person:nissim ben-sheetrit

Strategic talks between Israel, France deteriorate into serious dispute - Strategic consultations between the countries last week end in discord over French initiative for UN resolution on talks with Palestinians.
By Barak Ravid | May 14, 2015 Haaretz
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Strategic consultations between Israel and France last week deteriorated into an argument over French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius’ initiative to advance a resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the United Nations Security Council, with Israel arguing that Paris was operating behind Israel’s back.

The strategic dialogue meetings take place annually and are attended by Foreign Ministry officials of both countries. Israel’s delegation was led by Foreign Ministry Director General Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, while French Foreign Ministry Secretary General Christian Masset led his country’s large delegation to Jerusalem.

The objective is to consult on diplomatic and security issues, but it is also meant to symbolize the close coordination between the two countries. Israeli diplomats say that this is a forum in which the two sides generally stress what they have in common, and that even if there are disagreements, confrontations and arguments are generally avoided.

The meeting that took place last week at Foreign Ministry headquarters was therefore quite exceptional. From the first moments it became clear to participants that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to smooth over the disagreements between the two sides, particularly with regard to the Palestinian issue. Both Israeli and French diplomats said that the harsh exchanges were evidence of the depth of the tension between the two countries, and that the frustration building on both sides over the past few months erupted in full force.

What specifically led to the blowup is Fabius’ attempt to revive a UN Security Council resolution on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The French tried to advance such a resolution a few months ago, but it failed when the Palestinians rejected Paris’ draft.

The resolution is expected to call for basing the borders of the Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with territorial exchanges, making Jerusalem the capital of both states, some formulation that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, setting a timetable for finishing negotiations and the convening of an international peace conference.

Fabius recently agreed to an American request to put off advancing the resolution until a nuclear agreement is reached with Iran, which is supposed to take place by June 30, but he is determined to bring the resolution to a Security Council vote by no later than the end of September, when the UN General Assembly meets in New York.

Israeli diplomats said that in recent weeks the Foreign Ministry had received information indicating that the French had started discussing the wording of a draft resolution in both Paris and New York with the Palestinians, the Arab states and several members of the Security Council. By contrast, the French had not held similar consultations with Israel and never gave Israel a draft of the resolution or at least an outline of its main points.

Ben-Sheetrit protested this behavior at last week’s meeting, according to two Israeli diplomats familiar with the details of the discussions. “You are speaking with the whole world about your initiative, just not with us,” the diplomats quoted him as saying. “You seem to have forgotten that we are also a party to this and that you ought to involve us, too.”

The Israeli diplomats said that the French delegates became defensive and denied having presented a draft or detailed principles to the Palestinians or the Arab states. “They said that things were at a preliminary stage and that when there was something drawn up, they’d show it to us,” one of the diplomats said. “They said the whole process in the Security Council was for our benefit and that they are trying to arrive at a formula that will be acceptable to both sides and would allow the resumption of the peace process.”

The Israelis, however, refused to be convinced, and the discussion became increasingly confrontational and deteriorated into mutual recriminations. “At a certain point the strategic dialogue became a dialogue of the deaf,” an Israeli diplomat said.

Both Israeli and French diplomats agreed that the discordant tones and great tension during the discussion represent the current state of relations between Israel and France. The stalemate in the peace process, the feeling in Europe that Israel plans to continue expanding the settlements, and the increasing number of international initiatives at the UN and elsewhere are overshadowing broad agreement on larger issues like the Iranian nukes, Syria and Hezbollah.

“We’re at a difficult moment in this relationship,” a French diplomat said. “On the Palestinian issue there is a real lack of agreement. There is increasing frustration in Europe, and that’s what we tried to explain.”

With Iran out of the picture, Hezbollah tops Israel’s threat list - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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The aerial assault in Syria early Saturday that has been attributed to Israel, if it was in fact carried out as reported in the Arab media, followed several declarations by senior Israeli officials in which they warned against the acquisition of arms by the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militia group.

Following the framework agreement arrived at in early April in Lausanne, Switzerland between Iran and the world powers that is aimed at reining in the Iranian nuclear program, some of the Israeli reactions to the understanding have highlighted the risks of continued transfer of Iranian arms via Syria to Hezbollah.

