Hizbullah Threatens to Strike Strategic Israeli Targets

• The intensive public discourse in Israel about an approaching attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has led Iran and Hizbullah to ramp up their threats of harsh retaliation. The military adviser of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, made clear on September 8 that Hizbullah would respond to any Israeli attack on Iran.

• According to the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalali, visited Lebanon in August and gave a green light for the immediate use of Hizbullah’s military force against Israel in response to an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• In September 2012, Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Mohammad Ali Jaafari admitted at a Tehran press conference that his forces were deployed in Syria and Lebanon. Jaafari’s words appear to have been spoken honestly during an unguarded moment and they reflect the real operational state of affairs.

• On August 17, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared: „The Israeli attack will give Iran an opportunity to destroy Israel as it has already dreamed of doing for thirty-two years,” adding that „our missiles are prepared and aimed…we will not wait for anyone’s approval.”

• The avowal that Nasrallah has received a green light to respond immediately against quality targets in Israel contradicts his previous ambiguous statements that, in the event of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Hizbullah would convene, consider, and decide how to respond. Such statements by the Hizbullah leader in the past had led to erroneous analyses that Hizbullah is a movement that made independent decisions and did not automatically act according to Tehran’s orders.

Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira is a senior research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.