AN IMPORTANT QUESTION IS : WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF WE ALLOWED IRAN TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE CURRENT REGIME WAS OVERTHROWN?

The United States government assumes that the  current governing regime in Iran will be stable.  This  Administration hopes that by  re-engaging the Iranian regime in world diplomacy,  we will help  influence the current regime evove  toward being more liberal and more forthcoming. We assumes that if the current regime is overthrown, it will be overthrown by democratic forces, and that these democratic forces will remain in control.

 Nearly all agencies believe that we were caught off guard and did not predict the instability and  turmoil that is now Syria, Libya and Iraq...and that we  very much missed the events  in Egypt.

 Thus, an important question is : What would happen if we allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons AND  the current regime was overthrown?    This question is one that we did not quite think about explicitly when discussing the pros and cons of the pending framework agreement with Iran

An ethnic war in Iran is only a matter of time by Guy Bechor, was published in Ynetnews.com on  5-29-15.  it was re-published by ISRAPUNDIT( a very useful site concentrates on the Middle East)  on 5-30-15.{ It is the ISRAPUNDIT  presentation that I am reproducing in sending to you.

 But 1st some population statistics from US government sources.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the ethnic breakdown of Iran is as follows: Persian 61%, Azeri 16%, Kurd 10%, Lur 6%, Baloch 2%, Arab 2%, Turkmen and Turkic tribes 2%, other 1%.

Another source, Library of Congress  states Iran's ethnic group as following: Persians (65 percent), Azeri Turks (16 percent), Kurds (7 percent), Lurs (6 percent), Arabs (2 percent), Baluchis (2 percent), Turkmens (1 percent), Turkish tribal groups such as the Qashqai (1 percent), and non-Persian, non-Turkic groups such as Armenians, Assyrians, and Georgians (less than 1 percent).

Now the article

An ethnic war in Iran is only a matter of time

By Guy Bechor, YNET

Op-ed: Imagine the Islamic Republic falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias – and nuclear facilities all over the area.

On Independence Day, I received a message on Facebook from a man who lives in Iraq and wanted to congratulate the State of Israel on its independence and thank it for destroying Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981.

If it were not for that, he wrote, Iraq would have been filled with nuclear facilities, and imagine what would happen now, with the all-out war taking place there, where there are no rules and no limits and everything is permitted. Israel saved the Iraqi people, he wrote and thanked us.

Indeed, Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor, had it remained, would now be in the area occupied by the Islamic State in the al-Anbar province. What would the world do then?

His messages raises a lot of interest not just about what happened and what was prevented, but also about what will happen. Iran is an ethnically, religiously and tribally torn country, just like Iraq and Syria, and maybe even more. It has no majority ethnic group, and the Persians, because of the negative birthrate, have already become a minority, although they are the largest minority among all other minorities, 24%. The others are Azeris, Balochs (Sunnis), Tajiks (Sunni), Lurs, Turkmens (Sunnis), Kurds (mostly Sunnis), Arabs (Sunnis) and others.

Some of these minorities want to split from Iran and connect their territory to other countries. The Azeris want to join Azerbaijan; the Balochs want to join Pakistan; the Kurds want to establish the “Great Kurdistan,” which will extend over parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran; and the Arabs want to establish their own independent state which will be called Ahwaz in Arabic or Khuzestan in Persian.

In other words, a breakup and a Sunni-Shiite ethnic war and a war between different ethnic minorities is only a matter of time in Iran. The ground is already on fire, and there are constant conflicts between the Balochs and Ahwazi Arabs and the regime, which is oppressing them with an iron fist.

The only thing that is still keeping this huge disintegrating country together is the fear of the void that may be created instead of the hated regime. They are afraid to become Syria, but when the ethnic and religious impulses rage, that can no longer be stopped. That’s why it’s important for Iran to divert the attention to Israel – in order to hide this destructive internal hostility.

Imagine Iran falling apart like Syria, Iraq, Libya or Yemen in a civil war with armed militias and nuclear facilities all over the area – what a danger of mass destruction that will be. It doesn’t have to be ready bombs. With radioactive materials one can prepare “dirty nuclear bombs” or other means of horror, and we already know that there is no mercy between the Sunnis and the Shiites – they just don’t have a nuclear weapon yet.

The American administration is naively assuming that the Iranian regime will continue to rule the area, but the Bashar Assad or Muammar Gaddafi regimes were as strong, and so were the regimes in Egypt and Yemen. In addition, Iran is a sort of transit country with representatives from all the nations in the region – from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from the Persian Gulf to Turkey – and if it falls apart, dark terroristic forces will penetrate and infiltrate it.

The Persians are actually a relatively weak force among the regional forces, and it will spark a competition over who will take over the nuclear facilities faster and who will also use them – because forces like ISIS have no responsibility or limits.

So how exactly will US President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement help? It’s like flogging a dead horse. Only one question will remain: Who is the dead horse? Now no one can say they didn’t know.

A Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends

The president’s address last week to Congregation Adas Israel as “an honorary member of the tribe” was something other than it seemed. Only one  question really matters:  Should Iran be the dominant power in the Middle East, and should the US be helping it to become that power? If your answer is yes, then, by all means applaud  President Obama—loudly and enthusiastically—as he purports to repair the world.  

MICHAEL DORAN 5-28-15

Michael Doran,is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a former senior director of the National Security Council. He is finishing a book on President Eisenhower and the Middle East. 

Dear Congregants of Adas Israel:

On Friday, May 22, President Obama, calling himself “an honorary member of the tribe,” addressed you not just as the president of the United States but also as an explicit adherent of the “tikkun olam” tradition: a Jewish viewpoint for “repairing the world” that, in his reading, promotes universal progressive ideals like fighting bigotry and working for social justice everywhere. Thus, for him, the same “shared values” that underlay the civil-rights movement in the United States were what led him to identify himself with the cause of Israel—and also with the cause of Palestinian nationalism.

