JCPA and JCRC/ Jewish Federation Stand in Solidarity with Israel Against Terrorist Attacks

JCPA, the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community, serves as the national coordinating and advisory body for the 14 national and 125 local agencies comprising the field of Jewish community relations.  In Iowa, the Jewish Community Relations Commission of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is affiliated with JCPA.   Send comments, questions locally to jcrc@dmjfed.org

 

For Immediate Release:  March 12, 2012

Contact: Benjamin Suarato, Communications Associate                                                
bsuarato@thejcpa.org; 202-212-6031; 518-810-7225(c)

JCPA Stands In Solidarity With Israel in Defending Itself Against Terrorist Attacks from Gaza
Expresses Appreciation to U.S. for Iron Dome

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) expressed solidarity with Israel in defending itself against a barrage of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Gaza.

“Rocket attacks on Israeli cities and communities in the southern part of the country are an outrage,” said JCPA Chair Dr. Conrad Giles. “No family anywhere should be forced to live with the fear that a rocket may hit its home. The rocket barrage in recent days, affecting the lives of close to a million Israelis, cannot be tolerated. We stand by Israel as it exercises the legitimate right of any state to defend its citizens, while our hope is that calm quickly can be restored.”

“The loss of innocent lives is deeply saddening,” said JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow. “We are thankful that the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, designed and implemented with help from the U.S., has been able to prevent many rockets from reaching their targets inside Israel.  This violence is causing deep wounds to both sides. We pray that peace can be achieved soon so that both Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza can live without fear and loss.”

---end ----

 

 

 

Rabbi Kaufman: AIPAC, Iran, America and Israel

AIPAC, Iran, America and Israel

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Rabbi Kaufman   http://weareforisrael.org/2012/03/07/aipac-iran-america-and-israel/

 

This week’s AIPAC Policy Conference was all about one concern, Iran. There appears to be agreement between the Israeli and American governments on most of the major issues related to Iran.

1. Iran is a threat to the peace of the region, not just to Israel for which it is an existential threat.
2. Iran is already both a threat to American interests and to American security within our borders and across the globe.
3. Iran has directly and indirectly, through its proxies- Hamas, Hizballah, and insurgents in Iraq, already caused the death of thousands of Americans and injured tens of thousands more.
4. Containment of a nuclear armed Iran is not an option. If Iran is doing all of the things that it is doing now without the cover of nuclear weapons, surely its harmful activities would only increase with them.
5. The IAEA and intelligence sources both have confirmed that Iran is pursuing technologies and nuclear enrichment in quantities that only make sense in the context of a nuclear weapons program. On this see Sen. McConnell’s speech.
6. Israel has the right to act on its own to ensure its security.

The problem is in the timeline for action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. There is a capability gap. Israel’s ability to disrupt Iran’s nuclear plans is not as strong as America’s. America can wait longer to use military action. I wrote about this in an article for the Times of Israel in which I explain the issue in detail today.

The most important thing to understand about The Capability Gap is that the time at which Israel can no longer act militarily with any effectiveness against Iran’s nuclear weapons program is much nearer than that of the United States. For Israel to hold off on any action, it will have to receive strong enough assurances that the United States will act that it can cede its own defense to the United States.

Trust in the words or the President or in those of members of Congress may not be enough. There may need to be legislation, passed by the Congress and ratified by the President, that mandates action should certain boundaries be crossed. Without that, Israeli military action may not be far off.

No one wants war. Not AIPAC, not Israel, not America, not the President, not his Republican opponents. No one. But sometimes, to quote the Rolling Stones, “you can’t always get what you want.”

 

Transcripts of speeches by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered at AIPAC

People interested in the dilemmas of confronting Iran’s continuing quest to attain a nuclear weapon should read the two most prominent speeches presented at AIPAC for themselves.

 

President Obama’s speech:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73588.html

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech

http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/05/24/full-text-of-netanyahu-speech-to-aipac/

 

 

Eisenstadt and Makovsky: The Need for Consistent U.S. and Israeli Public Messaging on Iran

[R]egardless of any private understandings the two leaders reach on Monday, Washington should continue to emphasize one idea in public: while the United States and Israel share the same objective regarding Iran and the same preference for a diplomatic solution, Israel ultimately makes its own decisions about its own security. Such an approach would further ratchet up pressure on Tehran, turning the all-too-visible differences in U.S. and Israeli policy over military action into a factor that advances common U.S. and Israeli policy objectives. As Vice President Biden's national security advisor Antony Blinken put it in a speech this week, "Israel has to make its own decisions. We are not in the business of telling our allies and partners what to do when it comes to their own national security."


http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1834

Yadlin: Israel's Last Chance to Strike Iran [before it has to entrust its security to others]

Yadlin is not arguing for an attack on Iran.  He says, however: “What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity — and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest — Washington will act [militarily, and with some specificity of action] to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.”  //M. Finkelstein   jcrc@dmjfed.org

 

February 29, 2012    New York Times

Israel’s Last Chance to Strike Iran

By AMOS YADLIN

Tel Aviv

ON June 7, 1981, I was one of eight Israeli fighter pilots who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. As we sat in the briefing room listening to the army chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, before starting our planes’ engines, I recalled a conversation a week earlier when he’d asked us to voice any concerns about our mission.

