WarSclerotic

Happy New Year! From the IDF…. – YouTube.

2013 was a momentous year for the IDF.

Through all of the challenges and celebrations, we remained focused on our supreme goal:

To defend the people of Israel.

–

Exclusive: US “framework” calls for 80,000 Israeli West Bank evacuations to the big settlement blocs.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 31, 2013, 9:34 AM (IDT)

The State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in Washington Tuesday, Dec. 31, that Secretary John Kerry would discuss with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas a “proposed framework” to serve as “a guideline for addressing all core issues” in the decades-long dispute.

“Some people say this would be an interim agreement. No, that’s not the case,” she said. The core issues she listed were “borders between Israel and a future Palestine, security arrangements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and conflicting claims to the holy city of Jerusalem.”
Kerry leaves for Israel and Ramallah on New Year’s Day to continue his shuttle, after Monday night, Dec. 30, Israel released from jail 26 Palestinian terrorists serving life sentences for murder.
debkafile reported earlier that the US Secretary does not expect Israeli and Palestinian leaders to approve the proposed framework – only to contribute their comments. We also reported that Abbas had indicated to the Secretary that that Palestinians were preparing to reject his proposals by demanding their referral to the various pan-Arab forums.

DEBKA Weekly No. 616 of Dec. 20 was first to divulge the nine points of the unpublished draft Kerry planned to present to Israeli and Palestinian leaders this week. Since then, certain amendments were introduced – especially in relation to Israel’s military presence in the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria.  The document continues to be molded by Kerry’s ongoing back-and-forth communications with the two parties.
Nevertheless, the nine points disclosed hereunder stand as the basic guidelines of the proposed US framework:

Israel hands over 92.8 pc of West Bank to Palestinians

1. Nearly all its content draws on the proposal Ehud Olmert, then Prime Minister, submitted to Abbas on Aug. 31, 2008, which he never accepted; nor was it approved by any Israeli authority.

2. Territory:  Israel will annex 6.8% of the West Bank including the four main settlement blocs of Gush Etzion with Efrata; Maale Adummim; Givat Zeev;and Ariel, as well as all of the “settlements” of East Jerusalem and Har Homa – in exchange for the equivalent of 5.5% of Israeli territory.
3. The Safe Passage:  The territorial link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would cut through southern Israel and remain under Israeli sovereignty and Palestinian control.

Our sources add that out of all other options, the American sponsors of the accord prefer to build an express railway line from Gaza to Hebron, without stops, which would be paid for by Washington. Abbas has already informed John Kerry that he wants the train to go all the way to Ramallah.
There will be a special road connecting Bethlehem with Ramallah that bypasses East Jerusalem. This is mostly likely the same route currently planned to go around Maaleh Adummim.
Since the safe passage will cross through Israeli, accounting for 1% of its territory, this area will be deducted from the land Israel concedes, leaving 4.54% for the land swap with the Palestinians.
4. Jerusalem:  East Jerusalem will be divided territorially along the lines of the Clinton Parameters with the exception of the “Holy Basin,” which comprises 0.04% of the West Bank.

Sovereignty over this ancient heart of Jerusalem, with its unique and historic concentration of Jewish, Christian and Muslim shrines, will pass to an international commission comprised of the US, Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
5. Refugees:  This issue will be addressed according to guidelines proposed by President Bill Clinton at Camp David in the year 2000 – and rejected by Yasser Arafat.
An International Foundation will be established to resettle the bulk of the Palestinian refugees in Canada and Australia, except for a small portion to be accepted in Israel in the framework of family reunification.

6. Security:  The Olmert package made no mention of security. However the Kerry draft deals extensively with this issue and Israel’s concerns. It calls for the evacuation of all 10,000 Jewish settlers from the Jordan Valley leaving behind a chain of posts along the Jordan River. Security corridors cutting through the West Bank will maintain their land and operational links with Israel.
Border crossings will be set up between Palestine and Jordan with an Israeli security presence. The security section of the draft assigns the use of West Bank and Gaza airspace by Israel and the Palestinians. There will be no Israeli military presence inside the Palestinian state.

7. Taxes: The present arrangement for Israel to collect customs levies and distribute the revenues to the Palestinians will continue. (debkafile: That is about the only clause which the Palestinians accept.) Israel will carry out security checks on goods bound for Palestinian that are unloaded at Haifa and Ashdod ports, and levy customs at rates fixed by the Palestinians to be disbursed in the Palestinian state.

8. Settlements:  Eighty percent of all Jewish settlers on the West Bank will be confined to the major settlement blocs as defined in 2. The remaining 20% amounting, according to American calculations to 80,000 people, will have to decide on their own whether they prefer to stay where they are under Palestinian rule or move to Israel.

debkafile’s sources report that Secretary Kerry advised the Israeli Prime Minister bluntly that he need not promise to force settlers to leave their homes – as the Sharon government did when he executed the unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Netanyahu replied that it was unacceptable for Israel to abandon the settlers to their fate. He therefore proposed that instead of forcing them to cross back into Israel, they would be absorbed in the larger settlement blocs remaining under Israeli sovereignty.

9. Timelines:  Different timetables are proposed in the US framework for implementing different sections: The Palestinian leader says he is willing to give Israel three years as a transition period for relocating settlers.
When he submitted the paper to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders earlier this month, the Secretary of State told them that he saw no point in the two negotiating teams holding meetings consumed by interminable debates on one point or another. He therefore asked both parties to henceforth send him their comments in writing.

Our World: Empowering Palestinians who reject Israel’s right to exist | JPost | Israel News.

12/30/2013 22:02

“Today a core goal of US Middle East policy is to secure the release of Palestinian mass murderers from Israeli prisons.”

Palestinians waiting at the Erez crossing for the release of prisoners from Israel. Photo: REUTERS

US Secretary of State John Kerry will arrive in Israel for his 14th visit this week. And to assure that his stay will be a happy one, Saturday night the government approved the release of 26 more Palestinian mass murderers from prison. This will please Kerry because today a core goal of US Middle East policy is to secure the release of Palestinian mass murderers from Israeli prisons.

That’s right. The same America that until a few years ago led the free world in the global war against terror, now conditions its support for Israel, its chief regional ally in that war, on the Jewish state’s willingness to release unrepentant, mass murdering terrorists back into Palestinian society.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it ought to go without saying that this policy hinders, rather than advances the cause of peace. It is impossible to rationally claim that by coercing Israel into releasing people like Juma Ibrahim Juma Adam and Mahmoud Salam Saliman Abu Karbish that the US is advancing the cause of peace.