Although, as you may have noticed, the president never mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, the heart of his speech was devoted to justifying his own role in their by now famous conflict. At the heart of that conflict, he suggested, was Netanyahu’s presumed hostility to recognizing the rights of the Palestinians. Making references to Ramallah in one breath and Selma in the next, and sketching an ethical map that made the civil-rights movement and Palestinian nationalism interchangeable, the president implied that support for Netanyahu’s policies was tantamount to rejecting the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

It was Chemi Shalev, the U.S. editor of Haaretz, who best captured the essence of Obama’s May 22 message to you: “I represent your core values far better than the elected leader of Israel.”

To judge by the enthusiastic applause, many of you accepted the president’s sincerity and strongly agreed with his message. May I ask you, however, to pause and consider an alternative view? I cannot claim, as Obama did, membership in the tribe, but I can say that I am well informed both about the Middle East and about United States policy toward that region. In addition, I am deeply concerned about the deterioration in Israeli-American relations.

Here’s my question. As Obama donned his yarmulke and embraced your community, did you also catch the hint of a warning? If you did, it was because the president was raising, very subtly, the specter of dual loyalty: the hoary allegation that Jews pursue their tribal interests to the detriment of the wider community or nation. Obama was certainly not engaging in anything so crude as that; nor is he an enemy of the Jewish people. But he did imply that many Jews—that is, Jews who support Benjamin Netanyahu—have indeed placed their narrow, ethnic interests above their commitment to universal humanistic values. In his view, they have betrayed those values. And so the warning was faint, but unmistakable: if Jews wish to avoid being branded as bigots, then they—you—must line up with him against Netanyahu.

“But the president is right,”

many of you would no doubt reply. “Netanyahu’s values are not my values.” That may well be the case. Yet this is also why it is a trap for you to accept Obama’s claim that his fight with Netanyahu is a struggle over “values.” The struggle is not over values. Rather, at the core of the Netanyahu-Obama grudge match is one issue and one issue only: the president’s long-sought détente with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

To be sure, there are other sources of tension between the two men, both personal and political. Among them is the Israel-Palestinian issue, which the president dwelt upon at length in his remarks to you—but in the service of a goal that has nothing whatsoever to do with Israeli-Palestinian relations. If this sounds too calculating by half, consider three key points.

First, every informed observer knows there is no chance of moving Israel-Palestinian relations forward in the next two years—and also that, what with the Arab and Muslim Middle East exploding in violence, Benjamin Netanyahu is hardly the only skeptic in Israel when it comes to advancing a two-state solution any time soon. Had Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s main opposition party, won the election in March, the prospects of reaching such a compromise solution would have remained the same as under Netanyahu: that is, next to nil.

Let’s not forget that, back in April 2014, it wasn’t the Israeli government that put the final nail in the coffin of the American initiative to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu, for his part, grudgingly accepted the Americans’ draft framework agreement; Mahmoud Abbas refused. I have yet to hear the president excoriate Abbas for his betrayal of the values of progressive humanism.

Next, Obama has fallen out with or pulled away from almost every traditional American ally in the Middle East—a development that, even if it did not create the chaos now engulfing the region, has certainly played a major role in abetting it. The president’s relations with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey are nearly as strained as his relations with Netanyahu. While these leaders may shrink from disagreeing with him in public, they have unmistakably signaled their conviction that the president’s deal with Tehran will not achieve its stated goal of stopping Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon and that, in his obsessive pursuit of this deal, American policy is actively helping to turn the aggressively hostile regime of the mullahs into the dominant power in the Middle East.

Which brings me to the third point. In the course of extolling the virtues of his emerging nuclear deal, the president paused to express his unyielding commitment to shielding Israel from the threat of Iranian expansionism. Or did he? Take a look at his exact words:

[E]ven if we do get a good deal, there remains the broader issue of Iran’s support for terrorism and regional destabilization, and [its] ugly threats against Israel. And that’s why our strategic partnership with Israel will remain, no matter what happens in the days and years ahead. And that’s why the people of Israel must always know America has its back, and America will always have its back.

This gauzy rhetoric may sound reassuring but it is deliberately devoid of content—for good reason. The plain fact is that the United States is doing nothing to arrest the projection and expansion of Iranian power in the region; quite the contrary. In Lebanon, for example, Washington has cut funding for Shiite figures who remain independent of Iran’s proxy Hizballah. In Iraq, the United States, through the Iraqi armed forces, is actually coordinating with Iranian-backed militias and serving as their air force. Indeed, wherever one looks in the Middle East, one can observe an American bias in favor of, to say the least, non-confrontation with Iran and its allies.

The pattern is most glaring in Syria, where the president has repeatedly avoided conflict with Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s closest ally. The tendency surfaced again a few weeks ago in connection with mounting evidence that Assad has routinely attacked his own people with gas. If true, this fact should trigger a sharp American response in keeping with the president’s famous “red line” on the use of chemical weapons. But when questioned on this matter at a press conference, he contrived to find a loophole. Assad’s forces, he said, have been deploying chlorine gas, which “historically” has not been considered a chemical weapon.

The president’s sophistry demonstrates a simple but profound truth: his commitment to the progressive values of tikkun olam is governed by its own “red lines,” and is entirely utilitarian. Which again raises the question: what was his purpose in stressing this shared progressive commitment in his address to you, and what was his purpose in subtly reminding you of the costs of failing to abide by its terms?

The answer, I hope, is obvious. On June 30, Obama will likely conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. This will spark a faceoff with Congress, which has already declared its opposition to the deal. Congress will inevitably pass a vote of disapproval, which Obama will inevitably veto. In order to defend that veto from a congressional override, however, he must line up 34 Senators—all Democrats. This calls in turn for a preemptive ideological campaign to foster liberal solidarity—for which your support is key. If the president can convince the liberal Jewish community, on the basis of “shared values,” to shun any suspicion of alignment with congressional Republicans or Benjamin Netanyahu, he will have an easier time batting down Congress’s opposition to the deal with Iran.

