HOW HAMAS LAUNCHED ISRAEL'S NEXT ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Israel is back from the brink. But the situation could still boil over any time

Israel is now back from the brink after a tumultuous fortnight, first on the edge of war and then with its government on the verge of collapse. The controversial ceasefire agreement with Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, is holding up while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has managed to stay together even after losing a coalition partner. However, the situation could boil over yet again.

For one, the rocket fire from Gaza this month -- 500 missiles poured in on border communities, resulting in Israel bombing 160 Hamas targets -- was only the most recent in a series of such firefights that have repeatedly pushed Israel and Gaza close towards a full scale military confrontation. Also, since 30 March this year, Gazans have been regularly, and often violently, amassing at the border fence with Israel to demand that Palestinian refugees and their descendants be allowed to return and that Israel lift the blockade. The campaign was supposed to be six weeks long--from March 30 to May 15--but has continued to simmer over these past months.

In fact, thousands demonstrated in Gaza even during these past two Fridays--however, this time, Hamas kept them away from the fence as part of the Egypt-mediated ceasefire agreement. The agreement also allowed for Qatari cash to be delivered into the coastal enclave and other economic concessions. These are expected to ease the pressure on Gazans in return for a more durable quiet on Israel’s southern border but the agreement stands on fragile ground.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), which is the internationally recognised representative of all Palestinians but only controls the West Bank, has also criticised the agreement because it undercuts its own dwindling authority. The PA is led by the Fatah party which was violently ousted from the Gaza strip a decade ago--since then, several reconciliation efforts have failed and the two remain at loggerheads. In fact, it was the PA that recently stopped paying for civil servants’ salaries, electricity and fuel subsidies for Gaza so as to turn up the public pressure on Hamas. It hoped that Hamas would eventually accede to PA’s authority and agree to the reconciliation plan from last year. But the firefight with Israel, the subsequent resignation of the Israeli defence minister, and the brief respite brought by the ceasefire deal only boosted Hamas’ credentials in Gaza; leaving the PA further isolated.

In Israel too, the ceasefire agreement has many critics, particularly in the southern border communities. These critics would like to see a tougher response to Hamas, though that’s hardly a long-term solution. Past military campaigns have taken a toll on civilian life and property without eroding Hamas’ ability to re-build its terror infrastructure. Israel has struggled to establish credible deterrence against Hamas. And now, it has other security concerns, such as Iranian presence on its northern border with Syria. A risk-averse Netanyahu would rather have the situation in Gaza ‘managed’ than erupt in a regional flare-up. This explains his support for the ceasefire agreement which has since become a political hot potato in Israel.

On 14 November, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned and pulled his hard-right Yisrael Beiteinu party from the Likud-led ruling coalition to protest the ceasefire which he viewed as a capitulation to terror. Soon after, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the right-religious Habayit Hayehudi party also threatened to follow suit. Netanyahu reined them in but the ruling coalition now stands on a paper-thin majority. It has only 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The tenure of the current government ends in November next year and the Prime Minister can call for elections any time before that (but the vote can only be held at least three months after the election is announced). What Lieberman sought to do with his resignation was to force an early election.

The timing here is important. First, Netanyahu is in a weak spot -- facing criticism for the rocket fire from Gaza and the ceasefire agreement. Second, Lieberman’s own tenure as defence minister has been below par, and his supporters feel he hasn’t delivered on his hardline credentials. By resigning on account of the ceasefire, he distanced himself from what his voters see as the government’s capitulation in Gaza and also positioned himself as a challenger to the right of Bibi. His numbers have since improved though he is hardly a serious contender for the post of prime minister.

Lieberman isn’t alone in favouring an early election. Bennett also made the same calculation. That’s why he publicly blackmailed the Prime Minister and demanded the defence minister’s post -- in a bid to position himself as the next leader of the Right. However, his electoral stunt flopped when Netanyahu called his bluff, and he had to backtrack.

