The Signs of War in the North, They Are a Changin’

 

We just had the usual late spring three day national exercise where one day they hold coast to mountains, north to south siren head for the shelters practice scenarios. Then there was the news that the IDF and emergency services were practicing for a potential and unprecedented assault where thousands of rockets would be launched in mass swarms with as many as a thousand rockets per wave, something well beyond anything that the Iron Dome with even every other system assisting could ever be hoped to prevent. The estimates were that under such an assault there could be as many as four-thousand deaths and untold casualties in the first few days. Where such news stories likely unnerved a great number of those reading them, I had been feeling something was amiss and even mentioned that to people after the practice shelter runs just seemed eerily more like a premonition than a practice session. The claims is that Iran is planning this little warm welcome by arming Hezballah in Lebanon with more rockets than they would likely be capable of launching even if given free range to do so for two to three weeks. Then they are also attempting to set up a secondary strike location near the Golan Heights likely to strike the IDF forces guarding that front and potentially also giving the Iron Dome and other anti-missile systems a second set of angles to compute on their intercepts. Perhaps that explains the serious tautness permeating the air making each breath full of the tensions strangling the very oxygen needed for life itself.

 

Will these feelings really be a true forecast of what is to come later this summer or just a case of the nerves which will be remembered with great laughter at my expense. I will welcome the humbling experience but then again there are many other threats which could also make life less enjoyable here in Israel. Fortunately the BDS people have not succeeded to any great extent outside the university and college campuses despite the great dilemmas and threats of the past few weeks with the FIFA affair and the Orange CEO misfire and retractions followed by repeated apologies and protestations of great affection for and loyalty to providing service in Israel. Meanwhile, it appears that the crisis of upsetting the Israeli public was far more concerning than any threat from the BDS crowd whose loud screaming has proven to be unnerving but eventually harmless and without any real harm if ignored. Still, the initial reaction from the CEO of Orange could prove troubling should other CEOs prove to be anywhere near as panicked as the Orange executive then Israel might end up facing some difficulties but also should these companies have such easily spooked in response to empty threats CEOs then perhaps they should find a new CEO made of sterner stuff. But the BDS is a mostly empty threat while Iran is a very real threat with great complications.

 

The main complication is what should Israel do if they realize that an attack is imminent from Iran, strike at Iran in a preemptive strike to prevent what would be an existential threat to Israeli existence and risk President Obama leading the charge in the United Nations Security Council to destroy Israel by referring them to the International Court of Justice at the Hague for attacking another United Nations member nation with the American President believing the Iranian claims that they had no such attack planned and Israel really was the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and even the entire world. The following destructive actions from the United States, European Union, United Nations, and the international court systems which could result in a majority of nations recalling their ambassadors and closure of the Israeli Embassies in their nations and even the United Nations might eject Israel and cancel the United Nations Resolution which was theoretically the reason Israel became a nation. The fact that the United Nations and the world’s nations turning against Israel could not actually have any effects on the fact that Israel is a nation as Israel meets the requirements that define a nation so despite whatever actions the rest of the world might decide to take, Israel would remain a nation unless overrun by the nations of the world as revenge for their perceived unprovoked attack on Iran, though that is also highly unlikely.

 

Where, in all reality, an assault out of Iran is unlikely at this time, an assault from out of Syria coordinated with Hezballah in Lebanon as well as assisting in the Syrian assault as the last hurrah attempting to gain allies to assist Bashir al-Assad as his position has become more untenable with every passing week and it is rapidly becoming desperation time where any possible hope will be attempted no matter how far-fetched or remote the probability for success. An assault on Israel, especially one which leaves Israel sufficiently hurt that Assad can claim that he has accomplished what the rest of the Arab world has failed in achieving, making Israel reel from the damages of a swarm rocket attack, as swarm attacks are the known Iranian tactic for overwhelming opponents hoping for marginal success, would the world finally back an Israel equivalent strike to prevent similar follow on attacks or turn on Israel claiming the tired accusation of disproportionate response, as they are want to do. The possibility that such an attempt would assist Assad in any way shape or form is ludicrous and would only result in an assault by Israel on the areas of Lebanon controlled by Hezballah to wipe out every possible missile and rocket storage areas and launchers and also destroy every last possible Hezballah base, training area, bunkers, tunnel systems and any other assets that Israeli intelligence has identified. There will be the unfortunate necessity to strike the storage and launch sites in southern Lebanon which are largely below the Litani River, an area which the United Nations forces in Lebanon, UNIFIL, were supposed to prevent Hezballah from rearming and rebuilding their infrastructure according to United Nations Resolution 1701 which brought the last Lebanon War to an end. Unfortunately the UNFIL forces have had great difficulty and quickly simply gave up and refused to risk any confrontation while the European UNIFIL troops simply took their equipment and returned to Europe refusing to assist claiming the risk was too great and the potential for success too low, and there even have been those seen to aid Hezballah in their operations in southern Lebanon. This has allowed Hezballah to place launchers and missiles and rockets in virtually every civilian structure including schools, apartments, homes, hospitals and virtually every other structure imaginable. The intents of Hezballah is exactly the same intent Israel experienced last summer during Operation Protective Edge where Hamas fired the majority of their rockets from next to the same exact types of buildings and had their underground bunkers beneath hospitals and schools in attempts to maximize the civilian casualties in order to generate as much bad media coverage as possible.

 

Hamas also understood that Israeli missile defense and the fact that Israelis have shelters built into most buildings with them required in every new apartment, each apartment and not just the building, and in every newly build office building and retrofit being completed on most older buildings and many schools have been fortified to resist rocket fire; this the Israelis would be vastly more protected and thus the Israeli emphasis on life would serve to minimize Israeli casualties while in Gaza the Hamas efforts would intentionally cause excessive casualties amongst the civilians even making many levels higher directly caused by the overt Hamas efforts. They used this disparity and the media jumped at the reports basically asking over and over again how come there are so few Israeli casualties while there are reportedly thousands of Gazan civilian casualties being reported. There was an interesting finding confirmed by the United Nations investigations that there was almost and even number of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatant casualties as there were civilian casualties. The fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used the bunker and tunnel systems to keep their fighters as safe as they were able while refusing the civilians any similar access to these areas of safety.

 

The fact that the IDF attained a virtual 1:1 ratio was unprecedented in modern warfare by any military since the advent of modern warfare. World War I was the last war where civilian casualties were appreciably lower than civilian casualties having a ratio of 2:3 of civilians to combatants killed. World War II had a ratio of 2:1 civilians to combatants killed while the Korean War had a ratio of 2:1 civilians to combatants as well. The Viet Nam war numbers are very controversial and range in ratios of civilians to combatants from 1:3 or 1:1 or the more similar to previous wars of 2:1. The two Chechen Wars had ratios of 10:1 in the first war and over 4:1 in the second with a total of approximately 7:1. The NATO war in Yugoslavia had a 4:1 ratio of civilians to combatants. The Iraq War produced a ratio of well over 4:1 civilians to combatants by the numbers estimated by the Iraqi figures and 1:2 civilians to combatants by Coalition numbers, a case of believe whomever you like. The winner for most contested numbers as well as estimated worst numbers was the totality of the drone warfare by the United States in Pakistan. The United States claims that the total number of civilians killed during the past two years was a total of twenty to thirty civilians against numbers approaching between five-hundred and one-thousand militants and terrorists. Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution estimated a ratio of 10:1 as being much closer to the truth. The reported worst ratio ever reported for a single strike, thus the worst possible example and should be taken as such and not an actual comment but more as an example how in modern warfare a single attack can go so absolutely wrong. The report was from the British paper the Guardian which reported, “On 15 October 2010, Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator or Reaper drone killed Hussain, the Pakistani Taliban later confirmed. For the death of a man whom practically no American can name, the US killed 128 people, 13 of them children.” This single attack produced a civilian to combatant ratio of 128:1, fortunately this worst case scenario has had no similar such tragedies as far as we could ascertain.

