יום רביעי, 24 באוקטובר 2012

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

Bayonets and Horses, redux

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:00 PM PDT

Yesterday I excerpted an older article by JE Dyer on how important the US Navy is to national security and pax Americana as a response to President Obama's sarcastic comment to Mitt Romney during the last debate.

 Now, she wrote her own direct response. Read the whole thing, but here are parts:
What is it we are trying to do with these naval forces? Mitt Romney's approach is to assume that we intend to exercise control of our ocean bastions – the Atlantic and Pacific – and effectively resume our position as the primary naval influence on the world's strategic chokepoints: the approaches to Central America; the maritime space of Northwestern Europe; the Mediterranean; the chokepoint-belt from the Suez Canal to the Strait of Hormuz; and the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea. Being well briefed, Romney no doubt has in mind as well the increasingly maritime confrontation space of the Arctic, where Russia and Canada are competing, but the US – with our own Arctic claims – has in recent years been passive.

Romney thus sees the Navy as a core element of our enduring strategic posture. For national defense and for the protection of trade, the United States has from the beginning sought to operate in freedom on the seas, and, where necessary, to exercise control of them. We are a maritime nation, with extremely long, shipping-friendly coastlines in the temperate zone and an unprecedented control of the world's most traveled oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific.

We have also chosen, since our irruption on the world geopolitical stage a century or so ago, to project power abroad as much as possible through expeditionary operations and offshore influence. Indeed, seeking the most effective balance between stand-off approaches, temporary incursions, and boots-on-the-ground combat and occupation has been a perennial tension in our national politics and our concepts of war throughout the life of our Republic. We have always naturally favored offshore influence and quick-resolution campaigns, from which we can extricate ourselves just as quickly.

The character of these preferences and military problems has changed with the passage of time – but in comparison to the United States in 1916, they are all bigger today, as well as faster-moving and more likely to be our problem than, say, Great Britain's.

...If you want to control the seas, you still need surface combatants. And since the seas are the pathway to most of what we do outside our borders, there is no such situation as one in which we will only need to do what aircraft carriers do, or only what submarines do, or only what minesweepers or oilers or merchant ships do. If we do not control the seas, we do not control our security conditions or our strategic options.

...In the end, the difference between Romney's approach and Obama's isn't a difference between buying a 328-ship force and having no Navy at all. It never is; the difference is always between one policy and another. Obama's policy is to cut defense spending, even when that leads to the decommissioning of some of our best ships. Yet in 2010, the Navy could only fulfill 53% of the requirements for presence and missions levied by the combatant commanders (e.g., CENTCOM, PACOM). Cutting this Navy will reduce further its ability to fill warfighter requirements.

Given the constraints of Obama's budgetary priorities, DOD envisions eventually sustaining a Navy whose size averages 298 ships through 2042. Romney has articulated a national-security policy that emphasizes building faster and having a larger Navy, one that can better meet the requirements of US policy and the combatant commanders for naval power. Obama has used sophomoric sarcasm to imply that Romney's approach is ignorant and outdated. That pretty much sums up the choice the voters have between them.
When reading things like this analysis, you realize that most so-called "experts" that we see in the media have no clue of what they are talking about.

Maybe there are good arguments against Dyer's position, but all we have heard so far is dismissive, not substantive.


Nice shooting!

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 05:24 PM PDT

Once again, the IDF responded to rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, as well as a serious bomb attack earlier today, and once again, both of those killed were terrorists - both from Hamas.

Which is interesting, because the IDF says that it hit terrorists about to shoot rockets into Israel - and Hamas claims that they don't fire rockets.

The IDF says that three were killed, but as of this writing I cannot find out the affiliation of the third one killed. The Hamas Al Qassam site seems to imply that those badly injured were theirs as well, so chances are that the third was also Hamas.

Interestingly, Palestine Times says that eyewitnesses said that the Hamas members were indeed about to shoot rockets into Israel.

Open thread time

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 03:00 PM PDT

It just is.

