–They have mostly avoided open clashes, but their ongoing campaigns have been punctuated by high-profile attacks and assassinations.

After the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, tensions between Washington and Tehran have steadily risen.

For leaders in Israel — one of the US’s closest partners and Iran’s biggest foes — those tensions have confirmed their misgivings about the deal and about Iran, and they’ve gone on the warpath.

Iran has worked on nuclear technology for decades. The US has long suspected Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as cover for developing weapons. That suspicion is also held by the Israelis, who have been ensnared in a potentially existential struggle with Tehran since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

A nuclear weapon, or the ability to produce one quickly, would offer Tehran some much-needed security against its real and perceived adversaries. But Iran has vowed to destroy Israel, and Israel fears a nuclear weapon would allow Tehran to back up its provocative talk.
While much of that talk may be for propaganda purposes, Iran has shown the lengths it will go and pain it will endure in order to attack US, Western, and Israeli targets directly or through proxies, giving some weight to its nuclear threats.

To counter that threat, Israeli military and intelligence services have conducted a shadowy covert-action campaign of espionage, sabotage, and assassinations against Iran’s nuclear facilities and the people running them.

Israel has also shown that it will go to great lengths to ensure its security, and Tel Aviv is willing to pursue other, more dramatic courses of action in response to threats from Iran.

“We have a duty to be brave and responsible for the fate of our children and grandchildren. We have used force against our enemies in the past, and we are convinced that in extreme situations, there is a need to act using military means,” Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Alon Schuster said in a recent interview.

Indeed, Israel has long followed a no-holds-barred strategy in which the threat justifies the means. Its shadowy campaign against the Iranian nuclear programs uses complementary diplomatic, military, and intelligence tactics.

While Israel’s military has been heavily involved in that campaign, Mossad, Israel’s main intelligence service, has landed many of the blows against Iran itself.

According to a recent report by The Jewish Chronicle, which didn’t name or describe its sources, Mossad successfully infiltrated the Iranian supply chain and used the opportunity to sell Tehran faulty materials that caused fires at the Natanz nuclear-enrichment facility in July 2020.

The report also said Israeli intelligence officers recruited Iranian nuclear scientists who conducted sabotage at Natanz in April 2021 before being smuggled out of the country. Mossad is said to have used an unmanned aerial vehicle to attack the Iran Centrifuge Technology Company, a factory making centrifuges crucial for producing weapons-grade uranium.

Facilities are easier to replace than expert knowledge, and Mossad has also gone after the hard-to-acquire know-how necessary for a nuclear-weapons capability by killing Iranian scientists working on the nuclear program.

Attacks against Iranian scientists have become more brazen. The November 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, reportedly with a remote-controlled machine gun using advanced artificial-intelligence technology, on a highway in Iran is something straight out of a Hollywood movie.

Israel’s manhunting effort likely draws on experience going back to Israel’s creation in 1948. In the years that followed, Israelis hunted down numerous ex-Nazis, including Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. Following the 1972 killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists, Mossad conducted a similar campaign.

But Tel Aviv understands that this is a stalling tactic that can only frustrate Tehran’s efforts and not permanently undo the work its done in pursuit of nuclear technology.

In addition to those clandestine actions, the Israeli Defense Forces has been preparing and presenting Israeli policymakers with military options to take out targets associated with Iran’s nuclear program. This is standard planning for any military, and the IDF has received nearly $3 billion in additional funds to do it.

Israel would also have to take into account second- and third-order effects of such strikes, such as how Iranian proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, would react. Those groups, based in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, respectively, would be more likely to try to attack Israel.

Israeli officials are lobbying other countries to take a stronger stance against Iran while refraining from directly discussing what actions they’ve taken.

“We hope the whole world will be mobilized for the mission. For that, we’ve allocated a significant sum to increase our readiness. What hit Natanz? I can’t say,” Schuster, the deputy defense minister, said last month.

