Iran’s Supreme Leader: West can’t save Israel – Haaretz – Israel News.

		Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. (Archive)

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Sunday that Western support of Israel was ineffective, telling a top Palestinian militant leader that its obliteration was imminent according to the will of God.

“Today Palestine is the symbol of life, determination, faithfulness, diligence, and dignity,” Ayatollah Khamenei told Ramadan Abdullah, the secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement.

He praised the Palestinian resistance movement and declared that it had proven itself stronger despite the military superiority of the Israel Defense Forces.

In his comments, Khameini joined a long list of top Iranian officials, especially President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who have said on several occasions in the past that Israel should be destroyed.

Last year Ahmadinejad said that Israel was “dying” and that people in the Middle East would destroy it if given the chance and stressed that opposition to Israel is a fundamental principle in Shi’ite Muslim Iran.

“They should know that regional nations hate this fake and criminal regime and if the smallest and briefest chance is given to regional nations they will destroy [it],” said Ahmadinejad, who often rails against Israel and the United States.

A 2005 statement by Ahmadinejad saying that “Israel should be wiped off the map” outraged the international community.

Also, a senior Iranian army commander said Iran will respond to any military attack from Israel by “eliminating” it, in comments condemned by Washington.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Syrian-made Fateh-110 to Hizballah

The secret transfer of the mobile surface-to-surface Syrian-made Fateh-110 (range 250km) missile to Hizballah sparked the prediction Friday, Feb. 5 from an unnamed US official that cross-border arms smuggling from Syria into Lebanon outside state control was “very dangerous”  and “paved the way to war similar to Israel-Hizballah conflict of 2006. debkafile‘s military sources report hat Israel warned Syria through at least two diplomatic channels against Hizballah using this lethal weapon, which is capable of reaching almost every Israel city.
Our sources disclose: Syria pulled the wool of Israel’s eyes for the transfer by openly training Hizballah in the use of SA-2 and SA-6 surface-to-surface missiles. Israel had warned it would deem their passage into Lebanon Syrian casus belli by Syria.

The Fateh-110 is still more lethal, accurate and dangerous than the SA-2 and SA-3. it confronts Israel now with a Hizballah armed with a solid-fuel propellant, road-mobile, single-stage, short-range ballistic system weighing three tons with a half-ton warhead and a range of 250 kilometers. It is not deployed in surface batteries but fired from mobile launchers, which the solid propellant renders capable of firing at speed with little advance preparation, before returning to the fortified underground silos Hizballah has sunk in mountain areas across Lebanon.
These features make the Fateh-110 a very tough target for Israeli bombers to strike.
According to our intelligence sources, Israel posted warnings against Hizballah using the weapon through US Middle East envoy George missile who called on president Bashar Assad in Damascus on January 20 and ,even more emphatically, through Spanish foreign minister Miguel Moratinos who arrived in Syria on Feb. 3 after talks in Jerusalem. The message he carried was that if Hizballah ventured to fire the Fateh-110, Israel was determined to hit back at strategic and military targets inside Syria.
This warning instantly prompted the war rhetoric which emanated from Assad and his foreign minister Walid Moallem. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, known for his undiplomatic, blunt style, responded by warning Syria that it stood to lose the next war and the Assad family would lose its grip on power in Damascus.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak are presumed to have endorsed the first part of Lieberman’s comment as representing their own view. But the minister added the personal threat on Syria’s leaders on his own initiative.

Iran’s President Moves Ahead on Uranium Processing – NYTimes.com.

Iran’s President Moves Ahead on Uranium Processing

CAIRO — Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ordered the nation’s atomic energy agency on Sunday to begin producing a special form of uranium that can be used to power a medical reactor in Tehran, but that could also move the country much closer to possessing fuel usable in nuclear weapons.

The announcement Sunday came after several days of conflicting signals from Mr. Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials about whether they were ready to reopen negotiations about giving up much of their country’s fuel in exchange for enriched uranium from another country. The exchange would allow Iran to meet some of its energy needs, but would ease fears in the West because the fuel sent to Tehran would be in a form that would be very difficult to use in a bomb.

