Mohammad Javad Zarif says US sanctions will have no impact on his country’s policies.
Elad Benari, 16/12/18 03:24
Mohammad Javad Zarif
Reuters
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday that US sanctions will have no impact on the policies of the Islamic Republic at home or abroad, AFP reports.
“It is obvious that we are facing pressure by the US sanctions. But will that lead to a change in policy? I can assure you it won’t,” Zarif was quoted as having told the Doha Forum policy conference in Qatar.
“If there is an art we have perfected in Iran and can teach to others for a price, it is the art of evading sanctions,” he added.
US President Donald Trump withdrew in May from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, which he has said is “the worst deal ever negotiated”.
The US has since imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran, the latest of which went into effect in early November. Those sanctions aim to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero in a bid to curb the Islamic Republic’s missile program and regional influence.
Iranian officials have remained defiant in the wake of the American sanctions, with President Hassan Rouhani having said recently that the US “will be defeated” as it has chosen the wrong path in reimposing sanctions on his country.
In Saturday’s comments, Zarif also discussed the Yemen conflict, denying Tehran had ever armed the Houthi rebels battling pro-government forces in the country.
“We have never provided weapons to Houthis,” he said when challenged on what arms it had supplied.
“They have enough weapons, they don’t need weapons from Iran,” Zarif added.
He said there were only “allegations” that Iran had sent weapons to Yemen, whereas there were “facts” that other countries had shipped arms.
“I don’t need to show any evidence about the jets that were flying in Yemen bombing the Yemenis. Those are American-made jets and those are Saudi fighters, I assume, which are piloting those jets,” he claimed, according to AFP.
“If there are allegations about Iranian weapons, there are facts about US weapons, facts about Saudis bombing the hell out of the Yemenis,” he added.
The pro-Assad axis saw great strategic success in 2018 – but Tehran has also suffered failures ■ The state of the Israeli army’s ground forces is a divisive issue Netanyahu will have to address
Iranian missile is fired from city of Kermanshah in western Iran targeting the Islamic State group in Syria,AP
Operation Northern Shield, to locate Hezbollah’s tunnels under the Lebanese border, is entering its second week. So far the Israel Defense Forces has reported the discovery of three tunnels, and the excavations are continuing at several other sites along the border. This engineering effort is expected to take more than a month, and even then the army will probably have to make changes regarding preparedness at the border fence.
Benjamin Netanyahu, in his dual role as prime minister and defense minister (among his other ministries), arrived this week for a second visit to the area, where he threatened Hezbollah. (Like when he said in September that if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “confronts us, he’ll get a crushing blow that he can’t even imagine.”)
But it was clear that the tour was also for domestic consumption. The prime minister is preparing for Israel’s next general election due within a year, and his frequent meetings with officers and soldiers provide an ideal setting for his journey to the ballot box.
In an article last week on the website Israel Defense, Col. (res.) Pesach Malovany, a former senior official in Military Intelligence, mentions a propaganda film released by Hezbollah in 2014. The organization promised “to free Bi’ina, Deir al-Asad and Majdal Krum,” three Arab villages in the Galilee, and presented an attack plan based on no fewer than 5,000 fighters.
According to the film, the units would progress in four spearheads, from Nahariya in the west to Misgav Am in the east, with a fifth force in reserve. Cover would be provided by a heavy barrage of rockets launched by Hezbollah at the Galilee.
Israeli officials at the time dismissed this as mere psychological warfare. Even now it’s hard to imagine how Hezbollah would be able to transfer so many troops, sometimes underground in relatively narrow and short tunnels, without being discovered. Interestingly, the size of the forces that was mentioned is quite similar to the estimated number of fighters in Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces unit. When you add the tunnels that were recently revealed, it’s easier to understand how Hezbollah is thinking about the next battle.
A United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) vehicle patrolling in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel is parked next to a poster showing Hassan Nasrallah, on December 9, 2018. Ali DIA / AF
Hezbollah’s steps are part of a change in Iran’s plans. In recent months Iran’s military intervention in Syria, including the weapons smuggled to Hezbollah in Lebanon, has ebbed due to Russian pressure.
