Saturday, October 26, 2013

The IPT Update

NOTE:  The next issue of the IPT Update will be circulated during the week of 4 Nov 2013

General security, policy
1.  Report: Iran may be month from a bomb; Rift widens on Iranian nuclear deal as Israel, Arabs warn against allowing enrichment
2.  US nuclear officers napped with blast door left open
3.  Report:  Chinese military engaged in political warfare against the United States
4.  Boston Marathon 'bomber' tied to 2011 killings
5.  Brothers plead guilty in WA to conspiracy to illegally export firearm parts to Thailand
6.  Ramzi Yousef's lawyer now representing Abu Anas Al Liby; won't say how he is getting paid; Appeals court affirms Ahmed Ghailani verdict
7.  One Via Rail terror suspect to seek bail, other in legal limbo
8.  Facebook, Twitter grapple with terrorists' use of social media for messaging, communications
9.  Canadian pleads guilty in NY to terrorism charges in connection with Tamil Tigers
10. ACLU asks DOJ to probe surveillance of Muslims by NYPD

Friday, October 25, 2013

Questioning Israel's Sustainability

Ron Jager, The writer, a 25-year veteran of the I.D.F., served as a field mental health officer. Prior to retiring in 2005, served as the Commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGOs implementing Psycho trauma and Psycho education programs to communities in the North and South of Israel. He is currently a strategic advisor at the Office of the Chief Foreign Envoy of Judea and Samaria. To contact: medconf@netvision.net.il  More from this writer

The "World Happiness Report", released recently, ranked Israel the 11th-happiest country in the world, ahead of the United States, and far ahead of its neighbors in the region. It was based on data collected from 156 countries between the years 2010 and 2012.

A Lesser Superpower Than We Used To Be

Shoshana Bryen

The traditional American posture as the guarantor of freedom and protector of allies, and the scourge of Nazis, Communists and al Qaeda is headed toward a less manageable, every-man-for-himself series of ad hoc arrangements that portend greater international instability in which terrorism and warfare thrive.
Here is what happens when the United States is weakened in the eyes of the world:
  • China derides U.S. economic leadership, posits itself a "source of financial stability," and suggests the yuan as a replacement for the dollar. China also announces plans to sell Pakistan two more nuclear reactors. Russia doubles down by offering Iran an anti-aircraft system and another reactor.
  • Iran announces a willingness to reach a deal for the elimination of Western sanctions, but maintains that Tehran will never give up its capability to enrich uranium, a key Israeli demand, and formerly a key demand of the U.S. and its allies. Russia further undermines the U.S. by announcing Iran has a "right" to enrichment and urging the U.S. to lift sanctions.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

'Sovereignty' - Israeli Right's Answer to a 'Two State Solution'

Ari Soffer 

The Israeli Right has abandoned the diplomatic arena to the Left, by focusing solely on community-building and other forms of "practical Zionism," and must work to rectify the situation by posing practical political solutions of its own.

So says Likud MK and Deputy Foreign Minister Ze'ev Elkin, in an interview with Sovereignty, a new political journal published by the Women in Green movement, 100,000 copies of which will be distributed in both Hebrew and English for the first time this week.

 A beautiful Israeli community in Samaria

"The Right has invested in practical Zionism: the wonderful settlement project in Judea and Samaria, the development of Jerusalem, etc., but has left statesmanship to the Left and this has been its mistake," he said, in an interview set to be published in full on Friday. 

Goldhagen: The Devil That Never Dies: Antisemitism‏

 

The ‘Devil’ we know

10/24/2013 10:58   By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

For global anti-Semites, Jews have become synonymous with Israel.

Soccer fans hold up Nazi swastika flag  [file]
Photo by: REUTERS
Anti-Semitism has transformed itself over the past two decades into a global scourge, as a resurgent movement of lethal Jew-hatred has led to murders in Europe and elsewhere. According to Daniel J. Goldhagen’s important and timely book The Devil That Never Dies, global anti-Semitism is alive and kicking – and gaining in strength.

Goldhagen cites the March 2012 murders that Mohammed Merah perpetrated in France. These anti-Semitic killings resulted in the deaths of four French Jews, including three young children in Toulouse. Merah linked his Jew-hatred to Israel, saying, “I kill Jews in France as these are the same Jews who kill innocents in Palestine.”

