JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
DISEASES-ANIMAL TO HUMAN
REVELATION 6:7-8 (500 MILLION DEAD EACH FROM THE 4 JUDGEMENTS)(2 BILLION TOT DEAD HERE)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 billion) of (8 billion) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS)(500 million) and with hunger,(FAMINE)(500 million) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES)(500 million) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE)(500 million).
THE COVID-19 TOTALS.
WORLD OVER ALL CASES 139,768,182 DEAD 3,001,268 AS OF FRI APR 16,21
DR ZELENKO ON COVID-19 RECOVERY-TAMAR YONAH
https://soundcloud.com/israel-news-talk-radio/while-cautious-im-not-so-afraid-of-the-coronavirus-anymore-the-tamar-yonah-show
DR VLADMIR ZE'EV ZELENKOS MIXTURE FOR RECOVERY OF COVID-19
https://www.vladimirzelenkomd.com/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TaRDwXMhQHSMsgrs9TFBclHjPHerXMuB87DUXmcAvwg/editReuters
WHO chief says COVID-19 infection rate approaching highest of pandemic so far-FRi, April 16, 2021, 4:21 AM
GENEVA (Reuters) -The number of new COVID-19 cases per week has nearly doubled globally over the past two months, approaching the highest rate seen so far during the pandemic, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday."Cases and deaths are continuing to increase at worrying rates," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing focused on Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the western Pacific region.He said he was very worried about the potential for a much larger epidemic in PNG, and it was vital the country received more COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible.PNG has now reported more than 9,300 COVID-19 cases and 82 deaths. "While these numbers are still smaller than other countries, the increase is sharp and WHO is very concerned about the potential for a much larger epidemic," Tedros said.PNG health minister Jelta Wong said there was on ongoing challenge in the country to get people wearing masks and disbelief about the disease itself, which would complicate efforts to role out vaccines.WHO officials said three emergency medical teams had arrived in PNG this week from Australia, the United States and Germany."The situation is extremely challenging right now," Takeshi Kasai, WHO regional director for the western Pacific, said of PNG.(Reporting by Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay and Emma Farge. Editing by Mark Potter)
13 Thou shalt not kill.(Murder)(THAT INCLUDES ABORTION)
MATTHEW 18:6
6 But whoso shall offend (HURT) one of these little ones (CHILDREN) which believe in me,(JESUS) it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY FOLKS)
EXODUS 21:12
12 He that smiteth (MURDER)a man,(OR BABY) so that he die, shall be surely put to death.(THATS THE DEATH PENALTY PEOPLE)
REVELATION 9:20-21
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils,(OCCULT) and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries,(DRUG ADDICTIONS) nor of their fornication,(SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE) nor of their thefts.(STEALING)
At least 8 killed in mass shooting at Indianapolis FedEx facility-Four others hospitalized, one with critical injuries; police say the gunman is dead; motive unclear-By AP-APR 16,21-Today, 10:51 am
INDIANAPOLIS — Eight people were shot and killed in a shooting late Thursday at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, police said.Multiple other people were injured and were taken to local hospitals. When police arrived, officers observed an active shooting scene at the facility, police spokesperson Genae Cook said at an early morning news conference Friday.At least four people were hospitalized, including one person with critical injuries. Two others were treated at the scene and released. No law enforcement officers were injured.Cook added that the gunman had died and the public is not believed to be in immediate danger.FedEx released a statement early Friday saying it is cooperating with authorities and working to get more information.“We are aware of the tragic shooting at our FedEx ground facility near the Indianapolis airport. Safety is our top priority, and our thoughts are with all those who are affected,” the statement said.Live video from news outlets at the scene showed crime scene tape in the parking lot outside the facility.Audio released of the first reports by police about the mass casualty situation at an Indianapolis FedEx facility late Thursday night. pic.twitter.com/KGhNwJ4g1g — WRTV Indianapolis (@wrtv) April 16, 2021-A witness who said he works at the facility told WISH-TV that he saw a man with a gun after hearing several gunshots.“I saw a man with a submachine gun of some sort, an automatic rifle, and he was firing in the open,” Jeremiah Miller said.Another man told WTTV that his niece was sitting in her car in the driver’s seat when the gunfire erupted, and she was wounded.“She got shot on her left arm,” said Parminder Singh. “She’s fine, she’s in the hospital now.”He said his niece did not know the shooter.Tension is high, people don't know if their loved ones are alive or dead. pic.twitter.com/GCFG2XTgUX — Mykal McEldowney (@mykalmphoto) April 16, 2021-Family members gathered at a local hotel to await word on loved ones. Some said employees aren’t allowed to have their phones with them while working shifts at the facility, making it difficult to contact them, WTHR-TV reported.
NBC News-8 people killed in shooting at Indianapolis FedEx facility; suspect also dead-Phil Helsel and Kurt Chirbas-Fri, April 16, 2021, 4:05 AM
At least eight people were killed after a gunman opened fire at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis late Thursday before also killing himself, police said.Multiple other people were transported to hospital with injuries, police said.The shooting was reported at the FedEx facility shortly after 11 p.m. and officers arrived to an active shooter incident, police spokeswoman Officer Genae Cook told reporters.She said the gunman killed himself at the scene. A search found eight people deceased with injuries consistent with gunshot wounds, she added.That number does not include the gunman.Cook said it was too early to tell if the shooter was an employee of the facility, and that an active investigation was underway. A motive was also unclear."This is a tragedy," Cook said.Some family members were still arriving and learning about the shooting early Friday, she said, with a family reunification site set up.Police knew of at least four people transported to hospital by ambulance, Cook said, one of whom was in critical condition with injuries consistent with gunshot wounds. Three others were transported with various other injuries, she said.But there were also people who went or who were taken to hospitals privately, she said, and police were gathering information. No law enforcement officers were hurt, she added.FedEx said in a statement that "We are deeply shocked and saddened by the loss of our team members following the tragic shooting at our FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis.""Our most heartfelt sympathies are with all those affected by this senseless act of violence. The safety of our team members is our top priority, and we are fully cooperating with investigating authorities," the company said.A witness told NBC affiliate WTHR of Indianapolis that while working inside the FedEx facility he heard gunshots and when he looked up he saw a gunman. He said he ducked after hearing several more shots. The witness, who WTHR did not name, then ran out of the building and saw one person on the ground, he added.U.S. Rep. André Carson, D-Indiana, whose district includes Indianapolis, said that he was heartbroken by the incident."I am heartbroken by the mass shooting at the FedEx facility here in Indianapolis and praying for all affected by this tragedy," he said on Twitter. "I am communicating with local authorities to get all details of the attack and my office stands ready to help everyone affected any way we can."There have been several mass shootings in the U.S. in recent weeks, including an April 8 shooting at a cabinet company facility in Bryan, Texas, that left one person dead and five others wounded.
