Mar 09 2008
Tehran Training Hamas Forces Now Attacking Israel, Prelude To War?
Iran has spent the last two years training Hamas forces to make their attacks against Israel more effective and deadly:
The Hamas commander, however, confirmed for the first time that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been training its men in Tehran for more than two years and is currently honing the skills of 150 fighters.
The details he gave suggested that, if anything, Shin Bet has underestimated the extent of Iran’s influence on Hamas’s increasingly sophisticated tactics and weaponry.
Speaking on the record but withholding his identity as a target of Israeli forces, the commander, who has a sparse moustache and oiled black hair, said Hamas had been sending fighters to Iran for training in both field tactics and weapons technology since Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza strip of Palestinian territory in 2005. Others go to Syria for more basic training.
“We have sent seven ‘courses’ of our fighters to Iran,†he said. “During each course, the group receives training that he will use to increase our capacity to fight.â€
The most promising members of each group stay longer for an advanced course and return as trainers themselves, he said.
So far, 150 members of Qassam have passed through training in Tehran, where they study for between 45 days and six months at a closed military base under the command of the elite Revolutionary Guard force.
Combined with Iran’s attacks on US forces and interests in Iraq (here and here) one wonders when the West will realize it is in open warfare with Iran – whether Iran decide to declare it as such or not.
This is how Hitler started World War II – by taking actions against neighbors with surrogates but refusing to call it a ‘war’. This was the period Neville Chamberlain famously came home to the UK with a peace agreement, which was shattered not long after as World War II began in earnest.
There is no reason not to suspect Iran and its allies in the region are not attempting the same stealth start to a regional war so they can make as much progress as possible before full up fighting breaks out. They have promised Israel would be wiped off the planet quite soon for well over a year now. I don’t think they are blustering or bluffing.
AJ
They trained and armed Hezbollah in Lebanon and have been upping the training and equipment level for Hamas. Look for an attempt at a two front war against Israel this summer if they can pull it off.
Hamas is gradually being supplied with better rockets, since the ones they have now are so short range and inaccurate that they are more harassment than a danger like the newer ones being smuggled in.
This fight isn’t going away, and the ‘peace process’ every President seems to want to try to follow is a fools errand unless they break the ties feeding the two proxy fighters and starve them on the vine.
Merlin,
Peace is not a fool’s errand. What the world needs is for the Palestinians to wake up and realize being cannon fodder has very little future in it.
Beyond increasing sanctions on Iran and Syria (which we have been ratcheting up for months now) what do you propose?
I expect for Israel to wipe out Gaza, men, woman and children, when they wake up and realize it’s me or them. They can do it with their air force. When the humanitarians complain, Israel will give the Jew haters the middle finger.
Beyond increasing sanctions on Iran and Syria (which we have been ratcheting up for months now) what do you propose?
I expect the United States to butt out and let Israel destroy Gaza.
Peace is not a fool’s errand. What the world needs is for the Palestinians to wake up and realize being cannon fodder has very little future in it.
“Peace” with the Palestinians is a fool’s errand. What more evidence does anyone need about the intentions of those vile deranged people?
There will never be peace. Never.
I think that we all knew this kind of thing is going on. As Merlin notes Iran has been helping Hezbellah for years and years.
I think the whole point to dealing with Abbas is to help isolate Hamas even more. This is not to say that Abbas is a great humanitarian or anything, but if we can exploit divisions among the Palestinians that can only damage their ability to wage war on Israel.
The peace process is going to go on whether people like it or not, because the alternative is never ending war without any hope at all. I do not think that outside forces can enforce a peace in the Middle East, but they can offer a way for Palestinians to break from the past when and if they get sick of this constant fighting.
However, it seems their society is dysfunctional. I also think that even Europe is getting tired of the whole thing. It does not seem to me that the Palestinian cause is as romantic to them as it once was.
I do not agree that there will never be peace. Never say never. We simply do not know what the future holds.
The problem with just “destroying” Gaza is that the Israelis go in and kill a hundred or so people and it does not even slow down the rockets into Israel. Israel pretty well flattened southern Lebanon and it did not seem to put much of a dent into Hezbellah. Israel has had to fight so many wars for so many years and yet these people are still here. It is not a question of the US butting out. Israel is exactly where she has been for years and years. It is not the fault of the United States that Israel is in this part of the world dealing with this intractable and fanatical enemy.
In fact the United States is without a doubt the best friend Israel has and if it had been left to the Europeans and her neighbors Israel would have been wiped out a long time ago.
Kathie:
There are about a million people in Gaza, do you really think that the Israelis can or will kill them all?
In fact if this poll is to believed, the Isrealis are getting tired of all this {and who can blame them}:
Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks.
The figures were obtained in a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted Tuesday under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University.
According to the findings, Israelis are fed up with seven years of Qassam rockets falling on Sderot and the communities near Gaza, as well as the fact that Shalit has been held captive for more than a year and a half.
An increasing number of public figures, including senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces’ reserves, have expressed similar positions on talks with Hamas.
It now appears that this opinion is gaining traction in the wider public, which until recently vehemently rejected such negotiations.
