The Media Is Reluctant to Report Israel Boasts of Killing Iranians
By Philip Giraldi
American Herald Tribune,
July 27, 2019
It is rare that a high official in a
government will admit that his country has been killing
foreigners without any declaration of war or being subjected to
an imminent threat, but
that is exactly what Israeli Regional
Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi has done recently, boasting
on a Sunday morning talk radio show that "Israel is the only
country in the world that has been killing Iranians for two
years now."
Hanegbi’s candid admission of a policy that is a war crime
included his description of how Israel "strikes the Iranians
hundreds of times in Syria, sometimes admits it and sometimes
foreign reports reveal it. Sometimes the chief of staff [reveals
it], sometimes the outgoing air force chief [reveals it], but
it's all coordinated policy."
The interviewer then asked "what would happen should Israel get
in trouble with Iran?" and Hanegbi responded that "You can see
that the Iranians are very limited in their responses [to
Britain’s seizure of their tanker], and it's not because they
don't have abilities, it's because they understand that Israel
means business."
Hangebi went on to add that Israel is "very aggressive when it
comes to our national security... We still didn't see the
Iranians backing off from their intention to entrench themselves
militarily in Syria, and this campaign isn't over. But they know
exactly who to mess with, and who can be annoyed. We can't."
The minister’s comments inevitably were not reported in the
western media, which is reluctant to air anything that
demonstrates just how irresponsible Israeli policies actually
are. In the United States, in particular, the Jewish state is
consistently portrayed as some kind of perpetual victim in spite
of the fact that it is the only nuclear armed power in its
neighborhood as well as having the most powerful conventional
military arsenal.
The Iranian government did not respond directly to the report of
the Israeli minister’s comments, but there was some mention on
Tehran’s Press TV local broadcast, which noted that "This is how
Israelis are freely and proudly talking about killing Iranians!
Just imagine what would happen if it was the other way around!"
Indeed. A boast by Iran that it had been very successful at
killing Israelis would have produced shocked headlines in every
European and American newspaper.
The Israeli admission that it is attacking targets in Syria
should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following
developments in the region. That there have been hundreds of
attacks may be an exaggeration to impress the Israeli listeners
regarding their country’s military prowess, but it is certainly
true that numerous incidents have been recorded both by the
Syrian government and by foreign observers. In one notorious
incident on Christmas Day 2018, Israeli warplanes masked
their approach to targets inside Syria by
flying closely behind civilian airliners transiting the region.
It has been speculated that they hoped that Syrian air defenses
would respond by shooting down a civilian plane, creating a
major crisis for the Bashar al-Assad government. In the event,
the Syrians held their fire and the Israeli warplanes launched
their missiles against targets near Damascus, killing Syrian
military personnel and civilians on the ground.
What is astonishing is that Minister Hangebi does not perceive
the implications of the Israeli government’s apparent
willingness to kill Syrians on the ground by intent and also as
collateral damage even though it is not at war with Damascus. It
does so with the stated objective of killing Iranians even
though it is also not at war with Iran. It is, to state it
succinctly, several war crimes tied up in one package and it
would make the Jewish state uniquely a rogue among nations but
for the fact that the United States has done the same sort of
thing with cruise missile strikes in Syria, though not in as
sustained a fashion as have the Israelis.
Israel’s willingness to use its armed forces in what might be
described as non-traditional roles creates some very specific
problems for the region. One particular concern is that the
Israelis might stage a false flag attack, possibly in
cooperation with its temporary friend Saudi Arabia, to draw
outside powers into a war with Iran. The recent incidents
involving mining two tankers, attributed to Iran but much more
likely a false flag, nearly succeeded in doing just that.
Subsequent incidents involving the seizures
of a tanker carrying Iranian oil by the British and
a retaliatory
move against two British tankers by the
Iranians have threatened to escalate into a shooting war. There
should be little doubt that any ambiguous armed exchange
involving Iran and Israel would see the American Jewish
dominated media immediately laying the blame on the Iranians,
producing demands by the Israel Lobby, Christian Zionists and
Congress to get involved in the conflict.
There should also be particular concern over developments in
neighboring Iraq, even though the country is not yet under
attack by the Israelis. Shi’te militias in the country, linked
to Iran, have long demanded that American military bases be
closed down. Recent rocket attacks on the bases have been blamed
on the militias, with Washington placing particular emphasis on
the militia links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, which
has now been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S.
State Department. The Israelis are well aware of the dynamics of
what is going on in Iraq and might be inclined to stage an
incident in that country that will kill Americans and be blamed
on the Iranians. The comments by Minister Hangebi that Israel is
“very aggressive when it comes to our national security” would
strongly suggest that his country is prepared to do anything –
even something quite stupid - to eliminate what it sees as the
Iranian threat.
The tragedy in all this for Americans is that Washington
is being led into war by an Israeli propaganda and
influence machine that is second to none. In May four hundred
Congressmen signed on to a
generic bill that was intended as a blanket
endorsement of Israeli behavior and a blank check for the
ruthless Netanyahu government to do whatever it sees fit in
“self-defense,” with Washington willing to be dragged into a
conflict in which it has no real interest just to show its
loyalty to the Zionist enterprise. More recently, by last
Tuesday’s vote of 398 to 176, another Congressional bill
condemned and established
penalties against the nonviolent Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has become a bête
noire for all of Israel’s friends. If America
is ever to regain its independence from foreign entanglements
the time to start is now and the process should begin by
disengaging from Israel.
*(Top
image: Israel's Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.
Credit: Facebook)