At the same time, Moscow has pressured Israel to go easy on its air strikes in Syria since the Syrians’ accidental downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane in September. This week the Russians finally agreed to receive a military delegation from Israel, headed by the chief of the General Staff Operations Directorate, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, but the IDF is reluctant to state that this signals an end to the crisis.
Amid the difficulties of operating in Syria, Iran is increasing its efforts in the two neighboring countries. In western Iraq it’s deploying long-range missiles that are capable of striking Israel as well. In Lebanon it’s trying to build factories that will let it improve the precision of Hezbollah’s older rockets. These efforts are accompanied by a dispute regarding the Iranian regime’s priorities for investment, in light of increased sanctions by the United States and a protest by everyday Iranians due to the deteriorating economy.
Since the discovery of the tunnels, the General Staff has made sure to clarify that despite the media’s preoccupation with the precision-missile project, Hezbollah apparently has only a few dozen high-precision rockets capable of striking less than 50 meters (160 feet) or so from their target.
The Iranians have yet to achieve the “industrial” capability of a swift conversion to precision missiles in Lebanon. The smuggling of weapons on flights from Iran to Beirut is also being done on a small scale, far smaller than what was tried in the weapons convoys on Syrian soil.
In the north, 2018 saw a major strategic success of the axis that supported the Assad regime in Syria – a renewed takeover of most of Syrian territory and a restabilization of the government. But the Iranians also suffered failures; one is a slowdown of their efforts to entrench themselves militarily in Syria, because of Israel’s strikes in April and May. The other is the exposure of Hezbollah’s tunnel plan.
That doesn’t mean that Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, will lay down his arms in 2019. Israel must assume that Iran will try to attack it on other fronts. At the moment, it seems this will happen in Lebanon, with the precision-missile factories the main issue.
If in the future Tehran believes that it has a reason to attack Israel, perhaps due to American efforts to combat Iran’s nuclear programs and missiles, it’s hard to believe it will leave Hezbollah out, as it did in the confrontation with Israel in Syria this year.
In light of the billions that the Iranians have invested in Lebanon, the day will come when they demand that Nasrallah provide a better return for their money. A senior defense official, in a meeting with his European counterparts, recently said that it will be hard to maintain the quiet in Lebanon for another year.
“We’ll try to neutralize the tunnels and remove them from the equation, but the precision-missile project remains a problem for us,” he reportedly said. “Iran is trying to build a missile system in Iraq and Syria, in addition to the rockets it has already provided to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to Palestinian organizations in Gaza. For us it’s too much; the Iranians have to leave Syria entirely. It’s not enough to keep them 60 or 80 kilometers [50 miles] from the Israeli border.”
Unprecedented challenge
The Israeli rhetoric against Iran in the past decade has focused on the nuclear program. But the 2015 nuclear agreement and the lifting of the sanctions against Iran that ensued (some of which were recently renewed when Washington abandoned the agreement) have clarified the progress of Iran’s other efforts: to develop long-range missiles and increase its influence in the region.
The conventional military threat against Israel has waned with the collapse of the Syrian army and Israel’s closer ties with Egypt. On the other hand, the combined, hybrid threat that Iran is developing from many directions and with many means is a challenge Israel hasn’t faced in the past.
Heavy rocket barrages against civilians and strategic infrastructure, an attempt at a land grab on the border, cyberwarfare and electronic warfare, an option of opening a secondary front in Gaza, the big question of how Russia will behave – all these elements appear in the scenarios that the General Staff has practiced in recent years.
Are the ground forces, which are still partly based on a large contribution by reservists, ready for more extreme scenarios? That’s one subject of the debate with the Defense Ministry ombudsman, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik. Brik isn’t being attacked for his ungentlemanly style and sweeping statements, but apparently the public slap in the face by his reports has triggered a positive process of investigations in the IDF and at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
When the generals stop feeling offended, the army will discover that it’s not a bad idea to investigate itself occasionally. And the managers of large organizations tend to discover that reality is less glamorous than their high opinion of themselves.
