LEADING SETTLER RABBI TELLS BARAK, BIBI: ‘NO TO IRAN WAR’

22 March 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

It’s not every day you read an article like this (Hebrew) in the Israeli press. Leading settler Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, one of the most senior of the religious Zionist rabbis, attacks the idea of an Israeli assault on Iran and rejects the notion that a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel. In fact, he says, it is only one of many threats Israel faces and not necessarily the most dangerous. Because of that, the rabbi rejects the notion that a military attack on that nation is warranted.

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, leading settler rabbi, opposes Iran strike (Nisim Lev)

He calls Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu leaders with “inflated egos” and says ego and other personal motivations are propelling an attack. Melamed recommends that all other ministers voting on this issue should act in a calm, deliberate manner and not get carried away by the defense and prime minister’s fervor for war. He argues that Netanyahu suffers from a “trust gap,” and that the latter believes a successful attack against Iran will transform him into one of the great leaders of Israel on a par with Ben Gurion or Begin. For that reason, Bibi’s desire for personal glory and his motives must be distrusted.

Barak’s career, Melamed argues, is in free fall in contrast to his dreams of being a great leader, security expert, and figure capable of resolving international crises. The defense minister’s only opportunity to return to political leadership and become a winner in the eyes of the populace is through a successful assault on Iran.

Rabbi Melamed argues that while the impulse by nations to gain nuclear capability is undesirable, it appears impossible to prevent. He writes that even if Israel succeeded in destroying Iran’s nuclear program it would only delay that country gaining a weapon. In the rabbi’s view, Israel’s efforts should be directed not at attacking Iran, but at creating anti-missile defenses that could stop any Iranian attack on Israel. He favors deterrence over attack.

What’s especially important here is that Melamed is a settler rabbi, beloved of the nationalist camp. He favors all the things that my readers and I oppose in the Territories. But he carries great sway with those MKs and ministers who share his views. Therefore, he may carry weight in the debate over attacking Iran. As I’ve written before, I don’t care about the motivation for opposing an Iran strike. Taking the right position is more important than ideological purity. We can always oppose Rabbi Melamed on those issues that divide us at a later time.

ISRAELIS SAY ‘NO’ TO IRAN WAR

20 March 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

Caption: 'The nation is against war with Iran'

Israelis have begun intensive social networking efforts to promote the notion that their country does not want war with Iran. There will be a mass rally on Friday, March 24th at 7PM in HaBima Square in Tel Aviv. There is also a Facebook event page, Israelis Against War with Iran. It has 764 Going currently. I wish it had more, much more. There is a Facebook group, Israelis Against the War, with 2,800 Likes. This is the statement that accompanies it:

It appears that as far as PM Netanyahu is concerned, everything’s prepared for an attack on Iran. Except for us – we’re neither prepared nor willing.

We will not agree to an irresponsible Israeli attack in Iran, leading to a war with an unknown end-date and casualty count. Polls show most of the Israeli public opposes the attack being planned by Netanyahu. Even the leading brass of the Israeli security establishment, past and present, opposes such an attack. U.S. intelligence agencies assert that Iran is not on the path attributed to it by Netanyahu (an assertion supported by the Mossad). Netanyahu, however, possibly fearing another “social summer”, appears eager to launch a war which might even give a boost to his election campaign.

Hardly anyone was surprised this week by the reports that Israel is not equipped to protect its citizens from missiles targeted at the cities. It is also not surprising that those least protected are the weaker populations of the Israeli periphery. This is exactly how much our leaders value us, when they don’t hesitate to take us on an unnecessary war that will inflame the region, supposedly for our protection. Not to worry – they’ll be safe and sound in their bunkers. The billions that this war will cost will be paid by us – in health, education, housing – and in blood.

But this week, we saw something amazing. The internet allowed us to convey messages to citizens on the other side and receive messages back from them. Messages of peace, solidarity and hope.

This exciting and refreshing dialogue leads to one clear conclusion:

We, the citizens of Israel and Iran, are not enemies. Our leaders are inciting a disastrous war – and we’re all trying to prevent it. Instead of being dragged into a regional war – we demand a solution of peace among all the region’s peoples.

This coming Saturday, March 24th, we will meet at 19:00 (7 PM) at HaBima Square in Tel Aviv – where the summer’s protests began – and march from there to Gan Meir. Together we will spell out for Netanyahu and the world: You have no mandate to take us to war with Iran.

Feel free to prepare signs such as:

“Iranians we love you”

“The people oppose war in Iran” or any other idea you might have.

There is also a blog, Israel Loves Iran, created by Israeli graphic designer Ronny Edry, which appears to be getting so much traffic it’s serving pages quite slowly. But that’s a good thing. It goes without saying the initiative has been covered by Haaretz. But it’s even reached CNN, another good sign. I hope you’ll do your part to help trend #israelovesiran on Twitter and promote it on any other social media platforms you frequent. We’ve got to stop this damn war. If the Occupy movement and Israel’s J14 Social Justice movement could move mountains, can’t we stop the F-16s?

There is one Israeli message to Iran I do not endorse. Thamar Gindin, an Israeli-Iranian who is making a powerful effort to promote peace between the two peoples, is featuring this message written by settler Rabbi Avraham Gisser of Ofra (considered a moderate figure in his community), who commends the Iranian people on Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. Here are excerpts from his statement. Reading it carefully will elicit the prejudices inherent in it:

Religious wholeness and pure belief are the lot of the free only. Enslavement and coercion are the opposite of the human spirit, and what are religious belief and observing the commandments worth if the human spirit is oppressed and humiliated?

The Jewish people are not the enemy of the honorable Iranian nation. The Iranian nation has a glorious tradition of respect for human values and struggle for freedom and equality. The common mission of the two nations is to continue striving for equality, peace, and respect for every person – man and woman, young and old. Women’s freedom is their honor. A woman’s freedom is the distinct sign of a society that chooses life and joy in life. The common enemy of both nations is any government or movement that enslaves the human spirit and humiliates the women, the weak and the different in the name of religion or in the name of any other fake ideology.

It’s more than obvious that Gisser seeks, like most pro-Israel figures trying to demonize Iran even unintentionally, to differentiate between the Iranian people and its government. The people are good. The Ayatollahs are bad. They are the “enslavers” and represent a “fake ideology.” Note there is absolutely no criticism offered of Israeli leaders or government. I ask you? Is this the sort of “conciliatory” message we need in the current environment? Compare this statement to the one from Ayatollah Boroujerdi, which Tamar publicized last Rosh HaShana, which was a truly loving, non-judgmental and inspirational one.

