Israel Connections: December 2012

As the year comes to an end, much continues to happen in the Middle East. Read On!

Josh Weintraub
Israel Advocacy and Awareness Chair

The Israel Connection is brought to you by THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the Baltimore Jewish Council. This e-newsletter includes such items as: news updates about Israel and the Middle East, Action Alerts, and upcoming programming. Our goal is to provide you with relevant information that you can use in your advocacy efforts and to express your support and solidarity with the people of Israel. We always enjoy your feedback - please email us at bjcrsvp@baltjc.org or call the Baltimore Jewish Council at 410-542-4850 with your comments.

Stop Scapegoating Israeli Settlements

By Michael Oren

December 11, 2012

The NY Daily News

Back in 2005, Israel uprooted all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza, evicting their 9,000 residents, in order to advance peace. But in the seven years since, Israel has been targeted by nearly 9,000 terrorist rockets from Gaza. Clearly, settlements are not the reason. Rather, it is our enemy's determination to deny the Jewish people the right to independence in our ancestral homeland.

That is why Palestinian Arabs fought for decades to prevent the establishment of Israel in 1948 and why, over the next 20 years, Arab armies tried to destroy us - before there was a single settlement. That, and not the settlement issue, was why the Palestinians turned down Israeli offers of statehood in the West Bank and Gaza in 2000 and 2008.

And that is why last month, Hamas in Gaza launched yet more rockets at Israel, and why the West Bank's Palestinian Authority refused to negotiate with us for the past four years. Instead, it unilaterally declared sovereignty in a UN General Assembly resolution that denied any security for Israel or recognition of it as a Jewish state.

Israel, for its part, recognizes the Palestinians as a people who could have a state if their leaders agreed to sit with ours and work out the complex issues between us. One of those issues is borders, and it includes the settlements, which have created - to use President Obama's words - "new demographic realities on the ground."

Egypt's Revolution is Far From Over

By Marwan Bishara
December 9, 2012

The Washington Post

CAIRO- There's nothing's like walking alongside the Nile to give one a historical perspective on the momentous changes sweeping through Egypt and the Arab region. Watching this ancient nation react to the dramatic developments since the downfall of Hosni Mubarak is sobering.

The latest drama was caused by the recently elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who granted himself broad new powers under the pretext of protecting the revolution from counterrevolutionary forces and of breaking the deadlock over writing a new constitution.

The move set off a political storm. The opposition condemned Morsi as "dictatorial," and Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council denounced him for putting the presidency above the law. Public pressure forced Morsi to rescind the controversial decree over the weekend.

The escalation reinforced the long-held belief among observers of the Arab world that success always carries with it the seeds of failure, and good news is just a precursor to bad.

But realism shouldn't be confused with cynicism. Needless to say, Egypt faces countless political, social and economic challenges. The Arab revolution has just started. Like Cairo's traffic, it is chaotic, boisterous and frequently congested, and yet it continues to flow. And like traffic, it will ultimately be measured by how effectively it allows people to reach their desired destinations.

Watching Syria Descend

By Jackson Diehl

December 9, 2012

The Washington Post

The scariest thing about Syria, from the West's point of view, may be the gap between the hair-raising scenarios senior officials are discussing about what may happen next and their limp strategies for preventing it.

Inside the Obama administration, Syria is now likened by some to a second Somalia - only at the heart of the Middle East, and with the world's third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons. One official recently described a near-term future in which the current, two-sided civil war breaks down into a free-for-all in which Sunni forces fight Kurds and each other as well as the Alawi remnants of Bashar al-Assad's army; where the al-Qaeda branch known as Jabhat al-Nusra gains control over substantial parts of the country; and where the danger of chemical weapons use comes not just from the regime but from any other force that overruns a chemical weapons depot.

A senior French official in Washington last week had his own vision: After losing a battle for Damascus, Assad and his forces stage a two-phase retreat, first to the central city of Homs and its hinterland along the Lebanese border, then, as a last resort, to the Alawi heartland along Syria's northern coast. This probably won't happen within weeks, he added - but it's likely a matter of months.

