PITTSBURGH — Ray Mikesell was serving breakfast in his restaurant in the Strip District here when he first met Josh Shapiro while he was running for governor two years ago. Although Mikesell is a conservative Republican from western Pennsylvania and Shapiro is a liberal Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs, Shapiro made a good first impression. Mikesell shared his concerns as a small businessman dealing with rising crime in the city, inflationary costs, and difficulty finding workers. Shapiro listened carefully and outlined some of his policy solutions.
Full story here: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/08/02/the_risks_and_opportunities_for_shapiro_as_vice_president_151390.html
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Report: Iran Plans to Attack Israel on Tisha B’Av
By Hana Levi Julianncy
Iranian Emad long-range ballistic missile, range 1,700 kilometers. Iran launched more than 100 such missiles at Israel on April 14, 2024.
Iran is allegedly planning to carry out its Big Attack against Israel on Tisha B’Av, a day of on which multiple, historic tragedies befell the Jewish People, according to Western intelligence sources who spoke this weekend with Sky News Arabia.
But because this plan has been announced in mainstream media, it may in fact be an attempt at disinformation, so take the rest of this article with a grain of the best sea salt you can find.
According to the report, quoted by Israel’s Channel 14 News, the Iranian attack will be coordinated with its top proxy, the Hezbollah terrorist army in Lebanon.
Both Iran and Hezbollah are seeking to avenge this week’s assassinations of two primary terror leaders: Hezbollah’s “chief of staff” Fuad Shukr (killed in Beirut) and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh (killed during a visit to Tehran).
Tisha B’Av is the date of the destruction of both Holy Temples in Jerusalem along with other major disasters in Jewish history, including the conquest of Jerusalem. It is one of the two most important fast days in the Jewish faith and is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
Iran and Hezbollah, along with other terror groups in the Middle East, place great emphasis on the importance of symbols, and their impact on the Jewish People.
Tisha B’Av symbolizes historic trauma for Jews, with its images of destruction and ruin of Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem, the butchering of the Jews of Beitar, the 1290 expulsion of England’s Jews and the 1492 banishment of all Jews from Spain.
Fifty years ago, one of the most hard-fought wars in the history of the State of Israel was launched on October 6, 1973 by surrounding Arab nations on the most solemn day in the Jewish faith – Yom Kippur, which that year fell on the Holy Sabbath.
The current war launched against Israel by Hamas terrorists in Gaza began with the butchering of 1,200 people and abduction of 255 hostages on October 7, 2023: the date on which the most joyous holiday in Judaism, Simchat Torah, coincided with the Holy Sabbath.
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Israel’s Strikes on Its Enemies Show a High Appetite for Risk
As Israel tries to restore deterrence and its military’s reputation, the Middle East teeters closer to a regional war
Hamas militants in Beirut carried an empty coffin with a picture of the group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, after he was killed in Iran.
Hamas militants in Beirut carried an empty coffin with a picture of the group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, after he was killed in Iran. Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journal
By Shayndi Raice and Dov Lieber
TEL AVIV—Israel has executed a series of daring military operations, including attacks in enemy capitals and commando raids in the heart of the Gaza Strip, that threaten to set off a new escalatory spiral in the Middle East.
The military is betting the response will be manageable—and that it is more important to win the fear of its adversaries after the security failure on Oct. 7.
“I don’t thnk there’s any doubt that the need to demonstrate that the [Israeli military] is not only competent but to demonstrate that it is brilliant in terms of its execution has created a much greater willingness to take risks,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow with the Washington think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Israel said Tuesday it killed a top Hezbollah military commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut, blaming him for a rocket attack in northern Israel that killed 12 young people. Hours later, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran. Israel didn’t take responsibility, but both Iran and Hamas blamed it for the attack.
Those attacks followed other operations that Israel carried out in ways that brought heavy civilian casualties and international concern. In a strike that killed Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif in July, Israel dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs and, according to Gaza health authorities, killed 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone. Earlier, Israel chose to launch a hostage-rescue operation in the heart of a Gaza marketplace in the middle of the morning, triggering a street fight that left as many as 274 Palestinians dead, according to local health officials, who didn’t say how many were combatants.
