FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

NBC News recently reported,

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980…

“The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, speaking of the MEK and Israel.  “They (Israelis) are paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information.  And they recruit and also manage logistical support.” … “This is an Israeli plot.  A dirty plot,” Larijani added angrily.

Two senior U.S. officials confirmed for NBC News  the MEK’s role in the assassinations, with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.” A third official would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying only, “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.”  All the officials denied any U.S. involvement in the assassinations.

I’ve written about the MEK (also called PMOI) before. The State Department considers it a terrorist organization, and it certainly has a record of violent actions, including killing some Americans 30 years ago, when it supported Khomeini’s revolution. But Khomeini suppressed the MEK, and since then it has been focused on overthrowing the Iranian regime. The MEK says it has renounced violence, and the EU and the UK no longer list it as a terrorist group. But there is no doubt that it is prepared to use deadly force against the Iranian regime.

If in fact Israel is working with the MEK, it is unsurprising. You can’t blame Israel, threatened almost daily with annihilation by a country whose proxies have tens of thousands of missiles targeted at its population centers, and which is working as hard as it can to develop nuclear weapons (though the project brings ruin on its economy and impoverishes its own people).

The unnamed “senior US officials” are not without an agenda. Part of it is to deny US involvement so that any unpleasant local consequences of the conflict, like the inevitable rise in gasoline prices, can be blamed on Israel.

I would very much like to believe that the Obama Administration is taking part in covert actions against Iran, because the consequences for the US of Iran’s obtaining nuclear capability would be very serious. Iran’s power on the other oil-producing states would be greatly enhanced in proportion to a reduction in American influence. One can imagine how Iran could sponsor puppet regimes and subvert existing ones with a combination of nuclear threats and pressure from its proxies. The Middle East could become a collection of Iranian satrapies.

Iran already has missiles which can reach US installations and naval forces in the Middle East, and is developing much longer-range ones. There are also other ways of delivering nuclear weapons, such as in a container delivered to an American port. The regime’s public pronouncements have been consistently aggressive towards the US, “the great Satan,” and public events often include chants of “death to America.”

Nevertheless I believe that the US could stop the regime’s project without going to war. All that is required would be a credible threat of military action. After all, many analysts agree that Iran temporarily halted development in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq, because they thought that they were next.

Unfortunately, we can’t make a credible threat. Although the US certainly has the capability to destroy the Iranian installations, more so than any other nation in the world, the administration does not have the will to do so, and the Iranian regime knows it. The statement “all options are on the table” is easy to make, but is belied by US attempts to pretend that Iran is only Israel’s problem — while at the same time pressuring Israel to not take action.

Paradoxically, the inability to make a credible threat today may lead to the necessity of actually using force later.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Iranian nuclear program

BDS Genève logo

I’ve dumped on the New Israel Fund (NIF) before.

But there are still those who think it is a progressive organization that funds initiatives to make Israel more democratic, to improve the treatment of women and Arab citizens, to increase tolerance of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism in Israel, etc.

Some of its grantees are focused on these kinds of things, but it has another side which is not so progressive.

Let’s leave aside whether well-off American liberals really understand the differences between Israel and the US, whether the silly comparisons between Arabs and African-Americans make sense, and whether they have the slightest idea of what it is like to live under rocket bombardment or send their children to compulsory military service.

Leave aside as well this fundamental difference: the difference between a country founded to be either a ‘melting pot’ or a multicultural society (as you prefer), and one which is expressly defined as the state of the Jewish people.

Let’s just talk about whether a contribution to the NIF tends to promote the continued existence of Israel, or its replacement by another Arab Muslim state. That would not be ‘progressive’ at all.

The NIF has suffered a series of embarrassments in this regard:

The revelation that the majority of NGOs that contributed ‘documentation’ to the Goldstone report received funding from NIF

The ambiguity about whether NIF supports groups that call for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel (see also here)

The support for the very anti-Israel Women for Peace coalition

The former NIF leader caught by Wikileaks saying that “the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic”

One of the NIF-funded organizations that has drawn a great deal of criticism is Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. I wrote previously,

In 2007, Adalah presented its version of a “Democratic Constitution” for Israel. In the introduction, Adalah begins by demanding that

The state of Israel must recognize, therefore, its responsibility for the injustices of the Nakba and the Occupation; recognize the right of return of the Palestinian refugees based on UN Resolution 194 [understood by Arabs as return of any ‘refugees’ who choose to do so — ed]; recognize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination; and withdraw from all of the territories occupied in 1967.

