Foreign Policy In Focus

At IPS News, Gareth Porter wrote that when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius last week that he believed an attack on Iran by Israel was forthcoming in the spring, he was seeking to "put pressure on Iran to make diplomatic concessions to the United States and its allies on its nuclear programme in the coming months." In fact, writes Porter, Panetta's statement serves as an example of the contradiction in the "administration's Iran policy between its effort to reduce the likelihood of being drawn into a war with Iran and its desire to exploit the Israeli threat of war to gain diplomatic leverage on Iran."

Porter also cites Ignatius as explaining

… that the administration "appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets which would trigger a strong U.S. response." But then he added what was clearly the main point: "Administration officials caution that Tehran shouldn't misunderstand: the United States has a 60-year commitment to Israeli security, and if Israeli population centers were hit, the United States could feel obligated to come to Israel's defense." 

Hitherto, when hearing that the United States would only be drawn into war with Iran to protect U.S. assets, I thought it meant U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who knew that it was not only open to interpretation but a category broad enough to include the entire state of Israel?

Furthermore:

The Israelis, [Ignatius] wrote "are said to believe that a military strike could be limited and constrained". Emphasising the Israeli doubt that Iran would dare to retaliate heavily against Israeli population centres, Ignatius cited "(o)ne Israeli estimate" that a war against Iran would only entail "about 500 civilian casualties". 

Nor had I heard that Israel thinks that neither Iran nor Hezbollah won't attack its main population centers in retaliation. However delusional that may sound, do Focal Points readers think that a military strike could be sufficiently "limited and constrained" to keep Iran and Hezbollah from responding?

Meanwhile, as should be clear by now, if an attack on Iran comes to pass, the confusion and misinformation that the United States and Israel sow will have played no small part.

From its birth more than 60 years ago, Israel has always presented itself as “an oasis of democracy in a sea of despotism,” an outpost of pluralism surrounded by tyranny. While that equality never fully applied to the country’s Arab citizens, Israel was, for the most part an open society. But today political rights are under siege by right-wing legislators, militant settlers, and a growing religious divide in the Israeli army, all of which threaten to silence internal opposition to the policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Since that may include a war with Iran—and the probable involvement of the U.S. in such a conflict—the move to stifle dissent should be a major concern for Americans.

The U.S. media has reported on growing tensions between Israeli women and the ultra-orthodox Haredim over the latter’s demand for sexual segregation of schools, public transport, and public life. But while orthodox Jews spitting on eight-year old girls for being “immodestly dressed” has garnered the headlines, the most serious threats to democratic rights have gone largely unreported, including a host of proposed or enacted laws. Some of these include:

*A law that allows Jewish communities to bar Arab families from living among them. Arabs make up about 20 percent of the population.

*A law that makes it illegal to advocate an academic, cultural or economic boycott of Israel, including settler communities.

*A law that would limit the power of the Supreme Court.

*A law that bars any state institutions—including schools and theaters—from commemorating the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” the term Palestinians use to describe the loss of their lands in the 1948 war that established Israel.

*A law that prohibits Palestinians from living with their Israeli spouses within Israel proper and denies them citizenship.

*A law that drops Arabic as an official language.

*A law that requires anyone obtaining a driver’s license to swear loyalty to the state.

*A law that would limit the number of petitions non-governmental organizations, including peace and human rights groups, could file before the Supreme Court.

*A law that forces human rights and peace groups to limit the money they can receive from abroad, and forces them to go through burdensome registration requirements.

Tzipi Livni, former foreign secretary and head of the Kadima Party, told the Knesset that Arab states were “trying to become a democracy, while we—with these bills—are headed toward dictatorship.”

Most of these laws are being pushed by Israel’s rightwing Likud and Yisreal Beiteinu parties, but the proposal to drop Arabic comes from the Kadima Party. Ram-rodding many of these laws are Likid’s so-called “fantastic four”: Danny Danon, Yariv Levin, Tzipi Hotovely, and Ofir Akunis.

“We are in the process of reducing freedom of speech and the freedom of association, and we are infringing on the right to equality, especially vis-à-vis the Israeli Arab,” Mordechai Kremnitizer, a professor of law and vice-president of the Israel Democracy Institute told the Financial Times.  “We are also weakening all the elements in society that have the function of criticizing the governments, including the courts. ”

Israeli society is filled with sharp divisions on everything from war with Iran to growing economic inequality. Israel has the highest poverty rate out of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and ranks twenty-fifth in health care investment. The poverty rate for Israeli Arabs is between 50 and 55 percent.