Also wanting an early election (but reluctant to trigger one just yet) is Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and his centre-right Kulanu party which made a stellar debut in 2015. Polls show that if elections were held now, it wouldn’t do as well; but Kulanu might glean away some Likudniks while Netanyahu’s chips are down.

Netanyahu has responded to all of this by presenting himself as the adult in the room: the statesman who negotiated for peace and quiet while the politicians pushed for war and sought to bring down the government during a national crisis. And now that his government has lived to see another day, Netanyahu’s focus will be on delaying the election as much as possible.

This may seem odd given that he was desperate to have early elections only a few months ago --when his poll numbers were high and before his corruption cases caught up. But now, the situation has changed. Netanyahu needs for some time to pass so that the public can move on from the Gaza crisis. He also needs to buy time to recover from the fallout of the three corruption cases.

In the first quarter of 2019, the attorney general is expected to decide on whether to indict the prime minister in these cases. Even if he decides against an indictment, Netanyahu would not like to go to polls around that time. But he would also not want an election campaign that’s drawn out over a year till next November with a fragile coalition at the helm.

Either way, the polls suggest that he has a good chance of winning, but given his personal and political troubles, he will need more than just the winning votes. He will need the numbers to build a strong coalition that will ultimately protect his four-term legacy that matches only with that of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Meanwhile, his opponents will be preparing for the day after Netanyahu is no longer the prime minister. They would want to make sure they are at the right place at the right time.

What does all of this mean for India? The upheaval in Israeli domestic politics is unlikely to impact India-Israel ties in any significant way. The relationship enjoys bipartisan support in Jerusalem and can be expected to continue along the present path even in a post-Netanyahu era. However, internal political equations as well as the nature of the new coalition government will of course impact how Israeli leaders deal with the Palestinian issue.

Netanyahu, for example, doesn’t like large military confrontations; he prefers smaller targeted operations that can be controlled. His successor may have a different approach. The latter may also have to deal with the possibility of the PA collapsing altogether. This will upend Israel’s security equation with the West Bank. For now, India has successfully de-hyphenated its Israel-Palestine policy but this might be challenged in case domestic instability -- both within Israeli and Palestinian political circles -- leads to another regional conflagration.

(Mayuri Mukherjee is a security studies scholar at the Tel Aviv University, Israel)

This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank.

INDIA IN THE NEW NUCLEAR AGE

America’s withdrawal from one of the most important arms control treaties of our time is the result of a changing nuclear landscape that challenges policymakers in New Delhi as well.

US president Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia may have received scant attention in India, but in the West, it has already fueled concerns about a third world war involving nuclear weapons. This may seem alarmist but the fact is that Washington’s decision to walk away from one of its most significant arms control agreements with Moscow has important implications for global security--which India cannot ignore, especially as it deals with a changing nuclear landscape in its own backyard.

Signed during the Cold War, the 1987 INF treaty prohibited the US and the former Soviet Union from developing and deploying ground-based intermediate range ballistic and cruise missiles. However, the treaty did not cover sea-based and air-launched missiles and was only applicable to the US and Russia. This wasn’t a problem at the time, and the treaty was in effective in bringing the two superpowers back from the brink of nuclear war.

Three decades later, however, the situation has changed--with China, North Korea, Pakistan and India all having intermediate-range land missiles. For the US, China’s arsenal is as much a matter of concern as that of Russia who it has accused of cheating on the treaty. US officials including national security adviser John Bolton argue that China’s arsenal poses a threat to US assets and allies in the region--and needs to be brought under an INF-like treaty. China, of course, has little reason to join such a treaty--and, for that matter, so does India.

But that being said, China’s growing presence in the Indo-Pacific is a matter of concern for India, which also finds reflection in Pakistan’s threat perceptions; thereby, creating a new set of concerns and conditions that could destabilise the region. Indeed, this problem is already taking shape as Pakistan follows India’s quest for sea-based nuclear deterrence.

