MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7/09: The Egyptians are arming with missiles to deter Israeli strikes against Egyptian cities or strategic targets such as the Aswan dam. These may be conceived as deterrent weapons; but they also could be used in other situations.
The Iranians are in Lebanon with new missiles that can at least hit Israel's major city of Haifa. They fear possible Israeli strikes against their own new advanced weapons programs, including the likelihood that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. The Israelis are very well aware that Iran not only helped Hezbollah become such a force in Lebanon but hosted the international gathering of anti-Israeli forces earlier this year.
The Syrians have publicly stated they will make the Israelis pay for the two strikes against them in Lebanon since Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister. But they are clearly far more worried about a general regional war in which Sharon will once again attempt to reconfigure the alliances and politics of the entire region as he attempted to do in 1982.
Of course the Palestinians and the Jordanians are worried most of all. No telling just how far Sharon might attempt to go should he get the excuses he is clearly attempting to provoke and just waiting to manipulate for his own ends.
These three articles also were published over the weekend:
[Sunday Times - 8 July]: SMALL groups of elite Iranian soldiers who have infiltrated southern Lebanon are preparing for rocket attacks on Israel. They have come closer to their avowed enemy than any Tehran forces since the shah was toppled more than 20 years ago.
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, has been told by military intelligence that the Pasdaran, or Revolutionary Guards rocket unit, has trained long-range Fagr-5 rockets on cities in northern Israel.
Sharon expressed concern about the development to the French and German governments last week during a whistlestop European tour, and has also warned President George W Bush. At home Sharon told Maariv newspaper of "an unprecedented airlift to Lebanon of long-range rockets that can strike the centre of Israel".
Confirmation of the Iranian advance came when a Pasdaran soldier defected to Israel last week demanding political asylum. His reasons for fleeing are unclear and the Israeli authorities have refused to give details of his interrogation. But the defector, known by his surname of Mehrabi, is understood to have confirmed that the Pasdaran unit is operational.
One intelligence source said the rockets were "strategic weapons to deter Israel from launching a large-scale military onslaught against the Palestinians" and feared they could be used if Sharon carried out a threat to bring down Yasser Arafat's Palestinian authority.
Menashe Amir, an Iranian-born Jewish commentator, said Pasdaran troops had been deployed at 20 outposts along the Israeli border. "In some cases the distance between the Iranian and the Israeli troops is not more than a couple of hundred metres," he said. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards' involvement in Lebanon dates back to 1982 after Sharon - then defence minister - led its invasion.
The Iranians established the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which claims to have driven out the Israelis in May last year after a 20-year struggle. The Palestinians believe they can drive the Israelis from the occupied territories in the same manner.
The Iranian deployment has alarmed a military establishment still humiliated by its retreat from Lebanon. "Personally, I believe the rockets are Iran's doomsday weapon to deter Israel," said General Shimon Shapira, military secretary to Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister. Sharon is adamant that the Iranian presence could not have been established without Syrian permission. "Syria allowed Iran to use its airfields for the arms airlift to Lebanon," he said.
Danny Leshem, a defence expert, said the 240mm Fagr-5 rockets are carried on mobile launch platforms and have a range of about 50 miles, sufficient to strike the port city of Haifa. "They were made by the Iranians with North Korean and Chinese assistance," Leshem said. The rockets are far from accurate, with a "circular error probability" of about half a mile at the limit of their range.
This weekend tension has run high along the border after Israeli jets destroyed a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, the second such strike since Sharon took office. Syrian officials have vowed to respond "when and where appropriate" and the Iranian rockets have lent a new menace to the fragile equation.
Israeli soldiers shot an 11-year-old Palestinian boy dead and wounded two other children during violent clashes in the Gaza Strip yeaterday. Two Israeli soldiers were also injured
[Picture titled "Fatherless"]: Caption: Crying Palestinian boy yesterday holds up a picture of his father, Moaen Sobah, who was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip
[New York Post - July 8, 2001 - Reuters] -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning a war in the Middle East, Syria's leader charged yesterday. And while Syria wants peace, President Bashar Assad warned that "we would not shy away from a war, if it is forced upon us."
Sharon "came into office promising to smash the Palestinians within a hundred days. When that fell apart, Sharon began to export the problem over Israel's borders," Assad told the German news weekly Der Spiegel.
"Today he is planning an even more extensive war because he cannot cope with a crisis in Israel," he said.
"Sharon and his government aspire to war. They want to push the whole region into conflict."
Assad made a similar accusation in Paris last month. In London on Thursday, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara also accused Israel of steering the region toward war.
Assad's comments came as an Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire appeared to exist in name only as violence flared again yesterday in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops shot and killed an 11-year-old Palestinian boy during a day of clashes on Gaza-Egypt border.
