Gaza War and Threat of Regional War | Tikun Olam |
Israel fights seven-front battle against Axis of Resistance
Gallant has boasted that Israel faces a seven-front war with Hamas, Syria, Hezbollah, Iraqi militia, Iran Houthis, and in the West Bank. Rather than boast, it behooves Israeli leaders to consider the potential consequences of a united Axis of Resistance confronting it in multiple theaters of operation. Though its military capabilities may be limited compared to Israel's-that can change quickly. Iranian military technology has grown by leaps and bounds. With its highly skilled engineers, they will continue perfecting its weapons arsenal-not to mention its nuclear capability. Neither Gallant nor most Israelis appear to be devoting any consideration to this potential danger.
The IDF and Hezbollah have been probing each other, preparing for a potentially larger conflict. The Lebanese militia is far and away Israel's most powerful front-line enemy. As Iran's key ally in the region, it plays a key role in implementing any strategy of the Axis of Resistance. It possesses nearly 100,000 missiles pointed at Israel and has a fighting force of 25,000 active duty fighers and the same amount of reservists. It is a formidable opponent.
That's why the Biden administration reacted with alarm to Iranian threats to intervene in the Gaza conflict. As a result, it sent not one, but two aircraft carriers to show the flag and warn Hezbollah and that the US would not permit attacks on Israel. It worked, in a sense, as most of the attacks by Hamas allies have been carefully calibrated to show resistance without provoking a wider conflict. But that could easily change.
Looming Poll Defeat: Netanyahu Holding On to Power
Poll points to Gantz building lead over Netanyahu; ultra-nationalists, Orthodox bloc falls to 45 seats
Benny Gantz's National Unity party continues to build on its lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, according to a poll published by Channel 13.
The survey finds that if elections were held today, National Unity would win 38 seats, trouncing Likud, which would win just 16 seats.
Opposition chairman Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party would fall to 15 seats; ultra-Orthodox Shas party would receive nine seats; far-right Otzma Yehudit party would receive eight seats; right-wing, secular Yisrael Beytenu party would receive eight seats; ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party would receive seven seats; Islamist Ra'am party would receive six seats; far-right Religious Zionism party would receive five seats; left-wing Meretz party would receive four seats; and Arab-majority Hadash-Ta'al party would receive four seats.
The left-leaning Labor party and the ultra-nationalist Balad party would not cross the electoral threshold, the poll finds.
The hardline coalition Netanyahu formed one year ago would receive 45 seats compared to the anti-Netanyahu bloc, which would receive 71 seats, not including the four seats from Hadash-Ta'al.
Understanding the ominous rise of Israel's most notorious ultra-nationalist | TOI - 4 Aug. 2022 |
With a poll giving Religious Zionism 13 seats if headed by extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, a look at where these votes are coming from and what they say about where Israel may be headed
If you are a politician looking to bolster your man-of-the-people bona fides ahead of an election, you head to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market to gladhand the shoppers and hawkers bustling about its stalls and alleyways.
The crowd chanted his name and sang a lively ditty about Ben Gvir being the next prime minister. Numerous market patrons hugged, shook hands, and requested selfies with the far-right leader.
Mahane Yehuda is a well-known bastion of right-wing sentiment, but until recently, a visit by Ben Gvir, 46, would have been little more than a minor curiosity.
But just over a year after squeaking into the Knesset as part of Bezalel Smotrich's far-right Religious Zionism alliance, polls show Ben Gvir leading the party to a commanding Knesset position. It's only on the street, or in the shuk, though, that those numbers become real, each selfie a sign of how far to the right Israel's political pendulum appears to have swung.
A serial provocateur
Most Israelis were first introduced to Ben Gvir in 1995, when the 19-year-old extremist youth leader infamously ripped the Cadillac insignia from prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's car. Showing off the booty, Ben Gvir boasted to a news camera: "We got the car. We'll get to Rabin too."
Weeks later, Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing extremist.
A lawyer who has made a career out of defending other right-wing extremists, Ben Gvir grew up in a religiously traditional but not strictly observant family in the middle-class town of Mevaseret Zion.
In his maiden speech in Knesset last year, Ben Gvir outlined how his right-wing views began developing during his youth amid the First Intifada. He became a fervent opponent of the Oslo Accords and after high school studied at the Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea established by Kahane.
Despite Corruption Trial, Netanyahu Set to Return to Power in Israel | OCCRP - 3 Nov. 2022 |
Itamar Ben Gvir visits ultra orthodox Jewish quarter Jerusalem
Extremist Minister Ben-Gvir opposes Jailing Ultra-Orthodox who spit on Christians in Jerusalem, as Pope Francis Fumes | Juan Cole - 5 Oct. 2023 |
The article also quoted Elisha Yered, a militant Israeli squatter who is under house arrest on suspicion of murdering a Palestinian last August, as saying, "A good time to point out that spitting near priests or churches is an ancient Jewish custom . . .
Perhaps under the influence of Western culture we have forgotten to some extent what Christianity is, but I believe that the millions of Jews who, while in exile, suffered through the Crusades, the tortures of the Inquisition, blood libel and mass violence will never forget." Yered is the former spokesman for a member of the Israeli parliament who belongs to Ben-Gvir's fascist "Jewish Power" party.
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PM nixes war cabinet meeting on post-war Gaza plan amid pressure from Smotrich | TOI |
Talks to be held in security cabinet instead, after far-right factions protest exclusion from discussion; Smotrich to Biden: "Not a single shekel will go to the 'Nazi terrorists'"
Netanyahu has refused to hold any such meetings until now, reportedly because he does not want to reveal the expected role that Palestinian Authority officials will have in managing Gaza's civil affairs after the war.
The delay has frustrated the Biden administration, which argues that failure to plan for who will govern Gaza after the war could lead to the Israel Defense Forces being bogged down in the enclave indefinitely.
Netanyahu caught bragging in leaked video from 2001
I am afraid you are spot on!
The single target at the moment for Israel and the U.S. is of course the Islamic Republic of Iran ... Grossi had warned that Tehran already had enough nuclear material for "several" weapons.
