WarSclerotic

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 14, 2011, 9:17 AM (GMT+02:00)

Mahmoud Abbas: Dialogue with Israel still on ice

The tempest which Israel had tensely anticipated for September in the wake of a Palestinian bid for unilateral UN recognition of their state looks like fizzling out before it begins as a result of a massive US campaign to avert it, backed by Saudi Arabia, Europe and Egypt.
Early Wednesday, Sept. 14, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas decided crucially not to submit his application to the UN Security Council.  He also notified Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and European Union foreign executive Catherine Ashton in Cairo that he was considering watering down his application to the UN General Assembly – possibly by dropping the “state within 1967 borders” provision from the text.
Abbas said he would make his final decision known in a public address from Ramallah Friday, Sept 16 before flying to New York to join world leaders at the UN General Assembly’s 66th session which began Tuesday.

But first, he meets Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair in Amman for a conversation which debkafile‘s exclusive sources term critical, because Blair will hand him a document termed by senior Washington sources “an outline” of a new format designed to oil Palestinian wheels into unlocking the long-stalled Palestinian dialogue with Israel.

This outline has been endorsed by Washington, the EU and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. It is now subject to acceptance by Israel and the Palestinians. Moscow has not yet indicated whether it approves the document or wants changes.
By Wednesday morning, the Israeli government had not yet received a copy. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has no doubt that he will be called upon for concessions extreme enough to lure the Palestinian leader back to the table. Blair is expected to deliver the document to Netanyahu some time Thursday after Abbas has seen it. To tie up the ends, senior White House envoys, Dennis Ross and David Hale, are due back in Jerusalem and Ramallah Wednesday.
During his visit to Cairo, Mahmoud Abbas was sternly warned by Saud al Faisal, Ashton and Egyptian leaders of the grave consequences awaiting the Palestinians if he forced the UN to exercise its veto against their statehood at the UN Security Council.  US President Barack Obama Tuesday made it crystal clear that he “objects very strongly” to the Palestinian statehood motion as “counterproductive” and “a distraction from solving problems that can only be addressed through negotiations.”

US sources report that the US President has refused to talk to Abbas for the past eight months owing to his refusal to join Israel for direct peace talks. He was advised by the Europeans, the Saudis and Egyptians this week that the US presidential boycott would almost certainly extend to fellow Palestinian leaders and US financial aid. The Palestinian Authority would thus be placed under American sanctions. However, if he withdrew his statehood bid from the Security Council and accepted the new position paper, Obama would consider restoring communications.

Tuesday, Sept. 13, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “The path to creating an independent Palestinian state lies through direct talks between Ramallah and Jerusalem – not New York,” she said. Early Wednesday, the General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser of Qatar reported that the Palestinians had not yet submitted their request to the General Assembly. It would therefore not come up for debate before October.
debkafile‘s sources report that while Mahmoud Abbas appears to have been hassled into a partial climb-down from his original plan to bypass talks with Israel by gaining UN approval of Palestinian statehood, he may not have caved in completely. Neither is it clear whether Netanyahu will swallow the new blueprint Tony Blair is about to dish up.

The Yeshiva World Is Moderate Jordan Changing its Tune Too? « » Frum Jewish News.

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011)

Islamists Seeking to Isolate Israel | Israel Right Side News.

As the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood approaches, Israel has been forced to face security and diplomatic crises that challenge the peace and stability of the entire Middle East, as well as undermine the carefully wrought network of alliances that has kept the Jewish state from becoming diplomatically isolated for decades.

From souring relations with its once strong ally Turkey, to new dangers emerging in Egypt, to the growing threat from Iran, and the tide of Islamization sweeping across the Arab world, Israel is increasingly finding itself nearly alone, and threatened with instability along its borders, and the entire region.

It is surprising how quickly Israel’s relations with Turkey have gone south. They had been slowly deteriorating since Prime Minister Erdogan’s Islamist party took over the government in 2003. But the Mavi Marmara incident last year, where Turkish radicals tried to run the Gaza blockade by sea and 9 activists were killed, has accelerated the decline dramatically. A UN report released last week blamed Israel for actions that were “excessive and unreasonable,” while also blaming Turkey and organizers of the blockade runners for the deaths. The report also called the blockade “legitimate,” while criticizing Ankara for not warning activists of the consequences of trying to run the blockade.

On the heels of the report’s release, Prime Minister Erdogan demanded that Israel apologize. Prime Minister Netanyahu, while offering his regrets at the loss of life, refused, saying that Israel would never apologize for defending itself.                                                                                                                                        

This was not good enough for Erdogan, who expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut military ties with the Jewish state. And in an interview with Al Jazeera television, Erdogan stated that the Gaza flotilla raid was “a cause for war” and that future Gaza-bound aid ships would be accompanied by Turkish war ships. He has since walked back from that last statement, saying that Turkey would not deploy its ships as long as Israel did not intercept the aid vessels in international waters. But the threat is there, and a clash between the Israeli and Turkish navies is a possibility if Erdogan carries through on his threat.

Erdogan’s government has now completely turned away from the West and is facing toward Iran and the Middle East. Some observers believe Erdogan wishes to supplant President Ahmadinejad of Iran as the number one champion of the Palestinians in the region. To that end, Erdogan has embarked on a tour of Arab nations, including Egypt, where he arrived to cheering throngs who chanted “Egypt-Turkey: one fist” and “brave Erdogan welcome to your second home.” His goal is to isolate Israel even further by developing a strategic partnership with Egypt, Tunisia, and other Arab countries. Given his anti-Israeli stance, he has become very popular on the Arab street and especially in Egypt, where the Israeli embassy was overrun by a mob of protesters over the weekend, forcing a harrowing evacuation of embassy personnel, including the ambassador.

The attack on the embassy was the second in less than a month. The first incident occurred following a terrorist attack in Israel that killed seven civilians and two soldiers. The attackers infiltrated into Israel from the Egyptian side of the Sinai border crossing, and in hot pursuit of the terrorists – who were reportedly dressed in Egyptian police uniforms – three members of Egyptian security were accidentally killed by the IDF. The incident resulted in a crowd of several thousand besieging the Israeli embassy, with one man ascending to the roof of the building and tearing down the Israeli flag and replacing it with the Egyptian standard, while police and military members stood by and watched.

The second incident occurred on Friday, when thousands of Egyptians broke through the wall surrounding the embassy, trapping the ambassador and other personnel inside the building while the mob vandalized several rooms. Repeated calls to the Egyptian head of state, Field Marshal Tantawi, by US defense secretary Leon Panetta went for naught when the authorities claimed the field marshal couldn’t be found. Panetta wanted to urge the Egyptians to launch an immediate rescue operation, but Tantawi’s mysterious disappearance intensified speculation that Egypt’s generals had deliberately failed to protect the embassy for political gain.

Eventually, Egyptian commandos rescued the Israelis, but only after Panetta warned the Egyptian government of “serious consequences” if any Israelis were killed.

In fact, the military government may be trying to give the masses a scapegoat to take their minds off the slow pace of political reform. And even though the military finally acted to restore order, the ambassador and most embassy staff members were whisked to the airport and flown home in an Israeli military aircraft. Clashes with police and the army continued throughout the weekend, and the governmenthas now said it will revive the hated Mubarak-era emergency decree in order to tamp down the unrest.

But the political maneuvering of the military government is the least of Israel’s worries when it comes to Egypt. The embassy attack has made it clear that no Israeli diplomat is safe in Egypt, and that the government’s control of the country is slipping. With the Muslim Brotherhood poised to take de facto control following elections later this year, Israel must also deal with a deteriorating security situation in the Sinai, as well as the probability that, for all intents and purposes, the peace treaty with Egypt is inoperative.

Recognizing the threat, Israel has begun to reassess its security posture along the border with Egypt. They are building a fence to deal with smuggling and infiltration, but Haaretz is reporting that Netanyahu is concerned that the Egyptian side of the Sinai is so lawless that it might “turn into a larger version of the Gaza Strip, full of weapons and launching pads aimed at Israeli territory.” If the Muslim Brotherhood takes control, one could almost be assured that such would be the case.

The current military government may find that it is to its advantage to scapegoat the Israelis, and perhaps, as some Tahrir square activists claim, even tolerate some riots and unrest to convince people that only the army can maintain order. But the bottom line is that if it cedes control of the country to the Islamists, the peace treaty with Israel will be honored in the breach. Given the temper of the Egyptian street, it is perilously unlikely that any popularly elected government will be able to maintain friendly relations with Israel and honor their commitments spelled out in the treaty.

Coupled with the break with Ankara, this has Israel scrambling for allies. The Israelis have approached Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, seeking partnership, and has also been in talks with Greece and some of the Balkan states trying to offset the loss of Turkey’s friendship. It is unclear how much help the Wahabbists in Saudi Arabia can be to the Jewish state, and Greece is a weak substitute for Turkey. But at the moment, it’s all Israel has on the table, and they have to play the hand that has been dealt them.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing Israel is the likelihood that the instability in Syria, Libya, Egypt and other “Arab Spring” countries, means that tensions in the region have been ratcheted up and that it wouldn’t take much to spark a conflict that might engulf the entire Middle East. Another terrorist attack from Sinai, or a confrontation on the high seas with a Turkish warship, or an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, might light the fuse that could explode into a general war.

The problem is that Israel simply cannot afford to remain passive in the face of border infiltrations, threats from Egypt’s Islamists, and a dangerously emboldened Hamas, who would see provoking a war with Israel following its recognition as a nation as a means to forcing the international community to intervene on its side — perhaps even militarily. Surrounded by unfriendly states (even Jordan has been cooling relations recently), only the United States remains as a friend. And not only is that friendship questionable considering that the Obama administration has done all it can to bully the Israelis into making peace with Hamas, but the influence of the United States itself is at low ebb in the region. And what little pull we have with Arab countries is bound to be undermined by our expected veto of the Palestinian resolution in the Security Council later this month.

Israel has faced threats to its existence before. It was born of war, surrounded, outnumbered 10 to 1, but survived and flourished through the sheer willpower of a people who refuse to be defeated. But nearly 35 years of patient, painstaking diplomacy has unraveled in a matter of months thanks to Israel’s Islamist enemies who continue to make strides toward dominating the region. The uncertainty now facing the Jewish state will have the Israelis – and the world – on edge for the foreseeable future.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 13, 2011, 12:54 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli Heron drone

The Obama administration has turned down a Turkish request for drones or for the deployment of US Predators at Turkish bases until Ankara stops threatening Israel with armed attack, debkafile‘s military and Washington sources report.  Turkey has no functioning unmanned aerial vehicles at present. The “technical problems” grounding the Herons Israel sold Ankara have crippled the Turkish army’s campaign against the Kurdish PKK rebels – both in northern Iraq and in southeast Turkey.
In recent days, therefore, the rebels have stepped up their raids on Turkish territory, killing nine people including army and police personnel.

Israeli officialdom and military chiefs are doing their utmost to keep the lid on the spiraling Turkish-Israel confrontation, claiming that a military clash is not imminent because the US, NATO and Europe won’t let it happen. Turkey is after all a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However, debkafile‘s military sources report, the confrontation has already broken surface. Despite Western efforts to contain the rising tension, the armed conflict has quietly begun.
Our sources confirm that the Ankara press report of three Turkish frigates bound for the eastern Mediteranean to challenge and disarm Israel warships outside its 12-mile territorial waters was deliberately leaked by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s office to coincide with his trip to Cairo.

