WarSclerotic

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Hizballah ammo bunker in Al-Khiam

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeps on vowing that Iran will not be allowed to establish an outpost on Israel’s borders, but he has not lifted a finger to stop this menace ensconcing itself in the north. He cannot realistically expect feeble UN reprimands and the puny French contingent of UNIFIL to blow away the 20,000 Hizballah troops dug in in 160 new positions in South Lebanon, backed by a vast rocket arsenal – even though this is a gross violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701.
Iran’s proxy has therefore won the first round of its drive to recover the forward positions lost in the 2006 war and stands ready for the next. Israel has reinforced its border defenses against this massed Hizballah strength just a few hundreds meters away.
How could Jerusalem let this to happen?
The answer is by a misguided policy of misdirected reliance on international players and diplomacy, as though the military menace existed only in documentary form, instead of real armies led by single-minded terrorists with utter contempt for the rules of international diplomacy.
The guns Israel invoked for dealing with the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza – President Barack Obama and the European Union – were too big for their target and the Middle East Quartet’s envoy former British premier Tony Blair had to be roped in. The guns Israel relied on to deal with Hizballah – the UN and France – are too small and ineffective for the job.

Following a French complaint, the UN Security Council convened Friday, July 9 and passed a resolution “strongly deploring the recent incidents involving UNIFIL peacekeepers which took place in southern Lebanon on June 29, July 3 and July 4.” All parties in Lebanon were urged “to respect the safety of UNIFIL and United Nations personnel.”
The UN was not even asked to address Hizballah’s illegal redeployment in new positions in the South – only the harassment of peacekeepers – nor did it do so. In one instance last week, French troops on patrol were pulled out of their armed vehicles, their weapons snatched and they were beaten with sticks, rocks and eggs.

This was no spontaneous outburst.  debkafile‘s military sources report that the “villagers” were instructed by Iran’s new Iranian commander in Lebanon, Hossein Mahadavi, to hit on the French contingent to punish Paris for supporting the UN Security Council’s expanded sanctions for its nuclear violations, while at the same time blocking the peacekeeper’s access to the “closed areas” where the new Hizballah bases have been set up.

Tehran nominated a high-ranking officer to Lebanon – Mahadavi’s former job was commander of Iran’s Overseas Division – indicating the importance it attaches to this volatile borderland. Indeed, if Hizballah gets away with its new deployment in the South and is allowed to make it permanent, the UN force will have lost even this scrappy foothold and Hizballah will be free to carry on its preparations for war without the slightest hindrance.
So much for Netanyahu’s pledge, reiterated during his talks and interviews in the United States last week, that in negotiations with Arabs, especially the Palestinians, Israel will never accept any accommodation that permits Iran to set up military and rocket bases on its borders.

The fact is that since he entered the prime minister’s office, he and defense minister Ehud Barak have done nothing to hold back the stream of armed Hizballah militiamen flooding South Lebanon, although they are now actively endangering the one-and-a-half million Israelis living just across the border.

If they imagined that UN peacekeepers would suddenly stand up and start repelling this southward tide of men and war materiel, they need only to take note of the tepid UN reprimand last Friday to understand that the Elysee Palace had no intention of letting French troops pick up the Hizballah ball and chase the Shiite terrorists back to their former positions.
Tehran and Hizballah therefore felt they could safely issue a new spate of threats: Israelis traveling anywhere in the world faced kidnap or death  in response to a series of hits attributed to their clandestine agencies, such as the  assassination of a key Hizballah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus in 2008, the deaths of the Iranian nuclear physicist Prof. Massoud Ali Mohammmadi in the middle of Tehran in January of this year, and the Hamas operative responsible for Iranian money transfers to the Gaza Strip Mohammed al-Mabhouh in Dubai nine days later.
Israel responded to the verbal escalation on July 7, by doing something it has never done before: Col. Ronen Marli, chief of the northern border’s Western Brigade – the unit which will have to hold off the enemy in the early hours of attack from Lebanon – exhibited to the public aerial photos and intelligence maps recording the new spread of Hizballah forces: He reported 20,000 armed men scattered through 160 village and towns – only in the South, where its presence is prohibited by the UN-mediated ceasefire of 2006. The images did not include the substantial strength Hizballah maintains in central Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley to the east, or its estimated 40,000 rockets and missiles.