Progressive values have nothing to do with what is truly at stake in this moment of decision. Only one final question really matters: in your considered view, should the Islamic Republic of Iran be the dominant power in the Middle East, and should we be helping it to become that power? If your answer is yes, then, by all means, continue to applaud the president—loudly and enthusiastically—as he purports to repair the world.

Your friend,
Michael Doran

CAPITOL HILL BRIEFING  (  May 13, 2015 ) on the findings of the recently released report 2014 Gaza Conflict Assessment: "The New Face of Conflict".

The Gaza Conflict Task Force was comprised of recently retired generals who oversaw units engaged in urban conflict in Iraq and/or Afghanistan and traveled to Israel last year to study Operation Protective Edge. They interviewed senior Israeli, Palestinian, and United Nations officials.

The briefing included:

Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, USA (ret.)
Former Commander, U.S. Army North

Major General Rick Devereaux, USAF (ret.)
Former Director of Operational Planning, Policy, and Strategy - Headquarters Air Force

Major General Mike Jones, USA (ret.)
Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Central Command

Professor Geoffrey Corn, USA (ret.)
Former Army senior law of war expert in the Office of the Judge Advocate General

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QIti7-dnxs&feature=youtu.be

When Baghdad Burned: The June 1941 Farhud Massacre

Edwin Black  5-28-15

http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/05/28/when-baghdad-burned-the-june-1941-farhud-massacre/

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“Violent dispossession.” In an Arabic dialect, the word is Farhud. For decades after it occurred, many thought the nightmare was a sudden and unexpected convulsion that afflicted the Iraqi Jewish community, one that lived in that land for some 2,600 years. But in truth, the wild rape and killing spree of June 1–2, 1941, was not unexpected. For years, the Jew hatred, anti-British rage, and Nazi agitation seethed just below the surface, like a smoking volcano waiting to erupt.

Soon after Hitler took power in 1933, Germany’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, Fritz Grobba, acquired the Christian Iraqi newspaper Al-Alem Al Arabi, converting it into a Nazi organ that published an Arabic translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in installments. Then, Radio Berlin began beaming Arabic programs across the Middle East. The Nazi ideology of Jewish conspiracy and international manipulation was widely adopted in Iraqi society, especially within the framework of the Palestine problem that dominated Iraqi politics.

As Arab Nationalism and Hitlerism fused, numerous Nazi-style youth clubs began springing up in Iraq. One pivotal group known as Futuwwa was nothing less than a clone of the Hitler Youth. In 1938, Futuwwamembers were required to attend a candlelight Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. When the delegation came back from Germany, a common chant in Arabic was, “Long live Hitler, the killer of insects and Jews.”

By the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, and a coterie of transnational Palestinian agitators, had thoroughly permeated Baghdad’s ruling circles. For example, Taha al-Hashimi, Iraqi Chief of Staff, doubled as the head of the Committee for the Defense of Palestine.

To lure more Arabs to the Nazi cause, Grobba employed such tactics as dispensing lots of cash among politicians and deploying seductive German women among ranking members of the army. German radio broadcasting in Baghdad regularly made fallacious reports about non-existent Jewish outrages in Palestine. Grobba, in conjunction with the Mufti, cultivated many Iraqis to act as surrogate Nazis.

By April 1, 1941, with WWII in full swing, a group of pro-Nazi Iraqi military men known as the Golden Square staged a coup, ousting the British-dominated government. Quickly, the Golden Square welded Iraqi actions to Berlin’s iron will. Why did they become partners? The Golden Square wanted Germany to destroy the British and Jewish presence in their country. The Third Reich craved what was beneath the ground — oil. Without that oil, still controlled by a British oil company, Germany could not invade Russia.

An abortive effort to seize British oil and military facilities in Iraq roiled throughout May 1941. But on May 28, 1941, a British military column determined to protect the oil installations finally punched toward the outskirts of Baghdad to defeat the insurgency. The Nazi-allied Golden Square and the Reich’s wirepuller, Grobba, fled the capital. On May 31, at 4 a.m., with the morning still more dark than dawn, the acting mayor emerged with a white flag on behalf of the residuum of official authority in Iraq.

The next day, on June 1, with British authority nominally restored but still withdrawn beyond the outskirts of Baghdad and the Golden Square coup plotters out of the country, the British puppet regent, Prince ‘Abd al-Ilah, returned to Iraq. During the few hours surrounding the regent’s return, a power vacuum existed in the country. It resulted in the bloodbath of June 1–2 that became known as the Farhud.

The original plans for a sweeping anti-Jewish action on June 1, organized before the pseudo-success of the British, were intended to mimic Nazi mass murder campaigns in Europe. Lists of Jews had already been compiled. Jewish homes had been marked in advanced with a blood-red hamsa, or palm prints, to guide the killing. The text announcing the mass murder and expulsion was already prepared and scheduled for radio broadcast.

But Jewish leaders who learned of the impending disaster begged for mercy from the temporary local mayoral authorities, who successfully engineered the expulsion from Baghdad of the massacre planners. The radio broadcast on May 31 merely announced that the British-appointed regent would return to his palace from his temporary refuge in Trans-Jordan.

Baghdad’s Jews had every reason to celebrate. June 1 was the joyous holy day of Shavuot, commemorating when the Law of the Torah was given to the Jews on Mt. Sinai. Baghdad’s Jews thought stability had returned to their 2,600-year existence in Iraq. They were so wrong.

