WarSclerotic

Europeans still asleep – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Iran’s pride won’t let it renounce nuclear plans, but Europe fails to grasp this

Yochanan Visser

The recent Iranian attack on the British embassy in Teheran raised Israeli expectations about the chance that the European Union would finally act in a decisive way against Iran. But the new round of sanctions is a far cry from the tough measures Jerusalem would like to see.

Former Israeli Ambassador to France Daniel Shek said in a TV interview on Channel 10 that “the new EU sanctions don’t hurt Europe and thus won’t hurt Iran either.” Other disgruntled Israeli commentators wondered what it would take for Europe to act against Iran. This happened after it became clear that the attack on the British embassy would not lead to crippling EU sanctions.

The outcome of the recent meeting of EU foreign ministers was further evidence of the wide gap in the perceptions of the Iranian threat between Jerusalem and Europe. For the EU, Iran seems to be a sideshow and a rather abstract and distant threat. For Israel, however, it is a matter of life and death.

This became clear from the amount of Iran-related articles that have been published in Israel recently, but also from the ongoing public debate about a military strike. Last week, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan once again warned against an Israeli military attack on the Iranian nuclear program. The same day, Defense Minister Ehud Baraksaid that “Israel has no intention, at the moment, to take action against Iran, but is far from paralyzed by fear.” He also said that Israel must act calmly and quietly – we don’t need big wars.”

Earlier, another ex-Mossad Chief, Danny Yatom, expressed diametrically opposed positions to those of Meir Dagan. He said: “As difficult a price it may be, and even if those predicting apocalyptic results are correct – and I don’t think they are – this is still not as bad as the threat of an Iranian bomb.” He also said that the world has little time left to act on Iran.

Barak told CNN two weeks ago that there is probably only three quarters of a year left to stop the Iranian nuclear program. He added that a nuclear Iran will affect the entire Middle East and that as a result countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will also pursue nuclear weapons.

Earlier, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that “those making decisions in Iran were still not convinced of the West’s determination to stop Iran’s nuclear program.” He added that these were “critical hours” in determining where the world would go with its Iranian policy.

‘Pride very important to us’

Another hint that indicates Israel might ultimately go its own way regarding Iran came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During a press conference with his Romanian counterpart, Netanyahu said that Israel recently has established unofficial ties with several Arab countries.

An Israeli government official later explained that these contacts – most probably with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states – concern Iran.

Meanwhile, Iranian threats against Israel and the West are only increasing.

The head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Air Force said last week that “from now on Iran will respond to threats with threats, instead of taking a defensive stand.” Thereafter he threatened Turkey with an attack on the NATO rocket shield if Iran is attacked.

Earlier Supreme Leader Khamenei’s military advisor warned Israel that Hamas and Hezbollah will destroy Israeli cities with their rockets.

Mohammad Hashemi who planned the attack on the US embassy in 1979 told Mark Bowden, writer of the book Guests of the Ayatollah, the following in 2006:

“One of the features of the Iranian people is that it protests veraciously against oppression and injustice. Secondly our pride is very important to us. We can starve from hunger or lose everything, but we’ll never sacrifice our pride.”

This theme is also featuring prominently in Iran’s rhetoric regarding the nuclear program. By now it should be clear that Iran will not voluntarily give up its nuclear program, even if this means that the country will be reduced to beggary.

It’s highly doubtful, however, that anyone in Brussels will notice the writing on the wall.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 10, 2011, 2:01 PM (GMT+02:00)

Sinai Bedouin armed with SA-18 Grouse anti-air missile

Israel was merely going through the motions of fighting terror with its targeted killing of Ismail Batash, commander of the “Army of Believers” (a Hamas terrorist front group), Thursday Dec. 8 – an attack which triggered a hail of Palestinian missiles against Israel. debkafile‘s military and counter-terror sources report that Israel’s military hands are firmly tied against effective counter-terror action by the Netanyahu government and Washington, who are afraid of upending the Egyptian military caste’s wobbly boat in Cairo.

