Northern Sinai: A Desert Playground for Smugglers, Jihadis

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

13/11/2008

The 25 Egyptian police officers taken hostage by Beduins in northern Sinai on Tuesday have now been freed.

The men were released on the Egyptian border with Israel, reportedly unharmed.

The freeing of the hostages concludes a series of events that began on Monday with a shoot-out between local Beduin and police on Monday, in which one Beduin was killed. A large and angry crowd of Beduin then gathered, firing weapons in the air, burning tires and clashing with security forces. The kidnapping took place in the context of these protests.

This incident – which had Israeli forces on alert along the border earlier this week – cannot be understood in isolation. Rather, it is a reflection of a deeply problematic situation in the northern Sinai, which is host to large-scale smuggling networks that traffic a wide range of commodities between Sinai and Gaza and Israel.

These networks are regarded by many Sinai Beduin as a legitimate source of income. This sense is exacerbated by the neglect displayed by the Egyptian authorities toward the Beduin of the north Sinai since the peninsula was returned to Egypt.

Drugs, tobacco, sex workers, and weaponry are among the most notable items flowing into Israel and Gaza. Cash flows in the other direction.

The development of fortress Gaza under Hamas rule is made possible through the smuggling paths of northern Sinai. But they also serve to facilitate the activities of organizations close to al-Qaida that have been active there in recent years, such as the Tawhid wal-Jihad group.

The “smuggling industry” initially grew because it was one of the few areas of economic activity readily available to the Beduin. The area contains no industry. And while southern Sinai has been developed massively for tourism, the beneficiaries of this have been the very large numbers of Egyptians who have made their homes in the peninsula.

The Egyptian authorities have considered the development of Sinai and its tourism industry as a useful outlet for providing employment to the large number of unemployed graduates produced each year by the Egyptian education system.

The hand of the Egyptian authorities was only lightly felt in northern Sinai until recently. This meant that the smuggling industry could flourish, the neglect of the area could go unnoticed, and clashes between the Beduin and the central authorities could be avoided.

The series of terrorist attacks that took place from 2004 on changed this situation. In Taba in 2004, Sharm e-Sheikh in 2005 and Dahab in 2006, suicide bombers struck, taking a heavy toll on civilian life. It was after these bombings that the Egyptian authorities began to increase their attempts to impose control on northern Sinai.

US and Israeli pressure has resulted in the increased presence of police and security services in northern Sinai. In its turn, this increased presence has led inevitably to clashes with the Beduin of the area. The Beduin of the north have no great sense of loyalty to the Egyptian state – tracing their origins, as they do, to a wide variety of locations in the Arab world. The influence among them of extremist Islam is noticeable and growing.

All these factors taken together create a permanent, latent tension between the authorities and the Beduin that is occasionally sparked into open confrontation, as took place this week.

The series of events this week was not the first example of violence between the Beduin and the authorities. In 2005, the authorities located and killed Khaled Mosaad, the alleged founder of the Tawhid wal-Jihad group, at Jebel Halal, near el-Arish. His successor, Nasser Khamis el-Mallahi, who is believed to have been the mastermind of the Dahab bombings, was killed with six of his associates in a fight with the security forces a year later.

These local successes have not, of course, served to shut down the smuggling networks, which continue to thrive. Their existence continues to impact on the lives of Israelis. Muhammad Saksak, who carried out the suicide bombing at an Eilat bakery on January 29, 2007, that killed three young men, entered Israel by way of Sinai.

Thus, northern Sinai today constitutes, as a recent Israeli study put it, both a “springboard and a target” for Sunni jihadi terrorism.

Inadequate investment and involvement by the Egyptian state in the area has allowed lawlessness to thrive. This, in turn, has created an environment friendly to the presence and activities of the jihadis. Just over two weeks ago, Egyptian authorities discovered eight ground-to-ground and ground-to-air missiles there that could have been on their way to al-Qaida associated groups or to Hamas in Gaza. Either way, northern Sinai today constitutes a desert playground – for smugglers and jihadis. Incidents like this week’s kidnapping should serve to focus greater attention on the area on the part of both Egyptian and Israeli authorities.

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Israel’s Demographic Timebomb

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 14/01/2004

Israeli right-of-centre politics is today turned in on itself. The reason for this derives from the prominence in recent weeks given to proposals for unilateral disengagement by Israel from the Gaza Strip and the greater part of the West Bank, in the event of the continuation of the current deadlock between the sides.

The Likud party’s raison d’être, since its formation in 1973, has been the rejection of any territorial compromise in the West Bank, an area it considered crucial strategically, and which is saturated with sites and symbols of Jewish historical, cultural and religious importance.

In order to grasp what is happening in Likud, it is important to understand that the party has always rested on two not necessarily compatible foundations. The first is a disenchanted political realism, an acceptance that Zionism would need to re-establish itself in Israel in the face of violent Arab opposition to its claim, and a consequent viewing of the world and the conflict in stark, zero-sum terms. The second is a romantic nationalism, and a sentimental, historical attachment to the land.

