Dogfights

Israeli fighter jets

In chapter three of her book The Israelis, Donna Rosenthal presents the Israeli Armed Forces and their interaction with the society. Their crucial role in the establishment of an independent Israeli State among hostile countries in the Middle East and their spectacular victories against vastly superior numerically enemies have won the respect of enemies and friends. Rosenthal provides a few examples of the achievements of the Israeli Air Force that support her position. Some of these examples are established facts, like the destruction of the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian Air Forces in the 1967 War or the air raid against the nuclear facility of Osirak in Iraq. On the other hand, disputed events are also presented as facts. One of those that caught my attention was the spectacular results of a joint air combat training between Israeli and US pilots. According to Rosenthal, the former "shot down" in war games 220 American fighters while they lost just 20. Considering that the US Air Force has the most sophisticated jet fighters in the world and an impressive war record, I thought I had to investigate the validity of Rosenthal’s claim.

For sure, it is challenging to find information related to results of joint military exercises. An internet search to find official results of joint exercises between the US and any of its allies revealed nothing. For example, even though the Nellis Air Base organizes the famous "Red-Flag" air combat exercise that gathers annually pilots from all over the world, its site does not publish the results. On the other hand, there is plenty of information from questionable sources related to exercises where Canadians, Australians, Israeli and other allies "taught a lesson to the arrogant Americans." In the end, the most reliable source I could find was a book by the MIT Press (a respectable publishing company) titled Lessons not Learned. In this book, one can read about the joint Israeli-American exercise mentioned by Rosenthal. The problem is that this piece of information came from Jerusalem Post. In general, it seems that since there are no official results, newspapers in Israel and other allied countries interview members of their military to get feedback about the results of these joint exercises. Considering the competitive nature of pilots all over the world, there is a problem of reliability when they leak information to their national press about their achievements in international exercises.

The reliability issue of joint training results is more complex in the absence of details and the context of these joint exercises. For example, it is not uncommon to have certain exercises designed to test air crews on specific situations under unfavorable conditions. The subject may be too technical for the average reader, but I hope the following example will make things clear. An article from ABC News describes how the American F-22 Raptor, the most expensive and advanced jet fighter in history, could be easily matched by the less sophisticated and cheaper Eurofighter flown by German pilots. However, it is obvious from the interview given by the German pilot (assuming it is accurate) that the Eurofighter can only match the Raptor in close range combat (dogfight). On the other hand, the Eurofighter is almost helpless against the American jet during long-range air combat. Still, since a certain part of the exercise was designed to test the "dogfighting" skills of the American and German pilots, it gave the latter the chance to engage their competitors in close range, where the smaller Eurofighter could outmaneuver the heavier American Raptor. However, in an actual combat situation it is doubtful if the European fighter would have the chance to close the distance and engage the American jet in tight maneuvers.

 In a similar type of reasoning, some (unidentified) individuals argued that the Israeli simply counted only the results of the close range combat where they had an "unfair advantage" and an unidentified US Navy spokesman called the Israeli victory "meaningless." Others, including the American Navy Inspector general argued that the US Navy was in bad shape. In all cases, the pieces of information come from newspaper articles. So, overall there is simply insufficient evidence to accept Rosenthal’s claim that Israeli pilots beat their American allies by 220 to 20 score-kills. Still, this does not change the general picture based on proven facts that the Israeli Air Force is among the best in the world.

Gays

In her book , The  Israelis, Donna Rosenthal gives us her perspective about the life of gays in Israel. According to her book, Israel has very progressive laws that protect the rights of gays, transsexuals and lesbians. For example, gay couples are eligible to spousal benefits, and gay officers serve in the Israeli Defense Force (Rosenthal, 371). The author contrasts this attitude to that of the Arab-Muslim culture where gays have no rights and they often have to face death threats from their surroundings (Rosenthal, 376) . Of course, Rosenthal reveals also the hostility of many Israelis towards the gay community. Orthodox Jews condemn homosexuality, and Russian Jews come from a communist regime that cultivated a culture of hostility towards homosexuals (Rosenthal, 377). Still, according to the author Israel is a far better place for an alternative lifestyle.