The survey also showed that Likud voters are much more moderate than their Knesset representatives. About half (48 percent) support talks with Hamas.
Terrye……..when it’s you or me things tend to get out of hand. At some point Hezabolah and Hamas will over play their hand and bombard Israel from both the North and South. Then what is Israel to do, take one person out at a time? Iran has promised to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and that is where they are heading. I don’t know how many people they will have to kill to save their country, but I’m pretty sure they will try to save Israel.
Carpet bombing or bulldozing all of the Gaza Strip is the only answer.
The entire area of the Gaza Strip is one-half the city limits of Chicago.
It could be over in ONE DAY.
Terrye,
“I do not agree that there will never be peace. Never say never. We simply do not know what the future holds.”
No, but we do know what history shows. It’s time all of the “peace” fanatics learn from it. No one, other than evil tyrants and their minions want war but unfortunately war is often the only way to achieve peace in some situations. For Israel, this is one of those times.
If the Israelis think “talks” with their enemies will stop the rockets and bring Shalit home, they must be dumber than our own democrats.
I wonder at the Israelis. They seem to have gone left. Do they have no notion of survival? You cannot talk to these Palestinians. After all, it has been sixty years since Israel was created and the Palestinians still have what they call refugee camps. The hatred is too rampant for peace talks to do any good. How many presidents have tried? Every one for the last sixty years. The Palestinians want what they want and that want is to destroy Israel. Nothing else will suffice. These people are totally stupid. I realized that when they destroyed all the greenhouses the Israelis built and then thety complained thay had no food. Of course not when they destroyed the source.
The Jews are supposed to be so smart. Why do they vote democrat? This is a party that is so anti semitic. It’s like people never learn. They are like lemmings headed for the sea.
Barbra: Something really profound has hapenned to Israel. It’s Knesset is corrupt, it’s political parties are only in it for themselves.. No one is looking out for the country that is in power.
Here’s more evidence of Bush incompetence. The Palestinian Authority (who we are funding and giving weapons to and forcing Israel to work with) is instructing its youth to hate the United States. We’re paying for it.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125485
Fatah Leader, School Books Supports Terrorism Against US in Iraq
PA Text Books Call For Fighting Americans and British in Iraq
“Palestinian support for those fighting American and British soldiers in Iraq is mainstream Palestinian ideology,” Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus says. One example given is a recently published PA textbook for schoolchildren, Contemporary Problems (grade 12, p. 92), in which fighting between the Islamic-Arab world and the West is described as a “Clash of Civilizations.” The book frequently expains that the clash is led by the United States and Iraq, PMW reports.
Fighting against American and British soldiers in Iraq is “brave resistance to liberate Iraq” from “occupation” according to the Grade 12 textboom “History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century.” (p. 147)
“Islam is said to promote Human Rights (Contemporary Problems, pp. 95-96), while the US and the West are described as ‘the colonialist states, [who] are taking advantage of it [human rights]’ and ‘interfering in the matters of other states, as is happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur…’ (ibid, p. 101) America is guilty of ‘violations of international humanitarian law in Iraq and Afghanistan…’ (ibid, p. 108)
According to PMW, the PA schoolbooks were published with foreign money, primarily from Belgium.
The following is a translated passage from the new 12th grade Palestinian history book:
“The President of the United States, George Bush Jr [sic], gave the Iraqi president in 2003 an ultimatum of 48 hours to leave Iraq, or face a war to disarm him. The Arab League rejected this ultimatum. The U.S. and Britain [forces]… stormed Iraqi cities with the participation of military forces from different countries and Baghdad fell. The Iraqis did not surrender to this occupation but succeeded in organizing themselves, and a brave resistance to liberate Iraq began.” [History of the Arabs and the World in the 20th Century, grade 12, p. 147, published 2006]
The roadmap to peace requires a lot of Abrams tanks screaming down it.
This cries for attention……but, the world sleeps on.
There is also a strange story out there about increased activity with ships stopping in Syria before coming to the US. Wonder if something related is up with that?
I suspect Gaza is “bait”. Gaza can cause trouble but it is not
an existential threat to Israel. Mossad released their “NIE”
yesterday and they are saying that Iran WILL HAVE nuclear
armed missiles at the very latest two years from now.
Israel isn’t going to let that happen, and Iran knows it.
Think preemptive strike (by Iran on Israel).
The surrounding countries, by which I mean Syria,
Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Iran probably feel they have
enough lethal firepower if they use the chemical and biological
weapons they both possess to wipe out Israel in a massive
all out attack.
But they must be unsure whether or not Israel would retaliate
with nuclear, and I’m guessing it probably would. But at the very
least, Iran wants Israel to start the war so that international
opinion would swing towards the Arabs. Thus Gaza.
The purpose of Hamas in Gaza is to goad Israel into a massive
re-occupation thrust, and everything else happens from there.
The Israelis know that and haven’t taken the bait.
A decision point comes the day after our elections in November,
if McCain wins, Israel may hold back a while, if Obama wins,
it’s attack immediately (President Bush is still CIC for a few more
months).
For now, wiping out Gaza plays straight into Iran’s hands.