Big Sea-Small Mind
Dudu Shiek
The security concept that Ben-Gurion directed
and according to which the security apparatus functioned beginning in
the early 1950s,1 helped the IDF rout
its enemies in the wars that took place in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
On the other hand, it also led to a continuing intellectual paralysis
and brought about a misconception of the IDF’s enormous power
beginning in the 1990s. This is especially true when the emphasis on
missiles and “special weapons” altered fundamental concepts in the
perception of modern warfare.
The variety of weapons, their sophistication and the massive firepower
that they can produce, changed the infantry battlefield, but also
changed the naval and air force battlefields, with the key being the
implementation of synergy between the three dimensions capable of
deciding the battle. However, the IDF today acts hesitatingly, guided
by a confused security concept.
Israel, which constantly feels threatened and pressured under massive
conventional threats (hundreds of missiles with warheads capable of
carrying payloads totaling hundreds of tons), is about to enter a new
nuclear age in the Middle East. (The reference is to Iran. Pakistan is
also nuclear and as a Moslem state constitutes a certain threat and
aspires to a “nuclear umbrella” for additional security.)
Israel’s nuclear arsenal, according to foreign publications, is
similar to those maintained by Western powers and includes missile
capabilities (tactical and strategic) – naval, ground and air as well
as special capabilities. The Navy is supposed to implement the
strategic naval capabilities by means of surface vessels and
submarines. The tasks and challenges facing the Navy in the near
future are numerous and decisive, especially in terms of Israel’s
strategic offensive and deterrent capabilities.
The Navy is supposed to take action if war breaks out, at sea and in
battles off the coast against offensive and defensive weapon systems
no less sophisticated than the ones with which it is equipped.
Therefore, the questions relating to the creation and development of
the power of the navy and the warfare concept supporting that
objective are interesting:
What type of ship should the Navy rely upon in the coming 20 years
(especially in light of the incident when the Saar 5 Missile Boat was
damaged in the last war) and what will be the structure of the Navy’s
force and the method of its implementation?
In the confrontation with the powerful air force lobby, will the
status of the Navy – in the realm of Israel’s strategic deterrence and
consequently the funds that will be invested in it – change?
The internal dilemmas and arguments in the Navy over the years
including opposition from the leadership causes the Navy to appear to
the security establishment as a confused military branch that does not
itself know what it wants.
The Navy, today, is wallowing in the margins of the IDF budget with
5%, is crying out for development and trying to convince the State
leadership of its necessity as a significant force in Israel’s
strategic deterrence.2
The problem today is that the Navy does not have an independent
concept. The Navy has difficulty defining how it wants to see itself.
There is no doubt that the accurate tactical, battle and strategic
weapons revolution must have significant influence on the relative
value of the platforms carrying them at sea and on the allocation of
resources for their development and production and consequently on the
nature and development of the Navy.
1 “Summaries”
(of the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister), October 18, 1953,
IDF Archive, Protocol of the Government Meeting, November 15, 1953,
p. 48, State Archive, Jerusalem.
2 General
(res.) Didi Yaari, “The Sea Simply Does Not Exist”, Haaretz,
April 20, 2007.
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The Threat from Iran
Yonatan Silverman
The Yom Kippur ritual of
the scapegoat carrying the sins of the nation to “Azazel” has
not been observed since the destruction of the Great Temple by the
Romans in 70 CE. Rambam explained that Azazel symbolized a
place of evil. We must recognize and repel the hostile forces that
surround and tempt us. Thus the scapegoat is a reminder that God wants
us to guard against the threats of our enemies by recognizing their
existence and appeasing them.
But is appeasement really
the way?
The president of Iran
frequently calls for wiping the country of Israel off the map. And he
is standing on the broad anti-Semitic shoulders of the late Ayatollah
Khomeini. President Ahmadinejad is merely the present mouthpiece for
venomous anti-Israel psychology in Iran.
But the problem isn't only
psychological. Iran is actively working to manufacture nuclear
weapons. And they are doing this by accelerating their operation of
gas centrifuges.
Iran is concealing its
nuclear weapons ambitions, and deceiving the world, just as it says in
the Qur`an, “and Allah is the best of deceivers”.
Moreover, President
Ahmadinejad is a world leader who also casts doubt on the veracity of
the Nazi annihilation of European Jewry.
This is not the only way in
which Iran, Ahmadinejad and company have turned history and reality on
their heads.
