Reflections on Netanyahu's speech to Congress

I think this looks to be a fair review of Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress:

Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly told US President Barack Obama that he could not “stand” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he thinks the Israeli premier “is a liar.”

According to a Monday report in the French website “Arret sur Images,” after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.

The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington’s strong objection to the move.

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

AND IF YOU NEED ANOTHER CONSPIRACY THEORY…

Netanyahu Beating the War Drums on Iran

Believes each dead Israeli is equivalent to 70 dead Americans

In April of this year the New York Times ran a story By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER:
Gates Says U.S. Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran

:Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

That caught my attention because it was an obvious intentional leak designed to focus public opinion on the so-called "existential threat" of a nuclear Iran to Israel. The fanciful threat is ended, of course, by a pre-emptive US attack against Iran. Such an attack is the desired outcome of certain Israeli politicians and their minions in the US Congress (of which there are many). Such a reckless and needless attack against Iran would be the ruin of the US and could not come at a worse time given our existing wars and terrible financial troubles.

Many in Israel and the US are trying to make Iran a US problem. Iran is in many ways a problem for the US but Iran is not a threat to the US. If Israel believes that Iran is an existential threat, that is their problem. Israel is a nuclear power, armed to the teeth with an arsenal that could destroy Iran and every potential ally of Iran. Israeli paranoia should not lead to US folly. There is no US interest served by slavishly following Israel into a such a needless calamity.

If you do not think that this is going on, you are not paying attention. Benjamin Netanyahu is a dangerous demagogue and no friend to the US. Israeli problems are not solved by the US being dragged into another Middle Eastern war.
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Middle East
Jun 10, 2011 ASIA TIMES



False bells on Iran's nuclear program
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Confusion over an assessment of Iran's nuclear program by the Rand Corporation in the past week perfectly illustrates the quagmire that anyone has to contend with when sifting through bias on media reports.

When the Republican-leaning New York Post says history may well mark United States President Barack Obama "as the leader who let Iran get the bomb - and so doomed the Middle East to a new Dark Age", it based its assertion on a report it attributed to Rand Corporation analyst Gregory Jones.
"Using the latest data from the International Atomic Energy Agency, he recently concluded that, if Iran's centrifuges continue to produce enriched uranium at current capacity, the regime will have 90% of the 20 kilograms it needs to produce a nuclear weapon within two months - certainly by summer's end," the Post said in an opinion piece. [1]
The Post report was at least an accurate reflection of Jones'

calculations in a report dated June 2, but inaccurately reported that it was published by the Rand Corporation, when it was in fact from the Non-proliferation Policy Education Center. [2] Jones has written for Rand, but his last report for the non-profit policy and research think-tank was published in 2009.

Yet the New York Post was not alone. A deluge of commentaries took it at face value that Rand was alleging with iron-clad certainty that Iran was "two months away from making nuclear bombs". Media sources who attributed the report to Rand included Israel's Ynetnews, the Daily Mail in the United Kingdom, the Weekly Standard and American Thinker, the latter under the headline, "RAND Corp: Iran 8 weeks from the Bomb". [3]

The Rand Corporation's own report, Iran's Nuclear Future: Critical US Policy Choices, financed by the US Air Force and published on June 7, contained no such timetable and is about policy alternatives for the United States and urges greater engagement. [4]

The study's lead author Lynn E Davis, a senior political scientist at Rand, summed up the report in a statement saying, "The challenge for the United States is to influence how the Iranian leadership pursues [national security] interests, for they could provide reasons for acquiring nuclear weapons."

For all it is worth, the Rand report failed to mention that the US intelligence community has yet to revise its December 2009 finding that Iran as of early 2003 has stopped its nuclear weapon program. Nor does it mention that the IAEA despite its expressed concerns about the "possible military dimension" of Iran's nuclear activities has repeatedly stated that after extensive inspections it has found "no evidence of diversion of declared nuclear material".

Close scrutiny of the study shows repeated references to "considerable uncertainties" regarding Iran's nuclear program and, on page 14, it states categorically that "Iran is likely in the near to medium term to strive to stay within the bounds of international norms and laws established by the NPT [nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], while continuing with uranium enrichment and warhead experimentation."

This is hardly an affirmation of an Iranian march toward nuclear weapons, unless the scope of outside inspections of Iran's nuclear activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is considered irrelevant. The IAEA's surveillance cameras at Tehran's enrichment facility in Natanz can easily detect any diversion of nuclear material.

