Israel’s policy of preventing the supply of advanced weapons to Hizbullah has been in place for some time, but in the past was primarily the responsibility of the Israeli Navy which intercepted Iranian weapons ships in the Mediterranean. According to U.S. sources, Israel has more recently concentrated this effort in Syrian territory. The Syrians may have had an interest in assuring that some of their more advanced weaponry not fall into the hands of the Sunni extremist groups they have been fighting that are linked to al-Qaeda, like Jabhat al-Nusra. Should the Assad regime retreat to Alawite areas near the coast, it would not want to see those advanced weapons in the hands of the Sunni forces, with whom it may be fighting for years to come.

But a new motive appears to have become far more predominant in recent weeks. Iran appears to have decided that it must prevent a situation arising in which it loses its grip on Syria, which has been characterized by an Iranian institute tied to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the “35th district of Iran.”¹ As a result, Iran appears to be providing itself with an option to take over Syria, if Assad falls. It has not only directly intervened by itself and deployed its own Revolutionary Guard forces on Syrian soil, but it has also sought to build up an expeditionary army made up of Lebanese Hizbullah and other Shiite militias from Iraq as well.² Iran is training and equipping these forces. It is also providing Hizbullah with state-of-the-art weapons, partly as a reward for the services the organization is providing.

In the past, Israeli defense officials have said the supply of “game-changing weaponry” will not be tolerated and they have focused in their briefings on several specific types of arms transfers to Hizbullah:

a. Chemical weapons.

b. Iranian surface-to-surface missiles equipped with heavy warheads, like the Fateh 110, which has a highly destructive 600 kg. warhead as compared to the 30 kg. warhead on Hizbullah’s Katyusha rockets that it launched against Israel in the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

c. Long-range anti-aircraft missiles, like the Russian-manufactured SA-17, which can limit the freedom of action of the Israeli Air Force if deployed by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon. The SA-17 uses a mobile launcher. Israeli diplomacy has been especially concerned with the Russian sale of even more robust S-300 anti-aircraft missiles by Russia to Syria, though there are no indications that Hizbullah is a potential recipient of this system.

d. Long-range anti-ship missiles, like the Russian supersonic Yakhont cruise missile, that has a range of 300 km. and can strike at Israeli offshore gas rigs in the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia recently sent a shipment of the missiles which will be added to an initial inventory of 72 missiles received first in 2011.³

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2012, Lt.-Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pointed to the Yakhont as a threat to the U.S. Navy as well: “DIA remains concerned with the proliferation of advanced cruise missiles, such as Russia’s supersonic Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile which Moscow sold to Syria and Vietnam. The 300-km.-range Yakhont poses a major threat to naval operations particularly in the eastern Mediterranean.”⁴

There is another international context to Israel’s position on Iran’s weapons shipments to Hizbullah. At the end of the Second Lebanon War, the U.S. and France drafted the text of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was adopted unanimously on August 11, 2006, with Russian and Chinese support. Article 15 states that the resolution prohibits all UN member states from allowing their nationals to engage in “the sale or supply to any entity or individual in Lebanon of arms and related material of all types.” In short, Iranian weapons transfers to Hizbullah are a violation of a decision of the UN Security Council. Several years earlier, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559, which also called for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias on the soil of Lebanon.

Those who recall the UN Security Council resolutions that were adopted against Iran’s nuclear program might not recall that they entailed an arms embargo on Iranian weapons exports as well. Thus, UN Security Council Resolution 1747, adopted on March 24, 2007, specifically stated in paragraph 5: “Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran.” While Resolution 1747 was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and hence is regarded as the most severe resolution in the UN’s legal arsenal, Iran ignored it just like the resolutions that were adopted after the Second Lebanon War.

Israel, in taking measures against this activity, is not only acting in accordance with its own security interests, but in a manner consistent with the repeated decisions of the international community. Unfortunately, since the UN never effectively implemented its own resolutions, Israel was left with no choice but to act in its own self-defense.

Iran continues to ignore these UN resolutions and flagrantly violates them. Israel is receiving strong international support from the U.S. and Britain for the stance it is taking against Iranian weapons supplies to Hizbullah. But clearly, should Israel come under criticism in the future, it can point to the fact of the failure of the international community to halt Iran’s airlift to its proxy forces like Hizbullah.

Notes

1. Shimon Shapira, “Iran’s Plans to Take Over Syria,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol. 13, No. 10 May 5, 2013, http://jcpa.org/article/irans-plans-to-take-over-syria/.

2. Testimony of U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, May 15, 2013, http://www.state.gov/p/us/rm/2013/202684.htm.

3. Michael Gordon and Eric Smith, “Russia Send more Advanced Missiles to Aid Assad in Syria,” New York Times, May 17, 2013.

4. http://www.dia.mil/public-affairs/testimonies/2012-02-16b.html

See this article on the JCPA site at Iran’s Arms Supply to Hizbullah: International Dimensions.

Qaradawi received a warm welcome, especially from the Hamas leadership. They saw the visit as an important affirmation, by the longstanding and supreme religious authority of the Sunni Muslim world, of Hamas’ rule in Gaza. The visit affirmed Hamas as a faithful exponent of the Palestinian people and the jihadist enterprise, aimed at conquering the State of Israel and making it part of the Islamic state of Palestine – eventually to be one of the provinces of the Islamic caliphate whose capital will be Jerusalem.

Qaradawi’s visit was extensively covered in the Hamas government’s media, which again highlighted the “sheikh of jihad’s” (as Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called him) backing for this Palestinian movement.

On May 10, the headline of the official Hamas daily Falastin was worded in that spirit: “Qaradawi calls for liberating the soil of Palestine.” The subhead was a quotation of the most important statement he made: “We will never concede Palestine and we will never recognize Israel.”

During the visit, Qaradawi set forth his political outlook, thereby offering a sort of vision for the future (as well as a sort of last will and testament, given his advanced age (86) and his own recent remark that his days are numbered). The following are the main tenets of that outlook:

Qaradawi’s Vision for the Future

• The Palestinians have a right to the soil of Palestine: “We join hands with the Palestinians and support the most just cause on the face of the earth, since the Palestinians were driven by the Jews from their homes by force of arms.” Qaradawi denies any Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, regarding the Jews who have settled in it as foreigners who forcefully seized land that did not belong to them. “We are here, and here we will remain, we will not leave our land and starting from today there will be no emigration. We will die on our land or we will triumph.”

