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Monday, September 29, 2008





A [cease -fire] Shana Tova greeting from your friends in Gaza:
A Qassam rocket was fired Monday afternoon from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel, but landed on the Palestinian side of the border. <ynet>
[The picture is from a report on the same incident on a 'peace' activist site.]





Hamas MP: A Palestinian Who Kills One Jew Will Be Rewarded As If He Killed 30 Million


Following is an excerpt from a press conference held by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on September 7, 2008:

Fathi Hammad: "The approaching victory, about which we are talking, is not limited to Palestine. You are creating the ethos of victory for all Arabs and Muslims, and Allah willing, even on the global level.

Why? Because Allah has chosen you to fight the people He hates most – the Jews.

Allah said: "You shall find the worst enemies of the believers to be the Jews and the polytheists." [*Quran, Chapter 5, verse 82]

In other words, the Jews, who number 15 million all over the world, are equivalent to 4.5 billion infidels in their corruption and their struggle against the religion of Islam. Therefore, our heroic prisoners who were arrested for killing Jews should know that by the grace of Allah, killing a single Jew is the same as killing 30 million Jews. Therefore, the reward of our martyrs is great, and your reward is also great."


*Look up Chapter 5, Verse 82 in the Qu'ran
www.quranbrowser.org

Friday, September 26, 2008

Terrorism planned and implemented by Radical Islam

See articles below about Radical Islamic terrorism in Yemen and calls for jihad in North Africa.

There was a "terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy [in Yemen] last Wednesday," September 17, reports the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram.

"The extremist religious discourse was behind the recent violent attacks in Yemen including the last one against the US Embassy, says Ahmed Al-Sufee, director of the Yemeni Institute for Development of Democracy, a local NGO. "We should think of removing the sources of terrorism which are related to our system of education, mosques, schools and curriculums," Al-Sufee told the Weekly.

---------------
Al-Qaeda calls for holy war in North Africa
afrol News, 23 September

Al-Qaeda's North Africa wing chief has urged all Muslims to join jihad (holy war) and slammed governments in the region where group has claimed frequent attacks, United States monitoring service said.

The group has also issued new threats against Western interests, including France, Spain and US States.

Threat comes close on heels of last week's deadly suicide-bomb attack on heavily fortified US embassy in Yemeni capital Sana'a, claimed by terrorist outfit Islamic Jihad in Yemen.

"Unite around holy war that is the only alternative power to apostate regimes that dominate over our lands," Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, leader of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), said in an audio speech posted on Sunday on Islamist militant websites, said SITE Intelligence Group.

Mr Abdul Wadud blasted regimes in Mauritania, Algeria and other North African countries, charging that Mauritania has become a nest of foreign intelligence at its forefront Mossad, and has become a station of crusader colonial ambition," he said, according to a SITE transcript.

"History will continue to mention that this is first Arab country, outside of Tawq (Arab nations surrounding Israel) that recognised state of Israel and exchanged ambassadors with it," he said.

Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb has repeatedly claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in Algeria, including an increase of bombings in July and August, and also been blamed for an ambush on a Mauritanian patrol last week that killed 12 Mauritanians and found 11 soldiers and one civilian.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Statement on Meeting of United States Religious Leaders
with President Ahmadinejad of Iran
Thursday, September 25, 2008

John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ

This evening, September 25, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will meet with religious leaders at a dinner in New York. The event is co-sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee, the American Friends Service Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, the World Conference on Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches. While a member of Religions for Peace, the United Church of Christ is not active in its participation. We are, of course, a very active member communion of the World Council of Churches.

I was invited to the dinner but have declined. In previous public statements I have objected strongly to the rhetoric of President Ahmadinejad, rhetoric regarding the State of Israel and the historicity of the Holocaust that is deeply disturbing to all who believe in Israel’s right to exist and who acknowledge the on-going pain that the Holocaust and its memory still evokes. While the organizers of this event certainly hope to raise their concern over this rhetoric with President Ahmadinejad, I am not convinced this will be effective. To the contrary, I fear the occasion can and will be used by President Ahmadinejad to claim legitimacy and support for himself by an association with respected United States religious leaders. I respect the sponsoring organizations’ intent for dialogue, but fear that the more likely outcome is sowing confusion and disappointment among our own members and, in particular, the American Jewish community.

The sponsoring organizations also believe that sitting down with one’s enemy is both a Biblical mandate and, at this dangerous moment in the relationship between the United States and Iran, an important historical opportunity. I believe the United States government should adopt a far more engaged diplomatic posture toward Iran. I further believe that churches like the United Church of Christ ought to be encouraging such face to face meetings through contact with our own U.S. Administration officials. I do not believe, however, that this meeting of religious leaders with President Ahmadinejad is an appropriate or helpful means of encouraging state to state diplomacy. In a situation like this, the most effective and appropriate approach for a church is to encourage dialogue with religious leaders who are our most natural international counterparts. I would, therefore, be willing and eager to meet with senior Iranian religious leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern and to encourage meetings at the political and diplomatic level. Such a meeting was scheduled a year ago but, unfortunately, was cancelled when a significant number of the Iranian clerics were denied visas to enter the United States for the dialogue sessions.

The Mennonite Central Committee supports work in Iran in various communities that help address the quality of life of the Iranian people and further interreligious dialogue. It is my understanding that part of the purpose of this meeting is to encourage the President to continue to allow such work to continue. I would certainly support this effort though, again, I suspect that a more private meeting focused on this agenda alone would be more successful and appropriate.

The World Council of Churches did not consult its member churches in the United States prior to the decision to co-sponsor this event. The WCC participates in many meetings and dialogues with religious and political leaders around the world as part of its regular mandate to encourage global peace and justice. I and other UCC leaders did, however, communicate similar concerns to the current senior staff person now responsible for interfaith work in the WCC when participation in a religious leaders’ visit to the President of Iran was proposed over a year ago. I have also shared these same concerns with other ecumenical colleagues here. Our objections and concerns, therefore, have been registered and heard.

In the life of any council of churches there will be decisions made that are not supported by every member church or church leader. While I do not believe sponsorship of this particular event by the WCC to be wise or helpful, I continue to respect my colleagues in leadership there and understand that their decision is based on principled convictions about how best to further the cause of peace. Disagreement should not be interpreted as disrespect, and I would not anyone to interpret this dissenting opinion to signal diminished appreciation or support for the World Council of Churches, its leaders, or its vocation of bearing witness to healing the brokenness of the church and the world.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

EU Says Iran Close to Developing Nuclear Weapon
By Lisa Bryant for Voice of America
Paris 24 September 2008

The European Union said Wednesday that Iran was close to being able to develop a nuclear weapon. The warning to the IAEA in Vienna coincides with North Korea's apparent decision to reactivate its main nuclear reactor. Lisa Bryant reports for VOA from Paris.


The text of the European Union's warning on Iran was released to reporters ahead of its delivery to a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. It claims Tehran is close to being able to arm a nuclear warhead and that it seems to have pursued a program aimed to acquire a nuclear bomb.
Some reactions

Ha'aretz advocates negotiations between US and Iran

[excerpt] According to an assessment by Military Intelligence presented to the cabinet this week, Iran is "galloping toward a nuclear bomb" and mastering the technology for enriching uranium, while the diplomatic and economic battle against it is ineffective.

Israel is justifiably concerned about the naivete with which Ahmadinejad was received by the American media, as well as the world's growing tendency to view him as a legitimate leader and cease efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program. The calls by the Iranian president to destroy Israel deserve the strongest condemnation, and we must continue the diplomatic struggle against them. But Israel must not be boxed into the corner where Ahmadinejad wants it and join an exchange of threats and counterthreats, which would only intensify the anxiety in Israel and possibly lead to a confrontation.

The chance that the United States or Israel will try to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities looks slim at the moment. Even without waiving the military option, we must not be tempted into bombing as a miracle drug against the Iranian threat. The government is obligated to exhaust every other possibility before seriously considering using the Israel Defense Forces for a distant and highly risky operation in Iran.