 

What this whole discussion about ratios of civilian to combatant was simply to put into perspective the fact that the IDF conducts itself with the restraint and discipline often recalled in military training as control of fire, the confirming of targets and assuring that the long field of fire is free of noncombatants thus minimizing the harm to noncombatants. What people need to realize that in warfare where if you do not eliminate an enemy combatant whence you have the opportunity then you are risking the lives of many of your fellow soldiers and potentially to yourself. Should a Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terror combatant in Gaza present themselves as a target believing that no Israeli would ever shoot them because they have strapped two young children to their chest hiding their torso from being viable targets due to the children he has unmercifully and illegally as such is a grievous breach of the rules of warfare, but these are terrorists who have a sizeable disregard for the rules of war. They should understand one of numerous rules of war that states that should a combatant utilize a protected building, item or person to protect their position or person, then that protected building, item or person is no longer protected and can be determined as a legitimate target if not shooting the target otherwise protected item to remove the combatant and end the threat of the actual target, such as permissible providing no other alternative is available. Thus far there have been no reports where any IDF soldier had targeted any combatant terrorist who has thusly protected themselves unless they were positive that they had a shot which they confidently could make without causing undue threat to the innocent children beyond the horrors they are already experiencing. Simply put, there have been incidents where trained snipers were embedded in combat units and took such shots usually targeting the combatant’s head thus causing the innocents no harm and possibly saving their lives.

 

The one item we can be assured of is that should Hezballah begin raining rockets, mortars, artillery rounds and missiles into Israel and largely targeting civilian areas with approaching one-thousand-two-hundred or more which would overwhelm even the extremely effective Iron Dome systems and the other systems developed to augment Iron Dome providing a layered defense system, but even such would never be capable, as neither would any other earthly system, of intercepting such a volume of projectiles. The only way to prevent such a threat would be to blanket style attack taking out every potential asset Hezballah has destroying their arsenal in place in both Lebanon and Syria. There would be no viable alternative and do not even go down that blind alley known as the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. And if Israel should actually listen and scale back her response leaving the vast majority of the Hezballah weapons systems intact then who will prevent Hezballah from launching another thousand-plus projectiles on day two then once again there would be the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. Then the third day after Israel called off a night of horrific raids destroying everything they know where it exists using the most accurate munitions in the Israeli arsenal leading to yet another day of approaching or exceeding a thousand projectiles followed immediately by the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. Hezballah is reputed to have over one-hundred-thousand rockets and missiles and this does not include artillery rounds or mortar rounds. This means that Hezballah would be capable of continuing such thousand rockets and missiles for over three months as they would have sufficient to last at least one-hundred days before requiring any restocking by Iran.

 

The threatening reality is that Iran is currently resupplying Hezballah ahead of any conflict and by the time they pull the covers off the launchers and launching the rockets and missiles while all the time the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. I realize the United Nations reference might be getting a little repetitious but just realize how the Israelis feel when we are always told to show restraint as it must be permissible to target Israelis even though only about three out of four Israelis are Jews. We heard the complaints during last summer’s war with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and friends where reporter after reporter would ask why there were so many Gazan civilian deaths and virtually no Israeli civilian casualties. If my memory serves me correctly there was one reporter at least who slipped up and instead of saying Gazans and Israelis but instead stated there were vastly more Arab casualties than Jewish casualties and it begs the questions as to where are the dead Jews in comparable numbers to the Arab deaths in Gaza. He likely stated it the way many others also saw the conflict as so many Arab dead and almost not even a single dead Jew.

