WarSclerotic

Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to bomb Hamas militants in Gaza will leave Israel more isolated, insecure, and alone. – Slate Magazine.

( This transparent, lefty exercise in “wishful thinking” could be used as course material in how ideology is actually capable of blinding  one’s eyes from what is right in front of them. – JW )

Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to bomb Hamas militants will leave Israel more isolated, insecure, and alone.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and damage in Gaza city following an Israeli air raid

Photos by Jack Guez and Marco Longari, AFP/Getty Images.

Palestinian rockets are terrorizing Israeli towns. Israeli jets are pummeling the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up for a possible ground invasion. Twenty-one Palestinians, among them small children, and three Israelis are dead, and the toll is sure to rise. Four years after the Israeli military unleashed a punishing attack on Gaza, Israel and Hamas are once again on the brink of war.

The fresh round of Israeli reprisals follows an uptick in attacks from militant groups in Gaza. It began last Saturday with the firing of an anti-tank missile at an Israeli army jeep that wounded four soldiers. Several days of intensive rocket fire from Gaza followed. Israel responded by assassinating Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, and launched an air campaign to try to destroy as many weapons depots as possible.

In 2012, there’s barely been a week when at least a handful of rockets haven’t been fired from Gaza into Israel. Every month or so there is an escalation, like during one six-day period in June when 162 rockets landed in Israel. “No government would tolerate a situation where nearly a fifth of its people live under a constant barrage of rockets and missile fire,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the foreign media on Thursday as he authorized more intensive strikes in Gaza.

Netanyahu is surely right. Israel’s response to these ongoing rocket attacks is justified. But being justified isn’t the same thing as being smart. The truth is Israel has been engaged in a low-grade war with the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip for five years now, with no plan besides a misguided military strategy for how to end it.

To try to contain the threat, Israel has relied largely on periodic air strikes on weapons storage facilities and targeted assassinations of militants, which sometimes result in civilian casualties that radicalize the Palestinian population. It bombs the smuggling tunnels that run underground between Egypt and the Gaza Strip and are used to smuggle in civilian goods and weapons. The tunnels exist because of the strict blockade Israel enforces around the territory, choking off anything like normal commerce.

In four years, Israel’s playbook hasn’t changed. Nor did the Palestinian rockets ever truly end. But in the intervening years the world has changed. Most significantly, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who could ignore anti-Israel sentiment in his country, is gone. His successor, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, may have more sway with Hamas, but he also has less power to resist Egyptian calls to sever ties with Israel.

Israel’s problems aren’t limited to its southern flank. The civil war in Syria is threatening to engulf Israel. Thousands of Jordanians are in the streets demanding King Abdullah’s ouster. Relations with Turkey remain frayed.

Israel is growing ever more isolated just as its regional position becomes more insecure.

About 1,400 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns since the end of its last full-scale military action in Gaza in January 2009.* The Israeli blockade of Gaza failed to prevent the smuggling of longer-range rockets that can now reach Tel Aviv. Hamas is still in power and has more international legitimacy than ever. The emir of Qatar became the first head of state to visit Gaza last month since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, still furious over Israel’s refusal to apologize for the killing of nine Turks on a flotilla filled with pro-Palestinian activists in 2010, is making plans to travel there. A senior Egyptian delegation visited Friday in a show of support.

Palestinian militant groups are clearly trying to drag Israel into an all-out war. An Israeli ground response “would be the best thing that could happen to Hamas,” the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, Ami Ayalon, told Israel’s Channel 10 news Thursday night. “Hamas’s strategy is to draw the Israeli army into civilian areas, kill lots of Israeli soldiers, and declare victory.”

So that’s Hamas’s strategy. But what is Israel’s?

“We will put an end to this,” Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s deputy prime minister and minister of strategic affairs, declared Thursday. “We will not maintain restraint. If the terror organizations do not cease their fire, we will be prepared to toughen our response as much as necessary, until they say, ‘Enough!’ ”

If that is indeed what Netanyahu and his government have planned—and all indications suggest mounting military strikes on Gaza are imminent—then Israel’s response couldn’t be any less strategic. To be sure, Israel will once again achieve many of its short-term tactical goals, assassinating a handful of Hamas leaders, leveling militant safe houses, and eliminating scores of Hamas military installations or weapon depots. And, in the end, Israel will be no safer, although it will surely be more alone in the world and living in a neighborhood that is less tolerant of its aggressive countermeasures.

