WarSclerotic

Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shiite terrorist organization, has rejected Russian demands to withdraw its forces from the Lebanese-Syrian border, a prominent Syrian rights group indicated Thursday.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Hezbollah is still in the al-Qusayr area southwest of Homs and the Jusiyyeh crossing area on the border.

Russia reportedly demanded that Hezbollah pull out of Syria following an alleged Israeli airstrike on May 25 that was said to have targeted Hezbollah munitions depots at the al-Qusayr air base. The area is a known Hezbollah stronghold, also housing other Iran-backed militias.

In a dramatic diplomatic development on May 28, it was revealed that Israel and Russia had reached understandings whereby only Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army – not Iran or its Shiite proxy militias, including Hezbollah – will take up positions near the border with Israel.

Under the agreement, an Israeli official said, not only will Russia enforce its commitment to keep Iran’s militias and Hezbollah forces from the border, it will publicly call on all foreign forces to leave Syrian soil – among them the United States and Turkey.

On May 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the withdrawal of all non-Syrian forces from Syria’s southern border with Israel should happen as soon as possible.

The Observatory reported no clashes between Hezbollah and Russian forces, but said the Russians were adamant about the terrorist group’s withdrawal from its positions along the border.

Meanwhile, sources linked to Syrian rebel factions told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that Hezbollah terrorists and other Iran-backed militants were fighting alongside Syrian soldiers near the Israeli border disguised in Syrian army uniforms.

On Thursday, Israel Hayom reported that Russia had conveyed a message to Israel and other countries in the region to avoid an escalation in the Syrian civil war during the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, currently underway in Russia.

1.

Who said anyone is legitimizing Kim Jong Un, the notorious leader of North Korea? Did someone hand him a mysterious $150 billion dollars, the way the world did with Iran? Are any European conglomerates planning on doing business with broke North Korea, the way they did with Iran? Did the North Korean foreign minister (does anyone even know who that is?) worm his way into every living room in the world, for hours on end, as part of a cruel regime’s charm offensive and with the support of a sycophantic media, the way Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif did during the nuclear talks? Has anyone seen U.S. President Donald Trump get down on his knees and kneel before the North Korean tyrant, the way his predecessor, former U.S. President Barack Obama did with the Saudi king?

A bear hug. That’s what the North Korean dictator, who was fully aware of the balance of power, received from Trump. He was given an offer he couldn’t refuse: If you want to feed your people, if you want commodities for you and your country, if you want to do business with us, give up your nuclear weapons. And as Trump indicated during the two leaders’ meeting in Singapore this week, he is trying. If Kim fails to deliver, the stick will come back out. The difference between Trump and Obama is that in this instance, there was a stick before there was a meeting. And it wasn’t just any stick, it was a heavy club.

But what does any of that matter, when a substantial portion of the global media, including in Israel, is not interested in the truth. Many in the media are still sore that Trump won the presidential election in the first place, and they are having trouble accepting reality. The media has many faces, it is not limited to television studios and newspaper offices. There is also the film industry – hundreds of millions of people see the movies that come out of Hollywood. Most of what I’ve personally seen from Hollywood in the last 20 years has been magnificently stupid, perfectly implausible and disconnected from reality or any real discussion of life. Hollywood, the champion of political correctness, cheered deliriously when one of its biggest stars unleashed profanities against the president of their country.

With his address at the Tony Awards this week, Robert De Niro reminded me of Israeli personality Assi Dayan, who, at a film industry event, lashed out at Benjamin Netanyahu some 20 years ago. Netanyahu was serving his first term as prime minister at the time, and like De Niro, Dayan used some choice expletives in his tirade. He, too, elicited the applause of his audience, which was stricken with blindness. They embraced the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and his gang of terrorists, ever since the Oslo Accords, but felt contempt for their prime minister.

2.

