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Israel Hayom | Obama orders new economic sanctions on Iran.

Israel Hayom | Russian S-300 missiles a pawn in diplomatic game, WikiLeaks show.

Israel Hayom | Obama and the Arrow 3 debacle.

Ruthie Blum

Steinitz: S-300s sold to Syria may end up in Iranian hands | JPost | Israel News.

Among Israel’s main concerns regarding the possible sale of Russian S300 air-defense systems to Syria is that they may then be transferred to Iran, Strategic Affairs Minister Minister Yuval Steinitz said Tuesday.

Moscow has up until now refused to deliver those state-of-the air anti-aircraft missiles to Tehran, which has tried repeatedly over the last decade to attain them.

“We are very concerned about the new supply of sophisticated arms to Syria itself,” Steinitz – who also holds the strategic affairs and intelligence portfolios — said at speech at The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA).

“We don’t understand Russia’s position about it. Why should anyone supply [Syrian President Bashar] Assad with advanced ballistic or anti-aircraft or anti-ship rockets at this very time.”

Steinitz listed three reasons for Israel’s strong opposition to the sale: that it could encourage Assad to continue waging war against the rebels and discourage him from compromising with the opposition; that the weapons could find their way, because of Syria’s instability, into the hands of Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations; and that they could be transferred to Iran.

“Maybe, because of the disorder in Syria, of the very heavy dependence of Syria on the Iranians assistance, some of those weapons might unfortunately find their way to the Iranians. This is very bad, and against the weapon embargo on Iran,” Steinitz said.

Steinitz added that the missiles were not only of a defensive capability, but – because of their ability to shoot down aircraft up to 200 km away – could also be used offensively. Deployed over Damascus, these missiles could target Israeli aircraft, including civilian aircraft, flying over Haifa and Tel Aviv, he said.

Steinitz, who said Israel has good relations with Russia and a “very good and close dialogue” with the Kremlin, added that there was reason to believe the Russians could be persuaded not to deliver these weapons at this time.

“We have reason to believe that there is still room to convince the Russians on this matter,” he said.

“We received clarifications, or we have reason to believe that these missiles were not yet delivered, or may not be supplied in the near future at least.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, defended on Tuesday Russian arms sales to the Syrian government, but said Moscow had not yet delivered the S-300s to Damascus.

Putin told a news conference after a summit with European Union leaders that Russia did not want to upset the military balance in the region and all its arms sales to Syria were in line with international law. He also praised the S-300 missiles system as one of the best in the world but added: “The contract was signed several years ago. It has not been fulfilled yet.”

Last month Assad told Lebanese news outlet Al-Manar that Syria had received a first shipment of S-300 missiles from Russia under a deal signed before the current conflict raging in his country.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Israel: The Secret Treaty With The Arab Neighbors.

June 4, 2013: For over a decade now Israel has been building relationships, often in secret, with its neighbors, especially Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Although the decades of “hate Israel” propaganda in these countries makes it difficult to openly negotiate, the growing threat of Iranian nuclear weapons has made Israel an attractive ally for the Sunni states threatened by Shia Iran. The U.S. is currently trying to broker a secret military alliance involving Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This would include giving Israel access to data from Arab and Turkish radar stations near Iran while also providing these nations with data from the Israeli missile early-warning system. There would also be arrangements on how Israel could participate in defending its new allies if Iran attacked. Finally, there is the fact that Israel is a nuclear power and once this proposed alliance is revealed (or even if it is known but officially denied), Iran would have to worry about Israeli retaliation even if only the Arab Gulf states or Turkey were threatened.

Working out the details of this alliance is the easy part, making it public and implementing it completely could be a problem. Arab governments have officially demonized Israel for so long that a large segment (probably still a majority) of their populations would react violently and instinctively to formal announcement of an alliance with Israel. Thus some of the diplomats involved are suggesting a secret treaty. This is not a new concept as such secret deals have been used for thousands of years. But in the age of the Internet and speedy and abundant global media, such deals can have explosive consequences once revealed and difficult to keep secret. The proposed deal would only be made public when it had to, as during a crisis with Iran. At that point, fear of Iran would calm many Arabs who would otherwise hit the streets to violently protest any deals with Israel.

