From: David Dolan
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 3:35 AM
Subject: [ISRAELUPDATE] NOVEMBER NEWS REPORT
Below is my latest monthly Israel news and analysis report, focusing
on the intense military struggle between IDF and Palestinian Hamas forces
during November, and the subsequent ceasefire that has calmed the situation—at
least temporarily. I examine the prospects for the ceasefire to hold long
term, and also take a look at extremely ominous developments during November
in Lebanon, Syria and Iran that many analysts predict could spark a new regional
war next year, possibly involving violence-torn Iraq as well.
I deeply apologize for the fact
that most of you apparently got multiple copies of last month’s report.
This was due to a spam-related breakdown in the US-based distribution system,
over which I had no advance knowledge or control. Apparently the massive
amounts of spam now being sent to any public e mail address, such as this
one, simply clogged the distribution system, causing it to reboot and resend
the report several times over. My list hosts have taken measures to
insure that this will not reoccur, but if it does, please accept our apologies
in advance and just delete the extra copies.
I set off this week for another
USA speaking tour, beginning this
weekend in south Florida. I will speak at two
conferences there during December, and at various congregations stretching
from Tampa and Fort Myers in the west, to Port Saint Lucie and Fort Lauderdale along the eastern shores of the peninsula.
Early next year, I will be sharing in the Birmingham Alabama area, in the Dallas metro area, north of Los Angeles in California, the Seattle area, North Idaho and finally in the New York City, central New Jersey areas on my way back to Israel in February. I plan to
continue to file my monthly news updates while traveling. A full listing
of my meetings can be found at my web site, www.ddolan.com
Concerning my visa situation
mentioned in messages sent out earlier this year, a meeting was recently held
between the Foreign Press Association and Interior Ministry representatives
to try and find a solution to the dilemma that I and several dozen other international
reporters find ourselves in after the length of stay if Israel for all foreign journalists
was shortened to five years. This came after the German government intervened
on behalf of one of that country’s veteran newspaper journalists stationed
here, which prompted movement on the issue. So I will probably come under
the resolution agreed upon at that meeting, granting such journalists work
extensions. However, I do not plan to withdraw my request for permanent
residency at this time, and appreciate your prayers for a positive outcome
to that request.
RUMBLINGS
OF REGIONAL ERUPTION DESPITE CEASEFIRE
By David Dolan
With the Middle East reeling from escalating violence
stretching from Lebanon to Iraq, Israel’s military battle with radical
Palestinian Muslim groups intensified in November as Kassam rockets poured
down in unprecedented numbers on Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.
Two civilians were killed in the daily attacks—which increased up to an average
of ten per day—and several others were wounded, including Defense Minister
Amir Peretz’s personal bodyguard who lost both legs when shrapnel struck him.
The escalating Kassam attacks prompted Israeli leaders to warn that a major
new military campaign was imminent if the Palestinians did not halt their
offensive forthwith.
Under increasing pressure from
his Palestinian people to secure a halt to heavy counteraction from Israeli military forces, overall Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas announced on November 25 that a ceasefire had
been agreed upon with Israel. He said this was made
possible because of an internal accord forged with all Palestinian factions
to stop Kassam attacks upon Israel—at least for the time being.
Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert
immediately froze all IDF military operations, but warned that his government
would feel free to respond if further Palestinian attacks were carried out.
However he held his fire when nearly a dozen more rockets fell after the ceasefire
went into effect.
The ceasefire came just one
day after the Hamas movement threatened to launch a new anti-Israel attrition war within six months
if government officials in Jerusalem do not agree to their suicidal
demand that the radical Muslim group be allowed to set up an independent state
with Jerusalem’s sacred Old City as its capital. Israeli Mideast analysts said the
bellicose announcement, made by overall Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, signaled
that the radical group only intends to use the new timeout to prepare for
the next round of Hamas attacks, which could well include Kassam rocket assaults
upon Jerusalem. After the ceasefire
went into effect, Mashaal said he would now allow Israel one entire year to meet his
demands.
WARCLOUDS
LINGER IN THE NORTH
Despite the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, military
tensions remained high in southern Lebanon, where Hizbullah militia forces
were reportedly receiving fresh weapon supplies via Lebanese commercial trucks
crossing the international border from Syria. The nightly convoys
were said to have boosted the Shiite group’s deadly arsenal to near pre-war
levels.
