- The reason the rationale for invading Gaza keeps changing,
(from rocket-fire to Hamas infrastructure to strengthening deterrents to
weapons smuggling to ceasefire violations etc) is because the Israeli leadership
wants to conceal the true objective. The purpose of "Operation Cast
Lead" is to conduct a dress rehearsal for another invasion of Lebanon.
-
- That's the real goal. Israel has never recovered from
its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah during the 33 Day war in 2006, so
it is planning to restart hostilities. The attack on Gaza is just a "dry
run" to strengthen morale and put the finishing touches on the battle
plan. That's why there's such a disparity between the implicit risks of
the current operation and its minuscule strategic gains. It's not really
Hamas in the cross-hairs, but Hezbollah; and this time, Israel hopes to
crush them with overwhelming force. The massive week-long aerial bombardment
of Gaza; the pounding by heavy artillery units, and the deployment of elite
troops and armored divisions, all presage a massive Normandy-type invasion
of Lebanon with the probability of high casualties.
-
- Gaza has also been the testing ground for new Defence
Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of the General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. Barak
and Ashkenazi replaced former Defence chief Amir Peretz and Israeli Air
Force Commander Dan Halutz, the two main scapegoats for the failed campaign.
The new leaders are expected to take what they've learned in Gaza and use
it in Lebanon. So far, the invasion appears to have gone according to plan.
-
- Israel's Tonkin Bay?
-
- Two days before Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza
Strip, UNIFIL (UN peacekeepers) increased the number of daily patrols along
Lebanon's southern border. According to the Jerusalem Post, "The decision
to increase UNIFIL's patrols had nothing to do with Israel's military operation...
but rather with the international organization's goal to monitor the implementation
of Security Council Resolution 1701."
-
- Hezbollah has been watching the activity on the border
with growing concern suspecting that Israel may be using the invasion of
Gaza to divert attention from their real objective, another war in Lebanon.
Presently, the Shi'ite militia is on its highest alert and is preparing
itself for any sudden flare up. Israeli warplanes have increased their
flights over Lebanon in the last 10 days and the IDF has called up thousands
of reserve troops and placed some of them along the northern border. Naturally,
the tension is rising . Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has publicly rejected
the idea of supporting Hamas militarily, but the Israeli media continues
to portray him as a potential threat.
-
- "We are here, ready for every possibility and prepared
for any aggression," Nasrallah said on Monday. "We will not weaken,
fear or surrender. I tell Olmert, the loser, the disappointed and defeated
in Lebanon, 'You will not be able to eradicate Hamas and you will not be
able to eradicate Hezbollah."
-
- THE SMOKING GUN?
-
- According to the Jerusalem Post: "On Monday, Lebanese
president Michel Suleiman suggested Israel was responsible for eight rockets
that were found in southern Lebanon, saying that he fears "it is an
Israeli attack to implicate Lebanon," according to the NOW Lebanon
news site."
-
- The eight rockets were on timers and aimed at Israel
from Lebanese territory. Was Israel planning to start a war and make it
look Hezbollah was to blame? The former President of Lebanon thinks so.
-
- In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Tuesday, former
President Emile Lahoud warned that once Israel is finished with Gaza, it
would attack Lebanon in reprisal for its failure in the 33-day war.
-
- "I'm sure that Israel is thinking after Gaza would
turn towards Lebanon, and after Lebanon it will take every Arab state one
by one, and this is what some of the Lebanese as some Arab leaders are
not thinking about," said the former Lebanese president....This is
while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as telling the French
president Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday that "today Hamas and Tomorrow
Hezbollah," will come under attack. (Press TV)
-
- Also, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported this provocative
comment by Head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin: "Yadlin
said, 'Hezbollah might carry out a low-profile attack by means of a Palestinian
organization that would be limited and not set the border alight.' He added
that forces also remained on high alert in light of a possible Hezbollah
strike against an Israeli target abroad." (Ha'aretz, 1-6-09)
-
- Who really wants another war; Hezbollah or Israel?
-
- Israel never accepted the outcome of the 33 Day war and
will probably use the UN's failure to implement UN Resolution 1701--which
requires the disarming of all militias--as an excuse for restarting the
conflict. Nicholas Blanford, who authored a report on the 33 Day war, told
Press TV:
-
- "Yes, 1701 stopped the war in 2006. It stopped the
fighting. I mean it saved the Israelis, the Israelis were obviously in
deep trouble as various internal investigations and reports and commissions
have elaborated....It was kind of an unfinished war in many respects. Hezbollah,
for their part, recognized Israeli unease and unhappiness with the outcome
of the war."
-
- Israel considers the war "unfinished" and has
been readying itself for two and a half years for a rematch. (Al Jazeera
reported "Rockets from Lebanon Hit Israel" hours after this article
was written. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/20091855216577820.html
-
- "Greater Israel"
-
- The upcoming war with Lebanon has less to do with Hezbollah
than it does with Israel's geopolitical ambitions. Israel wants to establish
a new northern border at the Litani River in southern Lebanon and create
an "Israel-friendly" regime in Beirut. The plan to annex the
land south of the Litani River dates back to the founding of the Jewish
state when Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion described the
country's future borders this way: "To the north the Litani River,
the southern border will be pushed into the Sinai, and to the east, the
Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan."
-
- In 1978, the IDF launched Operation Litani with the intention
of annexing the southern part of Lebanon and setting up a Christian client-regime
in Beirut that would take orders from Tel Aviv. Israel said that it needed
a "buffer zone" for its security, the same excuse that it uses
today. The 1982 invasion devolved into an 18-year onslaught which ravaged
the Lebanese economy and killed more than 20,000 civilians. In 2000, Israel
was driven from Lebanon by the region's newest guerrilla militia, Hezbollah.
-
- Israel's territorial objectives have not changed. They
want to seize more land to achieve their vision of "Greater Israel"
and reduce adjacent Arab countries to a "permanent state of colonial
dependency".
-
- This explains why Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and
communications network were intentionally targeted. Israel requires its
neighbors to languish in abject poverty and hopelessness. By destroying
Lebanon's life-support systems, Israel figured it would eliminate a potential
rival while establishing itself as the dominant power in the Middle East.
This same template for "total war" is being used in Gaza where
mosques, schools, media offices, sea ports, girl's dormitories, ambulances
and vital infrastructure have been destroyed while international media,
doctors and the Red Crescent have been refused entry. The rules of war
have been abandoned altogether.
-
- BLUEPRINT FOR REBUILDING ZIONISM
-
- "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the
Realm" provides the neocon blueprint for "rebuilding Zionism
in the 21st century" and redrawing the map of the Middle East in a
way that promotes Israeli interests. The document states:
-
- "Securing the Northern Border: Syria challenges
Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which America
can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along
its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principle
agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by: paralleling Syria's behavior
by establishing the precedent that Syria is not immune to attacks emanating
from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces striking Syrian military targets in
Lebanon, and should that prove to be insufficient, striking at select targets
in Syria proper." (A Clean Break; Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David
Wurmser)
-
- Eventually, Syria will be dragged into the war so that
Israel can move forward with its plans to build a oil pipeline from Mosul
to Haifa. Israel wants to be a major player in the global oil trade. In
Michel Chossudovsky's article "Triple Alliance: US, Turkey, Israel
and the War on Lebanon", the author says:
-
- "We are not dealing with a limited conflict between
the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbollah as conveyed by the Western media.
The Lebanese War Theatre is part of a broader US military agenda, which
encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the
heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as 'a stage'
in this broader 'military road map'".
-
- Chossudovsky shows how the recently completed Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan
pipeline has strengthened the Israel-Turkey alliance creating an opportunity
to establish "military control over a coastal corridor extending from
the Israeli-Lebanese border to the East Mediterranean border between Syria
and Turkey." Lebanese sovereignty is likely to be one of the casualties
of this Israel-Turkey strategy.
-
- Most of the oil from the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline
will be transported to Western markets, but a percentage of the oil will
be diverted through a "proposed" Ceyhan-Ashkelon pipeline which
will connect Israel directly to rich deposits in the Caspian. This will
allow Israel to supply markets in the Far East from its port at Eilat on
the Red Sea. It is an ambitious plan that ensures that Israel will be a
critical part of the global energy distribution system. (See Michel Chossudovsky,
The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, July 2006)
-
- Oil is the main reason the US and Israel want regime
change in Syria. An article in the UK Observer, "Israel Seeks Pipeline
for Iraqi Oil", notes that Washington and Tel Aviv are hammering out
the details for a pipeline that will run through Syria and "create
an endless and easily accessible source of cheap oil for the US guaranteed
by reliable allies other than Saudi Arabia." The pipeline "would
transform economic power in the region, bringing revenue to the new US-dominated
Iraq, cutting out Syria, and solving Israel's energy crisis at a stroke."
-
- The Israeli Mossad is operating in northern Iraq where
the pipeline will originate and their agents have developed good relations
with the Kurds. The Observer quotes a CIA official who said, "It has
long been a dream of a powerful section of the people now driving this
administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard Israel's energy supply
as well as that of the US. The Haifa pipeline was something that existed,
was resurrected as a dream, and is now a viable project - albeit with a
lot of building to do."
-
- NATURAL GAS OFF THE COAST OF GAZA
-
- Ironically, the invasion of Gaza was in part motivated
by vital energy resources, too. According to an article by Jake Bower,
"Why It Rains: Hamas holding Israeli gas reserves hostage":
-
- "GAZA: Plans for proposed $400,000,000 offshore
natural gas field development project....The deposit reportedly contains
an estimated 50 to 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The field...
is considered to be the largest in the area north of Egypt....
-
- Estimated at 100 billion cubic meters of proven reserves,
these discoveries potentially offer enough gas to meet Israel's goal of
supplying 25% of its energy needs for more than 20 years - even without
further imports. The discovery has also raised realistic expectations of
locating oil deposits beneath the gas fields.
-
- Unfortunately for Israel, 60% of these reserves are in
waters controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which has signed a 25-year
contract with British Gas for further exploration in the area.... Keen
to secure the gas for its domestic market but unwilling to submit its sensitive
energy supplies (and their profits) into the hands of the Palestinians,
Israel has for the past 6 years pursued a policy of non-commitment, stalling
and obstruction." (Jake Bower, "Why It Rains: Hamas holding ?Israeli?
gas reserves hostage") http://tinyurl.com/7y2bcf
-
- The natural gas deposits are just one more reason why
Israel plans to remove Hamas and replace it with Mahmoud Abbas and the
corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA).
-
- The Middle East is being reshaped according to the ideological
aspirations of Zionists and the exigencies of a viciously-competitive energy
market. That's a combo that makes peace nearly impossible.
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