WarSclerotic

EDITORIAL: More to Gaza than meets the eye | Editorials | BDlive.

EGYPT’s foreign minister is scheduled to visit the beleaguered Palestinian enclave of Gaza on Tuesday as part of a delegation of Arab ministers who would ostensibly be there to express solidarity with the local population after almost a week of intense aerial bombardment from Israel that has left more than 70 people dead.

Yet, as always in this part of the world, all is not necessarily as it seems. For a start, the visit was being planned even as speculation mounted that Israeli ground forces were poised to invade the Gaza Strip for the first time in four years. Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz was quoted yesterday as saying a decision on whether to send in ground forces to clear Gaza of missile launch sites that may have been missed during the past few days’ rocket attacks would be taken in “a matter of hours, not even days”.

A visit by an Arab ministerial delegation clearly could not proceed in the event of an Israeli land invasion, which would certainly meet determined resistance despite the weakened state of Hamas, which governs Gaza and has been responsible for thousands of rockets being fired over the border at civilian targets in Israel. This raises the question of whether the ministerial visit was ever actually intended to take place. Perhaps the Egyptians know more than they are letting on.

For all its rhetoric condemning Israel and expressing unconditional support for the Palestinian cause, Egypt has in fact been at the centre of diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire. Egyptian President M ohamme d Mursi has been in close contact with both the US and European governments and held talks to that end in Cairo last week with Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An Israeli diplomat is also believed to have visited Cairo at the weekend.

This would indicate that Egypt’s role in the region has not changed as dramatically as many Middle East analysts feared when the authoritarian but pragmatic Mubarak regime fell during the “Arab Spring” uprisings, only to be replaced following elections by the avowedly anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s 33-year peace treaty with Israel would appear to be holding.

For all Mr Mursi’s expression of sympathy for the Palestinian cause and unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza — the Brotherhood still does not officially recognise Israel’s right to exist — realpolitik has won the day. Egypt does not want constant armed conflict on its border and an influx of refugees any more than Israel is prepared to tolerate the daily bombardment that its citizens in southern border towns have had to endure over the past few years.

In addition, the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas cannot be separated from the wider issues that plague the region, including the uneasy relationship that exists between Shiite and Sunni Muslim states and worldwide concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Hamas is known to have close links with the predominantly Shiite Iran, and its recently improved missile launch capability, which has allowed it to target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, has relied heavily on Iranian technology, training and hardware. Yet the Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni in doctrine, and Mr Mursi will be wary of being drawn into a proxy battle with Israel on Iran’s behalf.

Is it entirely coincidental that rocket attacks on Israel from both Gaza and Syria have escalated in recent weeks just as military analysts were predicting that Israel may attempt to target Iranian nuclear sites? If the intention was to distract Israel by opening up new military fronts on its borders, thereby reducing the likelihood of an attack on Iran, the strategy would appear to have succeeded.

This is surely something that Israel will bear in mind as it considers whether to commit ground troops to Gaza.

Israel Hatred at the Huffington Post.

In recent months, the Huffington Post entered the world of video news with its debut of “HuffPost Live.” One might suspect that it was little more than a video version of the leftist website founded seven years ago by Arianna Huffington. Yet a blog known as Huff Watch has been documenting the content at both websites and has discovered a grim, though unsurprising reality: both Huffington Post and HuffPost Live are repositories of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel vitriol. Leading the charge at HuffPost Live is host/producer Ahmed Shihab-Eldin.

Shihab-Eldin’s bio asserts he has Palestinian heritage, and a former producer and co-host for Al-Jazeera, a well-known disseminator of anti-Israel propaganda. Al-Jazeera demonstrated its commitment to journalistic integrity in July 2008, when it held a birthday celebration for Samir Kuntar, a released Lebanese terrorist who killed a 28-year-old Israeli father in front of his 4-year-old daughter and then crushed the daughter’s skull with his rifle butt.

A cursory look at Shihab-Eldin’s latest blog entry reveals exactly where he stands. Titled “Terrorizing Gaza: Will Egypt Intervene?” it is a compendium of anti-Israel bias, one that completely omits the reason for the current hostilities: since 2009, Hamas has bombarded Israel with more than 11,000 rockets and mortars.

