This site is unconnected to the award winning blog concerned with:
"Reflections on human rights and peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"
for that site please click on:
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
· EVENTS
· ANALYSIS
· Main Points:
1· 13 Qassam missiles and roughly 30 mortar rounds were fired at Israel this week. The level of Qassam fire nearly doubled from last week and the mortar fire, mainly directed at Gaza-Israel border crossing areas, increased significantly. Several Hamas-planted mines were also defused on the border. These attacks led to the EU suspending payments on fuel supplies to Gaza, which in turn led to some power cuts. The IDF continued to target Islamic Jihad and Hamas cells that fired Qassam missiles and continued to attempt to attack the border respectively. Some senior Islamic Jihad and Hamas commanders were killed as a result.
The EU agreed to continue payments for 25-30% of Gaza’s energy needs on a provisional basis after Hamas promised to stop its efforts to tax recipients and suppliers in order to finance their rule over the Gaza Strip.
Egypt continued to discover explosives in the Sinai; the latest find was 500 kilograms of TNT, 15 miles (25 kilometres) from S Gaza, its intended destination.
2· Palestinian Authority interim Prime Minister Fayyad apprised the EU of Hamas violations of fuel supply agreements to Gaza, and their violation of President Abbas’ decree that exempted all Gazans from paying taxes following the Hamas coup.
The PA held meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Japan, Jordan, and Israel to discuss plans for a regional industrial and agricultural zone near Jericho connected to a similar zone and airport in Jordan that would enable immediate access to overseas markets. Japan also provided $20 million in financial aid to the PA, and charitable foundations, in the West Bank.
President Abbas and PM Fayyad continued to be criticised for the lack of reforms to Fatah and their abandonment of armed resistance against Israel. The West Bank-based Fatah militia Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades used the arrests of two members by Israel for clear breaches of their amnesty agreements to declare a renewal of the armed struggle and rearmament. Tunis-based Fatah leader Farouk Kaddoumi called for unity by a return to armed struggle.
Abbas held talks in Jordan with two of Fatah’s Tunis-based old guard, Abu Mahir Ghnaim and Ahmed Afanah, who have well-established contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and Syria respectively, and like Kaddoumi, opposed the Oslo Accords of 1993 that were the basis for all consequent PLO/PA-Israel agreements and mutual recognition.
Another, formerly Gaza-based, Fatah and clan leader Muhammad Dahlan returned to the West Bank this week following surgery in Europe. Hamas insisted he would never be allowed to return to Gaza.
3· A series of failures involving Israel’s institutions were reported this week:
1. Aviation safety procedures and equipment at Ben Gurion Airport were criticised for being outmoded and on the verge of collapse following the publication of the interim report of the Lapidot Committee ordered by Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz.
2. Minister of Environment Gideon Ezra admitted to the Knesset State Control Committee that his department had failed to implement a 2003 Cabinet decision to take responsibility for hazardous materials and had hence failed during the 2006 Lebanon War to secure sensitive sites or to coordinate its activities with the Home Front Command or the Emergency Services. This followed criticism of his Ministry, the Home Front Command, and the Police, in the State Comptroller’s 18 July 2007 report.
3. The head of the Home Front Major-General Yitzhak Gershon insisted the hazardous materials problem had been addressed by the Army despite the absence of a single recommendation having been put to the government on the issue. Gershon also claimed it was not possible to defend civilians from Qassam rocket hits, and blamed local authorities for not providing adequate bomb shelters. Despite a High Court injunction insisting all schools and major institutions within range be safeguarded from Qassam attacks, only 24 schools have some sort of protection, the rest will have none until the end of 2007, again, it was claimed, partly due to the Finance Ministry’s inability to make funds available. An appeal by residents bordering Gaza to force the government to implement the injunction immediately was refused by the High Court.
4. State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss accused the Finance Ministry of foot dragging, ignorance, and bureaucracy, concerning their mismanagement and mishandling of the Holocaust survivors payments case, which was eventually settled as a result of the direct intervention of Prime Minister Olmert.
5. The Accountant General stated the burden of public corruption was almost as large as the Defence burden and that the attempt to manipulate the Bank Leumi tender was the worst case of corruption in Israel’s history.
4· Hizb’allah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah announced a “great surprise” should new hostilities arise against Israel that could both change the “fate of the war and the region.” Hizb’allah now had anti-tank missiles that could penetrate Israeli and US tanks, missiles that could hit any part of Israel, and missiles that could hit any ship. Hizb’allah claimed it expected a war with Israel within a year or so.
