Israel dominates the new middle east

By Fareed Zakaria,
Nov 22, 2012 01:10 AM EST

The Washington Post
As missiles and rockets exploded in Israel and Gaza, television news was dominated by the tragic violence, and we were warned that the battle between Israel and the Palestinians might spread because we are in a new and much more dangerous Middle East. Islamists are in power, democracies will listen to their people. In fact, as the relatively quick cease-fire between the parties shows, there is a very low likelihood of a broader regional conflict. It’s true that we’re in a new Middle East, but it’s one in which Israel has become the region’s superpower.

In a thorough 2010 study, “The Arab-Israeli Military Balance,” Anthony Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian document how over the past decade Israel has outstripped its neighbors in every dimension of warfare. The authors attribute this to Israel’s “combination of national expenditures, massive external funding, national industrial capacity and effective strategy and force planning.” Israel’s military expenditures in 2009 were about $10 billion, which is three times Egypt’s military spending and larger than the combined defense expenditures of all its neighbors — Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. (This advantage is helped by the fact that Israel receives $3 billion in military assistance from Washington.)

But money doesn’t begin to describe Israel’s real advantages, which are in the quality and effectiveness of its military, in terms of both weapons and people. Despite being dwarfed by the Arab population, Israel’s army plus its high-quality reservists vastly outnumber those of the Arab nations. Its weapons are far more sophisticated, often a generation ahead of those used by its adversaries. Israel’s technology advantage has profound implications on the modern battlefield.

The most powerful Arab military, and the one against which Israel is often judged in scholarly studies, is Syria’s. But of course the Syrian army is now in turmoil as it battles its own people and Bashar al-Assad hangs on to power.

Then there are the asymmetrical threats from groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The study takes a look at them and analyzes Hezbollah’s huge arsenal of missiles. The authors conclude that these pose no real threat to Israel because the missiles are largely unguided and thus ineffective. Hamas’s rockets are even more crude and ineffective. Israel’s response, its “Iron Dome” defense system, has worked better than expected.

As for terrorism, the other asymmetrical strategy against Israel: Despite Wednesday’s attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, Israel is largely protected from terrorists because of the wall it built in 2003.

As for larger threats, the study points out that Israel is the only country in the region with a sophisticated nuclear arsenal — estimated to be between 100 and 500 weapons, many of them on submarines — and advanced ballistic missiles.

This is why Egypt, despite being under a new Islamist government, is not going to risk war with Israel. Nor are the other Arab states. They will make fiery speeches and offer humanitarian assistance. But they will not fight alongside the Palestinians in Gaza or do anything that could trigger a wider war.

Turkey, another powerful regional player, has a government that has weakened its ties with Israel and clashed with it repeatedly over its treatment of the Palestinians. But these are verbal clashes, unlikely to amount to much more. In fact, Turkey is now facing a situation in which its efforts to become a regional power have backfired. It gambled that it would be able to dislodge the regime in Syria, which has not yet happened. Its relations with Iraq have deteriorated as it shields the Sunni vice president from Baghdad’s Shiite-led government, which wants to arrest him. And since Turkey has frosty relations with Israel, it can only watch from afar as Egypt becomes the bridge between Israel and Hamas. The only real outside broker in the region is, of course, the United States, Israel’s closest ally.

These are the realities of the Middle East today. Israel’s astonishing economic growth, its technological prowess, its military preparedness and its tight relationship with the United States have set it a league apart from its Arab adversaries. Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace. Wise Israeli politicians, from Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Ehud Barak, have wanted to take risks to make that peace because they have worried about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. This is what is in danger, not Israel’s existence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...10dc7c-3428-11e2-bfd5-e202b6d7b501_story.html

This is an interesting perspective and it makes total sense. But it ignores pressure put on Israel by its allies, so perhaps it is not really Israel calling the shots in the end.

 

Granny says, "Dat's right - Israel put the hurt on Hamas...

Winners and losers from Gaza fighting
Nov 22,`12 -- After eight days of the fiercest fighting in years, a cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers could usher in a new era of relations between the bitter foes. The renewed quiet on both home fronts raises questions about what those involved gained, and lost, from the fighting and its aftermath.

See also:

Israel says it arrests Tel Aviv bus bomber
Nov 22,`12 -- Israeli authorities arrested an Arab Israeli on Thursday on accusations he planted a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv that wounded 27 people and threatened to sabotage efforts to broker a cease-fire to end the fighting in Gaza, police said.

 

Israel lost and Hamas have come out of it as champions of the Palestinian people.

 

pretty poor champions.

But keep telling yourself that Israel lost. I'm not sure what exactly they lost, but I'm sure you'll find it.

 

What did they lose exactly?

 

'Wise Israeli politicians, from Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Ehud Barak'

Wise?

Wise?

 

They climbed down and accepted Hams demands,

 

Hamas's biggest winner:

 

They accepted no demands. They stopped blasting Gaza to a bloody pulp in exchange for the Hamas terrorists ceasing to launch their little rockets. They will start blasting Gazan kids out of their cribs in their flaming footy pajamas and launch a ground assault with tanks and cool things if they start up again.

 

Excellent analysis Liebe, islamofascist dawgs bark and 'dislike' but they can't bite

 

Hamas seems to think so, but they also seem delusional. Israel is dealing from a position of strength. It can escalate much more than Hamas can when Hamas violates the cease fire ( which they will).

 

Mafia and gangsters dominate the ME.

More accurate.

 

Netenyahu.

Who is he...really?

What is his real agenda..?

He had US citizenship, which he says he gave up.

He went from being a furniture salesmen, to PM of Israel, in 14yrs.

And this looks a bit odd ..to me..

They've Got His Numbers"

The Jerusalem Post

August 05, 1996

INTERNATIONAL (August 4) THE suspicions surrounding Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's US Social Security number are still, to a large degree, unresolved.

The Jerusalem Post confirmed the real number - 172-42-XXXX - with the Boston Consulting Group, where Netanyahu worked for about a year in 1979-80. But his use of a different number remains a mystery. According to US federally-regulated credit reports from as recent as early July, Netanyahu and a man named John J. Sullivan both used Social Security number 020-36-XXXX.

The story was initially reported by the Ha'ir newspaper chain in an article which also raised questions about whether Netanyahu had used Sullivan's identity or misused his Social Security number. Ha'ir printed documents pulled from the Transunion Credit Bureau's files showing Sullivan and Netanyahu's names together. (Transunion is one of three major federally regulated credit bureaus operating in the US. Banks, credit-card companies and other businesses widely use their services before granting credit to applicants. Congressional studies show that between 20 and 40% of the reports they prepare contain inaccuracies.)

Also listed as using 020-36-XXXX were the names Benjamin Neitay (Netanyahu's legal name for a period of time), Juliana Sullivan (John's wife), and John J. Sullivan Jr. (The name used by John until his father's death). Strangely, when Transunion credit reports were pulled on July 9, Netanyahu's name no longer appeared, although the name Neitay continued to be listed.

Following the Ha'ir report, IBA News and The Jerusalem Post reported that Sullivan had been located in Northern California. Sullivan was tracked down by New York investigator Steven Rambam.

Rambam met Sullivan on July 13 in San Francisco and learned that Sullivan is a US federal agent working in the mail-fraud division of the US Postal Authority.

Rambam persuaded Sullivan to be photographed and to photocopy his Social Security card bearing the number 020-36-XXXX, the same number that appears in the credit report.

"I have had my Social Security card since I was 15 years old, when I got my first job at the Star Supermarket in Boston," Sullivan, 47, told Rambam.

Sullivan and Netanyahu are about the same age, and at one time they both lived and worked in Boston. But aside from appearing on the same credit report, there is no known connection between them.

Sullivan told Rambam that he has no connection to Netanyahu. He claims he had barely heard of him until Netanyahu's election victory in May. But after a series of telephone calls on the issue, Sullivan began to take an interest. "I have Jewish relatives in Israel," he said. "They tease me by saying that their goyish relative has become a celebrity."

