Criminal sanctions for Haredi draft avoiders... in exchange for Tzachi HaNegbi
Arutz Sheva blows the lid off what ought to be a huge scandal: The Likud voted in favor of criminal sanctions against Haredi draft avoiders in return for Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid agreeing that Netanyahu protege Tzachi HaNegbi (left) would be named
chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Exclusive sources revealed the deal to Arutz Sheva Tuesday
afternoon, explaining that the move allowed the criminal sanctions - a
clause Yesh Atid insists must be included in the Equal Burden of Service
Law - to pass in the Shaked Committee, and for Hanegbi, who is a member
of Netanyahu's own party, to be placed in a government position
strategically important for the Prime Minister.
MK Ofer Shelah (Yesh Atid) was also due to serve as head of the key committee,
but only toward the end of the current Knesset term. A rotation
agreement was worked out after Netanyahu refused to immediately promote
Shelah to the position, when it was vacated by Foreign Minister Avigdor
Liberman.
Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu spontaneously ordered the vote over sanctions to be frozen after conflict erupted between the hareidi parties and the rest of the Committee board.
That conflict, over hesder yeshiva service, was in direct response to the criminal sanctions bid. As a United Torah Judaism MK explained to Arutz Sheva, the hareidi community views the clause as a threat. "You push us, we push back," he declared.
Opponents to the move to enact criminal sanctions warn that the
proposal has already alienated the hareidi community, noting that the
Shas party quit the Shaked Committee over the move.
There's something else implied here: That Yesh Atid and the Likud combined to sell out hesder (whose soldiers saw their active service increased from 16 months to 24). I'm sure Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett is pleased with his brilliance....
Sara Netanyahu is probably pleased too.
And by the way, remember how Netanyahu spontaneously ordered the vote frozen? Sure you do: He told Tzachi HaNegbi to walk out....
Labels: Ayelet Shaked, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jewish Home party, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Likud party, Naftali Bennett, Tzachi Hanegbi, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid party
Iran influencing elections in Egypt, putting down revolt in Syria
Military Intelligence Chief Aviv Kochavi briefed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, and told the panel that Iran's tentacles extend
throughout the Middle East.
“Iraq is attempting to influence the political process in Egypt through efforts to connect with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Kochavi said.
Kochavi also said that the Muslim Brotherhood is pressing for elections in Egypt to take place as soon as possible, because it is "the only group that's ready for elections."
"The international community is trying to delay the vote so more moderate groups can be better organized," he explained.
In the meantime, the Egyptian army is losing control of the Sinai, according to Kochavi.
The IDF intelligence chief also reported that Iran will be able to produce a nuclear explosive within two years.
"Iran recovered from the last wave of sanctions, even though the international consensus surprised them," Kochavi said.
He also emphasized Iranian influence throughout the region, including Turkey.
"We see closer relations between Iran and Turkey, which are focused mostly on trade, but also include military matters," he said.
“Iran is taking advantage of the upheaval in the Middle East to deepen their infiltration into states and organizations in the region,” he added, saying that the Islamic Republic is working in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and Gaza.
"As Iran continues to work on its nuclear project, it works to transfer weapons and instill radical Islamic ideologies throughout the Middle East," Kochavi explained.
In addition "the potential for a cyber-attack is growing, and will eventually be a greater threat than Iran's other weapons."
Kochavi also said that Iran was active in planning the “Nakba” and “Naksa” day demonstrations and border crossings from Lebanon.
“Iran is making efforts to ensure that such events will continue,” he explained, "but they were disappointed that [the border crossings] were not more successful."
"Iran and Hezbollah are actively helping the Syrian regime in oppressing protesters," Kochavi said. "They are transferring means for dispersing demonstrations, knowledge and technical aid."
"They are motivated to help due to their deep fear of the demonstrations' implications, especially losing their partnership with the Syrians and a trickling of protests into their territory," he explained.
What could go wrong?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Aviv Kochavi, Iranian interference, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian uprising
Germany's infatuation with Iran
You will recall that I reported last week on the
rude surprise that awaited members of Israel's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee at the Bundestag in Berlin; the presence of member's of the Iranian Majilis. Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Benny Weinthal reports that the encounter has
strained Israeli-German relations.