It wasn’t the pursuit of truth that guided many of the commentator who showered us with insights and reservations about this week’s Singapore summit. Where were these reservations during the Oslo Accords that ended in bloodshed? Where were they when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005? Where were they during the nuclear talks with Iran? All of a sudden, the media is wary of the harbingers of peace. All of sudden, it cares about the rights of the North Koreans.

Why didn’t we see a similar onslaught on the White House when Obama turned his back on the Green Movement in Iran? After the election was stolen from them, the members of the Green Movement took to the streets and literally gave their lives for the sake of freedom in their country. But all Obama cared about was Pax Americana – that cosmic world peace that he dreamed up in his famous Cairo speech – and didn’t want to upset the ayatollah regime and the Muslim world.

During Obama’s term, I don’t remember any “brave” actors declaring that the emperor, the messiah of the Left, has no clothes. Just like I don’t remember any Assi Dayan type sending Arafat and his disciples to hell, the way Dayan did Netanyahu, after the recklessness of the deal that was signed with him became apparent. Trump, however, is accused of legitimizing a cruel tyrant. Netanyahu, who fought tooth and nail against the Iran nuclear agreement, was accused of jeopardizing Israel’s relations with the U.S., even though he was fighting against an American president who understood the Middle East about as much as the commentators do. What glorious hypocrisy.

3.

I have been writing for years that every viewer and every reader understands the reality just as well, if not better than, these commentators. They don’t have access to any significant information that the average viewer is denied, nor do they carry any special kind of cultural or intellectual baggage. They have a microphone and a suit and they appear on our screens. That’s all.

By virtue of their celebrity, the talking heads on the small screen, and the big screen too, enjoy an aura of undeserved importance. There is no need for this. Think of the second commandment, the one that has been etched into our people’s history for all eternity: “You shall not make for yourself any graven image. … You shall not bow down to them nor serve them.” Now, the biblical image has taken the form of commentators, actors and celebrities.

We were commanded at Mount Sinai to destroy these images. To abandon the idols. To take them at face value rather than attributing to them more worth than they deserve. The cultural and artistic elite do not have a monopoly on iconoclasm. It is all of us who share the responsibility. Because the goal is freedom of the spirit and the mind, and if, when we look at the summit in Singapore, we see one thing and hear something different in the voice-over, it is incumbent on all of us to lower the volume and make up our own minds.

It was quite entertaining to see an Israeli reporter trying to teach the president of the United States what kind of tyrant the North Korean leader really is. Trump’s response reflected the sentiments of many viewers – he snapped at the reporter, waving him away and muttering, “I understand much better than you.” But have no fear. Within the media cult, the reporter was widely applauded for his “courage.”

4.

The leftist discourse does not confront its rivals’ worldview. It rejects the rival altogether. Much to our disgrace, some of the intelligent members of the Right have internalized the Left’s criticism and learned to turn around and similarly criticize their own camp while humiliatingly cozying up to the very people who treat them with contempt. The Left is not very good at reading reality with any degree of accuracy, but it holds the key positions in academia, in the media and in cultural power centers. Therefore, it (still) has the power to blacklist artists, researchers and media personalities that rub them the wrong way.

The right-wing newspapers and social networks are filled with in-depth debates on remarks, articles, theories and ideas from the Left, but the opposite isn’t true for the Left. Most of the counterarguments in the left-wing media boil down to childish dismissals of any ideological or cultural rival. Many who look down their noses at the Right are in fact ignorant in many areas, and by avoiding any serious and healthy discussion with their opponents, they are sentencing their camp to ideological atrophy.

The cultural realm cannot become enriched by internal conversations within the echo chamber. The current reality is essentially a form of ideological incest, which inevitably leads to genetic mutations in the offspring. The toxic result is that we are seeing significant sectors in the Israeli Left adopting anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic ideologies.

5.

