"Defense official on Ukraine policy: Israeli interests needn't be identical to U.S." Haaretz

"Israeli policy is driven by its own security interests and does not need to be identical to that of the U.S., a senior defense official said Sunday in response to Haaretz's report that White House and State Department officials in Washington have built up a great deal of anger over Jerusalem's "neutrality" regarding Russia's invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. Senior figures in the Obama administration have expressed great disappointment with the lack of support from Israel for the American position on the Ukraine crisis and with the fact that the Israeli government puts its relations with the United States and with Russia on the same plane. The head of the Defense Ministry's political-security department, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amos Gilad said in response to Haaretz's report that Israel's policy on the matter was driven by its own security interests, which should not be confused with that of the U.S."  Haaretz

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I can only say that I agree with MG Amos Gilad so long as he accepts that this truth should be reciprocal.  pl   

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.585374

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-Putin-discuss-Iran-Ukraine-via-telephone-348601

Comments

[Rd.]

Amos also said, they want a balance policy between the two 'superpowers'!!! where as their necon cosines consider Russia just a lonely regional power!!

izies and US may throw a lot of sparks here and there in their relations, but ultimately, they are joined at the hip.

[turcopolier]

Rd.

Well, sure they want a balance so they can play us off against each other. The Arabs want the same thing. BTW, what game are the neocons playing? pl

[dsrcwt]

I know there is no price for hypocrisy any more, but maybe the Israelis couldn't bring themselves to condemn the annexing of Crimea while themselves annexing Golan, West Bank, etc.

[kao_hsien_chih]

If I were cynical, Israelis will say that the relationship is indeed reciprocal, and that it is American politicians who are throwing themselves at Israel's feet. While this is a disingenuous statement, there is a certain truth to this. American media are usually much more deferential to the Israeli government than the Israeli media themselves. American politicians are far more hesitant to criticize Israeli government even when its own actions might be unpopular among Israeli's themselves. Heck, the recent fiasco involving the apparent fake fliers in Donetsk where Kerry was mouthing off even after Israeli media accepted that the fliers were probably phoney illustrates this perfectly.

This demands a better explanation than just the power and influence of the "Israeli lobby" on the politicians. A lot of people in positions of influence, based on my experience (I don't deal with government people much, but I do deal with a lot of people in positions of moderate influence, like academics, local media people, religious leaders, etc.) really do sympathize with Israel, often to an unreasonable extent, without being Jewish or being directly lobbied by Israel and are willing to publicly make excuses for Israel. It is these people who drive our media and politicians, at least as much as direct influence from Israel's lobby, I suspect. What makes them such willing shills for Israel is something that needs to be thought through harder...

[William Herschel]

You're Israel. You wake up one morning and read that Victoria Nuland has been caught on tape saying "---- the EU." Do you say to yourself, "You go girl! Stick it to the EU!" or do you shake your head in disbelief?

You're Israel. You wake up one morning and discover that Russia has annexed Crimea without firing a single shot. Do you say to yourself, "Well, Crimea doesn't have any strategic importance to, say, the civil war in Syria, so I'm still four square with the CIA operation in Kiev," or do you shake your head in disbelief.

You're Israel. You wake up one morning and see that Brennan has made a surprise visit to Kiev after Russian separatists have started the process of taking over Eastern Ukraine. Do you say...

The Obama Administration is furious with Israel? Try turning that around. Israel has just plain stopped supporting the maddening incompetence of the neo-con United States foreign policy and its current patsy Obama. I don't blame them. And the major problem with the neo-cons is that they aren't very smart. Will being taken to school by Vladimir Vladimirovitch make them smarter? Can you make people like that neo-con poster child George Bush smarter?

[William Herschel]

US foreign policy in action:

http://rt.com/files/opinionpost/25/75/c0/00/kk-1.jpg

taken from:

http://rt.com/op-edge/west-russia-sanctions-economic-destruction-436/

[The beaver]

Colonel

Another good one is this hoax spread like wild fire in the news and on the Net, even the lazy chaps at Foggy Bottom swallowed it:

U.S. officials Thursday denounced what one called a "grotesque" leaflet ordering Jews in one eastern Ukrainian city to register with a government office, but the Jewish community there dismissed it as a "provocation."
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/world/ukraine-religious-threats/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

"Incredibly, the State Department is endorsing the myth as absolute fact, because what USA Today claims unnamed Israeli media claims they saw posted outside a synagogue in Donetsk is good enough for them."
http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/04/17/mythical-jew-registration-in-east-ukraine-a-media-sensation/

[William R. Cumming]

Israel. the US, and Russia locked into an iron triangle that each must embrace even though each fears it! The linchpin is international Zionism, IOC's [international organized crime, oligarchs of Jewish faith, and the decades and centuries old discrimination against Jews and guilt and shame over assistance in the Holocaust.

Yet no real examination of this triangle and its implications for the future or role in the past. And its modern role in INTELLIGENCE!

[ToivoS]

I think this story is very healthy and deserves much wider distribution than just Haaretz. We need this discussion in the US. Of course, Israel has national interests independent from the US. Let the American people know.

[charly]

A very large part of the Israeli's comes from the USSR and speaks Russian and i think the Russian propaganda that the new Ukrainian interior minister is a neo-nazi touches a nerve. That could explain Israels attitude.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Mr. Gilad doesn't even have to accept it. It's the way it should be whether he likes it or not.

[JohnH]

How could Israel possibly object to a country annexing territory?

[optimax]

The WH is occupied by a clique of teenagers who think they can change Israel's, or any countries, behavior by getting angry. Pouting, passive-aggressiveness, and withholding friendship are their main foreign policy tools. This is pathetic. We can't consider ourselves the leader of the free world if our leaders aren't even grownups.

[different clue]

Since the neocons would rather have a war in Ukraine than to have a neutral Ukraine not in EU or NATO, I can only guess their game is the pursuit of full spectrum chaos all over as much of the world as they can achieve. Perhaps also indulging their own sense of superior brilliance.
If they cared what Israel wanted or found Israeli thinking even interesting, they might ask the Israelis why the Israelis are being reticent about supporting a questionable Ukraine government with deep Bandera ties and elements; to the point of preferring civil war in Ukraine and even risking war with Russia over seeking a neutralized Ukraine which is "off the chessboard".

[crf]

It isn't just about the idea that annexation is good or acceptable. It is the idea that states shouldn't be backed into a corner by the US into doing something this radical.

US policy has helped to bequeath Israel a state teetering towards failure in Egypt. I'm sure they are extremely unhappy about this. Same with a failed Syria and Libya. Israel wants those states to be relatively weak, but not weak to the extent that they are suicidal.

US foreign policy is scary right now. Bush's policy was drunkenly stupid. But Obama, leading the indispensable nation, has presided over a worldwide recession without end, doing next to nothing to alleviate it (the last recession of this type led to world war II). He has been content to see tensions increase in every area of the world. And in Ukraine has been walking the whole world towards the gates of hell.

So Israel, with it's Ukraine statement, is voicing its non-confidence in US foreign policy, in all its facets in a very public way.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Not just the White House, it seems.

Read what the Auntie says:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

[William R. Cumming]

Agree! I wonder how the USA FP establishment thinks the failure of the Arab Spring in short or long run helps US and Israeli interests?

[Dubhaltach]

In reply to ToivoS 18 April 2014 at 06:49 PM:

Even better than doing what you suggest in isolation:

"We need this discussion in the US. Of course, Israel has national interests independent from the US. Let the American people know."

Would be to do it in the context of countries of which Israel is just one. Thus:

"Other countries have national interests independent from the US. Let the American people know."

Not only is it true but the shift in emphasis allows you to forestall the usual pack of lies anent anti-semitism.

Dubhaltach

[Andrew]

Well... Israel is planning to annex the rest of Palestine so this is a beauty precedent, I can hear it now "how about RRRussia, why piiiiiiick on us?. Also with all the fake anti Jewish stuff, we take the focus off the "Mid East Peace talks" and we get worried about the poor Jewish people being persecuted in Ukraine-and is it not a miracle that Israel exists. Thirdly, Israel supports Nazis all over Europe so that they (Judeo Nazis) don't look out of place. It's all good, double the pleasure.

[jon]

Haaretz usually has a pretty good stance and analysis. But they don't speak for the government, or the general population. There, it seems they demand a one-way street.

[Ryan]

Colonel,

The game they are playing is they want to rule the world and personally profit from their efforts. My belief is based on what they say and have written. The arrogance and stupidity they show jumps out at me. I consider them to be loons and dangerous ones at that.

[Ryan]

Israeli exceptionalism.

[lally]

From the Haaretz link above:

"Russia's ability to cause damage with regard to issues that are important to us, such as Iran and Syria, is very great," a senior Israeli official noted,...."

Code for the continuation of Putin's cooperation with Israeli pleas to refrain from supplying Iran and Syria (Hezbollah) with their game changing S-300 surface-to-air missile defense systems.

[Thomas]

“what game are the neocons playing?”

Get the US to take out Iran and complete the clean break.

This link’s author basically calls for a conflict with Hizbullah which would hopefully drag in Iran followed by the US. And with fully made member of the Jacobin Junta Bibi in charge it should be a rousing success, except for the death, destruction and despair.

The Ukrainian operation looked as a method to neutralize Russia in the Levant to allow for the further goal of an intensifying effort to finish off the northern threat. I wonder if the IDF commanders are willing to accept the costs necessary to be the last one standing?

“It is not only IDF intelligence that is undergoing transformation. The entire military is shedding its old uniforms, habits, modus operandi, intelligence and operational concepts, becoming a whole new military. This is a military that no longer needs to crush Syrian divisions, simply because there are none. This is a military that does not need to break through into Sinai or launch a large-scale ground maneuver in Iraq. This is a military that will see short yet intense engagements with guerrilla and terrorist organizations in urban areas or underground, with tunnels, fortifications and bunkers. Those guerrilla fighters will never show up for a face-to-face combat. Instead, they will try wearing you out with a barrage of thousands of rockets on the home front.

Although short, these rounds will nevertheless be traumatic. Both sides — Israel and the other side — will have to prove to their public that they were necessary. Hezbollah, for that matter, will have to come up with a pretty good excuse vis-a-vis the Lebanese people whose infrastructures will be aggressively obliterated by the IDF. By contrast, Israel’s political echelon will require broad public support and consensus once it becomes apparent that hundreds (at best) of civilians have been killed in the barrage of tens of thousands of rockets (up to 10,000 rockets daily) that were showered on the home front for a fortnight. Israel will try to condense the confrontation to the smallest time frame as possible. It is believed that the last day will be the most difficult one, whereby each side will try to prove that it remains the last one standing.”

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/04/idf-cyber-war-intelligence-units-reuven-pedatzur.html#ixzz2zMAnKVli

So causal in throwing their own countrymen’s lives away while civilian political leaders have bunker reservations.

[oofda]

I agree with you Colonel- and hope- against hope- that the Isrealis consider that to be reciprocal. Too many Americans don't.