October 2003 Israel News Review

Jerusalem • 10/27/2003

ISRAELS WAR ON TERROR TARGETS SYRIA

Amid continuing controversy over Israels new security fence, upheaval inside Yasser Arafats Palestinian Authority, and a fresh peace plan constructed by left-wing opposition politicians, the Israeli public was shocked and repulsed by yet another major terrorist massacre in October, this time in the northern port city of Haifa. The attack was followed later in the month by an unprecedented assault on a United States government convoy traveling in the Gaza Strip, which left three Americans dead.

The Haifa suicide blast sent another 21 people to sudden graves, half of them members of just two families. The victims had been enjoying a quiet lunch at a beachside restaurant when a female Palestinian suicide bomber brazenly ended her meal, paid her bill, and then strategically detonated her powerful body bomb in the middle of the crowded eatery. Her cruel act immediately slaughtered 19 diners, including several children, and wounded many others, among them an Arab man whose family co-owns the restaurant with Israeli Jews (he and a Jewish female patron later perished from their severe wounds).

The heinous atrocity was carried out by the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, which enjoys strong links to the dictatorships that rule Syria and Iran, and to the radical Hizbullah Muslim militia that controls southern Lebanon. The fact that the explosion came on the third anniversary of the slaughter of three Israeli soldiers who had been patrolling the border with Lebanon increased suspicions that Syria and its Shiite Muslim puppet force were behind the Haifa attack.

Whether or not the Assad regime played a direct role in the terrorist outrage, the Israeli government took a momentous and daring decision to focus its military response squarely upon Syrian territory. The action was all the more dramatic in that it came on the 30th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, marking three full decades since Israeli jets had struck a target inside the neighboring country (IDF jets have taken on Syrian occupation forces in Lebanon several times since the 1973 conflict)..

The United States and other countries had earlier asked Damascus to close down Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices located in the Syrian capital, along with those of several other rejectionist Palestinian groups. The Americans had also requested a halt to hostile anti-Israel broadcasts from a Palestinian radio station operating on Syrian territory. The Syrian regime resisted the requests, insisting that the offices and broadcasts were not under direct government control. Israeli officials scoffed at this contention, noting that virtually everything in Syria is under the brutal regimes iron thumb. The Syrian government did finally order most of the terrorist offices shut down, but has allowed the groups to continue to function out of less public positions.

AIR STRIKE NEAR DAMASCUS

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz decided to deliver an unprecedented and unmistakable message to Syria that the time has come to alter its terrorist coddling ways. They ordered warplanes to drop bombs on a Palestinian terrorist training base located just a few miles northeast of Damascus. Although the Syrian regime claimed that the Ein Tzahab base had been abandoned several years ago, both Israeli and Iranian television stations screened footage showing a large arms arsenal stored on the baseindicating it was still at least partially in use. Israeli security experts say the base is jointly run by Syrian and Iranian military officers, who train Palestinians how to conduct terror attacks, to construct large and small explosives, and to fly light aircraft.

Israeli government officials later admitted that the Ein Tzahab basefully operational or notwas a relatively minor strategic target. Still, they pointedly warned that they know exactly where more important targets are located, including some inside Damascus itself. The latter comment was thought to be thinly veiled reference to Syrian strongman Bashar Assads own palaces and Baathist government offices.

Bashar Assad reacted with intense anger to the bombing. Undoubtedly humiliated that his military did not, or possibly could not, prevent Israeli jets from successfully reaching a target deep inside his territory (which reportedly caused shudders in Iran, which fears an Israeli air strike on its mushrooming nuclear facilities), he accused Sharon of attempting to pull neighboring countries into a major regional war.

Assads deputies issued several subsequent threats against Israel, warning that the Baathist regime will respond in kind if IDF jets strike again inside Syrias borders.

Hardline Foreign Minister Farouk Al Shara told the Sunday Telegraph on October 26th that his country might attack Israeli towns on the Golan Heights if any further Israeli air strikes take place. We have many cards that have not been played. Don't forget there are many Israeli settlements on the Golan, he fumed.

