The leading crisis for Israel at the moment is Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

According to mainstream Israeli media, about 1,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails are holding a very serious hunger strike against Israeli ‘administrative detention’ without recourse, and conditions in the jails. Two inmates started the strike 66 days ago. One of them lost consciousness yesterday, and was moved to the gastroenterology department of the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center in Tzrifin. He is reported in “stable condition”. The other 1,500 or so joined the strike on April 17, about 17 days ago.

Friday Israel time, Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya said this from Gaza City: “You must realize that the hunger strike isn’t a party, and we could be surprised by the death of some of them. If that happens, you can expect both the expected and the unexpected from us.”

More to the point, he also said, “We are summoned to ready armies to free our prisoners… We have the means to mobilize and for combat.”

Islamic Jihad, who spearheaded the missile barrage on Israel a few weeks ago, has threatened to break the informal truce established at the end of that barrage. Last time the duel of missiles vs. Israeli air strikes brought the region to the brink of war. Another altercation of that nature would almost certainly push it over.

Israeli authorities are negotiating with the strikers, and mainstream media say some demands will be met. Apparently the leaders of the strike are considering whatever the offer actually is.

No bottom line on this one yet.

IAEA/P5 Negotiations…

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On the surface, there is only waiting for the IAEA meeting with Iran on 14-15 May, harbinger of the May 23 P5 meeting.

That waiting is so intense, you can almost hear the high-tension buzz, like 20,000 volt electrical transmission towers in the rain.

The pre-meeting sessions must be making some sort of progress, because Iranian official media headlines are assuring everyone that ‘Israel cannot sabotage Iran-P5+1 talks’. Which of course means they are worried about exactly that.

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Today, Tuesday, saw the beginning of a ‘large-scale Israel Defense Forces war game on the borders of Syria… and Lebanon’, according to Israeli media with Mossad connections. They say the purpose of the drill is to strengthen Israel’s borders against al Qaeda, because of an increasingly active al Qaeda presence in Syria… and against the possibility of the ‘Syrian civil war spilling over’ into Lebanon.

Oddly, they report the IDF is being exceptionally ‘cagy’ about the drill, telling regional residents only to be prepared for ‘heavy military traffic’, and to pay no attention to any ’sounds of gunshots and explosions’. Maybe that is standard operating procedure. Maybe it isn’t.

If the Syrian situation did ’spill over’ into Lebanon, would that not be the concern of the Lebanese, not the IDF? That is, unless the IDF were planning to capitalize on the situation, as many Lebanese have predicted for quite some time. Lebanon and Israel are still technically at war. Currently there is a UN-negotiated ceasefire in place. There is a thin blue line of 3 to 5 thousand UN peacemakers in the DMZ between Lebanon’s border with Israel and the river Litani, about 15 miles north. The peace is so fragile, there have been many times that a minor incident has almost caused it to shatter.

But perhaps more interesting for the moment, the Israeli sources said that the IDF war games were ‘quickly followed by naval drills along Iran’s southern Persian Gulf coast by its border guards’.

That is misleading. In at least three different ways.

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As detailed in the previous post, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. General Benny Gantz has been putting his foot in and out of his mouth regarding Israel’s ‘credible threat’ of a strike against Iran’s nuclear program if a diplomatic solution is not reached soon.

That post also mentioned that “media graphics had ‘path of strike’ arrows coming from Israel and Saudi Arabia”, and going toward Iran. One could also take the origin of that second arrow from any of the Gulf states, including the UAE.

Now there is fairly credible news that President Obama has been making his own ‘credible threat’ to secure Iran’s cooperation at the critical May 23 meeting of the P5… or as Russia now calls it, seemingly with a straight face, the Iran Six.

As early as last Thursday, non-classified military media reported that the U.S. Air Force was deploying a classified number of our top-of-the-line warplanes, F-22 Raptors, ‘in Southwest Asia.’ Those sources said they did not know exactly where… but the smart money was on Al Dhafra Airbase in the UAE, less that 200 miles from mainland Iran, a whole lot closer than that to the Strait of Hormuz, and even closer to the island of Abu Musa, subject of a current dispute between Iran and the UAE.

Israeli sources with Mossad connections are claiming those F-22’s actually arrived at Al Dhafra on Sunday, as a combined-forces exercise ‘at home, in Europe and the Middle East’ was winding down. That wargame purportedly simulated the first day of a strike on Iran.

Wasn’t the concentration of naval, air and ground forces around the Sea of Oman and two supercarrier groups in the Persian Gulf enough of a credible threat already?

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Israel’s Independence Day did not draw any attacks of any kind from Egyptian Sinai, in utter contradiction to prior intelligence from certain sources. One could posit that the public outing of the Bedouins’ plans foiled them. Or one could see the dire warning as just more misinformation. Either way, nothing happened.

Today, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. General Benny Gantz is center stage. Again.

His previous remarks were splashed across headlines globally as ‘ I do not believe Iran will decide to develop nuclear weapons’.

Not quite correct (what a surprise that is) but not totally incorrect either. He really did put his foot in his mouth, which is a case in point for not letting military men talk to the press too much. They tend to say what they think a little too honestly.

Actually, he told mainstream Israeli media that Iran (more…)

Today President Obama placed additional sanctions on Iran. He did so during his first ever visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., speaking to a ‘crowd of Holocaust survivors, administration officials, members of Congress, and leaders of Jewish organizations,’ according to Israeli mainstream media.

The new sanctions are ‘against those providing information technologies to the Syrian and Iranian regimes’.

Obama also said he had ‘asked the U.S. intelligence community to include assessments of the likelihood of mass killings in its National Intelligence Estimates’. Interesting place for that announcement.

The president added, “We can’t intervene militarily every time there is injustice in the world, but we have other tools.”

Today a computer worm attacked the Iranian oil ministry’s data systems.

Israeli media with Mossad sources said the attack disabled ‘much of Iran’s oil sector’.

Iranian official media quoted Iranian oil ministry spokesperson Alireza Nikzad: “This cyber attack has not damaged the main data of the oil ministry and the National Iranian Oil Company since the general servers are separate from the main servers, even their cables are not linked to each other and are not linked to internet service. We have a backup from all our main or secondary data, and there is no problem in this regard.”

Whichever assessment is true, these actions are probably not what Iran had in mind when they requested a ‘confidence-building’ move from the U.S. in advance of the May 23rd P5 meeting.

On the other hand, Iran is not exactly making nice, either.

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The substance of the shadowy nuclear deal spawned by P5 and clandestine channels between the U.S. and Iran is appearing like invisible ink heated by a light bulb (lemon juice works like that, by the way).

If… stress ‘if’… President Obama is sanguine about handing Iran a pass on IAEA inspections for a continuing nuclear program that hopefully… stress ‘hopefully… maintains just below the threshold of actually making a nuclear weapon… what’s in it for Israel?

A couple of hours ago, we found out. The Republican side of the isle has proposed giving Israel more than 2/3’s of a billion dollars… 680 million dollars, to be exact, which we would need to borrow from China… to bring their domestic Iron Dome missile defense system from 3 units to 14. That’s the number the Israeli Defense Forces and associated military-industrial complex says is needed to make the country secure from missile attack. Of course the efficiency rate of Iron Dome is at most 80 percent… perhaps significantly less in a real barrage situation with thousands of missiles coming in… but never mind that. Note the offer is not coming from Democratic legislators, who traditionally like to give Israel money for domestic political reasons. Their assumed cooperation on this measure seems to make it an easy slam dunk.

Will the Israeli’s take the sop and let Obama have his way with the Iranians? It’s not clear.

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The shiny sheen of P5 seems to be dulling for the Iranians.

No leaks discernible from the detailed working discussions between Ali Baqeri… the deputy of Iran’s prime P5 negotiator Saeed Jalili… and EU foreign policy deputy chief Helga Schmid. But in the light of continuing demands by the U.S. and EU that Iran shed a large part of their nuclear program before the May 23 meeting, Iran is making threats and demands of their own.

Jerking the EU’s chain back and forth, Iran announced today in their most official media that Iran has ‘officially cut off its oil exports to London and Paris’, but that ‘Iran will continue its oil exports to other countries excluding Britain and France’. Other Iranian media quoted Iranian Oil Minister Qasemi explaining that ‘a stop of Iran’s oil export to refiners in Greece, Spain, and Germany is not “official”’.

Qasemi then added a threat, that ‘Iran will cut oil export to all European countries if they do not lift sanctions on Tehran after the next round of talks in Baghdad’. Iran says there will be a huge economic toll for Western economies if that happens. Qasemi said, “If the sanctions currently imposed against Iran would not be removed and if new sanctions be imposed against the country instead, this would seriously turbulent (sic) the energy market.” He added that ‘Tehran was closely watching the way European states were dealing with Iran’.

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Just in a few minutes ago: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the UN Observer mission needs both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft and troops on the ground to ensure the Syrian ceasefire, according to U.S. mainstream media.

He said the proposed force of 250 observers are “not enough considering the current situation and the vastness of the country”.

Tomorrow, Ki-moon will formally propose at the United Nations that the EU provide the aircraft. It is not clear where he wants the troops to come from, nor the number of boots on the ground.

Also today, the Arab League (AL)… which has booted both Syria and Iran out of the group… met with the UN-AL Special Envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan. It is important to keep in mind that Annan is tied tightly to the AL, which makes Syria and Iran and Russia nervous about the real intent of his ‘peace plan’…

… with some reason. In the meeting, the AL representatives from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and other nations which also belong to the Gulf Cooperation Council, discussed with Annan ‘how to enhance the mission’. Shortly after this meeting, Ki-moon announced his proposal.

U.S. official media paints a bleak and dire picture of the Syrian ceasefire, using words such as ‘teetering’ and ‘unravels’. (more…)

Bottom line first: if Israel really believes an Iranian nuclear program is an existential threat, they will have to go it alone on an initial airstrike, and they will have to do it relatively soon.

That does not mean the U.S. will not become immediately involved: Iran sees Israel and the U.S. as siamese twins conjoined at the pocketbook. That may or may not be true or fair. But that is certainly the Iranian viewpoint, and no amount of friction or distancing between the two will ever change that.

It is possible that Israel would not be absolutely alone on an initial strike. Saudi Arabia has different reasons for wanting to decimate Iran, but those reasons are nearly as strong, and they are fueled by a palpable hatred of Iran. Also, about a year ago, Saudi Arabia and Egypt held wargames simulating an invasion of Iran. The exercises posited Iran attacking Gulf states oil fields, and sending amphibious forces onto mock Iranian shores was ostensibly in retaliation. But of course defense and offense are essentially interchangeable. The situation in Egypt has changed a great deal since those wargames, but the Arab street does not make international policy for Egypt yet.

The reason for positing an imminent airstrike by Israel and/or others can be found in President Obama’s remarks at Monday’s news conference in Cartagena, Colombia, (more…)