Seth Frantzman | July 2024
Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on Wednesday, July 17, setting off alarms in the coastal city of Nahariya and surrounding communities. It was one of a series of daily attacks carried out by Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed terrorist group has launched more than 5,000 attacks on Israel since 7 October, using rockets, missiles and drones. The attacks occur along Israel’s northern border, but they have become more deadly in recent weeks. Israel evacuated around 80,000 people from the border in October due to the attacks. However, civilians and soldiers continue to be harmed by Hezbollah’s endless assaults.
An Israeli couple was killed by rocket fire in the Golan on 9 July. In addition a Hezbollah drone recently killed an Israeli soldier in Kibbutz Kabri. More people are being wounded and killed by Hezbollah attacks but Israel has chosen to not response in any meaningful way for nine months, essentially surrendering northern Israel to Iran and Hezbollah. This form of surrender is unique in Israel’s history. Israel’s north has been under rocket threats for decades, dating back to the 1970s when Palestinian groups also targeted northern Israel with rocket fire. However, Israel’s leaders always understood that Israel’s presence in the Middle East had to be rooted in an iron will to never retreat and not let the enemy think Israel’s presence was temporary.
Hezbollah has been attacking Israel openly for months. It chooses the place and time of attacks and increasingly uses the attacks to test its drones and other munitions. Each time Hezbollah launches drone attacks or barrages of rockets, it puts out statements which are then run by Iranian media, bragging about the Hezbollah claims. Hezbollah frequently claims to target Israeli bases and sensitive sites in northern Israel. This takes the form, for instance of targeting what Hezbollah believes are surveillance sites, or IDF bases.
Iran mobilised Hezbollah as part of a multi-front war on Israel after 7 October. For Tehran this war is not just about Gaza, but bringing the whole region of Iran-backed proxies into the conflict. This is a regional war. Iran mobilized Hezbollah on October 8 and the Houthis in Yemen several days later. It has also pushed Iraqi-based militias to attack Israel and attack US forces in Iraq and Syria. The fact that all these groups have carried out attacks shows that they do not fear Israel anymore. They are not deterred. This would not have been the case in years past. Hezbollah after the 2006 war did not carry out attacks on Israel, except in rare exceptions where Hezbollah claimed to be retaliating for Israeli actions. Now Hezbollah is the one taking the initiative. Israel trained for years for a possible conflict with Hezbollah but now the IDF finds itself on the defensive in the north. The unprecedented evacuation of the border also now leaves Israelis afraid to return. The message is disconcerting.
When the Houthis attacked Tel Aviv with a drone on July 19 one person was killed and ten wounded. Israel retaliated with a large attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen. This attack was supposed to send a message that if groups kill Israelis, they will suffer major consequences. However, Hezbollah continues to fire rockets and drones at Israel and the Houthis have vowed more attacks. They continue to not be deterred.
Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani claimed this week in New York, where he was speaking at the UN and holding meetings, that if the war in Gaza ends, then Hezbollah may end its attacks. ‘Everyone knows the conflict in southern Lebanon is rooted in the Zionist crimes in Gaza. Over the past 9 months, due to the continuation of crimes and genocide, regional resistance fronts have become active against the Zionists. Therefore, whenever the Zionist crime in Gaza ends, it is obvious that it can be expected that the resistance will not take action in other areas. But as long as the crime and genocide of the Zionists in Gaza continues, it is the right of the resistance to act based on its interests’, Bagheri Kani claimed.
The largest problem for Israel is that Iran has succeeded in linking the Hezbollah front to Gaza. Israel chose not to respond strongly to Hezbollah because the IDF is tied down in Gaza. Therefore, Israel conducts precision and proportional responses to the Hezbollah attacks. However, this benefits Hezbollah more than Israel. Israel has always understood that its presence in the region is dependent on deterring stronger enemies. If Israel tries to go for a war of attrition it will lose in the long run, because Israel has more to lose. Israel is a powerful hi-tech economy. Lebanon is bankrupt. Every day that Israel wastes in a war of attrition with Hezbollah, benefits Hezbollah and Iran. Evacuating citizens for a year is not an answer. What happens the next time there is a flare-up in Gaza, will Israel send 100,000 people in northern Israel away from their homes every year or two when Hezbollah decides to attack?
