WarSclerotic

Mapping Israel’s Enemies – YouTube.

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Oct. 20, 2013

Eric Stakelbeck examines the threat posed by even a “demilitarized” West Bank to Israel’s population centers.

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IAF Syria Strike ‘Hit Russian S-125 Missiles’ – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Satellite photos show advanced missile launchers of a type that could be upgraded to S-300 system.

IAF F-16

Israel news photo: Flash 90

The reported IAF strike in the Latakia region of Syria on October 31 targeted an advanced Russian-made missile system that could be upgraded to the much-vaunted S-300 system, reports IsraelDefense, citing researcher Ronen Solomon.

Satellite photos of the site, on Syria’s northern Mediterranean coastline, prove that the alleged IAF strike targeted S-125s that were in the process of being upgraded from a less sophisticated system. The photos were taken a few hours before the site was hit, by a firm providing satellite services to the US defense system.

IsraelDefense says that the reason the site was comprehensively photographed at that time could be that Israel gave the US advance warning that it was about to bomb it.

Solomon said that the batteries were apparently being upgraded from M2 or K2 generation systems. These changes make the system mobile and improve various abilities, making it effective in intercepting crusie missiles, certain ballistic missiles and US-made F-16 fighters.

In the past, notes IsraelDefense, when the Russians suuplied other countries with S-300 systems, they did so by upgrading existing S-75 or S-125 systems. Therefore, it is possible that the intent was to turn the missiles in Latakia into S-300 systems.

Report: Kerry Supported Gaza Flotilla Members – News from America – News – Israel National News.

Maariv: in 2009, then-Senator Kerry gave letter of support to radicals who later took part in Marmara flotilla.

By Arutz Sheva staff

John Kerry

AFP photo

John Kerry provided a signed letter of support to an extremely radical group of leftists and anti-Israel activists who were organizing a march on Gaza in 2009, revealed Maariv’s Ben-Dror Yemini. Members of the group eventually wound up on the 2010 Gaza flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara, on whose deck a bloody confrontation between Turkish terrorists and the IDF ended with 9 dead terrorists.

Yemini says that the Gaza Freedom March organizers included Ali Abunima and Omar Barghouti, leaders of the Israel boycott campaign, musician Roger Waters, and members of Code Pink, which he describes as a radical feminist anti-Israeli group. One of the Code Pink activists was Jody Evans, who had worked as a fundraiser in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

As they prepared to begin their journey to Gaza, members of the radical group tried to get support from leading US officials. One official who agreed to do this was then-Senator Kerry, who served as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee at the time.

In the letter he provided, Kerry expresses his “strong support” for the “humanitarian” delegation and asks that “every courtesy” be given them. Yemini adds that Abunima and Evans showed the letter to Egyptian officials, who decided to prevent them from going on to Gaza anyway. Evans and fellow Code Pink activists eventually boarded the Free Gaza Flotilla.

Kerry should have known better, opines Yemini, after members of Code Pink met with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2008. He asks, “How is it that a senior senator gave legitimacy to a group that was characterized by support for Hamas, support for Ahmadinejad, and deep hostility toward Israel and the US?”

Kerry to brief dubious Senate on Iran talks | The Times of Israel.

Wednesday’s meeting crucial for US decision on further sanctions; ADL’s Foxman changes stance, now wants more economic pressure

By Rebecca Shimoni Stoil November 12, 2013, 7:52 am

US Secretary of State John Kerry attends a press conference at the end of Iranian nuclear talks in Geneva, early Sunday, November 10, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Jason Reed, Pool)

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to brief the Senate Banking Committee about the latest round of nuclear negotiations with Iran on Wednesday, but senators are divided as to the next course of action toward Tehran. Key Democrats have indicated that they are ready to move forward on additional sanctions legislation, and at least one important Republican would rather devote his legislative energies toward preventing the US from giving up too much in the next round of talks.