In 1992, the two men firebombed a civilian bus, murdering Rachel Weiss, who was nine months pregnant, and three of her pre-school aged children, as well as IDF soldier David Delarosa, who tried to save them.

They were released on Monday, due to US pressure on Israel and received back home to heroes’ welcomes. Their freedom empowers Palestinians who reject Israel’s right to exist and seek its destruction through acts of genocide against its Jewish citizens.

Indeed, their release all but guarantees that the new round of terror war that Kerry threatened Israelis would break out if we aren’t forthcoming to PLO demands, will take place. In other words, by supporting the release of terrorists from prison, the US government is enabling the next round of the Palestinian terror war against Israel.

Beyond that, both the Palestinian demand for the terrorist releases, and the US support for those releases make a mockery of the whole concept of the two-state solution. A society that insists on the release from prison of its worst, most prolific murderers is not a society with any interest in making peace with the society targeted and victimized by their crimes.

And US support for this Palestinian demand puts paid to Kerry and President Barack Obama’s claims that they seek a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

The Palestinians’ support for terrorists doesn’t merely demonstrate their ill-intentions. It shows that the whole peace process that has become the centerpiece of US Middle East policy is based on a fiction.

When Israel agreed to accept the PLO as its partner in peacemaking two decades ago, that agreement was predicated on the terror group’s pledge to abjure further terrorism and to cooperate with Israel in fighting and defeating terrorists within Palestinian society. Without that pledge Israel would never have agreed to recognize the PLO . And that pledge, as we were reminded yet again on Monday, was a complete lie.

Then there is the international legal aspect to the Palestinian demand for Israel to free terrorists, and to the US support for this demand. Binding UN Security Council resolution 1373 requires all states to “Deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts, or provide safe havens.”

So by sheltering terrorists the Palestinian Authority stands in breach of binding international law. And by supporting the PA ’s sheltering of those terrorists, by coercing Israel into releasing them, the US has placed itself in a deeply problematic position in relation to international law. It has also forced Israel into a deeply problematic position by bowing to the US demand to release them.

The Israeli public, rightly, views the release of Palestinian mass murderers as insane, dangerous and immoral. In a bid to placate public opinion, every time his government agrees to free terrorists from prison, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announces that he is approving another stage in a seemingly endless process of permitting Israeli Jews to build homes in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. At this point, few in Israel are won over by Netanyahu’s largely hollow, transparently opportunistic gesture.

But whereas few Israelis are convinced Netanyahu is sincere, internationally his action has the egregious effect of reinforcing the deeply hostile and widely held perception that there is moral equivalence between murdering Jews and permitting Jews to live near Arabs. Netanyahu’s political pandering is counterproductive.

But on Sunday the government took what may be the first productive action that Israel has taken toward the Palestinians since the onset of the phony peace process 20 years ago.

On Sunday, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill sponsored by Likud MK Miri Regev to apply Israeli law over the Jordan Valley.

The Jordan Valley protects Israel from invasion and other acts of aggression from the east. And since 1967, there has been a consensus among Israelis that the area must remain under Israel’s sovereign control in perpetuity. This position remains inarguable today in light of the PLO ’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Were Israel to transfer control over the Jordan Valley to the PLO , it would enable the Palestinians to collaborate with outside actors in the planning and execution of major acts of aggression against Israel. Safeguarding against such an eventuality by asserting Israel’s international legal right to sovereignty over the area is an eminently reasonable, and indeed required means of ensuring Israel’s long-term survivability.

On the face of it, it is the champions of Palestinian statehood, led by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who should be most in favor of applying Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. Only by doing so does the two-state solution Livni has staked her career on have a chance of producing peace.

But of course, Livni and her colleagues on the far Left don’t see things this way. She and her comrades responded with apoplectic fits of rage at the cabinet committee’s vote, saying that Israel would be to blame for destroying the peace process.

Livni and her friends, of course, had not a word of criticism for Abbas and his followers for their unlawful championing of terrorist mass murderers.

She gave no indication that she views their continued support for Israel’s destruction as an obstacle to peace. Her wrath and that of her colleagues is reserved for Israeli elected officials who seek to safeguard Israel’s survival.

The media assures us that Netanyahu will bury the bill in governmental bureaucracy and proceed on course with further negotiations with the PLO , and further terrorist releases, in order to keep Kerry and Obama happy.

We must encourage the government to surprise the media.

Twenty years ago Israel crossed the Rubicon from strategic rationality into irrationality when we embraced the PLO and the chimerical twostate solution. This week’s cabinet decision was the first step in crossing back to the other side.

And we must work with our elected representatives to ensure that it is not an isolated event.

Iran doesn’t take Obama’s military option seriously, says Oren | The Times of Israel.

Ex-ambassador to the US warns the Iranian nuclear program is a ‘multiple existential threat to Israel,’ says it’s ‘much harder’ now for Israel to intervene

By David Horovitz December 30, 2013, 4:06 pm 1

The rogue Iranian nuclear program represents not just an existential threat to Israel, but a “multiple existential threat to Israel,” the former Israeli ambassador to the United States said in an interview. Were Iran to attain a “military nuclear capability,” Michael Oren elaborated, it would not need to perfect a missile delivery system in order to target Israel with nuclear weaponry, but could do so via other delivery systems, such as a simple container aboard a ship. Its attainment of that capability could also prompt the nuclearization of the entire Middle East.

Moreover, Oren warned, there was “nothing that would indicate” the Iranians believe US President Barack Obama would ever resort to force to prevent them from attaining the bomb.

He stressed that if Iran is not stopped at the enrichment stage, thwarting it once it had moved the key components of its bomb-making program underground would require thoroughly unlikely “massive, massive bombing campaigns” that would “flatten all of Iran.”

And any last-resort Israeli military intervention, Oren acknowledged, has become “much harder” since the charming, mild-mannered Hassan Rouhani succeeded the confrontational Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president and the US-led international community became deeply engaged in diplomacy with Iran.

Oren, who stepped down as ambassador in October, set out his profoundly worrying overview of the state of the battle to thwart the Iranian bomb in a lengthy interview, conducted at his new office at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, where he is lecturing in the Lauder School of Government and Diplomacy.