So how to stop this? The United States and France, along with a few Arab and European allies, are convening yet another diplomatic conference this week in Marrakesh, Morocco. They are hoping to bolster the opposition political coalition they strung together last month, known as the Syrian National Coalition. The Obama administration will probably recognize it as Syria's legitimate government. More paper will be flung at Jabhat al-Nusra, which will be added to the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

The Full Israeli Experience

By Thomas Friedman

December 8, 2012

The New York Times

TEL AVIV- THESE were the main regional news headlines in The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday: "Home Front Command simulates missile strike during drill." Egypt's President "Morsi opts for safety as police battle protestors." In Syria, "Fight spills over into Lebanon." "Darkness at noon for fearful Damascus residents." "Tunisian Islamists, leftists clash after jobs protests." "NATO warns Syria not to use chemical weapons." And my personal favorite: " 'Come back and bring a lot of people with you' - Tourism Ministry offers tour operators the full Israeli experience."

Ah, yes, "the full Israeli experience."

The full Israeli experience today is a living political science experiment. How does a country deal with failed or failing state authority on four of its borders - Gaza, South Lebanon, Syria and the Sinai Desert of Egypt - each of which is now crawling with nonstate actors nested among civilians and armed with rockets. How should Israel and its friends think about this "Israeli experience" and connect it with the ever-present question of Israeli-Palestinian peace?

For starters, if you want to run for office in Israel, or be taken seriously here as either a journalist or a diplomat, there is an unspoken question in the mind of virtually every Israeli that you need to answer correctly: "Do you understand what neighborhood I'm living in?" If Israelis smell that you don't, their ears will close to you. It is one reason the Europeans in general, and the European left in particular, have so little influence here.

The central political divide in Israel today is over the follow-up to this core question: If you appreciate that Israel lives in a neighborhood where there is no mercy for the weak, how should we expect Israel to act?

When Push Comes to Shove on Iran

By John Vinocur

December 7, 2012

The New York Times

AMONG the George W. Bush administration's not-finest hours, the detonation by North Korea of its first atomic device in October 2006 stands out.

It occurred after a failure of will by the administration to convince the rogue regime that it could defy America's commitment to nuclear nonproliferation only at a very steep price.

In fact, there was none. The result was North Korea's test in 2009 of an atomic weapon as powerful as the bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945.

North Korea is not Iran. It does not directly threaten a neighbor with annihilation, or project the likelihood of destabilization of its region as a nuclear-armed or nuclear-capable Iran would do in the Middle East.

But there is a similarity. North Korea's rush to the bomb was motivated, above all, by a despotic regime's desire to provide itself with a weapon of last resort that could insure its permanence. Like North Korea, the paramount goal of Iran's nuclear drive is making its theocracy an enormously dangerous target for those who might challenge the mullahs' rule as a menace to peace.

With hindsight, it is not unfair to say that when North Korea's atomic push came to America's non-shove, Pyongyang showed more determination than the Bush administration. Or to ask now if Iran's will to persevere may be greater than the Obama administration's intent to block Tehran - not just from getting a bomb, but as helpmate to the murderous dictatorship in Syria, and in supplying missiles to the forces of Hamas and Hezbollah.

U.S. determination is the crucial concept. It is not unmistakably present in military or diplomatic terms.

The Iron Dome Military Revolution

Historically, defensive measures lag behind offensive capabilities. Not so with Israel's new antimissile system.

By Michael Oren
December 6, 2012

Wall Street Journal

Two hundred years ago, during the War of 1812, British cannonballs slammed into the hull of the USS Constitution-and bounced off. "Huzzah," an American sailor shouted, "Her hull is made of iron!" In fact, "Old Ironsides" was constructed of sturdy pine and oak, and real ironclad ships didn't appear until a half-century later, when the Confederate Merrimack battled the Union's Monitor to a stalemate. Not even the most powerful shell could penetrate either warship's armor-a breakthrough in defensive technology.

