WarSclerotic

Muslim Brotherhood took ‘billions’ from Obama: Egypt lawyers.

Friday, 04 January 2013

Egyptian lawyers filed a complaint that accused Muslim Brotherhood illegally receiving billions from Obama administration. (Reuters)

  nShare1

( Thanks to Daryll. – JW )

Pat Condell tells it like it is.  Again

PM to ambassadors: Iran not yet c… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Photo: Moshe Milner/GPO

Iran has not yet crossed the red line that Israel set on its nuclear program, and Israel remains determined to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

Netanyahu was speaking at the last session of the annual year-end meeting in the Foreign Ministry for Israel’s ambassadors serving abroad.

During a speech at the UN in September, Netanyahu drew a red line on a picture of a bomb signifying when Tehran would be 90% on the way to development of a bomb – meaning before it had acquired enough enriched uranium to build a nuclear detonator if it so decided. He said Iran would not likely pass that line until the spring or summer.

“Iran remains the number one threat,” Netanyahu told the envoys, adding that there was a chance for positive change in the region if that country was prevented from getting a nuclear weapon. The prime minister added that in the short term he expected regional tribulations to continue.

Netanyahu was accompanied to the meeting by his national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, who earlier this week chastised the envoys for asking critical questions of Israel’s decision to announce construction plans beyond the Green Line in response to the Palestinians’ successful upgrade bid at the UN in November. When he addressed the envoys on Monday, Amidror said they could either faithfully represent the government’s decisions or resign.

Ministry officials said the incident did not come up during the meeting with Netanyahu, though the prime minister did address the issue of E1, saying that what was stopping progress along the diplomatic front with the Palestinians was not an announcement of construction plans there but the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state within any borders.

Netanyahu warned that Hamas could take control “any day” of the Palestinian Authority, and therefore “concrete security arrangements” needed to be included in any agreement, as well as a recognition of Israel as the nationstate of the Jewish people, an end to the “right of return” claim and an honest declaration of an end to the conflict.

Netanyahu cited an editorial in The Washington Poston Wednesday to support his assertion that the E1 announcement was not the barrier to progress on the diplomatic front.

That editorial, headlined “Overheated rhetoric on Israeli settlements,” argued that the criticism of the “flurry of announcements of new construction in Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank” was counterproductive “because it reinforces two mistaken but widely held notions: that the settlements are the principal obstacle to a deal and that further construction will make a Palestinian state impossible.”

The editorial noted that Netanyahu had limited construction in areas that both sides expect Israel to eventually annex as part of a final agreement, and that the government announcement of planning on E1 was “hardly the ‘almost fatal blow’ to a two state solution” that critics have claimed.

In addition to Netanyahu, the envoys also heard on Thursday from Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Yoram Cohen, who briefed them on the country’ security situation and said he did not believe Israel was on the brink of a third intifada

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

Israel Hayom | Counting the dead.

( I almost didn’t post this because it’s  so obvious that it’s not “news.” Tell me something I don’t already know!  But the extreme nature of this contrast gave me pause.  Does anyone not Israeli or interested in Israel know how grotesque the world communities’ double standard is?  Find me a reason… Oil, sure.  But I’m sorry.  It’s pure antisemitism. – JW )

If Israel attacks Iran, Syria and Hezbollah won’t join the fight, top-level report predicts | The Times of Israel.

Foreign Ministry says Assad can’t help Tehran for fear of losing power, Israel would launch massive ground operation in Lebanon if attacked

Hezbollah leader sheik Hassan Nasrallah, left, speaks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, center, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, upon their arrival for a dinner in Damascus, Syria, February 25, 2010 (photo credit: AP/SANA)

According to assessments in Jerusalem, the ability of Tehran’s proxies to forcefully respond to an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities has dropped significantly in recent months, due to the rapid deterioration of the regime in Syria and the subsequent weakening of the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, the Hebrew-language daily Maariv reported on Thursday.

The predictions, based on a Foreign Minister paper that was presented to Israeli diplomats at a Jerusalem conference this week, say that in the event of a military conflict between Israel and Iran, the Syrian army wouldn’t spring to the aid of its traditional ally and patron, for fear of losing its highly tenuous grip on power.

Hezbollah, in an extension of the same domino effect, would also stay out of the fray, so as not to risk its military and political dominance in Lebanon in an uncertain geopolitical landscape where its main backer, Syrian President Bashar Assad, is incapable of providing support.

According to the report, recent developments to Israel’s north heralded no less than the demise of the “Axis of Evil,” a term popularized by then-president George W. Bush in 2002, as the United States prepared to launch an extensive military campaign in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.

“Iran’s ability to harm Israel, in response to an attack from us, has diminished dramatically,” a senior official was quoted as saying. “The Iranian response will be far more minor than what could have been expected if the northern front still existed.”

Over the past two years, the civil war has decimated the Syrian army, and severed Hezbollah from vital supply lines that once extended overland from Iran via Syria, providing the Shiite group with a constant flow of missiles and other arms, the report said.

Concurrently, Hezbollah has become a major part of Lebanon’s political establishment — much more so then during the 2006 Second Lebanon War — which makes it vulnerable and lends greater credence to the Israeli policy that holds the country’s government responsible for the decisions of the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Thus, the report said, in the event of a Hezbollah attack, Israel would likely invade Lebanon with massive ground forces, in an attempt to eradicate, once and for all, the threat on its northern frontier.

Egypt Prevents Large-Scale Smuggling of Weapons into Gaza.

Amir Rapaport

1/1/2013

Western sources have revealed that Egypt has prevented three instances of large-scale smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip since the end of operation Pillar of Defense.

The activity against the weaponry smuggling is part of Egyptian-US coordination, agreed upon in the discussions involving US Secretary of Sate Hillary Clinton two days before the end of the operation. According to Western sources, the agreement includes assistance with US technological measures made available for Egyptian use, and intelligence cooperation in order to counter the smuggling of weapons.

Israel and the US now expect that Egypt will do everything against the smuggling of weapons through Egyptian territory into the Gaza Strip. According to the sources, Egyptian forces have foiled at least three instances to transfer significant quantities of weapons (two of which originated from Libya, and another from Iran through Sudan).

Israel will not exist within a decade, says Muslim Brotherhood official.

( US: “Shame on you!  Have some F-16s… – JW )

Wednesday, 02 January 2013

Essam el-Erian speaks during a session at the Shura Council building in Cairo (Courtesy: AP)

By AL ARABIYA

Iran says U.S. ‘still lives in Cold War era’ after new law enacted.

Wednesday, 02 January 2013

U.S. President Barack Obama enacted a law aimed to counter Iran’s alleged influence in the region. (Reuters)

inShare

Iran foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday the United States “still lives in the Cold War era” over a new law enacted by the U.S. president aimed at countering Tehran’s alleged influence in Latin America.

Mehmanparast blasted U.S. President Barack Obama and said the “Countering Iran” law was an overt intervention in the region.
The United States, he said, “still lives in the Cold War era and considers Latin America as its back yard,” AFP news agency reported.

On Friday, Obama enacted the law which through a new diplomatic and political strategy to be designed by the State Department is aimed to counter Iran’s alleged influence in Latin America.

The Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act, passed by lawmakers earlier in 2012, calls for the department to develop a strategy within 180 days to “address Iran’s growing hostile presence and activity” in the region.

The text also calls on the Department of Homeland Security to bolster surveillance at U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico to “prevent operatives from Iran, the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), its Quds Force, Hezbollah or any other terrorist organization from entering the Untied States”.

However, senior State Department and intelligence officials have indicated there is no apparent indication of illicit activities by Iran.

“It is an overt intervention in Latin American affairs… that shows they are not familiar with new world relations,” Mehmanparast told reporters.

