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Consider this:

• The IDF fought brilliantly during Operation Cast Lead, defeating Hamas troops whenever it met them and doing great damage to the Hamas infrastructure with minimal IDF and — despite enemy propaganda — civilian casualties.

• The IDF Spokesperson did a good job of responding to false claims and in showing how Hamas stored weapons in schools and mosques, used human shields, etc. Although the overall Israeli information effort could have been improved, it was much better than in the past.

Nevertheless, the operation was terminated without putting an end to Hamas weapons smuggling, without stopping the rockets landing in Israeli towns, without weakening Hamas’ hold on Gaza and without freeing Gilad Schalit. Indeed, negotiations for a huge ‘prisoner exchange’ to get Schalit back are continuing.

Although Israel’s objectives were stated in a deliberately vague way, we can say that the operation did not meet any reasonable set of goals.  In addition, the anti-Israel propaganda assault spearheaded by Aljazeerah and many other media worldwide was highly effective in creating a false image of Israel and the IDF as brutal war criminals. The damage done to Israel’s future diplomatic efforts was huge, as was the effect on policy in countries that support Israel to some extent, such as the US. For example, anti-Israel groups in the US are presently mounting a campaign to reduce military assistance to Israel.

This means that not only did the operation not meet its military goals but that the net effect was negative. 

Although it’s impossible to prove, it’s fair to assume that the operation was terminated early due to international (particularly US) pressure. Why else would the decision have been made to stop when achievable goals had not yet been achieved?

This leads to the pessimistic conclusion that no matter how well the IDF performs and how disreputable its enemy — in this case Hamas, clearly an outlaw terrorist entity — Israel will simply not be allowed a definitive victory over Arabs.

This is not the first time this has happened.  Possibly one of the most fateful occasions was the end of the first Lebanon war in 1982, when Yasser Arafat was given safe passage out of Beirut.

As I’ve argued before, the root of the conflict is not refugees, borders, the occupation of 1967, but the Arab (and now Iranian) rejection of any Jewish state in the Mideast.  As long as they believe that Israel can be destroyed, they will continue to try to do so. And the world keeps their hopes alive.

This guarantees that the conflict will never end. It’s ironic that the governments that speak the loudest about the need for peace in the Mideast are the ones that work the hardest to restrain Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Israeli-Arab conflict

On Tuesday, Israelis will go to the polls to elect a new Knesset and therefore a new Prime Minister and government. Most likely the Likud party of Binyamin Netanyahu will ‘win’, although since it is impossible for any party to get a majority of Knesset seats, it will be forced to form a coalition government of some kind.

I expect that there will be an immediate outcry from the usual suspects that now the ‘hardliners’ have taken over, and chances for ‘peace’ are diminished. This is wrong. Policy is far more determined by the situation Israel finds itself in than by ideology. And peace is far away, unfortunately, for reasons having nothing to do with Israeli policy.

The following article is presented in order to immunize you against the nonsense about to be written by those like Thomas L. Friedman, whose understanding of the Middle East is inferior to that of the average Tel Aviv cabdriver. 

Israel’s election in international perspective

By Barry Rubin

Many people don’t understand what’s happening now in Israeli politics, so here’s a brief, and non-partisan, appreciation. Compared to the past, there’s far less difference between the three main parties. This is largely due to the objective situation, which is rather inflexible.

It is easy to characterize some as rabid right-wingers who throw away chances for peace and others as rabid left-wingers who are ready to make too many concessions. Neither argument is correct except for the fringes, which are not going to shape Israeli policy. I am tempted to add that abroad, the left thinks we’re evil, while the right thinks we’re stupid. All of this has little to do with reality.

The dominant theme in international media coverage is to say Israelis are moving toward the right. Yet this is both misleading and misinterpreted. On the first aspect, the real Israeli move has been toward the center, which is represented not only by Kadima and Likud but also by Labor. The great majority of Israelis are about to vote for parties close to centrist positions than at any time in history.

The left-wing mantra is peace, though how we can reach peace with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah is rather hard to see. With the PA the situation is a more complex but, briefly, it doesn’t control Gaza, is still full of radical elements, and has weak leadership. The PA is nowhere near being able to make peace on a realistic basis. Everyone in the PA and in Israel’s leadership knows this; few in the Western media and academia seem close to comprehending it. A lot of governments understand the situation privately but talk quite differently in public.

The right-wing mantra is victory, though how Israel is going to replace the Iranian and Syrian governments, or destroy Hamas and Hizballah is equally hard to see. Israel has minimal to no international support for these goals and lacks great alternatives to what exists at present.

What have Israelis learned over the last decade that shapes their thinking?

• We discovered that Palestinians and Syrians are unwilling and unable to make peace.

• We saw that Fatah is still full of extremism and its leadership is too weak and too hardline itself to make a comprehensive peace agreement.

• We viewed the rise of Hamas as a group dedicated to permanent war with Israel and its seizure of one-half of the Palestinian-ruled territories, using land from which Israel withdrew as a base for attacks.

• We experienced the continuing hatred of the Arab world and Muslim world toward Israel, largely undiminished by Israeli concessions.

• We observed Iran’s rise as a power, potentially nuclear armed, whose regime explicitly seeks Israel’s extinction.

• We noted the world didn’t reward Israel for making concessions and taking risks. Indeed, the more Israel gave, the higher the degree of slander and hostility rose in many sectors.

As a result of this, there has arisen in Israel a national consensus around the following points:

• Israel wants peace and will make real concessions for true lasting, stable peace and a two-state solution

• Few think the Palestinian leadership — PA, Fatah — is willing or able to make such an agreement for decades. The same applies to Syria. As a result, any real changes on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights or West Bank settlements are far off.

• No deal can be made with Hamas. But Hamas isn’t going to disappear either. The same applies to Hizballah. The key point is to defend Israel and its citizens so they pursue their normal lives.

• Iran is a real danger and when it appears about to get nuclear weapons, a big decision will have to be made on attacking these facilities.

As a result of this national consensus — accepted by Labor, Likud, and Kadima, along with many others — the next government can be a national unity government. Whoever becomes prime minister would do well to bring in one or both of the other two main parties.    What is Israel’s consensus policy for the next government?

• To stress that we want peace, are ready for a Palestinian state, aren’t responsible for the conflict and violence continuing.

• To maintain deterrence and defend ourselves.

• To preserve the best possible relations with the United States, Europe, and other countries as long as it does not involve risks to Israeli national interests and citizens.

• Security cooperation with the PA to prevent terrorist attacks on Israel in exchange for helping them economically and against Hamas to ensure that it doesn’t take over the West Bank. Without illusions regarding Fatah and the PA, this effort seems to be working.

• To decide when to strike back at Hamas — and potentially Hizballah — based on any attacks on us. Precise response depends on timing, opportunity, and their behavior.

• To work for the isolation of Iran, Hizballah and Hamas.

Where are the main differences among the leading parties?  They are more atmospherics than real: offering small concessions; making small demands. If much of the election revolves around personalities that is because strategy and policy are not hugely different among them. Bibi isn’t going to embark on a settlement-building campaign; Tzipi isn’t going to give away east Jerusalem.

And that’s a good thing for whatever faults they have, this trio is basically making appropriate responses to the situation.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA and other GLORIA Center publications or to order books, visit http://www.gloriacenter.org.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Kadima, Likud, Israel Labor Party, Israeli politics

I’ve said before that I think Israel is in as much existential danger today as any time since 1948. The following article spells this out, but I would add that a new factor — the rapid progress of delegitimization of Israel among the nations of the world  — multiplies the objective danger.