Time Magazine reported in late
November that the weapons, including short and longer range rockets, are being
flown every day from Iran to Syria. Iranian Revolutionary Guards
stationed in the Arab country then make sure that they are hidden underneath
commercial goods in trucks passing back into Lebanon. Although the action
is a blatant violation of the August UN ceasefire resolution that officially
ended the war, Israeli officials were said to fear
that any major IDF military strikes to curb the rearmament action could spark
UN attempts to impose international sanctions against the small Jewish state.
Hizbullah’s aggressive attempts
to topple the elected anti-Syrian Lebanese government—which included the mass
resignation of all five Shiite cabinet ministers during November—were also
being closely watched in Jerusalem Concerns over the destabilizing
Hizbullah-Syrian designs soared after the November 21 gangland-style murder
of Pierre Gemayel, a prominent Maronite Catholic cabinet minister and nephew
of assassinated President Bashir Gemayel. Israeli analysts agreed with most
Lebanese observers that the murder was carried out by Syrian agents, working
with Hizbullah to overthrow the pro-Western Lebanese government.
Meanwhile, Iran—the regional
country doing the most to stoke the raging fires in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq—issued
new vows to destroy the world’s only Jewish-led state. This prompted
Israeli leaders
to issue their clearest declarations yet that they are prepared to launch
military action to curb the Shiite theocracy’s ominous nuclear program. Radical
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his cabinet ministers on
November 12 that "Israel is destined for
destruction, and will disappear soon." The Shiite leader went on to
maintain that “the Zionist regime is a contradiction to nature, and we foresee
its rapid disappearance and destruction."
During his trans-Atlantic flight
to meet with American officials in Washington mid-month,
PM Olmert alluded to the likelihood of Israeli military
action if Iran’s threatening
nuclear program is not quickly halted. He told reporters on board that
"Iran will
only agree to a compromise on the issue of its nuclear program if it has a
reason to be afraid." In a subsequent interview with Newsweek magazine,
Olmert added to his thinly veiled warning of possible Israeli military
action. Noting that Iranian leaders were brazenly ignoring a United Nations
call for an immediate halt to their uranium enrichment program, the Israeli leader
sternly warned that “The government and the people of Iran must understand
that if they do not accept the request of the international community, they're
going to pay dearly.”
SOBBING SDEROT
Just before the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire was
announced in late November, Israeli military leaders were busy
at work on a new plan of potential action. It was designed to stem the rising
tide of Palestinian rockets raining down on Israeli communities, especially upon
the long-besieged northern Negev town of Sderot. The need for a wide-scale
operation became apparent to most Israeli leaders after two civilian
residents of the town—Fatima Slutsker, a middle-aged
woman of Moroccan Jewish ancestry, and Yaakov Yaakobov, a Russian
immigrant factory worker and father or two—were killed in the space of less
than one week by Kassam rockets exploding in the town. Analysts said
the fact that a new major military offensive was being prepared was the most
likely reason that radical Palestinian factions agreed to halt their rocket
attacks late in the month, at least for the time being.
Public demands to deal forcefully
with the increasingly untenable security situation in Sderot and surrounding
areas grew when the 12 year old son of the slain factory worker spoke to reporters
after his father’s traumatic funeral. With tears pouring down from his
tender eyes, the bereaved boy asked reporters why Palestinian militants had
taken his father’s life just one month before his scheduled bar mitzvah, set
to take place in the town which has come under nearly constant Palestinian
rocket bombardment for over six years.
His father’s untimely death
came just one day after three siblings between the ages of four and nine narrowly
escaped injury when a rocket blasted in the windows of their Sderot home as
they were preparing to leave for school. Another rocket landed next
to a Sderot primary school just minutes before scores
of children were scheduled to begin arriving for their daily classes.
Later the same week, several rockets exploded while dozens of foreign ambassadors
were visiting the town to examine the situation firsthand.
The new Israeli army plan is still expected
to be presented to government leaders despite the November 25 ceasefire.
Analysts said this would give cabinet ministers a reserve plan of action in
case intensive Palestinian rocket fire resumes. They added that the
plan’s existence will also provide Palestinian leaders with a strong incentive
to abide by the ceasefire.
