Israel: A Loose Cannon for a Middle East Conflict?

Sharmine Narwani writes in The Huffington Post:

Another war is looming in the Middle East, say the pundits. It is hard to ignore the whispers -- now louder -- when they are regularly punctuated by hostile statements from various officials in the region, leading further credence to a possible conflagration.

The likely site of the newest regional battle is the Levant. Funnily enough, nobody can pinpoint exactly where, although it is clear that Israel will be involved. Which should tell us something right there.

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Since the Jewish state's military attack on Lebanon in 2006, it has been itching for a "do-over." Why? Because for the first time in its history, Israel did not win a war. The month-long bombardment of Lebanon resulted in a stalemate -- an intolerable outcome by the standards of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

To add to the indignity, it was a mere few thousand men -- not even a national army -- that took the IDF by surprise.

The cornerstone of Israel's military strategy is deterrence -- whether though brandishing a nuclear arsenal to warn off threatening nation-states, or by Gaza-style intensive attacks that send a strong message to a weaker party. This is a highly militarized state that has lived under the legacy of conflict its entire existence. Loss -- or even perceived loss -- is not an option.


So instead of self-examination, Israel's conflicted, and increasingly right-wing political body unleashed a belligerent tone -- angry, defiant, threatening, unfocused like a petulant and wounded child. Diversionary tactics came into play to focus domestic and international attention elsewhere and fill the frustrating void -- Hamas in Gaza, the potential nuclear aspirations of Iran, Palestinian intransigence on peace talks, Hezbollah's weapons, Syria, Turkey, anti-Semitism, the Goldstone Report.

In recent weeks, Israeli officials have made inflammatory statements about conflicts on half a dozen fronts.

SYRIA:

"When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," right-wing Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman challenged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last Thursday, after Assad claimed that Israel is "driving the region towards war, not peace."

Lieberman went further and hit at the heart of any future Israeli-Syrian rapprochement: "We must bring Syria to realize that...it will have to give up on its ultimate demand for the Golan Heights." Israeli leaders have in the past accepted in principle that the Syrian Golan Heights, captured and occupied by Israel in 1967, would necessarily be part of any bilateral peace deal.

GAZA:

In January -- one year after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that lead to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians -- Major General Yom Tov Samia, former head of the IDF's Southern Command, told the Jerusalem Post: "We are before another round in Gaza... another war with Hamas is inevitable." And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Gaza's leaders to "watch their step, and not to cry crocodile tears if they force [us] to take action."

The hue and cry about Hamas' rockets hitting Israeli towns was Tel Aviv and Washington's driving narrative in defense of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Still is. But just this week, the Jewish State announced that a new $200 million rocket defense system called the "Iron Dome" will not be deployed against Gaza as promised. Too expensive for Gaza, says the military, explaining that it will be deployed elsewhere where there is more of an "imminent" threat.

And this comes after months of Israeli insistence that Hamas has significantly boosted its military capabilities and has obtained long-range rockets, mostly from Iran. So which is it -- either they do or don't have weapons, either they do or don't pose a threat?

LEBANON:

No two other parties have been more relentlessly subjected to Israeli threats than Iran and Hezbollah. Last summer, after it was clear that the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah would likely participate at the cabinet level in any unity government formed following Lebanon's June elections, Israeli leaders fell over themselves in their rush to issue warnings. Netanyahu, Barak and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon all threatened that any border attacks would be blamed on the Lebanese central government -- with repercussions.

Just last month, Israeli Minister Yossi Peled opined, "Without a doubt we are heading for another round (of battle) in the North. No one knows when, but it's clear that it will happen."

And so both Hezbollah and Israel have moved weapons systems closer to their mutual borders.

IRAN:

Iran, in turn, has been the recipient of non-stop bombing threats from Israel over its civilian nuclear program, which the Jewish State claims is really a clandestine plan to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Never mind that some two dozen International Atomic Energy Agency reports over six years show no diversion of materials to weaponization. Or that Israeli military intelligence has been extending the date for a finished Iranian nuclear warhead since the 1990s. Last June, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan declared the new date for the first Iranian nuke would be in 2014. But Israel's war drums have kept beating as though these weapons were already sitting on launch pads, ready to go.

TURKEY:

Relatively new on the scene in the game of belligerent words is Turkey. A rare Israeli ally in the Middle East both in political and military terms, Turkey has drawn away from the alliance since Israel's widely-criticized Gaza attacks last year, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the particularly brutal IDF campaign.

Things have gone from bad to worse since, culminating a month ago in the now-infamous Ayalon row when the Israeli deputy foreign minister publicly and deliberately humiliated Turkey's ambassador in front of cameras. Israel has called Turkey anti-Semitic and very recently slammed the Turkish prime minister again when he drew attention to the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza and its daily violations of Lebanese airspace.

