Iran 'opened a Pandora's box' in cyber-attack on Israeli water system - By Yaakov Lappin -
The Iranian cyber-attack in early April on an Israeli water-treatment facility, designed to get computers to add too much chlorine to the Israeli water supply, represents a new phase in Iranian aggression, a former Israeli defense official has said.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, former national security adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), told JNS on Sunday that there is no historical experience for cyber wars and their consequences, and that therefore, much caution is needed when assessing them.
According to international media reports, Israel retaliated by paralyzing Iran's key seaport-the Shahid Rajaee port in the city of Bandar Abbas, which is a strategic hub for Iranian sea imports, exports and trafficking of illicit weapons.
"It is not possible to know whether Israel's reported response will deter Iran, which to a certain extent has opened a "Pandora's box' in a cyber-attack designed to harm civilians," said Amidror.
In its attack, Iran also "placed itself at great risk," he added.
Amidror, who is also first distinguished fellow at the Jewish Institute for the National Security of America (JINSA), said that cyber maneuvers have the potential to deteriorate into war, if the side that is attacked "feels that it has been greatly harmed, and it cannot suitably retaliate against its enemy, and therefore remains vulnerable to attacks from it."
However, as in any difficult decision, he added, "decision-makers must also take into account whether responding to a cyber-attack with a kinetic [physical] strike will succeed, and what price might be paid if the adversary also decides to respond kinetically."
"In any case, it is best to be prepared for an enemy that absorbs a major cyber strike to try and respond with a cyber counterattack, and through other means, including kinetically," said Amidror.
A 'cyber winter is coming'
April's cyber strike on Israel's water systems was a "synchronized and organized attack" designed to harm civilian infrastructure, Yigal Unna, who heads Israel's National Cyber Directorate, said recently.
In comments relayed by the Associated Press, Unna said that recent developments have marked the start new era of covert cyber war, warning that a "cyber winter is coming."
"Rapid is not something that describes enough how fast and how crazy and hectic things are moving forward in cyberspace, and I think we will remember this last month and May 2020 as a changing point in the history of modern cyber warfare," Unna told a digital international cyber conference. "If the bad guys had succeeded in their plot we would now be facing, in the middle of the corona[virus] crisis, very big damage to the civilian population and a lack of water and even worse than that," he added.
A Western intelligence official told the Financial Times that had the Iranian attack succeeded, it would have "triggered fail-safes that would have shut down the pumping station when the excess chemical was detected, but would have left tens of thousands of Israeli civilians and farms parched in the middle of a heatwave."
Professor Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, told Israel's 101 FM radio station in recent days that the reported cyber-attack on Bander Abbas port sent a powerful message to Iran's regime about Israel's cyber capabilities.
Bander Abbas "is not far from Hormuz Straits, which is outlet for shipping from the Persian Gulf to world," noted Rabi. He described the port as a "central life artery" for Iran for exports, imports, sea trade and military activity.
The Washington Post reported that Israel was accused of a cyber-attack that crashed the port's computer systems and caused "total disarray," including kilometers-long truck lines and long lines of sea vessels outside of the port. Satellite imagery was shown in the report of the chaos.
"There is no doubt if you turn off the switch with a hidden hand, that calls out for attention," said Rabi, in reference to the reported attack on the port. "If it's true that Iran tried to intrude with a polluted hand into Israel's water infrastructure and harm the civilian world, then at a public-awareness level, a line has been crossed. Israel could not let this pass."
The reported Israeli retaliation will give the Islamic Republic reason to think twice before launching a new cyber-attack on Israeli civilian targets, assessed Rabi.
He noted that the Iranian regime is in a difficult situation, both economically and due to shaky relations between it and the Iranian population. "[Quds Force Commander] Qassem Soleimani, Iran's big architect [of its overseas operations], is no longer with them. I can see Iran being tempted, in a dangerous and pretentious manner, to enter the cyber arena," he added.
Israel's reported response hit an Iranian nerve center and demonstrated to Tehran "how big the asymmetry is, including in the cyber field," argued Rabi, although, he added, Iran is making progress in its cyber-attack abilities. "This is how the Iranian regime needs to be treated ... Israel must speak in a Middle Eastern language. The message to Iran is: Find a different tree to climb. If you climb the Israeli tree, the price will be very high."
Palestinians, Jordan are bluffing on Israeli sovereignty, say former US officials - By Ariel Ben Solomon -
With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing ahead with plans to apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and parts of Judea and Samaria, there are concerns being raised that it could ignite tensions with the Palestinians and neighboring Jordanians. Both outcomes are extremely unlikely, however, according to former senior U.S. officials with vast experience in the Middle East.
