EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts

Gaza.01[i-Gaza.01]The journalist Caroline Glick is nothing if not outspoken and, as such, puts various backs up. She does, however, provide interesting information if people were to listen.

Today’s article in the Jewish World Review, tells us that

Last week the EU-financed Peace Now organization held an "Alternative Jerusalem Day" ceremony in which it called for Israel to renounce its sovereignty over half of the city in the interests of peace.

One wonders whether this comes under the heading of the Petersberg Tasks on which the common foreign policy is supposed to be based, or sustainable aid and development.

Peace Now is an Israeli NGO, which is a little coy about its finance, mentioning merely that a good deal come from private donations. Presumably, the rest comes from various transnational organizations. It defines itself as the oldest peace movement in Israel but, curiously enough, the links listed on the website are all to organizations either in Israel, Europe or the United States. Wot, no peace movements in the Arab world? Dear me. Who could have predicted that?

Peace Now seems to be spending a good deal of its time demonstrating against various aspects of Israeli policy and publicizing all the many anti-Israeli reports by such trustworthy organizations as the World Bank that are produced. Still, Israel is a democracy and it is up to them to deal with the matter. The question is why is the EU using or money to support them?

Caroline Glick then goes on to another interesting aspect of this:

Why anyone would believe that an Israeli surrender of the eternal capital of the Jewish people to Hamas will lead to peace is anyone's guess. It seems particularly fatuous in light of the blatantly unpeaceful results of Israel's 2005 Peace Now-supported surrender of Gaza to Hamas, its 2000 Peace Now-supported surrender of south Lebanon to Hizbullah, and the Peace Now-supported Barak government's offer to surrender the Temple Mount and other parts of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat in 2000.

Without getting involved in the discussion of the eternal capital (so, please do not post any comments about that) one must admit that there seems to be a remarkable lack of peace in the areas Israel has moved out of. Not only is the peaceful attitude of the Palestinians towards the Israelis strangely hidden from sight but there appears to be very little peace between various Palestinian groups and factions.

In Gaza the latest Egyptian-brokered peace has again broken down with three days of bloody fighting, which has 17 people dead and many wounded. There seems to be no report on the age of those dead but I would be very surprised if some teenagers or even children had not been caught up in the fighting somewhere.

The BBC is reporting that about 500 Fatah loyalists have entered Gaza from Egypt, not to fight Hamas (no, no, no) but “to protect the Palestinian people”. From whom remains unclear.
Speaking for Fatah, Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said:

The role of the security forces is to protect the security of the Palestinian people and not to take part in internal fighting.

Good to know. The BBC piece also reminds us that

Up to 170 people have died in clashes between the Fatah and Hamas factions since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006.

That’s presumably not counting the people who died before the parliamentary elections and after Israel’s withdrawal or the people who died in routine clashes between various families and clans. Or the women who have been killed for disobeying instructions from their menfolk on the subject of clothes or behaviour.

This must be what Peace Now and their sponsor, the European Union, want for Eastern Jerusalem. Definitions of peace can be very tricky.

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Whbee[i-Whbee]Here is the reason why we support Israel: it is a democracy and it is most emphatically not an apartheid state. Anyone who says that (and yes, I do mean former President Carter, possibly the worst twentieth century president the United States had) knows nothing either about Israel or about apartheid.

Arab Kadima Knesset member Majallie Whbee

will serve as ceremonial President until next Tuesday, while acting president Dalia Itzik is in America. Itzik took over the position from Moshe Katsav after he temporarily suspended himself following the Attorney General’s announcement that he may be indicted on multiple charges including rape.

In an interview Majallie Whbee showed himself to be proud of the position he has reached and of his country, Israel, though, sensibly, he pointed out that there were many political problems in the country at the moment.

He served in the parachute division of the IDF and rose to the rank of colonel (not a sissy, then). He has plans for his week as president:

Although he will only hold the position for a week, he said he wanted to use the opportunity to try and make some inroads in the peace process, and had already organised meetings with the Jordanian and Egyptian Ambassadors to Israel.

"I believe I can increase the confidence of the relations between the two sides," said Whbee, who first entered politics in 1995 as an assistant to then Minister of Infrastructure Ariel Sharon. "I can talk to these representatives more openly and put my points on the table."