And I think I forgot to post this video from a couple of weeks ago, even though its been seen all lover the place by now....



Also, the UN thinks that the world might be ending within two months. Please bring your own lunch.

Egyptian anger at Morsi's diplomatic letter to Israel grows

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 01:30 PM PDT

The ridiculous controversy in Egypt over a standard flowery language in a diplomatic letter that accompanied the new ambassador to Israel continues unabated.

Sheikh Hafez Salama, commander of the "Suez Popular Resistance," is using the letter to slam not only Morsi but his Muslim Brotherhood rivals.

He said "It can not be that President Mohamed Morsi could have signed a letter sent with the Egyptian ambassador in Israel without reading its contents....This text exposes the relationships that link the Muslim Brotherhood to the United States of America and Israel....How can a Muslim Arab president give such praise to the Zionist enemy, who raped the Islamic and Arab world, and yanked Jerusalem and its environs from us, and killed hundreds of thousands of Egyptians and her brothers?!"

Salama added that the letter is incompatible with the doctrine of every Muslim towards the "Zionist entity."

He ended off by saying that "Morsi has forgotten the words of God, that 'Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion.'"

The flack for a similar letter sent last July wasn't nearly this bad - but then again, Morsi denied sending it.

(h/t Lachlan)

Tuesday links

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 12:00 PM PDT

From Ian:
Why Palestinians Want Israeli Citizenship by Khaled Abu Toameh
"Many of those who have applied for Israeli citizenship are are Christians from Jerusalem who are also afraid of ending up under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.
Ironically, obtaining Israeli citizenship has become a way for Palestinians to ensure their social, economic, health and education rights in the country.
There is no denying that applying for Israeli citizenship, in defiance of PLO and Hamas warnings, is also a political statement on the part of the applicants. They are actually making clear that they would prefer to live under Israel than any Arab rule."

Knesset speaker invites family of slain Bulgarian bus driver to visit
Meeting with Bulgarian president in Jerusalem, Peres praises Sofia for standing by the Jewish people during the Holocaust and today
"During his meeting with Plevneliev and Mladenov, Rivlin invited the family of Mustafa Kyosev, the Bulgarian bus driver who was killed in the bombing, to visit Israel to show "the connection and shared fate" of the Jewish and Bulgarian people.
Kyosev, 36, who belonged to Bulgaria's ethnically Turkish, Muslim minority — which constitutes 8 percent of the country's 7 million people — was survived by his wife Emine and 10-year-old daughter."

Simon Wiesenthal Center condemns Egyptian president for attending anti-Semitic sermon
Group calls on Obama to cut ties with Muslim Brotherhood, says incident is 'a slap in the face to America'

BBC Watch BBC interviewee's support for Greta Berlin's anti-Semitic videos
"I would be very interested to hear whether Julian Worricker really thinks that anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial constitute "criticism" of Israel (or anything else) and if he still stands by the decision to give air-time to a man who thinks they have a place in the pro-Palestinian movement. Mr Worricker is invited to contribute his thoughts to the discussion in the comments below."

IDF Officer Severely Wounded on Routine Patrol at the Gaza Border

The Attacks on Israelis You Won't Read About Anywhere Else, October 13-17

New Arab Party to Address Arab Israelis Rather Than Palestinian Arabs
"Arab public officials and activists have been working recently to establish a political party that will focus on Arab communities in Israel and their relationships with the government, rather than on promoting Palestinian Arab nationalism."

Israel Aids Palestinian Authority Amid Severe Money Crisis

Terror suspects 'plotted bombings worse than 7/7' and 'raised funds posing as charity collectors'
"The trio raised thousands of pounds to fund the plot by posing as street collectors for the humanitarian charity Muslim Aid, the jury was told. Two of the men are alleged to have travelled to Pakistan to attend a terrorist camp and received training with explosives, weapons and poisons. They are said to have recorded 'martyrdom videos' explaining their actions which were to be released to the media after their deaths."

