Shorts: Cohen’s incredible remark, no freeze yet

Source:  Fresno Zionism

Here are a couple of things to think about today:

First, for the absolutely most unadulterated 200-proof bullshit in the world of Mideast punditry, it is impossible to beat Roger Cohen, who was actually paid something by the NY Times to write this:

But what of Iran? Netanyahu wants Obama to build a credible military threat. Ascendant Republicans bay for war. Clinton has to persuade Israel the best way to disarm Iran is by removing the core of Tehran’s propaganda — the plight of stateless Palestinians.

Imagine:

– Mr. President Ahamdinejad, listen, great news!

– What? Did the Zionists move back to Poland?

– No, but almost! Obama persuaded them to dismantle all the settlements and move back within the 1948 lines. A Palestinian state has been declared, with its capital in al-Quds!

– Allah be praised! Now we won’t need those atomic weapons — quick, sell the uranium on Ebay. Nasrallah can close up shop and go home — who will want to join Hizballah now?  Stop sending money to Hamas — they are dancing in the street now that Palestinians aren’t stateless. And Assad might as well dump his missiles, too.

This business of trying to control the entire Middle East and its oil resources, overthrow the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, establish a Shiite caliphate, humiliate the US and wipe the Zionists off the map was tiresome — I’m glad we can stop, now that the Palestinians have a state.

And get Obama on the phone — thanks to him, we can finally have good relations with the Great Sat– er, America. What a man he is!

***

There’s no freeze agreement yet, and the US has apparently not put its promises into writing. And anyone who remembers the way Hillary Clinton announced that the oral commitments made by the Bush Administration were not ‘enforceable’ knows that you can’t trust these people otherwise. Daled Amos has a good summary here of the way the carrots seem to be evaporating from the Obama Administration’s carrot and stick offer.

and

from Daled Amos:

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2010

The Incredible Shrinking Offer Clinton Made To Netanyahu

Remember that offer resulting from that marathon session between Netanyahu and Hillary Clinton? It was supposed to offer the kinds of goodies that were just enough for Bibi to get his cabinet to approve the 3-month extension of the settlement freeze, bring Abbas back to the peace talks, and get the talks on their way on a one-year trip to peace.

What happened?

Well, for starters--it turns out that something that was on the table previously was actually taken off the table by Clinton:

What is different about the current U.S. package from a draft version that was presented to the Israelis in September and October is that the latest one does not explicitly mention the U.S. agreeing to a long-term Israeli Defense Forces presence in the Jordan Valley – on the West Bank/Israel’s eastern front with Jordan, [Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s David] Makovsky said.

An Israeli presence there in the Jordan Valley is a key strategic point for Israel, but one that Abbas has objected to, preferring an international force (probably modeled after the UNIFIL presence in Lebanon, based on its record of enforcing UN Resolution 1701).

Secondly, what about those 20 F-35 fighter jets? The US is now hedging on those promised jets to Israel:

Supporters of the freeze have cited the US offer to give Israel 20 F-35 joint strike fighter jets worth $3 billion as a critical reason to support the deal; the initial details of which were hammered out last Thursday between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But when quizzed about the weapons offer, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “We are committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge in the region – but beyond that, I’m not going to comment."

Not surprisingly, Netanyahu is insisting that he will not bring the proposed US offer before the cabinet until he has it in writing:

The official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will present the offer to his Cabinet only upon receiving written guarantees which "reflect the understandings reached during his talks with Hillary Clinton in New York."

That insistence may be in response to a further change in Clinton's offer. Arlene Kushner writes that the US may be trying to take back another promise Clinton made to Netanyahu:

A charge has been made by one Israeli official that the discontent on the Palestinian Arab side is keeping the US administration from finalizing the proposal to Israel. Tension between Israel and the US has been reported with regard to the Israeli demand that everything be in writing. According to this official, the US would like to water down the original understanding -- removing the promise that no further freeze would be expected of Israel -- in deference to Palestinian Arab demands.

One can only wonder what--if anything--will be left of Clinton's promises to Netanyahu by the time the final written copy appears before Bibi's cabinet.

At one point, the claim was that with Clinton's promises in hand, a vote to continue the moratorium would be a sure thing, albeit by a razor-thin margin.

But now, one wonders how many of those promises the US is willing to actually stand by and put into writing.

At the very least, it does not make Hillary Clinton look good.

I guess that means now she knows how Obama feels.

Daled Amos

My note:

The other day I had a conversation with someone and our talk was about America keeping its promises to Israel.  Surely, there would be great retribution if a nation did not keep its promises to another nation ....

Well, Israel has experienced broken promises in the past; and even now, before the day ends, there could be more disappointments from those we should be able to trust ... those who call themselves "friend" ...

Unless it is in writing, with many witnesses, preferably in front of the WORLD news media and NOT behind closed door, it would be best not to put all your eggs into one basket!  

Security for Israel would mean under the Divine hand of the G-d of Israel (with a whole lot of witnesses here on earth) ...

Bee Sting

US pushes back against Netanyahu claim that only force can stop Iran

Source:  Israel Matzav

Prime Minister Netanyahu met with US Vice President Joe Biden in New Orleans on Sunday. But in the aftermath of the meeting, the USpushed back against Netanyahu's claim that sanctions aren't working and the only way to stop Iran is by force.

Netanyahu said that a credible threat of military action is the only way to ensure that Iran will rethink its nuclear program. According Israeli estimates, the only time that Iran paused its nuclear program was in 2003, when Iran believed there was a threat of military action.

But the U.S. was quick to rebuff the call to use force against Iran, which has repeatedly denied Western accusations that its civilian nuclear program is a mask for designs on an atom bomb.

"I disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the action that it needs to end its nuclear weapons program," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday.

Sanctions against Iran were already beginning to bite, Gates told a news conference in Melbourne after security talks with Australia.

"We are prepared to do what is necessary. But at this point we continue to believe that the political, economic approach that we are taking is in fact having an impact in Iran."

However, Gates said that all options remained on the table.

"The president has said repeatedly that when it comes to Iran that all options are on the table and we are doing what we need to do to ensure that he has those options," he said.

Former President Bush writes in his memoirs, which were released this weekend, that then-Prime Minister Olmert asked Bush to bomb the Syrian reactor at al-Kibar in 2007 and Bush refused. Olmert then went ahead and bombed it himself without Bush's permission. In the aftermath of that attack, Bush trusted Israel to fight the war on terror for the first time since before the Second Lebanon War (apparently at least several months before, and maybe as far back as 2002 - follow that link).

Does Netanyahu even have less courage than the cowardly Olmert?

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Obama?

 Guest blog from Uzi Amit-Kohn

Posted By Richard Landes On 8th April 2010 @ 20:09 

Augean Stables

 

I just received the following piece from a friend in Israel. I post it here at his request not because I endorse it, but because I think it’s important to think out of the box, and that’s precisely what he does. Comments and criticism welcome as always. - Augean Stables

Unlike our brethren in the diaspora, most Israeli Jews – myself included – had no illusions about then presidential candidate Barack Obama being a friend of Israel. But even I did not foresee that Obama would team up with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to subject Israel to a “good cop- bad cop” routine, and with Iran in the role of the “good cop”, no less.

By now, even many well known figures in US Jewry have come to recognize President Obama’s undisguised hostility toward the Jewish State. Ed Koch, Alan, Dershowitz, and Martin Peretz are just three of the more prominent American Jews who have publicly broken with Obama over his treatment of Israel. Here in Israel, distrust of Obama has reached such staggering heights that this Passover, at Seder tables throughout the country – or so my extrapolation from the experiences of my friends and acquaintances leads me to believe - Barack Obama’s name came up when the Haggadah (ritual reading) came to the text of “Vehi she’amda”, which –in English translation – reads:

“This is what has stood by our fore- fathers and by us! For not just one [oppressor] alone has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us; and the Almighty rescues us from their hand!”

Barack Obama seems to me a person full of self-regard but totally lacking in self-awareness, so at the White House “Seder” that he hosted, he probably had no sense that those words – written in reference to such villains of Jewish history as Pharaoh, Amalek, Nebuchadnezzar, Titus and Hadrian and more recently associated by one and all with Adolph Hitler – were now being recited with a picture of Barack Obama in people’s minds. It took real skill for an American president, elected with 78% of the Jewish vote, to be recognized by millions of Jews as a potential destroyer of the Jewish People.

It has been reported that the Obama administration’s intention in creating an artificial crisis in US – Israel relations was politically to weaken Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and to force him either to form a new coalition with the Kadima party and its leader Tzippi Livny, or to engineer a situation in which Livny will form a new government. The most recent manifestation of Obama’s hostility seems to be a recent report in the Washington Post, that Obama, encouraged by his own National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, and such past – unfriendly to Israel - National Security Advisors as Zbigniew Brezinski and Brent Scowcroft – plans to try to impose a settlement on both Israel and the Palestinians, and will “link” Israel’s cooperation on that violation of our sovereignty to action on the Iranian nuclear issue.

To help forestall this possibility I recommend that Israel-supporters in the United States start being very vocal, and preemptively equate any attempt to impose a settlement on Israel with 1930’s era appeasement. Ed Koch [1] has already applied the “M-word”, writing of Obama’s foreign policy “There is a foul whiff of Munich and appeasement in the air.” We may as well start using the “NC-word” (i.e. – “Neville Chamberlain”) in this context as well.

Obama is already tanking in the polls and is suffering the most rapid decline in his presidential approval rating of any first term president since polling began. He might decide that whatever benefit he had hoped to gain, by imposing a “peace settlement” on Israel, would not be worth the additional damage to his image and political standing.

The most mystifying aspect of this report is that Obama wants to make American action against the Iranian nuclear program contingent on Israel accepting the imposed settlement. The underlying premise would seem to be that Iran is only Israel’s problem, and that America’s friends and allies in Europe and the Middle East – let alone the United States itself – are in no way threatened by a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran.

Guess Who Is Really Going To Decide The Final Iraq Election Results

NEWS REAL BLOG

2010 March 30

by John L. Work

Over at Diana West’s website some not too surprising, but none-the-less deeply disturbing news reports have surfaced which demonstrate that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and exiled anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (photo above) are all more than casually involved in deciding the final outcome of Iraq’s recent election results. Emissaries from the highest levels of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government have already met in Tehran with all of the afore-named, hoping to secure the blessings of the Shiite Muslim coalition that governs Iran, and return al-Maliki to his current office. Any eyebrows up yet?

Not being a man to come to a conclusion without at least a preponderance of evidence to support one, it is not possible to disbelieve that Iran is calling some big shots in Iraq’s political future. If you are wondering how this can possibly be happening, or if I have somehow mistaken the facts of the situation, here are direct links to news accounts (again with thanks to Diana West) and you can examine them closely to discern for yourself what is going on in Iraq. Notice that not one of the reports originated within the United States.

Irish Times The Independent Guardian.CO.UK Story Asia Times Story

The Irish Times’ account includes this:

“IRAQI PRIME minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose State of Law bloc won 89 seats in the March 7th parliamentary election, is making every effort to overturn the result.

Yesterday the panel disqualifying ex-Baathists said six winners would lose their seats. It is assumed that some will be from the Iraqiya bloc of Iyad Allawi which came first with 91 seats in the 325 member assembly, destroying his lead over Mr Maliki…”

A few days ago I blogged about this possibility here at NRB.

“…Mr Maliki’s proposed deal seems to have been concluded at meetings in Tehran between Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, head of the PUK, and Shia vice-president Adel Abdel Mahdi of the INA who held discussions with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At the same time, leading personalities belonging to Mr Maliki’s bloc travelled to the Iranian holy city of Qom to negotiate with radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who had expressed his opposition to a second term for Mr Maliki…”

Equally as disturbing as the afore-noted facts may be – I have neither seen a line of coverage in any American news publication, nor have I heard a word spoken of Iran’s deep involvement in the Iraq election results during American news broadcasts – yet.

It seems to me that with all of the political drama surrounding Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon, the threats to wipe out Israel, not to mention the unthinkable cruelties that have been inflicted upon political prisoners by the Iranian government, this apparent de facto control of Iraq’s election results should be sufficiently troubling to at least get a mention somewhere in America’s news outlets.

Hezbollah's Penance: The Shiite Militia Works to Rebuild its Tarnished Image

TheWeeklyStandard.com

BY David Schenker

March 5, 2010 4:00 PM

Last week in Damascus, just days after the highest ranking visit from a U.S. official in years, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted a state dinner for his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmedinajad. Welcoming Ahmedinajad so close on the heels of the U.S. diplomatic good will gesture was a pointed Syrian slight to the Obama administration, but the icing on the cake was Assad’s other guest of honor at the feast: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

For Damascus and Tehran—the last two U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East—Hezbollah has long constituted a strategic asset and a point of pride. More recently, the organization successfully worked to broaden its appeal throughout the region. And indeed, after the Shiite terrorist organization fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, Hezbollah’s stature in the Arab world skyrocketed. Not only was Nasrallah the most compelling Arabic orator, Hezbollah became the most positive personification of Shiites in the largely Sunni Muslim region.

That was 2006. Today, while Hezbollah remains a formidable “resistance” force, in the past two years, a number of setbacks have tarnished the organization’s carefully cultivated image in Lebanon and the broader Arab world. Hezbollah’s military prowess may not be in doubt, but now for the first time, Lebanese and other Middle Easterners are starting to question the organization’s once unscrupulous morality. Nearly three decades after its establishment, the resistance has institutionalized and bureaucratized, and Hezbollah is starting to resemble other, corrupt Lebanese organizations.

The problems of the Party of God, Hezbollah's English translation, started in May 2008, when the militia violated its cardinal rule and turned its weapons—allegedly intended for use against Israel—on Lebanese citizens, when the organization invaded Beirut. Continuing this trend, three months later the militia opened fire (accidentally, Hezbollah says) on a Lebanese army helicopter, killing the co-pilot. Then, in November 2008, a 49-member Hezbollah cell was arrested in Egypt, accused of plotting attacks against Israeli tourists and Suez Canal shipping. (Nasrallah responded to the arrests by publicly calling on Egyptians to topple their government).

Setbacks continued into 2009. First came a damaging report in the May edition of Der Spiegel, implicating the militia in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. (These allegations were recently confirmed by Le Monde). A month later, the heavily favored militia lost the Lebanese elections to its pro-West rivals.

Adding insult to injury, less than a week after its defeat at the polls, the organization was dealt yet another blow, when mass demonstrations erupted in Iran protesting the fraudulent elections. The rallies challenged Iran’s clerical leadership and its controversial doctrine of velayat-e faqih (Islamic government), threatening the seat of power of Hezbollah’s spiritual leader and financial patron Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As if this weren’t enough, in September 2009 one of the militia’s chief local financiers, Salah Ezzedin, went bankrupt in a Ponzi scheme, ala Bernard Madoff. Ezzedin, who had promised rates of return up to 80 percent, ended up swindling 10,000 Lebanese Shiites out of an estimated $300 million.

Among the setbacks of the past two years, the Ezzedin scandal was perhaps the most damaging to Hezbollah because the militia’s leadership was so close to the disgraced financier, a relationship that led many investors to trust him with their money. (Indeed, Ezzedin named his publishing house after Nasrallah’s son, Hadi, who was killed by Israel in 1997). The Ezzedin affair implicated Hezbollah in the same kind of corruption it routinely accused the pro-West Sunni Government in Beirut of perpetrating.

Recognizing the implications for the organization’s reputation, Hezbollah went into damage-control mode. Nasrallah repeatedly denied any connection to the affair, claiming that the party itself lost $4 million. According to the Arabic news service Elaph, he also instructed Hezbollah clerics to issue a “fatwa-like” directive forbidding the mention of the militia in connection to the scandal, lest it provide fodder for Israeli and American propaganda machines to further “besmirch the organization’s name.”

But the damage was already done. In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s long suffering detractors were giddy with schadenfreude; meanwhile, many of the organization’s supporters expressed profound disappointment.

One article in the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily Al-Akbar, written by the paper’s editor Ibrahim al Amin shortly after the scandal broke, provides a good picture of the sentiment of Hezbollah’s base. Al Amin accused the organization of going soft after decades of hardship and of starting to live the good life corrupted by “greed.” This cultured lifestyle, he wrote, was “in opposition to the principle of sacrifice” that once was the hallmark of the resistance. Ending with a flourish, al Amin cited the famed Israeli Ministry of Defense advisor on Lebanon, Uri Lubrani, who long ago said that Israel would only defeat Hezbollah “when it became infected with the virus of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Lebanon, in other words, when it alters its appearance and becomes bourgeoisie.”

It’s less clear how this scandal and other Hezbollah missteps are impacting the organization’s standing throughout the Arab world. While much of the regional polling is unreliable, it does reveal some trends. Pew polls taken in 2007 and 2009 indicate consistently high levels of Shiite confidence in Nasrallah, reaching 97 percent in 2009. During this same two year period, however, Sunni Muslim confidence in Seyyid Hasan dropped from an already low 9 percent to 2 percent. (The same 2009 poll showed a decline from 2007 in favorable views of the organization among Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians). Other polls of Arabs also suggest a decline in support. According to polls conducted by Zogby International, in 2008 Nasrallah was the top vote-getter (at 27 percent) when Arabs were asked about their most admired foreign leader. In 2009—even prior to the Ezzedin affair—he only received 11 percent

Although difficult to prove, both based on the public opinion polling and anecdotal evidence, it appears that the last two years have undercut some of Hezbollah’s hard-won currency in the region. Of course, public opinion is fickle, and there is little doubt that the militia’s popularity would increase if another round of fighting erupted between the organization and Israel. During the summer war of 2006, for example, over a 33-day period, Hezbollah’s al-Manar satellite station viewership soared from 38 in the rankings into the top ten.

Still, recent actions by Hezbollah suggest that the organization is concerned with its image in Lebanon and the Arab world. In November, two months after the scandal broke, for example, Nasrallah changed the topic and published a new Hezbollah “manifesto,” updating the 1985 charter. Like the previous document, the 2009 manifesto spelled out its enmity toward Israel and the United States. At the same time, though, the new charter sought to appeal to a broader Sunni audience by downplaying the organization’s historic allegiance to the clerical leadership in Tehran. Likewise, rather than urging Lebanese Christians to convert—“We call upon you to embrace Islam” read the 1985 manifesto—in 2009, Hezbollah adopted more conciliatory language toward its fellow countrymen.

Likewise, in December, to counter the growing impression of Hezbollah corruption, Nasrallah gave a speech promoting (of all things) adherence to Lebanese laws, including respecting traffic signals, paying for—and not stealing—Government water and electricity, abiding by building laws and civil codes, ending smuggling that undercuts Lebanese businesses, and emphasizing the importance of civil servants showing up for their jobs and actually performing their duties

This past February, the resistance really put the spin machine into full gear. First, in a speech during “Martyred Leaders Week,” Nasrallah—in an obvious bid to regain his standing with the Arab street—pledged that during the next war with Israel, Hezbollah would go toe-to-toe with Israel, threatening to “bomb Ben Gurion airport,” if the Jewish state targeted Beirut International.

Then, following the martyrs speech, Hezbollah’s website published a bazaar interview with Lebanese “economists” claiming that by establishing a credible deterrent threat, the Shiite militia had actually “improved [the] economic situation in Lebanon,” particularly the performance of the Beirut Stock Exchange. Not coincidentally, at about the same time, Al-Akbar publicized a poll by the pro-Hezbollah Beirut Center for Research and Information, indicating that 84 percent of Lebanese “trust the resistances’ capabilities facing any Israeli attack.”

The final piece of the puzzle in Hezbollah’s effort to rehabilitate its image at home and abroad is compensation for the victims of the Ezzedin Ponzi scheme. Because Hezbollah was so close to the financier, swindled Shiites—most of whom are supporters of the resistance—are petitioning the organization for financial restitution. And it’s not only the Lebanese. According to reports in the Arab press, several leading figures in Syria’s Assad regime, including Assad’s brother Maher and Vice President Farouk Shara’a also lost their investments, and are looking to Hezbollah—which captured Ezzedin on the lam with suitcases of cash in hand—to recoup some 17 million euros.

Not surprisingly, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on February 28 that some time ago Nasrallah had contacted Supreme Leader Khamenei, requesting $300 million in funding to stave off a “crisis of confidence” among his constituents. Khamenei approved the appeal, and according to Al-Siyasa, the funds were transferred to Nasrallah by Ahmedinajad when they met in Damascus last week.

With money in hand, Hezballah will be able to placate its supporters. By threatening Israel, the militia may even be able to again generate some buzz in the Arab world. What the last two years have demonstrated, however, is that if the “resistance” isn’t resisting (i.e., actively fighting) Israel, the Arab world has little use for the militia, particularly if it is attacking Sunnis at home and subverting Arab regimes abroad.

During the dinner in Damascus for Ahmedinajad and Nasrallah last week, Assad pledged his regime’s continued backing for Hezbollah. “To support the resistance is a moral, patriotic and legal duty,” he said. Four years after the last war with Israel and a following a string of Hezbollah miscues, although the Shiite militia dominates Lebanese politics, Assad’s sentiments today appear to be shared by a minority of Middle Easterners. While the organization is making great efforts to reverse the tide, absent another war with Israel, the decline of Arab support for Hezbollah is a regional trend that’s likely to continue.

David Schenker is Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

.

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Iran: Dubai hit is an act of state terrorism by Israel

Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council on Tuesday denounced the death of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, calling it an act of terror, French news agency AFP reported.

Iran joined Hamas and Dubai police in blaming Israel for the killing. Dubai authorities have said they were nearly certain Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, was behind the death of Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room on January 20.

"The Dubai assassination is an act of state terrorism on the part of Israel," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying in a report by state-run Press TV

"Israel's existence is itself based on terrorist activities," he said. The French news agency also reported that GCC Secretary General Abdel Rahim al-Attiya urged European Union countries to cooperate with the UAE investigation "to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice and prevent the repeat of such a terrorist act." Attiya, however, avoided blaming Israel for the militant's death, instead describing it as the work f an "organized criminal group." Earlier Tuesday, the United Arab Emirates identified four more European passport-holders suspected in the Dubai killing of the Hamas commander last month, a source in the UAE familiar with the investigation said Tuesday. "The UAE has identified two British suspects holding British travel documents, and as part of the ongoing investigation has shared the information with the British government," the source said. Two more suspects holding Irish passports were also identified, the source added. The new claim reportedly brings the tally of fraudulent British passports used to eight, and Irish identities used to five. The six previously announced British identities used by the killers were all traced to British citizens living in Israel, who say their identities were stolen. Dubai authorities had already released the identities of 11 people who traveled on forged British, Irish, French and German passports to kill Mabhouh. European Union foreign ministers protested Monday against the use of forged European passports in the killing, but stopped well short of blaming Israel for the undercover action. "The EU strongly condemns the fact that those involved in this action have used fraudulent EU member states' passports and credit cards acquired through the theft of EU citizens' identities," the bloc's ministers said in a statement. The bloc's statement was approved as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was visiting the EU capital of Brussels. He met his British and Irish counterparts, David Miliband and Micheal Martin, and dined with the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. Lieberman told his Irish counterpart that the Arabs nations blame Israel for anything that happens in the Middle East. He added that there are many other power struggles in the region which could have resulted in the operation. "The Arabs have a tendency to blame Israel for anything that happens in the Middle East," he said, adding that the region "has many internal struggles within groups and states which are not as democratic as Israel is." Asked whether she would question Lieberman over the Mossad's alleged involvement in the killing, Ashton said she would "raise a number of things, including that." But she stressed that until the matter is cleared up by investigators, the EU would not jump to conclusions. "We can't move from a position where some press reports say that something has happened to a position saying: therefore we have to take action," Ashton said. She did acknowledge, however, that the member states concerned, which have launched investigations of their own, "have been extremely angry about what has happened." Miliband said his Israeli counterpart told him he "had no information at this stage." "It is very important that people know that we continue to take this issue very seriously indeed," Miliband said after talks with Lieberman. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday reiterated his condemnation of the assassination and insisted "nothing positive" comes of such killings. He added that France cannot accept such "executions."

PROMOTION: Mamilla Hotel

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.
Note: So Israel is being accused of killing a terrorist! WOW! Hmm! Maybe we should blame the British, since these so-called unknown "organized criminals" held British passports. Oh, let's blame the Irish, the French and the Germans - great detective work, Dubai! Don't forget to blame the Palestinians, since two Palestinians were arrested immediately after this untimely death of a terrorist in a Dubai hotel room. BeeSting

Iran: Ahmadinejad aims for 'global Islamic revolution'

It's not Ahmadinejad's idea -- it is ideology of Islam. It is Islam. When Ahmadinejad said in a live address, "The Islamic revolution's final objective is global revolution," he was right.

Iran: Ahmadinejad aims for 'global Islamic revolution' ADN Kronos

Tehran, 23 Feb. (AKI) - Iran aims to spread its Islamic revolution beyond its borders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged on Tuesday. "The Islamic revolution's final objective is global revolution," Ahmadinejad said in a live televised address.

Ahmadinejad also vowed to "cut the hands" of Iran's enemies if the Islamic republic was attacked.

"We will welcome a hand which has sincerely reached out for friendship, but if anywhere in the world a hand is extended for aggression against Iranians, the nation will cut it from the arm," he told a rally from northeastern South Khorasan province.

Israel and the United States have not ruled out military strikes against Iran's nuclear sites because they fear Tehran may use uranium to produce nuclear weapons.

In his televised broadcast Ahmadinejad said Tehran was not making a nuclear bomb and said Iranians did not need them.

Iran has warned it would go to war with is sworn enemy of Israel if the Jewish state acts to eliminate its nuclear programme as it did in 1981 in an air raid which destroyed Iraq's Osriaq nuclear reactor.

Washington has also not ruled out military action if Tehran fails to curb its uranium enrichment programme.

Tension between Tehran and Western powers has increased since Iran began work on enriching uranium to a purity level of 20 percent, bringing it closer to the level required for making a nuclear weapon.

Posted by Pamela Geller on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 11:31 AM in Global Jihad 2010, IRAN: The Fourth Reich, Nuclear Roulette: And the Band Plays On | Permalink | Comments (2) ShareThis

Time for America to Act on Iran

American Thinker.com
By Reza Kahlili

[see also What Iran Sanctions Won't Do and What They Can Do]

It is becoming increasingly clear that President Obama's policies toward Iran have failed and that disaster is in the offing. President Obama began his relationship with the radical mullahs in Iran determined to show that he represents a new America and that he is truly seeking friendship between the two nations. This has proven to be dreadfully misguided.

The president pursued two tracks at once. First, he initiated the appeasement process by sending his greetings to the mullahs for the Iranian New Year, calling the country "the Islamic Republic of Iran" and therefore legitimizing the rule of the mullahs. He then sent letters to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, stating that he did not intend to interfere with the way the mullahs ruled and that he wished to resolve any issues between Iran and the USA. President Obama then went even farther and ordered the release of five Quds force commanders captured by U.S. armed forces in Irbil, Iraq in 2007. He did this in spite of the fact that those commanders and their organization had successfully orchestrated the killing of hundreds of our soldiers in Iraq. President Obama then refrained from strongly criticizing the regime in its brutal clampdown of its citizens after the fraudulent elections of June 2009 and offered an easy way out for the Iranian regime in the negotiations held in Geneva last October regarding Iran's uranium enrichment activities.

If the first track was the carrot, the other track was the stick. Obama prepared punishments in case the Iranians did not respond favorably to his gestures. He started by scrapping the missile defense shield program in Eastern Europe to satisfy the Russians in an effort to get them to cooperate with him on Iran. He bowed to Chinese demands to give Iran sufficient time to respond to his initiatives and avoid condemning the Iranian government for their treatment of their citizens in the hopes that China would help him if stronger remedies became necessary.

It has been a year since the president began to implement this dual-track policy. The first track has failed because the mullahs have responded by disregarding every deadline set for action, continuing to exert their iron will on their people, rejecting the very generous offer made by the 5+1 in Geneva of our providing nuclear fuel in exchange for their enriched uranium, and for the first time since the start of their nuclear program, they now claim to have enriched uranium to the 20% level and the capability to enrich to a level necessary to make a nuclear bomb. As Ahmadinejad put it, "Iran is now a nuclear state."

The second track has failed because President Obama has not gained the cooperation from China and Russia he sought in dealing with Iran. He has called for crippling sanctions should the mullahs fail to comply with his nuclear demands, but China has not agreed to go along with these sanctions, and Russia is still cautioning against such action. As a result, any U.N. sanctions will be nothing more than a watered down resolution without any serious effect on the Iranian government.

Meanwhile, the mullahs have pursued their own dual track much more successfully: They've managed to continue their uranium enrichment program despite three sets of U.N. sanctions in place, while at the same time keeping the West confused about how to approach them successfully.

It's time for us to take a more aggressive stance. The American flag stands for more than two centuries of struggle, sacrifice, and bravery by courageous citizens in defense of freedom, democracy, and justice. It represents the very principles that make our enemies despise us. Whenever we have stepped back from those principles in the spirit of appeasement or for purely political reasons, we have guided our country and the world into a troubled future. President Carter, for instance, called the Ayatollah Khomeini "a man of God" immediately after the overthrow of the shah, and that man of God responded by seizing the American Embassy and taking the staff hostage. Carter believed that an Islamic regime in Iran would be advantageous to U.S. policies in confronting the Soviet Union. Instead, it fostered the growth of Islamic fanaticism that continues to plague us. However, when we have stood tall and called out evil, we have shaped a better future for all humankind. President Reagan did just that by standing strong against communism, bringing freedom to hundreds of millions of people, and changing the world for the better.

My years with the Revolutionary Guards in Iran taught me that the mullahs believe in a god that hates, who seeks the blood of all non-believers -- including their own citizens -- and who calls for jihad against all non-Muslims. The fanatics in Iran believe that that same god requires them to bring the world to chaos -- where many die and others experience hunger and lawlessness -- so Imam Mahdi will reappear, kill the rest of the infidels, and raise the flag of Islam everywhere on our planet. No Western leader will ever be able to reach accord with people who feel this way. President Obama needs to realize this before an atrocity greater than 9/11 happens on our shores.

The Revolutionary Guards' ballistic missile program already covers all U.S. military bases in the Middle East and all of Israel. All of Europe will soon be within their missile range. The Guards have also successfully tested launching ballistic missiles from ships in pursuit of their nuclear agenda. This could lead to an electromagnetic pulse attack on American soil that could cripple civilian and military communications and take down our very infrastructure.

The radicals ruling Iran are just like suicide bombers, whose only goal is to attain paradise while bringing about our demise. The ruling clerics have a long history of terrorist activities against the U.S. and its interests across the world. The current defense minister of Iran, Ahmad Vahidi, who is in close collaboration with al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups, is the former Quds force commander who masterminded many terrorist activities and is currently on Interpol's most-wanted list.

In this defining moment of history, where Iranians are sacrificing their lives to seek freedom, we should not seek to appease their oppressors. We should call upon our proud history to defeat evil -- and we can do this without firing a single bullet.

Assuming China and Russia will continue to be uncooperative (a safe assumption, given their history), we should work with the heads of Europe to take the following actions:

• Cut all diplomatic ties with Iran, recalling all Western embassy personnel.
• Order all Iranian representatives from embassies, shipping lines, banks, and airlines to leave all Western countries immediately.
• Close all Western airspace to flights going to or from Iran.
• Shut down all Western seaports to ships going to or from Iran.
• Shut down all Iranian government media broadcasts into Western countries in retaliation of their blockade of such broadcasts into Iran.
• Freeze all assets of Iranian rulers and the Guards in Western banks.
• Order arrest warrants for crimes against humanity for all Iranian leaders involved in killing innocent civilians.

We then need to make these demands:

• An immediate stop of all Iranian nuclear activities.
• A free election supervised by the United Nations.
• The release of all political prisoners and a complete halt in the execution of political opponents and religious minorities.
• The right to peaceful demonstration and freedom of speech for all Iranians.

President Obama must accept that what we do today will shape our world in the future -- and waiting until tomorrow might be too late. His dual-track strategy has failed him. He must now take the only track that leads to a free Iran.

"Reza Kahlili" is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. His book, A Time to Betray, about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which includes many new revelations about contemporary Iran, will be published in April 2010 by Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions imprint.

Islamic “peace” and Israel are mutually exclusive.

Israpundit.com

February 19, 2010

By Ted Belman (written in Oct ‘07)

On October 26, 2005, Ahmadinejad gave a speech to the “World Without Zionism” conference in Iran. The New York Times’ published a full transcript of the speech in which Ahmadinejad was quoted in part as follows:

Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.

Iran Broadcasting on its English-language website filed a story entitled: Ahmadinejad: Israel must be wiped off the map,

Ahmadinejad also claimed in the speech that the issue with Palestine would be over

“the day that all refugees return to their homes [and] a democratic government elected by the people comes to power”, and denounced attempts to normalise relations with Israel, condemning all Muslim leaders who accept the existence of Israel as “acknowledging a surrender and defeat of the Islamic world.“

There is an attempt in certain quarters to argue that he didn’t mean that all Jews should be killed but that Israel should be removed as a political entity. I want to focus on the latter.

It is not only Iran that takes this uncompromising stand but also Saudi Arabia, the guardian of Mecca and Medina, and all Arab countries in their orbit, do also.

Fatah’s Constitution states

Article (12)
Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.

Hamas’ Charter is a religious affirmation of the following principle

Article Eleven
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have the right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations , be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection.

Do not think for a moment that Saudi Arabia doesn’t agree with all these articulations. That’s why it wants to unify Fatah and Hamas. They all have the same goal. And remember, “Palestine” includes Israel.

When Ahmedinejad spoke at Columbia he said,

“And my second question, well, given this historical event, if it is a reality, we need to still question whether the Palestinian people should be paying for it or not. After all, it happened in Europe. The Palestinian people had no role to play in it. So why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price of an event they had nothing to do with? [The Balfour declaration preceded the Holocaust by 24 years.] The Palestinian people didn’t commit any crime. They had no role to play in World War II. They were living with the Jewish communities and the Christian communities in peace at the time. They didn’t have any problems. [They attacked Jews throughout the 24 years.]

And today, too, Jews, Christians and Muslims live in brotherhood all over the world in many parts of the world. They don’t have any serious problems. [Yes they do.]

But why is it that the Palestinians should pay a price, innocent Palestinians, for 5 million people to remain displaced or refugees abroad for 60 years. Is this not a crime? Is asking about these crimes a crime by itself? [The Arabs not the Jews must take responsibility.]

So our proposal to the Palestinian plight is a humanitarian and democratic proposal. What we say is that to solve this 60-year problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself. [There is no such people.]

This is compatible with the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations and the fundamental principles enshrined in it. We must allow Jewish Palestinians, Muslim Palestinians and Christian Palestinians to determine their own fate themselves through a free referendum. [The UN created Israel]

Essentially he is saying that the creation of Israel should be undone and that the nation of Palestine including Jews, Muslims and Christians must decide by democratic vote. Of course he includes all Palestinian refugees throughout the ME in such a referendum, knowing full well that the Arabs would outnumber the Jews and thus Palestine, which for Muslims has always included Israel, would replace Israel as the political entity.

Now, when Saudi Arabia or Muslims in general offer “peace”, we must understand what they mean. According to About.com

Critics and observers must not forget, though, that “peace” here is inextricably intertwined with “submission” and “surrender” — specifically to the will, desires, and commands of Allah, but of course also to those who set themselves up as the transmitters, interpreters, and teachers in Islam. Peace is thus not something achieved through mutual respect, compromise, love, or anything similar. Peace is something that exists as a consequence of and in the context of submission or surrender.

This is an excellent rendition of what Islam holds forth.

Thus “peace” and Israel are mutually exclusive.

Hugh Fitzgerald wrote in The “Two-State Solution” Folly based on folly

But Bush and Rice and Company are desperate for a “victory”. And whenever a “victory” is needed, it’s Peace Process Time in the Middle East. That’s always good for all kinds of sentimentality, and exaggerated false hopes, and studied inattention to the dismal facts, including the central fact ” the unavoidable fact, the absolutely critical fact ” of Islam, and the impossibility of Arab Muslims ever, ever conceivably accepting the permanence of the Infidel (and what’s still worse, Jewish) state of Israel. Peace treaties between Muslims and non-Muslims are always Truce Treaties, to be broken at the earliest opportunity.

The Arab League has offered “normalization” only and only after Israel retreats will it be discussed. This is just a long word for “Hudna.” What’s worse, neither Israel or the US is demanding an end of conflict peace agreement.

The impetus and the financial backing for the ISM, the PSM, Apartheid Week and all the Boycott campaigns comes from Hamas which comes from the Muslim Brotherhood and they all are against the two state solution and for the destruction of Israel.

If that is not enough there are many people on the left who believe the creation of Israel was a grave mistake and that it should be undone. Recently, the University of Michigan began distribution of a book published in Britain which advocates just that.

Written by a professor of social studies at Bard College, Joel Kovel’s Overcoming Zionism advocates abolishing the State of Israel and replacing it with a single secular state with no ties to the Jewish people.

Now I ask you, why should the Arabs settle for less. Every concession by Israel brings the Arabs closer to their goal.

All of this begs the question of whether Islam is content with wiping Israel off the face of the map or whether it also intends to wipe he Jews off the face of the earth. Francisco Gil-White writes to advise

Both the Fatah and PLO constitutions call for the extermination of the Jews. The Fatah constitution says that armed combat is a “strategy, not a tactic.” In other words, killing Jews is itself the political goal. And the PLO constitution says in Article 9 that “armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.” By Palestine they mean Israel. In my view, you have misinterpreted the constitutions. They call for genocide. My full analysis of the PLO Charter or Covenant is here.You state that Saudi Arabia wants to unify Fatah and Hamas. The problem here seems to be a short attention span. It was in part through YOUR work, if you recall, that I was able to demonstrate conclusively that Hamas and Fatah have never been rivals, but two branches of the same movement. Saudi Arabia cannot be trying to unify something that is already a unit. You are mistaking the theater of politics for the political reality, even though you know better (this appears to happen repeatedly, the reason being, in my view, that it is just much too difficult to remember that there is a theater of politics, and you keep wanting to take it seriously — you want the world that you think you see to be real).

The best guide the Iranian ruling elites intentions (and, by the way, Ahmadinejad has ZERO power, it is really the Ayatollahs who run things) is, as always, what they do. And what they do is this: they have created and financed Hezbollah, and Hezbollah means to kill every last living Jew.

THERE IS NO DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION.

BETTER JUDEA AND SAMARIA WITHOUT PEACE THAN “PEACE” WITHOUT JUDEA AND SAMARIA.

Hezb'Allah Black market in Miami

Atlas Shrugs.com

MIAMI – Three men were charged in an indictment unsealed Friday with illegally exporting electronics and video games to a South American shopping center that U.S. officials claim funnels money to the Hezbollah militant group.

The men, along with a fourth still being sought in South America, are accused of violating a U.S. ban on transactions involving people or entities on a Treasury Department list of suspected terrorist fundraising networks. Hezbollah, which is fiercely anti-Israel and allied with Iran, is considered a terrorist group by the U.S.

The shopping center, Galeria Page in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, was included on the banned list in December 2006 along with owner Muhammad Yusif Abdallah. Abdallah is described as a senior Hezbollah leader in a region of South America long considered a haven for counterfeiting, smuggling, piracy and other crimes.

The suspects arrested in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation were identified in court documents as Khaled Safadi, 56, and 43-year-old Emilio Gonzalez, both of Miami; and 46-year-old Ulises Talavera-Campos, a citizen of Paraguay.

Attorney Michael Tein represents Safadi, whom he said is innocent.

"Terrorism?" Tein said. "More like 'The Great Sony Playstation Caper.' The indictment literally charges them with selling Playstation 2 video games to Paraguay. That's some weapon of mass destruction."

It wasn't immediately clear if the other two had attorneys, and a bail hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.

The men also face charges of conspiracy and smuggling. They face a maximum of 35 years each in prison if convicted.

According to the indictment, the three men ran companies that used the Port of Miami to move goods including Sony Playstation video game consoles, digital cameras and other items that eventually wound up at the Paraguay destination. About $1 million in exports were identified by ICE, the FBI, Treasury officials and other investigators with Miami's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The men allegedly used fake invoices, false addresses and phony names to mask the true destination of the goods. The companies involved also were indicted.

John Morton, assistant Homeland Security secretary for ICE, said the arrests will disrupt a network involved in "the illicit trade of commodities that support terrorist activities and ultimately threaten the national security of the United States.:

Posted by Pamela Geller on Friday, February 19, 2010 at 10:46 PM