In a visit to the site of an Israel Defense Forces exercise in the Golan Heights on April 15, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon accused the Iranians of continuing to arm the Lebanese-based Shi’ite militia group. A letter from Foreign Ministry Director General Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, the contents of which was reported at the time by Haaretz, also mentioned the arming of Hezbollah as the most highly urgent and critical issue from Israel’s standpoint.

Although Israel’s leadership is continuing to warn about Iran’s nuclear program, there appear to be signs of the beginning of a wider process. As a practical matter, the progress in the talks between Iran and the world powers has reduced the prospect of a unilateral attack on Israel’s part against Iranian nuclear sites to a minimum. The threat posed by Hezbollah missile therefore again assumes the status of the No. 1 security threat from Israel’s standpoint.

According to reports on Al-Jazeera and other Arab media outlets, the attack early Saturday was against bases of the Syrian missile brigade in the Qalamoun Mountain region near the border with Lebanon. It is doubtful that the Syrian army’s missile capacity, which a number of assessments state has been eroded by more than half over the course of the country’s civil war, particularly worries Jerusalem. Israeli warnings over the past four years have all focused on the transfer from Syria to Lebanon of weaponry described as “violating the balance.”

It is also not reasonable for Israeli to be concerned about the quantity of missiles involved. The best intelligence estimates are that Hezbollah currently possesses more than 100,000 missiles and rockets—at least seven times what it had just prior to the beginning of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. If that is indeed the case, an additional 100 missiles or 100 fewer would not change Israel’s strategic reality when it comes to Hezbollah.

But there is another disturbing trend relating to the missiles that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has hinted at more than once. Since the 2006 war, and to an even greater extent in recent years, Nasrallah has been trying through his declarations to establish a sort of balance of deterrence: If Israel damages Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, it will be hit in a similar fashion. Ports, airports and power plants will be hit on both sides. To carry out its threat, Hezbollah doesn’t need just missile range, and based on all intelligence assessments, it has missiles with a range to reach all of Israel, but also the capacity to make accurate hits.

There is a huge difference between the extent of potential damage (that could be caused to infrastructure sites and military facilities) by a missile that hits at an average distance of a kilometer from its target and a precision missile that lands at a distance of just dozens of meters from it.

Syrian and Iranian efforts to smuggle weaponry to Hezbollah is also directly linked to the situation of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the current civil war in his country. In recent months, after it had appeared that the regime was managing to stabilize the picture with the help of massive assistance that he has been receiving from Iran, Hezbollah and Russia,

Assad has suffered several failures. Rebel groups, particularly from the most extreme factions from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and from the Nusra Front, have initiated surprise attacks near Damascus (including the capture for a few weeks of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp) and even bombed the area of the Damascus international airport. The adversaries also grouped forces in the Qalamoun area, around which fierce battles were also fought about a year ago.

Holding on to control of the airport and the Syrian-Lebanese border are important to Hezbollah to ensure its regular supply of arms. It cannot be ruled out that a loss of control of these areas would spur smuggling efforts, certainly on cloudy nights during which the leaders of the convoys would assume that the chances of their being discovered by adversaries would be very low.

The question is also raised as to whether if Syria and Hezbollah point a direct finger at Israel over the latest attack, as occurred in connection with prior attacks attributed to Israel, there is a risk that they would respond. The rules of the game between the parties involved are not always clear. When similar aerial assaults in 2013 were reported, Damascus ignored the issue. Later the Syrian authorities acknowledged that the attacks had occurred and apparently in response gave the green light to an attack in response on the part of cells operated by Hezbollah along the Golan Heights border with Israel.

In February 2014, after an attack attributed to Israel on a convoy near Janta, on the Lebanese side of the border, Hezbollah issued explicit threats followed by the firing of rockets and the laying of explosive charges both on the Syrian border (in the Golan Heights) and on the Lebanese border (in the Mount Dov area). The latest flare-up occurred under different circumstances involving the fatal attack on an Iranian general and six Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights in late January and then the death of two Israeli Givati brigade soldiers in an anti-tank missile attack on the slopes of Mount Dov in a Hezbollah operation ten days later.