The combination of these factors makes for a heady cocktail. While Israel in 2004 is no longer a country of rigid ideologies, a version of these concepts may be said to form the bedrock view of a majority of Israeli Jewish voters. However, for important figures in Likud, the combination can no longer be sustained.

They consider that the maintenance of the strong Jewish state structure with its western and liberal democratic system – the creation of which was always for rightwing Zionism a primary goal – may now be endangered by the insistence on maintaining national heritage in the desired dimensions.

This consideration derives not from any external Arab military threat, nor from international condemnation of Israeli policies, which tends to provoke only contempt. The factor that is leading figures such as trade and industry minister Ehud Olmert towards support for unilateral withdrawal is that of demography.

As he himself expresses it: “It’s only a matter of time before the Palestinians demand ‘one man, one vote’ – and then, what will we do?” This scenario would emerge if, in the absence of a coherent border, the Palestinian Arabs were to achieve a decisive majority of the population between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean. This would enable them to frame their struggle as one for the rights of a majority population, rather than for one side in a bitter ethno-national dispute – and it could spell disaster for the Jews of Israel.

A number of counter-positions to Olmert’s have sprung up on the right. At the extremes, there are the advocates of a policy of expulsion of the Palestinian population, but these find little support outside the lunatic fringe.

Within Likud, senior figures are pioneering the opposition to unilateralism. Most articulate among them is former defence minister Moshe Arens, who argues that since Israel’s final borders have not yet been set, demographics is a non-issue. The majority of the Palestinian Arab people within the area under Israeli control are not, and will not become, Israeli citizens. The key issue in this dispute, of course, is the position of Ariel Sharon. The prime minister has rejected Olmert’s demographic concerns, in tones similar to those used by Arens. Nevertheless, Sharon has also outlined his own plan for “disengagement” from the Palestinians, along lines similar to those advocated by Olmert, and the indications are growing that he is serious about it.

Recently Olmert, considered the Israeli politician closest to Sharon, announced that the clock is counting down to the start of unilateral moves. If Sharon truly means to move forward, it is hard to see what considerations other than the demographic can be underlying the stark change in his thinking.

Undoubtedly, progress within the framework of the road map would be preferable from Israel’s point of view. A unilateral arrangement can offer no long-term solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and the broader Arab world. At the same time, the urgency of the hour demands action.

There are growing voices on the Palestinian side calling for the abandonment of the two-state solution and the adoption of a strategy of demanding a single state, based on an imminent Arab majority, between the river and the sea. Given the stated lack of will of the Palestinian administration to confront terror organisations, progress on the road map is unlikely.

To rule out the possibility of an imposed, unilateral arrangement would effectively make the future of Israel hostage to the Palestinian Authority. This is something a Likud government is unlikely to be willing to do.

As such, unilateral disengagement will and should remain an option for Israel, should it become clear that the Palestinian national movement has decisively and finally abandoned the path of partition.

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Waking from the Oslo Dream

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 01/05/2002

Israel is at war. The brief respite afforded by operation Defensive Shield ended with the killings at Adura. As I write, Israeli forces are in Hebron. Here in Jerusalem, once again, the streets are emptying. Tension, fear in the air. The poet Chaim Guri summed it up: “The bad has come to live amongst us again,” he wrote, “as is its wont.”

If the world’s faith in rational problem-solving was shaken on September 11, then for the Israeli Jewish public a similar process took place in the autumn of 2000. That was the Indian summer of Oslo. A period of uneasy waiting, between the failure of Camp David and the renewed violence that erupted in October. There were those who were surprised and those who were not. For many of us, the bright tale of the 1993 Oslo agreement never rang true. We saw that the historic compromise on which it was based was an illusion made possible by the structure of the process itself.

The defunct peace process of the 1990s was based on a negotiation model perhaps unique in the history of conflict resolution. Peace talks usually result either from the military defeat of one side by the other, or from a change in thinking on the part of one, introducing hitherto unimaginable possibilities for historic compromise.

Oslo did not derive from a meeting of minds on the feasible parcelling out of the area under dispute. Rather, it was founded on faith: in the power of a negotiating process to bring the two sides together. Problems which seemed to come down to zero sum equations (Palestinian refugees to return to Israel or not, Jerusalem to be redivided or not, the conflict to be declared at an end or not) would, in a sort of alchemy born from the process of talking, become amenable to solution. This would come about without either side feeling that it had surrendered something at the very core of its national being.

What seemed intractable would somehow simply prove not to be. This process, and the hopes it engendered now belong to the realm of memory. With all issues on the table, it was discovered that Israelis and Palestinians were as far apart as ever. The Palestinian leadership, with victorious Hizbullah as its inspiration, then decided to embark on a course of limited armed confrontation. They had looked at the evidence and drawn conclusions. Ratchet up the body count, and the flexibility would follow. This is the formula which the Palestinian leadership, using Fatah-associated forces such as the Tanzim and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, has been testing for 18 months. Before new negotiations can begin, this formula must be disproven. This is the rationale behind the Israeli armed action in the territories.

