Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) has just published its annual strategic survey.  It is an influential document written by former members of the defence establishment and academics.  The key observation, which is very much in line with our own analysis, is that it is no longer possible to view the Middle East as being split simply between Iranian-allied rejectionists and moderate states opposed to Iran.  The vital new component is public opinion.  As one of the essays puts it, “more Arab governments will conduct an independent policy while being less attentive to the United States and Western countries in general (and certainly less to Israel’s needs), and more to their own public opinion”. 

This is the key point that cannot be overemphasized.  The exact nature of the post-revolutionary Arab regimes (for instance, how Islamic-oriented they will be) is less important than the fact that they will have to be responsive to public opinion in a way that has never previously been the case, and Arab public opinion is overwhelmingly anti-Israel.  This factor will be compounded by the knowledge that the two major non-Arab Muslim powers (Turkey and Iran) will continue to press the Palestinian cause as their means of acquiring influence with the Arab street.

A major difficulty for Israel, highlighted by the INSS report, is how, or rather when, it reorients its defence posture in response to worsening relations with Egypt and Jordan.  As the report argues, military preparations are apt to become a self-fulfilling prophecy because the other side is liable to interpret the preparations as reflecting aggressive intentions.  So, if Israel were to begin preparations for the possibility that the Camp David accords with Egypt are likely to be undermined by the new regime, this could be interpreted as aggressive and produce exactly the result that Israel wishes to avoid.  On the other hand, if Israel changes its posture too late, and the treaty is in fact weakened, it may not be prepared in time.  The same applies on the Jordanian front; and this consideration underlines how unstable the current position is. 

The INSS also highlights the degree to which Israel is becoming uneasy about continuing US support and indeed about the power of the US to control events in the Middle East.  It says there is a danger that Israel could be losing “one of the key components of its deterrence capabilities”.

The INSS’s conclusion, which is certainly shared by the Western powers, is that Israel cannot afford to wait for regional stabilization (which may be a long way off yet) before deciding what to do.  Instead it should “attempt to mould the strategic environment...through an initiative for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement”.

This can be argued either way, but for us that is not the point.  The point is that it is unlikely to be a conclusion to which the Netanyahu government subscribes or will subscribe.  There is nothing in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s track record that suggests he will take such a bold gamble at a time of such uncertainty, and indeed he confirmed his own pessimism about the Arab Spring when speaking at the opening session of the Knesset’s winter term on 31 October.  He said: “The liberal forces working for freedom and progress as we understood them are weak and divided.  It is doubtful that the great hope that existed when the Arab Spring broke out will be fulfilled.”

The information we are receiving from Jerusalem all points in the opposite direction.  Netanyahu, and those around him who are arguing against the sort of bold move proposed by the INSS, point to the following:

                - The Arab Spring’s first post-revolution election, held in Tunisia, has been won by a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, Ennahda, whose leader Rashed al-Ghannushi wrote in his 1993 book Public Freedoms in the Islamic State: “There are no Israeli citizens.  The entire population – men, women, and children – are reservists in the IDF, and so it is permissible to kill them.”

                - Key leaders of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), such as chairman Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil, have Islamist tendencies, as do important political figures outside the NTC such as influential cleric Ali al-Sallabi and head of the Tripoli Military Council Abd-al-Hakim Bilhaj.

                - Egypt, even under a transitional military regime and before the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral influence has come to bear, has tacked strongly away from the Camp David accords.  It has mended fences with Hamas and is even considering a rapprochement with Iran.

                - Jordan, although as yet relatively immune to the Arab Spring, looks as if it is moving towards a rapprochement with Hamas.  On 1 November, newly appointed Jordanian Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh said that the expulsion of the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal and his advisors from Jordan 12 years ago was a political mistake made illegally.  After Khasawneh’s  appointment two weeks ago, Meshal spoke to him on the phone to congratulate him on his appointment and the formation of a new government, and Hamas leader Muhammad Nazzal visited Khasawneh at his home last week.

