“Israel is waking up to a new reality in the Middle East; one that’s becoming less stable, more dangerous – a reality that isn’t encouraging at all,” former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz said Sunday of the violence sweeping Egypt and the region.
No less worrying, Israel’s incoming of Military Intelligence (MI), Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, apparently failed to recognize the imminent threat to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s government in his first briefing before a crucial parliamentary committee – the same day that the unrest erupted in Cairo last week.
In his appearance before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) last week, Kochavi added that MI believed that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was not in a position to seize power.
Kochavi’s assessment was that Mubarak would to be able to keep the demonstrations in check and that his regime was stable. The second part of that assessment may have also gone by the boards as of Sunday night.
On Sunday morning, Mofaz, who chairs the FADC and who served as former defense minister under Ariel Sharon, tried to lower the public’s “…assumption that we are capable of knowing everything in time, the same day – or even a day earlier.”
“There are things we know about, things we must know about; [obviously] it would it have been better to have known that something was afoot in Egypt a month and even two months ago,” Mofaz told Army Radio’s national morning news-talk program host Razi Barka’i.
Among the veteran program hosts, Barka’i, who is a civilian employee, is known for being a tough, and canny interviewer, and serves as the proverbial “rock in the shoe,” with military and civilian officials.
Army Radio commonly takes an independent tack towards the government in power, and, unlike perhaps other countries’ military radio stations, is not a bland, PR mouthpiece for the military, although they draw the line at exposing security-related information.
That attitude of “respect and suspect” towards Israel’s civilian and military leadership was one direct result of the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt and Syria.
Missed and misread signals of an impending Egyptian invasion across the Suez Canal on the Day of Atonement – the holiest day of the Jewish Year, when the entire country comes to a halt for 24 hours of prayer and fasting – caught the nation off-guard. The conflict cost the country dearly in lives, and a loss of near-bind faith in the leaders and generals who was won the 1967 Six Day War.
Since 1973, Israelis have demanded near clairvoyant abilities of their military and civilian intelligence apparatus, and any perceived lack of foreknowledge of ferreting out strategic tips in neighboring counties gives them the jitters. Particularly when the misread cards include Egypt.
“I think these are the type of events that are very hard to estimate, especially when they take place within a young, dynamic society anywhere in the world, and all the more so in states like Egypt,” Mofaz said.
“The MI chief’s status update, as well as his assessment of the strategic issues at stake was very good,” Mofaz said of Kochavi’s briefing before FADC members.
But by Monday, several current and former senior Army figures had came out in support of Kochavi.
“Intelligence work is not magic, and some things will never be predicted – such as situations where social problems lead to a revolution,” according to Ya’akov Amidror, former director of the IDF’s Research and Assessment Division, speaking with the Ynet Hebrew-language daily.
As well, according to former IDF Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, it is “hard to demand from the intelligence agencies to predict such extreme developments. The intelligence services have their own priorities. We expect them to warn of an upcoming war, but the demands must be reasonable.”
” A traumatic situation”
Whatever the viability of MI’s assessment, Mofaz believes that currently, events in Egypt “lie in the ability of the military to calm the situation – or – change the reality [on the ground].”
Mofaz said that he “couldn’t foresee a situation where the army would open fire on its own citizens,” despite numerous reports of more than 100 deaths in the week-long rioting and clashes between protesters and security forces.
However, a number of lower-ranking officers abandoned their units and went over to the demonstrators’ side, as other lounged on their vehicles.
Mofaz believes that if the Muslim Brotherhood (which spawned Hamas in Gaza) were to take power, it would present Israel with an untenable situation, one liable to force Israel’s hand, despite it’s current “hands-off” stance.
“If that happens, it would engender a traumatic situation within Egypt; that’s not ‘change,’ that’s a dramatic event,” Mofaz said, stressing that he hoped a “radical Islamic” regime would not end up in the Presidential Palace in Cairo.
Changes at the top in Egypt would force the IDF to reallocate resources and possibly boost forces along its southern border, a defense official said, according to The Jerusalem Post newspaper on Sunday.
“If a hostile regime takes over in Egypt, the IDF will need to restructure itself and would be pushed to the limit in its ability to deploy adequate resources on the various fronts,” as the official put it.
As well, unsubstantiated reports that Hamas is exploiting the confusion and unrest to smuggle personnel and arms across the the porous border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has also perked up Israel’s ears.
Media reports on Sunday that said Mubarak had fled Cairo to his winter home at the southern Sinai resort of Sharm e-Sheikh, proved just that – rumors, as the Egyptian president later appeared on television, apparently in Cairo.
However, other unconfirmed reports said that Egyptian tanks rolled into the Sharm area near a Multinational Forces and Observer base.
“There is some trouble at the outlying city near the base, Sheikh Zewaid,” according to a source close to the MFO that I spoke with.
If true, the individual – who is intimately familiar with the regulations covering the entry of heavy military to the area – said the move presented a clear violation of the stipulations of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, achieved and still in effect since their adoption in the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Treaty of Peace between the two countries.
The base was currently “locked down,” meaning no one was allowed entry or exit. However, he added, as of midday Sunday the unit was awaiting a busload of returning MFO personnel as well as a group of Israeli tourists fleeing Egypt, both of which were due to arrive in coming hours.
The MFO has contingency plans for a sudden evacuation, the source said.
“The big issue they have now is in locking down the base, and the potential – the potential, for an evacuation … there is a potential for that,” according to the source.
On Monday, the reported movement of Egyptian forces into the Sinai was confirmed when Israel officials said they had agreed to allow 800 Egyptian soldiers — about two battalions-worth — to deploy in Sharm presumably in order to keep the peace, according to Army Radio. This is the first time since the 1979 peace agreement that Egyptian military forces have entered the demilitarized area.
Netanyahu calls for “maximum responsibility, restraint”
Back in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his ministers on Sunday that Israel is “following with vigilance the events in Egypt and in our region.”
Netanyahu, in his first public remarks about the riots sweeping Cairo and other cities said allowed that Israel did not want to say or do anything that would destabilize or inflame the already tense situation.
“…at this time, we must show maximum responsibility, restraint and sagacity,” Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly session.
Netanyahu noted that relations between the two countries have “lasted for more than three decades and our objective is to ensure that these relations will continue to exist.”
Netanyahu said he’d conferred with U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton overnight about the potentially explosive strategic ramifications of the situation.
Netanyahu has spoken about the status in Egypt with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and senior intelligence officials, as well in an emergency session called Saturday night at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
More on that session and it’s implications for Israel are here.
So far, Israel seems to be dealing with the situation according to the truism, “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t,” as far as Mubarak’s regime goes. Officials here say they have no interest in seeing it’s demise and possible replacement by more hostile entities, like the Muslim Brotherhood.
By Sunday evening, however, the Brotherhood had thrown its support behind former opposition figure and former International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Mohamed ElBaradei.
ElBaradei joined the tens of thousands of protesters who jammed into Cairo’s central Tahrir Square Sunday afternoon and evening, ignoring a 4 pm curfew, and called for Mubarak to step down.
“The first step, is that [Mubarak] must go. The second step is a government of national salvation, in coordination with the army,” ElBaradei told the BBC.
“Our efforts have been intended to continue to preserve stability and security in our region,” Netanyahu said, stressing that ministers should not speak out on the situation – a request that is so far being scrupulously followed by the nominally talkative ministers and other government officials.
Mofaz, as well, concluded that “it was imperative that Israel do everything possible in coming days” to make sure the crisis in Egypt doesn’t spill over to “other areas and places that now appear stable.”
As of Monday evening, however, Israel’s call to western nations to not allow the Mubarak regime to fall largely fell on deaf ears, as an estimated quarter-million Egyptians thronged Tahrir Square, in a warm up for Tuesday’s plans to bring one million voices together drive Mubarak from power.
Meanwhile, Israel’s leaders and defense echelon quietly, cautiously watch and wait to see whether a tattered regional stability and 30 years of peaceful relations with their neighbors on the Nile will survive a tottering, Mubarak regime, or its potential successor in the Muslim Brotherhood.
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