For once, televangelist Pat Robertson says something not crazy. Via the ” title=”various state and municipal laws” target=”_blank”>various state and municipal laws (though those run afoul of federal law).
Still, can you imagine Robertson teaming up with Pat Robertson: Time to legalize marijuana Read More »
U.N. Won’t Back Down on Iran Nuclear Inspections
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano speaks to The Daily Beast about the UN agency’s policy on Iran.
In his first report, in February 2010, Amano clearly spoke about “concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” He continued in this vein, issuing a detailed 12-page annex to a report in November that outlined Iran’s alleged weapons work.
A Misreading of Law and History on Preemptive Strikes
While the United States does have a tradition of preemptive military action, a strike on Iran involves consideration of many complex issues other than its legality, writes Peter Berkowitz in Real Clear Politics.
Whether to launch a strike to destroy or disable Iran’s nuclear program is the weightiest decision Obama and Netanyahu face. It depends on multilayered judgments about the efficacy of diplomacy and sanctions, windows of opportunity for military action, and how far the program can be set back at this late stage.
The international community has no ideal solution for the horrors unfolding in Syria, writes Aaron David Miller for Foreign Policy.
The takeaway from any honest and unforgiving analysis of Syria produces a series of options that range from bad to worse. So we continue to play at the margins. We can’t significantly ease the humanitarian crisis, unify the opposition, and stop the killing—let alone get rid of the Assads.
David Grossman Speaks Out Against War With Iran
One of Israel’s most respected novelists tells Larry Derfner for The Nation why, should diplomacy fail, he believes Israel must learn to live with a nuclear Iran.
“If Israel bombs Iran,” he said, “I think it will be seen as an arrogant, megalomaniacal, violent nation even by the most sober, moderate Iranians.” Israel’s hope for peace, or even just quiet, with a future, better Iranian government “would be eradicated for generations.”
Palestinians Elections: Postponed Again
The Palestinian inability to hold elections is a further setback for the stagnant peace process, writes Elliott Abrams in the Council on Foreign Relations.
President Abbas is in the seventh year of his four year term. Just as the advance of electoral democracy in 2005 (when Abbas was chosen as president after Arafat’s death, in a free election) advanced the cause of Palestinian statehood, the inability to hold an election or form a government must raise questions about moving toward Palestinian statehood.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel remains on alert against an attack from Sinai despite killing the terrorist leader that was planning an attack from there—an assassination that has led to a barrage of rockets raining down on southern Israel from Gaza by terrorist groups.
Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that the Israeli military’s targeted killing two days earlier of Zuhir Mussah Ahmed Kaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committee terrorist organization, disrupted the organizing of the attack. Rocket attacks from Gaza by the PRC and Islamic Jihad have continued into Sunday.
The prime minister commended the security and intelligence services in the airstrike that killed Kaisi and another member of the Popular Resistance Committee. The Israel Defense Forces said the two were planning a terror attack that was to take place from Sinai in the coming days.
“We have exacted from them a very high price,” he said. “Naturally we will act as necessary.”
More than 130 rockets have rained down on southern Israel since the killings, injuring eight Israeli civilians, including one severely, according to the IDF. At least 17 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old, have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Netanyahu praised the Iron Dome missile defense system, which according to the IDF has intercepted 90 percent of its targets, including 28 out of 31 long-range Grad rockets targeting major Israeli cities such as Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon.
“We will do everything in our power to expand the deployment of this system” in the months and years ahead, he said.
Netanyahu also lauded the residents of the southern Israeli communities for their resilience in the face of the rocket barrage.
“In the end, the strongest force at our disposal is the fortitude of the residents, of the council heads, of Israelis and of the government,” he said. “We are taking the necessary defensive and aggressive measures, and I have no doubt that with this combination, along with the necessary fortitude, we will overcome these terrorist threats around us.”
Netanyahu delivered a similar message Saturday night in a meeting with the mayors of southern Israeli communities. He vowed to continue hitting Palestinian forces in Gaza responsible for the barrage of rocket attacks.
The IDF Home Front Command ordered schools closed Sunday in cities and towns located up to 25 miles from the Gaza border, affecting about 200,000 children. Classes at colleges and universities in the area also were closed.
Since the violence began, the IDF as of Sunday afternoon had struck 21 targets in Gaza, including 13 airstrikes to halt rocket-launching attempts and eight attacks against weapons factories and storage sites.
The United States said it was “deeply concerned by the renewed violence in southern Israel,” U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said in a statement issued Saturday. “We condemn in the strongest terms the rocket fire from Gaza by terrorists into southern Israel in recent days, which has dramatically and dangerously escalated in the past day. We call on those responsible to take immediate action to stop these cowardly acts.”