As a Kadima MK Whbee espouses the views of the government and said he was planning to tell the Jordanian and Egyptian ambassadors that he believed there "will be no hope for the peace process" unless Hamas recognises the State of Israel.

I wonder what the ambassadors will say in response.

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Regev,+Halutz[i-Regev,+Halutz]The picture is that of General Dan Haretz, former Chief of Israeli General Staff, and Miri Regev, the lady he had appointed to deal with the IDF's relationship with the media.

Of the two, she was probably more disastrous but that may be simply because I understand the media and propaganda better than toys and whether armies are victorious.

Here is a discussion of the propaganda war and how it was lost by Israel. Oh yes, and why it matters to us.

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dan-halutz-468[i-dan-halutz-468]The chief of Israel's armed forces, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, has resigned over the criticisms of the military's conduct of operations in last summer's war in Lebanon. His departure follows the completion of dozens of military inquiries into the largest Israeli action since 1982.

Although none of the inquiries concluded he should quit or be dismissed, he has still decided to fall on his sword, writing in his resignation letter to Defence Minister Amir Peretz, "For me, the word 'responsibility' is very significant … My concept of responsibility is what led me to remain in my position until this point, and to place this letter on your desk today."

Good bad, or indifferent as a general – and there are many different views – one cannot fault his style or his sense of honour. Not a few British politicians might take note.

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AIR+-+F-16+IAF+006[i-AIR+-+F-16+IAF+006]Yesterday, according to the great Sunday Times, Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Under the by-line of Uzi Mahnaimi in New York and Sarah Baxter in Washington, the newspaper further asserts that two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters".

Nothing of this is new however. We have been reading reports of IAF practising a strike for some considerable time and, ten days short of a year ago, posted a picture of the IAF Squadron that would lead the raid. The IAF has also published a picture of one of what might be a back-up squadron (above left). And the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran goes back to at least October 2003 when the LA Times "revealed" planning for such an attack.

However, the Sunday Times, in that infuriatingly self-important way that so typifies the MSM, seems to think such plans are new. It is thus able to announce, "Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran", telling us that they were prompted "in part" by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad's assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

Actually, this is also not new. Iran has been "on the verge" for some considerable time. But, as we pointed out in February last, it is producing a uranium bomb, which means it will be too heavy for its current or any known means of delivery in the foreseeable future.

This minor piece of information seems to have escaped the Sunday Times and nor have I seen it in any other MSM outlet. But it has an enormous significance in assessing the threat from Iran. Even if it could get a bomb together in two years, it would take several more before it could get anywhere close to developing a means of delivery that could carry the weight.

Another highly significant issue is the delivery to Iran by the Russians, which started last November, of the Tor-M1 air-defence missile systems. Time and time we have argued, not least here, that the presence of these highly capable missiles would tilt the balance of advantage against an Israeli airstrike, to the extent that, once deliveries are complete, it would no longer be an option.

This is something which the Sunday Times itself, when it was forecasting a raid by March 2006, thought important in December 2005 - but now seems to have forgotten about. It also seems to have forgotten about its earlier report in March 2005 that an Israeli strike had been given "initial authorisation", that too being announced in the same, breathless, self-important tones, the headline proclaiming: "Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant".

Once again, we have the same pair of journalists in the by-line, Uzi Mahnaimi - in Tel Aviv, not having yet moved to New York - and Sarah Baxter, in Washington. And, as for Mahnaimi, he is a very odd cove indeed.

Nevertheless, if an Israeli strike was likely then, as Mahnaimi then asserted, it is now - over a year later - highly unlikely, whether nuclear or otherwise. In the first instance, this is because it is evident that there is no immediate threat and, secondly, because the window of opportunity for a quick, pre-emptive strike is now closing, if not actually closed.

A grown-up newspaper might actually mention these issues, in the absence of which, you just know the story is a crock – one of these excitable, lightweight fillers that the Sunday Times uses when it wants to look important but actually does not have any hard news. The funny thing is that if this blog "revealed" such garbage stories in such a consistently breathless manner, we'd be laughed off the blogsophere.

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