Category Archives: Israel

Honest Netanyahu in 2009: “Iran has Two Nukes on Missiles Ready to go”……….

    

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Continuing the release of the US Stratfor research site’s e-mails, Wikileaks Wednesday, March 28 issued a batch of mails which indicated that Binyamin Netanyahu may have been a source of the site’s Vice President for intelligence Fred Burton (a former Deputy Chief of the Department of State’s counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security) from at least May 2007 up until 2010 after he became Prime Minister of Israel. The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem has not commented on the publication. According to one e-mail from Burton, Netanyahu is said to have revealed in Dec. 2009 that “Iran has two nukes on missiles ready to go.” Burton went on to report that the White House (Barack Obama) was “doing everything possible to block Israel’s next steps. He added the view that “Israel will go it alone. Israeli subs are off Iran’s coast.” In answer to a question, Burton replied: “My source is bb (eyes only).”…………….


If this
report that originated through Wikileaks is true, it confirms many suspicions about the role of Israeli intelligence regarding the Iranian nuclear program. At this rate, why not rely on the Saudi grand mufti as a source of intelligence? He may be as reliable as Netanyahu about the Iranian nuclear program (but not an iota more reliable). The Salafi Mufti also has as much interest and eagerness for an Israeli or American (or both) attack on Iran as the best Likudnik.

Cheers
mhg



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Kazakhstan’s Real National Anthem, Hava Nagila and Hatikvah on the Gulf………….

    

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Алтын күн аспаны,

Алтын дән даласы,

Ерліктің дастаны,

Еліме қарашы!

Ежелден ер деген,

Даңкымыз шықты ғой.

Намысын бермеген,

Қазағым мықты ғой!……..
. Kazakhstan National Anthem

Kazakhstan’s shooting team was taken by surprise when a spoof national anthem from the film Borat was used at a medal ceremony in Kuwait. The team demanded an apology after Maria Dmitrienko was played the obscene song, which features lyrics about prostitutes and potassium exports, as she received her gold medal……. The blunder apparently occurred after the event’s organisers downloaded the parody from the internet by mistake. They also got the Serbian anthem wrong. An apology was issued and the ceremony staged again. The incident was the second in the space of a few weeks involving a slip-up over Kazakhstan’s anthem at a sporting event. Earlier this month, stunned officials opening a ski event in northern Kazakhstan were blasted with a few bars of Ricky Martin’s Livin’ la Vida Loca instead of the national tune……….”


No big deal, but it is funny, straight out of a film by you know who.
It’s a good thing the Israelis don’t compete on the Gulf. Some meshugenah in Bahrain might mistakenly play “Deutschland Über Alles”. An uber faux pas. Apparently the Kazakhs are having trouble getting their national anthem played properly, and not just in Kuwait; even at home. These things happen, it happens.
I recall some years ago back home when the national television surprised everybody one night by playing a bunch of Israeli dancers and singers doing a hearty rendition of “Hava Nagila”. It was not supposed to have been broadcast, but at least it wasn’t “Hatikvah”. There were a few lame explanations by the media, including that Mossad may have been behind it. In retrospect, they could have done worse, sometimes they did.

Cheers
mhg



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Syrian Air Defenses, Hezbollah Air Defenses……………

    

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Syria has been arming and training Hezbollah fighters in the use of advanced antiaircraft weapons in recent months, Israel Defense Forces sources have told Haaretz. A senior officer in the Northern Command says hundreds of fighters were taught to use surface-to-air missiles in Syria and Iran. IDF officers are worried by two developments involving Syria and Hezbollah that could change the balance of power in the region. The first is the transfer of huge quantities of surface-to-air missiles; the second, the transfer of chemical and biological weapons. IDF officers believe that Hezbollah use of advanced antiaircraft missiles could jeopardize Israeli aerial supremacy……….”

Training is possible, in fact both Iran and Syria do it. However, supplying sophisticated weapons or WMD is doubtful (especially WMD). There are no doubt some sophisticated missiles supplied to Hezbollah by the Iranians but not by the Syrians (and certainly not WMD).


