Jewish newspaper owner suggests Israel consider 'hit' on Obama

http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html 

In op-ed, Atlanta Jewish Times owner Andrew Adler says US president's 'Alice in Wonderland' belief in use of diplomacy to halt Iranian nuclear program threatens Jewish state 
Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON - The owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times weekly caused an uproar when he suggested that Israel consider "a hit" on US President Barack Obama "in order to preserve Israel’s existence" in case Iran obtains nuclear capabilities.

 

In his column, published last week, Andrew Adler laid out what he said were three options available to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in countering the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. One of the options was to "give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States' policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies."

The other two options, according to Adler, are to attack Hezbollah and Hamas or defy the US – which he said is willing to let Israel "take a lethal bullet."

 

According to Adler, who later apologized for his column, Obama has an "Alice in Wonderland" belief in diplomacy over force.

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"Yes, you read '(option) three' correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?" He wrote.

 

Adler went on to ask: "How far would you go to save a nation comprised of 7 million lives – Jews, Christians and Arabs alike? You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table."

 

The publisher's comments were harshly condemned by Jewish columnists and organizations.

 

The president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, David Harris, called the column "the height of irresponsibility," "despicable" and "beyond the pale."

 

"This episode demonstrates just how low our political discourse has sunk," said Harris.

 

Dov Wilker, director of AJC Atlanta, said Adler's proposals are “shocking beyond belief.”

 

"While we acknowledge Mr. Adler's apology, we are flabbergasted that he could ever say such a thing in the first place. How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea?" said Wilker. "Mr. Adler surely owes immediate apologies to President Obama, as well as to the State of Israel and his readership, the Atlanta Jewish community."

 

Opher Aviran, Israel's consul general to the southeastern United States, said he was "shocked" by Adler's "insane" and "immoral" statement.

 

On Friday Adler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency "I very much regret it, I wish I hadn't made reference to it at all."

 

He said he would publish an apology in his next edition, and that reaction from readers had been overwhelmingly negative.

SAUDI NUCLEAR WATCH

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/18/inside-the-ring-488627123/?page=2

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U.S. intelligence agencies are closely watching Saudi Arabia for signs that the oil-rich kingdom will seek to develop nuclear weapons, amid tensions in the region centered on Iran’s nuclear program.

One key warning sign was the cooperation agreement signed Sunday in Riyadh by China and Saudi Arabia.

According to the Saudi Jidda News, the agreement will seek joint development of “atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which will help to meet the kingdom’s rising demand for energy and cut its growing dependence on depleting resources.”

The agreement was signed by King Abdullah and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and followed earlier public remarks by a senior Saudi prince who said the country should develop nuclear weapons to counter rivalIran’s nuclear arms.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal said Dec. 5 that “our efforts and those of the world have failed to convince Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iran. … Therefore it is our duty toward our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons.”

The administration’s argument against Iran’s reason for developing nuclear energy — that Tehran has enough oil to produce electrical power for a century — also would apply to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia holds some of the largest oil reserves in the world and isChina’s main supplier of crude oil.

Saudi Arabia last year held talks with the Obama administration on U.S. nuclear cooperation and reached a deal for nuclear development with South Korea in November.

However, the Chinese deal has raised concerns because of China’s past role as an arms proliferator. China supplied Pakistan with nuclear-weapon design information during the 1980s. That technology was discovered in Libya in 2003 after Tripoli decided to give up its covert nuclear program.

China in the 1980s supplied Saudi Arabia with 36 DF-3 medium-range ballistic missiles that, although not equipped with nuclear warheads, are considered nuclear-capable systems.

One U.S. official said of the China-Saudi nuclear deal: “There’s no reason at this time to be concerned that this deal is anything other than what they say it is.”

American Jews losing trust in Obama

Today, a sizable number of American Jews are having some serious misgivings regarding Obama. 

Recent polls of the Jewish community reflect a significant decline in support from 2008, when 78 percent of Jewish voters pulled the lever for him. 

According to a recent McLaughlin & Associates poll, nearly 40 percent of Jewish voters disapprove of the president's handling of relations with Israel, and a majority of them would now consider voting for someone else for president.