On Friday, at least 12 Palestinians were hurt in clashes in Gaza and the West Bank, four of them by Israeli fire during a protest march in Hebron. U.S. Middle East envoy William Burns urged Syria yesterday to exercise maximum restraint after last week's Israeli strike on a Syrian military post in Lebanon in which three soldiers were wounded.
Burns also said that Syrian-Israeli peace talks, broken off more than 18 months ago, could revive if the confrontation halted in Lebanon between Israel, Syria and Syria's Hezbollah guerrilla allies.
[CAIRO, Egypt - Washington Post - Associated Press - 8 July] -- The words are warlike, to be sure - enough to draw quick visits from high-ranking U.S. and European diplomats eager to keep relations between Israel and Syria from deteriorating further.
After two Israeli airstrikes on Syrian military radar sites in Lebanon - launched because Israel blames Syria for Hezbollah guerrilla attacks - Damascus' response so far has not gone beyond angry rhetoric.
But the prospect of Syria and Israel falling into tit-for-tat violence, even if short of outright war, is real enough to worry the United States and Europe. Syria "is capable of retaliating for any aggression, whatever its magnitude," Al-Baath, the newspaper of Syria's ruling Baath Party, declared in a front-page editorial Sunday.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns stopped in Damascus on Saturday, following a trip to Lebanon, to urge the Syrians to exercise "maximum restraint." Also in the region over the weekend spreading similar messages were Russian envoy Andrei Vdovin and European Union mediator Miguel Moratinos.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has insisted that Israel, not Syria, is creating the tension in hopes of distracting the world from its troubles with the Palestinians.
"We would not shy away from a war if it is forced upon us," the German newspaper Der Spiegel on Saturday quoted Assad as saying in an interview. Israel, for its part, accuses Syria of destabilizing the region by supporting Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
Mark Heller of Israel's Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies called the situation a "diplomatic dialogue." He said Israel's strikes have been tightly targeted and that Syria's response has been restrained.
Israel's use of weapons is aimed at sending a message that it holds Syria responsible for Hezbollah's actions, he said. "Speculation about this thing exploding is premature, if not totally off base," he said, though acknowledging it "always carries the risks of further escalating if things get out of control."
In April, after Hezbollah killed an Israeli soldier around the disputed Chebaa Farms area, Israeli warplanes destroyed a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, killing three Syrian soldiers.
Earlier this month, Israeli warplanes struck another Syrian military radar station in Lebanon, wounding two Syrian soldiers and one Lebanese soldier. Israeli said the missile strike was in retaliation for a Hezbollah guerrilla raid two days earlier that wounded two Israeli soldiers in the Chebaa Farms.
Israel ended its occupation of southern Lebanon last year after decades of clashes with Hezbollah. The guerrillas pledge to continue attacks on Israel until it vacates the Chebaa Farms as well. Chebaa is part of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. However, Syria and Lebanon say the land belongs to Lebanon.
Syria can keep Israel off balance by allowing Hezbollah the arms and maneuvering room it needs to continue harassing Israel. But to go further would invite international condemnation, especially after the U.N.-certified retreat from Lebanon gave Israel the diplomatic high ground.
In addition, a direct confrontation would be difficult for a Syrian army weakened by lack of cash and the end of its longtime support from the Soviet Union.
Looking for a cheap solution to its military's limitations, Syria has long been suspected of having turned to North Korea for help in developing Scuds, the missiles Iraq fired on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. Syria's Scuds are believed to have a range of 300 miles - putting all of Israel within reach - and to be capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads.
An Israeli military spokesman said Syria test-fired a Scud toward the Israeli border in a possible warning hours after the July 1 Israeli strike on Syrian radar. Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass denied any Syrian missile was fired.
Just a year ago, long-strained Syria-Israel relations had seemed on the mend, with U.S.-brokered peace talks opening under then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the late Syrian President Hafez Assad. But the negotiations soon broke down. There has been no indication they will restart soon under hard-liner Ariel Sharon, who replaced Barak, and Bashar Assad, who has taken a tougher stance on Israel than his father and predecessor. Tiny Lebanon is caught in the middle. Lebanon's unwillingness to send its troops to pacify the border, as the United Nations and Israel demand, is traced to Syria's influence.
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has expressed misgivings about Hezbollah's challenging Israel at a time when he is telling foreign business that his country is a safe place for investment. Politically, however, he cannot afford to distance himself from the guerrillas.
Hezbollah's deputy leader, Sheik Naim Kassem, warned Israel last week to expect an answer to its missile strikes.
"You may hear of a new attack after a few days or after a month. It depends on the field conditions," Kassem said.
Lebanese living along the border appeared resigned to the possibility of a flare-up.
"We cannot make predictions whether something is going to happen because we do not plan military actions, the big powers do," said Ibrahim Sweid, an olive and grape grower in Kfar Chouba.