WarSclerotic

Medvedev, Assad to discuss Mideast peace – Israel News, Ynetnews.

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// Medvedev. Wants to assist with peace Photo: Reuters

Russian president expected to hand over message from Israel during visit in Damascus

AP and Roee Nahmias

JPost.com | BlogCentral | Rosner’s Domain | “Most Jews wont re-elect Obama”, if you care to believe polls.

The McLaughlin poll everybody’s talking about is all here:

And a couple of notes:

1. When one asks whether Jews will “consider voting” for “someone else” this doesn’t mean that they will consider voting for a Republican. They might not. That’s why I do not buy the “Obama lost half of Jewish support” headlines.

2. Previous studies have indicated that “41% of American Jews have visited Israel at some point during their lives.4 Among those who have been to Israel, a little over half (54%) have visited once, 17% have visited twice, and the remaining 29% have visited three times or more”. But the McLaughlin poll has 51% of visitors to Israel. This might mean that the poll is somewhat biased towards Jews more affiliated with Israel than the average – which means one should treat carefully the “total”.

3. By the way, the fact that there a clear “association between affiliation status and close family or friends who live in Israel” is well established. “Fifty-seven percent of affiliated Jews and half of the moderately affiliated have such a connection to Israel, as opposed to only 36% of those who do not have a Jewish organizational affiliation”.

4. Yet again, in the McLaughlin poll 56% have friends or family living in Israel. But according to NJPS the real number is 46% – a 10% difference that can have impact on the total.

5. On the other hand, this new poll has higher percentage of Democrats than the AJC Jewish opinion survey. Confusing? In some ways it is.

5. The number of Jews disapproving of Obama’s handling relations with Israel is much higher in this poll than in the quite recent AJC survey. On the other hand – differences between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform should not surprise anyone.

6. But in both surveys one can see the strong Jewish attachment to Jerusalem. Of all denominations. And also the deep suspicion that Arabs want to destroy Israel and not to make peace with it.

Update: Laura reminded me that Ron wrote an excellent post about this poll. You should read it (here).

Vice Prime Minister Ya’alon: Israel has the technological capability to strike Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Addressing a conference on air power, Ya’alon said Israel’s experience in carrying out air strikes against militants along its borders could easily be extended to distant sorties in Iran.

Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Monday that Israel has the technological capabilty to launch a military strike against Iran.

	Vice PM Moshe Ya’alon pictured in August 2009.
	Photo by: Emil Salman

Addressing a conference on air power, Ya’alon said Israel’s experience in carrying out air strikes against militants along its borders could easily be extended to distant sorties in Iran.

“There is no doubt that the technological capabilities, which improved in recent years, have improved range and aerial refueling capabilities, and have brought about a massive improvement in the accuracy or ordnance and intelligence,” he said.

“This capability can be used for a war on terror in Gaza, for a war in the face of rockets from Lebanon, for war on the conventional Syrian army, and also for war on a peripheral state like Iran,” said Ya’alon, a former chief of Israel’s armed forces.

Israel, which is assumed to have the region’s only atomic arsenal, bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and launched a similar sortie over Syria in 2007.

It has rarely used the term “war” in official statements on how to deal with Iran over a nuclear program which Israel and the West believe is aimed at building atomic weapons. Iran denies it has hostile designs.

Israeli leaders have spoken of leaving all options on the table in addressing the question of possible military action against Iran, and they have endorsed efforts by United Nations Security Council powers to impose new sanctions.

Israel’s veiled threats against Iran have been questioned by some independent analysts who see the potential targets as too distant, dispersed and well-defended for Israeli jets to take on alone.

In his address at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, Ya’alon posited air strikes to “decapitate or blind” an enemy by targeting its leadership or early-warning defenses.

“As far as I’m concerned, attack remains the best form of defense,” he said.

Israel saw itself in a de facto war with Iran due to its sponsorship of Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, Ya’alon said.

“There is no doubt, looking at the overall situation, that we are already in a military confrontation with Iran,” he said. “Iran is the main motivator of those attacking us.”

Meanwhile, in separate remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said “there is still time” for diplomacy to work. He sought to play down Israel’s interest in having Iran reined in, calling it a global challenge.

“If in the end of the day, Iran does get nuclear, in spite of what America says and wants, this will have grave implications for world order, the balance of power and the rules of the game,” said Meridor, who, like Yaalon, belongs to Netanyahu’s seven-member inner council.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Dmitry Medvedev visits Damascus

Although the Kremlin stated that no weapons deals will be signed during Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s first state visit to Damascus, Monday, May 10, but they may be discussed and even approved, a prospect which has the US and Israel deeply concerned, debkafile‘s Washington and military sources report. These items may well include sophisticated weapons systems which Moscow has withheld from Iran.
Both Washington and Jerusalem were unpleasantly surprised by Moscow’s willingness to provide Bashar Assad with this public shot in the arm just a week after the Obama administration renewed US sanctions against Syria, citing its support for terrorist groups and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction as an “extraordinary threat” to American national security. Syria is widely shunned in the Middle East itself. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak brusquely refused to receive Assad for a get-well visit to Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Syrian ruler will not doubt take the Russian gesture as support for his supply of long-range missiles to Hizballah and its substantial enhancement of the of the extremist Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah-Hamas alignment in the Middle East at the expense of the pro-Western moderate bloc led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
On April 30, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 443 carried a report on the negative import of the Medvedev visit, but Israeli government leaders were too busy dealing with the reopening of indirect talks with the Palestinians to gear up in time to forestall the damage to Israel’s interests predicted from expected Russian-Syrian deals.

Observers in Washington see the deepening of Moscow-Damascus relations as a failed mark for the Obama-Clinton drive to woo Assad. Some are saying that the Kremlin, for its part, seeks to use Syria as a fig leaf for its deepening crisis with Tehran, following the Russian president’s promise to Barack Obama to back tough sanctions against Iran. This promise was accompanied by Moscow’s secret assurance to hold back from activating Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr – in breach of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s pledge earlier this month to have the reactor up and running by August.

The Russian president needs to demonstrate that the Kremlin is not in Washington’s pocket on Iran – and certainly not aligned with Israel – hence his show of friendship toward Damascus and a possible major arms transaction with Syria that will give Iran a back door for acquiring the sophisticated weapons Moscow has denied to date.
In view of this concern, Israeli president Shimon Peres was dispatched to Moscow to attend Sunday’s events Sunday marking the 65th anniversary of the allied victory against the Nazis. He tried to discourage the Russian president from going to these lengths, but failed to obtain a clear response to his appeal from Medvedev.