WarSclerotic

UN, Sweden in negotiations to expand peacekeeping force in Golan Heights – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Following departure of Austrian forces, UN chief mulls creation of new force made up of hundreds of armed Scandinavian soldiers, with new guidelines for opening fire.

The Golan Heights. Photo by Gil Eliahu

By Reuters | Jun.11,2013 | 8:47 PM | 3

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is negotiating with Sweden the possibility of setting up a Scandinavian force to replace the Austrian soldiers who were pulled out of the peacekeeping force stationed on the Syria border, a senior Israeli official said.

Ban also called on Wednesday for expanding the United Nations Observer Force on the Golan Heights and upgrading its capabilities.

The 380 soldiers who made up Austria’s UNDOF force completed their withdrawal from the Golan Heights buffer zone between Israel and Syria on Wednesday. Some 90 soldiers have already left the country, while the rest are staying at a UN base on the Golan awaiting their flights back to Austria.

The UNDOF mandate, which must be renewed every six months, expires on June 26. In a periodic report on UNDOF’s performance, issued on Wednesday, Ban told the UN Security Council members that he wanted to make changes to the peacekeeping force and its mandate. These changes include “enhancing the self defense capabilities of UNDOF, including increasing the force strength to about 1,250 [from 900] and improving its self-defense equipment.”

Ban also said that the escalation on the Israel-Syria border endangered the Disengagement Agreement the two countries signed in 1974.

Ban and the former UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, spoke by phone with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and asked that his country send soldiers to UNDOF. Bildt’s initial response was positive, the Israeli official said, however the Swedes made it clear they are willing to send soldiers only as part of a larger Scandinavian force that will include troops from Finland, Norway and Denmark. The Swedes are also interested in commanding the entire UNDOF force, which also includes units from India and the Philippines.

The Swedes also want to boost UNDOF’s mandate and turn it into a more robust force that would be able to defend itself if attacked. They have received the opinion of the UN legal adviser that even the current mandate allows the use of armored personnel carriers equipped with machine guns and for all UNDOF soldiers to be given personal weapons. Today only some UNDOF soldiers carry weapons.

The Swedes also want to clarify the rules of engagement, which are currently vague and basically do not allow the soldiers to respond if attacked.

While Israel was aware of the United Nations contacts with Sweden, the official said it is deliberately not taking an active role. “We’re closely following the move by the UN secretary-general but we aren’t initiating any contacts with Sweden or other countries,” he said. “The responsibility for replacing the Austrians is the United Nations’ not Israel’s.”

According to reports reaching Jerusalem, Ban and his associates are furious with the Austrian government for pulling its soldiers out so quickly, ignoring his requests to conduct the withdrawal in a staged fashion. Western diplomats say Ban believes the Austrian’s hasty withdrawal undermines the legacy of UN peacekeeping forces.

At the same time, diplomats in Ban’s bureau and other diplomats involved in the talks to shore up UNDOF were questioning Israeli diplomats at the United Nations about remarks made by some Israeli officials in recent days.

For example, Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, during a visit to Moscow on Monday, said that Israel wouldn’t object to having Russian soldiers join UNDOF.

“If President Putin has decided to deploy his forces there, I don’t think Israel will oppose that. We always want somebody to be there to monitor the situation,” she told Ekho Moskvy radio. “We would like any forces that could assume responsibility. Those can be Russian, Austrian or Australian. That doesn’t make any difference to us at all.”

Kirshenbaum also said Israel would prefer that UNDOF be active and not just sit in its bunkers.

“We would like to have forces that would be actively involved, at the very least in ensuring peace and security between us,” she said.

Diplomats from the United States, among other countries, asked members of Israel’s UN delegation whether Kirshenbaum’s remarks represented the government’s position. The confused diplomats weren’t able to answer.

Kirshenbaum said yesterday that in the interview she had not directly addressed the issue of Russian soldiers on the Golan Heights, but said that Israel would want to see on the Golan, “Any peacekeeping force that would uphold international agreements and help maintain quiet.”

Similar questions arose in response to remarks by International Relations Minister Yuval Steinitz, who, in a briefing to the foreign press this week, said Israel could no longer rely on international peacekeepers, and cited as an example the disintegration of UNDOF on the Golan Heights.

