Are we at the end of our tether?

1981, following the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor Osirak, Prime Minister Menachem Begin defined a policy known later as the Begin Doctrine: "On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel." Since then every Israeli prime minister has endorsed that doctrine.                                                                                                                                                                  A case in point was the attack on the Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2007. On Sunday evening "Channel 10's documentary programme "Real Faces" presented a comprehensive account of the attack, referred to by the code name "Operation Orchard." Syria has never admitted the existence of the reactor and Israel has never admitted or denied attacking the “non-existent” reactor. Consequently, when he spoke of the attack the documentary's producer, investigative reporter Amnon Levi was careful to add the phrase- "According to foreign sources."  Notwithstanding the Israeli and Syrian reluctance to relate to the attack on the al-Kibar nuclear facility, the IAEA has officially confirmed that the site was a nuclear reactor.

It appears that the existence of the al-Kibar facility was a closely kept secret known to only a few of Bashar al Assad's confidants. As a result the construction of the reactor progressed  undetected.

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph  Syria was working with North Korea and Iran on the nuclear facility. Iran had funnelled $1 billion to the project, and planned on using the  reactor to replace Iranian facilities if it failed  to complete its uranium enrichment programme.

Three years ago Der Spiegel told how despite Assad's efforts to conceal the reactor it was eventually discovered. In the spring of 2004, the American National Security Agency (NSA) detected a suspiciously high number of telephone calls between Syria and North Korea, with a noticeably busy line of communication between the North Korean capital Pyongyang and a place in the northern Syrian desert called al - Kibar. The NSA dossier was sent to Israeli military  intelligence, which in turn "flagged"  the al-Kibar facility for close surveillance.                                                                                                                         In late 2006, Israeli military intelligence decided to ask the British for their opinion. Almost by coincidence,  as a Mossad delegation arrived in London, a senior Syrian government official checked into an exclusive hotel in  Kensington.  He was under Mossad surveillance and turned out to be incredibly careless. He left  his laptop in his hotel room when he went shopping. The Mossad agents "paid him a visit" while he was out, copied the contents of his laptop and compensated him by enhancing it with a "Trojan horse" tracking device designed to monitor his activities.                                                                                                      The pilfered files revealed that Syria, aided by North Korea, was building a nuclear reactor that could produce an atomic bomb.                                                                                       Elliot Abrams  who served at that time as deputy national security advisor in the  White House was interviewed for  the channel 10 documentary. He related how the complete intelligence material from both Israeli and US sources was presented to President George W. Bush. Abrams said, “We took it all to the president – covert options, military options, diplomatic options – and he chose  the wrong option.” The option Bush chose, some six weeks before the Israeli attack, was the one preferred by secretary of state Condoleezza Rice: Make the existence of the facility public and then go to the IAEA and UN and build an international consensus to get the Syrians to close it.
Abrams said he thought the idea was “absurd” and that Syrian President Bashar Assad would defy  the IAEA and do nothing.

According to Abrams, Ehud Olmert intimated that if the US wouldn’t bomb the al-Kabir facility Israel would.
Abrams added another reason for bombing the al-Kabir facility. He said that his preferred option was for Israel to attack the site in order to restore the IDF's deterrence capability following the Second Lebanon War.                                                                                   However, Vice President Dick Cheney argued for the US to bomb the facility itself in order to rebuild America’s deterrence capability.

Cheney, in his memoirs - My Time, wrote that not only would a US strike demonstrate America’s seriousness concerning nonproliferation, “it would enhance our credibility in that part of the world, taking us back to where we were in 2003, after we had taken down the Taliban, taken down

Saddam’s regime, and gotten Gaddafi to turn over his nuclear program.”
Throughout the documentary Amnon Levi compared the situation in 2007 with the present Iranian dilemma confronting Israel. The differences are obvious. In 2007  only one minister in the cabinet opposed the decision to bomb al-Kibar. Admittedly Ehud Barak opposed the plan initially, but later joined the majority. The entire intelligence community was in favour of attacking the Syrian site. Al-Kibar is closer to Israel and was much easier to attack than Iran’s dispersed nuclear facilities. In addition, the Furdow facility is situated deep underground .
One thing we have in common with our neighbours is the tendency to dwell on yesterday’s battles. Invariably the Arab narrative differs considerably from our version. Lately, however some Lebanese journalists have dared to portray battle narratives that differ little from our accounts.
A few days ago Lebanese member of parliament Basem Shabb, a member of the parliamentary committee on defence wrote a scathing criticism of Hezbollah in the Daily Star, Lebanon. He attacked the terrorist group’s claim to be Lebanon’s reliable defence organisation.

“The question then remains whether Hezbollah’s firepower offers any real deterrence capability.” Surveying the anti-aircraft defences that the party is believed to have, he says they can be dismissed as ineffective against the advanced electronic countermeasures of the Israeli air force.  In support of this claim he cites the al-Kibar attack    “When the Israelis attacked a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, Syrian air defences, which are far more advanced than Hezbollah’s, did not react.” Shabb goes on to list the weapons in Hezbollah’s arsenal arguing how ineffective they are against Israel’s newest defence systems and provides a frank analysis of Lebanon’s exaggerated reliance on Hezbollah.

