Hezbollah-Saudi crisis deepens and could impact Israel – analysis

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have expelled Lebanon’s ambassadors in recent days. Hezbollah may see an opening and could increase tensions

WAVING THE Hezbollah flag in Marjayoun, Lebanon. (photo credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)
WAVING THE Hezbollah flag in Marjayoun, Lebanon.
(photo credit: AZIZ TAHER/REUTERS)
A crisis between Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia is growing.
“We are facing a crisis created by one of the countries in the region, which is waging a brutal war against another Arab country,” said Mohammed Raad, head of the Hezbollah faction in the Lebanese parliament.
The regional tensions could also affect Israel.
Raad was quoted in Iranian media in recent days. His comments refer to Saudi Arabia’s “hostile” actions against Lebanon. In fact, Riyadh has responded to a Lebanese official supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi had appeared to praise the Houthis. The Hezbollah official continued: “One of the ministers of the Lebanese government issued a statement in support of the right of the Yemeni people to protect themselves against the aggressor coalition that has invaded their country, before assuming the post of minister in this government.”
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have expelled Lebanon’s ambassadors in recent days. Lebanon’s president is seeking to heal the rift. Hezbollah may see an opening and could increase tensions. He says Saudi Arabia wants to harm the “stability” of Lebanon. In fact, Lebanon is unstable and bankrupt.

 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud deliver remarks to reporters before meeting at the State Department in Washington, US, October 14, 2021. (credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud deliver remarks to reporters before meeting at the State Department in Washington, US, October 14, 2021. (credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)

Hezbollah claims to be concerned that Riyadh might be making more light of the controversy because of upcoming elections. However, the reality may be that Hezbollah is trying to stoke a controversy to get votes or create a crisis. Mohammed Raad said, “those who are creating a crisis for Lebanon do not want the elections to be held in this country and they intend to disrupt these elections, and perhaps they realized that the results of the next elections will not be the way they want them to be.”
Thirty years ago Saudi Arabia was key to the Taif accords that ended the Lebanese Civil War. Riyadh is seen as generally supporting the status quo and Sunni politicians in Lebanon, such as Saad Hariri. Hezbollah murdered Hariri’s father, Rafic in 2005. In recent years Riyadh has grown tired of backing a Lebanon that continues to be swallowed by Hezbollah. Hezbollah maintains an illegal terror army in Lebanon with 150,000 rockets, undermines Lebanon’s foreign policy, conducts its own policies, has its own communications network and in many ways is more powerful than the state.
This week Israel is conducting a national readiness drill. Israel’s Home Front Command and National Emergency Authority (RAHEL) will hold a week-long drill starting on Sunday simulating a large-scale war in which civilians may be evacuated from northern border communities and Israel will confront large rocket barrages sent by Hezbollah, according to reports.
It is not clear if Hezbollah will exploit regional tensions in this regard. Hezbollah wants closer ties with the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran is exporting the same technology to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, such as drones and rockets. The US recently sanctioned key figures in the drone program in Iran. The US also imposed sanctions on Lebanese businessmen and a member of parliament named Jamil Sayyed. This means regional tensions are entwined and heating up. Iran used drones to attack a ship in the Gulf of Oman in July. A drone attacked the US garrison at Tanf in late October. Hezbollah has increasingly mentioned Yemen in statements. In January reports said Iran may have sent drones to Yemen. These had a range that could threaten Israel.


Israel and the United States are heading for a diplomatic breakdown

You begin to see the gradual erosion of US-Israel relations, one poisonous drip at a time. Op-ed.

Barry Shaw , Oct 30 , 2021 8:28 PM

 

4th of July event in Jerusalem

4th of July event in Jerusalem

David Azagury / U.S. Embassy Jerusalem
The Biden Administration is arrogantly ignoring official Israeli protests against the opening of a US Consulate in Jerusalem to serve non-Israeli Palestinian Arabs.

It is more important for them to cow to the radical wing of their party than honor the pledge made by previous administrations to an unbreakable bond with Israel.

The Biden Administration could easily have catered to Palestinian Arabs by opening a consular office in Ramallah. This is where the Palestinian Authority is based. This is where they serve their electorate, whenever they have elections. The last one was in 2006. They were supposed to hold elections every four years but Palestinian factions have been at war with each other for decades.

That said, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah decided not to help their people – what else is new – and instead play diplomatic football by insisting that the United States must reverse their avowed declaration that Jerusalem is the undivided sovereign capital of the State of Israel. Instead, the Palestinians and the current US Administration are determined to drive a wedge, some would say a stake, in the heart of Israel and the so-called “unbreakable bond” of the United States-Israel relationship by insisting that a consulate be located not in Ramallah or Gaza but deep in central Jerusalem.

Biden is weakly, some would say willingly, surrendering to the demands of a non-state entity that uses American tax-payers’ money to pay their killers of Jews. Why not? There were no effective protests against this in America. If this fails to extract protest the opening of an office should be child’s play.

