Saturday 27 April 2013

Zionists and Gulf Monarchs Ponder….Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah

Zionists and Gulf Monarchs Ponder….
Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah
by FRANKLIN LAMB
Beirut


“This is one damn fine idea, what took us so long to see a simple solution  that was right in front of our eyes for Christ’s sake”, Senator John McCain  of “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and “no-fly zones for Syria” notoriety, reportedly demanded to know from Dennis Ross during a recent Washington  Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) brain storming session in Washington  DC.

 Ross, a founder of WINEP with Israeli government start up cash (presumably  reimbursed unknowingly by American taxpayers) and currently WINEP's “Counselor”, reportedly responded to the idea of facilitating Al Qeada to  wage jihad against Hezbollah with the comment: “Shiites aren’t the only ones  seeking death to demonstrate their ‘resistance’ to whatever. Plenty of other  Muslims also want to die as we saw last week in Boston. Let ‘em all go at it  and Israel can sweep out their s--- when it’s over.”

One Congressional staffer attending the WINEP event emailed me, “Dennis  spoke in jest -- well I assumed he did -- but who knows anymore? Things are  getting ever crazier inside some of these pro-Israel think-tanks around here.”

Featured on the front page of its April 25 edition, the Zionist-compliant New  York Times writes that the Assad regime is apparently recovering but, “it  must be understood that for all of the justified worries about the (al Qaeda
affiliated) rebels “Assad remains an ally of Iran and Hezbollah. “


The Times adopts the views of Islamophobe, Daniel Pipes, who recommends that  the US try to keep the two sides in Syria fighting as long as possible until  they destroy each other.  Pipes, now serving as an advisor to John McClain,  wrote in the Washington Times on April 11, “Evil forces pose less danger to  us when they make war on each other. This keeps them focused locally, and it  prevents either one from emerging victorious and thereby posing a greater  danger. Western powers should guide enemies to a stalemate by helping  whichever side is losing, so as to prolong their debilitating conflict.”

Both Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs and  Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N, have at a minimum  impliedly joined in the intriguing idea of siccing Jabhat al Nusra on the  Party of God. This scheme, if launched, would be Feltman’s 14th attempt to  topple Hezbollah and defeat the Lebanese National Resistance to the  occupation of Palestine since he first arrived in Beirut from Tel Aviv in  2005 to become US Ambassador to Lebanon.  This observer, among others in  this region sense that given the aura still enveloping the American Embassy  here,  that Jeffrey never really left his Lebanese ambassadorial post and continues to occupy this position from his new UN office.

 This week Feltman warned that the spillover of Syria's war continues to be  felt in Lebanon as Susan Rice, echoed him and condemned Hezbollah for “undermining the country's “dissociation policy.” The latter being a bit  obscure in meaning but connoting something like sitting around doing nothing  while this country is being shelled by jihadists from among the 23 countries  currently fighting in Syria.  Feltman informed the media on 4/22/13 that “The Secretary-General is concerned by reports that Lebanese are fighting in  Syria both on the side of the regime and on the side of the opposition,  hopes that the new government will find ways to promote better compliance by  all sides in Lebanon with the “disassociation policy.”  
John McCain: 'We could do this & that ... to finish Assad off!'

Given current divisions in Lebanon that will not happen anymore than  Lebanon’s June 9th Parliamentary elections will be held on time.

 For her part, Susan lectured the UN Security Council that “Hezbollah  actively enables Assad to wage war on the Syrian people by providing money,  weapons, and expertise to the regime in close coordination with Iran.” This
position was expressed also through a statement by US. State Department  spokesman , Patrick Ventrell, who said that Washington “has always been  clear concerning Hezbollah’s shameful role and the support it is providing
for the Syrian regime and the violence it is inducing in Syria.” Ventrell  added: “We were clear from the start concerning the destructive role played  by Iran as well as the Iranian role.”


Several Israeli agents in Congress are today promoting a Jabhat el  Nusra-Hezbollah war even as the Obama administration terror-lists the  jihadist group. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s neocon
Islamaphobe acolyte, goes a bit further and explains to Fox News, once Assad  falls and Hezbollah is out of the picture “We can deal with these (jihadist)  fellas.”

Recent history in Libya instructs otherwise. As Turkish commentator Cihan  Celik recently noted: “A divorce with al-Nusra will not be easy in Syria”

The past two years in Libya, that shadow of a country, reveals countless  examples, three witnessed firsthand by this observer, during the long hot  summer of 2011. What we saw was Gulf sponsors and funders offering young  men, often unemployed, $ 100 per month, free cigarettes, and a Kalashnikov  to do jihad.  Plenty down and out lads still accept these offers in Libya,  as they do in Syria. One reason why the militias proliferated so quickly in  Libya and never melted away was the phenomenon of a wannabe jihadists  deciding to be a leader and recruiting perhaps a brother or two, maybe a few  cousins or tribe members, and presto, they have created a militia with power  they never dreamed of. Their new life can offer many perceived benefits   from running rough shod over the civilian populations and setting up myriad  mini but potent criminal enterprises specializing in kidnappings, robberies,  drugs,  trafficking in women, and assassinations for cash.  How many of these  young men have turned in their weapons in Libya and returned to their former  lives?   Or will do so when instructed by the likes of McCain or Graham?