A report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh titled "Iran And The Bomb - How Real is the Nuclear Threat?" and published in the June 6 issue of The New Yorker magazine quotes former IAEA director general Mohammad ElBaradei as saying he didn't see "a shred of evidence" in 12 years in charge to suggest Iran is building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.

"I don’t believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran," ElBaradei, a likely candidate for future Egyptian president, told Hersh in the interview. An abstract of Hersh's piece says:
There’s a large body of evidence, however, including some of America’s most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago - allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state’s military capacities and intentions. The two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003.

Yet Iran is heavily invested in nuclear technology. In the past four years, it has tripled the number of centrifuges in operation at its main enrichment facility at Natanz, which is buried deep underground.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have expressed frustration with Iran’s level of cooperation, but have been unable to find any evidence suggesting that enriched uranium has been diverted to an illicit weapons program. [5]
Such frustration was in evidence on Monday when Yukiya Amano, ElBaradei's successor at the global nuclear watchdog, told the IAEA board the agency had acquired new "information related to possible past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities that seem to point to the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program".

The disclosure of new information came as Iran announced it would enrich nuclear fuel at an underground facility whose function had been secret until 2009, boosting its production of enriched uranium in spite of UN sanctions over its refusal to halt the enrichment program, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

It is ironic, albeit understandable from the prism of the US Air Force, which is in competition with other branches of the US military and has a vested interest in promoting itself by getting ahead in the "war-games", that the Rand report on Iran's nuclear program pays scant attention to the actual program and, instead, focuses on various potential scenarios and the policy implications for the US, Israel, and Iran's neighbors in Persian Gulf.

Although maintaining that "different future Iranian nuclear postures are possible", it nonetheless takes for granted Iran's evolution of a nuclear weapons program that allegedly could be either "virtual", ie fully developed short of building the actual bombs", or "ambiguous" or "declared". The reason for the multiple authors' collective certainty that Iran is acquiring a nuclear weapon capability is that "Iran's national security interest could be served by nuclear weapons".

Not so, and in fact the Rand study itself provides several clues that contradict its abstract generalization on Iran's national security interests, such as the implication of Iran's Arab neighbors being spurred to emulate Iran and build their own bombs and thus hurl the oil region into a costly nuclear arms race, to US playing nuclear shield for the supposedly vulnerable Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states indefinitely, etc. As the authors concede, "expanded US conventional activities could be counterproductive" and "heighten Iranian threat perception."

In addition to a distorted understanding of Iran's national security interests and priorities, the report also has a distorted view of how Iran's neighbors view the Iranian nuclear threat, claiming that none of the Gulf Cooperation States (GCC) states support "an approach that seeks to reduce the threat posed to Iran".

In fact, the myth of a monolithic GCC bloc with a unified voice on Iran needs debunking, and following the report's own line of argument, the GCC states should logically support a more congenial security environment with reduced risks for Iran that could, in turn, keep Iran's nuclear potential just that; potential rather than actual.

Interestingly, the Rand report's release coincided with a Washington conference on the changing Middle East and future of US-Iran relations on Tuesday, featuring the former head of US Central Command, Admiral James Fallon, who told the audience that there was very little chance of any US and or Israeli strike on Iran and that the US and Iran should pursue the path of comprehensive dialogue and engagement in light of their shared concerns in the region.

Unfortunately, instead of giving coverage to such voices of reason, the US media and others opted to give prominent and erroneous billing of alarming new information about Iran's nuclear program; yet another example of Chomskyan "manufacturing consent".

The Israeli government has been forced to apologise for circulating a spoof video mocking activists aboard the Gaza flotilla

I do not know where Israel is going these days. The scary part is that I don't think they know either. I do know this. The US media and political punditry would never allow a US President to get away with the behavior that is being practiced under the Netanyahu government.

Netanyahu is an absolute disaster for Israel. Netanyahu can be a disaster for American national interests. The sooner the Israeli get rid of this regime the better it will be for Israel and everyone else.

Read this article from the Guardian and tell us what part is not true. Who is the propagandist? Who is damaged by
the actions of Netanyahu? Hamas, not likely.

Can anyone, any serious person, claim that militant Islam is being hurt by the actions and deeds of the Netanyahu Government? Are US security interests being helped by this group of clumsy amateurs?

