{"id":10667,"date":"2015-02-06T00:08:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T08:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=10667"},"modified":"2015-02-05T23:05:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T07:05:12","slug":"clues-to-the-end-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/02\/06\/clues-to-the-end-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Clues to the end game"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Jan. 28, Israeli soldiers in the northern Mount Dov region are pictured after an Israel Defence Forces patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah terrorist operatives. The Hezbollah attack killed two Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. (photo by Basal Awidat\/Flash90)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Who was behind the Jan. 28 attack on northern Israel that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others? The easy answer is the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, which claimed responsibility for the attack. But the wider view suggests Hezbollah\u2019s state sponsor: Iran.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel\u2019s International Institute for Counterterrorism, said that Hezbollah\u2019s actions represent \u201can attempt to change the strategic rules of the game.\u201d According to Karmon, Iran and Hezbollah have been working for months to take advantage of instability in Syria in order to create a forward military position against<\/p>\n

Israel in Syria\u2019s Quneitra region, close to the triple Syria-Lebanon-Israel border.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is actually an Iranian project,\u201d Karmon told this reporter. \u201cThey have around 1,500 people on the ground in Syria, most of whom are counseling or training Syrian militias, and they have Hezbollah providing military support.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Jan. 28, Hezbollah fired five Kornet guided anti-tank missiles at an Israeli military convoy approximately 2.5 miles inside Israel\u2019s border with Lebanon. A day earlier, less sophisticated mortars were fired from southern Syria into Israeli territory, with no damage reported.<\/p>\n

In response to the Jan. 28 attack, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, \u201cWhoever is behind today\u2019s attack will pay the full price.\u201d Netanyahu \u2013 like Karmon \u2013 stressed that the attack points back to Iran, adding, \u201cwith the assistance of Hezbollah, Iran has been for some time trying to open another front against Israel on the Golan Heights. We are acting with force and determination against these attempts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the weakness of the Syrian regime, the Iranians are now permitted to have a foothold directly on Israel\u2019s border, which until now they didn\u2019t have,\u201d Karmon explained.<\/p>\n

Israel is widely believed to be responsible for a Jan. 18 airstrike against that foothold in southern Syria, which killed six Hezbollah operatives and six Iranians, including notorious Hezbollah commander Jihad Mughniyeh and Iranian general Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.<\/p>\n

Karmon believes the airstrike \u201cwas a message sent by Israel\u201d to forewarn Iran and Hezbollah not to continue their military efforts in Syrian territory.<\/p>\n

The retaliatory attacks by Hezbollah following the deadly airstrike were widely expected. That the more sophisticated Kornet anti-tank missiles were fired from Lebanon and not Syria provides a strong indication that the Syrian position is not as well-stocked with weaponry as southern Lebanon \u2013 a zone that was supposed to remain completely demilitarized under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which arranged for the cessation of hostilities following the Second Lebanon War of 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cResolution 1701 calls for complete disarmament in southern Lebanon and, yet, Hezbollah, instead of disarming, they have amassed some 80,000-90,000 missiles,\u201d Karmon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, they want to achieve the same equation in southern Syria. If Israel does not stop them, and there are two to three years with relative quiet, with only occasional penetrations of our border and sometimes mortar fire and so on, a kind of \u2018war of attrition,\u2019 then all of a sudden we will find ourselves staring at 5,000-10,000 missiles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more at jns.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Jan. 28, Israeli soldiers in the northern Mount Dov region are pictured after an Israel Defence Forces patrol came under anti-tank fire from Hezbollah terrorist operatives. The Hezbollah attack killed two Israeli soldiers and injured seven others. (photo by Basal Awidat\/Flash90) Who was behind the Jan. 28 attack on northern Israel that killed two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4341,3108,3107,2462,4330,1942,1774],"class_list":["post-10667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-ely-karmon","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-syria","tag-terrorism"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}