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The Disgusting Lies of Haaretz
“Gaza Is the Horror That Can’t Be Denied. But Israelis Will Try,“ writes Dahlia Scheindlin in a long piece in Haaretz, about the war that’s been going on in Gaza for over a year. Her point is pretty straightforward: Israelis always deny the atrocities they commit, no matter how strong the evidence — and they have been doing so from 1948 until today.
To prove her point, Scheindlin provides a series of cases from the last 76 years in which, she claims, both the State of Israel and Israelis were guilty of horrible crimes, but they refused to acknowledge their guilt, denied the obvious facts, and proclaimed their innocence.
But Scheindlin’s examples can be dismantled and falsified. Indeed, her hit piece against Israel serves as an excellent example of the propaganda war that’s been waged against Israel for decades. The goal of this war is to slander Israel and blame the Jewish State for the most terrible crimes — regardless of the facts.
Genocide and War Crimes in Gaza
Scheindlin starts with the worst accusation of all: genocide, and how both Palestinians and Israelis respond to this accusation:
And nothing inflames the debate more than the word “genocide.”
For Palestinians, genocide is a descriptive fact – anything else is a lie. For international courts, it is a legal convention, the International Court of Justice is deliberating South Africa’s charges, according to a high bar of evidence… For many Israelis, the word is an antisemitic plot and a lie.
Israel’s government already flatly denies lesser charges – war crimes, ethnic cleansing, a second Nakba…
In other words: for the Palestinians, genocide is being waged against them; for Israelis, the accusation is baseless; and the independent body of jurists — the International Court of Justice (ICJ — will decide who’s right. And in any case, even if there is no genocide, it’s clear that Israel is guilty of war crimes, which it also denies.
But the rejection of the claim that Israel commit systematic war crimes is not unique to Israel. In fact, it is consensus amongst non-Israeli military experts — high officers and scholars of war and military affairs from democratic countries who examined, studied and expressed their professional conclusion about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
And the experts’ conclusion is that Israel does not engage in deliberate and unnecessary killing of civilians, and that it abides by the laws of war.
Among these experts are John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, who said:
Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.
Sir John McColl, former Deputy Commander of NATO Forces: “I know Israel’s doing all it can to save civilians.”
Andrew Fox, lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst: “…all the actions they have taken since [Oct 7], are justified both morally and from a national security perspective.”
Geoffrey Corn, Chair of Military Law at Texas Tech Univ. & Lt Col US Army, and Lt. General George Smith: “Israel consistently implements its legal obligation to avoid, whenever feasibly, [civilian deaths].”
Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of the British troops in Afghanistan: “No army takes more precaution than the Israel Defense Forces in order to prevent civil casualties.”
Vincenzo Camporini, former head of the Italian armed forces, together with a group of retired generals from UK & US militaries: “[The] IDF has developed and implemented innovative procedures to mitigate the risk to civilians arising from attacks on valid military objectives.”
Others who support this view include Gen. Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And a group of 7 US high ranking officers concluded in a special report that: Israel’s “[in] overall compliance with the Laws of Armed Conflict.”
There is no parallel group of that level who accuses Israel of violating the laws of war, or in deliberate unnecessary mass murder of civilian population. This is not “Israeli denialism.” Rather, it is the consensus amongst the relevant professionals.
“The Nakba” — 1948
Then Scheindlin turns to Israel’s great “original sin”: the flight of hundreds of thousands of Arabs from what became Israel, during the 1948 War of Independence. Here too, Israel denied its guilt and concealed the truth:
Israel’s leadership classified the archives related to the Nakba during the War of Independence, while David Ben-Gurion painstakingly cultivated the idea that most Palestinians left at their leaders’ instruction… Archives were declassified, scholars pieced together terrible truths, and Israel reclassified the material.
What “terrible truths” were revealed with the declassification of the archives?
The historian Professor Benny Morris, the prominent researcher of those archives in the early 1980s, concluded his book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem with these words:
The Palestinian refugee problem was born of war, not by design, Jewish or Arab. It was largely a by-product of Arab and Jewish fears and of the protracted, bitter fighting that characterized the first Arab-Israeli war; in smaller part, it was the deliberate creation of Jewish and Arab military commanders and politicians (p. 286).
