The Iranian intelligence vessel, MV Behshad, at anchor in the Red Sea, is a honey trap intended to lure both the Israelis and US Navy into an attack, according to Russian and other sources.
The French and Spanish navies appear to anticipate or to know: they have announced they will not operate their warships in the area under US command. Instead, the French have said they will restrict their operations to guarding their own French-flagged vessels and cargoes. The French Navy also appears to have agreed to clear the backlog of Maersk container vessels trapped and no longer under way in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden.
The French and similar disclaimers from Spain and Italy follow maritime media reports of acrimonious disputes between the Europeans and the US over the US priority to attack the Houthis and save Israel.
The Europeans, including the Italian and Greek navies, which have also announced they are sending warships, are following the Russian lead in secretly working out an accommodation with Iran and the Ansar Allah (Houthi) leadership for safe passage through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in exchange for agreement to boycott Israel. In defence of their economies and shipping, support from the European allies is dwindling for Israel’s war against the Palestinians; there is no support for Israeli and American threats to expand the war against Iran and the Houthis.
The Pentagon and White House-led plan to save the Israeli port of Eilat and the Israeli economy from the long-war attrition strategy of the Arabs is collapsing. US maritime sources report “the precarious situation of US-flagged ships stranded with military cargo near the Red Sea is at the center of this coalition angst. The French want to prioritize their ships while US-flagged ships – which the US Navy is obligated to defend – are inexplicably a lower priority for the US. This urgent matter, highlighted by the recent rocket attack on a US-flagged tanker in Israel, starkly exposes the vulnerability of these vessels due to the alarming absence of adequate military protection. This critical situation not only threatens the safety of these ships but also raises profound questions about the United States’ resolve to safeguard its maritime assets, a commitment that seems to be wavering dangerously.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the decision to attack vessels in the Red Sea region is “a completely Yemeni decision in support and defence of Gaza.” He added there is no need for the US coalition operation. If “they stop supporting the murderous Israeli regime and they will see a safer region and a better situation even for the transfer of energy.”
A Russian military blog post posted on Thursday, December 21 at 11:33 Moscow time, has revealed the hitherto secret positions of all warships in the area which the Pentagon has announced for its OPERATION PROSPERITY GUARDIAN.
The fresh data and the open map (lead image) were not available when yesterday’s report was published at 09:32 Moscow time of Russia’s “two-track” strategy for opposing the US and NATO, and for protecting Russian oil shipments while the Houthi drone and missile operations are under way against Israel.
No Russian Navy vessel is in the area at present although Russian crude oil cargoes are moving through the Red Sea with Iranian and Houthi agreement. Because these ship movements are defying US and NATO sanctions, it has been decided in Moscow to negotiate safe passage with Iran and Yemen rather than deploy the Russian Navy to protect them. However, the new combined US and NATO operation, targeting the Houthis and their Iranian support and supply systems, increases the possibility of a direct American, allied, or false-flagged attack on a tanker carrying Russian oil.
In yesterday’s morning report, I indicated that “the current whereabouts of the [Chinese] warship group has not been reported in the open press.”
The Russian source map is now reporting that the Chinese Navy’s 45th Escort Task Force, comprising the Type-052 destroyer Urumqi, the Type-547 frigate Linyi, and supply ship Dongpinghu were at berth at the Chinese base at Djibouti as of Wednesday, December 20.
The Russian map also reveals that the Iranian vessel MV Behshad is in a standing position in the Red Sea (lead image, top left of map). According to the Russian source, it is operating as an electronic surveillance, command and control centre to monitor friendly state ship movements – Russian, Chinese, Indian – and also hostile vessels of the US, British and French navies, tracking their positions; and relaying the data to Iran and probably to shore positions in Yemen. Although US media and Pentagon statements accuse the Ansar Allah government in Yemen and Houthi forces of acting as Iranian proxies in the war against Israel, there has been no disclosure before now of this vessel in the Red Sea.
According to the western vessel tracking service VesselFinder, the Behshad is a “general cargo ship” flagged by Iran. It reportedly sailed from the port of the Iran Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Complex (ISOICO) to reach its current position, which VesselFinder confirms in the southern half of the Red Sea as of fifteen minutes ago. The western source reports the vessel is at anchor in 6.5 metres of water.
In the Pentagon announcement of December 18, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin claimed that “Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity.” The new Russian intelligence now makes clear that the UK, France and Spain are already in the region, with the US.
