able to place an explosive in technology that is very prevalent these days [pagers]. And turn it into a war of terror. Really, a war of terror. This is something new,” said Panetta.
“I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism…This is going right into the supply chain, right into the supply chain. And when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question, what the hell is next?”
This is a tactic that has repercussions…We really don’t know what those repercussions are going to be…The forces of war ar elargely in control right now.
“I think it’s going to be very important for the nations of the world…to focus on [this] because if they don’t try to deal with it now, mark my word, it is the battlefield of the future.”
Israeli plan to provoke Hezbollah to war
Israel’s military strategists have been planning a war against Hezbollah since the last one in 2006. At that time, the IDF had been humiliated at being battled to a standstill by a supposedly ragtag Lebanese militia. Ever since, the army has been itching for revenge. Now they have a golden opportunity.
In the past few days, an Israeli security source told me that Israel’s strategy is to provoke a war against Hezbollah rather than initiate one pre-emptively. But apparently the IDF believes Hezbollah has provided enough of a response to initiate hostilities.
This will be an elaborate lie. Hezbollah is not provoking the war. It is acting in solidarity with Gaza against Israeli genocide. A war will not permit Israelis to return to the north. It will lead to the deaths of scores, if not hundreds of northern residents.
Bibi wants another war
A war against Lebanon would serve several useful purposes for Bibi Netanyahu. It would distract from the genocide in Gaza. It would divert the world’s attention from the massive suffering it has inflicted there. It would open a new military front and prolong hostilities against yet another Israeli enemy. The longer the fighting lasts the less likely Netanyahu will face his political day of reckoning. The moment the battles die down, the Israeli public will demand his resignation. If he refuses the courts may convict on one or more of the four corruption charges he faces.
It would also freeze any possible overture toward Iran, whose president recently called for a return to the 2015 nuclear deal and renewal of negotiations. The Biden administration, always missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, responded condescendingly with preconditions it knows Iran can never accommodate. An Israeli attack on Hezbollah will surely derail whatever small opportunity there might be to improve relations.
Such an invasion and occupation would violate UN Resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 war. There are now UNIFIL peacekeepers in southern Lebanon whose mission is to preserve a fragile peace. Major hostilities would violate the Resolution and end the peacekeeping operation.
תתחילו להתרגל pic.twitter.com/8KdCd35OTi
— ארנון סגל (@arnonsegal1) September 23, 2024
Calls for Israel to expel Lebanese, replacing them with new Israeli colonies
It appears the IDF battle plan hews closely to a plan touted by hawkish Israeli generals and security officials for a full-scale invasion and occupation up to the Litani River. Haaretz called it “monstrous.” But apparently monstrous is just what the doctor ordered as far as Israel is concerned.
A new group, Uri Zafon (from a popular song, “Arise O North”), has even given Hebrew names to all the Lebanese villages it plans to occupy. The map’s caption: “the new Hebrew names for settlements in southern Lebanon.” Considering they plan to colonize the land from its inhabitants, it’s astonishing they haven’t “Judaized” it with a Hebrew name.
Zionism is a greedy expansionist enterprise. Like most ultra-nationalist nations it makes maximalist territorial claims. The “father” of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl wrote of “the demands we will make from the Brook of Egypt [the Nile] to the Euphrates.”
Ben Gurion restrained himself somewhat in a statement after World War I, endorsing the Litani as a natural northern border:
The Litani River, or as the Arabs call it the Kasimia River, is the line that separates the two parts of the country [Lebanon] . To the south of the river – the nature of the land and its population density are closer to those of the Galilee… The northern border of the Land of Israel should therefore be the Kasimia River…
Like the Irgun Jewish terror militia Ben Gurion, earlier in his political career also believed Israel should encompass both sides of the Jordan River. This would have included what is now Jordan.
He was forced to settle for less, as part of the1948 armistice agreement. But now Israel can realize Ben Gurion’s cherished territorial vision.
The Greater Land of Israel movement springing from the triumphalism of the 1967 victory, renewed the expansionist vision. It gave birth to the settlement movement, which has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its founder.
