Barry Rubin sounds an upbeat note
[..] This week the European Union is offering Israel upgraded relations in 60 different areas, removing all obstacles against Israel having full access to European government-controlled markets and cooperation with nine EU agencies, including Europol and the European Space Agency.
But let’s look deeper, specifically at the situation immediately on Israel’s borders, to see if things are as bad as they might seem.
Lebanon: Neighboring Lebanon is governed by Hizballah and various clients of Syria and Iran. That’s not good. Yet let’s remember that Hizballah and its allies are now trembling over what might be the impending fall of their Syrian backer. How will they fare without the Damascus dictator behind them? A Sunni Muslim dominated Syrian regime might hate Israel but it will not love or help those who aided the government that was murdering them.And the Lebanese government has another problem. It wants to consolidate control over Lebanon and rule the country.
Fomenting a war with Israel that brings Israeli warplanes to destroy the country’s power plants, bridges, airport, and pretty much every other major infrastructural project will make Hizballah hated. A Hizballah direct offensive against Israel is not in the cards. By the way, people are forgetting the implications of blaming Hizballah for the terrorist attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists.
Hizballah is not some group hanging out in caves; it is the government of Lebanon. So will a U.S. government that has publicly blamed Hizballah for the attack actually take any action against Hizballah the government? Probably not but isn’t that a disgrace? Maybe after January 20 there will be someone in Washington DC who will recognize the rather bizarre contradiction in such behavior.
Then there’s tottering Syria. Israeli defense officials have pointed to the danger of jihadists operating in sections of Syria near the Golan Heights but no longer under the control of an overextended central government. True, Israel should be prepared for such a danger.Yet the Golan border is well defended and closely watched. Terrorists are unlikely to be able to cross. As for a massive influx of Syrian refugees, why should they chance the minefields when they can more easily get out through Iraq, Lebanon, or Turkey?
The long-run threat from a Sunni Islamist regime is real but then so is the discomfiting of an Iran deprived of its main ally. And Syria’s armed forces are going to be a mess for years to come. So once again this is an issue that must be taken seriously but is not all that menacing.
Let’s jump over to Egypt. Israel’s high priority is to build up its defensive forces along the border and complete the security fence there. Cross-border attacks are now a real problem. Yet they can be defended against. These attacks consist of terrorists firing across the border or advancing a very short distance into Israeli territory–mainly to fire on a single road that runs near the border–before they can be intercepted.
For a real threat to exist, the situation would have to deteriorate considerably, with large terrorist units operating openly on Egyptian soil and being able to transport rockets from the Gaza Strip through miles of Egyptian territory. That could happen but we are nowhere near that point and such a scenario would mean that the Egyptian government and army were openly courting full-scale war. As long as the army is still running Egypt, though, the danger of a major upsurge in cross-border assaults or, even worse, an attack on Israel from Hamas in the Gaza Strip that would be backed by Egypt is limited. Israel has time to prepare.
Israel’s number-one border problem remains the Gaza Strip. Hamas periodically fires mortars and rockets while trying cross-border ground attacks. Israel has gotten its ground defenses in good shape and has created a fairly effective anti-rocket system. This doesn’t make things more pleasant for citizens in that part of Israel and it is quite possible that a new war will break out in future, as happened in late 2008. Yet such a battle is not an existential threat of the type common from 1948 into the 1970s.
Regarding Jordan, the regime has survived the Arab Spring and is still committed to controlling the border, a task it has handled pretty well over forty years. Terrorism from the West Bank remains a constant threat but the fence has made it a lot harder. That’s why Israel ignores, and will continue to ignore, international criticism. Might there be a new intifadah some day? Yes, but not that soon, if only because the Palestinian Authority realizes that such a gambit risks Hamas using the violence to promote itself and kick out its nationalist rivals.Now none of this is meant to be complacent. But it is important to understand that Israel starts off with a much higher threat level than that faced by other Western developed countries which consider almost any threat with trepidation.
By Israeli standards the problems are manageable.And that’s why the main efforts of terrorist groups are to attack Israeli citizens and installations outside the country’s borders. The chief of military intelligence has revealed that twenty such plots were broken up before the one in Bulgaria succeeded.
Israel’s “friends” abroad simply can’t seem to get out of their minds the idea that the country faces such terrible threats that it must make big concessions and beg for peace with the Palestinians on just about any terms, or try to appease hostile surrounding countries in order to stave off their wrath.
What they don’t—and at times don’t want to—understand is that the situation is the exact opposite. When forces are after you that want to wipe you off the map, you cannot depend on your “friends,” and know that no compromise solution is desired by the other side, that’s the time to look after your own interests and defense.The overwhelming majority of Israelis across the political spectrum understand this. Consequently, it doesn’t matter at all that Western pseudo-experts, pundits, and politicians don’t. Being isolated from strategic reality is far more dangerous than being isolated because people don’t like you.
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
Is the EU waking-up?
Did Ashton lose?
They hate the Jews less than the Muslims!
It is about the gas and oil in the east Mediterranean!
Israel is a UNIQUE ME country. The Muslims cultivate a narcissistic, genocidal, self destructive and fatal ideology.
They know it and that is why they want to take down as many as they can.
Adapt or perish.
You have no idea what you are talking about
@ greg:
WW1 was really another chapter in Europe’s second 100-years war (starting with Napoleon), and the railway was a small part of it. Really, this was the “150-years war”, and it didn’t end until the Americans and Soviets put a stop to it in 1945.
@ eric r
look up berlin to baghdad railway
@ greg:
The causes of WW1 were many and complex; like the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire. The Suez canal played a small part at most.
bypassing the Suez was the original cause of WW1
Most importantly, say a prayer (regardless of your faith) for Mr. Rubin, who revealed that he has recently been diagnosed with advanced cancer.
Second, Israel has decided to stop being isolated by turning away from Western Europe for acceptance. Agreements have been signed with South Korea for a floating LNG platform, with Russia’s state-owned Gazprom to build a pipeline, with Canada to aid in fracking of the oil shale, and with China to build an Ashdod-Eilat railway so cargo can bypass the Suez canal – and Israel will enlarge both ports to accommodate the traffic.
Perhaps under all this lies a greater change in identity — Israel is rejecting the notion that it is a quasi-European state, and increasingly thinking of itself as an Asian one. There is no doubt, as any American Jew knows, that there tends to be a type of kinship with Asians due to their work ethic, their academic excellence, their emphasis on science and technology, and (with the exception of Muslim Asians) their lack of anti-Semitism.
actually not isolated. the EU wants Jews to be just like everyone else…the ultimate assault on Jews that had been tried before.
Israel is isolated; and to the degree it is isolated, it is sovereign. None of those “clubs” mentioned in the article, such as the EU and Europol, extend membership without strings attached: Joining them is tantamount, to some degree or another, to becoming part of the NATO Empire.
The Jewish people have been isolated socially for thousands of years, to some degree or another; and this has been essential to their survival as a people. I’m sure that at least some here will agree with me, that this has been part of Hashem’s design. It should come as no surprise, that the Jewish nation should also be isolated.