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Monday, February 19, 2018

Getting Closer To War?

Over the weekend, there was a terror attack against Israelis near the Gaza border and Israeli repraisals.  Since there is almost no coverage of these event in the mainstream media, here is what happened.  The Israelis who patrol the border with Gaza saw a strange flag put up on the border fence.  When they went to see what it was, a bomb was detonated remotely.  Two Israelis were seriously injured and two more were slightly hurt.  A quick investigation revealed that the flag was set in place to lure Israelis close at which time the bomb was detonated by those who were watching from inside Gaza.  The Israelis responded quickly with air strikes inside Gaza.  Fifteen targets were hit including those of an Iranian backed terror group as well as others of Hamas, the terrorists who control Gaza.

Some people look at these events and tell themselves that it is nothing out of the ordinary.  They are wrong.  The key reason is the Israeli reprisal against the Iranian backed group.  In these exchanges, the Israelis normally follow their standard procedure which is to hit Hamas targets.  Israel has told Hamas repeatedly that it will be held responsible for everything that happens in Gaza.  This time, though, Israel added the Iranian backed group.  That means that the Israelis must believe that the attack was carried out by that group.

Think about that.  Just over a week ago, Iran flew an armed drone from Syria into Israeli airspace only to see it shot down.  That was followed by Israeli air attacks on the base that launched the drone, the firing of a massive number of anti-aircraft missiles by the Syrians, the shooting down of one Israeli plane, and the Israeli destruction in further raids of roughly half of the Syrian air defenses in the region.  The Syrians and Iranians crowed about shooting down the Israeli plane, but the destruction of so much of the Syrian air defense system was a major blow to the Assad regime and Iran.  Could it be that the attack on the Gaza border was just Iran's way of striking back against the Israelis in a way that would still give them the ability to deny involvement?  That seems to be the case.

If this really was an Iranian drive event, there will soon be more.  Most likely, the next shots will come from Lebanon where Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah holds great power.  Recently, an Israeli minister said that it was unacceptable for the Iranians to cause all these problems while they sit far away in safety.  Was that an Israeli warning to Iran that if things did not quiet down there would be reprisal attacks inside Iran?  We don't know.  What we do know is that the tension levels in the Middle East are rising.  The region could easily be headed towards another war.  With both Russian and American troops on the ground there, such a war would risk drawing in both of those countries into the fighting as well.  It is a very, very dangerous situation.

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