WarSclerotic

Russia says ‘ballistic objects’ fired near Syria | The Times of Israel.

Moscow declines comment; news comes days after Russian Defense Ministry deploys spy ship to region amid rising tensions

An ARROW missile test was conducted over the Mediterranean Sea and declared a success. (photo credit: IAI via Tsahi Ben-Ami/Flash 90)

Two “ballistic objects” were detected being fired at the eastern Mediterranean, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

The Interfax news agency quoted the ministry say two “objects” had been fired from the central Mediterranean to the eastern coast of the sea at 10:16 a.m. Moscow time, which is an hour ahead of Israel.

The ministry said it had informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of the launch.

No other information was available. The Defense Ministry declined comment to Reuters.

The news comes as tensions have risen in the region over the possibility of a Western-led strike on Syria.

Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, on Sunday sent a spy ship to the region, amid a buildup of American naval power off the coast of Syria.

Egypt army pummels Sinai militants, killing dozens | The Times of Israel.

Official says helicopters fired 13 rockets at gatherings in peninsula

Egyptian army soldiers patrol in an armored vehicle, backed by a helicopter gunship, during a sweep through villages in the northern Sinai, Egypt, in May (photo credit: AP)

EL-ARISH, Egypt — Egyptian helicopter gunships fired rockets early Tuesday at militants in the northern Sinai Peninsula, causing “dozens” of casualties, a security official said.

He said the two aircraft surprised militant gatherings in three houses in two locations, al-Muqataa and Touma, south of the town of Sheikh Zuweyid near the border with the Gaza Strip.

Attacks by Islamic militants surged in the lawless Sinai after the toppling of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi in a July 3 coup.

The official said “dozens” of militants were killed and wounded but that fighting was still ongoing. He did not mention if there were yet any soldiers on the ground to assess the number of casualties.

An eyewitness said the three houses were destroyed and part of a nearby mosque was damaged.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity according to rules, while the witness spoke anonymously because he did not want to be involved.

Egyptian security forces have stepped up counterinsurgency operations in the Sinai since the overthrow of Morsi, whom the military has alleged turned a blind eye to militants there.

On Aug. 10, military helicopters fired three missiles targeting a meeting by suspected militants in Sheikh Zuweyid, killing 12.

Also in Sinai, army commandos arrested late Monday two members of an al-Qaida-linked group that had in the past fired rockets at Israel, another security official said.

The official said the commandos stormed two houses in the Jura village near Sheikh Zuweyid and detained two members of a group known as the Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem.

The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity according to rules, said the two were experienced in setting up and firing the rockets used in the attacks.

Security forces have a long list of wanted militants, who are concentrated along the border area with Gaza and Israel and in the central Sinai mountains.

The Mujahideen Shura Council claimed several rocket attacks on Israel, the latest on August 13.

Israel said then that its defense system, the “Iron Dome,” had shot down a rocket launched from Egypt targeting the Red Sea resort of Eilat. There were no injuries.

European disgrace – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Shimon Shiffer

American President Barack Obama’s decision to postpone punishing the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons against thousands of citizens already allows us to reach some gloomy and pragmatic conclusions about the world we live in; a world which permits, in practice, the use of horrifying weapons which are completely banned by international treaties.

Europe is being exposed here, and not for the first time, for its hypocrisy and disgracefulness. Europe, which has not ceased to criticize Israel‘s conduct in the territories, even if we have no reason to be proud of this conduct, has lost its right to lecture anyone – especially us. We have all seen Europe shirk its duty to prevent the use of weapons for mass destruction. The British Parliament tied Prime Minister Cameron’s hands, and other countries in the continent are waiting for America soil its hands.

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said several years ago in a conference in Europe that the Europeans are living at the Americans’ expense and waiting for the US to clean the gutters around the world for them. What we have seen in the past few days in Britain and France points to deep corruption and unwillingness to take part in the responsibility to manage world crises.

Israel, which was founded on the ruins of Europe, must remember and make a connection between the millions who died in gas chambers in the concentration camps and the thousands of citizens, many of them women and children, hurt by the chemical weapons launched by Bashar Assad. It is our moral duty to voice our stance clearly and poignantly and denounce the bloody regime in Syria – even if the decision not to intervene in the civil war in Syria is justified. It’s not all about politics.

Another lesson from the recent days’ events has to do with Israel’s stance towards the regimes surrounding us in light of the American conduct. Israel must signal to the US that it favors stable regimes in Egypt and Jordan over alleged “democracies” existing in the West’s imagination and in utopian books based on a collection of assumptions and different nonsense, like the book published by the designated Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, and former Minister Natan Sharansky.

We must convince the American administration that removing the Muslim Brotherhood, which was elected in a democratic process, is a thousand times better for the regional peace and stability than a radical Islamic regime. We should also remind them that Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in democratic elections. Israel gave in to American pressure – and we are paying the price to this very day.

