LIMITED INVASION FOCUSED ON HEZBOLLAH INFRASTRUCTURE NEAR THE BORDER

Israel goes in: IDF confirms boots on the ground in southern Lebanon as bombs rain down from the sky after day of ratcheting tensions

 

By Arthur Parashar and Katherine Lawton

 

Daily Mail

Sep 30, 2024  

 

 

The Israeli military last night confirmed its troops had launched a long-awaited ground invasion of Lebanon, as fears mount that the escalation could plunge the Middle East into an all-out war.

After a day of ratcheting tensions in the war-torn region, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced that it had begun 'localised and targeted raids' against Hezbollah enemies in southern Lebanon.

'These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel,' the military added. 

The IDF said that its incursion, dubbed 'Operation Northern Arrows', will continue 'according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas'.

The ground assault, which comes nearly a year on from Hamas' October 7 attacks, was given the green light after hundreds of Israeli tanks had massed on the border, with foot soldiers also being supported by the IDF's intensified air strikes.

Dramatic pictures showed a barrage of rockets and bombs lighting up the sky, while artillery fire was heard in a number of villages close to the Israel-Lebanon border. 

The deployment of boots on the ground represents a significant escalation in Israel's war against Hezbollah, whose leadership has been wiped out in a series of recent airstrikes. 

Amid the increased violence, Syrian state-run media also confirmed that one of its television presenters was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Damascus. 

It came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a stark warning to Iran, whom Hamas and Hezbollah are both backed by. He said: 'There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.'

British nationals have been urged to leave Lebanon immediately, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy warning the conflict could 'escalate in a major way'.

 

Astonishing pictures show missiles being launched into Lebanon as a ground incursion got underway

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburb early on Tuesday

Israel was last night bombarding Lebanon from the sky and on foot as an incursion got underway 

Smoke and flames rise into the Lebanon sky as an Israeli bombardment continues into the night

Israeli shelling hits an area in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel 

Israeli artillery shells hit areas near villages in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel, as seen from the Upper Galilee, northern Israel

Israeli tanks and APC's gather by the Israeli - Lebanese border on September 30 before the ground invasion

 

The US said it was informed beforehand about Israel's raid, which have been described as 'limited operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure near the border.' 

The invasion is said to have forced Lebanese troops to retreat three miles from their positions along the county's southern border with Israel.

The sound of explosions could be heard on the border overnight, with hundreds of Israeli tanks lined up for the ground invasion.

Fires were seen erupting across Lebanon as plumes of smoke billowed into the night sky. 

Hezbollah also said it 'targeted' Israeli soldiers' carrying out 'movements' in orchards near the Lebanese border. 

The Lebanese health ministry said 95 people had been killed in Israeli strikes, with another 172 injured. Israel said around ten rockets crossed over the border from Lebanon, with some intercepted and others 'falling into open areas'.

The Israeli army earlier declared three of its northern communities as a 'closed military zone' as signals grew that more forces could soon be sent into Lebanon to fight the Iran-backed militants.

As an Israeli bombardment continued into the night, residents living in southern Beirut were ordered to evacuate 'immediately'. 

'You are located near interests and facilities belonging to the terrorist Hezbollah, and therefore the IDF will act against them forcefully,' IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X. 

'For your safety and the safety of your family, you must evacuate the buildings immediately, starting at a distance of no less than 500 meters.' 

 

Tensions are escalating after Israel said it had wiped out Hezbollah's top brass in the airstrike on southern Beirut that killed the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah

A picture taken from northern Israel, along the border with southern Lebanon, shows a fire following Israeli bombardment on an area of south Lebanon

Bombs are raining down on Lebanon, lighting up the sky as Israel ordered evacuations

Smoke rises over Beirut's southern suburbs after a strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces

 

Tension in the Middle East escalated even further after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday.

Mr Lammy said the situation on the ground is 'fast moving' and ministers can't guarantee support 'if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days'.

He told reporters on Monday night: 'I have been urging since coming to office in July for British nationals to leave Lebanon. And indeed the previous government from October 2023 was urging UK nationals not to travel to Lebanon.

'Notwithstanding that we sent a rapid response team. 700 troops are in Cyprus. We will do all we can to assist people to get out. We have secured places on commercial flights that are flying tomorrow so that UK nationals can get out.'

Asked what he would say to British nationals who have not yet taken his advice, he said: 'I urge them to leave because the situation on the ground is fast moving

'While we will do everything we can to protect British nationals and those plans are in place to do so, we cannot anticipate the circumstances of the speed with which we could do that If things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.'

 

Dramatic pictures show huge Israeli shelling obliterating parts of southern Lebanon

Heavy shelling has been seen in southern Lebanon as Israel prepared to invade

Smoke rises over Beirut's southern suburbs after a strike, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Lebanon

An Israeli tank manoeuvres in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border on Monday

 

The UK Government has chartered a commercial flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave amid escalating violence.

The flight is due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday and vulnerable British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under 18 will be prioritised, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.

Mr Lammy said: 'The situation in Lebanon is volatile and has potential to deteriorate quickly.

'The safety of British nationals in Lebanon continues to be our utmost priority.

'That's why the UK Government is chartering a flight to help those wanting to leave. It is vital that you leave now as further evacuation may not be guaranteed.'

The ground invasion could mark the first time Israel and Hezbollah engage in ground combat since their 34-day war in 2006.

 

An Israeli mobile artillery unit is seen near the Israel-Lebanon border on Monday

Israeli artillery shells hit areas near villages in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, in a position near the Israel-Lebanon border

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel towards Lebanon, in a position near the Israel-Lebanon border, Monday

Nasrallah, seen addressing supporters in Lebanon's capital Beirut in November 2013, was killed by an Israeli air strike on the city on Friday

People check buildings levelled on September 27 by Israeli strikes that killed Nasrallah

 

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost every day since the war in Gaza began. 

The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in Israel and Lebanon. Israel says it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for Israelis displaced from border communities to return to their homes. 

Hezbollah has promised to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.

Early on Monday, Hezbollah vowed to keep fighting even after its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and other top officials were recently wiped out by Israeli strikes.

Giving his first address since the group's leader was killed, deputy Naim Qassem said: 'Hezbollah's front will continue, everyone on the battlefield is ready and, despite the losing of our leader and commanders, we will not move aside nor will we forsake our duty in support of Gaza and in defence of Lebanon,' he said.

'If the Zionists enter Lebanon, we are ready and prepared for a ground battle, and we will be victorious.'

