There appear to be sharp disputes among Israel’s intelligence agencies, over the best outcome of the two-year Syrian civil war. Against the background of a public debate about whether the Red Line has been crossed by the Syrian government, which likely attacked its own civilians using chemical weapons, Israel’s government experts are differing in their assessments of whose victory would better serve the Jewish state’s security interests: the Assad regime in Damascus or the rebels.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assembled, for the first time since the start of his current coalition government, the Security Cabinet, to discuss the situation in Syria and the Israeli response to recent developments, Maariv reported.

Israeli intelligence agencies are split on how to act regarding Syria. One organization believes that the focus should be kept on the Iranian nuclear issue, and, therefore, if the Assad regime collapses, the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis would absorb a mortal blow, thus improving Israel’s ability to handle the nuclear threat.

One of the factors delaying an Israeli raid on the Iranian nuclear facilities—certainly not the only one—is the probability that Iran’s clients, Syria and especially Hezbollah, would retaliate, peppering Israel’s civilian centers with the estimated 50 thousand short- and medium-range missiles Hezbollah has in its possession. With Syria turning anti-Iranian—the rebels are Sunni, Iran is Shiite—and with a consequently embattled—also Shiite— Hezbolla, The likelihood of a retaliation would diminish.

But another intelligence agency’s evaluation focuses on the border between Syria and Israel, and away from the Iranian strategic threat. It is estimated that removing Assad would create chaos and the disintegration of the central government, and as rebel groups then settle on the Syrian-Israeli they are highly likely to initiate attacks against Israel. Therefore, this agency recommends, the best course of action is to allow, and whenever possible even encourage the warring parties in Syria to continue to wear each other down over time.

So far, everyone agrees that the ongoing civil war has been a bonanza for Israeli security concerns, especially as it has been drawing Hezbollah fighters into the conflict, and returning scores of them to their homeland in convoys of coffins. As a result, Hezbollah, which has done better against the IDF in the 2006 Lebanon War, may be losing its clout in Lebanese politics, and may even be facing internal strife over its direction. The rumors about the organization’s leader Hasan Nasrallah being stricken with cancer (he’s been denying it) are a good thing, too.

It isn’t clear, according to Maariv, where Netanyahu stands in this debate. At the moment he is most concerned with the possibility that the United States would be pushed by public opinion to supply the rebels with weapons—which it may be doing via clandestine channels already.

But Netanyahu has a different perspective on the Red Line issue regarding President Obama’s decision on becoming involved directly in Syria. A Sunday Times report suggested that when Obama was visiting in Israel, he was given a full and thorough report on the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons. Netanyahu’s concern is not whether or not Obama takes steps to punish Assad on using chemical weapons, but whether or not Obama ever makes good on his word regarding Red Lines.

What will Obama do at one minute before midnight—which is bound to take place this summer—when Netanyahu provides him with irrefutable proof that Iran had crossed its Red Line, and is now capable of producing and launching nuclear weapons?

And so, the competing interests here are the “convenience” of having two kinds of Syrians delivering one another into the embrace of 72 maidens in the hereafter—versus the existential need to force the president of the United States to keep his promise on Israel’s life or death issue.

A component that has not been in discussion until recently is the attitude of Israel’s on-again, off-again Muslim ally in the region, Turkey. The Turks have been feeling the effects of the Syrian civil war in a much more pronounced way that Israel. Their territory has been breached several times by aggression from the other side of the border, while thousands of Syrian refugees are flooding across the same border. Does Turkey want a quick end to the war, and whom do they like better, Assad or the rebels? And is Turkey not equally terrified of a nuclear Iran as are Israel and Iran’s neighbors along the Gulf?

Syrian rebels have claimed that they wounded Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s top deputy in the bombing of a Syrian army convoy, but Hizbullah immediately denied it.

A Lebanese newspaper reported that rebels said Naim Qassem was with senior army officers loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad when the explosion hit the convoy on the Damascus-Beirut highway.

Nasrallah is scheduled to make a speech Wednesday night to squelch a report by the Turkish Anatolia News Agency that he flew to Tehran for medical treatment, Lebanese sources said he suffers from cancer.

“Such news is totally incorrect, and Nasrallah did not leave the country,” Hizbullah sources said.

President Shimon Peres called on the European Union Thursday to face the facts and follow the American lead in blacklisting Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

Speaking at a ceremony on the 93rd anniversary of the death of Zionist pioneer Joseph Trumpeldor, the president cited Hizbullah’s proven involvement in terrorist attacks in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Nigeria.

“A short distance from here a terrible tragedy is unfolding,” he said. “In Syria, the president is shooting his own people, the children of his country. On our border, in Lebanon, Nasrallah, wrapped in a cloak of religiosity, is pushing Lebanon into a bloody war.

“It is time to call Hizbullah what it really is – a murderous terror organization. The United States of America and other countries have already included Hezbollah in its list of terrorist organizations…. The time has come for every country in the world, and especially the European Union, to add Hezbollah to its list of terror organizations.”

