Thoughts on Israel, Jordan, and the 'Disproportionate Response' Response

...For many it seems that the definition of disproportionate is any action taken by the Jewish state that might limit its enemy’s abilities to eventually destroy it.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
12 February '15..

In the wake of the brutal execution of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh by ISIS, Jordan has unleashed a barrage of air attacks on the Islamist rebels. Over three days the Hashemite kingdom boasted of having hit some 56 targets and of killing 7,000 ISIS fighters. Whatever the actual figures, there can be no doubt that Jordan has massively increased its action against the jihadists, and now, with Jordanian television endlessly broadcasting images of King Abdullah in camouflage uniform strategizing alongside his generals, it is being reported that the Jordanians are moving a large force to the country’s Iraqi border. To be clear, there is nothing disproportionate about any of this. ISIS represents a very real threat to what is generally thought of as one of the weaker Arab states and the Jordanians are now using the kind of force warranted to seriously combat ISIS. But imagine if instead of ISIS it was Hamas, and if instead of Jordan boasting of 7,000 killed, it was Israel.

Of course Jordan had been participating in strikes against ISIS long before the kidnapping and murder of al-Kasasbeh. Back in September Jordan had joined with the Gulf states as part of the U.S.-led effort against ISIS. But since al-Kasasbeh’s horrific murder Jordan has begun to seriously flex what military muscle it has. Indeed, it is doing so in an open display of revenge against ISIS. Quite apart from the fact that many will consider such revenge a just response, it is also fully in Jordan’s national interest to push back ISIS before the rebels are able to cross the country’s porous desert border. No doubt many in the region will simply be grateful to see someone displaying the will to take serious action against ISIS and the terrible prospect that its rapid expansion represents.

Yet, watching all of this unfold one can’t help but think of the war that took place this summer shortly before allied strikes on ISIS began. The world was indeed shocked, albeit momentarily, by the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers while on their way home from school. But as Israel launched Operation Brother’s Keeper in an attempt to find the boys and to round up Hamas operatives in the West Bank, there were already the first mutterings that Israel needed to show restraint. Concerns were expressed that Israel’s operation in the West Bank might “destabilize” the situation.

Then when a desperate Hamas short on friends and money used these events as an excuse to unleash an unprecedented wave of rocket and tunnel warfare against Israeli civilians, Israel’s allies formed a chorus calling on the Israeli government to show maximum restraint. That phrase was so chilling in its moral redundancy and yet so commonly heard that it became inspiration for a remarkably apt song by Peter Himmelman.

Fortunately, Israel ignored the calls coming from Washington and the European capitals, and acting in its national interest hit Hamas hard. But for doing so the Israelis were now subjected to another allegation; that this was a disproportionate response. Even John Kerry was unwittingly caught on camera discussing the matter in angry and condescending tones; “it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation!” the secretary of state was heard saying.

The discussion around the escalation in Jordan’s war against ISIS has been unrecognizable in comparison. Even if the claim that 7,000 ISIS fighters have been killed in airstrikes is true, how many civilians have been killed alongside those fighters? Today the question of civilian casualties goes virtually unmentioned, whereas during Israel’s war with Hamas every news screen seemed to keep a running tally of the numbers killed in Gaza, always with an emphasis on the claim that these were mostly civilians, often accompanied by sneering remarks by journalists about how few Israeli casualties there had been. Not enough for the liking of those in Europe such as Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, that was for sure.

Again, Why Outsourcing Israel’s Security to Peacekeepers is a Non-Starter

...Quite apart from the fact that the UN appears to have a total disregard for the safety of Israelis–as seen with both UNIFIL and UNRWA–it will always be the case that international forces acting on behalf of international organizations, as opposed to national self-interest, will be woefully ineffective. A catalog of recent genocides are a sorry testament to the way UN forces are much better at observing and monitoring atrocities than they are at preventing them.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
29 January '15..

Following yesterday’s attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli military convoy, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, there have been growing concerns of a major escalation along the Lebanese border. During the exchange of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah that followed the attack, a United Nations peacekeeper was also killed. As fears grew that the attack by Hezbollah might signal the beginning of a major new conflagration to Israel’s north, the death of the peacekeeper was a reminder that in such circumstances the UN forces would be completely impotent in preventing such an escalation. Worse still, the UN in Lebanon will have contributed to the severity of any hostilities by allowing Hezbollah to have proliferated under its watch. This too should be a reminder of the ineffective nature of any international forces deployed on Israel’s borders.

UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which was created during Israel’s first Lebanon war, was subsequently emboldened with a reinforced mandate following the second Lebanon war in 2006. As well as maintaining the peace in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL was also tasked with assisting the Lebanese army in consolidating Lebanese government sovereignty throughout that part of the country. This presumably should necessitate the rolling back of the mini-state that Hezbollah terrorists have created for themselves in Lebanon’s south. Yet not only has UNIFIL utterly failed in that regard, but there are also serious questions about whether or not UNIFIL has in fact been complicit in assisting Hezbollah in various ways. Most egregious of all was UNIFIL’s conduct during the second Lebanon war itself, when UNIFIL publicly broadcast the movements of the IDF, knowingly exposing Israel’s troops to attack by Hezbollah fighters.

Ever since 2006 Hezbollah has been remilitarising well beyond the levels it had reached prior to the second Lebanon war, and it has been doing it directly under UNIFIL’s noses. UNIFIL therefore has not only failed to assist with reasserting the authority of the Lebanese state in the south of the country; it has allowed for the unfolding of a situation that will almost inevitably undermine a key aspect of UNIFIL’s mandate: to ensure peace and security in that territory.

