First up - an interesting commentary from Caroline Glick. This one is worth reading and re-reading, and while doing so, keep your bible open to Genesis 12:3 as a reference:
Tuesday, the former head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, said that Iran has already crossed the red line Israel set last year. It has already stockpiled 170 kg. of medium-enriched uranium, and can quickly produce the other 80 kg. necessary to reach the 250 kg. threshold
Netanyahu said will mark Iran’s achievement of breakout capability where it can build a nuclear arsenal whenever it wants.
Yadlin made a half-hearted effort Wednesday to walk back his pronouncements. But his basic message remained the same: The die has been cast.
Due to American pressure on Israel not to act, and due to the White House’s rejection of clearcut reports about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, Iran has crossed the threshold.
Iran will be a nuclear power unless its uranium enrichment installations and other nuclear sites are destroyed or crippled. Now.
True, the Americans set a different red line for Iran than Israel. They say they will not allow Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb. But to believe that the US has the capacity and the will to prevent Iran from climbing the top rung on the nuclear ladder is to believe in the tooth fairy - (see, for instance, North Korea).
Iran has threatened to use it nuclear arsenal to destroy Israel. Have we now placed our survival in the hands of Tinkerbell? And yet, rather than acknowledge what Iran has done, Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon carry on with the tired act of talking about the need for a credible military option but saying that there is still time for sanctions and other non-military means to block Iran’s quest for the bomb.
Perhaps our leaders are repeating these lies because they want to present a unified US-Israel front to the world. But the effect is just the opposite.
What their statements really demonstrate is that Israel has been brought to its knees by its superpower patron that has implemented a policy that has enabled Iran to become a nuclear power.
Indeed, the US has allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold while requiring Israel to pretend the course the US has followed is a responsible one.
The announcement that the US has agreed to sell Israel advanced weapons specifically geared towards attacking Iran should also be seen in this light. Israel reportedly spent a year negotiating this deal. But immediately after its details were published, the US started backing away from its supposed commitment to supply them. The US will not provide Israel with bunker-buster bombs.
It will not provide Israel with the bombers necessary to use the bombs Israel isn’t getting. And anyway, by the time Israel gets the items the US is selling - like mid-air refuelers - it will be too late.
Then there are the Palestinians. On Thursday, it was reported that in the midst of everything happening in the Middle East, Obama is planning to host a peace conference in Washington in June to reinstate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The terms of reference for the conference are reportedly the 2002 Arab League “peace plan.”
Among other things, that plan requires Israel to accept millions of hostile foreign-born Arabs to whatever rump state it retains following a “peace” agreement with the PLO. In exchange for Israel agreeing to destroy itself, the Arab peace plan says the Arabs will agree to have “regular” relations with Israel. (“Regular” by the way, is a term devoid of meaning.) During his visit here last week, Kerry announced that the new US policy towards the Palestinians is to pour billions of dollars into the Palestinian economy. Among other things, the administration is going to convince US companies like Coca-Cola to open huge plants in Judea and Samaria.
Sounds fine.
But as usual, there is a catch.
The administration wants US firms to build their factories in Area C, the area of Judea and Samaria over which, in accordance with the agreements they signed with Israel, the Palestinians agreed Israel should hold sole control.
In essence, the policy Kerry announced is simply an American version of the EU’s policy of seeking to force Israel to give up control over Area C.
Area C, of course, is where all the Israeli communities are, and almost no Palestinians live.
Those Israeli communities and the 350,000 Jews who live in them are the strongest assertion of Israeli sovereign rights to Judea and Samaria. So the EU - and now the Americans - are doing everything they can to force Israel to destroy them. The campaign to coerce Israel into surrendering its sole control over Area C is a central component of that plan.
It cannot be said often enough: The administration’s focus on the Palestinian conflict with Israel in the midst of the violent disintegration of the Arab state system and the rise of jihadist forces throughout the region, coupled with Iran’s steady emergence as a regional power, is only understandable in the framework of a psychiatric - rather than policy - analysis.