The Israeli colonel was of the opinion that an “event (a military attack or terrorist operation) could erupt today or in a year.” He admitted it could be a surprise. Adding: “But we are working in different ways to thwart any event and if happens, we’ll know how to handle it.”
The IDF backed him up with an announcement that Israel is beefing up its strength along the Lebanese border and, the next day, July 8, the Jerusalem center for terrorist threats, published a warning to Israelis abroad, including the United States, to beware of abductions and murderous attacks.
Saturday, a Hizballah spokesman responded: “All three (UN, France, Israel) are preparing something, but we are ready,” it said. “Our forces in the South are on the highest level of war preparedness.”

The next conflagration may be just a single lighted match away. It could be ignited by some local incident, a terrorist event outside the Middle East or an order from Tehran.

Israel-Syria talks moving ahead without Turkey – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

This file photo shows Turkish President Abdullah Gül and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad hailing Turkish soldiers during a ceremony in the Turkish capital, Ankara. DAILY NEWS photo, Selahattin SÖNMEZ

ANALYSIS / Obama has ways and means to check on Netanyahu – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

The argument the Israeli prime minister is presenting in Washington is not the only one going.

By Amir Oren

Three brigadiers general in the reserves met secretly last month with a retired American admiral in Rome. This was at the Defense College of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Americans warned that should this became known, they would deny it and refrain from additional such meetings. A similar warning accompanied the strategic talks held in Israel at the end of June by teams headed by U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Michele Flournoy and Udi Shani, Defense Ministry director general.

The reserve brigadier generals are civilians who do not pretend to represent the government of Israel or its military. Why was Rear Admiral John Sigler, who heads the Middle East research institute at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so cautious about exposure of his meeting with Shlomo Brom, Udi Dekel and Baruch Spiegel, along with retired Foreign Ministry envoys? Is there a connection to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meetings with President Barack Obama and top American administration people in Washington?

	Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama following their White House meeting, July 6, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

The White House staff prepared the public part of the hosting of Netanyahu by the book: smiles and handshakes – check; talk about our wonderful relations – check; a distinction between the good Israeli atom and the bad Iranian atom – check; hugs for Sara – check.

The U.S. administration really is committed to Israel’s security but not to hanging on to the territories or the Jewish settlements. Obama is trying to clarify whether in the dispute between the two approaches Netanyahu truly represents the majority in Israel. He can get a partial answer, for example, in meetings between Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi or the meeting between Sigler and the retired officers in Rome.

The demonstrable warmth in Obama’s reception of Netanyahu is at most one third of the story. Another third is the American communications channel with other Israelis, and the remaining third is the channel the United States has with Arab figures, who hear from Obama and his envoys messages that are not identical to those Netanyahu is trying to emphasize in Washington.

Brom and Dekel served with air force intelligence and the general staff planning branch. Spiegel was the liaison officer to foreign forces, deputy coordinator of activities in the territories and an adviser to the defense minister. The possible alternatives for bargaining with the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese can come as no surprise to them: They formulated the headquarters document that gets passed from one chief of staff to the next, from one defense minister to the next and from one prime minister to the next.

When Netanyahu tells Obama there is something he can’t do because it would be the death of him, experts like the three brigadiers general can map out Israel’s ranges of flexibility to Sigler, and through him pass them along to Mullen and thus to Obama. Sigler, a retired senior naval officer, heads an institute attached to the National Defense University in Washington (the research and education institution directly under the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ). The regional institutes provide data and infrastructure for meetings with various elements, including those prohibited to diplomats, such as Hamas. This is a means for the two-way transmission of messages.

Another benefit, which is not unique to the NDU, derives from the education of foreign officer cadres. A lieutenant colonel or colonel who spends a year at such an institution soaks up America’s power and acquires a proportionate approach to his own country’s place in the universe. Today the top echelon of the Israel Defense Force boasts about a dozen officers who studied at American military colleges and/or served as military attaches at the embassy in Washington and its offshoots, including C-o-S Ashkenazi.

In their many conversations Mullen and Ashkenazi discuss security – heaven forbid, they would discuss politics – and exchange data and professional analyses. Were the veteran naval officer called upon to testify before the Turkel committee, he would say the Americans, too, lack the means for stopping a large ship like the Mavi Marmara without a takeover by fighters and friction with the passengers.

Mullen is able to explain the American problems in Israel effectively, and vice versa. However, since discussion of certain matters is prohibited to officers in uniform, there is scope for channels like the one Sigler set up with Brom, Dekel and Spiegel.

At the Jerusalem Conference last February, Sigler overflowed with friendliness toward Israel (“My father was Jewish” ) and expressed the hope it would reestablish its deterrent power. The word “victory,” said Sigler, differs in meaning in different contexts. Israel will win if it continues to flourish, in the far future as well, as a strong democratic and Jewish country.

At the Pentagon they are far from seeing Israel as one of the major problems in the Middle East, but it’s enough that Israel also contributes to the perpetuation of the problem – the danger of extremist Islam – and not only to its solution. Is Israel and an asset or a burden? The answer is both – a tactical asset, a strategic burden.

Last month’s American air force magazine referred to the 1966 operation in which the Mossad lured a MiG-21 pilot to defect from Iraq with his plane. The MiG was examined by Israel’s air force and then lent to the Americans to be examined, tested and brought into in air maneuvers. Identifying its limitations enabled U.S. fighter pilots to overcome their inferiority in air battles with the North Vietnamese and to end the war with a certain advantage.

This sort of praise for the Israeli military improves, at least among the defense community, the image of Israel’s professionalism and the amity between the two countries. In the wake of praise like this, one must note the same magazine issue says the F-35, the next combat aircraft for America and for Israel, can also carry tactical nuclear weapons, bombs and missiles. It is a dual-purpose plane.

Foreign reports say Israel has surface-to-surface missiles and submarine-launch missiles. An American willingness to provide it with an advanced dual-purpose airplane would strengthen its deterrence.

Talking to the Arabs

The Americans also talk to the Arabs. Recently, for example, the transcript of a fascinating conversation was revealed – a December 1975 conversation between the then U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, and his Algerian counterpart, Abdulaziz Bouteflika, who was 38 at the time and had held the post for 12 years. (Bouteflika is now president of Algeria ).

Kissinger, expressing bitterness about the government of Yitzhak Rabin and his defense minister to his right, Shimon Peres, says: “Public opinion in America is more ready to do something than ever before. But we have a period of about nine months [the run-up to the elections] when we can’t do everything.

“The attempt of the Israelis is to create maximum commotion in the Middle East. They think we can’t do much to them. That is why they bombed in Lebanon. You saw in The Herald Tribune a report that we asked them to check with us. That isn’t what we asked: We said we wouldn’t be responsible for the actions they took without consulting us. That is very different. And we protested their settlements on the Golan.”

Bouteflika got no satisfaction from Kissinger’s words: “The implication which can be drawn [is] that all previous Israeli actions have been with American connivance.”

Kissinger: “No, we have never known. They never tell us ahead of time.

“But that is not my major point. My major point is: They are deliberately provocative now. They established settlements; they announce they will never give up more than 200 meters of territory – which is an insult to Syria, because it is Syrian territory… The F-15 we promised a year and a half ago – but there was a delay because of delivery and the reassessment. Then he announced it as a new thing, as a response to Syrian MiG-25s. He did it to provoke the Arabs. It was a lie….

“They want to go back to the 1967-1973 period, when they were our only friend in the Middle East. They know time is running out. They can’t get $2 billion a year for many more years. And they know they can’t get deliveries on what is voted this year unil 1978-79. So we have all the means of pressure in our hands. That is why they are trying to undermine my authority. But that isn’t the main thing.

“The main thing I want to say is the Arabs should show restraint for a year. A war wouldn’t be so bad for us – we could show we are tough. The main thing is to make what little progress is possible this year, and work for next year. I say this as a friend.”

Bouteflika: “We are grateful.”

Kissinger: “Because you have practically won. You must not let yourselves be provoked. The Syrians must understand this, too.”

Bouteflika: “You have some problems with them?”

Kissinger: “No. I’m afraid their pride may lead them to do something later on.”

Obama is not Kissinger, but who knows what messages his administration is sending the Arabs? One thing is for sure: This didn’t appear on the White House page of talking points this week.

Terror without balance – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Saudi Arabia will not rely on U.S. intervention against a nuclear Iran, but will move to acquire its own bomb in exchange for a great deal of cash.

By Amir Oren

The following scenario troubles the Pentagon and the White House: Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, or is the turn of a screw from having one, and declares that if it finds itself in a long war, like the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, it will not hesitate to use it, including on its own territory to destroy invaders. Would the response to such a declaration be similar to the one that would follow if a nuclear bomb fell outside Iran’s borders? Very unlikely.

If the Iranians calculate that the world will grit its teeth and hold back if it crosses the nuclear threshold, the next stage in the scenario is that they will use their nuclear umbrella for non-nuclear action on another country’s territory. In the Pentagon’s scenario, whose echoes appear this month in the quarterly of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Iran invades Saudi Arabia. Or, with its forces (Revolutionary Guards ), or proxies (“volunteers” ), it helps the Shi’ite population in the kingdom’s eastern oil-rich territory rise against the Sunni Saud dynasty and break away from the country.

	U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah wave during a group photo at the G20 Summit in Toronto, Ontario, June 27, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

Whether or not officials in Washington believe such a scenario, it is sufficient that people believe it in Riyadh, so the Saudis will ignore American wishes and independently prepare to counter the problem. They will not rely on U.S. intervention against a nuclear Iran, but will move to acquire their own nuclear weapons in exchange for a great deal of cash that will be paid to Pakistan, or any other source.

The Saudi nuclear weapon does not need to be strategic, the kind that requires the fitting of a warhead to a missile launched from the ground or a submarine. It would be enough for it to be a tactical weapon – dropped by aircraft, or attached to short-range missiles, artillery shells or even mines.

All these were available during the Cold War. NATO still has many such items in its arsenal. Most are controlled by the United States or Britain, but a half dozen other countries have them (including Turkey ). Saudi Arabia would probably, at the first stage, acquire such a weapon for blocking an invasion and countering a rebellion. A strategic nuclear force to threaten Tehran would require more time.

There is also a sub-scenario in which the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that wants the Arabs to have nuclear weapons, takes over Cairo after President Hosni Mubarak is gone. Under all the scenarios, giving in to a nuclear-capable Iran breaches the Middle Eastern dam, whether in the Israeli context or beyond it.

Holding on to the benefits of the balance of terror during the Cold War, which balanced the Americans and the Soviets, is an illusion and a mistake. Deterrence did prevent World War III, but there were many confrontations that came close to one, first and foremost the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. A precondition for removing the finger from the trigger was, and still is, the existence of rational national leaders. There is no certainty that such leaders will head regimes (or groups ) that are fanatically religious.

The sad fact is that behind that same nuclear umbrella, wars with hundreds of thousands of dead took place including Korea and Vietnam; and there were the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and many crises. Such a situation is unacceptable in the Middle East.

These scenarios lead one to conclude that it is worthwhile to believe U.S. President Barack Obama when he says he will not tolerate a nuclear Iran. Israel still needs to prepare to act independently against such a development, gather intelligence and get ready for actions by Hezbollah and Hamas, and possibly also for the launching of Shahab missiles in response to a U.S. operation. The Iranians still do not believe Obama, so they will not be deterred from moving toward acquiring a nuclear capability.

Former Revolutionary Guard member who relayed its secret operations to CIA for 10 years says Iran will commit ‘most horrendous suicide bombing in human history’ if not stopped

Dudi Cohen

A former fighter in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) turned US spy offered a rare glance into one of the most complex countries in the Middle East.

During a conference held at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday, Reza Kahlili (pseudonym) estimated that Iran will eventually attack Israel, Europe and the Persian Gulf states. He called for a preemptive strike on the regime in Tehran, but not on the Iranian people or the country’s infrastructure.

