Facing Nuclear Madmen? Israel's Security and Enemy Rationality February 25, 2010  |  Professor Louis Rene Beres "Do you know what it means to find yourselves face to face with a madman," asks Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV.  "Madmen, lucky folk, construct without logic, or rather with a logic that flies like a feather."  What is true for individuals is sometimes also true for states. In the often absurd theatre of modern world politics, constructions that rest upon ordinary logic can quickly crumble before madness.             Consider Israel, especially as it may soon have to confront an Iranian nuclear adversary with a potentially "suicidal" preference ordering. Left to proceed unhindered with its ongoing and illegal (under international law) program of nuclearization, Iran's current leadership (and possibly even a successor "reformist" government in Tehran) could proceed to value Israel's destruction more highly than even its own physical security. Such a prospect is highly improbable, to be sure, but – if rooted in particular visions of a Shiite apocalypse - it is not inconceivable.              Israel's ultimate source of national security lies plainly in nuclear deterrence. Although obviously still implicit, and not at all open or acknowledged, this policy that is necessarily based upon enemy rationality could "crumble before madness." In certain imaginable instances, the result of failed Israeli retaliatory threats could be total destruction.             By definition, the logic of deterrence always rests upon assumptions of rationality. History, however, reveals the persistent fragility of all such assumptions. We know too well that nations sometimes even behave in ways that are consciously self-destructive. Sometimes, perhaps even mirroring the infrequent but decisively aberrant behavior of individual human beings, national leaders choose to assign the very highest value to preferences other than collective self-preservation.              Strange as it may seem, it has happened before, and it will happen again.             For the moment, no single Arab/Islamic adversary of Israel would appear to be conclusively irrational.  No current adversary appears ready to launch a major first-strike against Israel using weapons of mass destruction (in the future, this calculation could include nuclear weapons) with the recognition that it would thereby elicit a devastating reprisal.  Of course, miscalculations and errors in information could always lead a perfectly rational enemy state to strike first, but this decision, by definition, would not be the outcome of irrationality or "madness."             Still, certain enemy states, most likely Iran, could one day decide that "excising the Jewish cancer" from the Middle East would be worth the costs, any costs. In principle, this improbable prospect might be avoided by Israel with timely and pertinent "hard target" preemptions, but any such expressions of what is known under authoritative international law as "anticipatory self-defense" are presently difficult to imagine. This difficulty lies in myriad operational  limitations (today, all Iranian nuclear assets are deeply hardened, widely dispersed, and substantially multiplied), and also in expected political costs. For now, this means that : (1) a tactically successful Israeli preemption must remain very unlikely;  and (2) any preemption, even a tactical failure, would elicit overwhelming and possibly unendurable public and diplomatic condemnation.              Interestingly, a "bolt-from-the-blue" CBN (chemical, biological or even nuclear) attack upon Israel that is launched with the expectation of city-busting reprisals would not  necessarily exhibit irrationality or madness. Within such an attacking state's particular ordering of preferences, a presumed religious obligation to annihilate the "Zionist Entity" could simply represent the overriding value.  Here, from the standpoint of the prospective attacker's authoritative decisional calculus, the expected benefits of producing such annihilation would exceed the expected costs of any expected Israeli reprisal. Judged from this critical standpoint, therefore, a seemingly "crazy" attack decision would be perfectly "logical."              To better understand this scenario, an enemy state with these particular sorts of exterminatory orientations could represent the individual suicide bomber in macrocosm.  It is a powerful image. Just as individual Jihadists are now manifestly willing to achieve "martyrdom," so might certain Jihadist states become willing to sacrifice themselves collectively.             In one more or less likely variation of this scenario, it is conceivable that Iranian or other Arab/Islamic leaders making the decision to strike at Israel would be willing to make "martyrs" of their own peoples, but not of themselves.  In this significant decisional variation, it would be judged "acceptable" by these leaders to sacrifice more-or-less huge portions of their respective populations, but only while they (and presumably their families) were themselves already underway to a predetermined albeit still earth-bound safe haven.             There would be no alluring visions of paradise in these particular enemy calculations.             So, what is Israel to do?  It can't very well choose to live, indefinitely, with enemies who might not always be reliably deterred by usual threats of retaliation, and who are themselves armed with weapons of mass destruction.  Jerusalem can't readily decide to preempt against selected Iranian or other threatening military targets, as the tactical prospects of success would now be very remote, and because the global outcry (even in Washington)  would be deafening.  It cannot place more than partial faith in anti-tactical ballistic missile defenses, which, after all, would require a near-100% reliability of intercept to be purposeful in any "soft-point" protection of Israeli cities.             The essential strategic opportunities still available to Israel now seem very limited, and the existential consequences of failure could effectively include national extinction.  What, then, shall the Government of Israel do?              Here is one suggestion. If Israel's enemies were all presumably rational, in the ordinary sense of valuing physical survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences, Jerusalem could begin, among other things, to productively exploit the strategic benefits of pretended irrationality. Recognizing that in certain strategic situations it can be rational to feign irrationality, Jerusalem could then work to create more cautionary behavior among its relevant adversaries.  In such cases, for example, the threat of an Israeli resort to a "Samson Option" could be enough to dissuade an enemy first-strike. Recalling the ancient Chinese strategist,  any more explicit Israeli hints of "Samson" could indicate a very useful grasp of Sun-Tzu's good advice to always diminish existential reliance on defense, and, instead,  to "seize the unorthodox."              If, however, Israel's relevant adversaries were presumably irrational in the ordinary sense, there would likely be no real benefit to pretended irrationality.  This is the case because the more probable threat of a massive Israeli nuclear counterstrike associated in enemy calculations with irrationality would be no more compelling to Iran or any other Arab/Islamic enemy state than if it were confronted by a presumably rational State of Israel.               Israel could benefit from a greater understanding of the "rationality of pretended irrationality,"  but only in special reference to expectedly rational enemy states.  In those circumstances where such enemy states were presumed to be irrational, something else would be needed, something other than nuclear deterrence, preemption and/or ballistic missile defense.  Although many commentators and scholars still believe the answer to this quandary lies in far-reaching political settlements (President Obama still talks enthusiastically of the Road Map and Mitchell Plan),  this belief is born largely of frustration and naïve self-delusion, and not of any deliberate or informed strategic calculation.              No meaningful political settlements can ever be worked out with enemies who openly seek Israel's "liquidation," a word still used commonly and openly in very many Arab/Islamic newspapers and texts.             The more things change, the more they remain the same. What is Israel to do?  "In the end," we may learn from the great classical poet, Goethe, "we depend upon creatures of our own making."  What, then, shall Israel "make?"             To begin, Israel must fully understand that irrationality need not mean craziness or madness. Even an irrational state may have a consistent and transitive hierarchy of wants. The first task for Israel, therefore, must be to identify this operative hierarchy among its several state enemies. Although these states might not be deterred from aggression by even the plausibly persuasive threat of massive Israeli retaliations, they could still be deterred by threats aimed toward what they do hold to be most important.             What, then, might be most important to Israel's prospectively irrational enemies, potentially even more important than their own physical survival as a state?  One possible answer is the avoidance of shame and humiliation.  Another would be avoidance of the unendurable charge that they had somehow defiled their most sacred religious obligations. Still another would be leaders' avoidance of their own violent deaths at the hand of Israel, deaths that would be attributable to Israeli strategies of "targeted killing" and/or "regime-targeting" by Jerusalem. This last suggestion may be problematic, however,  to the extent that being killed by Jews for the sake of Allah could be regarded as a distinct positive. In this connection, we must recall that there is no greater form of power in world politics than power over death. Dying for the sake of Allah could be regarded in certain contexts as a clerically-blessed passport to heaven-bound immortality.             These tentative answers are only a beginning; indeed, they are little more than the beginning of a beginning.  Strategic problems are fundamentally intellectual problems. What is needed, now, is a sustained and conspicuously competent intellectual effort to answer such questions in much greater depth and breadth.              Clearly, Israel, in the future, will need to deal with both rational and irrational adversaries. In turn, these enemies will be both state and sub-state actors. On occasion, Israel's leaders will even have to deal with various complex and nuanced combinations of rational and irrational enemies, sometimes simultaneously.              Israel must prepare to deal with "nuclear madmen," both as terrorists and as national leaders, but, at the same time, it must fashion a suitable plan for dealing with nuclear adversaries who are neither mad nor irrational. With such an imperative, Israel must do everything possible to enhance its deterrence, preemption, defense and war-fighting capabilities. This means, inter alia, enhanced and explicit preparations for certain "last resort" operations.             Concerning any prospective contributions to Israeli nuclear deterrence, recognizable preparations for a Samson Option could serve to convince certain would-be attackers that aggression would not be gainful. This is especially true if such Israeli preparations were combined with certain levels of disclosure, that is, if Israel's  "Samson" weapons were made to appear sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first-strikes, and if these weapons were identifiably "countervalue" (counter-city) in mission function.             