Israel Still Playing Up Idea of War With All Shi'ites

Delivering comments on public radio today, Israeli Army Chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz warned Israel faces a “major threat” of a multiple front war involving Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

Gantz predicted the war would begin with a missile strike on the military’s headquarters, followed by attacks on Israeli troops in the occupied Golan Heights and cyber-attacks from abroad.

“The pastoral landscape of the Golan Heights… could turn with a sudden bang into a battleground of blood, fire and pillars of smoke,” Gantz warned, saying the conflict was within the realm of possibility.

Israeli officials have repeatedly made reference to their belief in this broad war with virtually the whole Shi’ite world, driving their hostility toward those nations. Often unspoken in these assessments is that such a war would be precipitated by an Israeli attack on either Iran or Syria, and that Israel’s impetus for such an attack is weakening them for the very war they’d be starting by attacking.