Incentives for murdering Jews

  By Isi Leibler 4-23-14

Continuing to release murderers undermines our national dignity and inflicts unbearable pain on families of victims.

It is a damning reflection on the civilized world that one rarely hears a word of condemnation of the criminal Palestinian society in which the murder of Jews is not only considered laudable, but has today effectively become a vehicle for achieving upward social mobility, both socially and financially.

Let us relate hypothetically to Ahmed, a typical youngster in a large and impoverished Palestinian family.

Like his peers, Ahmed has been brainwashed – since kindergarten and throughout his schooling, by the mullahs at his mosque and in the daily media – into believing that the highest level of piety is attained by killing the Israeli enemy. He knows that if he were killed while attacking a Jew, he too would become a shaheed – a martyr – and be compensated for his sacrifice by the rewards and pleasures of Paradise. Moreover, his family would be honored and would receive a lifelong state pension from our “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Ahmed recollects the interviews he watched on PA state television of mothers displaying pride in their offspring’s sacrifice on behalf of Islam, and their frequently expressed hope that some of their remaining children follow the example of the blessed martyr.

Furthermore, PA officials will ensure that even if he brutally murders innocent Israeli civilians he will be portrayed as a saintly hero of the Islamic nation and Palestinian people. Ahmed’s family name would become memorialized by city squares, roads, schools, cultural centers and even football teams named in his honor.

Of course, death is only the worst outcome. If Ahmed is fortunate enough to be captured rather than killed, he gets to have the best of all worlds. His family will continue to visit him in prison, where he is likely to receive better food than he had at home. He will even be provided with amenities such as television. Moreover, he will be able to enroll in university courses and obtain a degree – which would have been inconceivable in his former habitat. And for all this “suffering” the PA will pay him a handsome salary (using funds received from the US, EU and other donors) for every day that he remains in jail. In fact, the longer his sentence, the higher his monthly salary.

In recent years the deterrent for terror attacks was further eroded as successive Israeli governments released large groups of brutal murderers, including cold-blooded killers of infants, in return for an Israeli hostage and more recently as a prerequisite to Abbas merely agreeing to negotiate with Israel. These releases have become such a routine that Ahmed is now confident that if imprisoned, it is highly unlikely he would serve his full term.

He sees that upon his release, instead of being obliged to express remorse for his crimes, Palestinian television audiences will approvingly entreat him to describe to them in detail the ghoulish murders he committed.

Ahmed hears how correspondents from Western newspapers, like Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times, wrote a lengthy article humanizing a released terrorist, the brutal murderer of an elderly Holocaust survivor.

Rudoren noted that the murderer had been “demonized as a terrorist by the Israelis,” relating sympathetically to his complaint that as a national hero (he was elevated to the honorary rank of a PA brigadier general), the “$100,000 grants and monthly payments” received from the PA were insufficient to buy him an apartment.

The Winograd Commission reviewing the Second Lebanon War explicitly urged the enactment of legislation to prevent the premature release of convicted terrorists because of political and other considerations.

Alas, these recommendations were completely ignored, thus intensifying the incentive to murder Jews.

It is inconceivable for a self-respecting country to behave in such a demeaning manner. Would the Obama administration, which pressured our government to release these murderers, dare act in this fashion toward convicted mass murderers in US jails? The US pressured us to release these monsters and yet cautioned us against releasing those who had murdered American citizens. What hypocrisy. And as a further sickening display, the Obama administration even stooped to the level of exploiting Jonathan Pollard – who should have been released many years ago – as a pawn to pressure us.

Fifteen years ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu published a book warning that releasing terrorists would embolden extremists and encourage them to intensify their activities. Now he himself is doing precisely that.

Nobody envies the pressures currently confronting our prime minister. There are unsubstantiated rumors that the Obama administration, which obscenely lays the blame on Israel for the failure to move forward in negotiations, has threatened that unless Israel toes the line it will impose its own solution. There were also murmurs that the US could abandon support for Israel in international forums, which would open up the doors for sanctions to be applied against us.

Nor should one underestimate Netanyahu’s challenges in seeking to maintain a government comprised of parties which are all jockeying to maximize voter support for an election in the not-too-distant future.

It has been claimed that Netanyahu chose to release terrorists rather than impose any kind of construction freeze, even in outlying settlements, in order to retain his coalition. Moreover, he was – and possibly still is – contemplating releasing Israeli Arab terrorists in order to placate the Americans and Abbas.

The tension surrounding this issue reached boiling point after the murder of Baruch Mizrahi outside Hebron on Passover eve. When his murderer is ultimately apprehended, he will be sentenced to life imprisonment, but he will have grounds for confidently anticipating that within a few years he too will be released and embraced as a hero by his people.

That Abbas only mumbled that it would be premature on his part to condemn the latest murder until such time as a “full investigation of the incident was concluded” should be considered the ultimate affront.

The onus rests on Netanyahu to display leadership.

