Labels: Allen West, Libyan no-fly zone, Palestinian state
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:26 AM
0 comments
Once again, Pajamas Media's John Rosenthal looks at the darker side of a rebellion in the Arab World. And once again he finds not-so-subtle undertones of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, but this time, in Libya, he also finds racism against sub-Saharan Africans.Labels: anti-Black racism, anti-Semitic stereotypes, anti-Zionism, Libyan civil war, Libyan no-fly zone
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:36 AM
3 comments
Labels: Libyan no-fly zone, Muammar Gaddafi, NATO, Seif al-Arab Gadhafi
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:08 PM
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The house in Tripoli was destroyed by the strike, with a massive crater where the house used to be. At least one unexploded bomb could be seen.Might I remind you that several European countries, many of whom are NATO members who are involved in the fighting in Libya (e.g. Britain), have attempted to prosecute Israeli officials for 'war crimes' in connection with the killing of Hamas terror chieftain Salah Shehadeh in 2002. In that case, Shehadeh had gathered family members around him as human shielfs, and many of those family members were killed along with him.. Unlike Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, Salah Shehadeh was very much involved in planning terror attacks.
The building was in a residential area of Tripoli, according to Ibrahim, who insisted that Saif al-Arab Gadhafi was a student in Germany who was not deeply involved in Libya's military and government. The 29-year-old was the sixth of Gadhafi's eight biological children.
Ibrahim railed against NATO after the fatal strike, calling it an illegal act and a "war crime." He vowed revenge.
Speaking at a rally, Ibrahim told fellow Libyans, "Every one of you are Saif al-Arab."
Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's military operations, said in a statement he was "aware of unconfirmed media reports that some of Gadhafi's family members may have been killed.
"We regret all loss of life, especially the innocent civilians being harmed as a result of this ongoing conflict," Bouchard said. "NATO is fulfilling its U.N. mandate to stop and prevent attacks against civilians with precision and care -- unlike Gadhafi's forces, which are causing so much suffering."
The NATO commander stated that all targets "are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gadhafi regime's systemic attacks on the Libyan population ... We do not target individuals."
A senior official in President Barack Obama's administration said the U.S. government is "very aware" of the reports, but cannot confirm who, if anyone, died in a strike until they see the evidence.
Labels: Libyan civil war, Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change, Muammar Gaddafi, NATO, Salah Shehadeh, Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, universal jurisdiction, war crimes
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:59 AM
1 comments
A group of Israelis went to New York for a high level conclave at the end of March and was shocked to find that the United States is tired of our region. Worse still, from an Israeli perspective, the United States has no clue as to what it is doing in our region and why. Simply put, Washington’s behavior makes no strategic sense. First, it stabbed its ally Hosni Mubarak in the back; then it sought to block Saudi intervention in Bahrain, which was necessary to forestall an Iranian-backed Shiite victory; and now it has intervened in a civil and tribal war in which the rebels might well be radical Islamists or subsumed by Islamists.Read the whole thing. Here's the problem: I see little or no chance of the US snapping back before January 2013. And even then, it will depend on the results of the 2012 elections.
All this reinforces the Israeli view that Washington has lost it. A mix of strategic weariness and naïve ideology supporting a half-baked doctrine of sporadic intervention for humanitarian reasons is a recipe for growing uncertainty about American wisdom and leadership. Many Middle Eastern states will distance themselves from an unreliable U.S., especially if its leaders appear to be misguided amateurs.
A confused and unpredictable America is even more frightening than a tired superpower. A Middle East without clear and strong American leadership is a very unruly place, especially for Israel.
Israelis still see America as a great and ennobling world power. America is not and need not be in decline. Thus we hope that the U.S. will snap back to its solid global performance and responsibilities quickly. The world — especially the Middle East — needs a strong America with strategic prescience.
Labels: Bahrain, Egyptian regime change, Libyan no-fly zone, US foreign policy
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:04 PM
2 comments
Reuters is reporting that President Obama has authorized secret assistance to the al-Qaeda-led rebels in Libya (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.But who says Rogers and his committee will be asked? Obama didn't ask Congress' permission before starting to enforce the no-fly zone. What could go wrong?
Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter.
Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will.
As is common practice for this and all administrations, I am not going to comment on intelligence matters," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. "I will reiterate what the president said yesterday -- no decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya."
The CIA declined comment.
...
People familiar with U.S. intelligence procedures said that Presidential covert action "findings" are normally crafted to provide broad authorization for a range of potential U.S. government actions to support a particular covert objective.
In order for specific operations to be carried out under the provisions of such a broad authorization -- for example the delivery of cash or weapons to anti-Gaddafi forces -- the White House also would have to give additional "permission" allowing such activities to proceed.
Former officials say these follow-up authorizations are known in the intelligence world as "'Mother may I' findings."
In 2009 Obama gave a similar authorization for the expansion of covert U.S. counter-terrorism actions by the CIA in Yemen. The White House does not normally confirm such orders have been issued.
...
Sending in weapons would arguably violate an arms embargo on Libya by the U.N. Security Council imposed on February 26, although British, U.S. and French officials have suggested there may be a loophole.
Getting a waiver would require the agreement of all 15 council members, which is unlikely at this stage. Diplomats say any countries that decided to arm the rebels would be unlikely to seek formal council approval.
...
U.S. officials also have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose leaders despise Gaddafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels with weapons.
Members of Congress have expressed anxiety about U.S. government activities in Libya. Some have recalled that weapons provided by the U.S. and Saudis to mujahedeen fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s later ended up in the hands of anti-American militants.
There are fears that the same thing could happen in Libya unless the U.S. is sure who it is dealing with. The chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, said on Wednesday he opposed supplying arms to the Libyan rebels fighting Gaddafi "at this time."
"We need to understand more about the opposition before I would support passing out guns and advanced weapons to them," Rogers said in a statement.
Labels: al-Qaeda, Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:54 AM
1 comments
The US war plan in Libya sounds like a disaster in the making. But given that the Turks have killed more people in Kurdistan than Gadhafi has killed in Libya anyway (yes, really) is it a war the US ought to be fighting? The officers' biggest fear is of an overly loose, open-ended definition of the mission. For that reason it was decided at the outset that the command, and the headaches, would be handed off to someone else - presumably NATO, though that wasn't clear - within "days, not weeks."Read the whole thing.
NATO has no armed forces of its own. It has command headquarters that control the forces of member states. The commander of Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn, U.S. Navy Adm. Sam Locklear, is hosting on the command ship, the USS Mount Whitney, senior naval officers from participating countries.
Locklear is commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and Allied Joint Force Command, Naples. He is subordinate to Adm. James Stavridis, who is both Supreme Allied Commander Europe and commander of the U.S. European Command, and Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of the U.S. African Command.
Africom is a bluff. There is no command. It is a military-diplomatic organization, with an emphasis on development, consulting and economic cooperation, created at the end of the Bush era to signal an interest in Africa. Missions from other regional commands were expropriated to it and it was given the entire continent with the exception of Egypt, which remained in the Central Command. Israel, which from the U.S. perspective is in the European Command, participates in NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue, together with Central Command members Egypt and Jordan and Africom members Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania. Planning and operations cross three separate commands.
Africom has no forces, with the exception of the Horn of Africa. Its headquarters are in Stuttgart because no African capital was willing to host a U.S. military command - a synonym for occupation, aggression and foreign rule. by powers.
From the start, the U.S. army has treated the Libyan mission like a kind of hit-and-run accident: missile strikes against stationary ground-to-air and ground-to-ground missile batteries; an aerial strike on an armored vehicle; a gradual westward crawl along the coast, but not yet to Tripoli; limited air support for the rebels.
The weakness of the operational plan is completely the result of allowing Gadhafi to maintain the initiative. If he is crazy enough to take a pilot prisoner, to use chemical weapons or to dispatch terrorists to carry out attacks overseas, the mission will be expanded to include the targeted assassination of him and his family. But if he scales back his defense, that would take the wind out of the politicians' sails. Last week NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that Stavridis was deploying NATO ships and aircraft in the central Mediterranean, "to monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries" for Gadhafi's forces.