It’s time to declare Israel’s policy toward Gaza and Hamas a failure. This is not an anti-Israel statement. Rather, it is an honest acknowledgment of the facts, which are simply too numerous to avoid.

It may please some Israelis to hear tough talk from Yaalon and other senior officials, but there is no disputing that Israel’s military approach has failed to bring better results. It will not—as history has demonstrated—bring the security that Israelis crave.

Israel needs a far more sophisticated, diplomatic, long-term strategic policy for dealing with Gaza and all the threats around it—from Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and perhaps Egypt. A new Israeli approach may have to include a willingness to at least try talking to Hamas, which is fighting its own internal battle against even more radical, anti-Israel groups in the Gaza Strip. It may mean putting more pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, languishing in irrelevance in Ramallah, to make peace with Hamas so there can be negotiations with Israel and a permanent end to this rocket-war madness.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta put it plainly during a visit to the region last year.   “The question you have to ask: Is it enough to maintain a military edge if you’re isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena? Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to protect your military strength.’’

In the spring of 2010, I asked one of Netanyahu’s top security advisers what Israel’s policy was toward Gaza. “What is it you don’t understand?” he replied, irritated. He didn’t care for my question because the answer seems self-evident to top Israeli officials: more of the same. If that remains the case, Israel’s newest military gambit was doomed before it even began.

Correction, Nov. 16, 2012: Due to a copy-editing error, this article originally stated that 14,000 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns since January 2009. About 1,400 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns.

Iran denies supplying Fajr 5 rockets to Gaza.

Saturday, 17 November 2012

Islamic Jihad claimed its militants fired a Fajr 5 which crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv on Thursday, in the first such attack on the heart of Israel since Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime fired Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf war. (Reuters)

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A senior Iranian official has denied his country supplied the Fajr 5 missiles which Palestinian militants have been firing at Tel Aviv, Iran’s al-Alam television reported on Saturday.

“We deny having delivered the Fajr 5 to the Palestinian resistance. The aim of such accusations is to portray the resistance as weak whereas it is perfectly capable of producing the arms it needs,” said Allaeddine Boroujerdi, head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

Islamic Jihad claimed its militants fired a Fajr 5 which crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv on Thursday, in the first such attack on the heart of Israel since Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime fired Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf war.

Info-graphic: How powerful are Hamas rockets? (Design: Farwa Rizwan / Al Arabiya English)

Sirens went off in Tel Aviv again on Saturday for a third straight day, sending people scuttling for cover, a day after a rocket crashed into the Mediterranean near the city center, AFP correspondents said.

The latest rocket was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

The armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement which rules Gaza and which like Islamic Jihad is supported by Tehran, claimed the latest Fajr 5 fire.

The Fajr 5 rocket has a far greater range than the home-produced Qassam rockets normally used by Palestinian militants in Gaza to target Israel, but neither are very accurate, defense analysts say.

Fajr 5 rockets can be fired from the back of a 6×6 truck to hit targets up to 75 kilometers (46 miles) away. This compares to a range of between four and 13 kilometers for the Qassam rockets.

Western Nations Support Israel – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Tank outside Gaza (archive)

Flash 90

Western nations on Friday pushed Egypt to persuade Hamas terrorists to end rocket attacks from Gaza and backed Israel’s right to self-defense, AFP reported.

The West stressed the onus was on Hamas to halt rocket fire into southern Israel, said the report.

“Israel has the right to protect its population from these kinds of attacks. I urge Israel to ensure that its response is proportionate,” European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said, according to AFP.

She echoed hopes that Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, who crossed into Gaza for a brief visit Friday, “will be able calm the situation.”

Washington has reached out to Egypt’s new leaders as well as to allies such as Turkey to use their sway with Gaza’s Hamas leaders.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is traveling in Asia, has spoken twice with her Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Amr, since the start of the operation, with the second conversation taking place after Qandil’s Gaza visit.

“In all of the conversations that she has had… we all agree on the need to de-escalate this conflict,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Clinton was also expected to be in contact with “countries with influence, to try to maximize the pressure we can bring to bear on Hamas to cease and desist,” Nuland added.

She again stressed the U.S. position that “Israel has a right of self-defense” and refused to be drawn on reports that the Israeli army was preparing for a ground operation in Gaza.

Speaking at Gaza City’s Shifa hospital during his visit, Qandil vowed to step up Cairo’s efforts to secure a ceasefire.