The Samson Option, by definition, would be executed with countervalue-targeted nuclear weapons. It is likely that any such last-resort operations would come into play only after all Israeli counterforce options had been exhausted.             Concerning the previously mentioned "rationality of pretended irrationality," Samson could enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating a national willingness to take existential risks, but this would hold true only if Israeli last-resort options were directed toward rational adversaries.             Concerning prospective contributions to preemption options, preparations for a Samson Option could convince Israeli leaders that their own defensive first-strikes could be undertaken with diminished expectations of unacceptably destructive enemy retaliations. This sort of convincing would depend, at least in part, upon antecedent Israeli government decisions on disclosure (that is, an end to "nuclear ambiguity"); on Israeli perceptions of the effects of disclosure on enemy retaliatory prospects;  on Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons' vulnerability; and on an enemy awareness of Samson's countervalue force posture. In almost any event, the time to end Israel's "bomb in the basement" policy will soon be at hand.             Similar to Samson's plausible impact upon Israeli nuclear deterrence, last-resort preparations could enhance Israeli preemption options by displaying a clear and verifiable willingness to accept certain existential risks. In this scenario, however, Israeli leaders must always bear in mind that pretended irrationality could become a double-edged sword. Brandished too flagrantly, and without sufficient nuance, any Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could actually impair rather than reinforce Israel's nuclear war-fighting options.             Concerning prospective contributions to Israel's nuclear war fighting options, preparations for a Samson Option could convince enemy states that a clear victory over Israel would be impossible. With such reasoning, it would be important for Israel to communicate to potential aggressors the following very precise understanding: Israel's counter value-targeted Samson weapons are additional to its counterforce-targeted war fighting weapons. Without such a communication, any preparations for a Samson Option could impair rather than reinforce Israel's nuclear warfighting options.             Undoubtedly, as was formally concluded by Project Daniel more than seven years ago (see Israel's Strategic Future, the Report of Project Daniel), nuclear warfighting should always be avoided by Israel wherever possible. But, just as undeniably, there are some circumstances in which such exchanges could be unavoidable. Here, some form of nuclear warfighting could ensue, so long as: (a) enemy state first-strikes launched against Israel would not destroy Israel's second-strike nuclear capability; (b) enemy state retaliations for an Israeli conventional preemption would not destroy Israel's nuclear counter-retaliatory capability; (c) conventional Israeli preemptive strikes would not destroy enemy state second-strike nuclear capability; and (d) Israeli retaliations for enemy state conventional first strikes would not destroy enemy state nuclear counter-retaliatory capability. From the standpoint of protecting its overall existential security, this means that Israel must take appropriate steps to ensure the plausibility of (a) and (b), above, and also the implausibility of (c) and (d).             "Do you know what it means to find yourself face to face with a madman?" This opening question from Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV does have considerable and immediate relevance to Israel's existential dilemma. At the same time, the mounting strategic challenge to Israel will assuredly and primarily come from enemy decision-makers who are not-at-all mad, and who are altogether rational.  With this in mind, Israel will need to promptly fashion a comprehensive and suitably-calibrated strategic doctrine from which various specific policies and operations could readily be extrapolated. This focused framework would identify and correlate all available strategic options (deterrence, preemption, active defense, strategic targeting, nuclear war fighting) with evident and indisputable survival goals. It would also take close account of the possible interactions between these strategic options, and of the determinable synergies between all conceivable enemy actions directed against Israel. Figuring out these particular interactions and synergies will be a computational  task on the very highest order of intellectual difficulty.             Nuclear strategy is a "game" that sane and rational people can and must play, but to compete effectively and purposefully, a would-be winner must always first assess (1) the expected rationality of each critical opponent; and (2) the probable costs and benefits of pretending irrationality oneself. These are undoubtedly complex, interactive and glaringly uncertain forms of assessment, but they also constitute an utterly indispensable foundation for Israel's long-term security.             "For by wise counsel," we learn from Proverbs (24, 6), "Thou shalt make thy war." ----------------- LOUIS RENÉ BERES is Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University. Educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), he is the author of ten books and several hundred published articles dealing with Israeli security matters, including SECURITY OR ARMAGEDDON: ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR STRATEGY (Lexington Books, 1986). Professor Beres served as Chair of "Project Daniel," a private small-group effort to counsel former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on existential nuclear threats to Israel.  He was born in Zurich, Switzerland, on August 31, 1945.

Gaddafi: Jihad on Switzerland and Zionists

Yodeling is Fitna apparently.

 

Gaddafi urges 'holy war' on Swiss
Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland, as an ongoing diplomatic row between the two nations heats up.

 

He criticised a recent Swiss vote against the building of minarets and said Muslims must boycott the country.

 

There have been tensions between the nations since 2008, when one of Mr Gaddafi's sons was arrested in Geneva, accused of assaulting two servants.

 

A Swiss foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the jihad call.

 

The Libyan leader made his comments while speaking at a meeting to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

 

"Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression," he said.

 

"Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran."

 

In a referendum last November, 57.5% of Swiss voters approved a constitutional ban on the building of minarets. An appeal against the ban has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights.

 

Charges dropped

 

Earlier this month, Libya stopped issuing visas to citizens from many European nations, prompting condemnation from the European Commission.

 

Libya's move came after Switzerland allegedly blacklisted 188 high-ranking Libyans, denying them entry permits. The Swiss ban is said to include Mr Gaddafi and his family.

 

The row began after the arrest of Mr Gaddafi's son Hannibal and his wife, Aline Skaf, in Geneva in July 2008.

 

They were accused of assaulting two servants while staying at a luxury hotel in the Swiss city, though the charges were later dropped.

 

Libya retaliated by cancelling oil supplies, withdrawing billions of dollars from Swiss banks, refusing visas to Swiss citizens and recalling some of its diplomats.

 

In the same month that the Gaddafis were arrested, Libyan authorities detained two Swiss businessmen, in what analysts believe was a retaliatory move.

 

One was finally allowed to leave the country earlier this week but the second was transferred to jail, where he faces a four-month term on immigration offences.

 

Story from BBC NEWS:

Israel's Right To Self-Defense

The Dubai hit exposes the failure of international law to fight jihadi terror, forcing the Jewish state to act independently.

 

By GERALD M. STEINBERG

Jerusalem

The headlines and video images allegedly showing Israeli spies in Dubai are titillating, but they mask the serious issues involved in the death of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Along with predictable European hand-wringing over forged passports, this case is the latest example of the failure of the international legal system and the United Nations to provide a remedy to mass terror.

Al-Mabhouh was a cold-blooded murderer—in an interview just last year on Al Jazeera he boasted about kidnapping and then killing two Israeli soldiers. He was also a major figure in arranging arms shipments from Iran to Gaza. Al-Mabhouh shared responsibility for the thousands of rocket attacks fired at civilians in Sderot and other Israeli towns, which resulted in last year's war in Gaza. In his travels, the Hamas terrorist was probably making arrangements for the next round of attacks.

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Associated Press

Al-Mabhouh's handiwork.

But international law provides no means for stopping terrorists like Al-Mabhouh, or for his Hezbollah counterpart, Imad Moughniyeh, whose life ended with an explosion in Damascus in 2008. (In addition to numerous attacks against Israelis, Moughniyeh has been blamed for the 1983 Beirut bombings that killed hundreds of American and French peacekeepers and the murder of Lebanese President Rafik Hariri.) Cases involving Muslim terrorists, supported by Iran, would never be pursued by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, or raised in the framework of the United Nations. Al-Mabhouh violated the human rights of untold Israeli civilians, but the U.N.'s Human Rights Council—which is dominated by such moral stalwarts as Libya, Algeria, and Iran—has no interest in Israeli complaints.

It is equally hard to imagine Interpol issuing arrest warrants in response to Israeli requests. And if warrants were issued, history shows that German, French, Belgian, and other European governments would not risk the consequences of acting on them. Little effort was ever made to apprehend the perpetrators of the Munich Olympic massacre, or of the deadly bombing attacks against synagogues in Istanbul and Athens. It's a widely known secret that European governments had ungentlemanly agreements with the PLO that allowed the Palestinians to operate from their territories, provided the terror attacks occurred elsewhere. Not until 2003 did the EU even put Hamas on its terror list. Hezbollah is currently free to operate in Europe.

The bitter reality is that for Israel, international legal frameworks provide no protection and no hope of justice. Instead, these frameworks are used to exploit the rhetoric of human rights and morality to attack Israel. In European courts, universal jurisdiction statutes, initially created to apprehend and try dictators and genocidal leaders, are now exploited as weapons in the service of the Palestinian cause. In this way, Israeli defense officials are branded as "war criminals."

Similarly, Richard Goldstone's predetermined "fact finding inquiry" into the Gaza war makes no mention of Al-Mabhouh or Iran, which supplied Hamas with over 10,000 rockets for attacks against Israelis. Mr. Goldstone and his team have remained silent about what would be the "legal" way to bring jihadi murderers to justice. In their efforts to demonize Israel, Palestinian terror actually doesn't really exist. The Goldstone team simply refused to accept conclusive Israeli video evidence of Hamas war crimes.

The same legal distortions are found among the organizations that claim to be the world's moral guardians, such as Human Rights Watch. HRW's systematic bias is reflected in a Middle East division that sees no problem in holding fund-raising dinners in Saudi Arabia—one of the world's worst human rights violators and a country officially still at war with Israel—to help finance their campaigns against the Jewish state.

In the absence of any legal remedies or Western solidarity, Israel's only option to protect its citizens from terror has always been to act independently and with force. When in 1976 a group of Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked an Israel-bound Air France plane to Uganda and separated the Jewish passengers, Israel decided to act. In a daring mission, it rescued all but three passengers while killing all terrorists and several Ugandan soldiers who had been protecting the terrorists. Back then, Israel's detractors also fretted about the "violation of Ugandan sovereignty" even though dictator Idi Amin was in cahoots with the terrorists. Entebbe, though, quickly became the gold standard for successful counter-terror operations. Only a year later, Israeli-trained German special forces freed in Mogadishu, Somalia a Lufthansa plane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. Similarly, when after years of horrific suicide bombings Israel pioneered the targeted killings of Hamas terrorists—often with the help of unmanned drones—Israel's Western adversaries complained about "extrajudicial assassinations." Today, though, U.S. forces have copied Israel's technique with their own drone killings of jihadi terrorists in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

Unlike those Predator strikes, though, which hardly raise an eyebrow in the West these days, there was no "collateral damage" in the mysterious Dubai hit. No innocent civilians were hurt, no buildings were damaged. Justice was done, and al-Mabhouh's preparations for the next war ended quietly.

All this is lost on those diplomats, "legal experts," and pundits who blame Israel for Dubai, and angrily denounce the passport infractions. In the absence of viable alternatives, and a refusal to share any of the risks, they are in no position to condemn actions aimed at preventing more terror.

Mr. Steinberg teaches political science at Bar Ilan University and heads NGO Monitor.

A two-way street

 

 

Admiral Mullen's visit reaffirms US-Israel ties based on mutual strategic interests

Yoram Ettinger

Published:

02.22.10, 09:38 / Israel Opinion

The February 2010 visit to Israel by Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, sheds light on the larger context of US-Israel relations, which transcends the Arab-Israeli conflict, leverages Israel's unique capabilities, and benefits both the US and Israel. The visit reaffirms that US policy toward Israel is based, primarily, on regional and global strategic interests and not on domestic politics. US-Israel relations do not resemble a one-way-street (the US gives and Israel receives), but a mutually-beneficial two-way street.

 

Military Chief

Mullen: US committed to preventing another Holocaust  / Ronen Medzini Jint Chiefs of Staff chairman visits Yad Vashem, says museum vital to commemoration of humanity's tragic side Full story

Admiral Mullen's visit to Israel centered on a series of aggravated mutual threats and on the implication of the expected US withdrawal from Iraq related to those threats: Iran's nuclearization, global Islamic terrorism, domestic and regional war in Iraq, escalation of the ballistic threat, Iran's subversion of the Gulf and the Middle East, al-Qaeda's entrenchment in Yemen which controls key sea lanes for oil tankers, the war on the Saudi-Yemen border, the intensification of Iranian-Syrian cooperation, the enhanced Middle Eastern profile of Russia and China, Turkey Islamization, etc.

 

The evacuation of US forces from Iraq could trigger a political-military volcano, with boiling lava sweeping Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and Jordan, further deteriorating the region, highlighting Israel's contribution to the national security of its most critical ally, the USA.

