New war staring us right in the face

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The man in the picture here is Aluf Benn, the diplomatic correspondent of the highly respected Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. The article quoted below is published in the English edition of Haaretz, thus it is available for the whole world to read. It goes without saying that anything Aluf Benn publishes in his newspaper has passed several filters. Three of them come instantly to mind. First: the brains, knowledge and professional experience to pass the selection process for such an important post. Second: the editorial policy of the paper. Third: the general consensus of his colleagues and community as to what is responsible discourse. Conclusion: Aluf Benn is a sensible, reputed professional, not some nut spouting off on an electronic street corner. Read in this light, the following article by Mr. Benn is literally terrifying. DS
Four reasons for ranting - Haaretz
Abstract: The ideal scenario, from Israel's point of view, would be an American military attack that would destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and remove the threat. "We have to get the United States to carry out what it promised to do, and to create the proper international climate," explains a senior official. It is not clear what President Bush told Olmert in private talks that had him leaving Bush's office feeling so satisfied. We can only presume that Olmert is depending on Bush's religious faith and obstinacy, which will lead him to attack Iran, even in light of American public opposition to military adventures in the Middle East. When will that happen? The head of the Mossad spoke this week about an Iranian nuclear bomb in another three years. This leaves a year for diplomacy and sanctions, and moves H-hour for a military attack to 2008, if Iran continues its nuclear development. The timing is right politically. It will be Bush's last year in the White House, and he will be busy bequeathing his "legacy." It is a known fact that U.S. election years have always been years of dramatic moves in relations with Israel, from Harry S. Truman's recognition of the Jewish state to Bill Clinton's Camp David summit, to the "Bush letter" that recognized the settlements and the separation fence.(...) Former prime minister Ariel Sharon used to deny that Israel was planning to attack Iran on its own. Olmert prefers to hint at a military option. That's good for spurring the "world" into action, but it is also good for preparing Israeli public opinion for a complex conflict that is liable to continue for years. The experts disagree as to whether Israel has the ability to paralyze the Iranian project if it strikes it at critical points. It is clear that Israel would have to receive American approval for such an operation, and would prefer receiving it from Bush, who is friendly to Israel, rather than gambling on his successor. That is why even for this alternative 2008 will be the critical year.(...) Olmert wants to remain in the Golan, refuses to talk to Syrian President Bashar Assad and uses Bush's opposition as an excuse: Israel needs Bush to fight Iran, and we must not annoy him by babbling nonsense about peace with Syria. READ IT ALL

Iran outfoxes Israel, Blair and Bush

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Today, Tony Blair is calling on "moderate" Arab (read Sunni) Muslim states to form an "alliance of moderation" to counter Iran's growing influence. Blair, who will soon be out of power, may have his eye as firmly fixed on his future lecture fees as on any plausible "peace plan". His anti-Iran alliance is certainly another dog that won't hunt. Blair's idea is to isolate Shiite Iran from its Sunni neighbors. By chance this is more or less Al Qaeda's program too. Ahmadinejad's maneuvering is calculated to avoid such isolation. None of the Sunni regimes has anything like Iran's democratic legitimacy (Ahmadinejad just lost a local election: dictators don't ever lose elections) and the "Arab street" of the "moderate" Sunni regimes is restless. Ahmadinejad's stunts like the Jew-baiting "Holocaust Conference" and Iran's support of Hezbollah resistance to Israel's invasion of Lebanon and Hamas's stoicism in Gaza, all of which Muslims seem to find thrilling and heroic, are an effective insurance policy against just the sort of alliance that Blair is proposing. The Sunni Arab Street would only see their rulers as dropping their trousers one more time for the "Jews and Crusaders". The way tempers are rising this could easily cost them their jobs and even their and their families lives. Also Ahmadinejad by his provocations has forced Israel into a historic error that may cost them the whole "atomic" game itself. By publicly admitting that Israel has the atomic bomb, following US Secretary of Defense Robert Gate's similar revelation, Israeli PM Olmert has cut the legal ground and the international legitimacy out from underneath the planned UN sanctions of Iran. If the Tehran "Holocaust Conference" was planned in order to provoke the Israelis into some stupid mistake, it has been successful beyond its wildest dreams. "I would suggest that all those who want to talk about the issue, for God's sake and for the sake of Israel's security, stop it," said the Israeli Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer. The doomsday climate thickens as Bush seems to have his 'mind" set on one last "grand offensive" in Iraq, which military experts fear may, in true Stalingrad fashion, be the definitive disaster. DS

