WarSclerotic

3.3.12 BREAKING NEWS North Korea ‘Allgegdly’ Tested Nuclear Warhead for Iran.

by John Galt
March 3, 2012 23:00 ET
The story breaking in the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zietung this morning via the Austrian wire service, ATA, is one that should not come as a shock to those who understand the evolution of the Iranian nuclear program nor its intended goals. The Pakistani Professor, Abudal Qadeer Khan, who was the father of that nation’s nuclear weapons program and designer for both the Iranian and North Korean weapons programs, would never approach the task of creating a viable nuclear weapons facility without some obvious and logical steps. First, by duplicating his work in Pakistan, it is quite obvious that the design for a basic, functioning atomic warhead using highly enriched uranium could be duplicated in any nation willing to invest the capital to do so and risk the consequences from alienation and condemnation from the West and much of the “world” community. Secondly, with such a functioning design, the ability to replicate and test using enriched uranium from any nation before implementing full or maximum production to yield more fissionable material would be the first logical step.
Thus I present to my readers the story mentioned above (click on the titles to read the story in German at the source as I have provided the best translation that I have available using two free online translation programs):

North Korea Tested Uranium Warheads for Iran

North Korea detonated two secret tests of atomic warheads with highly enriched uranium in 2010 according to a German press report.  The newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported with reference to western security circles, as some secret services assumed that the government in P’yongyang at least one of these tests had carried out for the Iranians.

This would mean that Teheran, with North Korean aid, has constructed and already tested an atomic warhead. According to the newspaper  Welt am Sonntag this assumption is based on data of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). Accordingly, the Swedish nuclear physicist Lars-Erik De Geer is based on data from monitoring stations in South Korea, Japan and Russia believe that North Korea instead of the two secret uranium tests as in two earlier tests in 2006 and 2009 used plutonium. In January, this was reported in the journal “Nature” in advance of de Geer research results.

The longtime director of the Policy Planning Staff in the German Defense Ministry, Hans Rühle, writes in Welt am Sonntag that “some of which now confirms intelligence that North Korea has actually conducted a nuclear test in 2010, at least for Iran.”  This would mean that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which  also provided a document, “which was that it was the religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini himself, who decided in 1984, to resume nuclear weapons program after the overthrow of the Shah.”

This means the meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama on Sunday is probably a final notification that events are now in motion which will occur with or without U.S. support. The first window for such an attack is open now through May as when the summer sand storms and shortened days begin, the practicality of hitting the Iranians in such an operation does also.

 (If anyone has a better translation, please contact me at johngaltfla@aol.com with the better version-John)
3.4.12 0100 ET: Title revised thanks to one “human translation” clarifying last portion of the article and one more pending from Europe-JG

Sabbath Rocket Attacks Continue – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Kassam rockets

Israel news photo: Wikimedia Common

Saturday, shortly before dusk, terrorists in the Gaza strip fired two rockets into Israel

The rockets landed in an open field in the Eshkol Regional Council.

No physical injuries or property damage was reported.

The Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades – the Hamas terror militia responsible for mortar and rocket attacks on Israel – refused to comment on the attack.

Saturday’s rocket attack follows the firing of three rockets into the same region of Israel on Friday.

No physical injuries or property damage was reported in that incident, either.

The Eshkol Regional Council lies on the Ashkelon coast, South of Tel Aviv and is a routinely targeted by terrorists firing rockets and mortars.

The IDF spokesperson’s officer confirmed the rocket attacks.  No military response has been reported as of yet.

Why is this Netanyahu-Obama meeti… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By HERB KEINON 03/04/2012 07:32

Analysis: During first years of presidency Obama had few qualms about “showing daylight” between Israel, US… now those calculations changed.

By Reuters

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is leaving Ottawa Sunday morning, where he had a very friendly meeting with a very friendly prime minister, for Washington and his ninth meeting with US President Barack Obama.

