Posts

Bachmann: Israel ‘May Have to Save World’ From Armageddon

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WND It was a warning on the perils of appeasement reminiscent of Churchill.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., cut straight to the heart of the matter when WND asked her what the nuclear deal with Iran will mean.

“The major nations of the world have chosen to fail to thwart Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. It is a blunder of such great proportion, history will record it’s folly,” she ruefully predicted.

The congresswoman had an equally dire assessment when asked: Did the deal mean Israel would now have no option but to launch a preemptive strike on Iran to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Israel may have ‘to save the world’

Read more from this story HERE.

French President In Joint Press Conf with Israeli PM Netanyahu Vows Tough Iran Stance

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/Ariel SchalitVisiting French President Francois Hollande vowed to maintain his country’s tough stance in upcoming nuclear talks with Iran this week, earning praise from his Israeli hosts Sunday as he began a three-day visit to the Jewish state.

Israel has repeatedly voiced concern that the emerging deal global powers are negotiating with Iran gives it too much, without guaranteeing that the Islamic Republic’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon is eliminated.

Hollande vowed to keep up pressure on Iran and not make any concessions regarding nuclear proliferation.

“If there hadn’t been sanctions, if they hadn’t been enforced, it’s clear that we would never even have had the words from Iran — and I don’t yet speak of actions — that we had in the last few weeks,” he said In a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We have a duty to resolve this problem that has been under discussions for too many years because Iran for too long has participated in discussions without taking actions.”

Netanyahu has been outspoken in his opposition to a potential deal in which the international community would ease some sanctions on Iran in exchange for some curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. The countries fear that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, a charge Iran denies.

Read more from this story HERE.

French MP: If Sanctions on Iran are Loosened, Israel Will Attack (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90By Times of Israel Staff.

A French member of parliament telephoned French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Geneva at the weekend to warn him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if the P5+1 nations did not stiffen their terms on a deal with Iran, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Sunday.

“I know [Netanyahu],” the French MP, Meyer Habib, reportedly told Fabius, and predicted that the Israeli prime minister would resort to the use of force if the deal was approved in its form at the time. “If you don’t toughen your positions, Netanyahu will attack Iran,” the report quoted Habib as saying. “I know this. I know him. You have to toughen your positions in order to prevent war.”

France’s Fabius is widely reported to have scuppered the finalizing of the emerging deal late Saturday, leading to the halting of the negotiations with Iran, and an agreement to reconvene on November 20.

Explaining his concerns to reporters in Geneva, Fabius said Tehran was resisting demands that it suspend work on its plutonium-producing reactor at Arak and downgrade its stockpile of higher-enriched uranium.

Habib, the deputy president of the Jewish umbrella organization in France, was elected to the National Assembly in Paris in June, to represent the district of southern Europe, which includes French nationals residing in Israel.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: Daily Caller Iran general: No doubt Israel and America will be attacked

By Reza Kahlili.

Even before the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the 5+1 world powers ended in Geneva early Sunday with no deal, an Iranian general lashed out at America Saturday and warned both the U.S. and Israel that they will be attacked.

According to Fars News Agency, the regime’s outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Massoud Jazayeri, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, said “America’s interests and all of Israel are within the range of the Islamic Republic and there is not the slightest doubt among Iran’s armed forces to confront the American government and the Zionists (Israel).”

Jazayeri said Israel is pulling the strings of Washington and “the American government is one of the most hated and evil governments in the world.”

The general mocked President Obama’s position that the military option remains on the table over Iran’s nuclear development. “If America had the ability and the will for war, it would allow no doubt in attacking Syria. America will soon find out that Iran’s power cannot be ignored.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Israel Issues Warning on Report on Iran Bomb: Necessary Uranium Month Away

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: ATTA KENARE AFP/Getty ImagesA new report that says Iran may need as little as a month to produce enough uranium for a nuclear bomb is further evidence for why Israel will take military action before that happens, an Israeli defense official said Friday.

“We have made it crystal clear – in all possible forums, that Israel will not stand by and watch Iran develop weaponry that will put us, the entire Middle East and eventually the world, under an Iranian umbrella of terror,” Danny Danon, Israel’s deputy defense minister told USA TODAY.

Iran is developing and installing new and advanced centrifuges that enable Iran to enrich even low-enriched uranium to weapons grade uranium needed for nuclear weapons within weeks, Danon said.

