Iran, Hizballah and Palestinians Gang up for a Second Front against Israel

Iran, Hizballah and Palestinians Gang up for a Second Front against Israel

DEBKAfile Special Report December 28, 2005, 9:05 AM (GMT+02:00)






On Dec. 17, DEBKAfile reported exclusively:

A special Iranian plane flew Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to
Revolutionary Guards HQ at Bandar Abbas Monday, Dec. 12, after he spent 10
days in Tehran as favored guest of Iran's clerical rulers. There, he
conferred with RG commanders on operational collaboration between the two
Palestinian groups, Hamas and Jihad Islami in Gaza and the West Bank, and
their hook-up with Iranian networks and Hizballah in Lebanon. Their shared
goal: the opening of a second rocket and shelling front against northern
Israel to complement the Gaza front in the south.

This decision was implemented ten days later, Tuesday night Dec, 27, with a
bombardment from southern Lebanon of Israel's western Galilee and the
northern towns of Kiryat Shemona and Shlomi. It was only be sheer good
fortune that no one was hurt by the double salvo of 105mm rockets. Two homes
were badly damaged in Kiryat Shemona.

The Sharon government an his security advisers have no intention of
admitting that Meshaal's Hamas, assisted by Hizballah missile experts
present in Gaza, are the hands behind the Qassam offensive against southern
Israel, even though the crews are put up by a coalition of the Jihad Islami,
the Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committees. Tehran and
the Damascus-based Meshaal keep this coalition well supplied with the
projectiles, are working on improving their precision and selecting the
targets.

But instead of hitting home, Israel's armed forces are told to strike empty
spaces in the Gaza Strip. While the Hamas leader plots the next attacks,
Israeli officers are sent to address public symposia to explain that a Hamas
victory in the January 25 Palestinian general election might not be a total
security disaster, because going into politics and government may well
temper its violent bent and mute its aspirations to destroy Israel.

Exactly the same sort of talk with accompanied the 1993 Oslo process
reference to Yasser Arafat.

The Sharon government has two compelling reasons for burying its head in the
sand:

1. Its unquestioning adherence to the policy line laid down Washington,
which is that any delay in the Palestinian poll will finish Mahoud Abbas for
good. The vote must therefore take place in the slim hope that Abbas and the
jailed Marwan Barghouti will be able to bring Fatah level with the Hamas.
That would be the lesser of two evils, in the American view.

DEBKAfile's Palestinian sources note that Barghouti, through his spokesman
Kadoura Fares, have managed to sell this reassuring line to secretary of
state Condoleezza Rice. Washington has thus been sucked into the accepting a
strong Hamas showing in the polls and a share in Palestinian government.
Ariel Sharon has fallen in behind Washington and therefore finds himself
seriously enfeebled on the security front.

2. Sharon cannot afford to directly tackle Hamas in Gaza because this would
be an admission of the radical group's expanding strength and the failure of
his disengagement policy to beget the promised improved security.

DEBKAfile's security experts liken the Israeli air force raids of the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine group's bases south of Beirut
following the Katyusha raid to the bombardment of empty ground in the
northern Gaza Strip as a means of halting the Qassam attacks. It was no more
than a sop to still angry complaints of the people living within range of
the Lebanese border, who were looking forward to a quiet Hanukah holiday
with a healthy influx of trippers. Hizballah and Palestinian leaders in
Lebanon went through the motions of repudiating the Katyusha attacks on
northern Israel. But it is no secret that no one moves anywhere in southern
Lebanon, including the Lebanese army, without the Hizballah's sayso. By
holding back from striking at Hizballah bases, Sharon conferred on the
Hizballah the same of immunity he extends to Meshaal's Hamas in Gaza.

Nonetheless, the very real decline in Israel's security situation and
deterrent force is becoming harder to deny as time goes by. Israel gained no
strategic advantages from its unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. If
anyone has gained it is the newly emerging terror axis drawn between Tehran,
Beirut, Gaza and Ramallah. They drove this point home Tuesday night. That
Palestine projectiles flew across two fronts in a single night was no
coincidence.


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