Disgraceful Iran Policy

US Vice President Joe Biden recently said in a pre-taped interview with ABC’s George Stephanoupolos: “Look, Israel can determine for itself - it’s a sovereign nation - what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else… What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world… Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.”

Does this mean that Obama’s administration has finally realized that Israel was right about Iran all along and that the policy of appeasement of Iran has gruesomely failed? Why has Israel suddenly become “a sovereign nation” facing no pressure from the United States and “coincidentally” with the same interests as the US “and the whole world?” Shouldn’t Israel be recognized as a sovereign country, as any other state is, without any special permission and dispensation from the US?

By now, the US administration and even many Muslim countries have realized that they need Israel to do the dirty work for them to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Later, without any doubt, they will vigorously deny their desire to subdue the Iranian nuclear ambition and will direct wild accusations at Israel over its aggression etc, just as they did after Israel curbed Iraq’s nuclear ambitions in 1981.

Biden’s statement was made after the election in Iran failed to produce a change in the political leadership, and after Iran’s president rejected any negotiations toward ending terminating the nuclear program. At the same time, he has intensified his verbal assaults and threats against Britain and the EU.

Damage control offensive
However, almost immediately after Biden’s remarks, we saw State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly embark on a damage control offensive, rebuffing suggestions that the vice president could be seen as giving the Jewish state a green light to attack Iran.

“I certainly would not want to give a green light to any kind of military action,” Kelly said, although he repeated Biden’s point that Washington considered Israel a “sovereign country” with a right to make its own military decisions. “I wouldn’t read into it any more than what you see... as I said, that we respect Israel’s sovereignty.”

Meanwhile, Egypt has vigorously denied that an Israeli submarine sailed through the Suez Canal last month, while Saudi Arabia has rejected reports that it agreed to permit Israeli fighter jets to use Saudi airspace en route to bombing Iran’s nuclear sites.

In the final analysis, while the US administration and some Muslim countries may be eager to see Israel striking at Iran’s nuclear program, President Obama and other players want to keep their hands clean by maintaining an ambiguous position on the prospect of an Iran strike. They believe this will allow them to rebuke and assault Israel politically after such attack. What a disgraceful double-flip hypocritical policy!
ynet

Solana - World must force deadline on ME Peace.

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European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Saturday called for the United Nations Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state by a certain deadline even if an agreement is not reached between Israel and the Palestinians.

Solana made the comments on Saturday at a lecture in London. The Palestinians have said they will not revive peace talks unless there is a halt to Israel's settlement activities in the West Bank.

"After a fixed deadline, a UN Security Council resolution should proclaim the adoption of the two-state solution," Solana said, adding this should include border parameters, refugees, control over the city of Jerusalem and security arrangements.

"It would accept the Palestinian state as a full member of the UN, and set a calendar for implementation. It would mandate the resolution of other remaining territorial disputes and legitimize the end of claims," Solana went on.

Advocating a return to Israel's borders before the 1967 Six-Day War with Egypt, Syria and Jordan in which it took the West Bank and other territories, Solana said mediators should set a timetable for a peace agreement.

"If the parties are not able to stick to it (the timetable), then a solution backed by the international community should be put on the table," he said.

Solana also praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "for finally generating an Israeli consensus" on a two-state solution.

The EU, along with the United States, Russia and the United Nations, is part of the Quartet of Middle East Negotiators.


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The world is getting impatient. Its focus is strictly on Israel as though that would be the magic bullet that will bring world peace. However, it won't happen as they have planned.

Don

Report: IDF and Iran already Engaged in 'Cyber War'

(IsraelNN.com) While Israel has publicly refrained from striking Iran, a secret “cyber war” may have already begun, according to ABC's Simon McGregor-Wood. Clandestine computer battles are used both to gather information and to launch offensive strikes, he says.

Israeli defense expert Alon Ben-David, who spoke with McGregor-Wood, believes cyber warfare has become “a very important area in Israeli strategy.” Israel began hacking into foreign systems years ago, after a routine exercise demonstrated that Israel's own systems were shockingly unprepared for a cyber assault.

It did not take long for Israel to apply those findings to other countries, experts say.

'Unexplained breakdowns'
Ben-David relates that Israel's war on Iran has been successful so far. “The Iranians have experienced a number of malfunctions and unexplained breakdowns,” he says.

Targeting Iran is particularly easy as the Islamic Republic imports the vast majority of its computer equipment and expertise. This allows Israel to target Iran's computers before they even reach the country.

Israel successfully attacked computer-based systems in Syria as well, Ben-David says. Only the use of “cyber war” allowed Israel to conduct an airstrike on a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 without setting off Syria's air defense systems, he explains.

Cyber attacks have also been used against Israel. During Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Israeli government sites came under attack and were briefly paralyzed. More sensitive systems were not breached.

The attack on Israel's systems, in January of this year, involved more than half a million computers sending a total of 15 million junk mail items each second, causing server overload. While cyber attacks are notoriously difficult to track, Israeli experts believe they may have pinpointed the culprit: a criminal group based in the former Soviet Union that used similar tactics against Georgia months earlier. The group may have been paid off by Hamas or Hizbullah, they say.


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Perhaps part of Israel's strategy is to neutralize Iran covertly using cyber warfare - crippling their defenses to render them ineffective while Israel's planes and missiles are flying. Stay tuned...we might know soon!

Don

Psalm 103

Bless the Lord, praise His holy name! Praise God! Bow down before our Almighty God and worship Him for He is God, and there is none other! Our God is an awesome God! He reigns forever more! Thank You, Lord! Hallelujah, and all praise to Him! Amen!

Don


Psalm 103 KJV

1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.

6 The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.

7 He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.

8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

9 He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.

10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.

14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;

18 To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

19 The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.

20 Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

21 Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.

22 Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.

Israel, the Doormat

Anyone who acts like a doormat when he visits one foreign ruler should not be surprised when other rulers come along and act as arrogantly as the first. From day one we have let the world understand that we are a country with no self-respect, that we can be insulted and punched and will respond, if at all, with restraint and meekness. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was able to say what he said about Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman because for years Israel has been getting across the message: You can treat us arrogantly.

It isn't the Americans who formulated the belittling and trivializing formula "natural growth" at which the Obama administration is now chipping away in an arrogant and bullying manner. An Israeli government, headed by Ariel Sharon, was responsible for the trivializing. And instead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring, here at home, that no independent nation can agree to have "natural growth" dictate its rate of construction, Defense Minister Ehud Barak has gone off to the United States to plead for this poor little lamb.

And to whom has he gone? To the president? To the vice president? To the secretary of state? No. To an envoy, who holds the mere rank of ambassador. The State of Israel's defense minister has tried to extract an agreement to build kindergartens in Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. And since George Mitchell has apparently sent the defense minister away empty-handed, the prime minister himself is about to go to him hat in hand. Maybe he'll change his mind.

The British government is on the brink of collapse. And with what is the British foreign minister busy? He "completely deplores" an Israeli decision to build 50 housing units in the settlement Adam in Judea and Samaria. Foreign diplomats in Israel are speaking in a lordly way to Israeli statesmen, and foreign journalists are asking them questions that are often biased, intrusive and insolent. These correspondents would never allow themselves to behave so crudely in their own countries. And why shouldn't they? Here, after all, everyone including prime ministers feels obligated to justify himself to them and gratify them. Only rarely does someone put them in their place.

The scorn for Israeli sovereignty and dignity runs from the lowest to the highest. Israelis, in contact with foreigners, tend to be self-abasing and massively critical of their country and its leaders. Those who excel at this in particular are people from Israeli organizations who get their funding from foreign governments and foreign NGOs, and in return, wittingly or not, serve their interests.

Azerbaijan, a Muslim country, has a dangerous border with Iran. Many of its interests, especially economic interests, inevitably intersect with Iran's. About three weeks ago Iran's chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Hasan Firuzabadi, paid a surprise visit to Baku. The aim: to prevent a visit to the republic by Israeli President Shimon Peres. Although it was made clear to them that Iran would take a dim view should they refuse (and indeed while Peres was there, Iran recalled its ambassador), the Azerbaijanis rejected the demand outright. Azerbaijan is a country with self-respect. They made it clear to the bullying Iranians that no one was going to tell them which guests to receive, or to whom to export goods, or especially from whom to import. Only Israel fired the director general of its Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron, because that's what the Americans dictated.

When the norm is to submit to pressure, the pressures only increase. If right at the start of the pressure campaign Netanyahu has bowed down to the Americans and given up his most basic principle - opposition to a Palestinian state - what is left for him to give when the next wave of pressure comes along? This is weakness and this is its wage. Haaretz

Jordan expects Obama to announce Mideast peace plan by end of July

AMMAN - US President Barack Obama is expected to announce by the end of July a plan to achieve peace in the Middle East, the government said on Wednesday.

"Based on our contacts and discussions with US officials, we believe that the plan is still in the making," Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh told The Jordan Times yesterday, adding that all signs coming from the US administration indicate that the peace plan is expected to be declared within the coming few weeks. Judeh reiterated the Kingdom's position on the peace process, which “His Majesty King Abdullah has made clear on many occasions”. The top diplomat reasserted that the only solution is the two-state formula which leads to a viable Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, as well as finding a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Last Friday, US Mideast envoy George Mitchell said that the US hoped Israelis and Palestinians would soon begin "meaningful and productive" peace negotiations, according to Reuters.

"We believe we are making progress in these efforts and we hope very much to conclude this phase of the discussions and to be able to move into meaningful and productive negotiations in the near future," Mitchell told a news conference following a meeting in Italy of the Middle East Quartet which comprises the UN, EU, US and Russia.

President Obama, in an address to the Muslim and Arab worlds last month, vowed that the Middle East peace process would be resumed and that a Palestinian state would be established.

Also last month, King Abdullah said during a meeting with Mitchell that Obama's stance on the Middle East has created a positive atmosphere that paves the way for a comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Monarch added that it is important that all stakeholders play a positive role to help realise peace and stability in the region.

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