Israel Update for June 2011

David Dolan

Violent Palestinian demonstrations were staged in many locations the first week of June as the forty-fourth anniversary of the dramatic Six Day War was marked in the turbulent Middle East. Hundreds of Palestinians living in Syria and their supporters marched to the Golan Heights border with Israel on June 5th, as they did the month before, sparking off another deadly clash with Israeli security forces. Israeli officials said the Assad regime-still ferociously suppressing a growing anti-government protest movement inside the autocratic country-was behind the latest border storming which left scores dead and injured. Israeli media reports said a leaked Syrian government document proved that the Assad regime had ordered the protestors to head to the international security fence and attempt to tear it down. The provocative action was said to be supported by Iran, which continued to help its ally brutally crush the popular uprising still gaining steam in Syria.

In neighboring Lebanon, a new government cabinet was unveiled that is dominated by members of the radical Iranian-backed Hizbullah movement. Opposition Lebanese politicians charged that their country has become a virtual vassal state to Tehran and Damascus. Analysts said the composition of the new Lebanese government almost guarantees that any future Hizbullah militia attack upon Israel will be met with an IDF response directed at government and military targets all over the country, not just mainly at Hizbullah outposts as was the case during the 2006 conflict.

As hundreds of Palestinians were gathering along the Golan Heights border, their political leaders in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip were struggling to form a viable unity government. However by late June, the attempts were still faltering over demands by the Muslim Hamas group to dump the current Fatah-backed Palestinian Authority prime minister who is a moderate supported by the US and the EU.

Meanwhile indications grew that the PA may postpone announced plans to unilaterally declare Palestinian statehood at the United Nations in September. This is mainly due to strong opposition to the one-sided proposal from Washington. However it became clear during the month that the White House price tag for helping to derail the PA plan is the quick resumption of frozen peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The Israeli government is resisting pressure to resume talks now because the Hamas terrorist movement is expected to be involved in the PA if serious kinks are worked out in establishing a Fatah-Hamas unity government. Meanwhile a major nationwide security drill was held during June to test Israel's readiness to absorb a massive missile attack upon civilian areas. This came as another international flotilla attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip loomed on the horizon, expected to set sail by the end of the month.

On a brighter note, the Tourism Ministry announced that the number of overseas visitors to the land during May broke all previous records, despite the ongoing upheaval in several nearby Arab countries. Tourism numbers had dropped somewhat earlier in the year as the turmoil spread from several North African Muslim countries to the Arabian Peninsula and Syria. Officials are hoping that foreign visitors will continue to flock to Israel despite the regional chaos and ongoing threats of war. The continuing strong tourist stream is helping to keep Israel's unemployment rate well below that of most industrial countries around the world, with officials saying a record low of just 5.8% was reached in April.

More Clashes Mar The Heights

As occurred in mid-May, thousands of people living in the boiling country of Syria walked past Syrian army positions on Sunday, June 5th, to assault the border security fence which guards Israeli-controlled territory on the strategic Golan Heights. The date was chosen to coincide with the launching in June 1967 of the Six Day War. On June 5th of that year, Israeli Air Force jets attacked and decimated Egyptian and Syrian air bases after the two Soviet-backed Arab countries revealed plans to launch an imminent military assault on the Jewish state under the leadership of Egyptian strongman Gamal Nasser.

As occurred in mid-May this year, the IDF responded with relative restraint as the pre-announced "demonstration" turned ugly, with hundreds of riled-up young men and women attempting to tear down sections of the border fence while others threw homemade firebombs, rocks and other heavy objects at Israeli security forces. In the ensuing melee, scores of rioters were injured or killed, with several Israeli soldiers suffering physical injuries as well. Syrian Health Minister Wael al-Halki maintained that IDF return fire had killed 23 of the protestors, with around 350 being wounded in the violent confrontation. Israeli officials acknowledged they had no accurate headcount of the dead and wounded, but added that recorded video of the clashes showed some of the fatalities took place when firebombs the rioters were hurling landed in the midst of nearby minefields, setting off several powerful explosions that sent deadly shrapnel hurling into the air.

As the clashes were raging along the border, hundreds of mostly Druze residents of the nearby villages of Kuneitra and Majdal Shams gathered to support the Syrian infiltration. The two villages were under total Syrian government control until the verdant plateau was captured by IDF forces during the Six Day War. With many expecting that the area will return again to Syrian hands sometime in the not-too-distant future, either by military means or as a central part of any peace treaty between Damascus and Jerusalem, the demonstrators appeared to be mainly interested in ingratiating themselves with the despotic Syrian authorities, apparently not fearing reprisals from the democratically-elected Israeli government and its security personnel.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu quickly ordered his United Nations ambassador to file a formal protest against the unprovoked border action, blaming the Assad regime for encouraging the attempted border breech, which is naturally against international law. The Israeli protest note charged that Syrian government authorities egged on the protestors in an apparent attempt to divert domestic attention away from the growing anti-government movement in the repressive country. Israeli officials have been expressing open concern over the prospect that Damascus might stir up regional trouble as a diversionary tactic, especially by employing allied Hizbullah forces to get the job done. A senior Israeli official warned in late June that a fresh Hizbullah missile attack could be launched at any moment.

The Israeli protest move drew a quick response from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who promised that the world body would formally investigate the clashes. He also urged restraint upon both sides-as if Israel had anything to do with initiating the rioting and was not simply responding as any sovereign country would if its border was being deliberately violated by hostile mob action.

Behind The Scene

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was seemingly incensed at the UN chief's "balanced" comment, telling reporters soon after the statement was issued that "responsibility for the incidents and the casualties falls on those carrying out these provocations, and on all those who encouraged them to act in this way." Another senior Israeli government official told reporters off the record that Barak was mainly referring to the Assad regime, adding that, "One can only suppose that there was a decision taken in Syria to exploit the situation to change the subject from what is going on inside of Syria." An unidentified government source in Damascus later affirmed this contention by leaking an internal memo that was picked up by Arab media outlets. The document revealed that the regime had indeed encouraged, if not organized, the deadly border clashes. The web site of the opposition Reform Syria group posted a similar report, saying that most of the border "protestors" were poor people paid the equivalent of $1,000 apiece by the embattled regime to head to the Golan Heights border, with the authorities promising $10,000 to the family of anyone who was killed, as the late Saddam Hussein offered to Palestinian "martyrs" killed by IDF forces during the Al Aksa terrorist uprising.

Leaders of the Iranian-linked Hizbullah movement were joined by their Hamas counterparts in hailing the people who marched to the Syrian-Israeli border. Both Islamic groups blamed the United States for stirring up the pot by backing Israel, insisting the "protestors" were merely voicing their opposition to this long-standing reality. However, the terrorist group's verbal support did not stop Hamas militiamen from preventing a similar clash along the Gaza Strip border with Israel, nor did it halt Lebanese soldiers from doing the same thing along their own shared border. Security forces in both Egypt and Jordan also prevented protestors from gathering along their uncontested borders with Israel.