Jerusalem News-864
8 Tammuz 5768, 30th June 2008
Contents:
1. UN (Spanish contingent) assisted
Capture of 'spies' hits Israel
2. Mossad
Chief on Iran Distrubances
3. Yisrael
Medad:
In defense of 'settlements'
4. Gershom
Gorenberg:
A guide to Israeli settlements
5. Michael Rubin: The Troop Drawdown Could Be Costly for Iraq
6. Winston Churchill: "You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem"
7. Defence
Costs
1. UN (Spanish contingent) assisted
Capture of 'spies' hits Israel
UPI Published: June 25, 2009 at 1:20 PM
www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/06/25/Capture-of-spies-hits-Israel/UPI-66891245950455/
The roundup of around 40 alleged Israeli agents in Lebanon in recent weeks
has in all probability been a serious blow for Israeli intelligence at a
time when its longtime adversary, Hezbollah, is bracing for another
onslaught by the Jewish state.
Both sides are nervous -- Israel because valuable eyes and ears inside
Lebanon have been lost, Hezbollah because the existence of these cells, some
of them set up 25 years ago, was an immense security failure on its part and
will mean it will have to do a lot of housecleaning and reorganizing.
All this means is that two of the Middle East's most ferocious adversaries,
whose intelligence war over the years has been one of the most heated in the
region, have both been badly damaged and want to hit back.
The turmoil in Iran and the emergence of a hard-line, right-wing government
in Israel under hawkish Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fuel this unease
and sense of vulnerability on both sides. And in the volatile Middle East,
those are usually portents of trouble.
With one cell after another being rolled up, the Israelis will no doubt have
told whatever other intelligence assets they may have in Lebanon to lie low.
And it seems clear, given the rank of some of the Lebanese arrested in the
crackdown, that the Israelis had penetrated Lebanese society and its
military widely and deeply.
The alleged agents included a former general in Lebanon's premier security
service, two army colonels and a former mayor. Lebanese authorities say most
of those arrested, including those just listed, have all confessed that they
had been spying in Lebanon for years.
Some said they were recruited by Israel's various intelligence services --
Mossad, which operates outside Israel; the Shin Bet internal security
service, which operated in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; and
Aman, military intelligence -- as far back as 1982 when Israel invaded
Lebanon.
In Lebanon, given Hezbollah's nationwide military structure and the danger
it poses for the Jewish state, the Israelis will have to rebuild the
networks smashed by Lebanese intelligence and Hezbollah's security branch to
regain the intelligence flow that is vital to military operations.
This means that to an extent that can only be guessed at, the Israelis are
more vulnerable regarding Hezbollah than they have been for many years.
When Hezbollah abducted Israeli soldiers on the border on July 12, 2006,
Israel responded with wave after wave of airstrikes in what became a 34-day
war. The Israelis were able to destroy bunkers containing most of
Hezbollah's long-range rockets capable of striking deep into Israel, almost
to Tel Aviv, in under an hour.
Their intelligence was that good, and some of that must have come from
agents they had on the ground. Those assets may no longer be available, and
the Israeli air force may not be able to strike with such devastating
accuracy next time around.
Hezbollah, too, is jumpy, and with some reason. From what information is
available about the alleged spies' activities, they were focused primarily
on tracking Hezbollah leaders and key operatives, identifying command
centers and safe houses.
Several senior Hezbollah officials who were assassinated were probably
targeted by intelligence provided by the Israeli agents. At least one of
these agents had secured a commercial contract with Hezbollah's
administrative branch to maintain its vehicles and had planted tracking
devices in them that went undetected for years.
It does not take a great stretch of the imagination to surmise how many
secret facilities and key Hezbollah operatives were uncovered in what must
stand as one of the most successful espionage operations mounted in many
years.
It seems that the assassination of several senior Hezbollah figures likely
resulted from the activities of the Israeli spy rings. Among those killed
was the Shiite movement's fabled and shadowy operational chief, Imad
Mughniyeh, the most wanted fugitive in the world until Osama bin Laden
struck on Sept. 11, 2001.