Half of Stavridis' authority comes from NATO, but the greater half is from Obama and from Gates, who before his retirement will advise Obama on his choice for the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Stavridis is a leading candidate. Like Gates, he has a university doctorate, as well as a Ph.D. in life sciences in political Washington. Gadhafi, if he acts in accordance with his own logic, not the logic attributed to him at the White House, will outlast them.
Labels: Barack Obama, Libyan no-fly zone, NATO, Robert Gates
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:13 PM
1 comments
Labels: Libyan no-fly zone, United States marines
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:39 AM
3 comments
What's really behind operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, writes Salim Mansour, is that the Arab League has suckered the West into doing their dirty work for them (Hat Tip: Tundra Tabloids). The lives of Arabs and non-Arabs in the region whose countries are members of the league, but lack oil wealth — Yemen, Bahrain, Darfur within Sudan, etc. — are cheap, inconsequential and certainly not worth the expenditure needed to save them from their respective despots.And why does the Arab League suddenly feel motivated to 'redeem its dishonorable record'? No, it's not because they've suddenly repented. It's because they are using the opportunity to create a precedent for invoking R2P (responsibility to protect), which can later be used against 'that s***ty little country' that takes up less than one tenth of one percent of the land mass that the Arab Muslim dictatorships call home.
Similarly, the lives of the poor, beaten and killed by despots — kith and kin of Libya's Gadhafi — in places like Zimbabwe, North Korea and Myanmar, or where democracy movements are openly crushed as in Iran and China, are not worth a dime beyond the merely ritual official regrets announced by western governments. Neither are the lives of people killed by terrorist bombings as in Israel and India.
League members are a collection of authoritarian states where widespread violations of human rights are notoriously routine.
There is no instance in the league's 66-year history when its members were sufficiently moved by evidence before them — even genocide as in the case of Saddam Hussein's repeated massacre of Kurds and Iraqi Shiites — to protect the abused.
The Libyan situation offered the league an opportunity to redeem its dishonourable record.
Arab states possess military resources that they could have deployed as a league operation and, in keeping with the UN principle of "responsibility to protect," placed in effect a no-fly zone over Libyan air space to save civilians and punish Gadhafi.
But the unwillingness of the league to intervene in Libya, or anywhere else in the Arab world — save for its unrelenting hostility towards Israel — is related to the fear of establishing a precedent among its members that nobody wants.
However, a precedent of a sort with unsavoury consequences for the future has been established. The league has talked the UN and western powers into doing its bidding without assuming any responsibility for consequences it finds politically distasteful or unpopular.
Middle Eastern culture of bargains made in bazaars is well known and in such haggles, sellers regularly find happily deluded suckers. The league made a winning bargain over Libya, and suckers of those left to pick up the bill and take the blame.
Labels: Libyan no-fly zone, Operation Odyssey Dawn, PT Barnum, responsibility to protect
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:38 AM
0 comments
I've discussed the possible use of R2P ('responsibility to protect') against Israel a couple of times already. R2P is the doctrine behind the current intervention by the 'international community' in Libya. This is probably the simplest scenario for its use against Israel (Hat Tip: Lisa Graas).Might R2P also be invoked by Israel’s enemies to target the Jewish State in its war of national survival against the Palestinians? This has already become a reality. Michael Rubin, writing at Commentary Contentions, reports that the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arnç said last week, “We wish that the United Nations had made such resolutions and countries had taken action in the face of incidents in Gaza, Palestine and the other regions.”So how do we fight against this? I would say that when we have to go into Gaza (and it's when, not if), we go in quickly, we get everything we can done quickly and then we withdraw quickly, before the UN has a chance to deploy troops against us. I'd guess we have no more than a day or two.
