Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Three challenges humiliate Israel | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Israel is today facing three abnormal challenges: namely the Palestinian, Turkish and Egyptian challenges. These challenges all have international dimensions. It may be customary for us to imagine that Israel has the upper hand when facing such challenges; however there can be no doubt that Israel today is at a disadvantage. This can be seen in Israel today flexing its military muscles – as reflected in Netanyahu claiming that Israel’s navy is one of the Jewish state’s strategic “long arms” – in its confrontation with Turkey, who was previously Israel’s most important ally in the region. This is something that signals the huge decline in Israel’s relationship with an ally that is gradually becoming an opponent.

Let us start with the Palestinian challenge facing Israel. This is primarily a political challenge that is taking place in the United Nations [UN]. The Palestinians want to resort to the UN in hopes of securing international recognition of a Palestinian State, whilst the US is threatening to veto this on behalf of Israel. Despite this, Israel appears politically frightened of this prospect – which is normal – but also military frightened – which is not.

As for their political fears, the Palestinians being able to obtain a resolution via the UN General Assembly recognizing a Palestinian State represents a significant risk to Israel. Should this occur, Tel Aviv will be open to facing international sanctions, whilst other legal experts have highlighted a number of other risks that Israel could face. However these are all excuses to cover up Israel’s true fear, namely the UN becoming a major party in the discussions towards resolving the Arab – Israeli conflict, which is something that Israel has worked hard to prevent ever since its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. When negotiations began following the Oslo Accords, Israel was inflexible with regards to the necessity of bilateral talks with the Palestinians that did not involve any outside mediation. Israel wanted only one thing: to deal with the Palestinians with the involvement of only one third party, namely the US. This is not because Washington supports Israel completely and helps Tel Aviv impose its views on the ground, but because the presence of other parties – even if they supported Israel – would place all international resolutions related to the Arab-Israeli struggle on the table, something that Israel is keen to avoid. Only the US is prepared to continually obstruct the implementation of these international resolutions and insist that the only frame of reference in such negotiations is what the Israelis and Palestinians agree bilaterally. This is something that has allowed the Israeli government to have the upper hand in the negotiations. This is something that therefore explains the Israeli and US media campaigns criticizing Palestine resorting to the UN in an attempt to obtain international recognition, for if this did occur then the UN and indeed all UN resolutions regarding Palestine and Israel would need to be included at every future round of negotiations.

What is striking is that the diplomatic war that has been waged by Israel in this regard is beginning to take the shape of a military war. Anybody observing the internal measures that have been taken in Israel can see that war measures are today being implemented on the ground in an unprecedented manner. This includes, for example, “a military plan” to face the possibility of the UN recognition of a Palestinian state in September, according to Israeli Central Command leader Major General Avi Mizrahi. This plan includes a red-line being imposed around each West Bank settlement which if illegally crossed by any Palestinians will be responded to with live fire. Israeli settlers were also supplied with tear gas and stun grenades for the first time in the history of this struggle. Israel, in this instance, is preparing the settlers to be a major force in any future armed confrontation with the Palestinians, whilst in the past Tel Aviv comprehensively rejected any civilian intervention in military affairs. The situation is developing – politically and militarily – in a different direction, with regards to the second challenge being faced by Israel, namely the Turkish challenge. Israel, a state with a population of approximately seven million, has dealt with Turkey, a state with a population of 75 million, as if it were its superior, challenging and confronting it, and even daring to kill its citizens, and then stubbornly refusing to apologize for this. Israel refused to apologize for killing Turkish citizens in international waters, after the Turkish Freedom Flotilla attempted to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. When Israel continued to act in an arrogant manner towards Turkey, Ankara decided to punish Tel Aviv, expelling the Israeli ambassador from Turkey, ending Turkish – Israeli security and military cooperation, and halting trade.

The situation developed to the point that Turkey announced that it was launching a second attempt to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. However the surprise this time was that Ankara announced that the Turkish Navy will be accompanying the Turkish commercial ship headed for Gaza, which means that a military confrontation between Ankara and Tel Aviv is likely if Israel even thinks of intercepting the Turkish ship this time.

The issue here is not limited to the possibility of confrontation, despite the inherent risks of this, but rather this extends to the strategic position held by Israel and Turkey in the region. Israel took the initiative to refer to this sensitive issue by stressing that “all the Turkish attempts have on common denominator” namely “besieging Israel and destabilizing its strategic position.”

The third challenge that Israel is facing is Egypt; the people and the government. The attack launched by the Egyptian people against the Israeli embassy in Cairo led to the closure of the embassy and the Israeli embassy to Egypt – along with the embassy staff – returning to Israel. Indeed, this attack led to most of the Israelis living in Cairo fleeing the country, and this is therefore something that will have serious implications on the official relations between the two countries, which is something that will be revealed in the coming days and weeks.

This sensitive incident occurred following previous tensions between Israel and Egypt which resulted in the issue of amending the Camp David Accord – between the two countries – being put on the table for discussion. According to Steven A. Cook, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, both the Israeli and the Americans believe that relations between Egypt and Israel today are unstable [following the Egyptian revolution]. Similar views are also being espoused within Israel. A report published by the Zionist “Institute for National Security Studies” explicitly stated that Israeli government and non-governmental politicians are concerned about the possibility of the collapse of the Peace Agreement between the two countries. Fearing this, the Israeli are considering holding strategic talks with Egypt with the aim of amending the security provisions of the agreement to allow Egypt to enforce its military presence on the Sinai Peninsula, which is currently contrary to the articles of this agreement.

The amendment of the security articles of this agreement could represent the beginning of the collapse of the Egypt – Israeli peace agreement, particularly as the Israeli analysts – prior to the embassy attack – had begun to talk about the Egyptian street and the need to understand how they would influence the Egyptian leadership. Such rhetoric will only intensify in the wake of the Israeli embassy attack.

These are the three problems facing Israel. The first and most important problem is the Palestinian challenge. Israel’s second problem is Turkey, which is one of the strongest states in the region, whilst its third problem is with Egypt, the strongest Arab regional state. So how can Israel strengthen its strategic position in the face of these three challenges?

Israel has become accustomed to dealing with everyone else in an arrogant manner, and now there are those in Israel who are stressing the necessity of Tel Aviv refraining from indulging this bad habit, however the question that must be asked here is: can leaders like Netanyahu and Lieberman do so?