Subsequently, over a period of two and a half months, quiet prevailed in the north. The basic interest, primarily involving Hezbollah and the Assad regime’s focus on the Syrian civil war, remains as it appears to be. It is also clear that Hezbollah views the bombing of Lebanese territory with greater seriousness than an assault on a convoy in Syrian territory, as Al-Jazeera claimed occurred overnight between Friday and Saturday.

And yet, over the course of recent years, an increase has been noted in Hezbollah’s daring vis-à-vis Israel, particularly in its desire to make it clear to Israel that Hezbollah is not paralyzed with fear in the face of Israeli military might. Whether Israel carried out the attacks attributed to it by the Arab media or not, it would be logical to assume that the Israeli army will remain on high alert in the north in the near future in the face of the danger of a Hezbollah response even if that doesn’t currently appear to be the most reasonable possibility.

Article très instructif.
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Foreign Ministry director : Israel may pay a heavy price for crisis with U.S. - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
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Coordination with the U.S. is crucial to Israel’s ability to cope with Palestinian UN bid and rearming of Hezbollah, top official says.
By Barak Ravid

The director of the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday sent a letter to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warning that Israel “is liable to pay a heavy price” because of the “intense, ongoing, and public” crisis in relations with the U.S. administration.

In a two-page letter obtained by Haaretz, Foreign Ministry director-general Nissim Ben-Sheetrit called on Israel to take steps to quickly repair U.S.-Israel ties or face the consequences in the diplomatic and security arenas.

Ben-Sheetrit’s letter focuses on the tense relations between the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration. He wrote that close coordination with the United States is crucial and directly connected to Israel’s ability to cope with all its diplomatic and security challenges.

Under the heading “Diplomatic Challenges and Reorganization of the Foreign Ministry,” Ben-Sheetrit details the position of the Foreign Service’s professional staff regarding several issues Israel will have to address within weeks of the new government’s establishment. He said Israel will have to contend with the following issues before the June 30 deadline for reaching a final agreement between Iran and the large powers:

The pending UN Security Council resolution initiated by France that deals with the Palestinian Authority’s request to become a full member of the United Nations. This resolution is expected to set parameters for resolving the core issues for reaching a permanent-status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Palestinian lawsuits against Israel at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

* Pressure on Israel regarding its nuclear program by the Review Conference of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which opens later this month, and anti-Israel initiatives by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Threat from the north

One of the most serious problems Israel must address is the need to formulate a clear and firm stance on Hezbollah’s rearming and the increasing threat from the north, wrote Ben-Sheetrit. Calling this “a most urgent and critical issue for Israel,” he added: “Dealing well with this issue will be next to impossible if it is done without close coordination with the United States.”

The Foreign Ministry director also addressed the effort by Israel to improve the conditions of the nuclear agreement with Iran before June 30. In diplomatic language, Ben-Sheetrit criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to the dispute with the Obama administration on this matter.

“The loud argument being conducted with the White House on the Iranian issue, beyond the other damage, is undermining Israel’s ability to persuade the U.S. administration of the need for crucial changes in the final version of the developing nuclear agreement,” Ben-Sheetrit wrote.

Given all these challenges, Foreign Ministry officials say the most important challenge facing the Israeli government is repairing relations with the United States. “We ascribe the greatest importance to leading processes that will quickly rehabilitate Israeli-American relations so as to prevent harm to many vital Israeli interests in the international arena,” Ben-Sheetrit wrote.

He does not clarify what he means by “processes that will quickly rehabilitate” these bilateral ties. However, numerous Foreign Ministry officials, as well as officials of American Jewish organizations and members of the Obama administration, say replacing Ron Dermer as Israeli ambassador to the United States is one step that must be taken to end the crisis.

So far Netanyahu has supported Dermer, who is considered one of the premier’s closest advisers, and is not considering a replacement.

Ben-Sheetrit suggests bolstering the Foreign Ministry units that handle Israeli relations with the black and Hispanic communities in the United States and with the Christian world in general, particularly “given the great harm by radical Islam against the Christian population of the Middle East and Africa.”