Does this explain the surprising decision of the Arab League to allow for R2P to be invoked for Libyan intervention? Recall that the Arab League, the African Union, and numerous other regional developing world organizations originally opposed the concept of R2P. Could the prospect of a UN intervention in Gaza have encouraged the Arab League to back the Libyan adventure?
Even if it didn’t, you can rest assured that the next time Israel feels compelled to defend itself by going into Gaza and taking out terrorists who are attacking it, the League will be crying out for an international response to the “atrocities.” It will contend that Israel is not living up to its “responsibilities” to protect Palestinians. Such an argument will convince many — especially those who are predisposed to hate Israel in the first place. The US will then be in the unenviable position of being forced to veto such action in the Security Council, opening itself up to charges of hypocrisy.
Would we veto such a resolution? With NSC adviser Samantha Power‘s influence on Obama, it is highly questionable. Power is an avid R2P advocate; her 2002 book on the issue, A Problem from Hell, so affected Obama that he invited Power to join his Senate staff as a foreign policy fellow. She also briefly served on his campaign foreign-policy brain trust.
Power is also credited with influencing the president to adopt R2P as part of his foreign policy. But it is her views on Israel that should concern us most of all. She has a long record of antipathy toward the Jewish State. In a widely scrutinized interview with UC Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies, Power said that “a mammoth protection force” through an “external intervention” were “required” to impose a settlement between Israelis and the Palestinians. Her rather rambling and convoluted statement on the conflict clearly accused Israel of human rights violations, which warranted (R2P) intervention in the same way that the Rwandan genocide did. Such an action “might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import” and would involve sacrificing billions the U.S. spends “servicing” the Israeli military to “invest” in a Palestinian state. Clearly, Power is someone who would readily impose a R2P solution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with her anti-Israeli disposition so apparent, one shudders to think what this would actually look like.
Labels: Barack Obama, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change, Muammar Gaddafi, Samantha Power, Susan Rice
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:41 PM
7 comments
Labels: Arab spring, CNN, Fareed Zakaria, Libyan no-fly zone
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:50 AM
1 comments
With Barack Hussein Obama having no appetite for leadership, British Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has awoken to the reality that - despite the lack of a UN mandate to get rid of him - leaving Muammar Gadhafi in power would not be a wise thing to do. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi could stage a Lockerbie-style attack in revenge for coalition air strikes if he is left in power, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke said in an interview Friday.There are two problems with this entire operation: First, that no one has established any clear goals for it, and second, that it has made itself dependent on the approval of a United Nations body in which Russia and China have veto power.
Clarke, who is also Lord Chancellor, told the Guardian newspaper that there was still uncertainty in the government about the direction of the Libyan campaign.
"We do have one particular interest in the Maghreb (North Africa), which is Lockerbie," Clarke said, referring to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, which killed 270 people.
"The British people have reason to remember the curse of Kadhafi -- Kadhafi back in power, the old Kadhafi looking for revenge, we have a real interest in preventing that."
Labels: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Barack Obama, Libyan no-fly zone, Pan Am 103
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:39 AM
1 comments
In an earlier post, I gave you a preview of Charles Krauthammer's column in Friday's Washington Post. Now, the full column is out and it is definitely worth reading (Hat Tip: Soccer Dad).Well, let’s see how that paper multilateralism is doing. The Arab League is already reversing itself, criticizing the use of force it had just authorized. Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, is shocked — shocked! — to find that people are being killed by allied airstrikes. This reaction was dubbed mystifying by one commentator, apparently born yesterday and thus unaware that the Arab League has forever been a collection of cynical, warring, unreliable dictatorships of ever-shifting loyalties. A British soccer mob has more unity and moral purpose. Yet Obama deemed it a great diplomatic success that the league deigned to permit others to fight and die to save fellow Arabs for whom 19 of 21 Arab states have yet to lift a finger.What could go wrong?
And what about that brilliant U.N. resolution?
l Russia’s Vladimir Putin is already calling the Libya operation a medieval crusade.
l China is calling for a cease-fire in place — which would completely undermine the allied effort by leaving Gaddafi in power, his people at his mercy and the country partitioned and condemned to ongoing civil war.
l Brazil joined China in that call for a cease-fire. This just hours after Obama ended his fawning two-day Brazil visit. Another triumph of presidential personal diplomacy.
