In salvaging the image of a beleaguered country like Israel, ....the key is to insure listenership. Even the most effective of arguments is useless without an audience.
Binyamin Netanyahu had that audience, and with it the opportunity to stress the most elementary facts of our existence, which are... too often overridden by simplistic slogans and shallow conventional wisdom. He could have done more good than Israel's entire diplomatic corps and then some. Whatever he accomplished behind the scenes, Bibi missed the opportunity to sound the voice of sanity in... dangerously unrealistic America.
Lots of ears were perked to hear what Israel's newly reelected PM would say when he visited Washington (for the first time after reassuming office) to meet with new US President Barack Obama... Contention between the two simmered barely below the surface, tension was in the air and the media was on the lookout for good copy. America was listening.
Too bad Bibi failed to seize the opportunity.
Unlike his three predecessors, his heart is in the right place and he was prudent to evade the public semblance of open confrontation with Obama. Yet Obama hardly reciprocated in kind. He preached superciliously from the supposed moral high ground, seeming intent on casting Netanyahu as the obstructionist nay-sayer.
...Netanyahu abstained from trashing the "two-state solution" too stridently, regardless of how deceptive and how much of a survival-threatening proposition it represents for Israel....
But Bibi could have challenged other fashionable mantras mouthed unthinkingly everywhere as if they were gospel. Moreover, golden opportunities to set the record straight presented themselves away from the White House turf, where Netanyahu was understandably loath to irk his unfriendly host.
HE COULD, for example, have refuted various... refrains on Capitol Hill - like the persistent notion that settlements impede peace. This issue of course is intrinsically interconnected with the cliche condemnation of Israeli "occupation" and the sanctimonious clamor for a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu should have unequivocally rejected the false symmetry drawn between settlements and genocidal schemes against the Jewish state. He should have reproved his interlocutors for the grossly unjust moral equivalence they carelessly create. But he seemed resigned to the equation and only demanded reciprocity in its application.
It might have helped to remind opinion-molders abroad that the settlements didn't cause our regional strife and that consequently, visceral enmity for Israel won't disappear, even if every last settlement does. The settlements, Bibi should have emphasized, are red herrings deliberately dragged in... to mislead the uninitiated and thereby undermine Israel.
Arabs regard all of Israel as an illegitimate settlement. Israel was hated, designs for its destruction were blueprinted and terror was rampant before the first settlement was founded on land liberated in the Six Day War of self-defense....
Israel's head of government might have added that these settlements aren't remote from Israel's heartland. Indeed, they're directly adjacent to its most crowded population centers, besides being the cradle of Jewish history. Jews are hardly foreign interlopers in their homeland. Large Jerusalem neighborhoods - some continuously Jewish from time immemorial - are categorized internationally as objectionable "settlements."
SETTLEMENTS AREN'T the problem and removing them isn't the solution. Israel foolishly dismantled 21 Gaza Strip settlements in 2005. Did peace blossom all over as a result? Precisely the reverse occurred. The razing of Israeli communities was regarded as terror's triumph, expediting the Hamas takeover....
Israel generously left behind costly hothouses and other livelihood-generating facilities - incentives for Gazans to opt for productive pursuits rather than murder and mayhem. Nevertheless, the bequeathed infrastructure was wrecked in violent frenzy and turned into terror bases. So much for addressing Gaza's humanitarian plight.
This pattern should be borne in American minds before Congressional kibitzers admonish Israel. Fatahland stands ready in Judea and Samaria to emulate Hamastan. However, the potential disaster for Israel on its elongated eastern flank makes Gazan aggression in the south appear negligible.
Netanyahu should have spread out maps and pointed to the location of the settlements that so incense the State Department. They adjoin Petah Tikva, Kfar Saba and Netanya - all quite close to Tel Aviv. This is Israel's notorious narrow waistline (nine miles between the Mediterranean and the border near Netanya). The settlements give Israel minimal depth and constitute bulwarks against utter chaos rather than obstacles to utopian harmony. They are precisely the opposite of what latter-day disguised blood-libelers claim.
...Even responsibility for Iranian nukes can be laid at Israel's door. If only Israeli settlements were sacrificed to appease the savage beast, the rest of the world might enjoy a lulling respite. And when that respite is over, more demands will be made of the Jews - who, as always, upset global equilibrium.
