On Sunday, May 15, Israel's enemies breached three of its borders in an operation that caught its government, army and intelligence napping. Their reaction to the massive violation of its Syrian, Lebanese and Gaza borders showed all three to be muddled and incapable of an organized, rational tactical response to a multiple security crisis. This weakness ("maximum restraint"), which was no doubted noted in Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah, may be expected to lead to the next Syrian step to recover the Golan – not this time by thousands of civilians, but by military and terrorist forces. Israeli forces on high alert for Nakba Day, Sunday, May 15, failed to seal three national borders on the Golan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against large-scale incursions. Dozens of Syrians and Hizballah invaders were able to overrun the Israeli Golan village of Majd al Shams and hoist Syrian and Palestinian flags in the main square; Hizballah-sponsored Palestinian demonstrators breached the Lebanese-Israeli border and damaged IDF installations; and hundreds of Palestinians battered the Erez crossing from the Gaza Strip. The interlopers sustained dozens of casualties including fatalities from Israeli fire these events in which Israelis too were injured. In the Gaza sector 40-50 casualties are reported. Lebanon reports five demonstrators killed. On the Syrian border, Israeli snipers and helicopters belatedly opened fire to halt the thousands attempting to cross the border, but dozens got through to Majd al Shams. Some were killed or injured by Israeli fire. Three Israel civilians were wounded. Israeli tanks were speeded to the Syrian border to halt the incident. While attempting to block demonstrators at Ras a-Maroun from reaching Israel, the Lebanese army is also on high alert on the Syrian border. Fighting between Syrian forces and anti-regime protesters has escalated in Syrian border villages, centering on Tall Kalakh near Homs. developing... Terror attack in Tel Aviv: One dead, 17 injured - first Nakba Day victims Aviv Morag, 29, from Caesaria was killed shortly before his marriage and 17 injured - two in serious condition - after being run down by an Israeli Arab, 22, from Kafr Qassem in Tel Aviv, Sunday, May 15. The killer's truck swerved left and right along 2 kilometers of busy road aiming at vehicles and pedestrians - from the Mesubim junction to Bar-Lev Street in Hatikva Quarter. After knocking over a traffic light, the driver jumped out and shouting Allah Akhbar! used the pieces to beat passers-by who eventually overpowered him. Israeli official sources are counting on the Jordanian, Egyptian and Lebanese authorities restraining unruly elements from surging across their borders into Israel, but the IDF high command and police are not sanguine. Israeli intelligence has information that Palestinian leaders believe that if Israeli police and troops can be goaded into firing live ammunition by exceptionally violent disorders on the West Bank and Israeli Arab districts, Obama will be forced to bring up the Palestinian issue in his speech or, even better, tie it in with the bin Laden operation. 1. They generate the right ambiance for the diplomatic campaign he is running up to September for the UN General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state within 1967 borders and its capital in Jerusalem. By keeping the street violence going well beyond Nakba Day, he is trying to offset Israel's partially successful bid to dissuade the United States and most of West Europe from endorsing his motion. For Sunday, therefore, Israeli security forces are braced for disorders in three centers: the West Bank, Arab Israeli districts and Jerusalem. The disturbances are expected to carry over into the rest of the week.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the chief of staff and his deputy, instead of dropping their routine occupations and taking charge of the crisis, preferred to make light of it. Local commanders, left to handle extreme situations developing at high speed during the day, were reluctant to assume responsibility for the weighty decisions called for.
This weakness, which was no doubted noted in Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah, may be expected to lead to the next Syrian step to recover the Golan – not this time by thousands of civilians, but by tough military and terrorist forces.
Eleven months ago, Israeli intelligence missed the coming of the Turkish Mavi Marmara at the head of a flotilla for breaking the Gaza blockade. Israeli commandos who boarded the ship were therefore unprepared for the violence which met them.
The Israeli government and IDF did not learn from this incident. However, Syria, Hizballah, Hamas and Turkey (which is preparing a second flotilla for next month) did and have adjusted their tactics to Israel's conspicuous shortcomings. The popular uprisings sweeping through Arab countries confirmed these anti-Israel forces in their conviction that massed civilians when wielded as a surprise weapon can achieve more than armies or individual terrorists. Crowds of civilians activated on several synchronized fronts are extremely difficult to withstand.
The coalition organizing the exceptionally violent events of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) Day Sunday, marking the founding of Israeli in 1948, first tested the water in the morning: An Israeli Arab drove his truck at high speed through a Tel Aviv thoroughfare, slamming into more than a dozen vehicles and running over pedestrians. He had killed one civilian and injured 17 over a 2-kilometer stretch of road before he was overpowered and apprehended.
When Israel's police chiefs declined to designate the attack an act of terror and insisted it could have been a traffic accident, Damascus, Hizballah and Hamas felt they were safe in letting their master plan go forward: There was no risk of a tough Israeli response. And indeed, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu later admitted that local commanders and police chiefs were directed to deal with all fronts "with maximum restraint while defending Israel's borders and sovereignty."
DEBKAfile's military sources found this contradiction in terms perplexing hours after the IDF failed to defend Israel's borders and sovereignty against invaders.
Because of this directive, Israelis were shocked to discover at 13:30 that hundreds of Syrians, Palestinians and a Hizballah group had crossed the border and hoisted Syrian and Palestinian flags in the main square of the Israel Golan village of Majd al Shams. They had already been there for four hours and no one was stopping them crossing the border back and forth during that time. Throughout the day, only a small squad of soldiers had been left to guard this border because nothing untoward had been expected there.
It was only at 17:00 hours that tanks and reinforcements arrived.
The invaders had every reason to march around the village declaring they had recaptured the territory Syria had lost 44 years ago while attacking Israel.
By then, military spokesmen had got their act together. It was fortunate that we undermanned the Syrian border, they said, otherwise the incident would have ended with hundreds of dead. The claim that Iran was behind the massive incursion convinced no one.
The Syrian interlopers were finally driven back across the border – not by Israeli troops – but by local Druze chiefs. Israel still does not know how many left and if any remained.
It is to be regretted that the IDF did not meet its fundamental duty to defend Israel's Golan border by bringing up large reinforcements to surround Majdal Shams, seal the Syrian border and shoot trespassers. The Syrians should not have been released but held until Damascus forced the Hamas to free the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit.
Former Shin Bet director Israel Hasson, who is today an opposition Kadima lawmaker, commented later Sunday that Israel must make it crystal clear to Damascus, Hizballah and Hamas that they will not be allowed to toss their internal problems into the Israeli court or violate Israeli sovereignty. His words fell on deaf ears, judging from the prime minister's statement.
DEBKAfile's strategic sources fear that Israel will pay a heavy price for its flaccid response and misplaced "maximum restraint." Syrian President Bashar Assad can be counted on not to miss the chance of sending over to the Golan the Syrian and Palestinian terrorist teams he has held in reserve for more than a year for the right opportunity. That opportunity is clearly now at hand.
The Majd al-Shams invasion followed by violence by masked Paletinians in Jerusalem and a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. It was synchronized with mass incursions from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. This round is not over. It will not be stopped by military restraint.
DEBKAfile Special Report May 15, 2011, 3:49 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile reports that despite the high IDF border alert for Nakba Day invasions from neighboring Arab countries, Israeli forces were not deployed in sufficient strength on the Golan border, even though DEBKAfile reported Saturday, May 14 that Damascus planned trouble on the border with Israel as a diversion from the rebellion against the Assad regime.
We also quoted Bashar Assad's cousin Ramy Makhlouf as threatening Tuesday, May 10, that if the Americans and Europeans did not stop backing the Syrian anti-regime uprising, Damascus would go to war on Israel and/or arm West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs for action against Israel.
DEBKAfile Special Report May 14, 2011, 11:24 PM (GMT+02:00)
The police arrived later. When apprehended the driver claimed he lost control of his truck after his front wheel punctured. But eye witnesses described him as deliberately ramming 13 vehicles as well as striking pedestrians.
A second Israeli Arab driver from Arara detained as his suspected accomplice claimed he was not involved in the incident. Police cordoned off the area to traffic.
In Ramallah, 20,000 Palestinians rallied in the main square opposite the tomb of Yasser Arafat under the slogan: "The people want to go back to Palestine."
