The Coming Arab-Israeli War | Spero News.

(The best analysis I’ve found. – JW)

By George Friedman

In September, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on whether to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state with full rights in the United Nations. In many ways, this would appear to be a reasonable and logical step. Whatever the Palestinians once were, they are clearly a nation in the simplest and most important sense — namely, they think of themselves as a nation. Nations are created by historical circumstances, and those circumstances have given rise to a Palestinian nation. Under the principle of the United Nations and the theory of the right to national self-determination, which is the moral foundation of the modern theory of nationalism, a nation has a right to a state, and that state has a place in the family of nations. In this sense, the U.N. vote will be unexceptional.

However, when the United Nations votes on Palestinian statehood, it will intersect with other realities and other historical processes. First, it is one thing to declare a Palestinian state; it is quite another thing to create one. The Palestinians are deeply divided between two views of what the Palestinian nation ought to be, a division not easily overcome. Second, this vote will come at a time when two of Israel’s neighbors are coping with their own internal issues. Syria is in chaos, with an extended and significant resistance against the regime having emerged. Meanwhile, Egypt is struggling with internal tension over the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the future of the military junta that replaced him. Add to this the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the potential rise of Iranian power, and the potential recognition of a Palestinian state — while perfectly logical in an abstract sense — becomes an event that can force a regional crisis in the midst of ongoing regional crises. It thus is a vote that could have significant consequences.

The Palestinian Divide
Let’s begin with the issue not of the right of a nation to have a state but of the nature of a Palestinian state under current circumstances. The Palestinians are split into two major factions. The first, Fatah, dominates the West Bank. Fatah derives its ideology from the older, secular Pan-Arab movement. Historically, Fatah saw the Palestinians as a state within the Arab nation. The second, Hamas, dominates Gaza. Unlike Fatah, it sees the Palestinians as forming part of a broader Islamist uprising, one in which Hamas is the dominant Islamist force of the Palestinian people.

The Pan-Arab rising is moribund. Where it once threatened the existence of Muslim states, like the Arab monarchies, it is now itself threatened. Mubarak, Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi all represented the old Pan-Arab vision. A much better way to understand the “Arab Spring” is that it represented the decay of such regimes that were vibrant when they came to power in the late 1960s and early 1970s but have fallen into ideological meaninglessness.

Fatah is part of this grouping, and while it still speaks for Palestinian nationalism as a secular movement, beyond that it is isolated from broader trends in the region. It is both at odds with rising religiosity and simultaneously mistrusted by the monarchies it tried to overthrow. Yet it controls the Palestinian proto-state, the Palestinian National Authority, and thus will be claiming a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood. Hamas, on the other hand, is very much representative of current trends in the Islamic world and holds significant popular support, yet it is not clear that it holds a majority position in the Palestinian nation.

All nations have ideological divisions, but the Palestinians are divided over the fundamental question of the Palestinian nation’s identity. Fatah sees itself as part of a secular Arab world that is on the defensive. Hamas envisions the Palestinian nation as an Islamic state forming in the context of a region-wide Islamist rising. Neither is in a position to speak authoritatively for the Palestinian people, and the things that divide them cut to the heart of the nation. As important, each has a different view of its future relations with Israel. Fatah has accepted, in practice, the idea of Israel’s permanence as a state and the need of the Palestinians to accommodate themselves to the reality. Hamas has rejected it.

The U.N. decision raises the stakes in this debate within the Palestinian nation that could lead to intense conflict. As vicious as the battle between Hamas and Fatah has been, an uneasy truce has existed over recent years. Now, there could emerge an internationally legitimized state, and control of that state will matter more than ever before. Whoever controls the state defines what the Palestinians are, and it becomes increasingly difficult to suspend the argument for a temporary truce. Rather than settling anything, or putting Israel on the defensive, the vote will compel a Palestinian crisis.
Fatah has an advantage in any vote on Palestinian statehood: It enjoys far more international support than Hamas does. Europeans and Americans see it as friendly to their interests and less hostile to Israel. The Saudis and others may distrust Fatah from past conflicts, but in the end they fear radical Islamists and Iran and so require American support at a time when the Americans have tired of playing in what some Americans call the “sandbox.” However reluctantly, while aiding Hamas, the Saudis are more comfortable with Fatah. And of course, the embattled Arabist regimes, whatever tactical shifts there may have been, spring from the same soil as Fatah. While Fatah is the preferred Palestinian partner for many, Hamas can also use that reality to portray Fatah as colluding with Israel against the Palestinian people during a confrontation.