National Review-Pelosi Mocked AOC, Squad Members When They Arrived in Congress: ‘See How Perfect I Am?’Brittany Bernstein-Thu, April 15, 2021, 8:40 AM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly mocked Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and other members of the progressive “Squad” when they arrived in Congress amid growing tensions between the moderate and left-wing factions of the party, according to a new report.On Thursday Politico published an adapted excerpt from USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page’s new book Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power, which details how tensions flared early on between Pelosi and the Squad, the progressive group of lawmakers elected in 2018 that includes Ocasio-Cortez and Representatives Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.).After the Squad members cast the only four Democratic votes against an immigration bill the speaker had backed, Pelosi showed little concern over their opposition, Page writes.“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” she told The New York Times in an interview at the time. “But they don’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”The situation escalated when Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, sent a series of critical tweets about the speaker.“Pelosi claims we can’t focus on impeachment because it’s a distraction from kitchen table issues,” he wrote. “But I’d challenge you to find voters that can name a single thing House Democrats have done for their kitchen table this year. What is this legislative mastermind doing?”He also blasted the Blue Dogs, a group of moderate Democrats, calling them the “New Southern Democrats,” a reference to the segregationists who blocked civil rights legislation. “They certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s,” he wrote. However, he later deleted the tweet.Pelosi then reportedly tried to get the new members to fall in line during a private meeting of the Democratic caucus.“So, again, you got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it,” she said. “But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK.”“Some of you are here to make a beautiful pâté,” she said, “but we’re making sausage most of the time.”Later, Page asked if the new members had failed to understand the “sausage-making process.” The journalist says Pelosi then “became as openly agitated as I had ever seen her in an interview — and not with me.”“Some people come here, as Dave Obey would have said, to pose for holy pictures,” she said.Page writes that she then “changed her voice and mimicked a child trying to make a solemn show of piety,” and said, “See how perfect I am and how pure?”“Remember when David used to say that all the time?” Pelosi asked of the Wisconsin congressman. “‘OK, there’s the group that’s going to go pose for holy pictures. Now let’s legislate over here.’”“And that’s experience,” Pelosi said.“They’ll understand when they have something they want to pass,” Pelosi said. “If you don’t want any results, you don’t ever have to do anything. But if you have something that you want to pass, you’re better off not having your chief of staff send out a tweet in the manner in which that was sent out. Totally inappropriate.”“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she added.
Study: 1 in 5 Israeli kids suffering from anxiety amid pandemic-Research finds ultra-Orthodox children mostly unaffected; majority of kids had difficulties with online classes-By TOI staff-APR 16,21-Today, 12:37 pm
More than 20 percent of children in Israel are reported to suffer from anxiety amid the coronavirus pandemic, more than triple the rate as compared to before the health crisis, according to new research.According to the study, 21% of parents reported their children to have clinical anxiety symptoms. However, the data found wide discrepancies between different communities — with 23% of kids in secular families, but just 7% of children in the ultra-Orthodox community.The research was lead by Prof. Michal Grinstein-Weiss of the Social Policy Institute at Washington University, in collaboration with Prof. Rami Benbenishty of the Hebrew University, and the Adler Institute.Grinstein-Weiss attributed the lower anxiety levels in the ultra-Orthodox community to the numerous Haredi educational institutions that continued to operate as usual during nationwide lockdowns, the Haaretz daily reported.“The ultra-Orthodox perceived the pandemic differently, and more or less maintained their usual life routine,” she said, adding that “the anxiety that arose as a result of the coronavirus, and the changes it caused, affected them less.”The researchers polled in late March some 1,000 parents of children aged 6-18. The study asked parents to fill out details on the children, including a section on anxiety symptoms.Some 58% of parents said their children “felt lonely” since the onset of the pandemic, another 44% said their children needed emotional support, and 55% said they had difficulties adapting to online studies when schools were shuttered.The research was published ahead of the full reopening of Israel’s school system on Sunday.Cabinet ministers this week also abolished the requirement that some grades still learn in smaller class sizes.Israel in recent months has significantly rolled back coronavirus restrictions by opening businesses, event venues, and other activities, as morbidity levels have dropped amid the country’s rapid vaccination drive.
PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)
REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
AMERICA (POLITICAL BABYLON)(NUKED BY SNEAK ATTACK FROM RUSSIA)
IN REVELATION 17 & 18 IS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL BABYLONS.IF YOU CAN NOT DECERN BETWEEN THE 2 BABYLONS IN REV 17 & 18.YOU WILL JUST THINK THEIR BOTH THE SAME.BUT NO-THERES A RELIGIOUS BABYLON (THE VATICAN IN REV 17)(AND THE POLITICAL BABYLON IN REV 18 (AMERICA OR NEW YORK TO BE EXACT)
ISAIAH 34:10
10 It (AMERICA-POLITICAL BABYLON) shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
JEREMIAH 51:29-32 (CYBER ATTACK 1ST)
29 And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon,(AMERICA-NEW YORK) to make the land of Babylon (AMERICA) a desolation without an inhabitant.
