Israel’s made-in-America enemies

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It wasn’t a US Army sniper who killed IDF Lt.- Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Capt. Ezra Lakia on Tuesday. But the Lebanese Armed Forces sniper who shot them owes a great deal to the generous support the LAF has received from America.

 

For the past five years, the LAF has been the second largest recipient of US military assistance per capita after Israel. A State Department press release from late 2008 noted that between 2006 and 2008, the LAF received 10 million rounds of ammunition, Humvees, spare parts for attack helicopters, vehicles for its Internal Security Forces “and the same frontline weapons that US military troops are currently using, including assault rifles, automatic grenade launchers, advanced sniper systems, anti-tank weapons and the most modern urban warfare bunker weapons.”

 

Since 2006, the US has provided Lebanon some $500 million in military assistance. And there is no end in sight. After President Barack Obama’s meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in June, the White House proclaimed Obama’s “determination to continue US efforts to support and strengthen Lebanese institutions such as the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces.”

 

And indeed, in late June, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates informed Congress that the Pentagon intends to provide the LAF with 24 120mm mortars, 24 M2 .50 caliber machine guns, 1 million rounds of ammunition, and 24 humvees and trailers. The latest orders should be delivered by the end of 2011.

 

According to the Los Angeles Times, the administration has already allocated $100m. in military assistance to Lebanon for 2011.

 

According to Lebanon’s As-Safir newspaper, in written testimony to Congress, last week Obama’s nominee to head the US Central Command, Gen. James Matthis, claimed that relations between US Central Command and the LAF focus on building the LAF’s capabilities “to preserve internal stability and protect borders.”

 

And how is that border protection going? 

 

Tuesday’s unprovoked LAF ambush of Lt.-Col. Harari’s battalion within Israeli territory showed that the LAF is fully prepared to go to war against the US’s closest ally in the region, in order to deter IDF units from crossing the border.

 

Even worse, are willing to commit unprovoked acts of illegal aggression to harm Israel.

 

As The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday, there is no reason to be surprised by what happened.

 

Since 2009, LAF soldiers have frequently pointed their rifles at IDF soldiers operating along the border. In recent months they have also cocked their rifles while aiming them at IDF forces. It was just a matter of time before they started shooting.

 

The same aggressive border protection is completely absent, however, along Lebanon’s border with Syria. Since 2006, the LAF has taken no actions to seal off that border from weapons transfers to Hizbullah. It has taken no steps to protect Lebanese sovereignty from the likes of Syria and Iran that are arming Hizbullah’s army with tens of thousands of missiles.

 

THEN THERE’S Centcom’s “internal stability.”

 

For the past four years, in open breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which set the terms for the cease-fire that ended the Second Lebanon War, the LAF has done nothing to block Hizbullah from remilitarizing and reasserting control over southern Lebanon.

 

Moreover, the institution that the State Department views as the anchor of a multiethnic, independent Lebanon did not lift a finger against Hizbullah when Hizbullah staged a coup against the Saniora government in 2008.

 

In a sense, by effectively collaborating with Hizbullah, the LAF did ensure “internal stability.” 

 

But it is hard to see how such “internal stability” — based as it is on Hizbullah control over Lebanon — advances US interests.

 

In stark contrast, as the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the US-supported Lebanese Internal Security Forces have used US signals equipment to help Hizbullah ferret out Israeli agents. According to the Times, “A strengthening Lebanese government is helping Hizbullah bust alleged spy cells, sometimes using tools and tradecraft acquired from Western nations eager to build up Lebanon’s security forces as a counterweight to the Shi’ite group.”

 

The US has refused to reckon with the consequences of its actions. As the Times reported, last week Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow visited Beirut and said that continued US aid and training to the LAF would allow the Lebanese Army to “prevent militias and other nongovernmental organizations” from undermining the government.

 

It bears recalling that Hizbullah has been a partner in the Lebanese government since 2005. Since its successful coup in 2008, Hizbullah has held a veto over all the decisions of the Lebanese government.

 

It also bears recalling that during the 2006 war, the LAF provided Hizbullah commanders with targeting data for their missiles and rockets.

 

The LAF also announced on its official Web site that it would award pensions to families of Hizbullah fighters killed in the war.

 

UNFORTUNATELY, THE LAF is not the only military organization aligned with Israel’s enemies that the US is arming and training. There is also the US-trained Palestinian army.

 

As Israel Radio’s Arab Affairs commentator Yoni Ben-Menachem reported last month, the IDF is deeply concerned about the US-trained Palestinian force. Ben-Menachem recalled that since 1996, Palestinians security forces have repeatedly taken leading roles in organizing and carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel.

