Israel Update for May 2011

David Dolan

In mid May Israel experienced its worst coordinated assault along its shared Golan Heights border with Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War as hundreds of Palestinians and their supporters flocked to the border fence and attempted to infiltrate it. Several people were killed as Israeli army forces scrambled to prevent the swarming throng from breeching the border. Similar violent scenes took place along the borders with Lebanon and the Gaza Strip as thousands of Arabs answered an internet-generated call for stepped up demonstrations to protest Israel's reappearance as a sovereign state in May, 1948. Demonstrations were also held outside Israeli embassies in several countries, including in Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab countries with formal diplomatic ties to Israel.

Israeli officials fingered Iran's nefarious Shiite regime for instigating the border demonstrations in an attempt to help their longtime ally Syria deflect internal attention away from a continuing ruthless crackdown against Syrian civilians protesting their government's repressive police-state tactics and policies. This came as the crisis in Syria further escalated during the month, with hundreds more people killed or wounded by the Assad regime's brutal security forces. Tank fire was deployed for the first time on several occasions to break up anti-regime demonstrations throughout the troubled Arab country.

As clashes were taking place along the three borders, Israeli security forces were busy elsewhere breaking up violent protests in Jerusalem and many other places around the land. Dozens of Arab protestors and Israeli security personnel were injured in the melee. In Tel Aviv, an Arab truck driver went on a rampage, killing one Israeli civilian and wounding many others when he deliberately plowed his vehicle into a group of pedestrians alongside a major road in the large city. Israeli political and military leaders worried that the widespread unrest might be the start of a new Palestinian terrorist uprising campaign, or at least a rehearsal for more sustained violence as the time draws nearer for the anticipated unilateral PA declaration of statehood this coming September. Calls for a new uprising have been increasing in recent months. In a major speech delivered in Washington DC, US President Barack Obama denounced the PA intentions to make a one-sided statehood declaration even as he strongly hinted that Israeli leaders must abandon all of the land captured from Jordan in 1967, which would mean the uprooting of hundreds of thousand of Jews from their homes near Judaism's holiest sites on earth.

The border clashes and internal Arab demonstrations came just days after Palestinian Authority leaders signed a reconciliation pact with the rival Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement which runs the Gaza Strip. The announcement of the long-negotiated pact prodded Israeli government leaders to declare that frozen peace talks with the Palestinians cannot be resumed with the radical Islamic movement serving as a coalition partner in the Fatah-dominated PA government. The PA-Hamas pact also forced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to make significant changes to an important address he was preparing to give before a joint session of the United States Congress in late May. Media reports said the Israeli leader had previously been planning to present a new peace initiative to the Palestinians during the speech. In a preview of his remarks delivered before the Israeli Knesset, Netanyahu again reiterated that Israel cannot deal with Hamas unless the radical Iranian-backed group renounces violence and recognizes Israel's right to exist in the mostly Muslim Middle East.

The violence that broke out on Israel's sixty-third birthday did not stop the Jewish citizens of the Promised Land from celebrating their ancient people's remarkable reappearance as a singular country on the world stage nearly 2,000 years after the Romans drove most Jews out of Jerusalem and other parts of the land. Celebrations were held in every city and town despite the unsettling clashes in many areas. The continuing "Arab Spring" upheaval unfolding in several regional countries only served to remind the Israeli public, including its over one million Arab citizens, that they live in the only stable democracy that exists in any part of the turbulent Middle East and North Africa.

Catastrophic Day

It was an unprecedented day of coordinated action against Israel, said several Israeli newspapers as they reported on the border breechings and internal violence that rocked Israel and the disputed territories on May 15, the Gregorian calendar date of Israel's modern reappearance as a sovereign country in 1948. Of course, the day's incidents were far less severe than an actual enemy military attack would have been along the borders. Still, the fact that thousands of rioting Arab civilians would dare to overrun the border fences erected to separate Israeli territory from Syria and Lebanon was indeed without precedence. The border assaults and the march to the Gaza Strip fence-on the date that the Palestinians call Al Naqba, Arabic for "the catastrophe"-were perpetuated via the popular Facebook social network. This fact only added to concerns that such actions might be replicated on an even grander scale in the near future. Indeed, the organizers of the May 15th actions are calling for a similar day of protest marches on June 5th, the 44th anniversary of the outbreak of the Six Day War in 1967.

