German Analyst: U.S. Wouldn’t Back Israeli Ground Offensive in Gaza

Israel’s defense minister said on Thursday that his nation would be prepared to launch a ground offensive in Gaza in response to militants in the area pounding Israel with rocket fire. “Israel was determined to bring deterrence back to where it should be” so as to bring peace to the south of the country, Ehud Barak said.

On Wednesday, Israel assassinated Hamas’ military chief in response to rocket fire. On Thursday, three Israeli citizens in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi were killed when a missile hit their apartment block.

Barak and other Israelis want to meet the Gazan aggression with force, but many wonder whether the United States would support Israel in such a move. Michael Lueders, a German political analyst specializing in the Middle East, believes that such an offensive move on Israel’s part would be without backing from Washington.

On Thursday, Lueders called Barak’s statement “saber-rattling” and said, “The U.S. government will make very clear to the Israeli government that there is no interest in an expansion of another war zone.”

Lueders’s assessment of Washington’s stance is likely correct since the broken-willed leaders in the U.S. are fatigued by America’s military involvement in other conflicts. As pressure on Israel intensifies, and as the U.S. continues to decline, the Jewish nation will turn to Lueders’s own nation of Germany for defense assistance.

But this decision will not end well for Israel. To understand more, read Jerusalem in Prophecy.