President Obama’s prestige suffered a heavy blow in the past 48 hours, but make no mistake: America remains the most important world power. If Obama receives the Congress’ approval to strike in Syria and punish Assad, he will fix what he broke.

Damascus, Tehran and the Dahiya Quarter in Beirut are waiting impatiently to see what America will do. I’m willing to guess that Obama will eventually wipe the smiles off the faces of Assad, Rohani and Nasrallah, and that the sigh of relief heard in those places will be replaced with sounds of anxiety in light of the strength of the American war machine.

Obama is not looking at our region, but at the legacy he wishes to leave behind. And he has no intention of wasting the recognition he gained as the first black president of the United States.

Sources: Internal dissent in Iran rising over the growing Syria turmoil | JPost | Israel News.

‘Obama assures Netanyahu on Iran’ | JPost | Israel News.

For Netanyahu, Iran Is Personal – OpEd Eurasia Review.

September 3, 2013

By Anders Persson and Maysam Behravesh

For the most part in recent years, the debate on Israeli-Iranian enmity in general and Israel’s threats to take military action against Iran’s nuclear program in particular has been framed around such “structural” or “big” issues as the regional balance of power, state survival, national interests, and hegemonic dominance in the greater Middle East. While each of the factors sheds light on a unique aspect of the controversy, a good case can be made for the presence of personal dimensions to the increasing exacerbation of hostilities, rendering the whole problem yet more difficult to resolve. In the prime time of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s career as the Iranian president from 2005 to 2013, many academics and politicians alike were highlighting his thirst for grandeur, messianic beliefs and apocalyptic worldview as a major driver behind the escalation and thus an important cause for concern. This analytic perspective appears to enjoy adequate ground on the Israeli side too, and more specifically, applies to the incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Time and again over the past years, Netanyahu has pledged to use whatever it takes to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, including military force. With his pompous rhetoric and explicit threats, Netanyahu has placed himself in an “all-in” zero-sum situation vis-à-vis Iran. Like in poker, all-in means that you either win all or lose all. So, if Iran, which he firmly believes is dashing for the bomb, is forcefully stopped, he will be a national winner and probably secure himself a heroic place in Israeli history. If he fails to take action, however, and Iran is allowed to cross Israel’s red lines, Netanyahu will go down in history as the biggest loser ever in Israeli politics.

The whole issue of Iran’s nuclear program, with its alleged weaponization activities, has therefore personal importance for Netanyahu too. Throughout his political career, he has always been driven by feelings of unrecognized grandiosity. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was ostracized by Israel’s labor establishment and forced to pursue his academic career abroad. His wife Sara has been on the record saying her husband “is the very best prime minister ever to serve in Israel.” Though Winston Churchill is his role model, Netanyahu has nothing of his stature in Israel, and, of course, even less so abroad, where he is often accused of not acting ”Churchillian” and for missing ”Churchillian moments”.

In Israel and abroad, it is widely believed that Netanyahu is seeking his place in the history books with his campaign to halt Iran’s nuclear venture. Obsessive attempts on his part to personalize such a matter, which has enormous implications for Israel’s national security and interests, partly explains why the Israeli military is suspicious of his policy line and more often than not expresses opposition to an attack on the Islamic Republic. While few in Israel doubt the gravity of the threat of a potential Iranian bomb, many worry about Netanyahu’s true motives behind a forceful action to take it out. The former iron triangle of the Israeli military, namely former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former head of Mossad Meir Dagan, and former director of Shin Bet Yuval Diskin, all opposed an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities during their incumbency because they could not trust Netanyahu’s intentions and the disinterestedness of his attitude towards the issue. Stressing that Netanyahu is “possessed” by Iran, Diskin, for example, has quoted Bibi as saying that “his mission on Iran is on a much grander scale” than the previous Israeli strikes on Iraqi and Syrian nuclear facilities.

Though much of what happened during this time (around 2009-2011) in the corridors of power in Israel, is still under gag orders, leaks to the media point to a devastating situation in Israeli politics where the military leadership under Ashkenazi and Dagan refused to carry out a P-plus order from Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak, which would have prepared the Israeli military for an imminent strike on Iran’s nuclear installations. In a functioning democracy, such acts of defiance by the military, which almost resemble a coup d’état, would be incomprehensible. Ashkenazi, Dagan and their allies also reportedly took measures to prevent Netanyahu and Barak’s favored candidate for new chief of staff, Yoav Galant, from assuming office in 2011 and revoked the security clearance from Netanyahu’s national security advisor, Uzi Arad, a move which led to his resignation in 2010. Galant and Arad had been strong advocates of attacking Iran.

