A Key Border Crossing between Iraq and Syria Is about to Fall into Iranian Hands

In November 2017, Iran-backed militias drove Islamic State forces from the Syrian town of Abu Kamal, which lies on the west bank of the Euphrates near the border with Iraq. Since then, Iran and its proxies have used back roads in the area to send military equipment into Syria. Iraq now plans to open the official border crossing at the adjacent Iraqi city of al-Qaim, which, however, according to Andrew Gabel and David Adesnik, will allow the Islamic Republic to make far more efficient its “land bridge” for sending troops and weapons to Israel’s borders:

Kataib Hizballah, [one of the most important Iran-backed militias in Iraq], has [already] established a presence on the Iraqi side of the border. Although the population of western Iraq near the Syrian border is overwhelmingly Sunni, [Shiite] Kataib Hizballah participated in operations to reclaim the area from Islamic State. Residents of al-Qaim say the militia has kept them from returning to the town’s 1,500 farms by declaring the land part of a security zone. It also controls the roads in and out of al-Qaim. . . .

If Iran secures this improved land bridge running through al-Qaim and Abu Kamal, it could move greater volumes of cargo at a lower cost per unit. At present, Iran’s “air bridge” relies on a very limited supply of commercial aircraft, each with a limited carrying capacity. Sea vessels can accommodate more goods than trucks or planes, but the U.S. has interdicted weapons shipments and is enforcing sanctions on illicit shipments of crude oil as well.

The U.S. should press firmly for the Iraqi government to put al-Qaim and its border crossing in the hands of security-force units loyal to Baghdad, not Tehran. It may also be necessary to step up surveillance of the area. Al-Qaim’s position astride Iran’s emerging land corridor to the Mediterranean makes it too important for the U.S. to ignore. While American policymakers must be sensitive to Iraq’s domestic political pressures—especially with the Iraqi parliament set to consider two bills that could jeopardize the status of American troops in Iraq—the administration must deny Iran access to a gateway for weapons, fighters, and other illicit goods.

Read more at FDD

More about: Iran, Iraq, Israeli Security, Politics & Current Affairs, Syria, U.S. Foreign policy

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