Instead, Shihab-Eldin makes the loathsome argument that anything resembling a “disproportionate response” by Israel to such regular bombardment is tantamount to terror. “In the media and political realm, the word ‘terror’ is often cited by Israel and the US to justify Israel’s disproportionate and brutal use of force on Gaza,” he writes. “This happened in 2009, and is happening again today. Israel frames everything through the context of defense against terrorism.”

He goes on. “But many view Israel’s occupation, psychological warfare, aerial and naval bombardment of Gaza as terror.” Who exactly? “Iran’s Foreign Ministry described Israel’s strikes on Gaza as ‘organized terrorism.’ Qatar’s Foreign Ministry called Israel’s attacks a ‘filthy crime that ‘must not pass without a punishment.’”

He also refers to Gaza as the “Occupied Gaza Strip,” a blatant lie. In 2005, Israel turned over the Gaza strip to the Palestinians, uprooting thousands of Jewish settlers in the process. Left to their own devices, the Palestinians initiated a civil war between Hamas and Fatah in 2007, with Hamas gaining control of Gaza. Yet not only does Shihab-Eldin refuse to accept that reality, the Huffington Post allows him to reiterate his lie, despite his hosting of a broadcast with Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Danny Danon in September, who informed him of historical reality.

Another part of the piece is dedicated to a video report by Emily L. Hauser, an American-Israeli writer. Ms. Hauser makes the faux-intellectual argument, popular among the international community, that Hamas’s purposeful attempts to slaughter Israeli civilians and Israel’s attempt to defend itself are morally equivalent. However, ”[t]he big difference is the enormity of the power imbalance,” she contends. “When you have one side locked in to one of the most densely populated strips of land on planet Earth, and you are bringing to bear tanks and battleships and jet fighters in a constant rain of ordnance versus people who can fire, from within that tiny space, rockets out…that comparison is simply entirely out of whack.”

Another “reporter” Shihab-Eldin cites is Mohammed Omer, who reports updates from inside the Gaza Strip, and conveys the “humanitarian crisis” Israel is inflicting on Gaza. In reality, Omer is a pro-Islamist propagandist who blogs at Electronic Intifada, a website that refers to Israel’s 1948 creation as Al Nakba (Arabic for “The Catastrophe”).

HuffWatch’s lead blogger, writing under the pseudonym Huff Watcher, has catalogued the evolution of anti-Semitic bias at HuffPost since at least 2010. A previous report presented three years of documentation revealing that “HuffPost consistently ‘frames’ news stories in such a way that incites anti-Israel perceptions and hatred. Further, in violation of its own policies, it approves and tolerates user comments submitted in response to these stories that contain incendiary, hate-filled libels against Israelis and Jews, as well as links to anti-Semitic hate websites.”

Huff Watcher further illuminates the hypocrisy of the site’s “zero tolerance” policy regarding hate speech, documenting virulently anti-Semitic user comments that were approved by a human moderator. An example: “They [Jews] all need to be rounded up and gassed,” offers “markoze,” in December of 2008.

Perhaps one can rationalize that user comments are not indicative of a website’s bias. Yet here is Shihab-Eldin’s Twitter page, which demonstrates overt prejudice against Israel: “By ignoring the fundamental fact that #Israel Occupies #Gaza, we are starting from a flagrantly false premise,” he tweets in one example. “Americans are being consistent by supporting attack on Gaza – grounded in same premise as US aggression,” he tweets in another. “List of Israeli Violations Against the #Gaza Strip ((January 1st to November 17th, 2012),” reads a third.

Algemeiner editor David Efune recounts his own appearance on HuffPost Live, describing his role in a discussion about Iran as the “token opposing voice to join as an ambush prop.” When other guests argued that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was a non-starter and that Prime Minister Netanyahu was a warmongering barbarian, Efune countered with the reality that 7 million Israeli lives might be at risk if Iran goes nuclear. Shihab-Eldin once again revealed his bias. “I have to retort to (sic) what David said, which is misrepresenting and misleading people on the real threat in the region…he says there is a threat from Iran to Israel even though Iran currently doesn’t have weapons and Israel does….let’s try and put ourselves in (Iran’s) shoes, they see themselves in a region where the US has invaded Afghanistan, has invaded Iraq, two of their neighbors, Israel has a nuclear weapon, so if there is a threat to anyone, they are the ones who feel threatened,” he contended.

