23-Apr-18: Bret Stephens on Israel's robust willingness to defend itself

Familiar scenes - from seven years ago [Image Source]

In a punchy New York Times column published this past Friday ["Jewish Power at 70 Years"], Bret Stephens starts out talking about a hate crime - with an intriguing twist - in today's Germany. But then he heads off in the direction of the Middle East and the challenges posed to Israelis by the people on the far side of our borders.

Here's a first extract:

On Friday, Palestinians in Gaza returned for the fourth time to the border fence with Israel, in protests promoted by Hamas. The explicit purpose of Hamas leaders is to breach the fence and march on Jerusalem. Israel cannot possibly allow this — doing so would create a precedent that would encourage similar protests, and more death, along all of Israel’s borders — and has repeatedly used deadly force to counter it. The armchair corporals of Western punditry think this is excessive. It would be helpful if they could suggest alternative military tactics to an Israeli government dealing with an urgent crisis against an adversary sworn to its destruction. They don’t. It would also be helpful if they could explain how they can insist on Israel’s retreat to the 1967 borders and then scold Israel when it defends those borders. They can’t.

He's right. We're old enough to remember the coordinated Arab assaults on multiple Israeli bordersseven years ago in conjunction with Naqba Day - May 14 and 15, 2011 and around the same time as the ill-fated and unfortunately-named Arab Spring.

A BBC report at the time ["Palestinian protests: Arab spring or foreign manipulation?", BBC, May 15, 2011] said the not-so-peaceful "protestors"

undoubtedly embodied the same kind of risk-taking, confrontational people-power ethos that has fired the revolts in many parts of the Arab world.

How did that risk-taking confrontation play out?

Lebanon

In Lebanon, some 30,000 people were pulled together by the organizers near Lebanon's Israel border and walked towards it just opposite the northern Israeli town of Avivim. Soldiers of the Lebanese army first fired into the air to deter them. But then, as they headed recklessly into and across a border minefield throwing stones towards the Israeli and shouting into the hills for a "right of return", the Lebanese forces shot at them with assault rifles and tear gas. Before the retreat was completed, 11 participants were dead and about 100 injured.

Egypt

On the Egyptian border, thousands were reported to about to make their way from Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other points of origin toward the Rafah crossing with Gaza. But the military regime then in power intervened, warning bus companies not to answer the convoy organizers' requests. The few buses that did set off were stopped by the military and in the end, according to Ma'an, only some 80 individuals equipped with flags and an arsenal of angry demands and slogans got to the border. 

Fatahland

According to Wikipedia, around 300 West Bank "protesters" assembled at the Qalandiya Crossing - a busy crossing point - to demonstrate, forming human chains, staging sit-downs, hurling rocks. About 120 were said to be affected by tear gas, stink-spray and other crowd-dispersal means. BBC: "Clashes at the Qalandiya checkpoint in Ramallah continued for hours, with dozens of Palestinians injured. Palestinian protesters threw stones at Israeli security forces, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets."

Jordan

In Jordan, about 500 Palestinian Arab Jordanians were prevented by Jordanian army and police forces from doing harm at the Allenby Bridge, the major crossing point into the West Bank and Israel. They used tear gas and other similar tools and some 25 people were reported injured, including 11 Jordanian police. A Ma'an report said the Hamas-aligned Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and what Ma'an called "the powerful Islamic Action Front" termed this "shocking" and turning reality on its end demanded "an end to such policies that have harmed Jordan's image". 

Syria

On Israel's Syria border, 20 buses of "protestors" arrived from Damascus on Naqba Day, May 15, 2011. According to the BBC, the IDF said it "had only fired warning shots as a large number of protesters tried to breach a border fence near the village of Majdal Shams. But reports said at least two people had been killed and dozens injured. Israel's army says this is a "serious" incursion. Brig Gen Yoav Mordechai said soldiers were still trying to control the crowds and that dozens of protesters had crossed. The army has reportedly sealed off Majdal Shams and is carrying out house-to-house searches for "infiltrators"... "We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations," Gen Mordechai said... Syria denounced Israeli actions in the Golan Heights and Lebanon as "criminal", Agence France-Presse news agency reported. "Israel will have to bear full responsibility for its actions," the foreign ministry said." The NY Times said "some 13 Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded from thrown rocks." And Ynet, quoting an IDF enquiry, said "nearly 1,000 Syrians approached the fence, with Syrian border forces unable – or unwilling – to stop them. About 300 protesters, including children, rushed the fences and crossed over onto Israeli soil..."

Some weeks later, those May 2011 events in Syria were revealed to have actually been planned ahead of time by the Assad regime. This is all documented in an expose ["Report: Document Reveals Nakba Day Clashes Planned by Syria Government", Haaretz, June 14, 2011]. The bused-in attackers had attempted to breach Israel's border which was the plan. The Haaretz report quotes a Syrian government memo: "Permission is hereby granted allowing approaching crowds to cross the cease fire line (with Israel) towards the occupied Majdal-Shamms, and to further allow them to engage physically with each other in front of United Nations agents and offices. Furthermore, there is no objection if a few shots are fired in the air." There are clear parallels with what's happening now on Israel's Gaza frontier.

Then in June 2011, again on the Syria side of its border with Israel, large numbers of assailants purporting to "protest" were again bused in from Damascus. A Jerusalem Postreport quoted Syrian officials saying 23 were killed and 350 injured "as they attempted over the course of several hours to breach the barbed-wire border".

...

The Bret Stephens essay dwells as well on the intriguing case of Adam Armoush. Thought, when the story initially emerged, to be a young German Jew, he is in reality a 21-year-old Israeli Arab living in Germany 

who, on a recent outing in Berlin, donned a yarmulke to test a friend’s contention that it was unsafe to do so in Germany. On Tuesday he was assaulted in broad daylight by a Syrian asylum-seeker who whipped him with a belt for being “yahudi” — Arabic for Jew. The episode was caught on video and has caused a national uproar... There were nearly 1,000 reported anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin alone last year...