And how about NATO? Let’s see. As of this writing, Britain wanted the operation to be led by NATO. France adamantly disagreed, citing Arab sensibilities. Germany wanted no part of anything, going so far as to pull four of its ships from NATO command in the Mediterranean. Italy hinted it might deny the allies the use of its air bases if NATO can’t get its act together. France and Germany walked out of a NATO meeting on Monday, while Norway had planes in Crete ready to go but refused to let them fly until it had some idea who the hell is running the operation. And Turkey, whose prime minister four months ago proudly accepted the Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, has been particularly resistant to the Libya operation from the beginning.
And as for the United States, who knows what American policy is. Administration officials insist we are not trying to bring down Gaddafi, even as the president insists that he must go. Although on Tuesday Obama did add “unless he changes his approach.” Approach, mind you.
...
This confusion is purely the result of Obama’s decision to get America into the war and then immediately relinquish American command. Never modest about himself, Obama is supremely modest about his country. America should be merely “one of the partners among many,” he said Monday. No primus inter pares for him. Even the Clinton administration spoke of America as the indispensable nation. And it remains so. Yet at a time when the world is hungry for America to lead — no one has anything near our capabilities, experience and resources — America is led by a man determined that it should not.
Labels: Barack Obama, Libyan no-fly zone, mulitlateralism
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:51 PM
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Labels: LATMA, Libyan no-fly zone, Moshe Katzav, NATO
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:39 AM
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Purim is a lot of fun but exhausting. When most of your friends don't own cars and you do, if you want to see people, the onus to take the initiative to them falls on you. And aside from everything else, Mrs. Carl and I (since Mrs. Carl started going along instead of the younger girls) take the opportunity of Purim to see friends we don't see so much during the year. So like I said, it's fun but exhausting.U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also said on Thursday that the justification for the use of force was based on humanitarian grounds, and referred to the principle known as Responsibility to Protect (R2P), “a new international security and human rights norm to address the international community’s failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”Omri suggests that the doctrine is not new, but what is new is the context in which it's being used. Until now, it was used mainly against African countries where there were real humanitarian concerns (think Darfur or Rwanda) that justified intervention.
The recent escalation of violence in Gaza has raised serious questions about the use of the Responsibility to Protect to urge international action to protect civilians in the conflict. The Responsibility to Protect has been referred to, notably by Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, but also others who claim that crimes committed in Gaza by Israeli forces have reached the threshold of R2P crimes.We have exhaustively proven that most of the 'crimes' committed by Israeli forces in Gaza were not crimes at all, and we have proven that the manner in which Hamas waged war exposed citizens to danger in a manner in which they lost their protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention (sorry - no time to look for links now. Will try later if people ask). But that wouldn't stop the UN from calling for intervention.
Obama’s abdication of U.S. leadership puts the implications of “Responsibility to Protect” in a new light. The question now is whether U.S. participation is needed for the declaration and enforcement of a no-fly zone on the R2P principle. For a target country the size of Libya, our forces represent a convenience. But even for a nation with extensive territory, it’s not clear that U.S. capabilities are a necessity. It would have taken France and Britain longer to disable the Libyan air defense system, but they could certainly have done it themselves.Again, read the whole thing.
We still hold a veto on the UN Security Council; we could prevent the UN from authorizing a bumper crop of no-fly zones around the globe. We must hope Obama would use the veto to do so – and that regional coalitions would, like Obama and the other Western leaders, regard the imprimatur of the UN as indispensable. But they may not. France and Britain aren’t the only nations that will come up with reasons to use armed force abroad in the absence of American policy leadership.
The question about using R2P to “protect” Gaza (or other provinces in other disputed areas of the world) may not be whether the U.S. will agree to it and participate in it – Frank Gaffney’s question – but whether we are willing to actively prevent others from undertaking it.
