Iranian Arms Ship Captured by Israel Shows Tehran’s Real Aims
The Francop episode glaringly reveals Iran’s strategy of surrounding Israel with deadly ordinance in hostile hands.
More than 300 tons of weaponry, including thousands of Katyusha and other rockets, thousands of mortar shells, and hundreds of thousands of Kalashnikov bullets. That was the haul from the ship Francop, which the Israeli navy intercepted off Cyprus early Wednesday morning and brought to the port of Ashdod in Israel.
About ten days ago, the arms cache took off from Bandar Abbas port in Iran on an IRISL (Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines) ship. At the Egyptian port of Damietta, it was transferred to the Francop, an Antiguan flagged German vessel. The containers of weapons were hidden behind piles of sacks filled with polyethylene. The Francop crew appears to have had no knowledge of the cache, and Israel has already released the ship and its crew and put the weaponry in storage.
It was the largest such capture in Israel’s history, ten times larger than the cache on the Karine A, the ship Israel intercepted in 2002 that was bringing arms from Iran to Gaza (then part, with the West Bank, of a unified, Yasser Arafat-ruled Palestinian Authority). The Francop’s destination was a different one: the port of Lattakia in Syria. From there, the cache was to be smuggled by land to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The Israeli army says the weapons supply would have been enough to extend a future Israel-Hezbollah war by about a month.
So far the world — whether in news media or in official statements — hasn’t reacted much. Undoubtedly, a good deal else has been going on such as the U.S. elections, the shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, and the World Series. And closer to home, as far as Israel is concerned, there has been the UN General Assembly’s endorsement of the Goldstone report, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s announcement that he won’t run for re-election, the anti-regime demonstrations in Iran, and Iran’s apparent testing of an advanced nuclear warhead.
But Israel badly wants the Francop to take its place beside the big stories. In a world where the Goldstone report keeps dragging Israel through the mud for defending itself against Iranian-backed terror in Gaza, this incident dramatically underlines what Israel is up against and what Iran and its allies are up to.
On Thursday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry brought foreign ambassadors in Israel to view the haul. The Foreign Ministry also highlighted that the arms shipment is a violation of two UN Security Council resolutions — 1747, which prohibits Iran from exporting weapons and ammunition, and 1701, which prohibits transferring further armaments to Hezbollah. The Foreign Ministry also told Israel’s envoys abroad to highlight the issue to their host countries and urge that they cease all dealings with IRISL.
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P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/
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11 Comments
1. Libertyship46:This is a very, very, troubling piece of news. First of all, let me congratulate the Israeli Navy on a job well done for intercepting such a ship. It just shows how good Israeli intelligence can be when hunting down illegal arms shipments (I wish our government had such good intelligence coming out of the Middle East). Second, I thought the mighty United Nations peacekeeping force in Southern Lebanon was supposed to stop Hezbollah from re-arming? You mean, they’re falling down on the job? Say it ain’t so. It just shows once again how impotent and useless United Nations military forces are. But what really should trouble Americans is the silence coming from the Obama administration concerning this event. I could be wrong, but I don’t think the White House even issued a statement relating to this incident. If they did, it certainly did NOT get much play on the evening news broadcasts. Well, it would be just like Obama to throw Israel under the bus while he continues on his search for his Holy Grail, which is universal healthcare insurance. Obama is a domestic kind of guy, and the rest of the world out there is simply a “distraction,” as he likes to say about all things that prove to be inconvenient to him. Notice his administration didn’t even strongly condemn this act, let alone criticize the Iranians for supplying a terrorist organization, which Hezbollah is. I really fear for this country when we can take a strong ally, like Israel, and be willing to throw them under the bus just so that their fate won’t divert attention from the President’s domestic agenda. We’re in trouble here, folks. The clock is ticking for Israel and nobody at the White House seems to care. I guess Obama will at least issue a press release once Iran gets a nuclear bomb.
Nov 7, 2009 - 4:29 am 2. Professor Guvinoff:How much evidence is needed before the “Islamic Republic of Iran” is recognized as the most determined jihadist entity of our time?
What does “Islamic Republic” mean? Why can’t we recognize the deception? We live in the era of cowardice, and we will come to regret it.
Nov 7, 2009 - 7:16 am 3. Joel:It’s all of a piece with Obama’s “noninterference” between the vicious Islamo-fascist regime in Tehran on the one hand, and the antiregime activists on the other. In their courage, they’re isolated like Israel.
Nov 7, 2009 - 8:50 am 4. David W. Lincoln:Remember, Teheran is being aided by Ankara via Damascus. Aren’t there verses in the Old Testament of the Bible which refer to Damascus being laid waste. So my expectation is this: Act 1 – Israel attacks the Iranian nuclear system, or something else which has the effect of crippling Iran. Act 2- the retaliation of Iran, and its partners. Act 3- Damascus is taken out. Act 4 – the usual dancing around to prevent the war from escalating even further.
Is there anyone who views the near future differently?
Nov 7, 2009 - 12:47 pm 5. Joel:To #4, it will be a shame if Israel, with its smallness and vulnerability, has to take on this job, but it’s looking that way more and more; Obama does not appear reality-attuned on this one, or perhaps doesn’t have the spine.
Nov 7, 2009 - 12:57 pm 6. Gringo:As Iran imports a lot of its gasoline, one thing Israel could do is knock out gasoline refineries in Iran.
Nov 7, 2009 - 2:21 pm 7. Ruvy:David, at comment #3. Leave out Act 4.
Nov 7, 2009 - 3:11 pm 8. Ruvy:Sorry, that was comment #4. Also add, in place of Act 4, a massive missile attack on Israel, which results in a massacre of Arabs here.
Nov 7, 2009 - 3:13 pm 9. RichieB:BHO will be shocked when he wakes up one morning and sees the Straits of Homez in a Blaze and oil rushes to 500 bucks a barrel, only then will he HAVE to address the issue; Stay Tuned…its about to be ON !!
Nov 7, 2009 - 3:54 pm 10. David W. Lincoln:I encourage people to look at “Royalty for a grown up nation” by Conrad Black to see how the top tier of the British Commonwealth can be more than an understudy to the US. Given how fast things are going, there simply is not enough time for the deformed souls, zombies, and similar ilk with their paws on the levers of power inside the Beltway, to get their acts together.
So, a united foreign policy to defend Israel. One other constellation could coalesce to defend Israel, namely those countries which were behind
the iron curtain. So, with these two groupings,
others have the avenue open to support Israel more openly, rather than engage in doublespeak (the term used by Sharansky in “The Case for Democracy”).
For, I am impressed with Sharansky’s follow up to
Nov 7, 2009 - 5:28 pm 11. Stephen Brady:“The Case for democracy” where he cites Herzl’s
original definition of zionism, before it was taken over by ben Gurion. Herzl was referring to
a transplanting of diaspora Judaism from the countries where Jews had diaspora culture, and what gets transplanted includes the best of that host culture. For instance, the best of the United States gets transplanted to Israel, the same for Russia, Ethiopia, Argentina, anywhere where there was, well is, diaspora Judaism.
To #4: I agree with you, and see the scenario playing out exactly in the manner that you suggest. However, the Israelis may decide not to dance, in Act Four.
To #6: When Israel actually attacks Iran, I would suggest that they destroy the Kharg Island terminal, from which Iran exports 80% of its oil. This would put the Mullahs in a difficult position, economically, to say the least.
Nov 9, 2009 - 9:42 am