As Iran remains committed to its nuclear program, Israel is sure to continue its shadowy campaign against Tehran.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/attack-inside-iran-nuclear-facility-latest-in-battle-with-israel-2022-1

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IDF Spokesman Hedi Zilberman                IDF Spokesperson’s Unit

IDF Spokesperson Hedi Zilberman on Wednesday morning summarized the events of the last 24 hours, saying, “Several months before the elimination [of Islamic Jihad senior leader Baha Abu Al Ata], Israel made many attempts to prevent Abu Al Ata from continuing on his path, including my conversation with outside parties. This was unsuccessful and yesterday he was eliminated.”

The IDF believes that the Islamic Jihad intends to continue the rocket fire on Wednesday morning in a fashion similar to Tuesday’s, and is likely preparing for several days of fighting according to the number of rockets in its possession.

Zilberman added that Hamas has not been involved in the rocket fire so far and all casualties are from the Islamic Jihad organization, of which 10 members were killed.

He said that another Iron Dome anti-missile system was completed on Tuesday and the defense system has been improved according to the situation.

In a joint decision, it has been decided to try and get the school systems back on track as much as possible and there are various attempts to reach a ceasefire.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/271580

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The head of IDF Northern Command, Amir Baram, speaks at a memorial ceremony for the 2006 Second Lebanon War, on June 11, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

The head of the IDF Northern Command on Tuesday threatened overt and covert action against the Hezbollah terror group and its home country of Lebanon, in response to its efforts to build up terrorist infrastructure along the border, in the latest of increasingly bellicose statements by senior military officers against the Iran-backed Lebanese militia.

Maj. Gen. Amir Baram accused Hezbollah of violating United Nations resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, by “building infrastructure in the villages right here across [the border] and trying to threaten us with attack forces.”

The Northern Command chief said that in a future war against the terror group the country of Lebanon was likely to “pay a heavy price” for allowing Hezbollah to take root there.

“Hezbollah’s loyalty was and remains to the supreme leader of Iran, not to the citizens of Lebanon. As a direct result of this, the nation of Lebanon will pay a heavy price in the next campaign for cooperating with Shiite terror,” Baram said, referring to the sect of Islam practiced by Hezbollah and Iran.

Baram made his remarks at a memorial ceremony commemorating the 13th anniversary of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. His comments come days after the head of Military Intelligence boasted that Israel knew more about Hezbollah’s rocket program than its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, did.

Israeli soldiers cover their ears as they fire artillery shells at southern Lebanon from outside Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel during the Second Lebanon War on July 22, 2006. (Pierre Terdjman/Flash90)

“The 13 years that have passed since the Second Lebanon War and the security stability that it brought to the region are the best evidence of the deterrence created by the war,” he said.

UN resolution 1701 called for all armed groups besides the Lebanese military to remain above the country’s Litani River. Israel maintains that Hezbollah is in constant violation of this, keeping a significant percentage of its 100,000-strong arsenal of rockets and mortar shells in southern Lebanon, as well as conducting patrols and other military activities along the border.

In late 2018 and early 2019, Israel uncovered at least six cross-border attack tunnels dug by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon into Israel. According to the army, Hezbollah had planned to use the tunnels to kidnap or kill civilians or soldiers, and to seize a slice of Israeli territory in the event of any hostilities. The peacekeeping force UNIFIL confirmed these to be a violation of resolution 1701, but did not identify Hezbollah as the group responsible for their excavation.

“Israel will not allow [Hezbollah] to fulfill its plans and the destructive ambitions that it and its patron Iran have,” Baram said.

Hezbollah supporters take part in a rally to mark al-Quds day in Beirut, Lebanon, May 31, 2019. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

“We will continue to thwart Hezbollah’s efforts to threaten our security both overtly and covertly, as necessary. And if a war is forced upon, we will exact a heavy price from this organization and from those who provide it cover — wherever is necessary,” he said.

The Israeli military considers the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group to be one of its most significant foes, with a rocket arsenal larger than many countries’ and ample combat experience from its years fighting in the Syrian civil war on behalf of dictator Bashar Assad.

