The Judge and Alastair Crooke and region update

Alastair Crooke – Israel’s War Without Limits.

Please note the Judge asks Hezbollah questions. This is fine, but it leaves one with a partial view on what is happening in the region. My quick assessment this morning is after the video.

Will this war ever turn into a neat war, with protagonists neatly lined up going at it as we think a war should be? No and never. This is a different kind of war. Israel is doing its normal thing, trying to ‘shock ‘n awe’, with an air bombing campaign, aimed at mostly civilians in order to break the spirit of the resistance. It is not working in Gaza and it won’t work now. They bomb with everything, even with pagers. Lebanon is aware of that and they understand what happened and is happening in Gaza. They know that this is the wet dream of the occupation to create another Gaza. This is all that the occupation knows, the NATO type of warfare.

The region however is not a NATO force and not made up of NATO forces. They fight a different war. While occupier Israel bombs Potemkin villages, Lebanon/Hezbollah bombs and missiles systematically military installations and to a much greater degree now, illegal settlements, i.e., value targets.

While Israel wants to force a new negotiation (where all the previous failed), Israel is following a carrot and a stick methodology. The region will not fall for the carrot, but they will aim absolutely and without hesitating at the stick. Crooke tells in the video of what the Israeli war objective is. They’ve lost already, but as we have learned lately, a war that is lost does not stop because bigger forces are following a principle of perpetual war.

What the Judge probably did not know to ask, or what he is unaware of, is that Iraq for example threw something like 500 drones at various targets in the past 24 hours. All of the resistance groupings are fighting at anything in Gaza. The kill rate of Israelis is filtering out and it is too much for their community to absorb. They are not used to being shot back at. They thought they were up and above any retaliation and their Iron Dome and David’s Sling will protect them.

Hezbollah has not even started in full.

Over the past 24 hours Hezbollah attacked:

– Bombing the Northern Corps headquarters in the “Ein Zeitim” base with dozens of missiles.
– Bombing the military industries complexes of the “Rafael” company in the “Zevulon” area north of Haifa with dozens of missiles (they are keeping on this and will take it out).
– Bombing the “Ramat David” base and airport with dozens of missiles. (Most important Israeli air facility)
– Bombing the main warehouses of the Northern Region in the “Nimra” base with dozens of missiles.
– The Haifa port has been attacked, but I have not seen results from there.

And Netanyahu today from his bunker: “We destroyed thousands of missiles and rockets that was aimed at Israeli cities and Israeli citizens.” which Alistair says is bunkum they are bombing trees and Potemkin villages and others like Marandi says they are bombing for the sake of bombing … the casualty rate supports that. At the moment the illegal settlers in Israel are running to airports, schools are closed in Israel (the south as well) and nobody can go anywhere if they are not very close to a shelter.

It looks like a siege on Israel.

And in reserve is The Houthis. They are literally begging for Israel to cross the blue line on foot. They are bloodthirsty and combat ready and fresh, and cannot wait to be let in on the ground.

So what about the long term? It is very similar (because it is the same war) as Ukraine. Israel will beg for weapons from their brothers the US, Germany will continue to provide, and while I don’t expect Iran to enter, they will provide everything that the resistance factions require and advise and take part on that basis. Longer term? I expect more internal Israeli destabilization. Netanyahu is on his last legs, and like teflon holding out for Trump to win the US elections. (That is, if we see a normal US election). Israel is desperately trying to get out of Gaza, because there is nothing any longer, no war objective that they can reach. In other words Hamas won that war although today it is still heart-breaking!

I vision a small Israeli country, back to its 1967 borders, and the Palestinians fully integrated into the world community as a state with all their rights. A rebuilding of Gaza will take place. I also expect something else. Who saw that Iran is having a week of a weapons expo and taking a quick look, it may be that Israel’s war in the skies will very soon have major pushback to deal with. But, for this we wait a little bit longer.

And the very latest, on the perpetual war front:

Pentagon (lying finks!):

– The Israelis sent us signals about their intention to launch operations in Lebanon, but without providing details.

– Possible outbreak of a wider regional conflict in light of tensions and escalation between Israel and Hezbollah.

– We are sending a small number of troops to the Middle East in light of current tensions.

Right, they did not know is now becoming the ubiquitous excuse.  In the meantime:

Israeli Security Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that he discussed the regional situation with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as well as the IOF’s upcoming operations against Hezbollah.

“Spoke yesterday [Sunday] evening with US Secretary of Defense following my visit to the IDF’s Northern Command. Provided the Secretary with a situation assessment of Hezbollah threats and briefed him on IDF operations to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to launch attacks against Israeli civilians,” Gallant said on X.

They did not know that the Pentagon spokesperson will let this cat out of the bag.  From what is said to be a ‘small number of troops’, we are now at military reinforcement:

Pentagon spox. Patrick Ryder: Military reinforcement will be sent to Middle East in light of escalating tensions.

What else can tell you that Israel is in quicksand?

With the massive Israeli bombing on Lebanon this morning,  For the first time since 2006, Hezbollah missiles targeted the heart of Haifa in occupied Palestine.  300,000 Israeli settlers have rushed to shelters.

We now have a war that has fully started.