The New York-born historian and diplomat — who moved to Israel in 1979 and fought as a paratrooper in the 1982 Lebanon War, while also advancing an academic career that culminated in a PhD from Princeton — specified a long series of differences between the United States and Israel on grappling with the Iranian nuclear threat. He said personal relations between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were “perfectly fine,” but that there are structural differences, public opinion differences, and differences over “fundamental interpretations of the facts” on Iran between the two leaderships.

Oren also detailed a series of historical instances where the two countries had differed dramatically on critical issues — in 1948, 1956, and 1967 — and where, ultimately, Israel’s prime ministers took dramatic actions in defiance of the United States. He stressed that this did not necessarily mean Netanyahu was about to strike Iran. Israel “has the most to gain from a diplomatic solution,” he emphasized. “But the meaning of Jewish sovereignty is that you don’t outsource your fundamental security.”

Articulate and precise, Oren answered questions on his dealings with Arab ambassadors during his four-year term in Washington, on where the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is headed, and on Israeli-Diaspora relations. But the conversation began with, and largely focused on Iran:

‘We have zero margin for error. Can you say that about the US?’

The Times of Israel: It seems that this interim deal reached with Iran in November last month — and I understand that the prime minister does not disagree — is terrible from several perspectives. The moment to require the Iranians to acknowledge that they have been moving toward a weapons capability was lost. And there may never be permanent deal. And this interim deal doesn’t cover any of the weaponization work they’re doing…

Michael Oren: And will there be an interim deal?

Yes, despite all the handshakes and the hugging, there is no finalized interim deal yet. But Secretary Kerry says “I’m not naive and I’m not stupid”…

You got a big bump on the rial. You got a jump in the stock market in Tehran. The message has gone out that the sanctions will not be tightened, which translates as you’re loosening them. It is gain for the Iranians.

But, again, Kerry says “I’m not naive and I’m not stupid.” And President Obama says “I’m going in clear-eyed.” And yet this looks like amateur hour, with devastating consequences. How do you explain this?

You explain it by structural differences between the United States and Israel, and also public opinion differences between the United States and Israel. Structural differences: The United States is a big country. It’s far away from the Middle East. It’s not threatened with national annihilation. It has much bigger capabilities. We are a small country. We are in Iran’s backyard. We are threatened with national annihilation. And we have less capabilities.

That difference is played out in what the Americans are willing to live with, what risks they are willing to take. We have zero margin for error with Iran. Can you say that about the United States?

But that does not explain why you would be what appears to be incompetent in negotiating…

It’s not just Mr. Kerry [negotiating]. The other four members of the Security Council plus Germany have also signed on to this thing.

The P5+1 could not have got a better deal? Even though China and Russia were not pressing in the same way.

They did not think they could have gotten a better deal.

‘American policymakers are saying that, no, sanctions have basically reached their maximum capacity, that if you over-torque it they’ll begin to unravel’

So one of the differences [between the US and Israel] is of structure. There are differences of public opinion, where in the United States you have a lot of war-weariness, and actually support for the interim agreement. You have to acknowledge that there is an American public out there, whose opinion is not always heard here because all you see are American leaders. You don’t often see the American public. We learned from the Syrian episode last summer (when Obama pulled back from a threatened punitive strike after the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons) that that public can be pivotal in decision-making.

And then finally you have some different fundamental interpretations of the facts. We strongly believe that ratcheting up the sanctions, combined with a credible military threat, represent the best chance of bringing the Iranians round to actually dismantling the program. The American policymakers are saying that, no, sanctions have basically reached their maximum capacity, that if you over-torque it they’ll begin to unravel, and that a year from now we’ll be in a less good negotiating position than we are today. So there’s a fundamental difference on the facts.

There’s a fundamental difference about the Iranian leadership — whether there are genuine moderates or not. We’re highly, highly skeptical. [We consider that Iran’s President] Rouhani is part of the leadership of the revolution. He was selected by [Supreme Leader] Khamenei. And there are even doubts about whether he was selected to be the moderate candidate, whether he really was so moderate. Maybe that’s part of the whole scheme. But there are people in the United States who believe there is a distinction between moderates and radicals in Iran, and that you have to strengthen the former so that you don’t strengthen the latter.

Let me be sure I understand you: We in Israel have doubts that there is any genuine moderation here, while some in America think that possibly Rouhani is a moderate force. [Senior Likud MK] Tzachi Hanegbi, when I interviewed him, was pretty adamant that Rouhani’s election was not a planned masterstroke by Khamenei, but that he used it to his advantage.

I’m not an expert on Iran. I’ve heard people who are who think that this was possibly planned from the get-go.

Where do things stand and how will they play out?

To the degree that they can, Israeli leaders and representatives are going to be engaged in this intensive dialogue with their American counterparts, and with all the representatives of the P5+1, in order to clarify our position and our expectations regarding any type of final arrangement with the Iranians — the necessary components — all the while keeping our options on the table.

What constitutes a threshold state?

There was supposed to be a six-month period after the Geneva deal was done, in which they were aiming to reach a permanent deal.

Right.

Has that six month period begun?

No, I don’t think it has begun.

So we have this deal which has been done but not finalized. A month has passed. They’ve broken up for Christmas, meanwhile…

Meanwhile, they’re continuing to work on [the heavy water] Arak [facility]. Meanwhile, they continue to build and do research for the centrifuges. Meanwhile, they have their stockpiles [of enriched uranium].

And meanwhile, they’re doing who knows what on weaponization, which is not covered by the deal.

Weapnization is off the table. So the program in fact is progressing. Maybe they’re not breaking the 20% [enrichment] red line, but they’re expanding out horizontally, and in depth in terms of the weaponization. The Iranians are gaining.

Is it fair to define them now as a nuclear threshold state?

Our experts say no.

What would bring them to that point?

[First,] if they had all the centrifuges running. They have 10,000 out of 19,000 running. If they had installed the IR2s, which increase the accumulation rate four-fold.

More sophisticated centrifuges?

Right, the next generation.

Which they haven’t installed?

They have not installed… [Second,] we don’t know what’s going on with weaponization now. The weaponization would have to proceed to a certain point as well, [for Iran] to be truly threshold.

But we don’t think they’re at that yet?

No we don’t. But Netanyahu made a very important point a year and a half ago to the UN. He said it’s not important when Iran gets the bomb. The only important question is when will we no longer be able to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

Understand this: The only part of the Iranian nuclear program we can observe is the enrichment part. We know where they are on enrichment. They have enough in their 3.5% stockpile for more than four bombs. But [things change] once they get to a certain point where they can break out and reach SQ — which is sensitive quantity; which you need for one bomb. If they’re within four weeks of SQ, then the enriched uranium disappears. It goes into a room not much bigger than this [very small] room, where you have your components: You have your fuses. You have your timers. You have your spherical device.

