by Derek Davison
A former senior analyst for Mossad, Yossi Alpher, told an audience in Washington Thursday that Israel sees the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) as an “urgent” national security concern, but the context of his talk at the Wilson Center implied that the extremist Sunni group does not top any Israeli list of threats. In fact, Alpher seemed to suggest at times that the actions of IS, particularly in Iraq, may ultimately benefit Israel’s regional posture, particularly with respect to Iran. He also called the American decision to intervene against IS “perplexing.”
Iran, unsurprisingly, topped Alpher’s list of “urgent” Israeli security threats, but he downplayed the prospect of a nuclear deal being struck by the Nov. 24 deadline for the negotiations and focused instead on the “hegemonic threat” Iran allegedly poses. Indeed, the former director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies was mainly concerned with an Iran strengthened by close alliances with Iraq and Syria as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon and now potentially expanding its reach into Yemen, whose Houthi rebels have made major military gains in recent weeks.
Alpher identified the threat of extremist/terrorist organizations as Israel’s second-most urgent threat, but within that category he placed Hamas and Hezbollah ahead of IS. He allowed that IS “threatens to reach very close” to Israel, particularly if it manages to make inroads in Jordan, where polls indicate that a significant minority of the population does not see IS as a terrorist group, and where there has been vocal opposition to King Abdullah’s support for the US-led anti-IS coalition. Indeed, Alpher suggested that Israel should try to defuse current tensions over the Temple Mount, which have caused Abdullah to suffer politically at home, in order to forestall an increase of IS sympathy within Jordan.
Several of Alpher’s later remarks seemed to suggest that the activities of IS in Syria (at least those that have targeted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) and in Iraq may actually pay dividends for Israel. If the primary threat to Israel’s security is, as Alpher claims, Iran, and not just Iran’s nuclear program but also its regional hegemonic aspirations, then any movement that opposes Assad—a long-time Iranian ally—and that threatens the stability and unity of Iraq—whose predominantly Shia government has also developed close ties with Tehran—is actually doing Israel a service. It apparently doesn’t matter if that group might also someday pose a threat to Israel. It’s in this context that Alpher described America’s decision to intervene against IS as “perplexing.” He questioned the US commitment to keeping Iraq whole, noting that an independent Kurdistan would be “better for Israel,” and said that, as far as Syria’s civil war is concerned, “decentralization and ongoing warfare make more sense for Israel than a strong, Iran-backed Syria.”
The tone of Alpher’s remarks on IS echoed a number of recent comments from top Israeli government and military figures. Earlier this month, the IDF’s chief of staff, Lt. General Benny Gantz, told the Jerusalem Post that “the IDF has the wherewithal to defend itself against Islamic State,” and then went on to describe Hezbollah as Israel’s most immediate security concern. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also told PBS’s Charlie Rose on Sunday that Israel is contributing intelligence to the anti-IS coalition, but suggested that it was doing so because it has “a very good relationship with many parties who participate in the coalition,” not because it perceives IS as a near-term threat to Israel. Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 29 made several references to IS, but only as a secondary threat to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program or in conflating IS with Hamas and, really, every other Islamic extremist group in the world.
Alpher made pointed criticisms of the US-led effort against IS in an exchange with Wilson Center president and former House member, Jane Harman, who pushed back against his characterization of US “mistakes” in the region. He was particularly critical of the Obama administration’s handling of Egypt, arguing that it “made things worse” by failing to support the Mubarak regime in 2011 and trying instead to “embrace” the democratically elected (and now imprisoned) Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, and then by failing to welcome the military coup that eventually put current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in office.
Harman questioned whether a stronger show of American support for the increasingly authoritarian direction of Egypt’s politics would hinder any effort to counter the anti-Western narrative upon which much of IS’ support and recruitment is based. Alpher’s answer, and indeed a recurring theme in his remarks, was that the question of narratives and terrorist recruitment is irrelevant to an Israeli security framework that is focused only on the most immediate threats (or, as he put it, “on what will bring short-term stability”).
The emphasis on the short-term is one of the defining features of Netanyahu’s term in office, particularly in his dealings with the Palestinians, but also in Israel’s broader security posture, and it may well cause greater problems for Israel in the long-term.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Like many of us, I’ve been very busy on social media since Israel began its military operation in Gaza. I see a lot of ignorant nonsense there, and it’s not limited to the pro-Israel side. I also see a lot of shoddy thinking and ignorance of the facts. Since [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Like many of us, I’ve been very busy on social media since Israel began its military operation in Gaza. I see a lot of ignorant nonsense there, and it’s not limited to the pro-Israel side. I also see a lot of shoddy thinking and ignorance of the facts. Since I had to study up a lot of this for my job as the Director of the US Office of B’Tselem, I thought I might set the record straight.
“War crimes”
Various memes make the rounds in discussions of war crimes. One that I found particularly laughable was “Even the UN says Hamas is committing war crimes but they say Israel only might be.” I’ve also seen defenses of Hamas’ firing of missiles at civilian targets in Israel based on Palestinians’ right of self-defense.
Here is the long and short of it: War crimes are defined as “Serious violations of international humanitarian law constitute war crimes.” That’s going to encompass pretty much every violation that might become a public issue in any conflict.
International law recognizes that civilians are going to be hurt, killed and dispossessed in war. The obligation of combatants is to do all they can to minimize the death and destruction if they do need to operate in areas where it is likely that civilians will be hurt.
As a result, when Israel proclaims its innocence of violating these laws, no matter how suspicious we may be, enforcers of international law cannot declare that war crimes have been committed without an investigation. Reasonable people who are not international lawyers can make assumptions, but the investigation needs to happen, and it is always possible, especially when the conflict involves an area as densely populated as Gaza, that it will turn out that the state in question did its best to avoid civilian casualties. High civilian casualty numbers are not proof, but they obviously raise suspicions.
On Hamas’ side, this is true as well, but Hamas makes no secret of its use of weapons which, by their very nature, cannot be used in a manner that can discriminate between civilian and military targets. So, while the UN or other bodies would still investigate and make a case before taking any action, Hamas is committing war crimes. It’s not unfair to say so.
In this case, however, Israel has declared that the homes of leading Hamas activists (and those of other factions) are legitimate targets. They have, in fact, willfully bombed such houses during these engagements as a result. Unlike the 2002 assassination of Salah Shehade, where Israel claimed (falsely, many say) to have believed Shehade to be alone in the building they bombed, Israel has made no such claims this time around. Therefore, it is also not unfair to say that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, even before an investigation.
If not for Iron Dome, there would have been many more Israeli casualties
This statement seems to make sense, but the numbers don’t back it up. A study done through July 14, when rocket fire into Israel was at its most intense, showed that the number of rockets being fired from Gaza was fewer than in Operation Cast Lead and the frequency of hits was about the same.
I’m all for Iron Dome. Any defensive system whose purpose is to protect civilians is something I consider an absolute positive, and I only wish more countries would invest in such systems, endeavoring to protect, rather than avenge, their civilians. The concern that iron Dome would make Israel even more reckless and grant it even more impunity does not seem to be borne out by its actions in the current onslaught. Those actions, brutal as they are, are no worse than what Israel did in 2008 and 2012 to Gaza or what it did in 2006 to Lebanon. So, yeah, please let’s see more Iron Domes in the world.
By the same token, however, it doesn’t seem like Iron Dome is actually protecting Israeli civilians nearly as much as the rockets’ lack of any sort of targeting ability.
Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people
Opponents of Israeli policies in the United States and in Israel itself have an uphill battle against an entrenched propagandistic view of the entire conflict. We do ourselves no favors by using bombastic, easily assailable language in making our arguments.
