Israel signals it may destroy Hezbollah this summer-and include Iran as a twofer

Israel signals it may destroy Hezbollah this summer-and include Iran as a twofer

Franklin Lamb, South Beirut

These days Lebanon, as with this region, is being shaken by political and 'terrorism" crises, threats to stability, growing popular unrest, and ideological and theological sacrum bellum turbulence. Forces not seen since the beginning of the last century with the end of the Ottoman Empire and its replacement with the Sykes-Picot diktat.

Yet, with all of Israel's swelling international legitimacy problems, the Zionist regime still occupying another country, Palestine, can sound its bugle, which having no valves or other political pitch-altering devices, blast-summons its agents in Washington and elsewhere to get busy and circle the wagons.

Netanyahu indeed has blown his rams horn this week in the run-up to the June 30 "deadline" (to be extended yet again if necessary) for a 5+l agreement on the Iranian nuclear file. Israel's agents are flooding Congress and the mass media with op-eds from no fewer than 14 pro-Zionist organizations since May 15, Nakba Day, ranging from half a dozen articles, publications and mailings from the Washington Institute For Near East Policy (WINEP)), to the Middle East Forum's, Steven J. Rosen in the Washington Times, Dennis Ross in the New York Times, Congressional Testimony featuring James L. Jeffrey before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and many more.

Unfortunately, in contrast to the AIPAC-ZOA organized blitz, many who oppose Zionist aggressions continue to waste their energies and actually aid their Zionist opponents by indulging in largely irrelevant, unproven, counter-intuitive, counterproductive wing-nut conspiracy-theory blogging, partly because this form of internet pollution is easy and does not require old fashioned research or marshalling of empirical facts or much thinking. So it remains no real contest for the Zionist lobby as they continue to dominate Congressional hearings and mainstream Op-eds, not to mention Fox news and CNN type outlets.

A WINEP memo, authored by AIPAC and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is making its way to powerful opinion and policy makers this week on the subject of Iran and Hezbollah's involvement in three regional wars, and the opportunities it presents Israel to replace Hezbollah's summer of 2006 "Divine Victory" with a summer of 2015 "Divine Destruction."

Simultaneously, the Israeli army, according to Congressional staffers on the House Foreign Affairs committee, has forwarded to key allies detailed plans to evacuate more than a million civilians in southern Lebanon before obliterating Hezbollah and everything south of the Litani River--for starters. They pinpoint Mediterranean ports near Tyre and Saida where US Naval ships can rescue endangered Americans, hopefully doing a better job than the US Embassy did back in July-August of 2006.

A senior military official confirmed these plans on 6/3/2015. And as the news wafted across the US Congress, Republican Presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, seemingly on cue, began leading cheers for another Zionist aggression against Lebanon, as he seeks Jewish campaign funding. As part of his entrance into the 2016 Presidential race, a centerpiece of which will be his cash cow "Bomb Iran" plank, his staff has begun distributing a recent press release from the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). It declares that "ZOA is very shocked and deeply critical of President Barack Obama's recent statement, in an interview on Israeli TV, that military action against Iran would be ineffective in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. This statement contradicts his repeated commitments that "all options are on the table." Clearly, when the President publicly states that a course of action would be ineffective he is removing it from the list of options of what he is prepared to do."

An Israeli military intelligence source told the Jerusalem Post on 6/3/2015 that during the coming war, Hezbollah rocket and missile fire will be met with civilian evacuations, massive Israeli aerial strikes, and then by a ground offensive. "If we have no choice, we have to evacuate 1 million, 1.5 million residents in Lebanon, and act," the source said. "Failure to evacuate the civilian population would result in many thousands of non-combatant deaths, according to Israeli army assessments" following a week-long drill simulating destroying Hezbollah on multiple fronts, including massive use of the Israeli air force.

The Israeli embassy in Washington, citing US-Israeli intelligence, including claimed sources inside Hezbollah ranks, is telling Congressional leaders that Hezbollah is "in deep distress in Syria, has major problems with the Syrian army, and the local Syrian population who believe that Iran has occupied their country and will never leave voluntarily, cannot win the war and is in strategic trouble despite attempts by its Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to deliver morale-boosting speeches."

Among the Zionist lobby's current arguments is that Hezbollah is nothing more than the Lebanon branch of Iran's Baji (people's) militia, and that with respect to the nuclear issue, an argument is being pushed by the Middle East Forum that "Iran is a revolutionary power with hegemonic aspirations seeking to assert its dominance in the region and uses an assortment of terrorism, proliferation, military proxies, and occasionally old-fashioned diplomacy to further its dominance. Do not expect Iran to compromise its principles any time soon."

While conceding that a military confrontation with Iran could be costly and risk escalation, WINEP (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy) is telling the US Congress: "It is unlikely to produce either a U.S. defeat or a "war" in the sense normally used in American political debate. Endless, bloody ground combat by hundreds of thousands of troops, as in Iraq or Vietnam would not be necessary and this could be over quickly."

Meanwhile, Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser to President Obama, reportedly believes that another Israeli war in Lebanon is just a matter of timing. He is currently working on trying to get the Gulf States more deeply involved against Iran. Ross frequently argues that "The Saudis see Iran trying to encircle them with its Quds Force killing Sunni Muslims in Syria, mobilizing Shia Muslim militias in Iraq, providing arms to the Houthi rebels in Yemen or fomenting unrest among Saudi Shia."

Ross told AIPAC this week that he has seen US Intelligence that Iran set the recent bombs in Saudi Shia mosques to frighten Shia into compliance with its projects, a tactic Ross claims it has used many times before in Iraq. Ross argues that fundamentally, the Saudis believe that America's friends and interests are under threat, and the U.S. response has ranged from indifference to accommodation, such that an Israel war could be a positive 'game-changer ' in the region.

With respect to Hezbollah, Israel and her agents see good prospects. The Zionist organization's talking points on Hezbollah include, but are not limited to the following:

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