You won’t know where that [room] is. This is a country that’s half the size of Europe. And you won’t know.

Now the United States says, We’ll know when they move the uranium. And during the vice presidential debates, Biden was very adamant: We’re gonna know. We’re gonna know. Okay. You know. But what if you only have a couple of weeks to know. Will you move that fast?

They have the 19,000 centrifuges. They haven’t been dismantled. They have the facilities. They haven’t been dismantled. They have the stockpile, which hasn’t been shipped abroad; they’re just getting rid in some way of the 180 kilograms of 20%. But if you have 6,000 or 7,000 kilograms of 3.5%, you’ve got enough for at least four bombs. So that’s all there.

Now think about it. I don’t know how long it takes to install those centrifuges. If the talks break down, or if there’s this fuzzy period at the end — very similar to what’s going on right now — and you quickly install your additional 9,000 centrifuges, among them the IR2s, which really give you [the equivalent of] about 24,000 centrifuges. And you have a stockpile. And maybe you’ve done some research and development, that actually gives you some closer to an IR3, which has an even higher rate of accumulation than the IR2s, how long is it going to take you [to break out]?

And the answer is?

Weeks. Now the international community moves slowly. It’s the old speedboat versus the aircraft carrier. You’ve got to move the world’s biggest aircraft carrier: the entire international community. And get them on board with what? Military action? Play the scenario out. Would the Chinese and Russians agree on military action?

The constant paradox of the military threat, as we always said, was: the more credible, the less the chance you have to use it.

But it’s also: If you do have to use it, the earlier you use it, the less damage there will be than later. Why? Because if you can still stop [the Iranian program] at the enrichment cycle, then you are neutralizing certain facilities before they can move out [the enriched material]. But once they move it out, and it goes underground, you’re going to flatten all of Iran. Then you’re talking about massive, massive bombing campaigns. So the military option is only a real option if it’s used, you know, incredibly early on.

It’s only credible if it’s pinpoint, if it’s surgical. Because if you miss that moment, then you’ve got to bomb all of Iran. You don’t know where this room is.

And nobody would contemplate doing that?

Much more difficult.

Unthinkable because of the civilian casualties…

Everything. You’re talking a much bigger operation.

How credible is [the talk of a resort to force] at any point? The Russians and the Chinese would not go along under any circumstances, surely, would not be part of or sanction military intervention even if it’s clear that Iran is becoming a nuclear weapons state.

I know the American part. President Obama says that he’s serious, that all options are on the table — he just said this again in Washington — and that he’s not bluffing. They certainly have the capabilities.

The question is not whether the president says, All options are on the table. The question is whether the Iranians believe it. And there is nothing that would indicate — at least to us, to Israeli observers — so far that the Iranians believe it.

‘The Iranians planned to blow up a restaurant in Washington. They planned to blow up Israel’s embassy, in downtown Washington. Now a country that’s planning that type of terrorist attack in the capital of the United States is not particularly afraid of military retribution. Agree?’

On the contrary, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that the Iranians don’t believe it.

Such as?

They planned to blow up a restaurant in downtown Washington. They planned to blow up my embassy, Israel’s embassy, in downtown Washington. Same plot.

The Saudi plot?

Yes. I wrote about it in an op-ed.

Now a country that’s planning that type of terrorist attack in the capital of the United States is not particularly afraid of military retribution. Agree? That would be one indication.

Obama told AIPAC that containment…

… is not an option.

Do you see that reflected in US policy? Is he showing that he’s prepared to live with an Iran with a nuclear weapons capability?

He claims that he is not.

Well, he says that he won’t allow Iran to attain nuclear weapons. (At the Saban Forum last month, Obama said his “goal is to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.”) Aren’t we seeing Obama pursuing containment?

The question is whether we have different definitions of containment. For us, what is very important is that Iran does not have the breakout capability. And we don’t want to see them contained, with what is sometimes referred to as Japan-like [capabilities]. Because [an Iran] even with breakout capabilities has an immense impact on our security. It will adversely impact our ability to deal with terrorism, especially Iranian-backed terrorist groups. And even the attainment of “mere” breakout capability could trigger the nuclear arms race in the entire Middle East. At that point the Saudis, the Egyptians and others will start going…

The United States can live with an Iran that has breakout capabilities? That’s what you’re seeing?

No, but the United States has made clear that it can live with a certain amount of Iranian nuclear capabilities. I’m not saying military capabilities, but nuclear capabilities. The administration said two things: It said it had not recognized Iran’s right to enrich. And yet you look at the [interim] agreement and it says that the question of enrichment will be addressed in a mutually agreed way.

And Obama at Saban said, I can envisage a deal in which they do have a limited enrichment program, much inspected…

If they have no right to enrich, why do they need centrifuges? So why weren’t they dismantled?

Then why isn’t the United States insisting on this?

The question is how we would look at an Iran that has that type of even highly inspected, limited, nuclear production capabilities: Would we view that as an Iran that is capable of breaking out?

Whereas Obama plainly under certain circumstances could live with something like that.

He said it. He said it.

A ‘multiple existential threat’

There are these structural differences between Israel and the United States. And you were the man charged with maintaining a smooth relationship somehow on a critical issue — I don’t know if you consider it an existential threat to Israel?

Yes. I think it’s a multiple existential threat. I don’t think it’s just one. It’s several.

What does that mean?

Iran with a nuclear weapon — the obvious one — is that they stick one of these bombs on top of one of the many missiles they have that are capable of carrying them and hitting any Israeli city. The “one bomb country” scenario. Two, the nuclearization of the entire Middle East. And three, Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. So once Iran gets a military nuclear capability, you don’t have to worry [only] about a rocket, you’ll have to be worried about a ship container. There are various ways in which they can deliver it. So it’s not one existential threat. It’s a multiple one.

So here you are trying to serve the interests of our country in its relationship with its best ally, in a situation of different contexts, and different threats. How are we doing in terms of that relationship. Is it okay? Are the personal withering assessments by the leaders of each other impacting on that relationship?

They had 11 meetings. Personal meetings. I was in all of them. They’re perfectly fine. They were open and candid and friendly. There were some laughs. There were some real laughs in those meetings. Obama claims to have spent more time on the telephone, and in his personal relations [with Netanyahu] than with any other foreign leader, and I think he’s probably right. A lot of hours. At the end of the day, we’re dealing with two countries whose interests on this issue cannot be entirely confluent — because of the structural differences and because of the circumstances in which they find themselves.