About 20 years later, more archival materials were declassified, and they brought Morris to somewhat revise his findings:
Birth Revisited describes many more atrocities and expulsions than were recorded in the original version of the book. But, at the same time, a far greater proportion of the 700,000 Arab refugees were ordered or advised by their fellow Arabs to abandon their homes than I had previously registered. It is clear from the new documentation that the Palestinian leadership in principle opposed the Arab flight from December 1947 to April 1948, while at the same time encouraging or ordering a great many villages to send away their women, children and old folk, to be out of harm’s way. Whole villages, especially in the Jewish- dominated coastal plain, were also ordered to evacuate.
In other words: the declassification of the archives revealed a reality of harsh war, and not unprecedented atrocities committed by Israel. In addition, even if most Arabs didn’t leave at the behest of their leaders, it was definitely true for many of them. This idea is not an invention of David Ben-Gurion, but a simple historical fact, which Dahlia Scheindlin happens to dislike.
The Tantura “Massacre” Affair
Scheindlin also mentions the story of the massacre that he IDF allegedly committed in the Arab village Tantura in 1948, according to the MA dissertation by Teddy Katz from 1998, which sparked an uproar:
Fellow academics unleashed smear campaigns and interviewees retracted their testimonies to Teddy Katz, whose master’s thesis chronicled a massacre by Israeli forces at Tantura in 1948 (that story is captured in an astonishing, eponymous film).
How many lies can be put in one sentence? First, there was no “smear campaign” by “fellow academics.” There were veteran, reputable historians who published their findings that there is no evidence of a massacre in Tantura, and that Teddy Katz’s thesis does not meet minimal academic standards.
Second of all, Katz’s interviewees did not “retract their testimonies.” They sued him, claiming that he distorted their testimonies unrecognizably, in order to support his pre-determined conclusion. And indeed, the trial revealed significant gaps between the recorded testimonies and how they have been quoted in the thesis, as well as other distortions and lies.
The Al-Dura Affair
Dahlia Scheindlin’s piece reaches the beginning of the first Intifada:
In recent years, denial efforts often focus on individual cases, picking apart tiny details to prove Israel’s innocence… Examples of these micro-denials include a cottage industry that emerged over years to prove that 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura was not killed by Israeli fire in 2000, during the second intifada
The phrase “cottage industry” refers to “a business or manufacturing activity carried on in a person’s home.” That is, Scheindlin insinuates that the claims that Israel didn’t kill Mohammed al-Dura are based on some conspiracy theorists who investigated the case privately.
This claim has no basis. An Israeli investigative commission determined that the case of al-Durrah’s death was unclear, and that at the end of the infamous video supposedly showing his demise, the boy is seen alive. Moreover, the barrage of bullets that struck the boy could not have been fired from an IDF position, according to an Israeli police forensic expert, who took part in investigating the case. Dr. Yehuda David, who claimed to have already treated bullet scars on al-Durrah in 1994, was acquitted in a libel suit filed against him in French court.
But even if Sheindlin claims that all the above investigations and conclusions are Israeli propaganda, two main points stand:
- The video clip showing al-Durrah’s death contains zero evidence that the IDF killed the boy.
- Even if we accept the unproven allegation that al-Durrah died by IDF fire, he was not intentionally murdered, but rather caught in the crossfire between Israelis and armed Palestinians.
Which raises the question: why is Mohammed al-Dura’s death discussed 24 years after the event? The reason? It serves as a major propaganda tool to incite terrorism and murder against Jews and Israelis. That’s why it became a symbol.
Scheindlin is blind to the fact that in her efforts to malign Israel she only exposes the nature of anti-Israeli propaganda.
The Explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital
Scheindlin uses another case of the Palestinian propaganda, which in contrast to the al-Dura case, failed to become a major source for anti-Israeli propaganda:
If a terrible incident is wrongly attributed to Israel – such as the explosions at the Al-Ahli hospital early in the war, most likely by misfired munitions from Palestinian militias – this is leveraged as proof that Israel is innocent in all other cases.
Reminder: In the hour following the explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17 2023, Hamas authorities claimed that Israel bombed the hospital and the people in it. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that 500 people were killed by the blast. Many major international media outlets accepted the Palestinian version as is, and delivered it to the world.
Only in the hours and days afterwards did evidence accumulate proving that it was a fabrication.
Media outlets and intelligence agencies around the world reached the conclusion: a failed Palestinian rocket hit the hospital’s parking lot, and the number of dead was lower by orders of magnitude than the initial claim.
Scheindlin doesn’t provide an example for someone who claims the Al-Ahli case proves that “Israel is innocent in all other cases.” But the case does showcase the motivation of the industry of lies to defame Israel at every opportunity, as well as the willingness of the international media to embrace every anti-Israeli lie, as long as that lie is not clearly exposed.
