The deadly boarding of a flotilla of activists off the coast of Gaza has plunged Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu into his worst diplomatic crisis since taking office early last year, and analysts say it could have far reaching—and unintended—implications for Israeli security issues.
The sea battle follows a series of diplomatic setbacks for Israel, including the expulsion recently of Israeli diplomats from Britain and Australia after those governments accused Israel of forging passports used in the alleged murder of a Palestinian official in Dubai. (Israel has said there is no evidence linking Israel to the murder.)
Most recently, Israel failed last week to prevent a United Nations conference on nuclear weapons from singling it out for scrutiny as part of a pledge to work for a Middle East nuclear-free zone.
Troubled Waters
Review other diplomatic setbacks for Israel in recent months.
"Seemingly on the surface, the incident itself is not a strategic crisis for Israel, but Israel is already deep in trouble ... since [the Netanyahu] government came to power," says Yossi Melman, a security and defense expert, who writes for Israel's Haaretz newspaper.
The battle triggered harsh condemnation from Palestinian officials and Israel's Arab neighbors, including those few with relations with Israel. Jordan said the "horrible crime cannot be justified." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak issued a statement condemning what he called "excessive use of force," according to Egypt's state news agency.
It also drew a tough response from several European allies, who publicly challenged Israel on whether it used disproportionate force in the standoff. But the biggest risk from the incident could be a further, sharp deterioration in relations between Israel and Turkey, analysts said.
The two regional powers had enjoyed a once-close relationship, and often conduct joint military drills. But beginning with Turkey's harsh criticism of Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip from December 2008 to January 2009, that relationship has been under strain.
Some of the flotilla's ships, which Turkey alleges Israeli's navy seized in international waters, were Turkish owned. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel and has said it will cancel a number of planned exercises with the country.
The incident also could have repercussions for U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, a key Washington priority. Any disruption to talks could put more strain on the U.S.-Israel relationship, which has been chilled in recent months by Israel's insistence on continuing West Bank and East Jerusalem settlement-building. Mr. Netanyahu, who was scheduled to visit the White House this week for a meeting that Israeli and U.S. officials hoped would help mend frayed ties, canceled his trip to fly back to Israel and deal with the crisis.
The action also threatens Israel's stated top strategic priority: keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Washington is pushing a fresh set of sanctions against Iran at the U.N., but the international uproar over the violent flotilla boarding could distract from that effort, draining support from some key, nonpermanent members of the Security Council.
"If we are getting on the nerves of the world, this will imperil the country and our real security goals," said Mr. Melman, the security expert.
Mohamad Bazzi MOHAMAD BAZZI is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a journalism professor at New York University.
On July 14, a mysterious explosion rocked the southern Lebanese town of Khirbet Silim, destroying a building. United Nations peacekeepers later claimed that the building was a Hezbollah weapons depot that had accidentally blown up. Hezbollah, a Shiite militia with close ties to Iran, has remained silent about the blast's cause, but the group made clear that it does not appreciate the renewed international attention focused on its arsenal.
Under the Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, blue-helmeted UN troops are responsible for intercepting illegal weapons shipments and shutting down storage sites south of the Litani River. But when UN troops tried to raid another suspected weapons cache in Khirbet Silim a few days after the explosion, hundreds of villagers surrounded the soldiers, pelted them with rocks, and forced them to withdraw. Peacekeepers fired warning shots in the air as they cleared a path out of town. Ever since, black-capped Hezbollah men have stood guard outside the house.
Since the June 7 Lebanese parliamentary elections, an alluring but simplistic narrative has emerged in the West: because Hezbollah and its allies were defeated at the polls, the militant group would lose some of its luster and a pro-American political coalition would rule Lebanon. In fact, Hezbollah remains the country's dominant military and political force. Moreover, it holds the key to both domestic and external stability -- its actions will determine whether there is another war with Israel or if Lebanon will once again be wracked by internal conflict. By losing the election, Hezbollah also avoided being held accountable by Lebanon's other sects -- without power, there is little responsibility.
Under the Saudi-brokered Taif Accord that ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war, all of the country's militias were disarmed. But Hezbollah was allowed to keep its weapons as a "national resistance" against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in May 2000. When the Israelis withdrew, many Lebanese asked why Hezbollah did not give up its arms and become a strictly political movement. Hezbollah insisted that because Israel was still occupying a tiny strip of land -- called Shebaa Farms -- at the murky intersection of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, its mission of resistance was not over. The UN later determined the area to be Syrian, not Lebanese, territory.
