![Israel must continue to be able to deter Hezbollah, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar stressed on Wednesday, speaking amid efforts to reach a ceasefire with Iran's Lebanese terrorist proxy. "We need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations. And we will have to act in time, before the problem will grow," the minister told a gathering of nearly 100 foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem, the Times of Israel reported. A deal to end more than a year of fighting on the northern border must be durable, Sa'ar said, saying Jerusalem “would like to reach an agreement that will stand the test of time." He added that a ceasefire would be an "opportunity" for Lebanon to regain its sovereignty after the Israeli military severely degraded the Iranian-backed group in recent months. He called for the Lebanese Armed Forces to be strengthened and urged the international community to invest more in the economically devastated country, which is drowning in debt following years of mismanagement and corruption. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also emphasized on Wednesday the necessity for Jerusalem to be able to act against any Hezbollah threats that may arise after a ceasefire deal is implemented. “The condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the [IDF’s] right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah,” Katz said. Meanwhile, U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein remained in Beirut for a second day on Wednesday to discuss "technical details" of an American ceasefire proposal with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement. President Joe Biden's point man in the Land of the Cedars announced he would travel to Israel on Wednesday night, speaking after he made "additional progress" in a second meeting with Berri. Hochstein was scheduled to meet with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer shortly after his arrival, followed by a tête-à-tête with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following day. “The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday, and made additional progress,” Hochstein said. “So I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can.” The Biden envoy added that he will work with the incoming Trump administration on ceasefire efforts, saying that he has kept the president-elect's transition team informed of progress. Hochstein described as "very productive" his meetings with Lebanese officials on Tuesday. “We have a real opportunity to end the conflict, and now is the moment to decide. We are committed to doing everything we can to work with Lebanon and Israel to end this conflict,” Hochstein said at a press conference on Tuesday. Hochstein also met on Tuesday with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and he was scheduled to meet with Lebanese Armed Forces commander Gen. Joseph Aoun. Mikati emphasized that Lebanon’s primary objectives are achieving a ceasefire and safeguarding its sovereignty. He highlighted the need to implement international resolutions and bolster the Lebanese Armed Forces in the southern part of the country. Lebanon delivered its written response to the latest U.S. proposal on Monday. According to Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Berri, the response included “comments” that were “presented in a positive atmosphere.” He did not provide details on the nature of the comments, saying only that they “affirm the precise adherence to [U.N. Security Council] Resolution 1701 with all its provisions,” according to Reuters. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem said in a speech on Wednesday that the terrorist group had "read the ceasefire proposal. "We have our comments, and Nabih Berri has comments, and ours and the Lebanese government's comments are, Inshallah ['God willing'], identical," Qassem said. "We have decided not to discuss these ceasefire proposals or our comments in the media. All I will say is that Israeli is trying to obtain through negotiations what it couldn't through war." The terrorist leader vowed to “continue our efforts on the ground, whether the negotiations succeed or not. “We are confronting a savage enemy, and we will remain on the ground, no matter the cost, as we will also increase the cost for the enemy. We are facing Israeli human monsters supported by American human monsters,” threatened Qassem. Disarm and retreat Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, stipulated that Hezbollah must disarm and retreat north of the Litani River, but was never enforced. The Litani lies some 20 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. Its enforcement, along with Israeli freedom of operation in Lebanon should Hezbollah violate the terms of a ceasefire agreement, are the key sticking points in the current negotiations. Netanyahu emphasized during a speech in the Knesset plenum on Monday that Israel will not allow Hezbollah to “return to the state it was in on Oct. 6, 2023. “We will be required, in order to ensure our security in the north, to systematically carry out operations—not only against Hezbollah’s attacks, which could come. Even if there is a ceasefire, nobody can guarantee it will hold. So it’s not only our reaction, a preventive reaction, a reaction in the wake of attack but also the capacity to prevent Hezbollah from strengthening,” he said. Hezbollah has launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones from Lebanon at Israel since joining the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after the Gaza-based terrorist group’s massacre in southern Israel. More than 60,000 residents of northern Israel remain internally displaced due to the ongoing rocket and drone attacks from Lebanon. Seventy-six people in northern Israel have been killed by Hezbollah cross-border rocket, missile and drone attacks since the start of the war, including 31 soldiers and six foreign citizens, according to the latest