A Nuclear Iran
By Shalom Freedman

John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., told Ruthie Blum in a Feb. 6, 2009 interview that Iran has  surmounted all the technical difficulties involved in producing nuclear weapons. Should anyone have doubted Iran’s technical capacity to do this, one could have noted an event that occurred just a few days before when Iran launched its first satellite. The booster capability needed to launch the satellite means that Iran not only has the ability to reach every country in the Middle East with its weapons, but that it also can reach Southern Europe. All this suggests that the Israeli, American and European window of opportunity to stop Iran from attaining a nuclear capability may have already closed. After all, having clearly mastered the enrichment process and now having the missile capability, the final stage of ‘weaponization’, fitting the warhead to the missile, is considering a relatively simple one. So Iran seems to be the proverbial ‘turn of a screw’ distance from nuclear capability.

This took place while there were endless promises and threats from various Israeli and American officials that it would not be allowed to happen. The Obama Administration even now is saying that it will forcibly prevent Iran from being a nuclear power, that is if its proposed talks with Iran are not successful. Only now there is the possibility that should President Obama be true to his word in a way the Bush Administration was not, there is a very good chance that Israel will be the one to pay the heaviest price. For it is very likely that the Iranian response would be first of all nuclear warheads headed in the direction of Tel Aviv.

Bolton – who was a strong Israel supporter in the Bush Administration – believes that the United States under Obama will take no such action. He says it is essentially up to Israel to do this, and says that now the most Israel can do is hope to delay Iran for two or three years. The real solution, Bolton argues, lies not in military preemption but in regime change in Tehran.  But despite the sinking global oil price and the great failures of the Iranian economy under Ahmadinejad, there seems on the horizon no real possibility of regime change.

Israel for its part seems in an almost impossible situation in regard to striking the Iranian nuclear facilities. David Sanger, NY Times diplomatic and defense correspondent, recently reported that Prime Minister Olmert went to Washington in January 2008 and requested permission to fly over Iraq from President Bush. This was denied, as were Olmert’s requests for new airborne tankers and bunker-busting bombs. With Turkey so hostile and the U.S. forbidding the flyover of Iraqi airspace, Israel’s military option is severely limited.

The most viable alternative seems to be deterrence – to depend on its credible second-strike capability and make it clear that any WMD attack on Israel from any direction will be regarded as an attack from Iran. For despite the Iranian suicide-bomber mentality of its President Ahmadinejad, it is unlikely to want to see its cities and society wholly devastated.

But Iran is not only busy on the nuclear front. It is reportedly supplying Hamas with newer and longer-range missiles. It has of course helped arm Hezbollah to the teeth (Hezbollah is thought to have three times the number of missiles that it had before the 2006 war). Its two surrogates are thus still on Israel’s borders and ready, should there be an outbreak of violence, to hit all of Israel with missiles. Iranian ally Syria has an even  deadlier arsenal of missiles including some with WMD warheads.

All this means that any incoming Israeli government will face one of the most difficult security situations the country has ever known. Clearly one of its first priorities will be to establish close cooperation and coordination with the Obama Administration. Should Obama decide to follow the advice of some of its key advisors and distance Israel, the Israeli government’s task would enormously difficult. For clearly the security of Israel depends in this new situation on knowing not only how it must act in regard to Iran but also what the U.S. intends to do. Whether the United States decides to negotiate with Iran and buy its delaying tactics and false promises, or to try to preempt, Israel is most likely to pay the greatest price.

Here however, another danger should be mentioned. What the Iranians are likely to do in any negotiation is demand that the U.S. force Israel to negotiate its own nuclear disarmament. Any acceptance of such a policy, given that a nuclear Israel is the greatest deterrent against Arab missile attack or conventional invasion, is likely to further undermine the position of Israel. Should the Obama Administration go along with the Iranian demand, then those critics who feared it would be a negative administration for Israel would have been proven correct.

As it is now, the situation is open and dangerous. And again, the next Prime Minister of Israel will face security threats of unprecedented danger and difficulty.

Shalom Freedman was born in the US and made aliyah to Israel in 1974. He’s published several books and countless articles on Jewish subjects.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama, Iranian nuclear weapons

You will recall Philippe Karsenty, the man who was sued by the France 2 television network’s highly-regarded Jerusalem bureau chief Charles Enderlin for libel after he called  Enderlin’s report accusing Israel of murdering 12-year old Muhammad al-Dura in 2000 “a hoax”.