Hizbullah has carried out wars and terrorist attacks against Israel and Jews for 21 years, but Lebanon’s nationalist party charged this week he is turning his “resistance” on them instead of Israel.

The Hizbullah terrorist organization has grown into a full-fledged political party and army that increasingly dominate Lebanon. The United States and Britain have defined it as an organization, but the European Union still has held out, despite Bulgaria’s declaration last week that Hizbullah was directly behind last year’s attack on a bus of Israelis in the country.

The IDF’s blog this week summarized 21 years of activities of the “resistance” Party of God”:

–  A mere three weeks after he became the organization’s leader, Nasrallah had already orchestrated a major terror attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 civilians.

–  Two years later, Nasrallah ordered another terror attack in the Argentinean capital – this time against the Jewish Center of Buenos Aires, murdering 85 men and women and wounding more than 300 others. During the same period, Hizbullah terrorists fired hundreds of rockets at towns in northern Israel.

– In 2000, after then-Prime Minister Ehud ordered a sudden withdrawal of Israeli solders from the southern Lebanon security zone, Nasrallah readily filled the power vacuum and carefully prepared for the offensive on Israel in 2006 by carrying out groundwork – and work underground. Nasrallah built a network of underground bunkers, camouflaged by vegetation and trees that covered up communications equipment and missiles.

He also placed thousands of rockets in villages before Hizbullah carried out the kidnap-murder of two Israel reservists, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in late June 2006, setting the stage for the 34-day Second Lebanon War. Israel’s casualty toll was 119 soldiers, 43 civilians and hundreds of northern Israel residents.

– Since the 2006 ceasefire that was supposed to disarm Hizbullah, it has stockpiled more than three times the 20,000 missiles it possessed before the war. The IDF stated that Hizbullah now has “the largest weapons arsenal of any terror organization in the world today.”

–  In July 2012, a Hizbullah  suicide bomber boarded a tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria and killed five Israelis who were in Bulgaria on vacation, as well as their Bulgarian bus driver.

So much for “resistance.”

But Lebanon’s Future Movement is worried the “resistance” is targeting them as Nasrallah tries to solidify his political position in Lebanon and take advantage of the Syrian civil war to be the kingpin in the axis of terror headed by Hizbullah’s ally Iran.

In a speech last Saturday, Nasrallah uttered one of the most chutzpah remarks possible, stating that the former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said a few months before his assassination by Syrian operatives that he supported Hizbullah’s maintaining its arsenal, even if there would be an overall Israeli-Arab peace settlement.

The Future Movement accused Nasrallah of attempting to twist the facts for saying that the slain leader, unlike his son, Sa’ad, supported Hizbullah’s arsenal, according to the Beirut Daily Star.

“What is most important [in Nasrallah’s speech] is that he frankly confessed that his resistance against the Israeli enemy has turned into a resistance against the Future Movement, as if the Future Movement has become the enemy,” the Future Movement stated.

“[Hizbullah’s arms] are a major bone of contention among the Lebanese,” it said, adding that “Lebanon is suffering [from] the predicament of the illegitimate arms which Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah insists on retaining as a tool to blackmail the Lebanese and the state and control its institutions.”

For his part, Nasrallah didn’t miss the opportunity in his speech to say he has not forgotten Israel.

“I warn Israel and those behind it that the resistance in Lebanon will not remain silent to any aggression against Lebanon,” he said. “I would like to remind them that only a few rockets are needed to [target] their airports, ports and power plants.”

A drone shot down by Israel over the Negev desert transmitted photos of preparations for a military drill between Israel and the United States, and of key weapons sites in Israel, a British newspaper reported.

The unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, was shot down by Israeli troops on Oct. 6, after entering Israeli airspace near the Mediterranean Sea.

The drone was launched from Lebanon, in a cooperation between the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, the Sunday Times of London reported, citing unnamed sources.

Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech Oct. 11 admitted to sending the drone which was followed, then intercepted and shot down in an unpopulated area.

The admission came several hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying that Hezbollah was responsible for launching the drone.

“We are acting with determination to protect our borders, as we prevented last weekend an attempt by Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said, according to his office.

IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said the aircraft was identified before entering Israeli airspace from the Mediterranean and was downed in accordance with a decision of the IDF’s top leaders.

Nasrallah said the drone was Iranian made and “flew over sensitive installations” in Israel, according to Reuters.

The Times reported that the drone was the new Shahed-129, introduced in Iran in September, which Tehran says has a range of up to 1,200 miles, can stay aloft for 24 hours, and has fire power.

(((CLICK BELOW TO HEAR AUDIO)))

Yishai and Malkah talk about recent statements made by the leader of HIzbullah, Hassan Nasrallah and how his psychotic rants against Israel and threat of rocket attacks have caused the Israeli government to issue additional gas masks to the Israeli public. Malkah talks about her experience waiting in line to get gas masks for her family and the thought that the Syrian regime could possibly release biological weapons on his own people might make the masks useful. Yishai moves on to and ends with talking about how there have been stories of Jews are cancelling their plans to make Aliyah to Israel due to threats of war from Iran and how in truth, the numbers that have cancelled are very small.