The same government under Netanyahu is now claiming that they are the only ones capable and credible to investigate the Gaza flotilla calamity. Israel and the families and victims of the shooting deserve an impartial review of the facts.

The jury pool should not include the UN or the government of Benjamin Hetanyahu. Fearing the truth is not an option.

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Israel forced to apologise for YouTube spoof of Gaza flotilla
Israeli government press office distributed video link featuring Arabs and activists singing

Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 June 2010 22.44 BST

Article history

The Israeli government has been forced to apologise for circulating a spoof video mocking activists aboard the Gaza flotilla, nine of who were shot dead by Israeli forces last week.

The YouTube clip, set to the tune of the 1985 charity single We Are the World, features Israelis dressed as Arabs and activists, waving weapons while singing: "We con the world, we con the people. We'll make them all believe the IDF (Israel Defence Force) is Jack the Ripper."

It continues: "There's no people dying, so the best that we can do is create the biggest bluff of all."

The Israeli government press office distributed the video link to foreign journalists at the weekend, but within hours emailed them an apology, saying it had been an error. Press office director Danny Seaman said the video did not reflect official state opinion, but in his personal capacity he thought it was "fantastic".

Government spokesman Mark Regev said the video reflected how Israelis felt about the incident. "I called my kids in to watch it because I thought it was funny," he said. "It is what Israelis feel. But the government has nothing to do with it."

The clip features a group led by the Jerusalem Post's deputy managing editor Caroline Glick, wearing keffiyehs and calling themselves the Flotilla Choir. The footage is interspersed with clips from the recent Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound aid ship, the Mavi Marmara.

The clip has been praised in Israel, where the mass-circulation daily Yediot Aharonot said the singers "defended Israel better than any of the experts".

But Didi Remez, an Israeli who runs the liberal-left news analysis blog Coteret, said the clip was "repulsive" and reflected how out of touch Israeli opinion was with the rest of the world. "It shows a complete lack of understanding of how the incident is being perceived abroad," she said. Award-winning Israeli journalist Meron Rapoport said the clip demonstrated prejudice against Muslims. "It's roughly done, not very sophisticated, anti-Muslim – and childish for the government to be behind such a clip," he said.

A similar press office email was sent to foreign journalists two weeks ago, recommending a gourmet restaurant and Olympic-sized swimming pool in Gaza to highlight Israel's claim there is no humanitarian crisis there. Journalists who complained the email was in poor taste were told they had "no sense of humour".

Last week, the Israel Defence Force had to issue a retraction over an audio clip it had claimed was a conversation between Israeli naval officials and people on the Mavi Marmara, in which an activist told soldiers to "go back to Auschwitz". The clip was carried by Israeli and international press, but today the army released a "clarification/correction", explaining that it had edited the footage and that it was not clear who had made the comment.

The Israeli army also backed down last week from an earlier claim that soldiers were attacked by al-Qaida "mercenaries" aboard the Gaza flotilla. An article appearing on the IDF spokesperson's website with the headline: "Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be al-Qaida mercenaries", was later changed to "Attackers of the IDF Soldiers found without identification papers," with the information about al-Qaida removed from the main article. An army spokesperson told the Guardian there was no evidence proving such a link to the terror organisation.

e

s.

The Genius of Bizzaro Netanyahu and Israel's Catastrophic Bungled Operation

To make this post, I did a search on Youtube and simply typed in the word "Israel" and constrained the search for videos posted "today". The entire page of posts were all hostile towards Israel. Israel once again has lost the propaganda war with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has cancelled his talks with Obama.

Israel is in danger of losing her only Islamic ally,Turkey. The US and British government are making statements of regret over the events.

Another job well done by the political genius, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel is isolating itself, losing sympathy, allies, and doing grave danger to its own image. The claims that masked armed troops, at night, repelling aboard civilian ships in International waters were victims of attack are ludicrous. That is on a par with a burglar suing a homeowner because he was assaulted while breaking into a window.

Defenders of Israel are lashing out at those who critcize Israel. Clearly, there are many just do not like Israel, but Israel better wake up and realize it is estranging both friends and enemies. This latest action is about as bad as it gets for international public relations.

Netanyahu must have been watching some old "Mission Impossible" films.