Differing reports of a deal that fell through during last week’s round of P5+1 talks with Iran in Geneva have engendered increasing criticism of the Obama administration’s stance during the talks. Kerry will likely have to defend the administration’s negotiations during the closed-door session of the Banking Committee, which is the committee likely to take up a new sanctions bill.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) warned Sunday, as details of the talks filtered out of Geneva, against a situation in which “we seem to want the deal almost more than the Iranians. And you can’t want the deal more than the Iranians, especially when the Iranians are on the ropes.”

Menendez suggested that any deal should include a cessation of enrichment and an increase in the transparency of Iran’s nuclear program. He also congratulated the French negotiators for taking a tough tone toward the Arak heavy water plant — noting that “its only purpose in a country with such large oil reserves is to make nuclear fuel for nuclear weapons.”

Menendez, who has been a key supporter of previous Iran sanctions initiatives, announced during the interview on ABC’s “This Week” that the time had come for movement on Senate legislation to increase sanctions against Iran.

“I think that the possibility of moving ahead with new sanctions, including wording it in such a way that if there is a deal that is acceptable that those sanctions could cease upon such a deal, is possible,” Menendez said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward on a package that ultimately would send a very clear message where we intend to be if the Iranians don’t strike a deal and stop their nuclear weapons program,” he added.

The Obama administration had asked, before the recent round of talks began, that the Senate delay action on sanctions to allow negotiations to take their course.

The State Department would not comment Monday on its opinion on the anticipated move by the Senate to take up additional sanctions legislation.

In recent years, Congress has been fertile ground for tough sanctions against Tehran, with the latest such bill clearing the House of Representatives by a vote of 400 to 20. Even in cases in which the administration has demonstrated reluctance, members of both parties in Congress have enthusiastically voted in an increasingly stringent sanctions regime.

But in the wake of last week’s negotiations, there is now a three-way split in terms of priorities. In addition to the pro-sanctions and anti-sanctions camps, Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN), the ranking member on Menendez’s committee has a third direction — not to focus on pushing for harsher sanctions, but on preventing the administration from giving away too much.

Asked over the weekend about sanctions, Corker was uncharacteristically noncommittal. “I don’t know,” he began, noting that “new sanctions would not kick in for several months” and emphasizing that “the administration has dialed back the rheostat since Rouhani’s election on the existing sanctions that we have. They have a lot of ability to waive and turn down and conduct these operations in lesser or stronger ways.”

Rather than offer a strong voice for the new sanctions, Corker is instead pushing an idea that he hinted at last week — legislation that would block the president from using any of those waivers that he mentioned unless Iran meets a number of key conditions — all of which are more stringent than the reported terms of the agreement proposed in Geneva.

The reported break-down of talks coupled with the leaks of terms slammed by Israel — and the Republican Party — as too generous makes it harder than ever for Senate moderates to continue to maintain the administration’s tenuous delay on the legislation. Fence-sitting senators have said that they will wait until Kerry’s briefing Wednesday — but that following that, they will decide whether to advance sanctions legislation.

The administration’s plea to hold off on sanctions legislation suffered a key defection Monday when Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman publicly changed his stance from supporting the request to calling for the Senate to advance legislation to increase sanctions against Tehran.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, speaking at the ADL Centennial Summit in Washington, April 29, 2013. (photo credit: David Karp/via JTA)

“I was among the few Jewish leaders to give the Obama Administration the benefit of the doubt in pursuing the diplomatic route and agreed to refrain from urging the Senate to impose additional sanctions for a short period of time to enable the US to pursue diplomacy,” noted the ADL leader in a statement from Jerusalem.

“I wanted to give the Obama administration a chance to demonstrate that they could make real progress on this issue,” he explained. Foxman said that he was “deeply troubled” by the reported terms of a tentative agreement almost reached in Geneva.

“I am now convinced that this agreement will not only prematurely roll back the sanctions regime, but that it would legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state,” he warned, adding that “we no longer have the luxury or the option to refrain from enacting additional sanctions against Iran. The time has come for Congress, especially the Senate, not only to reconfirm and strengthen the existing sanctions, but also to begin to impose additional sanctions against Iran.”

