Monday, November 11, 2013
Isi Leibler: Candidly Speaking: No illusions concerning the Obama administration
Israel is heading for what could be its most severe confrontation with the United States, despite reassuring words from the Obama administration to the contrary.JPost Ed: Bad deal
President Barack Obama’s policies have led to a US retreat at all levels in the global arena, particularly in the Middle East where his disastrous policy of “engaging” with rogue states coincided with alienating, even abandoning, traditional US allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
His administration has also totally failed to mitigate the rampant bloodshed, with hundreds of civilians being killed daily in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Iran has not, apparently, agreed to significantly reduce the number of centrifuges in operation – including its newer IR-2 centrifuges – that make nuclear breakout a real possibility.Top American Jewish Leaders Slam Kerry, Obama Admin. Over Iran, Peace Talks Comments
Nor does it seem that Iran has agreed to stop construction of its Arak plutonium reactor, a project with no civilian use that, if completed, would be nearly impossible to attack, since doing so could ignite the plutonium. It has not even agreed, apparently, to significantly reduce the amount of 20-percent enriched plutonium in its possession.
And transparency, perhaps the most crucial element in any agreement, is severely lacking. All promises made by Iran must be verifiable. Sites such as Parchin, near Tehran, where Iran is thought to have conducted nuclear arms experiments, must be opened to inspectors.
“When a Secretary of State talks about starting a third Intifada, especially amid rising violence, it could have the effect, directly or indirectly of lighting the fuse,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, responding to Kerry’s remarks, in an interview with The Algemeiner.Netanyahu pleads for ‘a Palestinian Ben-Gurion’
“The danger here is that you legitimate an escalation by saying that ‘because there is no progress it can start an Intifada.’ There are elements there that will use this to legitimize what they are doing,” Hoenlein said. “We had a situation in the past where comments by American leaders and others set the standard for what Palestinian leaders say and do.”
In an address marking the 40th anniversary of the death of David Ben-Gurion, delivered at the first prime minister’s home kibbutz, Sde Boker, in the Negev, Netanyahu said Israel was committed to an end-of-conflict agreement with the Palestinians — “two states for two peoples” — and was ready to make compromises to that ends. He said he longed for the emergence of a Palestinian leader who would give “a Birzeit speech” — an address, in Arabic, at the West Bank university, to parallel his own landmark two-state speech delivered at Bar Ilan University in 2009.Netanyahu: I Won't be Silenced on Israel's Security
Speaking at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, Netanyahu warned once again that the deal being made with Iran was dangerous. He also took a shot at U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who had hinted in an interview earlier that Netanyahu was not aware of the terms of the proposed deal.Israeli protesters condemn Kerry’s remarks over 3rd intifada at US Consulate
Netanyahu responded to Kerry by saying, “I'm continuously updated in detail.”
“For decades we have been struggling mightily against a regime that calls for our destruction and it pursues nuclear weapons in order to achieve our destruction,” said Netanyahu.
The West, he added, “put together a sanctions regime that has brought Iran to its knees, crippling sanctions. The purpose of those sanctions was to get Iran to dismantle – dismantle – its nuclear enrichment capabilities, which are used for atomic bombs and its heavy water plutonium reactor, which is used for atomic bombs.
Dozens of protesters gathered to condemn US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday at Jerusalem’s US Consulate for remarks he made Thursday about the prospect of a third intifada due to Israeli intransigence, which they said resulted in the Friday firebombing of a car in Judea.Bayit Yehudi MK to Kerry: You are not an 'honest broker' to Israeli-Palestinian talks
The Bayit Yehudi MK thanked Kerry in her letter, saying his words "finally and most strikingly revealed the extent to which you cannot serve as an honest broker."Dani Dayan: Kerry to Blame if Peace Talks Fail
"Whose side are you on, Mr. Secretary? On the side of terrorists who are waging an Intifada against women and children? Or on the side of the soldiers who are saving human lives?" she asked.
“I was surprised to some degree by Kerry pressing the side that has just made concessions – Israel having just released prisoners – instead of addressing Palestinian intransigencies. But American foreign policy has been so misguided for the past month in the Middle East, that nothing can surprise me anymore,” Dayan told Tazpit News Agency.Islamists Threaten: Al Aqsa is 'a Volcano'
Sheikh Kamal al-Hatib, Deputy Head of the movement headed by radical preacher Raed Salah, said that this is “a great danger,” and that political and technical preparations have already been readied. Now, he claims – all that is need is “a halakhic [Jewish legal] decree” in order to go ahead with implementation of the plan.Hamas arrests Fatah members ahead of Arafat anniversary
This is the last step before Jews declare that work has begun on building the Third Temple, he claimed.
Hatib said “The Palestinian people will rise up to defend Al Aqsa as it did after Ariel Sharon tried to defile it in 2000.” He called the Al Aqsa Mosque “the mouth of a volcano” that is “about to explode.”
For its part, Hamas accused Fatah of refusing to cooperate on a joint commemoration of Arafat’s death. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri wrote on his Facebook page that Fatah was insisting “it should be only a Fatah ceremony.”Why did France toss a wrench in the Iran nuclear talks?