“Egypt will not hesitate to intensify its efforts and make sacrifices to stop this aggression and achieve a lasting truce,” he told reporters on Friday.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi also branded Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense as a “blatant aggression against humanity,” the official MENA news agency said.

Morsi vowed that “Cairo will not leave Gaza on its own.”

Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, often plays a mediator role between Israel and Hamas, and Morsi has been fielding calls from world leaders over the rising violence.

French President Francois Hollande expressed “deep concern” in a phone call with Morsi and “stressed the role Egypt could play to cut the tensions,” the president’s office said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also told the Egyptian leader that Moscow supported Egypt’s efforts to halt the violence, the Kremlin said.

Saudi King Abdullah, whose country is a heavyweight in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, told Morsi “that things must calm down and reason and wisdom must reign over passionate reactions,” the state news agency SPA said.

Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan once again attacked Israel on Friday and accused Israeli officials of ordering the air strikes as an electoral move ahead of January’s vote.

“Ahead of this (new) vote, the current leadership once again chose the route of striking these innocent people of Gaza for made-up reasons,” Erdogan said, according to the Anatolia news agency.

Pakistan also condemned the Israeli air strikes on Gaza and vowed to stand by the people of Palestine against “Israeli aggression,” branding it a violation of international law, AFP reported.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II told Clinton in a phone call that he was “deeply worried” about Israel’s air strikes, a palace statement quoted by AFP said.

“Clinton telephoned the king, who said he was deeply worried about the dangerous repercussions of Israel’s aggression on Gaza and its impact on the region,” the statement added.

The king, whose country has a 1994 peace agreement with the Jewish State, “warned against Israel’s military escalation, stressing that more international efforts are needed to stop it,” the palace said.

Hamas terrorists continued their rocket attacks on Israel on Friday. According to statistics published by the IDF, since the beginning of Operation Pillar of Defense more than 550 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel. The Iron Dome system intercepted more than 192 rockets, and recorded an 85% success rate.

On Friday afternoon, sirens were heard in Tel Aviv and the area for the second dayrunning. Hamas immediately took credit for the attack, claiming to have shot “an improved Qassam.”

Rockets were also fired towards Jerusalem, hitting Gush Etzion, just south of the city. There were no physical injuries or damages.

Analysis: Will Ground Operation Topple Hamas? – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IDF tank outside Gaza

Reuters

The Israeli government has approved the call-up of 75,000 reservists to participate in the Gaza fighting, as infantry, armor and engineering units mass near Gaza awaiting the command to enter the Hamas-controlled terror state.

No one outside the IDF’s leadership knows if the IDF intends to invade Gaza, when the IDF incursion will start, and what its targets will be.

If an incursion does take place, there are different possible scenarios for it.

One possibility is that the military will strive to finish what it started – and did not complete – in the 2008-9 Cast Lead campaign: namely, topple Hamas and bring down its leaders, dead or alive. Among the reasons why this move was not carried out in Cast Lead was that Hamas’s leadership hid under the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, in the knowledge that the IDF was loath to strike such a facility. Another reason was that Sgt. Gilad Shalit was being held hostage by Hamas at the time.

This option is favored by some hard liners, but also by some in the leftist camp, who hope that Hamas’ leadership will be replaced by Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah, which they perceive as being moderate and “a partner for peace.”

The problem with this option is that even if the IDF performs brilliantly, it is hard to imagine how it can be accomplished without heavy fighting between IDF ground forces and Hamas. This would entail IDF casualties that the Israeli public – goaded by a notoriously pacifistic press – may not be willing to accept.

Toppling Hamas could also involve a large number of Arab casualties. This, in turn, might place pressure on Egypt’s president, Mohammed Morsi, to carry out steps like severing diplomatic ties with Israel or even abrogating the peace treaty with it.

Another option open to the IDF is to enter Gaza without entering Gaza City, and establish a temporary military presence, possibly cutting off the north and south of the Gaza Strip from the center. The IDF could then conceivably enforce a type of open-ended siege or curfew on Gaza, firing from the air at every military target it sees, including all armed individuals, until Hamas can take this no longer.

At the same time, Israel could conduct talks with Egypt and other Arab countries, in an effort to reach a solution that would include an IDF pullout and a complete cessation of terror attacks from Gaza against Israel

Henry Kissinger: Iran must be President Obama’s immediate priority – The Washington Post.

( Thank you, Kayvan. – JW  )

By Henry A. Kissinger, Saturday, November 17, 2:57 AM

Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.