NYT: For Israel, Iran strike is ‘only acceptable outcome’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( Unrelenting attacks on Israel, courtesy of the NY Times.  Ooops!  Sorry, I meant White House public relations… – JW )

New York Times continues to criticize Israeli policies; Thomas Friedman says Israel, Gulf countries want to keep Iran isolated and weak but that US has other interests

Ynet

Some of America’s allies, including Israel, consider an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities as “the only acceptable outcome,” the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman says. In an op-ed discussing US interests in negotiations with Tehran, Friedman writes that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ” don’t trust this Iranian regime — and not without reason.”

He argues that while pressure from American allies in the form of sanctions on Iran brought it to the negotiating table, that pressure was “never meant to be an end itself.”

“We, America, are not just hired lawyers negotiating a deal for Israel and the Sunni Gulf Arabs, which they alone get the final say on. We, America, have our own interests in not only seeing Iran’s nuclear weapons capability curtailed, but in ending the 34-year-old Iran-US cold war, which has harmed our interests and those of our Israeli and Arab friends,” Friedman writes.

The publicist states that “there is nothing that threatens the future of the Middle East today more than the sectarian rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. This rift is being used by President Bashar Assad of Syria, Hezbollah and some Arab leaders to distract their people from fundamental questions of economic growth, unemployment, corruption and political legitimacy.”

Friedman then claims that “The Iran-US cold war has prevented us from acting productively on all these interests.”

He quotes Nader Mousavizadeh, a former top aide to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as saying “There are those in the Middle East who prefer ‘a tribal war without end.’ They can have it. But it can’t be our war. It’s not who we are — at home or abroad.”

This is the second New York Times op-ed in two days that comes out against Israeli policies.

In an editorial published Tuesday, the paper claimed that “inconclusive negotiations” between Iran and world powers “have given an opening to the Israeli prime minister to generate more hysterical opposition.”

The liberal-leaning paper stated that “It would be nice if Iran could be persuaded to completely dismantle its nuclear program, as Mr. Netanyahu has demanded, but that is unlikely to ever happen.

The editorial expressed disappointment that the failure of negotiations allowed Congress, Israel and Saudi Arabia “an opportunity to sabotage a deal.”

Zero Hour: Israel Must Choose Between Attack and Enslavement | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com.

The Arak IR-40 heavy water reactor in Iran. Photo: Nanking2012/Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Israelis across the political spectrum are in a state of shock over a proposed deal to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for promises to partially suspend its nuclear program.

Acting from a position of self-imposed weakness, the world’s democracies have effectively undermined the aim of several United Nations resolutions banning any uranium enrichment. The agreement that’s currently being ironed out will allow Iran to continue to enrich, but at a lower grade.

Since 1979′s Iranian Revolution, world powers have doggedly worked at crafting and implementing a crippling sanctions regime meant to weaken the rule of Iran’s mullahs.

The sanctions have never been tougher than how they are now, with Iran becoming increasingly isolated and its leadership increasingly destabilized.

Yet just as this maximum leverage on Iran is beginning to bear fruit, sanctions are about to be eased without requiring Iran’s thuggish theocracy to dismantle even one centrifuge.

In response to this very bad deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a stinging rebuke to Washington, stating over the weekend that “Israel utterly rejects it and what I am saying is shared by many in the region, whether or not they express that publicly.”

So serious is the rift between Israel and the United States that, in an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke out right away against the deal and its principal backer, the United States.

Barack Obama, the perpetual crisis manager, quickly phoned Netanyahu in an attempt to tamp down growing unease over the emerging Iran deal.

The bitter lesson that Israel’s devout proponents of diplomatic engagement with Tehran are beginning to learn is that one sovereign nation can not realistically outsource its security to allies or supranational organizations.

Simply put, Israel’s zero hour with regards to Iran has never been, nor will it ever be, synchronized with that of the United States.