DESOBEISSANCE CIVILE

18 mars 2012, Association France Palestine Solidarité http://www.france-palestine.org (France)

Nurit Peled-Elhanan

Je voudrais dédicacer mes paroles à la mémoire d’un petit garçon de cinq ans, Milad, neveu de Wael Salame, un des membres fondateurs du mouvement des Combattants pour la Paix, qui est mort dans un bus en flammes au carrefour de la colonie juive d’ Adam. Les résidents de cette colonie n’ont pas envoyé d’équipe de secours et ils ont refusé d’envoyer des ambulances. Personne ne les a traduits en justice pour cela. Personne ne les a jugés et personne ne les a arrêtés . L’indifférence des voleurs de terres au sort de tout-petits enfants mourant brûlés vifs aux portes de leurs maisons n’a fait la Une d’aucun quotidien ni d’aucun journal télévisé. La raison est que ce comportement raciste des Israéliens n’est pas un scoop ! Bien plus, il a été la norme depuis 60 ans et plus. Cela fait partie de l’éducation des enfants d’Israël . C’est ainsi que nous avons tous été éduqués, à l’école, à la maison, dans les mouvements de jeunesse, par la littérature, le théâtre, l’art et la musique. Plus de vingt lois racistes passées l’an dernier pratiquement sans opposition sinon celle de leurs victimes ne nous ont pas frappés de plein fouet comme l’éclair dans la clarté d’un ciel bleu d’été. Ces lois sont l’expression la plus impitoyable de l’ Establishment parmi les normes mises en place depuis maintenant quatre générations. Déjà en 1948, le poète Natan Alterman avait dénigré l’apathie du public Hébreu face à ces « ’délicats incidents’ dont le véritable nom, accessoirement est le meurtre. » La Knesset Israélienne actuelle a tout simplement déchiré le déguisement qui dissimulait le visage de l’Etat en réitérant ses allégations selon lesquelles il n’y aura pas d’autre faux-semblant.

Depuis des décades maintenant, le projet sioniste de colonisation et de la judaïsation de la Terre d’Israël, a exigé l’élimination des Palestiniens d’une façon ou d’une autre, soit par la loi, soit par l’épée, et il n’y a plus aucune nécessité de dissimuler ces objectifs suprêmes et de les déguiser avec des mots vides à propos de démocratie ou de sécurité ou de droits historiques. Nous tous sommes mobilisés, volontairement ou involontairement dans le projet de judaïsation de la terre et nous tous avons appris depuis que nous sommes capables d’apprendre la nécessité absolue d’un Etat Juif avec une majorité Juive sur la terre d’Israël. Et la Terre d’Israël, comme nous le savons tous, com¬prend l’Etat d’Israël, les Territoires Palestiniens et encore bien plus.

Il n’y a aucune carte d’Israël qui s’appelle « L’Etat d’Israël » . Toutes les cartes ont pour nom « La Terre d’Israël ». Il y a déjà trois ou quatre générations d’enfants Israéliens qui ont étudié dans des livres contenant des cartes qui montrent les Territoires Palestiniens comme une partie de la Terre d’Israël qui est dépourvue de couleurs, vide d’institutions et vide de population ; une ancienne contrée qui attend et aspire à être colonisée par des Juifs – ou au moins par des non-Arabes.

Les enfants Israéliens apprennent depuis des générations maintenant que leurs voisins – et les citoyens d’Israël et les sujets de l’Etat d’Israël privés de droits humains - ne sont rien qu’un problème démographique terrifiant ou une menace à la sécurité. Ces mêmes enfants sont chemin faisant, devenus adultes , leur sens de la justice et de la fraternité humaine ont été affaiblis par l’éducation raciste et ils ont été hissés au pouvoir et sont devenus aujourd’hui les politiciens et les généraux qui main¬tenant déclarent ouvertement et avec l’arrogance des maîtres tout-puissants ce qui a été autrefois dissimulé avec hypocrisie : l’autre visage du projet de judaïsation est l’élimination du peuple Palestinien, que ce soit avec des balles de caoutchouc, ou avec des balles sans caoutchouc, avec des bombes ou avec des lois . Tel est le principe fondamental des états de kibbutzim juifs : chaque membre de la communauté est tenu de contribuer au projet Sioniste en fonction de ses compétences et des besoins. Dans les années récentes, le projet de Judaïsation a pris des proportions jamais atteintes auparavant, principalement en raison du soutien non déguisé et inconditionnel des Etats-Unis et des riches pays d’Europe.

En 2009, Le Tribunal Russell sur la Palestine a été établi dans le but d’exiger que les Etats Européens cessent d’être partenaires dans le crime avec un Etat occupant et par là même, peut-être, d’éviter une troisième guerre mondiale. En Octobre 2011, le Tribunal, qui siège symboliquement au Cap, a jugé qu’Israël a établi et institutionnalisé un régime de domination, assimilé à un régime d’Apartheid ainsi qu’il est défini par les lois internationales. Israël pratique la discrimination et l’élimination à l’encontre d’une Nation entière sur des critères racistes avec des méthodes systématiques et institutionnalisées et en conséquence toute collaboration avec Israël doit cesser. La définition légale de l’Apartheid définit une situation dans laquelle trois facteurs cohabitent :

1/ Deux groupes raciaux séparés peuvent être iden¬tifiés . 2/ Des « Actes d’inhumanité » sont commis par le groupe dominant contre le groupe des assujettis. 3/ Ces actes sont commis de façon systématique avec une administration institutionnalisée dans laquelle un des groupes est dominé par l’autre.

Le Tribunal a auditionné des témoignages sur des actes qui constituent des « actes d’inhumanité » envers le peuple Palestinien par les autorités Israéliennes.

• Contrôle de leurs vies par des moyens militaires

• Emprisonnement arbitraire et détentions administratives illégales prolongées

• Violations des droits humains en niant leur droits de participer à la vie politique, économique, sociale et culturelle de l’Etat.

• Les réfugiés Palestiniens sont empêchés de rentrer dans leurs maisons et les lois d’Israël facilitent la confiscation de leurs propriétés et le déni de leurs droits humains.