“It is Hezbollah’s rocket and missile force, numbering in the tens of thousands, that constitutes the bulk of the party’s firepower. While a smaller number of medium- and long-range missiles such as the Fajr-5, Fateh-110, and Scud variants are stationed north of the Litani River, the short-range Katyusha 122mm and others are south of the river, many in fixed positions in close proximity to civilian areas.                                                                                                                                    The short-range rockets continued to be launched throughout the 2006 war, with 250 fired on the last day. Though more than 4,000 such missiles were fired, less than 500 actually hit vital targets. Even though the small-sized warheads caused little overall damage, Israeli analysts agree that Israel’s inability to defend against them represented one of the prime failures of the war.

Hezbollah, in turn, considered it a triumph, and rightly so, that it was able to keep firing until the very end, defying Israel’s massive artillery and aerial bombardment. However, against this we must examine the fate of the party’s medium- and long-range missiles. Many were destroyed on the ground early in the war. Since then, Israel’s missile defence systems have significantly improved, with the introduction of the latest generation of Patriot PAC3 and Arrow II missile systems.

Israel’s unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance capability, as well as its manned aircraft capability and improved anti-missile defences, could minimize Hezbollah’s long-range missile threat. In fact, Israeli analysts today seem more concerned with Hezbollah’s short-range rocket threat.

Even though anti-missile systems such as the Iron Dome have been effective in Gaza, it is unlikely that such a system could neutralize volleys of hundreds of short-range rockets. That is why Israeli strategists have argued that a rapid and massive Israeli invasion of areas south of the Litani would be needed to end the short-range rocket threat, thereby avoiding repeating the failures of 2006. This would inevitably lead to extensive casualties and devastation of villages, not to mention the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure, which Israel has declared a legitimate target should hostilities arise.

Hezbollah is well aware of this, and has indicated through intermediaries that it would not initiate hostilities along the southern border. Active resistance for the liberation of Lebanese territory is a thing of the past. However, a cataclysmic scenario may be triggered by Iran, Hezbollah’s patron. As far as Iran is concerned, its regional interests and considerations take precedence. Instead, they constitute an excuse and an instigation for a destructive Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Iran’s control of Hezbollah’s arsenal magnifies the danger. Hezbollah has no credible means of defending Lebanon’s infrastructure, territorial waters or airspace. The deterrence value of the party’s weapon systems is vastly overrated, exposing Lebanon to massive retaliation. The current situation presents a disaster in the waiting”
Another frank Lebanese exposé  appeared this week in  the New York Times . Hanin Ghaddar, editor of NOW Lebanon said, in an  op-ed  article “Something fundamental has changed: the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, long Syria’s powerful proxy in Lebanon, has become a wounded beast. And it is walking a very thin line between protecting its assets and aiding a crumbling regime next door. “ …..”Assad may not yet realize that he is a dead man walking, but Hezbollah does. That does not mean, however, that the party will change its stance on Syria as the Palestinian militant group Hamas has done. If it did, it would lose its supply lines from Iran. So Hezbollah’s main objective is to avoid a full explosion before the [Lebanese] parliamentary elections. After all, an election victory would allow Hezbollah to maintain its political control over Lebanon democratically, without having to resort to arms. Tehran would also prefer to avoid any war that would force Hezbollah to get involved — namely, a war with Israel. That could lead to the party’s losing both its weapons and its supporters. “

This week New York Times columnist Thomas. L. Friedman took to task Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi for attending the Nonaligned Movement’s summit meeting in Tehran. However, Middle East affairs analyst Smadar Peri interpreted Moris's visit to Tehran differently. She claims Morsi was a reluctant participant in the summit. “If it were up to him, the Egyptian president would have remained in Cairo rather than scrap the 33-year-old boycott, which began when Egypt closed its embassy in Tehran.”

In the meantime Ahmed Ahmadinejad is enjoying an important, but temporary publicity victory.

The Egyptian president's visit to China after the stopover in Tehran aroused comment as well as considerable speculation.

One evaluation written jointly by David Schenker (  the Washington Institute) and Christina Lin (the Johns Hopkins University Center for Transatlantic Relations), highlighted the following points:

"No doubt, Morsi's effort to recalibrate Egypt's foreign policy orientation away from the West is not without problems. Beijing is not altruistic, so investment will be more likely than loans or grants. And should Cairo need credit, it will probably have to raise it from the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, which will have onerous requirements, and will be none too pleased with Egypt's move toward Tehran.
If Morsi gets his way, improved bilateral ties to Beijing will embolden, if not enable, Cairo to downgrade Egypt's ties to Washington. Of course, with the Muslim Brotherhood at the helm -- and with increased domestic repression and unmitigated hostility toward Israel -- this trajectory was perhaps inevitable. But Egypt's shift toward China further complicates the relationship with the U.S. and U.S. policy making in the Middle East. Alas, based on Morsi's new foreign policy tack, Cairo's transformed relations with Beijing promise to be just one of a litany of U.S. concerns with Egypt."
Amos Yadlin  was one of the eight pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak  in 1981. He served for more than 40 years in the IDF as a fighter pilot and went on to become deputy commander of the air force. In 2006 he was appointed head of Military Intelligence, a post he held until his retirement at the end of 2010. During his tenure in MI Israel bombed the al-Kibar reactor. Today he is the executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. In an interview given to Israel Today Amos Yadlin was asked if  diplomacy and sanctions failed to stop Iran’s determined efforts to attain nuclear capability  can we rely on the US to stop Iran? He  said, “My deep feeling is that America will act against Iran, not so much because of Israel, but because of real, genuine American national interests.”

