Threats to Arab Normalization with Israel - by Khaled Abu Toameh - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13236/palestinian-normalization-israel
For more than 10 years now, Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction have been at war with each other. Attempts by their Arab brothers, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to solve the power struggle between the two rival Palestinian groups have thus far failed and are unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future. The gap between Hamas and Fatah remains as wide as ever: the two parties despise each other. Fatah wants to return to the Gaza Strip; Hamas says it out loud: no. Fatah wants Hamas to disarm and cede control over the Gaza Strip; Hamas says no.
On one particular issue, however, the two sides lay aside their differences and see eye to eye. When it comes to Israel, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish between Fatah and Hamas.
Both parties use the same harsh language when referring to Israel and the policies and decisions of the Israeli government. The daily statements condemning Israel that are issued separately by Hamas and Fatah sound almost identical. Both refer to Israel as the "state of occupation." They also continue to incite Palestinians and the rest of the world against Israel by accusing it of committing "war crimes" against the Palestinians and "violating international law."
The daily attacks on Israel by Hamas and Fatah have radicalized Palestinians to a point where many of them would not consider any form of compromise with it.
In the past few days, the rival Palestinian parties have again found themselves in agreement -- this time over what they perceive as efforts to normalize relations between Israel and some Arab countries.
The normalization efforts there are talking about refer to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent visit to Oman, an Arab country that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. They are also referring to the participation of Israeli athletes in a judo competition in the United Arab Emirates, another Arab country that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Separate statements issued by Hamas and Fatah have strongly condemned Arab countries for "rushing" to normalize relations with Israel before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. The statements are strikingly similar in their words and messages.
Consider, for example, what Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had to say about the apparent rapprochement between Israel and some Arab countries. On October 29, Haniyeh was quoted as saying:
"All the attempts at normalization won't change the reality. There is no place for the [Israeli] enemy on the map. The people are sending an angry message to all those who are normalizing [with Israel]."
A statement issued by Haniyeh's Hamas movement went as far as denouncing the normalization efforts as a "stab in the back of the Palestinians." The statement accused the Arabs who are engaged in various forms of dialogue with Israel of "abandoning the Palestinians and their just cause."
In other words, Hamas is implying that any Arab leader who establishes relations with Israel will be seen as a traitor to the Palestinians and their cause. Haniyeh is brutally honest as to why he and Hamas oppose any form of normalization with Israel; it is because they believe there's "no room" for Israel on the map. In their eyes, Israel has no right to exist and should be replaced with an Islamic state, where Jews would be welcome to live as a minority.
Hamas's rivals in Fatah have taken a similar stance towards the warming of relations between Israel and some Arab countries. A number of senior Fatah officials, including Munir al-Jaghoob and Mohammed Shtayyeh, have condemned Oman for hosting Netanyahu. They have also condemned the UAE for allowing Israelis to participate in the judo competition.
"Fatah condemns the public normalization between Israel and some Arab countries," al-Jaghoub commented. He went on to claim that Netanyahu's visit to Oman was part of US President Donald Trump's yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East. Palestinians believe that Trump's plan, which no one in the Middle East has seen so far, envisages the establishment of peace treaties between Israel and the Arab countries before the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is resolved.
Hamas and Fatah are opposed to normalization between Israel and the Arab countries because they are afraid that their Arab brothers will abandon them. The two Palestinian rival parties fear that once the Arabs sign peace treaties with Israel, they (the Arabs) will forget about the Palestinians and focus on bringing prosperity and stability to the Arab countries.
The Palestinians seek to continue holding the Arab world hostage to their own unrealistic demands. They do not want to see the Arab countries move forward and build a better future for their people. This tactic, which has worked for the past seven decades, is apparently about to become less useful as one Arab country after the other opens its doors to Israeli leaders, politicians and athletes.
Hamas and Fatah seem to want to play the victim card to the bitter end. They have long claimed to be victims of Israel. Now they are seeking to convince the world that the Palestinians are victims of some kind of an Israeli-American conspiracy to make peace with Israel. In the world of the Palestinians, peace between Israel and the Arab countries is tantamount to treason, a conspiracy concocted by Israel and the US administration.
Instead of welcoming the warming up of relations between Israel and some Arab countries as a positive development that brings hope and optimism to the Middle East, the rulers of Hamas and Fatah are busy condemning and inciting against Arabs who "collaborate" with Israel. The condemnations and incitement sound a great deal like threats directed towards Arab heads of state and governments who want to do business with Israel. These threats will undoubtedly have a negative impact on some of the Arab countries that will see them as blackmail by the Palestinians.