But who are intertwined.

They are intertwined.

So here’s Netanyahu, who thinks that the world is always going to try to wipe out the Jews, and that we have to be strong, and that we have to snuff out our enemies before they come for us. And Israel’s key ally, which is a little more distanced from this threat, but is going to be drawn into anything that we choose to do?

You think there’s anything new with this? Why do you think it’s about Netanyahu and Obama. I come with one great advantage: I come with the historical perspective. [Israel’s first prime minister] Ben-Gurion in May 1948 is under immense pressure from the Truman administration not to declare a Jewish state. George Marshall is telling [president Truman] that the Jews are going to be wiped off the face of the earth if they do this. They’ll be defeated in three weeks. [Moshe] Sharett [the first Israeli foreign minister] goes crazy. Sharett comes back to Ben-Gurion and says, You can’t do this. George Marshall, the architect of the World War II settlement, says we’re going to be destroyed.

They want more time for diplomacy. Ben-Gurion has to make this terrible decision: Do I declare statehood? Existential issue for us. The risks are great. We may not have the Americans on our side.

But he did. And Truman overrode Marshall.

In 1956 — this is widely forgotten — what was the Suez Sinai campaign about? Suez Sinai was the product of an estimation made by Moshe Dayan, the chief of staff, and Ben-Gurion, that the Egypt army would within six months absorb the massive amount of Soviet weaponry given them under the so-called Czech arms deal, and that at the end of those six months, Israel would be faced with an existential threat. At the height of the Suez crisis, there’s international diplomacy going on all over the place; you’ve got John Foster Dulles, who’s no great Zionist, to say the least. Huge pressures, and Ben-Gurion has to make a decision.

1967, [prime minister] Levi Eshkol, same deal. [President] Johnson says do not do anything. Don’t go alone. We need time for diplomacy. Got to work with the international community.

Meanwhile, the Arab armies are gathering on our border. Eshkol gave time to exhaust diplomatic options. In the end, he had to do what he had to do.

That doesn’t mean that Netanyahu is going to do the same thing right now. The stakes are very, very high. Israel has the most to gain from a diplomatic solution. The most to lose from the failure of a diplomatic solution. So it’s not an easy call. But the meaning of Jewish sovereignty is that you don’t outsource your fundamental security. There’s no shirking the responsibility. This is our responsibility. It’s an onerous responsibility.

‘Our purpose here is not to draw America into anything. But we do have to ensure our survival’

But, again, we’re intertwined. That if Israel does what it feels it has to do, the United States is going to be caught up in this. And therefore you might think that the Americans would not suffice themselves with saying, ‘Our red lines are a little bit different. But we recognize your right to defend yourselves.’ They’re going to get drawn in, aren’t they, if we feel that they did a lousy deal, and Iran’s now breaking out to the bomb?

I think you’d have to ask the American ambassador, you’d have to ask Dan Shapiro, that question. I agree with you. Our purpose here is not to draw America into anything. But we do have to ensure our survival. And no Israeli leader, left, right, up, down, would make a different call. Because they’re all looking at the same information, looking at the same intelligence. Netanyahu doesn’t get up in the morning and decide on a whim to take these polices. He is conferring with a very sizable community of intelligence experts — among the world’s best, if they aren’t the world’s best — from Mossad, from military intelligence, who are basically adducing the same evidence to support a case. That’s his responsibility as prime minister.

No other conceivable prime minister, then, would have resorted to the use of force yet?

You’re turning it around. The use of force yet? That’s a different way of coming at it. What I’m saying is that every prime minister would have exhausted the diplomatic options, all the while preserving our right to possibly act if we have to, if there’s no other choice. That, I think any prime minister would do.

I wonder, now, with this avuncular, likable foreign minister that they have, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and their serene president Rouhani, and an international community engaged in a diplomatic process, whether it’s much harder now for Israel to act, as opposed to six months ago, when it was Ahmadinejad and no comparable international engagement…?

Much harder.

That doesn’t mean we missed the moment and should have acted already?

I cannot respond to that.

I understand. And in terms of what we can do: You spoke of the stages of a military option — at one point it’s pinpoint, and then later on it’s much more dramatic when things have disappeared [underground]. Do we have a military option beyond the pinpoint? What kind of options do we have that you can discuss?

I can’t. All I can say is that we have the capability and the ability to defend ourselves.

Our moment of potential action has not passed?

I’ve been out of the office for three months. But as of October 1, we have the ability.

Making sense of Kerry’s bridging proposals

On the Palestinian front, we have rumors of an impending framework agreement to be presented by the Americans.

Bridging agreements, framework programs. I don’t know. The sides are basically according with Kerry’s ground rules. I can only, again, fall back on history: Bridging proposals are only effective when the parties are relatively close, not when they’re relatively far. That’s why they’re called bridging proposals. That’s going back to Camp David in 1979, when America came up with bridging proposals. If you try to make that bridge with a bigger span, it will fold in the middle. So it could be one indication that the sides are not that far apart, if it’s coming to bridging proposals.

‘Peacekeeping forces are very effective as long as there’s no peace to keep’

Or, someone is looking for an exit strategy: ‘I did my best. I put a lot of prestige into this. Here’s what I think should happen. If you guys get around to talking about this, I’ll be happy. You’ve got my phone number.’ [If that’s the case], it’s Baker-esque (a reference to former US secretary of state James Baker’s comments to the sides to call him when they were truly interested in a peace accord).

I don’t know, honestly.

Again, no prime minister would enable our eastern border, the eastern border of a Palestinian state, to be guarded by an international force. With our experience going back to 1967 — to UNEF, and then UNIFIL, and now UNDOF — peacekeeping forces are very effective as long as there’s no peace to keep.

And there’s been talk of an American force.

I find it interesting because I don’t see the American people sending another major military force to the Middle East.

And it would be disastrous for Israel, because the last people we would want to tangle with there are American forces?

Yeah, perhaps that’s one of the reasons why the Palestinians would want it: We’d end up tangling with [the Americans].

It would not be popular with the American public today, to send a sizable force of American troops here. I’m not even sure the funds would be available for it, because they are going through a process of sequestration, cutting back.

We’re certainly not asking for it.

In view of the Lebanese experience, in view of the Gaza experience, you cannot be responsible and let anybody else peruse those borders. You can mix and shuffle it, but at the end of the day, the people who have to be responsible for that are Israelis.

