Cyprus was caught off guard by comments from Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday that the island could be a target if it permitted Israel to use its military facilities in the event of an attack on Lebanon.
So Cyprus was caught off guard because they were told “if we get attacked from your soil, you could be a target”. This doesn’t sound very complicated, why are they perplexed?
They’re caught off guard because all they’ve done up to this point was humanitarian aid. And there’s been no hints for participating any further. Imagine yelling at someone who’s only ever done positive things for your people.
It’s not complicated. It’s moronic on their end.
Honest questions, because I don’t know much about Cyprus. Do they normally allow Israel to do military exercises from Cyprus? Are Cypriots known to be aligned with Israel?
If they don’t normally do stuff that would make a country think they would help out Israel militarily, then yeah, this is surprising. If they do have regular interactions with the IDF or are politically close to Israel, then I can see why someone would want to warn Cyprus to stay out of it.
Adding to the other comment, Cyprus has also welcomed tens of thousands of Lebanese refugees over the years since the 80s, and lobbied the EU to financially assist Lebanon.
And there’s been no hints for participating any further
They have US military bases there and that’s why Lebanon made that threat, and more specifically Nasrallah said:
“The Cypriot government must be warned that opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war and the resistance (Hezbollah) will deal with it as part of the war” [source]
Also you said:
Imagine yelling at someone who’s only ever done positive things for your people.
I’m sorry but this example is irrelevant. The threat does not come from Palestine, it comes from Lebanon.
They have US military bases there
There are no US military bases in Cyprus. There are british ones(since Cyprus used to be part of the British Empire).
And there is 0% chance that Cyprus would let israeli military launch attacks from Cyprus.
Nor is there much strategic reason to do so, unless Hezbollah has some s-300/400 and Israel needs to go around them and attack from a different direction. But they dont. And even if they had, Cyprus has basically no reason to allow Israel to do that and there is 0 precedent for that either.
I think it is just Hezbollah being an attention whore.
There are no US military bases in Cyprus.
They have, at least according to the
List of American military installations - wiki
Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (Cyprus)
- RAF Akrotiri
I suppose the above could also be a reply for Billy@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
I mean… It’s even in the name there. RAF is Royal Air Force.