For its part, Hamas has the support of Islamists in the region, including Shiite Iranians, but that is an explosive mix to base a strategy on. Hamas must break its isolation if it is to counter the tired but real power of Fatah. Symbolic flotillas from Turkey are comforting, but Hamas needs an end to Egyptian hostility to Hamas more than anything.

Egypt’s Role and Fatah on the Defensive
Egypt is the power that geographically isolates Hamas through its treaty with Israel and with its still-functional blockade on Gaza. More than anyone, Hamas needs genuine regime change in Egypt. The new regime it needs is not a liberal democracy but one in which Islamist forces supportive of Hamas, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, come to power.

At the moment, that is not likely. Egypt’s military has retained a remarkable degree of control, its opposition groups are divided between secular and religious elements, and the religious elements are further divided among themselves — as well as penetrated by an Egyptian security apparatus that has made war on them for years. As it stands, Egypt is not likely to evolve in a direction favorable to Hamas. Therefore, Hamas needs to redefine the political situation in Egypt to convert a powerful enemy into a powerful friend.

Though it is not easy for a small movement to redefine a large nation, in this case, it could perhaps happen. There is a broad sense of unhappiness in Egypt over Egypt’s treaty with Israel, an issue that comes to the fore when Israel and the Palestinians are fighting. As in other Arab countries, passions surge in Egypt when the Palestinians are fighting the Israelis.

Under Mubarak, these passions were readily contained in Egypt. Now the Egyptian regime unquestionably is vulnerable, and pro-Palestinian feelings cut across most, if not all, opposition groups. It is a singular, unifying force that might suffice to break the military’s power, or at least to force the military to shift its Israeli policy.

Hamas in conflict with Israel as the United Nations votes for a Palestinian state also places Fatah on the political defensive among the Palestinians. Fatah cooperation with Israel while Gaza is at war would undermine Fatah, possibly pushing Fatah to align with Hamas. Having the U.N. vote take place while Gaza is at war, a vote possibly accompanied by General Assembly condemnation of Israel, could redefine the region.

Last week’s attack on the Eilat road should be understood in this context. Some are hypothesizing that new Islamist groups forming in the Sinai or Palestinian groups in Gaza operating outside Hamas’ control carried out the attack. But while such organizations might formally be separate from Hamas, I find it difficult to believe that Hamas, with an excellent intelligence service inside Gaza and among the Islamist groups in the Sinai, would not at least have known these groups’ broad intentions and would not have been in a position to stop them. Just as Fatah created Black September in the 1970s, a group that appeared separate from Fatah but was in fact covertly part of it, the strategy of creating new organizations to take the blame for conflicts is an old tactic both for the Palestinians and throughout the world.

Hamas’ ideal attack would offer it plausible deniability — allowing it to argue it did not even know an attack was imminent, much less carry it out — and trigger an Israeli attack on Gaza. Such a scenario casts Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victim, permitting Hamas to frame the war to maximum effect in Egypt and among the Palestinians, as well as in the wider Islamic world and in Europe.

Regional Implications and Israel’s Dilemma
The matter goes beyond Hamas. The Syrian regime is currently fighting for its life against its majority Sunni population. It has survived thus far, but it needs to redefine the conflict. The Iranians and Hezbollah are among those most concerned with the fall of the Syrian regime. Syria has been Iran’s one significant ally, one strategically positioned to enhance Iranian influence in the Levant. Its fall would be a strategic setback for Iran at a time when Tehran is looking to enhance its position with the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Iran, which sees the uprising as engineered by its enemies — the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — understandably wants al Assad to survive.

Meanwhile, the fall of Syria would leave Hezbollah — which is highly dependent on the current Syrian regime and is in large part an extension of Syrian policy in Lebanon — wholly dependent on Iran. And Iran without its Syrian ally is very far away from Hezbollah. Like Tehran, Hezbollah thus also wants al Assad to survive. Hezbollah joining Hamas in a confrontation with Israel would take the focus off the al Assad regime and portray his opponents as undermining resistance to Israel. Joining a war with Israel also would make it easier for Hezbollah to weather the fall of al Assad should his opponents prevail. It would help Hezbollah create a moral foundation for itself independent of Syria. Hezbollah’s ability to force a draw with Israel in 2006 constituted a victory for the radical Islamist group that increased its credibility dramatically.

