The Denise Simon Experience – Radio Show Archive – 02/05/15

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

THE DENISE SIMON EXPERIENCE – RADIO SHOW

Hosted by DENISE SIMON, is the Senior Research / Intelligence Analyst for Foreign and Domestic Policy for Stand Up America US as well as the aide de camp for MG Paul E. Vallely, US ARMY (ret.)

THIS INTERVIEW WILL CREEP YOU OUT!

This week’s Guest: TIM McCLELLAN, a Political Strategist since 1973. He is a Writer, an Author and a Commentator (TV, Radio & Print) for the USA.

Tim works at the Federal and International level regarding Politics, Security, Intelligence, Legal, Federal and Supreme Court, Health Care and Entrepreneurship. He frequently does National and International interviews.

He is also a Journalist for the International Press.

BROADTCAST LIVE WORLDWIDE: THURSDAYS – 9:00PM (eastern) / 6:00pm (pacific) on WDFP – Restoring America Radio , Red State Talk Radio, American Agenda, Nightside Radio Studios, and on Freedom In America Radio

What Keeps FBI Director up at Night

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Ex-Terror Task Force Member: Average Americans Are Targets in US

Average Americans should take heed of FBI Director James Comey’s warning to a Mississippi audience Tuesday that Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists are a real threat on U.S. soil, ex-Terrorism Task Force member Steve Rogers says.

“In the early 2000s when I was on the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, I remember reading al-Qaida’s training manual,” Rogers told Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on Wednesday. “This was a 10-, 20-, 30-year strategic plan to do what? To go after the big prize, take down the United States of America … in America.”

“In that training manual, it was clear: Infiltrate their universities, infiltrate their schools, their neighborhoods, their market, infiltrate the news media, embed yourself in every neighborhood,” he said.

No one should be surprised there are ISIS sympathizers within our borders, Rogers said. After all, there were Nazi sympathizers in the United States during World War II and Soviet agents during the Cold War.

“Mississippi is a great state,” Comey said during a stop in that state, The Clarion-Ledger reported. “But like all 50 states it has troubled souls that might look to find meaning in this sick, misguided way.” The FBI has investigations on possible terror suspects in every state but Alaska, Comey said.

“The challenge that we face in law enforcement is that they may be getting exposed to that poison and that training in their basement,” Comey said. “They’re sitting there consuming and may emerge from the basement to kill people of any sort, which is the call of ISIL (or ISIS), just kill somebody.”

Rogers agreed.

“Look, I’m sure they’re here,” he said. “And I believe the FBI director was making it kind of through a back way of saying it, they’re here. So you know what, be on the look out.”

Ironically, the very administration for which Comey works has crippled intelligence capabilities, and isn’t protecting the borders from allowing more people with terrorist ties to enter, Rogers said.

He joined critics of President Barack Obama who say he should label the enemy “Islamic terrorists.” “Mr. President, say these are Islamic terrorists, for goodness sakes,” he said.

***

Then there is Canada, a close neighbor that needs attention.

Mysterious woman from Canada’s rapid rise in ISIS puzzles intel analyst

A mysterious jihadist who left her home in Canada in late November to join ISIS has toured the caliphate like a VIP, appearing in key locations throughout Syria and Iraq and prompting intel analysts to wonder what is behind her seemingly elevated status.

Little is known about the woman who calls herself “Lama Sharif al-Shammari” on Twitter and who terrorism experts simply call “L.A.” They believe she left Canada some time after Nov. 23 to join Islamic State, arrived on Dec. 8 and was in Syria as recently as Tuesday. Analysts believe she may be a Sunni Muslim of Saudi descent.

But what sets “L.A.” apart from thousands of radicalized foreigners who have flocked from North America and Europe to the terrorist army’s killing fields is that her Twitter account shows she has been to virtually every corner of Islamic State’s bloody realm within a three-week period, according to analysts. They believe her whirlwind itinerary indicates she is somehow significant and has risen inexplicably through the ranks.