The Syrians
don’t give away their somewhat sophisticated air defense systems, especially not to a Lebanese group. Any Lebanese group. Same applies even more to WMD: contrary to the Western (especially American) fear-mongering legend, Middle East regimes do not supply outsiders with WMD (or sophisticated conventional weapons).
Besides, the same air defense system failed the Syrians when the Israeli air force bombed the alleged nuclear plant (an odd story that has not been explained to the public in either Syria or Israel). Of course the Syrians may have been unwilling, too afraid, to use their air defenses; Hezbollah is certain to use them, if they have them, if Lebanon is attacked.

Cheers
mhg



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Meshugenner American Evangelicals and the Rapture of Israel………

    

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“The prominence of the Iran issue in the current Republican primary race also incenses Klein, who is quick to elaborate that the force behind the rhetoric is not just a “small group of Jewish neoconservatives.” “There is this whole bunch of meshugenner Evangelicals who love their little Jewish ‘sisters and brothers,’ who they believe are going to incinerate themselves once the Rapture comes … The Evangelicals are a major force in American politics and the Republican politicians listen to what they are is saying. When you have a politician like [Newt] Gingrich or [Rick] Santorum say that Iran’s government is completely irrational, that it is a death cult – using words like ‘satanic cult that will use the bomb as soon as it gets it’ – they are following a Rapturian line, No. 1, and No. 2, there are people in the Israeli government – and I know this for a fact – who are selling that to them.” ……

Also sprach Joe Klein on Iranian cultists, American cultists, and their Likud manipulators…..
Cheers
mhg



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Oh, No: Ahmadinejad is back on the Palestine Israel Issue..……..

    

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Zionist regime is an insult to independent nations: Ahmadinejad. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the occupation of Palestine is a historical problem and the existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to freedom, justice and all independent nations. “The Europe and the US spend tens of billions of their wealth on the Zionists each year to help a criminal regime…continue its occupation [of Palestinian lands],” he said, addressing a convoy of pro-Palestinian activists in Tehran who are heading to al-Quds (Jerusalem) on Sunday.
He also slammed the Western states for showing no tolerance towards questioning the existence of Israel. “Despite all liberal claims of the Western states, nobody is ever allowed to ask a question or conduct a research on how the Zionist regime was established,” the president said…….


Oh oh, he is back, the maddest of lame ducks. And hinting about “research” into the Holocaust again. Some of his statements don’t help the Palestinian cause, on the contrary they can be harmful. Besides, they only divert attention from the West Bank issue to the Iranian nuclear program. Which is exactly what Netanyahu wants.
I wonder if Bibi called him “Hey Mahmoud, we haven’t had one of your nuggets for some time…. how about you getting out a…….” Nah, highly unlikely.
Cheers
mhg



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Iranian Nuclear issue, American Nuclear Issue, Conventional Strategic Issue…..

    

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Intercepted communications of Iranian officials discussing their nuclear program raised concerns that the country’s leaders had decided to revive efforts to develop a weapon, intelligence officials said. That, along with a stream of other information, set off an intensive review and delayed publication of the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified report reflecting the consensus of analysts from 16 agencies. But in the end, they deemed the intercepts and other evidence unpersuasive, and they stuck to their longstanding conclusion……… As a result, officials caution that they cannot offer certainty. “I’d say that I have about 75 percent confidence in the assessment that they haven’t restarted the program,”…………….

“There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe there was no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. The latest assessments by U.S. spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program …….….


Which
deserves a resounding: WTF?
This
seems to confirm my long-held suspicions: the noise about Iran has little to do with a nuclear program. It has a lot to do with broader Middle East balance of power. It has to do with pressure from the Israeli/American right-wing (and perhaps the Saudi princes). It is part of a struggle for influence in the Middle East.
The Israelis want Iranian influence in Lebanon and Syria reduced, but without the risk of an Islamist Salafi resurgence (in Syria) that would actively reopen the Golan file. Syria is a focus target, with the potential of a complete break with Iran and an alliance with the Saudis and their  right-wing March 14 proxies in Lebanon. Lebanon can be partly affected, but it would be unrealistic for it to have a complete break with Iran and join the Saudi camp (the demographics are against it).

The Saudi princes want to consolidate their hegemony over the Gulf GCC states and to dominate the Arabs of the eastern Mediterranean. A tough, nay impossible, job. In the process, they want Iranian infrastructure and military power destroyed by the Americans and Israelis. That would open the door for their money to move into the vacuum in Syria and perhaps regain influence in Lebanon. The Saudi princes want to play the same role they tried in the 1980s, when they armed and financed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and urged the West to do the same. We all know what Saddam did in 1990 right after the West pulled his nuts out of the fire.