At about 3:00 p.m. that June 1, Regent ‘Abd al-Ilah had landed at the airport near Baghdad. He was making his way across al-Khurr Bridge to the Palace when a contingent of Baghdadi Jews went out to greet him. As the group came to the bridge, they encountered a contingent of dejected soldiers just returning from their dismal surrender to British forces. The mere sight of these Jews, bedecked in festive holiday garb, was enough to enrage the soldiers.

Suddenly, the Jews were viciously attacked with knives and axes. Several were hacked to death right then and there on the bridge. The planned systematic extermination, now foiled, broke down into a spontaneous citywide slaughter.

Baghdad became a fast-moving hell. Frenzied mobs raced throughout the city and murdered Jews openly on the streets. Women were raped as their horrified families looked on. Infants were killed in front of their parents. Home and stores were emptied and then burned. Gunshots and screams electrified the city for hours upon hours. Beheadings, torsos sliced open, babies dismembered, horrid tortures, and mutilations were widespread. Severed limbs were waved here and there as hideous trophies.

As Baghdad burned, Jewish existence became smoke spires against the sky. Jewish shops and homes were looted and then torched. A synagogue was invaded and its Torahs burned in classic Nazi fashion. Yet British troops remained minutes away, under orders from London not to move in lest it stir Arab sentiment against the oil infrastructure.

The streets were not safe for Jews. Their homes, already well-marked as Jewish residences, were even less safe. Gangs comprised of soldiers, police, and civilian looters invaded Jewish neighborhoods with impunity.

In home after home, furniture was moved up against the door to create a barricade. As the invaders pushed at the doors, more and heavier furniture was shoved into place. The ceaseless battering and kicks eventually made progress, and inevitably, in house after house, the killers broke in. As the Arabs breached the entrances, many families would escape to the roof, one step ahead.

Fleeing Jews jumped from one roof to another. In some instances, parents and siblings threw children down from roofs to waiting blankets below. When there was no place beyond the roof, some Jews held off their attackers with boiling oil, stones, and whatever other makeshift defenses they could muster.

Women were defiled everywhere. Arabs broke into the girl’s school and the students were raped — endlessly. Six Jewish girls were carted away to a village fifteen kilometers north and located only later. One young girl was raped, and then her breasts slashed off — an all too typical crime that day. Young or old, Jewish females were set upon and mercilessly gang raped and often mutilated.

Finally, the Mayor telephoned the Regent, momentarily the supreme authority in the country, and beseeched him to issue orders to loyal troops. That he did. As the order circulated, loyal units began opening fire on the rioters, especially when they turned to Muslim neighborhoods to continue their pillage. Once the shooting began, rioters fled.

Days later, when the Regent eventually restored order, the British entered the city limits. The oil was secure. The Jews of Baghdad were not.

In truth, no one will ever know how many were murdered or maimed during those two dark days. Official statistics, based on intimidated and reluctant witnesses, listed about 110 Jews dead. Hundreds were listed as injured. But Jewish leaders said the real numbers were far greater. One Iraq historian suggested as many as 600 were murdered during the overnight rampage. The Jewish Burial Society was afraid to bury the bodies. The corpses were ignominiously collected and entombed in a large, long, rounded mass grave that resembled a massive loaf of bread.

Farhud — in Arabic, the word means violent dispossession. It was a word the Jews of wartime Europe never knew. Holocaust — it was a word the Jews of wartime Iraq never knew. But soon they would all know their meaning regardless of the language they spoke. After the events of June 1–2, 1941, both words came together.

Edwin Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust, and The Farhud — Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust. 

Obama loves the wrong Israel

 David Suissa JEWISH JOURNAL OF  LOS ANGELES  5-26-15

http://www.jewishjournal.com/david_suissa/article/obama_loves_the_wrong_israel

Every time I hear President Barack Obama tell us how much he loves Israel, I feel like asking him: Which one?

Apparently, he’s not too crazy about the current Israel. The Israel that owns his heart is the one from before 1967, when the Jewish state was a noble little nation struggling against all odds.

“I came to know Israel as a young man through these incredible images of kibbutzim and Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir and Israel overcoming incredible odds in the ’67 war,” Obama told a Washington, D.C., synagogue last Friday. “The notion of pioneers who set out not only to safeguard a nation but to remake the world. Not only to make the desert bloom but to allow their values to flourish, to ensure that the best of Judaism would thrive.”

Obama is not alone in allowing nostalgia to cover up complexity. We all do it. It feels good. It gives us hope. In Obama’s case, it allows him to dream of the old Israel in his mind, what he calls an Israel of tikkun olam, repairing the world, an Israel ensuring that “the best of Judaism would thrive.”

But like all hazy nostalgia, that old Israel is a mirage. 

The Israel of pre-1967 was far from the grand ideal Obama describes. The early Zionist pioneers did not set out to “remake the world.” They had no time for that. They were too busy building a country that could survive the onslaught of Arab armies who dreamed only of throwing them into the sea.

As Eli Lake noted in Bloomberg, when Obama waxes romantic about the days of Golda Meir, he overlooks that it was the hard-nosed Meir who famously said, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

In fact, until 1966, Arabs in Israel lived under military rule and had virtually no rights. They weren’t even allowed to contact their brethren in the West Bank. Since 1967, the Israeli Arab population has grown from 400,000 to nearly 1.8 million. And despite the hurdles they still face, Israeli Arabs are significantly better off today than they were before 1967, and it’s widely acknowledged that they have more rights, freedoms and economic opportunities than any Arabs in the Middle East.

Similarly, before 1967, Jerusalem was a dark and divided city that trampled on religious rights and turned away tourists. Since Israel united the city, it has become a top global destination and an open gateway to the world’s three great religions. 

Although far from perfect, modern Israel is a messy, loud, open, complicated, flawed, fascinating, multicultural success story that has managed to thrive despite being surrounded by Jew-hating neighbors sworn to its destruction. It’s a country that has done more tikkun olam than the early pioneers ever dreamed about, a country with a culture of self-criticism that has the built-in capacity to change and correct itself, a country, in other words, that should be a model for the rest of the Middle East.

