Eli Lake has a scoop for Newsweek outlining President Obama's secret approval of bunker busting bombs to Israel, which could presumably be used in an attack on Iran. The deal was cut early in the Obama administration.
From Newsweek:
While publicly pressuring Israel to make deeper concessions to the Palestinians, President Obama has secretly authorized significant new aid to the Israeli military that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker busters, Newsweek has learned.
In an exclusive story to be published Monday on growing military cooperation between the two allies, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek that the GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators—potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites—were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office.
The military sale was arranged behind the scenes as Obama’s demands for Israel to stop building settlements in disputed territories were fraying political relations between the two countries in public.
Commentary's Jonathan Tobin sees the leak of two-and-a-half-year-old news as part of the Obama administration's ongoing charm offensive to woo the Jewish community:
Yet, let us be in no doubt as to the reason why news about the bunker buster sale was leaked now, more than two years after the fact, according to Lake’s reporting. At a time when Obama’s support in the Jewish community is dropping in part because of his abusive treatment of Netanyahu, it is vital he try to prove he is as good a friend to Israel as any of his predecessors.
In a tease for the full article Newsweek insinuates the bombs might have been just the tip of the iceberg of covert US support to Israel:
While the Obama administration has touted some public cooperation with the Israeli military, Newsweek’s article Monday will reveal other covert efforts by the U.S. military to aid Israel in the volatile Middle East region, and the impact the improving military cooperation has had on the sometimes chilly relations between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president’s popularity in the American Jewish community.
Tobin is right about the timing of the leak, first to Newsweek and now to to the New York Times as well. The Obama administration is desperate to shore up its bona fides with respect to Israel. The leak about the sale of the bunker buster bombs simply underscores Obama’s weakness and his eagerness to fellate the domestic Israel Lobby.
Bill, I think you’re right, which makes this an extremely rare instance in which I would agree with what is written in Commentary.
not sure i agree (check my response to bill downthread). also there is this:
as if selling bunker busters is ‘normal security cooperation’. no, i think at their first meeting bibi focused on iran and obama on palestine and the sale of the bunker busters was in exchange for the settlement freeze (that wasn’t).
Sorry Annie, but your wrong. The request for these munitions goes back to Bush – and Bush told the Israeli’s no, at least for the time being. Obama made the decision ( and made the decision to make the decision public) by “giving” the story to one of its favorite stenographers, Eli Lake.
You can’t court the lobby if you make weapons giveaways a secret. And you cant intimidate the Iranians if you keep it a secret. Two birds.One stone, uggh.
wrong about what? this:
at their first meeting bibi focused on iran and obama on palestine and the sale of the bunker busters was in exchange for the settlement freeze
i guess i am not following you dan. i recall their first meeting. the wikileaks dates the delivery at the end of 09. when was the alleged ‘settlement freeze’ first announced? are you positing it is a coincidence and the two are not related?
also, this was already leaked thru wikileaks on the aug 30th. do you posit it is simply a coincidence obama decided to also leak it himself days after it was already leaked? perhaps leaking it to lake was making lemonade out of lemons. after all, it’s not like he can get credit for leaking it if it explodes all over the internet all by itself which it would have eventually. not sure how you can be so sure given the timing but i appreciate your determination to be right. i’m still curious which part you think i have ‘wrong’.
another thing dan, tho the request goes back to bush (for release in 09-10)it was obama who released them and chose the timing of the release. November 25, 2009 “Netanyahu, told a news conference earlier today that there will be a ten-month stop in the construction of new settlement housing in the West Bank. ” one week after the nov 18/o9 cable. i posit they are connected and i also posit one reason it was kept secret was because of the ‘first step’ framing.
“We have been told by our friends that once Israel takes the first meaningful steps towards peace, the Arab world and the Palestinians will follow,” said Netanyahu follow
but we know now israel didn’t take the first step, they demanded payment upfront and then didn’t come thru on the freeze.
annie,
someone said ( up the thread) that O did this to impress the lobby- you said you didnt know if you agreed, i said you were wrong; what i should have said is you should agree. The “leak” -which you are right about btw- to Lake by O wasnt a “leak” as much as it was a “hey, can you help us out over here”
i guess i was only referring to the leak – def not the motivations for the sale/giveway – you got that down.
thanks dan. “hey, can you help us out over here” i absolutely agree with.
The deal was done before Obama’s inauguration. He agreed to this before January 20, 2009. Effing warmonger. (Why does Israel need 55 bunker busters other than to bomb another country’s infrastructure?)
I’m through with him. I am furious with myself that I wasted two years of my life working for him.
Better late than never. Could I interest you in the purchase of a slightly used Ron Paul – the only politician on stage without his lips attached to AIPAC’s rear?
No.
:)
At the same time that Obama was getting regular briefings from the Israelis on Operation Cast Lead, and was saying that he would make no comment on that operation, as the U.S. only has one president at a time.
