National Journal Blog - 6 July 2010

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/07/what-is-netanyahus-strategy.php#1601307

Comments

[N M Salamon]

It would be nice if the National Journal Blog would also have a disagree buttom,

I appreciated your comments, Colonel, however I can not find anything useful in Mr. Phillips' comment except a desire to start WWIII or the collapse of ME - take your pick!

[Cloned Poster]

Totally agree NMS, neocons and baggage handlers for Likud still abound.

[Cieran]

Interesting how the National Journal correspondent won't touch any of your questions with a ten-foot pole.

Sometimes what folks won't say tells much more than what they will...

[Walrus]

I concur with Col. Lang. If Israel is a "war ally" today, then so was Vichy France.

Starobins comment is not worth discussing.

Mr. Phillips unhelpful comments are taken straight out of The Israel Project Global Dictionary, the 2009 copy of which may be downloaded and read at the link at the end of this post.

Specifically,

Phillips:

"no permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible until Hamas has been defeated and its ideology of endless conflict is discredited. "

Page 33 of the Dictionary:

"The big picture approach is this: You must isolate Hamas as:

- The biggest source of harm to the Palestinian people, and

- A critical cause of the delay in achieving a two-state solution.

- The reason why Israel must defend its people from living in terror"

Phillips again:

"Netanyahu therefore is primarily focused on the rising Iranian threat and the limited remaining time to achieve the unlikely goal of a diplomatic freezing of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. He knows that he probably soon will be forced to take preventive military action to destroy as much as Iran’s nuclear infrastructure as possible and set back Iran’s nuclear weapons timetable."

The Israel Project Dictionary:

Page 39: "So we suggest a rhetorical approach that is likely to gain Israel some credibility in talking about Iran. This language might not reflect the urgency of the threat, but it’s the only way to keep people on board in advance of Israel’s action.
"

Page 41: "Advocate a policy of “prevention,” but justify it based on past experiences across the globe. Obviously, stay away from anything “preemption” oriented. That brings up far too many bad associations with recent American foreign policy. But “prevention”, is a proven winner."

"Notice how the military option only comes up at the end, and is presented only as a last resort. This is so essential.

Also, note the importance of describing attacks as “militarily target nuclear facilities.”

"To Americans, Israel has no right or reason to attack Iran or kill Iranian civilians. But, as a last resort, there is some support for directly and precisely targeting Iran’s facilities for making nuclear weapons."

Appendix !: Tough Questions - Bombing Iran:

"So let me ask you ... do we want this regime to have nuclear materials? Do we want these sponsors of terror to have nuclear know-how and materials that they have said they will share with others?

Time is running out to peacefully stop Iran."

The rest of Phillips post is predictably evil: peace is best made in a post war situation, not a pre war situation.

Phillips of course assumes that this would be peace dictated by Israel, which is no peace at all.

My opinion is that this is not something the Israeli Government would dare say themselves because it goes directly against the image of sweet reasonableness that the Israeli Project playbook portrays.

The question then remains: Is this Richards own contribution, his own little cup of gasoline to throw on the fire, or was he put up to it?

The quality of the Kommentariat response to that talking point will perhaps tell us.

My guess is that Netanyahu is going to try and railroad the Palestinian Authority without success. When that fails, he is set up for an "Israel has no choice, but" moment.

Netanyahu and his followers may be positioning themselves for portraying an attack on Iran as a "Cri du couer" moment, forced on them against their will by an uncaring and unthinking West, and most importantly America.

The meme will then be spread by Republicans, that Obama and Democrats failed to prevent Israel from attacking Iran. This is a really neat trick already in play with the BP oil spill and associated response.

The assumption Israel and its bellicose supporters are making is that it will be "business as usual" apres le deluge.

http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fmedia%2F70%2Ftip_report.pdf&date=2009-08-06

[Patrick Lang]

Cieran

Amen, brother. I thought of another one. "They buy things from us (with our own money)." pl

[Patrick Lang]

All

I suspect that the Zionists will not "play" in this debate. No guts. pl

[The Twisted Genius]

Colonel Lang, that was the clearest and most concise statement on the American - Israeli relationship I've ever read. It will be interesting to see if anybody seriously addresses your comments over the next few days.