But this messy and miraculous modern Israel has failed to seduce Obama — he’s still dreaming of the old model. In his synagogue speech, the president could only express his love for what Israel was and could be, not for what it actually is today.

Even on the all-consuming subject of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, he failed to provide the crucial context: that Israel has offered to end the occupation several times over the years, and the Palestinians walked away each time; that Israel was rewarded with 10,000 terror rockets after it gave up Gaza; and that Palestinians have continued the indoctrination of Jew-hatred throughout their society. He could have added that it is chronic Palestinian rejectionism that is mostly responsible for hardening the hearts of even peaceniks.

None of this has stopped Obama from putting the bulk of the pressure on Israel, a failed strategy that has alienated him from the majority of Israeli Jews. While portraying this pressure as an expression of his tough love, he never explained why he doesn’t offer the same kind of tough love toward the Palestinians. Don’t they deserve it? 

As he always does, the president talked about the “shared values” and “deep friendship” between America and Israel, and America’s unshakable commitment to the Jewish state’s security and right to exist. Those comments are wonderful and reassuring, but they’re also generic and automatic, a far cry from the effusive emotions he expressed for the old Israel he so misses.

Let’s tell it like it is: Obama has been there for Israel when it comes to security cooperation and vetoing anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations, but he’s been terrible at defending and protecting the reputation of America's most trusted ally in the Middle East.  

By obsessing over the Palestinian conflict and unfairly singling out Israel as the main obstacle to peace, by failing to talk about Israel’s unique value as a great example for the rest of the Middle East, and by failing to put equal pressure on the Palestinians to make peace, Obama has put Israel on the defensive and made it open season for global condemnation and isolation of the Jewish state.

No amount of love for an old and mythical Israel will undo the damage to the new and real Israel.

******

PEACE  5-26-15

Gershon Weissman · Fundraiser at Emek Lone Soldiers

When Prime Minister Netanyahu made his comments during the election period about not allowing a two state solution, he clearly was speaking to his base, HOWEVER, he was also speaking on the basis of the reality of the PA and Hamas which are the two official representatives as they are currently configured and with all the negative policies that they act upon toward Israel. I quote just a few examples below, but there are many, many more. 

PA paying terrorists who are in Israeli prisons:

http://palwatch.org/.../4_reports_PA_salaries_to...

PA Brainwashing children to hate Jews and Israel

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9319

PA honoring suicide bombers: 

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11381

Hamas brainwashing children to hate Jews and Israel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ORAM-usqhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1lMKX-Le1I

Denial of Jewish history and presence in Jerusalem and temple mount in particular

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=4...

The PA and Hamas have used almost all of its money to fund terrorism and to hurt Jews and Israel rather than help their people

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/.../ehrenfeld.html

http://www.rubincenter.org/.../where-did-all-the.../

http://www.thecommentator.com/.../palestinians_very...

http://unitedwithisrael.org/hamas-stole-700-million-in.../

The PA had its last election in 2005 and did not have the next election when it was scheduled to take place in 2009 because of the crisis between Hamas and the PA. So the 80 yr old Mahmoud Abbas has been president for ten years, with no credible successor or viable political structure able to provide the necessary stability to honor any theoretical or actual peace agreement with Israel. Hamas would most likely sabotage any agreement between Israel and the PA. I know that some colleagues believe President Jimmy Carter who says that Hamas wants to live side by side with Israel in peace, but I don't agree. 

With all the instability in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and outside the ME in Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Ukraine, Russia, North Korea, etc., I honestly don't believe that the most serious impediment to peace in the Middle East is Israel building settlements or wanting to have Israel be known as a Jewish state, or Netanyahu saying during the heat of the last election campaign that he will not support a two state solution. 

Let us remember that the days leading up to Anwar Sadat coming to Israel, a respected poll found that the overwhelming majority of Israelis were against making peace with Egypt, but then immediately upon Sadat landing in Israel, all those "angry" Israelis changed and supported making peace with Egypt. When Anwar Sadat spoke in the Knesset (which President Obama refused to do) he actually yelled at the MK's and said how bad Israel was, but when the TV cameras panned the hall and showed the faces of the MK's and many were smiling, because, the PRESIDENT OF EGYPT was speaking in the KNESSET, which meant, that HE (AND EGYPT) RECOGNIZED ISRAEL! 

Summation: Let the PA and Hamas genuinely advocate peace with their people with their desire to live in peace with Israel not in place of Israel, and we Israelis, including me, will stand up and salute the Palestinian State. I used to believe Yitzhak Rabin z'l when he said: "You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your very unsavory enemies." But I don't believe that anymore, unless our enemies are genuine in wanting to be our peaceful neighbors, and wish no more to be our enemies.

PEACE  5-26-15

Gershon Weissman · Fundraiser at Emek Lone Soldiers

When Prime Minister Netanyahu made his comments during the election period about not allowing a two state solution, he clearly was speaking to his base, HOWEVER, he was also speaking on the basis of the reality of the PA and Hamas which are the two official representatives as they are currently configured and with all the negative policies that they act upon toward Israel. I quote just a few examples below, but there are many, many more. 

PA paying terrorists who are in Israeli prisons:

http://palwatch.org/.../4_reports_PA_salaries_to...

PA Brainwashing children to hate Jews and Israel

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9319

PA honoring suicide bombers: 

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=11381

Hamas brainwashing children to hate Jews and Israel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ORAM-usqhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1lMKX-Le1I

Denial of Jewish history and presence in Jerusalem and temple mount in particular

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=4...