Wasn’t making this arms deal acting as president when he wasn’t yet?
mrw, when you say ‘he agreed to this before jan 20th” where did you read that? the wikileak was dated nov 18/o9 about a meeting the day before and referenced the ‘upcoming delivery’ and the newsweek article said ‘several months after he took office’ but also that bush ordered them for israel.
but i agree with you about being through with him. i came to that decision after the settlement resolution veto.
this is what I had read somewhere. Was that from Seymour Hersh
link to hotair.com
UPDATE** The link above is to a Jerusalem Post report from 23 September 2011, which is apparently quoting Eli Lake’s report rather than vice-versa. A fellow blogger notified me of the discrepancy, and I have determined that I presented the link in the above context in error. My apologies for that. For reporting integrity, I will leave the original as-is with this correction included. The NYT, UK Telegraph, and World Tribune reporting linked below remain unchanged and indicate that the first delivery of GBU-28s to Israel occurred in 2006.
But according to the New York Times (among other sources), the first GBU-28s were delivered to Israel in 2006:
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. ….
An announcement in 2005 that Israel was eligible to buy the “bunker buster” weapons described the GBU-28 as “a special weapon that was developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground.” The document added, “The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28’s on their F-15 aircraft.”
American officials said that once a weapons purchase is approved, it is up to the buyer nation to set up a timetable. But one American official said normal procedures usually do not include rushing deliveries within days of a request. That was done because Israel is a close ally in the midst of hostilities, the official said.
Numerous other media sources discussed the GBU-28 sale at the time it was being negotiated and approved. (See here, here, and here to get you started.) The Pentagon proposed the sale to Congress in 2005, with – quite obviously – the full approval of the White House. Media reported on some of the original deliveries in 2006, which went through Scotland’s Prestwick Airport in July of that year.
There was a January 2009 report of the Bush administration rebuffing a bunker-buster sale to Israel, but the GBU-28 sale was already concluded and underway. The Bush administration was reluctant, in 2008, to sell Israel another weapon, the GBU-39 small-diameter penetrator. But as Haaretz reported in September 2008, the Bush administration did eventually decide to sell Israel the GBU-39 (readable summary on the GBU-39 here; DOD notice of proposal for foreign military sale here). Haaretz’s reference to initial reluctance and delay on the sale appears to accord with the January 2009 report that the Bush administration had denied a bunker-buster sale to Israel in the previous year.
i’m not sure i agree completely w/tobin. i have not opened all the links so excuse me if this has been covered already but i think it is likely the news was going to get out anyway due to the wikileak.
so, it may have been a question of getting out in front of the leak as opposed to being ‘outed’. it was released on aug 30th.
also note U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek means it was coordinated. had it been the WH doing this for the reasons tobin mentions why would either likud or lieberman be part of this?
Hello all,
Off-topic, sorry. You’ll probably want to see this: M.J. Rosenberg on Al Jazeera.
Rosenberg is on the ball.
“from an inept leader of a country that is the largest recipient of US aid – but that never does anything to make life easier for the United States”
So true. Bibi is totally out of his depth. His speech yesterday was pathetic. Islam so 9th century and barbarian? They are destroying the US in Afghanistan.
And technology will make the world cleaner ? No it won’t. Not as long as the economy is based on the burning of oil.
“For the lobby, it’s all a DC power game. Too bad that so many lives are at stake. Not to mention a 1,900-year-old dream.”
Israel is finished. All that effort, wasted. The pity of it all.
>> “Too bad that so many lives are at stake. Not to mention a 1,900-year-old dream.” <<
(M.J.Rosenberg)
Nah, a 150 year old dream. "Next year Jerusalem" was never about being a nation.
“The historical Jewish people was defined neither as a race, nor as a people of this country or that, or of this political system or that, nor as a people that speaks the same language, but as a people of Torah Judaism and of its commandments, as the people of a specific way of life, both on the spiritual and the practical plane, a way of life that expresses the acceptance of the yoke of the Torah and of its commandments.
This consciousness exercised its effect from within the people. It formed its national essence; it maintained itself down through the generations and was able to preserve its identity irrespective of times or circumstances. The words spoken by Saadia Gaon more than 1,000 years ago, “Our nation exists only in the Torah” had not only a normative but also an empirical meaning." (Rabkin, 2006, p 35)
“The new movement took the Star of David from the synagogue, the candlestick from the Temple, the blue-and-white flag from the prayer shawl. The Holy Land became a homeland. Zionism filled the religious symbols with secular, national content. The first to detect the falsification were the Orthodox Rabbis. Almost all of them damned Herzl and his Zionism in no uncertain terms.”(Avnery, 2010)
“It was the Zionist threat that offered the gravest danger, for it sought to rob the traditional community of its very birthright, both in the Diaspora and in Eretz Israel, the object of its messianic hopes. Zionism challenged all the aspects of traditional Judaism: in its proposal of a modern, national Jewish identity; in the subordination of traditional society to new lifestyles; and in its attitude to religious concepts of Diaspora and redemption. The Zionist threat reached every Jewish community. It was unrelenting and uncompromising, and therefore it met with uncompromising opposition”. (cited in Rabkin, 2006, p. 2)
Uriel Zimmer, an Orthodox Jew and former United Nations reporter for several newspapers, states the ultimate goal of Zionism:
“The real aim of Zionism is the one stated innumerable times by the various Zionist thinkers and ideologists from its earliest conception until this day. From the essays of Achad Haam to the speeches of Ben Gurion, we can hear definitions of one goal, in various versions and phrases but with never-changing content:
TO CHANGE THE IDENTITY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE!”
(Zimmer, 1961, p. 14)
Is this part of the reason the media is now calling him
the most Jewish President?
