WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | Positivity is not enough.

Israel Hayom | Iranian paper calls Israel’s arrest of spy a ‘cheap shot’.

Israel Hayom | Let’s work together.

Boaz Bismuth

Israel Hayom | Iran’s dangerous façade.

Israel Hayom | Outline for clear fraud.

Dan Margalit

Israel Hayom | Rouhani, media hero.

Dror Eidar

Israel Hayom | Obama and Israel: looming confrontations.

Isi Leibler

One might have hoped that U.S. President Barack Obama’s calamitous mishandling of recent Middle East crises, climaxing with his disastrous response to the Syrian use of chemical weapons, would have taught him a few lessons on regional politics.

Regrettably, his address to the U.N. General Assembly last week proved otherwise. By reverting to his original Cairo speech — insisting that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian peace “would have a profound and positive impact on the entire Middle East and North Africa,” Obama has caused many Israelis to question not merely his competence but also his real intentions towards Israel.

The notion that the stability of the entire Middle East region hinges on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is utterly absurd. Our conflict has no bearing on the complex and far more problematic conflicts and pressure points surrounding us: the struggle between Sunnis and Shiites, the resurgence of al-Qaida, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the persecution and murder of Christians throughout the Muslim world, the threat of a nuclear Iran, the chaos in Libya and Yemen, the upheavals in Egypt, the global Islamic terror attacks extending from New York to Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali and most recently Kenya, and above all, the carnage in Syria. To place responsibility for regional stability on Israel in the midst of this chaos is a terrible misreading of reality.

To compound matters, Obama linked the Iranian nuclear threat and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, treating them with equal importance — a clear signal that the U.S. expects Israel to make major concessions to the Palestinians in return for “undertakings” to prevent the Iranians from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must have been bitterly disappointed. He has bent over backward in efforts to please Obama. At Obama’s urging he extended a humiliating apology to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan for the killing of the Turkish terrorists seeking to violently breach Israel’s maritime arms blockade against Gaza. Yet, when Erdogan subsequently refused to fulfill his undertakings, Obama failed to even reprimand him.

Netanyahu outraged most Israelis by capitulating to extreme U.S. pressure by releasing Palestinian terrorists, many of whom were mass murderers.

He also encouraged the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to support the president in Congress on the Syrian issue — an act that backfired after Obama equivocated, and then withdrew his request for congressional support.

Yet Obama disregarded all of Netanyahu’s efforts and once again left him in the cold. Ignoring the asymmetry of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, he complimented both parties for “having demonstrated a willingness to take significant political risks” — explaining that Israel had released large numbers of hard-core terrorists (an act that no U.S. government would conceivably contemplate) and bracketing this with the reciprocal Palestinian “concession” — to engage in negotiations with the Israelis! Does he really believe that Israel releasing mass murderers and the Palestinians consenting to engage in negotiations amount to equivalent political risks?

When Obama glibly proclaimed that “friends of Israel, including the U.S., must recognize that Israel’s security as a Jewish and democratic state depends upon the realization of a Palestinian state,” he ignored the dangers Israel would face, if as is almost certain, Palestine became a failed rogue state and served as a launching pad for terrorists and states like Iran committed to Israel’s destruction. Nor did Obama even mention the visceral hatred and incitement to violence which continues to be promoted at all levels of PA society, making genuine peace inconceivable.

Obama’s desperate renewed “appeal” to the Iranians, pleading with them to engage in dialogue and foolishly reiterating that he did not consider regime change as an objective, was also profoundly disappointing.

The new Iranian president, Hasan Rouhani, in stark contrast to his deranged predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has launched an extraordinary charm offensive. Cynically oozing goodwill, he referred to the employment of nuclear weapons as a crime against humanity and sought to divert attention from the Iranian nuclear threat by demanding that Israel join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty with other “enlightened” states like Iraq, Syria and Libya. With a forked tongue, he conveyed reassuring messages, encouraging protracted negotiations.

It should be recalled that in 2005, while serving as national security adviser and head nuclear negotiator, Rouhani brazenly lied concerning Iran’s genuine nuclear intentions. And just prior to departing for New York, he was photographed speaking at a military parade in front of a sign that read “Israel must cease to exist.”

Nor, despite all his sweet talk, has Rouhani offered a single concession. Clearly he is eager to talk and negotiate. But unless the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, decides otherwise, the centrifuges will continue spinning until Iran achieves its nuclear objective.

Yet, sensitive to his master the ayatollah, or a backlash from his hard-line opponents in Iran, Rouhani humiliatingly spurned a pathetic U.S. effort to orchestrate an “impromptu” handshake at the U.N., stating that it would be premature. That did not deter Obama from telephoning him as he was about to leave for Iran, congratulating him on his election and praising his “constructive statements” on the nuclear issue.

The U.S. and Europe are desperate for a face-saving situation to avoid confrontation with the Iranians. They ignore the ultimate result of the buildup of underground nuclear facilities and ballistic missiles.

Further, the bitter reality is that after Obama’s inept zigzagging in relation to Syria, his threat that the U.S. is “determined to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb” and will if necessary “use all elements of our power, including military force,” rings hollow and is unlikely to be taken seriously by the Iranians — or anyone else.

It must be deeply frustrating for Netanyahu to see the rogue state of Iran courted by the U.S. and Europe, while Israel, a democracy and genuine ally of the U.S., is treated so shabbily. The chilling parallels with the betrayal of Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain’s policies of appeasement and “peace in our time” in the late 1930s will prey on our minds in the months to come.

Netanyahu will seek to pierce through Rouhani’s sweet talk at the U.N. He will raise skepticism about Rouhani’s tactics and urge the world to prevent the Iranians from emulating the North Koreans, who achieved their nuclear objectives by similar means. He will also demand full transparency and verification, should any agreement be reached with Iran. For these expressions of objective reality and bare security necessities, he will undoubtedly be depicted as a spoiler by naive and euphoric U.S. and global leaders seeking justification for their inaction against Iran.

He will also resist pressures from the Obama administration for additional fundamental unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. But unlike his political opponents on the Right accusing him of cowardice, Netanyahu — like all Israeli leaders since the time of Ben-Gurion — realizes that Israel is dependent on a superpower and that today the support of the U.S. both politically and militarily is crucial. Netanyahu also recognizes that for all his failings, Obama with the strong encouragement of Congress continues to provide Israel with the military necessities that no other nation could provide.

Israel has a vested interest in a strong America employing its superpower status to maintain global stability. We are not obliged to behave as a vassal state, but we must act prudently. While resisting pressures to concede on matters impacting on our security, we must demonstrate our appreciation of American support and be willing to make concessions on issues that Americans perceive as impacting on their interests.

The next nine months will be challenging, especially if Obama retains his fixation that he can resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by May 2014. There is no basis for any realistic settlement beyond an interim arrangement. Even aside from Hamas and the extraordinary turbulence in the region, it is inconceivable that an agreement could be achieved concerning issues such as the Arab refugee right of return. If Abbas himself was willing to compromise (and he is not), he would be assassinated within a matter of days.

This is a time for our leaders, including President Shimon Peres as well as the Likud hawks, to stand united. Repeated statements refuting the positions adopted by the prime minister, calling for annexation of territories or opposing a two-state solution, undermine our global position. Such behavior enables the Palestinians to distort reality and shift the blame on Israel for the inevitable breakdown which will result from their intransigence and refusal to genuinely coexist with us.

It is unconscionable that even during this turbulent period with the upheavals in Syria and Egypt, the Obama administration blinds itself to the real barriers to peace and exploits the Iranian nuclear threat as a vehicle to pressure Israel to maintain this Alice-in-Wonderland negotiation charade. By demanding that we make further unilateral territorial concessions in the absence of ironclad security (which is currently impossible), the U.S. is pressuring us to gamble with our lives and future.

Isi Leibler’s website can be viewed at http://www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.

Israel warned Kenya about terror attack, officials say | The Times of Israel.

( “The Israeli Embassy in Nairobi has raised concern with the Foreign Affairs Ministry that Iran and Hezbollah from Lebanon have been collecting ‘operational intelligence and open interests in Israeli and Jewish targets around the world including Kenya.’”  – JW )

Local newspapers report that intelligence indicating dates and locations at risk was given to high-ranking Nairobi officials

Trucks of soldiers from the Kenya Defense Forces arrive after dawn outside the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. (photo credit: AP/Ben Curtis)

Kenya was reportedly given specific warnings by foreign countries, including Israel, that there was a high risk of a major terrorist attack in the country before last week’s violent takeover of Nairobi’s Westgate Mall.

Israel told the Kenyan government specifically that Iran and Hezbollah would try to hit Israeli-owned targets during the September Jewish holidays, one report said.

The Westgate Mall, partly owned by Israelis, was reportedly cited in at least one warning.

Kenyan newspapers reported that, according to intelligence sources, Kenya’s chief of staff and four key cabinet ministers — treasury, interior, foreign affairs, and defense — received the various warnings but failed to take action.

Kenyan government officials later confirmed the reports to the AFP news agency.

Warnings began in January and increased in September, with information about planned attacks in Nairobi or Mombasa between September 13 and 20, Kenya’s Daily Nation reported.

Intelligence reports seen by the Daily Nation indicated that Israel told the Kenyan government that Iran and Hezbollah were looking to attack Israeli-owned targets this month.

“The Israeli Embassy in Nairobi has raised concern with the Foreign Affairs Ministry that Iran and Hezbollah from Lebanon have been collecting ‘operational intelligence and open interests in Israeli and Jewish targets around the world including Kenya,’” read one of the reports.

The reports even identified the Westgate as one of the targets, along with Nairobi’s Holy Family Basilica. It also named individual terrorists behind the attack. Sheikh Abdiwelli Mohammed,Sheikh Hussein Hassan and al-Shabab terror group leader Abdi Godane were identified as masterminds.

Godane is al-Shabab’s new emir.

Though Westgate, a Western-style luxury shopping center, was often named as a possible terrorist target, Kenyan government sources told AFP that the warnings were not given due attention.

“Israel had warned of attacks on their business interests,” said an official, “but apart from just being tossed from one office to another, nothing was taken out of the intelligence reports.”

“There is no way one can say there was no intelligence on this attack because those reports started trickling in from late last year,” said another. “And they were specific with targets, including Westgate.”

Michael Gichangi, head of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service, is scheduled to appear before lawmakers on Monday to answer questions about the country’s preparedness for terrorist attacks.

Israeli assets were targeted in 2002 in the Kenyan city of Mombasa. An Israeli-owned hotel in the city was bombed, killing 13 people, and a rocket was fired at an Israeli plane taking off at the same time in an unsuccesful attempt to bring it down.

Israel enjoys a close security relationship with Kenya, and has helped Nairobi during the crisis. Israeli forensics experts helped the Kenyan government comb the site of the terrorist takeover of the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya’s cabinet secretary said on Twitter last week.

Earlier in the week, Israeli defense officials confirmed a team was dispatched to Nairobi within hours of the hostage crisis. The officials said the team was sent to advise authorities on the bloody standoff at the Nairobi shopping mall, and did not include combat units.

Last Tuesday, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta mentioned Israel among the friendly nations who offered crucial assistance.

At least 18 foreigners were among those killed when the militants entered the Westgate mall on Saturday firing assault rifles and throwing grenades, including six Britons and citizens from France, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Peru, India, Ghana, South Africa and China.

Another 175 people were injured, including more than 60 who remain hospitalized.

Authorities have said at least five al-Shabab attackers were killed and another 11 suspects have been taken into custody.

In a statement, Godane said only that “some” of his fighters had been killed, possibly suggesting that others escaped.

During the four-day fight at the mall, the building’s roof collapsed, causing massive destruction. The collapse came last Monday, shortly after four large explosions rang out followed by billows of black smoke. A government minister said the terrorists had set mattresses on fire, causing the roof to collapse, but it seemed unlikely the fire would have caused the massive destruction.

Al-Shabab, whose name means “The Youth” in Arabic, first began threatening Kenya with a major terror attack in late 2011, after Kenya sent troops into Somalia following a spate of kidnappings of Westerners inside Kenya.

The mall attack was the deadliest terrorist attack in Kenya since the 1998 al-Qaeda truck bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi, which killed more than 200 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Netanyahu can’t hope to regain Israel’s voice in headlong US-Russian-Iranian nuclear diplomacy.

