Islam Times - Israeli Response to Suspicious Majdal Shams Incident

Islam Times - The rocket attack on Majdal Shams in occupied Syrian Golan Heights that left over 40 killed and injured has become an excuse to a new wave of Israeli threats against Lebanon.

While the Israeli regime and the US blame Hezbollah for the attack, the Lebanese resistance movement asserts that the incident was a result of a missile fire by the Israeli Iron Dome air defense system.

Still, Netanyahu office in a statement citing the Israeli PM warned that Hezbollah "will pay a heavy price" it has never paid. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that Israel is approaching the moment of an all-out war in the north against Hezbolla" and explained that this movement has crossed the red line and Israel's response will be decisive.

Israeli threats have triggered Hezbollah reaction which said that "any Israeli adventure will be met with a stunning response, even if the price is the start of a full-scale war, and everyone will have to accept responsibility for it." Hezbollah also reportedly told the UNIFIL forces that it will resolutely respond to any Israeli military operation. Lebanese sources warned that Hezbolla reaction will be powerful.

The military alarm and increasing verbal threats on both sides of the border have raised speculations about the possibility of a large-scale war between them. The eyewitness accounts of people who saw the Iron Dome rocket ricocheting and the Israeli willingness to stage a false-flag attack in a far-away region in the Golan Heights to kill the pro-Syrian Druze ethnic people for political advantages to ease the international pressures calling for Gaza war halt all are clues to in-the-making scenario.

However, even if we consider the Majdal Al-Shams blast as an unintentional incident caused by a mistake in the defense systems of the Israeli regime, with the propaganda against Hezbollah and threatening Lebanon with war, from now on the main question is what are the limits of Tel Aviv's efforts to exploit the Majdal Shams incident and is the scenario of an all-out war on the agenda of the Israeli leaders?

About 200 Druze Arabs live in the Golan Heights. Majdal Shams is one of the villages occupied since 1967 and unlike the 163 villages whose residents were displaced by the Israeli occupation since 1981, its residents have maintained their Syrian identity to date and have rejected the offer of Israeli citizenship. This village, which is considered an occupied territory according to international laws and UN Security Council resolutions, is also home to about 50,000 Israeli Jews.

This factor is effective in the pressures it can bring on the radical Israeli cabinet at home. In fact, in the Israeli apartheid regime, the grading of the importance of the inhabitants of the occupied lands is an undeniable fact, as during the past years, black and African and Asian Jews have repeatedly protested the economic and social discrimination they are subjected to compared to the Ashkenazi Jews.

Therefore, although the Israeli leaders have made strong and threatening reactions to the Majdal Shams incident, Netanyahu's racist cabinet is certainly not willing to react recklessly to Hezbollah to avenge the anti-Israeli Druze people.

During the past 9 months, when the war has been going on in the northern front of the borders of the occupied territories with Lebanon, there have been many deadly and numerous military blows that the Israelis have received from Hezbollah, and certainly if the Israeli cabinet had a plan to enter into a large-scale war with Lebanon, it was not hard for it to find an excuse.

Beyond the media propaganda, what the political and military officials are facing on the ground and are aware of is the destructive power of Hezbollah and unpredictability of the consequences of entering in Lebanon abyss for the crisis-hit politics, security, and economy of the Israeli regime, a factor that plays as the key deterrent to Israeli war against Hezbollah. Only in recent weeks, Hezbollah's missiles and drones were able to repeatedly pass through the regime's numerous Iron Dome interceptors and successfully carry out both reconnaissance and offensive operations deep in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has not even used 10 percent of its military capabilities in this war.

Another issue is the danger of war expansion that makes the hawkish American and Israeli planners wary about writing their scenarios for the coming days. Regardless of the successful attacks of the Axis of Resistance groups in Iraq and Yemen at Israeli strategic sites and economic arteries, Iran for its part has warned against any new war against Lebanon. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan'ani issued an open warning, saying that "any new adventure will unexpected consequences."

The American side, driven by various reservations, the most important of which is the presidential elections, does not want the regional war to expand because, in addition to the irreparable consequences for the security of the occupied territories and the involvement of the US in the conflict, a regional war will cause great problems to oil flow and prices and this can affect the opinion of Americans voters.

In initial reactions of the Israeli regime to the Majdal Shams incident, the Israeli army bombed a number of southern Lebanon villages and towns and on Thursday night the capital Beirut and it is likely to continue these actions in the next days. However, these actions are expected to go ahead within limited lines that steer clear of expansion of the scope of response by the opposite side.