I live in Yad Binyamin having made Aliyah 19 years ago from London. I have an amazing wife and three awesome kids, one just finishing a “long” stint as a special forces soldier, one at uni just married and one in high school. A retired partner of a global consulting firm, a person with a diagnosis of PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy) and an advocate.
I have just published 4 books on Amazon and my blog on PSP can be seen at www.benlazpsp.com
These two attacks in Argentina killed over 100 people. The same organizations were found by a US District Court in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2003, to have carried out the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1982 killing 63 people. The court ruled again it was carried out by Hezbollah with the approval and financing of senior Iranian officials.
Why is this relevant now?
Iran used as the pretext for its attack, a recent strike in Damascus on a building that is part of its diplomatic compound in Damascus. The attack was targeted against Mohammed Reza Zahedi, the top commander in the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) for Lebanon and Syria along with his lieutenant and about five other officers. The Quds Force itself is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, Canada, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain and more importantly he was Iran’s coordinator with Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, designated a terrorist organization by most which carried out the Argentinian and Beirut Embassy bombings.
Iran did not carry out its unprecedented, failed attack on Israel due to a principled issue with Israel attacking an Embassy – Iran has a long history of doing the same albeit in a non-precise way aimed at killing maximum civilians as opposed to a surgical strike against terrorists and their backers.
Iran’s attack on Israel was a calculated escalation of a war it has been carefully controlling, only this time it moved away from its usual practice of hiding behind proxies.
Whether Israel decides to retaliate is a decision far above my pay grade, but whether it does or does not in no way changes the view that Iran, through its direct training of Hamas fighters who led the 7/10 attack, their control of Hezbollah and the Houthis, and their failed act of open war is the lead protagonist in the last 6 terrible months and is directly responsible for the terrible damage done to all in the region including the innocent Gazan’s cynically used as human shields.
This week showed how the moderate Arab countries, western nations and Israel can collaborate and I hope it is a positive sign for the future.