Muqtadar al-Sadr, Shia political and militia leader in Iraq, stated this week his group now had formal links with Hizb’allah and that his men and Hizb’allah’s train together both in Lebanon and Iraq. His militia assassinated the second provincial Shia Governor in nine days in southern Iraq using a Hizb’allah-designed roadside bomb, and are responsible for attacks on British forces stationed there. He also claimed his militia would inevitably become involved in future Hizb’allah-Israel clashes.
Iran’s commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Yayha Rahim Safavi, also claimed the new Shihab-3 ballistic missile now had a remote guidance system. The implication was it could penetrate Israel’s anti-missile systems.
The US administration intends to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation thereby making its funds and any contributors to them subject to investigation and possible confiscation.
5· The Winograd Committee on the Second Lebanon War released the testimony of Tzahi Hanegbi, Chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, this week. The main points were:
a) His Committee had failed to formulate a recommendation to the government on a ground incursion because they were divided on the issue.
b) He supported both the decision to go to war, and, later, the ground incursion, because he felt it was the only way to stop the Katyusha rocket fire.
c) Hanegbi claimed that the war weakened Hizb’allah and reduced the threat to Israel’s northern communities.
d) He blamed the IDF and the media for lapses in field security, the media should never have been allowed to report, speculate on, and anticipate, IDF movements from the border itself: “the public’s right to know is not the enemy’s right to know.”
e) The Committee set up a subcommittee headed by Labour MK Ami Ayalon to look into the management of the home front.
f) The Committee were surprised the Reserves were not called up at an earlier stage of the war.
g) Many of the Committee were convinced diplomacy was needed to end the threat to the communities in the North.
h) Finally, he claimed that this war, other than possibly the War of Independence of 1948, was the only war to end in any sort of diplomatic achievement for Israel, the fruits of which were the deployment of the Lebanese Army into the south of the country (for the first time in nearly 40 years), and the stationing of a potent multinational force there (UNIFIL).
6· The Governor of the Bank of Israel, Stanley Fischer, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the US that included $30 billion of military aid over the next 10 years. Fischer stated Israel’s defence burden at 10% of GDP was the highest in the western world and that the US deal allowed Israel to spend up to 25% on Israeli manufactured military equipment. Previously only US equipment could be purchased. He also announced that US non-military economic grants to Israel would cease around 2009. He maintained Israel’s economy was strong with a low deficit of less than 2% of GDP, and with inflation contained within a 1-3% range.
7· The IDF General Staff held a two-day conference to establish which weapons systems it will invest in over the next 5 years. The 5-year review was established by the Brodet Committee, which handed over its mainly secret proposals to the Defence establishment in May 2007. The Committee was set up to resolve differences between the Defence and Finance Ministries during and following the Second Lebanon War. Both Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Defence Minister Ehud Barak want the ground forces strengthened. Barak stated he wanted two new reserve divisions, anti-missile systems to protect tanks, and an anti-missile system to protect the civilian population from short as well as long range missile attack. Barak suggested many of these systems would take 5 to 7 years to develop. The Cabinet approved less than half the budget the Defence establishment demanded in late July. Prime Minister Olmert claimed it was ludicrous to put welfare and education spending on hold so that Defence could have all it insisted upon. The defence budget has been cut for the last 13 years, since 1994, following the Oslo Accords with the PLO, and the end of the Cold War.
· ANALYSIS - General Picture:
· Hamas and Islamic Jihad have increased their attacks on Israel and the border crossings for several reasons:
1. The overall plan to create a bunker and tunnel system on the border with Israel and Egypt continues. To achieve this the militant groups need to control the border areas by making them too dangerous for the IDF to operate in.
2. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who last week were on the verge of a violent feud, have decided to unite in their efforts to control the border areas. Islamic Jihad is no longer under any constraints concerning Qassam fire. Also, the military wing of Hamas felt they could not restrain Islamic Jihad from responding to the killing of their commanders.
3. Hamas want to control the border crossings themselves but they are not prepared to recognise Israel by negotiating a formal agreement concerning border traffic. Hamas’ attacks on the border crossings have several aims:
a) to force Israel into informal talks that will accept Hamas as the controlling force on the Gaza side of the border;
b) to force the international community, especially the Arab and Muslim nations, to address the issue of the closed border with Egypt. Once that border is open Iranian funds will be able to flow freely into Gaza;
c) to force the international community to pressure Israel to return to the status quo ante and allow free flow of goods and raw materials, much of which allow Hamas and Islamic Jihad to maintain their cottage industry output of Qassam missiles.
