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Hizballah presses elite Radwan Force for conquering Galilee into saving stalled Zabadani battle

August 1, 2015

Hizballah presses elite Radwan Force for conquering Galilee into saving stalled Zabadani battle, DEBKAfile, August 1,2015

New_ninja_uniforms_of_Hezbollahs_elite_forces

New “ninja” uniforms for Hizballah’s Radwan Force

Hizballah’s elite Radwan Force was originally designed to push in from Lebanon and conquer the Israeli Galilee. DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources report that on Thursday, July 30 Hassan Nasralla saw he had no option but to press this high-value contingent into service, to extricate the combined Hizballah-Syrian armies from their month-long failure to recapture the key town of Zabadani – or even breach the defenses set up by the Al-Qaeda affiliated rebel Nusra Front.

This standoff with heavy casualties over the key town, which commands the main Damascus-Beirut highway, has become a symbolic make-or-break duel between the Iran-backed Shiite Hizballah and Al Qaeda’s Sunni Nusra Front. Nasrallah loses it at the cost of his organization’s credibility as a formidable fighting force.

Defeat would make western Damascus and eastern Lebanon more vulnerable to attack. And for Iran’s Lebanese proxy, it would leave an embarrassing question hanging in the air: If Hizballah under Iranian command combined with Syrian troops and backed by heavy artillery fire and air strikes can’t win a relatively small battle against no more than 1,200 rebel fighters across a nine-km square battleground, how much are its leaders’ boasts worth when they claim unbeatable prowess for winning major battles, including a war on Israel?

To save face in this landmark showdown, Hizballah decided to press into battle its most prestigious unit, named for Al-Hajj Radwan, the nom de guerre of Hizballah’s renowned military chief Imad Mughniye, whom Israel took out in February 2008.

Eight months ago, the Radwan Force lost its senior commanders. An Israeli air strike on Jan. 18 targeted a group of high Iranian and Hizballah officers on a visit to Quneitra on the Syrian Golan. They were surveying the terrain before relocating this elite unit to confront IDF positions on the Israeli Golan border. Iranian Gen. Ali Reza al-Tabatabai and the Hizballah district commander Jihad Mughniye (son of Imad) lost their lives in the Israeli raid and the plan was provisionally set aside.

If the Radwan Force manages to haul Hizballah out of its impasse in Zabadani, it may next be assigned to take up battle positions on the Golan.

But for now, its mission in the battle for Zabadani has three dimensions:

1. To disarm the enemy by commando raids, a tactic to be borrowed from the rebels defending the town. On the night of July 24, the rebels preemptively struck Hizballah and Syrian army positions around the town and captured some of them. The decision to deploy Radwan appears to have come in response to that painful setback.

2. To pull off a quick battlefield success at Zabadani, in view of intelligence reports that the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Syria were preparing together to open a second front in Lebanon, in order to relieve the rebel force pinned down in Zabadani.

The two groups plan to cross into Lebanon and start attacking pro-Hizballah Shiite populations in the Beqaa Valley and the North. They propose to cut through the Bequaa Valley and head up to the important northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast.

3. Syrian President Bashar Asad is under extreme pressure for a battlefield success after admitting in a public speech last week to the loss of strategic territory to rebel forces and shrinking military manpower. He has earmarked a Zabadani victory – both as a turning-point for his flagging fortunes and for holding back the constant draining of his army by desertions and defections.

Our military sources reveal that, after Assad leaned hard on the Lebanese government and army to round up Syrian troops who went AWOL, Lebanese security forces went into action. They are picking up Syrian army deserters and putting them on buses driving in armored convoys into Syria. It doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up the fate of these unwilling returnees.

Categories: Al Qaeda, Assad, Defense of Israel, Golan, Hezbollah, IDF, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Nasrallah, Nursa Front, P5+1, Syria, Syria war
Tags: Al Qaeda, Assad, Defense of Israel, Golan, Hezbollah, IDF, Iran Scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Nasrallah, Nursa Front, P5+1, Syria, Syria war

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Op-Ed The consequences of a bad deal with Iran

July 26, 2015

Op-Ed The consequences of a bad deal with Iran, LA Times, John Bolton, July 26, 2015

American weakness has brought us to this difficult moment. While we obsessed about its economic discomfort, Iran wore its duress with pride. It was never an even match. We now have to rely on a tiny ally to do the job for us. But unless we are ready to accept a nuclear Iran (and, in relatively short order, several other nuclear Middle Eastern states), get ready. The easy ways out disappeared long ago.

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President Obama has made an art form of attacking his opponents rather than substantively defending his own policies, most recently regarding the Vienna agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Essentially, Obama argues that we must either accept his wretched deal or go to war to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

As is typical, Obama posits the wrong choice, apparently to distract from the unpleasant reality that the agreement won’t work. It will not prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. So the real choice we are faced with is dealing with the consequences of military action or the consequences of a nuclear Iran. Neither is palatable, but the latter is far worse. If the real objective is stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, preemptive military action is now inescapable.

This rock-and-hard-place outcome has long been foreseeable. Iran’s dogged determination to become a nuclear-weapons state was fiercer and stronger than the West’s frail response. Assuming Iran scrupulously complies with every provision agreed to in Vienna — an absurdly unlikely scenario given the ayatollahs’ objectives and history — its ambitions for nuclear weapons will simply have been delayed eight to 10 years.

In all likelihood, the ayatollahs are already at work violating the accords. After all, Iran has systematically breached its voluntarily-assumed obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for more than 30 years. Now the president’s deal will allow Iran to keep the fruits of its violations. Yes, the deal includes restrictions on uranium enrichment, but Tehran can retain its enrichment program, with guaranteed international assistance in improving it. These concessions are fatal mistakes.