The deal fell apart when it was rejected by the leadership in Tehran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s order on Sunday may represent nuclear gamesmanship; it is unclear if the country has the capacity to enrich its fuel to roughly 20 percent, from about 5 percent, as Mr. Ahmadinejad was ordering. Doing so would require retooling the configuration of the nation’s centrifuges at a moment when Iran appears to have run into considerable technical difficulties at its nuclear plants.

It is unclear if those troubles have been caused either by its own technical failings, or sabotage by Western intelligence agencies, or both. American intelligence officials have told Congress and close allies, in closed briefings, that covert efforts to interfere with Iran’s production capability are extremely active.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is betting that the threat itself may force the United States, Europe and Russia to provide fuel on his terms; American officials have said the move would only speed the effort to impose sanctions. It may also affect Israel’s calculation about how far it is willing to allow Iran to get to a weapons capability before launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear or missile facilities.

Until now, Iran has never enriched significant quantities of fuel beyond the level needed in ordinary nuclear reactors, part of its argument that its program is entirely for peaceful purposes. But any effort to produce 20 percent enriched uranium would put the country in a position to produce highly-enriched uranium — at the 90 percent level used for weapons — in a comparatively short period of time, according to nuclear experts.

The deal announced in October would have required Iran to ship about 1200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Russia, and then to France, where it would have been produced for the Tehran reactor. But that would have left Iran with too little fuel to produce a weapon, at least for a year or so. The deal was initialed at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna more than three months ago, and was supposed to go into effect by Jan. 15. But it became a source of huge contention inside Iran, criticized by both hardliners in the government and leaders of the opposition.

“We have to agree, that deal is dead,” said Valerie Lincy, senior associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Speaking at a laser technology conference in Tehran Sunday, President Ahmadinejad announced the decision that Iran would produce the fuel itself. He directed Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the atomic energy agency, who was seated in the audience, to move ahead.

“Mr. Salehi you start enriching up to 20 percent and we are still open to negotiations on the issue,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He added: “The path to cooperation is open, if they come and agree to exchange without preconditions, we will exchange.”

That reference to “preconditions,” while vague, appeared to reinforce recent Iranian statements that the government was open to a new deal that did not require Iran to give up so much of its existing stockpile, or ship it out of the country. But such a deal has no appeal to President Obama, his aides have said. “For us, the only utility of the agreement was to buy considerable additional time before they could produce a weapon,” one of Mr. Obama’s strategists said in a recent interview. “If the deal doesn’t meet that test, we’re not going ahead.”

Reaction to the announcement was swift, even though it remains unclear that Iran has the technical capacity to proceed.

On Sunday, United States Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on the international community to bring greater economic and political pressure on Tehran. During a news conference in Rome with Ignazio La Russa, the Italian defense minister, Mr. Gates said, “if the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work.“ But we must all work together,” he said.

“No one has tried more sincerely to reach out and engage with the government of Iran than President Obama,” Mr. Gates said after meeting Italian officials in Rome. “The results have been very disappointing.”

The Iranian announcement Sunday appeared part of Tehran’s dual approach to confront western capitals seeking to isolate and penalize it for backing away from the exchange deal negotiated in Geneva in October. Iran has been saber rattling, testing missiles, holding war games, and on Saturday announced mass production of two missiles, one that can destroy “low-altitude aerial targets that fly at low speed and the other “equipped with two warheads and can destroy armored vehicles,” according to state owned Press TV.

The plans to increase enrichment to 20 percent fit with that leg of the strategy.

The second leg of Iran’s strategy calls for presenting itself as ready and able to negotiate.

The White House had given Iran until the end of the year to settle the dispute, or face new sanctions. Now, as Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris have talked up the prospect of increasing economic and political pressure on Iran, the government has repeated its willingness to cut a deal.

That could make it easier for China to continue to block efforts to have the United Nations’ Security Council impose tough new sanctions. Russia has previously been reluctant to impose new sanctions, but has been warming to the idea as Iran continued its defiance of the West.

“If they make gestures that may appear to some like they’re reconciliatory, it could have the effect of dividing up an already fragile coalition at the UN,” said Ms. Lincy, of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. “The Chinese are reticent right now and they have been since the beginning of the year when the deadline was supposed to have passed.”

Iranian officials have been forced to deal with the nuclear conflict against the backdrop of the worst internal political crisis to plague the government since the 1979 revolution. A grassroots protest movement emerged after President Ahmadinejad declared a landslide victory in elections in June amid charges of fraud.

The government responded with an aggressive crackdown that has jailed thousands, left many dead and injured, and raised charges that protestors were raped and tortured by officials. Recently, the government was accused of trying to scare protestors when it hung three men it said belonged to terrorist organizations, but tried to link them to the post election unrest.

Iran remains extremely tense, as it wrestles with a severe economic crisis, and the prospect of huge new protests on February 11, when the nation marks the anniversary of the revolution.

Syria: We’re ready for peace or war.

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Syria: We’re ready for peace or war

BY HERB KEINON
06/02/2010 12:45

Lieberman: A red line was crossed. A direct threat to attack population centers.

Talkbacks (35)

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Hezbollah ‘raises alert level in Lebanon’ – Haaretz – Israel News.

Hezbollah has raised its state of alert in Lebanon following the recent war of words between Israeli and Syrian officials, according to a report by the Beirut correspondent of Saudi daily Al-Okaz.

The report cites growing concerns in Lebanon that Israel is either planning to attack Lebanon, or that tensions in the region will result in an Israeli operation there.

Senior Lebanese sources told the Saudi paper that Hezbollah has announced emergency readiness in all areas of the country where it operates. Senior figures of the organization were asked to exercise greater caution in their movements amid fears they would be targeted by Israel.

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The sources said the radical Lebanese Shi’ite group was preparing for any eventuality.

Meanwhile, the verbal sparring between Jerusalem and Damascus continued over the weekend, even if in lower tones. Official Syrian newspaper Tishrin said in an editorial that “the threats from Israel make it clear that it intends to initiate a new war whose limits are unknown.”

The editorial added that “death and destruction may occur if Israel responds to the logic of some of its leaders, in whose veins flows crime. Damascus is ready for any path that Israel chooses, whether it is peace or war.”

The editorial’s author is the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, who wrote that the “logic of war and threats is the dominant logic in Israel. Talk of peace is chatter void of substance that is mere media propaganda. There is no real political decision for peace in the Zionist entity, despite promises of this, on the basis of restoring rights to their rightful owners.”

Meanwhile, State Department officials were quoted by Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, a London-based Saudi newspaper, saying that the exchange of threats between Syria and Israel is making it difficult to resume negotiations between the two sides.

The comments were made after threats by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem last week that an Israeli attack against Syria would be total war. His Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, warned that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family would not remain in power as a result of the next war.

The U.S. officials said that Washington is working hard to resume negotiations on all levels, including the Syrian-Israeli track. They noted that the newly appointed American ambassador to Damascus, Robert Ford, will immediately begin talks with Syria on all relevant issues.

Syrian sources said yesterday that Lieberman’s comments were either for domestic consumption or an attempt to cover the current Israeli leadership’s inability to meet the conditions that would spur a comprehensive and just peace in the region.

In response to Israeli criticism of his statements, Lieberman said Friday that “I do not work for the media or public relations firms.”

In an interview on Channel 2 he said that “I ran in elections, presented my worldview in a clear fashion and no one needs to guess who Lieberman is. We are loyal to that same way and our promises to the voters.

“My response, which was made to clarify that the situation is unacceptable, was immediately met with hysteria in Israel: ‘How dare we annoy the tyrant?'” he said, referring to Assad.

“I am sorry about this habit of the left in Israel. I think that in the Middle East serious things should not be left unanswered.” Lieberman was commenting on statements made by Assad to Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, which he described as “a direct threat to the State of Israel.”

At the end of a meeting Friday, Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel aims for peace and negotiations with Syria with no preconditions.

Netanyahu will try to end the verbal confrontation at this morning’s cabinet meeting by opening with a statement that Israel seeks peace and has no belligerent intentions. Netanyahu will also emphasize that he is ready to begin talks immediately without preconditions.

The head of the political-security bureau at the Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, joined the efforts yesterday to restore calm to the Syrian-Israeli front. Gilad said that “to the extent that we can evaluate – and we have excellent intelligence – there is no intention by the other side to attack us. As such, the evaluation is that no war is expected.”

Gilad, who spoke on the Channel 2 show “Meet the Press,” said he cannot see Syria or Hezbollah having an interest in war with Israel at the moment.

Western officials dismiss Iranian nuclear proposal – News – World – bnd.com.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, left, and EU Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Ashton, right, speak prior to the start of the second day of the annual Munich Security conference in Munich, southern Germany, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010. Westerwelle told a gathering of the the world’s top defense officials in Munich Saturday that “a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable for us” and would “lead to a destabilization of the entire region.” – AP Photo

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Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty contributed to this report from Ankara, Turkey.

Tories would back war with Iran – Telegraph.

A Conservative government would support military action against Iran if the rogue state developed nuclear weapons, the shadow defence secretary has revealed.

British soldiers secure a road as they set up a checkpoint near the Iranian border south of Basra Photo: REUTERS

Liam Fox described the threat posed by Iran as the “single most important issue facing the West” and added that 2010 was the year in which the Islamic state had to be confronted.

Mr Fox said that while military action would be in “no one’s interest”, he maintained that the use of force was an option which “must remain on the table” if Iran developed nuclear weapons.

He said that under Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime, the “export of terrorism and instability” was part of the country’s foreign policy and warned “the era of nuclear terrorism has arrived”.

The Tory policy on Iran differs from the Government’s stated position that military action was “inconceivable”.

Defence sources said an attack on Iran would be likely to consist of a missile attack rather than an Iraq-style invasion, with nuclear and uranium enrichment sites being targeted by cruise missiles launched from submarines and aeroplanes.

Britain could play a direct role – the Royal Navy has ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles and could provide early warning aircraft and tankers for in-flight refuelling for other aircraft taking part in an operation.

Iran has always maintained that its nuclear enrichment programme is purely peaceful and for non-military purposes.

In December last year Mr Ahmadinejad vowed to increase Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme with the aim of producing higher grade uranium, which could in theory be used in a nuclear device.

Speaking at his office in Westminster, Mr Fox said: “Iran provides us with a unique worry.

“You have an increasingly militarised state where the Revolutionary Guard have a greater say economically and politically than ever before and where a hard-line theocrat is at the top.

“Iran is a regime that seems intent on staying in office at any cost, including the death, disappearance and torture of its own nationals and they are embarked on a programme which the UN says can be for no other purpose than to develop a nuclear weapon capability.

“We know that Iran, more than any other country, is willing to export instability and terror as part of its foreign policy. We saw what they did when we were in Iraq.

“The Iranians funded some of the insurgency and supplied and trained them. We have seen their role with Hizbollah and Hamas.

“Do we really want to add nuclear material into that particular mix? If Iran becomes a nuclear -weaponed state, Turkey is likely to be next, quickly followed by Saudi Arabia, and Egypt and you will have a nuclear arms race in the world’s most unstable region.

“We have only just finished celebrating 20-years of the end of the Cold War, do we really want to have as our legacy to the next generation a nuclear arms race in the world’s most unstable place? That’s the decision we face.”

Comparing Iran with Iraq prior to the US-led invasion, Mr Fox said: “This is not “Iraq Two” – in Iraq we didn’t know what the regime was doing.

“We depended on intelligence but Iran is telling us it is developing a nuclear programme. We have seen it, we have inspected it.

“You have to accept the scale and the urgency of the problem and you have to work very hard to get diplomatic unity and you will need the European powers and Russia to be on side.

“We need to make it very clear to Iran that a nuclear weapon capability will not be tolerated by the international community and that nothing is off the table (in terms of military action).”

Mr Fox added that the time had come to establish a series of sanctions that would begin to bite and called on all European countries, and especially Germany, to “confront their own domestic business dealings” with President Ahmadinejad’s regime.

He said that while for the west Iran was a major diplomatic challenge, for Israel it remained an “existential threat”.

He went on: “2010 is the year in which we will seriously have to confront Iran. We have to say that everything remains on the table – if you play a public game of “what if” that just helps the Iranians by knowing what our next move would be.