Israeli officials are making every effort to conceal the arrival of the frigates opposite Israeli waters, while Washington, the NATO command in Brussels try to dissuade Turkey from carrying out its threat to disable the weapons of Israel naval vessels.
They fear that a firefight would drive the Israel-Turkish crisis into uncharted waters.

Since Saturday, Sept. 10, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been in direct touch with Erdogan and warned him that a military clash by a NATO member with the Israeli Navy would have grave consequences for Turkey’s future military ties with the US and the alliance.

Our sources explain that the denial of advanced US intelligence technology on the heels of its cutoff from Israel would present the Turkish army with serious operational, intelligence and high-tech difficulties.
These difficulties are already hobbling Ankara’s counterinsurgency campaign against the PKK at a critical juncture.
Since Aug. 17, a full-blown war has been underway against PKK strongholds in northern Iraq – generally unnoticed in the West and in Israel. The US, Turkey, Iran and the Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraqi have formed an improbable coalition to cooperate in extinguishing the Kurdish rebellions staged by the PKK against Turkey and the PJAK against Iran.
The US has confined its role to relaying intelligence collected by its drones to the Turkish military and from its observation posts on the northern Iraqi-Iranian border to Iranian Revolutionary Guards units.

The data is processed through the KRG government in Irbil. The KRG has made its army’s military and intelligence commands available for coordinating the allies’s operations through its territory.
Turkish special operations units are backed by Turkish air strikes and coordinate their operations with the Americans and the Iranians.
The main battlefields are the Qandil Mountains region, Sinath-Haftanin, Hakurk and Gara.

The Turkish effort is impeded by three problems:

1. They are short of the knowhow for operating the intelligence and technical systems of the 10 Heron drones purchased from Israel since they expelled the Israeli technicians operating and keeping them in order last year.
Ankara says two of the drones are “non-operational” and three others suffer from intractable engine problems.
Five more were shipped back to Israel because of a Turkish complaint that they never reached the altitudes guaranteed by Israel’s aerospace industries. debkafile‘s sources report that test flights carried out in Israel showed nothing wrong with the drones’ altitude capability.
2.  The home-made Turkish drones (ANKA) brought into service were unable to climb high enough to perform over the rebel hideouts perched in the lofty Qandil mountain peaks. They also lacked the electronics for relaying surveillance data to their command center.
3.  Both Tehran and Ankara have no doubt that the intelligence data released to them by the US military in the course of the counterinsurgency campaign is partial and limited. The complete picture remains exclusively in American hands. For that reason, Turkey sought the deployment of US Predators on its soil to fill the gap. That request was spurned until Prime Minister Erdogan backs away from his aggressive stance against Israel.
Israel was wrongly accused of threatening to play the Kurdish card against the Erdogan government in reprisal for those threats. The fact is that Turkey has played the Kurdish card against itself.

Report: Turkish warplanes allowed to fire at Israeli targets – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Ankara’s Star Gazete says country’s new F-16 radar system modified to recategorize Israeli targets as hostile. Order said to come directly from PM Erdogan’s office; naval, submarine radar systems to be changed next

News agencies

Syrian activists denounce Russia as it resists Syria sanctions amid mounting death toll.

Al Arabiya

The United Nations on Monday named a three-member panel of international experts to investigate human rights violations including possible crimes against humanity since the protests began.

Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil will lead the commission of inquiry, which the U.N. Human Rights Council agreed to set up last month to probe arbitrary executions, excessive use of force and killings and report back by the end of November.

France, Britain, the United States, Germany and Portugal have circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that called for sanctions against Assad, influential relatives and close associates, but it met resistance from Russia and China.

“I think it’s a scandal not to have a clear position of the U.N. in such a terrible crisis,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Sunday.

“We think that the regime has lost its legitimacy. We think that it’s too late to implement a level of reform. We should adopt in New York a very clear resolution condemning the violence.”

