WarSclerotic

In Israel Thursday morning, the politicians were the big story. Israel Beitenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman was the villain who had held the country hostage for nearly a year as he fed his narcissistic personality disorder.

The left’s latest flagship, the Blue and White party is all the once vibrant political camp can put together now that it has lost its ideology. With its God of peace killed by suicide bombers and missiles, and its socialism statues crushed under the weight of bankrupt government companies, all the left has left is Blue and White. The party stands on two planks – destroying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eternalizing the regime of Israel’s unelected bureaucrats..

The party’s figurehead – Benny Gantz – was tempted to join a unity government with Netanyahu that would guarantee he would serve as prime minister in a rotation agreement. But his comrades wouldn’t let him. Joining a government with Netanyahu would be a betrayal of their very reason for existing. So, unhappily, he walked away.

And then there was Netanyahu himself. Thursday morning, his supporters shook their heads in frustration and his enemies clapped their hands in glee at the sight of Israel’s greatest statesman, the leader the public wants to keep in office, unable to form a government,

The conversation about Israel’s politicians lasted less than 24 hours.

At four in the afternoon, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s office announced that at 7:30 in the evening he would announce his decision to indict Netanyahu. The underlying message was crystal clear: The day after Gantz returned his mandate to form a government to President Reuven Rivlin after he failed to get a sufficient number of coalition partners to build a government, Mandelblit said that there’s no point in talking about whether or not Israel is going to new elections in March.

Voters don’t decide anything. The lawyers do. Politicians are irrelevant. The only people who count in Israel today are the unelected attorneys who run the country.

But then we already knew that. And the fact that – as expected – Mandelblit announced sternly that he is indicting Netanyahu on three charges of breach of trust and one charge of bribery was at best anticlimactic. The game was up – if it was ever in play – in February.

Last February, at the height of the first election campaign of the year, when Netanyahu and his right wing coalition partners were leading in all polls by a wide margin, Mandelblit took the unprecedented – and legally dubious – step of announcing his intention to indict Netanyahu of those charges – pending a pre-indictment hearing. The moment he made his announcement, the right began to slide in the polls. The Leader had spoken. And we had no right to question him. Blue and White’s scattershot campaign converged around Mandelblit’s “recommendation.” The left had a rallying cry and a reason to vote. Netanyahu’s neck was on the chopping block.

Ever since Mandelblit gave his “recommendations,” he and his comrades have been the only political actors with any power to speak of. Our actual elected leaders were rendered bit players in the lawyers’ regime. Mandelblit’s announcement Thursday just made it official.

To the cheers of Israel’s corrupt media, for the past three years our legal overlords have gnawed away at all aspects of political power in Israel, and in the process – not that they cared – they corrupted Israel’s legal system from top to bottom. From beginning to end, their criminal persecution of Netanyahu has been a travesty of every norm in democratic societies governed by the rule of law. Carefully edited and wholly distorted recordings and transcripts of police interrogations of Netanyahu, his wife, son, and advisors were systematically leaked to the media. The fact that every such leak was a felony offense was of no matter. Netanyahu’s attorneys submitted request after request for Mandelblit to order an investigation of the criminal leaks. All were summarily and scornfully rejected.

As the probes escalated, overseen by State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, police investigators extorted Netanyahu’s closest advisors to coerce them into becoming state witnesses against the most successful and admired prime minister Israel has ever had. Investigators threatened Netanyahu’s former spokesman Nir Hefetz that they would destroy his family and bankrupt him if he didn’t turn on Netanyahu. They finally succeeded in breaking him after incarcerating him in a flea-infested jail cell for 15 nights, denying him sleep and medical treatment and bringing a young woman he knew into an interrogation room next to him and then threatening to destroy his family.

In the earlier stages of the probes, then police inspector general Roni Elshech spun wild, unsubstantiated and frankly insane conspiracy theories about Netanyahu, including the claim that he hired private investigators to tail police investigators. Elshech then went out of his way to prevent the government from appointing a successor for him as he approached the end of his term of service. Still today, more than a year later, Israel has no police inspector general.

Then, of course, there is Mandelblit himself. Mandelblit who claims not to have known about the abuse of witnesses – but then refused to investigate the allegations. And Mandelblit who promised – after publishing his “recommendations” for indictment at the height of the election campaign – that he would approach Netanyahu’s pre-trial hearing with an open mind. That promise was exposed as a lie when the chief prosecutor Liat Ben Ari left the hearing two days early to take her family on a safari in South Africa. Wouldn’t want a little thing like the Prime Minister’s legal fate to ruin her chance to see the elephants.

The same Mandelblit refused to investigate Ben Ari when recordings emerged last month showing that she submitted a false deposition to a court in relation to a lawsuit submitted against her by a former subordinate attorney.