Stephens then connects Israel and Europe:

To be Jewish — at least visibly Jewish — in Europe is to live on borrowed time... There’s a limit to how many armed guards can be deployed indefinitely to protect synagogues or stop Holocaust memorials from being vandalized... There are many reasons to celebrate the date [of Israel's 70th anniversary a few days ago], many of them lofty: a renaissance for Jewish civilization; the creation of a feisty liberal democracy in a despotic neighborhood; the ecological rescue of a once-barren land; the end of 1,878 years of exile. But there’s a more basic reason. Jews cannot rely for their safety on the kindness of strangers... Hence Israel: its army, bomb, and robust willingness to use force to defend itself. Israel did not come into existence to serve as another showcase of the victimization of Jews. It exists to end the victimization of Jews... Though not Jewish, Adam Armoush was once one of the nonchalant when it came to what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. Presumably no longer. For Jews, it’s a painful, useful reminder that Israel is not their vanity. It’s their safeguard. 

Well said.

03-Dec-17: Understanding Jordan's king and his "holistic" approach to terror

Yesterday in Jordan [Screen grab]

Regular readers know we pay more than the usual amount of attention to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It's where our daughter Malki's murderer lives free as a bird.

And even though

• she has boasted over and again for the cameras and the media of her central role in the 2001 bombing attack on the people inside Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria; and 
• she confessed in an Israeli court in 2003 to the calculated murder of 15 innocent victims, most of them children, and to having done this on behalf of the Islamist terror regime, Hamas, whose first-ever female terror agent she is reputed to be; and 
• the US government, the US Department of Justice and the FBI want her arrested and extradited to face Federal charges in a Washington court

Jordan's ruler King Abdullah II, aware of her celebrity status among his people, has stubbornly presided over a series of measures whose effect is to spit in the eye of the Americans, to deny the validity of the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty and to ensure one of his kingdom's - and the Arab world's - most admired females remains free to pursue her career of incitement to terrorism, Islamist values and the murder of Jewish children.

Nigeria's president and entourage hear from Jordan's
king on how Jordan has defeated terror [Image Source]

Jordan is currently hosting an event variously termed (depending on which media channels you consult) the Aqaba Retreat, the Aqaba Process or the Aqaba Meetings. (Aqaba is a resort town located at Jordan's southern-most tip, adjacent to the much smaller Israeli resort of Eilat.)

Jordan's semi-official English-language mouthpiece focused on who was there in an official-sounding report yesterday ["King meets with leaders, officials as Aqaba Meetings kick off: Gathering aimed as venue to bolster security, military cooperation in the fight against terrorism", Jordan Times, December 2, 2017]:

• "His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday met with the presidents of a number of African countries and representatives of nations participating in the two-day Aqaba Meetings to discuss the global efforts to fight terrorism and extremist ideologies, especially in West Africa..." 
• "The participants [include] senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Cyprus, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Australia, India, Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Nigeria, Mauritania, Antigua and Barbuda, Mali, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad, and Burkina Faso, in addition to representatives of regional and international organisations..." 
• "His Majesty also held meetings with US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, Brazilian Minister of Defence Raul Jungmann, French Minister of State attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster, and High Representative of the African Union Pierre Buyoya... On the sidelines of the Aqaba Meetings, King Abdullah met with President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, President of Guinea Alpha Condé, President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou, and President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, a Royal Court statement said."
• "The Aqaba Meetings were launched by the King to maintain international and regional coordination and cooperation in the fight against terrorism within a holistic approach, and to discuss security challenges in regions around the world that are dealing with terrorism hotspots, with the aim of identifying shortcomings and coordinating efforts to fight terrorism."
• "The meetings are part of His Majesty’s initiative to reach out to countries around the world and coordinate with them on this issue, since the anti-terrorism fight “must be a joint, international effort, based on close coordination and consultations, to counter the global threats of terrorism and extremism”, the statement said... 

A brief Associated Press report makes plain what we find so perplexing about this:

Jordan's state news agency says King Abdullah II is hosting a high-level conference on fighting terrorism and extremist ideologies, particularly in West Africa... The agency says the conference is the latest in a series launched by Jordan's monarch to reach out to other nations and help coordinate the fight against terrorism... Jordan's king is seen as a key Western partner in the battle against Islamic extremism. ["West Africa is focus of Jordan counter-terrorism conference", AP, December 1, 2017]

For us, the elephant in the room is Ahlam Tamimi. 

Source: Al Jazeera

Abdullah has treaty obligations to the US. His father signed a 1995 Extradition Treaty with the Clinton Administration in 1995 and in its wake several Jordanian terrorists and felons were shipped off to face the US justice system. Though his media, aided by compliant reporters and editors outside Jordan, put up a facade that makes it seem extraditing Tamimi to the US is somehow problematic, it's clear that it's Tamimi and the specific crimes to which she has confessed that are the problem. And the real story. 

Though no one in the mainstream media seems to have picked this up yet, there's a clear analysis of the legal mess into which Jordan has inserted itself while giving its native jihadist killer safe harbor. See "Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements" [Michelle Munneke JD of American University Washington College of Law, in National Security Law Brief, October 28, 2017]:

This analysis means the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position. Al-Tamimi is above all else, a significant danger that Jordan should take seriously—if not for the world, for Jordan’s own citizens that live amongst Al-Tamimi.
Jordan should reconsider its position and permit extradition in the case of Al-Tamimi for the safety of Jordanians, and citizens of other nations that may be subject to another attack by Al-Tamimi. Thwarting extradition not only violates the principle of comity, but it also perpetuates the international danger presented by Al-Tamimi.

But for most people, this isn't about law but simply crime and punishment. Tamimi was sent by her Hamas masters in the summer of 2001 to kill Jews. Especially Jewish children. She succeeded by all of their perverted measures. And she's now free, extremely well-compensated, raising a family and a media celebrity.

She has never denied the facts. And she has been applauded - literally - time and again in her public appearances throughout Jordan as well as in her well-publicized VIP speaking visits/travels to such countries (listed alphabetically) as Algeria (December 2011), Kuwait (July 2012 and March 2014), Lebanon (April 2012 and January 2015), Qatar (April 2012, again December 2013), Tunisia (April 2012 and November 2015) and Yemen (April 2014). 