In the army, opinions about the ground forces are divided. Have the steps by Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot to bring the IDF up to par been sufficient? Some people believe it’s lagging by decades. Eisenkot challenged the political leaders in the summer of 2015 when he published documents on IDF strategy; he tried to force the politicians into a deeper discussion on the army and its future.
In fact, from the few statements by Netanyahu on this question in recent months, it’s clear he envisions an army even more dependent on the air force, technology and intelligence. The ground forces, and the reservist system in particular, are liable to remain far behind. The prime minister, in his role as defense minister, will have to find time to discuss these controversies in depth during the first half of the coming year, when Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi takes over as chief of staff.
While Israel continues the operation to destroy the underground terror infrastructure on the border with Lebanon, the locals treat the situation as a spectacle, taking selfies with the IDF soldiers in the background.
As Israeli military excavators dug into the rocky hills along the frontier with a Lebanese village, a crowd of young Lebanese men gathered to watch.The mood was light as the crowd observed what Israel says is a military operation—dubbed “Northern Shield”—aimed at destroying attack tunnels built by the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group under the border. The young men posed for selfies, with the Israeli crew in the background, as they burned fires and brewed tea to keep warm.
IDF soldiers on Israel-Lebanon border (Photo: AP)
But Lebanese soldiers were visibly on high alert, deploying to new camouflaged posts behind sandbags and inside abandoned homes. About two dozen UN peacekeepers stood in a long line, just ahead of the blue line demarcating the frontier between the two countries technically still at war.The scene highlights the palpable anxiety that any misstep could lead to a conflagration between Israel and Lebanon that no one seems to want.
Underscoring such jitters, shadowy figures appearing across the misty hills of the border village of Mays al-Jabal last weekend sparked panic, and Israeli soldiers fired in the air to warn a Lebanese military intelligence patrol, according to Lebanese reports. Israel said it fired at Hezbollah members who came to the site to dismantle sensors installed to detect tunnels.
Israel’s tunnel search comes at a time when the civil war in neighboring Syria seems to be winding down. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah had sent hundreds of troops to Syria in 2013 to fight alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, another friend of Tehran. With Assad’s forces emerging victorious, attention now seems to be returning to the tense Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel said its troops have discovered four tunnels along the frontier—a tactic used by Hezbollah in previous wars—and called on the international community to impose new sanctions on Hezbollah.
UN peacekeepers observe Israeli excavators working near the southern village of Mays al-Jabal (Photo: AP)
The militant group, which fought a bruising but inconclusive war with Israel in 2006, has not commented on the Israeli operation or statements.
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri said Thursday that neither Israel nor Lebanon wanted to go to war, but said that Israel violates Lebanese airspace and international waters on a regular basis.
He said the Lebanese army “will deal with this issue” after receiving a full report from the UN peacekeeping force, but did not elaborate.
Lebanese villagers take souvenir pictures in front of Israeli excavators in the southern village of Mays al-Jaba (Photo: AP)
The peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, has confirmed the presence of tunnels and said it is working with both sides to address the situation in line with UN Security Council resolutions.
In southern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanese army soldiers observed the frontier in Mays al-Jabal, taking photos of their Israeli counterparts operating only a few meters (yards) away. At times, the Lebanese soldiers asked the young men to move back, away from the frontier.
Lebanese homes and farms are nestled at the bottom of the hill where the operations run from daybreak until sundown. No civilian Israeli homes visible from that tense border.
Ali Jaber, a 21-year-old resident of Mays al-Jabal, said he believes that Hezbollah is more popular after the Syria war, and that this is the reason Israel is now turning to it. “But whoever puts up a shield and is hiding and making fortifications must be scared,” he said.
Hussein Melhem, a 19-year old electrician from the village, came to watch. His cheeks ruddy on a cold but clear day, he covered his head with a tight hood. He alleged that Israel is trying to change the border.