Steinitz’s remarks were widely quoted by international news agencies. As a result, diplomats from the Philippines, which has hundreds of soldiers serving in UNDOF, also demanded clarifications from Israel’s UN contingent. They also demanded that Israel issue both a formal retraction and statement of support for UNDOF.

Britain refused Israel military equipment for fear it would add to ‘internal repression’ – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

( What’s there to say?  Beyond FUCK the UK… –  JW )

From January 2008 to December 2012, Britain rejected 52 Israeli requests to buy military equipment, citing concerns it could contribute to Arab-Israeli conflict, damage regional stability.

By Aluf Benn | Jun.12, 2013 | 4:57 AM | 34

Illustration: A Head-up Cockpit Display (HUD) Photo by Wikipedia Commons

Jun.12,2013 | 5:13 PM | 3

Britain refused to provide Israel with certain types of military equipment in recent years out of fears there was a “risk of their use for internal repression” and a “risk of contributing to internal tensions or conflict in the recipient country.” The equipment, Britain worried, might also damage “regional stability” or be transferred from Israel due to the “risk of diversion or re-export to undesirable end-users.”

From January 2008 to December 2012, Britain rejected 52 Israeli requests to buy military or dual-use equipment ‏(which can be used for both civilian and military purposes‏), according to a new report by the the British government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The department oversees security exports and publishes regular reports on permits granted or denied to purchase arms, military equipment or civilian items that are monitored because they can be put to security uses.

The British rejected requests for, among other things, the purchase of engines and other items for patrol boats; components for artillery shells; military communications equipment; airplane engines; parts for combat helicopters, military aircraft navigation systems and electronic warfare; components for explosives; protective suits and demolition equipment; detonators and other equipment for explosives; software for protecting planes against missiles; cryptography equipment; parts for airborne radars; chemicals and specialty metals.

Britain is not the only country that has refused to supply Israel with military equipment out of fears it will be used for repression or aggravate the regional conflict. The Dutch government, which sells only a small amount of military equipment to Israel, rejected a request to purchase night vision systems for the Israel Prisons Service and the police’s rescue unit in 2010. In 2009 the Dutch refused to sell thermal imaging components for a missile launching system to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and night vision components to Elbit.

The Netherlands also refused to supply Israel Military Industries with aluminum parts for a missile launching system that was intended for export to Rwanda and Azerbaijan. Elbit asked to purchase camouflage paint in Holland for unmanned aerial vehicles, but was refused.

Haaretz reported Tuesday that according to the British report on the supervision of security exports, Israel sought to export items to Muslim countries with which it does not have diplomatic ties.

According to the report, in 2011 Israel sought to purchase British components to export radar systems to Pakistan, as well as electronic warfare systems, Head-up Cockpit Displays ‏(HUDs‏), parts for fighter jets and aircraft engines, optic target acquisition systems, components of training aircraft, and military electronic systems. In 2010, Israel applied for permits to export electronic warfare systems and HUDs with components from Britain to Pakistan.

Also in 2010, Israel sought permits to supply Egypt and Morocco with Israeli electronic warfare systems and HUD systems that use British parts.

Pakistan denied Tuesday that its military had purchased equipment from Israel. A spokesman from the media wing of the Pakistani military said the report was baseless. The British report states that Israel requested the equipment purchases intended for Pakistan in August 2011.

Iranian Admits Bushehr Plant ‘Malfunctioned’ – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Bushehr nuclear power plant

AFP photo

Iran’s Russian-built nuclear power plant has had an electric generator malfunction, an Iranian official admitted on Monday, according to the Israel Hayom daily.

The flaw at the Bushehr plant was not caused by recent earthquakes in Iran, Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.

Sajjadi’s comments raised speculation — amid recent reports of ongoing cyberwarfare between Iran and the West — that the generator’s malfunction could have been the result of a cyber attack.

Israel Hayom quoted Sajjadi as having said Russian and Iranian experts were trying to fix the problem, without saying when it occurred or whether it had led to the plant’s shutdown.

Russia’s state-controlled Rosatom nuclear agency, which built the plant, had no comment on Sajjadi’s statement.

Several countries monitoring Iran’s nuclear program said last week they had picked up information that the Bushehr plant was damaged by one or more of several recent earthquakes.

Two diplomats told the Associated Press on Tuesday that long cracks have appeared in at least one section of the structure.

