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30.06.2011

NEW SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

   

Artashes Ter-Harutyunyan

The change of the security environment round Israel

At the end of May the Minister of Defence of Israel Ehud Barak made a statement which drew the attention of the experts dealing with the Middles East issues at once. Barak stated that besides annual assignments for military purposes1 in the coming five years at least $20 billion would also be necessary to “secure the country in the new generation”.

This statement by Ehud Barak was made against the background of discussions in Israel concerning the impact Arab revolutions may have on the security of the Jewish state. This issue has been in the spotlight of Israeli experts dealing with regional issues and security of Israel for the recent several weeks. And unlike many American and European assessments in Israel they are not inspired by the “Arab spring”2.

If we try to summarize, the dominating idea is as follows: for the recent three and a half decades the Jewish state has avoided large-scale military aggression and had a possibility to develop because the leaderships in the three neighbouring countries, i.e. in Egypt, Syria and Jordan, has been interested in or promoted preserving of the military and political status quo advantageous for Israel3. And now the fall of Mubarak’s regime in Egypt, the disturbances against Al-Assad authority in Syria, which is gradually turning into a rebellion, and forced concessions of Hashemite dynasty to the opposition in Jordan4, in fact, change the situation. For the recent several decades being the main opposition to the ruling regimes, the Islamist now have acquired a possibility to lead the masses and impact political decision making.

From the point of view of security, all the aforementioned is of strategic importance, as in the countries mentioned above, alongside with growing influence of the Islamists, the regional strategic status-quo formed by the agreements in Camp David is endangered.

In this aspect in Israel they, e.g. distinguish the change of stance of Egypt on Palestine issue, which happened after overthrowing Hosni Mubarak. On April 27 at the joint press-conference the representatives of Palestinian “Fatah” and “Hamas” stated that they put their contradictions aside and were going to form joint government “with purpose to hold national elections within eight months”. It is obvious that consolidation of those two rivalling parties took place with the assistance of Egypt. On the next day, April 28, the Foreign Minister of Egypt Nabil Elarabi on the air of “Al Jazeera” TV Company called the policy of Mubarak in regard to Gaza sector “unworthy”. In a month after Elarabi’s statement Rafah check point at the border of Gaza sector, which was closed back in 2007 after “Hamas” came to power in Gaza, was re-opened. And at last at the beginning of June, for the first time in history, the authorities of Egypt allowed the delegation of Egyptian “Muslim brothers” organization to go to Gaza and to have a meeting there with the leadership of “Hamas”.

According to one of the conclusions of The Institute for National Security Studies–INSS in Tel Aviv even if in a foreseeable future Islamists does not come to power in Egypt or other Arab countries neighbouring Israel, the regimes in those countries will be obliged to compromise Islamists taking into consideration growing influence of the later in the social and political relations.

But let us return to the statement by Ehud Barak. Most probably those words by the Minister of Defence of Israel come to prove that against the background of the aforementioned regional developments the military and political elite of the Jewish state came to some conclusions and the purpose of the statement was to demonstrate this. If so, the statement should also be the evidence that in the face of possible Middle East transformations Israel, besides military preparations, will also have initiatives in foreign politicy.

The issue of the relations with partner-states

New situation in the Middle East also influences another aspect, which is of great importance for Israel – the relations with partner-states.

In this aspect new realities which came forward in the relations with Turkey stand out. Of course, the reasons of those new realities in Israeli-Turkish relations are not caused by the “Arab spring” and it is firstly connected with the goals of Ankara to undertake a leading role in the Muslim world, though Arab revolutions provide new possibilities for the Turkish policy and in Ankara, most probably, they decided to take an advantage of that.

At the beginning of June, not without the support of western special services and National Intelligence Service of Turkey (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati – MIT) a meeting of the powers, which are in opposition to the ruling Al-Assad regime in Syria, was held in Antalya; its goal was to create common oppositional structure like in Libya. When on June 6, in the town of Jisr al-Shughur, which is populated by Sunnites and is situated in the North of Syria at the border with Turkey, the protest action transformed into the armed rebellion, even Syrian sources wrote about the militants of Turkish decent who fought against the soldiers of Bashar al-Assad. The seriousness of the situation is proved by the fact that official Damascus managed to crush a rebellion only after a week, sending to the north the elite troops. But the remarkable is that after all of that, on June 13, about two thousand supporters of al-Assad assaulted Turkish embassy in Damascus and such an incident could hardly happen in Syria without the consent of the authorities.

