WarSclerotic

IDF sees no alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza

Southern commander says more rounds of fighting are inevitable, but status quo preferable to total chaos in the Strip

By Stuart Winer May 12, 2015, 12:47 pm

via IDF sees no alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza | The Times of Israel.

IDF Southern Region Commander Maj. Gen. Shlomo “Sami” Turgeman said on Monday that Hamas remains, effectively, the only option for governance in the Gaza Strip. He further accused Israeli media of handing the terror group propaganda victories during the war there last summer by revealing the number of southerners who left their home during the fighting.

Turgeman met with the heads of local authorities located near the Gaza border, where he reviewed the 50-day war with Hamas, which the IDF dubbed Operation Protective Edge.

He argued against the assertion — espoused by several senior Israeli ministers during the war — that the army should have worked to topple Hamas or take full control of the coastal enclave.

“There is an independent rule in Gaza that behaves like a state,” he said. “Inside that state there is a ruler, Hamas, and at the moment there is no alternative to Hamas. Aside from that, there is no one else who can hold things together. The alternative is the IDF or chaos.”

Turgeman assessed that the residents in Gaza were also not interested in ousting their Hamas rulers.

“Most of the citizens in the Strip see Hamas as the only address for their problems,” he said. “Anyone thinking about a popular uprising — it isn’t in sight. The chances that it’ll happen are not high.”

He said the Palestinian Authority, which rules in the West Bank, was also not a viable alternative to Hamas in Gaza, although he didn’t say why.

The conflict saw over 2,100 people killed in Gaza and tens of thousands more left homeless, according to Palestinian and UN tallies, and 72 people killed in Israel. Israel attributes the high civilian toll to the fact that Gazan fighters embedded their military infrastructure in residential areas. Eleven Israeli soldiers were killed inside Israel by Hamas gunmen emerging from the cross-border tunnels. Destroying the tunnel threat was one of Israel’s stated goals during the campaign.

Hamas also fired over 4,000 rockets at Israeli towns and cities, with the south taking the brunt of the fire. Media reports at the time said officials estimated that 70 percent of the 40,000 inhabitants of the farming communities along the Gaza border had left over the course of the fighting.

Turgeman criticized the Israel media for the way it reported events in the war, claiming that headlines reporting on the departure of residents of border towns were a propaganda coup for Hamas.

“There is no army that fights, it is a society that fights. When Channel 2 runs a report about people ‘abandoning the [Gaza] periphery,’ it is a victory for Hamas. Hamas doesn’t have a greater success than a headline like that.”

Turgeman warned that a similar problem existed vis-a-vis Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah in the north.

“It is the same thing with Hezbollah. When civilians and soldiers are being killed and the headline is ‘disaster’ — that is an achievement [for Hezbollah].”

The officer revealed that although the IDF realized that communities close to the Gaza Strip would suffer during a military campaign, he was reluctant to order an evacuation.

“I came to the operation with the preconception that evacuating the population was a victory for Hamas, which is why we didn’t rush to do that,” he said.

However, Turgeman admitted, in a future clash with Hamas it would likely be necessary to pull out “nonessential population” from the area. “There needs to be an organized plan and that is being worked on now,” he said.

Turgeman also hinted at possible developments in dealing with cross-border tunnels, which are very hard to detect and enabled some 45 Hamas fighters to enter into Israel during the conflict.

“Hamas wants to create a perception of victory with the underground mode of operation,” he said. “It is very hard to deal with that method because there is no technology to locate it in time. Happily, we are making some sort of significant advance.”

Turgeman explained that Israel had no real interest in interfering in events inside Gaza after the 2005 pullout, when the IDF evacuated all bases and Israeli settlements in the coastal enclave.

“Ever since the evacuation, the country has had a strategy of prevention and deterrence concerning the Gaza Strip,” Turgeman said. “We have no objective that we want to achieve there. The goal is prevention — to prevent chaos and a humanitarian crisis.”

Israel, he advised, should make the best of a bad situation.