Even before war broke out in Syria, Hezbollah had–with the assistance of Iran–been drastically increasing its stockpiles of weapons, the range and force of its missile capabilities, and the numbers of trained fighters within its ranks. Then, when Hezbollah was brought into Syria to help Assad retain power, a new channel for the flow of weapons opened as Hezbollah was able to move some of Assad’s weaponry into Lebanon itself. Indeed, from the outset of UNIFIL’s renewed mandate in 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had always made clear that the force wouldn’t intervene to stop the flow of weapons from Syria unless specifically instructed to do so by the Lebanese government.

Israel's Quneitra Attack in Context: Game Not Over

...The Iran/Hizballah/Assad side has long threatened to develop the Golan as a front for possible 'jihad duties' against Israel. Both Syrian President Bashar Assad and Nasrallah made unambiguous public statements in 2014 threatening the opening of military activity against Israel in this area. Israel, in turn, has made clear that such a move would constitute a violation of the status quo . The strike on Sunday constituted a very kinetic further Israeli message intended to drive home this point.

Thousands of Iranians gather in Tehran
for the funeral of Revolutionary Guard
Commander Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi

Jonathan Spyer..
MEF/JPost..
22 January '15..

In analyzing the significance of, and likely fallout from ,the Israeli killing of a number of senior Hizballah and IRGC personnel close to the Golan border this week, a number of things should be borne in mind:

Firstly, the killings were a response to a clear attempt by the Iranians/Hizballah to violate the very fragile status quo that pertains between these elements and Israel in Lebanon and Syria. in his interview to the al-Mayadeen network three days before the attack, Hizballah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah explicitly claimed that his organization was not engaged in 'resistance work' on the Golan. The Israeli strike showed that this statement was a lie.

Some analysis of the strike has suggested that the men killed in the attack were engaged in preparation for the placing of sophisticated Iranian missile systems on the Syrian part of the Golan. Other accounts suggested that their mission was part of preparing this area for the launch of ground attacks across the border against Israeli targets, perhaps using proxies. In either case, the mission was a clear attempt to change the arrangement of forces in the north, in such a way that could be expected to ensure an Israeli response.

Secondly, in the past, Hizballah has reacted differently to Israeli strikes on it or its Syrian allies within Syria, compared to strikes on Lebanese soil. The difference again relates to the unstated but clear 'rules of the game' between the organization and the Jewish state. Israeli strikes on materiel making its way to the organization from Syrian soil have elicited no response from the movement.

By contrast, an Israeli attack on a weapons convoy just across the border on Lebanese soil near the village of Janta on February 24, 2014 provoked a Hizballah response . On March 18th, an IED was exploded just south of the border fence in the Majdal Shams area on the Golan Heights, wounding four IDF soldiers.

The rules of the game in question do not indicate a lessening of warlike intentions or a growing affection on the part of Hizballah toward Israel. Rather, they reflect the acute need that this organization and its Iranian masters currently have to not be drawn into conflict with Israel unless this becomes unavoidable.

Hizballah is overstretched at the moment. It has between 5000-10,000 men engaged in Syria. It is engaged in a determined and fraying attempt to prevent Sunni jihadi incursions across the border into Lebanon from Syria, and bomb attacks by the Sunni groups further into Lebanon.

Hizballah is also an integral part of the Iranian outreach effort in Iraq, where members of the organization are engaged in training Shia fighters.

Even as far afield as Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthi militia is engaged in a push for power, the movement's fingerprints have been found.

All this reflects Hizballah's nature as Iran's primary agent in the Arab world. Given all this activity, the last thing that the IRGC and Hizballah need is to be drawn into a premature conflagration with Israel.

The Administration's Frat-House Statecraft and U.S.-Iran Détente

...But strengthening Hezbollah will not only imperil Israel’s security. It will also put Europe in greater danger and U.S. interests as well. It’s a dim-witted policy, in other words, no matter what you think of Israel. And the general détente with Iran is, as the Journal points out, an insult to our Gulf allies as well as damaging to the fight against ISIS. The president’s policies put our allies at the mercy of their enemies. That he’s taunting them too only makes it clear that the policies are being instituted precisely how he envisioned them.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary Magazine..
29 October '14..

The silliness of President Mom Jeans calling an Israeli special forces veteran “chickens–t” was what first dominated the reactions of the Obama administration’s frat-house taunts directed at Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. But the larger strategic impact of the insult, as passed through what Matthew Continetti has termed the “secretarial” press, this time via Jeffrey Goldberg, soon became apparent. And it has now been confirmed by a major story in the Wall Street Journal.

It was easy at first to miss anything but the string of insults directed from Obama to Netanyahu, including the casual accusation of autism. (It’s arguable whether this represented a new low for the president, who has a habit of demonstrating his grade school playground vocabulary.) But once the initial shock at the further degrading of American statecraft under Obama wore off, it was easy to see the real purpose of the story. The Obama administration wanted to brag through its stenographer that the president had protected the Iranian nuclear program from Israel:

I ran this notion by another senior official who deals with the Israel file regularly. This official agreed that Netanyahu is a “chickenshit” on matters related to the comatose peace process, but added that he’s also a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. The official said the Obama administration no longer believes that Netanyahu would launch a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to keep the regime in Tehran from building an atomic arsenal. “It’s too late for him to do anything. Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”

If Iran goes nuclear, those words will be the perfect description of the Obama administration’s fecklessness: “Now it’s too late.” Too late, that is, for our allies like Israel and the Gulf states to protect themselves from the consequences of the Obama administration’s Mideast policies–which principally affect Israel and the Gulf states. But “fecklessness” may not be the right word. The Wall Street Journal reports today that the president has been effective after all:

They really just don’t get it

...It’s the moral thing to do and Kerry stresses at every opportunity how incontrovertibly moral he is. He needs, therefore, to come clean and admit once and for all that he doesn’t know best, indeed that he doesn’t know the Middle East minimally. The blunders he forces on us with a patronizing smile and reassuring prattle could kill us.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
01 November '13..

