Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Tuesday 30 November 2010


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Tuesday, Nov 30 '10, Kislev 23, 5771
Today`s Email Stories:
‘Leaks Expose the Arab Mind’
Bibi Said ‘Yes’ to Land Swaps
Bibi Favored Flanking Move
WikiLeaks: Livni Doubted Abbas
Abbas Warns of ‘Time Bomb’
Tamir Pardo is New Mossad Head
IDF Relies More on Intelligence
  More Website News:
Pregnant Woman's Shooters Caught
Navy Chief Hints at Secret Ops
Most Jews: OK to Prod Arabs Out
Iran Admits Virus Damage
Jerusalem Conducts War Drill
  MP3 Radio Website News Briefs:
Talk: Axing the Axis
Natural Law or Revealed Law?
Music: mix
Shabbat - Quiet




1. Gilboa: WikiLeaks Exposures Demand Policy Change
by Elad Benari 
'Exposures Demand Policy Change'


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.”

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2. PM on WikiLeaks: ‘Now World Knows what Arabs Say About Iran’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu 
‘Leaks Expose the Arab Mind’


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 
Bibi Said ‘Yes’ to Land Swaps


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."

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4. Wikileaks: Netanyahu Would Have Used Flanking Move in Lebanon
by Gil Ronen 
Bibi Favored Flanking Move


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 
WikiLeaks: Livni Doubted Abbas


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 
Abbas Warns of ‘Time Bomb’


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 is New Mossad Head


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 
IDF Relies More on Intelligence


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.



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