Medvedev said on Monday Russia believed any resolution must be “tough but balanced, and addressed to both sides in Syria,” and that it must not automatically lead to further sanctions because “there is already a large number of sanctions against Syria.”

Later Monday, the United States made it clear it wanted tougher U.N. action against Syria, according to AFP.

“We believe that it’s time for the UN Security Council to take stronger action,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

“We continue to consult in New York. We want a resolution that has sanctions (with) teeth,” she said.

The U.S. “strongly disagreed” with Medvedev’s comments Monday, she added.

Israel seeks to boost UAV strike power – UPI.com.

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 12 (UPI) — The Israeli air force is expanding its wing of unmanned aerial vehicles built by Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems, some to be used as missile-armed gunships.

Meantime, The Jerusalem Post reports that state-run IAI, Israel’s leading defense contractor, is working with Rheinmetall Defense of Germany to develop a new weapons system for aerial drones to cope with proliferating threats facing the Jewish state.

The air force plans to form a new squadron of medium-altitude, long-endurance UAVs consisting of Elbit’s Hermes 900 and IAI’s Heron 1 to enhance its drone capabilities.

The Israeli air force bought three Hermes 900s for evaluation in May 2010 and is waiting for final approval from the General Staff of the Israeli armed forces to purchase new platforms under a five-year procurement plan currently being finalized.

The 900 is based on the smaller Hermes 450, which has been in service for several years. It has been widely used to carry out assassination missions against Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip using missiles.

The 900 variant can carry double the equipment payload of the 450. These include electro-optic cameras, laser designators, radar systems, electronic intelligence and electronic warfare suites.

The Israeli military’s moves to reinforce its UAV capabilities comes amid new security threats in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula following deadly clashes in early August in which Palestinian extremists killed eight Israelis.

A senior military official disclosed Friday that the air force has deployed a special UAV unit along Israel’s porous 150-mile border with Sinai north of the Gaza Strip.

Israel has had to bolster its forces on that frontier, which has been dormant since the country’s March 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.

Al-Qaida operatives have infiltrated into Sinai amid the unrest that followed the downfall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Feb. 11. They have apparently recruited disgruntled Bedouin tribesmen. More attacks are expected.

The Israelis are also preparing for possible conflict with Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as well as unrest linked to the Palestinians’ plans to declare statehood later this month.

All these fronts will require UAVs for surveillance, reconnaissance and combat missions.

The IAI-Rheinmetall joint venture to develop a loitering weapons system for UAVs would appear to fit into this conflict scenario.

The Post reported that the system is known as WABEP, the German acronym for “weapons system for standoff engagement of individual and point targets.”

The newspaper’s military correspondent, Yaakov Katz, said WABEP “is a combination of Rheinmetall’s KZO drone and IAI’s Harop attack drone.” It is understood the Harop is already in service with Turkey and India.

The propeller-driven Harop, based on the earlier Harp craft, was designed to suppress radar systems linked to surface-to-air missile systems or similar high-value targets.

It “can fly to a designated loitering position where it searches for electromagnetic signals from surface-to-air missile batteries and then dives in to destroy them,” Katz reported.

Such high-risk missions have in the past largely been carried out by manned “Wild Weasel” F-4 or F-16 aircraft.

“Loitering weapons systems is considered a highly classified topic in Israel, which is believed to have developed a number of systems over the years capable of loitering over battlefields and engaging static and mobile targets,” Katz wrote.

“Such systems are believed to be critical ahead of a future conflict with an enemy like Hezbollah, which has deployed tens of thousands of missiles and launchers throughout Lebanon.”

Harop was unveiled by IAI at the Paris Air Show in July 2009.

Jane’s Missiles and Rockets monthly reported that it has an undernose turret with optical systems that include a thermal imager and color CCD camera.

“The vehicle can attack from any direction and from any angle between the horizontal and the vertical,” JMR noted. “It is armed with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead.”

The Associated Press: Syria troops raid villages as Russia boosts regime.