And if Abbas really wanted an agreement, he would recognize that?

It’s a point of keen sensibilities for them. They want to be able to say that they’re completely sovereign. We’re going to come back and say that the presence of foreign troops does not derogate from sovereignty. Look at the example of Americans in Korea, Americans in Germany — those are sovereign nations. And we’ll review this over a certain period of time and see whether, to quote Obama, the Palestinian state can fill its sovereign responsibilities. That’s got to be a long-term process.

We cannot afford to see the West Bank fill up with hundreds of thousands of rockets, which is what will happen if that border is left open — we’re talking about the Philadelphia Route [between Gaza and Egypt] ten times over. It’s opposite our major population and industrial centers. I don’t think any prime minister would concede that.

Don’t we undermine our case, and our vital needs, with new settlement announcements and plans, especially in areas that Israel doesn’t envisage retaining under a permanent accord?

I’m sure they’re not helpful for the United States, they’re not helpful for the international community, they’re not helpful for the Palestinians… A certain part of the Israeli public might be comforted, after painful measures such as the release of prisoners who have blood on their hands, by construction.

Well, much of the Israeli public would say don’t release the prisoners, and stop building beyond the security barriers and the blocs, wouldn’t it?

Most of the building is within the security barrier and the blocs. There’s very little actual building going on that’s not within the blocs.

Take the entire settlement enterprise: Does it enhance our relationship with the United States and the international community? The answer obviously is no. Is it controversial within Israel? It is controversial within Israel.

Don’t alienate non-Orthodox Jews in America

What impact does it have on Israel’s relationship with the Jews in America.

Settlements? It has an impact on certain Jews. But some Jews in America are also dissatisfied we’re not building more and faster. The American Jewish left gets a lot of press time. But the American Jewish right does not. And in many ways, the American Jewish right is every bit as well-organized and perhaps better funded than the American Jewish left. And they also come out with criticism.

I had as much opposition from the American Jewish right as I did from the American Jewish left. At least as much.

For what?

For being in favor of the two-state solution. For effecting the moratorium [on settlement building] in 2010. For prisoner releases.

What’s your take, after this term, on American Jews and Israel — how close are we, what we should be doing better, the non-Orthodox controversies…?

It’s not black and white. Parts of the answer can appear contradictory. The American Jewish community is similar to what many physicists say is occurring in the universe — that it’s expanding and contracting at the same time. So the American community — read the Pew Report — they’re contracting through intermarriage and assimilation. However, at the same time, there’s a strong kernel of the American Jewish community, not just Orthodox, but also Jews who’ve gone on Birthright, who are more connected Jewishly and more connected to Israel, and that’s expanding. New York alone for the last three years has had a positive Jewish growth rate, for the first time in decades. So there are parts of the community that are actually growing.

So if you look down the road, 20 or 30 years from now, the American Jewish community may be smaller, but it could also be more Jewishly identified and more connected to Israel.

At the same time, on the constriction side, you have not only Jews who are disaffected because of Israeli policies, but also because the state of Israel doesn’t recognize Reform and Conservative Judaism.

I met with rabbis — the only place here they can all convene safely is under the aegis of the Israeli Embassy and the consul general; we’re like neutral turf — and the only thing that all the rabbis, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox, agreed on, was their opposition to the [Israeli] Chief Rabbinate. It’s amazing.

What have the US Orthodox rabbis got against the Israeli Chief Rabbinate?

They don’t recognize most of their conversions today.

The Israeli Chief Rabbinate…?

… does not recognize a large number of the [US] Orthodox rabbis’ conversions. You can’t make this stuff up.

‘We need to recognize all forms of Judaism’

And if Israel does not work to make itself the nation state of all the Jewish people, and be truly pluralistic and open about this, then we risk losing these people.

What do we need to do?

We need to recognize all forms of Judaism. We have to recognize the roles of those movements in Judaism within different life-cycle events in Israeli life. We risk alienating them. The amazing thing about the Reform movement is that, after so many years of not being recognized by the state of Israel, they remain so pro-Israeli. That to me is extraordinary.

And it won’t last forever?

I don’t know how long it’s going to last. I would not be fully confident about it.

I’ll sit with American Jewish Reform and Conservative leaders who care passionately about Israel. But they’ll say to you: I can’t tell you how hurtful it is that the state of Israel doesn’t recognize my form of Judaism. It is the worst pain when you say something like that. It’s something we have to address as a society if we are to remain the nation state of the Jewish people.

[When I returned as ambassador in 2009,] I had not lived in the United States for a quarter of a century. I had this Rip Van Winkle experience of this guy who wakes up after a long… I consulted with a lot of guides in the American Jewish community about what had happened in those 25 years. I had some wonderful people helping me. I got very sage advice. There was a big question about this notion of “the nation state of the Jewish people.” At the time, I think the prime minister was referring to Israel as the Jewish state. They came back to me and said the locution, the formula, that would be most acceptable to a majority of American Jews would be Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. And I conveyed this to the Prime Minister’s Office, and we adopted it. We got this from these American Jewish leaders.

I take it very seriously: the nation state of the Jewish people. But we’ve got to stand behind it. Now we’ve accepted the formula, let’s live up to it.

The Saudis looked through me

Finally, were you surprised, coming to Washington as the ambassador, at relationships with other Arab countries where you’d never have dreamed of interaction, or is there nothing?

There were three types of Arab ambassadors in Washington: Those who’ll have lunch with me publicly, those who’ll have lunch with me privately, and those who won’t have lunch with me — they won’t even look at me. The latter category is the smallest, and it’s gotten smaller because the Syrians are not there any more. The Syrians don’t have an embassy in Washington.

I was surprised that some of the countries that fall into that latter category weren’t more inviting, for the simple reason that our interests are more confluent now than at any time in the last 65 years: We agree on Egypt, we agree on Syria, we agree on the Palestinians basically, and we agree on Iran. And that should make for a closer relationship, even privately.

So the Saudis, for instance, wouldn’t even look at you?

The Saudis had a wonderful ability to look through me. Perfectly nice people, but they were not willing to go there. They walk fine lines. I never took it personally. It’s their loss.

Israel Hayom | White House gives Iran the green light.

Boaz Bismuth

IDF fires artillery rounds at Lebanon in response to Katyusha rockets | JPost | Israel News.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, REUTERS

12/29/2013 07:46

Nissim Malka, mayor of Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 2 News, “We woke up to the sounds of rockets this morning. At the moment residents are going to work as normal. We will notify them of changes if necessary.”

