 |
||
 |
        |
 |
|
||
| MP3 Radio | Website News Briefs: | |||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
1. Gilboa: WikiLeaks Exposures Demand Policy Change
by Elad Benari
Professor Eytan Gilboa, professor of communication and government at
Bar-Ilan University, addressed on Monday the exposure of sensitive
documents by WikiLeaks.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva’s daily journal, Gilboa, who is an expert on
U.S. matters and former advisor in the offices of the Prime Minister,
Defense Minister and Foreign Minister, said: “The publications weaken
the United States and a weak United States is not a good thing for
Israel.”
He added that he is concerned by an image of the U.S. as a country
under attack led by a weak president. Such an image, according to
Gilboa, might very well lead to continued attacks on the Americans.
Gilboa said that the very exposure of the documents is a “serious
failure” on the part of the U.S. government, a failure which he believes
that the U.S. is already paying for in the international arena, since
it is now assumed by any diplomat or informant that should they contact
their American counterparts, there is a legitimate concern that what
they say would ultimately be made public. “There are known rules to the
game,” said Gilboa. “Things that are said and sent confidentially should
remain that way.”
He added that he does not believe that so far, any particularly severe
information has been leaked, but warned that such information could be
made available later in the week.
“So far there is nothing new,” said Gilboa. “Most of it was already
known, but still, when things show up written in black and white it's
embarrassing. We all knew that Saudi Arabia and other countries fear
Iran, but when it is written that there was pressure on their part to
attack Iran it's embarrassing.”
According to Gilboa, the U.S. administration must find the person who
leaked the documents, punish them severely, and work to repair foreign
relations. As for Obama's dealing with the information that has been
leaked, Gilboa believes that he should focus on changing his treatment
of hostile countries.
“Obama so far has been relatively soft on the enemy, and he should
examine his strategy and support more allies,” said Gilboa. “The
reconciliation with the Arab world failed. Now Obama needs to change his
policy and present an action plan so that he can deal with two problems
for which a solution has still not been found: the fundamentalist
Islamic terrorism, and the proliferation of nuclear countries such as
Iran and North Korea.”
2. PM on WikiLeaks: ‘Now World Knows what Arabs Say About Iran’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
WikiLeaks
exposures are a dangerous precedent but have revealed to the world the
Arabs’ private fears of the Iranian nuclear threat, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday.
He added that Israel was not damaged by the leaks, which at worst
caused some embarrassment to American officials, who were quoted in
diplomatic cables as using negative terms to describe several world
leaders.
The documents officially revealed what everyone already knows from
“sources” quoted in the media – that the Arab world is frightened of the
prospect of a nuclear Iran.
The question now is whether Arab leaders will admit in public what they
said through private diplomatic channels, the Prime Minister said.
“More and more countries realize that Iran is the central threat… If
they start saying it publicly, it can pave the road to peace."
"It can eliminate the theory that Israel is the obstacle to peace and
show that we have mutual interests," Netanyahu said. "Our region has
been hostage to a narrative that is the result of 60 years of
propaganda, which paints Israel as the greatest threat. In reality,
leaders understand that that view is bankrupt. For the first time in
history there is agreement that Iran is the threat."
Although the exposures actually helped the Jewish State
by confirming the accuracy of Israeli warnings and showing no
discrepancy between what Israel says publicly and privately, Prime
Minister Netanyahu and the military sensor expressed fears over the
method.
IDF Censor Col. Sima Vaknin-Gil told Voice of Israel government radio
that the disclosures are a mark of anarchism, and Prime Minister
Netanyahu stated, "History has been made in the interface between
journalism and diplomacy.”
The Prime Minister maintained, "If the exposure causes the region's
leaders to refrain from saying what they think in private talks, then we
have a problem."
He said that exposure will make the government more careful when
meeting in private, suggesting that high-level meetings will be
restricted to as few as four people. "Each person you add raises the
chance for a leak," he added.