• Les droits civils et politiques des Palestiniens sont niés et arbitrairement restreints

• Depuis 1948 Israël a maintenu une politique d’occupation et de colonisation et en conséquence d’expropriation des terres palestiniennes.

• Le siège et le blocus de la bande de Gaza est considéré comme une punition collective pour la population de la région.

• L’attaque de civils par des moyens militaires à grande échelle.

• La destruction de maisons de civils sans aucune justification de sécurité.

• Le grave dommage causé à la population civile par le Mur de séparation dans la Cisjordanie incluant Jérusalem-Est

• L’évacuation forcée et la destruction des maisons dans les villages Bédouins non-reconnus du Néguev.

• Pratiques toujours actuelles de tortures et de mauvais traitements à l’encontre de prisonniers Palestiniens dans les prisons Israéliennes.

• Formes variées de traitements cruels, inhumains et dégradants à travers les restrictions de déplacements qui font des Palestiniens les objets d’humiliations par les soldats Israéliens, et des femmes Palestiniennes obligées d’accoucher aux check points ; des démolitions de maisons comme une forme de traitement inhumain et dégradant avec des conséquences psychologiques graves sur les hommes, les femmes et les enfants ;

• Le système légal israélien dans son ensemble établit un énorme fossé entre les Juifs et les Arabes. Cette législation est nettement en faveur de Juifs et conserve les Arabes Palestiniens dans une situation d’infériorité.

Tous les éléments susdits sont définis par le Tribunal comme crimes contre l’humanité . Et le Tribunal a statué que, à la différence du caractère évident de la législation qui avait été passée en Afrique du Sud, la Loi Israélienne est caractérisée par l’ambiguïté et l’inaccessibilité de nombreuses lois, ordres militaires et règlements.

Mais nous savons que toutes les lois et règlements de l’Etat d’Israël qu’ils soient ambigües ou clairs ont pour but de transformer le visage de cette terre , d’une belle et fertile contrée du Moyen-Orient, une terre de vertes collines, de grenades et d’olives en un monstrueux conglomérat de colonies de peuplement supposément occidentales, construites à l’image de leurs résidents : repoussants et brutaux, leur unique objectif étant de couvrir d’asphalte, d’acier et de béton, toutes les collines qui avaient long¬temps résisté aux épreuves du temps.

Le seul moyen de lutter contre cette tendance est le rejet absolu des lois racistes de l’état dictateur Juif et spécialement en enseignant à nos enfants leur droit démocratique de dire non au mal, non à l’ignorance, non à l’Apartheid, non au service dans l’Armée d’Occupation et non à la collaboration avec le nettoyage ethnique.

Nous devons refuser le terme même d’Etat « Juif et démocratique » et spécialement supprimer la conjonction ET qui n’est pas une conjonction mais un Et de priorité . Voilà, « Juif » vient en premier et seulement après vient « Démocratique » ; ou bien c’est un ET de condition , désignant que l’Etat ne sera complètement démocratique que si il est complètement juif. Cependant, nous vivons dans un Etat qui n’a absolument rien à voir avec la démocratie. Nous n’avons pas grandi dans la démocratie , personne ne nous a enseigné les valeurs de la démocratie, nous avons été éduqués à penser que l’exploitation , le pillage, la discrimination et le massacre sont l’essence la plus profonde de la démocratie. Mais nous sommes aussi ceux qui ont besoin d’admettre ouver-tement que nous vivons et que nous avons toujours vécu dans un Etat d’Apartheid qui est un danger pour nous tous, un Etat qui éduque ses garçons et ses filles à une violence sans limites, à l’indifférence envers l’agonie de tout petits enfants pris au piège dans un bus en flammes.

Si nous ne faisons pas cela, nous aussi nous deviendrons tels les colons de Adam, nous deviendrons ceux qui ont abandonné Omar Abu Jariban blessé sur le bord de la route jusqu’à ce qu’il meurt de soif et nous aussi serons plongés dans la catégorie des criminels de guerre. Si nous ne brandissons pas la bannière de la rébellion dès aujourd’hui, dans un petit nombre d’années des gens comme nous- pour peu que nous demeurions tels- seront jetés dans des camps de détention ou en prison. La liberté de parole qui déjà maintenant est dangereusement restreinte sera complètement éliminée, et alors, comme l’écrivait Sami Chetrit : « le poète n’écrira plus de vers, il ne chantera plus, il ne gazouillera même plus. »

En conclusion, une anecdote : quand l’Archevêque Desmond Tutu est monté sur l’estrade pour accueillir le Tribunal Russell au Cap, après le discours du président d’honneur du tribunal Stéphane Hessel, le Président Pierre Galand a annoncé que pour être fidèles aux règles du Tribunal, il ne pourra y avoir d’applaudissements. Tutu s’est tourné vers le public avec un sourire et a dit : « C’est parce que nous avons désobéi à des lois comme celle-ci que les Sud-Africains sont allés aussi loin qu’ils sont allés »

Laissez-nous espérer que nous aussi pourrons aller aussi loin !

Traduit de l’anglais par Roseline Derrien

AS A COLONIAL STATE, ISRAEL HAS NEVER BEEN A DEMOCRACY

18 March 2012, Jewish Voice for Peace http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org (USA)
info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org

Max Blumenthal Demolishes Talking-Points About Israel’s ‘Liberal Democracy’

Key members of Israel’s opposition parties say Israel’s rightward-turn poses a threat to its democracy.

By Joshua Holland*
AlterNet 12.03.12

Terror wars tend to lead to blow-back on domestic populations. Not only do they come with almost inevitable restrictions of civil liberties, but hard-right political factions also capitalize on the specter of terrorism to gain legitimacy and win power. Israel is no exception – the country’s far-right has gained an enormous amount of influence in recent years, and has used it to enact a series of laws that many on the left call a dire threat to Israeli democracy.

This week, Max Blumenthal – author of Republican — appeared on the AlterNet Radio Hour to explain what is happening to “the only democracy in the Middle East.” Below is a transcript that has been lightly edited for clarity (you can also listen to the show here ).

Joshua Holland: Max, I don’t want to talk about Iran today. I don’t want to talk about the Israeli lobby in the United States, and I don’t want to talk about the Occupation. I want to talk about something I don’t think gets enough attention in this country, which is the sharp rightward turn of the Israeli government.