Official Visit

Iran says US must state position on Israeli nukes / Reuters

Ahmadinejad received with open arms in Nigeria, but also criticized there for his Holocaust denial. Iranian president responds, ‘Palestinians committed no crime in WWII; why should Israel occupy them?’ and says US stance on Israeli nukes precondition for nuclear talks with West

Full Story

Kahlili accused the Obama Administration of being naïve. According to him, the American overtures are viewed by the Iranian regime as a sign of weakness, while the Iranian people consider the efforts to engage the regime an act of betrayal against their struggle for freedom.

Click here to listen to Kahlili speak at conference

“This is a messianic regime. There should be no doubt – they are going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history. They will attack Israel, European capitals, and (the) Persian Gulf region at the same time,” said Kahlili in one of his first public appearances to promote his new book “A Time To Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran”.

Kahlili said he joined the Revolutionary Guard following the Islamic revolution of 1979, but volunteered to work for the CIA when he became disillusioned with the Khomeini regime after witnessing acts of rape, torture and murder.

Kahlili, arrived at the conference wearing a surgical mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap to conceal his identity. Out of concern for his safety, as well as that of his family inside Iran, his voice was also disguised.

For 10 years, under the code name “Wally,” he relayed the secret operations of the IRGC back to American intelligence, eventually fleeing to the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, Kahlili reestablished contact with his sources in Iran and began once again providing information to the CIA, according to the Washington Institute.

via Iranian turned US spy: Tehran will attack Israel – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Jewish senator may mediate Israel-Syria talks – Israel News, Ynetnews.

President Assad asks Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to mediate new peace negotiations, Jerusalem officials believe move was spurred by severe US sanctions on Iran. Ayalon: Talks must begin without preconditions

Roni Sofer

Column One: Fit for ‘The New York Times’.

Two important statements this week shed a light on the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Both were barely noted by the media.

On Saturday, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave US mediator George Mitchell a letter detailing a number of concessions that he would make towards Israel in a final peace treaty. These included a willingness to accept permanent Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City and over the Western Wall. The Al- Hayat report received enthusiastic and expansive coverage in the Israeli media and in media outlets throughout the world.

What was barely noted was that just hours after the report hit the airwaves, Abbas’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat categorically denied the story. In an interview with Israel Radio, Saeb Erekat said the story was untrue.

Abbas has been the recipient of adulatory press coverage in Israel over the past several days. Last week, he thrilled the Hebrew-language media when he invited Israeli reporters to a sumptuous feast at his Ramallah headquarters.

And then the Al-Hayat story came out.

Lost in the excitement was Abbas’s eulogy for arch terrorist Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, who died over the weekend. Oudeh was the mastermind of the PLO’s massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Abbas himself served as the operation’s paymaster.

As Palestinian Media Watch reported, in a condolence telegram quoted in the Abbas-controlled Al-Hayat al-Jadida newspaper, Abbas touted Oudeh as “a wonderful brother, companion, tough and stubborn, relentless fighter,” and described him as “one of the prominent leaders of the Fatah movement.”

So while the local and international media pounced on the Al-Hayat story as proof that the Palestinians are serious about peace, they failed to mention that their hope was based on a story that the Palestinians themselves deny. So, too, in their rush to embrace Abbas, they failed to mention his glorification of an unrepentant mass murderer who commanded the terror squad that massacred Israel’s Olympic athletes.

THESE STATEMENTS by Palestinian officials the media routinely characterize as moderates demonstrate how deeply distorted and largely irrelevant the discourse on the Middle East has become. As the “moderate” Palestinians insist they are uninterested in peaceful coexistence and territorial compromise with Israel, news coverage in Israel and throughout the Western world is dominated by other issues. Specifically, discussion of prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians is dominated by an endless discussion of Israel’s Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and Jewish neighborhoods in eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem.

The most egregious recent example of this distortion was a 5,000 word article in Tuesday’s New York Times regarding US charitable contributions to these Jewish communities. Titled, “Tax Exempt Funds Aid Settlements in the West Bank,” the report was co-authored by five Times reporters. It was the product of weeks of research. And notably, the Times chose to publish it on its front page above the fold on the very day that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited the White House.

The Times’ article is a textbook case of the media’s ideologically motivated aggression against Middle East reality. Any way you look at it, it is a premeditated affront to the very notion that the role of a newspaper is to report facts rather manufacture news aimed at shaping perceptions and skewing debate.

The article goes to great lengths to discredit the American citizens who make charitable, tax deductible donations to organizations that provide lawful support to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and Jewish neighborhoods in southern, northern and eastern Jerusalem. It paints a sinister picture of such contributions and contributors and accuses them of actively undermining US foreign policy.

The contributors, we are told in the opening lines of the report, are the Left’s bogeyman – Evangelical Christians and religious Jews. They are unacceptable actors in the Middle East because they both believe that Jewish control of Judea and Samaria is a precursor to the coming of the messiah.

Reacting to the Times report, on Wednesday Honest Reporting noted that the article appears to be the product of active collusion between the Times and the radical, anti-Zionist, tax exempt Gush Shalom organization. As Honest Reporting relays, in July 2009, Gush Shalom sent out a communiqué to its supporters calling for the initiation of a campaign that “includes a combination of legal action and public advocacy aimed at denying federal tax exempt (501c3) status to US charities supporting settlement activity.”

The Times’ article bears all the markings of a political campaign. First, despite the valiant efforts of five Times reporters, the article exposes no illegal activity. At best, its investigation of more than 40 organizations that contribute funds to the hated Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria indicated that less than a handful of them are guilty of poor accounting practices.

Assuming that Honest Reporting’s eminently reasonable conclusion that the Times report is the product of collaboration between the newspaper and radical anti-Zionist groups is accurate, the report is shockingly hypocritical. By publishing it, the Times is engaging in the precise behavior it argues the organizations it investigated should be punished for purportedly engaging in. To wit, in the service of radical, tax-deductible organizations, the Times seeks to undermine US foreign policy. For the past four decades, it has been the foreign policy of the United States to maintain a strategic alliance with Israel. The goal of ostensibly Times-aligned groups like Gush Shalom is to undermine that alliance by discrediting and criminalizing those who wish to strengthen and maintain it.

The Times’ article uses dark language and innuendo to create the impression that there is something treacherous and evil about contributions to Jewish communities and neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. For instance, the article argues, “The donations to the settler movement stand out [from other charitable contributions that promote US foreign policy goals] because of the centrality of the settlement issue in the current talks and the fact that Washington has consistently refused to allow Israel to spend American government aid in the settlements. Tax breaks for the donations remain largely unchallenged, and unexamined by the American government.”

What the Times fails to acknowledge is that the reason these donations are “largely unchallenged, and unexamined” is because it is the constitutional right of American citizens to contribute to charities that promote policy goals even when those goals – like those of Gush Shalom – are antithetical to US policy as determined by the US government.

The Times alleges that these communities are illegal. Its authority for this allegation is none other than Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Erekat opined to the paper, “Settlements violate international law.”

The truth is that Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines are legal. But even if one were to accept the argument that they are unlawful, one would be accepting an argument based on the language of the Fourth Geneva Convention from 1949 that prevents occupying powers from transferring their population to the areas under occupation.

There is no possible reading of the convention that would prohibit the voluntary movement of Israelis to Judea, Samaria and post- 1967 neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Likewise, there is no possible reading of the convention that would prohibit the provision of financial support to Israelis who voluntarily move to the areas in question. Yet it is precisely this indisputably lawful, voluntary movement of Jews to these areas – which the Times acknowledges is often done against the wishes of Israel’s governments – that the Times’ article attacks.

In short, the Times’ contention that there is something legally problematic about these donations is preposterous both as it relates to US law and as it relates to international law.

From a journalistic perspective, worse than the Times’ decision to engage in precisely the behavior it seeks to criminalize when carried out by its political nemeses on the Christian and Jewish Right, and worse even than the article’s false characterization of law, is the article’s clear attempt to obfuscate the main problem with land issues in Judea and Samaria, in the interest of manufacturing a false but ideologically sympathetic picture of the situation on the ground.

The Times only gets around to alluding to – and obfuscating – the real problem with land issues in the 58th paragraph of the article. The Times reports, “Islamic judicial panels have threatened death to Palestinians who sell property in the occupied territories to Jews.”

Actually, while this may be true, it is not the problem. The problem is that the second law promulgated by the PA – just weeks after it was established in 1994 – criminalized all Arab land sales to Jews as a capital crime.

Since 1994 scores of Arabs have been killed in both judicial and extrajudicial executions for selling land to Jews.

This open move to hide the fact that since 1994 the PA has dispatched death squads to murder both Palestinians and Israeli Arabs suspected of selling land to Jews is a shocking miscarriage of journalistic standards. Whereas the Times required five reporters to work for weeks to come up with exactly nothing illegal in the operations of US charitable groups that support Jewish communities the Times wishes to destroy, the Times would have needed to invest no resources whatsoever to discover that the PA kills any Arab who sells land to Jews. The PA has made no effort to hide this policy. It is in the public sphere for anyone willing to look at reality.

AND THAT is of course the real issue here. The entire Times “investigation” of American charitable groups that support Jewish communities and neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem is a blatant attempt by a major newspaper to hide the real issues prolonging the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Those issues – exposed by Abbas’s praise for a terrorist mass murderer, Erekat’s denial that Abbas has any interest in compromising with Israel, as well as by the PA’s policy of killing all Arabs who sell land to Jews – do not serve the Times’ purpose of blaming the absence of peace on Israel generally and on the Israeli Right and its supporters in the US in particular.

And so it is that 17 years after the start of the so-called peace process between Israel and the PLO, and 10 years after the PLO destroyed that process by launching a terror war against Israel, and four and a half years after the Palestinians elected Hamas to lead them, we are still stuck in a distorted, irrelevant discourse about the Middle East.

We are stuck in a rut because politically and ideologically motivated media organs operate hand in globe with radical groups seeking to undermine Israel’s national sovereignty and end its alliance with the US. Together they manufacture news that bears no relation to reality or the true challenges facing those who seek peace in the Middle East. But obviously for The New York Times, that is what makes it fit to print

Security Council denounces attacks on UN troops in southern Lebanon – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel New

The United Nations Security Council strongly denounced on Friday recent confrontations between south Lebanese villagers and UN peacekeepers in the area and called for the troops to be allowed to do their work.

	A French UNIFIL soldier driving a damaged armored vehicle in southern Lebanon after villagers disarmed a patrol of UN peacekeepers on Saturday July 3, 2010.
	Photo by: AFP

Last week villagers seized weapons from French troops in the UNIFIL force and wounded their patrol leader.

That followed a series of standoffs or clashes in the border area, a stronghold of the militant Hezbollah group, and complaints that UNIFIL had stepped up its patrols and was failing to coordinate with Lebanese army forces in the region.

“The members of the Security Council emphasize the importance of not impairing the ability of UNIFIL to fulfill its mandate,” said a statement issued after a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation council requested by France.

“They call on all parties to ensure that the freedom of movement of UNIFIL remains respected” and to respect the safety of UN personnel, said the statement read out by this month’s council president, Nigerian Ambassador Joy Ogwu.

UNIFIL was set up in 1978 and expanded in 2006 to monitor the end of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

UN special coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said last week there had been several incidents in southern Lebanon and some were “clearly organized.” Some Western diplomats say Hezbollah members have encouraged and taken part in the confrontations, a charge the group denies.

Neighboring Israel has criticized the UN peacekeeping operation in Lebanon for not stopping weapons it says are still flowing to Hezbollah guerrillas. The United Nations says that is the responsibility of Lebanese authorities.

The Security Council statement called for Lebanese army troops in the south to be increased.

A Lebanese commander was quoted in the Beirut newspaper an-Nahar on Friday as saying an extra brigade would go to the south to reinforce the estimated 7,000 troops there.

Villagers in south Lebanon have blamed French peacekeepers for the trouble, saying their patrols had become provocative and intrusive, including taking photographs of people inside their houses.

France’s UN Ambassador Gerard Araud, speaking after the Security Council meeting, denied that UNIFIL troops had acted incorrectly.

UNIFIL movements had been “completely coordinated” with the Lebanese armed forces several months in advance and the local population had also been informed, he told reporters. French soldiers “were not taking pictures [and] didn’t enter into any private property,” he said.