Consider how Ayatollah
Khomeini sent children as young as 12 to the front lines in the
Iran-Iraq War. There they marched in formation across minefields
toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. They were known
as Basiji.
Ahmadinejad’s ascendance to
the presidency on the shoulders of the Basiji means that a
younger generation of Iranians has come to power, wielding a more
fervently ideological approach to politics than their predecessors.
The survival of Israel
depends on more than biblical rituals and prayer.
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Ten Years of
Palestinian Terror
Aharon Yaffe
The decade between
1968-1978 was a decade of a peak in international Palestinian terror –
a peak in choice of targets (in terms of operational imagination) and
a peak in the terrorist leadership’s involvement in international
attacks.
It took this organization
almost three decades to initiate the first terrorist attack against
Israeli and Jewish targets. The summary of the motivations for
terrorist attacks were:
-
To introduce the Palestinian agenda in every
international forum around the world;
-
To disrupt aviation and naval transportation
to and from Israel;
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To cultivate fear and embarrassment in Israeli
and Jewish offices around the world;
-
To hurt Israel’s incoming tourism, its economy
and its victorious self-image as a strong fearless country following
the 1967 war;
-
To undermine Israel's image and the image of
its institutions throughout the world.
This article summarizes
international Palestinian terror during the years 1968-1978. We
analyze this terrorist operation by its quantitative indicators,
specifically, the numbers of casualties and not according to its
psychological and political influence on public opinion and its
decisions makers.
This article also deals
with the ways and means with which Israel fought and overcame the wave
of international Palestinian terror attacks. Israel succeeded in
defeating this fierce, full-fledged attack by making wise use of its
intelligence services and their cooperation with European secret
services. This war was waged by means of violent pursuit of the
terrorist commanders and their soldiers – a pursuit which engendered
the anticipated results.
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The US
and Israel – Are We Really Allies?
Ezra Sohar
There have been three
periods in United States-Israel relations.
The first began at the end
of World War II and lasted until the Six Day War. The attitude of the
US towards the establishment of the State of Israel was negative. In
April 1948, the US recommended not to declare the establishment of the
Jewish state but rather to establish a UN government (Eliyahu Eilat:
“The real threat to the Zionist enterprise was in the senior echelons
of the American Government.”). Washington did not raise the fact that
the Land of Israel was already promised to the Jewish people by the
League of Nations in 1922 for discussion. Non-Jews would have civil
and religious but not national rights.
The second period began
with the Six Day War and lasted until the liquidation of the Soviet
Union. The third began then and continues into the present. During the
War of Independence, the US exerted influence to limit or cancel
Israeli military operations. Before the Six Day War, it informed
Israel that it would have to wage the war alone. At the request of
President Johnson, the American General Staff drew up the “Pentagon
Map”, which marked those areas beyond the Green Line that Israel would
be allowed to keep.
After the war, arms
shipments from the US to Israel increased and greater use was made of
Israel in the Cold War. In 1970, a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt
on the Suez Canal was reached under American pressure. In violation of
its promise regarding restriction of the movement of weapons, the US
allowed the Egyptians to deploy SAM missiles in the direction of the
Canal and thereby enabled the Egyptians to initiate the Yom Kippur War
in 1973. Dayan told The New York Times:
In order to enhance its
standing among the Arabs, the United States presented us with an
ultimatum that we would find ourselves in a conflict with them if we
do not allow the surrounded Third Army to receive food and water. The
United States prevented us from reaping the fruits of victory.
That is one of the cases in
which the US used an Israeli victory exclusively for its own benefit.
At the conclusion of the first war in Iraq, after it saved Saudi
Arabia from an Iraqi invasion, the US promised to return Israel to the
1967 borders. In 1991, the US forced Prime Minister Yizhak Shamir to
attend the Madrid Conference in which the US advocated “land for
peace”. In 1993, under heavy pressure from President Clinton, the
“Oslo Accords”, which proved to be an Arab deception, were signed.
President Bush declared a
hard line in the struggle against terrorism; however in the Middle
East and especially in the Land of Israel, that hard line was not
implemented. On the one hand, Israel is an ally, however, that does
not prevent the theft of the fruits of Israeli victories for the
benefit of the US going as far as support for the demands of the Arab
countries, commonly referred to as “oil interests”. In order to
clarify the situation, it is worthwhile to cite the statement of Dr.