Labels: Libyan no-fly zone, Operation Cast Lead, responsibility to protect
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:17 PM
0 comments
Turkey has vetoed NATO's participation in establishing a no-fly zone in Libya, they have made it clear that they are not happy with the operation (Hat Tip: Joshua I). The countries that are acting there are acting individually.Turkish State Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arınç said that Turkey did not join the international operation against Libya.Israel Radio reported at 5:00 am that Turkey has vetoed NATO participation in the Libyan action - the countries that are acting there are doing so individually. What could go wrong?
When asked by journalists whether Turkey would take part in the air strike against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces, Arınç said, "the prime minister and the foreign minister have already indicated earlier that Turkey did not join the operation. A crisis desk has been established at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to follow developments."
"We hope that situation will back to normal in Libya as soon as possible," he told reporters.
"There are several countries which came into prominence in implementing the UN resolution. Turkey fulfils its responsibilities. We wish that the United Nations had made such resolutions and countries had taken action in the face of incidents in Gaza, Palestine and the other regions," he concluded.
Labels: Bulent Arnc, Libyan no-fly zone, NATO, Turkey, Turkish obsession with Israel
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:27 AM
5 comments
Forgive my self-centeredness, but one of my first thoughts upon hearing of the NATO action against Libya was to wonder if the same thing could - God forbid - happen to Israel. I wasn't the only one. Frank Gaffney lays out the scenario. Here’s how such a seemingly impossible scenario might eventuate:Read the whole thing. Yes, unfortunately, this could, God forbid, happen.
It begins with the Palestinian Authority seeking a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize its unilateral declaration of statehood. The U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, one of the prime-movers behind the resolution that authorized the use of force against Gaddafi and a vehement critic of Israel, urges that the United States abstain, rather than veto the Palestinians’ gambit. She is joined in that recommendation by a kindred spirit at the Obama National Security Council, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power, and by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose unalloyed sympathy for the Palestinian cause dates back at least to her days as First Lady.
This resolution enjoys the support of the other four veto-wielding Security Council members – Russia, China, Britain and France – as well as the all of the other non-permanent members except India, which joins the United States in abstaining. As a result, it is adopted with overwhelming support from what is known as the “international community.”
Suddenly, substantial numbers of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli citizens are on the wrong side of internationally recognized borders. The Palestinian Authority (PA) insists on its longstanding position: Its state must be (to use Hitler’s term for ethnic cleansing) judenrein – requiring the removal of all Jews from the sovereign territory of Palestine. And, thanks to the international affirmation of the so-called 1967 borders, the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas and Company need no longer accede to one of the anticipated solutions of the “peace process,” i.e., the relinquishing by Israel of territory in the Negev, so as to accommodate the permanent presence of Jewish communities (a.k.a. “settlements”) on land claimed by the Palestinians.
For its part, Israel refuses to evacuate the oft-condemned “settlements” on Palestinian land or to remove the IDF personnel, checkpoints and facilities it rightly sees as vital to protecting their inhabitants and, for that matter, the Jewish State itself.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, seizes this moment to forge a united front with Abbas’ Fatah. The latter, of course, runs the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank of the Jordan River. It is the faction that has – with considerable help from Israel and U.S.-trained and -armed security forces – managed on the West Bank largely to keep a lid on its rivals for power, Hamas. But whatever their differences on the tactics of how to destroy Israel (Iran-backed Hamas seeks to do so with violence as soon as possible; Fatah has long pursued a two-phase strategy: first, induce Israel to relinquish territory through the peace process, then use that land as the launching pad to “drive the Jews into the sea”), the ultimate objective is precisely the same: judenrein throughout the Middle East.
The unified Palestinian proto-government then seeks international help to “liberate” their land. As with the Gaddafi Precedent, the first to act is the Arab League. Its members unanimously endorse the use of force to protect the “Palestinian people” and end the occupation of the West Bank by the Israelis.
Turkey, which is technically still a NATO ally despite its ever-more-aggressive embrace of Islamism, joins forces with Britain and France, applaud this initiative in the interest of promoting “peace.” They call on the UN Security Council to authorize such steps as might be necessary to enforce the Arab League’s bidding.