Moreover, Iran’s ballistic missile efforts — its development of the means to deliver nuclear weapons all over the world — will barely be touched. Nor does the deal in any way address Iran’s clandestine weaponization efforts, which it has denied and hidden from the International Atomic Energy Agency with great skill.

Last week, the news that the administration has not even seen the texts of two agreements between the energy agency and Iran, both crucial to implementation of the Vienna accords, only raises further doubts. President Obama must provide the texts of these “side deals” to Congress before any serious consideration of the overall agreement is possible.

Some critics of Obama’s plan advocate scuttling the deal and increasing economic sanctions against Iran instead. They are dreaming. Iran and the United States’ negotiating partners have already signed the accords and are straining at their leashes to implement them. There will be no other “better deal.” Arguments about what Obama squandered or surrendered along the way are therefore fruitless. As for sanctions, they were already too weak to prevent Iran’s progress toward the bomb, and they will not be reset now. To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, “These sanctions are going boys, and they ain’t coming back.”

Patrick Clawson, the director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, provided the most recent thumbs-down assessment of sanctions: “Iran has muddled through the shock of the sanctions imposed in 2012, and its structural [economic] problems are not particularly severe compared to those of other countries.” He estimates Iran’s nuclear and terrorism-support programs to cost only about $10 billion annually. No wonder administration officials have testified that sanctions (including those imposed piecemeal before 2012) did not slow Iran’s nuclear efforts.

Nor will the deal’s “snapback” mechanism (intended to coerce Iran back into compliance if it breaches its obligations) change that reality. Tehran’s belligerent response is expressly stated in the agreement’s text: “If sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments … in whole or in part.” Tehran does risk losing some future economic benefits should sanctions snap back, but by then it will have already cashed in the assets the deal unfreezes and signed new lucrative trade and investment contracts.

Once those benefits begin flowing all around, the pressure on world governments will only increase to ignore Iranian violations, or to treat them as minor or inadvertent, certainly not warranting the reimposition of major sanctions. The ayatollahs have dusted off Lenin’s barb that “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them,” and applied it to the age of nuclear proliferation.

If diplomacy and sanctions have failed to stop Iran, diplomacy alone will fail worse. Like it or not, we now face this unpleasant reality: Iran probably will violate the deal; it may not be detected doing so and if detected, it will not be deterred by “snapback” sanctions. So we return to the hard question: Are we prepared to do what will be necessary to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons?

Obama most certainly is not, which means the spotlight today is on Israel.

If Israel strikes, there will be no general Middle East war, despite fears to the contrary. We know this because no general war broke out when Israel attacked Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in 1981, or when it attacked the North Korean-built Syrian reactor in 2007. Neither Saudi Arabia nor other oil-producing monarchies wanted those regimes to have nuclear weapons, and they certainly do not want Iran to have them today.

However, Iran may well retaliate. At that point, Washington must be ready to immediately resupply Israel for losses incurred by its armed forces in the initial attack, so that Israel will still be able to effectively counter Tehran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, which will be its vehicles for retaliation. The United States must also provide muscular political support, explaining that Israel legitimately exercised its inherent right of self-defense. Whatever Obama’s view, public and congressional support for Israel will be overwhelming.

American weakness has brought us to this difficult moment. While we obsessed about its economic discomfort, Iran wore its duress with pride. It was never an even match. We now have to rely on a tiny ally to do the job for us. But unless we are ready to accept a nuclear Iran (and, in relatively short order, several other nuclear Middle Eastern states), get ready. The easy ways out disappeared long ago.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Europe, Foreign policy, Hamas, Hezbollah, IAEA, IDF, Iran - secret deal, Iran / Israel War, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian economy, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, John Bolton, Kerry, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress
Tags: Europe, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Hezbollah, IAEA, IDF, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iran secret deals, Iran/Israel war, Iranian economy, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, John Bolton, Khamenei, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, Pr+1, Sanctions, U.S. Congress

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‘Terrible’ Iran deal makes Israeli strike inevitable

July 15, 2015

‘Terrible’ Iran deal makes Israeli strike inevitable, Breitbart, Joel B. Pollak, July 14, 2015

GettyImages-451830874-640x480

The nuclear deal reached with Iran on Tuesday is clouded by uncertainty about whether the Iranian regime will live up to its relatively weak commitments. One outcome is almost certain, however: Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran, hoping to weaken the regime and stop, or slow, its nuclear program.

Israel will attack–possibly by year’s end–because there is no other way to disrupt Iran’s advance to regional hegemony, which will become unstoppable once the deal’s provisions–especially the non-nuclear provisions–begin to take effect.

Despite what the Obama administration and its media supporters are saying, there is almost no doubt that the Iran deal, should it survive Congress, will enable Iran to become a nuclear power.

President Barack Obama himself admitted as much in April, when he defended the provisional deal signed in Lausanne by admitting it allowed Iran to reach “breakout” shortly after the ten-year (now eight-year) expiration date. The only question is whether Iran will move that date forward and risk the meager diplomatic consequences of breaking the deal.

There are Israeli analysts–a minority–who believe that Israel can live in the shadow of a nuclear-armed Iran, at least for a while. After all, Israel has developed a lethal “second-strike” capacity, in the form of nuclear missiles aboard Dolphin-class submarines programmed to target Iran. That leaves the Iranian regime to weigh the odds of surviving an Israeli counterattack versus the chances of causing the end of the world as they know it. From a fanatical religious perspective, it is a win-win scenario–but cooler, or less pious, heads may prevail.