After Austin’s statement, his Italian counterpart announced that Italy is dispatching a frigate “to protect the prosperity of trade and guarantee freedom of navigation and international law…to increase the presence in the area in order to create the conditions for stabilization, avoid ecological disasters and also prevent a resumption of the inflationary push.”
The Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias followed the Italian to say that Greece too is sending a frigate to join the US operation. Dendias is claiming the reason is that Greece is “the country with the largest ocean-going fleet [and so] has a primary interest in preserving the freedom of maritime zones and protecting the lives of seafarers.” What he means is that the involvement of Greek shipowners in the sanctions-busting Russian oil trade has been so profitable, Dendias wants to protect the Greek tankers and their owners; and at the same time avoid the embarrassment of being so disloyal to the US and European Union sanctions regime.
Russia is negotiating with the Houthis of Yemen to protect Russian oil cargoes moving through the Red Sea for delivery to India and China, the principal destinations of Russian oil currently traversing the waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden.
Notified in advance to the Yemeni authorities and the Houthi military command, the Russian oil movements by tankers flying a variety of ship registry and national flags, are running the gauntlet of US and European Union (EU) sanctions against Russian oil exports.
China is also negotiating with the Houthis for safe passage and protection of Chinese-flagged container vessels. The Chinese military base in Djibouti, recently reinforced to support a large Chinese military group intended for a United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, is also covering the waterway.
Both Moscow and Beijing are acting in semi-secret against US and EU government threats to assemble a naval fleet to convoy shipping headed to and from Israel’s southern port of Eilat. This plan, which the Pentagon is calling Operation Prosperity Guardian, follows the failure of the two US aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf to protect Israel, and deter the Houthi operations. The Pentagon is also threatening to attack Yemeni territory.
The fleet, to be assembled over the next month from the Ukraine war coalition states against Russia, will also threaten military force against the movement of Russian oil.
Responding to direct questions about the new Red Sea threats on Wednesday afternoon, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Maria Zakharova, skirted saying what the Russian Security Council and General Staff have decided by asking the rhetorical question: “What will the US presence there bring to the region? Greater stability, security, crisis resolution? Or will it all end, as always, with the opposite results?”
Asked to be more specific, Zakharova said: “I have already commented on this question today. I just want to add to what has been said that any presence must have its own purpose and its own result. We see how the United States has increased its presence in the whole region: in the form of attacks on countries, aggression against sovereign regional states, interference in internal affairs, in the form of color revolutions, arms supplies, and manipulation of conflicts in the region. We see what all this has led to…The terrible crisis that has been unfolding before our eyes since October 7 this year. There is no prospect of its immediate completion or even de-escalation. Now everything is balancing on the level of whether, God forbid, this crisis will expand further. Everything is being done on our part to ensure that this does not happen.”
Vzglyad, the semi-official security analysis publication in Moscow, has been pro-Israel since the Gaza war began. But yesterday it published a warning from sources identified as Russian experts on the region. “Yemen has already reacted to this statement. Representatives of the Houthis said that this coalition does not frighten them at all. That they have all the necessary capabilities to provide an adequate response to any actions directed against them and against Yemen. And this is not just a bluff, but words that have a real understanding of their resources and the capabilities behind them. In fact, the coalition ships which will be in the Red Sea will themselves be targets for Yemeni missiles (as the Houthis have already warned)…And the Americans are unlikely to risk conducting a ground operation against them. It is generally difficult to cope with any of the armed formations in Yemen, given the experience of the Yemeni militants and the terrain…The composition of the coalition has turned out to be quite specific. It did not include Egyptians and Jordanians suffering from Yemeni actions, nor the leaders of the region, the Saudis. There is not a single country in the Middle East except Bahrain. It turns out that none of them has wanted to defend their region, their sea and their interests from the Houthis, together with the Americans. Partly because they understand the futility of such an undertaking. Partly because they are afraid of a backlash from the Houthis. Partly because speaking out against the Houthis would mean, in this particular case, opposing their demands to de-blockade the Gaza Strip.”
“No one needs this war — except, of course, the United States with its Western allies and Israel,” Vzglyadconcluded.
On Monday, General Lloyd Austin (lead image, left), the US Secretary of Defense, announced that the US is assembling a fleet of warships to defend Israel’s port of Eilat, the Gulf of Aqaba, and Israel’s Red Sea shipping route by threatening to attack Yemen if it exercises its Law of the Sea right to regulate military transit through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (lead image, right).