The U.N. said Monday that the death toll has reached at least 2,600 from the government’s violent crackdown on protests over the past six months.

Although the crackdown has brought widespread international condemnation, Assad’s authoritarian regime has the support of Russia and China, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with veto powers.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that Moscow believes any U.N. resolution on Syria must be aimed at both the government and the opposition.

“Russia proceeds from the assumption that it’s necessary to approve a resolution on Syria that will be tough, but well balanced at the same time that would address both parties to the conflict — President Bashar Assad’s government and the opposition,” Medvedev said. “Only in that case could it be successful.”

“The resolution must be tough, but it mustn’t automatically involve sanctions,” he said. “There is absolutely no need now for any additional pressure.”

Both Russia and China oppose a draft U.N. Security Council resolution backed by European nations and the United States that would impose an arms embargo and other sanctions on Syria. Moscow has introduced a rival resolution calling for Assad’s government to halt its violence against protesters and expedite reforms.

The raids around the central city of Hama began after security forces cut all roads leading to the area along with electricity and telephone lines.

The death toll from Monday’s raids around Hama and violence elsewhere was not immediately clear.

The activist network called the Local Coordination Committees said there were civilian casualties from Monday’s raids but there was no exact figure.

Syria-based rights activist Mustafa Osso says at least five people were killed.

Another group, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said one person also was also killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma when security forces opened at a funeral.

Syrian protesters are increasingly calling for some sort of outside help — although not necessarily military action like the NATO intervention that helped topple the Gadhafi regime in Libya. Instead, they are calling for observation missions and human rights monitors who could help deter attacks on civilians.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Monday that the new death toll of 2,600 is based on “reliable sources on the ground.”

Syria has disputed accounts of civilian deaths and says the regime is fighting terrorists and thugs — not true reform seekers. A senior Assad adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, said Monday that the toll was really 1,400 — evenly split between security forces and the opposition.

Shaaban also said the West should follow Russia’s steps in trying to end the crisis in Syria through peaceful means. She was scheduled to meet Monday with Mikhail Margelov, the Russian presidential envoy to the Middle East.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

(Erdogan would do well to remember that the IDF Navy is supported by the IDF Air Force. – JW)

DEBKAfile Special Report September 12, 2011, 4:04 PM (GMT+02:00)

Turkish Navy destroyer

The Erdogan government sharply ratcheted up its threat of war on Israel Monday, Sept. 12 with a report that three Turkish Navy frigates are to sail for the eastern Mediterranean “to ensure freedom of navigation and confront Israeli warships if necessary.”
As Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was set to start a visit to Egypt, Turkish naval sources reported: “If Turkish warships encounter an Israeli military ship outside Israel’s 12-mile territorial waters, they will advance up to 100 meters from the ship and disable its weapon system.”
The threat bluntly applied to Israel’s naval enforcement of its UN-approved blockade of the Gaza Strip.
debkafile‘s military sources report that this is more than a threat of belligerence against Israeli naval shipping; it is also an attempt to dictate the terms of its threatened military engagement at sea with Israel and arbitrarily lay down the outer limits of Israel’s territorial waters. One of its goals is to deprive Israel’s deep sea gas wells of naval protection.
Turkish naval sources report that the frigates assigned the mission against Israel belong to its Southern Sea Area Command.
debkafile reported earlier Monday, Sept. 12:
While Egypt and Israel acted to cool the crisis in relations sparked by last Friday’s mob attack on the Israeli embassy, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan threatened another inflammatory speech against Israel during his Monday visit, Sept. 12 – this one from Tahrir Square in a bid to buy the popularity of the Arab street. Jerusalem and Washington are concerned that it will have the effect of stirring up anti-Israel riots in Egypt and Jordan, Israel’ second peace partner, as well as encouraging the Palestinian terrorist Jihad Islami lurking in Sinai to proceed with its threatened cross-border attack.