It isn’t clear whether the strikes on top leaders will significantly degrade the capabilities of Hezbollah or Hamas, both U.S.-designated terrorist groups. But they have led to fiery rhetoric and warnings of tough reprisals.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the attack in his country would engender a harsh response. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, speaking Thursday at Shukr’s funeral, said the killing in Beirut had moved the conflict into a different phase of escalation.
“You don’t know what red lines you have crossed,” he said. “We’ve entered a new phase different than the previous phase.”
Concerns are now growing that Iran could initiate a large-scale attack along with aligned militias in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, a scenario the U.S. has been trying to avoid for months. Diplomats from the U.S. and around the region are now engaged in a flurry of meetings and calls to persuade Iran to avoid responding in a way that leads to an escalatory spiral, people familiar with the efforts said.
Israel is expecting a response to the killings and is hoping it will remain manageable. In a similar situation in April, Iran launched a heavy barrage in retaliation for a strike attributed to Israel that killed a senior Iranian military officer in a diplomatic building in Damascus, Syria. Israel managed to down virtually all of the more than 300 missiles and drones aimed at its territory, but only with the help of a U.S.-led military coalition.
Israel’s bigger concern has been restoring deterrence. The Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas overran military bases and kibbutzim, leaving 1,200 people dead and 250 as hostages. The assault shook Israeli society not only due to the brutal loss of life, but also because of the shame of the failure of a military once viewed among the mightiest in the Middle East.
Recapturing that edge from both a military and intelligence perspective has been top of mind for the Israeli security establishment since then.
The aftermath of an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Photo: haitham imad/Shutterstock
Some of Israel’s aggressive moves have caught its counterparts off guard. U.S. and Arab mediators had worked feverishly in the days after the rocket attack from Lebanon that killed 12 Druze young people to head off an Israeli retaliation that would spark a regional war. U.S. officials said Wednesday that they expected the Beirut attack but were caught off guard by the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran.
The U.S. now fears that the killings might unleash a cycle of even fiercer reprisals that could include attacks on American forces in the Middle East. They have also severely dimmed the chances of a cease-fire and hostage deal to pause the fighting in Gaza, which has been one of President Biden’s chief foreign-policy goals. On Wednesday, senior administration officials were negotiating with Israeli, Qatari, Iraqi and Saudi officials to see if there was a way to reach a deal.
The Biden administration has a lower tolerance for risk than the Israelis, said Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. For the Israelis, the threat from Iran and the regional militias it supports is existential, he said.
What will be the ramifications of the targeting of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders? Join the conversation below.
“I think Khamenei and Nasrallah might misunderstand the resolve to go into full-scale war,” Dubowitz said. “There are people who believe that this is an opportunity, especially against Hezbollah. This is the time.”
Some Israelis believe the constant fire of Hezbollah rockets, which have displaced around 60,000 Israelis from the country’s north, has given the country a legitimate cause to go to war, he said.
Israel has long relied on targeted killings to try to undermine its enemies, including former leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, and senior Iranian security and intelligence figures. Israeli officials say such killings degrade their enemies by removing key leaders who are hard to replace, while at the same time forcing those who are still alive to act more cautiously, thereby making them less effective.
“We live in a region where no one appreciates anything but military force and the willingness to use it,” said Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser. Assassinations “help Israel to regain not only self-confidence but also some abilities to deter our enemies.”
A Palestinian child dressed as a Hamas militant stands next to an empty coffin in Beirut before a march honoring Ismail Haniyeh. Photo: Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journal
War can be an opportune time to eliminate enemies, because daily hostilities are a given, while in peacetime the same killing could risk a new outbreak of violence, an Israeli security official said.
Israel is willing to take greater risks in eliminating its enemies during this war given the severity of the threat, the official said.
“We are fighting for our lives,” the official said.
But there has long been debate in Israel over the strategic value of targeted killings. Israel has killed senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah in the past. Yet both have become stronger over time.
“It was painful, all the assassinations for Hamas, but it seems that all these moves cannot really change the ideology,” said Michael Milshtein, a former head of Palestinian affairs for Israeli military intelligence. “When in Israel, people spoke about strategic impact…it was an illusion more than any kind of serious assessment.”
Write to Shayndi Raice at Shayndi.Raice@wsj.com and Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com
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Iran Counts on U.S. Weakness to Check Israeli Strength
The Biden administration has pressed the Jewish state for a cease-fire, so far without success.