Once again, Team Obama’s leading ladies – Mesdames Clinton, Power and Rice – align to support the “will of the international community.” They exemplify, and are prepared to enforce, the President’s willingness to subordinate U.S. sovereignty to the dictates of transnationalism and his hostility towards Israel. They appeal to his sense of history and his oft-expressed sympathy for the Palestinian right to a homeland to trump his political advisors’ concerns about alienating Jewish voters on the eve of the 2012 election.
Accordingly, hard as it may be to believe given the United States’ longstanding role as Israel’s principal ally and protector, Mr. Obama acts, in accordance with the Gaddafi Precedent. He warns Israel that it must immediately take steps to dismantle its presence inside the internationally recognized State of Palestine lest it face U.S.-enabled “coalition” military measures aimed at neutralizing IDF forces on the West Bank – and beyond, if necessary – in order to fulfill the will of the international community.
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change, Muammar Gaddafi, Samantha Power, Susan Rice
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:43 AM
11 comments
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The head of the Arab League has criticized international strikes on Libya, saying they caused civilian deaths.In the meanwhile, a second night of bombing has begun in Libya (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). The times in the article below are GMT - I believe Libya is GMT +1; here in Israel we are GMT +2 right now.
The Arab League's support for a no-fly zone last week helped overcome reluctance in the West for action in Libya. The U.N. authorized not only a no-fly zone but also "all necessary measures" to protect civilians.
Amr Moussa says the military operations have gone beyond what the Arab League backed.
Moussa has told reporters Sunday that "what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives." He says "what we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians."
U.S. and European strikes overnight targeted mainly air defenses, the U.S. military said. Libya says 48 people were killed, including civilians.
8.54pm: Sporadic explosions and heavy gunfire could be heard in the streets of central Benghazi in the last hour, according to Reuters.Why not? What could go wrong?
The sound of fighting in the rebel-held city was heard between 2000 and 2020 GMT, some time after the Libyan regime said that it was starting its second ceasefire of the conflict.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the rebel movement in the city has claimed that more than 8,000 Libyans aligned with the rebels have been killed in the revolt.
"Our dead and martyrs number more than 8,000 killed," Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told Al Jazeera.
8.48pm: Reports are coming in of a plume of smoke rising over an area where the compound of Muammar Gaddafi is located.
The smoke was seen in the area of Bab al-Aziziya, according to the BBC, which added that one of its reporters on the ground there believes that anti-aircraft weapons in the area may have been targeted, rather than the compound itself.
A Pentagon spokesman said earlier that Gaddafi himself was not on a list of targets.
Labels: Arab League, Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:27 AM
1 comments
Hmmm...Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Libyan no-fly zone, Samantha Power
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:53 PM
1 comments
In Daraa, in southwestern Syria, protests against Bashar al-Assad's regime continued for a third day. Dara'a. Demonstrations continue in the city and witnesses speak of more killings today. Appeals on Facebook for more medical supplies to the Midani Hospital and the al-Omari Mosque, turned into a hospital. The city is closed shut to any outsiders. People from the region are sending urgent messages that Assad's Security Forces are using a version of some tear gas and people are dropping to the ground like flies. THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY MUST RESPOND TO PROTECT SYRIANS FROM THE SAVAGERY OF ASSAD BECAUSE HE IS EMBARKING ON ANOTHER HAMA.I would bet that the Assad regime is using mustard gas. Anyone want to bet that despite its going after Gadhafi this weekend, the 'international community' will not go after Assad? More on that soon.
Damascus. Syrian officials are claiming that unknown ASSAILANTS, wearing stolen military outfits, are behind the killing in Dara'a. It said the government is investigating the matter urgently. They still think Syrians are stupid.
Damascus. According to Razan Zeitouneh, human rights lawyer, Assad's security forces have contained a large demonstration in the center of Damascus.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Daraa, Libya, Libyan no-fly zone, mustard gas, Syria
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:18 PM
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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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