Israel's order restricting entry and exit from the northern communities of Metula, Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi does not necessarily mean Israeli troops will invade Lebanon immediately. 

Areas can also be declared closed military zones if an imminent threat is detected.

 

People check for drone attacks as Israeli airstrikes continue while people flee and take refuge in parks and squares in Beirut

Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivering a televised address from an unknown location, days after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike

Hundreds of Israeli tanks have lined up at the Lebanon border, with a ground invasion looming

 

But the Israeli army has heavily beefed up forces along the border with Lebanon in recent days. 

Israeli strikes have killed Nasrallah and six of his top commanders and officials in the last 10 days. They have also hit what the military says are thousands of militant targets across large parts of Lebanon. 

Over 1,000 people have been killed in the country in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry.

Early Monday, an airstrike hit a residential building in central Beirut, killing three Palestinian militants, as Israel appeared to send a clear message that no part of Lebanon is out of bounds.

Despite the heavy blow Hezbollah has suffered in recent weeks, acting leader Naim Kassem said in a televised statement that if Israel decides to launch a ground offensive, the group's fighters are ready. 

 

A smoke plume erupts after an Israeli airstrike targeted the outskirts of the village of Ibl al-Saqi in southern Lebanon on September 30

Smoke billows from the area as a result of the Israeli army's attacks on the town of Hiyam yesterday

 

He said the commanders killed have already been replaced.

Nasrallah's longtime deputy, Kassem will remain in his acting position until the group's leadership elects a replacement. The man widely expected to take over the top post is Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees Hezbollah's political affairs.

Hezbollah's capabilities are unclear after a series of major blows

Hezbollah has significantly increased its rocket attacks in the past week to several hundred daily, but most have been intercepted or fallen in open areas. 

Several people have been wounded in Israel. There have been no fatalities since two soldiers were killed near the border on Sept. 19.

But Hezbollah's capabilities remain unclear.

As recently as two weeks ago, a strike like Monday's in central Beirut - outside of the main areas where Hezbollah operates and next to a busy transportation hub normally crowded with buses and taxis - would have been seen as a major escalation and likely followed by a long-range Hezbollah strike into Israel.

But the unspoken rules of the long-running conflict no longer seem to be in effect.

It's possible Hezbollah is holding back to save resources for a bigger battle. But the militant group might also be in disarray after Israeli intelligence apparently penetrated its highest levels.

Nasrallah's longtime deputy, Kassem will remain in his acting position until the group's leadership elects a replacement. The man widely expected to take over the top post is Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees Hezbollah's political affairs.

Hezbollah's capabilities are unclear after a series of major blows

Hezbollah has significantly increased its rocket attacks in the past week to several hundred daily, but most have been intercepted or fallen in open areas. 

Several people have been wounded in Israel. There have been no fatalities since two soldiers were killed near the border on Sept. 19.

But Hezbollah's capabilities remain unclear.

As recently as two weeks ago, a strike like Monday's in central Beirut - outside of the main areas where Hezbollah operates and next to a busy transportation hub normally crowded with buses and taxis - would have been seen as a major escalation and likely followed by a long-range Hezbollah strike into Israel.

But the unspoken rules of the long-running conflict no longer seem to be in effect.

It's possible Hezbollah is holding back to save resources for a bigger battle. But the militant group might also be in disarray after Israeli intelligence apparently penetrated its highest levels.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Sharif was an employee, and was put on administrative leave without pay in March as it investigated allegations about his political activities. 

Israel has accused the agency, known as UNRWA, of links to Palestinian militant groups, while the agency says it is committed to neutrality and works to prevent any such infiltration.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles into northern Israel after Hamas' October 7 attack from Gaza into Israel sparked the war in the Palestinian territory. 

Hezbollah and Hamas are allies and both supported by Iran, and Hezbollah said it would continue the attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians until there was a cease-fire in Gaza.

Israel responded to the rockets with airstrikes in Lebanon, and the fighting has steadily escalated over the past year. 

The Lebanese government says the fighting may have displaced up to a million people, although the UN estimate is around 200,000.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have also been displaced. Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the attacks stop and its citizens can return home.

 

Firefighters attempt to extinguish the fire at a power plant following Israeli airstrikes on Hodeidah city, Yemen, on September 29

Smoke billows after an Israeli strike on villages near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on September 29 as air strikes across the country continue

Hundreds of Israeli tanks have been deployed in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel

 

Israel shows little interest in cease-fire calls as it bloodies a longtime foe.

The United States and its allies have called for a cease-fire, hoping to avoid further escalation that could draw in Iran and set off a wider war. 

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown little interest, as his country racks up military achievements against a longtime foe.

France, which has close ties to Lebanon, has joined the United States in calling for a cease-fire. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, visiting Beirut Monday, urged Israel to refrain from a ground offensive.

Barrot also called on Hezbollah to stop firing on Israel, saying the group 'bears heavy responsibility in the current situation, given its choice to enter the conflict.'

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, speaking after meeting with Barrot, said the country is committed to an immediate cease-fire followed by the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south, in keeping with a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war but was never fully implemented.

Hezbollah, which boasts tens of thousands of battle-hardened fighters and long-range missiles capable of hitting anywhere inside Israel, has long been seen as the most powerful militant group in the region and a key partner to Iran in both threatening and deterring Israel.

But Hezbollah has never faced an onslaught quite like this one, which began with a sophisticated attack on its pagers and walkie-talkies in mid-September that killed dozens of people and wounded around 3,000 - including many fighters but also many civilians.

• ern Israel, Sep
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ON THE SIDE OF THOSE THE MUSLIMS DESCRIBE AS THE DESCENDANTS OF PIGS AND MONKEYS

Former Miss Iraq isn't afraid to salute Israel, 'I want to be on the good side'

"Israel is the only one standing against the terrorists," says Sarah Idan, former Miss Iraq and ardent Israel supporter.

 

By Yair Eizenberg  

 

Israel Hayom

Sep 30, 2024 

 

Sarah Idan fled Iraq to the United States after representing Iraq in Miss Universe in 2017. 

 

Sarah Idan pulls out her phone. "Look, this is a video from two days ago," she tells me as we meet in a friend's apartment in Los Angeles. She doesn't feel safe meeting anywhere else, not even in her own home. When I asked her about the source of her concern, she showed me the video she recorded this week.