The problem is that the Iran deal goes so much further than the nuclear issue alone. The Iranians shrewdly bargained for a host of late concessions: an end to the international arms embargo, the lifting of a ban on ballistic missile technology, and an accelerated schedule of sanctions relief that will pour over $100 billion into depleted Iranian coffers. The regime knew that Obama would not walk away–that he had committed his political career to a deal, and he was already dismissing all other alternatives, severely undermining his own leverage.

Israel just might find a way to live with a nuclear Iran, but it cannot live with a nuclear Iran and an array of turbo-charged Iranian proxies on its borders.

Iran has already renewed its support for Palestinian terror groups in Gaza, and the U.S. has quietly allowed Iranian-backed Hezbollah to regroup in Lebanon, even as it has been weakened by losses in the Syrian civil war. Flush with cash, armed with advanced new weapons, and perhaps equipped with nuclear contaminants, these groups will pose an ever-greater threat to Israel’s security–and soon.

That is why the alternative that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented to Congress–and he did present an alternative to the present deal, though Obama pretended not to notice–included three provisions: “first, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East; second, stop supporting terrorism around the world; and third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel–the one and only Jewish state.” None of those referred directly to the Iranian nuclear program. Obama ignored Netanyahu’s suggestions and forged ahead.

An Israeli strike might not stop the Iranian nuclear program. But it could stall that program, and create a renewed sense of vulnerability around the regime, which was near collapse as recently as 2009. Israel could also make Iran pay a direct cost for arming Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terror groups–a cost historically borne by the civilians of southern Lebanon or Gaza. It could project a conventional deterrent that would affect Iran here and now, as opposed to a nuclear deterrent whose effect might only be felt after an atomic exchange (i.e. not at all).

For Israel, the costs of such an attack on Iran–even a successful one–could be severe. It would be condemned and isolated internationally. It might suffer thousands of rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza. It may lose thousands of soldiers and civilians in a ground war.

Obviously the consequences will be less damaging–or more bearable–if the pre-emptive strike is successful. The reason Israelis are willing to take the risk at all is twofold. First, they have done it before (Iraq 1981; Syria 2007). Second, the alternative–thanks to the Iran deal–looks far worse.

The Obama administration has done all it can to prevent an Israeli pre-emptive strike, from leaking Israeli attack scenarios to denying Israel air space over Iraq. As a result, the only realistic bombing plans–whether Israel targets Iran’s nuclear and political installations directly, or detonates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) over the country–involve a Doolittle Raid-style attack from which Israel’s pilots will not expect to return, or a landing in Saudi Arabia. The latter was once a non-starter, but–ironically–Obama’s overtures to Iran have made it possible.

The Saudis are expected to respond to the Iran deal by seeking nuclear weapons of their own. But the monarchy could also strike an alliance with Israel–perhaps even a grand bargain.

The Saudis could give Israel landing rights, logistical support, and intelligence. In return, Israel could accept Saudi Arabia’s proposal for a Palestinian state roughly along the “1967 lines”–plus Saudi control of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites, which would cement the royal family’s legitimacy. (Ironically, Obama, by provoking war, would enable Arab-Israeli peace.)

The clock is ticking, however. Before the Iran deal, it was thought that Israel could only carry out a pre-emptive strike in the time period before Iran actually became a nuclear power. Now, the deadlines are even shorter, and more complex.

Israel would need to attack before Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles, already sold to Iran, can be delivered and activated. It would also need to attack while Hezbollah and Hamas are still weak, war-weary and cash-strapped–i.e. before sanctions relief delivers billions to Iran’s regional war and terror efforts.

Israel must also be wary of attacking too soon. It will not attack in the next ten days, for example, because they coincide with a religious period of mourning for historic defeats. It would also make little sense for Israel to attack while Congress is debating the Iran deal.

But Israel will attack before it loses the option. It will do so because the purpose of Israeli statehood is to enable Jews to defend themselves, and not rely on the help or mercy of others.

Obama wants to build a new legacy, but Netanyahu has inherited an old legacy–one he cannot ignore.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IDF, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Israeli attack on Iran nukes, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Saudi Arabia
Tags: Foreign Policy, IDF, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Israeli attack on Iran nukes, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Saudi Arabia

Comments: 21 Comments

Nuclear deal pushes Israel aside in Washington, raises Iran to leading US partner and ally

July 15, 2015

Nuclear deal pushes Israel aside in Washington, raises Iran to leading US partner and ally, DEBKAfile, July 15, 2015

Benjamin_Netanyahu-Iran_14.7.15

Binyamin Netanyahu: Powers gambled on our future

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu bitterly accused the “leading international powers of gambling our collective future on a deal with the foremost sponsor of international terrorism” – roundly condemning all six world powers who signed the nuclear deal with Iran in Vienna Tuesday, July 14.

President Barack Obama topped the list. Netanyahu pointed out that the president had determined on a deal with Iran at any price before he took office, which is true. Therefore, it had nothing to do with the poor relations between himself and the US President, he said in answer to critics. It was now time for Israeli leaders to set aside differences and pull together, he said. Opposition leader, the Zionist Union’s Yitzhak Herzog, agreed and said he was enlisting for the necessary effort on behalf of Israeli security. Tuesday night he received an update on the situation from the prime minister.

The special security cabinet meeting, called to discuss the ramifications of the nuclear deal, hours after it was signed, unanimously rejected it and declared “this deal does not commit Israel.”

Unfortunately, Israel was never asked for its commitment, any more than the other Middle East powers directly affected by it. The cabinet statement was therefore no more than a meaningless expression of futility, a sensation shared equally by Saudi King Salman and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, in the face of the iron wall Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have built for Iran in the region.