Have a good weekend

Beni                            30^th of August,   2012.

Our stake in the Mars mission

The lake in   the image on this page is an optical illusion created by an over zealous photographer. It is no more than a small reservoir that serves to collect runoff surface water. However, everything else in the photograph is life size and real. The   industrial installation is the factory where I work and where our breakfast parliament convenes. The mountain in the background is Mount Gilboa and the reservoir is in the field across the road. The same field I mention from time to time. The factory, Ricor Cryogenic and Vacuum Systems, started 45 years ago as a very small subsidiary of Palbam, Kibbutz Ein Harod Ihud's stainless steel kitchen equipment plant. The mother company, once the mainstay of Ein Harod's economy has had to adapt to changes in a very competitive market. Ricor has fared better. It functions as a separate entity and today it is one of the world's largest cryogenic cooler manufacturers. Ricor's cryogenic coolers are sold mainly to defence industries in Israel and abroad, however they  have a number of lesser-known   civilian applications too.   An article published  in Yediot Ahronot last week  revealed that  Ricor has a stake in the NASA Mars mission. The "Curiosity" rover exploring a specific area on the surface of Mars is equipped with a "made in Israel" component. The interface of the CheMin system (chemicals and minerals) installed in the craft's laboratory equipment is cooled to -173°C by a miniature cryogenic cooler. The cooler designed to NASA's specifications was manufactured by Ricor. You can view the newspaper article by opening the hyperlink below:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4267605,00.html

There are a few inaccuracies in the article, nevertheless, none of them detract from the vital role the  cooler plays in the analysis of dust and rock samples collected on Mars.

Ricor markets and services its products in the U.S. through “Ricor USA” at Nashua, New Hampshire. “RicorSolar” a promising startup spawned   by Ricor Cryogenic & Vacuum Systems in 2009 is engaged in  developing and manufacturing Solar Stirling engines.

Back on earth, Israel’s ongoing verbal conflict with Iran hasn’t abated at all.

This week Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic summed up the latest round as follows: "It has been a tumultuous couple of weeks in the Iran-Israel War, and it hasn't even started yet.

Over the past few days, Iranian leaders have promised Israel's coming destruction about half a dozen times, and have gotten so overheated they've begun to mix metaphors: There has been much talk about wiping the cancerous tumor of Zionism from the map, and so on. The Iranians' language has become sufficiently genocidal that even the secretary-general of the United Nations, not generally known as a hotbed of Zionist feeling, said he was 'dismayed by the remarks threatening Israel's existence.'

Israel's leaders are also 'dismayed.' But their dismay is prompted by something much deeper than rhetoric. They understand that much of the civilized world is prepared to live with a nuclear Iran, and they harbor seemingly ineradicable fears that President Barack Obama, and his Western allies, might secretly be willing to do the same.

The Israelis -- Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in particular -- have been suggesting to the news media these past two weeks that the time is nearly at hand for a strike on Iran's nuclear sites."

Describing the latest developments Goldberg said, "President Shimon Peres crossed the line into overt political interference last week when he said that Israel 'cannot do it alone.' He went on, 'It is clear to us that we have to proceed together with America."                                                                                                                                              The casual onlooker will no doubt take Peres' opinion as a sincere expression of concern for the outcome of a potentially explosive situation. However, some political commentators have hinted that Shimon Peres, once a wily politician is part and parcel of the "Israel bluff."   They say he is playing the "good cop" role. I think that theory is too farfetched                True to form, we are always looking for a scapegoat.  Brisbane Times columnist Paul McGeough  says, "Some in Israel have taken to blaming Obama for not saving Israel from itself. He quotes from  Ari Shavit's article in  Haaretz (mentioned  last week): "The key to preventing disaster is … in the hands of the US President. His most important speech is the one he has not made so far - the Iran speech." Namely, a clear, unequivocal statement promising to attack Iran if it starts "weaponizing."

McGeough reasons, "Yes, Obama is running for re-election, and it is hard to leave Ohio and Florida. But a trip to Israel -- a place he hasn't visited as president -- would put Iran on notice that Obama is deadly serious about thwarting their plans. "

“Until recently, I have always been sceptical about the idea that Israel will stage a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But, in recent months, I’ve changed my mind, because so many people I know who follow the issue much more closely than me, seem convinced that it will indeed happen.” Said columnist/blogger Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. Although few of the people Rachman quotes are mentioned by name I don’t disregard his conclusions.

He says his change of mind was brought about by conversations with, “A senior British defence official, one of the best think-tank analysts, Mark Fitzpatrick of the IISS; another top think-tanker from the US. Most recently, a French diplomat who deals with the Iran dossier, told me that he expected an Israeli attack within weeks.” “ By comparison,” he says,” I’ve met relatively few people who follow the issue closely, who discount the possibility of an Israeli attack. One friend at the State Department in Washington told me he regards the Israelis as ’complete bullshitters’– and does not believe their threats to stage a unilateral attack. But he seems to be a minority voice.”

Rachman’s change of mind appears to be incomplete,” Still, there is one thing that gives me pause. Any Israeli government that gave the order for a unilateral attack would not just be taking an enormous security risk. The evidence suggests that they would also be taking a big domestic political gamble. A  new poll from the Israel Democracy Institute, published by Haaretz, shows just 27% of Israelis support a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

If Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, believes his own argument that stopping the Iranian nuclear programme is a matter of national survival, then he might just ignore public opinion. But Netanyahu is also a politician. And those polls might yet sway him.”

