by Sara Flounders, published on Workers World, June 28, 2024
Using creative tactics, the Resistance to U.S.-Israeli terror is causing frustration and reversals for the oppressors. Consider the following:
CNN reported June 22 that the U.S. will support Israel in the event of a war with Hezbollah with everything it has.
U.S. officials publicly reassured top Israeli officials at a series of meetings in Washington, D.C., on June 20 that if a full-out war were to break out between Israel and Hezbollah, the Biden administration is fully prepared to back its ally.
The U.S. officials gave the assurances in person to a delegation of Israeli security officials, including National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. The face-to-face assurances come amid active Israeli mobilization on the Lebanese border.
Faced with months of failure in Gaza, both Israeli and the U.S. war planners appeared determined to go in another direction — widen the war.
Israeli officials issued multiple threats claiming they will launch a major attack on Lebanon. This includes attacking civilian areas in the capital, Beirut, in order to provide security for 100,000 displaced Israeli settlers so they can return to northern Israel. Major infantry and armored forces were being moved into place along the Lebanese border.
Israeli war threats on Lebanon became the big media story, crashing in from every direction.
From the BBC on June 22: “Unable to back down, Israel and Hezbollah move closer to all-out war.” The Jerusalem Post announced June 24: “Countdown to war between Israel and Hezbollah has begun – Israel will do what it needs to do.” Politico asks: “Are Israel and Hezbollah about to square up?” Time Magazine’s headline of June 22: “The Coming Israeli-Hezbollah War.”
Corporate think tank, The Center for Strategic and International Studies announced its assessment: “The Coming Conflict with Hezbollah.”
Then a sudden U.S. change
After the promises at the White House to support Israel to the max in war with Hezbollah, it took only four days for a reversal. In a national news conference, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Charles Brown suddenly warned Israel that the U.S. was likely unable to assist Israel in an all-out war with Hezbollah, unlike the way the U.S. stepped in during the April drone launch from Iran.
What caused this reversal? General Brown said that any Israeli military offensive into Lebanon could risk triggering a broader war, pulling in Iran and putting U.S. forces in danger. He said the safety of U.S. forces was the priority. He admitted that it is hard to fend off the shorter-range rockets Hezbollah fires.
Air Force Gen. Brown must understand that even with U.S. military backing, Israel can’t reverse the creative low-tech capacity that the Palestinians in Gaza, the Ansarullah movement in Yemen and the Hezbollah movement have developed under the pressure of decades of occupation, bombings and invasions.
Hezbollah video with exact coordinates
Just days after the June 20 White House meetings, on June 22, Hezbollah released a 10-minute video that showcases the most vital targets in Israel, with locations believed known only by those working with Israeli and U.S. military security systems. (The video is titled “To Whom it May Concern” https://t.me/PalestineResist/45901).
The widely distributed video includes drone footage, with the exact pinpoint coordinates of strategic Israeli facilities. The video opens with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration that “if a war is imposed on Lebanon, Hezbollah will fight without restraints and without limits” and that Israel’s seaports and airports will be targeted. This was a clear warning.
Using small “Hoopoe” drones, the Lebanese resistance group monitors Israeli military installations, strategic structures like power stations, a swath of Israeli commercial centers and in the Haifa region also arms factories, power plants, warship docks and oil reservoirs. Haifa is a key seaport. Shutting Haifa down would ravage the Israeli economy, already crumbling. (same verb tense)
The Hoopoe drone, named after a small bird in the region, uses low-altitude flyovers that evade Israeli radar.
The video includes precise coordinates and visuals of key Israeli military installations Iron Dome batteries, David’s Sling defenses, the Dimona nuclear reactor, missile testing radar and more. Hezbollah thus demonstrated its ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses and reach deep into Israel without detection.
Israeli analyst Or Heller, whose media work is widely read, explained on Iran’s Press TV that Hezbollah “wants to show Israel that it has the ability to fly over its airspace as Israel flies over Lebanon.” Striking critical infrastructure such as substations and hydro plants can paralyze neighborhoods, even entire cities.
“Hezbollah is putting everyone in check,” Heller continued. “If the Israeli regime invades and strikes Lebanese citizens, then they can be reached too.”
The destruction of the economy in northern Israel, paired with the shut-down on Israel’s southern tip of the port of Eilat on the Red Sea by Yemen’s Ansarullah Movement, warns Israeli top brass that their best assets are at risk. Military sites have now been identified, labeled and displayed for the world to see. (presstv.ir, June 23)
The Jerusalem Post admitted June 19 that the video was a challenge for the Israeli regime, because “it is used to being the hi-tech superpower in the region and prides itself on being able to use drones and other means of surveillance against enemies near and far.”
Hezbollah spent the past two decades training revolutionary militia units and accumulating military, scientific and technical expertise to deter Israel from attacking Lebanon.
