By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2024-10-30 20:28:08 | Updated at 2024-10-31 15:20:52
19 hours ago
Wed Oct 30, 2024 - 3:43 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — Reports from Israel and from Western analysts combine shocking casualty rates for Israel – and the loss of military superiority for Israel and the U.S. in the region.
Yesterday the Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid broke censorship protocol to declare Israel has suffered over 10,000 casualties since October 7.
In an angry outburst on Israeli television, Lapid – who served as Israeli prime minister in 2022, said “890 killed, 11,000 wounded – these are the facts,” warning that deaths and casualties will continue to mount if Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “doesn’t do anything.”
Reports from Israel on its losses are restricted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) censor. An enraged Lapid said of the censorship of the true human cost of the war: “There is a limit to how much we will relate to ‘alternative truths.’”
During an interview with Israeli channel 12, opposition leader Yair Lapid said that "Eleven thousand soldiers were injured and 890 others killed," since 7 October 2023, underscoring that the number of dead and injured soldiers in the Israeli army will continue to increase if the… pic.twitter.com/nquUDZlw3Q
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) October 29, 2024
The claims were repeated by former Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman, who told Israeli news outlet Ynet that “we lost close to 800 soldiers in the battles, we have close to 11,000 wounded. Religious Zionists fight like lions, paying a huge and unreasonable price for heroism and sacrifice.”
Lieberman was arguing that the exemption from military service for “ultra-Orthodox” Jews was an “evasion law,” demanding, “No more exemptions. Everyone must enlist.”
The Moldovan-born Lieberman, who formerly said “there are no innocents in Gaza” and has warned Israel’s reoccupation of Lebanon may “last 50 years,” is the leader of Israel’s secular nationalist Israel Betenyu party.
Israel ‘will not exist in 2026’
Lieberman also warned in July of the psychological toll on Israeli soldiers and civilians in its war in Gaza, saying they were “plagued by nightmares” as democracy and the economy faced “collapse.” Lieberman warned:
“Children and adults, soldiers, and reservists are suffering from nightmares about what has happened and what might happen. The Israeli economy is collapsing, and Israeli diplomacy is eroding.”
In a statement reported on July 12, Lieberman charged that Netanyahu is “leading Israel into destruction,” and that if his coalition remains in charge, “Israel will not exist in 2026.”
At the same time, Lieberman blamed the Netanyahu government for the October 7 attack by Hamas, echoing a charge also made by Lapid. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also called for an inquiry, saying “the government of Israel and the high command of the IDF have caused a huge and unimaginable failure in allowing October 7 to happen.”
Greater Israel?
The reports from Israel of mounting casualties and a growing domestic political and economic crisis confirm the views of former MI6 officer and diplomat Alastair Crooke.
In November 2023, Crooke told Judge Andrew Napolitano that Israel’s ambition was to control Lebanon to the Litani River.
This foreshadows Lieberman’s prediction three months later, in January 2024, of the aim of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, which was launched on October 1.
As the Times of Israel reported on January 1, Lieberman stated Israel will occupy southern Lebanon – “even if it means 50 years of occupation.” Lieberman said, “Everything between the Litani and Israel must be under the control of the IDF.”
“If Lebanon won’t pay in territory, we haven’t done anything.”
Crooke has consistently argued that not only are Israel’s wars mired in failure and mounting losses, but that the plan is not to defeat terrorism – but to annex more territory.
This includes Gaza, the West Bank, and parts of Lebanon. As Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told French television weeks ago, the plan for a “Greater Israel” to include parts of Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon is derived from Jewish tradition.
“Our great religious elders used to say that the future of Jerusalem was to extend as far as Damascus,” he said, naming the capital of Syria as part of a future Israel.
READ: Israeli minister brags about disturbing plan of conquering the Middle East
This is the grand plan of the Netanyahu government and of its opposition leadership. Yet news from Israel’s wars show the plan is not going as intended.
U.S. no longer #1
In a new interview on Judge Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom,” Crooke says that Israel’s latest strike on Iran faltered after the first wave. As Israel failed to destroy Iranian air defenses, “the second and third waves didn’t happen.”
Heralded as a “limited but highly successful strike” by Israeli news, Crooke said Israeli claims of success were “just hype. It’s not true.”
Crooke pointed out that Israeli aircraft could not penetrate Iranian airspace, turning back 70 kilometers from the Iranian border.
Crooke suggests that this capability is due to a shift in regional military power.
“If Russia has indeed lent Iran an anti-stealth missile system which secures airspace … it has huge ramifications for the whole Western model of defense,” he said.
Israel and the U.S. no longer enjoy a technological superiority, Crooke is saying. Having “aborted” their mission in defeat, Crooke says it is impossible for Israel to admit a limitation which also applies to any U.S. forces in a future war with Iran.
“This is why the Israelis had to go over to the victory narrative. They couldn’t say otherwise,” he said.
To admit defeat is to admit the Iranians and the Russians have the advantage.
Peace, or nuclear war
In Lebanon, Crooke says reports show Israel is suffering a “huge, huge defeat,” with its elite Golani units “decimated.”
“The whole strategy versus Iran is coming undone,” he surmised, saying the Israeli assessment leads to ceasefire – or nuclear war. Israeli generals have been calling for a negotiated settlement, claims Crooke, who explained their thinking as follows:
“If we can’t hit Iran and we can’t suppress its air defenses, then the only way we could attack Iran is nuclear. And that would mean nuclear war. So, this is an inflection point.”
Crooke is saying that, in reality, the entire strategy of dominating Iran has failed, and with it the “war without limits” prosecuted by Israel within and outside its own borders. Crooke warns, however, that reality has had no effect on the Israeli media war.
“Yet at the same time Israel is full of delusional talk about how now we have to build on the success with Iran – and prepare for the next stages when America will come and support us … to destroy Iran,” he said.
Yet Crooke maintains the message has been received by the Israeli leadership. He said that the video of Netanyahu and IDF chief Yoav Gallant from the bunker ordering the strikes showed their faces “contorted with depression.”
Crooke warns that with the Atlantic Council publishing a “map for a war with Iran over the next four years,” the “military revolution which has changed the whole balance of power” in modern warfare has not been recognized in the U.S.
What this means for the U.S. is that Israel will become “a boondoggle.”
“We are going to have to spend a lot of money building up Israel in terms of its military capacities. [Netanyahu] will go along for the money – and it’ll become just a boondoggle – like Ukraine has become,” Crooke said.
Ritter: IDF ‘pounded to a standstill’
Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter also believes that Israel’s strike on Iran was limited by the same means, saying “none of those aircraft” sent by Israel to bomb Iran in a second wave “came close to penetrating Iranian airspace.”
Ritter says that Israeli forces have been “pounded to a standstill” by Hezbollah in Lebanon, their losses resulting in minimal gains on the ground.
“[The Israeli army was] supposed to be 20 kilometers deep by now inside southern Lebanon.” said Ritter. “They’ve penetrated a couple hundred meters in areas. They haven’t taken over a major town yet – and they continue to be ambushed.”
Ritter’s view of a shambolic Israeli military operation contrasts with the view from the Netanyahu government, which is, as Crooke pointed out in recent days, keen to project an image of “success after success.”
Crooke has said previously that though its waves of assassination have been successful in escalating conflict with Iran and with Lebanon, the killings do not have any military value on the ground for Israel, beyond stoking wars which it seems incapable of winning alone. Now, it appears that even if the U.S. should join, the only means of avoiding defeat would be to destroy the world in a nuclear war.
If Crooke’s analysis is correct, it is not only the IDF censor which is producing an “alternative truth,” but also the military-industrial complex in the U.S. itself. With no plan beyond “boondoggle” or Armageddon, how long can this business model continue?
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