30 The mighty men of Babylon (AMERICA) have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
031 One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon (NEW YORK) that his city is taken at one end,
32 And that the passages are stopped,(THE WAR COMPUTERS HACKED OR EMP'D) and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.(DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO)
COMPLETE SILENCE AFTER AN EMP GOES OFF
REVELATION 8:1
1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
JEREMIAH 50:3,24
3 For out of the north (RUSSIA) there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
24 I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon,(AMERICA) and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD. (RUSSIA A SNEAK CYBER,EMP ATTACK,THEN NUKE ATTACK ON AM
Associated Press-Ukraine, France and Germany hold security talks-SYLVIE CORBET-Fri, April 16, 2021, 5:04 AM
PARIS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is holding talks on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel amid growing tensions with Russia, which has deployed troops at the border with the country.Zelenskyy is traveling to Paris to meet with Macron during a working lunch at the Elysee presidential palace. Both heads of state will then talk via videoconference with Merkel, Macron's office said.The talks come as Ukraine and the West have sounded alarms in recent weeks about the concentration of troops along Russia’s border, a buildup that the U.S. and NATO have described as the largest since 2014.In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Zelenskyy said “it’s time to stop talking and to make decisions.”He said Friday's talks notably aim at discussing security issues. “Europe’s security is depending on Ukraine’s security,” he said, adding his country is seeking support from the European Union and the NATO alliance.“Our goal ... is to de-escalate tensions,” a French official at the French presidency, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the talks, said.“All the work we’re doing is in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” the official said.More than 14,000 people have died in seven years of fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that erupted after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled, and violations of a shaky truce have become increasingly frequent in recent weeks across Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas.Zelenskyy said Thursday after chairing a meeting of Ukraine’s security council that the discussions in Paris are important for preparing the so-called “Normandy format” talks involving the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.Their last meeting in Paris in December 2019 helped ease tensions but failed to make any progress on a political settlement.
Yahoo News-U.S. government formally blames Russian spies for SolarWinds breach-Jenna McLaughlin·National Security and Investigations Reporter-Thu, April 15, 2021, 12:01 PM
WASHINGTON — The White House Thursday morning accused the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, of orchestrating the recent massive breach that affected private sector networks and U.S. government agencies through the popular IT monitoring software made by SolarWinds.The statement linking the SVR’s hacking group, also known as “Cozy Bear,” to the “broad-scope cyber espionage campaign” is the most concrete connection the Biden administration has made between the hack and Russia. The damage was first uncovered in the final days of the Trump administration, which described the attack as “likely Russian.”“The SVR’s compromise of the SolarWinds software supply chain gave it the ability to spy on or potentially disrupt more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide,” according to the White House statement, which also included a number of measures directed against the Russian government for a range of malign activities in addition to the SolarWinds breach. “The scope of this compromise is a national security and public safety concern,” the White House said.According to the White House, the U.S. intelligence community, which has been investigating the breach, has “high confidence” that the SVR is the culprit. That's the strongest level of certainty the community uses in describing its assessments.During a recent webinar, Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology and President Biden’s top cyber adviser, warned that the SolarWinds breach, while clearly a sophisticated espionage campaign designed to leave no trace, could “in a moment” become something more serious. Hackers could use that access to launch a destructive attack, or publicly release the data they stole, as when Russian intelligence agencies dumped broad troves of emails belonging to Democrats during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.In a joint advisory Thursday morning, the National Security Agency, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released technical details about vulnerabilities being exploited by the SVR, in order to allow affected companies and agencies to patch their software. The release focused on “publicly known vulnerabilities,” or flaws in code that have already been made public but that adversaries can continue exploiting when users fail to patch them.The government's Thursday announcement included sanctions against multiple companies involved in providing technical support or resources to the SVR, as well as the broader recommendation that anyone using software or hardware with ties to Russia reconsider that decision.According to a senior administration official who spoke with journalists Thursday morning, the U.S. government has already mandated that the nine government agencies affected by the SolarWinds breach ramp up cybersecurity standards. The White House is also planning to move forward with other measures soon, including an executive order on protecting federal networks, which will require companies that sell software products to the U.S. government to do cybersecurity reviews and report breaches.The SolarWinds breach has led to a debate about whether the NSA, which focuses on foreign networks, requires additional authority in order to monitor domestic networks so as to detect anomalous activity such as this breach. Without the initial identification of the breach by the cybersecurity company FireEye, which was among its victims, it’s unclear when the U.S. government would have learned of the vulnerability being exploited by the SVR.While intelligence officials have told lawmakers they are not requesting additional authority to look into U.S. networks, NSA Director Paul Nakasone has made clear there is a “gap” in visibility that the agency needs to find ways around, in particular through partnership with the private sector. But it’s unclear whether additional visibility into U.S. networks would have allowed the NSA to make quicker detection regardless, experts have speculated, particularly because the DHS’s own systems tracking U.S. networks didn’t detect the well-disguised breach.The announcement of formal attribution to the Russian intelligence service was accompanied by an announcement of broader U.S. government efforts to establish a framework for “responsible state behavior in cyberspace.”The Biden White House, which has consistently stated it will respond to the SolarWinds hack at a time and place of its choosing, is reserving the right to take additional action in the future.“We will continue to hold Russia accountable for its malicious cyber activities, such as the SolarWinds incident, by using all available policy and authorities,” it said in its statement Thursday.Not all U.S. government actions against Russia on Thursday were made public. According to a second Biden administration official speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, the government is responding in ways “that will remain unseen.”
Iran enriches uranium to 60%, its highest ever levels-Top Iranian atomic official and parliament speaker announce development, five days after Natanz attack — blamed on Israel — reportedly destroys thousands of centrifuges-By TOI staff and Agencies-APR 16,21-Today, 12:07 pm
Iranian scientists have successfully enriched uranium to 60 percent purity, its highest ever levels, senior Iranian officials declared on Friday.Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf made the announcement on Twitter, five days after an attack at its Natanz nuclear facility that Iran has blamed on Israel.“The will of the Iranian nation is a miracle-maker and it will defuse any conspiracy,” state television quoted Qalibaf as saying. He said the enrichment began just after midnight Friday.The development was confirmed by Iran’s top nuclear official, who noted the process was conducted at Natanz.“The enrichment of uranium to 60 percent is underway at the Martyr Ahmadi Roshan nuclear facility” in Natanz, Ali Akbar Salehi of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was quoted as saying by state media.The Natanz attack, which reportedly damaged thousands of centrifuges at the facility, appeared to be part of an escalating shadow war between Israel and Iran. Israeli authorities have not commented on the attack, for which Tehran has vowed revenge.The move to increase enrichment could draw further retaliation, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed never to allow Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon.While Iran’s move keeps enrichment below weapons-grade levels of 90%, it is a short step away. Iran had been enriching up to 20% — and even that was a short technical step to weapons-grade levels.Iran, which insists its nuclear program is peaceful, previously had said it could use uranium enriched up to 60% for nuclear-powered ships. However, the Islamic Republic currently has no such ships in its navy.The weekend attack at Natanz was initially described only as a blackout in the electrical grid feeding above-ground workshops and underground enrichment halls — but later Iranian officials began calling it an attack.Alireza Zakani, the hardline head of the Iranian parliament’s research center, referred to “several thousand centrifuges damaged and destroyed” in a state TV interview. However, no other official has offered that figure and no images of the aftermath have been released.The New York Times reported that the blast was caused by a bomb that was smuggled into the plant and then detonated remotely. The report cited an unnamed intelligence official, without specifying whether they were American or Israeli. This official also specified that the blast took out Natanz’s primary electrical system as well as its backup.The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Salehi, claimed Monday that emergency power had already been restored at the plant and enrichment was continuing.“A large portion of the enemy’s sabotage can be restored, and this train cannot be stopped,” he told Iranian media, according to the Times.Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it damaged some of Iran’s first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, the workhorse of its nuclear program.Speaking to his cabinet on Wednesday, an impassioned President Hassan Rouhani said that the first-generation IR-1 centrifuges that were damaged in the attack would be replaced by advanced IR-6 centrifuges that enrich uranium much faster.Iran’s president called his country’s decision to dramatically increase its uranium enrichment after saboteurs attacked a nuclear site “an answer to your evilness.”“You wanted to make our hands empty during the talks but our hands are full,” Rouhani said, accusing Israel of being behind the Natanz attack.He was referring to ongoing talks in Vienna that are aimed at finding a way for the United States to reenter Tehran’s nuclear agreement with world powers and have Iran comply again with its limits. The accord, from which former president Donald Trump withdrew the US in 2018, prevented Iran from stockpiling enough high-enriched uranium to be able to pursue a nuclear weapon in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.The latest round of diplomatic negotiations aimed at ensuring the US’s return to the accord lasted for roughly two hours on Thursday afternoon, with Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeting afterwards that the “general impression is positive.”Israeli officials, led by Netanyahu, have adamantly opposed the US returning to the nuclear deal, putting Jerusalem at odds with the new White House administration.Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday dismissed initial offers being made at the talks in Vienna, describing them as “not worth looking at.”“The offers they provide are usually arrogant and humiliating (and) are not worth looking at,” Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state in the Islamic Republic, said in an address marking the first day of Ramadan in Iran.While saying he remained positive about Iran’s negotiators, he criticized the US and warned time could be running out.“The talks shouldn’t become talks of attrition,” Khamenei said. “They shouldn’t be in a way that parties drag on and prolong the talks. This is harmful to the country.”On Natanz, he added: “Apparently this is a crime by the Zionists. If the Zionists take an action against our nation, we will respond,” he said, without elaborating.France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, all parties to the nuclear deal, issued a joint statement Wednesday expressing their “grave concern” over Iran’s decision to increase enrichment.“This is a serious development since the production of highly enriched uranium constitutes an important step in the production of a nuclear weapon,” the countries said. “Iran has no credible civilian need for enrichment at this level.”An Israeli TV report on Tuesday night said that Iran will only be able to enrich very small quantities of uranium to 60% since Natanz is still out of commission following the Sunday attack.Channel 13 analyst Alon Ben David said that despite Iranian officials’ vow to start preparing Wednesday to begin the higher enrichment process, they cannot do it at Natanz, since the 6,000 centrifuges there remain “out of action.”There are 1,000 centrifuges at Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility that can enrich to 60% in very small quantities, the Israeli analyst said, describing the Iranian threat of higher enrichment, therefore, as unlikely to be significant.
Police in Jerusalem gird for possible unrest after Friday Ramadan prayers-Cops on high alert after 3 consecutive nights of rioting in East Jerusalem; just 10,000 vaccinated Palestinians to be permitted to enter Temple Mount-By TOI staff-APR 16,21-Today, 10:06 am
Police were gearing up for possible unrest around the Old City of Jerusalem following the first Friday prayers of the Ramadan holiday, after three consecutive nights of rioting in the area.The month of Ramadan normally sees increased tensions around Jerusalem’s Old City, which houses the flashpoint Temple Mount site, holy to both Jews and Muslims.Friday prayers during the holy month usually draw hundreds of thousands of Muslim worshipers to the Temple Mount. This year, however, due to coronavirus restrictions, the prayer services are capped at 10,000 vaccinated Palestinians.The past three days have seen nightly clashes in East Jerusalem, with tensions flaring over the police decision to prevent people from sitting on the stairs outside the Damascus Gate, as part of coronavirus restrictions during Ramadan.The Palestinians were also angered earlier this week after Israel reportedly disconnected the power supply to the Islamic call to prayer on the Temple Mount as an official Memorial Day service was held in the adjacent Western Wall square on Tuesday evening,Tensions are also soaring in East Jerusalem over concerns Israel will prevent the area from being included in the national Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for next month. Israel cracks down on Palestinian Authority activity inside Jerusalem, considering it a violation of Israeli sovereignty in its capital.Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians, COGAT, said Tuesday that up to 10,000 vaccinated Palestinians will be allowed to pray Friday at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount to mark the first Friday of Ramadan.“The measures are being taken to allow freedom of worship and religion on one hand, and on the other hand, prevent to the extent possible, the spread of COVID-19 in the region,” COGAT said in a statement.After Friday, “an additional situation assessment will be carried out to examine the approved outline, taking into account both security and health needs.”At least two police officers and five civilians have been hurt during the East Jerusalem clashes this week, which saw rioters lob firecrackers, rocks and glass bottles at cops and passersby, according to police. At least six suspects have been arrested.The Temple Mount has long been a flashpoint, and confrontations there between Palestinians and Israeli security forces have occasionally turned deadly.After capturing the area and the rest of the Old City from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel continued to grant the Waqf, which is funded and controlled by the Jordanian government, near-complete control of the area. Israeli security forces are present on the Mount and work in coordination with the Waqf. Jews are allowed to visit, but unlike Muslims, are strictly prohibited from praying on Temple Mount grounds.
