Quick Takes: News From Israel You May Have Missed

Last week’s attack by the Lebanese Hizbullah militia against Israel’s northern border and the major Hamas raid two weeks prior that led to a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip are direct results of the “failed” Israeli policy of unilateral withdrawal, former Israeli defense minister Moshe Arens charged in a WorldNetDaily interview.

“Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the uprooting of Jewish communities there was interpreted by Hamas and by the Palestinian people as a victory for terrorism,” said Arens, who served as defense minister several times, including during Israel’s foray into Lebanon in the 1980’s.

The former defense minister pointed out that since the Gaza evacuation last summer, over 1,000 rockets have been fired at nearby Jewish communities, Hamas has been elected to power, and both Israel and the Palestinian Authority say al-Qaeda has moved into the territory.

“The Palestinian terrorists bombarding Israeli towns with missiles saw very little Israeli response,” said Arens. “So they carried out a daring raid against Israeli troops. They are not afraid of Israel when it retreats.”

Arens said the Hizbullah raid and the rocket bombardment of northern Israeli towns are a “direct result of the failed Israeli withdrawal from that country by [Prime Minister Ehud] Barak in 2000.

“Barak threatened Lebanon with the harshest reprisals if any aggressive cross-border acts were carried out by Hizbullah,” he said. “We have seen many aggressive acts – missile attacks the past few months, killings and kidnappings of Israeli soldiers – and no major Israeli retaliation.

The clear message received by Hizbullah is one of Israeli weakness. Deterrence has been lost.” Arens said he did not want to recommend an Israeli military response to the Hizbullah attack, but he said he agreed with current IDF tactics. He said the Lebanese government infrastructure should “pay a price” for failing to disarm Hizbullah in spite of multiple pledges to do so.

The Israeli army should not punish the Lebanese government and the country’s civilian infrastructure for the actions of Hizbullah, Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said in an exclusive WorldNetDaily interview.

“[Hizbullah leader Hassan] Nasrallah does not obey the government of Lebanon. We (in the government) don’t agree with his acts. But we cannot in Lebanon force him to accept any resolution unless he accepts it himself,” said Jumblatt, who is head of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party and is largely considered the most prominent anti-Syrian Lebanese politician. He said he saw the fingerprints of Iran and Syria on Hizbullah’s actions the past few days.

“They (Iran and Syria) are financially and militarily supporting Hizbullah. It is a known fact that this alliance from Tehran to Beirut is quite a solid strategic alliance.”

Jumblatt raised the question of whether Hizbullah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers was carried out to free Lebanese prisoners from Israeli jails or rather for the sake of a person “whosepalace was flown over by Israeli planes two weeks ago” – a clear suggestion Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind the most recent escalation.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Units reportedly stationed in Lebanon fired many of the hundreds of Hizbullah missiles that have slammed into the Jewish state the past few days, say officials in Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

Israel has long maintained Iranian Revolutionary Guard units have traveled regularly to south Lebanon to help train local Hizbullah fighters in terrorist tactics and to fortify Hizbullah positions along Israel’s northern border.

At times, Revolutionary Guard soldiers can be seen operating openly at Hizbullah outposts in plain view from the Israeli side, military officials say. Iran and Syria are the largest financial sponsors of Hizbullah. Israel says many Hizbullah rockets were made in or upgraded by Iran. The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced last week it had information there was a Hizbullah plan to bring the kidnapped Israeli soldiers to Iran.

The United Nations bears responsibility for the murder of Israeli civilians killed in the past few years by Palestinian suicide bombers, families of terror victims here said.

“The U.N. is partly responsible for the death of my son,” said Miri Avitan, whose son Assaf was killed in Jerusalem by a Palestinian suicide bomber in December 2001. “Money that was meant for the Iraqi [people] got to Saddam and he wrote a check to reward the murderers of my kid.”

Avitan was one of several family members of Israeli terror victims to blame the U.N. for revenues from its oil-for-food program kicked back to deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and funneled by Hussein to Palestinian terror organizations.

The family members made their statements in a recently released book, “The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America’s Security and Fails the World.”

Author Eric Shawn documents how some of the $10 billion obtained illegally by Hussein as part of the oil-for-food program between 1997 and 2002 was used to fund families of Palestinians suicide bombers.

He writes that the House International Relations Committee revealed how the Hussein regime deposited the diverted funds from oil-for-food kickbacks in the Rafidain bank and other financial institutions in Amman, Jordan. The money was then transferred to another account controlled by the Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, Sabeh Yaseen.

Yaseen and other Iraqi officials then cut checks from the accounts at public ceremonies in which funds were disbursed to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to honor and encourage the murder of Israeli civilians.