“We recommend that they respect the nations’ right in today’s world… world public opinion does not accept such an interventionist move.”

Mehmanparast said Tehran’s relation with all nations, in particular with Latin American countries, was “friendly” based on “mutual respect and interest”.

Iran, placed under a series of international sanctions because of its suspect nuclear program, has opened six new embassies in the region since 2005 — bringing the total to 11 — and 17 cultural centers.

IDF and Syrian rebel officers meet clandestinely in Jordan.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 1, 2013, 11:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

US Special Forces ready to cross into Syria

Israeli officials have been holding talks in Jordan with Syrian opposition officials “in advance of a possible Israeli-U.S. operation in Syria to protect the Golan Heights,” Western intelligence sources reported Tuesday, Jan. 1. There was no further information about this operation or how rebel commanders were involved in military plans “to protect the Golan Heights.”

Altogether, the goings-on on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria are in deep hush. But European intelligence sources, some of them French and Russian, reveal nightly clashes taking place between US, Jordanian, Israeli special forces and Syrian rebels, on the one hand, and Syrian special forces, on the other. debkafile’s military sources disclose what they are fighting for:
1. Each of the four is jockeying both for control of the buffer strips along those borders and for keeping their opposite numbers from establishing intelligence-gathering posts there. US forces, the IDF and the Jordanian army have a major tactical interest in keeping Syrian observation posts from settling in the border sectors, where they would be in position to mark out military and civilian targets if the Syrian conflict spilled over.

2.  The Assad regime has two special interests in gaining a foothold in Jordan’s border area.

The first is to block the path of Syrian rebels heading back into the country and joining the various warfronts. At least five military facilities in Jordan are training special units of the Syrian opposition. They are managed by American, British, French, Czech and Polish military instructors. They are imparting tactics for capturing Syrian military chemical weapons caches and combating Syrian units armed with chemical or biological weapons.

Some of the rebel trainees return to Syria when they graduate; others are attached to units standing by in Jordan in case the Syrian conflict slides into hostilities with Israel and Jordan.

The second is back-up for the spy and sabotage networks the Assad government is running in Jordan’s refugee camps – just as they are in Turkey. Jordan houses some 60,000 Syrian refugees, most of them in the big Zaatari camp on the Syrian border. To facilitate communication with its undercover networks and the free passage of information, instructions and funds, Syria needs control over both sides of the common border.

Monday, Jordan imposed a blackout on the capture of four Syrian soldiers in the zone between the two countries. The security spokesman in Amman revealed only that they were unarmed and being interrogated  – but not whether they were entering the kingdom or on their way out. Earlier that day, a senior Jordanian military spokesman warned of an attempt to expand the Syrian war into Jordan. He did not attribute the attempt to any party.

Military sources in Moscow are more forthcoming about happenings on Syria’s southern borders. Tuesday, Jan. 1, those sources reported that the Syrian army had repulsed a Syrian rebel assault from Jordan. They added that “Syrian border police had also seized a large pile of weapons, some of them Israeli-made, designated for the Free Syrian Army in the southern city of Deraa.

3. Extensive preparations are secretly afoot by US special forces, the IDF and the Turkish and Jordanian armies ready for President Bashar Assad to hand down the order to his army chiefs to launch a chemical war offensive on the military concentrations of Syrian rebels and their allies in the lands neighboring on Syria. Jordan’s training facilities for rebels are seen as likely to be Assad’s initial targets. Western military sources explain that, for this purpose, the Syrian ruler requires maximum control of Jordan’s borders, including the section abutting the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

The London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper reported that, when Israel officials met Syrian opposition commanders in Jordan this week, they asked for help to locate the remains of Eli Cohen, one of Israel’s most celebrated spies. He was caught and publicly hanged on May 18, 1965 after an epic career. For years, Cohen, posing as a wealthy Arab businessman, gained the confidence of Syrian officials at the highest levels of government and managed to obtain its secret war and political plans.