WarSclerotic

The Shin Bet security agency has thwarted 480 ‎Palestinian terrorist attacks so far in 2018, agency ‎Director Nadav Argaman told the Knesset’s Foreign ‎Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.‎

The Shin Bet’s efforts were a major factor in the ‎defense establishment’s ability to maintain the ‎fragile calm between Israel and the Palestinians, ‎especially in Judea and Samaria, Argaman said.‎

‎”The situation in the Palestinian arena has been ‎‎very unstable this year. In the Gaza Strip, we are ‎somewhere between a potential [military] campaign ‎and efforts to ‎stabilize the humanitarian situation,” he told the committee.

‎”In Judea and Samaria the situation is very ‎complex ‎as well. Things on the ground are ‎relatively calm, but this calm is deceptive. The ‎situation is actually highly combustible.”‎

Argaman continued, “Hamas is constantly trying to launch terrorist attacks in and from Judea and ‎Samaria.

“We were able to prevent 480 major ‎terrorist attacks, stop 590 lone-wolf terrorists and ‎arrest 219 Hamas cells. This indicates that there is ‎a large, clandestine terrorist infrastructure ‎there.”

Hamas leaders in Gaza and Turkey are sparing no ‎effort to mastermind terrorist attacks in Judea and ‎Samaria, and similar efforts are being made from ‎‎Lebanon by the Hezbollah terrorist group, Argaman said.

He said ‎the Shin Bet uses a variety of methods to track down lone terrorists, including ‎monitoring Palestinians’ social media accounts and ‎general online activity, using confidential ‎informants, and implementing a complex profiling ‎algorithm.‎

The agency “has also been able to foil ‎‎multiple cyberattacks and espionage plots against ‎‎Israel. The current reality is the result of ‎‎intensive efforts by all branches of the defense ‎‎establishment – the IDF, Shin Bet and the Israel ‎‎Police – that enable Israelis to live their daily ‎lives peacefully,” he said. ‎

Shin Bet data indicates that in 2017, the agency thwarted ‎over 400 terrorist attacks, including 13 ‎suicide attacks and eight abductions, as well as ‎‎1,100 potential lone-wolf attacks.‎

In 2016, the Shin Bet prevented 344 major terrorist ‎attacks.‎

The U.S. political system is at a ‎dramatic crossroads, with American ‎voters in the midterm elections about to decide the fate of 35 out of 100 Senate seats ‎and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.‎

Since the last midterm elections, in 2014, Congress has had a Republican majority, with the ‎party controlling both houses. Almost all the predictions are that this is about to change, as ‎the Democrats are expected to win the majority of the House and ‎their chances of winning a majority in the Senate ‎cannot be completely discounted. ‎

If this happens, the political upset would be in ‎line with the familiar pattern of American politics, ‎which reflects the voters’ desire to create balance between the various branches of government and ‎prevent one party from having too much power for too long.‎

However, in the current political and social ‎climate, which is fraught with tension and ‎ideological hostility, any shift in the balance of ‎power on Capitol Hill will have far more significant ‎implications than ever before. ‎

The Republicans are likely to maintain a narrow ‎majority in the Senate and may even gain slightly, but the ‎prevailing forecast – which gives the Democrats at least 23 ‎new seats, and the majority, in the House of Representatives – raises the possibility of an escalation ‎in the political and social hostility polarizing the ‎United States to the point of creating “gridlocks” ‎in the legislative process.‎

On the eve of these midterm elections, the White House ‎faced a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, to try ‎to preserve the Republican majority in the House, President Donald Trump had to adopt a ‎conciliatory and unifying strategy that would ‎underscore the common denominator between different ‎ethnic groups.‎

This was necessary because the vast majority of the ‎electoral districts giving the Democrats the ‎advantage are located in suburban, affluent and ‎educated areas, where the majority of voters hold ‎moderate positions.‎

On the other hand, to win the majority of races for ‎the Senate and ensure the Republicans continue to ‎control Congress, Trump needed to adopt a completely ‎contradictory strategy. ‎

Since most of these races are held in “red” states, ‎such as North Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Indiana, ‎where incumbent Democratic senators must champion ‎clearly conservative positions to have a fighting ‎chance, the president needed to take a harder line ‎to help Republican candidates. ‎

In light of this contradiction, Trump has all but ‎decided to come to terms with the fact that the ‎Democrats will take the House in exchange for ‎increasing the chances of the Republican ‎maintain the majority in the Senate, which, among ‎other things, exclusively controls the appointment ‎of judges to the Supreme Court. ‎

A direct result of this decision was the radicalization of the rhetoric coming from the ‎White House.‎

Trump’s harsh statements about illegal immigration, ‎the threat to revoke  the citizenships of children ‎of illegal immigrants, the attacks on media and his ‎aspiration to implement a “nationalistic” vision for ‎the U.S. were all part of this strategy. The objective is clear: to mobilize and invigorate the ‎Republican voter base, thus ensuring that the ‎Republicans retain the majority in the ‎Senate.‎

However, if this scenario materializes and the ‎Republicans win the Senate but lose the House, the ‎‎45th president will have to deviate from this ‎puritanical policy and adopt a more pragmatic ‎approach that will ensure compromises with the ‎Democratic majority in the House.‎

The alternative is an ongoing duel in Congress, ‎which could disrupt the legislative process and ‎hamper Trump’s ability to govern in the next two ‎years. As things stand, it remains to be seen where ‎the White House is headed.‎

The European Union has so far failed to find a country to host a special mechanism to trade with Iran and circumvent the newly reimposed U.S. sanctions that went into effect Monday, according to three EU diplomats, who said European governments fear being targeted by U.S. countermeasures.

The EU on Monday reissued its Nov. 2 statement, saying it was still setting up the so-called “special purpose vehicle,” or SPV, which is designed to circumvent the sanctions.

The EU, which opposes the sanctions, had hoped to have the SPV ready by the time the sanctions came into force.

However, no EU country has so far volunteered to host the entity, the diplomats said. Several states have been asked by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to consider hosting the SPV headquarters, as the bloc tries to uphold the nuclear accord from which U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew in May.

While the European Commission declined to comment on Monday, European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said that “the European Union does not approve” of the reimposition of U.S. sanctions, which were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.

Brian Hook, Washington’s special representative for Iran, underscored the risks for European companies, warning that any EU country hosting the SPV could potentially be sanctioned.

“The United States will not hesitate to sanction any sanctionable activity in connection with our Iran sanctions regime,” Hook said.

The SPV may incorporate a barter system and aims to sidestep the U.S. financial system by using an EU intermediary to handle trade with Iran. It could ensure, for example, that Iranian oil bought by Europeans could be paid for with EU goods and services of the same value.

A senior French diplomat said Paris was confident the mechanism would be legally in place soon, but things needed to be fully cemented first.

“We hope the legal instruments will be put in place in the coming days. It will then be a few weeks or months to finalize its modalities, and its implementation will be during 2019,” he said. He added there was no way any trade with this mechanism could be done before the end of the year.

Hook said he had not seen demand from European companies to use the SPV because they preferred to invest in the United States.

“If you take a look at the over 100 corporations that have decided to choose the United States market over the Iranian market, they are not looking to avail themselves of any type of vehicle, they are very pleased to continue working with the United States,” he told reporters.

The EU, with support from China and Russia, hopes to keep Iran in the deal by allowing trade to flow despite U.S. penalties.

The SPV follows several other EU initiatives to try to shield European business with Iran from the U.S. sanctions, which Trump says aim to punish Iran for its role in the wars in Syria and Yemen.