Israel Update for December 2007

Although the comments were thought to represent the consensus view of Israel's top officials, PM Olmert quickly rebuked Dicter for speaking out so forthrightly, and asked again that all government leaders cease making any public statements on the explosive issue, saying their words could harm vital ties with Washington.

Israeli officials were at least somewhat heartened to hear President Bush-due to make his first official visit to Israel on Jan 9-11-reply to the report with continued tough talk about the overall Iranian threat to regional stability: "The NIE doesn't do anything to change my opinion about the danger that Iran poses to the world. Quite the contrary. I'm using the NIE as an opportunity to continue to rally our colleagues and allies."

Still, the apparent fact that the intelligence assessment has effectively taken the President's military option off the table has already had an immense impact upon Israel, as noted by veteran Jerusalem Post commentator Saul Singer: "The policy implications of the NIE cannot be overstated, regardless of its veracity. If the military option was ever real in the first place, it is now gone. The debate over a military operation against Iran during the Bush administration is over." In summary, it now appears that it will fall upon tiny Israel alone-with a population one tenth that of Iran's and territory eighty times smaller-to deal with the Iranian reality, despite probable spine chilling consequences.

Dream World

Nearly all Israeli officials agree that a lasting peace accord between their war weary country and the Palestinians will prove impossible to achieve until the radical Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah-Hamas rejectionist train is somehow derailed. Nevertheless, the White House insisted on hosting a high profile international peace parlay near the US capital in late November.

Many Israeli commentators contended that the Annapolis conference, which brought together officials from dozens of countries around the globe, including Saudi Arabia and several Gulf Arab states, was nothing more than a glitzy American show to divert attention away from many other severe problems facing the Bush administration in the region (which they point out now includes Turkish military attacks upon Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, and the crumbling political situation in nuclear-armed Pakistan, due east of Iran, following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto).

Facing the imminent publication of the final Winograd Commission report focusing on his government's failed Lebanon War performance, PM Olmert and the beleaguered PA leader Abbas both pledged at the peace gathering to work non stop to iron out a final peace accord during 2008. However most Israeli and Palestinian political specialists say no such agreement seems even remotely achievable during that time.

Indeed, the first round of resumed negotiations was nearly cancelled mid month when the Palestinians threatened a boycott to protest Israel's decision to build more apartments in the southeast Jerusalem Har Homa neighborhood. Israeli leaders replied that if their Palestinian counterparts seriously think they will dismantle such homes as part of any final peace deal, there is no real reason to talk.

Coalition Shas party leader and cabinet minister Eli Yishai and Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman were among dozens of Israeli politicians who demanded an immediate halt to the negotiations after two Orthodox Jewish men in their early 20s were viciously cornered and slain by Palestinian gunmen on Dec 21. The Israelis, both members of elite military units, were hiking with a female friend near a stream outside of Hebron when Palestinian gunmen surrounded them and opened fire. Well-known sons of prominent rabbis in nearby Kiryat Arba, the friends were shot dead after bravely returning fire while their female acquaintance took cover. PM Olmert said his government can take no further measures on the ground to promote the peace process, such as dismantling additional illegal outposts, until the Palestinians keep their commitment to halt all such terror attacks.

The apparent absurdity of the American peace parlay was further underlined when major fighting broke out in December between Israeli and Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip following additional Kassam rocket assaults onto Israeli cities, including one that exploded just outside a packed elementary school in Sderot. Several dozen Palestinians were killed in the exchanges, including a prominent Islamic Jihad leader (the terror group admits to shooting most of the over 2,000 rockets that landed inside Israeli territory during 2007, double the number from the previous year).

Despite the heavy Palestinian rocket barrages, Israeli officials were happy to announce that only seven Jewish civilians were killed in terror attacks during 2007, down sharply from 17 slain in 2006. Meanwhile foreign tourists topped two million during the year for the first time since the Palestinian Al Aksa attrition war began in 2000, with a record number expected in 2008 as Israel celebrates its sixtieth year of statehood. May the new year be a blessed one for each of you as we eagerly wait for the time when "All the earth will worship Thee, and will sing praises to Thee; they will sing praises to Thy name" (Psalm 66:4).