In the plainest language, Netanyahu should have told his listeners that they are going after the wrong side, allowing the real miscreants to gain strength while weakening a true ally and making it more vulnerable to hostile predation. This, Netanyahu should have declared, won't save America, or anyone else. It will only hasten the cataclysm.
Netanyahu should have reminded Americans that during the Six Day War - before any so-called Israeli occupation or settlement activity began - a Jordanian WWII-vintage Long Tom cannon hit an apartment building in central Tel Aviv's Kikar Masaryk, a mere hop from City Hall. That antiquated weapon was fired from a lowly hill outside Kfar Saba. Visible and assailable from that hill are greater Tel Aviv, the extended Dan and Sharon regions and Israel's three power stations (Ashkelon, Reading and Hadera). Were that hill to be ceded, no car could travel safely in metropolitan Tel-Aviv and no plane could land or take off from Ben-Gurion Airport.
1. Assumption: "Establishing a Palestinian state in line with the 1967 borders is the essence of the Palestinians' national aspiration."
The Palestinians could have secured such a state many times in the past, including at the Camp David talks in 2000. What is the basis for assuming that the Palestinian ethos, which is premised on a “desire for justice,” need for revenge,” recognition of their victimhood, and mostly the “right of return” has changed all of a sudden?
2. Assumption: "The gap between the Israeli and Palestinian positions is bridgeable."
Reality is different. The maximum any Israeli government can offer the Palestinians is far from the minimum that any Palestinian government would be able to accept.
3. Assumption: "Egypt and Jordan want to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved."
Reality is different. Both Egypt and Jordan prefer the status quo to continue, whereby the conflict continues and they can continue to blame Israel. As long as the conflict exists, Egypt has the ultimate excuse for all domestic and regional troubles. Meanwhile, for the Jordanians, a neighboring Palestinian state - likely under Hamas’ rule - would mark the end of the Hashemite Kingdom.
4. Assumption: "A final-status agreement would bring stability and security to the region."
The exact opposite is true. There is no chance that the small and divided Palestinian state would be viable. The frustration created by such a situation, and with Israel being stripped of "defensible borders," is an obvious foundation for instability.
5. Assumption: "We have an opportunity that must not be missed."
The chance of securing an agreement back in 2000 was much greater than it is currently, yet it didn't happen...
6. Assumption: "Progress on the Palestinian front is vital in order to enlist the support of Arab states against Iran."
How are these two issues related? Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a supreme interest in curbing Iran, irrespective of the Palestinian issue.
7. Assumption: "There's only one solution to the conflict - the two-state formula."
What is this assumption based on? When was a thorough examination that looked into the range of possibilities been undertaken last, here or in the US?
Regrettably, and irrespective of the manner in which the American assessment was undertaken, the.... chances of securing a final-status agreement on the basis of the two-state formula and implementing it successfully are not much greater than the prospects in 1993 (Oslo,) 2000 (Camp David,) and 2007 (Annapolis.)
Last week, Iran test-fired a solid fuel version of the Ashura ballistic missile, believed to have a range of 2,000 kilometers. In contrast to the Shihab missile, which uses liquid fuel, the Ashura can be stored in underground missile silos and does not need to be fueled, like the Shihab, before launch. The use of solid fuel also grants the missile greater range.
"Together with the range and the intentions of the Iranian regime, we get a package of technology and intentions that puts us, as the country most threatened by Iran, in a place that every day that passes is not like the day before."
Last week, Aviram was part of the Defense Ministry delegation that held talks at the Pentagon that culminated in an American decision to fully fund the development of the Arrow 3.
Israel currently operates the Arrow 2, which was successfully tested in April and intercepted a missile which mimicked an advanced Iranian ballistic missile.
The Arrow 3, Aviram said at a military technology conference near Tel Aviv, would be capable of intercepting enemy missiles at higher altitudes, and farther away from Israel.
The Arrow 2 recently underwent a number of upgrades to its avionics and electro-optic targeting system, he added.
"The concept is multi-layered, to allow us to give response to every threat on a different level," he said.
"We expect there to be more than one chance to intercept incoming missiles, particularly with the long-range missiles which are capable of causing greater damage."