The Austin fleet is to be assembled from the coalition of NATO states at war with Russia in the Ukraine. Austin’s call, announced by the Pentagon while Austin is in Israel, follows the failure of the USS Eisenhower and its squadron, with additional French and British warships, to prevent the collapse of commercial container and tanker shipping to and from Israel.
“The recent escalation in reckless Houthi attacks originating from Yemen,” Austin announced, “threatens the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law. The Red Sea is a critical waterway that has been essential to freedom of navigation and a major commercial corridor that facilitates international trade. Countries that seek to uphold the foundational principle of freedom of navigation must come together to tackle the challenge posed by this non-state actor launching ballistic missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) at merchant vessels from many nations lawfully transiting international waters.”
“This is an international challenge that demands collective action. Therefore, today I am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces and the leadership of its Task Force 153, which focuses on security in the Red Sea. Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity.”
Bahrain on the Persian Gulf — the only Arab state included on Austin’s list — and the Seychelles, the island state in the Indian Ocean, are included to provide shore base facilities for the proposed Yemen-attack fleet. However, no country with naval bases on the Red Sea shore, territorial waters, and exclusive economic zones extending into the waterway — Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, and Djibouti — has publicly agreed to participate or approved this escalation of the Gaza war to benefit Israel.
The Pentagon has also asked the Australian Navy for a frigate to join the Red Sea fleet, but the Australian government in Canberra is reluctant to agree, and Austin has dropped the country from his list.
All of the governments on Austin’s list, with the exception of the US, voted last week at the United Nations General Assembly for Israel to halt its operations in the Gaza war. In this context, none of these states recognizes Israel’s right to impose its blockade of Gaza’s ports extending into Palestine’s territorial waters, the Gaza Maritime Area, and Israel’s de facto military rule of the international waters of the Mediterranean, including the Gaza Marine gas field.
“Freedom of navigation”, Austin’s version of the legal doctrine of his Operation Prosperity Guardian, does not apply to the Gaza Maritime Area.
In the Red Sea, maps of the International Institute for the Law of the Sea Studies show overlapping territorial waters and economic zone claims from the eastern and western shore states, leaving no international waters for the passage of warships, particularly through the southern gateway to the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Austin’s operation is not innocent passage, as the international Law of the Sea requires, and it defies Yemen’s right to exercise prior authorization.
Russia’s response is no response, for the time being.
In the face of genocide, well-meaning people are obliged to ask themselves what they mean.
They must decide if they wish to be collabos and kapos with those whose well-meaning includes the elimination of the Palestinian people on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea; attacking those who resist by word or arm; repeating the Passover prayer “Next year in Jerusalem”, invoking the Amalek commandment, blowing trumpets to celebrate the fall of the walls of Jericho; and lighting the menorah for Hanukkah.
In Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national address of October 28 (lead image) he erased all differences between the Jewish religion, Zionist ideology, and Israeli state policy. He invoked this trinity in the “chain of heroes of Israel that has continued for over 3,000 years, from Joshua, Judah Maccabee and Bar Kochba, and up to the heroes of 1948, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War and Israel’s other wars. Our heroic soldiers have one supreme goal: To destroy the murderous enemy and ensure our existence in our land. We have always said ‘Never again’. ‘Never again’ is now.” And finally, he invoked the benediction of the Jewish God. “On your behalf, on behalf of all of us, I pray for the wellbeing of our soldiers: ‘May G-d make the enemies who rise against us be struck down before them! May He subdue our enemies under them and crown them with deliverance and victory.’”
If Netanyahu were a Russian Israeli, these remarks would be a Russian crime.
In the constitution for the multi-ethnic and multicultural Russian Federation, every Russian has the Article 26 right “to determine and indicate his nationality”, and the Article 28 freedom of religious belief, including the right to no religious belief. Russians living in Israel and Palestine have the same rights, which is why the Foreign and Emergencies Ministries are doing everything they can now to evacuate them to Russia if that’s why they request.
However, the Russians in Israel, like the Russians in Russia, cannot exercise their Article 26 and 28 rights without accepting the Constitution’s Article 18(3): “The exercise of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen shall not violate the rights and freedoms of other people.”