The 2006 military confrontation was also a victory for Damascus, as it showed the Islamic world that Syria was the only nation-state supporting effective resistance to Israel. It also showed Israel and the United States that Syria alone could control Hezbollah and that forcing Syria out of Lebanon was a strategic error on the part of Israel and the United States.

Faced with this dynamic, it will be difficult for Fatah to maintain its relationship with Israel. Indeed, Fatah could be forced to initiate an intifada, something it would greatly prefer to avoid, as this would undermine what economic development the West Bank has experienced.

Israel therefore conceivably could face conflict in Gaza, a conflict along the Lebanese border and a rising in the West Bank, something it clearly knows. In a rare move, Israel announced plans to call up reserves in September. Though preannouncements of such things are not common, Israel wants to signal resolution.

Israel has two strategies in the face of the potential storm. One is a devastating attack on Gaza followed by rotating forces to the north to deal with Hezbollah and intense suppression of an intifada. Dealing with Gaza fast and hard is the key if the intention is to abort the evolution I laid out. But the problem here is that the three-front scenario I laid out is simply a possibility; there is no certainty here. If Israel initiates conflict in Gaza and fails, it risks making a possibility into a certainty — and Israel has not had many stunning victories for several decades. It could also create a crisis for Egypt’s military rulers, not something the Israelis want.

Israel also simply could absorb the attacks from Hamas to make Israel appear the victim. But seeking sympathy is not likely to work given how Palestinians have managed to shape global opinion. Moreover, we would expect Hamas to repeat its attacks to the point that Israel no longer could decline combat.

War thus benefits Hamas (even if Hamas maintains plausible deniability by having others commit the attacks), a war Hezbollah has good reason to enter at such a stage and that Fatah does not want but could be forced into. Such a war could shift the Egyptian dynamic significantly to Hamas’ advantage, while Iran would certainly want al-Assad to be able to say to Syrians that a war with Israel is no time for a civil war in Syria. Israel would thus find itself fighting three battles simultaneously. The only way to do that is to be intensely aggressive, making moderation strategically difficult.

Israel responded modestly compared to the past after the Eilat incident, mounting only limited attacks on Gaza against mostly members of the Palestinian Resistance Committees, an umbrella group known to have links with Hamas. Nevertheless, Hamas has made clear that its de facto truce with Israel was no longer assured. The issue now is what Hamas is prepared to do and whether Hamas supporters, Saudi Arabia in particular, can force them to control anti-Israeli activities in the region. The Saudis want al Assad to fall, and they do not want a radical regime in Egypt. Above all, they do not want Iran’s hand strengthened. But it is never clear how much influence the Saudis or Egyptians have over Hamas. For Hamas, this is emerging as the perfect moment, and it is hard to believe that even the Saudis can restrain them. As for the Israelis, what will happen depends on what others decide — which is the fundamental strategic problem that Israel has.

George Friedman is the founder and editor of STRATFOR .

Al Qaeda linked to Israeli bus ambush – Washington Times.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Gunmen ambushed a civilian Israeli bus near the resort town of Eilat last week. U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating reports that al Qaeda-aligned groups played a key role in the attack that emanated from the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

By Eli Lake

–

The Washington Times

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating reports that al Qaeda-aligned groups played a key role in the deadly commando-style attack near the Israeli resort town of Eilat last week.

A U.S. government assessment of the incident Thursday concludes that either the Palestinian group Popular Resistance Committees or the Gaza-based Army of Islam (or Jaish al Islam), a Palestinian group sympathetic to al Qaeda, carried out the commando assault and bombing raid that emanated from the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

One intelligence official who focuses on al Qaeda said an initial assessment identified a new group, al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, as a key perpetrator of the attack.

“There has been a history of close operational coordination between Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and Jaish al Islam, which is the most important of the al Qaeda affiliates in the Gaza Strip,” said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who now is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

“There have been al Qaeda affiliates that have gotten into an exchange of fire with Hamas that were not Jaish al Islam, though.”

