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Report: US Closer to Israel’s Stance in Talks – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

US Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Prime Minister Netanyahu for 3rd time in 24 hours; said to be response to PA refusals.

Kerry meeting with Lapid, Dec. 6 2013

US Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the third time in 24 hours on Friday for talks regarding Israel’s security, AFP reports.

The news comes on the heels of unconfirmed reports that the US is responding to the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s refusal to cooperate by inching closer to Israel’s position on issues regarding the region’s security.

Kerry, who is seeking ways to drive forward stagnant peace talks, met twice with Netanyahu on Thursday for more than six hours of talks about potential security issues in any peace agreement. He also held a three-hour meeting in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

The meetings did not go well, however – Abbas rejected every offer set forth by the US Thursday, claiming the US would allow Israelis to continue to live in the region. Chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP the situation was “still very difficult and matters are complicated.” A senior PA source was more direct, saying Kerry’s security proposals “were very bad ideas which we cannot accept.”

In talks with Netanyahu on Thursday, Kerry and top security adviser General John Allen outlined their view of some of the security challenges likely to face Israel in the context of a final peace agreement.

Netanyahu has said Israel would only accept the emergence of a Palestinian state if it was demilitarized, with Israeli troops deployed along the Jordan Valley – an option the Palestinians completely reject. Israel argues that the Jordan Valley is strategically crucial for the protection of Israel’s borders in the event of war, and Israeli officials have also rejected any proposal removing this valley from Israel’s control.

Kerry has claimed that the US views Israel’s security is “fundamental” to the peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and a top priority for Washington in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

“I can’t emphasize enough that Israel’s security in this negotiation is at the top of our agenda,” Kerry told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “The United States will do everything in our power to make certain that Iran’s nuclear program of weaponization possibilities is terminated.”

Late Thursday, Kerry addressed the progress of peace talks so far, which have until now widely been regarded by both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs as a failure. “Today, we discussed at great length issues of security in the region, security for the state of Israel, security for a future Palestine. And we, I think, made some progress,” Kerry said.

“The interests are very similar, but there are questions of sovereignty, questions of respect and dignity which are obviously significant to the Palestinians, and for the Israelis – very serious questions of security,” he said.

Maariv reported Friday that Israeli officials are pleased with Kerry’s security proposals, but firm opposition from the Palestinian Authority was what prompted him to schedule a third meeting with Netanyahu.

A diplomatic source quoted by the paper said Washington “had moved considerably in the direction of Israel’s demands” and had “accepted Israel’s position on a long-term presence in the Jordan Valley”.

The outline “gives good answers to the Israeli demands and is very forthcoming towards Israel,” the source said.

Early on Friday, Kerry also met Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) at a Jerusalem hotel, after which he entered another round of talks with Netanyahu, officials said. The US diplomat was then expected to head straight to Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv where he would hold a news conference before flying home.

When friends disagree | JPost | Israel News.

By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

12/05/2013 21:34

There exists a reasonable and legitimate disagreement between the current Israeli government and the current American Administration.

There exists a reasonable and legitimate, but also fundamental, disagreement between the current Israeli government and the current American Administration with regard to how best to prevent Iran from developing the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. There is no real disagreement about this goal.

Nor are there significant differences regarding the basic facts on the ground. The intelligence agencies of both countries seem to have roughly the same information available to them, since much of it comes from the same or parallel sources. But each country draws different inferences – some empirical, others based on risk assessment – from the facts.

The United States is placing hope over fear in seeing a possible diplomatic opening with Iran, hoping that the supreme leader and his allies are not simply playing for time but may eventually consider dismantling, or least not moving forward with, a nuclear weapons program that they deny seeking, but that both the United States and Israel strongly believe is their goal. Israel, which is at far greater and more immediate risk from a nuclear armed Iran, places fear over hope and believes that it is more likely that Iran is using the six month negotiating period to weaken the sanctions against it while doing little or nothing to halt its march toward atomic weapons.

The reality is that no one, except the Iranian leadership – not nuclear experts, not outside Iranian experts, not American intelligence and not Israeli intelligence – knows for sure which of these scenarios, with or without significant variations, is closer to the truth. Indeed, it is not 100% certain, though it is likely, that the Iranian leadership itself may be in a state of flux with regard to its ultimate actions at the end of the six month period. If that is the case, the United States believes it can more effectively influence this internal decision-making process by opening up the prospect of ending the sanctions and welcoming Iran back into the community of nations, while always maintaining the possibility of a military strike if diplomacy fails. Israel believes that the most effective way to influence this process (if a way even exists) is to maintain both tough sanctions and a realistic military option. No one can be sure which, if either, of these approaches carries a better prospect for a successful outcome.