Tensions between the two factions are not uncommon on the anniversary of Arafat’s death. Hamas banned celebrations in Gaza after its security forces killed several people when clashes broke out at a memorial rally in 2007.
France blocked an agreement on Sunday to curb Iran’s nuclear program because, to cite French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, it did not want to be part of a con game that would allow Tehran to continue with its illicit atomic program.US official: Differences with Israel on Iran only ‘tactical’
France’s resistance to a perceived woefully inadequate deal prompted surprise among Iran observers and pure rage from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who described Paris on his Twitter feed as “openly hostile” toward Iran and “inept.” Al Jazeera reported that “diplomats at the talks said the last-minute objections [from France] came as a surprise and complicated the chances of agreement.”
Briefing Israeli journalists in a Jerusalem hotel, the American official said that even after limited sanctions relief in the framework of an interim deal, as proposed by the West, Iran’s economy would continue to deteriorate. The official also said it wasn’t the French but the Iranians who had rejected a temporary deal Saturday in Geneva, contrary to previous reports.Netanyahu on Iran: Worth Paying Attention When Arabs and Israelis Speak in One Voice
“You know when you have the Arabs and Israelis speaking in one voice, it doesn’t happen very often, I think it is worth paying attention to,” Netanyahu said.Shapiro: US won't let Iran get nuclear weapons, nor sign a bad deal
As a conclusion to the current round of talks drew near, Netanyahu praised world leaders earlier on Sunday for not rushing to achieve a bad deal.
He said that the US would not "squander" the leverage yielded by the crippling economic sanctions on Iran, seen as key to Tehran's decision attend talks with world powers held earlier this week in Geneva. Echoing comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry when he met with Prime MInister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem last week, Shapiro said that no deal on Iran's atomic program would be better than a bad deal. The US, he added, would not agree to a bad deal.Iran, UN agree on inspection at plutonium plant
The so-called “roadmap” described by Iran’s state TV would give the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to a key uranium mine and the site of a planned heavy water reactor, which uses a different type of coolant than regular water and produces a greater amount of plutonium byproduct than conventional reactors.Iranian deputy minister shot dead in Tehran
During the weekend talks in Geneva between Iran and six world powers, France insisted that more controls were needed on the planned reactor in the central city of Arak.
Safdar Rahmat Abadi, Iran’s deputy industries minister, was reportedly shot in his head and chest while sitting in his personal vehicle on the capital’s Golbarg Street.Iran announces new air defense missile system amid nuclear talks
Police officers at the site claimed Abadi had been talking to the gunmen prior to his assassination, and that the bullets were most likely fired from inside the vehicle, the report said.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan announced that the Islamic Republic has successfully developed a new air defense system capable of destroying modern fighter jets and drones, Iranian Fars News agency reported on Saturday.Report: Pyongyang Developing EMP Bomb
EMP weapons are detonated at high altitudes to damage computers and other electronic equipment across a very large territory, effectively sending the affected area into the Stone Age without directly killing anyone.Irwin Cotler: Testing Hassan Rouhani’s commitment to human rights
Arutz Sheva analyst Mark Langfan, who has been warning of the EMP threat for a long time, notes that North Korea and Iran have long been cooperating in the nuclear field, and that technology that reaches Pyongyang can be assumed to have reached Iran as well.
Indeed, when the US negotiated an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union in 1975, it did not turn a blind eye to the USSR’s human rights abuses; instead, the Helsinki Final Act linked the security, economics, and human rights “baskets,” with human rights emerging as the most transformative of the three. Negotiations with Iran should replicate this approach.Saeed Abedini, DC’s other Iran issue, comes to the fore
What follows is an inventory of serious human rights abuses in Iran, and a corresponding set of queries that will serve as a litmus test for the authenticity of Rouhani’s commitment to justice and human rights for the Iranian people.
Saeed Abedini may not be a household name in Israel, or even in most American homes, but for some members of Congress and his fervent supporters, he is a cause célèbre – a Jonathan Pollard or a Gilad Shalit. With talks between Iran and the P5+1 nations bringing the two sides closer to a deal over Iran’s nuclear program, the Iranian-American pastor from Boise, Idaho, is the other Iran issue – the one that is no nearer to resolution than before the talks began.Syrian opposition agrees to attend Geneva conference
The peace conference was scheduled for, later this month but it remained unclear whether it would take place due to the ambivalence of the Syrian opposition, which set preconditions for its participation.Syrian Jihadists Ban Singing and Dancing at Weddings
In a statement released Monday, the group indicated the conference must result in a political transition, a condition that must be assured before the conference begins. Guarantees that aid agencies have access besieged areas, and that prisoners be released were also on the list of conditions.
Al-Qaeda’s main branch in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has raided a wedding party in the suburb of Aleppo and ordered that music and singing be stopped, Al Arabiya reports, citing the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
“One leader of the Islamic State warned residents that if a music band is invited to a wedding again, the person responsible will be arrested because this is immoral,” the newspaper reported, citing an internet page belonging to Syrian activists.