This sort of deal making is not new. Israel has had official and unofficial arrangements with all these nations over the years. Jordan has been quite open about their security and intelligence arrangements with Israel, which go back over 30 years. The unofficial intelligence sharing has been more common over the last two decades. The reason is the growing threat of Islamic terrorism, although before the 1990s the Arabs were more concerned with secular Moslem terrorists. But these have largely been replaced by the religious fanatics, who still get a lot of unofficial support (cash and sympathizers) from Arabia, where most modern Islamic radicalism has been nurtured and encouraged for centuries. Many educated and entrepreneurial Arabs would also like access to the Israeli market (for goods, technology and joint ventures). But the Arabs will have to work through their anti-Semitism first.

Despite its new Islamic government, Egypt is finding itself restricting access to Gaza as much, if not more, than its former (Mubarak) government and often in cooperation with Israel. The basic problem is that Gaza has become a sanctuary for all sorts of Islamic terror groups, including some that consider the relatively moderate Islamic government in Egypt to be the enemy (for not being really radical).

Palestinian terrorists continue to try and carry out attacks inside Israel. Hamas support is more frequently encountered among Palestinians arrested (by Israeli police) in the West Bank. That has led to more arrests of Hamas supporters (by Palestinian and Israeli police) in the West Bank. Hamas and Fatah still cannot agree on a merger and the troublesome disunity among Palestinians (2.5 million in the West Bank and 1.5 million in Gaza) continues.

Despite being called (largely in the Islamic media) secret partners with Iran or the rebels in Syria (take you pick), Israel could decide the war in a few days if it attacked the Assad (Syrian government) forces by air. Israel is concerned about a post-Assad government, because of the power and influence Islamic terrorist groups might have. But an Assad victory is nothing to look forward to either as more pro-Iran terrorists will be on the Israeli border. It’s a no-win situation and getting accused of supporting both sides is the least of it. Meanwhile, Iran backed terrorists, especially the Lebanese Hezbollah are becoming more active in planning and carrying out more international terrorist operations. Iran has amped up its support for the Assads and the Assad forces are on the offensive. The rebels will probably still win, but it’s going to take longer.

Battle for Damascus is over. Is Israel intelligence slow on Syrian war?.

Syrian tanks in Damascus

When Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon informed a Knesset panel Monday, June 3, that Syrian rebels still occupied four Damascus districts, debkafile’s intelligence sources reported that the battle for the Syrian capital was all but over. Barring small pockets of resistance, Bashar Assad’s army had virtually regained control of the city in an epic victory. From those pockets, the rebels can’t do much more than fire sporadically. They can no longer launch raids, or pose threats to the city center, the airport or the big Syrian air base nearby.
The Russian and Iranian transports constantly bringing replenishments for keeping the Syrian army fighting can again land at Damascus airport after months of rebel siege.
The rebels fell back in Damascus after being outflanked in a pincer movement in Damascus’s eastern outskirts executed by the Syrian army’s 4th and 3rd Divisions and a “Fuji” commando unit . Most of the rebels were pushed outside the city.

debkafile’s military sources report that, as of Tuesday, June 4, Assad’s army controls all the capital’s road connections and its western districts. It has also cleared opposition forces out of areas west of Damascus through the Zabadni region and up to the Lebanese border.
To the northwest, Hizballah and Syrian units have tightened their siege on the rebels holding out in the northern sector of al Qusayr; other units have completed their takeover of the countryside around the town of Hama; and a third combined Syrian-Hizballah force has taken up positions around Aleppo.
Senior IDF officers criticized the defense minister’s briefing on Syria Monday to the Knesset Foreign and Defense Committee in which he estimated that Bashar Assad controlled only 40 percent of Syrian territory as misleading. They said he had drawn on a flawed intelligence assessment and were concerned that the armed forces were acting on the basis of inaccurate intelligence. Erroneous assessments, they feared, must lead to faulty decision-making. They cited two instances:

1. On May 5, the massive Israeli bombardment of Iranian weapons stored near Damascus for Hizballah, turned out a month later to have done more harm than good. It gave Bashar Assad a boost instead of weakening his resolve.
2.  Israel has laid itself open to unpleasant surprises by its focused watch on military movements in Syria especially around Damascus to ascertain that advanced missiles and chemical weapons don’t reach Hizballah. Missed, for instance, was the major movement by Hizballah militia units towards the Syrian-Israeli border. Our military sources report a Hizballah force is currently deployed outside Deraa, capital of the southern Syrian province of Horan. Reinforcements are streaming in from Lebanon. The Hizballah force and Syrian units are getting ready to move in on the rural Horan and reach the Israeli border nearby through the Syrian Golan.