Mr. Gold added, “These organizations all work together, and Sinai is a place where they all meet.”

U.S. officials told The Washington Times there is no confirmation identifying the attacker conclusively.

One intelligence official who focuses on al Qaeda said the majority of all source intelligence points to al Qaeda.

The Popular Resistance Committees group, formed in 2000 and operated out of Gaza, has at times aligned with Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that is the sovereign of Gaza.

Over the weekend, however, as more information was gathered about the attack near Eilat, some Israeli official sources also began to acknowledge that a group known as Jaish al Islam, an extremist Muslim organization, also played a role in the attack.

If confirmed, the involvement of a new Sinai-based al Qaeda group would be yet another extremist group aligned with the goals of the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that spawned more formal affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and North Africa.

One of the intelligence officials said the recent attack also highlighted how Egypt’s military government is losing control of the Sinai Peninsula, the strategically important territory that Israel captured from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War and then returned to Egyptian control after the two states signed the Camp David Accords in 1979.

Gunmen launched the midday raid after moving in from the Sinai near Eilat and ambushed a civilian Israeli bus. The attackers also detonated a roadside bomb that blew up military vehicles responding to the carnage.

In all, eight civilians were killed by up to 24 attackers armed with automatic weapons, suicide bomb belts and grenades. Five of the attackers were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers.

The method used in an assault-style raid evoked al Qaeda-backed attack on Mumbai in November 2008 that killed 168 people. It also set off a new round of fighting between Israel and Palestinians over the weekend.

On Friday, Hamas announced that it would break its cease-fire with Israel, but Palestinian sources said Monday evening the cease-fire was back in effect.

The intelligence official who said there are signs of a new Sinai-based group said initial assessments indicated the Popular Resistance Committees‘ role was limited to providing advance scouting of locations for the attack.

“PRC was clearly involved, [but] they were not the brains or the brawn of the operation. They were the scouts,” the official said. “Because the PRC squawked after the operation, they became an immediate target. It is not an unjustifiable reaction.”

A U.S. counterterrorism official said initial U.S. reports on the attack also blamed al Qaeda in the Sinai. This official also said the U.S. government had no information to suggest al Qaeda’s core leadership – thought to be based in Pakistan – ordered or supported the attack.

“This is an example of Salafi extremists who tried to link themselves to al Qaeda and use that brand name,” the counterterrorism official said, adding that it would be premature to say al Qaeda in the Sinai is an al Qaeda affiliate the way others, like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or al-Shabab in Somalia, are direct affiliates of al Qaeda.

U.S. intelligence reports have said the Sinai terrorist group has a few rudimentary training facilities in the region, as well as strategic control of some towns. The group also is suspected of conducting other recent attacks on a natural gas pipeline in Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The Sinai al Qaeda group is thought to have been bolstered by the release this year of between 200 and 300 prisoners freed in Egypt.

While Israel has said al Qaeda-linked groups maintain a small presence in the Sinai since 2005 and 2006, the capability of such groups has increased in recent months.

In late July, commandos stormed the police station at the northernSinai regional capital of al-Arish. The attackers then produced a manifesto announcing an Islamic emirate in Sinai, calling themselves al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula.

“After the attack on al-Arish, there was no longer any doubt that al Qaeda had some kind of potent presence in the peninsula,” another U.S. official told The Washington Times.

The success of the new group prompted Egypt’s military this month to launch what it called Operation Eagle, a deployment of up to 2,500 troops and 250 military vehicles, according to news reports from the region.

Israel has coordinated the movement of Egyptian troops in the peninsula with the ruling military junta in Cairo since February, allowing up to five battalions in the peninsula. The terms of Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt prohibit Egyptian troops in the Sinai unless Israel gives its approval.

    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with 25 Republican members of the US House of Representatives on Monday, and thanked them for their support of Israel.

“Those who fire missiles at Israel are supported by Iran with weapons, money and training. They constitute a forward Iranian post on our borders,” Netanyahu told them. “Just as Iran threatens us, so too it threatens the US.”

The prime minister also spoke about the Iron Dome’s effectiveness in intercepting missiles and his intention to station additional batteries.

