Tuesday, 25 September 2012




What Does Israel Do if Obama Is Reelected?  

Don’t Panic” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
I’m going to try to analyze what Israeli strategy might look like if Obama were to be reelected. I don’t want to write a partisan piece — predicting every type of the most horrible disaster and open hatred from the White House — but a serious analytical effort. This involves speculation, but policymakers have to develop the most likely scenarios in order to plan ahead.
Let me start, though, with a joke. An asteroid hits the ocean, producing a giant tidal wave so powerful that within an hour all land will be covered by water. Television networks put on a variety of politicians, alleged wise people, and religious figures to speak with the doomed population. The rabbi among them explains: “All I can say is that you have one hour to learn to breathe underwater.”
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The PA won’t dare cancel Oslo  

“Be gone, Oslo criminals.” No, this call has yet to be heard in Ramallah and Nablus, although Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas himself is raising the possibility of cancelling the accords. How the wheel spins. There was a time that the protests and condemnations were on the Israeli side, and for good reason: Many commentators have noted that the Oslo Accords would have been appropriate material for historian Barbara Tuchman’s book, “The March of Folly;” and then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, despite eventually being convinced to sign on, believed the Palestinians were negotiating in bad faith.
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Barak wants another unilateral withdrawal  

Yuli Edelstein: Barak has Not Learned from ‘Oslo Tragedy’
Barak’s proposal for a new unilateral withdrawal of Jews shows he has not learned from the “tragedy of Oslo,” said Minister Yuli Edelstein.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, INN
Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s proposal for another unilateral withdrawal of Jews from Judea and Samaria proves that he has not learned from the “tragedy of Oslo,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein said Monday.
Responding to Barak’s proposal in a newspaper interview that Israel force all Jews outside of major population centers to leave their homes or accept Palestinian Authority rule, Edelstein stated, “This is not a program of Disengagement but rather a program for survival.” He accused Barak of “making the mistakes of a rookie.”
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Jewish Dems warn Netanyahu to stay out of US presidential election  

To “warn” is to threaten and to intimidate. If Republicans support Israel more it is only right that Israel support them more. To ask Israel to be blind to the difference is to ask for a licence to keep beating up on Israel. Positions should have consequences. The Democrats don’t own Israel or American Jews. Given the fact that the Democratic Party and their leaders wanted to remove Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel from their platform, Israel is fully justified in turning to the Republicans. Ted Belman
By Julian Pecquet, THE HILL – 09/24/12 05:00 AM ET
Top Jewish Democrats are squarely standing by President Obama’s decision not to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and warning Israel to butt out of the U.S. presidential race.
The White House has been on the defensive ever since Israeli officials publicly complained last week after Obama refused to adjust his schedule to meet with Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week. Republicans quickly pounced, urging Obama to reconsider and inviting Netanyahu to meet with them at his convenience.
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Egypt’s Shiite Minority: Between the Egyptian Hammer and the Iranian Anvil  

While some 90 percent of Egyptians are Sunni Muslims, the number of Shia in Egypt has been estimated at up to 2.2 million, including “Twelvers” and Ismailis. A Shiite dynasty, the Fatimids, conquered Egypt in 969 and ruled the country for 200 years.
The new Muslim Brotherhood President of Egypt, Mohammad Morsi, is reported to have said that the Shia are more dangerous to Islam than the Jews, while former Muslim Brotherhood leader and presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh warned during the campaign that Shiism must not be allowed to enter Egypt.
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If only Romney could be more like Palin he’d have a chance  

Fire in the belly. Speech delivered in April 2011
 

Israeli TV report shows air force gearing up for Iran attack  

This Report was published on April 15/12. So May has come and gone and so has the summer. Thus it could happen at any time now. Ted Belman
TIMES OF ISRAEL, APRIL 15/12
The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor.
No order to strike is likely to be given before the P5+1 talks with Iran resume in May, the reporter, Alon Ben-David, said. “But the coming summer will not only be hot but tense.”
In the event that negotiations fail and the order is given for Israel to carry out an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, “dozens if not more planes” will take part in the mission: attack and escort jets, tankers for mid-air refueling, electronic warfare planes and rescue helicopters, the report said.
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Israel must maintain its deterrence and wean herself from the US  

By Ted Belman
Mordechai Kedar in his recent article, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi, reviews the decline in American power and will to protect its values from her defeat in the Vietnam War to the present. It is long but worthwhile. He ends it with:
    The conclusion that Israel must draw from all of this is clear: It’s security must not depend on the ever-dissipating American determination, because some Americans who determine policy have the tendency to throw their friends – as in the case of Mubarak – under the bus. There are more than a few people in the American political community who are not at all convinced that Israel’s existence serves the interests of the United States, and especially if their support of Israel might anger the Muslims.
    (Read more…)


Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel

Posted by Britannia Radio at 17:02