 

We can only guess how many were thinking where were the dead Jews in significant numbers despite their knowledge of the extents that the Israeli government and construction companies have gone to fortify safe areas in order to prevent Israeli casualties, Jewish, Arab, Christians, Muslims (yes Israeli Muslims and perhaps one should ask how many Jews are allowed in Arab Palestinian areas), Baha’I and others all living in some degree of terror during the war last summer and would be just as terrorized should the potential warfare that Iran and Nasrallah has hinted awaits Israel, if not more so. The real problem is if the signals from Iran are anywhere near accurate, there might also be another front opened up from out of Gaza initiated by Hamas and coordinated with Islamic Jihad and the other forces which Iran has kept on their payrolls. The real fear is if any warfare this summer should turn into a full-scale and all-out war with far more than the Iranian allies with potentially Turkey adding their forces as well as Iraq and who knows who else. My prayers are for nobody to be even frightened this summer because no violence or threats of violence beyond that we have already heard. May peace grace the hot and hazy days of summer.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Orange and France Insult Israel Thinking They Cannot Lose

 

The Orange, a French Company providing Mobile Phone and other data access systems, has some explaining to do after the Orange CEO Stephane Richard haughtily, brazenly and with great chutzpah postulated, “We want to terminate this and to fix this, we don’t want it. In the existing contract, it gives us the option to terminate this without exposing this to a huge financial risk. If you were the CEO of this company you would act the same.” One might understand their concern as the company had been receiving threats to their business from people in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Israel Movement) agitators in Egypt who were also attempting to drive people in Egypt to switch from Orange to another carrier until Orange capitulated. This campaign was likely moved largely forward by the well-organized but mostly ignored BDS groups in Europe who are fairly good at getting the media to cover their loud and infantile rantings as the media will run and inflate any anti-Israel, anti-Zionist or obliquely anti-Semitic political movement which pretty much is made up of the BDS movement, the Israel Apartheid movement, the pro-Palestinian hate Israel fests held annually on many university and college campuses and similar lesser items. Other than media coverage these groups are little more than a nuisance though they can get some of the people riled up and even changing their cell carrier company but it is most likely that after a week or two the entire boycott Orange threat would have simply dissipated like a spring shower which makes all the fury and noise of a thunderstorm but the end result is a light rain. Orange CEO Stephane Richard obviously got all worried and believing that he was about to lose his entire enrollment of customers in Egypt because of a flood of phone calls largely made by young agitators with more time on their hands than brains or influence making everything look far more dire than they were in actuality. It would not be surprising if the majority of the calls made claiming they were going to switch carriers for their cellphone service were not even made by people who have Orange as their carrier. If these BDS agitators were using actual Orange served cellphones, my bet is many of these BDS threats did not result in any cancellations and some might even have come from cellphones which you buy that have a fixed number of minutes and then are useless except for buying more time and these phones had used Orange. Well, such users as these are not actual cancellations, just calls made on a phone purchased using Orange simply to make their point and by using this method actually gave Orange an increased usership over this time and were not actually a threat.

 