However, the involvement of Turkey in the Syrian affairs obviously comes to prove the interest of Ankara in standing by the side of newly arising powers in the Arab countries (maybe even in the entire Muslim world), to support them and, correspondingly, to influence them. From the point of view of Israel such a policy by Turkey brings to the further aggravation of contradictions between Tel Aviv and Ankara, because, as we have mentioned above, they believe in Israel that the majority of those powers are of Islamist orientation. Though such opinions are not expressed openly, but in the analytical materials published in Israeli periodical you can already find hints that in case of maintaining such a regional policy in the near future Ankara will turn into one of the main competitors of Israel which, at the same time, has good relations with western powers5.

The development in the relation between Israel and the United States are no less remarkable. During his well-known address on May 19 at the Department of State, which was devoted to the Middle East developments, the president of the United States Barak Obama, while speaking about the settlement of the Arab-Israeli confrontation, stated that Israel must return to the 1967 borders, i.e. it must pass to Palestine considerable part of the territory at the West bank of Jordan River and Golan Heights to Syria. And on June 11, Israeli “Haaretz” periodical wrote that a new Head of the Middle East and North Africa department at the US National Security Council Steve Simon during his meeting in Washington with the representatives of the Jewish Diaspora stated that Israel had one month – it either has to accept Obama’s “proposal” or in September the UN General Assembly would recognize Palestine as an sovereign state.

Of course, it is not for the first time that the US makes such demands to Tel Aviv but this time the seriousness of the Americans is proved by the reaction of the Israeli party and Jewish lobby in the US6. But according to the Israeli observers this is not the point. They explain the transformations in the Middle East policy of the US by the “Arab spring”, and against such a background Washington tends to consolidate its positions in the Muslim world, thus promoting the process of the Israeli and Palestinian reconciliation. Under such conditions they are interested in the following: in a consequence of the Arab revolutions the Middle East enters a period of fundamental changes and it is not clear yet, what kind of relations between Israel and the US there will be under new realities.

1 E.g. according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPR) the military budget of Israel in 2010 was $13 billion and with such an indicator the Jewish state occupied 18 line.

2 The term “Arab spring” was put into circulation by the US president Barak Obama in May 2011 while speaking about the Arab revolutions.

3 As it is known in September 1978 in Camp David, which is situated not far from Washington, Israel and Egypt concluded an agreement on the ground of which in March 1979 in Washington a Peace treaty was concluded between those two countries. In 1994 Jordan followed the example of Egypt and in October 1994 Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan was concluded. As for Syria, last time there was a war between those two states about 40 years ago – in 1973. In 2007-2008 through the intermediary of Turkey secret negotiations took place between those two countries in order to make peace but that attempt failed.

4 Among the continuing protest actions in Jordan the one on June 3 in capital city Amman is distinguished when after the Friday namaz many thousand people were present and they had two demands – to carry out political and economic reforms in country and to dissolve the 1994 Peace treaty with Israel. And on June 12 the king of Jordan Abdullah during his address timed to the 12th anniversary of his rule promised that the future governments of the country will be formed in a consequence of parliamentary elections.

5 The fact that on May 14, in connection with anniversary of the independence of Israel, at the reception in the Israeli embassy in Ankara neither the representatives of the ruling “Justice and Development Part” nor any high-ranking Turkish officer were present is remarkable.

6 Israeli prime-minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States to discuss this issue, met there with the US president, vice-president, addressed both houses of the US Congress stating that Israel would not return to the 1967 borders as it was impossible to defend them and that would endanger the existence of the Jewish state. After he returned he stated that Israel would not be able to stop the recognition of Palestine by the UN in September. On the other hand according to the manager of the electoral campaign for Barak Obama Jim Messina, some American wealthy figures of Jewish decent from Democratic party mentioned that they stopped funding the campaign as a result of a new Middle East policy by Barak Obama.


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