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Contents:
Is the Status Quo Relating to the Disputed Territories Sustainable?: Isi Leibler, Candidly Speaking, Oct. 14, 2014— Israelis from all sides of the political spectrum desperately yearn that their dream of peace and a secure and stable relationship with their neighbors could be realized now.
Benny Gantz’s Troubling Assessments: Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 13, 2014— The outcome of the donor conference for Gaza reconstruction that was held in Cairo on Sunday was not surprising.
Fight Not the Last War: Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaacov Amidror, Besa, Oct. 20, 2014— Lately, a lot has been said in praise of the way the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fought in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.
Young Israeli Cyberwarriors Learn to Duel in the Dark: William Booth & Ruth Eglash, Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2014— There are a lot of secrets kept in Israel’s intelligence community, but this is not one of them: Israel aims to become a cybersecurity superpower, and to do that, the Israeli military is launching an ambitious program to groom the next generation of cyberwarriors while they are still in high school.
US-Israeli Relations: National Security Trauma: Amir Rapaport, Israel Defense, Oct. 16, 2014
Chinese Firms Swoop Into Israel Looking for Tech Investments: Orr Hirschauge, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24 2014
After Operation Protective Edge, Natural Gas Renews Confidence in Israeli Economic Performance: Ben Cohen
, Algemeiner, Oct. 15, 2014
Start-up Nation’s Dark Side: Shlomo Maital, Jerusalem Jeport, Sept. 22, 2014
IS THE STATUS QUO RELATING TO THE
DISPUTED TERRITORIES SUSTAINABLE?
Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking, Oct. 14, 2014
Israelis from all sides of the political spectrum desperately yearn that their dream of peace and a secure and stable relationship with their neighbors could be realized now. But alas, no quick fix is currently achievable.
Both left- and right-wing radicals continue to vigorously agitate for drastic action and predict disaster if the status quo is maintained. The delusional Left calls for further unilateral withdrawals and the radical Right demands instant annexationist policies.
Since the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the Left has succeeded in convincing many rank-and-file Israelis to believe that the status quo is unsustainable and would lead to our destruction. Like the sound of a siren, their call for quick fixes and solutions has deeply penetrated the psyche of a nation that, understandably, desperately yearns for peace. Although Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin readily admitted that the Oslo Accords represented a gamble, it was the repeated insistence by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin that nothing was worse than maintaining the status quo, that enabled the government — with the support of the Arab parties — to muster the hairline majority required to endorse the process. As a consequence, the Second Intifada erupted and thousands of Israelis lost their lives to suicide bombings and terrorism. As the evidence mounted, it became increasingly clear that despite the sweet words Yasser Arafat expressed for external consumption, the PA’s goal remained the end of Jewish sovereignty, even if that was to be achieved in stages.
The Israeli Left argued then, as it does to this day, that negotiations with the PA represented the best and only opportunity to move forward and the alternative of retaining the status quo would have disastrous consequences and destroy the otherwise “irreversible peace process.” Israelis were urged to ignore the incitement against Israel on the grounds that Arafat, and subsequently Mahmoud Abbas, were merely promoting anti-Semitic rhetoric among their people “for domestic purposes.” The unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was also justified on the basis of the need to create a concrete move from the status quo. However, the withdrawal from Gaza actually served to embolden the radicals who transformed the blooming agricultural land created by Israelis into launch pads for rockets targeting Israeli civilians. Even after the recent conflict with Hamas, with the bombardment by rockets from Gaza and the discovery of attack tunnels, we are again being warned against maintaining the status quo and thereby forsaking the “last” opportunity to achieve peace.
The Saudi Arabian peace plan was adopted at its inception by the Left as the basis for a solution. Setting aside the central clause relating to the right of return of Arab refugees, which would entail the end of Jewish sovereignty, events of the past year have demonstrated how catastrophic it would have been to agree to borders based on the 1949 armistice lines. There were new calls at the Gaza donor conference from Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and others for Israel to accept the Saudi formula as the basis for a settlement.