Patrick Hardoin, a senior NATO official, who said: “The ups and downs
in the Israeli-Arab conflict need not minimize Israeli cooperation
with NATO.” In other words: You are allies, but only regarding those
matters that interest us.
The connection, or the
treaty with the US provides us with many advantages, however, the
price that we have paid and continue to pay for those advantages is
extremely high. What the Arabs (and many of the Arab countries),
sought to do to us after the Six Day War – to restore us to the Green
Line, is unlivable, but is gradually being accomplished by the US.
Political ties of this sort are rare. It is no wonder, therefore, that
the US speaks of “special relations”. The aid that we received and
continue to receive from them is important, though its scope is more
limited than what many Israeli citizens assume. However, we must not
forget that the US also utilizes it as a means to exert political
pressure.
On the other hand it is
little known that Israel provides the United States with extensive aid
in many areas, beginning with delivering captured Russian weaponry,
continuing with quality intelligence, through the many weapons systems
developed here or in partnership with the US. It is crucial to note
that the many, expensive American attempts to gain Arab allies have
proven futile. Thus, it is incumbent upon the US to take our needs
into consideration and not only the advantages that it gains from the
“special relations” with us, as in the Middle East, it is not only a
mediator, but also our ally. The situation, where Israel must look out
for American interests but need not look out for Israeli interests,
can not and must not continue. The Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister
presents his program as an ultimatum. Israel is faced with demands to
accept the program as a single entity. The impression is that it is
more a declaration of war than a peace plan. It is surprising and
unacceptable that America accepted the program as a basis for
negotiations.
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The Hasmonean Way
Ran Ichay
Several great empires
dominated the world through the ages. Different periods in history had
their own superpowers, such as Persia, Greece and Rome in the ancient
world, and the Soviet Union and the United States in the 20th
century.
It is not too early to tell
now, that the cultural dominance of those countries that ruled the
world thousands of years ago disappeared as if they had never existed.
The Hellenic and Latin dominance made room for the Christian
Anglo-Saxons and the others are mostly forgotten. All that, despite
their mighty military power and their ability to enforce through it
not only their political rule, but also their religion, culture and
values in such a way, that most of the ancient world accepted without
remarkable reservations. Virtually all of that world, with the
exception of one small and relatively weak people, who refused under
all circumstances, including the actual elimination of its self-rule
and its existence and presence in its own homeland – to change any of
its beliefs and lifestyle.
Many other peoples were
absorbed and integrated, into the Greco-Roman world. Their clerics
integrated the principles of the Hellenic religious faith into their
own religions, their sons joined the Roman army as if it were their
own – they were even transformed into Romans, as declared by Julius
Caesar. From this enormous power and dominance nothing is left, save
some impressive remains of buildings and art.
On the other hand, the
Jewish People, who generally refused to take part in this
Hellenization process – fought for its values more often than for its
life: History proved that the Jews took arms against their oppressors
when their faith, not their lives, was at stake . One can see the
difference between the reaction to the death threat by the Persians
and even by the Pharaohs, and the threat to the Jewish faith made by
the Greeks and the Romans. We prevailed militarily once – against the
Greeks, and failed three times, against the Romans. The first of those
defeats led to the destruction of the Temple and the end of Hebrew
sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The third marked the end of a
dominant Jewish presence here. But these rebellions were the best
guarantee of the perpetuation of the Jewish faith centuries after its
oppressors are gone.
We lost our Temple as an
architectural monument, but we preserved its spirit, and the others
managed to retain their architecture, but their spirit was gone long
ago.
