WarSclerotic

From Debka-Net-Weekly

A New Hizballah Attack Would Place All of Lebanon in Israel’s Cross-Hairs

Defense minister Ehud Barak‘s tough warning to Beirut Wednesday, Nov. 24, went virtually unnoticed in the overheated Middle East climate. It deserved more attention because he stated clearly that if Hizballah goes on the warpath again and shoots rockets at Israeli towns as it did in 2006, Israel would hold the new Lebanese unity government responsible and target the whole of the country – not just Hizballah strongholds in the south.

Barak was addressing a meeting of northern Israel mayors and local leaders representing the towns and villages blasted three years ago.

“We cannot accept the situation created now in Lebanon in which a terrorist militia is part of the government,” he said and went on to underscore pro-Iranian militia’s hugely expanded arsenals: 40,000 rockets in place of the 16,000 on the eve of the 2006 war.

The Israeli defense minister warned that the Lebanese Shiite group may be taking delivery of game-changing weapons if mobile anti-aircraft SA-8 missile batteries get the green light from Damascus or Tehran to move across the border into Lebanon.

These missiles would shield Hizba!lla strongholds against Israeli Air Force attack. They have been held in Syrian depots for months because Israel notified Damascus via Washington and Paris that they would be bombed if they tried to cross the border.

Who will draw first?

Barak’s comments are noteworthy, DEBKA-Net- Weekly military sources say, because they lift the veil from the IDF’s new military doctrine for Lebanon in the light of its changed circumstances:

This month, after seven months of crisis, Saad Hariri managed to form a unity government which also embraces the greatly empowered Hizballah without requiring its militia to disarm and disband.

The Eisencott Doctrine, as it is called after the Northern Command chief Gen. Gadi Eisencott, would avoid engaging Hizballah forces on the ground, as the IDF did in 2006, but go straight for their missile batteries and stockpiles and destroy them.

By destruction, the general means the entire environment of those batteries and stocks would be ground to dust, like the Shiite Dahya borough of Beirut which a three-week Israeli bombardment flattened three years ago because it was the seat of Hizballah’s headquarters and offices.

Since then, Hizballah has spread its thousands of missiles across Lebanon. According to the Eisancott Doctrine, a Hizballah attack would therefore cost Lebanon dear. Israel would hit its missiles wherever they may be located – even at the cost of destroying much of Lebanon’s civilian and military infrastructure.

Barak was giving Beirut advance warning because of the widespread belief that Hizballah will loose a missile blitz against Israel as Iran’s first response to a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear sites. At the same time, Hizballah is certain Israel will precede such an attack by hitting Lebanon first to save its own population from retaliatory punishment.

This entry was posted on November 29, 2009 at 10:39 AM and is filed under Iran / Israel War. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.