Netanyahoo
Responds To Nasrallah Speech With Big Escalation
By Moon Of Alabama
January 18, 2015 "ICH"
- Three days ago the leader of the Lebanese
Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah,
warned Israel against "stupid moves":
A key ally of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, Nasrallah said that
Israeli strikes on Syria "target the whole of
the resistance axis,” which includes
Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah
fighters in Syria are battling extremist groups
in an attempt to thwart threats for Syria,
Lebanon and the entire region.
Describing the fight in Syria
as “existential,” he said the plot against the
neighboring country targets the resistance and
their intervention into Syria was in order to
preserve the country as well as Lebanon.
"The repeated bombings that
struck several targets in Syria are a major
violation, and we consider that any
strike against Syria is a strike against the
whole of the resistance axis, not just against
Syria," he told the Beirut-based Arab
news television.
"The axis is capable
of responding. This can happen any time," he
warned.
Israel disregarded the warning. It
today attacked a Hizbullah convoy on the Syrian side
of the Golan heights and killed the Hizbullah
commander in Syria as well as six other Hizbullah
fighters. One of those killed today was Jihad Imad
Mughniyeh the son of Hizbullah commander Imad
Mughniyeh killed by Israeli agents a few years ago.
The attack was carried out by missiles released from
a helicopter within Israeli borders.
Two points about the attack:
Israel is
supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al-Nusra,
in the Syrian part of the Golan height. The attack
on Hizbullah today must (also) be understood as
direct Israeli support for Al-Qaeda.
How did Israel know where to hit?
Either Hizbullah's communication security was lousy,
or there is a(nother) spy in Hizbullah's ranks or
this was pure luck. I do not believe that such a
"success" is just pure luck. The missile attack
points to exact knowledge of the position of the
target which lets me believe that some opf those
killed might have carried a known cell phone or some
other electronic beacon.
Hizbullah reacted so far by
immediately putting its forces at the Lebanese
Israeli border on alarm while Israeli intensified
its (illegal) overflights of Lebanese territory.
I do not doubt that Hizbullah will
retaliate harshly for this attack. But it will do so
on a timetable that fits its needs and capabilities.
I therefore find an immediate response, though
justified, not very likely. But I do expect an
answer within the next two month before the general
election in Israel.
Nasrallah's speech three days ago
was relatively aggressive. Netanyahoo now challenged
that by escalating the situation. He calculates that
Hizbullah can not response effectively or not within
a time frame that would endanger his election
chances. That may well turn out to have been a huge
mistake.