The excellent DEBKAfile reporting agency has the following piece concerning the current visit of prime Minister Netanyahu to Obama in Washington. It is rivetting and vital knowledge, yet it still does not get to grips with the situation, because it offers no way forward for Jews in terms of leadership
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was assured of a much friendlier and correct White House welcome for his fifth encounter with President Barack Obama July 6 – compared with the unmannerly treatment meted out to him on March 23. Still, five time bombs with short fuses are ticking under their seats on issues on which the US president’s internationalist, diplomacy-first attitude is far from Israel’s survivalist, security-first strategic outlook on a number of basic issues. Both will try to overcome their mutual mistrust.
Their respective approaches to Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon and the future of Israel’s reputed nuclear arsenal are the most combustible of their five topics of discussion. The US and Israel clearly do not see eye on eye on how and when to take action against Iran.On June 17, defense secretary Robert Gates said Iran was developing the capability to fire scores or hundreds of missiles at Europe. Ten days later, he reported Iran had enough low-enriched uranium to start building two atom bombs within two years. So by the time the new UN sanctions and the complementary measures Obama approved Friday, July 2 start biting and affecting Tehran’s decision-making, the last moment for halting the construction of a nuclear bomb will have come and gone.
On June 28, Adm. Mullen, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff commented that the US and Israel are “in sync” over the time needed to find out if the sanctions are working or not.
debkafile’s military sources describe this assertion as a pious hope rather than established fact, because even the US president cannot be absolutely sure Israel will not launch a surprise attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities before it is too late. Until now, he applied the brakes on Israeli action by two means: One by a constant flow of senior American military and intelligence figures to Israel every couple of days and frequent invitations to security minister Ehud Barak and Israeli military leaders to visit the US; second, by a personal presidential pledge to Netanyahu that if Israel holds off from striking Iran, he will continue to back Israel on matters essential to its security.
One such matter is the policy of ambiguity with regard to Israel’s nuclear arsenal, i.e., never confirming its existence.
For Jerusalem, this pledge was cast in doubt by Washington’s decision, against Israeli protests, to support the resolution calling for a nuclear-free Middle East tabled by Egypt for the Arab and Non-Aligned blocs at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference that took place in Washington in May. This motion demanded that Israel join the NPT and accept international inspectors of its nuclear facilities. Israel was further angered by the fact that Iran and its nuclear weapons program were not even mentioned in the resolution.Although US officials explained that a vote for the motion was obligatory given Obama’s comprehensive quest for a world without nuclear weapons. Although Israel’s government and security leaders never said this in so many words, they felt the administration had let them down on a key pledge and freed them of the commitment to refrain from a surprise attack on Iran.
Debka in the above remarks has very clearly explained the situation. There is now deep distrust between all sections of the Israeli Government and all sections of the Obama Regime.
This is indeed something new. No matter how bad the previous Presidents of the US were, the fiction that they would stand by Israel was always, somehow, maintained.
That has been totally torn asunder. The Israeli people, and it is also certain the people around Netanyahu, NO LONGER TRUST THE AMERICAN REGIME OF OBAMA.
Netanuahu is NOT Livni. I read material put about on the net that Netanyahu and Livni are just different forms of poison. This is especially the political line put across by the so called “Jewish” website Israpundit
Such as the following ignorant comment from an obvious ignoramus in the field of political strategy
Actually he is probably a lot better than Livni would have been since she would have been a clone of BHO (Barry Sotero).BB, Better than Livni is like a choice between Ebola and Anthrax
The above is the depth of analysis on that site!
http://www.israpundit.com/archives/24642#comments
What that leaves out, to put it simply so that those dolts can understand, Netanyahu is NOT the same as Livni, because a very serious election has intervened, when the vast majority decided that Livni would no longer be the leader of the Jews, and Netanyahu was put in Livni´s place BY THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL.
That kind of confusion by Israpundit, whose political line is as farcical as it is dangerous, has to be consciously opposed.
