In 1974, as a young soldier just
inducted into the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces, I was among a group of
soldiers whom the platoon sergeant took on a tour of the munitions dump, showing
us the different types of ammunition used by the army. Among other things, he
pointed to a pile of wooden boxes which were marked "Exploding Smoke"
and said with a sligh wink "In fact, these are phosphorus bombs, but do
not write the name explicitly because it might create international problems." I have to
admit that at that moment I did not pay much attention to this; still, it somehow
stuck in my memory.
Much later, in 2009, I
suddenly remembered the winking sergeant and his Exploding Smoke. During the Israeli Air
Force bombings of Gaza ("Cast Lead Operation") news started to get out
of what happened to those on whom such phosphorus bombs happened to fall.
Burning phosphorus particles stick to the body, penetrating deeper and deeper
inside, causing excruciating pain. Shifa Hospital in central Gaza was crowded
with whole families affected by the phosphorus which had fallen on them from
the sky, the doctors seeing it happen, often unable to stop it in time. Even
phosphorus smoke dissipating in the air can cause severe damage, sometimes
death, to those who breath it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus
Israeli and international Human
Rights organizations made an outcry, and the use of phosphorus in Gaza had a central
place in the famous report of the Goldstone Commission. The Government of
Israel and the IDF asserted that phosphorus was used only in uninhabited areas
(is there any part of the Gaza Strip which is truly uninhabited?). But in the
next rounds of Gaza bombings, 2012 and 2014 phosphorus was no longer used. At
least this particular horror was spared the inhabitants.
This week, intensive earthworks
were going on at the Schneller Compound in Jerusalem, a former military camp on
whose site an upscale residential neighborhood is to be erected. Suddenly,
severe toxic fumes rose from the ground and spread throughout the whole area.
Residents within a hundred meters radius were urgently required to stay indoors
and close hermetically all windows. Only after several hours, rescue teams in sealed
protective suits managed to locate and neutralize a buried old phosphorus bomb
which had been touched by the bulldozers.
The phosphorus vapors which rose this week from
the soil of a quiet Jerusalem neighborhood - as if it is a metaphor for the
State of Israel coming this week for the first time under the direct scrutiny
of the International Criminal Court in The Hague…
No longer science fiction, no
more an apocalyptic forecast of a future when the Palestinians might wield "their
"Doomsday Weapon", but a concrete reality. A dry, formal notification
by the Chief Prosecutor Fatou
Bensouda that a preliminary probe had been initiated about the
possibility of war crimes having been committed in the Palestinian Territories;
that the probe may relate to crimes committed by Israel, by Palestinian
organizations, or both; that the probe is not a full-scale investigation, but
the information collected might lead to the decision to open a full
investigation; that the decision on such a full investigation would be made by
the judges of the court, under the prescribed procedures; and that the probe
will be conducted in a "fully independent and impartial manner", with
no deadline set for its completion. Fatou
Bensouda of Gambia, who had been involved in prosecuting war criminals
in Rwanda, was included by Time Magazine in its list of “the hundred most
influential people in the world”.
The professional echelon at the
Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem recommended
to Prime Minister Netanyahu to
make a moderate and measured response and concentrate on discreet
behind-the-scenes action, especially since the prosecutors’ probe is
preliminary only, and it would take a long time to crystallize into a formal
charge-sheet - if at all.
Netanyahu ignored the
recommendation and decided on an all-out international campaign, a frontal attack
on the Court, its prosecutors and judges – even to the extent of exerting international efforts to get funding to the International
Court cut if it dares to institute proceedings against officers of the
"most moral army in the world". Foreign Minister Lieberman, in his
usual blunt way, stated that “the court should be dismantled”. Several
observers noted that such angry and a bit hysterical reactions had less to do
with apprehension of some Israeli officers being actually prosecuted in
absentia at some future time, and more with the realization that even this
initial probe might be enough to change significantly the international
discourse regarding Israel and the Palestinians.
And then, the focus of
attention suddenly shifted away from the court halls in the Hague to the skies
of war-torn Syria. There, combat helicopters (or by another version, drones) suddenly
appeared and launched an accurate barrage on a convoy of senior operatives of Hezbollah
– the Lebanese Shi’ite militia which is one of the main supporters of President
Bashar Assad and his regime. The Government of Israel refrained from taking
formal responsibility for the attack, but Israel’s mass-circulation newspapers were
quick to place headlines praising "the accurate action of our
forces," and the "liquidation of the Prince of Terror".
Jihad Mughniyah, a young man
without much experience or special skills, had gained the position of command over
the forces sent by Hezbollah to the Israeli border in the Golan Heights mainly
because of being the son of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah operations chief who
was killed in a mysterious explosion in
Damascus eight years ago. Yedioth Ahronoth published on its front page the photo
of father and son, Imad and Jihad, with the prominent red captions "liquidated
2008" near the one and "liquidated 2015" next to the other. On
the inside pages was the further information, unearthed by some diligent
researcher, that also two uncles from the “Mughniyah terrorist family" had
been "liquidated" in the past. Also, there was a warning to readers
not to be misled by the photographs of Jihad Mughniyeh, in which he looked like
a shy schoolboy, but to understand that he had been a dangerous terrorist and it
had been well done to rid the world of his presence.
There was some confusion when
it came out that among the twelve killed in the bombing were also an Iranian
general and some of his officers. Official Israel responded with a number of
conflicting voices: one unnamed “Israeli military source” apologetically told
Reuters that Israel did not know about the presence of an Iranian general in
the convoy. Another unnamed source contradicted this a few hours later and
reiterated the version that Israel “does not accept any responsibility” for the
attack in Syria.
"Would Iran and
Hezbollah accept meekly such a blow?" wondered the commentators. "A helicopter attack is
a method which leaves clear Israeli fingerprints, it is not a bomb planted by
somebody somewhere to which you can plausibly disclaim responsibility. This is
poking a finger in the eye of Hezbollah, they can’t afford not to respond"
wrote Alon Ben-David in
"Ma'ariv".
Indeed, there were angry
protests in Beirut and Tehran, and threats were made of "dire and painful retaliation". The northern region of Israel was placed
under an alert higher than at any time since 2006, tanks were stationed along the Lebanese border, as were the Iron Dome anti-missile missiles. Deep
in the Mediterranean waters Israeli navy missile boats were stationed to defend
against a possible attack on the Israeli natural gas rigs, and Defense Minister
Ya’alon made dire threats against “anyone who dares to violate Israeli
sovereignty” (sic!). And the tension continues. “Someone threw a match
into a powder keg and is now waiting to see whether it will explode or not. This is a dangerous
exercise in practical chemistry conducted on the eve of the final exam: The
elections in Israel" wrote veteran commentator Alex Fishman.
While the alert in the north
reached its peak, a violent incident took place in Tel Aviv – a young Palestinian
stabbed and wounded passengers in an
Israeli bus, and an eighth-grader has become the hero of the hour for throwing his
satchel at the stabber. However, this probably did not come from Hezbollah;
rather, it was one more of the Palestinians fed up with the ongoing occupation, taking a private initiative.
As he told in police investigation, what the young knife-man sought to avenge
was the deadly bombings of Gaza – which Palestinians remember very well, though
Israelis have managed to forget them at record speed. The northern powder keg of
which Fishman wrote had not yet exploded. The retaliation, when it comes, might
be at an unpredictable place and time chosen by Hezbollah and its Iranian partners.
An immediate Hezbollah
revenge could have ensured the victory of Netanyahu in the March general elections:
a missile barrage from Lebanon on Israeli cities, which would have required a powerful
response by the Israeli Air Force and initiated an open-ended military
operation ("Operation Protective Stiff Cloud"?) which would have continued
to escalate until shortly before the election date - and during all that time, opposition
leaders Herzog and
Livni would have been
constrained to express patriotic support for the government and avoid all
criticism and propaganda. Alas, up to this moment Hezbollah did not deliver the
goods. Even so, our Prime Minister did apparently make some electoral modest
gain from the winds of war blowing this week. Weekend polls indicated an increase in the Likud
Party’s showing, not very big but enough to close the gap which separated the
ruling party from its Labor Party rival, the two now running neck and neck.
The electoral aspects of the
attack in Syria have already been discussed quite a bit. Not so much attention
was given to the fact that among those killed in the attack was the officer in
charge of the Hezbollah force fighting against the Islamic State (IS or ISIS or
ISIL) – which makes him a de-facto ally of the US, even if figuring on its list
of terrorists.
Coincidentally or not, just
this week was published an interesting strategic assessment by Israel Ziv -
formerly an IDF general and now heading a company which provides "security
advice and military training for security forces in Latin America and
Africa". Ziv stated unequivocally
that "For Israel, ISIS is the lesser evil. The existence of the ISIS State
breaks up the dangerous Shiite territorial continuity from Tehran to Beirut which
Iran had spent great efforts to build up. It is preferable for us to have there
a sword-wielding force moving about in
converted vans, rather than a nuclear power stationing missiles at our borders. Moreover, the ideological
priorities of ISIS are first of all to fight the Shiites and other minorities,
rather than dealing with ‘The Zionists'. In this respect they have many years
of 'work' laid out for them before having time and energy for us "(Yediot
Aharonot, January 19, 2015).
As we know, the approach of
President Obama is quite different. Obama regards ISIS as a threat serious
enough to warrant the reversal of the planned American departure from Iraq, a threat justifying
and necessitating the launching of an air campaign and even the forming of a
de-facto alliance with Iran and Iran’s allies, waging war on ISIS on their own
account. In that context, Obama seeks to reach in the near future an agreement
with Iran on the nuclear issue - an agreement which would ensure that Iran does
not actually build a nuclear bomb, but which would not necessarily require Iran
to completely dismantle all its nuclear capabilities.
In the eyes of Prime Minister
Netanyahu, such an agreement between the US and Iran would be very bad and dangerous.
After for a while keeping a low profile on the Iranian issue, Netanyahu took it
up again in full swing, with the encouragement of his Republicans partners who now
control Capitol Hill. On the agenda of the Republicans – and of Netanyahu - is
a proposal to impose further sanctions on Iran. As Mossad chief Tamir Pardo
stated to US Senators (though later forced to publish a denial), such new sanctions
would lead to the collapse of negotiations between Iran and the West. Which, it
clearly seems, is precisely Netanyhau’s purpose…
Through his close associate
Ron Dermer - Israeli Ambassador to the United States, who is in practice mainly
Netanyahu’s ambassador to the Republican Party - Netanyahu arranged to get
himself invited to Washington and address a joint session of Congress. The date
set: March 3, just two weeks before elections in Israel. It would be a first-rate
electioneering broadcast: the Prime Minister of Israel, speaking impeccable English
to the American legislators, who get up on their feet and give him a standing
ovation (AIPAC will take care of their all clapping in unison) with everything
broadcast live on Israeli TV. And in this speech Netanyahu would presumably
concentrate on the Iranian Threat and
spur Congress to impose more sanctions – even (and especially) contrary
to the clearly expressed wishes of the President of the United States.
As has already been reported
extensively, Netanyahu did not bother to give the White House or the State
Department any hint of his intentions to get to Washington and blatantly
interfere in the American political power struggle. And as has been made clear
unmistakeably, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are truly furious
at Netanyahu. Unnamed US officials told Ha’aretz: “We thought we’ve seen
everything, but Bibi managed to surprise even us. There are things you simply
don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu
ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his
presidency, and that there will be a price to pay”. Today's headlines in the
press published the announcement of President Obama that he will not meet with
Netanyahu during this visit to Washington - nor will Vice President Biden, Secretary of
State Kerry or any other member of the administration.
Is this enough to make Netanyahu
pay a real price? Quite doubtful. The Prime Minister may regard a public cold
shoulder from Obama as a tolerable and even negligible price to pay, as long as
Obama continues to give support to Netanyahu's policies where it really counts,
for example in the UN Security Council. In the near future, however, Obama
might be given an opportunity to exact from Netanyahu a real price:
Palestinians are considering resuming their application to the Security
Council, whose composition has changed since the failed vote in December. And perhaps
it is just barely possible that the American vote will also change, this time?
Bibi King Kong at Capitol Hill (Haaretz, Biderman)