Nine meetings with the president of the United States is not an insignificant number. But this meeting is shaping up to be different from the other eight for three main reasons.

First, this is the prime minister’s first trip abroad since taking office in 2009 without his trusted chief of staff, Natan Eshel. Eshel – who up until the one-day trip Netanyahu took to Cyprus last month had been by the prime minister’s side on each of his voyages abroad – was important to Netanyahu because he gave him peace of mind. Eshel ran interference on political and personnel matters so that Netanyahu had the industrial quiet he needed to think about and deal with the larger issues.

And with Eshel gone – he signed a plea bargain agreement last month that forced him out of office because of inappropriate conduct toward a female subordinate known only as “R.” – the Prime Minister’s Office has been turned upside down. Netanyahu will walk into the Oval Office on Monday – some are calling it the most fateful meeting so far because of the focus on Iran – with a staff that has just undergone a major upheaval.

Not only is Netanyahu’s top adviser no longer by his side, but his communications director, Yoaz Hendel – a strategic thinker in his own right – has resigned as a result of the affair, making Liran Dan, Netanyahu’s spokesman since August, in charge of the messaging.

While Dan has traveled abroad before with the prime minister, he did so as a spokesman to field journalists’ questions, not as the person in charge of shaping the public message. He is coming off the bench during a very critical part of the game.

Beyond Dan, two of Netanyahu’s other top advisers have the Eshel cloud hanging over them – cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser and military attaché Maj.-Gen. Yohanan Locker. Both men, along with Hendel, took R.’s complaints to the authorities, and were criticized by Netanyahu for doing so without approaching him first.

Granted, Netanyahu – in an apparent attempt to put his office at ease before the trip – extended Locker’s tenure on Wednesday until the end of the year. Yet humans being humans, both Locker and Hauser must be wondering whether they still have the trust and confidence of the prime minister. Netanyahu told Hendel and Hauser point blank they no longer have that confidence, and Hendel resigned as a result.

In a perfect world the country’s citizens should be able to go to sleep knowing their prime minister is entering a meeting with the leader of the free world to talk about an existential issue such as the Iranian threat with both a clear head and a disciplined, loyal, happy, trusting staff.

Netanyahu is not taking such a staff to Washington.

Much has been written about the less than ideal relationship that exists between the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office, and about how the intimacy, chemistry and trust that existed during the Bush years, and part of the Clinton presidency, does not exist today. With Iran on the line, one would want – again in a perfect world – an intimate and harmonious relationship to exist between the two offices. One would also want harmony and trust inside the Prime Minister’s Office itself. Even that, right now, does not exist.

A second major difference in this trip is the degree to which the Palestinian diplomatic track is a non-issue. Just five months after the Palestinian gambit at the United Nations, and all the concern about what it would bring in its wake, Netanyahu is meeting Obama with nobody focusing on the Palestinians.

While Iran was an issue in each of Netanyahu’s previous meeting with Obama, the focus – and the public attention – was all on the Palestinians.

In their last meeting at the UN in September it was about the statehood bid. Before that, last May, the meeting revolved around Obama’s call for an accord to be based on a full return to the June 4, 1967, lines, with mutually-agreed land swaps. And before that, in 2010, the meetings were dominated by the settlement issue.

The focus on the Palestinians during those talks meant that the differences between Obama and Netanyahu were highlighted. And there were differences, significant ones relating not only to the settlements but also to questions such as the applicability any more of the whole land for peace equation – with Obama still locked into it, and Netanyahu, looking at experience, much more skeptical that it works.

Now, however, even though the talks with the Palestinians are at a stalemate, events have conspired to force that issue off the agenda – with the focus, both of Obama and Netanyahu, but also of the rest of the world, more on Iran and even Syria. The Palestinian issue has taken a back seat.

The good news from Netanyahu’s point of view is that this means there are fewer sources of friction with Obama. As many differences as there might be between the two men regarding Iran, they are not as many as the gaps between them on the Palestinian issue.

The bad news is that if the Palestinians feel that they have been forgotten, they make take violent action to get the world’s attention again.

And the third major difference about this meeting is that it is taking place during a US election year. Obama needs Jewish donors and voters, especially in key battleground states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

What he does not need is a public dustup with Netanyahu that would reinforce a sense among at least a certain segment of American Jews that in his heart-of-hearts, the US president is more sympathetic toward the Arabs than to Israel.

While during the first two years of his presidency Obama seemed to have few qualms about publicly “showing daylight” between Israel and the US, as he famously said in a conversation with Jewish leaders in the early days of his tenure, now those calculations have changed.

Back then Obama believed that publicly airing disagreements might force Netanyahu’s hand, might place Israeli public pressure on him to change course, or might win the US credit in the Arab world as an honest broker.

But now, eight months before the US election, this type of behavior does little more than risk antagonizing voters for whom Israel is a critical issue.

This will likely be the last meeting the two will have during Obama’s first term in office, since a visit later in the year is unlikely because it could be perceived as Netanyahu’s meddling in an election campaign.

Netanyahu should enjoy the moment, because it will not last forever. And if Obama does win the next election, and the two meet again soon after, the president’s calculations will be different once again.

Israel delivers ultimatum to Obama on Iran’s nuclear plans – Telegraph.

At Monday’s meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama the Israeli prime minister will deliver a stark warning, reports Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem

Last year Iran test-fired surface-to-surface missiles capable of reaching Israel Photo: EPA

By Adrian Blomfield, in Jerusalem

8:31PM GMT 03 Mar 2012

It is an assessment based on the unforeseen consequences of the Arab Spring, particularly in Syria, which has had the result of significantly weakening Iran’s clout in the region.

Israel has always known that there would be an enormous cost in launching an attack on Iran, with the Islamist state able to retaliate through its proxy militant groups Hamas and Hizbollah, based in Gaza and Lebanon respectively, and its ally Syria.

Each is capable of launching massive rocket strikes at Israel’s cities, a price that some senior intelligence and military officials said was too much to bear.

But with Syria preoccupied by a near civil war and Hamas in recent weeks choosing to leave Iran’s orbit and realign itself with Egypt, Iran’s options suddenly look considerably more limited, boosting the case for war.

“Iran’s deterrent has been significantly defanged,” a source close to Israel’s defence chiefs said. “As a result some of those opposed to military action have changed their minds. They sense a golden opportunity to strike Iran at a significantly reduced cost.” Not that there would be no cost at all. With the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas has chosen to throw its lot in with its closest ideological ally and forsake Iran and its funding, but it could still be forced to make a token show of force if smaller groups in Gaza that are still backed by Tehran unleash their own rockets.

Likewise, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, could seek to reunite his fractured country with military action against Israel.

Iran would almost certainly launch its long-range ballistic missiles at Israel, while Hizbollah, with an estimated arsenal of 50,000 rockets, would see an opportunity to repair its image in the Middle East, battered as a result of its decision to side with Mr Assad.

Even so, it is not the “doomsday scenario” that some feared, and a growing number in the security establishment are willing to take on the risk if it means preventing the rise of a nuclear power that has spoken repeatedly of Israel’s destruction.

“It won’t be easy,” said a former senior official in Israel’s defence ministry. “Rockets will be fired at cities, including Tel Aviv, but at the same time the doomsday scenario that some have talked of is unlikely to happen. I don’t think we will have all out war.” In itself, the loss of two of Iran’s deterrent assets would probably not be enough to prompt Israel to launch unilateral military action.

The real urgency comes from the fact that Israeli intelligence has concluded that it has only between six and nine months before Iran’s nuclear facilities are immune from a unilateral military strike.

After that, Iran enters what officials here call a “zone of immunity”, the point at which Israel would no longer be able, by itself, to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power.

