Iran Destabilizing the Region

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are in a two front hot war against HAMAS in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah to the north along the Israeli-Lebanese border. We already discussed on KTracy.com how Iran helped plan the large-scale HAMAS terrorist attack in October. While HAMAS does receive financial aide from Iran, the blockade against the Gaza Strip prevents the delivery of many of the weapons Iran would otherwise send in mass to the terrorist group. Hezbollah does not have a blockade against it, making it much easier to send Hezbollah much higher tier military gear than the laughably ineffective home-made rockets and antique Soviet small arms in use by HAMAS.

While Iran was undoubtedly hoping for the Palestinian Authority to begin rebelling against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank when HAMAS launched their attack, when President Abbas denounced HAMAS because of the brutality of the attack, Iran was forced to push Hezbollah into attacking. In truth, this is not a great time for Hezbollah to get involved in a conflict with Israel. The Lebanese economy is in shambles, the government is paralyzed, and Hezbollah really shouldn't want to be associated with the brutality of the HAMAS terrorist attacks. However, Iran was forced to compel them to attack Israel (if they weren't going to do it anyway) in order to continue the pressure on Israel in order to prevent Israel from retaliating against Iran. That undoubtedly is going to happen once the current conflict is over and Israel has time to recover, but for now an attack against Iran is off the table.

Iran absolutely deserves the counterattack because most of the chaos befalling Israel right now is directly a result of Iran feeling emboldened by the Netanyahu scandal that preceded the HAMAS attack and the increased number of Arab nations establishing diplomatic ties with Israel thanks in very large part to the work done by the Trump administration. Iran is proving to the world just how dangerous it can be to global and regional stability.

Hezbollah and Iran Prove Why Israel Can't Let Palestine Be Independent

This point was made clear this week when Hezbollah used Iranian rockets to decimate an IDF base in northern Israel. The scary thing about this rocket attack was that it was actually a counterattack. The IDF started the attack when they attacked Hezbollah fighters approaching from Lebanon. Hezbollah responded by firing a barrage of mortars and rockets at a nearby IDF base.

The Hezbollah counterattack should be terrifying to those responsible to planning Israel's national security future. It proves to them that, regardless of whatever is agreed to in a potential peace treaty with the Palestinians, they cannot afford the risks involved with Palestinian independence.

If Palestine is officially recognized as a state, HAMAS won't just be using homemade rockets. They'll be using military grade rockets and missiles developed by Iran and given to them gleefully by their hate mongering Islamist foreign benefactors.

These rockets fire faster, further, and more accurately than the homemade junk made by HAMAS in their blockaded territory. Letting these weapons fall into the hands of the Palestinians would be catastrophic, and Israel is fully aware of that.

Endgame

HAMAS is right about one thing. This conflict won't be over until someone is eliminated. They think it needs to be Israel. If the October HAMAS attacks did anything, it convinced Israel to think the same way finally: Israel now knows they need to destroy HAMAS and their sympathizers.