A Salute to Uzi Arad

David M. Weinberg
A Citadel Defending Zion
06 March '11

http://davidmweinberg.com/2011/03/06/a-salute-to-uzi-arad/

This morning, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli cabinet will give outgoing National Security Council chairman Uzi Arad a formal send-off. The tribute will be well-deserved.

Arad is a strongly principled yet eminently pragmatic expert on foreign, diplomatic and defense policy who provided brainpower to the country’s leaders for almost 40 years.

He spent more than 20 years in the Mossad, culminating in the post of director of intelligence. It is well-recognized that he was one of the Mossad’s most effective intelligence officers. Andy Marshall, long-time director of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, has called Arad a top global defense strategist.

Arad was a loyal adviser to Netanyahu in the latter’s first term as prime minister, and then founded the celebrated Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel’s National Security. The Herzliya Conference became prestigious and influential because of Arad. He devised the unique format, oversaw the writing of position papers, invited the many top-tier foreign experts, and drew in the country’s leaders.

This time around, Arad served his prime minister in multiple capacities: as a top foreign policy adviser, a trusted diplomatic envoy and as NSC manager.

Arad practiced responsible statecraft. He was principled but not rigidly ideological on key matters such as the Jerusalem-Washington relationship. More importantly, he did not give in to the rash demands of foreign leaders and the Left for “new Israeli diplomatic initiatives” every two months. In an age when diplomatic and military adventures are costly, Arad would say: Maneuver with prudence and calibrate your moves with caution.

ARAD ASSEMBLED the country’s first real interagency National Security Council, with a staff in the Prime Minister’s Office of 60 people, 25 percent of whom are former officers and the rest academics and diplomats.

Washington, not J'lem, needs to issue clarifications

Dan Diker
Opinion/JPost
28 December 09

The United States' recent request for a public clarification from National Security Adviser Uzi Arad following the IDF's killing of three wanted Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades terrorists in Nablus is unusual and raises questions.

Arad's reported need to explain to his US counterparts the defensive nature of the IDF operation several days after the Iranian-backed terror cell's murder of Rabbi Meir Chai, a father of seven, seems exceptional. This IDF operation was no different than hundreds of other actions against Palestinian terror groups that have murdered well over 1,000 Israeli civilians since the Palestinian Authority launched the Aksa war of terror in 2000.

As a rule, the US has not asked Israel for public clarifications on antiterror operations. Clearly, close communications are important. There are multiple security and intelligence channels between Israel and its closest ally that have been and should be used to handle these types of security queries. The Israeli Embassy in Washington, the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, the US consulate in Jerusalem, military attaches and representatives of respective intelligence agencies are appropriate addresses.

But in this extraordinary case, the US demanded a public clarification on behalf of the PA. This clearly represents heightened US sensitivity to Palestinian protests over the IDF's "unjust" incursion into Area A of Judea and Samaria/the West Bank, where the PA has overall security responsibility, to net the Fatah-associated terror cell that resulted in its elimination.

THIS IS where it seems more appropriate that the US issue clarifications to Israel. At least one of the Aksa Brigades commanders - Annan Sabuh, who was found with two M16 automatic rifles and two other firearms - had been part of the amnesty program for former Fatah-affiliated terror group commanders and operatives that was predicated on turning in all weapons. The amnesty program was implemented in no small part at the behest of the United States and its security reform program, which began under Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton in 2005.

(Read full article)

The writer is director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs and a senior policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
.

PTA Commander-in-Chief

Caroline Glick

carolineglick.com

25 December 09

Unbeknownst to most Israelis, this week marked a critical shift for the worse in the regional balance of power. While IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was busy demanding that the government pay a ransom of more than a thousand terrorists for captive soldier Gilad Schalit, few paid attention to Iran's newest strategic successes.

Over the past week Lebanon capitulated to the Iranian axis. Turkey solidified its full membership in the axis. And Egypt began to make its peace with the notion of Iran becoming the strongest state in the region.

Less than five years after former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated by Syria, his son Prime Minister Saad Hariri paid a visit to Damascus to express his fealty to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Beirut and began giving the Lebanese government its new marching orders.

On Wednesday, Hizbullah forces deployed openly to the border with Israel under the permissive eye of the US-armed Lebanese army. Lebanon announced that it was no longer bound by binding UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that requires Hizbullah to disarm. And Hariri announced that he will soon visit Teheran.

While Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his media echo chamber insist that Turkey has buried its hatchet with Israel, on Wednesday Prime Minister Recip Erdogan led a delegation with 10 cabinet ministers to Damascus. There, according to the Syrian and Turkish Foreign Ministries, they signed 47 trade agreements.

This Turkish-Syrian rapprochement is not limited to economic issues. It is a strategic realignment. As Assad's spokeswoman Buthaina Shaaban explained to Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam television channel, "We are working to establish close ties between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq so these countries can act as one regional bloc in order to promote peace, security and stability in the Middle East, while keeping the West's dictates and lust for the region's natural and oil resources at bay."

(Read full article)
.