29 Mar 2024
Monday 13 August 2012 - 15:52
Story Code : 4374

Why do Israeli media keep predicting war with Iran?

Why do Israeli media keep predicting war with Iran?
By Time

A frenetic pounding of the war drums appears designed to create the impression that Israel will attack Iran before the U.S. presidential election. Whether that's Netanyahu's real intent remains a mystery.

If the White House believes November will arrive without any nasty surprises in theIrannuclear standoff, it is not taking seriously the feverish chatter throughoutIsraels media positing an imminent Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic. The front pages of the four main Israeli dailies last Friday reflected what appeared to be a concerted campaign to create the impression that Israel is preparing itself to start a hot war with Iran sometime over the next 12 weeks, notwithstanding objections by the U.S. and other Western powers and, indeed, by much of Israels security establishment. [Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Ehud]Barak determined to strike Iran in the fall, proclaimedYedioth Ahronoth.Haaretzoffered: Senior Israeli official The Iranian sword at our throat is sharper than the run-up to the war in 1967.Maarivinformed us in its banner headline that 37% of the Israeli public believes that If Iran gets the bomb, it might result in a secondHolocaust. AndYisrael Hayomsaid: Iran significantly speeds up its progress toward the bomb. The following day, the latter paper included aheadlineclaiming that, according to Israeli TV, a Decision by Netanyahu and Barak to strike Iran is almost final.

Haaretzseemed to suggest that part of the renewed urgency wasa claimthat new intelligence allegedly received by the U.S.ostensibly showed Iran making accelerated progress toward a capability to build nuclear warheads, although there was no U.S. confirmation of those claims. And others in the Israeli media were skeptical.One of Israels most senior columnists,Maarivs Ben Caspit, sought tocalm the media frenzy. You can all relax, wrote Caspit. In the last two weeks, nothing new has happened with regards to an attack on Iran. The Cabinet hasnt convened, the Defense Minister hasnt summoned the IDF general staff, and no new information has been received. Everything that is known today was also known two weeks and two months ago.

Caspit suggested that the new bomb Iran talk wasnt based on any qualitative shift in the nature of Irans nuclear work. The U.S. intelligence assessment until now has been that despite steadily accumulating the means to build nuclear weapons, Iran has not thus far moved to enrich uranium to weapons grade or to begin the process of actually building a bomb. Nor has it taken a strategic decision to do so as yet. The problem is that the red lines adopted by Israel and the U.S. for triggering a military response are different: President Obama has vowed to take military action to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, whereas Israel has insisted that Iran cant be allowed to maintain thecapabilityto build such weapons a technological capacity it essentially already has.Caspit also argued that the primary issue was one of lack of trust among Israels political leaders that it could rely on the U.S. taking military action should Iran move to build nuclear warheads. A recurring theme in much of the coverage, and statements from Israeli leaders, is the belief that Israel cant entrust its security to the current U.S. government, or any future Administration.

Some of the speculation in Israel suggests that Netanyahu and Barak might take advantage of the window of opportunity offered bya U.S. election season that leaves the Obama Administration vulnerable on the Iran issue to present the Administration with a fait accompli although even the Israelis acknowledge that the limits on their military capacities are such that, at best, they could hope tosimply delay Irans nuclear progress by a year or two begging the question of what strategy would guide an aftermath in which Iran was more likely to seek a nuclear deterrent, and in which Israels break from the Western consensus on how to deal with Iran would potentially deal a body blow to the sanctions regime.