Hezbollah is learning a lesson from this war. It has improved its drones and rockets. It has also watched how Israel responds. It can also read Israel’s media where commentators write about how a war with Hezbollah will be difficult. Hezbollah was allowed to grow too strong since 2006, much as Hamas also grew exponentially stronger and carried out the 7 October attack. Now Hezbollah has painted Israel into a corner. Hezbollah’s daily attacks became a ‘norm’ and if Israel strikes back harder it will be perceived as the aggressor. Israel has lost the initiative and the deterrence. It must get this back before the Gaza war ends. If Hezbollah is allowed to walk away having launched more than 5,000 attacks and having only lost around 300 of its members, it will feel it won. Then it will also be only a matter of time before another cycle of war begins with Hezbollah. This is how Iran got Israel to accept ‘managing’ the conflict in Gaza, until 7 October. It created rounds of war and made Israel get used to rocket fire. This is like slowly cooking a frog in ever-warming water. Israel is being slowly made to accept these attacks without an easy way out of this cycle.
@Edgar Well, you also disagreed with his view of the naming. He does give their reasoning which I managed to summarize after I said I couldn’t. He doesn’t provide his sources, unless I am missing something. Lots of footnotes here but just to sections of the published Torah. I really am a beginner, though thank you for the compliment, but I do have a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in History and one of my concentrations was historiography.
Wait, Shanks? Who is or was Shanks?
SEB-
I’m not an authority on Zeitlin. I bought his books new and enjoyed them. The questions arising now were not in my mind then. He was not any kind of authority on Ancient Documents such as the DSS.
I didn’t say or mean that you can’t believe anything he said. And I didn’t express the view that he was the world’s leading;;;;; That reputation was given to him by his peers. As far as I can understand, and accepting your assertion that he had lots of explanations for what you posted, his only strange opinion was on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I recall Herschel Shanks writing about them in his famous “Biblical Archaeology Review”.
I just recalled that he said they were medieval writings based on anachronistic use of words and phrases that only came into the language in the middle ages. Can’t recall if he gave examples or not.
Interestingly Shanks himself was NO scholar or expert, just an enthusiastic reporter.
You yourself the other day answered my comment on lack of explanations by saying that there were explanations but you didn’t include them.
Therefore everything you aver now is not relevant to the subject. But, if I were you, I’d read on. His stuff is remarkably interesting to a Jew even a beginner which by now you are definitely NOT.
How have you been enjoying it so far, forgetting The Dead Sea Scrolls…??
As for Turtledove’s bizarre fantasmagoria, it’s a remarkable exhibition of the most intricate imaginary occurrences, which, except for Vega’s Casanova quirkiness, is all tangled up like a Gordian Knot.
Needs an executioner’s axe to cut through it….Indeed…!!
PS…as for it being a stupid question……No comment…!!
Just kidding
@Edgar Ummm. This may be a stupid question but – after investing in all three volumes on your authoritative say-so and diligently ploughing through several hundred pages of this stuff and wondering if I should bother to continue, I feel I have a right to ask – if I can’t rely on anything he says, in what way is he or was he “the world’s leading authority on the Second Commonwealth”? Remember, you’re talking to a beginner who knows practically nothing on this subject. I like science fiction, especially alternate history, but not being misinformed.
Here’s one of my favorites. “Ruled Brittania” by Harry Turtledove, rightfully billed as the “master of alternate history” who also happens to have a PhD in Byzantine history.
“Ruled Britannia” (2002)
“The book is set in the years 1597–1598, in an alternate universe where the Spanish Armada is successful in 1588. The Kingdom of England has been conquered and returned to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church under the rule of Queen Isabella, daughter of Philip II of Spain. Queen Elizabeth is deposed and is imprisoned within the Tower of London as her fellow Protestants are burned as heretics by the English Inquisition.
The story is seen from the point of view of two famous playwrights: English poet William Shakespeare, and Spanish poet Lope de Vega; supporting characters include contemporaries Christopher Marlowe, Richard Burbage, and Will Kempe.
