Trumped-up war: 7 things to know for March 10

By JOSHUA DAVIDOVICHToday, 10:20 am  0

The USS Abraham Lincoln sails south in the Suez Canal near Ismailia, May 9, 2019. (Suez Canal Authority via AP)

1. Beat the drum angrily: Israel’s eyes are turned to Iran Friday, with tensions rising over Tehran’s pullback from the nuclear deal and the US making threatening comments.

• Several Israeli news sites follow the lede of Reuters and play up comments by US President Donald Trump as him not ruling out military confrontation, though his statement was quite milquetoast by his standards (and he’s not know for subtlety.)
• “I guess you could say that always, right? I don’t want to say no, but hopefully that won’t happen.,” he said when asked whether there was a risk of military confrontation, according to Reuters.
• “The drums of war in the Gulf are beating,” Oded Granot writes in Israel Hayom. “Though it’s clear war is the last thing either side wants.”
• “If Iran’s oil lifeline is all but cut off amid an already atrophying economy, the regime could strike back: with a first strike at scattered U.S. forces on the ground in Iran-dominated Iraq,” Warren Getler writes in Haaretz. “Were it to transpire, make no mistake, this would be a very big war, one that could rapidly escalate into a conflict that would unfold in a much more violent and costly way than the two Gulf Wars involving the United States and Iraq from previous decades.”
• NBC News reports that top administration officials held an extremely rare meeting at CIA over Iran. Their source says it was not regarding the intelligence that led them to send an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf but does not specify what it is about.
• “Five former CIA operations officers and military officials said that in the past, such meetings have been held at CIA headquarters to brief top officials on highly sensitive covert actions, either the results of existing operations or options for new ones,” the news outlet reports, giving a hint as to what’s on the agenda.

2. Not quite war: The lead story of the news site in Hebrew on Friday morning, though, notes that it’s much too early to say the sides are approaching war.

• “The temperature in the Middle East is slowly rising, but insofar as it’s possible to predict, we are not on the brink of war between America and Iran. US President Donald Trump promised his voters to refrain from additional unnecessary wars in the Middle East, and that seems to be one campaign promise he wants to keep,” Amos Harel writes.
• Yedioth Ahronoth headlines its coverage “muscle-flexing,” as if to say the sides are threatening, but that’s where it will end.
• “I am not in a war-plan footing and have not been tasked to do so,” Vice Admiral Jim Malloy, who is in charge of the fleet with the USS Abraham Lincoln that is heading toward the Persian Gulf, tells Reuters.“However we are absolutely ready to respond to any aggression against the United States, partners in the region, or our interests.”
• Prof. Meir Leibtek tells Army Radio that Iran knows it’s army is not strong enough to go up against the US “but it can deploy its terror squads.”

3. Trump’s war: As for who is to blame, almost everybody points a finger at Trump and not Iran.

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• “Iran has actually been trying hard to keep to the deal,” expert Emily Landau tells Walla’s Amir Bohbot. “Iran is under serious financial stress because of Trump’s pressure campaign, and the Europeans cannot really get around the sanctions. Iran’s announcement exposes unhappiness with the situation, and a lack of options other than to come out with threats like this.”
• In the Guardian, Michael Fuchs writes that “Donald Trump is doing everything possible to provoke a conflict with Iran while making it look like Iran’s fault.”
• Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer writes that it’s actually Iran that is likely playing Trump, who doesn’t quite have the foreign policy chops to understand the nuclear deal or resist hawk John Bolton.
• “The rules of the Middle East dictate that Iran cannot show any fear of the prospect of war, though they are fully aware that their dilapidated military is in no shape to repel an American attack. So they are belatedly threatening to withdraw from parts of the JCPOA, in the hope that this may alert the international community to the possibility of an American attack,” he writes. “If anything, Iranian threats to withdraw from the nuclear agreement would be music to Trump’s ears. He understands very little about the deal and its significance. What he does clearly remember is how the Obama administration hyped it up as its key foreign policy legacy and in doing so, sowed the seeds of its failure.”

4. The Israel connection: Though the intel that Iran may be planning to attack US interests may have come from Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the first to respond to Iran inching away from the deal, Israel has little to do — openly, at least — with what’s going on.