An internet research provides evidence that fit with Rosenthal’s vantage point. A Reuters article  mentions the case of a Palestinian gay from the West Bank who got a temporary permit to live with his lover in Israel. Usually, it takes years for a Palestinian to get this type of permit, but the death threats that the Palestinian gay faced in the West Bank were serious and his Israeli partner convinced the state to issue the permit fast. Of course, we have to be careful with these types of stories, because both lovers had an incentive to use whatever “evidence” they could find to facilitate the issuance of the permit.

Still, it is quite probable that a Palestinian gay actually faces a much more hostile environment in the Palestinian territories.  The BBC news  reports the escape of hundreds of Palestinian gays to Israel. It is even more interesting the fact that many of these Palestinian gays live in Israel illegally. According to the same article, many of those illegal Palestinian gays in Israel live practically under house arrest since the Israeli government treats them as suspects for suicide bombings. It is really difficult to imagine someone being willing to live under house arrest in Israel hoping to get a permit, unless there were really serious threats in the Palestinian territories . All these stories fit actually with different pieces of evidence we have about the Palestinian society. For example, traditional gender roles have not been challenged there to the degree they have been in western societies. Thus, it seems logical to expect that gays face harder challenges in the Palestinian territories.

More hard data come from two different sources. The first one comes from the Aswat group of Palestinian gay women living in Israel. The credibility of the site is enhanced by the fact that in one of their posts the group condemns the Israeli attacks on Gaza. So, it appears that the group is not controlled or influenced by the Israeli government. In addition, the Asia-Pacific Forum  (APF) seems to be a credible source of information and is cited in different academic papers (see for example page 175 of Professor Carole J. Petersen's paper.) According to page 107 of the APF's background paper, homosexual conduct is penalized in Gaza Strip. On the other hand, even though homosexuality is not a criminal offense in West Bank, there is no anti-discrimination law to protect the rights of gays and lesbians there. As a side note, we have to remember that even if anti-discrimination laws existed in theory, we could not assume that they were being enforced in practice.   

All the above do not mean that gays have an ideal life in Israel. For example, Haaretz reports the execution of two gays in a club in central Tel Aviv. The article does not clarify if the gunman was a Jew or a Palestinian, but in any case, the Israeli police announced that the murder was not linked to terrorism and was simply a hate crime. Again, this piece of information fits with Rosenthal’s book where she mentions the existence of many groups in Israel which hate the gay community. Still, it seems that these incidents are very rare. For example, the progressive (and presumably pro-gay) Haaretz mentioned in the same article that the shooting was the worst case of violence against the gay community in Israel up until then. So in conclusion, Israel seems to be a far better place for gays than the Palestinian territories and it seems Rosenthal gives a fair picture of the challenges the gay community faces in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

CHRISTIANS IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE

In her book The Israelis, Donna Rosenthal presents anecdotes, stories and interviews in an attempt to describe the everyday life of different demographic groups in Israel. In chapter fifteen, Rosenthal presents the Christians. The picture that emerges is that Christians often have to face the hostility and intolerance of the Muslim Arabs. We read for example that Muslims often threaten directly their Christian neighbors by saying that after Jews it is going to be the Christians’ turn and sometimes they even physically attack them or destroy their churches (Rosenthal, 320, 325). On the other hand, the author gives an idealistic view of the Jewish-Christian relationships. Wearing a big cross may be helpful for someone looking to rent an apartment from a Jewish landlord. Although Rosenthal concedes that innocent Palestinian Christians often face discrimination, she argues that this discrimination takes place because of their Palestinian identity and not the Christian one (Rosenthal, 321).

I believe that the reality is more complicated. One can easily find documentation and anecdotes that contradict Rosenthal’s view of the Christian-Jewish relationships. For example, an article in the  Jerusalem Post  reports the desecration of a Christian monastery by extremist right-wing Jews who reacted to the dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Jerusalem Post, of course, does not fail to add that other Jewish right-wing activists restored the damages and apologized to the monks. However, an article in the International Business Times reported that according to the Vatican senior official in Jerusalem, Friar Perbatistta  Pizzaballa, similar cases of desecrations of Christian churches with phrases in Hebrew like “Jesus was a monkey” are fairly common in Israel. In addition, Pizzaballa complained that the Israeli government is slow to prosecute the perpetrators. I think that Pizzaballa may actually have good reasons for his complaints considering the delicate political balance inside the Israeli coalition governments which often include parties from the extreme right. On the other hand, Pizzaballa's assertion about the Israeli government's  reaction to extremism is not a fact.