The last war began after Hezbollah fighters crossed the border and abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006. Hezbollah miscalculated, and Israel launched its most intense attack since its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The offensive crippled the country's infrastructure, displaced one million people, cut Lebanon off from the world, and killed more than 1,000 Lebanese -- the majority of them civilians. Hezbollah, in turn, fired nearly 4,000 rockets at Israel, killing 43 civilians. During 34 days of fighting, 120 Israeli soldiers were killed, many of them by Hezbollah's potent arsenal of antitank rockets. Throughout the war, the Lebanese army remained on the sidelines. Today, it is still as ill-equipped and ill-trained as it was in 2006, and it is unlikely to be involved if another war breaks out. The main difference now is that the army is deployed in southern Lebanon, alongside 13,000 UN peacekeepers.
In recent weeks, Hezbollah officials have ratcheted up their rhetoric, pledging that they are ready for war with Israel and warning against UN attempts to seek out Hezbollah's weapons and rockets. Hezbollah leaders boast that the group now has an even larger and more potent stash of missiles than it did three years ago. Israeli officials -- who are also escalating their war rhetoric -- estimate Hezbollah's arsenal at between 40,000 and 80,000 rockets.
On August 10, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his administration would hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attacks on Israeli targets by Hezbollah. "It should be clear that the Lebanese government, as far as we are concerned, is responsible for every attack -- every attack -- launched from its territory against Israel," Netanyahu told Israel Radio. "It cannot hide and say, 'Well, that's Hezbollah, and we don't control them.'"
Some political leaders and analysts in Lebanon interpreted Netanyahu's comments as a signal that Israel would no longer distinguish between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah, especially while the group has a sizable bloc in parliament and seats in the cabinet. Other Israeli officials have suggested that Israel would retaliate against Lebanon if Hezbollah makes good on its promise to avenge the February 2008 assassination of its military commander, Imad Mughniyah, in Damascus -- an act of revenge that Israel worries could take the form of an attack on Israeli tourists, embassies, or other targets outside Israel.
A few days after Netanyahu's comments, Israeli President Shimon Peres tried to calm tensions by once again drawing a distinction between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah. "There was not in the past nor is there now any reason for Lebanon to be Israel's enemy or for Israel to be Lebanon's enemy," Peres said. But Netanyahu's warning is more representative of the Israeli military and political establishment, which both view Hezbollah as a significant danger.
Despite the increasing threats, neither side has an immediate interest in launching a war. Israel is more concerned about Iran than Hezbollah, although if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, it is likely that the militia would be part of the Iranian retaliation. Aside from an Iranian-Israeli confrontation, Hezbollah is absorbed in internal Lebanese politics and cannot afford to be seen as instigating another war with Israel. The Shiite group's other main backer, Syria, is trying to improve its relations with Saudi Arabia and the United States, and Damascus would likely frown upon renewed conflict in the region. But the danger of heightened rhetoric and a military buildup is that the situation could get out of control.
Not surprisingly, Hezbollah's response to the Israeli threats has been defiant. At a rally in southern Beirut on August 14, marking the third anniversary of the war's end (what Hezbollah calls its "divine victory"), the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, laid out his new military strategy. Speaking from an undisclosed location, he warned Israel, "If you launch another war on south Lebanon, imagining that you can bomb any city or village in Lebanon, I will tell you this: today we are capable of shelling any city or town in your usurping entity." Nasrallah, who appeared on giant television screens before a crowd of tens of thousands, also vowed to order missile strikes on Tel Aviv if Israel bombs Hezbollah's base of support: the southern suburbs of Beirut. This is an important shift, because during the 2006 war, Israel largely avoided bombing central Beirut, and Hezbollah refrained from firing missiles on Tel Aviv.
In his speech, Nasrallah advanced the idea that Hezbollah's weapons buildup and overall military capability is a deterrent to Israel -- trying to convince the Lebanese that a stronger Hezbollah will prevent a war. "You might ask, 'Do we have the power to prevent a war?' I will reply, 'Yes, there is a very real possibility that, if we cooperate with one another as Lebanese, we will be able to prevent Israel from launching a war against Lebanon,'" Nasrallah told the crowd, which included members of most Lebanese political factions. "I stress to you that there will be surprises in any new war with Israel, God willing. By saying this to the Israelis, we can deter and prevent them. Let them think a million times before waging a war on Lebanon. Let them look for other ways to confront us, but not war."
This is a dangerous assumption on Nasrallah's part because the Israelis have shown that they are not willing to live indefinitely with a well-armed Hezbollah. Nasrallah's argument is also intended to justify the arms buildup to the Sunnis and Christians of Lebanon -- who, due to the militia's recent takeover of West Beirut, are far more worried today about Hezbollah's weapons than they were in 2006.