So is Germany so infatuated with Iran? Benny explains. Polenz’s defense on Friday of the Majlis members’ visit should also be accompanied by a healthy dose of skepticism.
Last October, Bundestag deputy Peter Gauweiler, from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party CSU and chairman of the legislature’s Subcommittee on Foreign Cultural and Educational Policies, led a group of German lawmakers who met with Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s parliament, in Iran. That’s the same Larijani who at the 2009 Munich security conference caused an uproar when he said his country has “different perspectives on the Holocaust.”
The group of German legislators, including deputies from the Greens, Social Democrats, CDU and the Left Party, also met during the October 2010 trip to the Islamic Republic with Ali Larijani’s brother Mohammad Javad Larijani, who heads the human rights council in the Iranian judiciary.
Mohammad Larijani in 2008 – during a German Foreign Ministry-sponsored event close to Berlin’s Holocaust memorial – denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s destruction. The Bundestag members last year chose not to publicly criticize the Holocaust denial and the genocidal statements of the Larijani brothers. A month after the Gauweiler delegation visited Iran, Elke Hoff, a lawmaker from Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s Free Democratic Party, met “senior Iranian officials” during a trip to the Islamic Republic.
Hoff subsequently refused to answer press queries at the time about her trip to Iran. She is a member of the Bundestag’s Defense Committee and its Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non- Proliferation. She is also member of the German-Iranian parliamentary group and serves on the board of the German Near and Middle East Association, a pro-Iranian business trade organization. The association’s honorary chairman is former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran to promote German- Iranian trade in 2009.
What perhaps made the recent diplomatic row over Germany hosting Iran’s Majlis into a crisis for the Israeli-German “special relationship” was that MKs, particularly Mofaz, directly experienced a strange fusion of the Bundestag with members of the Majlis. Mofaz, who left Iran at age nine for Israel, is known for a hawkish posture toward Iran’s anti-Israel policies and its nuclear weapons program.
The long-standing relations between the Majlis and the Bundestag have been reported on, largely in the Israeli and the US press, but first-hand experience last week seems to have brought the depth and the intensity of German-Iranian relations to the fore for Israel’s lawmakers.
I guess the Iranians are the most likely party to forgive the Germans for perpetrating the Holocaust. Guilt wears off quickly, doesn't it? Disgusting....
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Bundestag, Iranian Majilis, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Shaul Mofaz
Germany's schizophrenia
Germany is having trouble deciding which side it's on between Israel and Iran. On Thursday, they invited the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to visit the Bundestag at the same time that the Germans were
hosting an official Iranian delegation.
The committee members, including Chairman MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima), were surprised to find that while they were visiting the German parliament's Defense Committee, representatives of the Majilis, Iran's parliament, were speaking before the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee.
"It cannot be that while Germany calls for tough sanctions against the Iranian regime, official representatives of Germany undermine this policy by meeting with Majilis members," the MKs said in a statement. "They are sending the message that sanctions against Iran are passed with a wink."
The Israeli delegation, which included Mofaz, MK Roni Bar-On (Kadima), MK Moshe Mutz Matalon (Israel Beiteinu), MK Zeev Bielski (Kadima) and MK Einat Wilf (Independence), originally wanted to "make a big stink," an FADC spokesman said. However, after consulting with the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, the MKs sent a letter of protest to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as the German foreign minister, the Bundestag's speaker, and the chairman of the Bundestag Defense Committee.
The MKs also expressed their ire in the joint meeting with the Bundestag's committee.
The FADC spokesman said the German lawmakers' response was "not convincing enough," and the committee remembers refused to shelf the letter.
"We, the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, on an official visit to Berlin, firmly protest the visit of Iranian Majilis members in Berlin and express our deep disappointment in their acceptance by German officials, including the German parliament," the letter reads.
The MKs wrote: "The Iranian Majilis is a façade of a parliament that covers a murderous regime that oppresses its people and tortures young students and protesters. They support and export terror, aid Assad's regime in repressing protests against him, deny the Holocaust, all while manufacturing nuclear weapons and missiles in order to commit genocide against the Jews and erase our only state from the map."
"We cannot stand by while German representatives hold a dialogue with a regime that calls for genocide," the MKs explained. "We are very concerned about these dangerous ties between German representatives and their Iranian counterparts, and hope that these ties will end."
"We cannot be silent while the representatives of a murderous regime are accepted in the heart of democratic Europe," the letter concluded.
There really hasn't been much change in the past 70 years, has there? They're just nicer about it.
Labels: Bundestag, Iranian Majilis, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
Next war will be bigger, broader, deadlier; Iran has two new nuke facilities
In his final briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, outgoing military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin warned that Israel's next war would take longer, be fought on more fronts and would
cause more casualties (God forbid) than its two previous wars - Operation Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War (Hat Tip:
Gershon D).
Syria, particularly, posed a greated military obstacle to Israel than at any time in the past three decades, Yadlin said, having amassed advanced Russian-built antiaircraft missiles that seriously limited the operational freedom of the Israel Air Force.
While Syria had failed to acquire Russian S-300 missiles, seen by Israel as the greatest potential threat to its aircraft, Damascus had improved its defense systems enough to push the military balance with Israel "back to the 1970s", Yadlin said.
In 1973, Israel came close to defeat by a suprise Syrian attack before eventually emerging victorious in the Yom Kippur War.
Yadlin also hinted at Israel's involvement in attacking a Syrian nuclear facility in September 2007. That strike has been widely attributed to Israel, but the government has never officially taken responsibility for the operation.
The veteran soldier, who turns 60 next year, told the committee that during his position as MI chief he had contended with two enemy nuclear programs - apparently a reference to Iran and Syria.
"I've seen three defense ministers, two chiefs of staff and two prime ministers come and go, I've been through two wars and I've contended with two nuclear programs of enemy states," Yadlin said, summing up the last years of his career.
"I headed a group of thousands of people working 24 hours a day to collect information that the enemy was not volunteering, information that had to be extracted from difficult places," he added.
Yadlin also warned of a growing threat from the Iranian nuclear program, saying Iran now had enough highly enriched uranium to build a bomb.
That's not all Iran has. Yadlin also told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel had detected
two new nuclear facilities in Iran (read the headline - the text doesn't seem to have much to do with it).
But perhaps the most frightening part of Yadlin's briefing was his assessment of a
future conflict.
“The next conflict, even if it is limited in scale,” warned the former IAF general, “will be much bigger, much broader, and with many more casualties than we saw in Operation Cast Lead or the Second Lebanon War.”
Such a conflict, predicted the 59-year old Yadlin, will be played out on two or more fronts; moreover, Israel’s enemies “believe that the only way to overcome Israel’s deterrence is through longrange missile fire and improving air defense capabilities.”
Pulling no punches, Yadlin warned that the cutting-edge anti-aircraft system that Syria has purchased from Russia could send the IDF and IAF’s capabilities “back to their status in the 1970s Suez years,” according to a source present at the meeting.
“With the S-300, we are talking about relatively cheap missiles – but no less deadly,” Yadlin cautioned during his foreboding address to the committee. In addition, he said, the Russians are upgrading older Syrian weapons systems to make them far more advanced.
In outlining how the weapons deal benefited Damascus, the MI chief said the Syrians are conducting “intense efforts to acquire extremely advanced weapons – so advanced that everything just off of the production line in Russia ends up in Syria.”
Yadlin also disclosed that Israel had detected the Iranians laying the groundwork for two new nuclear sites – but did not reveal their locations.
“Iran is the greatest threat to Israel and to the well-being of the entire region,” he said.
And in an ominous note, Yadlin informed the committee that Iran already had enough uranium enriched to 20 percent to make one nuclear bomb – and before long, enough for two nuclear devices.
“Iran’s progression towards a bomb is slower than they had hoped for,” advised the general. “They are running into quite a few problems. But Iran is also taking radical action regarding the transfer of money, technology, weapons and intelligence.”
Yadlin pointed out that with 3,000 to 4,000 centrifuges in operation, Iran could very easily make the leap from civilian-grade enriched uranium to the higher enrichment required for building a nuclear explosive device.
If Yadlin told the Knesset anything about the likelihood that the Obama administration would support Israel in the event of a future war, it hasn't been reported. Still, his assessment is quite depressing even without that detail.
Labels: Amos Yadlin, Iran, Israel, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Syria
