Israeli Security

Israel has had more than a flavor of what it can mean to leave hostile groups in control of lands adjacent to its own borders in southern Lebanon and in Gaza. Any similar move to totally cede control to the Palestinians of the West Bank or a part of Jerusalem would carry immense risk.

U.S. policy since 1967, developed under President Johnson, included the idea that the so-called ’67 borders were incapable of providing Israel with adequate defense and would change.

Hizbullah is not a national Lebanese movement, as has been frequently claimed in the West. Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and his men are not loyal to the president of Lebanon or to the government of Lebanon, but rather to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Egyptians have effectively manipulated the Iranian issue in order to advance their long-term nuclear objectives vis-a-vis Israel, and have created a new linkage between Iran and Israel. Yet even if Israel did not exist, Iran would still be racing to develop nuclear weapons to further its own ambitions.

In February, Syrian President Bashad Assad hosted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus. Afterward, Hizbullah's online magazine suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon. Damascus' support for "resistance" was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March, where Assad urged Palestinian leader Mahmou dAbbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and "take up arms against Israel."

The Iranians learned a great deal from the destruction of Iraq’s Osirak reactor by the Israel Air Force in 1981. They dispersed their nuclear program, putting much of it deep underground. There is no single target which, if destroyed, would substantially set back the Iranian nuclear program.

To grasp Iran’s ambitions and foreign policy it is necessary to understand the Islamic Republic’s religious ideology which aspires to establish global Islamic rule – under Shi’ite leadership. This belief lies at the heart of Iran’s foreign policy, including its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Palestinians are but the latest lightning rod unleashed against the Jews, their supposed victimization reaffirming the millenarian demonization of the Jews in general, and the medieval blood libel - that Jews delight in the blood of others.

In March 2002, at the height of a terror campaign in which 1,804 Israelis were killed in Palestinian suicide bombings, the government of Israel decided to take a defensive measure to block terrorists from reaching Israeli population centers by establishing a physical obstacle. Even Israel's worst enemies confessed that the security fence saved Israeli lives. In building the fence, great efforts were invested and solutions were provided to meet the unique needs of the Christian churches.

Today there is unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation between Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran. There is no "smuggling" of weapons from Iran through Syria to Lebanon, because it is not done in secret. Weapons of all kinds are being pushed toward Hizbullah, including tens of thousands of rockets.