Israel refused to allow shipments of concrete to enter Gaza on the theory that Hamas would use it to construct bunkers, a military purpose, rather than to rebuild after Israel’s wanton, widespread destruction. a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa4kfdM2QSM” rel=”nofollow”>Link
Now that the truth is out, and we know that Israel was equipped with bunker busters, it surely is only a matter of time before Congress investigates to determine whether Israel was actually engaging in illegal collective punishment against a civilian population rather than protect its citizens from the dangers posed by Hamas building defensive structures.
Which is twice as ironic because one of the hasbara talking points is, “Well if Palestinians cared about their people they’d build bunkers to protect them!”
Quite right, Chaos. I would only add that it is triply ironic because of the idiotic claim that Hamas hides behind civilians and hopes they get killed in Israel’s legitimate retaliatory raids because of the PR value in dead civilians.
I know, really. It’s like it doesn’t occur to Israel that they can just NOT KILL CIVILIANS. Hamas clearly masters that strategy when it suits them. It’s like Israelis know nothing other than how to shed innocent blood.
Yeah, sure. The great noble, moral, Israeli nation created by intellectual giants . . . .
“Now that the truth is out…”
Just now? I wouldn’t hold my breath. Excerpt from “Washington Report on ME Affairs” (Subtitle: “Telling the truth for 29 years”), 1999:
“New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind from Brooklyn, traveling with Moskowitz, said he had no doubt that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was the right man to support.
In Hebron, the Moskowitz group was greeted with music and dance by Jewish settlers. “These are people who love us and help us, they are real lovers of Israel,” said Baruch Marzel. “They can’t sleep at night if they don’t give money to Hebron.”
Israeli Knesset member Yossi Sarid, who leads the dovish Meretz party, said, “The Moskowitz phenomenon is both frightening and disgusting. The very thought that a man who makes his money from betting parlors is also gambling with our fate fills me with apprehension.”
Accompanying Moskowitz on his January trip to Israel and the occupied territories was out-of-control Congressman Michael Forbes (R-NY), whom the American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP) now calls a “rogue congressman.” AP reported that both Moskowitz and Forbes were heckled by Israeli peace activists as they toured the Ras al-Amoud area of East Jerusalem, where Moskowitz hopes to finance a new Jewish settlement this spring. Said ATFP Executive Director Michael Sanford, “Rather than going to Israel to urge them to abide by their signed commitments, Congressman Forbes has gone to support their violations of them…To call for ”˜coexistence’ by encouraging the building of Jewish-only settlements in illegally occupied territory on land that was confiscated from Palestinians is not only ironic, it’s just plain bizarre.”
David Tenenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish engineer at the U.S. Army’s plant in Southfield, MI, was investigated for 10 months by the FBI starting in 1997 on suspicion that he had released classified information on armor systems, Patriot missile countermeasures, Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees to Israel. The government dropped the investigation last July, but now Tenenbaum has filed a lawsuit seeking $120 million in damages from the Justice Department and several officials. His lawyer, Martin Crandall, said Tenenbaum’s Jewish faith might have made him a target in what the lawyer called “an ethnic-oriented persecution.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who once advised the Israeli government to close the West Bank to the media and suppress the Palestinian intifada “as quickly as possible—overwhelmingly, brutally and rapidly” and suggested early in the Iraq-Iran war that the U.S. should do nothing to halt it, just gets more embarassingly like the Nazis from whom his parents once fled. At a New York fund-raising dinner organized by Ben-Gurion University in late November after the Wye agreement had been signed by Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Clinton’s presence at the White House just in time for U.S. elections, Kissinger advised Israel not to hand over any more territory to the Palestinians pending conclusion of a permanent status agreement. The problem, of course, is that by following the advice, which he did, Netanyahu reneged on the agreement which he had just signed, and also further postponed the beginning of final status talks by calling new Israeli elections.
If you listen very carefully, you learn that not all members of the U.S. Congress want to bomb Iraq back into the stone age…”
the rest here:
link to wrmea.org
Inhibiting import by Gaza of a pathetic amount of concrete and building up a terrifying bunker-busting arsenal seem completely consistent policies to me, meant to convey the good old WW2 message ‘Further resistance is useless’. I wish I could share the much respected David Samel’s view that sooner or later the United States Congress would investigate how massive weapons make sense against primitive fortifications. I think that many members of Congress would take deep satisfaction in the idea of reducing something little stronger than the antique 1940 pillbox that stands amid weeds near one of our local churches to absolute but absolute smithereens with one shot, no little lump connected to another, with a few terrorists shredded into the bargain.
MHughes, I was 100% joking about a Congressional investigation. My bad – I should make my jokes funnier so they are recognized.
Sorry, should have been more alert! – Martin
I hope the desperate Obama gets it in the next 48 hours that aipac ain’t EVER letting him stay in the White House past 2012 and they’re just milking him for what he’s worth before they throw him to the “crocodile”. Nope not even a nano chance in hell are aipac EVER gonna show Obama gratitude or MERCY. And that’s exactly why Michelle should slap Obama hard in the face (when no one’s looking) to sober up his panic-stricken brains, and she should then take him by the ear to the nearest phone where he should accordingly make the RIGHT call (Do The Right Thing) and instruct his UN mission to vote YES for Palestinian Statehood: right smack at the twelfth hour. Now THAT is what I would call felicitous, dramatic history-making.
