The Persian Gulf War’s Legacy for Israeli Strategy in Syria

In addition to its military buildup in Syria, and its longstanding presence in Lebanon, Iran has begun sending medium-range missiles to its Shiite proxy militias in Iraq—which could be used to retaliate against future Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure in Syria. Alex Fishman explains the dilemma this move creates for the Jewish state:

[M]issile fire from Iraq would not give Israel just cause to attack Syria or Lebanon. [Yet a retaliatory] attack on Iraq requires coordination with the U.S., which has already informed Israel that any military action it takes in Iraq would endanger the lives of Americans protecting the Baghdad regime. It would also require coordination with neighboring countries such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia to allow the Israel Air Force warplanes to fly in their airspace. It’s obvious these countries will [be reluctant] to cooperate openly with Israel in attacking a neighboring Arab nation.

This threat reminds Fishman of Israel intelligence’s discovery in April 1990—before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait—of Scud missiles positioned in the same part of Iraq. When, in January of the following year, Saddam Hussein began firing these at Israeli cities, the IDF considered responses ranging from attacks on Iraqi shipping to the intensive bombing of Baghdad, together with the insertion of ground troops. But a combination of operational uncertainty and U.S. pressure prevented Jerusalem from responding, leaving repercussions to this day:

In total, some 40 missiles were fired from Iraq, most of them at the [northern] Dan region. Israel didn’t respond, and it is paying the price in psychological deterrence to this very day. The enemy learned Israel’s Achilles’ heel. Even Hamas [now] dares to launch rockets at Tel Aviv, and still remains standing. The Gulf War created the “ethos of restraint,” which in the years that have passed has become a doctrine. . . .

Today, as [the new IDF chief-of-staff] Aviv Kochavi prepares the army for the post-civil-war era in Syria, he must take into account the fact that Israel will always be subject to political pressure from a power that would deny it freedom of action—whether it is the Americans in Iran or the Russians in Syria.

Read more at Ynet

More about: Iran, Iraq, Israel & Zionism, Israeli Security, Persian Gulf War, Syrian civil war

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society