Northern Gaza
Finally, Scheindlin moves to discuss the IDF’s activity in the Northern Gaza Strip in recent weeks:
Israel is still starving, bombing and expelling the population of northern Gaza. Many suspect it is implementing the “General’s Plan,” which seeks to empty northern Gaza of Palestinians…
She also describes the proceedings in Israeli court regarding the paucity of humanitarian supplies entering northern Gaza. She writes about the call of Israeli settler leaders and coalition members to establish settlements there. The conclusion is clear: Israel is slaughtering, starving, and expelling hundreds of thousands of civilians in order to build settlements in their stead.
Meanwhile, this is the version of the IDF regarding the operation in Northern Gaza Strip (as far as Scheindlin is concerned, this is merely typical Israeli “denialism”):
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that troops had encircled Jabaliya amid a new ground operation targeting efforts by Hamas to reestablish itself in northern Gaza. […]
Amid the expanded operation, the IDF announced on Sunday that it was preparing to evacuate civilians from the entire north of Gaza and would increase the size of the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the southern Strip.
The zone, where the vast majority of the Gazan population currently reside, is where most humanitarian aid is being delivered. There are also field hospitals there.
The military also said it was opening up two evacuation routes for Palestinians — along the Salah a-Din road and the coastal road.
The evacuation order’s purpose, according to the IDF, is to minimize the damage to the Palestinian population, while fighting Hamas and preventing the terror organization from tightening its hold in the region.
Which version should we believe — the IDF’s or Dahlia Scheindlin’s?
Well, it’s easy to believe Sceindlin if we ignore the military reality on the ground and Hamas’ modus operandi. And Hamas’ reality on the ground, as explained by a recent document by the Washington Institute, is that Hamas is maintaining “shadow governance” wherever the IDF hasn’t cleared completely of the terror organization’s presence:
Hamas has employed various methods to demonstrate a presence on the ground, provide essential emergency services to the people, and—most important—prevent any other potential players from stepping into its shoes.
These methods include, among others, taking over the humanitarian aid and its distribution to the population; establishment of terror command centers and ammo depots well inside the civilian population; and violently preventing civilians from leaving to the humanitarian zones, including by shooting those who dare evacuate.
These are the conditions that Hamas created, which require evacuating the civilians, in order to fulfill the two goals: to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza, and to minimize civilian casualties.
Regarding the expansion of humanitarian zones, Scheindlin writes:
The IDF says it has expanded the humanitarian zones for Gazans, but Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO working on human rights in Gaza and the lead petitioner, rejects that term: “There is nothing actually humanitarian about the humanitarian zone … there’s not enough aid or shelter for people there, and airstrikes still take place in the zone
And again, it’s very easy to portray Israel as a monster, as long as we ignore Hamas’ existence and the ways it chooses to operate throughout Gaza, even a year after it chose to start a war. And so Scheindlin hides from her readers the systematic theft of humanitarian supplies by Hamas; Hamas officials who hide in the humanitarian zones; the firing of rockets from those zones; and the use of humanitarian zones to establish command centers, weapon workshops, ammunition storages, and bases to launch attacks against Israeli forces.
Conclusion
It’s very easy to incriminate the Jewish State and portray her in a monstrous light, when you believe any lie that her enemies tell about her, and dismiss any evidence that exonerates Israel as worthless “denialism.” That how Dahlia Scheindlin dismisses the professional assessments of military experts regarding Israel’s conduct of war; what historians say about the 1948 war; the real meaning of the al-Dura and Al-Ahli hospital affairs; and what’s going on in the Northern Gaza Strip and the humanitarian zones.
Dahlia Scheindlin wanted to write an indictment against the Israelis’ propensity to reject and deny their crimes. But ironically, the manifest that she wrote is a good example of the way Israel’s haters would blame the Jewish State for anything, disregarding inconvenient facts.
Shlomi Ben Meir is a contributor to CAMERA, where a version of this article first appeared.
The post The Disgusting Lies of Haaretz first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Welcome to ‘Paddystine’
JNS.org – The other day, during a discussion with a colleague about the wave of pro-Hamas, antisemitic hysteria sweeping the Republic of Ireland, I unthinkingly quipped that the people of Eire should rename themselves “Paddystinians.” I immediately regretted doing so because the term “Paddy” is an aging pejorative, conjuring up images of Irish drunkenness, the supposed Irish proclivity for casual brawling, and ingrained Irish idiocy—stereotypes any decent person should reject.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried.