By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takye
Israel’s killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president was undoubtedly meant to amp up awe for Jerusalem’s power of deterrence. Israel can get its man, anytime, anyplace. The Islamic Republic pledged to retaliate. As Tehran demonstrated in its clash with Israel in April, the Iranian theocracy isn’t afraid of a regional war. When Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei unleashed 300 missiles and drones, he wasn’t hoping that Israel and America would intercept them.
Killing Haniyeh in Tehran was a bold move. The Mossad demonstrated again its ability to penetrate Iran’s security services and humiliate the regime. Israel’s killing of the military commanders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and earlier of Iranian scientists inside Iran, deeply wounded the clerical regime’s pride and rhetoric (the two are often indistinguishable). Iran routinely depicts the Jewish state as irreversibly in decline. Israel is testing the sacred proposition that all militant Muslims welcome martyrdom. Iran’s leaders know that the Mossad appears to have recruited Iranians who have access to clerical circles and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.
Despite this, Mr. Khamenei is intent on retaliating: “The criminal Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our territory and has caused our grief, but it has also prepared the ground for a severe punishment.” In a rare move, the cleric himself chaired a Wednesday meeting of the Supreme National Security Council, a group usually led by the president. Only those with a long history of membership in the inner circle get to make the tough decisions.
Since the outbreak of the Oct. 7 war, Iran’s strategy has had mixed results. It’s not unlikely that Tehran believed that by inflaming Israel’s frontiers with deadly but limited attacks by its proxies, it could provoke the international community to impose a cease-fire on Israel. A low-level war, in which Hamas and Hezbollah engage in a continuous duel with Israel, is a winning proposition for Iran. Mr. Khamenei likely foresees the Jewish state’s demise through a slow bleed, not a massive conflagration. A larger war, if it involved America, could start a chain reaction that might lead to U.S. Air Force bombing of Iran’s nuclear installations. Fear of losing the nuclear program before it is bomb-proof has probably been an important factor in Tehran’s development of proxy forces to attack Americans and Israelis.
Both the Biden administration and the Europeans have acted helpfully, dispatching a parade of mediators seeking a cease-fire. In that scenario, a battered Hamas would survive to fight another day, and Hezbollah’s large missile stockpiles would remain, deterring Israel and the U.S. from attacks on Iran.
But Jerusalem has pressed on with its campaign against Hamas. As long as Israel holds the borderlands between Gaza and Egypt, Hamas can’t effectively rearm. Israel has even expanded the conflict with Hezbollah. But making the northern front of Israel truly safe will require degrading Hezbollah’s military might and destroying most of its missile stockpiles.
In April, in retaliation for Israel’s killing of an Iranian general in Damascus, Mr. Khamenei tried to launch a mass-casualty attack on Israel. Israel accepted the American argument that the attack should be judged by its logistical failure—a Bedouin girl was the only casualty—rather than its intent. The mullahs clearly feared escalation less than the Israelis or the Americans did.
Haniyeh’s killing comes as Israel is trying to finish the job in Gaza before turning to Hezbollah. Tehran’s long game remains the same: to ensure the survival of Hezbollah, and if possible Hamas, in some form while keeping the Americans checked. In risking a regional war, Mr. Khamenei likely believes he can again turbocharge U.S. diplomacy that restrains Israel on all its frontiers. If Iran manages to penetrate Israeli defenses this time, it’s not unreasonable to believe that Tehran still sees the Biden administration’s profound fear of escalation as a means to salvage its proxies’ fortunes.
The crucial actor in this drama is neither Iran nor Israel but America. Should Washington warn Iran clearly that if Tehran retaliates against Israel, the U.S. will intervene in the conflict on Jerusalem’s side—and far more muscularly than before—the mullahs will take note and proceed more cautiously. Despite their exhortations, the ruling clergy and the Revolutionary Guards still respect American power and understand that their wobbly regime can’t afford a conflict with the U.S.
Regrettably, the Biden administration has so far taken the opposite path and is once more separating itself from Israel. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday, “We were not aware of or involved in Haniyeh’s assassination.” In essence, Mr. Blinken is suggesting that America disapproves of its ally’s conduct and will once more try to put the brakes on the Middle East’s only democracy. Such foolishness is the surest way to invite a regional Middle East war.
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Biden never has learned because he is a pusilanimous weak knee idiot:
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