The Israeli Finance Minister, with the backing of Bank of Israel Governor, Stanley Fischer, attempted to ramrod the 1% VAT raise through the Finance Committee to take effect today, August 1, 2012. Apparently, Gafni took issue with the way in which the tax increase was presented to him, though sources do not reveal exactly why.
As to the clout of Gafni and his his ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah of Judaism, its leaders have headed the Knesset Finance Committee since the 1990's, which allows the small party to control the purse strings of the Israeli budget. The party is also central to a deeply divisive issue in Israel regarding adult conscription into military and/or civil service, for which 54,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews currently enjoy legal exemption.
Here's where the dates get interesting.
According to a May 1, 2012 article in the Jerusalem Post, Gafni told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that, "Haredim (the ultra-Orthodox) will go to jail rather than get drafted into the army." Why? The "Tal Law," the very law protecting ultra-Orthodox Jews from the draft (and from the alternative of prison, for "draft dodgers"), expires August 1, 2012 because it is not eligible for its usual five year renewal. It was struck down as unconstitutional by the High Court of Justice on February 21, 2012.
The issue of conscription in Israel for civil or military service and the exemptions for Haredi and Arabs is "one of the most heated disputes in Israeli society." It has been a major source of political contention for Netanyahu in attempting to manage his coalition. Which is likely why he dissolved the latest Tal committee on July 2, 2012 just prior to the issuance of its final report. Committee Chairman Plesner still published the report two days later, which recommended conscription for the ultra-Orthodox Haredi. At the time, Netanyahu said that he would convene a meeting of the leaders of the ruling coalition party members "in order to draft a proposal that would garner a majority in the Knesset."
Well, the month of July has passed, and we are today on the August 1 expiration of the Tal Law, which exempts 54,000 ultra-Orthodox from conscription. Given Finance Committee Chairman Gafni's protector status of this group, we are again drawn to his nixing words: "War hasn’t broken out, and we don’t need to raise the tax immediately,” along with his concurrent furry at how the tax proposal was presented to him.
Was this an indication of a failed back-door deal to allow a de facto extension of the Tal Law (or similar) in return for a tax raise? More ominously, as tensions continually escalate with Iran and Syria, was it an indication that war is imminent, perhaps a mere month away--its timing resting upon negotiations of a mere tax law?
Admittedly, this deviates from our usual areas of research and expertise. But, our research has revealed no discussion of a connection between these events (at least in the English language). Which is why we leave it to the astute readers of these pages to offer any suggestions and information.
Open source information, though only partially reliable for such estimates, would suggest that even if a ramp-up began immediately, it would take a minimum of 5 weeks to spin up the new recruits to the most basic level of IDF function.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nbn.org.il/aliyahpedia/army/580-basic-training-in-the-idf.html
http://www.jewishagency.org/NR/exeres/E44B7BBD-E58C-46DE-93B1-262589F4176D
These descriptions both include a processing interval of up to two weeks, if expedited, and a minimum 3-week basic training course, assuming what is called an "02" job designation, the lowest. If new recruit reluctance were factored in to the paperwork process, the new wave of conscripts could conceivably be ready in time for Rosh Hashana, on September 17-18. Barring emergencies.
Given the speed with which history suggests events would overtake plans in any ground war in the ME, it seems unlikely that the IDF would use this new influx of unwilling and potentially unreliable newbs as reinforcements for an ongoing engagement. Loading them up on admin and support duties to free up more willing and able veterans for combat duties, perhaps in preparation for an October surprise, however, makes a bit more sense, from an Israeli self-interest perspective. The public record, again noted as potentially unreliable, paints the current president as an extremely unpopular figure in Tel Aviv.
A swift Israeli victory over combined Syrian/Hizbollah/Iranian ground forces, without visible aid from the White House, might inflame electoral sentiment in the diaspora that Obama was willing to abandon Israel to its enemies. A more prolonged roller-coaster type of affair would leave the president in the most awkward of positions in the middle of the election crescendo; prolonged Israeli jeopardy might even force the US to help against its will. At worst, October timing would force Netanyahu's only useful ally into action to its rescue. At best, the Israeli's (from their perspective) could sweep Syria, possibly clear significant noise from southern Lebanon, and deal a humiliating blow to Iran, all while influencing the US election in favor of its preferred candidate(s). Bibi's revenge?
It is also possibly worth noting that the October new moon, offering maximum night cover for air forces, falls on Monday, the 15th (CE calendar).