French Users Flood Twitter With Anti-Semitic Tweets
Switch From 'Good Jew' to 'Dead Jews' Hashtag

In first, Jordanian soldier killed in clash at Syrian border
Casualty comes as Amman prevents armed militants from crossing into Syria

Egypt TV host gets jail term for insulting president
An Egyptian talk-show host faces a four-month jail term after a court convicted him of insulting President Mohamed Mursi, state media reported on Monday.

Vandals overturn gravestones in Connecticut Jewish cemetery

Tel Aviv deemed one of world's three 'Most Innovative Cities'
Tiferes Yisrael dome on the right
Tel Aviv, New York, Medellin voted as world's three "Most Innovative Cities" in Wall Street Journal-Citibank online poll Final winner to be determined on Dec. 31 Cast your vote on the Wall Street Journal website, link in article.

Israel Daily Picture: Picture of al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem also Shows Grandeur of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue -- Destroyed in 1948
"With the outbreak of the 1948 war, the synagogues were used as refuge for the Jewish residents of the Old City as well as military positions for the Jewish defenders. When the Jewish Quarter surrendered to the Jordanian Legion the two synagogues were blown up. The Jewish Quarter and its religious institutions were razed."

Also:
Ha'aretz Creates Non-Existent Apartheid State (Honest Reporting)

PA workers - and UNRWA - on strike today

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 10:15 AM PDT

From Ma'an:
The Palestinian Authority cabinet on Tuesday called on civil servants to go back to work as strikes in ministries, universities, schools and refugee camps paralyzed the West Bank.

The cabinet in its weekly meeting said employees who continued to strike would be "held liable."

Palestinian Authority employees, including public university staff and school teachers, suspended work Tuesday over the late and incomplete payment of their salaries.

On Thursday, the Palestinian Authority finance ministry announced it was distributing partial September salaries after repeatedly delaying payment to employees and capping payments to high earners.

The cabinet urged donor countries, especially Arab countries, to keep providing support to the Palestinian people.
...

Employees of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also went on strike Tuesday to protest cuts in the agency's services and the dismissal of 130 workers

UNRWA health clinics, schools and offices were closed and shops shut their doors for two hours.

Ahmad Abu Khayran, who chairs a popular committee in Hebron's al-Fawwar refugee camp, said UNRWA's austerity measures were making life harder for refugees who were already suffering from the economic crisis.
And in a stunning example of the culture of entitlement that Palestinian Arabs have:
Abu Khayran told Ma'an that UNRWA was trying to "shirk its responsibilities" to refugees and treating them as Europeans or Americans, forcing them to pay 25 to 40 percent of their medical costs.
65 years of living off of the international dime has made two entire generations of lazy whiners who demand everything and offer nothing.

There used to be some enterprising, hard-working Palestinian Arabs - but most of them moved to Gulf states, or to Western nations, long ago.

Notice also how Arab donors have still refused to pay their pledges, despite a plea a couple of weeks back by the PA. And Qatar has obviously chosen to support Hamastan rather than Fatahland.

The West - and Israel - care more about propping up the PA than Arabs do.


Jimmy says everything is Israel's fault - and ignores basic history

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 08:30 AM PDT

As always:
Former US president Jimmy Carter said on Monday that Washington had "zero" influence over Israel and the Palestinians to resolve their decades-long conflict, and its sway had dropped to the lowest level in 45 years.

Speaking on a tour of east Jerusalem with a group of former world leaders known as "The Elders," Carter said he was not optimistic that the United States could reassert its influence, and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given up on the two-state solution.

"A major change lately has been the withdrawal of American influence" in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, Carter said, estimating it was the first time since the 1967 Six-Day War that Washington had not "played a major role" in trying to resolve the conflict.

"And when the United States withdraws, of course, that gives Israel a completely free hand to do what it wants," he said, describing it as a "very serious disappointment."
Unilateral moves by the Palestinian Arabs that contradict Oslo don't bother Jimmy. No, only what Israel does.
Ireland's former president Mary Robinson, also a member of The Elders and who was with the group on its last visit exactly a year ago, said the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict appeared to be disappearing.