data provided by the Prime Minister’s Office, updated on Sunday. In addition, 729 people have been wounded, including 497 civilians and 232 soldiers. Of these, 29 civilians and 37 soldiers were severely injured; 63 civilians and 38 soldiers were moderately injured and 405 civilians and 157 soldiers were lightly injured. Hezbollah’s leadership has been left in tatters following a series of targeted killings by Israel, including that of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sept. 27. This was preceded by Israeli sabotage of Hezbollah communication devices that killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400 members of the terrorist group. Israel has been waging a devastating aerial campaign against Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, including its stronghold of Dahieh south of Beirut. According to Israeli estimates, the terrorist group has lost most of its arsenal to the ongoing strikes. Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in late October that Hezbollah had lost an estimated 80%-plus of its long-range rockets since the start of the war. Israel also continues to battle Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The terrorist group still holds 101 hostages in the Strip, 97 of whom were kidnapped on Oct. 7. Many of the captives are believed to be dead. Brazil summit Meanwhile, G20 leaders gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a summit put out a joint statement on Monday calling for “comprehensive” ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon. The leaders of the world’s biggest economies called for U.S. proposals to end fighting in Gaza and free the hostages, and one for Lebanon “that enables citizens to return safely to their homes on both sides of the Blue Line.” The 13-point U.S. proposal presented to Lebanese officials on Nov. 14 includes a 60-day truce, during which Lebanon would redeploy its troops along the border. The proposal also calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from resupplying itself via Syrian land routes. Hezbollah would retreat north of the Litani River, with the border area then being under control of the Lebanese Armed Forces, overseen by the United States and Britain. Israeli officials are emphasizing, however, that the Israel Defense Forces must retain freedom of operation in Lebanon to thwart attempts by Hezbollah to violate the agreement and rearm and reestablish itself. A senior Israeli diplomatic official told Israel Hayom on Saturday that the IDF will retain operational freedom to respond to any security threats from across the northern border, regardless of any diplomatic arrangements. However, a source close to Hezbollah told The Washington Post that the group’s “condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.” Berri emphasized at the time that any ceasefire agreement must not include the ability for Israel to attack by land, sea or air, Channel 12 reported. “Otherwise, what’s the purpose of an agreement?” he remarked. Another sticking point is Lebanon’s objection to the United Kingdom and Germany monitoring the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701. Beirut reportedly favors the United States and France. If the ceasefire efforts fail, there are plans in the works to expand ground operations in Lebanon, an Israeli military official told the Post. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed the proposal with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump during a visit to his Florida estate earlier this month, as well as with senior Biden administration officials in Washington. Dermer also traveled to Russia to discuss the ceasefire proposal. Tehran is telling its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah that it supports ending the war against Israel, The New York Times reported over the weekend. Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, met with senior Lebanese officials in Beirut on Nov. 15 to discuss the matter. Two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps told the Times that Larijani conveyed messages to Hezbollah from Khamenei that he supported the end of the war and that the regime would assist with rebuilding the terrorist group’s forces and recovering from the war.](https://jewishwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Gideon-Saar-1320x880-2-218x150.jpg "Sa’ar: Israel must be free to act against Hezbollah truce violations")
Five days after Israel was brutally attacked by terrorists who infiltrated Israel’s southern border—slaughtering at least 1,300 people, wounding thousands and taking as many as 150 others hostage—former U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and appeared to praise the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group.
Speaking to fans on Oct. 11 in West Palm Beach, Fla., Trump—who leads 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls by more than 45 percentage points—claimed that Netanyahu did not support the U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in Baghdad back in January 2020.
“The State of Israel is a blessing to the world. Our prayers are with them now in this terrible, terrible time,” Trump said. “Under my leadership, we will stand with Israel 100%, and we will not let them fail.”
The former president paused briefly, some 40 minutes into his talk. “Don’t forget. You know. I did have a bad experience with Israel, though, when we took out Soleimani. It was us and Israel working as a group. And we knew where he was. We knew how he was coming in. We knew the plane. We knew everything,” the former president said.
“We worked on it for weeks—for months, actually—but we worked on it for weeks. The night before—I don’t think this has ever been told,” he said before launching into an aside about classified information, during which he said he was being treated unfairly compared to U.S. President Joe Biden when it came to having classified documents outside official presidential residences.