What would be the Israeli bottom line in renewed negotiations? An overwhelming consensus exists among the Israeli public in favour of an arrangement based on territorial concessions. Recent opinion polls confirm that the events of the past 18 months have not dented this. But the experience of the last period shows that such concessions must be accompanied by cast-iron security arrangements. These must mean clear limitations on the ability of any Palestinian entity to develop its capacity for aggression.

Our right to exist as a Jewish state has been accepted by none of our Arab neighbours. The unavoidable fact of our existence, however, and the advisability of coming to terms with it, has been internalised by some of them, with the resultant negotiation of cold peace agreements. With the Palestinians, even an agreement of this kind is currently not feasible. As Camp David and Taba indicated, the absolute maximum which Israel can offer is apparently less than the minimum which the Palestinian leadership finds acceptable. The Palestinian side has sought to bridge this gap by softening the Israeli position through the use of violence. Israeli submission would invite further aggression.

This misreading of the capacity for steadfastness of Israeli society has now led the region into its most dangerous impasse in a generation. More than half of the Arab-Israeli wars began with low-intensity conflicts. The resumption of Hizbullah aggression, combined with the likelihood of an Iraqi strike on Israel in the event of US action against Baghdad, point to possible further deterioration. Irreconcilable differences rule out conflict resolution. Facts must be faced. Returning the conflict to the lowest possible temperature is the only available objective. Conflict management will only emerge from the firm maintenance of Israeli deterrent capacity.

This capacity was allowed to slip in the high days of Oslo. Violence has been the result. Our neighbours see all the justice on their side and all the sin on ours. When we seem weak, we are attacked. Until they change their minds, Israel’s existence depends on its strength, and on our neighbours’ awareness of this strength. The rapture of illusory rapprochement brought us to the present situation. It is to be hoped that the sombre awakening from illusion which is now taking place contains the potential for a more durable stability after the guns fall silent.

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7/7: In Memory of Anat Rosenberg

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 07/07/2006

Writing about a dead friend is not easy. It is made doubly hard when that friend was murdered, in political circumstances. One wants to pay tribute to a face, a smile, remembered words. And one is conscious of the possibility of the cheapening and coarsening of such things, if enlisted to the banner of a particular cause. On the third hand, it feels wrong to be intimidated by this. Since to abandon context, to forget who the killers were and why they killed, would be a betrayal. Of the dead, and of those of us that are left and must continue.

I met Anat Rosenberg in 1997, in a bar in Jerusalem called Mikes’ Place. It was about one in the morning, in the late summer. Afterwards, we were friends for a while, before she left for England. Anat had jet-black hair and a white, fine-boned face which made her look severe when she wasn’t smiling. This was misleading, however, since anyone who met her became quickly aware that they were in the presence of one of the warmest-hearted people they would ever meet.

After Anat was murdered, I read in the British press that she had left Israel because of the suicide bombings and violence that engulfed our country in late 2000. This seemed a pleasingly symmetrical story – Israeli Jewish woman leaves her country because of bus bombings, only to die in a bus bombing herself. It is simplistic, and not entirely true, however. Anat’s reasons for leaving Israel were complex. She was very patriotic, with a deep, vivid and strong connection to Jewish history, and the Jewish story of destruction and rebirth which is Israel. At the same time, she loved courtesy, cultural pursuits, dance, theatre. It isn’t hard to understand why such a person might find life trying in harsh, rocky Jerusalem. Nor why they might be attracted to London, with its kalaedoscopic mix of cultures, and the possibility of living a life engaged in the here and now, not recruited and weighed down by history and graves and longing. These, I think, are the real reasons she came to Britain.

At Anat’s funeral, at Har Hamenuhot in Jerusalem, I saw my friend for the first time in seven years, and for the last time ever. She was covered by black velvet, with gold Hebrew inscription on it. On the stretcher with which they carry you to burial in Israel. As they laid her in the dry, red earth, in the blazing July sun, I realized that Anat’s quest had failed. She had sought to escape that harsh, unforgiving legacy. To live her life in a different place, a place that believed in tolerance, irony, and blessed privacy. It had found her, all the same.

The people who murdered Anat and the others who died on July 7th were adherents to the same creed and belief system as the people and organisations who have spread mayhem and murder in the cities of Israel over the last six years. This creed has a name. Its name is militant Islam, or Islamism. It is not the majority creed in the Muslim world, but it is adhered to by a very significant minority. This creed, and its battle with the free democracies of the west will define the time in which we are living. This creed, and its adherents are engaged in the business of robbing other peoples’ lives.

They are robbers of memories, too. In the service of their cause. Mikes’ Place is no longer the name of a bar in Israel. Now it is a name on a list of sites of terror attacks. Omar Khan Sharif and Asif Mohammed Hanif, British Muslims, came to visit wearing explosive belts in 2004. Anat Rosenberg, my friend, is no longer someone who I met and shared some sweet moments with and is out there somewhere in England living her life. Hasib Hussein has turned her into a face on the monument for July 7, 2005.

