Israel Update for July 2009

In particular, Tobin complained that President Obama was downplaying or ignoring the extremely costly and difficult actions that several Israeli governments had undertaken to try to implement previous peace accords with the Palestinians, despite ongoing terror attacks and threats of annihilation from Shiite Muslim Iran and its local agents Hizbullah and Hamas. Such actions included withdrawing all IDF soldiers from six major Arab urban centers and many villages during the mid 1990s, transferring weapons and governmental power to Palestinian Authority officials and security forces (with the weapons sometimes later turned against Jews), and evacuating 23 civilian communities and army outposts in the Gaza Strip and parts of northern Samaria in 2005.

Tobin reflected the thinking of not a few Israeli commentators by pointing to what he termed Obama's "penchant for quarreling with Israel," adding that the US leader was apparently "proud of it." The conservative commentator added that "a majority of American Jews who voted for Obama last year did not back him because they anticipated that he would pick pointless fights with Israel to advance a peace process that Palestinians scorn."

Cruising The Suez Canal

PM Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials have consistently stated that the most pressing issue they face is not how to achieve a final peace accord with Palestinian Authority leaders-whose rule is severely challenged by the popular Muslim fundamentalist Hamas movement. The Iranian nuclear programme poses an imminent mortal threat to Israel's very existence, they aver, and therefore that issue obviously has a much higher priority at present than restarting the stalemated peace process. Israeli leaders hope the recent unrest inside Iran will help convince the Obama administration that this is indeed the case.

Seemingly proving once again just how serious the issue is to Israel's current political and military leadership, three IDF naval vessels were ordered to pass through the strategic Suez Canal during late June and early July, according to Arab and international media reports that were neither officially confirmed nor denied by Israeli officials (although several media outlets quoted anonymous Israeli military sources as confirming that the crossings occurred). Of particular importance, one of the three vessels was a German-built submarine widely thought to carry nuclear-tipped Israeli cruise missiles.

Small IDF boats have been allowed in the past to traverse the Egyptian run canal on their way to the southern Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat. However never before has one of Israel's three Dolphin-class subs been allowed to pass through the channel which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Missile boats like the two Sa'ar-5 class warships that reportedly crossed into the Red Sea-which connects with the Persian Gulf that straddles Iran's western coast-have also never before received permission from Cairo to utilize the mostly commercial waterway, despite a treaty between Cairo and Jerusalem that supposedly allows such crossings as long as the vessels have no hostile intentions toward Egypt

Ironically one of the warships, the Eilat, was named after an Israeli destroyer that was sunk by Soviet-backed Egyptian naval forces shortly after the Six Day war, at the cost of 47 Israeli lives.

Sending Stern Signals

In a transparent sign that the Mubarak government wanted the Israeli naval crossings to receive widespread publicity-as an evident warning to hostile Shiite political and clerical leaders in Iran that Cairo will at least quietly side with Israel in any military showdown over the rogue regime's nuclear programme-Egyptian surface warships actually accompanied the submarine as it traversed the 119 mile long French-built waterway, which began operating in 1869.

International military analysts agreed that the unprecedented Israeli naval crossings were indeed designed to send an unequivocal public warning to Tehran that many regional countries, and not just Israel, will not sit still as Iran develops nuclear weapons. This perception was later buttressed by American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Speaking during a July 21 visit to Thailand, she revealed that the US government has "contingency plans" in place to extend a nuclear defense umbrella over allied Arab countries in the region if Iran builds such weapons of mass destruction, which many experts say is only one or two years away at most. Some Israeli commentators said the statement seemed to suggest that the Obama administration may be resigned to Iran acquiring such weapons, which Israel clearly is not.

America's top diplomat stated that Iran would be no safer from foreign attack, nor a more powerful force in the Middle East, if it produces nuclear weapons. "We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those allies in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer." Israeli defense officials were said to have been basically pleased with the comment, saying it seemed to signal a more realistic American policy concerning Iran that probably resulted from the recent violent Iranian government crackdown on civilian demonstrators protesting the apparently rigged June 12 presidential election.

In another possible indication of an evolving US government policy, Vice President Joe Biden said on July 5 that "Israel can determine for itself-it's a sovereign nation-what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." However he also added that this was the case "whether we agree or not" with Israel's decisions. The outspoken politician had earlier bluntly warned the Netanyahu government that it would not receive American backing if it chose a military option to halt Iran's nuclear programme.

Reproach On Gaza

Egyptian mediators attempted once again during July to put an end to the bitter rift between the Palestinian Authority and the radical Hamas movement. However the talks in Cairo ended once again in failure.

Meanwhile the Israeli government and military establishment came under fresh international condemnation during the month as several additional reports were issued alleging widespread Israeli army abuses during last winter's "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas militia forces in the Gaza Strip. One report received special attention in Israel since it was issued by a left-wing domestic group called "Breaking the Silence," which it later emerged is partially funded by the British and Dutch embassies in Tel Aviv, along with grants from the European Union.

The report quoted 26 anonymous reserve and regular IDF soldiers who claimed they saw such abuses as the use of Gaza civilians as human shields against Hamas fire and the unlawful deployment of phosphorous shells in civilian areas. The army replied that there was no "silence" to break since all attributed abuse complaints are investigated, whereas the report's vague allegations were difficult if not impossible to check since the claimants refused to be identified.

In these times of continuing regional strife and peril, it is comforting to remember and proclaim that "You oh Lord abide forever, and Your Name to all generations. You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to be gracious to her, for the appointed time has come" (Psalm 102:12-13).