Sic Semper Tyrannis

Without us ...

"Officials in Jerusalem believe the Jan. 31 declaration by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that Iran was just months, and possibly weeks, away from obtaining sufficient fissile material for a bomb were exaggerated and deliberate. According to Israeli diplomatic and security sources, Blinken knows that the figure he mentioned was imprecise and relates only to fissile material and not to Iran’s ability to manufacture a nuclear warhead and install it on a delivery vehicle. They believe Blinken’s declaration was intended to provide a convincing rationale for a speedy return to negotiations with Iran and perhaps even a nuclear agreement, as if to say that the new administration was saving the world and rolling back Iran’s ambitious nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s people were underwhelmed by Blinken’s forecast, to put it mildly. Israeli security officials are more concerned by the gaps in perception with the Americans. “Generally speaking, the Americans want to get out of the Middle East as fast as possible,” an Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “They do not view a nuclear-threshold Iran as a threat or danger; they have the capabilities of a world power and a different timetable than ours. For us, Iran as a threshold state is very dangerous and a nuclear-capable Iran is an existential threat, whereas America can handle both options. It has different capabilities, its distance from Iran is far greater and its triggers are completely different.”"  al monitor

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Well, well.  Here is one issue or set of issues on which I agree with the Biden Administration.   Blinken, Malley, Bill Burns et all are a seasoned crew who have a long and bitter experience of the nasty, bullying way the Israelis treat the US.  Natanyahu once said "Don't worry about the Americans, they are easy to push around."  This is one case in which the Borg (US foreign policy establishment) has it right.  The Israelis need to be reminded that they are the tail and not the dog.  

If they want to fight Iran, let them, but without us.  No target intelligence, no air to air refueling, no supplemental funding for this, no assistance to get them access to  Iraqi airfields, no SAR anywhere.  Nothing.  If they want to fight Iran, let them, but without us!  Woof!  pl

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2021/02/israel-us-iran-joe-biden-benjamin-netanyahu-anthony-blinken.html

"Iran’s Flexible Fatwa" WINEP

"The Supreme Leader first issued an oral nuclear fatwa in 2003, and he has repeated it in numerous speeches since then. These pronouncements, which use a religious idiom to describe nuclear weapons as “forbidden” (haram), have the same legal standing as written fatwas.

The precise formulations used in these pronouncements have varied. Khamenei has at times categorically forbidden the development, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons. On other occasions, he appeared to tacitly permit their development and stockpiling, but not use. When addressing a group of top scientists on October 9, 2019, he stated, “Although we could have taken this path [of producing a nuclear weapon], we decided not to...based on Islam’s verdict; it is wrong to make it and it is wrong to stockpile it because it is forbidden to use it.”

Notably, both the initial fatwa and early Iranian efforts to highlight it followed not long after the discovery and public disclosure of the regime’s clandestine nuclear enrichment program in 2002. These efforts should therefore be seen, at least in part, as damage control. The fatwa has been used for other purposes as well:

• To legitimize the nuclear program as a strictly peaceful activity via religious justification
• To deflect potential domestic criticism for the program’s slow progress, its numerous setbacks, and the regime’s decision to eschew a rapid breakout
• To help the regime promote revolutionary Islam as a coequal system of international legitimacy alongside international law, as expressed through proposals in 2013 to get the fatwa enshrined in a UN resolution."

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I would agree with the authors that Iran can be negotiated with and that the ideological shine has gone off the apple with regard to Iran's revolutionary fervor.  National interests, real or imagined, are probably paramount priorities now.

What I would not agree with or support is the notion that Iran must be made into a land locked country devoted to the cultivation of pistachios and the weaving of fine carpets.  This is the Israeli policy position which WINEP, an arm of AIPAC, supports.

This is one area in which I can be persuaded to think that Blinken/Harris/Biden would be right in returning to JCPOA.

I wonder if anyone has had a go at explaining all this to Harris.  pl

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/irans-flexible-fatwa-how-expediency-shapes-nuclear-decisionmaking

Is an Israeli air strike on Iran imminent? - TTG

Top Israeli military figures have slammed as “empty” and “inappropriate” the recent anti-Iran remarks made by the Israeli regime’s army chief of staff lieutenant general Aviv Kochavi. In his remarks on Tuesday, Kochavi said the Israeli military was revising its attack plans against Iran amid fresh efforts by the new US administration to reverse Trump’s Iran policy. He warned the Biden administration against rejoining the 2015 landmark Iran nuclear deal, which was abandoned by the Trump administration in May 2018, saying such a move “would be bad and not the right thing to do.”

“I instructed the army to prepare a number of operational plans in addition to the existing ones,” Kochavi’s said. “We are taking care of these plans and will develop them during the coming year. Those who decide on carrying them out, of course, are the political leaders. But these plans have to be on the table,” the Israeli general said.

Kochavi’s remarks were met with trenchant criticisms – even among the critics of the nuclear agreement, which was reached during former President Barack Obama’s time in office.

Amos Gilad, a former head of Israeli Military Intelligence, said the threat of military action against Iran was an empty one and such a strike would never happen without the backing of the United States. “You think you would carry out a strike without strategic cooperation with the United States? It will never, ever happen,” Gilad said in an interview on the 103FM radio station on Wednesday. “Understand that these are all just words.” He warned that harsh remarks that contradict the position of the new American administration “could be seen as defiance” by the White House, adding, “That’s not how you lead a policy.”  (PRESS TV)

————

BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:20 P.M.) – The spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, Major General Abu Fadl Shikaraji, threatened to “destroy Tel Aviv” in case Israel “makes any mistake” against Iran. “Israel’s threats are part of psychological warfare, and if they are realistic, then they are illusions,” Shkaraji said, adding that the Iranian army “will destroy Tel Aviv and erase it if Israel commits any stupidity against our nuclear facilities.”

“The Israeli army lives in a state of terror and is too weak to carry out its threats on the ground,” he said, adding that “Israel’s threat to destroy our nuclear facilities is just illusions and pipe dreams.” Shkharji stressed that the Iranian army “will destroy the Israeli missile bases as soon as Iran is exposed to any attack,” noting that “the large part of Iran’s military capabilities have not been revealed.”  (AMN)

————

“If the Zionists make a foolish move or any mistake, even the slightest one, against Iran, they will face a reaction that will destroy Tel Aviv and hasten the end of their regime,” Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi told Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam news network. He also said the Iranian Armed Forces have been strengthening their defensive capabilities day by day, and that the country is capable of carrying out strategic operations to level the enemy to the ground.  (PRESS TV)

————

These excerpts from Iranian Press TV and Al Masdar News articles capture the current state of play in the ongoing Israeli-Iranian confrontation. Israeli and Iranian verbal chest thumping is at an all time high. If blustery language were bombs, we’d be deep into WW III. However, Gilad is correct. Without US strategic cooperation, there will not be a massive conventional air attack on Iran. And that strategic cooperation is unlikely to be forthcoming under Biden, even though there are still plenty of Borg clowns in this administration just itching for just such an attack. 

Throughout the Obama and Trump administrations the most probable scenarios involved massive US air and missile strikes against Iran to obliterate Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure and bring about regime change. These strikes would be in conjunction with Israeli strikes or reluctantly launched after an insufficient initial Israeli strike. The goal, Israel’s goal, was always to eliminate Iran as a threat to Israel. There was nothing in it for us other than pleasing Israel and risking WW III.

The goal of US administrations was to prevent this, usually by placating Israel in various ways. No one, not Bush, not Obama, nor Trump wanted the US involved in a war against Iran. However, they were all plagued by swarms of Israel Firsters praying, many literally praying, for war. Obama’s approach was the JCPOA. Israel viewed the JCPOA as an existential threat to their goal. Trump had a different approach, trash the JCPOA and embark on a policy of maximum pressure to collapse the regime in Tehran. Like previous administrations, this maximum pressure policy did not envision a massive US air attack.  

Israel decided she could work with this. This became apparent when we learned of another Trump Tower meeting in 2016. This one had nothing to do with Russia. It was all about Iran and how the US, Israel, the UAE and the Saudis would force regime change in Tehran. It included a proposal to create a UAE-Saudi anti-terrorist force that would supplant the need for the US to police the region. Not that bad a plan, really. Getting rid of JCPOA was easy. It was an Obama agreement. Of course Trump would scuttle that. The same for selling weapons and ordnance to the Saudis and UAE. That’s profitable business. The assassination of Qasem Soleimani may or may not have been a part of this maximum pressure policy. 

An important part of this grand plan was a robust regional strategic realignment. Israel’s close military cooperation with the UAE began in the 1990s. It was low key, but extensive. Kushner’s grand Middle East bargain last year just made that official. The UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) appears to be the true power broker on the Arabian Peninsula rather than the Saudi Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). He was the driving force behind the Abraham Accords. MBZ is a Sandhurst graduate and has built the UAE military and intelligence into competent forces although they are largely foreign. He is measured, pragmatic and sits atop large oil reserves as well as a growing international financial hub. His hand is behind many of the events throughout the Arab world. He is definitely worth watching.

Now back to Israel and Iran. At one time the best Israel hoped for was the unhindered flight of the IAF across Saudi airspace enroute to Iranian targets. That limited hope has morphed into the possibility of the active involvement of UAE and even Saudi bases and forces in an attack on Iran. The addition of fifty F-35s to the UAE Air Force would greatly increase the strike capabilities of the current hundred or so F-16 and Mirage 2000 aircraft. Even though reaching full operational capability would be several years away, I think the IAF would be giddy with anticipation of this possibility in spite of their apprehensions about Arab F-35s. In the meantime, Israel and the UAE are building a joint intelligence base on Socotra. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia are cooperating with Israel on missile defense, intelligence sharing, reconnaissance (both airborne and at sea) and cybersecurity. This Israeli-Emerati confidence building and integration will continue as long as MBZ sees it as advantageous.

The Saudi war on the Houthis has not helped Israel. Even though the UAE has pulled out of the conflict, Israel’s closeness to the UAE and growing cooperation with the Saudis have made Israel an active enemy of the Houthi. In response Iran has introduced the Shahed-131 and the more advanced Shahed-136 loitering munition UAVs to the northern Yemeni province of Al-Jawf. The Shahed -136 has an effective range of over 1,200 miles bring southern Israel and Gulf of Aqaba ship traffic within range. In response, Israel has had to station Patriot and Iron Dome AD systems at Eilat - the opening of an unwanted southern front in addition to the constant threat of Hezbollah to the north. This is also whatever missiles and drones Iran may have stationed in Iraq and Syria.

So, how will the Biden administration change Israeli calculations for a strike against Iran? Of primary interest to Israel is Biden’s desire to reenter the JCPOA and improve relations with Tehran. As I alluded to earlier, this is anathema to Israel. Will this make Israel antsy enough to strike? I don’t think so. Biden is also withdrawing support from the Saudi war in Yemen. He halted logistical and munitions support to the Saudis and paused the effort to provide F-35s to the UAE. The latter may even give MBZ pause for further open military cooperation with Israel. He wants those F-35s. We’ll never abandon Israel, but can we be relied on to provide logistical, intelligence and strike support to an Israeli initiated attack on Iran? In my opinion, it is no longer a sure thing.

And then there is Russia. The last thing she wants is an expanded war in the Middle East. Russia has recently signed several agreements to bolster Iranians defenses both air defenses and cyber defenses. Lavrov said that the construction of new units of the Bushehr nuclear power plant was discussed during his recent meeting with his Iranian counterpart. He also said "Russia hopes that the United States will return to the JCPOA and that this will be a condition for Iran to implement the JCPOA" and that "Moscow will continue its efforts to ensure that Iran and the United States fully comply with their obligations to the JCPOA in the near future." Russia’s demonstrated expertise in radio-electronic combat should make Israel think twice about a first strike. Not only would this expertise bolster Iran’s defenses, but Russia could hamper Israel’s strike capabilities from her bases in Syria and her ships in the Mediterranean. Russia would not sit this one out. 

In my opinion, an Israeli strike on Iran is not imminent. Nor is it in the cards in at least the next several years. Israel has to be sure of a convincing victory. A draw would further damage Israel’s aura of invincibility. Without that, Israel’s best and brightest will fly away leaving nothing but Talmudic scholars and angry Palestinians to hash things out. There will be conflict as well as more big talk and selling of wolf tickets like I posted at the top of this article. The political maneuvering will continue. Military capabilities will continue to be developed. The intelligence conflict will continue. The cyber conflict will continue. All this will continue until something breaks… one way or the other.

TTG 

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/01/29/644100/Israeli-figures-slam-Kochavi-empty-rhetoric

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iranian-army-spokesman-threatens-to-destroy-tel-aviv-if-israel-attacks-irans-nuclear-facilities/

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/01/28/644011/Iran-Israel-threat-Dehqan-Shekarchi 

       

Solar Winds was an Israeli penetration? Not Russia?

"As Russiagate played out, it became apparent that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and a foreign power, but the nation was Israel, not Russia. Indeed, many of the reports that came out of Russiagate revealed collusion with Israel, yet those instances received little coverage and generated little media outrage. This has led some to suggest that Russiagate may have been a cover for what was in fact Israelgate.

Similarly, in the case of the SolarWinds hack, there is the odd case and timing of SolarWinds’ acquisition of a company called Samanage in 2019. As this report will explore, Samanage’s deep ties to Israeli intelligence, venture-capital firms connected to both intelligence and Isabel Maxwell, as well as Samange’s integration with the Orion software at the time of the back door’s insertion warrant investigation every bit as much as SolarWinds’ Czech-based contractor. "   unlimitedhangout

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Pilgrims!  I am suggesting or at least raising the possibility that Israel has massively broken into American government IT systems.  Hmmm.  Does that mean that I am a Rooshan asset?

The sadly funny thing in this is how deaf, dumb and blind the main stream media are with regard to any, any, any possibility that Israel does not think its interests are identical with those of the US.

Natanyahu is quite open about his intention to bully Biden into continuing Israeli policy aimed at a Morgenthau model for Iran.  

People openly say on the TeeVee that not only must Iran give up its nuclear ambitions but it must also accept Israeli hegemony in the region.  Joltin' Jack Keane is one of the foremost proponents of such a vision of the future Middle East.  For him the Syrian military are merely "Iranian surrogate forces."  Perhaps someone should look carefully at the funding for the Institute for the Study of War.  Keane is the chairman thereof.  pl

https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/01/investigative-reports/another-mega-group-spy-scandal-samanage-sabotage-and-the-solarwinds-hack/

We're Back Baby! Bomb'n Biden says "Come on Man" We're Off to War....... by Fred

Happy Friday America! It's been less than 48 hours and already our brave redacted Commander in Chief has, finished with using 25,000 troops he says he can't trust to ethnicly cleanse the Capital of all Americans, sent troops back to Syria. Come on man, we gotta take on the Roooshans, just like we've been telling you for years. For (check's list) Freedom in the Middle East. 

IMO Iran will wait for Biden

A journo friend called yesterday to ask my opinion about the course of near term events regarding Iran.

The murder of a senior Iranian scientist at the weekend may have been done by Israel or the United States or both in cooperation.  He may or may not have been the "father" of an actual Iranian MILITARY nuclear program as opposed to a CIVILIAN electric power focused program.

In the 2007 NIE on Iran the USIC would not commit publicly to the existence of such a military program and they never have since.  The theory of the case then was that Khamenei ordered an end to an experimental military program after the occupation of Iraq by the US and the destruction of the Iraqi government.  Khamenei published a fatwa stating that such a program was an evil thing and was no longer needed as a deterrent against Iraq.  

The subsequent US/Israeli focus on a putative Iranian nuclear weapons program was IMO an artifact of the Israeli/Cheney/Ziocon fascination with their 1% theory of strategy.  Stated simply, this is the concept that if anything can possibly threaten you, even at a  1% level of probability, then you should seek to crush it.

On that basis the Israelis have long wanted Iran crushed.  They have lacked the means to do it themselves unless they want to use the nuclear weapons they pretend not to have.  They evidently do not want to do that and so their long yearned for solution is that the stupid but strong Americans do it for them with perhaps a minor supporting role for themselves just so that they can claim afterward that they did all the hard bits.

In that context the death of the Iranian savant is easy to see as a provocation intended to bring on an Iranian attack which could be used to goad Trump into a grand finale effort against Iran.

The USS Nimitz Battle Group is in the area with all its wondrous  planes and missile shooting ships.  The US has been moving JDAM shooting B-52s into the region for a week.  Things like the B-2 bomber and B-1B are on call from far away.  Someone has been setting the stage for ...?  Who knows?  I doubt that it is Trump.  He has shown himself to be long on talk, and short on actual shooting.

Are the Iranians dumb enough to take the bait?  I doubt it.  All they have to do is wait for Joe, Blinken et al to take over and they are likely to get something very like JCPOA.  pl 

Moscow Has No Problems With S400 Transfers To Iran Once UNSC Resolution 2231 Expires Oct. 18. by J.

Iran possessing the Russian S400s could prove to be a game changer, especially for Israel.

Sources: 

https://sputniknews.com/military/202010041080661805-air-defence-axis-russia-would-have-no-problem-delivering-s-400s-to-iran/

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/09/iran-russia-military-cooperation-un.html

https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/iran/news/article/iran-jcpoa-joint-statement-by-the-foreign-ministers-of-france-germany-and-the

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/09/iran-sanctions-nuclear-maduro-snapback-pompeo-defense-un.html

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/09/iran-snapback-sanctions-rouhani-fail.html

https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/69935/

https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/69932/

https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/69977/

New Sanctions?

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/09/iran-sanctions-nuclear-maduro-snapback-pompeo-defense-un.html

https://www.state.gov/the-return-of-un-sanctions-on-the-islamic-republic-of-iran/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-regarding-new-restrictions-irans-nuclear-ballistic-missile-conventional-weapons-pursuits/

Israeli Government egging D.C. on

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/09/israel-us-iran-united-arab-emirates-benny-gantz-donald-trump.html

J.

Gulfies on the Temple Mount? Haaretz

"When Israel and Bahrain announced the normalization of relations, their joint statement included the affirmation by Israel affirmed that "all Muslims who come in peace may visit and pray at the Al-Asqa Mosque." 

The Old City of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa compound, also known as the Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, is the third holiest pilgrimage site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, marking the destination of Muhammed's night journey in Muslim tradition. In theory, Muslim pilgrims who land at Ben-Gurion Airport, Israel will within an hour will be able to visit Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque."  Haaretz

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Over the decades I have asked various Muslims if they want to visit Al-Quds and the Al-Aqsa mosque.  The answer is always "yes."  

Then I ask them if they are willing to enter Israel through Ben Gurion airport, clear Israeli immigration and travel cross country to Jerusalem where the Jews rule.  The answer is always "no."

The same applies to an entry and passage overland from the Jordan River.

This should be really interesting.  pl 

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-gulf-pilgrims-are-about-to-upset-the-status-quo-at-al-aqsa-1.9207270

"Jewish Soldiers and Civilians Looted Arab Neighbors' Property en Masse in '48. The Authorities Turned a Blind Eye" Haaretz

"Refrigerators and caviar, champagne and carpets – a first-ever comprehensive study by historian Adam Raz reveals the extent to which Jews looted Arab property during the War of Independence, and explains why Ben-Gurion stated: ‘Most of the Jews are thieves’"

"We turned a mahogany closet into a chicken coop and we swept up the garbage with a silver tray. There was chinaware with gold embellishments, and we would spread a sheet on the table and place chinaware and gold on it, and when the food was finished, everything was taken together to the basement. In another place, we found a storeroom with 10,000 boxes of caviar, that’s what they counted. After that, the guys couldn’t touch caviar again their whole life. There was a feeling on one hand of shame at the behavior, and on the other hand a feeling of lawlessness. We spent 12 days there, when Jerusalem was groaning under horrible shortages, and we were putting on weight. We ate chicken and delicacies you wouldn’t believe. In the headquarters at Notre Dame, some people shaved with champagne.”"  Haaretz

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Well, pilgrims, soldiers loot, or "liberate" or take "souvenirs."  American soldiers are particularly prone to this. 

I never looted anywhere.  It would have been a personal fault and contrary to my code of behavior.  It is true that where I fought, the enemy and civilian people had nothing worth taking.  We gave them the means of life rather than the opposite.

But, in WW2, in Europe, US soldiers helped themselves to German civilian goods.  The APO shipped it home for them as "souvenirs."  I have seen a lot of German heirloom silver in the homes of WW2 veterans.  

I am not surprised that Israeli soldiers of the Palmach, Hagganah, Irgun, Stern Gang, etc. looted.  I am a little surprised that Israeli Jewish civilians participated so enthusiastically and that churches and mosques were also looted.  

BTW, "Notre Dame" as mentioned in the last line quoted. is the Notre Dame hostel for pilgrims.  It operates as a hotel in normal times and of course has a kitchen and wine cellar.  It was on the front line right across the street from the wall of the Old City which was then defended by Glubb Pasha's beduin soldiers of the Arab Legion of Jordan.

A friend of mine who was present at the taking of Baghdad in 2003 laughed and said "we took a little and left a little."  A sad and shameful thing.  I thought I had taught him better.

New subject - I see that Israel is now swamped with COVID cases and hospitalizations.  Perhaps Trump can issue an order from his sickbed to send a navy hospital ship to Tel Aviv.  IMO a condition would have to be that the Israelis actually use the ship unlike what happened in New York City.  pl

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.highlight.MAGAZINE-jews-looted-arab-property-en-masse-in-48-the-authorities-let-them-1.9201926

"... the Israeli Victory Is Nearly Complete." Amira Hass

"Twenty years later, the Israeli victory is nearly complete: The well-planned armed robbery of Palestinian land goes on daily unhindered. The model that Israel created in Gaza is being copied in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and translated into something akin to “Pales of Settlement” which, as long as they don’t show signs of fury and rebellion, are of no interest to the Jews in Israel, the supreme ruler."  Amira Hass

Author Bio:  Amira Hass is the Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Territories.  Born in Jerusalem in 1956, Hass joined Haaretz in 1989, and has been in her current position since 1993. As the correspondent for the territories, she spent three years living in Gaza, which served of the basis for her widely acclaimed book, "Drinking the Sea at Gaza." She has lived in the West Bank city of Ramallah since 1997.

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Yet further evidence of the actual paucity of my knowledge of Israel is the sad truth that I had never heard of Amira Hass until I noticed this article in Haaretz today.  The daughter of two survivors of the Shoa, one Sephardi and the other Ashkenazi, she has clearly devoted her life to truth telling in the matter of systemic Israeli abuse of the Palestinian people.  She has lived for long periods in Gaza and Ramallah.  My. My.  I am impressed.  pl

www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-twenty-years-after-the-second-intifada-the-israeli-victory-is-nearly-complete-1.9195532

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amira

The UN is not a government.

Some points regarding the UN:

1.  It has no effective power to enforce anything.

    a. It has no money of its own.  The members make voluntary donations.

    b.  It has no army.  Members volunteer troops for "peace keeping" duty.  Blue Helmets are just spectators everywhere they are placed.  The only exception is in Korea which is an accident of history.  But, Blue Helmet duty is VERY popular with soldiers everywhere because the UN supplementary pay is JUST WONDERFUL.  (as is UN civilian pay).

2.  The UN pretends that its "Resolutions" are something like laws.  They are not.  These multitudinous  documents are useful to the major powers (US, Russia, China, India maybe) when they want to justify some action they wish to take.  The various "Resolutions" on Iraq that the US managed to wheedle out of the Security Council come to mind.  And, the "Resolutions" are oh, so useful as rhetorical devices with which to denounce your long-standing enemies.  The Muslim/Arab states and the Israelis are particularly good at this.

3.  The real value of the UN lies in its role as a coordinating body for its subordinate specialized agencies;  IAEA, UNHCR,  ICAO, etc.  But, in fact, some of them are of no  real value, and exist largely to line the pockets of their staff.

4.  The international courts and investigations run by the UN are a joke.  They have no power whatever against the aforementioned major powers.  War crimes trials?  Yes, the losers get tried after denunciation by the winners.  Once again, the lawyers, investigators etc., live well in the process.  The farcical UN investigation into the murder of Rafiq Hariri is a wonderful example.  It went on forever and guess what!  Hizballah done it! (probably with a wink and a nod from the Assad)  Who woulda thought?  An effort was made in the midst of the investigation to get me to participate.  The pitch was made by a sometimes famous ex-CIA  pundit guy who said that my intimate knowledge of the low personalities among the Lebanese Shia and Hizballah would be the key to making the case for their guilt.  Then, the next day the chief UN investigator called to make the same appeal with a lot of money attached to it.  But, alas, I slithered away without taking the bait.

Perhaps we should bring back the League of Nations.  They also were useless and they have all those empty marble palaces in Geneva.  Maybe with Bill De Blasio in charge the UN might wish to leave New York City.  pl

Bibi admits that the UAE/Israel deal is based on a lie. AMN

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he has not agreed to remove the issue of the extension of Israeli sovereignty over lands in the West Bank and will not relinquish it.

Netanyahu said during a speech on Thursday evening, “The American president asked me to wait on the extension of Israeli sovereignty over more lands.”"  AMN

"There is no change in our policies in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank),” he said."  AMN

"He stressed that “Israel will have comprehensive peace agreements with other Arab countries without returning to the 1967 borders.”

He explained that “the normalization agreement with the Emirates includes reciprocal tourism and direct flights from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi.”