Meshal, en route to victory: Israel's position in free fall - Haaretz

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Before you give too much weight to Olmert's peace initiatives, read this article by Danny Rubinstein in today's Haaretz. Things are moving very, fast. The likudnik-neoconservative-Greater Israel position has collapsed, the United States wants out of Iraq with some of its dignity intact, James ("fuck the Jews") Baker has been called in to arrange this. The signs are clear, the planets are not aligned In Israel's favor. Serious negotiations are to begin. This is the Middle East, what is called the "bazaar mentality" kicks in. What does this mean? It means that, "how much are a kilo of tomatoes?" is just an opening gambit in a possibly long negotiation, not just a simple question. The first price is not meaningless, it gives you an idea of the strength of seller's position. If there are lots of tomatoes in the market, bluffing is useless. What is the Palestinian leader Khaled Meshal asking of Israel? According to Israeli military sources quoted by Debka, Hamas leader Meshal's demands are, 1. To procure Shalit’s release, Israeli must free 1,400 jailed Palestinians in three stages, including all Hamas, Fatah and other terrorists, such as Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted to six life sentences for murdering six Israelis. For the first batch of 400 women and minors, the Israeli soldier will be handed to Egypt. After the second batch of 500 (including the murderers) is released, Shalit’s parents and Israeli representatives will be allowed to see him. 2. Israel must halt all military operations in the Gaza and West Bank, including preventive detentions. 3. For his consent to a Palestinian unity government, the Hamas politburo chief wants a mechanism for opening the Palestinian Liberation Organization umbrella to Hamas membership and appointing him permanent chairman in place of Mahmoud Abbas. Meshaal will thus acquire total control of the Palestinian movement and its resources worldwide. 4. Hamas will retain treasury, interior and foreign affairs in the unity government. 5. Within six months, Israel must withdraw to the June 4, 1967 borders and an independent Palestinian state established, else the Palestinians will wage a third intifada. In this context Olmert's reply is weak. Has Bush called for a bowl to wash his hands? DS

Abstract: There is not much of a chance that the cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians will be upheld. The reason is that the deterioration in the security situation between the sides is only one aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian political imbroglio that has been developing recently. Ten months have elapsed since the dramatic victory of Hamas in the elections of the Palestinian parliament, in the wake of which Ismail Haniyeh's government was set up. The entire world, with the exception of Iran and Syria, rejected it. The United States and Europe, together with almost all the Arab countries, and of course Israel, boycotted it. They refused to transfer money to it or to meet its representatives. The distress in the territories and in particular in the Gaza Strip grew worse and, as the security situation declined, more dead and wounded were counted daily in Gaza and the West Bank. What has been the result? Instead of the Hamas government collapsing, the movement's strongman and the head of its political bureau, Khaled Meshal, appeared at the end of the week at a news conference in Cairo and issued an ultimatum to the international community: You have six months to organize an Israeli withdrawal from the territories and to end the conflict, otherwise a third intifada will break out and the Palestinian Authority (PA) will collapse. Of course, Meshal did not address Israel. He has no interest in previous agreements made with the country, nor in international demands that they be recognized. He looks down on the chairman of Fatah and the PA, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and appears to mock him and his predecessor Yasser Arafat for wasting almost 10 years in negotiations over self-rule with only miserable results. What those leaders did not manage to achieve over long years of recognition of Israel, he hopes to achieve in a few short months. It is hard to believe Meshal will succeed, but it is clear that he, and Abu Mazen, with help from Israel and other nations, have succeeded in creating a crisis of such complexity in Palestinian politics that no one can see a way out.(...) To square the circle even further, the international community, including the Arab regimes, is demanding that Meshal must not come out of all this victorious. If Meshal brings about the release of 1,400 prisoners in return for Shalit, and the establishment of a government that does not explicitly recognize Israel, this will be a clear message that Abu Mazen and the veteran Fatah and PLO activists have been selling Palestinian interests far too cheaply: They have recognized Israel without any serious quid pro quo, and because of their groveling policies, tens of thousands of Palestinians are today languishing in Israeli jails without any chance of being released. It is doubtful whether under present circumstances the Israeli government can do much to change the situation. Meshal and Hamas are on the way to victory and if they are stopped en route, the price will be further deterioration and destruction. READ IT ALL