                - Syria is in chaos and will be equally inimical to Israel under a surviving Assad regime or a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated successor.

                - Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clearly set its course.  Erdogan is presenting Turkey’s Islamic-tinted government as the model for the Arab world, and he is bolstering Turkey’s influence with Arab popular opinion by distancing it from its previous alignment with Israel and by increasingly strong support for the Palestinian cause.  Perhaps more worryingly, Erdogan continues to display a dangerous lack of judgement.  When last month Turkey took delivery of its first home-produced warship – a 300ft corvette – it did so on the symbolic anniversary of the 1538 Battle of Preveza in which the Ottoman navy destroyed a larger Christian force.  With an eye to the disputed waters and exploration rights of the Eastern Mediterranean, where Ankara is challenging Cyprus and Israel, Erdogan said: “I recommend that the international community take the necessary lessons from the Preveza victory.”  With the Middle East in turmoil, this is exceptionally injudicious language, but very much in line with the neo-Ottoman victory speech he gave immediately after his election victory in June.

                - With the European Union in turmoil over its single currency; with the US seemingly in retreat and less sympathetic to Israel; and with Russia and China competing for influence in the Arab Middle East, Israel feels it has to be even more self-reliant than in the past.

Netanyahu’s Iranian obsession

Then there is Iran, and everything we are hearing from Jerusalem suggests that Netanyahu has become almost totally obsessed with the Iranian threat.  There is a theory that he sees the imperative to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat as his sole remaining political purpose.  Certainly there are some very strange things happening on this front.  In last week’s briefing we reported on the increasing speculation in the region that Israel was gearing up for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.  This speculation has continued in the past week, reflecting the fact that no serious denials (on or off the record) have been coming out of Jerusalem.

The lead story in Haaretz on 1 November reported: “Israeli ambassadors in Western countries have been instructed to inform high-ranking politicians that the window of opportunity for imposing effective sanctions on Iran is closing...”

Just before the week-end, on 28 October, a senior Israeli defence ministry official, Amos Gilad, said that Israel had never faced so many serious simultaneous challenges, but that of them all Iran was the priority.  Speaking at Ashqelon Academic College, he said: “We need to know how to prioritize what to deal with first.  In my opinion we’re talking about the Iranian front.”  On 1 November, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon said that Israel needs to act as if it can depend on nobody else when it comes to the Iranian threat.  In an interview with Army Radio, Yaalon quoted an old Hebrew adage favouring self-reliance: “If not me, who?”

Against all this, there is a strong lobby arguing that there is still time and that Iran is at least two years away from being nuclear armed.  And there is the alliance of senior Israeli defence officials – such as Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, military intelligence head Aviv Kochavi, and Shin Bet leader Yoram Cohen – who oppose a military strike because of the dangers that retaliation would pose to Israel.

As we have said before, we have no inside knowledge of how this internal debate will be resolved.  But one point is clear to us: the combination of Netanyahu’s concerns over the Arab Spring with the colossal internal battle he is waging over what to do about Iran will ensure that he will not make any dramatic gesture towards peace with the Palestinians, as is being urged by the INSS and almost everyone in the international community.  The challenges of the Arab Spring and Iran are not about to be eased by a transforming resolution of the Israel-Palestinian question.  JdeC.

NOTE: Our belief that Netanyahu is not about to surprise everyone with a workable peace offer is reinforced by his relatively good position in the opinion polls.  The latest Sarid Institute poll shows Netanyahu’s Likud party gaining 10 seats and Kadima losing 11 if an election were held today.  The poll suggests that Likud would win 37 seats, Labour 22, Kadima 17, and Yisrael Beiteinu 15.  Netanyahu has the approval of 41%, followed by Labour leader Shelly Yachimovich on 15% and with Kadima’s Tzipi Livni tied with Yisrael Beiteinu’s leader Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on 9%.