By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2024-10-30 21:53:01 | Updated at 2024-10-31 19:21:15
22 hours ago
Wed Oct 30, 2024 - 4:58 pm EDTWed Oct 30, 2024 - 4:59 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — Israel launched its latest attack on Iran on Saturday, October 26, at around 2:15 am local time. The strikes were described in the Times of Israel as “highly successful though limited,” with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi saying, “We have the ability to do much more.”
The Times of Israel report went on to claim “Israel has indicated it has no wish for further escalation” – as its wars escalate in Lebanon and in northern Gaza.
However, there are major contradictions to the Israeli narrative from other sources.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor commented that the current Israel-U.S. disposition towards all-out war threatens a terrifying outcome: “This ruthless war of extermination is going to be confronted by deadly force.”
Four Iranian soldiers were reportedly killed in the Israeli attack on Iran, with Iranian Press TV maintaining the strikes caused only limited damage, and that Iranian air defenses “intercepted most Israeli missiles.”
READ: Israeli casualties mounting as wars in Gaza and Lebanon continue to rage
The BBC reported that Iranian authorities said “sites in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces were targeted,” and that Iran’s air defenses had “successfully intercepted” the attacks, but that “some areas sustained limited damage.”
U.S. national security council spokesman Sean Savett called the strikes, which came in several waves over six hours, an “exercise of self-defense.” Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, told reporters on Sunday, October 27, “Of course we maintain the importance of supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Harris also stressed this was a moment for “de-escalation” in the region.
Reports in the pro-Israel Wall Street Journal and in the New York Times supported claims that Iran’s air defenses had been “taken out,” suggesting that this attack is “laying the groundwork” for an all-out war – or de-escalation.
That is the view of the Times of Israel, which said on Sunday that “the ‘limited’ strikes allow for de-escalation and leave Iran vulnerable.”
Only the U.S. and Israel ‘want war’
Who is interested in de-escalation? According to former Pentagon adviser Col. Douglas Macgregor, the only nations who want a war in the region are Israel – and the United States.
“This ruthless war of extermination is going to be confronted soon.” pic.twitter.com/hdhwMz2x7D
— Our Country Our Choice (@OCOCReport) October 27, 2024
Macgregor urges Americans to pay attention to the impact of Israel’s war in Lebanon on NATO member Turkey, as well as mounting attacks on U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq.
“The Turks have made it clear that the catastrophic destruction of Lebanon is not something they are going to stand by and tolerate,” he said.
Turkey has the largest military force in NATO outside that of the U.S. Turkish leadership of the Ottoman Empire has left a legacy of obligation, some argue, for the Turks to intervene and preserve the existence of its former provinces in the Ottoman Empire – such as Lebanon and even Palestine itself.
On October 1, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was reported as saying, “Whatever it does, Israel will be stopped sooner or later,” vowing “we will never leave our Lebanese brothers on their own in these difficult days and will support them with all our means.”
The previous day, Erdogan told the United Nations it should “recommend the use of force” to halt Israel.
READ: Theologian explains why religious Zionism is ‘heresy,’ the Church is the ‘true Israel’
Macgregor said these regional tensions are at boiling point, which could spark a war involving the U.S., Russia, and “perhaps the entire Middle East.”
“We are on the march to a regional war which has the potential to go global,” he warned.
Macgregor spoke as Israel’s strikes on Lebanon continued to intensify, with “a mounting death toll” creating “pressure” on the Israeli government, according to Haaretz. The U.S. mission to secure peace in Lebanon, led by Israeli-born former IDF officer Amos Hochstein, has produced “zero results.”
The same report from October 28 notes that this “zero” excludes the 3,000 dead Lebanese and “over 1.4 million displaced – including 500,000 children” as a result of Israel’s war.
Meanwhile the IDF continues to destroy evacuated historic villages in southern Lebanon.
Israel destroys more ancient villages across southern #Lebanon
Towns and villages across Lebanon faced devastating destruction when Israel blew up whole neighbourhoods using controlled explosions. The adjacent villages of Odaisseh and Kfar Kila, which lie very close to the Blue… pic.twitter.com/S9NMGL2L9t
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) October 28, 2024
Colonel Macgregor remarked that Israel’s objective here was not to win a war, but to clear the neighboring region of its inhabitants, then claim the abandoned territory and “settle it with Jews.”
If this sounds far-fetched, an Israeli settler group published maps earlier in the year, showing the sites of future Zionist settlements in what is now southern Lebanon.
The Movement for Settlement in Southern Lebanon published this map, featuring "The new Hebrew names for the settlements of Southern Lebanon" based on the current names of the Lebanese towns and villages. https://t.co/QmyW5XEbxZ pic.twitter.com/359Yoynex1
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) September 24, 2024
The removal of the population from southern Lebanon was promised by former IDF head General Moshe Dayan in 1971.
In April 1974, Moshe Dayan threatened he wont allow anyone to live in South Lebanon.
Today, over a 100,000 from the Northern settlements are displaced. pic.twitter.com/vkn3LgvlRG
— Shiaphobia Sticker (@ShiaphobiaLB) February 4, 2024
A report last month by Jewish journalist Oren Ziv confirmed that plans were being made and indeed carried out to displace all Palestinians from northern Gaza and southern Lebanon.
“Settler” leader Daniella Weiss addressed a meeting of hundreds, including senior members of the ruling Likud party, to lay out the plan “to cleanse the area for Jewish settlement.”
Speaking in English, Weiss first laid out the objective in general: “The IDF will put an end to Hamas and Hezbollah, and at the same time we will continue with our plan to settle in the area.”
Her remarks support the so-called “Generals’ Plan” – announced on Israeli national news on September 4.
The plan, announced by Major General (res.) Giora Eiland of the IDF, is to shut off all of northern Gaza and starve out the population.
According to Israel’s Channel Seven report, “The entire area north of the Netzarim Corridor, i.e. Gaza City with all its neighborhoods, would become a closed military area in which the entire population, estimated by the army to be 250,000 people, would be required to leave immediately.”
The operation is now underway. Reports from northern Gaza claim 100,000 people are now at risk of starvation. This appears to be going to plan, as Channel 7 set out in September:
“After a week in which the population will be given the opportunity to evacuate, a full military siege would be imposed on the area, leaving the terrorists in Gaza City with the choice – to surrender or die.”
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers later in September that he was considering the plan. Two weeks ago, on October 12, the BBC posted a message from a retired Israeli general which appeared to confirm the plan was underway. Then on October 22, the Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu and his government had approved the Generals’ Plan.
READ: Israel is leading the US into World War III, geopolitical experts warn
“Former National Security Council deputy director Eran Etzion says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet secretly passed a decision to implement the so-called General’s Plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas terrorists,” the report said.
In reality, the large majority of persons in the region are civilians who have lived there for many decades, if not centuries. Israel refers to all civilians in regions it is determined to colonize as “terrorists” in order to justify its violent actions.
The report explains that the crisis now unfolding was intentional.
“If implemented, the highly controversial plan could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes after being ordered to flee by the IDF.”
Etzion, who served Netanyahu as a national security adviser, was blunt in his assessment.
“This plan is a war crime,” he said, pointing out the Israelis were warned that executing this plan would see the U.S. halt arms supplies to Israel.
Yet Netanyahu went ahead, says Etzion. “This was done after the American administration announced in writing, in an unprecedented letter from the secretary of state and defense secretary, that the implementation of this plan or moves similar to it would result in an American arms embargo on Israel.”
How will Harris or Biden respond – if at all – to this news, and the news that the Generals’ Plan is part of a wider strategy to “cleanse” the region of non-Jews to make way for Zionist “settlers”?
‘Cleansing’ southern Lebanon
“Settler” leader Daniella Weiss explained there was more to this plan than northern Gaza.
“We are also talking about Lebanon, but it takes time to physically prepare people for the move. We will fill the areas that will be liberated with Jewish communities,” she said.
This is the meaning of “settlements” – the removal of the inhabitants by force to make way for the new owners.
Israel’s ‘war of extermination’ has begun
In northern Gaza, reports warn the entire population is being targeted in what Macgregor calls “Israel’s war of extermination.” With the UN warning that the siege of northern Gaza brings the “darkest moment yet” in Israel’s war, reports claim the population is “starving to death” en masse, with Reuters reporting “100,000 Palestinians” face death.
Though the civilian death toll is mounting in Gaza and in Lebanon, neither campaign resembles a military success.
Protests emerged on Sunday, October 27, in Tel Aviv, with demonstrators demanding “Stop the Genocide.”
The Netanyahu government is beset by charges of corruption, which involve Netanyahu himself and his Zionist-extremist minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Haaretz reports the Israeli attorney general is poised to demand Ben-Gvir’s removal. The charges are serious, stating that Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu are destroying Israel’s democracy by “turning the police into an executive arm of his Otzma Yehudit party – and of the prime minister.”
This effectively makes Israel “a dictatorship in the making,” writes Gidi Weitz. His report follows one two weeks ago which charges that Israel is on the brink of a civil war – which was only postponed, and not averted by, its assaults on Gaza and on Lebanon.
The picture emerging from the region is one of crisis. As the world awaits Iran’s response, Israel is led by a government whose leader proposed naming this expanding conflict the “war of revival.”
It seems only a wider war can revive Netanyahu’s chances. If this revival comes, the total cost to Israel, to the Palestinians, and to the Lebanese – and to the wider world – remains to be seen.
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