Other sources provide farther evidence of the tensions between Christians and extremist Jews. The Vatican Insider from the Italian mainstream newspaper La Stampa mentions an incident of a “violent attack” by young settlers against Christian apartments in Belfage. The article, however, does not clarify the nature of this attack and if it included physical violence. One may argue that the Vatican official and the newspaper act for the interests of the Pope and have a  heavily biased perspective. But still, it seems that both Jewish and Christian sources reveal a less idealistic picture of the Christian-Jewish relationships in Palestine. I believe that in the vast majority of cases, moderate believers respect the religion of their neighbors. Unfortunately, it is the few cases of extremists who with their actions dominate the news and sometimes even shape the general mode of behavior.

Rosenthal prefers to remain silent about the right-wing Jewish extremists. It seems that the presence of even more radical extremists in Arab countries somehow makes the Jewish extremists disappear. I believe she is wrong. Frankly, I am not even sure if Jewish right-wing extremists are really so different from the Palestinian ones. If the dismantlement of their settlements by their own government (who subsidized them to relocate) triggered these types of attacks, what would have been their reaction in a more adverse scenario?  What would have happened if their settlement had been dismantled by a Palestinian or Christian government forcing them to relocate without compensation and after losing all their wealth? How many then of those right-wing Jews would be tempted to copy the terrorist practices of the Palestinian extremists?

 If we really want to solve the problem of extremism, we must first have the intellectual courage to admit its existence in every place we find it. Today, religious minorities are not safe, even inside the most progressive societies in the world. This post was about the violence by Jewish extremists against the Christians in Israel because Rosenthal failed to mention it in her book. It goes without saying that even today Jews and their synagogues and cemeteries in Europe often become targets of extremists there. And as long as we continue to ignore “our extremists,” the situation will not change much.       
 

Ma’an News Agency, a media organization located in West Bank and Gaza, posted an article from Reuters related to the new Israeli security cabinet. According to the article, in 2012 the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the mid-2013 as the "red line" for Iran to stop its program of development of nuclear weapons. But some of the new members of the security cabinet like Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni believe there is still time for a peaceful resolution. A second challenge for Netanyahu is that certain members of the cabinet, like Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett and Gilad Erdan have limited or no experience at all in key decision making positions. These members will need first to accumulate experience through the management of less complicated missions in Gaza and Syria before they can handle a vastly more complex operation, such as an Israeli attack against Iran. In the end, even though it is expected that the majority of the Israeli security cabinet will support Netanyahu’s policies, the minority may block or delay the Prime Minister’s plans.

It seems that the author’s point of view is that political compromises in the Israeli political scene between the "doves" and the "hawks" may disrupt Netanyahu’s plans to stop the Iranian nuclear development program by using military force. The statement of a member of Netanyahu’s previous government about the need to prepare new members to handle complex operations, and Netanyahu’s statements about "red lines" contrast with statements from the moderates in the new government. Livni, for example, said a few years ago that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be a threat to Israel.

Although the article appears on the Ma’an News site, we have to remember that it actually comes from Reuters. In any case, both organizations seem credible and they often appear on Israeli sites. The basic idea of a "hawkish" Netanyahu against moderate members of the coalition government is believable. The editor of Haaretz, for example, wrote a year ago that Netanyahu was preparing the nation for a war against Iran. We can also see from PBS the profiles of Lapid, Livni and other moderates that fit with the information we get from the Ma’an site.

On the other hand, it is important to remember that in politics, and especially in foreign political affairs, where secrecy is the norm, we rarely get facts. For example, even though Netanyahu seems to act like a hawk, it is far from sure that he really wants to attack Iran. It is possible that his statements may be part of a bluff. The Center For Strategic and International Studies presents in a study some problems that Israel may face during an attack against Iran. It is even argued on page nineteen, that US is the only country that can really launch a successful military strike against Iran. We are not experts to know if the above is true, but we can easily notice that a strike against Iran is not comparable to the (successful) Israeli strike against the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq. The distance in the first case is way longer and the Iranian facilities are underground and perhaps even dispersed over the country. 

We may even challenge the general belief that Iran actually tries to develop nuclear weapons.We had similar convictions about Iraq and we were wrong, in my opinion. Even if we accept the argument that there were WMD related activities in Iraq, it seems that the discovery of these "activities" changed the mind of many Americans about the necessity to invade Iraq. In any case, I think it is reasonable to say that although it seems highly probable that Iran indeed develops nuclear energy programs for military use, it will be a mistake to accept this as a "fact."

We can even challenge the belief that a political compromise may stall Netanyahu’s plans since it is difficult to  predict the types of political compromises that will take place inside Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu may convince the moderates to back him up by offering them more political power. In any case, it seems highly likely that even though the moderates are a minority in the security cabinet, they cannot be ignored. As leaders of the parties of the center in the coalition government, they have the power to bring the government down. And the last is a fact!    

UN Urges Israel to Reach Solution for Hunger Strikers

An article in www.israelnationalnews.com  written by Elad Benari informs the readers about the attempts of key members of the international community to pressure Israel to resolve the crisis of hunger striking of four Palestinian prisoners. Concerned about the deteriorating health of the prisoners, the United Nations Secretary-General urged Israel to respect the rights of the detainees and offer them a fair trial without a delay or release them. The pro-Palestinian foreign policy chief of the European Union urged Israel to respect the human rights of all Palestinian detainees and prisoners.  Meanwhile, The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas asked the international community to intervene on behalf of the hunger striking prisoners. At the same time, hundreds of other Palestinian prisoners (terrorists according to the article) expressed their support for the hunger striking prisoners by refusing all food during a one-day strike. The article makes it clear that the hunger strikers are also terrorists. One of them was released in 2011 as a result of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas but was rearrested later, when he violated the terms of the agreement.

The author’s point of view is that past Israeli decisions to cave to pressure and release hunger strikers have created an expectation among the terrorist prisoners that they can use hunger strikes to gather public support and gain their freedom. Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the article, it seems that the author is against any compromise that will free more terrorists. The author consistently uses the word “terrorist” to describe the Palestinian prisoners. He also tries to discredit the EU chief of foreign policy by presenting her as an irrational person who supports the right of Palestinians to throw stones at Israeli soldiers during “non-violent” demonstrations. The author presents a picture where Israel “caved to the pressure” and released terrorists in the past giving them a second chance, which they refused to exploit. All these lead the reader to the conclusion that compromise with terrorists cannot work.

Although the quotes and facts presented in the article are mostly accurate and can be easily verified by other sources, there is an issue of reliability in my opinion. The problem is not simply the rights of captive terrorists (although it is certainly a serious one). The most critical question is if the detainees or prisoners are indeed terrorists “beyond reasonable doubt.” Do the Israeli legal procedures protect as much as it is humanely possible innocent Palestinians, or do they simply put to prison any suspect following a policy of “better safe than sorry?” And what if the legal procedures are not used only to imprison dangerous terrorists, but they also serve as a tool to eliminate Palestinian peaceful political activists?

 Reading a few sources on the subject of the Israeli legal procedures, we can see that there is plenty of room  to use the legal system for purposes other than national security. Haaretz for example reveals that Israeli prosecutors cited “classified evidence” to argue that one of the rearrested hunger strikers should serve the remainder of his original sentence. As The New York Times shows, the problem is wide-spread since all four hunger-strikes are detained without formal charges. It is certainly possible that the Israeli prosecutors may want to conceal the identity of informers inside terrorist organizations who may have provided valuable incriminating intelligence against the Palestinian hunger strikers. But when nobody, including the lawyers of the Palestinian suspects, know about the nature of these pieces of evidence, it is hard to tell which of these cases are about Palestinian terrorists, which are about incompetent or over jealous Israeli prosecutors or which cases are about the elimination of political activists in West Bank to suppress Palestinian opposition against the expansion of Israeli settlements.

