US Warns Netanyahu ... Again
It’s a bit of a game. The US warns Netanyahu against some insane course of action, then Netanyahu flips the US off. We’ll start with Alastair Crooke’s discussion with Judge Nap yesterday morning.
Crooke began by discussing the scheduled Israeli cabinet meeting. It seems Netanyahu wants to sack his Minister of Defense, Gallant, and replace him with a guy called Gideon Saar. Saar is in favor of enlarging Israel—not only by absorbing all of Palestine but also by taking territory from “anyone who attacks Israel.” It doesn’t take too much imagination to realize that he’s really talking about wars of conquest and expansion under various pretexts. The first step would be an attack on Lebanon, even before Gaza and the rest of Palestine has been absorbed.
Gallant and the military command understand that that’s not possible and have told this to Netanyahu repeatedly, who keeps telling the army to get ready for war in Lebanon. It also seems likely that the US military is strongly opposed to these plans. Crooke made an important point with regard to any war in Lebanon:
There are a number of deadlines face Netanyahu faces. One of those deadlines is the weather. The Israeli Air Force cannot do close support operations in Lebanon in bad weather. We have about two or three weeks until the weather turns and winter begins, and then Israel will not go to war against Lebanon in December or even November. It's not possible. So if action doesn't take place in this next two or three weeks—which we have to wait and see what is decided at this cabinet meeting— but if action does not take place then they will have to wait till next year in order to take some sort of action that might help to return the displaced residents [of Israel’s occupied areas in the north] to their homes. Which is quite a long period.
In other words, if Netanyahu can’t prosecute a successful war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the next few weeks, Netanyahu will face mounting political problems due to the large numbers of Israelis who have become refugees due to the fighting with Hezbollah.
So what happened at the cabinet meeting? There was a big blowup, but Gallant appears to remain in place for now. Gallant is leaking that Netanyahu has prioritized occupying land in Gaza over saving Israeli prisoners (Israel has belatedly admitting killing more of the prisoners in Gaza with their indiscriminate bombing campaign, fueled by the US).
In shouting match as cabinet backs PM's demand to keep IDF on Gaza-Egypt border, Netanyahu says only firm stance will enable deal; Gallant tells colleagues they're condemning hostages to die
Cabinet erupts: Netanyahu, Gallant at odds over hostage deal vote - The Jerusalem Post
The Prime Minister has the authority to bring any decision to a vote. Even to execute the hostages," Gallant said, according to one official.
Channel 12 news reports more leaked quotes from last night’s cabinet meeting, when Defense Minister Yoav Gallant fumed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bringing a vote to approve a series of maps drawn up by the IDF, which show how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile ...
Infighting seems to worsening within Israeli government over ongoing war in Gaza. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant once again clashed with
This was probably a shrewd move by Gallant (who holds a minority view) because, while Netanyahu retains high levels of support there is also widespread popular unrest over the failure to do a deal for the Israeli prisoners.
The upshot from the US perspective is that the US knows that now deal for prisoners will be made as long as Netanyahu remains in power. The US is probably also fully aware that Netanyahu is using every trick he can imagine to force the US into a course of action that it doesn’t want. Firing Gallant would be one of those tricks, since Gallant is supported by the US. Crooke made some interesting remarks in this regard regarding Amos Hochstein, the Israeli who acts as the White House negotiator in Palestine and Lebanon. Hochstein, it’s well known, has been trying to pressure Lebanon to act to remove Hezbollah from southern Lebanon—as if.
I think in some ways Amos Hochstein has actually acted on behalf of Israel in these negotiations, not on behalf of the United States. Incidentally, he removed himself from the State Department at the outset and most of the State Department experts in the region were removed, so he's a one-man band operating out of the White House with a secretary and that is about all. … He hasn’t succeeded at all, … indeed I don't think there is a solution in the terms in which he's looking for one. It's inconceivable that Hezbollah would remove themselves from the the South—they've been there 500 years, they're not going to suddenly disappear to the north of the Lebanon, so no he has not he has not produced.
And that, I think, is now understood even if the United States doesn't like it. I think they have to understand that that is a reality that there not going to be a deal in Lebanon. I'm very confident in saying that, and I think equally it's understood—whatever they may be saying in sort of optimistic terms—that there is no deal coming in Gaza that would change the situation dramatically. So the attrition continues.
Over this weekend the Yemenis fired a missile [that] evaded Iron Dome, it evaded the Israeli defense systems and landed at an unmentioned or an undescribed location close to Ben Gurion airport and the airport was shut for a period. The Israeli press initially said it had landed in an empty field [but] now the Israeli press are saying it hit the target as intended and evaded all of the Israeli defense systems. Much as … Hezbollah's attack on the Gillot [?] base. … There was first of all a censorship imposed and said there was no destruction. Now European intelligence services have been reporting and it's been confirmed by others that in fact in Gillot and in that 8200 base and the Mossad base there near Herzeliyah in Tel Aviv that there were 22 killed and 74 injured with the attack drones that were fired by Hezbollah. More details are supposed to be coming out shortly, so there is a real sense and there's been much talk in Israel that we can't allow this to stand.
Crooke goes on at some length to describe the complete befuddlement in DC regarding Netanyahu’s intentions in getting involved in what the DC NatSec establishment regards as “pointless wars”. Crooke quotes a former head of Israeli intelligence, Amos Yadlin, to this effect. Yadlin has been making the rounds in DC and explained to Israeli Channel 12 that people in DC just don’t understand the eschatological perspective that animates fanatical Zionists, nor do they understand the intent to ethnically cleanse all of Palestine and possibly engage in further wars of conquest. That worldview, what makes rabid Zionists tick, is simply incomprehensible even on a theoretical level in DC. This failure of understanding and empathy puts the DC ruling class at a distinct disadvantage in dealing with Zionists, because Zionists are not just fanatical. They’re also devious. In DC, according to Yadlin, the idea is to just get past the November election by slaking the Israel Lobby’s thirst for genocide with endless supplies of 2k bombs for use on civilians. After the election, they think, they’ll be able to clamp down on Netanyahu—so, genocide is being used by the US political class to buy time and political maneuvering room before the elections.
With that as background, Axios provides a blow by blow account of Hochstein’s latest trip to Israel:
The long and short of it is that Israel is demanding that Hezbollah make a peace separate from the issue of the ongoing 11 month US-Israeli genocide. As Crooke assures us, that’s a non-starter. Hochstein conveyed US fears of a wider regional war, and Netanyahu assured Hochstein that US concerns won’t enter into his decisions—just send more bombs or I’ll make life miserable for US politicians.
Meanwhile, just to ensure that negotiations have a chance …
Hezbollah's '9/11': Iranian Ambassador Among 1,000+ Wounded After Israel Remotely Detonates Pagers
@VintageVault8
How would the world react if hundreds of explosions went off in unison in New York City, Washington, Paris, or London? Eternal shame upon the news outlets framing this as an attack against combatants. These blasts all occurred in civilian areas. This is terrorism.
Megatron @Megatron_ron
 The hospital of the American University in Beirut reportedly took all pagers of its nurses and doctors about 10 days ago, and 'replaced them due to technical issues', according to employees
Lebanese media is accusing the American University hospital of being pre-informed by Israel or the U.S. ahead of the cyberattack.