WarSclerotic

US bill ‘dramatically strengthens’ Israel alliance | JPost | Israel News.

03/07/2014 11:31

Bill to expand delivery of forward-deployed US weapons to Israel and help commit Congress to further funding of the Iron Dome.

The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that declares Israel a “major strategic partner” of the United States, reinforcing the broad relationship between the two nations and laying the groundwork for more expansive strategic cooperation.

The bill would expand the delivery of forward-deployed US weapons to Israel, as well as other military technologies, and would commit Congress to further funding of the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system.

Controversially, the bill would also invite Israel into a visa waiver agreement with the US, which has been opposed by members of the intelligence community and the Democratic caucus for multiple years.

The bill passed 410-1 in the House. The Senate has taken up a similar measure, which is still in the committee process.

Just a day after its annual policy conference in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee declared the bill’s passage a victory, and characterized the measure as “dramatically strengthening the US-Israel relationship.”

“This designation lays the foundation for expanded US-Israel cooperation in a wide variety of spheres, including defense, intelligence, homeland security, energy, agriculture and trade,” AIPAC said in a statement, applauding the bill as “critical” and calling on the Senate to act with similar haste.

The second half of the bill, which focuses on US-Israel energy relationships, was authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and aims to strengthen collaboration between the two countries on energy projects.

The United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Enhancement Bill first passed through the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on December 11, and a Senate companion bill passed through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on December 20. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was responsible for the Senate companion bill, alongside Se.s Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

This portion of the bill officially determines that “United States-Israel energy cooperation, and the development of natural resources by Israel, are strategic interests of the United States,” recognizing Israel specifically as a partner in water technology, safety and security arenas. Encouraging the US National Science Foundation to collaborate with the Israel Science Foundation, the text also encourages more robust academic cooperation in a variety of energy-related fields.

Advocating “open dialogue and continued mechanisms for regular engagement,” the bill calls for continued energy partnerships among government and academic institutions as well as the private sector from both sides. Some particular topics of interest include identifying priorities for developing Israeli natural resources, discussing best practices to secure cyber energy infrastructure, leveraging natural gas to positively impact regional stability and improving energy efficiency, the bill says.

The bill also acknowledges the important role of the US-Israel Binational research and Development Foundation (BIRD) and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and commits continued multiyear funding “to ensure the continuity of the programs of the foundations.”

“I am pleased this important measure was included in the legislative package and encouraged to see it received such overwhelming support,” Upton said, following the bill’s passage. “With a simple amendment to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, this legislation will help bolster the partnership between Israel and the US on energy production and help enhance energy security.”

With American assistance, Israel will be able to continue making advancements in developing its natural resources, Upton stressed. He also committed to working on future “commonsense energy solutions” with colleagues from both sides of the aisle, as occurred while drafting this legislation.

“Today the House passed an important bill that will expand the partnership between the U.S. and Israel,” Waxman agreed. “Israel is a close ally, and it is in our national interest to help the Israelis development their natural resources in a responsible way that protects the environment.”

Netanyahu: Iran’s lies will be exposed when interdicted ship comes to Eilat | JPost | Israel News.

By HERB KEINON

03/06/2014 22:13

The Jews paid heavy price when the world powers did not take Hitler’s words seriously, PM says in Los Angeles.

The world will see the Iranian leaders for the liars that they are when the captured ship Iran sent to the Gaza Strip with Syrian missiles arrives in Eilat in the coming days, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday.

The prime minister’s comments came in response to remarks Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif posted earlier in the day on his Twitter account.

“An Iranian ship carrying arms for Gaza. Captured just in time for annual AIPAC anti Iran campaign. Amazing Coincidence! Or same failed lies,” Zarif wrote.

“The government in Iran says that everything is lies,” Netanyahu said after visiting the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. “In another few days, the ship will arrive in Eilat, and we will see who is the liar. We will reveal before the whole world the true face of Iran.”

Israel will expose the Iranians, struggle with them and defeat them, the prime minister said.

The IDF’s Wednesday interception of the missile-laden vessel came a day after Netanyahu’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, in which he strongly condemned Tehran for standing on the “other side” of the world’s moral divide – the side “steeped in blood and savagery.”

“Did you ever hear about Iran sending a humanitarian delegation overseas? No?” Netanyahu said during his speech. “You know why? You know why you haven’t heard anything about that? Because the only thing that Iran sends abroad are rockets, terrorists and missiles to murder, maim and menace the innocent.”

Netanyahu, wrapping up his five-day visit to the US at the Museum of Tolerance, said that while there, he had seen the letter Hitler wrote calling for the destruction of the Jews.

“Iran today is calling for the destruction of Israel,” he said. “Then there were also those who did not want to believe. We take them seriously. When someone says they want to destroy the Jews, take them seriously, prepare, and warn the world,” he said.

Israel, he continued, will not let Iran arm itself with the capabilities to “destroy us.”

The Jews paid a heavy price in the last century when the world powers did not take Hitler’s words seriously, Netanyahu said. “The difference today is that we have the strength and the ability to defend ourselves.”