So be it. They forced her back into their play. Without consent asked. All the same, the adherents to the creed of Hussein, Sharif and Hanif were right to see Anat as their enemy. So her death, though a horrific crime, was no targeting error on their part.

They hate free women above all things, it seems, so they were right to hate her. And they hate Jews and wish to destroy the Jewish sovereignty into which Anat was born and in which she believed, so no mistaken identity there either. They are also the enemies of the questioning mind, and of the society that allows a person to explore their own path, to take their private journey in search of beauty and meaning. Hasib Hussein and the others want to end all that – so free, searching, Israeli Jewish women are certainly their enemy and would certainly be among those they would wish to destroy.

The creed of militant Islam, with its parties, its armed organisations, its apologists, and its fellow travellers, is with us still, is young and virile, and will strike again. The war against it is only just beginning, and has not yet reached its height. May the remembrance of the lives consumed by this idea be a sustaining presence in the days to come. Anat Rosenberg, my friend, was cruelly murdered on July 7th, 2005, at Tavistock Square, in London. May her memory be a blessing.

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This War’s real Masters

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 14/07/2006

The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah on the Israel-Lebanon border and the killing of eight others was an unprovoked act of war. Israel is now involved in a two-front confrontation with well-armed Islamist organisations that have powerful state backers.

The disengagement from Gaza last September was undertaken by Israel because of its conviction that no credible partner for negotiation existed on the Palestinian side. Nevertheless, embedded in Israel’s strategy of unilateralism was an assumption of a sort of baseline rationality among the Palestinian leadership. It was assumed that the absence of Israeli soldiers and civilians from Gaza would enable the construction of a normal life for its residents. This, it was hoped, would create a pragmatic interest in maintaining quiet. This assumption was flawed.

A massive increase in Palestinian paramilitary activity took place after the disengagement. In the first three months of this year 500 Qassam rockets were fired from Gaza on to the towns of the western Negev. About 280 attempted attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip were recorded in December 2005, compared with 48 in October that year. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority defended the April 17 terror attack in Tel Aviv, calling it a “natural result of the continued Israeli crimes”.

In southern Lebanon, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal to the international border in May 2000 was expected to lead to a situation of managed enmity between Israel and its northern neighbour. The Lebanese government chose, however, to reject UN security council resolution 1559, which calls on the government to disarm all militias and extend its “full sovereignty over all Lebanese territory”.

Instead Hizbullah, a client of Syria and Iran, retains control of a stretch of territory along Lebanon’s southern border. It has used the time since 2000 to build up a formidable arsenal and to emit an endless stream of anti-Israel and anti-semitic propaganda. On July 12 the organisation chose to renew its war with Israel. Hizbullah rocket teams are now targeting Israeli civilians.

The actions of Hamas and Hizbullah initially seem counterintuitive. Organisations supposedly committed to the welfare of their peoples have thrown away a chance for peaceful development in favour of war. Israel, determined to restore deterrence, is responding vigorously, and the suffering will not be on the Israeli side alone.

Hamas and Hizbullah’s actions become comprehensible when considered within the framework of their aims and those of their backers in Damascus and Tehran. Both organisations are informed by radical Islamist ideology and hold to a strategy of ongoing guerrilla and terrorist activity, with the intention of destroying Israel.

They do not act independently. Hizbullah is dependent on its Iranian and Syrian backers for its continued existence and for its hardware. It is unlikely that the incursion of July 12 could have taken place without the nod from the real masters. Arab intelligence sources quoted in the New York Times yesterday asserted that help for the Hamas kidnapping also came, via Hizbullah, from Tehran.

So the renewed crisis is a move by Israel’s enemies in Iran and Damascus to raise the temperature of the confrontation. Israel will act to restore its badly damaged deterrent capability.

Ultimately, however, the problem goes deeper. Powerful states, movements and ideologies in the region place greater importance on killing Israelis than on developing their own failed societies. For as long as this remains the case, armed confrontation and needless suffering on all sides will continue.

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Forget what you think you knew about Israel

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 29/03/2006

Welcome to the new Israeli politics. You will need to forget a large amount of what you thought you knew about Israel. The clash between Gush Emunim and Peace Now, between Labour and Likud, between the Whole Land of Israel and the New Middle East – is over. Neither side won. Impatience with the old ideas, with the old parties, and with the political system as a whole has meant that one of the most boring election campaigns in Israeli history has brought forth a fascinating, new, strangely unfamiliar political map.

Some old parties have ridden the storm by transforming themselves. Others, locked in old definitions, have fallen to the sidelines. The external policy debate will now be dominated by two relatively recent creations (Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu – I’ll explain in a moment). The internal debate, meanwhile, has finally started to matter again after a 40 year hiatus.

Let’s look at some of the details. The Kadima Party, the vehicle of Ariel Sharon for the pursuit of strategic unilateralism, is the clear winner of the elections. Without its charismatic founder to lead it, the party’s victory is much narrower than expected. But the idea on which the party ran – the ‘Convergence Plan’ for additional, Gaza style withdrawals from much of the West Bank – is now the only serious contender on the Israeli policy menu of proposals for how to deal with the conflict with the Palestinians.

