Lebanese fear Israel's next step

[DogPoundPup]

excerpt~

Hezbollah's turn

During the war in Gaza, Israeli officials warned Hezbollah that after Hamas it would be their turn. And so what is happening on the other side of the border concerns everyone in Lebanon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7835822.stm

[Chulanowa]

1. And then we get to see more DU'ers cheer for death and destruction

[WhiteTara]

2. on what planet?

you sound like an inflamatory troll.

[Chulanowa]

12. Not a frequent visitor to the I/P dungeon, I take it?

Ah well.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. The intel that supported the air strikes alone must be causing heads to explode in Hezbollah

It showed a level of penetration of Hamas that was unthinkable, especially to fundie nut jobs like Hamas and Hezbollah. Their paranoia, normally in overdrive over anything involving Israel and Jews must be off the scale.

Redistributng weapons. Further dispersion of high value people and assets, additional bunkers and redundant secure comms. The economic cost to Hezbollah must be staggering. All it cost the IDF was a couple of soundbites and a few recon flights.

Have to love a good mindf**k when you see it.

[DogPoundPup]

5. The 'intel'? Like the 'intel' Saddam had WMD? THAT kind of intel?

:rofl:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. You need to keep up better....within a few minutes the IAF hit all their high value first strike

targets when the air strikes started. From there they proceeded to work their target bank until they had destroyed everything on the list. It was based on intel collected over a 6 month period of locations and people associated with them. It was a major change in IDF tactics, something not seen before and reminiscent of what the US did in Iraq and Kuwait. The tactic has shown itself to be quite effective. Most of Hamas top leadership is Gaza is dead, the organization gutted in terms of personnel, facilities, material and weapons. Where are all the tunnels, 1000s of fighters and new weapons Hamas claimed it had? Dead, ineffective, or buried. Regardless they are not impacting the ground battle. That intel and its usage in the air strikes and ground campaign showed that the IDF had deeply penetrated Hamas with monitoring equipment and infiltrators. That is the Achilles heel of irregular forces like Hamas.

Hezbollah saw it happen like all of the rest of us. They have the exact same issues and must be scrambling at this point to address it.

[DogPoundPup]

11. yea, yea, yea..so they say...just hearing the Isreali propaganda wouldn't be considered "keeping up"

They should have allowed journalists in.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. The effects I discussed came from many more than Israeli sources

- Lots of buildings were hit in some sort of priority order and when events were being held whateve
- There are not nearly the numbers of Hamas fighters expected or described (20K effective fighters should have kept Israel out of Gaza)
- The *new* Hamas weapons have not been confirmed except in Hamas speeches (that may change afterward)
- Hamas lacks any form of C&C, and is fairly ineffective (no coordinated attacks)
- Most of the Hamas senior leadership in Gaza is dead (Vengeance has been threatened)

Those are pretty much universally agreed to, not just from INN. That kind of effectiveness with the minimal Israeli casualties means they knew where and when people and things were and how to hit them. That is good intel in action.

Stick to what you know, whatever that may be. Its clearly not tactics or weapons.

[azurnoir]

7. Please

the level of penetration of Hamas alone unthinkable? Hardly, especially given Shabaks legendarily "thorough" interrogation tactics not to mention that Gaza is a 25 by 5 mile strip of fenced in land Lebanon is a little bit more than that as far cost to Hezbollah the article said nothing of the sort it did however mention civilians fleeing the area in fear of Israel.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. You don't understand the culture or mindset

The Arab street has always had a fascination with *SPIES*, Israeli or otherwise. Security in those cultures is first based on blood or other affiliation. Strangers are not trusted. There is also extensive internal security apparatus. Yet Israel had details they never should have had. That is a bell ringing headshot for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah will not want to repeat the mistake Hamas made. They will be redoubling security, building new facilities, more widely disbursing people, C&C, materiel and weapons. That is seriously expensive to do, especially on short order.

[azurnoir]

14. Israel appeared to have no more information than usual

they said they did however it was little more than we bombed several houses that had Hamas this or that and of course that is to be expected in this conflict.

[Howardx]

15. hardcoreprogressive is only right

if you believe the israeli propaganda, given the history of lying no one has any reason to. we only have the idf's word for it that they hit these "valuable" targets and not just some random buildings full of palestinian non combatants. which seems more likely.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

16. The early air strikes were clearly preplanned targets, later once they were destroyed the IAF

moved to pop ups and low priority targets. Then what you stated becomes quite likely.

[azurnoir]

18. Perhaps th Lebanese do have reason to fear

as this thread shows

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=250292&mesg_id=250292

Israel has discovered a "huge" NG deposit 80 kilometers off the coast of Haifa now the article does not say in what direction however 50 kilometers is about 50 miles and Haifa is about 30 miles from th Lebanese border and as 2006 showed well with in Katyusha range

[azurnoir]

6. I do not think this will happen

the Gaza campaign was cheap and easy for Israel in terms of Israeli lives lost and property damage but Lebanon would not be the same.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Nor do I, but for different reasons

[Vegasaurus]

17. Neither Israel nor Lebanon want another war

Hezbollah regrets the last one, since there was such devastation, and they aren't eager to rile up Israel and get into another one.

Israel hasn't stayed out of Lebanon completely, as there have been no rockets since the war ended.

This is the calm that Gaza could enjoy, if the militants would put calm above terrorism.

Unfortunately, they are on a steeper learning curve than Hezbollah, it seems.