“We took abuse like nobody, and we had to do this because we heard Soleimani was going to be blowing up five of our really big military bases in areas all over the Middle East,” Trump said. “He was a very bad guy. Very smart guy, but very bad guy. He was the leader of their military for a long time.”
“The night before it happened, I got a call that Israel will not be participating in this attack. Nobody has heard this story before,” continued Trump, claiming that Jerusalem gave no reason for the decision. When his generals told him that the United States could proceed on its own, Trump gave the green light, he said.
“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing, I will say that. So when I see sometimes the intelligence—you talk about the intelligence, or you talk about some of the things that went wrong over the last week—they’ve got to straighten it out because they’re fighting potentially a very big force. They’re fighting potentially Iran,” Trump said.
“We were disappointed by that. Very disappointed. But we did the job ourself and it was absolute precision—magnificent, beautiful job” the former president said. “Bibi tried to take credit for it,” he claimed, with a laugh. “That didn’t make me feel too good. But that’s all right.”
‘Crooked’ successor
In the rest of his talk, Trump noted that he exited the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and said he issued the toughest sanctions ever on Iran—as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign—decimated their finances and choked off the money with which Tehran paid “terrorist thugs.”
“Look what happened now,” Trump said. “I was also proud to be the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House by far, and if the election wasn’t rigged, there would be nobody even thinking about going into Israel.”
Trump repeated a story he has often shared about building a $500,000 U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, after he had been quoted a price tag of $2 billion and after asking for an extra $100,000 over the true price tag because $400,000 was too low in his estimation. He also noted that he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and helped bring normalization in the Middle East through the 2020 Abraham Accords.
“I fought for Israel like no president in history, but then crooked Joe Biden came along and tossed Israel to the bloodthirsty jihadists. That’s what happened,” he said. “What a difference a president makes.”
“The savage attacks on Israel happened for three reasons. Biden loosened my tough sanctions on Iran and allowed them to sell massive amounts of oil making them $80 billion a year. Congratulations. They were making nothing with us,” he said. “We would have had a deal within one week after the election. They were desperate. They wanted to make a deal. The U.S. then gave Iran just a few weeks ago $6 billion as ransom money. You know that right? Five people. Good deal.”
Trump also claimed that he predicted the Hamas terrorist attacks that took place on Saturday morning—on Shabbat and a Jewish holiday—ahead of time. He denounced “all” of the Biden national-security team members for saying publicly that they hoped Hezbollah didn’t attack Israel from the north “because that’s the most vulnerable spot.”
“Hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart,” Trump said, before turning to Gallant. “They have a national defense minister, somebody, saying, ‘I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack us from the north.’ So the following morning, they attacked. They might not have been doing it, but if you listen to this jerk, you would attack from the north, because he said that’s our weak spot. Whoever heard of officials saying on television that they don’t hope the enemy doesn’t attack in a certain area?”
‘Wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and citizens’
Fla. Gov Ron DeSantis, who is running against Trump for the Republican nomination, responded to the former president’s comments after he filed his candidacy paperwork at the statehouse in New Hampshire.
“Now’s not the time to be doing, like what Donald Trump did, attacking Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, attacking Israel’s defense minister, saying somehow that Hezbollah were very smart,” he said. “We need to all be on the same page. Now’s not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister. Now’s the time to support their right to defend themselves to the hilt.”
“After Hamas slaughters hundreds of Jewish families, and Israel confronts an unprecedented security crisis, Donald Trump attacks the Israeli government and praises Hezbollah terrorists,” wrote Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming. “Are Republicans really going to nominate this dangerous man to be president of the United States?”
Shlomo Karhi, the Israeli communications minister, told Israeli news that it is “shameful that a man like that, a former U.S. president, abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens.”
“We don’t have to bother with him and the nonsense he spouts,” the minister said.
Eugene Kontorovich, a prominent law professor at George Mason University and director of its Center for the Middle East and International Law, wrote: “Even Netanyahu’s greatest political opponents aren’t picking political beefs with him during the war, but Trump could not resist. He is not qualified to be a Republican presidential candidate. When Jews are getting genocided, you don’t tell them how they mismanaged their affairs.”
Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, also had harsh criticism of Trump. “Deeply saddening—and infuriating—to see this speech from Trump, especially as Israel is grieving and in our greatest moment of need,” he wrote. “Not the words of a friend. Contrast to the unwavering and dignified solidarity of President Biden.”