The Likud Party, which stood for staying, at least for the moment, in all territories and fighting Hamas, has been decimated in the elections. The Labour Party – which was once the party of the Oslo Accords and Geneva – appears to have largely abandoned any focus on external issues in favour of a stress on socio-economic affairs. This means that they will join Olmert’s coalition, and the policy haggling will be on social and economic issues, not on approaches to the conflict. Meretz – the only party still committed to Geneva and the 1990s peace process idea – received 4 seats.

It is interesting to note that the other original policy approach to the conflict to have received significant endorsement by the electorate is also a strange new creature, hard to place according to the definitions we’ve grown familiar to since 1967.

This is the idea of Avigdor Lieberman – for two states, but a moving of the border, placing certain towns inhabited by Palestinian Israelis in the Palestinian state, in return for annexing settlement blocs to Israel. Lieberman is opposed to unilateral withdrawals, which he regards as dangerous, because unreciprocated.

Yet his idea, too, is a creature of the new post-peace process, post-settlement movement period. He too shares the key notions of a wish to retain a Jewish, democratic state, concern at demographics, and an estimation that there is no Palestinian partner for peace. (It is by the way superficial to regard Lieberman’s party as a ‘Russian immigrant’ party. Senior figures on its list and, reportedly, a significant section of its support, come from outside of the Russian immigrant population.)

The range of options between Kadima’s ‘Convergence Plan and Lieberman’s idea is the look of the new Israeli politics regarding the conflict. Both ideas share the three elements mentioned above, to which a huge majority of Israeli Jews subscribe. The representatives of other ideas are on the sidelines.

But yesterday’s elections may signal other deep movements and shifts in Israeli politics. The very low turnout – at 63% the lowest in the history of the country – and the general absence of public rancour in the campaign indicate that a second disengagement has already taken place: namely, the disengagement of a large part of the Israeli public from the political process.

The other surprise winner in the elections apart from Lieberman was the Pensioners Party, led by the only-superficially-cuddly former senior Mossad official Rafi Eitan. This party’s success was partially due to the fact that it became a means for some younger voters to register their cynicism toward the larger parties (and their affection for their grandparents) by voting for it.

Such phenomena reinforce the sense in which Israeli politics has entered a post-heroic phase. Gimmicks, legitimate internal differences, cynical detachment and playfulness may all find their place here. Yet perhaps to a greater extent than other democracies, Israel still faces existential policy issues of grave import. The rise of radical Islamism among the Palestinians, the Iranian nuclear threat, the issue of territorial re-arrangements in the face of these threats – have not gone away.

The Convergence and unilateralist ideas are themselves enormously problematic, with many cardinal questions on them remaining unanswered. But Israelis have shown this time around that they prefer to elect a contractor to bring his team to focus on the technical aspects of dealing with such issues. For their part, they would mainly like politics to leave them alone. And if it must be dealt with – then it is to be a politics on a human level, dealing also with daily issues. The politics of a mature and sophisticated population – accustomed to, rather than thrilled by its own sovereignty.

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Surface squabbles, underlying Unity

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 11/02/2009

With the final count nearly complete, it is now possible to draw some tentative conclusions regarding the 2009 Israeli elections. The coalition arithmetic remains painfully complex. It is impossible presently to predict with certainty what type of government will finally emerge from the frantic alliance-building efforts now being undertaken by Kadima leader Tzipi Livni and Likud’s Binyamin Netanyahu. Both leaders declared themselves the victor at rival rallies last night. However, some more substantive trends may already be gleaned from the figures.

First, the elections represented a very significant defeat for the traditional Israeli left. Between them, parties representing the historic Israeli left now command only 16 seats in the 120-member Knesset (13 for the Labour party, and three for the Meretz list).

Israeli party loyalties have become fluid. Likud returned from 12 seats in 2006 to 27 in 2009. Nevertheless, a sub-agenda of the current election was the contest between Labour and the newer and more amorphous Kadima for the position of the dominant party representing Israel’s centre-left. As of yesterday, Kadima appeared to have won that contest. In so doing, Kadima seems to have managed to escape the fate of many previous Israeli “centrist” parties – to shine brightly during a single election, then vanish without trace.

Second, the elections represent the emergence to the front rank of Israeli politics of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Homeland) of Avigdor Lieberman. It is a further measure of Labour’s eclipse that this new party, which won 15 mandates, has pushed Labour into fourth place. For the international media, Lieberman became the main story of the election. Newly minted experts on Israeli politics depicted him as “far right” and compared him to Jörg Haider, Jean-Marie Le Pen and others of their ilk.

The Lieberman phenomenon is far more complex. He has managed to tap into a considerable anger among many Israeli Jews at the growth of Islamism and nationalist radicalism among Israel’s 20% Arab minority. This process is best exemplified by the flight from the country of Balad party leader Azmi Bishara, under suspicion that he aided Hezbollah in the 2006 war. Lieberman spotted that this issue was regarded as too controversial by the mainstream parties, and focused on it.

