“I think that Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] is getting carried away and he’s being swept by the events and is losing proportion,” he added in an interview with POLITICO.
Back to the Blue Line
For now, Israeli leaders are simply lining up to support the offensive. Opposition party leaders who do harbor doubts about the wisdom of a ground offensive can happily use the excuse of the Jewish New Year holiday of Rosh Hashanah to decline interviews and keep their own counsel.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett posted his blessing on social media: “Over the past year, Hezbollah terrorists have murdered dozens of Israelis, including 12 children, on a soccer field, fired thousands of rockets at us, hit our villages of Metula, Shlomi, and the kibbutzim, and forced us to evacuate the north of the country.”
This is the chief Israeli rationale for the mission, saying Hezbollah has fired more than 9,000 rockets from south Lebanon since last October.
The ostensible objective is to force Hezbollah forces back to the northern side of the so-called Blue Line, the Litani River, 29 kilometers or so north of the border, in line with the United Nations resolution ending the 2006 war in Lebanon. If successful, that would go a long way to reassuring the 80,000 or so Israelis evacuated from northern Israel because of Hezbollah’s barrages to return to their homes.
“Enough is enough,” Bennett added. “Every IDF soldier who crosses the border fence into Lebanese soil knows that he is doing so to protect the citizens of Israel.”
Discover more from PressNewsAgency
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.