Israeli ambassador Michael Oren was in Seattle this week. The Seattle Times caught up with him:
Oren also portrays Israel as a country under siege. He says the threats include a hostile Iranian regime seeking to build nuclear weapons, Hezbollah missiles that can reach all over Israel and evidence of an al-Qaida presence in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
“If you are a terrorist, Sinai is heaven for you,” Oren said Wednesday during a visit to Seattle. “It is extremely rugged terrain. You can hide a lot.”…
And more:
In an interview Wednesday at The Seattle Times, Oren touched on a range of issues, including concerns about the fate of a three-decade long peace with Egypt that has enabled “us to beat many of our sword into plowshares.”
Oren said the Arab Spring, which he preferred to call the “upheaval” has resulted in political parties in the Egyptian parliament whose leaders regularly refer to Israel as the enemy.
And what about the Egyptian people’s right to choose their leaders? Does that matter to someone who claims to love democracy? That treaty and American military aid helped to preserve a dictatorship in Egypt.
oh heavens, is this an example of the kind of hasbara we can expect from israel wrt egypt for the next few years?
I think we should all thank Philip for cheering us all up – Michael Oren’s whining prognostications such as these are so now ridiculous that they are allow me a good laugh. Perhaps the funniest thing is that I am hard put to think of any occasion when the real al Qaeda has actually attacked Israel because they seem to spend most of their time killing Shiites. Perhaps this has something to do with Israel being so close to al Qaeda’s anti-Semitic financiers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.
i like your spirit braciole! finding something to laugh and cheer about is an awesome quality.
and as always..thank you phil. and frankly, everyone here makes life sane for me. (trolls aside!)
;)
We must bomb Iran and Egypt immediately! And any other enemies of Israel!
We must kill off all the Arabs–and probably anyone who isn’t Jewish or zionist!
Or there will be a Holocaust! Holocaust!…
yawn….
Wow, if it’s THAT dangerous I guess I won’t make Aliya this year….
Chevy Chase, MD/neocon haven seems so much safer to live.
Read again Mr. Oren that Egypt/Israel peaceagreement, especially that part which contains Sinai area.
Enemy at the gates, part xxxxxxxxxx.
“Almost all wars are based on lies. Lies are considered legitimate instruments of war. Lebanon War I (as it was later called) was a glorious example.
From beginning to end (if it has ended yet) it was a war of deceit and deception, falsehoods and fabrications.”
Uri Avnery
link to counterpunch.org
“If you are a terrorist, Sinai is heaven for you,” Oren said Wednesday during a visit to Seattle. “It is extremely rugged terrain. You can hide a lot.”…
They even say Osama is hiding in the Sinai — it’s heaven for him.
“peace with Egypt that has enabled “us to beat many of our sword into plowshares.”
Peace with Egypt that made YESHA possible. The march of Jewish folly.
“resulted in political parties in the Egyptian parliament whose leaders regularly refer to Israel as the enemy”
Israel killed 10 Egyptian soldiers last year. The only country to have killed Egyptian soldiers in the last 30 years is Israel
“If you are a terrorist, Sinai is heaven for you,” Oren said Wednesday during a visit to Seattle. “It is extremely rugged terrain. You can hide a lot.
what can Israel do about it? the Sinai would be a big ask for the world’s most moral army. Israel couldn’t even defend its own embassy in Cairo.
The Israelis rang Field Marshal Tantawi three times to call off the mob. Nobody picked up the phone. That is the extent of Israeli power in Egypt. What did Israel do with the influence it had over the last 30 years?
.
Would this be the same Al Qaeda that is supporting the US and Israeli attempts to overthrow the Syrian government?
link to english.farsnews.com
link to abna.ir
link to rt.com
link to alternet.org
Zionism needs enemies. They are all goys . The real enemy is within.
The inability to visualise peace, to live lives based on Jewish morality.
I am not as worried about al-qaeda being in egypt as I am about zionist american jews getting elected to our congress and being selected to work for our intelligence services.
The american intelligence agencies ought to be humiliated by all of this…the rest of the world looks on in derision at you. Don’t think they do not, it is not a secret.
the case against pollard by Seymour Hersh
“The documents that Pollard turned over to Israel were not focussed exclusively on the product of American intelligence — its analytical reports and estimates. They also revealed how America was able to learn what it did — a most sensitive area of intelligence defined as “sources and methods.” Pollard gave the Israelis vast amounts of data dealing with specific American intelligence systems and how they worked. For example, he betrayed details of an exotic capability that American satellites have of taking off-axis photographs from high in space. While orbiting the earth in one direction, the satellites could photograph areas that were seemingly far out of range. Israeli nuclear-missile sites and the like, which would normally be shielded from American satellites, would thus be left exposed, and could be photographed. “We monitor the Israelis,” one intelligence expert told me, “and there’s no doubt the Israelis want to prevent us from being able to surveil their country.” The data passed along by Pollard included detailed information on the various platforms — in the air, on land, and at sea — used by military components of the National Security Agency to intercept Israeli military, commercial, and diplomatic communications.