No Separating Iran’s Nukes From Terrorism, Commentary Magazine, Jonathan S. Tobin, March 6, 2014

(But isn’t it unfair not to negotiate with a terror regime about nukes? Even though the P5+1 deal isn’t about nukes, maybe Iran might learn something. Will supporters of the P5+1 deal learn something? “If not now, when?” — DM)

Rather than dismissing the Iranian arms shipment as irrelevant to the nuclear question, the president must shake off his ideological blinders and try to understand that the seizure of the ship is a clear warning of what lies ahead if he continues to blindly pursue engagement with Iran.

. . . .

[K]eeping the nuclear issue separate from that of the country’s sponsorship of international terror will only confirm the Islamist regime’s belief that it is succeeding in fooling the West.

Yesterday, White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed the idea that there ought to be any connection between the interception of an Iranian arms shipment headed for Gaza and the United States pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. Carney noted that U.S. and Israel had shared intelligence about the sailing of the Kos-C, which was filled with sophisticated and powerful M-302 missiles that had been shipped from Syria and also acknowledged that this provides more proof of Iran’s “bad behavior” as a state sponsor of international terrorism. But he insisted that American efforts to negotiate an agreement with Iran on its nuclear weapons program were a separate issue.

The administration position is that a tough stance on international terror is compatible with a more forthcoming diplomatic effort aimed at persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambition. While this sounds like an effort to defend a stance in which one hand of U.S. security policy doesn’t know — or care — what the other is doing, it’s conceit is more sophisticated than that. The subtext of the push for engagement with Iran is that nuclear diplomacy is a wedge by which the U.S. can ease the Islamist regime back into the international mainstream and make it easier for it to start acting like a responsible nation.

That sounds logical but it is exactly the sort of reasoning that Iran is counting on as it pursues its own two-track policy toward the West. The fallacy here is the assumption that Iran’s participation in international terror can somehow be separated from the nuclear threat. In fact, these are two elements of a common strategy aimed at destabilizing the Middle East and increasing Iranian influence. Treating one as if it had nothing to do with the other enables the president to rationalize a diplomatic strategy in which he deeply believes. But diplomacy that is based on willful ignorance of the other side’s goals is one that is doomed to failure. Rather than dismissing the Iranian arms shipment as irrelevant to the nuclear question, the president must shake off his ideological blinders and try to understand that the seizure of the ship is a clear warning of what lies ahead if he continues to blindly pursue engagement with Iran.

Iran’s purpose in shipping missiles to Gaza is no secret. By reviving its alliance with the Hamas terrorists who rule the strip, Tehran is not only hoping to acquire the ability to veto any chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It must be seen in the context of a regional struggle for hegemony in which Iran can add Gaza to Syria and Lebanon as strategic outposts from which it can exert influence as well as inflict pain on Israel and the West. Even an Obama administration that is disinclined to think the worst of Iran or to engage in disputes with its leaders can grasp the danger that comes from Tehran moving its chess pieces around the international board in this manner. The regime’s Revolutionary Guard’s transfer of Syrian missiles to Gaza is not only a sign that it may believe the war it has waged along with Hezbollah (with Russian aid) to keep Iranian ally Bashar Assad is largely won but that it also wishes to open up a new front against the West in Gaza.

But to pretend that this threat can somehow be separated from the nuclear issue is testimony to the administration’s myopia about Iran than anything else. The point of Iran’s nuclear program is not just to create a weapon that would enhance the prestige of the Islamist government and secure its long-term survival despite the unhappiness of the Iranian people. It is also a means to extend and reinforce its effort to dominate the region via auxiliaries and allies. An Iran nuke does constitute an existential threat to Israel that has been repeatedly threatened with annihilation by the theocrats of Tehran. But even if that genocidal intent is never acted upon, a bomb gives the ayatollahs a way of creating a nuclear umbrella over Syria, Lebanon and perhaps Gaza and the West Bank (if Hamas ever succeeds in toppling the Palestinian Authority). That changes the balance of power in such a way as to threaten moderate Arab states as well as Israel. The missiles Iran sends to its terrorist allies may be not as frightening as its uranium enrichment program or heavy water plant but these are differences in scale not in purpose.

That’s why the arms shipment must be understood as more than a sideshow to the main event of nuclear diplomacy. The basis of hope for nuclear diplomacy is that Iran’s government is moderating and wishes to rejoin the family of nations. But what is really going on is a two-track policy in which Iran engages in off-and-on diplomatic activity designed to deceive Western leaders and undermine sanctions on the regime while at the same time actively building a weapon and seeking to dominate the region via terrorism and strategic alliances.

The seizure of the weapons ship ought to serve as a wake-up call to the West that nothing has changed in Iran. More to the point, even if they insist on pursuing the P5+1 diplomatic process, it must be done without any illusions about Iranian moderation or a desire for détente with the West. Iran’s deadly deception has been exposed. If the administration’s willful blindness about this prevails over common sense, it won’t make it any more likely that Iran will surrender its nuclear option. To the contrary, keeping the nuclear issue separate from that of the country’s sponsorship of international terror will only confirm the Islamist regime’s belief that it is succeeding in fooling the West.