**********

Some Israeli critics suggest that the destabilizing escalation in rhetoric may not just be as a result of Israel's psychological loss in 2006, but more recently, because of an increased paranoia about international isolation -- the result of war crimes allegations documented against Israel in the UN's Goldstone Report about the Gaza war, and the country's ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands.

In a stunning attack on his government two weeks ago, Israeli writer Gideon Levy wrote a commentary piece in Haaretz in which he takes to task their "cynical" use of Holocaust Remembrance Day to propagandize toward political ends:

"An Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe - is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget."

But the escalation of rhetoric from Israel's right-wing government is not being viewed as simple political posturing -- more, like a promise of battle. As concerned as the Jewish State may be about conflict on its borders, its neighbors -- having been on the receiving end of superior Israeli weapons, and having suffered far larger numbers of civilian casualties -- are taking these words very seriously.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at a joint press conference with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Thursday pointed to this verbal escalation of hostilities by calling on Israel to "desist from making threats against Gaza, southern Lebanon, Iran and now Syria."

Because rhetoric after all creates a perception. And perception is 100% of politics -- not to be played with when standing on a tinderbox. The Levant has always been rife with small-scale border skirmishes -- that is the way of an area re-mapped by foreigners, with unnatural, artificial borders. But it is only Israel that has, since 1973, launched full-on military battles from these skirmishes. And without a doubt it is gearing up for a fight. Where, is anyone's guess.

Comments

[Adam]

The writer gets off to a very bad start by noting "Israel's military attack on Lebanon in 2006", seemingly oblivious to Hizbullah's raid on Israeli territory that killed 10 Israeli soldiers (including 2 who had apparently been taken as hostages) and subsequent rocket fire on Israel's civilian population centers. Take this article with a grain of salt.

[Lazer]

This writer is obviosly hell bent on bashing Israel at every oppertunity.....
Do you relize that all the wars against Israel was started with the opposite party
antaganizing and terrorizing Israel...........

[Tell Reesen]

One-Sided Jew Bashing. I suppose it was "the Jews" who started WWII? Hitler was just doing what needed to be done. Right? Anti-Semitism at its finest. No sane person wants war, but it's never one-sided as the author suggests. His hatred runs much deeper than who starts a war.

[Gloumdalclitch]

I'm sick of those people calling antisemitism any critic of Israel. It so dishonest.

[Barry]

Arab-Israeli peace?? There is peace between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

In 1948, when the Israeli State was pronounced - the surrounding Arab States attempted to kill Israel at birth. This did not happen and the subsequent "1948 borders" were/are no more than ceasefire positions.

Come 1967, when the Arab States again stated that they were going to throw Israel into the Mediterranean Sea (Nasser was very foolish to announce his intentions as he did - the Israelis have heard those kind of words before and do not now take them lightly) , The Israelis took Gaza from Egypt, Golan Heights from Syria and West Bank /Jerusalem from Jordan. Subsequently, Israel, Jordan and Egypt have made peace. It is interesting to note that now Egypt no longer wants Gaza - nor does Jordan want the West Bank. The dictatorship in Syria does not want to show their own internal and external weakness by seeking peace with Israel.

This conflict goes back a LONG way - and conveniently forgetting the history of the area before 1975 will not help to solve the situation

Barry

[Tell Reesen]

I'm sick of Israel's critics refusing to tell the other side of the story. A true "critic" gives both sides of the story. My experience has shown me that most of those who are called "critics" and refuse to tell of the crimes of Israel's enemies is a strong sign of anti-semitism. It's a hatred of the race and not a a simple "criticism" of Israel's strategies in a war that has two sides.

[Submitto]

"It’s a hatred of the race and not a a simple “criticism” of Israel’s strategies in a war that has two sides."

