Sudan: The Yarmouk Attack - Israel's Folly, America's Brolly
By Ahmed Badawi, 7 November 2012
analysis
Invoking the right to remain silent often speaks louder than words. That's
surely the case with the official Israeli response of "no comment" to the
accusation from the Sudanese government that Israeli missiles struck the
Yarmouk arms factory in Khartoum in the early hours of 24th October.
There's virtually no doubt that Israeli forces did indeed attack the Yarmouk
plant (as the Sudanese government has claimed so stridently).
First, as the BBC has noted, Israel has launched other pre-emptive strikes
at Sudan over the last few years to stop claimed contraband weapons supplies
to Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Second, the Israeli government would have surely by now sent out subtle
hints to the Sudanese (through diplomatic back-channels) if its silence over
the Yarmouk accusations just amounted to mere grandstanding to the Israeli
electorate (early polls had just been called for January 2013 by Israel's
Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, a week or so before the strike).
It hasn't.
Last, and most damningly, Sudan's minister for media, Ahmed Bilal Osman, has
noted that the Israeli government had already communicated its concerns to
the Sudanese government about the end-usage of Yarmouk's output, which Mr.
Osman noted comprised only light and conventional weapons.
In other words, put bluntly, the Israeli government seems to have decided to
take the law into own hands and bomb the Yarmouk factory, killing two people
in the process.
The Israeli government clearly possessed both the motive and previous form
to carry out such an egregious act on Sudanese territory. That, in turn,
raises the more salient question of not whether Israel bombed the Yarmouk
plant (it clearly did) but, instead, why did the Israeli government choose
this moment to do so now?
Likely inputs into the Netanyahu administration's calculus to attack Yarmouk
include:
A desire to fire a warning shot across the bow of the Sudan's ruling
National Congress ahead of its hosting of an international conference for
Islamist movements, which started on 4th November;
An attempt from the Netanyahu's administration to be seen by the Israeli
electorate as acting tough and not caving into perceived terrorists in the
run-up to, and notwithstanding a newly-minted, though
politically-unpalatable, ceasefire truce with Hamas;
and, lastly, perhaps most importantly:
Prime Minister Netanyahu's (correct) gamble that the US presidential
elections would completely neuter Washington's public opprobrium,
mealy-mouthed at the best of time when Israel is concerned, to the attack.
Not unexpectedly, Khartoum has growled loudly and menacingly at its Israeli
counterpart's latest violation of its territorial integrity. The speaker of
the Sudanese parliament has stated that "Israel has declared war on Sudan",
and Minister Osman has warned that the Sudanese government reserves the
right to respond to Israel at the appropriate time and place. It has also
stated that it plans "decisive action" against "Israeli interests", too.
Ominous sounding stuff from Khartoum.
But wise heads will prevail amongst the Sudanese authorities. They know only
too well that entering into an asymmetrical war with Israel would hardly be
in their best interests - or those of a very war-weary Sudanese population.
Indeed, those in the international community who have routinely criticised
previous internal actions of the Sudanese leadership or chuckled at sections
of the Sudanese public reaction to a certain teddy-bear, should now consider
taking the opportunity to praise both the Sudanese government and people
public for their laudably constrained reaction to Israel's fourth violent
pre-emptive violation of Sudan's territorial integrity in just three years.
Am I alone in wondering whether any other government or population in this
part of the world (or indeed anywhere else for that matter) would have
stayed so calm and measured in the face of such an aggressive act?
As it stands, Khartoum is even sleepier than usual: streets populated
sparsely, many shops still closed, and most of Khartoum's residents
remaining ensconced with their relatives in the rural provinces, following
the recent Eid Al Adha festivities.
Nor have there been angry sermons in Khartoum's mosques baying for
retribution against Israeli interests.
Instead of readying itself for war with Israel, the Sudanese government - as
in the previous assaults on Sudanese - has chosen the mature and responsible
route to address the Yarmouk events: usage of political and diplomatic
channels of protest. Sudan's Ambassador to the UN, Dafalla Osman, swiftly
lodged his government's accusation against Israel at UN Security Council
headquarters in New York as a prelude to filing an official complaint there.
The United States and its other Western allies in the Council's 'P-5' are,
however, certain to use their influence to quash Sudan's grievance, so
allowing Israel to evade censure by the UN. The United States and other
friends of Israel would, instead, be better advised to pressure the
Netanyahu administration into going public and showcasing its evidence to
the world, Colin Powell-style, that underpin its claims about Yarmouk - and
if not publicly, then through a closed-door briefing at the UN. The Sudanese
government, in contrast, has no need to prove to the world that its hands
are clean - innocent 'til proven guilty, remember, not the other way round.
Israeli government, instead, continues to drip-feed and bandy about false
allegations through the international media, claiming the Sudanese
government funnels weapons to Hamas or Hezbollah on behalf of Iran.
Making the Israeli government go public with its evidence about Yarmouk
matters and makes sense for two key reasons.
First, Israel would have everything to win and nothing to lose. Parading the
evidence to the world would, at the very least, lend a veneer of
international legitimacy to the action of the Netanyahu administration to
strike Yarmouk.
Second, and linked to the above: Israeli intelligence is not sacrosanct as
many seem to believe.
Just the mere say so of the Israeli government - implicit or otherwise -
cannot be enough to confer guilt about the end-use of Yarmouk's output.
Remember Iraqi WMD claims anybody?
Not only did the presidency of George W Bush believe that Saddam Hussein had
WMD and had hidden them; the much-vaunted 'Israeli intelligence' backed that
up as well.
Sure, the Sudanese government may not be the most popular kid in the
playground. But that shouldn't matter a jot.
It's still patently wrong for P-5 Security Council members, not least those
who stress strong universal adherence to the international norms of
behaviour, to simply shrug their shoulders and stay silent about Israel's
strikes on Yarmouk, convinced that it just doesn't matter because it's only
Sudan.
Even if the Israeli government had 100 percent conviction that weapons from
Yarmouk had been doing Iran's bidding and supplying weapons to Hamas,
well-developed back-channels exist at the UN to lodge and verify those
claims and, in turn, for Israel to seek internationally-legitimised
retribution for the proven offender (whether in the form of sanctions or
other punitive measures).
Nobody anywhere should be happy when one country alone sees it fit to act
unilaterally and regularly outside the international system with impunity,
and take the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
There's a term for that: the law of the jungle.
It's the very antithesis of what the UN stands for and chips away steadily
at its international legitimacy.
It's the height of irony that the Sudanese government's usage of the
Security Council to protest the attack on the Yarmouk factory not only
points the way forward for the Israeli government, but is likely to
encounter, at best, barely disguised ambivalence from the United States,
Great Britain, and France within the P-5.
Ultimately, a large part of responsibility for the Israeli government attack
on the Yarmouk military complex rests, indirectly, with the US government.
The United States has kept Sudan on its State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST)
list, renewed as recently 2nd November even while it has continued to
officially laud the Sudanese government for its "solid" counterterrorism
relationship, and for providing "actionable intelligence" to US citizens and
interests in the region, and most recently, in July 2012, noting that the
Sudanese government remained "a cooperative counterterrorism partner".
Such contradictory and schizophrenic official statements from Washington
create the 'smog' or permissive political environment that, de facto, gives
the Israeli government license to strike Sudan at will, using the fig-leaf
of snuffing out state-supporting terrorism concerns.
The US administration should move decisively to end this costly reputational
slur on Sudan, and return the SST list to what it had been intended for: a
risk management tool designed to keep the United States and its citizens
safe from real threats to its national security and interests.
Indeed, tellingly, none of the US official assessments of Sudan give any
support to Israeli claims that the Sudanese government has been supporting
Hamas or Hezbollah militarily. Nor are any such claims in the renewal of
Sudan's SST designation a few days ago (which was highly likely dictated by
the constraints of the US elections).
Yes, some weapons smuggling - along with other contraband - has occurred
from the Sudanese-side of the joint border with Egypt. No question. But be
clear: that doesn't in and of itself make the Sudanese government complicit.
Borders are always hard to keep free from contraband - let alone those as
long and remote as Sudan's border with Egypt - even for a country with large
financial and military resources. Just look at Israel's own inability to
inoculate its own comparatively small borders fully from weapons smuggling.
Ahmed Badawi has written and advised extensively on country and reputational
risk on Sudan at The Economist Intelligence Unit, Dun & Bradstreet,
Fitchratings, Kroll, and WeberShandwick GJW, Public Affairs. Currently, he
provides strategic counsel to the Government of Sudan and is Managing
Director of The Sudan Centre for Strategic Communications (SCSC), based in
Khartoum.