"He stated that “Abu Dhabi will make huge investments in Israel.”"  AMN

"For his part, Crown Prince Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed announced that “it was agreed to stop Israel’s annexation of the Palestinian lands.”""  AMN

------------------

Well then, you've been had, Your Preciousness.  You have been had.  If you have any decency, you will withdraw from this lying agreement.  pl 

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/israel-is-not-giving-up-on-annexing-west-bank-netanyahu/

"Biden intervened to keep Israel ‘occupation’ out of Democratic platform" Times of Israel

"Prior to Biden’s intervention, progressives in the party had secured agreement to include the word for the first time in the Democratic platform.

Ultimately, the section on Israel included more robust language defending the rights of the Palestinians to a state. It also condemned the boycott Israel movement.

The platform included a number of victories for progressives on domestic issues, including closing the wage gap and climate change. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom Biden, the former vice president, defeated in the primaries, is working closely with Biden to shape party policies."  Times of Israel

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I guess Bernie lost this one.  He is famously indifferent to Israel.  That is consistent with his internationalist socialist (at best) orientation.  We have to remember that he and his lovely wife went to the USSR for their honeymoon.  Biden is completely one sided on the Israel/Palestine issue.  I know that from personal observation of him at a range of about six feet.  pl

https://www.timesofisrael.com/biden-intervened-to-keep-israel-occupation-out-of-democratic-platform/

River prawns as canal cleaners. Who knew?

 

"Beyond the consumer applications, Professor Sagi has also been involved in research on using the prawns to combat schistosomiasis, a debilitating waterborne disease that affects around 200 million people worldwide, primarily in impoverished areas. Also known as Snail Fever, the disease is caused by parasitic flatworms called schistosomes, which use aquatic snails as an intermediate host. Anyone swimming in, or drinking water inhabited by, these snails is likely to contract the disease, which can eventually lead to liver damage, kidney failure, infertility, or bladder cancer. In children, it may also inhibit growth and mental development.

Since the prawns are voracious predators of water snails, trials are underway to determine how commercial aquaculture operations can be most effectively configured for a parallel role as snail control centers. In a recent paper, Sagi and other proponents argue that the prawns could significantly reduce the number of infected people and the cost of the drugs required to treat them, plus the prawn ponds would provide permanent sources of food and income."  ars technica

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These are the size I am familiar with.

I have eaten a lot of these guys in SE Asia and in fancy restaurants in Dubai, Morocco and Abu Dhabi.  These are absolutely wonderful grilled with the heads on.  Oil, lemon, S&P, garlic, three minutes on a side.  The heads are deliciously crunchy.

This Israeli bio-engineering company has managed to raise them in tanks filled with females only.  Brilliant!  The males are a nuisance.  They are very territorial and fight all the time, injuring each other, killing other prawns and are thus much distracted from the serious business of gaining weight and making little prawns.  Yum.  pl

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/can-gender-bending-israeli-super-prawns-help-feed-the-world/

A few thoughts - 24 April 2020

1.  IMO the US Navy will be doing a good thing if it persuades Trump to restore Captain Crozier to command of USS Theodore Roosevelt.  He did a very foolish thing by appealing to the whole wide world to support his position, but he did have the best interest of the ship's company in mind and as he said, we are not at war in the Pacific.   This would also be a humane decision on the part of the navy toward an officer in command, something unusual for them.

2.  IMO the medico bureaucrat academicians who insist that their group think about how to stop a pandemic are going to be discredited as it becomes clear that COVID-19 is wildly infectious but at the same time not very fatal except for the old, infirm and others compromised in health.  That would include HIV/AIDS sufferers.  You don't hear much about that, but IMO that is because such people are typically members of the LGBTQ "community" and therefore members of a protected group.  In pursuit of the power of policy dictation the doctor philosopher kings have contributed mightily to the near death of the greatest world economy in history (ours).  Let us hope the more sensible state governors can do enough to remedy this disaster to bring back some measure of prosperity.  I hope that Trump realizes that he does not have constitutional power over the governors.  As I have previously written he would have to declare states he targeted to be in rebellion or say that they had lost the power to govern themselves in order to have a claim to that sort of power.

3.  US foreign policy in the greater ME remains the shambles that Zionist and/or neocon infiltration of government and manipulation of election funding have made it.   There is little difference in responsibility  for this in the two major political parties.  As a result of Trump's continuation of the Israel inspired policy of meddling in the affairs of the Islamic culture continent the US now finds itself in a position in which policies of domination have caused us to have a thousand or so US military "hostages" scattered across NE Syria and all over Iraq where they are completely vulnerable to attack from Iran and its allies.  

4.  This potential hostage posture is a major inhibition to US freedom of action in the Gulf where Iranian aggressiveness is targeted toward a withdrawal of the US Navy from the Gulf.  IMO such a forced withdrawal caused by a minor power like Iran because we are afraid to fight would be a major milestone in the decline of America's power in the world.  Our enemies would rejoice.  IMO the navy can easily defeat any Iranian enemy but the hostage situation in Syria, and Iraq is a major impediment to naval action.  We should get out of those two countries. We should not have been there in the first place.   I am clearly on record about that from 2001 onward.  In the case of Afghanistan the hinge of fate swung in 2009 with Obama's disastrous decision to let the COIN generals persuade him to try to build a new and modern Afghanistan.  The resulting state has expenses for its security forces that are greater than its GDP.

5.  Some constitutional mechanism must be developed in the US for forcing the retirement from office of old people who are judged to be demented.  The ice cream interview comes to mind.  pl

 

Arab League condemns the "deal of the century"

"The Arab League rejected Trump's plan, saying in a communique it would not lead to a just peace deal and adding it will not cooperate with the United States to execute the plan.
The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said.
Israeli officials expressed hope Saturday that the League's rejection could bring the U.S. closer to green-lighting unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, in light of the fact that Jared Kushner opposed immediate steps toward annexation because he thought the Arab League might support the plan. "  Haaretz

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Well, pilgrims, the truth is that nobody in the States who matters gives a damn about what happens to the Palestinians and it was always thus.  Kushner's "peace plan" is just another real estate scam.  pl

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/arab-foreign-ministers-meet-in-cairo-to-discuss-trump-s-mideast-plan-1.8475812

"Free at last!" Brexit, etc.

Brexit.  This is it!  Freedom for the UK!  It took the Irish 700 years to achieve independence for part of their island, but here it is for the UK in only 47 years.  The Scots may depart, preferring the yoke of Brussels, but then, the English and Welsh care not.  Brave souls.  Trumpy will be acquitted in his first senate trial today or maybe tomorrow and will announce the commencement of negotiations for the "greatest trade deal of all time" with Boris, his English doppelganger.  There is the pesky little matter of the British NHS, but some way around that problem will be found.  A US/British trade deal is obviously on the "right side of history."  pl

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brexit-news-nigel-farage-gloats-eu-parliament-sings-goodbye-to-united-kingdom-2020-01-31/

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Israel/Palestine.  Recommend the linked article below on the multitudinous defects of the "deal of the century."  It mirrors my thinking and so must be a work of genius.  pl

https://prospect.org/world/dont-call-it-a-peace-plan-israel-palestine-trump/

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Turkish Policy.  IMO the Turks have decided that they don't want to fight the R+6 for a piece or all of Idlib Province in Syria.  They haven't really fought anyone since the Korean War and contrary to civilian delusions war is not just a matter of who has the most and biggest toys.  Practice counts a lot.  And, even Erdo may realize that the number and depth of the purges he has inflicted on the Turkish officer corps have certainly caused a decline in the quality of the force.  It is noticeable that when confronted up close by R+6 forces the Turks shy from actual combat.  I remain convinced that a lot of Turkish ambition in Syria is fueled by neo-Ottoman irredentism.  Syria was part of the empire for hundreds of years and the same thing is true of Libya until the Senussi Sufi order's revolt against Ottoman rule in 1911.  Turkey is now exporting pet jihadis from Syria to Libya.  Sounds like they are beginning to give up on long term acquisitions in Syria.  pl 

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/turkey-deployment-libya-threat-escalation-russia-townsend.html

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SpaceX TV and Space voyeurism.  One of the marvels of the modern world is the ability to watch rocket launches into earth orbit on Space X's TeeVee  channel.  You can follow the whole process from the count-down to first stage recovery to delivery of the payload to orbit on Space X Tee Vee live.   https://www.spacex.com/

And … You can get a free app for your phone at the App Store that will notify you when the next launch is ready.  pl 

The ME may yet destroy Trump

President Trump will easily be acquitted in the senate trial.  This may occur this week and there will probably be no witnesses called.  That will be an additional victory for him and will add to the effect of his trade deal victories and the general state of the US economy.  These factors should point to a solid victory in November for him and the GOP in Congress.

Ah!  Not so fast the cognoscenti may cry out.  Not so fast.  The Middle East is a graveyard of dreams:

1.  Iraq.  Street demonstrations in Iraq against a US alliance are growing more intense.  There may well have been a million people in Muqtada al-Sadr's extravaganza.  Shia fury over the death of Soleimani is quite real.  Trump's belief that in a contest of the will he will prevail over the Iraqi Shia is a delusion, a delusion born of his narcissistic personality and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions.  A hostile Iraqi government and street mobs would make life unbearable for US forces there. 

2.  Syria.  The handful of American troops east and north of the Euphrates "guarding" Syrian oil from the Syrian government are in a precarious position with the Shia Iraqis at their backs across the border and a  hostile array of SAA, Turks, jihadis and potentially Russians to their front and on their flanks.

3.  Palestine.  The "Deal of the Century" is approaching announcement.  From what is known of its contours, the deal will kill any remaining prospects for Palestinian statehood and will relegate all Palestinians (both Israeli citizens and the merely occupied) to the status of helots forever .  Look it up.  In return the deal will offer the helotry substantial bribes in economic aid money.  Trump evidently continues to believe that Palestinians are untermenschen .  He believe they will sell their freedom. The Palestinian Authority has already rejected this deal.  IMO their reaction to the imposition of this regime is likely to be another intifada.

Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making.  pl

Macgregor got it part right on Carlson's show last night

Colonel (ret.) Douglas Macgregor was on Tucker Carlson's show last night.  He is a smart man.  Tucker is a smart man. Carlson's show is an outpost of sanity in a neocon run US foreign policy establishment (the Borg).  Carlson deserves the ratings he gets.  I hope those will insulate him from the trepidation that his honesty must inspire in the Murdoch brothers.  The rest of Foxnews is much like a clown car show with the clowns clamoring for the approbation of the White House in their eagerness for a neocon war of conquest in the ME.  Some people never learn.  the last 20 years of disaster in the face of Islamic resistance to Western cultural imperialism have taught them nothing.

Trump started his term as an empty headed business hustler eager to make deals wherever he could and who correctly did not see much of anything to be gained by fighting endlessly all over the Islamic World to impose Israel's 1% policy of eliminating all possible threats from the Muslims.

Trump offered Iran peace negotiations in his post Iran strike speech?  No.  He did not.  He once again offered them the opportunity to surrender to Israeli demands relayed to them by the US.

Now, he is transformed into just another neocon, in fact the neocon in chief.  His foreign policy team is run by neocons and bootlickers who fear Pompeo's scorn.  The Defense part of that team is dominated by the Pompous one and his West Point classmate Esper at DoD.  General Milley and the other present chiefs of staff are carefully chosen to eliminate the possibility of "push-back" from the military. I retract anything bad I ever said about Joe Dunford.  I wish he were still here.

Trump is following the neocon/Ziocon line now.  He evidently believes any silly thing they tell him.  I understand that he has said that Soleimani was engaged in beheading Christians.  Well, pilgrims, if you look below about three posts you  will see a video of Soleimani and al-Muhandis being mourned by Christian clergy and congregations in Aleppo.  Of course, you actually have to understand some Arabic to get that from the video.  These Christians mourn these men as being among those who came to fight the Sunni jihadis at Aleppo.

Macgregor rightly understands that there is no there, there for the USA in the Middle East and Central Asia.  He correctly understands that to try to sort out all the intra-regional ethnic and sectarian rivalries is a fool's errand.  He correctly advocates complete withdrawal from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan as does Tulsi Gabbard who was on the same show.

What Macgregor got wrong is that he wants to remain engaged in; Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the GCC generally.  Well, Doug, there is no there, there either.  There is no Soviet threat.  The USA is a net oil and gas exporter.  The Iranians have enemies and quarrels with the Saudis and the Israelis, but, so what?  We are not Israelis.  Neither are we Saudis.

You want to stay engaged in Yemen?  the country is full of nasty little hill men who live to fight.  This is a Saudi problem.