Plot summary (spoiler alert)
Shakespeare, actor and renowned playwright, is contacted by Nicholas Skeres on behalf of members of an underground resistance movement who are plotting to overthrow the Spanish dominion of England and restore Elizabeth I to the throne. To do this, they employ Shakespeare himself, tasking him to write a play depicting the saga of Boudicca, an ancient Iceni queen who rebelled against the Roman occupation of Great Britain in the 1st century A.D. The conspirators hope that the play will inspire its audience, Britons once again under the heel of a foreign enemy, to overthrow the Spanish.
The plan is complicated by the Spaniards who, also recognizing Shakespeare’s talents, commission him to write a play depicting the life of King Philip II of Spain and the Spanish conquest of England. Now Shakespeare must write two plays—one glorifying the valor of England, the other glorifying its conquest and return to the Catholic Church—at the same time. There is also a subplot of the exploits of the skirt-chasing Spanish playwright and soldier Lope de Vega, who is tasked by his superiors in the Spanish military hierarchy to keep an eye on Shakespeare and while he does so flirts from woman to woman. De Vega even acts in Shakespeare’s King Philip.
Despite danger at every turn from both the Spanish Inquisition and a home-grown English Inquisition, the secret play comes to fruition, and despite qualms from Shakespeare and his fellow players it is performed. As the conspirators had hoped, the audience is roused into an anti-Spanish fury and rampages through London, killing any Spanish official they see and freeing Elizabeth from the Tower of London. Despite this victory and England’s reclaimed freedom, there is considerable loss of life on both sides.
Shakespeare is rewarded by the reinstated Queen Elizabeth with a knighthood and an annulment of his unhappy marriage to Anne Hathaway, which frees him to marry his longtime mistress. The queen also grants his daring request that his King Philip play, which he considers to contain some of his best work, be staged. At the end of the story, Shakespeare uses his new status to facilitate the release of his friend Lope de Vega from English captivity, provided that he immediately return to the Continent.
Allusions
The Spanish Habsburg empire and its dominions in the alternate 1597 of the book.
The book makes several references to various plays by Shakespeare, both real and fictional. Some existing plays, such as Hamlet and As You Like It, are given new names (The Prince of Denmark and If You Like It), and presumably different content. Another play mentioned, Love’s Labour’s Won, is the title of an actual lost play by Shakespeare, presumed to be a sequel to the existing Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Christopher Marlowe, who historically died in 1593, lives until October or November 1598 in the novel. As well as his known plays, the novel creates two imaginary Marlowe plays, Catiline and Cambyses, King of Persia, presumably written after 1593. The circumstances of Marlowe’s historical death in Deptford are also alluded to.
As the author mentions at the end of the book, he created the play “Boudicca” from elements of Shakespeare’s other works and from Bonduca, an actual play on the same subject by Shakespeare’s contemporary, sometime collaborator and successor, John Fletcher. Passages from King Philip are combinations and adaptations of lines from numerous actual Shakespeare plays. The dialogue and narrative also contains many references and phrases taken from Shakespeare’s plays. One such example is the supporting character Walter Strawberry, a bumbling, malaprop-spewing policeman who appears to be modeled after Constable Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruled_Britannia
ADAM-
Thanks for recalling that to me.I’d forgotten about his mishugas on the DSS. Wrong of course.
Today, as an extra, experts are beginning to believe that Moshe Shapira’s scrolls also are authentic and as such, the oldest in history.
Poor old guy was ruined by Cleremont-Ganneau and Christian Ginsburg, who at first said they were authentic and later Cler-Gan changed his mind for him
Poor guy committed suicide. They haven’t been seen since about 1925-6.
At Edgar, Sebastien; this the same Zeitlin who denied the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls and claimed they were modern forgeries in the early 1950s?He wrote several aerticles in Biblical scholarship journals to this effect. These views seem consistent with the opinions that you both attribute to Solomon Zeitlin in a book published in 1968.