By then, Israel assesses, Iran will have acquired sufficient technological expertise to build a nuclear weapon. More importantly, it will be able to do so at its Fordow enrichment plant, buried so deep within a mountain that it is almost certainly beyond the range of Israel’s US-provided GBU-28 and GBU-27 “bunker busting” bombs.

It is with this deadline in mind that Mr Netanyahu comes to Washington. Mr Obama’s administration has little doubt that their visitor’s intent is serious. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, stated last month that there was a “strong likelihood” of Israel launching an attack between April and June this year.

Senior US officials have, unusually, warned in public that such a step would be unwise and premature, a sentiment echoed by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

Mr Obama is determined that beefed up US and EU sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and energy sector be given the chance to work and is desperate to dissuade Israel from upsetting his strategy.

But to give sanctions a chance, Mr Netanyahu would effectively have to give up Israel’s ability to strike Iran and leave the country’s fate in the hands of the United States – which is why he is demanding a clear sign of commitment from the American president.

“This is the dilemma facing Israel,” the former senior military officer said. “If Iran enters a zone of immunity from Israeli attack can Israel rely on the United States to prevent Iran going nuclear?”

Mr Netanyahu’s chief demand will be that Washington recognises Israel’s “red lines”. This would involve the Barack administration shifting from a position of threatening military action if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon to one of warning of the use of force if Tehran acquired the capability of being able to build one.

Mr Obama will be reluctant to make such a commitment in public, though he might do so in private by pledging action if Iran were to expel UN weapons inspectors or begin enriching uranium towards the levels needed to build a bomb, according to Matthew Kroenig, a special adviser to the Pentagon on Iran until last year.

“Israel is facing the situation of either taking military action now or trusting the US to take action down the road,” Mr Kroenig, an advocate of US military strikes against Iran, said. “What Netanyahu wants to get out of the meeting are clear assurances that the US will take military action if necessary.” The American president may regard Mr Netanyahu as an ally who has done more to undermine his Middle East policy of trying to project soft power in the Arab world than may of his foes in the region.

But, on this occasion at least, he will have to suppress his irritation.

Mr Netanyahu is well aware that his host is vulnerable to charges from both Congress and his Republican challengers for the presidency that he is weak on Iran, and will seek to exploit this as much as possible.

Tellingly, Palestinian issues, the principal source of contention between the two, will be sidelined and Mr Obama has already been forced to step up his rhetoric on Iran beyond a degree with which he is probably comfortable.

Last week, in a notable hardening of tone, he declared his seriousness about using military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, saying: “I do not bluff.” Yet whatever commitments he might give to Mr Netanyahu it is far from clear that it will be enough to dissuade Israel from taking unilateral action.

Among the Israeli public, there is a sense of growing sense that a confrontation with Iran is inevitable. Overheard conversations in bars and restaurants frequently turn to the subject, with a growing popular paranoia fed by the escalation in bomb shelter construction, air raid siren testing and exercises simulating civilian preparedness for rocket strikes.

Last week, Israeli newspapers fretted that the government was running short of gas masks, even though more than four million have already been doled out.

But while the growing drumbeat of war is unmistakable, it is unclear whether or not Mr Netanyahu, for all his bellicose rhetoric, has yet fully committed himself to the cause.

Ostensibly, a decision for war has to be approved by Mr Netanyahu’s inner cabinet. But everyone in Israel agrees that the decision ultimately rests with Ehud Barak, the defence minister who is unabashedly in favour of military action, and, most importantly, the prime minister.

“Netanyahu is a much more ambiguous and complex character,” said Jonathan Spyer, a prominent Israeli political analyst. “We know where Barak stands but with Netanyahu it is less clear.

“Netanyahu is not a man who likes military adventures. His two terms as prime minister have been among the quietest in recent Israeli history. Behind the Churchillian character he likes to project is a very much more cautious and vacillating figure.”

