Israel’s Shattered Trust

FORWARD - By P. David Hornik - December 20, 2007 Is Israel standing up for itself at last? The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran—particularly its lead sentence that “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”—has caused wall-to-wall consternation in Israel, whose intelligence community is convinced that Iran has never, except possibly for a brief intermission, stopped working on its bomb. On Saturday Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party and previously head of Israel’s domestic security agency, called the NIE an “American misconception concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons, which is liable to lead to a regional Yom Kippur [War] where Israel will be among the countries that are threatened.” This is grave terminology in the Israeli context, referring to the Yom Kippur or October War of 1973 in which faulty or neglected intelligence led Israel to give Egypt and Syria the upper hand by reacting almost catastrophically too late to their attack. As a result Israel suffered three thousand unnecessary fatalities and neared the brink of destruction before eventually turning the tide and winning. “Something went wrong,” Dichter said, “in the American blueprint for analyzing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat. . . . A misconception by the world’s leading superpower…has to cause concern in Israel and many other countries.” With Olmert already engaging in his idea of damage control on Sunday, saying at the weekly cabinet meeting that he was “asking the ministers to stop giving statements on Iran and the American intelligence report” and “There is no place for private comments by every single minister on such a sensitive and complex issue,” Dichter’s words could have been dismissed as those of a frustrated maverick. Also on Sunday, though, Israel ’s Army Radio reported that many cabinet members share the security chief’s view. Not surprising, then, is the Associated Press report, which also came out the same day, that last week “ Israel … dispatched an unscheduled delegation of intelligence officials to the US to try to convince it that Iran is still trying to develop nuclear weapons.” The report cites Israeli officials saying Israel , for that purpose, “intends to present information classified as top secret for security reasons.” This newfound assertiveness—or desperation—comes just after Israel reached yet-unplumbed depths of submission to America’s perceived priorities at Annapolis where, obeying U.S.-cum-Saudi demands, the Israeli representatives meekly entered the hall through a separate door and accepted Untermensch status. And even that could be seen as just a symbolization of an ongoing situation where Israel passively allows its citizens to be bombarded and its enemies to build up ominous forces on its border so as to sustain the fiction of the U.S.-orchestrated “peace process.” Conjectures that after the Annapolis conference Israel would finally move decisively against the terrorist concentration in Gaza proved wrong as Israel continues to bide time. Last week its security cabinet recommended against a major Gaza operation, citing supposed tactical successes in killing a few hundred Gaza terrorists this year even as the jihad organizations have managed to fire a thousand rockets and over a thousand mortars since the year began, keeping the nearby Israeli communities in a perpetual state of terror. But the real reason for the restraint was “peacemaking”—which means, at this point, ongoing meetings with Palestinian Authority/Fatah leaders who have clearly announced that they will never even recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Israelis who were unhappy with this charade were assured that it was all part of a U.S. strategy, ultimately working to Israel’s benefit, of demonstrating concern for the Palestinian issue and thereby putting together a bloc of moderate Arab states that would stand with America in confronting Iran. It was the NIE that burst that balloon. Now a top Israeli delegation has been scrambled to the U.S. to try and prove that Iran really constitutes the threat that supposedly was the guiding consideration all along. If it is possible to understand the Israeli approach of compliance with its superpower ally, it has long been difficult to understand the lengths to which Israel will keep itself in line. From the time the Second Intifada broke out in September 2000 till Operation Defensive Shield began in March 2002, Israel essentially let its citizens be slaughtered in the streets so as not to ruffle George Bush’s then-perception that the Palestinian territories were sacrosanct and off limits to Israeli forces. Israel has meanwhile gone along with releasing hundreds of terrorists from prison, funneling funds and weapons to Fatah, and periodically lifting West Bank checkpoints even though all these measures lead with demonstrable regularity to fatal attacks on Israeli civilians. Two years ago Israel evacuated Gaza partly, it is thought, so that then-prime minister Ariel Sharon could win a promise from Bush that Israel would eventually retain substantial lands in the West Bank . Today Israel keeps being pushed along in a “peace process” with PA leaders who say openly that they will never accept anything but total Israeli withdrawal followed by Israel ’s inundation with “refugees.” And since the pullout from Gaza , the rocket fire has climbed from a couple of hundred hits per year to about a thousand per year—still without any substantial Israeli response. Israel is now stunned by the perception that the return on all this costly compliance is the NIE—widely believed by the political and security establishment to mean the Bush administration has bowed out of confronting Iran and left Israel to face it very much alone. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5FD31B12-CCD8-4861-A341-79D5FCD0F0FF FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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