The Growing Threat to Israel´s Qualitative Military Edge (JCPA-JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS) JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF MK Dr. Yuval Steinitz Vol. 3, No. 10 12/11/03)
Source: http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief3-10.htm
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Israel has no strategic depth and could face a situation in which
its air superiority was jeopardized by guerrilla forces coming from
neighboring countries just a short distance away, or even from the
Palestinian Authority.
Since a number of hostile countries now possess long-range
missiles, Israel must take into consideration the fact that all of
its air bases are within range of enemy weapons.
The Egyptians see Hamas as a strategic asset, exactly like the
Syrians and the Iranians see Hizballah in Lebanon.
If the Egyptians are not doing everything in their capacity to
prevent the smuggling of arms and explosives into Gaza, this is a
kind of implicit, tacit support.
Egypt apparently believes that if Israel and the Palestinians
continue to bleed together, in the end this will weaken Israel and
tilt the balance of forces against it.
The last decade has seen a very sharp rise in military
expenditures in Egypt, though that country faces no challenges or
threats to its territory from its neighbors. The indoctrination of
new Egyptian officers focuses on preparation for a possible future
war against Israel.
Living with No Strategic Depth
David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister, established Israel´s
basic defense doctrine in 1953. He took a vacation from his post in
order to think about Israel´s future and its concept of defense: How
would a miniscule Jewish state be able to survive for decades to come
in a hostile, difficult region, while the Arab world explicitly aimed
to destroy it. Seven weeks later he came back with a paper
entitled: "The Doctrine of Defense and State Armed Forces." Until
today, with some minor changes, this document outlines Israel´s
defense doctrine. Among its fundamental axioms:
Israel is and will continue to be quantitatively inferior vis-a-
vis the Arab world, and therefore, in order to balance this, Israel
must develop a very strong qualitative edge.
Already in the 1950s, the ratio between the Israeli and Arab
populations was one to sixty. Ben-Gurion claimed that even if many
Jews came from the diaspora to Israel, the population ratio would
continue to be extremely unfavorable to Israel. Even today, the ratio
between 5 million Jews and approximately 300 million Arabs is one to
sixty.
With regard to territory, Ben-Gurion calculated the ratio at
about one to three thousand.
So how is Israel, a little state with a small population and
impossible borders, to survive in this hostile region? Its only
chance is to develop a very strong qualitative edge that will balance
its quantitative inferiority. This can be done if the Israel Defense
Forces can rely on a pool of experienced, talented, and well-trained
personnel to provide that qualitative edge. For this to happen,
Israel must create good universities and research centers for science
and technology, and develop defense industries that will be able to
provide some of that qualitative edge.
In the wake of the recent war in Iraq, some experts have asserted
that the Iraqi army was so easily destroyed primarily because of the
technological superiority of the American and British forces. Israel
today enjoys the same technological edge - at least against states
like Syria, though less against Egypt - and has little to fear on the
conventional level. Yet there are important differences between
Israel´s situation and that of America. This is because in Iraq, the
American air bases and carriers were located far from the Iraqi
forces, and due to its air superiority, the United States was able to
send its troops to engage Iraqi forces at the time of its choosing.
Israel, on the other hand, enjoys no such strategic depth, and this
is its main strategic Achilles heel - the country is so small.
Hostile forces are relatively close to Israel´s air bases, its main
cities, and its centers of mobilization for reserve soldiers. Israel
could face a situation in which its air superiority was paralyzed or
jeopardized by primitive armed forces, such as commando forces or
guerrilla forces coming from neighboring countries just a short
distance away, or even from the Palestinian Authority.
