SURPRISE! SURPRISE! HIZBULLAH IS LEBANON
Any Heavy Weapons Lebanon GETS Hizbullah GETS
Russia and America give weapons to use against Israel
What a strange, strange world is closing Age of the Gentiles!
Israel Loses Its Nerve After Hizbullah War And U.S. Withdrawing
Hizbullah Reinforced In The North And Gaza Reinforced in The South
And Israel And America Have Learned How to Fight Vigorously By Mouth
Middle East war is on its way and the Western World is now turned Passive
December 21. 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
US-Russian race to arm Lebanon with heavy weapons
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
December 20, 2008, 5:02 PM (GMT+02:00)
First 10 Cobras reach Lebanon
The United States and Russia are bidding hard against each other to give the Lebanese army heavy weapons, a contest which Israeli diplomacy has failed to deter, DEBKAfile’ s military
sources report.
Defense ministry official Amos Gilead arrived in Moscow Friday, Dec.
19 only to watch his train leaving the station: Sophisticated Russian S-300 air defense systems were already speeding toward Tehran to guard its nuclear sites and MiG-29 fighter jets had been pledged to Lebanon.
In Washington, too, Israeli diplomats pleaded in vain with Bush administration leaders to refrain from giving Lebanon tanks and a fleet of combat helicopters. Ten Cobras have led the way.
They argued that there are no safeguards against American hardware falling into the hands of the Lebanese terrorist Hizballah, whose leaders vowed again Friday to destroy the Jewish state by launching a regional conflagration.
The spillover has a precedent: In the Israel-Hizballah war of 2006, the Lebanese army, then only lightly armed, let the Shiite terrorists fire missiles at Israel’s Mediterranean naval ships from its coastal radar positions.
Next time round, Israel faces a far tougher, upgraded arsenal of anti-air missiles made in Iran and Russia -supplied in the last two years by Tehran and Damascus, plus the new influx of US-made tanks and helicopters.
Israel’s strategic standing has thus been allowed to drop another notch thanks to the spineless incompetence of Israel’s current leaders: Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak.
David Hale of the state department announced the US package for Lebanon Friday, Dec. 19, while denying Washington was competing with Moscow after the Russians gave Beirut a gift of 10 MiG fighters. After meeting Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora in Beirut, Hale said that, in addition to M-50 Supersherman tanks, the US package under preparation included “air support capabilities (helicopters) with precision weapons and urban combat gear.” He did not go into numbers or types of weaponry.
The US was helping the Lebanese army “to maintain internal security and fighting terrorism in Lebanon,” Hale said.
On Dec. 12, DEBKAfile reported exclusively that al Qaeda had relocated some of its Iraq terror force to Lebanon and that UNIFIL’s peacemakers had been placed on the alert in the southern Sidon-Ain Hilwa region where the incoming jihadis were preparing attacks for Lebanon and across the border into Israel as well.
American official visits to Beirut have become more frequent in recent weeks.
In late November, the head of the US Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, held talks with Lebanese leaders, followed on Dec.
10, by the coordinator of anti-terror operations at the state department, Dell Dailey.
The last arrival, Hale, may choose to play down the competition with Moscow, but DEBKAfile’s military sources see American and Russian military instructors working cheek by jowl to teach the Lebanese army how to use their respective weapons, especially air defense tactics. Close competition in these circumstances is bound to lead to the piling on of advanced hardware offers by the contestants. The big American military mission in Beirut at the moment will no doubt be followed by a Russian delegation of comparable size.
Washington has not prevented Moscow from building up a rival military presence in Lebanon capital, a development in which Israel has a high security stake.
Whereas Russia’s strategic orbit focused earlier on new naval bases in Syria’s Mediterranean ports of Latakia and Tartous, it has since stretched to a military foothold 250 km to the south, right up to Israel’s back door from Lebanon.
While the tanks America is giving Lebanon are ageing models, Israeli military experts comment that they form the nucleus of the Lebanese army’s first tank corps, along with its first helicopters – two valuable resources coming within the Hizballah’s grasp and in whose use Iranian officers will quickly instruct them.
DEBKAfile also reveals that a group of Hizballah operatives recently paid a secret visit to Moscow and asked for Russian hardware. The Russians did not respond. But by supplying the Lebanese army with heavy equipment along with experts and instructors, it has opened the way for these assets to be diverted to the Shiite terrorists.
