‘Death to Israel’ – The Iranian Plan to Attack Israel

The Iranians expect Arabs in the Galilee and Negev to carry out actions against the IDF, such as blocking roads, damaging bridges, spilling oil on roads, blocking intersections, damaging high voltage lines and attacking Jewish settlements (“May 2021 on steroids”).

‘Death to Israel’ – The Iranian Plan to Attack Israel
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By Mordechai Kedar, cross-posted from Jihad Watch.

I hesitated quite a bit whether to publish the things that appear below because of the panic they might cause in Israel. However, in the Middle East environment and particularly in Iraq, these things are known and serve as a topic of open discussion among quite a few, so it is unthinkable that the Israeli public should not to be aware of them as well, especially since these issues concern every Israeli citizen much more than they concern the citizens of Iraq. In addition, these things appear from time to time in the Israeli media, so I decided to discuss them here.

A source I’ve known for years – an expatriate from the Middle East, a supporter of Israel, who lives in Europe and is in continuous contact with people in Iran and Iraq – conveyed to me their assessment that Iran plans to launch a combined attack on Israel in the foreseeable future that will include all the forces at its disposal in the Arab countries:

In Lebanon – Hezbollah and Hamas with many thousands of missiles and UAVs, some of them precision missiles.

In Syria – 17 combat units (“militias”) armed and ready: Fatimiun, Zinbioun, Nujabaa’, Hezbollah, Abu Al-Fadhl Brigade, ‘Asaa’b Ahl al-Haq, Khorasani Brigade and more. Iran has transferred a very large number of missiles and UAVs  to Syria and these are ready to be launched.

In Iraq – dozens of militias, armed with missiles and UAVs.

In Yemen – the Houthis, who have Iranian long-range missiles and UAVs that reach Israel.

In Gaza – Hamas and the GAP with missiles capable of disabling the Israel Defense Forces and Air Force bases.

It is likely that Iran will not launch anything from its territory to Israel in order not to expose itself to retaliation.

So much for the assessment that came to me from Iraq. Hence my interpretation.

Under the pretext of the duty of the Muslim world to save the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Israeli occupation and oppression, Iran will conduct a staged, comprehensive, integrated and coordinated attack on Israel. The first phase will be a shower of missiles and UAVs from all the aforementioned arenas together and the Iranian estimate is that the stock of interceptors of the “Iron Dome” will run out within two to three hours from the start of the air attack, after which the Israeli skies will be open and the air force will be damaged and grounded. The first phase, the aerial one, will be accompanied by a cyber-attack on Israeli infrastructure systems. After a full day of a cyber-attack and a rain of missiles and UAVs that will hit air force bases, navy bases, army bases, electricity, computing, communication, road and water infrastructures, the second phase will begin.

This [second phase] will be a coordinated ground attack from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza by infantry, mounted forces on dirt bikes and ATVs which can traverse uneven terrain equipped with anti-tank weapons and attack the Israeli ground forces in order to reach Jewish settlements as quickly as possible.

The calculation of the Iranians is that the mobilisation of the reserves will take several days and at most will be partial because of the mess that will be created throughout the country. IDF reinforcements will not arrive in time to the various fronts and therefore the regular forces will collapse within hours in the face of the ground attack as happened in the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur (1973) war. The invasion of ground forces from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza will focus on Israeli settlements with the aim of demoralizing the Israeli public and forcing the government to surrender in order to save the lives of the many Israeli civilians who will be captured by the Arab and Iranian militias. The Israeli media and especially the social media groups will increase  panic among the Israeli public.

It is not clear what role the Iranians will assign to the Palestinians in the war. However, it is likely that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Authority will encourage them to do everything in their power to harm Israelis, the army, the police and civilians moving on the roads, in addition to attacks on settlements and military bases.

In addition, the Iranians expect Arabs in the Galilee and Negev to carry out actions against the IDF such as blocking roads, damaging bridges, spilling oil on roads, blocking intersections, damaging high voltage lines and attacking Jewish settlements (“May 2021 on steroids”). Due to the fact that the National Guard is not yet operational, these actions will cause great damage to Israel.

