COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, December 04, 2014

Saying Israel has been ‘singled out’ ( for nuclear weapons) is like saying Federal prosecutors ‘singled out’ fraudster Bernie Madoff for prosecution over his investment pyramid scam

UN General Assembly Demands Israel Mothball its Nuclear Arsenal

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By Juan Cole | —
The United Nations General Assembly (where all 193 countries in the world get a vote) has almost unanimously demanded that Israel give up its nuclear weapons and cooperate with making the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. The only dissenters were Israel and the United States, along with three small South Pacific islands that always vote with the US, presumably in order to receive foreign aid. Some 161 countries voted for the measure.
The US complained that the resolution singled out one country for opprobrium but this allegation is frankly dishonest.
First of all, you can’t complain about singling out a country that is alone in flouting UNGA directives on nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a stockpile of nuclear warheads (several hundred). No other country in the region has so much as a proven military nuclear program. (Iran, often accused of wanting a nuclear bomb, has never been found by inspectors to have miiitarized its civilian enrichment program, and former Israel defense minister Ehud Barak admitted it publicly). Egypt brought the resolution because it is made insecure by Israel’s bombs. Current Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman once suggested blowing up the Aswan Dam and washing all Egyptians into the Mediterranean. With crazy people like that in the Israeli government, Egypt is right to be concerned about them having their finger on the nuclear trigger.
Saying Israel has been ‘singled out’ here is like saying Federal prosecutors ‘singled out’ fraudster Bernie Madoff for prosecution over his investment pyramid scam. Rather, they just prosecuted the one major financier known to have committed billions of dollars in fraud. It wasn’t like there were a lot of Bernie Madoffs, though there certainly were a lot of other kinds of shenanigans on Wall Street.
Moreover, it was a busy UNGA session, and if anyone bothered actually to look at their votes that day, you would find the UNGA also reprimanded Syria for having chemical weapons (though most of these have been destroyed via Russian mediation) and also asked Pakistan and India to give up their nukes.
So actually Israel wasn’t singled out at all, but is just in the same category in this regard (having weapons of mass destruction) as Syria, Pakistan and India.
Israel’s nuclear arsenal was acquired with British, French and American connivance, and some of the components for it were illegally smuggled out of the US by Zionist secret agents. 
Tel Aviv’s stockpile of nuclear bombs has been a deeply destabilizing factor in the Middle East. Its existence certainly impelled Iraq to try to develop its own nuclear bomb (though it never got very far). Since Iraq’s attempt in this regard was made the basis for the Bush administration to launch its 2003 war on Iraq and to occupy the country, it is not too much to conclude that Israel’s nuclear weapons are indirectly what mired the US in a fruitless 8-year war in the Middle East.
Iran is suffering from very severe international and American economic sanctions, which amount to a financial blockade (a kind of declaration of war) on the country, devastating its middle class. The reason for this attempt to de-industrialize Iran and make its people povery-stricken is the unproven allegation that Iran is violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its additional protocol.
But Iran’s supreme theocrat has given numerous oral fatwas against making, stockpiling or deploying nuclear weapons, and UN inspectors have been allowed into Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities and never found any evidence of attempted weaponization.
So Israelis are allowed to get rich and given sweetheart trade deals with the US (they even still get direct civilian aid, which is to say they are Welfare Queens on a massive scale), even though they have actually done what Iran is only vaguely suspected of maybe one day wanting to do. They don’t suffer sanctions the way the Iranians do, over the imaginary Iranian nukes, while they have real ones!
The unfair policies of the US in this regard has driven the arms race in the Middle East. Israel is a serial violator of its neighbors’ sovereignty and keeps launching wars on them, confident in the advantage its nuclear stockpile gives it. I am against nuclear proliferation, but anyone could understand why Iraq felt like it needed a nuclear counter weight to Israel. Those Iranian hawks who want a nuclear bomb want it in some important part because they know of Israel’s stockpile.
There will never be any real stability in the Middle East until Israel complies with the UNGA resolution. Apologists who point out that the Middle East has lots of problems not caused by Israel are being dishonest. The point is that Israeli policies themselves do cause a lot of problems.
——
Related video added by Juan Cole

57 comments:

  1. Nice propaganda…

    Written by whom?