One of the great non-sequiturs of our political discourse is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. And I say it’s a great non-sequitur because it’s usually used as a response to, for example, criticism of the Occupation. You say this Occupation is terrible, and people say it’s the only democracy in the Middle East.

Anyway, Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima Party, accused Benjamin Netanyahu recently of, “an attempt to transform Israel into a type of dictatorship.” Kadima lawmakers said that recent legislation passed by the Knesset represented, “the gravest challenge to democracy since the establishment of the state in 1948.” Tell me about the sharp rightward lurch. When did this happen, because I remember when I was a kid Israel was almost a socialist country.

Max Blumenthal: Well, by not wanting to talk about Iran you’re an anti-Semite and I condemn that.

JH: Max, I’m a self-loathing Jew — please get this straight.

MB: Part of Netanyahu’s goal in focusing on Iran is taking the Palestinian question off the table, and so it’s good that you’re talking about this. Israel has never been a democracy in the sense that we think about a democracy. It’s a settler, colonial state that privileges the Jewish majority, which it created through violent methods of demographic manipulation over the indigenous Palestinian outclass.

That’s true even inside Israel. So when you hear people like Tzipi Livni — who is for now the head of the Kadima Party but soon to be ousted, and actually came out of the Likud Party and was aide to Arial Sharon – when you hear liberal Zionists, people on the Zionist left, warning that Israel is turning into a fascist state what they’re talking is the occupation laws creeping back over the green line, and that these right-wing elements are actually starting to crack down on the democratic rights that have been afforded to the Jewish master class inside Israel. So Jews who are left-wingers, who are dissidents and speak out against state policy are actually beginning to feel a slight scintilla of the kind of oppression that Palestinians have felt since the foundation of the state of Israel. That’s where this criticism is coming from.

I think we really need to get beyond the discourse of occupation and the discourse of fascism, and instead to talk about institutional discrimination and apartheid, which is what has been present since the foundation of the state of Israel.

Now I want to talk about some of the specific measures that have been proposed, some of which have passed. There are some things that have been pulled back or tabled temporarily due to international pressure, and other have actually gotten through and become law. Tell be about the crackdown on NGOs.

Well first of all, all of these laws we’re going to talk about — there’s a new anti-democratic law every week, and these are mostly advanced by right-wing parties — are applying sinew to a pre-existing skeleton that was created upon the establishment of the state Israel and has maintained the colonial relationship between Jews and Palestinians.

One of the most extreme of these new laws, and there are several laws targeting human rights NGOs inside Israel like B’Tselem, is designed to force them to reveal who their foreign funders are, thereby making it easy to portray them as traitorous to the Jewish state of Israel. These are laws pushed mostly by Avigdor Lieberman’s mostly Russian Yisrael Beiteinu party, but Netanyahu has given a lot of verbal support, rhetorical support for punishing NGOs, even attacking NGOs like the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Then you have to recognize that these are organizations that really represent the Zionist left in Israel. These are people who believe in a Jewish state who run these NGOs, and they go to the occupied territories and document abuses by the Israeli army because they want Israel out of the West Bank. They want a partition, which I think is no longer possible. So the attack on them is really to consolidate Israel’s hold the West Bank, and in turn what they’ve done is create a sense among the Zionist left, among the enlightened public in Israel that they are victims of a kind of fascist onslaught.

Now this measure specifically goes after leftist human rights organizations, but it is on its surface ostensibly content-neutral. My understanding is that the reason it effectively targets NGOs on the left is that they rely on overseer funding from organizations like the European Union, whereas the right-wing non-governmental organizations are generally funded by private donors and domestic sources.

Right, but that’s false. I was actually a witness to a Knesset debate in which some left-wing members of the Knesset demanded that the bill be politically neutral, which would then force groups like Im Tirtzu, which is a right-wing student group which has created blacklists of supposedly traitorous professors on Israeli campuses, to disclose its funding from groups like Pastor John Hagee, who is the head of Christians United for Israel and the leading Christian Zionist figure in Israel [see end note]. So these pro-settlement organizations and right-wing organizations are also getting foreign funding, but it’s clearly targeted politically at left-wing groups.

What is the Nakba Law? Tell me about that.

Well the Nakba refers to the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, which began with the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947 and 1948 to make way for a demographically contiguous Jewish state. It is forbidden in Arab schools in Israel for teachers to teach about the Nakba or to teach the Palestinian narrative. Now through legislation proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu, this ultra-nationalist party run by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman which controls 18 seats in the Knesset out of 120, there’s been a proposal which has been approved and written into law that applies financial penalties for anyone associated with an NGO or a non-profit organization who observes the ceremonies associated with the Nakba where Palestinians mourn this dispossession. This is an attack on the Arab sector and their civil society inside Israel. It’s designed basically to defund them and to consolidate their image even further as a fifth column or a Trojan horse for Arab nationalism inside Israel.

There’s increasing calls to boycott the occupied territories. A law has been passed, I believe has been passed and is on the books, banning calls for boycotting Israel or, “any of its settlements built in occupied territory.” Tell me about the details on this one.

There’s a movement called the BDS movement, the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel, which has had a lot of success in forcing businesses to move out of the Occupied Territories. It also calls for Israel to obey international law, which challenges Israel’s status as a Jewish exclusivist state. It’s considered a threat to the Jewish state of Israel, and legislation has been enacted and approved by the prime minister after passing through the Knesset to establish civil penalties for anyone who calls for BDS who is a citizen of Israel.

So if I’m a citizen of Israel and I say that Israeli businesses who do business in the occupied territories should be boycotted; if I just say that or I write an op-ed in the newspaper about that, then any settler who runs a business in the West Bank, any Israeli, can sue me even without evidence in a civil court and seek financial penalties claiming that I damaged his or her business. So the law is designed to create a chilling effect and attack freedom of speech, and it’s been approved and it’s on the books. I’m not sure if there are any other laws like this in Western democratic countries.

Now I want to talk about another measure that I believe is on hold. You can tell me the status. According to Adrian Bloomfield in the Telegraph, “Members of the Kadima, the principal opposition party, waved black flags to mourn the death of democracy after Israel’s Parliament passed two bills that will tilt the balance of the country’s Supreme Court sharply to the right. The legislators involved had their flags confiscated before being expelled from the chamber.”