In the aftermath of an exhausting reelection campaign, the most urgent decision facing the president is how to stop Iran from pursuing a military nuclear program. Presidents of both parties have long declared that “no option is off the table” in securing this goal. In the third presidential debate, the candidates agreed that this was a matter of the American national interest, even as they described the objective alternately as preventing an Iranian “nuclear weapon” or “breakout capacity” (President Obama), or a “nuclear-capable Iran” (Mitt Romney). As Iran continues to elaborate its enrichment capacity and move it underground, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced a spring deadline for counteraction. In this fraught environment, what operational meaning should be given to America’s declared objectives?

The United States and Iran are apparently conducting bilateral negotiations through official or semiofficial emissaries — a departure from the previous procedure of multilateral talks. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program do not have an encouraging record. For more than a decade, Iran has stalled, first with the “EU-3” (France, Germany and Britain) and then with the “P5+1” (the members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany). It has alternated hints of flexibility with periods of intransigence, all while expanding, concealing and dispersing its nuclear facilities. If no limit is placed on this process, Iran’s tech­no­logical progress will dominate events. But at what stage, and in what manner, should Iran be deprived of a military nuclear capability? This has been the essence of the argument over “red lines.”

Three stages are involved in the evolution of a military nuclear capability: a delivery system, a capacity to enrich uranium and the production of nuclear warheads. Iran has been augmenting the range and number of its missile systems since at least 2006. Its enrichment capacity — long underreported to the International Atomic Energy Agency — has been expanded to thousands of centrifuges (the instruments that enrich uranium to bomb-grade material). The level exceeds any reasonable definition of peaceful uses authorized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The inevitable culmination is a nuclear weapon.

To draw the line at proscribing an Iranian nuclear weapon — as some argue — would prove unmanageable. Once the requisite amount of fissile material has been produced, constructing and equipping a warhead is a relatively short and technologically straightforward process, almost certainly impossible to detect in a timely fashion.

If so ineffectual a red line were to emerge from a decade of diplomacy by the permanent members of the Security Council, the result would be an essentially uncontrollable military nuclear proliferation throughout a region roiled by revolution and sectarian blood-feuds. Iran would thereby achieve the status of North Korea, with a military nuclear program at the very edge of going operational. Each nation that has a nuclear option would compete to minimize the time to its own full military nuclear capability. Meanwhile, countries within the reach of Iran’s military but lacking a nuclear option would be driven to reorient their political alignment toward Tehran. The reformist tendencies in the Arab Spring — already under severe pressure — would be submerged by this process. The president’s vision of progress toward a global reduction of nuclear weapons would suffer a blow, perhaps a fatal one.

Some have argued that even in the worst-case scenario, a nuclear Iran could be deterred. Yet this ignores the immensely costly, complex and tension-ridden realities of Cold War-era deterrence, the apocalyptic strain in the Iranian theocracy and the near-certainty that several regional powers will go nuclear if Iran does. Once nuclear balances are forged in conditions where tensions are no longer purely bilateral, as in the Cold War, and in still-developing countries whose technology to prevent accidents is rudimentary, the likelihood of some nuclear exchange will mount dramatically.

This is why the United States has insisted on limits on Iranian enrichment — that is, curtailing access to a weapon’s precursor elements. Abandoning the original demand to ban all enrichment, the P5+1 has explored what levels of production of fissile material are compatible with the peaceful uses authorized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The higher the level of enrichment, the shorter the time needed to bring about militarily applicable results. Conventional wisdom holds that the highest practically enforceable limit is 5 percent enrichment, and then only if all fissile material beyond an agreed amount is safeguarded outside Iran.

The time available for a diplomatic outcome shrinks in direct proportion as the Iranian enrichment capacity grows and a military nuclear capacity approaches. The diplomatic process must therefore be brought to a point of decision. The P5+1 or the United States unilaterally must put forward a precise program to curtail Iranian enrichment with specific time limits.

This does not imply a red line authorizing any country to go to war. However respectfully the views of friends are considered, the ultimate decision over peace or war must remain in the hands of the president. Why negotiate with a country of such demonstrated hostility and evasiveness? Precisely because the situation is so fraught. Diplomacy may reach an acceptable agreed outcome. Or its failure will mobilize the American people and the world. It will clarify either the causes of an escalating crisis, up to the level of military pressure, or ultimate acquiescence in an Iranian nuclear program. Either outcome will require a willingness to see it through to its ultimate implications. We cannot afford another strategic disaster.

