Reminder, Mike Sachs, TSTI member and Northeast Regional Director of AIPAC will once again be offering an update on Israel between the morning and afternoon services on Yom Kippur
U.S., Israel Build Military Cooperation - Charles Levinson
While U.S. and Israeli diplomatic relations weather their choppiest phase in years, behind the scenes, military commanders from the two countries have dramatically stepped up cooperation. U.S. military aid to Israel has increased markedly this year. Top-ranking U.S. and Israeli soldiers have shuttled between Tel Aviv and Washington with unusual frequency in recent months. A series of joint military exercises in Israel over the past months has included a record number of American troops.
This month, about 200 U.S. Marines joined a battalion of Israeli soldiers for an all-night march through the Negev desert, the culmination of three weeks of joint drills - the biggest U.S.-Israeli joint infantry exercise ever. In October, a missile-defense exercise between the U.S. and Israeli militaries brought in more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers. In the exercises, the two militaries have been drilling as a coalition force, battling a common enemy for the first time, just as the U.S. does with its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.
U.S. military aid to Israel reached a high of $2.78 billion in 2010, up from $2.55 billion in 2009. It is slated to jump to $3 billion in 2011. The Obama administration has also requested an additional $205 million to fund the Iron Dome short-range rocket defense shield. (Wall Street Journal)
Israel Sees Battlefield Hidden in Southern Lebanon - Matti Friedman
Israel's military says Hizbullah is moving fighters and weapons into the villages of south Lebanon, building up a secret network of arms warehouses, bunkers and command posts in preparation for war - under the nose of 12,000 international peacekeepers. Hizbullah is armed by Iran and Syria and is more powerful than the Lebanese military.
Israel has begun releasing detailed information about Hizbullah's new border deployment to show the reach of their intelligence and to stake their claim that if another war breaks out and many civilians die, it will be because Hizbullah placed its armaments and fighters in their midst. An IDF officer said Hizbullah now has 5,000 fighters operating south of the Litani River, an area which is supposed to be free of militant activity under the 2006 cease-fire.
South Lebanon is festooned with posters of the bearded, turbaned Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and local residents, mostly Shiite, tend to support Hizbullah. Hizbullah members or supporters often attach themselves to journalists entering villages, shadowing them and discouraging photography. Peacekeepers are barred from searching private property, where the Israelis say much of the evidence of the guerrillas' presence would be found. UNIFIL's performance in the face of the Hizbullah buildup undermines Israel's trust in international forces to police other volatile areas, such as Gaza and the West Bank, under a peace treaty. (AP-MSNBC)
Has U.S. Policy on Israel Changed? - Zalman Shoval
President Obama came into office with strong preconceptions about foreign policy and especially about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The main result of the administration's new policy was to encourage the Palestinians to take more hard-line positions. Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas began to insist on preconditions for direct negotiations which never existed before. The Obama administration now appears to have concluded that the tactics it employed against the Netanyahu government were self-defeating. But it is premature to establish that it has revised its overall strategic outlook. The writer served as Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
Mike Sachs |
Northeast Regional Director |
212-750-4110 • Fax 212-750-4125 |
AIPAC • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee |
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