You begin to see the gradual erosion of US-Israel relations, one poisonous drip at a time.

For sure this is yet another example of who is actually controlling the White House and State Department.

Biden, Harris, Blinken and the Democratic caucus have bowed their head to the demands of the radical wing of their party. They are too frightened to stand up to them even to the extent that they risk irrevocably damaging their relationship with Israel. It is as major a schism as that.

The power in America is now in the hands of the Israel haters.

It seems that Blinken believes that the new Israeli coalition, with a fair proportion of the government representing center-left parties, will eventually accede to their position. It could be that Biden and his political overlords and the notorious anti-Israel squad of radical women, are happy to see Israel squirm politically.

They really wouldn’t mind seeing the fall of a government and a political fracture within Israel over this issue. They would view it as helping the Palestinian Arabs achieve an international public relations embarrassment over Israel.

The current American Administration is as wrong in this assessment as they have been with every other foreign policy position.

On its face it is yet another example of a Democrat machine built entirely on setting back every successful Trump policy no matter the consequences of their reversal. We witness the disasters of every reverse the Democrats have touched since taking power earlier this year.

Border security and legal immigration have been thrown out of the window with an open border policy that will flood their country with over two million unverified, unidentifiable, illegal immigrants from third world countries by the end of this year for the sole purpose of fundamentally and politically changing America.

We see it in the incomprehensible setback of America from being an energy independent nation to one that went begging to OPEC to increase production because Biden inexplicably, in his first act of president, closed the spigot on the XL Keystone pipeline.

We see it in the Marxism of the American economy and the abuse of a bloated government demanding trillions and trillions of dollars for ludicrous projects hidden in what they laughingly call an Infrastructure Bill. Even people are called “human infrastructure” in America these days.

Tragically, we witnessed the disastrous failure of American military power and diplomacy in the death knell of a failed withdrawal from Afghanistan, perceived internationally as a victory for Islamic terrorism, in which a careless Biden Administration left hundreds, maybe thousands, of American citizens trapped behind enemy lines. Meanwhile, Israeli aid agencies have independently and covertly extracted Afghanis out of that frightening country.

Now, in their fevered attempt to set back another Trump achievement, they are determined, at any cost, to reverse Trump’s establishment of a United States Embassy in Jerusalem by uniquely planting a mini-embassy in Jerusalem explicitly for Palestinian Arabs from Judea and Samaria.

There are no examples anywhere in which America, or any other country, has, over the objection of a sovereign state, ignored that nations’ sovereign objections by unilaterally opening a facility to serve people of a country or an entity outside such a sovereign state, let alone an entity that regularly practices terrorism in all its forms against Israel.

This constitutes a major diplomatic slap in the face of Israel that will have far reaching and damaging repercussions.

The distrust is already taking form following America’s shocking withdrawal from Afghanistan and its weak display over Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon capability.

There are certainly people in the Democrat Party and in the Biden Administration, as mentioned earlier, who will be salivating to see a deep rift develop between America and Israel.

It seems these people may have their way.

Either the current Israeli Government will stand firm and actively prevent the opening of this consulate or, if it supinely accedes to the unilateral decision of the Biden Administration, the Israeli government will fall.

Israel’s enemies within America may celebrate such an event, but such a celebration will be short lived because, with the fall of the Israeli government, Israelis will overwhelmingly vote in a more affirmative Zionist government.

Israel has a history of overcoming adversity. It always comes out stronger in the end.

We wish the same will be true for America.


Damascus hit by Israeli missiles, two injured – Syrian news

Syrian air defenses intercepted targets near the capital Damascus on Saturday after an alleged Israeli strike.

 Missile fire is seen over Damascus, Syria January 21, 2019.  (photo credit: SANA/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
Missile fire is seen over Damascus, Syria January 21, 2019.
(photo credit: SANA/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
Explosions were heard in Syria‘s capital, Damascus, on Saturday after Syrian air defenses intercepted several surface-to-surface missiles fired toward the countryside from the direction of “northern occupied Palestine,” the state-run SANA news agency reported.
“The air defenses of the Syrian Arab Army repelled an Israeli aggression on areas in the Damascus countryside,” SANA said.
Two Syrian soldiers were wounded and “material losses” were sustained, according to the report.
The news comes just over a week after two bombs detonated on a bus transporting Syrian troops, killing 14 people and wounding others in one of the deadliest attacks on the capital since the beginning of the bloody civil war in 2011, according to the Associated Press.

Civil defense members put out a bus fire at the site of a roadside bomb attack in central Damascus, Syria, in this handout released by SANA October 20, 2021. (credit: SANA/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)Civil defense members put out a bus fire at the site of a roadside bomb attack in central Damascus, Syria, in this handout released by SANA October 20, 2021. (credit: SANA/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

This is a developing story.