by: John Lyons, Middle East Correspondent, The Australian
January 28, 2012 12:00AM
JUST before 10 am on Tuesday, something highly unusual happened. Seventeen foreign journalists were escorted into one of the most secure facilities in Israel - the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv.
When Israel is at war, this sprawling compound serves as the command centre.
We were taken into a secured room inside the main tower. Right on 10 o'clock, in walked one of the the most important figures in Israel's defence and security establishment.
We cannot name him, that was the condition of this rare briefing, but we can quote him as a "senior security source" or such like.
Some may see these briefings as further attempts to manipulate journalists.
Indeed, many of those in the room, from outlets including The New York Times, Reuters and the BBC, were in some sense cynical. The material presented was obviously authorised, not leaked documents that the IDF did not want published.
Inevitably, there was an element of spin to it all.
But there were also valuable insights into how Israel sees the changing Middle East and what it may be planning.
Perhaps the most important insight was the official's refusal to discuss Iran.
Iran's nuclear program is clearly the most urgent and serious challenge that Israel faces. The official presented us with a series of slides, one of which described Iran as "an existential threat" to Israel.
One journalist became irritated when the official would not take questions on Iran.
The journalist argued that if the official was going to say Iran was an existential threat then surely questions should be taken about it.
But one of the several military officers sitting in the room quickly announced that no questions would be taken on Iran - it was clearly too sensitive an issue.
The official who gave the briefing is likely to be engaged in a momentous decision in coming months about whether Israel launches military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The boasts by Iran's leadership that it will "wipe Israel off the map" give Israel a legitimate reason to fear Iran becoming a nuclear power.
As The New York Times noted recently, while the debate about sanctions continues "the centrifuges keep spinning".
One slide showed weapons movements around the Middle East. The map was based on Israeli intelligence assessments, and, like all intelligence assessments, they need to be taken with caution. But much of what they highlighted rings true.
The map showed a significant movement of weapons into Gaza. This is consistent with the view of one European country, as expressed recently to The Weekend Australian, that many weapons leaving Libya have been finding their way into Gaza through the Sinai in Egypt.
The Israeli official then discussed the region, country by country, and how Israel saw it.
Egypt: "Still under a military regime, but slowly moving towards democracy."
Despite the Muslim Brotherhood emerging as the big winners in the parliamentary elections, the Israeli military continues to deal directly with the Egyptian military.
The Sinai is increasingly falling under the control of Bedouin gangs, and is among Israel's biggest concerns.
Syria: President Bashar al-Assad is "bleeding to death".
Israel does not know what will replace the embattled President's regime and estimates more than 6000 civilians and up to 2000 security forces have been killed since the Syrian uprising began last March.
Israel is preparing for refugees on its border with Syria, which it will try to manage with UN officials in the demilitarised zone.
Lebanon: Hezbollah, which has "a significant military capacity", continues to consolidate power.
Iran: it is leading "the radical camp" and the source of many of the weapons finding their way into Gaza, particularly through Sudan.
Gaza: After two years of "relative quiet" Hamas, and even more so the Islamic Jihad, are increasing the number of rockets fired into Israel.
The official made clear Israel would have no hesitation in engaging in another Gaza war if "dragged in" by Hamas's continuation of rocket fire.
Israel's current assessment held there was currently "a low likelihood" of an "initiated" military campaign against Israel.
That is particularly significant: it means Israel understands that, despite Hezbollah having some 40,000 missiles in Lebanon near the border, it does not expect them to be used in the near future.
That may change should Israel strike Iran and Tehran urge Hezbollah, its Shia ally, to retaliate.
One of the most interesting features of the briefing was how low the Palestinian issue rates for Israel.
The official noted that the Palestinian Authority was doing "a good job" in security in the West Bank but, clearly, given the divisions between Hamas and Fatah, which rules the West Bank, Israel does not expect to be sitting opposite a united Palestinian negotiating team any time soon.
SOURCE: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/world-politics/israels-silence-on-iran-is-deafening/story-fn9hkofv-1226255662529
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Letter to the Woodstock Times
To the editor:
We recently attended the Modern Language Association conference in Seattle, where we took part in a number of discussions inspired by the Arab Spring. Throughout the conference there was a high level of excitement and of admiration for all the struggling, freedom-loving people of the Middle East and North Africa. This movement, carried out for over a year by the ordinary people of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and a number of other countries, including Syria and Palestine, has fired the imagnations of the world and helped spark a popular uprising against economic and social injustice in the USA. With these connections in mind, we returned to Woodstock with a renewed sense of purpose and solidarity.
Imagine our dismay, then, on opening the Woodstock Times to the diatribe by Susan Puretz against MECR, an organization of which we are proud members, and against anyone who dares criticize Israel while "neglecting" to speak out against the Assad regime in Syria. Ms. Puretz' attack is both inaccurate and misleading!
Her letter is inaccurate in claiming that MECR members do not care about the struggle against Assad. MECR members have protested and continue to protest the murderous brutality of the Syrian regime, just as we protest against all brutality and repression everywhere, whether in Syria, in Egypt, in Tunisia, or in Palestine or in the USA. The fact that we focus on the brutal and violent repression and killing of Palestinians, who are simply trying to live their lives in peace with justice, by the IDF and the Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, is logically and morally tied to the worldwide struggle for human rights.
Ms.Puretz is also misleading in that she relies on a specious line of argument, popular among unthinking "knee-jerk" supporters of the Netanyahu/Barak regime, which poses outrageous and false alternatives. The line that asks "Why don't you protest against ----- instead of criticizing Israel?' is a classic red herring. This is the logical fallacy that proposes we redirect our attention to something new away from the subject at hand. It also uses the related fallacy of the "excluded middle": either we support the Syrian people or we support the Palestinians. The middle position -- that we support both and equally criticize the Syrian and Israeli regimes -- becomes a non-possibility. The writer wants to force us up against the wall and into categories of her own making -- or rather of the making of Israeli propagandists over the course of the last generation. Ms. Puretz is consciously or unconsciously attempting to provoke us, while continuing to believe she is right!
This reminds us of a story of a husband who comes home early from work to find his wife in bed with another man. The suprised wife blurts out,"Why did you come home so early?" The husband furiously snaps, "Why do you have another man in our bed?" The wife calmly replies, "I asked you first...Don't change the subject!" In a sense, Israel and its supporters, like Ms. Puretz, ask the Palestinians, "Why are you so angry with us?"....While the Palestinians ask Israel, "Why are you illegally occupying our land, building walls and checkpoints,demolishing our homes, building new settlements ,confiscating our olive trees, and killing our people?" And Israel replies, "Don't change the subject, I asked you FIRST!"
To Ms. Puretz' arguments we say NO! They conceal the truth. The same UN to which Puretz refers has not only condemned the Syrian government. It has for over 40 years continued to call upon Israel to end its violent and illegal occupation of Palestinian land and to stop building settlements there in contravention of the Geneva Treaties. There is only one law for the weak and the strong, the oppressor and the oppressed. Moral indignation does not stop at the borders of Israel -- or at those of the United States, which has maintained a hands-off policy with regard to both the protestors in Syria and the Palestinian masses, while continuing to pour billions in money and weapons into Israel. Most of the world, including the best and brightest of our own country, recognizes these simple truths.
Perhaps Ms. Puretz should find out why. To us, it's a no-brainer!
Barry Fruchter Amber Rose members of Middle East Crisis Response (MECR)
Woodstock NY
Sunday, January 22, 2012
New Book 'Palestinians In Israel' Explores The Contradiction Of The ‘Jewish And Democratic’ State
More and more, thediscrimination and repression faced by Israel’s Palestinian citizens issurfacing in the mainstream, through media reports and alarmed NGO briefings.The stories just keep on coming: this week, Arab Knesset Members like HaneenZoabi were accused of treachery, and threatened with expulsion from the Knessetand criminal proceedings (the ‘crime’ was to meet with the PalestinianLegislative Council speaker in the West Bank, a Hamas politician).
Then there was the HighCourt’s rejection of an appeal against the Citizenship Law which separatesPalestinian families where one spouse has Israeli citizenship and the other isfrom the Occupied Territories. Praise for the ruling came from hard-liners and‘liberals’ alike, and was explicitly framed as a victory in the battle tomaintain a ‘Jewish majority’.
The various laws andproposed laws that have emerged in recent years – like the targeting of Nakbacommemoration or the official legalisation of ‘selection committees’ inhundreds of communities – are laying bare a systematic pattern ofdiscrimination that has been present since 1948. From the years of militaryrule over Palestinian citizens (which did not technically end until 1966), tothe demolition of homes in an-Naqab (the Negev) in 2012, the aim has been thesame: to ensure Jewish privilege and control over the indigenous Palestinians.
The mainstreaming of acritique of the occupation – and in particular, the settlements, or the actionsin ‘Operation Cast Lead’ – has been undoubtedly beneficial, but has often beenaccompanied by an affirmation that Israel is, for all its ‘mistakes’, a beaconof democracy. This routine endorsement of Israel’s “democracy” goes hand inhand with a taboo on questioning Israel as a ‘Jewish state’, a juxtapositionthat points towards the tension in Western liberal support for a state ofaffairs many would consider appalling in other circumstances.
Israel only has a ‘Jewishmajority’ because of the expulsion and legislated dispossession ofPalestinians. Israeli policies with regards to land, housing, immigration, andbudgets, explicitly and implicitly favour Jewish citizens (and even Jewishnon-citizens) at the expense of Palestinian citizens (and those Palestiniansstill excluded from their homeland).
This is the reality I haveattempted to highlight in my new book, Palestiniansin Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracyhttp://palestiniansinisrael.wordpress.com/ (which I’m thrilled to say comeswith a foreword by MK Haneen Zoabi). This is what Israel advocacy groups don’twant to talk about: the truth behind the myth of a ‘Jewish and democratic’state, and how that contradiction is at the heart of the conflict.
Newspaper Editor: Israel Should Consider Assassinating Obama
Andrew Adler, the owner andpublisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a weekly newspaper servingAtlanta's Jewish community, devoted his January 13, 2012 column to the thornyproblem of the U.S. and Israel's diverging views on the threat posed by Iran.Basically Israel has three options, he wrote: Strike Hezbollah and Hamas,strike Iran, or "ordera hit" on Barack Obama. Either way, problem solved!
Here's how Adler laid out"option three" in his list of scenarios facing Israeli presidentBenjamin Netanyahu (the column, which was forwarded to us by a tipster, isn'tonline, but you can read acopy here):
Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents totake out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vicepresident to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States'policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.
Yes, you read "three" correctly. Order a hit on apresident in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I havethought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almostunfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?
Another way of putting "three" in perspective goessomething like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of sevenmillion lives...Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?
You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are onthe table.
A nervous Adler told meover the phone that he wasn't advocating Obama's assassination by Mossadagents. "Of course not," he said.
But do you think Israelshould consider it an option? "No."
But do you believe thatIsrael is in fact considering the option in its most inner circles? "No.Actually, no. I was hoping to make clear that it's unspeakable—god forbid thiswould ever happen. I take it you're quoting me?"
Yes. "Oh, boy."
When I asked Adler why, ifhe didn't advocate assassination and didn't believe Israel was actuallyconsidering it, he wrote a column saying he believed that the option was"on the table," he asked for a minute to compose himself and call meback. He did a few moments later, and said, "I wrote it to see what kindof reaction I was going to get from readers."
And what was the reaction?"We've gotten a lot of calls and emails."
Nothing from the SecretService, though. Yet.
UPDATE: Adler has told JTA that he"regrets" the column and plans to publish an apology. Oh, and the Secret Service says it will "make allappropriate, investigative follow-up in regard to this matter," according to ABC News.
Source: Gawker, 1/20/2012,http://gawker.com/5877892/
Gaza Youth Hear About Israel Lobby’s Role
by Yousef M. Aljamal on January 19, 2012, mondoweiss.net
Ali Abu Nima addresses CPDS via Skype Jan. 15, 2012
For the second week in arow, the Center for Political Development Studies holds a video link on therole of the Zionist lobby in US elections. Ali Abunimah, the founder of TheElectronic Intifada, joined Gaza activists via Skype and emphasized the reasonsfor this "unshakable" relation between Israel and the US, which isknown to Palestinians more than any other nation in the world."The reason of thiswould be briefly put up into two theories. Some people say Israel plays animportant role in U.S imperialism, in allowing it to control the Middle Eastand its resources. Meanwhile, there are other people (theory) that say thereare powerful organizations and networks that consider support for Israel veryimportant and they influence the politics of the United States throughelections and contributions to political campaigns to make candidates adopt toIsrael's position," he emphasized.
Still, America is a countryof institutions and it has its own political interests, so that no one can sayIsrael controls all walks of life there, or it gets its way to everything itwants.
"We have seen ahistorical battle in the United States over the role of Israel and the Israelilobby and it's focus on Iran more than Palestine, where there is a lot ofpressure from pro-Israel groups to take a very hard line towards Iran and evento launch a war against it. Some of these battles are taking place behind thescenes. There is a growing feeling in the United States that Israel is turninginto a burden and a problem for the United States. That’s why America isfavoring a diplomatic solution to this issue. The is an emerging idea thatIsrael and US interests are not identical and conflict with each other,"he added.
General David Petraeus wasquoted, saying the activities of Israel are making the position of the USharder. There is a conflict about the value of Israel to the United States, andthe Israel lobby is worried about this and they are fighting to maintain theidea that Israel and the United States have the same interests.
"Palestinians are fewin number, though they take an important place in the primary elections, whichasserts the role of the Zionist lobby. A candidate called Palestinians invented[people] while another went further by saying they never existed at all,"Abunimah clarified.
This happens while millionsof people in the US are jobless and the country is going through crisis. Someanalysts shed light on the unusual rise of the Republican nominee Ron Paul, whobelieves in pulling US forces out of military bases all around the world.
"The very unique andpublic thing about him is that he said he wants to cut aid to Israel to zero.What I think is that he is not going to be the Republican candidate and he hashis own reasons to believe in this. The message is that many voters voted forhim, though he says he wants to cut aid to Israel. They don't care enough aboutIsrael and this does not mean they are pro-Palestine," he continued."An indication that politics is changing in the U.S."
There has been anincreasing political marriage between supporters of Israel and extremeIslamophobia in the U.S., particularly after September 11th. They did theirbest to make use of the attacks to spread the Israeli propaganda.
"On September 12th,Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in opposition in Israel at the time, said to TNTnewspaper 'I think the attack was very good,' but he corrected himself later bysaying 'It's good for Americans to understand the terrorism we face,'"Abunimah noted.
"Islamophobia was verybeneficial to Israel in the short run, but in the long run, it will backfire onIsrael. The reason is that there is a change in the character of support forIsrael in the last 30 years. In the past, all parties, leftist or rightist,used to support Israel. Nowadays, things are changing," he disclosed.
"In the short run,this is not in our interest, for the world is turning to the right, but in thelong run, things will be in our favor, especially among young people in Europewho are pushing towards universal and open politics. They are interested inequality and understanding. More and more young people are attracted to thekind of politics that oppose this kind of domination and racism. We see that alot of pro-Israel groups in the US are worried about this. They teach youngpeople about Israel and organize trips to Israel to show how wonderful Israelis. The next election will bring the most Islamophobic and anti-Palestinianpeople. But later, things will change to the favor of Palestinians,"Abunimah added.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Abdel Aziz Duaik, Palestinian Parliament Speaker For Hamas, Reportedly Arrested By Israeli Soldiers
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Hamas officials say the speaker of the Palestinian parliament has been arrested by Israeli soldiers.
A Hamas official said Abdel Aziz Duaik was arrested Thursday near Ramallah. He was speaking on condition of anonymity citing security reasons.
The Israeli military had no comment.
The Palestinian parliament has not functioned since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from the rival Palestinian Fatah Party.
Since then the Western backed Fatah governs the West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza.
Israel, the U.S., EU and others list Hamas as a terror group due to its suicide bombings and other attacks aimed at Israeli civilians that killed hundreds.
Duaik was arrested along with other Hamas officials in 2006 after militants abducted an Israeli soldier. He was released in 2009.
Huffington Post 1/18/2012
U.S. Cancels Joint Missile War Games With Israel
Israeli media is full of a major news story: that a major war games exercise planned for April which involved thousands of U.S. troops joining the IDF for missile exercises simulating an Iranian attack on Israel have been cancelled. This would’ve been among the most elaborate exercise the two countries had ever implemented. It would’ve involved 3,000 U.S. troops, Patriot missile batteries and naval warships and brought a U.S. admiral to Israel to witness them. The Jerusalem Post reports:
The drill was supposed to include the simulation of various missile defense scenarios with the objective of creating a high level of interoperability so that, if needed, US missile defense systems would be able to deploy in Israel and work with local defense systems during a future conflict.
The official version is that the exercise has been postponed till this coming summer. But it seems clear that they were cancelled. Now the question is why.
Did the U.S. cancel them to show displeasure to Israel? And if so, why? Does Obama know something about Israeli intentions we don’t know? Are plans underway to strike Iran? Is Obama seeking to show his displeasure? Or is he trying to soothe Iran by not going through with a highly provocative military exercise which would’ve placed thousands of U.S. troops in the heart of Israel as a show of solidarity with Israel in its crusade against Iran? Another related option being suggested in the Israeli media is that the U.S. is signalling its displeasure over the latest Iranian assassination by the Mossad. If this is the case, then the U.S. is saying that such black ops programs are a sideshow that achieve little and could serve as the catalyst to send the entire region into cataclysm.
Maariv adds that the reason involved:
“broad IDF operational considerations, including military preparations for achieving complex objectives.”
I don’t know if this means that Israel wanted them cancelled because it was preparing to attack Iran. Or because the IDF wants Iran to believe this.
Further, Naval Today reports that the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is steaming from Thailand to join the two carrier groups already patrolling off the Iranian coast. Again, the question is–is this designed to pressure Iran and show it we mean business, up to and including an attack on its nuclear facilities? Some observers expecting a U.S. attack presume that in preparation we would require force redundancy in case Iran succeeded in disabling or sinking a U.S. carrier. Or is it designed to tell Israel that we will prevent an Israeli attack?
In addition, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey is due in Israel Thursday to continue pressure on Israel to tell us what its plans are concerning Iran. Or if Israel has already decided to attack, presumably he would be consulting with them about what would be involved and letting them know what the U.S. would or would not allow to happen.
Source: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/01/15/u-s-cancels-joint-missile-war-games-with-israel/
Omertà , Mainstream Media-Style: The Oath of Silence When It Comes to Unfavorable News About Israel
On Jan. 11, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Economist Intelligence Unit released the results of a study of the security precautions taken by the 32 countries that possess nuclear materials able to fuel atomic bombs.
Later that morning, the New York Times Web site featured—briefly—a story on the study’s findings. The story appeared on page A6 of the next day’s print edition.
Noted reporter William J. Broad: “The study is full of surprises and potential embarrassments: for instance, Australia takes first place in nuclear security and Japan comes in at No. 23, behind nations like Kazakhstan and South Africa.
“The United States? It ties for 13th place with Belgium. Last place goes to North Korea,” Broad continued. Britain, with a security score of 79 out of a possible 100, came in top among “the nine countries known to possess nuclear arms.” The U.S. scored 78, Japan 68, Iran 46, Pakistan 41, and North Korea 37. (The lower the security score, the fewer precautions each country has in place.)
A New York Times reader wanting to know where Israel ranks, however, was out of luck. Not a word about the only nuclear-armed country in the volatile Middle East. For that one must go to the report itself—which, of course, we proceeded to do:
www.ntiindex.org/countries/israel/.
Turns out Israel earned a security score of 56, and ranked No. 25—like Japan, “behind nations like Kazakhstan and South Africa.” Moreover, it scored 0 (of 100) in the categories of “control and accounting procedures” and “nuclear security and materials transparency.”
So much for “All the News That’s Fit to Print.”
The Washington Report deems it fit to print the ranking and scores of all 32 countries surveyed:
| RANK 1 | COUNTRY Australia | SECURITY SCORE 94 |
| 2 | Hungary | 89 |
| 3 | Czech Republic | 87 |
| 4 | Switzerland | 86 |
| 5 | Austria | 85 |
| 6 | Netherlands | 84 |
| 7 | Sweden | 83 |
| 8 | Poland | 82 |
| 9 | Norway | 81 |
| =10 | Canada | 79 |
| =10 | Germany | 79 |
| =10 | United Kingdom | 79 |
| =13 | Belgium | 78 |
| =13 | United States | 78 |
| 15 | Ukraine | 76 |
| =16 | Argentina | 74 |
| =16 | Belarus | 74 |
| =16 | Italy | 74 |
| =19 | France | 73 |
| =19 | Mexico | 73 |
| =19 | South Africa | 73 |
| 22 | Kazakhstan | 71 |
| 23 | Japan | 68 |
| 24 | Russia | 65 |
| 25 | Israel | 56 |
| 26 | Uzbekistan | 55 |
| 27 | China | 52 |
| 28 | India | 49 |
| 29 | Vietnam | 48 |
| 30 | Iran | 46 |
| 31 | Pakistan | 41 |
| 32 | North Korea | 37 |
“=” denotesa tie among countries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)