Efune cuts right through the nonsense. “How the Huffington Post gets away with placing someone who vocally campaigns for this morally corrupt position in a role of senior responsibility, is simply beyond me,” he writes.

In an email obtained yesterday by FrontPage, Huff Watcher offers a possible answer to that question. “With the election of President Obama, since early 2009 HuffPost’s ‘journalists’ began being welcomed all over Capitol Hill, and enjoy direct, preferred access to the White House. It now boasts a blogging stable including many top figures of the Democrat Party, and governments around the world,” he writes. “Less well-known is that as of early 2011, nearly 10,000 unique visitors a day arrived from the three largest incubators of Islamist terror: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, presumably in part because, as even Abe Foxman (a HuffPost blogger) noted, the comments that HuffPost publishes in response to his articles are ‘dripping’ with anti-Semitism.”

He then cuts to the heart of the matter. “If Hamas were going to try to buy this kind of PR from the world’s #1 most-read online ‘newspaper,’ it would cost a fortune. Instead, HuffPost is doing it for free — and with U.S. tax dollars.”

That last fact is attributable to the reality that Cadillac is a founding sponsor of HuffPost Live. Since Cadillac is part of General Motors, which is still alive courtesy of a taxpayer-funded bailout, We the People are underwriting the anti-Israel bias that has found a home at the Huffington Post.

Joshua Gleis: Israel’s Game Changing War.

The recent flare up of violence between Israel and the Hamas has highlighted three specific game changes from wars past. The first is that there is no longer any part of Israel that is guaranteed to be immune from war. The second is that what happens in Israel now affects Jewish communities around the world. The third is that Israel’s peace with Egypt has been stripped down to the bare minimum. All three of these changes have been long in the making, and have now been cemented during this most recent flare up of violence, dubbed Operation Pillar of Defense by the Israelis.

Israel’s lack of strategic depth has never been a secret — without the West Bank, it is a mere nine miles wide at its narrowest point. Yet for much of its history, the majority of Israel’s population remained shielded from wars because the Jewish state quickly took the fight to its enemies and pushed the battlefield away from its population centers. That veracity first showed signs of wear back in the 1991 Gulf War, when over 40 Iraqi scud missiles were fired at Israel, and namely the Tel Aviv area known as Gush Dan, forcing millions of its citizens to hunker down in sealed rooms and don gas masks.

In Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, its strategic depth was peeled away even further, as thousands of rockets were fired at the northern part of the country, including its strategic port city of Haifa. Soon after Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, rockets started flying out of that territory as well. Within a few short years, much of Israel’s south was under threat of rocket attack. Even following Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 to curb Palestinian rocket attacks, over one million Israelis remained vulnerable to the threat itself. And now, by the time Israel decided to try and put an end to the incessant firing on its communities and regain its deterrence, nearly 1,000 rockets and mortars had been fired at it by November of 2012.

The firing of rockets towards Tel Aviv and Jerusalem demonstrated a harsh new reality for the Jewish state: in the case of war, there is no longer a part of Israel that is safe from attack. With Israel’s population and economy centered around the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas, such rocket attacks on the Israeli heartland can cripple the country. Israelis are therefore more likely to direct their military, the IDF, into taking more bold action in an effort to force an end to Hamas rocket fire more expeditiously.

Hamas militants are deeply embedded into the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip, one of the densest regions on earth. Consequently, regardless of what measures Israel might take to warn Palestinian civilians of impending danger, including phone calls and leaflets warning of impending attacks, the likelihood of unintended civilian casualties will inevitably rise.