How Israel kept the Arab Spring from becoming the winter of its discontent-Under Netanyahu’s leadership, the Jewish state survived the difficult early years to come out on top as Iran and jihadists are on the defensive-By Lazar Berman-APR 16,21-Today, 8:57 am 2
Ten years ago, in late 2010 and early 2011, the Arab world experienced a series of convulsions that tore apart the Middle East as we knew it. Starting in Tunisia, where a young fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest corruption and police abuse, angry demonstrations spread throughout the region. Some of the world’s longest-ruling leaders were toppled within months. There was a sense of optimism, that the long-suffering citizens of Arab nations were finally rising up to demand basic human rights and dignity in secular, youth-led popular uprisings.Observers in Israel were largely of a different mind. Tacit understandings and written agreements with Arab autocrats — demonstrably not with the masses — were long a foundation of Israel’s national security mindset. Now figures like Hosni Mubarak, who had maintained the peace treaty as eight Israel prime ministers came and went, were being pushed out, and Israel’s ties with the Arab world, both official and undeclared, were at risk of being undone by the Arab street that had never fully accepted them.Unlike the wave of anti-Communist demonstrations that bolstered liberal democracy in the Eastern Bloc two decades earlier, in the Middle East Islamists would seize power from secular dictators, Israeli political and military leaders feared.‘When some people in the West see what’s happening in Egypt, they see Europe 1989,’’ said an Israeli official. ‘‘We see it as Tehran 1979.’’In many places, Israel’s fears became reality in short order. The Muslim Brotherhood and affiliated parties won elections in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. Protests spread across Jordan, with which Israel has had a peace treaty since 1994 that is vital to maintaining quiet in the West Bank and over the Temple Mount. Jihadists were pouring into Syria, filling the vacuum left by the collapsing Syrian army, which had maintained calm along Israel’s Golan Heights frontier for decades despite the enmity between the countries.Israel was the big loser in what became known as the Arab Spring, argued both Israeli and international pundits.A decade later — astonishingly — the headlines look very different. “Ten years on, the Arab Spring’s biggest winner is Israel,” wrote Haaretz’s Anshel Pfeffer in December. “Why Israel is now delighted about the Arab Spring,” reads a January Middle East Eye headline.How did Israel manage to emerge from a complex, fast-moving, and dangerous upheaval as a “winner”?-The descent-Israel’s approach over the decades has been to seek security and stability, which usually came via Arab strongmen at the head of repressive regimes who could clamp down on violence against Israel. While itself committed to representative democracy, Jerusalem has no interest in weak democratically elected leaders subject to the will of an anti-Israel and sometimes anti-Semitic public.Initially, the Arab Spring challenged that approach. Yet looking back a decade later, it is hard to recall the initial hope about the blossoming of democracy across the Arab world. Today, the region is traumatized by arguably its most destructive decade of the modern era, with a few fitful moves toward political freedom in some parts of the Middle East the only lasting legacies of the Arab Spring.The failure of democracy to take hold may have been a tragedy for hundreds of millions of freedom-seeking Middle Easterners, but for Israel, located in what then-defense minister Ehud Barak described as a “bad neighborhood,” it meant one less thing to worry about.But that did not mean Israel was home free. As spring turned to winter, the collapse of autocratic regimes created power vacuums that set in motion a series of negative developments on the ground that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF leadership had to confront.Iran took advantage of the collapse of traditional pillars of the Arab world to spread its influence through proxies and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’s Quds Force. Turkey, which had recently taken an overtly confrontational turn against Israel under prime minister (and later president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also took advantage of the upheaval by trying to position itself as the head of the Sunni Islamist camp. The stance gave Erdogan a platform as a leading critic of Israel and champion of the Palestinians, especially Hamas.With time, Jerusalem also had to deal with the return to the region of Moscow, which had in the past supported Israel’s enemies and had even sent troops to fight Israeli forces on the battlefield.In this environment, Israel had to make challenging decisions about whom to support, whom to strike, and how to maneuver a long period of consistent uncertainty.Betrayal by Uncle Sam-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was a reliable partner for Israel since he assumed office in 1981. While Israel changed leaders, battled Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza, and signed agreements with Yasser Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan, Mubarak was one of the constants Israel could rely on.When massive sustained protests broke out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square starting on January 25, 2011, Israeli leaders understood that they were on the brink of a sea change that could destabilize the whole region.“Very soon it was clear that it’s a kind of chain reaction,” said Itai Brun, who was the head of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate Analysis Division from 2011 to 2015. “What is happening in Tunisia is also happening in the Gulf, and also in Egypt and also in Libya.”In Israel, military analysts and others fretted about an Islamist takeover on their border and some leaders publicly backed Mubarak.“We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak,” declared president Shimon Peres on January 31, 2011.Hours later, US president Barack Obama said in a statement that he told Mubarak that an orderly transition “must begin now.” On February 11, Egypt’s vice president Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had stepped down, and that the military was taking control of the country until elections could be held.Mubarak’s fall might have been a disaster in Israeli eyes, but Netanyahu had few options to protect Israel’s ally.“I think Israel’s influence was limited as the US saw its own ability to change things as limited,” said Daniel Byman, senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.For Israel, the US-backed ouster of Mubarak was seen as a major blow to Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt. Netanyahu urged Obama and European leaders to ensure that the Egyptians honor the deal if they wish to gain legitimacy in Western eyes.“We can do one only thing, warn the international community that they should put pressure on Egypt to keep the peace with Israel, whatever government emerges,” former Israeli ambassador Zvi Mazel told VOA news at the time. “If it is the Muslim Brotherhood, there will be, it may lead, it may lead to war. But is this the wish of the people of Egypt, to go back to war?”Many also saw Obama’s abandonment of Mubarak, after days of mounting pressure and protests, as dangerously naive idealism on the part of the US administration.The Obama administration “should have also thought about Israel before hurrying to call upon Mubarak to go,” Dov Weisglass, a former aide to Ariel Sharon, wrote at the time, according to Politico. “It is difficult to think of more serious harm to Israel’s security than the collapse of the peace accord with Egypt.”Israeli officials did not feel there was much chance that the idealist young Egyptians in Tahrir Square would succeed in taking power. It would either be Egypt’s generals in the best-case scenario, or the Muslim Brotherhood.“Many Israeli officials were very worried. They felt that the familiar ground was shaking and that the consequences could be unpredictable, especially in Egypt,” said Brun.As feared, following Mubarak’s exit voices swiftly emerged calling the Egypt-Israel peace agreement into question. Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie called for the newly elected parliament to “loudly demand to stop the issue of normalization…and to review the Camp David Accord.”On Israel’s southern border with Egypt, security along the once-quiet frontier began to dissipate as the transitional government under Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi came into power to replace Mubarak.A jihadist insurgency in the restive northern Sinai gained steam, seemingly bolstered by Gazan terrorists.On April 7, 2011, terrorists in Gaza fired an anti-aircraft missile at a school bus in Israel, killing a 16-year-old boy. On August 18, a series of cross-border attacks from the Sinai left 8 Israeli soldiers and civilians dead. Attacks on a gas pipeline to Israel running through the peninsula became a regular occurrence, leading to fears that Israel’s energy supply would be choked off.“All the fears of the Israeli political and military establishment were playing out,” said Brun. “We thought that this is what would happen and in a very short time, that was exactly what was happening.”Israel understood it was entering a period marked by uncertainty. “The previous order that we knew had collapsed, we understood that the new order had yet to take shape,” said Brun. “Therefore, what we said to the senior military leadership and to the political echelon was that we are going into a transitional period that will be marked by uncertainty, instability, and volatility.”Despite the familiar faces in charge of the country, Egypt’s military government took actions that worried Israel, including opening up the border crossing with Rafah in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.Israel tried to learn the new regime and create channels of dialogue. “Tantawi was a known figure,” said Brun. “The feeling was that one could do business with him in a way that at least was reminiscent of Mubarak.”But that wasn’t always the case. In September 2011, after the killing of six Egyptian soldiers by Israeli troops who were pursuing Palestinian terrorists near the Egyptian border during the August attacks, thousands of protesters tore down a security wall around a high-rise building housing the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and ransacked its offices.Obama called on the Egyptian government to “honor its obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli embassy,” according to a White House statement at the time.Following the US intervention, Egypt sent commando forces into the embassy complex to rescue the Israeli staff, who had taken refuge in a safe room. Years later, Netanyahu claimed he had been planning a raid to rescue the staff, though Foreign Ministry officials cast doubt on the prime minister’s version of events.The attack prompted nearly the entire embassy staff to evacuate in one of the worst crises to hit the two countries’ relations since their 1979 peace treaty. Israeli officials said they tried frantically to reach their Egyptian counterparts, but were ignored.The Muslim Brotherhood in charge-Nearly a year and a half after Mubarak was pushed out, Israel’s fears of a transition to democracy paving the way for an Islamist takeover were realized when Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi won the presidential elections.“A lot of people were very worried,” Ksenia Svetlova, a former Knesset member and fellow at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies.But Israel still held out hope it could work with Morsi, who reportedly told a Mossad agent that he had no intention of severing ties with the Jewish state, and was encouraged by the fact that much of the military leadership was left in place.“There was still hope that it will be possible to work with [the generals],” said Svetlova, who contributes to Times of Israel Hebrew-language sister site Zman Yisrael. “They had less influence, but they still had influence.”While Jerusalem and Cairo were perhaps farther apart than they had been in years, Israel still found ways to work with Morsi, mostly through defense operations.Israel prioritized tangible expressions of continued security cooperation, said Moshe Albo, a modern Middle East historian and researcher at the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies. This meant a focus on cooperation on border security, the continued functioning of the embassy in Cairo, and military attaches remaining in both countries.“The focus was on security, then after that was settled they could discuss trade deals, etcetera,” said Albo.As security in the Sinai, Gaza and southern Israel continued to deteriorate, Israel reportedly allowed Egypt to deploy extra troops, tanks and attack helicopters in the Sinai Peninsula in an attempt to crack down on terrorist groups in the region.By November 2012, as Israel embarked on a three-week air campaign against Hamas to stem rocket attacks from Gaza, Egypt was able to play a role in helping broker a ceasefire, partially thanks to the fact that it had a Muslim Brotherhood Islamist in power.The close ties between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas were seen as an advantage by Israel, said Brun. “It was clear that the Egyptian mediation could help for the speedy conclusion of the operation,” he said.Egypt had a profound interest in stability at the time and sought to play an active role in the region, according to Yossi Kuperwasser, who was then director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry.“The fact that we enabled Egypt, under president Morsi at the time, to play a role, a positive role, in stabilizing the situation… I think this was very important,” he said.At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas ties came with downsides for Israel. With Morsi in power, Hamas enjoyed a period of relative legitimacy on the international stage after the operation. In late 2012 and early 2013, it hosted visits to the Gaza Strip by the foreign ministers of Turkey and Tunisia, the prime ministers of Egypt and Malaysia, and the influential emir of Qatar.-The military strikes back-By the end of 2013, Israel had survived Egypt’s dalliance with democracy and was welcoming the rise of a new strongman, defense chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who ousted Morsi in a coup, ending his year of divisive rule.“He was certainly seen as a figure whose orientation was similar to the regime before the Muslim Brotherhood,” Brun said of Sissi.Israel’s cooperation with Egypt under Sissi deepened around security and energy.An annex of the 1979 peace accord giving Israel say over the scope of Egyptian military deployments swiftly became irrelevant as Cairo was given carte blanche, according to Israeli officials, a sign that Jerusalem was not concerned big Egyptian guns could be turned against it.According to foreign reports, Israel has helped the Egyptian military crack down on the jihadist insurgency in the Sinai with its own bombing campaign, and Egypt has taken part in efforts to stunt Hamas in Gaza.In 2014, an Egyptian court banned Hamas from operating in Egypt and ordered the seizure of its assets there.Sissi also ordered the razing of homes to create a buffer zone with the Gaza Strip. In March 2014, Egypt’s military announced it had destroyed 1,370 smuggling tunnels under its border with the Gaza Strip.When war broke out again in the Strip in July 2014 with Operation Protective Edge, private and public Egyptian media channels bitterly criticized Hamas for provoking another conflict with Israel.“The Egyptian reactions represent a dramatic change of course,” said Mira Tzoreff, who teaches Egyptian politics at Tel Aviv University’s Middle East and African Studies Department and the Moshe Dayan Center. “This didn’t begin with Operation Protective Edge but with Sissi coming to power, when he clarified who Egypt’s enemy is and what he plans to do with such an enemy… Sissi was exploding tunnels in the Sinai before we [in Israel] ever dreamed of exploding tunnels.”In January 2019, CBS News asked Sissi if defense cooperation between Cairo and Jerusalem was tighter than it had ever been. “That is correct… We have a wide range of cooperation with the Israelis,” he said.Today, Egypt has emerged as the one country that can effectively mediate between Israel and Hamas, sidelining Turkish and Qatari attempts to end the conflict and boost their standing.The two sides also found common ground on energy cooperation as gas deposits found in the Eastern Mediterranean opened the door to new opportunities for both countries. With Egypt and Turkey on opposite sides of the Libyan civil war — another violent legacy of the Arab Spring — Cairo, Jerusalem and other players came together to form the East Mediterranean Gas Forum as a bulwark against aggressive Turkish moves in the region.Still, the same issues that dogged the Israel-Egypt relationship before February 2011 continue to do so. Powerful forces in Egyptian society that oppose normalization with Israel hinder a blossoming of ties. Hostility to Israel among elite civil society — the press, writers, academics — combined with popular anti-Semitism has tempered any public expressions of warmth.While Mubarak met regularly with Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, Sissi has avoided public meetings with the Israeli leader.And yet, a decade after Israeli officials worried popular protests in Egypt would snowball into open war between the countries, Cairo and Jerusalem enjoy ties that appear to be closer than they were even under Mubarak. Everything Israel feared did come to pass — Islamists elected to power, instability, a deadly insurgency on the border, a pullback of US influence — but in the end what appears to be the only lasting effect of the Arab Spring in Egypt is a stronger Israel-Egypt pact.“In the end, the strategic situation of Israel became more comfortable,” Brun pointed out, “but that isn’t only the regional shakeup. It’s also the Trump administration, and other factors, but when we look back, I think that Israel is one of the countries that gained the most from the regional shakeup, because the undermining of our adversaries was ultimately beneficial for Israel.”-The Syrian bloodbath-In Egypt, Israel found a way to navigate the upheavals of the Arab Spring by rolling with the punches and seeking ways to turn challenges into opportunities. The same holds true for its approach to Syria, though the outcome and the way it got there were radically different in many key ways.As with Egypt, Israeli leaders watched with worry as popular protests snowballed into something larger, in this case an open civil war. While there was no love lost in Jerusalem for the Bashar Assad regime, and many Israelis hoped that Syrians would throw off the yoke of oppression, there was also fear, with risks for Israel whether Assad was overthrown or remained.Since it could not get a sense of how events would unfold, Israel mainly prepared for a range of scenarios.“We understood quickly that there were two possibilities. First, that Bashar or some successor from the Assad order would survive and would be part of enhancing Iran and Hezbollah’s influence in Syria, and second, that he would fall, and that would be connected to the presence of jihadists on our northern border,” Brun said.Israel focused on understanding how the conflict was unfolding instead of trying to influence its course. This decision seemed quite reasonable at the time.Among other things, the country was still dealing with the trauma of the Lebanon occupation, in which its attempts to intervene in the domestic politics of an Arab country led to an 18-year quagmire that left hundreds of IDF soldiers dead.“It is not clear to me what Israel could have done beyond individual operations in the Syrian war,” said Byman. “Staying out helped ensure that this important (and divisive) event in the region was not ‘about Israel’ and made it easier, over time, for Israel to work with Gulf states and other future allies.”There were three exceptions to the policy to remain on the sidelines. Israel would respond to shells that landed in its territory, offer covert humanitarian aid, and use airstrikes to keep weapons of mass destruction from falling into terrorist hands and precision missiles from reaching Hezbollah from Iran.It also resisted getting involved to defend the relatives of Syrian Druze residents of the Golan Heights, most of whom have not claimed Israeli citizenship and backed the Assad regime, from being threatened or attacked by rebel groups across the border.However, it did provide medical aid to anyone who showed up at the border needing help, whether Syrian regulars or rebels, angering Druze who had seen terror groups allied with opposition forces carry out alleged atrocities against their brethren across the border.In June 2015, after a massacre of 20 Druze villagers by Al-Nusra Front fighters, Druze men ambushed an Israeli ambulance and killed a wounded Syrian who was being transported for medical treatment in the Golan Heights. Days later, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon confirmed that Israel had been providing aid to Syrian rebels, on the condition they did not harm the Druze.In November 2017, Israel said it would defend the Syrian Druze village Hader, hours after a terrorist from the Al-Nusra Front killed nine people in a suicide bombing just across the border that sparked clashes between Syrian government forces and rebels.Some reports indicated that Israel sought to create a more robust buffer zone on the border that would last beyond the civil war. Opposition activists claimed Israel was providing salaries for armed groups that would keep pro-Iranian elements from the border area. If there was such an effort, it failed.“Israel did not succeed in establishing a buffer zone,” said Svetlova.Though Israel managed to avoid being sucked into the fight while largely keeping it from spilling over into Israel, there were some drawbacks to its policy.Some groups just over the border expected more out of Israel, and were left disappointed. “It seems that it’s never a good idea to betray allies,” said Svetlova. “Next time, it will be more and more difficult for Israel to look for allies across the border when we need them.”As for the Assad regime, Israel deemed it preferable to stick with the devil it knew — the phrase prime minister Ariel Sharon used in 2005 to convince George W. Bush not to push for regime change in Syria.The Syrian border had been Israel’s quietest since 1973, and should the regime fall, Israeli leaders reasoned, it would be replaced with Sunni jihadists who would be far more aggressive.“We were really concerned about the possibility in those years that chemical weapons — there was a very large store of chemical weapons, including material, missiles that can carry chemical weapons — the possibility that these would find their way to less responsible actors, some of which were hostile,” Brun explained.As the Syrian war ground on, though, that view began to change.“I think in the last few years Israel started to realize that it wasn’t that accurate to assume that Bashar Assad is a better option for us,” said Itamar Rabinovich, a former lead Israeli negotiator with Syria and author of the new work “Syrian Requiem.”“First of all, from a strategic point of view, Israel today acknowledges the fact that Bashar is the one to allow the Iranian entrenchment in Syria. And as long as it’s up to him, he will not do anything in order to remove the Iranian presence.”“We do know that Iran is much stronger,” Svetlova stressed. “It has a much stronger presence in Syria than it did 10 years ago or even five years ago.”-Limited involvement in Syria-By 2013, Israel understood that the situation in Syria offered an opportunity. The fraying Syrian army meant that Israel enjoyed unprecedented freedom of action in the country to fight against Iranian entrenchment and Hezbollah’s military buildup. The IDF effort that emerged from that understanding was called the “campaign between wars,” or Mabam in its Hebrew acronym.In May 2013, Israel began acknowledging generally that it was taking military action in Syria against Iranian missile shipments to Hezbollah, in addition to sites like Syrian chemical weapons facilities, which Obama publicly supported. Israeli officials mostly avoided commenting on specific incidents, which relieved pressure on Assad to retaliate. In 2017, the IAF acknowledged it had struck nearly 100 Syrian and Hezbollah targets since the beginning of the civil war.Israel ramped up its attacks as time went on. In 2018, Israel accused Iran of firing 20 rockets from Syria at IDF positions, the first time Israel had directly accused Tehran of firing at Israel. According to Israeli officials, IAF planes retaliated in a massive operation by striking logistics and intelligence sites used by Iranian forces in Syria. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in a one-month period in 2018 alone, Israeli strikes killed 113 Iranian soldiers and allied militiamen. The IDF said at the time that it had struck over 200 Iranian targets in Syria that year.Despite the Israeli campaign, Iran has continued to push ahead with its efforts to establish a bridgehead on Israel’s border to threaten the Jewish state, and has advanced plans for a range of attacks, according to Israel’s military. In January 2015, an IAF strike targeted the leaders of a substantial new Hezbollah terror hierarchy that was set to attempt kidnappings, rocket attacks and other assaults on military and civilian targets in northern Israel.In recent years, Iran has also attempted to send attack drones into Israel. In August 2019, the military said it carried out bombing runs to thwart an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps plot involving what were described as “kamikaze” attack UAVs.Each Israeli strike, though, carries risks of inviting reprisal attacks or snowballing into a larger conflagration. Making the theater even more serious from an Israeli perspective is the fact that Russia too has attempted to exploit the chaos for its own gains.In 2015, Russia moved forces to Syria to ensure Assad’s survival. Israel had to flex its muscles to set down clear red lines that the Russians would understand, and it turned to an Arab security partner to do so. According to Jordan’s King Abdullah, in January 2016, Israeli and Jordanian jets together confronted Russian warplanes over southern Syria and warned them away from crossing their shared border.“We saw the Russians fly down, but they were met with Israeli and Jordanian F-16s, both together in Israeli and Jordanian airspace. The Russians were shocked and understood they cannot mess with us,” the Hashemite king was quoted saying at the time.Israel and Russia established a so-called deconfliction mechanism to keep the sides from getting tangled up and Netanyahu met Russian President Vladimir Putin on multiple occasions to discuss the issue.Israeli officials do not generally discuss the full extent of that coordination, but they stress that the Israeli military does not seek Russian permission before carrying out operations. At the same time, though, Israel’s freedom of action was seriously curtailed, especially after Russia provided advanced S-300 air defense batteries to Syria following an incident in which a Syria gunner, aiming for Israeli jets, knocked a Russian plane out of the sky instead, killing all 15 people on board.It is clear that Iran is not about to stop sending Iranian troops and its proxy militias to Syria to attempt to carry out attacks against Israel. For its part, Israel has shown a firm resolve not to let that happen, and has shown that its intelligence and operational capabilities give it a distinct advantage over Iran in Syria.Russia as well is here to stay, along with its advanced air defense systems that could threaten Israel’s dominance of the skies over Syria. “Our freedom of action is in the hands of the Russians,” said Svetlova. “It’s not a Syrian-Israeli issue anymore. It’s a Syrian-Russian-Israeli issue.”Russia’s growing naval presence in the Mediterranean, based in Tartus, Syria, could also limit Israel freedom of action at sea.Russian anti-aircraft forces in Syria provide a protective umbrella for Russian ships, potentially complicating Israeli air operations in the area. In addition, Russia’s advanced intelligence systems mean they are constantly tracking Israeli movements, and potentially transferring that information to Syria or even Hezbollah.Over the decade of civil war just over Israel’s border, Netanyahu managed to keep Israel from getting sucked into the conflict. Israel’s initial focus on chemical weapons shifted to Iranian entrenchment, which it has combated with purpose and effectiveness. But the fact remains that a hostile regime is in power, backed by Iran, a determined foe of Israel, and propped up by Russia, a world power that could turn quite dangerous.“I think the fact that Bashar remained is a negative outcome,” Brun reflected. “Still, it’s not that that simple because I also agree that he does provide some sort of stability; he’s a responsible actor, we know him, we know how he will act, more or less. But in my eyes, the presence of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria — and even the moral side of him remaining in power after he killed so many people, he crossed too many international norms, he used chemical weapons — that is an extremely negative outcome in terms of the liberal democratic order in the world.”-Adversaries on the defensive-Israel had much to fear 10 years ago. But the scenarios its leaders feared either didn’t come to pass, or occurred at a much lower level than expected. Chemical weapons did not reach the hands of terrorists; Egypt remains very much committed to security cooperation with Israel; jihadist organizations did not emerge as a major threat to Israeli citizens or soldiers; King Abdullah sits securely on the throne in Jordan.The outcome is even better when one surveys how Israel’s adversaries fared. Iran, which enjoyed a wave of success in the early years of the Arab Spring, has been on the defensive of late. Senior commanders like Qassem Soleimani and key allies have been killed, it continues to suffer stunning intelligence failures around its nuclear program and its economy is in shambles under US sanctions.The Sunni jihadist networks have also been hit hard. The Islamic State’s caliphate was smashed, and al-Qaeda-linked groups have rejected it in Syria as senior leaders continue to be eliminated or spend long stretches in hiding.At the same time, moderate Sunni states have come together around opposition to Iran and Turkey, while signing normalization agreements with Israel.Though a number of factors played into the outcome, Netanyahu is credited for his leadership in navigating the drastic changes over the last decade, even by many who are not supporters of his policies in other realms.“I personally disagree with Netanyahu’s views on peace with the Palestinians and the JCPOA,” said Byman, of the Brookings Institution. “However, given his beliefs, he played his hand very well. He helped foster discontent with the [Iran nuclear deal], which Trump withdrew from, and in general was able to use Iran to forge new relations with important states like the UAE. More broadly, he was able to work with Russia — though it was often difficult — as the US decreased its role in the region. Overall, Israel has emerged from the last decade with new or stronger ties to important regional players and has not had to make concessions on the Palestinian issue.”“I think that some of his decisions have been correct,” said Svetlova, who served in the opposition as an MK while Netanyahu was prime minister, “such as the non-involvement in the Syrian civil war.”Looking at the entire period, Netanyahu’s overall policy was correct, said Brun. “Israel took advantage of the chaos, or the war, to operate with relative intensity against existing and emerging threats. “Times of Israel staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
