Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Israeli/German military incident off Lebanon? How messy is this peacekeeping going to get?

Oh, great, military confrontations between Israel and Germany? 

IDF: No shots fired in IAF incident with German ship by Amos Harel and Gideon Alon Ha'aretz/Reuters 10/25/06 reports:

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman on Wednesday confirmed that Israel Air Force jets had been involved in an incident with a German vessel and helicopter, but denied reports that the jets had fired shots over the ship.

The Germany daily Der Tagesspiegel earlier on Wednesday quoted a junior German defense minister as telling a parliamentary committee that two Israeli F-16 fighters flew low over the German ship and fired two shots.

The jets also activated infra-red countermeasures to ward off any rocket attack, the paper quoted him as saying, in an advance release from Thursday's edition. ...

Germany assumed command of a United Nations naval force off Lebanon 10 days ago, and has sent eight ships and 1,000 service personnel to join the international peace operation in the region.

The Tagesspiegel report is here:  Zwischenfall mit israelischen Kampffliegern Der Tagesspiegel 26.10.06.

Wie der Parlamentarische Staatssekretär im Verteidigungsministerium, Christian Schmidt (CSU), am Mittwoch vor dem Verteidigungsausschuss des Bundestages mitteilte, überflogen zwei israelische Kampfflugzeuge vom Typ F 16 ein deutsches Schiff und gaben zwei Schüsse in die Luft ab. Außerdem hätten die Kampfflieger Infrarot-Täuschkörper zur Raketenabwehr abgefeuert. Zu Datum und Ursachen des Zwischenfalls machte Schmidt keine Angaben.

The article suggests the incident occurred Monday or Tuesday.

Germany has been one of Israel's closest allies in Europe and has provided substantial aid to Israel.  Does Israel really want to be flirting with military confrontations with the European peacekeepers in and for Lebanon?  From Germany's viewpoint, does participating even at the agreed-upon level make sense in light of the potential for incidents like this?

The agreement just announced this week on the conditions for the German Navy in its anti-weapons-smuggling operations requires that inspections be restricted to between six and 12 miles off shore, but within six miles of shore they are not permitted.

This raises a question of whether the Navy came effectively carry out its anti-smuggling mission under those rules of engagement.

It's also a reminder that presumably the weapons the German Navy would be interdicting would be intended for Lebanese Hizbullah.  Does Israel want to discourage those insprections by harassing the German ships?

It's always worth keeping in mind that, especially with single incidents like this, it could have just been a screw-up.

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