Sunday, Sept. 11, the military rulers of Egypt instructed the local media to tone down their coverage of the mob attack on the Israeli embassy Friday night. They announced that 130 rioters would be put on trial.  Israel too made every effort to play the episode down by focusing attention on the “courageous stand” taken by the six security guards “only a door away from death” in order to distract attention from the absence of an Israeli ambassador in Cairo after thirty years of normal relations.
debkafile‘s sources report that while Israel and Egyptian report efforts to reinstate the envoy soon, it will be some time before the next Israeli ambassador Yakov Amitai takes up his post. First, Israel will have to build a fortified embassy building like US and British premises in Cairo and other world capitals, for which the necessary Egyptian permission cannot be taken for granted.

Political sources in Washington and Jerusalem are profoundly concerned by four fraught developments
unfolding this week – all capable of sending Israel’s ties with Egypt and Turkey into another perilous tailspin:

1. The Turkish prime minister’s Tahrir Square speech Monday afternoon. His anti-Israel campaign has drawn from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood an enthusiastic welcome and the promise of a mass turnout. The MB declared the mob attack on the Israeli embassy a legitimate protest operation in defiance of the Egyptian government’s position.

Above all, Erdogan will not stand for the Arab League foreign ministers’ session in Cairo on the same day – to approve the Palestinian bid for UN membership – stealing the thunder of his official visit to Egypt.
Concern about the coming speech was heightened when the full, unedited text of the Turkish prime minster’s interview to the Arabic television station Al Jazeera Thursday, Sept 8 reached Washington and Jerualme and was compared with the adulterated version circulated by Ankara and TV channel.

It reveals that Erdogan actually called Israel’s interception of the Mavi Marmora in May 2010 (during which nine armed activists were killed) an Israeli casus belli for Turkey and extended his threat of aggression to the off shore oil and gas wells of Israel and Cyprus.

According the original text of the speech, Erdogan declared that Turkey will never accept the accord Israel and Cyprus concluded last year marking out their maritime zones for exploration. What Israel is doing, he said “will not happen” – a phrase he repeated with great determination.

The adulterated version released by Erdogan’s office Friday, Sept. 9, the day after the interview read: “As long as Israel does not interfere in the freedom of navigation, we do not plan on sending any warships to escort humanitarian aid ships.”
This is termed by debkafile‘s sources no more than a play on words leaving the first threat to have Turkish warships escort aid vessels to the Gaza Strip and visit the eastern Mediterranean fully in place. The potential for a Turkish-Israeli clash at sea appears to be low but remains credible.
He knows Israel is determined not to lift the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip – certainly not after the UN pronounced it legal and necessary. He also knows therefore that his warships cannot avoid running into the Israeli Navy. His purpose remains provocative, because Turkey is free to consign unlimited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip through Egypt – not to mention Israel.
debkafile‘s sources disclose that this “amended” statement was produced in response to heavy pressure from NATO leaders to quit his belligerent stance against Israel.
2.  The Turkish prime minister said Sunday that his campaign against Israel has five stages of which only two have been implemented.
Word has reached Jerusalem that Erdogan is preparing more sanctions against Israel to be enforced in days. They include cutting off diplomatic ties, a ban on Turkish trade with the Jewish state and acquitting Turkish businesses and industrialists of their contractual obligations to Israel firms, including debts totaling $400 million.
3.  Israel’s government and military leaders worry that the Palestinian Jihad Islami terrorists lurking in Sinai for the past three weeks will choose this moment to strike – whether to kidnap Israelis still vacationing on its beaches or a cross-border attack in Israel.  The gunmen have met no Egyptian military interference and they will no doubt be encouraged to take advantage of the incendiary climate generated by the Turkish prime minister and Cairo mob’s sacking of the Israeli embassy.

