Marsha Cohen, Lobe Log’s resident Israel-Iran relations expert, tells me that while the 11th Commander in Chief of the Israeli Air Force, Avihu Ben-Nun, is not an important figure in current Israeli foreign policy debates, his viewpoints are reflective of those held by influential people in Israel’s [...]]]>
Marsha Cohen, Lobe Log’s resident Israel-Iran relations expert, tells me that while the 11th Commander in Chief of the Israeli Air Force, Avihu Ben-Nun, is not an important figure in current Israeli foreign policy debates, his viewpoints are reflective of those held by influential people in Israel’s security establishment. That’s why I’m highlighting comments he made in the Israeli daily Maariv’s Friday “Sofshavua” magazine on June 22nd that have been translated by Orly Halpern for American’s for Peace Now’s (APN) indispensable ”News Nosh“.
In sum Ben-Nun argues that Iran will ultimately acquire a nuclear weapon with or without a military attack; an Israeli military attack on Iran will result in more harm to Israel’s interests than good; the Israelis should lobby the United States to “advance all possible sanctions and actions” against Iran; and that an Iranian nuclear bomb is threatening not because Iran would use it against Israel, but because it would give Iran’s leaders serious regional deterrence.
Ben-Nun served in the Israeli air force for 35 years, the last 5 of which as its Commander in Chief, and according to this business information site currently holds a number of advisory positions in Israel, including the Vice President of the Tel-Aviv and Central Chamber of Commerce.
On public discussions about an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities:
I am completely against discussing this subject in the media or in the Israeli public. What’s happening here is just scandalous. Every public discussion about the Iranian nuclear project just gives the Iranians more ideas and information and teaches them about the decision-making process. We didn’t do anything yet, and already they want the State Comptroller to investigate. It’s unbelievable…
On alleged Iranian aspirations for a nuclear weapon (emphasis mine):
I don’t think for a moment that the political echelons will finish the Iranian story face-to-face. The prime minister and defense minister travel to Washington to update and be updates over every bleep on the subject. And still I think that the Americans need to do the act, not us. And also, that if something is done, it will postpone the bomb, but it won’t cancel the threat. In the end, with an attack or without one, Iran will have the nuclear bomb. We need to live with it. Today, it seems like we can’t, and so we need to advance all possible sanctions and actions, but only by the Americans. We need to keep a low profile and to take into account that we have an enemy which is not a child and not sterile, that will take advantage of the fact that it has a bomb to achieve a concensus with all the Arab oil-producing states. And since it will have a bomb, the Arab states will have to line up with it and in the future prepare their own bomb. If the Iranians get the bomb, the first to be harmed will be the gulf countries, which will follow Iran. 40% of the world’s energy is in the oil fields in those places, so it’s not just our problem.
On why Israel should be concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb:
The Iranians wouldn’t dare send us a bomb because they know the response. The Iranian bomb was not meant for use, but to create the status of a country that has deterennce against its neighboring states. This status is no less dangerous than the use of a bomb, becuase it will make all the countries on Iran’s borders do as Iran demands of them. The opposition to the bomb is not becuase someone fears that they will drop it on us, but because of their ability to control with its help every possible area.
On what an Israeli attack will result in (emphasis mine):
An attack could cause a war of 10 years, like the one between Iran and Iraq. Israel cannot withstand continuous missiles, even conventional ones, for a long period. If a missile falls on Tel-Aviv every week, what would happen here without the nuclear bomb? We need deterrence, not attack. Much of the actions by the prime minister and defense minister and foreign minister is to make clear to all the countries that Iran is not only Israel’s problem, but of the whole West, which needs oil, and that if there will be an Iranian bomb, even if the Americans offer defense to the other Arab countries, it won’t help, because they will all break the sanctions.
On what the US should do to counter the threat it perceives from Iran (I write “the US” instead of Israel because Ben-Nun says above that Israel should get the US “to act”:
]]>Make them hurt badly with regular weapons. Attack all their targets, they have at least 10 targets that could significantly slow down the enrichment of uranium. More economic and commercial sanctions. Iran has very high unemployment and an intelligent public. I became aware of this when I was the head of the organization for Ron Arad (the missing helicopter navigator), ‘Born to be free.’ We operated advanced internet systems in the whole Arab world so that whoever has information can pass it to us in exchange for a prize of $10 million. That’s how we became aware also of the Iranians. People there sit on the internet and information sources very intensively. They know how to crash social network systems and advanced computers because the regime harms their rights. One needs to know how to move them to make a new revolution.
Interviewer: They tried and failed.
So what? They should try again.
Ori Nir, at Americans for Peace Now, has a good analysis of Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, who is apparently Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s new national security adviser. Replacing another ultra-hawk, Uzi Arad, Amidror seems to be a big-time hawk on [...]]]>
Ori Nir, at Americans for Peace Now, has a good analysis of Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror, who is apparently Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s new national security adviser. Replacing another ultra-hawk, Uzi Arad, Amidror seems to be a big-time hawk on Palestinian issues. But what about Iran?
In Israel, Noam Sheizaf has been addressing this question with a deft touch — there is a split right now in the Israeli security establishment. Sheizaf long ago exploded Jeffrey Goldberg‘s notion of a “consensus,” but the combination of upheaval both in the region and in Bibi’s cabinet are forcing constant re-evaluation.
I saw Amidror speak in December at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ conference on Iran. The hard-line neocon think tank put the aged and bearded reservist general on its ‘bomb Iran’ panel, moderated by FDD honcho Cliff May. The panel featured Goldberg, the disingenuous Reuel Marc Gerecht, and Ken Pollack, the lone dissenter from the notion that a military strike in Iran could achieve any of its ostensible aims. As you can imagine, the panel was a lot of laughs (literally: the transcript lists 28 breaks for “LAUGHTER”).
At the FDD conference, Amidror’s stance on Iran basically boiled down to this: ‘Attacking Iran is a last resort that we will almost definitely have to use, so we are getting ready.’ Here’s his key comments, with my emphasis:
I believe that attacking Iran is a very bad situation, but there is something worse, that Iran will have a nuclear capability.
But we are not running to attack Iran. We want to postpone it as much as possible because we want to give the world, the Americans, everyone who is ready to help, to stop Iran without using military forces.
So it – it is not just an option. We prepare all of this very thoroughly, investing a lot of it, but we are not running to use it and we hope that someone will find another solution.
If you ask me as an expert for assessment that what I did 25 years, what is my assessment, my assessment is it is almost impossible to stop Iran without military force, but we should not run to use it before we be sure 100 percent and more that there is no other alternative.
It seems that, while Amidror pays lip service to the “last resort” of an attack, he is already gearing up to do it.
Amidror seems to have a ridiculously flawed understanding of the concept of “deterrence.” He thinks the Lebanon War in 2006 was a good example of Israel establishing such a deterrence. But, you know, that’s kind of funny, because deterrence is only a useful concept until force is unleashed — Damocles kept his head, after all. Nonetheless, here’s Amidror:
Deterrence includes two elements: the first is the determination to use your capability and the second is to have this capability. I think it was very important that Israel made the decision to go to war and sustained the war for more than a month, despite extensive Hizballah rocket attacks across northern Israel.
The determination of Israel’s government to respond and to retaliate is a very important factor in restoring deterrence. …As a small country, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of reacting proportionally. Israel’s military action sent a very important message to the people around us.
I wonder what the Israeli hawks and neocon allies would say if you asked them today: “Why are you so worried about the Muslim Brotherhood?” Don’t they remember Lebanon 2006? (I’m sure that they would answer with something akin to the five-year-version of the Ledeen Doctrine.)
Nir has a primer on Amidror’s politics:
Amidror is associated with the ultra-right national-religions party “The Jewish Home.” In 2008, he headed a commission tasked with composing the party’s list for the general elections. The party, which is dominated by former National Religious Party (NRP) politicians, supports a “greater Israel” ideology and is considered the most authentic political representative of the ideological messianic settlers in the West Bank.
He adds that Amidror’s most recent opinion article is headlined: “Security is Preferable to Peace,” as if one has nothing to do with the other.
All of this is no surprise: Amidror is a such a close ally of the religious settler movement that he spoke at a 2006 event supporting one such settlement, Beit El, and its chief accomplishment: the Arutz Sheva conspiracy website. Also speaking at the event was then-Arutz Sheva personality Alex Traiman, a Beit El resident. Traiman wrote and directed Clarion Fund‘s latest propaganda film, “Iranium,” which aims to raise public support for attacking Iran.
So let’s see: Yaakov Amidror is in bed with the uber-hawks at FDD and with the religious settlers at Clarion who are all pushing hard (in concert) for an attack on Iran, and he thinks that a good deterrence policy is to attack. This does not bode well. I’ll toss this to Sheizaf for his informed thoughts…
]]>Friedman takes on Harris’s attempt to debunk ‘linkage,’ the concept that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a burden on U.S. policy-making in the Middle East. [...]]]>
Friedman takes on Harris’s attempt to debunk ‘linkage,’ the concept that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a burden on U.S. policy-making in the Middle East. This has been a neoconservative effort of late, which has been mostly absurd, and sometimes from Israel itself, on the dime of a pretty far right-wing Israel lobby group.
Harris takes this tack, too. And Friedman takes him apart:
]]>Harris argues that some people have said that “without progress on the Palestinian front, it would be impossible to mobilize Arab countries to face the Iranian nuclear threat,” but that the cables released by WikiLeaks, which reveal great concern among many Arab governments regarding Iran, have “blown [this argument] out of the water.”
What Harris is implying, more broadly, is that there is no linkage between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the ability of the U.S. to mobilize support for its policies in the Middle East and beyond — an argument that simply does not stand up to logic or facts.
Like this fact: a full (rather than selective) reading of the WikiLeaks cables shows that Arab leaders are deeply concerned both about Iran and about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — something Middle East experts have long argued to be the case. And the reality is that while the U.S., Israel and many Arab countries share concerns about Iran, it is undeniable that the failure of the U.S. to put forth a successful policy on the Israeli-Palestinian track, and the absence of progress toward peace (and continued provocative Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem), complicate virtually every aspect of U.S. relations with these same Arab countries, including mobilizing support for America’s Iran policy.
The drama never stops unfolding around the Clarion Fund, the operation behind a string of movies dubbed “anti-Muslim” by critics.
The group’s latest salvo is an hour-long documentary called “Iranium”, which more or less gives airtime to a gaggle of neoconservatives and their [...]]]>
The drama never stops unfolding around the Clarion Fund, the operation behind a string of movies dubbed “anti-Muslim” by critics.
The group’s latest salvo is an hour-long documentary called “Iranium”, which more or less gives airtime to a gaggle of neoconservatives and their allies on the Israeli right to advocate for a hawkish posture against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
While warning of an ideologically-driven, religiously-inspired Iran, however, the filmmaker behind the movie himself comes from among the religious extremes of another Middle Eastern state.
The writer and director of “Iranium”, Alex Traiman, hails from the Israeli West Bank settlement of Beit El, one of the ideological religious Jewish outposts in occupied Palestinian territory bedeviling U.S.-Israel relations.
I spoke to Traiman, who sported a black kippah and a bright red tie, after a screening of “Iranium” at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, where neoconservative don Richard Perle introduced the film.
“That’s where I live,” Traiman told me, after a deep breath, when I asked him if he lived in Beit El. “I just live there.”
Traiman worked for four years for the Beit El-based Arutz Sheva, or Channel Seven, also known as Israel National News, a former pirate radio station aligned with Israel’s religious settlers. He has in the past referred to Beit El as “a Jewish settlement… located in the Biblical province of Samaria, commonly referred to today as the West Bank.” Settlers refer to the West Bank by the Biblical “Judea and Samaria.”
On Tuesday at Heritage, Traiman, who has also written for a U.S.-based conspiracy website, called the World Net Daily, and presumably other occupied Palestinian territories, as “disputed territories in Israel.”
Beit El is a religious nationalist settlement near Ramallah in the West Bank, where some 5,500 settlers live, Founded in 1977, the settlement is built in land seized in 1970 by the military on what Israeli courts, according to Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, later deemed to be bogus security justifications.
Unlike their secular counterparts, who usually move into settlements to take advantage of government housing subsidies, the enclave of Beit El is a religious-nationalist settlement where residents think that God gave them the land that Palestinians lived on.
Palestinians view settlements as gobbling up land on which they hope to eventually build their state. In a peace deal, the border between Israel and Palestine would likely be doctored to include large settlement blocks in Israel.
But at a recent Washington Institute forum on potential maps for a peace deal, Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl, a Middle East hawk, said Israeli annexation of Beit El is not realistic in a final peace deal: “Beit El dominates the road between the two major Palestinian towns of Ramallah and Nablus… This type of scenario is unacceptable to Palestinians.”