On Sunday I visited a few out of the way places on a trip to the Golan Heights.

My brother-in-law works in quarry reclamation programmes supervised by the Israel Lands Administration. Worked out quarries in Israel, the West Bank and the Golan Heights are converted to recreational sites. Usually the site's topography determines the particular reclamation plan and its purpose. Many exhausted quarries are turned into parks, often with an open-air theatre set in an excavated rock face. The companies that work the quarries pay a reclamation tax based on the volume of rock excavated. The money levied by the tax is paid into a fund for the reclamation work carried out at a later date.

Local authorities also participate in funding the reclamation work.

The Israel Lands Administration is also responsible for   planning  and supervising  the construction of water conservation works. Driving across the Golan Heights we passed a number of reservoirs constructed for conserving surface water. In many places on the Golan Heights the soil has a high clay content.  As a result large volume of the surface water doesn't seep through the soil to fill the aquifers. A third of the water flowing into the Sea of Galilee comes from streams flowing from the Golan Heights. A chain of 20 reservoirs linked across the Golan Heights has increased water conservation significantly.

Six years ago a large reservoir was constructed  close to the  border with Syria near the Kuneitra border crossing.  From a distance we could clearly make out the expanse of water, the ruins of  Kuneitra destroyed in the Yom Kippur War and the mountain range in the background, strangely reminiscent of our local reflection in the pond.

Have a good weekend

Beni                            23^rd of August, 2012.

Steadfast chatterboxes

"It won't happen." Z assured me. Z is arguably the most sagacious of our breakfast parliament* sages. He was referring to the probability of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. I didn't really need his warranty, Maariv columnist Ben Caspit had already promised his readers, "You can all relax — in the last two weeks, nothing new has happened with regard to an attack on Iran. The cabinet hasn’t convened, the defence minister hasn’t summoned the IDF general staff and no new information has been received. Everything that is known today was known two months ago."

*The "breakfast parliament" is an elite group of "know-alls" that gathers on weekdays over breakfast in the factory where I work.

 An editorial in the New York Times this week echoed the same doubt, "Israeli leaders are again talking about possible military action against Iran. This is, at best, mischievous and, at worst, irresponsible, especially when diplomacy has time to run."

Netanyahu and Barak are sure we are running out of time. Diplomacy and even sanctions are only buying Iran time to enrich more uranium.

The Obama administration doesn't share that assessment. President Obama insists we still have time.

 "Time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions."

Despite reports that the Obama administration and the Israeli government hold similar views regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, they disagree on key aspects of that threat.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak coined the phrase “zone of immunity” warning that Iran is moving crucial elements of its nuclear programme into deep bunkers where they can no longer be destroyed from the air.

Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit wrote of an interview with the defence minister. For some unexplained reason Shavit didn’t refer to him by name instead he used the pseudonym “decision-maker.” Barak explained the difference in assessments as follows:  “For the Americans, the Iranians are not yet approaching the immunity zone − because the Americans have much larger bombers and bombs, and the ability to repeat the operation many times.              But for us, Iran could soon enter the immunity zone and when that happens, it means putting a matter that is vital to our survival in the hands of the United States. Israel cannot allow this to happen. It cannot place the responsibility for its security and future in the hands of even its best and most loyal friend.” Netanyahu too made an oblique reference to self-reliance. When he visited Kerem Shalom last week he said that Israel’s security is dependent on Israel alone.

Various commentators have related to the advantages and disadvantages of attacking Iran before or following the U.S. presidential elections. Obviously this is an inopportune time for the U.S to initiate or to be drawn into an attack on Iran. Sensing that time is running out Netanyahu and Barak might be tempted to decide that this year  is the best time to attack Iran, with or without U.S help. The IDF cannot undertake a sustained attack flying multiple sorties. Furthermore its bunker-buster bombs are less effective than the newer more powerful bombs that the U.S. air-force has in its arsenal.                                                       The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey summed up the situation in one sentence, "Israel can delay but not destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities."                                                                                                                         Israeli political affairs analyst  and journalist  Amnon Abramovich preferred quoting  Niccolò Machiavelli “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
In his column in The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg gave seven reasons why Israel should not attack Iran's nuclear facilities and quoted from Aluf Benn, the editor of Haaretz, "All the signs show that the 'international community,' meaning the western powers and the U.S. in the lead, seem to have reconciled themselves with Israel's talk of a military strike - and now they are pushing Netanyahu to stand by his rhetoric and send his bombers to their targets in Iran. In general terms, the market has already accounted for the Israeli strike in its assessment of the risk of the undertaking, and it is now waiting for the expectation to be realized." And then, of course, there is Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad, who warned earlier this month that Iran should fear an Israeli strike over the next twelve weeks.
Goldberg reasons, “Obviously, the Obama Administration believes that Netanyahu and Barak are itching to give the strike order soon. Otherwise, why would it have sent half the senior national security team to Israel over the past several weeks?”
Goldberg's seventh reason is worth quoting verbatim, "The current American president is deeply serious about preventing Iran from going nuclear. I believe he would eventually use force (more effectively, obviously, than Israel) to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. His position will be severely compromised if Israel jumps the gun and attacks now. Again, what I worry about, at bottom, is that an Israeli attack would inadvertently create conditions for an acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program."                                                                                                                              “Are Israelis tough enough for long war with Iran?” asked Reuters  Middle East correspondent Dan Williams. His piece was quoted by The Daily Star Lebanon without mentioning the source.                                                                                                            “Philip Handleman, U.S.-based co-author of “Air Combat Reader – Historic Feats and Aviation Legends,” said, “He believed Israel was willing to tackle Iran though bereft of the long-range bombers and refueling planes available to the Americans.                                                                                                                                                 I don’t think Israel would be ‘banking on’ subsequent U.S. military involvement, though that might very well happen. If Israel strikes, it would be out of a pureness of heart, a very primordial survivalist instinct,” and added “Israel’s resilience has been underestimated in the past.”