A couple of days after that exchange, I discovered that the hashtag “#Paddystinian” was being eagerly adopted on social media by Irish supporters of Hamas. The accompanying posts were variously obnoxious or downright stupid, with many of those mocking the assertion that their country is antisemitic seemingly unaware of the immortal line spoken by a character in James Joyce’s Ulysses that Ireland “has the honor of being the only country which never persecuted the jews (sic)” because “she never let them in.” (There has, in fact, been a minuscule Jewish presence in Ireland for centuries, numbering the current president of Israel among its offspring, and there have been several episodes of antisemitism during that time, including the present, but Ireland is more or less an instance of the “antisemitism without Jews” phenomenon.)
One might say that Ireland is little different from the rest of Europe when it comes to the volume and the venom of its antisemitism: France, Germany and the United Kingdom, among others, are current examples of a similar trend. But Ireland stands out because of the role of its government in stoking these poisonous sentiments, as well as the fact that antisemitic depictions of Israel sit comfortably in its major political parties across the spectrum. That perhaps explains why Israel has closed its embassy in Dublin.
To my mind, the most grotesque offender in this regard is the Irish president, Michael Higgins. An 83-year-old poet who has carefully cultivated an avuncular image with his three-piece tweed suits and swept back, thinning white hair, Higgins’ high-handed manner is at its most infuriating when he articulates—as he has done on a few occasions since the Hamas atrocities in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—conspiracy theories about Israel that lean heavily on the theme of shadowy, unaccountable Jewish power. Earlier this year, for example, he blamed a covert Israeli intelligence operation for leaking his fawning letter of congratulations to the Iranian regime’s newly installed President Masoud Pezeshkian and was subsequently too pompous to issue an apology when it was pointed out that the Iranians themselves had publicized his message first. Then, last week, as he accepted the credentials of the new Palestinian ambassador in Dublin, he waxed lyrically about Israeli assaults on the sovereignty of three of its neighbors: Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, where the Israelis apparently “would like, in fact, actually to have a settlement.”
In Egypt? Given that Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, not even the most seasoned supporter of Hamas could find actual material evidence that this is Israel’s intention. Higgins had met with his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, earlier that week, and it’s quite possible that el-Sisi told him something along these lines or had referred to the dispute between Jerusalem and Cairo over the Philadelphi Corridor that runs along the border between Egypt and Gaza. Whatever the content of their conversation, what is absolutely clear is that Higgins has a disposition to believe the most outlandish lies about Israel and that he will respond to any criticism by saying that opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies is not the same as antisemitism—encouraging his audience to think that his beef is with Israel’s leadership and not the Jewish state itself.
But as Dana Erlich, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, pointed out in a recent interview with an Irish broadcaster, Dublin’s goal has been to undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself by launching lawfare against the Jewish state to chip steadily away at its sovereign rights. Ireland is supporting South Africa’s false claim of Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to the point of seeking a redefinition of the term “genocide” in which to shoehorn Israel’s actions against the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah, and their Iranian backers. It has promoted anti-Israel measures both domestically and within the European Union. And it has either ignored or mocked the concern that its actions are encouraging the spread of antisemitism in Ireland, including the revival of racial tropes reminiscent of the Nazis.
Two fundamental questions remain. Firstly, why has Ireland adopted this stance? In part, as the Irish commentator John McGuirk recently pointed out, because Ireland is essentially peripheral in the calculations of geopolitics. “We have, for most of our existence, pretended that we can say or do what we like on the international stage because everybody loves us,” he wrote. “The truth is that we’ve been able to be liked because we are irrelevant. Nobody has ever had to choose between Ireland and a powerful ally.”
Even then, as McGuirk argued, this moral grandstanding against Israel has its limits. It was Israel that closed its embassy and not the other way around “because the Irish government knew full well that a formal break in diplomatic relations with Israel would send a signal to the US and the E.U., and Israel’s other powerful allies around the world, that Ireland is a fundamentally unreasonable place that cannot be trusted to be an honest broker when it comes to the world’s only Jewish state.”