Israel Foreign Ministry proposes international force in Gaza, favors EU troops Document formulated in the context of ideas received by Germany, Britain, France and other European countries during the war in Gaza.
By Barak Ravid | Sep. 7, 2014 Haaretz
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The Foreign Ministry submitted a classified document to the security cabinet two weeks ago with a proposal for stationing an international force in the Gaza Strip to monitor rehabilitation and prevent the rearming of Hamas and other terror groups. The Foreign Ministry believes that such a force could serve Israel’s interest if it carries out effective security work in Gaza.

The two-page document, entitled “Principles and Parameters for Deployment of an International Force in Gaza,” was given to the ministers of the security cabinet on August 21, by Foreign Minister director-general Nissim Ben-Sheetrit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior advisers read the document and discussed it with Foreign Ministry officials. The ministers also read the document, but have not met to discuss it.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said the document was formulated in the context of ideas received by Germany, Britain, France and other European countries during the war in Gaza, to establish an international monitoring force in Gaza that would be based on an upgrading of the European monitoring force stationed at the Rafah crossing between 2005 and 2007.

A few weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry established a 10-person team to formulate the principles for possible deployment of such a force. The team was headed by the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director general for diplomacy, Alon Ushpiz. A senior Foreign Ministry official said the document, which was formulated after a series of discussions, stated that an international force in Gaza could serve the Israeli interest if it effectively implemented security activities in the realm of demilitarization and preventing Hamas from gaining strength.

According to the document, Israel should aspire for the international force to act according to the following principles:

1. Makeup of the force: The document presents four alternatives – a European Union force; a Western force with membership of European countries as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; a United Nations force; and a NATO force. The Foreign Ministry recommended the EU option to the cabinet, because that was the most available force and because the Europeans have already shown willingness in principle for such a force.

2. Powers: The Foreign Ministry believes the force’s powers should derive from the tasks of rehabilitation and disarmament. According to the document, the force should be armed and given enforcement powers that will “allow it to deal with threats from Hamas and other terror organizations.” The Foreign Ministry believes the force should carry out enforcement, monitoring and reporting at border crossings. It should have the power to prevent arms from entering the Gaza Strip, and to confiscate arms and other prohibited materials. It should also have powers in the realm of humanitarian aid and rehabilitation, and should be able to inspect UN facilities and schools in the Gaza Strip to ensure they are not concealing weapons.

3. Deployment: The Foreign Ministry recommended that the force be deployed on the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing and along the border between the Gaza Strip and Sinai – known as the Philadelphi strip – as well as certain areas inside the Gaza Strip, such as UN installations, in keeping with the force’s mandate.

4. The force’s mandate and legal framework: The Foreign Office recommended to the cabinet that the force operate in the Gaza Strip by virtue of a UN Security Council resolution, or by virtue of an agreement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the United States and the EU that would be backed by a UN Security Council resolution. The Foreign Ministry recommended that the force operate for at least a year, with an option to extend for another year. The Foreign Ministry also recommended that the force operate according to Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, as does UNIFIL in southern Lebanon. This means that all parties involved – Israel, the Palestinians and Egypt – would have to agree to its deployment. The Foreign Ministry does not recommend that the force operate according to Chapter 7 of the Charter – that is, a force that is imposed on the parties.

A senior Foreign Ministry official said that deployment of an international force could become a very relevant possibility when talks on a long-term cease-fire are renewed in Cairo between Israel and Hamas and the other Palestinian factions. One of the issues that will be raised, mainly between Egypt and the Palestinians, is the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing.

The Egyptians are demanding that the Rafah crossing be opened only with the presence of the Palestinian Presidential Guard, without Hamas forces. According to the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority from 2005, the Rafah crossing can be opened only with the involvement of EU monitors.

The senior Foreign Ministry official said that Egypt will have to be a key partner to all discussion of an international force in Gaza, and that coordination with Egypt is critical in this matter. According to the official, some European countries had broached the issue with Egypt even during the war in Gaza, but so far the Egyptians have not been enthusiastic.

The senior official said that, in talks with some European countries, Israel presented a number of questions regarding the willingness of the EU to send a significant force that would carry out effective security work and could protect itself, in case it was attacked. “We brought up a number of questions, but so far the Europeans have not gotten back to us with a solid proposal regarding what they think such an international force should do in Gaza,” the senior Foreign Ministry official said.