 

Hundreds of Israelis have been murdered and maimed in these attacks.

 

The Palestinian force being trained by the US Army represents a disturbing, qualitative upgrade in Palestinian military capabilities. OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi warned IDF ground forces about the new US-Palestinian threat in May.

 

As Mizrahi put it in a speech at Tze’elim training base cited by Ben-Menachem, “This is a well trained force, better equipped than its predecessors and trained by the US. The significance of this is that at the start of a new battle [with the Palestinians] the price that we will pay will be higher. A force like this one can shut down a built-up area with four snipers. This is deadly. These aren’t the fighters we faced in Jenin [in 2002]. This is an infantry force that will be fighting us and we need to take this into account. They have offensive capabilities and we aren’t expecting them to give up.”

 

The IDF assesses that the US-trained force will be capable of overrunning small IDF outposts and isolated Israeli communities.

 

To date, the US has spent $400m. on the Palestinian army. The Obama administration has allocated an additional $100m. for the next year.

 

And the US is demanding that Israel support its efforts. In a General Accounting Office report issued in May, Israel was excoriated for hampering US efforts to build the Palestinian forces.

 

The GAO railed against Israel’s refusal to permit the transfer of a thousand AK-47 assault rifles to the Palestinian forces. It criticized Israel’s rejection of US plans to train a P
alestinian counterterror force. It complained that Israel does not give freedom of movement to US military advisers to the Palestinian forces in Judea and Samaria.

 

The US claims that what it is doing cultivates stability. It argues that the Palestinian and Lebanese failure to prevent terror armies from attacking Israel is due to their lack of institutional capacity to rein in terrorism rather than the absence of institutional will to do so. The US claims that pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into these Lebanese and Palestinian armies will enable them to become stabilizing forces in the region that will engender peace. What the administration ignores, however, is the fact that the members and commanders of these US-trained forces share the terrorists’ dedication to Israel’s destruction.

 

TO ITS undying shame, Israel has publicly supported, or, at best failed to oppose these American initiatives. By doing so, Israel has provided political cover for these US initiatives that endanger its security. Although it is crucial to call the US out for its sponsorship of terror-aligned armies, it is also important to understand Israel’s role in these nefarious enterprises.

 

Israel has gone along with these US programs for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it has been due to domestic politics. Sometimes it owed to Israel’s desire to be a team player with the US government. But generally the Israeli rationale for not loudly and vociferously objecting to US assistance to enemy armies has been the same as Israel’s rationale for embracing Yassir Arafat and the PLO in 1993 and for every other Israeli act of appeasement toward its enemies and allies alike.

 

Successive Israeli governments have claimed that by supporting actions that strengthen Israel’s enemies, they gain leverage for Israel, or, at a minimum, they mitigate the opprobrium directed against Israel when it takes actions to defend itself. In Lebanon, for instance, Israel agreed to the US plan to support the Hizbullah-dominated Saniora government in the hopes that by agreeing to give the Lebanese government immunity from IDF attack, the US would support Israel’s moves to defeat Hizbullah.

 

But this did not happen. Indeed, it could not happen. The pro-Western Lebanese government ministers are beholden to Hizbullah.

 

Whether they wish to or not, former prime minister Fuad Saniora and his successor Hariri both act as Hizbullah’s defenders to the US.

 

And once the US committed itself to the falsehood that the Sanioras and Hariris of Lebanon are independent actors, it inevitably became Hizbullah’s advocate against Israel as well. The logic of appeasement moves in one direction only – toward one’s enemies.

 

The same holds for the Palestinians. Israel believed that once it capitulated to international pressure to recognize the PLO the US, the EU and the UN would hold the PLO to account if it turned out that Arafat and his minions had not changed their ways. But when Arafat ordered his lieutenants to wage a terror war against Israel rather than accept statehood, the US, the EU and the UN did not rally to Israel’s side.

 

They had become so invested in their delusion of Palestinian peacefulness that they refused to abandon it. Instead, at most, they pinned the full blame on Arafat and demanded that Israel support their efforts to “strengthen the moderates.”

 

And so, in this demented logic, it made sense for the US to build a Palestinian army after the Palestinians elected Hamas to lead them.

 

And so on and so forth. In every single instance, Israel’s willingness to embrace lies about the nature of its enemies has come back to haunt it. Never has Israel gained any ground by turning a blind eye to the hostility of the likes of Salam Fayyad and Saad Hariri.