The international arena:

Russia and China, Iran’s allies, will “call on both sides to cease violence,” will support Iran almost openly and provide it with information about what is happening in Israel. Turkey will join the call to cease violent actions but will implicitly support Iran. In the Arab and Islamic world, crowds will come out for demonstrations of support for Iran and its action to eliminate the Zionist entity, similar to the support the crowds gave to Hassan Nasrallah in the Second Lebanon War, 2006. This time, unlike in 2006, Saudi Arabia will not take a negative position towards the attack on Israel.

The American and European governments will not intervene militarily but will content themselves with words because no one in the West is looking for another war-zone in addition to the Ukrainian one, which is emptying NATO’s ammunition depots and ???dries up its leaders’ desire to intervene in wars that are not theirs. Some will see the Iranian attack as an opportunity to get rid of the “headache” that Israel has caused them for years. This view has intensified in recent months after the internal turmoil in the State of Israel which projects the image of a conflicted and messy country with a depleted civil force that has lost all will to mobilize and fight and on the other hand – a directionless, irresponsible, powerless government that cannot even deal with people blocking roads.

From the point of view of the West, the loss of Israel is not so terrible, because in any case the Middle East turned its back on the West when Saudi Arabia and its Gulf partners – countries much more important than Israel – decided to turn their backs on the weak Western coalition and join the strong and growing Eastern Alliance that includes Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and more.

The Iranian government is very impressed by the continued desire of the Americans in particular and the West in general, to appease Iran, remove the sanctions and accept it as a respected member of the family of nations while demonstrably ignoring the Iranian race towards the bomb. This Western behavior instills in the hearts of the decision makers in Iran the feeling that no one in the West will do anything on the practical military level to stop an air and ground attack on Israel like the one described above.

The American forces deployed in eastern Syria are meant to protect American interests, not Israeli ones, and Iran has already demonstrated several times that it has no problem attacking these American forces with missiles and drones. The American administration knows the negative attitude of the liberal majority of American Jewry towards Israel particularly in the past months and therefore its not afraid that they will pay too great a public and political price if they let Israel deal with the Iranian invasion on its own. Biden will of course declare to the cameras that “Israel has the right to defend itself”, but he will try not to take actual steps.

A coordinated missile and UAV attack is not a theory; Iran has already done this in Saudi Arabia on September 14, 2019 and this attack caused enormous damage to Saudi Arabia’s oil export capacity for many months. This was probably the reason for Saudi Arabia’s avoidance of joining the Abraham Accords and the factor that pushed Saudi Arabia – along with other factors – recently abandoning the understandings it had with Israel and joining the Iranian camp. The US under Trump’s presidency and Europe did nothing against Iran following the attack in 2019, so it is certain that today they will do nothing when Biden is the president.

I don’t know how realistic this scenario of an air and ground attack on Israel  is, but even if the chance of it happening in the foreseeable future is only one percent, the State of Israel must act as one united entity and it is very important that the coalition work with the opposition in order to prepare the country for this scenario in terms of the army with all its ammunition, troops, forces and bases, the police (including the National Guard and the Border Police), electrical infrastructure, communication and transportation, defensive and offensive cyber, emergency management, food and water supply, etc.

If the Israeli public wants to survive, it must prepare – mentally and physically – for war with the Iranian octopus that has managed to establish its grip on the failed countries adjacent to Israel: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza, all countries that have almost nothing to lose. The Qatari money and the Jihad media channel Al Jazeera are constantly pouring jet fuel on the fire of hatred for Israel and preparing public opinion in the Middle East and the wider world for the great, final campaign. The Qatari money also bought politicians in the West so that they would not see what Qatar does not want them to see, from the violation of human rights and foreign workers in Qatar to what Qatar’s ally – Iran – is planning to do to Israel.

It’s time to wake up. This dangerous scenario may be realistic.

(c) Published in Makor Rishon