The little the IDF is allowed to do is meanwhile doing more harm than good: It has hastened the transfer of the Palestinian Hamas’ terrorist operational and logistical infrastructure from the vulnerable Gaza Strip to northern Sinai, out of reach of Israeli punishment. It has also strengthened Hamas’ evolving alliance with Bedouin militias newly converted to radical Salafism.
The two allies are quickly overrunning the northern Sinai areas evacuated by Egyptian forces, so aggravating the terrorist peril besetting southern Israel including the Red Sea port of Eilat.

This dangerous development, which the Israeli government and security establishment has kept hidden from the general public, has been going forward since Aug. 18, when eight Israelis were killed in a terrorist attack mounted from Sinai on the Eilat highway.

Israel’s powers-that-be have stuck to a policy of denial about that event to conceal the breakdown of the security arrangements Israel made with Egypt’s interim rulers for the reinforcement of military strength over and above the numbers permitted in their 1979 peace treaty.

The public was told only that the attack was the work of the Gaza-based radical Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees operatives who entered Sinai from Gaza. Their leaders were later killed at their Rafah headquarters by an Israeli air raid, supposedly in reprisal.

However, according to our intelligence sources, the Eilat highway attack was not the work of Palestinian terrorists but of a dozen Bedouin of the Sawarkah tribe, which rules the northern Sinai triangle enclosed by the Egyptian-Gaza border, the Mediterranean Sea and the northern fringes of Sinai’s only town, El Arish.

Four of the 12 attackers were suicide bombers. This was the first known instance of Sinai Bedouin, who are traditionally casual about religion, going to this extreme. Three of the bombers struck two Israeli buses on the Eilat highway – one packed with soldiers and one empty as well as a private car. The fourth blew himself up near a group of Egyptian troops and killed five.

Cairo blamed Israeli troops for those deaths.  Under the threat of jeopardizing its already fading peace relations between Israel, Cairo backed by Washington forced Israel to take responsibility. This too was unprecedented:  Never before in the war on terror has a Middle East government assumed guilt for deaths caused by terrorists.
But this step was part of the smokescreen laid around the situation in Sinai. It left unexplained the comment from Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz Aug. 26 that the Israel-Egyptian frontier was long longer a border of peace.

Since then, the IDF has doubled its combat strength along that border from two to four fighting battalions.

But also since then, matters across the former “peace border” have gone from bad to worse.

1. With an eye on the spreading Salafism spirit in Bedouin community and the fear of action in Cairo, Jerusalem and Washington, the radical Hamas has moved in on new pastures: It used its iron fist to compel the 100,000 Palestinians of northern Sinai to host a new Hamas-Bedouin terrorist infrastructure, one holding sway up to and including the strategic Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts. Hamas command centers, terrorist manpower, training facilities and metal foundries for rockets are now being transferred to the new sites beyond Israel’s reach.

2.  The six Egyptian combat battalions which Israel permitted Cairo to deploy in northern Sinai to reinforce security there and the Egyptian tank units deployed along their common border for the first time have rushed for the exits. They gave ground to the increasingly belligerent Salafi Bedouin and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami advancing from the Gaza Strip.

3.  Most Egyptian troops have also abandoned the 300 border positions and watch towers they manned along the 240-kilometer border. A small number remains, but  100 positions were handed over to inmates from Egyptian jails who were given army uniforms but no weapons and who quickly formed ties with the Bedouin and Hamas; Bedouin, some Salafist, seized another 100 positions. They are armed to the teeth with an assortment of high-precision anti-air rockets Strela-3-SA-14, Igla-1 SA-16, Gimlet SA-16 and Grouse SA-18 – with a killing range of 6 kilometers.

The Israeli Air Force has consequently suspended flights over the Israel-Egyptian border and civilian road traffic has been sharply restricted. In the absence of an air force presence over this part of southern Israel, civilian flights – especially those bound for Eilat – are in danger.