“If they could occupy all of this, they would,” he said, in an apparent reference to Israel’s 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon which ended in 2000. “But the resistance will prevent them.”
As a seven-year-old in 2006, Melhem and his family left Mays al-Jabal during the war. His village was badly damaged but has since largely recovered and he said he found their home intact.
UN peacekeepers hold their flag while standing next to Hezbollah and Lebanese flags along the border (Photo: AP)
It is hard to forget about war in the villages and towns along the frontier. Pictures of Hezbollah fighters who died in the 2006 war, as well as the one raging in neighboring Syria, known locally as the “Sacred Defense,” are everywhere. Posts on town squares boast of defeating Israel or urge the locals to “know their enemy.”
During the Syrian civil war, Israel has frequently carried out airstrikes in Syria against Iranian-allied forces, particularly Hezbollah. Israel says it aims to prevent sophisticated weaponry from reaching Hezbollah, which it considers its most pressing security concern.
In Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings have raised suspicions that he is also using the tunnel operation as a diplomatic pressure card.
Netanyahu has called for more sanctions against Hezbollah. In a recent visit to the frontier, he warned that if Hezbollah tries to disrupt the search for tunnels, “it will be hit in a way it cannot even imagine.”
In Israel, some newspaper commentators have been critical of the UN peacekeeping force, whose mandate Israel and the United States have unsuccessfully attempted to expand to include “intervention and deterrence.”
About 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the north from Mays al-Jabal, Israeli soldiers are also operating along another frontier to uncover what they suspect is a tunnel location.
Israeli military equipment works on the Lebanese-Israeli border next to a wall Israel built (Photo: AP)
There, a high concrete wall separates them from the Lebanese village of Kfar Kela. Red-roofed Israeli homes on a hill overlook the diggers, who had cleared peach trees to make room for their work. Lebanese residences, some of them luxury summer homes, sat atop hills hundreds of meters from the wall.
UN peacekeepers and Lebanese army separately patrol the area. Israel began building the wall in 2012, and this section was completed weeks ago. While graffiti covers the older slabs of concrete, water has collected under the newer segment of the wall.
A UN peacekeeping force was working to clear the water after Lebanese residents complained it comes from irrigation drainage from the other side.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un sign documents that acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018.. (photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS)
“Rapid” denuclearization of North Korea is officially dead.
US President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is in “no hurry” in negotiations to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program.
A wide range of officials have been saying that US-North Korea nuclear negotiations could have a decisive impact on the nuclear standoff with Iran.
If the US cannot get North Korea to denuclearize, why should Iran agree to new limits to its nuclear program beyond the 2015 nuclear deal?
In many ways, Trump’s shifting position on North Korea, from demanding rapid denuclearization to being in “no hurry,” should be no surprise.
Since Trump’s July summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Washington’s talks with Pyongyang have stalled, and the North has not taken any serious or systematic concrete steps toward denuclearization, though it did halt missile tests, release the remains of some dead Americans from the Korean War and took some other confidence-building measures.
In early November, North Korea suddenly canceled a scheduled meeting with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. US Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun has yet to even meet with North Korean negotiators since his August appointment.
Meanwhile, Pompeo also admitted to the UN Security Council last week that, to date, US sanctions have not succeeded in getting Iran to roll back its nuclear program or ballistic missile testing beyond the 2015 deal’s limits.
In September, Pompeo was still trying to maintain the language of pressing for “rapid” denuclearization, while tossing out 2021 as a decidedly not rapid timeline.
This was after some Trump officials spoke in July of getting full declarations of the North’s nuclear arsenal and of rolling back large portions of its nuclear program within 90 days.
As of Friday, Trump has dispensed with the rhetorical games and admitted that his administration is locked into the same long negotiations game that other administrations have fallen into with North Korea.
Some analysts credit Trump with having a better chance still at resolving the issue by making both the carrots, the heads of state meeting in July, and sticks, a harsher economic pressure campaign than even in the past, stronger than other administrations.
With Iran, even as the Islamic Republic has been hurt economically by the US sanctions snap-back more than expected, its determination to stay within the nuclear deal without any new concessions has been unyielding.