Such revolutions are rare. Throughout the ages, defense has lagged behind offense. Medieval rulers thickened and angled their castles' walls to withstand and deflect artillery, but the walls inevitably crumbled. Knights tempered their armor only to be felled by crossbows and muskets. Allied tanks subdued German trenches in World War I, and German tanks in World War II outflanked France's Maginot Line.

Defenders were especially helpless against rockets, from the Nazi V-1s and V-2s to Iraqi scuds. When Iranian-backed terrorists in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip started firing thousands of rockets at Israel, the Israeli military was forced to mount costly counterstrikes in 2006 and 2008.

But today, the attacked in Israel are now trumping their attackers. That is because, in the spirit of Old Ironsides and the ironclads, Israel developed the Iron Dome antimissile system.

From drawing board to deployment in 2011, Israel completed the Iron Dome in a mere three years. The first two batteries-developed and financed entirely by Israel-took down dozens of Hamas rockets, making Iron Dome the first antimissile system ever to succeed in combat. The generous support of President Obama and the U.S. Congress enabled the construction of four additional batteries. Ultimately, 10 to 13 batteries and a full complement of interceptors will be needed to defend the entire country.

Intercepting supersonic projectiles in midflight is literally rocket science. Israeli engineers pulled off the feat by combining cutting-edge tracking radar with electro-optic sensors and mounting them on highly mobile, all-weather air-defense systems. Iron Dome can hit multiple types of rockets and missiles at ranges of up to 75 kilometers. It can also be relocated swiftly to new sites and radically different terrain. (As part of our vast alliance with the United States, we have offered to share this pioneering technology.)

Most ingeniously, the Iron Dome determines within split seconds whether an incoming rocket is headed for an open space or a populated area-and saves its fire for the latter case. Millions of Israelis live within the terrorists' range, with as little as 15 seconds to reach a bomb shelter.

By neutralizing most rockets headed for populated areas, the Iron Dome gives decision makers invaluable time to find diplomatic solutions. If salvos of rockets were pummeling Israeli homes, hospitals and schools, Israeli leaders would be under immense pressure to order ground operations that could yield significant casualties. By denying the terrorists a decisive offensive advantage, Iron Dome will save lives and prevent wars.

Before Israel's recent Operation Pillar of Defense, Gaza terrorists fired some 700 rockets and mortars at southern Israel, many of which were taken out by Iron Dome. Still Israel was forced to take action, mounting precise sorties against terrorists and launch sites. In turn the terrorists fired 1,500 rockets, some aimed at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. These might have inflicted severe human and material loss, but Iron Dome downed nearly 85% of those headed toward populated areas.

Combined with Israel's world-class civil-defense system, Iron Dome thwarted the terrorists' aim to wreak intolerable damage. Consequently, Israeli leaders had the time and space needed to join with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in working out a cease-fire. More than 50,000 Israeli reservists who had assembled on Gaza's border returned peacefully to their families.

Iron Dome is thus a game-changer, but it isn't a game-ender. Terrorists on our borders have more than 70,000 rockets, and 15 of every 100 fired can still get through the Iron Dome. The danger even of conventional warheads is unacceptable, but nuclear warheads would pose an existential threat. That is why, together with the U.S., Israel has developed the Arrow to intercept orbital and suborbital ballistic missiles, and we have successfully tested David's Sling, a long-range rocket-defense system.

These innovations will not only protect Israel but enhance security for America and its allies world-wide. Yet no air-defense system is foolproof, and robust offensive capabilities remain necessary to protect Israelis from harm. Iron hulls once made war ships invulnerable, but the skies cannot be armored. At least Iron Dome, along with Arrow and David's Sling, makes them safer.

Mr. Oren is Israel's ambassador to the United States.

Dancing Around the Genocide
At Human Rights Watch, a bitter behind-the-scenes battle over Iran's calls to annihilate Israel.

By David Feith

December 4, 2012

Wall Street Journal

Is promoting genocide a human-rights violation? You might think that's an easy question. But it isn't at Human Rights Watch, where a bitter debate is raging over how to describe Iran's calls for the destruction of Israel. The infighting reveals a peculiar standard regarding dictatorships and human rights and especially the Jewish state.

