Iran's Proxy War Against Israel Expands
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iran's Proxy War Against Israel Expands*
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) Iran is expanding its influence among the ranks of the
Arab terrorist organizations targeting Israel.
General Security Services (Shabak) Director Yuval Diskin told a group of
foreign journalists on Monday that dozens of Hamas terrorists have
arrived in Iran for advanced weapons and tactics training. He told the
reporters that hundreds more Hamas terrorists are expected to follow the
first contingent, as well.
The Iranian involvement in Hamas training is a development that Diskin
characterized as a greater strategic danger to Israel than the thousands
of weapons smuggled into the Gaza Strip across the Egyptian border.
Diskin warned that Israel “will have to do something about it” if the
process of Iranian involvement continues.
Dozens of Hamas terrorists have arrived in Iran for advanced weapons and
tactics training.
Iran pledged US$50 million to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority
government shortly after it was elected in 2006, when it became clear
that the Western assistance to the PA was to be cut off. Also in 2006,
Israel publicly charged that Iran had already been supporting Hamas with
tens of millions of US dollars annually for the Hamas offices in Damascus.
The Islamic Republic currently supports the Shiite Hizbullah in Lebanon,
which relatively successfully fought a direct war with Israel in the
summer of 2006. Iran provides the organization with weapons, money and
training. Despite the periodic bloody clashes elsewhere in the Middle
East between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the Hizbullah itself funnels
Iranian support to the Sunni Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the
Palestinian Authority. The PIJ has been sending its own men to Lebanon
and Iran for training for some time, as well.
The PIJ claimed responsibility for two Kassam rockets that were launched
from northern Gaza Tuesday morning. Four people were lightly injured in
the attack. One rocket landed near the port city of Ashkelon and the
other in farmland outside Kibbutz Zikkim, in the western Negev. The
wounded were brought to Barzilai Hospital.
Later in the day, the PIJ boasted that it possesses longer-range
rockets, which can reach farther north than Ashkelon. Abu Ahmed,
spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades of the PIJ, told the Israeli news
service Ynet that the terrorists “will continue to respond to all the
enemy’s crimes, even if it happens in the West Bank.”
In addition to the PIJ, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information
Center at the Center for Special Studies noted in 2004 that Fatah
terrorists in the PA also received hundreds of thousands of shekels from
Iran and Hizbullah.
Beyond its support for Islamist terrorist groups focused on Israel, Iran
also uses the Shiite insurgents in Iraq as proxy agents to fight the
United States; and the Iranians have generously contributed to Islamic
movements and insurgencies in the Balkans, in the Persian Gulf's Arab
kingdoms, in Turkey and in Africa.