A symbolic home-truth accompanied the recent burglary at a swanky five-million-dollar home in Georgetown, Maryland. Nothing valuable seems to have been taken but the very fact that the breached property was that of US Secretary of State John Kerry indicated flawed security – to say the least – in a system that has of late been eavesdropping on the entire world and its cousin.

This includes untold numbers of allied foreign leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel. It would be no surprise if a whole host of Israeli higher-ups were also high on the list of those whose privacy was violated. But unlike the Germans, Israelis are leery of emitting as much as a murmur of protest against their Big Brother in Washington.

So it was a little ironic that while the most sophisticated gadgetry on earth is used to spy on friends in the name of the fight against international outlaws, the most elementary security arrangements aren’t exactly impressive in the fight against local outlaws.

Something here is extremely incongruous.

This is where the underlying incongruity takes on its broader symbolic aspect. The Georgetown housebreaker gained illicit access into Kerry’s garage, where he messed about with a vehicle belonging – again quite symbolically – to one of Kerry’s guards. This happened – drat the embarrassing coincidence – precisely at the very time that Kerry himself devoted long tedious hours at Villa Taverna in Rome to the task of convincing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to let down Israel’s existential guard – no less.

These efforts were geared to getting Israel to accept that Kerry and his boss Barack Obama know best when they assert that this is the best point at which to reduce the pressure on Iran – i.e. let down everyone’s guard (primarily of course Israel’s, as it is Israel which Iran vows to wipe off the map).

The most compelling argument Kerry had to put forth to Netanyahu was that since the ayatollah regime’s new front man mouths off less blusterously than his vituperative predecessor, Tehran deserves a universal benefit of doubt – all for the sake of global security. That security, Kerry tells us, can be best achieved by making nice – especially to the most aggressive and menacing of bullies.

Who wants the fuss of actually having to take them on?

In fairness, though, that isn’t a new approach for Kerry. He has a history of being awfully agreeable to quite a bunch of big-time bad guys and that history offers us baffled onlookers an objective gauge for his grasp of security, peace and assorted derivative catchwords.

(+Video) Is Washington Pushing Syria to Attack Israel?

...It appears that in the White House of today they haven't heard of the old invention of Professor Kissinger and they disperse any fog related to Israel: responsibility for attacks in Syrian are again willingly leaked, and again point the blame towards Israel.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Commentary..
31 October '13..




"Israeli warplanes struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia this week, an Obama administration official told CNN on Thursday.."

We Israelis have a pretty straightforward arrangement with Syrian President Assad: when we are compelled to strike Syrian targets we don't take credit for the attacks. President Assad knows damn well who is behind the attacks but in the absence of Israeli boasting he doesn't feel compelled to respond.

Yet recently Washington has seen fit to rub Israel's responsibility for attacks in President Assad's face.

What is President Obama' team trying to achieve?

Why are they pushing President Assad to retaliate against the Jewish State?

And don't think for a moment that despite the bloodletting that Syria isn't still bristling with a full complement of rockets that have basically every point in Israel within range.

I don't have an answer.

But if I were a Washington reporter I think that's the possibly the most interesting part of this story that I would want to follow up on.

Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=62217

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Israel Radio Reshet Bet morning news magazine Anchor Arieh Golan
1 November 2013

The PA’s Deafening and Revealing Silence on Syria

...The Syrian crisis remains absent from Palestinian talking points because Palestinians are still far more intent on destroying the Jewish state–inter alia by flooding it with millions of Palestinian refugees–than in making the compromises needed to get a state of their own and absorb those refugees themselves. And that’s also precisely why peace remains impossible.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
31 October '13..

Jonathan correctly pointed yesterday to Palestinian lionization of vicious killers as an indication of cultural attitudes that make peace impossible. But there’s another indicator that I find even more revealing–the Palestinian Authority’s deafening silence about the ongoing dispossession and slaughter of its countrymen in Syria.

As journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reported earlier this month, of the approximately 600,000 Palestinians in Syria, a whopping 250,000 have been displaced, according to no less a source than senior PA official Mohamed Shtayyeh. Additionally, over 1,600 have been killed and thousands more injured. Of the displaced, most remain in Syria, but some 93,000 have fled to neighboring countries, where they are uniquely unwelcome: Palestinians have been denied entry into both Jordan and Lebanon, and even when admitted, they face discriminatory treatment. In Jordan, for instance, they are strictly confined to camps, though other Syrian refugees are allowed to move about the country freely; in Lebanon, they are subject to numerous restrictions on employment, and often live in hiding for fear of being deported.

Ostensibly, this is an unbeatable argument for the urgency of creating a Palestinian state: Palestinians need a country to succor their refugees from Syria. Indeed, Jews used a similar argument to great effect in persuading the world of the need for a Jewish state after the Holocaust. Even today, Israelis routinely cite the world’s refusal to accept Jewish refugees, thereby abandoning them to the Nazi killing machine, as one of many arguments for why a Jewish state remains essential: There must be one country whose doors will always be open to persecuted Jews.