"Stop following me," Sarah's frightened voice can be heard from behind the camera pointed at a man with an Arab appearance, sitting in a large pickup truck and smoking while looking at her maliciously. "He followed me from my house," she explains, "I even made different turns to check if he was really following me, and only when I saw that he was going everywhere I was going I started recording."

She describes how her heart was racing at those moments, thinking he might pull out a gun and kill her in the middle of the street, and recounts that only when more and more passersby gathered around them and threatened to call the police if he didn't drive away – did the man flee the scene.

Q: Who do you think sent him?

"I don't know. That's the thing, I have no idea, but it's not the first time. It happens all the time. I always have to look over my shoulder. This is my life, especially after October 7. It has definitely intensified since then: the strange activities, the cars that come and park near the apartment, the people standing there watching me. I don't know why. Maybe it's to try to scare me or something."

Q: Do you fear for your life?

"If I'm going to die, I'm going to die. It can't get worse than that. I should have been dead a long time ago."

Q: Explain this to me. You're not Israeli, not Jewish. How are you willing to continue dealing with this and sacrifice your life for Israel?

"It's not for Israel – it's for the free world. There's God's side, the good side, and there's the evil side. The people who hate Israel – the Islamists, the communists, the fascists, all these crazy people – they are, you know, against the free world and free will. Many people are mistaken when they think that everything I do is just for Israel. It's not. It's because I know that Israel is the only one standing against the terrorists, against the crazy people. So yes, I want to be on the side of the good."

Saddam and I

Idan (34), dressed in an elegant designer dress and wearing shiny Gucci heels, fits perfectly into the Hollywood landscape visible from the window. We're sitting in the penthouse of Tomer Shmulevich, an Israeli producer living in Los Angeles who was responsible for Idan's visit to Israel after October 7. Below us, luxury cars speed between the well-manicured trees and magnificent houses of Beverly Hills in the City of Stars, light-years away from where she grew up.

"I grew up in the early 90s under Saddam Hussein's rule and under severe sanctions," she recounts. "Sometimes there was no electricity at all, and sometimes only for three hours a day. Same with water rationing. Food was barely available.

"The bread, which was hard as a rock, my mother would tell us to dip in tea so we could chew it. Fruits were a luxury. I remember one day, I got a banana and took it with me to school, and all the girls were in shock. 'Oh my God, she's holding a banana, she must be really rich!'"

Q: Did you share it with them?

"Yes, they wanted to taste what a banana was like, so I cut it into pieces. Those were really tough times."

Life in Iraq during those days included not only abject poverty but also constant fear. "On every street, there was an intelligence officer who had lists of all the residents on that street, and from time to time, he would interrogate them. Saddam Hussein would kill entire families if someone from them said something negative about him. You'd wake up in the morning, and people had simply disappeared. So we lived in fear."

Cut off from the outside world, Iraqi citizens received their information directly from the regime's propaganda. Only rarely did they manage to consume content that didn't praise the dictator. "I would stay up at night because, between four and six in the morning, the opposition in Iraq would manage to broadcast a radio program, where I got information about what was really happening."

Q: As a child, did you know what was happening in the Western world? Did you read "Harry Potter" or watch Disney movies like children in the rest of the world?

"All we had was a TV with three channels, and all three were under Saddam Hussein's complete control. Sometimes, they broadcast movies from the outside world on these channels, but they are edited so badly that you can't understand what is happening in them. They would just cut out entire sections."

This memory, like many others from the Saddam era, makes her chuckle derisively. "Once they broadcast the movie 'Titanic,' but only years later did I discover how the Titanic sank because they ended the movie before the scene where Jack and Rose sleep together – and that scene happens before the collision with the iceberg!"

In a world where every piece of information was carefully filtered, where the government had a firm grip on what its citizens knew or thought, Idan, a little girl at the time, was educated like the rest of Iraq's children to hate Israel. "We were taught that there's a country of Jews that hates Iraq, and everywhere it was written 'Death to America, Death to Israel,'" she recounts. "On Thursdays, we would stand in the schoolyard to sing songs about liberating Palestine."

But hatred for the "Little Satan" – Israel – was only part of the story. Because more than Israel, she and her friends grew up with hatred for the "Big Satan" – the US. "We were taught that the Americans want to kill us all. After September 11, everyone went out to the streets to celebrate, and there were fireworks as if something happy had just happened and not a terrible disaster," she describes the period leading up to the Second Gulf War, which changed the face of the country.

In March 2003, US President George W. Bush gave the signal for the start of the war, at the end of which Iraq would be liberated from Saddam Hussein, a moment that would be recorded as one of the most significant in the history of the Middle East.

"I was 13 when the Americans entered Iraq," Idan recalls. "I was playing soccer in the street with friends, and suddenly, a convoy of military vehicles appeared. My mind exploded. It looked like an alien invasion. They had weapons and technology we had never seen before. It was a complete shock. My friends and I just froze in place."

"We thought they were going to kill us, but then a soldier came out of the tank's roof and started waving hello to us, and then more soldiers came out smiling and started handing out candies and flowers to the children with notes written in Arabic saying, 'We are here to help you, not to kill you.'"

"I remember after that I ran home and shouted, 'The Americans are here! The Americans are here!' but no one believed me. They thought I was crazy. My parents, my neighbors – no one knew anything about the Americans invading Iraq until that moment. The whole world knew except for us."

Adar and I

After the American forces invaded Baghdad, the hope for change gradually gave way to a new terror. Following the fall of Saddam's Sunni regime, chaos spread through the streets, and the situation in the city worsened.

Terror groups like Al-Qaeda and other Shiite militias took control of large parts of the city, turning the area into an ongoing battlefield. Ordinary citizens like Idan and her family found themselves trapped between American forces and terror organizations.

"They used us as human shields. There was a school behind our house where they placed anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot at the Americans. We knew that at any moment, we could be accidentally bombed in retaliation. Two years after the invasion, one of the Shiite militias took control of our neighborhood and left a rifle bullet outside our door, with a letter saying we had to leave because we were Sunnis. In the morning, my father told me to pack, and we drove for hours from Iraq to Syria."

Even in Syria, the situation was far from safe for the Idan family: "We lived in a Palestinian refugee camp, which was full of gangs and extreme Islamists. The Palestinians in the camp would beat me and my sister when we walked around without wearing a hijab. Men kidnapped women on the street and raped them."

After two years in Syria, things in Baghdad calmed down a bit, and Idan returned to Iraq and began working for the American military. "Before we went to Syria, I saw an ad in the newspaper that said if you work for a year with the American military, you can apply for a green card. That's all I dreamed of. I immediately went to the checkpoint near my house and asked to work with them."

