Israel's Unsustainable Politics of Exclusion in Jerusalem

Politics and Religion: Israel's Unsustainable Politics of Exclusion in Jerusalem

By Nicola Nasser, Global Research
December 31, 2011

While the history of the world is moving decisively toward a culture of inclusion, diversity and pluralism, Israeli politics seems to challenge history by moving in the opposite direction of exclusion and unilateral self - righteous monopoly of geography, demography, history, archeology and culture, especially in Jerusalem, where Israelis are desperately trying to establish a “Jewish” capital for Israel and “the Jewish people” worldwide, excluding centuries old presence of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Christian deep-rooted existence and heritage, thus sowing the seeds of imminent conflict and foreseeable war by strangling a city that has historically been of diversified and pluralistic character and a flashpoint for human misery whenever exclusion becomes the rule of the day.

Israeli politics is not moving against history only, but is challenging world politics as well. Although the first Knesset of the newly born “state of Israel” voted on December 13, 1949 to move the seat of government from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and despite Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem on June 27, 1967, which the UN Security Council declared “null and void,” both unilateral declarations have never been accepted and recognized by the international community, not even by the U.S., Israel’s strategic guardian.

More recently, while millions of Christians were celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, and the birth of Christianity in Jerusalem, the scene of Jesus’ resurrection following his death by crucifixion, which is the cornerstone of Christian faith, the Knesset was, on Christmas day, scheduled to consider a draft law that would declare Jerusalem “the capital of the Jewish people” and the capital of Israel at the same time.

The fact that the ruling elite in Tel Aviv has made a prior recognition of Israel as a “Jewish” state a precondition for making peace implicitly and consequently applies to Christians as well, otherwise how could any observer interpret the still simmering crisis with the Vatican over the holy places in Jerusalem. The “Fundamental Agreement” signed by both sides on December 30, 1993, as well as an agreement on the recognition of the civil effects of ecclesiastical legal personality, signed on November 10, 1997, have yet to be ratified by Israel's Knesset. Some in the Israeli media has been recently accusing the Vatican of seeking to hold control of “Jewish holy sites” in Jerusalem .

The Vatican in the past supported making Jerusalem a corpus separatum, an international city in accordance with the UN Resolution 181 of 1947; Israel’s non-compliance delayed Vatican’s formal recognition of Israel until 1993.

More recently, the Vatican renewed calls for an internal agreement to protect the holy places in Jerusalem. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican ’s Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, and Vatican ’s former foreign minister, declared

“There will not be peace if the question of the holy sites is not adequately resolved. The part of Jerusalem within the walls – with the holy sites of the three religions – is humanity’s heritage. The sacred and unique character of the area must be safeguarded and it can only be done with a special, internationally-guaranteed statute.”

The only perceived threat to the holy places against which the Vatican is seeking protection comes from the Israeli politics of exclusion. Rabbi David Rosen, member of the Israeli delegation to the negotiations with the Vatican told the Israeli daily Haaretz on January 17, 2010 that Israel “has not been faithful to the pacts of 1993.”

The precondition of recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state” is rejected by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israel’s partner in peace accords, and its self-ruled Palestinian Authority, the 22-member League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); in a statement he issued on December 26, 2011, the Secretary-General of the 57-member states of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, condemned the Israeli draft law that declares Jerusalem “the capital of Israel and the Jewish people” as “a direct assault on the Palestinian people and their inalienable and clear rights” and “a flagrant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions,” which affirm that Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967. PLO representatives considered the Israeli draft law a “declaration of war” and a recipe for igniting a religious conflict. The Islamic – Christian Commission in Support of Jerusalem , in a statement, said if the Israeli draft law is passed it would make Jerusalem “for Judaism and Jews only, which means there would be no freedom of worship in the land of worship.”

Israeli attorney and founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, a Jerusalem-based NGO, Daniel Seidemann, wrote on November 30, 2011:

“Cumulatively, Israeli policies in East Jerusalem today threaten to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a bitter national conflict that can be resolved by means of territorial compromise, into the potential for a bloody, unsolvable religious war. This threat derives from Israel 's dogged pursuit of the settlers' vision of an exclusionary Jewish Jerusalem.”

“… Today, Israel must choose between two visions of Jerusalem . On the one hand, it can continue pursuing an exclusive, largely fictitious rule over an already divided, bi-national city -- exposing Israel to virtually universal censure and imperiling the two-state solution. On the other hand, it can pursue policies that can make Israeli Jerusalem, Yerushalayim, a thriving national capital, recognized by all, existing side-by-side with but politically divided from the Palestinian capital in Jerusalem , al Quds. To those who cherish Israel and understand what is truly at stake, the choice is clear,” Seidemann concluded.

What is much more important than excluding “a conflict that can be resolved by means of territorial compromise,” is that the Israeli politics of exclusion in Jerusalem, which could be summarized by Judaization of the holy city, is a roadmap to de-Arabizing, de-Islamizing, de-Christianizing, de-historizing and de-humanizing Jerusalem, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and this could not be anything but a roadmap to hell.

Absolutely this is unsustainable Israeli politics.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. * nassernicola@ymail.com

Iran Proposes New Nuclear Talks with World Powers

Iran Proposes New Nuclear Talks with World Powers

The Associated Press
December 31, 2011

Iran said Saturday it has proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with six world powers that have been trying for years to persuade Tehran to freeze aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.

The country's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said he has formally called on the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to return to negotiations.

The invitation comes after new sanctions recently imposed by the West over Tehran's enrichment of uranium, a process that produces fuel for reactors but which can also be used in making nuclear weapons. Iran insists it only has peaceful intentions, while the U.S. and many of its European allies suspect Iran of aiming to use a civilian nuclear energy program as a cover for developing a weapons capability.

The last round of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany was held in January in Istanbul, Turkey, but it ended in failure.

"We formally declared to them (the intent) to return to the path of dialogue for cooperation," Jalili told Iranian diplomats in Tehran, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Jalili did not say when or through what channel he issued the invitation.

Iran's ambassador to Germany, Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, said earlier Saturday that Jalili was to send a letter soon to EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to arrange a new round of talks.

A spokesman for Ashton said she had not yet received any new communication from Iran.

"As she has made clear in her statements on behalf of the (six nations), we continue to pursue our twin-track approach and are open for meaningful discussions on confidence-building measures, without preconditions from the Iranian side," said the spokesman, Michael Mann.

The Iranian announcement was the latest signal from Tehran that the country is feeling the impact of international sanctions.

The U.N. has imposed four rounds of sanctions. Separately, the U.S. and the European Union have imposed their own tough economic and financial penalties.

Washington's measures target exports of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran and have banned U.S. banks from doing business with foreign banks that provide services to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Last month, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged that the current penalties were impeding Iran's financial institutions, saying, "our banks cannot make international transactions anymore."

And earlier in December, Iran reinstated an offer for U.N. nuclear agency officials to visit Tehran, though it did not say whether the International Atomic Energy Agency would be able to focus on suspicions that Iran is secretly working on nuclear arms — a key condition set by the agency.

The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities if Tehran doesn't stop its nuclear program.

But Jalili warned Tehran would make any aggressor regret a decision to attack Iran.