• But Israel Hayom’s Eli Leon writes that since the US pulled out of the deal, Israeli cooperation with Gulf states against Iran has been working like a charm to keep Tehran from spreading its influence around.
• While some have speculated that Iran directed Islamic Jihad to start fighting in Gaza, Ben Caspit in al Monitor says that info may have led Israel to stop the mini-war early. “It is now known that Israel already had intelligence that the Iranians were planning to attack Western targets in the Gulf and change their attitude toward the nuclear deal. This information was transferred to Washington via intelligence and diplomatic channels,” he writes.
• Israel “may not want to give the Iranians any incentives to set the region on fire. Israel prefers management of the incident be left to the United States in its dealings with Iran, rather than pushed to the sidelines on the Gaza front.”

5. And what of Gaza? It’s been only a week since a low-level skirmish snowballed into two days of massive fighting between the sides, but it doesn’t seem to be on many’s minds.

• In Israel Hayom, sometimes seen as a window into government thinking, it gets nary a mention.
• On Wednesday, Haaretz quoted a Hamas source annoyed that Israel had seemingly forgotten about it and was waiting until after its holidays to get the easements agreed to in a ceasefire rolling.
• “The expectation is that things will start moving this weekend. Otherwise, we’ll return to an escalation,” he is quoted as saying.
• Indeed on Friday, the army is set to ease its restriction on fishing and allow Gazan anglers to travel 12 miles out. It’s part of the ceasefire deal, though Israel won’t admit that.

6. Bless your heart: Independence Day ceremonies are usually forgotten about some five minutes after they end, but this year’s state ceremony at Mount Herzl is being remembered as special for an appearance by “momo” Marie Nahmias, a 93-year-old great-great grandmother who took in over 50 disabled foster children, both Arab and Jewish, over the years.

• During the ceremony, she was asked to give a blessing and her words urging peace managed to bring the crowd to a raucous standing ovation.
• “May Israel be blessed, from all my heart, God will hear me, and the righteous [in Heaven], that it [Israel] rises ever upward, that we grow, that our soldiers don’t fall anymore — from all my heart, that the Jews and the Arabs and the Christians and the Druze, tomorrow we will all become one single hand,” she said. “We are all made by God, may he give us peace, and next year, may there be another 10 million [of us]…[at this point she choked up before the MC helped her along] … for the splendor of Israel.”
• The appearance and blessing managed to impress critics across the board.
• A critic in the left-wing Haaretz broadsheet lavishes praise on her ability to “break down walls of prejudice and disdain” for Mizrahi Jewish women and deliver “a beautiful and enlightened blessing.”
• Right-wing Arutz 7 enthuses that she “captivated the audience.”
• The Haredi website Kikar Hashabbat informed its readers that Nahmias “enthralled everyone.”
• Israel Hayom calls her “everyone’s grandma.”
• Yedioth writes that the appearance “stole the show,” though writer Hen Arzi-Srour says it was just the latest in a line of show stoppers at the annual event, including bus driver/terrorist knocker downer Herzl Biton a few years ago and twice-bereaved mother Miriam Peretz last year.
• “Amid the fake unity and the worn slogans, there’s a single point of truth, glowing with the radiance of the sky and which can’t be faked or forced,” she writes, describing such appearances.

7. Tanks for the party: Papers and news sites are filled with pictures of Israelis barbecuing, watching fighter jets fly by and kids pointing rifles and climbing on tanks.

• Channel 13 reports that 302,000 people visited air force bases around the country and the West Bank was the main place where the army set up camps to show off its equipment.
• Israel is far from the only country to militarize its Independence Day celebrations, but every year the pictures of kids and weapons sparks hand-wringing nonetheless.
• In Haaretz, Aaron Rabinowitz writes about the Israelis who decided to bring their kids to the Armored Corps museum rather than barbecue like everyone else.
• “71 years ago we captured the country and we did it with these things. Don’t worry, we’ll have a barbecue afterward,” one person is quoted saying.
• But really, the writer seems mostly annoyed with all the picture-taking: “Nothing really happens here if it isn’t photographed. A mother attempts to hype up some of the children with chants of ‘Thank you, soldiers’ and ‘Thank you, IDF,’ but few join in. They’re all busy taking selfies.”