Everybody in America is making ‘appropriate’ noises about the “nuclear” issue; even Obama is being pushed to it by both his right-wing opponents and by Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Especially so with the Republican candidates vying to outdo each other in Likud-orchestrated crazy rhetoric, rhetoric that seems to embarrass some past and current Israeli officials (not Netanyahu and Lieberman).
Cheers
mhg



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La Vie (Palestinienne) en Rose: Another Arafat in the Palestinian Circus?……….

    

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Des yeux qui font baisser les miens
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche
Voilà le portrait sans retouche
De l’homme auquel j’appartiens

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose…
….. Edit Piaf (La vie en rose)

The widow of the late Yasser Arafat has said the resistance leader sacrificed their marriage and a relationship with the couple’s only daughter for the Palestinian cause. In a rare interview with CNN, Suha Arafat shed light on the difficulties of being married to a man she described as the “Nelson Mandela of the Arab world”, and said he pushed her away to focus on achieving an independent state. “Everyone was saying: ‘She left him’,” Mrs Arafat told CNN’s Connect the World show. “I had to leave because he obliged me to leave him because he said: ‘I am becoming the new revolutionary again’.” He paid for the cause, she said, “with his life”. “He did not see his daughter. He told us to go out because he did not want us to stay in Palestine.”…….

I, and everyone I ever knew, always believed that Suha Arafat was the one who made the biggest ‘sacrifice’ in that marriage to Yasser Arafat. It was obvious (to put it delicately).
Just
what the Palestinians need right now, another clown in the circus. There is the fundamentalist Hamas in Gaza, the impotent bickering PA in Ramallah, and now Suha Arafat representing the Palestinians from the comfort of maybe Paris (?). Yet she might liven things up a bit.  She should liven up the West Bank political debate (Gaza is too Islamist fundamentalist for a Christian used to la vie en rose). Come to think of it, there is no political debate among Palestinians, life is simple: PA and Israel control the West Bank, Hamas controls Gaza.
One thing is certain, she will be more outspoken than the tired men of Ramallah. Another thing for certain: she ain’t no La Pasionaria of Spain.

Cheers
mhg



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Hamas Goes Shopping: from Iran to the GCC and back to Iran (and maybe Syria)……………..

 

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Most of the missiles are now coming from the Salafi concentrations in the southern part of the enclave –targeting Beersheba and Netivot Thursday morning and as night fell aimed at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Shear Hanegev and the Eshkol region. The firing escalated after Israel laid down its ultimatum. Egypt and Hamas don’t know exactly who is giving Haraka the missiles, except that they are smuggled from Sinai through tunnels managed by Iranian intelligence agents in conjunction with local al Qaeda networks. It is highly unlikely that Hamas will venture to lay hands on these Salafi terrorists at a time when one of its top officials in Gaza, Mahmoud A-Zahar, is visiting Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders who are keen to keep the missile assaults going. His visit marks the Hamas fundamentalists’ return to the Iranian fold – that is if they ever really left it. This, Israeli strategists have chosen to ignore and are treating Hamas as a non-participant in the missile offensive and available to help Cairo bring the terrorists to accept a ceasefire….…….

Hamas leaders have been touring the region this past month. Ismail Haniyya went to the Gulf states of the GCC before landing in Tehran a couple of weeks ago. No doubt his Muslim Brother brothers in some Gulf states tried to wean him away from the Iranian mullahs. There have been some reports that Hamas may be trying to find new sponsors to replace the Iranians, especially after it distanced itself from the Assad regime in Syria. The reports noted that Hamas leaders are “shopping” for new sources of funds and weapons.
Yet Hamas has not completely broken off with Syria; the Iranians no doubt would have some influence on that. Besides, it may be easy to find new sources of funds among the Gulf potentates, but they will never supply the weapons that Hamas wants. Hamas probably still needs Iranian weapons, and for that they cannot make a complete break with Syria, not yet. Hamas is being especially careful now that the situation on the ground in Syria seems to be shifting against the fractious opposition
.
Cheers
mhg



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New International Band: “Barack Obama and the Drones”………….

