HEZBOLLAH Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last Monday, speaking in a live address broadcast on Al-Manar TV, discussed the implications of the current Israeli military manoeuvres.
He said: ‘This is a fundamental and sensitive issue that requires some illustration in details. First, what is this manoeuvre and what are the Israelis doing? Second, what are the probabilities? Third, what is required and how we should act?
‘Since the end of the July war (2006), there has been consensus in Israel, whether the government or the military, security apparatuses, the media and the public opinion that the war on Lebanon was an utter failure.
‘We followed the Winograd report and the terms it used, frustration and flaws, which exposed the handling of the war by the government and the military command as well as the security cabinet.
‘Based on the Winograd assessment and the conclusions of the 40 panels, it was found that there had been a great deal of flaws that must be addressed.
‘We are in front of a serious enemy that is acting responsibly. This is why they immediately begin to work on plans to rebuild the army and deal with the flaws and mistakes through new weapons and technologies as well as a series of military exercises.
‘There had been large scale manoeuvres recently, including Juniper and Turning point 1 that was focused on the command and the home front.
‘It was a manoeuvre at the level of the entire entity. The Spring Flower manoeuvre and the North Winds offensive manoeuvre in the north and other offensive exercises at the level of the general staff.
‘This morning, the Israeli army radio said that the Israeli Air Force was conducting exercises all over the entity.
‘Moreover, Turning Point 3 manoeuvre will take place between May 31 and June 4. This drill will be at the level of the whole Israeli entity.
‘It is a windup of Turning Point 1 and 2. They describe it as a large scale exercise with the aim to lift the national state of readiness in case of a military confrontation in which the home front would be part of the battlefield.
The Israeli Deputy war Defense Minister says that the goal of the manoeuvre is to bring in the culture of emergency to the people. We will try to tackle the issue in an objective way, but let’s see what the Israelis say and what they will do.
‘The whole entity, the hospitals, the shelters, the government, the armed forces and the media will take part in the drill. This exercise has dimensions.
‘He says that the goal is to introduce the culture of emergency as if war was to erupt tomorrow.
Ashkenazi says that 1009 will ripen complicated security challenges that requires full alert. This explains the importance of this manoeuvre for the enemy.
‘In short, as said by the Deputy war minister: a whole nation will engage in exercise for five days.
‘In this manoeuvre, Turning Point 3, the emergency authority will be responsible for the whole drill, the government will be on alert, the security cabinet will hold meetings in a state of war and take decisions, the Israeli army in all its formations on top of which is the IAF will be on full alert as well are local councils, ministries, educational institutions, home front units, police, civil defense and the Red Magen David.
‘The scenario they are suggesting is: confronting a rocket attack from Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza simultaneously with an escalation in the West Bank, unconventional rocket attacks, the explosion of dangerous material in the Haifa Bay and a terrorism-related incident in Eilat; a series of attacks across the entity.
‘The Israeli enemy will be preoccupied with this manoeuvre for five days, yet they are ignoring the correlated negative impact and say that it’s no problem if people lived in an atmosphere of war and bombings adding that this can be handled for the sake of greater objectives the Israelis are striving for through the drills.
‘If we study this manoeuvre we find that it cannot be separated from a series of bellicose schemes and the developments in the region.
‘There have been developments and challenges in the region. In assessing the matter, it goes without saying that the defeat of the Israeli army in May 25, 2000 and its humiliating and unconditional pullout from Lebanon, left serious marks on the zionist entity and the army, as acknowledged by senior Israeli officials back then.
‘The second Intifada broke out after the 2000 withdrawal and it developed into a fierce armed resistance in occupied Palestine so much that the Israeli command considered itself fighting its second independence war.
‘Later on, the enemy had to make a unilateral pullout from the Gaza Strip. And in 2006, the Israeli army was dealt a serious blow in Lebanon and the Winograd committee findings, as well as the repercussions of the July war on the Israeli society and the political and the military commands, not to forget the failure of normalisation with the peoples of the Arab states that signed peace treaties with Israel, particularly in Egypt and Jordan, led to the increase of the Arab awareness and the wide public support to resistance movements.
‘It was a support that overcame all efforts aimed at isolation resistance movements.
We can also add Iran’s growing capabilities in all domains and its acquirement of nuclear technology for peaceful and civil purposes, Israel’s accusations to Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons; something that Israel dismisses as an existential threat and Iran denies, the development of Syria’s capabilities and the strategic cooperation between Tehran and Damascus, Syria’s support to the resistance and the failure to isolate Damascus, the setback of the US project as well as the American ability to launch new big wars like in Afghanistan and Iraq, the preoccupation of the world with lots of crises, on top of which is the economic crisis.
‘There are more factors like the development of the skills of resistance movement. The Israelis used to face guerrillas, but today they face a new school that projected itself in the wars of 2006 and Gaza and declared that all of Palestine will be part and parcel of any war in the future.
‘The Israelis have categorised resistance movements as threats to Israel’s strategic security after they were a mere threat to the Israeli population. In the middle of these developments and this atmosphere, after the July 2006 war in particular, under a new zionist government that has brought back the settlement process – as the Palestinians say – to square one, where the world is begging Binyamin Netanyahu to endorse the two-state solution, the enemy is undertaking those drills.
‘We are talking about assumptions, yet they might take place. There might be other assumptions as well. The first is to say that the top priority goal of these manoeuvres is of a psychological and moral nature.
‘Given the defeat of the invincible Israeli army, the increase in early elections and the public crisis in Israel, the manoeuvre aims at rebuilding trust and restoring morals, whether the army’s self confidence, the confidence of the Israeli population in its army and government or confidence between the army and the government.
‘The second assumption is that Israel is really worried about its existence in the wake of all the mentioned developments, or at least it is worried about its strategic and national security and therefore it is doing what it perceives as necessary to face any danger, thus the drills will have a defensive dimension.
‘The third probability, let us put it the framework of intimidation, is aimed at sending a strong message to the whole region, the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, Arab peoples and Arab governments, Iran and the rest of the world, that Israeli is not weak, broken or hesitant as you think it is, because Israel is powerful, capable, superior and mighty and will face everyone. They also want to say that Israel is capable of crushing everybody and ready to engage in war at the level of the whole entity. . .
‘We notice that the Israeli rhetoric is about sudden reactions. At least they know that in this present stage, no one is seeking to open a front with Israel, so why do they raise this issue? This suggests that Israel is considering a military or security activity that could lead to sudden or unexpected reactions and therefore, the whole entity must be prepared to act within seconds or minutes, since Israel will start the aggression. . .
‘We have to stay alert. in particular. . . We still have time. Let us hold an extraordinary meeting over this; let there be a national policy to face the manoeuvres.’