The first few days of a war are the most sensitive because the other
side could create havoc in Israel´s rear, either through great
numbers of ballistic missiles launched from Syria, Egypt, or from
other states such as Iran, or from long-range guns or rockets fired
by Hizballah from Lebanon. Today Hizballah has more than 10,000
rockets including long-range missiles that are able to reach the city
of Haifa, the Haifa naval base, and important air and ground bases
throughout northern Israel. If an enemy force was able to penetrate
even several kilometers into Israel using very primitive
technologies, in order to jeopardize or even partially paralyze its
air bases and mobilization centers, then Israel would not be able to
exploit its air superiority or position enough ground forces on its
borders. In fact, since Israel must now take into consideration the
potential threat of Scud and other long-range missiles from a number
of hostile countries, all of its air bases are within range of enemy
weapons.
So despite its qualitative edge, the fact that this country is so
vulnerable, with no strategic depth, means that Israel has to be very
careful not to be surprised and to preserve its qualitative edge.
The Role of Egypt
During the 1980s, I was an activist in the Peace Now movement and I
participated in many demonstrations and rallies against previous
Israeli governments, pushing them to try and take the necessary risks
and to negotiate with Arafat, despite his past as a terrorist. I
supported the idea of withdrawing from Gaza and parts of the West
Bank, and agreed with the idea of taking those risks in order to see
what would happen. I was also a supporter of the Oslo Accords.
During the 1990s I made two dramatic shifts, one from the Peace Now
movement to the Likud party, and in 1999 from academia to the
Knesset. Already in 1994, two factors caused me to reconsider my
position on Oslo. One was the behavior of the Palestinian Authority.
Arafat´s rhetoric was worrisome, but also of concern was the fact
that during the first two years of Oslo, even before terrorism began
to escalate, all the demilitarization elements of Oslo were being
violated by the Palestinians. The first wave of suicide bombings took
place several months after the second Israeli withdrawal from most of
the cities in the West Bank in 1995, and not before.
The other factor was Egypt´s behavior and attitude. In 1994 it was
apparent that to the Egyptians the peace process was not genuine, but
rather an opportunity to weaken Israel. Between 1993 and 1995, while
Israel began to reduce its military expenditures, instead of warming
the cold peace between Egypt and Israel following the Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, Egypt sharply
increased its military spending and began conducting more frequent
military exercises simulating war against Israel. In addition,
Egyptian rhetoric became even more hostile than before the Oslo
process took place. What was Egypt´s real aim? Apparently, the real
Egyptian policy is to let Israelis and Palestinians bleed together.
This became apparent to some Americans only after the Camp David
summit, when Ehud Barak sought to achieve a final status agreement
with Yasser Arafat. On the third day of the summit, Barak made a
dramatic proposal that he was willing to divide Jerusalem, including
the Old City, between Israelis and Palestinians. Under his formula,
the Jewish neighborhoods would become part of Israel and the Arab
neighborhoods part of a Palestinian state. The Old City, the Western
Wall, and the Jewish Quarter would be in Israel´s hands, and the
Muslim and Christian Quarters, including the mosques on the Temple
Mount, would be under Palestinian sovereignty. Barak was quite
confident that if Arafat heard he was getting part of Jerusalem, this
would tempt him enough to sign a final peace agreement to end the
conflict with Israel.
The same day, several hours later, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
appeared on Egyptian TV and said that Arafat could not sign this deal
because he was not authorized to negotiate over Jerusalem. Mubarak
said the Old City of Jerusalem belongs to all Muslims and all Arabs,
and dividing the Old City between Jews or Israelis and Palestinians
would be considered treason in Arab history. He then added that
Arafat knew very well the fate of those who commit treason in Arab
history. Several hours later, other Arab leaders in Iraq, Syria, and
Morocco began echoing this warning to Arafat not to sign the
agreement and not to agree to Israel´s new, dramatic proposal to
divide Jerusalem. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the
Egyptian contribution at the time was negative.
In 1995, Egypt put enormous pressure on the late King Hussein not to
sign a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, and no official
representative from Egypt attended the signing ceremony in the Arava.
Egypt also placed enormous pressure on Morocco and Qatar during the
Rabin administration not to establish full diplomatic relations with
Israel. Even today, it is only due to very strong Egyptian pressure
that Jordan and Morocco do not have ambassadors in Israel.