Olmert's drums of war - Aluf Benn - Haaretz

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The flow of play in the Middle East is running strongly against Israel at this moment. Bush and Blair are a pair of stumbling lame ducks and Iran is taking the diplomatic initiative. Spain, France and Italy have troops on the ground in Lebanon and thus the EU really has its "foot in the door" in the Middle East for the first time. When a game of chess or checkers is going badly sometimes the loser will knock over the table to halt the game and re-arrange the pieces more to his liking. That is the danger now. DS

Abstract: In his address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Communities of North America in Los Angeles earlier this week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made it clear that Israel and Iran were headed down a road of confrontation. It is hard to interpret his message any differently: "We have reached the pivotal moment of truth regarding Iran... Our integrity will remain intact only if we prevent Iran's devious goals, not if we try our best but fail."(...) The problem is that the international community hears the threats of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to destroy Israel, and his declarations that Iran will soon celebrate "the manifestation of its nuclear right," and is not really bothered. Members of the UN Security Council are still talking about imposing ridiculous sanctions that will have little effect on Iran, and an international military operation against the Iranian nuclear installations is highly unrealistic. The Democrat's victory in midterm elections in the United States also lessened the likelihood that Bush will bomb Iran. Israel, it seems, is facing Ahmadinejad alone. Olmert stepped up his attacks on Iran's nuclear program without consulting any professionals. His declarations last month have broken his "low profile" policy on Iran that Israel adopted in its effort to present Tehran's bomb as an international problem. As late as last month, Olmert held talks in Israel on the Iranian nuclear program, and decided to stick with the low-profile approach. So what happened to change his position? "A weak prime minister who is dropping in the opinion polls suddenly found himself faced with Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and Effi Eitam, who are politicizing the issue, and with a public that does not have faith in the prime minister due to his lack of security experience," senior officials in Jerusalem explained. (...)Therein lies Olmert's problem: After he made his bold statements, Netanyahu's warnings that Israel is faced with a situation similar to that faced by European Jewry when threatened by Hitler in 1938, and Shimon Peres' description of Ahmadinejad as "a Farsi-speaking Hitler," the moment of truth for Israel's political leadership is nearing. The public will justifiably want to know what has been done to prevent the threat to its existence posed by Iran, and to stop the possible mass exodus of Jews from Israel, as described by Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh. Domestic pressure calling for military action will intensify. However, experts on strategy have voiced doubts regarding Israel's ability to carry out an effective aerial attack on Iran's nuclear installations, similar to the raid that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.(...) The U.S. forces in the region could become targets of Iranian retaliation, just like Israel, and therefore there is no way that an independent Israeli action can take place without authorization from Bush. Did Olmert get such a go-ahead and is this why he was pleased with his visit to the White House?(...) The challenge Olmert has set for himself is not a simple one. But the more his warnings intensify, the more difficult he will find it to back down and convince the public that we can live with an Iranian bomb. Therefore, we can assume that the confrontation is moving closer. READ IT ALL