As such, Israel must now decide between launching a preemptive attack to eliminate the nuclear threat posed by Iran, or live under the constant threat of nuclear blackmail.

Until recently, opponents of such an attack relied heavily on an array of doomsday prophesies: the reaction of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas; international anger directed at Israel over higher oil prices; an escalation of hostilities across the Persian Gulf.

As dire as these worse case scenarios sound, they are non-lethal and short-term.

In contrast, the cost of continued restraint could be far greater than that of a preemptive strike: a nuclearized Iran would enslave Israel both politically and militarily.

Left unimpaired, Iranian nuclear assets and materials could be shared with certain Iranian surrogates or other similar groups, including Hezbollah and other Jihadi organizations.

Regarding the legality of such an attack, if there is an imminent threat against another state, then a preemptive strike is technically lawful under the UN Charter.

Israel, like any other nation, is under no legal obligation to sit back passively and quietly await annihilation at the hands of a country that remains determined to destroy it.

Should Israel strike at Iran, the world will undoubtedly howl. Let it: this too shall pass. Guided by the rightness of its cause, Israel will be acting for the advancement of shared regional and global interests, which happen to dovetail with its own.

Oppose the deal on Iran – Opinion Israel News | Haaretz.

All reasonable, thinking people – liberals, conservatives, Americans and their allies, the pro-Israel community (ignoring J Street) – must unite against a ‘Chamberlain moment’ bad deal on Iran with no Iranian quid pro quo.

By Alan M. Dershowitz | Nov. 12, 2013 | 7:45 PM

Chamberlain holds up Munich Agreement, signed by both Hitler and himself, in 1938. Photo by Wikimedia Commons

Diplomacy is better than war but bad diplomacy can cause bad wars. The U.S. is leading the noble efforts, stalled for the moment, to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough in our determination to prevent Iran from developing, or having the capacity to develop, nuclear weapons. There is little dispute about this essential goal: Virtually everyone agrees that a nuclear armed Iran would pose unacceptably grave dangers to the United States and its allies.

Nor is there much controversy over the preference for “jaw jaw” over “war war” as Winston Churchill once put it. But the understandable concern, expressed by Israeli, French, Saudi and some other leaders, is that the Iranian leadership is playing for time—that they want to make insignificant concessions in exchange for significant reductions in the sanctions that are crippling their economy. Their goal is to have their yellow cake and eat good food at the same time. These leaders, and many experienced nuclear and diplomatic experts, fear that a bad deal, such as the one that Secretary Kerry seemed ready to accept, would allow the Iranians to inch closer to nuclear weapons capacity while strengthening their faltering economy. The net result would be a more powerful Iran with the ability to deploy a nuclear arsenal quickly and surreptitiously.

Were this to occur, we would be witnessing a recurrence of the failed efforts to prevent a nuclear North Korea but in a far more volatile and dangerous neighborhood of the globe. Were Iran to use the current diplomatic efforts as a cover to buy time to make a preventive military attack unrealistic, this would indeed be our “Chamberlain moment”, a replication of the time three-quarters of a century ago, when the idealistic but naive British prime minister made a bad deal with the Nazis in a desperate but futile effort to avoid deploying the military option against Hitler’s growing power.

Winston Churchill, despite his preference for jaw, railed against Chamberlain’s concession, describing it as a defeat without a war. The war, of course, soon came and the allies were in a weaker position, having ceded the industrially and militarily critical Sudetenland to Germany while at the same time giving it more time to enhance its military power. The result was tens of millions of deaths that might have been avoided if the British and French had engaged in a preventive war instead of giving dangerous concessions to the Nazis when they were still weak.

The immediate choice for the world today is not between diplomacy and preventive war, as it may have been in 1938. We have a third option: To maintain or even increase the sanctions while keeping the military option on the table. It was this powerful combination that brought a weakened and frightened Iran to the bargaining table in the first place. It is this combination that will pressure them to abandon their unnecessary quest for nuclear weapons, if anything will. To weaken the sanction regime now, in exchange for a promise to maintain the status quo, would be bad diplomacy, poor negotiation and a show of weakness precisely when a show of strength is called for.