"We will give a response that will make the aggressor regret any threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Jalili said.

Iran Raises Anti-U.S. Threat Level

Iran Raises Anti-U.S. Threat Level; Israel's C-of-S Warns of Potential for Regional War Soon..

debkafile
December 30, 2011

Thursday afternoon, Dec. 29, Tehran raised the pitch of its threats to the United States when Dep. Chief of the Revolutionary Guards Gen. Hossein Salami declared:

"The United States is in no position to tell Tehran what to do in the Strait of Hormuz," adding, "Any threat will be responded [to] by threat… We will not relinquish our strategic moves in Iran's vital interests are undermined by any means."

The Iranian general spoke after the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group passed through the Strait of Hormuz to the Sea of Oman and into the area where the big Iranian naval war game Veleyati 90 is taking place.

At around the same time, Israel's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz spoke of "the rising potential for a multi-arena event," i.e. a comprehensive armed conflict.

Facing in several directions as we are "between terrorist organizations and Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon… we can't afford to stay on the defensive and must come up with offensive measures," he said.

Earlier Thursday, Dec. 29, debkafile reported that an Iranian plan to mine the Strait of Hormuz had put US and NATO forces in the Persian Gulf on the alert.

US and NATO task forces in the Persian Gulf have been placed on alert after US intelligence warned that Iran's Revolutionary Guards are preparing Iranian marine commandos to sow mines in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The new deployment, debkafile's military sources report, consists of USS Combined Task Force 52 (CTF 52), which is trained and equipped for dismantling marine mines and NATO Maritime Mine Counter measures Group 2 (SNMCMG2). The American group is led by the USS Arden mine countermeasures ship; NATO's by the British HMS Pembroke minesweeper. Other vessels in the task forces are the Hunt-class destroyer HMS Middleton and the French mine warfare ships FS Croix du Sud and FS Var.

Also on the ready are several US Expeditionary Combat Readiness units of the US Fifth Fleet Bahrain command. Seventeen of these special marine units are attached to the Fifth Fleet as America's answer to the Iranian Navy's fast assault boats and marine units.

US military sources told debkafile Wednesday, Dec. 28, that United States has the countermeasures for sweeping the waterway of mines and making it safe for marine passage after no more than a 24-48 hour interruption.

At the same time, leading military and naval officials in Washington take Tehran's threats seriously. They don't buy the proposition advanced by various American pundits and analysts that Iran would never close the Strait of Hormuz, though which one third of the world's oil passes, because it would then bottle up its own energy exports. Those officials, according to our sources, believe that Tehran hopes the mines in the waterway will blow up passing oil tankers and other shipping. It doesn't have to be sealed hermetically to endanger international shipping; just a few mines here and there and an explosion would be enough to deter shippers and crews from risking their vessels.

As Adm. Habibollah Sayari commander of the Iranian Navy put it Wednesday, Dec. 28:

"Shutting the strait for Iran's armed forces is really easy – or as we say in Iran, easier than drinking a glass of water." He went on to say: "But today, we don't need [to shut] the strait because we have the Sea of Oman under control and can control transit."

debkafile's Middle East marine sources said the Iranian admiral's boast about the Sea of Oman was just hot air. For the big Iranian Velayati 90 sea exercise which began Saturday, America has deployed in that sea two large air and sea strike groups led by the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and the USS Bataan aircraft amphibious ship.

And they are highly visible: Thursday morning, Dec. 29, Iranian Navy's Deputy Commander Rear Adm. Mahmoud Mousavi reported an Iranian Navy aircraft had shot footage and images of a US carrier spotted in an area where the Velayat 90 war games were being conducted – most probably the Stennis. Its presence, he said, demonstrated that Iran's naval forces were "precisely monitoring all moves by extra-regional powers" in the region.

Clearly, the US navy is very much on the spot in the Sea of Oman and other areas of the Iranian war game.

Middle East sources warn however that the repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz coming from Tehran this week and the framework of its naval exercise clearly point to the manner in which Iran intends to hit back for the tough new sanctions which the West plans to approve next month. The new round is expected to shear off 80 percent of the Islamic Republic's revenues.

The European Union's 27 member-states meet in January to approve an embargo on Iranian oil, with effect on 25 percent of Iran's energy exports. Next month, too, President Barack Obama plans to sign into law an amendment authorizing severe penalties for foreign banks trading with Iran's central bank, CBI, including the loss of links with American banks and financial institutions.

Tehran is expected to strike back hard by sowing mines in Hormuz and in the waters opposite the oil fields and terminals of fellow Persian Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia.

It would not be the first time. In 1987 and 1988, sea mines were sown in the Persian Gulf for which Iran never took responsibility. It was generally seen as Tehran's payback for US and Gulf Emirates' backing for Iraq in its long war with the Islamic Republic. A number of oil tankers and American warships were struck by mines, including the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Such disasters can be averted today by means of the sophisticated countermeasures now in US hands.

Military Buildup Worldwide-Globalization of War

The world's attention is increasingly focused on Syria and Iran as the region continues to move toward military confrontation. Less noticed, however, is that the pieces are being put into place for a truly global conflict, with military buildup taking place in every region and threatening to draw in all of the world's major powers. - GlobalResearchTV

U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure

The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively.

The Daily Beast
December 28, 2011

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret,” the Israelis went ballistic behind the scenes. Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, lodged a formal diplomatic protest known as a demarche. And the White House was thrust into action, reassuring the Israelis that the administration had its own “red lines” that would trigger military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem to act unilaterally.

Panetta’s seemingly innocent remarks on Dec. 2 triggered the latest drama in the tinder-box relationship that the Obama administration is trying to navigate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch its own military strike.

Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four elements, with the last resort being a military strike.

“The fourth element of this combined strategy is the credible military strike,” Ya’alon said, according to a recording of the speech provided to The Daily Beast. “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.’”

The lack of trust between the Israeli and American leaders on Iran has been a sub-rosa tension in the relationship since 2009. Three U.S. military officials confirm to The Daily Beast that analysts attached to the Office of the Secretary of Defense are often revising estimates trying to predict what events in Iran would trigger Prime Minister Netanyahu to authorize a military attack on the country’s nuclear infrastructure. Despite repeated requests going back to 2009, Netanyahu’s government has not agreed to ask the United States for permission or give significant advanced warning of any pending strike.

The sensitive work of trying to get both allies on the same page intensified this month. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited Washington last week to go over Iran issues; and the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, and a special arms control adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Robert Einhorn, were in Israel last week to discuss Iran as well. Panetta for his own part has revised his tone on the question of Iran’s nuclear program, telling CBS News last week that the United States was prepared to use force against Iran to stop the country from building a nuclear weapon.

The new diplomacy has prompted new conversations between the United States and Israel over what the triggers—called “red lines” in diplomatic parlance—would be to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Matthew Kroenig, who served as special adviser on Iran to the Office of the Secretary of Defense between July 2010 and July 2011, offered some of the possible “red lines” for a military strike in a recent Foreign Affairs article he wrote. He argued that the U.S should attack Iran’s facilities if Iran expels international nuclear weapons inspectors, begins enriching its stockpiles of uranium to weapons-grade levels of 90 percent, or installs advanced centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility in Qom.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Kroenig also noted that Iran announced in 2009 that it was set to construct 10 new uranium enrichment sites.

