The Israeli military on Thursday released a map detailing what it says are nearly 1,000 underground bunkers, weapons storage facilities and monitoring sites built by the militant Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.Here is the map.
The release of the map is mainly about psychological warfare. The intended audience, writes Judith Levy, is Hezbollah itself, as well as the Lebanese people, and the international community. She asks:
There is a lot of misinformation surfacing about the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri. The claim that Hezbollah was responsible for his death is not true. The UN is a not a neutral body in this affair. It is a fabricated narrative designed to stain Hezbollah in the eyes of the international community, and allow Israel and the U.S. to strike Lebanon without coming off as total assholes. Independent journalist Mike Whitney wrote why this narrative is being manufactured and sold to the world in January, 2011:Why did the IDF release the maps now? Here's a possibility.
The impending publication of the UN tribunal's indictments of Hezbollah members for the assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri will make things very uncomfortable for Nasrallah and, by extension, for Iran, which has set up Hezbollah as its local proxy. The best way for Hezbollah to deflect both Lebanese and international attention away from its guilt in the Hariri killing is to provoke Israel.
From Hezbollah's point of view, an ideal result would be carnage in Lebanese villages wreaked by the IDF.
The UN's Special Tribunal for Lebanon -- or the STL, as it is called -- is a US/Israeli invention designed to tarnish Hezbollah by leveling trumped-up charges against its members. Tel Aviv and Washington want to connect Hezbollah to the murder of Rafik Hariri in order to brand the nationalist militia a "terrorist organization." Once the group is convicted on charges of terrorism, Israel will be able to conduct its cross-border attacks with impunity.The cunning machinations of the U.S. and Israel is unmatched. Whitney says that the greater plan is to force Hezbollah to take over the central government, a move that would raise the tension level in the region and probably swing the international mood in favor of the U.S. and Israel. Whitney writes:
Hezbollah and the Iranian Islamic regime surely have tricks up their sleeves, too, and they're not nice guys, but these type of war games by the U.S. and Israel is proof that both sides want war. There are no moral heroes in this fight, and the truth is that the U.S. and Israel are much greater villains because they are the ones stirring up trouble, knocking down governments, and bombing innocent people. There is nobody to cheer for in this conflict. This isn't World War II. There are no Hitlers in this drama. Islamic extremism is not a major and permanent threat. The clear aggressors and war-like barbarians are the radicals in control of the American empire and the crazy leaders of Israel who staged 9/11, and recharged tensions in the Middle East. Instead of admitting their past crimes and work towards a genuine and just peace with their so-called enemies, the leaders of U.S. and Israel are moving the Middle East towards total war and total destruction.So, there are collaborators in the Lebanese government and they are helping the US and Israel to subvert the resolution process, undermine Lebanese sovereignty, exacerbate divisions between the factions, and create a pretext for a future Israeli invasion.
And there's a bigger picture, too; a plot to lure Hezbollah into seizing power in Beirut. This is precisely what Washington and Tel Aviv are hoping for in order to justify another invasion.
in Israel. He says:
Israel leaks a bombing menu for Lebanon, in which hundreds of bombing targets are identified. Can you imagine the international outrage if an organization or state in the Arab world releases bombing targets for Israel? Can you imagine the extent to which Israel would exploit that and would immediately invoke the holocaust--as it habitually does--for propaganda purposes?An official from Hezbollah says that the Lebanese government should counter with its own media and diplomatic push. An excerpt from an April 2, 2011 article in The Daily Star:
The servile, and criminally complicit Western media will most likely put all the blame on Hezbollah if there is a new war. Israel is once again positioning itself as the victim, and Hezbollah and Iran as the great villains.Despite his call for Lebanese state institutions to respond, Musawi refrained from either denying or confirming the Israeli allegations, a tactic that Hezbollah has long employed when discussing its military arsenal and capacities.
According to observers, the Israeli report was aimed at delegitimizing the party before the international community by highlighting Hezbollah’s violations of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for a weapons-free zone south of the Litani River.
Musawi said the Israeli leaks should not be met with silence by Lebanese state institutions but rather with a legal, international campaign to prosecute “Israeli political and military criminal [officials].”
Expect a lot of innocent Lebanese women and children to die, and expect the leaders of Hezbollah to be blamed for their deaths by the media whores on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc. Nothing has changed since the summer of 2006. Nobody in the U.S. or Western media has learned anything. They are still covering up the crimes and slaughters by the U.S. and Israeli governments. If a new war is launched, the media will play a big part in it. They are fully endorsing violence and murder, and supporting the government-generated myth that Hezbollah and the Iranian regime are evil, and the governments of U.S. and Israel are good.