Both unceremoniously ditched Israel and its Arab neighbors in order to join hands with Iran. By this reshuffle of allies, Washington has created a new geopolitical reality in the region at the expense of its equilibrium.

The US Congress has 60 days to review the nuclear accord and reach a decision. But if Netanyahu had had any hopes of swinging the Senate around to voting down the veto President Obama promised to impose to mullify its rejection, that hope swiftly vanished in thin air. Leading presidential contender Hillary Clinton announced that if she wins the 2016 election she would abide in full by the nuclear accord Obama signed with Iran. This announcement assured Obama of a Senate majority.

The dead end reached by Netanyahu on this issue also symbolizes the end of Israeli’s special standing in Washington as “America’s leading Middle East ally.”

Iran has stepped into this position. There is little point in Israel knocking on the White House door to renew the old understanding and sympathy, as advised by former prime minister Ehud Barak and others. It does not matter who sits in the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, as matters stand now, he/she will find themselves on the wrong side of that door.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will visit Israel next week. But that is only an attempt to soften the blow.

This does not mean that the Obama administration will totally abandon Israel, only that it will no longer enjoy favored status compared with other Middle East nations. By ditching the Arab world, Obama equally dumped the Palestinian issue. This has some advantages for the Netanyahu government, but is not the end of the world for the Palestinians. They, like Arab governments, have the option of seeking an understanding with Tehran, whereas that door is shut tight against Israel.

In this situation, Israel’s quiet understandings with a number of Arab leaders directed at forming a bloc to counter the US-Iran alliance, have no immediate future. When the earth shakes in a major upheaval, each individual is out to save himself and has no time to look around for allies.

In some ways, the Netanyahu government may find relief in being released from the political and strategic constraints bound up in the relationship with the Obama administration, and find the freedom to be more pragmatic and independent in its policy-making.

After all, Israel still has the strongest army and the most vibrant economy in the Middle East. Its leaders must learn to use those huge assets wisely and independently of the Obama administration.

Categories: Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, IDF, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Palestinians, Two state solution, U.S. Congress
Tags: Foreign Policy, IDF, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Palestinians, Two state solution, U.S. Congress

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Israel merges IDF elite units to form the new Commando Brigade tailored to combat ISIS

July 7, 2015

Israel merges IDF elite units to form the new Commando Brigade tailored to combat ISIS, DEBKAfile, July 7, 2015

Israeli_Special_Forces

Israel Special Operations Forces

The new Commando Brigade is designed for quiet, bold, covert and effective action against terrorist groups posing a threat from the Sinai Desert to Egyptian sovereignty and Israel’s southern border. Such action would be coordinated closely between Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence arms.

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While US president Barack Obama coined his approach to the struggle against the Islamic State with the words: “Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They’re defeated with better ideas.” – Israel and its military leaders are taking no chances against a declared enemy.

Last Friday, July 3, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s Sinai branch fired three Grad missiles across the border into the Israeli Eshkol district, while it was in mid-offensive against the Egyptian army in North Sinai. Large parts of southern Israel next door had already been declared closed military areas in consequence of that offensive.

ISIS and its affiliates, while currently preoccupied with snatching up territory from countries neighboring Israel, make no secret of their intention, confirmed by military intelligence, to reach Israel’s northern, eastern and southern borders before long.

Monday, July 6, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott unveiled Israel’s answer to the coming challenge. It is a unique, multi-purpose commando ground force, especially tailored to fight ISIS and provide the “boots on the ground” which the US-led coalition has kept back from the Islamists’ constantly expanding warfront.

It will be trained and armed for extraordinary missions outside routine military tasks.

The revelation was something of a wake-up call for the general Israeli population. The new force’s short term tasks are to guard southern and northern Israel against hostile rocket fire and attempts by Islamist groups riding captured armored carriers to storm the border. This happened once before on Aug. 6, 2012, when Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis Islamists (who later joined ISIS) broke through the Egyptian-Israeli Kerem Shalom border crossing from Sinai. Their APCs had driven almost up to a military base before they were wiped out by Israeli warplanes.

The new Commando Brigade is designed for quiet, bold, covert and effective action against terrorist groups posing a threat from the Sinai Desert to Egyptian sovereignty and Israel’s southern border. Such action would be coordinated closely between Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence arms.

Similar operations would also be staged if necessary from Israel’s northern border – against Hizballah or any threat from Syria.

The new outfit brings together the different skills and the high, focused fire power rendered by the four elite units’ assorted weaponry. In this sense, these units, all highly adept in different aspects of covert and stealth operations deep behind enemy lines, complement one another. This amalgam that may be loosely likened to a unique combination of US Delta, Seals, Rangers, and airborne commandoes all rolled in one.

The elite units merged into the new commando brigade are:

1. Meglan, which specializes in destroying enemy systems with the accent on armored units. Its members are equipped with intelligence technology for gathering data and its transmission in real time.

2. Duvdevan‘s tasks are to liquidate targeted terrorists and round up suspects. Its members operate under cover by blending into a hostile population in disguise. They are trained for single combat in the heart of enemy terrain.

3. Egoz commandos employ guerilla tactics borrowed from the books of terrorist organizations.

4. Rimon commandos also blend into a hostile population disguised as locals for the purpose of spotting and foiling terrorist operations in difficult and complex areas.

The commander of the new combined brigade is Col. David Zinni who defers to the 98th (Esh) Division.

Gen. Eisenkott has brought the four elite units together from the Paratroops, Golani and Givati brigades, among which they were formerly distributed. His action capped the reassessment of the IDF’s war doctrine which he found essential for dealing with the new volatile and constantly moving enemy.

The four elite units in combination offer a synergetic combination. They will train together in air, sea and tactics for missions to meet unorthodox intelligence demands. They will also be set apart from the conventional military by their special weapons, secret high-tech equipment, and separate guidelines and logistics.