Secondly, why the obsession with Israel alone? Not a peep has been heard from the Irish about the revelations coming out of Syria regarding former dictator Bashar Assad’s machinery of murder—something unseen, according to Stephen Rapp, the former U.S. envoy for war crimes—“since the Nazis.” According to my old friend, the Irish writer Eamann Mac Donnchada, both “narcissism,” emanating from Ireland’s belief that the Palestinian war against Israel is a mirror of Ireland’s own struggle against the British, and “ennui,” the lack of purpose that has accompanied Ireland’s growing economic prosperity in recent decades, are key factors here. “Adhesion to [the Palestinian] cause makes many Irish people feel great about themselves while running no physical or economic risks, and that’s what it’s really about,” he wrote.
How should the rest of the world respond, given that, to cite McGuirk again, “not one single thing that the Irish Government has done since Oct. 7, 2023 has impacted Israeli policy one way or another.” Israel, as the offended party, has done what it needs to do. Many Jews have reacted with disgust, but that probably won’t extend to anything more than the odd prohibition on Jameson’s whiskey being served at a synagogue kiddush or bar mitzvah.
As for the United States, traditionally a great friend of Ireland, relations will likely worsen under Donald Trump’s incoming administration because Trump and his team are convinced that Ireland—in the words of future Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—“runs a trade surplus at our expense.” Israel has nothing to do with that battle. But because Lutnick is a Jew and a noted supporter of Israel, you can rest assured that voices inside and outside the Irish government will eventually draw a connection where none exists. That it’s all so predictable is probably the grimmest joke of all.
The post Welcome to ‘Paddystine’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tradition or Tragedy?
JNS.org – I am writing these lines from the United States, where I am nearing the end of my latest speaking tour. I’ve been to New York, Toronto, Detroit, Philadelphia, and now Miami.
Coming from South Africa, where we suffer one of the highest murder rates in the world—more than 70 people per day are killed throughout the country—I was nevertheless shocked by the most recent school shooting here in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” In what is stated by CNN to be “the 83rd school shooting in the USA this year,”15-year-old Natalie Rupnow opened fire at a private Christian school in Madison, Wis., killing a fellow classmate and teacher, and then turned the gun on herself. Besides others who were wounded, two more students were today listed in critical condition.
What on earth would motivate a 15-year-old girl to shoot up her classmates? Where did she get a gun? Were her parents negligent? These and more are the questions Americans are asking themselves.
And in other news this week (I must sound like a news reporter), music megastar Sir Elton John, who was just named TIME magazine’s “Icon of the Year” had this to say about one of the current moral dilemmas still being hotly debated around the world: “Legalizing marijuana in the United States and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”
The rock star, who was affected by addiction to cocaine and other drugs in the past, said that his own experience leads him to argue that marijuana is addictive and leads to other drug use. “And when you’re stoned—and I’ve been stoned—you don’t think normally.”
Quite a confession from one of the music legends of our time.
By now, you may be forgiven for wondering what on earth all of this has to do with my usual theme, the Torah portion. Well, this week in Vayeshev, Joseph is sold into slavery and, at age 17, finds himself down in Egypt working for Potiphar, the head of Pharaoh’s abattoirs and butcheries. Here is a youngster of high school age, far away from home, with no family, no support—no one to assist or guide him in life.
Quite remarkably, all on his own, he manages to stay afloat and goes on to succeed at everything he does. Furthermore, when the lady of the house tries to seduce him, he finds the inner strength to withstand temptation.
How did he do it? Day after day, she would beguile him, entice him, try to charm him. And then, when there was no one home and no one would ever know the difference, he still eludes her smooth talk and blandishments. No one knew his origins. He was a stranger in a foreign land; he had nothing to lose. And still, he stood his ground.
Elsewhere, I have written about the image of Joseph’s father, Jacob, which appeared to him at that critical moment, giving him strength and courage just as he felt himself starting to slip and succumb. Is it not extraordinary to see how powerful the influence of parents and grandparents on young minds and hearts can be! In the heat of the moment when most people lose their moral grip and stumble into sin, Joseph was able to keep his head and resist the seduction so many might have fantasized about.
I remember in my own youth struggling with personal life choices. One part of me wanted to be a journalist. But I couldn’t bear to disappoint my father and grandfather, who were devout and dedicated Chassidim, so I decided to give yeshivah a chance. The rest is history. I was inspired by Torah—specifically, by Chassidic philosophy, which answered so many of life’s questions.
The other day in Philadelphia visiting our children, I was able to spend some precious time learning Talmud with my two grandsons, Ari and Tzvi. They understood it well and made me proud. I pray that I can have the same positive influence on them that my grandfather had on me.
This Friday is the 19th of Kislev, which marks the liberation from the antisemitic imprisonment in czarist Russia of the founder of Chabad— Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi—back in 1798. His release and vindication also spelled the beginning of a much broader dissemination of the teachings of Chassidic philosophy throughout Europe.
