Genocide by 'Israel', US boosting support for armed resistance

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Foreign Affairs
25 Apr 2024 01:02

Recent polls indicate a growing support for armed resistance across the Middle East as a means of political conflict resolution, while faith in peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinian factions like Hamas dwindles.

Image emerging on social media showing Hezbollah's flag alongside Palestine's flag flying in on Wall Street, New York, US, on April 25, 2024. (Social media)

Polls, in the past six months, show that the support for armed resistance has increased across the Middle East "as a means of resolving political conflict," according to a Foreign Affairs report.

The report also indicated that the Arab public has been losing faith in the peace negotiations between "Israel" and the Palestinian Resistance, primarily the Hamas Brigades, despite the clear dismay over the prospect of the war expanding.

Foreign Affairs also indicated that the US and Israeli intelligence believed that in the event of a war between Hezbollah and "Israel", it is evident that "Israel" would "suffer significant losses to both its military and civilian infrastructure."

This comes at a time when "Israel" has lost public empathy, on the global stage, following the genocide it conducted in the Gaza Strip, which Foreign Affairs described as "destruction in Gaza". As such, the report indicated that a war with Lebanon would thus "only boost popular support for Iran and its non-state partners," referring to the Axis of Resistance's Hezbollah, Iraqi Resistance, Ansar Allah, and others.

As such, the Foreign Affairs report underscored that the United States and other "interested parties" must prioritize deliberate efforts to avoid further escalation as "Israel" and the US, through the Israeli situation, find themselves in a position where the next wrong move would play in favor of the Axis of Resistance.

Israel seeks to "transform its security outlook" by eliminating Hamas and Hezbollah, yet sheer military might, alone, cannot eradicate either, the report emphasized.

This endeavor was made more difficult after normalization agreements proved to fail to plummet public support for Palestine and the Resistance movements defending it. This was underscored in the Foreign Affairs report when it shows it noted that despite significant endeavors by the Saudi government to familiarize its populace with a normalization agreement with "Israel", a Washington Institute survey in December 2023 found that 96 percent of Saudi participants concurred that Arab nations should sever all connections with "Israel".

'Israel' nowhere near damaging Hezbollah's arsenal: Res. General

Israeli Security Minister Yoav Gallant's statement regarding the killing of half of Hezbollah's leaders in South Lebanon is "exaggerated", Reserve Major General Yaakov Amidror, the former Security Advisor and head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate's Research Department, told Israeli broadcaster Channel 14.

In this context, Amidror stressed that Israeli officials should abstain from "living in delusions."

The highly-accoladed former Israeli military official said Hezbollah still possesses a vast number of missiles and other weapons, adding that "Israel" has failed to damage "the edges" of Hezbollah's arsenal.

"It is not yet time for war in the north," the reserve Major General stressed, adding, "We should not be preoccupied with Gaza and Lebanon at the same time."

As for the tens of thousands of Israeli settlers that have been evacuated from northern occupied territories, Amigdror said that the only way they could return to their colonial outposts is if the United States were to achieve a "diplomatic deal" with the engaging parties or else the Israeli military would have to use force.

"Then we do not know how [the war] will start and we do not know how it will end, and we should prepare for a large-scale war," Amigdror stated.

"Israeli operations are not largely effective against Hezbollah's combat capacity," he added.

"Entering a large-scale war against Hezbollah is a completely different story and of another level of difficulty," the former intelligence chief underlined.

"What is happening on both sides of the border are tactical operations that hold no practical or strategic impact," Amigdror claimed.

On his part, the head of the Israeli Upper al-Jalil Regional Council, Giora Zaltz, said, "The north is empty because everyone is afraid to come here."

"What Gallant has said and what military analysts are saying is of no importance to the residents of the north that have been evacuated," Zaltz emphasized, pointing to the de facto state of insecurity imposed by Hezbollah on Israeli occupiers.

Hezbollah says that its operations in northern occupied territories have led to the evacuation of approximately 230,000 Israeli settlers, killing and injuring more than 2,000 military personnel.