Iran was hit by two earthquakes, one in April and one in early May, both near the Bushehr plant. Iran insists the plant is technically sound and built to withstand all but the largest earthquakes unscathed. Officials in Tehran reassured the international community after both earthquakes that the facility was undamaged.

Iran has defied Western demands that it halt nuclear programs that could be used for making atomic weapons, though it insists its uranium enrichment program has peaceful goals.

The plant in the southern port of Bushehr is not considered a proliferation threat, but some nations have voiced concern about its safety.

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz warned on Monday that Iran is getting closer to reaching the “red line” of nuclear capability set out by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Let them kill themselves quietly – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

( A lefty piece, whose wise-ass attitude made me sick.  Screw the messenger !  He makes some very good points nonetheless. Worth thinking about…. – JW )

Op-ed: We shouldn’t give Arabs a reason to unite around their only common denominator– hatred towards Israel

Alex Fishman

Netanyahu‘s fingers are itching. Whoever saw him this week making threats at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, saw a leader with his finger on the trigger. And he may be right. Israel has seen, once again, a possibility that sophisticated Russian weapons will spill from Syria into Lebanon – and they must be stopped. He is trying to convey messages, including violent messages, to Assad – but he is not so impressed by that anymore. Netanyahu’s direct appeal to Putin didn’t help either.

CNN reported this week that Russian warships were carrying military equipment to Syria. The clock is ticking, and officials in Israel’s military establishment are warning that if these shipments are not seized on Syrian soil, they will reach Lebanon and disappear. The cabinet in Israel is nearing the point of decision: To strike or not to strike, and what is hanging in the balance. Should Israel throw itself into the burning kettle of the Middle East due to the need to stop the arms shipments the Russians continue to transfer through Syria to Hezbollah? Can any battery of missiles arriving in Lebanon stand in the way of the supreme Israeli interest: To let the Arab world “take care of itself” and not to give it any excuse to divert its efforts to “take care” of us.

Every day, some 400-500 people are killed in the countries surrounding us. In Tripoli, Lebanon, daily fighting takes place between the neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab-al-Tabani. Heavy machine guns, anti-tank cannons. Last week, 30 people were killed there and 200 were injured. In Sidon, pro-Syrian Nasseristic militias battle Sunni movements. The Lebanese government is paralyzed and Hezbollah’s political status is wearing out.

In Syria, 80 people are killed on a weak day of fighting. The Kurds in northeast Syria have broken off from the state. In the an-Nusayriyah Mountains, the Alawites’ place of residence, preparations are underway for the establishment of an independent state. In the Mountain of the Druze, a million and a half Druze are arming themselves for fear of a Salafi revenge. The center of the country is in chaos: Several hundred militias of all types are fighting the Syrian army, the regime’s militias, against Shiite Iraqi groups and against Hezbollah. By the end of the year, 20% of Jordan‘s residents will be Syrian refugees, with all economic and social consequences.

Weapons not an existential threat

Among the Palestinians there is no solution in sight for the rift between Hamas and the PA. Egypt is in economic-constitutional chaos, and on the streets there is anarchy. The Muslims are attacking Copts, the Muslim Brotherhood is fighting Salafis, and in Sinai the Bedouins are fighting the army. What troubles the Egyptians most of all is the fact that Ethiopia is building a dam on the Blue Nile, which supplies 80% of Egypt’s water. As far as Egypt is concerned, this is grounds for war. The crisis with Israel is marginal compared to the water crisis.

In Libya, the tribes and militias are slaughtering each other. There, bodies are no longer being counted. Tunisia’s big cities enter a state of curfew every evening. Tunisian soldiers are killed while fighting Salafis on the border with Algeria.

Iraq is already divided into three, and the civil war is resuming there in full force. In the south there is a Shiite, pro-Iranian government, headed by Maliki, while the center of the country is controlled by the Sunnis, with armed militias fighting the central regime. There are hundreds of casualties, abductions and murders every week. The Kurds in the north are already producing and selling oil independently, without paying royalties to the government.

And we have yet to mention what is happening in Somalia, in Chad, in Sudan, in Aden, in Bahrain. For two years now, the Arab world has been burning and destroying itself without any external intervention, and this could continue for many more years.

So why should we, because of a few restless generals and a trigger-happy prime minister, give them a reason to unite around the only common denominator they have – hatred towards Israel? Let them kill themselves quietly. The Lebanon-bound weapons are dangerous, but are not an existential threat. It’s not the Iranian bomb.