• The Palestinians have no right to concede Palestine. Qaradawi asserted that the Palestinians hold the deed to Palestine, but also emphasized that not one of them has the right or the authorization to give up his right and receive financial compensation in lieu of the soil of the homeland. “Islam and Sharia do not allow selling part of the homeland, and this, our homeland, belongs to us, and so it will remain and we will return to it.” Qaradawi further stated: “We will never concede the right [to Palestine] and we will never recognize ‘Israel.’”

• Qaradawi thereby assigns to the Palestinians the religious responsibility for liberating Palestine in the name of the Islamic ummah (“The people of Palestine and Gaza represent the entire Arab and Islamic ummah”). He severely forbids them to take positions that entail recognition of any foreign rule, Jewish or other, over the soil of Palestine. One implication is the denial of any possibility of political compromise or recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

• Unity is the key to the liberation of Palestine. Qaradawi spoke of the huge importance he ascribes to unity as a force multiplier that can enable the Muslims to overcome, as he sees it, even those with nuclear and chemical weapons. Unity must prevail in the internal Palestinian sphere and in the Arab-Islamic arena as well, thereby preparing the ground for an Islamic conquest of the entire State of Israel. “We want to see a united ummah that will forcefully assert its rights to the land, and at the forefront of those rights – Palestine.”

• Jihad is fundamental to the liberation of Palestine. The only strategy to liberate it, Qaradawi asserted, is “jihad in the way of Allah.” This requires rejecting political dialogue and compromise while adhering to armed struggle in the spirit of Islam. He praised the residents of Palestine and Gaza for raising the flag of jihad and refusing to lower it despite the difficulties they have encountered. “I am proud to be a Gazan, since Gaza maintains its role in the jihad, in the struggle, and in the defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” he stated.

• The ultimate goal is an Islamic state. Qaradawi called on Muslims to fulfill divine justice, establish a Muslim society, and subsequently a Muslim ummah. Regaining rights in Palestine is, in his view, an aspect of striving to regain the Muslim lands of the early Islamic era, in keeping with the mission of the Prophet Muhammad and those who came after him.

Dr. Marwan Abu Ras, president of the Palestinian Islamic Scholars Association, which is identified with Hamas, said in a speech honoring Qaradawi at the Islamic University that the Palestinians see themselves as continuing his path. “We are students of Qaradawi. We learned from him the true path [Wasatiyyah – the middle road], and [the way of] force regarding [the restoration of] rights, and [the way of] power regarding the prohibition on visiting Al-Aqsa [Mosque] when it is under occupation and [conditional] on its permission. We learned from him the [importance] of force in supporting the Palestinian resistance and in the actions of self-sacrifice [suicide].”

During the Second Intifada, Qaradawi published a religious ruling (fatwa) that permits suicide bombings and the killing of Israeli civilians. He headed the Union of Good organization, which raised millions of dollars for institutions connected to Hamas. A considerable part of these funds went to support Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel, for the families of terrorists who were killed including those who had carried out suicide bombings, and for Hamas’ dawah activity, which inculcates the values of jihad in Palestinian society.

The visit of Qaradawi, the premier religious scholar of the Sunni Muslim world, is of great significance for Hamas, which wins further, major legitimacy for its rule. The visit also indicates that Hamas’ jihad approach is preferable to that of political negotiations, which the “president of Palestine,” Mahmoud Abbas, represents.

The tailwind provided by Qaradawi is also vital for Hamas in the long-term battle it is waging against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This campaign aims at the eventual complete takeover of the PA and PLO institutions, while winning internationally recognized status for Hamas as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

In the West, including some who are close to the Obama administration, Qaradawi has been portrayed as representing moderate, political Islam (Wasatiyyah). This notion helped legitimize the Muslim Brotherhood as an ally for the United States in place of longstanding regimes that fell in the revolts known as the “Arab Spring.”

Qaradawi’s words in Gaza reflect the real nature of Wasatiyyah (the true path): a clear-cut, organized approach to implementing Islamic religious rule in all the Muslim states, while adopting jihad as the means of realizing its political-religious objectives. This approach is similar to that of al-Qaeda, differing only in terms of the phases of implementation.

Moreover, Qaradawi, while focusing on the liberation of Palestine, also hinted at the Islamic obligation to liberate Spain from Christian occupation; the rule that no one has the authority to concede Islamic land applies to Spain as well (and to the other lands leading to the gates of Vienna). About a decade ago, Qaradawi issued a fatwa on the gradual conquest of the entire continent of Europe via Islamic exhortation (dawah) and the demographic factor, leading to the fulfillment of Muhammad’s prophecy on the conquest of the cities of Constantinople (Istanbul), Jerusalem, and Romiyyah (Rome) as a condition for the emergence of the Mahdi, the Muslim messiah.

Finally, it should be noted that Qaradawi and his entourage entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing in Egyptian Sinai. Haniyeh, who welcomed him, boasted that there was and is no need for Israeli permission and that Qaradawi was coming to Gaza as had the “victorious conquerors” in the days of the Muslim conquests. Qaradawi’s visit, like that of the high-ranking Bahraini delegation that concurrently arrived in Gaza, and hundreds of other delegations and visitors from abroad, indicates the simple fact that the Gaza-Egypt border is actually open and there is no “blockade” of Gaza.

See this article on the JCPA site at Sheikh Qaradawi’s Visit to Gaza.

Politicians and commentators attributed supreme importance to the statement by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani at a joint press conference with U.S. secretary of state John Kerry. They saw it as heralding a new, constructive political line by the Arab League, which could provide backing for a political settlement based on a compromise between Israel and the Palestinians.

The relevant words of the Qatari prime minister were: “The Arab League delegation emphasizes the requirement that the achievement of a two-state [solution] must be based on the borders of June 4, 1967, with a possibility of comparable, mutually agreed, and minor land swaps.”¹

A few days later, al-Thani explained his position on the Arab Initiative in an interview with Al Jazeera. The notion of a specifically Qatari proposal on land swaps is mistaken: such a proposal has already been raised in the Arab summit conferences and espoused by the Palestinian leadership, and it entails readiness for land swaps comprising 1.5 percent of West Bank territory.