Continuing to release murderers undermines our national dignity and inflicts unbearable pain on families of victims.

The erosion of deterrence now impinges directly on the security of Israeli citizens, which must be the primary concern of any government. The current trend is creating an environment where terrorists feel that the risks and penalties they are likely to incur in shedding Jewish blood have now been dramatically minimized.

Netanyahu must reverse this policy of releasing murderers to placate the Americans and appease the Palestinians or he will be accused of standing by passively as increasing numbers of Palestinian Ahmeds feel that there is an incentive for them to murder Jews as a means of achieving upward social mobility and enhancing their family’s status.

Failure to act now will compromise Netanyahu’s leadership and undermine his legacy.

ABBAS' FICTIONAL STATE  Dr. Reuven Berko  4-24-14 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has heard about the latest videotape by al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, in which Zawahri calls Abbas a "traitor who is selling out Palestine," and has gotten cold feet. But even without the tape, Abbas can imagine what the Islamists have in store for him, and his threat to "give the keys to the Palestinian Authority back to Israel" reflects the overall air of doom and gloom shared by him and his people over the crisis plaguing the peace talks. Until recently Abbas and his people were under the impression that they would be able to leverage the pressure applied by the United States and European Union regarding the peace talks against Israel. The illusion of free achievements was backed by the Israeli Left's cries of gevald, fearing a "third intifada," a "boycott," or a "binational state." The anxiety over the "indispensable" Abbas' resignation, which may saddle Israel with chaos across the Palestinian territories, has led the Palestinians to believe that they would be able to extort further concessions from Israel en route to a de facto Palestinian state, without making any concessions on their part, as the latter may be poorly perceived in the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic arena. The latest round of peace talks has brought the Palestinians to a crossroads where a decision has to be made: they may have their state, but it would require of them to declare an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which would spell the end for their demand for a right of return. This imperative moment of truth has thrown the sly Palestinian strategy for a loop. As there is no way for the Palestinian Authority to "market" the concepts of the end of the conflict and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the angry descendants of the Palestinian refugees, Abbas has opted for zigzag policies and excuses -- such as the stalled prisoners release -- to avoid making any dramatic decision. With the Americans' help, the Palestinians have begun to gradually understand that Israel would never allow the return of the descendants of the refugees, or anyone else who seeks to see its demise. The fact that the Palestinians would have to take them into their own country, should one be formed, is perceived as existential disruption. If the Palestinian state had any control over the Jordan Valley and its crossings, the situation would be exponentially worse, as Palestine would be flooded with terrorists from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Those returning to it would undoubtedly demand a redistribution of resources, including some of the liberated lands, thus prompting land disputes, and Jihad warriors from Syria -- backed by the local population -- would impose Shariah, or Islamic law, on the area. Once the rais (president) no longer shelters under the umbrella of Israel's protection, the Islamists would reclaim the property stolen by Fatah and Abbas and his people would be hanged in the city square. The Islamists would then proceed to form a united Islamic emirate with Gaza Strip, the inception of which would take place against the backdrop of the terror groups' fight for power, all while the mujahideen execute murderous terror attacks against Israel, provoking disastrous punitive measures on Israel's part. And at the ends of the day, it would be Israel that would be blamed, as usual, for the internal massacre across the Palestinian territories, as was the case with 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon. The inception of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is a recipe for internal Palestinian disaster. The objective limitations of security and space would force Palestinian leaders to refuse the descendents of the refugees' demand for a right of return. The Palestinians would be forced to conduct transparent fiscal policies, devoid of the assistance of the Arab world and the West; they would have to put an end to corruption and take actual responsibility for their citizens, as they would have no "occupation" to blame for their failures. But Abbas does not want a Palestinian state alongside Israel -- he wants one in its place. This is why he has decided to once again seek an alliance with Hamas -- his partner in the ultimate goal. As far as Abbas is concerned, the vision of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is, in the words of the late author Gabriel García Marquez, a "chronicle of a death foretold."

Surprise Attack on Iran: Can Israel Do It?

Thomas Saether | April 16, 2014

According to a report in March by the Israeli daily Haaretz, Israel continues to prepare for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Quoting anonymous members of the Knesset who were present during hearings on the military budget, officials in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) have allegedly received instructions to continue preparing for a strike and a special budget has been allocating for that purpose. However, conducting a military operation against Iran’s key nuclear facilities would be a challenging task for the Israeli military. The distance from Israel to the Iranian nuclear sites is such that any strike using the air force would be challenging on its fuel capacity. Allocating tanker planes to the mission could alleviate part of this concern. Nonetheless, Israeli jets can't spend too much time in Iranian airspace before the mission itself is in jeopardy. Engaging Iran's air force in dogfights must be avoided. Therefore, surprise will be a necessary element in a successful Israeli mission.

A successful surprise attack is not easy to achieve. It rests on the ability to deceive the adversary. In general, a deception strategy might involve several elements, related to the timing of the operation, the military platforms involved, the targets, the routes chosen to the targets, the munitions used, and so on. There are several potential obstacles. First, preparations for conducting a military operation must be made without revealing the main elements of the surprise. Second, the political decision must be made covertly, that is, without revealing the timing of the operation. Could Israel pull it off?

Israel's History of Surprise

Israel has in the past utilized both of these elements in order to succeed with conducting military operations. Both the Entebbe operation in 1976 and the attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981 came as complete surprises to the targets due to their lack of knowledge about Israel's military capabilities and understanding of its decision-making process and willingness to accept risk.

An example of the latter factor as an element of surprise was the 1967 attack on Egyptian airfields. At the time, Israel possessed about two hundred operational jets. 188 were used against the airfields. The costs of this strategy were obvious: only twelve planes were left to defend Israel's territory. Egypt failed to understand the Israeli willingness to accept risk, which in part led to the mission's success.

Another example of deception came before the 1982 invasion of south Lebanon. Prior to the formal Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights in late 1981, Israel amassed military forces in the north to deter a Syrian response. Instead of scaling back after tension had subdued, Israel kept the forces there in order to utilize them in the forthcoming Lebanese campaign. Getting used to the increased Israeli military presence in the north, the PLO and Syria failed to consider the possibility that these might be stationed there for a forthcoming invasion. Israel was itself the victim of this strategy in 1973. Egypt conducted several large training drills prior to its surprise crossing of the Suez Canal. This made it hard for the Israelis to assess whether the Egyptian actions were part of another drill or preparation for an actual attack. The Israeli failure to acknowledge this potential Egyptian deception strategy is also an example of how a state fails in incorporating the lessons of the past. Just five years earlier the Russian army had invaded Czechoslovakia in a move that begun as a training exercise and continued as a surprise attack. The head of Israeli military intelligence at the time, Aaron Yariv, issued a directive that every major training exercise by an adversary was to be regarded as a potential attack, but this directive was forgotten by the Israeli military and political leadership after Yariv quit his position in 1972.There was an additional element to the 1973 Egyptian deception strategy. In 1968, Egyptian generals concluded that they did not have the capabilities to challenge the Israeli military. Still, the decision was to train as if it had the military capability to go through with the attack. After focusing all of its effort on covertly acquiring the necessary equipment and manpower—thereby making previous exercises more relevant—its capabilities came as a surprise to the Israelis who still assessed that the Egyptian military was in no shape to undertake the crossing. Israel learned the lesson of that experience and then utilized it in the 1981 attack on the Iraqi reactor. After having trained for months on fuel-saving maneuvers, and after just having absorbed their new U.S.-supplied F-16 fighters, the Israeli air force had acquired the necessary capabilities for the mission. It was Iraq's turn to fail in accurately updating its assessment of Israel's capabilities.

Surprise and Decision-Making

An element of deception must also be included in the decision-making process. The meeting of the Syrian-Egyptian Armed Forces Supreme Council in August 1973 serves as a precedent. In order to keep the meeting secret, all participants resorted to civilian means of transport and false passports. An important topic was on the agenda at that meeting—a decision on the two options for D-Day (only to be awaiting the final approval of presidents Sadat and Assad). It was deemed crucial that the Israelis did not learn of the meeting.

In Israel, it is the government as a whole—not the prime minister—that is the commander-in-chief of the military. The green light for a decision to attack Iran's nuclear sites must thus be obtained from the cabinet ministers. Upholding secrecy after a vote in the full ministerial cabinet is a challenge. The cabinet meets every Sunday morning. However, according to the procedure requirements, the agenda items must be finalized by the preceding Wednesday. Listing the item “military attack against Iran” is not an option since the time frame from Wednesday to Sunday is a long period to keep a secret. There are three options: assure an unscheduled meeting (which may well ring some alarms), vote in advance (that is, further outsource the decision on timing to a smaller forum, but this would still risk the leak of valuable information), or announce a general or fake topic. The Begin government chose the second option prior to the attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981. Then the ministerial cabinet approved the operation in principle and allowed the final decision to be made in the smaller security cabinet (consisting of key ministers). Former premier Ehud Olmert preferred a combination of the first and third option. The press release announcing an unscheduled cabinet meeting the day before the attack on the Syrian reactor in September 2007 said that the security cabinet was to convene to discuss “Israel's response to Kassem rocket fire from the Gaza Strip”. Another example of Olmert's masking of the decision-making process leading up to the attack on the reactor was related to a meeting with the U.S. administration in June 2007. The official reason given for the meeting between Olmert and George W. Bush on June 19 was Iran's nuclear program and the peace process. However, in that meeting Olmert urged the U.S. to attack the reactor.