The swiftness of ISIS’s climb to highest ranks of Israel’s foes caused Gen. Eisenkott to override the most recent innovation of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz: the Depth Command. The Commando Brigade has made the Depth Command redundant.

Categories: Combat troops, Egypt, Gaza, IDF, Intelligence, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel
Tags: Combat troops, Egypt, Gaza, IDF, Intelligence, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel

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When Palestinians Die in Jail

July 6, 2015

When Palestinians Die in Jail, The Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, July 6, 2015

Like the mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas claim that the three men committed suicide.
When three detainees die in less than a week, this should sound an alarm. But pro-Palestinian groups and human rights activists do not care about the human rights of Palestinians if Israel cannot be held responsible. Their obsession with Israel has made them blind to the plight of Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority.

Three Palestinian men were found dead in their jail cells in the West Bank and Gaza Strip this past week.

But their stories did not attract the attention of the international media or human rights organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Nor was their case brought to the attention of the United Nations or the International Criminal Court (ICC).

By contrast, the case of 17-year-old Mohamed Kasba, who was shot dead north of Jerusalem by an Israeli army officer as he attacked the officer’s car with stones, received widespread coverage in the Western media.

The UN even rushed to condemn the killing of Kasba, and called for an “immediate end” to violence and for everyone to keep calm. “This reaffirms the need for a political process aiming to establish two states living beside each other safely and peacefully,” said UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Maldenov.

The UN official, needless to say, made no reference to the deaths that occurred in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas jails. He did not even see a need to express concern over the deaths or call for an investigation. Like the mainstream media in the West, the UN chooses to look the other way when Palestinians torture or kill fellow Palestinians.

The reason the case of the three detainees will not interest anyone in the international community is because the men did not die in an Israeli jail. Instead, the three men died while being held in Palestinian-controlled jails.

Had the three men died in Israeli detention, their names would have most likely appeared on the front pages of most leading Western newspapers. The families of the three men would have also been busy talking to Western journalists about Israeli “atrocities” and “human rights violations.”

But no respected Western journalist is going to visit any of the families of the three detainees: they did not die in an Israeli jail.

The same week that the three Palestinian men were found dead in jail, the UN Human Rights Council decided to adopt a resolution condemning Israel over the UN report into last year’s Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip. Again, the UN Human Rights Council chose to ignore human rights violations by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, who deny detainees basic rights and proper medical treatment.

Two of them died in PA security installations in Bethlehem, while the third was found dead in a Hamas-controlled jail in the Gaza Strip.

The two detainees who were found dead in their jail cells in Bethlehem are Shadi Mohamed Obeidallah and Hazem Yassin Udwan. The man who died in the Gaza Strip jail was identified as Khaled Hammad al-Balbisi.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas claim that the three men committed suicide.

In the case of Obeidallah, the Palestinian Authority police said he hanged himself with a piece of cloth inside the jail restrooms. He was taken into custody on suspicion of committing a murder three years ago.

The second man, Udwan, died a few days later in another Bethlehem police facility. According to police officials, he too committed suicide.

The detainee in the Gaza Strip, al-Balbisi, was being held by Hamas authorities for allegedly assaulting his wife.

But al-Balbisi, 43, apparently did not commit suicide. He was very ill when he was arrested by the Hamas security forces, and did not receive proper medical care while in detention.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a Gaza-based non-profit group dedicated to protecting human rights, promoting the rule of law and upholding democratic principles in the Palestinian territories, called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the detainees.

“PCHR stresses that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the lives of prisoners and detainees under its control and is thus responsible for treating them with dignity, including offering them medical care,” the group said in a statement.

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The Palestinian Authority police on parade, January 2015.

When three detainees die in less than a week in Palestinian detention, this should sound an alarm bell, especially among so-called pro-Palestinian groups and human rights activists in different parts of the world.

But these folks, like the UN and mainstream media, do not care about the human rights of the Palestinians if Israel cannot be held responsible. Their obsession with Israel has made them blind to the plight of Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, as well as to the horrific crimes committed every day by Muslim terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The story of the three men who died in Palestinian jails is yet another example of the double standards that the international community and media employ when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Categories: Cognitive dissonance, Foreign policy, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, IDF, Israel, Jerusalem, West Bank, Western media
Tags: Cognitive dissonance, Foreign Policy, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, IDF, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, West Bank, Western media

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Egyptian army backed by Apaches kills 63 Islamists in broad area between Sheikh Zuwaid and Rafah

July 6, 2015

Egyptian army backed by Apaches kills 63 Islamists in broad area between Sheikh Zuwaid and Rafah, DEBKAfile, July 6, 2015

(Please see also, The U.S. Must Help Egyptian President Sisi. — DM)

SinaiEgyptENG

An immense stretch of Sinai desert populated by half a million people is under siege, as the Egyptian army fights off a major offensive by the Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate, the Sinai Province, against its positions in northern Sinai. The battle, which Monday, July 6, went into its sixth day, is being fought in an area bounded by the northern town of Sheikh Zuwaid, Rafah on the Gaza border, and up to Kerem Shalom and Nitzana on the Israeli border to the south. DEBKAfile’s military sources report a news blackout on the ongoing warfare except for Egyptian army handouts.

Egyptian security sources reported Monday that the latest round of helicopter strikes and ground operations had killed 63 Islamists in villages between Sheikh Zuwaid and Rafah, where four of their hideouts had been located. Our sources add that these air strikes are directed against civilian dwellings, especially in farming districts, where ISIS fighters are suspected of hiding out. No figures have been released by Cairo on civilian or Egyptian army casualties.

