Israel and Iran: Not very friendly towards each other.
Nov 4th, 2009 by Kevin Arritt
After Israel’s military escapade in Gaza almost a year ago, the Israeli state has stepped-up its efforts to prevent neighboring enemies from receiving arms. Israel’s navy, in searching a supposed cargo ship bound for Lebanon, found arms being smuggled. The arms are said to be Iran manufactures. Israel’s government has claimed that this cargo ship with arms was to supply Hezbollah and aid Hezbollah in the killings of Israelis.
Iran and other Middle-Eastern neighbors deny the claims that the ship was smuggling arms. Iran state news reports that the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the ship was not carrying Iranian-made weapons and that the cargo was Syrian exports to Iran.
This is not good news for anyone. All this will do is worsen tensions in a very tense region. Only a few years ago, Israel’s military was embarrassed by a war in Lebanon. Though they were not defeated, the military did not show the dominance that many expected of it. Lebanon is a touchy subject for Israel, as it showed that Israel was not as dominant as is tried to appear. If the Iranians were trying to ship arms to Lebanon to be used against Israel, then Israel will have another reason to remain very aggressive in the region. There is already fear that Iran’s nuclear conquest could result in an Israeli strike, and all this does is exacerbate that tension.
If it is true that Israel’s navy misinterpreted the event, and the ship was just Syrian-Iranian trading, then Israel has wrongly antagonized two already unfriendly countries.
Does Iran know it could not fight a direct war against Israel so it is trying to set up proxy-battles? Does Iran hope to distract Israel militarily for any reason by effecting Lebanese-Israeli violence?