 On 4/24/13 Jabhat Al-Nusra Front intensified its threats to officials here  including the Lebanese president by releasing a challenge from its media  office: “…we inform you – and you may think of that as a warning or an  ultimatum – that you must take immediate measures to restrain Hezbollah,  otherwise, the fire will reach Beirut. If you do not abide by this within 24  hours, we will consider that you are taking part in the massacres committed
by the Hezbollah members and we will unfortunately have to burn everything  in Beirut.” In addition they are calling for Jihad and the establishment of  the “Resistance Factions for Jihad against the Regime in Syria” and also in  Saida and Tripoli, Lebanon.

Israeli officials appear to be in agreement with the Ross/Pipes proposal to  arrange for Al Qeada to launch a war against Hezbollah.  The Director for  External Affairs at “The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African  Studies, repeatedly claimed that the Shia are the real threat to Israel, not  the Sunni and with the least threat coming from the Gulf monarchs.  He  offered the view recently that “Israel is now a partner of the Sunni Arab  states.”  Indeed, Israel hopes that Hezbollah will forget Israel when tasked  with trying repel Al Nusra and other al Qaeda affiliate attacks.
  According to various Israel officials who have issued statements on the  subject, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and several other members of the  Arab League constitute an “alliance of anxiety for Israel” because they  claim that “Sunni Arabs are not as competent as the Shia and Iran and as a  result they express doubts that Israel can rely on the Sunni states in the  same way that the Sunni states can rely on Israel.”

In a documentary about the Iraq war, an American soldier explains: 
“Actually, we don’t really have much of a problem with the Sunnis.  It’s the  Shias who we are afraid of.  The problem has something to do with their  leader who was killed centuries ago and these fellas are willing to lay
their life down for the guy.  Anyhow, that is what they told us in Special  Ops class.”

Al Nusra fighters currently occupying parts the south west areas of Yarmouk  Palestinian refugee camp in south Damascus, recently expressed eagerness to  fight Hezbollah which they claim would give them credibility with Sunni  Muslims and, oddly, in this observers view, “credibility with western  countries”, who supposedly are al Qaeda’s sworn enemies. It’s sometimes hard  to know who precisely is whose enemy these days in Syria as the rebels  continue using areas east and southwest of Damascus as rear bases and as  gateways into the capital.

Despite boasts to the contrary from Jihadist types in Syria and Lebanon, it  is not clear to this observer if Jihadist and al Qaeda-affiliated groups  living among Hezbollah communities in Lebanon like Fatah al Islam, Jund al  Sham or Osbat al Ansar which have been here for years would actually join  the Zionist promoted anti-Hezbollah jihad.

But it is evident that some Lebanese Islamists and jihadists directly  connected to al Qaeda do have the ability to target Hezbollah.   Elements  from each of these groups are startling to associate and identify with Jabhat  al Nusra, inspired partly by their successful military operations in Syria.

Again, we saw the same thing in Libya.  Enthusiastic, ambitious young men  who want to improve their lot in life try to go with a winner.  According to  sources in the Ain al Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, jihadist leaders such as Haytham and Mohammed al Saadi, Tawfic Taha, Oussama al Shehabi and Majed  al Majed are recruiting followers and fighters in Lebanon and offer a ticket  out the the squalid army-surrounded, Syrian-refugee-inflated camp.


 Homs-based media activist Mohammad Radwan Raad claims that “the embattled  residents of the rebel-controlled Homs province town of Al-Qusayr welcome  Saida, Lebanon-based Sunni Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s call for Jihad in Syria.  Claims Raad, “Al-Qusayr residents welcome Assir’s call and hope the Lebanese  people help kick out Hezbollah members in the area…We need anyone who can  get rid of them.” This week Assir urged his followers to join Syrian  rebels fighting troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese  Shiite movement Hezbollah. Al-Qusayr has been under rebel control for more  than a year and on the scene reports indicate that it is about to be  returned to central government control.

 In response, two Salafist Sunni Lebanese sheikhs urged their followers to go  to Syria to fight a jihad (religious war) in defense of Qusayr's Sunni  residents. "There is a religious duty on every Muslim who is able to do  so... to enter into Syria in order to defend its people, its mosques and  religious shrines, especially in Qusayr and Homs," Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir  told his followers. For now, experts say, such calls on the part of  Lebanon's Salafists are largely bluster because the movement is far from  able to wield either the arsenal or the fighting forces of Hezbollah.

 Local analysts like Qassem Kassir argue that Jabhat al Nusra and friends are  not organized enough to fight against Hezbollah in a conventional war, but  they could cause great damage by organizing bomb attacks against the Party  of God’s bases and militants. The latter would be enough initially for Ross  and WINEP and their Zionist handlers. Creating chaos in Lebanon being one of  their goals but more importantly weakening the National Lebanese Resistance  led by Hezbollah and also challenging Syria and Iran.

In a recent speech, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah offered his  party’s view about a Western-promoted Sunni-Shia clash, with Al-Nusra,  AlQaida and all the groups which flocked to Syria, saying that what was wanted  of them was to kill and get killed in Syria, in a massacre which will only serve  the enemies of the Arabs and Muslims.


The coming months will reveal to us if  the several pro-Zionist Arab regimes  as well as Islamophobes, including those at WINEP and other Israel-first  think-tanks, are delusional in believing that John McCain’s “simple solution” to those resisting the Zionist occupation of Palestine, would be to assist  Jabhat el Nusra type jihadists to make war against Hezbollah. 

Whether they could defeat Hezbollah is uncertain but whether Jabhat al Nusra  and friends are capable of igniting yet another catastrophe in this region is  the looming question.

 
Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and Syria and is reachable c/o
fplamb@gmail.com
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

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