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David Ben-Gurion's Forgotten 1948 Land of Israel
Proclamation
for the Annexation of Judea and Samaria
Howard Grief
The
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181(II), generally called
the Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947, recommended specific
boundaries for the fledgling Jewish state that excluded Jerusalem,
Jaffa, Beersheba, Nazareth, Ramle, Lod, Ashdod, Ashkelon and other
places, all of which, except for Jerusalem, were included in a
proposed Arab state. Jerusalem was to be established as a corpus
separatum under a special international regime, administered by
the United Nations Trusteeship Council. The Jewish Agency for
Palestine, anxious to see a Jewish state come into being – whatever
the size; and acting under necessity in the wake of the Holocaust that
left hundreds of thousands of Jews stranded in Displaced Persons camps
in Europe, reluctantly accepted these diminished boundaries of the
Jewish National Home. However, after the local Arabs, represented by
the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League states, categorically
rejected the Partition Resolution and initiated total war against the
resurrected State of Israel, the recommended boundaries were cast
aside by the Government of Israel. The areas of the Land of Israel
captured by the Israel Defense Forces beyond
the UN lines were incorporated into the state through the application
of Israeli law to those areas. This was achieved by the enactment of a
law called the Area of Jurisdiction and Power Ordinance (Ben-Gurion’s
Law) and two proclamations validated by this law, one issued for
Jerusalem that effectively annexed the western part of the city to the
state and the other issued for the rest of the areas of the Land of
Israel not included in the state under the Partition Resolution which
were re-captured by the IDF during the War of Independence. What was
highly significant about the Land of Israel Proclamation was that it
applied not only to all acquisitions of areas of the Land of Israel up
to the date of issue of the Proclamation, i.e. on September 2, 1948,
but to all future acquisitions of such land without limit, which is
absolutely clear from articles 1 and 5 of the Proclamation. Hence,
when Israel liberated Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as well as the Golan
and Sinai Peninsula in the Six Day War, this proclamation should have
been immediately enforced to extend the law of the state to the
liberated Jewish territories, on the assumption that all or most of
these territories constituted integral areas of the Land of Israel.
Instead of that being done, as required by existing constitutional
legislation, the Government, acting on the advice of then Military
Advocate-General, Meir Shamgar, the future President of the Supreme
Court, chose to apply the laws of war to the liberated Jewish
territories. This monumental violation of Israeli law created the
false perception worldwide that the liberated territories were
“occupied territories” under international law that did not belong to
the Jewish people but to foreign Arab states. Had the Land of Israel
Proclamation been duly enforced as it should have been in June 1967,
this false perception which has now become an article of faith would
never have happened.
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The British Academic Boycott of Israel
and Some of Its Deeper Meanings
Christopher Barder
|
“When I arrived in London, I was not fully
prepared for the anti-Israeli hatred existing in Europe. My
meetings with the British Left were a rude awakening. During my
ambassadorship a number of major anti-Semitic events occurred,
both inside and outside Great Britain, that cumulatively served
as repeated warning signs.”
Zvi Shtauber in an interview
by Manfred Gerstenfeld, 2005,
<http://www.jcpa.org/israel-europe/ier-shtauber-05.htm> |
The current “boycott mania” is part of a long history of boycotts
aimed at demeaning and undermining the existence of a Jewish state in
the supposed Dar al Islam and so turning the region into a
Dar al Harb. Therein lies its first point of significance. This
academic one, although perhaps inspired in response to no small extent
by the loud voice of Muslims in Britain and a widespread desire to
please, appease and placate them, nonetheless represents “considered”
Left-wing academic opinion rather than the Arab states’ refusal to
accept Israel’s existence and their support for, at the least, the
destruction of it by stages and in many instances, its immediate
destruction, by direct confrontation and violence.
Of the three features identified by Melanie Phillips in her book
Londonistan to explain how the British public has been “captured by
the jihad”, America, Israel and the war in Iraq, it is Israel
which is the main focus, the Palestinians having “replaced the IRA as
the terrorist fashion accessory du jour and have become the
cause of choice for every heart that bleeds... When it is not marching
against Israel or writing newspaper articles or making TV programs
against it, the left is busy organizing academic and economic boycotts
to bring it to its knees.”
The purpose of this article is to inform, to warn and to demonstrate,
perhaps above all, that there is a range of deeper issues than might
immediately be apparent and however much anti-Semitism may play a
role, intellectual and contemporary history are essential ingredients
for understanding and effectively combating this evil, somewhat rabid
and dangerously contagious phenomenon.
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The Tribe of Menasheh –
First Steps as an Organized Immigration to Israel:
Absorption or Rejection?
Efrat Tahar-Kedem
The first section of the
article will describe the Tribe of Menashe’s path of wandering. The
wandering began after they were exiled by the kings of Assyria in the
year 722 BCE. A series of forced exiles impelled them to undergo a
religious conversion. Their wandering took them eastward. At one stage
they lost their Torah scroll and the Jewish tradition was orally
transmitted by their priests. In the 18th century some
immigrated to the Manipur and Misuram regions in northeastern India.
With the appearance of missionaries in Manipur in 1910 and the
establishment of churches there, the influence of the High Priest
ceased and a Christian influence began.
I will discuss the switch
to Judaism that began in the 1940s in the wake of a vision that was
revealed to one of the tribal leaders. Attempts to contact the Zionist
leadership and the heads of the State of Israel were unsuccessful.
Beginning approximately in 1970, a movement of return to Judaism
began, in the understanding that the path to the land of Israel
requires an absolute abandonment of Christianity and a return to
Jewish life. The members of the community were sent to study in the
Jewish “ORT” school in Bombay.
The second and central
section of the article will deal with the fundamental assumption that
contends:
The first wave of
immigration from Misuram (which underwent a pro forma conversion prior
to its immigration) is now in the midst of establishing its identity –
establishing/shaping both its personal and collective identity.
At the same time, relative
to the Bnei Menashe who immigrated as individuals over the last 17
years and was forced to make its own way without any assistance from
the establishment, the present wave is undergoing an orderly and
recognized immigration process.
In light of the unique
history of the Bnei Menashe, the central question posed is, under what
circumstances will they, concomitant with the immigration process, be
able to continue and intensify the establishment of their Jewish
identity? Why can’t the two be separated? Are the shapers of the
absorption policy on the one hand and the absorbing Israeli society
(once they leave the absorption centers) on the other capable of
sustaining one another? Has a unique policy of absorption been
conceived for them?
Is the State of Israel in
2007 capable of dealing with 449 new immigrants whose entire dream is
to realize their Judaism in the land of their forefathers? These are
immigrants, some of whom arrived with a rudimentary education,
however, for the most part, without marketable professions, but with
unlimited gratitude. Is it possible to preserve this uniqueness? How?
A chapter will be devoted
to the changes in the status of women. The radical changes that the
community’s women underwent in the course of the inter-cultural shift
will be described. Models guiding the education of the community’s
children will also be described.
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There is a Peace
"Partner"!
Editorial
In his book, The Secret
Relations between Nazism and Zionism, one of the best-sellers in
the Arab world, based on the man’s doctoral thesis, the partner
presents his credo on the Jewish issue. Although he agrees that
“several hundred thousand Jews indeed met their deaths during World
War II as a result of typhoid and the bombing of cities...”, however,
all that was for no purpose other than to conceal the profound
connection and the identity of interests between Nazism and Zionism.
The murder of the Israeli
athletes during the Munich Olympics was perpetrated by Fatah under the
name of “Black September”. Abu Mazen’s role was financing the
operation and logistical planning. In that sense he was the central
person in planning the massacre. In his book, From Jerusalem to
Munich (1999), Abu Daud, one of the participants in the massacre,
describes the senior role played by his commander, Abu Mazen, in the
episode in detail and with great precision. It is worth noting that
the book was awarded the Palestinian Authority’s “Cultural Prize” for
the year 2000 and became a best-seller among the Arabs in the Land of
Israel. To this day, no one – including Abu Mazen – has taken the
trouble to challenge or contradict what was written in the book.
The Fatah Constitution,1
signed by its commander, Abu Mazen, deals with defining the
fundamental, tactical and strategic foundations of the Fatah movement,
i.e.: The raison d’étre of the terrorist organization. The
Constitution blatantly and declaratively determines that the supreme
destiny of the organization is the destruction of the Jewish state.
After a series of paragraphs that characterizes the State of Israel as
a criminal, colonialist and exploitative Zionist entity, Paragraph 12
establishes that the destiny of Fatah, i.e. Abu Mazen, is: “Complete
liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic,
political, military and cultural existence.”
Abu Mazen was the deputy of
Arafat, the greatest murderer of Jews since Hitler. Since Arafat’s
death, Abu Mazen inherited the standing of his predecessor as the
supreme commander of all of the terrorist organizations affiliated
with Fatah, including, among others, the “al-Aqsa Brigades”, among the
most fanatical of Abu Mazen’s murderous gangs, even according to the
generous Islamo-fascist criteria. Among the 1,640 “victims of peace”
since the Oslo Accords, more than half were murdered at the direct
order of Arafat and Abu Mazen.
In any normal country, the
criminal would be placed on trial, sentenced to death and part with
his impure soul on the hangman’s noose.
However, there is an even
more embarrassing phenomenon than that one, and that is the man
shaking his hand.
1
<http://www.mideastweb.org/fateh.htm>.
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