There is no pursuit of truth. There is hatred for Netanyahu and there is hatred for Trump. That is why so much effort is being invested into turning the public against Netanyahu with corruption allegations. Off all the police investigations and media circuses that have been flung at the prime minister in recent years, the biggest one has been Case 3000 – the one that launched the wildly unfounded allegation that Netanyahu was involved in illicit submarine deals to line his pockets and the pockets of his associates.

“I pray that this was not a case of treason fueled by greed,” Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid said on Nov. 22, 2017 without batting an eye. This week, Lapid complained that he was being maligned…

Demonstrators protested at the attorney general’s home every week, with the submarine case at the top of their agenda, and the investigative reporter who has hounded Netanyahu with this case may as well have been nominated for a Pulitzer. The case seemed poised to become the biggest scandal involving an incumbent prime minister the country had ever seen.

But ultimately, it was much ado about nothing. Much to the conspirators chagrin, the case evaporated this week with not so much as a whimper. But no drama was recorded. Actually, there was a bit of drama: A Channel 10 reporter exposed an even bigger controversy than the submarines – the Prime Minister’s Office ordered a new desk for the bureau and sent the old desk out to be repaired. “So what’s the problem?” the genius reporter asked. “There is now one desk too many.” Maybe there is just one commentator too many.

Iran will begin uranium enrichment at its Fordo plant and will install new nuclear equipment at its Natanz facility if it withdraws from the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said in an interview published Wednesday.

The fate of the deal is unclear after the United States withdrew from it on May 8. The other signatory nations – Russia, China, Germany, Britain and France – are trying to salvage the accord, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Iran has two vast enrichment sites, at Natanz and Fordo, both in central Iran between Tehran and Isfahan. Much of Natanz is deep underground and Fordo is buried inside a mountain, factors widely believed to protect them from aerial bombardment.

In the interview with the Young Journalists’ Club, AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said new work would begin on the nuclear program on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He did not specify what kind of new equipment might be installed at Natanz.

“Currently the supreme leader has ordered that the programs be carried out within the parameters of the nuclear deal,” Kamalvandi said.

“And when he gives the order we will announce the programs for operating outside of the nuclear deal for reviving Fordo.”

The agency’s head, Ali Akbar Salehi, announced last week that Iran had begun work on a facility to construct advanced centrifuges at Natanz.

The announcement appeared at least in part to be an effort to pressure the remaining signatories to preserve the 2015 deal.

Kamalvandi accused the United States and other Western countries of applying double standards by opposing Iran’s nuclear program, which he said was purely peaceful, while accepting the nuclear arms program of Iran’s archfoe Israel.

“The West doesn’t criticize the Zionist regime and has even helped them,” Kamalvandi said. “Without the help of the West and America, this regime could never have obtained nuclear weapons.”

Iran’s presence in Syria and its relations with Damascus are not negotiable,  Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview with Iran’s Al Alam TV broadcast Wednesday.

Assad also repeated the assertion that Iran has no fixed bases in Syria, and said it is still possible to reach a settlement in the southwestern region, where Iranian-backed forces are near the border with Israel.

Israel has repeatedly warned against any permanent Iranian military presence in Syria.

Assad said contacts are “ongoing” between Russia, the United States and Israel.

But he said the relationship between Syria and Iran “will not be part of any settlement” and is “not in the international bazaar.”

There has been speculation that Iran may pull its forces back from near the Israeli border on the Golan Heights in some kind of settlement.

After regime forces captured Ghouta from rebels in April, “it was suggested that we should move south. We were faced with two options … reconciliation or liberation by force. At this point, the Russians suggested the possibility of giving reconciliation an opportunity,” Assad said.

“Up to now, there are no concrete results for a simple reason, which is Israeli and American interference; for they put pressure on the terrorists in that area in order to prevent reaching any compromise or peaceful resolution.”

Israel Aerospace Industries recently performed ‎a ‎successful demonstration of its newest kamikaze ‎drone, dubbed “Rotem,” which is designed to carry out “suicide ‎missions” to ‎destroy enemy targets.