“I doubt they are building ten new sites, but I would be surprised if Iran was not racing to build some secret enrichment facilities,” Kroenig said. “Progress on new facilities would be a major factor in our assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and shape all aspects of our policy towards this including the decision to use force.”

Until recently, current and former Obama administration officials would barely broach the topic in public, only hinting vaguely that all options are on the table to stop Iran’s program. Part of the reason for this was that Obama came into office committed to pursuing negotiations with Iran. When the diplomatic approach petered out, the White House began building international and economic pressure on Iran, often in close coordination with Israel.

All the while, secret sabotage initiatives like a computer worm known as Stuxnet that infected the Siemens-made logic boards at the Natanz centrifuge facility in Iran, continued apace. New U.S. estimates say that Stuxnet delayed Iran’s nuclear enrichment work by at most a year, despite earlier estimates that suggested the damage was more extensive.

Last week in a CBS interview, Panetta said Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon is a “red line.” White House advisers have more recently broached the subject more specifically in private conversations with outside experts on the subject.

Patrick Clawson, the director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said,

“If Iran were found to be sneaking out or breaking out then the president’s advisers are firmly persuaded he would authorize the use of military force to stop it.” But Clawson added, “The response they frequently get from the foreign policy experts is considerable skepticism that this is correct, not that these people are lying to us, but rather when the occasion comes we just don’t know how the president will react.”

Henry Sokolski, the executive director the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said

“You don’t propose and go about doing an oil embargo unless you are serious about taking the next step, and the next step for the administration is clearly some form of military action, and people who have left the administration like Dennis Ross have made it clear that this is precisely what’s on this administration’s mind.”

Ross did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Ironically, Panetta often is the official the Obama administration uses to engage Israel.

“Panetta has been straightforward with the Israelis and they seem to appreciate that,” one senior administration official said. “The Israelis view Panetta as an honest broker.”

In some ways that is why his remarks stung Netanyahu’s government so much.

Complicating matters, the Dec. 2 remarks also came at the same time a high-level delegation of Israeli diplomats, military officers and intelligence officials were in Washington for an annual meeting called the strategic dialogue. At the meeting, the Israeli side offered a new presentation on Iran’s nuclear program suggesting that Iran’s efforts to build secret reactors for producing nuclear fuel were further along than the United States has publicly said. Some of the intelligence was based on soil samples collected near the suspected sites.

Part of the issue now between the United States and Israel are disagreements over such intelligence. The Israelis and the U.S. both believe that Iran suspended its work on weaponization, or the research and testing on how to fit an atomic explosion inside a warhead, in 2003 shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Israelis, however, say the Iranians started that work again in 2005, according to Israeli officials and Ya’alon, who said this in his speech on Christmas Eve. The 2007 and 2011 U.S. national intelligence estimates for Iran say this weaponization work remains suspended.

The Israelis also say a recent document uncovered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that shows detailed plans for constructing a “neutron initiator,” or a pellet that sits at the middle of the nuclear core and is crushed by high explosives in a nuclear explosion, is evidence that Iran is continuing its weaponization work. The latest IAEA report released in November said members states had shared intelligence alleging that Iran had conducted explosive tests associated with nuclear weapons research.

A senior administration official told The Daily Beast,

“Both Americans and Israelis agree that some research and design work is probably continuing in the event the Iranians decide to move ahead with weaponization.”

The intelligence disagreement is significant in part because one of the factors in drawing up red lines on Iran’s program is how much progress Iran has made in constructing secret enrichment facilities outside of Natanz, where IAEA inspectors still monitor the centrifuge cascades. In 2009, the Obama administration exposed such a facility carved into a mountain outside of the Shiite holy city of Qom. The IAEA has chastised the Iranians for not fully disclosing their work on the Qom site until the United States forced the regime’s hand.

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Iran Extends Congratulations to All Christians Around the Globe

Iranian Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani expressed hope that all the people of the world would live in peace, freedom, and security in line with divine teachings — proof positive that Iran’s government is not vitriolically anti-Christian, as some stalwart fundamentalist Christians believe and claim. Heck, that’s more emphasis on Jesus and Christianity than we got from President Barak Obama this year! - casual observer

Iran Wishes Christians a Merry Christmas

December 25, 2011

Iranian Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has extended congratulations to all the Christians around the globe and especially to Pope Benedict XVI ahead of Christmas and the New Year.

In separate congratulatory messages to Christian parliament speakers issued on Saturday, Larijani said,

“I would like to congratulate you and your people on the auspicious occasion of the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ (PBUH).”

He expressed hope that all the people of the world would live in peace, freedom, and security in line with divine teachings.

Larijani also said he wished that the countries of all his counterparts would experience happiness and prosperity.

The majority of Iran's Christians belong to the Armenian Church, which celebrates Christmas on January 6.

Palestine Seeks EU Backing for UN Membership; Israel Displaces Record Number of Palestinians; Israeli Airstrike Kills 4 in Gaza, Including Child; Jewish Extremists Desecrate Old Jerusalem Mosque

Abbas Seeks EU Backing for U.N. Membership

The Daily Star
December 15, 2011

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the European Union Wednesday to support the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership, as the bloc’s top diplomat called for the resumption of direct talks with Israel.

“Yesterday we raised the flag of Palestine in front of UNESCO and I thanked the president [Herman Van Rompuy] for their support for this endeavor,” Abbas said after meeting the EU president. “I hope the day will come when we will raise the flag of Palestine at the U.N. and with the support of the European Union.”

The EU is split on the issue, however. At a vote concerning raising the flag at the U.N.’s education, science and culture agency, 11 EU nations voted in favor – Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Spain.

Eleven others abstained – Britain, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia – and five voted against. They were the Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Meanwhile, the EU’s chief diplomat Catherine Ashton said after a meeting with Abbas that the bloc’s “overarching objective” was “the creation of an independent, democratic, contiguous and viable Palestinian state, living side by side with Israel in peace and security.”

Israel to Release Millions in Withheld Palestinian Tax Money

The Daily Star
December 1, 2011

Israel announced Wednesday it was releasing millions of dollars in tax revenues it owes the Palestinians, lifting a month-old freeze that had threatened to undermine the pro-Western Palestinian Authority.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had come under international pressure to hand over the funds, about $100 million a month that includes import duties Israel collects on behalf of the West Bank-based authority.

The money is vital for paying civil servants employed by the Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank, where it exercises limited self-rule under interim peace deals with Israel.

In a punitive measure, Israel began withholding the funds on Nov. 1, a day after the Palestinians won membership in the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO as part of their unilateral, and slow-moving, drive for U.N. statehood recognition.

Israel has called on the Palestinians to abandon that bid and return to peace talks that collapsed in September 2010 over Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem which they say will deny them a viable state.

An Israeli government official said tax payments for October and November would be handed over to the Palestinian Authority, but Netanyahu made clear that he reserved the option to halt them again.

“Netanyahu approved the resumption of tax revenue transfers, at this stage, to the Palestinian Authority,” said a statement issued by the prime minister’s office after his inner Cabinet gave its backing.

The statement cited what it described as a suspension of “unilateral moves” by the Palestinian Authority, a reference to any further bids for status upgrades in U.N. bodies.

“If the Palestinian Authority takes unilateral steps again, the transfer of funds will be reconsidered,” it said.

Commenting on the decision to transfer the funds, Saleh Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said: “This is first of all Palestinian money ... Israel should have retracted this decision weeks ago.”

Last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the Palestinian Authority was “fast approaching the point of being completely incapacitated” and would not be able to pay about 150,000 workers this month if Israel did not release the money.

Israel Displaces Record Number of Palestinians

The Daily Star
December 14, 2011

Israel has stepped up its demolitions of Palestinian property in occupied land this year, razing double the number of homes and water wells from 2010, human rights groups said Tuesday.

The statement endorsed by 20 organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch further said Jewish settler violence against Palestinians had risen in 2011 and that Israel had sped up its expansion of settler enclaves.

They urged members of the Middle East peacemaking “Quartet” – the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia – to put pressure on Israel to “reverse its settlement policies and freeze all demolitions that violate international law.”

Quartet representatives were expected in the region again Wednesday for yet another effort to revive peace talks frozen since last year over settlement construction.

The statement, citing U.N. figures, said Israel had destroyed more than 500 Palestinian homes, wells and other structures in 2011, displacing more than 1,000 people, the greatest number in a single year since 2005.

Settler assaults on Palestinians, including deliberate damage to some privately owned 10,000 olive trees, have also risen to their worst level since 2005, with a 50 percent increase over 2010, and more than a 160 percent increase over 2009, the U.N. figures show.

The statement said that settler “perpetrators act with virtual impunity,” with more than 90 percent of complaints filed with police shut without indictment between 2005 and 2010.

Israel has approved plans to build 4,000 more settlement homes in the past year for East Jerusalem, the greatest number since 2006, the statement added, quoting figures supplied by the Israeli watchdog group Peace Now.

Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Israel’s Defense Ministry unit coordinating policy for the West Bank, called the report “one-sided and biased.”

In a written statement, Inbar said Israel would continue to “professionally and transparently” enforce laws regarding illegal construction by both Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli Airstrike Kills 4 in Gaza, Including Child

The Daily Star
December 10, 2011

Violence has flared up between Israel and Gaza, with the Israeli air force killing four Palestinians and militants firing rockets deep across the border.

The fighting erupted Thursday when an airstrike on a car killed two militants, one of them from Gaza’s governing Islamist group Hamas, whom Israel accused of planning to send gunmen to attack it through the neighboring Sinai region of Egypt.

Palestinian militants responded to Thursday’s airstrike with a barrage of rockets, some of which landed near Beersheba, a city 35 km from Gaza. No one was hurt.

Another Israeli airstrike followed before dawn Friday, hitting a Hamas training camp in Gaza City. The blast flattened a nearby home, killing its owner and his 12-year-old son. The man’s wife and five other children were also wounded hospital officials said.

In a statement voicing regret for the civilian casualties, the military said Palestinian rockets stored next to the camp had stoked the explosion. Hamas accused Israel of a “massacre.”

Palestinian militants stepped up rocket attacks as night fell. Three groups said they had fired over a dozen projectiles across the border. Israel police said at least 10 of them landed in Israeli territory, causing no casualties.

Witnesses in Gaza reported heavy activity of Israeli drones over head.

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in Gaza told reporters the group was “pursuing intensive contacts with several Arab and international parties, and we stress the necessity of this aggression being stopped immediately.”

Hamas spurns peacemaking with the Jewish state but has in the past proposed truces as it sought to consolidate control over Gaza and negotiate power-sharing with the rival, U.S.-backed Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Instability has spread in Sinai as Cairo struggles to restore order after the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February.

Armed infiltrators killed eight Israelis on the border with Sinai in August. Israeli troops repelling the gunmen killed five Egyptian police, triggering outrage in Cairo that spilled over into the mobbing of Israel’s embassy a month later.

Israel apologized for the Egyptian deaths and Egypt’s interim military rulers vowed to mount security sweeps of Sinai.

Hamas’ standing has grown with the political rise of the kindred Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, formerly a suppressed though popular opposition group. Israel worries about the prospects for its landmark 1979 peace accord with Egypt, which secured the demilitarization of the Sinai.

“The state of Israel is in a bind,” defense analyst Alex Fishman wrote in the biggest-selling Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. “It can’t operate in Sinai in order to defend its sovereignty for fear of its relations with Egypt ... and because it can’t beat the donkey, it beats the saddle – and Gaza suffers the blows.”

Some of the Palestinian rockets fired Thursday and Friday were claimed by a Fatah-linked militia that lost one of its leaders, Essam al-Batsh, in Israel’s airstrike.

Israel said he had also been involved in a 2007 suicide bombing that killed three people in Eilat, a Red Sea port abutting Egypt. The Eilat area went on security alert this week, with the military citing fear of infiltration from Sinai.

Hamas had no comment on the rockets. It has kept out of some of the recent fighting in Gaza, much of which has been between Israel and Islamic Jihad, a different Palestinian armed faction.

The chief of Israel’s military, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, told parliament last month a new Israeli offensive in Gaza could be “drawing close” because of the rocket threat.

That stirred speculation that Israel, which launched a devastating war on Hamas in 2008-2009, might mobilize for a similar assault ahead of the possible installation of a new Islamist-led government in Egypt.

Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, warned that could backfire by providing an electoral boost to the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s ultra-conservative Salafists.

“An operation in Gaza is liable to play into their hands, with a kind of acceleration of political processes that you don’t want,” he told Israel Radio.

Jewish ‘Price Tagger’ Extremists Desecrate Old Jerusalem Mosque

The Daily Star
December 15, 2011

Jewish extremists Wednesday tried to torch an old mosque in Occupied Jerusalem, as Israel reopened a ramp leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, whose closure sparked Muslim anger.

The overnight attack on the disused mosque in downtown West Jerusalem saw unknown attackers try and set the building alight and daub its exterior walls with racist anti-Arab slogans written in Hebrew.

It was the latest in a slew of so-called “price tag” incidents – revenge attacks by Jewish extremists which generally target Palestinians and Arabs, although they have also been directed at the army and leftwing Israelis.

The attack targeted the Nebi Akasha Mosque, which dates back to the 13th century and had not been used as a place of worship since Israel’s creation in 1948. The city council currently uses the building as a storage facility.

“During the night, there was an attempt to set fire to a disused mosque in the city centre,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, saying an investigation had been opened into the attack which took place just off Jaffa Street, west Jerusalem’s main shopping artery.

The attack was swiftly condemned by the Al-Aqsa Foundation, an offshoot of Israel’s Islamic Movement, which said it held Israel “fully responsible for this terrible crime” and for not acting against the perpetrators.

Arab Israeli MP Mohammad Barake also lashed out at his fellow parliamentarians for fanning the flames of racial hatred with a spate of draft legislation targeting Israel’s Arab minority.

“Responsibility for the mosque burning does not only lie with the gang of fascists who carried it out, but also with some of the scumbags among the MPs and ministers,” he said in a statement.

