It had been my intention to post on another topic, but, again, current events have made other topics more pressing. The Israeli-Iranian confrontation has taken on some new dimensions since I last posted on it. Both Israel and Iran are being pressured to fight a larger war, but each is being pressured toward such a war by different forces. A wider Mideast war is becoming steadily more likely.
Israel recently discovered the macabre site of six of their hostages being found shot to death, execution style, in a Hamas tunnel. As one commentator on a cable TV channel observed, this execution of the hostages indicates Hamas has no desire for any real peace talks or a cease-fire agreement. If they were sincere, they would keep the hostages alive as bargaining chips in any deal. Each hostage killed by Hamas gives Hamas a weaker bargaining position. Additional evidence that Hamas isn’t serious about a peace agreement is the fact that they didn’t even bother sending negotiators to the most recent round of talks. It speaks volumes that Israel sent representatives to the peace talks, but Hamas did not. Strangely, the Biden White House has been pressuring and blaming Israel for the lack of a peace deal instead of blaming Hamas, the real culprit. The first link addresses that upside-down view of things. The whole world saw the depths of Biden’s cognitive incapacitation in his debate with Trump, so it is a fair question to ask who is really running the White House nowadays.
You may have seen that Israel’s internal stresses have become more divisive. The news of the six Israeli hostages being found shot to death has sent large numbers of demonstrators into the Israeli streets to demand that Netanyahu “do something” to get the remaining hostages back alive. What is it that they think he can “do” that he hasn’t already been doing? How can he reach any kind of acceptable cease-fire agreement or hostage-exchange deal when Hamas refuses to even come to negotiations? People forget this simple truth: Hamas started this war, but it cannot possibly defeat the Israeli military. Militarily, Hamas has already lost the war it started. It has caused immense suffering on the Palestinians who are dying and being displaced by Hamas’ war. Hamas could end this suffering by (A) surrendering to Israel and (B) laying down their weapons.
Israel has also been fighting a war on its northern border with Hezbollah, and that war would be receiving far more media coverage if it wasn’t for the ongoing Hamas war against Israel. Hezbollah recently planned a huge strike vs. Israeli targets, but Israeli intelligence detected the strike about to be launched and Israel’s military destroyed Hezbollah’s launchers just before they launched their missiles and rockets at Israeli sites. I posted on this recently, and the second link reviews this Israeli intelligence coup vs. Hezbollah
Let’s examine some pressures on Iran to go to war vs. Israel in a major way. The third link details an impression growing among Iran’s proxies that Iran is “all bark and no bite.” While Iran’s proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen) have been spilling their blood to fight the Israelis, Iran hasn’t suffered any meaningful numbers of casualties or suffered significant property damage in its “war” vs. Israel. The proxy forces are getting restive and want Iran to pull its weight in a war against Israel that Iran fomented. The fourth link (from Al Jazerra ) reports that there are “resistance fighters” from other nations who have offered to fight alongside Hezbollah in a war with Israel. Apparently, Hezbollah has so far rejected their offer as it already has 100,000 fighters of its own. The link also reports that Hezbollah has warned Cyprus not to assist Israel in any war. Israel has good relations with Cyprus so Cyprus could serve as a staging area for Israeli warplanes to re-arm and re-fuel. Greece also has good relations with Israel and would surely support Cyprus if it were attacked by Hezbollah. That would risk a Turkish response, and then we would have a potential face-off between two NATO allies: Greece and Turkey. I think it would be hard for Turkey to justify any intervention in a Hezbollah war vs. Israel. Hezbollah is not a nation and it enjoys no alliance with Turkey. Logically, it makes no sense for Turkey to get involved, but logic doesn’t often prevail in Mideast dynamics. Unless Iran gets involved in the war directly, Iran’s proxies will grow less inclined to follow Iran’s directives. In the eyes of its proxies, Iran’s mullahs are looking weaker the longer they remain passive in this war Iran surely instigated.
Israel also faces a growing conflict on the West Bank as fighting escalates between Israeli forces and Palestinian attackers. The fifth link offers details about a Palestinian terrorist attack which left three Israeli policemen killed–one was a father of a son who was killed in the surprise attack and massacre by Hamas last October 7th. An Israeli cabinet minister has warned of a possible “October 7th” type of attack by West Bank terrorists (sixth link).
Israel is facing several conundrums. As I’ve noted in previous posts, time is not on Israel’s side. It needs to get back to what passes for normal in the Mideast. It needs to be free of the threat of Hezbollah attacks, it needs to send approximately 60,000 or more Israelis back to their homes in Northern Israel and it needs to re-start its civilian economy. Israel needs to have its mobilized soldiers go back to their civilian jobs and it needs to attract tourists back to visit Israel’s many tourist sites and attractions. Israel’s credit rating has already been downgraded, and further downgrades are possible if this war continues (seventh link). Israel is facing the definite possibility that it will have to launch a large preemptive strike vs. Iran and its proxies to save its economy. Iran is “losing face” among its allies the longer it goes without attacking Israel in a major way. Iran did launch over 300 missiles and drones at Israel months ago, but virtually all its projectiles were shot down and had no meaningful effect. Iran is surely looking for a new and perhaps asymmetrical way to attack Israel.
I think Israel knows it needs to get this war over so the Israeli economy can normalize. I suspect Israel is being held back from a major preemptive strike against Iran because of intense pressure from the Democrat-controlled White House. The Democrats don’t want a major war before the election as it would make their party look impotent on the world scene. A major Israeli strike against Iran’s oil and nuclear industries would create an instant oil shortage on world markets and the price of gas would rise significantly…just before election day in the USA. Israel could devastate Iran’s ability to fund terrorism if Israel destroyed all the oil storage and loading facilities on Iran’s Kharg Island and its other oil-loading ports. The internal stresses within Israel are reaching a boiling point where Israel’s government may have no choice but to launch a major strike against Iran and Hezbollah as a necessary first step toward getting Israeli life and its economy back to normal. I think we are nearing the point where Israel’s internal pressures to take more effective action to end the current conflict will outweigh the pressures from the White House or the international community.
The Mideast is in a state of dangerous ferment where a major war could break out at any time. It could be started by Iran or Israel. However, as I have noted before the biblical prophecies in Genesis 49:8-9. Zephaniah 2:1-11 and Zechariah 12:1-9 which all indicate that the Israelis (“Judah” in biblical terminology) will be victorious in their wars during the latter days of our age. Iran’s stated goal of “wiping Israel off the map” will not succeed.
- https://www.newsmax.com/world/
globaltalk/israel-gaza-hamas/ 2024/09/02/id/1178749/?ns_ mail_uid=e16ffdcd-5e20-4197- a65a-b2f4dcbfa55a&ns_mail_job= DM671091_09022024&s=acs&dkt_ nbr=010102b5ep92 - https://virtualjerusalem.com/
israels-preemptive-strike- prevents-major-hezbollah- attack/ - https://asiatimes.com/2024/09/
iran-buckling-under-all-bark- no-bite-israel-policy/?utm_ source=The+Daily+Report&utm_ campaign=7f1d7dc99e-DAILY_2_9_ 2024&utm_medium=email&utm_ term=0_1f8bca137f-7f1d7dc99e- 31566629&mc_cid=7f1d7dc99e&mc_ eid=8ba140d851 - https://www.aljazeera.com/
news/2024/6/26/hezbollahs- axis-of-resistance-allies- waiting-in-reserve-to-fight- israel - https://tjvnews.com/2024/09/
father-of-october-7th- massacre-victim-among-those- killed-in-drive-by-shooting- attack/ - https://tjvnews.com/2024/09/
smotrich-were-one-step-away- from-oct-7-in-judea-and- samaria/ - https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/
12/business/israel-credit- rating-cut/index.html - https://carnegieendowment.org/
posts/2018/12/the-lebanese- armed-forces-and-hezbollah- military-dualism-in-post-war- lebanon?lang=en