Al-Thani also said that

it was not a matter of any details, because that is a Palestinian matter, and they make the decisions on this issue, and we did not discuss this issue because we are not authorized to deliberate in the name of the Palestinians. All we did is clarify the Arab Initiative, and the general stance that the Palestinian representative who was at the meeting presented.

As for why the Arab delegation journeyed to Washington, here is how he explained it:

The Arab decision to go to Washington was the right one, since we know that Benjamin Netanyahu is not serious about the issues connected to or concerning peace. The visit to Washington dealt solely with clarifying positions in detail to the Americans, namely, that the Arabs are ready for peace while the other side is not. Likewise, the aim was to discuss seriously whether the Americans will play the role of mediator and make key decisions in a number of months, and which side is doing the foot-dragging in the peace process….If we do not succeed in the talks with the Americans, we will once again go to the UN Security Council.²

The Palestinian Authority confirms that there is nothing new in the formula of minor land swaps; Hamas, for its part, completely rejects the implied recognition of the 1967 borders with small mutual adjustments and stresses that the entire territory of Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people. In the Palestinian camp as a whole, there is wall-to-wall consensus on the demand to implement the Palestinian refugees’ and their descendants’ “right of return” to Israel proper, while rejecting out of hand any proposal to settle the refugees outside of Palestine.

The assessment of a change in the Arab League’s position was optimistic and premature. The Arab League has not altered its stance, and the Qatari prime minister’s declaration does not take a different line from those already adopted by institutions of the league. His words reveal that the thrust of the delegation’s visit was basically tactical, aimed at putting the ball back in Israel’s court, pushing Israel into a corner, and preparing the ground for independent political steps by the league in the UN arena if there is no response to the Arab demands.

The border between the future state of Palestine and Israel is one of the central issues between the two sides. The root of the conflict, however, is the refugee problem, and on that issue there has been no change in the Palestinian position or in that of the Arabs, who fully back their line.

In both the Palestinian and Arab view, the Arab Initiative does not entail any concession on the right of return. It says that the Palestinian refugee problem will be solved according to Resolution 194, which means implementing the right of return as the Palestinians conceive of it. 

The rebellions of the Arab Spring/Islamic winter have not made the Arab League more moderate on the political level or in its attitude toward Israel, but rather the opposite. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent movement of Hamas, distances any possibility of political flexibility.

Moreover, the Arab League and its member states do not see themselves as competent and authorized to make decisions on the Palestinians’ behalf. Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah (which also, as noted, upholds the right of return) no longer represents all of the Palestinian people, and certainly cannot make a decision in its name on conceding the right of return.

In sum, the statement of the Qatari prime minister was much needed by the U.S. administration, which in these difficult times of Islamic revolts is looking for a peg, however artificial, on which to hang diplomatic activity that gives an impression of advancing the peace process. Otherwise there is no political significance to the statement that would signal a shift in the stance of the Arab League – the same body that has repeatedly failed to resolve crises within the Arab world including the bloody civil war in Syria.

Notes

1. http://www.alquds.com/news/article/view/id/434335
2. http://www.raya.com/news/pages/73531b1a-3809-4c1e-897f-f99a6893df94

See this article on the JCPA site at An Improved Arab Peace Initiative?.

• 17 April 2013 – Firing of two Grad missiles at Eilat from Sinai.

• 3 April 2013 – Firing six missiles at Sderot from Gaza.

• 2 April 2013 – Firing three missiles at the Kissufim military base and two missiles at the Nir Oz community from Gaza.

• 21 March 2013 (during President Obama’s visit to Israel) – Firing a number of missiles at Sderot from Gaza.

The Shura Council is ideologically identified with al-Qaeda, including its goals and forms of activity, and the organization views “political Islam,” as represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, as a deviation from the path of proper Islam.

Relations between the Hamas regime in Gaza and this extreme Salafi organization have had their ups and downs over the past six years since Hamas seized control in Gaza. The Shura Council, like other Palestinian terror organizations ideologically identified with al-Qaeda,  has not been outlawed. But when the organization’s activities have harmed the interests of the Hamas regime or challenged its rule, Hamas has cracked down with violent suppression, arrests, and torture.

Hamas’ current strategy focuses on strengthening the status of the government in Gaza as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, on opening channels of dialogue with European states, on fortifying Hamas’ rule including from an economic standpoint, and on building up its military capabilities for the day of reckoning in the near future.

Hamas’ policy on terror from Gaza is subordinate, then, to certain considerations, including: keeping terror from Gaza on a low flame for the time being (so long as there is no direct, frontal clash with Israel), using other organizations as surrogates for terror, using Hamas forces for belligerent acts only within the territory of Gaza, and imposing – violently when necessary – the rules of the game on all organizations operating in Gaza.

The Shura Council totally dismisses the Hamas regime’s “political” considerations in implementing its jihad policy. Aware, though, of the regime’s power with its base in the Al-Qassem Brigades, the council strives to play by the rules while sometimes testing the limits with acts that create tension with Hamas.

The Arab Spring – or more accurately, Islamic winter – that has swept the Middle East has bolstered the status of the Hamas government, which is getting support and aid from the new regimes brought to power by the popular revolutions that were led by the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent movement of Hamas.

Along with the rise of the Brotherhood, however, the power of the Salafi Islamist organizations has also grown, giving them a sense of a historic moment of opportunity in which the Islamic Revolution in its al-Qaeda version can be advanced on the way to reestablishing the Islamic Caliphate.

This sense of power, which is also drawn from the successes of Jahbat al-Nusra, the Syrian rebel organization identified with al-Qaeda, and other Islamic rebel organizations in Syria, has led the Shura Council in Gaza to consider ways of extending its activities in the realm of jihad and further winning sympathy among the Palestinian population.

Sheikh Abu Bilal al-Shami, a member of the Sharia Committee of the Shura Council, recently published a document that presents the organization’s current strategy, which is attuned to the new circumstances and opportunities facing Salafi Islam in the wake of the Islamic revolts.

