Borders

It was raining and hard to see the landmarks pointed out by our guide. Nevertheless we heard him out before taking shelter in the mosque.

The occasion was a tour we made with Dr. Shaul Arieli, widely considered to be one of Israel’s leading experts on the possible course of the future Israeli-Palestinian border and the route of the separation barrier. Arieli is a retired IDF colonel who was the head of the Peace Administration under the Barak government. He was an active participant in the Geneva Accords negotiations as well as other initiatives.

We were at Nebi Samuel a high point north of Jerusalem.

The mosque that sheltered us from the rain was built in the eighteenth century, partly with stones taken from a ruined Crusader fortress and church. During the Byzantine period a large monastery was built here. Today there is little left of the wayside Christian hospice that stood here.

The mosque was badly damaged in 1917 when Allenby’s forces attacked the Turkish troops defending the strategic high point. However after the war the British rebuilt it.

This is the traditional burial site of the prophet Samuel, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Indeed there's a tomb in an underground chamber and an ongoing scholarly debate whether or not Samuel's bones are inside it.

Nebi Samuel was one of several stations on our circuit tour of the greater Jerusalem periphery. Here and there we trod gingerly on the “Green Line.” Not green at all but muddy brown, unmarked, a mere figment of the imagination. The security fence/wall however, was far more tangible and unmistakably present. In my neck of the woods the security fence is an effective separation barrier. It was planned to hug the Green Line enclosing the whole of the West Bank. The northern section and much of the Jerusalem corridor is fenced off, however there are gaps. The incomplete sections are along the Jerusalem envelope and in the south. The construction plans for much of the expensive southern length of the fence have been shelved for the time being. Routine security patrols conducted by the IDF, the Palestinian security force and our border police are for the most part able to stop terrorist activity and apprehend sundry villains before they cross the Green Line.

Lines on a map aren’t indelible. The United Nations partition of Palestine line is no longer relevant. It was replaced by the 1949 armistice agreement line, better known as the “Green Line.” When it was first proposed opposition to the security fence came mainly from people who feared it would turn the Green Line from a marking on a map to a fact on the ground. Today the “Greater Israel” philosophy no longer part of the Likud party weltanschauung has become more of a pipe dream than an operative plan. A territorial compromise that leaves the large settlement blocs inside Israel will probably be the shape of any future Israel-Palestinian border.

With a bit of foresight the points of friction where the fence cuts off Palestinian villagers from their fields could have been avoided. In some places the fence planning committee ignored concern for contiguity between villages and their fields. Fortunately appeals to the Israel High Court of Justice have resulted in rulings instructing the IDF to correct cases where land contiguity was ignored.

Defending our borders was put to the test this week following an unprecedented barrage of mortars and rockets fired from Gaza at the periphery communities, towns and further afield beyond Ashkelon and as far as Beer Sheva. Reluctant to embark on a major retaliatory campaign against Gaza, the Israel Air Force was directed to pre-deploy the ‘Iron Dome’ counter-rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) defence system, despite the military reluctance to install it before it is fully prepared. The current fielding is defined as an ‘operational evaluation’ prior to attaining full operational capability.

Despite successful tests Ha'aretz intelligence and military affairs correspondent Yossi Melman.is critical of the Iron Dome System- "It was born in sin. The IDF, and particularly the IAF, did not want it or any other missile protection system. Israel's security concept never believed in actively defending the home front." The vulnerability of Israel’s home front to rocket and missile attacks during the Second Lebanon War caused the government to commission the development of a comprehensive short-range anti-rocket defence system. The Iron Dome concept was completely new. Last week the first ‘Iron Dome’ unit, one of two batteries was deployed near Beer Sheva and a second battery has been installed near Ashkelon.

Iron Dome was designed by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems as a defensive short-range rocket interceptor, operating with extremely short response time. The system has selective target engagement capability, enabling it to automatically engage targets posing significant risk while ignoring targets it predicts will hit empty areas. The system relies on threat warning systems providing early warning for the civil population in the area. It also accurately pinpoints the launch sites of all rockets and mortars fired at targets in the area, providing the IDF with accurate targeting data for counter-attacks.

Melman doesn’t believe the Iron Dome will be able to protect communities close to the Gaza Strip.