"Both the Palestinians and Jordanians are showing weakness and instead of threatening Israel with something it cares about, they are busy taking themselves hostage," said David Wurmser, who served as a senior adviser on the Middle East to former Vice President Dick Cheney and is currently an executive at the Dephi Global Analysis Group, which he founded.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas threatened last month to cut ties with Israel, stop security cooperation and void past agreements if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues with his plan to apply Israeli law. Similarly, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel in May, Jordan's King Abdullah warned Israel that violence could erupt if it continues with its sovereignty plan.
"What would happen if the Palestinian National Authority collapsed? There would be more chaos and extremism in the region. If Israel really annexed the West Bank in July, it would lead to a massive conflict with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan," Abdullah said, according to an AP report.
Wurmser explains that Arab leaders will often inflate their own value by warning that their populations will turn to chaos and violence should they lose power. And while there may indeed be chaos, he suggests the P.A. and the Jordanian regime need Israel and the United States much more than the other way around.
"The Jordanian leadership thinks it can buy quiet by yelling at Israel and letting its radicals blow off steam, but like in the past when it appeased radical forces, they [the Jordanians] will again turn to the U.S. and Israel to save them," said Wurmser.
If Jordan is going to condone radical anti-Israel forces and anchor its regime in appeasement of its large Palestinian population rather than its traditional national interest-namely, the preservation of a minority Hashemite regime backed by the Bedouin tribes-then it could lose its value from Israel's point of view.
Wurmser noted that Jordan's value as an ally is its ability to serve as a buffer and area of stability in a tumultuous region. But if Jordan abandons this historically rooted role, he said, that could "force a rethink" by Israel and the United States regarding the value of the relationship.
He adds that the P.A. is in a similar situation and has little to gain by inciting its populist base against Israel.
"The P.A. is entirely dependent on its cooperation with Israel to survive. We saw how long the P.A. lasted in Gaza before Hamas took over," he said.
According to Harold Rhode, a longtime former adviser on Islamic affairs within the U.S. Defense Department's Office of Net Assessment, Abbas's threat to cut off security cooperation and end agreements with Israel is empty since it is in Abbas's and other senior Palestinian officials' interest to continue the cooperation.
"History shows us that this is almost assuredly just bluster," Rhode said, calling Abbas's rhetoric the "hold me back or I'll commit suicide strategy."
He also notes that Abbas and other Arab leaders also say one thing to their constituents, who they have continuously taught to despise Israel, while taking a different tone when speaking to diplomats including their Israeli counterparts.
"Past history shows us that whatever they say in public, they will most likely find a way to cooperate in private," said Rhode. "Abbas and other senior officials are running a racket and the money for the Palestinians is going straight to their own foreign bank accounts, so they have the most to lose."
According to Rhode, Abbas's repeated threats trigger the same response each time "by the Western intelligentsia and the left-wing defense establishment in Israel," which "are always taking his threats seriously despite the fact that it never happens."
Rhode says the reason they fall for the Palestinian leader's bluff is that they do not understand Arab culture, which puts supreme value on personal honor and status, on the importance of family and clan over the greater good. Abbas knows that if he ends security cooperation with Israel "he is finished," said Rhode.
'The Arabs are sick and tired'
Hillel Frisch, a professor of Middle East studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan and a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, predicts that the P.A. will maintain security cooperation in order to protect its own interests.
"The P.A. may not rescue Israelis that stray into its territory, or may promote violence with regard to the Temple Mount, but it will keep up the cooperation in monitoring and apprehending Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists," he said.
Warnings from the P.A., Arab leaders and even Western leaders regarding the planned application of Israeli law in Judea and Samaria ring similar to the doomsday scenarios that were proclaimed prior to the Trump administration's transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The same rhetoric was also heard leading up to the annexation of the Golan Heights with U.S. support. Nothing happened in either case.
In particular, many opponents of Israel's upcoming move warn that applying sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria will negatively affect Israel's improving relations with much of the Arab world. Yet, Rhode suggests Israel's relations with Gulf States will continue to improve, while Palestinians are losing standing in the Arab world due to their never-ending conflict with a Jewish state they have no hopes of defeating.
"The Arabs are sick and tired of the Palestinians," said Rhode.
Such sentiments are being expressed openly throughout the Arab world. A Saudi writer recently told BBC Arabic in a May interview that the Saudi public no longer cares about the Palestinian cause.
Abdulhameed Al-Ghobain said the Palestinians "have lost," and that the Saudis care about their national, strategic and economic interests, which can all benefit from establishing relations with Israel.
"The Arab League issues statements that are worthless. We should deal with reality. The relations [with Israel] have gone beyond normalization," said Al-Ghobain. "The relations have become warm. It is no longer just about normalization. The relations have reached a very warm level."
As to the predicted outcome of Israel's sovereignty move, Wurmser said that "a resolution of the conflict or a Palestinian state are nowhere to be seen and any violence by the Palestinians will-like in the past-backfire and leave Israel in an even better position."
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