An analysis of the document reveals the following main features of the Shura Council’s policy:

• To regard the Hamas regime as a rival and enemy that seeks to undermine the jihad out of foreign and invalid considerations.

• To seek an uncompromising struggle against democracy (including the Hamas version), nationalism, communism, and Shiism.

• To exploit the atmosphere in the new Middle East to provoke the masses in Gaza and the neighboring countries to support the path of “jihadi Salafism,” and to demand that Hamas stop persecuting its activists on the pretext of maintaining the truce with Israel.

• To opening additional jihad fronts against Israel from the territory of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt based on the new circumstances, geographic features, and populations.

• To escalate jihad activities in every way, whether through missile firings, suicide attacks, electronic warfare, and the like, with no connection to the policy of Hamas.

• To damage Israel’s economy both through military attacks and cyber attacks.

• To strengthen the links between the mujahideen in Gaza and those active in other parts of the world so as to create worldwide jihad organizations

• To try to persuade the Islamic actors to support and financially assist the Salafi jihadi elements instead of Hamas

• To unify all the mujahideen forces in Gaza under the aegis of the Shura Council.

• To develop a dawa (proselytizing) capability and adopting a pro-jihad dawa program in Gaza aimed at inculcating the Salafi ideological platform among the society as a source of strength for the organization.

• To try to get Hamas activists to desert to “jihadi Salafism,” with an emphasis on the duty of the Muslim to be loyal to Allah alone, and portraying loyalty to a party as a form of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance).

See this article on the JCPA site at Al-Qaeda’s Branch in Gaza Set to Escalate Anti-Israeli Terror.

The preamble to the agreement,¹ in fact an integral part of it, sets forth the historical and legal background that bestows responsibility for the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Jerusalem holy places on King Abdullah II. This is based on the claim that the monarch is a scion of the family of the Prophet Muhammad and descendant of King Al-Hussein bin Ali, who received this responsibility in 1924.

The preamble also underlines the PLO’s status as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and sovereignty over the territory that includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque.         

According to the agreement, King Abdullah II will continue to function as “Servant of the Holy Places in Jerusalem,” a title similar to that of the Saudi monarch, who is called the “Servant of the Two Holy Places” in the Arabian Peninsula.

The agreement defines the Jordanian role as: maintaining the honor of the Jerusalem holy places, ensuring freedom of access to the holy places of Islam, administering and safeguarding the holy places of Islam, representing the interests related to the holy places in international forums, and supervising the Wakf (religious trust) and its properties in accordance with Jordanian law.

Abbas explained that the agreement signed with King Abdullah is actually a direct extension of the agreement that was signed with his father, King Hussein, after Jordan’s decision to disengage from the West Bank in 1988.

Abbas stated: “When the late King Hussein bin Talal announced the disengagement in 1988, we talked with him about this issue and how to deal with it, and we arrived at an agreement that the responsibility for the Islamic sacred properties would be in Jordan’s hands, and that is how it was originally, and that Jordan would continue to carry its responsibility, and so it has done until today.”  He added: “We and Jordan are coordinating our positions on the holy places, and yesterday’s [March 31] agreement is actually a renewal of what existed in 1987, and according to it the sovereignty over all the Palestinian land belongs to us, and on that matter there is no debate.” ²

In truth, back in 1988 King Hussein only severed the administrative and legal links with the West Bank.  He did not renounce the Hashemite claim to the territory.  Significantly, the 1950 Act of Union between the two banks was not repealed.³  But these issues did not come up in the statements made by the two parties in 2013.

The need to renew the Jordanian-PA agreement arose in November 2012 when the UN General Assembly recognized Palestine as a nonmember state. The Palestinian Authority believes it has won international recognition of its claim to sovereignty over the entire West Bank within the 1967 borders including East Jerusalem, the Old City, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

The General Assembly resolution therefore made it necessary to reconfirm Jordan’s special role in the territory of the “Palestinian state.” The Jordanian king has a great interest in retaining the title of “Guardian of the Holy Places,” which gives him a status and influence that are also important domestically. The Palestinian Authority, for its part, obtained renewed recognition of the sole right to represent the Palestinian people that is entrusted to the PLO, while making clear that the Jordanian role does not contravene its claim to sovereignty over all of the West Bank without any exceptions.

The agreement in no way changes the status quo in Jerusalem.  Jordan will keep paying the salaries of the Wakf employees, and the king will hold the title of “Guardian of the Holy Places.” Control of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, however, is actually in the hands of allies of the Palestinian Authority who are identified with Hamas; Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose activists maintain a regular presence at Al-Aqsa; and the Israeli Islamic Movement.

For now the two sides prefer to keep things as they are and are not interested in opening up fateful issues. Hence the Palestinians are careful to avoid raising the question of the Palestinians residing in Jordan, deferring the issue to the stage after a Palestinian state is established.

Similarly, even after the General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a nonmember state, the “state of Palestine” is not demanding that Israel give it control of the border passages to Jordan as part of implementing its sovereignty; instead it is focusing on the issue of its border with Israel and the demand that all settlements be dismantled.

Jordan, for its part, faces no less of a Palestinian problem than Israel. Palestinians form a significant demographic factor in Jordan and in the very heart of the kingdom, in Amman the capital and the city of Zarqa, that majority is overwhelming. The Arab-Islamic Spring that has swept the Middle East set off shock waves in the Hashemite kingdom, and the Jordanian monarch is well aware that the Palestinian leadership holds the key to the stability of his rule, and that the fear of Jordan becoming the “alternative homeland” is all that is deferring the decision to launch a frontal clash with his government.    

As far as Israel is concerned, from a political or practical standpoint the Jordanian-Palestinian arrangement neither adds nor detracts. Israel has an interest in preserving the stability of the Hashemite kingdom, which is terrified of what could happen the day after Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank becomes a reality. The uncompromising positions of the Palestinian leadership (Palestinian “justice,” no to a “compromise”) compels both Israel and Jordan to opt for crisis management, aimed at maintaining maximal security under the current circumstances while being prepared for political scenarios that could fundamentally alter the power equation and even the map.