“What is really surprising is that in a very short period of time, L.A. appears to have taken an extremely active role with ISIS,” said Veryan Khan, of the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), a Florida-based global research firm specializing in political violence and terrorism.

Government and private intelligence agencies closely monitor social media accounts of known jihadists, not only for the substance of their chatter, but also for its origin. Khan said the woman known as L.A. has sent Tweets applauding Islamic State atrocities from “virtually every major city that ISIS controls.”

“We have never seen someone move about this rapidly,” Khan said. “What makes it even more unusual is that she is newly traveled to Islamic State. Having only been there since Dec. 8, it is odd that she would become so active so quickly once arriving,” said Khan.

Intel analysts want to know more about her, and what is responsible for her lofty status in the world’s biggest terror army. Hundreds of women are among the radical Islamists who have traveled to join Islamic State, but have so far served primarily in supportive roles or as brides, according to experts.

None are known to belong to self-professed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s inner circle, and none have appeared in the videos in which ISIS fighters have executed captives or issued threats to the West. Khan believes this makes L.A.’s movements even more significant.

“Based on L.A.’s locations and congruent battles in these locations, it is been assumed that she is conducting, at least on some level, surveillance for the Islamic State,” Khan said.

L.A. – or “Toronto Jane” as she has also been dubbed by Khan’s group – has been to at least five cities within the vast territory controlled by Islamic State, leaving tracks in strongholds like Raqqa, Syria, as well as appearing in Kobani, where the terror group fought its most ferocious battles with Kurdish forces supported by U.S. airstrikes. She has also turned up in the Syrian cities of Dier ez Zur and Aleppo and in Mosul, Iraq.

“It is not merely the amount and location, but also the time frame — she has been very active in what essentially adds up to three weeks,” Khan said.
Tweets sent by L.A. reveal a committed radical enthusiastically promoting Islamic State’s signature atrocity – beheadings. While FoxNews.com will not link to L.A.’s Twitter feed, her banner is an image of a severed head, taken from an infamous ISIS propaganda video in which an Islamic State leader orchestrates an unprecedented simultaneous beheadings of 22 people.

“Though we have seen this trend of using the images of the foreign fighters of this video as avatars on Twitter, it is pretty bold to feature the severed head,” Khan said.
L.A. has posted 131 tweets, all in Arabic, to her 145 followers, according to her Twitter page. Her most recent tweet, from Syria, came on Jan. 23, the day Saudi monarch King Abdullah died.

“Fill the world with the noise of his news, like he filled the land of ‘Al-Haramain’ (Saudi Arabia) with the bases of the American Military invader,” read the tweet, according to a translation provided for FoxNews.com by Craig Smith, chief investigator with BrightStar Investigations. “Write him (King Abdullah) as many laments as are his treasons.”
Based on an analysis of her tweets, Smith believes L.A. is a Saudi Arabian whose family is from the Al-Shamry tribe, and that she harbors “extreme hatred” for the Saudi royal family for allowing the U.S. military on Saudi soil during the Iraq War.

Her posts were first noted by the Ontario-based intelligence research company iBRABO, which worked with TRAC while monitoring her cell phone location matching it up with corresponding tweets. The firm claims it has pinpointed her recent presence in Kobani and Mosul down to specific homes.

“She had interactions with key players known in the region,” Khan said. “Plus there is no way to fake the location services pinging from the actual phone. If you look at her locations outside of Kobani and Mosul — they were all strongholds we can pinpoint down to the actual house on the street.” Geo-mapping the locations of people has been around for a number of years, said Chris Roberts, founder of One World Labs, an organization that specializes in cyber security and threat intelligence.

“Most people on the planet don’t seem to realize they are being tracked by several applications on their phone,” Roberts said, adding that Twitter development has a “geo tag” that uses two pieces of data, the “reference” to the user’s location, which can be set, and the latitude/longitude code from the phone’s triangulation capabilities.

The terrorist group has been active on social media, using it to issue threats and post videos of its bloody handiwork, but top ISIS brass apparently realizes that they can be tracked through tweets.