You will probably also recall that the al-Dura ‘death’ — at this time it seems most likely that he was not killed at all, and if he was hit it was  by Palestinian bullets — was a rallying cry for the intifada and for Israel-haters everywhere; indeed, the Palestinian mob that tore apart two Israeli reservists in Ramallah two weeks later shouted “al-Dura”.

The film of al-Dura cowering behind his father as ‘Israeli’ bullets supposedly struck around them was broadcast and rebroadcast around the world. France 2 even supplied it to its competitors CNN and Reuters.

Here is a video commentary by Richard Landes that includes the original film plus other footage from that day. You can see the power of the film, but the evidence is overwhelming that al-Dura was not killed by Israeli bullets. Karsenty has called this “the first blood libel of the 21st century”.

After Enderlin won his suit at a trial in which the only evidence taken seriously by the judge was a character reference for Enderlin from then-President Jacques Chirac, Karsenty appealed and the verdict was overthrown.

Now Karsenty has published a damning account of the lack of cooperation — he uses the word ’sabotage’ — provided him by the Israeli government in his legal struggle with France 2. He writes,

During all those years, I got the cold shoulder from Israeli officials. With the exception of a few mavericks like Danny Seaman (director of the Government Press Office), Raanan Gissin (Spokesman, Prime Minister’s Office), Shlomi Amshalom, former deputy spokesperson for the IDF, or former ambassador Zvi Mazel, the vast majority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs personnel treated me and others who pursued this case, as embarrassments – conspiracy nuts who they wished would just disappear…

In 2002, when it was still possible to do something immediate, Nissim Zvili was the Israeli ambassador to Paris. He listened courteously but explained to me that he was a friend of Charles Enderlin, the French journalist who narrated the al Dura hoax.

In 2006, Zvili was replaced by Daniel Shek, who refused to shake my hand, and later commented on a Jewish radio that I was defending “conspiracy theories.” When I asked his colleague in charge of communication at the embassy in Paris, Daniel Halevy Goitschel, why he never returned my phone calls, he responded: “the phone doesn’t work at the embassy”. We are not even dealing with a lack of support here. On the contrary, I was being sabotaged.

When I won the case in May 2008, Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said: “Karsenty is a private individual and no one in the Israeli government asked him to take on his battle against France 2. Karsenty had no right to demand that Israel come to his aid. All calls on the Israeli government to come and ‘save’ him are out of place. He was summoned to court because of a complaint of the French television channel. I don’t see where there is room for the Israeli government to get involved.”

Last December, I went over the evidence with Aviv Shir-On, who now claims to have helped me, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). After two hours he repeated the old MFA refrain, “I’m not convinced”. Let’s say, for the sake of generosity, that Shir-On is just one more timid defender of Israel, so afraid of what “others” might say, that even the judgment of an independent (and hardly well-disposed) French court in favor of his own country, does not give him the courage to speak. So even though I won the case, and the new evidence from France 2 sharpens our argument, I could not count on Israeli officials to help move into a counter-attack. Enderlin, humiliated by the court decision, was allowed to bluff his way back to prominence, and recently, in the Gaza war, lead the journalists’ attack on the Israeli government…

On January 2009, I met Tsipi Livni, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and asked her about the al Dura story and the lack of reaction of the Israeli officials. Why didn’t the State of Israel demand that France 2 admit their blood libel following the court decision? I was stunned by her answer: “Well, it happens that we kill kids sometimes. So, it’s not good for Israel to raise the subject again”. — Philippe Karsenty: Israel Losing the Media War: Wonder Why?