So the extremist Palestinian Hamas and the Iran-backed Jihad Islami have managed to open a second front against Israel in addition to the Gaza Strip. From there, they can strike Israel without fear of pursuit into Egyptian Sinai. The IDF’s strikes against Palestinian terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip scarcely scratch the new terrorist infrastructure in Sinai and may even accelerate its development.

The defensive wall Israel is in the middle of building along its border with Egypt needs another year for completion. While a useful barrier for curtailing the flood of refugees infiltrating the country through Sinai for some years, it is unlikely to solve southern Israel’s acute security problems.

IDF strikes Gaza target following barrage of rockets into Israel – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

IDF confirms direct hit; 13 rockets explode in southern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces struck a terrorist target in the Gaza Strip early Saturday morning, following a barrage of rockets that exploded in southern Israel the previous day..

Following the strike, the IDF confirmed a direct hit.

	An airstrike on Gaza.
	Photo by: AP

On Friday, 13 rockets exploded in southern Israel, including one that was shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system near Ashdod. No injuries were reported.

The barrage of rockets followed Israel Air Force strikes in Gaza overnight Thursday, which left one dead and 12 wounded.

Violence across the Israeli-Gaza border escalated on Thursday with IAF air strikes killing at least two people and Palestinian militants firing rockets deep into southern Israel on Friday. Following that, Palestinian medical officials said an Israeli air strike hit a Hamas training camp in Gaza City, sending shrapnel flying into nearby houses. One civilian was killed and 13 others wounded, mostly women and children.

The IDF said two men were killed earlier Thursday when an IAF air strike targeted a car on a crowded Gaza street had been planning an attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers along Israel’s border with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. “(They) were affiliated with a terrorist squad that intended to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers via the western border,” an army statement said.

Arab World: Getting under Te… JPost – Features – Week in review.

    As the Assad regime in Syria fights for its life, it is important to remember that it still possesses a considerable number of assets. Perhaps most important among these is the fact that its regional allies have not abandoned it. As has been made clear in recent days, both the Iranian regime and its Lebanese client Hezbollah are sticking with their troubled Ba’ath colleague in Syria. But the list of President Bashar Assad’s friends does not end with these two.

A third local addition to the roster of influential players still backing Assad is the government of Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq.

Maliki’s backing of Assad is of significance beyond merely the Syrian context. It is an indication that Shia-led Iraq is drawing closer to Iran.

This is taking place simultaneously with the gains made by Sunni Islamism in a variety of Arab countries as a result of the upheavals of 2011. The direction in which Maliki is moving Iraq reflects an emergent reality of sharpened sectarian divisions in the increasingly Islamized political landscape of the Middle East.

From the outset, the Maliki government refused to join in the growing chorus of international and regional Arab condemnation of Assad’s brutal methods. While the Saudis, Tunisians, Kuwaitis and Bahrainis rapidly withdrew their ambassadors from Damascus, the government of Iraq made do with expressions of mild hope that Assad would “quicken” the pace of reforms.

The position of the Iraqi government has remained constant. As the bloodshed in Syria increased and the Western world called for the isolation of the regime, Maliki entertained a high-profile delegation of Syrian officials and entrepreneurs.

Iraq abstained on the vote in the Arab League to suspend Syrian membership. Baghdad abstained in the same forum in late November on the vote to impose sanctions on Syria.

Iraq, together with Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, has made clear that it does not consider itself obligated by the sanctions. There are fears that Iraqi and Lebanese cooperation with Syria to circumvent the restrictions will empty them of all content. Certainly, the Syrian regime is banking on this.

Iraq is Syria’s second-largest trading partner (after the EU). It accounts for fully 13 percent of Syria’s total trade – a value of $5.3 billion in 2010.