Rihanna didn’t actually say ‘All I see is Palestine’ at her Tel Aviv concert

 Simone Wilson

Photo
Rihanna in Tel Aviv
Both sides of the Israel-Palestine debate are going nuts over an alleged shout-out that Rihanna made to Palestine — and not Israel — at her sold-out concert in Tel Aviv last night.
Thing is, it didn't actually happen.
As the story went, while Rihanna was performing "Pour It Up," she changed the lyric "All I see is dollar signs" to "All I see is Palestine." Palestinians and their supporters began praising her gutsy move on Twitter — much-needed cred in the Arab world for Rihanna after she ignored the BDSers by scheduling a show in Israel, then staged a sexy photo shoot outside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi earlier this week. Meanwhile, all the Israelis who had been in attendance at the Tel Aviv concert started asking: Wait, why didn't I hear that? 
Here's how the rumor started.
The only news outlet that originally reported the lyric change was left-wing Israeli paper Ha'aretz. In her review of the concert, entertainment reporter Amy Klein wrote:
Nor did [Rihanna's fans] care when in “Pour it Up” instead of “All I see is signs / All I see is dollar signs,” she subbed in “All I see is Palestine,” or the fact that she just kept inserting calls of “Tel Aviv!” in every song – never once saying the word Israel.

Palestinian Bomber's Chicago Arrest Triggers Misguided Anger

IPT News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/4197/palestinian-bomber-chicago-arrest-triggers

There is outrage among many pro-Palestinian activists in Chicago after Tuesday's indictment of a woman accused of hiding her conviction for two 1969 Jerusalem bombings when she applied to become an American citizen.
The anger is not about Rasmieh Yousef Odeh's alleged lies and secret, murderous past. Rather, the activists are upset with federal law enforcement officials for daring to charge her.
"An attack against any community organizer is [an] attack against us all. Rasmieh Odeh is not alone," the US Palestinian Community Network wrote in a Twitter post Tuesday.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Iran vs. the West: Endgame

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall
Jerusalem Issue Briefs  Vol. 13, No. 28   

Unlike in earlier rounds, this time there have been direct negotiations between the United States and Iran. Today Iran comes to the negotiations with the West in incomparably better geostrategic circumstances than in 2003, when it temporarily suspended uranium enrichment to further advance its nuclear program, then in its infancy. Iran is not entering the nuclear negotiations out of weakness, but, rather, from a position of strength.

In Iran’s view (which some of the Gulf States share), America’s regional status and deterrent power are in continuing decline. Given Iran’s sense of power linked with both domestic and regional stability, it comes to the negotiations in a mood of confidence verging on hubris.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Tel Aviv University: Dramatic Discovery in Sea of Galilee – Ancient

 
Tel Aviv University: Dramatic Discovery in Sea of Galilee – Ancient Near
East Empires Collapsed as a Result of Climate Crisis
Spokesperson’s Office
Tel Aviv, 22 October 2013
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY DRAMATIC DISCOVERY IN SEA OF GALILEE:
ANCIENT NEAR EAST EMPIRES COLLAPSED AS RESULT OF CLIMATE CRISIS
A study of fossil pollen particles in sediments extracted from the bottom of
the Sea of Galilee has revealed evidence of a climate crisis that
traumatized the Near East from the middle of the 13th to the late 12th
century BCE. The crisis brought about the collapse of the great empires of
the Bronze Age. The results of this study will be published in the coming
days by Dr. Dafna Langgut and Prof. Israel Finkelstein of the Institute of
Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and Prof. Thomas Litt of the Institute of
Geology, Mineralogy and Paleontology at the University of Bonn, Germany. The
results appeared today (October 22nd 2013 ) in Tel Aviv: Journal of the
Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University
http://maneypublishing.com/index.php/journals/tav/
and can be read online at IngentaConnect.com
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/tav
Prof. Mordechai Stein of the Hebrew University also participated in the
research.

World Council of Churches Stands By As Christians Perish, Churches Wither

Malcolm Lowe

Who needs the WCC any more? Would the world, let alone Middle East Christians, be better off without it?
The World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva claims to represent and serve 345 churches worldwide. What has it done to help the persecuted churches in Iraq, Syria and Egypt? Or the flood of Syrian refugees into Jordan and Lebanon? Answer: it has devoted the whole of 2013 to promoting a World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel (September 22-28). That is, it has poured its Swiss francs into stirring up the one corner of the area that is currently almost calm.

Frequently Asked Questions about International Forces

JCPA

1. Wouldn't American troops, or even a NATO contingent, perform better than UN forces? Americans won't run like the UN soldiers if they are fired upon.

The Jerusalem Center video on international forces actually addresses a number of scenarios, from UN forces to Western units and even the deployment of a U.S. contingent. Clearly a UN force is the weakest in the minds of Israelis. But Western military units have also posed problems for Israelis who want a force they can rely on.

