[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:
On numerous occasions, as PM Netanyahu toiled to
form his coalition government, he indicated his frustration that while the key challenge on the agenda is Iran, others appeared driven by a variety of
other concerns.
Were the others petty or suffering from misplaced priorities?
That would be the case if Lapid, Bennett, etc. had a significant difference
of opinion on Iran.
But there's every indication that they are all on the same page as Netanyahu
with regard to Iran.
The same goes for the Israeli street.
On second thought, the Israeli street has an even better reason not to spend
much time on Iran: we have the maturity to recognize that in sharp contrast to other policy issues - including Palestinian-Israeli affairs - when it comes to Iran we simple citizens don't have access to the kind of information needed to seriously participate in the policy debate.
And that's ok.
form his coalition government, he indicated his frustration that while the key challenge on the agenda is Iran, others appeared driven by a variety of
other concerns.
Were the others petty or suffering from misplaced priorities?
That would be the case if Lapid, Bennett, etc. had a significant difference
of opinion on Iran.
But there's every indication that they are all on the same page as Netanyahu
with regard to Iran.
The same goes for the Israeli street.
On second thought, the Israeli street has an even better reason not to spend
much time on Iran: we have the maturity to recognize that in sharp contrast to other policy issues - including Palestinian-Israeli affairs - when it comes to Iran we simple citizens don't have access to the kind of information needed to seriously participate in the policy debate.
And that's ok.
The people we recently elected to set and implement policy do have the
information. By the same token, the people we recently elected who will
sit in the Knesset oversight subcommittee also have the information.
We can sleep at night. Perhaps sometimes it is a blessing not being in the
loop...]
The Ya’alon Plan: Israel's Man for Iran
Once the new Israeli government is sworn in, a new minister of defense will
enter the ministry – Lt. Gen. (Res.) Moshe “Bogi” Ya’alon. What is on the
agenda and how will Ya’alon fulfill his strategic perspective against the
threats facing Israel?
Amir Rapaport 15/3/2013
http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=2021
“I don’t envy you,” said Moshe Ya’alon to the head of the IDF’s Directorate
of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. This was several months
ago, when Kochavi presented the Directorate’s 2013 assessment to the Israeli
government. “When I headed the intelligence directorate, everything was
easier. When I began my role, I received organized files about Hafez
al-Assad, Yasser Arafat, Hassan Nasrallah, and other regional leaders. When
I was done, I moved the files onwards. Now, everything is changing in the
Middle East, at a dizzying rate, and no file is relevant. Briefs concerning
new, unknown figures need to be prepared all the times, like the files about
the leaders of the Syrian opposition."
Ya’alon said these words as a member of the political-security cabinet and
as the Israeli minister for strategic affairs in the previous Netanyahu
administration. Unless there are unreasonable developments, he will march
this Monday on a red carpet towards the bureau of minister of defense. Ya’alon
will become Kochavi’s boss, and on top of the Middle Eastern concerns,
primarily Iran, he will also face the key social issue of solving the
recruitment of Haredim into IDF service.
Will Ya’alon send the IDF to attack in Iran? Will he revolutionize the
military? It is possible to assess his plans based on recent conversations
that he held and his expressions as the minister of strategic affairs. This
is not a challenging task, as Ya’alon is not a complicated character. His
heart and mouth are usually the same - when he says something, he means it,
even if the expressions sometimes involve some sort of complication (as IDF
Chief of Staff in the past decade, his sayings got him into entanglements
more than once).
Instability
Ya'alon won’t have that much to learn about the job from Ehud Barak,
Israel's minister of defense for the past six years. The mutual appreciation
between the two is not particularly high. Barak did not wait this week for
the formal announcement by the new government in order to say farewell. The
General Staff’s Planning Branch prepared presentations and tried to convince
him until the very last moment so that he would influence Netanyahu not to
dramatically cut the defense budget in the next government (a cut will
happen in any case). However, Barak was concerned with IDF departure
ceremonies and the ceremony held by the defense ministry on Wednesday. Barak
packed his office belongings, and has prepared to march into the sunset with
his wife for days of fun and business. He may yet return to the arena, when
he feels like doing so, or when called to do so in the future.
Ya’alon doesn’t need to study much – he has been living the field of defense
24/7, and it is what secured him the topmost role in the third Netanyahu
administration. Should there be a defensive complication, it will be on his
head - no one will blame Netanyahu for a failed appointment.
The main characteristic of the period when Moshe Ya’alon is entering the
role of minister of defense is the lack of regional stability - lack of
stability in Egypt, Syria and even in Jordan, and with terrorism returning
to the Judea and Samaria region. The borders have once again become frontier
regions, with terror organizations such as Global Jihad located on the other
side (only in Syria and Sinai so far). Strategic weaponry is still being
accumulated in Israel’s surroundings, despite mysterious attacks in places
like Sudan and Syria, attributed by global media to the IDF. These include
inaccurate rockets with seven kilogram warheads, as well as missiles with
warheads containing hundreds of kilograms of explosives, capable of hitting
specific targets, even from a distance of 300 kilometers. Such missiles
include the Yakhont shore-to-sea missile that Russia provided to Syria,
which may have even been acquired by Hezbollah, for example.
The general public does not yet understand the full significance of this
threat. In a paradoxical manner, the calmest border at this time is the one
with Lebanon. Hezbollah has almost completely constrained its fire - in the
past year, it renewed its activities somewhat, and even worked to provide
hundreds of kilograms of explosives to terror cells in Israel. The ceasefire
with Nasrallah does not necessarily a result of his fear of the IDF, as
people in Israel tend to think since the Second Lebanon War in 2006. He is
more afraid of losing his Iranian patrons, who built up his forces as a
threat aimed at Israel for the event that Iran’s nuclear facilities are
attacked. Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards have deprived Nasrallah of the
authority to initiate major offensive activities against Israel on his own,
so as not to drag Israel into a conflict and waste the weaponry arsenal on
what they consider to be nonsense.
In many regards, Ya’alon as minister of defense and his chief of staff Gantz
are of the same mind. Both are paratroopers in their hearts, and they are
not the more rugged kind that the Golan brigade usually produces. As chief
of staff, Gantz holds thinking forums while dressed in civilian clothes, so
that the participants will be able to speak freely without fear of ranks.
When Ya’alon was chief of staff, he held forums where the order of the
speakers was not according to rank, from the lowest rank and up to the
highest ranking person who concludes the debate (in such debates, the junior
officers usually say what the commander is expected to say at the end more
than what they really think).
In his first year as minister of defense, Ya’alon will need to formally
approve the IDF's five-year plan for force buildup, known as “Oz.” Barak
successfully maneuvered the government as minister of defense to increase
the defense budget, even in years where Netanyahu and Treasury Minister
Steinitz dramatically announced budgetary cuts.
As chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon founded the C4I Branch a decade ago, and
may work to strengthen it as minister of defense. During Ya'alon's term, the
Ground Forces branch will not rest easily; There are essential facts that
are etched into Ya'alon's memory: eventually, the majority of infantry
forces arrive to the battlefield by foot or in soft vehicles. He himself
made it to the crossing of the Suez canal during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, by
bus, and entered Lebanon by foot during Operation Litani as a paratrooper
company commander. As head of the minister’s committee for the IDF’s force
build-up affairs in the previous government, Ya’alon blocked part of the
plans for acquiring Merkava tanks and Namer APCs. The original IDF plans for
acquiring armored instruments were reduced due to pressures from Israeli
ministers.
Fewer Iron Dome Systems
The new minister of defense is not among the enthusiastic fans of the Iron
Dome system, nor of the other systems for intercepting enemy missiles. He is
interested in the Iron dome and the David’s Sling systems, but in a
reasonable amount, and not in numbers that necessitate enormous budgets and
manpower, even if most of the funding continues to come from the US.
It seems that during the Ya’alon period, the IDF will suffice with the
master plan of acquiring 13 Iron Dome batteries (five batteries are already
operational today). Grandiose plant for filling Israel with Iron Dome
batteries which were considered under Ehud Barak will be taken away.
Bogi and Bibi
It seems that more than Netanyahu wanted Ya’alon as his defense minister,
the appointment was one that was forced upon him, despite the fact that the
connection between them goes back dozens of years.
The Netanyahu-Barak team left behind one unfinished mission: halting the
Iranian pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Now, the mission to halt the Iranian bomb
falls to the hands of Ya'alon as well. In contrast to what is commonly
thought, Ya'alon is not an opponent of an Israeli strike in Iran – nor is he
one of those supporting such an attack. It all depends on the circumstances,
the issue and the chances of success. The truth is that at the current point
in time, Israel lacks a genuine military option for attacking Iran. If an
attack does occur, moments before Iran gets to a bomb, it will be done by
the US, and not by Israel.
In a recent interview published by IsraelDefense, Ya’alon said that “the
most dangerous threat today is the nuclear threat on the part of Iran, which
is working to achieve regional hegemony. It is funding terrorist activities
in our region and sending its long arms here. It is impossible to deal with
the Middle Eastern instability without dealing with this threat - it must be
at the top of our priorities, not necessarily the Palestinian-Israeli issue,
and we need to prepare for defending ourselves.
“However, this does not necessarily mean war in the next year. Ahmadinejad
must be presented with a very simple dilemma – nuclear weapons or regime
survival. Iran faced this dilemma in 2003, and at the time, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei halted the nuclear project so as not to give the West an excuse for
an attack, after the entry of US forces into Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran
knows that the West has far greater capabilities than it does, but it is not
convinced of the Western willingness to fight it. It’s possible that the
2003 dilemma may be restored today, but for that to happen, much more severe
sanctions must be imposed on Iran, which is something that has yet to
happen.” In general, Ya'alon is familiar with the Iranian issue. As minister
for strategic affairs, it was at the core of his dealings, and even managed
many contacts with the US.
With regards to the Palestinian issue, the US may not find Ya’alon so
amicable. As is his custom, he will tell the US what he thinks, and his
opinions of the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu
Mazzen), and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are nothing special. 20 years ago,
Ya’alon supported the Oslo Agreement, which he retroactively defined as “a
Trojan horse” when he was IDF chief of staff. Today, he does not believe
that Abu Mazzen and Fayyad are genuinely working to end the conflict, and
repeatedly reminds the fact that they completely rejected generous proposals
from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Foreign Minister
Tzipi Livni.
Citizen or General
Nine years away from the Kiriya HQ, including nine months in a Washington
research institute, have changed Ya'alon. In the Chief of Staff's bureau, he
did not excel in selecting teammates. His aides established a fortified wall
around him, cutting him off from the lower ranks.
As a politician, he surprised people with his endless informal meetings with
members of the Likud HQ, even if he was not thrilled with wandering about
the party branches. As minister of defense, Ya'alon is expected to appoint
Maj. Gen. Dan Harel as director general, and bring with him some people from
the ministry of strategic affairs, including ministry director general,
Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser.
The beehive built around him will affect his success as minister of defense,
perhaps more than anything else.
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
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