News from Israel :
Israel’s stated aims since October 7th are to bring home the hostages, and to destroy the capabilities of Hamas. The assassination of Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Southern Lebanon is a great step towards achieving these aims.
Hamas leaders have enjoyed impunity, while amassing large fortunes from the aid money. Those days are over and Israel will target their leaders everywhere in the world.
Hezbollah have been showing support for Hamas by firing into the north of Israel but now that Israel has successfully hit right into the Hezbollah stronghold , we might see a stronger backlash. To date, Hezbollah have not yet shown they want a full blown war with Israel. Lebanon suffered terribly in 2006 and the country is mostly on the poverty line: the people surely do not want war.
Hezbollah enjoy unopposed power which they may not want to risk for the sake of Hamas at this time. Israel would like to push Hezbollah from their northern border but that may be a war for the future, and perhaps not today.
Explosions in Iran near Soliemani’s (a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards) tomb, killing over 100 and injuring nearly 200, will have rocked the Iranian regime. Weakening Iran will weaken Hezbollah, but at this time they still remain the largest threat, although not the most current.
Israel should seek the enforcement of the United Nations resolution 1701 which was put in place to end the 2006 conflict. At the minimum Hezbollah must pull back from the border so that the citizens of northern Israel can return home and feel safe. It is likely that 1701 is dead in the water and therefore this is a war waiting to break out, but it is possible neither side has the appetite for a wider conflict at this time.
We will likely see in the next few days the measure of the Hezbollah response. The whole country is on high alert.
The last 3 months the IDF have been focused on destroying the subterranean infrastructure that serves Hamas, while simultaneously searching for the hostages. Tragically for the remaining 129 hostages the focus has now turned to the north and all negotiations are now frozen.
The attacks of October 7th and the ongoing war in Israel has opened up so many new realities for those of us who live there. Some people understood the murderous and satanic intentions of Iranian tentacles that manifested themselves into Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi, while others genuinely believed that with peace building steps in the West Bank we would eventually come to an accommodation and understanding with all our Arab neighbours.
The promise of a 2 state solution was the carrot that kept that belief alive until October 7th, when even the most peace loving Israelis had to face the reality that a 2 state solution was never going to satisfy those who wanted the River to the Sea. The right wing in Israel had always known this but continued with the farce to keep the left and the Arabs quiet. The outside world really thought that a Palestinian State would satisfy the blood lust and they still do. We still hear its all about the settlements.
There were no settlements when the PLO was formed in 1964, and there was no occupied East Jerusalem. Jerusalem was in fact little more than a rubbish tip under the Jordanians. It’s holy status was of no concern to them back then. The sole purpose of the PLO , which was to become the PA, was always the destruction of Israel.
The reality that has been shattered for those of us who understood all along that the Arabs only wanted our blood, is that we thought and genuinely believed that Israel was monitoring the situation and we had adequate protection in place.
Never in our worst nightmares did we believe that not only could they invade and massacre entire communities, and then our ever powerful and superior military strength could not subdue them, let alone defeat them, in what is now approaching 3 months !
We have all been living in a deluded bubble that is now well and truly burst and the fall out is also beyond our nightmares. The IDF, one may think is an army of hardened solider who have trained for years but the truth is that we are sending our young boys barely out of a couple of years training, to their deaths at the hands of killers who have no humanity and do not operate on a human scale, sacrificing their own civilians while holding ours hostage.
The soft underbelly of Israel is being sliced open and without committing the genocide that the world accuses Israel of, there is nothing much we can do about it except to accept the body bags of our young boys.
No country should be facing these choices and it is wrong on every level that the western leaders, especially France , should not be supporting Israel and condemning the Muslim countries that compare Netanyahu to Hitler.
These countries, which include Turkey and in particular Iran are dictatorial theocracies that wish only harm on liberal democracies.
It is quite clear now that the Palestinian collective will never be able to accept the existence of Israel and Israel needs to totally rethink how to live along side 5 million Arabs who despite the atrocities of October 7th still prefer Hamas to the PA and are committed to continue their glorification of murdering Jews.
One answer being discussed, is for the Palestinians and the land to be absorbed by other Arab countries and to accept once and for all that there cannot be a Palestinian State replacing the Jewish state and that the Arabs must accept that the future is to live in peace side by side with Israel.
The bloodletting in the Middle East could stop overnight if the surrounding Arab states stepped in to save their brethren, granting Palestinians citizenship and rights in the countries they live in , encouraging and birthing a new identity and ensuring the radical education that has been thrust upon the young is replaced by a moderate education that promotes co-existence and not Holy Jihad.
Islam needs to reform and lose the concept of martyrdom, ( I’m sure heaven has run out of virgins by now !) if we are to progress without an Armageddon. In Iran, this will not happen and it is inevitable that a huge clash of civilisations is in the making possibly including nuclear bombs that will send the region into total devastation and the problem of a Palestinian State will not even be in the equation!
The Western leaders are extremely foolish and weak to allow the populous’ anti-semitism to hijack the narrative above the threats to world peace. These anti Israel marches will morph into anti western democracy movements very quickly and they should be banned on the streets of European capitals and the narrative should be pro Israel, pro democracy, while focusing on the larger picture of who is funding and behind the disruptions that masquerade as free speech .
Regards
Carolyne Davis