Starting in the 1980s, Israel began dismantling its social safety net, a trend that Netanyahu sharply accelerated when he served as finance minister in 2003. While slashing money for housing, education, and transport, he cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.

Most of all, however, Israeli governments poured the nation’s wealth into colonizing the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, where, according to Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Center based in Jerusalem, Israel has spent about $100 billion. A vast network of bypass roads, security zones, and walled settlements siphoned off money that could have gone for housing, education and transportation in Israel. Special tax rebates and rent subsidies for settlers added to that bill. Some 15 percent of the Israeli housing budget is used to support four percent of its population in the Occupied Territories. Add to that the 20 percent the military budget sucks up, and it seems increasingly clear that the settlement endeavor is no longer sustainable.

Wealth disparity—a handful of families control 30 percent of Israel’s GDP—was partly behind last summer’s social explosion that at one point put some 450,000 people into the streets of Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem demanding reductions in rent and food prices. But so far, organizers of those massive demonstrations have avoided making the link between growing income inequality and Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories. Many of these new laws are aimed at organizations that have been trying to do precisely that.

There are other divisions as well. Israelis are split down the middle over whether to attack Iran—43 percent yes, 41 percent no—but 64 percent support the creation of a Middle East nuclear free zone, and 65 percent feel that neither Israel nor Iran should have nuclear weapons. Those are not exactly the home front sentiments that a government wants when it is contemplating going to war.

Besides the avalanche of right-wing legislation coming out of the Knesset, Israel is increasingly at war with itself over the role of religion in daily life, a conflict that is playing out in one of Israel’s core institutions, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Two years ago, soldiers of the Kfir Brigade, a unit deployed in the West Bank, unveiled banners declaring they would refuse orders to remove settlers. By international law, all settlements in the Occupied Territories are illegal, but Israel claims that only unregistered “outposts” are against the law and subject to removal. The soldiers held signs that read, “We will not expel Jews.” Six of them were arrested and spent 30 days in the stockade.

The soldiers were graduates of army-sponsored “hesder yeshivas” that allow orthodox soldiers to divide their time between active service and Torah study. Settler rabbis rallied around the six and even provided money for some of the soldiers’ families.

Writing in the progressive Jewish weekly, the Forward, Columnist J.J. Goldberg says that a “secret report” in 2008 warned that such “yeshiva graduates comprise 30 percent of the junior officer corps and rising. In a decade they will be the military’s senior commanders. If a peace agreement is not reached in 15 years or so, Israel may no long have an army willing to carry out its side.”

A majority of Israelis support some kind of compromise to achieve a settlement with the Palestinians, but in the most recent set of talks, the Netanyahu government made it clear that Israel will not surrender any settlements, any part of Jerusalem, or the Jordan Valley. In essence, Palestinians would be forced to live in isolated enclaves surrounded by networks of restricted roads and over 120 settlements. The Netanyahu proposal not only violates numerous United Nations resolutions and international law, no Palestinian government that accepted such an offer would survive for long.

But Israelis who protest an offer that is widely seen as little more than a way to kill the possibility of serious negotiations may find themselves treated in much the same way as Israel has dealt with its Arab citizens.

Those who agitate against the current government may find themselves hit with the new libel law that no longer requires plaintiffs to prove they were damaged and increases awards six-fold. Bloggers, who lack institutional support, are particularly fearful of the new law. Organizations critical of the government that try to raise money from sources outside the country could face huge fines.

According to Hagai El-Ad, director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, there is growing resistance within Israel to the attempt to silence critics, as well as pressure from abroad, including the American Jewish community. Even a pro-Netanyahu hawk like the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman warns “the very democratic character of the state is being eroded.” That resistance has delayed some of the more odious proposals, but the “fantastic four” and their allies are pushing hard to get them on the books.

Why should Americans care? Because if Netanyahu silences his domestic opponents, he will have carte blanche to do as he pleases. And if Tel Aviv attacks Iran, it will be very difficult for the U.S. to keep clear of it. For starters, the IDF will be firing U.S.-made cruise missiles, flying American-made F-15s, and dropping “made in the USA” bunker busters. With the exception of the monarchs from the Gulf states, no one in the Middle East—or most of the world—is going to give Washington a pass on this one.

Does America need another war? If it doesn’t protest the assault on democracy in Israel, it may get one, whether it likes it or not.

For more of Conn Hallinan's essays visit Dispatches From the Edge. Meanwhile, his novels about the ancient Romans can be found at The Middle Empire Series.

Cross-posted from Mondoweiss.

Yahoo News's Laura Rozen has reported an important story: tips from anonymous US sources, as well as information leaked to Israel Radio, suggest that it was Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak who actually postponed a US-Israeli missile defense exercise, which would have seen 5,000 US personnel and advanced American missile defense systems deployed to Israel. 

Multiple analysts have suggested that the postponement demonstrates the Israeli government's contempt for Obama and an ongoing effort to back the president into a corner in an election year over Iran. Two theories stand out.

The first view is that the postponement is supposed to send Obama a message that he had better be more assertive against Iran if he wants Israel to stand down. The hawkish, pro-Netanyahu Israeli site DEBKAfile reports that the cancellation was approved at the top by Bibi himself and that critical statements made by hardliners in the government around this time were made to call the President out over his "flagging resolve":

It was perceived as a mark of Israel's disapproval for the administration's apparent hesitancy in going through with the only tough sanctions with any chance of working against Iran's nuclear weapon program: penalizing its central bank and blocking payments for its petroleum exports.

This was the first time Israel had ever postponed a joint military exercise; it generated a seismic moment in relations between the US and Israel at a time when Iran has never been so close to producing a nuclear weapon. 

This week, Netanyahu further orchestrated a series of uncharacteristically critical statements by senior ministers: Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon called the Obama administration "hesitant" (Jan. 15), after which Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman urged the Americans to "move from words to deeds" (Jan 16).

Given DEBKAfile's right-wing bent, it is safe to say that the aforementioned narrative is how the warhawks in the Israeli government wish their actions to be perceived in the US.

The second theory is that the postponement of the exercise stems from decisions by the IDF on how and when it will attack Iran. Ehud Barak told Israel Army Radio that there are no immediate plans for Israel to attack Iran, seemingly distancing himself from his earlier statements that Israel's bombing window would close by the end 2012 (Israeli intelligence reported that, like the U.S. intelligence community, it cannot discern Iran's nuclear intentions). Rozen suggests one possible Israeli rationale for such maneuvering:

The United States did not seek the delay–and American sources privately voiced concern that the Israeli request for a postponement of the exercise could be read as a potential warning sign that Israel is leaving its options open to conduct a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the spring. Thus, the concern went, it may not want 5,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Israel in April and May, as had been scheduled for the exercise.

This is a sensible course of action (if you believe, as Ehud Barak does, that Israel has only a year-long window to act in). But Haaretz's Amos Harel suggests a different military calculus-- the delay is not a way of getting the US out of Israel's way, but of forcing Washington's hand if an attack materializes this year: 

. . . [by] putting off the joint exercises until the second half of the year actually fits into a scenario that has Israel attacking Iran in that time framework. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said on a number of recent occasions, including in a November interview to CNN, that the window during which an effective strike against Iran's nuclear facilities is possible will close in about one year. A massive U.S. military presence in Israel, especially advanced antimissile air defenses, would be very useful in protecting Israel in the event of an Iranian counterattack.

Harel's thinking makes sense too. This is more or less how NATO worked during the Cold War: the USSR was deterred from attacking NATO military formations in West Germany because an attack on any NATO member would have been treated as an attack on all of them. The Warsaw Pact copied this deterrence mechanism on the other side of the Iron Curtain. 

Such binding agreements forced all parties to either limit their autonomy in the name of the alliance, or give up their multinational security umbrella and go it alone. The Israeli logic would work the same way: force Iran to soak up losses inflicted by the IAF without responding, or risk the US military mission's wrath.

But would the White House be cooperating with Tel Aviv -- as it would in the event of any attack on a NATO member -- or be taken by surprise by Israeli preemption? I imagine the former is the most likely option, as the U.S. would still have some advance warning of Israeli mobilization. In any event, Obama would not disengage these troops and ships to try and avoid being associated with Israel's actions. Amos Harel puts it best: Washington "is asking Israel's boat not to enter the path charted by its aircraft carrier." But if and when the chips are down, the President will not cut and run, prior warning or not.

There are all kinds of contingencies that might escalate the conflict. Iran's own military calculus, for instance. What would the Gulf states, who are most vulnerable to Iran's armed forces, think of the timing and placement of American forces in Israel? It would be challenging to manage diplomacy and military coordination with the Gulf states against Iran in such an event, even though we'd be attacking a non-Arab country that the GCC governments fear. They fear Iran, but they also fear public opinion in their own countries (and Iranian retaliation). How would Islamist organizations sympathetic to Iran such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah react to an Israeli strike? Would events spiral out of control on the border with Gaza, Syria or Lebanon? It's easy to suggest that Iran and its proxies would temper their actions because of "redlines," but no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Barak has seemingly stepped back from his countdown to infinite crisis this week. But as Marsha Cohen writes at LobeLog, "the Obama administration is now trapped in a lose-lose situation, with Israeli politicians doing everything possible to sabotage Obama’s re-election bid while undercutting any movement he might be tempted to make to ease tensions with Iran."

The United States and Israel have been quietly building up their military cooperation. During a visit to Israel last December, General Frank Gorenc announced that thousands of U.S. troops would be deployed to Israel for an exercise that has been code named "Austere Challenge 12." Additionally, Israel plans on moving a significant number of its troops to a U.S. European Command Headquarters base in Germany.

These moves come as tensions with Iran have escalated in response to the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist last week, the third attack of its kind since 2010. Relations between the United States and Iran began to sour most recently after Iran captured a fallen American drone and refused to return it to the United States. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said as early as last November that Israel will not "take any option off the table," echoing similar statements from the Obama administration. The Revolutionary Guard, Iran's most elite military branch, has indicated that it will move ships into the Strait of Hormuz in February to conduct training exercises and has already performed some exercises in the strait earlier this month. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, currently based in Bahrain, already has a presence in the area and is in a position to call for additional support from other U.S. ships on anti-piracy missions around the horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean. Britain has announced that it will be sending one of its largest destroyers, HMS Daring, to the strait as well. Together these combined naval forces leave the Iranian navy "significantly outgunned," according to the Military Times.

Although General Gorenc emphasized to the Jerusalem Post that Austere Challenge 12 is part of a larger U.S. troop deployment, little information is currently available as to how long the Defense Department intends on having U.S. troops stationed in Israel, though Al Jazeera notes that many American servicemen are expected to stay till the end of 2012. The Israeli Air Force is considering setting up a base for an Iron dome counter rocket system near Haifa where it will protect oil refineries in Northern Israel.

As of January 5, debka.com, an Israeli website providing political and security analysis, stated that around 9,000 U.S. soldiers were already on the ground Israel. Austere Challenge 12 will test two separate types of missile defense systems: the land-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system alongside the naval-operated Aegis system. These systems include both relatively short- range defensive ballistic missile systems such as the Arrow, which Israel produced specifically to defend itself from Iranian attacks, and other systems such as a drone that could be used for a counter-attack or even a pre-emptive attack. This is slated to be the largest missile exercise to date in both U.S. and Israeli history with the long term objective of "establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East" in which case this may be the beginning of a long-lasting U.S. military presence in Israel.

Israel isn't the only U.S. partner in the region beefing up its military capacity. Last month the United States agreed to sell Saudi Arabia $30 billion worth of F15 fighter jets. This followed shortly after the November 2011 sale of nearly 5,000 bunker-busting bombs to the United Arab Emirates.  These would prove especially threatening to the UAE's Persian neighbor as Iran's alleged illegal nuclear processing plants are located underground well within the range of these munitions.

In a recent development, however, Israel and the United States jointly agreed to postpone Austere Challenge 12 from this April to sometime in the latter half 2012. According to Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesperson, "The thinking was it was not the right timing now to conduct such an exercise."

Heath Mitchell is an intern at Foreign Policy in Focus.

Leaders of states are less often voted out of office for initiating a war gone wrong than for exhibiting good sense and drawing the brakes on the war-fever express when called for. Or that's the assumption on which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is no doubt operating. But if, as influential Yediot columnist Nahum Barnea has written, "all his life he's dreamed of being Churchill," Netanyahu either forgets that Winston Churchill wasn't re-elected prime minister in 1945 or envisions himself, if out of office, retaining the same influence that Churchill did.

As for other personal consequences, Netanyahu is no doubt aware that the attacks Churchill called for on Germany, such as the "area" bombing that resulted in atrocities like Dresden and Hamburg, never resulted in him standing in the docket at Nuremberg. In present times, he may further be emboldened by the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq. Except for a few scattered charges by courts overseas (though they seem to be gaining momentum), George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have yet to be tried for war crimes. Not only do they remain free men, they're still accorded respect in many quarters.

No matter what happens after an attack on Iran, Netanyahu knows that he will still be accorded the same respect in the same quarters, at least in the United States.