But most Israeli analysts agree that Lieberman’s behaviour in government belies the populist rhetoric of his campaign. He is already an experienced holder of senior executive office, having served as transport minister, national infrastructures minister (ie energy minister) and minister for strategic affairs in previous coalitions. In all these positions, colleagues regarded him as a responsible and serious member of cabinet. Nevertheless, Lieberman’s success in turning his 10-year-old party from a narrow, sectoral body into a major national political force represents a major (and unprecedented) achievement in Israeli politics.

In terms of likely coalition arrangements, there are two serious possibilities. The first will see a return to the “national unity” arrangement tried out in Israel in the 1984-88 period, when neither Likud nor Labour won enough seats to head a coalition alone. Such an arrangement, if applied now, would see Kadima (with 28 seats) uniting in coalition with Likud (with 27) and then bringing in either Labour (13) or Yisrael Beiteinu (15). Either of these coalitions would comfortably pass the required control of 61 mandates in the 120-member Knesset. In such an arrangement, the prime ministership would rotate between Tzipi Livni and Binyamin Netanyahu, with each holding the position for two years.

The other possibility that may emerge from the weeks of wrangling now ahead is a narrow rightwing coalition, led by Netanyahu and including a variety of nationalist and religious lists. The rightwing bloc scored considerably better than the left in these elections. The right is expected to control 63 or 64 seats in the next Knesset, compared with only 56 or 57 for the left bloc. It should be borne in mind also that the left-led bloc contains 11 Knesset members from Arab parties who have said that they will endorse neither prime ministerial candidate. This means that despite Livni’s party winning the largest number of seats, her ability to assemble a coalition led by her party alone is more limited. This is particularly the case since Lieberman, an essential partner in such a coalition, is known to prefer a narrow centre-right coalition to a narrow centre-left one.

A narrow right wing coalition, bringing together a large collection of small and fractious lists, would be unlikely to govern either smoothly or for an extended period.

All these shenanigans will provide acres of column space for political commentators. They should not, however, be allowed to obscure the bigger picture, and the main indicator of the current election – namely, that in terms of policy preferences, Israelis are largely united. Few believe any more that a final status accord with the Palestinians is anywhere close to realisation, given the weakness and unreformed nature of the Palestinian Authority, continued Hamas rule in Gaza, and growing Islamist radicalisation among Palestinians. At the same time, very few support a policy of permanent Israeli retention of all the land west of the Jordan River.

Hence the most representative coalition would be one bringing together centre left and centre right, into a renewed national unity coalition. It is even possible, after the inevitable period of wrangling, that such a coalition will emerge.

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A Political Earthquake

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 02/05/2007

We knew that the Winograd report, investigating the failures during last summer’s war with Hizbullah, would be critical of Israel’s political and military leadership. But no one here in Israel expected a political earthquake of this magnitude.

In his brief presentation on Monday, committee chair, retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, was scathing in his remarks.

The report slammed the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, for making hasty decisions without systematically consulting others, without exploring the options available, without considering reservations that were expressed – and all this despite his lack of experience in military and foreign affairs.

Olmert, the report continued, failed to “clearly and carefully” set goals for the campaign and did not seriously consider whether his goals could be met with the methods he approved. Once it was clear that these goals were unrealistic, Olmert failed to adapt his plan. The conclusion of the committee was that: “All of these add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence.”

The report was similarly critical of the defence minister, Amir Peretz, and the former chief of staff, Dan Halutz. However, Halutz stepped down in January and Peretz is bound to lose his party’s leadership primary at the end of the month. This means that the public’s attention is now focused squarely on Ehud Olmert.

This process of an excoriating public discussion, in order to set in motion a national house cleansing, while a familiar one to observers of Israel, is still a sight unique in the Middle East. It derives from the belief, in the word of the report itself, “that one of Israeli society’s greatest sources of strength is its being free, open and creative”. To cope with existential challenges, “Israel must be a … society which examines its achievements and, in particular, its failures, in order to improve its ability to face the future.”

So what will happen next? There are a number of possible scenarios.

Scenario 1: Olmert Quits. When a country’s leader has to go on television to say nothing more than “I’m not resigning,” the end could indeed be near. Olmert cannot simply escape by promising to implement the committee’s recommendations, because the main theme is that Olmert and Peretz must resign.

By resisting, though, Olmert has nothing to lose. At present, he is at a low point and history will judge him harshly. By holding on, he can hope something may yet happen to turn things around. Still, realising the final Winograd report may be even harsher than this one, his advisers may knock on his door and tell him the question is no longer “if” but how and when he leaves office. In such a scenario, he may prefer to quit now rather than be humiliated by being forced to resign in a few months.