Notes

1. http://wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&id=151002
2. http://wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&id=151026
3. Avi Shlaim, Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (New York: Knopf, 2008), p. 471.

See this article on the JCPA site at The Agreement on Jerusalem between the Palestinian Authority and Jordan: Initial Implications.

Hizbullah was established in 1982, immediately after the First Lebanon War. More than 5,000 operatives of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps settled in the area of Baalbek, Lebanon, under the maxim “to fight until Allah’s final victory.” Their ideology was clear: the Islamic Revolution must rule the entire Middle East; it must overthrow the Arab monarchies and drive the Zionists out of all of Palestine including Jerusalem.

To achieve its goals, Hizbullah employed terror and threats against Western, Israeli, and Jewish targets. Since 1983, the Shiite organization has carried out dozens of attacks and suicide missions throughout the world.

Among the most notable were: a suicide attack on April 8, 1983, when a car exploded just outside the U.S. embassy in Beirut; 61were killed and 120 wounded. On October 23, 1983, two cars exploded at a base for French and American soldiers in Beirut; 239 U.S. marines and 74 French paratroopers were killed and numerous others wounded. On March 17, 1992, in an explosion at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, 29 were killed and over 200 wounded. Two years later, again in the Argentine capital, another explosion at the Jewish community center killed 85 and wounded over a hundred. The assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and finally also the murderous attack on a busload of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, also came from the Hizbullah production line.

In recent years Hizbullah has planned other attacks as well, but thanks to the vigilance of the intelligence community, the attempts failed.

That is only a partial list. Yet the European countries, including France, still refuse to define Hizbullah as a terrorist organization. How can this be reconciled with common sense and the facts on the ground? All the legal or political issues that the Europeans have raised are just excuses. For over three decades Hizbullah has been operating as a terrorist organization in the full sense of the term; yet Europe is silent. The United States, Canada, Australia, and Israel, for their part, state the truth unequivocally. The Netherlands acts independently and takes the same position, thereby distinguishing itself from the other 26 EU countries; Britain only defines the “military wing” of Hizbullah as a terrorist body.

In February 2005, in the wake of the Hariri assassination, the European Parliament passed a resolution declaring that “clear evidence exists of terrorist activities on the part of Hizbullah.” Yet, even after the Burgas attack, France rejected an Israeli request and refused to vote in the European Parliament on a resolution defining Hizbullah as a terrorist organization.

The European Union, then, remains divided on an issue so serious and existential, and what is absurd is that meanwhile France is fighting terrorist organizations in Mali very far from its own soil. How is it that Europe still prevaricates and cannot call the phenomenon – which goes by the clear-cut name of “Lebanese Shiite Hizbullah” and is funded and supported by Iran – a terrorist organization? Why need there be a distinction between the political wing and the military wing? Is it not the same organization, with the same military headquarters? How can Europe ignore the chaos in Syria, where thousands of Iranian militiamen are propping up the Assad regime and may draw near to Israel’s borders? Has Europe’s passive stance succeeded to decrease the attacks by the Shiite terrorists? Has the European Union prevented the taking of hostages? Has it put a brake on the Islamic revolutions emerging from the “Arab Spring”? Has it been able to preserve the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon? Have the UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon fulfilled their role – as they allow weapons and missiles to be smuggled under their noses into the Shiite villages?

Europe must rise from its slumber, change course, and take a courageous and sober decision free of worn-out ideological tenets. It must prohibit Hizbullah and impose sanctions on it, freeze its assets in European banks, and prevent any funding of terror. If Europe continues to dawdle, it will become a center of international terror, of blind and murderous religious terror under the command and control of the “Party of Allah.”

See this article on the JCPA site at Will Europe Define Hizbullah as a Terrorist Organization?.

The strengthening of the terrorist organizations is a direct result of the Arab Spring and has worrisome implications for Israel. Global-jihad gangs, along with quantities of weapons and missiles, are flowing into the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza.

Paris is very worried about the presence of Islamist and Salafist groups within France’s Muslim community, which is believed to number more than six million people. This heightened presence encourages the Islamization of native French and even their participation in terror attacks. Mohamed Merah, who murdered three French soldiers and carried out the massacre at the Jewish school in Toulouse, has become a symbol and a hero among Muslim youth.

Socialist France, which decided to bring back its soldiers from Afghanistan, is now determined to continue its military intervention in Mali. It is, however, likely to get bogged down for a long time in the reaches of the Sahara. France is also very worried about terror attacks on French targets abroad and at home, including attacks on institutions of the Jewish community.

France shrinks from stating the names of the global-jihad terror organizations and instead uses the general term “terror.” That term is taken, among other things, from the Russian anti-Chechen lexicon. France, which previously failed to free an intelligence agent in Somalia, also declined to get its military entangled in the hostage crisis at the gas field in Algeria. Instead, France encouraged the independent operation by the Algerian army, which ended in a bloodbath and the brutal killing of dozen of foreign hostages. 

Israel has been warning for a decade about the strengthening of radical Islam, that is, Al-Qaeda, in North Africa. The Western countries, including the United States and France, did not relate seriously to the threat. Even after the September 11 attack, the War on Terror focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. With the outbreak of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and the collapse of the regimes in Egypt and Libya, the anarchy prevailing in these countries allowed Islamic groups to raise their heads and consolidate around the bloody struggle against the West and the regimes it supports. Sunnis and Shiites set the stage for terrorist operations, with the aim of putting global-jihad policy in action.

In March 2003, France staunchly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and last December France brought back all its soldiers from Afghanistan. President Hollande’s decision to send a military force to Mali was taken in complete surprise and haste after a very real danger emerged that radical Islamic groups would take over the country and conquer its capital city, Bamako. Initially France sent 750 soldiers, but then quickly realized that the campaign would be complex and difficult. Today there are 2,500 French soldiers in Mali along with supplementary forces from African countries. European states support the French involvement in principle but are still reluctant to take part in the fighting, and instead have sent only logistical assistance.

Also struggling over control of Mali are the Tuareg, a Berber ethnic group numbering about eight hundred thousand that has striven for decades for the independence of their region in west-central Mali. Gaddafi supported the Tuareg and gave them both financial and military assistance. France is fighting against both Tuareg national aspirations and radical Islamic groups.