To the extent that Iran shows willingness to conduct itself as a nation-state, rather than a revolutionary religious cause, and accepts enforceable verification, elements of Iranian security concerns should be taken seriously, including gradual easing of sanctions as strict limits on enrichment are implemented and enforced. But time will be urgent. Tehran must be made to understand that the alternative to an agreement is not simply a further period of negotiation and that using negotiations to gain time will have grave consequences. A creative diplomacy, allied to a determined strategy, may still be able to prevent a crisis provided the United States plays a decisive role in defining permissible outcomes.

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

Israel Sticks to Tough Approach in Conflict With Hamas – NYTimes.com.

TEL AVIV — With rockets landing on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday and the Egyptian prime minister making a solidarity visit to Gaza, the accelerating conflict between Israel and Hamas — reminiscent in many ways of so many previous battles — has the makings of a new kind of Israeli-Palestinian face-off.

The combination of longer-range and far deadlier rockets in the hands of more radicalized Palestinians, the arrival in Gaza and Sinai from North Africa of other militants pressuring Hamas to fight more, and the growing tide of anti-Israel fury in a region where authoritarian rulers have been replaced by Islamists means that Israel is engaging in this conflict with a different set of challenges.

The Middle East of 2012 is not what it was in late 2008, the last time Israel mounted a military invasion to reduce the rocket threat from Gaza. Many analysts and diplomats outside Israel say the country today needs a different approach to Hamas and the Palestinians based more on acknowledging historic grievances and shifting alliances.

“As long as the crime of dispossession and refugeehood that was committed against the Palestinian people in 1947-48 is not redressed through a peaceful and just negotiation that satisfies the legitimate rights of both sides, we will continue to see enhancements in both the determination and the capabilities of Palestinian fighters — as has been the case since the 1930s, in fact,” Rami G. Khouri, a professor at the American University of Beirut, wrote in an online column. “Only stupid or ideologically maniacal Zionists fail to come to terms with this fact.”

But the government in Israel and the vast majority of its people have drawn a very different conclusion. Their dangerous neighborhood is growing still more dangerous, they agree. That means not concessions, but being tougher in pursuit of deterrence, and abandoning illusions that a Jewish state will ever be broadly accepted here.

“There is a theory, which I believe, that Hamas doesn’t want a peaceful solution and only wants to keep the conflict going forever until somehow in their dream they will have all of Israel,” Eitan Ben Eliyahu, a former leader of the Israeli Air Force, said in a telephone briefing. “There is a good chance we will go into Gaza on the ground again.”

What is striking in listening to the Israelis discuss their predicament is how similar the debate sounds to so many previous ones, despite the changed geopolitical circumstances. In most minds here, the changes do not demand a new strategy, simply a redoubled old one.

The operative metaphor is often described as “cutting the grass,” meaning a task that must be performed regularly and has no end. There is no solution to security challenges, officials here say, only delays and deterrence. That is why the idea of one day attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, even though such an attack would set the nuclear program back only two years, is widely discussed as a reasonable option. That is why frequent raids in the West Bank and surveillance flights over Lebanon never stop.

And that is why this week’s operation in Gaza is widely viewed as having been inevitable, another painful but necessary maintenance operation that, officials here say, will doubtless not be the last.

There are also those who believe that the regional upheavals are improving Israel’s ability to carry out deterrence. One retired general who remains close to the military and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that with Syria torn apart by civil war, Hezbollah in Lebanon discredited because of its support for the Syrian government, and Egypt so weakened economically, Israel should not worry about anything but protecting its civilians.

“Should we let our civilians be bombed because the Arab world is in trouble?” he asked.

So much was happening elsewhere in the region — the Egyptian and Libyan revolutions, the Syrian civil war, dramatic changes in Yemen and elections in Tunisia — that a few rockets a day that sent tens of thousands of Israeli civilians into bomb shelters drew little attention. But in the Israeli view, the necessity of a Gaza operation has been growing steadily throughout the Arab Spring turmoil.

In 2009, after the Israeli invasion pushed Hamas back and killed about 1,400 people in Gaza, 200 rockets hit Israel. The same was true in 2010. But last year the number rose to 600, and before this week the number this year was 700, according to the Israeli military. The problem went beyond rockets to mines planted near the border aimed at Israeli military jeeps and the digging of explosive-filled tunnels.

