The likelihood of Israel becoming embroiled in a real war has risen significantly in recent months. That’s the conclusion of Military Intelligence, and both senior army officers and the political decision makers are aware of it.
Military Intelligence doesn’t think the likelihood of war is high; it still believes Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas aren’t necessarily interested in a direct, all-out clash. Nevertheless, it’s very evident that the players on the enemy’s side are willing to risk more daring offensive operations, in part because they think Israel has been weakened by its worsening internal crisis, which reduces its strategic room to maneuver.
Given this, Military Intelligence thinks there is now a higher probability that a series of clashes on different fronts could ignite a large-scale, multifront war, even if no one intended it to do so. This is the “perfect storm” intelligence officials have been talking about for months. And it comes on top of the implications of the domestic dispute over the government’s efforts to overhaul the judiciary.
Meanwhile, several of the forecasts surrounding the month of Ramadan, which ends in 10 days, have already come true. There have been two violent clashes between police and Muslim worshippers inside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque (which poured fuel on the fire), fatal terror attacks in the Jordan Valley and Tel Aviv and rocket fire from southern Lebanon, southern Syria and the Gaza Strip.
The Temple Mount will continue to be the focus of attention in the final days of Ramadan, which overlap with the end of Passover and with Orthodox Easter.
The Ramadan escalation has combined with three key processes that have brought about a change in Israel’s strategic environment: reduced U.S. interest in events in the Middle East; a rise in Iran’s self-confidence, reflected in part in its attempts to challenge Israel directly; and increasing instability on the Palestinian front.
The change in America’s attitude has been apparent for years. Washington’s attention has wandered from what is happening here to more important theaters, first and foremost its competition for influence with China and its desire to curb Russia’s military adventurism, in light of the war in Ukraine. Ideas that gained currency during the Obama administration a decade ago are now being put into practice.
There are many signs of this, including America’s demonstrative apathy toward Iranian airstrikes on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates a year ago, its relocation of advanced fighter jets from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean and its cautious responses to attacks on its forces in Syria by Shi’ite militias operating under Iranian direction.
The Israel Defense Forces has lavished praise on its close relations with CENTCOM, the U.S. Army’s Central Command, in the past two years. But here and there, the impression has crept in that the Americans have become less enthusiastic about sharing intelligence and operational plans with Israel.
Even the numerous visits to Israel by senior Biden administration officials and CENTCOM officers can be seen in a less positive light. Some of them aren’t declarations of friendship and affection but reflections of a pragmatic desire to make sure Israel doesn’t do something stupid that would set the Mideast ablaze.
This fact shouldn’t be obscured. Attitudes toward Israel have cooled somewhat, including among professional staffers in Washington. U.S. President Joe Biden voiced sharply worded concern for Israel’s democracy last month, two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (a dismissal that is frozen, for now).
But the Americans also fear Israel will behave irresponsibly in the West Bank and Gaza or drag them into a confrontation with Iran. The discovery of Iranian plans to attack senior U.S. defense officials raised concerns in Washington.
The change in America’s approach to the region has accelerated the detente between Iran and the Sunni Arab states. The clearest example is the reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but there has been a flurry of reciprocal visits throughout the region recently. As part of this process, the long Sunni boycott of Syria over the atrocities Damascus committed during the country’s civil war has also ended.
At the same time, the defense establishment has discerned a gradual change in Tehran’s approach to Israel. Iran has transitioned to a direct strategic rivalry with Israel, and the desire to attack Israel has become much more important in Tehran’s strategic priorities.
The defense establishment’s working assumption is that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued direct orders a few years ago to increase efforts to strike Israeli targets, both inside Israel and in the West Bank, and to increase support for Palestinian terrorist organizations that do so.
The Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, Iran’s intelligence agencies and Hezbollah have all intensified efforts to attack Israel, in line with Khamenei’s order. Iran sets overall policy and transfers funds, but generally doesn’t get into the tactical details of the attacks.
