Category Archives: United States

Government, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Politics, United States

Gaza: For a ceasefire to last there needs to be serious negotiation…

PALESTINE

Israel began its latest campaign against Hamas on July 8th. The mounting toll of innocents in Gaza should be reason enough for anyone with heartfelt compassion to demand a ceasefire. Gaza, and the Palestinians who live there, deserve more than just temporary truces, sometimes lasting for just a few hours, after which the attacks from Israel appear more aggressive and disproportionate. Since the start of the ongoing offensive more than 700 Palestinians have been killed with hundreds more injured – most of them civilians and many of them children. Some 35 Israelis have been killed, including three civilians.

It was after the ground invasion of Gaza on July 18th when the casualty rate on both sides soared. Hospitals have been hit and scores of buildings flattened, often with women and children inside. A single Palestinian family of 25, accused of sheltering a Hamas militant during a Ramadan fast was wiped out.

A ceasefire that attempted to revert to nothing more than the status quo would be a grievous mistake. If a more durable peace is to be built, the Israelis must seek a sovereign state for Palestinians. But they, including Hamas, must commit and reiterate their support for a government that disavows violence and recognises Israel. Unless a ceasefire is delivered on such terms, the invective poison of hatred will stir up all over again and the cycle of violence will be repeated, as it has done repeatedly since 2007.

In May, talks of a peace deal foundered. But one reason to be more optimistic now is that both sides have seen how a war has been ignited that neither really wanted. Israel has incurred higher military casualties than it had been expecting.

According to John Kerry, America’s Secretary of State, those recent talks broke down because of Israel. In frustration, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinians’ moderate leader, formed a unity government that Hamas backed. Whereas the US administration cautiously welcomed this development, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, railed against it, fearing a united Palestinian front. When in June three Israeli students wrongly identified as soldiers were kidnapped and murdered on the West Bank, the Israeli government instantly blamed the crime on Hamas. The group refused to claim responsibility for it, and subsequently rounded up more than 500 of its members who then, in retaliation, unleashed its multiplying rocket fire at Israel. Some of Hamas’ rockets have reached as far away as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, one of which landed just a mile away from Israel’s international airport. These continuing missile launches led Mr Netanyahu to mobilise his forces and attack Gaza in the manner in which he has.

There can be no doubt that Israel’s first stated military aim is a legitimate one. That is focused on destroying Hamas’s stockpile of rockets, thousands of which have been fired indiscriminately in to Israel in the past decade, killing a score of Israelis and frightening millions more. Over time, the missiles’ range and sophistication have increased.

A new aim, also legitimate, is to destroy Hamas’s delicate infrastructure, especially the tunnels that provide access to Israeli territory. Guerrillas are sent in to murder Israelis, or to kidnap them as a means of barter for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Nevertheless, war is not only about aims but conduct. Israel is wrong to hit buildings with no evident military purpose and houses packed with civilians, even if householders are harbouring Hamas fighters and its officials. Israel should know that this is always likely to be counterproductive. As the death toll among Gazans rises, Hamas will always be in a better position to promote its cause.

To stop the internecine warfare Hamas must stop firing its rockets into Israel. In return, Israel must commit and agree to honour an agreement from 2012 to lift the siege that has immiserated Gaza’s inhabitants since 2007 in an effort to marginalise Hamas. And Israel should free, or put on trial, some of the hundreds of Hamas prisoners rounded up over the past month on the West Bank, the larger part of a would-be Palestinian state.

Yet, the catastrophe and events that continually befall Gaza stems fundamentally from the refusal of Israel to negotiate in good faith to let the Palestinians have a proper state encompassing both Gaza and the West Bank. Why, many ask, does Mr Netanyahu still allow the building of Jewish settlements there, which makes the creation of a workable Palestinian state even less likely to emerge?