The second game changer that this most recent conflict with Hamas has highlighted is the threat that such hostilities have not just on the State of Israel, but on the Jewish people as a whole. The fact that Israeli actions against its enemies have repercussions for the Jewish community worldwide was first highlighted after Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s secretary general, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992. Back then, with assistance from Iran, Hezbollah replied not just by attacking IDF forces, but by attacking Jewish and Israeli soft targets. These included a suicide truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, which killed nearly 29 people and destroyed a nearby Catholic church and school. It was later followed by a suicide truck bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in that same city in 1994, which killed another 85 civilians. Since that time, Islamist terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda and their affiliates, have continued to target Jewish communities in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Americas. As a Hamas training manual has stated, “It is foolish to hunt the tiger when there are plenty of sheep around.”

In addition to terrorist attacks, wars between Israel and its adversaries are increasingly accompanied by upticks in anti-Jewish violence around the world. After Israel’s last incursion into Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, anti-Semitic incidents in 2009 reached unprecedented levels around the world. In January of that year — the same time that Israel reinvaded Gaza — the Jewish Agency reported a threefold rise in attacks against Jews around the world, including the United States.

The third game changer this most recent outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas has highlighted is the further deterioration of relations between Egypt and Israel. If the Jewish state’s peace agreement with its southern neighbor has always been described as a “cold peace”, it could now be considered on ice. With the Muslim Brotherhood being swept into power, Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi has gone to great pains to demonstrate his unquestionable support for Hamas and the Palestinians vis-à-vis Israel. This has included rockets being fired by militants into Israel from Egyptian territory, a “solidarity” visit by Egypt’s prime minister to the Gaza Strip on November 15th that caused Israel to cease military operations even as rockets continued to be fired at its country, the recalling of Egypt’s ambassador to Israel in violation of the Camp David Peace Accords, and bellicose statements by President Morsi warning Israel that he “won’t hesitate to take unusual steps” and vowing that his country will “stop this [Israel’s] brutal aggression.”

At the time of writing, Israel has called up tens of thousands of its reserve forces: a precursor to any major ground war it may undertake. Far from seeing a let up in rocket fire, Hamas’ firing into the Jerusalem region, which had not been hit by a rocket since 1970, is an ominous sign of things to come. Unfortunately for all parties involved, more blood will be spilled before some semblance of normalcy resumes. By that time, the rules of the game will have been changed forever.

In the latest rocket barrage on Beersheba some 16 rocket launches and three different explosion sites were reported. A rocket hit a house; according to police sources the residents were in the fortified space and therefore uninjured. Heavy damage to the house was reported.

In an additional explosion site a bus was hit from shrapnel and in a third site a number of vehicles were in flames. A number of people suffered from anxiety and are receiving treatment. In the latest barrage the Iron Dome system intercepted at least eight rockets fired. (Ilana Curiel)

via Latest Beersheba rocket barrage: house hit; no injuries – Israel News, Ynetnews.

What the Pundits Miss About Gaza | World Policy Institute.

By William Beecher

The punditocracy, in analyzing the mounting belligerence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, misses its larger strategic significance.

The TV talking heads and the amen chorus of columnists start by conceding that no nation need placidly tolerate the firing of hundreds of rockets directed at its citizens.

But they warn that Israel tried a ground assault on Gaza four years ago, only to see the threat rebuild in spades. They note also that this time, the Hamas government has a larger base of political support after the Arab Spring in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world. They conclude that the two sides would be much better off to cool it and agree to an extended cease-fire.

All that is true. However it misses several salient points. Among them:

·      Israel is largely eliminating the retaliatory capacity from Gaza should it decide to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities within the next six months or so.

·      Ahmed al-Jabari, the top military commander of Hamas, was targeted and killed. He had cleverly planned and orchestrated the surreptitious supply of relatively sophisticated missiles from Iran through Sudan and the Sinai Peninsula by way of underground tunnels into Gaza. He is also credited with helping create a weapons fabrication and assembly industry.

·      The dust up has provided Israel with the opportunity to thoroughly test its so-called Iron Dome missile defense system, designed to intercept weapons that might hit population centers and ignore those destined to fall harmlessly on vacant desert.