Speaking jurisprudentially, the one million Russians of Israel – about 90% of whom have taken Israeli nationality under Aliyah, the law of Jewish return – are violating their Article 18(3) duty if they profit from, collaborate in, or defend state and settler terrorism against the Palestinians, wherever and however this is occurring between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Russians of Israel — if that is the nationality they choose in order to apply for evacuation to safe haven — may also be violating the Russian law against terrorism and extremism under Articles 205 and 282 of the Russian Criminal Code depending on where they live, how they live, the arms and military training they have accepted, what they do for a living, and who they vote for in Israeli elections.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russians at home and also abroad may not support or participate in terrorism propaganda, plans, or acts, whether of the Arab, Muslim, Israeli, Zionist, or Jewish variety. It is not yet settled in Russian foreign policy whether the rights of national liberation and self-defence apply as equally to Palestine state groups like Hamas, Fatah and their associated armed units as they apply to Israel state groups like the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and their associated armed settler units.
In the meantime, and until the contradictions in Russian policy toward the Gaza and West Bank wars, the Litani ultimatum to Hezbollah, and the Israeli Air Force attacks on Syria are settled, there is a moratorium on domestic Russian media debate and public demonstration on the contentious issues.
President Vladimir Putin has revealed secret details of the Russian initiative on the Gaza war.
According to the President, Russia has a three-point proposal. “First, it is necessary to keep people in Gaza. Second, it is necessary to bring humanitarian aid on a massive scale to these people.”
Putin’s third proposal is establish a Russian field hospital to treat wounded Palestinians at the Rafah stadium, rebuilt in 2019 after Israel destroyed the original one in 2009. “But for this to happen, we need to have consent from both Egypt and Israel. I talked to the President of Egypt, and he is in favour of this idea. I also talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and they consulted various armed agencies. The Israeli side believes that opening a Russian hospital in Gaza is not safe.”
Putin made his disclosures in response to a Turkish reporter’s question about the Gaza war during the Direct Line broadcast on Thursday.
Putin did not mention a ceasefire; he did not criticize Israeli military operations in Gaza except to refer to the deaths of children. “The Secretary-General of the United Nations called today’s Gaza the biggest children’s cemetery in the world. This opinion speaks volumes. It is an objective opinion, what else can I say?”
Putin praised the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “playing a significant leading role in improving the situation in Gaza…He is very active in this matter. And God bless him.”
Putin omitted to mention Iran, ignoring his talks in Moscow a week ago with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Following their five-hour negotiations, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian announced that “Russia is thinking about an initiative on Gaza.”
A Moscow political analyst commented after viewing Putin’s latest remarks: “Netanyahu refused a Russian field hospital but allows a UAE one? That is telling. This shows that Putin defers to the Israelis on anything related to Gaza. Nothing has changed in his position.”
US Congressmen have adopted the unusual procedure of approving by voice vote – no tally — a ban on imports of Russian uranium to fuel US nuclear reactors. Hidden from the record are the Congressmen who insisted on including a loophole, Section 2, allowing a waiver of the law until January 2028 to keep the lightbulbs in their districts from blacking out.
The Pentagon also insisted on a loophole, Section 3A, allowing a waiver so that the manufacture of depleted uranium munitions for the Israeli, Ukrainian, and US armies, as well as nuclear warheads for tactical and strategic missiles aimed at Russia, will not be cut off from their Russian import source.
By Christopher Busby, Bideford, introduced by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
The neutron bomb was invented in 1958 by Samuel Cohen (lead image, left) of the Livermore Laboratory of California and then RAND.
In 1984 he proposed that Israel construct a neutron radiation wall around the country. “What I am suggesting is the construction of a border barrier whose most effective component is an extremely intense field of nuclear radiation (produced by the operation of underground nuclear reactors), sharply confined to the barrier zone, which practically guarantees the death of anyone attempting to breach the barrier. Establishing such a ‘nuclear wall’ at the borders of a threatened country can make virtually impossible any successful penetration by ground forces – as well as a preemptive ground attack by the threatened country.”
Cohen, who described himself as an “unbelieving Jew”, believed that by creating this radiation barrier around Israel, no Arab state army would attack. He also believed that by deterring that form of escalation, Cohen’s neutron wall would be protecting the US because, in the end, Cohen believed the US would abandon Israel to its fate if the US were threatened directly. “If the Soviets intrude again in an Arab-Israeli war, “ Cohen wrote, “this time with vastly improved nuclear capabilities to back up their actions, the survival of the United States would be at stake. Clearly this is a situation where it would be irrational—indeed, intolerable—for us to remain committed to Israel. Clearly, the most responsible thing the United States can do, to ensure its own security, is to make drastic changes in its military assistance to Israel (and to other Mideast countries as well) to prevent such a situation from ever arising. Otherwise, based on the wretched history of this turbulent arena, there is every reason to expect that one of these days a nuclear showdown will arise.”