Since a direct Israeli rapprochement with Iran is impossible because of the regime's hostility to Israel's very existence, the best chance of calming the atmosphere and reducing the threat lies in starting negotiations between the United States and Iran. The two U.S. presidential candidates support this approach, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with the understanding that it is the only route not yet tried and is likely to help moderate Iranian policy. Israel must encourage an American rapprochement with Iran, with the understanding that this will serve the Israeli interest as well.
----------------------

From ynetnews. French FM: Condemning Iran insufficient

Following Ahmadinejad's address to UN, Bernard Kouchner joins Peres in slamming anti-Semitic content of speech, but adds, 'We cannot just condemn anymore. We must take care of the Iranian nuclear issue [diplomatically]. The situation is becoming dangerous'
----------------------------------
From jpost.com
'Russia's move to pull out of Iran talks spells end of sanctions'
UN Ambassador Shalev surprised at Ahmadinejad's warm welcome by General Assembly; Moscow's cancellation endangers 4th round of sanctions.

"The Great Hindrances to Peace Among Nations"

"They [the International Zionists=Jews] are the great hindrances
to the actualization of material and spiritual prosperity
and to security, peace and brotherhood among nations."
-- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 9/23/08

Excerpts from what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at the UN on September 23, 2008

A modern restatement of The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, Henry Ford's anti-Semitic series based on the Protocols of Zion.



"The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists.

Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating and important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.

It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.

This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people.

These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.

Friends and Colleagues, all these are due to the manner in which the immoral and the powerful view the world, humankind, freedom, obeisance to God, and justice.

The thoughts and deeds of those who think they are superior to others and consider others as second-class and inferior, who intend to remain out of the divine circle, to be the absolute slaves of their materialistic and selfish desires, who intend to expand their aggressive and domineering natures, constitute the roots of today's problems in human societies.

They are the great hindrances to the actualization of material and spiritual prosperity and to security, peace and brotherhood among nations."


Messianism is at hand
The conclusion of Ahmadinejad's speech emphasizes his expectation that The Promised One "is about to materialize" to bring forth justice. And toward this end, Ahmadinejad exorts the Righteous to "hand in hand, expand the thought of resistance against evil and the minority of those who are ill-wishers."


A golden and brilliant future is awaiting mankind. A global community filled with justice, friendship, brotherhood, and welfare is at hand and, as I have elaborated, a community which will tread the path of beauty and love under the rule of the righteous and the perfect human being, the one promised by all divine prophets, and the one who is the true lover of humanity.

A community that will be devoid of any fear, despair, and privation, such a community will soon be ours, the community promised by the great divine prophets Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed, peace be upon him, is about to materialize. Let us, hand in hand, expand the thought of resistance against evil and the minority of those who are ill-wishers.

Let's support goodness and the majority of people who are good and the embodiment of absolute good that Imam of Time, The Promised One who will come accompanied by Jesus Christ, and accordingly design and implement the just and humanistic mechanisms for regulating the constructive relationships between nations and governments.

Oh, Great Almighty, deliver the savior of nations and put an end to the sufferings of mankind and bring forth justice, beauty, and love.

Friends, let's have a proper share in the establishment of that illuminated and promised divine age.

I thank you all very much.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

THOUSANDS JOIN NYC RALLY TO STOP IRAN NOW

“Iran’s nuclear program is not just a threat to Israel, as bad as that is; it’s not just a threat to America, as bad as that is; it is a threat to all humankind,” Rev. Floyd Flake said. “We must stop Iran now.”

Thousands of people gathered across from the United Nations Monday to protest the presence there this week of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and to call attention to the grave threats Iran poses to the world.

Watch video clips of the rally here.

[United Jewish Communities, 9.23.08] The National Rally to Stop Iran Now featured prominent civic and religious figures, from the United States and overseas, who called on the international community to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, its threats against the United States and Israel, its support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and its domestic human rights abuse. The rally took place against the backdrop of the opening of the UN General Assembly and the gathering of world leaders, including Ahmadinejad.

Natan Sharansky, the former Israeli deputy prime minister and face of the Soviet Jewry movement, likened Iran to the "evil empire" of the former Soviet Union, and recalled how decades ago Soviet Jewry demonstrations took place in the same spot.

"Twenty years ago, in this very place, your parents and grandparents demonstrated, again and again and again. Today the Soviet Union doesn't exist and Soviet Jews are free. The campaign against Iran can be as successful. This is a fight we must win. This is a fight we will win."

Sharansky also spoke of the "moral clarity" of the struggle against a nuclear Iran, and how the Jewish people believe in “tikkun olam,” repairing the world, while Iran supports terrorist groups who use destruction and violence.

“It is important the world knows the difference between those of us who support human life, and those who use human life to blackmail the world,” he said.

The thousands of people of all ages attending the rally represented communities across the United States and Canada. They packed into Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations complex and filled a number of city blocks, hoisting placards and banners underscoring Iran’s threat to Israel, the United States and world stability.

“The leader of Iran calls for the destruction of Israel, denies the fact of the Holocaust, and ignores international demands to halt a nuclear program that threatens the Jewish homeland, the region, and the world,” said Howard M. Rieger, President and Chief Executive Officer of United Jewish Communities.

“The thousands of Americans and others joining the Jewish community today send a loud message to the United Nations and beyond that such views and policies are unacceptable and should not be tolerated by civilized and peace-loving nations and peoples.”

The rally was sponsored by the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, which includes leaders and organizations representing various communities who are deeply concerned about the Iranian threat. Members include United Jewish Communities, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, UJA-Federation of New York, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Speakers represented a cross-section of major denominational, ethnic and civic groups, including Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice; Dr. Paul deVries, New York Divinity School president; the Honorable Rev. Floyd Flake, former member of Congress; Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Israeli Knesset; and Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate. Prominent Iranian human rights advocates Nazanin Afshin-Jan and Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi also spoke.

Some called on the UN to bring Ahmadinejad to justice for his threats to destroy fellow member UN nations such as Israel and the United States, rather than providing him a forum to speak.

Ahmadinejad’s “proper place” resides not at the UN, Wiesel said, but before “an international tribunal” such as the World Court in the Hague. "His place is not here in New York, but in Europe, in Holland, in a UN prison cell.”

Speakers also urged the UN Security Council and the world community to take vigorous steps to impose harsh economic sanctions on Iran to force a halt to its nuclear development.

“Iran’s nuclear program is not just a threat to Israel, as bad as that is; it’s not just a threat to America, as bad as that is; it is a threat to all humankind,” Rev. Flake said. “We must stop Iran now.”

Monday, September 22, 2008

[Fatah-niks] thrilled with terror attack
[aggregated from Elder of Ziyon]

Here are some of the autotranslated comments at the Fatah-linked Palestine Press news agency to the article about the terror attack in Jerusalem today [in which a terrorist driving a black BMW ran his car into a crowd of pedestrians at a busy intersection in central Jerusalem near the Old City --ynet.] :


I hope more heroic operations


Yahya God all the freedom fighters in the city of Jerusalem, especially the bomber


We congratulate the process [operation] and wish [that the source was] the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and it is not with the [Hamas] resistance, the Iranian Hamas pigs who deliver [only] a paper resistance and we say [to Hamas] Go to hell


Thank God with us, which we thought that the beloved Palestine and the Palestinian issue still has insisted in Palestinian hearts and that despite all attempts to disperse the Palestinian thinking, but we can work to break the cover of occupation


Thank God for this work which God chose us Homnfz driver and the process is a martyr hero God bless his soul to God, what a bargain Jewish Lord violin and violin operations Aktar more, you know, I do not kill each other so you O Palestine, Fatah and Hamas miles Msolon us what is Sahhhhhhhhhhhhhawwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Ome fine fine Halina Unit Nationally supported in some yen Thank you, you Iarepettstjibwa Arabs


The name of God Rahamin Rahim
Web and thrown and thrown, but God contact us thank God that we have made Islam and Muslims hail you a martyr and God Spoof you, hero of God you are happy and the Palestinian people in the holy month of Ramadan, God willing, and more heroic operations

Elder of Ziyon comments: But there was one commenter against the attack. Well, of course he praised the attack, but he thought that the timing was not the greatest, because it might delay the Israelis giving up more land to the Palestinian Arabs for free.
Everyone Needs to Worry About Iran
By RICHARD HOLBROOKE, R. JAMES WOOLSEY, DENNIS B. ROSS and MARK D. WALLACE
Op Ed, September 22, 2008 Wall Street Journal

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the United Nations in New York this week. Don't expect an honest update from him on his country's nuclear program. Iran is now edging closer to being armed with nuclear weapons, and it continues to develop a ballistic-missile capability.