The army plan reportedly focuses
on a major ground operation that could mirror the 2002 IDF “Defensive Shield”
campaign carried out in Judea and Samaria following the deaths of nearly
100 Israeli civilians in terrorist attacks
early that year. Thousands of Israeli reserve soldiers would reportedly
be called up for active duty, this time to support regular army forces who
would effectively reoccupy large portions of the Gaza Strip. Press reports
said the army plan proposes that Israeli forces take control over most
of the northern third of the small coastal zone, along with the southern Philadelphi
corridor where it is known that up to 100 Palestinian tunnels have been dug
in recent months to smuggle in banned weapons from Egypt.
GAZA DEATHS SPARK
UN ACTION
In the weeks before the new
ceasefire was hammered out, IDF ground and air forces continued to conduct
smaller-scale daily operations in many portions of the Gaza Strip for a fifth
month in a row. Israeli officials said nearly 300
Palestinians had been killed during that time, most of them Hamas fighters.
While mainly attempting to reduce the number of Kassam rockets fired into
Israel, the IDF also continued to
search for abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. The military action came amid
continuing Palestinian political turbulence and street clashes that threatened
to destroy what remains of the thin layer of civility in the increasingly
lawless zone.
The Palestinian Hamas group
claimed that November’s stepped up rocket assaults were mainly to avenge the
killing of 19 Gaza Strip non-combatants by Israeli artillery fire early in the
month, most of them members of one extended family. Scores were also wounded
in the misguided firing, which struck several private homes at dinnertime.
Israeli officials said seven artillery
shells strayed from their intended Hamas terrorist targets by up to 200 meters
in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, from where over 600 Kassam rockets have been
deliberately launched at Israeli communities since Jewish civilians
and military forces completely evacuated the Gaza Strip in September 2005.
A subsequent army investigation
found that a faulty radar system was behind the tragic incident, prompting
DM Peretz to order that all artillery fire from now on must first be cleared
with the overall IDF Southern Commander, General Yoav
Galant. After opening the border so that wounded
victims could be treated at Israeli hospitals, the government
issued an official apology for the misguided fire, and offered to financially
compensate the wounded, along with relatives of the fatal victims.
In typical fashion, the Muslim
world’s excessive hypocrisy concerning Israel was displayed yet again when
the Arab League demanded, and got, an emergency UN Security Council session
to discuss the “latest Zionist massacre.” The fact the Israeli army had completely withdrawn
from the Gaza Strip over one year ago, and was only engaging in renewed military
activity as a result of relentless and unprovoked rocket attacks upon Israeli communities and an illegal
cross border kidnapping, was not mentioned in the latest proposed resolution
condemning Israel. Nor was it noted that
seven Israelis, including a pregnant woman
and a four year old boy, have been killed by Kassam rockets in recent years,
and dozens injured, or that the Palestinian rockets are deliberately fired
at schools, factories and homes in an obvious effort to kill and maim as many
civilians as possible. When the United States vetoed the typically one-sided
resolution—noting that it “does not display an even-handed characterization
of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace”—the issue was moved to the wider
UN General Assembly, where it was naturally overwhelmingly approved.
NEW WEAPON
UNVEILED—HUMAN SHIELDS
The Palestinians unveiled an
effective new weapon during November, designed to protect the radical Islamic
militants who insist on endlessly assaulting Israeli civilian centers with deadly
rocket fire. In the spirit of Muslim women and teenagers who are encouraged
to commit suicide while slaughtering Israeli civilians—the latest being
a 68 year old grandmother who wounded three soldiers when she blew herself
up next to an IDF checkpoint on November 23—Hamas officials called upon women
and children to surround the homes of terrorist activists in the crosshairs
of Israeli fire. Of course, Hamas
leaders can only say which homes are being targeted because the IDF informs
them in advance that an attack is pending. The warning, which often
gives radical activists a chance to escape, is a humanitarian effort by a
non-militant Mideast country to spare as many non-combatant lives as possible,
even if they are mostly the relatives of those who choose to make attacking
Israel their prime occupation.
Hundreds of Muslims dutifully
flocked to the home of wanted Hamas Kassam rocket commander Muhammad Baroud after the IDF phoned his home to warn of an impending
attack. When Baroud informed a local mosque of the phone call, a
nearby minaret began broadcasting appeals for civilians to surround the home
to prevent it from being destroyed. Similar actions took place in at
least five other homes that Israel intended to target during the
month, prompting IDF commanders to call off the operations in every instance.
Adding a new dimension to the
story, an American Roman Catholic priest and nun joined the Palestinian communal
sit-ins in late November. The Michigan-based “peace activists” claimed
they were “sent by God to help protect innocent Palestinian lives.”
They were warmly welcomed by Baroud’s brother Ahmed, who escorted them inside for
their internationally televised vigil. “It is wrong for Israel to bomb people’s homes, and
so we are here in solidarity,” said Father Peter Dougherty, apparently unfazed
by the fact that Baroud’s chosen occupation is to
direct Palestinian rocket attacks upon Israeli civilian homes and schools—without
any advance notice that they are about to come crashing down.
In an unusual move, a major
human rights group actually condemned the latest Palestinian attempt to protect
terrorists who deliberately operate from civilian neighborhoods. The
New York-based Human Rights Watch group issued a statement declaring that
“there is no excuse for calling civilians to the scene of a planned IDF attack,”
adding that “knowingly placing civilians in harm’s way is unlawful.”
The group especially blasted the fact that the Hamas PA Prime Minister Ismail
Haniyeh had praised the tactic, declaring he was “very proud of this national
stand.”
AT EACH OTHERS
THROATS
While Palestinian rockets continued
to soar into Israeli airspace, tensions percolated
on the ground between supporters and opponents of the Hamas movement which
took control of the PA government last March. Armed clashes occurred
in several Gaza Strip locations. A senior member of the PLO Fatah movement,
Abu Ali Shaheen, was shot and seriously wounded in an apparent
Hamas assassination attempt on November 22, provoking warnings of further
clashes ahead from angry Fatah officials. The shooting took place just
minutes after Shaheen left a Gaza City radio station where he had
blasted Hamas for bringing the Palestinian people to the brink of economic
ruin. He said the group must alter some of its extremist positions in
order to help lift international economic sanctions imposed when Hamas assumed
control of the PA.
Instead of modifying its radical
positions, the overall Hamas Damascus-based leader, Khaled Mashal, said that
a “third intifada” will be launched against Israel if the Olmert government does
not agree to uproot over 300,000 Jews from their homes in Samaria, Judea and the eastern half
of Jerusalem, and permit the fanatical group to establish a sovereign anti-Israel state in the evacuated areas.
Since this is obviously not about to occur, Israeli officials are now bracing
themselves for a possible wave of Hamas rocket attacks upon Jerusalem, Tel
Aviv, and other central Israeli cities, perhaps coinciding
with a Syrian military assault on the Golan Heights and renewed Hizbullah
missile strikes from Lebanon. Many analysts say such a new regional
war is apparently being planned by Iran in an attempt to keep Israel from launching military action
against Tehran’s escalating nuclear program.
Sensing that radical Iranian
and Al Qaida fueled anti-Western forces are slowly gaining the ascendancy
throughout the entire Middle East, Hamas officials continued to rebuff repeated
attempts by Mahmoud Abbas to replace the Hamas PA government with a more moderate
unity coalition compromised mostly of non-militant Palestinian technocrats.
Several times during November, Abbas announced that a unity deal was imminent,
only to be forced to eat his words when new Hamas conditions were unveiled
at the last minute.
Analysts say it is now clear
that militant Hamas leaders believe the group can hold onto power in the face
of crippling international sanctions, while waiting for Syria and Iran to
engage Israel in military action. They
said Hamas believes that the new ceasefire with Israel will decrease pressure on them
to modify their radical policies, while allowing their weapons arsenals to
be restocked and their battle-scarred militia forces to be reorganized—all
in relative peace in preparation for the next round of attacks against the
hated “Zionist entity.”
Whatever happens in this crisis-ridden
region in the coming year, the Lord will ultimately reign in Jerusalem, as
His ancient Hebrew prophets foretold: “Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed,
for the Lord of Hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory
will be before His elders” (Isaiah 24:23).
My latest monthly Israel news and analysis report focuses
on the intense military struggle between IDF and Palestinian Hamas forces
during the month, and the subsequent ceasefire that has calmed the situation—at
least temporarily. I examine the prospects for the ceasefire to hold
long term, and also examine extremely ominous developments in Lebanon, Syria and Iran that many analysts predict
could spark a new regional war next year.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based
author and journalist who has lived and worked in Israel since 1980.