You are absolutely right in saying that we want to support Israel. In my high school and college days, all I knew of Israel were the glowing reports of the kibbutzim in National Geographic and Life and the heroic exploits of the IDF in 67 and 73. What was not to admire? I knew nothing of the Nakba or the Liberty at the time. I think a lot of Americans would rather believe in the heroic kibbutzniks making an empty desert bloom than face the true situation. The Israelis are not the heroes of our dreams and do absolutely nothing for us. The hasbarim have been damned effective.

[BillWade]

From heros to has-beens, too bad.

"We discussed the issue of Gaza. And I commended Prime Minister Netanyahu on the progress that's been made in allowing more goods into Gaza. We've seen real progress on the ground. I think it's been acknowledged that it has moved more quickly and more effectively than many people anticipated."

Obama, today

who'd of guessed it?

[J]

Don't forget that the Israelis use our own U.S. aid dollars against U.S.. Imagine that our very own U.S. taxpayer dollars are paying for Israeli's hostile-to-the-U.S. intel (espionage) ops in the U.S.. Soooo sad for U.S. that is. Bet our U.S. aid dollars are paying for their Kidon's stateside motel rooms.

[J]

.....and....their stateside safe houses.

[Jackie]

I used to work for a union health fund and I remember on of the trustees talking about what a good return they got for their investment in Israeli war bonds. My wtf thought was 'what was a fund in the midwest doing investing in Israeli war bonds'? A board member was Jewish, but it still seemed strange.

If I run into him again, I'll ask which war it was.

[PirateLaddie]

The term "cat amongst the pigeons" somehow comes to mind....
But Colonel, I'm sorry to disagree (at least in part)-- I see nothing "curious" about the idea that USG support of Israel is driven by a corrupt Congress. While we'd like to believe that "politics ends at the water's edge," political survival and big $$ arched that flood long ago.

[Castellio]

A million and a half people held captive in an outdoor prison, their elected government shot and imprisoned, taxation money and water rights stolen by a foreign country, all due to a racist ideology and the President of the US emerges to say what.....???

[William R. Cumming]

A graphic of the location of the World's Jewish population based on adherence to the faith not some other measure such as racial kindredness [is there such a word?] would indicate exactly why the US benefits from the existence of Israel! Really you say how can that graphic yield that result? Simple, the NAZI holocaust was largely successful and in part to deal with the deadliness of the Eurpoean past and the close run thing war against Nazi Germany was for the US and GB there needs to be a constant reminder of how hateful Nazi Germany was. What better example to your current population could exist then to constantly remind ourselves of how human potential can be for evil as well as good. The benefit of Israel is that it reminds the US polity that it too skated very close to genocide a number of times, Native Americans for one. Perhaps a feeble effort but still my best shot at the complexity of arguing a specific foreign entanglement based on benefits vis a vis costs. The benefit is pyschic and political not economic or military.

[Patrick Lang]

WRC

"Native American genocide." What crap! This country is full of people who are part Indian, me for one. pl

[Patrick Lang]

PL

You lack a literary sensibility. I did not dispute the idea that Congress has been bullied and bribed into acquiescence. The essence of the thing remains that general American opinion favors the alliance for the reasons I gave. pl

[Roy G]

The Zionist strategy has been clear for a long time--to dangle the carrot the carrot, then move the goalposts (apologies to Orwell for that mixing of metaphors). This was even given as advice to the Apartheid SA govt. on how to deal with their 'problem.' Things got easy during the Bush administration, whose 'road map' was a blank piece of paper. The plan, as enacted by its prime mover, Sharon, has been divide and conquer. Remember that he instigated the second intifada with his premeditated stroll through the Temple Mount, and also facilitated sealing off the Gaza reservation.

The Zionist strategy has always been reliant on the presence of the external threat, which has, by necessity, morphed over the years, as the previous threats no longer held their potency. Now, they are driven to create the 'existentialist threat' of Iran. Regardless of the true nature of these threats, the underlying goal and method is always the same--point at the enemy with one hand, while grabbing land with the other.

As always, when Bibi is for something, warning bells ought to be going off; in this case, he wants to negotiate a settlement with the Vichy PA government, which is calculated to avoid having to talk to Hamas, who ought to be party to any real solution. Note that the Heritage guy still talks in the denialist mode of 'defeating Hamas.' Not realistic at this point, so they have to pretend to ignore them. For the Potemkin crowd, negotiating with the PA is a huge 'advance for peace,' while the ME will see it for what it is--window dressing. There can be no true solution at this point unless Hamas is involved. Hence, Bibi's sleight of hand, which is a guaranteed time-waster and consensus-wrecker--a 'win-win' by his standards.

