Pollard Defenders Vindicated

After 25 years, the CIA has declassified documents that show Jonathan Pollard never spied on the U.S. for Israel

By Lee Smith |December 20, 2012 

 NOTE FROM LT COL  H: Judge Aubrey Eugene Robinson Jr.  illegally conducted back channel communications with the prosecution who inflamed Judge Robinson by telling him (falsely) that Pollard had provided security information to South Africa.   Judge Robinson sentenced Jonathan Pollard to life in prison in 1987, claiming that information provided by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger showed that Pollard's spying on behalf of Israel had caused significant damage to American security interests. 

Pollard's Defense (regardless of the level of their security clearances ) were never given access to these charges nor afforded an opportunity to rebut them. As individual accusations leaked out they have been all successfully rebutted. Now,  After 25 years, the CIA has declassified documents that show Jonathan Pollard never spied on the U.S. for Israel. 

What adds to this outrage is that the Obama administration knows full well the facts and has elected explicitly to continue Jonathan Pollard's imprisonment in order to keep him as Dennis Ross described as a “bargaining chip”.

ARTICLE BEGINS:

Jonathan Pollard, a former Naval intelligence service analyst, broke the law by selling American secrets to Israel. For that crime, he is currently serving the 25th year of a life sentence—the same sentence handed down to Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, American intelligence officers who sold secrets to the Soviet Union, a dangerous Cold War enemy for nearly half a century.

Since his 1985 arrest, Pollard’s case has sharply divided Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. To detractors, it makes little difference that Pollard gave top secret intelligence documents to an American ally. From their perspective—and this includes many in the pro-Israel camp—one of the most dangerous spies in American history richly deserves to end his life behind bars. But to Pollard’s supporters, including those who continue to demand his freedom, even naming a square for him in Jerusalem, he is a hero of the Jewish state.

Even as Israeli leaders have regularly petitioned their American counterparts for Pollard’s release, so little has been known about the details of the Pollard case that it was easy to assume the very worst. For instance, there was the widespread belief that Pollard had committed “treason,” as then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger wrote in a memorandum to the judge sentencing Pollard. There was also speculation that the intelligence he sold to Israel had found its way into the hands of the Soviet Union, which had led to the deaths of several American agents. Perhaps the truth was even worse: Why else would former CIA director George Tenet have threatened to resign when President Bill Clinton considered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to have Pollard released?

After more than 25 years of speculation, documents released last week to the National Security Archives at George Washington University provide us, for the first time, with many of the details of the espionage activities that have made Pollard one of the most controversial figures in the history of the U.S. intelligence community. What the documents, particularly the CIA’s 1987 damage assessment of Pollard, show is that both Pollard’s detractors and supporters possess vastly distorted views of him. But it is the narrative put forth by those who insisted that Pollard was the most treacherous U.S. spy since Benedict Arnold that has caused real damage to the fabric of this country—more damage, in fact, than Jonathan Pollard ever did.

Contrary to the widespread belief, the CIA report reveals that Pollard did not procure secrets about the United States—nor did Israel ask him to. The intelligence he provided his Israeli handlers consisted of the information that the United States had acquired concerning Arab and other Middle Eastern states. This information may not change the minds of long-time detractors, but it vindicates those who have argued that Pollard, having already served a punishment that fit his crime, should be released.

***

A Stanford graduate with a B.A. in political science, Pollard started working as a naval intelligence analyst in June 1979 at the age of 24. The newly released documents verify that Pollard was an emotionally unstable man whose erratic behavior, boasting, financial problems, drug use, and fantastical stories alarmed his superiors—so much so that, in August 1980, his top-secret clearance was suspended “owing to evidence of gross unreliability,” and he was sent to a psychiatrist. Nevertheless, less than eight months later, a psychiatrist judged that he was “thoroughly capable of handling the duties of his job and not a security risk.” His top-secret clearance was reinstated in January of 1982.

In June 1984, he began his espionage career, selling secrets to Israel. (This lasted until his arrest Nov. 21, 1985.) Pollard’s initial contact was with Aviem Sella, a former Israeli pilot studying for a graduate degree at NYU. Sella eventually passed him on to Joseph Yagur, counselor for scientific affairs at the Israeli Consulate in New York, and working for an Israeli intelligence agency attached to the defense ministry known by the Hebrew acronym LAKAM, the bureau of scientific relations. Yagur, according to the damage assessment, “emphasized that Pollard should seek military and scientific intelligence on Arab States, Pakistan, and the Soviet Union in its role as military patron of the Arabs.”