The delegation was led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Policy Committee Chairman Tom Price.

Prior to a meeting with President Shimon Peres Cantor told journalists that the three congressional delegations totaling 81 people that came to Israel this month collectively represent the largest ever congressional delegation to visit this country.

The members of the delegation are interested in the promotion of peace progress and freedom which is what Israel stands for, said Cantor.

Cantor voiced the most strenuous objections to the recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a state at the United Nations. He also warned that if the Palestinians realized their objective, their funding will be in jeopardy. “It essentially obviates all agreements of the past” said Cantor who also expressed his serious objection to the Palestinian Authority alliance with Hamas.

Asked how America would react to a barrage of rockets such as the onslaught against Israel, Cantor replied “America would not tolerate rockets being launched against our citizens.”

Cantor said he was totally in favor of the action taken by the IDF to thwart attacks against Israel and was also very impressed with the efficiency of the Iron Dome program.

At the meeting with the delegation, Peres also mentioned the Iron Dome and said that Israel would not have been able to acquire it without America’s assistance. Peres estimated that in recent days the Iron Dome program had helped saved more than one million lives, including those of women and children.

‘Just as Iran threatens us, so to… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Iran starts moving uranium centr… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – Iran has started moving the machines that enrich uranium for nuclear fuel from its main atomic complex in the central city of Natanz to an underground bunker near the holy city of Qom, its top nuclear official was quoted as saying on Monday.

“Transferring Natanz centrifuges to Fordow (near Qom) is under way with full observance of standards,” Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani told state broadcaster IRIB. “Fordow’s facilities are being prepared and some centrifuges have been transferred.”
Iran announced in June that it would shift its production of higher-grade uranium to the underground site at Fordow, in defiance of international calls on Tehran to halt uranium enrichment which some countries say is aimed at developing nuclear bombs, a charge Iran denies.

Iran only disclosed the existence of Fordow to the UN nuclear watchdog in September 2009 after learning that Western intelligence agencies had detected the mountain site.

Moving sensitive nuclear work to the underground bunker could offer greater protection against any attacks by Israel or the United States, which have both said they do not rule out pre-emptive strikes to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons.

Tehran said in June that it aimed to triple its capacity to enrich uranium to a higher grade — 20 percent fissile purity — which it says will be used to power a medical research reactor .

Iran says it is now manufacturing nuclear fuel plates out of the 20 percent material for that purpose, although Western officials and analysts suspect Tehran’s actual goal is to further enrich to the 90 percent level required for atom bombs.

A day after the June announcement, the six world powers that have negotiated with Tehran about its nuclear program issued a new statement about their “deepened concerns” of possible military dimensions to its atomic activity.

There was no immediate comment from the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Abbasi’s comments.

In an interview with Reuters on Friday, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said that moving centrifuges to Qom and increasing enrichment capacity was a “further deviation” from several UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Iran suspend all enrichment-related activities to foster serious negotiations on a peaceful solution to the dispute .

When asked whether Iran was installing centrifuges at Fordow, Amano told Reuters that his agency “would know better in coming week,” referring to the latest quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear activities due next month.

Amano said the IAEA was in talks with Iran on how the agency’s inspectors would monitor activities at Fordow.

“What we are doing is that we are monitoring and we are negotiating the new safeguard approach to verify the activities,” he said. “They are having close contact with us to agree on the new safeguard procedure.”

Last week Russia launched a fresh diplomatic campaign to re-engage Iran in nuclear talks with world powers that stalled in January over Iran’s insistence on its right to enrich uranium despite UN resolutions calling on it to stop.

Hamas: Gaza militant groups agree to cease-fire with Israel – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Official in Gaza says Egypt helped broker cease-fire to go into effect on Sunday evening, which would end the three-day round of violence with Israel.

By The Associated Press

A Hamas official in Gaza says that all of Gaza’s militant groups have agreed to a cease-fire aimed at ending a three-day round of violence with Israel.

The official says Egypt helped broker the cease-fire, which will go into effect this evening. He says Egypt told the groups that Israel would halt its airstrikes only if the Palestinian groups stopped shooting first, and that Hamas security personnel would enforce the agreement.

	Emergency personnel at the site of a direct Grad rocket hit on a home in Be’er Sheva, in which one person was killed.
	Photo by: Eliyahu Hershkovitz

He spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because the agreement had not officially been made public.