Such developments may be overshadowed by our presidential election, but the challenge Iran poses is very real and not a partisan matter. We may have different political allegiances and worldviews, yet we share a common concern -- Iran's drive to be a nuclear state. We believe that Iran's desire for nuclear weapons is one of the most urgent issues facing America today, because even the most conservative estimates tell us that they could have nuclear weapons soon.

A nuclear-armed Iran would likely destabilize an already dangerous region that includes Israel, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, and pose a direct threat to America's national security. For this reason, Iran's nuclear ambitions demand a response that will compel Iran's leaders to change their behavior and come to understand that they have more to lose than to gain by going nuclear.

Tehran claims that it is enriching uranium only for peaceful energy uses. These claims exceed the boundaries of credibility and science. Iran's enrichment program is far larger than reasonably necessary for an energy program. In past inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, U.N. inspectors found rare elements that only have utility in nuclear weapons and not in a peaceful nuclear energy program. Iran's persistent rejection of offers from outside energy suppliers or private bidders to supply it with nuclear fuel suggests it has a motive other than energy in developing its nuclear program. Tehran's continual refusal to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about this troublesome part of its nuclear program suggests that it has something to hide.

The world rightfully doubts Tehran's assertion that it needs nuclear energy and is enriching nuclear materials for strictly peaceful purposes. Iran has vast supplies of inexpensive oil and natural gas, and its construction of nuclear reactors and attempts to perfect the nuclear fuel cycle are exceedingly costly. There is no legitimate economic reason for Iran to pursue nuclear energy.

Iran is a deadly and irresponsible world actor, employing terrorist organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas to undermine existing regimes and to foment conflict. Emboldened by the bomb, Iran will become more inclined to sponsor terror, threaten our allies, and support the most deadly elements of the Iraqi insurgency.

Tehran's development of a nuclear bomb could serve as the "starter's gun" in a new and potentially deadly arms race in the most volatile region of the world. Many believe that Iran's neighbors would feel forced to pursue the bomb if it goes nuclear.

By continuing to act in open defiance of its treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, Iran rejects the inspections mandated by the IAEA and flouts multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

At the same time, Iranian leaders declare that Israel is illegitimate and should not exist. President Ahmadinejad specifically calls for Israel to be "wiped off from the map," while seeking the weapons to do so. Such behavior casts Iran as an international outlier. No one can reasonably suggest that a nuclear-armed Iran will suddenly honor international treaty obligations, acknowledge Israel's right to exist, or cease efforts to undermine the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is also the chief spokesman for a regime that represses religious and ethnic minorities, women, students, labor groups and homosexuals. A government willing to persecute its own people can only be viewed as even more dangerous if armed with nuclear weapons.

Finally, our economy has suffered under the burden of rising oil prices. Iran is strategically located on a key choke point in the world's energy supply chain -- the Strait of Hormuz. No one can suggest that a nuclear Iran would hesitate to use its enhanced leverage to affect oil prices, or would work to ease the burden on the battered economies of the world's oil importers.

Facing such a threat, Americans must put aside their political differences and send a clear and united message that a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable.

That is why the four of us, along with other policy advocates from across the political spectrum, have formed the nonpartisan group United Against Nuclear Iran. Everyone must understand the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran and mobilize the power of a united American public in opposition. As part of the United Against Nuclear Iran effort, we will announce various programs in the months ahead that we hope will be rallying points for the American and international public to voice unified opposition to a nuclear Iran.

We do not aim to beat the drums of war. On the contrary, we hope to lay the groundwork for effective U.S. policies in coordination with our allies, the U.N. and others by a strong showing of unified support from the American people to alter the Iranian regime's current course. The American people must have a voice in this great foreign-policy challenge, and we can make a real difference through national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures.

Mr. Holbrooke is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Woolsey is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Ross was a special Middle East coordinator for President Clinton. Mr. Wallace was a representative of the U.S. to the U.N. for management and reform.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist posting the following. //Mark

‘Taliban back UN Peace Day’


Sunday, September 21, 2008
KANDAHAR: A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban said the militia would cease attacks on UN Peace Day on Sunday.

The Afghan army and international military forces have also announced, after a call from President Hamid Karzai, that they would halt offensives on Peace Day, September 21.

“In respect for the international Peace Day, Taliban have issued a declaration that we are in a defensive position and we will cease attacks,” a spokesman for the group, Yousuf Ahmadi, told AFP. The extremists, who are linked to al-Qaeda, posted a statement on their website to the same effect. “If Nato and America and their followers respect this day for real, and avoid tricks and announce the ceasefire from the depth of their heart, the (Taliban) will also instruct to its own Mujahedeen to take the defensive position on this day,” the statement said.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

RALLY TO STOP IRAN set for UN visit by Ahmadinejad
to protest the presence of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, and to oppose his nuclear weapons program.

From The National Coalition to Stop Iran Now

(New York, Sept. 18, 2008) --- The purpose of “THE RALLY TO STOP IRAN NOW” on Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, is to protest the presence of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, and to oppose his nuclear weapons program. We take most seriously his threat to wipe the United States and Israel “off the map” and believe the world leaders gathered at the United Nations must act with resolve to prevent a nuclear armed Iran that would be a threat to this country, Israel and the world.

For this reason, tens of thousands of people of every faith and ethnicity are expected to hear messages from prominent religious and civic leaders, including Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and Israeli Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik. In order to keep the focus on Iranian threats and to ensure that this critical message not be obscured, the organizers of the rally have decided not to have any American political personalities appear.

This issue, opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran, is one which enjoys bipartisan support and the backing of the American people across the political spectrum. On this, all Americans stand together. We acknowledge and deeply appreciate those American political leaders who have been and remain prepared to stand with us as we collectively address the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and its support for terrorism globally.

We hope that the world leaders gathered at the UN will hear this message and resolve to act decisively against the Iranian nuclear program by implementing UN and Security Council resolutions and sanctions.

We again call on all concerned Americans of every background to join us at the "RALLY TO STOP IRAN NOW" on Monday, Sept. 22, at 11:45 A.M.

Signed:
The National Coalition to Stop Iran Now
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
United Jewish Communities
UJA-Federation of New York
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

McCain and Obama campaigns focus on sanctions as Iran threat looms By Ron Kampeas. [excerpt] WASHINGTON (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, www.jta.org) 9/16/2008 -- The mounting anxiety over Iran’s nuclear program is sparking campaign chatter over a possible Israeli strike and prompting a bipartisan effort to revive long-stalled sanctions legislation in the U.S. Congress. ...

European Jewish Congress President: military action against Iran only under UN auspices by: Yossi Lempkowicz Updated: 15/Sep/2008 European Jewish Press

BRUSSELS (EJP)---The President of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) Moshe Kantor said that «if there is an obvious evidence that Iranians are going to have the nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it, somebody should stop them on behalf of the United Nations, even by military action.”

Kantor made the comment to journalists Monday in Brussels where he chaired a gathering of a dozen international experts on nuclear non-proliferation who discussed the danger of the Iranian nuclear program and the potential propagation of nuclear terrorism around the globe.

“If Israel or the US will be authorized to do a military action is not the question but rather that it (the Iranian nuclear program) should be stopped because it is a danger for the whole world,” Kantor said, stressing that Iran is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“If such military action is done legally, it is a very good protection for the European Jewry,” he added, insisting that everything “should be done legally”, and within the framework of the UN Security Council resolutions.