The change in Iran’s stance is a direct response to two long-term trends for which the regime blames Israel – an increase in attacks on Iranian soil (the sabotage of nuclear facilities and assassinations of nuclear scientists and Revolutionary Guards officers) and airstrikes on Iranian arms convoys and bases, mainly in Syria.
Tehran has recently had other reasons to be happy on top of America’s withdrawal and Israel’s domestic problems. After many months, the hijab protests in Iran seem to have lost steam and the regime has gained better control over its internal front, thanks to the use of brutal methods of suppression.
Moreover, the cynical alliance with Moscow bolsters Iran, which hopes to get advanced aerial defense systems and fighter jets from Russia in exchange for the armed drones it has supplied to Russia for use in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Iran is consolidating its position as a nuclear threshold state that is just a decision away from significant progress toward a bomb. It would need only around 12 days, according to the U.S. government’s estimate, to enrich enough uranium to the 90 percent level to make a single nuclear bomb, and another two years or a bit less to actually make a bomb (Israel hasn’t adopted a recent change in America’s assessment which holds that Iran may consider reducing this time by producing a lower-quality bomb).
The new Iranian policy has encountered a boiling Palestinian theater. Hamas is still avoiding military conflict in Gaza, but it has become far more ambitious in other places, especially Jerusalem and the West Bank, where it has vigorously encouraged an onslaught of terror attacks.
As for the Palestinian Authority, not only is it weak, corrupt and refraining from thwarting attacks, but it is also mired in an intensifying succession struggle in which outside parties, including the Americans, are energetically meddling.
The frustration of young Palestinians in the West Bank erupted in an increase in terrorism a year ago. Now, the ready availability of guns coupled with a willingness to fight has turned every IDF arrest operation in northern West Bank cities into a violent raid in a crowded urban area, thereby raising the number of casualties.
Most of the Palestinians killed were involved in attempted attacks or engaged in exchanges of fire. Nevertheless, their mounting numbers are fueling the eternal flame of the conflict.
A thumb in the eye
If the high level of violence in the West Bank has already become routine, two exceptional developments recently emerged from Lebanon – rocket launches on April 7 and a terror attack in Megiddo on March 13. In the latter, the terrorist who crossed the border from Lebanon and planted a bomb at Megiddo Junction, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of the border fence, was sent by Hezbollah.
The rocket fire is a different story. Immediately after the dozens of rockets were launched from southern Lebanon, most experts said this couldn’t have been done without Hezbollah’s approval. But Israeli intelligence insists this wasn’t the case.
The security cabinet was told the launches were a Hamas initiative. Two senior Hamas officials living abroad, Saleh al-Arouri and Khaled Meshal, approved the decision. Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah apparently wasn’t informed in advance. Neither were Hamas leaders in Gaza, first and foremost Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, presumably.
Nasrallah met in Beirut this week with another senior Hamas official, Ismail Haniyeh, the latest in a series of meetings he has held with senior Iranian officials and leaders of Palestinian terrorist organizations. It’s possible he was seeking to forge more detailed agreements with Haniyeh about how to manage the conflict with Israel. But it’s also not inconceivable that Nasrallah enjoys poking Israel in the eye by holding this meeting immediately after an escalation in attacks.
Either way, what the two latest incidents from Lebanon have in common is a willingness to deviate from the previous rules of the game and gamble on taking stronger steps despite the possibility of provoking a harsh response from Israel. But in practice, Israel’s responses were limited.
After the Megiddo attack, the Arab media reported multiple Israeli airstrikes in Syria in which two Revolutionary Guards officers were killed. After the rocket launches, the security cabinet was convened for the first time in two months and approved the IDF’s recommendation for a minimal response: limited strikes on Hamas targets in Lebanon and slightly larger-scale strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.
Netanyahu accepted the army’s recommendation, which was worded rather colorfully: Someone with angina doesn’t enter a marathon. In other words, given the general regional situation and the severity of Israel’s internal crisis, it’s better not to start a conflict with Hezbollah right now – especially since Israeli intelligence says the Shi’ite organization wasn’t even involved in the rocket fire.