Mali is a huge and strategic country that borders seven other African countries. It attained independence in 1960. France still has important economic interests there including raw materials such as oil, gold, and uranium. 

Hollande is indeed acting according to the doctrine that any military intervention in Africa should be based first and foremost on economic interests and raw materials. The socialist president of France thereby continues the tradition of his predecessors, and fifty years after the end of the colonial era his country still is not free of obligations to francophone colonies (Lebanon, the Maghreb, and black Africa) and energetically extends them patronage in the form of military, economic, and cultural assistance. In the past France has intervened militarily in Zaire, Chad, and Ivory Coast.

France also has permanent military bases in Djibouti (located in the Horn of Africa), Gabon, Senegal, and in Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf. Its battleships and coast guard vessels also patrol the region to prevent kidnappings and attacks. Some ten thousand French soldiers and instructors are also helping train local regimes and armies. About a quarter-million French subjects currently live in Africa, and France’s annual imports from the continent are estimated at twenty billion euros.

It should be noted, then, that France conducts a hypocritical policy toward Palestinian terror and continues to define it as a legitimate struggle for the “liberation of an occupied people.” Thus Paris, practicing a double standard of morality, condemns Israel’s retaliatory acts against Hamas or Hizbullah, but sees fit to act against terrorists thousands of kilometers from its own territory. One should, of course, commend France’s determined fight against global terror. But the time has come for sober internalization of the fact that the Islamic terrorists in Mali and the terrorists in Gaza, Sinai, or Lebanon belong to the same family and must be fought and eradicated together.

See this article on the JCPA site at France at War against Global Jihad.

Since its very first days, Israel has been surrounded by authoritarian regimes where there is no freedom of speech, no personal freedom, or freedom of any kind. The citizens of the surrounding countries live in a world where many things are forbidden, where they must guess what is acceptable and suitable in order to survive. Instead of speaking their mind, they let their rulers hear what they want to hear and kept the truth to themselves, deep inside.

In the years following the end of Western colonialism, the Arab world was divided into monarchies and dictatorial regimes based on sectarian divisions, with the sole exception of Lebanon as a sectarian republic. In a later phase, the Arab world lost some of its monarchies to military juntas and dictatorships that further deepened the sense of lack of individual freedoms. This process did not spare other Arab regimes where military rebellions alternated with civilian regimes.

In any case, the result was the same: the core of the Arab world was ruled by the military, whereas the rest were ruled by hereditary monarchies supposedly chosen by Allah. In either option, the concept of Western democracy was never implemented since it could never be accepted by Arab rulers and was a concept foreign to Islamic tradition. The closest concept to Western democracy in Islam is the Shura institution, which is a sort of advisory board with no real powers, since authority is vested in the ruler himself. The adoption of Western institutions such as parliaments only mimicked the West, while in fact the authority and power to decide remained in the hands of the ruling junta.

In this reality, where opponents find themselves jailed for years without trial; where opposition groups are persecuted, tortured to death, and eliminated with no trace by the ruling authorities; where minorities suffer from blatant discrimination and their political rights are ignored, denied, or put aside and their leaders imprisoned with no reason; where the press is the mere reflection of the deeds of the ruling class and serves mainly to magnify its role; where human rights are insignificant; where citizens are punished by flogging if caught not worshiping Allah during the times of prayer; where more than 10 percent of the population is part of the internal security apparatus; where Shari’a rule calls for amputations, beheading, or throwing the accused from the highest tower in town; where adultery or being gay is condemned by capital punishment either by hanging or stoning; and where women have to undergo a “virginity test” performed by male military doctors just because they took part in a popular demonstration –  there is no room for democracy. The only option for the opposition is to rebel and to take over the reins of power from the ruling junta and continue the same political language as before, because it has been so for years, decades, centuries.

Two years after the outburst of what was naively called the “Arab Spring” by romantics and wishful thinkers who thought the Arab world was about to witness a new era of liberty and democracy, one can only be disappointed by the realities on the ground:

• Tunisia is ruled by a coalition led by an Islamist who, if he could, would apply Islamic law in the country. His main opposition is the Salafists who seek an even stricter approach to Islam.

• Libya was not the scene of a revolution. Rather this was a rebellion of the eastern provinces against the authority of Gaddafi. A year later, Libya has almost disintegrated as a state, is ruled by Islamic militias, and is far from being a democracy.

• Egypt has replaced the dictatorship of President Mubarak with the dictatorship of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi who, unlike his predecessor who inherited a military regime established in 1952, appropriated most of the executive powers less than six months after his election. Almost 50 percent of Egyptians voted against him, but lost to the Islamic majority. The losing Egyptians are fighting today to preserve some of their rights, while democracy is not around the corner.

•  In Syria, the Alawite dictatorship is fighting for survival and is likely to fade away in the near future. Still, one can assess with some degree of certainty that its successors will not be advocates of democracy, since most of the fighting is carried out by fundamentalists pushed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Most probably, as in the Egyptian case, the Islamists, being better organized, will succeed in hijacking the rebellion and install themselves as the next rulers of Syria.

•  Iraq, after the withdrawal of American forces, has not turned into a flamboyant democracy. The ruling Shiites are being harassed by al-Qaeda, whose main aim is to re-establish Sunni supremacy in Iraq, as it was during the days of Saddam Hussein. None of the combatants are raising the flag of democracy.

• In Yemen, the departed Ali Saleh was not succeeded by a democrat. In fact, his deputy is maintaining the same tribal policy as his predecessor, with the slight difference that he is now succeeding in quelling the rebellion of the Shiite tribes in the north and the other rebellious tribes in Sanaa.

• Being far from the limelight, Bahrain enjoys the fact that the international press is not focused on its politics. Still, the ruling Sunni minority has trespassed every limit of democracy. Its brutal treatment of the opposition and its questionable behavior while quelling the manifestations of the Shiite opposition cannot be accepted in any measure as a legitimate means to protect democracy, since it is nonexistent in the kingdom. The Bahraini monarch asked his Saudi and Emirates neighbors to send troops in order to preserve his regime. Fortunately for the king, Bahrain is the home of the American Fifth Fleet and, as such, has enjoyed a softer approach from the Obama administration, which quite rightly is not interested in alienating an ally facing Iran, the most bitter enemy of the U.S.

