Another Potential Middle Eastern War Front

Citizens of Lebanon, beware. Arieh Eldad has it out for you. After the scandal-ridden government of Ehud Olmert falls, probably within the next few weeks, a new government, likely led by Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, will attack Lebanon. “We have no choice. We will have to do it,” Eldad tells the neocon website, NewsMax. “Dr. Eldad explained that Israel was facing a new strategic threat, caused in part by its own failure to deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the impression of weakness last summer’s failed war created in the minds of Israel’s enemies.”

In fact, short of killing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, there is no way for Israel to “deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah,” as more than half of the population supports the Islamic organization, created in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Since Israel will certainly face defeat on the ground in Lebanon, as it did last summer, the only option will be to shock and awe the country into submission.

But it is simply not Hezbollah. “The Hezbollah template for attacking Israel is being repeated in Gaza, Dr. Eldad said. ‘Hamas is building bunkers. They are bringing missiles across the Egyptian border, and the Egyptian government is failing to prevent it. So I hope the next Israeli government will be courageous enough to carry out these operations before it is too late.’” Swap “courageous” for “psychotic” and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Eldad and Moledet have in mind for the grandmothers and toddlers of Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Arie Eldad, a member of the “right-wing” (that is to say, fascist) Moledet political party, heads the Ethics committee of the Knesset. Of course, when we talk about ethics here, we are talking about a brand of “moral principles” alien to the West and Christianity. According to Eldad, sanctions of the sort to be levied against Iran are based on Western logic. “But when states have missions that are bigger than life, they are not obeying the basic rules of logic that Western civilization obeys.”

And what is are these “missions that are bigger than life”?

Ethnic cleansing. Moledet advocates the “voluntary transfer” of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank and Gaza. A few years ago, Moledet bought space on billboards around Tel Aviv, calling for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. “Only transfer will bring peace,” read the billboards. Imagine this tactic repeated here in the United States. “Only sending the Blacks back to Africa will reduce crime.” It does not take an overactive imagination to envision the response. But in Israel this sort of behavior is normal, even considered mainstream politics.

Think about it this month, as you get ready to fill out your tax forms. “Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today’s population, that is more than $5,700 per person,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.”

This “military assistance” translates into “770 cluster-bomb sites” in southern Lebanon, according to the United Nations. “And the current U.N. estimate is that Israel dropped between 2 million and 3 million bomblets on Lebanon, of which up to a million have yet to explode,” according to Saree Makdisi of UCLA’s International Institute. It also translates into 3,020 Palestinians killed since 2000, the wanton destruction of the Palestinian health and educational infrastructure, widespread and growing poverty and unemployment, environmental degradation, and a large and increasing number of Palestinians interned in prisons, well over 650,000 since 1967. Concern over such things, of course, is an artifact of “Western logic,” as a large number of Israelis consider Palestinians little more than “drugged cockroaches in a bottle,” as Rafael Eitan, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, characterized them.

Eldad soon moved on to Iran. “Eldad is not suggesting economic or diplomatic ‘engagement,’ as the State Department might use the term. He is talking about having Israel’s military take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites if the Western nations refuse to do the job…. Iran is behaving on a state level as a suicide bomber behaves on the personal level, Dr. Eldad said…. Eventually, military action against Iran will become necessary.”

In other words, if AIPAC and the neocons cannot once again trick the American people into attacking Iran, as they tricked them into attacking Iraq in the name of Israel, the IDF will do it. Of course, this is nonsense, Israel will not go it alone against Iran. In fact, Eldad is simply spewing more rhetoric, as Israel has long expected the United States to attack and slaughter its enemies. If the invasion of Lebanon last summer demonstrated anything, it is that Hezbollah can hold its own and Israel is impotent to change the situation “on the ground,” in essence a result of its own unwavering policies of aggression, be it by way of direct military confrontation or black flag operations.

“Like most Israeli leaders, Dr. Eldad would prefer that the United States and its partners take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites, if for no other reason than the vastly superior conventional firepower the U.S. could bring to bear.”

Israel has plenty of “superior conventional firepower,” courtesy of the American tax payer, never mind what its leaders tell the media. Point is here, Israel expects the United States to pay for—in squandered treasure and sacrificed lives—its long-standing effort to balkanize Arab and Muslim states, beginning most recently with Iraq and continuing with Iran.

“Because Iran has built its nuclear plants in deeply buried, hardened facilities, it will be difficult if not impossible.”

Translation: simple high-explosives, depleted uranium, and millions of cluster bombs will no longer do the trick—it is time to nuke the Arabs and Muslims, as “Western logic,” i.e., use of nuclear weapons is unconscionable, does not apply.

“If Israel is left alone and the point of no return [in Iran’s nuclear weapons program] arrives, then Israel will have to do the job. But most probably we will not be able to do it with conventional warheads. And this is something the world should know.”