Al-Baghdadi and Islamic State spokesman Mohammad al-Adnani issued a statement earlier this week about unauthorized messages from within their organization in which they said neither has a personal account.
“The Caliph Abu Baker Al Baghdadi and Shaykh Abu Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami do not have accounts on social media,” read a translation obtained by Fox News.

But social media is a powerful recruitment tool for Islamic State, and sick messages and images sent by devoted adherents like L.A. help swell its ranks, according to Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project. L.A.’s new prominence could even help Islamic State lure more women to Syria and Iraq, he said.

“These men are interested in having ‘wives’ come to the so-called caliphate to live with them,” Mauro said.
He said promotion of women like L.A. could be a deliberate effort by Islamic State to change its image.
“Islamic State wants to redefine feminism by characterizing Western society as oppressive towards women,” he said. “They choose to highlight women to show that their ideology treats women fairly as equals in jihad.”

The Real Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

One would have either had to attend the National Prayer Breakfast or would have had to watch it on C-Span to hear and see Barack Obama. He went either off script or someone in the White House edited the published version of his speech. The White House version is here for comparison.

White House correspondent Neil Munro was kind enough to report the accurate spirit of Barack Obama’s presentation at the National Prayer Breakfast.

President Obama used a speech at the annual prayer breakfast Thursday to portray Americans’ routine criticism of Islam as “insults” and “attacks,” and to repeatedly suggest that Americans should curb their criticism of Islamic ideas.

“In modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment,” Obama said, one month after three Muslims shouted Islamic justifications while murdering 14 French journalists, police, shoppers and Jews in Paris.

Obama also suggested that free speech should be curbed or regulated to shield Islamic ideas and Muslims’ self-esteem from the rough-and-tumble world of modern democracies.

“And if, in fact, we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are the targets of such attacks,” Obama told his D.C. audience.

In his speech, Obama did not even try to describe his suggested distinction between legitimate criticism and illegitimate “insults” and “attacks.” In Islamic culture and laws, criticism of Islamic ideas is often treated as traitorous insults to Islam’s deity and its final prophet that deserve capital punishment.

In 2009 and 2012, Obama swore to uphold the constitution and laws of the United States.

Obama’s qualified endorsement of Islamic blasphemy laws echoed his 2012 statement to the United Nations General Assembly, when he said “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

The claim was made shortly after he blamed a California-based video-maker for the jihadi attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya.

In his prayer breakfast speech, Obama repeatedly tried to excuse Islamic ideas from criticism by saying that Islamic attacks aren’t actually Islamic, despite the repeated professions of faith by attackers who are giving their lives for their cause.

Terrorist attacks by people who describe themselves as Muslims “are betraying” Islam, insisted Obama.

ISIL, or the Islamic State, is a “brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism… [incorrectly] claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions,” Obama told an audience of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Obama’s defense of Islam is a variant of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, said Robert Spencer, the author of several books on Islam.

The fallacy is used when a group of people simply ignore members’ bad behavior by pretending the members are not part of the group.

But Obama’s claim is undermined by the jihadis’ repeated citation of Islamic justifications for their murders, bombings and attacks. For example, jihadis in northern Syria recently burned a Jordanian pilot with fuel, and then justified the burning by citing the Islamic notion of “qisa,” which says that murderers can be killed in the same manner that they killed their victims.

Obama’s defense of Islam was combined with repeated efforts to criticize Christianity, which provided the intellectual foundation for America’s culture of self-reliance and its small-government Constitution.

“How do we, as people of faith, reconcile… the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religion for their own murderous ends?” said Obama, whose religious experience was shaped by years of worship at Rev. Jeremiah Wrights’s African-American mega church in Chicago.

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this [combination of love and violence] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” he said.

The Crusades began in 1095, roughly 906 years before the 9/11/2001 attack in New York, and roughly 450 years after Arabs occupied the Christian city of Jerusalem, which was then part of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The empire was eventually destroyed when Islamic armies used mercenary European gunners to capture and occupy Byzantium in 1453.