Now new movements proclaim a vision of Israel annexing Gaza and southern Lebanon: ridding them of Palestinians and replacing them with seaside villas in Gaza and mountain resorts in southern Lebanon.
Of course, it will take hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops to guard these colonists from the certain Palestinian and Hezbollah attacks. As usual, no one seems to have considered this: act first (and rashly), ask questions later (or not at all).
Just happened to have googled this recently: “The Brook of Egypt, or nahal mitzraim in Hebrew, is mentioned in the Bible as the southern border of the Promised Land. It is also mentioned in the Bible in the context of the boundaries of the kingdom of Judah and Solomon’s kingdom. Most scholars believe the Brook of Egypt is the Wadi el-Arish, a watercourse that originates in the Sinai Peninsula and flows into the Mediterranean Sea”
Also, some people online have debunked the Promised Land of Israel patch … I’m not sure what the definitive view of unbiased fact checkers is.
The Bible has nothing to do with modern politics or reality. You might as well go out and hunt your dinner with spears.
Taking down a block of residential apartments required multiple bunker-buster bombs with total explosive power to the Hiroshima atom bomb of 15,000 lbs …
Penetrating bunker-buster bombs were used capable of flattening complete residential appartement block, likely the advanced Lockheed GBU-72
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2808949/
Israel To Request America’s New GBU-72 Bunker Buster Bomb | 22 Oct 2021 |
https://breakingdefense.com/2021/10/israel-to-request-americas-new-gbu-72-bunker-buster-bomb/
Israeli planners have shared operational lessons from their recent heavy use of the GBU-28 bomb with the US Air Force in order to help develop operational profiles for the GBU-72.
Biden Calls the Israeli Strike Killing Hezbollah’s Nasrallah a ’Measure of Justice’
The three weeks ceasefire proposal was another deception by the White House … putting Lebanese at ease as Netanyahu ordered the terror bombing of the Beirut suburb while he was in New York, never mentioning the words ceasefire or Palestinian state in his propaganda speech at the UN HQ.
The deception is quite similar used by the Trump administration to track Soleimani to Baghdad for discussions to stop attacks on U.S. armed forces by Shia militias he commanded to rid Iraq from the IS terrorists.
White House Statement …
Utopian thinking … madness as there is no measure requested by 57 nations of the Arab League and OIC for a viable Palestinian State at the UN. An offer for peace and normalization of relations with the Jewish State.
For the threats to Israel be removed …
No true ceasefire proposal on the table … just indefinite hostilities … the end game for both Bibi Netanyahu and Joe Biden is the destruction of the Islamic Republic of Iran … nice if Bashar al-Assad can be taken out as collateral win.
Also I don’t believe that at this late state in Biden’s term of office that he wants to get into any such end game vis a vis Iran nor hand anything like that off to the next administration, hopefully Harris Walz. Harris, should she prevail will chart her own course. She cannot do anything or say anything contrary now. And obviously this “game” is changing.
Harris is not “charting yet own course.” Read her statement praising the assassination and saying we want peace. Makes me sick
They’re sickening.
According to the report I read in the NYT by Helene Cooper Biden was not informed of Netanyahu’s plans. The headline was about the split between the two? Are you assuming some cooperation or coordination?
I have no patience with American pundits or stenographers repeating obvious disinformation … I watch the acts, not their rhetoric. Biden has been expediting arms and munitions from day 1. Opening up US stockpiles held in Israel … support the erasure of Gazans to push the refugees across the border into
Egypt. The latter blocked this effort by building the extra fence and heavy protest to traveling salesman Antony Blinken. Political liaison with Netanyahu and the “region”, now limited to Cairo and perhaps Jordan.
The military moves by U.S. Armed Forces are a clear signal … the travel and meetings of Defense minister Lloyd Austin tells you more … lock in step with Gallant and the IDF. The presence of AWACS is exhibit A. The Reagan administration in repeat … MEK … providing intelligence to Saddam Hussein for targeting Iranian front positions for their ugly chemical warfare. Precursors provided by the West. The State department has not forgotten the ugly period of the early 1980s and death of Americans by hostage taking and the Marine barracks bombing. US leadership stepping over the hundred of thousands of innocent victims of the multiple Neocon wars at the behest of Israel. The words of Wesley Clark in the weeks after 9/11 attacks. My heart aches and is filled with sadness … .
The offer at the UN last week is glossed over … made by the Arab League and OIC was the last opportunity for a peaceful solution … the demand for a Palestinian state most likely angered Bibi and it was in NY he gave the order for Beirut bombing 😡 the UAE cannot be trusted … close cooperation Abu Dhabi with Israeli intelligence, corruption and financial crimes in Dubai benefiting from any war. UAE and KSA were split on Yemen. Only clear signal to Washington would be to shut down the U.S. military bases and take back sovereignty. Role of Türkiye may be most worrisome to Israel, closest ally Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Qatar. The Syrian adventure left Erdogan the legacy of IS-K terrorists locked in Idlib and defiant Syrian Kurds.
They’re all lying through their teeth. Every time zhsestl commits another outrageous war crime on our dime, Biden says: we didn’t know. We’re horrified. Blah-blah. It’s all bullshit. Biden’s blood was on those bombs that killed Nasrallah
Your prophet like blog has no feet in reality.
For years you and many others have warned against wars and claimed assassinations do not work. Well, the past two weeks proved you were and still are wrong.
If Iran decides to reinvent and rebuild Hizbollah, a big if, it will be another creature all together. But the old Hizbollah as we knew it, no longer exists. RIP…
The rumors of Hezbollah’s death are premature. You will find out to your chagrin.
Redefining Al Qaeda terror … Netanyahu declared the Palestinian movement a terrorist organization in September 2001.
The War on Terror led to hundreds of assassinations by drone or cruise missiles … the result a thousandfold real terror attacks stretching from Quetta to the Boston marathon. After 20 years the U.S. Armed Forces and NATO allies left Kabul, their only foothold, in disgrace. The Trump-Kushner treatment of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the faux Abraham Accords were an example of political bribery, not sustainable relationship. The UAE were promised a halt to further illegal settlement expansion. Look no further for the trigger of 10/7.
The scourge of fear [Islamophobia] and terror and deaths are debit to two pariah states … the U.S. and the Jewish State of Israel, founded in terror before 1948. Israel never managed to abide by the UN Charter thereafter … suggest you read and comprehend the responsibility to maintain or seek peace with your neighbours. Egypt and Jordan managed to sign a peace treaty … did Jordan put it on hold?
You Israelis should seriously think would the assassination of Netanyahu with a couple of Israeli generals change Israeli policies and destroy permanently Zionism. Would the assassination of a bunch of Rabbis change the settlers’ fanatical religious views and policies in Israel? Would the assassination of two or three US-Israeli Jewish billionaires cause AIPAC to dissolve and liberate US political system and return USA’s sovereignty? Certainly the real effect would not be the “wanted” radical change. So what in the end have these Israeli assassination operations achieved? There are still those tens of thousands Hezbollah soldiers waiting the Israeli land attack. In Iraq hundred thousand trained militias are ready to came to assist. Not to mention Iranian soldiers. What are you going to do if Russia looses its temper and brings its air defence shield to Lebanon. Lavrov just met Lebanese and Iranian leaders after Putin’s warnings.
Your pathetic “Tiktok soldiers” could not even win Hamas in one years war on that tiny flat sand area. Would you perform better in the mountainous difficult terrain of South Lebanon? How much are you personally willing to bet for the Israeli victory? Propably not more than 8 Shekels (about 2 €).