And the Jewish world has never looked back. Today, a wide range of communities around the world will celebrate this day and are inspired to study his life-changing work—the Tanya—and other profound teachings of Chassidic philosophy.
I can’t help thinking that had young Natalie Rupnow and a younger Elton John had those same influences as Joseph did, or even as I did, they might never have fallen into tragedy and addiction.
We should be eternally grateful for our heritage, our family legacies and the teachings of Torah, both revealed and mystical, that have inspired us and kept us on track and in check throughout the generations.
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After Hezbollah Supply Lines Cut in Syria, Tehran Will ‘Reexamine Options’
JNS.org – Iran’s arms supply lines to Hezbollah via Syria have been severed by the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, leading to an unprecedented strategic setback for Tehran and its Lebanese terror proxy, according to observers in Israel.
Tal Beeri, head of Research at the Alma Center, which specializes in Israel’s security challenges in the northern arenas, told JNS on Monday that “we’re talking about a very, very significant blow“ to Hezbollah’s Iranian supply chain.
The first reason for this initial near-term assessment, he said, is that the Syrian territory once controlled by Assad served as Iran’s primary conduit for transporting weapons into Lebanon.
“Practically all the weapons for Hezbollah were funneled through this corridor,” which encompassed land routes, air routes through Syrian airports—possibly including the Russian airbase Khmeimim—and sea routes stretching from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in Iran to northwest Syria, mainly the port of Banias, from where weapons would be delivered to inland depots.
“That’s how the Iranians moved goods to Lebanon. Meaning, effectively, the entry gate of Iranian weaponry on Syrian soil has been cut off,” said Beeri. “In the end, control throughout Syria is in the hands of the rebel factions and Kurds, who, by the way, dominate all of eastern Syria, including the land entry routes. So currently, it is not possible to transfer weapons to Hezbollah through Syria.”
The second factor, he added, is the large-scale air strikes conducted by the Israel Defense Forces, targeting the entire Syrian military and its weapons depots. This prevented “a last-minute quick transfer of relevant weapons into Hezbollah’s hands,” according to Beeri.
“For these two reasons, there is basically a nearly complete severing of the weapon oxygen line to Hezbollah,” he said.
However, Beeri cautioned that Iran and Hezbollah might yet adapt and adjust to the new situation. “I estimate they will recalculate and make new efforts … possibly by attempting direct shipments of weapons to Lebanon” by air or sea. Such efforts could see ships and planes travel to Lebanon from Iran via third-party countries to try and deceive Israeli intelligence,” he added.
In addition, said Beeri, “money trumps ideology.” The Iranians could try to establish connections with rebel factions by buying them out, thereby attempting to rebuild the weapons corridor.
Professor Boaz Ganor, president of Reichman University and founder of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, told JNS, “The biography of Ahmad al-Sharaa [aka Mohammed al-Julani, the leader of the largest rebel umbrella group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] points to fundamental hostility toward Israel. His senior membership in Al Qaeda, close to [Abu Musab al-]Zarqawi and [Ayman al-]Zawahiri, could indicate the future trends of Syria under his rule.”
Ganor warned that “we must not let the seemingly pragmatic position he presents recently mislead the world or Israel.”
Addressing moves by Turkey to exploit the situation, Ganor added, “Syria will not be able to exist without the aid of another country or countries. Those countries will become the patron of the new regime, and there is no doubt that Iran will try to bridge past hostilities with the rebels and establish ties with al-Julani through generous economic aid, emphasizing an anti-Israel ideological common denominator and concealing the religious tensions between Sunni and Shi’ite.” (The Syrian rebel factions are mostly Sunni Muslims, whereas Iran is Shi’ite.)
Ganor noted that Iran could have back-door influence on Al Qaeda through the organization’s leader, Saif al-Adel, who sought and received asylum in Iran after U.S. forces entered Afghanistan.
“If al-Julani returns to his ideological roots in Al Qaeda, Iran’s influence on him could grow stronger,” said Ganor. That might enable the reestablishment of the weapons corridor if Iran and the new Syrian regime found common ground, he added.
On Dec. 13, Israel Hayom reported that Hezbollah’s Secretary General Naim Qassem had acknowledged publicly the impact of Assad’s collapse on the terror group, including the loss of military supply routes in Syria. However, he claimed Hezbollah would work around this and look for new ways to smuggle weapons into Lebanon.
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