For example, after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, UNIFIL was reinforced with Western military units and officers, making it closer in composition to a NATO force. The idea was to deploy more reliable forces than those that had been deployed in southern Lebanon previously. However, these European units, which continue to patrol southern Lebanon today, have not prevented Hizbullah from rearming.

The video also refers to the deployment of multinational forces in Beirut in 1983, which included British, French, Italian, and U.S. units. Hizbullah targeted the U.S. and French headquarters of this force on October 23, 1983, with two truck bombs; the Americans and the French withdrew their forces from Lebanon within six months. What this case shows is that terrorist organizations seek to target Western military forces in order to break the will of the state that dispatched them and cause them to withdraw from the Middle East.

In another pertinent example: al-Qaeda struck in Madrid, Spain, in 2004, and in doing so got the Spanish government to withdraw from Iraq. In other words, it is not only UN forces that are unreliable, but NATO forces as well.

As for the issue of U.S. troops in particular, Israel has been extremely reluctant to ask the United States to risk the lives of its troops for Israel’s defense. Israel is proud of the fact that it was never like West Germany and South Korea in the Cold War, where the United States put its forces on the front lines for their defense. If Israel were to alter that dynamic, the U.S.-Israel relationship would fundamentally change. Israel wants to defend itself by itself.

2. Israel has signed peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. The Iraqi military is no longer a threat. Isn't the Israeli demand to retain control of the Jordan Valley based on an outdated threat assessment?

True, Jordan is not a threat to Israel, and the two countries have a peace treaty dating back to 1994. But no one can predict what will happen to the Middle East in three or five years from now. In any event, Jordan never posed a primary strategic problem for Israel. In fact, Israel’s real concern was the states to Jordan’s east and north that have sought to use Jordanian territory as a platform for attacking Israel. The Iraqi-Jordanian border is only 210 miles from the Jordan River – about as far apart as New York and Washington, D.C.

In 1948 and 1967, Iraqi ground forces passed through Jordan on their way to attack Israel. In 1973, an Iraqi expeditionary army crossed Syria and engaged Israel on the Golan Heights. Israel must not base its defense concept on a snapshot of its present security problems, but rather it must take into account that the threats of the past could return, once the instability of the Arab Spring passes.

Granted, today the conventional threat to Israel has diminished, for now, but there is a growing terrorist threat that must be addressed. Iran is actively seeking to convert Iraq into a satellite state. Iran has imported Hizbullah units from Lebanon in order to train Iraqi Shia militias. Israel must take into account this Hizbullah challenge to the east in upcoming years. It is difficult to predict what will happen to the militias currently fighting in Syria, but Israel would be short-sighted if it ignored the threat of al-Qaeda elements, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, operating against it from the east.

If Israel withdraws its military from the Jordan Valley, terrorist groups will increase their efforts to smuggle advanced weapons through the area in order to reinforce Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank. Without the Israeli army presence to stop them, the Jordan Valley could become a new "Philadelphi Route" – the corridor along the Gaza-Sinai border through which missiles and other weaponry have been smuggled. The Jordanian army will try to thwart these operations from its territory, but with a new vacuum emerging in the Jordan Valley after an Israeli withdrawal, Jordan would have a difficult time dealing with the massive increase in smuggling activity.

It’s not only Islamist sympathizers who will participate in weapons smuggling, but anybody who is looking to profit from arms sales. If Israel were to pull out of the Jordan Valley, then many of the weapons that are now present in the Gaza Strip, such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, would make their way into the West Bank.

3. How relevant is controlling territory, given that the main threats facing Israel today are asymmetrical in nature – i.e., terrorist groups and guerrilla warfare, or from missiles that can fly over any strategic terrain?

Conventional armies still play the decisive role in winning wars in modern times. The United States only defeated Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003 when its armies moved into Iraq, not by the bombing of Iraqi targets with cruise missiles.

Israeli forces have been deployed in the Jordan Valley with the idea that a small Israeli standing force can use the steep terrain in order to hold off an invading army while Israel's reserve forces are being mobilized. If Israel is faced with ballistic missile attacks, the IDF reserves will take longer to mobilize, and the small standing force on the front lines would have to fight for an extended period of time without reinforcements. Advantageous terrain would be vital for such a defensive campaign. Therefore, even in the missile era, Israel still requires the Jordan Valley for its defense, should it face a restoration of the conventional military threat to the east.

4. If Israel retains control of the Jordan Valley, how is a two-state solution possible?

Israel has been seeking ways to protect its vital security interests while at the same time still allowing for a political solution. For that reason, Israel has spoken about deploying Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley without necessarily demanding Israeli sovereignty in the area. Many countries accept foreign forces in their midst, such as Germany, where U.S. forces are deployed to this day. With creativity at the negotiating table, Israel and the Palestinians can reach an agreement that addresses their political needs, while leaving Israel secure.

5. I thought that al-Qaeda operates in Pakistan or in Yemen, but does it actually have a presence in Gaza, as the video asserts? How likely is al-Qaeda to become a factor in Israel’s security?

Back on February 26, 2008, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the Arabic daily al-Hayat that al-Qaeda was present in Gaza. One such al-Qaeda affiliate in Gaza is Jaish al-Islam which, the Egyptians charged, was involved in a January 2011 attack on a Coptic Church in Alexandria. Letters found by the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, revealed that Jaish al-Islam was in fact in communication with the al-Qaeda leadership since 2006.


The main al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, has published a book entitled Regional War Strategy for the Land of the Levant. The book clearly states that the organization is not focused on Syria alone: “Syria is the key to a change on the Arab world and afterwards the Islamic world.”
- See more at: http://jcpa.org/faq_why-israel-opposes-international-forces-in-the-jordan-valley/#sthash.VKaESfgM.dpuf
 
1. Wouldn't American troops, or even a NATO contingent, perform better than UN forces? Americans won't run like the UN soldiers if they are fired upon.

The Jerusalem Center video on international forces actually addresses a number of scenarios, from UN forces to Western units and even the deployment of a U.S. contingent. Clearly a UN force is the weakest in the minds of Israelis. But Western military units have also posed problems for Israelis who want a force they can rely on.

For example, after the Second Lebanon War in 2006, UNIFIL was reinforced with Western military units and officers, making it closer in composition to a NATO force. The idea was to deploy more reliable forces than those that had been deployed in southern Lebanon previously. However, these European units, which continue to patrol southern Lebanon today, have not prevented Hizbullah from rearming.

The video also refers to the deployment of multinational forces in Beirut in 1983, which included British, French, Italian, and U.S. units. Hizbullah targeted the U.S. and French headquarters of this force on October 23, 1983, with two truck bombs; the Americans and the French withdrew their forces from Lebanon within six months. What this case shows is that terrorist organizations seek to target Western military forces in order to break the will of the state that dispatched them and cause them to withdraw from the Middle East.

In another pertinent example: al-Qaeda struck in Madrid, Spain, in 2004, and in doing so got the Spanish government to withdraw from Iraq. In other words, it is not only UN forces that are unreliable, but NATO forces as well.

As for the issue of U.S. troops in particular, Israel has been extremely reluctant to ask the United States to risk the lives of its troops for Israel’s defense. Israel is proud of the fact that it was never like West Germany and South Korea in the Cold War, where the United States put its forces on the front lines for their defense. If Israel were to alter that dynamic, the U.S.-Israel relationship would fundamentally change. Israel wants to defend itself by itself.

How One IDF Commander Turned Back a Syrian Column in the Yom Kippur War

With just one tank, Captain Zvika Greengold withstood the might of the Syrian military. As the battle around him raged, he moved in and out of the darkness, firing at Syrian forces while remaining undetected. He persisted heroically for hours, throwing himself at the enemy in the face of almost certain death.

On October 6, 1973 – the first day of the Yom Kippur War – the Syrian military bombarded Israel’s northern border. At exactly 2:00 pm, its air force and artillery pounded IDF positions in the Golan Heights in coordination with an Egyptian strike in the Sinai Peninsula. Hours later, Syrian tanks and troops crossed the border and invaded Israeli territory. The IDF soldiers, suffering tremendous losses, scrambled to stop the Syrian onslaught.

No End to Claims Conference Distortions and Shamelessness

Isi Leibler
October 22, 2013
http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=4861



 
Less than six months after the Board of Directors of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) brushed off allegations of managerial negligence and insufficient oversight, and re-elected all officers to another term of office, instead of seeking to mitigate their previous failures by belatedly reforming the organization, Chairman of the Board, Julius Berman and his acolytes have launched a media campaign to exonerate themselves (click here to see Jerusalem Post editorial).

Inside Israel’s Diplomacy With Turkey

Netanyahu virtually ignored this grave breach by Turkey in which Turkey betrayed 12 important agents of Israel to Iran to be tortured and killed, and continued to reach out to Turkey for areas to cooperate in. Then in the spring he apologized to Turkey. Truly disgusting. Ted Belman
by Eli Lake, THE DAILY BEAST 

Turkey may have ratted out Israeli spies to Iran in 2012, but that didn’t stop Netanyahu from mending fences with Turkey’s Erdogan. Eli Lake on the surprising outreach.