Then, of course, there is the substance of the charges themselves. The charge that Netanyahu accepted a bribe is based on an invented notion that positive media coverage of a politician is bribery. The notion that press coverage can be considered bribery exists nowhere in the democratic world. No prosecutor in the world has ever indicted – or investigated – a politician or media organization of having committed bribery involving the provision of positive coverage. Senior American jurists appeared before Mandelblit in Netanyahu’s (self-evidently unserious) pre-indictment hearing to warn him that pursuing bribery charges against politicians for receiving positive coverage is a recipe for destroying freedom of the press and democracy itself.

But then, that is the entire point of going after Netanyahu with invented crimes. Now that Netanyahu has been charged for bribery – and incidentally, he never even received positive coverage from the media organ accused of providing it – every politician that gets on the lawyers’ bad side will be sweating bricks any time a reporter writes something nice about him.

After Mandelblit made his primetime announcement, Netanyahu pledged to fight for his freedom and for the restoration of Israeli democracy and the rule of law. In his speech Thursday night, he made an impassioned appeal to his “decent” political rivals to join him in this fight.

If any politicians doubt that Netanyahu’s struggle is their struggle, they should look no further than the prosecution’s announcement last week that it was opening a review, ahead of a criminal probe – of Gantz’s role in the so-called “Fifth Dimension Affair.” The Fifth Dimension was a start-up Gantz headed. Its sale for $14 million allegedly violated standard procedures.

Maybe Gantz did nothing wrong. But then, Netanyahu is being indicted for crimes that don’t actually exist. So it doesn’t matter. The message is clear. Every politician is at the mercy of the prosecutors. Fall out of line, and you will become a criminal suspect before you can say, “prosecutorial abuse.”

It’s certainly true that the left shares the prosecutors’ hatred of Netanyahu. Blue and White exists to destroy him. But all the leftist politicians – and Liberman – who are celebrating today need to understand that the Netanyahu they love to hate is their best friend and defender today. If Netanyahu is found guilty of crimes that were invented for the purpose of destroying him, then their goose will be cooked along with his.

Politicians may make us happy or sad, frustrated or infuriated. But today, in post-democratic Israel it hardly matters. Netanyahu called last night for an “investigation of the investigators.” Unless our elected officials join forces to heed his call, they – and the voters who elected them — will never be relevant again.

Most of the Iranian military targets that were hit were situated within Syrian military bases, underlying the Iranian tactic of embedding and disguising its threatening presence within the Syrian Arab Army.

According to international media reports, 23 people, including 16 “foreigners” – an apparent reference to Iranian operatives – were killed in the strikes.

The Israeli action came in response to an Iranian-directed rocket attack on Tuesday morning, in which projectiles were launched from the Damascus area in the direction of Israel. An Israeli Iron Dome battery intercepted the four rockets, which set off warning sirens in northern Israeli communities.

That rocket attack could be linked to a reported Israeli strike on a key Iranian military installation in the Damascus area this week, though Israel has not commented on such reports.

Iran is continuing its efforts to build a war machine in Syria and entrench itself militarily by moving weapons, military forces, militias and building missile bases on the territory controlled by the Bashar Assad regime. The goal of Iran is to build a second Hezbollah in Syria and to move its own military capabilities into the area so that it can threaten Israel from multiple fronts.

Israel has been pursuing an active campaign of removing these threats as it detects them, taking the initiative, and relying on high-quality intelligence and precision firepower to deal with the ongoing Iranian challenge from Syria. The goal is to nip the threat in the bud and not wait until it takes on monstrous proportions, as Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal has become in Lebanon.

The Quds Force, Iran’s overseas special operations unit, is in charge of the Iranian expansion program in Syria. Its commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has attempted to enforce new rules on Israel, according to which any Israeli preemptive strike will result in Iranian retaliation.

This Iranian equation is essentially designed to deter Israel from taking the initiative and removing threats to its security preemptively. Iran wants to impose a “price tag” on Jerusalem for the active defense campaign that Israel has been pursuing with much success. Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes in recent years have prevented the Iranians from achieving most of their goals in Syria, leading to frustration in Tehran, though its confidence has been rising recently.

The successful Iranian cruise missile and drone attack on Saudi state-oiled oil fields on Sept. 14 were a display of highly advanced, long-range firepower. The Iranian attack was a threat directed at Israel as much as it was to Iran’s other regional arch-foe: Saudi Arabia. Israel heard the message and sent one of its own on Tuesday, rejecting Iran’s attempt to deter it from taking action in the region to defend itself.

It appears as if the Iranians absorbed a painful blow in Syria, just as they did in May 2018 during “Operation House of Cards,” when Israel struck a series of Iranian targets in response to an Iranian truck-mounted rocket attack.

Iran now has three options going forward: It can choose not to respond, launch a minor response or order a more significant response.

The fact that the regime is under pressure at home due to domestic unrest, that its economy is bleeding due to biting American sanctions, and that it is facing unrest in other zones of influence – like Lebanon and Iraq – means that Iranian decision-making may become more unpredictable going forward.

