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Israel’s Endgame in Gaza Must be Cutting the Iranian Noose
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
JNS.org – Increasingly strident voices both within and outside Israel demand that Israeli leaders outline the endgame in Gaza after the destruction of Hamas as a political and terrorist force. U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as former Israeli generals, many of whom have acknowledged the mistaken doctrines and concepts they held before the slaughter of Oct. 7, have joined forces to demand answers to this question.
Focusing on Gaza as a standalone Israeli problem that demands redress in the near future is a grievous strategic error that threatens not only Israel’s very existence but the well-being of democratic states far beyond the borders of the conflict.
Three ominous developments have emerged since the Oct. 7 attack and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza aimed at dismantling the Hamas threat. These developments leave Israel facing a precarious predicament, the likes of which it has not faced since the 1967 Six-Day War.
For the first time since the renewed emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt 50 years ago and its ensuing proliferation, Sunni and Shi’ite fundamentalism have joined forces operationally against Israel, and indirectly against the broader alliance of democratic states.
Hamas’s attack on the Gaza border region was followed by Hezbollah’s acts of war on Israel’s northern border. And acts of war they are, from the number of missiles launched at civilian and military targets, to the heavy mortar bombardments along the border and the use of both armed and intelligence-gathering drones. As a result of Hezbollah’s attacks, greater numbers of Israeli civilians have been evacuated from the north, or have left the area of their own accord, than have evacuated from the south.
This Sunni-Shi’ite unity did not prevail during or after the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks or the Islamic State onslaught that saw the movement occupy most of northern Iraq and southern and eastern Syria, erasing the border between these two states—two events that were rightly perceived as strategic threats to the West and elicited a commensurate response from the United States and its allies.
In both encounters, Shi’ite and Sunni forces were pitted against each other. After the 9/11 attack, Iran came down hard on its Sunni minority as well as suppressing Sunni jihadist groups.
The Shi’ite response was even more pronounced and decisive: With the expansion of ISIS, Iran and its major proxy, Shi’ite Hezbollah, rushed to Assad’s Syria to prevent the regime’s downfall and the potential ISIS takeover of the country. In Iraq, Tehran established the Shi’ite terrorist proxies currently attacking U.S. forces to save Baghdad from the fate of Iraq’s third largest city, Mosul, which fell easily to ISIS.
Houthi cruise missile and UAV attacks from Yemen on Eilat, Israel’s southernmost port, are the second development that contributes to Israel’s precarious predicament. As a Shi’ite proxy of Iran, the Houthis are a reflection of Sunni and Shi’ite fundamentalist unity, but also represent a threat that goes far beyond that. Eilat is Israel’s only gateway to South and East Asia. This trade route, essential to Israel’s economic well-being and growth, has been threatened by the recent Houthi hijacking of a commercial vessel partially owned, but not run, by an Israeli company. It echoes the closure of the Straits of Tiran at the mouth of the Red Sea to Israeli shipping in May 1967. This act was one of the reasons behind Israel’s preemptive strike against Egypt and was part of the noose tightening around Israel’s neck prior to the Six-Day War. Today, a similar noose is threatening Israel.
Finally, both these threatening developments are being orchestrated by a regional power, Iran, which is fast becoming a nuclear power with ballistic capabilities to strike at Israel and beyond.
This devastating triangle, with a fundamentalist, imperialist state at its apex, flanked by Sunni-Shi’ite fundamentalist unity on one side and far-flung terrorist Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen on the other, has no parallel in the Al Qaeda threat of 2001 or the ISIS threat in 2014. Both Al-Qaeda and ISIS faced a world arrayed against them, including rivals such as the United States and Russia.
Israel must not be made to address Gaza’s future before first cutting the ever-tightening noose around it. This is not only obviously in Israel’s interest. If Israel is prevented from cutting itself free of this noose, not only will its very existence be threatened, but so will that of all U.S. allies in the region.
Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990 proved how vulnerable some of these states are. It took Iraq just one day to take over Kuwait. One can hardly believe that Iran, emboldened by a weakened Israel forced to focus on Gaza—hardly Israel’s major front—will not be tempted to do the same as Saddam Hussein in 1990. Or perhaps far more.
We are in a strategic tempest. A wise strategy of allowing Israel to deal with its immediate and more threatening fronts as the endgame to the war with Hamas might mean the difference between a stable Middle East led by U.S. allies, or a region controlled by Iran, a country strongly embedded in the global axis of states operating against the U.S. alliance.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
The post Israel’s Endgame in Gaza Must be Cutting the Iranian Noose first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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United Nations ‘Condemns’ Israel for Responding to Houthi Attacks, Decries ‘Escalation’ of Violence
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks to members of the Security Council during a meeting to address the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at UN headquarters in New York City, New York, US, April 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
In its latest salvo against the Jewish state, the United Nations (UN) condemned Israel for executing retaliatory strikes against the Houthi terror group in Yemen.
“The Secretary-General condemns escalation between Yemen and Israel,” Stéphanie Tremblay, a UN spokesperson, said in Thursday statements on behalf of UN Secretary General António Guterres.
“The Secretary-General is gravely concerned about intensified escalation in Yemen and Israel. Israeli airstrikes today on Sana’a International Airport, the Red Sea ports and power stations in Yemen are especially alarming. The airstrikes reportedly resulted in numerous casualties including at least three killed and dozens more injured” Tremblay added.
On Thursday, Israel launched a barrage of missile attacks on Houthi bases in Yemen, provoking international outrage. Israel targeted a major airport in Sanaa and ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif and Ras Qantib, and power stations, locations the Jewish state claims were used by the terror group to sneak in both Iranian weapons and high-ranking Iranian officials.