Q: Brave girl.

"I wanted to fly out of Iraq. Hell, I would have done anything for it, but the soldiers asked me how old I was, and when I said 15, they told me I couldn't work with them because I was too young and to come back when I was 18."

Q: And you came back?

"Yes, three years later. I went there on my birthday, applied, and was hired to work at the same checkpoint."

For two years, she worked with the American military. She served as an interpreter, checked passersby at the checkpoint, and survived several suicide bombers who exploded near her. Finally, she received the coveted green card and flew off to her new life in the land of unlimited possibilities. Initially, she settled in Texas alongside American soldiers she had met during her military service. Eventually, she decided to pursue her dream and flew to Los Angeles to study music.

With a music career ahead of her, she created music for an Egyptian film, and her future looked promising, but then a turning point occurred in her life. Her sister happened to hear about a beauty pageant for the Iraqi community in the US and decided to register her.

Idan won first place in the competition with perfect timing: after decades of Iraq not sending representatives to the Miss Universe pageant, the country decided to send a representative – and Sarah flew to the competition that changed her life.

 

  

Miss Israel 2017 Adar Gandelsman and Miss Iraq 2017 

 

Now, she explains exactly what happened there. "When I arrived at the Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas, everyone wanted to meet Miss Iraq because there hadn't been one since the 70s. It was a big deal. Everyone approached me and talked to me, except for Miss Israel. It was strange."

"During one of the photo shoots, I waved at her, and she waved back. Then, like a little bird, Adar (Gandelsman, Miss Israel 2017) approached me. I could feel she was afraid to come closer. I asked her why, and she explained that they were instructed not to talk to the models from Arab countries."

Q: And when you took that famous selfie with her, did you understand that the sky was about to fall?

"No. When I talked to Adar, I told her I had no problem with her. On the contrary, if anything – we need to show people that we're okay. So I suggested we take a picture. I posted it on Instagram and went to sleep."

While the world around her was in turmoil, Sarah was completely unaware of what was happening around her selfie. Exhausted from long days of competition, she slept soundly. "I woke up in the morning, and my phone was exploding: messages, phone calls, and everyone going crazy. My family had already received death threats, which forced them to leave Iraq. Even the managers of the 'Miss Iraq' organization who sent me were receiving threats. I think it was the Iraqi Minister of Culture who told them they would take away their license if I didn't delete the picture."

The photo storm intensified when news sites worldwide reported on the event, and eventually, Idan was forced to publish a clarification. "I told them that if I delete it, people will think I'm a weak person who can't stand up for what I believe in. The compromise was that I would post another post with a statement they wrote for me, where I announced that I don't support the Israeli government's policy in the Middle East and that I support the Palestinian cause. Of course, I deleted that post a day after the competition. I hate being told what to believe."

The statement did not quell the storm. "Since then, a flood of death threats, hate messages, and conspiracies began. People started creating videos where they took pictures of me when I was in the American military with my name – Sarah – which is a common name in Iraq but also a Jewish name, and claimed that I was a Mossad agent born in Tel Aviv."

Q: There was a full circle moment a few years ago when you were photographed with your former boss, Yossi Cohen.

She laughs. "Social media went crazy. They were very angry about it."

 

  

Sarah Idan with former head of Mossad Yossi Cohen 

 

After the famous photo of Sarah and Adar at the Miss Universe pageant, Sarah's life underwent a sharp change: her family fled Iraq, her Iraqi citizenship was revoked, and she decided to officially become an activist against antisemitism.

"When they thought I was a Mossad agent, I dealt with crazy antisemitism and understood what you go through. They sent me messages with pictures of Hitler and wrote to me, 'It's a shame Hitler didn't finish you off' and that I'm a 'dirty Jew who came from monkeys and pigs.'"

Idan, a Muslim who grew up in Iraq, ironically experienced antisemitism. She could no longer stay silent and became a one-woman public relations machine, giving interviews to the media, attending events, and posting pro-Israel content for years.

Islam and I

Since the terrible morning of Black Saturday, the question "Where were you on October 7?" has become common among Israelis. But Idan also remembers exactly where she was and how she felt at those moments.

"I was at home when I received a phone call from my friend, Hillel (Silverman, niece of comedian Sarah Silverman), who called me from Israel. She was panicking and said to me, 'Sarah, oh my God, turn on the TV. I think we're under attack.' At first, I answered her indifferently, 'What's new? You're attacked every day.' But then I went on social media. Every video, every picture, caused me actual physical pain in my heart. I thought maybe something was wrong with my blood pressure. I couldn't watch anymore. I felt immense pressure in my head. The anger and sadness made me physically ill."

She channeled the emotions that welled up in her into what she does best: spreading the truth on social media. "I tried to share with the world what was happening and post content, mainly in Arabic, because Arab media was hiding what happened."

"They only showed videos of Hamas fighting IDF soldiers. They didn't show the young people massacred at Nova or the women who were raped, so I tried to show that to people. I wrote there, 'Look at the barbaric Hamas, see what they're doing.' And I was really shocked by their responses. They claimed it was a lie and denied it while it was happening."

Q: To this day they deny it – and not just in the Arab world, in the Western world too.

"I went to Cornell and Stanford universities. They had a tent there, and I wanted to understand what the hell was going on there, so I wore a hijab and went there. I pretended I was one of them and started talking to them in Arabic. It felt like their organization was a militia of ... you know, like the militias in Iraq. They have orders, and they follow orders. They're not regular students."

Q: Orders from whom?

"They're part of a larger organization, supported by entities like the Iranian regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, all of America's enemies. Who funds the universities? Qatar. That's why they allowed them to protest and set up tents on university grounds. If a university's board of directors gets its money directly from Qatar, aren't the protesters in the tents also getting their money from the same places?"

At some point during the war, Idan decided she had to visit Israel herself and see with her own eyes the horror that had occurred. This isn't the first time she's visited Israel, but the difference from her previous visits was enormous.

"The first time I came, people were carefree, especially in Tel Aviv. There was something in the atmosphere that reminded me of an island state. The second time it was just... the air was full of anxiety, sadness. The feeling was like when I was in Iraq during the war. It was really sad."

Q: Was there a specific moment that stayed with you?

Tears well up in her eyes as she begins to answer: "When I visited Kfar Aza, I saw a Quran that one of the Hamas members left behind, and then I saw a guy standing by the gate where Hamas entered, and he told me that his son was murdered right there. I looked at him and felt guilty."