Ben Caspit (quoted above) asked, “How resolute are they?

“Netanyahu and Barak: Steadfast chatterboxes,” was the heading he chose for his column. A few days earlier Netanyahu criticized the news media for  writing  and talking too much about the likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He called them chatterboxes.  

“Personally, I have a hard time believing those two,” said Caspit.                                      Netanyahu, because he has never made a truly difficult decision  in his life. The few tough ones he did make were bad. The man who was scared to impose a tax on fruits and vegetables is going to go to war with Iran?   ( Recently Netanyahu vacillated, unable to decide to impose  added value tax on fruit and vegetables).

Is the man who didn’t want to take down a Syrian reactor in a simple surgical strike the same man who will lead the IDF in a complicated, critical and dangerous operation, 1,500 kilometers deep into Iran? (According to reliable reports Netanyahu opposed the attack on the Syrian reactor. The reactor was destroyed but Israel has never confirmed that it carried out the attack)

Does all of this mean that they are really bluffing? I don’t know. They have the right to bluff, and they have the right not to bluff. They should sit, discuss, go over information, and decide already. They are leaders, and the power is in their hands. For the moment, their "determination" amounts to bluster. From the outside, it seems like they are not being taken seriously inside Israel, nor the rest of the world for getting too worked up. Who knows, maybe in the end they’ll bomb Iran just to prove they were serious.”.

Earlier last week, a leak to the Yediot Ahronot revealed that the cream of Israel's military leaders are against attacking  Iran - known in its aseptic version as a  "preemptive strike".
It's an impressive cast of characters. Here we have the Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz; the chief of operations of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Ya'akov Ayash; Tamir Pardo, the head of the  Mossad; Aviv Kochavi, who heads the Military Intelligence Directorate; the department heads of Mossad; the head of the Israeli Air Force Amir Eshel; not to mention at least four ministers of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's eight-man "kitchen cabinet".

Some people have expressed qualified support for an attack  . They say they would only support an attack on Iran if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei - or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors - announced a major weaponization game changer.. Others  like retired Mossad heads Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy and former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi say they will only support an attack if the US is on board.

Veteran Israeli columnists Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer wrote,“Many in the US, including, so it seems, Obama Administration officials, are convinced that the military operation Netanyahu and Barak are promoting is actually designed to achieve one thing — to drag the US, contrary to its will, into a war against Iran. If Israel encounters difficulties the Americans will have no choice but to act. Barak firmly denied such alleged intentions. He evaluates that the United States will not get involved in war, but rather will do its best to bring it to an end. However, it will give Israel the keys to its emergency depots, set up in Israel in the past. It's all that Israel will need. [In the late 1980s, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the US invested heavily in building up emergency military depots in Israel. These depots facilitated the American rapid deployment during the Gulf war. The depots are still being used]”

After Efraim Halevy said that Iran should fear an imminent  Israeli strike,. Agence France-Presse (AFP) checked the Iranian reaction to all the Israeli sabre-rattling. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramim Mehmanparast commented, "In our calculations, we aren't taking these claims very seriously because we see them as hollow and baseless,"            “It seems that Netanyahu and Barak are making a special effort now to prepare the Israeli public for an attack on Iran,” said Shlomo Brom, a former commander of the army’s Strategic Planning Division and currently a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “Any strike could come within the next six months. In the past, rhetoric was directed at pushing the international community to take stronger action against Iran.”

Aaron David Miller, former State Department official and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington policy group, said “ Israel is almost in the comic situation of threatening to strike repeatedly -- this is the third threat in three months -- but nothing ever happens, which in my view is damaging its credibility,”

In conclusion I want to quote Z again (the same breakfast parliament sage).

 He chose those immortal words, "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk."

Have a good weekend

Beni,                           16^th of August, 2012.

The Day of the Drones

"Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. " Car Von Clausewitz.                                                                                       The foiled terrorist attack at the Kerem Shalom border crossing adjacent to Gaza and Sinai on Sunday certainly proved the Prussian military theorist wrong.                                            An unidentified terrorist group numbering 35 Sinai Bedouins attacked an Egyptian border police post, killed 16 policemen and stole two vehicles and armaments. On Sunday night they attempted to burst through the Kerem Shalom border crossing determined to attack Israeli civilian and military targets.. One vehicle exploded before it reached the crossing, the other, a Fahd type armoured personnel carrier, rammed through the barrier and drove south, apparently by mistake.  It was pursued and destroyed by combined fire from IDF tanks and an airforce drone.  Intelligence alerts received well in advance enabled the IDF    to prepare a “warm welcome” for the terrorists.