In addition to the Arrow, the Defense Ministry is also developing David's Sling, a missile system designed to intercept medium-range rockets, as well as the Iron Dome for short-range rockets such as the ones used by Hamas and Hizbullah.
Meanwhile Sunday, Iran began mass production of a 40mm cannon named Fath, which has a range of 12 km. and a rate of fire of 300 bullets per minute, the Iranian Fars news agency reported.
"This weapon is classified as anti-aircraft artillery for low altitudes and is used on gunboats," Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted as saying on the sidelines of a ceremony to inaugurate the production line of the cannons.
Iran has blocked access to Facebook... allegedly to prevent supporters of the leading opposition candidate from using the site for his campaign, Ilna news agency said on Saturday.
"Access to the Facebook site was prohibited several days ahead of the presidential election," Ilna, considered close to Iranian reformists, said in reference to the June 12 vote. "According to certain Internet surfers, the site was banned because supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi were using Facebook to better disseminate the candidate's positions."
An employee of an Internet service provider who requested anonymity said the ministry of communications and information technology had announced the decision.
However, there was no immediate comment from the authorities on the claims. Former Prime Minister Mousavi is backed by two-time ex-reformist president Mohammad Khatami and the main reformist parties. He is considered to be the main rival to hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking a second four-year term.
One Facebook page dedicated to Mousavi has more than 5,200 supporters.
It contains biographical information on the candidate and a statement on his proposed policies, as well as photographs both of him and of his fans.
As is the case with any such Facebook page, there are also comments posted by fans, as well as one by the candidate himself, saying "Ahmadinejad's government has dishonored Iranians across the world."
There are also a number of sites pages dedicated to Ahmadinejad but none of them appear to have backing from the president's campaign. Mousavi partisans were already reacting to the cut, with some announcing alternative addresses to access Facebook.
"We need to let everyone know by email," wrote Parastoo Salamat. Meanwhile, Payham Ebrahimi wrote: "we are waiting for a firm reaction from Mousavi."
Facebook, founded in 2004 by former Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, claims to have 175 million members worldwide. In Iran, the service is normally available in Farsi and in English.
Here is a recurring theme seen throughout the West, but especially regarding Israel: Hopelessly-biased "Human Rights" groups that consistently bash those Western democracies that protect human rights in order to help their enemies who don't. Orwell would be proud.
Organizations such as B’tselem, Ir Amim and Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ) who receive funds from the European Union... are primarily using their resources to promote an overtly anti-Israel agenda.
Ignoring the ancient Jewish presence in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter, disrupted only by their eviction (ethnic cleansing) and the Jordanian occupation between 1948-67, B’tselem and Ir Amim erroneously label residents of the neighborhood as ‘settlers’, in order to strengthen their political campaign against the return of the Jewish population. Similarly, excavations and archaeological activity in the City of David, a site that is central to Jerusalem’s Biblical heritage, is delegitimized by Ir Amim as part of an Israeli settlement plan.
In a further attempt to stigmatize the Israeli presence in Jerusalem, and erase the scars of mass terror attacks, the separation barrier is portrayed by B’tselem and Bimkom (funded by EU and New Israel Fund) as an attempt to annex land, disregarding Israel’s legitimate security concerns. Similarly, the Jerusalem Municipality’s actions to prevent illegal construction are dismissed as an excuse to ruthlessly destroy Palestinian homes by B’tselem and ARIJ, who falsely describe these policies as Israeli attempts to ‘erase all trace of Palestinian existence’ in Jerusalem.
These NGO political power and publicity campaigns have a significant impact on international policy towards Jerusalem. A position paper released by the European Union in December 2008 showed the degree to which such NGO claims, based on EU funded “reports” were copied directly, totally disregarding Israel’s historical and legal rights in Jerusalem. The EU position paper’s inference that the building of a synagogue at the Western Wall plaza could adversely impact Muslim sites directly reflects an Ir Amim report. Meanwhile statistics in the same paper claiming that only 12% of East Jerusalem is used for Palestinian residential purposes and that the Palestinian population represents only between 5-10% of the municipal budget are taken directly from B’tselem reports, without any independent confirmation. B’tselem is a highly political organization whose claims have been consistently shown to be based on Palestinian sources and to be inaccurate.
