Israel dominates the new Middle East

Zakaria says Israel is  worried Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. This is leftist BS. Most Israel believe that Israel is not threatened demographically and is secure as a democratic and Jewish state.  What they worry about is the vulnerabilty we will usher in if they give up Judea and Samaria. Ted Belman

Eve Harow points out:

    There is more than one security expert in Israel who will tell you that the
    only thing the wall does is lessen car theft from Israel into PA areas,
    that the reason the terrorism is way down (poopoopoo) is due to -post
    Defensive Shield -our soldiers going and out at will arresting terrorists
    from Area A as well as B.

By Fareed Zakaria, WaPo

As missiles and rockets exploded in Israel and Gaza, television news was dominated by the tragic violence, and we were warned that the battle between Israel and the Palestinians might spread because we are in a new and much more dangerous Middle East. Islamists are in power, democracies will listen to their people. In fact, as the relatively quick cease-fire between the parties shows, there is a very low likelihood of a broader regional conflict. It’s true that we’re in a new Middle East, but it’s one in which Israel has become the region’s superpower.In a thorough 2010 study, “The Arab-Israeli Military Balance,” Anthony Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian document how over the past decade Israel has outstripped its neighbors in every dimension of warfare. The authors attribute this to Israel’s “combination of national expenditures, massive external funding, national industrial capacity and effective strategy and force planning.” Israel’s military expenditures in 2009 were about $10?billion, which is three times Egypt’s military spending and larger than the combined defense expenditures of all its neighbors — Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. (This advantage is helped by the fact that Israel receives $3 billion in military assistance from Washington.)

But money doesn’t begin to describe Israel’s real advantages, which are in the quality and effectiveness of its military, in terms of both weapons and people. Despite being dwarfed by the Arab population, Israel’s army plus its high-quality reservists vastly outnumber those of the Arab nations. Its weapons are far more sophisticated, often a generation ahead of those used by its adversaries. Israel’s technology advantage has profound implications on the modern battlefield.The most powerful Arab military, and the one against which Israel is often judged in scholarly studies, is Syria’s. But of course the Syrian army is now in turmoil as it battles its own people and Bashar al-Assad hangs on to power.

Then there are the asymmetrical threats from groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The study takes a look at them and analyzes Hezbollah’s huge arsenal of missiles. The authors conclude that these pose no real threat to Israel because the missiles are largely unguided and thus ineffective. Hamas’s rockets are even more crude and ineffective. Israel’s response, its “Iron Dome” defense system, has worked better than expected.

As for terrorism, the other asymmetrical strategy against Israel: Despite Wednesday’s attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, Israel is largely protected from terrorists because of the wall it built in 2003.

As for larger threats, the study points out that Israel is the only country in the region with a sophisticated nuclear arsenal — estimated to be between 100 and 500 weapons, many of them on submarines — and advanced ballistic missiles.

This is why Egypt, despite being under a new Islamist government, is not going to risk war with Israel. Nor are the other Arab states. They will make fiery speeches and offer humanitarian assistance. But they will not fight alongside the Palestinians in Gaza or do anything that could trigger a wider war.

Turkey, another powerful regional player, has a government that has weakened its ties with Israel and clashed with it repeatedly over its treatment of the Palestinians. But these are verbal clashes, unlikely to amount to much more. In fact, Turkey is now facing a situation in which its efforts to become a regional power have backfired. It gambled that it would be able to dislodge the regime in Syria, which has not yet happened. Its relations with Iraq have deteriorated as it shields the Sunni vice president from Baghdad’s Shiite-led government, which wants to arrest him. And since Turkey has frosty relations with Israel, it can only watch from afar as Egypt becomes the bridge between Israel and Hamas. The only real outside broker in the region is, of course, the United States, Israel’s closest ally.

These are the realities of the Middle East today. Israel’s astonishing economic growth, its technological prowess, its military preparedness and its tight relationship with the United States have set it a league apart from its Arab adversaries. Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace. Wise Israeli politicians, from Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Ehud Barak, have wanted to take risks to make that peace because they have worried about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. This is what is in danger, not Israel’s existence.

November 22, 2012 | 14 Comments »

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14 Comments / 14 Comments

  2. Morsi is now not over popular in his own constituency, has spoiled the whiter than white image of Mos Bros government and is not popular in Washington whatever they say; so do not hold your breath but he will probably not last too long. Syrian bloodshed is not going to do the Mos Bros any good PR either!
    Too many misjudge Israel – and fancy military techniques. The last hundred years have seen: strategic air bombing, tanks, rockets, flash signals intelligence, and unrestricted submarine war, all give way to good old boots on the ground to seal a victory and a political deal to clear the air of dispute.
    As long as Israel and the West carry on developing the next generations of technology and agriculture inclusive energy extraction post fossil we all survive. Once the God squad head-bangers get hold of society it atrophies into backwater stagnation.

  6. F. Z. is a kind of universalist. That is a big problem right there. But many ideas he discusses on TV or in books are reasonable.
    Muslims also have “their version” of universalism!
    Israel has outstripped the Muslim people in EVERY KIND OF HUMAN ENDEAVOR! Forget the WARS.

  7. Hear ! Hear! to Steve4peace’s point that we need some two way traffic.

    Meanwhile since 1914 – ’18 big casualty lists are the mark of incompetent generalship. So tell Hamas to stand trial for wasting its own people.

  8. Zakaria is nothing but an Islamofascist propagandist with zero credibility amongst growing numbers of people who are increasingly Islam-Aware.

    He doesn’t recognize or accept reality.

  9. Even without the $3 billion in aid that is as much a subsidy to the US’ own arms industry, Israel as in 1948 to 67 would still be – because it has to be, to survive – in a military ability to cope with its opponents. The problem in the recurrence of Arab wars on Israel is that they persist in looking at Israel as a creature of the West and entirely dependent on the West, and avoid looking at its real identity and strengths in itself.
    Nevertheless even though Israel’s enemies are not spending so many dollars they have between them a couple of million underpaid or even acting unpaid conscripts who as the Russians proved in WW II can make an uncomfortable threat and sheer bulldozer of themselves. If Israel is important in the Middle East balance it is solely negatively: by Israeli ability to stymie the desire of her enemies to destroy her, or to draw kudos and repute from their threats to her, when bullying others as did Nasser and now the newly self consecrated Pharaoh Morsi on the current hype of Moslem Brotherhood rather than Arab Nationalism.
    What too many do not look at is that Israel is configured for self defence unlike the strategic lift of imperial or current superpowers. This explains why although the Israeli air force does reach out occasionally, and the ground forces within a day’s travel of her frontiers, Israeli power is limited to her own territory or “sweeping her doorstep” and this should be enough to give confidence to her neighbours to shut down their hostilities and “cultivate their gardens” instead.

  10. As missiles and rockets exploded in Israel and Gaza, television news was dominated by the tragic violence, and we were warned that the battle between Israel and the Palestinians might spread because we are in a new and much more dangerous Middle East. Islamists are in power, democracies will listen to their people. In fact, as the relatively quick cease-fire between the parties shows, there is a very low likelihood of a broader regional conflict. It’s true that we’re in a new Middle East, but it’s one in which Israel has become the region’s superpower.In a thorough 2010 study, “The Arab-Israeli Military Balance,” Anthony Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian document how over the past decade Israel has outstripped its neighbors in every dimension of warfare. The authors attribute this to Israel’s “combination of national expenditures, massive external funding, national industrial capacity and effective strategy and force planning.” Israel’s military expenditures in 2009 were about $10?billion, which is three times Egypt’s military spending and larger than the combined defense expenditures of all its neighbors — Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. (This advantage is helped by the fact that Israel receives $3 billion in military assistance from Washington.)

    This makes little difference if Israel is always hindered by the west from defeating her enemies.

    Turkey, another powerful regional player, has a government that has weakened its ties with Israel and clashed with it repeatedly over its treatment of the Palestinians.

    It isn’t the “palestinians” that Turkey remotely cares about. Turkey has turned against Israel due to the rise to power of the devout muslim jihadist, Jew-hating regime of erdogan and his party.

    Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace.

    An inversion of reality. Peace will come only when the “palestinians” decide to accept Israel and stop trying to destroy it.

  11. I’m surprised this guy is still i business. Didn’t he get suspended recently for plagiarism?

    When you read all the way down, you see that this whole article is a gratuitous slap at Netanyahu, blaming him for the absence of peace Bibi cannot win. He gets no credit for what might be considerable accomplishments of the most recent campaign, and yet he gets blamed from the other side.

    I know so many are criticizing Bibi for no ground campaign, but that might be less than the most desired option. I suggest that we take a wait-and-see approach. This campaign might have already accomplished a lot. The real key to this might be stronger policing of the Philadelphi Corridor and elimination of smuggling of missiles, especially the bigger ones. I know what has happened does not satisfy most who read or write on this board, but I am trying to figure out exactly what the government’s objectives were, and whether they were met. Even the equivocal result of the 2006 Lebanon campaign has resulted in relative quiet, for at least a few years. We know that will not last forever, but for now it seems Hezbollah may have other problems and may not want to take on Israel again. Israel is continuing to grow stronger, incorporating better and newer advanced military technology, has the Iron Dome it did not have in 2006, and the gap will continue to grow. An optimistic view suggests that a few more years of quiet will result in a more extensive umbrella of iron domes throughout Israel, not to mention continuing improvements in the technology as time goes on. I know this is an optimistic view, but we saw performance of a new, robust and paradigmatic technological step with Iron Dome. The IDF has not been standing still with advances in other weapons and tactics that are widening the gap. While everybody is hungry for red meat, decisions to launch major ground operations in Gaza are not to be made lightly.

    If we do have more problems on the northern front, we will not be ill-prepared with a Dan Halutz air-only strategy, which the commanders had to modify late in the game when it wasn’t working. It will be done right next time.

    There could be unpleasant surprises, but for now, a lot has probably been accomplished by pushing Egypt back into the role it tried to abandon of responsibility for curtailment of weapons shipments into Gaza. This might be a significant diplomatic accomplishment that grew out of the very limited and almost cost-free military campaign. Time will tell.

    We don’t know exactly what a Gaza land campaign would like like, how much more it would accomplish, and whether realistic military commanders believe it would be worth the cost. It might be, but only if we’re not successful in getting the missile smuggling stopped. If this was accomplished, this might be a good achievement, for now.

    The Gazans can pass out candy and celebrate their “victory,” but they killed almost no Israelis, did not provoke Israel into a costly and bloody ground war, and demonstrated the relative impotence of their missile barrages, especially on the minority of occasions when the missiles were lucky enough to head toward population centers. This is a lesson that was not lost on Iran.

    I can’t say I’m sure about my analysis, but I’m trying to see what the positives were for Israel, and I think there were definitely some. If this stage was not successful, then we can can still move on to the next phase and engage on the ground.

    Getting back to Zacharia: he is a pompous fool. He might not even be such an important commentator but for the color of his skin and the exotic-ness of his name. So perfect for the multicultural world of today.

  12. I agree with the comments made by the posters.

    However, may I suggest that they post their comments at the Washington Post, Yediot Aharonot, Ha aretz, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, etc. to counter those like Tom Friedman and Fareed Zakaria who spout dangerous nonsense but are believed by the liberal left (Jewish and non-Jewish).

    Ted runs an excellent site. This is not meant to discourage your comments here.

  13. “Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace.” It never fails to astonish me how Zakaria, the islamist in Western clothing, can never get it right. How about “Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when the PALESTINIANS decide that they want to make peace.”? How about “Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when the koran is expunged of every vile reference to Jews and Christians.”? How about “Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when islam decides to participate in the civilized world of the 21st century.”? How about “Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when left wing, terror-sympathizing journalists start reporting the news without trying to enlighten us with their prejudicial views.”?

  14. Wise Israeli politicians, from Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Ehud Barak, have wanted to take risks to make that peace because they have worried about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.

    Wise, Olmert and Barak together is oxymoronic. This conclusion is enough to make most of the article ludicrous. They represent the failed paradigms of an anachronistic past: land for peace, peace at any price, etc ad infinitem. Barak, the unelected defacto PM of Israel gets all his policies implemented with the help of his figurehead queen, BB. Surrender, cease fires, withdrawals, blowhard talk, attacking jews rather than the enemy, protecting enemy jew kilers rather than jewish children from PTSS. Of course this writer sees them positively because they will implement all the policies that have failed in the past.

    This advantage is helped by the fact that Israel receives $3 billion in military assistance from Washington.

    What about the US$ 1.3 billion mobilization costs of this “operation”? Is this part of the “wise” Bobsey twins strategy?

    Israel dominates the new Middle East

    This is true and has great potential but under the stewardship of the “wise” the obvious opportunities of a strong military power will not be realized.
    The unity of hamas/fatah and the giving away of YS in a faux peace deal has been greatly accelerated by this untimely cease fire.