"What we want to do as Elders is draw attention to the fact that there is a kind of insidious undermining of the possibility of a two-state solution," she said.

She indicated that every time the group visited, it saw evidence of more settlements, and more east Jerusalem Palestinian homes being taken over by Israelis.

Carter said he thought Netanyahu was no longer interested in a two-state solution to the conflict and was interested only in increasing Israel's control over the West Bank.

"I think that Netanyahu has decided to abandon the two-state solution," he said, suggesting the Israeli leader's policy was now about "taking over the entire West Bank."

"I think that all the previous prime ministers have been committed to the two-state solution and I don't believe that that is the case now in Israel," he said.

As usual, Carter is completely wrong.

While Netanyahu has publicly and repeatedly stated he supports a two-state solution, Yitzhak Rabin, darling of the Left, was adamantly against a Palestinian Arab state - even after Oslo!

As he told Time magazine right after Oslo:
I oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan, and I don't believe that at this stage it would be a good idea if I brought out the options.
And in Rabin's speech shortly before he was assassinated:
We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution:

A. First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

B. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.

C. Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the "Green Line," prior to the Six Day War.

D. The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.
If Netanyahu would make a speech like this today he would be vilified by not only the UN and the EU but by the US as well.

By any objective measure, Netanyahu is more dovish than Rabin was. And similarly, while the Israeli Right has embraced positions that were considered the domain of ulra-left Peace Now in 1993, the Palestinian Arabs have not changed their own hawkish positions in the least.

The revisionist history that canonizes Rabin as the ultimate leftist is one that Jimmy Carter and his ilk love to embrace, but it is a lie. Carter no doubt knows this, but to him it is more important to demonize the current Israeli leadership - and to praise the intransigent Mahmoud Abbas - than to worry about pesky facts.


The emir visits Gaza, and Hamas' inhumane siege continues

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 06:45 AM PDT

The Qatari emir's visit to Gaza is being politicized by both Hamas and Fatah, and Hamas is using it to show that it is the true representative of "Palestine" while Fatah's representatives in Gaza are boycotting the meeting. In fact, the emir is not even visiting Ramallah (or Jerusalem.)

As this video shows, Hamas is very pleased at the legitimacy (and aid) that Qatar is giving them.



Meanwhile, from KUNA:
The Interior Ministry in Gaza said on Monday that Rafah Crossing would be closed Tuesday on the occasion of Qatari Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani's visit to Gaza.

All travelers planning to use the Rafah Crossing will be delayed until Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement.
Sorry, medical patients of Gaza - Hamas' politics is more important than your lives!

"Human rights" groups are silent on Hamas' disregard for the freedom of movement and well being of Gazans. Because, well, Hamas isn't Zionist enough to elicit the knee-jerk condemnations they are so used to issuing in other circumstances.

Iranian diplomat: If we don't like you, you must be a Zionist

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT

From Interfax:
The Iranian ambassador to Russia has argued that Zionism is not a solely Jewish movement, but a political ideology aiming to bring about strife between religious communities and nations.

"You shouldn't think that Zionism is something that only comes in the clothing of Judaism. It also comes in Christian and Islamic clothing. [Ex-president] Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was Muslim on the surface, but he prevented food and medicine from being sent to Gaza. In effect, he was a Zionist," Seyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi said in a speech, the text of which is posted in his blog.

"George Bush and Mitt Romney are Christians on the surface, but effectively they are Zionists," he said in reference to the former U.S. president and current Republican candidate for president of the United States.

"The reason why the Islamic world is lagging behind is that there are leaders who pretend to be Muslims, but in effect are Zionists," Sajjadi said.

"The main objective of Zionism is to stir up discord - discord between Muslims, discord between Christians and Muslims, and discord between nations. Today anyone who embarks on the path of discord is a soldier of Zionism," he said.
It goes without mention that the UN is Zionist, too. All those resolutions against Israel notwithstanding.