What Cohen was proposing was a neutron bomb to be deployed by Israel except that, because there was no detonation, no explosion, he claimed there was no neutron bomb.
“During peacetime, the reactors (employed underground, for protection and safety) are operated on a continual basis, as are our power reactors. The neutrons produced by the fission reactions escape into a solution containing an element that, upon absorbing the neutrons, becomes highly radioactive and emits gamma rays (very high energy X-rays) at extremely high intensity. The radioactive solution is then passed into a series of pipes running along the barrier length in conjunction with conventional obstacle components—mines, Dragon’s Teeth, tank traps, barbed wire, etc. To the rear of the pipes and obstacle belts is a system of conventional defensive fortifications. (The obstacles, the firepower from the fortifications, and tactical air power all serve to impede the rate of advance of the attacker, increasing the attacker’s exposure to the gamma radiation. Vice versa, by quickly incapacitating the attacker, the radiation serves to make it difficult, or even impossible, for the attacker to remove the obstacles and assault the fortifications.) The width of the entire defensive system need be no more than a few miles.”
Since it was Cohen’s idea that the Palestinians and the Arabs were neither defending their lands or themselves, but were the “aggressors” against Israel, Cohen argued it was perfectly moral for the Israelis to use their neutron weapon “defensively”.
“Regarding the morality (or immorality) of such defensive use of nuclear radiation, one should keep in mind that the gamma rays themselves can, of course, have no intentions; nor is there necessarily any intent by those who produce them to kill anyone. The intent to kill has to lie with the aggressor—to kill himself. This contrasts sharply with the employment of conventional weapons, where there is every intent to kill the enemy. The basic purpose of the radiation is to deter the would-be aggressor from attacking; that is, to prevent war.”
Cohen thought a quick radiation death was more moral than a lingering one from conventional munition wounds.
He also dismissed the idea that his radiation wall was a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) or a war crime. “The radiation barrier involves a pipe filled with radioactivity of controlled duration, installed on friendly soil for the purpose of self-defence, and whose radiation effects are constrained to a very narrow strip of unpopulated territory. Clearly, this cannot be called a weapon of mass destruction, and a radiation barrier could be constructed without any violation of existing or contemplated nuclear arms control treaties.”
While in Cohen’s case for the Israeli neutron weapon he believed it would deter tactical operations of the Hamas or Hezbollah-type incursions, he argued the bigger threat to Israel’s survival was that the US would not risk itself in a nuclear escalation with the Soviet Union, if escalation between Israel and the Arabs headed in that direction. Cohen didn’t mention Iran. He did say that the Kremlin was Israel’s strategic enemy.
“For the United States to risk nuclear war by risking a confrontation with the Soviets in the Middle East would defy reason. This unhappy fact of life, if there is to be any sanity on the part of my country [US], excludes the possibility of US military intervention in the event of another Mideast war. Should Israel once again put itself in a position where its military forces threaten the integrity of an Arab country and should the USSR threaten to come to the aid of that country, Israel would have to be on its own. Considering the overwhelming military force the Soviets could bring to bear, this would place Israel in an untenable position whether or not it used nuclear weapons. The real threat to Israel in the future, if it continues with its past military doctrine, will thus be the Soviet Union, not the Arab nations, however powerfully they may arm themselves with conventional weapons. And this compels Israel to change its doctrine in favour of a guaranteed defence of its borders to ensure that they will never be placed in a position that brings the Soviets into an Arab-Israeli war.”
Cohen is dead. His tactical and strategic calculations are alive; they are secretly being recalculated at this moment. When US President Joseph Biden warned overnight that Israel’s military methods were threatening “[world] support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place”, and that “[Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] has to change, and with this government”, Biden was signalling the US will not escalate if the Israelis try to provoke it.
Cohen’s ghost – Russian intervention – is behind the Biden warning to Israel. “We continue to provide military assistance to Israel until they get rid of Hamas. But — but — we have to be careful,” Biden said twice. “Have to be careful.” (Biden was also revealing his re-election calculation of donor money now, votes later, depends on it. )
What Biden and President Vladimir Putin secretly suspect is that Israel has already escalated to tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, to genetic destruction warfare against the Palestinians, — and to something like the neutron bomb.
This is not the Cohen version of forty years ago. Nor is it the depleted uranium (DU) artillery shells and air-dropped DU bombs or rockets, which have been used for years by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza and Lebanon.
