Israel Right-Wing Netanyahu ‘Bets on Trump’s Re-election’, Hezbollah ‘Weapons’ Destroyed

Israeli Right-Wing Netanyahu ‘Bets on Trump’s Re-election’, Hezbollah ‘Destruction of Weapons’

Israeli right-wing Prime Minister Netanyahu has begun a ‘payback’ operation to destroy Hezbollah’s ‘weapons’ in return for its attacks on Israel, as he bets on ‘Trump’s re-election.
The Israeli operation involves Israeli special forces dropping missiles into Syria to blow up facilities believed to be manufacturing missiles and supplying Hezbollah with supplies, and missiles from Lebanon to Israel targeting underground storage tunnels, cellars, and any other location where Israeli intelligence believes tens or hundreds of thousands of weapons are hidden.
The goal for Israeli officials is simple: to launch a missile operation to destroy Hezbollah’s command and control operations and weapons caches, and the process has been systematically initiated since Israel announced last week that the center of the conflict is shifting northward to Lebanon.

The New York Times reported on the 25th that “last week’s explosion of pagers and radios was the beginning of an effort not only to cripple Hezbollah members, who the United States designated a foreign terrorist organization decades ago, but also to make them afraid to communicate with each other,” and that “the plan was years in the making, involving front companies deeply embedded in Hezbollah’s supply chain, and the fact that Israel’s leadership decided to put it into action last week was a signal that a broader Israeli campaign was about to begin.”

Regarding the launch of the Israeli operation, the NYT diagnosed it as “a military operation to support Trump’s reelection,” saying, “It is even harder to imagine that Prime Minister Netanyahu will spend much time worrying about what goes beyond President Biden.” “Netanyahu knows that if former President Donald J. Trump is elected, he will have a much freer hand to prosecute the war against Hamas and Hezbollah in the way he sees fit.”

Stephen A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations, who met with Israeli officials during his visit to Israel and returned to the U.S., told the New York Times that “the Israelis, especially the right wing of Netanyahu’s coalition, are determined to solve this problem, and they think they’ve let it slide for too long,” and that “they’ve been given bad advice from the United States.”

He continued, “President Biden has never really used his influence over Prime Minister Netanyahu, but Netanyahu has mentioned the president’s authority to withhold certain types of military aid if Biden ignores his advice,” and explained why Israel supported Trump’s election by opposing the pressure on arms control that he has not actually exercised, saying, “You don’t have leverage unless you’re willing to use it.”

Dennis B. Ross of the Washington Institute for Strategic Studies, a longtime Middle East negotiator, said in an interview with the New York Times on the 23rd that “Netanyahu has never laid eyes on Biden, who has tried to achieve his ultimate goal of eradicating all existential threats to Israel and has attempted to conclude a peace agreement that every U.S. president since Richard Nixon has avoided.” “The fact that they have never met is part of the problem,” he said. “Netanyahu’s calculation is that Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and his Iranian supporters will pay a very high price for continuing to attack northern Israel until a compromise is reached with Hamas in Gaza.”

Biden’s national security adviser, Sullivan, said of the Lebanese airstrikes, “Well, I don’t feel like we’re in a position right now to get either side to say ‘yes’ to it,” understating the loss of leadership already underway in the failed Gaza ceasefire.
The New York Times reported that “privately, many members of Biden’s national security team have made little effort to hide their anger at Prime Minister Netanyahu these days,” and that “the president’s best hope in his final months in office is that his successor will accept a transformative agreement in which Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel and Israel agrees to a ‘two-state solution’ that gives the Palestinians a real home and place in the international community,” indicating that he has given up on mediating the peace.

The Israeli right has launched a fierce attack on Hezbollah, which has engaged in the most violent dialogue with the Lebanese militant group since 2006, and this has not only escalated the war but also greatly widened the rift between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
“Now, Biden’s aides say, President Trump is beginning to acknowledge that time is running out,” the Times said. “With only four months left in office, the prospects for a ceasefire and hostage negotiations with Hamas now look dimmer than ever before, and the risk of a larger war seems greater than ever.”

Lebanese officials said dozens of Israeli warplanes bombed Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday, killing hundreds and wounding more than 1,000. As Israeli warplanes zoomed over Lebanon, the powerful Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah launched more than 250 rockets and other munitions across the border into Israel, repeatedly sending air raid sirens blaring across northern Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s missile defense system.

China’s Ministry of National Defense officially acknowledged for the first time on Monday that it had successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean.
The ICBM, carrying a dummy warhead, was launched by the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force at 8:44 a.m. and “landed in the expected waters,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was “a routine part of the annual training plan” and was not aimed at any country or target, Xinhua reported.
“The Chinese Ministry of National Defense said that the PLA Rocket Force, which operates strategic missiles, launched an ICBM carrying a dummy warhead into international waters of the Pacific Ocean on the morning of the 25th and landed in a pre-determined area,” the Yomiuri reported, adding that “it appears to be aimed at threatening the United States, which is stepping up its hard-line stance against China.”

See <Israel Iran-Biden Nuclear Deal Breakup ‘Assassination’ Iran Nuclear ‘Short-term Production’, August 1, 2024>