DEBKAfile describes the contest as an asymmetrical one between an army that depends heavily on aerial operations and ISIS terrorists, who have resorted mainly to guerilla warfare. By night, they flit swiftly on foot between the dunes to strike Egyptian army positions. By day, their foot soldiers trap Egyptian soldiers by setting up ambushes around those positions and on the roads of Sinai to keep Egyptian troops pinned down. Terrorist operations are a constant on their agenda.

The Egyptians respond with blanket air strikes which swoop on any moving object in the embattled area – whether by car or on foot

The hide-and-seek tactics employed by ISIS are sustainable in the long term, especially when the Islamists can rely on a constant influx of reinforcements, weapons and ordnance, the sources of which DEBKAfile disclosed in an exclusive report Sunday, July 5.

The Islamic State is rushing reinforcements to Egypt from Libya and Iraq for its battle with Egyptian forces in northern Sinai, which went into its fifth day Sunday, July 5, and other offensives, DEBKAfile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources report. After sustaining hundreds of casualties, both sides claim to have won the upper hand but the tenacious struggle is not over.

An Islamist manpower pool is provided by Egyptian extremists who crossed into Libya in the past and settled in bases around Benghazi. Last week, ISIS summoned them to take up positions in Cairo and the Suez Canal and wait for orders to go into action. They crossed back with the help of smugglers. Those rings, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood underground, with branches controlled by Hamas and Hizballah, bring illicit weapons and ammunition supplies to Sinai from Libya via Egypt.

President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi is therefore obliged to earmark substantial military and intelligence resources for defending the Suez Canal and Cairo – more even than the Sinai front.

The other source of jihadi reinforcements is Iraq, They use another branch of the smuggling network which carries them through southern Jordan to the Gulf of Aqaba where they are picked up by smugglers’ boats and ferried across to the eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula.

The IDF had more than one reason for its decision last Wednesday to close to traffic Rte 12, Israel’s main southern highway, which runs parallel to the Egyptian border up to Eilat: It was a necessary precaution lest ISIS turned its terrorists and guns against Israel from next-door northern Sinai. The other reason was to deter the Islamists coming from Iraq from trying to transit Israel and reach Sinai with the help of Bedouin smugglers operating on both sides of the Israeli-Egyptian border.

Our military sources estimate that some 1,000 jihadists are directly engaged in the North Sinai battle with the Egyptian army, but add that they could quickly recruit supplementary fighting manpower from Bedouin tribes near the warfront who already play ball with the terrorists.

Egyptian tacticians have strictly limited the army action on this front to air and helicopter strikes and local ground and armored forces. They are focusing on defending three Sinai enclaves, the northern district around Sheikh Zuweid, El Arish port and Rafah, and Sharm el-Sheikh in the south, to pin ISIS forces down in those places and prevent them from fanning out into areas controlled by the big Bedouin tribes.

When President El-Sisi visited the troops in northern Sinai Saturday, July 5, he disclosed that only one percent of the Egyptian army of 300,000 men was assigned to Sinai. He indicated that his army was perfectly capable of wiping out the Sinai terrorist threat in no time if all its might were to be thrown into the fray.

This strategy leaves ISIS with free rein in central Sinai. However, El-Sisis, like his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, is not prepared to go all out against ISIS in its “dens” any time in the near future, because he needs all his military resources and assets he can muster to defend the capital Cairo and the Suez Canal.
Neither the Islamic Army nor the Muslim Brotherhood or any other radical Islamists make any secrets of their next plans. ISIS has announced that it is setting its sights on Egypt’s pyramids, the Sphinx of Giza, and the country’s unique historic monuments in general, after its savage vandalism and looting of other precious world heritage sites.

In a new message released Friday, July 3, a number of radical Islamist leaders, including the ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, told their followers that the destruction of Egypt’s national monuments, such as the pyramids and the sphinx, was a “religious duty” that must be carried out by those who worship Islam, as “idolatry is strictly banned in the religion.”

This message has sharply ratcheted up the jihadist element of ISIS military confrontation with Egypt to a higher, more inflammatory level.

Categories: Cairo, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Siani, Sisi, Suez Canal
Tags: Cairo, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamism, Israel, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Siani, Sisi, Suez Canal

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Israeli and Syrian Druze join forces – complicating Israel’s military position vis-à-vis southern Syria

June 23, 2015

Israeli and Syrian Druze join forces – complicating Israel’s military position vis-à-vis southern Syria, DEBKAfile, June 23, 2015

Druze_celebrations_21.6.15

Druze celebrate ambulance attacks

Even if Druze tempers are temporarily calmed over the fate of their Syrian brethren, the fallout from the Syrian civil war has already spilled over into Israel from an unexpected quarter. For nearly five years, Israel carefully kept its hands off the conflict raging on its northern border, restricting itself to responding ad hoc to dangers and building a quiet aid mechanism for selected Syrian rebels. But in recent months, Israel has re-channeled its military intervention into areas close to its border.

The way this involvement is disavowed by Israeli officials is seriously detrimental to the government’s military credibility.

When IDF spokesman Brig. Motti Almoz reiterated past statemants that the military does not identify or assort by organization the injured Syrian rebels reaching the Israeli Golan border for treatment, he found that the Druze serving in Israel’s armed forces and those living in Golan villages knew better. Israeli Druze and Golan villagers – many loyal to Bashar Assad – were so incensed by this and past evasions that they came together for violent action – hence the attacks Monday, June 22, on two IDF ambulances ferrying injured Syrian rebel fighters to hospital.

After the first ambulance was attacked, the second should have been much better secured. It turned out that the military police escorting it were not up to fighting a raging Druze lynch mob outside Majdal Shams on the Golan. The Syrians were badly beaten up and one died later.

