WarSclerotic

Netanyahu’s dilemma: Back Obama’s save Hamas policy, or fight for its downfall with Egypt and Saudis, DEBKAfile, July 28, 2015

Binyamin Netanyahu and Saudi King Abdullah on the same side in Gaza

Netanyahu will . . . have to resolve which way to jump, one of the hardest decisions any Israeli prime minister has ever faced.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu entangled himself Saturday and Sunday, July 26-27,  in the net he had cast to blur the effect of the unanimous decision by the security-political cabinet of Friday to turn down the ceasefire proposals proposed by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The two diplomats and their partners, a brace of European ministers and Qatar and Turkey, who met in Paris to concoct a peace framework for Gaza, were privately dubbed by wags in Jerusalem the “Save Hamas Squad.”

Netanyahu tried to present the flat cabinet “no” to the ceasefire as a “no, maybe.”

His purpose was to leave an opening for the US and UN to ginger up their pro-Hamas framework for ending hostilities in the Gaza Strip by incorporating elements that Israel’s security needs half way. If that was done, Israel, he indicated, would be amenable to joining lengthy ceasefire accords with Hamas, or even making unilateral halts in violence.

He explained to his close circle that he was performing these maneuvers to gain international legitimacy for Israel’s large-scale counter-terror operation against the Palestinian extremist organization in the Gaza Strip, now it its 20th day. This would be especially timely ahead of the UN Security Council session on the issue due to take place in New York Monday.

The trouble with this pretext is that the large measure of international sympathy Israel enjoyed in the early days of its Operation Defense Edge against Hamas’ rocket barrage collapsed the moment President Obama sent Kerry to the Middle East last week, for a bid to save Hamas before it was mown down by the IDF.

The Palestinian Authority was much more open and blunt than Netanyahu in its disapproval of the game that was being played out in Paris. Walid Assad, one of the spokesmen of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas protested what he called Kerry’s “appeasement” of Qatar and Turkey at the expense of Egypt and the PA, and his failure to invite either to the meeting for discussing a ceasefire in Gaza hostilities.

Senior Palestinian officials warned against attempts to “bypass the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

In the legitimacy stakes, Netanyahu has three solid allies for crushing Hamas: Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi and the UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Sunday, Mahmoud Abbas attached a Palestinian voice to this group.

This regional coalition has enormous clout, derived, on the one hand, from the Israeli military and its fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian army’s containment of Hamas efforts to break out into Sinai for strategic depth; and, on the other, from the financial might of Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates and the world prestige they enjoy.

So why is the Obama administration shoving this powerful coalition out of his way and building a rival alliance to counter it?

Its primary motive is fear that if this group is allowed to make the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a success, it will become the springboard for its next move, a victorious assault on Iran.

This sequence of events would totally derail current US Middle East policy, which hinges on détente with Tehran, Obama’s advisers warn him, and even jeopardize his strategy for bringing the nuclear negotiations between the six world powers and Iran to a successful conclusion.

Netanyahu’s shilly-shallying between approval and rejection of Gaza ceasefires is the outcome of his dilemma: Sticking with the first solid alliance Israel has ever acquired in the region would cost him a deep rift with Washington. But going along with Kerry’s plan would cost Israel more in security against one of the most dangerous Islamist terrorist organizations on earth.

Vacillation by a war leader increases the dangers to his troops and the risk of missing its goals. A wishy-washy formula was thrown up in Jerusalem to cover this period of uncertainty: “Quiet will be met with quiet and fire will be met with fire!

This slogan was used at the start of the operation against Hamas. Its response was the contemptuous ramping up of rocket fire against Israeli population centers to 100 a day – which in turn, triggered Israel’s ground operation eight days ago.

Half measures will not go down well with the Israeli public, which, even after losing 43 servicemen in action in the Gaza Strip, is still solidly behind the operation. A poll conducted by TV Channel 10 Sunday found 87 percent of those canvassed demanding that Israel press on, and 69 percent urging the government to go al the way and overthrow Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip.

With the US, Europe, Iran, Qatar and Turkey at its back and a wavering Israeli government putting the IDF Gaza operation on stop-go, Hamas can afford to carry on shooting rockets at Israel when it chooses before, after and in the middle of its own ceasefires.

There might a slowdown for the three-day Eid al-Fitr which starts Sunday night.  But not necessarily. The Palestinian extremists may use an outburst of violence during the Muslim festival to rally their coreligionists across the Muslim world for huge marches of solidarity behind them. This could present Egypt and Saudi Arabia with a predicament.

Netanyahu will meanwhile have to resolve which way to jump, one of the hardest decisions any Israeli prime minister has ever faced.

Hamas won’t give him the peace to make up his mind. It has plenty of firepower and rockets left to keep Gaza violence and attacks on Israel on the boil, while making good use of the rising toll of Palestinian deaths in the fighting to place all the estimated 1,060 deaths squarely at Israel’s door.

Sunday, July 27, 2014, the Palestinian extremists received another shot in the arm from Iran, a phone call to politburo chief Khaled Meshaal from Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, with a promise to make up Hamas’ losses of weapons in the war with Israel.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossen Amir Abdolahian traveled to Beirut to discuss with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, how they could help Hamas.

Charlie Rose Battles Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal over Whether He’ll Recognize Israel – CBS – 7-27-14

John Kerry and “what Everyone knows” Power Line, Paul Mirengoff in Israel, July 27, 2014

For decades, diplomats and pundits have been saying that “everyone” — by which they mean their fellow diplomats and pundits — knows what the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would look like. It would look, they say, like two states with something similar to the re-1967 Israeli border and “security guarantees” for Israel.

Lost on this arrogant breed is the fact that if everyone has known for so long what the solution is and that solution has not materialized, then the “solution” probably is not viable under present conditions. In other words, it is not the solution.

Now, John Kerry — than whom a more arrogant would-be diplomat cannot be conceived — has figured out the solution to the situation in Gaza. That solution is based on his assessment of what the two sides need:

Palestinians need to live with dignity, freedom, with goods that can come in and out, and they need a life that is free from the current restraints that they feel on a daily basis, and obviously free from violence.

At the same time, Israelis need to live free from rockets, and the tunnels that threaten them.

The “solution” that follows from Kerry’s analysis is this: Israel lifts its restrictions on what can come in and out of Gaza, as well as all other “restraints.” In exchange, Hamas agrees not to attack or threaten Israel and Gaza is “demilitarized.”

Simplicity itself.

Unfortunately, the two sets of “needs” described by Kerry are incompatible. If “goods” come into Gaza freely, then Hamas’ ability to attack Israel with rockets and via tunnels is maximized.

Thus, if Israel agrees to Kerry’s solution, its war with Hamas will prove counterproductive. Israel will be more vulnerable to future attacks by Hamas than if it had not gone into Gaza in the first place.

As for “demilitarization,” it is a pipe dream. As many observers have pointed out, this was the condition imposed in Lebanon as the basis for ending Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006. Yet, Hezbollah has not disarmed. In fact, it is stronger than ever.

Who would enforce the demilitarization of Gaza? The United Nations? It is Hamas’ ally and collaborator, having housed the very rockets that Kerry says Israel must be free from fear of.

The real problem with Kerry’s analysis is that it misstates the needs of the organization that the Palestinians in Gaza have chosen to govern them. The most fundamental need of Hamas is to destroy Israel and to kill as many Jews as possible.

You can look it up in Hamas’ covenant.

It’s true that “everyone” knows what the solution to the conflict arising from Gaza is. But Hamas and the Palestinians whom it represents know a very different solution than that which Israel and (one assumes) John Kerry have in mind.

Ops and Blogs – I Refuse, Times of Israel, Irwin E. Blank, July 26, 2014

(A powerful statement. — DM)

I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to be a mendicant. I refuse to allow myself to be slaughtered to assuage your hatred and bigotry. I refuse to return to a condition that makes it easier for my enemies to kill me. I refuse to bow down to your false idols. I refuse to be dead to make you feel justified in your malice towards my people for surviving in a world that, in many places, whose soil is choked with the blood of my slaughtered people.

But mostly, I refuse to live by your rules and I refuse to die by them either. I refuse to die.

I am not sorry for defending myself from crazed terrorists whose own charter declares their intention to murder me and all Jews everywhere (not just in Israel, in case you have left out that simple fact). Nor am I sorry for the pain you seem to feel whenever I refuse to lay down and die because you are still not used to seeing Jews fight for their lives rather than bow their heads and extend their necks for the sword, No, I am not sorry for the anguish you hypocritically feel when you see photos of unfortunate civilian dead, killed by the Hamas policy of hiding under women’s skirts and behind kindergarten kids after you fire bombed German and Japanese civilians on purpose and burned thousands of them alive with napalm and dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on the hapless and innocent citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.. No, I feel no need to apologize for refusing to allow myself to retain lands that were mine before your countries were born by imperialist wars and rivers of blood. When your ancestors were worshiping rocks and committing human sacrifice to please stone idols, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon. I feel no apology necessary for the outstanding and exemplary conduct of the Israel Defense Force as much as you continue to aver that it is conducting war crimes as our pilots drop their bombs in the sea rather than take out a legitimate target because women and children are too close to the aiming point and we will not kill indiscriminately while your jurists say that it matters not that a UN school turned over missiles to terrorists that were hidden, incontravention of international law, in a classroom in a UN facility. Nor will I say I’m sorry for the fact that mercifully, so few Israeli citizens have been killed by Hamas rockets because we spent our precious resources providing our population with bomb shelters and safe rooms. We designed a system to defeat your rockets and save our people from death and destruction at great cost. The Palestinian Authority and its partner Hamas,  spent the billions of dollars, euros and other funds they received from the hard working American and European people’s taxes to build shelters for their  own cowardly leadership,  placing their own people at risk and putting most of the funds designed for their people’s welfare into Swiss banks that have vaults and shelters. While the people of Gaza are in a dangerous situation caused by their own leaders, those “men” are sitting poolside in a luxury hotel in Doha——hundreds of miles from Gaza city, Khan Yunis, Rafah and Beit Hanoun.

I refuse to feel sorry for returning to our homeland and restoring our sovereignty after 2000 years of our dispersion caused by foreign conquerors who massacred my people, destroyed our cities and sought to eradicate our existence.  I refuse to feel sorry that we have revived our Hebrew language and restored our culture after you have done your utmost to undermine our civilization through centuries of assaults on the practice of our faith and our observance of the Laws of Moses. A set of rules that make society just and allow people to respect and honor each other-a decalogue of laws that our enemies today reject and ridicule.

I refuse to feel sorry for despite all you have done, and continue to do, to erase my people, both culturally and physically, from this planet in a myriad of methods and places. that my neighbors’ children play games speaking the tongue of the prophets of Israel and watch, each morning in school, as the flag, adorned with the blue Shield of David, is raised at the entrance of their schoolhouse. Suicide is not in my play book and when my ancestors did so on a plateau along the Dead Sea in a place called Masada in 73 CE, it was a celebration of our victory, although a tragic one, that still demonstrated our contempt for our enemies.

I refuse to be a victim. I refuse to be a mendicant. I refuse to allow myself to be slaughtered to assuage your hatred and bigotry. I refuse to return to a condition that makes it easier for my enemies to kill me. I refuse to bow down to your false idols. I refuse to be dead to make you feel justified in your malice towards my people for surviving in a world that, in many places, whose soil is choked with the blood of my slaughtered people.

But mostly, I refuse to live by your rules and I refuse to die by them either. I refuse to die.

Some Israel-Gaza notes (note 1 updated: Kerry’s cease-fire plan “might as well have been penned by Khaled Meshal”), Washington Post, David Bernstein, July 26, 2014

The media has engaged in journalistic malpractice by reporting casualty figures for civilians coming from Gaza as gospel. The figures come from the Gazan Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas. The Ministry of Health counts everyone not in uniform as a civilian. Most Hamas fighters don’t wear uniforms. The UN is sometimes sourced for the figures, but the UN gets its figures from … the Gazan Ministry of Health.

I’ve posted less about this than about previous conflicts, because there are so many great blogs focused on Israel-related issues that I don’t have as much to add to the conversation. But I thought I’d pick out a few items that VC readers might not have noticed.

(1) Secretary of State Kerry recently presented a cease-fire proposal. The Israeli cabinet rejected it unanimously. The cabinet includes individuals from several parties ranging from moderate left to far right, who rarely agree on anything. How incompetent a diplomat can you be to publicly offer a cease-fire proposal to a friendly (and dependent) country when you have no support whatsoever for it, and apparently no leverage to overcome that lack of support? As I understand it, the terms were “Stop fighting now (including stop blowing up Hamas’s tunnels), start talking 48 hours from now.” It’s pretty obvious why this is a non-starter for a country that relies on its reserves. Having Israeli reservists who have been called sitting around for 48 hours, then waiting who-knows-how-long for talks to reach a positive or negative conclusion, would itself be a victory for Hamas, inflicting additional pain on the Israel economy and morale. Israel currently prefers Egyptian mediation to American mediation (and so does Egypt), which suggests the esteem they have for Kerry. (Hamas also rejected Kerry’s cease-fire proposal.) UPDATE: The Israeli government has leaked Kerry’s proposal to the media. It’s truly awful; it meets most of Hamas’s demands, and none of Israel’s. Even the left-wing Ha’aretz carriesthis commentary from its diplomatic correspondent: “The draft Kerry passed to Israel on Friday shocked the cabinet ministers not only because it was the opposite of what Kerry told them less than 24 hours earlier, but mostly because it might as well have been penned by Khaled Meshal (leader of Hamas). It was everything Hamas could have hoped for.”

(2) The media has engaged in journalistic malpractice by reporting casualty figures for civilians coming from Gaza as gospel. The figures come from the Gazan Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas. The Ministry of Health counts everyone not in uniform as a civilian. Most Hamas fighters don’t wear uniforms. The UN is sometimes sourced for the figures, but the UN gets its figures from … the Gazan Ministry of Health. Contrary to early reports that 80% or so of the early casualties were civilians, Al-Jazeera published names and ages, and about 3/4 were men of fighting age (16-50), compared to a rough estimate of 20% of the Gazan population (40% to 50% of which is fourteen and under). Some of those men were undoubtedly civilians, but it strains credulity to believe that 80% of the casualties were civilian but just-so-happened to be overwhelmingly fighting-age men. (Here’s the most recent analysis from the IsraellyCool blog). For that matter, how do we know that the Minsitry of Health isn’t counting deaths from natural causes as deaths from Israeli actions? A simple “the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health claims” before reciting casualty figures that the media has not itself verified would resolve the problem. Obviously, there have been civilian casualties, and I doubt that a more accurate count would change many minds about the conflict. Still, as co-blogger Ilya suggested to me, relying on Hamas for casualty figures is like relying on old East German economic reports showing it to be wealthier than West Germany. (I’ll leave for another time the perplexing question of why the only time the media indulges in day-by-day casualty counts is when Israel is involved. Quick… within a large margin of error, how many civilians did NATO kill in Serbia? Afghanistan? Libya?)

(3) The Israeli media reports that based on interrogations of captured Hamas fighters, Hamas was planning a major massacre for the Jewish New Year in September, with dozens of fighters simultaneously attacking border towns via Hamas’s tunnels. Most support for an early cease-fire dried up after this reporting, as it turned the tide of Israeli opinion from “we need a period of quiet from the missiles” to “we need to get rid of Hamas’s offensive military capacity.”

(4) I’ve heard several friends say, “what’s the big deal about the missiles, only three Israelis have been killed?” First, several dozen have been wounded, and several dozen more have been treated for shock. Kids are sleeping in “safe rooms” (in newer buildings) or bomb shelters (in older neighborhoods) and are afraid to go out during the day. Adults go to work, but have to disrupt their day to go to shelters all the time. With nine thousand missiles, Hamas could have kept this up for many months. Those of you who live in the DC area and remember how “the sniper” disrupted life for weeks” can imagine how much more disruptive constant rocket attacks could be.

(5) All that concrete that worldwide “human rights activists” insisted go to Gaza for construction? Largely diverted to Hamas’s military tunnel network. How many of the tunnels serve as civilian bomb shelters? As best as can be determined, zero. But the Hamas leadership has a tunnel infrastructure for itself to hide in. Those who have sought to undo the Israeli-Egypt blockade of Gaza to allow in items with military use like concrete are either rogues or fools; and Israel still sends in far more humanitarian aid (even now, during the war) than the people of Gaza would ever likely see from Hamas, while Hamas leaders have turned out to be as corrupt as their Fatah predecessors.

(6) I’ve much-admired the commentary of David Horovitz of The Times of Israel on the conflict. His latest is here.

(7) Does this post seem “one-sided?” As I’ve said before, Israel is far from perfect, but it’s blessed with almost cartoonishly evil enemies, including Hamas.

Rogers: Iran Aiding, Arming Hezbollah and Hamas, Washington Free Beacon, July 27, 2014

(If the House were to pass the proposed legislation, it would not come up for debate, much less for a vote, in the Senate. If it did and passed, President Obama would veto it. The votes necessary to override his veto would almost certainly not be there. — DM)

Senate Republicans are considering legislation to block the White House from infusing Iran with this money. The bill—authored by Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) with Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) and John Cornyn (R., Texas)—would effectively suspend President Barack Obama’s authority to use his executive power to waive sanctions on Iran and unfreeze the cash assets, which top more than $100 billion.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) on Sunday slammed the Obama administration for unfreezing $2.8 billion in Iranian assets, saying that money is being used to fund Hamas.

“Iran is publicly, in their own newspapers, touting the fact that they are helping to militarize Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” Rogers said on Face the Nation. “They’re supporting Hezbollah in the fight in Syria and supplying Hamas in the Gaza Strip with weapons.”

The White House announced last week that it would give Iran access to the money in order to continue nuclear talks through November.

“You can’t just pick and choose one particular region. It has to work in concert,” Rogers said. “So when you free up $2.8 billion for Iran when they’re already cash strapped because of sanctions, that means they can continue to do bad activities in the Gaza Strip.”

Senate Republicans are considering legislation to block the White House from infusing Iran with this money. The bill—authored by Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) with Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) and John Cornyn (R., Texas)—would effectively suspend President Barack Obama’s authority to use his executive power to waive sanctions on Iran and unfreeze the cash assets, which top more than $100 billion.

PA slams Kerry for attending ‘friends of Hamas’ ceasefire talks | The Times of Israel.

Another grave American mistake, Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, July 27, 2014

In his sixth year in office, Obama continues to suffer from his lack of experience. How many times already can one support the wrong side and still think the Americans have it right?

Let us imagine for a moment a military confrontation between the United States and Mexico, God forbid, wherein (the late) Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Cuba were asked to mediate. Does anybody really think Washington would be prepared to accept such hostile mediators, with whom it does not even speak? We can assume Washington would toss the idea out, and not very politely, either.

It appears, however, that Washington currently expects Israel to accept such a nonsensical condition. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a proposal on Friday, which while written in English appeared to be translated from a certain Qatari dialect. Kerry’s proposal was archeological: It promised the renovation of Gaza, and also the preservation of the underground tunnels. It should perhaps be explained to the Americans that while Masada is part of our tradition, no one here is actually interested in committing suicide anymore.

In fact, the cabinet’s unanimous rejection of the Kerry proposal did not lead him to conclude something was wrong, and at a special summit of foreign ministers in Paris on Saturday he surrounded himself by six of his colleagues, among them two Hamas advocates: Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Attiyah and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. One day someone needs to closely examine why the Obama administration continues to fantasize about all things pertaining to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The summit of foreign ministers in Paris was not interesting because of who was there, rather because of who was not, or to put it more accurately, who was not invited. Only the Obama administration can organize a summit devoid of the relevant players, which are Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

It is perplexing why Washington is failing to exploit this rare consensus between Egypt and Israel, along with the PA and Saudi Arabia, to formulate a cease-fire agreement, and is instead turning to the Qataris. Could it be that President Barack Obama thinks Egypt is not as democratic as it was during the Morsi era? Could it be that Washington believes Qatar is actually democratic? It is truly sad that Washington is so enthralled with Qatar, which is nothing more than a gas bubble with a voice in the United Nations. They get the sense that the tiny Gulf emirate is a rising power, not to mention it is sitting on mountains of cash. And most importantly, since the Arab Spring, throughout which Obama perpetually erred, Qatar is perceived as a channel through which to access authentic Islam.

We are witnessing a grave strategic error by the Americans, who are succeeding in infuriating serious and strong allies like Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia in favor of a deception in the form of Qatar and Turkey, which has managed to quarrel with all of its neighbors. Apropos Turkey: Is it possible it has resolved all of its problems in Cyprus and only Kerry knows about it?

Kerry required a few hours on Saturday to realize that Washington will not reach the quiet it desires without adjusting its position. Even without distancing itself from Qatar, it must move closer to Egypt. From Israel’s perspective, it is clear that any cease-fire agreement must allow it to continue dealing with the tunnel threat.

In the meantime, the images disseminated throughout Europe are hard to digest, and the governments which gave us the freedom to maneuver know that the people in the streets are offering us zero leeway. The world has had a difficult weekend: In Libya, the Americans evacuated their embassy because the country is disintegrating; in Ukraine, it is unclear how the conflict with Russia will unfold; in Iraq, the Islamic State group (formerly, ISIS) is continuing its onslaught; in Syria, not a day goes by without adding more beheaded corpses to the death toll. However, it remains so easy to gang up on Israel, of all countries, which is waging a just campaign of self-defense, while allowing the other conflagrations to spread out of control.

In his sixth year in office, Obama continues to suffer from his lack of experience. How many times already can one support the wrong side and still think the Americans have it right?

▶ Netanyahu: We won’t let terrorist dictate to us when it’s convenient for them to fire rockets at us – YouTube.

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