Fellow defence analyst Dr. Reuven Pedatzur, a senior lecturer at the Strategic Studies Programme, Tel Aviv University, is a fierce critic of the active defence concept. He exploits every opportunity to attack the Iron Dome System. He claims the system is self-defeating. Pedatzur says the prohibitive cost of the Iron Dome’s interceptors will bankrupt it. He places a price tab of $100,000 on each interceptor whereas the official cost is $30-40,000 a piece. Pedatzur exaggerates both ways. He inflates the cost of the interceptor and gives a bargain price for the enemy rockets. In his zeal to blast the Iron Dome he conveniently overlooks the fact that the system will be operating in tandem with the IAF and the IDF, so let’s wait and see.

The US administration is agonising over its role in the Libyan uprising. Libya is just one foreign military involvement too many. Not yet out of Iraq and heavily committed in Afghanistan, the cost of an additional involvement in terms of American lives lost and US dollars being spent away from home has political consequences.

Sharon Weinberger of the Center for Public Integrity complained about the cost of that opening volley of Tomahawk missiles fired in the assault against targets in Libya -

“At a time when Congress is fighting over every dollar, the cruise missile show of military might was an expenditure of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Each missile costs $1.41 million.”

Thomas L. Friedman said much the same thing in his article in the New York Times - Tribes with Flags- “We have got to get to work on our own country. If the president is ready to take some big, hard, urgent, decisions, shouldn’t they be first about nation-building in America, not in Libya?”

Friedman presented an interesting analysis of the nations that make up the Middle East.

“There are two kinds of states in the Middle East: ‘real countries’ with long histories in their territory and strong national identities (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran); and those that might be called ‘tribes with flags, ’or more artificial states with boundaries drawn in sharp straight lines by pens of colonial powers that have trapped inside their borders myriad tribes and sects who not only never volunteered to live together but have never fully melded into a unified family of citizens. They are Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The tribes and sects that make up these more artificial states have long been held together by the iron fist of colonial powers, kings or military dictators. They have no real ‘citizens’ in the modern sense. Democratic rotations in power are impossible because each tribe lives by the motto ‘rule or die’ — either my tribe or sect is in power or we’re dead.”

Friedman left us out of his analysis. We have a long history as a people in our ancient land, but modern Israel is barely 63 years old. Some of our borders were drawn by colonial powers and one border has yet to be determined. The tribe definition doesn’t quite fit us. Despite differences of opinion the Jewish majority is an increasingly cohesive entity that proudly flies its national blue and white flag. Admittedly some of our minorities feel alienated to varying degrees and we should do more to integrate them; however they still prefer living in a democratic Jewish majority state.

The tribal motto accredited by Friedman ”rule or die” applies well to Syria.

The Alawis number no more than 12% of the population, yet are the ruling faction in Syria. A closer look at the demonstrations held throughout Syria recently and how they were ruthlessly repressed reveals that Bashar al- Assad like his father before him lives by the motto “rule or die.” So far he has managed quell the disturbances. Our own Syria analysts are reluctant to predict what will happen next.

While the US administration is busy trying to hand over the Libyan dilemma to NATO it doesn’t want to face another challenge, this time in Syria.

Michael Singh managing director of The Washington Institute and a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council pointed out inconsistencies in American foreign policy regarding Syria .”More so than the conflicts in Tunisia, Libya, and Bahrain, and perhaps even more than the fall of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the recent violence in Syria has posed a challenge to the Obama administration's strategy in the Middle East.

The conflicting impulses within the administration can be seen in recent statements made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; days ago, she described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a ‘reformer’; in London on March 29, she issued a ‘strong condemnation of the Syrian government's brutal repression of demonstrators.’ Which view of Assad prevails, and how the United States responds to events in Syria, will go a long way toward determining how deeply U.S. policy in the Middle East is altered by the recent turmoil there.”

Nothing excites the imagination more than a good cloak and dagger story. If the plot involves the Mossad then it definitely is an attention grabber.

A few days ago Der Spiegel spun a tale called “The Long Arm of the Mossad” and told how a Palestinian disappeared in the Ukraine and ended up in an Israeli jail in Ashkelon. Of course all the official Israeli spokespersons denied the kidnapping of Dirar Abu Sisi an electrical engineer, a native of Gaza but changed their minds today when he was arraigned in the Petah Tikva magistrate's court for the purpose of extending his detention. Der Spiegel claims that Abu Sisi was abducted because he has information regarding the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit.

When pressed to answer questions about Abu Sisi Prime Minister Netanyahu said he was a member of Hamas.

Commentators here said it seems to be an extraordinary step for the Mossad to go all the way to the Ukraine to apprehend a rank and file member of Hamas.

Have a good weekend

Beni 31^st of March, .2011.