Let all the crazed creatures of that part of the world fight it out.  along the way they will come to muddled partial solutions that will last until the next round of hostility begins.  Tant pis pour eux.  pl

https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-iraq-iran-donald-trump-leave-war

Soleimani and Al-Muhandis are being mourned in Aleppo churches

(Tehran Armenian Cathedral)

Mike Pompeo was on the TeeVee today scoffing at those who do not agree with him and the Ziocon inspired "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran.  It must be a terrible thing for intelligence analysts of integrity and actual Middle East knowledge and experience to have to try to brief him and Trump, people who KNOW, KNOW from some superior source of knowledge that Iran is the worst threat to the world since Nazi Germany, or was it Saddam's Iraq that was the worst threat since "beautiful Adolf?"

The "maximum pressure" campaign is born of Zionist terrors, terrors deeply felt.  It is the same kind of campaign that has been waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians and all other enemies great and small.  This approach does not seem to have done much for Israel.  The terrors are still there.

Someone sent me the news tape linked below from Aleppo in NW Syria.  I have watched it a number of times.  You need some ability in Arabic to understand it.  The tape was filmed in several Christian churches in Aleppo where these two men (Soleimani and al-Muhandis) are described from the pulpit and in the street as "heroic martyr victims of criminal American state terrorism."  Pompeo likes to describe Soleimani as the instigator of "massacre" and "genocide" in Syria.  Strangely (irony) the Syriac, Armenian Uniate and Presbyterian ministers of the Gospel in this tape do not see him and al-Muhandis that way.  They see them as men who helped to defend Aleppo and its minority populations from the wrath of Sunni jihadi Salafists like ISIS and the AQ affiliates in Syria.  They see them and Lebanese Hizbullah as having helped save these Christians by fighting alongside the Syrian Army, Russia and other allies like the Druze and Christian militias.

It should be remembered that the US was intent on and may still be intent on replacing the multi-confessional government of Syria with the forces of medieval tyranny.  Everyone who really knows anything about the Syrian Civil War knows that the essential character of the New Syrian Army, so beloved by McCain, Graham and the other Ziocons was always jihadi and it was always fully supported by Wahhabi Saudi Arabia as a project in establishing Sunni triumphalism.  They and the self proclaimed jihadis of HTS (AQ) are still supported in both Idlib and western Aleppo provinces by the Saudis and the present Islamist and neo-Ottoman government of Turkey.

Well pilgrims, there are Christmas trees in the newly re-built Christian churches of Aleppo and these, my brothers and sisters in Christ remember who stood by them in "the last ditch."

"Currently there are at least 600 churches and 500,000–1,000,000 Christians in Iran." wiki below.  Are they dhimmis?  Yes, but they are there.  There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, not a single one and Christianity is a banned religion.  These are our allies?

Mr. Jefferson wrote that "he feared for his country when he remembered that God is just."  He meant Virginia but I fear in the same way for the United States.  pl

https://twitter.com/i/status/1214223383635857409

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Iran

"Latest situation in foreign forces deployment in Syria" Yeni Safak

"The U.S. forces evacuated 16 bases and military posts during Operation Peace Spring and returned to six bases as the operation was paused.

The U.S. army strengthened its military presence in Syria’s northeastern border and oil fields.

With five bases and military posts in Hasakah province, the U.S. forces are conducting efforts to set up two other military posts in Qahtaniyah town and Himo village in Qamishli city.

The U.S. aims to both secure oil fields in Hasakah and strengthen its presence on the Turkish border with the military posts.

The U.S. forces are currently deployed at 11 bases and military posts, including five in Hasakah, four in Deir ez-Zor and two in Raqqa.

They also carry out efforts to set up two new bases in Deir ez-Zor."  Yebi Safak

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Yes, this newspaper is pro-Erdo but this looks like a useful map to lay out where everyone is at present.  The map does not extend far enough south to include the US roadblocking position at Al Tanf on the Syrian/Iraqi border but other than that- pretty complete.  pl

 

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/latest-situation-in-foreign-forces-deployment-in-syria-3507700

Saudi Arabia - a family holding company, not a friend.

I speak fluent Arabic.  I was the first professor of the Arabic Language and Middle East Studies at West Point where I was twice judged best classroom teacher and was offered permanent tenure which I declined not wishing to become a permanent school teacher rather than a soldier.

I have spent 40+ years working on or in the Middle East as an active duty US Army officer, diplomat, senior civilian DoD official responsible for intelligence on the Middle East, and South Asia and a business executive directly involved with places like Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia was created by the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula after 1900 by tribes loyal to an extreme form of Wahhabi fanatic Islam based on the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam as reinforced by the extremist medieval scholar Ibn Taimmiya.  For him the only good non-Muslims were either slaves or corpses whose women had been taken as booty and distributed among the true Muslims.

The Saudi pseudo state remains largely motivated by the same ideas.  There is no constitution but Sunni Hanbali religious law.  There is no toleration of other than the official cult.  There are Shia Muslims in the Eastern Province but they are in constant danger from the regime.

The Al-Saud family (thousands great and small) run the place as their private holding.  Any talk of Saudi citizenship is a bad joke.  In SA there are; The Family, their toadies and flunkies, the Wahhabi Ulema, foreign guest workers and tribal, rural Arabs some of them migratory and others small town people.  This melange is held together by an effective police state that is restricted in power only by the royal prerogative.

Modernization? Hah! MBS has confessed to the brutal murder of Kashoggi.  The native masses, to the extent that they exist, have been intensively and exclusively conditioned with Ibn Taimmiya's views on the inherent enmity between the Faithful Wahhabi Sunni and the Kuffar (infidels, i.e. us).  The number of Saudi subjects of the king who are not horrified and disgusted by the West is trivially small.

The US has maintained a relationship with this conglomeration since 1944 when FDR met aboard a US cruiser in the Gulf with the creator of The Kingdom.  This symbiosis used to be justifiable on the basis of containment of the USSR and the oil of Arabia.  Neither of those necessities exist any longer.

Donald Trump is driven by  desire to sweeten the balance sheet of the US as well as a deluded belief in whatever it is that he thinks Israel stands for.   Israel seeks to manipulate the medieval barbarism of Saudi Arabia to further its fantasy of regional hegemony.  They should "wise up."

The Saudi who killed three people at Pensacola is representative of the breed.

It is time for a basic re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME.  pl

Several Things - December 6 2019

Joe Biden   I keep saying that Joe Biden is IMO a nasty bully masquerading as a benevolent, highly experienced and wise curmudgeon with deep roots in the Labor Unions.  He is none of those things.  In evidence of that he yesterday advanced menacingly toward a man who had the audacity to challenge the "Joe Biden" show and narrative.  This was in Iowa.  The man told him he (Biden)  was too old to be president (He is). The man questioned the probity of Joe's narcotics addled son''s appointment to the board of directors of  a corrupt enterprise in Ukraine.  Joe was visibly enraged and it seemed for a minute that he would attack this citizen.  Really, Democrats?  Really?  Him?  Bloomberg? Hilly?  Booker?  Castro? Warren?

Jobs.  The Labor Department employment report released today states that the US economy added 266,000 new jobs in November rather then the expected 186,000.  The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 %.  This is full employment because there is a certain amount of structural unemployment inherent in any economy.  "Impeachment?" What's that?

St. Nancy the hypocrite a reporter asked Pelosi yesterday if she acts from hatred of Trump.  She responded that having been raised as a Catholic she does not hate anyone because we are taught to hate the sin and love the sinner. Well, pilgrims, Catholics are expected to practice their religion through both faith and deeds and to accept the teaching of the Church.  In spite of the hopes of some, this is not a cafeteria operation.  One does not pick and choose among the Church's teachings. If you can't accept them, you leave.  Pelosi is in spiritual rebellion against the Church's teaching on abortion.  Catholic teaching is that abortion is murder plain and simple.  There are some Catholic politicians who claim to compartment their personal beliefs and actions from their responsibility to their non-Catholic constituents.  I do not challenge that having done much the same as a government servant but that is not the case with St. Nancy who is an ardent advocate for abortion.  BTW if the US government had sought to require me to do something immoral I would have refused and taken the consequences.

Riots in Paris  I like France, the French language, their wine, their cheese, their women and their style of life, but I am not blind to the faults of the French.  One of these is a tendency to take to the streets over grievances or perceived grievances  in society.  France has a highly regulated economy that does not particularly favor growth of the kind now being experienced in the US.  "Bureaucracy" as a word is French in origin.  At the same time the welfare state is massive and all pervasive.  In fact the welfare state with its early retirements and cradle to grave benefits is just too big to be sustained by the economy of the country.  This conflict of means and ends is strangling the country's ability to function.  Macron knows this and has been trying over the last year or so to "whittle down" the outputs enough to have them align with the inputs in the economy.  The result has been the "Yellow Sweaters" street riots and now a new wave of riots resisting attempts to change retirement laws.  This street activity will burn itself out but the  riots are likely to be prolonged. 

 The Shooting In Pensacola  A Saudi military trainee went shahiid (berserk)today and killed three people.  The naval aviation center there routinely trains foreign aviators.  There was nothing unusual in the man's presence on base.  He had been in training for a year.  King Salman sent his condolences supposedly saying to Trump that he and the Saudi people love the US and the American people.  Well, pilgrims, I lived in The Kingdom for several years and have visited many times and I do not remember indications of their love for us.  It will be interesting to learn if the student just ran amok crying Allahu Akbar! or couldn't make it in class or both.  pl

 

Borovski and the Haredim

 

 

"Borovski said she left behind the ultra-Orthodox, known in Israel as the Haredim, never having opened a bank account, ridden a bus, applied for a job or talked to a stranger.

She has done all of those things now, in what she describes as a sprint to make up for the decades she spent in a cultural cocoon, never wandering more than 500 yards from the house where she said she and her 12 brothers and sisters learned nothing of science or math, or of history outside of religious texts. Borov­ski — who belonged to the Satmar Hasidic group, known for its especially strict religious adherence — said she wasn’t just denied television, radio and the Internet but was unaware of their existence.

“I’m trying to catch everything now,” she said during a break from a lesson on cell structure, part of a remedial studies program offered by Hebrew University of Jerusalem to students who missed out on basic schooling. “I don’t think I have enough time.”"  Washpost

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Yes, I know, pilgrims, the Haredim have a right to live however they please, just as Mormon schismatics, cloistered monks and the Amish/Mennonites do, but it is nevertheless interesting that this woman and those like her emerge into the "light" of the 21st Century as though they had just come from the womb.

As many of you know I was the chief intelligence liaison from DIA to the IDF General Staff intelligence service for seven years.  Because of that I spent a lot of time in Israel wandering around when not working and talking to IDF people about the Haredim among other things.  I don't think I ever ran into an IDF officer who had other than disdain for the Haredim.  A lot of the IDF were kibbutzniks, products of structured life on a collective farm in a socialist secular setting.  They thought the Haredim were ignorant freeloaders who used their cultist beliefs to hide out from the draft while collecting comfortable stipends from the government as "religious scholars."   In some Haredi groups the women shave their whole bodies and when out in public accompanied by a male relative wear funny looking curly synthetic hair wigs.  This was interesting.

Chacun a son gout the old maid said as she kissed the cow.  pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/shed-never-seen-a-smartphone-or-heard-a-radio-before-she-fled-shes-racing-to-catch-up/2019/12/04/c6347cf0-0709-11ea-9118-25d6bd37dfb1_story.html

"...Tucker Carlson Criticized for Saying 'Russia Poses No Threat to the United States At All'"

"If we're really being honest here, Russia poses no threat to the United States at all."

"Too many careers depend upon keeping our assumptions exactly where they were in the fall of 1977, when fighting the Soviet Menace consumed the lion's share of our federal budget," Carlson said.

"So here in Washington that's what we're doing. Our real fear is that the rest of America will at some point discover that the Soviet Union no longer exists," he continued.

Carlson went on to list things about Russia intended to minimize their power: an economy the size of Italy's, a military budget that is one-tenth of ours and an aircraft carrier "that needs to be towed around the ocean because it's broken."  Newsweek

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Yup.  It is true, pilgrims.  The USSR no longer exists.

For years after the fall of that communist monstrosity, Soviet specialist analysts in the IC used to sing at office Christmas parties in Washington that they were dreaming of "A Red Christmas Just Like The Ones They used to Know."  These characters had lived "high on the hog" since WW2.  They got the lion's share of everything, funds, attention, you name it.  Poor sods like me who specialized in regions where people actually fought each other with rusty rifles and machine guns were definitely the poor relatives come to town hat in hand.

And then, all of a sudden, the Soviet specialist people were essentially out of a job.  Or, at least, they were a hell of a lot less important.  The same thing happened to all the Iranian specialists when the Pahlavis went down.  Fortunately for me, my good old Arabs and other assorted ME scoundrels kept right on bashing and backstabbing each other while most of them sat on a great big puddle of oil.  That and the Zionist thing kept me well employed.

The Soviet guys needed a few years to rebound, but as Tucker says, they have done so by merchandising the notion that Russia = the USSR.  The two pomposities (Taylor and Kent) from the Foreign Service who testified yesterday made it very clear that their real bitch against Trump is that 1.  He thinks he can do business overseas without their bureaucratic intervention and 2.  He doesn't really accept the assumption that Russia is an indispensable and inevitable enemy.  Kent rather sadly said that it has been a basic assumption of his entire career that Russia is THE ENEMY.  The whole swamp is infected with group think to that effect.  In the case of the Foreign Service it is remarkable that such a group of soi-disant intellectuals and sophisticated veterans of the FOREIGN SERVICE EXAM should in truth be just another bunch of conformists seeking the approval of their colleagues.  But, then, that is how one gets promoted.

No, pilgrims, China is THE REAL ENEMY.  pl

https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-tucker-carlson-criticized-saying-russia-poses-no-threat-united-states-all-1471681

John Hannah is IMO a shill for Israel

At about 3 minutes into the TeeVee show tape linked below. the news host lets Hannah begin to talk about Iraq and then Iran.  Hannah was Cheney's foreign policy  staffer during the run up to Desert Storm.  He worked for Libby who worked for Cheney.  He was one of the architects of the war hungry strategy that led to that endless war, a war that has never really ended.  Someone urged me to go talk to Hannah before Desert Storm.  I went.  We met in his closet sized office in the OEB.  I am usually annoyed by people who talk to you from behind their desks but this space was tiny.  He clearly had his mind made up about the wonderfulness of an invasion and wanted to talk about the size force to be used. 

Our deliberate destruction of the existing social order in Iraq unleashed the forces of Sunni rebellion against the occupation and the Shia government that we created through our farcical purple thumb elections.  These were held in the aftermath of the occupation government having openly stated to Sunni leaders that their time had ended.  Now we have the Shia fighting each other over the division of power in Iraq.  John Hannah said on this program that this is because some Shia (the "good" Shia?) are resisting the "control" of Iraq by the government of Iran.

Iran is the major theme of the rest of Hannah's statements to the interviewer.   Hannah is upset at the prospect of "a land bridge" (road connection) from Iran to a Syrian port.  To prevent such a connection the US keeps troops in Syria at al-Tanf just where Israel wants them.  Hannah is upset because  Iran "seeks regional hegemony" (to frustrate Israeli ambitions for the same thing?), etc., etc, ad nauseam.  IMO this is tribalism at its worst. 

IMO Hannah is merely a mouthpiece for Israeli policy.  He is taken seriously as an AMERICAN policy talking head?  He was one of the leading architects of the disastrous Iraq policy and war.  This interview should call into question the basis for his advocacy of that war, a war which the Israelis urged the US to fight.  pl

https://www.foxbusiness.com/shows/after-the-bell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Hannah

"Joltin'" Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil.

"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst,  Chairman of the Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW)  and Graduate Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night.  Dobbs appears to have developed a deep suspicion of this paladin.  He stood up to Keane remarkably well.  This was refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.

In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property  of the Syrian people and their government owned oil company.  The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.  Pilgrims!  It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot! 

Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the national army of that country.  If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party air forces (Russia) who support them

This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.

IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession and they are a danger to us all.  pl

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/graham-fox-news-star-showed-trump-map-change-his-mind-n1069901

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Syria

Decameron: `The stone that the builders rejected became a cornerstone.'

“Every time I take my youngest daughter, Sham, to her school, I see a passage written on the wall from the Book of Psalms: `The stone that the builders rejected became a cornerstone.' ”    Ayman Odeh, Chairman of Joint List, 13 elected members of Knesset

The Arab-Israeli citizens' votes won the Joint List the rank of 3rd largest bloc in Knesset with 13 seats.   Breaking with their historical pattern of not recommending a PM, the Joint List decided to back Gantz in order to "end" Netanyahu's career, according to a piece by Ayman Odeh’s opinion column that appeared in the New York Times, September 22, 2019.

Opinion | Ayman Odeh: We Are Ending Netanyahu’s Grip on Israel - The New York Times

But, despite the compelling Opinion piece that Odeh had in the New York Times, 3 elected Members of Knesset from the Balad party in his bloc, said that they will not recommend a PM.  This morning, the Times of Israel and other papers published this statement from one of the Joint List party leaders, reportedly from a letter delivered to Israeli President Rivlin on Sunday.   The statement says:

"`I would like to announce that the three Balad Knesset members have asked me as the faction chairman to declare that the Joint List’s recommendation of MK Benny Gantz does not include them, and therefore the recommendation is in the name of ten MKs and not 13,’|” MK Ahmad Tibi of Ta’al wrote in a letter, which was apparently sent to Rivlin on Sunday and published Monday morning.   (Times of Israel)

Now what?

Both Likud and Blue & White are short of the coalition total of 60.  But now, the totals are:

B&W (33 seats) coalition is 54 seats

Likud (31 seats) coalition is 55 or 56 seats

What will President Rivlin do?    Previous presidents have asked the lead party to form a government, but he apparently has some discretion.    

Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beiteinu endorsed no-one, leaving 8 seats in the balance.   That could make either bloc take the government, but he has said "NO" to religious parties, and it was he who essentially brought down Netanyahu after the April election.   What is Liberman, standard bearer for the “Russian” vote, made of?  We will see. 

Possibilities

Rivlin invites Gantz to form a government based on B&W's 33 seats.

Rivlin invites Netanyahu to form a government, based on the fact that his "coalition" (Likud + religious parties+ extreme right wing settlers/annexationists) has 1 or 2 commitments more than B&W

Grand Coalition without Netanyahu:  B&W with Gantz PM, Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu: PM will rotate, Gantz first.

Grand Coalition with Netanyahu: B&W, Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu. Almost the same as the last 12 years; very unstable, B&W or YB could leave at any time.

New Elections:   Rivlin goes with one of the above options which doesn't make it. 

To be clear, Liberman has said all along that his party will NOT join a government endorsed by the Arabs; but he also says that his bloc will NOT join a government with the religious parties.  

In Israeli politics, said a recent Israeli newspaper, "anything is possible."

"If you hit them, they will behave ..." - the neocons' song.

I have long puzzled over the question of why the neocons; Lindsey Graham, the late John McCain (be brave Lindsey!), Jack Keane, Bolton, Pompeo, etc., etc., ad nauseam,  cling so firmly to the idea of striking Iran a hard blow.

Today I heard the reason voiced on the Sunday newsies by several of the Faithful.  "If you punish the Iranians they will behave" was the refrain.  "They know they would lose to the US and so would be afraid to go to war with us."  This delusion is a variation of the Rational Actor Model.  This poly sci inspired model is based on the false premise that everyone, everywhere functions on the basis of the same priorities and values.  This is an untruth.  For example, a willingness to die for one's country is not a universally shared attitude.  Nor is, a belief in an almighty God who dictates one's duty in this world.  A god in whom the Muslims actually believe as expressed in the shahada (testimony) depicted above.

So, pilgrims, the neocons believe that if the Iranians are punished like children who are spanked for picking their noses, they will recognize the error of their ways and the country will accept the will of the US and more importantly of the Zionists who are IMO the source of such a belief.  Zionism seeks a ME pacified with regard to the existence and hegemony of the Jewish State. 

To that end the Zionists have followed a relentless practice of punishing their opponents in order to bring them to heel.  That has never worked for them but they persist in this "strategery" and have clearly convinced a critical number of movers and shakers in the US to follow their lead.  pl

Shall we oblige ourselves to fight Israel's enemies of choice?

"... Graham has been acting as a front man for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and also for The Jewish Institute for the National Security of America (JINSA), which wrote the basic document that is being used to promote the treaty and then enlisted Graham to obtain congressional support.

Speaking to the press on a JINSA conference call, Graham said the proposed agreement would be a treaty that would protect Israel in case of an attack that constituted an “existential threat”. Citing Iran as an example, Graham said the pact would be an attempt to deter hostile neighbors like the Iranians who might use weapons of mass destruction against Israel. JINSA President Michael Makovsky elaborated on this, saying, “A mutual defense pact has a value in not only deterring but might also mitigate a retaliatory strike by an adversary of Israel, so it might mitigate an Iranian response (to an attack on its nuclear facilities).”

JINSA director of foreign policy Jonathan Ruhe added that “An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program would not activate this pact, but a major Iranian retaliation might. – An Israeli unilateral attack is not what the treaty covers, but rather massive Iranian retaliation is what we are addressing.”

Israel has long been reluctant to enter into any actual treaty arrangement with the United States because it might limit its options and restrain its aggressive pattern of military incursions. In that regard, the Graham-JINSA proposal is particularly dangerous as it effectively permits Israel to be interventionist with a guarantee that Washington will not seek to limit Netanyahu’s “options.” And, even though the treaty is reciprocal, there is no chance that Israel will ever be called upon to do anything to defend the United States, so it is as one-sided as most arrangements with the Jewish state tend to be."  Unz

-------------

I was the head of DoD liaison with Israeli general staff intelligence for seven years.  During that time and in subsequent decades I have had many discussions with active and retired Israeli officers on the subject of whether or not they wanted a Defense Treaty of Alliance with the United States.  The answer is always the same.  "No."  The reason for that is simple.  A treaty is normally reciprocal and they do not want to be obliged to defend the territory or interests of the United State to whatever extent the treaty's text would require.

If JINSA wants this treaty, then the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government want it.  Why do they want it?   IMO the answer is hidden in plain sight in the text of the "floated" document.   The treaty would be activated in the event of physical attacks on Israel but also in the event of PERCEIVED existential threats. 

IOW, if the Israelis were to claim that they feared an onslaught  by Syria and Hizbullah they could legally claim that the US is obligated to go to war against Syria and Hizbullah.

What a good deal for Israel!  Not only would they continue to receive the present river of largess in defense grants and credits but they would also under the treaty have the means with which to order the US armed forces into action against their enemies of choice whenever they wished to do so.

pl

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/lindsey-grahams-blank-check-why-a-defense-agreement-with-israel-would-be-a-disaster-for-americans/

"We will destroy Lebanon..." Michael Katz, MoD of Israel in Tweet yesterday

 

"Another video says that Hezbollah could soon have the capability to fly a missile onto an Israeli address as simply as if it was using the popular Waze navigation app. The propaganda clip even uses an animation of the app itself to drive its point home. Ironically, the video doesn't note that Waze was invented by an Israeli company.

 

These information operations come against a backdrop of real-world conflict. Israel has championed its operation last weekend against alleged Iranian-commanded Hezbollah drone operators in Syria when it flattened a compound with air strikes.

 

Israel has been coy about who has been responsible for at least four mysterious air strikes against Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. And silent about Lebanese and Hezbollah allegations that Israel attacked a Hezbollah site in southern Beirut with small drones, also at the weekend."  CNN

 

----------------

 

The IDF appears to have overcome its long-standing fear of "another 2006" and to be preparing for war against Hizbullah and indeed against all of Lebanon. 

 

In that war the IDF used heavy American made artillery to attack Hizbullah's fortified belt of villages in southern Lebanon (the Tabbouleh Line).  Following that, IDF armor and infantry sought to advance into that fortified belt but were met by barrier systems that canalized the tanks and troops into pre-planned killing zones where they were chopped up with Iranian made and product improved anti-tank missiles and aimed fire placed on the infantry from the firing apertures of fortified basements and other such positions.  Those IDF infantry who managed to entered the villages found themselves face to  face with Hizbullah infantry equipped with body armor and night vision equipment,  The whole defensive system was tied together for communications with SIGINT proof buried armored signal cable.

 

After a cease fire the Hizbullahis moved their fortified line back to the north a few kilometers and re-built it better.  Tabbouleh Line II?  

 

In the midst of this assault on the Tabbouleh Line the IAF ranged far and wide across all of Lebanon attacking infrastructure targets in an obvious attempt to intimidate the Lebanese into abandonment of Hizbullah.  That failed.  The Lebanese showed no such inclination and that support was rewarded by Hizbullah with a prioritization of re-construction funds to Christian villagers.

 

Oh, yes, the IDF Chief of Staff was fired for his failures.

 

Since 2006 the IDF has brooded over the ever worsening strategic threat posed by Hizbullah artillery rockets, guided missiles and armed UAVs.  My SWAG would be that Hizbullah artillery command now has something between 50k and 100k of such weapons in firing positions and storage behind the Tabbouleh Line II, which is now reinforced with many veterans of the Syria campaign in which Hizbullah troops have developed a lot of skill. and demonstrated their courage.

 

The Israeli strategic problem is that they cannot prevent a salvo or salvos of thousands of these weapons into the northern half of Israel.  They can't break through on the ground quickly enough to do that and their air force will be faced with a lot of antiaircraft fire.  This tends to degrade pilots' ability to press home attacks against individual weapon systems.

 

Nevertheless, the IDF seems to have decided to "grasp the nettle."  Good luck sons of the Maccabees!  Good Luck!

 

Would the US respond to mass Israeli civilian casualties with intervention in the fight?  All the world wonders.  pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/30/middleeast/israel-lebanon-tensions-intl/index.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/232577

"We can send Israel to the stone age"

"Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a July 12, 2019 interview on Al-Manar TV (Lebanon) that Hizbullah can target and strike any part of Israel, including Eilat, and that all of northern Israel is within range of Hizbullah's weapons. Pointing at a map of Israel, he turned his attention to Israel's coast, where he said most of Israel's population lives. He said Hizbullah can strike all the government buildings, military installations, airports, economic centers, commercial centers, industrial centers, ports, nuclear installations, oil refineries, and power stations that are in this area. Nasrallah implied that Hizbullah has thousands of missiles that it can use to send Israel "back to the stone age." Claiming that Israel is "weaker than a spider's web," he said that Israel's attempts to prevent Hizbullah from acquiring weapons by striking Syria have failed, since Hizbullah already has the weapons in its possession. He also said that Israel will not succeed in trying to get Iran to leave Syria and that any attempt on the part of Israel to stay out of a potential future conflict in the Middle East would be futile because Iran can bomb Israel "violently" and "swiftly" and because Israel would never be left out of any war in the region, no matter how it starts. He stated that any war against Iran would lead to a region-wide conflict."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_xJ1jb3r74&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0d5uxKPGTUkrB9rHBd3ljq8b5CfiwyBRqIx9onlIBz9VeSolKMannv8AA

A bad day for the lobby? What a shame!

"Many of the pundits who pushed for war are also Israel focused. Bill Kristol– who helped promote Tom Cotton to the Senate with funding from the Emergency Committee for Israel —  is deeply disappointed in Trump’s decision. Bret Stephens has been the leading “warmonger” at the Times, writes Andrew Bacevich.

The teaser for a recent Bret Stephens column in The New York Times accurately summarizes its contents: “If Iran won’t change its behavior we should sink its navy.”…

“Nobody wants a war with Iran,” writes Stephens. Actually some people do want war, almost surely including President Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser. So, too, does Stephens himself. The deceptive history that he chooses to propagate can have no purpose except to promote armed conflict and to impede any understanding into America’s role in planting the seeds of forever war."  Weiss in Mondoweiss    

 

---------------

Worth reading.  So many of my old "friends" are mentioned, so many.  pl

https:/worth reaading/mondoweiss.net/2019/06/trumps-climbdown-defeat/

"I don't like the food here" Sara said

"Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, accepted a plea bargain on Wednesday morning and will pay about $15,000 in fines and restitution to settle accusations that she misused about $100,000 in public funds in managing the couple’s official residence.

Prosecutors said that Ms. Netanyahu, whom they charged with fraud, had concealed that a cook was on the payroll so that she could order hundreds of catered meals from expensive restaurants and charge them to the state.

Under the deal with the State Attorney’s Office the amount of public money at issue was halved to about $50,000, and Ms. Netanyahu agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of trickery, specifically that she deliberately exploited another person’s mistake. She is due to pay about $2,800 in fines and $12,500 in restitution.

Ms. Netanyahu, 60, was indicted on charges of fraud and breach of trust a year ago in the case, which covered the years 2010 to 2013. Prosecutors accused her of “exploiting her status as the wife of the prime minister” and colluding with a top aide in a “planned, ongoing and systematic” scheme to break government rules and conceal it from state accountants."  NY Times

-------------

Sara, Sara,,,  What a naughty girl you have been.  You had the government chef at the PM's residence order out for you and then the two of you reimbursed the operation from government funds?

And people, cruel, probably Anti-Semitic people, say that you are abusive to residence staff and repair crews.  Ah, but they are Jews .  Alas, more self-haters.

"They have no right to say we should live like bourgeois"  She was speaking of the public in Izghael.  It will be interesting to see if her hubby is re-elected.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/world/middleeast/israel-sara-netanyahu.html

HARPER: POMPEO PRONOUNCES KUSHNER PLAN DOA

On May 28, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in New York City for a closed-door meeting with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.  In remarks that were covertly recorded and passed along to the Washington Post, Pompeo effectively declared that the Middle East peace plan conjured by First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner was a non-starter and would be rejected by most parties.  Instead of the "deal of the century" touted by President Donald Trump, Pompeo conceded that the peace scheme was a losing proposition.  "I get why people think this is a deal that only Israel could love.  I understand the perception of that.  I just hope everyone will give the space to listen and settle in a bit." Pompeo continued his blunt remarks:  "I don't want to call it failing.  Call it whatever.  I fail a lot, so it's not about using a word like that."  Pompeo admitted that the State Department is giving a good deal of attention to what to do next if the Kushner Plan flops.

Until Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu failed to put together a majority cabinet this week and had to call snap elections for September, it had been expected that the long-awaited Kushner Plan would be rolled out this month.  Now the launch date is delayed until late September or early October after a new Israeli government is formed and sworn in.

Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed "peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf States and Israel.

Oh My! Benjamin Netanyahu Fails to Form a Coalition Gov't; Unprecedented New National Election Ahead

Decameron:  As of Midnight local time, Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government. New elections will take place.

New York Times, May 29, 2019:  "JERUSALEM — Seven weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared “a night of tremendous victory” in Israel’s election, his failure to form a government by midnight Wednesday has turned into a stunning debacle for him and thrust Israel into a new election.

"Israelis will return to the ballot box in about three months, the first time in the country’s history that it has been forced to hold a new national election because of a failure to form a government after the previous one....

"Mr. Rivlin [Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel] said he could offer another member of Parliament the chance to form a government or he could tell the speaker of Parliament that efforts to form a coalition had failed and that there would be no alternative to calling new elections."

The Likud Party 's hard choice of having President Rivlin ask another Party -- probably the Blue and White Ticket -- to form a new government or going for a new election, had a significant role in achieving the Knesset (Parliamentary) vote going for a new election.  That buys Netanyahu some time. 

Remember, Mr. Netanyahu is facing corruption charges, far more specific than the issues roiling the United States after the Mueller investigation.   

Questions to consider and watch as the new election approaches:

*  Did the Likud Party make a deal with smaller right wing parties to throw their votes and therefore the election to Likud in April 2019?  The Likud had 35 seats, the Blue and White had 35 seats.  Bloc-vote trading  may be perfectly legal under Israeli political law, but it does make one wonder. 

*Will the Likud make other deals with smaller right wing parties to make sure that Likud and Netanyahu get more, or at least equal seats, to Blue and White in the upcoming election?

*Watch Avigdor Lieberman, head of  Yisrael Beiteinu, identified by the New York Times and others as an "ultranationalist" party.   He was the "kingmaker" who refused to joined the coalition on Wednesday in advance of the legal deadline. 

Rather than face the situation where President Rivlin chose another bloc -- the Blue and White ticket -- to form a government, the Likud introduced "its own bill to disperse the Parliament before the president could act," says the Times.

Keep your eyes on the ball -- when the new elections come along, watch the smaller right wing parties and what they do, especially the actions of Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home. 

Giddoutahere!

"Things keep heating up in Venezuela, with possible “military options” now being seriously discussed at the Pentagon. And of course you know what that means! That’s right, it means we can expect to see even more lies and manipulations from the political/media class as the narrative managers try to get their rapey little fingers into our minds to manufacture support for unconscionable acts."  Johnstone

-------------

Trumpy!  These stiffs are losers!  Losers!  They lost in Iraq!.  Remember!  You say you like to win.  These guys are losers.  Keeping these losers will just drag you down!  You always dump losers like these.  Remember!  Where did you get these stiffs?  Who pushed them off on you?  Get rid of them losers too!

Bolton torpedoed your deal with your friend Kim!  Remember.  Is he trying to torpedo your deal with China?

You know that you  have to make some kind of deal with Russia and the great judomaster.  Is Bolton trying to screw that up ?

The three stooges.  Ah, no, Pompey the Magnificent is missing from the group mug shot.   Trumpster! You should dump these guys, AND the crews who gave us the messes in Ukraine, Syria, Gaza, the Golan Heights, Kushner's deal of the century, and the coming good deal in Lebanon.

Get some new ones.  You can't let little people losers drag you down.  pl

https://southfront.org/caitlin-johnstone-venezuela-establishment-talking-points-translation-key/

Can Pompeo really be this goofy?

"“Lebanon and the Lebanese people face a choice: bravely move forward as an independent and proud nation or allow the dark ambitions of Iran and Hezbollah to dictate your future,” he said while standing next to the foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, after an afternoon meeting. Mr. Pompeo added that it would “take courage” for Lebanon to stand up to what he called Hezbollah’s “criminality, terror, and threats.”

Mr. Bassil, who is an ally of Hezbollah, countered Mr. Pompeo in his own post-meeting statement, saying: “For us, Hezbollah is a Lebanese party, not terrorists. Its members of parliament were elected by the Lebanese people, with high popular support.”"  NY Times

*********

"Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon, during US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Beirut, Lebanon on March 22^nd.

The document outlines covert false flag operations and a possible Israeli invasion, Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed reported.

According to the report, the source of the document is Israeli and it was created in partnership with the US, it is unclear who exactly presented it to President Aoun."  SF and al Jadeed

--------------

Well now, pilgrims, the trick in looking at this story is to figure out how much of this can possibly be true.  "Al Jadeed" has a long history of tilting at windmills, but ... there is a certain madcap consistency in this story with the Trump/Bolton/Pompeo view of their role in history and willingness to "think big."

I don't think anyone would have been foolish enough to actually give the Lebanese a document that laid out this scheme, but that does not mean that Pompeo the Great did not verbally press this evidence of his mastery of the world on Aoun and company.

For him to do that would have required a presidential "finding" under the US National Defence Acts for what would undoubtedly be covert warfare, but that could be.  There must by now be a number of findings signed by Trump to authorize such efforts as the march of freedom toward Caracas, etc.

Would the Israelis be goofy enough to have suggested/ordered such a plan?  As I have written here before, Hizbullah's massive rocket and missile capability poses a strategic problem to Israel all the way down to Tel Aviv.  This capability is protected from Israeli attacks by the Tabbouleh Line of entrenched Hizbullah militia, many of them very combat experienced in Syria.  The Israelis do not want to repeat their 2006 experience against what was then a weaker TL but they yearn for an end to Hizbullah's retaliatory capability against Israel.

How much easier or possible it might be to take down Hizbullah by fomenting an anti-Hizbullah civil war within Lebanon.  

Unfortunately for this hope Hizbullah is a fully integrated part of Lebanese society and government.  President Aoun, a Maronite Christian, and his foreign minister made that clear to the Pomp.  The notion that Lebanon can still be split like a melon by spreading a bucket full of money around is typical of the arrogance and ignorance with which Israeli policy still views its neighbors.

My SWAG is that this Al-Jadeed report represents the decision of some Lebanese politician to debrief  to the TeeVee station concerning the verbal statements made by Pompeo in Lebanon. 

pl

https://southfront.org/secret-document-outlines-us-israel-plan-for-syria-style-civil-war-in-lebanon-report/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/world/middleeast/mike-pompeo-lebanon-hezbollah.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jadeed

Yet another piece of Kushner's "Deal of the Century"

"The king said that the plan was dangerous and not simple to implement, in particular the part relating to the land swaps in Tzofar, a moshav in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948 the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel. According to the Trump proposal, Jordan would receive from Saudi Arabia an area equal in size to these territories which Israel would reacquire.

In addition, Jordan has been asked to take in a million “Palestinian” refugees in several stages, in return for $45 billion in investments. Jordan’s entire GDP is only $40 billion. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will finance these investments."  Jewish Press

--------------

The full "good deal of the century" will evidently be revealed after the Israeli election. 

Pieces of the "good deal of the century" have previously been revealed.

The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem has been followed by endless Palestinian waves of self immolation along the Gaza "dead line."  This will continue indefinitely unless the Beebster or his successor decide to  re-occupy Gaza to stop Palestinian rockets reaching Tel Aviv.  Now, that  would be a spectacle.

Another piece of "The Kushner Plan" was the cession by the US of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.  The justification for this was that the Israelis hold it by force of arms.  Syria, of, course does not accept the US transfer of title deed to part of its territory.

These two things are typical of Trump's NY City real estate methodology.  In his mind he is systematically taking points of contention off "the bargaining table" so that he can "close" over what's left.

This latest "offer" made to Jordan is part of what is left.  Perhaps some savant can explain what the various parts of this "partial good deal" mean. " A million Palestinians?"  Where would they come from?  Would they be round up for transportation to The East?  Saudi Arabia would transfer land to Jordan?  Where?  On the Gulf of Akabah coast near Tabuk?  Really?  The Saudis and Gulfies would cough up $45 billion for investments in Jordan?  To do what?  Tourism?  Really?  And who would own these enterprises?  Lebanon will give its citizenship to the hordes of Palestinian descended people who inhabit the country?  They have firmly resisted this for decades. 

Explain all this, someone.  pl

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/al-akhbar-trump-wants-jordan-to-take-in-1-million-palestinians/2019/04/05/

Who Does John Bolton Actually Work For? By Willy B

A review of publicly available reporting that I have accumulated in my files over the past two years would suggest that John Bolton's boss is really Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino king who has plied the Republican Party with tens of millions of dollars in largesse in order to remake it in his image. This conclusion is irrespective of what you might think of Trump himself and whether or not you believe he really meant it when he said there should be no more regime change wars. The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well.

Bolton's history goes back to the Reagan Administration in the 1980's, and his perfidy during the runup to the Iraq invasion is well known to this readership. What I focus on here is the period from January of 2017 through mid-2018, around the time of his appointment to be Trump's national security advisor, plus a couple of months, during which period a number of interesting reports were posted on Trump's lobbying of the White House to get an administration position and his sponsorship by Adelson. Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys.

What follows is a time line of summaries of news stories covering the period above in the form that I wrote them at the time with the dates over each one of them. It's not meant to be comprehensive–there's undoubtedly a great deal of insight still to be gained on how deeply these neo-con networks have actually penetrated the administration–and the news reports the summaries are based on likely vary in their quality. I hope anyone with such deeper insights will post them in the comments section.

Appended at the end of the time line is a short report on Richard Goldberg, the Z-lobby activist who Bolton brought onto the NSC in January to be his "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson’s orbit.

Flash! US Gives Syrian Golan Heights to Israel

"President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's sovereignty" over the region.

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted."  CNN

 

_______

 

This sounds like the Mustachioed Menace (Bolton) and his All Star team at work.   1. Help Bibi. 2. Weaken the Syrian government.  3.  Demonstrate to the Lebanese that parts of their strange little country could experience something similar in the south.  4.  Show everyone that the US is in charge of  - everything.

 

State sovereignty means nothing to these people.  The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them.

 

Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure.  pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/21/politics/trump-golan-heights-tweet/index.html

“Watch the film the Israeli lobby didn’t want you to see” - TTG

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has caught intense flak over her comments questioning the influence of the Israeli lobby in US foreign policy and the split allegiances of some Jewish-Americans. The vociferous attacks on the Congresswoman coalesce around one theme, criticism of Israel equals antisemitism. This is a consistent theme. Walt and Mearsheimer endured the same accusations when they wrote their essay, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” in 2006. The attacks did not let up with the publication of their book of the same name in 2007. At that time, Mearsheimer and Walt described the Israel lobby as a loose coalition. Perhaps at that time it largely was a loose coalition brought together as a counter against the ugliness of antisemitism. I think it was more than that back then and it is certainly more than that now. It is a far reaching and powerful phenomena largely consisting of a coordinated information operation run out of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs to further Israeli government policies.

Al Jazeera has put together an excellent series on this phenomena. The first piece of in depth investigative reporting examined the activities of the Israel lobby in Britain entitled “The Lobby.” They followed this series up with “The Lobby - USA” covering the lobby’s actions in the US in 2016. So far I watched the first part of this four part series focusing on the campaign to derail the BDS movement on the UC Davis campus and in Washington DC. This is how modern information operations are conducted. The series was released by the Electronic Intifada rather than Al Jazeera because Qatar censored the series after being pressured by Washington, Tel Aviv and probably Riyadh. 

———————

"The Electronic Intifada has obtained a complete copy of The Lobby – USA, a four-part undercover investigation by Al Jazeera into Israel’s covert influence campaign in the United States. We are releasing the leaked film simultaneously with France’s Orient XXI and Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar, which have respectively subtitled the episodes in French and Arabic. The film was made by Al Jazeera during 2016 and was completed in October 2017. But it was censored after Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf emirate that funds Al Jazeera, came under intense Israel lobby pressure not to air the film. Although Al Jazeera’s director-general claimed last month that there were outstanding legal issues with the film, his assertions have been flatly contradicted by his own journalists."

"In March, The Electronic Intifada was the first to report on any of the film’s specific content. We followed this in August by publishing the first extract of the film, and shortly after Max Blumenthal at the Grayzone Project released others. Since then, The Electronic Intifada has released three other extracts, and several other journalists have watched the entire film and written about it – including Alain Gresh and Antony Loewenstein. Now The Electronic Intifada can reveal for the first time that it has obtained all four parts of the film."  (Electronic Intifada)

———————

The first episode of the series offers a graphic portrayal of a a modern information operation. It largely centers on the activities of one Julia Reifkind, an American employed first by AIPAC and then by the Israeli Embassy. She reported to the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs (MSA) with its office in the same building as the Israeli PM. On a daily basis she monitored BDS social media communications and activity using pseudonyms. She gave the collected info to her Embassy boss who transmitted the info back to the MSA. The MSA would pass instructions back to Rifkind through the DC Embassy. She also conducted activities including direct IO action on the UC Davis campus at the direction of the MSA. Dual allegiance my ass! She’s an American citizen employed as an Israeli intelligence and action agent. Her only allegiance is to Israel.

In all of Reifkind’s pro-Israeli activities, she probably didn’t break any US laws, just Facebook TOS in using her pseudonyms. What Al Jazeera did is what we should do. Expose this activity to the light of day. At a minimum, we could be aggressively publicizing this Al Jazeera documentary. I don’t blame the Israeli government for conducting these intelligence and IO activities any more than I blame Russia, China and others for undertaking these activities in their own interests. It’s not war, but we shouldn’t sit back and let this stuff go on unchallenged. We should officially encourage more of this kind of investigative reporting and commence a vigorous public awareness campaign concerning this threat. Expose the vampire to sunlight and holy water. Beyond that, LEA, IC and CYBERCOM elements should be tearing into foreign country’s activities and capabilities in this area without mercy. After all, it’s not war.

In the case of Israeli IO, we must work to break the idea that opposition to Israeli governmental policies and actions is equivalent to antisemitism. Given the persistence of that idea and the lengths the Israeli government goes to reinforce that persistence, this is a tall order. However, it must be confronted. In this vein, I welcome those voices in the Democratic Party who are speaking out in defense of Ilhan Omar. If it causes strife within the Democratic Party, so be it. Some fights are worth the price.

TTG

https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSjXhMUVKE  (The Lobby - USA, episode 1 - The Covert War) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytkI7afHcQ  (The Lobby - USA, episode 2 - Managing Elites)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm-Dm4pO0xY  (The Lobby - USA, episode 3 - The Witch Hunt)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1OgxfCT044  (The Lobby - USA, episode 4 - Marketing Occupation)

What is HAMAS?

"When Hamas was created, with the aided influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization was not at first much of an armed group, that came five years later in the form of the Izz Ad-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades (Armed wing of Hamas).

Hamas however was far more radical than the Mujamma, had a Palestinian nationalist flavor to its Islamic ideology and attempted to follow in the footsteps of the likes of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

A famous speech, delivered by former US representative for Texas, Ron Paul, is often used as reference point for claiming that Hamas was an invention of Israel and hence prompting the idea that Hamas must be controlled by them still.
Ron Paul stated that, “if you look at the history, Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel, because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat”.

This speech seems to be the reference point for many today, when it comes to their allegations of Israelis controlling and starting Hamas.

Although what Dr. Paul said, was very close to the truth, it was extremely broad and is often misinterpreted into something entirely false.

For some time, Israel still allowed for Hamas to operate, taking a hands off approach as it did with the Mujamma. It is completely true that Israel was utilizing Hamas as a counterweight to the Fatah movement, although there is no proof of any further cooperation with Hamas than this.

In 1984, the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin, had already been imprisoned – until his release a year later as the result of a prisoner swap – for weapons smuggling. Israel was not the same partner that it had been to the Mujamma and was a lot more aware of its [Hamas] ambitions to reclaim Palestine."  AMN

-------------

I was the head of liaison between DoD (DIA) and IDF General Staff intelligence for nine years (1985-1994).  As such I was the "minder" for the IDF reps in Washington based in their embassy.  The CIA tried continuously to acquire this task but without success.  They were not content to nurture their long standing relationship with Mossad, the Israeli civilian intelligence service.  In Israel, IDF intelligence is the senior service and the national estimator.

The brigadiers who seriatim were the chief military attache in the embassy spent a lot of time in my office consulting, being given guidance as to their sometimes arrogant and unacceptable behavior with regard to the DC police, and just chatting.  There were a lot of lunches and dinners with wives.  It was a very friendly set of relationships.  I used to take them to WBS battlefields both for the educational benefit for them concerning the US and to have a day in which to study them as individuals.

One day, sitting in my Pentagon office, the head man from the embassy began to tell me of his concern with regard to what was happening in the 2nd Intifada, then ongoing.  He told me that Israel had sponsored the growth of Hamas as a rival to the PLO, then in exile in Tunisia, believing that a religiously based resistance movement would attract many Palestinians, splitting them off from the PLO and generally weakening the Palestinian resistance.  Instead, the al-Qassem Brigades of Hamas were proving to be daunting opponents in the rebellion.  "Sometimes we outsmart ourselves," he said with a sad smile.  He was a very skilled man.  He was one of a small number of IDF officers trained as an Arab affairs specialist from secondary school onward. At one point he was Military Governor of the occupied West Bank.  I believe him.  pl

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/was-hamas-really-created-by-israel/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organization#Tunis

Trump Advisor Calls Congresswoman "Filth" on Fox TV's Varney & Co By DECAMERON

Jeff Ballabon is a not-so-high-level advisor to the Trump Election Campaign, but he's out to climb higher in the 2020 Campaign by denouncing US Representative Ilan Omar (D-Minnesota) as "filth," "disgusting" and "filthy."  She and her criticisms of Israel,  "got to go," he says. "So what if she's in Congress."  Does that mean "so what if American voters elected her?"  Ballabon's hurling was on the Varney & Co. show on Fox Business TV.

A bullyish loudmouth, Ballabon exemplifies what's wrong with the Israel Lobby, the Netanyahu-lovers, and Israel-firsters in America -- they don't really believe in democracy, and when American voters reject the candidates that get the "Benjamins" and other currency that the likes of Sheldon Adelson throw into election races every cycle, operatives like Ballabon snarl and gnash like rabid animals.  Preferably in front of TV cameras.

VARNEY: "Insulting language there."

BALLABON:  "Yes."

VARNEY: "Insulting to Ms. Omar. You've used it."

BALLABON:  "Yes."

VARNEY:  "I don't hear other Jewish members of Congress saying the same thing. They're not making the same demands and they're not using the same language."

BALLABON:  "Absolutely correct. They're still playing politics...."

Using vile, violent language, Ballabon called Omar "a filthy, disgusting hater. So what if she's in Congress? That's the problem."  Her beliefs "got to go."  Her tweets scare him, Ballabon said.

But in the same Varney & Co. show, Ballabon also bellowed against American Jewish voters, denouncing them as "this ghetto of Jewish voters in the Democratic Party," who don't understand that Republicans like himself, as opposed to Jewish politicians like Senator Chuck Schumer, are their real friends.

1 March, 2019 news

1.  The Democrats in Congress are going to waste more time and money investigating the manner of Trump's grant of access to classified information to Jared Kushner, his son in law and counselor.  As I have tried to explain before, the system of classification  of US government information and access to that information is not created by law.  It is altogether an aspect of regulation by the Chief Executive of the US, i.e., the president.  The system is an artifact of various executive orders, renewed in each new administration.  Therefore, the president can grant access to US classified information to anyone he thinks should have it.  The Democrats are wasting their time on this one.

2.  Bibi Natanyahu is going to be indicted for corruption even as he tries to tun for re-election against Benny Gantz, a former chief of staff of the IDF.  How entertaining!  Gantz was the big loser in in the 2006 Lebanon War against Hizbullah, but he is looking good against Bibi.  It is sad to see that Israeli Jewish political parties are now declaring their unwillingness to form governing coalitions with Israeli Arab political parties.  This gives the lie to Israeli claims that Arab citizens of Israel are not as much an occupied people as the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank.  And, BTW, why is there not a corresponding indictment for Sarah Natanyahu?

3.  Cohen told the House Oversight Committee that he did not think Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russians.  He whined a lot about his search for redemption but could not come up with anything against Trump that was illegal.  What Schiff, the Trump obsessed chairman of the HPSCI, thinks he can get from Cohen after that statement by Cohen is a mystery to me.

4.  Trump did the right thing in Hanoi.  He walked to demonstrate to everyone that he WILL NOT accept a bad deal just to have a deal.  This should have a salutary effect on the prospects for all the other pending deals.  pl

Michelle Alexander on Israel and the Palestinians

"Our elected representatives, who operate in a political environment where Israel's political lobby holds well-documented power, have consistently minimized and deflected criticism of the State of Israel, even as it has grown more emboldened in its occupation of Palestinian territory and adopted some practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States.

Many civil rights activists and organizations have remained silent as well, not because they lack concern or sympathy for the Palestinian people, but because they fear loss of funding from foundations, and false charges of anti-Semitism. They worry, as I once did, that their important social justice work will be compromised or discredited by smear campaigns.

Similarly, many students are fearful of expressing support for Palestinian rights because of the McCarthyite tactics of secret organizations like Canary Mission, which blacklists those who publicly dare to support boycotts against Israel, jeopardizing their employment prospects and future careers."  Michelle Alexander

------------

What on earth is happening at the New York Times?  The intimidation of critics of Israel that Alexander writes of has had a bastion of support at the Times for a long time. 

I don't write much about the plight of the Palestinians.  I gave up on that a long time ago.  I have other concerns.  The murderous hatred of the Israeli Jews toward the Palestinians is acted out just about every day.  Actual violence, demeaning insult, seizure of private property are all the lot of the Palestinians both in the occupied territories and also in Israel proper.  "Arab Israelis?  Don't make me laugh!  No one in Israel believes that Arab citizens of Israel are anything like first class citizens.

Are the Palestinians born without Original Sin?  Not at all, not at all, they fight back with knives, stones and in the past with large scale and terrible attacks on Jewish civilians.  Before Israeli independence they repeatedly attacked Jewish settlements and fought a three year rebellion in Palestine in attempting to roll back the Jewish tide of immigration.  Did the Mufti of Jerusalem side with the Nazis in the hope of exterminating the Jews in Palestine if Germany won the world war.  Yes!  He did!

I stopped going to Israel some time ago because I was beginning to dislike both groups.  The Jews treat the Palestinians like pariah dogs, and the Palestinians are not capable of dealing with their situation at any level beyond whining menace.

A pox on both their houses, but something very odd is happening at the New York Times.  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/opinion/sunday/martin-luther-king-palestine-israel.html

Chickens coming home to roost for Trump

Foreign Affairs.  

Middle East.  Bolton had his ass kicked on this trip.  The Turks made it clear that my view of them as neo-Ottomans unwilling to kow-tow to the US or anyone else is correct.  The manner of Turkish dismissal of Bolton's neocon decrees was wonderfully reminiscent of an Ottoman sultan leaving envoys waiting for weeks for an audience.  Now Dunford has run off to Ankara to try his luck.  IMO he will not do much better.  The Turks have rejected US pressure to cancel the S-400 deal with Russia and make it clear that they are going to butcher the SDF people as soon as we get out of the way.  At the same time Bolton, Pompeo and Jeffrey are telling the SDF that they better not make a deal with Damascus!  They better not!  This behavior is like children forming cliques in a school yard.  The mere fact that only the Syrian government and its allies can save the SDF from the Turks evidently means nothing to the neocons.  And, the Jordanian foreign minister made an unequivocal statement, presumably on behalf of his sovereign that under no circumstance would Jordan accept Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, a territory undoubtedly a de jure territory of Syria.  Iraq and Egypt have made similar statements.  The neocons have always made a great show of respect for a world order based on post Westphalia conceptions of state sovereignty.  Their willingness to accept Israeli piracy and theft of other peoples'  territory makes a mockery of that.  IMO neocon policy in the ME is collapsing under its own weight of delusion.  That Trump allows this indicates to me that he is compromised to some special interest and that the depth of his ignorance of the region remains appalling.

China.  It is said that progress is being made in the trade talks, but thus far it is invisible.  On the other hand the Chinese Navy is becoming more and more belligerent in challenging what they see as intrusions into their zone of influence in the South China Sea.  A senior Chinese naval personage last week made a statement to the effect that what China needs to do is sink two US aircraft carriers and kill 10,000 sailors to confirm to the US that this sea is closed to us.  Adversaries have repeatedly made the mistake of thinking that because a lot of Americans are sybarites who care for nothing but themselves, that this degenerated stock determines what the "Great Republic" will do in a clash.  What they miss in this thinking is that there is a separate "nation" within the US made up of the Deplorables and the children of the Deplorables and these will always fight.  I know Muslims who thought after 9/11  that the US had been taught a lesson and would henceforth be humbled and passive.  How many Muslims died for that mistake?

The internal political war.

Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) as well as the idiots in the senate from New Jersey are having a great time mocking Trump.  They are gambling all on their ability to use their servant media to depict everything he does as evil and stupid.  They are hoping to force him to accept their will and thus castrate himself politically.  If he does that, IMO he a will be mere figurehead for the rest of his term.  I continue to think that when he has sufficiently positioned the Democrats, he will declare a national emergency, put Northcom in charge of the barriers project in order to fulfill the terms of the Emergencies Act and then have the Army Corps of Engineers let a lot of contracts to build out what the Border Patrol recommends.  pl

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/turkeys-erdogan-shuts-down-white-houses-bolton-on-syria.html

IMO Senate anti-BDS bill is an Israeli effort to kill free speech in the US

"Pro-Israel lawmakers in Washington, undeterred by the partial shutdown of the United States government, are pursuing their agenda full speed with the introduction of the first piece of legislation before the 116th Senate — a bill that aims to stifle the free-speech rights of American critics of apartheid Israel.

The Republican-controlled Senate’s first bill (S.1) would enact penalties on entities that engage in boycotts of Israel — one of many measures in the United States intended to push back on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

BDS seeks to place economic pressure on companies and institutions that support Israeli ones operating in illegally occupied areas in Palestine, in order to pressure the Israeli government into compliance with international law and to cease its practices of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the ongoing encroachment of Israeli settlements."  Alexander Rubenstein

------------

Even as this travesty of law is driven forward in the senate, US senators Cruz and Cotton are in Israel supporting Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and official American recognition of the annexation.  These Syrian lands were seized in war by Israel in 1967 and occupied ever since.

IMO this bill, if it became law, would be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.

 pl

https://www.mintpressnews.com/new-senate-anti-bds-bill-unconstitutional-and-ineffective-at-curbing-israel-boycotts/253598/

How clever!

"The Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out its recent airstrikes in Syria when two civilians planes were landing in Beirut and Damascus, putting passengers at risk, Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of Russia told reporters on December 26.

“Provocative acts by the Israeli Air Force endangered two passenger jets when six of their F-16s carried out airstrikes on Syria from Lebanese airspace,” RT quoted the spokesman as saying.

According to Konashenkov, the Syrian Arab Air Defense Forces (SyAADF) delayed the deployment of surface-to-air missiles and electronic jamming “to prevent a tragedy.” Meanwhile, the Damascus air traffic control diverted one of the passenger jets to a reserve airport in Khmeimim in southern Lattakia.

Konashenkov said that 6 Israeli F-16 warplanes used 16 US-made GPS-guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) in the attack, which occurred at the late hours of December 25. Only 2 SDBs managed to hit their targets, while the rest were intercepted by the SyAADF.

Israeli media claimed that Israeli warplanes struck a shipment of Iranian-made Fajir-5 rockets, which was on its way to Hezbollah. However, the Ministry of Defense of Syria said that the “aggression” targeted an ammo depot of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) injuring three service members.

Last September, a Russian Il-20 plane was downed by Syrian air defense fire when Israeli warplanes used it as a cover to strike targets on the Syrian coast. The recent airstrikes show that Israel is now using the same tactic with civilian planes, which endangers the flights not only over Syria, but also over Lebanon and Jordan."  SF

------------

I would not recommend flying into Beirut or Damascus on civil airlines. What the Israelis did here is carry out strikes in Syria using scheduled airline departures and arrivals as cover believing correctly that the SAA would not engage fearing to shoot down an airliner.  pl

https://southfront.org/russian-mod-israeli-air-force-used-landing-of-two-civilian-planes-as-cover-for-airstrikes/

 

The mukhtar DJT, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel - reposted 21 November 2018

On the occasion of trump's remarkably frank admission of Saudi Arabia's power over the US it seems appropriate to re-post this.  In Trumpworld Israel's fantasy of the overarching Iranian menace creates a need for an alliance of steel to combat this threat to the world and that alliance must include Saudi Arabia.  Why that is so is not clear to me.  Saudi Arabia has no armed forces that possess real combat power to do anything but bomb civilians and oppress the Shia of the Eastern Province.  Possession of military equipment does not equal combat power.  A more convincing feature of theTrumpish view is the economic bit.  DJT wants the Saudis'money for the US economy.  Like any businessman/trader at that elevated level he is loathe to surrender market share to his competitors who in this case are Russia and China.  He is also quite grateful that SA has pumped enough oil and gas to depress prices.  All in all, I would say that he was quite considerate in his forthright explanation to us all that he really IS the Saudi mukhtar of the United States.  pl

**********

Old Post
 

"I call upon Salman, the King of Saudi, to invite the prime minister of Israel Netanyahu to visit Saudi Arabia,” Katz said on Thursday speaking at the Herzliya conference. “We saw what a wonderful host you can be… when President Trump was there. You can also send your heir, the new one, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He’s a dynamic person. He is an initiator. And he wants to break through.”"  SF

--------------

OK, Yisrael Katz, the intelligence minister of Israel has asked the present king of Saudi Arabia to invite Benjamin Natanyahu to a state visit in Riyadh.  What a great idea! (irony)  IMO there is nothing that would be more likely to trigger a revolt within and without the SA royal family against King Salman and his son, the new crown prince.  People just don't understand that the Saudi population and the royal family (thousands of people in various factions) continue to regard Israel as the ultimate enemy.  For all these carefully indoctrinated Wahhabis, Israel is an abomination that occupies a portion of the territory of the 'umma, God's territory on earth.  To invite Israel's prime minister to Riyadh for a state visit or, indeed any kind of visit, would be to recognize Israel as a state legitimately and perpetually occupying Palestine.  The behind the scenes  machinations of various acculturated princes like Muhammad bin Salman mean nothing to the people of the Saudi kingdom.  What we are talking about in such a demand is an invitation to blasphemy and apostasy.  It is typical of the vast majority of Israelis that in their contempt for non-Jews and especially their neighbors, they remain ignorant of such realities.  A truce would be possible but not permanent recognition.  pl 

https://southfront.org/israeli-intelligence-calls-saudi-king-invite-netanyahu-riyadh/

********

" ... it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country."

... the nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism." SF

----------

 Saudi Arabia is a larger sponsor of Sunni jihadi movements than Qatar.  That has always been true.  The "kingdom" is a state built on Sunni fanaticism.  There are no churches, no synagogues, no legally resident ministers of other faiths than Islam in the country.  Mukhtar (appointed head man and tax farmer) Donald Trump swore allegiance to his Saudi pals in Riyadh.  He did that before an army of witnesses from across the Islamic world.  The Saudis have always sought to impose their sphere of influence upon all Muslims within their reach.  They understandably think that mukhtar Trump gave them an extended reach as their henchman.  The air base at al-odeid  in Qatar is a Qatari base in which the US has been allowed to position the forward element of US CENTCOM's headquarter, the US air operations center for the whole region and ten thousand bird men. (and women).  Arabs do not do things like that from altruistic love.  The Qataris expected protection from Iran and Saudi Arabia and have not gotten much of anything in return.   Now Turkey , pursuing its Turanian destiny (on hold since the Ottoman collapse) is building a military position as an ally of the al-thani  family rulers of Qatar.  SA and its pipsqueak Gulfie allies are now threatening Turkey with - what? Unhappiness if it does not abandon Qatar.? Did mukhtar Trump understand any of this before he swore fealty to King Salman?  I doubt it.  pl

it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country.

The nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism.

The nature of the crisis suggests it represents tensions that long bubbled under the surface but now have finally burst into the open.  The Qatari-Saudi falling out, and the make-up of the pro-Saudi faction, suggests that several factors at work here.

it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country.

The nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism.

The nature of the crisis suggests it represents tensions that long bubbled under the surface but now have finally burst into the open.  The Qatari-Saudi falling out, and the make-up of the pro-Saudi faction, suggests that several factors at work here.

it is unlikely in the extreme that Saudi Arabia would have undertaken something so drastic without coordination with the US, particularly since this action comes literally on the heels of President Trump’s high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.  While initially silent, President Trump ultimately took to Twitter to back Saudi Arabia against Qatar, even as the US still maintains major military presence in that country.

The nature of the accusations leveled at Qatar is nothing short of extreme. Both US and Saudi leaders accused Qatar of about the worst offense currently available, namely supporting violent Islamic extremism. Trump went so far as to say that Qatar’s change of policies would be a major step toward resolving the problem of terrorism.

The nature of the crisis suggests it represents tensions that long bubbled under the surface but now have finally burst into the open.  The Qatari-Saudi falling out, and the make-up of the pro-Saudi faction, suggests that several factors at work here.

 https://southfront.org/qatar-crisis-consequences/