She hosted a popular weekly TV program called “نسيم الأحرار” [Transliteration: “Nassem al-Ahrar”] meaning “Breezes of the Free” between February 2012 until September 2016.  Devoted to Palestinian Arab prisoners and their families, it appears to have been designed to bolster their morale, act as a two-way conduit of information and to encourage more of the kind of the kind of acts that turned these terrorists into prisoners in the first place. Tamimi stopped being its presenter in September 2016 at about the time she was very briefly (for a single night) taken into custody by Jordanian authorities pursuant to an Interpol arrest order at the behest of the US Department of Justice.

Tamimi and her connections publicly thank Jordan's judiciary and
leaders for getting her off the hook with the FBI and the US
Department of Justice - though the pursuit continues [Source] 

Jordan is a family-run business that like so many other Arab polities presents itself as a nation-state and even as a constitutional democracy, which is a real stretch given the total domination exercised by the British-installed Hashemites that have run it since the 1920s. 

Thus it was no secret to Jordan's Royal Palace that Tamimi was recording a weekly tribute to terrorism-and-Islamism in an Amman studio (Amman, Jordan's capital, is where she lives). And that it was uploaded and broadcast around the world every week for years by the Hamas-owned Alquds satellite television network. Her appalling show was and still is rebroadcast by a multitude of Arabic and non-Arabic websites that stream all or some of the programming put out by Alquds. The king and his Hashemite Kingdom never had any problem with any of this. Their "principled opposition" to terror only stretches so far. 

In April 2017, an Australian TV journalist told us privately that Tamimi had been advised by the Jordanian authorities to lower her profile in the wake of a Jordanian Court of Cassation decision that Jordan's 1995 extradition treaty with the US was unconstitutional. In particular, he told us, the "Jordanian authorities have now banned her doing any media interviews". Our impression is she is taking the advice seriously for the time being. 

Before that, and for several years from her home base of Jordan, she appeared numerous times as the presenter on several Alquds TV specials - including a number of propaganda programs that went to air in the summer of 2014 as fighting raged between Hamas Gaza and the IDF. She may be the most influential and important female public figure in Hamas.

So what does the Royal Hashemite Palace and its central personage say to all this?

Nothing, at least not publicly. Nor can we expect them to respond for so long as he and they continue to be absurdly feted as central players in their "holistic" struggle to defeat the terrorists by the likes of the most senior politicians of the United States, the UK and Europe. 

Just so long as they're not Jordanian terrorists.

19-Sep-17: An Iranian drone dispatched in Israel's direction from Syria is intercepted en route

An IDF Patriot battery ready for action [Image Source]

All the ominous recent talk about Iran's massively increased financial capacity - thanks to its JCPOA deal with the Obama administration
- to feed its voracious appetite for military adventurism in our part of the world just became significantly more worrisome this afternoon.

The Israeli Air Force intercepted what it believes to be an Iranian-built drone, sent by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, with a Patriot missile after it attempted to cross into Israeli airspace on Tuesday, the army said. The military also scrambled fighter jets to the area, but ultimately did not need to use them as the interceptor missile was able to destroy the target. [According to an IDF spokesperson] the air force monitored the unmanned aerial vehicle from its take-off from Damascus airport to the demilitarized zone that separates the Israeli and Syrian Golan Heights. [When it crossed] the Syrian border and entered the demilitarized zone — but not Israeli airspace — the IDF “decided to intercept it,” [the spokesperson] said. ["IDF Patriot intercepts apparent Hezbollah drone from Syria", Times of Israel, September 19, 2017]

The report says the Patriot interceptor missile was fired from a military site near the city of Safed.

Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi under watchful gaze of his
ideological masters [Image Source]

Iran has not been shy for decades about its genocidal (understand the word literally) intentions when it comes to the Jewish state:

Iran’s newly appointed army chief warned Monday that the Islamic Republic would raze the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if the “Zionist regime” makes “any wrong move.” In remarks delivered at an event in the city of Qom, General Abdolrahim Mousavi also echoed previous warnings that Israel will not exist in 25 years. Mousavi, who issued a nearly identical threat last month, was appointed in August as the commander of the Iranian army, an entity separate from the country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps... [Source]

The sabre-rattling of Iran's entire power structure is generally taken seriously around here. An Associated Press report reminds us that Israeli leaders across the military and political spectrum are

worried that as the Syrian civil war appears to be winding down, Iranian and Hezbollah forces will maintain a permanent presence in the neighboring country. Netanyahu was to address the U.N. General Assembly later on Tuesday, with Iran at the top of his agenda... [Netanyahu] has repeatedly warned that Israel will not accept a military presence by Iran or any of its Shiite allies in the Syrian border area near Israel. Israel has largely stayed out of the fighting in Syria. But it has carried out dozens of airstrikes on alleged arms shipments bound for Hezbollah. It fears the group will gain sophisticated weapons and smuggle them from Syria into Lebanon.

From a 2014 report on the IDF's blog:

The Patriot surface-to-air missile system, officially known as the MIM-104, is an important part of Israel’s aerial defense. Designed by the American company Raytheon, this ground-to-air, long-range missile is able to intercept and shoot down all types of aircraft. Drones, helicopters and fighter jets can all be targeted from a distance of 160 km.

23-Jun-17: Murder by social media (is anyone at Twitter reading this?)

In January 2015, Tamimi addressed the students at the Al Islah Islamic High School in Tripoli, Lebanon. Bringing her message of hatred and extreme violence to children throughout the Arabic-speaking world has been central to her self-imposed mission since even before she walked free from her Israeli prison cell in October 2011. She is a propaganda machine for Islamist jihad.

Ahlam Tamimi, our daughter Malki's confessed murderer, has a Twitter account.

She has had one for years. Actually more than one. The latest Tamimi Twitter account replaces the one about which we - and many other people responding to a campaign we spearheaded in April 2017 - complained to Twitter. After an intense effort, that Twitter account was shut down. So too was her Facebook page.

As we wrote in a blog post here about ten weeks ago:

We think this means the many requests we and our followers... filed with Twitter were heard. Whatever the case, the world is a better and safer place with Ahlam Tamimi's voice lowered by several notches... ["12-Apr-17: A modest step toward justice: Twitter today suspended the account of our daughter's murderer"]

But now, as we said a moment ago, she has another Twitter account. For now, we're not publicizing its address. We don't want to contribute to her gaining any more followers; not even one more. She created it in May.