The PA and Hamas have used almost all of its money to fund terrorism and to hurt Jews and Israel rather than help their people

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/.../ehrenfeld.html

http://www.rubincenter.org/.../where-did-all-the.../

http://www.thecommentator.com/.../palestinians_very...

http://unitedwithisrael.org/hamas-stole-700-million-in.../

The PA had its last election in 2005 and did not have the next election when it was scheduled to take place in 2009 because of the crisis between Hamas and the PA. So the 80 yr old Mahmoud Abbas has been president for ten years, with no credible successor or viable political structure able to provide the necessary stability to honor any theoretical or actual peace agreement with Israel. Hamas would most likely sabotage any agreement between Israel and the PA. I know that some colleagues believe President Jimmy Carter who says that Hamas wants to live side by side with Israel in peace, but I don't agree. 

With all the instability in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and outside the ME in Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Ukraine, Russia, North Korea, etc., I honestly don't believe that the most serious impediment to peace in the Middle East is Israel building settlements or wanting to have Israel be known as a Jewish state, or Netanyahu saying during the heat of the last election campaign that he will not support a two state solution. 

Let us remember that the days leading up to Anwar Sadat coming to Israel, a respected poll found that the overwhelming majority of Israelis were against making peace with Egypt, but then immediately upon Sadat landing in Israel, all those "angry" Israelis changed and supported making peace with Egypt. When Anwar Sadat spoke in the Knesset (which President Obama refused to do) he actually yelled at the MK's and said how bad Israel was, but when the TV cameras panned the hall and showed the faces of the MK's and many were smiling, because, the PRESIDENT OF EGYPT was speaking in the KNESSET, which meant, that HE (AND EGYPT) RECOGNIZED ISRAEL! 

Summation: Let the PA and Hamas genuinely advocate peace with their people with their desire to live in peace with Israel not in place of Israel, and we Israelis, including me, will stand up and salute the Palestinian State. I used to believe Yitzhak Rabin z'l when he said: "You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your very unsavory enemies." But I don't believe that anymore, unless our enemies are genuine in wanting to be our peaceful neighbors, and wish no more to be our enemies.

AMERICA'S SHAMEFUL RETREAT

•  Mortimer B. Zuckerman  MAY 15, 2015
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• http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/05/15/americas-shameful-retreat-on-iran?emailed=1&src=usn_thereport
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• As a nuclear Iran nears, President Obama hides from the world.
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•       Nobody need bug the phones at Camp David to know what the Arab leaders have been telling President Barack Obama. The president has made much of the binary choice in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions: Do the deal or set out on "a march to war." It is a false choice since we could stiffen U.S. sanctions and there's the element in the equation that the emirs and princes can describe in detail: Iran is already making war in their region.

Iran's Quds Force brazenly continues fomenting and arming in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, in the Gaza Strip and in Yemen. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while he is supportive of Secretary of State John Kerry's diplomacy, he worries about the multiple mischiefs of Iran's "surrogates and proxies, weapons trafficking, ballistic missiles development, cyber activity and on occasion, their effort to threaten freedom of navigation." This last week gunboats of the Revolutionary Guard fired on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz. And The New York Times reports the Quds Force is flouting sanctions with the purchase of nine used Airbus passenger planes from the blacklisted Mahan Air.

You would think all this in-your-face activity is an odd way for Iran to behave when it is on the eve of its final nuclear negotiation with the 5+1 powers. You might even think, ye of little faith, that the Iranians have assessed our president is so keen – desperate? – to claim his legacy as a peacemaker that he will meanwhile close a blind eye. Yet only the other day, in a written Arabic and English answer to the Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsar, Obama broke out of his studied calm to indict Iran as "a state sponsor of terrorism" whose activities should rightly concern the Gulf States. What's up? Is that an awakening, in which case hooray. More likely, it was intended as an ice-breaker for the talks at Camp David. Whatever, it surely makes no sense to open a pathway to nuclear missiles for an untrustworthy nation that is already the region's prime bully and blackmailer.

Our attitude to Iran, to Israel and to our Arab allies in the region, gives the impression we have no settled strategy as we had throughout the long Cold War. We are usefully reminded of the architect of that strategy in an essay in The Wall Street Journal by Josef Joffe, a long time foreign policy expert as a Hoover Institution scholar and publisher-editor of Germany's Die Zeit. The architect was of course George Kennan in 1946, then a 42-year-old foreign service officer in the U.S. embassy in Moscow. Opinion was divided in President Harry Truman's Washington whether Joseph Stalin, our wartime ally, was ready to join the U.S. as our peacetime friend in rebuilding the postwar world of independent nations, or was, instead, dedicated to extending the reach of international communism. Kennan advocated "a long term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points." Kennan's "containment" was a political response to a political threat, though it came to have a military response to Soviet moves. He urged the U.S. to be robust in resisting Soviet subversion and truculence, rather than plunge into an uneconomic level of rearmament. "Look at the alphabet soup: U.N., NATO, IMF, WTO, along with the World Bank. All of them were good for America; selflessness is not a mark of the mighty. But these institutions lasted because they also served the interests of others by promoting such public goods as security, free trade, freedom of the seas, growth and stability," Joffe writes.

But today, as Joffe points out, Obama is establishing neither the appropriate role of arms or architecture to deal with our opponents. "Instead of containment [Obama's] policy is self-containment. Instead of balancing against the expansionist du jour, America is balancing against itself. While Russia and China are increasing military spending by 10 percent and 15 percent, the U.S. is cutting into its military muscle (minus 6 percent)," he wrote. It's like buying an insurance policy with a low premium that covers fire but not flood. 

The notion that Iran, a radical Muslim country, could be a partner in stability with the United States would be, as Joffe, put it, "pure fantasy," whose only equivalent would be one of Franklin Roosevelt enabling Stalin's Russia as a guardian of European peace in earlier decades. Why, Joffe asks, would Tehran play second fiddle to Washington when its goal is to dethrone the U.S. as the No. 1 power in the Middle East? Joffe's biting conclusion: "The 44 th president's learning curve has been flat for six years."

It is clear that Obama's long-held, key foreign policy initiative is a pact with Iran of all countries, given its religious radicalism and its hostility to the West. But Obama is promoting it and is heading toward a June 30 deadline despite the lack of support of regional powers and allies. Saudi Arabia has especially been critical of the White House. "Riyadh has also pressed the U.S. to take more-aggressive steps to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran's closest Arab ally, and to push back the Tehran-supported insurgency in Yemen," according to the Wall Street Journal. These countries understand what is at stake for themselves and for the region.

Saudi King Salman's stunning decision to withdraw from the Camp David summit signals that the Arab states see America as being wrongly directed. They might very well resort to their own efforts to thwart Tehran, just as Saudi Arabia has already done in leading a military coalition against Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. The Saudis, in their own way, are outraged that not enough progress has been made in narrowing their differences with Washington on issues such as Iran and the Syrian civil war. This is a direct statement of disagreement and disrespect with, and to, the U.S. which would have been unthinkable in the decades since the end of WWII.

Saudi Arabia, like the UAE and Qatar, is seeking more advanced weaponry to counter Iran including surveillance equipment, cruise missiles and drones. The world will become a more dangerous place, but they can't be blamed when the U.S. does not have the will to stand up for its own interests and its values. As Joffe writes, "superpowers cannot go on vacation." Our oil-rich gulf partners have fought with us as allies in multiple wars; they are anxious over the growing role and power of their historic rival Iran, the most deliberate, serious enemy in the region and one we are supporting.

Salman's symbolic gesture of dropping out of the summit – after the U.S. had announced his participation – is an open message from Saudi Arabia and the five Persian states that they are literally prepared to separate themselves from the U.S. after years of being close allies.

A former top administration envoy to the Middle East, Martin Indyk, described it well: The Gulf States "won't be sacrificed on the altar of entente with Iran." Not as long as Iran is on the march through allies and proxies and never when a nuclear deal would give Iran dramatic new legitimacy, military power – and access to more than $100 billion frozen under international sanctions.

Alas, we are witness to another step backward from this president. At first, he was unwilling to bomb Syria for using chemical weapons. Then he made a strategic pivot to Asia and the Western Pacific. Finally his military responses to the Islamic State are so meaningless that they are invisible. No wonder the Gulf States, our former allies, see us trimming back our commitment to them. No wonder they no longer trust the word of the United States and a president they judge naïve.

Into this vacuum France is upgrading its ties with the Gulf States, signing defense contracts including a $7 billion sale of fighter jets with Qatar.

Obama has managed to alienate all of our friends. At the end of this Camp David session he may understand why. Saudi Arabia is leading, but add to it Egypt which has come out publicly against American policy, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and the list goes on. Obama has finally managed to unite the Arab world and gather them together – unfortunately it is against us and not for us.

ISRAEL IS PAYING A HEAVY PRICE FOR US HELP

 Mantania Ginosar, Zionism on the Web May 2, 2015 

http://www.zionismontheweb.org/blogs/index.php/israel-s-paying-a-heavy?blog=12

From: OPERATIONS OFFICER Date: May 23, 2015  To: joe biden <info@messages.whitehouse.gov>, VALERIE JARRETT <info@mail.whitehouse.gov>, 

 This is  a well-written article.We are posting it   without comment. We are  awaiting Ben Rhodes'  rejoinder... since  this  article is now on his desk for a response.When he issues one,we will post it.

 The US has helped Israel on many fronts; therefore, we automatically believe that Israel should follow US dictates. However, Israel has paid too high a price for US erratic support. As you can read below, too many times the US has forced Israel to act against Israel's self interests -seriously reducing Israel's security. Therefore, Israel must evaluate carefully each US dictates and reject those that are detrimental to Israel's interests.
Part of the problem is that the US does not consider Israel as a fully sovereign state. The US would not dare pressure any other small country, Finland, Norway, even Lebanon, the way it pressures Israel. Israel's interests are only peripheral to the US own interests. Sometimes they are parallel, sometimes opposite

Fundamentally, the US has not grasped the complex reality of the Muslim Middle East and often acts not only against Israel's self interest, but against US' own self interests! That is why it has made major mistakes in Iraq, Syria and Egypt and is about to make the worse mistake by allowing Iran some nuclear weapons capability.

If Israel had rejected some US' pressure, Israel could have been now much more secure with significantly less danger from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the PA too.

The Arabs and the Palestinians, who often are politically wiser than Israel, have ignored most US pressure and have gotten away with it. ISRAEL SHOULD LEARN FROM THAT EXAMPLE. Israel is very small (5% of California) and above all must protect its borders and security. However, it is economically strong and its GDP, close to $300 billion, is larger than the Philippines, or Egypt, or Ireland, or Finland.

 

Israel should not be afraid to lose US help because it is likely that Israel is more important to the US than US' limited assistance to Israel. Israel is the only reliable ally the US has in the Middle East. The US has used Israel as a military base for decades and benefited from many advanced Israeli military developments. Israeli purchases of US military aid provides many jobs in the US and reduces US costs of military systems. And in the commercial area, both sides are benefiting from close technical and marketing association. And the majority of Americans support Israel.

HOW THE US HURT ISRAEL:

Let me summarize some key US- induced problems that even U.S. military, financial and UN support may not have been worth these outcomes!

I hope to send the details of each later.

1. US declared weapon embargo on the region for 20 years, weakening Israel, not the Arabs.

2. President Eisenhower stopped the 1956 Sinai war prematurely -thus helping Nasser.

3. President Johnson tried to stop the Israel's conquest of the Golan at the end of the 1967 -Six Days war. Israel rejected it.

4. Nixon stopped PM Golda Meir from starting a preemptive Israeli attack, prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur war, causing large loss of lives. And Israel barely won.

5. A critical mistake: During the Gaza withdrawal of 2005 Israel planned a "Philadelphia Corridor" to separate Egypt from southern Gaza to prevent weapon and terrorists smuggling from Egypt. However, the US forced Israel to eliminate this critical barrier.

THIS ISRAELI BARRIER WOULD HAVE MARKEDLY CURTAILED HAMAS' ABILITY TO ATTACK ISRAEL, AND WOULD HAVE SAVED MANY ISRAELI AND PALESTINIANS' LIVES!! THIS ALONE WOULD HAVE JUSTIFIED REJECTING MOST AMERICAN PRESSURE. MORE OVER, MOST AMERICAN ASSISTANCE MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN REQUIRED IF HAMAS WAS STOPPED BY THIS BARRIER.

6. The US insisted that Hamas could participate in a "democratic" election in Gaza thus allowing Hamas to take over the Gaza strip.

7. During the 2014 Gaza war President Obama pressured Israel to stop its attack on Gaza by preventing the transfer of needed and agreed upon ammunition requested by Israel during the battle.

8. The endless US driven "peace process. The US does not grasp that the Palestinians want to take over ALL OF ISRAEL, not just Gaza and West Bank. The Arabs believe that the Middle East is a Muslim region and non-Muslim should not live there.

9. The most significant issue is Iran nuclear weapon development. This US Administration purposely reduced Israel's ability to destroy Iran nuclear facilities. First by starting international negotiation, thus preempting Israel justification to destroy Iran's nuclear installations. Second, the US dragged the Iranian nuclear negotiation long enough that Israel can't bomb now the Iranian installations in an effective way. They are too secure now.

In light of these and other events, it seems to me that Israel should now stand its own grounds and not accept undesirable US dictates. Even if the US would threatens to reduce its military and political support!

The price Israel paid in the past was much too high. It may be higher in the future.

Everything Is Awesome, Mideast Edition By BRET STEPHENS    May 18, 2015 

It takes a special innocence to imagine that the chaos unfolding in the Middle East can be put right.

Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, has been offering a reassuring view of the Iranian nuclear deal in the face of some Arab skepticism. “If you can diplomatically and peacefully resolve the nuclear issue in a way that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he told reporters last week, “we believe that will lead to a much more stable region.” Mr. Rhodes also contends that with a deal “there will be no need to see [a] regional arms race.”

So what’s more frightening: That Mr. Rhodes believes what he’s saying? Or that he does not?

Just for Mr. Rhodes’s benefit, here’s a refresher course on stability and the arms race in the Middle East since April 2, 2015, the day Mr. Obama announced his framework nuclear agreement with Iran.

April 2: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif immediately accuses the U.S. of “spin” and contradicts Mr. Obama’s key claims regarding the terms of the deal.

April 12: A Swedish think tank reports that Saudi Arabia registered the biggest increase in defense spending in the world.

April 13: Moscow says it will deliver the S-300 air-defense system to Tehran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei later boasts that the U.S. “can’t do a damn thing” militarily against Iran.

April 14: Iran announces agreements with Russia and China to build additional nuclear reactors.

April 17: Iran dispatches an armed convoy of ships, believed to be destined to resupply pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen in contravention of a U.N. arms embargo. The convoy turns back after the U.S. deploys an aircraft carrier to the region to shadow the ships.

April 20: Jason Rezaian, the American-born Washington Post reporter imprisoned in Iran since July, is charged with espionage, “collaborating with hostile governments” and “propaganda against the establishment.”

April 20: The British government informs the U.N. panel monitoring sanctions on Iran that it “is aware of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network” associated with two Iranian companies that are under international sanctions.

April 22: Saudi Arabia resumes airstrikes in Yemen despite administration pressure to maintain a cease fire.

April 28: Iran seizes the 837-foot long Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands flagged cargo ship with 34 sailors aboard, as it transits the Strait of Hormuz along an internationally recognized route. The ship is released a week later after Maersk pays a fine of $163,000.

April 29: Former Saudi Intelligence Minister Turki al Faisal tells a conference in Seoul that the kingdom will match Iran’s nuclear capabilities with its own. “Whatever the Iranians have, we will have, too.” The prince also accuses Mr. Obama of going “behind the backs of the traditional allies to strike the deal.”

May 8: Reuters reports that inspectors have discovered traces of sarin gas at an undeclared military research site near Damascus. The report puts paid to administration boasts that its diplomacy effectively solved the Syrian chemical crisis.

May 11: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman withdraws from the Arab summit meeting with Mr. Obama. The king of Bahrain follows suit, preferring instead to attend a horse show with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

May 13: Reuters reports “the Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology usable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions.”

May 14: Iranian patrol boats fire upon a Singapore-flagged oil tanker with machine guns as it transits the Strait of Hormuz. The ship makes it safely to Dubai.

May 17: Citing senior U.S. officials, the Sunday Times reports that “Saudi Arabia has taken the ‘strategic decision’ to acquire ‘off-the-shelf’ atomic weapons from Pakistan.”

Also on May 17, Islamic State fighters in Iraq seize the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. This is after Mr. Obama crowed in February that “our coalition is on the offensive, ISIL is on the defensive, and ISIL is going to lose.” Now the Iraqi government will turn to Shiite paramilitaries under Iranian control to try to retake the city, further turning the Baghdad government into an Iranian satrap.

***

I recount these events not just to illustrate the distance between Ben Rhodes’s concept of reality and reality itself. It’s also a question of speed. The Middle East, along with our position in it, is unraveling at an astonishing pace. Reckless drivers often don’t notice how fast they’re going until they’re about to crash.

We are near the point where there will be no walking back the mistakes we have made. No walking away from them, either. It takes a special innocence to imagine that nothing in life is irreversible, that everything can be put right, that fanaticism yields to reason and facts yield to wishes, and that the arc of Mideast history bends toward justice.

Ben Rhodes, and the administration he represents and typifies, is special.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com