NGO Monitor’s Executive Director, Prof, Gerald Steinberg commented “The status of Jerusalem is one of the central and most sensitive issues in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The flow of European government funds, including from the EU, to political organizations such as B’tselem and Ir Amim, for use in the political war against Israel on the issue of Jerusalem is one of the most damaging aspects of European funding directed against Israel. Similarly, these NGOs should not be abusing their moral claims on human rights and coexistence in order to support efforts to turn back the clock to the dark days of 1948-1967, when no Jews could live or even visit the Old City and the Jewish sacred sites.”
...The men had planned to detonate a car with plastic explosives outside a temple in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and to shoot military planes at the New York Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles, authorities said...
In their efforts to acquire weapons, the defendants dealt with an informant acting under law enforcement supervision, authorities said. The FBI and other agencies monitored the men and provided an inactive missile and inert C-4 to the informant for the defendants, a federal complaint said.
The investigation had been under way for about a year.
In June 2008, the informant met one of the men, James Cromitie, in Newburgh and Cromitie complained that his parents had lived in Afghanistan and he was upset about the war there and that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by US military forces, officials said.
Cromitie also expressed an interest in doing "something to America," they said in the complaint.
In October 2008, the informant began meeting with the defendants at a Newburgh house equipped with concealed video and audio equipment, the complaint said.
Beginning in April 2009, the four men selected the synagogue and the community center they intended to hit, it said. They also conducted surveillance of military planes at the Air National Guard Base, it said.
Rep. Peter King, the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, was briefed on the case following the arrests.
"This was a long, well-planned investigation, and it shows how real the threat is from homegrown terrorists," said King, of New York.
The announcement will not reassure the U.S. government, coming just two days after President Barack Obama declared a readiness to seek deeper international sanctions against Iran if it shunned U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama said he expected a positive response to his outreach for opening a dialogue with Iran by the end of the year.
"Defense Minister (Mostafa Mohammad Najjar) has informed me that the Sajjil-2 missile, which has very advanced technology, was launched from Semnan and it landed precisely on the target," state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He spoke during a visit to the city of Semnan, 125 miles east of the capital Tehran, where Iran's space program is centered.
Most Western analysts believe Iran does not yet have the technology to produce nuclear weapons, including warheads for long-range missiles. Many experts believe Iran is three to four years away, some think sooner, from having the capability.
Iran says its missile program is merely for defense and its space program is for scientific and surveillance purposes. It maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian energy uses only.
And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick provides analysis showing that U.S. President Obama underestimates the threat Iran poses to global security and the fact that Iran's global reach extends to South America:
US President Barack Obama underestimates the threat Iran poses to global security. Were this not the case, he would not have sent CIA Director Leon Panetta to Israel ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House.
Panetta was reportedly dispatched here to read the government the riot act. Israel, he reportedly told his interlocutors, must not attack Iran without first receiving permission from Washington. Moreover, Israel should keep its mouth shut about attacking Iran....
The administration's nonchalance about the threat of a nuclear armed Iran explains why the White House is so up in arms about the prospect of Israel acting independently to prevent Iran from building a nuclear arsenal. As far as the administration is concerned, the only reason Iran would threaten US interests is if Israel provokes it. As far as the administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself. But if Israel preemptively takes out Iran's nuclear capabilities, and Iran in turn attacks Israeli and US targets in the region, the Obama administration will hold Israel - not Iran - responsible for whatever losses the US incurs. That was apparently the message Panetta wanted to transmit to Jerusalem during his recent visit.
...It is true that a nuclear-armed Iran would destabilize the Middle East. But the Obama White House doesn't seem to care about that. What interests the White House apparently, is minimizing Teheran's animosity towards Washington. If it can convince the mullocracy that Washington is not a threat, then - the thinking goes - perhaps, the buck will stop at the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.
This bit of wishful thinking is wrong both theoretically and practically. It fails to take into account Iran's... intentions and actions for the past two decades...
For upwards of 20 years, and at a break-neck pace since 1999, Iran has built up a long strategic arm in America's backyard from which it is fully capable of attacking the US directly with the able and enthusiastic assistance of a network of proxies and allies.