    Welfare queens? Crazy people in the Israeli government?

    Yep same crap, different day…

    Maybe Israel should just go ahead and use a few of those nukes and take out those that call for it's genocide.

    Now before you call me a mass murderer or a final solution Israel firster…

    Those that advocate the genocide of the Jews? Should be killed.

    Those nations that fund, support and actively participate in blowing up Israeli civilians to cause terror and the destruction of Israel?

    SHOULD BE ELIMINATED as a nation.

    Maybe you should question WHY Israel feels the need to protect itself?

    Sitting on 1/900th of the arab controlled middle east and much less if you add in the islamic nations….

    Only an idiot would disarm in the shadow of a billion plus moslems that chant, strive and live for the day that each and every one can literally slit the throat of a Jew.

    Maybe the problem here is Israel's refusal to die…

    Yep

    That's it…

    So take your meaningless General Assembly Resolution and shove it up your ass….

    Literally…

    Oh and since Israel has kicked the shit out of every arab army WITHOUT using nukes maybe the arab islamic world should remember they are nothing but an assbackward bunch of savages….


    ReplyDelete
  2. The other nuclear rogue, North Korea, just happens to be the oher 'state' that attaked a US Nay ship on the high seas, but the Norks didn't kill any US sailors.

    The North Koreans not the barbarian swine the Zionists have proven to be.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jack, I guess you got turned down by that Zionist Swine Sly Stallone?

      He loves Israel too…

      And he KNOWS about your hatred of same…

      LOL

      Delete
    2. To hate Zionists?

      Makes you a piece of racist scum.

      Zionism is the simple desire for Jewish self determination in it's ancestral homeland.

      The League of Nations and the UNited Nations also agree…

      Seeing how you don't?

      you are out of step with the world..

      Delete
    3. Turned down?

      Not at all, "O"rdure.
      It is one reason why I am spending less time playing with you.
      I am spending more time in discussions with 'real' people, like Frank.

      Sly's back is shot to shit, two surgeries and no good has come of them.
      It is good not to be old and crippled.
      Better to be old and healthy, even better than old and wealthy.

      But healthy and wealthy, that's my game.
      Got Sly beat on that score, all the money in the world will not keep him pain free.
      {;-)

      Delete
    4. From what he told me he was QUITE happy to find out about you..

      I doubt seriously they would return a call other than to call the cops on you.

      Keep making it up…

      We will keep dashing it to the ground…

      Cause in this world there are REAL PEOPLE that have you on their watch list…

      And we DO KNOW who you are.. In real life that is…

      Delete
  3. .

    And on a completely different subject,

    IPAB - The Death Panel

    While I make fun of Sarah Palin at every opportunity, one thing I have never criticized her for was her reference to 'Death Panels' in Obamacare. Obviously, the term might be a little hyperbolic but there is some truth in the term. Worse though is what I see as the unconstitutionality of panel.

    Here are some of the things we are looking out unless this is changed.

    The individual mandate isn’t Obamacare’s only unconstitutional provision, or even its most unconstitutional provision. That distinction belongs to the Independent Payment Advisory Board. A heretofore unreported feature of this super-legislature makes it even more authoritarian and dangerous than anyone knew.

    IPAB consists of up to 15 unelected government “experts.” Its stated purpose is to restrain Medicare spending. If projected spending exceeds certain targets, Obamacare requires IPAB to issue “legislative proposals” to reduce future spending. Those proposals could include drastic cuts that jeopardize seniors’ access to care, leading some critics to label IPAB a “death panel.”

    But the really dangerous part is that these are not mere “proposals.” Obamacare requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to implement them — which means they become law automatically — unless Congress takes certain steps to head them off. Congress may replace the Board’s proposal with its own cuts, at least initially. But Obamacare requires a three-fifths vote in the Senate to pass any replacement that spends more than the Board’s proposal. In other words, to override IPAB’s proposal completely, opponents must assemble a simple majority in the House and a three-fifths majority in the Senate and the president’s signature.