Earlier this year, Pakistan conducted a second round of tests for the Babur-3 nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM), following the first one in January 2017. It is expected that the Babur-3 will be mated with the Agosta 90B diesel-electric submarine. This should give Pakistan an assured second-strike capability--while land-based and air-borne systems can be destroyed in a first attack, nuclear submarines are considered to be much less vulnerable.   

India already has a small sea-based deterrent force. In April 2016, the K-4 nuclear-capable submarine-launched ballistic missile was successfully test-fired from aboard the INS Arihant, India’s indigenously built nuclear submarine, which was inducted into service in August that year; thereby, completing India’s nuclear triad. This was in keeping with India’s nuclear doctrine which enumerates a no-first-use policy but also makes clear that a nuclear attack on India will result in massive retaliation with nuclear weapons. For India, to secure such second strike capability, survivability of its nuclear weapons arsenal is key and hence the need for a sea-based force.

In other words, India’s naval nuclearisation--aimed at China, not Pakistan--buttresses New Delhi’s NFU policy and brings strategic stability. Pakistan’s naval nuclearisation, on the other hand, stems from its lack of trust in Indian NFU and is an effort to play catch-up. This is understandable but still destabilizing--both from a strategic as well as tactical point of view.

This may seem counterintuitive: if having nuclear weapons at sea enhances the survivability of Pakistan’s strategic forces, then that should add to strategic stability because Pakistan would have less of a use-it-or-lose-it dilemma. However, unlike India, Pakistan maintains an ambiguous nuclear policy for the use of nuclear weapons. This is meant to deter India, but it also implies that India would have to consider and prepare for a Pakistani first attack.

Almost every scenario involving a Pakistani first use begins with a Pakistan-sponsored spectacular terror attack on Indian soil like the 2001 Parliament attack or the 2008 Mumbai attacks. India sought to respond to the former with a show of force along the international border but Pakistan wasn’t perturbed. This led Indian strategists to propose a more pro-active response--a shallow-thrust offensive into Pakistan to seize a small piece of land to be used as a post-conflict bargaining chip. This strategy, known as Cold Start, isn’t official but it was acknowledged by the Army chief last year and the 2017 Indian military doctrine allows ample space for a similar proactive policy.

Pakistan responded to Cold Start by fielding tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) or low-yield short-range nukes which could be used on the battlefield. These seek to lower the nuclear threshold and allow Islamabad greater control of the escalatory ladder (which, otherwise, is in favour of the conventionally bigger power). Moreover, Pakistan justified its TNWs within the framework of full spectrum deterrence, moving away from credible minimum deterrence. Add to this the nukes at sea, and the intended effect, as Abhijnan Rej describes it, is to tie India’s hands in a nuclear bind: If India activates Cold Start, Pakistan can use its TNWs to repel the attack, while its nuclear-tipped missiles at sea would deter an Indian retaliatory attack.

On paper, this seems like a water-tight strategy but it isn’t. For one, TNWs only make the situation even more precarious, as Sylvia Mishra explains. And even with TNWs in the field, there is still strategic space for India to explore pro-active conventional military options against Pakistan as the 2016 ‘surgical strikes’ showed. Second, with regard to nuclear submarines, there is ample reason to doubt their survivability, as Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang point out.

Third, putting nuclear weapons on conventional vessels is extremely dangerous for any country and could lead to accidents at sea--for example, if its adversaries are unable to distinguish between conventional and non-conventional submarines or if there is a break in the command-and-control system. At some point, Pakistan will have to choose between submarine-based weapons that are ‘totally secure’ or ‘readily usable’ in a real crisis, and Christopher Clary and Ankit Panda suggest that it will in all probability go with the latter--making both the country and its nuclear weapons less safe.

But Pakistan isn’t the only state moving in the direction of ‘easy nukes’. In recent years, Russia has been toying with the idea of using TNWs in a conventional war in a “escalate-to-deescalate” strategy . And the US has responded, in  the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review, by advocating for “useable” nuclear weapons and full spectrum deterrence. These pose a challenge to policymakers across the world as they seek to manage old hostilities while responding to new developments in technology and geo-politics.