( If Netanyahu holds the same opinion as Debka, you can expect Israeli action in the coming few weeks. – JW )

An earlier encounter

Although a face to face between prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama is obviously worthwhile for both countries, the prime minister need not expect to deflect the president from his pursuit of a nuclear deal with Tehran when they meet Monday, Sept. 30. At best, he will come away with soothing assurances that any new intelligence he presents will be seriously looked into. But he can’t hope for real substance for two reasons:

1. Obama can no longer turn away from the path he has set himself, because he is driven by the ambition to prove that international problems can be solved without military force and solely by good will, negotiations and diplomacy.

2.  After convincing Russian President Vladimir Putin that he means what he says and is not planning to repeat his “mistaken” US military involvement in the 2011 Libyan civil war, Obama removed a major obstacle in the way of a US-Russian deal on Syria’s chemical weapons.
It is now the turn for Washington, Moscow and Tehran to continue the process with a parallel consensual deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

From Tehran, the US and Russia might be seen to be preparing to impose a nuclear settlement on Iran in the same way as they did for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons. However, if that is what is contemplated, Obama and Putin will soon find Tehran is not Damascus, and the ayatollah in Tehran is a completely different proposition from his Syrian ally.
The wily supreme leader Ali Khamenei in fact sees his chance of turning the situation around to the Islamic Republic’s advantage. He grasps that the American and Russian leaders are in a hurry to reap the results of the Obama administration’s decision to forswear a military option for bringing Tehran round. Their headlong quest for quick results gives Tehran the leverage for extracting previously withheld concessions on its nuclear program, such as extreme flexibility on its enriched uranium production and stocks.

Netanyahu may hear Obama promising to stand by his demand that Iran stop enriching uranium and export the bulk of its stocks, or surrender it for destruction like Syria’s chemical weapons. But he will also discover that Obama and Putin are running ahead together at breakneck speed after dropping Israel by the wayside.  And the negotiations with Iran behind the scenes – and continuing in Geneva on Oct. 15 with the five Security Council powers and Germany – are more than likely to produce a compromise unacceptable to Israel.

Iran and Russia will have to make some concessions for a deal. But so too will the United States, and the uranium enrichment issue will loom large in the way of an agreement unless Washington gives way on that point. Obama has already covered much of this ground in secret contacts with Tehran.

The tempo of the negotiations, dictated by Obama and Putin, will make it easy to blur facts and the present minor concessions as major achievements.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are already smoothing the way for the understandings to come with messages that fit neatly into world media headlines. Sunday, Kerry echoed President Rouhani’s of a nuclear accord achievable in months. At the same time, mindful of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting Monday, the US Secretary said in a TV interview, “A bad deal is worse than no deal,” while US Ambassador Dan Shapiro assured Israelis in a radio interview Monday morning “The US and Israel share the same goals – preventing a nuclear-armed Iran.”
Meanwhile, last month’s buzz phrase for the Syrian accord, which called for “a credible military option” to underpin the understanding, has been quietly mothballed in both the Syrian and Iranian WMD context.

Netanyahu’s UN Speech ‘Depends on Obama’ – Global Agenda – News – Israel National News.

Obama and Netanyahu

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not yet completed writing the speech he will give at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday. He intends to complete drafting the speech only after he meets US President Barack Obama Monday, and the speech will reflect his conclusions from that meeting.

The meeting between Netanyahu and Obama is seen as the most important event in the prime minister’s current visit to Washington and New York. His speech at the UN is important in terms of the global diplomatic effort, but sources around the prime minister are well aware of the overriding importance of the position the US president takes regarding sanctions on Iran – which Tehran seeks to ease.

Netanyahu is expected to ask Obama not to ease the sanctions that the international community has placed on Iran, and to stress that Tehran’s current apparently positive overtures would never have been made, if it were not for these very sanctions. Netanyahu will say that sanctions should be removed only when it is absolutely clear that Iran no longer has nuclear weapons production capability.

Obama, for his part, will seek to calm Netanyahu’s concern regarding a seeming defusion of tension between the US and Iran, and to explain that the US is continuing to closely monitor Iran’s actions on the ground through intelligence.

There were reports in the press before Netanyahu’s departure for the US, that he possesses new and incriminating intelligence evidence that he intends to present, which will show that Iran is continuing its nuclear weapons drive despite its “smile offensive.”