Ahmadinejad questions ‘fairy tale’ Holocaust, denies being anti-Semite – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iranian president says ‘West allows everybody to question prophets and even God but not to open the black box of a historic event.’

By DPA

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the historic dimensions of the Holocaust but rejected the label of an anti-Semite, the Fars news agency reported Friday.

“The West made a claim – about the Holocaust – and urges all the people in the world to accept it or otherwise go to prison,” Ahmadinejad told a group of Islamic scholars Thursday in Nigeria, where he attended a summit of the Developing Eight, a group of countries with large Muslim populations.

“The West allows everybody to question prophets and even God but not to pose a simple question and open the black box of a historic event,” he charged.

	Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking in Shahr-e-Kord, June 16, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

Ahmadinejad had earlier sparked international fury by calling for the eradication of Israel from the Middle East and its relocation to Europe or North America and by describing the murders of 6 million European Jews by Germany’s Nazi regime as a “fairy tale.”

He said Thursday that the Holocaust was an excuse for Israel and the West to take land away from millions of Palestinians and give it to Israel.

Iran does not recognize Israel and maintains that a referendum by all Palestinians, including refugees, and Jews should decide the future fate of a Palestinian state.

“We are after a diplomatic settlement through a referendum, but they [the West] say Ahmadinejad wants to kill people and is an anti-Semite,” the Iranian president said.

“No, this is wrong,” he added. “I love all Muslims, Christians and Jews. What I dislike are the Zionists, which are a party that has availed itself of the Holocaust as an excuse to establish the illegitimate state of Israel.”

The West fears the political differences between Iran and Israel might lead to a military confrontation between the two countries. The international concern has increased amid fears that Iran might be using its nuclear program to make an atomic bomb.

Iran possesses 2,000-kilometer range missiles capable of targeting any part of Israel.

Tehran has said it has no secret nuclear projects and all its military capabilities were merely for the purpose of self-defense and deterrence.

But Tehran also warned that if Israel attacks the country’s nuclear sites, Iran would use its missiles to bomb Israel in retaliation.

Foreign ministry: Libyan aid ship won’t dock in Gaza – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Decision comes after Israeli UN envoy condemns ‘questionable and provocative’ mission aiming to violate Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza.

A Moldavian-flagged ship carrying aid from Libya which had intended to sail to the Gaza Strip will instead dock in Egypt’s el-Arish on the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, foreign ministry officials said Saturday.

The change in destination, agreed by the ship’s captain, followed talks between Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Greek and Moldavian counterparts, the report said.

	Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
	Photo by: AP

The ship – named the “Amalthia” – is due to depart from the Greek port of Lavrio, with 12 crew and 15 activists and supporters on board, and about 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid supplied by the Gadhafi International Charity and Development Association, which is headed by Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the second-born son of the Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.

On Friday, Israel launched a diplomatic move at the United Nations in efforts to enlist the international community to help prevent a Libyan aid ship from sailing to Gaza, in violation of Israel’s naval blockade.

In an official letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Israeli ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev wrote that “Israel calls upon the international community to exert its influence on the government of Libya to demonstrate responsibility and prevent the ship from departing to the Gaza Strip.”

Shalev’s letter to Ban went on to clarify that “Israel reserves the right under international law to prevent this ship from violating the existing naval blockade on the Gaza Strip.”

Workers load supplies on to a cargo ship at the Lavrio port, about 60 kilometers southeast of Athens, Greece, on Friday, July 9, 2010.AP

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// Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza in 2007 following a bloody Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. Israel recently eased the terms of the land blockade on the territory, following a deadly raid of a Turkish aid ship, but the naval blockade has so far remained in place.

In the letter, Shalev further urged the international community “to discourage their nationals from taking part in such action,” adding that Israel “expects the international community to ensure that this ship does not sail.”

“The declared intentions of this mission are even more questionable and provocative given the recent measures taken by Israel to ensure the increase of humanitarian aid flowing into the Gaza Strip,” the letter went on to say, adding that Israel has taken upon itself the responsibility of ensuring the transfer of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.

Copies of the letter were also submitted to the current president of the UN Security Council as well as the president of the General Assembly, a Libyan national who previously served as Libya’s foreign minister.