Yishai Fleisher on Twitter: @YishaiFleisher
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As a result of the bloody events in Syria beginning in March 2011, Lebanon has become a place of refuge for Syrians who live near the border between the two countries. This open border, through which for years Hizbollah has transferred whatever it desired from Syria, has now become an escape route for those Syrians who oppose the regime and seek shelter in Lebanon – even if only temporarily – from the cruelty of the “Shabikha”, the murderous gangs of the Asad regime. The Syrian army, despite the fact that it feels “at home” in Lebanon, usually refrains from pursuing Syrians who have found sanctuary there, so as not to offend the European countries, especially France, which see Lebanon as their “back yard”. Only in a very few cases did a military force cross the border into Lebanon in order to apprehend refugees who oppose the regime, and in a few cases, even shot Syrian canons into Lebanese villages where some Syrians had found shelter and sanctuary.

The society in Lebanon is polarized regarding the events in Syria: the Shi’ite Hizbollah, the main power in the state, actively supports Asad, and has sent more than a few of its soldiers – mainly snipers – to fight those citizens of Syria who are rebelling against the regime. Those who are opposed to Hizbollah, the “March 14 Coalition”, headed by Sa’ad al-Hariri, hold clear anti-Syrian positions. In the background there is always the possibility that the Syrian regime will collapse. If this occurs, the fear is that Hizbollah will quickly take over Lebanon and prevent the opposition from taking advantage of the weakness that may follow the loss of Syrian support. Nasrallah, of course, flatly denies that he has any such intentions. As long as the internal argument was conducted verbally, the words did not represent an immediate threat to the stability of the state.

However, lately an internal confrontation has developed, regarding the active support of the Sunni Muslim insurgents in Syria. For a long time rumors have been circulating about ships that arrive in the middle of moonless nights to locations near the recesses of the Lebanese coast; and boats with people in black clothing and covered faces who race from the shore towards the ships. The people clothed in black unload wooden crates full of “all good things,” and then the boats disappear back into the darkness from which they emerged. The crates are brought into Syria, where their contents – weapons and ammunition – serve the Free Syrian Army. The rumors about the boats were not substantiated until this month. In early May,  the Lebanese army apprehended a ship with the name “Lotef Allah 2″ in Lebanese territorial waters, which had departed from Libya and moored in Alexandria on its way to Lebanon. On this ship, a number of containers with light weapons were found and seized, but there were also a few French rocket launchers that had been sent last year to the insurgents in Libya. There were also explosives, and the whole shipment was sent by a Syrian company. The loading document, of course, did not reveal the actual contents of the shipment. Twenty one employees of the ship were arrested, but it is not clear what they knew about their deadly cargo.

The Lebanese army must certainly have known about the ship and its cargo and it is safe to assume that they got their information from an intelligence organization acting in cooperation with the Syrian regime, Iran or Russia, who were quick to register a complaint with the UN Security Council regarding the smuggling of weapons into Syria from the neighboring countries. Russia and Iran are very concerned about the increasing strength of the Free Syrian Army, which – thanks to the great number of weapons that flow to it- has recently been more successful in retaliating and killing many Syrian soldiers. The seizure of the weapons in the port of Tripoli immediately raised the question in Lebanon: who was supposed to receive the weapons and transfer them to the Syrian insurgents?

The question was answered  on Shabbat, May 12, when a twenty five year old man by the name of Shadi al-Mawlawi was arrested in Tripoli, along with five of his friends. The young man, a Lebanese Sunni and a member of a Salafi group, known as an activist working for the Syrian insurgents, was arrested when he returned from Syria on suspicion of assisting the insurgents and coordinating the transfer of the weapons that had arrived by ship. Tripoli has been in turmoil since the moment of his arrest: the Al-Manar channel, mouthpiece for the Hizbollah Shi’ites, claims that the ship belongs to Al-Qaeda, and served as the connection between global jihad organizations and the Syrian insurgents; while al-Mawlawi’s Sunni friends claim emphatically that he is simply a good young man, who – like many others – gave humanitarian support to Syrian refugees that managed to escape to Tripoli. The circumstances of his incarceration are interesting: according to some versions he was apprehended in the office of the Lebanese minister of the Treasury, Mahmud al-Safdi, in Tripoli, which brings up the possibility that al-Mawlawi might also have supported the Syrian insurgents monetarily, and that he was an emissary sent by members of the political establishment in Lebanon who are engaged in plotting against the Asad regime.

Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, speaking in front of thousands of supporters in a televised address, pledged that Hizbullah would not disarm: “I tell Ban and all the world that the armed resistance will stay and will increase its power.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had said in a news conference earlier that he was “deeply concerned” about Hizbullah’s vaunted weapons arsenal, which is believed to be more complete than that of the Lebanese army. “All arms outside state authority are not acceptable,” he added.