Seymour Hersh: The Next Act - New Yorker

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The idea that a Democratic congress lessens the chance of a war with Iran may be totally wrong. It may mean the exact opposite, because the last thing any of the major Democratic presidential candidates want to do in the run-up to the 2008 elections is to offend Israel. The Israelis are absolutely desperate to avoid losing their military superiority. A nuclear armed Iran does not mean the physical end of Israel, Iran wants to be "numero uno" in the Middle East, not to be turned into an ash heap, but it would probably mean the end of the Zionist project, as no one could ever say anymore that Eretz Israel constituted a safe refuge for the Jewish people, quite the contrary. If war is finally avoided the world will have a lot of reasons to thank Seymour Hersh. He is fast becoming a historical figure. He has been the substitute for an entire intellectual class that the United States no longer possesses. DS

Abstract: A month before the November elections, Vice-President Dick Cheney was sitting in on a national-security discussion at the Executive Office Building. The talk took a political turn: what if the Democrats won both the Senate and the House? How would that affect policy toward Iran, which is believed to be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? At that point, according to someone familiar with the discussion, Cheney began reminiscing about his job as a lineman, in the early nineteen-sixties, for a power company in Wyoming. Copper wire was expensive, and the linemen were instructed to return all unused pieces three feet or longer. No one wanted to deal with the paperwork that resulted, Cheney said, so he and his colleagues found a solution: putting “shorteners” on the wire—that is, cutting it into short pieces and tossing the leftovers at the end of the workday. If the Democrats won on November 7th, the Vice-President said, that victory would not stop the Administration from pursuing a military option with Iran. The White House would put “shorteners” on any legislative restrictions, (...) In an interview this month with the Jerusalem Post, (Israel's Deputy Defense Minister, Ephraim ) Sneh expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of diplomacy or international sanctions in curbing Iran: The danger isn’t as much Ahmadinejad’s deciding to launch an attack but Israel’s living under a dark cloud of fear from a leader committed to its destruction. . . . Most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with families, and Israelis who can live abroad will . . . I am afraid Ahmadinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button. That’s why we must prevent this regime from obtaining nuclear capability at all costs.(...) The Bush Administration, if it does take military action against Iran, would have support from Democrats as well as Republicans. Senators Hillary Clinton, of New York, and Evan Bayh, of Indiana, who are potential Democratic Presidential candidates, have warned that Iran cannot be permitted to build a bomb and that—as Clinton said earlier this year—“we cannot take any option off the table.” Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has also endorsed this view. Last May, Olmert was given a rousing reception when he addressed a joint session of Congress and declared, “A nuclear Iran means a terrorist state could achieve the primary mission for which terrorists live and die—the mass destruction of innocent human life. This challenge, which I believe is the test of our time, is one the West cannot afford to fail.”(...) “Iran is emerging as a dominant power in the Middle East,” I was told by a Middle East expert and former senior Administration official. “With a nuclear program, and an ability to interfere throughout the region, it’s basically calling the shots. Why should they coöperate with us over Iraq?” READ ALL

Falling In Line On Israel - Stephen Zunes - Tom Paine

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Anyone who thought that the key to peace and stability in the Middle East and in the Islamic world (1.3b people) in general, meant Israel returning to its pre-1967 borders (without "adjustments") and the creation of a truly sovereign Palestinian state, one that controls its own borders and airspace and this hopeful soul had any idea that the newly triumphant Democratic Party of the USA was any sort of an instrument for achieving those goals is in for a brutal disappointment. They are even deeper in the Israeli's pocket then the Republicans. This fine article by Stephen Zunes in TomPaine, should set them straight. DS