Days before Al Sharas remarks were published in London, Syrian Armed Forces Chief Hassan Turkmani ordered his soldiers on the highest alert to prepare for additional Israeli military aggression. He boasted that the Arab police state is able to force Israel to stop its adventurous attacks." Most analysts viewed that as an open threat to unleash hundreds of Syrian surface to surface missiles at Israel. They say Syrias chemical-tipped warheads could kill tens of thousands of civilians if an all-out assault was launched.

WORLD REACTION

Most regional Arab states issued harsh condemnations of the Israeli military action, as did other nations around the globe. France and Britain denounced the air strike as a violation of international law. However, a Syrian attempt to secure a United Nations Security Council rebuke failed after the US ambassador insisted that any resolution also condemn the vile Haifa terrorist attack that left innocent Jews and Arabs dead. True to form, Syria refused to go along with that reasonable provision. Instead, Assads minions again attempted to justify such horrific suicide atrocities as legitimate Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule.

Israeli leaders were especially heartened by President George Bushs public reaction to the air operation. "I made it very clear to Prime Minister Sharon, as I have consistently done, that Israel has a right to defend herself, that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending its homeland," he told reporters in Washington. However, he added a slight rebuke, saying he also told Sharon that it is very important that any action Israel takes should avoid escalation. Assad blasted Bushs comments, telling a London-based Arabic newspaper that Israel is trying to terrorize Syria in order to divert attention from the Palestinian crisis. He thundered that Sharon leads a government of war, and war is the only justification for its existence.

Reaction in the Israeli Knesset and media to the dramatic October 5th Air Force strike was mostly supportive. However, Arab-Israeli politicians condemned the bombing as a dangerous escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Several left-wing Jewish legislators and political commentators echoed this line, claiming that Syrian backing for Palestinian terrorist attacks had not been substantiated enough to justify the raid. Government officials replied that not all of the security information in their possession is shared with opposition Knesset members or with the media.

FULL WAR ON THE WAY?

The Israeli electronic, print and internet media was filled with analytical reports in October over the possible ramifications of the brash air raid. Most security experts assessed that Ariel Sharon had merely sent a warning shot across the bow, meaning more air strikes may indeed follow future Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist slaughters of Israeli civilians (all agree that the question is not if more major attacks will occur, but only when). They added that the Likud-led governments patience with Syrias fiercely anti-Zionist regime has well and truly run out.

Most pointed to the apparent fact that the Bush administration has also tired of the Mideasts only remaining Baathist dictatorship. This was underlined by sudden and unexpected White House support in mid-October for a Congressional resolution that mandates American economic and political sanctions against Syria over its refusal to fully shut down terrorist outposts operating on its soil (the administration had earlier opposed the move). Despite this, most Israeli experts do not anticipate any imminent US military action against Damascus, especially given recent intensified terror attacks upon American forces stationed in neighboring Iraqsome of them ironically attributed to Syrian infiltrators.

However, Israeli analysts note that President Bush himselfwho set the standard after Al Qaidas deadly attack upon America by forcefully stating that regimes which support terrorist groups are fair game for military retributionis obviously not opposed to Israeli military action against Assad and company, at least in a measured manner. Since most of Bushs potential opponents in next years presidential race would be far less supportive of a major Israeli operation against Hizbullah and/or Syria, the best time for Sharon to act is now, or at least in the near future, some maintain. Given that Hizbullah has had three and a half years to build up its threatening missile and ground forces after the IDF pullout from southern Lebanon in May 2000, and that Syria has not been involved in significant military action since 1982, the Premier is said to believe that such action is both inevitable and long overdue.

Reports that a major military clash could be looming gained credence in October when the New York Times reported that Syria was calling up thousands of reserve soldiers. Although Israeli government officials subsequently dismissed the report as exaggerated, they nevertheless ordered an emergency call up of hundreds of reserve soldiers later in Octobermany of them reserve officersostensibly to help deal with increased Palestinian terrorist threats. Some analysts wondered aloud if the controversial emergency call up (the first since the massive Defensive Shield military operation early last year) was not designed to free up regular army units for a potential imminent clash with Syrian and/or Hizbullah forces.

