Israel’s military fumed Monday over the discovery that the U.S. government had revealed details of a top-secret Israeli military installation in published bid requests.
"If an enemy of Israel wanted to launch an attack against a facility, this would give him an easy how-to guide. This type of information is closely guarded and its release can jeopardize the entire facility," said an Israeli military official who commented on the publication of the proposal but declined to be named because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the facility. He declined to say whether plans for the facility have been altered as a result of the disclosure.
"This is more than worrying, it is shocking," he said.
Israeli officials were caught by surprise that details of the facility at Tel Shahar, classified so top secret that Israel’s military won’t officially confirm its location between Jerusalem and Ashdod, would be made so public.
The US government has publicized classified information detailing the location, design and specifications of a launch site to be built from this summer for Israel’s new Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile system. The details, apparently spilled in error, appear to include highly sensitive information relevant to the struggle against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
News of the leak came as the Israeli official who oversees the Arrow 3 project revealed on Monday that Israel is speeding up the missile system’s development because of “the nuclear threat.”
On Monday, Israel said it was speeding up its development of the Arrow 3. Col. Aviram Hasson, who heads the project, said it was being accelerated because of potential nuclear threats. “We want to reach a situation in which Israel has a ready defense for any threat, present or future,” Hasson said at a conference in Tel Aviv.
China and India actually are heading for a confrontation that could result in military clashes from the South China Sea to their Himalayan borders.
The reason for this growing concern is the escalating military brinkmanship China is displaying as it begins to resort to armed force and coercion against less powerful South East Asian neighbors, such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
“Asian security as a whole today stands endangered by China’s military adventurism not only in the South China Sea against Vietnam and the Philippines, but extending to the Himalayan Borders of India with China – Occupied Tibet,” said Dr. Subhash Kapila of the think-tank South Asia Analysis Group.
In an interview on Hezbollah’s Al Manar, Syria’s strongman Bashar Assad hinted on Wednesday that Syria – or what’s left of it – had taken possession of its first delivery of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. The S-300 is a game changing weapon that enables Syria to target Israeli and regional commercial airliners. There is also the very real risk that Syria will transfer the missiles to Hezbollah (as it has already done with other sophisticated military hardware) or that the missiles will fall into the hands of extremist Sunni militias battling the beleaguered Alawite regime and their Shiite allies.
Clearly, the missiles in question are useless in the context of the Syrian civil war. The rebels have no aircraft and even if they did and assuming they could find someone to fly them, Assad’s current anti-aircraft capabilities can quite easily dispatch the threat as evidenced by last year’s downing of a Turkish F-4 Phantom. The delivery of the S-300 is meant to convey Russia’s determination not to allow Assad’s regime to fall and it is Assad’s way of telling Israel and NATO that he still has powerful allies and will not hesitate to use all weapons at his disposal to protect his hegemony.
As Syria continues to implode amidst a bloody civil war, Moscow is increasingly siding with its ally Iran to side with and prop up Bashar al-Assad, the dictator of Damascus. As I’ve reported before, the Russians are reportedly selling advanced weaponry to Syria, including MiG fighter jets, millions of rounds of ammunition, and a state-of-the-art missile system known as the S-300. The Israeli government is so concerned about the S-300 system that Prime Minister Netanyahu has reportedly told the Kremlin that Israel will go to war, if necessary, to prevent that missile system from being delivered, assembled and operationalized in Syria.
Why is Netanyahu so worried about the S-300 system? The Times of Israel reportsthat “aside from the unique strategic capacities that the S-300 air-defense missiles would afford Syria, putting planes taking off from central Israel and its main international airport within the missiles’ range, Jerusalem also fears that the system could fall into the hands of terror groups like Hezbollah.”
Here are excerpts from the Times’ report on the face-to-face conversation Netanyahu had with Russian Czar Vladimir Putin, just last week:
- Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted during his recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Israel would destroy Syrian S-300 missiles before they became fully operational, Maariv cited Middle Eastern diplomats saying Friday. The reported threat underlined how firmly Israel has sought to pressure Russia to cancel the deal, apparently with some success.
- According to the report, during the meeting between the heads of state earlier this month in the Black Sea city of Sochi, Netanyahu called on Putin to cancel Russia’s transfer of the sophisticated anti-aircraft system to Syrian President Bashar Assad, and indicated that, should the delivery go ahead, Israel would strike the missiles before they became operational.
- The report came the same day that American and German officials warned Russia not to send Assad the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, and as Russian media indicated that Moscow was delaying delivery.
- Officials present at the Netanyahu-Putin meeting “were shocked by the audacity Netanyahu displayed before a leader of a global power,” the Israeli paper reported.
- Putin reportedly guaranteed that Assad wouldn’t transfer the S-300s to a third party, such as Hezbollah, and that should Israel strike such an arms convoy, Russia didn’t believe Syria would retaliate. Despite this, Netanyahu reportedly made clear that Israel was concerned over the deal in and of itself.
- The Russian president was said to respond to Netanyahu saying that the deal had to go through, but hinted that Israel could prevent the transfer if it, or another entity, bought the missiles instead or “offered an alternative,” according to Maariv.
- Israeli media had earlier reported that Netanyahu warned Putin of a descent into war should Russia make the delivery. Netanyahu said that if acquired by Assad, the S-300 “is likely to draw us into a response, and could send the region deteriorating into war,” Channel 2 reported two weeks ago, in the immediate aftermath of the meeting.
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