Nasrallah: Empty rhetoric as ammo for Israeli elections? Or words of action?

http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/nasrallah-rules-engagement-israel-are-over

“Don’t try us,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah told Israel in a televised speech Friday broadcast during a memorial ceremony to honor the six Hezbollah fighters and the Iranian general killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria earlier this month.

On January 18, an Israeli helicopter airstrike on the Syrian city of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed six fighters of Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, including a commander, Mohammed Abu Issa, and the son of assassinated senior commander Imad Mughniyeh, as well as Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Mohammed Ali Allahdadi.

According to Nasrallah, who spoke for an hour and a half, Israel had “planned, calculated and took a premeditated decision to assassinate” the fighters, saying that the motive behind the attack was crystal clear.

Nasrallah said that those killed in the Quneitra attack showed a “fusion of Lebanese-Iranian blood on Syrian soil, and reflects the unity of the cause and the unity of the fate of the countries in the axis of resistance.”

“When the blood of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians unites, we will enter an era of triumph,” he added.

“The Israelis can’t kill our people and then go to sleep … their farmers can’t stay in their fields and their soldiers can’t stroll up and down the border as if they merely killed mosquitoes,” Nasrallah said, asserting that the Zionist state would pay a price for all of its criminal actions even if that meant going to war with Israel.

“We don’t want war but we are not afraid of going to war,” Nasrallah assured. “I think the Shebaa attack was a clear message … Israel was humiliated on Wednesday.”

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would retaliate against any future Israeli attacks on its members “whenever, however and wherever,” adding that the Hezbollah “no longer cares about the rules of engagement anymore.”

Nasrallah said Israel has violated Lebanese’ sovereignty and the 1701 UN resolution “thousands of times” and “on daily basis.”

Moreover, Nasrallah slammed the Arab League as “nonexistent” when it came to fighting Israel and supporting Palestinians, saying the 22-member league has served Israel more than the Palestinians. He gave the 51-day Israeli summer assault on Gaza that left 2,300 Palestinians dead as an example of the Arab League’s failure.

Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said Wednesday's attack was the "most severe" Israel had faced since 2006, when its war with Hezbollah killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers

Ehud Barak: Former Israeli Prime Minister - Lack of sympathy for Israel

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16256-ehud-barak-bds-is-developing-israel-liable-to-a-boycott

Key Points:

a process of "delegitimisation" taking place "below the surface"

As long as those voices against Israel came from Eritrea or Mauritania, fine; when they start to come from Scandinavia and Britain, it's a serious problem. Look at Israel's standing in the community of labor organizations worldwide – it's a very grim situation. That will continue with consumer organisations, pension funds, the universities.

Barak also commented on the situation on US campuses, noting that "35 years ago, the universities were bastions of sympathy for Israel." Today, however, "you come to a university and you're told in advance whether there will be a demonstration."

These groups are quantitatively negligible, but in terms of their essence, they are the future leadership of the United States and of the world. It's a gradual trend, but it's sliding toward a tipping point, and at the end of that tipping point awaits a slope or, heaven forbid, an abyss.