On Friday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for an airstrike aimed at Ben Gurion airport, claiming that the attacks were carried out in retaliation against Israel’s targeting of Sana’a International airport.
The Israeli strikes followed days of Houthi missile and drone launches towards the Jewish state’s airspace. The Houthis have repeatedly attacked the Jewish state in the year following the Oct. 7 slaughters in Israel. Officials associated with terrorist organization claims that it will continue to attack Israel until the so-called “genocide” in Gaza ceases.
In reference to the strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad’s regime and others learned.”
Israeli officials have long accused the UN of having a bias against the Jewish state. Last year, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel twice as often as it did all other countries. Meanwhile, of all the country-specific resolutions passed by the UNHRC, nearly half have condemned Israel, a seemingly disproportionate focus on the lone democracy in the Middle East.
Weeks following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, the UN adopted a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” between Israel and the terrorist group. The UN failed to pass a measure condemning the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.
In June, the UN put Israel on its so-called “list of shame” of countries that kill children in armed conflict. Israel is considered to be the only democracy on the list.
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Israeli Jets Attack Syria-Lebanon Border Crossings to Stop Arms Amuggling
Smoke billows after an Israeli Air Force air strike in southern Lebanon village, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, Oct. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhar
Israeli jets struck seven crossing points along the Syria-Lebanon border on Friday, aiming to cut the flow of weapons to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in southern Lebanon.
Israeli troops also seized a truck mounted with a 40-barrel rocket launcher in southern Lebanon, part of a haul from various areas that included explosives, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47 automatic rifles, the military said.
The commander of the Israeli Air Force, Major General Tomer Bar, said Hezbollah was trying to smuggle weapons into Lebanon to test Israel’s ability to stop them.
“This must not be tolerated,” he said in a statement.
Under the terms of a Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement, Israel is supposed to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon in phases while unauthorised Hezbollah military facilities south of the Litani River are to be dismantled.
However, each side has accused the other of violating the agreement, intended to end more than a year of fighting that began with Hezbollah missile strikes on Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, from Gaza.
On Thursday, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon called for Israeli forces to withdraw, citing what it said were repeated violations of the deal.
Israel, which destroyed large parts of Hezbollah’s missile stocks during weeks of operations in southern Lebanon, has said it will not permit weapons to be smuggled to Hezbollah through Syria.
Israel has also conducted attacks against the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen in recent days and pledged to continue its campaign against Iranian-backed militant groups across the region.
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Mila Kunis Says Husband Ashton Kutcher And Their Children Helped Her Embrace Judaism: ‘I Fell in Love With My Religion’
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis at the 9th Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, on April 16, 2023. Photo: Cover Media via Reuters Connect
Actress Mila Kunis began embracing and feeling proud of her Jewish heritage when she met her husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, and even more so after having children, she told Israeli activist and author Noa Tishby this week.
“For me, it happened when I met my husband,” the “Goodrich” star, 41, said of her former “That ’70s Show” costar, 46, who she has been married to since 2015.
Although Kutcher is not Jewish, he was a follower of Kabbalah and was frequently photographed visiting the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles when he was married to actress Demi Moore from 2005-2013. Their wedding was also reportedly officiated by a Kabbalah Centre teacher. It remains unclear if he continues to follow Kabbalah. Nevertheless, Kunis joked that Kutcher is Jewish “by choice,” not by lineage, and that his interest in Judaism sparked Kunis to reconnect with her Jewish roots.
“I fell in love with my religion because he explained it to me,” said Kunis, who voices Meg Griffin on the Fox animated series “Family Guy.”
Kunis made the comments while joining Tishby to light candles on Thursday for the second night of Hanukkah. The two joined forces as part of Tishby’s “#BringOnTheLight campaign,” which is an eight-part video series on YouTube dedicated to spreading the message of Jewish resilience, pride and unity throughout the Jewish holiday.
Kunis and Kutcher together have two children — daughter Wyatt, 10, and son Dimitri, 8. The actress was born in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and moved to the United States at the age of eight. She told Tishby that she did not adhere to any Jewish traditions while growing up. “I always knew I was Jewish but I was told to never talk about,” she said. “I think because I was in a country that didn’t allow for religion.” The “Bad Moms” star added that her children also helped her tap into the religious side of Judaism.
“I was raised culturally Jewish. So for me, it’s a culture,” she said. “And as I had kids, and my kids very much identity with the religion aspect of it, I was like, ‘Oh, I guess we’re doing Shabbat and the candles. And there are so many beautiful traditions.”
“I never lit Hanukkah candles until I had kids,” she further noted.
When Kunis lit the menorah with Tishby for the second night of Hanukkah, they called Kutcher for some help. Both women were unsure if they needed to light the candles from left to right or from right to left, and asked Kutcher for guidance.
Kunis also talked about being raised with a lot of Jewish guilt and superstition. Listing another things that are culturally Jewish about her, she shared, “I have a fear of not having enough food and my fear of somebody being hungry. The worst thing my kids can say to me is, ‘I’m hungry.’”
“Food fixes everything. You’re tired, eat some food. You’re cranky, eat some food,” she joked. “A health person would say, ‘This is unhealthy and you’re doing something wrong.’ And I understand. I’m working on it. But it’s just something that is embedded in me.”
The post Mila Kunis Says Husband Ashton Kutcher And Their Children Helped Her Embrace Judaism: ‘I Fell in Love With My Religion’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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