We on 4international are far from saying that Netanyahu is our hero, but we are saying in opposition to this treacherous Israpundit, that there is a difference between the Netanyahu Government and the previous Livni Government.
As we said above the essence of the matter is distrust. Livni was full of trust for the Arabs, before she led in the pulling of Jewish civilians and military from the Gaza. Livni also trusted Sharon and Bush.
The great gain of the Debka analysis is that it pinpoints that this trust is no longer there between the Israelis and the American Government. This is not a small matter in the whole post 1948 relations between these two pivotal states.
The Israeli prime minister and US president, in their talks Tuesday, must therefore forge a new “nuclear accord” governing both Iran and Israel.
*(Here I must confess I do not understand the Debka method, or are they being a little ironic. As they said already the trust is gone)
Assent on this question could ease the discord on four other key issues:
1. Netanyahu says the “proximity talks,” formally started two months ago, have never really taken off, and progress on the topics at issue with the Palestinians demand direct talks for which he is fully prepared at any moment and for which Mahmoud Abbas has pre-conditions. The Israeli prime minister will discuss with the US president various formats for getting this dialogue on track, including a US-Saudi “Marshall Plan” for a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip that came up during Saudi King Abdullah’s visit to the White House on June 29.2. They will also explore ways for Israel to go back to construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements, even nominally, after the 10-month freeze expires on Sept. 26 to ease the pressure on Netanyahu at home. Several Knesset factions held off until after the prime minister’s White House visit a bill requiring the government to seek a parliamentary majority for any further suspension of construction. The US will demand closer monitoring of any future freeze.
The idea of seeking a majority before there is any future suspension of building in the “settlements”. Things in Israel move slowly but they do move. Reminds one of the English revolutionaries in the Cromwellian revolution. This issue alone is the most fundamental. At stake is the fact that to satisfy Abbas there will have to be at least 300,000 Jews moved out of the “West Bank” so that these Muslims can have their Muslim only statelet (like Bosnia, like Kosovo, like Armenia etc)
3. The crisis between Turkey and Israel. So far, Washington had avoided guaranteeing to withhold its support from a UN Assembly motion calling for an international commission to probe the flotilla incident in which Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish vessel leading a convoy for breaking Israel’s Gaza blockade and ended in a clash in which 9 Turkish activists were killed and 6 Israelis injured.
Israel’s eased embargo on civilian goods to Gaza was widely welcomed.The two leaders will explore a possible joint US-Israeli stand against Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Recip Erdogan in view of his deepening bonds with the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah-Hamas bloc.
4. They will also discuss how the US and Israel can work together against the continued flow of heavy weaponry, including ballistic missiles, from Syria to the Lebanese Shiite terrorist Hizballah.
At the start of this month Caroline Glick came closest to the position of Trotsky and Lenin in the Brest Litovsk treaty talks
(By the way, the very first thing which Trotsky did when he made his appearance at the talks, he being preceded by other Russian members of the team, was to end the cosy and friendly relations with the Germans. Little things, like insisting that the Russian team had a separate place to have their tea breaks etc, on the basis that there were issues that needed to be discussed, were not little things at all. At the same time Trotsky was eyeing up the opposition, to see who were the front men, and to understand who were the real powers on the German side, concluding that it was the German Army High Command, not even at the conference. Netanyahu needs to have the same formality established)
It is on the issue of the inter play of respective forces that Glick is so correct and well worth listening to:
What this means is that Netanyahu is well placed to stand up to Obama’s pressure. If he plays his cards wisely, he can say no to Obama and avoid an open confrontation. For instance, instead of agreeing to extend the building prohibition, Netanyahu should say that he is willing to discuss that demand in face-to-face negotiations with Abbas. Rather than agree to Abbas’s preconditions, Netanyahu should say that he is willing to listen to Abbas’s position in face-to-face negotiations. And so on and so forth. Such statements by Netanyahu will take the pressure for making concessions off him and put Obama and Abbas on the spot.