“In my opinion we need to find as many quiet periods as possible, with the knowledge that occasionally there will be a [military] campaign, and so there is no need to be surprised when it happens every few years,” he said. “I hope that the period of quiet after Protective Edge will be prolonged.”

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“Israel and Hamas have shared interests, including in the current situation, which is quiet and calm and growth and prosperity,” said the general, who is in charge of Israeli forces on the Gaza and Egyptian borders.

“There is no substitute for Hamas as sovereign in the Strip. The substitute is the IDF and chaotic rule … and then the security situation would be much more problematic,” he said.

An Israeli military spokesman did not contest the accuracy of the quotes attributed to Turgeman from the private meeting on Monday with the municipal leaders. Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment. Nor did Hamas officials in Gaza.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/IDF-general-sees-common-interests-with-Hamas-402810

America’s Collapsing Alliances | The Weekly Standard.

It was a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away: In July 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama made big, bold news by travelling to Berlin to – as The New York Times triumphantly recorded – “restore the world’s faith in strong American leadership and idealism.” With 200,000 Berliners waving campaign-provided American flags, Obama called for renewing America’s alliances and undoing the cowboy unilateralism of George W. Bush and Obama’s 2008 opponent Sen. John McCain.

The events of recent months are an indication of how spectacularly Obama has failed to fulfill his 2008 promise. This week comes the news that Saudi Arabia’s newly installed King Salman and three of the other six Gulf monarchs are boycotting Obama’s Camp David summit – a meeting called by Obama to reassure the Arab states that the forthcoming nuclear deal with Iran was not a betrayal of their longstanding security relationship with the United States. Beyond their fears of Iran’s nukes, the Gulf states see the rise of an aspiring Persian hegemon – in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq – taking advantage of, if not actively conspiring with, a retreating America.  In this case “no show” means “no confidence.”

While the Middle East is where Obama has done the most damage to traditional U.S. alliances, the situation in Europe is not much better. The failure to respond to Vladimir Putin’s land grabs – which, to be fair, began with Georgia in the twilight of the Bush years – exposes NATO’s senility. The story of the post-Cold War Atlantic alliance, its late and limp performances in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, and now in Europe itself, is one of continuous decline. Even with the victory of David Cameron’s Tories, Britain continues to shed whatever elements of greatness it retains; with the nationalists wiping out all opposition in Scotland, another secession vote is more than possible, and Britain’s army is on course to be smaller than the NYPD. While Europe deserves most of the blame for its disarmament and indecision, the Obama Pentagon is pressing forward with plans to further reduce America’s military posture in Europe. The president came to office figuring the peace of Europe was eternal and self-sustaining, and thus there was no need to maintain the alliance that has been the key vehicle for U.S. global leadership since World War II. It is no wonder that Eastern Europeans doubt the credibility of NATO’s Article V, collective-defense guarantees.

Which brings us to East Asia and Obama’s supposed “rebalance” or “Pacific Pivot.” To say that things aren’t quite so bad there would be the soft bigotry of low expectations, except it was the president who raised expectations of more energetic American leadership there. Further, as expressed in the 2012 Defense Guidance, the pivot marks the sole “doctrinal” bit of Obama thinking; it was more than a reaction to Bush-era policies. Our East Asian allies cheered the initiative but now regard more as rhetoric than a strategic reality. It’s not just that the administration’s efforts – such as the repositioning of Marines to northern Australia, the attempt to build a strategic partnership with Burma or to revive the stalled partnership with India – have been underwhelming. Indeed, since trumpeting the rebalance to Asia the administration has distanced itself from allies’ enthusiasms. Obama’s pledge of a “new era” in U.S.-Japan relations barely survived the departure of Prime Minister Abe for Tokyo. The visit of reformist Indian leader Narendra Modi was a decidedly low-key affair. More tangibly, the Chinese have resumed their various encroachments into the South China Sea. At the end of the day, the U.S. position in the region is no better now than in 2008, and arguably worse: an empty pivot is worse than no pivot.

Over six years in office, Barack Obama has gone along way to unraveling the alliances – both formal and informal – that have been the framework for American geopolitical leadership since the end of World War II. Watching the Gulf states, in particular, try to fend for themselves in the absence of American power – as the Saudis are trying to do in Yemen and Syria – is painful and looks as though it will make things worse rather than better. King Salman’s decision to pass up Camp David may be less an insult than a recognition that it would be a waste of time.

With Plane Delivery, Iran Sanctions Collapsing Already – Bloomberg View.

With a deadline to end nuclear negotiations less than two months away, the crippling sanctions against Iran are already beginning to collapse. The latest evidence came over the weekend when nine used commercial airliners arrived in Iran to bolster the fleet of Mahan Air.

The U.S. has threatened to sanction western companies that sell planes to Iran, although a prohibition against Iran acquiring airplane spare parts was lifted in an interim agreement signed with Iran at the end of 2013. U.S. officials have also said that sanctions to punish Iran’s support of terrorism and human rights violations will remain in place if the nuclear sanctions are lifted.

Mahan Air has been singled out before — not for its support for Iran’s nuclear program, but for its role in providing weapons and crowd control equipment to the Syrian regime in its brutal suppression of popular unrest. The delivery of the used airplanes comes at a moment when Iran is seeking to rejoin the international economy, even before it signs a final deal. Last month Russia’s president Vladimir Putin announced he would resume the sale of a sophisticated air defense system, known as the S300, to Iran. Western oil companies are already meeting with Iranian officials to discuss how to get back into the country’s lucrative oil and gas markets.

Abbas Akhoundi, Iran’s transportation minister, said Sunday that 15 planes had been acquired by Iran since February, with nine arriving over the weekend. Other Iranian media reported that the planes — which used to be part of the Virgin Atlantic fleet — were headed to Mahan Air. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that Western governments suspect Iraq’s Al-Naser Airlines to have been a front for Mahan to acquire the planes.

The airline, a private company based in Tehran, has come under scrutiny from the U.S. government before. In 2011, it was sanctioned by Treasury for supporting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and its ballistic missile program. A 2012 press release from Treasury says, “Iran used Iran Air and Mahan Air flights between Tehran and Damascus to send military and crowd control equipment to the Syrian regime.” Those flights were then coordinated with Hezbollah, according to the press release, to re-supply Bashar al-Assad’s government during his attacks against civilians and his opposition that summer.

In 2008, according to a diplomatic cable declassified by Wikileaks, the State Department attempted to ground three Mahan Air planes that were receiving maintenance in South Korea. Eventually, the U.S. was able to recall those planes to the U.S. bases where they were manufactured   The U.S. also collected $15 million in fines from the British company that sold the aircraft to Mahan Air.

A Treasury Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the news Monday about the delivery of airplanes to Iran. Some analysts, however, said the transaction showed how the sanctions against Iran were collapsing ahead of the June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal.

“Mahan Air’s case shows that U.S. sanctions no longer deter Western companies from doing big business with Iran – even with a company like Mahan Air, which Treasury targeted for its support of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Corps,” said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that has advocated for tough sanctions on Iran.

“To preserve the credibility of its sanctions’ regime, the administration must move quickly to punish those companies involved in this blatant breach of U.S. sanctions,” Ottolenghi said. “Otherwise,” he added, “the argument that sanctions are still largely intact and can always be snapped back in the future loses all credibility.”

Avi Jorisch, a former Treasury Department official who has worked on mapping Iran’s illicit activities, said the purchase of the airplanes was a “gross violation” of the interim agreement reached by Iran, the United States and five other great powers at the end of 2013. “Such moves weaken the U.S. government’s ability to negotiate and make a credible case that if a good deal is not signed, Iran’s economy will continue to suffer,” added Jorisch, now a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

Despite the announcement last month of an agreed framework for a nuclear deal, much negotiation remains. Iran’s supreme leader has insisted that all sanctions on Iran must be lifted upon the signing of an agreement, and Iranian military leaders have pledged no international inspectors will be given access to military sites. President Obama and other western leaders have hoped that the burden of existing sanctions on Iran might give the U.S. some leverage to pressure Iran on these remaining issues. But it appears that leverage is weakening.

To contact the author on this story:
Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net