There has been conversation about what Israel would do after the UNESCO vote, and on the first day after, things are happening. It's been a busy day. Also a few others of note.
As to the UNESCO vote response, a number of responses have been announced. As reported in this article in Ha'aretz, the Cabinet has decided to approve the expedited building 2000 additional housing units in several locations in WB which had been planned but halted for want of final signoff, and to refuse to allow UNESCO projects to proceed in Israel and possibly in WB as well, and has decided to withhold tax monies belonging to WB which are collected by Israel under1990s treaties and remitted to PA.
As reported in this article, also in Ha'aretz, and despite the ceasefire negotiations, IDF has been given authority to use all force necessary including ground actions, to stop missile attacks from Gaza. It is unclear whether this action also authorizes actions directly against Hamas, as the FM Avigdor Liebermann has proposed, on the premise that Hamas has control over Islamic Jihad and other groups actually firing them. This mission could mean nearly anything from a new war to another Cast Lead, to some third option not yet specified. Of course one of the problems of this is the vast number of civilians at risk, and the probability that such an action would further weaken Israel's argument that it is a peaceful nation and the other guys are not or that it is entitled to that presumption any longer.
The newspapers have also reported a hacker attack which has damaged the internet in WB and Gaza. No one has stepped forward to take credit for this, thusfar. Here. In this area, notice is taken of the possible connection of Israeli entities with the stuxnet virus apparently sent to interfere with Iranian computer controlled devices, although not contained to that, and the supposedly accidental cutoff of cellphones and the like in Gaza a few weeks ago by someone on the Israeli side of the border who supposedly accidentally cut essential cables buried deep underground.
From this article we learn that PM Netanyahu is pressing for an Israeli military attack on Iran, and has persuaded FM Liebermann of it. This move has been reported as strongly opposed by military forces who would have to execute such an attack. Of course, one of the problems with this is that an attack on a noncontiguous country which is now not attacking Israel will have different and more severe consequences than the numerous missiles fired at Gaza from Israel and from Gaza to Israel in the long tit for tat, which has produced its own international legal issues as civilian deaths rise. Nothing in the reporting suggests that the US is supporting this move, and nothing is clear about what the US would choose to do or is bound to do in the event that Israel takes this action unilaterally.
According to JPost The Cabinet has also voted to cut off the consents that allowed PA VIPS to more more freely on the West Bank and elsewhere, and they will now be subject to checkpoint delays or barring of their freer movements in WB.
Part of the voices arising in opposition to this retaliation for the act of PA in applying for membership to an international organization and getting it has noted that these actions make substantially less probable any peace talks with PA, in addition to the treaty problems created by Israel for those of them which violate prior agreements, such as the impounding of collection of PA duties and tax receipts under prior agreements. Of course, part of the diplomatic problem carrying all of this into effect is materially to weaken if not destroy the argument Israel has made that it is PA who refuses to come to the table and that Israel is willing to go without preconditions. The new settler housing in WB is, of course, a direct rejection of the one condition PA has insisted upon, cessation of settlement building. Restricting the movement of officials will not make it easier. A ground attack on Gaza will probably make it impossible. And that may be Israel's actual intention.
Whatever else this series of initiatives may have, it suggests that the course of the current Israeli cabinet is to double down on the course they have selected, rejecting both criticism of prior similar acts and the effect on pending actions both in the UNSC and in what is reported as sixteen other UN agencies which will each be voting on Palestinian membership in the coming weeks and months, and effectively reducing the probability of any peace deal being reached or talks beginning. To this writer, it does seem that rather than objections to peace terms, the question has now clearly shifted to the premise that the issue being diplomatically chewed over is no longer simply a peace deal, but a response to the notion that Palestine will not perhaps require Israel's consent to be recognized as a sovereign state, a move which must be resisted no matter what the diplomatic cost, and a further rejection of international opinion figuring in that matter. And a comparison of the UNESCO voting record with the UNSC membership list creates uncomfortable thoughts of what the future may bring. I do wonder if part of this is happening because perhaps Israel miscalculated on what would happen with the the initial PA UN application, as if it were going to be summarily rejected, and is reacting badly to what has in fact passed in the UN and its agencies, and what that says about various matters. We may be headed for a period of substantial Israeli diplomatic and public isolation, which they had not anticipated, and which will be aggravated if they go through with just what they put on the plate today.
In other events today, Shin Bet has taken action on two fronts, by obtaining the agreement of the Education Ministry to closing of part of the yeshiva system in the WB settlement of Itamar, the home of the authors of the Kings' Torah, by reason of the conduct of students with some indication of teacher approval, of acts of violence against Palestinians. The second move was to seek to close certain civilian organizations in East Jerusalem on the charge that they were controlled by officers of Hamas.
As reported here, the Cabinet plan to create a process to examine Palestinian land titles in WB so as to clear the way for legalization of unauthorized settlements, has hit a strong road block from the Attorney General's office, and there have been reports that a program to destroy illegal settlements is or was scheduled to go forward in 2012, although the fate of that program may now be in doubt.
And reports have appeared that 20,000 housing units are proposed to be built on a miliatary site being evacuated by a branch of IDF in Israel, provided that these areas which are in the nature of brownfields can be cleaned up.
The government has also annouced its plans to create ten new Jewish settlements in the Negev, a development which is connected with the ouster of 30,000 Bedouins from their lands and communities to make way for such ten towns.
And a budget struggle between reformers on one side and the IDF and Ehud Barak on the other is going on, as the approved budget following demonstrations proposes cuts in military funding, which the military is resisting. How that will be affected by the green light to attack Gaza and the proposed attack on Iran is not yet clear.
Please discuss the motives, and possible effects of these moves, and others which may be taken in the days to come of similar nature, what commenters think Israel will really do as a government and what the effect of that will be, all under the usual rules of my postings, including no ad noms, personal attacks, abusive language directed to individuals rather than to issues, group attacks, assertions of facts without evidentiary links, assertions of the possible appropriateness of a boycott of all IP by those who nevertheless and also simultaneously comment here, or other violations of the kos rules of householders. I do hope that the usual crowd will continue its relatively reasonable behavior of late. It's hard to find IP in the Hidden column right now, and I like that.