It’s economic support from Asian countries and political support from EU countries appear to be enough to keep it afloat and to give it an opportunity to wait out the Trump administration – at least until 2021.
For Israel, this could mean that while there is more pressure on Iran than during the end of the Obama administration, the nuclear deal may remain solid.
In terms of fears of Iran continuing to improve its ballistic missiles, its advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium and preserving its right to build an industrial-size nuclear program when the nuclear deal expires, it means that Israel may gain no solace from US efforts.
The U.S. first needs to “respect the outcome” of previous talks over the 2015 nuclear deal, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says • Iran will not yield to U.S. economic pressure, he adds • Zarif also says Saudi Arabia stokes tensions in Middle East.
Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the U.N.
|Photo: Reuters
There is room for Iranian talks with the United States, but the U.S. first needs to “respect the outcome of the talks” the countries have previously held, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday.
Zarif was referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major powers, from which U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew on May 8, restoring the full force of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Speaking at the annual Doha Forum, Zarif said that while Iran was feeling the economic pressure of the U.S. sanctions, this would not lead to policy change. He said Iran had survived U.S. sanctions “for the last 40 years” and “will survive for the next 40 years.”
Zarif also accused Saudi Arabia of trying to raise tensions in the Middle East, referring to the conflict in Yemen and the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite Muslim Iran are on opposite sides of several proxy wars in the Middle East.
Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, who control the Yemen capital Sanaa and its main port Hodeidah, have been battling against a Saudi-led Arab coalition seeking to restore the government ousted in 2014.
Hodeidah has been the focus of fighting this year, raising global fears that a battle could cut off supply lines and lead to mass starvation. Yemeni forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition have amassed on the city’s outskirts.
Zarif also said that Russia, Turkey and Iran could announce a Syrian constitutional committee with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura before the end of this week.
As part of U.N.-mandated political reforms to end Syria’s war, the country’s constitution is supposed to be reformed and new elections held. However, Syria’s government has rejected U.N. involvement in picking the members of the committee to make the changes, and the process has gone nowhere since January.
“The Palestinian Authority’s incessant incitement has inspired the young terrorists who carried out the latest attacks,” Danny Danon writes to U.N. Security Council • “PA’s declarations of tolerance and peace are nothing but hollow rhetoric,” he says.
Ariel Kahana
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon
|Photo: AP
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon has called on the Security Council to condemn the latest spike in Palestinian terrorism and the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying stipends to jailed terrorists and to the families of terrorists killed carrying out attacks against Israelis.
”The Palestinian Authority’s incessant incitement campaign has inspired the young terrorists who have carried out recent attacks,” Danon wrote to the U.N. Security Council over the weekend.
“Under Abu Mazen’s [PA President Mahmoud Abbas’] rule, the PA devotes 7% of its annual budget to paying monthly salaries to terrorists and their families, thereby encouraging Palestinians to harm innocent Israelis and proving that its declarations of tolerance and peace are nothing but hollow rhetoric,” Danon wrote.
”Abu Mazen’s activities undermine regional stability and Israel reserves the right to defend its citizens.”
Speaking with Israel Hayom, Danon said, “At the U.N., the Palestinian leaders speak of peace, but in Ramallah, they continue to export terrorism and spread messages of hate and incitement. The State of Israel will reach every terrorist and ensure that justice is served.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas issues directive mere hours after elite IDF unit demolishes the home of Islam Yusuf Abu Hamid, who killed Staff Sgt. Ronen Lubarsky in May by dropping a marble slab on him • IDF continues crackdown on West Bank terrorists.
Lilach Shoval, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
A soldier secures the area where IDF troops prepare to demolish terrorist Islam Yusuf Abu Hamid’s home, Saturday
|Screenshot: IDF / Twitter
Mere hours after the IDF demolished the home of a terrorist who killed an Israeli soldier, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a directive to rebuild the home, an official in Ramallah said Sunday.