Foreign funds for Hamas hit by Syria unrest: diplomats | Reuters.

(Reuters) – Iran has cut back or even stopped its funding of Hamas after the Islamist movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, failed to show public support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, diplomats said on Sunday.

Hamas has denied that it is in financial crisis but says it faces liquidity problems stemming from inconsistent revenues from tax collection in the Gaza Strip and foreign aid.

The movement is spurned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. It receives undisclosed sums of cash from Iran, which has acknowledged providing financial and political support to Hamas.

One diplomat, who asked not to be identified, said intelligence reports showed that Iran had reduced funding for Hamas.

Other diplomatic sources, also relying on intelligence assessments, said the payments had stopped over the past two months.

The diplomats cited Iran’s displeasure over Hamas’ refusal to hold rallies in support of Tehran’s ally, Assad, in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria after an uprising against his rule. Hamas’ leadership outside the Gaza Strip is headquartered in Damascus.

Hamas is also widely believed to receive money from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most popular and organized political force. Diplomats said those payments also may have been reduced because the Brotherhood has diverted funds to support the so-called Arab Spring revolts.

In a sign of a cash crunch, the Hamas government in Gaza has failed to pay the July salaries of its 40,000 employees in the civil service and security forces. Hamas leaders promised full payments in August, but not all employees received their wages as scheduled on Sunday.

In 2010, Hamas put its Gaza budget at $540 million, with local revenues from taxes on merchants and on goods brought in from Israel and through smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border accounting for only $55 million.

Since seizing the Gaza Strip in 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, Hamas has run several investment projects in former Israeli settlements in the enclave.

They include farms, greenhouses, entertainment facilities and restaurants in areas from which Israel withdrew in 2005.

Iran: Priced Out Of Power.

Aharonovitch: Violence in south l… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

    Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said on Sunday that the violence in the South will continue in the near future.

“The escalation will continue in the coming days. The public should act accordingly. These will not be easy times,” he said.

The public security minister, speaking from Ashkelon during a visit to attack victims there, was referring the current barrage of rockets being launched at southern population centers from the Gaza Strip.

Also on Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said that, in light of the ongoing onslaught, the government will have to consider entering the coastal strip.

“We cannot continue in a situation in which one million Israelis are living under constant rocket fire. The deterrence from Operation Cast Lead has exhausted itself. We will need to respond and we are not excluding the option of a ground invasion,” Shalom said.

The deputy prime minister made these statements from Beersheba’s Soroka University Medical Center, where he was visiting people wounded in rocket attacks over the weekend.

MKs call for IDF operation in Gaza as rocket barrage against Israel continues – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Opposition members from Kadima call for launch of extensive operation in the Gaza Strip after over a hundred rockets fall in Israel over weekend.

Members of Knesset from Israel’s opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet on Sunday to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that predeced on Thursday.

At a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, committee chair MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) said that Israel must take steps against Hamas, “topple their infrastructures and create a system of ties with Egypt in order to prevent terrorism coming from its border.”

	Israeli soldiers take part in a military operation overnight in the West Bank city of Hebron on August 21, 2011.
	Photo by: AFP

MK Yohanan Plesner, also from Kadima, said the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will support a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip. “Creating a fixed reality of attrition in the south will constitute a victory for Hamas and the terrorist organizations,” he said. “The state of Israel cannot put up with such a situation.”

Head of Kadima party Tzipi Livni made a similar call on Saturday, saying the party will support an extensive military campaign. “You must use force against terrorism,” she said. “Just as we have taken steps against terrorism in the past, we will also support steps now that will defend the citizens of Israel.”

MK Avi Dichter (Kadima) said in the meeting that “following recent events, the world should think hard before recognizing a Palestinian state.” Labor Party MK Amir Peretz said Israel should add another ten Iron Dome system, adding that “we must protect the lives of citizens.”

Nine rockets and a barrage of mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel over the course of Saturday night and Sunday morning. The Iron Dome system successfully shot down one rocket aimed at Be’er Sheva and another three targeting the city of Ashkelon.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 21, 2011, 11:02 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran’s trap for Israel on Eilat Highway

The role of Iran and Hizballah in manipulating the ongoing Palestinian war on Israel from Gaza is manifest, debkafile‘s military sources report. They planned, orchestrated and funded the coordinated attacks on the Eilat Highway Thursday, Aug. 18 – in which gunmen shot dead eight Israelis and injured 40 – and its sequel: volleys of 90 missiles launched day and night from Gaza against a million Israeli civilians since then.

Yossi Ben-Shoshan, 38, from Ofakim, was killed by one of the dozen Grad missiles hitting Beersheba and his home town Saturday night. More than a dozen people were injured, at least one critically.
The prime mover in the missile blitz is Tehran’s Palestinian arm, the Jihad Islami, which is responsible for 90 percent of the launches. Hamas is left on the sidelines, cut off for the first time from top levels of authority in Tehran and Damascus.

The IDF is held back from substantive action to snuff out the Iran-backed offensive by the indecision at the policy-making level of the Israeli government, which is still feeling its way toward determining the dimensions and potential thrust of the military crisis landing on Israel out of the blue.

Under Egyptian, Israeli and US noses, Tehran managed to transfer to its Palestinian arm in Gaza, the Jihad Islami, more than 10,000 missiles well in advance of the violence launched three days ago. Most of them are heavy Grads bringing Beersheba, capital of the Negev and Israel’s 7th largest town (pop. 200,000), within their 30-kilometer range for a sustained, massive missile offensive.
Tehran has now launched the hardware smuggled into the Gaza Strip ready for a Middle East war offensive for five objectives:

1. To leave Syrian President Bashar Assad free to continue brutalizing his population and ignoring President Barack Obama’s demand backed by Europe that he step down.
2. To manufacture a direct military threat on the Jewish state, whose destruction is a fundamental of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ideology.

3.  To thwart the Egyptian military junta’s operation last week for regaining control of the lawless Sinai Peninsula and destroying the vast weapons smuggling network serving Iran in its capacity as the leading international sponsor of terror.
4.  To render the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his bid for UN recognition of an independent state on Sept. 20 irrelevant.  His isolation was brought home to him last Thursday by the coordinated Palestinian terrorist attacks near Eilat last Thursday.
5.  To plant ticking bombs around Israel for potential detonation and explosion into a full-blown regional war.
debkafile‘s Washington sources disclose that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined this peril to Egypt’s military ruler, Field Marshall Muhammad Tantawi, Saturday night, Aug. 20, to dissuade him from recalling the Egyptian ambassador to Israel over the deaths of three or five Egyptian police in the melee over the Palestinian terror attack near the Sinai border.
This danger was on the table of Israel’s inner cabinet of eight ministers when they met early Sunday to decide on IDF action for terminating the Palestinian missile war.

However, just as Cairo discovered that its operation for eradicating al Qaeda and other Islamist radical groups’ grip on Sinai would give Iran the pretext for aggression, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the IDF high command found themselves at a loss to determine whom to attack.
Up until now, Israel declared the Hamas rulers of Gaza accountable for all attacks originating in the enclave.
That formula is no longer valid. The Eilat Highway attacks were planned and executed behind Hamas’s back and so was the missile offensive – until Saturday night, when Hamas decided to try and step in. Both Hamas and Cairo are in fact out of the picture.
Israel’s leaders are stuck for solutions because no one in Washington, Jerusalem or Cairo can be sure of the outcome of any military steps they might take. They can’t be sure whether they will douse the violence or just play into the hands of Hizballah and Tehran who may have more shockers in their quivers ready to loose.
Only three facts stand out from the fog of uncertainty:
First, the security crisis besetting Israel has the dangerous potential for dragging the Middle East into a regional war.
Second, America and Israel are paying in full the price of their quiescence in the face of Iranian, Hizballah and extremist Palestinian belligerence and active preparations for war, including the stockpiling of thousands of increasingly sophisticated weaponry on Israel’s borders.
Third, the first step an Israeli soldier or tank takes into the Gaza Strip to silence Jihad Islami’s  missile fire is more likely than not to precipitate a second Iranian-orchestrated assault on another of Israel’s borders.
Sunday morning, no one in any of the capitals concerned was ready to risk guesstimating how far Tehran was ready to go in its current offensive and what orders Hizballah and its Palestinian puppets had received.