Israel “did not request or receive intelligence concerning some of the most sensitive US national-security resources,” Pollard told his CIA investigators. “The Israelis never expressed interest in US military activities, plans, capabilities, or equipment. Likewise, they did not ask for intelligence on US communications per se.” The fact that Pollard did not collect intelligence against his native country is reflected in the June 4, 1986, indictment handed down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Pollard was charged with violating Title 18 United States Code, section 794(a), gathering or delivering defense information to aid a foreign government. This federal law “makes it a crime to deliver defense information to a foreign government ‘with intent or reason to believe’ that the information is to be used in one of two ways: ‘to the injury of the United States,’ or, alternatively, ‘to the advantage of a foreign nation.’ ”

Presumably recognizing that Israel is an ally and not an enemy, the indictment specifies only the second part of the statute, charging Pollard with delivering “information and documents relating to the national defense of the United States, having intent and reason to believe that the same would be used to the advantage of ISRAEL.”

“THE INDICTMENT IS SCRUPULOUS,” I WAS TOLD BY ANGELO CODEVILLA, WHO HAS FOLLOWED THE POLLARD CASE SINCE SERVING AS A SENIOR STAFF MEMBER FOR THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE FROM 1978 TO 1985. CODEVILLA ARGUES THAT THE SWARM OF ACCUSATIONS AGAINST POLLARD OVER THE YEARS IS IMPLAUSIBLE ON THE FACE OF IT. “POLLARD WAS AN ANALYST. HE IS ALLEGED TO HAVE GIVEN AWAY INFORMATION TO WHICH NO ANALYST HAD ANY ACCESS,” HE SAID. “ALL OF WHAT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT WHAT HE DID, INCLUDING THE SECRET MEMORANDUM THAT CASPAR WEINBERGER WROTE TO THE COURT IN ORDER TO INFLUENCE THE JUDGE’S SENTENCE, IS NONSENSE.”

Weinberger’s 1986 memo is available alongside the recently released cache of documents but remains heavily redacted. However, his March 1987 supplemental memo is unclassified. “The punishment imposed,” wrote Weinberger, “should reflect the perfidy of the individual’s actions, the magnitude of the treason committed, and the needs of national security.”

But of course Pollard was not charged with levying war against the United States or aiding America’s enemies—i.e., treason. Codevilla explained that Pollard’s uniquely hard sentence is a function of the Weinberger memo. “When someone is indicted,” said Codevilla, “the sentence has to be conformant with the dimensions of the damage alleged in indictment. Instead, the sentencing of Pollard was conformant with Weinberger’s memorandum to the court. He was sentenced to life on the basis of rumors.”

Indeed, as James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA under the Clinton Administration, noted to me, Pollard is serving time comparable to Ames and Hanssen’s. But unlike those two Soviet spies, said Woolsey, “Pollard did not get anybody killed and was not spying for an enemy. We’ve had South Korea, the Philippines, and Greece, all friendly countries, spy on us. We caught them and they served time, which has turned out to be a very few years, or much less time than Pollard has already served.”

Codevilla suggests that even Weinberger’s memo may have been the end result of bureaucratic bluster. “All of this started in 1981 when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak,” he said. “The CIA was aghast that the Israelis had done this, because they thought they had a good thing going with Saddam Hussein.” Even as the senators on the intelligence committee, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Scoop Jackson, all celebrated the Israeli strike, the CIA was incensed.

“BOBBY RAY INMAN [THEN DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE CIA] CAME INTO THE SENATE COMMITTEE STOMPING UP AND DOWN, AND SAID HE WAS GOING TO CUT OFF THE SATELLITE INTELLIGENCE THEY FED ISRAEL,” CODEVILLA RECALLED. “WHAT POLLARD DID WAS TO IGNORE THESE RESTRICTIONS—WHICH HE HAD NO RIGHT TO DO—AND CONTINUED TO SUPPLY ISRAEL WITH THE INFORMATION. HIS SIN WAS MORE AGAINST U.S. POLICY THAN U.S. SECURITY. THE REASON FOR THE ANIMUS AGAINST HIM WAS THAT HE SUBVERTED U.S. POLICY.”

THAT PARTICULAR POLICY DOVETAILED PERFECTLY WITH THE CIA’S LONGSTANDING PRO-ARAB PREDISPOSITION. “THAT THE CIA HAS THESE PREJUDICES IS FACT,” SAID CODEVILLA. “THE OPINION OF THIS ITALIAN-AMERICAN CATHOLIC IS THAT THERE IS ALSO A LONG RESIDUE OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE AGENCY.”

Woolsey is one of the few figures from the intelligence community, and certainly the only former director of the CIA, who believes Pollard should now be released. “When I was director, I looked into it carefully, and I opposed clemency then,” Woolsey told me. “But now some 20 years have passed and the whole point is to link sentence and comparable sentences. Anyone who thinks what he did is comparable to Ames and Hanssen has no understanding of what they did. If you are hung up on Pollard having spied for Israel, then pretend he is Filipino-American, Korean-American, or Greek-American spy (we have had all three) and the facts are otherwise the same, you’d conclude he ought to be released.”

Still, it’s doubtful that even the revelation that Pollard did not spy against the United States will change minds among his detractors, especially those critical of the U.S.-Israel alliance. After all, for those who think the bilateral relationship is more of a burden than a boon, it’s the Pollard case they cite as the prime example of Israel’s aggressive intelligence collection against the United States—a sign of ingratitude hardly appropriate, the argument goes, for a client that gets $3 billion in aid from Washington annually. Trying to reason with those who see Pollard as Exhibit A of Jews whose loyalty to their country of origin is dubious is hopeless.

Ultimately, the Pollard case is not a referendum on Jews or Israel, or the U.S.-Israel alliance. “The story of the Pollard case is a blot on American justice,” said Codevilla. “It makes you ashamed to be an American.”

 A DEVELOPMENT TO WATCH CLOSELY... WILL THIS BE ANOTHER FOREIGN POLICY UPSET FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION? { THE END OF ERDOGAN? BY JOHN HANNAH DECEMBER 20, 2013 } WHY A POWER STRUGGLE OVER TURKEY'S DEEP STATE COULD BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT.

The End of Erdogan?

 BY JOHN HANNAH  DECEMBER 20, 2013

•   
  Why a power struggle over Turkey's deep state could bring down the government.

There's a very big story developing in Turkey that all foreign policy mavens should be watching closely. Exactly how big remains to be seen, but the stakes are huge. At issue: Will the decade-long domination of Turkish politics by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) continue? Or is the Erdogan era about to come crashing down, fatally weakened by scandal, infighting, and authoritarian overreach?

Early Tuesday morning, police in Istanbul and Ankara carried out a wave of stunning arrests that included powerful businessmen, the sons of three cabinet ministers, and the head of an important state-owned financial institution, Halkbank. The operation flowed from a series of corruption-related investigations that have apparently been underway for a year or more. All the key targets swept up in the raids are closely linked to Erdogan's government.

Erdogan, characteristically, responded by going on the offensive and hurling accusations at his opponents. He attacked the action as a "dirty operation," the goal of which was to smear his administration and undermine the progress that Turkey had made under his leadership. He alluded to a dark conspiracy launched by terrorist gangs, both foreign and domestic that were operating a state within the state. While insisting that Turkey was a democracy, not some two-bit banana republic, he proceeded to engineer within a day the sacking of more than 20 high-level police officers in Istanbul and Ankara, including those directly in charge of the units that carried out the raids. More heads seem almost certain to roll. Rumors that the lead prosecutor supervising the investigations had also been removed were vehemently denied -- though two new prosecutors were suddenly (and mysteriously) added to the probe. Howls of political interference in an ongoing judicial matter erupted. The crisis deepened.

These dramatic events were simply the latest escalation in a long-simmering battle royale within the AKP's Islamist coalition. On one side: Erdogan and his followers, whose political roots lie in the transnational Muslim Brotherhood movement founded in Egypt in 1928. On the other: the Gulenists, a secretive society whose religious ideology bears a more distinctly Turkish flavor, led by Fethullah Gulen, a septuagenarian cleric who fled Turkey in the late 1990s and now lives in exile in rural Pennsylvania. Partners for much of the past decade in the AKP's systematic efforts to undermine the foundations of Ataturk's secular republic and bring the Turkish military to heel, Erdogan and the Gulenists have now turned on each other with a vengeance.

Figuring out exactly why is no easy matter. Ultimately, it's about power, of course. More specifically, it's about Erdogan and the intensifying megalomania that has become an increasingly prominent feature of his governing style. The man now appears more or less incapable of brooking any challenge to his authority. Egged on by an inner-circle of sycophants who live in fear of his wrath, Erdogan appears genuinely convinced that his personal interests and agenda, and those of the Turkish nation, are now largely synonymous. What he wants is, ipso facto, what the Turkish people need. Anyone who disagrees with him is resisting the popular will. Anyone who criticizes him is attacking Turkey and constitutes, by definition, an enemy of the state, a traitor that must be broken and neutralized.

It's a world where independent centers of power, wealth, influence, and allegiance are always a danger. Eventually, they must be cowed into submission, co-opted, or crushed, deploying as necessary the coercive levers of the state to do so -- threats, wiretaps, blackmail, tax liens, arrests, manufactured evidence, long-term imprisonment, all are fair game. In no small part, the story of the first decade of AKP rule has been its slow but methodical march through the commanding institutions of Turkish society. One by one, by hook or by crook, they have been brought into line. The bureaucracy: check. The media: check. Business: check. The courts: check. And, of course, the big enchilada, the military: check. Or, more accurately, checkmate.

From this perspective, it was perhaps only a matter of time before Erdogan set his sights on the Gulenists. They oversee a worldwide network of schools. They control their own business and media empire. They have a charismatic leader, a distinct ideology, and, it is believed, millions of loyal followers throughout Turkey. Most threatening of all, Gulenists are said to be seeded throughout the Turkish power structure, with particular influence over the police and the judiciary. Indeed, Gulenists have almost certainly been the tip of the spear in the AKP's multi-year campaign to marginalize and subjugate Turkey's military, as well as the other former pillars of the Kemalist state. But with that task largely complete, Erdogan appears to have come to the conclusion that the time was ripe to take them down a peg -- or more. Paranoid he may be, but leave it to Erdogan to recognize a threat, or at least a potential threat, to his authoritarian ambitions when he sees one.

It's been downhill ever since. Erdogan allegedly began ousting Gulenists from positions of authority in the bureaucracy. When Turkey was rocked last summer by the Gezi Park protests, Gulen and his supporters not so subtly came out against the government's heavy-handed response. Gulen's media have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism against many of Erdogan's most controversial policy positions, both foreign and domestic, as well as his increasingly autocratic rule. Then, in a major escalation of the conflict that amounted to more or less a declaration of all-out war, Erdogan proposed eliminating the dershanes, a system of exam-prep courses that serve as a major source of revenue and influence for Gulen's empire. In short order, the Gulenists retaliated on multiple fronts. In late November, their media published a classified 2004 memo from Turkey's National Security Council, signed by Erdogan, which recommended a series of measures targeting the Gulen movement. On Monday this week, a well-known Gulenist member of parliament resigned in protest from the AKP. And immediately thereafter came the police raids against Erdogan's allies, followed by Erdogan's purging of the police chiefs.

Where this confrontation goes from here is anyone's guess. It seems almost certain to get worse, even much worse -- especially in the run-up to a series of all-important local, presidential and parliamentary elections that are scheduled to kick off in March 2014. Gulen's allies in the police and prosecutor's office have already leaked a series of gory details about the corruption probe: Millions of dollars found stashed away in shoeboxes and safes belonging to the head of Halkbank and the Turkish interior minister's son. Tens of billions of dollars in illicit transactions with Iran. The existence of hours of incriminating wiretaps. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, we're told. There are ominous threats of more to come, including, it is said, videotape of a government minister with close ties to Erdogan accepting a seven-figure bribe. How much of a leap to suspect that the Gulenists could be holding in reserve some kind of nuclear option, a dossier of sorts that potentially touches the prime minister, himself? No one knows. But anything seems possible in this environment. In part it depends on just how far the Gulenists are prepared to go. Is their aim simply to get Erdogan to back off or are they really seeking to bring him down for good? At the moment, it sure feels like the latter, but nothing's certain. And that includes what steps an increasingly desperate Erdogan might be prepared to take against his opponents, with all the substantial powers at his command and feeling himself under siege and pushed to the wall.