Human Rights Watch is the George Soros-funded operation that has outsize influence in governments, newsrooms and classrooms world-wide. Some at the nonprofit want to denounce Iran's regime for inciting genocide. "Sitting still while Iran claims a 'justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel' . . . is a position unworthy of our great organization," Sid Sheinberg, the group's vice chairman, wrote to colleagues in a recent email.

But Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who runs the nonprofit, strenuously disagrees.

Asked in 2010 about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel "must be wiped off the map," Mr. Roth suggested that the Iranian president has been misunderstood. "There was a real question as to whether he actually said that," Mr. Roth told The New Republic, because the Persian language lacks an idiom for wiping off the map. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad's own English-language website translated his words that way, and the main alternative translation-"eliminated from the pages of history"-is no more benign. Nor is Mr. Ahmadinejad an outlier in the regime. Iran's top military officer declared earlier this year that "the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."

Mr. Roth's main claim is legalistic: Iran's rhetoric doesn't qualify as "incitement"-which is illegal under the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948-but amounts merely to "advocacy," which is legal.

"The theory" to which Human Rights Watch subscribes, he has written in internal emails, "is that in the case of advocacy, however hateful, there is time to dissuade-to rebut speech with speech-whereas in the case of incitement, the action being urged is so imminently connected to the speech in question that there is no time to dissuade. Incitement must be suppressed because it is tantamount to action."

Mr. Roth added in another email: "Many of [Iran's] statements are certainly reprehensible, but they are not incitement to genocide. No one has acted on them."

Really? What about the officials, soldiers and scientists behind Iran's nuclear program? Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was a senior nuclear scientist until his death in a car explosion this year. His widow afterward boasted: "Mostafa's ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel."

Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group founded by the Tehran regime, is also unabashed about its motivations. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has said: "If all the Jews gathered in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. . . . It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth."

Then there's Hamas, the Tehran-backed Palestinian terror group whose founding charter declares that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

If building nuclear weapons and deploying Hezbollah and Hamas aren't "action" in Mr. Roth's view, what is? "Incitement to genocide did occur in Rwanda," he has written to colleagues. "Radio Milles Collines identified the locations of Tutsis and directed organized gangs to hunt them down, which they promptly did, in real time."

So if genocidal talk isn't causing genocidal action in "real time," Human Rights Watch must sit on its hands. That approach seems to miss the purpose of both the Genocide Convention-to stop genocide before it happens, not simply litigate it afterward-and of human-rights activism generally. Human Rights Watch says its mission is "strategic, targeted advocacy," but apparently the organization needs to see a genocide in progress before condemning the rhetoric of its perpetrators.

For decades Human Rights Watch has done brave reporting behind the Iron Curtain, in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, communist China and other dark corners. Yet its silence on Iran's genocidal rhetoric fits a pattern toward Israel.

When Hamas started indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli towns a decade ago, Human Rights Watch took years to issue a report. From 2000 to 2010, it published about as many reports condemning Israel as criticizing the tyrannies in Syria, Libya and Iran combined. In 2009, the group's top Middle East official went fundraising in Saudi Arabia-that human-rights paragon-where she spoke proudly of her disputes with "pro-Israel pressure groups."

Mr. Roth, when asked to comment for this article, said that a Human Rights Watch committee may review Iran's rhetoric, but in his view Tehran isn't inciting genocide and claims to the contrary are "part of an effort to beat the war drums against Iran." In other words, Tehran will continue to call for Israel's obliteration-and Human Rights Watch will continue to sit back and watch.

Gaza Fight Hints at Hezbollah Arsenal

By Farnaz Fassihi

December 4, 2012

Wall Street Journal

BEIRUT-The recent battle between Israel and Islamist forces in the Gaza Strip revealed not only the Palestinian militants' new arsenal, but also shed light on the potentially greater military capabilities of another nemesis of the Jewish state: Hezbollah, the Shiite political and militant group in Lebanon.