IRAN POSES a direct threat to US national security through its alliances and military, intelligence and terrorist presence in South and Central America. Today Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Iran's Hezbollah terror cells, and other Iranian agencies operate in open collaboration with anti-US governments throughout the Western Hemisphere. The South American lynchpin of this new and growing Iranian-centered alliance system is Hugo Chavez's regime in Venezuela.
This is a must-see video for any citizen or leader who would contemplate establishing a dialogue or relations with radical Islamics like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Note that this is a Kuwaiti professor, not a Iranian or Hamas cleric. Kuwait is supposed to be a friend of the US, and Kuwaitis certainly should have a feeling of gratitude to the US for removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait a mere 18 years ago. If this is what America's Muslim "friends" are saying, what are her enemies saying?
They mean what they say -- when they say it in Arabic.
As prime minister Netanyahu's embarks on his trip to U.S. and meetings with president Obama, consider this -- Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki has stated what is obvious to Israel's enemies, though unfortunately it is not so obvious to some of Israel's "friends" -- that if Israel leaves Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, it will collapse:
With the two-state solution, in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the
Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices
they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a
spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic
dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to
collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward.
After many years of allowing the smuggling of weapons (and who knows what else) into Gaza and Sinai from Egypt, the Egyptians are finally cracking down. Don't think for a second that Egypt is doing this out of a sudden goodwill for Israel; it is clearly in reaction to Hezbollah going too far by planning attacks against Israelis on Egyptian soil. The Mubarak regime is worried about its own skin and/or is interested in teaching Hezbollah a lesson. But while it lasts we plan to enjoy it:
An Egyptian official assessed that the 266 rockets, 51 mortar shells, 21 grenades and 43 mines uncovered in northern Sinai were meant to be smuggled to Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip.
Last Monday, Egypt discovered a large quantity of ammunition intended for Hamas use near Ismaeliya, Sinai.
Egypt has recently intensified its security presence in the border town of Rafah, setting up checkpoints and dirt roadblocks to reign in smuggling into Gaza, the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported at the beginning of the month.
About 500 policemen, including plainclothes officers, have been deployed in the city and on dirt tracks and side roads leading to the border, it said.
The increased security has led to heightened tension between smugglers and security officials, and in several incidents the former fired in the air when stopped by police.
An Iranian official, quoted anonymously in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, said Iranian forces deployed the missile bases following secret reports that the United States and Israel were working on a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Iran's preparations for a potential military strike are not new. The republic has conducted several military exercises over the past few years, some with the explicit intention of preparing the armed forces for a possible confrontation with the West.
Hady 'Amr, Director of the Brookings Doha Center, said there were too many variables at play in the region to draw conclusions as to the deployment's underlying meaning....
On several occasions Iran has expressed its displeasure over potential US bases in its Arab neighbors' territories. "This may be part of their muscle-flexing in that regard," 'Amr told The Media Line, "to make sure that the Gulf states hosting American and French bases understand that there will be a price to pay."
The reports of missile deployments coincide with the US's declared intentions to bridge the rift with Iran.
US President Barack Obama is attempting a dialogue with Teheran to defuse tensions built up during the Bush Administration over Iran's controversial nuclear program.
After a long hiatus, the Syrian pipeline operated by the organization al-Qaeda in Iraq is back in business.
The revival of a transit route that officials had declared all but closed comes as the Obama administration is exploring a new diplomatic dialogue with Syria. At the same time, Washington remains concerned by Syrian activities -- including ongoing support for the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as activities involving Iraq.
On Wednesday, acting Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro arrived in Syria for their second visit since Barack Obama's inauguration as president. Two days later, however, Obama renewed U.S. sanctions against Syria, accusing Damascus of supporting terrorism in the Middle East and undermining Iraqi stability.
"I think it sends the message that we have some very serious concerns," Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman, said... Feltman... was "in Damascus to talk about... how we can get Syria to change its behavior and see if it's willing to really engage seriously in a dialogue, be a positive role in the Middle East. Up until now, Syria hasn't played that positive role."
This shouldn't exactly come as a surprise considering Syria's consistently obstructionist behavior for the last 40 years or more. Why would they change their stripes now?