 

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Deep inside these burning buildings
Voices die to be heard
Years we spent teaching a lesson
We ourselves had never learned
And if strength is borne from heartbreak
Many mountains I could move
And if walls could speak I’d pray
That they would tell me what to do
The drones will slave away, they’re working overtime,
They serve a faceless queen, they never question why.….
Drones (by Back Against)

Given these views, experts fear that Holder’s argument in support of the war on terror could also serve as a rationale for possible future military strikes ordered by Obama. Claus Kress, a Cologne-based professor of international law and an internationally renowned expert on the US’s stance on the laws of war, believes that it is “not inconceivable” that, in justifying the drone war, Obama’s top lawyers may have already set their sights on an altogether different target: Iran. Legally speaking, a military strike against the mullahs’ nuclear program — which Obama believes is conceivable should it become verifiably clear that there is no other way to stop Iran from building a bomb — would only be possible with the permission of the United Nations Security Council. But the Russians and the Chinese would probably veto any such consent. As a result, the United States would have to invoke its “inherent” right of self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. Still, this requires that Iran has essentially raised its weapon against Israel or the United States………

As the old song says: “birds do it, bees do it….”
Everybody is doing it these days, or soon will be. China is building drones. Israel is using drones. Iran is building and using drones. Before you know it, we’ll have most nations building their own drones. Then we’d have various sects in each country building their own drones: we’d have Shi’a drones, Salafi drones, Ikhwan drones, and Sufi drones. Then there will be Coptic drones and Maronite drones and Orthodox drones. Then we’d have tribal drones around the Gulf: Shemmar drones (more than one type), Ajmi drones, Mutairi drones, Comanche drones, Arapaho drones, etc. Then there will be neighborhood drones…….
In the United States, if things go along the current trajectory, there may be Republican drones and Democrat drones. In fact there already are some primitive prototypes: they call them senators and representative
s.
Cheers
mhg



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Brainwashing America: the Eternal Bogeyman under the Bed, of AIPAC and 9/11………..

 

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The United States has been down this squalid road before, in regard to Iraq, and it doesn’t end well for America. Obama was made to trek to AIPAC (which should have to register as the agent of a foreign state) because it is a very effective lobby and raises money for political campaigns, as well as raising money to punish politicians that do not toe its line on knee jerk support of Israeli policy. We saw this with Iraq, and now it is the same with Iran. A weak, ramshackle, ineffectual bogeyman is set up, like Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Americans are kept talking about the “threat” emanating from that country. It isn’t a real threat. It is manufactured by the Israeli intelligence agencies and promoted by their cells in the US. With regard to Iraq, we were told that it had among the more powerful armies in the world, that it possessed frightening weapons of mass destruction, that it was a threat to Europe and the United States. None of these things was true………….”

The Communist bogeyman may have been real, but he wasn’t under every American bed, certainly not under Joe McCarthy’s bed, nor under J. Edgar Hoover’s allegedly mysterious bed.
The Ba’athist Iraqi bogeyman was an ally of the Reagan administration and a bosom buddy of his eventual victims on the Persian-American Gulf. He wouldn’t have survived the war with Iran without GCC money and Western weapons, including the WMD which he used liberally against the Iraqi Kurds and the Iranians. Saddam turned from Western ally into Western bogeyman as soon as his war with Iran was over, as soon as his usefulness expired late in 1988. With the amiable Mr. Gorbachev in the Kremlin, it was time for Saddam to resume his natural role of the favorite bogeyman.
In recent decades America has always ‘needed’ a foreign bogeyman during elections cycles. The problem is that election cycles never end these days. The next American election cycle starts as soon as those elected are sworn in. This election cycle we are seeing now started in January 2009 and continued right through 2010. It will probably pause briefly between next November and January. So there is a perpetual need for a permanent supply of national bogeymen.
It is the turn of the Iranians again, highly and insistently recommended by the unregistered Israeli government lobbyists of AIPAC. They get some help from the neighborhood; the medieval tribal Saudi despots have made a tacit common cause with the Israelis and their allies.
Yesterday on CNN Rep. Peter King of New York (Gauleiter of hearings on local Islamic terrorism last year) kept mentioning that Obama should coordinate with and or talk to the Israelis and the Saudis. Now when was the last time you heard a New York congressman mention the Saudi princes both favorably and in the same breath as Israel?
Now, back to September 11: I wonder when will they finally tie the Iranians to that terrorist act. Miracles do happen when people go stupid: they tied Saddam to it in the minds of millions, didn’t they? Like I said, miracles do happen when people……..

Cheers
mhg



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