“Those MPs should not pretend they are shocked when the draft laws they back become a raging fire that devours mosques,” he said.

Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO which fights against the manipulation of archaeological sites for political gain, said the attack had damaged an important aspect of local heritage.

“The destruction of the antiquities, in this case probably by Israelis, is part of the process of erasure of ‘the other’ – of everything that doesn’t suit the extremist and one-dimensional ideology of certain Israeli groups,” it said in a statement.

Among the words scrawled on the mosque’s walls were the names of two settlement outposts slated for demolition by the end of the month.

Overnight, there were three more price tag attacks in the northern West Bank where Palestinian cars were torched in three separate villages and Hebrew graffiti found nearby, the Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses said.

The arson attack in Jerusalem occurred just 24 hours after settlers attacked troops and an army base in the northern West Bank in an attack which has deeply angered Israel’s leadership.

Several hours earlier, settlers also broke into a closed military zone along the Jordanian border.

In the past 10 days, detectives have arrested eight people in connection with recent price tag attacks, including six minors and a soldier.

Jerusalem police Wednesday also detained six Jewish men from a religious neighborhood on suspicion of involvement in recent violence and vandalism against Arabs, a spokeswoman told AFP.

The suspects are all settlers who were barred from returning to the West Bank several years ago by military order, Luba Samri told AFP, without giving details of their age or identity.

The six men were not believed to be connected to the overnight attack on the mosque, nor to several other “price tag” attacks earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Israel reopened Wednesday a controversial wooden access ramp to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem just 48 hours after it was closed on safety grounds in a move which had sparked Muslim anger.

Iran Says It Will Not Return U.S. Surveillance Drone; U.S. Contends the Drone Malfunctioned and Was Not Shot Down by Iran's Armed Forces

Bible prophecy describes the battle of Armageddon as a coalition of nations that will almost certainly include China and Russia and several Muslim nations of the Middle East. Every day, the evidence mounts that China will be tightly leagued with Russia and many of the Islamic nations in a powerful anti-Israel political and military alliance from which the 200-million-man army described in the book of Revelation (Rev. 9:16) will ultimately come. - The Sixth Trumpet War of Revelation 9

Iran Rejects U.S. Request to Return Spy Drone

Reuters
December 13, 2011

Iran has--unsurprisingly--rejected an American request to return its downed spy drone.

President Obama, speaking at a news conference with the visiting Iraqi prime minister Monday, said the United States had asked Iran to give the downed American reconnaissance plane back.

"We've asked for it back," President Obama said of the drone Monday. "We'll see how the Iranians respond."

Iranian news agencies ridiculed the request on Tuesday as Iranian officials made clear they had no intention of giving back the American drone.

"Obama begs Iran to give him back his toy plane," proclaimed a headline from Iran's Fars News Agency Tuesday.

"We are still wondering how he shamelessly asked Tehran to give the US back the stealth drone which had violated the Iranian airspace for espionage," the news agency wrote, referring to the American president.

"The American espionage drone is now Iran's property, and our country will decide what steps to take regarding it," Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told ran's ISNA news agency Monday, according to a BBC report. In another statement t the Mehr news agency, Vahidi said that "instead of apologizing to the Iranian nation, [the U.S.] is brazenly asking for the drone back."

The unusual American-Iran media jousting over the downed RQ-170 drone came as an Iran prosecutor announced Tuesday that he has indicted 15 "American and Zionist" spies.

"IRNA on Tuesday quoted Tehran's chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi as saying the suspects carried out espionage activities against Iran," the Associated Press reported Tuesday. "He did not elaborate on the nationality of the suspects, nor say when they were detained."

Last week, Lebanon's al-Manar TV, which is controlled by the Iran-allied Shiite militant group Hezbollah, identified 10 alleged undercover CIA officers working in Lebanon with diplomatic cover.

"Hezbollah made the names public in a broadcast Friday night on a Lebanese television station, al-Manar," the Associated Press's Adam Goldman reported Monday. "Using animated videos, the station recreated meetings purported to take place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut."

"The disclosure comes after Hezbollah managed to partially unravel the agency's spy network in Lebanon after running a double agent against the CIA, former and current U.S. intelligence officials said," Goldman wrote.

The CIA dismissed the claims made in the Hezbollah broadcast, citing CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood:

"The agency does not, as a rule, address spurious claims from terrorist groups. I think it's worth remembering that Hezbollah is a dangerous organization, with al-Manar as its propaganda arm. That fact alone should cast some doubt on the credibility of the group's claims."

Obama: We Asked Iran to Give Us Our Drone Back

The Envoy
December 12, 2011

President Obama has a message for Iran: He would like America's downed spy drone back.

Obama revealed the request for the return of the drone--which fell to earth in Iran recently, and has since been flaunted in video footage by the Iranian government--during a Monday White House news conference. The president shared the podium with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as both leaders discussed the future of American-Iraqi relations after the withdrawal this month of the last remaining U.S. troops.

But Obama's comments on the seized drone at least temporarily upstaged the designated subject of the conference--and are all but certain to become instant fodder for late-night comedy and GOP primary campaign barbs.

"We've asked for it back," President Obama said of the spy plane, according to an Agence-France Press report. "We'll see how the Iranians respond."

"With respect to the drone inside of Iran, I'm not going to comment on intelligence matters that are classified," he added.

Iran claimed to have brought down the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone mostly intact eight days ago, after operators lost control of it on a classified CIA-Pentagon surveillance mission over the country. The very existence of the stealth reconnaissance plane-- dubbed the "Beast of Kandahar," and manufactured by Lockheed Martin--received no official acknowledgment from U.S. government circles until 2009. American officials more recently reportedly confirmed the RQ-170 was used for extended surveillance of Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after the successful U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida leader last May.

Iran--which has since lodged a formal diplomatic protest over the drone's apparent violation of Iranian air space--has given scant indication that it will leap to the Obama administration's request for the craft's return.

Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Brig. General Hossein Salami told Iran state television Sunday that Iran won't give the drone back, and regards "the drone's violation of Iranian airspace as a hostile act" by the United States, the Washington Post's Thomas Erdbrink reported.

Already, partisan critics of the Obama White House could hardly contain their glee at news of the request. This was after all but the latest Western request that Tehran seemed likely to flout--along with several rounds of UN Security Council resolutions demanding Iran curb its nuclear program.

"If you were Iran, and Pres O asked you to return our drone, what would you say??" Ari Fleischer, GOP public relations strategist and former spokesman for the George W. Bush White House, asked on Twitter.

"'O: I asked Iran 2 return drone & we'll see how they r[e]spond," Fleischer wrote in another Twitter post mocking the request. Ronald Reagan "didn't ask Iran 2 r[e]turn hostages. Iran feared him, so they were freed."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton--who herself has occasionally revealed private talking points publicly--tried to blunt any suggestion of naivete in the U.S. request.

"We submitted a formal request for return" of the drone, but "don't expect them to comply," Clinton said Monday, CBS News' Cami McCormick reported.

Iran Says It Will Not Return U.S. Drone

The Associated Press
December 11, 2011

Iran will not return a U.S. surveillance drone captured by its armed forces, a senior commander of the country's elite Revolutionary Guard said Sunday.

Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Guard, said in remarks broadcast on state television that the violation of Iran's airspace by the U.S. drone was a "hostile act" and warned of a "bigger" response. He did not elaborate on what Tehran might do.

"No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country," Salami said.

Iranian television broadcast video Thursday of Iranian military officials inspecting what it identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

Iranian state media have said the unmanned spy aircraft was detected over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the border with Afghanistan. U.S. officials have acknowledged losing the drone.

Salami called its capture a victory for Iran and a defeat for the U.S. in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.

"Iran is among the few countries that possesses the most modern technology in the field of pilotless drones. The technology gap between Iran and the U.S. is not much," he said.

Officers in the Guard, Iran's most powerful military force, had previously claimed that the country's armed forces brought down the surveillance aircraft with an electronic ambush, causing minimum damage to the drone.

American officials have said that U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran neither shot the drone down, nor used electronic or cybertechnology to force it from the sky. They contend the drone malfunctioned. The officials had spoken anonymously in order to discuss the classified program.

But Salami refused to provide more details of Iran's claim to have captured the CIA-operated aircraft.

"A party that wins in an intelligence battle doesn't reveal its methods. We can't elaborate on the methods we employed to intercept, control, discover and bring down the pilotless plane," he said.

Drone Crash Unmasks U.S. Spying Effort in Iran

Reuters
December 9, 2011

The crash of a CIA drone in Iran has brought into the open what U.S. intelligence agencies would prefer kept secret: intense spying efforts in a country where the United States has no official presence.

Iran on Thursday aired with great flourish footage of the captured drone, which appeared largely intact. Pentagon and CIA spokesmen would not comment on whether it was the missing U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aircraft.

A person familiar with the situation confirmed that the drone that crashed was on a surveillance mission over Iran.

It is believed to have crashed because of a malfunction and not from being shot down or computer-hacked by the Iranians, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

Although there are risks that Iran could attempt to reverse engineer the technology, or sell it to other countries, like China, U.S. officials believe that Iran will not be able to mine the drone's computer systems to learn details of the U.S. surveillance mission.

U.S. surveillance of Iran through various means has been going on for years, U.S. officials and others with direct knowledge of the situation say.

A private U.S. defense expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that when he visited the command center at a U.S. military base in the Gulf region in 2008, it was clear that the installation was receiving multiple feeds of electronic surveillance information from inside Iran.

Some of the information appeared to be transmitted from high-altitude aircraft and some from electronic sensors which the United States had somehow installed on the ground in Iran, the expert said.

The United States has no official presence in Iran so it is difficult to determine exactly what is going on inside its borders. One recent incident has yet to be fully unraveled.

EXPLOSION IN ISFAHAN

On November 28, there were contradictory reports out of Iran on whether an explosion had occurred in the city of Isfahan, which is also home to a major nuclear site.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said he has been studying imagery of that area and no damage was detected at the Isfahan nuclear site. But, he said, "it is credible there was an explosion, but not at the nuclear site."

He said it was puzzling that Iranians clearly said an explosion at a missile depot two weeks earlier had been an accident, but did not provide similar clarity about Isfahan.

"We're trying to figure out what actually happened," he said.

"Explosions are happening in Iran, and Iran is not making a big deal out of them. They are either calling them accidents or saying they didn't happen, and therefore when these things continue to happen it could be because intelligence agencies are actually now playing sabotage," Albright said.

In the earlier November 12 incident, Iran said a massive blast at a military base west of Tehran killed 17 members of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including the head of its missile program, in an accident while weapons were being moved.

When unexplained events occur that appear to be aimed against Iran's nuclear program, experts often question whether U.S. and Israeli intelligence services were at work.

Iran also has had alleged covert operations against the West come to light. Recently, the United States arrested a man accused of being involved in a plot by Iranian agents to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington.

The U.S. government also accuses Iran of arming and funding Iraqi militias responsible for attacking American troops in Iraq.

U.S. officials do not appear to be the least bit disturbed about mishaps to Iran's nuclear and missile programs that include the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear site.

"Whether it's due to technical difficulties, incompetence, or other reasons, some setbacks to Iran's activities are welcome," a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

Iran Releases Video of Downed U.S. Spy Drone–Looking Quite Intact

The Envoy
December 8, 2011

Iran's Press TV on Thursday broadcast an extended video tour of the U.S. spy drone that went down in the country late last week--and it indeed looks to be intact.

American officials have acknowledged that an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance plane was lost on a mission late last week, but have insisted that there is no evidence the drone was downed by hostile acts by Iran. Rather, they said, the drone likely went down because of a malfunction, and they implied the advanced stealth reconnaissance plane would have fallen from a high altitude--the RQ-170 Sentinel can fly as high as 50,000 feet--and as a result, wouldn't be in good shape.

Iranian military officials have claimed since Sunday they brought down an intact American spy drone--and now they are giving tours of the drone, in what is sure to be another humiliating poke in the eye for U.S. national security agencies.

"On Sunday December 4, the Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit downed the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft which was flying over the Iranian city of Kashmar, some 140 miles (225km) from the Afghan border," Iran's Press TV said in its report Thursday.

The New York Times reported Thursday that--unsurprisingly--the RQ-170 was lost while making the latest foray over Iran during an extended CIA surveillance effort of Iran's nuclear and ballistic weapons program.

"The overflights by the bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel, built by Lockheed Martin and first glimpsed on an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2009, are part of an increasingly aggressive intelligence collection program aimed at Iran, current and former officials say," the Times' Scott Shane and David Sanger wrote. "The urgency of the effort has been underscored by a recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon."

Iran in turn has complained that the drone flights represent an act of aggression and violation of its sovereignty, and summoned the Swiss envoy--who represents U.S. interests in Iran--to register its complaints.

The video tour may also be a move to bid up the price Iran could receive for sharing the highly sophisticated American stealth drone technology with countries such as China and Russia.

That Secret Drone Lost in Iran Was Flying for the C.I.A.

The Atlantic Wire
December 6, 2011

The U.S. lost one of its most advanced surveillance drones on a C.I.A. mission in Iran, unnamed "U.S. officials" said on Monday, which means Tehran now likely possesses the stealth aircraft.

Little is known about the Lockheed-designed aircraft, and The Los Angeles Times says "the Pentagon has not revealed its price tag, size or top speed. But it has acknowledged this: The Sentinel may now be in Iranian hands." U.S. intelligence used the "jet-powered, bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel drone" to perform surveillance on Osama bin Laden's compound last spring, which tells you something about how prized it is.

The Pentagon certainly doesn't want its military secrets getting to Iran, but according to one expert The Times interviewed, the larger worry is that Tehran will sell them far and wide.

"It carries a variety of systems that wouldn't be much of a benefit to Iran, but to its allies such as China and Russia, it's a potential gold mine," Peter W. Singer, author of Wired for War, told the paper.

The U.S. military first said it had lost a drone that was flying over western Afghanistan, but The Times suggested it may have strayed into Iran airspace by mistake. Sources told CNN, however, that they believed the drone went down in Afghanistan before Iran recovered it.

"They did not believe the mission involved flying the drone directly over Iran because the reconnaissance capability of the-RQ 170 drone allows it to gather information from inside Iran while remaining on the Afghanistan side of the border."

Either way, it's a big intelligence coup for Tehran and a real fumble for the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency.

Risk of Israel/U.S. Strike on Iran has Tripled; Israel Stole Weapon-grade Uranium from U.S.

Bible prophecy describes the battle of Armageddon as a coalition of nations that will almost certainly include China and Russia and several Muslim nations of the Middle East. Every day, the evidence mounts that China will be tightly leagued with Russia and many of the Islamic nations in a powerful anti-Israel political and military alliance from which the 200-million-man army described in the book of Revelation (Rev. 9:16) will ultimately come. - The Sixth Trumpet War of Revelation 9

Risk of Israel/U.S. Strike on Iran has Tripled: Barclays Capital

Reuters
December 8, 2011

The chance of a military strike on Iran has roughly tripled in the past year, the senior geopolitical risk analyst at Barclays Capital said on Thursday.

New York-based analyst Helina Croft, writing in a note titled 'Blowback: Assessing the fallout from the Iranian sanctions', said even increased sanctions without an all-out military strike was increasing the risk of a spike in oil prices.

"We still contend that the risk of either an Israeli or US strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities remains low, but it has risen, in our view, from 5-10 percent last year to 25-30% now," Croft said.

"In terms of supply-demand balances for the oil market, an oil embargo or sanctions on the Iranian central bank would essentially lead to a dislocation in trade flows, rather than lost outright production... However, the effect on oil prices could be significantly different."

Croft said increased sanctions from the U.S. and European Union targeting Iran's oil sector and central bank would likely, initially, have the primary effect of driving its oil exports east to Asia.

"If EU sanctions on Iranian oil were aimed at significantly reducing the flow of revenues to Tehran, they would perhaps seem no more likely to be successful than U.S. sanctions have been since 1988," the note said.

"An inevitable knock-on effect of an EU embargo would be to push more Iranian oil eastward, without removing Iran's ability to market all its crude available to export. In other words, the concentration of Iran's buyers would increase, but the total volume would not be affected."

Croft and Sen argued European refiners in the Mediterranean would be hardest hit by an increase in sanctions as they would be forced to scramble to find alternative sources of crude. Greece, in particular, has found the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) one of the few suppliers willing to provide it with crude on "open credit".

On Thursday U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States was considering all options on Iran and would work with allies, including Israel, to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Iran says its nuclear program is only to meet energy needs, and is not aimed at acquiring nuclear weapons.

Israel Stole Weapon-grade Uranium from U.S., Report Will Show

Daily Star
December 8, 2011

A U.S.-based research institute will soon publish what it says is “indisputable” evidence that Israel stole weapons-grade uranium for its still-undeclared atomic weapons program from a nuclear reprocessing plant in western Pennsylvania.

The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) will release this month a 300-page report detailing the initial findings of a multi-year research project investigating the disappearance of highly enriched uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (Numec) in Apollo, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s.

Grant Smith, the director of IRmep, told The Daily Star that the report would include a broad range of newly declassified and un-redacted government documents from various agencies – including the Department of Energy, Atomic Energy Commission, FBI and CIA – that prove that nuclear material was diverted from Numec to Israel.

“The story at this point is that there is no one smoking gun; there are many smoking pistols lying all over the place that we’ve painstakingly collected,” Smith told The Daily Star.

Read full report here

China Prepares Navy for Combat to Safeguard National Security

The real showdown between China and the West may end up being in the Middle East if and when the Muslim world enlists China's assistance in the anti-American, anti-Israeli confrontation. The record shows that China has already been engaged in illicit sales of nuclear armaments to Muslim nations. Many of the Muslim nations in the Middle East are client states of China. The de facto alliance already exists. Both China and the Muslim nations have a similar interest in maintaining control of the oilfields of the Middle East. It may be that China joins with the Muslim nations in a cataclysmic confrontation with both Israel and the West in the near future, probably over the oil wealth of that region. - Ken Raggio, The Sixth Trumpet War of Revelation 9

China's Hu Urges Navy to Prepare for Combat

AFP
December 6, 2011

Chinese President Hu Jintao Tuesday urged the navy to prepare for military combat amid growing regional tensions over maritime disputes and a US campaign to assert itself as a Pacific power.

The navy should "accelerate its transformation and modernisation in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security," he said.

Addressing the powerful Central Military Commission, Hu said:

"Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defence and military building."

His remarks, which were posted on a statement on a government website, come amid growing US and regional concerns over China's naval ambitions, particularly in the South China Sea.

China claims all of the maritime area, as does Taiwan, while four Southeast Asian countries declare ownership of parts of it, with Vietnam and the Philippines accusing Chinese forces of increasing aggression there.

In a translation of Hu's comments, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the president as saying China's navy should "make extended preparations for warfare."

But the Pentagon on Tuesday downplayed Hu's speech, saying that Beijing had the right to develop its military, although it should do so transparently.

"They have a right to develop military capabilities and to plan, just as we do," said Pentagon spokesman George Little, but he added "we have repeatedly called for transparency from the Chinese and that's part of the relationship we're continuing to build with the Chinese military."

"Nobody's looking for a scrap here," insisted another spokesman Admiral John Kirby. "Certainly we wouldn't begrudge any other nation the opportunity, the right to develop naval forces to be ready.

"Our naval forces are ready and they'll stay ready."

US undersecretary of defence Michelle Flournoy is due to meet in Beijing with her Chinese counterparts on Wednesday for military-to-military talks.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last month warned against interference by "external forces" in regional territorial disputes including in the South China Sea, a strategic and resource-rich area where several nations have overlapping claims.

And China said late last month it would conduct naval exercises in the Pacific Ocean, after Obama, who has dubbed himself America's first Pacific president, said the US would deploy up to 2,500 Marines to Australia.

China's People's Liberation Army, the largest military in the world, is primarily a land force, but its navy is playing an increasingly important role as Beijing grows more assertive about its territorial claims.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon warned that Beijing was increasingly focused on its naval power and had invested in high-tech weaponry that would extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond.

China's first aircraft carrier began its second sea trial last week after undergoing refurbishments and testing, the government said. The 300-metre (990-foot) ship, a refitted former Soviet carrier, underwent five days of trials in August that sparked international concern about China's widening naval reach.

Beijing only confirmed this year that it was revamping the old Soviet ship and has repeatedly insisted that the carrier poses no threat to its neighbours and will be used mainly for training and research purposes. But the August sea trials were met with concern from regional powers including Japan and the United States, which called on Beijing to explain why it needs an aircraft carrier.

China, which publicly announced around 50 separate naval exercises in the seas off its coast over the past two years -- usually after the event -- says its military is only focused on defending the country's territory.

North Korea Making Missile Able to Hit U.S.

