Israel shrugs off wikileaks

Even if the WikiLeaks surfeit failed to reveal any major secrets, Israel’s future diplomacy is likely to be more circumspect.

By LESLIE SUSSER
wiki (photo credit: Martial Trezzini, Keystone/AP)
wiki
(photo credit: Martial Trezzini, Keystone/AP)
DESPITE FEARS FOR THE COUNTRY’S SENSITIVE foreign relations and top military secrets, the first round of the WikiLeaks website’s publication of confidential American diplomatic dispatches in late November did not cause much consternation in Israel.
On the contrary, officials say Israel emerged as a responsible state, dealing maturely with very serious security threats. Ironically, what helped Israel was the fact that its own body politic is riddled with leaks. Indeed, in Israel’s political culture leaks by politicians to the press are very much the order of the day. So much so that there was very little new in the WikiLeaks revelations. The fact that Israeli politicians tend to tell diplomats pretty much the same things they say in public or in closed press briefings means that there was a high level of correlation between the diplomatic dispatches and what was already in the public domain.
Perhaps the worst disclosure for Israel in terms of its possible impact on regional stability was the revelation that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah had several times urged the US to bomb Iran as the only way to preempt its nuclear weapons’ program.
This could exacerbate tensions between Iranian-backed Shi’ite and Saudi-supported Sunni Muslims across the region and possibly spill over in ways that might affect Israel.
Israeli officials, however, have mixed feelings on this. Some say the Saudi call for an attack on Iran shows just how much moderate Arab states, let alone Israel, are concerned about a potentially nuclear Iran. They say it reemphasizes for the international community the regional dimensions of the Iranian problem and the need to deal with it effectively.
The WikiLeaks revelations also touched on Israeli proposals for dealing with the Iranian threat. Acable from August 2007 revealed that Mossad Chief Meir Dagan had outlined a five-point plan for regime change in Iran, including the harnessing of persecuted minorities in that country to foment a broader-based uprising. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was also quoted as saying in June 2009 that there was a 6 to 18 month window of opportunity to stop Iran militarily – after which “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.” If Barak was right then, that window of opportunity is about to close now. Others in the international community, for example the Russians, believe that the window has long since closed.
But even if the WikiLeaks surfeit failed to reveal any major secrets, Israel’s future diplomacy is likely to be more circumspect. Leaders and diplomats might be less open with each other for fear of having their private views leaked. Israel is also likely to clamp down harder on information protection. It has already suffered two recent embarrassing leaks of military information: Anat Kamm, a young woman soldier, spirited over 2,000 classified documents out of Central Command on a disc-on-key and British activists put up on the web the names, ranks, addresses and IDs of 200 Israeli soldiers who had participated in the 2008-9 Cast Lead operation in Gaza, information believed to have come from a serving Israeli soldier.
Leaks aside, Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects seem to have taken some hard knocks recently. Right-wingers in the Likud, who oppose the peacemaking, have racked up some impressive successes. In late November, the Knesset passed a law mandating a referendum in the event of a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians or the Syrians – unless the deal is approved by at least two-thirds of the 120-member Knesset. Right-wing settler groups put up banners across the country congratulating the Knesset members who had initiated the legislation they hope will sink the peace process.
What they possibly didn’t take into account is that the referendum legislation, which was not through a Basic Law, could be overturned by a simple majority should the peace-making government of the day decide to do so. Secondly, every time an Israeli leader has come back with a genuine peace deal, polls show that the Israeli public has tended to support it in large numbers. Nevertheless, both the Palestinians and the Syrians have accused Israel of creating a new obstacle to peace.
Asecond and equally important right-wing success has been the way national religious settlers have been joining Likud. Like radical rightwinger Moshe Feiglin, their aim is to influence national politics by building up a critical mass capable of influencing the Likud from within. These new Likud cohorts would normally have joined the National Religious Party. But like former NRP leader Effie Eitam, they have concluded that the way to hold onto their West Bank settlements is by shaping the political positions of a big national party like the Likud.
Meanwhile, there is no sign yet of a renewal of peace talks between the Likud-led government and the Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says talks with the Americans on a package of written commitments to Israel in exchange for a threemonth West Bank building freeze are continuing. The freeze would enable a Palestinian return to the negotiating table. But so far Netanyahu does not seem to be in any hurry and the Palestinians are losing patience. Several Palestinian leaders, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, are now openly saying that they no longer believe in the possibility of a peace deal with Netanyahu.