“We regret the loss of life and injuries, and we call on both sides to make every effort to restore calm,” the statement concluded.
Egypt’s ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Othman, told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency Sunday that Egypt was working to halt the escalation of violence between Gaza and Israel. He said his country was in contact with both sides in an attempt to stop the violence in order to “to avoid undesirable developments.”
Othman called Israel’s offensive “unjustifiable and a breach to the truce sponsored by Egypt.”
The Popular Resistance Committees promised revenge for Kaisi’s assassination.
“All options are open before the fighters to respond to this despicable crime,” said Abu Attiya, a PRC spokesman. “The assassination of our chief will not end our resistance.”
It is believed that the short-range rockets are being launched by the Popular Resistance Committee, according to the IDF, while the long-range and midrange rockets are being launched by Islamic Jihad.
Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaina said that “Israel’s escalation creates a negative atmosphere and increases the tension, which leads to the increase in violence in the region,” according to CNN.
The IDF issued a statement saying it holds “Hamas responsible for the recent incidents since the terror organization currently has jurisdiction in the area [Gaza].”
The statement said that “The Hamas movement, although not the one performing the launchings, is not doing anything to prevent it either.”
Israel on alert for attack as Netanyahu vows to strike Gaza terrorists Read More »
I love Oscar week. There is something about it that makes me wake up with a smile on my face and carry that feeling with me until I fall asleep.
Usually I am more of an Emmy kind of girl, but the past couple of years, I just get so excited once the Academy Awards nominees are announced. I don’t really care who wins what (as opposed to the Emmy’s) – I just embrace the atmosphere. This year was Israel’s tenth nomination ever for Best Foreign Film, and the fourth in my lifetime.
A million words (or a thousand photos, if you like) cannot describe the special vibe that goes through every single Israeli once the nominations are announced. All the news channels stop focusing on Iran, the drought of the Kinneret and the climbing gas prices, and for a few weeks focus on honoring the Israeli artistic creators and performers. Newspaper headlines are brightly colored. There are special interviews and much reminiscing about past Israeli nominations.
For a few weeks- Israel is at its prime. It is almost magical, the way everybody unites for one cause: to honor Israeli culture. Suddenly people find themselves going to the cinema to watch Israeli films instead of the new Mission Impossible; going to see a play instead of partying at a nightclub; purchasing the new Shalom Chanoch album, instead of the new Glee soundtrack… Most importantly, the Oscars have the effect of making peace among ourselves. It is as if all of our differences seem irrelevant. Religious, secular, eastern, western, rich, not so rich; we all get together for one cause – supporting Israeli creation.
I remember the last time I had this feeling. It was last summer. After five years of struggle, Gilad Shalit returned home. All Israel got together for a shared cause. We all wanted to see our son, our brother, reunited with his family. Every single Israeli saw Gilad as a part of his/her own family, and that public pressure was the main reason Netanyahu agreed at last to the release deal.
Those moments of togetherness make me feel proud of my small country. We are many different people coming from different places, all living on a very small piece of land. Most of the time we are divided into a million different opinions – until something like an Academy Award nomination comes along. Then, suddenly, we are no longer the divided society. We are all Israeli.
The day after we lost the golden, handsome man, politics once again reared its ugly head. An Iranian source was quoted as saying: “This is the first step of Israel’s doom”. I even heard people blaming our loss on Anti- Semitism. Well, here we go again…The Hollywood pixie dust fades away and the world keeps spinning. To my personal opinion, but it is just me, Iran won because their movie was better than the Israeli one. Not because they may or may not have a bigger nuclear weapon. Well, I guess there’s always next year…
My thanks to the Academy Read More »
After more than a decade, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan might have its ” title=”Reuters reports” target=”_blank”>Reuters reports:
One or more U.S. soldiers shot dead 16 civilians, including nine children according to Afghan officials, in Afghanistan’s south on Sunday in what witnesses described as a massacre.
NATO said they had detained one U.S. soldier in the killings. U.S. officials said the soldier was a staff sergeant.
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Afghan officials gave varying accounts of the number of shooters involved in the incident. Karzai’s office released a statement quoting a villager as saying “American soldiers woke my family up and shot them in the face.”
Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs Asadullah Khalid said a U.S. soldier had burst into three homes near his base in the middle of the night, killing a total of 16 people including 11 people in the first house.
A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the U.S. soldier “walked back to the base and turned himself into U.S. Forces this morning”, adding there had been no military operations taking place in the area when the incident occurred.
More Army sergeant suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians Read More »