One hopes this showdown will play itself out consistent with the rule of law and the democratic process, with the ultimate verdict delivered at the ballot box. But that's by no means a sure thing. Who can say that some revelation may not emerge, some provocation may not occur, some spark won't be lit that -- like Gezi last summer -- puts millions of angry people from opposing camps back into the streets? And this time with a ruling elite that appears irreversibly fractured and at each other's throats. Moreover, one has to ask: What do the police and other forces charged with maintaining public security do when Erdogan calls upon them yet again to crack heads and restore order? It's not too hard to see how this nastiness could get really out of hand.

Short of that, it's still almost certainly the case that Erdogan's political fortunes have been seriously weakened. Starting with his intolerant, imperious, and menacing response to Gezi six months ago, he's clearly lost his golden touch. He's making mistakes and miscalculations, repeatedly. He appears increasingly erratic, authoritarian, and thuggish. He's alienating enemies, to be sure, but allies as well -- not just among the Gulenists, but within his own camp, too. His aura of invincibility has been cracked. The widespread fear he induced in large swathes of Turkish society has been partially breached. For the first time in a decade, there are signs that he may be vulnerable politically.

Already, there are rumors that there soon could be further resignations of Gulenists from the AKP parliamentary coalition, including perhaps a small number of cabinet ministers. On the economic front, this week's news sent Turkey's stock market and currency tumbling, and it is entirely possible that a drawn out crisis could precipitate large-scale capital flight from the Turkish market. Depending on how bad the news gets, one can even imagine Erdogan's own comrades in the AKP starting to look for ways to distance themselves from him in an attempt to salvage their careers. The implosion of the AKP coalition, while perhaps still not likely, suddenly seems within the realm of possibility.

Nevertheless, given Erdogan's near-total mastery over Turkey's political scene for more than a decade, it's still probably a stretch at this point to bet against him -- much less count him out. Even in the wake of Gezi and other events, there's not yet a lot of hard evidence that either he or the AKP have suffered a major hit in popularity. And it's even harder to make the case that Turkey's rather hapless secular opposition parties have been major beneficiaries of the Islamists's internecine showdown.

What does seem far more probable today than six months ago, however, is the prospect of an Erdogan who has been seriously chastened, weakened, and constrained. If in upcoming elections, the AKP loses control of certain key cities and sees its majority in parliament significantly eroded, it will be viewed as a direct repudiation of Erdogan's alarming bid to become a modern-day sultan. It could empower other figures within the AKP with greater inclinations toward a more tolerant, moderate, and consensus-driven form of politics. It would signal that Turks had at long last grown fed up with Erdogan's particular brand of demagoguery, bullying, and creeping Islamist authoritarianism.

That could only be a good thing for Turkey's democracy and, most probably, for its relations with the rest of the world, including the United States.

On that note, it's worth highlighting that the Halkbank element to the current corruption probe should merit special interest in Washington. The state-owned bank has long been under suspicion for its relationship to Iran. But initial hints from the investigation suggest that it might have been much, much worse than anyone thought, involving potentially tens of billions of dollars in illicit transactions in a massive sanctions-busting scheme, the direct beneficiary of which would have been the Iranian nuclear program. If proven out, that's an international scandal of the first order, especially if one assumes, not unreasonably, that it could not have been carried out without the complicity of some very high-level officials in the Turkish government. It would certainly reinforce the concern that many have long-held about Erdogan's efforts to move Turkish foreign policy in directions decidedly unfriendly to America and the West. Let's wait and see what the evidence shows, but if there's a there there, it would be one more powerful reason for the United States to harbor hope that the Erdogan era as we've known it may now be coming to a close.

What American Generals Knew About Peace DECEMBER 20, 2013  Jerold Auerbach

By all indications, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, propelled by the ubiquitous John Kerry, are wending their weary way nowhere. Their most recent kerfluffle concerned the future presence of Israeli soldiers along the Jordan River Valley, which Israel demands as a necessary deterrent to infiltration and an early warning system against Arab invasion through (or above) Jordan.

The negotiators, prodded by retired US general John Allen (Kerry’s military adviser), have been quibbling over whether a small Israeli military presence would be stationed along the border, or a larger force would patrol the nine-mile wide Jordan Valley, protecting the major north-south highway that links a chain of several dozen agricultural communities inhabited by nearly ten thousand Israelis. There is also disagreement over the duration of any Israeli military presence, whether for a minimum of ten years (as Israeli negotiators insist) or not even for ten minutes (as Palestinians demand).