Israeli and Golan Druze have found a common cause, in itself a destabilizing factor, in the conviction that Israel is aiding the Syrian Al Qaeda arm, the Nusra Front, although some of the information from South Syria is disinformation slanted by hostile elements for stirring up trouble for Israel.

The thousand-year old secretive sect is treated as heretic by jihadis, including the Nusra Front. When a rebel alliance neared Jabal Druze in Syria, Nusra leaders promised not to harm the Druze provided that they “retreat from their religious mistakes.” They then forced several hundred Druze to convert to Sunni Islam and desecrated their shrines.

Nusra Front is therefore a red flag for the Druze bull

This is just one more complicating factor in considering the ill-defined, fractious rebel alliance fighting in South Syria across from the Israeli Golan.

Israeli protestations that it doesn’t support Al Qaeda-linked rebels may hold true one day, while the next day, that same group may break up and join a jihadi faction. Some of them are constantly on the move in and out of Al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia ran up against this phenomenon in recent weeks when it bought and armed 3,000 Nusra Front fighters on condition that they leave their group and join up under an umbrella anti-Assad rebel front called the Southern Front, or the Southern Army of Conquest.

The Saudi step relieved Israel of charges of supporting jihadi movements. But it was no means let off the hook as far as the Druze were concerned, because of the notoriously volatile nature of the rebel movement.

Most of Nusra’s commanders did indeed repudiate their allegiance to Al Qaeda to win Saudi backing, but they soon switched back after Nusra in the north spearheaded major rebel victories. Clearly, victorious groups hold a fatal attraction for the hundreds of hazy rebel factions

The Druze demand for Israel to abandon the Nusra Front is tantamount to its repudiating the Syrian rebel cause at large. For the IDF this is a non-option: Ditching its under-the-radar links with certain Syrian rebel groups is the recipe for ending the relative calm on its Golan border with Syria. And withdrawing from its cooperation with the US-Saudi-Jordanian backed rebel force would endanger their effort to capture southern Syria, in the same way as comparable forces attained control of most of the north.

At the same time, the Israeli government must persuade its up-in-arms Druze citizens that IDF actions in South Syria will not bring harm to their Syrian brethren. This is an uphill task that may not prevent further Druze violence.

Categories: Druze, Druze militia, Golan, IDF, Israel, Nusra Fron, Syria, Syria war
Tags: Druze, Druze militia, Golan, IDF, Israel, Nusra Front, Syria, Syria war

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The UN’s Anti-Israel Children and Armed Conflict Report

June 10, 2015

The UN’s Anti-Israel Children and Armed Conflict Report, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, June 10, 2015

(Please see also, Legal Experts Slam IDF for Over-Warning Gazans. — DM)

UN_Secretary-General_Ban_Ki-moon_-_Flickr_-_The_Official_CTBTO_Photostream_13-431x350

According to the New York Times, citing unnamed diplomats, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon bowed to “unusual pressure from Israel and the United States” in deciding not to include either Israel or Hamas on a list of “armies and guerilla groups that kill and maim children in conflicts worldwide.” The list is included in an annex to an annual report by the Secretary General entitled “Children and armed conflict,” which he just released for 2015. The list, as its title states, is intended to identify specifically the entities that “recruit or use children, kill or maim children, commit rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, or engage in attacks on schools and/or hospitals in situations of armed conflict.”

Ban Ki-moon considered the recommendation of his special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, to include both Israel and Hamas on this list as a reflection of their actions and the deadly consequences to children arising from the Gaza conflict last summer. The list already includes such Islamic jihad terrorist groups as the Islamic State, the al-Nusra Front, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al Shabaaba, Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula and the Houthis, as well as government forces of the Syrian regime, Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan.

While the Secretary General rejected his special representative’s recommendation, leaving both the terrorist jihadist group Hamas and Israel off the list in a display of moral equivalence, the body of the report is far more condemnatory of Israel than of Hamas or other Palestinian militants. There were more than three times as many paragraphs devoted to alleged Israeli violations of children’s rights relating to the Gaza war than devoted to the actions of Hamas or other Palestinian terrorists. When there was any criticism of Palestinian actions, it was stated in the mildest of terms. Israel, on the other hand, received the full brunt of the Secretary General’s censure:

“I am deeply alarmed at the extent of grave violations suffered by children as a result of Israeli military operations in 2014. The unprecedented and unacceptable scale of the impact on children in 2014 raises grave concerns about Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, notably the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution in attack, and respect for international human rights law, particularly in relation to excessive use of force.” (Paragraph 110)

Nevertheless, Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, was not satisfied. He issued a blistering statement declaring that “It is without doubt that Israel, the occupying Power, flagrantly, systematically and grossly commits human rights violations against Palestinian children constituting grave violations that qualify it for such a listing in the annex to the Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict. The UN’s inaction, submitting to the inordinate pressures exerted, sends a most regrettable signal that the same criteria do not apply in all situations for all children, undermining the credibility of the UN system as a whole…”

As usual, Mr. Mansour stands the truth on its head. Indeed, Ban Ki-moon should have accepted his special representative’s recommendation to include Hamas on the annex list. Hamas and its other jihadist allies, not Israel, belong on the list alongside their Islamic State and al Qaeda brethren. They use children as human shields, deliberately store weapons in schools, homes hospitals and mosques where they know children are likely to be, and recruit children for jihad including the establishment of youth military training camps. They prepare children for the glory of martyrdom, extolling the virtues of suicide bombings that kill Jews.