Palestinian-American journalist Rami Khouri, senior public policy fellow at American University of Beirut, summarized this new development: “If Hezbollah has these capabilities, you can be pretty sure that its friends and allies all around the region have either the same or something similar, and/or Iran or Hezbollah will help them develop it soon. … About two years ago, we passed the point where Israel and the U.S. dominated the strategic realities, military realities, in the Middle East. (democracynow.org, June 24)
Hezbollah technical / military capacity grows
Hezbollah not only has the exact coordinates of Israeli sites, but according to Haaretz News, “Hezbollah has managed to increase its stockpile of missiles, shells and drones by hundreds of percentages, either smuggled through Syria into Lebanon or produced locally, despite all attempts by the [Israeli] Air Force in Syria and on the Syrian-Iraqi border to thwart and disrupt the entry of these weapons.”
This claim is corroborated by Hezbollah’s Resource and Border Affairs official Nawaf Al-Musawi, who told Al-Mayadeen in March that Hezbollah is opening new warehouses for more accurate missiles and that they can restock in a month what they used to restock in six months.
Both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansarallah in Yemen have said since October that their strikes on Israel and its backers will end only when an agreement is reached in Gaza.
Why is Israel unable to defeat Hamas?
It is revealing to read how the Zionist media evaluates the reasons for Israel’s failure in Gaza.
An article in the June 23 issue of the Jerusalem Post asked in a headline, “Why is Israel unable to defeat Hamas?”
“The most widespread public frustration regarding the war, after the October 7 failure,” continued this article, “concerns Israel’s inability to defeat Hamas. Although Israel put boots on the ground in Gaza and carried out a massive military maneuver, almost unlimited in resources or time, Hamas is still standing on both feet. The organization populates the tunnels, maneuvers in them, maintains a chain of command, mobilizes armed forces, and holds hostages underground. …
“[I]t was impossible to imagine that the strongest military power in the region, which previously defeated several armies in six days, would not be able to defeat a local terrorist organization when forced to do so. … The area above the ground is controlled by Israel, and below the ground is occupied by Hamas.
“The use that Hamas was able to make of the tunnels is groundbreaking, giving it technological supremacy in the underground battlefield.” The tunnels are the “underground iron dome” of the Resistance.
“The Biden administration first clearly supported the dismantling of Hamas, but stopped doing so when it realized that, unfortunately, this goal was not practical with the existing capabilities.”
Numerous other articles and video footage from Resistance organizations working in the tunnels give video evidence of how Palestinians now have the capacity to build small shoulder rockets by repurposing the endless supply of unexploded Israeli bombs dropped on them.
Yemen develops hypersonic missiles
Since Israel opened its all-out attack on Gaza, following the October 7 military action by Hamas, the Ansarullah Movement in Yemen has vowed to block ships traveling the Red Sea through the Suez Canal to Israeli ports on the Mediterranean Sea.
According to reports in Bloomberg News, from mid-November to May 1 approximately 65 merchant ships have been attacked for attempting to violate the Ansarullah ban on trade with Israel at a time when Israel is waging a genocidal war on Gaza. Cargo shipping traffic has dropped by about half. U.S. efforts using aircraft carriers and jet bombers have failed to stop the missile, drone and small-boat attacks against commercial vessels linked to Israeli shippers.
The Yemeni movement now claims to have developed a hypersonic missile. They announced a strike on the U.S. Aircraft Carrier Eisenhower. The commander of the giant warship denied it was hit. But the U.S. Navy did pull the aircraft carrier, valued at $4.5 billion dollars, further out of range.
Israel lacks troops, preparation and morale
In Gaza, Israel has failed to achieve any of its publicized goals, despite almost nine months of continuing genocidal attacks. Netanyahu’s war cabinet has crumbled in resignations. Escalating internal dissention and demonstrations of tens of thousands of people within Israel are demanding negotiations. Finding housing, schools, jobs and subsidies for over 100,000 angry settlers driven out of stolen lands is creating a crisis in Zionist ideology and in the economy.
The head of the Israel Occupation Forces Herzi Halevi said the army is facing troop shortages amid rising casualties in the war against Hamas in Gaza. Enlisting more troops is difficult due to rising public opposition to the war. There is open conflict between Netanyahu, his defense minister and conflicting infighting among his gaggle of small reactionary political parties.
The U.S. military machine has overwhelming deadly capacity. Imperialist strategists flaunt their power in obscene ways. Military contractors sell their weapons in ways that increase their profits and ensnare countries in debt traps.
Israel, as a primary ally in U.S. regional domination of West Asia, has access and use of an endless supply, paid for by workers in the U.S. from the U.S. treasury.
Impoverished and developing countries, determined to assert their sovereignty and escape a colonial death grip, are using science and applying their limited locally available resources to engineer weapons and strategies of self-defense that can prevent the destructive U.S. mega-weapons from determining the outcome.
The Zionist movement and its U.S. imperialist backers face a strategic dilemma — in order to avoid a very destructive wider war, for which they are not prepared and cannot win, they need to end the current genocidal war on Gaza. Ending the war without defeating the resistance would be a huge setback for the Zionist movement and an even larger humiliation for its protector and co-conspirator — U.S. imperialism. It will be a huge advance on a world scale.
Sara Flounders is an American political writer who has been active in ‘progressive’ and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. Sara is Co-Director of the International Action Center (IAC) and a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party She also frequently writes for Workers World newspaper and publishes articles on the International Action Center website.