Since the Iranians are expecting an operation, it would be impossible for Israel to achieve strategic surprise like they did with the attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981. However, operational and tactical surprise may be achieved with regards to how the operation will be conducted and the specific date and time of the operation. One of the major problems will be how to achieve operational surprise when preparations will need to be undertaken to counter the threat of missiles from Iran, Hezbollah, and Palestinian groups in Gaza. One solution to this defensive preparations dilemma is to conduct exercises and distribute personal protective gear continuously for a long time, so as to make it impossible for Iran to determine when an attack will be launched. This has indeed been done. In recent years, Israel has conducted numerous large home-front exercises (in part also as a result of the Syrian civil war and potential fallout). It has also distributed gas masks to a large portion of the population (although it has recently been scaled back).

Mobilization of the reserves is a complex issue in Israel that also touches on the decision-making process. The mobilization would risk being delayed if it takes place under a massive missile attack from Iran and Hezbollah. A recent report from Israel's state comptroller questioned the reserves' ability to mobilize under fire. As such, the order needs to be given prior to the initial Israeli attack. However, mobilizing the reserves would be a signal to Iran that an attack is impending. It is possible that the Israeli leadership's preferences for operational secrecy induce it to delay the mobilization until the day of the attack (to the risk of higher casualty numbers). According to Israeli law, mobilization of the reserves requires the approval of the Knesset Committee on Defense. Time could be saved with obtaining the committee's approval in the months preceding the attack. Begin obtained an approval for the operation against the Iraqi reactor in the full ministerial cabinet in October 1980, which then outsourced the timing decision to the security cabinet. To protect secrecy after a series of domestic leaks, the security cabinet later decided to leave the decision on the date of the operation to Begin, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan. A similar procedure could be implemented with regards to the decision to mobilize the reserves.

Complex military operations require lengthy preparations that cannot be concealed. However, although an adversary might know about the intention to attack, the timing and conduct of the operation are more difficult to dissect. In recent years, the Israeli military has conducted numerous offensive exercises to prepare for a potential green light from the political leadership. Two recent exercises demonstrating the capabilities of the Israeli air force took place in December 2013 and January 2014. Such exercises do not only prepare the pilots for a potential mission, it may also serve as part of a deception strategy. For several years prior to the Six Day War in 1967, Israeli aircraft could routinely be seen in the mornings hovering over the Mediterranean. As the Egyptians became familiar with the flight pattern, its air force did not pay much attention when Israeli planes followed the same route on the morning of June 5, 1967. The Israelis then launched a surprise attack. The trick used was to manipulate the adversary's perceptions and expectations. Although Iran is not neighboring Israel and does not have significant satellite surveillance assets, it does have some intelligence capabilities that it uses to monitor Israel. For example, an Iranian radar is stationed in Syria. Iran is also known to be studying Israel's military conduct in past campaigns. The head of the Iranian Civil Defense Organization Gholam Reza Jalali recently stated that it had sent a team to Lebanon after the 2006 war to study the effect of Israeli munitions on destroyed buildings. Apparently, Iran is also monitoring Israeli intentions and decision making. On January 26, 2013—four days prior to an Israeli attack on a convoy carrying missiles from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon—Supreme Leader Khamenei's close advisor Ali Akbar Velayati stated that Iran would perceive an attack on Syria as an attack on Iran itself. Velayati might have known about the transport in advance and attempted to increase its chance of reaching its destination by creating a deterrent against an Israeli attack. This suggests that the Iranian regime have some understanding of Israeli intentions and redlines. Two Israeli signals are typical of an impending attack: deployment of Iron Dome batteries in areas of likely fallout and unscheduled meetings in the security cabinet. However, since the Israelis know there are under surveillance, they can also use it for deception. As long as the Syrian civil war continues, it would be difficult for Iran to know whether Israeli preparations are intended for the Syrian or Iranian arena. If Iran gets used to the Israeli behavioral pattern, then a surprise attack would be easier to achieve.

Operational Surprise

The need for surprise requires that Israel is the one choosing the date of the operation. This may sound as an unnecessary consideration since by definition a preemptive attack is triggered by a decision in the leadership of the attacking country. However, with regards to the timing of an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, there are some limits that constrain the time frame available to an attacker. Iran's nuclear program offers two potential routes to a nuclear weapon—enrichment of uranium in centrifuge facilities or the production of plutonium in a yet-to-be-operational heavy-water reactor. Both of these routes must be considered when deciding on the date of an attack. The problem with linking the attack date to developments of the program is that Iran would have some control over the time frame available for an attack, thereby decreasing Israel's ability to achieve surprise. Since an operational nuclear reactor is a politically difficult target and as such is off limits, the date when the Arak reactor will go “hot” serves as the outer boundary of the available time frame. Iran would have an incentive to get it operational in order to reduce the utility of an Israeli operation against the other facilities (it makes less sense to attack the enrichment facilities when Iran could subsequently move to produce plutonium using the surviving reactor). On the other hand, its operational status constitute an Israeli redline, so Israel will have a strong incentive to launch an attack before it goes “hot.” From the Iranian perspective, there is a dilemma between halting the work on the reactor—thereby reducing tension with Israel—and continuing with the work to dictate Israel's available time frame.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF US WILL

By Caroline B. Glick 4-18-14

In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America's most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades 

The most terrifying aspect of the collapse of US power worldwide is the US’s indifferent response to it.