Whilst real mediation is necessary, geopolitically the region is extremely fraught. Egypt has to be involved, but its new military rulers detest the Islamists of Hamas as much as Israel does. Turkey and Qatar could help Hamas towards moderation but are loathed by Israel. The United States is still the one global player that has the political weight, however diminished, to bring everyone to the table. Mr Kerry has to do more than just stop the rockets.

 

Standard
Britain, Defence, Government, Military, United States

A replacement for the Nimrod. The search is on…

DEFENCE

Four years ago, Britain scrapped its Nimrod maritime surveillance aircraft. But the issue of whether an island nation needs a plane to patrol its waters remains.

The Ministry of Defence cancelled the Nimrod’s replacement as part of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), citing the need to cut costs. The decision, however, meant Britain lost a crucial ability to monitor the threat from foreign submarines in its territory.

There have been reports of Russian vessels mooring and sending sailors ashore to enjoy local hospitality – all without being tracked by the UK military, the security implications of which should be clear.

Some aspects of the Nimrod’s function have continued, using surface ships, the RAF’s E3D Sentry aircraft and helicopters.

But much of what the Nimrod was good at has been lost – particularly the ability to detect small objects on the sea’s surface, such as submarine periscopes.

That Britain has no suitable maritime patrol aircraft capability is viewed by some defence analysts as a ‘national disgrace’. As a minimum, Britain needs to be able to monitor what goes on within the UK search and rescue area – no small task given it covers 2m square miles of sea.

A typical mission for these aircraft lasts eight hours before refuelling is required.

However, if rumblings from within Whitehall and industry are to be believed the gap left by the Nimrod could soon be filled.

Prior to Philip Hammond leaving Defence to become Foreign Secretary in the recent UK Government reshuffle, Mr Hammond is said to have privately given ‘top priority’ to the project, insisting that it be contained within the 2015 SDSR.

Analysts estimate that plugging this gap will cost around £2bn. Once funding is assigned, it could go into the MoD budget cycle for 2016 with an aircraft in service by the end of the decade.

The MoD is keen to emphasise that the first question is just what is required. Only then can the machine and sensors that will provide the surveillance be considered. One idea is some form of multi-mission aircraft that can be used for maritime patrol, intelligence gathering, airborne command and control and even in some transport capacity.

The current favourite appears to be the P8 Poseidon made by US aerospace giant Boeing – effectively a militarised 737 passenger jet. Instead of seats, the P8 would be packed with sensors and equipment used to track submarines or missing surface ships.

British crewmen are already flying on the P8 aircraft to maintain their skills. As defence secretary, Mr Hammond also visited a P8 squadron in America and is said to have been impressed.

Other ideas include packing the fuselage of Lockheed Martin’s rugged C-130 Hercules transport aircraft with high-tech sensors and turning it into a maritime patrol specialist.

Northrup Grumman, another US defence firm, would like to see its drones used to monitor the ocean from high up and then send specialist reconnaissance aircraft in to check on possible discoveries closer to the surface.

Just how many aircraft will eventually be needed is another moot point. Analysts suggest a minimum of 12, given some aircraft will inevitably be in maintenance, some used for training and others deployed overseas at any one time.

But senior industry executives believe the MoD’s decision is also about the continued viability of Britain’s defence industry.

Buying off the shelf might be seen as ‘cheaper’, but if the domestic capability to design and manufacture military equipment is lost it will leave the nation’s security at the mercy of foreign powers.

Standard
Foreign Affairs, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United Nations, United States

The cynical invasion of Gaza by Israel…

GAZA

Intro: Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, which began last Thursday, becomes its fourth such war on the Palestinian strip in the past decade

With the Israeli armed forces having kicked off the latest episode in a 66-year-old conflict, the brutality and cynicism of its actions suggests resolution is further away than ever.

Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, which began last Thursday, becomes its fourth such war on the Palestinian strip in the past decade. Following its withdrawal from the densely populated enclave in 2005, Israel sent its troops back in 2006 and 2008. In 2012, the offensive was confined to surgical air strikes and a campaign of bombing. In each case, the reason for acting was the same: to halt rocket and missile attacks into Israel by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that largely controls Gaza. Hamas refuses to accept the existence of a Jewish state.

Each time, the sequence of events has become choreographed into one that is utterly and depressingly predictable. Israel responds disproportionately, always inflicting far greater casualties than it suffers. As international accusations and condemnations of Israeli overreaction multiply, a ceasefire eventually happens, either declared unilaterally by the Israeli government or brokered through a third party, most likely Egypt and/or the United States. In the interim, some Hamas leaders will be targeted and killed, and some rocket launch sites and underground tunnels from Gaza into Israel will be destroyed.

In reality, though, nothing is ever likely to change. More arm shipments will flow into Gaza, new Hamas leaders will emerge, and new tunnels will be dug. When equipped and replenished enough the Palestinian militants will once again fire off its rockets, and Israel will ready itself as it will feel compelled to act in light of the provocation and threats it faces. All the while, as the root causes of the conflict remain untackled, the prospects of a final settlement grow ever dimmer.

The new level of fighting may well lead to a new Palestinian intifada. Israel, protected by its barrier wall – declared illegal by the International Criminal Court – from potential terrorist attacks and by its robust Iron Dome anti-missile system from Hamas rockets, seems less interested than ever in a two-state deal. Far from being concerned about the plight of Palestinians and their livelihoods, Israel simply ignores them, pressing ahead with its settlement building programmes on territory that would be part of any future Palestinian state.

****

A ground invasion of Gaza, however brief, was always likely to signal an intensification of the Israeli response to the more than 900 rockets which have fallen into Israeli territory over the past 10 days. Fears exist for a much greater troop deployment in the coming days. Some 40,000 Israeli reservists have already been mobilised. But that will only work to fuel Palestinian resistance and intensify retaliatory rocket strikes that now reach much further than within a 25 mile radius of Gaza.

It is these rocket attacks that the Israeli government is determined to stop. For so long as they continue, Israel’s shelling of targets within Gaza will go on. Inevitably, this puts further civilian lives at risk. Without the strongest foreign diplomatic intervention the bloody cycle of tit-for-tat rocket and bombing attacks seems likely to endure. There are no signs of the current hostilities ending any time soon. The latest outbreak in violence is still young by comparison with previous offensives. Exchanges during the outbreak in 2011-12, for instance, lasted 22 days.

The day after Israel launched its current air offensive in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a rare press conference in which he was brutally blunt about the danger he believes the state of Israel to be in. He made clear he could never countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu’s world-view is that Israel is standing almost alone on the frontline against a rising tide of vicious Islamic radicalism. He insists that the rest of the as-yet free world does its best not to notice the march of extremism. Such indifference says nothing of how western intelligence services are battling against the odds to keep their citizens safe or at the outrage following the recent air disaster over the skies of eastern Ukraine.

Mr Netanyahu has also indicted that he considers the current American diplomatic team led by John Kerry as naïve. Netanyahu made plain that ‘no international pressure will prevent us from acting with all force against a terrorist organisation that seeks to destroy us’.

Operation Protective Edge will thus go on until ‘guaranteed calm’ was restored to Israel. A prerequisite for that, it seems, is a cessation of Palestinian rocket and missile attacks.

Either the Israeli offensive in Gaza will go on until Hamas has exhausted its supplies of air-to-ground missiles (the scale of which, this time around, has been astonishing) or international pressure is brought to bear. Despite Mr Netanyahu’s rhetoric, Israel well knows it only has a narrow window for further military force before international opinion swings heavily against it.

For diplomatic intervention to be effective it needs to come from the top, as well as being co-ordinated with pressure from Western leaders as a matter of urgency. An approach centred on de-escalating the current rocket exchanges should be the priority before any other progress can be made in securing a more lasting truce.

 

Standard