March | 2012 | WarSclerotic

Archive for March 2012

Barak heads to Germany, Iran to top agenda

March 20, 2012

Barak heads to Germany, Iran to top agenda – JPost – Defense.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

03/20/2012 11:03

Defense minister to meet with counterpart, German foreign minister; will discuss delivery of new submarine.

Israel Navy submarine sails off Tel Aviv

By Baz Ratner/Reuters

Defense Minister Ehud Barak was scheduled to depart for Germany on Tuesday for discussions with his counterpart in Berlin, the German foreign minister and other officials. Barak was expected to discuss the advancement of a deal providing Israel with a sixth German-manufactured Dolphin-class submarine.

Last month, German Secretary of State for Defense Christian Schmidt told The Jerusalem Post that the contract for the submarine had already been signed a few weeks earlier and that Germany had agreed to subsidize its cost.

The Defense Ministry initiated talks with Germany last year about buying a sixth submarine but Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government initially balked when Israel asked that it underwrite part of the cost. In late November, though, Germany announced that it had approved the deal and that it would pay for part of the vessel.

In late February, German media reported that the submarine slated for delivery to Israel had been openly placed in the harbor of the northern city of Kiel.

Also on the agenda during Barak’s visit were developments in the Middle East and dealing with the Iranian issue, along with discussions on security cooperation between Israel and Germany.

Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.

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Why Iran’s nuclear weapons must be stopped

March 20, 2012

News.

Nigeria

By Legend Joseph

FOR years, Iranian nuclear scientists have been involved in unexplained accidents and plane crashes.

And will it not be unwise for a knowledgeable mind to attribute these incidences to accidents or mere happenstance?

The United States and Israel have a long history of amity and have cooperated on many grounds, including intelligence gathering much of which has to do with Iran and Saddam’s Iraq.

A good example was the 2009 Stuxnet cyber attack that stymied the logic board that controlled the spinning centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility.

In the case of the 2011 plane crash, Russian security sources confirmed that the dead scientists worked at the Iranian controversial Bushehr nuclear plant on the Persian Gulf.

So far, there have been five identifiable pillars to Israel’s approach to crippling Iran’s nuclear ambition.

They include the political approach, covert measure, counter-proliferation, sanctions, and force regime change.

Of these, besides being preemptive, the most tantalising has been the covert measure, which analysts believe has resulted in the deaths of several nuke experts in the oil-rich country.

Although Israel continues to deny complicity, a former Mossad officer, who goes by the pseudonym Michael Ross, confirmed that these attacks on Iranian nuclear experts bear the hallmarks of an Israeli operation.

According to him, ‘This tactic is not a new one for the Mossad, and worked very effectively against Egypt’s rocket program in the 1960s.’

In the said period, the scientists involved in the project were assassinated and the programme suffered immensely.

But, is Tehran really seeking to be armed with dangerous weapons as alleged? What evidence is available to prove this?

From Yukiya Amano, the United Nations atomic agency chief, came the report recently that Tehran wasn’t cooperating enough to enable the agency provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.

Two deadly explosions, in the recent past, around the country’s steel complex seem to support claims that Iran is defiantly engaged in something shady.

A recent media report went into great detail about the involvement, with Tehran, of a nuclear proliferator, A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani, who reportedly ran a black market how-to nuclear operation that benefited the likes of Iran, North Korea and Gaddafi’s Libya.

In this Fox News exclusive, documents, photos and a dramatic confession letter Khan wrote to his wife, detailing how he sold nuclear weapon materials to Iran, North Korea and Libya were presented.

Iran has however denied all accusations that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, insisting that its programme is aimed at generating electricity.

But why would anyone seek to stop a sovereign state from engaging in any activity it so desires?

Is Iran not a state like nuke-armed Israel? The answer isn’t far-fetched. Albeit countries are the same – at least based on their appearances on the world map – their ideologies and philosophies are poles apart.

Long before Pakistan became a nuclear power, India was already armed with the same weapon and never posed a threat to any country, including its belligerent neighbour, Pakistan.

But upon acquisition, Pakistan kept threatening to unleash it on India, a development that led India to device means of responding, to totally wipe out Pakistan, should the latter ever set out to translate its threat into action (see the incisive work Why Nations Go To War by John Stoessinger).

Yet the two are countries but with distinct temperaments. It is partly for this same reason of hostility and incontinence that everyone should naysay Iran’s foray into nuclear power.

No one begrudges a child for having large teeth if he has enough flesh to cover them.

But primitive Iran lacks such flesh and must thus be deterred willy-nilly.

The country’s antecedents show it will not hesitate to unleash its nuclear warheads on others, especially Israel and Saudi Arabia, at the slightest provocation.

Besides the fact that Tehran does not recognise Israel as a state and has thus offered bounties to Palestinian families of suicide bombers, it had once threatened to ‘wipe the Zionist state out of the map.’

Three years back, on September 24, 2009, about 50 Christian leaders in the US called on world leaders to take urgent action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would ‘almost certain[ly]’ spark an arms race in the Middle East.

‘For the world’s most dangerous regime to obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons is something that neither the United States nor the community of civilised nations can allow,’ the leaders asserted.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, voiced a similar concern, explaining that if Iran obtained nuclear weapons it could ‘bring terrorism beyond our wildest dreams.’

It is believed that a nuke-armed Iran will lead to a multi-nuclear Middle East, even undermining the state of Israel; bring about a nightmare scenario in which numerous authoritarian and radical regimes, such as Sudan’s, Syria’s and Yemen’s, possess nuclear weapons; encourage other potential proliferators around the world, including terrorist groups such as Al Shabab, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Taliban, to toe this dangerous path; and making Hamas and Hezbollah to be more aggressive and daring with a nuclear-armed Iran standing behind them like an agent provocateur of a kind.

Like the castrated giant called African Union, the UN is preoccupied with debates and fruitless inspections.

Israel, the potential target of a nuke-armed Iran, is busy with some ingenious means of stymieing the effort, including a missile defence system.

Before it achieves that, should it attack Iran as it seems determined to do and as it once did Iraq’s Osirak Nuclear Research Facility in June 1981, it may enjoy some global support.

But such air strikes will retard the programme only for a couple of years while spurring the Iranians on to heightened efforts, just as a large number of its students have recently decided to offer courses in Nuclear Physics in the wake of Mostafa Roshan’s death.

Besides heightening tension in the Middle East, such attack will have disastrous effects on the global oil price, though to Nigeria’s advantage, and may not do anything in destroying the already acquired nuclear knowledge.

Expectedly, Iran will hit back, especially in blocking the Straits of Hormuz, which US may not tolerate; sponsor suicide attacks against Israeli interest, as has just happened in Georgia and India; and arm Taliban fighters, with possible spillover effect on the FIFA U-17 Female Championship in Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year.

Beyond any of the five approaches Israel has adopted, liaising with the Chinese, Pakistanis, Russians (and uranium-rich Niger) may help halt Iran’s nuclear programme.

The ball lies in the court of this triumvirate to stop aiding and abetting Tehran.

The UN Secretary General also needs to act promptly on the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

More economic sanctions may also help deter Iran which lacks domestic refining capacity as it imports some 40 per cent of its refined petroleum products, a development that may make it jettison its ambition.

While one may not support the murderous CIA, Mossad and M16, something urgent needs to be done about Tehran’s ambition.

The world, including African countries, should not fold its arms and watch a country like Iran achieve its nuclear ambition.

The consequences will be more devastating than the overall threat a nuclear-armed apartheid South Africa once posed to Africa, especially a highly opinionated Nigeria.

Imagine the threat Al Shabab will pose to the Horn of Africa, especially Kenya and Ethiopia, or the future of Nigeria in the face of a Maitasine or Boko Haram that has access to a nuke-armed Iran.

In the meantime, while the US and UE sanctions bite hard on Iran and Israel continues to deplete the ranks of Iran’s nuclear scientists through state-sponsored assassinations, no one should rejoice at such murders, but one must not rush to assist or even sympathise with Tehran either.

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The Iranian Threat Is Clear and Present, Not Obscure and Distant

March 20, 2012

Articles: The Iranian Threat Is Clear and Present, Not Obscure and Distant.

By William Sullivan

Fear evokes erratic responses from Westerners. If, for example, one is to argue based on loose and contentious evidence that the proliferation of an innate gaseous compound will cause the sea levels to rise and the earth to scorch at some obscure date in the distant future, fear is invoked to warrant the steepest international measures to alleviate the potential threat, however unsubstantiated.

If, on the other hand, a dictator believes that his divinely ordained objective is to destroy another nation while routinely reaffirming his pressing dedication to this undertaking, and there is nearly unanimous agreement that his nation is seeking nuclear weapons to potentially achieve those ends, fear is decried as an irrational and an unnecessary addition to the international discourse.

The latter is the position taken by many Westerners voicing their opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent pronouncement that Israel may consider a unilateral strike against subversive Iranian nuclear facilities. Among these voices is Israeli author David Grossman, who observes in The Guardian that:

Binyamin Netanyahu likes to fire up his audiences with frequent references to the Holocaust, Jewish destiny and the fate of future generations. In light of this doomsday rhetoric, one wonders if Israel’s prime minister can always distinguish between the real dangers confronting the country and shadows of past traumas. […]

If all that – the tough talk, the big bellows of catastrophe -, is no more than a tactic meant to enlist the world to tighten the screws on Iran, and if the tactic were to succeed without an Israeli attack, then we would happily acknowledge, of course, that the prime minister had done an excellent job, for which he deserves due credit and kudos. But if he indeed thinks and operates within a hermetic worldview that swings between poles of disaster and salvation, we are in a very different universe of discourse.

Gloomy as it may be, it is practical that the world, and particularly the Jews in Israel, be often reminded of the potential destruction that radical and militant anti-Semitism can produce, especially considering that Israelis are clearly being targeted by such contemporary doctrines. To know what is at stake is certainly not a bad thing. Such reminders strengthen resolve and renew focus on Israeli survival — which is, of course, why anti-Zionist elements work tirelessly to have us forget the Holocaust, denying its severity and significance, and sometimes even denying that it ever occurred at all.

Mr. Grossman argues, however, that focusing on these “doomsday” scenarios is dangerous, and that fear has caused Israeli leadership to accept a worldview where the choices are only “disaster and salvation.”

The folly, however, is in assuming that Netanyahu has chosen this worldview that “swings between poles of disaster and salvation.” Any discussion, if we are to be honest, must be tethered to the indisputable fact that “disaster and salvation” are the only two options Israel has been given by its counterpart in the conflict. The mere existence of the Jewish state is eternally intolerable to the current Iranian regime, as it has affirmed on many occasions. Within this context, continued existence is “salvation,” and as the only alternative to existence is non-existence, “disaster” is an apt description for the other option Iran has presented Israel.

Iran has never presented any acceptable circumstances that allow for Israel to maintain its sovereignty. Furthermore, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has stated unequivocally that Iran’s perpetual struggle to remove Israel will culminate in an inevitable “vast explosion that will know no boundaries,” and included in these threats are warnings that this “explosion” will “burn” all of Israel’s Western allies as well. Again, pertinent to note, yet somehow overlooked by Israel’s critics, is that many of these threats are not contingent upon any specific Israeli action, but they are a promise of what will come of Israel simply continuing to exist. As long as a country called Israel can be found on maps and its people live beneath that banner sporting the Star of David, we can be sure that Iran will want to see that country destroyed and will take steps to achieve that goal.

Given this clearly one-sided and warlike stance that Iran has taken, criticism of an “irrational” Netanyahu would be comical if it were not so misguided and deadly. In reality, if the world disagrees with Netanyahu that military strikes should be considered to prevent a nuclear Iran, the only reason for that disagreement could be that Netanyahu is the only one taking Iran’s threats seriously — which he does for the sake of his people, not because of some maniacal hatred compelling him to attack a much larger nation that also happens to be a well-equipped military power.

And that is the hard truth of the matter. Despite the stern warnings of a strike, no one wants Israel to go to war with Iran, least of all the Israelis or their prime minister. But such a potentially costly and devastating decision must be weighed against the threat. The problem is that as Iran comes ever closer to acquiring nuclear weaponry, the threat compounds exponentially. But rather than recognizing that reality, Westerners choose to manipulate the threat level to appear less dire.

Israelis like David Grossman may find it preferable to avoid taking the costly measures necessary to keep such weapons from the Iranian theocracy in hopes that they may have a change of heart or decide not to use them. Pundits like Rajan Menon of the Huffington Post may find it comforting in the bastion of Cold War understanding, suggesting that Israel’s own nuclear arsenal will deter Iran from employing its newly acquired warheads. But Grossman’s blind hope and good wishes won’t make the Iranian regime any more likely to accept Israel’s sovereignty, or any less likely to employ the most powerful methods to end it. And Menon’s naiveté is quickly exposed by his refusal to understand that “mutual assured destruction,” the deterrent to a nuclear showdown in the twentieth century, is an absent element given the Islamic theocracy’s religious imperative that values martyrdom above all things.

Ehud Olmert once said that “it’s quite obvious” why “Israel will not tolerate nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran.” Time seems to have muddied exactly how obvious it is for the Western world, though. And time, as it turns out, is the precise reason why an attack may become necessary — the very real threat of a nuclear Iran becomes less manageable as it passes. And what is at stake is no less than a Jewish genocide at the hands of a despotic madman.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is not a fear-monger, as his critics are wont to claim. He has a very justifiable reason to remind the world, “History will not give the Jewish people another chance.”

William Sullivan blogs at politicalpalaverblog.blogspot.com and he can now be followed on Twitter.

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Iran Drumbeat Watch: ‘March of Folly’ Redux? – James Fallows – The Atlantic

March 20, 2012

Iran Drumbeat Watch: ‘March of Folly’ Redux? – James Fallows – International – The Atlantic.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, in his Bloomberg View incarnation, reports just now from Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s administration is “growing confident” about the necessity, the desirability, and the feasibility of an aerial strike against Iran’s potential nuclear installations. Please read the whole thing, but here are representative samples:

A widely held assumption about a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is that it would spur Iranian citizens — many of whom appear to despise their rulers — to rally around the regime. But Netanyahu, I’m told, believes a successful raid could unclothe the emperor, emboldening Iran’s citizens to overthrow the regime.

And:

Another theory making the rounds was that Obama has so deeply internalized the argument that Israel has the sovereign right to defend itself against a threat to its existence that an Israeli attack, even one launched against U.S. wishes, wouldn’t anger him. In this scenario, Obama would move immediately to help buttress Israel’s defenses against an Iranian counterstrike.

And:

Finally, and even more disquieting, was the contention I heard repeatedly that an Israeli strike in the next six months – – conducted before Iran can further harden its nuclear sites, or make them redundant — will set back the ayatollahs’ atomic ambitions at least five years. American military planners tend to think that Israel could do only a year or two worth of damage.

I am not capable of sorting through the elaborate layers of bluff and counterbluff that may lie behind the Israeli assumptions, or assertions, that Jeff Goldberg reports. And neither I nor anyone else can prove what I strongly believe: that such “best-case” predictions, assuming that the Israeli officials really hold them, are wildly unrealistic. The first, in particular, smacks unmistakably of Dick Cheney’s “we will be greeted as liberators” forecast about invading Iraq, or the earlier CIA fantasies that the downtrodden people of Cuba would rise to welcome the Bay of Pigs landing party in 1961.

What I can say is this: if Israeli officials really have adopted best-case-ism as their military “planning” doctrine and basis for decision-making, we are fully into “March of Folly” territory, and the “psychological inversion” that a reader described recently has in fact taken place.

When Barbara Tuchman coined the phrase March of Folly, she meant self-destructive behavior on a collective, organizational scale, as a group walked into a disaster it could easily have avoided.To qualify as epic-scale folly, by her standards, a ruinous decision had to:
-arise from a sustained set of policies, not just one instantaneous wrong choice;
-involve many people’s agreement and collaboration, not just the excesses of one madman;
-prove clearly destructive to the long-term interests of the group involved; and
-have been warned against in real time, before the bad consequences happened, not just in retrospect.

If Netanyahu’s team goes ahead, they will have met those tests.

The same day’s news cycle of course contains this lead item in the New York Times, at right. Nearly eight years ago, the Atlantic commissioned a similar war game, which led to similar conclusions.

Ido Oren, of the University of Florida, whom I quoted several days ago on the bureaucratic struggle between hawks and doves within both the U.S. and the Israeli governments (with the military establishment of both countries mainly dovish), says that this Times story can easily be interpreted in the same way:

I wonder if the significance of the story is not in its substance so much as in the very fact that this substance was leaked to the Times, apparently by sources in the Pentagon and/or the military. The leaking can plausibly be interpreted as a political act designed to put a brake on the pro-war momentum.

Here’s what I take to be the story’s key passages [emphasis added by Oren]:
“A classified war simulation exercise held this month to assess the American military’s capabilities to respond to an Israeli attack on Iran forecast that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.
. . .
“the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policymakers over the consequences of any possible Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those within the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.

“The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first-strike would likely have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.”

Making life-and-death decisions in full, grave awareness of the tragic potential is something that leaders, and commanders, must finally do. But to make such decision in a blithe “what could go wrong?” spirit — that is what ruinous folly means.

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US Army Chief Meets with Gantz after Warning

March 20, 2012

US Army Chief Meets with Gantz after Warning Iran – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

US armed forces chief Dempsey met with IDF Gen. Gantz Monday after warning Iran it will suffer if it “misjudges” America’s intentions.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 3/20/2012, 10:42 AM

Dempsey and Gantz meet in Washington

Israel news photo courtesy of IDF spokesmen

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey met with IDF Chief of Staff Benny. Gantz Monday after having warned Iran it will suffer if it “misjudges” America’s intentions.

Details of their conversation were not released. but it is widely assumed that Iran headed the agenda.

Two days before their meeting, Dempsey said in an interview that Iran should understand it would be making a “a gross misjudgment” if it thinks that the United States is not serious about preventing Tehran from becoming armed with a nuclear weapon.

Dempsey recently was criticized for having told Congress that he views the Iranian regime as being “rational.” He explained what he meant in an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service, in which he stated, “Rational meant to me that there is an evident pattern of behavior that this regime has followed since the Islamic Revolution that, first and foremost, expresses their intention to remain in power and to preserve the regime.

“Based on that, there are some things that we know they will respond to. That’s a rational actor.”

He noted that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein misjudged the will of the United States. Iran “could get it wrong and suffer the [same] consequences” as Hussein, Dempsey added.

Israel and the United States publicly agree on keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran but openly disagree on the timing of a military strike, if necessary. The Obama administration wants to wait for the possibility of economic sanctions pressuring Iran to surrender its refusal to allow full international inspection of its nuclear facilities. President Obama also wants to avoid another war before the elections in November.

Israel fears that Iran is close to the point of burying its nuclear facilities so deep underground that they would be virtually immune from a military attack.

Dempsey said intelligence information is an important factor in judging whether sanctions can be effective.

“It’s time not necessarily measured in terms of months or years, but in terms of our ability and capability to collect intelligence, to see if they cross any thresholds,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Gantz met with Dempsey in Washington after having visited his Canadian counterpart, General Walt Natynczyk.

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Barak: Israel must take U.S. vote into account when mulling Iran strike

March 20, 2012

Barak: Israel must take U.S. vote into account when mulling Iran strike – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Defense minister says Israel should increase its sensitivity to requirements based on the ‘reality in the U.S. and adopt a policy that strengthens the special relationship between the two countries.’

By Jonathan Lis

Defense Minister Ehud Barak called on Israel yesterday to take into account the U.S. election campaign, hinting that it would be unwise to launch an attack on Iran without American support.

“Security relations and strategic collaboration between the United States and Israel have reached the highest level in the history of ties between the two countries,” Barak told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

	Defense Minister Ehud Barak, left, with the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Shaul Mofaz, yesterday.
	Photo by: Michal Fattal

“This fact has a clear, immediate impact on Israeli security, and on the future of the country’s standing in the international community.”

Committee chairman Shaul Mofaz (Kadima ) said Barak was “acting irresponsibly, standing on the media stage,” but Barak disagreed.

According to the defense minister, “Israel should increase its sensitivity, awareness and attentiveness to requirements based on the reality in the United States and adopt a policy that strengthens the special relationship between the two countries.”

Barak said “many experts around the world believe that refraining from action would mean a nuclear Iran, and that dealing with a nuclear Iran would be more dangerous, and danger literally means more bloodshed.”

An Iran with a nuclear-weapons capability must not arise, and Israel is insisting on this point in talks with its friends, Barak said.

“This is what our allies and we ourselves are saying. And we mean what we say,” he said. “The world, including the current U.S. government, understands and accepts the fact that Israel sees the threat somewhat differently, and that in the end Israel is responsible for reaching decisions pertaining to its future, security and fate.”

Mofaz, for his part, told Barak to “stop the prattle on the Iranian issue; you and the prime minister are acting irresponsibly, standing on the media stage.” According to Mofaz, Mossad chiefs past and present take issue with Barak’s views. “Because of what you’ve said, newspapers are outlining the routes the [attack] planes would take,” Mofaz said.

Barak also discussed the uprising in Syria, including the fighting in Damascus yesterday. “The Assad regime is in a continual state of weakening and decline, and the events this morning in Damascus prove that,” he said.

“The lack of a clear outcome increases losses on both sides, and the regime is showing extreme cruelty toward the Syrian people. All this is happening in front of the cameras, yet it remains hard to spot an end point and a timetable for the morning after,” he added.

“We are monitoring the events in Syria, with an eye on any efforts to transfer weapons that would alter the balance. And we reserve the right to defend Israel’s security interests. Events in Syria increase the uncertainty and the need to prepare for any scenario.”

Barak said the Syrian regime was trying to use Russia as “a barrier” against steps by the international community.

He said “recently we have witnessed efforts made by Hezbollah to launch attacks on Israeli targets overseas, and these have been thwarted.” Regarding Israel’s recent air strikes and Islamic Jihad’s rocket attacks, Barak said Israel had strengthened its deterrent capacity against groups in the Gaza Strip.

“We’re talking about a round of fighting that ended favorably for Israel due to correct, appropriate actions by the IDF and the Shin Bet [security service].”

Barak said Islamic Jihad “took a devastating blow, both in terms of the strikes against its operatives and the damage to its infrastructure.”

Out of desperation, Islamic Jihad fired rockets at Israeli civilians, but the attacks were thwarted by the Iron Dome missile-defense system, Barak said. He said Iron Dome’s success improved the political leaders’ room to maneuver.

Barak warned that terror organizations in Gaza would continue to try to carry out attacks on Israel; for example, by attempting to kidnap soldiers or civilians.

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Lieberman: Ashton’s comparison of Toulouse attack to Gaza deaths ‘inappropriate’

March 20, 2012

Lieberman: Ashton’s comparison of Toulouse attack to Gaza deaths ‘inappropriate’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

In event honoring Palestinian refugees, EU FM draws a link between killing of French Jewish rabbi, children to Gaza civilian deaths, Assad’s crackdown on Syria unrest.

By Barak Ravid

On Monday, Jewish institutions around the world stepped up security after a gunman killed four people – three of them children – at a Jewish school in the southwestern French city of Toulouse.

Initial ballistic investigations suggest that the gun used in Monday morning’s attack was the same gun used to murder two French paratroopers last week, and was apparently used in a similar way.

	Police officers and firefighters gather at the site of a shooting in Toulouse, southwestern France, Monday, March 19, 2012.
	Photo by: AP

Later that day, European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton caused a stir after she apparently drew a link between the Toulouse attack earlier in the day, the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip, as well as to the Norway killing spree late last years.

Speaking at conference titled “Palestine Refugees in the changing Middle East” in Brussels, Ashton spoke of the role of youth in Palestine, who, she said: “Against all the odds, they continue to learn, to work, to dream and aspire to a better future.”

The top EU official then added: “And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances – the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives.”

Responding to Ashton’s comments on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, on an official visit to China, said the EU FM’s comments were “inappropriate and I hope that Ashton reexamines and retracts them.”

“Israel is the most moral country in the world, despite having to fight terrorists operating from within a civilian population. The IDF is doing everything it can to not hurt that population even though it is defending terrorists,” Lieberman said.

	EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, left, shakes hands with foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman before a meeting in Jerusalem, Friday, June 17, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

The FM added that the “children Ashton needs to focus on are the children of south Israel, who live in constant fear of Gaza rocket attacks.”

Also responding to the comments Tuesday, Kadima chairperson and Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni said that Ashton’s comparison “between the murder of children in Toulouse and the massacre [Syrian President Bashar] Assad is leading in Syria, and the situation in Gaza is reprehensible, infuriating, and wrong.”