“In 2008 we managed to minimize rocket fire from Gaza significantly,” said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman. “We started that year with 100 rockets a week and ended it with two a week. We were able to give people in our south two to three years. But the grass has grown, and other things have as well. Different jihadist ideologies have found their way into Gaza, including quite a few terrorist organizations. More weapons have come in, including the Fajr-5, which is Iranian made and can hit Tel Aviv. That puts nearly our entire population in range. So we reached a point where we cannot act with restraint any longer.”

Gazans see events in a very different light. The problem, they say, comes from Israel: Israeli drones fill the Gazan skies, Israeli gunboats strafe their waters, Palestinian militants are shot at from the air, and the Gaza border areas are declared off limits by Israel with the risk of death from Israeli gunfire.

But there is little dissent in Israel about the Gaza policy. This week leaders of the leftist opposition praised the assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas military commander, on Wednesday. He is viewed here as the equivalent of Osama bin Laden. The operation could go on for many days before there is any real dissent.

The question here, nonetheless, is whether the changed regional circumstances will make it harder to “cut the grass” in Gaza this time and get out. A former top official who was actively involved in the last Gaza war and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said it looked to him as if Hamas would not back down as easily this time.

“They will not stop until enough Israelis are killed or injured to create a sense of equality or balance,” he said. “If a rocket falls in the middle of Tel Aviv, that will be a major success. But this government will go back at them hard. I don’t see this ending in the next day or two.”

Against a Ground Invasion of Gaza – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic.

( Surprise, surprise…. – JW )

A ground invasion of Gaza is a bad idea. The temptations are many — Gaza is controlled by an anti-Semitic Muslim fundamentalist organization committed to Israel’s destruction, and it obviously harbors many men who are actively plotting ways to kill Jews. But there is no military solution to Israel’s political problem in Gaza, short of some sort of World War II-style Tokyo campaign, or Putin-style Chechnya campaign (or, for that matter, an Aleppo-style Assad campaign). If Israel were to go into Gaza, and get lucky, it could avoid creating masses of civilian casualties. But the Israeli attitude, after the Jenin experience in 2002 — in which soldiers lives were lost precisely because the army, for humanitarian reasons, chose not to bomb the Jenin camp from the air — is that it will not put its soldiers in undue harm simply to avoid creating the civilian casualties that the cynics of Hamas hope they would create (and work assiduously to to help Israel create).

Israel does not have the freedom of action to wipe out Hamas’s armed wing (plus the armed wings of other groups that may or may not fall under Hamas control or influence). Plus, it shouldn’t lay waste to Gaza, both because this is immoral, and because Gaza will, the day after, still be Israel’s neighbor.

The air campaign against Hamas rocket sites is understandable and defensible. A ground invasion will lead to misery and woe; to a total rupture with Egypt; to a further loss of legitimacy, and thus, deterrent capability — and, at the end of the day, does anyone actually believe that Israel would be able to fully neutralize the Hamas/Islamic Jihad threat? These groups might need time to rebuild, but they would be rebuilt.  And then what? Another ground invasion?

Now is the time to try the Egypt card. As Meir Javedanfar writes:

…(W)e should… engage the Egyptians. Instead of invading Gaza and pushing Morsi into Hamas’s corner, lets continue to make Hamas his problem. An invasion will not be in Morsi’s interests either. He has enough economic problems on his plate. With a major economic problem on his hands, he would prefer not to anger the Americans, and the EU by being seen to back Hamas.

So lets get the Egyptians to start a massive shuttle diplomacy to rein in Hamas attacks. If they manage to do this we in Israel will have averted a war and all its costs while Morsi could say that he is now the biggest power broker in the region.

If someone could plausibly make the argument that a ground invasion represents a long-term solution that both avoid large numbers of casualties and enhances Israel’s international position, I’m all ears.

In the meantime, perhaps Israel should contemplate actually moving the Palestinians down the road of political independence on the West Bank, under moderate, far-seeing leadership. This might convince the people of Gaza that Hamas does nothing for them. Of course, there’s no sign Israel’s leadership takes seriously the need to create conditions on the ground necessary for the establishment of a Palestinian state. So here we are, again.

Hamas demands: End of siege and targeted killings – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Islamic Jihad-affiliated website reports that Hamas presented its demands for halting rocket fire at Cairo meeting

Roi Kais

The lifting of the Gaza blockade and international community guarantees for the cessation of targeted killings – these are the conditions Hamas has put forward in exchange for halting its rocket fire at Israel, the Islamic Jihad-affiliated Palestine al-Youm website reported Saturday.

According to the report, the terms were presented at a meeting held in Cairo between Hamas representatives headed by politburo chief Khaled Mashaal and Egyptian officials headed by intelligence chief Raafat Shehata.

Sources told the website that the Hamas delegation had demanded the lifting of the Gaza blockade, the full opening of Gaza crossings and a cessation of targeted killings in exchange for halting rocket fire. Hamas, in was reported, asked Egypt to open the Rafah border for the passage of people and goods.

Meanwhile, Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nunu held a press conference in the government compound that was bombed Friday night. “The Arab nation stands by our people,” he said. “The Palestinian people do not face Israel alone. This has angered the occupation and led it to cause this destruction.”

Jabalya after airstrike (Photo: EPA)

Al-Nunu noted that his organization will continue to host senior Arab officials such as the Egyptian prime minister and the Tunisian foreign minister anywhere in the Strip and that the Gaza factions will emerge victorious while Israel will have failed to meet its goals.

Hamas envoy in Lebanon Ali Barakeh said that the group is not worried about the reserves call-up which may lead to a ground offensive in Gaza.

‘We don’t fear reserves call-up’ (Photo: Avi Rokach)

“There are more than 50,000 Palestinian Jihad warriors who are willing to fight against any ground offensive in Gaza. Gaza will be a cemetery for invaders. In addition to the warriors, there are 5,000 martyrs waiting for the IDF soldiers to blow themselves up.”

Meanwhile, it was reported that a Palestinian bike rider was killed in an IDF strike in Rafah. Earlier it was reported that the Air Force bombed a Hamas post in Khan Younis. Medical sources in Gaza reported of six casualties.

Israel Military Implements Gaza War, Phase1 of Iran Nuclear Attack Plan :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website.

( Borderline “nutty,”  I found this article worth passing on.  – JW )

Politics / Middle East Nov 17, 2012 – 04:24 AM

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It is no news that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been preparing the world for an attack against Iran all year, as illustrated by the PM’s September visit and speech at the UN (Netanyahu Warns of Attack on Iran). In a continuation of the propaganda war, Channel 4 recently aired a fly on the wall documentary into the suggested thought processes that the Israeli Government, Military and Intelligence agencies were going through during September 2012 as they war gamed the consequences of a unilateral attack against Iran’s air defence, missile and nuclear infrastructure, and how the aftermath could play out in terms of world reaction and Iranian military response.

Whilst the programme reeked of propaganda for the camera’s towards justification for an attack against Iran, as those involved were clearly attempting to talk the wider world into believing that the consequences of an attack against Iran would be contained i.e. that Iranian retaliation would be limited due to fears of drawing the US into the conflict.

However, one of the consequences that the Israeli war gamers could not mask in the aftermath of an attack on Iran would be the thousands of rockets and longer range missile attacks from Iranian proxies in Gaza and Lebanon who’s numbers were more than capable of overcoming Israel’s missile defence shield that could perhaps deal with upto 200 rockets per day rather than the prospects for peak attacks of probably over 2000 per day that would be in addition to any remaining Iranian longer range missiles that Israel hoped to degrade during the initial air war.

Therefore clearly at the forefront of the Israeli military planning for an attack against Iran has been towards engineering an scenario that would allow Israel to degrade the longer range rockets that could be fired out of both Gaza and Lebanon that would allow Israel’s missile defences to be better able to deal with he aftermath of an air war against iranian military and nuclear infrastructure as it would take significant military capability for Iran to retaliate off the military map, as well as improving the probability of earlier US Military intervention in an air war against Iran, by allowing a scenario to unfold that would draw the US into the region under guise of being at the defence of Israel.

Phase 1 – Invade Gaza and Degrade Rockets Capability – November 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing an election in January 2013 had clearly put the Gaza attack plans on low gear until after the US Presidential election, following which Israel virtually immediately embarked upon a series of military provocations including sending tanks into Gaza on November 8th that killed a Palestinian child, then 2 days later fired a number of shells into Gaza killing a 4 civilians and wounding 38 others. The trigger for Gaza retaliation was the targeted assassinations of Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari who was killed by a missile that was followed by an extensive bombing campaign to inflame Hamas into retaliating with longer range rockets.

The Israeli Government is using Hamas retaliation as political cover for the justification for an all out air and ground assault against Gaza with the primary objective for seeking out and destroying much of Hamas’s longer range rocket stock piles. Hamas by firing a dozen or so rockets at Tel-Aviv is following Israeli war planners strategy as it plays well to Israeli and western audiences that an assault upon Gaza is justified.