I liked this line:

He thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin "for the respect that is paid to all religions in Russia, and for the fact that in Russia Muslims are more free even than those in some Islamic countries."

If that is the case, then Sajjadi must really love Israel, whose Muslim citizens are freer than those in Russia.

Which would make Sajjadi a Zionist!

Bayonets, horses and the US Navy: Who is out of touch?

Posted: 23 Oct 2012 01:49 AM PDT

The most talked-about line in the debates last night came from President Obama. As the HuffPo reports:
President Barack Obama mocked Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday for his repeated attack over the size of the Navy, which he has said proves the president doesn't prioritize national defense.

"You mention the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets," Obama said during the final presidential debate. "We have these things called aircraft carriers and planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

"It's not a game of battleship where we're counting ships, it's 'What are our capabilities?'" he said.
The media and pundits are loving that obviously pre-practiced line. But I am reminded of a brilliant - and very frightening - August 2012 article written by Commander J. E. Dyer, a retired US Naval intelligence officer who served from 1983 to 2004.

Here are some excerpts:
While Russia's "interfleet naval task force" tootles around the Eastern Mediterranean making like it doesn't know from Syria, China and India have joined the naval game in the Eastern Med. Both have a regular naval presence off the coast of Somalia, and each has dispatched its most recent antipiracy task group – now relieved on-station – to conduct port visits in the Med. The Chinese units are visiting ports in the Black Sea as well.

Iran has her uses as a foil in the emerging drama, and India and Russia will make use of her if they can. They are less worried about Iran than they are about China and Sunni Islamism – especially as united with the Arab Spring.

Speaking of China, her task group has completed a port visit in Ukraine ("In your face, Russia"), and is now conducting separate port visits in Bulgaria and Turkey. The visit of People's Liberation Army Naval (PLAN) ships to the Black Sea is unprecedented, as will be their visit to Israel at the end of their Med circuit. Yes, they're scheduled to go to Israel too.

China's deployment is a signal of competition with Russia and India – separately and together – for the future of the Eastern hemisphere. The Chinese visits to Ukraine and Bulgaria are as in-your-face as it gets, Russia-wise; Moscow is very sensitive about foreign navies in the Black Sea. China's deployment is not an expression of solidarity with her northern neighbor.

The naval competition is heating up all around Asia. The activity in the Med is one facet of it, and an indicator of the strategic significance of the Med to the calculations of the Asian powers. Neither Russia, nor India, nor China can tolerate seeing herself flanked by the power of the others in EASTMED. They all three see a necessity for being there because of geographic realities and their competition elsewhere.

... All of East Asia is gravely concerned about China's naval shows of force. A Russian admiral spoke openly last week of the Russian navy seeking foreign bases in Vietnam and the Seychelles as well as Cuba, a clear signal of Russia's intention to act as a counterweight to Chinese power in South Asia. (Clear statements of intent rather than coy denials are a new set-out for the Russians on this matter. One more reminder that everything has already changed.)

It's open season on the status quo in the Eastern hemisphere. In the last three years, nothing in geopolitics has been clearer than that.

It is essential to reiterate the reminder once more that none of them would perceive either a significantly increased threat or important new opportunities if the United States were still acting according to our character since World War II. We no longer are, and the current proliferation of foreign naval expeditions is what had to result.

This has all been foreseeable. If the US is not using its power, the world will revert to its historically normal condition: everyone armed, arming up further, and seeking to enlarge his sphere of influence and push the boundaries against smaller, weaker powers. Some nations are less aggressive than others, but there's no room for non-aggression. The Pax Americana is dead.
After reading that, Obama's petty sarcasm makes it look like he is the one who is out of touch with today's geopolitical realities, not Romney. Obama's refusal to assert its naval power is creating a very dangerous - and very destabilizing - scramble for position worldwide, and the chances for war have increased as a result.

Unfortunately, the morning-after analyses will ignore this critical discussion so that people can laugh at Obama's zinger.
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