We found it just yesterday and within a few minutes we filed a complaint using Twitter's standard forms and on-line procedure. It works in a frustrating way because it doesn't easily allow for any background or explanation or commentary. And once having filed it, we received this ambivalent, somewhat anaemic and entirely unsatisfying response:

If we take further action? And what if you don't?

In the past hour, we filed a fresh complaint. This time, though, we answered one of the questions accurately (of course) but differently. As a result, we were then presented with a form we hadn't seen before. It allowed us to enter some free text instead of just clicking on fixed-option buttons. 

Here's what we wrote:

This is the latest account of Ahlam Tamimi, a convicted Hamas terrorist who was added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list in March 2017, and is currently living in Jordan and on the run from the FBI and from US Federal charges. She is a notorious inciter of violence, a booster of murderous terrorism and the confessed murderer of our fifteen year old daughter and 15 other people.
After complaints from us as well as many others who responded to our Twitter campaign, her previous Twitter account [https://twitter.com/dreamsnnn] was suspended by Twitter in April 2017. By Twitter's own rules, the mere fact of her opening a replacement Twitter account ought to be enough for you to shut the new one down right away.
Her Twitter tweets are replete with expressions of solidarity with other terrorists and with hatred, lethal bigotry and calls for physical attacks against Israel, Zionists and Jews. She favours murder and encourages people - especially school-children - to follow her example and kill certain kinds of people in order to receive blessings from above.
I am puzzled at the slow response to my complaint. Are there any doubts on your part that Twitter needs to steer as far away as possible from this kind of abuse of social media?
I reported this account yesterday - about 18 hours ago - and received a formal acknowledgement. But no action.
The killer's Twitter account is still operating as of 2 minutes ago. It is now 12 noon Friday here in Jerusalem.

There has been no response in the half hour since we sent that off.

Some may ask why we find it so important to shut down this dangerous and hateful woman's social media output. The question has many answers but for the moment we offer an answer that the Islamist murderer herself wrote. In one of her tweets of the past two weeks, she said

which translates to

"We live at a time when the media are stronger than guns"

Given how jihad-minded killers have been emerging, ready for murderous action, in practically every corner of the world in the past handful of years, how can anyone doubt that this cold-blooded savage is right?

Meanwhile her Twitter account is alive and active.

Is anyone at Twitter paying any attention?

UPDATE Saturday night, June 24, 2017 at 11:30 pm: We have just now gotten notified by Twitter Support, after another round of complaints filed by us and emailed to Twitter's senior management, that the murderer's account has been shut down.  Thank you for all who have been supporting our efforts.

18-May-16: A reminder of how today's Iran operates

Soleimani [Image Source]

The US is officially continuing with the charade that an unsigned agreement ["18-Jul-15: The Iran Nuclear Enablement Deal for Dummies"] with the Iranian regime brings the world closer to peace and further away from an Iranian nuclear adventure. [For a reminder of the road to here, see "09-May-16: How we got into this incredible mess with the Iranians and who engineered it".] 

The Iranians, meanwhile, are quietly pressing ahead with business as usual. 

Iran Orders Hizbullah to Target Saudi Arabia  

May 17, 2016 | Middle East Eye | David Hearst 

Hezbollah has been instructed by Iran to suspend operations against Israel and to target Saudi Arabia instead, in the wake of the apparent assassination of Mustafa Badreddine, its military commander in Syria. According to well-informed sources in Lebanon, the order was conveyed in person by Qasim Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who came to Beirut to give his condolences. Soleimani also named Badreddine's successor and his two deputies. Badreddine's replacement is Fuad Shukr, 55, whose nom de guerre is al-Hajj Mohsen. Shukr comes from the core group which started Hizbullah along with Imad Mughniyeh, Badreddine, and Mustafa Sahadah. Shukr was responsible for operations against Israel, including the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. His two deputies are Ibrahim Aqil and Talal Hamiah. The appointments are unprecedented, as previous appointments have been an internal matter for Hizbullah. 

Shukr's appointment contradicts an earlier report in Asharq al-Awsat that Badreddine's nephew Mustafa Mughniyeh would be named as his successor. Iran's order to Hizbullah appointing a successor confirms the significance to Iran of Badreddine's death.

Additional relevant background here: "02-Mar-16: Saudi and Gulf states announce they now view Hezbollah as terrorists".

01-May-16: Hatred of the Jews - and the Leftist Problem

A thinking person is likely to learn a great deal from understanding
the impact made on various populations, some of them Arab (as in this 2001
news image of celebrations in Lebanon) and others Americana or British,
by the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria

National Review currently features a useful and well-framed short essay ["Israel and the Jewish diaspora make progressive pieties look silly", April 29, 2016] by Kevin D. Williamson. The journal's roving correspondent, he covers "the intersection of economics, culture, and politics". His bio says he also serves as director of the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellowship in Political Journalism at the National Review Institute.

The subtitle of this highly recommended piece gets right down to the question Williamson addresses: "Why does the Left hate the Jews?"

Hatred of that sort is, of course, hardly news. But we seem to be at one of those moments (again) where, as it periodically does, it's making waves. 

Williamson is writing against a background in which a recent Lord Mayor of London, a man with his own pungent record of public antisemitic statements, has been suspended by his party for things he said (that involved bracketing Zionism and Hitler) while speaking up for a British Labor MP who had suggested the conflict in the Middle East could be solved by liquidating Israel and getting the Jews to re-settle, voluntarily or not, in the United States. The party leader, playing the role of disciplinarian, is himself a controversial figure who has famously called the blood-lusting Jew-hating jihadists of Hamas and Hezbollah his "friends". There's not much sign he especially wants to call these Israel-bashers to order.

The Williamson piece is short and well-crafted. We hope it gets plenty of pass-along attention. Here are two brief extracts:

The Israeli Jews commit the double crime of insisting upon being Jews and refusing to be sacrificial victims. They were okay, in the Left’s estimate, for about five minutes, back when Israel’s future was assumed to be one of low-impact kibbutz socialism. History went in a different direction, and today Israel has one of the world’s most sophisticated economies. For the Jew-hater, this is maddening: Throw the Jews out of Spain, and they thrive abroad. Send them to the poorest slums in New York, and those slums stop being slums. Keep them out of the Ivy League and watch NYU become a world-class institution inspired by men such as Jonas Salk, son of largely uneducated Polish immigrants. Put the Jewish state in a desert wasteland and watch it bloom, first with produce and then with technology. Israel today has more companies listed on NASDAQ than any other country except the United States and China. The economy under Palestinian management? Olives and handicrafts, and a GDP per capita that barely exceeds that of Sudan.