Obama also argued that Islam and Christianity share the same intellectual principles.

“Finally, let’s remember that if there is one law that we can all be most certain of that seems to bind people of all faiths… that one law, that Golden Rule [is] that we should treat one another as we wish to be treated,” he said.

“In Islam, there is a Hadith that states: ‘None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself,’” Obama said.

“The Holy Bible tells us to ‘put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony,’” Obama added, citing a letter to fellow Christians by Saint Paul, the leading Roman-era Christian missionary.

Obama did not mention that Islam only describes Muslim — not Christians or Jews — as “brothers,” while non-Muslims are described as polytheists, pagans or “kafirs.” Nor did Obama compare the Koran’s many recorded exhortations to violence to the Bible’s repeated descriptions of Jesus’s opposition to violence.

“When the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush,” says a passage in the fifth verse of Koran’s ninth book.

In contrast, the Biblical book of Matthew says that the Christian deity Jesus declared “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Obama “is once again articulating the fashionable moral equivalence claim that all religions are equally capable of inciting their adherents to violence,” responded Spencer.

“This claim is usually made to discourage examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism,” Spencer added.

Saudi King Salman, a Reformer?

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Barack Obama visited the Saudi kingdom to pay respects for the passing of King Abdullah.

Let us remember when Hillary Clinton called Bashir al Assad, the tyrant Islamist ruler of Syria a reformer and many are calling King Abdullah’s replacement, King Salman the same thing. Head-scratch. Seems King Salman’s past and perhaps current nefarious connections need some real scrutiny.

“Yet Salman has an ongoing track record of patronizing hateful extremists that is now getting downplayed for political convenience. As former CIA official Bruce Riedel astutely pointed out, Salman was the regime’s lead fundraiser for mujahideen, or Islamic holy warriors, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as well as for Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan struggles of the 1990s. In essence, he served as Saudi Arabia’s financial point man for bolstering fundamentalist proxies in war zones abroad.

As longtime governor of Riyadh, Salman was often charged with maintaining order and consensus among members of his family. Salman’s half brother King Khalid (who ruled from 1975 to 1982) therefore looked to him early on in the Afghan conflict to use these family contacts for international objectives, appointing Salman to run the fundraising committee that gathered support from the royal family and other Saudis to support the mujahideen against the Soviets.

Riedel writes that in this capacity, Salman “work[ed] very closely with the kingdom’s Wahhabi clerical establishment.” Another CIA officer who was stationed in Pakistan in the late 1980s estimates that private Saudi donations during that period reached between $20 million and $25 million every month. And as Rachel Bronson details in her book, Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership With Saudi Arabia, Salman also helped recruit fighters for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan Salafist fighter who served as a mentor to both Osama bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”

***

Saudi Arabia crowns new king who financed jihad

In 1978, the Saudi monarchy decided to expand the exportation of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam across the world through the establishment of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). About 10 years later, IIRO’s Philippine branch was established by Osama Bin Laden’s brother-in-law, which subsequently funded Philippine terrorists. By the 2000s, IIRO’s branch in Indonesia began funding Al Qaeda training camps.

The Bush administration designated IIRO-Philippines and IIRO-Indonesia as terrorist entities in 2006. IIRO’s U.S. offices were closed at the time, although IIRO appeared to reopen an office in Florida 2010. IIRO is the fourth best-funded Islamic foundation in the world according to a 2011 study.

The man who selected the leadership of IIRO and approved its spending from its inception is the new king of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz:

From the Washington Free Beacon:

…[T]hroughout his public career in government, Salman has embraced radical Muslim clerics and has been tied to the funding of radical groups in Afghanistan, as well as an organization found to be plotting attacks against America, according to various reports and information provided by David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

In 2001, an international raid of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, which Salman founded in 1993, unearthed evidence of terrorist plots against America, according to separate exposés written by Dore Gold, an Israeli diplomat, and Robert Baer, a former CIA officer.