In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America’s most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades.

As Gordon Chang noted at a symposium in Los Angeles last month hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, since President Barack Obama entered office in 2009, the Chinese have responded to his overtures of goodwill and appeasement with intensified aggression against the US’s Asian allies and against US warships.

In 2012, China seized the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Washington shrugged its shoulders despite its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. And so Beijing is striking again, threatening the Second Thomas Shoal, another Philippine possession.

In a similar fashion, Beijing is challenging Japan’s control over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and even making territorial claims on Okinawa.

As Chang explained, China’s recent application of its Air-Defense Identification Zone to include Japanese and South Korean airspace is a hostile act not only against those countries but also against the principle of freedom of maritime navigation, which, Chang noted, “Americans have been defending for more than two centuries.”

The US has responded to Chinese aggression with ever-escalating attempts to placate Beijing.

And China has responded to these US overtures by demonstrating contempt for US power.

Last week, the Chinese humiliated Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during his visit to China’s National Defense University. He was harangued by a student questioner for the US’s support for the Philippines and Japan, and for opposition to Chinese unilateral seizure of island chains and assertions of rights over other states’ airspace and international waterways.

As he stood next to Hagel in a joint press conference, China’s Defense Chief Chang Wanquan demanded that the US restrain Japan and the Philippines.

In addition to its flaccid responses to Chinese aggression against its allies and its own naval craft, in 2012 the US averred from publicly criticizing China for its sale to North Korea of mobile missile launchers capable of serving Pyongyang’s KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles. With these easily concealed launchers, North Korea significantly upgraded its ability to attack the US with nuclear weapons.

As for Europe, the Obama administration’s responses to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and to its acts of aggression against Ukraine bespeak a lack of seriousness and dangerous indifference to the fate of the US alliance structure in Eastern Europe.

Rather than send NATO forces to the NATO member Baltic states, and arm Ukrainian forces with defensive weapons, as Russian forces began penetrating Ukraine, the US sent food to Ukraine and an unarmed warship to the Black Sea.

Clearly not impressed by the US moves, the Russians overflew and shadowed the US naval ship. As Charles Krauthammer noted on Fox News on Monday, the Russian action was not a provocation. It was “a show of contempt.”

As Krauthammer explained, it could have only been viewed as a provocation if Russia had believed the US was likely to respond to its shadowing of the warship. Since Moscow correctly assessed that the US would not respond to its aggression, by buzzing and following the warship, the Russians demonstrated to Ukraine and other US allies that they cannot trust the US to protect them from Russia.

In the Middle East, it is not only the US’s obsessive approach to the Palestinian conflict with Israel that lies in shambles. The entire US alliance system and the Obama administration’s other signature initiatives have also collapsed.

After entering office, Obama implemented an aggressive policy in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere of killing al-Qaida operatives with unmanned drones. The strategy was based on the notion that such a campaign, that involves no US boots on the ground, can bring about a rout of the terrorist force at minimal human cost to the US and at minimal political cost to President Barack Obama.

The strategy has brought about the demise of a significant number of al-Qaida terrorists over the years. And due to the support Obama enjoys from the US media, the Obama administration paid very little in terms of political capital for implementing it.

But despite the program’s relative success, according to The Washington Post, the administration suspended drone attacks in December 2013 after it endured modest criticism when one in Yemen inadvertently hit a wedding party.

No doubt al-Qaida noticed the program’s suspension. And now the terror group is flaunting its immunity from US attack.

This week, jihadist websites featured an al-Qaida video showing hundreds of al-Qaida terrorists in Yemen meeting openly with the group’s second in command, Nasir al-Wuhayshi.

In the video, Wuhayshi threatened the US directly saying, “We must eliminate the cross,” and explaining that “the bearer of the cross is America.”

Then there is Iran.

The administration has staked its reputation on its radical policy of engaging Iran on its nuclear weapons program. The administration claims that by permitting Iran to undertake some nuclear activities it can convince the mullahs to shelve their plan to develop nuclear weapons.

This week brought further evidence of the policy’s complete failure. It also brought further proof that the administration is unperturbed by evidence of failure.

In a televised interview Sunday, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akhbar Salehi insisted that Iran has the right to enrich uranium to 90 percent. In other words, he said that Iran is building nuclear bombs.

And thanks to the US and its interim nuclear deal with Iran, the Iranian economy is on the mend.

The interim nuclear deal the Obama administration signed with Iran last November was supposed to limit its oil exports to a million barrels a day. But according to the International Energy Agency, in February, Iran’s daily oil exports rose to 1.65 million barrels a day, the highest level since June 2012.

Rather than accept that its efforts have failed, the Obama administration is redefining what success means.

As Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz noted, in recent months US officials claimed the goal of the nuclear talks was to ensure that Iran would remain years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. In recent remarks, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the US would suffice with a situation in which Iran is but six months away from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In other words, the US has now defined failure as success.

Then there is Syria.

Last September, the US claimed it made history when, together with Russia it convinced dictator Bashar Assad to surrender his chemical weapons arsenal. Six months later, not only is Syria well behind schedule for abiding by the agreement, it is reportedly continuing to use chemical weapons against opposition forces and civilians. The most recent attack reportedly occurred on April 12 when residents of Kafr Zita were attacked with chlorine gas.

The growing worldwide contempt for US power and authority would be bad enough in and of itself. The newfound confidence of aggressors imperils international security and threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

What makes the situation worse is the US response to what is happening. The Obama administration is responding to the ever-multiplying crises by pretending that there is nothing to worry about and insisting that failures are successes.

And the problem is not limited to Obama and his advisers or even to the political Left. Their delusional view that the US will suffer no consequences for its consistent record of failure and defeat is shared by a growing chorus of conservatives.

Some, like the anti-Semitic conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan, laud Putin as a cultural hero. Others, like Sen. Rand Paul, who is increasingly presenting himself as the man to beat in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, indicate that the US has no business interfering with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Iran as well is a country the US should be less concerned about, in Paul’s opinion.

Leaders like Sen. Ted Cruz who call for a US foreign policy based on standing by allies and opposing foes in order to ensure US leadership and US national security are being drowned out in a chorus of “Who cares?” Six years into Obama’s presidency, the US public as a whole is largely opposed to taking any action on behalf of Ukraine or the Baltic states, regardless of what inaction, or worse, feckless action means for the US’s ability to protect its interests and national security.

And the generation coming of age today is similarly uninterested in US global leadership.

During the Cold War and in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the predominant view among American university students studying international affairs was that US world leadership is essential to ensure global stability and US national interests and values.

Today this is no longer the case.

Much of the Obama administration’s shuttle diplomacy in recent years has involved sending senior officials, including Obama, on overseas trips with the goal of reassuring jittery allies that they can continue to trust US security guarantees.

These protestations convince fewer and fewer people today.

It is because of this that US allies like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, that lack nuclear weapons, are considering their options on the nuclear front.

It is because of this that Israeli officials are openly stating for the first time that the US cannot be depended on to either secure Israel’s eastern frontier in the event that an accord is reached with the Palestinians, or to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

It is because of this that the world is more likely than it has been since 1939 to experience a world war of catastrophic proportions.

There is a direct correlation between the US elite’s preoccupation with social issues running the narrow and solipsistic gamut from gay marriage to transgender bathrooms to a phony war against women, and America’s inability to recognize the growing threats to the global order or understand why Americans should care about the world at all.

And there is a similarly direct correlation between the growing aggression of US foes and Obama’s decision to slash defense spending while allowing the US nuclear arsenal to become all but obsolete.

America’s spurned allies will take the actions they need to take to protect themselves. Some will persevere, others will likely be overrun.

But with Americans across the ideological spectrum pretending that failure is success and defeat is victory, while turning their backs on the growing storm, how will America protect itself? 

The Palestinians Are to Blame for the Failed Peace Talks—But Not for the Reason You Think

By Lee Smith|April 14, 2014 

Abbas is facing an internal challenge to his leadership, and that—not Israeli housing plans—is why he’s bailing on Kerry

By now, everyone’s found someone to blame for the apparent failure of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. In his testimony last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry laid the blame squarely at the feet of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu—specifically, on Netanyahu’s decision to go ahead with approving housing permits for new construction in East Jerusalem while simultaneously refusing to release additional Palestinian prisoners according to the negotiated schedule. “Poof,” Kerry told his former Senate colleagues, in a formulation that became instantly iconic. “That was sort of the moment. We find ourselves where we are.”

Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, made it clear that they hold Kerry personally responsible for the impasse in the Middle East, even as Kerry insisted talks might still proceed. “Recognize reality,” McCain chided Kerry. The Israelis, for their part, said they were “deeply disappointed” in Kerry’s remarks. As severalIsraeli officials have made clear in recent weeks, the view from Givat Ram is that the problem is Kerry himself—a man whose eyes, many believe, are too fixed on a Nobel Peace Prize to clearly see facts on the ground.

Interestingly, the Palestinians seem to have been reduced to mere bit players, with all the agency of a tetherball. It’s a fact made all the more curious when one remembers that it was Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who brought this all to a head when he announced that he intended to resume the PA’s bid for international recognition by applying to a number of international conventions and organizations. Yet while Abbas surely wanted to stick it to the Israelis—and maybe to Kerry, too —the truth is that he’s got a much bigger problem much closer to home. Abbas is now in the ninth year of a four-year presidential term, and his greatest accomplishment as a political leader is simply that: longevity.