The ever increasing use of drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) in military engagements has changed modern warfare. P.W. Singer author of “Wired for War,” wrote, “And now we possess a technology that removes the last political barriers to war. The strongest appeal of unmanned systems is that we don’t have to send someone’s son or daughter into harm’s way. But when politicians can avoid the political consequences of the condolence letter — and the impact that military casualties have on voters and on the news media — they no longer treat the previously weighty matters of war and peace the same way. “   So far  Singer’s comments are equally applicable to the IDF and the Israeli public. He reminds us that. ”Today’s unmanned systems are only the beginning. The original Predator, which went into service in 1995, lacked even GPS and was initially unarmed; newer models can take off and land on their own, and carry smart sensors that can detect a disruption in the dirt a mile below the plane and trace footprints back to an enemy hide-out.                There is not a single new manned combat aircraft under research and development at any major Western aerospace company, and the Air Force is training more operators of unmanned aerial systems than fighter and bomber pilots combined. In 2011, unmanned systems carried out strikes from Afghanistan to Yemen. The most notable of these continuing operations is the not-so-covert war in Pakistan, where the United States has carried out more than 300 drone strikes since 2004. “  

“The flight of the drones,” was the title of a lead article that appeared in The Economist  in October last year. The author claimed, “Over the past decade UAVs have become the counter-terrorism weapon of choice. Since 2005 there has been a 1,200% increase in combat air patrols by UAVs. Hardly a month passes without claims that another al-Qaeda or Taliban leader has been taken out by drone-launched missiles.”

About the same time Thomas L. Friedman wrote, “If we don’t storm our own brains and redirect our Arab foreign aid to education for employment, we’ll forever be killing the No. 2 man in Al Qaeda.”   Friedman is probably right, however the Arab recipients of US aid in the Middle East prefer the money to western education and democracy.  

The same article in the Economist further detailed the remarkable abilities of one type of “loitering drone.” “The grim Reaper's ability to loiter for up to 24 hours, minutely observe human activity from five miles above while transmitting “full motion video” to its controllers and strike with pinpoint accuracy, has made it the essential weapon in America's ‘long war’.”                                                                                                                                Ten years ago Frida Berrigan was early to question the ethics of  “War by Remote Control?” in a piece in the New York Times she wrote, “The Central Intelligence Agency recently fired the opening salvo in a new phase of the war on terrorism, ushering in the "war by remote control." Using the Predator, an unmanned surveillance plane, the CIA tracked and destroyed a car carrying Al Qaeda's "top man in Yemen," Qaed Salim Sinan Al-Harethi. The November 3^rd  attack, the first concrete instance of the Bush preemptive strike policy, signals a radical escalation in the war on terrorism, and raises a number of serious issues.”                                                                                                                             Ms. Berrigan quoted   Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh who had condemned the attack as a "summary execution that violates human rights." “Her comments are liable to hit a nerve in the Bush administration, which has criticized and sought to distance itself from the Israeli policy of "targeted killings" of Palestinian terrorists,” said Berrigan.                      Three years ago I wrote about ethical reservations regarding the use of armed UAVs. Journalist Roger Cohen had a number of ethical qualms about this detached remotely controlled killing. In an  article he wrote for the New York Times Cohen noted that Obama had authorised as many drone strikes in Pakistan in nine and a half months as George W. Bush did in his last three years in office — at least 41 C.I.A. missile strikes, or about one a week, that may have killed more than 500 people. Cohen was appalled by the lack of accountability regarding these "hits." Of course a lot more “people” have been “taken out” since then. Some of the deceased have been mentioned by name others are often referred to in the news media as – activists, militants, fighters,  insurgents, gunmen and other almost innocuous synonyms. "The dead have included high-value targets like Osama bin Laden’s oldest son and Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban leader in Pakistan — as well as bystanders, sometimes referred to as 'collateral damage,'.” said Cohen.                                                He also quoted Singer, "These targeted international killings are no less real and indeed more insidious, for their video-game aspect. The thing about robotic warfare is you can watch people get vaporized on a screen in Langley, Virginia, and then drive home for dinner with the kids.”                                                                                                               Watching the video footage of the terrorists being incinerated in their stolen personnel carrier near the Kerem Shalom crossing, I thought of family and friends in the Gaza periphery communities nearby and sat down to dinner without giving it a second thought. However, there is a difference, Langley is a world away from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Our enemies are much closer. Few Israelis have ethical qualms about the use of drones in actions like the one at Kerem Shalom or even targeted killings.                    Hamas and Hezbollah frequently use “human shields” whereas the IDF strives  to reduce collateral damage to a minimum by attacking with greater precision, pinpointing the target and using smaller and more accurate missiles when required.

I quote again from the Economist article of October 8^th 2011. “So far, the use of drones has not fundamentally challenged the Geneva Convention-based Law of Armed Conflict. This requires that before an attack, any weapons system (whether manned or unmanned) must be able to verify that targets are legitimate military ones, take all reasonable precautions to minimise civilian harm and avoid disproportionate collateral damage.”

In  May 2010  a Reuters report quoted unnamed counter-terrorism officials who speculated that the Obama administration's closure of the secret CIA interrogation centres and intent to close the Guantanamo Bay prison had a direct influence on the expansion of the drone targeted killings. According to the officials, the killings are necessary because there is no longer any place to put captured terrorists.”                                                                      The same argument was phrased differently in another publication, “Yet the administration’s very success at killing terrorism suspects has been shadowed by a suspicion: that          Mr. Obama has avoided the complications of detention by deciding, in effect, to take no prisoners alive. While scores of suspects have been killed under Mr. Obama, only one has been taken into American custody, and the president has balked at adding new prisoners to Guantánamo. Mr. Obama’s aides deny such a policy, arguing that capture is often impossible in the rugged tribal areas of Pakistan and Yemen and that many terrorist suspects are in foreign prisons because of American tips.”

The ever increasing demand for UAVs has been tempered by the craft’s disadvantages. Although UAV’s are cheaper than conventional piloted aircraft some of the newer, larger and better equipped drones, like the “Global Hawk” cost a king’s ransom.  Providing them with the  means  to keep them out of harm’s way is now an essential part  of their design and development.

In the August edition of Jane’s International Defence Review  the magazine’s correspondents Nick Brown and Caitlin Harrington Lee surveyed some of the UAV’s disadvantages. “They remain vulnerable to ground fire and other air assets.”  “Supporters of UAVs argue that all of this is acceptable because unmanned systems were designed to be disposable, or at least more disposable than manned platforms.” The authors  cite the principle that UAVs were designed for the jobs deemed too dull, dirty and dangerous for humans. “However,” they say, “there are gradations of  how disposable the craft is  and no operator can realistically afford to treat anything but the very low-level systems as such.”

The IDF prefers to use its own locally manufactured unmanned aircraft.   Like other local military systems manufacturers, the industries producing UAVs  rely a lot on exporting their products to foreign customers. One indigenous UAV ,the Heron, has been sold to more than 40 countries. Its operational features include a long-distance range, the ability to stay aloft for 52 hours non-stop and tracking and targeting capabilities. The Heron is able to carry out complex functions such as in-flight refuelling and slotting into strategic missile defence systems. It carries 250 kg of ordnance, mainly air to ground missiles. With this load, the Heron can reach an altitude of 11,000 metres. Flying empty, it can reach a height of 13,700 metres. This means that the Heron can fly above regular commercial air traffic without becoming icebound thanks to another special feature, which is important in the freezing Afghan winters.     An additional advantage is its price. It is cheaper than similar UAVs.        Ethical reservations concerning the use of UAVs shouldn’t be dismissed without due consideration. Improved technology provides the operator with better tools to do the job with minimum collateral damage. The day of the drones has come.

Have a good weekend

Beni                                        9^th of August, 2012.

  

A ticket to ride.

The relatively short section of route 71 linking Afula and Beit Shean, is a road I often travel. I’m familiar with every bend and turn and notice even slight changes along its course.

Lately, extensive development work conducted on a stretch of land a short distance south of the road has impeded the smooth flow of traffic along this route.           For several months now a fleet of heavy construction machines – bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks have been levelling a swath of land parallel to the road.. Earth is carted away and track ballast is brought in via the road.  A sign nearby conveys a consoling message to impatient motorists forced to trail behind trucks working on the project. “Construction work on the Jezreel Valley railway is underway."  Observant drivers will no doubt recall that the old Ottoman railroad was constructed along the very same route. The British mandatory government inherited the Turkish railways authority in this country and expanded it further. With the outbreak of the War of Independence   the Jezreel Valley railway  ceased to function. 

Although the sleepers and rails of the old Turkish railway have “disappeared,” many of the station houses along the line are still standing.

As early as 1865 the deputy British consul in Haifa  proposed the construction of a railway from the port of Haifa to Baghdad. In his proposal he described a line that would run through the Jezreel Valley with a possible extension to Damascus. Commercial and national intrigues involving British, French, German and Turkish interests caused many delays between the planning of the railway and the laying of the tracks. Finally forty years later on October 15, 1905 the first train left Haifa for Damascus.

At first the Jezreel Valley railway served mainly for delivering construction materials from the Haifa port for continuing the work on the main Hejaz railway line. The Hejaz railway was built for ideological, religious, and to a lesser extent military needs. Over the years the the Jezreel Valley line served for transferring products from the  Hauran (part of the  present day Golan Heights, Syria and Jordan) to the Mediterranean.                                                 Of the various groups that competed for the construction of the Jezreel Valley railway, one of them the Lebanese Sursuk family owned large tracts of land in the Jezreel Valley and the Houran. After the opening of the Haifa-Damascus railway Joshua Hankin negotiated with the Sursuk family for the sale of its Jezreel Valley lands. However, it wasn’t till 1920 that the purchase was concluded. The first group of Jewish pioneers to settle on the newly acquired land pitched their tents by Gideon’s Spring in October 1921. They called their new home Ein Harod.

Since 1948 there have been several failed attempts to resurrect the Jezreel Valley railway. Finally, a large-scale project to build a new standard gauge railway from Haifa to Beit Shean  along roughly the same route as the historical valley railway began in 2011 and is expected to be completed in 2016.                                                                          Obviously a commuter train service hardly justifies the considerable investment and the running costs involved in the project. The project's rationale can be found in the second stage of the plan. The supplement states that the railway will be extended beyond Beit Shean as far as the Sheikh Hussein Bridge over the Jordan River in the Beit She'an Valley. From there it is due to continue to Irbid in Jordan, where it will link with the Jordanian railway system. Incoming Israel Ports Development & Assets Company chairman Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, is responsible for liaison with the Jordanian government. As far as I know no extension to Damascus is being considered at the present time.