It can be understood that losing any large number of Egyptian users of Orange plans would be a threat which could hurt Orange should it come to fruition. The one item that may have been left out of this attempted and thus far successful BDS threat is that the Egyptian customers are on contracts and cannot just change carriers like they might change shoes, there is a contract which leaves them obligated for an expressed time period. When their renewal time comes around is the time when changing carriers is easy and by then their threat to change companies will probably have dimmed to almost the last flicker of a sparkler and would pose more trouble than it would be worth just to make a political statement, and they would think they had called and made the threat to change and that would have to suffice. Any Egyptians who were driven so far as to drop their Orange coverage mid-contract are now facing the fact that they had a contract and Orange will remain being paid until that contract expires, a real problem if they had already signed with another company as they will be paying for two cellphone service providers for some time. The people who Orange was going to lose in Egypt have already made whatever moves they were planning and have left Orange. Any further damage would be minimal if the experience of other BDS targeted service providers in other markets. The number of people who will call a number and threaten to drop service from Orange that actually have Orange service and will actually follow through would have turned out to be minimal. Now that Orange CEO Stephane Richard has made an international incident out of what was likely no more than a ploy to get media coverage and look big hoping to get just that reaction from somebody high enough in Orange that the media coverage would now be front page across Europe, the Middle East and beyond has been realized. Orange CEO Stephane Richard has given the BDS movement legitimacy beyond their wildest dreams and caused a headache for their home nation of France. Orange executives could not have made a bigger mistake had they tried. Now you will lose your franchise in Israel while probably driving customers to your former partner and thus giving your competitors a boost, especially whomever the now free franchise in Israel plus this may ripple beyond Israel and have numerous pro-Israel customers leave Orange service quietly and without much fanfare over the next year. The only actual accomplishment here is that by their actions, Orange has empowered these BDS agitators who will now go after company after company by having their service users threaten to cancel and drop them from their service core using Arab nationals to make the threats hoping to force these companies into kowtowing to their blackmail. Think of what will be the eventual result once the BDS groups have targeted every cellphone service provider in Egypt in succession, one after another, until they have gone through the entire gamut of providers. That’s correct, the only one who will lose customers of any significance will be the last company they threaten as the Egyptians will have to get their cellphone service from somewhere and the BDS agitators are now perched to use Egypt to threaten every other provider. If they all react as Orange has then Israeli providers may as well come together and form one centralized mega-provider and perhaps start their own international cellphone provider based out of Israel and advertising to be the provider that will not fall before the paltry antics of a number of well-paid organizers and the people who succumb to such demagoguery but simply a cell phone service provider who is dedicated to serving you. In the end Orange may have done Israel a favor as once we have a competitor in every Orange covered nation outside the Arab Middle East I bet this competition will be the greater challenge to the Orange bottom line.

 

There will be an object lesson which may very well come from this episode, namely that running like a scared school girl from the BDS bogeyman will cause Orange greater harm in the long haul than standing their ground. Perhaps every Israeli application designer should figure out a way to make their apps unusable on Orange provided users phones which will eventually mean that there will be a plethora of popular apps which will be beyond Orange customers’ ability to use and eventually such a threat will bury Orange far faster than an Egyptian boycott which would probably have been minimal in the long run and simply a ton of sound and fury signifying little to nothing, just some grandstanding and now given some curtain calls on the stage upon which we all play. The BDS agitators and organizers are paid to attempt to make a big splash and have companies and organizations make sympathetic statements of support and that is about it but Orange gave them an actual victory, a move that may prove very damaging for Orange over the long haul and will give the BDS agitators some impetus for a while which will dissipate as other companies who are similarly threatened actually stand up to the bullies. The end lesson here will most likely be that Orange will see a sea change as people demand that their affiliates such as their former partner, Partner Communications, groups in Israel will seek greener pastures where their business will be beyond the effects from agitators as Orange has now shown weakness which is rarely a good business model. Orange has proven they can be scared by even the slightest challenge which says very little favorably about the upper management. Now that this ridiculous episode has spilled over exactly where the BDS agitators desired it to go, between the governments of France and Israel, Orange may find that the French government will be displeased with the difficulties which the actions by Orange has brought to their door, and it can never be a good thing to aggravate the government in your home base.

 

Now will start the questions for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his newly formed coalition as to what actions they will take resultant to this disgrace. Israel has been besmirched not only by a French wine drinking, truffle hunting, cheese eating, surrender monkeys whose weapons business advertisements are for lightly used rifles, never been fired but dropped once. Actually France is a lovely nation with some very wonderful sights and interesting places to visit including Tours where Charles Martel was given the moniker, Martellus (“The Hammer”), which has survived along with his great feat leading French troops against the invading Moors blunting their advance and rescuing the rest of France from great harm as the Moors had been sacking each city they defeated including Bordeaux. Charles the Hammer Martel will live forever which nobody remembers the ruler of Bordeaux except to recall Charles Martel coming to the rescue of France and savior of Europe. Now is a time to demand that France live up to their hero who changed the path of history by turning back the Moors at the Battle of Tours.