When Hamas and Fatah call on the "Arab street" to voice its opposition to the normalization efforts with Israel, they are actually urging the people in the Arab countries to revolt against their leaders and governments. It is hard to see how any Arab leader will remain idle in the face of the Palestinian threats and denunciations.
The Palestinians are once again acting against their own interests by alienating powerful and wealthy countries such as the UAE and Oman. Hamas and Fatah are indeed leading their people towards an certain end: isolation and extremism. So, Fatah and Hamas cannot agree to pay their workers, they cannot agree on supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip, and they cannot agree on providing medical supplies to hospitals there. They do agree, however, on inflicting more harm and damage on their people. If they go on like this, the day will come when the Palestinians will discover that their friends and brothers have become their biggest enemies.
Hezbollah Has More Firepower Than 95% Of World's Conventional Militaries - By Sean Savage -
Israel and Hezbollah have been adversaries for decades now, dating back to the Jewish state's involvement in the Lebanese civil war. However, bolstered by the military and financial support of its Iranian patron, the Lebanese terror group now poses a threat to Israel unlike anything the Jewish state has seen in recent history.
A new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America's (JINSA) Hybrid Warfare Task force, headed by several retired senior U.S. military officials, outlined this striking strategic threat to Israel, as well as the operational and legal challenges the country will most likely face in its next war with Hezbollah.
According to the report, the next conflict with Hezbollah will "bear little resemblance to anything that has come before between Israel and its adversaries."
"Changes in the strategic environment in the 12 years since the last Israeli-Hezbollah conflict will translate into unparalleled death and destruction," the report said, noting that Hezbollah's recent fighting experience in Syria, its support from Iran and its massive weapons arsenal pose a "quantum leap" in the terror group's ability to inflict devastation on Israel.
"Today, Hezbollah possesses more firepower than 95 percent of the world's conventional militaries, and more rockets and missiles than all European NATO members combined," the report stated.
Various estimates put Hezbollah's overall rocket and missile stockpiles at between 120,000 to 140,000--up from roughly 10,000 in the last conflict in 2006. While the vast majority comprises inaccurate short-range rockets, the terror group also has several thousand medium-range rockets and several hundred precision long-range missiles capable of striking targets throughout all of Israel.
At the same time, Hezbollah has also bolstered its fighting force from 13,000 fighters in 2006 to a current 25,000 active-duty members, in addition to 20,000 to 30,000 reserve fighters.
"Hezbollah has placed this expanded rocket and missile arsenal within and around civilian infrastructure, including apartment blocs, hospitals, schools and mosques, in the hopes of deterring and defending against IDF airstrikes, and courting civilian casualties it can hypocritically and disingenuously blame on Israel," the report said.
A new appreciation for threats from the north
One of the authors of the report, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael S. Tucker, who formerly served as Commanding General of the First United States Army from 2013 until 2016, and who made his first visit to Israel as part of the fact-finding mission for the report, told JNS that he acquired a real appreciation for the threats that Israel faces in the north.
"Israel is truly challenged with a situation that does not exist anywhere else in the world," he said. "Because they are a nation-state and they do abide by the law of armed conflict, they are challenged against an enemy that doesn't necessarily follow that, nor is there any accountability on their side."
Tucker said he hopes the report will prod the international community into action.
"This report should be a wake-up call to the international community that this is a real threat and the potential for this conflict to turn into a large-scale war unlike we have seen yet," he said.
Col. (Ret.) Marc Warren, who served as U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps and as the senior legal officer for Multi-National Forces Iraq, and who now is co-chair of Jenner & Block, LLP's Aviation and Aerospace Practice, also made his first trip to Israel for purposes of the report. He told JNS that he was struck by the size and scope of the threat Israel faces.
"I was struck by the relatively small size of Israel. That when you overlay the range of missile and rocket batteries in Syria and Lebanon, how much of Israel is well within range of many rocket systems," he said. "The threat is obvious given the size of the country."
'Political defeat' of Israel
Despite the tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets that Israel faces, the report acknowledges that it still remains unlikely that the terror group could inflict a strategic military defeat on the Israel Defense Forces--one of the most well-trained, well-armed and highly capable militaries in the world.
Instead, the report notes that Hezbollah's objective will be the "political defeat" of Israel by weaponizing information and international law to its advantage.
"By illegally exposing civilians to harm, manipulating the narrative and exploiting misperceptions about the laws of war, Hezbollah will seek to portray Israel as an arbitrary, immoral and illegal murderer of civilians," the report stated.