Mangled baby carriages removed from the scene of the Sbarro
human-bomb attack, August 9, 2001

And this, which touches on an aspect where we have an uncommon degree of familiarity: 

The Arab–Israeli conflict is a bitter and ugly one. My own view of it is that the Palestinian Arabs have some legitimate grievances, and that I stopped caring about them when they started blowing up children in pizza shops. You can thank the courageous heroes of the Battle of Sbarro for that. Israel isn’t my country, but it is my country’s ally, and it is impossible for a liberty-loving American to fail to admire what the Jewish state has done. And that, of course, is why the Left wants to see the Jewish state exterminated.

It's an uncomfortably toxic image he conjures up, of courageous Islamist resistance fighters launching a middle-of-the-day school-holidays armed attack on a pizzeria filled with Zionistic children and young mothers with Jewish babies. 

But while invoking the Battle of Sbarro will sound to some like a cynical, perhaps over the top, slap at the murderous bigotry of Hamas and its friends (who, by his own admission, include Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK's second-largest political party), there are prominent individuals who actually believe in it with genteel sincerity and religious conviction, and they don't all live in the Islamic world.

An example, from among numerous candidates, and one that especially sticks in our craw, is a man counted among the most influential figures in the world of American Christian public affairs, James M. Wall. An ordained minister in the United Methodist Church and a laureate of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, he served for decades as editor, president and a senior contributor to Christian Century magazine, "the flagship magazine of U.S. mainline Protestantism" [source]. He's evidently still contributing there. The reverend Mr Wall got our attention ["23-Aug-12: Theology and sociopaths" and "16-Dec-14: Anti-semites, lone-wolves, killers of school-children, and the people who appreciate and understand them"] with an essay romanticizing the principal engineer of the Sbarro massacre, the killer of our daughter Malki. 

In focusing his Christian charity on the notorious 2011 Shalit Deal in which 1,027 terrorists, most of them convicted of homicide, were released in a massive Israeli capitulation to Hamas extortion, Mr Wall was moved to address the sad way in which

The Western public saw and read virtually nothing about the 477 Palestinians who were released from Israeli prisons [in phase 1 of the deal], except for those stories that reminded the public that many of the prisoners, to use the term so popular among Israeli politicians, had “blood on their hands”. This bias against Palestinians was so blatant that Jewish activist Noam Chomsky was moved to accuse the media of treating the released Palestinian prisoners as “unpeople”. It is time to tell their stories, and to do so without apology. [The Rev. Mr. Wall's blog, October 29, 2011]

To understand why people with James M. Wall's mindset, or for that matter the political views of certain British public figures now in the news, find apologies superfluous, we suggest to go back and read once again the subtitle of Kevin D. Williamson's short National Review essay.

02-Mar-16: Saudi and Gulf states announce they now view Hezbollah as terrorists

The Gulf Cooperation Council members [Source]

Saudi Arabia, along with several of the Gulf oil states, today announced [via AP] that they are formally declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

A statement from the Gulf Cooperation Council said Wednesday that it was taking the step because of hostile acts by the militant group within its member states. The group accused Hezbollah of charges including seeking to recruit members within the GCC and smuggling of weapons and explosives...

(The Gulf Cooperation Council members are the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.)

Should that be news? Yes, bearing in mind the background. Wikipedia, whose entry on Hezbollah is likely to change in the next 24 hours, currently says

Hezbollah's status as a legitimate political party, a terrorist group, a resistance movement, or some combination thereof is a contentious issue. There is a "wide difference" between American and Arab perception of Hezbollah. Since Hezbollah is a non-state actor that uses violence as a means of resistance to Israel, it is often associated with "terrorism" in West: several Western countries officially classify Hezbollah or its external security wing as a terrorist organization, and some of their violent acts have been described as terrorist attacks. However, throughout most of the Arab and Muslim worlds, Hezbollah is referred to as a resistance movement, engaged in national defense.

That entry lists these countries and organizations as having listed Hezbollah "in at least some part" as a terrorist organization. Australia, Bahrain, Gulf Cooperation Council, Canada, France, European Union ("Hezbollah's military wing"), Israel, Netherlands", New Zealand, United Kingdom ("Hezbollah's military wing"), and the United States.

In reporting this terrorism-related development, Gulf Today says today

Gulf nations have taken a series of measures against Hizbollah since Saudi Arabia last month halted a $3 billion programme funding French military supplies to Beirut.

Some additional small insight into the evolving view taken by the Saudis comes in an article by an influential columnist: "A company called Hezbollah", written by Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a former General Manager of Al Arabiya News. A brief extract:

How much is Nasrallah, who heads Hezbollah, bothered? 

 

To understand why Hezbollah has expanded beyond Lebanon into Syria and Yemen, we have to look at it as a limited-liability company that provides services to its owner, the Iranian regime... Iran has desires that it wants to impose on the West and Israel, such as allowing its nuclear program and extending its influence in the Arab Gulf countries and Iraq. This is what Tehran has achieved in part due to Hezbollah and other forces such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad... As a result of the Iran nuclear deal, Hezbollah’s main function - facing Israel - may expire. This is why the party is trying to reinvent itself as a company that offers other services."

Reuters noted just yesterday that

Relations between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have been plunged into crisis since Riyadh halted $3 billion in aid to the Lebanese army - a response to the Beirut government's failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

We have more to say, but meanwhile urge readers to see "Iran funding Palestinian terrorism", published yesterday, and authored by Dr Ely Karmon of Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

20-Dec-15: Sunday evening rocket volley is fired into northern Israel

Following the demise of a notorious terrorist earlier today, there has just now been a rocket volley fired into northern Israel. Israel National News says:

At least three rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, the army has confirmed. Air raid sirens sounded in communities throughout the western Galilee in northern Israel, at 17:42 local time Sunday, including in Rosh Hanikra and Nahariya. Locals report hearing at least one explosion; three rockets struck within Israel. There are no reports of injury or damage. IDF forces are scanning the area. The strikes follow Hezbollah vowing revenge for the assassination of its notorious commander Samir Kuntar, in what is believed to have been an Israeli airstrike near Damascus.