“A hate crime or a leader murdering his people is not like a country fighting terror, even if civilians are hurt,” Livni said, adding that Ashton’s comment “represents the misconception in the world concerning the State of Israel and the current leadership’s inability to create the appropriate moral distinction.”

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Rocket roulette

March 20, 2012

Rocket roulette – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Hezbollah, along with its tens of thousands of rockets in Lebanon, poses an even bigger threat to Israel than the one from the south.

By Moshe Arens

n the battle against the terrorists in Gaza, the rules of the game are clear to both sides. The rules are probabilistic, and the game is a Middle Eastern version of Russian roulette. A few rockets from Gaza onto southern Israel are enough to send more than 1 million Israelis running for cover and to keep children from going to school. If the rocket attacks result in significant loss of life, the Israeli government will be left with no choice but to undertake a major ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

Both sides still have painful memories of Operation Cast Lead, which took place less than three years ago. The terrorists in Gaza are counting on the Israeli government’s hesitation to undertake such an operation again. The decision about doing so will depend on whether the rocket fire causes casualties, which neither side can predict with certainty.

The probabilities that govern this “game” have changed with the introduction of the Iron Dome batteries that shield some of the cities in the south. It has become more difficult for the terrorists to cause substantial harm to life and limb in Israel, and the likelihood of a major Israeli ground operation in response to rocket attacks has therefore decreased. But in order to decrease the risk of casualties, ordinary life for 1 million Israelis in the south must be suspended when the first rockets hit, and remain suspended until the residents are assured that further rocket attacks are not expected. This uneasy equilibrium between Israel and the terrorists in Gaza cannot last forever.

The root cause of this situation is the large quantity of rockets that have been amassed in Gaza, a stockpile of weapons that is continually expanding. The number of rockets and their range keeps increasing as time goes on, and more and more Israeli cities are coming into range of these rockets. This means that the more time passes, the more the terrorist threat to Israel’s civilian population grows.

This dangerous process began with the disengagement from the Gush Katif settlement bloc in December 2005. Successive Israeli governments, refusing to look reality in the eye, did not muster the courage to halt this process in its infancy. The threat will continue to grow until the weapons held by the terrorists in the Gaza Strip are destroyed and the resupply is blocked. This should have been done during Operation Cast Lead, but the task was not completed then.

Ehud Olmert’s government labored under the misapprehension that the operation would serve as a deterrent and that another operation could be launched should deterrence fail – only to learn that repeating such an operation is no simple matter. By now it should be clear that once you start, you had better finish the job.

Israel is the only country in the world that is threatened by terrorists who have established themselves within rocket range of its major population centers, threatening its civilian population. An attack by a few hundred rockets disrupts normal life, and a few thousand rockets lead to a major conflagration. There is no equilibrium point in this confrontation. It is an untenable situation that cannot continue indefinitely.

When deployed, Iron Dome changes the probabilities, but not the underlying situation. The stockpile of rockets will have to be dismantled sooner or later, but deterring terrorists is a tricky business. Many, like Islamic Jihad and the resistance groups in Gaza, cannot be deterred; nothing will stop them. Others, like Hamas and Hezbollah, are to some extent sensitive to pressure from their environment because they have assumed political responsibilities in the areas in which they operate. To evade this pressure, they occasionally use proxies they claim not to be able to control, making deterrence problematic.

Hezbollah, along with its tens of thousands of rockets in Lebanon, poses an even bigger threat to Israel than the one from the south. Hezbollah’s rockets have the range to cover all of Israel, and no “active defense” like Iron Dome can provide the necessary protection. But they endanger not just Israel, but Lebanon, which in effect is sitting on a powder keg as long as Hezbollah deploys these rockets all over the country in which it is based.

A strike to neutralize such a large number of rockets would inevitably blow a good part of Lebanon sky-high. That is something the Lebanese government and all friends of Lebanon need to keep in mind. The biggest enemy of Lebanon are right there within its borders: Hezbollah, which claims to be the protector of Lebanon but in fact puts the country’s very existence at risk. These terrorists need to be disarmed, and the sooner the better.

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Israel Capable of Producing 250 Billion Barrels of Oil

March 20, 2012

Jewish Indy – Israel Capable of Producing 250 Billion Barrels of Oil.

“Our company has mapped over 250 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Israel,” says Dr. Harold Vinegar of Israel Energy Initiative Ltd.

By Ben Bresky
Arutz Sheva
Adar 26, 5772, 20/03/12 04:46

Dr. Harold Vinegar of Israel Energy Initiative Ltd. in Jerusalem is optimistic about Israel’s potential in the oil industry. He spoke to Israel National Radio’s Goldstein on Gelt show with Douglas Goldstein about energy independence and the “black gold” that is underfoot.

To download the podcast click here.

Dr. Vinegar was the chief scientist of Royal Dutch Shell until his retirement in 2008. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and recently made aliyah. Now, he is the chief scientist of Israel Energy Initiative Ltd. in Jerusalem, which is developing Israel’s unconventional oil reserves.

Douglas Goldstein:What are unconventional oil reserves?