Now I am going to say something which I’ve said before, which has always annoyed people, but which I think is true:

Many important people in Israel have internalized the propaganda of Israel’s enemies. They are prepared to believe that IDF soldiers would continue to fire on a target like al-Dura and his father, who are obviously not firing back and not even armed, for 40 minutes. This is not the same as saying that ‘accidents happen’, it is agreeing that the IDF is either criminally negligent or deliberately murderous, which is what the Arab and European press constantly say.

It seems to me that some Israelis and Jews have a moral inferiority complex. Even though they would not admit this, deep down they are not sure that Israel has a right to exist. Although they understand intellectually that Israel is in a life and death struggle with the Arab world and Iran, emotionally there is a feeling that we are wrong.

I’ve often criticized people who seem prepared to believe anything bad about Israel, even if it doesn’t make sense, like the accusations that the IDF deliberately targeted civilians in Gaza.  Apparently many Israelis, even those that believe themselves to be Zionists, share this propensity.

Doubts were raised about the al-Dura affair from the very beginning. Yet Israel’s official approach was to accept responsibility, to believe Palestinian and European media without a serious investigation. And even after an IDF investigation showed that it was highly unlikely that the bullets could have been fired by Israeli soldiers, Karsenty’s efforts to bring out the rest of the evidence — to force France 2 to release the outtakes — were opposed. Officials still treated him as a “conspiracy nut” and accepted the Palestinian/European version of events.

How else can you explain this?

Technorati Tags: Israel, Muhammad al-Dura, al-Dura, Philippe Karsenty, Charles Enderlin

News item:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday proposed the construction of a 48-kilometer long tunnel that would connect the northern Gaza Strip with the southern West Bank, thus enabling freedom of movement between the two disjointed Palestinian territories.

While stumping on the campaign trail before students at Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, Barak said it was possible to dig the tunnel, which would remain under Israeli sovereignty while the Palestinians would maintain authority over the corridor’s traffic. The defense minister and Labor Party chairman said the project would cost between $2-3 billion, “a reasonable sum.”

This is the kind of thing one expects from Barak. A clever solution to the problem of providing the eagerly awaited Palestinian state with the ‘territorial contiguity’ promised by both Presidents Bush and Obama, without cutting Israel in two. As if this would satisfy any real Palestinians, most of whom have given up on a two-state solution! Although there is zero chance that this will actually happen, it does have a few positive features:

• If the ‘peace process’ doesn’t work out, it could be extended a bit at both ends and converted into a Mediterranean-Dead Sea canal.

• Many unemployed Gazans could find work digging it. May I mention that an experienced workforce already exists which could, in common parlance, ‘hit the ground running’?

• The idea could serve as a template for another Gaza employment program: a Palestinian attempt to land a man on the moon. Don’t laugh; the US space program was started by another amateur rocketeer, Dr. Werner von Braun.

Meanwhile, the main obstacle to the two-state solution, Hamas, remains. Barak also said,

“All of these critics [his opponents in the forthcoming election] were in decision-making positions and Hamas never received such a blow as this. After eight years of [rocket] fire from the Strip, I arrived and gave the IDF an order to batter Hamas, with deeds and not words,” said Barak, referring to Israel’s recent offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

Given that Hamas — or its deniable surrogates — have resumed firing rockets, that despite additional bombing raids weapons are still being smuggled through the Sinai Subway, and that Hamas is still demanding thousands of prisoners in exchange for Gilad Schalit, Barak’s statement sounds somewhat hollow, even as election rhetoric.

A Gaza-West Bank tunnel would be pointless anyway as long as Hamas controls Gaza. Various parties think that a unity government between Hamas and Fatah is a good idea, but such an arrangement would certainly be unstable, and most likely result in a Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA). And Hamas is not going to quietly accept the authority of the despised Israeli-American puppet Fatah.

Maybe not so paradoxically, the best way to make a peace agreement between Israel and the PA possible, paving the way to a two-state solution, would have been for Israel to finish off Hamas. I assume that the US administration thinks that there is some other path, or they would not have forced Israel to stop fighting and get out before the inauguration, but I’m not able to imagine what this could be.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Ehud Barak, Gaza, tunnel, Hamas