The chief of foreign policy of the European Union expressed concerns on similar grounds, and the author has actually misrepresented the EU official’s position. The careful reading of the article on this subject by israelnationalnews itself shows that the concern expressed by the EU official was not about the conviction per se of the Palestinian who threw stones at the Israeli security forces. It was about the way Israeli prosecutors gathered evidence. Specifically, the Israeli prosecutors used as evidence the testimony of a minor who was “interrogated in violation of his rights.” This means most probably that the minor was interrogated without the presence of his lawyer. In this situation, the minor could be easily manipulated to testify anything the prosecutor wanted.

The legal practices mentioned above undermine the credibility of the article’s broad generalization that the Palestinian prisoners are terrorists. Many of these prisoners may be terrorists, but there is a reasonable concern that these controversial legal  practices can be used by the Israeli authorities to promote their interests at the expense of any Palestinian political opponent, terrorist or not.

Erdogan: Israel Waging “State Terrorism” in Syria

In an article written by Elad Benari, we read that the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is a frequent critic of Israel, accused the latter of waging “state terrorism” by violating international law and launching an airstrike against targets located in Syria. According to the article, Israel officials have not officially acknowledged their involvement in this attack but they have hinted that Israel was behind the air-strike.  U.S officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the strike was directed against surface-to-air-missiles and a military storage facility believed to house chemical agents. The article informs the readers that Turkey attacked several targets in Syria recently to retaliate for the killings of Turkish civilians due to a mortal shell fired from Syria. Additionally, the Turkish government has the parliament’s authorization to use military force inside Syria if it is deemed necessary at any time during the upcoming year. The article also mentions that the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu speculated that there may be a secret agreement between Syria and Israel, based on the former’s failure to respond to the Israeli attack.

In my opinion, the article attempts to defend Israel from accusations about “State terrorism” by undermining the credibility of the Turkish Prime Minister.  A combination of different pieces of information and links is used to show that the Israeli response to a threat of its national security coming from Syria was no different to the Turkish response to Syrian threats in the recent past. Israel probably tried to prevent the shipment of advanced weapons from Syria to the terrorists of Hezbollah, which could be used to attack Israeli citizens.  The Israeli government deemed it was necessary to use military force to protect its citizens by attacking military targets in Syria. As the article shows, the Turkish government has authorization to do the same to protect Turkish citizens. Finally, the conspiracy theories of the Turkish Foreign Minister reinforce the absurdity of the Turkish accusations. Given the past confrontations between Syria and Israel, it is difficult to imagine a scenario of cooperation between these two countries which would require the passive reaction of the Syrian regime to an Israeli air-strike provocation. In fact, even the Turkish Prime Minister himself cannot sketch the motives and goals of this cooperation.

According to my brief research, Elad Benari is a writer for Israel National News and lives probably in Canada. Therefore, his article is a second-hand source using only information available on the internet. Despite this, Benari has most of the facts right. The links he provides come all from the same source, but a cross-reference with other sources of information, shows that the statements by all the officials involved and the events which took place in the Syrian-Turkish borders (strikes) and the Turkish Parliament (authorization) are accurately presented in the article. The article gives specific names of Turkish and Israeli officials and links making it easy for someone to check the facts.  On the other hand, the piece of information regarding the target of the Israeli air-strike is questionable.  There is no way to verify its accuracy or detect its source (U.S. official). However, other sites give the same piece of information, so we can at least say that the author has not distorted the available pieces of information.  

Based on all the above, I believe the author has a valid point of view. However, I would like to present briefly a different one. There was a crucial difference between the Turkish and the (probably) Israeli military strike. In the first case there was an actual attack against Turkish citizens, while in the second there wasn’t any attack against Israeli citizens. It is true that the Turkish government got the authorization from the Turkish Parliament to strike targets in Syria whenever it is deemed necessary. However, this does not mean that the government’s judgment can transcend international law.  The latter recognizes the right of any government to retaliate against an enemy strike and even the right to initiate a military action to pre-empt an “imminent threat.” It is true that in the real world it is often difficult to show there is an imminent threat. On the other hand, it is impossible for an attacker who chooses to conceal his identity to argue about anything.

 

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