Yet rather than making this argument, the PA has gone to great lengths to ignore the Syrian crisis. As Abu Toameh noted, PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s UN address in September devoted a mere two sentences to the subject, without ever even mentioning Syria by name (“This year and in the last few years, Palestine refugees continue to pay – despite their neutrality – the price of conflict and instability in our region. Tens of thousands are forced to abandon their camps and to flee in another exodus searching for new places of exile”). The rest of the speech was devoted to attacking Israel. Hence Abbas deplored the 27 Palestinians killed “by the bullets of the occupation,” but never mentioned the hundreds killed in Syria during this period; he excoriated the construction of new Jewish homes in Jerusalem, but never mentioned the wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes in Syria.

Altruistic Hamas - Benevolent Savior Of Syrian Refugees?

...The irony is that the Syrian refugees are indeed facing a real human tragedy, but it's not just the Palestinians among them. The Hamas offer — on the surface a generous humanitarian gesture — is in fact a none-too-subtle attempt to refocus global attention on the Palestinian refugee issue while turning a blind eye to the plight of non-Palestinians fleeing from Syria.

Nicole Brackman/Asaf Romirowsky..
Forbes/Pundicity..
18 October '13..

Fiction and reality are often indistinguishably juxtaposed in the Middle East. This week, when Hamas called on Palestinians fleeing Syria to come to the Gaza instead of risking their lives at sea, it seemed a surreal caricature.

The call — made by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh — came after the Libyan coast guard opened fire at a boat carrying 374 Palestinian refugees from Syria. The irony is that the Syrian refugees are indeed facing a real human tragedy, but it's not just the Palestinians among them. The Hamas offer — on the surface a generous humanitarian gesture — is in fact a none-too-subtle attempt to refocus global attention on the Palestinian refugee issue while turning a blind eye to the plight of non-Palestinians fleeing from Syria.

By all accounts, over a million Syrians have crossed the border seeking safe haven from the deadly violence there, which has killed upwards of 100,000 people in the last three years. The refugees have largely poured into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Iraqi Kurdistan. These are areas which can ill afford to either house the refugees or endure the destabilizing economic, demographic, and potential political forces for which they become a catalyst. Other Arab nations — Gulf states with the petro-dollars to finance substantial aid efforts — have either refused to host Syrian refugees altogether (Bahrain) or sent token amounts of aid (Qatar, Saudi Arabia) to assist them.

The influx of Syrian refugees entering Lebanon (by August 2013, over 670,000) has challenged all conventional wisdom regarding the Palestinians refugees. Lebanon is singularly unequipped to absorb the refugees; the long memory of the shattering effects of an influx of Palestinians displaced by the Black September (1970) campaign of Jordan's King Hussein, and the subsequent decades-long bloody civil war that followed, lingers. The consequences of that war — a total devolution of Lebanon's political, economic, social, and religious infrastructure, a long occupation by Syria's Assad regime, and a shadow-state run by Shi'a dominated and Iran-financed Hezbollah — reverberate through Lebanon.

Two conflicts and trading places

Bottom line question: How quickly do you think most Syrians would trade places with the Gazan Palestinian Arabs if they could?

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
07 October '13..

How you interpret the news of the past few days will be influenced to a degree by where you stand on such issues as man's inhumanity to man and the constant obligation to try to improve the world. Also, on how safe and remote from the conflicts you see yourself being.

Consider two news snapshots, both from this past week.

A Palestinian Press Agency report, in Arabic (tweeted by the indispensable Arab Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh) today (Monday) says some 440 trucks laden with commercial and agricultural goods, among them cement, gravel, gasoline, diesel, cooking gas and assorted construction materials, are due to enter the Gaza Strip from Israel today (yes, the Arabic-language report says "from Israel" according to the Google Translate translation).

The data for deliveries into Hamas-controlled Gaza during the month of September were published yesterday (hat tip: Israel National News). Close to six thousand truck-loads were admitted by Israel via the Kerem Shalom Crossing. These brought more than 150,000 tons of goods for the Palestinian Arabs living in that alleged "concentration camp" called the Gaza Strip and were made up of

(Continue)

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Abbas doesn't seem to have time to talk about the suffering of his people (w/one exception)

...Abbas, of course, also ignored the fact that nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured in Syria in the past two years. He did not, however, forget to mention in his speech that 27 Palestinians were killed by the Israel Defense Forces since the beginning of the year.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
02 October '13..

As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was delivering his speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations last week, one of his officials in Ramallah revealed that 250,000 out of the approximately 600,000 Palestinians in Syria have been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of the conflict there.

The official, Mohamed Shtayyeh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said that 93,000 of the displaced Palestinians fled to Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey. He added that those who fled to the neighboring Arab countries were living in harsh conditions.

Yet in his speech, Abbas largely ignored the plight of these Palestinians. Instead, he chose to direct his criticism toward Israel and the settlers.

Abbas saw no need to criticize the warring Syrian parties for killing Palestinians and driving them out of their homes.

Nor did he utter a word about Lebanon's mistreatment of the Palestinian refugees or the fact that the Egyptians have been mistreating Palestinian refugees.

The only time Abbas referred to the plight of the refugees was toward the end of his speech, when he stated, "In the past few years and this year, Palestinian refugees have paid -- and continue to pay -- a heavy price for the conflicts and unrest in the region despite their neutrality. Tens of thousands of refugees have been forced to search for new places to live in."

