A Hot Winter on Both Fronts

The war against ISIS in Sinai is escalating, and in the north, Hezbollah continues its rearmament efforts. Meanwhile, a historic ruling in the generation-old dispute between Sayeret Matkal and YAMAM is imminent. Amir Rapaport's weekly column

 

A Hot Winter on Both Fronts

Photo: IDF

It looked like an intensive week for the IDF in the war-between-wars: it started with tension vis-à-vis ISIS in the Sinai and continued with reports of an attack against arms intended for Hezbollah on Syrian soil, which was attributed to Israel.

The Sinai Campaign

Let's start with the fighting in the Sinai, which escalated recently after two years of relative calm in this sector – but only as far as Israel is concerned, as an on-going, bloody war has been raging between the Egyptian Army and ISIS with staggering casualty counts on both sides.

The recent escalation, which dragged Israel in, may be attributed to one indirect reason and to quite a few reasons having to do with the situation in the Sinai desert proper. As far as the indirect reason is concerned, the developments may be viewed as linked to the defeats ISIS has been sustaining on other fronts – mainly in Syria and northern Iraq. In the fight against world Jihad, the law of communicating vessels is at work: ISIS operates in areas where it still has a firm foothold, in this case – the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, in an attempt to communicate the message that it is still kicking and can still hurt to those it perceives as its enemies (which is nearly everyone these days).

The chain of events in northern Sinai began with a rocket fired into Israeli territory, in Eilat, about two weeks ago, continued – according to ISIS reports – with a targeted killing from the air (by a UAV) of five ISIS operatives traveling in a vehicle, followed by another rocket fired last Monday.

Generally, in northern Sinai Israel is not regarded as the greatest enemy of ISIS. The main effort of the Islamic State organization is directed against the Egyptian Army and Egyptian security forces, but ISIS regards Israel as a major ally of Egypt. Indeed, the two countries maintain very close cooperation. Israel did not comment on the reports of its alleged involvement in the aerial targeted killing of the five ISIS operatives, and it is certainly possible that the Egyptian Army did the actual firing, but in any case, ISIS are trying to communicate, through their rocket fire, the message that they would exact a toll on Israel for the part it has been playing in the hunt for the organization's people.

Meanwhile, a situation report for February 2017: the Israeli (and US) backing notwithstanding, the Egyptians are still far from defeating ISIS in northern Sinai, mainly within the cordon close to the Israeli border, between Eilat and Rafah. In this cordon, the ISIS presence is so significant that the international peacekeeping forces will not dare to emerge from their bunkers and watchtowers. The Egyptians have recently improved their relations with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has, accordingly, minimized its cooperation with ISIS in the Sinai, but despite this fact, in the areas to the south of Rafah, ISIS is still the dominant element on the ground, owing to its alliances with the local Bedouin tribes. As long as this is the situation, there is a concern that ISIS will continue firing at Israel.

Meanwhile, in the North

On the northern front, the situation is every bit as complex. In Lebanon, Hezbollah continues to arm itself with Israel still observing its standing rule – that it will prevent Hezbollah from receiving arms regarded as strategic tie-breakers. The reports that came out of Syria last Wednesday to the effect that Israel had allegedly attacked ordnance dumps in Syrian territory should be viewed against this background.

Israel has not assumed responsibility for the attack, but the truly fascinating story seems to be taking place behind the scenes: the Israeli Air Force is currently operating in an era where it no longer enjoys total air superiority in the skies of the Middle East, for the first time since the 1980s. The dominant element in Syria today is Russia, which employs state-of-the-art air-defense and anti-aircraft systems (as was revealed in this column a few months ago, when a Russian-built surface-to-air missile operated by a Syrian force was launched at IAF aircraft. The missile missed an Israeli aircraft).

It is reasonable to assume that Israel will not inform Russia in advance of an imminent attack in Syrian territory, if such an attack is about to materialize, and we cannot rule out that there are understandings between Israel and Russia regarding areas of operation agreed upon in advance (for obvious reasons, none of the two countries has any reason to provide information about the nature of such understandings).

Singapore

Far away from the war-between-wars in our region, it was fascinating to observe, earlier this week, the unprecedentedly-public state visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that illuminated the very special relationship between Israel and one of her greatest friends – Singapore.

The Prime Minister himself referred to the similarity between the two small countries, Singapore and Israel, both surrounded by populations of hundreds of millions of Muslims, and the visit provided an opportunity to present an extensive range of cooperative alliances between the two allies. Even after this visit, however, not everything may be revealed about the nature of the relations between the two countries.

The Elor Azariya Affair

The recent sentencing of Elor Azariya to eighteen months imprisonment may be regarded as reasonable considering his conviction of manslaughter and several past precedents. For example, the case of Lieutenant Daniel Pinto, the IDF officer who was convicted of unlawfully killing four civilians in the village of Ein-Baal during Operation Litani in Lebanon in 1978. Pinto was sentenced to eight years imprisonment but IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan commuted his sentence, and he was released after serving only a short prison term.

Conversely, in the case of the "300 Bus Affair" in the 1980s, the ISA defendants were granted a pardon in advance, while in a case where an ISA interrogator was convicted of killing a Palestinian suspect in the course of his interrogation, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment.

YAMAM or MATKAL?

Another issue that has kept the Israeli defense establishment preoccupied: in the next few weeks, a decision may be made that would position the Israel Police Special Counterterrorism Unit (YAMAM), officially, as the national intervention unit in charge of hostage and abductee rescue, thereby ending the historic dispute regarding this issue between the police unit and Sayeret Matkal – the IDF Intelligence Directorate's specialist reconnaissance unit.

Acknowledging YAMAM as the national intervention unit – which could position it as the recipient of substantial budgets – is currently on the agenda of Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, after having been endorsed by the Prime Minister.

As Lieberman is the first Minister of Defense, for quite some time, who had not personally commanded Sayeret Matkal (following the tenures of Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya'alon, who had), it is reasonable to expect him to make this decision.

 

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