• Saudi Arabia has always been ruled according to Islamic law. Democracy is foreign to its institutions and its political thinking and is not on the agenda of the Wahhabi king. His brutal behavior against the Shiites in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia facing Iran is only a reminder of what sort of democracy the Saudis have in mind when they deal with opposition. Amazingly, it is Saudi as well as Qatari money that fuels some of the revolts in the Arab world.  Specifically, this money serves to finance the Salafists and other Islamic groups around the Arab world in their quest to topple “heretic” regimes.

Almost two years after the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” the Arab world is more divided than ever. Most of the regimes that witnessed this blossoming “spring” have imploded or are on the verge of implosion. The disintegration of Libya, instead of creating a democracy, has created a situation where weapons from the Libyan arsenal have enabled the Tuaregs and their allies to cut Mali in two. Libyan weapons have also reached Hamas in Gaza and the rebels in Syria. North Mali (or Azawad as it is called today) under the Islamists has become a haven for Islamic terrorism led by al-Qaeda and a regional threat to the integrity of the countries of the Sahel. The forthcoming disintegration of Syria, far from bringing democracy, carries with it a potential existential threat to Israel (if Syria’s huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons fall into the hands of Islamists) and to its neighbors, specifically Lebanon and Jordan.

The “Arab Spring” has proven beyond any doubt that the Arab world is far from ready to accept the concept of democracy. The effort spent to marry democracy and Islam has not borne fruit at all and it is still an open question whether such a scenario can be envisaged in the future.

Professing democracy in the Arab world is a futile exercise in today’s reality. Too many crimes have been committed under the banner of democracy, while respecting human rights has proved to be a formidable challenge.

See this article on the JCPA site at Two Years of the Arab Spring: Reflections about Democracy in the Arab World.

2. Israel, as administering power pending a negotiated final determination as to the fate of the territory, nevertheless chose to implement the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva convention and other norms of international humanitarian law in order to ensure the basic day-to-day rights of the local population as well as Israel’s own rights to protect its forces and to utilize those parts of land that were not under local private ownership.

3. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibiting the mass transfer of population into occupied territory as practiced by Germany during the second world war, was neither relevant nor was ever intended to apply to Israelis choosing to reside in Judea and Samaria.

4. Accordingly, claims by the UN, European capitals, organizations and individuals that Israeli settlement activity is in violation of international law therefore have no legal basis whatsoever.

5. Similarly, the oft-used term “occupied Palestinian territories” is totally inaccurate and false. The territories are neither occupied nor Palestinian. No legal instrument has ever determined that the Palestinians have sovereignty or that the territories belong to them

6. The territories of Judea and Samaria remain in dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, subject only to the outcome of permanent status negotiations between them.

7. The legality of the presence of Israel’s communities in the area stems from the historic, indigenous and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question.

8. The Palestinian leadership, in the still valid 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo 2), agreed to, and accepted Israel’s continued presence in Judea and Samaria pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations, without any restriction on either side regarding planning, zoning or construction of homes and communities. Hence, claims that Israel’s presence in the area is illegal have no basis.

9. The Palestinian leadership undertook in the Oslo Accords, to settle all outstanding issues, including borders, settlements, security, Jerusalem and refugees, by negotiation only and not through unilateral measures. The Palestinian call for a freeze on settlement activity as a precondition for returning to negotiation is a violation of the agreements.

10. Any attempt, through the UN or otherwise, to unilaterally change the status of the territory would violate Palestinian commitments set out in the Oslo Accords and prejudice the integrity and continued validity of the various agreements with Israel, thereby opening up the situation to possible reciprocal unilateral action by Israel.

See this article on the JCPA site at The Legal Basis of Israel’s Rights in the Disputed Territories.

Based on events on the ground, one can safely state that the Syrian regime is steadily losing ground to rebel forces, since as much as 60 to 70 percent of the territory has fallen into their hands.

Yet, while rebel forces have seized parts of Aleppo and are fighting on the outskirts of Damascus, even cutting, at times, the main road to the city’s international airport, most of the main bastions of the Syrian regime, including the bulk of the big cities, are still in Assad’s hands. The Syrian army is still fighting like a united force and the main institutions of the regime are still functioning. Objectively speaking, even though there have been defections from the Syrian ruling elite, the main corps of the body politic is still loyal to Assad and is aligned behind him.

Assad’s military and security establishment suffered a significant blow when five of its top military and security brass were killed in an explosion inside what should have been one of the most protected offices in the country. However, Assad’s swift reaction in appointing their successors and his resolve to continue the war against the rebellion have proved that the Syrian regime still has sizeable strength which has not yet been subdued.

In other words, the battle is yet to be won by the rebels, though Assad does not seem to have enough forces to quell the rebellion against his regime.

Syrian Vice President: Regime Cannot Defeat Rebels

At this point a sort of balance has been established between the two fighting camps. Vice President Faruq al-Sharaa, a former foreign minister, recently admitted that the war against the rebel forces cannot be won and a negotiated solution should be sought. 

Yet President Bashar Assad’s inner circle, led by his brother, Maher, commander of the Syrian Army’s Fourth Division, along with some of the Alawite elites, strongly believe that the regime should keep on fighting. Among the senior Alawite officers there is an understanding that if Assad goes, there will be a bloodbath against the Alawites. This group is pressing Assad to fight on.

This stalemate can be overcome only if some new element is injected on the ground, such as intervention by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards or new fighting legions from Hizbullah. Was Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah hinting at this possibility in his recent declaration that one may be surprised by the outcome of the war in Syria?

Another element of change could be the dramatic introduction of new weaponry against rebel concentrations (such as incendiary ammunition like phosphorous artillery in lieu of chemical weapons) and changes in the choice of targets. While the rebels have chosen to attack military installations, Assad forces have chosen to strike at civilian concentrations with deadly weapons (Scud missiles) and employ heavy aerial bombardment (on the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus).