    That makes IPAB more than an advisory board. It’s a super-legislature whose members are more powerful than members of Congress. If eight members of Congress propose a bill, all that’s necessary to block it is a majority of either chamber, or one-third of either chamber plus the president.

    Worse, Obamacare forbids Congress to repeal IPAB outside of a brief window in the year 2017 — and even then requires a three-fifths supermajority in both chambers plus a presidential signature. Under Obamacare, after 2017 Congress could repeal Medicare, but not the board it created to run Medicare. Congress and the states could repeal the Bill of Rights — but not IPAB.

    What kind of laws will these super-legislators impose? Obamacare supposedly prohibits these super-legislators from raising taxes or rationing care. Yet those restrictions are unenforceable and meaningless. For instance, the statute lets IPAB define “rationing” and protects that definition — along with the secretary’s implementation of IPAB’s edicts — from administrative or judicial review. The prohibition on raising taxes is likewise toothless. IPAB can raise taxes as surely as it can cut Medicare spending.

    In effect, Obamacare gives IPAB the power to raise taxes, spend money, place conditions on federal grants to states, and exercise other powers the Constitution reserves solely to Congress. If the Supreme Court upholds Obamacare’s mandated Medicaid expansion, states may soon see IPAB imposing similar mandates on states. And if President Obama fails to appoint any IPAB members, all these powers fall to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

    As if all this weren’t bad enough, we discovered a heretofore unreported feature of Obamacare. According to the statute, if Congress fails to repeal IPAB during that short window in 2017, then in 2020 Congress loses any and all power to restrain these super-legislators.


    Fortunately, even Dems, progressives, and some of those previously Gruberized by Obamacare are starting to question this part of it. Hopefully, there will be SCOTUS remedies for IPAB. If not, we will have a very narrow window to reverse this legislatively in 2017. Even then, it will be tough.

    This might be enough for me to vote Republican in 2016.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds a little like a Federal Reserve for health care.
      The Congress legislated their own second tier status.

      They've done it before..

      Delete
    2. “If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money,
      it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”

      - Andrew Jackson

      Delete
    3. Some body has to make a call on whether a treatment is to be implemented and what is to be paid for that treatment. How do you propose that be done.

      Delete
    4. .

      Somebody has to...

      It has been done and is being done right now with some level of accountability. That accountability will disappear with APAB.

      We don't need a bunch of 'unelected' officials that are independent of constraint, that can make up their own definitions of 'rationing', control decisions that effect life and death, and whose decisions can't be questioned by either the executive or legislative branch. Rat makes a good point about its similarities to the Federal Reserve. However, whereas the FED mainly effects the economy, IPAB would effect lives.

      Hopefully, SCOTUS will see it the same way.

      .

      Delete
    5. The people making the call now are insurance companies, no?

      Delete
  4. Quirk, you make excellent sense......once in a while.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That should tell you something Quirk.

      Delete
    2. .

      It does. He is coming around.

      Yesterday, I got him to admit they are all dicks.

      .

      Delete
  5. Jack is really really super fucked up today.

    Rates North Korea above Israel.

    Only a total mental retard could accomplish such a feat.

    Amazing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Certainly, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, the North Koreans do not kill US sailors when they seize our ships.
      The Israeli, they merely attacked and killed US sailors. The Israeli have killed US citizens, civilians, in their raids on maritime targets on the high seas, with no repercussions, it is, in part, what makes the Zionists swine...

      I realize that for a "Draft Dodger" like yourself, the lives of US sailors are expendable, but as for the rest of US, we don't forget.
      Nor forgive.

      Delete
    2. When has there ever been 161 votes against the North Koreans, at the UN General Assembly?

      Delete
    3. Such unanimity on any subject, at the UN, is rare.
      That the world has come together to denounce the Israeli nuclear destabilization of the world, a good thing

      Delete
    4. Henry Kissinger: ''In 10 years Israel will cease to exist''
      Less than 8 years to go ...
      http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2012/10/30/16913.shtml

      Delete
    5. Keep dreaming…

      Hold on to it…

      And in 8 years?

      Go fuck yourself.

      Delete
  6. That Jack fellow is really messed up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Answer any of the questions, Pleiades.