Were Mr Netanyahu to overcome his indecisiveness, as many observers suspect he will, real questions remain about how effective an Israeli unilateral strike would be.

With its US-supplied bunker busters, Israel’s fleet of F-15i and F-16i fighter jets, and its recently improved in-air refuelling capabilities, Israel could probably cause significant damage to the bulk of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the Natanz enrichment plant.

But the second enrichment plant at Fordow, buried beneath more than 200 feet of reinforced concrete, could prove a challenge too far.

“Natanz yes, but I don’t think they could take out Fordow,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. “They could take out the entrance ramps but not the facility itself.”

With its Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker busters, each weighing almost 14 tonnes, the United States stands a much better chance of striking Fordow successfully, thus disrupting Iran’s nuclear programme for far longer than the one to three years delay an Israeli attack is estimated to cause.

But whether Israeli is prepared to leave its fate in American hands is another matter.

“Israelis are psychologically such that they prefer to rely on themselves and not on others, given their history,” the Israeli former senior defence ministry official said. “We feel we have relied on others in the past, and they have failed us.

Assad Threatens Israel if Syria is Attacked – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

A demonstrator punches through a portrait of President Assad

Reuters

Syrian President Bashar Assad has ordered the heads of his military to hit Israel with a barrage of missiles should there be any foreign intervention in Syria, a Jordanian news website reported on Saturday.

According to the site, Our Country’s News, Assad gave the order in a secret meeting with the heads of the Syrian army last Thursday, in light of his fear of a U.S. military strike in Syria.

The report said that Assad ordered that if any military action is started against Syria, the Syrian army should respond by firing missiles in Israel, with a particular emphasis on Israeli military airports.

The report added that an operations room has been opened in Damascus and that it is continuously manned by officers from Syria and Iran, as well as by Hizbullah terrorists, all of whom coordinate their military operations in the event of external military intervention in Syria.

A similar operations room has been opened in Tehran, said the report, and is manned by Iranian as well as by Hizbullah terrorists.

Hizbullah has also opened a similar operations room in Lebanon, said the Jordanian website, and Iran and Hizbullah have promised Syria to launch missiles at Israel from their territories as well.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently warned that sophisticated weapons could be transferred from Syria to Lebanon and to Hizbullah should Assad fall.

Major General Yair Golan, head of the Northern Command, has also warned that Assad’s fall will result in Hizbullah’s taking over his arsenal of advanced missiles.

“There is a very real danger that if Assad’s regime falls apart, his arsenal of advanced weapons, including ground-to-sea missiles and aerial defense systems, will fall into the hands of Hizbullah and other radical groups,” the senior general said in a recent interview.

Israel’s Backers in Aipac Press Obama to Harden Iran Policy – NYTimes.com.

By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — On the eve of a crucial visit to the White House by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, that country’s most powerful American advocates are mounting an extraordinary public campaign to pressure President Obama into hardening American policy toward Iran over its nuclear program.

From the corridors of Congress to a gathering of nearly 14,000 American Jews and other supporters of Israel here this weekend, Mr. Obama is being buffeted by demands that the United States be more aggressive toward Iran and more forthright in supporting Israel in its own confrontation with Tehran.

While defenders of Israel rally every year at the meeting of the pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, this year’s gathering has been supercharged by a convergence of election-year politics, a deepening nuclear showdown and the often-fraught relationship between the president and the Israeli prime minister.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu will both speak to the group, known as Aipac, as will the three leading Republican presidential candidates, who will appear via satellite from the campaign trail on the morning of Super Tuesday. Republicans have seized on Iran’s nuclear ambitions to accuse Mr. Obama of being weak in backing a staunch ally and in confronting a bitter foe.

The pressure from an often-hostile Congress is also mounting. A group of influential senators, fresh from a meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, has called on Mr. Obama to lay down sharper criteria, known as “red lines,” about when to act against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“We’re saying to the administration, ‘You’ve got a problem; let’s fix it, let’s get back on message,’ ” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who took part in the meeting with Mr. Netanyahu and said the Israeli leader vented frustration at what he viewed as mixed messages from Washington.

“It’s not just about the Jewish vote and 2012,” Mr. Graham added. “It’s about reassuring people who want to avoid war that the United States will do what’s necessary.”

To give teeth to the deterrent threat against Iran, Israel and its backers want Mr. Obama to stop urging restraint on Israel and to be more explicit about the circumstances under which the United States itself would carry out a strike.

Specifically, Israeli officials are demanding that Iran agree to halt all its enrichment of uranium in the country, and that the suspension be verified by United Nations inspectors, before the West resumes negotiations with Tehran on its nuclear program.

The White House has rejected that demand, Israeli and American officials said on Friday, arguing that Iran would never agree to a blanket ban upfront, and to insist on it would doom negotiations before they even began. The administration insists that Mr. Obama will stick to his policy, which is focused on using economic sanctions to force the Iranian government to give up its nuclear ambitions, with military action as a last resort.

Despite the position of the Israelis and Aipac, the American intelligence agencies continue to say that there is no evidence that Iran has made a final decision to pursue a nuclear weapon. Recent assessments by American spy agencies have reaffirmed intelligence findings in 2007 and 2010 that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

In his tone, at least, Mr. Obama is working to reassure Israel. In an interview published on Friday, Mr. Obama reiterated his pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon — with force, if necessary — and ruled out a policy of accepting but seeking to contain a nuclear-armed Iran. The Israeli government, he said, recognizes that “as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.”

The White House’s choice of interviewer — Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the magazine The Atlantic — was carefully calculated. Mr. Goldberg is closely read among Jews in America; in 2010, he wrote an article exploring the situations under which Israel would attack Iran.

American Jews are anything but monolithic. More dovish groups, like J Street, are trying to make a case against a pre-emptive Israeli strike. But for the next few days, Aipac will set the tone for an intense debate over the Iranian nuclear threat.

Mr. Obama will not lay down new red lines on Iran, even if he discusses them with Mr. Netanyahu, administration officials said. And he is not ready to accept a central part of Israel’s strategic calculation: that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be warranted to stop it from gaining the capability to build a nuclear weapon, rather than later, to stop it from actually manufacturing one.

In the interview, Mr. Obama warned Israel of the consequences of a strike and said that it would delay but not prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon. He also said he did not know how the American public would react.

Israel’s supporters said they believed that a majority of Americans would support an Israeli military strike against Iran. But polling data paints a murkier picture: while close to 50 percent of Americans say in several polls that they would support Israel, a slightly larger number say they would stay neutral. In some surveys, there is strong support for continuing diplomacy.

Supporters of Israel argue that in the American news media, Iran’s nuclear program has been wrongly framed as Israel’s problem, rather than as a threat to the security of the whole world.

“This is about the devastating impact on U.S. and Western security of a nuclear-armed Iran bent on bullying the region into submission,” said Josh Block, a former spokesman for Aipac.

Turnout for this year’s Aipac conference is expected to surpass all previous records. And the roster of speakers attests to the group’s drawing power. In addition to Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta will speak, as will Congressional leaders including Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s Republican leader, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House.

On Tuesday, the screens in the Washington convention center will light up with the Republican presidential contenders Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who are likely to fault Mr. Obama as not doing enough to prevent Iran from getting a weapon.

“Aipac is the spearhead of the pro-Israel community’s efforts to move the American government’s red lines closer to Israel’s red lines,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former American envoy to Israel.

Officials at Aipac declined to comment about the conference or their strategy. But Mr. Block and other former Aipac officials said that, as in previous years, the group would blanket Capitol Hill with its members — all of whom will carry a message about the Iranian nuclear threat.

They will be pushing on an open door. Democrats and Republicans, divided on so much, are remarkably united in supporting Israel and in ratcheting up pressure on Iran. The Senate voted 100 to 0 last year to pass legislation isolating Iran’s central bank, over the objections of the White House.

There are four bills in the House and Senate that call for tougher action against Iran or closer military cooperation between Israel and the United States. Mr. Graham is one of 32 Republican and Democratic sponsors of a resolution that calls on the president to reject a policy of containing Iran.

“The Senate can’t agree to cross the street,” Mr. Graham said. “Iran has done more to bring us together than anything in the world.”

To counter Aipac’s message, J Street has circulated a video on Capitol Hill, highlighting American and Israeli military experts who have voiced doubts about the efficacy of a strike on Iran.

“We are saying there needs to be time for enhanced sanctions and diplomacy to work,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street. “We’re trying to calm down the drumbeat of war.”

Articles: Israel and Iran.

By Elise Cooper

FM: Israel willing to help Syrian refugees – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Avigdor Lieberman says Israel willing to provide Syrian refugees with humanitarian aid immediately; stresses Jerusalem has no interest in intervening in Damascus’ affairs

News agencies

“Israel willing to provide Syrian refugees with humanitarian aid immediately,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

An official Foreign Ministry statement released Friday, while Lieberman is on a state visit in Bulgaria, added that Israel was willing to relay the aid via one of the United Nations’ agencies, or through any other international organization.AP contributed to this report

Israel is interested solely in relieving the humanitarian crisis in Syria and has no interest in intervening in the country’s internal affairs, the statement said.

Liberman told Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, with whom he met in Sofia on Friday, that “it is impossible for the international community to resign itself to the daily killing of innocent people in Syria.”

The Red Cross has been denied access to various parts of Syria, including Homs, where Syrian President Bashar Assad‘s troops are said to be “massacring men, women and children indiscriminately.”

The UN’s Humanitarian Commission says over 7,500 people have been killed in the near-year long uprising against Assad.

Syria executes 47 soldiers for defection attempt – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

As the international community continues to chatter, the Assad regime continues to commit atrocities in Syria; Turkey tries to convince Iran to cut support for Assad.

By Zvi Bar’el

As the number of deaths in Syria continues to grow, the international community can’t formulate a practical decision on military intervention, the establishment of security zones for civilians fleeing from violence, or even the dispatching of secure humanitarian aid.

On Saturday, it was reported that 47 Syrian soldiers who tried to defect in the city of Idlib were executed by Syrian security forces. According to reports from opposition activists, civilians are being executed and kidnapped constantly and the Red Cross can’t reach the Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs to assist the wounded. In some places, there is no water and there is a severe shortage of basic food items, and civilians are not able to escape areas under attack due to the massive presence of Syrian forces.

	In photo released by Syria’s official news agency SANA, Syrian army soldiers carry coffins of comrades killed in recent violence.
	Photo by: AP

In the face of this massacre, civilians continue to demonstrate against the Assad regime in the main cities of Aleppo and Damascus, alongside dozens of demonstrations in cities like Homs, Daraa, Idlib and Latakia. But the Free Syrian Army, which withdrew from the Baba Amr neighborhood that was captured by the Fourth Brigade of the Syrian Army commanded by Maher al-Assad, cannot protect the demonstrators. The request of the Free Syrian Army commander, General Riad al-Asad, to receive arms and equipment was met with a hesitant response by the Arab League, especially Egypt which fears that arming demonstrators may cause a civil war and led to the disintegration of Syria. On the contrary, Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, are unequivocally demanding to arm the Free Syrian Army and reportedly are also financing large-scale arms purchases. But the main problem is the transfer of weapons to the rebels, which is currently done in a haphazard manner by smugglers in Lebanon and Iraq.

Turkey, which could serve as an effective conduit of arms to the rebels, is preventing arms transfers until a decision is made by the UN, and is trying to convince Russia and Iran to change their position. Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Friday that ultimately Iran and Russia will realize they have no choice but to join international efforts against the Assad regime.

The European Union has recognized the Syrian National Council – the largest opposition body – as the official representative of Syria and Libya offered it $100 million in financial assistance and permission to open an office in its territory, but these decisions have little practical significance. This is because the opposition is unable to speak with one voice. For example, after 20 of the 270 members of the national council left and announced the establishment of a military council, they were met with resistance and a lack of cooperation from the Free Syrian Army.

Even the statement of President Obama that “the days of Bashar Assad are numbered” sounds empty in Syria, since there is no plan of action behind it that shows how the American government will take out the Syrian president.  Also, Syrians don’t believe that salvation will come from condemnatory messages from the UN chief, the proposal to create a humanitarian conference for Syria or the Friends of Syria conference to be held in another week in Istanbul.

Meanwhile, Assad can continue to bomb systematically, kill indiscriminately and turn Syria into a “new Srebrenica”, as it was termed by a Gulf Cooperation Council representative in remarks at the UN.

Some in the Syrian opposition believe that the survival of the Assad regime serves the interests of the U.S. and Israel, as Washington wants to use Syria as a card in negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue and Israel sees the Assad regime as a security guarantee on the Syrian border. The Syrian regime, however, holds the opposite theory, that the U.S. and Israel are trying to topple Assad. As proof, it reports on the presence of Israeli weapons in Homs.

Syrian blocks Red Cross access to Homs – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Damascus forces deny humanitarian aid convoy access to war-torn area. British journalist who escaped Homs: Assad’s troops performing indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children

Associated Press

The Syrian government blocked a Red Cross convoy from delivering badly needed food, medical supplies and blankets to a rebellious neighborhood of Homs, cut off by a month-long siege.

On Friday, activists accused regime troops who overran the shattered district of execution-style killings and a scorched-earth campaign.

Humanitarian conditions in the former rebel stronghold of Baba Amr have been described as catastrophic, with extended power outages, shortages of food and water, and no medical care for the sick and wounded.

British Prime Minister David Cameron called Homs “a scene of medieval barbarity.”

Syrian government forces took control of Baba Amr on Thursday after rebels fled the district under constant bombardment that activists said killed hundreds of people since early February. The Syrian regime has said it was fighting “armed gangs” in Baba Amr, and had vowed to “cleanse” the neighborhood.

“It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help,” said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Red Cross said it had received permission from the government of President Bashar Assad on Thursday to enter Baba Amr, on the western side of Homs, and a convoy of seven trucks with 15 tons of humanitarian aid was poised to do so, but authorities then blocked their access.

There was no explanation from the government about the change. “We are staying in Homs tonight in the hope of entering Baba Amr in the very near future,” Kellenberger said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Syria to give humanitarian workers immediate access to people who desperately need aid.

“The images which we have seen in Syria are atrocious,” said Ban. “It’s totally unacceptable, intolerable. How, as a human being, can you bear this situation?”

Homs (Photo: AFP/YouTube)

UN Humanitarian Chief Valerie Amos has been trying, without success, to get permission from the Syrian government to visit, and Ban said Assad’s regime should let her into the country to assess the situation without delay.

British photographer Paul Conroy, who was wounded by shelling in Baba Amr and trapped there for several days until he escaped, told Britain’s Sky News that “It’s not a war. It’s a massacre – indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children.”

The European Union committed itself to document war crimes in Syria to set the stage for a “day of reckoning” for the country’s leadership, in the way that former Yugoslav leaders were tried for war crimes in the 1990s by a special UN tribunal.

EU leaders in Brussels condemned Assad’s regime for its nearly yearlong crackdown on an uprising that began with mostly peaceful protests but has veered toward civil war, with Syrian forces firing heavy artillery against civilians.

The UN has estimated that more than 7,500 people have been killed, while activists put the death toll at over 8,000.