Last week, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius revealed that in early 2012, Turkey gave sensitive information about Israel’s spy operations to Iran—specifically, the names of up to ten Iranians who had been meeting with Israeli intelligence officers in Turkey.

Monday, October 21, 2013

But Can the Death Spiral be Reversed?

Jonathan Rosenblum







http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The release recently Pew Research Council report on American Jewry, merely confirmed what anyone paying attention already knew: In the natural order of things, non-Orthodox American Jewry is in an irreversible death spiral. Among non-Orthodox Jews, the intermarriage rate is now 71%.
That means out of every five marriages involving a non-Orthodox Jew, more than four are intermarriages. The largest study of intermarried homes found that the religious orientation was primarily Jewish in only 14% of them, and even in those "Judaeo-centric" homes, 60% had Christmas trees.

Respond to betrayal

Op-ed: Israel must sever diplomatic ties with Turkey, wait patiently for Erdogan's reign to end


There's no question. It is obvious that Israel must freeze its official relations with Turkey. A country that respects itself cannot let the actions and betrayals of the regime in Ankara pass. Israel must respond with the means at its disposal and sever ties with a country that intentionally caused it damage and in the most dangerous way.

Apology

Better late than never  / Nechama Duek

Op-ed: Israel was not wrong to apologize to Turkey; it's important to have an Islamic power by our side
Full Story


Erdogan's Turkey is not the Turkey of the 1990s until 2000 – a period in which Turkey and Israel had a special connection. Today's Turkey is still the Turkey of the "Marmara."

We have already apologized for the "Marmara" affair, even though we were not at fault. We expressed regret and proved that we are interested in rehabilitating the relations. Considering all of the facts related to that affair, apologizing for what happened on the Gaza-bound ship was very a brave act. We did all we could to end the most severe crisis since Israel and Turkey established diplomatic relations.

Livni to Post: I have unfinished business in making peace with Palestinians


Livni was surprisingly candid, eager to set straight misplaced perceptions about the talks that had been spread by her right-wing colleagues in Netanyahu’s coalition.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
Going into an hourlong interview with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni these days, it’s hard not to be pessimistic and wish the interview had been scheduled for less time.

After all, the Americans have sworn her to secrecy about the talks she is leading with the Palestinians. Livni is a firm believer that any leaks, at all, undermine the cause of achieving peace. That is the reason she returned to politics and agreed to join Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government.

Over the years she has gained a reputation as a tough interviewee, who cannot be coerced into saying anything she did not intend to say.

PA minister: Hamas founder Yassin is role model for children

PA Minister of Religious Affairs:
Arch-terrorist and founder of Hamas,
Ahmed Yassin,
is "exalted Palestinian figure" and "icon"

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

A senior Palestinian Authority minister has presented arch-terrorist and founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, as a role model for Palestinians. In a Friday sermon recently broadcast on official PA TV, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash stated that Yassin is an "exalted national Palestinian figure," an "icon," and that Palestinian children are taught about his "legacy, Jihad, actions, and morality."

Sunday, October 20, 2013

MKs Reveal Plan to ‘Restore Balance’ with Supreme Court


Maayana Miskin

One month ago, MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) called to set limits to the Supreme Court’s power after the court overturned a 2012 law, passed in the Knesset, as “unconstitutional.”

Now Shaked and MK Yariv Levin (Likud) are following through on her call to action with a proposal they say will restore the balance of power, and put Israel’s legislative and judicial branches back on equal footing.

“The Knesset, as the sovereign power in a democracy, has the right to the final word regarding matters of value and principle,” Shaked declared.

“Over the last 20 years there has been a constitutional revolution that has weakened the power of the executive and legislative branches, and has given preference to the judicial branch. We are interested in fixing that,” she added.

Seventy Years Since the Arab Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, Met Hitler

Emet m'Tsiyon

The Arab Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem met Hitler the other day 70 years ago, on 28 November 1941. The seventieth anniversary of a friendly, palsy meeting between the greatest mass murderer in history, Adolf Hitler [yes, Stalin gave him stiff competition] and a would-be mass murderer who took part in Hitler's genocidal crimes. We know what went on at the meeting since two written records were made, one by Hitler's secretary, one Schmidt, the other by the Mufti himself.

Here we quote from the German record:
The Fuhrer then made the following statement to the Mufti, enjoining him to lock it in the innermost depths of his heart:
1. He (the Fuhrer) would carry on the battle to the total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire in Europe.
2. . . . the German armies would in the course of this struggle reach the southern exit from Caucasus.
3. . . . Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations which he had secretly prepared. . .