Nevertheless, Syria is very much "on our minds."  Yediot Ahronot’s security correspondent Alex Fishman wrote about the CIA’s efforts to obtain accurate and reliable information about the rebel forces in Syria. Even satellite surveillance and intelligence gleaned from Turkish, Jordanian and Israeli sources don’t provide enough information.                                           Washington Institute research fellow David Pollock returned recently from a visit to Turkey where together with a European delegation he met over 100 members of the Syrian opposition. In the report he published after his return Pollock said, “One of my strongest impressions is that things are not what they seem. It is very difficult on the ground to be sure who it is that you are really talking to and what they represent.”.. “Many times throughout the trip, we experienced people privately telling some of us one thing and others something completely different, and talking about each other in quite derogatory ways behind each other’s backs.” With reference to the Muslim Brotherhood he said, “It is pervasive not only within the Syrian National Council (SNC), but among many opposition groups – mostly outside Syria.” From his conversations Pollock concluded, “There is a striking cynicism and anger among fighters within Syria toward the outside world for not providing enough practical support.”…”Sadly, most of these Syrians hold Israel responsible for preventing greater U.S. support. Aside from one exception, this view was nearly unanimous. In spite of, or perhaps because of, this very weird perception about Israel’s power, whenever we asked, ‘If Israel offered weapons or help, would you take it?’ the answer was almost always, ‘definitely!’ “
Alex Fishman believes the assassination of top Syrian defence officials was not necessarily carried out by the rebels. "This story has too many hallmarks of a blow delivered by an orderly spy agency capable of penetrating the security around Syria's top brass. Turkish intelligence, for example, has the abilities and also the interest – in conjunction with the Americans – to avenge the downing of the Turkish jet by the Syrians a few weeks ago."

In a lead article on the Syrian opposition forces The Economist said, "Rather than try to entrench themselves in urban areas, they now tend to carry out hit-

and-run raids to exhaust and demoralise government soldiers. Rebel attacks are better co-coordinated, thanks to better communications equipment.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), as the armed opposition is known, is getting more advice from Western and Gulf friends than it lets on. The FSA’s improved skills are thanks to the rising number of defections from Assad’s forces. Western diplomats are taking the Syrian National Council  less seriously, since it lacks credibility in Syria, and are shifting their focus to the FSA and internal groups.”

In another report David Pollock mentions Syria’s Kurdish minority, ”A sudden political shift among Syria's three million Kurds, who now control much of the country's border with Turkey, provides an opportunity for the United States to better coordinate its policy with regional allies and to encourage the Syrian opposition to respect minority rights.

While world attention focuses on bombings and clashes in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's Kurds buried their internal differences in mid-July, with Iraqi Kurdish help and Turkey's blessing, and then promptly kicked Syrian regime forces out of their territory. This is a major blow to the regime, potentially clearing the northern approaches to Aleppo for opposition forces. But Kurdish relations with the rest of the Syrian opposition remain a deeply divisive issue.”

The Syrian opposition and the Kurdish parties, however, remain sharply at odds over Kurdish demands for recognition as a distinct people inside Syria, with their own cultural and linguistic rights under some form of "political decentralization." According to senior Syrian opposition figures, tribal sheikhs, and Free Syrian Army (FSA) commanders in Antakya and Istanbul, if the Kurds get autonomy, then what about Syria's multitude of other minorities? Moreover, these figures say, Turkey will strive to block any such Arab-Kurdish agreement in Syria.

Earlier this week Andrew J. Tabler, Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute

appeared before the U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. Summing up the impasse in the Security Council and the Administration's reluctance to get involved in any "boots on the ground" presence in Syria, he said,  “Meanwhile, Washington has given its Middle East allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar a nod to support the opposition with lethal as well as nonlethal assistance."… "The picture is still far from clear, but the Syrian opposition can perhaps be best described as headless but not leaderless with a generally flat structure. Had we based our strategy last winter on what was happening on the ground in Syria, we would have much better visibility in terms of both military operations and these groups’ political aspirations."

Now the situation has changed, "Other forces, some inimical to U.S. interests, are stepping in to fill the void. Anecdotal and media reports indicate that individuals and governments in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, as well as others, are sending much-needed lethal support to the opposition. In terms of state policy, all openly support the U.S. short-term interest of bringing down the Assad regime. But it is far from clear if they support U.S. long-term interests of a democratic and secular Syria that respects minority rights and shuns terrorism, let alone supports Middle East peace. In addition, forces” such as al-Qaeda affiliates, including Jabhat al-Nusra, have established a presence in Syria. There are increased reports over the last few months of increased foreign fighters entering Syria."

Our border with Lebanon, a quiet border since the Second Lebanon War and the border with Syria on the Golan Heights, quiet since the Yom Kippur War, are being watched closely. Neither Hezbollah nor Syria are expected to attack Israel, however the large numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing to Turkey and Jordan might try to cross infiltrate into Israel.  Along the border on the Golan Heights bulldozers have been excavating deep moat-like anti-personnel     trenches. In addition rolls of concertina barbed wire will help deter would be infiltrators.

At the moment that train ride to Damascus seems more remote than ever. Maybe I’ll settle for a ride to Beit Shean or Haifa

Have a good weekend

Beni                2^nd of  August,  2012.