Their coming offensive, which could be only days away, will find Israeli face to face for the first time with Hizballah units equipped with heavy arms and missiles on the move along the Syrian-Israeli border and manning positions opposite Israel’s Golan outposts and villages.
The early calculus that the Syrian battlefield would erode Hizballah’s strength held Israel back from obstructing the flow of Hizballah military strength into Syria. It has been proven wrong.

Instead of growing weaker, Iran’s Lebanese proxy is poised to open another warfront and force the IDF to adapt to a new military challenge from the Syrian Golan.
Unlike its previous wars against Israel, this time Hizballah will not confront Israel alone. On May 30, when the Syrian ruler spoke of “popular” demands to mount “resistance” operations against Israel from the Golan, he didn’t mention Hizballah because he was referring to demands coming from inside Syria.

For Hezbollah, risks in backing Syria’s Assad – The Washington Post.

Graphic: Syrian rebel forces have been battling government troops and their Hezbollah allies in Qusair. See our interactive grid, where we’re keeping track of the conflict in Syria through videos, images and tweets.

By Loveday Morris, Tuesday, June 4, 4:21 AM

BEIRUT — Space is running low in the hall in south Beirut where Hezbollah buries its war dead, a testament to the heavy price the Lebanese Shiite militant movement is paying as it pins its fate ever closer to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a high-stakes game that it cannot afford to lose.

Hezbollah militants are being deployed outside Lebanese borders for the first time in what its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, has called a “new phase” for the movement. With this decision, Hezbollah’s focus has pivoted from fighting Israel to fighting fellow Muslims in Syria.

The group’s loyal followers appear enthusiastic about the new battle, with supporters talking of waiting lists to sign up to fight alongside Assad’s forces. But analysts question how long the movement’s near-monopoly on support among Lebanon’s Shiites will last as it pitches ever deeper into a long and logistically draining war — and draws in fragile Lebanon with it.

The decision by Hezbollah, a long-standing ally of Shiite Iran and Syria, to send thousands of men to Syria is a risky bid to ensure the survival of its axis of support. Geographically, Syria has long been a conduit for ­Iranian-
supplied arms to Hezbollah. Politically, Hezbollah’s alliance with Syria has helped protect the movement from charges that it is merely an Iranian proxy.

But the new mission, which pits Hezbollah against a largely Sunni Syrian opposition, has a sectarian flavor and is quickly deepening divides in Lebanon.

Since Nasrallah dramatically pledged Hezbollah’s all-out support for Assad in a May 25 speech, there have been near-daily signs of the Syrian war spilling over into Lebanon. On Monday, a Sunni cleric who has spoken out in support of Hezbollah said he narrowly escaped assassination when gunmen opened fire on him in the southern city of Sidon. A day earlier, Hezbollah militants and rebels battled near Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, the first serious clashes on Lebanese soil since the conflict in Syria erupted more than two years ago.

For the moment, Hezbollah’s popularity among its supporters appears unwavering. At the Rawdat al-Shahidayn cemetery in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the dead from Syria are buried under the floor of a brightly lighted room next to those who have died fighting Israel. In one corner, floor tiles had been removed and a shovel rested on the side of a freshly dug pit that awaited the body of the next fighter to be laid to rest.

Ali Fadl sat on a plastic chair at his brother’s graveside as his widowed sister-in-law, wrapped in black, rocked back and forth in prayer. “This is not painful. Everybody hopes for martyrdom,” he said. “Whatever Hasan Nasrallah says, we do. We do not question.”

‘It’s a huge risk’

Hezbollah was formed in 1982 with the stated aim of waging “resistance” against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Even after Israel completed its withdrawal in 2000, the group has continued its campaign against Israel.

Hezbollah has grown into a formidable political movement with a well-armed paramilitary force known for its prowess in guerrilla warfare and generally thought to be stronger than Lebanon’s army. But the foray into Syria is uncharted territory for a group used to fighting on the defensive.