Reporter presents evidence of fraud in Rachel Corrie "Wrongful Death" case

http://israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=4163&q=1

Statement Submitted by Investigative Reporter Lee Kaplan to the Haifa District Court, Regaring "Wrongful Death" Suit Filed by Craig and Cindy Corrie
Thu Oct 20 2010

My name is Lee Kaplan. I act as an investigative journalist who has been published internationally who writes on homeland security and terrorism issues. I am considered an expert on the ISM. I have attended undercover as a reporter ISM orientation and training sessions in the United States and attended ISM national conferences on US campuses where strategy is devised.. I have spent the last eight years researching and exposing the ISM and its affiliates in the US and abroad and have consulted US and Israeli law enforcement agencies. I have been interviewed on over two hundred and fifty nationally and internationally syndicated radio shows about the ISM and on national security matters and been a guest on Fox Cable TV’s Dayside with Linda Vester and Bill O’Reilly’s Factor. I am currently working on a book about America's colleges in the War on Terror and the International Solidarity Movement as a threat to both Israel and the United States.

These are facts about Rachel Corrie and the ISM I believe the court needs to know:

1)Means of deception. The ISM training manuals in the possession of our agency, prepared for both the United States and the UK, stress the use of deceptive and contradictory language. Both the US manual, written by Norcal ISM leader Paul LaRudee and the London manual, written by Huwaida Arraf, tell ISM trainees that instead of calling themselves “human shields,” they should say they are “peace activists.” Ms. Corrie was neither a pacifist nor a peace activist, but was an anarchist by her own and her boyfriend's definitions. She was recruited to ISM from Evergreen College in Washington State.

The information Ms. Corrie wrote home to her mother would have followed ISM dictates of deceptive language. Hence, weapons smuggling tunnels that are holes in the ground would be identified as “Palestinian water wells” and terrorists in those tunnels would be called “Palestinian municipal water workers.” This deception is repeatedly used by Ms. Corrie's mother. One would have to assume that Mrs. Corrie is either following up on this deception or else naively repeating what she was told. As for Rachel Corrie, she would have had to have gone through ISM orientation and training both in Washington State and once she arrived in the Middle East, by so doing she would have had to read
and follow those manuals.

2)Rachel Corrie was involved in removing a dead body from an open field in a combat zone along with her fellow ISM activist Joseph Carr a.k.a. Joseph Smith. She did this under the direction of her Palestinian “handler” and “translator” (ISM activists are always supervised by plainclothes Palestinian handlers at all actions according to co-founder Adam Shapiro at the Ohio State conference in 2003).This particular action was recounted to me by Joseph Carr in a recording I have submitted to the court and can also be verified by an interview with Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, done by George Cadman in Santa Cruz, California.
found on the Indybay.org website (also submitted to the court). When I asked Carr if he and Rachel were afraid of being arrested by the IDF he explained that they were not because they know if the IDF came out to get them they would be killed by the Arab snipers. This is the first suggestion of an active role in assisting terrorists as practiced by the ISM in Rafah doing “human shield” work.

3)A video taken by the IDF the day Corrie was killed and of the incident reveals she was not protecting a house, but had stationed herself in a trench opposite the D9 tractor which killed her. This video is visible on my websites at www.dafka.org and www.StoptheISM.com .

4)Rachel Corrie was potentially in the weapons smuggling tunnels two weeks before she died. An ISM media office report for mid-February confirms that ISM
activists in the same affinity group as Rachel in Gaza were requested by Rachel's “handler” a Mohammed Qishta, to retrieve the dead body of a Palestinian Arab, most likely a Hamas member from a weapons smuggling tunnel. While Rachel isn't mentioned by name in the communique, it is her same Rafah group that received the order from Qishta and went to carry it out. One of the two Arabs removed from the tunnels was also names Muhammed Kishta but is not the same person. Shortly after Rachel died, Cindy Corrie, her mother spoke at UC Santa Cruz where she stated the first time she figured her daughter was doing something dangerous was when she told her how she had helped to bring some dead bodies out of a tunnel. This means that Rachel was in the tunnels, knew of them and was certainly involved with them.

  1. At the time of Rachel Corrie's tragic death, the ISM website openly proclaimed that it endorsed the "armed struggle" of the Palestinians.