Dr. Harold Vinegar:Conventional oil is what everyone imagines. You drill a well and oil comes out of the well under the natural forces in the ground and you basically have an oil and gas well, but there’s a whole other class of oil called “unconventional oil.” This means that when you drill those wells, the oil will require some special treatment in the sub surface in order to get it to move.

There are two classes of unconventional oils. One is the heavy oils in tar sands such as you find in Canada. These are extremely viscous molasses-like oils that need heating in the sub surface in order to get them to move, and the other class is the oil shales of the world, and these have the organic matter that makes up the carriage. It’s solid and it requires heating to a high enough temperature so that the solid basically becomes a liquid in the sub surface and then gets produced as conventional oil once it’s been heated. Those are the unconventional sources of oil.

Israel has oil shale. It doesn’t have much heavy oil, but its oil shale resources are world class, one of the largest and best in the world.

Douglas Goldstein:Why are we only finding out about this now? What’s the history of oil in Israel?

Dr. Harold Vinegar:The oil shales were basically not developed in Israel for two reasons. The first is that basically for as long as I can remember the real price of oil was $130 per barrel, going way back in my career. It’s always been roughly $20 to $25 per barrel in inflation-adjusted terms. That’s just not high enough for the capital cost required to produce unconventionals. You need something of the order of $30 per barrel and starting around 2003, the price of oil on the marketplace started rising and it’s been going up continuously since then and probably will continue to go up. Right now, we see Brent Crude at about $120 per barrel. The time has come that unconventionals are actually economic to develop and this plays in Israel’s favor because it has enormous quantities of this oil shale.

Douglas Goldstein:When you say enormous, what are the specs of that?

Dr. Harold Vinegar:Our company has mapped over 250 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Israel and that’s a conservative estimate. To put that in perspective, Saudi Arabia has about 250 billion barrels of conventional oil reserves in the ground.

What has happened with time is conventional oil has gotten more expensive and unconventional oil has gotten less expensive because there’s a small amount of conventional oil left in the world. Its price is driven by scarcity and as it becomes scarcer, the price goes up. Whereas unconventionals have enormous reserves, they swamp the amount of conventionals. Orders have more magnitude but their cost is driven by technology and if technology improves, the unconventional gets cheaper. Starting a few years ago, they’ve crossed over. The two supply curves have crossed so that marginally the conventional oil that the companies are going after in the Arctic, deep offshore, are actually more expensive than the development of the unconventional, such as the tar sands in Canada and the oil shales in Israel. It’s a flip. Things have changed.

Douglas Goldstein:One of the big complaints that people have about oil shale is that the technology to get it out of the ground can have some bad environmental effects. Is this true or are there ways of dealing with that?

Dr. Harold Vinegar:It’s true that oil shale has to be heated in the subsurface in order to convert it to oil and gas. One has to be careful in terms of the technology that’s deployed and the local geology to be sure that there are not any negative environmental effects. Israel is blessed by having a geological and hydrogeological situation where the aquifers are far below the oil shale and separated from it by 200 meters of impermeable rock, so that there will not be any environmental issues associated with the Israeli oil shale. That’s different than some of the other oil shales in the world, where the aquifer actually flows through the oil shale. Then you have to be very careful about what technology is used to develop it. Israel is in a very good situation that way, enormous reserves, very high quality oil, and very safe environmental issues.

Douglas Goldstein:Why is this not being actively pursued?

Dr. Harold Vinegar:We’re starting up our program here. The first thing that has to be done of course is to appraise the resource. Is it really there? You have to convince yourself that it’s as large and of high quality as I’ve indicated. Our company has been doing an appraisal program. We drilled six appraisal wells in the Shfela Basin, taken thousands of feet of core, and it really is a world class resource.

In the laboratory, we’ve heated the oil shale up and we produced the oil from it. It’s very light. It almost looks like a rosé wine. The thickness of the resource is 300 meters thick. It’s enormously rich and has a very small surface footprint, which is the characteristic of oil shale in general. It’s the densest fossil fuel resource in the world so that projects that are done in oil shale don’t have a very large surface footprint compared to conventional oil.

Douglas Goldstein:Are we seeing companies like Royal Dutch Shell come in with tens of billions of dollars of investment to get the oil out of the ground?

Dr. Harold Vinegar:You’re not seeing Royal Dutch Shell coming into Israel, but they are in the sister deposit in Jordan. During the cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago, Israel and Jordan both were under the sea and they both had simultaneous deposition of the oil shale. They both have equivalent and sister deposit characteristics, and Royal Dutch has been drilling in Jordan for the last few years. They have drilled hundreds of wells and Jordan also has extremely rich oil shale.

What you’re not going to see in Israel is any of the major integrated oil companies coming here. When you do a lot of business in the Arab world, it’s just not advisable for these companies to enter the Israeli market, but the smaller independent oil companies that aren’t doing business there are definitely interested and we’ve had a lot of interest in our company. We’re traded on the New York stock exchange under Genie GNE and our particular company is valued at $250 million.

Douglas Goldstein:Does your company do the research?