· Prime Minister Fayyad’s government indicated their continued support for isolating Hamas by informing the EU about breaches in EU and Palestinian Authority regulations concerning taxes upon fuel or services generally. President Abbas decreed all Gazans exempt from paying taxes shortly after the Hamas coup precisely in order to sabotage any efforts to legitimise or establish their rule.
Hamas, short of revenue, and having eaten into their Iranian-supplied funds, wanted to tax the use of fuel paid for by the EU, which does not accept Hamas rule in Gaza. It was also a timely reminder to Hamas that the PA still has some teeth.
· President Abbas released several Hamas members accused of trying to establish terror cells in the West Bank, and called on Hamas to “return to national unity” by ending their rule in Gaza. He also called on the services of Fatah veterans who have historic connections with Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood to help him find a way out of the current impasse. It is clear Abbas wishes to represent the whole Palestinian people at the November Washington summit, and that he has heeded the, sometimes crude, attempts to force him to re-engage with Hamas.
The reappearance of Muhammed Dahlan indicates Abbas is still serious in his desire to re-establish PA rule in Gaza.
· Abbas is rightly concerned that Prime Minister Olmert is in no position to offer him any of the substantive concessions he needs to convince his constituency that it is worthwhile ending the armed struggle. He is therefore trying to cover all eventualities, still engaging with Japan on future economic plans for the West Bank and accepting funds, but also doing what he can to re-engage with Hamas, assuming they will make the necessary concessions and return to the status quo ante in Gaza with possible Egyptian mediation and forces to ensure and enforce a compromise. His talks with Fatah rejectionists from Tunis is also a sign to Olmert that if Abbas does not get what he needs there are other, far worse, alternatives to him that Olmert and Israel may end up having to deal with.
· Rumours concerning President Abbas’ refusal to stand at the forthcoming Presidential elections have produced a flurry of activity and divisions within Fatah as everyone positions themselves in anticipation of the race to replace him. The return of Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades to the armed struggle so soon after the amnesty by Israel is a sign of this process and highlights the total failure of Abbas to reform Fatah and introduce the youth movements into the mainstream, or to replace the corrupt old guard.
In terms of the peace process Abbas and Olmert find themselves in the unusual position of having the right policies but with absolutely no means to deliver them. Abbas has lost both credibility within Fatah and control over any of the armed groups in the West Bank, and Olmert has no credibility in the eyes of the Israeli public.
· The flurry of reports exposing endemic and systemic institutional failures highlight a unique Israeli cultural phenomenon: an almost congenital inability to run any large organisation efficiently, combined with a pathological need to expose and decry its failures as virulently and publicly as possible. All the failures involve state-run institutions many led by ex-military personnel. A total lack of transparency combined with inadequate public supervision is also common to all the exposed failures.
The insensitivity to the Holocaust victims is a vestige of the socialist Zionist vision of the defenceless weak Diaspora Jew, who failed to come to Eretz Israel before the foreseen catastrophe; this, combined with Israel’s notoriously inefficient bureaucracy, led to the embarrassing scenes of Holocaust camp survivors protesting outside the Prime Minister’s Office. Paradoxically it was only Olmert’s personal intervention that cut through the bureaucratic logjam to enable the survivors to receive the financial restitution owed to them.
The accusations of rampant corruption are often made, particularly by the current Accountant General, but rarely substantiated. Almost all of the prosecutions against leading politicians made in recent years, including against Binyamin Netanyahu, have all failed for lack of credible evidence. In fact the accusation against Olmert concerning his alleged corrupt role in the Bank Leumi tender has also been dropped due to a lack of any credible evidence.
Nevertheless, the lack of transparency and the crony-based culture in most of Israel’s major institutions is not conducive to efficient management or running of services. Israel’s establishment remains reluctant to loosen the grip of the state or to render its institutions either transparent or open to competition. The current wave of investigations indicates that changes will be made and that Israel remains a vibrant open society that also retains its historic cultural propensity for public self-flagellation.
· The heads of Hizb’allah, Iraq’s Mehdi militia, and the Revolutionary Guards statements this week indicate a formal alliance exists between these Shia groups that mean any future confrontations between Israel and Hizb’allah will automatically involve them all. In effect Israel would be at war with forces from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran; and, these forces would have access to the latest technology recently developed in Iran. They would also be in alliance with the Sunnis of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Gaza-based Popular Revolutionary Committees which include elements of the quasi-Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Fatah’s militant youth wing the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades. In the event Al Qaeda affiliated groups would also form a temporary alliance during any such future conflict.
Militarily this alliance is incapable of defeating Israel but it clearly poses a long-term strategic threat. Iran clearly believes that once the US leaves Iraq it will only be a matter of time before Israel is forced to leave the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Israel’s demise would follow not long afterwards. The constant missile threat, the constant economic uncertainty, the demographic threat from within, and Israel’s own fragmented society, will all conspire to force the Jews to realise the notion of an independent Jewish State is simply not viable or sustainable.
Unfortunately for this plan all the historic evidence indicates the opposite will happen. The very increase in the threat will force greater resources and focus to be allocated to Israel’s survival. During the worst excesses of the suicide bombing campaign Israel’s emigration rates actually fell, and, during major conflicts Israel’s rates of Jewish immigration increase.
Nevertheless this strategic threat will put pressure on Israel to relinquish the West Bank so that western governments can then justify supporting Israel politically, economically, and militarily. However, this will not be possible without Palestinian acquiescence in accepting some form of western military presence, which is unlikely. The most probable outcome for the West Bank is a strong multinational force, with at least a western contingent, that will act as a military and political buffer between Israel and any future Palestine-Iran axis but this outcome could either be realised in years, or, decades.
· MK Tzahi Hanegbi’s testimony to the Winograd Committee, as head of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, has been the least critical of Olmert as one would possibly expect from one of his long time political allies. Nevertheless it did expose the complexity of the decision-making processes during the war and the variety of opinions within the committee itself.
Hanegbi was correct to point out the ridiculous extent of the access the media had to the front line and the minute-by-minute intelligence this was giving to Damascus and Tehran who were in direct contact with guerrilla forces on the border.
He was also one of the only witnesses to highlight the achievement of the Olmert government in getting both the Lebanese Army and a bolstered and credible UNIFIL force onto Israel’s northern border. In effect Olmert achieved in less than 40 days what no previous Israeli politician or general had achieved in nearly 40 years of conflict with the hyper-fragmented nation of Lebanon.
· Stanley Fischer’s announcement that on top of the $30 billion military aid package over 10 years Israel is to end its dependence on civilian economic grants from the US was historic. It confirmed that Israel’s economy is both thriving and on a sound footing. It is important to note that the Second Lebanon War’s economic effects on Israel were negligible but the costs to Lebanon and Iran were significant.
PM Olmert remained concerned that Israel’s economic divisions and educational deficiencies still needed urgent attention, and that the economy could not be sacrificed to the Defence Ministry and IDF’s bottomless demands. If the Defence establishment is to meet its own stated needs it must reform itself.
· The IDF’s two-day conference on prioritising its spending and strategic goals over the next 5 years is a turning point for the Defence establishment and Israel. The IDF High Command and Administration and Defence Ministry have become bywords for inefficiency, incompetence, waste, and corrupt practices.
These faults have all been highlighted by the Brodet Committee's interim report of May 2007 and the 5-year spending plan was one of their recommendations. It is meant to enable a more strategic view to be taken by both the Defence and Finance Ministries.
At the moment the Defence establishment has two of the most experienced and capable military minds at its head, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.
Their priority will be to cut the extraordinary waste and inefficiency so that any consequent savings can be diverted to the pressing need for protecting both tanks and armoured vehicles from missiles and explosive devices, and, the civilian population from ballistic and short-range missiles.
They also have a unique opportunity to use 25% of the US’s $3 billion annual military aid (i.e.$750 million per annum) on Israeli produced military equipment, the first time the US has allowed its own military aid to be used on non-United States-made military equipment.
The debate over lack of manpower is not the most pressing issue. No army ever won a battle using reluctant soldiers who would rather play Nintendo, or pray, than defend their country. The real issue is preparation and training and efficient use of resources.
Hamas and Iran will want to lure the IDF into a battle at a time and place of their choosing and one of the greatest challenges for the IDF will be to deny them that opportunity. The IDF strategy will need to be to avoid any significant military confrontation for as long as possible and that includes any attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Other sources used this week The Independent:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2878769.ece
Links:
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper:
http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -
News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/headlines/
A written summary of the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/comment_and_opinion/
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/quote_of_the_day/
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