Ban Ki-moon properly rejected his special representative’s recommendation to include Israel on the annex list. Israel does not belong on the same list as non-state and state entities that deliberately kill children with abandon, recruit children as soldiers, abduct and rape little girls, and kill their parents before their very eyes. To the contrary, the Israeli armed forces took great pains to minimize civilian casualties. It took the unprecedented step of warning civilians in advance of impending attacks on facilities that Hamas was using as launching pads from which to fire rockets at Israeli population centers and from which they were building their terrorist tunnels to sneak their fighters into Israel for the purpose of killing Israeli civilians, including women and children.

However, putting the annex list aside, Mr. Mansour should have been happy that the Secretary General reflected the institutional bias of the United Nations against Israel in the body of his report. In a crucial paragraph urging corrective actions to remedy the report’s catalogue of alleged violation of children’s rights – mostly said to be committed by Israel – the report focused solely on what Israel should do:

“I urge Israel to take concrete and immediate steps, including by reviewing existing policies and practices, to protect children, to prevent the killing and maiming of children, and to respect the special protections afforded to schools and hospitals. An essential measure in this regard is ensuring accountability for perpetrators of alleged violations. I further urge Israel to engage in a dialogue with my Special Representative and the United Nations to ensure that there is no recurrence in grave violations against children.” (Paragraph 111)

As usual, nothing is asked of the Palestinians. They are not urged to stop storing weapons in schools and hospitals. They are not asked “to protect children, to prevent the killing and maiming of children,” which they could begin to do by not using children as human shields, and not deliberately conducting rocket attacks against Israeli civilians including children and conducting other military activities from areas where they know Palestinian children are likely to be. They are not asked to close the youth military training camps or stop the online propaganda that indoctrinates Palestinian children into believing that martyrdom through jihad against Jews is the way to paradise.

We should not be surprised. Such anti-Israel bias is par for the course at the United Nations. Its Human Rights Council passes more resolutions condemning Israel than all of the other 192 member states combined. The Human Rights Council’s agenda item 7 requires that Israel’s – and only Israel’s – record of human rights be debated at every session. Investigations launched by the Human Rights Council and the UN Secretary General of alleged human rights and other international law violations in Gaza during the repeated wars there initiated by Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians are blatantly one-sided against Israel.

Israel was the only country in the world to be named as a violator of “health rights” during the UN World Health Organization’s annual assembly in May 2015. Never mind about Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, or North Korea where basic medical care and health services are scarce, if existent at all. Israel facilitates the delivery of humanitarian aid and takes care of the sick and injured, whether they be Palestinians or not. The Syrian regime prevents humanitarian aid including medical supplies from reaching besieged civilians, including Palestinian children trapped in Yarmouk. Yet the World Health Organization chose to ignore all this and adopt a resolution focusing solely on health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights, for which Israel is held responsible.

The UN Commission on the Status of Women, whose latest annual meeting concluded on March 20, 2015, marched to the same anti-Israel tune. The only country it condemned for its women’s rights record was Israel, presumably because of its alleged treatment of Palestinian women.

“If anyone had any doubt that there was demonization of Israel at the United Nations, here is the entire truth before our eyes,” said Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor. “There are 193 member states in the UN, and they include countries that butcher men and women, jail both male and female journalists, execute female oppositionists and legislate laws against women. All of these countries receive immunity in the UN. The UN Commission on the Status of Women is itself comprised of some of the worst violators of women’s rights, including Iran and Sudan, two of the more moderate members by comparison.”

Every day it seems that there is new proof of the demonization and attempts to delegitimize the Jewish state of Israel at the United Nations. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s report on “children and armed conflict” is but the latest example. There will certainly be more to come.

Categories: Ban Ki-Moon, Foreign policy, Gaza, Human rights, IDF, Israel, Palestinians, United Nations
Tags: Ban Ki-Moon, Foreign Policy, Gaza, human rights, IDF, Israel, Palestinians, United Nations

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There is Iron in Your Word

June 9, 2015

Dempsey: Israel, IDF have no greater friend on Earth than the US military

By YAAKOV LAPPIN 06/09/2015 Via The Jerusalem Post

U.S. Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, left, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, receives the Distinguished Ally of Israeli Defense Forces award from Israeli Chief of Defense Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 9, 2015.
DOD photo by D. Myles Cullen

(‘No signed paper can hold the iron. It must come from men.’ – LS)

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Eisenkot tells visiting US military chief: Your personal commitment to our security has inspired us.

Israel and the IDF have “no greater friend on the face of the Earth than the United States military,” US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Martin Dempsey, told his counterpart in Israel on Tuesday.

Dempsey made the warm remarks after receiving a badge of appreciation from IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot at a ceremony held at IDF headquarters, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv.

The ceremony followed a guard of honor held by the IDF for Dempsey.

“I am greatly honored to host your visit to Israel. Your loyalty, friendship, and personal commitment to our security has inspired us,” Eisenkot told Dempsey.

“Under your leadership, the cooperation between our militaries has become more powerful,” Eisenkot added.

Dempsey responded by saying, “I’m so honored to accept this award. And I accept it on behalf of all of the men and women who had the privilege of serving side by side with the men and women of the IDF.”

The words reflected years of very close cooperation between the two armed forces, which has continued irrespective of the turbulent diplomatic relationship between the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem and the Obama Administration in Washington.

Dempsey, arrived in Israel on Monday on an official visit, and is holding a series of meetings with Eisenkot, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and other Israeli security chiefs, to discuss bilateral military cooperation, and pressing security challenges.

This is Dempsey’s fifth visit to Israel since his appointment as US military chief.

The US military chief was last in Israel in March 2014, when he met Netanyahu, Ya’alon, and the former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz for a series of closed-door meetings.

Categories: Department of Defense, IDF
Tags: Partners in Arms

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