What is the real Egyptian policy toward Israel and toward the peace
process? In the 1980s, Israel was told by Egypt that the peace
between them was so cold because Egypt was the only country in the
region that had made peace with Israel. Several years ago, Israel had
a peace process with the Palestinians, a peace agreement with Jordan,
and improved relations with Morocco, Qatar, and some other moderate
Arab states, but the peace between Israel and Egypt grew even colder.
Today Israel can no longer ignore the very sophisticated relationship
between Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, as well as with
Palestinian terrorist organizations, mainly Hamas. It is clear that
most of the explosives and weapons that reach Hamas and the other
terrorist organizations in Gaza come from Egypt through the tunnels
in Rafiah. The Sinai desert has become the logistic rear for these
terrorist organizations. If the Egyptians are not doing everything in
their capacity to prevent the smuggling of arms and explosives into
Gaza, this represents implicit, tacit support for such activity. A
comparison with Jordanian attempts to prevent smuggling of arms and
explosives across its border with Israel shows that the Jordanians
are much more serious, and much more successful. Thus, it is much
more difficult for Hizballah to send arms and ammunition to Islamic
fundamentalists in the West Bank through Jordan than to Gaza through
Egypt.
Between the Suez Canal and the Israeli-Egyptian border are more than
200 kilometers of desert. Almost no one lives there, there are only
two roads, and it is quite easy to put up some roadblocks and
checkpoints to make sure that no weapons pass from the Suez Canal to
Rafiah. When there has been strong pressure from the United States,
Egypt has arrested some of the smugglers and even destroyed one or
two tunnels. But basically they are turning a blind eye to weapons
smuggling.
Egypt gives not only logistical support but also diplomatic support
to Hamas. When senior Egyptian officials meet with the heads of Hamas
in Egypt or in the territories, this represents a form of political
support, directed not as much against Israel as against the
Palestinian Authority, against the Abu Mazen government, against Abu
Ala. Even during the latest attempts to reach some kind of hudna, a
cessation of violence, the Egyptians have been very active, not
between Israel and the Palestinians but between Hamas and the
Palestinian Authority. During the time of the Abu Mazen government,
the Egyptians were trying to achieve an agreement with Hamas to cease
attacks for three or six months, and in return Hamas would receive
guarantees that the Palestinian Authority would not crack down on
them and would not dismantle their military infrastructure. The
Egyptians were quite explicit about insisting that a war among
brothers should not occur, and that Israel and the United States were
trying to incite such a war with their demands for a crackdown on
militants. Actually, what they were saying to the Palestinian
Authority was: "You shouldn´t do to Hamas what we in Egypt did to the
Muslim Brotherhood." Already in 1996, when Clinton demanded that
Arafat crack down on Hamas, Egypt´s president and foreign minister
both warned Arafat against doing so.
The Egyptians see Hamas as a strategic asset, exactly like the
Syrians and the Iranians see Hizballah in Lebanon. Egypt apparently
believes that if Israel and the Palestinians continue to bleed
together, in the end this will weaken Israel and tilt the balance of
forces against it.
Its support of Hamas vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority makes Egypt
the mediator among the Palestinians inside the PA. In a sense, this
is very similar to the position of Syria in Lebanon before Syria
occupied Lebanon in the 1970s, when Syria was mediating between the
Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, and between the PLO and the
Lebanese government.
Against Whom is Egypt Arming?
Israel can no longer ignore Egypt´s growing military strength. Unlike
Israel, Egypt faces no existential threat or even any military threat
along its borders. Sudan and Libya have almost no armies at all. They
possess no military threat to Egypt with old Soviet tanks and Migs
from the 1960s, most of them nonfunctioning. Egypt faces no
challenges or threats to its territory from its neighbors. Israel has
no ambitions in Egypt and, indeed, withdrew from the entire Sinai
peninsula, with its oil fields, in order to achieve peace and
stability. Israel, a Western democracy and an open society, will not
wage a full-scale war on anyone unless under attack. As Immanuel Kant
already noted 200 years ago, democracies are very reluctant to go to
war, unlike totalitarian regimes. Still, our small country must
invest billions of dollars to develop a modern and efficient armed
forces.
