(Israel Hayom) Yoav Limor - The news that Israel is involved in the U.S.-led naval mission to protect vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf against Iranian aggression cannot be separated from the overall campaign Israel has been waging against the Islamic Republic in recent years. This campaign began in the previous decade in an effort to quash Iran's nuclear aspirations and has evolved to include preventing the regime from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, and curtailing the quantity and quality of weapons it funnels to militias in the Middle East, especially to Hizbullah. As a result, Israel is now the world's number one expert on the Iranian issue. Its operations encompass a host of covert and low-intensity military and intelligence efforts to prevent enemy states and terrorist organizations from becoming stronger and thwart their offensive activity. The overt part of this struggle includes countless operations and strikes on Iranian assets. In 2018, then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot spoke of over 1,000 operations and strikes on Iranian assets. In fact, Israel's intelligence-gathering superiority in the region is so great that it has been used for surveillance on ISIS in Syria. In operations against the jihadi terrorist group, the acting force may have been Western, but the intelligence from which they were working was Israeli. It is important to remember that Israel is not taking the lead when it comes to the fight against Iran's ambitions in the Persian Gulf or its nuclear aspirations - nor should it. The U.S. should lead this campaign.
2019-08-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive