WarSclerotic

WASHINGTON — Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair warned Iran on Monday the world will do “whatever it takes” to stop it acquiring a nuclear weapon.

“Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons capability. Iran must know that we will do whatever it takes to stop them getting it,” Blair told the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.

“The danger is if they suspect for a moment we might allow such a thing,” he told delegates on the last day of the three-day annual policy conference of AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

“We cannot and we will not. This is not simply an issue of Israel’s security. This is a matter of global security, mine yours, all of us,” the former British prime minister said.

“Iran’s regime is the biggest destabilizing influence in the region,” he said, adding that both Israelis and Arabs know this.

He was alluding to Iran’s support for anti-Israeli Muslim militant groups in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories as well as to Shiite militants in Iraq, which was formerly led by Sunnis, the majority group in the Arab world.

Yemen has also accused Shiite northern rebels of taking money from Iranians and of plotting to create a Shiite zone along the Saudi borders.

During the AIPAC policy conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Seccretary of State Hillary Clinton raised alarms about the perceived nuclear threat from Iran.

Clinton said it was worth taking the time needed for the United Nations Security Council to adopt new sanctions “that bite” against Iran.

Israel, which sees the threat more urgently, has raised the threat of a pre-emptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites.

The United States, Israel and others fear that Iran’s uranium enrichment program masks a drive for a nuclear bomb. Tehran denies the charge, saying it is for peaceful nuclear energy.

via AFP: World will stop Iran getting nuclear arms: Blair.

IDF chief of staff: Iran nuclear threat rising – Haaretz – Israel News.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on Tuesday briefed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the security situation along Israel’s border, as well as the Iranian threat and the increase in Qassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Addressing the Iranian nuclear threat, Ashkenazi said that “the Iranians are pressing ahead with their nuclear program. I hope that the trilateral sanctions will prove effective.”

Ashkenazi added that it would be a mistake to rely on the opposition within Iran to neutralize the program’s progress, as “the [Iranian] regime is strong and effective.”

Ashkenazi also discussed the situation along Israel’s northern border, saying it is quiet “but that could change.”

“Hezbollah is deploying more forces north of the Litani River,” he added.

Turning to the issue of the recent escalation in Qassam rocket attacks launched at Israel from Gaza, Ashkenazi told the committee that Hamas is not directly behind the attacks.

“Hamas is not interested in losing control of the situation – but it could do more to stop the rocket fire,” he said, explaining that “the IDF retaliates against Hamas targets because we regard them as the sovereign group [in the Strip].”

An Israeli diplomat expelled? But look who the British government won’t get rid of… – Telegraph Blogs.

MEMRI – Middle East Media Research Institute.

Netanyahu, defiant, stands his ground – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is delivering a defiant reply to the White House in a speech to the pro-Israel group AIPAC this evening, responding to American attempts to damp down their harsh words with an insistence on Israel’s right to construct housing in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu, who apologized for the announcement of new housing in Jerusalem during Joe Biden’s visit ten days ago, does not reprise his apology, according to prepared remarks. Instead, he reminds the White House that the new housing — though a thumb in the eye — did not actually violate any commitment he’d made, as any settlement freeze always excluded Jerusalem.

“The connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel cannot be denied.The connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem cannot be denied,” Netanyahu says. “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 year ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today.Jerusalem is not a settlement.It is our capital.”

“Everyone knows that these neighborhoods will be part of Israel in any peace settlement.Therefore, building them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu returned in his speech to familiar themes: The historic assaults on the Jewish people, his theoretical desire for Palestinian independence, and the sole fault of Palestinian leaders in preventing it.

“Peace requires reciprocity .It cannot be a one-way street in which only Israel makes concessions. Israel stands ready to make the compromises necessary for peace. But we expect the Palestinian leaders to compromise as well,” he says.

Netanyahu concluded with a short tribute to the American-Israeli relationship, mentioning President Obama once twice and thanking him, and Congress, for military cooperation.

But his speech also included a clear rebuttal to Israelis and American Jews who have pleaded with him to mend his relationship with the White House.

“The future of the Jewish state can never depend on the goodwill of even the greatest of men. Israel must always reserve the right to defend itself,” Netanyahu says.

Koch on Obama and Israel: Why the trust is gone.

By Ed Koch

I consider the Obama administration’s recent actions against the Israeli government to be outrageous and a breach of trust. I refer to the denunciations by Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials The world knows what happened; nevertheless, I will try to put it into context.

Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem to convey to the Israelis and the world that the United States government is committed to protecting and assuring the security of Israel from attack. While he was there, an Israeli government minister announced that the Israeli government had authorized the construction of 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem to be occupied by Jews. Currently, 280,000 Jews live in East Jerusalem, and these apartments were to be added to an existing complex, built on land owned by Jews; about 250,000 Jews live on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem.

The timing of the Israeli government’s announcement was unfortunate and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for it, but it did not mark any change in the Israeli government’s policy. That policy is and has long been to allow construction of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem.

Now a little history. In 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution authorizing the creation of a Jewish state within the British Mandate of Palestine. After it declared independence in 1948, Israel was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Although Israel repelled the attack, Jordan conquered East Jerusalem, separating it from its Western half. Ultimately, a cease fire was arranged by the U.N. and for the next 19 years until 1967, Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, including the old city, which historically had been the capital of King David’s ancient kingdom. In 1967, the Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria again sought to destroy the State of Israel, but Israel prevailed in six days and conquered the Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. During the 19 years that Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, it expelled all of the Jews living in what was historically the Jewish Quarter, and literally destroyed every synagogue and the homes of the Jews. When Israel reunited all of Jerusalem, Jews were, of course, allowed to live in any part of the city, and today, more than a quarter of a million Jews live in East Jerusalem. Numerous Arabs live there as well.

For quite some time and certainly since the Gaza War, the Palestinian Authority has broken off direct negotiations with Israel which had been ongoing since about 1993, in an effort to create two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, living side-by-side in peace. This so-called two-state solution always seemed out of reach, notwithstanding the efforts of Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to jumpstart negotiations.

President Obama has sought to revive the negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to assist by committing Israel to stop building new apartments in East Jerusalem and new settlements on the West Bank. In a move that Hillary Clinton, according to The New York Times, praised as “unprecedented,” Netanyahu agreed to a ten-month settlement moratorium on the West Bank. However, he refused to stop Jews from living in any part of East Jerusalem, which is considered by Israelis to be an inseparable part of their capital. Both the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. government, ultimately accepted Netanyahu’s offer, albeit grudgingly, and the Palestinian Authority agreed to engage in indirect talks through the American mediator George Mitchell.

Given this history, it was a shock to the Israeli and American supporters of Israel to have Joe Biden, a great friend of Israel, make the extraordinary harsh statement he made denouncing the future construction of 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem. The Vice President’s condemnation was even more baffling because, as The Times of March 12th reported, “he spent most [of the previous day] expressing his personal devotion to Israel, as well as the Obama administration’s ‘iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security.’” As someone high in political life once said to me after I mentioned to him the violation of his iron-clad commitment to me on a subject involving the mass transit fares in New York City, “Next time, get it in steel. Iron breaks.”

But even more disturbing than the Vice President’s reaction were the comments and implicit threats voiced by Hillary Clinton in a telephone conversation she had with Prime Minister Netanyahu, described in The Times of March 12th. “In a tense, 43-minute phone call on Friday morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s plan for new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem sent a ‘deeply negative signal’ about Israeli-American relations.”

Under President Clinton and George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Ministers have offered the Palestinians a state of their own on virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza, with land swaps to compensate for any portion of the West Bank that would remain in Israel, but those offers were rejected by the Palestinians.

What is most disturbing about the truly harsh and inflammatory rhetoric of both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton directed at the government of Israel, is that it is speculated President Obama himself may have ordered Biden and Clinton to make the statements they made. The Times of March 16th reported, “…the President was outraged by the announcement of 1,600 housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem during Mr. Biden’s visit, administration officials said. Mr. Obama was deeply involved in the strategy and planning for Mr. Biden’s visit and orchestrated the response from Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton after it went awry, these officials said.” President Obama and his administration’s overly harsh public reaction to the construction in East Jerusalem appears to have emboldened Israel’s enemies and provided a cover for their extremist views. It has also created a serious crisis of confidence among the Israeli public that it can depend on this administration for its security.

There will be an effort this week when Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama to mend fences. There will be huggy-kissy pictures with Hillary and handshakes by Bibi Netanyahu with Joe Biden and the President, but the relations will never be the same again. Humpty Dumpty has been broken and the absolute trust needed between allies is no longer there. How sad it is for the supporters of Israel who put their trust in President Obama.

Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.

Atacking an ally to appease foes – The Trentonian Opinion: Serving Trenton and surrounding communities. (trentonian.com).

By DIANA WEST

Whew. We can breathe easier now that the Obama administration has taken a tough-as-scimitars line with Israel. Its blueprints for new housing, the administration says, pose a dire threat to U.S. troops.

As Vice President Joseph Biden put it, referring to a new housing project in Jerusalem: “This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

In other words, it’s not the Muslim-made IED planted in the roads of Helmand Province that’s the problem; it’s the Jewish-built condo in Jerusalem.

The effects of such babble are as palpable as they are shameful.

The same week the Israeli housing project launched Obama administration diplomatic fireworks, the White House and most media ignored the Palestinian Authority’s commemoration of Dalal Mughrabi — a mass murderess who led an attack killing 38 Israelis in 1978. She now has a public square named in her honor.

In its silence on this calumny, the U.S. government has acquiesced to the jihadist narrative that Jews building homes in Israel’s capital is incitement, while Muslims naming public squares for terrorist mass murderers of Jews is a ho-hum event. On with the “peace process.”

This constant, drip, drip, drip policy of appeasing Islamic extremists has been eroding our national security posture since long before 9/11. It has been reshaping a world perspective that conforms with that of the Islamic world.

This eruption over housing in Jerusalem — an “insult,” an “affront,” said White House adviser David Axelrod — strangely parrots the language of a purportedly “offended” Islam.

Gen. David Petraeus put a military gloss on this same policy in recent testimony before the U.S. Senate.

He spoke of “insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace,” the polite way of alluding to the open-ended jihad against Israel. This, he went on to say, presents “distinct challenges” to America’s interests in the region.

Why? “The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” he said. “Arab anger over the Palestinian question” limits U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the region and “weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world.” Meanwhile, the general said, “al-Qaida and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”

Subtext: If Israel would shrink into nothingness, everything would be beautiful.

Petraeus’ testimony about “Arab anger” echoes his concerns, as reported by Foreign Policy online, about Arab complaints on “the Palestinian issue.” Petraeus, Foreign Policy writes, believes this anger is “jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.”

Question: Since when is assuaging “Arab anger” the concern of U.S. war planners? Answer: Since U.S. war planners became U.S. counter-insurgency planners — and Petraeus literally helped write the book on counterinsurgency. Playing to Arab demands, to Muslim demands, is the heart of counterinsurgency’s “hearts and minds” doctrine.

The general is employing the classic buzz terms — Arab “anger,” Arab “perception” of the “Palestinian question,” etc. — that are hallmarks of the Arab-ist slant on the jihad against Israel.

This jihad is now picking up a terrifying speed after the Obama administration’s apology to Libya’s dictator Moammar Gadhafi, its “outreach” to Iran’s tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and, let us not forget, President Obama’s bow to Saudi King Abdullah..

—Syndicated columnist and author Diana West blogs at dianawest.net.

Sounding like the biggest friend Israel’s ever had, Clinton also warns that the “status quo” cannot be maintained.  No mention of “containing” Iran, rather “preventing” Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Mixed signals.  Watch the 45 minute speech and decide for yourselves.

Hillary, AIPAC leaders: Making the hurt plain—but the love, too | JTA – Jewish & Israel News.

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It was like one of those “good” family fights the shrinks on TV urge in marital spats: Make the hurt plain, but make the love plain, too.

The leaders of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not back down from their bottom lines when Clinton spoke Monday morning at the annual AIPAC policy conference: The Obama administration will make its unhappiness clear and public when it regards an Israeli action as undermining the peace process; AIPAC would prefer such talks take place behind closed doors.

For AIPAC, Jerusalem is off the table; for Clinton it’s very much part of the discussion.

Yet Clinton and the speakers before her — AIPAC President Lee Rosenberg and Executive Director Howard Kohr — made it emphatically clear that they not only remembered the “good times,” they are trying to bridge the gaps as well.

Clinton’s speech culminated two weeks of tensions sparked when Israel announced a major housing start in eastern Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that had been aimed at underscoring the close U.S.-Israel friendship and restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“It is our devotion to this outcome — two states for two peoples, secure and at peace — that led us to condemn the announcement of plans for new construction in East Jerusalem,” Clinton said Monday. “This was not about wounded pride. Nor is it a judgment on the final status of Jerusalem, which is an issue to be settled at the negotiating table. This is about getting to the table, creating and protecting an atmosphere of trust around it, and staying there until the job is finally done.”