Anti-Semitism goes way beyond ordinary racism. To racialize Jews as a race or to say they are the anti-race (as the Nazis tried to label them) is basically accepting the grounds of racism in the first place. What is almost at all times and most likely on purpose disregarded is the fact that not one single Anti-Semitic person on this planet has ever or will ever care about the appearance (empirical evidence of the visual identity) and actual individuality of Jews. As for Islamic Anti-Semitism: Muslims don't care about individuality of Jews either, since they must be in denial of the contingency of any individuality. All that is important at the end of the day is the fact that no Jew ever has nor ever will accept the muslims' prophet as a legitimate representative of the creator of everything. Whatever Jews do they can not make it up to muslim. Whether they are secular Jews, which most likely does not even compute to Islamic views of any divine will. And yet a lot of Islamic hatred for Jews makes use of anything possible to accuse Jews of being treacherous and deceitful at all times, whether it's Jews being liberal, being neo-cons, communists, socialists or simply having summoned God's wrath for not accepting prophet of Islam as legitimate. You actually are not even allowed to mention the fact that Jews do and can not by definition accept the muslim's prophet as their prophet, because liberals in the United States and Social Democratic people as well as the ones in the far politically left will be complicit to help Muslims not to even raise the "issue". And the only way to adress this "issue" within and by the muslim community is to do it in a way of anger of outrage if not silence. You simply would not be able to adress this in a discussion as a muslim within the muslim to community, because the chance of raising the question why Jews never accepted their prophet as legitimate could end deadly for the one who would dare to raise such question. Another problem is that American left-wing people and Liberals seem to be most of the time to be in denial of the fact that the state of Israel is largely in its majority populated by secular people who do not call for religious laws to become effective immediately, whereas the fact that Islamic countries try as much as possible to encourage the application and enforcement of Sharia law into all parts of daily life. The denial of the prevalent secularism of the state of Israel and the willingness to defend cultural relativism by defending the so called cultural "otherness" of muslim people (by the way racializing and homogenizing people of Islamic faith as well) is betraying the efforts of the age of enlightenment to emancipate people from the omnipresence of religion, which were meant to be universal not eurocentristic and thus a betrayal of women, gays, Jews, Bahai and all other people who might be in existential danger because muslims are not forgiving them to be not compatible with Islam or their prophets demands of every man and woman on this planet.

[Publicola]

A serious reproach like "anti-semitism" expressed as to someone who just counts 5 serious peace offers in the course of 30 years on the part of the Arabs ostensibly rejected by the respective Israeli government obviously is a means not to have to face reality. And reality is complex - to say the least, let us just quote only one further example in addition to the peace offers mentioned:

The Syrian Golan Heights were captured by Israel on 9–10 June 1967 in the course of the Six-Day War.
In 1997, years after Dayan, the Israeli Defense minister during the Six-Day War, died, an Israeli journalist, Rami Tal, published conversations he had with Dayan in 1976.
In that conversation Dayan claimed that 80 percent of the cross-border clashes between Israel and Syria in the years before the war were a result of Israeli provocation :

»I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plough someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.«

»I made a mistake in allowing the Israel conquest of the Golan Heights. As defense minister I should have stopped it because the Syrians were not threatening us at the time [fourth day of the war].«

Dayan also portrayed the desire of the residents in the Kibutzim beneath the Golan Heights that they be captured as stemming from the desire for their agricultural land and not primarily for security reasons.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan#Six_Day_War_.281967.29

[Dave]

The usual nonsense from the Huffington Post. Just take a look at their newest columnist -- http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/200893.php

That appointment speaks volumes...

[danial]

We could argue endlessly about who started the aggression, but that will not change the situation on the ground.

Israel is surrounded by countries that sympathize with the Palestinians and if the Israelis want to live with their neighbors without fearing for their lives then they must reduce their harsh rhetoric.

I mean, how would an Israeli feel is his/her Israeli neighbor was abused even if that fellow Israeli was to blame?

If Israel wants a single state with Judaism as its state religion then it would be much better if they declare this. But they must also say if they want Palestinians as their neighbors.

May God grant both the Israelis and Palestinians a peaceful home void of any form of threat.

[Publicola]

danial, thank you for your statement !

[Aquarius]

Good lord. Talk about a stretch - criticism of Israel being equated with anti-Semitism? Get a life.

No settler-colonial movement has ever lasted, and neither will the Zionist experiment - because its just plain old BAD business to export a foreign people to an occupied land and hand it over. Has never worked and never will.

Zionism is racism and the vast majority of the international community agreed to that premise at the UN many years ago. The racist, right-wing nutters at the helm in Israel today are the manifestation of years of oppressive racist policies against an indigenous people. And globally, this is finally hitting home.

Go on bleating out your rhetoric. The writing is on the wall and many, many Jews with conscience are organizing against the racist policies of this false Jewish state, breaking with its characterization of Jewish political aims. Hats off to these brave souls who risk being ostracized by the likes of AIPAC and the ADL.

Like the author says - border skirmishes have been turned into full-on battle only by Israel since 1975. You can point a finger to Hezbollah's targetting of IDF soldiers all you want, but Israel was brimming to the teeth with random Lebanese cicilians picked up at the borders and imprisoned in Israeli jail for years. Not to mention Israel's belligerent daily violations of Lebanese airspace.

Your desperation is transparent because your rhetoric is getting shriller and more flimsy by the second.