By
Kenneth
R. Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com
| August 3, 2006
Kiryat Shemona, Israel (Aug 2, 2006) – Israel needs to “finish
the job” against Hezbollah in Lebanon,
former
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told
me in this northern
Israeli town on Tuesday.
Hezbollah’s Iranian- and Syrian-supplied rockets have emptied
this normally bustling agricultural and manufacturing center, and
have turned most of northern Israel into ghost towns.
But the few residents who remain behind are
defiant.¬Ý
An impassioned woman blasted the government for pussy-footing around
in its ground offensive in Lebanon, and said she was ready to stay “six
months in the shelters” if that was needed in order to finish
off the Hezbollah rocket attacks.
“The people of Israel are sending the government of Iran a
message,” government spokesman Daniel Seaman said.
“The Israeli public is demanding that the government finish the
job, to put an end to the threat we have been facing from Iran’s
proxy army, Hezbollah. If Hezbollah thought public opinion was our
weak point, they were wrong,” he told me in Metulla
yesterday.
While the United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to
achieve a lasting solution that would remove Hezbollah as an
effective fighting force, the Bush administration must not pressure
Israel into an early ceasefire. To do so would be against American
interests, and would embolden our enemies.
Israeli politicians cannot accept a halt to military operations
against Hezbollah until they have crippled it as an effective
fighting force and can prevent future missile attacks against
Israel.
Opinion polls in Israel show overwhelming support – way over
90% - for the government’s ongoing military operations against
Hezbollah.
25-year old Lt. Lynat Bruck, a female reservist who was called up to
active duty in the military police, told me yesterday on the front
lines in Metulla that she never hesitated when her call-up orders
came.¬Ý
She lives in Ramat Naftali, just twenty minutes from the border. “My
home is close, so I feel like I am defending my home,” she
said. “It’s like I’m fighting in my own backyard.”¬Ý
Dozens of other soldiers – reservists and young conscripts –
expressed similar sentiments in interviews all along the front lines
in northern Israel.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice showed that she has a political
tin ear on Sunday when she announced in Jerusalem a 48-hour Israeli
pause in airstrikes, without having first finalized the agreement
with Prime Minister Olmert and his government.¬Ý
Rice’s entourage leaked the impending Israeli “pause”
to American reporters in Jerusalem after midnight the night before,
even as discussions with the Israeli government were ongoing.
This is why Olmert felt compelled to contradict Rice in an unusual
statement several hours after she left Jerusalem on Sunday. He said
the Israeli air force would continue to hit targets in Lebanon if
intelligence showed Hezbollah was preparing to fire rockets into
Israel. “Rice thought this was just about diplomacy,” an
Israeli official told me. “But this is also about politics.”
Israelis understand that this war is not just about Israel and
Hezbollah, however. It is part of Iran’s larger proxy war
against Israel and America.¬Ý
Among the many dangers if Israel is not allowed to finish Hezbollah
off as a fighting force will be to embolden Iran to position
longer-range missiles in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley or in Syria, to
blackmail Europe.
The goal of Iranian blackmail is clear: to convince Europe that the
cost of joining international efforts to compel Iran to abandon its
nuclear weapons program will be high.
But there are other, more immediate consequences should the U.S. and
the United Nations try to force Israel into a premature
ceasefire.¬Ý
In a joint press conference in Tehran on June 15, Iranian defense
minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and his visiting counterpart from
Syria, Hassan Turkmani, announced they had signed a mutual defense
pact.
This latest Syrian-Iranian agreement formalizes de facto agreements
between the two countries that have allowed Iran to send weapons to
Hezbollah through Syria over the past two decades.¬Ý
And more importantly, the new agreement extends Iran’s nuclear
umbrella to Syria.¬Ý
"Our cooperation is based on a strategic pact and unity against
common threats. We can have a common front against Israel's threats,"
Turkmani told reporters after two intensive rounds of talks with
Najjar.¬Ý
Iran "considers Syria's security its own security, and we consider
our defense capabilities to be those of Syria," the Iranian defense
minister said.¬Ý
Al Sharq al Awsat in London reported on June 16 that the pact
included major new arms sales from Iran to Syria, as well as massive
financial aid.
“Iran has agreed to finance Syrian military deals with Russia,
China, and Ukraine, to equip the Syrian army with cannon, warheads,
army vehicles, and missiles manufactured by the Iranian Defense
Industries, and to enable Syrian navy drills,” the paper
reported. "Syria, on its part, has renewed its previous agreements
with Iran which allow Iranian ammunition trucks to pass [through
Syria] into Lebanon..."¬Ý
Americans need to understand the larger picture.¬Ý
“This is a test-fire, test-firing of rockets into a Western
country,” former prime minister Netanyahu told me. “Iran
is committed to the destruction of Israel.¬Ý It denies
the Holocaust while preparing a new Holocaust. But Iran is also
committed to a demented branch of Shiism which sees an apocalyptic
war of millions of casualties in which Shiism will rise and the West
will go down. We may be the first target, but we’re not the
last target.”
Through its proxy in Lebanon, and its proxy in Gaza, Iran “has
established two beachheads,” he added.
“Let the citizens of the world beware,” Netanyahu
cautioned. “What you see here is what you’ll get later.”
Click
Here to
support Frontpagemag.com
Original
article: --