Kantor deplored the fact that around 10,000 companies in Europe are still collaborating with Iran on the development of its gas and oil industry. “A market with a turnover of about 100 billion dollars,” he stressed.

“The collaboration continues and even big EU countries cannot stop their business community from investing in Iran’s proliferation process,” Kantor, who is also president of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, said.

Iran is still blocking attempts to investigate allegations that Teheran carried out research and experiments linked to a nuclear weapons program, said a report released Monday by the UN nuclear agency.


At the gathering, a Russian expert, Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired general, reported about the different scenarios of an attack of Iran or from Iran.

He said that the disaster would be smaller if somebody attacks Iran first. “If we wait for Iran to have the nuclear weapon, it will be more problematic,” Dvorkin reportedly said.

The experts stressed that economic sanctions against Tehran “are not effective” because they do not hit the sensitive part of the Iranian society. “Any critic against the nuclear program is seen by the Iranians as a threat against the position of Iran in the world.”

There is a mobilization of the society around the current leadership, they said.

Monday’s roundtable discussion was also attended by experts from the US, UK, Norway, Israel, Belgium, Holland and the Czech Republic.

Monday, September 15, 2008

New IAEA Report: Iran Continues to Withhold Nuclear Program Info
IAEA Report released Sept. 15, 2008


The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today (Sept. 15) released new findings that Iran is continuing to refuse to provide information about the nature of its nuclear program and its uranium enrichment activities. The Islamic Republic could face a new round of sanctions for its intransigence. See below for additional information about past reports and visit www.theisraelproject.org/iranpresskit for more information about Iran.

The IAEA's reports about Iran’s nuclear program have consistently found that Iran has failed – and continues to fail – to fully cooperate with the IAEA, pointing to a military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program.[1] Iran has acknowledged working on a nuclear program for more than 20 years[2] and pursued a policy of concealment until October 2003. Since then, Iran has failed to provide satisfactory information about and access to its program.[3]

The reports have also found that Iran is continuously developing and operating new centrifuges[4] and enriching uranium in violation of several U.N. Security Council Resolutions. This is a major concern for the IAEA.[5] Other findings conclude that Iran apparently is conducting secret studies to convert uranium dioxide into “green salt,” which can be used to make fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb. Iran is also testing “high explosives” and redesigning the inner cone of the Shahab-3 missile re-entry head to accommodate a nuclear warhead, a subject of concern to the Agency.[6]

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Of pertinence.

"If all of these activities are real, it would mean that Iran is moving faster and is closer to obtaining a nuclear-weapons capability than the hard facts suggest. .... [I]f Tehran were to believe that American -- not Israeli -- military action is imminent, it might slow work on the elements of its program that it thinks the world can observe." -- David Kay, Washington Post, September 14, 2008 Op Ed



OPED / David Kay
What's missing from Iran debate
Building a security framework for a nuclear TehranBy David Kay • Special to The Washington Post • September 14, 2008

It would be impossible and foolish to predict what lies immediately ahead for Iran. Inflation runs rampant and domestic unrest is growing, but the leadership is banding together in support of the country's nuclear program. Threat assessment and war planning are (or should be) about best-guessing capabilities and intentions. When it comes to Iran, these calculations are difficult, but there are things we can -- and must -- figure out. Given what we know and what we can best-guess, it looks as if Iran is 80 percent of the way to a functioning nuclear weapon.


Every nuclear program needs raw materials, a way to refine them and, in the final stage, weaponization. Getting and enriching the materials is the hardest part; without this, a nuclear reaction is impossible. How does Iran's nuclear program measure up?

The situation is a bit murky, but we know, basically, that Tehran has a handle on the fissionable material. Iran imported significant amounts of raw uranium from China in 1991. It has also attempted to produce weapons-grade material, conducting secret enrichment efforts and acquiring designs, materials and samples of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment from the A.Q. Khan network. Plus, over the past 18 years, the Iranians have developed and tested state-of-the-art centrifuges and enrichment techniques. If Iran's 6,000 forthcoming new-design centrifuges were working for a year, the program could produce about five weapons. My best guess is that they are about two to four years away from accomplishing this.

Next comes weaponization. The fissionable material must be converted into metal and packaged. Here again, Iran has made substantial progress. What remains is to produce these elements in adequate numbers and amounts; combine them in an engineering design that ensures that they work and that fits on a missile; and gain confidence that the resulting weapons will get the job done.

All of this is public knowledge, but the answers to most of the important questions relating to intent and progress on crucial elements of weaponization are unknown. It's the only partially understood and suspected activities of Iran that are most alarming. Signs of these activities include detection by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors of samples of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium; more extensive plutonium separation than Iran has admitted; weapons design work; construction of a heavy-water reactor and its associated heavy-water production facility; design work on missile re-entry vehicles that seem to be for a nuclear weapon; and reports of yet-undiscovered programs and facilities.

If all of these activities are real, it would mean that Iran is moving faster and is closer to obtaining a nuclear-weapons capability than the hard facts suggest. Obtaining that last 20 percent of the elements needed to make a nuclear weapon would take perhaps one to two years, instead of the four to seven years needed if they were not.

While we know a lot more about Iran than we did about Iraq (before the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars), we still lack answers to the most important questions, including:

If Iran has decided or decides to acquire nuclear weapons, how long will it take to do so and how many could it produce per year?

How much foreign assistance has Iran received, and from whom did it receive it?

Does Iran have unknown clandestine nuclear facilities and, if so, how many? Doing what?

What are the real capabilities of Iran's various weapons-delivery options, particularly its missiles?

What are the command-and-control arrangements for Iran's nuclear program? Where is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in this mix?

This dirty-laundry list is one reason efforts to provide net assessments about where the program is have proved so contentious. The last U.S. attempt to produce a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, in December, led to a comedy remarkable even by Washington standards. Yet we are talking about a country with known nuclear ambitions and a track record of violating international obligations in pursuit of that goal.

Despite the unanswered questions, we have some pretty frightening knowledge about Iran's nuclear capabilities. Less clear are its intentions.

Tehran often claims to want only to pursue a civilian nuclear program. But it also says it wants to wipe Israel off the map. And Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with Ahmadinejad, sees nuclear "power" as a symbol of national pride. It's difficult to know what to believe.

What truly raises tensions, though, is Iran's worldview. Iranians have learned to fear the power of others and to believe that they must ultimately organize their world in a way that lessens the power of the states that pose the greatest threat to them. And Iran's essential national security threat has never been Israel. It is the United States.

My humble best guess is that Iran is pushing toward a nuclear-weapons capability as rapidly as it can. But if Tehran were to believe that American -- not Israeli -- military action is imminent, it might slow work on the elements of its program that it thinks the world can observe. Yet such temporizing would only be tactical. Its strategic goal is to acquire nuclear weapons to counter what it views as a real U.S. threat. Iran appears to believe that the United States is not willing to accept the validity and survival of the Iranian revolutionary state.

Of course, Iran does not exist in a vacuum. How Israel and the United States perceive the threat, based on their own historical memories and strategic priorities, figures significantly in just how messy this may get.

The context within which these national strategies and decisions are interacting is being reshaped by two factors. First, oil prices have exploded, greatly enriching Iran and making clear to the West the economic and political pain and destruction that could come from a serious disruption in the flow of oil. Second is Iran's belief that it has gained a strategic advantage against the United States as a result of its being tied down in Iraq, and against Israel, because of the tactical blunting, if not defeat, of its military in Lebanon.

Strategic objectives
The United States must figure out and articulate its strategic objectives regarding Iran's nuclear program. At present, its actions and rhetoric are often as conflicted as those of the Islamic Republic.

And while not all would agree with Sen. John McCain's assessment that the only thing worse than a U.S. or Israeli military attack on Iran would be Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, few in the mainstream of American politics seem ready to go on the record with a plan for "the day after" that does not involve military action.