‘We are prepared for any scenario’

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday after the strike, Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman Brig. Gen. Hadi Zilberman stressed that the IDF still has the initiative. “We will not allow Iran to entrench itself in Syria,” he said.

“We prepared a battle procedure that included the deployment of air defense and attack preparations. The wave of strikes was broad in its targets.”

According to an IDF statement, dozens of targets were struck in the Damascus area, south and west of Syria’s capital, and on the Syrian Golan Heights near the Israeli border.

In addition, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries that are considered advanced after they fired at Israeli aircraft. Syrian weapons storage facilities, military headquarters, and observation posts were all destroyed by Israeli aircraft.

When it came to the Iranian assets, the IAF demolished Iranian military buildings, a headquarters situated in Damascus International Airport and an observation post on the Golan Heights.

“We acted against the Syrian host and the Iranian guest,” said Zilberman.

Outlining Israel’s posture, he assured that “we are prepared for defense and offense, and we will act with severity against any attempt to respond. We are prepared for any scenario. We will not accept Iranian entrenchment. This is a red line.”

It also appears as if the Assad regime keeps failing to heed Israel’s warnings to refrain from joining the Iranian-Israeli showdown, and Syria’s decision to fire surface-to-air missiles resulted in a loss of a number of its air-defense batteries.

Referring to Tuesday’s rocket attack on the Israeli Golan, the IDF stated, “Yesterday’s Iranian attack towards Israel is further clear proof of the purpose of the Iranian entrenchment in Syria, which threatens Israeli security, regional stability and the Syrian regime. Furthermore, the IDF holds the Syrian regime responsible for actions taken in its territory and warns it from operating or allowing hostilities against Israel. Such actions will be followed by a severe response. The IDF will continue operating firmly and resolutely against the Iranian entrenchment in Syria.”

Israel has heard Iran’s message and sent its reply. The ball now returns to Iran’s court.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

The missiles that were fired at Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights early Tuesday morning didn’t catch the defense establishment off guard. They were expected, as part of Iran’s new policy of responding to any attacks on its assets.

This new Iranian policy has preoccupied the defense establishment for the past two months. It began percolating following a series of incidents – chief among them the cruise missile and drone strike on Saudi oil fields, to which there was no response – which greatly increased Iran’s appetite and willingness to push the envelope further than ever before.

If, in the past, Iran mostly showed restraint when it was hit (and it has been hit hundreds of times in recent years), its new policy stipulates an eye for an eye. For any attack on its assets, it will respond. Sometime the response will be immediate, other times delayed. This is exactly why Iran’s Quds Force is deploying a broad arsenal which it can activate from several locations – mainly in Syria but also in Iraq and if the need arises (albeit less likely) from Lebanon or Iran itself.

As a result, Israel has altered its policy accordingly. The so-called “war between wars,” the brunt of the defense establishment’s activities in recent years, was limited to imperative operations only, meant to thwart clear and present dangers. We can assume the missile attack on Tuesday was Iran’s retaliation for some sort of Israeli activity in this vein, which both sides are aware of yet neither has openly acknowledged.

This was the fifth time in the past two years that Iran has openly attacked Israel. Prior assessments led the IDF to place Iron Dome batteries in the sector in advance, which intercepted the four Iranian missiles fired early Tuesday. As before, it seems the Iranian response was more like firing from the hip with forces and weapons that happened to be available, from the area around Damascus – in the heart of the territory that Russia had previously promised Israel that it would prevent Iranian activity.

In prior instances, Israel made sure to retaliate accordingly. For every hit it sustained, it struck back. In several cases, Israel exploited Iranian attacks to then carry out large-scale strikes against military infrastructure and weapons systems, while also hitting Syrian batteries providing cover for Iran and its proxies.

Now the Israeli dilemma is more complicated, and it fluctuates between the need to act to maintain deterrence and the desire to avoid a clash that could escalate into all-out war. Between these two considerations, and despite the tangible risks involved, Israel must insist on offense and deterrence, even at the cost of attempts to harm Israel, such as Tuesday’s missile attack, and perhaps attacks that are even more severe.

This is the only way Israel can send the dilemma back to Tehran’s court.

Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, has been extremely troubled in recent weeks by the demonstrations in Lebanon and Iraq (and now in Iran, too), and likely doesn’t want to open another front. As it is, he’s almost certainly asking himself what happened to the convoy of advanced weapons, which according to Arab media reports was completely obliterated early last week near Tadmor, in Syria, and what will happen with the base his people have tried building on the Syria-Iraq border – which according to a Fox News report Monday, is now under construction again after it was attacked twice in recent months.

Soleimani is a serious adversary, determined and clever. But he is not suicidal. He won’t jeopardize his project and he certainly won’t put his country at risk. If he understands that Israel is willing to go all the way, perhaps he will change his strategy. Israel needs to present him with this dilemma, before facing it first.