Last fall, a diplomatic row erupted when Israel refused a U.S. request for a three-month extension of a settlement construction freeze. The freeze extension was aimed at rescuing peace talks, and when Israel refused, with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu in the thrall of his pro-settler coalition members, the U.S.-sponsored talks collapsed.
The crumbling of the settlement freeze was celebrated in Israel’s settlements, whese construction boomed.
Other characters in and around “Iranium” come from the hardest of the hard-line ‘pro-Israel’ camp and the Israeli right, those who have long opposed Israel relinquishing control of the West Bank in any peace deal.
Not surprisingly, the Capitol Hill premiere in February is being hosted by a group, EMET, whose president and advisors worked together in the 1990s, behind the backs of Israeli and American leadership, to spike the Oslo process. Indeed, EMET’s Hill activism for a Greater Israel seems to be matched only by the efforts of key people from the Clarion Fund.
Ties between Clarion and Aish Hatorah, an evangelist Israeli ultra-orthodox group, are well know and long-established through Clarion’s founder and executive producer of its movies, Canadian-Israeli Raphael Shore, not to mention a host of registration and tax documents that make Clarion appear to be little more than an Aish off-shoot.
But Traiman, a former radio host and PR flak brought on board by Clarion to write and direct “Iranium,” appears is literally on the frontiers of the Israeli right.
According to social networking websites, Traiman worked at Arutz Sheva for four years, editing, writing, hosting a show, and acting as marketing director. In 2006, Traiman did a fundraising junket for the channel that brought him to New York and New Jersey, where he went to high school. (Arutz Sheva also raises money from U.S. Christian Zionists.)
Just two months before that trip, Traiman wrote an article for the U.S.-based conspiracy website World Net Daily (WND), where he gave space and sympathetic coverage to several Rabbis who theorized that the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war — then still raging — was caused by a gay pride parade in Jerusalem. At the end of the article, Traiman was listed as a writer for the Jerusalem bureau of WND, which has published articles about how Al Qaeda has 40 nukes (some already in the U.S.) and how “soy is making kids ‘gay’.”
The current chief WND‘s Jerusalem bureau is Aaron Klein, a birther and the New York Times best-selling author of “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists”. (Klein also conducted the interview where Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf refused to condemn Hamas.)
Klein and Traiman co-edited their college paper when they were both at New York City’s Yeshiva University. “Following his completely secular education, Traiman decided to pursue a Jewish education at the only first tier university that could provide one,” says an article from the paper of the modern-orthodox Jewish university. If and how long Klein and Traiman worked together at WND is not clear.
Leaving WND aside, Arutz Sheva, where Traiman hosted a show, wrote and edited, and directed marketing efforts, has some conspiracy theory issues of its own. Last year, to celebrate the anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the “settler news organization,” as the New York Times labeled it, held a contest to find the best conspiracy theory providing a version of events different from the accepted history.
The accepted history, of course, is that religious Zionist Yigal Amir killed Rabin at a peace rally in 1995. In their 2009 book, “Jewish Terrorism in Israel”, Professors Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger wrote that Amir would have been inspired by the religious edicts from rabbis in West Bank settlements declaring Rabin din rodef, or a Jew who was willing to harm other Jews, a judgement punishable by death according to Jewish law. The professors also drop this nugget while recalling Amir’s machinations: “Only a fellow law school student, Margalit Har-Shefi—resident of one of the most prestige settlements, Beit El, and daughter of settler nobility—was let in on the finer details of the plan.” Har-Shefi even tried to break into the Beit El armory to get a weapon for the plot.
Arutz Sheva was founded by, according to various sources, either Beit El-based extremist Rabbi Zalman Melmand or Yaakov Katz, a politician from Israel’s National Union party, which has been accused of having ties to Israel’s banned extremist Kahanist political faction. Rabbi Meir Kahane was thought to be the “spiritual guide of those who allegedly conspired to kill Rabin.”
“There is a clear irony in having Israeli settler religious extremists urging the U.S. to bomb religious extremists in Iran,” said Lara Friedman, an expert on settlements and U.S. policy in the Middle East with American’s for Peace Now, in an interview.
Ali Gharib is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, NY. He’s a regular contributor to the LobeLog.
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