For the life of me, I'm trying to understand what Israel had to gain in this "prisoner exchange." To be a prisoner exchange, don't all the parties in question have to still be alive? It was really a remains exchange where Israel has to turn over a breathing, living terrorist to boot.

ROSH HANIKRA, Israel (CNN) -- Israeli forensic experts have begun trying to identify the remains of what are believed to be two captured Israeli soldiers, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Hezbollah officials handed over two black coffins to Red Cross officials, who will carry them over the border to Israel.

If forensics experts determine that the remains are those of Staff Sgt. Ehud Goldwasser and Sgt. First Class Eldad Regev, Israel will turn over to Hezbollah five Lebanese prisoners -- including convicted murderer Samir Kuntar, whom many Israelis consider the embodiment of evil.

Israel is also returning the remains of 199 fighters from Lebanon who Israel says were killed in clashes over the years. Nineteen coffins were being transferred onto Red Cross trucks and sent to the Lebanese side, the Israeli military said.

The forensic determination is expected to take several hours.

The Israel Defense Forces said it would not comment on the transfer until it was complete.

"The IDF has yet to complete the process of identifying the soldiers' remains and will therefore make no comments about the process conclusions until those are completed and the families of the soldiers are notified," it said in a statement. Watch as coffins are delivered »

The transfer began shortly before 10 a.m. Israel time (3 a.m. ET) at the Rosh Hanikra crossing in western Galilee, which the army had declared a closed military zone a day earlier.

The swap caps a tireless campaign by the soldiers' families to bring them home. It also ends decades of resistance by the Israeli government, which wanted to use Kuntar as a bargaining chip to obtain information about a missing airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986.

The Shiite militia Hezbollah cast the swap as a victory for all Lebanese, with one official calling it "an official admission of defeat."

...A member of the Palestine Liberation Front, Kuntar led a group of four men who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat in 1979. They killed a police officer who came across them. Then they took a 28-year-old man and his 4-year-old daughter hostage.

Kuntar shot the father dead at close range in front of his daughter and tossed his body in the sea. He then smashed the girl's head, killing her, too. In addition, a 2-year-old girl from the same family suffocated as her mother tried to stop her from crying while they hid during the violence.

Kuntar was sentenced to 542 years in prison.

...A day before the transfer, Goldwasser's father, Shlomo, held out hope about his son's fate.

"They were kidnapped alive. [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nassrallah swears on it the first day that he announced to the world he kidnapped two soldiers alive," the father said. "If tomorrow he brings them in coffins, it means that he killed them -- his words. It means that they killed them, and if he killed them I am waiting for him to be punished."
The poor father. This is a just exchange? Hezbollah is absolutely correct, this is in fact a victory for them.

Labels: Hezbollah, Israel

Shakespeare once wrote, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." Protesting too much is exactly what faux-outraged Democrats are doing in response to a speech in which President Bush told the Israeli Knesset that, "We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to it's destruction." He referenced Neville Chamberlain, and that appeasement never worked with Nazis. That's it.

What's fascinating in all this is that Bush (1) made no mention of Barack Obama or any Democrat, and (2) simply repeated what American presidents have been saying about our Israeli relationship since Harry Truman more than 60 years ago.

That Democrats are so oddly defensive when no attack was made simply underscores that they are as weak in the face of autocracies from Burma to China to North Korea to Tehran as everyone suspects.

Labels: 2008, democrats, foreign policy, Israel, Obama, war on terror

Here's a stop-what-your-doing-and-read-this-now great editorial by Bret Stephens on Jimmy Carter's moral bankruptcy:

Former President Jimmy Carter has an interesting way of saying more than he intends. He lusts in his heart. He turns to his 13-year-old daughter for foreign policy wisdom. He titles a book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." What Mr. Carter means to say is that he is a flesh-and-blood human being, a caring father, a missionary for peace. What he actually communicates is that he is weirdly libidinal, scarily naive and obsessively hostile to Israel.

Now the 2002 Nobel laureate is in reprise mode. "In a democracy, I realize you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels," he said over the weekend, responding to a question from an Israeli journalist who noted that Mr. Carter had been snubbed by most of Israel's top leadership and reprimanded by its president, Shimon Peres. "When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people."