Even more importantly, it will buy Israel time.
And buying time should be Israel’s chief goal with respect to Washington today. Since taking office, Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that he will not reconsider his fundamentally hostile view of Israel. Obama’s basic belief that Israel’s strength and size are to blame for all the violence and radicalism in the Arab world is not subject to change, regardless of how clearly and continuously events on the ground prove it wrong.
EVEN WORSE for Israel, Obama is not alone in this view. Indeed, as a report in Foreign Policy this week makes clear, Obama’s position on Israel is moderate when compared to the positions being staked out in influential policy circles in the US military.
On Wednesday, Foreign Policy published the content of a memo written last month in the US Military’s Central Command. The memo, a “Red Team” assessment of how the US should position itself vis-à-vis the likes of Hamas and Hizbullah, reveals that among key members of the US policy-making community, Israel is viewed with extreme hostility.
The leaked memo reportedly reflects the views of a significant number of senior and mid-level officers in Centcom, including large numbers of intelligence officers, as well as a significant number of area analysts stationed in the Middle East. It argues that it is wrong for the US to lump jihadist movements like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and Hizbullah in one group.
Dismissing the significance of the identical religious dogma that stands at the root of these movements, the memo asserts that Hamas and Hizbullah are pragmatic and important social forces with which the US must foster good relations.
The memo calls for the US to support the integration of Hizbullah forces into the Lebanese military. It also calls for the US to encourage and permit the integration of Hamas forces into the US-trained Palestinian security forces.
As far as Israel is concerned, the memo blames the Jewish state for the US’s failure to date to adopt these recommended policies. Moreover, the memo’s authors condemn Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza as keeping “the area on the verge of a perpetual humanitarian collapse.”
The Centcom memo also condemns Israel’s July 2006 decision to respond to Hizbullah’s unprovoked bombardment of northern Israel and its unprovoked cross-border attack against an IDF patrol in which five soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped and subsequently murdered.
Denying Hizbullah’s subservient relationship with the Iranian regime, the report claims that Israel’s decision to use force to defend itself against Hizbullah’s acts of war served to strengthen Hizbullah’s ties to Teheran.
What this memo shows is that Israel has little hope of seeing a change for the better in US policy in the near future and its best bet today is to play for time. Next week at the Oval Office, Netanyahu should capitalize on his advantage four months ahead of the congressional elections and put the burden on Obama and Abbas to show their good intentions.
Playing for time is what Glick suggests should be considered. This is what the Bolsheviks did clearly at Brest Litovsk. And was Lenin a conservative???
That idea is laughable but instructional, especially when one looks at this unchallenged comment on Israpundit, from a commenter who claims to live in the Negev:
Glick has lost it. We know she is still in BB’s tank but her advice is to stall for time avoiding confrontation? BB can’t avoid confrontation w/out conceding the kitchen sink and he’s already close to that.
What is to be gained by avoiding the inevitable confrontation that will come like a tsunami after the elections, no matter what the results?
Israel should tell Hussein to go Fuck himself and take on Obama personally with everything we can throw at him. We have lot of cards and leverage but chickenshit BB and Barak too cowardly to use them.
Glick did raise a key point BB and Barak are scared out of their gourds of the Israeli leftist media and that’s what they fear most, more than Hussein. They both want power for it’s own sake along with greed and personal megalomania.
OK, we might have to pay a steep economic price. So I’ll herd goats till it blows over. No big deal.
You can see how utterly subjective is the comment above.
It goes without saying that there is no examination of the real correlation of forces between the US and Israel. For example, where are the American ordinary people, especially the American Christian community, on the issue? Are the Christian Evangelized well organized. What about the American Jews? Where do they stand. And many other issues need to be analysed. But the writer above makes it all subjective in the thought that he will herd goats. Big deal that!
Certainly Glick is right. But the real question to follow up on Glick is “waiting for what”? Who can come to the aid of Israel in this coming periood? That is the central question to which 4international will return
4international 