These links offer a worthwhile follow-up to my previous post on the Israeli seizure of a large shipment of Syrian cruise missiles to Hamas via Iran. The first link offers an interesting photo montage of what the Israelis found as they off-loaded the weaponry from the seized ship. The second link offers the reaction of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the Iranian-arranged weapons shipment to Hamas–literally on Israel’s back-door. He warns that the weapons shipped to threaten Israel obviously shows that Iran is offering “phony smiles” to the world about its intentions and its nuclear weapons program. I agree.
The second link includes an analysis of the weaponry’s threat to Israel if it had reached Hamas in Gaza. The analysis actually downplays it as not all that significant. I disagree with him, and think his comments may have been made for public reassurances. The 40 Syrian-made cruise missiles have a far longer range than the missiles traditionally fired by Hamas from Gaza into Israel. Also, if the shipment of missiles wasn’t so vital, why did the Israelis spend months tracking the missile shipment and go to great lengths to make sure the missiles were intercepted and seized? Actions reveal real perceptions about a situation’s importance.
Let’s think about what Israel can learn from the weaponry seized. The media articles said nothing about what types of warheads were on those 40 long-range cruise missiles. Israel can learn a lot about Iranian intentions and targeting plans by determining what warheads were shipped with those missiles. If the missiles had incendiary warheads, then it would mean Iran intended them to be used against such targets as Israel’s oil refining and oil-storage facilities which would burn fiercely if hit with such warheads. If the missiles had high-explosive warheads, it would mean they would be intended to hit hard targets, such as buildings, airfields, air force bases or the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona. If, God-forbid, there were chemical weapons or bacteriological weapons in those warheads, it would mean that Iran intended for Hamas to fire WMD (weapons of mass destruction) at Israel (after all, Iran has stated its intention to “wipe Israel off the map”). If there were a mix of the above warheads, the percentage of each type would reveal Iran’s targeting priorities. Iran has read and heard endless media reports about Israel’s threats to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. What if those threats have led Iran to make plans to target Israel’s only known nuclear reactor at Dimona? What if all 40 of those missiles were fired at Dimona at once? Would the Israelis be able to knock down all of them or would some get through? Hezbollah in Lebanon surely has similar missiles, but if fired from Lebanon at Dimona (one of Israel’s highest-value and strategically important sites), it would likely take minutes for them to reach Dimona and many Israeli anti-missile batteries would be able to track and intercept those missiles. If the 40 missiles had been installed in Gaza and fired simultaneously by Hamas toward Dimona, Israel may have only one or two missile-defense systems that could intercept the missiles and they may have mere seconds to respond.
Given the above analysis, I think that those missiles were very important. Israel thought so too or they wouldn’t have gone to such intense effort to track and seize them. I think the intelligence gained by learning what types of warheads were seized with those missiles is critically important. I would be very surprised if any media article ever tells us the information learned by Israel in examining the types of warheads that were sent with those missiles.
We live in perilous times. Paul prophesied that the latter days would be such a time (I Timothy 3:1). Many other biblical prophecies agree. It would not take much of a trigger to start a major war in several locations in the world. If you wish to learn about how the various biblical prophecies concerning the latter days of our age have been fulfilled in our modern times, I invite you to read my article, Are We Living in the Biblical “Latter Days?”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/178290#.Ux5HAIU2Ma0
http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/netanyahu-israel-bombs-iran/2014/03/10/id/557094
