“The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.” Song of Solomon 2:12
Our spring festival, Pesach has arrived.
On Friday Millions of Jews all over the world will celebrate Pesach/Passover, the oldest festival in the Hebrew calendar. Whenever Pesach is mentioned the topic of “Chametz” arises. The accepted Orthodox definition of Chametz is a food product that is made from one of five types of grain, and has been combined with water and left to stand for longer than eighteen minutes. As we know observant Jews meticulously remove and burn every trace of leavened food products found in their homes. On a household scale this isn’t really a problem, however when it comes to public and national institutions where huge quantities are involved, a waste not want not policy is adopted. The problem of obviating the possession of Chametz during the week of Pesach was solved by symbolically selling the nation’s chametz to a non Jew. For the past fifteen years Jabber Hussein, a Muslim Arab who lives in Abu Gosh signs an agreement with Israel’s chief rabbis whereby he buys all the public chametz in the country. He writes a cheque for $27,000, a deposit for the purchase. His money is returned after the holiday. This national self-deception brings to mind the bluff I mentioned last week. Jeffrey Goldberg’s opinion that Prime Minister Netanyahu is bluffing: “He has never had any intention of launching air and missile strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, and is working behind the scenes with Obama to stop Iran through sanctions.” Jeffrey Goldberg, Roger Cohen, Mark Perry and others quote many anonymous former high ranking persons in support of their claims. Perry in particular has an axe to grind. He served as an unofficial advisor to PLO Chairman and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from 1989 to 2004. With reference to the article in Foreign Policy on the "Azerbaijan Connection" journalist Rafael Frankel complained that Perry wrote the piece without one single on-the-record source. Israeli Arab affairs analyst Ehud Yaari also took Perry to task. Yaari pointed out that the former Soviet era airfields in Azerbaijan mentioned by Perry are in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region inaccessible to Azerbaijan. Furthermore Israeli fighter bombers refuelling in Azerbaijan would have to fly over Turkey on the return journey to Israel, an extremely unlikely flight route.
Reputable media outlets insist on named sources because of accountability. Anonymous sources are accountable to no one. There is no consequence to unnamed sources getting facts wrong, telling half-truths, or outright lying. Anonymous sources can use the media for their own purposes as well. Perhaps one of the people quoted in Perry’s story has a personal axe to grind with the Mossad. Perhaps he or she is an opponent of going to war with Iran and feels that placing such a story in a prominent magazine will diminish those chances. There is no way to know his or her motivation for talking to the author of this article and therefore no way to confirm the veracity of the claims.
By contrast Jane’s Defence Weekly, a source I often quote from in my letters, is a very reputable publication. It’s a weekly magazine reporting on military and corporate affairs, one of a number of military-related publications named after John F.T. Jane, an Englishman who first published Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships in 1898.
Last week Jeremy Binnie, the magazine’s Middle East and Africa editor posted an article entitled ”Radar affray: Israeli-Azeri contract threatens Iran.” Binnie says Israel has outmanoeuvred Iran by signing a major deal to sell equipment to Azerbaijan. Despite that country’s attempts to convince Tehran that its growing defence cooperation with Israel is not a threat to its southern neighbour, Iran must be seriously concerned. Earlier this year Israel signed a $1.6 billion deal to supply anti-missile systems, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), intelligence equipment and other systems to Azerbaijan.
The sale included two Green Pine radar systems. For some time now Azerbaijan and Armenia have been at loggerheads over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Russia is eager to freeze the situation and prevent an outbreak of ethnic feuds in neighbouring states. In a masterly move the Russians supplied both Armenia and Azerbaijan with S-300 radar defence systems, thereby stalemating aggressive intentions by either or both sides in the dispute. In this situation it would seem that the Green Pine radar system is superfluous.
However, from Israel’s point of view the advantage in having the Green Pine positioned in Azerbaijan is that it could provide advance warning of long-range missiles being fired from northwestern Iran. In addition the Green Pine could be moved to another location for the purpose of tracking Iranian missile test launches. The Green Pine system is an integral part of the Arrow ballistic missile defence system. An additional possibility is that the Green Pine system could be integrated with Azerbaijan’s S-300 radar systems. Binnie says, ”Israeli technicians would relish the opportunity to examine the most advanced air-defence system Russia offers for export. Understandably the Russians would try to prevent this happening. If the S-300 is compromised by the Israelis it would be less attractive to potential customers.” Last but certainly not least, the Iranians may also be alarmed by reports that the Green Pine system could be used as a directed energy weapon. It could be used to jam Iranian air-defence radars, thereby opening a door for an Israeli air strike on Iran’s strategic weapons facilities. The Green Pine system is an indigenous Israeli development that is jointly funded and produced with the United States.
The cover of the same issue of Jane’s carried the title “Hard target – Israeli options for striking Iran’s nuclear sites.” The lead article in the magazine was headed, “Studies in pre-emption.” The six-page article presented a well argued analysis of Israel’s attack options. Admittedly this isn’t the first time these options have been presented by the Israeli and foreign new media. However, the article in Jane’s was thoroughly researched and supported by reliable sources.
Jane’s analyses the various attack avenues, their advantages and disadvantages as well as the crucial need to refuel en route to the targets or on the return journey. The authors conclude their assessment with the following remarks. “The significant distances involved and the hardened features of Iran’s nuclear facilities make any ‘massive surprise’ aerial attack a very high-risk operation for Israel to undertake on its own. As a result Israel will be keen to secure US support for any military actions against Iran.” This is unlikely in an election year. Nevertheless, the authors hinge their reasoning on the existential threat element. “The belief that Iran might be on the cusp of weaponising its nuclear ambitions could nevertheless spur the Israelis into military action.”
Most of the subtle Azerbaijan strategy concerns Israeli and foreign think tanks, Middle East analysts, but I don’t think rank and file Israelis are overly concerned about it this week. We are overburdened with the logistics of Pesach. Commuting to and from the Seder (Passover meal), or alternatively how to accommodate all the guests coming to your Seder. Some of them might prefer to stay the night, so you need to provide a place for them to stay. This year too I am in charge of the seating arrangements for Ein Harod’s communal Seder. Not an easy task, however, with the help of computer aids we manage to satisfy everyone. Ein Harod like the majority of kibbutz communities is a decidedly secular kibbutz.
The Haggadah, recounts the narrative of the exodus from Egypt. The extant text has evolved since it was first transmitted from the oral traditional narrative to a written text in the thirteenth century. The kibbutz Haggadah draws heavily on the traditional texts combining them with modern themes. One researcher described it as follows, “It was written by people who left their families and birth lands, and moved to the Land of Israel to re-create themselves. They sat around the Seder table during the 1920s and 30s, close to the sites where the historical events took place but far removed from their families and traditional Seder nights, and tried to reconnect, in an honest and direct way, to their Jewish roots.
In practice, they were searching for themselves and their personal-kibbutz-national stories among the holiday stories. In doing so, they created a new tradition.
A kibbutz Pessah is the creation of dedicated secularists, who believed they were taking part in something much larger. They did not see their modern lives as disconnected from thousands of years of Jewish history, but rather as a link in the chain. “
Click on the hyperlink below to open a video I made of our Cutting of the Omer ceremony in 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ6rpuCdkHo
Chag Pesach Sameach
Beni 6th of April, 2012
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