Come again?

Mr. Carter is on a tour of the Middle East, the most newsworthy aspect of which is a scheduled meeting in Damascus with Khaled Mashal, the head of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. More on that below. For now, ponder what he could possibly have meant by this statement. On a charitable view, what Mr. Carter had in mind is that in a democracy it is the people who ultimately make the policy, whereas in a dictatorship it is only the dictator's opinion that counts. Or as W.H. Auden put it, "Only the man behind the rifle [has] free will."

That's not quite what Mr. Carter said, however. He said the dictator "speaks" for "all" the people, just as the people in a democracy speak for themselves. Taken at face value, this is a reflection of every dictator's conceit: that his will is also the general will, whether the people agree with him or not. This is what Fidel Castro meant when he praised Cuba's elections, in which only the Communist Party is on the ballot, as "the most democratic in the world." Perhaps Mr. Carter has harbored similar views about the relative merits of his opinion versus the people's since he was turned out of high office by 44 states.

Yet a dictator does not speak for the people. Properly speaking, a dictator speaks for none of the people. A dictator speaks only for himself, while "the people" are transformed, through force and fear, into an abstraction, an instrument, a rhetorical trope. On the contrary, it is only in a democracy where the government can morally and lawfully be said to speak for the people, since it was morally and lawfully chosen by the people to speak for them. Which means that Mr. Carter has matters precisely backwards: It is in democracies such as Israel where the views of the leadership matter most, and in dictatorships such as Syria where they matter least.

Besides Israel, Mr. Carter's trip will take him to the West Bank, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. What would the logic suggested above mean in terms of his choice of interlocutors?

- In Egypt, Mr. Carter could give an address at the newly established Middle East Freedom Forum. He could call for the immediate release of George Ishak, a lawyer and democracy activist who helps coordinate the liberal Kifaya ("Enough") movement and was arrested by security forces last Wednesday. He could pay a call to journalist Gameela Ismael, the wife of Ayman Nour. Mr. Nour, who contested the 2005 election against President Hosni Mubarak and took 8% of the vote, has spent the past two years in prison on trumped-up charges of electoral fraud.

- In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Carter could raise the case of Fawza Falih, an illiterate woman who was convicted of "witchcraft" and sentenced to death on charges that she used sorcery to render a man impotent. He might also seek out the now famous "Qatif Girl," the woman who was gang-raped by seven men and, as a result of her "crime," sentenced to 200 lashes.

- In Jordan, Mr. Carter might find time for Jihad Momani, editor of the weekly "Shihan," who in 2006 was arrested for reprinting the Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. "Muslims of the world be reasonable," he wrote in an editorial that ran alongside the cartoons. "What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

- With the Palestinians, Mr. Carter could denounce the Hamas-operated Al Aqsa TV, whose programming includes a Sesame Street-like show that urges its young viewers to "get rid of the Jews."

- In Syria, Mr. Carter could ask to meet with representatives of the National Council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change. A dozen leaders of this pro-democracy umbrella group were arrested in December on charges of "spreading false or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country"; Human Rights Watch charges that at least eight of the men signed false confessions under torture.

Will Mr. Carter do any of this? The odds are long. Instead, he will meet with Mr. Mashal, author of the murder of several hundred Israeli civilians and not a few Americans, too. On a visit yesterday to Sderot, the besieged Israeli town near Gaza, the former president denounced the "despicable crime" of Hamas's incessant rocket attacks of the past several years. Yet he continues to defend the view that all relevant parties, including Hamas, must be partners in a negotiation to bring about a peaceful settlement.

Hamas, it is true, fairly won a parliamentary election in January 2006. It is also true that nobody elected Mr. Mashal to his position, that he is another of Auden's men behind the rifle, and that Hamas has never accepted the Oslo Accords that are the legal basis of the Authority they seek to govern, much like other totalitarian parties of yore that participated opportunistically in a democratic process – cf. Weimar Republic. They do not seek an entente with the Jewish state but its elimination. In meeting with a former U.S. president, they seek to burnish their reputations as legitimate Mideast players, not outlaws. Perhaps Mr. Carter knows this, or perhaps he doesn't. Whichever the case, his actions bespeak more than he intends.

Labels: carter, Israel

The reported killing of master-terrorist Imad Mugniyah is a very big deal -- much bigger than being reported -- even bigger than the capture of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Mohammed.

Mugniyah was one of the torch bearers for the original fathers of Islamic terrorism, was fully supported by the Iranian government, and had a web of connections to other terror masters including Osama bin Laden (as early as 1994, showing OBL the ropes a bit).

That last bit is of course being completely downplayed by our media.

You remember that film Syriana - the lead character George Clooney played was Bob Baer, a CIA agent who became obsessed with Mugniyah and the embassy/barracks bombing in Lebanon (his book, See No Evil, cited by the movie as its basis disappointingly had nothing to do with the movie [instead was an anti-oil screed].) Anyway, Baer called him "the master terrorist, the grail that we have been after since 1983."

Israel's denying the hit on "the grail." I hope that means our SpecOps got him. Be nice to have some confidence in our spy abilities -- for a change.

Thomas Joscelyn summarizes what he likewise notes is the lack of coverage on Mugniyah's connections to al Qaeda:

But here is something that none of the press accounts I've read today have reported: Imad Mugniyah played an instrumental role in al Qaeda's rise. I detailed Mugniyah's role in al Qaeda's terror in Iran's Proxy War Against America, a short book published by the Claremont Institute last year. I won't go into all of the details again in this post, but here is a quick summary of the relationship:

• Mugniyah met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan in the early 1990's. The two agreed to work together against their common enemies, including America. Al Qaeda operatives were then trained by Mugniyah and other Hezbollah trainers, as well as Iranian personnel, in Sudan, Lebanon, and Iran. Both the Clinton administration, in its first two indictments of al Qaeda and bin Laden, and the 9/11 Commission found significant evidence of this early collaboration.

• According to Bob Baer, a long-time CIA operative who tracked Mugniyah for years, one of Mugniyah's goons facilitated the travel of an al Qaeda operative en route to the November 19, 1995, bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. The bombing was among al Qaeda's earliest operations.

• There is no real doubt that Iran and Mugniyah's Hezbollah were primarily responsible for the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. But the 9/11 Commission also found evidence that al Qaeda may have played some role. Intelligence indicates that al Qaeda was planning a similar operation in the months prior. And afterwards, in telephone conversations that were evidently intercepted, Osama bin Laden received congratulations from his fellow terrorists, including Ayman al Zawahiri.

• Al Qaeda's August 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were modeled after Mugniyah's bombings in Lebanon in 1983. According to the 9/11 Commission, bin Laden asked Mugniyah for help in executing such attacks and Mugniyah agreed to provide his assistance. Thereafter, al Qaeda adopted Hezbollah's modus operandi: simultaneous attacks by suicide bombers. Al Qaeda's August 7, 1998, bombings directly mirrored Hezbollah's simultaneous strike against the U.S. Marine barracks and a headquarters for French paratroopers on October 23, 1983. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that some of the terrorists responsible for the embassy bombings were trained by Hezbollah. This is a crucial point: al Qaeda's most successful attack prior to 9/11--the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings--was modeled after Hezbollah's operations.

• After the 9/11 attacks, Bob Baer immediately suspected that Mugniyah and his masters had played some role. (I also discussed this in a previous article, "Sy Hersh's Overactive Imagination".) Amazingly, the 9/11 Commission found that senior Hezbollah operatives were aware of and facilitated the travel of many of the 9/11 hijackers. This evidence was so "disturbing" that the Commission called for a further investigation into the matter. Although he was not named by the Commission directly, Mugniyah was reportedly one of the senior Hezbollah terrorists involved.

• There are reports, although unconfirmed, that Mugniyah may have helped senior al Qaeda operatives flee Afghanistan in late 2001.

There is much more to this story, which can be found in my short book on the topic: Iran's Proxy War Against America.

Labels: al qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, terrorism

With 10 percent unemployment and 19 percent inflation there's no doubt that Ahmadinejad's blatant threats are devised in part to deflect Iranian scrutiny away from his failed domestic policies. Even so, there's nothing he's saying here that the Ayatollah -- the ultimate power in Iran -- disagrees with.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the West Wednesday to acknowledge Israel's "imminent collapse."

Speaking to a crowd on a visit to the southern port of Bushehr, where Iran's first light-water nuclear power plant is being built by Russia, Ahmadinejad further incited his listeners to "stop supporting the Zionists, as [their] regime reached its final stage."

"Accept that the life of Zionists will sooner or later come to an end," the Iranian president said in a televised speech.

He added, "What we have right now is the last chapter [of Israeli atrocities] which the Palestinians and regional nations will confront and eventually turn in Palestine's favor."

Iran does not acknowledge Israel and Ahmadinejad has in the past sparked international outcry by referring to the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War II as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Iran is currently also mediating in the crisis over the Gaza Strip, where Israel has imposed a blockade on border crossings into the coastal territory, barring the entry of supplies into the already impoverished area. Last week, Palestinian militants blew holes in the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, prompting hundreds of thousands of Gazans to pour into Egypt in search of supplies.

Ahmadinejad also urged the Western powers to help build nuclear power plants in his country saying it will be too late if they do not decide to do so immediately.

"If you will not come, this nation will build nuclear plants based on its own resources and when you come some four years later it will reject your request and not then give you any opportunity," he said.

"I am addressing leaders of two or three powers; do you remember I sent you message and told you to stop be stubborn? If you think that you can block the movement of Iranian nation, you are wrong," the Iranian president continued.

Labels: Iran, Israel, war on terror

[Front Page Magazine] Charles Enderlin is the France 2 Jerusalem correspondent who broadcast the incendiary account of the death of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura at the hands of Israeli troops operating in the Gaza Strip in September 2000. Based on film footage provided by a Palestinian cameraman, Enderlin's report has become infamous among students of Arab propaganda both for its destructive effects and for its probable falsity. The al-Dura affair now bids to join the Dreyfus affair in the French hall of shame.

Flogging his new book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (The Lost Years) at Harvard's Center for European Studies on January 17, Enderlin himself exposed a probable Palestinian media hoax in which he had no involvement. The story exposed by Enderlin involved widely circulated reports by the Associated Press, Reuters, and the BBC. As Joel Pollak recounted online at the site Guide to the Perplexed, Enderlin told his Harvard audience "that Yasser Arafat had faked his blood donation to the victims of the September 11th attacks. Enderlin said the event had been staged for the media to counteract the embarrassing television images of Palestinians celebrating in the streets after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks."

The story of Arafat's blood donation was reported around the world in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, usually accompanied by photographs depicting Arafat in the apparent act of giving blood at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Enderlin elaborated on his contention that the scene depicted in the photographs was staged. According to Pollak's account of Enderlin's remarks, "Arafat didn't like needles, and so the doctor put a needle near his arm and agitated a bag of blood. The reporters took the requisite photographs."
The BBC, Reuters and AP, apparently all willing participants in deceiving their readers and viewers. Who will watchdog the so-called "watchdogs"? Thank heavens for the Internet is all I can say.

Labels: Israel, Journalism scandals, media bias, palestinians, war on terror

Is it 1981 all over again? Might the Israeli bombing of a Syrian nuclear facility last month have had something to do with Iran's "cooperation" in Iraq?

BAGHDAD - Iran appears to be honoring an informal pledge to halt the smuggling of explosives and other weapons into Iraq, contributing to a drop of bombings by nearly a half since March, a senior US general said yesterday.

"We have not seen any recent evidence that weapons continue to come across the border into Iraq," Major General James Simmons said. "We believe that the initiatives and the commitments that the Iranians have made appear to be holding up."
Some other factors could include the US bipartisan measure to label Iran's Al Quds Revolutionary Guards force as a terrorist group.

But resource drains in a cold war, which is what we're in with Iran, works both ways. Perhaps the bottom line is that Petraeus' surge has worked enough to dissuade Iran from pouring resources into fighting Iraq. Iran's economy isn't exactly rocking right now. They have their own problems rationing gasoline and keeping their population in line. It's harder for autocracies to stay stable then it is for democracies. It requires far more resources and energy. Maybe Iran's meddling in Iraq has peaked.

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Israel, Petraeus, proliferation, syria

[Wall Street Journal] The problem: For seven years, Palestinian movements within the West Bank have been tightly restricted by a shifting, maze-like network of Israeli military checkpoints, barricades and permit requirements. This gauntlet, growing in size and severity over the past two years, keeps away most of Mr. Nazal's customers, the farmers who plant his trees and then harvest the olives, nuts and other fruits they yield.

Israeli defense officials say the travel restrictions are vital for securing their citizens against terrorism. But the barriers also are choking the Palestinian economy, creating what the World Bank calls "a shattered economic space" of 10 separate enclaves. Per-capita GDP has fallen 40% for Palestinians since 2000. Economists largely blame the plunge on the restrictions and a loss of Palestinian employment in Israel.
Come again? Isn't this like saying that the US government is to blame for the misery of the Mexican people and economy because it won't allow enough of them to work in the US (which certainly isn't true)? No, the Mexican economy is awful because the Mexican government is incompetent, corrupt, and too socialist.

Likewise, if the Palestinian people are suffering it's because its governing forces are incompetent, corrupt and/or committed to Islamic extremism and terrorism.

That "since 2000" comment above is also critical to this "problem." In 2000 the Palestinian economy was much better. Better, that is, until Yassir Arafat declared a "second Intifada" against Israel even though then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon offered to meet the vast majority of Arafat's demands. You'll recall that Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright and Dennis Ross were each dumbstruck by Arafat's refusal to an offer all were sure he'd accept.

Labels: Israel, media bias, palestinians

Technology is a blessing, but unfortunately, also for those who wish us harm:

Palestinian militants are using Google Earth to help plan their attacks on the Israeli military and other targets, the Guardian has learned.

Members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group aligned with the Fatah political party, say they use the popular Internet mapping tool to help determine their targets for rocket strikes.

"We obtain the details from Google Earth and check them against our maps of the city centre and sensitive areas," Khaled Jaabari, the group's commander in Gaza who is known as Abu Walid, told the Guardian.

And if the least technical and funded terrorist groups can do it...

Here's something you may not know, I forgot until only recently reminded from the 9-11 Commission Report: Ziad Jarrah purchased a portable GPS in Miami, and Mohammed Atta purchased three more, possibly even visiting the WTC on September 10, 2001, for a final reading.

Cheap technology (and a little imagination) goes a long way to killing thousands, which is why it's so very important we use our advantages in hi-tech surveillance, intelligence and interrogation methods, and not hamstring the police and agents trying to stop those who would kill us.

It's why I personally get so frustrated when I read about some foolish (good intended or not) politico attempting to turn the US Constitution into a suicide pact.

Labels: intelligence, interrogation, Israel, palestinians, surveillance, terrorism, TSP, war on terror, wiretap

It was the shot seen round the world -- propagated endlessly throughout the world media, images of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura being shot by Israeli Defense Forces during a firefight with Palestinian terrorists. It added fuel to the already hot Second Intifada of 2000, instigated when Yassir Arafat decided to decline Israel's historic 99 percent consessional deal and make war via terror instead. And, just like 1840 Damascus Blood Libel, the supposed Der Yassin massacre of 1948, Oslo Peace Accords of 1994, or the so-called Jenin massacre in 2002, it was a total fabrication by Arab government and media.

And now, finally, a French court - of all things! - might expose the truth and hold the liars accountable. Here's Natan Sharansky:

Shortly following the al-Dura incident, however, a series of inquiries cast grave doubt on the accuracy of the original France 2 report. The official IDF investigation concluded that, based on the position of IDF forces vis-à-vis the Duras, it was highly improbable, if not impossible, that an Israeli bullet hit the boy. Research by The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and Commentary magazine concurred. Then a German documentary revealed inconsistencies and probable manipulations in the account of France 2's lone journalist on the scene that day, Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahmeh.

And yet France 2 refused to release Abu Rahmeh's full 27 minutes of raw footage. It did, however, agree to let three prominent French journalists view the footage. All three concluded that it comprised blatantly staged scenes of Palestinians being shot by Israeli forces, and that France 2's Jerusalem Bureau Chief Charles Enderlin had lied to conceal that fact.

...Tragically, there is no way to repair the damage inflicted on Israel's international image by the France 2 report, much less restore the Israeli and Jewish victims whose lives were exacted as vengeance. It is possible, however, to deter slanderous news reporting--and the violence that often accompanies it--by setting a precedent for media accountability via the handover of Talal Abu Rahmeh's full 27 minutes of raw footage. Encouragingly, the judge presiding over Mr. Karsenty's appeal has now requested the tapes. France 2 must make a full public disclosure. If there is nothing to hide, why should it refuse?
Indeed.

Labels: Israel, media bias, palestinians, terrorism

Once more, a Western liberal is blinded by their concepts of diversity and multiculturalism and thus assume that all cultures are motivated by the same rewards...

ATLANTA (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that it was almost inconceivable that Iran would "commit suicide" by launching missiles at Israel.
Speaking at Emory University, Carter, who brokered the 1979 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt, said Israel's superior military power and distance from Iran likely are enough to discourage an actual attack.

"Iran is quite distant from Israel," said Carter, 83. "I think it would be almost inconceivable that Iran would commit suicide by launching one or two missiles of any kind against the nation of Israel."
Carter speaks of "suicide" as though Islamic fundamentalists consider it a bad thing. But this is horribly basic misunderstanding of Islamic fundamentalists -- the very opposite is true!

For the Islamic radical there is no greater glory then giving one's life to destroy one's enemy. That which Carter terms "suicide" the Islamic fundamentalist calls "shaheed." Shaheed for the individual means personal glory in heaven, with 72 virgins and the gift of salvation for up to 70 family members (see the Shoebat quote below).

The belief of martyrdom through suicide killings is both powerful and deep, taught to the offspring when they are very young. Islamic fundamentalist rulers champion it, the parents and educators teach it, the television and media constantly propagate it.

Even if just one percent of one billion muslims are fundamentalists, and the remaining 99 percent moderate, you're still talking about 10 million Islamic radicals who believe in suicide-murder as a means to acheive eternal paradise -- and just around 25 of them killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 using ingeniuity and deception as their weapons. Imagine what they will accomplish should they attain more tangible weapons, like nuclear power.

So it matters not that many or even most of the 71 million persons in Iran are not true believers. It only matters that the ones in charge - 12 mullahs lead by the Ayatollah, and a hand-picked "president" with military control - are.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Delusional Democrats, Iran, Islamic extremism, Israel, Moonbats, proliferation

You gotta admire the Israelis. They identify a threat and they act.

They don't cry to the U.N. They don't demand sanctions. They don't ask for permission from the Security Council. They don't try to triangulate France or China. They don't wring their hands and wonder if a potential response might not poll well with the "world community." They don't subscribe to John Kerry's "world test." They act.

After 5 months of surveillance, they identify that the terrorist-sponsoring, Lebanon-occupying, illiberal regime of Syria is importing nuclear material from North Korea... and they bomb that site.

What is Syria going to do? Conventionally attack Israel? Fat chance. Perhaps attack them by proxy via Hezbollah or another terrorist group? Well, they do that anyway, so for Israel, what's the difference? Won't the world villify them, call them war-mongers? Again, that already occurs anyway. So Israel loses nothing. The difference is that if you're going to be smeared for protecting your country, you better damn sure protect your country.

[UK Times] Results are forthcoming." The official story that the target comprised weapons destined for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite group, appeared to be crumbling in the face of widespread scepticism.

Andrew Semmel, a senior US State Department official, said Syria might have obtained nuclear equipment from "secret suppliers", and added that there were a "number of foreign technicians" in the country.

Asked if they could be North Korean, he replied: "There are North Korean people there. There's no question about that." He said a network run by AQ Khan, the disgraced creator of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, could be involved.

But why would nuclear material be in Syria? Known to have chemical weapons, was it seeking to bolster its arsenal with something even more deadly?