According to the company’s website, Rotem is a ‎lightweight, multi-rotor, lethal assault ‎drone with ‎vertical takeoff and ‎‎landing capabilities, making it ‎suitable for ‎‎intelligence, reconnaissance and ‎surveillance ‎‎missions, as well as for tactical ‎missions.‎

The drone has a range of up to 10 ‎kilometers (6.2 miles) and can hover for 30 to 45 ‎minutes before diving down at a speed of up ‎‎to 50 knots. It carries a ‎1-kilogram warhead‎, has a 1-meter ‎strike precision, and can be deployed ‎with one minute by a single soldier‎, making it ideal ‎against low-signature enemy systems in urban and ‎complex environments.‎

The drone folds into 38x7x5 ‎inches and ‎offers several automated modes to ensure accurate ‎execution of the mission as well as operational safety, the company said.

It said the test covered the drone’s “end-‎to-end capabilities,” including a rapid, precision ‎strike on a miniature target.

“The demonstration was ‎held under tough field and weather conditions, ‎highlighting the system’s ability to respond quickly ‎and effectively to a low-signature enemy in a ‎threatened space,” it said.‎

‎IAI Executive Vice President and General Manager Boaz ‎Levy said, ‎”The pilot in which we have proved the complete ‎capability range of the Rotem constitutes a quantum ‎leap.

‎”I believe that a drone that combines reconnaissance ‎and surveillance, terrain dominance, and a combination of ‎various sensors and assault capabilities adds ‎significant value to fighting forces, with an ‎emphasis on complex warfare situations that require ‎fast, accurate, and available response to ‎battlefield threats. The Rotem, with its multiple ‎capabilities, constitutes a unique platform for ‎enhancing land warfare.”‎

With the 2018 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament kicking off on Thursday, host nation Russia has made it clear that it expects Israel and other Middle Eastern states to avoid an escalation in the Syrian civil war during the month-long championship, Israel Hayom has learned.

The fighting in Syria has subsided somewhat recently, following the retaking by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime of almost all of the rebel-held enclaves, particularly in the Damascus area.

However, the situation remains fragile as anti-regime forces are still holding out in a number of locations. Moreover, Iran’s increased involvement in the civil war in support of the regime has put Syria in Israel’s crosshairs, with Israel repeatedly saying it will not permit Iran to establish permanent bases or advanced weapons facilities in Syria.

Several weeks ago, Israeli forces obliterated dozens of Iranian targets in response to a rocket attack on Israeli territory. According to foreign media sources, Israel has also executed a number of strikes aimed at thwarting arms shipments to Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon.

The combustible situation has Russian authorities worried that a conflagration in Syria may overshadow the World Cup, which takes place every four years and this year is being held in Russia for the first time. Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the event a personal project and a source of patriotic pride for his country.

Though the requests conveyed to Israel and other countries do not specifically make the connection between the soccer tournament and the ongoing civil war, the underlying message is clear.

However, it is unclear to what degree Iran will heed the Russian request.  If Iran continues to bolster its presence in Syria, this will almost certainly compel Israel to act.

Israel has maintained a deconfliction channel with the Russian military, keeping Moscow updated on its actions in Syria. Presumably, Israel will be even more diligent in coordinating with Russia the coming weeks.

The Russian request also places constraints on Assad, who is dependent on Russia in his fight against the rebels. Assad has been preparing for a massive onslaught against rebel enclaves in southern Syria, near the border with Israel. Israel has said it would agree to Assad returning there as long as Iranian militias remain away from the border. Jordan has said it would welcome Assad’s return to maintain stability in the area.

In the wake of Russia’s request, Assad will have to decide whether to go ahead with his offensive. Whatever he decides, he is likely to coordinate any actions with Moscow, as he has done since Russia joined the fighting in 2015.

Russia’s massive contribution, particularly with airstrikes against the rebels, has been critical to Assad’s success and his ability to regain areas lost early in the war.