Abu Hamid was arrested on June 13. His family appealed to the High Court of Justice to prevent the demolition, arguing that razing their home constituted ”disproportionate punitive action.”
Israel demolishes the homes of terrorists as a deterrent measure to dissuade potential terrorists from committing attacks.
IDF troops destroyed Hamid’s home with two controlled explosions in an operation involving dozens of soldiers and military vehicles on Saturday night. The operation was complicated as the home was located in the center of the densely populated camp.
Residents of al-Amari began clashing with the Israeli forces almost immediately, and the troops used crowd control measures to disperse them.
The demolition took place after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also acting defense minister, ordered the IDF to step up its counterterrorism efforts in the area in the wake of the spike in terrorist attacks across Judea and Samaria in recent weeks.
The IDF has been ordered to demolish terrorists’ homes within 48 hours of the identification of an attacker, and to step up raids and arrests. The Defense Ministry has also decided to revoke the entry permits to Israel granted to terrorists’ relatives and accomplices.
Foreign Ministry: Australia’s decision to open trade office in capital is a step in the right direction • Likud officials: All of Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal capital • Malaysian PM: Jerusalem belongs to Palestine, Australia has no right to divide it.
Eli Leon, Daniel Siryoti, Ariel Kahana, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
The Old City of Jerusalem with new construction in the background
|Photo: Oren Ben Hakoo
Australia’s announcement over the weekend that it was formally recognizing “west Jerusalem” as the capital of Israel but would not be moving its embassy to any part of the city for now came as a disappointment to many Israelis.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued no official response either welcoming or condemning the decision.
At least one senior government official told Israel Hayom: “This isn’t an achievement. The opposite.”
However, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon tweeted on Saturday: “Israel views the decision of the Australian government to open its Trade and Defense office in Jerusalem as a step in the right direction.”
Nahshon added that Israel “congratulated” the government of Australia for its stance on sanctions against Iran and its “pro-Israel position at the U.N. and against anti-Semitism.”
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein criticized the Australian decision, saying that the recognition of west Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “amazed” him.
“All of Jerusalem is our eternal capital, not just a part of it,” Edelstein said.
Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis said that Australia’s announcement was welcome, “despite the fact that all of Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel for 3,000 years.”
As well as recognizing west Jerusalem as Israeli, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed his country’s support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would make east Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Nabil Shaath, an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said, “Australia has always been an important country to us, a friendly country, a balanced country.”
Shaath said that balance would be fully expressed when Australia officially recognized “the right of the Palestinians to a Palestinian state of their own with east Jerusalem as its capital.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Sunday that Australia had “no right” to declare a division of Jerusalem, arguing that the city had always belonged to “Palestine.”
“Why are they taking the initiative … to divide [Jerusalem] between the Arabs and the Jews? They have no right,” he said.
Spate of drive-by shootings sparks concerns of copycat attacks, but defense officials believe phenomenon will not spread outside Samaria • As hunt for Givat Asaf killers continues, IDF official says it is “only a matter of time” before they are caught.
Efrat Forsher, Lilach Shoval, Daniel Siryoti and Ariel Kahana
A Palestinian rioter near Ramallah, Friday
|Photo: AFP
Defense officials said over the weekend that the latest wave of terrorist attacks can probably be contained, and that while copycat drive-by shooting attacks are a matter of concern, it is unlikely they will spread outside Samaria.
”It’s only a matter of time before we get our hands on the cell’s members,” one IDF officer said.
A source familiar with the operation told Israel Hayom that military activity was focusing on thwarting future terrorist attacks, protecting Jewish settlements and roads in the region, and conducting raids and arrests.
The recent spate of terrorist attacks has prompted the IDF to increase deployment across Judea and Samaria, setting up 120 roadblocks in the area. Dozens of Hamas members suspected of terrorist activity were arrested across the West Bank over the weekend, the IDF said.
The Diplomatic-Security Cabinet was expected to devote most of its meeting Sunday to the uptick in Palestinian violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also currently the acting defense minister, has ordered the IDF to expedite the demolition of the homes of the terrorists involved in last week’s attacks, as well as step up military counterterrorism activities across Judea and Samaria.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is slated to visit Jordan on Monday, where he will discuss “recent developments in the Palestinian arena” with King Abdullah.