Dr. Harold Vinegar: We are a RND and exploration company focused on oil shale and other unconventionals in Israel and other countries of the world. It’s the only pure play that I know of in the oil shale domain. A lot of major oil companies have very small roots in the big companies that work on oil shale, but we are the only company that’s focused entirely on oil shales. We have a lot of intellectual property here. We’re doing research on improving the technology for developing the oil shales and we’re searching for oil shales that meet the characteristics where the technology will be effective and economical.

Douglas Goldstein:How can people follow your work or follow what’s going on in the Israel shale oil area?

Dr. Harold Vinegar: Our company has a website, http://iei-energy.com, and you can read about our developments here. I think the takeaway message that I would like to give is that Israel has an extremely bright energy future. The growth of the natural gas discoveries and the Mediterranean as well as the enormous oil shale deposits on shore means that Israel is going to be a major oil and gas exporting country in the future. Things are really exciting here.

Re-read article at its source

Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the director of Profile Investment Services and the host of the Goldstein on Gelt radio show (Monday nights at 7:00 PM on www.israelnationalradio.com. He is a licensed financial professional both in the U.S. and Israel.

For past episodes of Goldstein on Gelt click here.

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Worldwide condemnation of France killing; NY police tighten security at Jewish sites

March 20, 2012

Worldwide condemnation of France killing; NY police tighten security at Jewish sites.

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Youths hold a banner which reads: “In France, Blacks, Jews and Arabs are killed” during a silent march in Paris to pay tribute to the victims of Toulouse killing spree. (Reuters)

By Al Arabiya with Agencies

The United Nations and Israel led world condemnation of the shooting of three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in France on Monday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it “despicable murder,” as New York police beefed up security around synagogues and Jewish institutions.

Children aged four, five and seven, and a 30-year-old religious education teacher, the father of two of the young victims, were shot dead on Monday as they arrived for classes at the Ozar Hatorah school in the southwestern city of Toulouse.

The killer, riding a powerful scooter, is suspected to be the same gunman who shot dead three soldiers of Arab origin in two incidents earlier this month in Toulouse and nearby Montauban.

“In France today there was a despicable murder of Jews, including small children,” Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud party.

“It is too early to determine exactly what the background to the murderous act was, but we certainly cannot rule out the option that it was motivated by violent and murderous anti-Semitism.”

On the other side of the Middle East conflict, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat also expressed his outrage, saying: “We strongly condemn all terrorist operations, and in particular the attack today in Toulouse.”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killings “in the strongest possible terms.”

Ban was “saddened by the tragic deaths” of the three children and the father of two of the dead children in the shooting in the southwest city of Toulouse, said U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy suspended his re-election campaign until at least Wednesday, as police probed the third fatal shooting in the Toulouse area in eight days.

“In attacking children and a Jewish teacher, the anti-Semitic motive of the attack appears to be obvious,” Sarkozy said in a nationally televised address after he returned to Paris from the scene of the shooting.

In Washington, the White House condemned the “outrageous” and “unprovoked” shooting. “We were deeply saddened to learn of the horrific attack this morning,” said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said tightened surveillance and increased patrols at more than 40 locations citywide came in response to the Toulouse attack and not in response to a specific threat against New York City.

“We know that we’re the top of the terrorist target list, so we’re concerned about the so-called copy-cat syndrome where someone might see the events unfolding in Toulouse and take it upon themselves to act out,” Kelly told reporters, according to Reuters.

He said the additional coverage includes some undercover officers “but it’s largely increased uniformed presence at houses of worship and other locations.”

New York City, home to more than 1.4 million Jews, has the largest Jewish population of any metropolitan area outside of Israel, said Levi Fishman, spokesman UJA-Federation of New York.

The dead teacher was named by a relative as Jonathan Sandler, originally from Jerusalem, who had moved to France last year. He had dual Franco-Israeli nationality.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said: “I strongly condemn this odious crime and express the horror that this blind violence inspires. Nothing is more intolerable than the murder of innocent children.”

The Vatican also voiced outrage, with spokesman Federico Lombardi condemning the “horrific and heinous act,” noting that it followed other “senseless violence” in France.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the killings “an act of irredeemable evil.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke of an act of “calculated cruelty” which he said would “unite all decent people in revulsion and condemnation.”

Meanwhile Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti expressed “outrage and alarm,” stressing that “anti-Semitism, xenophobia and intolerance are utterly contrary to the… values that underlie all of humanity.”

His Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy said he was “shocked by the cruelty,” and his Belgian counterpart voiced his “horror and indignation.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was swift to stress that “anti-Semitism and violence against Jewish institutions or people of Jewish faith have no place in Europe and must be rigorously punished.”

Poland’s foreign ministry said: “Such acts of terror can have no justification and must be condemned unreservedly by the civilized world.”

Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden also stepped up security around Jewish schools and other buildings, while European Jewish groups urged France to catch the gunman. There were expressions of outrage from Jewish groups on other continents.

“While many of the details are still emerging, it appears that this was a premeditated attack with the intention to murder Jewish children,” said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird sent a message on his Twitter account Monday morning expressing his “solemn and sincere condolences to those affected by the shootings at Toulouse,” as Canada’s Jewish community said it shared “the terrible pain” being felt in Toulouse and beyond.

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