Yet even today, despite the carnage and total meltdown in the Arab world, the Labor Party still urges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the Saudi plan as a basis for renewed negotiations. The U.S. administration now also invokes the “danger” of maintaining the status quo as the central theme in its efforts to force Israel to make further unilateral concessions. President Barack Obama makes reference to this on almost every occasion in which he relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict and Secretary of State John Kerry constantly referred to the danger of the status quo as a means of pressuring Israel during the recent, unsuccessful, U.S.-inspired peace negotiations. Only this week he once again slammed the “unacceptable and unstable status quo.” Likewise, the EU, whose hostility toward Israel has escalated over the past year, continuously intones the mantra about the disasters Israel imposes upon itself and the entire region by maintaining the status quo.
One wonders what the consequences would have been had Abbas (and before him Arafat) not spurned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s outrageous offers. Hamas would have taken control of the entire West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and inevitably Israel would have been obliged to militarily regain control of the entire territory, suffering major casualties and probably providing grounds for the U.S. to actively intervene and impose solutions on us. It is surely time to face reality. Yes, we abhor the status quo. Most of us would desperately like to separate ourselves entirely from the Palestinians right now. Yet the turmoil surrounding us and the absence of a genuine peace partner make this impossible. Short of repeating the mistakes of the past and making further unilateral concessions that will boomerang, there are no quick fixes and so for the time being we must refuse any further territorial concessions. At the same time, we must resist calls from the Right to annex territories which would oblige us to absorb large numbers of Arabs and transform Israel into a binational state. We must reiterate that once we have a genuine Arab peace partner who is willing to provide us with defensible borders and a security structure which will not endanger our children or grandchildren in the future, aside from the settlement blocs, we would cede control of the bulk of the territories formerly occupied by Jordan. In the meantime, we will make every effort to minimize our presence in the Arab areas and endeavor to enhance the quality of life and wellbeing of the inhabitants…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
BENNY GANTZ’S TROUBLING ASSESSMENTS
Caroline B. Glick
Jeruasalem Post, Oct. 13, 2014
The outcome of the donor conference for Gaza reconstruction that was held in Cairo on Sunday was not surprising. Representatives of 50 countries convened to pledge funds to Hamas and the PLO. The Palestinians had hoped to receive $4 billion in pledges. They raised $5.4b. Most of the money will be transferred to the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. But at least $1b. will go directly to Hamas, from its primary financier, Qatar. With its $1b. Hamas will be able to pay its terrorist operatives and rebuild its terrorist forces. The air force revealed last week that Hamas is rebuilding its rocket arsenal already. As for the money that will be transferred to Abbas, the billions in funding will give the PLO the money it needs to finance Abbas’s rapidly escalating political war against Israel in the international arena. At least some of the money will also go to Hamas, Abbas’s partner in the unity government. The entire nature of the conference was surreal, but again predictable. Surreal because it was based on a total disregard for reality.
In last summer’s war, Hamas wantonly and deliberately waged an unprovoked, illegal missile campaign against Israel for the third time in five years. It fired 4,500 projectiles at Israeli territory. It also used tunnels it dug into Israeli territory to attack Israel. Had Hamas not attacked, Israel would not have counterattacked. There would have been no damage to repair in Gaza. If the US, Europe and the Arab world were interested in actually helping Gaza, rather than organize a conference to fund Hamas and the PLO, they would have enjoined Israel to finish the job two months ago and end Hamas’s criminal, terrorist state in Gaza once and for all. Yet, they did no such thing. Throughout the war, the US and the EU joined Qatar and Turkey in blaming Israel for Hamas’s illegal war. And on Sunday, they put their money where their mouths are. They pledged billions to the PLO and its political war against Israel. And they funded Hamas – both directly and indirectly. Moreover, they gave Hamas a political victory by agreeing to fund Abbas, even though he is the head of a PLO-Hamas government. All of this was predictable because it happens every time Israel is attacked, whether by terrorist armies in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, or in Lebanon. Every time the Palestinians and Lebanese Hezbollah attack Israel, the US and Europe eventually side with the Arabs and demand that Israel stop defending itself.
The only difference between the most recent war with Hamas and its predecessors is that this time, the US was even more adamantly opposed to Israel’s attempts to defeat Hamas than the Europeans and many Arab governments. In other words, the only difference between the most recent war and its predecessors is that the level of hostility towards Israel – and conversely support for Hamas – among leading members of the international community was unprecedented. Israel’s job in contending with this hostile environment should have been similarly unprecedented. Israel should have been offering to lead an international force in Gaza to overthrow Hamas and arrest its leaders pending war crimes trials. It should have been sticking the international community’s nose in the stench of its hypocrisy and anti-Israel bias. Operationally, it should have recognized that Israel’s chief achievement in the war was its ability to withstand US pressure and maintain Gaza’s physical isolation by maintaining the borders shut, and so preventing the terrorist regime from resupplying and rearming. At least on the last count, keeping Gaza sealed was Israel’s unflinching position throughout the war. To prevent the opening of Gaza’s borders, and through it, the rebuilding of Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure and political power, at great diplomatic cost, Israel repeatedly rejected US demands for an open border. But today, this position is collapsing. True, Israel is insisting officially that stringent controls be placed on all dual use goods brought into Gaza. But officials openly acknowledge that there is no way to enforce the controls once the goods are imported.
Far worse than accepting that its position is difficult to enforce, Israel is actually facilitating the opening of Gaza’s borders. In so doing, Israel is giving Hamas the victory it failed to achieve on the battlefield. And worst of all, the chief proponent of this policy is not Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, or even Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. Its chief advocate is IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz. Throughout the war, tremors of criticism were heard in governing circles and the media against the IDF leadership in general, and against Gantz, in particular. In a series of media interviews on the eve of Yom Kippur, Gantz showed that not only was the criticism warranted – it was far too mild. For years, it has been rightly said that Israel suffers from a chronic shortage of strong leaders. But what Gantz showed in his interviews is that even if Israel was blessed with the strongest leaders in Jewish history, it is far from clear that they would have the capacity to act on their convictions. In Israel, as in all countries, for a government to get things done political leaders require the assistance of professional echelons who develop tactical options for achieving strategic goals and implement government policies. The chief criticism of Gantz during the war was that he failed to present the government with options for defeating Hamas or that when he did present them, he did so in ways that made it impossible for the government to adopt options he opposed. It was also said that he failed to respect the government’s sovereign authority to determine policy, and interjected his position on issues that were well beyond the professional authority of the IDF.
In his interview with Maariv, Gantz said that the only way to guarantee that the cease-fire will hold is by paying off Hamas. That is, he made clear that he sides with the US and the rest of the international community against the government. In his words, “At the end of the day, 1.8 million Palestinians live there, and the quiet is also dependent on the trend of creating economic hope there.” Gantz placed the blame for their supposed hopelessness on Israel, and its measures to contain Hamas’s threat to Gaza. In his words, “The people there need to live, and they are caught between Egypt on one side, us on another side and the sea with a six mile fishing zone on the other side.” Later in the interview, Gantz insisted that Israel’s interest is in enabling the international community to fund Hamas, arguing that terrorism is simply the result of economic privation. As he put it, “The Palestinians also do not want to see terrorism operating from within them. Hamas absorbed a mighty blow and sustained great damage. It needs to see economic recovery, and this need, for economic growth is an opportunity for us.” The question of whether or not Gaza should be enriched is not a military one. But that doesn’t bother Gantz. After dictating what the government’s position must be, he then coyly winked, “I leave this for the elected leadership.”…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaacov Amidror
Besa, Oct. 1, 2014
Lately, a lot has been said in praise of the way the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fought in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. Indeed, great courage and extraordinary sacrifice were displayed during the operation. The commanders led from the front and displayed the kind of vigor that field commanders ought to possess. We have been promised that the IDF will investigate and draw conclusions from the outcomes of this operation, and that is precisely what should be done. No serious, professional institution can ever develop and progress without delving deep into its own actions – for better and worse. However, it is advisable to be very careful with the process of drawing conclusions. The term “conclusions” in the military sense stems from the understanding that it is possible to improve from one battle to the next by learning from mistakes. But in order to actually improve in the future, great care must be taken, because each battle is slightly, or extremely, different than the one that preceded it. There is a high likelihood that a conclusion drawn from one event will not apply to the next. Thus, for example, in the 1967 Six-Day War the enemy Arab air forces were crippled and our air force became available to assist ground forces in a way that was purposeful and effective. The “conclusion” drawn by the military was that there was no need for artillery on the ground because the ground forces could be effectively covered from the air. Six years later, during the Yom Kippur War, this strategy did not work. The conclusion was misleading because it was derived from a unique set of circumstances that would not occur again. The result was devastating: Ground forces went to battle without serious artillery cover. It is important to remember this as a warning against drawing mistaken conclusions from unique events, both in a strategic and tactical sense.
The most recent campaign in Gaza was, in many ways, an exceptional operation that will probably not repeat itself elsewhere. The fighting was against a small enemy, and it was waged entirely within the confines of a small, crowded space. The enemy felt diplomatically isolated and was not receiving any aid from anyone during the course of the fighting. Meanwhile, Israel unleashed the full power of its air force – the fourth largest air force in the world – on this narrow swathe of land, and marched (almost) all its ground forces (only) half a step inside, rubbing up against the enemy’s protective shell but never confronting its main forces. True, it was impossible to surprise the enemy – they knew exactly where and when to lie in wait for our soldiers.. But ultimately, just to put things into the right perspective, the IDF never “maneuvered,” it simply forged ahead, a very short way, along the entire front. Due to these specific circumstances, there was never a logistical problem because all the fighting was conducted within a 20 minute drive of an Israeli base. There was no difficulty in evacuating casualties beyond the point of friction because everything happened so close to the border. There was no issue of assistance because the troops were constantly within the range of the artillery units deployed in advance. The fact that the IDF waged battle just a miniscule distance from its own border and its permanent bases and infrastructure carried enormous significance, but it precludes the drawing of any significant “conclusions.”
The characteristics of the enemy the IDF faced in the latest round of fighting were also extremely unique. So even when selecting the terminology to describe it, one must take extreme care: It was not a war, but an operation. It was even a limited operation, despite being techno-tactically challenging and despite the fact that several command centers were involved. In large part, the enemy was static, beyond the most basic tactical levels. They did not possess tanks, armed helicopters, serious artillery, air defenses or anti-tank capabilities, beyond a handful of missiles. No depth and no provisions. As far as the IDF is concerned, that is not a war, even when its soldiers are fighting a bitter and painful fight –and it was certainly bitter and painful on the individual level as well as on the platoon and possibly even the squad level. For the purpose of drawing conclusions, the army must avoid being influenced by the great difficulty and low-level tactical challenges (and there were enormous difficulties and great personal risk). The truth is that in terms of scope of the enemy battalion, they didn’t really set a high bar for our troops. It is unlikely that the IDF would have been forced to flex too many muscles, mainly because the enemy operated in small groups, and in most cases there was no organized hierarchy that would allow a large-scale military chain of command…
There is no doubt that armies of foreign countries, especially democratic countries, will study the steps the IDF took to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. We have plenty to teach the world in that regard, and that is something we should be proud of. No foreign army can hold itself to the IDF’s standards, and that is nothing to complain about. However, we are allowed to, and should, demand more of ourselves. Maybe other armies will be able to learn the techniques developed by the IDF to combat tunnels in residential spaces, but not much more than that. Otherwise, during this operation, the IDF didn’t really innovate in any important military field. In conclusion, beyond the techno-tactical topics, it will be difficult to learn anything of true value for the future from such a unique set of circumstances: an inferior enemy a stone’s throw from the border with the IDF using its full force, in some cases entirely unopposed. The IDF deserves accolades for its performance, but it must be careful not to make too many changes based on the lessons of this operation.
YOUNG ISRAELI CYBERWARRIORS LEARN TO
William Booth & Ruth Eglash
Washington Post, Oct. 8, 2014
There are a lot of secrets kept in Israel’s intelligence community, but this is not one of them: Israel aims to become a cybersecurity superpower, and to do that, the Israeli military is launching an ambitious program to groom the next generation of cyberwarriors while they are still in high school. The little Jewish state that prides itself on the sobriquet “Start-up Nation” has set cybersecurity as a national goal, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a prominent cheerleader. Netanyahu sees cyberspace as both Israel’s new frontier and new front line. The prime minister wants Israel not only to have the best military wonks in the world, but also to partner Israel’s high-tech military with the country’s venture capitalists and young computer talent to offer clients defensive strategies against the kind of hack attacks that have hit eBay and Target, South Korean banks and Google in China. At a September conference here devoted to cybersecurity, Netanyahu described the Israeli military’s cyber units as locked in battle with “hacktivists” and state-sponsored actors, such as Iran, in daily duels that take place in dark rooms in front of computer screens. The Israeli leader said the cyber-fight reached a peak during the 50-day Gaza war this summer. The cyberattacks included attempts to disrupt the country’s electricity and enter systems guarded by the Israel Defense Forces. A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army hacked into the Twitter account of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and falsely claimed that Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor was “leaking” after a rocket attack. For its part, Israeli cyber units crashed the official Hamas Web site just as Israeli ground forces launched an incursion into the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu asserted that most of the attacks aimed at Israel come from Iran or its allies Hezbollah and Hamas.
In a bold stroke, Israel is relocating its military intelligence, telecommunications corps and top-secret C4I technology division here to the desert city of Beersheba, where military computer spooks will mingle — as much as their security clearances allow — with entrepreneurs at a new, high-tech industrial park devoted to cybersecurity, alongside students and professors from Ben-Gurion University. The Beersheba boosters are gunning for 10,000 cyber-workers — divided equally between the military and private sector — in town within the next five years, transforming the fastest-growing city in Israel into cyber-central. Erel Margalit, a member of the Israeli parliament and founder of JVP, a Jerusalem venture capital group invested in cybersecurity, said recruiting the best young minds is essential for Israel’s cyberdefense and its economy. “In any war game,” he said, “the kids always beat the generals.” He said the best of the best in Israel’s military cyber units are young Israelis who wake up late, don’t like to take orders and think outside conventional limits. “In this arena, we are very competitive,” he said.
After three or four years of compulsory military service in a cyber unit, the boosters imagine, the young innovators will form their own companies — such as Check Point Software Technologies, one of the largest companies in Israel, founded by veterans of Israel’s Unit 8200, an intelligence entity whose mission is to decrypt and gather online information. Israel has become the world’s No. 2 exporter of cyber products and services, after the United States. There are 200 homegrown cybersecurity companies in Israel, alongside dozens of joint research-and-development ventures. They produced $3 billion in exports last year, or about 5 percent of the $60 billion global market in products designed to keep hackers from crashing systems or siphoning data with viruses, malware and purloined passwords. Haden Land, vice president of research and technology at Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest defense contractors, whose company just opened a cyber-focused subsidiary in Israel, predicts that the global market will reach $100 billion this year and that Israel will be a center for innovation…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
On Topic
US-Israeli Relations: National Security Trauma: Amir Rapaport, Israel Defense, Oct. 16, 2014—Here is another unfamiliar result of Operation Protective Edge: the Israeli defense establishment will reduce the production of weapon systems in the USA in the context of joint Israeli-American projects, and will rely more heavily on Israeli-made products.
Chinese Firms Swoop Into Israel Looking for Tech Investments: Orr Hirschauge, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24 2014—Chinese investors are pouring millions into Israel-focused, tech-investment funds—as well as launching their own funds and investing directly in Israeli startups—amid a frenzy of tech investment and deal making here.
After Operation Protective Edge, Natural Gas Renews Confidence in Israeli Economic Performance: Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, Oct. 15, 2014—Six weeks after the end of Operation Protective Edge, a bruising conflict which saw Israel attempt to eliminate the missile threat from Hamas-ruled Gaza for the third time in six years, the Jewish state’s economy is showing mixed signs of recovery.
Start-up Nation’s Dark Side: Shlomo Maital, Jerusalem Jeport, Sept. 22, 2014 — My wife and I are visiting this sprawling city of 11 million as part of a round-the world trip that includes lecturing, research and some touring. I spoke here to several groups of entrepreneurs and academics about Israeli innovation and startups.
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