The Gaza War Phase 1 invasion now appears imminent, as already upwards of 100,000 Israeli troops have started to mass on Gaza’s border as the bombardment continues to pave it’s way for an invasion of Gaza.

The estimated consequences of Phase 1, if inline with the last Gaza war in the run up to the 2009 Israeli elections could see some 2000 Palestinian deaths against an estimated 30 Israeli, and likely to result in a short lived invasion of less than 1 month as Israel would soon require the troops for Phase2.

Phase 2 – Invasion of Lebanon, Degrade Hezbollah – December 2012

Following the destruction of Hamas’s Gaza ability to retaliate following an attack on Iran, and Syria being out of the picture, the Israeli war machine will next eye Phase 2 for a similar programme of first provocation, then invasion and destruction of Hezbollah military infrastructure, which would include carving out a semi-temporary buffer zone in South Lebanon so as to prevent small range rockets and mortars from being fired into northern Israel.

Therefore Israel will towards the latter stages of the Gaza War (in a matter of weeks), provoke attacks from Hezbollah by using similar tactics of drone attack assassinations of the leadership of Hezbollah with the main objective for Invasion and ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon so as to diminish the capability for Iranian response via Hezbollah.

The estimated consequences of Phase 2, if inline with the last 2006 Lebanon war could see at least 1500 Lebanese deaths (mostly civilian) and an estimated 150 Israeli deaths (mostly military), with the occupation likely to continue until well after an attack against Iran is underway.

Phase 3 – Attack on Iranian Military and Nuclear Infrastructure – January 2013

It is highly likely that an attack against Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure would follow at the peak of Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon as that would have Hezbollah under maximum pressure, which suggests that such an attack could take place some time during January 2013, in the run up to the Israeli General Election.

Given that much of Iranian nuclear infrastructure is deep under ground (under a mountain), limited Israeli ground forces may also be deployed, or tactical nuclear missiles used to vaporise deep under ground infrastructure.

Iranian Response

Iran will have also been under taking war gaming scenarios in which respect witnessing Israel diminishing its capability to respond following an Israeli air attack, Iran may conclude that an Israeli attack were imminent and therefore may choose to strike first before Israel attacks.

However the problem for an Iranian first strike following an Israeli invasion of Lebanon is that it would draw the United States into the unfolding war, in which respect Iran is effectively in a lose, lose situation as the outcome would be the same as Iran’s air, missile and nuclear infrastructure would be greatly degraded. However, the advantage of a first strike would be that it would unite an increasingly rebellious population that are suffering as a consequence of hyperinflation behind the Iranian leadership.

There is also an alterative scenario that could scupper Israel’s attack plans which is if Iran decided to comply with UN resolutions regarding its nuclear programme, for which there is no real sign unless behind the scenes negotiations are taking place, in fact Israel starting to dismantle Iran’s capability to deter an Israeli air attack will likely result in an acceleration of the Iranian Nuclear programme as Iran attempts to detonate a series of nuclear tests as a warning against an attack, as we have seen countless times in the past such as at the height of the India / Pakistan confrontation of a decade or so ago.

The bottom line is that the Israeli Government had put its military plans on hold until after the US Presidential Election, following which it has now implemented it’s 3 stage plan the ultimate goal for which is the destruction of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, towards which it is using the cover of actions in defence of attacks from Gaza that the Israeli elite has engineered as part of a series of war gaming scenarios and plans put together many months ago. These plans have now been put into action and the events in motion suggest that we will first see a Gaza invasion, then of Lebanon, followed by a strike against Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure, all within the next 3 months so as to chime with the January Israeli general election that Prime Minister Netanyahu aims to win.

In respect of the consequences for a region wide war, Israel has miscalculated in their rush to implement plans, as they see the country’s security being underwritten by the United States therefore have ignored the wider middle eastern, Russia, and China dimensions to a conflict that they seem determined to instigate. For instance we could see that whilst the US is preoccupied in another war in the middle east, that China uses that as an excuse to seize the East China Sea Islands that it disputes with Japan and thus change the whole strategic balance of East Asia / Pacific that the US has dominated since the end of World War 2.

Current Probabilities

• The probability of an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza – 90%.
• An invasion of Lebanon – 70%.
• An conventional attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure before the end of January 2013 – 65%.
• Use of tactical nuclear weapons on Iran’s deep under ground nuclear infrastructure – 40%.
• Probability that Iran will do a deal with the US / UN and disarm before being attacked – 20%.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. – George Orwell

Source & Comments: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article37585.html

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk