IRAN UPDATE: 7.1.17 - Iran Uses Star Of David As Missile Test Target

Iran Uses Star Of David As Missile Test Target

- by Deborah Danan -

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/29/iran-uses-star-of-david-as-missile-test-target/

Iran recently used a Star of David as a target for a ballistic missile test, Israel's envoy to the UN said Wednesday,
releasing satellite images of the site to the United Nations Security Council.

The Star of David was used as a target for a mid-range "Qiam" ballistic missile test in December last year, a statement from the Permanent Mission of
Israel to the United Nations said.

"This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable," Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said to the Council.

A grainy image shows the Jewish symbol and next to it an impact crater can be seen.

"The missile launch is not only a direct violation of UNSCR 2231, but is also a clear evidence of Iran's continued intention to harm the State of Israel,"
Danon said, adding that "the targeting of a sacred symbol of Judaism is abhorrent."

"The Security Council must act immediately against this demonstration of hate and Iran's provocative violations that threaten the stability of the entire
region," added Danon.

"It is the Iranians who prop up the Assad regime as hundreds of thousands are killed, finance the terrorists of Hezbollah as they threaten the citizens
of Israel, and support extremists and tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world," he added.

A senior Iranian official said last week that Tehran's retaliatory strike against the Islamic State in Syria earlier this month was also a warning to
Israel, and the Jewish state has "reason to worry."

"I think (Israel) understood the message ... it now has to worry" about every move it makes, Sheikh Hussein al-Islam, an advisor to Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif, said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack, "I have one message for Iran: Don't threaten Israel."

In March of last year, Iran tested two ballistic missiles bearing the Farsi inscription, "Israel must be wiped out."

 

 

ANALYSIS: Is Iran plunging the Middle East into another war? - By Heshmat Alavi -

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2017/06/26/ANALYSIS-Is-Iran-plunging-the-Middle-East-into-another-war-.html

 

The days of ISIS are numbered and voices are heard about the entire region being forced into a far more disastrous conflict. Various parties, mainly the US and Iran, have begun jostling, seeking to inject their influence onto what the future holds for Syria.

As Iran has also wreaked havoc in Iraq and Yemen, concerns are rallying on Tehran going the distance to pull the US full-scale into the Syria inferno.
Such a mentality results from misunderstanding the nature of what is known as the Iranian regime.

Escalating tensions

After establishing a foothold in the strategic town of al-Tanf near the Iraq-Jordan-Syria border, US forces designated a buffer zone to provide protection
for their own troops and resources, alongside their allies of anti-Assad opposition rebels.

1) On three different incidents Iran-backed militias have made advances into the buffer zone, only to receive warnings and eventually be attacked by US
warplanes.

2) Raising the stakes, on two occasions Iran-made pro-Assad drones have been downed by US-led coalition forces.

3) And maybe the ultimate incident came when a US F/A-18 fighter jet shot down a Syrian Sukho-22 warplane after the latter dropped bombs on US-backed
Kurdish forces north of Raqqa, the self-declared capital of ISIS.

 

Tehran's habit

Understanding its conventional and non-conventional forces stand no match against the classical armies of the US and the unity of its Arab allies, Iran
has for the past 38 years resorted to tactics of its own.

Terrorist attacks across the region through proxy groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah have proven successful. The 1982 Beirut bombings of US and French
barracks led to the American pullout of this highly fragile country. As a result, Tehran has used this method ever since to send its message. Following the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran yet again resorted to paramilitary and proxy methods to advance its
interests in the region.

Seeing no strong response only emboldens Iran in its pursuit of wreaking havoc. Witnessing the disastrous and premature withdrawal of US forces from Iraq,
and Obama's refusal to live up to his own red line after Assad resorted to the extreme low of gassing his own people in 2013, Iran came to a conclusion such actions will continue unabated.

The language of force

There have been cases otherwise, however, including Operation Praying Mantis on April 18th, 1988 when the US Navy launched a campaign against Tehran's
naval fleet in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war and the subsequent damage to an American warship.

The attack came as a major wake-up call for Iran as the mullahs in Tehran only understand the language of force. The 59 cruise missiles the US used to
target the Syrian regime airfield used to launch a chemical attack on Homs earlier this year also rose eyebrows not only in Damascus, Moscow and Tehran, but the world over.