It’s about the only thing that can save his smeared reputation in studied history. About the only thing that can save America from foolishly creating a billion+ enemies overnight.
I bet Obama is envying Abbas for miraculously re-inventing himself without political strings and chains. Maybe he’ll do like Abbas and cleave asunder the ashkanazi political noose around his pencil-pushing neck. Maybe he’ll follow his old cell-mate, Abbas, and break outta the ashkanazi cell-block himself.
Maybe he’ll finally understand that ‘historic’ leaders make difficult decisions based on the calling of their integrity and not on the vanity of re-election. They behave like upright family men and no like show-dogs on a studded leash.
C’mon get with the program mister president – last call before history’s train leaves the station.
Perhaps Michelle can be induced to take such action, if only for the continuation of her luxurious existence. I mean, no re-election means she can’t keep having those 5-star vacations all over the world or parade her latest fashionable attire on the pages of Huffington Post, so the unemployed can gaze at her with unsatiated envy.
I hope the desperate Obama gets it in the next 48 hours that aipac ain’t EVER letting him stay in the White House past 2012
Exactly — the lobby knows Obama is paying lip service and would be completely untrustworthy in a second term. Bachman or Perry is a far safer bet.
Why can’t the kids at dKos figure this out? The main obstacle to a second term is the very thing that is verboten to discuss. Dum, da da dum dum. -N49.
great comment taxi
Thanks Taxi- I sure hope Obama heeds your call to rises to greatness, earns his Nobel Peace Prize, and casts the US vote FOR the Palestinian initiative, even if it costs him a second term by alienating a Lobby that holds him in contempt anyway, despite his desperate public prostrations, as you accurately describe.
My Christian Zio brother-in-law (and major uber-right-winger), amazingly, is saying this reflects on Israel and American Jews not Obama. He was offended to the core by Netanyahu at the UN. He didn’t like that Netanyahu lied. Go figure.
Good to hear. The lobby already overplayed their hand. But they keep going further and they will keep loosing secular Americans previously biased by MSM, and even some Christian Zionists (have some in my family).
Flex those muscles AIPAC, till something breaks. The cracks are showing, and I hope AIPAC does not moderate to keep the lock they have had so long.
“The lobby already overplayed their hand”
Especially for the Lobby and all the Zionists here
*I can’t stop* by Mellow Yellow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDb–_cWdB0&feature=related
Onwards to the cliff
Gee, my first reaction was that Israel was going to use these to bomb the UN, then I saw that the sale took place a few years ago. :)
i find it ironic that an institution largely responsible for ‘creating’ israel is viewed in such a hostile way from this same country…. i know the un isn’t jewish, but it is the only reason i can think of why israel has such hostility towards it…
as for the bombs, it is really quite sickening how the usa has become nothing more then a dispenser of military arms to many of the nations in the middle east, but is unable to act like an honest broker, and some would argue – it never has… if the usa wants to make it’s military arms selling the sole focus of it’s being, any pretense about being a peace broker just adds to its hypocritical status…
” i know the un isn’t jewish, but it is the only reason i can think of why israel has such hostility towards it…”
Might have a little bit to do with the many UN resolutions to do with Israel, and the fact that the UN has identified many of the numerous infringements of human rights the Israel is engaging in, and has criticised them.
“The Human Rights Council has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than it has all other states combined.”
Browse them here. link to en.wikipedia.org
Reason for zio rage? Very much so.
At least the UN passed a 1948 resolution determining its borders (one of the many resolutions that Israel paid no heed to, of course, and promptly breached), which, if you want to be nice, could even be considered damage reduction, at the time. Nobody else seemed to care about what the exact borders would be, the west as a whole was still caught up in the “Bravo Western Jews, go show those native savages how modern civilisation is done” mentality at the time.
On a side note, if you think Israel is hostile against everything that isn’t Jewish, you’re very wrong. They’re hostile against everyone who isn’t Zionist, hence Chomsky’s ban from speaking there at one point, among other things. They love the Christian Zionists more than those Jews opposing Zionism, go figure.
“They’re hostile against everyone who isn’t Zionist, hence Chomsky’s ban from speaking there at one point, among other things. ”
Chomsky is a Zionist.
Quite obviously not nearly Zionist enough to count as one in Israel’s eyes. Technically, he just about passes as a very unconventional Zionist.
You know what I meant when I wrote Zionism though. I meant the same conventional Zionism pretty much everyone here means when they write of Zionism in their posts. The same Zionism Israel means, the same Zionism the Reps mean. Not Chomsky’s unconventional diluted home-brew version of it. He himself refers to himself as “having held” Zionist beliefs, meaning he doesn’t consider his melange of different ideologies that he holds nowadays to represent Zionism’s *current common interpretation*, and I’d agree – he doesn’t.
thanks ahvee… chomsky is a disappointment on the issue of israel, so it is interesting that they give him a hard time in israel.. i guess he is not pushing the ideology strong enough and maybe it is partly due the fact he has noticed how war is a racket that the usa and israel are both adept at..
You’re welcome.
“chomsky is a disappointment on the issue of israel, so it is interesting that they give him a hard time in israel”
It’s not surprising that they do, whatsoever – it’s pretty obvious, really. He’s not the only one who’s been banned from speaking in Israel, same thing happened to Finkelstein, and Israeli reporters who run overly Israel-critical stories may also be hit with the Israeli banhammer (read an interesting article on one such reporter a while back), and on and on it goes. Yum, democracy. Yum, freedom of speech.
I don’t think Chomsky’s a disappointment on the topic of Israel, his recent books are weaker than his earlier ones and he keeps on repeating himself, but he has more than just a few very valid and important points, and it’s obvious why Israel doesn’t want him speaking there.
Hmm, the current President of the Security Council is from Lebanon, aka Iran Sponsored Hezbollah. So a terrorist entity in charge of the organization for security in our world.
We have had Libya and Syria leading the Human Rights Councils and Iran on the UN Women’s Rights. We have had numerous resolutions against Israel yet none against the real human rights abusers worldwide.
lli :
“Hmm, the current President of the Security Council is from Lebanon, aka Iran Sponsored Hezbollah.”
++++ Iran has a very little to do with hezbollah really. Hezbollah are more concern things in their own country that being poodle for Iran.
“So a terrorist entity in charge of the organization for security in our world.”
++++ Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. Are you trying scare children here or what ?
Mig, LLI is just mimicking his hero’s words at the UN when the arrogant asshole actually said:
“Well, this is an unfortunate part of the U.N. institution. It’s the — the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the U.N. Committee on Disarmament.
You might say: That’s the past. Well, here’s what’s happening now — right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world’s security. You couldn’t make this thing up.”
Ironically, at the very start of his speech, Netanyahu said that he extended his hand to the Arab countries among which he named Lebanon and a bit further in his speech, he spewed the garbage about it being controlled by terrorists.
Correction: Mig, LLI is repeating what Netanyahu said at the UN:
“Well, this is an unfortunate part of the U.N. institution. It’s the — the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the U.N. Committee on Disarmament.
You might say: That’s the past. Well, here’s what’s happening now — right now, today. Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world’s security. You couldn’t make this thing up.”
Ironically, at the very start of his speech, Netanyahu said that he extended his hand to the Arab countries among which he named Lebanon and a bit further in his speech, he said Lebanon being controlled by terrorists.
For human rights abuses as bad as any , LLI go to Ketziot Prison or the burns unit of any Gaza hospital after a white phosphorous attack.
It’s a very long descent from Kibbutzim to apartheid but Israel has pulled it off.
It’s a very long descent from Kibbutzim to apartheid but Israel has pulled it off.
Actually it was a very short and foreseeable step. The Kibbutzim allowed no non-Jewish Arab members, discriminated against the Arab Jews, and often coveted and accepted expropriated Palestinian land. It was a precursor to the extensive apartheid of today. (And that’s besides being mostly unsuccessful and relying on government support to sustain it before it was abandoned. The myth of the kibbutz doesn’t hold up to serious scrutiny )
Yes, Tree. Of course only the Jews were allowed in. But for people in the West that’s what they see today. Nobody thinks kibbutz when they think Israel.
Never fear LLI. Likud (aka the Sten gang) stopped being a terrorist grou by being democratically elected, sonwhy can’t Hezbollah?
And unlike Likud, Hezbollah don’t have their finger on the launch button of 200 nukes.
Yeah, be better to have Israel wouldn’t it, longlost, the country that has ignored the most UN Resolutions.
Referring to an individual as a terrorist due to their Lebanese decent is stereotypical and racist. Lli, you should be ashamed of yourself!
Israel can’t even keep an ambassador in Cairo. It’s the Mr Bean of Middle East hegemony.
And bombing Iran? How is Iraq going?
And what would Israel do on the Monday ? Bring in Douglas Feith?
I suspect that the real target for those bunker busters is Hezbollah. In 2006 the bombing was ineffective against their fighters because they were so well dug in.
“I suspect that the real target for those bunker busters is Hezbollah. In 2006 the bombing was ineffective against their fighters because they were so well dug in.”
These GBU-28 depleted uranium bombs were used to flatten parts of the Dahieh suburb. Israel also smartly used them in the south a kilometer or so from the Israeli border while the wind was blowing south so those Israeli farming settlements must have gotten a good whiff of that radioactive stuff.
The US delivered 100 of these bombs to Israel to be used on Lebanon in 2006, and around 500 tons of that stuff was dropped on Iraq in 2003, according to Dr. Doug Rokke, former Director, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project.
link to uruknet.info
I think that you are correct. In both cases, bunker buster are futile, IMHO.
Basically, these are very expensive hard to deliver bombs. The first countermeasure is to create a lot of targets and decoys of targets. According to Israel, Hezbollah delivered “something” to 1500 sites where underground shelters were built (or not, or simply civilian bomb shelters, or simply basements of normal buildings). And they could have hundreds of sites that were not observed from the air. A serious program to overwhelm IDF offensive and defensive capabilities could be based on 10,000 or more sites.
The second countermeasure is to put more dirt on top, or dig tunnels deeper under mountains. One can also add anti-aircraft defenses (and anti-commando) and create a “program” that is basically nothing but a trap for an attacker. (I think that Iran is indeed serious about conventional missile program and the nuclear program is just a platform for grandstanding, provoking impotent anger of the “satans” etc. The concept is copied from “Star War Defence” in USA that cannot achieve anything but was a great political platform and lucrative boondogle.)
The question is if we can “assure” Israel’s security against low or “middle tech” opponents. I think that not to the level that would satisfy the current lofty requirements of Zionists: ability to do shit with impunity. Increasingly, a certain non-negligible percentage of the destruction that IDF can inflict on other parties will be inflicted on Israel as well. Calling opponents bad names, “terrorists” or “terror-supporting insane theocracy” or “vicious crocodile” will neither make them disarm nor disappear. Bombing them to a “parking lot” will create somewhat smaller “parking lots” in Israel as well.
Israel can survive only like Paraguay survives: by not picking fights with the neighbors. And agreeing to a peace treaty. Perhaps Paraguay does not have all lands that it “historically deserves”, but ourside this beautiful country, nobody cares. [This is from chapter: how other nations that survived a holocaust are making it.]
Maybe I am remembering wrong…….but didn’t Bush “refuse’ to give Israel these bunker busters during his term?
Seems I remember some discussion about that.
In repayment, Obama gets to use Netanyahu’s speechwriters.
Zionists are a lying, conniving, despicable bunch. Obama can run naked through the White House lawn for them and they’ll despise him even more and ensure he doesn’t make it into the White House again. They know he’s weaker and more vulnerable than any other President, so they’re squeezing him till the last drop before they dump him.
The reason Susan Rice had that sour look on her face when everyone else was giving Abbas a standing ovation is because Abbas is exposing the depravity that keeps Palestinians from their rights and freedom and sustains Obama’s presidency.
Now you know that in their sneaky little peevish minds, Zios thought: great, let’s get those weapons, stop building a couple of months and then once the weapons are delivered, let’s build like there’s no tomorrow.
They have no shred of decency and wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to humiliate and exploit their “bestest” friend to achieve their goals.
I remember a book, can’t recall the title, which featured a character who told lies so outrageous that anyone who heard went mad on the spot. Reminds me of this. The Reptilians are trying to drive everyone bonkers. And while we run around aimlessly they’re scarfing us down.
And the obscenity continues. What did the US/Israel promise/threaten the arabs with to bring this about?
link to haaretz.com
“Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin sees the leak of two-and-a-half-year-old news as part of the Obama administration’s ongoing charm offensive to woo the Jewish community:”
Someone wrote about these sales two years ago. We are going to hear the attack Iran drum beat ratcheted up times 10. As of late Dylan Ratigan has been pounding.
Must have been during the Bush administration. But swear someone was writing about bunker buster sales from the Obama administration to Israel soon after Obama was elected
Israel Builds up its Stockpile of Deadly Military Hardware
A massive buildup in military hardware has occurred in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.
Israel has recently taken delivery from the US of some 5,000 “smart air launched weapons” including some 500 BLU 109 ‘bunker-buster bombs. The (uranium coated) munitions are said to be more than “adequate to address the full range of Iranian targets, with the possible exception of the buried facility at Natanz, which may require the [more powerful] BLU-113 bunker buster “:
“Given Israel’s already substantial holdings of such weapons, this increase in its inventory would allow a sustained assault with or without further US involvement.” (See Richard Bennett, link to globalresearch.ca )
link to globalresearch.ca
I have a theory of a lobby distorting the interests of people/entities it represents. Consider a possible example of timber barons. They want to be able to cut the trees on their property or on the land leased from the government any way they like, without any regulations, and with almost no fees. And perhaps they would like some subsidies, say, government building roads that only they are using. Etc.
As individuals, they do not want to destroy the environment, and as business people, they know how to make a profit without subsidies, so they would exercise only a limited energy to achieve these goals. And perhaps they would be inclined to say “now subsidies or OK, and the environmental regulations are such that we can live with them, so it is not worth my bother to ask for more, spend money donating to Congress creatures etc.
But there exists a timber lobby, professionals who collect money from timber barons to run campaigns to achieve such goals. So the task number one for the lobby is to convinced the timber baron that without expensive campaigns they will be overwhelmed by the hordes of tree lovers. And that any limits/regulations are on the slippery slope to a total ban on cutting trees. And of course they must deliver something to the barons.
So Lobby is the golem that swallowed Zionism. Perhaps Zionist project started as “yet another European nationalism” at the time when those nationalism were going though an ugly phase, with some non-exclusive variants, “colonial superiority” and “triple unity” (blood, land and religion). The rise and fall of fascism and colonies seriously dented the popularity of that perspective, and in any case, attention and interests of peoples wanders in different directions. But in case of Zionism, because of the Lobby, the nasty characteristics were frozen and amplified over time.
To keep it short, in this case “wise heads of the lobby” established what would mark the crisis that necessitates more resources from donors and expensive actions: “an inch of daylight between USA and Israel”. Mind you, Lobby is not in the slightest interest in the actual interests of “beneficiaries” as persons, it is a marketing driven amoeba. If the Lobby can get more funds by being more alarmist and extreme, it will be more alarmist and extreme.
“a marketing driven amoeba”
good point, piotr
If you have not watched this interview with Hillary Mann Leverett on Al Jazeera. She nails Obama’s speech at the UN. Really nails him
Hillary Mann Leverett “Universal human rights that he supposedly stands for don’t qualify for this category of people”
Folks I know I am obsessive but would you do me a big favor and go over to Chris Matthews blog and pound on him a bit for having Israeli Ambassador Micheal Oren on and then not having a Palestinian Rep of any kind to share their views or a Reps views and some facts about the issue. We can knock down these walls of silence if we all push harder.
Mention some specific guest
Pllleeeeaaaassee.
link to hardballblog.msnbc.msn.com
Looked at the page. Damn! You are prolific!