IDF soldiers patrol near the Israel-Lebanon border. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

The IDF responded with intense artillery fire toward the location from which four rockets were launched in southern Lebanon just minutes after residents of the border town of Kiryat Shmona heard loud explosions.

Army sources say that the source of the fire has been identified but that it was too soon to say which organization is responsible for the attack.

Two Katyusha rockets exploded near Kiryat Shmona, where residents reported seeing smoke rising from a fire sparked by one of the projectiles which landed on a hill overlooking the city. Two other rockets landed in Lebanese territory. No injuries or damage was reported.

Nissim Malka, Mayor of Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 2 News, “We woke up to the sounds of rockets this morning. At the moment residents are going to work as normal. We will notify them of changes if necessary.”

Schools are functioning as they would on any normal day, and no delays were reported in the busing of children to class.

A Reuters witness in the Lebanon frontier area said more than 20 Israeli shells hit near two southern border towns.

The Israeli-Lebanese border has been largely quiet since Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fought a 34-day war in 2006.

But tension spiked this month when a Lebanese soldier killed an Israeli soldier across the border fence, after which a UN peacekeeping force met both sides to restore calm.

Officials suggested at the time that the shooting had been the isolated action of an individual.

Last August, four rockets fired from southern Lebanon targeted northern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in Acre, Nahariya and additional areas in the Western Galilee and sending frightened local residents fleeing for cover.

Two of the Katyushas crossed the border and landed in Israel, causing no casualties but some damage.

Two Katyusha rockets fired at Kiryat Shmona | JPost | Israel News.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

12/29/2013 07:46

Nissim Malka, mayor of Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 2 News, “We woke up to the sounds of rockets this morning. At the moment residents are going to work as normal. We will notify them of changes if necessary.”

IDF soldiers patrol near the Israel-Lebanon border. Photo: REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

Two Katyusha rockets exploded near Kiryat Shmona, near the Lebanese border on Sunday morning. Residents have reported seeing smoke rising from a fire sparked by one of the projectiles which landed on a hill overlooking the city.

Nissim Malka, Mayor of Kiryat Shmona, told Channel 2 News, “We woke up to the sounds of rockets this morning. At the moment residents are going to work as normal. We will notify them of changes if necessary.”

Last August, four rockets fired from southern Lebanon targeted northern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in Acre, Nahariya and additional areas in the Western Galilee and sending frightened local residents fleeing for cover.

Two of the Katyushas crossed the border and landed in Israel, causing no casualties but some damage.

US prepares to pay Netanyahu back for Iran campaign, using Palestinian issue as bludgeon.

The Obama administration is preparing to settle scores with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu,  for his campaign against US-led nuclear diplomacy with Iran, by holding him to blame for the impasse in Israel-Palestinian negotiations. This will ignore the uniform assessments by US and Israeli intelligence analysts that it is the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas who is holding out against all Secretary of State John Kerry’s Herculean efforts for a peace accord with Israel, say debkafile’s Washington and Jerusalem sources.

Abbas (Abu Mazen) is sure that he can get more from the international community by diplomatic manipulation and effective propaganda. He believes he holds enough cards and leverage to manage without having to reach terms for deals with the US or Israel.
He is only playing along with the Americans and Israelis for one purpose – not to lose US and other Western financial assistance. Earlier this month, the European Union said it would discontinue the $1 billion annual contribution to the Palestinian Authority if a peace accord with Israel was not signed within a year. Abbas appreciates that the Europeans would follow the American lead for an aid cutoff.
The US-EU aid packages totaling $1.5 billion account for nearly all of the PA’s regular revenue. The most up-to-date intelligence data reaching Washington and Jerusalem confirm that if Abbas were to find an alternative source of income, he would grab it and drop out of the peace negotiations like a shot.
But the Obama administration and Netanyahu government alike are ignoring these assessments and pressing on with the talks, mindful of the end-of-April deadline set for reaching the finishing line.

This gap between reality and wishful thinking provides fertile ground for groundless speculation, such as the conjecture which drags the long-serving Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard into the equation in the form of a rumor that Washington may consider releasing him as a reward for Israel’s consent to release certain convicted Palestinian terrorists, including Israeli Arab citizens.

Another such rumor is that the US will put before the parties next month a final plan for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.

According to debkafile’s Washington sources, Kerry refuses to be discouraged by Abbas’s evasions and has indeed drafted a non-binding five-page working paper, which is not a plan. He will put it before Netnayahu and Abbas early next month without asking for any commitments for or against the outline.

Both will be invited to record their reservations and comments. This will supply the fodder for extending the negotiations for several more months after the first six-month period expires.

Sitting on Netanyahu’s desk too, according to our sources, is a confidential report on the Obama administration’s plans for personal retribution for the offensive he pursued against the signing of an accord to provide Iran with legitimacy for its nuclear program.

Washington plans to get back at the Israeli prime minister by pinning on him – not Abbas – the blame for the inevitable impasse in the talks with the Palestinians. He will be depicted as a political failure who heads a dysfunctional government and a serial denier of peace.

This smear campaign will be conducted internationally and in Israel, by rallying Israel’s foes abroad and Netanyahu’s political enemies at home.

debkafile has heard from a high-placed source in Jeruslem that these plans are viewed in Jerusalem as “highly problematical.” They see Israeli and American media and other personalities recruited for a personal, political vendetta against the prime minister at a level well outside acceptable bounds – even when governments disagree.

Netanyahu is well aware that the Palestinian question is not the issue. He knows he is facing the music – politically and personally – from the Obama administration for his effort to sway the US Congress against the policy of US rapprochement with a regime in Tehran which is dedicated to Israel’s extinction.
Administration sources explain that Netanyahu will be receiving a dose of his own medicine and this is legitimate.

So, as John Kerry prepares to pay his 12th or 13th visit to Israel and Ramallah, Netanyahu faces three dilemmas:

1.  Iran keeps on bragging that the Geneva accord brought its nuclear program and right to enrich uranium nternational acceptance, while at the same time flouting its provisions right and left.  Cutting-edge centrifuges have been installed for speeding the enrichment of uranium close to weapons-grade, and the construction of the heavy water reactor in Arak continues apace. The Iranians are capitalizing on the failure of the Geneva conference to set a date for the onset of the interim six-month period for further negotiations, and using the time to further their military nuclear projects.