Mughniyeh, indicted in the United States for the June 1985 hijack of a TWA
jetliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was murdered, was assassinated in one of
the most secure districts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, after a meeting
with Syrian intelligence chiefs.
A bomb placed in the headrest of his SUV was detonated by remote control
when he got into the vehicle. It was one of the most spectacular
assassinations in the Middle East for years. It hit Hezbollah hard, and it
has carried out no operation of any significance against Israel since then.
2.
Mossad
Chief on Iran Distrubances
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:31:01 -0400
From: Debka@thejmg.com
Subject: DEBKA Newsletter June 26 2009
Tehran takes note of Israel's non-interference in its domestic turmoil
22 June: Ruling circles in Tehran have interpreted a remark by Israel's Mossad
director Meir Dagan as signifying Jerusalem's non-interference in the domestic
turmoil besetting the regime over the disputed presidential election,
DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report. They see Israel lining up with the
mainstream Arab governments such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have stood
aside and held silent in the ten days of Iranian unrest.
Last week, Dagan surprised Tehran when he remarked in a briefing to the Knesset
foreign affairs and security committee that the scale of vote-rigging in Iran
was not unusual compared with most democracies. The spy chief went on to say
that the protests in Tehran would fade after a few days.
These comments, say our sources, persuaded Iranian officials to change their
habits and go easy on "the Zionists" when accusing foreign elements of meddling
in their internal affairs. They vented their ire this time on Britain and to a
lesser degree on the US.
3. In defense of 'settlements'
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-medad28-2009jun28,0,6267445.story
Jews belong in Judea and Samaria as much as Palestinians who stayed in Israel.
By Yisrael Medad
June 28, 2009
No one, including a president of the United States of America, can presume to
tell me, a Jew, that I cannot live in the area of my national homeland. That's
one of the main reasons my wife and I chose in 1981 to move to Shiloh, a
so-called settlement less than 30 miles north of Jerusalem.
After Shiloh was founded in 1978, then-President Carter demanded of Prime
Minister Menachem Begin that the village of eight families be removed. Carter,
from his first meeting with Begin, pressed him to "freeze" the activity of Jews
rebuilding a presence in their historic home. As his former information aide,
Shmuel Katz, related, Begin said: "You, Mr. President, have in the United States
a number of places with names like Bethlehem, Shiloh and Hebron, and you haven't
the right to tell prospective residents in those places that they are forbidden
to live there. Just like you, I have no such right in my country. Every Jew is
entitled to reside wherever he pleases."
We now fast-forward to President Obama, who declared on June 15 in remarks at a
news conference with Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, that Jewish
communities beyond the Green Line "in past agreements have been categorized as
illegal."
I believe the president has been misled. There can be nothing illegal about a
Jew living where Judaism was born. To suggest that residency be permitted or
prohibited based on race, religion or ethnic background is dangerously close to
employing racist terminology.
Suppose someone suggested that Palestinian villages and towns in pre-1967 Israel
were to be called "settlements" and that, to achieve a true peace, Arabs should
be removed from their homes. Of course, separation or transfer of Arabs is
intolerable, but why is it quite acceptable to demand that Jews be ethnically
cleansed from the area? Do not Jews belong in Judea and Samaria as much as
Palestinians who stayed in the state of Israel?
Some have questioned why Jews should be allowed to resettle areas in which they
didn't live in the years preceding the 1967 war, areas that were almost empty of
Jews before 1948 as well. But why didn't Jews live in the area at that time?
Quite simple: They had been the victims of a three-decades-long ethnic cleansing
project that started in 1920, when an Arab attack wiped out a small Jewish farm
at Tel Hai in Upper Galilee and was followed by attacks in Jerusalem and, in
1921, in Jaffa and Jerusalem.
In 1929, Hebron's centuries-old Jewish population was expelled as a result of an
Arab pogrom that killed almost 70 Jews. Jews that year removed themselves from
Gaza, Nablus and Jenin. The return of my family to Shiloh -- and of other Jews
to more than 150 other communities over the Green Line since 1967 -- is not
solely a throwback to claimed biblical rights. Nor is it solely to assert our
right to return to areas that were Jewish-populated in the 20th century until
Arab violence drove them away. We have returned under a clear fulfillment of
international law. There can be no doubt as to the legality of the act of my
residency in Shiloh.
I am a revenant -- one who has returned after a long absence to ancestral lands.
The Supreme Council of the League of Nations adopted principles following the
1920 San Remo Conference aimed at bringing about the "reconstitution" of a
Jewish National Home. Article 6 of those principles reads: "The administration
of Palestine ... shall encourage ... close settlement by Jews on the land,
including state lands and waste lands." That "land" was originally delineated to
include all of what is today Jordan as well as all the territory west of the
Jordan River.
In 1923, Britain created a new political entity, Transjordan, and suspended the
right of Jews to live east of the Jordan River. But the region in which I now
live was intended to be part of the Jewish National Home. Then, in a historical
irony, a Saudi Arabian refugee, Abdallah, fleeing the Wahabis, was afforded the
opportunity to establish an Arab kingdom where none had existed previously --
only Jews. As a result, in an area where prophets and priests fashioned the most
humanist and moral religion and culture on Earth, Jews are now termed "illegals."
Many people insist that settlements are illegal under the Fourth Geneva
Convention. But that convention does not apply to Israel's presence in Judea and
Samaria and the Gaza district. Its second clause makes it clear that it deals
with the occupation of "the territory of a high contracting party." Judea and
Samaria and Gaza, which Israel gained control of in 1967, were not territories
of a "high contracting party." Jewish historical rights that the mandate had
recognized were not canceled, and no new sovereign ever took over in Judea and
Samaria or in Gaza.
Obama has made his objections to Israeli settlements known. But other U.S.
presidents have disagreed. President Reagan's administration issued a
declaration that Israeli settlements were not illegal. Support for that position
came from Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, former president of the International Court
of Justice, who determined that Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria did not
constitute "occupation." It also came from a leading member of Reagan's
administration, the former dean of the Yale Law School and former undersecretary
of State, Eugene Rostow, who asserted that "Israel has a stronger claim to the
West Bank than any other nation or would-be nation [and] the same legal right to
settle the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as it has to settle
Haifa or West Jerusalem."
Any suggestions, then, of "freezing" and halting "natural growth" are themselves
not only illegal but quite immoral.
Yisrael Medad, an American-born Israeli commentator, has lived in Shiloh since
1981. He is head of information resources at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center
in Jerusalem and blogs at
www.myrightword.blogspot.com.
4. A guide to Israeli settlements
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gorenberg28-2009jun28,0,6704423.story
How and when did they start, why are they spreading, what are the concerns and
should anything be done about them?
By Gershom Gorenberg
June 28, 2009
In Cairo this month, President Obama urged Israel to stop settlement
construction in the occupied territories. "The United States does not accept the
legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," he said. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, in his own policy speech soon after, ardently defended the
communities and the people who live in them. "The settlers are neither the
enemies of the people nor the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral
part of our people."
So what's all the fuss? We present a guide for the perplexed.
For starters, what's a settlement?
As used today, the term usually refers to an Israeli community built in the
territories that Israel conquered in the Six-Day War in June 1967. Israel
removed its settlements from the Sinai after making peace with Egypt in 1979,
and unilaterally evacuated its Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. So the dispute
today deals with the Golan Heights and especially the West Bank. Some of the
settlements are tiny, but many are large suburban towns such as Maale Adumim,
east of Jerusalem, and Ariel, east of Tel Aviv. These bedroom communities have
attracted Israelis, both secular and religious, looking for inexpensive homes.
The fastest-growing are those intended exclusively for ultra-Orthodox Jews. With
low incomes and large families, the ultra-Orthodox need cheap housing. Playing
to that need, successive Israeli governments have drawn them to towns such as
Modiin Illit, southeast of Tel Aviv, where more than 40,000 people now live. The
great majority of settlers live in large towns, most of them close to the Green
Line.
What's the Green Line?
It's the armistice line between Israel and its Arab neighbors, drawn in 1949 at
the end of Israel's war of independence. It's also known as the pre-1967 border.
After the Six-Day War, Israel extended Israeli law to East Jerusalem (and later,
the Golan Heights), which in practical terms meant annexation. But the rest of
the West Bank remained under military occupation, with Palestinian autonomous
rule in some areas. No other country has recognized Israeli sovereignty in East
Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. So for international purposes, the Green Line is
the border between Israel and occupied territory. The most recent Israeli
figures found about 290,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, not counting East
Jerusalem.
And what about East Jerusalem?
In the annexed areas, Israel has built large neighborhoods where nearly 200,000
Israelis now live. Israel considers those neighborhoods part of sovereign
Israel. The U.S., like other countries, calls them settlements.
When did all this start?
The first settlement in the Golan Heights was quietly established by young
Israelis from left-wing kibbutz movements in July 1967, with the quiet help of
government officials and army officers. The first West Bank settlement, Kfar
Etzion, was established by Orthodox Israelis in September 1967 with public
fanfare and government backing.
What's an outpost?
The outposts are small, unofficial settlements, usually clumps of mobile homes
on a hilltop, created after the government stopped approving new settlements in
the mid-1990s. Though they lack legal authorization, they've received extensive
help from state agencies -- as a scathing government-commissioned report
documented. Under the U.S.-backed 2003 "road map" for peace, Israel is required
to evacuate outposts built since 2001. So far, only a few tiny ones have been
dismantled -- and settlers have subsequently rebuilt them.
So why have settlements been built?
They are intended to "establish facts" -- to ensure continued Israeli control of
part or all of the occupied territory. For some settlement advocates, the main
purpose is security -- to add territory to make Israel more defensible. For
others, the key point is that the West Bank -- referred to as Judea and Samaria
-- is part of the historic Jewish homeland. Israelis learn the Bible as their
national history, and places in the West Bank such as Hebron, Bethlehem and
Shiloh are the setting of much of that history. Religious settlers believe God
promised the land to the Jews and that Israel's settlement of it is a
fulfillment of that promise. In practice, every Israeli government since 1967
has promoted settlement -- helping to fund construction and providing financial
incentives to settlers. Left-wing governments have focused on areas they
considered important for security and where few Palestinians live. Right-wing
governments have encouraged settlement throughout the West Bank.
Why is this a problem?
Since 1967, some Israelis have argued that keeping the West Bank creates an
unbearable dilemma. If Israel maintains permanent rule over the Palestinians
without giving them citizenship, it ceases to be a democracy. If it annexes the
territory and grants them citizenship, it will no longer be a country with a
Jewish majority -- contradicting the most basic goal of Zionism. Today, the only
practical way out of this dilemma is a two-state solution, with the Palestinians
receiving independence in the Gaza Strip and all or nearly all of the West Bank.
To create a Palestinian state that is more than fragmented enclaves, most or all
settlements must be evacuated. Continued construction only makes this more
difficult.
Where has America been until now?
In principle, the U.S. has consistently opposed all settlements, including the
Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. However, most administrations have
avoided confrontations over the issue, especially when peace negotiations were
underway. In the meantime, settlements kept growing. Public diplomatic tussles
during the Carter and George H.W. Bush administrations were exceptions.
Speaking of America, aren't most settlers from the U.S.?
Absolutely not. The misconception that settlements are heavily American may stem
from foreign correspondents looking for English-speakers to interview when they
visit.
Why the tension today?
Obama is insisting that Israel freeze further building in settlements, as called
for in the road map. That position fits his goal of achieving a two-state
solution. Netanyahu insists that building is needed to allow for "natural
growth" of settlements. But settlements have been growing much more quickly than
the rest of Israel. Decisions to build, as always, are political choices
intended to "create facts." Obama doesn't want construction to preempt
negotiations. Unlike most previous presidents, he is insisting that American
opposition to settlements is more than mere words.
Gershom Gorenberg is the author of "The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth
of the Settlements, 1967-1977" and a senior correspondent for the American
Prospect. He blogs at southjerusalem.com.
5. The Troop Drawdown Could Be Costly
for Iraq
by Michael Rubin
Wall Street Journal
June 30, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2171/iraq-troop-drawdown-costly
Today is a milestone in Iraq. Under the terms of the Strategic Framework
Agreement, U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraqi cities. In retrospect, however,
June 30 will likely mark another milestone: the end of the surge and the
relative peace it brought to Iraq. In the past week, bombings in Baghdad, Mosul
and near Kirkuk have killed almost 200 people. The worst is yet to come.
While the Strategic Framework Agreement was negotiated in the twilight of the
Bush administration, President Barack Obama shaped the final deal. He campaigned
on a time line to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, and his words impacted the
negotiation.
Iraq has shown us time and again that military strength is the key to influence
in other matters. Just look at the behavior of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani,
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric.
Under Saddam, Mr. Sistani was an independent religious mind, but he was hardly a
bold voice. Like so many other Iraqis, he stayed alive by remaining silent. Only
after Saddam's fall did he speak up. Though he is today a world-famous figure,
the New York Times made its first mention of the ayatollah on April 4, 2003,
five days before the fall of Baghdad.
Mr. Sistani is as much of a threat to Iran as he was to Saddam. In November
2003, he contradicted Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei when asked what night
the holy month of Ramadan would end, a determination made by sighting the moon.
Mr. Sistani said Tuesday, Mr. Khamenei said Wednesday.
To the West, this might be trivial, but it sent shock waves through Iran. How
could the supreme leader claim ultimate political and religious authority over
not only the Islamic Republic but all Shiites and be contradicted?
Perhaps this is why Iran bolstered its support for militias. When I visited
Najaf in January 2004, I saw dark-clad militiamen on the streets outside Mr.
Sistani's house. Mr. Sistani quieted until the following year, when U.S. forces
retook the city.
Militias are not simply reactions to sectarian violence, nor are they
spontaneous creations. They are tools used by political leaders to impose
through force what is not in hearts and minds.
Because of both ham-fisted postwar reconstruction and neighboring state
interference, militia and insurgent violence soared from 2004 through 2006. The
fight became as much psychological as military.
Iranian and insurgent media declared the United States to be a paper tiger
lacking staying power. The Baker-Hamilton Commission report underscored such
perceptions. Al-Jazeera broadcast congressional lamentations of defeat
throughout the region. Iranian intelligence told Iraqi officials that they might
like the Americans better, but Iran would always be their neighbor and they best
make an accommodation. Al Qaeda sounded similar themes in al-Anbar.
Then came President Bush's announcement that he would augment the U.S. presence.
The surge was as much a psychological strategy as it was a military one. It
proved our adversaries' propaganda wrong. Violence dropped. Iraq received a new
chance to emerge as a stable, secure democracy.
By telegraphing a desire to leave, Mr. Obama reverses the dynamic. In effect,
his strategy is an anti-surge. Troop numbers are not the issue. It is the
projection of weakness. Not only Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki but Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani have also reached
out to the Islamic Republic in recent weeks.
In Cairo, Mr. Obama said the U.S. had no permanent designs on Iraq and declared,
"We will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron."
Indeed. But until the Iraqi government is strong enough to monopolize
independently the use of force, a vacuum will exist and the most violent
factions will fill it.
Power and prestige matter. Withdrawal from Iraq's cities is good politics in
Washington, but when premature and done under fire it may very well condemn
Iraqis to repeat their past.
Michael Rubin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval
Postgraduate School.
6. Winston Churchill: "You ought to let
the Jews have Jerusalem"
"You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem ; it was they who made it
famous." - Winston Churchill to diplomat Evelyn Shuckburgh, 1955, Descent to
Suez; Diaries 1951-1956
7.
Defence
Costs
From: Steven Shamrak <stevenshamrak.e@gmail.com>
It Is Expensive to Live under Terror Threat. A report in the Economist revealed
that Israel has the highest per capita spending on defense in the world.
Israel's total defense expenditure in 2008 was $16.2 billion, or a ratio of more
than $2,300 per person. The United States posted the second largest ratio at
$2,000 per person.
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