Anyway, you twisted my arm, so I commented there.
And please contact the Rachel Maddow show asking, demanding, begging that she continue to open up her program to real discussions about this issue. There is a crack in her wall of silence over there. She recently had former President Jimmy Carter on and he was again telling the world the truth about the illegal settlements. Let’s keep pounding the MSM politely.
Please…pretty please
link to maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com
Zogby’s take. He rips up Bibi as well as Obama’s campaign speech
link to huffingtonpost.com
When Obama described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this 2011 speech, one could not help but note how different his presentation was from his two earlier addresses before the General Assembly (not to mention his stirring 2009 Cairo University address). The sufferings of the Jews and the insecurity of Israel were laid out in detail, without any mention of the trials and tribulations of the Palestinians. His single-minded embrace of the Israeli narrative was so convincing that Netanyahu awarded him “a badge of honor”, while Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman enthusiastically announced that he would “sign on” to the speech “with both hands”.
“Zogby’s take. He rips up Bibi as well as Obama’s campaign speech”
To rip into Obama as he has done is a 180 by James Zogby; he’s always been an avid campaigner, advisor, consultant and so on for the Democrats including Obama. But his negative position on Israel has not changed over the years.
RE: “…Obama’s support in the Jewish community is dropping in part because of his abusive treatment of Netanyahu…” ~ Tobin
MY COMMENT Lol! Tobin must be delusional. This is why I say Commentary reminds me of the Heaven’s Gate cult!
Heaven’s Gate (religious group) – link to en.wikipedia.org
And the context of Obama’sspeech was a political situation wherein the already paranoid Israel had been essentially evicted from three embassies – Turkey, Jordan and Egypt. Wherein Syria is in revolution, Libya is
moving rapidly toward a more – hopefully- democratic government. Israel
is more isolated in the middle east than it has been for a long time – all of
which problems are attributed to Netanyahu’s impolitic diplomacy. A
plausible consideration for Obama was not only the issue of a Palestinian
state but whether his actions/speeches in response to this situation would
prematurely escalate the fall of Netanyahu’s government. While the West
assumes that he would reformulate his coalition with Kadima, I would
submit it is far more likely – at this time – that the ambitious Lieberman would cobble together a majority (including the ever malleable Ehud Barack) to move Israel in the direction of essentially a strong Murabak-
style dictator who holds his power through affiliation with the generals.
Given the very unusual electoral process in Israel, this is more than possible. Such a government would virtually guarantee an annexation of the
West Bank, the annihilation of Gaza as well as military advances toward
Iran. Meanwhile – the Labor party is reviving and rebuilding and reaching
out to Kadima. The people of Israel who protested the economic conditions
are moving as rapidly to the left as the settlers are moving to the right.
Why not give the situation a tincture of time, allowing the popular movement to take root and strengthen – particularly with a prime minister
whose major talent is for repeatedly and consistently destroying own political position, nationally and internationally.
I wonder how the “isolation” of Israel really looks like. In Europe, people are more interested in European troubles of which there are plenty, so typically there is not much pressure on a government to take this position or another. In those circumstances even “mild” pressure from USA can be effective, and I think this is exactly what we have now.
Would Europe flip to positions currently exemplified by Russia and Spain, Israel would have a choice of making very deep policy corrections or being in hot water. I was actually surprised how much standing of Israel eroded in Polish media. In Britain you have some “left wing” press, and Murdoch, and somewhat effective Zionist pressure groups, but the local version of the Lobby is of course much less effective than in USA. But there is no “Lobby” in Poland, just American influence. Which is not what it was. So the current 2.5 stories about Israel:
1. Palestinians demand statehood in UN “as they richly deserve”, while “50 settlers invaded a village, broke windows and one Palestinian was killed in the resulting riot”. Not NYT version as we know. (1.5 story)
2. Israeli soccer player in a major Polish soccer team announced that he will not participate in Polish team (would he be selected). Background: he got hundreds of pieces of hate mail and death threats from his fellow countrymen. You see, Poland is the traditional enemy and oppressor of Jews, the country of Holocaust etc. It is hard to invent a story that would convince Poles more that Israeli are going bonkers.
Poland is not the traditional enemy and opressor of Jews. The fate of a hidden Jew in wartime Warsaw was the same as the fate/chance of survival for a Jew in the Netherlands. There was the courageous Zhegota group who saved many Jews. Individuals and families risked their lives. I’ve never quite understood how the Germans have changed and evolved after the war, but the Poles are evil forever. They have their haters; so does every society. The fact that 3 million Jews wound up in Poland, living their for generations also speaks to the mixed bag. There was a very active group of Jewish converts to Catholicism at the end of the 19′nth century, there were Catholic Churches who gave solace to this small group in the Ghetto. There were thousands of so-called Poles of Mosaic extraction who were completely secular, very active in Polish society, speaking Polish without a Yiddish accent. Things changed not because of the Poles, but because of the Nazis. How many Polish priests were killed by the Nazis? Look this up; it was a huge amount. Today as well, the Polish state is quite hospitable to local “hidden Jews”, Israelis, and American Jews. Poland is the country of Chopin and Kieslowski.