3. WikiLeaks: Netanyahu – Yes to Land Swaps, No to Arab Immigration
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to give up Israeli land to the
PA in return for major Jewish population centers in Judea and Samaria
but drew the “red line” at the so-called “right of return,” according to
diplomatic messages exposed by WikiLeaks.
Like most of the WikiLeaks revelations,
the significance of the Prime Minister’s positions is that they now are
direct quotes from Netanyahu rather than assumptions from “anonymous
sources.” The idea of a land swap has been trumpeted by Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) and accepted by U.S. Middle East
envoy George Mitchell.
Under the proposal, Israel would hand over to the Arabs some land from
within Israel's 1949 borders in return for a Palestinian Authority
state's recognition that areas such as Gush Etzion and Maaleh Adumim
would be under Israeli sovereignty.
However, an Israeli official told reporters that in the Feb. 26, 2009
cable, dated two weeks after the Prime Minister was elected, "Netanyahu
[only] expressed support for the concept of land swaps, and emphasized
that he did not want to govern the West Bank and Gaza but rather to stop
attacks from being launched from there." He added that Prime Minister
Netanyahu himself “never raised the issue of land swaps and the telegram
does not quote him as saying so.”
The issue of immigration of foreign Arabs is called by the Arab world
the “right of return,” a term similar to that used in Israel for the
right of Jews around the world to immigrate and become citizens of
Israel.
No serious Israeli leader has accepted the concept, which would in
effect reduce Jews to a minority in the country as a result of the
immigration of approximately five million Arabs now living in foreign
countries. The Arab world says they should be eligible to live in Israel
because they, their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents lived
in the country before fleeing in 1948.
Arab armies had encouraged them to leave during the War for
Independence, promising them they would return quickly after an expected
annihilation of the small and fledgling Israeli army.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, according to a leaked cable, said he “would
never allow a single Palestinian refugee to return to Israel. Israel,
after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to Baghdad or
Cairo. Israel will only have a peace partner when the Palestinians drop
the right of return.”
He added that accepting Arab immigration and dividing the capital in
Jerusalem “would only whet the appetite of radical Islam. The 1967
borders were not the solution since Israel was the only force blocking
radical Islam's agenda of overrunning Jordan and Saudi Arabia."
4. Wikileaks: Netanyahu Would Have Used Flanking Move in Lebanon
by Gil Ronen
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu outlined to American congressman Gary
Ackerman in 2007 how he would have fought the Second Lebanon War,
according to a document published by Wikileaks.
A diplomatic cable sent at the time to Washington DC by the US embassy
in Tel Aviv detailed the conversation between Ackerman and Netanyahu.
Netanyahu said the problem with the 2006 war was not its goals but
rather "the disconnect between goals and methods,” the leaked cable
reported.
“If the IDF had used a flanking move by a superior ground force, it
could have won easily,” the report quoted then-Opposition Leader
Netanyahu as saying. Instead of doing this, Israel "dripped troops into
[Hizbullah's] gunsights," Netanyahu said, terming this approach
"stupid."
Netanyahu told Ackerman Israel's top leadership had lacked a sense of
military maneuver. In addition, they had been afraid to take military
casualties, but instead got many civilian casualties. “If Olmert had
mobilized the reserves in ten days, seized ground, destroyed Hizbullah
in southern Lebanon, and then withdrawn, he would be a hero today.
Instead, Netanyahu predicted, Olmert will not last politically.”
Kadima members are realizing they cannot allow Olmert to stay in power,
and Kadima itself might collapse since it was a "fake party," the
once-and-future PM said.
Netanyahu also commented that Shimon Peres had admitted to him that the
Oslo process had been “based on a mistaken economic premise,” and as a
result “European and U.S. assistance to the Palestinians had gone to
create a bloated bureaucracy, with PA employees looking to the
international community to meet their payroll.”
Unlike what is being reported in some news sources, Netanyahu is not
quoted as saying that Peres admitted the Oslo process was a mistake.