Salman is further accused by Baer of having “personally approved all important appointments and spending” at the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a controversial Saudi charity that was hit with sanctions following the attacks of September 11, 2001, for purportedly providing material support to al Qaeda.

Salman also has been reported to be responsible for sending millions of dollars to the radical mujahedeen that waged jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who is now director of the Brookings Intelligence Project.

“In the early years of the war—before the U.S. and the Kingdom ramped up their secret financial support for the anti-Soviet insurgency—this private Saudi funding was critical to the war effort,” according to Riedel. “At its peak, Salman was providing $25 million a month to the mujahedeen. He was also active in raising money for the Bosnian Muslims in the war with Serbia”…

Defense Intelligence Agency on Global Threats

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Worldwide Threat Scope, Complexity on the Rise

Taken in aggregate, recent political, military, social and technological developments have created security challenges more diverse and complex than any the nation has ever experienced, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress Feb. 3.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on the subject of worldwide threats, Stewart was joined by Army Lt. Gen. William Mayville, Joint Staff director for operations, and Mark S. Chandler, acting director for intelligence for the Joint Staff.

“Our challenges range from highly capable near-peer competitors, to empowered individuals with nefarious intentions. Increasing demands, coupled with today’s challenging fiscal environment, have stressed our defense intelligence establishments and forced us to accept greater risk,” Stewart said.

The existing strategic environment isn’t going away any time soon, he said.

The increasing scope, volatility and complexity of threats are “the new normal,” Stewart said.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is focused on three areas of special concern, the general said.

Military Competitors

“Capable military competitors — Russian military activity, for example — [are] at historically high levels,” he said. “Moscow is pursuing aggressive foreign and defense policies, including conducting destabilizing operations in the Ukraine, conducting a record number of out of area naval operations and increasing its long-range aviation patrols.

“In addition,” Stewart continued, “Beijing is focused on building a modern military capable of achieving success on a 21st century battlefield and advancing its core interests — which include maintaining its sovereignty, protecting its territorial integrity and projecting its regional influence.”

Breakdown of Law and Order

Vulnerable and ungoverned territory is on the rise due to the erosion of moderate and secular Islamic states, Stewart said.

“While coalition strikes have degraded [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s] ability to operate openly in Iraq and Syria, the group retains the ability to conduct limited offensive operations and is seeking to expand its presence and influence beyond these two countries,” he said. “Governments in countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Jordan and Lebanon are under stress from a variety of sources, thereby reducing their capability as a region to confront the threat posed by violent extremists.”

And the breakdown of order in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and northern Nigeria has created “fertile spawning grounds” for terrorist organizations with far-reaching influence, the general said.

Space, Cyber Threats

The space and cyber domains are increasingly threatened, he said. Russia and China are recognizing the strategic value of space and are focusing on diminishing the advantages held by the U.S. and its allies.

“Both countries are conducting anti-satellite research and developing anti-satellite weapons, with the intent of denying the U.S. the use of space in the event of conflict,” Stewart said.

For the Defense Department, the cyber threat is particularly alarming because of the interconnected nature of weapons, communications and networks, he said.

“At low cost, with limited technical expertise, our adversaries have the potential to cause severe damage and disruption to U.S. systems, leaving little or no footprint behind,” the general said. And the speed and influence of mobile communications and social media have the potential to magnify international crises and shorten an already compressed decision-making cycle, Stewart added.

Sequestration

The demand for intelligence has never been greater, he said, but sequestration and operational demands have forced the military intelligence community to accept increased risk.

This “will have a direct and lasting impact on our ability to provide high-quality, nuanced intelligence required by policy makers and war fighters. I fear that the true cost of these difficult choices today may be paid on the battlefield of the future,” the general said.

*** Is war between Hezbollah and Israel inevitable?

The delicate status quo, which has ensured peace between Hezbollah and Israel since the 2006 war, is rapidly unravelling. After that war, both Hezbollah and Israel subscribed to a deterrence theory, which stood the test of time. Until two weeks ago.