Tell me what’s going on with the courts.

Well, the court has been tilting to the right since Aharon Barak, who attempted to create some kind of basic laws that protected human rights in Israel and the occupied territories. Barak by the way had always sided with the army and given it carte blanche to pretty much do what it wanted in the occupied territories. So these rulings were always just kind of suggestions. Now you have a Supreme Court that is increasingly packed with right-wing figures. For the first time there’s a kippah-wearing settler on the Supreme Court.

One of the things the Supreme Court recently did was it made permanent a law, which it had validated in 2003 temporarily, and was passed through the Knesset, called the law of Entry and Return. This law bans Palestinians who live in the West Bank from marrying Palestinians who are citizens of Israel or uniting with family members who live there. Israel has always said these kinds of rulings are for security purposes. They need to limit their freedom of movement for security reasons. Really, for the first time the Supreme Court’s ruling on this law acknowledged that demographics were the reason. They can’t allow more Palestinians to marry and form families inside Israel and maintain Israeli citizenship because the greatest threat to the Jewish and democratic state is gestating Arab fetuses.

You say that the court has tilted to the right, but at the same time there have been a number of decisions in terms of land use issues that have gone against settlers. The increasingly conservative Knesset has talked about proposals to seek limits for who can petition the court. This is court-stripping, basically, closing the courthouse doors to litigants. Another law would require justices to have served in the Israeli military. What does that do, effectively?

By requiring justices to have served in the Israeli military you prevent any Arabs from serving on the court. There’s one Arab there who is there for symbolic reasons like Clarence Thomas replacing Thurgood Marshall, and his rulings carry very little weight as a representative of the Arab sector inside Israel.

There was another ruling recently — you mentioned land rights in the West Bank — the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Israel can annex or expropriate Palestinian land in the West Bank to establish quarries and conduct mining that will profit companies that exist inside Israel proper. Another occurrence in the Supreme Court recently was the Arab justice I mentioned refused to stand for Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, because it is an anthem that really is an ode to Jewish nationalism, which does not acknowledge the Arab minority inside Israel. There are now efforts in the Knesset to strip him of his position on the Supreme Court for doing that.

And of course the definition of democracy is not only majority rule, but also protection of minorities.

Tell me about land use. I think this is a poorly understood issue. William Quandt of the University of Virginia said on NPR, “Israel was established as a state for Jews. It has a minority who of course has citizenship rights, but the specific way in which land is owned in Israel is predominately that the Jewish agency purchases land on behalf of the Jewish people, and then leases it out to its Jewish citizens.”
Can you unpack that for me?

This is very complex. To understand apartheid in Israel you have to understand the land laws, which do not specifically refer to Arab or Jew. First of all, Palestinian citizens of Israel are citizens, but they have no national rights. On their ID cards it will identify them as Arab. On an Israeli Jew’s ID card it will identify them as Jewish. There is no Israeli national identity. It’s one of the only countries in the world like that. Palestinians who live inside Israel are unable to lease land because the land is controlled by the Israeli Land Authority, which is itself controlled by the Jewish National Fund.

Through legislation passed by the Knesset the Jewish National Fund controls seven out of the 13 seats on the Israeli Land Authority’s Board, a majority. The Jewish National Fund’s mission, it says it on its Web site, is to provide land for the Jewish people, which means it’s Jews-only land. So the JNF, Jewish National Fund, officially controls only 20 percent of land in Israel, which is some of its best and most arable land. But through its control of the Israeli Land Authority, it actually controls far more.

The state of Israel has not allowed a single Arab town to be established since its foundation. The only Arab towns it has allowed to be created have been to, “concentrate the Bedouin population” after they ethnically cleanse them from their land in the Negev desert, something that the Jewish National Fund is currently doing right now with a village called Al-Araqeeb, a Bedouin village of people who are supposedly citizens of Israel. And their village has been demolished 32 times. I’ve seen it be wiped off the map. They’re planning to build a pine forest funded by an evangelical television station called God TV. In place of the Bedouins they will place small Jewish communities for army veterans who have just had children. The Knesset recently passed a law called the Communities Acceptance Law to kind of consolidate the exclusive nature of these communities. It allows communities of under 500 people in Israel to discriminate on the basis of ethnicity.

That’s a very condensed version of Israeli land law. To say that Palestinian citizens of Israel are second-class citizens really misses the point. They have absolutely no national rights and no property rights.

That’s Max Blumenthal talking to us about the only democracy in the Middle East. Max, thank you so much for joining us, we’re about out of time.

*Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn’t Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America.

For more information on Pastor John Hagee, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and his End of Days theology see
CUFI home website; CUFI in wikipedia; Undercover at CUFI

ISRAEL SAYS ‘NO’ TO IRAN WAR

19 March 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם

http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

IRAN WAR GAME PREDICTS DIRE CONSEQUENCES FOR U.S. FORCES AFTER ISRAELI ATTACK

20 March 2012, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

The NY Times reports that a U.S. military war game simulation found that an Israeli attack on Iran drew a massive U.S. response after a U.S. warship was attacked and sunk by Iranian forces:

The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years.

…Officials said that, under the chain of events in the war game, Iran believed that Israel and the United States were partners in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites and therefore considered American military forces in the Persian Gulf as complicit in the attack. Iranian jets chased Israeli warplanes after the attack, and Iranians launched missiles at an American warship in the Persian Gulf, viewed as an act of war that allowed an American retaliation.

These results are in fundamental accord with a 2010 Israeli war game simulation I reported here and also agree with a report on this subject authored by Anthony Cordesmann. But they fundamentally disagree with the standard narischkeit Jeffrey Goldberg is penning. In a Bloomberg column, he predicts an Israeli war against Iran soon. He quotes this bit of Israeli wishful thinking:

One conclusion key [Israeli] officials have reached is that a strike on six or eight Iranian facilities will not lead, as is generally assumed, to all-out war. This argument holds that the Iranians might choose to cover up an attack, in the manner of the Syrian government when its nuclear facility was destroyed by the Israeli air force in 2007. An Israeli strike wouldn’t focus on densely populated cities, so the Iranian government might be able to control, to some degree, the flow of information about it.

Some Israeli officials believe that Iran’s leaders might choose to play down the insult of a raid and launch a handful of rockets at Tel Aviv as an angry gesture, rather than declare all-out war. I’m not endorsing this view, but I was struck by its optimism.