"Hezbollah will hope to survive to fight another day while delegitimizing Israel in the eyes of the world before the IDF can achieve decisive victory," the report said.
Warren said that Hezbollah has intentionally placed the civilian population of Lebanon in harm's way with the intent of forcing Israel to create massive civilian casualties and turn public opinion against them.
"It is Hezbollah that mixes missiles, rockets and mortars with civilians. It is Hezbollah who builds these villas in southern Lebanon adjacent to Israel that are way out of proportion for the area. They are built for the purpose of creating defensible positions; they are interconnected with tunnels. Fighters have batteries, missiles and rockets stored there," he said.
While Warren recognized that terror groups have longed misused protected places, such as hospitals and mosques to mask their forces, he said Hezbollah is taking this to a new level of perversity.
"The intent is not only to mask or protect fighters and equipment, but to deliberately create situations where Israel is forced to target those locations," he said. "They are so deep and so numerous that you simply cannot bypass them."
As such, Hezbollah can twist the narrative to present Israel as the real enemy.
"Thus, you create civilians causalities, and the adversary is able to twist the traditional principles of the law of war--most specifically, discrimination and proportionality--and say to the international media and community, 'Look at what Israel did here; they killed these civilians here, how awful is that.' So Israel is in a strict liability position," Warren said.
At the same time, Warren also noted that past measures the IDF has used in conflicts in Gaza to warn the civilian population ahead of airstrikes, such as text messages, leaflets and the so-called "knock on the roof," will likely not be available to the Israelis against Hezbollah.
"The tragedy of the next war, it will be different than prior recent wars. A lot more combined arms maneuver ... it will not be surgical," he explained. "While the Israelis make great use of precision-guided actions, not all of these targets can be pre-planned, as there will be fleeting ones and new emerging ones. That kind of fight cannot lend itself well to a knock on the roof, leaflets or text messages to civilians. It is going to be much more dynamic than that."
Instead, Warren says the next war with Hezbollah will more closely resemble conventional warfare between two states, albeit with one side not adhering to international law.
"This report is a bit of a retro report--what is in vogue is counter-insurgency--but this war here would not be the kind of special operating forces, drone strikes and surgical airstrikes that we see more often now. It will be much more extensive than that. The methods Israel uses that exceed the laws of war might not be applicable here."
Warren added that the key part of the report is to prepare the international community for what to expect in this conflict.
"The key part is to prepare people for the idea that while Israel will adhere to the laws of war, that some of the extraordinary cautionary measures that people have become accustomed to seeing may not be feasible in this war," he said.
'Raise awareness for international community'
In recent weeks, Israel has sounded the alarm over Hezbollah's buildup in southern Lebanon and its blatant use of embedding its military capabilities within the civilian population. In late October, the IDF exposed a new Hezbollah forward position on the Lebanese-Israeli border that was disguised as a structure used by environmental-protection activists.
"This is a breach of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701," the officer said, in reference to a resolution that bans armed forces other than the official Lebanese Armed Forces from being deployed in southern Lebanon.
The new intelligence-gathering post is part of "Hezbollah's tactical military activities in south Lebanon that are being conducted in the last few years," the officer stated.
"What we've seen ... is Hezbollah using the civilian front and working in civilian uniforms in south Lebanon in order to act in the region with impunity," he added. "We see them gathering intelligence on IDF activity, watching Israeli communities close to the Blue Line, which is the border between Israel and Lebanon--preparing for attacks against the IDF and against Israeli civilians in the Galilee," the officer said.
Tucker expressed dismay over the current response by the international community, especially the U.N. Security Council, which oversees the peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, tasked with enforcing the disarmament of Hezbollah under Security Council resolution 1701.
"The methodology they [Hezbollah] use to combat the IDF--using human shields, using protective places for military purposes--there needs to be a greater level of situational awareness in the international community to that. To raise questions to the U.N. and to the entire UNIFIL program in southern Lebanon.
"The international community should hold the U.N. accountable at that level of fidelity. It [UNSC Resolution 1701] is blatantly being disregarded on a daily basis."
As such, Tucker believes that Israel needs to continue to sound the alarm on Hezbollah to the international community, while also continuing to build regional and international coalitions that will support the Jewish state in the next conflict.
"They should continue every effort to shed light on Hezbollah, its buildup in Lebanon and its ties with Iran," he said. "We need to create a consensus among the international community on the threat Israel is faced with. And we can only do that through education."
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