Abbas, of course, also ignored the fact that nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured in Syria in the past two years.

He did not, however, forget to mention in his speech that 27 Palestinians were killed by the Israel Defense Forces since the beginning of the year.

Abbas's speech shows that the Palestinian Authority leadership considers construction of new housing units in settlements and neighborhoods of Jerusalem as being more serious than the displacement of a quarter million Palestinians.

Hezbollah, lessons learned and the broken shards of glowing accomplishments

...Resolution 1701 offers a sobering reflection of what will become of the deal to disarm Assad of his WMDs. The broken shards of the 1701 mirror further forewarn us about how Obama’s America will thwart Iran’s nuclear designs. No propitious prospects ahead.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
20 September '13..

What’s the likely outcome of the US-Russia accord on Syria’s chemical arsenal? Look no further than what happened to UN Resolution 1701 of seven years ago. That resolution, which ended the Second Lebanon War and which purportedly eliminated Hezbollah’s missile armories, is a mirror image of the non-disarmament-to-come.

It is also Tzipi Livni’s self-proclaimed crowning achievement during her stint as then-PM Ehud Olmert’s foreign minister. To any visitor from Mars who may be uninformed, self-same Livni is currently in charge of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Resolution 1701 is a sad object lesson about the immoral malfunction of high-minded international agreements to destroy dangerous weapons stockpiles. The Syrian counterpart may not evolve in identical patterns but its inevitable bottom line will be no different than that of the dismal gag that Resolution 1701 turned out to be.

Worst of all, no one seems to dwell on that out-of-mind resolution, no one remembers. The widespread affectation is that everything is peaches and cream, as if the international intervention worked wonders. It’s as if wholesale deception has never been perpetrated. It’s as if no one recognizes that nothing whatsoever went to plan.

The pretense is just too sweet and alluring an option to pass up. Truth is too painful, persistent and unpleasant a bother with which to cope.

And a footnote – the central protagonist of today’s chemical weapons saga, Bashar Assad, was also centrally complicit in hoodwinking the entire international community in the Resolution 1701 context. That gave him valuable and pertinent experience for extricating himself from the conditions lately imposed on him by Washington and Moscow. The British-trained ophthalmologist is a formidable, steel-nerved past master.

Here’s a brief reminder.

On the ordinary summer morning of July 12, 2006, Hezbollah terrorists killed eight Israeli soldiers on a patrol inside Israel. They further kidnapped two corpses and negotiated for ransom as if they held live hostages. That unprovoked aggression triggered the Second Lebanon War, which was to escalate into a month-long conflict during which the Lebanon-based Hezbollah fired over 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilians, caused death and destruction and brought life in the northern half of Israel to a veritable halt.

The trauma brought home the reality that in the years that had elapsed since the unilateral midnight retreat ordered by Prime Minister Ehud Barak in May, 2000, Hezbollah had amassed a rocket arsenal that poses a real danger to Israel. It is crucially distinct from an annoying nuisance.

The conclusion of 2006’s eminently unsuccessful war (from Israel’s vantage point) was facilitated by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which appeared to salvage some vestiges of Olmert’s/Livni’s waning prestige. The Resolution was embraced by Israel as well as Lebanon, including the Hezbollah contingent in the Beirut parliament.

It all seemed good and the promise encapsulated in the resolution was hawked enthusiastically by Livni as a glowing accomplishment.

But now, years later, we can take realistic stock. Did the missile stockpiles disappear from next door? Are we safer? Were the bright promises fulfilled?

The Precedents of Syria, Turkey and the Nightmare Scenario

...The problem is that such an agreement only works if it’s strictly enforced, meaning any noncompliance produces massive punishment. Otherwise, even the thinnest façade of compliance will suffice to enable the signatory to maintain its nonconventional weapons program with impunity, which would be Israel’s nightmare scenario on Iran. And there are three reasons for thinking that’s precisely what the Syrian agreement will do.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
18 September '13..

Martin Kramer wrote an illuminating post yesterday on why American handling of the chemical-weapons crisis in Syria has unnerved Israel by causing it to doubt that America would attack Iran’s nuclear program if necessary. While I agree with his conclusion, I think that’s only part of the story. After all, most Israelis would prefer to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis diplomatically, so one could argue–as some Israeli commentators have–that Syria sets an encouraging precedent: American threats to use military force seemingly persuaded Damascus to give up its nonconventional weapons voluntarily, which is precisely what many Israelis hope will happen in Iran.

The problem is that such an agreement only works if it’s strictly enforced, meaning any noncompliance produces massive punishment. Otherwise, even the thinnest façade of compliance will suffice to enable the signatory to maintain its nonconventional weapons program with impunity, which would be Israel’s nightmare scenario on Iran. And there are three reasons for thinking that’s precisely what the Syrian agreement will do. One is that the agreement is problematic to begin with, providing ample opportunities for evasion. The second, as Kramer explained, is that President Barack Obama’s original decision to punt the question of using force in Syria to Congress makes any military action to punish noncompliance unlikely. The third is Obama’s track record of refusing to enforce the agreements he brokers even when punishing violations wouldn't necessitate the use of force, and would hence be much easier.

Nothing better illustrates this than an astounding interview given by the Greek ambassador to Israel last week. According to Spiros Lampridis, six months after Israel apologized to Turkey for its botched raid on a 2010 flotilla to Gaza–under an agreement personally brokered by Obama that was supposed to result in Turkey resuming normal relations with Israel–Ankara is still vetoing any NATO cooperation with Israel.