Lebanon threatens retaliation against future Syrian attacks | The Times of Israel.

( Forgive me… Music to my ears… – JW )

Army officials say Beirut will respond with force to additional provocations after Assad’s forces fire missiles at border town

Lebanese army soldiers search civilians at a checkpoint at the entrance of Arsal, a Sunni Muslim town in eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border, Feb. 2, 2013 (photo credit: AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Lebanese army officials issued a stark warning to the Syrian government Wednesday, stating that any further attack by Syrian forces on sites across the border will be immediately met with a forceful response. The comments came after a Syrian government helicopter fired three missiles on the northern Lebanese border town of Arsal earlier Wednesday.

“Army units deployed in the [Arsal] area took the necessary defensive measures to respond immediately to any similar violations,” read the Lebanese army’s official statement.

The Arsal attack is the latest incident of Lebanon being pulled into its neighbor’s civil war. Scores of rebels and civilians who fled from the Syrian western town of Qusair last week in the last days of a government military offensive there have taken refuge in Arsal.

The town is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and support for the Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad runs high.

Milhem Hojeiri, a resident, said shrapnel from one of the missiles lightly wounded a schoolteacher in Arsal. He said the town’s population has almost doubled in the past two years because of refugees and rebels from Syria who have taken shelter there.

“There is a lot of fear here, the town is fast becoming a casualty of the war in Syria,” he said.

Also Wednesday, activists claimed Syrian rebels attacked a village in the country’s east, killing dozens of local Shiites. A Syrian government official denounced the attack, saying it was a “massacre” of civilians.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 60 people, mostly Shiite fighters but also ordinary villagers, were killed on Tuesday in the Syrian village of Hatla in the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq.

It was the latest high casualty incident in Syria’s conflict, which has killed more than 80,000 people so far, according to the UN.

Thousands of rebels took part in the attack and at least 10 of them were killed in the fighting, said the Observatory.

In Damascus, a government official said the rebels “carried out a massacre against villagers in which older people and children were killed.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The fighting in Deir el-Zour came a week after Syrian troops, backed by Lebanon’s militant Shiite Hezbollah group, captured the strategic town of Qusair near the Lebanese border after nearly three weeks of fierce battles that killed dozens of troops, rebels and Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah’s involvement in the Qusair battle underlined the group’s commitment in support of Assad’s regime and edged the civil war in Syria closer to a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East’s Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.

Most of the armed rebels in Syria are from the country’s Sunni majority, while Assad has retained core support among the minorities, including his own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, along with Christians and Shiites.

An activist based in Deir el-Zour said the rebel attack was in retaliation for an attack Monday by Shiites from Hatla that killed four rebels.

Thaer al-Deiry, who identified himself only by his nickname for fear of government retaliation, said via Skype that rebels gathered and launched a counter attack Tuesday. He said some 150 Shiites from the village fled across the Euphrates River to the government-held village of Jafra.

“The situation in the village is quiet and the Free Syrian Army is in full control,” al-Deiry said, referring to the rebels. He added that the village has been under opposition control for more than a year but some of its Shiite residents recently started collecting arms apparently to fight along government troops.

Also Wednesday, the Observatory reported heavy clashes in the central city of Homs, mostly in the neighborhood of Wadi Sayeh. The fighting appeared to be an attempt by government forces to separate two main rebel-held areas in the city, Khaldiyeh and the center of Homs.

Building on its victory in Qusair, the Syrian military has shifted its attention to try to clear rebel-held areas in Homs, a linchpin area linking Damascus with regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast, and the northern city of Aleppo.

Waze sale signals new growth for Israeli high tech | The Times of Israel.

‘You have again put Israeli technology on the world stage,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells Waze CEO

Screen capture of a Waze video clip illustrating the thinking behind the application. (photo credit: Waze/YouTube)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Google Inc.’s $1.03 billion purchase of Israeli navigation software maker Waze marks an important milestone for the country that affectionately calls itself “Start-Up Nation.”

The acquisition is not only among the largest-ever purchase prices for an Israeli start-up. It also cements a recent push by the local high-tech industry into the fast-growing consumer market.

“I think it’s a big step forward,” said Erel Margalit, a leading Israeli entrepreneur and opposition lawmaker in parliament. “Israel is no longer just a R&D center. It’s a creative hub.”