Analysts anticipate that a future war with Hezbollah would be devastating for both Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah’s massive arsenal of rockets and mortar shells could overwhelm the Israeli military’s air defenses, likely leading to large numbers of Israeli casualties, and the terror group’s practice of fighting from within heavily populated areas would also likely result in massive Lebanese civilian casualties.

Israel has fought two wars in Lebanon, one in 1982 against Palestinian terrorist groups, and another in 2006 against Hezbollah, as well as a number of smaller operations.

Though seen as volatile, the border has not seen significant fighting since the end of the 2006 war.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-general-warns-lebanon-will-pay-heavy-price-for-working-with-hezbollah/

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Israel is poised for war with Iran.  Photographer: JIM WATSON/AFP

A powerful American fleet is now steaming toward Iranian waters. The U.S. has publicly deployed nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and Patriot anti-missile batteries on the territory of American allies near Iran. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is making a short-notice visit to Brussels to talk about Iran.

Israel is paying keen attention to these developments. If there is war, Israel will become part of the battlefield.

That is something Israel hopes to avoid. The first Gulf War happened almost 30 years ago, but memories are still fresh. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein fired more than 40 SCUD missiles at Israeli cities. One of them landed on a jewelry store a few hundred yards from my front door.

While only a handful of Israelis were killed or wounded — the SCUDs were not, as feared, armed with chemical warheads — the attacks were a traumatic experience. Schools were closed for a month. Businesses shut down as people stayed close to their “safe rooms.” Many elderly Holocaust survivors were stricken with panic.

At the time, there was a public outcry for retaliation. But the U.S. government refused to give Israel permission to attack missile sites in western Iraq. President George H. W. Bush had built a wartime coalition that included Arab allies. Israel was still a regional pariah. Bush didn’t want to break up his alliance.

Many things have changed since then. The Israeli Defense Forces have installed one of the world’s best anti-missile systems. Sunni Arab nations that once spurned an alliance with Israel are now tacit partners in the fight against Iran. And the American president rightly sees Israel as a strategic asset in any coming war.

War now is not inevitable, of course. Donald Trump is less bellicose than his recent predecessors, and less predictable. His military build-up and tough demands — a new and much stronger nuclear treaty, the end to Iranian sponsorship of terrorism and the transformation of the Iranian revolutionary regime into what Pompeo calls, “a normal government” — may be just gunboat diplomacy. Trump has signaled something of the kind by publicly inviting the Ayatollah to give him a call.

If there is war, Israel will be a battlefield, as the Iranian Parliament’s vice-speaker Ali Motahari seemed to confirm on Sunday.

“The U.S. military forces’ deployment in the Persian Gulf is more in the nature of psychological warfare. They are not ready for a war, especially when Israel is within our range,” Motahari said, according to the FARS news agency.

One of the reasons the IDF pressed so hard for a cease fire in Gaza last week is that it is concentrating its attention on its northern border. Iran has supplied a vast missile arsenal to its proxy army in anticipation. If U.S. bombs fall on Tehran, Hezbollah can be counted on to open a second front by rocketing Israeli cities. Israeli military leaders have warned that civilians will be main casualties.

Should this come about, Israel will respond with ferocity, not only against Hezbollah but Lebanon itself. Israel will strike Iranian targets in Syria, too, most likely in coordination with Russia.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like Trump, is far less bellicose than his image. Yes, he has made a career of opposing Iran. There were times when he contemplated a strike on the mullahs’ nuclear program, and more recently he has waged a mostly bloodless air campaign against Iranian efforts to arm Hezbollah (and, lately, Islamic Jihad in Gaza) with sophisticated missiles.

But, counter-intuitively, Bibi does not really want to see America go to a shooting war right now, for at least three good reasons.

First, the U.S. doesn’t have a good record of success with Middle East interventions. The military operation is no problem. Iran, for all its boasting, is far from being a great power. Trump would win the war, but he could very well lose the after party, as George W. Bush did in Iraq.

Iranian spokesmen are already intimating that Israel and its supporters are trying to push America into a war. Netanyahu doesn’t want to be a fall guy.

Second, regime change in Iran is not entirely a good thing. Shared enmity toward Iran has enabled the Jewish state to achieve one of its most important diplomatic goals — inclusion in the Arab neighborhood. As long as the mullahs are in power, the Sunni-Israel alliance will be strong. It is perhaps better from Israel’s point of view to have a weakened Islamic regime in Tehran.

This has become a more attractive option due to the unanticipated power of U.S. economic sanctions. The mullahs have seen that the great powers who signed the 2015 nuclear deal will not come to their rescue in case of war, and will not lift a finger to protect the agreement or help Iran economically.

Given time and patience, the Iranians may well conclude that accepting Trump’s conditions — a new treaty that includes an open-ended, verifiable ban on Iran’s nuclear aspirations and ballistic missile program, as well as an end to Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism — is the unavoidable price of self-preservation. That would be a win for America, and a relief to Israel.

To contact the author of this story:
Zev Chafets at zchafets@gmail.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.net

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-13/war-with-iran-would-embroil-israel-too

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In the last three years, Iran has solidified its control over much of Iraq, threatening the balance of power in the region and building a land bridge to Jordan. The United States facilitated this dangerous combination by first removing Iran’s key opponent in 2003, Saddam Hussein – of which now-National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the key neocon architects – and then in 2015 eliminating sanctions on Iran in order to facilitate the ill-advised Iran Nuclear Deal, named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

President George W. Bush’s neocons who sought democracy in Iraq failed to strategically wargame the second-order impacts of removing the other criminal on the street corner with Iran, Hussein. The obvious result of a weakened Iraqi military coupled with a Shi’a government has manifested itself in strengthened Iranian influence and presence throughout Iraq and Syria.

USS LINCOLN STRIKE GROUP DEPLOYED TO SEND IRAN ‘CLEAR AND UNMISTAKABLE’ MESSAGE, BOLTON SAYS

Instead of countering the growing threat and reading the strategic miscalculation in Iraq for what it was, the Obama administration exacerbated the situation by normalizing Iran’s terror ties and regional ambitions, as well as their hatred of the U.S. and Israel. Obama and Secretary of State Kerry peddled Iran’s terrorist appendages of Hamas and Hezbollah as social groups and ignored Iran’s longstanding designation as a state sponsor of terror. Obama’s naivete coupled with that of sycophants in then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, led to the disastrous Iran nuclear deal that pumped the brutal Persian regime flush with cash.

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“The soul of Hitler that dragged the world into a disaster has revived among some of Israel’s rulers,” Erdogan told Turkish lawmakers.

The attack was the latest denunciation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government by Erdogan, president of a NATO country who has sought to position himself as an international Muslim leader and routinely denounces Israel. Netanyahu mocked Erdogan’s charges by noting the Turkish leader’s authoritarian lurch.

“Erdogan is massacring Syrians and Kurds and has jailed tens of thousands of his citizens,” Netanyahu tweeted. “Turkey, under Erdogan’s rule, is becoming a dark dictatorship whereas Israel scrupulously maintains equal rights for all its citizens, both before and after introducing this law.”

Erdogan also revived his calls for an international pressure campaign against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, in the midst of clashes following the death of an Israeli soldier last week.

“I call on the Islamic world, Christian world, all democratic and liberal states, nongovernmental organizations and members of the media to move against Israel,” Erdogan said, according to the Daily Sabah.

“The real grievous thing is that the world has come to ignore the thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel and the Palestinians who have been injured. But almost everybody has taken action for a single Israeli soldier who has lost his life.”

That’s an apparent reference to an Israeli Defense Forces sergeant who was killed by a sniper in Gaza; the Israeli military retaliated by striking 60 Hamas targets.

“The IDF’s targets included weapon manufacturing sites, an entrance to a tunnel network, a factory used to produce materials for underground infrastructure, a UAV warehouse, military operations rooms, training facilities, and observation posts,” according to the IDF.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/soul-of-hitler-is-now-in-israel-turkeys-president-warns

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