It is possible that the Israelites in their earliest historical period may have thought that YHWH was only their own “national” God, not the only god in the world, and that the other peoples in their vicinity had thereir own gods. However, even during this early period, the Israelites spoke of these national gods of the surrounding peoples, who were all their enemies, as “disgusting things. Maybe they existed, but they were evil gods who were the patrons of their evil enemies (Ammonites, Moabites, etc.). But there is also strong evidence that fairly early in their history, the Israelites, or at least the prophets whose writings have come down to us, came to believe that YHWH was both their national God as well as the ruler of the entire universe. And as far as I understand it, that is still the belief of Orthodox Jews today.
O.K.
I was wrong, I’d have expected him to have reasons with factual proof at his fingertips .
PS I can think of several pronunciations of Yud He Yud He.Yiu also can I’m sure. The Vav could have been aspirated, Or Yah Yah, for instance. to make Yech Yech
Even today no one knows for sure.
@Edgar He gives reasons but it’s too much to quote. He devotes half the chapter to it but in a nutshell, as I understand it, after the Restoration, they felt naming God lent itself too easily to paganism and also seeing God as purely tribal and regional. He says they now saw God as universal and not just superior. It also was potentially divisive and gives a version of the golden calf incident that’s different in that they thought the statue represented Yahweh. He opens the chapter by saying the Temple was originally called, “The Temple of Yahweh.” He says they no longer saw their relationship with God as being transactional and de-emphasized the rescue from Egypt. He says they had been Henotheists before. You really should dig out your copy and re-read it for yourself. Wikipedia says he was controversial. Not sure on what he bases this. Certainly interesting.
Have to say, I have the impression that Judaism stepped back somewhat from their radicalism, e.g. Egypt.
SEB-
Your Zeitlin quotes are perspicacious. But in my opinion flawed, because with the quotes, Zeitlin gives no corresponding factual explanation.
As an expert he MUST have known the reasons, therefore should have been able to detail the causes.
It’sover 50 years since I read Zeitlin and I’m not surprised that I didn’t notice this, in my present opiniojn, flaw.
I could have written to him and asked.
@Edgar Well, he says.
“Two other important related changes took place during this period. …Yahweh was no longer employed , except for the high priest who pronounced the name as written on the Day of Atonement, while in the Holy of Holies, the word, Adonai, Lord, was substituted for it.” (p.274)
And when I look up his footnotes in English, of course, referring to the Torah passages, they just say, “Lord” but he implies that there was a textual change here. In fact, elsewhere, he states that decisions were made about what to keep and what to leave out.
By the way, I seem to recall somebody making a crack about God’s choice of the Jews. Here, Zeitlin says that one of the revolutionary changes that took place in this period was the substitution of the idea that God chose the Jews with the one that the Jews chose God and his precepts. The passage continues:
“The term implied the Lordship of God over the universe. The Judeans no longer considered themselves a “chosen people.” They no longer believed that God had chosen them alone of all people to worship him. Their conception now was that they chose God; they believed in him and followed his commandments as given him by Moses and as inscribed by the Torah. They chose the religion and believed that any one who accepted the God of Israel, the God of the universe was a spiritual descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Only the Land of Judaea and even more, the Temple, continued to be regarded as chosen by God.” (p. 274)
Interesting distinction.
I suppose this inspired this hilarious Woody Allen parody (supposed to be about Russia) in “Love and Death” (1975) One of his few funny movies.
“A small piece of land” (very short, 27 seconds long)
https://youtu.be/WCOzqP9Dt9E?si=yM51P_gRaGrlp08H
SEB-
Glad you like my book suggestion. As for Zeitlin’s usage, if it was used by the High Priest once a year only, and in the holy of Holies how did the name become public knowledge.
I therefore say that the term used by Zeitlin is just a convenient substitute. Even the Yud He, Yud He, is not conclusive and those 4 letters can be pronounced several different ways.
