More Rough Beast

Photograph by Elisa Rojas C. From LuxLikeVitriol, a collection of poems by Bogdan Ciochinaru.

Yesterday's reports on General Dempsey's warning to the Israeli government on any preemptive attack on Iran may have an echo in the IDF senior officer cohort, according to a new report from the UK Independent:

Almost the entire senior hierarchy of Israel's military and security establishment [jump]
is worried about a premature attack on Iran and apprehensive about the possible repercussions, a former chief of the country's defence forces told The Independent yesterday.

Lt-Gen Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who is close to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, said there had been little analysis of what happens the "day after" when the Tehran regime and its paramilitary allies retaliate. He warned that an assault may lead to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad benefiting from popular anger against foreign aggression.... "It is quite clear that much if not all of the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] leadership do not support military action at this point."

So there's a rapidly developing situation for you whose observations are nearly always distorted by trying to take a still picture—another Heisenberg case.

Another clue is in the report of an "unusual difference" between Binyamin Netanyahu and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz,

with the former promoting his own military adviser, Maj-Gen Yohanan Locker [to the command of the air force], and the latter favouring the head of the IDF's Planning Directorate, Maj-Gen Amir Eshel. Some observers suggest General Locker would be more inclined to launch a strike on Iran than General Eshel.

Well, what do you know? General Eshel was just the subject of a rather enthusiastic profile by my favorite Haaretz military insider reporter, Amos Harel! And Harel thinks that in spite of the

reality-show atmosphere with which the media cover every high-ranking IDF appointment....  Chief of Staff Benny Gantz's solid backing for Eshel is, however, expected to tip the scales.

Now things are looking a little bit Byzantine, or Kremlinological if you prefer, but I'm starting to get a sense of where they're trending.

First, Harel's agenda—or rather that of the officers who leak to him: they're the officers that might in a different context be the "liberal" or the "secular" ones, and who might in a different context suggest to him that they're opposed to an attack on Iran.

Second, Netanyahu's powerfulness is beginning to wane, within Likud and without. He won this week's Likud primary against the ultranationalist bugaboo Moshe Feiglin by a landslide, but the fact that Feiglin received any votes at all is startling, and as Yossi Sarid says,

Feiglin's achievement is not enough to win, but it's certainly enough to dictate the list of Likud candidates for the next Knesset. Netanyahu may have been elected to head the party - and he'll lead, he'll navigate. But many of those trailing behind will be little or big Feiglins.....

The next Knesset will be even worse. Every Likud member who wants to drink from the trough will have to kowtow to the settlers, grovel at their feet. He'll have to pledge that the illegal Migron outpost will never be taken down and the illegal Ramat Gilad outpost will not be moved. There will be no shortage of legitimizers in judges' robes for these abominable acts.

And as we see he can't get his way with the IDF General Staff either, or with the press (consumed with the revolting story of his chief of staff, being investigated on sexual harassment charges),  or with the US (his preferred presidential candidate is said to be Newt Gingrich). Maybe while the Knesset continues to dwindle into a kind of Italian irrelevance, these larger forces will help to maintain some form of peace for a while longer. Keep your eye on that velocity.

By Jack Stratton and DJ Paradiddle. Must be believed to be seen.