ReplyDeleteUpdate:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=5316
The tax deal is done.
Ellis, not sure what happened, but I responded to your comments before. Thanks for the info.
Yes, missed the comms. Also saw reported separately that final decision on conscription will await Knesset which reconvenes October 15th, extending the wait and see duration at least five weeks beyond that. Appears the US election will source its dirty tricks for October elsewhere.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=280262
Thanks! Had not seen this.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting development here: Canada expels Iranian diplomats, closes its embassy in Tehran.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/canada-closes-iran-embassy-says-tehran-most-significant-threat-to-world-peace-1.463477
https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/244083941965955072
The glaring omission in the official statements is the lack of mention of any triggering event.
The step of declaring Persona Non Grata ("Pinged") all Iranian diplomats in Canada, and expelling them under a deadline, is most commonly the conventional diplomatic response to a discovery of espionage activity against the pinging nation. The PNG declaration is one of the rare snapshot moments when the umbilical link between foreign diplomatic presence and foreign intelligence activity is briefly, though opaquely, visible.
If the Iranians were operating against the Canadian embassy, their target was almost certainly not Canada, but its looped-in allies. The discovery of specific counter-espionage on Iran's part, if one was made, would weaken Tehran in the ongoing shadow war. Canadian diplomatic pouches would not be the place to look for any warning of imminent military action. The payload sought would more likely be communications associated with any ongoing covert or clandestine activities on the ground in Iran. It is notable that "Canadian" is the sole notional non-US country of origin that most pale-face US intelligence officers can credibly claim when openly moving about in the world's non-Western locales. It would be reasonable, if any of this were true, to expect another round of "bad luck" in the Iranian nuclear program, as chess pieces are shuffled around, prior to any overt military moves. It is possible to imagine Iranian nationals being given parting gifts with which to carry out their farewell instructions. It is also possible that if the last remaining human collection window for the US just got slammed shut, another step up the ladder to outright aggression was just mounted.
A word that has been used by a lot of DC insider observers of the US president lately has been "desperate." Let's welcome the weekend with hopes that those assertions are the usual empty partisan mud slinging, not out of any love for the president, but merely because "desperate" is no frame of mind in which to make a military decision compounded by fresh blindness.
Great stuff, Ellis. I'm going to post this on a relevant article on the main page that appeared today.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, open sources were far behind the curve of events. The next round of "bad luck" appears already under way. The dynamic seems to be that for every major appearance of an Israeli leader on television, or rumor of a bellicose IDF secret statement, the likelihood of conventional action drops, and the likelihood of clandestine action increases. Perhaps over-centralization of command and control within the Iranian Def/Mil/Intel structures restricts them to a sort of blindered limit of attention to one thing at a time (kind of like Congress). Israel sounds off, creating a distraction of internal attention, and the operators pull a fast one while the CandC is looking the other way.
ReplyDeleteThis link from today reports on a power outage, targeted at the Qom facility, caused by explosives, alleged to have taken place on Aug 17.
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=285348
Panning back, the longer the powers that be can keep this up, the longer the reprieve from theatre-wide conventional trigger pulling. From the very little I really understand about centrifuges, high-end manufacturing, and ME logistics, a layperson's estimate of about a month of additional military delay per "successful" bad-luck incident seems ballparkish enough for small time oil speculation. The chances of hostilities before the election look a lot lower than 50% after this news, and the TV this weekend. Bibi should really understand that when he says "6-7 months" he's really granting the Iranian nuclear effort (if there is one) that much time. From the Pentagon's point of view, if they groupthink themselves into believing that an attack would succeed, then it would succeed tomorrow equally well as it would in March. So why go now?
The above dynamic, if true, supports the longer held conventional view that the best predictor of Israeli bellicosity is radio silence. As long as the suits keep talking tough, the event keeps retreating along the calendar's right edge.
Eloquent, didactic and thought-provoking, as always. I would have to agree. The only news story I recently read that led me to believe an attack might be imminent was that the BOI announced it had completed its reserve building.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-10/shekel-loss-is-steinitz-gain-as-exports-climb-israel-overnight
I would swear I read an article in August that linked reserve building to an attack, but cannot find it, which is why I did not write about it. Nevertheless, at least according to Fischer (AtF), Israel has enough Dollas to weather a long storm. [Purchasers of bread and petrol could not be reached for comment.]