From: tjlodge50@PROTECTED   I'm assuming you've all seen the news today that an Israeli assassination drone bombed an apartment in a Beirut suburb where 7 Hamas leaders were secretly meeting. Killed them all, including a major Hamas deputy, two other senior Hamas commanders and several important Hamas field officers. The Israeli military just held a press conference stating the IDF is on extremely high alert and would answer no questions as to precisely why.    Why? Because Israel is about to set off the largest Middle Eastern war since 1973 and probably much larger than that one.    The drone assassination bombing ties together several things that have been going on. It's become clear that Israel is making maximum efforts to touch off a major regional war.     1) The Israeli air force has been intentionally doing harassment bombings of Syria and Hezbollah in the past several days, and in Iraq, killed a major Iranian general.     2) The sudden and controversial decision by US Secy o' State Blinken last Friday, authorizing on "emergency" basis more than $100 million worth of artillery munitions to be shipped to Israel over this past weekend.     3) On New Year's day, the IDF announces it is pulling 5 brigades, which is somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 to 25,000 troops, out of Gaza, supposedly to take a week off to go home and return to their civilian jobs because the Israeli economy is suffering by having called up 300,000 troops.     4)  The below comments by a Palestinian think tank analyst to al-Jazeera, that Israel appears to want to touch off a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.   ‘Israel wants this escalation’   Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, says Israel has made it clear that it is “resolved to going to war” with Hezbollah to secure its northern areas and prolong the conflict, along with Netanyahu’s political life.    “This kind of kills two birds with one stone for Israel. In addition to the assassination of a top Hamas leader, Hezbollah will be forced to decide whether to live up to their promise that assassinations in Lebanon would be a red line. If they do, Israel gets the war it’s craving; if they don’t, then Hezbollah looks weak and doesn’t wield the same deterrence power it once did,” Kenney-Shawa told Al Jazeera in an email.    “Ultimately, I think Israel wants this escalation.”      5) It is increasingly apparent that Israel wants to widen the war throughout the region. Iran just sent a destroyer toward the Red Sea, where the US is pulling together, with Britain, military force to bomb the Houthis in Yemen. Shipping companies are announcing that they're stopping container shipping through the Red Sea and Mediterranean. The assassination of the Iranian general was a major IDF provocation and Netanyahu has openly for years been trying to suck the US into war with Iran.     6) Over the weekend, one of the two US aircraft carriers that has been providing security started steaming home, leaving a mere 25 to 30 US warships, including another carrier on guard. There are about 5000 or more expeditionary force Marines on several of those ships. I imagine that "secretly" there is probably more US Navy warship deployment toward the Middle East.     7) Netanyahu just got a huge legal setback over the weekend, where the highest court in Israel, by 8-7 vote, refused to enforce the law passed by the Knesset in the fall that gutted the court system's ability to strike down any legislation. This was the burning controversy causing so much civic strife in Israel for months just before October 7. Netanyahu is playing his last political cards to maintain power with Israel's fascist right, as he faces criminal charges that he had hoped would be stricken until that narrow 8-7 supreme court vote against him.     8)  Israel has The Bomb -- at least 90 warheads, possibly several hundred, acc to experts -- and three state of the art submarines capable of touching off nuclear war against Pakistan (which also has The Bomb) or, indeed, anyone in the Middle East.     9) There are some current and former US military officers who've been commenting in TV interviews that we need to go to war with Iran. Blinken and Biden destroyed the agreement with Iran to not enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. Trump tore up the agreement, and when Biden took office, proceeded to make ridiculous demands for additional concessions, some of which Iran agreed to, in order to reinstate the agreement. But Blinken ultimately destroyed the negotiations in August 2023 by upping the demands without any explanation or justification.    10) It's a US presidential election year and I think the Biden admin actually thinks that another "new" war in the Middle East that involves US troops won't be a political disaster and is the pathway to re-election.     11) The plan is quite clear that soon, the Israeli government is going to literally drive 2,000,000 Palestinians out into the Sinai Desert through the Rafah gate. There is active starvation occurring and several tens of thousands of weakened Palestinian civilians are stricken with easily preventable diseases related to filthy water, no sewage, living in impossibly cramped arrangements.      This region is a tinder box splashed with gasoline. Bibi Netanyahu, who's presided over the mass murders of tens of thousands of Palestinians and drone and conventional assassinations across the region for years, who has doubled the number of Palestinians imprisoned without charge and being held as "terrorists" in three months, and who's facing personal prosecutions, can easily strike the match that blows things up. Genocide Joe Biden will never become telling Israel "No."     We have to bring as many people as we can up to heightened awareness within days.           Terry ‹ Many ominous developments coming to a head in the Middle East Index Re: Many ominous developments coming to a head in the Middle East › Forward to a Friend Your email address Your friend's email address Note   Email Address First name Last Name Street Address City State Zip Phone Number     Unsubscribe at Anytime | Privacy Policy This mailing list is a public mailing list - anyone may join or leave, at any time. 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