Obama does not have Israel’s back.
Contrary to the constant, grinding rhetorical prattle of American and Israeli politicos, Obama will not lift a finger to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. He will not lift a finger to prevent chemical weapons from being transferred to the likes of al-Qaida and Hezbollah, and their colleagues in Syria, or used by the Syrian regime.
From Benghazi to Boston, from Tehran to Damascus, Obama’s policy is to not fight forces of jihad, whether they are individuals, organizations or states. And his obsession with Palestinian statehood shows that he would rather coerce Israel to make concessions to Palestinian Jew-haters and terrorists than devote his time and energy into preventing Iran from becoming the jihadist North Korea or from keeping sarin, VX and mustard gas out of the hands of Iran’s terrorist underlings and their Sunni competitors.
No, Israel doesn’t want a confrontation with Washington. But we don’t have any choice anymore.
The time has come to take matters into our own hands on Syria and Iran. In Syria, either Israel takes care of the chemical weapons, or if we can’t, Netanyahu must go before the cameras and tell the world everything we know about Syria’s chemical weapons and pointedly demand world - that is US - action to secure them.
As for Iran, either Israel must launch an attack without delay, or if we can’t, then Netanyahu has to publicly state that the time for diplomacy is over.
Either Iran is attacked or it gets the bomb.
Close Confidante Of Netanyahu Warns: 'Its Now Or Never' For Military Strike On Iran
North Korea Threatens To Launch Nuclear Kamikaze Attacks On The U.S.
On an anniversary known for military showmanship, North Korean generals on Thursday declared that their forces were ready to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles and kamikazelike nuclear attacks at the United States if threatened.
Israel Wary Quiet On Syrian Front May Soon End
This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel’s front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst — a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country’s large stockpile of chemical weapons.
In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.
“The fighting in Syria gives them an opportunity to open a new front against Israel,” said Hirsch. “We must be ready for turbulence. We must be ready for the Iranian involvement inside Syria. We must be ready to be able to fight against radical fundamentalist activities that will come from Syria, and that is what we are doing here.”
Yadlin made a half-hearted effort Wednesday to walk back his pronouncements. But his basic message remained the same: The die has been cast.
Due to American pressure on Israel not to act, and due to the White House’s rejection of clearcut reports about Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, Iran has crossed the threshold.
Iran will be a nuclear power unless its uranium enrichment installations and other nuclear sites are destroyed or crippled. Now.
True, the Americans set a different red line for Iran than Israel. They say they will not allow Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb. But to believe that the US has the capacity and the will to prevent Iran from climbing the top rung on the nuclear ladder is to believe in the tooth fairy - (see, for instance, North Korea).
Iran has threatened to use it nuclear arsenal to destroy Israel. Have we now placed our survival in the hands of Tinkerbell? And yet, rather than acknowledge what Iran has done, Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon carry on with the tired act of talking about the need for a credible military option but saying that there is still time for sanctions and other non-military means to block Iran’s quest for the bomb.
Perhaps our leaders are repeating these lies because they want to present a unified US-Israel front to the world. But the effect is just the opposite.
What their statements really demonstrate is that Israel has been brought to its knees by its superpower patron that has implemented a policy that has enabled Iran to become a nuclear power.
Indeed, the US has allowed Iran to cross the nuclear threshold while requiring Israel to pretend the course the US has followed is a responsible one.
The announcement that the US has agreed to sell Israel advanced weapons specifically geared towards attacking Iran should also be seen in this light. Israel reportedly spent a year negotiating this deal. But immediately after its details were published, the US started backing away from its supposed commitment to supply them. The US will not provide Israel with bunker-buster bombs.
It will not provide Israel with the bombers necessary to use the bombs Israel isn’t getting. And anyway, by the time Israel gets the items the US is selling - like mid-air refuelers - it will be too late.
Then there are the Palestinians. On Thursday, it was reported that in the midst of everything happening in the Middle East, Obama is planning to host a peace conference in Washington in June to reinstate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The terms of reference for the conference are reportedly the 2002 Arab League “peace plan.”
Among other things, that plan requires Israel to accept millions of hostile foreign-born Arabs to whatever rump state it retains following a “peace” agreement with the PLO. In exchange for Israel agreeing to destroy itself, the Arab peace plan says the Arabs will agree to have “regular” relations with Israel. (“Regular” by the way, is a term devoid of meaning.) During his visit here last week, Kerry announced that the new US policy towards the Palestinians is to pour billions of dollars into the Palestinian economy. Among other things, the administration is going to convince US companies like Coca-Cola to open huge plants in Judea and Samaria.
Sounds fine.
But as usual, there is a catch.
The administration wants US firms to build their factories in Area C, the area of Judea and Samaria over which, in accordance with the agreements they signed with Israel, the Palestinians agreed Israel should hold sole control.
In essence, the policy Kerry announced is simply an American version of the EU’s policy of seeking to force Israel to give up control over Area C.
Area C, of course, is where all the Israeli communities are, and almost no Palestinians live.
Those Israeli communities and the 350,000 Jews who live in them are the strongest assertion of Israeli sovereign rights to Judea and Samaria. So the EU - and now the Americans - are doing everything they can to force Israel to destroy them. The campaign to coerce Israel into surrendering its sole control over Area C is a central component of that plan.
It cannot be said often enough: The administration’s focus on the Palestinian conflict with Israel in the midst of the violent disintegration of the Arab state system and the rise of jihadist forces throughout the region, coupled with Iran’s steady emergence as a regional power, is only understandable in the framework of a psychiatric - rather than policy - analysis.
Obama does not have Israel’s back.
Contrary to the constant, grinding rhetorical prattle of American and Israeli politicos, Obama will not lift a finger to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. He will not lift a finger to prevent chemical weapons from being transferred to the likes of al-Qaida and Hezbollah, and their colleagues in Syria, or used by the Syrian regime.
From Benghazi to Boston, from Tehran to Damascus, Obama’s policy is to not fight forces of jihad, whether they are individuals, organizations or states. And his obsession with Palestinian statehood shows that he would rather coerce Israel to make concessions to Palestinian Jew-haters and terrorists than devote his time and energy into preventing Iran from becoming the jihadist North Korea or from keeping sarin, VX and mustard gas out of the hands of Iran’s terrorist underlings and their Sunni competitors.
No, Israel doesn’t want a confrontation with Washington. But we don’t have any choice anymore.
The time has come to take matters into our own hands on Syria and Iran. In Syria, either Israel takes care of the chemical weapons, or if we can’t, Netanyahu must go before the cameras and tell the world everything we know about Syria’s chemical weapons and pointedly demand world - that is US - action to secure them.
As for Iran, either Israel must launch an attack without delay, or if we can’t, then Netanyahu has to publicly state that the time for diplomacy is over.
Either Iran is attacked or it gets the bomb.
Tzachi Hanegbi — a close, trusted, long-time personal friend and confidante of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – made remarks on Tuesday at a security conference in Tel Aviv that did not make news in the U.S. But they should have.
Hanegbi explained that the time for sanctions and diplomacy and covert options to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat is over, and the time for Israel to use its military option has come.
“It’s now or never,” said Hanegbi, ”and the option of never does not exist.”
Hanegbi formerly served as the Minister of Intelligence and as Justice Minister in previous governments. He is currently a Member of Knesset (Likud).
“Israel has to act according to its own imperatives,” he said.
Given how close Hanegbi and Netanyahu are — and given how sensitive the current moment is – it is difficult to believe Hanegbi spoke without knowing the Prime Minister’s mind, and without having his blessing to make such ominous remarks.
Consider other indicators that an Israeli first strike may be increasingly close at hand:
- At the same conference, Israeli Major Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, a former head of IDF Military Intelligence, said that “for all intents and purposes, Iran has crossed Israel’s red line…in the summer, Iran will be a month or two away from deciding about a bomb.”
- Netanyahu and his inner circle are watching how Iran has been accelerating its building of uranium centrifuges, expanding its nuclear facilities, and possibly building secret new facilities.
- President Obama is doing nothing after the Assad regime in Syria crossed the Obama “red line” by using chemical weapons against the rebels, killing and wounding many. Are they concluding the White House is serious about dealing with Iran if and when Tehran crosses the “red line”? Hardly.
- Netanyahu and his inner circle are watching how President Obama is doing nothing to stop North Korea from building — and testing — nuclear warheads and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Are they concluding the White House is serious about preventing nuclear proliferation? Again, hardly.
- Netanyahu are his inner circle are watching how President Obama has pulled U.S. military assets out of the Persian Gulf region, claiming budget cutbacks.
- All this suggests the Netanyahu team believes it is all alone to deal with the Iran problem.
On an anniversary known for military showmanship, North Korean generals on Thursday declared that their forces were ready to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles and kamikazelike nuclear attacks at the United States if threatened.
“Stalwart pilots, once given a sortie order, will load nuclear bombs, instead of fuel for return, and storm enemy strongholds to blow them up,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted its Air and Anti-Air Force commander, Ri Pyong-chol, as saying during a ceremony in observance of the anniversary of the founding of the North Korean People’s Army.
Another general, Kim Rak-gyom, the Strategic Rocket Force commander, reiterated the claim that the North is “one click away from pushing the launch button.”
“If the U.S. imperialists and their followers dare make a pre-emptive attack, they will be made to keenly realize what a real nuclear war and real retaliatory blows are like,” he said.
Against a vista of green fields and snowcapped mountains, all is silent but for a gusting wind. Then comes a burst of gunfire from the Syrian civil war raging next door, where jihadist rebels are battling Bashar Assad’s troops in a village.
Watching it all unfold from a few kilometers (miles) away are Israeli soldiers atop tanks behind a newly fortified fence, while a large-scale Israeli drill sends off its own explosions in the background.
This is the new reality on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, for 40 years the quietest of Israel’s front lines, a place of hiking trails, bird-watching, skiing and winery tour. The military predicts all that will soon change as it prepares for the worst — a power vacuum in Syria in which rogue groups could get their hands of the country’s large stockpile of chemical weapons.
In many ways, a new era has already begun. The Syrian villages along the border change hands between military and rebel strongholds in daily battles. Their mortar shells and bullets frequently land on the Israeli side, including in in some cases narrowly missing soldiers and civilians. A Syrian army tank shell landed in the border community of Alonei Habashan in February.
Officials say the military’s present deployment on the plateau is its most robust since 1973, and its most obvious manifestation is the brand new border fence, 6 meters (20 feet) tall, topped with barbed wire and bristling with sophisticated anti-infiltration devices. The previous rundown fence was largely untested until it was trampled over last year by Syrians protesting on behalf of Palestinians.
The military would not detail other measures it is taking, but stressed it was actively defining the new border arrangement now, before it’s too late.
“Syria is not a regular place … it is the biggest warehouse for weapons on earth,” Hirsch warned.
In an interview with BBC TV last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the rebel groups among “the worst Islamist radicals in the world.”
“So obviously we are concerned that weapons that are ground-breaking, that can change the balance of power in the Middle East, would fall into the hands of these terrorists,” he said.
“The fighting in Syria gives them an opportunity to open a new front against Israel,” said Hirsch. “We must be ready for turbulence. We must be ready for the Iranian involvement inside Syria. We must be ready to be able to fight against radical fundamentalist activities that will come from Syria, and that is what we are doing here.”