"Of course, I'm not Hamas, and I hate Hamas, but I felt guilty and ashamed. These are my people, my religion. When I say my people, I mean Muslims. What they did in the name of religion... as an Arab, I'm ashamed. I hugged that guy at the gate of Kfar Aza and just cried with him."

Q: You're such a strong woman, and this is the first time I see you breaking down.

She pauses for a moment to wipe away the tears and drink some water. "It's hard for me that this is what my people did in the name of my religion. There's a lot of hate in the name of my religion."

Q: Were you surprised by Hamas's barbarity?

"I wasn't surprised at all. I've seen it already in Iraq, I know that's how they behave. I know how much they hate the Jewish people, and I know how barbaric they are. The difference is that if I once thought it was only radical Islamists who hate Jews, after October 7, I realized it's 90 percent of ordinary people."

"When I posted the video of the kidnapped woman with the blood-soaked pants (Naama Levy), one of the responses I got was from a woman who wished that Hamas would catch me too and turn me into a sex slave. I went to her profile and saw a picture of her with her husband and two little girls. And she's wishing for me to be a sex slave of Hamas."

"It's intense hatred for the Jewish people, stemming from the dehumanization that has been done to Jews in Arab countries for a long time. Muslims always refer to them as descendants of pigs and monkeys."

 

  

Sarah Idan with Michael Levy, brother of hostage Or Levy  

 

Politics and I

In the past year, she has been working full-time as an advocate for Israel worldwide and exposing the crimes committed by Hamas on October 7. When I ask her what grade she gives to Israeli public diplomacy, she laughs and politely answers: "Listen, they're trying to do their best, and they've definitely improved."

"They started looking at people like me and other activists and saying, 'Oh, we need to work with these people.' So I'll give them 70 as credit for the effort. Let's put it this way – the performance could be much better."

Q: You tried to run for the US Congress recently, and it didn't quite work out. Is politics still your goal?

"It's definitely still a goal, but I don't think it was the right time, maybe in the next elections. We'll see. I want my voice to reach as many people as possible and to be able to represent people with similar views to mine. Secular Muslims who don't want to fight Israel and don't want to support radical Islam. People who want to improve the world, improve Iraq, and protect freedom."

Q: Among all the battles you're fighting, is there time to enjoy?

"Rarely. I deal with this every day, all day. It's very intense, and it completely drains you. It leaves you exhausted, bitter, and sad. Sometimes, when it gets too heavy for me, I take a break and try to go do something I love, like playing the piano or just being with myself without the phone and without talking about politics."

Q: The cliché about beauty queens is that in their winning speech, they wish for world peace. Do you believe it's possible?

"I'm working on it. It's definitely possible, but I don't think it will happen during our lifetime. Maybe a thousand years from now."

GIG 'EM ISRAEL

Hamas says its leader in Lebanon killed in Israeli strike

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced that three of its operatives were killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut – Israeli FM tells counterparts that only implementing U.N. Resolution 1701 will stop military action against Hezbollah.

 

Israel Today 

Sep 30, 2024

 

 

Hamas has reported the death of its leader in Lebanon Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, along with his wife, son and daughter, after an Israeli airstrike hit their house in Tyre, Lebanon.

 

The Hamas terrorist organization said on Monday that its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Tyre area in the south of the country.

Several of his family members were also killed in the attack, according to the Gaza-based group.

Three PFLP terrorists killed in Beirut

 

 

Also on Monday, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announced that three of its terror operatives were killed in an Israel airstrike overnight Sunday in Beirut.

The strike targeted the upper floor of an apartment building in a residential neighborhood of the Kola district in the center of the Lebanese capital, according to Lebanese media reports.

It is believed to be the first such strike outside of Beirut’s Dahiyeh district since the current conflict with Hezbollah began. Another attack in the Hezbollah stronghold neighborhood was reported on Monday morning.

The PFLP, which is based in Gaza and Judea and Samaria, identified the targets of the attack as its military security chief Mohammad Abdel-Aal, military commander Imad Odeh and another member, Abdelrahman Abdel-Aal.

Israel has not confirmed its involvement in either the Hamas or PFLP strikes.

However, the IDF reported overnight that it was striking Hezbollah terror targets in the Bekaa area deep in Lebanese territory.

On Monday morning, the military announced the interception of a UAV that had entered Israel’s economic waters off the northern coast.

Also, the IDF said overnight that it had intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, triggering alarms in Ramot Naftali due to the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception.

On Monday morning, the Lebanese National News Agency reported a drone strike on a vehicle near the village of Arzon in the Tsur region. The Saudi Al-Hadath channel reported casualties.

PARADISE IS FILLING UP WITH HEZBOLLAH LEADERS ..... WILL THERE BE ENOUGH VIRGINS TO GO AROUND?

IAF strike kills senior Hezbollah security official in Beirut

Nabil Qaouk was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. 

 

JNS

Sep 29, 2024

 

Nabil Qaouk 

 

The Israel Defense Forces killed another senior Hezbollah commander on Saturday, a day after successfully targeting the terrorist army’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.

According to the military’s statement on Sunday, Air Force fighter jets killed Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah’s Preventive Security Unit and a member of the Iranian-backed group’s Central Council, in Beirut.

Qaouk was close to Hezbollah’s leadership and directly involved in promoting terrorist activities against Israeli citizens in recent days, the IDF said.

“Qaouk joined the organization in the 1980s and was considered a central source of knowledge in his field. In the past, he served as the Deputy Head of the Southern Region on behalf of the Executive Council, Head of the Southern Region, and Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council,” the IDF statement read.

“Qaouk frequently appeared in the media, representing Hezbollah before the Shi’ite population and expressing himself on political, military and strategic matters,” it continued.

Qaouk , 60, was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. 

The IDF said that it will continue to target Hezbollah commanders and anyone who acts against the State of Israel. In recent weeks and months, Israel has eliminated nearly Hezbollah’s entire “military” chain of command.

On Friday, Israeli fighter jets bombed Hezbollah’s headquarters in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Nasrallah and other senior terrorists, including Ali Karaki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan.

Israel is also actively working to prevent Iran from resupplying Hezbollah with munitions, including by on Sunday carrying out an airstrike near the western Syrian city of al-Qusayr, according to Arab reports. Al-Qusayr is located near the Lebanon border.

Meanwhile, the United States along with European and regional countries continue to push for a diplomatic resolution to the current round of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said during a Cabinet session on Sunday that diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire were still “underway,” Reuters reported.