***

For Abbas, staying in power requires keeping his rivals at bay. In particular, there’s Mohamed Dahlan, the former Gaza-based Fatah strongman who’s been licking his wounds ever since Hamas routed his men from the Strip in 2007. At just 52, Dahlan is still young. For the past four years, he has been living in the United Arab Emirates; my sources in the region tell me he recently spent a month in Marrakesh with Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to Washington, who was in Morocco recovering from shoulder surgery.

The leaders in the Gulf states are more worried about Iran and its nuclear program than about the Israelis. Their objective, right now, is to find a Palestinian version of Egypt’s new strongman, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi—someone who can take on Hamas and other Islamist factions, block Iranian influence, and keep his nation united, stable, and, most importantly, quiet. So the plan some Arab leaders are pursuing, apparently, is to strengthen Dahlan to make another run at Hamas—encircled now by Israel and Sisi’s Egypt, and weakened without the Iranian support it previously counted on. After that, Dahlan will muscle Abbas out of the leadership in Ramallah.

Abbas and his supporters hear Dahlan’s footsteps, which is why Abbas has taken steps to cut Dahlan off at the knees. As the indomitable Khaled Abu Toameh has reported, Abbas’ countermeasures include confiscating cash transfers from the United Arab Emirates to Dahlan loyalists in the Gaza Strip and threatening to expel Dahlan loyalists from Fatah. It’s not all hard politics; there are soft moves, too. Abbas, Abu Toameh added, “spent $1 million on a ‘mass wedding’ of 300 Palestinians after learning that the event had been originally sponsored and financed by Dahlan.”

So just as everyone understands that some of Bibi’s moves on housing permits and prisoner releases have as much to do with ideology as with keeping his increasingly fractiousKnesset coalition together, Abbas’ moves against Israel at the negotiating table should be seen in the context of his fight for political survival. If Abbas can get more prisoners released then he’s a hero for liberating the foot soldiers of the resistance; if he can’t, he won’t be blamed by his own people because the presumption is that the Americans and the Israelis are on the same side, even if they appear to be arguing. There’s nothing to be gained by making concessions to Jerusalem or Washington now, so why not push for further recognition at the United Nations when Kerry and the Americans won’t exact a price for it? But it’s also why Netanyahu’s insistence that Abbas should recognize Israel as a Jewish state can only sound absurd to the PA chief: “Sure,” Abbas must be reasoning, “that’s just what I want on my tombstone—the traitor who abandoned the Palestinian cause.” The Dahlan clan would dance on his grave for generations.

It’s not clear why Washington policy wonks ignore the intra-Arab context of Arab politics, but they’ve been doing it for generations now. A half-century ago, U.S. policymakers and scholars viewed Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser as the Arab nationalist par excellence, the man who’d finally make good on the promise of uniting the Arabs under one banner and restoring them to the greatness that years of European colonialism had cheated them of. In reality, Nasser simply used Arab nationalism as a convenient ideology to beat up on his regional rivals, like Iraq, Jordan, and most especially the oil-rich, U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia.

When the Arab spring uprisings began in the winter of 2010-11, regional experts hailed it as the outpouring of authentic democratic sentiment. Thanks to social media, Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians and other Arabs were taking to the streets like it was Paris in May 1968, supposedly because they wanted just what we wanted—democracy, free markets and more social media. But when Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt in June 2012 and was toppled a year later by General Sisi, the reality of Arab politics was laid bare for anyone who cared to notice: The Arab Spring was less about a public clamoring for democracy than a contest between powerful factions—in this case, an elite cadre of Islamists and an Arab military with vital economic interests to protect. Arab politics are not, and may never be, like American politics.

And yet, just because the Arabs do not enjoy the same political structure as Western liberal democracies—like the United States, or like Israel—doesn’t mean their politics aren’t real or serious. Arab politics, like ours, start at the local level. To imagine rather that the Palestinians’ primary concerns are the Israelis, or the U.S. State Department, does nothing but patronize them.

For all the criticism leveled at Kerry from his former colleagues on the Hill, the American press corps and Israeli cabinet officials, the reality is that he’s simply the latest embodiment of a longstanding habit of American foreign policy thinking. He’s hardly the first secretary of state to blame Israel for the lack of progress on the peace process; Jim Baker and Condoleezza Rice did it, too. The reason why the U.S. policy establishment continues to believe that leaning on Israel will lead to a successful resolution of the conflict is because American policymakers don’t take Arab politics seriously. The Palestinians can’t negotiate with Israel when they’re so busy fighting amongst themselves.

***

Standing Firm –To Blame Israel  by Elliott Abrams    April 11, 2014

Several well-known members of America’s foreign policy establishment have just published an open letter to Secretary of State Kerry, entitled “Stand Firm, John Kerry.” And firm they are, in blaming Israel for every problem in the peace negotiations.

Criticism of Israel and of the policies of the Netanyahu government is certainly fair, whether from the left or the right. But the criticisms adduced here are not. Why not?

