Posted on 08/25/2009 12:37:40 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Israeli President Shimon Peres claims that Lebanon's Hezbollah now has an arsenal of 80,000 rockets to bombard Israel -- double the previous estimate by Israeli intelligence and almost four times the number the Iranian-backed militants possessed during their 2006 war with the Jewish state. Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh has dismissed as "lies" the claim made by Peres in an interview with the Kuwait daily Al-Rai published Sunday. "I don't know how he counted these rockets."
But the Israeli leader's claim has fuelled regional fears that a new conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is brewing.
There has been no independent confirmation that Hezbollah has that many rockets, although it has hinted at 40,000.
However, the allegation that Hezbollah, armed by Iran and Syria, has been able to amass such a vast inventory of rockets, some of them supposedly capable of hitting Tel Aviv, was seen by the jittery Lebanese as a possible pretext by Israel to justify attacking its tiny Mediterranean neighbor again.
Peres was quoted as saying that Israel was "not interested" in another conflict with Lebanon and that all differences could be settled through negotiations.
But, in a surprising disclosure, he admitted that Israel ran a large-scale espionage network in Lebanon.
That was the first confirmation by an Israeli leader that the Mossad intelligence service was involved in large-scale spying in Lebanon after dozens of suspected agents were rounded up by Lebanese security forces and Hezbollah since November 2008.
The main objective of the Israeli operation was locating Hezbollah's rocket and arms dumps, its elaborate defense system of underground bunkers, its leadership and its command centers linked by a difficult-to-penetrate, fiber-optic communications system.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacewar.com ...
Gee, it'd really be a bad thing if they were all to blow up at the same time in their armory.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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When the new US fiscal year starts and we have no money to operate as a nation.
What does the US fiscal policy have to do with weather or not Isreal takes action against hamas or vice versa?
I think in the fall, some very frightening things fiscally may be happening in the US a which will hamstring the US ability to make a difference in what will be happening in the mid-east. Domestic issues will be consuming much of our energy and US foreign policy will drift completely onto the rocks!
Obama needs a vibrant state department but he put Hillary, a woman he does not trust, as charge of it. Thus, foreign policy is being done directly but inefficiently from the white house as an end run around Hillary.
Ironically in the short run, this may help Israel as a distracted white house, may be impotent to tie Israel’s hands other than to cut foreign aid!
I will agree with you that US forgien policy has drifted..as for the ecomonics of the coming fiscal year...I don’t know about that... but I think on an issue such as this the admin already has its hands tied with enough other problems... that it will be impotent to do anything anyway.
The Middle East could become a waste land in a heart beat, so to speak?
BTTT
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