“It is certain that the Lebanese government wants a ceasefire, and everyone knows that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu went to New York based on the premise of a ceasefire, but the decision was made to assassinate Nasrallah,” Makary said.

“Diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire are ongoing. The prime minister [Najib Mikati] is not falling short, but the matter is not that easy,” Makary added.

MAYBE THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY GEN Z GRADS CAN'T HOLD A JOB

The Palestinianization of American academia

Middle East studies professors who control the profession lead by example, demonstrating how they expect their students to think and write and behave. 

 

By A.J. Caschetta

 

JNS

Sep 30, 2024

 

 

 

UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian founded the most virulent of all the student protest groups—Students for Justice in Palestine. 

 

The 2023-24 academic year will be remembered for its inept university presidents, antisemitic college deans, fringe-left activist professors and gullible, pro-Hamas students. Collectively and individually, especially at the nation’s top schools, they have twisted to the breaking point the carefully curated reputations of their institutions. Across the nation, campus sympathy has shifted from the victims to the perpetrators of terrorism. College students are waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags, and chanting praise for Yahya Sinwar. Academia has become Palestinized.

To specialists who follow the problems of Middle East studies, the displays on college campuses after Oct. 7 were not surprising. But to the majority who do not follow the ins and outs of academic politics, watching college students and faculty members align themselves with political violence in the name of “resistance,” celebrate the murder of Israelis and call for a “global intifada” had many Americans questioning whether the results of a college education are worth the cost—and not just in dollars.

The academic brand

On one level, academic brands are merchandising tools—bumper stickers and clothing displaying school mascots and logos. More important is the intangible dimension of the academic brand—one part reputation, pointing to the past, and one part promise, pointing to the future. Universities with storied histories promise that their past success will be repeated with future success.

At the nation’s top schools, brands are focused on exclusivity. Only a small percentage of students can attend these elite institutions. If the people who run them don’t appear to be the smartest, most impressive and erudite people in the nation, then the brand suffers. Claudine Gay lost her job as president of Harvard because of the damage she did to the brand.

The brand killers: MESA & SJP

Academia could not have been Palestinized without Middle East studies programs and their leaders in the embattled Middle East Studies Association (MESA). Together, they are largely responsible for academia’s realignment against Israel and in favor of the Palestinian “resistance.” They are also responsible for much of last year’s academic brand deterioration. The more prominent the Middle East program at any given school, the greater the damage to that school’s reputation.

Since the 1980s, academia has been dominated by leftists, many of whom view the United States negatively and elevate America’s adversaries to heroic status. David Rapoport argues that, for the left, “When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Palestinian Liberation Organization replaced the Viet Cong as the heroic model.” For today’s campus radicals, Hamas has replaced the PLO as the heroic model.

Middle East studies professors have spent the last several decades supporting academic boycotts of Israel, excusing or downplaying Palestinian violence and “normalizing” Hamas. They have dedicated their energies and expertise to creating a language that justifies “resistance” against “settler-colonial empires.”

MESA and Middle Eastern studies professors who control the profession lead by example, demonstrating how they expect their students to think, write and behave. Too many accept political violence by Palestinians as a form of “social justice” and expect their easily influenced students to do likewise. After all, they also control how or if graduates have access to the job market.

In 1993, one of those professors, Hatem Bazian at the University of California, Berkeley, founded the most virulent of all the student protest groups—Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP is a leading vector of the antisemitism eroding academia. It published a “Toolkit for Resistance” on Oct. 8 that provided the template for the first wave of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests and continues to be the most significant instigator of campus unrest. Schools that have SJP chapters have protest problems. Most schools that don’t have one don’t have protest problems.

Schools that do not have an SJP chapter should do everything possible to prevent one from being established. Fordham University is the biggest winner in this category since it did not allow an SJP chapter to take root on its campus.

The Ivy League schools

In 2003, when a young anthropology professor at Columbia University named Nicholas DeGenova publicly declared his wish that U.S. troops headed to Iraq would face “a million Mogadishus,” the university distanced itself from him, and president Lee Bollinger expressed his “shock” over the comment. DeGenova no longer teaches at Columbia. But on Oct. 8, just one day after the horrific attack of Oct. 7, an old Middle East studies professor at Columbia named Joseph Massad perversely called Hamas’s rape, torture and infanticide as “astounding,” “striking,” “awesome” and “innovative,” as originally disclosed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The university and then-president Minouche Shafik defended him, citing his academic freedom. Massad still teaches at Columbia. Shafik resigned in August. A lot has changed there in two decades.

Because Ivy League schools represent the top brands in academia, they also have the most to lose. Partly because of its location, Columbia has become the epicenter of anti-Israel protests. Consequently, its brand degradation has captured a great deal of media attention. Not surprisingly, Columbia is also a leader in the Palestinization of academia. Its Center for Palestine Studies, founded in 2010, employs ideologues like Massad and Rashid Khalidi, the former PLO spokesman.

The Columbia brand suffered a damaging blow when Judge Matthew Solomson of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims announced in The Wall Street Journal that he and dozens of his colleagues would not hire law clerks from Columbia.

The new academic year began at Columbia with protests continuing, followed by news that the university had hired one of the pro-Hamas protesters (Johanna King-Slutsky) who took over Hamilton Hall in April, to teach a class on Western Civilization.

Brown University has also suffered self-inflicted brand erosion. Brown has been Palestinized almost as long as Columbia. In 2020, it endowed the first-ever chair for Palestinian studies at an American university, naming it the Mahmoud Darwish Chair, and installing a BDS supporter named Beshara Doumani. In 2021, Brown announced that Doumani was taking a two-year leave of absence to become president of Birzeit University near Ramallah.

Harvard was the first school to have its brand tarnished in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s massacre of civilians in southern Israel on Oct. 7. On Oct. 8, a group of 31 student organizations issued a joint statement blaming Israel for the attack. They gathered on campus to have their photo taken, which subsequently went “viral.” It was the first of several devastating blows Harvard’s brand suffered last year. Another came when hedge-fund billionaire and Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman announced that he would no longer hire graduates from his alma mater.

Not content with having suffered a disastrous fall 2023 semester, in January, Harvard announced a partnership with Birzeit University in Ramallah involving an “intensive summer course … designed to introduce students to the social, structural, political, and historical aspects that determine Palestinian health.”

The new academic year

Now that the 2024-25 academic year has begun, anti-Israel protests have resumed at some schools. Minus the tents, Columbia today looks like it did last year. Further brand erosion continues apace.