The authors’ (Zbigniew Brzezinki, Carla Hills, Lee Hamilton, Thomas Pickering, Frank Carlucci, and Henry Siegman) first point is that the “enlargement” of Israeli settlements is the central problem in getting to peace. They propose stopping all negotiations until settlement “enlargement” ends. One problem with this approach is that it is the Palestinians, after all, who want to change the current situation, end the occupation, and get a sovereign state, so halting all diplomatic activity would seem to punish the party the authors’ wish to help. BUT THERE’S A DEEPER PROBLEM: THERE IS NO “ENLARGEMENT” OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS. THERE IS POPULATION GROWTH, ESPECIALLY IN THE MAJOR BLOCS THAT ISRAELI WILL OBVIOUSLY KEEP IN ANY FINAL AGREEMENT. BUT ENLARGEMENT, WHICH LOGICALLY MEANS PHYSICAL EXPANSION, IS NOT THE PROBLEM AND IS RARE IN THE WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS. THE AUTHORS DON’T SEEM TO KNOW THIS. {COMMENT BY JOHN TRAIN: THEY KNOW THIS …I'VE WORKED WITH  FOUR OF THEM….ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINKI, CARLA HILLS, LEE HAMILTON, THOMAS PICKERING…THEY ARE  KNEE_JERK ANTI-ISRAEL ON EVERY ISSUE}.

Their second point deals with “Palestinian incitement,” a term long used by American officials to describe anti-Semitic statements and actions that glorify terror and terrorists—naming schools and parks after them for example. But the authors’ say nothing about this; THEY DO NOT MENTION PALESTINIAN ANTI-SEMITISM OR THE GLORIFICATION OF TERROR. They say instead that Israel sees “various Palestinian claims to all of historic Palestine constitute incitement.” This is plain wrong. Here’s what Palestinian “incitement” means, as described by David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

In a particularly striking case, at the end of 2012, the Fatah Facebook page posted an image of Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist who participated in the deadliest attack in Israel’s history — the killing of 37 civilians in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre. The image was posted with the declaration: ‘On this day in 1959 Martyr (Shahida) Dalal Mughrabi was born, hero of the ‘Martyr Kamal Adwan’ mission, bride of Jaffa and the gentle energizing force of Fatah.’

Another theme of recent official Palestinian incitement is the demonisation of Israelis and Jews, often as animals. For example, on 9 January 2012 PA television broadcast a speech by a Palestinian Imam, in the presence of the PA Minister of Religious Affairs, referring to the Jews as ‘apes and pigs’ and repeating the gharqad hadith, a traditional Muslim text about Muslims killing Jews hiding behind trees and rocks, because ‘Judgment Day will not come before you fight the Jews.’

The authors should know this kind of incitement happens constantly, and should demand that it end.

Then comes a paragraph about Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, as to which the authors are a bit ambiguous. They conclude that “Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, provided it grants full and equal rights to its non-Jewish citizens, would not negate the Palestinian national narrative.” They should have acknowledged that Israel does grant full and equal rights to non-Jewish citizens. There is no other country in the region with a substantial Christian population from which those Christian citizens are not fleeing, and that might have been noted. And Muslims in Israel vote in fully free elections; where else in the region does that truly happen?

Then comes a paragraph on “Israeli security,” which is devoted to condemning “Illegal West Bank land grabs”—as if Israel had no security problems at all. With respect to the Jordan Valley, they bemoan the impression that the United States takes Israeli security concerns there seriously. They do not acknowledge something every serious expert knows: that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan also has grave concerns about security in the Jordan Valley and does not (repeat, not) want to see a quick withdrawal of Israeli forces from that long border. Security in the West Bank is a serious issue, but the open letter does not discuss the problem in a serious way.

The authors conclude that “the terms for a peace accord advanced by Netanyahu’s government, whether regarding territory, borders, security, resources, refugees or the location of the Palestinian state’s capital, require compromises of Palestinian territory and sovereignty on the Palestinian side of the June 6, 1967, line. They do not reflect any Israeli compromises….” This is remarkable. It’s obvious that tens of thousands, perhaps one hundred thousand or more, Israeli settlers would have to be uprooted in any peace deal remotely like the ones proposed by Israel at Camp David in 2000 and after Annapolis in 2008. The authors do not mention those proposals—nor the fact that the PLO rejected them. Nor the massive uprooting of citizens that Israel would have to undertake.

After his dozen trips to Israel as secretary of state, John Kerry can be presumed to know better than the authors of this open letter what’s going on in the “peace process.” Let’s hope he does “stand firm” against an analysis that blames one side exclusively for the failure to make peace, and ignores the history and complexities of the negotiations.

NY TIMES WAS WRONG  ON HITLER,STALIN, CASTRO...NOW THEY WANT US TO BET OUR SAFETY  ON  THEIR CLAIMS OF A" MODERATE" ROUHANI

 The New York Times . on December 20, 1924, ran this article: