To: David Suissa <davids@jewishjournal.com> Date: December 10, 2016
David,
The White House staff and the State Department staff are heavily pushing Pres. Obama to abstain at the UN on the Palestinian resolution concerning Israel. Dennis Ross has stated that he would not be one bit surprised if the US abstained. The betting right now in the corridors at the UN is that the US will abstain
During the lead up to the JCPOA I provided Jeff Lowenstein of Representative Adam Schiff’s office with in- depth materials concerning Iranian operations and intentions. I provided same materials to Corey Jacobson in the office of Representative Ted Lieu. [The defection of Amir Hossein Motaghi, president Rouhani’s closest confident revealed that the assessments that I provided relating to the Iranian program, Iranian intentions, and to the actions of the Secretary of State Kerry were accurate and that the inflammatory charges made by the Obama administration – that Israel was spying on the US delegation— were false and intended to inflame US public opinion against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel.]
Representative Lieu, a non-Jewish Democrat courageously voted against the administration's resolution and also issued a detailed memo explaining his concerns and the reasons for his vote against the administration’s resolution. Representative Adam Schiff not only voted for the administration’s resolution but carried to the public the talking points that has been carefully crafted by the focus groups/echo chamber constructed by Ben Rhodes of the White House staff to deceive the public. If you doubt my statement on this point ,read the New York Times story which in great detail quotes Ben Rhodes bragging about how he successfully hoodwinked the American public and the media.
Before the Yom Kippur war I was a member of the US defense department military advisory teams to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. We alerted the IDF as to the increasing military capabilities of Egypt. We were arrogantly brushed off with the explicit attitude stated, "we know the Arabs much better than you ever will… So don't tell us our business."
When Egypt attacked they had determined how to neutralize the "impassable" antitank sand barricades erected by the Israelis and were able to bridge the Suez Canal.
At that time Jim Schlesinger was Secretary of Defense. and Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State. President Nixon [who is still despised by many Jews] gave the explicit order to both Kissinger and Schlesinger that he wanted “every fucken plane flying re-supplies to Israel with no delays and no excuses”. Two of the weapon systems that I was intimately involved with played critical roles in turning the tide of battle (the TOW antitank missile and the maverick air to surface missile).
Some of the support which enabled a large segment of America's liberal Jews to support the Obama administration on negotiating and implementing the JCPOA was based on the public support given by certain retired elements of the Israeli intelligence community. These are the same people who advocate for the retention of Hamas in Gaza and keep referring to "mowing the grass". Below is an article from Commentary which should also alarm you.
You have a big responsibility. You have a big megaphone. You have great capability. However, so many of your recent articles are of the "why can't we all get along" variety.
The answer is a simple “NO”. There is a significant element of Islamic extremism that wants you, me, and every other Jew on earth dead. You can't make peace with someone who believes that achieving martyrdom will result in their being forever exalted in the Islamic world and spending all the rest of the days in paradise.
Howard
*****
Lessons of the Next Missile War
JONATHAN S. TOBIN COMMENTARY Dec. 9, 2016
Israelis have slipped back into a degree of complacence about the missile threat from Gaza since the war in 2015. The same could be said about their level of concern about a repeat of the 2006 conflict with Lebanon in which the terrorist group rained down missiles on northern Israel. Due to the success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system developed with the United States and the devastating counter-attacks against both Hezbollah and Hamas by the Israel Defense Forces, the terrorist groups are believed to understand they have more to lose than to gain from another war. But assumptions are no guarantee, and the Israeli government and military may not be taking into account the increase in the arsenals possessed by their enemies or whether sufficient resources have been allocated to ensure adequate civil defense in the event of another war with either or both.
That was the conclusion of a recently published report by Israel’s State Controller about Operation Protective Edge — Israel’s counterattack against Hamas terrorists in 2014. It pointed out shortcomings in the government and army’s response to the war as well as the possible impact on future conflicts. Up to two million Israelis don’t have access to adequate shelters in the event of missile or rocket attacks. The country’s early warning system also was found to be faulty and may not be able to detect all possible forms of attack or give citizens adequate time to seek shelter.
After extensive re-armament campaigns financed in part by Iran, both Hamas and Hezbollah may now be in possession of so many rockets that Israel’s highly successful missile defense systems might be overwhelmed. Throw in the possibility that as a result of the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah may now be in possession of at least some of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons arsenal, and the report paints a potentially fearful picture.
The report has caused considerable embarrassment for the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the IDF. That’s especially true since the report notes that the Cabinet has not spent much time discussing civil defense issues since the last war. But there is another conclusion to be drawn from the report. The strongest arguments mounted generally by critics of Netanyahu’s stance on the Palestinians have come from some of Israel’s former military and intelligence officers. They argue that Israelis are foolish to worry about the military threat posed by efforts to trade land for peace. These security experts assert that there is no border that can be drawn—even the 1949 armistice lines that the late Abba Eban described as “Auschwitz borders”— that can’t be defended by the IDF. In particular they point to the relative peace with Hezbollah in the North and with Hamas in the south as proof that deterrence works. Fears about replicating the dangerous aftermath of 2005 withdrawal from Gaza in the far larger and more strategic West Bank are exaggerated, they say, because Israel’s army is so strong and its missile defense so foolproof that even a hostile Palestinian state in the West Bank rather than a demilitarized one, would pose no existential threat.
But as the State Controller’s report shows, Israel’s security rests on assumptions that may be proven false if, encouraged by an Iranian regime that has been enriched and emboldened by President Obama’s attempt to appease them, Hezbollah and Hamas coordinate their next attacks and launch missiles in the kinds of numbers that might cause far more damage than the ineffectual campaign of 2014. If the West Bank were also held by a hostile Palestinian regime that refuses to accept Israel’s legitimacy that had access to such weapons, that peril would be compounded.
This wouldn’t be the first time the assumptions of Israeli military leaders were mistaken—the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 2006 Lebanon War being just two such examples. The lessons of the last and the next missile war don’t just apply to those tasked with defending the Jewish state against Hamas and Hezbollah. They also apply to those who would further burden its defense by the creation of yet another potential terrorist missile launching pad in the West Bank..
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