Ignoring Mideast Reality Comes With a Price

...In that sense, the Concept was like every grand theory that ignores its own role in reshuffling assumptions and reshaping incentives. It was the same story with next grand Concept, when an Israeli government determined that peace was in its hands to give, and that what it chose to give was what the other side would be willing to accept. The signing of Oslo, under Bill Clinton’s big shadow on the White House lawn, is widely remembered as a moment of hope. In fact it was an act of hubris.

Bret Stephens..
Wall Street Journal..
17 September '13..
H/T Ruthfully Yours..

President Obama’s plan on Syria will fail for the same reason the Oslo Accord did.

Forty years ago Israel blundered disastrously on the eve of the Yom Kippur War because its military leaders had a concept about the circumstances in which it might be attacked, and the concept was wrong. Twenty years ago, Israel blundered disastrously by signing the Oslo Accord, because its political leaders had a concept about what it would take to get peace, and the concept was wrong.

Beware of policy makers bearing concepts.

That’s worth pondering as the Obama administration peddles another concept—that a deal with Russia will lead to disarmament by Syria—as a reason to call off military strikes. But agreements are not achievements, wishes are not facts, and theory is not reality.

In 1973, what Israeli military planners called Ha’Conceptzia—the Concept—was that Egypt would not attack without Syria, Syria would not attack without Egypt, and Egypt lacked the long-range bombers and ballistic missiles it would need to retake the Sinai Peninsula. It was a comforting syllogism that allowed Israel to dismiss accumulating evidence of an impending attack, including a personal warning from Jordan’s King Hussein, as nothing more than psychological warfare.

The flaw with the Concept was the Concept: Theory provides vision at the expense of clarity. It also obstructs thought. Had the Egyptian goal been to retake the entirety of the Sinai, Anwar Sadat would never have ordered an attack.

But Israel’s planners broadly failed to foresee that the Egyptians might be prepared to forego the hopeless military objective of retaking all of Sinai for the feasible one of retaking some of it; that Sadat could use limited military means to land a decisive psychological and political blow. The Israelis also neglected to take account of the possibility that the Egyptians could turn the Concept to their own advantage. The Concept made no allowance for the reality that humans are intelligent and nature is adaptive.

In that sense, the Concept was like every grand theory that ignores its own role in reshuffling assumptions and reshaping incentives. It was the same story with next grand Concept, when an Israeli government determined that peace was in its hands to give, and that what it chose to give was what the other side would be willing to accept.

The signing of Oslo, under Bill Clinton’s big shadow on the White House lawn, is widely remembered as a moment of hope. In fact it was an act of hubris.

Syrians in Israeli Hospitals - A legacy of terror meets up with compassion

...I’ve touched a few times in this series on the theme of Israel as a light of democratic decency and progress that, nonetheless, has a leper-like status in the Arab and much of the Muslim world, to a large degree in Europe, and elsewhere. The theme is nowhere more sadly evident than in the fears of these Syrians—first, on finding themselves in dreaded Israel; then, on realizing that this “transgression” could get discovered back home. The Israeli hospitals, of course, keep accepting these patients and treating them regardless. One has to be who one is.

P. David Hornik..
PJMedia.com..
15 September '13..

It’s reported that since Syria’s civil war erupted two and a half years ago, over 120 Syrians have come to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. They appear to come mainly to Ziv Hospital in Safed, in the upper Galilee, and to the Western Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, also in upper Galilee on the Mediterranean coast.

The Syrians are described as “very badly hurt, with gunshot wounds and blast injuries, and receiving life-saving treatment.” They somehow make it to the Israeli border, from where the Israeli army transports them to the hospitals. Although predominantly civilians, often women and children, one report cites a Syrian patient who appears to be a “rebel fighter”—meaning he could well belong to a jihadi group that wants Israel destroyed.

Syria as a whole is decidedly hostile to Israel, having been in a state of war with it since Israel was established in 1948. If the situation was reversed—if Israelis were savagely killing each other en masse, which has never happened and never will—there is scant chance Syrian hospitals would accept wounded Israelis, even less that Syrian soldiers would bring them there for treatment.

Nevertheless, Dr. Calin Shapira, deputy head of Ziv Hospital, told Agence France-Presse that no wounded Syrians who come to Ziv are turned away:

It doesn’t matter where they’re from…. It’s important to give medical aid regardless—this is a principle of the medical profession.

Syrian wounded who come to Israel are in desperate need. A Syrian woman told French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières that in her country “there are no medicines, nowhere to go, no hospitals. Medicine has become a rare commodity.” Fifty-seven percent of Syria’s hospitals have been damaged in the fighting—some most likely deliberately targeted by one side or the other—and 36 percent have stopped functioning.

Once they find themselves in Israel, the Syrians not only have to cope with their medical conditions—but with their terror over being where they are.

Syria, a clear and sobering debacle for Israel

...It all comes back with added force as Israel faces a new year (on the Jewish calendar) with Iran closer than ever to crossing the nuclear threshold. The question—now as then—is how much to work in synch with the U.S. and how much—and at what point—to take matters in one’s own hands.

P. David Hornik..
Frontpagemag.com..
13 September '13..

Saturday marks Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar and, this year, the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, the greatest trauma in Israeli history.

On the morning of October 6, 1973—the day on which Yom Kippur fell that year—Chief of Staff David Elazar met with Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to warn that the Egyptian and Syrian armies were about to attack Israel. Elazar urged a preemptive strike; six years earlier, in the Six-Day War, Israel’s preemptive strike had proved highly effective.

