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EGYPT'S REVOLUTION

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NEWS ANALYSIS

Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

A

lthough it's still far from clear
how the uprising in Egypt is
going to play out, the volatility
there is already raising questions in Israel
about the Jewish state's readiness for a war
on several fronts.
The optimistic view in Israel is that a
wave of democracy will sweep the Middle
East from Cairo to Tehran, making war in
any form less likely.
The pessimists — there are many here

COMMENTARY

Iran
Forgotten.

Robert Sklar
Editor

s recent street risings in Libya,
Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia domi-
nate the nightly news, Iran and
its threat to global peace in general
and Israel's security in particular seem
thrust to the sidelines of public con-
cern.
Diaspora Jews should fear this trans-
formative change.
The Islamic Republic's scary
Revolutionary Guards and nuclear

A

20

February 24 m 2011

— see an ascendant Islamic radicalism
taking hold in Egypt and elsewhere, thus
compounding the military threats facing
Israel.
In the Israel Defense Forces, generals are
planning for worst-case scenarios.
In a series of farewell addresses this
month, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gabi
Ashkenazi offered a rare insight into how
the Israeli military sees the emerging
threats and what it is doing to meet them.
Ashkenazi spoke of "tectonic changes"
in the region, leading to gains for the
Iranian-led radical axis at the expense
of the region's moderates. He pointed to
the growing dominance of Hezbollah in
Lebanon, the Islamist shift in Turkey and
now the danger that Egypt, once the linch-
pin of the moderate camp, will fall into the

orbit of radical Islam.
Things could get even worse, he said,
when the Americans finally pull out of
Iraq, leaving that Shiite-dominated coun-
try free to lurch toward the radicals.

Expanding Danger
In Ashkenazi's view, all this means that
the IDF needs to prepare for a significant
broadening of the spectrum of threats
against Israel. Not only does the IDF have
to be ready to fight a simultaneous war on
several fronts, it must be able to wage very
different kinds of warfare — from "low
intensity" irregular conflict with terrorists,
to classical conventional warfare against
regular armies, to missile warfare against
states or powerful non-state actors like
Hezbollah.

arms pursuit present the most seri-
His conclusion advanced this past
ous danger to Middle East stability ...
Sunday: World attention must be redi-
period.
rected to where it can have the most
It's against this troubling back-
influence – the Iranian intrigue inflam-
drop that I read a Bar-
ing the already white-hot
Ilan University political
Mideast.
observer's compelling
I agree. We can't lose sight
essay on "an insidious new
of the historic significance
mythology" that replaces
of the largely nonviolent
the Iranian threat with the
Egyptian protest that ousted
"Israeli threat" to such sta-
longtime President Hosni
bility.
Mubarek and the similar
"This has the scent of
mobilizations galvanizing
incitement against, and
citizens across the Arab
demonization of, Israel,"
world. Potential problems
David Weinberg
writes David Weinberg, pub-
abound, not the least of
lic affairs director at the Begin-Sadat
which is who will succeed in cases
Center for Strategic Affairs in Ramat
where repressive, but known leaders
Gan. He made aliyah from Toronto in
are driven out. But make no mistake:
1990 and once worked in the Anti-
The grassroots demonstrations signal
Defamation League's Israel office.
a new, potentially democratic way of

t, .

it

Even though the threat of terrorist or
missile attack might seem more imminent,
IDF doctrine under Ashkenazi has put the
emphasis on war between regular armies.
"We must train for classic conventional
warfare. It poses the biggest challenge,
and from it we can make adaptations to
other forms of warfare, but not vice versa:'
Ashkenazi argued earlier this month at
the 11th annual Herzliya Conference on
national, regional and global strategic
issues. "It would be a mistake to train for
low-intensity conflict and to think that the
army will be ready overnight to make the
switch to full-scale warfare?'
During Ashkenazi's watch, which began
in 2007 in the wake of the army's much-
criticized performance in the 2006 Second
Lebanon War, the IDF focused on enhanc-

life in a long-beleaguered region.
The emerging myths that Weinberg
discusses balance on two points:
that Israeli unwillingness to rush
toward peace with Fatah party leader
Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians
will further destabilize the Middle East;
and that Israeli objections to Western
enthusiasm for Tahrir Square-style
Muslim revolutions are clearly out of
touch.
Of course, it is nonsense that,
according to the mythology, the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict feeds all other
political wars – and that a state called
Palestine must be created now to con-
tain the Islamist threat and placate
Arab public opinion. The theory also
argues that quick resolution of the
conflict would free precious Israeli mili-
tary and diplomatic resources to throw