Waze’s popular smartphone application combines GPS navigation software with social networking features, allowing users to improve the service’s directions and traffic reports with their own data. This crowd-sourcing aspect enables the service to adapt to changing road conditions, such as accidents and speed traps, in real time.

After rumors of sales to both Facebook and Apple surfaced in recent months, Google, already an established leader in Internet mapping, beat out its rivals for Waze and its base of nearly 50 million users.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Waze CEO Noam Bardin to congratulate him. “You reached the destination,” Netanyahu said. “You have again put Israeli technology on the world stage.”

Faced with limited natural resources, Israel has fostered a vibrant high-tech culture in recent decades. The country is a popular destination for global venture capital funds seeking to capitalize on Israel’s entrepreneurial spirit, as well as expertise honed in universities and advanced technology units of the Israeli army.

Israel boasts one of the largest collections of companies traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The world’s leading technology giants, including Microsoft, Google and Intel, all have large research and development operations in the country. Israel’s celebrated high-tech creations include cell phone technology, wi-fi internet, instant messaging, and USB thumb drives.

According to the Central Bureau for Statistics, Israel’s official source of economic data, the tech sector accounts for just over a quarter of the country’s exports. The bureau uses an internationally recognized definition of high-tech that excludes both biotechnology and Internet companies. When those are included, technology firms account for roughly half of Israel’s exports, a key reason why Israel’s standard of living is now on par with, and in some cases above, many European nations.

The Waze buyout is among the largest private company sales in Israeli history. In 2000, at the height of the high-tech bubble, Israeli start-up Chromatis Networks was bought out by Lucent Technologies for $4.5 billion. Lucent closed the firm a year later. More recently, networking giant Cisco last year purchased Israeli video software company NDS for $5 billion.

Margalit, a mastermind of the Chromatis deal, said that until recently, Israeli tech firms focused heavily on developing innovations for major telecom firms and other international tech giants. The large acquisition of a consumer-focused app like Waze shows that Israel’s start-up culture is “alive and well,” he said.

“When Israel is also involved in building the major applications for consumers, it means other disciplines of creativity are entering the game,” he said. Today, Israeli start-ups employ not only engineers, but also game designers, animators, graphic artists and writers.

One criticism of Israeli technology companies is that entrepreneurs have frequently looked to cash out quickly by selling their technology to larger companies. The result, say critics, is a big payout for company founders that creates few jobs and little broader economic benefit. The push into the consumer sector could bring a wider range of jobs to Israel and help foster more sustainable businesses.

Israeli media has reported that Waze’s deal with Facebook fell apart because of Waze’s insistence that it keep its R&D operations in Israel. The Haaretz daily said Google agreed to leave Waze’s operations in Israel for three years.

Israeli tech investor Yossi Vardi said such arrangements are a common feature to prevent companies from losing talent while relocating. Vardi is a dean of the Israeli technology world who, among other things, helped launch ICQ, a forerunner to today’s instant messaging services.

Vardi said that Waze’s app embodied the kind of creativity increasingly seen in the evolving Israeli tech scene.

“It’s very sticky, very addictive,” he said. “I cannot leave home without opening Waze.”

But while the app has quickly attracted users around the world, Vardi said, the company’s ability to monetize that user base has lagged behind. He predicted that the sale to Google would give Waze greater ability to earn money from its service. In turn, Waze should generate new innovations for Google in navigation software, allowing it to retain its lead over rivals like Apple.

“I’m sure this is going to be a very important property for Google,” Vardi said. “It’s just the beginning of this space.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

UN: Israel-Syria peace in danger, add Golan peacekeepers | JPost | Israel News.

Israel Hayom | Putin: Nuclear Iran OK, but threats against Israel unacceptable.

Russian president backs Tehran’s right to pursue peaceful nuclear capabilities but slams aggressive rhetoric against Jewish state • “When we hear from Iran that Israel must be destroyed — I think this is completely unacceptable,” he says.

Israel Hayom | Report: Mossad gives Ankara intel about Iranian agents in Turkey.

Mossad head Tamir Pardo met secretly with the Turkish intelligence agency’s undersecretary, Hakan Fidan, on June 10 in Ankara, with Syria, Iran and the Gezi Park protests on the agenda, Turkey’s Daily Hurriyet reported Wednesday.

Israel Hayom | Implications for Israel in the US global retreat.