…Some Israeli security officials also believe that Iran won’t target American ships or installations in the Middle East in retaliation for a strike, as many American officials fear, because the leadership in Tehran understands that American retaliation for an Iranian attack could be so severe as to threaten the regime itself.


It never ceases to amaze me that the putative intelligence mavens of a nation contemplating a war against another country would predicate their plans on the fact that the victim will simply roll over and play dead. On what planet does that happen? Certainly not this one. And don’t anyone dare compare this to Syria because Iran is not Syria. If anyone is foolish enough to believe the Syrian scenario will play out regarding Iran, then they almost deserve the black eye they’ll get after the real response happens.

Study: ISRAEL'S SOCIAL PROTESTS CAUSED DROP IN RACIST INCIDENTS AGAINST ARABS

20 March 2012, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

Coalition against Racism in Israel says last summer's social unrest caused Israel's various ethnic groups to unite against what they said was increased institutional discrimination.

By Jack Khoury

Incidents of racism and intolerance between across Israeli ethnic groups are on the decline, a new report published on Monday concluded.

According to data compiled by the Coalition against Racism in Israel, is composed of Jewish and Arab human rights groups, the number of reported incidences of racism committed by Jewish Israelis against Arab Israelis fell from 91 in 2009 and 68 in 2010 to only 20 in 2011.

Nidal Othman, who heads the coalition, said the drop was directly related to the social protest movement that swept the country last summer, which, he said, created an atmosphere of solidarity between minority groups, including Arabs, Ethiopian Jews and Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent.

On the other hand, the report found an increase in acts of racism by state institutions, businesses, and private and public organizations against the same groups. According to the report, there were 155 such incidents last year, including 35 Knesset bills which aimed to restrict the freedom of Arab citizens of Israel, foreign workers or refugees and some 22 cases of home demolitions, 15 of them in the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev.

The report also noted an escalation in the intensity of attacks against religious groups, largely due to the escalation from mostly verbal slurs to vandalism and arson against houses of worship.

"The government led by Netanyahu is dragging most of the public toward a socially and politically explosive situation, which could lead to minority groups, who are the object of discrimination, taking their frustration to the streets," said Nidal.

"The refusal of landlords to rent apartments to Arabs, the demolition of Arab homes by the government, the segregation of Ethiopian students, the moves to expel [African] refugees, the eviction of homeless people, mostly Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent, from tent camps – could all together lead to a real collective explosion of rage," he added.

The coalition, in partnership with other groups and MKs, is planning to launch a campaign against racism in Israel on Tuesday, under the banner "Racism against all of us, all of us against racism." The campaign opened with a conference on Tuesday and will include demonstrations in front of the Prime Minister's Residence.

The coalition noted that its campaign would represent the first time that all the various groups that suffer from racism in Israel would unite against government discrimination, instead of struggling separately for narrow sectarian grievances.

TOUT EST CALME SUR LE FRONT SUD

18 mars 2012, Association France Palestine Solidarité http://www.france-palestine.org (France)

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי

Cela a com¬mencé par l’assassinat (ou“élimination ciblée”) d’un diri¬geant (“terroriste”), inconnu jusqu’ici, de la résistance palestinienne dans la bande de Gaza.

“Qu’as-tu appris à l’école aujourd’hui, mon fils ?”

“Il n’y avait pas école aujourd’hui. Il y a une situation d’urgence !”

“Et quel enseignement en as-tu retiré, mon fils ?”

EN RÉALITÉ, VRAIMENT beaucoup de choses.

Le “round” de cette semaine, comme aime à le dire l’armée, s’est déroulé suivant un scénario bien établi, aussi for¬malisé qu’un rituel religieux.

Cela a com¬mencé par l’assassinat (ou“élimination ciblée”) d’un diri¬geant (“terroriste”), inconnu jusqu’ici, de la résistance palestinienne dans la bande de Gaza.

Les Palestiniens ont riposté par une pluie de missiles pendant quatre jours entiers. Plus d’un million d’Israéliens dans le voi¬sinage de Gaza ont arrêté le travail pour rester avec leurs enfants près de leurs abris ou de “zones protégées” ( c’est-à-dire rien de plus que des pièces relativement sûres de leurs maisons.) Un million d’Israéliens, c’est l’équivalent d’environ 10 millions d’Allemands ou de 40 mil¬lions d’Américains, rapporté à la population.

Une partie de ces roquettes ont été interceptées en vol par les trois batteries de la défense antimissiles “Dôme de Fer”. Il y a eu quelques blessés israéliens et quelques dégâts matériels mineurs, mais aucun mort israélien.

Des avions israéliens avec et sans pilotes ont frappé, provoquant la mort de 26 Palestiniens dans la bande de Gaza.

Au bout de quatre jours et quatre nuits, les deux parties en ont eu assez, et des médiateurs égyptiens ont obtenu un Tahdiyeh (“calme” en arabe).

Tout cela comme d’habitude.

À L’EXCEPTION des détails, cela va de soi.

Tout a commencé par l’assassinat d’un certain Zuhair al-Qaisi, le secrétaire général des “Comités populaires”. Il remplissait cette fonction depuis seulement quelques mois.
Les “Comités populaires” représentent un groupe mineur de résistance/terrorisme, le troisième en taille dans la Bande. Ils sont éclipsés par le Hamas, qui n’a pas participé à ce round, et par le “Jihad isla¬mique” qui a pris fait et cause pour les “Comités”et lancé la plupart des roquettes.

Le nombre des lancements a été une surprise. Pendant quatre jours, 200 roquettes ont été lancées – une moyenne de 50 par jour. 169 sont tombées en Israël. Il n’y a eu aucun signe d’épuisement du stock du Jihad. Le Hamas, naturellement, est une organisation beaucoup plus importante, disposant d’un arsenal bien plus fourni. Dans la bande de Gaza, on peut estimer qu’il y a actuellement des quantités considérables de missiles, les plus sophistiqués d’entre eux étant pour la plupart fournis par l’Iran. On peut seulement imaginer comment ils ont fait le long parcours.

On peut estimer que dans le Liban Sud sous domination du Hezbollah, les stocks de mis¬siles sont encore plus importants.

De l’autre côté (le nôtre) le Dôme de Fer a remporté un grand succès, source de grande fierté pour le fournisseur, l’armée et le pays de façon générale.