Upwards of 20,000 Jews survived in Warsaw alone until the Rising of 1944 of the Poles against the Germans, which is often telescoped as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of ’43. Two different/distinct revolts. Many of the hiding places of Jews were destroyed by the Nazis during the Rising of ’44: most of those Jews who found themselves near Soviet positions survived.
Writing for the paper (Israel Hayom), Melikson’s former trainer Eli Sohar called Poland “the state of Auschwitz” and questioned whether the midfielder “should represent a country in which 70 years ago, the majority of its citizens carried out the murder of his grandfather and grandmother and the Jewish community in general.” This article started a spat.
I got curious: what is Israel Hayom? Wiki:
Israel HaYom (Hebrew: ישראל היום, lit. “Israel Today”) is an Israeli national Hebrew-language free daily newspaper first published on July 30, 2007 and currently published in Tabloid format. The name is a variation of the popular USA Today, though there is no relation between the two publications. It has the largest daily circulation in Israel[1] with a market share that rose in the last half of 2009 from 23.2 to 26.6 percent.[2] and currently stands at 35.2%.
The newspaper is owned by Sheldon Adelson. Wiki also informs that during last elections Israel HaYom had tens of stories critical of Kadima and just one critical of Likud. In USA, Adelson is one of the pillars of “the Lobby”.
I remember reading at least a couple of years ago that the US had agreed to supply Israel with bunker buster bombs. The story, as I recall, was based on a US government request for bids on a shipping contract to deliver the goods.
Better for Israel to use the Nixon strategy of being a raving lunatic, maybe worshiping at some IDF base, bowing down to a bunker buster for Haaretz. I must confess I do agree with MW and his ilk on many issues. First, the peace process appears to be dead, buried, or warmed over gruel as does the two-state solution which appears to be impossible to put into place without a civil war breaking out in the West Bank and Israel proper. Second, it disgusts me to see Bibi grovel, asking for recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. Related point: the UN did not create the Jewish State but the resultant war did. Without Israeli success in the ’48 period, there would be no Israel to talk about. Begin was loathe to include phrases about recognition of Israel as a Jewish State; he could care less. I’m disgusted when I hear this talk, or grumblings about the finding of incitement in Palestinian incitement. It is not right for Israel to dictate policy, culture to the Palestinians, nor is it right to accept Islamist concerns into Israeli decision making. Ditto, for the faux, angry, Turkish man Edrogan. Whining about an apology? I’ve never understood the policy of paying somebody for a crime. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that counts to me is how you live your life, how you treat your fellow man(irrespective of his ethnicity or anything else).
As for hate crimes, having the Turks “recognize” their genocide, or having the Germans “recognize” their past is disgusting. The only “success” is how you live your life after, what you contribute to culture, what kind of person were you. It’s like Charles Manson working in jail to throw a few crumbs to Roman Polanski; who needs it. Adding to culture, to society, to humanity is the best revenge. As Mr. Harel, the first chief of the Mossad, once observed:
“The memory page continues, the hand of history still writes,” upon hearing Eichman was near capture and death at the end of a wire. But as far as his anti-semitic off-spring, let them rot.
Ditto, for the faux, angry, Turkish man Edrogan. Whining about an apology?
Israel “whines” about the death of a single citizen all the time. Certainly “whines” about four or five. Is Israel the only country entitled? Turkey lost eight citizens, the US lost one. Nothing “faux, angry” about it. (I won’t even get into the “whine” about how 1948 justified some 3000-year-old fable.)
I’ve never understood the policy of paying somebody for a crime.
Then you don’t understand the creation of the USA, which is that it was to be a nation of laws. When you break a law, there is a form of punishment.
>> Second, it disgusts me to see Bibi grovel, asking for recognition of Israel as a Jewish State.
He shouldn’t be asking at all. Israel should not be a supremacist “Jewish state”. It is (or it should be) the secular, democratic and egalitarian nation-state of all Israelis.
>> I’ve never understood the policy of paying somebody for a crime.
So…do you object to all Holocaust-related compensations?
>> As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that counts to me is how you live your life, how you treat your fellow man …
Zionists are failing miserably.
>> As for hate crimes, having the Turks “recognize” their genocide, or having the Germans “recognize” their past is disgusting.
Not at all. When crimes are committed, people and/or states must be held accountable. Accountability reinforces justice, helps to provide closure and, with any luck, helps to prevent a re-occurrence o the crimes. Germans, Turks, Americans, Israelis/Zionists, etc. must all be held accountable for their crimes.
strange silence from biorabbi…. your comments are forcing a wake up call but biorabbi is unresponsive…
The fact that idolize Nixon, of all people, tells us everything we need to know about your world view.
>> As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that counts to me is how you live your life, how you treat your fellow man …
>Zionists are failing miserably.
Or succeeding. Israel raised petty harassment (and minor atrocities) of “fellow man” to the level of science. More precisely, so many methods are applied that just the design and the research which is involved is probable the task of thousands. Drones, skunk water, shrieking machines are just selected high tech examples. Entire department of dietitians studying how to restrict diet in Gaza “without creating a humanitarian crisis” is kind of middle tech, but still, it shows how careful is the research. Drones discover unauthorized structures in Area C, and troops come with specialized carefully design machines to demolish them (tents, chicken coops, outhouses etc.)
And judging from various reports, this leads to a great satisfaction with jobs well done. Military service is allegedly more popular among Israeli teens than ever before. Harassing fellow men pro patria bono? Yes, yes, yes.