The last decade has seen a very sharp rise in military expenditures
in Egypt, beyond the amounts that poor country gets from the United
States annually. Up to now, Egypt has received more than $30 billion
in military aid from the United States. Israel has received slightly
more in the last 22 years, but we have had to spend much of it on
war - against Palestinian terrorism, against Hizballah in the north,
against the Iraqis who in 1991 struck Israel with Scud missiles, and
other military campaigns Israel was forced to conduct.
Since 1996, three years after Oslo, most of the general military
exercises undertaken by the Egyptian army have simulated war against
Israel. In 1996, for the first time, the "Badar exercises," the
largest exercises of the Egyptian army, were subtitled as simulating
war against "a little country northeast of Egypt." There is only one
such country on the map. The indoctrination of new Egyptian officers
focuses on preparation for a possible future war against Israel.
Israel is very concerned about the erosion of its qualitative edge
vis-a-vis both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. For more than a decade, there
has been a tacit understanding between Israel and the United States
that while the U.S. may supply the same primary combat platforms
(planes, tanks, or ships) to both sides, Israel was to preserve its
qualitative edge in the weapons systems aboard those platforms, such
as missiles, electronic warfare capabilities, and computers. The
Egyptians have exactly the same U.S.-made F-16 airplanes as the
Israel air force, and approximately the same number - 240. They have
the same Apache helicopters, which now are to be upgraded to the
Longbow version. They have very modern and efficient Abrams tanks
which are parallel to the Israeli Merkava, and modern frigates and
missiles boats from Holland, Spain, and the United States. Israel has
so far succeeded in preserving its qualitative edge in the field of
weapons systems, but we continue to ask the Americans to consider our
concerns because that qualitative edge is the only thing we have to
defend Israel against the huge Arab world around us.
Israel´s defense industries have developed some of the best weapons
systems in the world, especially in the field of missiles and
electronic warfare, in order to assure that qualitative edge even if
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are armed with the best weapons systems in the
West. This edge is seen in Israel´s own air-to-air missiles, missile
defense systems for ships, and modern radars.
Today there are growing pressures from Arab countries to obtain more
sophisticated and advanced air-to-air missiles and guided munitions.
If the United States or other Western countries supply these kinds of
weapons, this will erode Israel´s technological edge even further.
This is the reason it is so difficult to cut Israel´s military
budget, as this may force us not to buy the best products, and not to
develop some future products, leading to another erosion of Israel´s
technological edge.
Several months ago, during the Sharm el-Sheikh summit between
President Bush and Arab leaders, Bush spoke of the need for the Arab
states in the Middle East to contribute to the war against terrorism
by taking two steps: stopping the flow of money to terrorist
organizations, and ending the incitement against the United States,
Israel, the West, and the Jewish people. While Egyptian President
Mubarak stood near President Bush, nodding his head as Bush was
speaking about the need for governments in the region to end the
terrible racist incitement against Jews, against the Jewish state,
and against the Western world in general, at exactly the same time,
official Egyptian government TV broadcast a program based on the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, depicting the Jews as the evil force
in the world, trying to corrupt gentile societies, not just in Europe
but also in the Middle East.
A Viable Jewish State
Many people speak about a viable Palestinian state, but we also have
to think about a viable Jewish state. For the Jewish state to be
viable, it must be defendable. Without being able to defend
ourselves, we cannot have a viable state, whether or not there is a
peace agreement. That is why Israelis are so concerned about security
arrangements, about minimal security zones, about the appearance of a
new and different Palestinian regime that will be able to fulfill its
commitments, not just about preventing terrorism but about preserving
the complete demilitarization of the territories from which Israel
withdrew, as was specified in the Oslo Accords. -- MK Dr. Yuval
Steinitz Chairman, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
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