On the rebel side, the change could occur if the rebels receive upgraded weaponry in addition to intelligence assistance from the U.S., UK and France. Perhaps a detachment of expeditionary Arab forces (such as Qatar sent to Libya) may arrive when the rebels achieve greater control of the territory in their hands. There could be active intervention by Turkish forces in the Alexandretta area bordering Turkey on the Mediterranean. Or Moscow could have a sudden change of heart towards the Assad regime, parallel to a massive departure of Russian military personnel from Syria. Perhaps the rebels will succeed in killing Bashar Assad himself.

Why Assad Survives

But before burying the Assad regime and prophesizing that it is only a matter of days or weeks before Assad disappears, it is essential to understand the reasons for his survival until now:

Forty years of Alawite dominance in Syrian politics have created strong bonds and coalitions between the Alawite ruling elite and political forces which see their fate linked to the demise of Assad, such as the Christian, Druze, and Assyrian minorities as well as some Sunnite elites. Since the beginning of the civil war there have been almost no defections from these groups.

The Alawite community is well aware that it is fighting not only for political supremacy, but mainly for its very survival. The community is fully conscious that if the regime crumbles and a Sunni-led coalition takes the reins of power, much of the Alawite community may be in physical danger. This is why at this point the Alawites cannot compromise. They see no other choice but to fight to the death. One possibility is to entrench regime supporters in the Alawite enclave in the northwest along the Mediterranean coast, bordering Turkey in the north and Lebanon in the south. In this area the Alawites could try to survive in the new political environment, which could mean a continuation of the war.

Working in favor of the regime’s survival are the divisions within the opposition.  The Syrian National Council (SNC), headed at first by Burhan Ghalioun and later by the Christian George Sabra, never had real roots in Syria. Most of its members have lived outside Syria for decades and they do not appeal to the public as the real opposition. It took the American administration more than a year to bring a change in this representation when at the end of November 2012 the National Coalition came into being, headed by Moaz al-Khatib, a former geologist and imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The National Coalition was immediately recognized by France, the UK, the Gulf states, and the U.S. However, this structure is purely political.

While it is supposed to coordinate the fighting factions under the Free Syrian Army (FSA), in fact the National Coalition is for the time being more of an administrative body than a ruling one. Unlike the FSA, which is currently headquartered in Idlib inside sovereign Syrian territory, the National Coalition is headquartered in Cairo, which affects its independent identity. The complexity of the situation is further amplified by the presence of major Islamic forces in the coalition. The SNC is dominated by the Muslim Brothers, who hijacked the rebellions in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. While recognizing the National Coalition as the only legitimate representative of the Syrian people, Washington has listed Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the main components of the armed opposition to Assad, as a terrorist group with al-Qaeda connections.

The rebel Free Syrian Army has been the spearhead of the rebellion since the beginning. Even though it is headed by a “secular” officer, Colonel Riad al-Ass’ad, its main contingent is jihadist. As much as two-thirds of its forces are considered to be Islamic jihadists who are striving to establish an Islamic state in Syria. During the fighting in Homs, Walid al-Boustani proclaimed himself as the Emir of Homs and undertook ethnic cleansing by deporting more than 10,000 Christians who lived in the city, before being killed by “secular” elements of the FSA.

FSA leaders have long been critical of the “comfortable involvement” of the political leadership far from the battlefield. In fact, no real agreement exists between the two arms of the Syrian rebellion as to who will lead in case Assad steps down or disappears from the scene. The FSA will probably claim to lead the country and align it according to Islamic rules. Until this happens, the FSA is continuing to suffer from a lack of organization and weapons, and behaves as a guerilla force. Even though it is organized in brigades, most of them count no more than 300 combatants, which is the largest field formation they have succeeded in deploying on the ground. In every encounter with the regular forces loyal to Assad, the FSA has suffered defeat with high casualties.

In order not to overtax its resources, the Syrian army has chosen to abandon a large part of the country, leaving it to the FSA. However, the main cities still remain in the hands of the regime, and the loyalist Syrian army has foiled every attempt to gain control of them. In fact, as long as the FSA remains unable to confront the army and win the urban war, the situation will not dramatically change in favor of the rebels.

Since the beginning of the conflict, support of the Assad regime by Russia and China has served as an active shield against all attempts by the West to force a political solution on Syria through a decision by the UN Security Council, similar to the ones in Kosovo, Libya, and Afghanistan. It is clear that without a change in the Russian attitude, the ability of the West to impose a military solution will be limited, and this helps to extend the fragile life of the Assad regime. The creation of “save havens” protected by a no-fly zone will certainly help the FSA to organize and better wage its war against the loyalists. Still, this will not be enough to topple the Assad regime.

Iran and Hizbullah have been providing the Syrian regime with assistance to quell the rebellion. Iran has mainly provided intelligence tools and equipment, while Hizbullah has sent its troops into Syrian territory in the Homs area, opposite northeastern Lebanon. No doubt these two allies understand that the Tehran-Syria-Hizbullah axis is at stake, and they are doing everything in their power to maintain Assad’s position. If the situation worsens, we may see expeditionary forces from both Iran and Lebanon pour into Syria to fight alongside the loyalists against the rebel forces.

Finally, neither the West nor Israel is looking for another Libya in the Middle East. Given the political weakness of the opposition, the possible disintegration of the Syrian regime into a group of small “emirates,” or its transformation into a new, Iranian-style, extreme Sunni dictatorship, are options that cast a shadow on the future. Until a more attractive alternative is created, the Assad regime will continue to look to many Syrians as the lesser evil in an impossible situation.

A change in the Syrian regime will result in a shock wave which could create a new alignment of forces in the Middle East. Russia, the West, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, and even the Palestinians will be on the receiving end of this shock wave. Some of these parties will have to cope with problems of severe instability (Lebanon and Jordan) that could endanger their political unity. Some will have to deal with new political entities that may arise in the aftermath of the death of the Alawite regime (Turkey and Iran will face new calls for a Kurdistan). Some will look for new anchors in the area (Russia) and some (Israel and the U.S.) will have to face the uncertainties of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of irresponsible extremist Islamic elements and other illegitimate offshoots of the Syrian civil war.

*     *     *

Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.

See this article on the JCPA site at Syria: Has the Assad Regime Reached the Terminal Phase?.