Two concerns seem to be most absent from discussion of Iran's "nuclear future," whatever it is: First, what policies would limit any advantage, political or military, that Iran might gain from such weapons? Second, how do we begin to craft, with all the states of the region -- including Israel and Iran -- political, economic and security arrangements that recognize their varied interests and concerns and their often very different perspectives on what these are? In the end, we need to decide how we can perform damage control and create arrangements that take into account states' varied interests.

Figuring this out is not rocket science. But we must begin the process of discussion, consultation, planning and acting that will lay the groundwork for a future far different from either the conflicts of the past or the current path toward a regional conflagration that may well involve nuclear weapons.

The United States, along with all of the states in the Middle East, has to create security policies that guarantee that acts of aggression will not be allowed to threaten any state's survival while also beginning to build the economic institutions and policies that can create a future where war seems impossible. While Iran's economy suffers, engagement is more feasible.

What is hard is the actual act of stepping off the (probably sinking) ship we stand on to construct a very different vessel. This is one of those times in history when will is more important than brilliance and when determination to shape a different future is more vital than experience in rituals of the past.

The writer led the U.N. inspections after the Persian Gulf War that uncovered the Iraqi nuclear program. He later led the CIA's Iraq Survey Group, which determined there were no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction at the time of the 2003 invasion. This article was adapted from a longer on in the current issue the National Interest.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Broad-Based Coalition Seeks To Prevent a Nuclear Iran


By Marc Perelman
Thu. Sep 11, 2008 The Forward

In an effort to raise public awareness about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a new organization is being launched, with its own paid staff, to focus solely on the issue.

The promoters of the group, which is called United Against Nuclear Iran, hope to replicate the Save Darfur Coalition, which has brought together liberals and hawks as well as Jewish and Christian groups, to advocate in favor of the war-ravaged Sudanese region.

The group is being set up as a registered 501c3 charity that presents itself as “a non-partisan, broad-based coalition” that will comprise individuals and organizations from “diverse ethnicities, faith communities, political and social affiliations,” according to a mission statement posted on its Web site, which is under development.

The executive director of the new organization is Mark Wallace, a Republican lawyer who worked for the American mission to the United Nations until recently. Wallace will also have on staff a spokesman and an outreach director. The group’s spokesman, John Kildea, told the Forward that the coalition was not aimed at fomenting military action against Iran.

“To be clear, our aim is not to beat the drums of war,” he said. “On the contrary, we hope to play a key part in laying the groundwork for effective U.S. policies in coordination with our allies, the U.N. and others by a strong showing of unified support from the American people to alter the current course of the Iranian regime.”

The mission statement on the group’s Web site advocates stepped-up diplomatic pressure on Tehran. Kildea also pointed to the diversity of the co-chairs, who include former CIA director James Woolsey, America’s former ambassador to the U.N. and Democratic Party foreign policy heavyweight Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross, formerly America’s chief Middle East peace negotiator.

Kildea declined to disclose details of the funding of the group, and said that United Against Nuclear Iran was just beginning to seek out coalition members and was aiming to create local chapters.

The government in Tehran claims that its nuclear program is aimed solely at producing electricity, but Western countries and Israel suspect that Iran is looking to produce nuclear weapons. The issue has faded somewhat in the United States, where attention is focused mostly on the White House race and on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supporters of the Israeli government are concerned that the vacuum, coupled with the lack of progress of the diplomatic negotiations between Europe and Iran, will enable the regime in Tehran to continue making progress on its nuclear program.

Jewish groups, while aggressively pushing for more pressure on Iran, have been eager not to appear as the only ones driving a hawkish agenda against Tehran. Although one source privy to the discussions said that some Jewish communal officials have been involved in the discussions, and several Jewish communal sources are aware of the effort, it appears that major Jewish groups will support it from the outside. They are coordinating their own advocacy efforts through an Iran task force set up by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The Presidents Conference is planning to hold simultaneous rallies in New York and Washington on September 22 to protest the presence of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the annual U.N. General Assembly.

The Israel Project will broadcast ads on the main cable news networks in New York during the U.N. parley, and in Washington during the presidential debates. Last spring, the Anti-Defamation League placed ads in Swiss newspapers, denouncing a natural-gas deal between a Swiss government-owned corporation and Iran. A Vienna-based coalition called Stop the Bomb has organized demonstrations and events denouncing a similar business deal.

It appears that Wallace and the staff of United Against Nuclear Iran will supplement the Jewish groups’ activity by reaching out to a more diverse public.

Wallace began his political carreer working as an assistant to then Florida governor Jeb Bush and then served on the Republican legal team during the 2000 Florida presidential vote recount. After working in the Department of Homeland Security under President Bush, he was recruited in early 2006 to the United States Mission to the United Nations by its then ambassador, John Bolton, to be in charge of management and reform. During his tenure, Wallace, who was given the rank of ambassador, ruffled the feathers of U.N. officials by aggressively pushing corruption investigations into U.N. programs. He left his position in April, amid reports that he had fallen out of favor with the new and more conciliatory ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Wallace's wife, Nicolle, was the communications director at the White House from 2005 until mid-2006, and then joined the McCain presidential campaign team May 1 as a senior adviser. Both Wallaces are briefing Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for interviews and debates.

His spokesman, Kildea, stressed that the initiative was a truly bi-partisan effort.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Editor's Notes: "The Secret War with Iran ," A losing battle, so far

"Read it and weep? No. Read it and work - before it's too late." -- David Horowitz


Sep. 4, 2008
David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POST

In August 2007, because certain intelligence agencies were not convinced of Israeli claims that President Bashar Assad was engaged in the construction of a nuclear weapons facility, Israel sent sent 12 members of the Sayeret Matkal commando unit into Syria in two helicopters to collect soil samples outside the site in question.

Needless to say, this was a highly dangerous operation. And it very nearly went wrong. The commandos were almost exposed when a Syrian patrol drove past the landing site where the helicopters were parked.

But it was well worth it. The results provided "clear-cut proof" of the nuclear project," investigative journalist Ronen Bergman writes in his new book, The Secret War with Iran.

A month later, Israel bombed the site, and in so doing reemphasized the Begin Doctrine - Israel's insistence that, for the sake of its own survival, it will not allow the deployment by hostile neighbors of weapons that might be used to destroy it.

Bergman's book, which will be published next week in the United States, is an expanded, updated version of his Hebrew-language The Point of No Return, which was Israel's best-selling non-fiction work in 2007.

The new volume is anything but a mere translation. For one thing, the world has moved on, or more accurately, moved closer to confrontation, in the intervening period. For another, Bergman has added further revelatory content to the 2007 book's disclosures.

Plainly, the author has been allowed access to a range of material hitherto kept classified by various intelligence services. Plainly, too, what he is publishing is material that Israel is content to have widely disseminated and some of which cannot be independently verified. The book was submitted to censorship, and not all of its content was approved, he told me when he dropped off a copy a few days ago, though it did sometimes seem as though he had run into the censor on a relatively benign day.

Most notable, perhaps, in this context, is the fact that the guardians of Israel's military secrets have allowed Bergman to provide a fairly extensive account of that September 6, 2007, raid on Syria's nuclear facility - whose purpose he states unambiguously was "the production of plutonium for the manufacture of atomic bombs" and whose construction, he reports, was a tripartite endeavor: "At a series of secret meetings between representatives of the three sides, held mainly in Teheran, it was decided that Syria would supply the territory, Iran the money [$1 billion-$2b.], and North Korea the expertise..."

Last year's raid was the subject of some of the heaviest military censorship that I have encountered in the past 25 years: Israel was desperate to take no official responsibility for the attack, and in this way to allow Damascus plausible deniability, to avoid a deterioration into war. There was no official confirmation of the raid, and for a long time after it, all references in the Israeli media had to include conditioning phrases such as the "reported" Israeli strike.

Apparently such concerns no longer apply. Bergman has been freed to describe, without the censor's usual required attribution to "foreign sources," the entire process by which the Syrian facility was built - with details of the shipments of material from North Korea and the dispatch of Korean scientists. He sets out the circumstances of that high-risk August fact-finding mission by Sayeret Matkal. And he is allowed to note that "a number of North Koreans" were killed in the Israeli attack.