But Meir and Dayan, who were under heavy pressure from U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger not to preempt, overruled the chief of staff. The result was near-catastrophic as later that day the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked first and took battlefield advantages while inflicting heavy casualties.

Israel was able to turn the tide and, with the help of a massive U.S. airlift, prevail. But the price was almost 2700 casualties and a country shocked, depressed, and shaken to its roots.

It all comes back with added force as Israel faces a new year (on the Jewish calendar) with Iran closer than ever to crossing the nuclear threshold. The question—now as then—is how much to work in synch with the U.S. and how much—and at what point—to take matters in one’s own hands.

Israel Hayom reports:

Ever since U.S. President Barack Obama surprised the world by seeking congressional approval for a military strike on Syria, concerns have grown among Israeli government officials in Jerusalem about a decline of America’s status in the Middle East and the implications for Iran’s nuclear program. No Israeli spokesperson has made an official statement on the issue….

On Wednesday, though, addressing a graduation ceremony for navy cadets, both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon made statements that have been taken as implicitly critical of Obama’s confused, dithering approach to the Syrian chemical-weapons issue.

Netanyahu, invoking a “rule” from the ancient Jewish sage Hillel, said:

Israel Left on Its Own?

...The upshot of all this is not so much that Israel is on its own—something Netanyahu may have already known last year when he was urging Obama to adopt “red lines” on Iran—but that it is essentially helpless to act on that fact. A weaker United States led by a president who is incapable of acting decisively isn’t just a problem for Israel. But right now it looks as if it means there may be no viable option for heading off the threat of a nuclear Iran before it is too late to do anything about it.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
12 September '13..

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks yesterday about his country needing to rely on its resources to protect itself against potential threats broke no new ground. At another time, his comments might be considered mere boilerplate material since it has been an article of faith for all Israeli leaders dating back to David Ben Gurion, the country’s first prime minister, that if Zionism means anything, it is that the Jewish state must depend on no one but itself on security matters. But coming as it did the day after President Obama’s shocking retreat on Syria, the statement was highlighted in a New York Times article and got major play in the Israeli media. The juxtaposition of the U.S. accepting a dubious Russian proposal that would ensure there would be no Western attack on the Syrian regime over its use of chemical weapons with the Netanyahu statement left many wondering whether Jerusalem thinks it is now on its own when it comes to other threats, such as those from a nuclear Iran. While it would be an exaggeration to claim Washington has completely abandoned Israel, no amount of White House spin about Obama’s zigzag course on Syria changes the fact that his fumbling has left the Middle East a far more dangerous place than it already was.

The reality after the Syria back-down is one in which the prestige and influence of the United States has declined. The president’s inability to make up his mind has not only gotten Bashar Assad off the hook and convinced Vladimir Putin that there is hope for his long-cherished dream of rebuilding the old Soviet empire. It has also made it difficult to envision the U.S. taking on the even more daunting task of a military confrontation with Iran. Since there is no reason to believe further diplomatic outreach to Tehran will be any more fruitful than past efforts, that leaves Israelis with the unpleasant thought that if Iran is to be prevented from going nuclear by force, then they will have to do it themselves. Under those circumstances, what choice is Netanyahu left with other than to try to send a signal of his own to the ayatollahs?

(Video) UN Rights Council Ignores Syria Poison Gas Attack, Slams Israel

"Let us state the truth: if the UN allocated just one-hundredth of the moral outrage it uses against the only democracy in the Middle East, murderous dictators like Assad might have been shamed, isolated and weakened, instead of elevated, celebrated and strengthened as champions of human rights." - UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, addressing UN Human Rights Council, Sept. 10, 2013.

UN Watch..
UNWatch.org..
12 September '13..



Testimony before the United Nations Human Rights Council delivered by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, September 10, 2013.

Madam President,

The purpose of this council is to protect human rights victims and respond to urgent situations.

Yet as we meet here today, three weeks have passed since Syria gassed to death hundreds of its own men, women, and children — and still the council closes its eyes, refusing our call for an emergency session.

The world deserves to know: Are innocent civilians attacked by their own government with chemical weapons not human rights victims? Is the most horrific crime of the 21st century not an urgent situation?



Yes, the council will discuss Syria next week, but that was scheduled months ago. And yes, High Commissioner Pillay mentioned Syria, yet she avoided any condemnation of its murderous regime.

Madam President, why is this monstrous crime being treated here with such apathy, banality and triteness? Where is this council’s moral outrage? Where is its sense of urgency?

Can a human rights body that ignores this atrocity be deemed credible, effective, or in any way relevant?

The United Nations, which constantly demands accountability, must ask itself:

Moving “under the radar", Israel’s secret doctors

"Nobody asks permission to kill. We do not ask permission to save lives."  iL4Syrians

Robert Fulford..
National Post..
08 September '13..

To help refugees from the Syrian war, Israeli doctors and aid workers must do their work furtively. When they go into refugee camps in Jordan, they change clothes so that they can fade into the background. They must be smuggled in and out. They don’t tell others where they’re going and when they go home they usually don’t say where they have been. Above all, they don’t want anyone to know the names of their patients.

They move “under the radar,” in the words of a clandestine organization in this field. When they treat Syrians in Israeli hospitals, they make sure no visiting journalist learns details that will identify the patients to authorities back in Syria.

Usually, Israel is glad to announce when it contributes to emergency relief. The case of Syrian aid is different.

