US Puts Pressure on Israel to Refrain from Attacks
U.S. officials have asked Israel to refrain from launching any major military action in the region during the waning days of the Bush presidency, Israeli sources have told TIME. Previously, some Israeli military officials had hinted to the media that if Israel were to carry out its threats to strike at Iranian nuclear installations, it might do so before Barack Obama enters the White House in January. But now a Defense Ministry official says, “We have been warned off.”
The call for restraint was relayed to Israeli officials by senior U.S. counterparts, TIME’s sources say, and it is likely to be reinforced during Monday’s valedictory meeting in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush.
Washington’s concerns are not limited to the possibility of Israel attacking Iran, the sources say; U.S. officials have also cautioned Israelis against launching a ground assault inside the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza in a bid to stop militants there from firing rockets into southern Israel. Bush Administration officials warn that such an attack could cost many lives and jeopardize the painstaking, thus far futile efforts of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
To strengthen the case against Israel invading Gaza, U.S. officials turned to Jordan’s King Abdullah for help in stemming the rocket attacks from Gaza, according to knowledgeable Palestinian and Jordanian officials. Because the U.S. has avoided direct talks with the militant Hamas movement, which runs Gaza but which the U.S. deems a terrorist organization, Abdullah was approached to act as a go-between, these sources told TIME. The Jordanian monarch complied with the U.S. request and last week dispatched a senior intelligence officer to Damascus to warn exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal that Gaza was in danger of an Israeli attack unless the rocket fire was immediately stopped. (See pictures of tension along the Gaza border.)
Rocket fire from Gaza had largely stopped during a five-month cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that was brokered by Egypt, but that unraveled on Nov. 4, when Israel raided Gaza to destroy a tunnel it accused Hamas of digging to conduct cross-border raids. Since then, dozens of rockets have been fired at Israel, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have responded with land and air attacks and by halting supplies that were to enter Gaza. Israel has hoped to tighten the screws on Hamas by blocking all but a trickle of aid from reaching Gaza’s 1.5 million stricken inhabitants, leading to what U.N. officials describe as a humanitarian crisis. For the past two weeks, the Israeli military has barred foreign journalists from entering the Palestinian territory to report on the siege.
Israeli officials told TIME that Israeli forces have no immediate plans to mount a ground assault on Gaza, and that the division commander in charge of the area had recently been transferred out. Israel faces a general election in February, and the current Defense Minister and Labor leader Ehud Barak, who is far behind in the polls, is unlikely to risk sending troops on a hazardous foray into Gaza.
In Damascus, Hamas leader Mashaal reportedly agreed to the request to halt rocket attacks and relayed orders to Gaza, Jordanian sources say. On Wednesday, according to sources in Gaza, senior Hamas military commanders met with leaders of Islamic Jihad and other smaller militant bands and ordered them to stop firing rockets.
Once Abdullah secured a promise from Hamas to halt the rocket fire, he summoned Olmert and Barak for an urgent meeting at his palace in Amman on Tuesday night, where he relayed the news of Hamas’ willingness to curb the rocket fire. He also warned the two Israelis that an assault on Gaza would destroy any chance of an Arab peace initiative and would jeopardize Israel’s ties with its moderate Arab neighbors, Jordan and Egypt.
“Olmert and Barak listened carefully but pointed out that Israel cannot stand idle while the rockets are falling,” said one Jordanian official who requested anonymity. Abdullah, says this official, was angered when Olmert’s advisers told the Israeli media after the meeting that Abdullah’s intervention was driven by concern over the fate of his monarchy. On the contrary, says this Jordanian official. “We warned Israel that they were making matters worse with Jordan and Egypt. But they chose not to see it that way,” said the official. But even if the interventions of the U.S. and its Arab allies have succeeded in averting a full-scale confrontation on the eve of the Obama Inauguration, the resulting calm will be tense and quite possibly temporary. The new President and his Secretary of State will clearly have their work cut out for them.
— With reporting by Massimo Calabresi / Washington; Jamil Hamad / Ramallah; and Aaron J. Klein / Jerusalem
On first read, these thoughts come to mind. In two months Bush and his fellow Jerks will be gone and we will face Obama and Hillary 2 of the weakest American reps I can remember. So what actual leverage do they have in their last lame duck days?
America has ways of talking to Hamas direct and have done so all along.
Why is it that our pygmy leaders are always running for photo ops in Cairo and Amman, and their leaders never set foot publicly on Israeli soil?
The last thing the little king in Amman wants is a constituted Pali State especially one adjoing his countries borders. In the final analysis it is Israel keeping him in Power not America.
Poll just out with Barak continuing to vacillate in defending our people Labor has fallen to 7 mandates where both Meretz, national Union, and Lieberman Party out poll Labor Likud polled at 37 and Kadima loosing altitude fast. Baraks and Labor’s only chance to save itself from disappearing into political oblivion is a major victory of IDF before the elections here. In Israel as elsewhere Personal ambition and egos are more important and carry more weight than any threats and warnings by a failed lame duck president. Cutting Israel off from Arms supply is adding another 1-2 hundred thousand jobless Americans and tax collected from those put out of work. I don’t see it in the cards. Israel will come out of this global recession more whole and more intact than almost any other country. With or without American aid. I am sure we have contingency plans for such eventuality.
My prediction is that Barak will move before the elections or he is dead politically forever. He has a thirst for power and his ego won’t let him be cast aside by those he considers his inferiors. Watch and see and remember who said it here first. My ego speaking.
Comment by yamit82 — November 25, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
Wha are chances of Olmert succeeding in agreeing to new borders, Jerusalem excepted and Bush guaranteeing it before he and Olmert leave office.
Comment by Ted Belman — November 25, 2008 @ 3:18 pm
He could but I don’t think his cabinet or party would approve it and if they did Kadima would slide along with labor to single digits in the coming elections along with Labor and all the parties on the right would pick up their mandates. Olmert is a desperate man the state prosecutor and police have by his jollies and he might sell out his mother if he thought it might help keep him out of doing jail time. We are not a presidential system and Olmert does not have the same legal authority to make international deals on his own. These are the kinds of deals you make after you win elections not just before them.
Comment by yamit82 — November 25, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
This is why I hate the media. You see how they twist things around, saying that Israel’s raid into Gaza unraveled the ceasefire. Of course the raid into Gaza was in response to hamas’ cross border raids which is mentioned. So how can the article claim in the same sentence that Israel’s action broke the ceasefire while acknowledging the action was in RESPONSE to hamas raids?
Comment by Laura — November 25, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
Those who champion the cause of Israel’s independance and self sufficiency must really feel frustrated that this objective is very much a delusion, a fantasy. Israel gave up that dream when its leaders opted for survival.America’s almost guaranteed support allows Israel a measure of security which would not be possible without the U.S. connection.
But isn’t it ironic that the Jewish state is in the same position as vulnerable Jews in the diasparo who are supposedly dependent on what others do and feel.
The same can be said regarding the situation of Israel vis a vis the Arabs- peace is not possible so long as Arabs continue their hatred of Israelis which really equates with Israelis being dependent on what others do and feel.
Comment by h peskin — November 25, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Tick, tick, tick…
Comment by Charles Martel — November 26, 2008 @ 8:10 am
Olmert’s chances are dwindling as I type.
Comment by Shy Guy — November 26, 2008 @ 4:24 pm