WarSclerotic

But against the background of all of this, a dramatic revolution is now underway. Seventy years after its establishment, Israel is a powerful regional player, and more importantly a legitimate and accepted country and even a desired ally in the eyes of the Arab arena. Israel has peaceful ties with some of its neighbors, and has even, in the form of an undeclared ally, established strategic relations, in particular on issues of security but also economic matters with additional Arab countries.

This revolution is the result of the bolstering of Israel’s regional and international standing and of course its military and economic growth at home. But it is also a reflection of the changing face of the Middle East and in particular the sunset of Arab nationalism and the weakening of the Arab states in relation to the strengthening of Iran and Turkey. Iran’s threatening shadow and quite possibly the challenge presented by Turkey have pushed Israel and the Arab states to cooperate. After all, in light of Washington’s retreat from the region, Israel has been left at the forefront of the struggle against Iran. The determination it has shown in the face of Tehran’s efforts to establish itself militarily in Syria have scored Israel points in the eyes of its Arab neighbors, and in particular among Gulf Arab states that feel under threat from the ayatollahs.

These trends have sidelined the Palestinian issue, which was always seen as an obstacle to any attempt to promote Israel-Arab ties. To be honest, this question remains important, and may even constitute a glass ceiling of sorts to efforts to establish peaceful relations between Israel and its neighbors. But the Arab regimes have succeeded in maneuvering between their peoples’ commitment to the fate of the Palestinians and the interests pushing their countries toward improving ties with Israel.

The alliance between Israel and its neighbors is now focused on the Iranian threat, but it could expand to other issues. Israel and the Arabs share many common interests, like the struggle against radical Islam and the advancement of the regional economy. Israel’s security cooperation with Greece and Cyprus and the formal institutionalization of the economic relationship between these countries and Egypt are a testament to the ability to expand the array of relationships and alliances beyond strategic issues and even beyond the Middle Eastern arena.

Israel is also working to advance ties with countries like Azerbaijan in Central Asia and Ethiopia, Kenya and Chad in Africa. But this renewed “alliance of the periphery” is completely different from the alliances Israel established in the late 1950s with Iran and Turkey against then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. This time, Israel is the axis around which the alliance revolves.

These trends are an expression of Israel’s transformation from a marginal and weak player ostracized by the Arab world to a powerful country and desirable ally. This too is one of the markers of Israel’s upcoming 71st Independence Day.

The citizens of Israel are paying a bitter price for the last 18 years of an absence of a policy on the Gaza Strip and the “containment” approach to the events of the past year.

As deterrence erodes in the face of rocket fire, arson balloons, and terrorism along the border fence, Hamas is raising its head. It is expanding its rocket fire to communities far from the border and lobbing insane barrages at the Israel-Gaza frontier. All this is taking place at a sensitive time for Israel, when the country wants quiet more than anything: Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism, Independence Day, and the Eurovision song competition. Hamas knows it.

If the decision-makers had meted out an unequivocal response a year ago, or a year and a half ago, when the border incidents began, this wouldn’t be our reality now. For a year, we near the border issued repeated warnings: “Today, it’s us – tomorrow, it will be you.” And “you” doesn’t just refer to residents of Ashdod and Kiryat Gat, but to all the citizens who are now getting excited for the Eurovision.

Terrorist attacks against residents of the Gaza border communities began more than a year ago. Since then, an entire region of the country has become the victim of a terrorist organization that is extorting our entire nation. This equation has to change.

This is a region that played a historic role in the founding of the state. A part of the country whose pioneer elderly were the ones that laid down the country’s borders. This past year, they have seen their grandchildren and great-grandchildren exhausted by terrorism. This reality has gone on for 18 years straight and increased over the past year.

Israel cannot allow it to go on. We must change it. We have been patient, we trusted the decision-makers’ considerations and allow them to explore various ways of restoring quiet throughout the area. A 10^th escalation is too much. It’s time to act bravely and daringly to bring about a change.

The prime minister received a mandate for another four years in office from us, the citizens of Israel. I am calling on him to honor that mandate and live up to his obligation to us.

In the past 24 hours alone, hundreds of rockets and mortars have been fired from the Gaza Strip at cities and communities in southern and central Israel. Hundreds of Iron Dome interceptor missiles have been launched to down them, and in many cases saved lives. Nevertheless, Iron Dome cannot provide hermetic protection on its own, and the casualties and wounded in this latest round of escalation are proof of that.