There were four incoming rockets, according to Times of Israel. It quotes Lebanon’s Naharnet saying that

two rockets were fired at Israel from the al-Hinniyeh area and two others were fired from Tal al-Maaliyeh. Some reports suggest one rocket landed in the sea. There are also initial reports of IDF artillery fire into Lebanon following the attack. There is no official confirmation of a counterattack...[A]t least one rocket landed in an open area near Nahariya. It’s not clear where the other two landed. “Forces are searching the area,” the IDF says in a statement. There are no reports of injuries or damage.

We noticed at least one Western reporter, tweeting here, who said this morning that Syrian state media had blamed "a hostile terrorist missile strike," and not Israel, for the elimination of Kuntar. In any event, no government, and certainly not Israel, has owned up to any involvement at this stage.

UPDATE - Monday, December 21, 2015: Times of Israel says communal bomb shelters are now operating in several northern Israel communities following the Sunday night multiple-rocket attacks. The Israeli assessment is that three rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, with all three landing near Shlomi, a small town near the Lebanese border. Inbound-rocket sirens were heard across a broad swathe of the northern border area. UNIFIL radars detected three rockets being launched and one of them landing in the sea, according to the IDF. Credit for the attack has been claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Syria-based Palestinian terror group. There are so far no reports of injuries or damage from the rocket strikes. A Lebanese source quoted by AFP says the rockets were Katyushas.

14-May-15: The calm before the onslaught?

From a May 12, 2015 article about Hezbollah in The Christian Post

Living in Jerusalem doesn't mean we know more about the gathering war-clouds in the area, or what's really behind them, than people in far-off places do. But it does mean that we probably pay more attention than most.

There's a feeling here of the calm before the storm, along with a fatalistic resignation to the way public opinion will remain completely apathetic to how the Islamists cynically deploy their civilians as human shields, confident that there will be no outrage... right up until the moment when the first Israeli fire destroys their villages, and civilians are killed. 

That will be the signal for the unleashing of those "humanitarian" demands and cries of outrage over "disproportionate response" so they can dominate the headlines and the global public discourse. Once that process gets underway, the memory of Israeli warnings like those being sounded today (see below) will be expunged from the collective consciousness.

Notice, by the way, how the NY Times article uses the term "preparing for war" only in relation to the Israeli side, even while it reports on a non-governmental army (Hezbollah - certified as a terrorist entity by most of the governments that deal in such matters) having equipped itself with enough firepower to potentially cripple Israel and cause phenomenal damage, destruction and deaths.

Israel Says Hezbollah Positions Put Lebanese at Risk
Isabel Kershner | New York Times | May 12, 2015

TEL AVIV — Viewed from the air, Muhaybib looks like a typical southern Lebanese village — a cluster of about 90 houses and buildings punctuated by the minaret of a mosque and surrounded by fields. But when the Israeli military trains its lens on that hilltop Shiite village close to the border, it sees nine arms depots, five rocket-launching sites, four infantry positions, signs of three underground tunnels, three antitank positions and, in the very center of the village, a Hezbollah command post.
As Israel prepares for what it sees as an almost inevitable next battle with Hezbollah, the Shiite Lebanese organization that fought a monthlong war against Israel in 2006, Israeli military officials and experts are warning that the group has done more than significantly build up its firepower since then.
Maps and aerial photography provided to The New York Times by Israeli military officials this week illustrate, they say, that Hezbollah has moved most of its military infrastructure into the Shiite villages of southern Lebanon and around their perimeters. Israel says this amounts to using the civilians as a human shield.
Without knowing when the next war will break out, or what might precipitate it, the Israelis are blunt about the implications: They will not hesitate to strike at those targets, so southern Lebanon will most likely be the scene of widespread destruction.
Effectively, the Israelis are warning that in the event of another conflict with Hezbollah, many Lebanese civilians will probably be killed, and that it should not be considered Israel’s fault... “We will hit Hezbollah hard, while making every effort to limit civilian casualties as much as we can,” the official said, but “we do not intend to stand by helplessly in the face of rocket attacks.”
The Israeli military says that a few miles northwest of Muhaybib, in the larger village of Shaqra, with a population of about 4,000, it has identified about 400 military sites and facilities belonging to Hezbollah, which Israel says has been armed by Iran and Syria.
Zooming out over a wider section of southern Lebanon, the Israeli military says the number of potential targets for Israel in and around villages runs into the thousands.
Israeli military officials said they were publicizing the Hezbollah buildup to put the problem on the international agenda in case there is another conflict — and to possibly decrease the chances of one breaking out... “Historically, armed forces have separated themselves from the population, in uniform,” the senior Israeli military official said. “This is not the case here or in Gaza.” ...The Israeli military says Hezbollah has increased its firepower tenfold since 2006 and now possesses about 100,000 rockets and missiles. Most are short-range Katyusha-type rockets, it says, but the arsenal also includes thousands of medium-range missiles that could reach Tel Aviv, and hundreds that could reach any part of Israel. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has said in public statements and interviews that the group is far stronger now than at the end of the 2006 war...  Amos Yadlin, who was Israel’s chief of military intelligence from 2006 to 2010 and is now the director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said, “We already made it clear in 2006 that people in the villages do not have immunity if we have intelligence that they intend to fire at Israel,” particularly, he said, because Hezbollah fires rockets indiscriminately... An Israeli expert familiar with military planning said that if Israel attacked Lebanon again, it would probably do so in three phases. First, it would strike without warning at targets that pose the greatest threat, he said; then it would call for civilians to evacuate southern Lebanon. Once a critical mass of people had left, ground troops would move in. [Extracted from a New York Times article here]

An un-named Israeli official quoted in a Jerusalem Post report today (as well as by Reuters) puts it succinctly:

Each of the some 200 Shi'ite villages in southern Lebanon "is a military stronghold, even though you can walk in the street and you'll see nothing", said the official, who could not be named in print under military regulations... "It is a win-win situation for Hezbollah. If we attack them, we kill civilians. If we don't attack because there are civilians, it is good for Hezbollah as well... I know that on the first day of the next war, the international community will stand up to say: Stop this war... I have a different suggestion. Why wait for the first day of the war? Why not avoid this war?" ["Israeli official reveals Hezbollah 'strongholds' built into Lebanese villages", Jerusalem Post, May 14, 2015]

And where, astute readers might ask, is the United Nations peace-keeping force? Hard to know from where we sit, but according to a leading Lebanese news source, it's been busy. Details here: "UNIFIL helps teach children about traffic safety" [Daily Star, Lebanon. May 9, 2015].