The reference is biased and misleading. On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah began launching missiles and rockets at Israel without any provocation or attack from the Israeli side. The attacks from Lebanon forced tens of thousands of Israelis in northern Israel to leave their homes. Over the past year, dozens of homes in northern settlements have been destroyed, and even innocent civilians have been killed by Hezbollah’s fire. Hezbollah’s actions are in support of Gaza residents, and it’s important to remember who initiated the conflict on October 7, 2023. During the past 3 decades, Nasrallah has targeted not only Israelis but also hundreds of U.S. residents. Some of the terrorist leaders affected by the bombings were wanted by the U.S. government and had million-dollar bounties on their heads. Meanwhile, there are fringe elements in Israel discussing the annexation of South Lebanon. However, Israel does not seek to govern Lebanon; it desires peace and security for its citizens.
@ Amier:
There certainly was “provocation.” Hezbollah and Hamas acted in response to a century worth of Israeli & Yishuv mass murder of Palestinians including Nakba, Occupation, and genocide. Armed resistance of the type used by them is wholly justified under UN resolution, including an internationally recognized right to resist.
The attacks against Lebanon have forced not “tens of thousands to leave their homes,” but 1-million are now refugees.
Not so. 2,000 Lebanese have been murdered compared to a score of Israelis. Compared to that 14 Israeli civilians have been killed. A ratio of 150 to 1.
Dozens of highrise apartment buildings housing thousands of residents have been razed by Israeli bombs.
That is a meaningless statement. Propaganda spouted by Biden-Harris. US citizens live in Israel. They are Israeli. They are targeted as Israelis, not Americans. The last time Hezbollah killed Americans was 50 years ago.
I love the term “fringe elements” and similar stock phrases. They are fake distinctions between the rabid genociders and the rest of the supposedly reasonable population. The inconvenient fact is that the fring element runs the country. It determines the policies, champions the land theft and settlements, spearheads the mass violence, and devises the genocidal miltary attacks. The fring elements control virtually everything related to national security.
Who are we to believe? You or the IDF chief of staff? As I wrote, he himself told his troops they will invade Lebanon and occupy it indefinitely up to the Litani River. Stop peddling delusions and lies here. It annoys the hell out of me.
Clearly, you don’t read my post before peddling this nonsense. I’ve rebutted your arguments before you even wrote them. That annoys me as well. I spend hours writing and researching & you peddle bullshit without bothering to read anything. Do so if you comment in future.
“Hezbollah began launching missiles and rockets at Israel without any provocation or attack from the Israeli side”
What you mean is, Lebanese and Palestinians are just supposed to forget the 70 plus years of Israeli aggression, including land theft.
“The attacks from Lebanon forced tens of thousands of Israelis in northern Israel to leave their homes”
Their homes that were once where Palestinians lived but got forced out for the settler colony. Unlike the settlers, Palestinians don’t have other countries to go back to and have never been given reparations.
“Over the past year, dozens of homes in northern settlements have been destroyed, and even innocent civilians have been killed by Hezbollah’s fire”
The Israeli government has murdered and displaced thousands this year, even out doing itself on previous bombing campaigns.
“Hezbollah’s actions are in support of Gaza residents, and it’s important to remember who initiated the conflict on October 7, 2023”
Correct, and they are lucky someone’s supporting them, because the West have been happily arming Israel, and the PA are useless.
October 7th was a response to years of oppression by Israel to the Palestinian people.
“During the past 3 decades, Nasrallah has targeted not only Israelis but also hundreds of U.S. residents”
Yes, Hezbollah took action against US marines, who are military personnel. US military has no business to be in Lebanon.
“Some of the terrorist leaders affected by the bombings were wanted by the U.S. government and had million-dollar bounties on their heads”
The US government are salty because Hezbollah has been effective in resisting American imperialism. The American establishment only want people loyal to them, like Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Gulf states, in the region.
“Meanwhile, there are fringe elements in Israel discussing the annexation of South Lebanon”
That ‘fringe element’ runs Israel and were voted in. Furthermore, Zionism is the problem, not who the leaders are. Sure, some were less bad than others, but it’s ultimately at odds with building a peaceful democratic and equal society.
Assassination Abbas Al-Musawi in 1992:
Who will take Hezbollah’s helm after Hassan Nasrallah?