Now, tensions between the two sides are at their highest since the last ceasefire. Indeed, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday that a third Lebanon war is now inevitable.

On Jan. 18, an Israeli helicopter gunship hit a convoy of vehicles in the Syrian province of Quneitra. The attack killed six Hezbollah operatives, one of whom was Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in an operation involving the Israeli Mossad and the CIA, as the Washington Post revealed last week.

The hope on the Israeli side must have been that Hezbollah would not seek immediate retaliation for the Jan. 18 attack. It was not to be. On Jan. 28, Hezbollah attacked an Israeli convoy in broad daylight in the Shebaa Farms, an area long occupied by Israel but claimed by Lebanon. Two Israelis were killed, a major and a sergeant of the Israel Defence Forces.

This escalation is happening at a time of important shifts in the relationship between Iran, Hezbollah and Israel.

One development, of concern to Israel, is the deepening of relations between Hezbollah and Iran in recent weeks. One day before Hezbollah’s attack on Israeli forces, Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, met with the Iranian Major General Qasem Suleimani, the legendary commander of the Iranian al-Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Although the two men had met many times before, this is the first known meeting in Lebanon that has been publicized.

The meeting was all the more remarkable because of the publicity given to it. Suleimani paid respects to Hezbollah fighters killed by Israel and also visited the grave of Jihad Mughniyeh.

Hezbollah has also declared, in a recent statement, that it no longer recognizes the rules of engagement with Israel that were mediated, on an informal basis, by the United Nations in order to prevent clashes. Hezbollah’s declaration is a tacit rejection of the de facto understanding between the two bitter foes that has existed for years and has, up until now, ensured peace.

In a defiant statement after Hezbollah’s attack, Nasrallah reiterated Hezbollah’s rejection of previous the rules defining Hezbollah’s policy towards Israel. It was this status quo that had, for example, allowed for the group to negotiate a swap of its prisoners in exchange for Israeli war dead in 2008. In a clear departure from the past, where Hezbollah would not take revenge on Israeli attacks, Nasrallah stressed that the group has the right to respond in any way or time it deems fit.

“If Israel is banking that we fear war, then I tell it that we do not fear war and we will not hesitate in waging it if it is imposed on us,” he continued. “We did not hesitate in making the decision that Israel should be punished for its crime in Quneitra even if it meant going to an all-out war,” he revealed, an admission he may regret.

“The Israeli people discovered that their leadership put them on the brink of war, jeopardizing their economy and security,” he added in the wake of the operation. “Israel learned that it should not test us again given the Quneitra strike and Shebaa Farms operation,” he warned.

Not surprisingly these are not the conclusions that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Jerusalem are likely to draw.

There has been a dangerous deterioration in Israel’s strategic position because of the open boast by Nasrallah that it is now fighting Israel not only from the Blue Line with Lebanon, but, also, on Syria’s frontline with Israel in the Golan. In other words, Hezbollah’s front with Israel now extends from the Mediterranean all the way to the disputed Golan on the Syrian border. Israel is unlikely to leave a threat like that unanswered. Moreover, Israel never shrinks from retaliation when its soldiers are killed, and especially when one of them is a middle-ranking officer.

But the strategic options before Netanyahu are limited. A further strike at Hezbollah will lead to a major war that would probably eclipse that of 2006 in its severity. Moreover, the prime minister will be conscious of the fact that elections are to be held in Israel on March 17. He may not want become embroiled in a war right now for that reason.

Despite these difficulties, some new realities would work in Israel’s favor. Netanyahu knows that, unlike during the 2006 war, Hezbollah would not find much support from the Arab world in the eventuality of a conflict with Israel. Deep sectarianism between Sunni and Shi’ites across the region means that few Arab states would be upset today by an Israeli offensive against Hezbollah, the stalwart defender of the hated Assad regime.

Hezbollah, in other words, is playing a dangerous game. It may yet find itself wishing to return to the days of stability and peace, which it is abandoning with such troubling rapidity.