Archive for the ‘Jerusalem’ tag
Iran and Palestine. A Step-by-Step Guide To Middle East Peace
Iran nukes out. Palestinian State in. No problem.
Struggling with a Middle-East Peace Process that seems to have bogged down in a matter of months, President Obama is probably thinking he needs Iran’s nuclear ambitions like a he needs a Republican filibuster.
But looking a little deeper, it’s possible that Iranian nukes and creating a Palestinian state could be connected, and each helps the other problem go away.
How come?
We’re told that President Obama is a chess grandmaster when everyone else is still getting a handle on checkers. So let’s get some moves going and find out.
There’s no chance an Iranian nuke could be lobbed at the USA, but it’s totally unacceptable to both Israel and Saudi Arabia that Iran gets to nuclear “breakout”.
Neither of these countries has a chance of knocking out Iran’s nuclear facilities alone.
The Saudis are militarily weak and let other people do their dirty work.
Israel acts belligerently, but would have to overfly US controlled airspace to strike Iran, at maximum range, against advanced surface-to-air missile systems, and against hardened underground targets. It’s a stretch that they’d do anything more than enrage the Arab world, and make us Great Satan all over again. People try to suggest that Israel could do the job on Iran just like they did on Saddam’s nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. But Osirak is a first-grade spelling test next to attacking Iran’s hardened bunkers.
The only nation that can stop Iran from reaching nuclear break-out is the USA. From our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and other long-range bases, the US could bring to bear overwhelming air and naval power, to protect air-delivered special forces that could knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities and then get the hell out of Dodge when the job’s complete.
Are we going to reach that point? It’s not unlikely, it’s probable. Read the rest of this entry »
Israel’s Future is in America’s Hands
how can we help them? by being bold and brave.
“I don’t accept the term “Jewish Lobby”, tweeted William Daroff, Vice President for Public Policy at the United Jewish Communties. The American Jewish community is incredibly powerful, economically, and politically, but wisely doesn’t want that power to be categorized in easily pejorative terms.
At the heart of the mission of Jewish organizations that have a political presence in Washington is strengthening US-Israel relations, but as Mr. Daroff makes clear that mission remains limited for the most part to what happens Stateside. The American Jewish Community doesn’t have favorites between the left, center or right of Israeli politics. “It’s up to the Israeli electorate. It’s not my role in the Diaspora to tell them who their leaders should be”, says Mr. Daroff.
There has always been a sharp cultural divide between Jews who live in Israel, and those who live in the rest of the world, (known as the “diaspora”), and Mr. Daroff makes clear that Diaspora Jews shouldn’t have a say in how Israel is run. “We don’t interfere in the elections of others, just as I don’t want them interfering in American elections.”
But in many respects American Jews already do have an undue influence. Home to more Jews than in Israel itself, about six and a half million, American Jews care deeply about defending the State of Israel and their votes, and financial contributions, in Presidential and Congressional elections increasingly reflect that concern. Nobody denies that representatives from the US Jewish community watch the White House and Congress very carefully and try to maintain firm US support for Israel. That support comes in the form of an aid package worth $2.5 billion in 2007, mostly in the form of a military grant, and cements the single most important strategic alliance in the Middle East.
Despite White House concerns over the years that Israel is not doing its part to push forward the Middle East peace process, the idea of removing or substantially reducing the aid package is a third rail. Doing so would unleash an uproar against the incumbent President and would never be sanctioned by Congress. Which is unfortunate, because it’s the only bargaining chip the US has that Israel really cares about.
The idea that American Jewish groups would support or not oppose a US move to remove aid from Israel seems laughable now, but there may be more to the idea than meets the eye. And here’s why.
Israel is at a historical crossroads. It has three choices. Read the rest of this entry »
Israel. No More Mr. Nice Guy
it's got to the point that israel needs to project raw power to secure a two-state solution.
From now on, it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy in Israel. Promising “a disproportionate response” to Hamas for rocket attacks signals a new direction for Jerusalem. For years they have been on the wrong end of one of the most successful PR juggernauts of recent history – the Palestinians.
Nothing seems to dent the Palestinian love-bubble. The fact that Hamas has been targeting innocent Israelis for years through suicide bombings and rocket attacks seems to mean nothing, the fact that they use human shields means less, the fact that they brutally murder anyone remotely seen as an informer, irrelevant. Hamas has maintained lock-tight control on Gaza in order to further its longstanding total war against Israel. It gets as close as it can to starving its own people into hatred. The constant portrayal of Gazan as victim is incongruous with the fact that most of Hamas leadership has nothing to do with the place. To them maintaining the degradation of the world’s largest refugee camp is a means to an end. Read the rest of this entry »