The election of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate is unlikely to result in any serious challenge to the Bush administration’s support for Israeli attacks against the civilian populations of its Arab neighbors and the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law.
The principal Democratic Party spokesmen on foreign policy will likely be Tom Lantos in the House of Representatives and Joe Biden in the Senate, both of whom have been longstanding and outspoken supporters of a series of right-wing Israeli governments and opponents of the Israeli peace movement. And, despite claims—even within the progressive press—that future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a “consistent supporter of human rights,” such humanitarian concerns have never applied to Arabs, since she is a staunch defender of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his predecessor Ariel Sharon.
For example, when President George W. Bush defended Israel’s assaults on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure this summer and defied the international community by initially blocking United Nations efforts to impose a cease-fire, the Democrats rushed to pass a resolution commending him for “fully supporting Israel.” The resolution, co-authored by Rep. Lantos, claimed that Israel’s actions were legitimate self-defense under the U.N. Charter and challenged the credibility of reputable human rights groups. Although groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch groups documented widespread attacks by Israeli forces against civilians in areas far from any Hezbollah military activity, the resolution praised “Israel’s longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcom[ed] Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” All but 15 of the House’s 201 Democrats voted in support.
Similarly, the Democrats echoed President Bush’s support for Israel’s 2002 offensive in the West Bank in another resolution co-authored by Lantos. In response to Amnesty International’s observation that the massive assault appeared to be aimed at the Palestinian population as a whole, all but two dozen Democrats went on record supporting the devastating Israeli offensive and claiming that it was “aimed solely at the terrorist infrastructure.”
In March 2003, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders signed a letter to President Bush opposing the White House-endorsed Middle East “Road Map” for peace, which they perceived as being too lenient on the Palestinians. The authors insisted that the peace process must be based “above all” on the end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership, not an end to Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land seized in the 1967 war. Indeed, there was no mention of any of the reciprocal actions called for in the Road Map—not ending Israel’s sieges and military assaults on Palestinian population centers and not halting the construction of additional illegal settlements.. The letter also voiced opposition to the U. N. or any government other than the U.S. monitoring progress on the ground.
The Democrats have attacked the International Court of Justice for its landmark 2004 ruling calling for the enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention in Israeli-occupied territories. In a resolution that summer, the Democratic leadership and the overwhelming majority of Democrats in both houses also condemned the World Court’s near-unanimous advisory opinion that Israel’s separation barrier could not be built beyond Israel’s internationally-recognized border into the occupied West Bank in order to incorporate illegal settlements into Israel.
More recently, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have condemned former President Jimmy Carter’s newly-released book criticizing Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in the West Bank. Carter’s use of the word “apartheid” in reference to Israeli policies of building Jewish-only settlements and highways on confiscated Palestinian land and allowing Palestinians to enter only as laborers with special passbooks proved particularly inflammatory to Pelosi and her colleagues. Meanwhile, they have refused to criticize this policy by any name and insist that the Israeli colonial outposts in the occupied territories—constructed in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions—are legitimate.
Ongoing talks between Fatah and Hamas for a coalition government have raised the hope that the Palestinian Authority will soon have a non-Hamas prime minister and a largely non-partisan, technocratic cabinet. However, the Democrats support Bush’s policy of refusing to resume normal relations with the PA unless the cabinet excludes members of Hamas or any party that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. By contrast, no prominent Democrat has raised any concerns over Olmert’s recent appointment of Avignor Lieberman, who has called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel and much of the West Bank, as a cabinet minister and his new deputy prime minister.
The Democrats have also pushed for increasing U.S. military aid to Israel and have rejected calls to condition the aid on an improvement in Israel’s human rights record. The Democrats have also pushed for an increase in economic assistance to Israel’s rightist government, already the recipient of nearly one-third of all U.S. foreign aid, despite the country’s relative affluence and the fact that Israelis represent only one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population.
The decision by Democratic members of Congress to take such hard-line positions against international law and human rights does not stem from the fear that it would jeopardize their re-election. Polls show that a sizable majority of Americans believe U.S. foreign policy should support these principles. More specifically, regarding Israel and Palestine, majorities support a more even-handed U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oppose the blank check given by the United States to Israel.
Nor is it a matter of Democratic lawmakers somehow being forced against their will to back Bush’s policy by Jewish voters and campaign contributors. In reality, Jewish public opinion is divided over the wisdom and morality of many Israeli policies endorsed by the Democrats, recognizing that such policies actually harm Israel’s legitimate long-term security interests. Furthermore, the vast majority of Democrats who support Bush’s Middle East policies come from very safe districts where a reduction in campaign contributions would not have a negative impact on Democratic re-election. Contrary to the belief that it is political suicide to condemn the policies of the Israeli government, every single Democrat who opposed this summer’s resolution in support of the Israeli assault on Lebanon was re-elected by a larger margin than in 2004.
Perhaps more damaging than pressure from right-wing PACs has been the absence of pressure from progressive groups that oppose Israeli policies. Indeed, some of the most hard-line Democratic opponents of Israeli peace and human rights groups were endorsed by leading U.S. peace and human rights groups.
Until the progressive community seriously challenges Democratic hawks, there is little hope that the new Democratic majority can be expected to contribute anything to the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East.

Bush Prepares Switch on Iraq and Downgrading of US Ties with Jordan and Israel - Debka

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Is Debka reliable? It certainly gives a reliable idea of what the Israeli right and the Israeli Defense Force are worrying about at any given moment. What is the situation? First, Iraq has broken the US military's reputation as "irresistible" and the summer war against Hezbollah has done the same for the IDF. Iran holds the keys and the winning cards in Iraq and Lebanon. Israel has always been considered both an strategic asset and a liability, but after their "andropausal moment" in Lebanon, more liability than asset. James Baker is back and the great "realist" consiglieri is a Texas oil person (PC for "awl may-hen"). I have never believed that the invasion of Iraq was about oil ("awl"), obviously what the oil business ("awlbidness") really wants above all is stability. The people with the oil have to sell it, they can't eat it. Iraq was a neocon project to cow the Middle East and give time to consolidate "Greater Israel"... They blew it. This issue is going to play havoc with the new Democratic Congress and drive a wedge between their anti-war base and their big Jewish donors. DS

Abstract: Monday, Nov. 13, former US secretary of state James Baker and ex-Congressman Lee Hamilton will present their recommendations on Iraq to President Bush in the Oval Office. Their audience will include an array of top administration officials: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and CIA Director Gen. Mike Hayden, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace. Incoming defense secretary Robert Gates will attend as a member of the bipartisan committee.(...) The timing and composition of the conference indicate that the larger decisions are already in the bag with regard to the new US policy on Iraq and a fresh approach to the radical side of the Middle East led by Iran and Syria, mainly at the expense of Jordan and Israel. Monday’s White House conference will be concerned mostly with tying up the last ends and deciding who performs which part of the revised strategy. DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, who is due Monday will be one of the first foreign White House visitors to hear an update on the new policy. He will find he is required to listen rather than speak. Bush will use the occasion to inform him where America’s Iraq policy leaves Israel and the Palestinian dispute. Most of all, the US president will be looking ahead to Wednesday, Nov, 15, when he stops over in Moscow for unscheduled talks with Vladimir Putin. Air Force One was originally supposed to refuel in Moscow and continue without delay to Hanoi for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit later this week. And the Russian president would not normally have come to the airport to greet him. But the US president has decided to seize on the chance of persuading Putin to jump aboard the new American format on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East, on none of which the two leaders saw eye to eye before. The first sign of Bush-Putin collaboration is in the air. DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, national security adviser Ali Larijani spent two days of talks in Moscow on Nov. 10 and 11, during which Putin asked him if Tehran was willing to adapt its nuclear program after Washington agrees to direct negotiations. Once president Bush decided, after his election defeat, to subsume his Middle East policy to the bipartisan model, he lost no time in realigning its elements. He took now time out for briefing America’s regional allies and dependants - whether Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders, Abdullah King of Jordan or Ehud Olmert – to name a few. No senior Israeli official was abreast of the seismic changes in Washington’s attitude before the prime minister embarked for the United States. His first stop is Los Angeles to address the North American Jewish Federations Conference. Since he is accompanied by seven cabinet ministers, he can call a mini-cabinet session to update them on his talks with Bush. After those talks, Olmert will follow the best diplomatic traditions of US-Israeli relations, declaring that Israel has no better friend who is more committed to its security that the President of the United States and affirming full assent between the two governments on the issues of Iran and the Palestinians. He will gloss over the reality: the New US Middle East Policy will add another negative layer to Israel’s situation and further aggravate the fallout of its Lebanon War reverses. In fact, Jordan and Israel will be the first two countries in the direct line of fire from the reversal of the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy (which DEBKA disclosed was on the cards anyway ahead of the midterm election) Unlike Israel, King Abdullah - who gambled and lost on Bush standing foursquare behind his plans for Iraq – has at least two alternatives: He can make common cause with Syrian president Bashar Asad and join the anti-Israel Eastern Front with Iran, Hizballah and the radical Palestinian organizations operating out of Damascus or - He can turn south instead of north and accept the protection of the Saudi Arabian-Egyptian alliance. Israel, in contrast, will find itself high and dry in the Middle East. After being downgraded by the Lebanon War’s outcome, the Olmert government will be obliged to accept the crack of the American whip - at least until it can build a new security option that is not dependent on Washington’s new Middle East strategy. A clear-eyed evaluation of this prospect was ventured Friday, Nov. 10, by the new deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh, who urged Israel in a Jerusalem Post interview to prepare to thwart Iran’s drive for a nuclear capability “at all costs”. READ ALL

In New Middle East, Tests for an Old Friendship - New York Times

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I have made an extremely long excerpt from this front page article of the New York Times and have taken the liberty of putting certain key phrases in bold face, because for a careful reader they spell out the clear message that the Israelis feel that they have only a narrowing window of opportunity to solve the Iran question to their satisfaction. The Republican "realists" led by James ("fuck the Jews") Baker are back. The only way for the USA to leave Iraq with even a shred of dignity is to make a deal with Iran. The only way to preserve US interests in the Middle East is to ensure the independence and safety of the Palestinian people. That means the Israelis would have to abandon the land they took in 1967. What comes after Bush? How much traction are Mearsheimer and Walt getting among American elites? The entire flow of the situation is going against Israeli interests. It is quite possible that before the new US Congress takes office that Israel will attack Iran and that the Democrats (Hillary Clinton is Senator from NY) will accuse Bush of "abandoning Israel". This may be the only chance the Israelis have of postponing the internationalization of Jerusalem for another few years. DS

Abstract: Even before the American elections, a certain wariness had crept into the intimate friendship between Israel and the United States. The summer war in Lebanon produced questions in Washington about the competence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In Jerusalem, there were worries about the American approach to Iran and the Palestinians. (...) the Israelis balk at President Bush’s embrace of regional change through promotion of Arab democracy. They view his effort as naïve and counterproductive, (...) officials here have long focused on what they consider a much bigger concern: preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. They say the American policies that have empowered Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have been counterproductive to Israel’s interests That concern is bound to be the subtext when Mr. Olmert goes to the White House on Monday. And now the Democratic sweep has created fresh concerns that the administration(...) will turn more to accommodation and compromise. President Bush has chosen as his next secretary of defense Robert M. Gates, who in the past has been highly critical of the administration’s refusal to engage in dialogue with Iran. The defeat for the party of Mr. Bush, “possibly the friendliest president we’ve ever had,” said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, “raises question marks regarding the administration’s ability to promote its diplomatic and security objectives.”(...) one senior Israeli official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, after long, recent discussions with top Bush administration officials. “Are they committed to keeping the Iranians from actually building a weapon? I think so. Are they committed to keeping them from putting together all the parts they need? I’m not sure.” The Israelis say Washington was disappointed in their performance against Hezbollah. They are right: inside the White House, said one senior official there, who agreed to speak about internal deliberations on condition of anonymity, “Bush and Cheney believed that this would be another Six-Day War, or on the outside, two weeks.” “They believed it because that’s what the Israelis said,” the official said For Israelis, this failure to deliver poses a risk that cannot be ignored, especially when Iran is on the table. “Most people in Israel are not satisfied by our performance in Lebanon,” said Moshe Arens, a former defense minister, foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. “So if Israel enjoys this preferred position as an ally of the U.S. and a valuable ally in the fight against terrorism and now is shown to be not that effective and maybe not even that valuable, and to some extent even disappointing, that could put something of a damper on what’s happening.(...) Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States who is president of Tel Aviv University, said that Israelis, no matter their appreciation for American support, could not hand over the problem of Iran to Washington. He said: “Can we rely on the United States alone and say we abdicate our responsibility for dealing with the matter, and let the United States do what it wants? No, by no means.”(...) In September, Israel was abuzz over a speech by an American official that got little coverage in the American news media. Philip D. Zelikow, counselor to Ms. Rice, had addressed the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, considered sympathetic to Israel’s interest(...) Mr. Zelikow, in the last of 10 points, suggested that to build a coalition to deal with Iran, the United States needed to make progress on solving the Arab-Israeli dispute. “For the Arab moderates and for the Europeans, some sense of progress and momentum on the Arab-Israeli dispute is just a sine qua non for their ability to cooperate actively with the United States on a lot of other things that we care about,” he said. The message seemed perfectly clear to Israelis: the Bush administration would demand Israeli concessions on the Palestinian issue to hold together an American-led coalition on Iran.(...) Mr. Zelikow’s close ties to Ms. Rice are well known, and the furor over his comments was amplified because they appeared to some to echo criticisms published in March in The London Review of Books by two American scholars, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.They suggested that from the White House to Capitol Hill, Israel’s interests have been confused with America’s, that Israel is more of a security burden than an asset and that the “Israel lobby” in America, including Jewish policy makers, have an undue influence over American foreign policy. In late August, appearing in front of an Islamic group in Washington, Mr. Mearsheimer extended the argument to say that American support of the war in Lebanon had been another example of Israeli interests trumping American ones. The essay argued that without the Israel lobby the United States would not have gone to war in Iraq and implied that the same forces could drag the United States into another military confrontation on Israel’s behalf, with Iran. It urged more American pressure to solve the Palestinian question as the best cure for regional instability.(...) The Iran confrontation, Mr. Arens said, will bolster that partnership. “The president said that he sees a clear and present danger with Iran arming itself with nuclear weapons and it’s obvious that this is a clear and present danger for the state of Israel,” he said. “Although a small country, we are not a minor party. When people talk about the possibility of a military option, what are they talking about? The U.S. or maybe Israel to take that move, not the U.S. or Germany or France.” He acknowledged, however, “That inevitably will lead people who are critical of the position of the president to be critical of Israel, because we are seen as a partner in this campaign, and it is not a very big step to say that Israel is leading the U.S., or misleading the U.S., by the nose in this thing.”(...) No Israeli knows if the next American president will be as tough on Iran or as loyal to Israel as Mr. Bush. If Mr. Bush does not act, Israelis say, by the time the next president takes office, in January 2009, Iran will be well on its way to a bomb, and Washington may not back Israeli responses.(...) Mr. Alpher, the former Israeli negotiator, is concerned that if Mr. Bush ultimately negotiates with Iran, “we need to ensure that the United States doesn’t sell us down the river.” It is fine for Israel to say that Iran is the world’s problem, he said. “But if the world solves it diplomatically,” he added, “will it be at our expense?” The world looks different to nearly all Israelis across the political spectrum than it does to people in most other countries. “Unlike Bush, an Israeli leader looks at Iran through the prism of the Holocaust and his responsibility to the ongoing existence of the Jewish people,” Mr. Alpher said. “It may sound pompous, but at the end of the day it matters, and so we may be willing to do the strangest things.” (...) Despite the anxieties here over Lebanon, Iran and academic essays, opinion polls show that Americans are solidly in support of Israel, with new support coming from evangelical Christians. Mr. Arens, the former defense minister, said of the Europeans: “They don’t like us — what can we do? What else is new? We would like to be liked by everyone, of course, but it’s the relationship with the United States that really matters.” (emphasis mine) READ ALL