Jerusalem is too busy spinning fairy tales about the feasibility of peace with Syria to pay proper attention to the hectic, hostile activity on Israel’s northern border.
Begin Excerpt from Haaretz
Shin Bet chief: Hamas rockets can hit outskirts of Be’er Sheva
By Barak Ravid, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents
December 21, 2008
Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin said Sunday that Hamas is capable of firing rockets that can strike targets as distant from Gaza as the outskirts of the Negev capital of Be’er Sheva.
He told a meeting of the cabinet that rockets could also hit Kiryat Gat and Ashdod, cities which thus far were seen as beyond range. Hamas’ armed wing used the last six months of relative calm to improve its medium and long-range rockets and mortars, he said.
“We believe that if we strike at significant assets, they will respond with longer-range fire,” Diskin said.
Hamas officials, meanwhile, are not ruling out a renewal of suicide bombings in Israel. Ayman Taha, a Hamas representative in Gaza, told Haaretz that under the current conditions, no cease-fire is in effect whatsoever. “Rocket fire is in the hands of the military wing. It will decide how to react,” he said. “Resistance must continue in every way and by every means, as long as the occupation continues.”
In the course of the cabinet meeting, a number of ministers took Defense Minister Ehud Barak to task for what they termed the failure of his policy of relative restraint in the face of continued rocket fire into Israel from Gaza.
Barak told the cabinet that if Israel wants to retake the Strip, a broad offensive would be needed. But he said that there was no magic formula by which, in one blow, quiet would be restored and Hamas taken apart.
According to Diskin, Hamas has lifted its reins from other armed organizations, and had resumed firing on its own.
“Make no mistake, Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.
It wants us to lift the siege [on Hamas-ruled Gaza], stop [IDF] attacks, and extend the truce to include Judea and Samaria [the West Bank],” Diskin said.
The is no effective mediator between Israel and the Palestinian side, he said. The Egyptians are sitting on the fence, and there’s a lack of trust between Hamas and Egypt, he continued, adding that were Hamas to find itself in a situation in which it needed Egyptian mediation, the Egyptians will again be players.
Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile Special Report
Israeli government again backs down as Gaza missile war boils over
DEBKAfile Special Report
December 21, 2008, 2:47 PM (GMT+02:00)
No military action to stamp out the Palestinian missile blitz against southwestern Israel will be undertaken before “international support” is organized and an attempt to renew the “ceasefire” with Hamas is undertaken.
This was the gist of the Israeli cabinet Sunday morning, Dec. 21, after Palestinian terrorists fired eight missiles and mortar shells at Israeli civilian locations, continuing the blitz launched before and after Hamas ended its six-month “truce” Friday.
Israeli helicopters struck three missile teams preparing to fire near the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. But the missiles kept coming – 17 by midday.
The ministers pushing hard for harsh military action gave way to prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak’s decision to continue the foot-dragging. Neither was perturbed by being accused of letting Hamas and its terrorist partners get away almost scot-free with waging a cross-border war against a large Israeli civilian population.
Cold shouldered by Olmert and Barak, foreign minister Tzipi Livni announced that if she were elected prime minister her government would wipe out the Hamas regime in Gaza.
Sunday, two people were hurt when a missile blast wrecked a Sderot home and a second struck the Netiv Haasara greenhouses injuring a foreign worker. The town of Ashkelon took four hits, two exploding in the city’s industrial estate and two outside strategic facilities on the Mediterranean shore.
Schoolchildren were told to stay in their classrooms and forbidden the playground. Magen David Adom’s first aid services are on high alert at all the locations within range of Gaza after the population spent Saturday ducking 15 Palestinian missiles and 26 mortar rounds.
There were no injuries but the damage to property was considerable.
Hamas leaders have gone into hiding in the smuggling tunnels honeycombing the southern Gaza Strip in case Israel goes back to targeted assassinations.
Begin Excerpt from Ynet News
Hamas Doubled Its Rocket Arsenal During Cease-Fire
Alex Fishman
(Ynet News)
December 19, 2008
Hamas possesses a rocket arsenal that is double the size and range of what it had six months ago. Hamas has 8-10,000 rockets of various types.
Six months ago, its rockets had a 20-km. range (12 miles). Today, its rockets may be able to hit Beersheba. Hamas’ defense system for Gaza includes eight divisions and 16,000 armed personnel as well as anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, and 50 km. of underground tunnels.
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