“Nobody would want to see military action and it would be in nobody’s interest. We will only be able to deal with the Iranian problem if we maintain diplomatic unity and we are seen to be acting through international law.

“There is an urgency about this but you do not give the Iranian leadership the comfort of timetables or next moves – you do not do that with an enemy trying to develop a nuclear weapon.”

On Friday night Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was “approaching a final agreement” with world powers to exchange some of its low-enriched uranium for higher-grade fuel it can use in a reactor producing medical isotopes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has proposed the deal amid fears that Iran’s home grown uranium enrichment programme is masking efforts to produce atomic weapons.

However, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country has joined the five permanent U N Security Council members in negotiations with Tehran, dismissed Mottaki’s comments as nothing new.

IsraCast: Nuclear Iran And Israeli Palestinian Talks.

Barack Obama

The U.S. announcement of a $6 billion arms sale to Taiwan could not have come at a worse time for President Barack Obama’s attempt to rally UN Security Council backing for new sanctions against Iran. A former senior Israeli official in Washington says chances are now slimmer than ever of getting China’s crucial support. Meanwhile, the U.S. is beefing up the missile defenses of four Gulf states as Iran launches a missile which could potentially reach America’s eastern seaboard. Analyst David Essing assesses this and other developments over the past seven days.

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.audiocontainer { font-size: 11px; color: #996633; text-align: center; padding-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 5px; border-top-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-top-color: #CCCCCC; border-bottom-color: #CCCCCC; background-color: #CCCCCC; background-image: url(http://www.isracast.com/images/textures/5x5greyTextr.gif); margin-bottom: 30px; width: 386px; } .audiobox { border: 1px solid #CCCCCC; } .audiocaption { display: block; } #audiolinks { text-align: left; background-color: #FFFFFF; margin: 10px; padding: 0px; } // Has the Obama administration perpetrated a self-inflicted wound by announcing a $6 billion arms sale to Taiwan at the very time that China’s support is crucial for new Security Council sanctions against Iran? A former senior Israeli official to Washington says ‘Yes’. The Chinese are now likely to retaliate by torpedoing American diplomatic moves in other parts of the world arena including Iran. Nonetheless, a White House spokesman said the U.S. anticipated the weapons sale, mainly of Patriot surface to air missiles, would continue to work with the U.S. in confronting Iran’s nuclear challenge.

The Chinese response was not long in coming – Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stated: “The talk of sanctions at this moment will complicate the situation and stand in the way of finding a diplomatic solution”. At the same time, the Chinese diplomat urged Tehran ‘not to totally shut the door’. France is now expected to lead the charge at the UN for ‘strong’ sanctions against Iran warning that time is running out. Yet it appears that Beijing, if not for its need for Iranian oil at least out of anger over the arms deal, will veto a new sanctions proposal. The U.S. has an uncanny knack for alienating countries whose support is critical in confronting Iran – Obama has now done it with China while his predecessor George Bush did it with the ill-advised plan to deploy missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic and thereby infuriating Russia. And now surprise, surprise! As expected the Iranians are again mumbling about new ideas for sending some of their enriched uranium abroad for processing into nuclear fuel rods that cannot be used for nuclear weapons.

The Iranian saga continues although it appears that Obama’s diplomatic dawdling is coming to a head. After wasting a year for the Muslim Shiite fanatics in Iran to see the light of engagement and diplomacy, the U.S. is now beefing up the missile defenses of four Gulf states. The U.S. is stationing Patriot surface to air missiles in at least four Gulf states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qater and United Arab Emirates. At least two U.S. ships in the Gulf reportedly have a missile interception capability. In reaction, Iran’s top military commander has downplayed the deployment saying the Patriots can be rendered useless by simple counter- measures. He accused America of waging psychological warfare and trying to plunder the treasure of the Gulf states by selling them missiles.

The Iranian Missile Range

The U.S. is obviously turning up the pressure on Iran but to what end? If China does veto any Security Council vote for stronger sanctions, the U.S. will have to seek another route. After that it’s anyone’s guess what will happen. According to Moshe Arens, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Arens at the time of Desert Storm in 1991 , the Patriots, which the U.S. rushed to Israel, did not intercept even one of the 39 Scuds that Saddam Hussein fired into the Jewish state. Arens recently said the new Patriots reportedly have an enhanced capability to intercept missiles as well as aircraft. However, the new U.S. missile defenses in the Gulf do not necessarily mean the Obama administration is now considering a military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations; on the contrary it could be part of the ‘defensive umbrella’ strategy that was articulated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last July. Clinton said:” It’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon”. This would seem to indicate that the Obama administration was thinking more in terms of a defensive-protective approach in the event that Iran acquires nuclear weapons, rather an offensive and/or military operation to prevent the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons.

Menashe Amir, an Israeli analyst on Iran, has told IsraCast that Iranian opponents to the regime would welcome a military strike against the nuclear sites saying it could help topple the dictatorship. However, U.S.General David Petraeus, the head of the Centcom, disagreed – in his view a military attack on Iran would backfire and rally domestic support behind the regime. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also cautioned that he has enough on his plate already with American forces now exiting Iraq for Afghanistan. The jury is still out both in Washington and Jerusalem. The Obama administration is now moving to the next stage of trying to rally crippling sanctions against Iran. The U.S. has also warned Israel that she has no green light to hit Iran and the Netanyahu government has indicated it has no intention of going it alone, or interfering with America’s diplomatic shift from less carrots and more sticks. The Israeli leadership, as it has during this past year, can be expected to steer clear of any moves that her critics in the U.S. would love to pounce upon as proving that the Jewish state is undermining American policy or acting as the Israeli tag wagging the American dog. Again, all bets are off, if Israeli intelligence acquires reliable information that Tehran has decided to ‘break out’ by starting to enrich weapons grade uranium.

‘There are two principal axes of Israel’s foreign policy- the effort to prevent Iran from going nuclear and promoting a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict’ – that’s the assessment of Dr Uzi Arad, who heads the National Security Council and serves as a top foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, Arad spoke of more noticeable progress than meets the eye. America’s policy was also accompanied by pressure to persuade Tehran from shifting from nuclear weapons to paths of peace. In this sphere, there has been headway on what Arad called ‘a very high level of progress between Israel and the international community under America’s leadership’. Over the next three months, there would be a closing of the ring of both economic pressures on Iran and of her international isolation. Iran will face a dilemma: whether she wants to continue her defiance of the world which may cost her a heavy price or to pursue nuclear weapons.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

In the other sphere, the advancing of agreements and the peace process – there was no question there was great disappointment that there had not been any high level contacts during the past year. Although there is great potential for moving forward, the Palestinians have adopted a posture of rejection. This rejection did not begin with the Netanyahu governmen; a year and a half ago, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had submitted a generous and wide-ranging offer to Palestinian President Muhmoud Abbas designed to advancing the peace process. However, the latter turned it down by refusing to accept it. Six months later, Abbas explained that the gaps were still too wide. There are many and varied explanations for this Palestinian rejection – Abbas is too strong or he is too weak, or he is going to an election, he is disheartened or he is waiting for a convening of the Arab League. Although these explanations changed from time to time, the Abbas policy of rejection persisted and this was disappointing. Despite this disappointment, the U.S. was trying to convene Israeli- Palestinian talks and Israel was interested in negotiations without prior conditions and had made good-will gestures to prove it. In his address to the conference, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke optimistically of the Israeli- Palestinian talks getting underway again in the coming weeks. The idea is that West Bank Palestinians may agree to go to proximity talks between Ramallah and Jerusalem under the aegis of American envoy George Mitchell, who will serve as middleman shuttling between the two sides.

Be that as it may, these talks will take place under the shadow of the Iranian nuclear crisis in more ways than one. U.S. National Security Adviser General James Jones has warned that Iran, under mounting pressure, may try to activate her surrogates – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The outcome of the Iranian crisis may also impact on Israel’s readiness to take security risks with the Palestinians. Until the Iranian crisis is resolved the entire Middle East may be in a holding mode because the entire region will be a different place than it is today.

J’lem OK with US arms sales in Gulf.

BY HILLARY LEILA KRIEGER, JPOST CORRESPONDENT
07/02/2010 02:13

Billions of dollars in deals meant to counter Iranian threat.

WASHINGTON – The Israeli government and pro-Israel advocates aren’t opposing recent US arms deals with Gulf countries, sources have told The Jerusalem Post.

Top US commander General David Petraeus made a rare public confirmation of US Patriot missile batteries being stationed in four Gulf states last month, which Capitol Hill sources identified as Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE. They also mentioned that the shorter-range THAAD missile defense system and F-16s were components of additional billion-dollar packages.

Petraeus’s remarks came as the United States has also moved Aegis ballistic missile cruisers into the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean, conducted a massive missile defense drill with Israel and started speaking more openly about “consequences” should Iran continue with its pursuit of nuclear capabilities.

“Iran is clearly seen as a very serious threat by those on the other side of the Gulf front, and indeed, it has been a catalyst for the implementation of the architecture that we envision and have now been trying to implement,” Petraeus said in his comments at the Institute for the Study of War on January 22.

Though in the past, arms dealing to Israel’s neighbors has often been met with concern by Israel and its allies in Washington, the present steps are understood to be focused on shoring up regional defensive capabilities against Iran and sending a message to Teheran of deterrence and seriousness, sources said.

Several Congressional staffers told the Post that they haven’t been contacted by the Israeli government or pro-Israel lobbyists on the issue, as is usually the case if those parties have objections to policies.

“I haven’t heard anyone from the Israeli embassy complaining,” said one legislative aide.

“We are in full cooperation with the administration and it is something which we follow, as we follow every development in the region,” said embassy spokesman Jonathan Peled when asked about the deals. “There is an intensive dialogue and full cooperation and these things are discussed openly.”

Another Israeli official speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the issue said, “Israel understands US interests in sending these systems to Arab countries.” He added that at the same time, America continues to ensure Israel’s military superiority.

“We very much appreciate the US’s continued commitment at the highest levels to maintaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge,” he said.

Another Congressional staffer said that he doesn’t see members of Congress mounting an opposition. “Everyone seems to be on board with the strategy, so I don’t think there are any objections to these groups getting primarily defensive equipment.” Arms sales can be blocked by Congress if major resistance and political will to counter them exists, though usually concerns are addressed through backroom discussions and modifications to the packages.

In the past, Israel has expressed strong disapproval of arms sales to the Gulf, notably in the 1980s when the Reagan administration authorized a major deal involving sophisticated aircraft sales to Saudi Arabia. Despite strong opposition from many members of Congress, as well as pro-Israel lobbyists, the sale ended up going through.

More recently, in 2007, another massive deal with Saudi Arabia raised the hackles of some in Congress and the pro-Israel community. The push-back was significantly less than in the 1980s and didn’t keep the sale from proceeding.

In the current case, some observers have suggested Israel might have concerns because of the leap in capabilities for four additional Gulf countries.

In fact, some Capitol Hill sources indicated the biggest obstacle to transferring the systems hadn’t been Congressional or Israeli apprehension, but the hesitancy of the Gulf states to accept the US weaponry and troops necessary to train locals and operate the equipment given domestic sensitivities over America’s presence.

At the same time, their willingness to heighten their military collaboration with the US sends a signal to Israel that its neighbors take the threat of Iran seriously and are playing on the same team when it comes to countering that threat.

Congressman Steve Rothman (D-New Jersey), who sits on key defense and foreign operations appropriations subcommittees involved, explained that “the piece-by-piece construction of a network of offensive and defensive capabilities” by regional actors as well as the United States – whose own troops also happen to sit in two countries bordering Iran – delivers a strong warning.

“I think it’s a brilliant strategy to send a powerful message to Iran that a first strike for them will be unsuccessful and will cause a devastating regime-changing response from not only Israel but also this alliance,” he said, pointing out that the consequences should change the calculus on Teheran undertaking an attack likely to be repelled in the first place by the sophisticated defensive systems.

“Trying to be a nuclear weapons super-power is not a strategy that its neighbors will permit to happen,” he continued. “We hope that [the US] strategy will encourage Iran to cease and desist from its efforts to weaponize its nuclear program, to make all of its nuclear facilities available to inspectors and to find a way to work with the West on developing any civilian nuclear capability.