Justified, essential and timely

[barb162]

Sat., July 29, 2006
Justified, essential and timely

By Avraham Tal

Buthaina Shaaban, the Syrian minister of expatriates and a close adviser to president Bashar Assad, said last week that his country would not tolerate a situation in which Damascus would be in the range of Israeli artillery. She warned that Syria would take action if the Israel Defense Forces deployed within 20 kilometers of the Syrian border.

While Damascus is not prepared to countenance the presence of another country's artillery so close to its border, even though that country poses no threat to its security, Israel is supposed to make peace with 13,000 rockets and missiles threatening half of its territory and with the fact that this threat is coming from a terrorist organization that controls Lebanon and which takes orders from no one - except the dark regime in Iran, which seeks to wipe Israel off the map. And some Israelis wanted this situation to perpetuate itself.

Why did Hezbollah invest so much time and energy in creating a network of rockets and missiles that is the densest in the world (at least in terms of weaponry per square kilometer) After all, its leaders knew that Israel would never threaten Lebanon, and would never cross the Blue Line, the international border that both Israel and the world recognizes, unless provoked by Hezbollah.


One explanation is that this network was intended to deter Israel from intervening should Iran, busy developing its nuclear capability, be threatened. Another explanation: this is the basic phase that will prepare the stage for an offensive attack on Israel, supported by Iran, that is intended to liquidate the Jewish state - what its enemies call the "Zionist entity."


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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743763.html

[Recursion]

1. Despite the tough talk, that's actually Syria hanging Hezbollah out to dry

Syria made very clear what it would not accept: Israeli forces being in a position where they could shell Damascus.

That does not preclude an occupation of southern Lebanon. Barring any new statement from Damascus, Syria has sold out Hezbollah, presumably on the grounds that it sees no gain in fighting Iran's war for it. And now Hezbollah gets to know how the Palestinians have felt for about 60 years: used as a symbol and veiled threat by a foreign patron, then betrayed and abandoned when the fit hit the shan.