The US, Israel and the NATO Alliance have already put Iran, Lebanon, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia and China on notice. And the “withdrawals” from Iraq and the Af-Pak region are over-hyped. The occupation of these countries continues with no end in sight. In fact, they aren’t withdrawing as much as they are repositioning and shifting their forces, preparing for an escalation. In many ways the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak have only been the initial phase of a global attack, positioning forces and building massive military bases in pivotal geo-strategic locations. The operations in this region have essentially been a warm-up for much wider-ranging attacks against much stronger countries. While most of the US population is playing checkers, seeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as one-off battles, the global banking cartel is playing chess, using these wars as only initial geo-strategic moves in a grand strategy toward total world domination. The intensity of military maneuvering presently occurring is alarming. - David DeGraw, The Global Banking Cartel Has One Card Left to Play, Amped Status, September 28, 2010

Report: North Korea Trying to Develop Missile to Strike U.S.

The Washington Times
December 6, 2011

New intelligence indicates that North Korea is moving ahead with building its first road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, an easily hidden weapon capable of hitting the United States, according to Obama administration officials.

The intelligence was revealed in a classified Capitol Hill briefing last month. Its existence was made public in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta from five House Republicans.

“As members of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces …, we write out of concerns about new intelligence concerning foreign developments in long-range ballistic missile development, specifically ballistic missiles capable of attacking the United States,” the Nov. 17 letter said.

“We believe this new intelligence reiterates the need for the administration to correct its priorities regarding missile defenses, which should have, first and foremost, the missile defense of the homeland.”

Officials familiar with the intelligence said government analysts believe the missile could be a variant of North Korea’s new Musudan intermediate-range missile, first disclosed publicly in October 2010.

Other intelligence indicates that the new ICBM may be under development at a huge missile testing facility on North Korea’s western coast.

Prior to its mobile ICBM, North Korea’s long-range missiles were the pad-launched Taepodong-1 prototype, and the Taepodong-2 (TD-2) dual-use ICBM and space launcher. The TD-2 was test-launched in April 2009.

‘Direct threat’

Mobile missiles are difficult for tracking radar to locate, making them easier to hide. They also can be set up and launched much more quickly than missiles fired from silos or launchpads.

China’s military recently deployed two new mobile ICBMs, the DF-31 and DF-31A. It is not known whether North Korea’s new mobile missile is based on Chinese technology. China in the past has provided missile technology to North Korea, a fraternal communist ally.

The first indications of Pyongyang’s new mobile ICBM were made public in June by Robert M. Gates, who was defense secretary at the time. After a speech in Singapore, Mr. Gates said,

“With the continued development of long-range missiles and potentially a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile and their continuing development of nuclear weapons, … North Korea is in the process of becoming a direct threat to the United States.”

The new intelligence was discussed during a closed-door briefing in mid-November for the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces and discussed in the letter to Mr. Panetta. The letter did not say specifically that the missile was North Korean, but it quoted Mr. Gates on Pyongyang’s mobile ICBM development.

The letter was signed by Rep. Michael R. Turner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the subcommittee; Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Mac Thornberry of Texas.

Congressional aides declined to comment on the intelligence.

Administration officials familiar with the missile data said U.S. intelligence analysts have some disagreement over the developments.

Implications for talks

The intelligence on North Korea’s progress on a mobile ICBM was disclosed as the Obama administration is seeking to restart the failed six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.

Glyn Davies, special envoy for North Korea, leaves Tuesday for talks in China, Japan and South Korea about North Korea’s nuclear program, the State Department announced Monday.

Last week, North Korea issued a government white paper that defended its April 2009 launch of a Taepodong-2 as part of a satellite development program.

Government analysts viewed the statement as an indication that North Korea may be preparing for a missile flight test.

The United Nations imposed unprecedented sanctions on North Korea after a 2009 test of a nuclear device.

Three paths

Details of North Korea’s first mobile intermediate-range missile, the Musudan, and the new west coast North Korean launch facility were made public in classified State Department cables on the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

A February 2010 cable outlining a U.S.-Russian exchange on missile threats stated that the U.S. government suspects North Korea has three paths to building ICBMs.

One is using the Taepodong-2, with a range of up to 9,300 miles, as its main strategic missile. A second way is to further develop the ranges of existing missiles like the Musudan, and last is to “use the very large launch facility that is being constructed on the west coast of North Korea to launch a very large missile,” the cable said.

The cable said the size of the facility is a concern because “it does not simply replicate other sites.”

“This facility is much larger than the Taepodong launch facility,” the cable said. “This is not to say there is evidence of a new missile system larger than the Taepodong-2 being developed, but it suggests the possibility.”

An Oct. 6, 2009, cable on North Korea’s missile program said the Musudan intermediate-range missile is based on Russia’s SS-N-6 submarine-launched missile that has a range of up to 2,400 miles.

The Musudan uses an advanced liquid propellent called unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (N204) that are easier to store in missiles.

“Development of the Musudan with this more advanced propulsion technology allows North Korea to build even longer-range missiles – or shorter range missiles with greater payload capacity – than would be possible using Scud-type technology,” the cable said.

North Korea also has a new solid-fueled short-range missile called the Toksa, with a range of 75 miles, and has sold a number of shorter-range Musudan missiles to Iran, the report said.

‘Hedging strategy’

In their letter, the five lawmakers called on the Pentagon to reverse its decision to curb development of long-range ground-based interceptors in favor of European-based missile defenses against Iranian missiles. They also asked for the Pentagon’s plan for a “hedging strategy” to be prepared to counter new missile threats like the North Korean mobile ICBM.

“In view of the briefing the subcommittee received this week, we do not believe the United States can afford further delay in the release of the hedging strategy by the Department of Defense,” they stated, asking for a report on the strategy by the end of the year.

Asked about the new intelligence, Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde said the Pentagon had nothing to add to Mr. Gates‘ comments.

“Specific information related to North Korea’s development of road-mobile ICBM would be an intelligence matter, and it is our policy not to comment on intelligence matters,” she said.

A U.S. intelligence community spokesman referred a reporter’s questions about the new intelligence to the February statement to Congress by James Clapper, director of national intelligence.

Mr. Clapper stated in his prepared remarks that “North Korea’s progress in developing the TD-2 shows its determination to achieve long-range ballistic missile and space-launch capabilities. If configured as an ICBM, the TD-2 could reach at least portions of the United States; the TD-2 or associated technologies also could be exported.”

Gates' prediction

Mr. Gates first told reporters Jan. 11 during a visit to China that North Korea’s progress in building intercontinental ballistic missiles was turning the Pyongyang regime into a “direct threat to the United States.”

Pressed for details, he said, “I don’t think it’s an immediate threat, no. But on the other hand, I don’t think it’s a five-year threat.”

“Let me be precise,” he added. “I think that North Korea will have developed an intercontinental ballistic missile within that time frame, not that they will have huge numbers or anything like that, but I believe they will have a very limited capability.”

The Daily Beast quoted Mr. Gates in June saying,

“They are developing a road-mobile ICBM. I never would have dreamed they would go to a road-mobile before testing a static ICBM. It’s a huge problem. As we’ve found out in a lot of places, finding mobile missiles is very tough.”

Richard Fisher, a military analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said,

“A nuclear armed North Korean road mobile ICBM would pose a spectacular challenge to the U.S.-led alliance system in Northeast Asia, as Pyongyang could severely undermine U.S. extended nuclear deterrence commitments.”