· MAIN POINTS
The following analysis is based on Israel continuing its current attrition-based containment strategy:
1 Israel’s incursion into Gaza is likely to be over before President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration.
2 Hamas are preparing to celebrate their survival “victory” by launching their longest-range missiles at Tel Aviv.
3 Hizb’allah, at Iran’s behest and with Syria’s approval, have paid Palestinian proxies to fire Katyushas at Israel.
4 Hizb’allah are prepared to risk starting a limited conflict on Israel’s Northern border.
5 The Israeli public's remarkable intolerance to suffering losses amongst its citizen-army soldiers is another crucial factor determining the length of the incursion.
· ANALYSIS
· It is clear that even if Israel increases its presence in Gaza that the current military operation has limited aims and will be over probably within one to two weeks, ideally ending just before President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration.
· Recent poll evidence confirms polls from the Second Lebanon War, which show the Israeli public has a remarkably low tolerance for losses suffered by members of its citizen army, the IDF. This is highly unusual as most countries expect its armed forces to be prepared to take the brunt of losses in any conflict. However, Israel's army is almost wholly conscripted and the IDF is affectionately perceived as the most important and successful assimilatory institution in Israel with vast educational and technological facilities. It is not seen as a professional fighting elite but as sons, daughters, husbands and fathers in uniform. The death rate on Israel's roads at 400-600 per year is the highest per capita in the western world, and premature deaths from smoking are exceptionally high, but the loss of a soldier is seen as a national tragedy, witness the extraordinarily high price Israel was prepared to pay for the bodies of its two kidnapped servicemen from the Second Lebanon War.
· The result of this public attitude has resulted, at least in part, in Barak's choice of an attrition-type of operation. He believes that this form of warfare has the best chance of achieving low casualty rates amongst the IDF. However, this flies against all known and accepted military strategy and thinking. Traditionally, speed, momentum, and surprise, which keep the enemy permanently off-balance and unable to regroup, combined with overwhelming force and numbers, are the prerequisites for assured military success. Barak has thrown the most basic rules for success on the battlefield out the window in order to keep potential Labour Party voters happy and in an attempt to win over the public's favour just before an election. Not only does this have no military merit, it is also diplomatically disastrous as every day wasted brings international pressure to end the operation closer. Barak is using the elite elements of roughly four infantry Brigades, no more than 4-6,000 men at any one time in the field. Contrast that to Ariel Sharon's 'Operation Defensive Shield' in the West Bank in 2002. He used 5 Divisions: 25-30,000 men.
· Hamas will not be defeated nor will its vast missile store be sufficiently eroded to prevent it from firing its most long-range rockets onto Tel Aviv or its southern outskirts as the IDF withdraw. This will be seen and celebrated as both a military and political as well as psychological “victory” for Hamas despite its severe losses.
· Hizb’allah are likely to increase the pressure on Israel in the coming days or weeks, particularly if it sees that Hamas is really on the verge of any type of defeat, by getting proxies such as Palestinian Islamist (Fatah Islami) or Leftist groups (PFLP or
PFLP-GC for example) to fire rockets into Northern Israel. Iranian representative Saeed Jalili the head of Iran’s nuclear team, who is also the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, visited Syria and Lebanon 2-4 January to agree broad strategy concerning rocket fire onto Israel.
· Iran’s preference is probably to delay the firings as late as possible so that they coincide with both Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and Obama’s inauguration. This will send an unequivocal message to Obama that the true force in the Middle East is Iran and that the US will have to talk to and compromise not only with it but with its allies such as Hamas.
· This effort will be accompanied, or followed, by an attempted worldwide terrorist campaign against Jewish and Israeli targets.
· It is unlikely Israel will achieve its strategic aim of stopping rocket fire from Gaza. Therefore Israel’s counter attacks on Gaza may have to continue indefinitely. But Iran will have made the most impressive political point ensuring that it has the last word. Should Israel respond then all the focus will shift onto Israel’s aggression against Lebanon and Gaza, and once again Iran’s nuclear weapons programme will become a secondary issue, thus achieving both its strategic and tactical goal of completing its nuclear weapons programme on the one hand, whilst placing all the international community’s ire and emphasis on Israel, on the other.
· Barak may claim during the election campaign that he wished to finish the job in Gaza but that Livni and Olmert tied his hands and failed to deliver the international community. This is a high-risk strategy for both Kadima and Labour and it is possible that the centre left will be severely weakened as a result of their differences and by the impression that the operation in Gaza was fruitless.
· Likud’s leader Bibi Netanyahu will simply argue that the centre left has failed to deliver security to Israel either in the North or the South and that only a strong national unity government under his leadership will deliver the peace and quiet all Israel craves.
· The election of a Likud-led coalition government will bring the peace process, such as it was, to a grinding halt. Labour, even if they do manage to salvage the same number of seats as at present, or even increase it a little, are unlikely to join the coalition unless they can see a clear path to a Palestinian State as well as protection for all state-funded social, welfare, and health services. If Bibi feels he needs Labour within the coalition he may offer them a significant social services-related ministry.
· In the meantime Bibi has successfully divided and splintered the nationalist right wing who were always his biggest threat both from within the Likud, and electorally, as they threatened to distract traditional Likud voters from returning to the fold. Most right wing parties are now divided or in various stages of disarray.
· Kadima are likely to be squeezed both if Barak succeeds in laying the blame for any apparent failure in Gaza on Livni and Olmert, and by the loss of current centre-right Kadima-voters to Likud, which will be perceived as the only non-extremist party that can guarantee Israel’s security.
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/news/headlines
¨A written summary of the news:
news:http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
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/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
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