Although destroying the site was an Israeli operation, Bergman makes clear further that "the Israelis and the Americans decided to act," and that the two countries coordinated on the official silence policy after the raid was successfully completed. "Prime Minister Olmert and President Bush decided that both countries would maintain a policy of total nonreaction, without exceptions, and without winks or nods. If the Syrians had not been in a hurry to issue their own statements, the whole matter might not have been disclosed at all."

If the sanctioning of these details about last year's raid on Syria is interesting, given the immensely sensitive nature of Israeli-Syrian relations and the continued potential for both diplomatic breakthrough and bitter conflict, then the sanctioning of some of Bergman's disclosures about the Iranian nuclear project, and notably the Bush administration's attitude to it, seems potentially incendiary.

A few weeks ago, the White House took the unusual step of issuing a specific denial of a report on Army Radio, picked up by the Post, which claimed that a Bush official recently told his Israeli counterparts that the president is planning to strike Iran's nuclear facilities before leaving office. Only this week, a newspaper in The Netherlands claimed that Dutch intelligence has abruptly halted an "extremely successful" ongoing operation to sabotage Iran's nuclear program because of an assessment that such an American strike is indeed just weeks away.

In his book, Israel's military censor has allowed Bergman to add two highly significant revelations in this context: The first is that after the American intelligence community issued its controversial National Intelligence Estimate late last year that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program, Vice President Richard Cheney sent a message to Olmert stating that despite this conclusion, "the possibility of an American military operation against Iranian nuclear targets and military infrastructure had not been discarded."

The second is that, as of May 2008, "the Mossad's estimate" is that Bush, "out of religious and ideological motives, will order a strike."

FOR ALL the behind-the-scenes Israeli access granted Bergman, and the censor's apparent generosity, his account of what he calls "the 30-year clandestine struggle against the world's most dangerous terrorist power" overflows with tales of incompetence and outright failure in the battle against Iran - some narrow and specific, some more fundamental - many of which reflect terribly on Israel.

He reminds readers who might prefer to forget the uncomfortable truth that Israel supplied arms to Ayatollah Khomeini's regime at the turn of the 1980s, in an operation codenamed "Seashell," which was critical in "turning the tide of the war" against Iraq in Iran's favor.

In one illustration of the disastrous consequences for the seller of misguided arms dealing, he points out that one of the machine guns sold by Israel to Iran at that time, a Browning, later transferred to Hizbullah's arsenal, was used to murderous effect in the July 12, 2006, attack on the IDF Humvees patrolling the Lebanon border in which three soldiers were killed and Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev fatally wounded and captured - the attack that sparked the Second Lebanon War. (A senior Iranian official who helped broker those arms deals, Bergman further reveals, later became a top Iranian representative in Lebanon and a Hizbullah founder, and pushed for the 2006 abduction-attack on Teheran's orders. Some of the Hizbullah gunmen who carried out that attack, he also writes, were trained in Iran.)

He reports how Israel has insistently failed to acknowledge that a November 1982 car bombing by the nascent Hizbullah at Israel's military government headquarters in Tyre, southern Lebanon, in which 75 Israeli security personnel and 27 Lebanese were killed, was an Iranian-sponsored suicide bombing. Indeed, it was the first such suicide attack - "the bomb that spawned a movement,' as he calls it.

More Israelis were killed in that blast, which reduced a seven-story building to rubble, than in any since. The car used in the attack, a Peugeot, was identified. The bomber's identity is known: Ahmad Qassir has a monument to his memory in his home village near Baalbek. Yet "to this day," Bergman notes, "Israeli intelligence claims that there was no intelligence failure; that there was not even a terror attack, just a problem with gas cylinders."

The refusal to grapple with the reality of the suicide-bomb challenge right away left Israel more vulnerable than it need have been to the relentless series of such bombings that have followed - beginning with another attack in the very same city a year later, in which 28 more Israelis were killed.

"This thing has been burning inside me for years," Bergman quotes Haifa Judge Yitzhak Dar as saying. Dar was on a team that investigated the blast for the IDF, concluded it was a car bombing, but saw its report buried. "Despite the conclusions we reached, everybody wanted to believe that it was negligence about gas cylinders, and not a terror attack," laments Dar. "Thus, they wasted a very valuable year of preparations for the next attack, one which could have been prevented with a little awareness of the potential for the use of car bombs."

Bergman reports that IDF Military Intelligence got wind in advance of Hizbullah plans to kidnap "a very senior American intelligence officer a week before the CIA station chief in Beirut, Col. William Buckley, was indeed seized (and tortured and killed) in March 1984 in an Imad Mughniyeh-led Hizbullah operation, but that the Mossad doubted the information and didn't bother to pass it on to the CIA.

He summarizes Israeli intelligence's grave, ongoing failure to penetrate Hizbullah by reporting that a Mossad man, who for years served in the unit that sought to recruit spies inside the organization, held up his hands, without all the fingers extended, to indicate the number of successes over 24 full years.

By contrast, he discusses Hizbullah's staggering penetration of Israeli security circles... and the sometimes ridiculous ease with which this is sometimes achieved. During the Second Lebanon War, for instance, he notes, "militiamen who had learned Hebrew at the so-called Cultural Center of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut listened in to IDF radio networks, using advanced communications equipment and codes supplied to them by IDF members who were working with them in drug trafficking." (My emphasis added.)

Hizbullah knew far, far more about Israel's military planning and capabilities for that war than Israel remotely conceived, in short, while Israel knew far, far less than it thought it did about Hizbullah. "In truth," says Bergman, "Israel had gone to war in almost total darkness."

One small, very specific illustration: The spacious bunker from which the attack on the Goldwasser-Regev patrol was planned, which had been established over many weeks right under Israel's nose across the border, and which was connected by a fiberoptic cable network to Hizbullah's command headquarters in Beirut, did not merely remain undiscovered before the attack, thus facilitating it. It remained undiscovered "throughout the entire war, even though Israeli soldiers controlled the area from the first day. It was a miracle that Hizbullah guerrillas never took advantage of it to strike at Israeli troops again after the abduction on July 12."

The debilitating underestimation of Hizbullah is mirrored, in Bergman's narrative, by other basic failures in trying to grapple with Hizbullah's state sponsor, Iran.

Most centrally, he charges, Israel, along with the US and the rest of the West, only recognized relatively recently how far Iran has progressed toward its nuclear goal because for years everybody was looking the wrong way: Most eyes were focused on Russia, which was deemed to be the main potential international maverick that might enable Teheran to attain the bomb. But the real threat - the player that gave Iran the vital resources to stride forward - was Pakistan, via its notorious nuclear salesman Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.

THE SAGA Bergman recounts is not unremittingly bleak. The raid on Syria marked an important reassertion of Israeli military capability. The killing of Hizbullah terror chief Mughniyeh in the heart of the Syrian capital in February - for which no party has claimed responsibility - should also have sent a certain deterrent message. The defection to the CIA of top Iranian intelligence adviser Gen. Ali Reza Askari last year was another success.

Bergman also lists a series of sabotage operations that have prevented Iran from being even closer still to the bomb: A leading expert on electromagnetics who worked at Iran's Isfahan enrichment facility found dead at his home last year, and reports of an explosion at his laboratory; three or four planes crashing inside Iran in 2006 and 2007 with personnel connected to the security of the nuclear project on board; insulation units for the centrifuge enrichment process discovered to be unusable; various explosions caused by faulty equipment at the main Natanz facility and at Isfahan, including the wrecking of 50 centrifuges when two transformers blew up at Natanz in 2006. In language presumably negotiated painstakingly with the censor, the last of these incidents is attributed to "efforts implemented jointly with the United States."

Overall, Bergman writes, "Since Meir Dagan became Mossad director in 2002, Israel has significantly improved its knowledge about goings-on inside Iran, and has even taken certain preemptive actions."

