« March 15, 2003Imambush »

Shades of Lebanon

NY Sun’s Eli Lake on Iran’s moves in Gaza:

Israel’s internal security service has compiled evidence that it says shows Iran is training a new batch of terrorist leaders to be deployed in Gaza … 

… the chief of the Israeli Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, told the parliamentary committee that oversees national security that he estimated hundreds of Hamas terrorists had gone to Iran for extensive training over several months.

Yesterday, the chairman of the Knesset’s Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, Effie Eitam, said the intelligence backing up this claim was cross-checked through technical sources as well as by extensive interrogations of captured terrorists … the Israeli Defense Forces seized 31 tons of explosive material from smuggling routes in Gaza, a sixfold increase in such armament from a year before.

Many Israeli politicians fear they are seeing a strategic buildup in Gaza similar to Hezbollah’s rearming following the 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon ... 

“I think the amount and speed of the terror forces buildup in Gaza is faster than what happened in Lebanon,” Mr. Eitam, who opposed Israel’s initial withdrawal from Gaza, said in a telephone interview. “To me and to all the security experts in this country, it is very clear that sooner or later we have to confront this capability.”

… An American intelligence official who covers Iran yesterday said training camps in that country were well-known and cited public meetings between Hamas leaders and Iran’s supreme leader and revolutionary guard commanders. But this source also said he could not confirm the scale of the training operation put forward by the Israeli officials. “We can’t say with certainty that there are hundreds of Iranian trained terrorists returning to Gaza,” this source said.

Mr. Eitam yesterday described the training as follows: “I think the best way to understand the nature of the training is that it is intensive training in the most advanced equipment, anti-tank missiles, very advanced demolition charges, propaganda. All kinds of courses, which take quite a long time, between months to a year or more. It is a very good, intensive, well-orchestrated training program to provide the future leadership and command of an army, which is about to be built.”

… The Iranian involvement is significant for Israel because it indicates a strategy of encirclement for the Islamic Republic, a country whose founding charter calls for the elimination of Israel and whose elite security units charged with aiding terrorists is named for the Arabic word for Jerusalem, Quds.

… Mr. Diskin also said the range of the Qassam rockets fired into Israel from Gaza are increasing and could hit new population centers. They have been fired into Israel almost from the time of the August 2005 withdrawal.

Mr. Eitam yesterday said a military confrontation is almost inevitable.

“This operation will have to have two goals,” he said. “One [is] to destroy the infrastructure and kill as many terrorists as possible, but it also must be focused on bringing the Hamas government down. Maybe if that terror infrastructure will be destroyed, then we might somehow pave the way for a new administration and new partner to renew a peace process.”

Speaking of partners for peace, these are the same Iranians that some people are very eager for us to talk to in Iraq.  In fact, these Iranians are themselves eager to talk to us.  The last thing they want is for us to spoil all the good work they have done in Iraq.

Topics: Iran, Israel

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:31 am on Thursday, March 15, 2007

2 Responses to “Shades of Lebanon”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   March 15th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

   Even if Iran could be talked into some kind of accommodation with the US and Iraq, they will never, ever agree to a peaceful solution with Israel. And that makes war with them pretty much inevitable.

2. elwood russell Says:
   March 15th, 2007 at 8:18 pm

   While I’d like to see the Palestinians have a state of some kind, perhaps this time the Israeli’s should just push the Gazans across the Egyptian border and annex Gaza.

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