Syria does not recognize Israel and forbids its citizens to go there. Israeli doctors are not welcome in Jordan, where their work has been denounced as a violation of Jordanian sovereignty. And Israel is anxious not to be involved in the Syrian civil war. It does nothing, officially, that could make it look like the medical corps of the rebellion.

For Syrians the possibility that their own government will punish them adds to the horror of their situation. This summer, in Nahariya, Israel, near the Golan Heights, scores of patients have been covertly brought across the border from Syria to be treated by Israeli doctors.

For patients’ friends or relatives, Israel becomes a last hope when no Syrian medical help is available. Masad Barhoum, clinical director at Western Galilee Medical Center, recently told an NBC reporter that many patients arrive unconscious. “When they wake up and find that they are in Israel they are anxious and afraid.”

A Syrian woman in the hospital said that she came to Israel because her daughter was hit by a sniper’s bullet. “The hospital in my town was destroyed. They saved her here, but now I am afraid to go back. We will be marked.”

An Israeli organization, iL4Syrians, operates anonymously in Syria and other desperate countries. Providing food and medical supplies for those who need them, it relies on secrecy to protect both its local contacts and its own practitioners. Its web site identifies no directors or staff but carries a defiant slogan: “Nobody asks permission to kill. We do not ask permission to save lives.”

Should There be Any Doubts About Obama’s Iran Resolve?

...Goldberg continues to insist that there is still plenty of time for diplomacy and sanctions to work before the use of force on Iran should be contemplated. That is highly debatable. But even if we were prepared to accept this dubious assertion, everything the president has done on both Syria and Iran would lead a reasonable person to conclude that decisive U.S. action on the nuclear threat is highly unlikely. While Goldberg may still believe in Obama’s promises on Iran, the ayatollahs and their intended victims in Israel cannot be faulted for drawing the opposite conclusion.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
08 September '13..

For those Americans who wonder whether Barack Obama’s bumbling response to the crisis in Syria is an indication of what he will do about Iran, Jeffrey Goldberg says not to worry. In an article published in Bloomberg last Wednesday, Goldberg makes the argument that the president’s feckless behavior on Syria that culminated in his shifting of responsibility to a divided Congress shouldn’t inform our expectations of what he will ultimately do about the Iranian nuclear threat. Though a firm supporter of the president, Goldberg has at times been rightly critical of his behavior on Syria, so that, along with his good sources in the White House, gives him some credibility on the issue. While, as he notes, the administration has itself made the argument that America’s willingness to step in on Syria will have an impact on Iran’s behavior, Goldberg argues such an assumption is mistaken. According to the writer, the president always viewed the Iranian issue as a fundamental threat to U.S. security and therefore should be trusted to act accordingly no matter how uninspired his leadership proves to be on Syria.

But while Goldberg is right when he cites the fact that Obama’s strident rhetoric on Iran has left little wriggle room for him to be able to punt on the issue, asking us to believe the president’s Hamlet-like inability to bridge the gap between his words on Syria (“Assad must go” and the use of chemical weapons constituting a “red line”) isn’t indicative of future problems strains credulity. It’s not just that the spectacle of an administration that spent two years dithering about Syria before deciding on action and then shifting the decision to Congress will reinforce Tehran’s belief that Obama is a paper tiger. It’s that over the course of the past five years the president’s actions on Iran have been as disconnected from his words as they have been on Syria. Even before the president choked when he could have legally ordered a strike on Syria, everything he has done with regard to the nuclear issue has given the world and the ayatollahs good reason to believe he will be equally unable to order action on Iran’s nukes.

Let’s stipulate that, as Goldberg argues, the president has always been clear about his view that an Iranian nuke constitutes a direct threat to U.S. interests and the security of its allies. Obama said as much during his first presidential campaign in 2008 and went even farther in 2012 when he explicitly rejected “containment” of a nuclear Iran as an option and even said in one of his debates with Mitt Romney that any deal with Tehran would be predicated on the end of the Islamist regime’s “nuclear program.”

Clearly Israel has no dog in this fight

Fresnozionsim.org..
06 September '13..

I was surprised to read that AIPAC, the so-called “Israel lobby” in the US (full disclosure: to which I am a contributor) has come out squarely in favor of an American strike against the Assad regime.

The powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is planning to launch a major lobbying campaign to push wayward lawmakers to back the resolution authorizing U.S. strikes against Syria, sources said Thursday.

Officials say that some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. They are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress, arguing that “barbarism” by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated, and that failing to act would “send a message” to Tehran that the U.S. won’t stand up to hostile countries’ efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, according to a source with the group.

In the past AIPAC has generally stayed close to the official positions of the Government of Israel. Unlike some other Jewish organizations, it has not in general taken the attitude that American Jews know better than Israelis what’s good for Israel.

But the official Israeli position on an American strike on Syria is neutral. For example, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said this Tuesday:

We aren’t getting involved in what is happening in Syria. What happened there crossed a red line from the Americans’ perspective, but we aren’t supporting, or involved in, a possible strike…

NY Times bureau chief Jodi Rudoren published an article yesterday in which she claims that “Mr. Obama’s limited strike proposal has one crucial foreign ally: Israel.” But she provides little evidence for this. Rather, she argues that Israel is happy with the continued stalemate between the forces of Assad, Iran and Hizballah on one side, vs. Sunni Jihadists on the other. True or not, this does not imply support for Obama’s military initiative, which increasingly appears to be intended to tilt the conflict toward the rebels.