Nonetheless, it seems that Iran has essentially cleared its technical hurdles now, and is into the home stretch - racing against the clock to get the bomb before international pressure, of whatever kind, forces a halt.

The latest information, according to Bergman's Mossad sources, is that some 3,000 centrifuges, in 18 cascades, are now enriching uranium, "under great technical difficulties," at Natanz. Nearby, the Iranians are building a plant to hold another 30,000 to 50,000 centrifuges - and building it underground to ensure no repeat of Israel's successful raid on Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak. Already, Natanz is protected by no fewer than 26 anti-aircraft missile batteries, and this and other of its nuclear facilities, he writes (despite others' claims to the contrary), already have the advanced Russian-made S-300 missiles among their defenses.

Meanwhile, at the Parchin military complex, notwithstanding the complacent conclusion of the NIE last year, the Iranians are hard at work on the final phase of the journey to the bomb - having made "considerable progress" in mastering the process of emplacing enriched uranium into the device that starts the devastating chain reaction. They are also making headway, Bergman writes, "in acquiring the expertise required to manufacture nuclear warheads that can be fitted to their missiles."

Satellite images of Parchin, he notes, show the erection of structures that can be used for the assembly of explosives needed in nuclear warheads. "Identical structures had over the years been spotted close to the installations where the Soviet Union developed and manufactured its nuclear warheads."

Why, given all this, did the NIE draw the opposite conclusions about Iran's nuclear weapons program? In part, Bergman asserts, because Iran outfoxed the American intelligence services by means that included the calculated leaking of bogus material purporting to indicate that the effort had been frozen in 2003.

BERGMAN'S COMBINATION of overview and revelation makes for a horrifying read. Essentially, his book demonstrates an ongoing incapacity - by Israel, the US and the rest of the free world, but, critically, featuring Israel as the first potential casualty - to internalize the extent of the Iranian threat and act effectively to thwart it. The powers that are faced off against expansionist Islam have consistently underestimated the cunning, viciousness and determination of the chief state sponsor of that ideology, Iran, and its various offshoots, proxies and allies, notably including Hizbullah and Hamas.

Time and again, Western weakness, capitulation and inaction has emboldened Islamic extremism. Between 1980 and 1997, for instance, Iran assassinated close to 200 "dissidents" in attack after attack across Europe, and European nations, on the whole, barely lifted a finger to stop them. Why would Iran not be emboldened?

A relentless campaign of kidnappings, murders and suicide bombings forced the US out of Lebanon, forced the French out of Lebanon, forced Israel out of Lebanon, and ultimately led to Hizbullah's increasingly dominant status in Lebanon. (Among the often forgotten victims were 12 members of Lebanon's tiny lingering Jewish community, who were kidnapped and killed by the nascent Hizbullah from West Beirut, in 1985 and 1986.) Right now, Iran and Hizbullah are plotting to "avenge" Mughniyeh's death with kidnappings of Israeli businessmen, and they are free to act because they have operatives ready and waiting in countries all around the world. Why wouldn't it? The tactic has worked so well over the decades.

As Bergman writes in a sober concluding chapter, "Iran and Hizbullah are more sophisticated, effective and determined adversaries than Israel and the United States have previously encountered in the Middle East. These new enemies, the Shi'ites of Iran and Lebanon, have repeatedly outwitted Israel and the West, beating them across the board in politics, in intelligence gathering and in war."

Now Iran is on the brink of attaining the ultimate tool for expanding the Islamic Revolution, the nuclear bomb, and still the international community hesitates and bickers and even undermines its own ineffectual trade sanctions.

Ten years ago, Dr. Iftikhar Khan Chaudry, a former research officer in Pakistan's nuclear project, sought political asylum in the United States, claiming he would be killed if he returned home. In his affidavit, which was found to be credible and led to his being granted the refuge he sought, he detailed how A.Q. Khan had marketed Pakistan's nuclear expertise and materials to clients including Libya, Iraq and North Korea, exposing the clandestine network for the first time. Outrageously, it took the US until September 2003 to confront Pakistan about Khan's activities.

Chaudry also specified how Khan had set up Pakistan's nuclear channel to Iran, having himself been present when five Iranian scientists visited Pakistan at the start of the partnership. The Iranians were "introduced to the method in which uranium is processed for the purpose of creating a nuclear bomb," Chaudry told the Americans. And he added, "It is also apparent that Iran intends to utilize a nuclear weapon - in the future, when a nuclear weapon would be operational - against the State of Israel."

"The Secret War with Iran, as waged since the fall of the shah and the arrival of Khomeini, has been a tale of ruthless single-mindedness on their side and confused laxity on ours.

Read it and weep?

No. Read it and work - before it's too late.

("The Secret War with Iran" will be published in the US next week by Free Press.)

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1220526712951&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Friday, September 5, 2008

1. President [Ahmadinejad]: Resistance is only path to victory over occupiers
2. Peres: Iran threat should be resolved politically
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President[Ahmadinejad]: Resistance is only path to victory over occupiers

TEHRAN (IRNA) [via Tehran Times] -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that resistance is the only way to victory against occupiers and aggressors.

""There is no way but resistance and intellectual and political assault on the Zionist regime. This is the only way of victory,"" said President Ahmadinejad in a meeting with former Lebanese prime minister Omar Karami here on Tuesday.

President Ahmadinejad said that the Zionist regime was established to rule over the world of Islam and the regime had the mission of threatening, occupation, aggression, assassinating and undermining Muslim states. He said that resistance to the Zionist Regime and the bullying powers is a national and Islamic duty of all Muslims.

""Resistance against the Zionist regime is a big lesson taught to mankind by the late Imam Khomeini.""

He said that unity and resistance were the key to victory against the Zionist regime and by God's grace the era of Zionist regime and its supporters has come to an end and signs of their collapse are evident.

He noted that the Zionist regime has not the least base among nations in the region and the world.

""Today, even the U.S. and European governments have come to the conclusion that support for the (Zionist) regime is not to their country's benefit,"" he said.

Enemies are too weak to launch any propagation, said Ahmadinejad, adding that victory of the Lebanese people showed that the Zionist regime is weaker than it seems.

A preliminary unity of the Lebanese people forced Zionists to retreat and if the unity is formed in the region, the Zionists will collapse much sooner than expected, he said.

""Victory belongs to the faithful and we will be with you to the end,"" he declared. Karami said for his part, ""We believe as you do that the Zionist regime was formed in the region to fight Islam and implement the projects that will meet US interests and it is collapsing.""

He said stances of people in certain Arab countries differ with those of their systems.

""Muslim Arab people consider the Zionist regime as their enemy. Lebanon is the smallest Arab country in terms of area and population but through reliance on God and in light of power of faith and will they managed to inflict heaviest damage on the Zionist regime's army,"" he concluded.
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Peres: Iran threat should be resolved politically

Peres says he does not support military strike on Iran, adds Tehran's nuclear threat should be addressed through political, economic moves
Ronen Medzini and AP Published: 09.05.08, Ynetnews.com

Saying 'no' to Iran strike? The Iranian nuclear threat should be resolved politically, rather than militarily, President Shimon Peres said Friday.

Peres, who is currently in Italy, told reporters that the Iran problem will not be resolved militarily, but rather, through political and economic moves. The president added that it is better to act politically or economically as long as such option exists.

"I do not support a military strike against Iran," Peres told a conference in Italy, while urging the world to join forces and impose severe economic sanctions on Tehran. He said Iran was no longer representing its distinguished history, but rather, radicalism and religious fanaticism.

Today, Tehran constitutes a real and existential threat for the entire Middle East and the whole world, Peres added, noting that the vast majority of Arab countries object to the prospect of a nuclear Iran.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Attack on Israeli aircrew in Canada thwarted: report
Wed Sep 3, 2:30 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Plans by an unknown group to attack staff of Israel's national carrier El Al in Canada have been thwarted, Israel's private Channel Two television reported on Wednesday.

Without giving the nationalities of the alleged attackers, it said they had monitored the comings and goings of El Al aircrew at a Toronto hotel.