After enduring months of pro-Hamas encampments, Brown president Christina Paxon acquiesced to the undergraduate mob with a deal that brought temporary peace in return for entertaining student demands for divestment from Israel. Brown’s Advisory Committee on University Resources is scheduled to provide Paxon “with a recommendation on the matter of divestment” by Sept. 30. If Paxon doesn’t make more concessions, expect more trouble. If she does make more concessions, the troubles may be worse.

Like Brown, Harvard brought an end to its encampment problem by agreeing to discuss divestment from Israel. How long will that ceasefire last?

The administrations at these schools may think they have solved their problems, but by taking the demands of the students seriously, they have only emboldened them. Not only are these administrators failing to convince most people that they are the most capable and wise among us; they are failing to demonstrate that they are competent stewards of the brands they inherited.

How soon will it be until the majority concurs with William F. Buckley’s 1961 quip that he “would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Cambridge telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty?”

TOO BAD THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS WON'T BE CONDUCTED IN ISRAEL

JNS poll: Israeli public believes now is the time to attack Iran’s nuclear installations

Israelis also say the Biden administration seeks to undermine Israel’s war effort, support Trump over Harris by more than 50 points. 

 

Caroline B. Glick

 

JNS

Sep 30, 2024

 

 

 

Iran's Uranium Conversion Facility, just outside the city of Isfahan, around 254 miles south of the capital Tehran. 

  

Israelis are almost unanimous in their support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision not to coordinate the airstrike that targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with the Biden administration in advance of its commission, a new JNS poll conducted by Direct Polls show.

JNS asked, “According to reports, Israel did not coordinate with the United States in advance of it carrying out its operation to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah. Do you think it was the right decision or the wrong decision?

Eighty-three percent of respondents responded that it was the right decision. Nine percent felt it was the wrong decision. Eight percent did not know.

For the past several decades, Hezbollah ground forces and missile arsenal in Lebanon have deterred Israel from attacking Iran. Fearing that Iran would order Hezbollah to attack Israel with daily barrages of thousands of missiles and order its ground forces to invade the Galilee, Israel delayed acting directly against Iran’s nuclear and missile installations.

JNS asked the public whether Israel should now seize the momentum it has gained through its recent strikes on Hezbollah to attack Iran before the U.S. elections. Sixty-two percent of the public answered affirmatively. Twenty-six percent said that Israel should abstain from using its momentum to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities ahead of the U.S. elections. Twelve percent said they did not know.

Finally, JNS asked which candidate for U.S. president Israelis believe will be more sympathetic to Israel’s interests. Sixty-five percent of respondents said Republican candidate Donald Trump would be more sympathetic to Israel’s interests. Just 13% of Israelis believe that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris would be more supportive of Israel. Fifteen percent of respondents said that both would be equally sympathetic to Israeli interests and 7% said neither would be sympathetic to Israel’s interests.

 

Sixty-five percent of Israelis said Donald Trump would be more sympathetic to Israel’s interests than Kamala Harris

 

The results of the JNS poll align with results of one commissioned by Channel 14 and conducted last week by Direct Polls. That survey, carried out the day before Israel’s elimination of Nasrallah, asked the public whether they believed that the U.S. has weakened or strengthened Israel in its struggle to remove military threats to its national security from the south and the north of the country.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said the U.S. has weakened Israel. Thirty-five percent responded that the U.S. has strengthened Israel. Eight percent didn’t know.

The thrust of both polls indicate that Israelis believe that the Biden administration does not share or support Israel’s war goals and are concerned that the administration will use the lame-duck period between the Nov. 5 presidential election and the inauguration of the next president on Jan. 20, 2025, to undermine Israel’s capacity to win the war.

Direct Polls questioned a sample of 520 adults (aged 18 and older) representing Israel’s general population.

THANKS TO TREY RUSK FOR THE HEADS UP OF THIS ARTICLE

Hey Western leaders, this is war! You must kill your enemies

By Lee Smith

 

New York Post 

Sep. 29, 2024

 

 

 

Reprinted with permission from Tablet magazine:

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 US is no longer willing or able to win the wars it commits Americans to fight, the Joe Biden administration won’t let US allies win wars either.

By ordering the strike on Nasrallah while attending the UN 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 US 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 US 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.

Taking down officers demoralizes a force. Wiping out its chain of command cripples it. Hezbollah is a function of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and if allowed to survive the Lebanese militia will be replenished and trained by the IRGC to replace the fallen.

Nasrallah issued from a different source. He was the protégé of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Their tenures — until now — were roughly coterminous: Khamenei replaced the founder of the Islamic Republic Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 and chose Nasrallah to lead Hezbollah in 1992. The Iranians built around Nasrallah not only a network of proxies stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf but also a comprehensive worldview — permanent resistance. Killing him marks a defining moment capping the end of a 30-year reign of terror.

Israel’s campaign went into high gear on Sept. 17 with the detonation of Hezbollah’s communications devices, which Israeli intelligence had booby-trapped with explosives, decommissioning thousands of the terror organization’s medical and logistical support staff as well as fighters.

Because Hezbollah’s communications infrastructure, as well as its supply chain, was compromised, senior officials were forced to meet in person. Consequently, Israel was able to liquidate senior operations commander Ibrahim Aqil — who took part in the 1983 attacks on the US embassy and Marine Barracks in Lebanon — and other top commanders from the elite Radwan force in a strike in the southern suburb of Beirut on Sept. 20.

In attacks on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon, Israel has killed hundreds of fighters and destroyed thousands of long- and medium-range missiles and launchers. With Nasrallah and virtually all of its senior command dead, Hezbollah has been decapitated.

Israel’s immediate goal is to get the 60,000 Israelis who have been displaced from the north since Oct. 7 back into their homes. Therefore, say Israeli officials, Hezbollah forces must be driven north of the Litani river, roughly 20 miles away from the border.

The Biden administration says the Israelis can’t reach their goals through force and the only way forward is through diplomacy. In fact, the harder Israel struck Hezbollah, specifically showcasing its ability to eliminate its leadership, the more desperate the White House became to end IDF operations.

The Biden team took advantage of the UN General Assembly to work with France on a statement calling for a 21-day ceasefire that would shut down Israel’s campaign and protect Nasrallah.

Even if Israel weren’t proving the White House wrong hourly about its ability to win its goals on the ground, the fact is that US diplomatic assurances regarding Hezbollah are worthless.