The leadership of the pro-Israel community, both in the United States and Israel, have shown rare unity around the issue of not weakening the sanctions merely in exchange for the promise of a nuclear standstill from the Iranians. Liberals and conservatives, doves and hawks, all seem to realize that the best way to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of a nuclear Iran or a military attack is to maintain the tough sanctions while diplomacy continues.

As usual, the only outlier seems to be J Street, whose claim to be “pro-Israel” grows less credible by the day. Previously, J Street claimed to support tough sanctions as an alternative to the military option and drumbeating. But now that Israel and its supporters insist that sanctions be maintained, J Street seems to be supporting the Neville Chamberlain approach to diplomacy: Make substantial concessions in exchange for hollow promises, thereby weakening our negotiating position and increasing the chances that the United States will be forced to take military action as the only means of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

This is the time when the entire pro-Israel community must stand together in opposition to the deal being offered the Iranians—a deal which is bad for the United States, for the West, and for Israel. The Israeli people seem united in opposition to this bad deal. The American Congress is doubtful about the deal. This is not a liberal/conservative issue. Liberals who view military action as a last resort should oppose this deal, and conservatives who fear a nuclear Iran above all else should oppose this deal.

Indeed all reasonable, thinking people should understand that weakening the sanctions against Iran without demanding that they dismantle their nuclear weapons program is a prescription for disaster. Have we learned nothing from North Korea and Neville Chamberlain?

Alan M. Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard, is a practicing criminal and constitutional lawyer and the author of The Trials of Zion. His autobiography, “Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law”, was published last month.

Netanyahu: Iran proposal ‘worse than a bad deal’ | The Times of Israel.

As PM demands that Washington keep up the economic pressure on Tehran, Kerry prepares to ward off new sanctions bills

By Stuart Winer and Adiv Sterman November 12, 2013, 10:56 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at an alternative energy conference in Tel Aviv, Tuesday, November 12, 2013 (photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday fired another volley in what has turned into an ongoing, very public war of words with the Obama administration, saying that from what he had seen of a proposed interim solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff, the terms would allow Tehran to advance toward an atomic weapons capability while throwing off the yoke of economic sanctions.

“Israel prefers a diplomatic option to other options, but we demand a real diplomatic solution in order to dismantle the military nuclear capability of Iran,” Netanayahu said at an alternative energy conference in Tel Aviv. “The proposal on the table, which we have come to know in detail, is worse than a bad deal. It leaves Iran with nuclear capabilities for military purposes, and gives it significant relief in sanctions. An additional danger is that it gives legitimacy to Iran as a nuclear threshold state. This is against the interest of the international community.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry has stated several times this week that Netanyahu’s acerbic criticism of the proposed deal with Iran, which fell through during nuclear talks over the weekend in Geneva, was premature, as the Israeli leader was unaware of the terms under discussion. Netanyahu’s reiteration Tuesday that Israel had “come to know in detail” the terms of the proposal appeared to come in response to Kerry’s accusations.

One of the prime minister’s primary objections to the proposed deal was that it would provide sanctions relief to Tehran while allowing it to continue to enrich uranium, thus providing the economic solace, and the time, it needed to work toward a nuclear weapon. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful in nature.

“Each passing day Iran is under increasing financial pressure,” said Netanyahu. ”There is no need to rush into a bad deal. We should use the time to obtain a good deal that halts the nuclear capabilities of Iran’s military. The deadline for achieving a deal like this one is the day when such an agreement is reached.”

Kerry said Tuesday that he did not want Congress to approve any new sanctions on Iran while negotiations were ongoing. He was set to brief members of the Senate Banking Committee to that effect on Wednesday.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said he would make clear to the senators that putting any new sanctions in place “would be a mistake.” As a senator, she said, Kerry had voted in favor of Iranian sanctions several times, but a vote for or against sanctions right now is really a “vote for or against diplomacy.”

via New Iran sanctions will lead to war, White House warns | The Times of Israel.