C’est un système complexe, de fabrication israélienne, qui a suscité au départ beaucoup de scepticisme. C’est pour cette raison qu’il n’y a pour le moment que trois batteries en action, chacune protégeant une ville (Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beer Shéva).

Une quatrième batterie est programmée pour une livraison à court terme.

Le système n’intercepte pas toutes les roquettes, ce qui serait excessivement coûteux. Au lieu de cela, le système lui-même calcule si une roquette va tomber en terrain inoccupé (et peut être négligée) ou dans une zone habitée (lorsque l’intercepteur serait lancé), tout cela en quelques secondes. En conséquence, plus de 70% des roquettes ont été interceptées et détruites, une grande réussite de l’avis général.

Le problème, c’est qu’une roquette palestinienne coûte seulement quelques centaines de shekels, alors qu’un seul missile de Dôme d’Acier coûte 315 mille shekels. Pendant les quatre jours, 17,6 millions de shekels ont été dépensés par Israël pour ces missiles. Cela sans compter le prix très élevé des batteries elles-mêmes.

Les sorties de l’armée de l’air sur la bande de Gaza coûtent encore plusieurs dizaines de millions de shekels – une heure de vol coûte quelques 100 mille shekels (presque 18.000 euros).

La première question à se poser était donc : l’ensemble de l’exercice en valait-il la peine ?

Les Israéliens se posent rarement de telles questions. Ils pensent que ceux qui sont aux affaires savent ce qu’ils font.

Mais le savent-ils ?

Tout repose sur la nécessité de tuer al-Qaisi, même pour ceux qui croient que de telles exécutions représentent une solution.

Al-Qaisi n’occupait la fonction de dirigeant des “Comités Populaires” que depuis l’assassinat de son prédécesseur dans des circonstances semblables. On lui trouvera facilement un remplaçant. Il sera meilleur ou pire, mais cela ne fera guère de différence.

Le ministre de la Défense, Ehoud Barak, a fourni une explication étrangement alam¬biquée à l’assassinat : (al-Qaisi) était l’un des chefs des Comités Populaires qui préparaient, semble-t-il, une importante attaque. Je ne suis pas encore en mesure de dire si cette attaque a été évitée.” Il le semble. Je ne suis pas capable de le dire.

On a dit officieusement qu’al-Qaisi aurait pu être impliqué dans l’envoi d’un groupe de militants de Gaza vers le Sinaï égyptien, pour attaquer à partir de là le territoire israélien. L’année dernière, il y a eu une attaque de ce genre près d’Eilat, entrainant la mort de plusieurs Israéliens. Le prédécesseur d’al-Qaisi en fut accusé et tué avant tout début d’enquête.

Alors, fallait-il, sur de telles bases, mettre en danger la vie de tant de gens, d’envoyer un million de personnes aux abris et de dépenser des dizaines de millions de shekels.

Je suppose qu’al-Qaisi a été tué parce qu’une occasion de le faire s’est présentée - comme un renseignement sur ses déplacements.

QUI A PRIS la décision ?

Les assassinats ciblés sont basés sur infor¬mation reçue du Shabak (ou Shin Bet). En pratique, c’est ce service de sécurité qui prend la décision de tuer des gens – chargé en même temps de recueillir l’information, de la contrôler et de l’évaluer. Il n’y a pas d’analyse indépendante de l’information, pas de critique, pas de procédure judiciaire d’aucune sorte. Mettre en question le Shabak revient presque à une trahison, aucun homme politique et aucun journaliste ne s’y risquerait, même s’il y était enclin – ce qui n’est pas le cas.

Lorsque le Shabak a pris la décision de tuer quelqu’un, l’affaire est confiée à un groupe restreint d’hommes : le Premier ministre, le ministre de la Défense, le Chef d’état-major de l’armée et peut-être l’officier chargé de diriger l’opération. Personne n’ayant un point de vue indépendant.

Est-ce que l’une quelconque de ces personnes a posé les questions pertinentes ? J’en doute.

Par exemple : Benjamin Nétanyahou s’enorgueillit de son énorme succès en Amérique, et même dans l’ensemble du monde : il a fait en sorte que tout le monde se montre profondément préoccupé par la bombe nucléaire iranienne (qui n’existe pas encore). La question palestinienne a été complètement rayée de la carte. Et voici qu’il engage un nouveau round de combat pour rappeler partout aux gens que la question palestinienne est toujours là de façon active, et qu’elle peut exploser à tout moment. Cela a-t-il du sens, même du point de vue d’un Nétanyahou ou d’un Barak ?

UN AUTRE aspect politique intéressant de ce “round” a été le rôle qu’y a joué le Hamas, ou plutôt qu’il n’y a pas joué.

Le Hamas gou¬verne la bande de Gaza. Le gouvernement israélien ne reconnait pas officiellement ce gouvernement, mais d’une certaine façon il tient encore le Hamas pour responsable de tout ce qui se produit dans la Bande, que le Hamas y soit impliqué ou pas.

Jusqu’à présent le Hamas a engagé le combat à chaque fois qu’Israël a attaqué des objectifs à Gaza. Cette fois, il est resté en dehors du conflit, et il a même insisté sur ce fait dans des interview télépho¬niques sur la télévision israélienne.

Pourquoi ? Le Hamas est étroitement lié aux Frères Musulmans qui dominent en ce moment le parlement égyptien. Il est soumis à des pressions pour constituer en Palestine un gouvernement d’unité avec le Fatah et pour rejoindre l’OLP. En prenant part à la lutte armée contre Israël en ce moment il aurait compromis la chose. D’autant plus que le Jihad Islamique a des liens étroits avec l’Iran, le rival de l’Égypte et de l’Arabie Saoudite.

LES CORRESPONDANTS DE LA TÉLÉVISION ISRAÉLIENNE ont l’habitude insupportable de conclure leurs reportages par une phrase désespé¬rément banale. Par exemple un reportage sur un accident de la route va presqu’invariablement se terminer par les mots : “… et il (ou elle) ne demandait qu’à rentrer chez lui (ou elle) sans accident.”

Cette semaine, presque tous les derniers rapports sur le gâchis dans le sud se terminaient par ces mots : “Le calme est revenu dans le sud – jusqu’à la prochaine fois !”

