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IDF’s Preemptive Strike a Complete Success
Frontpagemagazine ^ | September 3, 2024 | Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted on 09/04/2024 8:31:29 AM PDT by SJackson

No more tit-for-tat responses to Hezbollah.

After the Israelis learned that Hezbollah was intending to strike their country with a massive rocket attack — some 6,000 rockets — at 5 a.m. on August 25, the IDF “rose up first” and launched its own preemptive attack, sending more than 100 planes into Lebanon to destroy thousands of rockets in their launches. Hezbollah managed, in the end, to send not 6,000, but 320 missiles into Israel. They were aimed at the Mossad headquarters in Glilot, the Defense Headquarters known as Kirya, and several military bases. Not one of those military targets was hit. Only one Israeli died — a sailor — in the raid, hit by shrapnel from a missile that had been intercepted by Iron Dome. And after Hezbollah published photos of a chicken coop it had damaged in northern Israel, the terror group was subject to endless ridicule on social media by people from all over the Arab world.

The editorial board of the Jerusalem Post praise for the smashing success of the IDF’s preemptive strike, and call for more such actions in the future, can be found here: “Israel’s decisive preemptive strike thwarted a major Hezbollah attack. It’s about time – editorial,” Jerusalem Post, August 26, 2024:

The IAF, in a pre-dawn preemptive raid in southern Lebanon on Sunday, struck at thousands of rocket launchers that were poised and timed to fire at Israel at 5:00 a.m., preventing a major Hezbollah attack and its “revenge” for last month’s killing of its chief of staff, Fuad Shukr.

It’s about time.

Nearly 11 months after Hezbollah – completely unprovoked – started firing on Israel, forcing dozens of communities in the North to evacuate, and upending life for hundreds of thousands of people, this was the first significant Israeli offensive against Hezbollah inside Lebanon.

No, this wasn’t Israel’s preemptive attack against Egypt’s air force on the first day of the Six-Day War in 1967 that determined the fate of that war and altered history, but it was definitely more than Israel has done against Hezbollah since this war began.

Granted, Israel has taken out several senior Hezbollah terrorists, and it has engaged in an effective tit-for-tat response with the Iranian-backed Shia terrorist organization, extracting a heavy toll in men and material since they started firing on Israel on October 8. But this is the most significant military act that Israel initiated to change the rules of the game in play since the war started and to signal to Hezbollah that what was, and what has become a crazy new normal, will not last.

It cannot last. It is unsustainable….

With this massive attack inside Lebanon, Israel has signaled that it will no longer be content with tit-for-tat responses to Hezbollah’s firing of rockets into northern Israel, but will let loose with all barrels. On August 25, it destroyed 5,680 Hezbollah rockets and rocket launchers. And it successfully intercepted almost all of the 320 rockets that Hezbollah did manage to launch toward Israel. Not a single one of Hezbollah’s rockets hit either the Mossad headquarters at Glilot or any of the military bases that were the terror group’s main targets.

Sixty thousand Israelis have had to abandon their houses in northern Israel since the Gaza war began because of Hezbollah rocket attacks. Until now, Israel has not struck with sufficient force to persuade Hezbollah to halt those attacks so that those internally displaced Israelis can return home. Israel’s preemptive strike shows that the IDF in the future is going to be far more aggressive in attacking Hezbollah fighters and weapons, and will do so at any moment of its choosing, without waiting for a Hezbollah attack to respond to.

The preemptive attack is a warning to Hezbollah, and even more, to Hezbollah’s puppet-master Iran, about what the IDF is capable of. And it provides its own citizens, who after ten months of war, that still have not brought the hostages home, a much needed boost in morale.

The Jerusalem Post editors are advocating for more such preemptive strikes like the one unleashed by the IDF on August 25. It should hit Hezbollah much harder, with many more targets hit simultaneously, and more often — without waiting for Hezbollah to strike first. Only thus, they argue, can Hezbollah be forced to stop its attacks on northern Israel so that 60,000 Israelis can return home.

The IDF has already dismantled 20 of Hamas’ prewar 24 battalions. It has killed 17,000 Hamas operatives, or about half of the estimated 35,000 combatants Hamas had on October 7. Among those who were not killed, many thousands must surely have been wounded and are now unsuitable for combat. That means that while the IDF is conducting mopping-up operations in Gaza, many of its troops can turn their full attention to the Hezbollah threat on the Lebanese border. The IDF need not wait for a Hezbollah attack, but can be ready, the Jerusalem Post editors say, “to keep its foot just above the gas pedal in Lebanon, ready to press down and strike Hezbollah with overwhelming force at a minute’s notice.” The Talmud supplies the only justification that is needed for such attacks: “When someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” That’s what the IDF did so spectacularly on August 25, and it’s what it should be doing from now on.


