RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/killing-nasrallah

Friday evening in the Levant, Israel targeted buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut killing Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. This operation represents a dramatic shift in Israeli strategy. Not only have they finally liquidated an adversary they’ve long been capable of killing, they’ve also turned a deaf ear to their superpower patron of more than half a century. But at this stage, heeding Washington’s advice in war is like taking counsel from the angel of death. Just as the U.S. is no longer willing or able to win the wars it commits Americans to fight, the Joe Biden administration won’t let U.S. allies win wars either.

By ordering the strike on Nasrallah while attending the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the Jewish state’s independence from the global consensus that has resolved not to confront terrorists but rather to appease them, whether they’re plotting in the Middle East or living among the local populations of Western nations, including the United States. Israel’s attack also shows that almost everything U.S. and other Western civilian and military leaders have believed about the Middle East for the last 20 years was simply a collection of excuses for losing wars. The questions that senior policymakers and Pentagon officials, think-tank experts and journalists have deliberated over since the invasion of Iraq—questions about the nature of modern warfare and the proper conduct of international relations in a multipolar world, etc.—can now be set aside for good because they have been resolved definitively.

The answers are as they ever were—at least before the start of the “global war on terror.” Contrary to the convictions of George W. Bush-era neoconservatives and the pro-Iran progressives in Barack Obama’s camp, securing a nation’s peace has nothing to do with winning narratives, or nation-building, or balancing U.S. allies against your mutual enemies for the sake of regional equilibrium, or any of the other academic theories generated to mask a generation’s worth of failure. Rather, it means killing your enemies, above all those who advocate and embody the causes that inspire others to exhaust their murderous energies against you. Thus, killing Nasrallah was essential.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-accused-of-the-crime-of-defending-itself/

British journalist Brendan O’Neill is appalled at the way so many in the West paint Israel’s efforts to defend itself as “war crimes.” No matter how precisely it attacks its targets — as the Hezbollah possessors of pagers, hand-held radios, and walkie-talkies were — the IDF is accused of “indiscriminate” killing in Lebanon. No matter how many ways the IDF warns civilians in Gaza to leave places and buildings that are about to be targeted, Israel remains accused of “indiscriminate” bombing. For too many people around the world, everything Israel does is “a war crime.” More on this world-wide condemnation of the Jewish state for defending itself can be found here: “This wasn’t a war crime – it was an audacious assault on anti-Semites,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, September 18, 2024:

…All eyes are on Israel, naturally. Experts suspect Mossad intercepted a massive stash of pagers destined for Hezbollah militants and planted explosive material in the batteries. Then they sent a signal, from hundreds of miles away, that caused the batteries to overheat and eventually to blow up. The planning required for such a spectacular op blows the mind – no pun intended. I know Israelophobia is the default position of the influential classes, but surely even they will admit this was an ingenious way for the Jewish State to take out the adherents to a self-styled ‘army of god’ that has sworn itself to excising the ‘cancerous growth’ of Zionism from the Middle East. (They mean Jews.)…

That many in the West view Israel’s every action as criminal is depressing, but not surprising. Fundamentally, they think it is a crime for Israel to defend itself. They think it is a crime for Israel to take any action that might limit the threat posed by the apocalyptic anti-Semitism of Hezbollah and Hamas. And they think this because they think Israel’s very existence is a crime. They view the Jewish State as a criminal enterprise, a vile, law-defying blot not only on the Middle East but also on the reputation of humankind itself. When you harbour such intense, irrational hatred for one nation, it is a short step to telling that nation to down its weapons, lower its defences and let itself be attacked.

https://henryjacksonsociety.org/

The State of Israel is fighting for its future.

It began on the morning of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel. They went on to commit the worst pogrom since the Holocaust. Afterwards, Israel had no choice but to enter Gaza. The goal: eliminate Hamas. 

Cut to a year later, and Hamas has been nearly defeated. But, alas, Israel’s existential war is not over yet. Another terrorist threat looms large: Hezbollah. 

Every day since October 8, 2023, the Islamist group has been firing missiles from Lebanon into northern Israel. Their targets: Israeli civilians living peacefully next to the Israel-Lebanon border. Because of Hezbollah’s reign of terror, more than 100,000 people have had to flee their homes. They are staying in hotels paid for by the government, their lives on pause. 

The situation is no longer tenable. “We will return residents of the north safely to their homes,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

To make that vow a reality, Israel has been going after Hezbollah. 

Last week, it remotely detonated the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah’s senior operatives. Although Israel has not officially taken responsibility for the operation, it has been widely attributed to its intelligence services. 

And this week, the IDF has been conducting precision air strikes on Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon. Several commanders have been killed, including the head of Hezbollah’s air units. Be in no doubt: the terrorists are on the ropes.

https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=8t06w&next=

1.       Israel had barely begun to up the ante in fighting Hizballah before the world powers began making proclamations about it.

President Biden and President Macron said jointly: ““It is time for a settlement on the Israel–Lebanon border that ensures safety and security to enable civilians to return to their homes. The exchange of fire since October 7th, and in particular over the past two weeks, threatens a much broader conflict, and harm to civilians.”

A convocation of the European Union, the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates called for a three-week ceasefire to “provide space for diplomacy” and said the current “intolerable” situation “presents an unacceptable risk of broader regional escalation.”

Here in Israel, we couldn’t help noticing that almost a year of daily Hizballah missile, rocket, drone, and mortar fire into Israel, predominantly at civilian targets, did not count as an “escalation,” was not “intolerable” or “unacceptable,” and did not “threaten a broader conflict.” At no time, of course, did President Biden or any other Western leader demand Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to

tell Hizballah to stop the bombardment. It could have gone on for another ten years; it was not, after all, an escalation, since only Israel is capable of escalating.  

2.       Republican Senators Tom Cotton and Mitch McConell have sent a letter to President Biden that “strongly condemn[s] your administration’s continued delay in providing critical military equipment and weapons to our ally Israel in the midst of an existential war.” The letter says the US is denying Israel MK-84 bombs, which Israel needs “to hit Hamas’s deeply buried tunnels and other military infrastructure in Gaza,” while “Hezbollah also has significant military infrastructure that Israel must destroy”; Apache attack helicopters, which “Israel requested . . . last December, recognizing the increased need given the war in Gaza,” a need that “has only increased with Hezbollah’s escalation in the north”; and Caterpillar D9 tractors, which the administration is “holding up” even though Israel uses these “to clear improvised explosive devices (IEDs)” and “to save the lives of scores of Israel Defense force (IDF) soldiers and civilians.”