Tout le monde estime que “la prochaine fois” les roquettes qui viendront de Gaza auront une plus grande portée et qu’ils atteindront peut-être les fau¬bourgs de Tel Aviv, et tout le monde en Israël espère que le Dôme d’Acier va devenir encore plus efficace.

D’ici là, tout est calme sur le front sud.

[Traduit de l’anglais « All Quiet on the Southern Front » pour l’AFPS : FL]

Netanyahu's newspaper supports attack on Iran

17 March 2012, The Israeli Communist Party המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית‎ (Israel)
info@maki.org.il

In an uncommon front-page, top-headline editorial, Amos Regev, the editor of daily "Israel Hayom" (Israel today), discusses the decision regarding an Israel military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Regev, a member of Binyamin Netanyahu’s inner circle between his two terms as Prime Minister, attacks those speaking against the war, and concludes that “Yes, it’s possible to attack – and to succeed.”

"Israel Hayom", launched in 2007 by international casino American and Republican billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, is known for its deep commitment to supporting Prime Minister Netanyahu. The paper – now the most widely read daily in Israel – is distributed for free; lately, it was revealed the paper’s senior political analyst is also employed for advising and speech writing at the Prime Minister Office.

"Difficult, daring, possible." Headline of Israel Hayom calling for attack on Iran, March 15, 2012.

Regev claims that comparing the Iranian threat to the Holocaust is both historically and politically correct: “comparing the Nazis to Tehran? Absolutely. For one simple reason – it’s true,” writes Regev,. The final paragraph states again: “With or without the Americans, it [an attack on Iran] would be difficult. It would be daring. But it’s possible.”

NETANYAHU IS PREPARING ISRAELI PUBLIC OPINION FOR A WAR ON IRAN

15 March 2012, Haaretz הארץ (Israel)

In response to Netanyahu's AIPAC speech, Haaretz's editor-in-chief says that what looks like a preparation for war, acts like a preparation for war, and quacks like a preparation for war, is a preparation for war.

By Aluf Benn

Since his return from Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mainly been preoccupied with one thing: Preparing public opinion for war against Iran.

Netanyahu is attempting to convince the Israeli public that the Iranian threat is a tangible and existential one, and that there is only one effective way to stop it and prevent a "second Holocaust": An Israeli military attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, which is buried deep underground.

In his speech before the Knesset on Wednesday, Netanyahu urged his colleagues to reject claims that Israel is too weak to go it alone in a war against a regional power such as Iran and therefore needs to rely on the United States, which has much greater military capabilities, to do the job and remove the threat.

According to polls published last week, this is the position of most of the Israeli public, which supports a U.S. strike on Iran, but is wary of sending the IDF to the task without the backing of the friendly superpower.

Netanyahu presented three examples in which his predecessors broke the American directive and made crucial decisions regarding the future of Israel: the declaration of independence in 1948, starting the Six Day War in 1967 and the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981.

The lesson was clear: Just as David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol and Menachem Begin said "no" to the White House, Netanyahu also needs not be alarmed by President Obama's opposition to an attack on Iran. Netanyahu believes that, as in the previous incidents, the U.S. may grumble at first, but will then quickly adopt the Israeli position and provide Israel with support and backing in the international community.

If Netanyahu had submitted his speech as a term paper to his father the history professor, he would have received a very poor grade. In 1948, the U.S. State Department, headed by George Marshall, opposed the declaration of independence and supported a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine. But President Truman had other considerations.

Like Obama today, Truman was also a democratic president contending for his reelection, who needed the support of the Jewish voters and donors. Under those circumstances, Truman rejected Marshall's advice, and listened to his political adviser Clark Clifford, who pressured him to recognize the Zionist state. And indeed, Truman sent a telegram with an official recognition of Israel just 11 minutes after Ben-Gurion finished reading the Scroll of Independence. The U.S. opposition to the recognition of Israel was halted at the desk of the president, who repelled the explanations by the Secretary of State and the "Arabists" in his office.

In 1967, the official U.S. position called on Israel to hold back and refrain from going to war, but a different message was passing through the secret channels: go "bomb Nasser," reported Levi Eshkol's envoys to Washington, Meir Amit and Avraham Harman. This message tipped the scales in favor of going to war. In 1981, Begin did not bother asking the Americans their opinion before attacking Iraq, but lulled them to sleep and launched a surprise attack.

In these past incidents, Israel acted against the U.S. position formally, but made sure that the Americans will accept the results of the action and support it in retrospect. And indeed, the U.S. recognized Israel in 1948, allowed it to control the territories annexed in 1967, and made do with weak condemnations of the attack on the Iraq nuclear reactor in 1981.

That being the case, then Netanyahu is hinting that in his Washington visit, he received Obama's tacit approval for an Israeli attack against Iran – under the guise of opposition. Obama will speak out against it but act for it, just as the past U.S. administrations speak against the settlements in the territories but allow their expansion. And in this manner Netanyahu summarized the visit: "I presented before my hosts the examples that I just noted before you, and I believe that the first objective that I presented – to fortify the recognition of Israel's right to defend itself – I think that objective has been achieved."

This morning, the editor-in-chief of the Israel Hayom newspaper, Amos Regev, published on his front page an enthusiastic op-ed in support of a war against Iran. Regev writes what Netanyahu cannot say in his speeches: that we cannot rely on Obama – who wasn't even a mechanic in the armored corps - but only on ourselves. "Difficult, daring, but possible," Regev promised. We need not be alarmed by the Iranian response: the arrow would take down the Shahab missiles, and Hezbollah and Hamas would hesitate about entering a war. The damage would be reminiscent of the Iraqi scuds in the 1991 Gulf War - unpleasant, but definitely not too bad. The analysts are weak, but the soldiers and the residents of the Home Front have motivation. So onward, to battle!

To use Netanyahu's "duck allegory", what looks like a preparation for war, acts like a preparation for war, and quacks like a preparation for war, is a preparation for war, and not just a "bluff" or a diversion tactic. Until his trip to Washington, Netanyahu and his supporters in the media refrained from such explicit wording and made do with hints. But since he's been back, Netanyahu has issued an emergency call-up for himself and the Israeli public.

More on this topic
Netanyahu: Gaza violence shows Israel cannot afford to be lax on Iran nuclear threat
Obama: Window for diplomatic solution to Iran nuclear standoff is 'shrinking'