  2. The most telling statement of all was that which Rachel Corrie told to the western media, shortly before her death:

"Think about the relative positions of the fighters and occupiers in this monumentally unequal struggle.... the few young fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern) - no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares, ambulance or refuge... every time the Israeli Command terrorises Nablus, more Martyrs are ready to defend the honour of Palestine and fight for the freedom of surely the most gentle, generous and peaceful people on earth." (New Zealand Herald, 10 February 2003)

Fatah official says two-state solution is over

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=191160

 
Print Edition
Photo by: ASSOCIATED PRESS
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH AND HERB KEINON
12/10/2010

Washington urges Palestinian Authority to present counter-proposal to keep negotiations on track.
 
The Palestinian Authority has concluded that the peace process based on a two-state solution has failed, a senior Fatah official said on Tuesday.

His statement came as PA officials repeated their rejection of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s proposal to extend the settlement construction moratorium if the Palestinian leadership recognized Israel as a Jewish state.

But the US urgently sought to keep talks going, and called on the Palestinians to present their own counter-proposal to keep things on track.

Mahmoud Aloul, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, said that Israel’s “racist policies” were meant to undermine the peace process.

“The Palestinian Authority made every effort to avoid reaching this conclusion, but Israeli racist policies led to the failure of the peace process,” he added.

Aloul accused the US administration of failing to exert pressure on Israel to alter its policies and halt settlement construction.

“The Americans left us no choice but to stop the peace negotiations,” he said. “The Palestinian leadership has briefed the Arab leaders on the difficult situation, and we have asked them to start taking real measures on the ground.”

PLO negotiators Saeb Erekat and Nabil Sha’ath also reiterated their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Another PLO official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, accused Netanyahu of seeking to destroy the image of US President Barack Obama in the Middle East by raising such a demand.

In Washington, however, the State Department continued to urge the sides to come to a compromise and called for Palestinians to make clear what would be acceptable to them in lieu of a declaration that Israel is a Jewish state.

“We want to see both of them stake the process. We want to see both of them offer their thinking about what needs to be, you know, advanced and agreed to that allows both sides to stay in these negotiations,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Tuesday.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has offered his thoughts on both what he’s willing to contribute to the process, what he thinks he needs for his people out of the process – we would hope that the Palestinians would do the same thing,” he said.

Crowley called on “both parties to continue to create conditions for the direct negotiations to continue.”

The US has made certain proposals to Israel, widely understood to include additional military assistance and diplomatic support, in exchange for a two- or three-month extension of the settlement moratorium.

But Crowley said it was ultimately up to the two sides to figure out what terms would work.

“It’s not for us to say, ‘This is a pretty good deal; you ought to take it,’” he said.

He described the current impasse as a “pause in the action” while issues connected to the settlement moratorium were worked through.

A senior State Department official, Jeffrey Feltman, is on his way to visit Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, in part to try and advance the peace process.

In contrast to the tough words from the Palestinians, an Israeli official said Tuesday that the “ball is still in play, this is still a work in process.”

“If the Palestinians are willing to engage seriously in a process of give and take, Israel is willing to show flexibility,” the official said. “But it has to be a process of give and take, not demand and take.”

The official said the whole moratorium matter was an “artificial issue.” The vast majority of construction is in large settlement blocs that Israel, according to various proposals that have been discussed over the years, would retain in any agreement, the official said. The amount to be built outside the major settlement blocs is minuscule and not going to change anything, he added.

“No settlement growth in the coming year would influence the final map of peace, so for that reason this is an artificial issue,” he explained.

But Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf said resuming settlement construction had “already foiled the peace talks.

“Netanyahu’s new demand is an obstacle to the resumption of the peace talks,” he said.

He also accused Netanyahu of thwarting US and EU efforts to achieve peace in the region.

“Netanyahu knows in advance that the Palestinians won’t accept this demand,” the spokesman said. “This new condition is aimed at abolishing the right of return for the refugees and expelling the more than one million Palestinians living in Israel.”

He added that if this was the price that Israel was demanding in return for freezing construction in the settlements, “what price would it ask for in return for removing the settlements and withdrawing from the occupied territories?” 


One Washington source suggested that Netanyahu’s move had not worked well with American officials, as it hadn’t come across as a sincere bid to resolve the issue, given that the Palestinians were sure to reject it.

“It just looks like he doesn’t want to [extend the freeze], and he just wants to put it on the other side,” he said of Netanyahu apparently trying to shift responsibility – and blame – to the Palestinians.

“I don’t think it plays well here,” he said, “but I don’t think anybody wants to criticize it."

HILARY LEILA KRIEGER  contributed to this report.