Interestingly, even the far-right ministers in the security cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, voted for the relatively restrained response that Netanyahu advocated. They too, like some of the new ministers from Netanyahu’s Likud party, are starting to recognize the limits of force. Not everything they might like to do to Israel’s enemies is possible when they are sitting in the room where the decisions are made.
The dramatic results of a Channel 13 News poll asking people how they would vote if elections were held today may be controversial, but it’s hard to ignore the clear, ongoing trend of a loss of trust in the government due to its horrific performance. Members of the governing coalition are therefore venting their frustration in other ways, mainly by blaming the situation on the left, the media and the heads of the defense establishment.
One anonymous minister from Ben-Gvir’s party outdid himself by claiming this week that senior defense officials are leading a revolt against the government. Another coalition MK claimed that IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi is a “clerk who can be replaced if needed” and a third said the airstrikes on Gaza, Syria and Lebanon prove that “we can do without the pilots who refuse to report for duty.”
In reality, reservist pilots did answer the call and, as usual, participated in all those airstrikes.
A resounding victory
Netanyahu convened another frantic, sweaty and strange press conference on Sunday evening. As in the days of the COVID-19 pandemic, also throughout the current political and security crisis, Netanyahu's trying to firmly dictate the press's agenda. His well-known method includes an announcement of a public address, given on a short notice (rarer are the press conferences during which it's possible to ask him questions, although the condition as of late is that the first question asked will be given to Channel 14).
This time as well, the TV channels interrupted the usual news cycle, in favor of waiting for Netanyahu's appearance. This time as well, the address began considerably late compared to the scheduled time given ahead. And this time as well, the address included a toxic mixture of slanders, misrepresentations and inaccuracies.
Netanyahu's double need to address the nation was revealed only in the course of the events that followed. First, it's evident that he was under pressure from the fatal mock poll that was published on Sunday. Second, this was his chance to put an end to the Gallant fiasco and announce that the Defense Minister is to remain in his role. Gallant has finally emerged from a two-week period in which, as several Twitter users commented, he acted as a Schrödinger's Minister of Defense. Like the famous cat, Gallant was and wasn’t the defense minister at the same time.
It was, admittedly, a resounding victory for Gallant. Not only was Netanyahu forced to make a perfect U-turn, he had also backed down from the preliminary demand presented to the minister – to apologize for calling to halt planned judicial overhaul legislation due to the security situation and the army reservists' protest), or at least for choosing to speak out when Netanyahu was on an unnecessary visit to London.
This achievement was gained mainly thanks to the protesters, hundreds of thousands of whom had flocked to the streets for a spontaneous night of demonstrations at the end of last month. But credit is also due to Gallant himself, as he's the only one among the Likud ministers who, at least for now, showed a certain backbone and the ability to stand up on his own.
As for the rest of Netanyahu's address, not that anyone thought otherwise, it's clear that the prime minister didn't bother to accept responsibility for Israel's current security situation. Although it did begin during the time of his predecessors, it escalated severely during his present term. Along the way, Netanyahu tried to blame his opponents for the rocket barrage from Lebanon, with a dubious claim as if it all stems from the maritime border deal signed last October.
And who knows, maybe it was the tension or some other reason, but there was no shred of truth in Netanyahu's claim that Israel attacked Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to the rockets. The idea was indeed discussed last week, but was rejected by Netanyahu himself, following the recommendation of the IDF.
Last night Netanyahu managed to disrupt the agenda of the evening broadcasts, but it's doubtful whether his appearance bought him more supporters. Perhaps on the contrary: he seems confused and upset, a leader who's less and less in control of the situation.
Click the alert icon to follow topics:
"course" - Google News
April 11, 2023 at 10:00AM
https://ift.tt/Ju1NmF4
Washington’s Mideast Pullout Sets Israel and Iran on a Collision Course - Israel News - Haaretz
"course" - Google News
https://ift.tt/pChYoLw
https://ift.tt/TX6EY9d
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Washington’s Mideast Pullout Sets Israel and Iran on a Collision Course - Israel News - Haaretz"
Post a Comment