Maliki’s steadfast support for Assad is particularly striking because it is in stark contrast to the situation that existed until very recently. In 2009, Baghdad cut off relations with Syria. Maliki was furious at evidence that Assad had sponsored bombings in Baghdad. The Assad regime had also been a strong supporter of the Sunni insurgency against US forces in Iraq.

Now all this has changed. Maliki, who managed to form his second coalition after elections in 2010, is one of the few remaining Arab allies of the Syrian regime.

Why? The keys to understanding the Iraqi shift are the imminent departure of US forces from Iraq and the long political game that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been playing in both Iraq and Syria.

While the US and its allies were engaged in military activity in Iraq, the Iranians were pursuing an altogether more subtle strategy.

This involved the sponsorship of political movements and the amassing of political power and influence for use on the day after the US pulls out of Iraq.

Following elections, Maliki was only able to form his government – after months of wrangling – because the Iranian-backed movement of Moqtada al-Sadr chose eventually to back him.

This took place after Iran brokered a deal between Sadr and Maliki. Negotiations for the deal took place in Qom, in Iran.

Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force, and Muhammad Kawtharani, a senior Lebanese Hezbollah member, were instrumental in brokering the agreement.

In other words, Maliki is able to rule because he is in coalition with an Iranian proxy.

There is an economic factor alongside the politics. Iranian firms have invested heavily in reconstruction projects in Iraq. In July, 2011, for example, a contract was signed for the construction of a 2,500-kilometer gas pipeline that will carry Iranian gas along the breadth of Iraq to Syria.

Add to these political and economic elements the seismic shock of the Arab upheavals of 2011, which are benefiting Sunni Islamist forces in country after country, and it becomes easier to understand Maliki’s interest in moving closer to the Shia regional alliance led by Iran.

Acquiring Iranian patronage involves helping out other clients. One favor deserves another.

Assad, a key member of the club, is in trouble. So, against all the odds, the Iraqis are getting on board with the task of trying to preserve his regime.

There has been much reporting in recent weeks of Hamas’s scramble to extricate itself from the Shia alliance led by Iran and to relocate itself with the currently embryonic Sunni Islamist bloc that looks like it will be the main legacy of the Arab Spring. Iraq appears to be traveling in the opposite direction, its motivation a mirror-image of that of Hamas.

Iraq is about to return to full sovereignty. As it does so, it is also about to present the region and the world with an entity of a type previously unknown in modernity – a Shia-majority Arab state under Shia rule. In a Middle East region in which Islamic politics is moving ever closer to center- stage, it is therefore not surprising that a Shia-ruled Iraq should choose to align itself with the regional bloc led by Iran. The Iranians skillfully prepared the pathway. The logic of events make Maliki more than willing to walk down it.

The assistance that Maliki’s Iraq is currently affording its beleaguered former arch-enemy in Damascus should be seen as a type of entry fee into the Iranled regional alliance. The Iraqi prime minister has evidently done his accounting and decided that the price is a fair one.

Whether the replacement of Saddam Hussein’s regime by a Shialed Iraq now aligning with Iran was worth the loss of 4,478 US lives and an investment of $750b. is of course an entirely different calculation

IAF strikes Gaza targets following spike in ro… JPost – Defense.

The IDF said that it regretted any harm to uninvolved civilians, which it said was caused by the presence of explosives and weapons at the targeted sites, including rockets. The airstrikes, the IDF Spokesman said in a statement, were accurate and direct hits on terror targets were recorded.

The IDF laid responsibility for the casualties on Hamas, “which chooses to operate in the heart of civilian population centers and uses human shields.”

THE DAILY STAR :: News :: Politics :: Analysts suspect UNIFIL attack linked to pressure on Syria.

Syria crisis: Assad regime forces issue 72-hour deadline for end to protests in Homs – Telegraph.

Syrian forces encircling the city of Homs have issued a 72-hour ultimatum for all protests against President Bashar al-Assad to stop, or a new offensive will begin.

Members of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel movement with a strong presence in Homs Photo: CORBIS