 

For example, in 2010, US special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan leverage Israeli battle tactics and 61 year counter-terrorism experience. US Marines benefit from the Israeli-developed "Pioneer" unmanned aerial vehicle, which provides intelligence otherwise unobtainable, preempting terrorists, thus saving many lives. A US special operations colonel told me – in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – that his battalion benefited in Iraq from Israel's unique contribution in the areas of training, urban warfare, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), car bombs, booby-traps, suicide bombers, roadblocks and checkpoints, interrogation of terrorists and anti-tank missiles.

 

According to Brig. General Michael Vane, Deputy Chief of Staff at the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, the Israeli experience played a role in defeating terrorists in Iraq's "Sunni Triangle."

 

According to Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and its Subcommittee on Defense and a veteran of the Intelligence Committee, "Israel's contribution to US military intelligence is greater than all NATO countries combined."

 

In September 2006, Israel demolished a nuclear plant in Syria, thus dealing a blow to the anti-US Syria-Iran-North Korea axis, while upgrading the posture of deterrence and joint interests of the US and Israel.

 

'Largest US aircraft carrier'  

In 1982, Israel's Air Force was the first ever to destroy a Soviet built surface-to-air network. Israel destroyed 23 of the most advanced Soviet surface-to-air missile batteries, employed by Syria and considered impregnable. Israel's battle tactics and lessons, electronic warfare and other technological innovations were shared with the US, thus tilting the global balance of power in favor of the US.

 

In 1981, Israel devastated Iraq's nuclear reactor, in defiance of brutal US and international pressure – including a military embargo – thus according the US the conventional option during the 1991 war against Iraq. It spared the US and the world a nuclear confrontation, along with its mega human losses and mega-billion dollar cost.

 

In 1970, a Soviet proxy, Syria, invaded a US ally, Jordan, aiming to topple the Hashemite regime and activate a pro-Soviet domino scenario into Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. US forces were overly-involved in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, but Israel mobilized its military, forcing a Syrian evacuation of Jordan, thus preventing a collapse of pro-US regimes, a setback to US national security, havoc in the Arab oil-producing countries and a blow to the US standard of living. Israel's capability of snatching roasting chestnuts out of the fire – with no US involvement – transformed President Nixon into a supporter of enhanced US-Israel strategic cooperation, in spite of the fact that only 12% of US Jews voted for him, and irrespective of severe US-Israel disagreements over the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

Former Secretary of State, General Alexander Haig, a former Supreme Commander of NATO, refers to Israel as "the largest, most battle-tested and cost-effective US aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US personnel, cannot be sunk and is located at a most critical area for US national security interests."

 

If Israel did not exist in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean - adjacent to most critical oil resources and water lanes, in the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa - the US would have to deploy a few aircraft carriers to the region, along with tens of thousands of military personnel, costing scores of billions of dollars annually and risking involvement in additional regional and international confrontations.

 

The Jewish State constitutes a battle-proven laboratory, which has improved thousands of US-made military systems and technologies, sharing with the US such improvements, thus enhancing the competitive edge of the US defense industries, expanding US employment and export base, upgrading US national security and saving many US lives and mega billion of dollars in terms of research and development cost. For instance, the current generation of the F-16 includes over 600 modifications introduced by Israel.

 

If there had been an Israel-like nation in the Persian Gulf, there would not be a need to dispatch hundreds of thousands of US military personnel to the region!

 

The US-Israel strategic cooperation surged meteorically during 1949-1992, despite rocky disagreements over the Arab-Israeli conflict, entirely due to a series of mutual threats and joint interests, which are much more pertinent to US national security. In hindsight, such disagreements have been merely bumps on the road toward unprecedented strategic cooperation. On a rainy day – in the battle against Iran and other threats - Admiral Mullen prefers a "tough nut" over a "punching bag" as an ally! 

 

Son of Hamas founder says he served Israel as an informant

Sheik Hassan Yousef, center, a founder of Hamas, was escorted by Israeli army soldiers out of a military jail near the West Bank town of Ramallah, in this Nov. 18, 2004, file photo. His son, Mosab Hassan Yousef, writes in a new memoir that he fed secrets about Hamas to Israelis. (2004 Photo By Oded Balilty/Associated Press)

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Associated Press

Thursday, February 25, 2010

JERUSALEM -- The son of one of Hamas's founders says in a new book that he served as a top informant for Israel for more than a decade, providing top-secret intelligence that helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis.

Mosab Hassan Yousef's memoir, "Son of Hamas," is being published next week in the United States, and highlights of the book and an interview with the author appeared Wednesday in Israel's Haaretz daily. Yousef declined to comment, but his Facebook page plugs the book as "a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices."

The revelation of such a high-level informant is another apparent blow to Hamas, which suffered a setback last month when one of its top commanders was assassinated in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai authorities have accused Israel of carrying out the hit, and there have been reports that a Hamas insider assisted the killers.

Hamas, however, said it was suspicious of Yousef's activities for years and had kept a close eye on him to prevent him from gathering valuable information. His father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, a founder of the Islamist militant group in the 1980s and still a senior figure, issued a statement through his attorney saying his son had been "blackmailed" by Israeli authorities during a stint in jail in 1996.

Mosab Yousef told Haaretz that he was one of Israeli intelligence's most valuable sources in the Gaza Strip. His reports led to the arrests of several high-ranking Palestinian figures during the violent Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule that began in 2000, the newspaper said.

The younger Yousef converted to Christianity and moved to California in 2007.

Hamas officials rejected the Haaretz report as propaganda meant to divert attention from the Dubai assassination.

The elder Yousef said in his statement that when Hamas concluded Israel was extorting his son, "the members of the movement were warned about him." He was placed "under the supervision" of his father, whom the statement described as a politician uninvolved in militant activities. The elder Yousef is currently serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison for his political activities.

Collaboration with Israel is tantamount to treason in Palestinian society and can be punishable by death.

 

Yousef told Haaretz that Israeli intelligence agents first approached him in prison in 1996 and proposed he infiltrate the upper echelons of Hamas. He did so and is credited by Israel with saving hundreds of Israeli lives.

His book's publisher, Tyndale House Publishers, which prints books with Christian themes, confirmed the details in the Haaretz report. Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, declined to comment.

"Israel has the right to defend itself..BUT"

 

 

"Israel has the right to defend itself..BUT"

Ask anyone from the EU or someone like Richard Goldstone whether Israel has the right to defend itself, and you will get the answer of "Yes, but...." Goldstone, for example, said that the UN report he wrote "in no way contradicts the right of Israel to defend itself." He just wrote it in such a way that so severely hampers Israel's ability to defend itself as to make the words meaningless. Amnesty International's Middle East director says that "Israel has a legitimate right to defend itself from rocket attacks but this blockade is not the right policy." Human Rights Watch writes that it "recognizes Israel's right to defend itself against attacks by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza...But lawful means of self-defense do not include harming civilians in Gaza." (Note they do not say "purposeful" harming of civilians, they are implying any harming of civilians, even if Geneva allows it.) The EU Parliament passed a resolution last year that stated, in part, that it "Reaffirms the right of Israel to defend itself, but stresses that this right must be proportional to the threat received and should be exerted in full compliance with the humanitarian law and..... " a full paragraph of what Israel is not allowed to do even as they assert this "right." The upshot seems to be that everyone agrees that Israel is certainly allowed to defend itself in theory, but there is always a "but": Israel has no practical, legal, moral means to do so according to these self-proclaimed arbiters of law and morality. The Mabhouh assassination, presumably done by Israel's Mossad, is a textbook example of this rule at work. Assuming that it was done by Israel, here we see the elimination of a known terrorist and murderer; who was in the process of procuring weapons meant to murder Israeli civilians. No civilians were killed or injured; there was no bloody mess for the chambermaids to clean up; no one else in the hotel were even woken up from their sleep - this was the cleanest, quietest way for Israel to defend itself. And yet, the world is up in arms, mostly because it appears that passports were forged! From Al-Arabiya: European Union foreign ministers condemned on Monday the use of forged European passports by assassins who killed a a top Hamas figure in Dubai, but made no direct reference to Israel. "We strongly condemn the use of fraudulent EU member states' passports and credit cards acquired through the theft of EU citizens' identities," the foreign ministers said in a statement drawn up during a meeting in Brussels The EU also for the first time condemned the act of assassination in Dubai believed to be carried out by Israeli spy agency Mossad. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said the culprits must be punished, stressing that such political assassinations "have no place in the 21st century." Even though Goldstone ridiculously asserted that Israel could somehow eliminate the rocket threat through "commando actions" - showing his extreme ignorance of what the threat even was - apparently the clean assassination of a terrorist scumbag in Dubai is not an appropriate way to approach that very same threat. After all, the killing of Mabhouh was much cleaner than any actions Israel could do in Gaza - no damage to anyone's houses, no unwanted injuries, no danger to innocents. And yet it is condemned. (It will be recalled that Mabhouh's often used forged passports as well, and no one seems to be very worked up about that.) Putting it all together, and Israel's critics still cannot come up with a single realistic scenario of how Israel can legally defend itself, even as they insist that Israel has that "right." Having the right without the practical ability means that, according to these people, Israel really doesn't have the right to defend itself. They might as well just admit it.

Hamas: Dubai assassins were likely Arabs, not Israelis

 

 

Slain Hamas official Mahmoud Mabhouh's father holds his photo (Reuters)

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Last update - 14:36 02/02/2010 By Avi Issacharoff Tags: Israel news, Hamas  Inquiry finds murdered Gaza arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had enemies across the Middle East and was wanted by Jordan and Egypt.       A preliminary investigation conducted by Hamas suggests that the assassination of one of its officials in Dubai last month was likely carried out by agents of an Arab government, and not by Israel's Mossad spy agency. When Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas official reportedly behind the smuggling of Iranian arms to Gaza, was found dead in his hotel room on January 20, the organization was quick to point the finger at Israeli intelligence, vowing revenge attacks. But details of a Hamas inquiry passed to Haaretz reveal that Arab states, not Israel, now top the suspect list. Advertisement Both Hamas and Dubai police say that Mabhouh had enemies across the Middle East, any of whom may have had a motive for his murder. A Hamas source told Haaretz on Monday that Mabhouh was wanted by authorities in both Jordan and Egypt, where he previously spent a year in prison. Hamas also suspects its Palestinian rivals in the West Bank. "It is quite possible that Palestinian Authority security forces were involved," Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader in Lebanon, told Hezbollah's television station Al-Manar on Monday. "West Bank forces are persecuting our fighters and have killed dozens since 1994," he said. Meanwhile, the Saudi daily Okaz reported on Tuesday that Hamas has decided to halt temporarily negotiations over the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit due to Mabhouh's murder. A senior Hamas official told the paper that the prisoner swap talks have reached a critical juncture and reiterated the group's stance that Israel is responsible for the delay in its completion. Details of Mabhouh murder begin to emerge On Sunday, a Dubai police commander updated the Palestinian consul in the United Arab Emirates on progress in the investigation. Mabhouh was killed by a seven-man team, four whom had been identified, the commander said. According to Hamas investigators, Mabhouh arrived in the Syrian capital Damascus at 9:00 A.M. on the morning of January 19, where he boarded flight EK912 for the UAE, landing at Dubai at 2:30 P.M. Local authorities were unaware of the presence of the Hamas leader, who traveled under a false identity. Al-Mabhouh took a taxi to the luxury Al Bustan Rutana Hotel, where he checked into room 130, also under a false name. As always when traveling, al-Mabhouh had taken the precaution of reserving in advance a room with no balcony and sealed windows. On arrival, he deposited a case of documents in the hotel safe before spending around an hour in his room. Between 4:30 P.M. and 5:00 P.M. al-Mabhouh left the hotel for a meeting. Hamas claims to know the identity of his Dubai contact - but has so far kept details under wraps. Hamas assumes that he dined outside the hotel, which has no record of him ordering food or drink, before returning to his room at around 9:00 P.M. Police say it is likely that Mabhouh answered the door to his assailants - but Hamas believes the attackers awaited him on his return and were warned of his approach by accomplices tailing him. At 9:30 P.M. Mabhouh's wife called his cellular telephone. There was no answer. Both Hamas and police believe the victim was by then already dead. His body was discovered the following day. Post mortem examinations revealed signs of electrocution beneath both ears -presumably from a device used to stun Mabhouh, whose nose was bleeding and whose teeth showed signs of abrasion. Pathologists determined the cause of death as asphyxiation, probably with a pillow found near the body and stained with blood. Meanwhile, London's Sunday Times reported on Sunday that Mabhouh had been injected with a drug that simulated the effects of a natural heart attack. Also on Sunday, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi landau denied that Mossad agents had posed as part of his entourage to carry out the hit. Landau, the first Israeli minister to travel officially to the UAE, left the country three days before Mabhouh was killed.