Until now the U.S. and other Western powers have restrained Israel from launching what they believe could be a catastrophic war for very limited gains through imposing what even Washingtons flagship Israel-lobbying organization, AIPAC, has called the strongest set of sanctions to isolate any country during peacetime. And Israelis have long recognized that theirthreatto take unilateral military action gives them leverage over Western powersto demand ever tighter sanctions and pressure on Iran. When former Mossad chief Meir Dagan last year publicly ridiculed the idea of Israel attacking Iran as strategic folly,Haaretzcolumnist Ari Shavitexcoriatedhim for letting the cat out of the bag:
The threat of a military attack against Iran is crucial for scaring the Iranians and for goading on the Americans and the Europeans. It is also crucial forspurring on the Chinese and the Russians. Israel must not behave like an insane country. Rather, it must create the fear that if it is pushed into a corner it will behave insanely. To ensure that Israel is not forced to bomb Iran, it must maintain the impression that it is about to bomb Iran.
Most Western analyses in recent months have concluded that Israel wont scramble its bombers before November and that the sanctions that are steadily eroding Iranian living standards will be given more time to bleed Irans economy although the Israeli leadership correctly points out that there havent been any signs, thus far, that the tightening choke hold of sanctions will prompt Irans leaders to capitulate to Western demands. By the logic of using the threat of military action to spur greater Western action, last weeks frenzied percussion on Israels war drums could be read as an attempt to challenge complacency in Washington and other Western capitals and to demand even harsher pressure on Iran in the months ahead.

But theres also a domestic political dimension, with Netanyahu and Barak clearly stung by criticism from so much of Israels security establishment of their Iran saber rattling and the publicly known skepticism of the current military brass to Israel mounting a solo attack on Iran without U.S. support. Both men repeatedly make clear that its the political echelon that will make the decisions on Iran, not the military.

One of the stranger pieces in the latest flurry of reports suggesting Israels leaders are shaping to strike Iran was byHaaretzs Shavit, in which a man he identifies only as the decisionmaker but in a piece so riddled with obvious clues promptingIsraels cognoscenti toassumehe was talking to Barak warns that the sword hanging over our neck today is a lot sharper than the sword that hung over our neck before the Six-Day War.(Talking metaphorically of a blade at Israels throat seemed to be a direct response to Dagan, who had repeatedly challenged what he saw as a reckless weighing of a military option by insisting that Israel should only take military action when a knife is at its throat and begins to cut into the flesh.)

The reasoning of Barak and Netanyahu is unlikely to convince Israeli skeptics of military action against Iran, because central to their skepticism has been unprecedented public questioning of the strategic competence of Israels top political decisionmakers. Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin, for example, in April publiclyaccusedNetanyahu and Barak of being guided by messianic feelings, adding, I dont have faith in the current leadership of Israel to lead us to an event of this magnitude, of war with Iran. The breakdown of trust, Caspit claims, is not simply between the U.S. and Israeli political leaderships but also between Israels political leadership and its military chiefs.

And the skepticism in the security establishment, and among military chiefs, of a decision to attack Iran at this point will also have been factored into the analyses in foreign capitals of the likelihood of Israel going to war, thereby weakening the leverage derived from that threat. The feverish speculation over an imminent attack on Iran may drown out such skepticism in the Israeli public sphere, of course. But it could also call forth further challenges to an Israeli military option from old security stalwarts.

Asked to comment on last weeks torrent of speculation, Netanyahu on Sundaycondemnedboth the reporting of skepticism of an Iran attack in Israels military establishment and claims that such an attack is imminent. But his reasoning wasnt likely to still the clamor: the Prime Minister lashed out at the media speculation on the grounds that its purpose, ostensibly, was to prevent Israel from independent action. On Sunday, Israeltesteda nationwide SMS-text-message emergency drill for warning of an incoming missile attack. And its Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, publicly demanded that the West declare failure in attempts to achieve a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

Clearly, someone wants Israelis and the world to think Israel is moving closer to launching a fateful attack on Iran. Whether such a scenario has really become more likely than it was two weeks or two months ago, or the agenda is part of some game of bluff designed to change either Iranian or Western behavior, theres a growing danger that the Israeli publics expectations of war are being raised to a critical point. After all, as many in the security establishment have long warned, you cant keep telling Israelis that theres a grave and gathering danger of annihilation looming on the horizon without creating overwhelming pressure to act.

The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of the quoted articles.

 
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