The recent incidents in Syria are further serious signals for Iran that such belligerence no longer will go tolerated, especially considering a new US
administration in Washington adopting a far different perspective and strategy than its predecessor.

 

Solution

What needs grave understanding is the fact that Iran is the last party that seeks a full blown war in Syria, Yemen or any other region of the Middle East.
The Iranian regime is seeking a win-win solution, enjoying an open hand in meddling across the region to such extent to prevent any major international community retaliatory action.

Has Iran been successful? To this day, mostly it has, unfortunately, thanks to the West's highly flawed belief in adopting a policy of engagement with
Iran to tame the mullahs and enjoy short-term economic gains.

The tides, however, are changing for the better. Iran's Achilles Heel must be the main target as seen in the recent US Senate resolution imposing sanctions
on the regime's ballistic missile program, support of terrorism and human rights violations.

Tehran may kick, scream and threaten to abandon the Iran nuclear deal in retaliation. Yet rest assured the mullahs will not make such a grave mistake,
triggering the automatic re-imposition of sanctions under six previous United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards lies at the heart of the mullahs' illicit activities both inside the country and abroad. This entity also controls around
40 percent of the country's already fragile and highly corrupt economy.

To this end, there is no need for another war in the region. Iran knows better that such an outcome would only accelerate developments against its interests.
The US and Arab world can and should lead the international community by designating the Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organization.

This will be a complementary measure to the abovementioned Senate resolution, and bring Tehran to its knees. Such an initiative will place the international
community alongside the Iranian people in their struggle against the ruling mullahs' regime.
This is especially true after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson referred to Washington's support for domestic forces seeking peaceful regime change
in Iran.

 

Israel Warns Iran Against Arming Hezbollah In Lebanon - by Deborah Danan -

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/06/27/israel-warns-iran-against-arming-hezbollah-in-lebanon/

Israel has sent messages to Iran via diplomatic channels in Europe warning the regime that it "will not tolerate" expanding
Hezbollah's arsenal with weapons factories in southern Lebanon.

An unnamed diplomatic source in Europe said Israel had asked him and other representatives from countries that have ties with Iran to convey the message
that Jerusalem would not stand by while Tehran's proxy Hezbollah establishes underground factories to produce advanced rockets, Hebrew-language media reported.

Such weapons have until now been smuggled through Syria but the Israeli Air Force strikes weapons convoys bound for Hezbollah.

A senior Israeli official confirmed the claim and said Jerusalem has stressed to the international community that Iranian support for Hezbollah must become
a priority when dealing with Iran.

"The Lebanese government cannot address this issue and thus the address for dealing with it is found with other forces that have influence over the issue,"
the official said, according to Haaretz.

On Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that "hundreds of thousands of fighters" would assist Syria and Lebanon in a war with Israel.

"The Israeli enemy should know that if it launches an attack on Syria or Lebanon, it's unknown whether the fighting will stay just between Lebanon and
Israel, or Syria and Israel," Hassan Nasrallah said, adding that a future conflict would be "very costly for Israel."

"I'm not saying countries would intervene directly - but it would open the door for hundreds of thousands of fighters from all around the Arab and Islamic
world to participate in this fight - from Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan," he said.

A day prior, Israel charged Hezbollah with violating United Nations Security Council resolutions by constructing a string of military observation points
under the guise of installations belonging to an environmental NGO.

"Hezbollah is using an environmental organization as a cover for activities along the border with Israel," Israel's military intelligence chief Maj. Gen.
Hertzl Halevi said at the Herzliya Conference.

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot told the same conference on Wednesday that Hezbollah remains Israel's primary nemesis.

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told the UNSC that Hezbollah was engaged in a "dangerous provocation" and urged the council to demand that Lebanon
dismantle the observation posts in adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, passed at the end of the Second Lebanon War in August 2006.

The UN on Friday denied the claims, with UNIFIL, the body's interim force in southern Lebanon, reporting that it "has not observed any unauthorized armed
persons at the locations or found any basis to report a violation of Resolution 1701."