As Israel pounded Gaza with aerial strikes for eight days last month, Palestinian militant factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of newly acquired long-range mortars and rockets into Israel. A few hit near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but Israel's Iron Dome missile shield destroyed most of them.

Security officials and experts in Lebanon and Israel said Hezbollah's rocket arsenal is of higher quality and quantity, with the ability to launch four times as many rockets per day as Hamas. Analysts also said Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, obtained Scud missiles and Fajr-5 rockets with longer range, better aim and more-explosive capacity.

Iran's role in helping fund and arm militant movements fighting Israel also became more crystallized during the recent conflict.

Iranian and Palestinian military officials last week publicly acknowledged for the first time that Tehran provided Hamas and Islamic Jihad with Fajr-5 rockets, which have a range of about 50 miles. The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohamad Ali Jaffari, said last month that Iran has exported the missiles' manufacturing technology into Gaza.

"[P]art of our weapons, including the Al-Fajr rockets, were sent by the Iranian side and we appreciate that," said Usamah Hamdan, the head of Hamas's international relations, in an interview in Beirut. "I know the Iranians and Hezbollah are doing their best to understand what exactly happened [in the Gaza conflict] and knowing them, they will learn in the best possible way."

For the past year, Hezbollah leader Seyed Hassan Nasrallah has said in speeches and interviews that Israel would face a "big surprise" if it were to attack Lebanon again.

"If the confrontation with the Gaza Strip had a range of [25 to 40 miles], the battle with us will range over the whole of occupied Palestine-from the Lebanese border to the Jordanian border, to the Red Sea," Mr. Nasrallah said in a speech last month.

Analysts and security experts said he is most likely referring to Hezbollah's large stockpile of Iranian long-range missiles Fajr-5 and Fajr-3, similar to those used by Hamas. Hezbollah could launch hundreds of missiles simultaneously into Israel, making the Iron Dome much less effective, an official in Lebanon's army said.

Israeli military analysts said such an attack would require at least double the number of Iron Dome interceptor batteries as well as development and deployment of David's Sling, a new interceptor system aimed at neutralizing missiles with ranges between 60 and 125 miles.

"We have to extend our capabilities," said Meir Elran, a former brigadier general and a fellow at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies. "Their long-range missiles arsenal is much more extensive than [that of] Hamas."

A representative for the Israeli Defense Forces said the IDF is still examining the lessons from the Gaza conflict and declined to comment further.

Since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Hezbollah has changed how it stores its arsenal to protect its weapons from being destroyed by Israel's aerial attacks and to place them out of reach of Israeli ground troops near the border, said several experts on Hezbollah and security officials from Lebanon's army.

Nearly all of Hezbollah's long-range missiles have been moved away from border areas with Israel and buried in rough mountain regions, Hezbollah observers said. Short-range rockets and missiles remain scattered along Lebanon's southern border with Israel for easy access. These tactical shifts, experts said, would complicate Israel's effort to demolish Hezbollah's arsenal.

"If Israelis want their hands on the long-range missiles, they have to march in and get them. It would be a very risky and very costly operation," said Timur Goksel, an expert on Hezbollah and political analyst in Beirut.

Hezbollah is also considered superior to Palestinian militant groups in training and discipline. It functions under a central command, without the rivalries that have plagued the Palestinians.

Ibrahim Mousawi, head of Hezbollah's media relations, said the party doesn't comment on its military policies.

Hamas, and its backers Hezbollah and Iran, declared victory over Israel after Egypt brokered last month's cease-fire, despite heavy casualties and infrastructure damage in Gaza. Hamas said long-range missiles Iran provided were the key reason Israel scrapped a possible ground invasion.

Hamas and Iran last year had a falling out over the Syria uprising. Iran has steadfastly supported President Bashar al-Assad's regime, while Hamas backed the opposition. The Gaza conflict, however, could push Hamas back into Iran and Hezbollah's corner.

"The time for talking and lobbying about the Palestinian issue has passed. Those who claim they have helped the Palestinians should show how much weapons they've provided them," Ali Larijani, Iran's parliament speaker, said last month.