In truth, if we didn't have a clue about how to deal with the work we had been assigned, we would probably go off and try to help little children too. The problem is many people think those UNIFIL forces have a United Nations mandate to take a key role in keeping the peace and in preventing precisely what the outlawed, hell-bent-on-more-war Hezbollah terrorists have been doing, unhampered, right under UNIFIL's noses and in broad daylight, for years.

31-Mar-15: The other Iran, the one with less need of Swiss hotel rooms and press conferences

One of a collection of snapshots published in December 2014 on an
Iranian military website under the headline "We come..." depicts
uniformed Iranian soldiers touring southern Lebanon, close to the
border with Israel [Iranian source]

Israel, and especially our country's border zone, is often described as tense.

This might seem odd so long as no actual shooting or rocket firing is taking place. Some might seet it as paranoia, maybe even war-mongering.

But it's less so to Israelis. Many of us understand that the general level of a population's anxiety is a function of the extent to which real and physical threats are reported. If you don't know they are there, or choose to look in the other direction, you may feel more relaxed.

But that does not mean there are no enemies, or that they are not deployed out there.

Here's part of a chilling news report about our northern border ("Iranian troops advance towards Israeli border") from yesterday's Times of London:

Iran is close to putting its forces on Israel’s northeast border for the first time, as its allies crush rebel groups in the Golan Heights area of Syria. The prospect of Iranian troops being posted on a frontier that has been calm for decades is causing alarm in Israel, and comes as international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear ambitions near a climax.
“Iran will be so close to the Israelis that it will no longer need long-range missiles to hit them,” said Abu Ali, a fighter with Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah organisation who has served multiple combat tours in Syria...
Mortar fire and heavy machineguns are audible daily from the area as Hezbollah fights Syrian rebel forces, some of them aligned with al-Qaeda.
Israel assesses that the Syrian government army, apart from some artillery units, is largely exhausted. With its best divisions stationed around Damascus, the Assad regime is now leaving the fight in the south to Iran and its proxies. A spokesman for the Syrian rebel forces in southern Syria, Major Issam el-Rayyes, said that 80 per cent of a 5,000-strong force attacking rebels around the Golan Heights were Iranian-backed militias, including Hezbollah, but also Shia fighters from Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
The offensive into the southern region of Daraa and Quneitra, bordering the Golan Heights, began in February. It is the first time that Iranian forces have operated openly in southern Syria.

Same Iranian, same Lebanon/Israel border

“Iran is on the march, its proxies are taking territory,” an Israeli official said.
Abu Ali confirmed that Iranian troops were on the ground. “We are taking the area square by square until we reach the border with Israel.” ...From August to October last year, rebel groups gained territory along the southern half of the Golan Heights adjacent to the Israeli line, leaving only one village in the northern border area under Syrian government control.

Israel has offered medical assistance to more than a thousand wounded Syrian rebels and civilians, in a medical centre in the town of Zefat — but the Assad regime has accused Israel of going beyond humanitarian aid, and providing rebels with weapons, ammunition, communications equipment and tactical intelligence. This pragmatic decision to be a “good neighbour” to Syrian rebels — even though some elements are affiliated to al-Qaeda — appears to be aimed at countering the more pressing threat from Iran.
Abu Ali said that, over the past year, a military infrastructure of bunkers and tunnels had been constructed in parts of the Golan Heights under the Assad regime control — echoing the facilities Hezbollah built in south Lebanon before a month-long war with Israel in 2006. “We are almost ready,” he said.On January 18, Israeli drones targeted a convoy of vehicles near Quneitra, on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, killing an Iranian general and six Hezbollah fighters. The highly unusual attack was interpreted as a forceful message to Iran to stay away from the Golan Heights. It appears to have fallen on deaf ears...

Is it paranoia if they say at every opportunity they really are out to attack your home and community? And they have colossal means of doing so?

28-Jan-15: There's fighting on Israel's northern border today

Near Har Dov on Israel's northern border where incoming Hezbollah rocket and mortar fire
this morning has caused unspecified Israeli casualties [Image Source]

Wednesday noon, and it's shaping up to be a violent and fraught day.

In Israel's post-Shalit Transaction reality, the news from the north of Israel this morning that the IDF is checking into whether IDF soldiers may have been kidnapped by Hezbollah terrorists is as worrying as, and even more worrying in some respects than, the reports of Israeli service personnel hurt.

Here's what Times of Israel ["Casualties reported as soldiers attacked on Lebanese border"] is saying at this hour (noon):

At least four Israeli soldiers were reported wounded in the northern Har Dov area along Israel’s border with Lebanon on Wednesday morning as an IDF patrol came under attack. Initial reports said an army vehicle was targeted by anti-tank missiles. At the same time, IDF positions in the area were hit with mortar shells. Israel responded to the attack with multiple artillery strikes in southern Lebanon, Lebanese media reported. Residents in the nearby town of Metula were told to stay in their homes...  The attack, launched from an area controlled by Hezbollah, comes after repeated threats by the Lebanese terror group, which said it would retaliate against Israel for an airstrike earlier in January that killed its top commander in the Syrian Golan Heights, along with an Iranian general and 10 others. At least two rockets launched from Syrian territory landed in the Golan Heights Tuesday in an attack that Israeli defense officials attributed to Hezbollah. In response, Israel shelled Syrian army positions, and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon issued a stern warning to Hezbollah and its patron Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Har Dov mentioned in this report is a place about which most people know very little. It's a strip of land 11 kilometers long and 2.5 kilometers wide located where the Lebanese-Syrian border meets Israel's Golan Heights border. Who owns it is a matter of controversy much older than the State of Israel:

The dispute over ownership of Shebaa Farms [the name by which the Arabs refer to it] resulted in part from the failure of the French Mandate administrations, and later the Lebanese and Syrian governments, to demarcate the border between Lebanon and Syria. Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that inhabitants paid taxes to the Lebanese government. However, from the early 1950s until Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights in the Six Day War, Syria was the de facto ruling power. In 1981, Shebaa Farms was annexed by Israel as part of the Golan Heights, a move not recognized by the international community. The region has been a flashpoint for violence since Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000. Hezbollah claimed that the withdrawal was not complete because Shebaa was on Lebanese - not Syrian - territory. After studying 81 different maps, the United Nations concluded that there is no evidence of the abandoned farmlands being Lebanese. Nevertheless, Lebanon has continued to claim ownership of the territory. In August 2008, the president of Lebanon, Michel Suleiman stated: "The countdown for liberating the rest of our lands has begun. And today I confirm the [use] of all available and legitimate means to achieve this goal"... On the eve of the 1967 war, the region was under effective Syrian control... [Wikipedia]

In other words, whatever is eventually decided about who has the right to control this piece of ground (25 sq. km, or about 10 square miles) roughly a quarter the size of Disneyworld, almost no one thinks it ought to be Lebanon or the Hezbollah forces that hold it in their effective control. Yet in the name of that specious claim, it's in the news again today and for the worst reasons.

Israelis living in the towns adjacent to the border zone have been on edge for some time. And as Ynet reports today, Iran's agents in the area, the terrorists of Hezbollah, have not been slow to claim 'credit' for the firing today:

Hezbollah for its part claimed they had hit an IDF convoy. The residents of two border adjacent kibbutzim, Dafna and Kfar Giladi were instructed to remain at home. Meanwhile, the IDF begun drilling along Israel's border with Lebanon amid fears that Hezbollah might be burrowing under the border... The IDF stress there is no intelligence indicating the existence of such tunnels, but that residents reported suspicious noises... For some time now residents of the area have complained of such noises and they say they fear Hezbollah might be building underground tunnels under the border, much like Hamas has built tunnels into Israel from Gaza. Last summer, local community leaders demanded the IDF examine the claims: "I have heard claims that soil in the north is harder to dig in than the one in the south. But this area is not rocky, it is actually very easy to tunnel there," said Benny Ben-Mubhar, head of the Mevo'ot Hermon Regional Council... Sarit Eliyahu, a resident of the border community, said the noises she hears are "like a vibrating cell phone." [Ynet today]

And where, you may ask, are the United Nations peacekeepers who patrol the area? Busy holding press conferences with their Lebanese partners in which they share the credit for preserving the peace that is so noticeable in the area. Think we're making this up? See "UNIFIL chief hails cooperation with Lebanese army" [Xinhua, January 28, 2015]. What a charming place the world of self-delusion is.

18-Jan-15: Meanwhile on Israel's Syria front

Nasrallah

It's too soon to know what is actually happening in southern Syria tonight. The Hezbollah-affiliated media are busy spinning their own reality while Israel, as usually happens in such situations, remains officially non-committal, with the media doing plenty of speculating and un-named insiders connecting dots in creative ways.

Lebanon's Daily Star reported during the Sunday evening hours that a military strike by Israeli forces in the general area of Quneitra in the Golan Heights scored a hit on two Hezbollah vehicles, destroying one, damaging another. Using the Lebanese paper's language, "a number of mujahedeens were martyred"; only some of the names have been publicized, adding to the confusion of what happened.

Quneitra has been the site of heavy fighting between forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime on one side, and forces connected to Al-Qaeda on the other. The Daily Star article does not say it, but the battle raging in the vicinity is over control of  a border crossing nearby which connects Syria to Lebanon, and therefore has real strategic value. Lebanese sources, not named by Daily Star, say Hezbollah's "top commander" Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Imad Mughniyeh is one of the dead. The older Mughniyeh's name is invoked frequently whenever Hezbollah announces plans for a 'revenge attack' or acknowledges having just done one. Imad Mughniyeh died as he walked past an exploding car in Damascus, Syria, in 2008. A Reuters obituary ascribes a long list of blood-soaked atrocities to him.

The son, evidently killed today, was mentioned in news reports just four months ago that said he had become Hezbollah’s Golan District commander. The same source said Jihad Mughniyeh was "close to current Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, his father’s brother-in-law and successor Mustafa Badreddine and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps". AP estimates he was about 25 years old.

Another of the dead is Mohammad Issa, a senior field commander for Hezbollah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Issa. He was the commander responsible for Hezbollah's Syrian and Iraqi operations, according to this report.

Then the startling revelation that another of the dead is "Iranian field commander Abu Ali Tabtabai", about whom we will probably be hearing soon. Other names: Mahdi Nasser al-Moussawi, Ali Fouad Hasan, Ghazi Ali Dawi, Hussein Hasan Hasan and Hussein Ismail al-Ashhab. What were those 'mujahedeen' doing there? Busy with "an inspection mission", says the Lebanese paper. 

Ynet quotes an unnamed Israeli official confirming today's attack which "targeted terrorists planning attacks against Israel." That's about the extent of Israeli comment tonight.

The Hezbollah media arm, Al-Manar, led its evening news bulletin with a item that calls the Israeli strike "a foolish venture" that reflects Israel's "madness" in light of Hezbollah's growing military might and that could lead to a costly adventure that puts the entire Middle Eat region in jeopardy."

The head of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, is said to be about to deliver a speech tonight threatening Israel with retaliation via "a painful strike". His last round of warnings to Israel came just a few days ago, when he said Hizbullah

"has had Iranian Fateh-110 missiles that can hit the whole of Israel since 2006, adding that it is always ready to fight Israel."

A different source quoted Nasrallah just two days ago:

"The axis is capable of responding. This can happen any time... [Hezbollah has] "all (the weapons) you can imagine... and in great quantities... We are now stronger than we ever were as a resistance movement."

Iran, the nuclear face-off with the Americans: Syria, Hezbollah: commentators are going to have plenty of scope for unraveling the complexities in the hours and days ahead.