Following the initial wave of publicity, the prime minister's staff tried to clear up the matter, but they say that Netanyahu cannot remember his Social Security number, has no record of it, and has never heard of Sullivan. As Netanyahu headed to Washington three weeks ago, the Prime Minister's Office asked the US government for a copy of his Social Security records. Officials say the request has yet to be answered.

They had greater success with the Boston Consulting Group, which provided a copy of his work records.

SEVERAL questions remain:

How did Sullivan's and Netanyahu's names get lumped together in the Transunion credit report in the first place? The names appear in a file pulled during a search by Social Security number which it now appears belongs solely to Sullivan.

Transunion officials told The Jerusalem Post that someone got access to the system and apparently entered incorrect information about Netanyahu to make the names appear together.

Who removed Netanyahu's name in a later search of that same Social Security number?

Transunion believes that someone, perhaps the same person, gained access a second time to remove records. The company says it is investigating. No one has yet been able to determine the source of the high-level computer break-in, but the federally regulated company is convinced that only federal US agencies are capable of accomplishing such a break-in.

Who is John J. Sullivan and what is his role in the affair?

John J. Sullivan is a US federal agent, but there is no evidence directly connecting him to Netanyahu or to the computer break-in.

Could Sullivan and Netanyahu have been thrown together in a Transunion computer error?

This is not likely because it does not explain the fact that a Social Security report from the TRW credit bureau also shows Sullivan's and Netanyahu's names together. It also does not explain the later change in Transunion records.

Could Netanyahu mistakenly or deliberately have used Sullivan's Social Security number, and thereby got himself placed in Sullivan's records?

A mistake is not likely, since Netanyahu's and Sullivan's Social Security numbers are totally dissimilar. Deliberate use of Sullivan's number by Netanyahu makes no sense because it would have been to his financial benefit to use his own number.

http://pallorium.net/ARTICLES/art28.html

 

I could only find one reference to this "scandal" in an op-ed in the Miami herald of all places. And that calls the allegations "proven to be nonsense".

Seems its not to be found on haaretz or Jpost.

Now far be it from me to suggest its just another invented fairy tale, but I have to wonder why it doesn't seem to have stuck around in Israel. This, despite the rather fierce opposition to Bibi in 1996.

What was the resolution of this "affair"?

 

They "climbed down"? Were they on a ladder?

Newbies who post about 70 times a day and dislike more often than that even, are paid propagandists. One would think that more quality for money as opposed to quantitiy, would be possible.

 

I dunno, if an actor can become the world's most powerful man, why shouldn't a salesman strive for less.

 

The moral victors here are most certainly the Palestinians. More and more Israel is being viewed, globally, as the bully. More importantly the Palestinians are gaining more allies; among them Turkey, a NATO member, which puts NATO in an interesting quandary as regards treaty obligations.

 

The moral high ground and any last vestiges of international respect.

 

How anyone won? they are still at war .

Think yourself into such a situation, you have a bitter rivalry with the people next door so they bomb you and you bomb them, 70 years later the situation is like it was at day one .
Israel is wasting in the military money they can use to improve the lives of their people.
Palestinians are preyed upon by Hamas's religious lunatics .
lose lose for both.

 

You are very right.

 

I think Turkey is the one in a quandry with its aspiring intention to join the EU, which BTW, consides Hamas a terrorist group.

Plus it was Egypt which mediated here. Turkey's central role in the middle east seems to be on ice.

 

so a Israeli blew up the bus and they wont name him, but claim he is a hamas sympathizer?

 

That's all nice and all, but as a whole irrelevant. The demographics will continue to favor the Arabs, and as the Jewish state will eventually wither away, Israelis can return to Europe from whence they came (or wherever else they choose to go).

 

To the v best of my knowlege, the information is genuine and was never 'resolved'.

The original article, as you can see, came from the Jerusalem Post.

Will have a further look later, see what I can discover.

It's not a real surprise to me though, I must say. I bet there are a lot of people of his ilk, who are not really what they may appear to be.

 

There is nothing wrong with being a salesman. It just seems a quatum leap to me. However, that detail is less important than the other details.