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, ’s president and elder statesman, spoke out Thursday against the prospect of a lone Israeli military strike on ’s nuclear facilities, a message that contradicts the hawkish, go-it-alone line emanating from the offices of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister.
A former Israeli national security adviser said Wednesday that the prime minister and the defense minister told him this week they had not yet decided to attack ’s nuclear facilities and could be dissuaded from a strike if President Obama approved stricter sanctions and publicly confirmed his willingness to use military force.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak lashed out at his critics on Thursday, saying that the decision on how to counter the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran lies within the exclusive domain of the government.
"The prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister hold responsibility. A decision (to attack Iran), once one is needed, will be made by the government of Israel, not by groups of citizens or editorials," Barak said at a Knesset (parliament) session to swear-in a new home front defense minister.
Whether serious or a bluff, Israel'spublic threats to attackIran'snuclear development program are widely credited for bringing U.S. pressure and international sanctions against Tehran this year.
The Israeli military says six Palestinians have been wounded in a suspected firebomb attack in the West Bank.
The six were traveling in a taxi Thursday night when the firebomb was allegedly thrown into the car. The military suspects Jewish extremist to be behind the attack.
Extremist settlers often attack Palestinians and their property in a campaign they call "price tag." It's meant to retaliate for either army action against settlers or Palestinian attacks. Several more firebombs were hurled earlier Thursday toward settler vehicles in the West Bank.
In 2008, Laila was a recent college graduate and committed anti-occupation activist in her hometown of Nablus. But there was one issue her groups could not adequately address: her sexuality.
“I started testing the waters, looking at what organizations are out there, what’s the discourse,” said Laila last month in Nablus.
She researched the Haifa-based lesbian group Aswat, but that organization is more attentive to Palestinians within Israel and inaccessible to West Bank residents like Laila.
Palestinian detainees in Israel are launching an initiative to press for prisoner of war status, the Palestinian Authority prisoners minister said Thursday.
Palestinians in Israel's Eshel jail have developed a national legal and political program to push their cause internationally, Issa Qaraqe said in a statement.
The initiative aims to secure treatment in line with the Geneva Conventions, rather than Israel's military orders which govern Palestinians under occupation, the minister added.
The Arab media was up in arms this week over a plan spearheaded by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon to hold a summit on the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries at the UN in September.
Hamas announced Thursday that it was doing its utmost to help the Egyptian authorities capture the terrorists who killed 16 Egyptian border guards in Sinai on August 5.
The announcement came as Palestinians in the Gaza Strip reported that Hamas security forces have rounded up a number of suspects belonging to extremist Islamic groups in the context of efforts to solve the case.
The statement also came amid reports that Hamas and the Egyptians have formed a joint security committee to investigate the terrorist attack.
Peace Now on Thursday complained to the Defense Ministry about public comments an IDF commander made in support of Israeli sovereignty over the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
It also took issue with the IDF’s decision to hold a ceremony Wednesday at the Cave of the Patriarchs for the incoming commander of the IDF Judea Brigade, Avi Balut, and the outgoing commander, Shai Hazut. It noted that in the past the ceremony had been held in the nearby brigade base.
Recent unrest and violence in Sinai are leaving more than 1,500 troops from the United States and other countries exposed as they seek to maintain a peacekeeping mission there that many experts now criticize as anachronistic.
The troops’ presence in Sinai, mandated by the 1979 Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt, has served as a guarantor of that treaty. But current developments are transforming the peninsula, long seen as a vast desert buffer that reinforced the treaty, into a regional flashpoint putting the fragile peace between the two nations at risk.
Asharq Al-Awsat has learned that security agencies operating in the Gaza Strip are currently in the process of providing their Egyptian counterparts with information highlighting their past experiences in confronting Salafist jihadist groups. This is in order to help Cairo confront the militant groups operating on the Sinai Peninsula following the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers close to the Rafah Border Crossing.
Hmm, it’s August, things are quiet, time for another wave of hysteria over an imminent Israeli attack on Iran. We’ve seen this movie for a decade — Israel’s “red line” on the Iranian nuclear program has proved of spandex-like elasticity.
(I sometimes imagine the size of the explosion if all the words devoted to the Iranian nuclear program since 2000 were placed in a large container and detonated.)
Now that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program are at an impasse, we are once again hearing that Israel, with or without US participation, is about to bomb Iran.
These days, with the country’s leaders straining our nerves, it’s hard not to recall the immortal words of Eli Wallach in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”: “If you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”
Dozens of Jewish youths attacked three young Palestinians in Jerusalem's Zion Square early on Friday morning, in what one witness described as "a lynch" on Facebook.
One of the Palestinians was seriously wounded and hospitalized in intensive care in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. Acting Jerusalem police chief, General Menachem Yitzhaki, gas set up a special team to investigate the incident and detain the suspects.
Israel’s intentions on Iran are ambiguous, veteran United States-Middle East trouble shooter Dennis Ross says.
“Part of the motivation for being as public as they have been is to motivate the rest of world," Ross, who served as the top Obama White House Iran strategist from 2009 to the end of 2011, told Al-Monitor in an interview Tuesday.
“The second reason is to condition the rest of the world not to be surprised if or when they are going to act militarily,” Ross said. “And to get the Israeli public ready as well.”
There is only one thing that can prevent an Israeli assault on Iran’s nuclear installations before the US presidential elections—and that, short of an attack by America itself, which is seen as extremely unlikely, is an iron-clad guarantee by President Obama that he will destroy the Iranian installations soon after his prospective re-election if the Iranian do not desist under the impact of the ongoing economic sanctions
Exactly ten years ago I was imprisoned for my refusal to enlist in the Israeli military. This marked the end of a three-year losing legal battle in Israeli court to have conscientious objection recognized as an option for military service. It was the beginning of an ongoing struggle to save my country from its inevitable demise. Like a drug-addict, Israel needs an intervention. It is addicted to the military; blind support does it no good.
A recent Mitt Romney campaign commercial takes U.S. President Barack Obama to task for not visiting Israel during the first three-and-a-half years of his presidency. The television ad, complete with footage of the former Massachusetts governor thoughtfully contemplating the Western Wall in Jerusalem, declares that Romney "will be a different kind of president -- a strong leader who stands by our allies." A similar spot by the Emergency Committee for Israel, an advocacy group that backs Romney, charges that Obama has "traveled all over the Middle East.
Five years after Israel and Egypt closed their gates, the Palestinian strip of land they encircle is rising from the ashes of war and siege. “We’re building cities,” says a delighted UN engineer, putting the finishing touches to “Saudi City”, a public housing estate replete with garages, tiled bathrooms and dishwashers that cost its Saudi sponsors $120m. Built on land where Israel first settled Jews after its 1967 conquest and then removed them in 2005, it is set to open its doors to 11,000 residents in the next few months.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/27210
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/27210
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/27210
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/middleeast/israels-peres-criticizes-talk-of-unilateral-iran-strike.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/world/middleeast/israeli-leaders-dissuaded-strike-iran-us-sanctions.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[8] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-08/17/c_123593414.htm
[9] http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-iran-debate-20120817,0,5557913.story
[10] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/israel-firebomb-attack-wounds-6-palestinians-2437256.html
[11] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=511550
[12] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=512925
[13] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4269697,00.html
[14] http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=281597
[15] http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=281600
[16] http://forward.com/articles/161257/sinai-chaos-threatens-peacekeeping-mission/
[17] http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=30718
[18] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/opinion/israels-iran-itch.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
[19] http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0816/Why-the-world-can-t-tolerate-a-preemptive-Israeli-attack-on-Iran
[20] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/self-inflicted-information-war.premium-1.458931
[21] http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/in-suspected-jerusalem-lynch-dozens-of-jewish-youths-attack-3-palestinians-1.459002
[22] http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/dennis-ross-on-israels-iran-warn.html
[23] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/16/obama-s-last-chance-before-israel-bombs-iran.html
[24] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/16/a-pacificst-in-the-idf-a-personal-story.html
[25] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/16/obama_has_been_good_for_israel
[26] http://www.economist.com/node/21560611
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