The only thing that is absolutely certain is that it has always been an important Iranian goal to create a significant gulf between Israel and its most important ally, the United States. The Iranian leadership understands that these countries have very different red lines, because they have very different military capabilities in terms of when they must take military action in order to effectively halt Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons. They know how to exploit these different red lines, as well as the different risk-benefit calculations that each nation must make based on military and geopolitical considerations.

Accordingly, the big winner so far has been Iran, since it has succeeded in widening the gulf between Israel and the United States.

We can do something to narrow this widening gulf, and we can turn Iran’s short term victory into a long term victory for the forces of peace who share a commitment to prevent—rather than try to contain—a nuclear armed Iran. The United States and Israel should now work together, not only on a joint approach to the negotiations over the next six months that are designed to produce a more permanent agreement, but also on a unified plan in the event Iran refuses to offer or accept a reasonable next step.

Congress too can play a role in their joint efforts, by now authorizing the President to increase sanctions if it becomes clear that Iran has simply been playing us for time and has no real interest in ending its quest for nuclear weapons.

More controversially, but also more effectively, Congress could now authorize the president to take surgical military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program if the Iranians cross a specified red line.

This prior approval has become necessary because of what occurred when Syria crossed President Barack Obama’s red line by using chemical weapons to kill many of its own citizens. The president decided that although he was not constitutionally obligated to seek congressional approval, he would do so. It was unclear whether such approval would have been forthcoming, thus turning a red line into – at best – a yellow line. The situation with Syria seems to have worked out well, with a diplomatic resolution now in process. But the message to Iran has been weakened by the way in which the Syrian resolution developed. The Iranians now regard Obama’s threat to deploy the military option as a last resort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, as at worst a conditional threat, subject to congressional approval, which might or might not be forthcoming if the President sought it.

Such a conditional threat is not nearly as effective a disincentive against crossing a red line as would be an unconditional threat— unconditional because it would already have been authorized by Congress.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with specific proposals for joint actions – diplomatic, economic and, if necessary, military – the important point is now to narrow the gap that Iran has helped to create between two close allies, who share common peace-seeking goals but have understandable differences about how best to achieve these goals.

On being taken to the cleaners | JPost | Israel News.

By HIRSH GOODMAN

12/05/2013 21:42

The smiling, soft-spoken, savvy, team of negotiators, who seem to have swept the five plus one off their feet, are not the people who count.

The only reason Iran had made a deal to temporarily curb their military nuclear program in return for a partial lifting of economic sanctions is, clearly, because Iran already has what it wants: the infrastructure, raw materials, scientific know-how, manpower, resources and now, new trading partners and cash, to become a nuclear power virtually at the drop of a hat.

Possessing a military nuclear capacity is a cornerstone of this Iranian regime’s thinking.

They have starved their country and invested billions to get it. They want it for reasons of regional dominance, control of the Gulf and, primarily, to negate the world’s ability to tell it what to do. It gives them deterrence, incredible leverage on the international stage and strategic parity with the world powers.

Iran with a bomb is a lot less susceptible to bullying, than an Iran without one. A nuclear capable Iran is assured of regional hegemony; without it, it is just another country with massive internal problems, little direct outside power projection, a denuded Shiite leader in a world dominated by Sunni power and wealth.

A nuclear capable Iran is also less shackled in using terror and surrogates to do its dirty work. Retaliating, on the conventional level, against Iran with a bomb, and believed to be fanatical enough to use it, is a whole different kettle of fish from an Iran without a bomb.

This was the wrong Iranian regime to have made a deal with. The smiling, soft-spoken, savvy, team of negotiators, who seem to have swept the five plus one off their feet, are not the people who count.

The man pulling the strings is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, who has been in on the nuclear program and the thinking around it from the ground floor up, if not the basement.

Before assuming divine powers in June 1989, after the death of the first Ayatollah, Khomeini, Khamenei was president of the Islamic Republic for eight years, from 1981.

This places him at the center of the Islamic Republic’s decision- making process for over three decades and three years before the regime secretly decided on its quest for a nuclear weapon, which began in 1984, at the height of the Iraq-Iran war. He was at the table when Iran decided to go nuclear and has navigated the process ever since. For him to throw in the towel on this would be an admission of failure, something people who claim divine inspiration are not known to do. Khamenei will not throw his baby into the fire, of that you can be absolutely sure. He will do everything he can do to save it, even if requires a bit of duplicity alone the way to achieve it.

Israel attacked, and successfully destroyed, the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in June 1981. The Iranians had tried to do so a few months before and failed. The Iranian decision to go after a bomb, therefore, was not because they needed a counter balance to a nuclear Iraq, but because they understood what it means to have one.

If Israel had not intervened, ironically, on the side of the country that has become its worst enemy the end result of the Iraq-Iran war would have looked very different. A nuclear Iraq would have ultimately brought the fledgling Islamic Republic to its knees, and no one understood this better than the incumbent Ayatollah.

President Hassan Rouhani, with whom the West is now enamored, was put into power by Khamenei with this specific task in mind. It does not require analysts at the CIA to understand that he is imminently disposable and but a puppet on a string who, at this time, fits the Ayatollah’s strategy of supposed appeasement.

While the world was having a good laugh at the antics of the previous president, Ahmadinejad, Khamenei went ahead with the development of a bomb at full speed. Now that he has reached a point where he feels his program is essentially intact, the bomb secured, and the cornerstone of his strategy is accomplished, he has sent in Rouhani to lift the floodgates on sanctions, in return for an ostensible temporary freeze of Iran’s military nuclear ambitions.

No one doubts that Khamenei is a very astute and smart leader and he has made a smart move at a good time from the perspective of the Islamic regime: President Obama has three years left in office, which makes him a lame duck in about 18-months’ time, or about a year from when the current six-month “test” period is set to end. So, if a final agreement is not reached within the six month deadline, there will almost surely be an extension to “allow diplomacy to take its course.” Then there will be another extension, and another, until Obama is gone.

It will take months before a new American president begins to understand the issues on the table, and by then any semblance of the current sanctions regime, already breached beyond repair, will be near impossible to restore.

Khamenei has navigated toward this point because, for him, it is a win-win situation.

It had driven a wedge between Israel and its main ally, America; it has relieved the economic stranglehold on his country; it has made a mockery of UN Security Council resolutions and, above all, it has left him with the nuclear option that is as easy to unfreeze as a TV dinner in the microwave, be it in a secret facility somewhere, or its components spread in secret sites throughout the country, or lying dormant for a while, waiting to be kick-started, when the right time comes along.

America and the rest of the free world had waited for years for the yolk of the Ayatollahs to be lifted from the Iranian people. This move ensures that it will remain in place for a long time to come. The wrong people have won, come away strengthened and remain capable of unfreezing their program with a flip of the micro-wave.

This has not been a defeat for Israel. It has been a defeat for democracy and world peace. Netanyahu is right to be screaming blue murder. So would you, if you saw your best friend and ally taken to the cleaners by so obvious a conman, and a provably dangerous one at that.

Hirsh Goodman’s most recent book, The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival, received was first prize, history category, National Jewish Book Awards, 2012; and the Washington Institute’s silver medal for best book on the Middle East, 2012.

A tale of two Kerrys | JPost | Israel News.

By HERB KEINON

LAST UPDATED: 12/06/2013 08:14

The US secretary of state is in the country to regain Israel’s trust, which will be needed if Israel decides to take the security risks that will be involved in any future accord with the Palestinians.

The John Kerry that Israelis saw deliver a statement to the press following his meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday was not the John Kerry that they saw a short month ago in a joint television interview with an Israeli and Palestinian journalist.

That Kerry, the one from the interview with Channel 2’s Udi Segal and Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation’s Maher Shalabi on November 7, was the Kerry threatening Israel with a third intifada if the talks with the Palestinians collapsed.

That was the agitated Kerry who lectured about the settlements, pretty much placing the onus for a lack of movement in the talks with the Palestinians on Israel, and warning that if a peace agreement was not reached, Israel would face increasing isolation and delegitimization.

That was the Kerry who said, “Israel says, ‘Oh, we feel safe today, we have a wall, we’re not in a day-to-day conflict, we’re doing pretty well economically.’ Well, I’ve got news for you. Today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s or next year’s.”

That was the Kerry who signaled impatience with Israel’s demand for a security presence along the Jordan River, saying that “if we don’t end the presence of Israeli soldiers perpetually within the West Bank, then there will be an increasing feeling that if we cannot get peace with a leadership that is committed to nonviolence, you may wind up with leadership that is committed to violence.”

Thursday’s Kerry, at least the one on display alongside Netanyahu, was completely different. Nary a word about the settlements, not a word about a third intifada, not a hint of his “I’ve got news for you” hectoring.

On Thursday it was smiles, “my friend, Bibi,” and a deep understanding of Israel’s security concerns.

If the television interview left the impression of a secretary of state a bit cavalier and dismissive about Israel’s security concerns, Thursday’s statement provided the antidote.

“I understand the challenge of security that Israel faces,” he said, after recalling a visit he took to Kiryat Shmona in 1986 where he saw Israeli children hiding from rockets from Lebanon, and another visit he took years later to Sderot where he saw people “taking cover from Gaza.”

What happened? What happened was a bad month in USIsraeli relations – a month where everybody, including Iran, saw fundamental tactical differences between the US and Israel.

What happened was, at Washington’s urging, the signing of an interim accord on Iran that the Israeli government considers a danger to Israel’s security.

A senior US administration official who briefed reporters Thursday said that in the US view, the Iranian deal has not impacted on the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process. Iran, he said, was a separate discussion.

This, however, seems to be wishful thinking. The two issues – the Iran deal and the Palestinian negotiations – may not be linked in Washington’s view, but they are linked in Jerusalem’s.

Not linked in the sense that if you get something on the Iranian front, you can give something more to the Palestinians, but rather that Israel watched carefully, and with grave concern, what happened in Geneva, and drew the conclusions.

Despite the efforts of Kerry and Netanyahu to paper over difference at their joint appearance on Thursday, there was deep, deep disappointment in Israel over how the Obama administration, and Kerry, handled the Iranian dossier.

Even though the criticism in recent days has been more muted, and the focus now on the future negotiations with Iran, Jerusalem still believes the interim deal was, as Netanyahu said repeatedly in the past, a “bad deal.”

And here is where there is linkage with the Palestinian issue, and it also explains Kerry’s underlining the security issue in his statement Thursday.

First of all, the agreement Kerry is pushing with the Palestinians will necessitate Israel taking calculated security risks.

But with Iran suddenly “off the ropes,” emboldened and enjoying newfound international legitimacy as a result of the recent accord in Geneva, Israel is likely to be less willing – not more willing – to take those security risks.

Secondly, any possible future agreement with the Palestinians would undoubtedly necessitate ironclad security guarantees from the US. An Israeli willingness to place its security in the hands of American guarantees has decreased – not increased – as a result of Washington’s handling of the Iranian file.

As a result, Kerry comes to Jerusalem and – unlike the impression he left after his television interview last month – places a huge emphasis on Israel’s security.

“I join with President Obama in expressing to the people of Israel our deep, deep commitment to the security of Israel,” he said.

In order for Israel to take the security risks that will be involved in any future accord with the Palestinians, Jerusalem will have to have a great deal of trust in US security pledges and assurances. The Iran issue has chipped away at the trust.

Part of the reason Kerry is here now is to regain it.

Israel Hayom | Amidror: US view of the Middle East is changing.

Israel Hayom | Is talk about rapprochement warranted?.

Dore Gold

When describing the significance of the Geneva understandings between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany), the Arab world is not only concerned with sanctions and centrifuges. Articles in the Arab press caution that as a result of the agreement, their countries have reached a “historic turning point” in the Middle East in which their vital interests will be sacrificed as Iran acquires a free hand in the region. This will become possible, in their view, because Geneva represents no less than the beginning of an overall diplomatic rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran.

A “rapprochement” in international relations involves a general relaxation of tensions between two countries that were previously adversaries. Taken from French, it means to bring two parties together. Among the leaders in the Arab states, talk about a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement conjures up a troubling image of a “grand bargain” between the two sides, involving a set of understandings over a broad set of Middle Eastern issues. The pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat proposed that as a result of the breakthrough in the relations between the U.S. and Iran, the “political map of the Middle East as a whole” might change.

Commentators in the region come to such a far-reaching conclusion for multiple reasons. Some write that the U.S. decision to refrain from attacking Syria, after Bashar Assad’s massive use of chemical weapons, was the first sign of this new relationship between Washington and Tehran. Last week, Kuwaiti newspapers even reported that the U.S. was in contact with Hezbollah through British diplomats. Hezbollah did not deny the rumor. The actual evidence of this shift in U.S. policy may have been thin, but it undoubtedly raised eyebrows in the Arab world, where rumors of this sort can obtain enormous mileage even if they are not well substantiated.

Hezbollah was never just a Lebanese organization but rather an arm of the Iranian security services; in recent years it has had a regional role, tipping the balance against the Sunni forces in the Syrian civil war and training Shiite militias in Iraq. The rumors of the Western dialogue with Hezbollah undoubtedly fed the sense that a major realignment of regional politics may be underway, in which Iran and its Shiite allies in the Arab world will be on the ascendancy.

Some analysts in the Arab world are undoubtedly influenced by the rhetoric about the Geneva understandings in the American press. The director of the Brookings Institution branch in Doha, Qatar, Salman Sheikh, complained in an interview in the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat that he was hearing Western scholars talking about the Geneva understandings as though they represent a “great transformation” comparable to end of the Cold War. There have also been comparisons between the meetings in Geneva and then-President Richard Nixon’s famous visit to China. All of this hyperbole undoubtedly influences suspicions in the Arab world that something bigger is cooking between the U.S. and Iran.

A central question raised by all the talk about a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement is whether such a dramatic shift in their relations would be warranted at this stage, if it was at all being contemplated by anyone. Looking at the rapprochement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as a model, there were important developments that occurred before Washington was prepared to declare in 1991 that the Cold War was over.

It wasn’t the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev or his reforms, known as perestroika, that caused the West to rethink its approach to Moscow, but rather the modification of the Soviet Union’s external behavior that made the difference — starting, in particular, with the withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan in 1988. Soviet adventurism in places like Angola, the Horn of Africa, and Central America was finished and Soviet forces even stopped intervening against the anti-Communist revolts that were began in Eastern Europe.

The change in China involved not only the termination of the extreme radicalism of the Cultural Revolution but also a growing split between China and the Soviet Union and the outbreak of border tensions between them in 1969. China could no longer be considered to be part of a Soviet-led Communist bloc. These policy changes preceded Nixon’s trip to China in 1972 and justified in the minds of U.S. officials at the time the efforts to secure a rapprochement between Washington and Beijing, which accelerated the deterioration of China’s relations with North Vietnam, with which the U.S. was still at war.

Looking at the Iranian case today, there is no sign that Tehran is fundamentally changing its footprint in the Middle East as a result of President Hassan Rouhani’s election or the more recent Geneva understandings. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are on the ground in Syria, not only helping as advisors, but actually taking part in combat operations against the Sunni Arab population and in the bloodbath they have created.

Tehran is also making sure that its Hezbollah proxy remains in Syria and does not withdraw back to Lebanon. Moreover, Iran remains active in a number of Middle Eastern battlefields from Yemen to Iraq. Lately, Hamas has been seeking to rebuild its ties with Iran. As noted above, the Soviet Union set the stage for the end of the Cold War by withdrawing from Afghanistan, but Iran shows no sign of withdrawing its direct involvement in a host of Middle Eastern wars.

Yet Iran has a strong interest in portraying the Geneva understandings as a full rapprochement with the U.S. and the other western powers. Recently two former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, warned in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that “if the impression takes hold that the U.S. has already decided to reorient its Middle East policy toward rapprochement with Iran” then the risk will increase that the sanctions will more quickly collapse. Kissinger and Shultz know what they are talking about when they write about rapprochement: They were each architects of earlier American rapprochements with Beijing and Moscow respectively.

As the U.S. and its P5+1 partners contemplate their next steps with Iran, it is imperative that they insist in parallel on very specific changes in Iranian behavior. How can commentators in the West herald a new era in relations between Washington and Tehran, when Iran is still backing what the U.N. has characterized just this week as “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” by Assad’s forces in Syria? At a minimum, Iran must withdraw from Syria. It also must halt all support for recognized international terrorist organizations, from Hamas and Hezbollah to the Taliban.

It is untenable that new agreements with Tehran will follow, while Iranian governmental bodies still call for death to America or death to Israel. What continuing Iranian involvement in all these activities indicates is the fact that its hostile intent remains unchanged. Under such conditions, any nuclear understandings will not represent a rapprochement between former adversaries, as is being presented in Western capitals, but only a brief cease-fire that won’t last in the struggle that Iran will continue to wage.

Kerry brings plan integrating West Bank security in planned US-led anti-Al Qaeda regional force.

EBKAfile Exclusive Report December 6, 2013, 11:31 AM (IDT)

Yemeni Defense Ministry after Al Qaeda strike

The security plan, which US Secretary of State John Kerry brought with him Thursday, Dec. 5, on his eighth trip for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, entails deploying a regional international force including US troops along the Jordan Rift Valley and West Bank in a future Palestinian state. This is reported by debkafile’s military and counterterrorism sources.
The plan, drawn up by Gen. John Allen, was presented by Kerry for the first time to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

The security provisions Washington promised Israel under a final settlement of its dispute with the Palestinians are assuming a broader, regional form as a US blueprint, on which the Obama administration is still working, for a Middle East regional force to combat Al Qaeda.
This force would secure parts of Syria, as well as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the future Palestinian state and Israel against Al Qaeda attack from positions in Syria, Iraq and Sinai.

The secretary of state proposed integrating Israeli and Palestinian special forces units in the planned regional counter-terror force, alongside the American, British, French, Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian and Qatari units enlisted to the new framework
Since its area of operation would be extensive, ranging from southern Syria to Sinai, including Israel and the potential Palestinian state, the IDF would be able to continue performing its security functions in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, as part of the new force. But by the same rule, Palestinian forces would be allowed by mutual consent to serve in parts of Israel in the same multinational framework.

The public groundwork for this plan is already being laid by means of extensive reporting in Western media which magnify the ever-present menace Al Qaeda poses to the United States and West Europe from its concentrations in Syria and Iraq.

The US and British media have been fed materials depicting thousands of young American, European, Saudi and Jordanian Islamists flocking to Syria to fight with Al Qaeda-affiliated rebel militias against Bashar Assad and their potential as ticking terror bombs on their return home.

British intelligence, not normally forthcoming on terrorist threats, provided detailed information Friday, Dec. 5, about sophisticated, hard-to-detect bombs, newly developed by the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in Arabia (AQAP), and made of non-metallic and low-vapor explosives disguised as harmless objects like shoes, clothing or soft drink bottles to fool international airport and border post scanners.

All these reports lay stress on the operational links between AQAP and Al Qaeda branches in Syria and Egyptian Sinai.

Thursday, the day Kerry arrived in Israel, Al Qaeda staged one of its biggest operations in recent times against the Yemeni Defense Ministry in Sanaa. It claimed at least 52 lives and injured up to 200 people. Suicide bombers rammed the ministry compound’s gates setting off explosives in cars and bomb belts, while gunmen stormed the defense ministry building and hospital annex, gunning down any personnel they met, including foreign staff. Among the dead were six doctors.

US forces across the region, including Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, were immediately placed on high terror alert. Friday, as the Secretary of state met the Israeli prime minister for the third time and headed off to the Palmachim Air Force base to inspect the Arrow missile interceptor, US forces in Israel, the embassy in Tel Aviv and General Consulate in Jerusalem were also placed on heightened alert against a major terrorist strike.
The Yemeni attack was viewed by experts as an Al Qaeda demonstration of defiance, to show the visiting American official that Washington’s evolving security strategy was no match for its own ability to launch surprise attacks anywhere in the region on the most heavily guarded facilities.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is reported by debkafile’s Jerusalem sources as open to the new security proposal put before him by the secretary of state, although he was familiar with some of its elements from earlier discussions between US and IDF officers on the situation in southern Syria and Jordan and how to deal with it.
The Palestinian leader, however, was much more reserved. At first he turned the plan down, but then agreed to look into it in consultation with the Saudis and Jordanians.

▶ Statements by Netanyahu and Kerry after their meeting – YouTube.

Dec. 5, 2013

Why is Israel alone in objecting to the agreement with Iran? | JPost | Israel News.

By MAURICE OSTROFF

12/05/2013 23:17

Rouhani’s charm offensive lulled the West into forgetting basic reasons for objecting to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

As the November 30 Daily Telegraph headline “Israel rages – and no one cares” is typical of an attitude that is blinding the world to the very real danger posed by a nuclear Iran to the entire Western way of life, it is timely to recall a few pertinent FACTS.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s charm offensive has lulled the West into forgetting that the basic reasons for objecting to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons are not the threats against Israel but against all infidels and the entire Western world The real power in Iran lies in Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who calls America the devil incarnate and says that negotiating with the US is naive and perverted. On March 14, 2005 he declared on Iran’s Channel 1, “Our people say ‘‘Death to America,’” and the crowd responded, “Death to America, death to England, death to the hypocrites and Saddam. Death to Israel. On May 10, 2013 ,he said: “The European races are barbaric. They wear freshly pressed suits and ties, and they smell of eau de cologne, but deep down, they still have the same barbaric nature known from history. They kill with ease.” (Translation by MEMRI) Rouhani’s charm offensive lulled the P5+1 negotiators into ignoring the most pressing argument for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weaponry namely the danger of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of a terrorist group supported by Iran. Last May a report by the US State Department said Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism has reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s. Iran was implicated in terror attacks in Asia, Europe, and Africa and certain terrorist groups have expressed interest in using a nuclear device.

A terrorist nuclear explosion could kill hundreds of thousands and destroy the economy of a country.

It was not Israel but the IAEA that alerted the world to Iran’s deceitful nuclear history as confirmed by Rouhani himself when he was Supreme National Security Council Secretary. In a September 2005 speech he said Iran tried to purchase nuclear fuel cycle capabilities as possession of this technology enables enriching uranium to the 90% required for a nuclear weapon.

Israel was not a factor in 2002 when, as Rouhani said, Western media accused Iran of building an atomic bomb and the IAEA approved a resolution against Iran. Rouhani referred to secret tests that the IAEA had uncovered. In one case a university student wrote a dissertation about a project and in another a scholar published a scientific paper about a project. The IAEA acquired copies of both. “Therefore,” said Rouhani “the IAEA was fully informed about most of the cases we thought were unknown to them.”

Rouhani said that in 2003 the IAEA found traces of 70% and 80% enriched uranium causing a new uproar. The IAEA doubted his explanation that that this was due to contamination in centrifuges purchased from a third country.

On August 30, 2012 the BBC reported that UN nuclear inspectors found traces of uranium enriched at 27% at the site, but Iran said those readings could be accidental.

In view of the concerns expressed by Gulf States and some experts and considering that the UN Security Council has adopted six resolutions since 2006 addressing Iran’s nuclear program mostly under chapter VII imposing sanctions and prohibiting enrichment of uranium, it is foolhardy to ignore the real dangers by focusing only on Israel’s objections.

The claim that Iranian enrichment has been halted was directly contradicted by Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif who declared that Iran’s enrichment activities will proceed as in the past, that the process of enrichment to 20% will continue based on the plans they had and that the heavy water project at Arak will continue along the same lines as in the current situation.

The declaration that Iran will decide the level of uranium enrichment is in direct conflict with the agreement’s provision that the enrichment level must be mutually defined and agreed upon by both sides in further negotiations The claim that the agreement has frozen essential work on Arak is contradicted by Zarif’s unambiguous declaration that construction work at Arak nuclear facility will continue and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the deal is not legally binding.

Kerry’s interpretation of the Geneva agreement is certainly a welcome positive step and he deserves praise for his efforts and persistence. But it is tragic that the reactions of his Iranian interlocutors confirm Netanyahu’s description of the agreement as a bad deal.

Déjà vu. Sadly the immediate renunciation by the Iranian negotiators of the most essential aspects of the accord are reminiscent of Yasser Arafat’s actions days after signing the Oslo accords as reported in The New York Times of May 25, 1994 “ Last week’s controversy over a recording of his [Arafat’s] call for a jihad, or Muslim holy war, to liberate Jerusalem had barely died down when another explosive excerpt was released from the same speech, secretly taped earlier this month in a Johannesburg mosque. The latest quote cuts directly to the issue of trust by suggesting that the Palestine Liberation Organization’s peace agreement with Israel might soon be broken for a new round of fighting.” And this is exactly what happened.

Column One: The politics of subversion | JPost | Israel News.

By CAROLINE GLICK

12/05/2013 21:19

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel on Wednesday to put additional pressure on Israel.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel on Wednesday to put additional pressure on Israel to make more concessions in land and political rights to the PLO in Judea and Samaria. To advance his current effort, Kerry brought along retired US Marine Gen. John Allen.

According to media reports, Allen presented a proposal to address Israel’s security concerns and so enabled the talks about Israeli land giveaways to proceed apace. The proposal involved, among other things, American security guarantees, a pledge to deploy US forces along the Jordan River and additional US military assistance to the IDF.

These Obama administration proposals are supposed to allay Israeli concerns that withdrawing Israeli forces from the Jordan Valley and the international border crossings with Jordan will invite foreign invasion and aggression, and increased Palestinian terrorism.

By controlling the Jordan Valley, (and the Samarian and Hebron mountain ranges), Israel is capable of defending the country from invasion from the east. It can also prevent penetration of irregular enemy forces, and on the other hand, maintain the stability of the Hashemite regime in Jordan. Without control over the areas, Israel can do none of these things.

Facing these undeniable facts, Kerry and his supporters have two main challenges. First they need to present themselves as credible actors.

And second they have to give Israel reason to trust the Palestinians. If Israel trusts the US, then it can consider allowing the US to defend it from foreign aggression. If the Palestinians are real peace partners, then Israel can surrender its ability to defend itself more easily, because it will face a benign neighbor along its indefensible border.

Unfortunately, Israel cannot trust the US. Kerry and the Obama administration as a whole lost all credibility when they negotiated the deal with Iran last month.

After spending five years promising they had Israel’s back only to stab Israel in the back in relation to the most acute threat facing the Jewish state, nothing Kerry or US President Barack Obama says in relation to their commitment to Israel’s security can be trusted. The fact that Kerry had the nerve to show up here with “security guarantees” regarding the Palestinians two weeks after he agreed to effectively unravel the sanctions regime against Iran in exchange for no concrete Iranian concessions on its nuclear arms program shows that he holds Israel in contempt.

But then, even if Kerry had all the credibility in the world it wouldn’t make a difference. The real problem with the notion of an Israeli withdrawal to indefensible borders is that those indefensible borders will be insecure. Both the PLO and Hamas remain committed to Israel’s destruction.

They will never agree to Israel’s continued existence in any borders. So the whole peace process is doomed. Kerry’s attempt to dictate security arrangements is a waste of time.

This much was again made clear last Friday by the PLO’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat. Speaking to foreign supporters, Erekat said that the Palestinians will never accept Israel’s right to exist.

Their entire existence as a people is predicated on denying Jewish rights and nationhood. And, as Erekat put it, “I cannot change my narrative.”

The people who should be most upset both about Obama and Kerry’s destruction of US strategic credibility and about the utter absence of Palestinian good faith should be the Israelis wedded to the two-state paradigm. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert, former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Labor Party leader Issac Herzog among others, should be so vocal in their opposition to the deal with Iran that they make Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu look like a pushover.

It is they, not Netanyahu and his voters, who have insisted that Israel can make massive concessions to the PLO and sit on the sidelines with regard to Iran because the US will defend us. For the past generation it was they, not the political Right, that preached strategic dependency rather than strategic sovereignty.

These peaceniks, rather than Likud supporters should also be the ones leading the charge against PLO support for terrorism, incitement against Israel and rejection of Israel’s right to exist. The Right never wanted a Palestinian state to begin with. That’s the Left’s policy. If Netanyahu abandoned his support for Palestinian statehood, he would become more popular, not less so. And unless Palestinian society and the Palestinian leadership fundamentally transform their position on Israel, there is no way that Israel can be expected to surrender its ability to defend itself.

There is no way that Israel can consider the PLO’s territorial demands. And there is no way a Palestinian state can be established.

But the peaceniks don’t seem to care about these things.

Olmert uses every open microphone to attack Netanyahu.