Alternatively, could it be hiding equipment for North Korea, enabling Kim Jong-il to pretend to be giving up his nuclear programme in exchange for economic aid? Or was the material bound for Iran, as some authorities in America suggest?

According to Israeli sources, preparations for the attack had been going on since late spring, when Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, presented Olmert with evidence that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear device from North Korea.

The Israeli spy chief apparently feared such a device could eventually be installed on North-Korean-made Scud-C missiles.

"This was supposed to be a devastating Syrian surprise for Israel," said an Israeli source. "We've known for a long time that Syria has deadly chemical warheads on its Scuds, but Israel can't live with a nuclear warhead."

An expert on the Middle East, who has spoken to Israeli participants in the raid, told yesterday's Washington Post that the timing of the raid on September 6 appeared to be linked to the arrival three days earlier of a ship carrying North Korean material labelled as cement but suspected of concealing nuclear equipment.

The target was identified as a northern Syrian facility that purported to be an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates river. Israel had been monitoring it for some time, concerned that it was being used to extract uranium from phosphates.

According to an Israeli air force source, the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was diverted from Iran to Syria. It sent out high-quality images of a northeastern area every 90 minutes, making it easy for air force specialists to spot the facility.

Early in the summer Ehud Barak, the defence minister, had given the order to double Israeli forces on its Golan Heights border with Syria in anticipation of possible retaliation by Damascus in the event of air strikes.

Sergei Kirpichenko, the Russian ambassador to Syria, warned President Bashar al-Assad last month that Israel was planning an attack, but suggested the target was the Golan Heights.

Israeli military intelligence sources claim Syrian special forces moved towards the Israeli outpost of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights. Tension rose, but nobody knew why.

At this point, Barak feared events could spiral out of control. The decision was taken to reduce the number of Israeli troops on the Golan Heights and tell Damascus the tension was over. Syria relaxed its guard shortly before the Israeli Defence Forces struck.

Only three Israeli cabinet ministers are said to have been in the know: Olmert, Barak and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister. America was also consulted. According to Israeli sources, American air force codes were given to the Israeli air force attaché in Washington to ensure Israel's F15Is would not mistakenly attack their US counterparts.

Once the mission was under way, Israel imposed draconian military censorship and no news of the operation emerged until Syria complained that Israeli aircraft had violated its airspace. Syria claimed its air defences had engaged the planes, forcing them to drop fuel tanks to lighten their loads as they fled.

But intelligence sources suggested it was a highly successful Israeli raid on nuclear material supplied by North Korea.

Labels: Iran, Israel, North Korea, proliferation, syria

"We pulled out of the Gaza Strip two years ago, we took down all of the settlements, we pulled out all our military personnel, we ended the military occupation and these extremists who are shooting rockets really have no positive agenda. It's just nihilism."
-- Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, commenting on a Gaza-based Palestinian rocket attack into Israel, wounding 70.

Labels: appeasement, capitulation, Islamic extremism, Israel, palestinians

[Iranian Daily Etemad-e Meli, via MEMRI.org] Hizbullah Deputy Secretary-General Na'im Qasim has said that Hizbullah would not disarm even if Israel withdrew from the Sheb'a Farms.

He said that this was because there would still be a need to liberate the prisoners being held in Israel, and to confront the danger that presents to Lebanon.
If you don't recall your Shebba Farms history, the term was never a political hotpoint until Hezbullah made it one.

After decades of pressure from the United Nations and the West, Israel conceded and withdrew from Southern Lebanon. The international community and UN certified in 2000 that Israel's withdraw from Lebanon was complete based on borders previously accepted by all parties. It was only after that certification that Israel's enemies decided that Sheeba Farms was still "occupied" and thus any peace null and void.

Neither Syria, Lebanon nor Hezbollah had ever cited Israel's existence at Shebba as a factor prior to 2000. Thus, Hezbollah uses Shebba Farms as an excuse to continue launching rocket attacks at Israel.

Israel could withdraw to Tel Aviv and Hezbollah would no doubt claim that land as theirs. Indeed, they have -- their leader stating previously that "Palestine" was all the land from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.

Labels: Hezbollah, Israel, Shebba Farms