5. WikiLeaks:Documents Show Livni Doubted Fatah as Peace Partner
by Maayana Miskin
Opposition leader MK Tzipi Livni has often criticized Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu for failing to reach a peace agreement with the
Palestinian Authority. Now, leaked documents published on WikiLeaks have
revealed that Livni herself expressed doubts over the PA's ability to
make peace.
“Livni told Senators [John] Kerry and [Christopher] Dodd that she
doubted that a final status agreement could be reached with Abu Mazen
[Abbas], and therefore the emphasis should be on reforming Fatah so that
it could beat Hamas at the polls,” according to a cable sent by former
U.S. envoy Richard Jones.
Despite her doubts Livni took part in talks with the PA one year later,
and since Netanyahu took office, has repeatedly criticized him for not
convincing the PA to resume negotiations. PA Chairman Abbas has refused
to talk to Netanyahu without a complete construction ban for Jews living
east of the 1949 armistice line; no similar ultimatum was issued to
Livni and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Livni said Monday that the leaked documents “don't say anything that I
didn't already say in public.” Her doubts were expressed in 2007, at a
point when Hamas had recently become stronger, “and therefore chances of
an agreement were slim,” she said.
“In 2008 we began the peace process in order to change the situation,
and in 2010 I say again – a peace agreement is possible,” Livni said.
It was unclear from her statement what had led to her change of mind
between 2007 and 2010. Hamas remains in control of Gaza as it was in
2007 and Fatah, the faction leading the PA, has yet to beat Hamas in
elections.
Polls conducted among PA Arabs show that neither Fatah head Mahmoud
Abbas nor Gaza-based Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh is the most popular
candidate for PA Chairman. In the lead was Marwan Barghouti, a senior
Fatah terrorist who is serving five life sentences in Israel for his
role in multiple murders.
6. Abbas Escalates Rhetoric, Warns of ‘Time Bomb’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas escalated his rhetoric
Monday, warning that continued Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria
constitutes a “time bomb."
Israel's U.N. envoy Meron Reuben called his comments "destructive
rhetoric,” adding that “it takes two to tango, Israel cannot reach this
peace on its own.”
Abbas’ “time bomb” comment follows months of increasing incitement
against Israel, including officially honoring suicide bombers and
preaching in schools and mosques that all of Israel – from the Jordan
River to the Mediterranean Sea – is “Palestine.”
His reference to a “time bomb” was made in comments to United Nations
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, whom he wrote, “The deterioration in the
peace process must be addressed. This requires bringing a decisive and
final end to the vicious Israeli settlement campaign."
He added that the continuing development of Jewish homes in Judea and
Samaria "constitutes a time bomb that could destroy everything we have
accomplished on the road to peace at any moment."
U.S. President Barack Obama tried to return Abbas to the “diplomatic
process” in September and managed to bring the PA leader and Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into the same room for two and half hours,
but the discussion was devoid of content except for procedural issues.
The main sticking issue is Abbas’ demand that Israel re-instate the
expired building freeze that was imposed in order to bring him to the
negotiating table.
He has said that there is nothing to be negotiated and that Israel must
accept the Arab world’s demands to surrender all of the land restored
to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967 and recognize a
Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem. Abbas also still insists on the
right of immigration to Israel for five million Arabs living in Arab
countries.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has proposed the idea of a “land swap,” giving
away Israeli land in exchange for Israeli sovereignty over major Jewish
population centers in Judea and Samaria, such as Maaleh Adumin and Gush
Etzion. The Prime Minister also has insisted that the PA recognize
Israel as a Jewish state.
Abbas this week reiterated his rejection of all of the Israeli proposals.
7. Netanyahu Names Tamir Pardo as New Mossad Chief
by Chana Ya'ar
Tamir Pardo has been named as the incoming chief of Israel's international intelligence agency, the Mossad.
In making the announcement Monday afternoon, the Prime Minister's
Office noted that Pardo served as deputy to outgoing Mossad chief Meir
Dagan, and has been a long-time veteran of the agency.
