Israel may join defense pact with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and Turkey to also play role in US-brokered plan to contain, rather than thwart, Iran, London’s Sunday Times reports
By TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF May 5, 2013,
Israel is working on joining an anti-Iran defense alliance with a number of moderate Arab states that would involve sharing Jerusalem’s newly developed anti-missile technologies, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
The plan would see Israel join with Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to create a Middle Eastern “moderate crescent,” according to the Sunday Times, which cited an unnamed Israeli official. Israel does not currently maintain formal ties with Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, and relations with Ankara have been strained since 2009.
According to the report, Israel would gain access to radar stations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE and in exchange share its own early warning radar information and anti-ballistic missile defense systems, though it’s not clear in what form. The report details that Jordan would be protected by Israel’s Arrow long-range anti-missile batteries.
The so-called 4+1 plan is being brokered by Washington, and would mark a sharp shift in stated policy for the White House, which has insisted the US is not interested in containing Iran but rather stopping it before it reaches nuclear weapon capability.
The Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan are all opposed to Tehran shifting the regional power balance. Though Turkey maintains strong trade ties with Iran, it has found itself opposed to Tehran over the issue of Syria.
IL should impose one condition if she is asked to join: the elimination of the Pal. headache.
The concept of moderation DOES NOT exist in the Qur’an. IL will be stabbed by the demagogue sultan.
Now if the Kurds get their deserving country, it would be a different story.
Although I beleive there is something going on which ties many events together,and which suggests understanding along the lines suggested in this article, following is what seems to be a contradiction
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/05/03/canada%E2%80%99s-israel-support-draws-ire-from-arab-nations-at-un/
unless we are talking about the carrot and stick approach I fail to see how this behavior facilitates the above pact. Perhaps it is less a pact and more of an individual operational understanding.
“Israel is working on joining an anti-Iran defense alliance with a number of moderate Arab states”
Saudi Arabia is a “moderate Arab” state? That is hilarious!
Israel’s attacks on Syria and its domination of Lebanons skies is showing the mid east players just exactly who is now the dominant military force in the mideast. Obviously it was not erdogan, the mouth, who rattled his saber at syria for months and did not even respond to his plane being shot down. Israels action without noise beings back respect and fear, a remembrance of another time when Israel reigned supreme in 67. Israel has the opportunity to recast itself as the deciding factor in the future ME. Right now it is seen to be enhancing the credibility of the US as their enforcer but everyone can see who is willing to take action. Everyone now sees that if Israel decides to favor anyone then that is the winning side, and they must even appreciate if Israel remains out of the war.
I had been writing for quite a while that I suspected a grand deal starting from the qatar brokered gaza cease fire and the revived jordan confed talk. However, even I only expected an informal under the table deal where Israel attacks Iran and the GCC defang irans proxies with Jihadis. It is likely that the Jihadis will go onto engaging hezbullah and shia Iraq. Then the Kurds and jihadis along with the Iranian kurds, sunnis and azeris will likely sabotage and destabilize Iran internally first. There will then be no problem getting the cassus belli for an attack. Now I see further evidence of a far reaching arrangement which involves an already unfolding interim deal on the pals. If this is true then this explains the gaza cease fire and qatars involvement. If this article is true it is quite an amazing development. If true, then the GCC will be giving up the Israel cards and the funding of terror. For them it makes sense as the persians are getting ready to gobble them up. All that stands between the GCC and the gobbling is the US or Israel.
A peace treaty or any agreement with the Muslims won’t help. Every war violates a peace treaty. Muslims fight their brother Muslims, and won’t hesitate to attack Israel if her military might dwindles. Israel is left with two choices. One is to maintain military capability indefinitely. That path is economically unsustainable. Another is to discourage the Arabs from encroaching on Israel. For that approach to work, our threat of must remain extremely credible; bluffing does not work long in international relations.
A note to those who would cede Land for mythical secure borders? Borders 9 miles wide or 40 miles wide are both non defensible. The concept as applied to Israel in our current location and current potential future borders is a fiction.
Could Israel possibly rely on outside protection, such as a mutual defense treaty? No country rose to defend Poland in WWII. Protection—however unreliable—could only come from the US, but its behemoth army wouldn’t be able to deploy in Israel before the Muslims overran her forty-mile depth of defense and annihilated the Jews.
Israel must maintain a credible threat, but not an expensive, economically unbearable army. How? Nuclear retaliation is the answer. Israel should not hesitate to employ nuclear weapons. Example: Extensive and costly bombing of Lebanon could be replaced with pinpoint strikes with 10kt nuclear microcharges. A weapon of that size won’t even destroy a medium-sized village, and would cause no fallout dangerous to Israel. Numerous nuclear mushrooms, however, would terrify our enemies.
Large-scale bombing raids against Damascus, Cairo, or Tehran are prohibitively expensive, but 100kt nuclear bombs offer a practical solution: large enough to damage and frighten the enemy, yet small enough to avoid exposing Israeli cities to a radiological threat. Enemies will know that they cannot succeed even if they overrun narrow Israel.
If attacked with WMD, however, Israel would immediately demolish the Dome of the Rock, employ nuclear weapons against Mecca and Medina, and drop really large bombs on the enemy’s capitals.
Arabs won’t attack a dangerously mad Israel. A country prepared for total war will live in total peace. Besides, Israel has no choice economically other than to rely on nuclear weapons.
In Ezekiel, G-d promises to rain fire and brimstone on Magog, and by now we know what the prophet means. In the words of Mahabharata, “A column of smoke and flame as bright as a thousand suns.” G-d gave us close to 500 hundred such weapons.
I agree with the other 3 comments.
Israel must take on Iran and do it with Nukes. Why? Because even if the Americans do it without Israel, there will remain no deterrence left to Israel, like in the first Gulf War when we received 39 Scuds from Saddam without firing a shot in retaliation. Israel must demonstrate first and foremost to the Americans and Europeans that A- when met with a real existential threat Israel will use whatever it takes to nullify the threat and not temporarily. B- Israel must be seen to be able to meet any threat to the country by herself without the aid of anyone.
If the Jewish people through Israel are in fact the master of her own house and fate it means self reliance and the willingness to act in our own national interests regardless of pressure and threats by America and others. Not to do so relegates us to nothing more than a vassal state. World powers and empires have always discarded vassals when they were no longer perceived as a value.
If we must pay a price, better to pay it when we are strong economically and militarily than when we are reduced to a much weaker state.
Israel must demonstrate to the West and to the Arabs that while they have the Power of oil we have the matches.
@ Bert:
Hopefully, Netanyahu’s agreement with Obama was likewise NEVER sincere.
The ONLY sure thing is to bet on continued Obama treachery. His ongoing promise to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons was NEVER sincere. It was intended to buy more time for Iran while assuring Israel so it would not attack. Now with Iran about go go nuclear the next Obama trick comes into play. Instead of stopping Iran the new tick is called “Containment”. This means Israel will have to live under threat of a growing Iranian nuclear arsenal. Obama must feel really pleased that he fooled those dumb Jews yet again and the demented U.S. Jews still support him by two to one.
My immediate reaction to the Times of London article is that it sounds like bullshit designed to steer Israel away from a military assault on what will shortly be Iran’s stockpile of deliverable nuclear weapons intended primarily for the destruction of Israel for certain and possibly the various Sun’a Muslim states of the Middle East. The British press and the US government alike cannot be trusted in these matters. The Iranian nuclear stockpile must be destroyed, and Israel must do the destroying without asking the permission of any foreign country, including the USA.
Arnold Harris
Mpunt Horeb WI