Palestinian Authority president Abbas claims that any Israeli military presence would undermine Palestinian national sovereignty. Prime Minister Netanyahu refuses to delegate responsibility for Israeli security to  international patrols (for reasons, remember south Lebanon and the Gaza-Sinai border). So, it seems, stalemate is assured.

Ever since 1967, when Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War returned the Jewish people to their biblical homeland in Judea and Samaria (previously Jordan’s West Bank), Israeli military and security experts have wrestled with the future of this territory. Would it be retained by Israel, as the political and religious Right demanded; relinquished to the Palestinians, as the Left  insisted; or divided? The most widely discussed postwar partition plan, presented by Cabinet minister Yigal Allon, proposed annexation of the Jordan Valley by Israel and return of the remainder of the West Bank to King Hussein of Jordan. It went nowhere.

Back then, as now, American military experts contributed their own recommendations for a territorial solution. Mark Langfan, a New York attorney who heads Americans for a Safe Israel and writes frequently about Israeli security issues, recently disclosed a top-secret U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum. Dated June 29, 1967, and signed by General Earle G. Wheeler (chairman of USJCoS), it focused on Israel’s security needs. For its time, and for its prescience, it remains an eye-opener.

The Wheeler memo analyzed Israel’s “defensible” borders. Rejecting the Jordan Valley limitations of the Allon Plan, the Joint Chiefs asserted that “from a strictly military point of view,” Israel would require “control of the prominent high ground running north-south” through the West Bank. And not only over the mountain ridge, but “a portion of the foothills” to the east to protect Israeli villages from artillery attacks. In translation, as Langfan indicates, the Israeli “military establishment,” which for years supported the far more geographically limited Allon Plan, opposed the military conclusions reached by the Joint Chiefs of Staff about Israel’s security needs. So much for Israeli intransigence.

The Joint Chiefs 1967 map of “Defensible” Israeli Borders is an eye opener:

A depiction of U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff 1967 map created by Mark Langfan.

The minimum territory recommended for Israeli security included all of Judea and the western half of Samaria. The “non-annexed zone” was confined to eastern Samaria, running from the northern tip of the Dead Sea to Israel’s pre-1967 border. And, as Langfan notes, that recommendation preceded the introduction of shoulder-fired anti-air missiles, chemical weapons, and laser guidance and radar detection that might be available to the next generation of Arab attackers.

To be sure, the Joint Chiefs’ report preceded the Oslo Accords, the illusion designed to bring peace now between Israelis and Palestinians that Secretary Kerry works so tirelessly to create. Twenty years later, however, it seems that American military experts may have known something that still eludes their Israeli counterparts. By now, even right-wing Israeli politicians have signed on to Palestinian statehood in at least part of the biblical Jewish homeland. The only issue is how much of the land west of the Jordan River, reserved ninety years ago by the League of Nations Mandate for “close settlement” by Jews, Israel will relinquish.

There are even Israeli military experts who claim that “there is no threat from the east” – as though local rocket armories, to say nothing of Iran, did not exist. To be sure, 1967 seems long ago. But perhaps the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew something about Israel’s security needs that still eludes many Israelis – and  American diplomats.

Jerold S. Auerbach is author of the forthcoming Jewish State/Pariah Nation: Israel and the Dilemmas of Legitimacy to be published in 2014.

COMMENT

• 
  
• Yoel Nitzarim  December 21, 2013 
• 
  
  Having lived on Kibbutz Newe Ur from 1976-1977 and taught English at the regional high school at Newe Eitan and the middle school at Maoz Haim, I have a good idea of the terrain along the Jordanian border in the Beit Shean Valley. Also I have travelled to Jerusalem to the south along the road bordering the Joran Valley as well as Tiberias to the north.numerous times over many years. I would aver in the strongest terms possible that Israel should NEVER capitulate one millimeter of land to a “Palestinian” entity that does not recognize the Jewish homeland; that has not honored any accord or peace negotiation in sixty-five years; that demands part of Jerusalem as its capital when there is absolutely no legal, historical, or religious precedent to validate such a demand; that teaches its children to hate Jews, Israelis, and Israel; that uses Western funds to “compensate freedom fights and their families” for the murders they committed of Israeli civilians, including women, children and the elderly; that makes martyrs of homicide bombers and perpetually indoctrinates “palestinian” children to become shahids; that ostensibly employs taqiyah to placate the West while spewing hatred and vitriol in the media against Israel and the West, especially the United States. The security of the Jewish State of Israel must never ever be compromised to those who would lie, cheat, and deceive the world in order to obtain a judenrein Israel.

From Haaretz: Negotiations will not bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Dec. 16, 2013

All the talks are intended to achieve is Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank, while leaving the conflict to fester.

By Moshe Arens |

If you thought the agreement being hammered out by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is meant to bring to an end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you have another thing coming. Nothing of the sort. Even if the agreement is signed and sealed the conflict will continue. Israel will continue to be slandered by the Palestinians and their supporters, who will continue to demand more territorial concessions and the “right of return.” There will be calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions, as well as acts of terror against Israel.

The negotiations with Abbas were held in secret. The public was been given the impression that an attempt was being made to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that if both sides were prepared to make difficult and painful decisions, the decades-long conflict could be ended.

But any clear-thinking person surely asked himself how this could be achieved by negotiating with Abbas, who at best can claim to represent no more than half of the Palestinians, without the participation of Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. One could only suppose that at some point a deus ex machina would be invoked that would solve this problem. Presumably, the partners to these secret negotiations — Kerry, Netanyahu, Abbas and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni — surely fully aware of the problem, had something up their sleeve, a rabbit to be pulled out of the hat at the last moment.

Now that the pressure is mounting to bring the talks to a conclusion, the cat has been let out of the bag, and by none other than U.S. President Barack Obama, at the Saban Forum in Washington two weeks ago. It turns out that the negotiations are not going to bring about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All they are intended to achieve is the withdrawal from Judea and Samaria of the Israel Defense Forces, while leaving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to continue to fester.

A peace deal, Obama explained, ”is going to have to happen in stages … if we can create a pathway to peace, even if initially it’s restricted to the West Bank, if there is a model where young Palestinians in Gaza are looking and seeing that in the West Bank Palestinians are able to live in dignity, with self-determination, and suddenly their economy is booming and trade is taking place … that’s something that the young people of Gaza are going to want. And the pressure that will be placed for the residents of Gaza to experience that same future is something that is going to be I think overwhelmingly appealing.”

So spake Obama. And there you have it. Of course, there is no deus ex machina. There is only the pious hope that after an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, Hamas in Gaza will begin to throw kisses rather than rockets at Israel.

This kind of reasoning sounds alarmingly familiar. When the IDF withdrew from the south Lebanon security zone in 2000, betraying its ally, the South Lebanon Army, to our everlasting shame, it was argued that Hezbollah would cease its terrorist activity against Israel and simply become another political party in Lebanon. When the IDF withdrew from the Gush Katif settlement bloc in 2005, uprooting 8000 Israelis from their homes in an unprecedented violation of the rights of Israeli citizens, it was argued that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip would be satisfied and that peace would come to southern Israel. Now the same bait is being held before Israel’s nose again. Withdraw from Judea and Samaria, and the Palestinians in Gaza will find peace with Israel “overwhelmingly appealing.”

To erase any possibility of a misunderstanding, the foreign minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, minister, announced: “Any deal inked between the Palestinian Authority and Israel would be nonbinding on the Palestinian people … the Palestinian negotiators are illegitimate and do not represent the Palestinian people.”

IRAN SCENARIO …It is spring of 2015.And assume the regime, at its dying breath, managed at least to fulfill its core ambition to destroy the Jewish state: Would it not be a worthy capstone for the Islamic Republic? Suicide is a sin, but this would be an act of martyrdom on a world-historical scale.

IRAN SCENARIO …It is spring of 2015.

As a majority of Middle East analysts predicted, Iran was able to develop nuclear weapons. And by spring of 2015 Iran had somewhere between 5 and 10 operational weapons. {Delivery of these weapons was never a problem. Aircraft delivery had been solved in 1945. Trucks and ships were always possible. Missile range had been adequate since 2012. Warhead development may have been completed undetected. Iran and Hezbollah had violated Israel's territory with drones.}

At that point, bombing Iran would be fruitless since it would not destroy Iran's nuclear capability, but would invite retaliation.