Security procedures for crews overnighting at the hotel between flights have now been changed, it added.

On Tuesday, Israeli newspapers reported that at least five attempts by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia to abduct Israeli businessmen in Africa, Asia, and South America had been foiled.

Each time, Hezbollah -- which fought a bloody war against Israel in the summer of 2006 -- tried to use "sleeper cells" embedded in far-flung Shiite Muslim communities, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot reported.

It and other newspapers cited unnamed Israeli security officials and said further details about the plots remain under official censorship.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Separating fact from fiction

By David A. Harris, Executive Director, American Jewish Committee
New York September 2, 2008


Recently, I met a gentleman at a dinner. He asked me what I do. I said I work for AJC. He replied that he had once been a member, but quit because we weren’t sufficiently “pro-peace.” When I pursued the point, he said that the decision to make peace was in Israel’s hands, but no one would make it, and groups like AJC were too busy “protecting” the Israeli government.

In a similar vein, the lead letter in the August 18th issue of the Jerusalem Report, written by Martin J. Weisman of California, stated: “I have to conclude that Israel may never have peace. The greatest obstacle to a two-state solution, and a source of great frustration for Israel’s friends, are the West Bank settlements mostly inhabited by religious Zionists.”

And in an exchange between British blogger Joy Wolfe and leaders of the “Free Gaza” campaign—which recently sent two boats to Gaza in the hope of garnering media attention—an Israeli-based member, Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, condemned Israel for “collective punishment of 1.5 million people,” “war crimes,” and “crimes against humanity,” and described Gaza as “an open prison, a sort of concentration camp – most of those people perfectly innocent ordinary human beings who want to be at peace with us...” All this, she argued, “is about as far from Judaism as I can imagine.”

Of course, these comments are not unique. They reveal a certain mindset among those who profess friendship and concern for Israel, yet are incapable or unwilling, or both, to grasp two central points.

First, the vast majority of Israelis desperately yearn for peace and would support a deal tomorrow with the Palestinians (and Syrians), entailing major territorial concessions, if they believed such an accord were possible – and durable. When willing leaders stepped forward in Egypt and Jordan, for example, peace became not only possible, but inevitable. With the exception of a few zealots, perhaps, Israelis don’t need to be pushed, prodded, cajoled, or nudged to seek a peace settlement. Israel was established to create permanent security, not permanent conflict, for its residents.

Second, those who place the onus for peace entirely on Israel do a disservice to the truth, not to mention the quest for a settlement. By lifting responsibility from the shoulders of the Palestinians and their supporters, they reinforce the notion that it is the Israelis, not the Palestinians, who must change their behavior – or face condemnation.

Think about it. Israel faces an unprecedented security environment.

To the north, Hezbollah has strengthened its military and political position in Lebanon since the inconclusive 2006 war with Israel. Its arsenal now includes missiles that can reportedly reach two-thirds of Israel, whereas two years ago “only” the northern third was within reach.

Weeks ago, Lebanon took an official day off to welcome Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant terrorist released in the swap with Israel, whose greatest claim to fame was the murder of a four-year-old girl.

Syria was clandestinely moving toward a nuclear capability until Israel ended that dream one year ago this month. Despite indirect talks with Israel hosted by Turkey, Damascus continues to funnel weapons to Hezbollah, host terrorist groups whose aim is Israel’s destruction, cavort with Iran, and now flirt with a resurgent Russia. Syria is on a military shopping spree in Moscow and, like Venezuela, has offered to provide military bases for Russia.

Gaza, while less in the news these days, remains in the hands of Hamas, a group voted into power by “those perfectly innocent, ordinary human beings who want to be at peace with us,” in the words of Ms. Godfrey-Goldstein.

Let’s be clear.

When Israel left Gaza three years ago, its future was to be determined by the Palestinians, not the Israelis. Even so, it was in Israel’s interests, as a neighboring state, to see a peaceful, prosperous Gaza emerge, not a failed, dysfunctional incubator for radicalism. Yet that’s exactly what we have.

Does anyone doubt that Hamas is using this temporary lull to strengthen its combat capacity, along the lines of Hezbollah in Lebanon? Have the missile and mortar attacks on Sderot and Ashkelon been so quickly forgotten? Has Hamas’s charter, which denies Israel’s right to exist and doesn’t have many kind words for Jews generally, been altered? How can Israel, which has an obligation, like any nation, to ensure the safety of its citizens, simply ignore these unassailable facts about Gaza?

On the West Bank, yes, the Palestinian leadership is widely viewed as more moderate than Hamas. Peace talks are ongoing, though, despite American hopes, negotiators are seeking to dampen expectations of a final deal anytime soon.

From Israel’s perspective, the problems are many. The Palestinian Authority is weak. Its signals are mixed. Why, for example, did its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, praise Kuntar, the child murderer, on the day of his release and, more recently, meet him during a visit to Lebanon? And should the PA ever lose its grip on power to Hamas, as it did in Gaza, then what would be the implications for Israel, surrounded on three sides by Iranian-backed enemies who seek its annihilation?

And then there is the ever longer shadow of Iran itself. Can Tehran’s call for a world without Israel simply be dismissed as rhetorical excess? Iran’s growing military power, combined with its allies Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, poses an existential threat to Israel. To date, the efforts of the international community have not changed Iranian nuclear behavior.

Yet, despite these seemingly obvious threats to Israel and the road to peace, there are those who would ignore them and harp instead on what they believe to be the true obstacles – Israeli settlements, governmental hesitation, and military repression.

I’m not a fan of most settlements, but Israel has shown that, when it believes the price worth it, it will do what’s necessary with settlements that stand in the way, be they in Sinai, Gaza, or the northern West Bank.

Moreover, if anyone believes this Israel government is hesitant to make peace, then we’re living on different planets. It speaks openly of a two-state settlement, discusses the most sensitive issues with its Palestinian counterparts, and acknowledges the suffering that Palestinians have endured without a state of their own.

And while Israel doesn’t have easy choices in the Gaza cauldron, it has shown remarkable restraint in the face of endless provocation. I don’t know of many other nations that would have endured daily barrages without a robust military response.

Let me suggest that the real reasons for the absence of peace lie elsewhere.

First, too many in the Arab world have been fed a steady diet of Israel as an illegitimate nation. In this view, Israel has no right to exist. It is simply a colonial project of Western nations that must be eliminated. Few Arabs have ever visited Israel, met Israelis (or Jews), or studied the Israeli, and not just Arab, narrative of Israel’s history, including the Jewish people’s age-old link to the land.

To make matters worse, Israel has damaged the self-image and self-respect of the Arab world by refusing to be defeated in battle. How can it be that this tiny nation, deprived of any significant natural resources, has withstood the Arab onslaught for six decades and emerged not only as the strongest military power in the region, but also the most politically and economically advanced?

Second, as the annual Arab Human Development Report makes abundantly clear, the Arab world has fallen far behind the rest of the world in the key indices that determine success in the contemporary world.

With the exception of its abundant, if unevenly distributed, energy resources, the region has contributed little to the globalized world. Thus, with stagnant political, economic, and social institutions, frustration runs high, especially in the demographic bulge of young people who have bleak futures. Herein lies the fertile recruiting ground for radicalism and extremism. With clever manipulation, Israel becomes an easy target for the pent-up anger and search for culprits.

And third, too often the Palestinians have gotten a pass on the need to accept responsibility for their own actions. An entire web of validators, enablers, and advocates – from the United Nations to individual governments, from non-governmental groups to the chattering class – stands ready to justify, rationalize, or defend Palestinian actions, and to quickly turn the spotlight on every alleged Israeli misdeed. That’s not a formula for progress, but paralysis.

To be clear, I believe in a two-state settlement as the only possible political outcome with a chance of success. I travel regularly to Arab countries and seek to contribute to a climate of mutual respect, and reject those Jewish messianists who would prevent coexistence.

Still, call me what you will, but I cannot accept those who, in the name of alleged concern for Israel, would tarnish its good name and, however unintentionally, jeopardize its future.

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