Clinton’s mild rebuke brought surprising, if light, applause. It was a mark of the success of repeated pleas from AIPAC’s leadership to the 7,500 activists in attendance to keep things civil. Clinton earned standing ovations coming in and out, and there was no audible booing.

Kohr and Rosenberg were equally as determined to make Israel’s point.

“Jerusalem is not a settlement,” Kohr said in the line of the morning that brought the greatest cheering. “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”

Kohr also made the case for keeping such disputes out of public view.

“When disagreements inevitably arise, they must be resolved privately as is befitting close allies,” he said.

That’s been the mantra of AIPAC, along with the center and right in the pro-Israel community — and Clinton turned it around.

The announcement of new construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, she said, “exposes daylight between Israel and the United States that others in the region hope to exploit. And it undermines America’s unique ability to play a role — an essential role, I might add — in the peace process. Our credibility in this process depends in part on our willingness to praise both sides when they are courageous, and when we don’t agree, to say so, and say so unequivocally.”

It was clear, though, that Clinton was sensitive to Israeli and pro-Israel complaints that the opprobrium she had heaped onto Israel — she called the announcement an “insult” — was one-sided and that she had ignored Palestinian violations.

In fact, her spokesmen have condemned Palestinian incitement. And Monday, Clinton picked up the two signal issues that have exercised Israel’s advocates: the naming of a public square in Ramallah for a terrorist who led a deadly 1978 attack, and Palestinian rioting greeting the rededication of an Old City synagogue destroyed during the 1948 Independence War.

“These provocations are wrong and must be condemned for needlessly inflaming tensions and imperiling prospects for a comprehensive peace,” Clinton said to applause.

AIPAC and the Obama administration have differences on Iran as well: AIPAC activists will push hard for enhanced Iran sanctions when they lobby Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, while the administration wants time to exhaust the prospect of multilateral sanctions.

Here, though, Clinton was able to throw the crowd some meat, saying that whatever sanctions emerged, they would not be glancing.

“Our aim is not incremental sanctions but sanctions that will bite,” she said. “It is taking time to produce these sanctions, and we believe that time is a worthwhile investment for winning the broadest possible support for our efforts. But we will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring these nuclear weapons.”

Rosenberg, just inaugurated as AIPAC’s president and a key fund-raiser in candidate Barack Obama’s presidential run, also made sure to hit affectionate notes, noting Clinton’s pronounced pro-Israel record in her eight years as a U.S. senator from New York. Among other things, she led the successful effort to force the International Committee of the Red Cross to recognize Israel’s Magen David Adom.

Kohr, the longtime AIPAC director, used the policy conference to outline the group’s priorities. He focused on gaining Israel its deserved entry into the international community through membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which coordinates economic policy in the developed world; getting Israel a seat on the U.N. Security Council; and forging a closer relationship between Israel and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

All have been Israeli priorities for years, but throughout the Bush administration and the prevalence of neoconservatism in its foreign policy, AIPAC’s embrace of these issues was low-grade. In fact, in making the case for advancing Israel in the United Nations, Kohr even asked: “Now, some of you may be asking, why does it matter?”

He ran through an explanation of the U.N. Security Council’s powers, but left unsaid why else it matters: The Obama administration’s emphasis on multilateralism and on working out differences in international forums. Kohr was telling his activists that this was the new Obama order.

Perhaps most telling was where Clinton ad-libbed away from her prepared remarks and revealed a soft affection for Israel and its friends.

She delivered a prepared line about “pioneers who found a desert and made it bloom,” then paused and said, “There were people who were thinking, how could that ever happen? Ahh, but it did.”

She amended a line about warriors offering peace to describe them as “so gallant in battle.” Clinton asked the crowd if they thought she thought it necessary to speak “because AIPAC can get 7,500 people in a convention center? I don’t think so.”

In her lengthiest unscripted passage, Clinton recalled traveling the world during the 1990s, the heyday of Arab-Israeli peace talks, and never hearing anyone mention the conflict outside the confines of the Middle East. These days, she said, its periodic explosions into war is often the first item, however far-flung her travels.

It was a gentle unsettling of the belief that the Israel-U.S. relationship exists in a bubble unaffected by outside realities.

“We cannot escape the impact of mass communications,” Clinton said. “We can only change the facts on the ground.”