Administration ups efforts to prevent Congress from passing new penalties against Tehran that could put kibosh on nuclear deal

By Times of Israel staff and Rebecca Shimoni Stoil November 13, 2013, 4:33 am

Jay Carney, left, speaking to Barack Obama. (photo credit: Pete Souza/White House)

The Obama administration Tuesday stepped up lobbying against congressional action for new sanctions on Iran, with the White House warning such a move would lead to war.

“The American people justifiably and understandably prefer a peaceful solution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and this agreement, if it’s achieved, has the potential to do that,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday. “The alternative is military action.”

Earlier in the day State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said John Kerry would use a closed door briefing with the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday to warn that passing new sanctions would be a “mistake.”

The intensified effort to head off any new penalties against Iran come days after a meeting between Tehran and six world powers — the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany — failed to produce a deal that would see eased sanctions in return for a promise to curb nuclear activity. Another meeting is scheduled for next week.

US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke by phone Tuesday to discuss the Iran talks and affirm their support for continuing the diplomatic track.

Carney told reporters that Americans did not want a “march to war,” which is what new sanctions would bring, indicating that lawmakers could pay politically if diplomacy with Iran failed.

Fresh from the nuclear talks, Kerry will defend the administration stance during a meeting with lawmakers Wednesday, where he will face a tough crowd.

Senator Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) said Tuesday that the administration is boxing Americans into a lose-lose situation.

“The American people should not be forced to choose between military action and a bad deal that accepts a nuclear Iran,” he said according to AFP.

In recent years, Congress has been fertile ground for tough sanctions against Tehran, with the latest such bill clearing the House of Representatives by a vote of 400 to 20. Even in cases in which the administration has demonstrated reluctance, members of both parties in Congress have enthusiastically voted in an increasingly stringent sanctions regime.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) warned Sunday, as details of the talks filtered out of Geneva, against a situation in which “we seem to want the deal almost more than the Iranians. And you can’t want the deal more than the Iranians, especially when the Iranians are on the ropes.”

Menendez suggested that any deal should include a cessation of enrichment and an increase in the transparency of Iran’s nuclear program. He also congratulated the French negotiators for taking a tough tone toward the Arak heavy water plant — noting that “its only purpose in a country with such large oil reserves is to make nuclear fuel for nuclear weapons.”

Menendez, who has been a key supporter of previous Iran sanctions initiatives, announced during the interview on ABC’s “This Week” that the time had come for movement on Senate legislation to increase sanctions against Iran.

“I think that the possibility of moving ahead with new sanctions, including wording it in such a way that if there is a deal that is acceptable that those sanctions could cease upon such a deal, is possible,” Menendez said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to move forward on a package that ultimately would send a very clear message where we intend to be if the Iranians don’t strike a deal and stop their nuclear weapons program,” he added.

The Obama administration had asked, before the recent round of talks began, that the Senate delay action on sanctions to allow negotiations to take their course.

In the wake of last week’s negotiations, there is now a three-way split in terms of priorities. In addition to the pro-sanctions and anti-sanctions camps, Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN), the ranking member on Menendez’s committee has a third direction — not to focus on pushing for harsher sanctions, but on preventing the administration from giving away too much.

Asked over the weekend about sanctions, Corker was uncharacteristically noncommittal. “I don’t know,” he began, noting that “new sanctions would not kick in for several months” and emphasizing that “the administration has dialed back the rheostat since Rouhani’s election on the existing sanctions that we have. They have a lot of ability to waive and turn down and conduct these operations in lesser or stronger ways.”

Rather than offer a strong voice for the new sanctions, Corker is instead pushing an idea that he hinted at last week — legislation that would block the president from using any of those waivers that he mentioned unless Iran meets a number of key conditions — all of which are more stringent than the reported terms of the agreement proposed in Geneva.