Israeli troops fired in the air when Palestinians from Gaza forced their way toward the Erez crossing. Casualties reported.
Lebanese pro-Palestinian demonstrators mustered by Hizballah at Maroun a-Ras were stopped from crossing the border into Israel Sunday by the Lebanese army. Israeli troops are on high border alert.
DEBKAfile reported Saturday night: Israeli security forces are braced for a multi-front challenge on Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) Day Sunday, May 15, which marks the partial Palestinian exodus during Israel's War of Independence: In addition to guarding against Palestinian and Israeli Arab demonstrations tipping over into disorders, they are ranged on the borders of the Gaza Strip, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria to thwart plans for manufacturing a link-up between those demonstrations and the Arab Revolt.
Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rallies in those Arab countries, which erupted Friday night with demonstrators mobbing the Israeli embassy in Cairo, are planned to head for Israel's borders for a riotous rendezvous with Palestinian and Israeli demonstrators. Syrian authorities are especially keen on the plan as a diversion from their universally condemned crackdown against their own protesters.
Israel will stay on high security alert for at least the next ten days. Saturday night, the IDF imposed an indefinite closure on the West Bank. DEBKAfile's military sources report that its security chiefs are acting on information that Palestinian leaders and their Arab supporters plan to calibrate the level of their disturbances to influence the watershed events taking place in Washington this week – in particular US President Barack Obama's speech Thursday, May 19, in which he will discuss the new US-Muslim relationship following Osama bin Laden's death.
The US President receives Jordan's King Abdullah II in the White House May 19, the only Muslim leader he sees before delivering his speech. Obama meets Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu the following day, Friday, May 20.
Some Israeli intelligence quarters are convinced that wholesale disturbances fit in with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas' plans in two ways:
The Obama administration has not yet indicated whether the US will support Abbas' initiative or abstain, a decision that will influence the European governments which are still undecided about whether or not to follow Germany's decision to vote against the Palestinians. An American decision to abstain would bring the undecided Europeans down on the side of the Palestinians.
Even with majority UN endorsement in the bag, the Palestinian motion needs the votes of the US and the main European powers to give it international political ballast; the resolution would not be taken nearly as seriously if it were carried by only second-string international players like Switzerland, Sweden, Africa and Asia. Abbas believes that a cascade of violent Palestinian demonstrations and plenty of blood on the streets would persuade the key voters to jump off the fence.
2. Mahmoud Abbas hoped that after signing a pact of reconciliation between his Fatah and Hamas he would be allowed to visit the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for the first time since they fell out four years ago. But no invitation reached him in Ramallah. By letting Palestinian rioters loose on West Bank streets, he is showing up Hamas' limitations by demonstrating that he alone is capable of challenging Israel in the mode and spirit of the Arab Revolt.
He and his Fatah leadership showed their mettle by staging riots in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Galilee Friday and Saturday, May 13-14 before Nakba Day.
Friday, Milad Said Ayash, 17, died of a bullet wound from a source still not established during a clash in Silwan, Jerusalem sparked by Palestinians hurling firebombs and rocks at Israeli police. The Palestinians accused one of the security guards at the Israeli residential Beit Yehonatan of shooting the boy and declared him "the first shahid (martyr) of the Third Palestinian Intifada" against Israel.
Israel's Housing Ministry officially later denied that any weapons were fired by the guards or the Israeli occupants of the building. Israel was refused access to the boy's body for an autopsy as part of its probe into his death.
Saturday night, Palestinians in two more Jerusalem suburbs, Shuafat and Issawiya, attacked Israel policemen and injured two.
Information reaching Israel from Egypt, Lebanon and Syria Saturday night pointed to hectic preparations afoot for big demonstrations on their borders with Israel Sunday with a view to surging across.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
More in store from Syria after easy breach of Israel's Golan border
DEBKAfile Special Report May 15, 2011, 7:27 PM (GMT+02:00)
Not enough Israeli troops guarded Syrian border fence
Palestinians, Syrians, Hizballah smash through three Israeli borders
Majdal al Shams, Israeli Golan
Israeli troops on tense Lebanese border
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