 Whether through concern about retaliation (assured mutual destruction theory) or rational calculations“ or for some other reason, Iran had not struck Israel.

Regime change which had been a US and Western objective now appeared to be happening and the ruling Iranian regime appeared isolated and likely to be overthrown.

The question on everybody's mind became: “ If the Iranian regime is in danger of being overthrown,  will they use their nuclear weapons  against Israel?"

The temptation had always been there, but now the logic of such a strike—a jihadist Hail Mary—might become persuasive.

 If the mullahs struck Israel would Israel strike back with its own nuclear weapons:? …    Or would the United States and the rest of the world say to Israel: “Whom would you  be killing, except millions of Iranians also struggling to topple the regime? " [And would this statement be correct?]

And assume the regime, at its dying breath, managed at least to fulfill its core ambition to destroy the Jewish state: Would it not be a worthy capstone for the Islamic Republic? Suicide is a sin, but this would be an act of martyrdom on a world-historical scale.

IRAN WILL GET $20B FROM SANCTIONS RELIEF

U.S. officials admit  that they greatly underestimated the economic benefits Tehran would reap from Geneva accord.

The Iranian economy is already showing signs of growth. 

{EDITED NOTES }

Senior officials in the administration of President Barack Obama have conceded over the past few days  that the value of the economic sanctions relief to Iran could be much higher than originally stated by Washington. 

In official statements by the United States immediately after the meetings in Geneva between Iran and the six powers at the end of November it was said that the economic relief Iran would receive in exchange for signing the agreement would be relatively low – $6 billion or $7 billion.

The United States had originally intended to make do with unfreezing Iranian assets in the amount of $3 billion to $4 billion. But during negotiations in Geneva, the P5+1 countries backtracked from their opening position and approved much more significant relief in a wide variety of areas: commerce in gold, the Iranian petrochemical industry, the car industry and replacement parts for civilian aircraft. But the Americans said at the time that this would at most double the original amount.

However , the Americans now concede  that the sanctions relief are worth much more. According to security sources: “Economics is a matter of expectations. The Iranian stock exchange is already rising significantly and many countries are standing in line to renew economic ties with Iran based on what was already agreed in Geneva.” The sources mentioned China’s desire to renew contracts worth some $9 billion to develop the Iranian oil industry and the interest some German companies are showing for deals with Tehran. “In any case, it’s about 20 or 25 billion dollars. 

The interim agreement is to come into force on January 15. Until then, Iran is not restricted in terms of moving ahead on its nuclear program. Israel was surprised by the public statement by Obama at the Saban Forum in Washington late last week, that the agreements allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium. This is seen as an unnecessary concession considering that negotiations with Iran are still underway

 The administration is very concerned about the objections to the agreement in Geneva by senators and congress members on both sides of the aisle. A few prominent opponents of the agreement who are experts in foreign affairs and frequently express themselves on the Middle East have articulated doubts about the deal and have called for additional heavy sanctions on Iran if the accord falls through.

The extent of the administrations’ concern can be seen in an editorial in Tuesday's New York Times. The paper reads as if it is quoting Obama’s messages on the Middle East. The article warned against the initiative of  new legislation that would complete the very effective sanctions moves  against Iran begun a  few years ago. According to the proposal, new sanctions would be instituted if at the end of the six months set out in the interim agreement a satisfactory arrangement is not reached with the Iranians.

The Times warns that the breakthrough attained in Geneva, which it calls the most positive development in relations between the United States and Iran in 30 years, will be put at risk by the initiatives in Congress. The interim agreement is “unquestionably a good deal,” which is preferable to military action and the paper echos the warnings issued both by the White House and the Iranian government against legislation that would sabotage the agreements implementation  and "enrage the Iranians.”

PROFESSOR ALAN DERSHOWITZ:“ALWAYS BELIEVE THE THREATS OF YOUR ENEMIES OVER THE PROMISES OF YOUR FRIENDS. IGNORE INTERNATIONAL LAW"

This is an excellent, direct, hard-hitting 15 minute presentation. It is required viewing for anyone who presumes to offer an opinion on Iran and/or on the “Israeli-Palestinian issue”.

Professor Alan Dershowitz:“Always believe the threats of your enemies over the promises of your friends. Ignore International Law"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbzd0QIKACo#t=302