In May 2008, Hezbollah ignited the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's civil war. Huddled at home in front of their televisions during the weeklong battle, the Lebanese relived one of their worst memories: masked gunmen demanding people's identity cards. The image of gunmen stopping civilians at checkpoints to sort -- and often murder -- them on the basis of religion is perhaps the most enduring symbol of the country's civil war. In response to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's orders outlawing Hezbollah's underground fiber-optic communication network and dismissing a Hezbollah-affiliated security chief at the Beirut airport, the militia dispatched hundreds of heavily armed fighters into the largely Sunni areas of West Beirut. They quickly routed Sunni militiamen, seized their political offices, and shut down media outlets owned by the Sunni leader Saad Hariri (son of the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri). On May 15, Siniora's government rescinded its orders, Hezbollah pulled its fighters off the streets, and leaders of the two factions headed to Qatar to negotiate under the Arab League's auspices. That led to a deal for a national unity government, which remains in place today and forms the basis of the next cabinet.
But three months after the parliamentary elections, the pro-Western coalition that won the vote is floundering in the morass of Lebanon's peculiar sectarian politics. The coalition chose Saad Hariri as its prime minister-designate, but he struggled for months to form a cabinet and finally withdrew in frustration on September 10. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman will now consult with legislators on naming a new prime minister -- although Hariri could be asked once again. This political vacuum gives Hezbollah free rein to continue building up its military and escalating its rhetoric of war. In the absence of a strong central state, Hezbollah will remain the most powerful force in Lebanon -- and its weapons will guarantee its dominance.
JERUSALEM — The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, unveiled a government program on Tuesday to build the apparatus of a Palestinian state within two years, regardless of progress in the stalled peace negotiations with Israel.
The plan, the first of its kind from the Palestinian Authority, sets out national goals and priorities and operational instructions for ministries and official bodies. Mr. Fayyad said it was meant to hasten the end of the Israeli occupation and pave the way to independent statehood, which he said “can and must happen within the next two years.”
There was no immediate official Israeli comment, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Europe. But two Israeli officials reacted with consternation over what they saw as a unilateral action. The United States consul general in Jerusalem expressed approval for the plan.
Mr. Fayyad, an American-educated economist and a political independent who has gained the confidence of the West and is largely respected in Israel, made the announcement in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He said the goal of the plan was “to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years.”
His plan was not meant to be “in lieu of the political process, but to reinforce it,” Mr. Fayyad said in an interview with The New York Times. Negotiations and state-building, he said, need to be pursued in parallel.
The Western-backed Palestinian leadership has recently been accused of passivity in its approach to peacemaking and pursuit of independence. Mr. Fayyad said the new program represented a proactive effort to form the foundation of the state. His announcement came on a day when Mr. Netanyahu met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London. On Wednesday, he is to meet there with George J. Mitchell, the Obama administration’s Middle East envoy.
Jacob Walles, the American consul general, spoke of the plan in an interview here on Monday, before Mr. Fayyad’s announcement. He said that it was the first time he had seen such a “concrete plan” and that the Palestinians were working in a practical way toward their goal.
Mr. Walles added that under the premiership of Mr. Fayyad there had been “a lot of progress in the West Bank” in economic, security and other spheres.
Yuval Steinitz, the finance minister of the conservative Likud Party, called Mr. Fayyad’s ideas “disappointing.”
“This is contrary to all the agreements signed between the sides,” Mr. Steinitz told Israel Radio. “There is no place for unilateralism, no place for threats, and of course, there will be no Palestinian state at all, if any, without ensuring the state of Israel’s security.”
Daniel Ayalon, the deputy foreign minister of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, said that “artificial dates and arbitrary deadlines never worked in the past, but caused only damage and would not work now.”
Mr. Fayyad’s plan lays out a broad outline for a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The plan states, for example, that “shelter, education and health insurance are basic rights which will be preserved and protected by the state,” which also has “an enduring obligation to care and provide for the martyrs, prisoners, orphans and all those harmed in the Palestinian struggle for independence.”
Aspirations for the economy include ridding it of outside hegemony and reversing its dependence on Israel. Goals for the Finance Ministry include reducing reliance on international aid by controlling spending and increasing domestic revenues. The government is to offer tax incentives to local and foreign investors.
The Palestinian Authority has instructed its Ministry of Transport to help develop legislation and plans for modern seaports, crossing points and airports, including an international airport in the Jordan Valley.
Mr. Fayyad acknowledges that the Palestinian national cause has been hampered by internal schism, which limits the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and the Fayyad government to the West Bank and leaves Hamas, its Islamic rival, in control of Gaza.
The program could be adopted by any Palestinian government over the next two years, Mr. Fayyad said. “It is a rallying call for our people to unite behind our vision,” he said
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