The question of whether Israel will use military force against Iran is one of the decisive questions of our time. A lot is at stake here for Netanyahu. Everything that his critics have ever said about him – that he is a cheap demagogue, that he has a weak character, that he is indecisive, and that he is no Churchill – will be proven correct if one day Iran should exceed Israel’s red lines. Iran is personal for Netanyahu.

Anders Persson is a Swedish expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has a Ph.D. in political science from Lund University, Sweden. Maysam Behravesh is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Lund University

Report: Iran Thinks Israel is Close to Striking It – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Israeli navy Dolphin-class submarine

Flash 90

Iran believes that Israel is close to stiking its nuclear facilities, according to a report in Lebanese newspaper Al Jumhuriya, cited by Maariv/NRG. According to the report, a senior Iranian official recently visited Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his hideout in the Dahiya section section of Beirut to discuss this assessment.

A senior military source confirmed to the Lebanese newspaper that the meeting had, indeed, taken place, but said it had not been held inside the Dahiya – a neighborhood controlled by Hezbollah – but outside it.

The senior source said that the Iranian official is a military officer and that the meeting was devoted to the military and logistical readiness of Hezbollah for a confrontation with Israel, which, he added, is just “a stone’s throw away” from Lebanon.

The source added that less than 48 hours after the meeting, 10,000 Hezbollah guerillas and unspecified “special forces” began extensive military exercises in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley. He said that 10,000 men took part in the exercises, which were the largest of their kind ever conducted in that area. He added that strengthening Hezbollah in the region is also intended to enable the continued flow of weapons from Damascus to the organization, and especially advanced weaponry.

The report could be an effort at disinformation and is probably meant to intimidate Israel and hint that Hezbollah – an Iranian proxy force – would fire its missiles at the Jewish state if it attacks Iran. Hezbollah has reportedly promised Lebanon’s president, Michel Ayoun, that it would refrain from attacking Israel from Lebanese territory if Israel attacks Syria. It subsequently warned, however, that it would attack Israel from Syrian territory, if Israel strikes Syria.

Iran has an extensive program for developing nuclear weapons which is deemed to be close to the point at which a weapon can be manufactured. Israel’s leadership sees this as an existential threat and has vowed numerous times to stop the program by whatever means necessary. However, it has refrained from taking action thus far in the hope that the United States would be the one to force Iran to halt the program – with force, if need be.

US President Barack Obama’s hesitation to launch even a minor strike on Iran’s ally, Syria, even after it crossed Obama’s self-announced red line and used chemical weapons to massacre civilians, is causing many Israelis to reconsider any faith they had that Obama would take action against the much larger Iranian threat.

Damascus, Hizballah jack up threats on Israel in absence of Obama-Netanyahu coordination on Syria.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz

Notwithstanding unconfirmed claims by officials in Jerusalem, US President Barack Obama did not forewarn Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu about his decision Saturday, Aug. 31, to abort the imminent military strike on Syria and turn the decision over to Congress. This is reported by debkafile’s intelligence and Washington sources. Neither did the US president offer Netanyahu any assurances that Syria was not Iran and the US president stood by his commitments on Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.
Monday, Sept. 9, in the wake of the soft soap pouring out of Jerusalem, senior IDF circles were concerned by the unrealistic mood of the country on the eve of the New Year festival as though Israel and the US were fully coordinated on Syria and Hizballah and the danger of Syria repeating its chemical attack – this time on Israel – could be discounted.

The officers explained that the former close cooperation between US and Israel military chiefs was no longer a factor.
“It should be understood,” said a high-ranking source, “that the brakes applied suddenly Saturday night on a ready-to-go US strike against Syria was a watershed event in US-Israeli military relations and a game-changer for the Middle East at large”
President Obama’s shock action, at the very moment that four regional armies of Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, were all at peak tension for the attack to begin, will leave a lasting scar on the region for years to come. The finger was about to pull the trigger when it was yanked off.”
Informed Israeli sources found confirmation for their concern in an article published in the Atlantic Council of Sept. 1 by Fred Hof, a close observer of the Bashar Assad persona and a veteran shaper of US policy on Syria.

He wrote: “The events of the past ten days suggest that there was no administration forethought to the possibility of a major chemical incident in Syria; there was no plan in place to respond to a major chemical attack by the regime.”

This view was echoed by the two Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham after they met the president Monday. They saw no coherent, “sustainable”  plan of action against Assad other than a few missile strikes.

Those Israel sources found those impressions especially disquieting, coming as they did after nearly two years in which the US, Israel and Jordan had worked closely to prepare for the contingency of a large-scale chemical attack by the Assad regime.

During that time, Israel was persuaded by Washington to ignore 14 limited poison gas attacks in the outgoing year and suppress the information. But after the massive attack of Aug. 21 on the eastern outskirts of Damascus and the deaths of more than 1,400 Syrians, Israel is no longer willing to look away from the threat to its own national security just 100 kilometers away  – especially since the Obama administration turned his back on the contingency plans prepared jointly for this event.