GAZA ACTION

The UN General Assembly handed the Palestinians one major victory in October with a lopsided 144 to 4 vote to condemn Israels new security fence, designed to keep West Bank Palestinians out of Israels pre-1967 unofficial border. Supported by all 15 European Union countries but opposed by Washington, the resolution called upon Israel to immediately stop and reverse construction of the terrorist barrier. It also mandates periodic reports from Kofi Annan on Israeli compliance. The US said that while it is not thrilled with the fence, it also understood that Israel was only building it in an attempt to halt terror attacks that have left over 900 Israelis dead since November 2000. (Six IDF troops were slain in two attacks in October, one against sleeping soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip).

With Palestinian rocket attacks continuing against Israeli communities in and near the Gaza Strip, the Sharon government ordered the army to uncover and destroy illegal weapons-smuggling tunnels under the Gaza border with Egypt. Palestinian homes in the vicinity were bulldozed during the operation, many of them over or next to discovered tunnels that were also destroyed.

In the northern Gaza Strip, a remote controlled roadside bomb was detonated as a US Embassy convoy was passing on October 15th. The ambush left three American security guards dead, and a forth severely injured. Most security experts believe that the carefully-planned assault was deliberately directed at the US government convoy the first since the Palestinian attrition war began in late 2000. In the wake of the deadly blast, President Bush issued his strongest denunciation yet of Yasser Arafats utter failure to reign in terrorist groups operating on PA territory. Arafat charged that Israel was behind the blast in an attempt to embarrass his government (as if its internal antics were not humiliating enough!).

Feeling more isolated than ever after his new prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, threatened to resign after only a few days in office, the ailing Arafat issued his own condemnation of the attack and ordered the immediate arrests of Palestinians thought to be behind it. Fourteen suspects were subsequently apprehended, although half of them were quickly released.

Working closely with FBI agents flown in to investigate the ambush, Israeli security officials said they suspected that Iran and Syria were behind the attack. They noted that the operation closely resembled many carried out by Lebanese Hizbullah militiamen, funded and trained by the rogue states. Several Israeli media outlets published security assessments that Iran had commissioned Damascus-based Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Sallah to organize the roadside assault.

DELUSIONS

Ariel Sharon again fingered Arafat as a major obstacle to peace in October, as senior military officials revealed that they have readied a plan to expel him the moment the order to do so is given. This came as the PLO leader issued a lukewarm endorsement of an unofficial new peace plan unveiled by Israels chief architect of the failed Oslo peace process, Yossi Beilen, and former Palestinian cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. The so-called Geneva Initiative (backed by the Swiss government among others) was strongly denounced by Sharon, who noted that democratic norms only allow elected governments and their designated representatives to negotiate such momentous pacts.

Although the private accord will only be formally published in mid-November, details have already appeared in the local and international press. The most controversial provision calls upon Israel to cede total sovereignty and control over most of Jerusalems Old City, including the entire Temple Mount. In exchange for such far-reaching concessions, the Palestinians would supposedly give up their demands for a right of return to family homes inside of Israels pre-1967 borders. However Palestinian negotiators later denied that they had concurred with this reported concession, prompting even stronger criticism of the private pact from elected Israeli leaders.

While non-ruling politicians were busy forging their highly questionable land for peace deal, one government official was receiving a standing ovation from fellow Muslim leaders for echoing the worst charges Hitler made against European Jews. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad did not apologize for his absurd claim at the Islamic Nations summit that Jews rule the world by proxy and get others to fight and die for them, nor for his insistence that Islamic nations must rise up and defeat the few million Israeli Jews who supposedly lord it over the worlds 1.3 billion Muslims. His speech reminded Israelis that vicious anti-Semitism is alive and thriving, at least in the Muslim world. Therefore, the need to be vigilanteven in the face of international protests that Israelis should not take any real measures to defend themselvesis as relevant today as it ever was.

As always, the best news is that the God of Israel lives, and has promised to defend His people in their Promised Land and Holy City, and to eventually replace all violence and war with His everlasting peace: And He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem. And the bow of war will be cut off, and He will speak peace to the nations. And His dominion will be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:10)