Scenario 2: A revolt in his own Kadima party. The deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Tsipi Livni, who is first in line to succeed him, is keeping quiet and has for weeks refused to openly declare her support for Olmert. While his supporters had made some headway lately in closing ranks inside Kadima, since the report was released, wider cracks have emerged. Already a Kadima Knesset member has publicly and clearly called for him to go. This could quickly avalanche, leaving Olmert virtually alone. After all, his Kadima colleagues have the most to lose, with the young party facing the possibility of extinction in the next elections. Getting him out is essential for their futures.

If he does go, Livni would take over and veteran politician Shimon Peres would be temporary party chairman until primaries are held to choose a new leader in eight weeks. Livni would probably take over leadership of the party and form the next government.

Scenario 3: New elections. If elections seemed far off before the report, the opposition has finally begun openly demanding them. Still, the basic fact remains: no coalition party wants new elections in which they would all fare poorly. And the most likely winner in the next elections, given Israel’s frustrations with Palestinian intransigence and growing Islamist radicalism, is conservative former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Olmert could try to survive but if he does, such a scenario would paralyse Israeli politics. The prime minister would be unable to take action in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran. In comparison to his situation, a “lame duck” would look like an eagle. Because it is vital to remember that all this internal ferment is not taking place against a background of regional stability. Rather, issues of the utmost urgency are confronting the Jewish state. The Iranian nuclear threat, Iraq’s near-civil war, murmurs of a possible Syrian strike on Golan, the ongoing re-arming of Hizbullah and Hamas’s threats to resume targeting Israeli cities are all matters demanding immediate attention. The question now is whether the national calling-to-account currently taking place in Israel will produce a leadership and institutions sufficiently reinvigorated to respond effectively to these challenges, or whether it will simply be the prelude to yet another committee of inquiry.

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Assad prepares for a long battle

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post, 31/3/11

President Bashar al-Assad’s speech to the Syrian parliament was noteworthy more for what the Syrian dictator did not say than for what he did.

Remarks by Assad aides to the media in the last days had raised expectations that Assad might try to defuse protests by offering a series of concessions. In particular, the possibility of a lifting of emergency laws in place in Syria since 1963 had been hinted at by senior adviser Bouthaina Shaaban.

No such commitments were forthcoming from the Syrian president. The address was an announcement by the regime of its determination to stand its ground. It reflected a belief on the part of Assad that to appear to waver at this moment might prove costly. He apparently believes that his regime is sufficiently strong to be able to wear down the protesters without seeking to compromise with their demands.

Instead of wavering, he chose to reiterate the core elements of his regime’s by-now-familiar take on current events in Syria and the wider region.

Since the outbreak of the unrest, the official information channels of the Syrian regime have maintained that an Israeli plot is responsible for the protests. Sana news agency has claimed to have identified mysterious “armed gangs” seeking to commit acts of violence against civilians. The Syrian media has also cited SMS messages coming from Israel that encourage Syrians to take part in the revolt.

Assad’s speech followed and developed this line.

“Plots are being hatched against our country,” he told the assembled parliament members. “Saboteurs are trying to undermine and divide Syria, and to push an Israeli agenda.”

Assad likened the current events to the situation in 2005. In that year, a popular uprising in Beirut and the presence of US forces in Baghdad forced Syria to end its 15-year occupation of Lebanon. The regime faced a Kurdish uprising in the same period.

“Similar to 2005,” the Syrian president told his parliament, “there is chaos in the country under the pretext of reform, especially among sects.”

The reference to sects is perhaps evidence of Assad’s sense of irony, since his own regime rests on the support of the minority Alawi sect, who comprise 12% of the population.

The protesters, meanwhile, hail overwhelmingly from Syria’s 75% Sunni Muslim majority.

But Assad’s irony is no laughing matter. This reference, and the remark about an attempt to “divide” Syria, signal that the regime is accusing the protesters of two of the cardinal sins in the professed Arab nationalist viewpoint of the Baathist regime in Syria.

It matters little whether Assad himself takes seriously his own rhetoric. The point is that this type of terminology has the sound of a regime preparing for a long and ruthless fight against an internal enemy which it is seeking to characterize in the most negative terms at its disposal.

The reference to 2005 is instructive in another way. In that year, the Syrian regime was on the ropes, with some commentators predicting its imminent demise. By citing it, Assad is also reminding his listeners and the world of his staying power. By its favored methods of clandestine violence and intimidation, the Assad family dictatorship bounced back hard from the doldrums in the subsequent years. Bashar believes it can do so again.

Hence the tone of defiance that summed up the speech.

Here the dictator’s feline sense of humor was on display again. “We don’t seek battles,” said Bashar (an assertion which would come as news to the peoples of Israel, Lebanon and Iraq, frequent targets of the myriad proxy military groups maintained by the Syrian regime).

“But if a battle is imposed on us today – ahlan wasahlan – welcome.” Syria would fight the “domino project,” and make it fall.

So there it all was. Israeli plots, domino projects for fragmentation and division.

Armed gangs, chaos, and a welcoming of the battle by the Syrian dictator, casting himself in the nationalist-tragic mode which is the style of stifling rhetoric that he and other regional leaders of his stripe prefer. All by way of a not-soveiled threat.

This time against his own people.