An Israeli defense official told Israel Hayom that Abbas has instructed Palestinian security forces to crack down on the armed factions in the West Bank to avoid further escalations.
As part of these measures, Abbas’ security forces barred Hamas operatives in the West Bank from marking the terrorist group’s 31st anniversary over the weekend.
In the Gaza Strip, which Hamas rules, the event was marked with mass rallies.
Bolstered by its success uncovering Hezbollah’s terror tunnels on the northern border, Israel now wants to leverage the IDF’s operational and intelligence coup by conveying it to the diplomatic arena.
This week, the U.N. Security Council will discuss Israel’s complaint that Hezbollah violated its sovereignty. It is hard to believe the council will pass a resolution condemning Hezbollah or calling for action against it. At most, the member states will express concern over the rising tensions and call on both sides to show restraint.
After all, any connection between the Security Council and the U.N. to peace and security is purely coincidental. Case in point: The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, did not lift a finger to prevent Hezbollah from digging its tunnels and is generally apathetic to the terrorist organization’s deployment along the Israeli border.
Meanwhile, Israel has also turned to Russia, the new responsible adult in the neighborhood, and even sent a senior military delegation to Moscow last week to debrief the Russians on the operation to eliminate the tunnels. It is safe to assume the Russians were not taken by surprise.
The Russians, unlike the Americans, do not harbor any illusions about the players in the region. However, the Russians have their own interests, which necessitate their embrace of Iran and Hezbollah. Perhaps the Russians will pressure Hezbollah not to provoke Israel, so as not to jeopardize their gains in Syria, but they will continue viewing Hezbollah as a legitimate actor whose existence in Lebanon must accepted as an absolute fact.
The United States, which was quick to condemn Hezbollah publicly, also poured cold water over Israel’s efforts to amplify pressure on Hezbollah by refusing to impose additional sanctions on Lebanon. The Americans believe a distinction must be made between Lebanon and Hezbollah, and that the moderate foundations of Lebanese society should continue to be strengthened in the hope that one day, which will likely never come, these forces will gather the courage to rise up against Hezbollah.
The U.S. insists on continuing to arm the Lebanese army, while rejecting Israel’s claim that Hezbollah has access to its weapons. As a reminder, during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the U.S. pressured the Israeli government to spare Lebanese government institutions and focus solely on hitting Hezbollah targets. By doing so, Washington prevented Israel from possibly altering perceptions of that war.
The truth is that Lebanon and Hezbollah are not one and the same. The majority of people in Lebanon, and many Shiites as well, oppose the organization, feel threatened by it, and wish someone would do the dirty work for them and pummel it. They mainly hope someone will wipe out Hezbollah’s military power, which first and foremost, beyond Israel, poses a threat to Lebanon itself.
However, Hezbollah’s detractors in Lebanon are irrelevant. Due to its military clout, the organization can force its views and decisions on any national matter, certainly on the ongoing construction of its military capabilities against Israel. The fact is that no one in Lebanon, neither in the government nor in the army, is asked their opinion on whether to dig tunnels and risk a possible clash with Israel.
Finally, beyond everything mentioned above, Hezbollah and the country of Lebanon are symbiotic. In its current iteration, Hezbollah cannot function outside the Lebanese system in which it exists and without the government institutions from which it draws its power. It is not for nothing that the organization has worked to assimilate within the political system and join the Lebanese government as a coalition member. This is the only way it has been able to advocate for the Shiites, who in turn mostly support Hezbollah because they want it to continue fighting for their political interests in the Lebanese system. A weak Lebanon means a weakened Hezbollah, an organization with less capabilities and resources and with credibility problems among the country’s Shiite population.
Anyone desiring stability in the region must focus the pressure on the government in Beirut. It will not be enough to neutralize the threat posed by Hezbollah, but it will help to weaken and deter it.
Eyal Zisser is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University.
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