TOPICS: Editorial; Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 09/04/2024 8:31:29 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
2 posted on 09/04/2024 8:32:01 AM PDT by SJackson (Lot of people put my grandpa through hell, and he’s still standing, Kai Trump)
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To: SJackson

Makes one wonder what is in the works with regard to Israeli intentions toward missile launchers in Iran proper. I’m betting it will be before the US election this November.


3 posted on 09/04/2024 8:41:53 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: Carry_Okie

Take dead Hezbollas and hang them upside down from a large tree so buzzards and vultures can have a feast.


4 posted on 09/04/2024 8:49:40 AM PDT by BigEdLB ( Let’s go Brandon)
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To: SJackson

——Israel has signaled that it will no longer be content with tit-for-tat responses to Hezbollah’s firing of rockets——

There was another, and in my view, more potent message delivered. Israeli jets repeatedly broke the sound barrier flying over Beirut. The message was delivered with feeling to the entire Beirut population. The message was especially purposely delivered to Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. “we know where you and can kill you any time we want”

Generally, the Hezbollah effort has been for show, to appear to be meaningfully diverting IDF resources from the killing of Hamas in Gaza and now on the West Bank.lil


5 posted on 09/04/2024 8:52:26 AM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. +12) Where is ZORRO when California so desperately needs him?)
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To: BigEdLB
Take dead Hezbollas and hang them upside down from a large tree so buzzards and vultures can have a feast.

My guess is that carrion birds would find them distasteful.

6 posted on 09/04/2024 8:53:35 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: BigEdLB

Obtaining the bodies would require a ground invasion of Syria and Lebanon.

Let them deal with their own dead.


7 posted on 09/04/2024 8:59:39 AM PDT by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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To: SJackson

Doing just what the rabbis say.

https://steinsaltz.org/daf/sanhedrin72/

Judaism does not subscribe to the idea that one should “turn the other cheek” when attacked. In fact, one important rule taught by the Talmud is ha-ba le-horgekha, hashkem le-horgo – if someone comes planning to kill you, you should hurry to kill him first.


8 posted on 09/04/2024 9:02:42 AM PDT by Tom Tetroxide
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To: Carry_Okie

How about feeding them to hogs???


9 posted on 09/04/2024 9:04:41 AM PDT by egfowler3 (COVID-19, today's Hypochondriacal psychosis (aka: Delusional parasitosis))
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To: egfowler3
Gotta get the lead out. Else the hogs wouldn't be useful for export, not even as animal feed at the zoo.

Nope, make fertilizer.

10 posted on 09/04/2024 9:10:34 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: SJackson

Thanks for posting this.

The Fox News live coverage of this event was the only USA deep look into what was happening.

The next day, USA-MSM were pretending that both Israel and Hezbollah had performed minimal strike and counter strike performances just to save face.

That was completely at odds with the late night coverage I saw on Fox.

Then, the event completely disappeared from the News, even on Fox. I do not recall reading any more news accounts on Free Republic after the first day.

My first impression was this was a very significant military operation.

I am very happy and relieved that my first impression was correct.


11 posted on 09/04/2024 10:11:10 AM PDT by zeestephen (Trump "Lost" By 43,000 Votes - Spread Across Three States - GA, WI, AZ)
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To: SJackson

Locate and kill every single Hamas operative, their combined families, and ever single supporter thereof.

Depopulate Gaza by whatever means necessary. Then annex it permanently.

L


12 posted on 09/04/2024 10:14:34 AM PDT by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.p)
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To: SJackson

Good!


13 posted on 09/04/2024 12:29:35 PM PDT by Flaming Conservative ((Pray without ceasing))
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To: Tom Tetroxide
if someone comes planning to kill you, you should hurry to kill him first

Now you understand why Ukraine is fighting so hard against Russia, after being attacked without provocation


14 posted on 09/04/2024 5:15:30 PM PDT by canuck_conservative (NATO - now celebrating 75 successful years of keeping the Russian monsters out!!)
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To: SJackson

yeah, the IDF got their retaliation done first ...


15 posted on 09/04/2024 8:29:59 PM PDT by catnipman ((A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil))
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To: egfowler3

“How about feeding them to hogs???”
———————
I would personally prefer what future 5-Star General John Pershing did in the Philippines to the Moro tribesmen. They were more or less doing the same thing to our troops then as Hamas has been trying to do to Israeli troops since October 7. Well, we captured about 50 of them in one operation and then-Captain Pershing was informed. He ordered that all 50 be tied to posts around a big pit, and in full view of the prisoners had his men slaughter a large pig in that pit, and proceeded to liquefy a lot of its fat. He then had his soldiers dip their bullets into the pig fat and proceeded to execute 48 of the 50 prisoners. The other two were let go, so that they would go back to their people and let them know what the Americans had done. Within a very short time after that, the terrorism of these tribesmen stopped. Apparently, Pershing knew that if a Muslim died in an unclean state, he could not go to Paradise…and dying because of a pig fat coated bullet qualified as “unclean.“


16 posted on 09/05/2024 5:33:22 PM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." - The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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