The Damascus government made no public comment on the Feltman-
Shapiro visit...
The Bush administration frequently criticized Syria for the transit of foreign fighters, suggesting that the authoritarian government of President Bashar al-Assad was involved in the traffic...
Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, told Congress late last month that the al-Qaeda in Iraq pipeline through Syria had been "reactivated." Gen. Ray Odierno, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, confirmed Friday that "some elements of foreign fighters continue to traffic through Syria."
...Syria, Odierno said, "has the opportunity" to stop it. He called on the Syrian government to "demonstrate a commitment to eliminating the use of its soil as a staging area."
Making the Americans bleed in Iraq has been a low-cost or no-cost game for Syria since the beginning. Perhaps if Syria were made to pay a price for its assistance in the killing of American soldiers it would take advantage of the "opportunity" to stop it?
Overall violence in Iraq is "at or near the lowest level since the summer of 2003," Odierno said in a news conference, but the recent suicide attacks "remind all of us that the situation still is fragile in some areas."
...The leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the official said, determines "that conditions are right that they can conduct attacks. They will talk to their facilitators, and they will ask for bombers, ask for supplies."
Security along the Iraq-Syria border and elsewhere has deteriorated since the elections, the official and others said. Iraqi border interdiction efforts have been hindered by a chronic shortage of fuel, which keeps border police grounded for weeks at a time, and by corruption within their ranks, U.S. military officials in Iraq said.
In the meantime, the senior U.S. military official said, Iraqi vigilance in general has decreased since the elections, and al-Qaeda in Iraq has "been able to rebuild the network."
"Frankly," he said, "you can't keep 100 percent alert 100 percent of the time. It gives the enemy the opportunity to identify gaps and weaknesses."
Is there a threat to Israel from the United States under Barack Obama? The question itself seems perverse. For in spite of the hostility to Israel in certain American quarters, this country has more often than not been the beleaguered Jewish state's only friend in the face of threats coming from others. Nor has the young Obama administration been any less fervent than its last two predecessors in declaring an undying commitment to the security and survival of Israel.
...During the 2008 presidential campaign, friends of Israel (a category that, speculations to the contrary notwithstanding, still includes a large majority of the American Jewish community) had ample reason for anxiety over Mr. Obama. The main reason was his attitude toward Iran. After all, Iran under its current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was vowing almost on a daily basis to "wipe Israel off the map" and was drawing closer and closer to acquiring the nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles that would give the ruling mullocracy the means to do so. And yet Mr. Obama seemed to think that the best way to head off the very real possibility this posed of another holocaust was by entering into talks with Iran "without preconditions." Otherwise, except for campaign promises, his record was bereft of any definitive indication of his views on the war the Arab/Muslim world has been waging against the Jewish state from the day of its founding more than 60 years ago.
Still—lest we forget—Mr. Obama did have a history of involvement with associates whose enmity toward Israel was unmistakable. There was, most notoriously, his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In addition to honoring the blatantly anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan, Mr. Wright was on record as believing that Israel had joined with South Africa in developing an "ethnic bomb" designed to kill blacks and Arabs but not whites; he had accused Israel of committing "genocide" against the Palestinians; and he had participated in a campaign to get American companies to "divest" from Israel.
Then there was Rashid Khalidi, holder of a professorship at Columbia named after his idol, the late Edward Said. As befitted a reverential disciple of the leading propagandist for Palestinian terrorism, and himself a defender of suicide bombing, Mr. Khalidi regularly denounced Israel as a "racist" state in the process of creating an "apartheid system." Nevertheless, Mr. Obama had befriended him, had publicly acknowledged being influenced by him, and, as a member of the board of a charitable foundation, had also helped to support him financially. And there was also one of Mr. Obama's chief advisers on national security and a co-chairman of his campaign, Gen. Merrill McPeak, who subscribed to the canard that American policy in the Middle East was dictated by Jews in the interests not of the United States but of Israel.
Others said to be advising Mr. Obama included a number who were no more notable than Gen. McPeak for their friendliness toward Israel: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, Susan Rice and Samantha Power.