Concerns over the potential for major unrest on Israel's annual Independence Day had already been increasing in recent months as the Israeli government leaders and private citizens anxiously watched the dramatic anti-government upheaval in the neighboring Arab countries of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, not to mention massive turbulence in several other North Africa countries, especially Libya, and also in Yemen and Bahrain situated on the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula. Still, Israeli military leaders had played down the potential for serious violence along the northern border fences, especially along the Golan barrier with Syria. All noted that the border had been basically quiet since the end of the Yom Kippur war in October 1973. That might partially explain why IDF soldiers stationed in the area seemed to be unprepared to deal with protestors who tore sections of the fence down before crossing over into Israeli-controlled territory. In the past, the despotic Syrian regime would have prevented such an assault, but with the country's troubled cities and towns under virtual siege by the government, the situation had obviously dramatically changed, prompting many to ask what other surprises might spring up just ahead.

The most serious incident of the tumultuous day was undoubtedly the Golan Heights border breech. Israeli troops looked on with disbelief as over one hundred mostly male protestors from a crowd of several thousand surged forward and literally ripped down whole sections of the barbed wire border fence near the Golan Druze town of Majdal Shams. The usually peaceful town at the base of Mount Hermon was the site of serious clashes earlier this year between Israeli police forces and local residents who claim allegiance to Syria, not to the Jewish state which formally annexed the area in 1981. Syrian soldiers literally stood by idly as the throng moved toward the fence. UN peacekeeping forces stationed in the area also did not intervene, prompting some Israeli politicians to wonder aloud what they might do if the Syrian army attempted to penetrate the border in any future conflict. IDF troops opened fire with tear gas and rubber bullets on the infiltrating mob, killing some and wounding others. Several soldiers were also wounded in the clashes. Hundreds of Majdal Shams residents came out to greet the intruders, to the dismay of Israeli authorities.

Israeli media reports said that government and military leaders had discussed the possibility that Syrian soldiers might stand aside if a large mob swarmed the border fence. Indeed, some predicted that this would be the case, given the escalating anti-Assad regime protests that have reportedly left over 800 Syrians dead and untold numbers wounded since widespread unrest broke out in March. The thinking was that the dictatorial regime, allied with Iran and heavily armed by it and also by Russia, might adopt the old Soviet methodology of attempting to divert domestic attention from any internal crisis by striking at an external enemy, in other words, at the hated "Zionist entity." However most pundits had predicted that any such lashing out would probably take place via the missile-laden Shiite Hizbullah militia force that operates with Syrian connivance from Lebanon. It must be noted that the prospect of a fresh Hizbullah missile assault upon Israeli population centres, possibly including Tel Aviv, is still very much on the table as the crisis continues to unfold in Syria.

Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately pointed a finger of blame at Tehran, saying that the clerical Shiite regime which has enslaved that country since 1979 had orchestrated the cross-border assault. Speaking during a special address on national television the evening of the coordinated assaults, he said that "Nobody should be mistaken that we are determined to defend our borders and our sovereignty." Nevertheless, he vowed that IDF soldiers will continue to employ "maximum restraint" as they quell any further attempts to disrupt the peace. Warning that more violence probably lies ahead, Defense Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged that the IDF had been caught by surprise by the cross-border penetrations. However he said the army will "learn" from the incident and also praised IDF soldiers for acting with restraint to prevent an ever higher death toll during the serious border clash.

Although the Syrian regime is not Shiite in orientation, it is mostly controlled by members of the small Alawite Islamic sect that emerged in the tenth century from the minority Shiite branch of Islam. Centred in the western mountains of Syria, the Alawites comprise only around ten per cent of the Syrian population. However their influence in the country is far beyond their numbers since the Assad family and many members of the regime come from the small Islamic sect. The vast majority of Syrian citizens are Sunni Muslims, and reports say the growing anti-government protests are mostly comprised of them.

Other Incidents

Thousands of Palestinians and their supporters living in Lebanon mirrored the demonstrators in Syria by marching to the border fence along Israel's northern border. Similar marches took place along the Gaza Strip security fence with Israel. However unlike in Syria, Lebanese army soldiers did attempt to prevent the agitators from reaching the fence. Analysts said this was probably the result of last August's deadly clashes between Lebanese army soldiers and IDF border guards which left two Israeli soldiers dead, one of them a reserve officer, along with four Lebanese men, one a journalist associated with Hizbullah. They said the government in Beirut was undoubtedly not eager to see a repeat of that incident which nearly led to a major Israeli military operation against Lebanon. IDF soldiers opened fire on the surging crowd after rocks and stones, metal pipes and bottles were hurled at them over the border barrier. Several of the protestors were killed or injured. The United Nations said it was unclear whether it was IDF or Lebanese army fire that struck the demonstrators, although journalists at the scene indicated it was a bit of both.