The cost of a single Iron Dome interception is about $80,000. The cost of the batteries themselves and their operation is also high. If we need to use the David’s Sling system or Arrow 2 missiles, the average cost of a single interception will jump to about $2 million.

It takes a long time to rebuild the supply of interceptor missiles because it the manufacturing process is relatively slow. On the other hand, the terrorist groups use rockets that are manufactured quickly, at a negligible cost. In effect, our enemies currently have such large stockpiles of firepower that they can handle a long war without resupplying.

Using the expensive Iron Dome missiles to intercept massive quantities of cheap rockets and barrages of mortars is economically inefficient, even though it effectively takes down most of the rockets that pose a danger to human life.

Given all this, an effective solution would be to upgrade our defenses against rockets and missiles with a system based on a laser cannon. We should consider it.

Let’s look at the numbers. The cost of an interception using laser rays is only about $2,000 – some 2% of the cost of an Iron Dome interception, and a fraction of the cost of an interception using David’s Sling or the Arrow 2.

However, do such efficient systems exist? Northrop Grumman offered us the SkyGuard system, which was developed at Israel’s request and with U.S. research and funding, 12 years ago. The system was designed to facilitate affordable and logistically efficient answers to massive onslaughts of rockets and mortars. It could be made operational in two to three years. In effect, it could already be operational if the IDF had made the decision to acquire it.

Eight of these systems, which intercept any threat within 25 seconds, could block everything fired from the Gaza Strip, including mortars and all types of rockets – even long-range ones – immediately after they are launched. If every launching area is covered by three of these systems, each one could take down about seven threats simultaneously, and it would be possible to intercept a barrage of up to 24 rockets at once.

Using this system in conjunction with Iron Dome could eradicate all low-level threats and would eliminate the need for immense financial outlay on attacking Gaza, as well as allow residents of southern Israel to go about their day-to-day lives.

The situation on the northern front, against Hezbollah, is much worse. Defense and security officials think that in the next war with Lebanon, some 2,000 rockets and missiles will be fired at Israel daily, some of which will have precision capabilities. In a scenario like that, we could expect hundreds of direct hits per day of fighting. Therefore, we need to do everything possible to equip ourselves with SkyGuard.

Eli Bar-On is an economist who specializes in analysis of defense systems and performance research.

Eli Meron is a physicist and chemist and a former senior official in the Israeli defense establishment.

This, in theory, was enough to balance out the desire of the armed factions to hurt Israel and win a few points, and perhaps a few more dollars from Qatar, and their need to ensure that the latest round of violence would be limited in scope and quickly come to an end.

Hamas’ logic, however, doesn’t necessarily coincide with Islamic Jihad’s logic. The latter doesn’t bear responsibility for governing Gaza; hence it has been trying for quite some time to ignite a conflagration and position itself as the tone-setter versus Israel. In the future, it could fight Hamas for superiority, not just when it comes to Israel but over control of Gaza.

At present, Hamas is hostage to Islamic Jihad’s whims. It cannot allow itself to be perceived as conciliatory toward Israel and the enforcer of peace and quiet along the border, while its own operatives and members of Islamic Jihad are being killed.

Herein lays Israel’s fundamental problem. It isn’t contending with one Palestinian enemy, but three: Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and finally the Palestinian Authority, which gleefully looked on as its adversaries, Israel and the armed Palestinian faction in Gaza, exchanged blows.

From the south, Egypt watched with concern as the flames grew higher. The Egyptian interest is to ensure that peace and quiet persists, but it doesn’t have the power to impose its will on the Palestinians. From farther afield, meanwhile, Iran and Turkey have poured gas on the flames, although their ability to influence events on the ground is partial and limited.

What’s certain is that the cease-fire agreement secured early Monday morning will also be partial and limited, and won’t be enough to solve Gaza’s root problems. Hamas and Islamic Jihad will boast of their achievements against Israel, but Gaza will continue to sink further into the gutter of extremism and backwardness. We can safely assume, therefore, that the latest round of fighting won’t be the last.

Gantz, who was the main challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the recent election but ultimately failed to win enough seats to form a coalition, called for using the calm to promote a process that would ensure long-term calm.