      When have 161 nations of the world agreed on anything, before?

      Delete
    2. When did the NorKs attack the US Navy in international waters and kill the crew members on the ship?

      Delete
    3. What was the date of the fateful and deadly attack mounted by the NorKs on a ship of the US Navy?

      Oh, wait one, there never was such an attack ...

      Delete
    4. Only the Israeli swine shot the life rafts, only the Israeli swine fired torpedoes and strafed the US Naval vessel, on the high seas.

      Attempting to kill the crew and sink the ship.
      Shades of the "Patra", when the Zionists murdered 252 Jewish war refugees, by sinking their ship.

      Delete
    5. Ah, now it's "israeli" swine…

      Jews, Zionists and Israelis are swine…

      Racist asshole…

      Delete
    6. Always been Zionist swine.
      Zionism is an ideology akin to fascism, akin to NAZIism

      Zionism is an ideology, it has nothing to do with race.

      Delete
    7. You routinely use racist terms to describe Shiites as Shits and worse. It is a rare Jew that is an overt and outright racist.

      Delete
    8. Anyone that thinks that Zionism can be equated with race, is themselves a racist.
      But one that is a fraud, a professional victim.

      Delete
    9. Jack loses credibility with his arguments in his zionist rants and I do not know why you fall for it.

      Delete
    10. In point of fact, there is nothing worse tha your routine calls for mass punishment and racial annihilation. You stand alone in being so loathsome as you are when you write this..

      Maybe Israel should just go ahead and use a few of those nukes and take out those that call for it's genocide.

      Now before you call me a mass murderer or a final solution Israel firster…

      Those that advocate the genocide of the Jews? Should be killed.

      Those nations that fund, support and actively participate in blowing up Israeli civilians to cause terror and the destruction of Israel?

      SHOULD BE ELIMINATED as a nation.

      Delete
    11. The Nazis did that very thing to little Greek villages that happened to be near incidents of Greek partisan killings of German soldiers. You talk like like a Nazi. I doubt that you would act like one but your words and sentiments are foolish, truly deplorable and you leave yourself no room to be critical of others.

      Delete
    12. The Zionist comments are not for credibility, they merely are meant expose the nakedness of the "O"rdure's position.

      The Israeli government cannot even tell the world what being a Jew means, cannot tell the world who qualifies, exactly.
      Cannot tell us if it is a religion, a tribe or a race.

      Claiming at times to be one, the other and sometimes all three.
      But there are many Zionists who do not profess to be religious Jews.
      Who do profess to be secularists.

      So, how can a Secular Zionist be classified as a Jew?
      Joe Biden and Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson are both Zionists, neither claim to be Jews.

      How can anyone claim that the Ethiopian Jews are genetically connected to European Ashkenazi, when they obviously are not?

      The Zionists are murdering swine, the lowest of the low, murdering Jewish refugees that were merely searching for a land fall.

      Delete
    13. You are insane,

      But you stand with Hamas

      I stand with Israel.

      Delete
  7. Here you go, Deuce.

    Fodder for tomorrow's post -

    The War Party Rolls on in Washington
    By Tom Engelhardt

    http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/12/04/the_war_party_rolls_on_in_washington_110839.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. The United States should give up its nuclear weapons.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every nuclear power claims that the weapons are defensive. Only one nuclear power has used them offensively and that is the US.
      Russia, China and North Korea came to the logical conclusion that the US would use nuclear weapons against a power that did not have them. The Cold War established a lesson in containment and restraint between nuclear powers that were adversaries in most ways. Neither side, and the US in particular, did to use them. Violence between India and Pakistan has been restrained by their mutual nuclear arsenals.

      France and England, and especially France under de Gualle did not believe that the US would use nuclear weapons to protect France and did the prudent thing in becoming a nuclear power.

      Japan is likely to come to a similar conclusion in that the US will not risk war with China and come to Japan’s aid in any meaningful effort. it has probably developed the ability to become nuclear with a very short notice, probably weeks.

      Iran will likely follow a similar strategy, not wanting to create a nuclear arms race with the Turks, Saudis and Egyptians.