 

It is true; the US is abetting and aiding the war against Israel by sponsoring the LAF and the Palestinian military. But it is also true that the US will not stop until Israel demands that it stop. And Israel will not demand that the US stop building armies for its enemies until Israel abandons the notion that by accepting a lie told by a friend, it will gain that friend’s loyalty.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

 

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13 Comments

  • Paula 08/06/2010 at 14:08

    I would be mindful that while most Americans support Israel, should Israel become a money pit or seen as part of the problem, Americans might turn their backs.
    Israel has a right to exist, but he who pays the piper names the tune.

    Reply
  • naomir 08/06/2010 at 14:22

    Caroline, brilliant as always. Another instance of Israeli self delusion and American deception.

    Reply
  • Ripalinsky 08/06/2010 at 14:45

    I wish more Jewish people would read George Gilder’s The Israel Test. They don’t seem to realize that those who hate Jews hate ALL Jews (and ALL of the West (&Christians)). The U.S. is currently being transformed into a third world country, perhaps Israel will disapear, at least for a few years or decades.

    Reply
  • anonymous 08/06/2010 at 16:52

    Friends don’t lie to friends.
    The U.S. Government is not delusional it is simply going about its usual business of arming of Israel’s enemies as it has done with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Israeli politicians are not delusional, they simply want to remain in power. What is delusional is the idea that anybody has a concern whether Israel continues to exist.

    Reply
  • Ben 08/06/2010 at 18:32

    Great Article!
    Until Israel gets leadership with more backbone, the situation will get worse. Perhaps, Israelis will not wake up, until rockets start to land in Beersheva, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, Israelis and Americans both suffer from the mental disorder known as liberalism.

    Reply
  • Bill K. 08/07/2010 at 1:57

    The proper response for Israel to have taken to the murder of it’s colonel at the border would have been to obliterate every sniper hide, watchtower, barracks and ammo depot on the Lebanese side of the entire border length. If this led to war, so much the better. Israel is going to have to fight and destroy the Lebanese Armed Forces at some point in the not too distant future. As is usually the case in deciding when to go to war against a growing belligerent, sooner is better than later.
    Of course Israel is it’s own worst enemy when facing Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria. It easily has the power to destroy each in turn, or simultaneously if necessary, but it has submitted to U.S. domination for so long it no longer has the will or the confidence to do so.
    The U.S. policy of arming the Lebanese and the Palestinians is insanity plain and simple. The U.S. may escape the consequences of arming our enemies for a while, but not Israel. It is time the Israeli leadership wake up and smell the cordite. No amount of wishful thinking or kowtowing to the U.S. is going to save them from the bloody business of a war that must be fought. Either Israel takes the initiative or it’s enemies will.

    Reply
  • Geoffrey Britain 08/07/2010 at 2:16

    Many Americans already believe that Israel is the problem and have already turned their backs. The MSM is doing all it can to advance the meme that Israel is the primary obstacle to the ‘peace process’. It’s an obscene mis-characterization of the actual reality.
    It’s true, ‘he who pays the piper names the tune’, which is why Israel needs to wean itself off America’s teat.
    Israeli politicians are elected by the Israeli public, which is deluding itself. Thus Israel is being led to the gallows in fits and starts.
    The US is arming the LDF so as to preclude another Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This short-sighted, ignorant policy will only make things far worse and reflects the muddled thinking, so common today.

    Reply
  • Angel 08/07/2010 at 2:46

    It is hard to believe that a friend can betray one with a kiss, but there is One who will vindicate His people for the world to see. That is a promise.

    Reply
  • Terry, Eilat - Israel 08/07/2010 at 3:42

    #4 Anonymous.
    Exactly right.

    Reply
  • Danny 08/07/2010 at 5:42

    Very interesting article, thanks!
    An article such as this one should be tranlsated to Hebrew as well.

    Reply
  • dennis 08/07/2010 at 11:32

    The only defense remaining for the wolfs at their borders is going to have to be tactical nukes and bio warfare. The Israeli’s will be hated for the destruction this will cause,however,they will survive. Long live Israel!

    Reply
  • Arius 08/09/2010 at 21:26

    The sheriff in Arizona that said the US government is the enemy, is right.

    Reply
  • yuval.hatikva 08/11/2010 at 10:53

    TO ITS undying shame, Israel has publicly supported, or, at best failed to oppose these American initiatives. By doing so, Israel has provided political cover for these US initiatives that endanger its security.
    That is exactly the point, Caroline. Only when the citizens of Isral feel truely endangered will they demand of their government to complete Ben Gurion’s botched job: transferring the Arabs east and west of Israel. Only a clear and present danger complemented by widespread destruction will drive such a demand. Sharon knew it, but could not stomach the losses. Bibi and Lieberman are possibly tougher, and will stick ot out untill the People demand a real solution rather than make-shift partial alleviations such as the barrier and Chomat MAgen.

    Reply

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