On Sunday, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that former deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh told the Herzliya conference that harming Lebanese infrastructure, as
per the current IDF policy, is the wrong way to respond to Hezbollah rockets, since "Iran does not give a damn if Lebanon's infrastructure is destroyed."

 

Why Iran and Israel may be on the verge of conflict - in Syria - By Benny Avni -

http://nypost.com/2017/06/27/why-iran-and-israel-may-be-on-the-verge-of-conflict-in-syria/?utm_campaign=applenews&utm_medium=inline&utm_source=applenews

Some Israelis like to go to the Golan, where from the safety of a ramp overlooking the valley below, they can watch
- no binoculars needed - the most consequential regional event of the age: the Syrian civil war.

This week, however, the Israel Defense Forces closed the area for visitors, letting in only the local farmers who worried about missing the cherry harvest.

That's because for three days in a row, mortar shells flew across the border onto the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan, putting war gawkers at too
much risk.

Most likely, the shells overflew their real target: one of the sides in the increasingly heated battle in an area around Quneitra, a town divided between
Israel and Syria. Various Sunni militias are entrenched in the area, and Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad are trying to clear them out.

Control of the road between Quneitra and Dara to the south (where the uprising against Assad started six years ago) is key for the Syrian army - and even
more so for its patrons in Tehran. By capturing this road, and the area east of Israel and north of Jordan, they can establish a land corridor from Iran, through Iraq, to Damascus and Syria's neighbor, Lebanon.

Throw in Yemen, and Iran's dream of a "Shiite crescent" that would make it the Mideast's dominant force comes true.

The Syria war is complex, involving many powers pulling in all directions. But Iran and its allied militias - Shiite Iraqis, foreigners from Afghanistan
and elsewhere, Hezbollah, Assad's army - have emerged as a chief worry for policymakers in Riyadh, Amman and Jerusalem.

True, Israel knows how to handle spillover from war on its border. IDF surgical strikes hit Syrian army targets over the past few days, which was enough
to at least pause the cross-border seepage of fire into the Golan.

The larger concern for Israeli policymakers here is that Iran and its allied militias, already in control of south Lebanon, are trying to cement a beachhead
in Syria.

And that's exactly what's happening. "Iran is attempting to use the civil war to establish air force and naval bases
in Syria," Israel's Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio this week.

It's not just Syria. IDF intelligence chief Herzi Halevi said Iran is also building arms factories in Lebanon, a country now dominated by its local proxy,
Hezbollah. The mullahs, he said, similarly use Yemeni proxies, the Houthis, to manufacture weapons in that strategically located country next door to Saudi Arabia.

So where's America in all this?

The Obama administration considered Iran an ally in the fight against ISIS. That, and the nuclear deal that filled the mullahs' coffers with cash, worried
the Saudis so much that they quietly turned to Israel as an ally to confront Tehran.

And not only Saudis. Ha'aretz reports Jordan and Israel have tightened intelligence cooperation in recent weeks to better address the growing Iranian
threat on Syrian territory near both countries' borders.

US forces are reportedly also operating there in growing numbers. Better yet, President Trump has made clear his predecessor's romance with Tehran was
just a fling. The administration has been warning Iran to watch its step as it stomps around the Middle East.

That may have been behind the seemingly-out-of-the-blue White House announcement Monday, confirmed by the Pentagon Tuesday, that it's detected signs Syria
is preparing a new chemical attack. Trump officials warned Assad would pay a "heavy price" for using chemical weapons again.

Yet, widely reported internal fights among administration bigwigs over America's involvement in the Syria war could
hamstring the united anti-Iran front that Sunni allies are hoping for. Washington's bickering over Trump's alleged ties to Russia, an Iran ally, isn't helping either.

According to a Fox News report, Trump is quietly organizing a regional conference, inviting Sunni allies and perhaps even Israel. If so, good - but administration
officials will surely hear a lot about the need for America to take a clear stand against Iran's expansion.

The region is on edge. A victory over ISIS seems close now, but if Iran emerges on top, a wider and more vicious war may ensue, with dire consequences
for everyone, including America.

For Israelis, meanwhile, such an outcome could be much scarier than what happened this week to a few Golan tourists that temporarily lost a front-row seat for
watching the war below.

 

 

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