They also present several options for providing the Arab minority with a veto over all decisions of the Knesset. There is lots more, but the adoption of this constitution would clearly mean the end of the Jewish state.

Adalah refers to Israel as an “apartheid state,” contributed to the Goldstone report (39 citations) and has assisted foreign states in pressing ‘lawfare’ complaints against Israeli officials (details here). Despite promises that it would not make grants to anti-Zionist groups, NIF has continued to fund Adalah.

Adalah styles itself as a “civil rights” group, but the effect of its anti-state activities is to damage, rather than improve, the critical relationship between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens.

Next week an Adalah official will speak  at an Israel Apartheid Week event organized by the Swiss “BDS Genève” group, on the topic “The policy of Apartheid in Israel: The new racist laws”.

This is not ‘pro-democracy’ or ‘pro-peace’ or pro-anything. It is simply part of the worldwide campaign to delegitimize and stigmatize Israel, in order to make it easier to force it to make dangerous concessions and to limit its right of self-defense. The objective of the BDS movement is no different than that of the Hamas rocket squads — the elimination of the Jewish state.

It is therefore remarkable — and infuriating — that it is being financed in part by donations from progressive Jews in the US who believe themselves to be pro-Israel.

Technorati Tags: NIF, Adalah, Israel, BDS

Just a small part of how the EU helps the Palestinians

News item (WAFA is the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority):

JERUSALEM, February 7, 2012 (WAFA) – The European Union and Sweden Tuesday contributed €24.7 million to the payment of the January salaries and pensions of around 84,300 Palestinian civil servants and pensioners in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to an EU press release. The European Commission made €22.5 million contribution and Sweden made €2.2 million.

The European Commission’s contribution comes from the €155 million package of financial assistance to the recurrent expenditures of the Palestinian Authority committed for 2012, said the release.

The commitment of the EU to the Palestinian cause is remarkable, compared to the way it treats some of its own members. For example, it will be placing tough terms on proposed loans to Greece, forcing the Greeks to repay bondholders first, rather than (for example) government workers. And loans will be contingent on the Greeks laying off 15,000 public sector workers.

Yet the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has just (again) made an agreement with the terrorist Hamas, and which refuses to negotiate with Israel without preconditions, seems to be able to get whatever it asks for, without any demands being made on it. How hard would it be, for example, to insist that the PA enter serious negotiations with Israel before it gets paid?

Speaking of public sector workers, the PA is paying salaries to ’employees’ in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Either these workers are doing nothing, or they are working for Hamas. And did I mention that the PA pays stipends to prisoners in Israeli jails, including convicted murderers? This, or the rampant corruption of the PA, doesn’t seem to bother the EU.

But this direct aid is not all, by far, that Europe (and the rest of the world) do for the Palestinians. There is the $1.2 billion each year spent by UNRWA on ‘Palestinian refugees’, the only hereditary class of refugees in history, while their leadership and the Arab states refuse to resettle them or treat them like humans. The second largest contributor to UNRWA, after the US, is the EU.

We must not forget the millions of Euros provided every year to support extreme left-wing anti-state NGOs in Israel (see illustration at top), which keep them alive as a fifth column inside Israel, despite their lack of support from Israelis. And, while the EU seems to think a hands-off policy is the best way to help the Palestinians develop a democratic society, they take the opposite approach to Israel. One would think they believe that there’s a new Mandate, which includes countries like Norway and even the Vatican, to rule the land of Israel.

One wonders what they get out of this tremendously expensive enterprise.

Technorati Tags: EU, Palestinian Authority, Israel

Gossip about possible attacks on Iran’s nuclear program seems to be everywhere, including the top echelons of the US and Israeli governments. Michael Ledeen discusses the relative credibility of some of these statements here.

He believes that Iranian threats (to close the Strait of Hormuz or to attack American ships, for example) are mostly bluster.

He also suggests that predictions that Israel will attack Iran coming from official US sources (for example, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta) are directed at Iranian ears (additionally, President Obama has added to the pressure by issuing an order to freeze assets of the Iranian government in the US).

I think that there is more to the administration’s talkativeness than just pressuring Iran, unfortunately. It is for domestic consumption as well. There is no doubt that whatever happens this year, even if the struggle is entirely diplomatic, there will be a marked increase in the world oil price. Indeed, even if Iran does nothing, speculation that there will be some kind of conflict will make it happen.

This can’t help the US economy. Therefore it’s important to the administration, in this election year, to ensure that everyone knows that the crisis, whatever form it takes, is an Israeli problem. Any American action, anything that happens to the oil price, or even, in the event of war, to US assets in the Middle East, will be presented as related to the Israel-Iran conflict. This will make it possible for the administration to claim that it is pro-Israel now, while setting the stage to further pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories after the election.

Of course this is nonsense. An Iranian bomb is a huge problem for the Saudi royal family, who might lose their jobs. It is a huge problem for the Gulf states. It is a biggish problem for the Turkish regime, which would like to expand its influence or even become the ‘new Ottoman Empire‘. It is a problem for Europe, which will be exposed to  nuclear blackmail. And ultimately, it is a problem for the US, which the Iranian regime considers its main rival for regional domination, the Great Satan which it sees as the most important enemy of Islam in the world.

While the talk from Iran and the US may be partly misdirection, Israel is not bluffing. There is no doubt that the Israeli leadership cannot accept a nuclear Iran (or, indeed, a nuclear Egypt or Saudi Arabia). The Iranian commitment to destroying Israel and killing Jews is for real, whether in a nuclear war or by conventional means under a nuclear umbrella, and Israel takes the threat entirely seriously.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Iran, Iranian nuclear weapons, Michael Ledeen

President Obama displays his Nobel Peace Prize

News item:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize’s original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.

My immediate reaction was “about time!” — Obama, whatever you think of him, got the prize for his ideology, not for anything he did. After all, it was awarded only 11 months after his inauguration, and his nomination had to be submitted only 12 days after it. The official press release issued at that time said in part,

…the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. [my emphasis]

One gets the feeling that the Norwegians simply preferred his rhetoric to that of notorious unilateral cowboy George Bush.

So did they suddenly realize that they should have waited for actual results before throwing the Nobel at Obama?

Unfortunately not. The folks who found it in their hearts to let one of the most evil players on the international scene, a man guilty of causing the deaths of thousands and whose legacy of  murder continues today, Yasser Arafat, keep  his prize, still don’t seem to get it. Here’s the complaint against Obama’s Nobel:

The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations… [my emphasis]

Fredrik Heffermehl, a prominent researcher and critic of the selection process, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that “Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace. And it’s indisputable that he had in mind the peace movement, i.e. the active development of international law and institutions, a new global order where nations safely can drop national armaments,” he said…

“Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?” Heffermehl asked rhetorically.

The problem for them is that Obama, who has already withdrawn from Iraq and is getting out of Afghanistan as rapidly as possible — arguably too rapidly — has not done enough. He has not decommissioned our nuclear deterrent, or forced Israel to give hers up. They almost certainly object to Obama’s use of drones to kill al-Qaeda elements in Pakistan, Yemen, etc. — one of the most precise methods there is to kill people that want to kill you with minimal damage to non-combatants (despite widely-publicized mistakes, there is no comparison to traditional warfare in this respect).

Of course, it is impossible to argue with those who simply cannot process the fact that there is evil in the world that has to be opposed by force. This is almost a religious belief for them, just as jihad is for our enemies.

Three years after, it’s clear that the non-military policies of the Obama Administration have pushed peace farther away. Its warmth toward radical Islamists in Turkey and Egypt, its lack of support for the Iranian Green Revolution, its extended efforts to engage Syria, its pressure on Israel to lift the blockade of Hamas, its attempts to force Israel into a dangerous surrender of strategic depth in return for nothing — all of these encouraged and empowered the radical Islamist forces that oppose the West, these same forces that the administration refuses to name out of political correctness!

So not only did President Obama not deserve the prize in 2009, he certainly does not deserve it now.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Nobel Prize