The Palestinian group’s Iranian and Hizballah sponsors will not miss the chance of further undermining Israeli security. Sunday night saw the first indications of trouble when an Israeli border patrol north of Eilat came under fire from Egyptian Sinai. No one was hurt but Israeli troops guarding that precarious border are more on their toes now than ever.
4.  The Muslim Brothers, Hamas and other radical Palestinian organizations in Jordan have used Facebook to rally “a million-strong march” on the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital of Amman for Thursday evening, Sept. 15, to push for the expulsion of Israeli Ambassador Danny Nevo.
Jordan security forces are on alert to prevent the Israeli embassy sacking in Cairo from being repeated in Amman.

Iran inaugurates first nuclear power plant, pledges full UN access – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Head of Iran’s atomic program: Start of Bushehr plant shows the world how a country can maintain freedom and independence through resistance.

By DPA

Iranian and Russian officials Monday inaugurated Iran’s first nuclear power plant in the southern Gulf port of Bushehr, the Khabar news network reported.

The ceremony was attended by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi and nuclear chief Fereydoun Abbasi, as well as Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko and the head of Russia’s state-run nuclear power corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, Khabar reported.

	Technicians measuring parts of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo.
	Photo by: AP

Forty per cent of the 1,000-megawatt capacity is to be connected to the national energy grid in the initial phase, and full capacity is scheduled to be reached in November.

The plant uses Russian-made fuel and its nuclear waste is to be returned to Russia. Iran and Russia have granted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) full supervision of the joint plant.

“This is the first nuclear power plant in the Middle East, and Iran and Russia have set an example for peaceful nuclear cooperation,” said Abbasi, Iran’s vice-president and head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization.

“The start of the Bushehr plant symbolically shows to the world how a country could maintain its freedom and independence through resistance,” he added, in reference to Western opposition towards Iran’s nuclear programs.

Responding to concerns from neighboring sheikhdoms, Abbasi said in his inauguration speech that safety was a top priority at the Bushehr plant.

In a joint press conference, Shmatko said that all internationally required safety measures should be fully implemented before using the plant at full capacity.

“Based on clear international regulations and standards, more tests should be made before starting the plant at full capacity and Iranian experts should not sacrifice safety for the sake of reaching the final phase earlier,” Shmatko said.

While Iran wants the plant to reach maximum level as soon as possible, Shamtko stressed that the connection of the plant to the national grid was being made according to a very precise safety plan.

This includes switching off the plant’s reactor several times to carry out additional tests before gradually increasing output to 50, 75 and finally 100 per cent of the total capacity of 1,000 megawatts.

“All relevant tests made so far have been approved by the IAEA and further tests are necessary to make sure that the plant will work safely for decades,” the Russian official said in the press conference, shown by Khabar TV.

Abbasi confirmed that Iran and Russia had made initial agreements to build further nuclear power plants, probably in or near Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, but did not rule out cooperation with other countries.

“As our final aim is to reach production of 20,000 megawatts and we cannot realize this aim just by our own experts, we are open to cooperation with other countries as well,” Abbasi told reporters.

The Iranian nuclear chief once again reiterated that Iran had a legitimate right to pursue peaceful nuclear programs, as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. International pressure and United Nations sanctions would not hinder Iran’s nuclear work, he said.

“We are committed to all international nuclear regulations but not beyond that,” Abbasi said, referring to IAEA demands that Iran responds to Western intelligence reports accusing Tehran of working on a secret nuclear weapon program.

Western media representatives were not allowed to attend the inauguration ceremony, and only Iranian and Russian reporters were dispatched to Bushehr.

The construction of the plant was started in 1975 by a German company, which dropped the project in the 1990s due to political considerations.

In 1995, Russia signed a contract to complete the plant but the start-up date was delayed for technical and political reasons.

Iran and Russia are reportedly to have equal shares in the joint venture operating the Bushehr plant, but gradually all shares are to be transferred to the Iranian side.

Moscow plans to hand the facility completely over to Iranian hands within the next three years, but Tehran wants full control much sooner.