This latest act by Netanyahu is a self-inflicted disaster for Israel. Israel would be wise to get rid of Netantahu, fast.

If Israel stays on its present course, it will be the architect of its own undoing, to the dismay of its friends and the glee of its enemies.

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Israel reconstruction: how the Gaza aid flotilla attack unfolded


Telegraph

Kevin Ovenden, aboard the lead ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara, sensed a tense game of cat-and-mouse in the Mediterranean sea was about to come to a dramatic climax.

Having set off on Sunday hoping to avoid the Israeli military, he wrote on his blog: "We are 90 miles away from land – 22 miles further than the Israeli-decided 68-mile exclusion zone – but are being approached by an Israeli vessel.

"The Israeli media is reporting that Israel will deploy a very large naval force … this is an illegal aggressive move.
"All aboard are prepared. This is a very serious situation and we are calling on everyone to play their part in helping ensure their safety, and that the aid reaches Gaza without difficulty."

The flotilla, which had been warned that it would not be allowed to reach Gaza, attempted to slow and change course, hoping to prevent a confrontation until daylight, when the Israeli military action could be better filmed and broadcast by the activists aboard.

But at just after 4.30am, nuder cover of darkness, the Israelis called for decisive action. Orders were sent for commandos to intercept and takeover the ships – and so began a catastrophic, bungled operation which would claim the lives of up to 19 people, and draw international condemnation.

Just after Mr Ovenden had blogged about the silhouette of rubber launches and speedboats approaching on the murky waters, barely visible in the darkness, a helicopter began hovering overheard.

The aid armada was still in international waters, but commandos had swarmed around it and targeted the biggest ship, the Marmara.

Incensed by the aggressive attempt to capture their vessel, 30 or more activists gathered on the top deck and readied themselves for the assault. Hundreds more, who had been sleeping in the lower two decks, were roused by the commotion.
While groups of 10 commandos at a time jumped aboard from their rubber launches, elite troops from the Israeli commando unit Flotilla 13 rappelled down from the helicopter on to the Marmara. Their plan was to land on the top deck, rush to the vessel's bridge and order the captain to stop. They had been ordered to take control of the flotilla peacefully, just as they had with previous flotillas.

But the instant they landed, pandemonium broke loose.

Some activists claim that the troops, carrying rifles and handguns, and wearing body armour, began firing indiscriminately.
However, video footage released by the Israeli Defence Force suggested they were attacked first with a metal pole, sticks, clubs, and marble slingshots.

The troops responded with by throwing stun grenades, but the loud burst explosions that went off with each one whipped up a frenzied atmosphere as the activists believed they were being fired upon.

Television pictures showed activists with sticks bludgeoning an Israeli soldier as he tried to land on the boat from the helicopter, with activists tugging at the rope.

One commando was then grabbed by several of the protestors, who wrestled his handgun off him and allegedly threw him over the edge of the top deck, 30 feet below.

It was the point where the chaotic melee descended to bloodshed.

The Flotilla 13 troops now radioed to their commander for permission to begin shooting.
The commander replied: "You can go ahead and fire".

According to one witness, the Israeli journalist Ron Ben Yishai: "The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters' legs."

Shaking television footage showed one man lying unconscious on the deck, while another man was helped away.

A woman wearing hijab, the Muslim headscarf, was seen carrying a stretcher covered in blood.

Screams were interspersed with sounds of more gunfire.

One unnamed reporter, from Press TV, said in a broadcast: "We are being hit by tear gas, stun grenades. We have navy boats on either side and a helicopters overhead. We are being attacked from all sides. This is in intenational waters, not Israeli waters, not in the 68-mile exclusion zone."

Jamal Elshayyal, a British al-Jazeera reporter on board the Marmara, sent a final report just after the troops had landed.
"Two people have been confirmed killed by the Israeli Army, and the organisers on board the Mavi Marmara have now asked all the passengers to go inside. They have raised the white flag.

"Tens of people, civilians, have been injured. There are still sounds of live fire, despite the white flag being raised."
The broadcast stopped with a voice shouting in Hebrew "Everyone shut up" as the reporters were bundled down into the lower decks.

As the disaster unfolded, the airwaves went ominously quiet – the Israelis had scrambled all mobile phones and satellites – and the claim and counter-claim began.

Israeli authorities gave no details of the injuries suffered by activists. It confirmed that 10 were dead, although government sources suggested the figure could be as high as 19.

The Israeli military defended itself, saying the troops were deliberately ambushed by activists in a planned attack. At least ten personnel were injured, one seriously, it said.

Two of the dead activists had fired at soldiers with pistols, the army also claimed.

An IDF spokesman said: "We didn't look for confrontation but it was a massive attack," she said. "What happened was a last resort."

The stories of those onboard have yet to be told.

With the main ship effectively seized, and the supporting five boats also captured, the flotilla was guided to the port of Ashdod, while the injured and bodies of the dead were airlifted to hospitals in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ashkelon.

But supporters across the world condemned the attack on a "peaceful mission".

The Free Gaza Movement, one of the organisers of the flotilla, said the IDF had started the violence, firing as soon as they boarded the ship.

There were no firearms carried by the activists, it was claimed.

Their cargo had included simply 10,000 tonnes of aid and an eclectic mix of around 650 activists, including European parliamentarians, women, children, the media. They even had the support of "celebrity" protestors such as Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Irish Nobel peace laureate, and best selling author of the Wallander detective novels, Henning Mankell.

Netanyahu, 'durable and strong' ally that he is, but still 'insulting' to Biden

"Nobody messes with Joe' but when they do , Obama does nothing but sends a woman to do a man's job.

After the humilation of the US by Netanyahu and his crazies on the way far right, Obama didn't order Biden to get his sorry shanked-ass back to DC.

Biden remained in Israel with his stinging red face and for what? To wait a week for a five day old knish from Bibi?

Message to the Planet: Obama, that's the way he rolls, easy, real real easy.

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Netanyahu voices regret in settlement row with U.S.
Jeffrey Heller
JERUSALEM
Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:45am EDT
Related News
"
(Reuters) -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced regret Sunday for the announcement of a Jewish settlement plan that has strained ties with Washington and threatens the revival of Middle East peace talks.

In his first public remarks on what Israeli commentators called his most serious crisis with Washington since taking office a year ago, he gave no sign he would meet Palestinian demands to cancel a project for 1,600 new settler homes.

"I suggest not to get carried away and to calm down," Netanyahu told his cabinet at its weekly meeting, after a reprimand by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"There was a regrettable incident here, that occurred innocently," Netanyahu said, referring to an announcement by a government ministry during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, of planned construction in an area of the West Bank that Israel has annexed to Jerusalem.

The timing of the disclosure deeply embarrassed Biden, whose visit coincided with Palestinian agreement to restart peace talks suspended since December 2008 in the form of indirect, U.S.-mediated negotiations with Israel.

"It was hurtful and certainly it should not have happened," Netanyahu said of the announcement by the Interior Ministry, controlled by the pro-settler, ultraorthodox Shas party, a partner in his governing coalition.

Netanyahu said he had appointed a team of senior officials "to pinpoint the sequence of events, to ensure procedures will be in place to prevent these kinds of incidents in the future."

CLINTON REPRIMAND

A senior U.S. official forecast "a dicey period here in the next couple days to a couple of weeks" as Palestinians demanded the reversal of the settlement plan.

Palestinians fear settlements on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war will deny them a viable state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In unusually blunt remarks, Clinton called Israel's behavior "insulting" after it approved the project while hosting Biden.

Although she stressed Washington's ties with the Jewish state were "durable and strong," she told Netanyahu in a telephone call Friday he must act to repair the relationship.

Clinton accepted that Netanyahu was taken by surprise by the settlement housing approval. However, her spokesman said she told him it was a "deeply negative signal about Israel's approach to the bilateral relationship ... and had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process."

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was summoned to the State Department Friday to meet Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg in a further sign of U.S. displeasure, a senior U.S. official said.

U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking better U.S. relations with the Arab world, which backs the Palestinians, as he seeks to bolster alliances in the oil-producing region, notably against Iran as it develops nuclear technology and against Islamist enemies such as al Qaeda.

Aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was waiting to meet Obama's peace envoy, George Mitchell, when he returns to the region in the coming days before deciding whether to go ahead with the "proximity talks."

A senior U.S. official indicated that Washington might focus on playing down the significance of the past week's approval for future house building -- "this was a year away at minimum," he said -- and expressing understanding for Netanyahu's difficulties.

The official described the prime minister's position as "perilous" because of his coalition's dependence on pro-settler groups.

(Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; editing by Andrew Dobbie)