GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 364

All About Oil

Where Can Israel Strike?

Biden already warned Israel not to strike Iran’s nuclear plants and now he’s saying not to strike their oil fields as we see in a report from The Jerusalem Post:

President Joe Biden said on Friday he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields if he were in Israel's shoes, adding he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Biden explained his logic:

"The Israelis have not concluded what they are going to do in terms of a strike. That's under discussion," Biden said in remarks to reporters at a White House press briefing.

"If I were in their shoes, I'd be thinking about other alternatives than striking oilfields," the president added.

He made these statements after the pressure keeps rising in the Middle East:

Tensions between Iran and Israel have been high as Israel has been weighing options to respond to Tehran's ballistic missile attack on Tuesday, which Iran had carried out in response to Israel's military action in Lebanon.

Biden also addressed if Netanyahu is trying to manipulate the US elections:

Biden was also asked if he thought that by not engaging in diplomacy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to influence the Nov. 5 US election in which Republican former President Donald Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

"Whether he is trying to influence the election, I don't know, but I am not counting on that," Biden said in response. "No administration has done more to help Israel than I have."

Iran Isn’t Backing Down

If diplomacy had a chance between Israel and Iran, the Supreme Leader of Iran put the last nail in that logic as we hear from an article from The Times Of Israel:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a rare Friday sermon defending this week’s missile attack on Israel that deepened fears of a regional war, while praising the “logical and legal” Hamas-led October 7 invasion and massacre in southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza and fueled violence throughout the Middle East.

Speaking in front of tens of thousands at a mosque in the capital Tehran, Khamenei said Iran-backed armed groups in the Middle East “will not back down” even after Israel recently killed a spate of terrorist leaders.

Iran-backed armed groups? Sounds like Iran and all of its proxies are being told to attack Israel from all sides. Sounds a lot like the Psalm 83 war, but I digress only slightly. Khamenei then made it clear who he was talking about:

In his first public Friday sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei spoke in Arabic to discuss fighting against Israel by the Iran-aligned “axis of resistance,” including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinian terror group Hamas.

“The resistance in the region will not back down with these martyrdoms, and will win,” Khamenei told the crowd at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque, where supporters carried portraits of slain Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.

He defiant in stating that Israel won’t take out either of the terrorist groups and also defended them attacking Israel:

“Israel will never defeat Hamas and Hezbollah,” he declared.

He hailed the terror groups’ “fierce defense” against Israeli forces over the past year, referring to Hamas’s brutal October 7 onslaught against Israel and the subsequent solidarity attacks by Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and militia groups in Iraq and Syria.

The Tehran-backed terrorists were engaged in “logical and legitimate” action against Israel, Khamenei claimed, and “no one has the right to criticize them.”

As if it mattered, the Supreme Leaders was packing as he spoke:

Khamenei was pictured holding a rifle and spoke with it by his side.

Oddly, he went of his way to say they were obeying international law while acting genocidally:

He claimed Tuesday’s missile barrage, which sent most of Isrsael’s populace into bomb shelters and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank, was based on international law, Iranian law and Islamic beliefs.

Khamenei then encouraged just about all Arabs to join them in the fight:

He urged nations from “Afghanistan to Yemen and from Iran to Gaza and Yemen” to be ready to take action against the enemy, and praised those who had died doing so.

The occasion was a funeral for the terrorists eliminated by Israel recently and close to the anniversary of the October 7th attacks:

The speech was preceded by a commemoration ceremony for Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah who was killed in an Israeli strike on southern Beirut on September 27 alongside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Abbas Nilforoushan.

Khamenei’s sermon took place days before the first anniversary of the October 7 terror atrocities, and after Iran this week had fired barrages of some 200 missiles at Israel in what it said was retaliation for the killings of Nasrallah, Nilforoushan as well as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

Holding Back

Khamenei noted that the latest attack from them was only a small response adding that Iran and its proxies will make quick work of Israel:

“What our armed forces did was the minimum punishment for the crimes of the usurping Zionist regime,” said Khamenei of the missile fire, Iran’s second-ever direct attack on US-backed Israel.

The Iranian leader charged that Israel was a “malicious regime” which has “only kept itself standing by the injection of American support.”

It “will not last long,” he said.

Israel and Iran haven’t been getting along for some time:

Tehran cut ties with Israel following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and has since made destruction of Israel and the championing of the Palestinian cause a centerpiece of its foreign policy.

Khamenei last led Friday prayers in January 2020 after Iran fired missiles at a US army base in Iraq, in response to a strike that killed the IRGC Al-Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani.

Iran created all the proxies we see now with the goal of destroying Israel and Jews everywhere:

Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the Middle East, along with Syria’s Assad regime, are part of the Iran-aligned “axis of resistance” to Israel and its ally the United States.

Iran announced that they will target Israel’s energy sites if Israel does indeed attack them as they’ve also said publicly:

Also Friday, the semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi as saying that if Israel attacks, following this week’s missile barrage, Tehran would target Israeli energy and gas installations.

“If the occupiers make such a mistake, we will target all their energy sources, installations and all refineries and gas fields,” Fadavi said.

In the meantime Iran made sure that Hezbollah had its back:

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi arrived in Beirut for a visit hours after intensive Israeli airstrikes that reportedly targeted Nasrallah’s presumed successor. Araqchi met with top Lebanese officials, including caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and speaker of parliament Nabih Berri – a Hezbollah ally.

Iran’s most senior diplomat also said his presence in Beirut “in these difficult circumstances” was the best evidence that Iran stood by Lebanon and supported the Shi’ites.

And they suggested a way to stop the fighting, ways they patently know Israel won’t accept:

Araqchi said Tehran supported efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon on the condition it would be backed by Hezbollah and simultaneous with a ceasefire in Gaza, where the US and other mediators have been unsuccessfully pushing for a hostage-truce agreement to end the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

So both Israel and Iran are talking about targeting each other’s energy fields next with the Iranians wanting to sound like adults in the room and wanting a peace agreement. Trust me when I say that the next time the IDF hit Iran it will be a paralyzing blow, at least it should unless the Israeli government somehow get weak-kneed or sufficiently coerced by the US. I pray they move ahead with their initial plans and react to what ever plans the enemies have with full force. These terrorists only respond to strong leaders and strong actions.