Last week Olmert went so far as to say that Netanyahu, “declared war on the American government,” by openly criticizing the deal with Iran.

Despite the fact that PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas didn’t even respond to Olmert’s peace offer in 2008, Olmert places all the blame for the absence of peace on Netanyahu and his government.

For his part, on the eve of Kerry’s visit Diskin launched an equally unhinged attack on the government.

Speaking to the European funded pro-Palestinian Geneva Initiative, Diskin claimed wildly that Israel is more at risk from not surrendering to PLO demands than from an Iranian nuclear arsenal.

Last month Livni attacked Netanyahu for criticizing Obama’s deal with Iran and then claimed vapidly that Israel will protect itself from Iran by giving away its land to the PLO. Ignoring the fact that the Arab world is already siding with Israel against Iran, Livni said, “Solving the conflict with the Palestinians would enable a united front with Arab countries against Iran.”

This week newly elected Labor Party chief Issac Herzog went to Ramallah and chastised the government.

Praising Abbas for his “real desire to achieve peace,” while remaining silent about Abbas’s daily statements in support of terrorism, Herzog pledged “to try to put pressure on the Israeli government to take brave positions to achieve peace and security for our children.”

As for the deal with Iran, shortly after his election to head the Labor Party last month, Herzog lashed out not at the deal, and not at Obama for betraying his pledge to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, but at Netanyahu. Netanyahu, he claimed, “has harmed our relations with the US and hasn’t brought about an improved agreement.”

Ignoring the fact that the Obama administration negotiated with Iran behind Israel’s back and then lied about the contents of what it had agreed to, Herzog seethed, Netanyahu “has created a total lack of trust between us and Obama rather than a trusting relationship.”

As polls taken over the past 20 years have shown, a majority of Israelis would be happy to make peace with the Palestinians, and pay a price in territory for doing so. But those polls have also shown that the public believes the Palestinians when they say they want to destroy the Jewish state. The Israeli public does not think people like Abbas, who praise mass murderers of Jews as national heroes, have “a real desire to achieve peace.”

And, as recent polls show, following the US deal with Iran, while the public continues to prize Israel’s alliance with the US, it no longer trusts the US government.

The fact that the likes of Olmert, Livni, Diskin and Herzog and their followers are not at the forefront pressuring the Palestinians to change their ways and demanding that the Obama administration demonstrate its trustworthiness, but rather have directed all their energies to attacking the government, indicates that peace with the Palestinians is not their primary concern.

Rather it would appear that their main concern is their personal power and prestige.

By siding with the Americans against the government, these senior figures seek to exploit the public’s support for the US. By presenting Netanyahu as anti-American, and claiming that he is responsible for Obama’s abusive behavior, they hope to convince the public to embrace them as guarantors of the strategic alliance. Certainly that is Olmert’s goal as he looks past his criminal prosecutions and begins to plot his course back to the center of power.

As for their support for the Palestinians against their government, here the motivation is external.

Israelis do not trust the Palestinians. And they certainly do not trust Abbas. But the Americans and Europeans have made Palestinian statehood the centerpiece of their foreign policies and view Abbas as the indispensable man.

Livni had no political future after she lost the Kadima party primary to Shaul Mofaz last year.

Her hopes of becoming prime minister had ended. But then she went to Washington, met with Hillary Clinton, and announced she was forming a new party and running on a pro-Palestinian, pro-Obama platform. She won a paltry six seats, which she took from other leftist parties.

But that was enough. Bowing to US pressure to prove he was serious about appeasing the Palestinians, Netanyahu appointed Livni justice minister and put her in charge of the talks with the PLO. If Livni had been less supportive of Obama or of the PLO, she would not be where she is today.

If the behavior of these people were just a matter of shameless jockeying for political power their actions would be bad enough. But they cause immeasurable damage to the country.

By accusing Netanyahu of blocking peace between Israel and the Palestinians, they embolden the Palestinians to escalate their political warfare against Israel, and maintain their steady anti-Semitic incitement. Indeed they lay the moral groundwork for justifying terrorism against Israel.

Livni, Olmert, Diskin, Herzog and their allies also give political cover to outside forces to adopt anti-Israel positions and policies. Why shouldn’t the European Union boycott Israeli goods when the former prime minister claims that Israel is the reason there is no peace? Why should Obama care what Netanyahu tells Congress when Olmert says Netanyahu is at war with the US? How can Israel justify attacking Iran’s nuclear installations when Olmert says it is strategically idiotic to even train for such an attack and Diskin says that we need a PLO state more than we need to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Diskin’s unhinged attack against Netanyahu on the eve of Kerry’s visit was hardly coincidental.

And we should expect more such displays as Obama becomes more open in his hostility towards Israel.

As long as we have a seemingly endless supply of senior officials willing to harm the country to advance their personal goals, domestic subversion will remain a key weapon in the international arsenal against us.

caroline@carolineglick.com