During the 1976 rescue of the hijacked hostages in Entebbe, Uganda,
Pardo served as the communications officer for Yoni Netanyahu, the
brother of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was killed in the
operation.
The prime minister said in a statement Monday afternoon that he is
“certain” that Pardo is “the right person to lead the Mossad in the
coming years in light of the complex challenges facing the State of
Israel.”
The prime minister expressed his “deep appreciation” for the “great
contribution” made by the outgoing Mossad director to the security of
the state. He added that he is “certain that Dagan will continue to
contribute to the State of Israel.”
An official photograph of Pardo has yet to be made available.
8. Israel Relying on Intelligence, Reduces Troop Deployment
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The IDF is relying more on intelligence and less on troops in Judea and
Samaria, military sources say, hoping that Arabs won’t escalate the
Intifada.
"There has been a reduction in troop levels which are now at their
lowest levels since the start of the first intifada" more than 20 years
ago, according to an unnamed military source who spoke to the French
news agency AFP.
The reliance on intelligence surveillance accounts for several recent
captures of Hamas terrorists by the IDF and by the Palestinian Authority
in Judea and Samaria.
Israel’s success
in infiltrating the terrorist infrastructure is more pronounced in the
Gaza region where Israel expelled 9,000 civilians, turned the ground
over to Hamas and withdrew all military presence in 2005.
Hamas recently rounded up hundreds of local Arabs, including doctors
and other professionals, who were suspected of cooperating with Israeli
authorities. Hamas has routinely executed Arabs who provide Israel with
information on the terrorist infrastructure and has tortured many
others.
“Gazans were astounded not only by the number or arrests, but by who
was arrested,” The Christian Science Monitor reported last week.
“Prominent figures in society, including many doctors, were reportedly
among those caught in the sweep.”
The newspaper also quoted local Arabs as saying that Israel’s success
at gleaning intelligence is dividing society and even families, where
people are afraid to talk to each other. A Hamas Interior Ministry
official noted one case where a wife told Hamas that her husband was
working for Israel.
The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, headed by Fatah leader Mahmoud
Abbas also has been charged by human rights activists with torturing
Hamas prisoners as well as executing Arabs who sold land to Jews.
Military sources have said over the past year that cooperation between
the PA armed forces and the IDF is increasing. A similar period existed
in 1998, when the United States and Israeli officials thought that
then-chairman Yasser Arafat was on the verge of signing a peace treaty
with Israel.
However, with the outbreak of the 2000 Oslo War, also known as the
Second Intifada, Israel was caught unprepared. Lack of proper
intelligence left Israelis subject to suicide bombings every week and
sometime several times a week.
The United States has praised the PA forces it has trained for cracking
down on terrorists, but Israelis military officials have noted that
without an IDF presence in Judea and Samaria, the PA would not succeed.
Abbas has demanded that Israel withdraw all forces from all PA Arab
cities. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has taken forces out of major
cities, but the IDF conducts occasional sweeps to capture senior
terrorists.
Despite mainstream media reports of a virtual end to violence in Judea
and Samaria, Jews are subject to almost daily firebomb and rock attacks,
intended to caused fatal accidents. Four Jews were ambushed several
weeks ago by terrorists who used a route that Barak had opened as part
of government “concessions” to boost the stature of Abbas and encourage
him to return to direct talks with Israel over the establishment of the
Palestinian Authority as a new country.
Abbas did not condemn the murders and PA officials have increasingly praised and honored terrorists.
More Website News:
 |
Long Arm of the Law Nabs Terrorists Who Wounded Pregnant Woman  |
|
Navy Chief Hints: Secret Ops against Iran-led 'Axis of Evil' |
|
Kahane was Right? Most Jews Think It's OK to Prod Arabs to Go |
|
Ahmadinejad Admits Virus Damaged Centrifuges |
|
Jerusalem Conducting War Drill, Siren to Sound at 10:00 |