“Hezbollah’s survival depends on them not backing the wrong horse, and they’ve tied their fate to Assad,” said Nadim Shehadi, an analyst at the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs. “It’s a huge risk.”

The Shiite movement’s rhetoric of fighting the Zionist enemy has expanded to lambasting “takfiris,” extremist Sunni Muslims who Nasrallah says constitute the Syrian opposition and are backed by Israel and the United States.

But some observers say Nasrallah’s argument that Hezbollah is fighting its longtime enemy Israel by sending men to Syria is a tenuous one.

“He’s underestimating the tolerance of his constituency,” Shehadi said. “The narrative is very difficult to swallow.”

Challenges on the ground

In the Beirut neighborhood of Nabaa on Thursday, Mohammad Hajj Hasan, a rare Shiite politician who speaks out against Hezbollah, gathered other “independent Shiites” and representatives of rival parties. Under armed guard, they discussed how to put up a valid opposition and prevent the country’s Shiites from becoming politically and socially isolated in the backlash against Hezbollah’s engagement in the Syrian conflict.

But they were realistic about what can be achieved. Charbel Eid, a representative of the largely ­Christian Lebanese Forces party, said that Hezbollah’s support from Christian and Druze allies, with which it forms the most powerful bloc in Lebanese politics, may slip away but that its impassioned support base will be less easily moved.

“It will take months before there is a real change in the opinion of the Shiite community,” he said.

The mission in Syria is likely to be lengthy. Rebels and a senior Hezbollah commander said over the weekend that thousands of fighters are deep inside the country, near the northern city of Aleppo.

“Hezbollah has made the calculation it will be there for a long time . . . maybe a year,” said a commander in the movement who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the news media.

Hezbollah at first played down persistent rumors that its men were deployed in Syria. But as it dug in to secure Shiite villages in the vicinity of the strategic town of Qusair late last year, the coffins that returned home became difficult to hide. The trickle of caskets increased to a steady flow after the battle for Qusair began in earnest two weeks ago.

“Sustaining long deployments deep into Syria will be challenging for Hezbollah, in terms of supply, operations and political image,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

For Hezbollah’s reputation to emerge intact, military gains are paramount, particularly in Qusair. Nasrallah has boldly promised his men a victory. But the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that at least 79 Hezbollah fighters have been killed there, among 141 in the country as a whole.

“They’ll make sure they win it . . . even if it costs them 1,000 men,” said Mohammad Obaid, an analyst with close ties to Hezbollah. “If they lose, it will be extremely damaging.”

Danger of isolation

The backlash at home is also damaging. Nasrallah argued that fighting in Syria would help ensure the stability of Lebanon, preempting clashes on its soil.

But sectarian tensions in Lebanon have flared since the Hezbollah leader pledged full support for Assad. In an apparent act of retaliation by Syria’s rebels or their supporters, two rockets hit a Shiite neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs just hours after he spoke last month. The rebel Free Syrian Army has made repeated threats to strike Hezbollah in its strongholds and has fired volleys of rockets at Shiite areas in Lebanon.

In the poverty-stricken northern port city of Tripoli, where Lebanon’s fault lines are most stark, sectarian violence has taken on a new tempo, with fighting barely pausing over the past fortnight.

During Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel, the movement garnered support outside its traditional Shiite following both in Lebanon and the wider Arab world as it battled a common foe. However, that support has ebbed.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Egyptian Sunni cleric, said Friday that he regretted ever having supported Hezbollah, denouncing it as the “party of the devil” and calling on Sunnis from across the region to fight Hezbollah in Syria. The Gulf Cooperation Council on Sunday unanimously declared the movement a terrorist organization and said it would take measures against Hezbollah interests in its six member states.

But for Hezbollah, survival of the Assad regime appears to outweigh the risk of national and regional isolation.

“Syria is the single most important thing to Hezbollah at the moment,” Obaid said. “Hezbollah doesn’t gamble; it makes calculated decisions. And it can’t accept the fall of Assad.”

Ahmed Ramadan and Suzan Haidamous contributed to this report.

© The Washington Post Company

U.S. publishes details of missile base Israel wanted kept secret | McClatchy.

By Sheera Frenkel | McClatchy Foreign Staff

Frenkel is a McClatchy special correspondent. Twitter: @sheeraf