Hezballah's next war with Israel

Times:

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Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, vowed in a speech on Tuesday night that in the next war, his organisation could attack Israel-bound shipping in the Mediterranean.

Addressing Israel, he said: “If you launch a new war on Lebanon, if you blockade our coastline, all military, civilian or commercial ships heading through the Mediterranean to occupied Palestine will be targeted by the Islamic resistance.”

During the July 2006 war with Israel, Hezbollah hit and disabled an Israeli navy boat with a missile.

One of Israel’s near-guaranteed targets if another war does break out is the sprawling Mlita tourist site devoted to Hezbollah’s military struggle against Israel’s occupation of Lebanon. Hezbollah officials cheerfully admit that the site will be flattened in the next war, but say that they will rebuild it.

The project, which opened to the public on Tuesday, covers a mountaintop smothered in dense bushes and stubby oak trees. It was a secret frontline base for the guerrillas during the Israeli occupation. On the other side of a gaping valley, Israeli outposts once stood, often the target of Hezbollah fighters based in Mlita. The bulldozed earth ramparts of the hilltop Israeli positions have since disappeared, washed away by the rains of ten winters.

Hundreds of visitors were gawping at the symbolic displays of smashed Israeli tanks, artillery cannon and piles of old army helmets. Children scrambled over upturned armoured personnel carriers watched by neatly dressed and polite Hezbollah attendants wearing black baseball caps.

“The Israelis used to drop cluster bombs that looked like toys for our children to play with,” said Abu Hadi, a veteran fighter and tour guide at Mlita, referring to a longstanding allegation in Lebanon. “Now we tell the Israelis that we have their tanks for our children to play with.”

Pathways wind beneath the canopy of oak trees and camouflage netting revealing displays of weaponry, including Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles and RPG29 rockets used by Hezbollah in the 2006 war. It also features small tableaux of plastic dummy Hezbollah fighters in uniforms creeping through the undergrowth or carrying ammunition and rockets.

On the floor of a rocky alcove rests a prayer mat and an open copy of the Koran beside an old AK47 rifle. It was the favourite place of prayer for Sheikh Abbas Mussawi, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel in 1992. A recording of Mussawi’s gravelly voice murmuring prayers wafts through the trees.

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To destroy Hezballah, Israel must also destroy the current regime in Syria and also find a way to weaken the religious bigot regime in Iran. That is a tall order. For now Israel can focus on defeating the weapons Hezballah aims at Israel. The Iron Dome small missile defense system is one way Israel can administer a strategic defeat on Hezballah, Iran and Syria.