The Geneva accord was designed to disqualify the military option for ending Iran’s chase after nuclear weapons. So what happens now?
2.  The level of Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israelis is expected by all intelligence branches to escalate. However, the Israeli government and military are tied hand and foot by the formality of ongoing US-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians. Although they know exactly who is pulling the wires behind the current violence, the Israeli military can’t strike at its heart. And so Israeli officials and military spokesmen are resorting to euphemist depictions, such as “popular, disorganized violence, to avoid action.

3.  The US campaign of deprecation against the Israeli government and its head has begun. How to deal with it?

Israel to announce plan for drawing more French Jews | The Times of Israel.

( The next great Alia…  Post-war Europe, Arab countries, Russia, Ethiopia and now France. Each place drove our people out.  To their benefit and to ours…  Welcome, brothers….

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”  – JW )

French diplomas for some medical, tax fields to be recognized in first step; potential to attract 42,000 by 2017, says Ministry of Public Diplomacy

By JTA December 27, 2013, 2:32 pm

Israel is set to announce a three-year plan aimed at attracting more French Jews to settle in the Jewish state.

The first move will consist of recognizing French diplomas for medical professionals and tax consultants, an official from Israel’s Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs told the Maariv daily this week. The government has decided in principle to increase funding for facilitating the arrival of new immigrants from France, said the official, who was not named.

“The government has realized this is a historic window of opportunity,” said the official.

More than 3,000 French Jews will have moved to Israel by year’s end, an annual tally reached only four times in the past, most recently in 2005.

The causes for the surge are said to be the community’s deep attachment to Israel, rising anti-Semitism and the financial crisis gripping French economy.

Currently, Israel does not recognize a host of French diplomas, including those of optometrists, opticians, physiotherapists and tax consultants.

“This is a stumbling block to aliyah,” Ariel Kandel, the Jewish Agency for Israel’s chief of operations in France, told JTA earlier this month. “As it stands now, I need to advise people in those professions not to come.”

In addition to recognizing more diplomas from France, the ministry plans to offer special assistance for French Jews with job placement, housing and education needs for children, Maariv reported.

Many French Jews who want to emigrate choose Britain, Canada or the United States over Israel, according to the ministry, which estimates that Israel has the potential of attracting 42,000 French Jewish immigrants by 2017.

Former Lebanese PM Hariri points to Hezbollah over deadly Beirut blast | JPost | Israel News.

( And Obama thinks he’s making a diplomatic breakthrough with these people… JW )

By REUTERS

12/27/2013 13:20

Explosions in Lebanon’s capital kills Hariri’s former aide, Hezbollah critic Mohamad Cahata; four others die in bomb attack, which according to security sources targeted diplomat’s convoy.

An explosion rocked the Lebanese capital Beirut, December 27, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Steve Crisp

BEIRUT – Lebanon’s former prime minister Saad al-Hariri accused Hezbollah of involvement in Friday’s bomb attack in Beirut that killed his adviser Mohamad Chatah.

“As far as we are concerned the suspects…are those who are fleeing international justice and refusing to represent themselves before the international tribunal,” Hariri said, referring to five Hezbollah suspects indicted for the 2005 killing of his father.

The trial of the five suspects is due to open in The Hague in January. The suspects are all fugitives and Hezbollah, which denies any role in the Hariri assassination, has refused to cooperate with the court which it says is politically motivated.

Chatah, who opposed Syrian President Bashar Assad, and four other people were killed in a massive bomb blast that targeted his car in Beirut on Friday, security sources said.

Chatah, 62, a Sunni Muslim, was also a critic of Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah movement and an adviser to former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri.

His killing occurred three weeks before the long-delayed opening of a trial of five Hezbollah suspects indicted for the Feb. 2005 bombing which killed former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, Saad’s father, and 21 other people.

Hezbollah has denied involvement in the 2005 attack. Preliminary UN investigations implicated Syrian officials.

A tweet posted on his Twitter account less than an hour before the blast accused the Shi’ite movement of trying to take control of the country.

The explosion sent shock waves among residents and emptied the streets in downtown where people, seeking a respite from recent turmoil, had ventured out to enjoy the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

The conflict in neighboring Syria has polarized Lebanon and ratcheted up sectarian tensions. Hezbollah has sent fighters to Syria to fight alongside Assad, who comes from the Alawite sect, a heterodox offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

Some of the Sunni Syrian rebel groups are linked to al Qaeda, which is also seeking to topple Assad.

Former minister Marwan Hamadeh, who survived a car bombing in 2004, told Al Arabiya television: “Hezbollah will not be able to rule Lebanon, no matter how much destruction it causes or blood it spills”.

CAR WRECKED

Sources at the explosion site said Chatah was on his way to attend a meeting at Hariri’s headquarters when the explosion tore through his car. Hariri himself has stayed away from Lebanon for more than two years, fearing for his safety.

A Reuters witness at the scene said his car was “totally destroyed, it is a wreck.” Chatah’s identity card, torn and charred, was found inside his car.

Iran, which backs Hezbollah, came under attack in Beirut last month. On Nov. 19, two suicide bombings rocked the embassy compound in Lebanon, killing at least 25 people including an Iranian cultural attache and hurling bodies and burning wreckage across a debris-strewn street.

A Lebanon-based al-Qaida-linked group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, claimed responsibility and threatened further attacks unless Iran withdraws forces from Syria, where they have backed Assad’s 2-1/2-year-old war against rebels.

The sound of Friday’s blast was heard across the city at around 9:40 a.m. (0740 GMT) and a plume of black smoke was seen rising in the downtown business and hotel district. It shattered glass in nearby apartment blocks and damaged restaurants, coffee shops and offices in the chic district of downtown Beirut.

“I heard a huge explosion and saw a ball of fire and palls of black smoke. We run out of our offices to the streets,” said Hassan Akkawi, who works in a finance company nearby.

“The explosion caught motorists driving in the morning rush hour here. There was terror and panic among residents. There was a big ball of fire and panic everywhere and then we learned that Chatah was the target,” said Adel-Raouf Kneio.

Minutes after the blast ambulances were seen taking victims from the area. A restaurant and a coffee shop were destroyed in the blast, and several cars were on fire, the witness said. There was glass everywhere and the acrid smell of explosives filled the air.

Much of Beirut went into lockdown following the explosion, with police blocking off roads across the city.

After a series of explosions in the capital and in the northern city of Tripoli, the Lebanese army had stepped up security measures ahead of Christmas and New Year, fearing further attacks.