      Israel is not unique in being a nuclear power that wouldl willingly give up its nuclear weapons. It is also not unique in another phenomena of the nuclear age and that is the motivation of adversarial states to respond to nuclear arms with the development of their own weapons.

      Delete
    2. “We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth."
      - Ronald Reagan

      To achieve that goal, the US would have to give up it nuclear arsenal, there is no doubt about that.
      Never was and never has been.

      Get on board Ronald Reagan's Peace Train, "Draft Dodger".

      Delete
  9. About the same time as the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam, the USS Pueblo, another US spy ship was captured by the North Koreans. Although it was no picnic being captured by the N.Koreans, none were killed and North Korea did not try and sink the ship and hide the deed. Neither did they deny doing it.

    North Korea never pretended to be a friend of the US and North Korea was not a recipient of US aid.

    The US never came to the aid of the North Koreans and never supplied them weapons or aircraft. There was no duplicity about what the North Koreans did.

    The US eventually apologized to the North Koreans and negotiated their return. All of them were returned.

    A little known fact is that Johnson, probably at the urging of Curtis LeMay, wanted to nuke them. LeMay made a habit of that but never was permitted to do it. Of course, the North Koreans learned of the discussions about a potential US nuclear attack having been discussed and I am sure that was motivation enough to acquire nuclear weapons.

    There is a lesson here in that Iran is aware of Israeli duplicity in the USS Liberty attack. If Israel would attack one of the only handful of countries that mysteriously defends Israel on a routine basis, surely Israel would have no compunction on attacking Iran. Israeli politicians routinely talk about attacking Iran and Iranians have been the victim of Israeli assassinations and bombings.

    Should Iran choose to develop a defensive nuclear force, Israel will have no one else to blame but itself and Iran will have done the prudent if unfortunate thing by entering the nuclear arena. Duplicity, threats of violence and economic aggression by the US and Israel, including the shooting down of a fully loaded civilian passenger plane by the US Navy have cost Iran and that lesson will not be easily forgotten.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Face it, you hate Israel and you hate those that support it.

      I can live that that, but honesty? You have jumped the shark.

      Delete
  10. With regards to the USS Pueblo, and the lack of similarity with the USS Liberty, exactly right.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Here are your peeps Deuce...

    http://6abc.com/news/suspect-charged-with-dropkick-of-woman-carrying-baby-speaks-out/419251/

    It's your community.. Your city....

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jack has outdone himself.
    Now he is telling us his comments are not for credibility !!!

    Jack HawkinsThu Dec 04, 10:27:00 PM EST

    The Zionist comments are not for credibility

    ....................

    Well !

    Har de har har

    As if anyone ever gave his comments any credibility in the first place !!

    Jack aka d. rat has also admitted to being a moron and a professional asshole.

    Such a guy !

    The guy's got the credibility of a moronic professional asshole.

    And with that, g'nite to all and to all a good night !

    Cheers !!

    And Season's Best !

    ReplyDelete
  13. But I must post this before retiring -

    In Praise of General Sisi, may he live and rule long -

    Sisi Is Not Mubarak
    December 4, 2014 by Caroline Glick 23 Comments

    Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

    2739
    Print This Post Print This Post

    al sisiOriginally published by the Jerusalem Post.

    The Egyptian court’s decision last Saturday to acquit former president Hosni Mubarak, his sons and associates of all remaining charges against them caused most commentators to proclaim that current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi has turned back the clock. Under his leadership, they say, Egypt has restored Mubarak’s authoritarian regime under a new dictator.

    While this may be how things appear on the surface, the fact of the matter is that at least as far as Israel is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth.

    During his 30-year rule, Mubarak always assessed that threats against Israel were unrelated to threats against Egypt. Due to this view, despite continuous complaints from Jerusalem, Mubarak enabled jihadists to take root in Sinai. He allowed Egypt to be used as the major path for terrorist personnel and armaments to enter Gaza. He took only minor, sporadic action against the smuggling tunnels connecting Gaza to Sinai.

    By 2005, it became apparent that forces from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and al-Qaida were operating in the Sinai and cooperating with one another.

    Despite warnings from Israel, Mubarak took no effective action to break up the emerging alliance and convergence of forces.

    It was due to Mubarak’s refusal to act that the Palestinians in Gaza were able to begin and massively expand their projectile war of mortars, rockets and missiles against Israel. From the first such attacks, carried out 14 years ago, the Palestinian projectile campaigns could never have happened without Egypt’s effective collaboration.

    On countless occasions, Palestinian terrorist commanders were able to escape to Sinai and avoid arrest by Israeli forces, only to return to Gaza from Sinai and continue their operations.

    Mubarak believed that Israel was his safety valve.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. By facilitating jihadist operations against Israel from Egyptian territory, he assumed that he was securing Egypt from them. As he saw things, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran would be so satisfied with his cooperation in their jihad against the Jews that they would leave him alone.

      It was only in 2009, when Egypt announced the unraveling of a terrorist ring in Sinai comprised of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hamas and Hezbollah operatives planning attacks against Israel and Egypt, and seeking the overthrow of the regime, that Mubarak began signaling he may have misjudged the situation. But even then, his actions against those forces were sporadic and half-hearted.

      Hamas’s continued assaults against Israel in the years that followed, and the build-up of Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida forces in Sinai, were a clear sign that Mubarak was unwilling to contend with the unpleasant reality that the very forces attacking Israel were also seeking to overthrow his regime and destroy the Egyptian state.

      In stark contrast, Sisi rose to power as those selfsame forces were poised to destroy the Egyptian state. The Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power owed in part to the support it received from Hamas.

      During the January 2011 rebellions against Mubarak, Hamas operatives played a key role in storming Egyptian prisons in Sinai and freeing Muslim Brotherhood leaders – including Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi – from prison. In 2012 and 2013, Hamas forces reportedly served as shock troops to quell protests against the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Those protests arose in opposition to Morsi’s moves to seize dictatorial powers Mubarak never dreamed of exercising, and his constitutional machinations aimed at transforming Egypt into an Islamic state and hub of a future global caliphate.

      Sisi and his generals overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood with Saudi and UAE support in order to prevent Egypt from dissolving into a Sunni jihadist axis in which Hamas, al-Qaida and other jihadist movements were key players, and Iran and Hezbollah were allied forces.

      Delete
    2. Due to the events that propelled him to power, Sisi has adopted a strategic posture far different from Mubarak’s. As Sisi sees things, Sunni jihadist forces and their Iranian-led Shi’ite allies are existential threats to the Egyptian state even when their primary target is Israel. Sisi accepts that Israel’s fight against them directly impacts Egypt.

      He recognized that when Israel is successful in defeating them, Egypt is more secure. When Israel is weak, the threat to Egypt rises.

      Like Israel, Sisi acknowledges that the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is shared by Hamas, al-Qaida and all other significant Sunni jihadist groups renders all of these groups threats to Egypt. And because of this acknowledgment, Sisi has abandoned Mubarak’s policy of enabling their war against Israel.

      Not only has he abandoned Mubarak’s policy of enabling them, Sisi has acted in alliance with Israel in combating them. This is nowhere more evident than in his actions against Hamas in Gaza.

      After seizing power in July 2013, Sisi immediately ordered the Egyptian military to take action to secure the border between Gaza and Sinai. To this end, for the first time, Egypt took effective, continuous steps to block the smuggling of arms and people between the two areas. These steps had a profound impact on Hamas’s regime. Hamas went to war against Israel this past summer in a bid to force Egypt and Israel to open their borders with Gaza in support of the Hamas regime and its jihadist allies.

      Delete
    3. Hamas was certain that footage of suffering in Gaza would force Egypt to oppose Israel, and so open its border with Gaza. It would also lead to US-led pressure on Israel that would make Israel succumb to Hamas’s demands.

      Against all expectations, and previous precedents of Egyptian behavior under both Mubarak and Morsi, Sisi supported Israel against Hamas. Moreover, he brought both Saudi Arabia and the UAE into the unofficial alliance with Israel. The bloc he formed was powerful enough to surmount US pressure to end the war by bowing to Hamas’s demands and opening Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel.

      Since the cease-fire came into force three months ago, Sisi has continued to seal the border. As a consequence, he has denied Hamas the ability to rebuild Gaza’s terror infrastructure. In its reduced state, Hamas is less able to facilitate the operations of its jihadist brethren in Sinai that are primarily involved in waging an insurgency against the Egyptian state.

      To be sure, the most significant strategic development in recent years is the US’s strategic realignment under President Barack Obama. Under Obama the US has switched sides, supporting Iran and its allies, satellites and assets, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, against America’s Sunni allies and Israel.

      But the alliance that emerged this summer between Israel and Egypt, with the participation of Saudi Arabia and the UAE , is also a highly significant strategic development. For the first time, a major regional power is basing its strategic posture on its understanding that the threats against itself and against Israel stem from the same sources and as a consequence, that the war against Israel is a war against it.

      Israelis have argued this case for years to their Arab neighbors as well as to the Americans and other Western states. But for multiple reasons, no one has ever been willing to accept this basic, obvious reality.

      As a consequence, everyone from the Americans to the Europeans to the Saudis long supported policies that empower jihadist forces against Israel.

      Sisi became the first major leader to break with this consensus, as a result of actions Hamas took before and since his rise to power. He has brought Saudi Arabia and the UAE along on his intellectual journey.

      And this reassessment has had a profound impact on regional realities generally and on Israel’s strategic posture specifically.

      From Israel’s perspective, this is a watershed event.

      The government must take every possible action, in economic and military spheres, to ensure that Sisi benefits from his actions.

      http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/sisi-is-not-mubarak/

      Delete
    4. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, O'bozo.

      You too, d. rat turd.

      Delete
  14. Might as well throw this into the pot too -

    December 4, 2014
    U.N. wants Israel to renounce nuclear weapons
    By Carol Brown

    Here’s Exhibit No 4,566,298 that the world is completely upside-down, backwards, inside-out, and inverted: the United Nations wants Israel to renounce nuclear weapons. Yahoo News reports:

    UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved an Arab-backed resolution Tuesday calling on Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under international oversight.

    The resolution, adopted in a 161-5 vote, noted that Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that is not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It called on Israel to "accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons" and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.

    The United States and Canada were among four countries that joined Israel in opposing the measure, while 18 countries abstained.

    Israel is widely considered to possess nuclear arms but declines to confirm it.

    The resolution, introduced by Egypt, echoed a similar Arab-backed effort that failed to gain approval in September at the Vienna-based IAEA….

    And this, my friends, is one among far too many examples of why the United Nations needs to be dissolved. It is a farce. Worse than a farce. It has become a legitimate place where Islamic nations convene to inflict their sickness upon the civilized world.

    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/12/un_wants_israel_to_renounce_nuclear_weapons.html#ixzz3L06fXxEo
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    ReplyDelete
  15. Let me see if I have this correct. The World has a voluntary organization of 166 sovereign nations. The US and Israel are two of the voluntary members. The US is s signatory to a Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Israel, a country of seven million, a member of the UN that represents seven billion people, flaunts the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 161 members, 97.6% of the organization, recognize the danger and instability of Israeli actions and vote to demand Israel conform to a treaty that the US helped to create and is a member...And this, my friends, is one among far too many examples of why the United Nations needs to be dissolved. It is a farce. Worse than a farce. It has become a legitimate place where Islamic nations convene to inflict their sickness upon the civilized world.

    Really?

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    1. Most of North America voted against it.

      You could carve up Canada and the USA into states and provinces and have each vote right along with every other little country in the world.

      The vote would look quite different then.

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  16. 97.6% of the World is stupid. Israel, as always is superior in all possible ways.

    The US political class, the castrado of the Israeli Lobby, supposed to be representing the American Public, a previous victim of an Israeli military assault with conventional weapons, a smaller scale sneak attack similar to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but proportionately more lethal to the American military victims, which killed and maimed “American Warriors” causing them to become “Dead Warriors” and “Wounded Warriors”, sides with Israel.

    Explain to us about which part of this is farcical, worse than a farce.

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    1. It is the Moslem nations since about 15 hundred years ago that claim an innate superiority, based on the Koran.

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  17. I just did. See above.

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