In his book Zeitlin is following the Christian pronunciation for his own reasons. Even the Yud He Yud He can be false as a protective subterfuge
@Edgar, Dreuveni, Vivarto –
In recounting the evolution of modern Judaism from a purely tribal and national God to a universal one during the 2nd Jewish Commonwealth, Zeitlin uses, “Yahweh” repeatedly, saying that it became a name only said by the high priest once a year at the end of the process. – “The Rise and Fall of the Judean State.” Vol. 1 by Solomon Zeitlin. Jewish Publication Society of America. Philadelphia/5728-1968, in Part Three: “Social and Religious Developments in the Third and Second Centuries, B.C. E., chapter 6, “Religious Faith and Practice”. pp. 269-281.
Edgar referred me to this 3 volume work by Zeitlin whom Wikipedia – which Edgar despises but with which Edgar concurs on this one point – refers to as
“…an American Jewish historian, Talmudic scholar and in his time the world’s leading authority on the Second Commonwealth, also known as the Second Temple period.[1] His work, “The Rise and Fall of the Judean State” is about the Second Temple period…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Zeitlin
A side note to Vivarto: This is also the period, he mentions in this section, when Judeans began referring to themselves as Judeans, Jews, instead of Israelites. (p. 274).
https://www.memri.org/reports/letters-leaders-hamas-hizbullah-and-syria-irans-new-president-masoud-pezeshkian-pledges
It is a mistake to base actions on the internal affairs of the United States. The election results are unpredictable as Trump has the popular vote but the Democrat machine controls too much of the voting mechanism.
Israel is showing weakness in its reactions to Hezbollah and that emboldens its enemies. Yes, Israel is still tied down in Gaza, but that too, is a reaction to Western demands for restraint. Another error.
Unlike the US, Israel cannot afford to maintain protracted wars from the financial standpoint and the cost or Israeli lives.
Some really great posts on this thread.
Following on Mr. Galt, he’d be the first to agree that there’s a huge majority of states that are already in the bag for one party or the other with only a minority in play, the swing states and always a few surprises. I’m guessing here without any attempt to get into details, maybe ten states maybe fewer. On top of that many of the constituencies in each of those say ten states are also pretty much pre determined. My point is the election for president really boils down to a tiny fraction of the country. The pros know that and the main point is it’s bloody easy to commit fraud simply by focusing on that handful of constituencies. That’s why massive fraud is not needed, merely selective fraud. So nobody should be taking a Trump victory for granted even running against the pathetic cackle queen.
True enough, but the question remains whether Israel should hold til after the election, or act now providing the new president with the Lebanon issue resolved, so that the US might focus its actions on Iran. This latter position is advocated by Gen. Avivi, though others support the former position.
“Personally, I agree with Avivi. Do recall that the American election was stolen in 2020 and 2022. We should hope for the best in November, but the outcome is far from certain, IMO.”
I am a Chief Election Judge in my state and realize the industrial scale cheating in our elections. The problem is the Republican Party is not doing much about it and the Democrats – the party of the KKK, slavery, Jim Crow and Israel hatred – are totally fine with it and know they can get away with it because our courts will do nothing.
dreuveni-
It is forbidden to mention G-D’s Name. In fact no one knows it except the High Priest who uttered it ONE time a year, in the Holy of Holies
Your “Jehovah ” is a Christian concept.
As for the rest of yout post I totalyt agree with it.
@John Galt III
True enough, but the question remains whether Israel should hold til after the election, or act now providing the new president with the Lebanon issue resolved, so that the US might focus its actions on Iran. This latter position is advocated by Gen. Avivi, though others support the former position.
Personally, I agree with Avivi. Do recall that the American election was stolen in 2020 and 2022. We should hope for the best in November, but the outcome is far from certain, IMO.
Wonder if the US election is causing Israel to wait on any major move in Lebanon?
Trump gets elected and by January 2025 the anti Israel, anti American, anti Jew and anti Christian Regime is gone.
This talk of Hezbollah’s aggression being due to Israeli aggression in Gaza is a weak excuse that doesn’t hold up. If the activities in Gaza were to cease, there would simply be a new excuse.
As sad as it is, Israel must prepare to expell everyone in Lebanon south of the Litani River for ever. Otherwise, the rockets will continue indefinitely. Expanding the borders is not enough. They need to be so far away that rockets and other missiles are no longer a problem. This sounds like a border with Turkey.
Time for Israel to extend its borders to what Jehovah originally intended.