Not surprisingly, a fair number of Jews who had never voted for a Republican in their lives were disturbed enough to tell pollsters that they had serious doubts about supporting Mr. Obama. Faced with this horrific prospect, Mr. Obama's Jewish backers mounted a vigorous effort of reassurance. No fewer than 300 rabbis issued a statement declaring that his "deep and abiding spiritual faith" derived from "the teachings of the Hebrew Prophets." Several well-known champions of Israel also wrote articles explaining on rather convoluted grounds why they were backing Mr. Obama.
The small community of politically conservative Jews did what it could to counter this campaign, but to no avail. In the event, Mr. Obama received 78% of the Jewish vote. This was a staggering 35 points higher than the pro-Obama white vote in general (43%), and it was even 11 points higher than the Hispanic vote (67%). Only with blacks, who gave him 95% of their vote, did Mr. Obama do better than with Jews.
But if the forecasts of a Jewish defection from Mr. Obama were all wrong, the prediction of his Jewish opponents that he would be less friendly toward Israel than George W. Bush has turned out to be more accurate than any "kishke test."
Mr. Obama and his team are all great worshipers at the shrine of "evenhandedness," which has long served as a deceptive euphemism for pressuring Israel to make unilateral concessions to Palestinian demands.
I say that nothing will come of renewed American pressure on Israel to accept the demands that are the precondition of a deal with the Palestinians or the Syrians, I mean that nothing will come of it on the ground...
But what surely does rise to the level of a threat is American policy toward Iran. In making the ridiculous boast during his presidential campaign that he could talk Iran into giving up its quest for nuclear weapons (and the missiles to deliver them), Mr. Obama was careful to add that the military option remained available in case all else failed. But everyone, and especially the Iranians and the Israelis, had to know that this was pro forma, and that if elected Mr. Obama would pursue the same carrot-and-stick approach of the Europeans who had been negotiating with Iran for the past five years. He would do this in spite of the fact that the only accomplishment of the European diplomatic dance had been to buy the Iranians more time...
...With American military action ruled out, the only hope is that such action—which could at the very least head off the otherwise virtually certain prospect of a nuclear war—will be taken by Israel.
Forget about the Palestinian and Syrian "tracks": If there is a threat to Israel coming from Mr. Obama, it is that, having eschewed the use of force by the United States, he will follow through on his vice president's declaration that the Israelis would be "ill advised" to attack the Iranian nuclear sites and will prevent them from doing the job themselves.
The foreign analysts believe that Iran ended its work because it had made sufficient progress, not because of international pressure, as the 2007 U.S. national intelligence assessment concluded.
The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not identify its sources, referring only to "intelligence analysts and nuclear experts working for foreign governments." It says some research was conducted in Israel, which has been publicly critical of the 2007 U.S. assessment.
The foreign analysts believe "intelligence indicates Iran had produced a suitable design, manufactured some components and conducted enough successful explosives tests to put the project on the shelf until it manufactured the fissile material required for several weapons," the report says.
The revelations by the committee, headed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., come as President Barack Obama is promising direct engagement with Iran and seeking diplomatic openings...
In an introduction to the report, Kerry wrote that a major obstacle the administration will have to negotiate "is the suspicion surrounding Iran's nuclear program."
The report also provides new details on Iran's nuclear program and its attempts to thwart U.N. inspectors. Citing an unidentified official at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, it says that Iran reneged at the last minute on an agreement last summer to allow inspectors to visit suspected nuclear workshops.
"Unclassified U.S. intelligence assessments and staff interviews with government officials and diplomats in Washington and foreign countries leave little doubt that Iran has the technological and industrial capacity to eventually develop an atomic bomb," the report concludes.
The report examines material provided to the IAEA by U.S. intelligence from a laptop computer that reportedly was smuggled out of Iran. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.
The material... also included videos of what intelligence officials believe were secret nuclear laboratories in Iran.
The report says that officials the committee talked to concluded the documents "appear to be authentic, right down to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the workshops."
Iran insists that its nuclear program is purely to provide electric power, not weapons.
The report also reveals that Iran agreed to allow the IAEA to inspect the workshops last August. After a senior IAEA official arrived in Tehran, however, the agency was told that the government had changed its mind.
The report concludes that Iran continues to use front companies to look for important components on the black market. It says that it is particularly eager to obtain carbon fibers and specialized metals for use in advanced centrifuges.