[Cloned Poster]

Bibi obviously had the Mossad pictures of Obama's "early days" misadventures with him on this visit.

[Adam L Silverman]

Sir,

There's another element to the money trail that no one mentions, perhaps because it's not too commonly known outside of the political campaigning world: a large number of the top political consultants and campaign specialists, when they're not doing what they do here, work for candidates and on campaigns abroad. When I was getting my doctorate, which is partly in political science, I was in several classes with the campaigning and policy folks. Some of these people were coming back to do PhDs or adding masters degrees even though they'd been working in their fields for years. Several remarked, including one Israeli, that the big names work the Israeli campaigns - lining up center to left or center to right by whether they are democratic or republican specialists in the US. And this doesn't even account for many of the neo-Cons and their compatriots who have done policy work for Likud's policy tank. So there's money to be made and so much of this looks like American style perpetual campaigning which has overtaken our politics and media.

[Richard Steven Hack]

Walrus, thanks for the link to the TIP PDF. Very interesting. Now we know where the Israel Lobby gets their talking points.

As for Netanyahu's talking up a "peace agreement", that's a joke. You can tell when a Zionist is lying - he's communicating in some way, even including sign language for the deaf. Netanyahu is merely babbling for international consumption. Nothing will change on the ground, except to get worse and he knows it. He's lying in the bald-faced manner most Zionists engage in.

And Obama knows this. He's dithering, as he is wont to do, hoping he can push the whole thing off on his successor, just as Bush pushed off attacking Iran on to Obama (while hoping it would be McCain, of course).

I told people all during the Presidential campaign that Obama was just another slick-talking politician who, worse, was absolutely clueless about foreign policy and military matters. His proclamations about "finishing the job in Afghanistan" and "taking the fight to Al Qaeda in Pakistan" and preventing Iran from doing ANY enrichment on Iranian soil were all so much nonsense intended to establish him as "tough on terror" so he could beat McCain. Whether he believed that nonsense is unclear, but he's certainly acting like he did. Either that or he's just carrying on with the same nonsense for the same reason as before - to get re-elected.

Either way, he's either an idiot or a liar. In other words, he's a politician. Nothing more than "Bush Lite" in terms of his foreign policy.

[Patrick Lang]

RSH

Welcome to the committee. You are coming in during the middle of the discussion. Give me a citation on US use of white phosphorus artillery or mortar ammunition during either battle at Fallujah.

I no longer think that the Israelis would hook right through SW Syria to arrive in Hizbullah's rear. Their diplayed lack of tactical finesse in 06 makes me think they proba bly are not up to that any more. pl

[Cold War Zoomie]

So there's money to be made ...

It's all about the duckies. Almost always is.

There seems to be a profound truth lurking under this Money Programme sketch.

[Richard Steven Hack]

Colonel Lang: My use of the term "white phosphorus" was imprecise. I think I've read that the munition in use is somewhat different than the WP used in earlier conflicts.

U.S. Army publication confirms United States used incendiary weapon in Falluja
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/U.S._Army_publication_confirms_United_States_1109.html

There is thus no doubt the US used incendiary weapons. The question has been whether it was used to attack civilians. I think in the context of the Fallujah environment it is pretty clear that it might have been very hard NOT to use in the vicinity of civilians. OTOH, given the general approach to Fallujah being one of disproportionate use of force, presumably the use of WP in certain cases was the least of the US's problems.

The bottom line is that there can be no doubt the US had less concern for civilians than they should have.

Thank you for your attention.

[J]

It's interesting how the NJ's inputs are now all of a sudden 'speechless' and their lips 'silent' when confronted by the Colonel's logic regarding our ill-fitted alliance (ahem) let me correct myself 'relationship' with the postage stamp Israel. It appears the Neocon personas like Zakheim and crew are totally 'speechless'. It's funny (no it isn't) how the Neocon/Israel firsters crowd runs for cover when the spotlight is shown on the 'relationship' between the U.S and Israel for what it truely is -- a leech (israel) upon a buffalo (U.S.) crossing a stream. Yes I intentionally used the lower case to refer to -- [i]srael -- for what it truly is, a pain in our U.S. backside! U.S. support for 'modern day' Israel is a result of incorrect readings of the Holy Bible by the American public at large, yes I said 'incorrect readings'. And as a result our U.S. is suffering the consequences.