Here is the case, the physical evidence, that the Israelis are using a new type of uranium radiation weapon.
Arab, Russian, and international media are reporting the Israeli government has issued an ultimatum that if Hezbollah does not withdraw its army and arms from their positions in southern Lebanon, between the Litani River and the Blue Line (lead image), and redeploy north of the Litani, Israel will launch an air and ground attack on the region of southern Lebanon, and also on Beirut. The Israeli ultimatum reportedly sets a 48-hour time limit.
There is no official Israeli record of this ultimatum. In the non-Israeli press, it is attributed to remarks on local television made on Saturday night, December 9, by Israel’s National Security Advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi. However, in the version reported by Times of Israel, Hanegbi did not set any time limit.
Instead, Hanegbi claimed that “Hezbollah’s Radwan force could attempt a similar murderous invasion from the north, targeting civilians in communities near the border. Israel, he acknowledged, was tackling Hamas ‘17 years too late,’ and it could no longer dare to tolerate the danger of the prevailing situation in the north, with Hezbollah’s forces at the border. Some 60,000 residents of border communities have been evacuated from the north since October 7, amid relentless and sometimes deadly clashes across the border between Hezbollah and Israel. ‘Residents will not return if we don’t do the same thing’ in the north against Hezbollah as is being done in the south against Hamas…”
“‘We can no longer accept [Hezbollah’s] Radwan force sitting on the border. We can no longer accept Resolution 1701 not being implemented,’ he added, referring to a UN Security Council resolution from 2006, at the end of the Second Lebanon War, that barred any Hezbollah presence within almost 30 kilometres of the border with Israel. Asked directly if there would be a war in the north, Hanegbi said: ‘The situation in the north must be changed. And it will change. If Hezbollah agrees to change things via diplomacy, very good. But I don’t believe it will.’ Therefore, he said, ‘when the day comes,’ Israel will have to act to ensure that residents of the north are no longer ‘displaced in their land, and to guarantee for them that the situation in the north has changed.’
“Hanegbi noted that while many countries have missiles pointed at Israel, including Iran, Syria and Iraq, ‘Israel doesn’t invade them’. The fear regarding Hezbollah’s Radwan force is that ‘within minutes’, it could cross the border and begin a murderous rampage in northern communities as Hamas did in the south on October 7. Israel cannot tolerate this threat any longer, he said. Hanegbi said Israel does not want to fight simultaneously on two fronts, and indicated it would therefore tackle Hezbollah after Hamas is defeated. He said Israel has been ‘making clear to the Americans that we are not interested in war [in the north], but that we will have no alternative but to impose a new reality’ if Hezbollah remains a threat.’”
The Russian Foreign Ministry is reporting no reaction to these claims, nor any ministry contact in Moscow with a Lebanese government official. None of the mainstream Russian newspapers nor the media specializing on military and security affairs are reporting the remarks of Hanegbi as a signal of imminent Israeli air and ground attack against Hezbollah.
The Russian reaction is that the Israelis are bluffing.
Not even in revolutionary times have Russian elections been waged on the issue President Vladimir Putin proposed a few days ago of what it means, what it costs, what it risks for Russia to lead the national liberation of the world.
Nor has Putin revealed after two days of intensive talks with Emirati, Saudi, and Iranian leaders, and then a telephone call with the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, what plan of action for the Gaza war they discussed. “Russia is thinking about an initiative on Gaza,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has announced after the talks concluded.
El-Sisi was so negative about this, the Kremlin record of his Saturday morning telephone call reveals no more than that he and Putin talked over “a number of issues related to Russian-Egyptian cooperation, which has been developing very successfully. Both parties expressed their interest in further expanding cooperation in various areas in a traditionally friendly manner based on the principles of strategic partnership.” The two presidents then wished each other good luck for their re-elections.
The Egyptian presidential vote is running for three days from Sunday with the result to be declared on December 18; the Russian poll will be held on March 15-17. The outcome is certain for both.
Two hours after Putin put down the phone with el-Sisi, he picked it up again to call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Kremlin communiqué has omitted to report what Netanyahu said.
Instead, Putin gave the Israeli his personal assurance there will be no Russian participation in a Gaza blockade-busting plan to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians by sea, or across the Egyptian land border. Nor will the Russian military intervene to threaten Israeli aircraft if they commence bombing Beirut and southern Lebanese targets in the war against Hezbollah.