A significant percentage of Pollard’s documents, including some that described the techniques the American Navy used to track Soviet submarines around the world, was of practical importance only to the Soviet Union. One longtime C.I.A. officer who worked as a station chief in the Middle East said he understood that “certain elements in the Israeli military had used it” — Pollard’s material — “to trade for people they wanted to get out,” including Jewish scientists working in missile technology and on nuclear issues.
Pollard himself has estimated that the documents would create a stack six feet wide, six feet long, and ten feet high. Rafi Eitan, the Israeli who controlled the operation, and two colleagues of his attached to the Israeli diplomatic delegation — Irit Erb and Joseph Yagur — were named as unindicted co-conspirators by the Justice Department.
THE men and women of the National Security Agency live in a world of chaotic bleeps, buzzes, and whistles, and talk to each other about frequencies, spectrums, modulation, and bandwidth — the stuff of Tom Clancy novels. They often deal with signals intelligence, or SIGINT, and their world is kept in order by an in-house manual known as the RASIN an acronym for radio-signal notations. The manual, which is classified “top-secret Umbra,” fills ten volumes, is constantly updated, and lists the physical parameters of every known signal. Pollard took it all. “It’s the Bible,” one former communications-intelligence officer told me. “It tells how we collect signals anywhere in the world.” The site, frequency, and significant features of Israeli communications — those that were known and targeted by the N.S.A. — were in the RASIN; so were all the known communications links used by the Soviet Union.
The loss of the RASIN was especially embarrassing to the Navy, I was told by the retired admiral, because the copy that Pollard photocopied belonged to the Office of Naval Intelligence. “He went into our library, found we had an out-of-date version, requested a new one, and passed it on,” the officer said. “I was surprised we even had it.”
The RASIN theft was one of the specifics cited in Defense Secretary Weinberger’s still secret declaration to the court before Pollard’s sentencing hearing.”
These fools are never happier than when they are regurgitating tales of imminent disaster and scary monsters surrounding the disneyworld. Fear and manipulation – the same old schtick from a man who will never have to confront anything more dangerous than his Israeli money supply being cut off.
STRAIGHTLINE- Don’t forget the Al Qaeda fighters who participated in the NATO assault on Libya.
So much rugged terrain. Frightening. In recounting these threats to Israel’s well-being, he forgot to mention theater groups.
No, that would be the the US taxpayer that Israel scabs money from – $3 billion a year in weapons plus a whole bunch of extras in the hundreds of millions.
It is time to re-examine the slogan that Jews need Israel as a safe haven. According to our good Ambassador, it is not safe at all!
Israel is a safe haven and Israel is constantly under existential threat!
Palestinian Israelis love it here and Palestinian Israels are a disloyal fifth column just waiting to destroy Israel!
Settlements are an integral part of Israel and they are outside Israel.
Gaza is a free, unoccupied territory and Israel has the right to control its borders, airspace, and whatever internal areas it deems necessary.
It’s really quite simple: Doublethink is a basic requirement for any proper Zionist nowadays.
War is Peace! Nonviolence is Terrorism! Occupation is Freedom! Democracy is Tyranny!
Oh shit. Let’s bomb Egypt into oblivion to eradicate al-Qaeda like we did with Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Sinai people are not afraid of Israel. It remains a fact that it was a stupid idea to build a Jewish state in the Near East.
Oren’s job is to sell fear to US Jews so they send money to and provide political support for Israeli militarism.
It reminds me of a sketch Lenny Bruce did in Carnegie Hall once. Something about the Church’s need for sinners because if there was no sin there wouldn’t be anyone putting money in the church poorbox.
I was thinking that perhaps Oren made a mistake. What he actually meant to say could have been “al Qahira is in Egypt”.
/And what about the Egyptian people’s right to choose their leaders? Does that matter to someone who claims to love democracy?/
If Egyptian democracy possibly means another war between Israel and Egypt with thousands of casualties, should we blindly welcome it nonetheless?
Your skin is not on the line here Philip i remind you.
fear fear fear fear fear
now im afraid!
Hope for the best prepare for the worst.
You don’t have to be afraid Philip you are living comfortably across the
ocean this won’t affect you more then Syrians butchering each other
as we speak affects you.
If the Egyptians do build a liberal democracy i will be a very happy man.Right now they are choosing between an Islamist who thinks
9/11 was a conspiracy theory and a representative of the military.
Should i just put my rose glasses now ?
no you should take off your Edward Munch scream glasses. you’re scaring everyone in the room
>> Should i just put my rose glasses now ?