Monday, Sept. 2, a French government official cited an intelligence report showing there had been “massive use of chemical agents” in the attack coming on Aug. 21 from government-controlled areas “at a level of sophistication that can only belong to the regime.”

debkafile’s Israeli sources add that since Obama stalled the US attack on Syria Saturday, the threats from Syria and Hizballah to attack Israel have gained momentum. They focus on the weeks taken up by congressional deliberations on US action.  Those threats were at the front of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s mind Monday, when he phrased his New Year greeting to the country: “If anyone is contemplating harming us during the festival, he should know what awaits him,” he said.

IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz emphasized in his holiday message that Israel’s armed forces can be counted on to guard the nation against any danger.

This struck a quite different note from the anodyne assurances of close cooperation with Washington against the Syrian peril coming from his office earlier. It sounded more as though the prime minister had reason to believe that Israel and the IDF would very soon be called upon to ward off a fast-approaching peril.
Israel is not the only object of Syrian threats. In an interview published Monday by the French Le Figaro, Bashar Assad warned France it will be “an enemy of Syria” if it takes part in military intervention. Foreign military action could ignite a wider regional conflict, said the Syrian ruler. “Everyone will lose control of the situation when the powder keg explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread.”

Israel fears being left alone to counter Iran nuclear programme – FT.com.

Israel ‘uneasy’ being painted by Obama as potential WMD victim | The Times of Israel.

‘We don’t need America to take care of threats to Israel,’ officials quoted as saying. President said to have assured PM he remains determined to stop Iran going nuclear

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry (photo credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

Israel’s leaders are reportedly unhappy that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are citing concern over Israel being hit by Syrian chemical weapons as a means to galvanize Congressional support for a strike against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Israel is “discomfited that both Obama and Kerry mentioned Israel as a potential victim of Assad’s chemical weapons,” Israel’s Channel 2 news reported Monday night. Israel, it quoted unnamed senior Israeli officials saying, “is not a victim. We don’t need America to take care of threats to Israel.”

Israel’s army, the sources said, was perfectly capable of protecting Israel from any dangers posed by Assad.

Furthermore, if the United States did go ahead and strike at Assad, for using chemical weapons to kill 1,429 Syrians in what Kerry said Friday was a carefully planned attack on August 21, Israel would regard itself as having full “freedom of action” to respond as it saw fit, the TV report said.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he sees a low probability of Assad retaliating against Israel for any US strike, and has warned that any Syrian attack would be met with forceful response.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu urged Israelis to enjoy the forthcoming High Holidays — Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) starts on Wednesday night — and warned, “If anyone thinks of disturbing the tranquility of the festival, he should know what’s in store for him.”

During his Rose Garden remarks on Saturday, Obama called the August 21 attack “an assault on human dignity… It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria’s borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons…”

Kerry, a day earlier, bracketing Assad with Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein in making an urgent case for military intervention, said “our choice today has great consequences… It matters to our security and the security of our allies. It matters to Israel.”

In a telephone call on Saturday, some four hours before he surprisingly announced that he would seek Congressional authorization before a strike on Syria, Obama reportedly telephoned Netanyahu to give him advance warning of his change of heart. Obama told Netanyahu in that conversation that his stance on Syria had “no negative implications” for his policies aimed at thwarting Iran’s nuclear drive, Channel 2 further reported, quoting the president as saying to Netanyahu, “I remain determined to prevent Iran going nuclear.”

Privately, Israeli leaders are said to be worried that Iran will read the delay in a US-led strike on Assad as an indication of American hesitancy and weakness, with potential implications for the Islamic Republic’s drive to a nuclear weapons capability. Netanyahu has ordered his ministers to stay silent on the issue of Obama’s change of heart, but a former Israeli national security adviser, Giora Eiland, said flatly in a radio interview Monday that he considered the Obama shift to be “a mistake” — and noted that it gave Assad further leeway to keep killing the civilians that an American response would be designed to protect.

Channel 2 quoted unnamed senior American sources as saying that tackling Syria was “complex” but “marginal from a strategic point of view.” They reportedly said Obama was concerned not to get the US drawn into the Syrian civil war, but that the president was adamant that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would not be allowed to pass without the appropriate response.

The American sources said Obama was telling members of Congress, as he sought to persuade them to authorize a strike, that America’s deterrent capability vis-a-vis Syria, Hezbollah and Iran would be damaged were it not to take military action against Assad. Anyone worried by Iran’s nuclear program should support hitting Assad, the sources said Obama was telling members of Congress.

The TV report said the White House was hoping that the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC would help win Congressional support for Obama to strike at Syria.