 

Some may inquire why bring the French government into this minor tussle with Orange. That is an easy question to strike the central reason on why France needs to answer for this slight, the French government owns a sizeable percentage of Orange and they receive benefits from the French government as such. When a government gets in bed with companies and supports these companies they become subject to the decisions and political moves which may require their intervention if only to protect the image of France. The Israeli government initially made a request for the French government to at least minimally rebuke this decision by Orange and seek to have them overturn their cowardly action. The French ignored or refused the polite request so Prime Minister Netanyahu and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked reacted angrily demanding an apology from the French government as CEO Stephane Richard had further backed his comments claiming that Orange will “make very little money” from their Israel franchise and that the sole reason they might not pull from the franchise was, “Sorry to say, but a dispute with Partner (Communications) when you have zero legal position in Israeli courts is not something that I would recommend for my company. I am not going to pay hundreds of millions of euros only because I would have (to) take a risk, a huge risk, in terms of the penalties that we could have if we entered into this kind of brutal process.” So, let see if we have this correct, Orange would desire nothing more than to terminate their agreement with an Israeli firm, Partner Communications, but will not do so as it might be costly. But when the whiny little agitators realized that you were easily influenced by their threats and had paid them tribute in word and not deed they turned back and demanded you go all the way and end your relations with Israel and you complied quickly and quietly. I don’t think you are going to get away with such perfidy silently sneaking like a thief in the night. Prime Minister Netanyahu made an official request with the French government demanding, “I call on the French government to publicly repudiate the miserable statement and miserable action by a company that is under its partial ownership. At the same time, I call on our friends to unconditionally declare – in a loud and clear voice – that they oppose any kind of boycott of the state of the Jews.”

 

What caused this confrontation with Orange initially, the very starting point? Well, the BDS agitators found out that Partner Communications, a subsidiary purchaser of its cell service time from Orange, provided IDF soldiers cellphones to use while they were on duty during the Gaza confrontation last summer responding to Hamas have kidnapped and murdered three teens and followed this up with raining upwards of a hundred rockets a day into Israel including reaching Tal Aviv, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Sderot, and other cities threatening every Israeli and causing very much turmoil and economic damages as people were forced to respond daily to numerous Code Red alert sirens where they are advised, some might say obliged, to take shelter until the all-clear is sounded. That was not even a program which had anything to do with Orange and their CEO could have addressed this entire spiraling insanity by simply pointing out that Orange sells cell coverage to Partner Communications and is not responsible or even capable of dictating business decisions to their subsidiary service provider as they are an independent company with whom Orange has a contract which requires us to provide services. Orange cannot be held to ransom for the business decisions of an otherwise unconnected company beyond having purchased coverage from Orange which, as it has already been purchased, is not something Orange is capable of cutting as such would be a breach of contract and would hurt Orange and not Partner Communications which is the company which made the business decision to which you refer. Orange appreciates our customers in Egypt but is unable to break our contract for providing services to Partner Communications as to do so would make a statement that Orange does not honor contract obligations if politically challenged over what a subscriber has decided was a good business model for their company. Orange is no more responsible for Partner Communications’ actions than it is for any Orange cellphone users actions. This is attuned to threatening to sue Orange because the driver of the car that struck you in an accident was talking on their Orange service provided cellphone. We sympathize but suggest you take up your concerns and threats of BDS with Partner Communications. Was that so hard to figure out or are the top brass at Orange not as smart as a mere editorialist? If so it does not speak well for their management and when something does not speak well for a cellphone service provider, that might be a bad signal of their future as speaking well is their business model, not just a management responsibility.

 

Beyond the Cusp