“This speedy enrichment capability will make timely detection and effective response to an Iranian nuclear breakout increasingly difficult,” he said.

“Breakout” refers to the time needed to convert low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium. On Thursday, the Institute for Science and International Security issued a report stating that Iran could reach that breakout in as little as one month based in part on Iran’s own revelations about its nuclear program.

Read more from this story HERE.

Soft on Iran, Hard on Israel

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: adam jonesThe New York Times has been quick to gush over the new round of negotiations in Geneva between major world powers and Iran. Reading the Times one would think that Iran suddenly has become quite reasonable about a possible deal to rein in its nuclear ambitions. The pro-Iran slant pops up in both the news pages of the Times and in its editorial page.

Let’s start with Mark Landler’s lengthy report about Iran’s supposedly new and more forthcoming positions in the negotiations, which in his view should hold off a new batch of sanctions on Iran (“White House Weighs Easing Iran Sanctions’ Bite With Slow Release of Assets” page A10, Oct. 18)

According to Landler, there now has been a “promising first round of nuclear diplomacy and the White House quite rightly is weighing ways to “ease the pain of sanctions.” Landler assures Times readers that “Iranian officials were more candid and substantive than in previous diplomatic encounters.” So naturally they deserve to have Congress “hold off on voting on a new bill to strangle Iran’s oil exports further.”

The entire slant of Landler’s piece is to pump up Iran’s new “positive” bona fides while depicting additional sanctions as the worst possible medicine at this juncture.

In short, Landler and the Times are enthralled by Tehran’s charm offensive. Completely overlooked is the fact that there already has been a sharply negative response in Tehran — from the Supreme Leader on down — against any serious compromises or concessions on the nuclear front.

Read more from this story HERE.

Israel Finds Tunnel Dug Under Its Gaza Border, Blames Hamas

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APIsrael displayed on Sunday what it called a Palestinian “terror tunnel” running into its territory from the Gaza Strip and said it was subsequently freezing the transfer of building material to the enclave.

“The discovery of the tunnel … prevented attempts to harm Israeli civilians who live close to the border and military forces in the area,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement, accusing Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamist movement of being behind construction of the 2.5-km (1.5 mile)-long tunnel.

There was no claim of responsibility in Gaza but a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing wrote on Twitter that “the determination deep in the hearts and minds of resistance fighters is more important than tunnels dug in the mud”.

Hamas, along with other militant groups, tunneled into Israel in 2006 and seized an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was held for five years before being exchanged for 1,400 Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The Israeli military said it found the tunnel along its fortified Gaza border last week near a kibbutz, or communal farm. It invited journalists to view it on Sunday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Israel Demands Explanation After French Diplomat Punches Israeli Soldier in the Face (+video)

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Screenshot

Photo Credit: Screenshot

French diplomat Marion Fesneau-Castaing punched an Israeli soldier in the face at the weekend prompting Israel’s Foreign Ministry to demand “an explanation of this blatant violation of diplomatic codes of conduct,” according to reports from AFP and Israel Hayom on Sunday.

Israel Hayom published footage of Fesneau-Castaing striking a helmeted border policeman on the chin with her fist. The punch was thrown on Friday, when IDF troops arrived to disperse a group of European diplomats as they tried to hand out tents and other equipment to Bedouin in Khirbet al-Makhul.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said, “Israel rejects the one-sided announcement which was published by the spokespersons of HR [Catherine] Ashton and Commissioner Georgieva regarding the events in the Northern Jordan Valley. This announcement ignores the European diplomats’ blunt violation of the law, their disregard to a ruling of the Israeli court and their unnecessary provocation under the alleged pretext of humanitarian aid.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Israel at a Sea Change: Experiencing Second Zionist Revolution

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: acroll

Photo Credit: acroll

In May, Dershowitz wrote in The Jerusalem Post and The Huffington Post: “I have now joined this distinguished company of people who get booed for advocating territorial compromise in the interest of peace. I was booed and jeered at the Jerusalem Post Conference on April 28, 2013 when I proposed an idea for restarting peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority … These same people cheered loudly when Glick, a right-wing opponent of any territorial compromise, announced that: ‘There are no competing narratives. There is only the truth.’ For her, the only truth lies in history and archeology.”

Briefly, here are four relevant voices today:

Dershowitz told Newsmax this week: “I think a lot of Israelis are today thinking — as many have thought in the past — that they can’t outsource the defense of their own people, that they have to make their own decisions, make their own judgments and take their own actions as they did when they destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and various Syrian reactors more recently.”

Glick wrote in a January blog: “Next week we’re going to vote and it is already clear that Israel is in the midst of the Second Zionist Revolution. The first Zionist revolution was a socialist revolution. The second Zionist revolution is Jewish. Israel is coming into its own. Judaism is flourishing, changing, living and breathing here like it never has anywhere since the destruction of the Second Commonwealth. The secular Left has been eclipsed by the Jewish Right. I don’t call it the religious Right because that is too limiting. What’s happening isn’t just about religion, it’s about everything and that is why non-observant hipsters in Tel Aviv are voting for the Jewish Home party. Non-observant and observant Jews are joining forces and the anti-religious are being left behind.”

Ted Cruz at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March, as reported by The Christian Post: “‘I commend everyone here for respecting the biblical admonition to stand with Israel,’” he said, praising their ‘commitment to speak the truth in an era when so many believe they know better than eternal truths. ‘The alliance between the United States and Israel must remain completely and entirely unshakeable.’”

Moshe Feiglin, Knesset member, wrote in his newsletter this week: “I demand, at the first stage, to close the Temple Mount to Moslems during the Sukkot holiday just as the Mount was closed to Jews for the month of Ramadan.”

_________________________________________________
Bernie Quigley is a prize-winning magazine writer and has worked more than 30 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and book, movie, music and art reviewer. His essays on politics and world affairs have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily News and other newspapers and magazines. He has published poetry in Painted Bride Quarterly and has written dozens of magazine articles. For 20 years he has been an amateur farmer, raising Tunis sheep and organic vegetables. He has written hundreds of columns for “Pundits Blog” in “The Hill” a political journal in Washington, D.C. He lives in the White Mountains with his wife and four children.

NSA Shares Raw Data on Americans with Israeli Spy Agency

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration shares with Israeli intelligence the vast data dumps the National Security Agency vacuums up from the Internet without removing private information about Americans, even though Israel is one of the nations that spy most aggressively on the United States, according to leaked documents.

A copy of a top-secret deal inked in 2009 between the NSA and the Israeli Signals-intelligence National Unit (ISNU) was provided by NSA leaker Edward J. Snowden to the Guardian newspaper, which posted it Wednesday.

It reveals that the NSA “routinely” passed to its Israeli counterpart “raw” signals intelligence, referred to as “Sigint,” including the vast swathes of digital data traffic that the agency gathers under secret court authority from U.S. Internet providers.

So sensitive is this data that even before being disseminated to other U.S. agencies, the NSA has to subject it to a court-mandated process called minimization, under which the names of any Americans are removed unless they are essential for foreign intelligence interest.

But the U.S.-Israeli agreement states that the data shared with Israel “includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Israeli Sources on Obama’s Syria Approach: ‘Not How a Superpower Acts’

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

While leading Israeli officials have publicly struck a tone of muted support for President Obama’s decision to seek congressional authorization for strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons delivery systems, in private, senior Israeli officials and foreign policy analysts are expressing grave disappointment with the conduct of their ally in Washington.

Well-placed Israeli sources told Fox News they “get it” as to why the president felt the need to cloak his planned military strikes in congressional legitimacy. But they regard the way he went about his decision-making in this instance as erratic, unnerving to them, and a bad omen for what the Israelis regard as the sine qua non of their foreign policy: the looming showdown with Iran over its nuclear program.

“The feeling is that something was wrong here, that this was not the way this should have gone down, that this is not the way a superpower should act,” said one former Israeli diplomat who has spent considerable time in the United States and enjoys close ties to the Netanyahu government. “We look at Syria, and we think Iran. … What conclusions should be drawn about how America will act in other circumstances? Here was a clear red line. It was breached a few times. This looks like a clever move; but America’s willingness to ‘walk the walk’ now is very questionable.”

Another senior official, presently in the Israeli government, told Fox News the president was right, in terms of domestic U.S. politics, to “look for cover,” and thereby force American lawmakers who would have criticized him for undertaking unauthorized action to “own it, too.” But this official said the Israelis, from their vantage point, see the Obama administration as detached from the Mideast and the president, in particular, as ill-equipped to shape events there.

Read more from this story HERE.