US officials brought an end to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war with UN Security Council Resolution 1701. It stipulated that there were to be no armed personnel or weapons south of the Litani, other than those of the Lebanese government and the UN peacekeeping force. 

The resolution was a farce, as Hezbollah’s presence and capabilities in south Lebanon have only grown in the two decades since it was passed. Obviously, there is no chance the Lebanese government will ever take action against Hezbollah, which controls the government. Nor will the US, France, or any other power enforce UNSCR 1701 — except to endorse the Lebanese demand for an end to Israeli overflights and indulge Beirut’s border claims.

For Israel, the even bigger problem with 1701 is that since 2006, Hezbollah has become capable of launching missiles from virtually anywhere in Lebanon, as well as Syria, to reach every part of Israel.

Pushing Hezbollah off the border would make it harder for the militia to mount a cross-border invasion like Oct. 7, but it would still leave all of Israel under threat from its long- and mid-range missiles. Reports Friday that the Israelis will continue to conduct strikes on the southern suburbs indicate that Jerusalem knows the core issue isn’t on the border but is rather in Beirut, Hezbollah’s capital.

Netanyahu was aware that if he meant to do more than just degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities until it regrouped and resupplied, he had only a small window of time.

The Biden White House had done everything in its power to stop Israel’s campaign against Hamas, like withholding ordnance that would have spared Israel risking the lives of its combat troops, while also openly opposing an Israeli campaign in Lebanon. Therefore, it was 11 months before Netanyahu could turn north. But since the delay coincided with unprecedented developments in the US domestic arena — a president retired from active duty and a vice president campaigning for the top spot by hiding from the press — the Israelis seized the opportunity to lay siege to Hezbollah while the Oval Office was effectively vacant.

Unsurprisingly, Israel’s success against Hezbollah the last two weeks alarmed the former Obama officials staffing the current administration. After all, Obama’s strategy to realign US interests with Iran was predicated on the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which put Iran’s nuclear weapons program under the umbrella of an international agreement guaranteed by the United States.

The Iranians armed Hezbollah with missiles in order to deter Israeli action against their nuclear facilities, which is to say that the Lebanese militia serves not only Iranian interests but also those of the Obama faction.

The Biden team tried to stop Netanyahu from continuing his Hezbollah campaign by outlining how it intends to punish Israel in the period between the November election and the January inauguration with sanctions and other anti-Israel measures. But by telegraphing its intentions, the White House inadvertently incentivized Netanyahu to act quickly. 

Since a Harris victory ensures four to eight more years of a White House filled by Obama aides determined to protect the Iranians and their proxies, and a Donald Trump win means Biden’s punitive actions go away, Israel saw it had nothing to lose in either case.

So on Friday, Netanyahu brought the era of permanent resistance to an end by killing the cult leader the Obama faction so desperately wanted to but could not keep alive.

In the past, Israeli officials warned against targeting the terror chief. They feared it might bring about an even more ruthless leader just as Israel’s 1992 assassination of then-Hezbollah chief Abbas al-Mussawi elevated, in their eyes, the more effective Nasrallah.

But what made Nasrallah special, what gave rise to the personality cult around the man whose name means “victory of God,” was his relationship with Khamenei.

In 1989, Nasrallah left Lebanon for Iran, where the 29-year-old cleric was introduced to Khamenei. In the vacuum left by Khomeini’s death, Khamenei was working to consolidate his power, which included taking control of Hezbollah, Tehran’s most significant external asset. He saw Mussawi’s assassination as an opening to put his own man in place, and with Hezbollah’s operations against Israeli forces in Lebanon, Nasrallah’s legend steadily grew.

Even Israeli officials credited Hezbollah for driving Israel out of the south in 2000, a singular triumph worthy of the name Nasrallah, a victory against the hated Zionists that no other Arab leader could claim.

But the myth of Nasrallah as Turban Napoleon was dispelled with the disastrous 2006 war which he stumbled into by kidnapping two Israel soldiers. Later he said that had he known Israel was going to respond so forcefully, he’d never have given the order.

And yet despite the thousands killed in Lebanon, Hezbollahis and civilians, and the billions of dollars worth of damage, he claimed that Hezbollah won just because he survived. Before his demise, he’d been in hiding since 2006.

Israel’s recent demonstrations of its technological prowess show that Nasrallah survived this long thanks only to the sufferance of the Jerusalem government. Netanyahu and others seem to have hoped the Hezbollah problem would resolve itself once the Americans came to their senses and recognized the threat Iran posed to US regional hegemony.

But the Israelis misread the strategic implications of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The George W. Bush administration’s freedom agenda gave Iraq’s Shia majority an insuperable advantage in popular elections. And since virtually all the Shia factions were controlled by Iran, democratizing Iraq laid the foundations for Iran’s regional empire as well as Obama’s realignment strategy, downgrading relations with traditional US allies like Israel and building ties with the anti-American regime.

Even Trump, whose January 2020 targeted killing of Iranian terror chief Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi deputy Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was far and away the most meaningful operation ever conducted by US forces on Iraqi soil, couldn’t entirely break the mold cast by his predecessors and which the Pentagon protected like a priceless jewel.

US forces are still based in Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS and any other Sunnis the Iranians and their allies categorize as threats to their interests. The detail seems almost like a medieval curse imposed on the losing side in a war. After the Iranians killed and maimed thousands of US troops in Iraq, and helped kill and wound thousands more by urging their Syrian ally Bashar Assad to usher Sunni fighters from the Damascus airport to the Iraqi front, America’s best and bravest are condemned to eternal bondage requiring them to protect Iranian interests forever.

The idea advanced by conspiracy theorists from the US political and media establishment on the left as well as the right that Netanyahu is trying to drag the US into a larger regional war with Iran — a thesis sure to be cited repeatedly in the aftermath of Nasrallah’s assassination — is absurd.

The Obama faction, of which Biden and Harris are a part, is in Iran’s corner. Moreover, only a fool could be blind to the fact that the Pentagon way of war, three decades into the 21st century and a world away from the United States’ last conclusive victory, means death for all who pursue it.

If Washington and the Europeans are appalled by Israel’s campaign over the last two weeks, it’s because the Israelis have resurfaced the ugly truth that no modish theories of war, international organizations, or even American presidents could long obscure.

Wars are won by killing the enemy, above all, those who inspire their people to kill yours. Killing Nasrallah not only anchors Israel’s victory in Lebanon but reestablishes the old paradigm for any Western leaders who take seriously their duty to protect their countrymen and civilization: Kill your enemies.