WarSclerotic

Israel is in the midst of a meaningful strategic national effort to expose what we perceive as a fraud on the part of Iran on the West, which is eager to negotiate with the Iranians and ease the sanctions, even without them giving up on their nuclear program.

The background is a deep frustration: The Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, sat down a few weeks ago at a conference in Munich with world leaders, and witnessed them rubbing against the Iranian foreign minister without believing one word which came out of his mouth. As part of the national effort , all the intelligence agencies and operations were guided to bring a proof that Iran haven’t really changed its ways – namely, that it continues to strive for a nuclear bomb and to stoke terrorism in every corner of the globe (and not just in our area).

In terms of the strategic effort, the seizure of the weapons ship is a significant event, and its timing is not bad as well – just at the time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the United States, trying to convince Americans that the Iranians are still a most terrible enemy.

However, in terms of the operational effort, this is not an extraordinary event: Israel has been committed for several years to the declared policy of preventing the arrival of weapons of strategic significance to both Hezbollah in Lebanon and into the hands of elements in Gaza. In the Gaza Strip this effort is particularly important in light of the severe damage caused to the array of long-range rockets of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad during “Pillar of Defense” operation a year and four months ago. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad have trouble to recreate the arsenal they had on the eve of the operation, since the current military regime in Egypt succeeded to almost completely seal the smuggling tunnels in the Rafah area, and the Israeli counterterrorism efforts spread across the entire Middle East.

In the militaryjargon, this effort is called “the war between wars”. According to foreign reports, the IAF and the Israeli Navy Commando have not once acted in Sudan in recent years to destroy arms shipments which were destined to reach, according to the intelligence, to the Gaza Strip.

The fact that the act occurred, according to publications, in Sudan can be considered reasonable: Iran is on a path of the arms transfers from Iran to Gaza. As part of this path, weapons are transported in ships from the Persian Gulf to dry storage in the Sudanese territory, and from there transferred in conveys of trucks, through Sinai, to the tunnels of Rafah.

Iran’s foreign operations organization conducts this operation. The fact that the Iranian and Gazans adhesive that path despite the preventive efforts can testify that they have occasional successes, but as a rule the Gaza Strip is now considered to be “dry” of deadly Iranian weapons.

The fact that the Navy has conducted such a complex operation, which could have gone bad 1500 kilometers away from home , even though the preparations for it were ongoing for months , instead of a less dangerous aerial attack , can be explained by the idea that in the present situation it is better to catch the weapons and thereby embarrass Iran, rather than destroy it. Therefore, the military effort in Africa was accompanied immediately by a political effort against Iran, and a wide Israeli public diplomacy effort, already before the ship even reached the port of Eilat.

However, do not underestimate the strategic danger of the arrival of the shipment to Gaza (had the weapon reach the Gaza Strip, it would be sent mostly to warehouses of the Islamic Jihad, and a minority of it, perhaps, would be sent to warehouses of Hamas).

The information indicated in advance that is a supply of rockets with warheads containing more than 100 kilograms of explosives. Yesterday morning (March 5th), at ten o’clock already, IDF’s Navy Commando troops discovered several M- 302 missiles with a range of up to 90 km, like those fired from Lebanon on the north (similar sized rocket exploded during the war at a train depot in Haifa, killing 8 and wounding dozens) . The exact amount of the weapon caught will be clear only when the ship will reach Eilat and the containers will be checked one by one (overall on board of the ship there are no less than 150 containers, but some pictures of the weapons taken yesterday have already done the work).

The Israeli operation achieved thanks to these pictures its main objective – exposing the real face of Iran. But would the world be interested in the Israeli gospel or would it prefer to keep with the Iranian dance? The answer to this question is no longer dependent on the IDF.