“Almost 700 launches into Israeli territory, many wounded and hurt, and four killed, all of them the result of the loss of deterrence, end with another surrender to the blackmail of Hamas and the terrorist organizations,” Gantz said. “All that the government did, once again, is to facilitate next flare-up.”

He said that he expected a “severe” response should there be a return of hostilities or otherwise a meaningful long-term agreement that ensured “a genuine political process that will lead to the return of the bodies of our fallen soldiers and those who are missing and to ensure long-term peace and stability.”

Co-leader Yair Lapid and fellow faction member former IDF chief Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon also reacted Monday morning to the cease-fire with similar sentiments but with even more scathing criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Netanyahu used the residents of the south as a bulletproof vest on the way to a complete submission against Hamas,” Lapid wrote on Twitter.

“Netanyahu will not solve the problem in Gaza. He does not have the operational and political courage to do so. The least he has to do is explain to Israeli citizens the situation but even for that he lacks the courage.”

Ya’alon was even more cynical, saying that Netanyahu “buys temporary peace only for his political survival.”

Netanyahu’s fellow Likud parliamentarian Gideon Sa’ar was critical of the temporary truce, claiming that it did not accomplish anything for Israel, given the circumstances.

“The intervals between the flare-ups are getting shorter and the terrorist organizations in Gaza are growing stronger,” he warned.

However, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz expressed satisfaction with Israel’s military response, saying “the attacks were at the highest level.”

On Sunday he offered a foreboding view of the situation, predicting that “Israel would still be fighting against terrorism from Gaza in thirty years time.”

Left-wing Labor chairman Avi Gabbay claimed that Netanyahu’s government has only strengthened Hamas

“Without a long-term political solution, the next round is only a matter of time,” Gabbay attacked.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS. Read more athttps://www.i24news.tv/en

The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said the Pentagon approved the deployments and that U.S. forces at sea and on land were thought to be the potential targets. The official declined to be more specific.

With tensions already high between Washington and Tehran, another U.S. official said the deployment was ordered “as a deterrence to what has been seen as potential preparations by Iranian forces and its proxies that may indicate possible attacks on U.S. forces in the region.” However, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was not expecting any imminent Iranian attack.

National Security Adviser John Bolton said the carrier deployment was also to show that the U.S. will retaliate with “unrelenting force” to any attack on U.S. interests or those of its allies, adding that the move was in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

Speaking to reporters while flying to Europe, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the actions undertaken by the U.S. had been in the works for a little while.

“It is absolutely the case that we have seen escalatory actions from the Iranians and it is equally the case that we will hold the Iranians accountable for attacks on American interests,” Pompeo said. “If these actions take place, if they do by some third-party proxy, a militia group, Hezbollah, we will hold the Iranian leadership directly accountable for that.”

Asked about “escalatory actions,” Pompeo replied, “I don’t want to talk about what underlays it, but make no mistake, we have good reason to want to communicate clearly about how the Iranians should understand how we will respond to actions they may take.”

Asked if the Iranian action were related to the deadly events in Gaza and Israel, Pompeo said, “It is separate from that.”

Bolton – who has spearheaded an increasingly hawkish U.S. policy on Iran – said the decision, which could exacerbate problems between the two countries, was meant to send a “clear and unmistakable message” of U.S. resolve to Tehran.

Though he cited no specific Iranian activities that have raised new concerns, Iran has recently warned it would block the Strait of Hormuz if it was barred from using the strategic waterway. About a fifth of the oil consumed globally passes through the strait.

“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or regular Iranian forces,” Bolton said in a statement.

It marked the latest in a series of moves by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Iran in recent months.

Washington has said it will stop waivers for countries buying Iranian oil, in an attempt to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero. It has also blacklisted Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, taking the unprecedented step of designating it as a foreign terrorist organization, which Iran has cast as an American provocation.

The Trump administration’s efforts to impose political and economic isolation on Tehran began last year when it unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal it and other world powers negotiated with Iran in 2015.

“The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” Bolton said.

Bolton did not provide any further details.

A U.S. Navy statement issued early last month said the aircraft carrier and its accompanying convoy of ships had steamed out of Norfolk, Virginia, on April 1 “for a regularly scheduled deployment,” but it did not give any destination at the time.