·      Through heavy air strikes (and potentially, ground operations), Israel is attempting to eliminate most of Gaza’s stock of missiles, rockets, storage depots, and manufacturing facilities. Those rockets, that is, which aren’t being fired off in anger every day.

·      No doubt strategic planners in Iran comprehend the significance of what’s underway.  Conceivably, that could increase the chances, combined with biting economic sanctions, of convincing its leaders to seriously consider a diplomatic deal to hold off construction of nuclear weapons.

·      If that turns out to be the case, that would obviate the need for a preemptive assault on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

But Iran, which time and again has feigned a reasonable willingness to accommodate the world’s concerns about its uranium enrichment (and its accompanying missile and warhead development), only to back off and harden its stance, must be persuaded that time is running out.

There are plausible rumors that Washington and Tehran are secretly conferring on this score, outside the multilateral grouping of interested parties. Whether the Obama Administration is believably warning that if all else fails, it will back Israel’s military preemption is hard to say.

Iran must be persuaded to accept a firm arrangement in which international inspectors would have free access to all enrichment facilities to ensure that no enrichment beyond five percent is permitted, and that stocks above that level be maintained outside its borders.

If Iran is allowed to develop an arsenal of deliverable nuclear weapons, however, this will no doubt trigger a nuclear arms race in an unstable  region by those nations feeling threatened by Tehran or jealous of its supposed enhanced global standing as a new member of the nuclear club.

It is impossible to predict whether Iran seeks, as its rhetoric suggests, to obliterate Israel, especially given Israel’s undoubted capacity to turn Iran into an irradiated moonscape.

Countless contingencies notwithstanding, this is the larger strategic landscape that current events in Gaza underscore.

William Beecher is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Washington correspondent for the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He’s an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. His blog can be accessed at http://williambeecher.net

9 Beersheba rockets intercepted; bus hit – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Heavy barrage fired at south: Iron Dome intercepts at least 9 rockets fired at Beersheba, others land in city. One rocket explodes near bus, which sustains shrapnel damage

Ynet reporters

A heavy barrage of rockets was fired at Israel‘s south Tuesday morning as reports about an imminent ceasefire continued to surface.

The Iron Dome system intercepted at least nine rockets fired at Beersheba since 7:30 am. Three grads landed in the city. One of the rockets landed near a bus, which sustained shrapnel damage. No injuries were reported. Another rocket damaged a vehicle and a third hit a soccer field. A Grad landed in an urban area in Ofakim. A rocket fired at Ashkelon was also intercepted.

The forum of nine leading ministers convened Monday night to discuss the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire that would end Operation Pillar of Defense against terrorists in Gaza. Israel has agreed not to launch a ground offensive until the negotiations are exhausted. The meeting ended at 4 am but no official statement has been issued.

Bus hit by shrapnel in Beersheba (Photo: Vitali Kinklin)

Meanwhile, al-Arabiya reported that Israel and the Palestinian factions are expected to sign a ceasefire agreement within a matter of hours. It was also reported that preparations for the signing are already underway in Cairo. The report could not be confirmed by any other source.

According to al-Arabiya, Israel asked Egypt to play the role of mediator during a 24-48- hour ceasefire before the final agreement is signed. Sources told the network that the agreement includes the lifting of the Gaza blockade and the opening of various crossings.

Islamic bank in Gaza hit in IAF strike (Photo: AFP)

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will vouch for the deal. An Israeli state official said Tuesday that the “IDF will continue to act with force in the Gaza Strip. Before deciding about a ground invasion (Prime Minister) Netanyahu intends to exhaust the diplomatic route in order to explore the possibility of a prolonged ceasefire.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with the German foreign minister and other world leaders on Tuesday. “Israel intends to achieve its goals without a ground offensive but if the way to protecting Israeli citizens is through a land invasion – that’s what we’ll do.”

At midnight sirens sounded in Ofakim and the Eshkol regional Council. The rockets exploded in open areas. No injuries or damage were reported.

Israel weighs its options – Right Turn – The Washington Post.

The New York Times has figured out that Hamas has been “[e]mboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region” and is making use of its “increased clout” with the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. Yes — news flash! — the Arab Spring is a disaster for Israel and for the cause of peace in the region.

In the short run, Israel faces a dilemma with a fast-approaching deadline. The government has called up thousands of reservists. At some point soon (given the disruption to civilian life) the government will have to decide to send these troops home or to push ahead with the ground attack.

The calculation on the ground attack is hardly straightforward. An old Middle East hand tells me, “There are real arguments for going in, but the down side is huge — in Washington, [the] EU, domestic politics, number of guys who will be lost, etc. And it may be that they have actually done enough — enough damage to Hamas, plus some Egyptian agreement not to permit Iranian missiles through Sinai.”

Indeed, there are a complex set of calculations that are likely known only to top Israeli officials.

First, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must decide, most likely within a day or two, how much the Israelis have been able to degrade Hamas forces from the air. There are, as one knowledge observer put it to me, “Two Gaza Cities — one above ground and one below.” It is the massive system of tunnels, literally big enough to drive a truck through, that is the most problematic. Have they destroyed all the Farj-5 missiles or are there more tucked away? And if so, where in the maze are the long-range missiles from Iran? Are they under schools and mosques? Would Israel get a significant number of these in a ground attack?

But then there are the medium-range missiles. Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies adds that Israel “cannot be seen as backing down from this fight while projectiles rain down on southern Israel.”

Another calculation is public opinion. At this point the Israeli public is strongly behind the prime minister. But after a week or two on the ground with mounting casualties that may change. And of course the patience of the “international community” and even the U.S. administration may be much more limited than the military timetable.

Yet another consideration is Egypt. It is unclear whether President Morsi is capable of or willing to shut down the massive smuggling of arms into the Sinai. Hamas would like a complete cessation of the blockade, an impossibility for Israel, especially with Morsi’s intentions and capabilities uncertain. Egypt, meanwhile, may have little concern about President Obama’s willingness to continue aid to Egypt, but Congress is a different matter. It was significant that on Sunday Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sounded more like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) when he declared, “Egypt, watch what you do and how you do it. You’re teetering with the Congress on having your aid cut off if you keep inciting violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

And finally, Israel will have to decide how much time they can buy with Hamas. The last incursion into Gaza essentially got them 4 years of relative calm, but at a heavy price. If Israel can inhibit Hamas from continuing to shoot at civilians for 2 years with simply an air attack, is that preferable to a bloody land action that might only get it a year or two more of “peace”?

There are few answers and many conflicting reports. But do not expect Israel to cease its barrage and then let Egypt and Hamas chat about arms smuggling, as some news reports have suggested. For Israel, its main leverage over both Hamas and Egypt now is its air offensive. That still leaves the main question: Is the air offensive enough? We should know within a few days at most.

Israel’s Latest War With Hamas – Council on Foreign Relations.

The latest fighting between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip has been brewing for quite some time, says Steven A. Cook, a CFR Middle East expert. “Regardless of the immediate cause for this fighting, this is something that it seems Hamas and Israel have been preparing for a long time,” he says. “Hamas and other militant factions are armed quite well with these rockets, and Israelis have been increasingly concerned about the erosion of their deterrence.” Cook says the Egyptians are trying “to deescalate the current crisis, but thus far, efforts have obviously not been successful.”

The fighting in Gaza has been going on for a week now. It started with rockets being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, and the Israelis have responded with air attacks. What triggered this fighting, the most significant since Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2008-2009?

As with everything in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this is a matter of controversy. The Israelis point to the fact that there had been an increased number of rocket attacks beginning in October after the emir of Qatar visited the Gaza strip. And it’s important to understand that although there had been a cease-fire since 2009, there have been periodic rocket attacks and retaliations.

Last Wednesday, the Israelis assassinated Ahmed al Jabari, who was the Hamas military leader. The irony [is] that Jabari was not only the military leader [who] planned attacks against the Israelis, but also an interlocutor with the Egyptians and the Israelis about maintaining the kind of wild and wary cease-fire that had existed for the better part of the four years in between Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009 and what we’re seeing right now.

Regardless of the immediate cause for this fighting, it seems that Hamas and Israel have been preparing for [this] a long time. Hamas and other militant factions are armed quite well with these rockets, and Israelis have been increasingly concerned about the erosion of their deterrence, as Hamas and other militant organizations restocked their weapons over the course of these years. So this kind of conflict, given the status quo in Gaza, was likely to happen, whether now or sometime in the future.

There have been talks in Cairo about working out a cease-fire. Are the Egyptians really putting their energy into this?

It seems so. The Egyptians seem to have, through diplomacy and the work of their intelligence service, which has long held the Israel-Palestine file, been working to try to hammer out some sort of cease-fire. There were rumors that they were 90 percent of the way there, but the diplomatic action has really been in Egypt. Initially, the Israelis seemed wary of this, saying the Egyptians can be helpful, and this was on the heels of the Egyptian prime minister’s visit to Gaza and the full-throated rhetorical support for the Palestinians coming from both Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and President Mohamed Morsi. But at the same time, behind the scenes, the Egyptians are trying to be as constructive as they possibly can, which, in the broader abstract about U.S. relations with the region, is a good thing.

But of course, there are no guarantees. Rumors of an impending cease-fire have existed for a couple of days, and we see escalation increases of air strikes and rocket attacks. So the answer to your question is: Yes, the Egyptians have been deeply engaged in trying to find a way to deescalate the current crisis, but thus far, efforts have obviously not been successful.

Many observers were expecting by now an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, but despite highly publicized preparations along the border, nothing has happened. Can we assume that’s on hold for a while?

Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009 was not a great experience for the Israelis. I think that operationally, they were successful, but it was a significant black eye for them internationally. Remember the Goldstone report emerged from that, and it served to further undermine Israel’s relations with Turkey. There is some recognition that the world around the Israelis has changed.

Of course, it’s [also] a risky business to go into Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Urban combat is difficult. A Hamas or other militant group’s rocket would have to hit something of significant value and kill a fairly large number of Israelis in order for the Israelis to be motivated to go into Gaza in a big way. I think the call-up of reserves and the lining up of armor around Gaza is a preparation for that possibility, and it’s also a way to try to rattle the Hamas leadership. But it seems like it’s something that military commanders would want to avoid.

The United States is one of the few major powers that have good relations with both Israel and, to a lesser extent now, Egypt. What do you think the United States is trying to do?

The United States is working with the Israelis on how to deescalate. The United States is also working with the Egyptians – and it’s the Egyptians who have the relationship with Hamas – to find ways in which to deescalate the crisis.

There are other players as well. You’ve had a parade of Arab foreign ministers going to Gaza, and the Turkish foreign minister is going to Gaza on Tuesday. Most of this is really for show. The action is happening in those indirect negotiations that the Egyptians are apparently handling, and the direct talks between the United States and Israel about the costs of a ground invasion, and reassurances from the administration that Israel has a right to defend itself, but that there are risks to continuing this operation in a bigger way with a ground war. The players in the diplomatic game now are the United States, Israel, Egypt, and Hamas. Now that can change quickly, for example, if the Egyptians come up empty.

Israelis have been hitting targets with air attacks and shelling, and many civilians have been reported killed, while the Palestinians have fired hundreds of rockets to little effect. What do you think of these disproportionate results?

Disproportionate has become a dirty word. There is clearly an asymmetry in capabilities. The Israelis have precision-guided munitions and F16 airplanes and drones, and all the things a modern military in the twenty-first century has. Hamas and the militant groups basically have rockets. From what I understand, these are not missiles – they don’t have any internal guidance systems. So you set it up, and you shoot it, and you hope it hits something. And that clear asymmetry in technology is the result of the differences in the Israelis hitting things that they argue are of value, and the inability of the Palestinians to do this similar kind of damage to the Israelis.

Just because they happen to be ineffective doesn’t make these rockets any less weapons that terrorize. They could, in fact, hit something and kill people. There was one rocket that fell on a school. Because the southern part of the country is under this threat of rocket attack, that school was empty, but you can imagine what might’ve happened if it had been filled.

[On the other hand] obviously, the Israeli claims to surgical strikes are clearly not as surgical as they [say], because you do have an increasing number of civilians that have been killed in the conflict

A lot of people have been speculating that Hamas has been inspired by the Arab Spring and the ascendency of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt. Do you think that’s true?

Certainly, changes in the region have been beneficial to Hamas because Arab governments have generally changed their position on Hamas. The Egyptian government under Hosni Mubarak was hostile to Hamas. Obviously, the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t hostile, but prior to the violence that’s going on now, there hasn’t been a dramatic change, for example, in the border crossings between Gaza and Egypt, so a lot of the change has been rhetorical.

But as I said at the outset of the interview, the dynamics of the conflict between Hamas and Israel were leading us to this point. Nobody quite knew when, but we were leading to this point anyway. Whatever change is going on around the region, I think a discussion of Islamic ascendency is a little too neat, a little too pat, and it ignores some of the context about what the quality of the relations were between Hamas and the Arab countries undergoing change, as well as what was going on between Israel and Hamas.

People also speculate that Iran was trying to get Hamas to do this, to draw attention away from Iran. Is that far-fetched?

You took the words right out of my mouth. There’s no publicly available evidence to suggest that’s the case. I know people want to see Iran lurking around every corner, but I think that this has more to do with Israel and Hamas than it does to do with Israel, Hamas and Iran.

Preparing the ground for the big Iranian operation – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

The current operation in Gaza can be called ‘the little southern Iranian operation,’ since it’s designed to paralyze Iran’s power in Gaza.

Many people have been tempted to link the Gaza operation and the upcoming election. Even though war is sometimes a way to avoid dealing with domestic problems, the smoke that reached the Gaza sky this week wasn’t connected to the Israeli election. Instead, one could view the attack on Gaza as part of a new plan, a master plan that turns its eyes east to Iran’s nuclear program.

To understand this scenario, let’s go back to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments and that famous sketch of a bomb at the podium of the UN General Assembly. By next spring, or at most next summer, the Iranians will enrich uranium to a medium level and enter the final stage, Netanyahu said. From there it’s a few months or maybe only a few weeks until they have enough enriched uranium for their first atomic bomb. With a red magic marker he drew a line on the sketch and said that if there is a clear red line, Iran will pull back. That will give us more time to stop the Iranians from attaining nuclear weapons.

The early election is also closely linked to Netanyahu’s red line at the United Nations. The election had been due next November, but Netanyahu, who sees events in the region on a messianic scale, wanted to reach the stage he marked in red, when he could make a difficult decision on Iran while being free of election considerations. This then is the real reason for bringing the election forward.

In this context, it’s important to remember that the ideas of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak aren’t very different. Both see what’s happening in the region and consider Israel “a villa in the jungle.” They remain a close pair both politically and analytically.

The Iranian story remains at the top of their agenda. After all, Barak has said more than once that “we’re preparing for that” – he has even forecast the number of dead: “War is no picnic but under no scenario will there be 50,000, 5,000 or even 500 dead.”

From where does his analytical mind take these forecasts on the number of Israeli dead in the big operation against Iran that we’re preparing for, as he has said? Obviously no one in Israel contends that Barak lacks a military understanding. Also, when we consider that no one depends solely on anti-missile defense like Iron Dome, despite its strong performance, there has to be another military plan in the analytical drawer.

It’s possible the answer to this question is tied to the attack on Gaza. We must listen closely to Netanyahu’s words: “Sooner or later, Iran’s terror base in Gaza will be uprooted …. Gaza is Iran’s forward position,” he told the Knesset in March. “I’m not willing to put up with that, and no level-headed leader would accept that.”

Therefore, the current operation can be called “the little southern Iranian operation,” since it’s designed to paralyze Iran’s southern wing. The next operation will be “the little northern Iranian operation “: It will try to destroy Iran’s Lebanon wing.

In this way, we reach Netanyahu’s red line, the stage of a decision on “the big Iranian operation” – when Israel is free of the missile threat from the wings. That’s apparently the plan of the Netanyahu-Barak duo.

The Gaza assault: Is Israel practicing for a war against Iran? — MSNBC.

Richard Engel speaks with Chris Mathews on MSNBC’s Hardball