Genocide has a specific meaning in international law. It does not mean large scale killing. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide provides that definition:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of thr group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
There is no evidence that this is what Israel is trying to do. Indeed, the best evidence that Israel is not doing this is the simple fact that the Palestinian population, in both the West Bank and Gaza, continues to grow, despite the occupation and all its concomitant hardships.
Would Israel like to find a way to get rid of the Palestinians in the West Bank and cut off Gaza? Sure, but that is not genocide, it is ethnic cleansing, and frankly, that’s bad enough. Israel has done that very gradually over the years, confiscating more and more land, forcing Palestinians into ever smaller enclaves and turning Gaza into one big open air prison.
Making claims that are contradicted by the facts, especially the weighty accusation of genocide, is irresponsible and self-defeating; it plays right into Israel’s propaganda hands.
Hamas is exercising legitimate self-defense
It is absolutely true that an occupied people has the right to resist its occupiers. It is also true that the unusual nature of Israel’s occupation makes it very difficult for guerrilla groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and others to take any violent action that would conform to international legal standards. As international legal expert Noura Erekat puts it: “Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested.”
It is also true that Israel itself does not differentiate between attacks on its civilians and its soldiers. It views them as equally illegitimate and labels it all “terrorism,” even though legally, Israeli soldiers are combatants while on duty. Take, for example, the killing of IDF soldier Natanel Moshiashvili in 2012. The IDF statement about his death plainly states: “The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against the State of Israel.”
Nonetheless, the fact that Palestinians are mostly unable to strike exclusively at Israeli military targets does not mean that it is suddenly legal to use indiscriminate weapons or to target civilians. These are war crimes, and any credible investigation must investigate both sides while also taking into account the massive differences in capabilities and power of the two. Israel must also be scrutinized more closely because it has a far greater ability to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants than Hamas.
Hamas is using human shields
Saying something over and over again doesn’t make it true, but it does make a whole lot of people believe it. For instance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu willfully and repeatedly lied to the Israeli public and the world about Hamas’ complicity in the kidnap and murder of the three young Israeli settlers, which sparked this latest round. He kept saying he had proof that he never produced, and now the Israeli police are admitting what everyone who was actually paying attention at the time knew: this was an independent act of violence.
It’s the same with the human shield argument. Like genocide, the term “human shield” has a legal definition. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, “… the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.” Again, as Erekat wrote: “International human rights organizations that have investigated these claims have determined that they are not true.” Erekat correctly cites reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which focused on past engagements. There is also doubt being cast by journalists in Gaza today.
In fact, no evidence has ever been presented to support the accusation apart from the high number of civilian casualties and Israel’s word. On the other hand, Israel’s own High Court had to demand that Israel stop using human shields. That happened in 2005, but the practice continued.
In any case, even the presence of human shields does not absolve or mitigate Israel’s responsibility to minimize civilian casualties. Again quoting Erekat: “Even assuming that Israel’s claims were plausible, humanitarian law obligates Israel to avoid civilian casualties…In the over three weeks of its military operation, Israel has demolished 3,175 homes, at least a dozen with families inside; destroyed five hospitals and six clinics; partially damaged sixty-four mosques and two churches; partially to completely destroyed eight government ministries; injured 4,620; and killed over 700 Palestinians. At plain sight, these numbers indicate Israel’s egregious violations of humanitarian law, ones that amount to war crimes.”
Finally, one last point and one more citation of Noura Erekat. The claim that Israel is merely acting in self-defense fails on a number of counts. As I and others have been saying from the beginning, the Netanyahu government willfully and cynically used the murders of three Israelis as an excuse to provoke Hamas with mass arrests and widespread activities that included the deaths of nine Palestinian civilians before this operation started. That removes the self-defense argument from the start. But more than that, the Gaza Strip, despite it being emptied of settlements and soldiers, remains under Israeli control, and is thus occupied territory, contrary to Israel’s claims. Please check out Erekat’s excellent write-up of what this means for the right of self-defense. And please note, she never denies that Israel has a right to protect its own civilians, but that is not the same thing.
Photo: International and Palestinian volunteers accompanied Civil Defense and other rescue crews, as well as family members, into Shujaya, a neighborhood by the separation barrier in the east of Gaza City, in an attempt to locate survivors of overnight and ongoing shelling by the Israeli army on July 20. Credit: Joe Catron
]]>by Marsha B. Cohen
Two celebrations brought Lockheed Martin’s CEO, Marilyn A. Hewson, to Israel on April 9.
Hewson officially opened Lockheed Martin’s office in Beersheba, the closest major city to where IDF technical units are being consolidated at new bases in the Negev Desert, which will be supporting the defense contractor’s ”growing [...]]]>
by Marsha B. Cohen
Two celebrations brought Lockheed Martin’s CEO, Marilyn A. Hewson, to Israel on April 9.
Hewson officially opened Lockheed Martin’s office in Beersheba, the closest major city to where IDF technical units are being consolidated at new bases in the Negev Desert, which will be supporting the defense contractor’s ”growing presence” in Israel. “By locating our new office in the capital of the Negev we are well positioned to work closely with our Israeli partners and stand ready to: accelerate project execution, reduce program risk and share our technical expertise by training and developing in-country talent,” Hewson said in her speech.
Then was the arrival of the first C-130J Super Hercules airlifter at Nevatim Air Base in Israel. The state of the art Super Hercules, fitted with “Israeli-specific, post-production modifications,” has been dubbed Shimshon (Samson) by the Israel Defense Forces, about which Hewson waxed rhapsodic:
This aircraft is worthy of its given name, Shimshon…[sic] a leader whose power was thought to be as mighty as the sun. Shimshon used his power to combat the enemies of Israel and perform heroic feats.In the same way, this aircraft will support the defense of Israel and the men and women who are the heroes of the Israeli Defense Force.
(Apparently Ms. Hewson is unaware that the biblical Samson/Shimshon (Judges 13:1-17:31), for all his strength, actually met a rather unenviable end — in Gaza — using his final surge strength to destroy himself along with the enemy. Yet the Philistines lived to fight another day and were still around a hundred years later.)
Much of the publicity heralding the Samson’s arrival emphasized the air transporter’s capabilities in carrying out humanitarian missions. According to Lockheed’s product description, “This rugged aircraft is regularly sent on missions in the harshest environments, and is often seen as the first aircraft ‘in,’ touching down on austere landing strips before any other transport to provide humanitarian relief after natural disasters.” Reuters notes that “In non-combat, but harsh, environments, C-130Js are often the first to carry out missions such as search and rescue, aerial firefighting in the United States and delivering relief supplies after earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis around the world.” A Haaretz article anticipating the Samson’s arrival said that earlier versions of the Hercules aircraft had been used in 1976 to rescue hijacked Air France passengers being held hostage in Entebbe, Uganda and to transport Ethiopian Jews to Israel as part of Operation Solomon in 1991.
The Israeli Air Force website, however, describes the C-130J Hercules as “a tactical transport plane that is mostly used in joint missions with ground forces: supply missions, equipment transfer, airdropping combat forces and special missions.” The long version of the Super Hercules C-130J can carry 92 paratroopers and their equipment, which exceeds the 64 paratroopers the short version can accommodate. Comments by Israeli defense officials quoted in the Times of Israel suggest that Israel isn’t purchasing “Samson” for humanitarian intervention. The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, who also attended the arrival ceremony, declared that the C-130J, which can fly close to the ground and land and take-off on primitive airstrips, was of “decisive importance” and would allow Israel to execute “more complex missions, under any conditions, deeper [within enemy territory], faster and more clandestinely.” IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel said that the “diversity of capabilities that the plane represents borders on the imaginary” [sic].
Israel orders its C-130Js, including the Super Hercules, through a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) contract with the US government. Israel’s annual Foreign Military Funding grant from the US signed in 2007 for a ten year period amounts to $3.1 billion to Israel annually (minus about $155 million due to the US government-mandated sequester). Considering that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu budgeted $2.89 billion for an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities for 2013 and again for 2014, that doesn’t go very far, even when assuming that the Samson is being purchased with an eye toward war with Iran.
With Lockheed’s active involvement, Israel has been able to utilize a scheme called a deferred payment plan (DPP), in combination with a Pentagon process known as cash-flow financing, to make current purchases with deferred debt on favorable terms, to be paid with the FMS grants it is scheduled to receive in future years. Israel used this method to fund Pentagon-administered Foreign Military Sale purchases of Lockheed F-16I and F-35I fighters. Through this creative means of financing, Israel has already earmarked nearly all Foreign Military Funding through 2018 for F-35 fighter jets, heavy troop carriers, airlifters and other equipment.
Now Israel wants to buy — and the Pentagon wants to sell — half a dozen V-22 Ospreys, originally intended for the US Marine Corps serving in Afghanistan. What to do?
On March 20, during a visit to Israel, two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN), told Reuters that, in spite of belt-tightening in Washington, the US will continue providing Israel with military assistance after its current Foreign Military Financing package of $3.1 billion a year expires in 2017. Ayotte said that talks concerning the 2018-2028 package were already underway. Lockheed Martin is rated a “heavy hitter” among campaign donors by the Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets website. Thus far in the 2014 election cycle, Lockheed has contributed over $1.6 million to members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, about two thirds going to Republicans and the rest to Democrats.
Ten days later, Defense News reported that Israel had agreed to take on more than $2 billion in commercial debt for near-term buys of V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft and other Pentagon-approved weaponry, trusting that the US will provide a 2018-2028 FMF package to foot the bill. Under a US-approved DPP, Israel would pay only interest and fees over the course of the current agreement set to expire in September 2018. The principal of the debt incurred to purchase the Ospreys would be covered by a new Obama-pledged package that would extend annual foreign military financing (FMF) aid through 2028. Lockheed loves the idea, even if the first purchase goes to a competitor. Why? Once the new means of proactive financing kicks in — Israel borrowing against an aid package it hasn’t even received yet, which, following approval, won’t go into effect for five years — Lockheed can expect benefits as well. According to Defense News, “Lockheed is expected to play a pivotal role in the new DPP scheme, which government and industry sources here say will facilitate follow-on procurement of Israel’s second squadron of F-35Is.”
Photo: Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon inspects the IAF’s newest recruit, the Samson Super Hercules. Credit: IDF Spokesperson’s Office
]]>By Richard Javad Heydarian
The recent war in Gaza has been portrayed as a political dividend for the main protagonists, namely Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Egypt’s Mohammad Morsi, and the Hamas leadership in Gaza, despite the tremendous psychological, infrastructural and humanitarian costs borne by innocent civilians, especially the Palestinians.
As Hamas and [...]]]>
By Richard Javad Heydarian
The recent war in Gaza has been portrayed as a political dividend for the main protagonists, namely Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Egypt’s Mohammad Morsi, and the Hamas leadership in Gaza, despite the tremendous psychological, infrastructural and humanitarian costs borne by innocent civilians, especially the Palestinians.
As Hamas and other militant groups bombarded Israeli cities with rocket attacks, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s enormous show of force — by mobilizing all elements of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against Gaza — allowed him to shore up greater support among a rattled Israeli populace, crucially ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. On the other hand, Hamas — and other militant groups such as the Islamic Jihad — were able to claim victory by not only circumventing Israel’s sophisticated ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense-shield system, and preventing a ground invasion by the IDF, but also because they may have finally gained enough leverage to end the Israeli-imposed siege on Gaza, which has resulted in a protracted humanitarian crisis in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. As for the Islamist president of Egypt, he was able to considerably boost his international profile and domestic popularity by leveraging the Muslim Brotherhood’s strong ties with Hamas and his country’s strong military ties with the US so as to strike a lasting truce.
After three decades of strategic irrelevance/acquiescence, Egypt has once again become an indispensable nation in the region.
Yet, what is missing from this mainstream narrative is how Iran — increasingly isolated in recent years — has actually been vindicated by the most recent Gaza crisis. While the first decade of the 21st century witnessed the dramatic rise of Iran as a regional power, largely precipitated by the US-led elimination of anti-Iranian rulers in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, the advent of the Arab uprisings — beginning with the late-2010 Tunisian revolution and the early-2011 Egyptian revolution — have presented a mixed package of some initial strategic gains, but steady and gradual decline overtime, most especially after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in March 2011. Although Iran benefited from the downfall of leading US allies in Egypt and elsewhere, while sensing some opportunity in the Bahraini and Yemenis revolutions across the Arabian Peninsula, its image and popularity — especially among the Arab populace – took a nosedive when it threw its weight behind the embattled Baathist regime in Syria.
With leading regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar portraying Iran’s support for Bashar Al-Assad as a cynical attempt to maintain a sectarian, Persian-led ‘axis of resistance’, Tehran has been gradually sidelined, prompting the Sunni Hamas leadership — with strong ties to the dominant Muslim Brotherhood faction within the Syrian opposition — to seek patronage elsewhere, especially in Ankara and Doha. In effect, the Arab uprisings have not only overshadowed Iran’s 3 decade-old support for the Palestinian cause, and empowered rising powers such as Turkey and Qatar, but they have also ideationally relegated Tehran to a new pejorative status of a non-Arab, non-Sunni state, perceived to be standing against a democratic uprising in Syria.
However, the recent crisis in Gaza has brought the Palestinian issue back to the center of popular political discourse across the Islamic world. Thus, it has indirectly reminded everyone of Iran’s continuous support for the Palestinian resistance – a long-time basis of Tehran’s popularity among the Arab street. Also, the crisis has slightly diverted attention from the ongoing civil war in Syria, where Iran — in the eyes of many Arabs — has been heavily implicated due to its support for the Assad regime.
The fact that this time Israel balked from repeating its brutal 2008-2009 military campaign against Gaza is a testament to the shifting balance of forces on the ground. Sure, the advent of Arab uprisings — giving birth to more populist/pro-Palestinian post-revolutionary leaders — may have placed a new element of constraint upon Israel’s strategic impunity: its ability to re-shape the immediate strategic environment, through a combination of economic coercion, diplomatic obstructionism, and brutal military force, without considerable costs. It is also true that regional powers Turkey, Egypt, and Qatar have provided considerable economic and political support to Hamas, forcing Washington to exert growing pressure on Israel to cease military operations against Gaza. But, without Iran’s concrete military-logistical support, Hamas would have never been in a position to deter an all out Israeli invasion, especially under the current hawkish leadership in Tel Aviv. After all, no regional power, aside from Iran, has dared to directly support Hamas in military terms. Neither Qatar nor Turkey wishes to jeopardize crucial strategic ties with the West by doing so, while Egypt — the second largest recipient of US military aid – is still too vulnerable to take on Israel and/or jeopardize ongoing negotiations vis-à-vis Western economic assistance, either through bilateral mechanisms or international organizations such as the IMF. Iran’s position as the leading revisionist force in the Middle East has provided it a unique wiggle room to prop up Hamas-led resistance in Gaza.
It was the Iranian-designed/made Fajr-5 missiles — scoring an unprecedented success rate (reportedly ranging between 15 to 40 percent) against the Iron Dome system — that gave Hamas and other militant groups not only an element of deterrence against a total Israeli invasion, but also a crucial bargaining chip to force Israel back to the negotiating table to end the siege of Gaza – and perhaps even kick-start negotiations over the future of Palestinian statehood. Hamas’ ability to strike missiles as far as Tel Aviv is a major game-changer, thanks to Iran’s ballistic technology. No wonder, after the conclusion of a truce between Hamas and Israel, Khalid Mishaal, one of Hamas’ most important figures, formally thanked Iran for its role in arming and financing Gaza during the war.
This is perhaps why Iran stands as a major beneficiary of Israel’s recent truce with Hamas.
- Richard Javad Heydarian is a Philippine-based foreign affairs analyst, specializing on international security and economics. He can be reached at jrheydarian@gmail.com
]]>On returning from his first trip to the Gaza Strip, Noam Chomsky told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, “It’s kind of amazing and inspiring to see people somehow managing to survive as caged animals subject to constant, random, sadistic punishment only to humiliate them, no pretext. Israel and the United States keep [...]]]>
On returning from his first trip to the Gaza Strip, Noam Chomsky told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, “It’s kind of amazing and inspiring to see people somehow managing to survive as caged animals subject to constant, random, sadistic punishment only to humiliate them, no pretext. Israel and the United States keep them alive basically. They don’t want them to starve to death. But life is set up so you can’t have dignified lives. In fact, one of the words you hear most often is dignity… And the standard Israeli position is they shouldn’t raise their heads. It’s a pressure cooker. It could blow up. People can’t live like that forever. It’s an open-air prison.”
And that was before the Israelis began raining down their most recent round of death and destruction on that tiny, densely populated area. Other than the Palestinians themselves, no one has experienced this grim reality in a more up close and personal way than Israel’s soldiers, sent repeatedly into the Gaza Strip and into Palestinian towns and villages in the Occupied Territories, where a creeping program of land theft is still underway. Testimonies from a large number of veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on their daily experiences — on what the (IDF) once described as a policy of “searing of consciousness,” involving brutal methods of all sorts — have been gathered by the dissident group Breaking the Silence. These can now be found in a powerful new book, Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers’ Testimonies From the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010, published here this September (and almost totally ignored ever since). Today, they couldn’t be more grimly relevant.
These are testimonies that must be read if the situation and anger in the region are to be fully grasped. Think of them as the equivalent of the Winter Soldier Investigation of the Vietnam era, in which American Vietnam veterans testified to the horrific on-the-ground brutality of a failing pacification war. Oded Na’aman, an IDF veteran and co-editor of Harsh Logic, introduces a small selection of the testimonies from that book, adapted and abridged for this site. Tom
“It’s Mostly Punishment…”
Testimonies by Veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces From Gaza and the Occupied Territories
By Breaking the Silence
“There is no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” President Barack Obama said at a press conference last week. He drew on this general observation in order to justify Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel’s most recent military campaign in the Gaza Strip. In describing the situation this way, he assumes, like many others, that Gaza is a political entity external and independent of Israel. This is not so. It is true that Israel officially disengaged from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, withdrawing its ground troops and evacuating the Israeli settlements there. But despite the absence of a permanent ground presence, Israel has maintained a crushing control over Gaza from that moment until today.
The testimonies of Israeli army veterans expose the truth of that “disengagement.” Before Operation Pillar of Defense, after all, Israel launched Operations Summer Rains and Autumn Clouds in 2006, and Hot Winter and Cast Lead in 2008 — all involving ground invasions. In one testimony, a veteran speaks of “a battalion operation” in Gaza that lasted for five months, where the soldiers were ordered to shoot “to draw out terrorists” so they “could kill a few.”
Israeli naval blockades stop Gazans from fishing, a main source of food in the Strip. Air blockades prevent freedom of movement. Israel does not allow building materials into the area, forbids exports to the West Bank and Israel, and (other than emergency humanitarian cases) prohibits movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It controls the Palestinian economy by periodically withholding import taxes. Its restrictions have impeded the expansion and upgrading of the Strip’s woeful sewage infrastructure, which could render life in Gaza untenable within a decade. The blocking of seawater desalination has turned the water supply into a health hazard. Israel has repeatedly demolished small power plants in Gaza, ensuring that the Strip would have to continue to rely on the Israeli electricity supply. Daily power shortages have been the norm for several years now. Israel’s presence is felt everywhere, militarily and otherwise.
By relying on factual misconceptions, political leaders, deliberately or not, conceal information that is critical to our understanding of events. Among the people best qualified to correct those misconceptions are the individuals who have been charged with executing a state’s policies — in this case, Israeli soldiers themselves, an authoritative source of information about their government’s actions. I am a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and I know that our first-hand experiences refute the assumption, accepted by many, including President Obama, that Gaza is an independent political entity that exists wholly outside Israel. If Gaza is outside Israel, how come we were stationed there? If Gaza is outside Israel, how come we control it? Oded Na’aman
[The testimonies by Israeli veterans that follow are taken from 145 collected by the nongovernmental organization Breaking the Silence and published in Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers’ Testimonies From the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010. Those in the book represent every division in the IDF and all locations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.]
1. House Demolition
Unit: Kfir Brigade
Location: Nablus district
Year: 2009
During your service in the territories, what shook you up the most?
The searches we did in Hares. They said there are sixty houses that have to be searched. I thought there must have been some information from intelligence. I tried to justify it to myself.
You went out as a patrol?
It was a battalion operation. They spread out over the whole village, took over the school, smashed the locks, the classrooms. One was used as the investigation room for the Shin Bet, one room for detainees, one for the soldiers to rest. We went in house by house, banging on the door at two in the morning. The family’s dying of fear, the girls are peeing in their pants with fear. We go into the house and turn everything upside down.
What’s the procedure?
Gather the family in a certain room, put a guard there, tell the guard to aim his gun at them, and then search the rest of the house. We got another order that everyone born after 1980… everyone between sixteen and twenty-nine, doesn’t matter who, bring them in cuffed and blindfolded. They yelled at old people, one of them had an epileptic seizure but they carried on yelling at him. Every house we went into, we brought everyone between sixteen and twenty-nine to the school. They sat tied up in the schoolyard.
Did they tell you the purpose of all this?
To locate weapons. But we didn’t find any weapons. They confiscated kitchen knives. There was also stealing. One guy took twenty shekels. Guys went into the houses and looked for things to steal. This was a very poor village. The guys were saying, “What a bummer, there’s nothing to steal.”
That was said in a conversation among the soldiers?
Yeah. They enjoyed seeing the misery, the guys were happy talking about it. There was a moment someone yelled at the soldiers. They knew he was mentally ill, but one of the soldiers decided that he’d beat him up anyway, so they smashed him. They hit him in the head with the butt of the gun, he was bleeding, then they brought him to the school along with everyone else. There were a pile of arrest orders signed by the battalion commander, ready, with one area left blank. They’d fill in that the person was detained on suspicion of disturbing the peace. They just filled in the name and the reason for arrest. There were people with plastic handcuffs that had been put on really tight. I got to speak with the people there. One of them had been brought into Israel to work for a settler and after two months the guy didn’t pay him and handed him over to the police.
All these people came from that one village?
Yes.
Anything else you remember from that night?
A small thing, but it bothered me — one house that they just destroyed. They have a dog for weapons searches, but they didn’t bring him; they just wrecked the house. The mother watched from the side and cried. Her kids sat with her and stroked her.
What do you mean, they just destroyed the house?
They smashed the floors, turned over sofas, threw plants and pictures, turned over beds, smashed the closets, the tiles. There were other things — the look on the people’s faces when you go into their house. And after all that, they were left tied up and blindfolded in the school for hours. The order came to free them at four in the afternoon. So that was more than twelve hours. There were investigators from the security services there who interrogated them one by one.
Had there been a terrorist attack in the area?
No. We didn’t even find any weapons. The brigade commander claimed that the Shin Bet did find some intelligence, that there were a lot of guys there who throw stones.
2. Naval Blockade
Unit: Navy
Location: Gaza Strip
Year: 2008
It’s mostly punishment. I hate that: “They did this to us, so we’ll do that to them.” Do you know what a naval blockade means for the people in Gaza? There’s no food for a few days. For example, suppose there’s an attack in Netanya, so they impose a naval blockade for four days on the entire Strip. No seagoing vessel can leave. A Dabur patrol boat is stationed at the entrance to the port, if they try to go out, within seconds the soldiers shoot at the bow and even deploy attack helicopters to scare them. We did a lot of operations with attack helicopters — they don’t shoot much because they prefer to let us deal with that, but they’re there to scare people, they circle over their heads. All of a sudden there’s a Cobra right over your head, stirring up the wind and throwing everything around.
And how frequent were the blockades?
Very. It could be three times one month, and then three months of nothing. It depends.
The blockade goes on for a day, two days, three days, four, or more than that?
I can’t remember anything longer than four days. If it was longer than that, they’d die there, and I think the IDF knows that. Seventy percent of Gaza lives on fishing — they have no other choice. For them it means not eating. There are whole families who don’t eat for a few days because of the blockade. They eat bread and water.
3. Shoot to Kill
Unit: Engineering Corps
Location: Rafah
Year: 2006
During the operations in Gaza, anyone walking around in the street, you shoot at the torso. In one operation in the Philadelphi corridor, anyone walking around at night, you shoot at the torso.
How often were the operations?
Daily. In the Philadelphi corridor, every day.
When you’re searching for tunnels, how do people manage to get around — I mean, they live in the area.
It’s like this: You bring one force up to the third or fourth floor of a building. Another group does the search below. They know that while they’re doing the search there’ll be people trying to attack them. So they put the force up high, so they can shoot at anyone down in the street.
How much shooting was there?
Endless.
Say I’m there, I’m up on the third floor. I shoot at anyone I see?
Yes.
But it’s in Gaza, it’s a street, it’s the most crowded place in the world.
No, no, I’m talking about the Philadelphi corridor.
So that’s a rural area?
Not exactly, there’s a road, it’s like the suburbs, not the center. During operations in the other Gaza neighborhoods it’s the same thing. Shooting, during night operations — shooting.
It there any kind of announcement telling people to stay indoors?
No.
They actually shot people?
They shot anyone walking around in the street. It always ended with, “We killed six terrorists today.” Whoever you shot in the street is “a terrorist.”
That’s what they say at the briefings?
The goal is to kill terrorists.
What are the rules of engagement?
Whoever’s walking around at night, shoot to kill.
During the day, too?
They talked about that in the briefings: whoever’s walking around during the day, look for something suspicious. But something suspicious could be a cane.
4. Elimination Operation
Unit: Special Forces
Location: Gaza Strip
Year: 2000
There was a period at the beginning of the Intifada where they assassinated people using helicopter missiles.
This was at the beginning of the Second Intifada?
Yes. But it was a huge mess because there were mistakes and other people were killed, so they told us we were now going to be doing a ground elimination operation.
Is that the terminology they used? “Ground elimination operation”?
I don’t remember. But we knew it was going to be the first one of the Intifada. That was very important for the commanders and we started to train for it. The plan was to catch a terrorist on his way to Rafah, trap him in the middle of the road, and eliminate him.
Not to arrest him?
No, direct elimination. Targeted. But that operation was canceled, and then a few days later they told us that we’re going on an arrest operation. I remember the disappointment. We were going to arrest the guy instead of doing something groundbreaking, changing the terms. So the operation was planned…
Anyway, we’re waiting inside the APC [armored personnel carrier], there are Shin Bet agents with us, and we can hear the updates from intelligence. It was amazing, like, “He’s sitting in his house drinking coffee, he’s going downstairs, saying hi to the neighbor” — stuff like that. “He’s going back up, coming down again, saying this and that, opening the trunk now, picking up a friend” — really detailed stuff. He didn’t drive, someone else drove, and they told us his weapon was in the trunk. So we knew he didn’t have the weapon with him in the car, which would make the arrest easier. At least it relieved my stress, because I knew that if he ran to get the weapon, they’d shoot at him.
Where did the Shin Bet agent sit?
With me. In the APC. We were in contact with command and they told us he’d arrive in another five minutes, four minutes, one minute. And then there was a change in the orders, apparently from the brigade commander: elimination operation. A minute ahead of time. They hadn’t prepared us for that. A minute to go and it’s an elimination operation.
Why do you say “apparently from the brigade commander”?
I think it was the brigade commander. Looking back, the whole thing seems like a political ploy by the commander, trying to get bonus points for doing the first elimination operation, and the brigade commander trying, too. . . everyone wanted it, everyone was hot for it. The car arrives, and it’s not according to plan: their car stops here, and there’s another car in front of it, here. From what I remember, we had to shoot, he was three meters away. We had to shoot. After they stopped the cars, I fired through the scope and the gunfire made an insane amount of noise, just crazy. And then the car, the moment we started shooting, started speeding in this direction.
The car in front?
No, the terrorist’s car — apparently when they shot the driver his leg was stuck on the gas, and they started flying. The gunfire increased, and the commander next to me is yelling “Stop, stop, hold your fire,” but they don’t stop shooting. Our guys get out and start running, away from the jeep and the armored truck, shoot a few rounds, and then go back. Insane bullets flying around for a few minutes. “Stop, stop, hold your fire,” and then they stop. They fired dozens if not hundreds of bullets into the car in front.
Are you saying this because you checked afterward?
Because we carried out the bodies. There were three people in that car. Nothing happened to the person in the back. He got out, looked around like this, put his hands in the air. But the two bodies in the front were hacked to pieces…
Afterward, I counted how many bullets I had left — I’d shot ten bullets. The whole thing was terrifying — more and more and more noise. It all took about a second and a half. And then they took out the bodies, carried the bodies. We went to a debriefing. I’ll never forget when they brought the bodies out at the base. We were standing two meters away in a semicircle, the bodies were covered in flies, and we had the debriefing. It was, “Great job, a success. Someone shot the wrong car, and we’ll talk about the rest back on the base.” I was in total shock from all the bullets, from the crazy noise. We saw it on the video, it was all documented on video for the debriefing. I saw all the things that I told you, the people running, the minute of gunfire, I don’t know if it’s twenty seconds or a minute, but it was hundreds of bullets and it was clear that the people had been killed, but the gunfire went on and the soldiers were running from the armored truck. What I saw was a bunch of bloodthirsty guys firing an insane amount of bullets, and at the wrong car, too. The video was just awful, and then the unit commander got up. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot from him.
What do you mean?
That he’ll be a regional commanding officer or the chief of staff one day. He said, “The operation wasn’t carried out perfectly, but the mission was accomplished, and we got calls from the chief of staff, the defense minister, the prime minister” — everyone was happy, it’s good for the unit, and the operation was like, you know, just: “Great job.” The debriefing was just a cover-up.
Meaning?
Meaning no one stopped to say, “Three innocent people died.” Maybe with the driver there was no other way, but who were the others?
Who were they, in fact?
At that time I had a friend training with the Shin Bet, he told me about the jokes going around that the terrorist was a nobody. He’d probably taken part in some shooting and the other two had nothing to do with anything. What shocked me was that the day after the operation, the newspapers said that “a secret unit killed four terrorists,” and there was a whole story on each one, where he came from, who he’d been involved with, the operations he’d done. But I know that on the Shin Bet base they’re joking about how we killed a nobody and the other two weren’t even connected, and at the debriefing itself they didn’t even mention it.
Who did the debriefing?
The unit commander. The first thing I expected to hear was that something bad happened, that we did the operation to eliminate one person and ended up eliminating four. I expected that he’d say, “I want to know who shot at the first car. I want to know why A-B-C ran to join in the big bullet-fest.” But that didn’t happen, and I understood that they just didn’t care. These people do what they do. They don’t care.
Did the guys talk about it?
Yes. There were two I could talk to. One of them was really shocked but it didn’t stop him. It didn’t stop me, either. It was only after I came out of the army that I understood. No, even when I was in the army I understood that something really bad had happened. But the Shin Bet agents were as happy as kids at a summer camp.
What does that mean?
They were high-fiving and hugging. Really pleased with themselves. They didn’t join in the debriefing, it was of no interest to them. But what was the politics of the operation? How come my commanders, not one of them, admitted that the operation had failed? And failed so badly with the shooting all over the place that the guys sitting in the truck got hit with shrapnel from the bullets. It’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other.
5. Her limbs were smeared on the wall
Unit: Givati Brigade
Location: Gaza Strip
Year: 2008
One company told me they did an operation where a woman was blown up and smeared all over the wall. They kept knocking on her door and there was no answer, so they decided to open it with explosives. They placed them at the door and right at that moment the woman came to open it. Then her kids came down and saw her. I heard about it after the operation at dinner. Someone said it was funny that the kids saw their mother smeared on the wall and everyone cracked up. Another time I got screamed at by my platoon when I went to give the detainees some water from our field kit canteen. They said, “What, are you crazy?” I couldn’t see what their problem was, so they said, “Come on, germs.” In Nahal Oz, there was an incident with kids who’d been sent by their parents to try to get into Israel to find food, because their families were hungry. They were fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boys, I think. I remember one of them sitting blindfolded and then someone came and hit him, here.
On the legs.
And poured oil on him, the stuff we use to clean weapons.
6. We shot at fishermen
Unit: Navy
Location: Gaza Strip
Year: 2007
There’s an area bordering Gaza that’s under the navy’s control. Even after Israel disengaged from the Strip, nothing changed in the sea sector. I remember that near Area K, which divided Israel and Gaza, there were kids as young as four or six, who’d get up early in the morning to fish, in the areas that were off-limits. They’d go there because the other areas were crowded with fishermen. The kids always tried to cross, and every morning we’d shoot in their direction to scare them off. It got to the point of shooting at the kids’ feet where they were standing on the beach or at the ones on surfboards. We had Druze police officers on board who’d scream at them in Arabic. We’d see the poor kids crying.
What do you mean, “shoot in their direction”?
It starts with shooting in the air, then it shifts to shooting close by, and in extreme cases it becomes shooting toward their legs.
At what distance?
Five or six hundred meters, with a Rafael heavy machine gun, it’s all automatic.
Where do you aim?
It’s about perspective. On the screen, there’s a measure for height and a one for width, and you mark where you want the bullet to go with the cursor. It cancels out the effect of the waves and hits where it’s supposed to, it’s precise.
You aim a meter away from the surfboard?
More like five or six meters. I heard about cases where they actually hit the surfboards, but I didn’t see it. There were other things that bothered me, this thing with Palestinian fishing nets. The nets cost around four thousand shekels, which is like a million dollars for them. When they wouldn’t do what we said too many times, we’d sink their nets. They leave their nets in the water for something like six hours. The Dabur patrol boat comes along and cuts their nets.
Why?
As a punishment.
For what?
Because they didn’t do what we said. Let’s say a boat drifts over to an area that’s off-limits, so a Dabur comes, circles, shoots in the air, and goes back. Then an hour later, the boat comes back and so does the Dabur. The third time around, the Dabur starts shooting at the nets, at the boat, and then shoots to sink them.
Is the off-limits area close to Israel?
There’s one area close to Israel and another along the Israeli-Egyptian border… Israel’s sea border is twelve miles out, and Gaza’s is only three. They’ve only got those three miles, and that’s because of one reason, which is that Israel wants its gas, and there’s an offshore drilling rig something like three and a half miles out facing the Gaza Strip, which should be Palestinian, except that it’s ours… the Navy Special Forces unit provides security for the rig. A bird comes near the area, they shoot it. There’s an insane amount of security for that thing. One time there were Egyptian fishing nets over the three-mile limit, and we dealt with them. A total disaster.
Meaning?
They were in international waters, we don’t have jurisdiction there, but we’d shoot at them.
At Egyptian fishing nets?
Yes. Although we’re at peace with Egypt.
Oded Na’aman is co-editor of Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers’ Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000–2010 (Metropolitan Books, 2012). He is also a founder of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization dedicated to collecting the testimonies of Israel Defense Force soldiers, and a member of the Israeli Opposition Network. He served in the IDF as a first sergeant and crew commander in the artillery corps between 2000 and 2003 and is now working on his PhD in philosophy at Harvard University. The testimonies in this piece from Our Harsh Logic have been adapted and shortened.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse’s The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare.
Copyright 2012 Breaking the Silence
]]>The current Israeli onslaught against Gaza contains many echoes of the assault four years ago. In one regard, however, it is clear that Israel learned some lessons from its experience with “Operation Cast Lead” and is applying it to “Operation Pillar of Defense.” Those lessons are reflected in Israel’s use of [...]]]>
The current Israeli onslaught against Gaza contains many echoes of the assault four years ago. In one regard, however, it is clear that Israel learned some lessons from its experience with “Operation Cast Lead” and is applying it to “Operation Pillar of Defense.” Those lessons are reflected in Israel’s use of social media to spread its “hasbara” (Hebrew for propaganda).
The spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been tweeting for years a consistent stream of reports of thwarted terrorist attacks, pictures of sexualized female IDF soldiers, reports of the many tons of goods allowed into Gaza and almost daily reports of the million or more Israelis living under constant threat of Hamas rockets. Now, Facebook and the IDF blog have been shifted into overdrive, with some rather shocking new features.
There have been, for some time, various programs offering tourists to Israel the opportunity to play as an IDF soldier at various sites in the country. Now, there’s a new game to help urge people to promote IDF hasbara, IDF Ranks. The idea is that you go to various pages, you like them on Facebook or you tweet a page and you help the IDF get its message out. In essence, a virtual army of supporters on the internet.
Here’s how the game is described: “IDF Ranks is an interactive game, directly implemented into all of the IDF’s social platforms allowing YOU to be a virtual part of the IDF.” It’s participants are told that: “Your every action — commenting, liking, sharing and even just visiting — rewards your efforts, as well as helps spread the truth about the Israeli army all over the world.”
The light-hearted air emanating from the game stands in stark contrast to the news reports, even those from the IDF Spokesperson herself, about the fighting.
The IDF Twitter feed has been an opportunity for tough talk, such as this:
@IDFSpokesperson We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.
And it warns away journalists like this:
@IDFSpokesperson Warning to reporters in Gaza: Stay away from Hamas operatives & facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.
One might wonder how a reporter is supposed to report from Gaza if they don’t encounter any governmental officials or facilities.
The IDF blog has a “rocket counter” to enumerate the number of rockets launched at Israel and a graphic as to where they have hit. It also has a very telling page about how the IDF avoids harm to civilians.
What is revealing about this page is that it is an almost verbatim repetition of what Israel put out during Operation Cast Lead four years ago. Indeed, it generally references practices used in that attack, including dropping leaflets, pinpoint targeting, tapping rooftops (a low level bomb dropped on a roof that would cause minimal damage and warn those inside that a real bomb was coming), and automated phone calls. As anyone with knowledge of Gaza pointed out at the time, the densely populated Strip offered nowhere for civilians to run when attacks came. Israel is of course well aware of this, which indicates that most of these methods are meant to provide deniability more than protect civilians.
But the online blitz doesn’t stop with the IDF. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a large international organization with a $100 million budget, circulated the following picture on Facebook:
Caption: An Israeli soldier wearing tefillin, which are worn by religious Jews during morning prayers, while he holds his firearm and talks with his commander.
This picture is given the following description: “This awesome photo shows the true strength of the Israeli Army! This soldier’s right hand connects him to his commander, his left to his Creator. “For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.”
Might we stop to wonder how most westerners would react if this was an obviously devout Muslim holding a Koran and a rifle? And how chilling would those words feel to most Western Christians and Jews if it was describing a Muslim with a quote from the Koran, instead of an Orthodox Jew and a quote from the Torah?
All of this comes as a reaction to what Israel realizes was an absolute disaster for their standing in many US citizen and non-Israeli Jews’ eyes: Operation Cast Lead. Despite US scuttling, the Goldstone Report — commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council — severely criticized Israel (Hamas as well, though the wide disparity in the capacity to damage resulted in a spotlight on Israeli actions), and the massive devastation of the onslaught sat poorly with many.
This time around, Israeli leaders met with foreign officials beforehand and laid out plans for communicating their view. Thus far, as well, the devastation of Gaza, bad as it has been, has not yet approached the levels of Cast Lead, especially in terms of loss of life.
Yet media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a staunch right-wing supporter of extreme Israeli policies, lamented in a tweet (since deleted and retracted) “Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?” And the ever repugnant Alan Dershowitz, who will misrepresent the law as far as he can to defend any and all Israeli actions bemoans the “…media and international community’s failure to distinguish between the Israeli military and Hamas terrorists.”
As of now, it looks like Israel is reluctant to engage in a ground offensive this time around. The latest calculation by the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, confirms 41 civilian deaths out of 105 in Gaza at the time they issued their statement yesterday. That is a much lower total and a slightly better ratio than Cast Lead, where B’Tselem catalogued 1,390 dead in Gaza, of whom 759 were civilians. Perhaps this, as much as the greater attention to Israeli hasbara, can be attributed to the world watching these events in a way it could not before.
But it is hard to get past the gaming and the fiery rhetoric we see across social media supporting Israeli action today. It is further evidence, though, of Israel’s alienation from the liberal values that motivate much of the international community, as well as the international Jewish community. In the long term, that may help, despite the fact that political obfuscation and powerful lobbying continue to allow the bombing of a besieged population in Gaza.
]]>If current diplomacy fails, pent up rage on both sides, a cycle of tit-for tat-retaliation, Hamas’ hopes for greater Arab assistance, and a yearning to emerge from this latest round of heavy fighting on better footing than either side did from the last face-off in 2008-2009 could sustain Israeli-Hamas violence for quite a while. Without [...]]]>
If current diplomacy fails, pent up rage on both sides, a cycle of tit-for tat-retaliation, Hamas’ hopes for greater Arab assistance, and a yearning to emerge from this latest round of heavy fighting on better footing than either side did from the last face-off in 2008-2009 could sustain Israeli-Hamas violence for quite a while. Without a change for the better very soon, Israel almost certainly will initiate a ground assault into portions of Gaza in order to inflict damage severe enough to compel Hamas to accept a ceasefire.
Israel’s Operation Cast Lead during Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009 forced Hamas to stand down, greatly reducing Hamas’ rocket launches against Israel for the better part of 3 years after large portions of Gaza were severely damaged and 1,400 Palestinian were killed in the course of an extremely lopsided battering (13 Israelis were killed). Even in street fighting that so often favors the weaker side, many Hamas fighters seemed less than thoroughly braced for that sort of bruising conflict. This time, however, in addition to the use of longer range rockets, Hamas fighters reportedly have undergone better training for a face-off with Israeli ground forces in Gaza on their own turf. They also apparently have secured supplies of improved surface-to-air missiles for use against low-flying helicopters and aircraft as well as better anti-tank missiles. Also, Hamas’ hopes for more meaningful regional support have risen considerably, particularly with a new Muslim Brotherhood-led government in Egypt right next door.
As for the Israelis, the jarring arrival of Hamas rockets in the Tel Aviv area and just south of Jerusalem warn of burgeoning Hamas capabilities that make securing little more than another prolonged lull less appealing than it was back in 2009. The Israeli leadership hopes to force a more enduring ceasefire upon Hamas. This ambitious agenda might lead the Israelis to take an even harsher action than in the last round of fighting. In fact, Sunday’s wave of Hamas rocket attacks against Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Beersheba, and Ashkelon is just the sort of development that could drive the Netanyahu government to set in motion Israeli ground attacks.
Although Hamas believes its chances of receiving more robust outside Arab support have improved, the tactical balance of raw military power between Israel and Hamas once again most likely will dominate the bulk of this confrontation, as has been the case in the past. Despite its longer-range rockets and some improvements in the likely performance of its armed militants against Israeli ground forces, Israel’s military superiority across the board remains staggering.
Overhead Israeli drones pass real time intelligence to the Israeli military on Hamas activity and movements, and Israeli combat aircraft swoop down to pounce quickly using various types of bombs on most all launching areas of Hamas rockets. Meanwhile, Israeli heavy artillery and armored units have been massing to add far more firepower if needed against desired targets or to facilitate Israeli ground incursions. Moreover, the vast majority of Hamas’ crudely guided rockets do relatively little damage, while practically every Israeli bomb, artillery shell, or tank round inflicts heavy structural — and typically also human — losses on the densely populated Gaza Strip. Finally, Israel is completely free to resupply its forces in the south with more munitions, weaponry of all types, and fresh reinforcements of trained combat personnel. By contrast, Hamas can receive — at most — only relatively small dribs and drabs of military resupply since Gaza is surrounded on three sides by heavily reinforced Israel army and naval forces, and Hamas-controlled border crossings and tunnels along Gaza’s smaller Egyptian frontier will remain under intensified Israeli observation and aerial interdiction.
The Israeli leadership may delay ground incursions to allow last-minute diplomacy to play out before engaging in more costly military operations. This way, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would be better prepared once ground action is ordered. And although the IDF would take heavier losses than it is experiencing now by pushing into Gaza, the plight of Hamas fighters and civilians in the path of Israeli forces would be far worse. Fighting on one’s own ground provides some limited tactical advantage, but against such a skilled, far more heavily armed opponent with complete air supremacy, it also means the resultant property destruction and collateral casualties occur within your own community. During Operation Cast Lead almost four years ago, approximately 100 Palestinians died in Gaza for every Israeli struck down by Hamas. A similarly lopsided balance of casualties could occur once again.
All talk of “proportional response” regarding Israeli intentions aside, with the huge arsenal at Israel’s disposal and Gaza’s congestion, a vastly disproportionate casualty count favoring Israel is inevitable. And it remains very much in Israel’s unspoken interest to inflict disproportionate casualties for punitive purposes. In all past Israeli military endeavors meant to suppress rocket fire into Israel (whether from Gaza or Lebanon) severe casualties were inflicted on the perpetrators as well as nearby infrastructure and populations viewed as supporting those Israel sought to silence. And should an Israeli ground incursion commence, such casualties among Gazans would spike precipitously as intense firepower would be directed onto areas just ahead of advancing Israeli forces to suppress the ability of Hamas to do the same to advancing Israeli infantry and armored vehicles.
- Wayne White is a Scholar with Washington’s Middle East Institute. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst.
]]>Nir Hasson reporting for Haaretz:
Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip. This, according to Israeli [...]]]>
Nir Hasson reporting for Haaretz:
Hours before Hamas strongman Ahmed Jabari was assassinated, he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip. This, according to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate between Israel and Hamas in the deal to release Gilad Shalit and has since then maintained a relationship with Hamas leaders.
Baskin told Haaretz on Thursday that senior officials in Israel knew about his contacts with Hamas and Egyptian intelligence aimed at formulating the permanent truce, but nevertheless approved the assassination.
“I think that they have made a strategic mistake,” Baskin said, an error “which will cost the lives of quite a number of innocent people on both sides.”
Baskin accordingly offered a very grim picture of the near future for Gazans and Israelis in the Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” today:
I can only imagine that the assassination of Jaabari has bought us the entry card to Cast Lead II. This time, the experts say, “Let’s finish them off. Let’s do the job that we didn’t do last time. Let’s do a regime change.” Well, I ask: what then? Do we really want to reoccupy Gaza, because that will be the consequence of a regime change. I don’t believe that Netanyahu wants re-occupation. So if that is not what he wants, he must be aware that, on the morning after, we will still be living next to Gaza, which still be run by Hamas. They are not going away and the people of Gaza are not going away.
The assassination of Jaabari was a pre-emptive strike against the possibility of a long term ceasefire. Netanyahu has acted with extreme irresponsibility. He has endangered the people of Israel and struck a real blow against the few important more pragmatic elements within Hamas. He has given another victory to those who seek our destruction, rather than strengthen those who are seeking to find a possibility to live side-by-side, not in peace, but in quiet.
Writing in the Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” former Israeli intelligence operative and strategic expert Yossi Alpher offers his thoughts on Israel’s offensive against Hamas targets (an 11-month old is reportedly among the civilian causalities) in the Gaza Strip today:
So why am I worried? First and foremost, because our leadership still has [...]]]>
Writing in the Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” former Israeli intelligence operative and strategic expert Yossi Alpher offers his thoughts on Israel’s offensive against Hamas targets (an 11-month old is reportedly among the civilian causalities) in the Gaza Strip today:
So why am I worried? First and foremost, because our leadership still has no viable strategy for dealing with Hamas in Gaza. Even the objectives of this offensive as outlined by Defense Minister Barak Wednesday evening—strengthening deterrence, destroying rockets, hurting the terrorist organizations, defending the Israeli civilian rear—are tactical and temporary, not strategic. Having tried and failed to choke Hamas economically, having invaded the Strip four years ago at a heavy price in international condemnation without achieving more than a few months’ peace and quiet, and having undertaken, along with the Quartet, not to talk to Hamas (which in any case won’t talk to Israel), the Olmert and Netanyahu governments have for five years (since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza) sufficed with tactics, not strategy.
The most this operation can do is achieve a few more months of quiet that will get Netanyahu and Barak through the coming elections. By demonstrating that the PLO does not control Gaza, it might also slightly damage that organization’s credibility as it seeks U.N. recognition for a state that comprises Gaza. That’s the best case. It assumes that Hamas will not seriously escalate and cause heavy loss of life in Israel. It also assumes that an errant bomb won’t accidentally kill a bunch of kids in Khan Yunis or Rafah, thereby bringing down upon us the wrath of the world.
Israel tops the list of the world’s most militarised nations, according to the latest Global Militarisation Index released Tuesday by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC).
At number 34, Israel’s main regional rival, Iran, is far behind. Indeed, every other Near Eastern country, with the exceptions of Yemen (37) [...]]]>
Israel tops the list of the world’s most militarised nations, according to the latest Global Militarisation Index released Tuesday by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion (BICC).
At number 34, Israel’s main regional rival, Iran, is far behind. Indeed, every other Near Eastern country, with the exceptions of Yemen (37) and Qatar (43), is more heavily militarised than the Islamic Republic, according to the Index, whose research is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Singapore ranks second, followed by Syria, Russia, Jordan, and Cyprus, according to the Index, which is based on a number of weighted variables, such as the comparison of a country’s military budget with its gross domestic product (GDP), and the percentage of the GDP it spends on health care.
Six of the top 10 states, including Israel (1), Syria (4), Jordan (5), Kuwait (7), Bahrain (9), and Saudi Arabia (10) are located in the Middle East, while yet another of Iran’s neighbours, Azerbaijan, made its first entry into the militarised elite at number 8.
The former Soviet Caucasian state has used its vast oil wealth, which has placed it among the fastest growing economies in the world, to buy expensive weapons systems in recent years, apparently as leverage to press Armenia (23) into returning the disputed Nagorno-Kharabovsk enclave which Baku lost in a brief but bloody war after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Bahrain’s placement in the top 10 was also a first for the Sunni-dominated kingdom which has been backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in an increasingly violent effort to suppress demands by the Shi’ite majority for democratic reform.
While the Middle East is far more militarised than any other region – all of its countries rank within the top 40 – Southeast Asia, led by Singapore, appears ascendant, according to Jan Grebe, the Index’s head researcher who directs BICC’s work in the field of arms export control.
In addition to Singapore, China (82) and India (71) are increasing their defence budgets at a relatively rapid rate, while the recent flaring of territorial conflicts between Beijing and its neighbours across the South and East China Seas will likely amplify voices within those countries for defence build-ups.
“It remains to be seen how this development will affect the degree of militarisation of individual states and the entire region,” Grebe said.
In contrast, both sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America are relatively low on the Index, which covers statistics for 2011 and ranked 135 countries altogether.
At number 30, Angola was a notable African exception, while Chile (31), Ecuador (36), and Colombia (38) topped the Latin American list. By contrast, Brazil, which has by far the largest defence budget in the region, ranked 76.
Among those excluded from the Index was North Korea, whose defence budget has proved impervious to independent analysts and which is widely thought to be one of the world’s most militarised states, if not the most. Eritrea, another state that has made it into the top 10 in the past, also was not included this year.
Created in 1996, the GMI, which has been updated each year, tries to assess the balance between militarisation and human development, particularly related to health.
In addition to BICC’s own research, data published by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the Institute for Strategic Studies are used to compile the Index, whose rankings go back to 1990 at the end of the Cold War.
In addition to the comparison of military budgets, GDP, and health expenditures, the Index uses several other variables, including the total personnel in the paramilitary and military forces – albeit not the police – and total number of physicians vis-à-vis the overall population, and the ratio of the number of heavy weapons to the total population.
Each variable is given a certain score which is then “weighted” according to a set formula to determine a total quantitative score. The more militarised a country, the higher the score. South Korea which, for many years, ranked in the top 10, fell to 18 this year.
Eritrea, which fought a bitter war with Ethiopia and repeatedly cracked down hard against internal dissent, gained a “perfect” 1,000 score in 2004, the first of a three-year reign atop the list.
But Israel, which has carried out a 45-year occupation of Palestinian lands and Syrian territory, has topped the list for almost all of the last 20 years. On the latest Index, its score came to 877, 70 points ahead of Singapore, which has been number two for every year this century, except for the three in which Eritrea was number one.
Significantly, Greece ranked 14 on the list, the highest of any NATO country, far ahead of its regional rival, Turkey, which took the 24th slot, and Bulgaria (25).
The two countries with the world’s largest defence budgets, the United States and China, ranked 29 (591) and 82 (414), respectively.
In addition to the six Middle Eastern states in the top, Oman (11), the UAE (13), Lebanon (17), Iraq (26), and Egypt (28) were all found to be more militarised than Iran, which is currently subject to unprecedented economic sanctions imposed primarily by the West which accuses it of pursuing a nuclear programme that may have military applications.
The concentration of so many Middle Eastern states at the top underscores the degree to which the region has become a powder keg.
If the Middle East dominates the top ranks, sub-Saharan African states, with just a few exceptions, lie at the low end of scale. The region’s biggest economy, South Africa, ranks 98, while its most populous nation, Nigeria, stands at 117.
Too little militarisation carries its own risks, according to
Grebe, because states may not be able to guarantee order or even territorial integrity.
“This situation points to the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that some state security apparatuses are incapable of preventing violence and conflict simply because the country concerned shows a degree of militarisation which is too low,” he said.
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