This was the authentic voice of the Arab old order – or at least the military dictatorial part of it. Intoning its old certainties.

No mention of reform or change. “Stability” said Assad, was the number one interest.

The response was swift in coming, and suitably irreverent.

The Facebook page “Syrian Revolution 2011 against Bashar Assad,” a few minutes after the speech, carried a message beginning with the ringing call, “To the public squares, youth of Syria – grab freedom from these clowns, go down now to the streets.”

But if anyone among the Syrian opposition or elsewhere was still under the impression that the Assad family dictatorship would consent quietly to reforming itself out of existence, Wednesday’s speech should be sufficient to put them right.

Bashar Assad wants to keep his job. All the familiar and wearying clichés were on offer, beneath which he will prepare the violence and subterfuge he deems necessary to ensure his survival.

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Israel’s only Option

Posted on March 31, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Guardian- 03/03/2008

The situation of residents of southern Israel in the days and months preceding Israel’s current action in Gaza was clearly intolerable. The Israeli communities of the north-western region of Negev had been absorbing rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza on a daily basis. Between June 15 2007 (the date of the completion of Hamas’s coup in Gaza) and February 12 2008, 790 rockets and 767 mortar bombs were launched from the strip.

The situation was not stable. In January, an ominous deterioration occurred when an Iranian-supplied Grad-Katyusha missile was fired at Ashkelon. This was not the first use of such ordnance, but the missile succeeded in landing within the city, missing a residential area by 50 metres. The rate of rocket fire increased in January, with 150 rockets landing in a four-day period in the latter part of the month.

No state would abandon its citizens to such a predicament.

In order to end the increased rocket attacks on its civilians, Israel has two essential options: to seek a ceasefire with Hamas, or to seek to prevent by military means the ability of Hamas to launch further attacks. Understanding Israel’s current course of action requires taking a closer look at each of these options.

Regarding a ceasefire, this could be brought about in two ways: the first way would be for Israel to respond to existing Hamas overtures for a ceasefire on the movement’s own terms. This would mean Israel’s agreeing to cease targeting movement operatives in the West Bank. It would also represent an abandonment of the position of Israel and the international community, according to which Hamas must recognise Israel’s right to exist, renounce terrorism and accept existing agreements between Israelis and Palestinians.

Past experience proves that Hamas would be likely to use such an arrangement to re-arm and resupply itself. Past experience also shows that Hamas would make no effort at preventing attacks from the territory it controls by other Palestinian terror groups. For example, the ceasefire declared between Hamas and Israel in November 2006, was unilaterally broken by Hamas on April 24 2007. But over 200 rockets were fired from Gaza in the intervening period, by other groups.

A ceasefire of this kind would amount to granting Hamas victory and legitimating its tactics. Israel therefore rejects this option.

The second way would be for Hamas to unilaterally seek a ceasefire because of the strength of the Israeli response. This would be a ceasefire without conditions. Some Israeli officials appear to believe that Hamas is close to this point – which would represent a setback for the movement. However, the evidence for this is meagre.

Hamas rocket attacks – including on Ashkelon – are continuing. Hamas has a long track record of indifference toward loss of life both among its own members and among the population it controls. Thus, while such a ceasefire would be desirable, it is unlikely that Israeli action up to this point has been sufficient to induce Hamas to “cry uncle”.

Regarding military action – again, this could take one of two forms. The first would be an all-out Israeli military assault on Gaza, to topple the Hamas regime. Such an option would exact a toll in both Israeli and Palestinian lives. Nevertheless, the IDF could achieve it. The problem would be the exit strategy.

The West Bank Palestinian Authority has already broken off negotiations with Israel over the Gaza events. It would be unwilling (and unable) to impose its will on Gaza following an IDF military operation. An international force, meanwhile, would be unlikely to materialise. Few countries would wish to risk their soldiers in the chaos of Gaza. Even if such a force did emerge, it would be unlikely to be willing to act with sufficient vigor to prevent renewed Hamas attacks from within Gaza.

The option of an all-out assault on Gaza is thus likely to be kept in reserve by Israel for the moment. Instead, the immediate prospect is for ongoing military action on the ground and in the air, on the scale seen in the last few days.

There is a possibility that IDF troops may at a certain point choose to undertake a limited reoccupation of northern Gaza, in order to put Ashkelon beyond Katyusha range. Israel will keep its opponents guessing, keeping the possibility of an all-out assault in reserve. Hamas will over the next weeks decide if it wishes to reduce its attacks, in order to maintain its control in Gaza. If it continues escalation, then a larger military operation to topple Hamas in the coming months will appear on the agenda.

The bottom line is that Israel is engaged in a long, exhausting war against a bloc of countries and movements committed to the strategic goal of its destruction. This coalition is led by Iran, and includes Syria and Hizbullah. Hamas is also a member, and its Gaza domain is one of the fronts in this larger war. The requirement for winning a long war of this kind are known and have not changed. Israel needs patience and fortitude, clear, systematic and creative strategic thinking, and above all – perseverance.

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