Maybe you could borrow a pair from the Palestinians who have had their lives and lands destroyed by the oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist Jewish “democracy” that was shoved – and that continues to be shoved – down their throats by hateful and immoral Zio-supremacists like you.
Sorry if it curbs your enthusiasm regarding this revolution i know
how exiting you found it to be.
I guess we will see how this unfolds soon enough.
Richard Falk thinks “9/11 was a conspiracy theory” (to use your words).
It goes both way, but expecting ivan to get it is a long shot.
As everyone who’s been paying attention knows, Israel’s crimes and mess affect everyone in the U.S. because that’s how Israel’s defenders like it.
Actually, Syrians aren’t butchering “each other”. Several states are arming and recruiting mercenaries, terrorists and vigilantes to keep the turmoil going, among them is Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the U.S..
The embodiment of baseless hysteria, not to mention rank hypocrisy.
In the last decade Israelis have repeatedly chosen between radical fanatics and radical racists and decided to stick with Yisrael Beitenu and Netanyahu….yeah Israel is a real liberal democracy.
Anyone paying attention should be more afraid of Shas, whose spiritual leader is rabbi Ovadya Yosef, who issues edicts calling for the killing of Arabs and the slaughter of non-Jews.
Shas is in the current coalition, with its collective finger on Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
But, forget about all that, it’s those scary ‘Islamists’ who are the real threat, especially since they depend on aid from the U.S. to carry out any military attack on Israel, and lack a lobby that rivals Israel’s treasonous Lobby in the U.S..
Oleg is as pathetic as ever. Nothing new.
Which tells a lot about Richard Falk as well …
Indeed it does. He is one very brave man.
“Your skin is not on the line here Philip i remind you.”
Oleg, I’m sure if you asked, your homeland, the Rodina, would take you back. So your skin is not on the line, either, comrade.
Prof David Klein at USC-Northridge, who is being beaten up on by the antisemite Zionist cabal b/c he supports BDS, has the following Oren quote on his website. I offer this not b/c I am a fan of Oren but b/c it is one of the most insightful comments on Israel’s dilemma I have seen. Oren clearly admits that Israel is not a democratic state — why, then, do US politicians keep calling it that?
“Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent. Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. If it remains officially Jewish, then the state will face an unprecedented level of international isolation, including sanctions, that might prove fatal.”
– Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., May 2009
He is absolutely right. No Jewish state or Islamic state can ever be democratic. That is precisely why the US Fondling Fathers demanded that church and state be separate.
thank you, very helpful. we’ll have to go document that one and use it
The material is from a piece called “Seven Existential Threats” by Michael Oren in Commentary Magazine from 2009; the part quoted is under the section on “The Arab Demographic Threat”.
Thanks Bill in Md. Saved me some leg-work.
@ OlegR: No, what Oren clearly admits is that if the Jewish majority in Israel dwindles it will be presented with a difficult choice.
Yes, the choice between being a democracy and being a Jewish state.
I guess you’re using that loop-sided definition of “democracy” that Oren is using: a place where the majority gets what it wants and the rest gets the road. Yes, that sort of majority requires large edge to be sure to keep the lid on the minority. 70% should do it, as long as the 70% doesn’t tear itself apart.
But if one defines “democracy” as a system based on democratic ideals, then the racial or ethnic make-up has absolutely nothing to do with anything, which is why Oren is admitting that Israel is not such a democracy. This is precisely what Straightline is saying, I believe. And I totally agree.
If one’s — or, more to the point, Oren’s — idea of “democracy” requires a majority of one’s — or, more to the point, Oren’s — ethnic group to survive, then it’s not a democracy.
/ Oren clearly admits that Israel is not a democratic state — why, then, do US politicians keep calling it that?/
No, what Oren clearly admits is that if the Jewish majority in Israel dwindles
it will be presented with a difficult choice.There is nothing new here
Jewish majority is essential to keeping Israel a Jewish state and as long as the majority is kept there is no contradiction with the democratic nature of Israel as well.
I live in a country that’s probably going to become predominantly Chinese from being predominantly Anglo-Celtic in the medium term. So what? The majority is the majority.
So nothing. When that Chinese majority will decide that the country should change some of it’s aspects (like the official language) flag hymn
etc they will be able to do so.
(Which country is that if you care explain i am curious somewhat?)
The Jim Crow South was majority white. Was it democratic?
I guess the Arab Republic of Egypt is off the list of possible democracies as well .
If ever there are more non arabs in Egypt then arabs that is.
Did Northern Ireland cease to exist when the Protestant majority sank below 60%?
The policy of Northern Ireland, during the first decades of its separate existence, was to maintain a two-thirds Protestant majority. The level of that majority was established by the boundary lines that were drawn when it separated from Ireland (including only six of the nine counties of Ulster, but including two counties — Fermanagh and Tyrone — with bare Catholic majorities,) and they maintained it by discriminatory policies that encouraged a lot of emigration by the Catholics.
Was that democratic?