Congress is being advised that in Lebanon the rhetoric of Hezbollah's Secretary-General is wearing thin and becoming shopworn with jokes in Lebanon's media and even in Shia areas about the coming Divine Defeat.

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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:

Hezbollah continues to incur heavy losses in Syria and has entered a fight that neither it nor Iran can win. Its supporters in Lebanon are increasingly raising questions about why Hezbollah is killing Sunni's in Syria, Iraq and Yemen - and how this helps Lebanon. AIPAC argues that no one in Lebanon, except for a small percentage of hard core Party of God supporters believes its justifications about "takfires, terrorists and IS" will destroy Lebanon unless Hezbollah fights in three countries.

Talking points from Tel Aviv and Israeli political officers in Washington that friends of Israel are circulating point out that Hezbollah's support among Sunni's in Lebanon is now essentially nil and is also weakening fast among its own Shia base as hundreds of troops are dying killing Sunni Arabs in the east rather than fighting Israeli soldiers in the south.

Congress is being advised that in Lebanon the rhetoric of Hezbollah Secretary-General is wearing thin and becoming shopworn with jokes in Lebanon's media and even in Shia areas about the coming Divine Defeat.

Senator John McCain complains that Hezbollah is forcing the Lebanese army to fight a non-Lebanese war against IS (Da'ish), Iran's most feared enemy that has little if anything to do with Lebanon.

CIsraeli officials are making the case that war with Hezbollah will almost certainly shift momentum in the U.S. Congress decisively against the pending nuclear deal with Iran -- a deal that critics say will increase Iran's maneuverability in the region, including its support for Hezbollah. The idea being that war with Hezbollah might be a game changing development to undermine the current majority support in Congress and the American public, a majority of which currently back a US-Iran nuclear deal.

The case for preventive military action against Hezbollah was also made recently by the anti-Arab, Palestinian loathing Dore Gold, who is close to Netanyahu and was just appointed director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Accusing the UN of having failed to stop Hezbollah, Gold argues that "Either the IDF will have to destroy the weapons now being stored in southern Lebanon, or let Hezbollah fire thousands of rockets into Israel. What would you do?"

On 5/12/2015 the New York Times reported that Israel is preparing for "what it sees as an almost inevitable next battle with Hezbollah." An Israeli official added "We will hit Hezbollah hard."

If so, it wouldn't be the first time that an Israeli confrontation with Hezbollah would be motivated by the hope that war with Iran was looming. During the July 2006 Zionist invasion of Lebanon, which as Aurelie Daher reminds us caused more than 1,200 civilian deaths, 4,400 injuries, 200,000 people rendered homeless and more than 25% of the population displaced, Israel's then-Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh announced that the Lebanon war was all about Iran: "War with Iran is inevitable. Lebanon is just a prelude to the greater war with Iran."

Sneh's timing was off, but as Trita Parsi and Paul Pillar have suggested, an Israeli war this summer would likely assure that, despite Obama's efforts, US-Iran peace is beyond his reach. According to an email sent to this observer, the Zionist regime and some of its US lobby are arguing that "once Obama leaves office next year and a purebred 100% American patriot is in the Oval Office, things can finally be put right in your region and we will knock some heads."

And if anyone is still alive-- in the wise words of Alan Dershowitz, "We can let Allah sort it all out."

Authors Website: http://mealsforsyrianrefugeechildrenlebanon.com/

Authors Bio:

Since 2013, Professor Franklin P. Lamb has traveled extensively throughout Syria. His primary focus has been to document, photograph, research and hopefully help preserve the vast and irreplaceable archaeological sites and artifacts in Syria.

Like Iraq, Syria is the cradle of civilization, and as such it has been a rich source of our shared global culture and historic heritage. Already endangered from illegal excavation, looting, international trafficking and iconoclasm; the theft and destruction of these sites has greatly increased as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

Many of the endangered archeological sites and artifacts are over 7,000 years old. The oldest remains found in Syria are from the Paleolithic era (c. 800,000 BCE). The most endangered artifacts and archaeological sites currently are in Tell Halaf, the north of Syria near the Turkish border with Syria. These archaeological sites date as far back as 5,500 BCE. They include archeological sites and artifacts of the Babylonian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Aramaic, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Ayyubid and Ottoman civilizations and empires.

Professor Franklin Lamb has also been working, sometimes under dangerous circumstances, to record and photograph the war damage done to religious icons, images, monuments, and ancient structures that span pre-Roman civilizations, and structures such as Islamic mosques, Christian churches and Jewish synagogues.

Professor Lamb is working tirelessly to record and photograph these sites and artifacts because they are in danger of complete destruction for religious, political and illegal trafficking reasons, especially due to the ongoing wars in the Middle East.

Professor Franklin Lamb's website and his latest book, "Syria's Endangered Heritage, an International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect" presents exclusive and never published before photographs, records, data, articles, and interviews from across the whole of Syria. His book can be purchased at his website http://www.syrian-heritage.com/.

In addition to Dr. Lamb's urgent archaeological work he is also deeply committed to rescuing and aiding refugee children in Syria. He is a volunteer with the Lebanon, France, and USA based "Meals for Syrian Refugee Children, Lebanon (MSRCL)", which seeks to provide hot nutritional meals to Syrian and other refugee children.

Lamb says that the goal of MSRCL is to be able to provide one meal a day to 500 children. More donors are needed in order for him to reach that goal. At $2.25 per meal x 500 children per day ($1,225), the budget for a month (30 days) requires approximately $36,000. Over 95% of each donation goes directly towards the cost of each meal. The MSCRL volunteer teams give their time, energy and even their own money to help the refugee children so that they will not become part of the "lost generation" of Syria.

Lamb's books and publications include "Pollution as a Problem of International Law"; "International Legal Responsibility for the Sabra Shatila Massacre"; "Israel's 1982 War in Lebanon: Eyewitness Chronicles of the Invasion and Occupation", "The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel's Use of American Weapons against Civilians in Lebanon in addition to the three volume set, "Palestine, Lebanon & Syria Palestine, Lebanon & Syria (Commentary and Analysis 2006-2016)." Due out during Fall 2016, in English and Arabic, is "The Case for Palestinian Civil Rights in Lebanon: Why the Resistance Sleeps."

Dr. Lamb's most recent book is "Syria's Endangered Heritage: An International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect". www.Syrian-heritage.com

Lamb's Academic Credentials include: BA, and Law Degrees from Boston University, Master of Law (LLM) Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from the London School of Economics (LSE); Diploma in International Air & Space Law from the University College of London; Post-Doctoral Studies at Harvard University Law School of East Asian Legal Studies Center, specializing in Chinese Law; International Legal Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Studied Public International Law at The Hague Academy of international Law, at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands.

Lamb's Professional and Political Activities include Assistant Professor of International Law, Northwestern College of Law, Portland, Oregon and Assistant Counsel to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, During the Administration of President Jimmy Carter, Lamb was elected for a four year term to the Democratic National Committee, representing the state of Oregon. Lamb served on the Democratic National Committee Judicial Council with California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as well as the Platform Committee on East-West Relations. Professor Lamb served on the presidential campaign staff for Presidential Candidate Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.