We told him about the risks we foresaw: running out of fuel, Iraqi retaliation, how a strike could harm our relationship with America, and the limited impact a successful mission might have — perhaps delaying Iraq’s nuclear quest by only a few years. Listening to today’s debates about Iran, we hear the same arguments and face the same difficulties, even though we understand it is not 1981.

Shortly after we destroyed Osirak, the Israeli defense attaché in Washington was called into the Pentagon. He was expecting a rebuke. Instead, he was faced with a single question: How did you do it? The United States military had assumed that the F-16 aircraft they had provided to Israel had neither the range nor the ordnance to attack Iraq successfully. The mistake then, as now, was to underestimate Israel’s military ingenuity.

We had simply maximized fuel efficiency and used experienced pilots, trained specifically for this mission. We ejected our external fuel tanks en route to Iraq and then attacked the reactor with pinpoint accuracy from so close and such a low altitude that our unguided bombs were as accurate and effective as precision-guided munitions.

Today, Israel sees the prospect of a nuclear Iran that calls for our annihilation as an existential threat. An Israeli strike against Iran would be a last resort, if all else failed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. That moment of decision will occur when Iran is on the verge of shielding its nuclear facilities from a successful attack — what Israel’s leaders have called the “zone of immunity.”

Some experts oppose an attack because they claim that even a successful strike would, at best, delay Iran’s nuclear program for only a short time. But their analysis is faulty. Today, almost any industrialized country can produce a nuclear weapon in four to five years — hence any successful strike would achieve a delay of only a few years.

What matters more is the campaign after the attack. When we were briefed before the Osirak raid, we were told that a successful mission would delay the Iraqi nuclear program for only three to five years. But history told a different story.

After the Osirak attack and the destruction of the Syrian reactor in 2007, the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs were never fully resumed. This could be the outcome in Iran, too, if military action is followed by tough sanctions, stricter international inspections and an embargo on the sale of nuclear components to Tehran. Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will have to recognize that the precedent for military action has been set, and can be repeated.

Others claim that an attack on the Iranian nuclear program would destabilize the region. But a nuclear Iran could lead to far worse: a regional nuclear arms race without a red phone to defuse an escalating crisis, Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, more confident Iranian surrogates like Hezbollah and the threat of nuclear materials’ being transferred to terrorist organizations.

Ensuring that Iran does not go nuclear is the best guarantee for long-term regional stability. A nonnuclear Iran would be infinitely easier to contain than an Iran with nuclear weapons.

President Obama has said America will “use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.” Israel takes him at his word.

The problem, however, is one of time. Israel doesn’t have the safety of distance, nor do we have the United States Air Force’s advanced fleet of bombers and fighters. America could carry out an extensive air campaign using stealth technology and huge amounts of ammunition, dropping enormous payloads that are capable of hitting targets and penetrating to depths far beyond what Israel’s arsenal can achieve.

This gives America more time than Israel in determining when the moment of decision has finally been reached. And as that moment draws closer, differing timetables are becoming a source of tension.

On Monday, Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are to meet in Washington. Of all their encounters, this could be the most critical. Asking Israel’s leaders to abide by America’s timetable, and hence allowing Israel’s window of opportunity to be closed, is to make Washington a de facto proxy for Israel’s security — a tremendous leap of faith for Israelis faced with a looming Iranian bomb. It doesn’t help when American officials warn Israel against acting without clarifying what America intends to do once its own red lines are crossed.

Mr. Obama will therefore have to shift the Israeli defense establishment’s thinking from a focus on the “zone of immunity” to a “zone of trust.” What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity — and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest — Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.

I hope Mr. Obama will make this clear. If he does not, Israeli leaders may well choose to act while they still can.

Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, is the director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 1, 2012

An earlier version of this essay misstated the date of Israel's 1981 air strike against the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. It was June 7, not July 7.

 

 

 

 

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/opinion/israels-last-chance-to-strike-iran.html?_r=1&src=tp

 

Kagan and Zarif: Admit the facts and then debate what to do.

“There is no case to be made that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability.”

“ This is not a recommendation for a military strike on the Iranian nuclear program. One could decide that allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities is preferable to the consequences of a military strike, or one could accept at face value President Obama's statements that the prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear arsenal is unacceptable (which implies a willingness to use military force to prevent it). But the debate must take place on the basis of a reality not skewed to support one or another policy option.”  Kagan and Zarif    

 

 

America's Iranian Self-Deception

Let's admit the facts about its nuclear program and then have an honest debate about what to do.

 

 

By FREDERICK W. KAGAN AND MASEH ZARIF    Wall Street Journal,  Op Ed,  February 27. 2012

Americans are being played for fools by Iran—and fooling themselves. There is no case to be made that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. There is no evidence that Iran's decision-makers are willing to stop the nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions or anything else. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Friday that it has made no progress in its negotiations with Iran and that Iran continues to accelerate its enrichment operations, which are in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and agreements with the IAEA.

Yet the policy discussion in the U.S. is confused. Former Ambassador Dennis Ross writes that the Iranians are ready for talks. Anonymous administration officials refer to one of the most dangerous Iranian nuclear installations, Fordow, outside the city of Qom, as "a Potemkin facility." The media are full of comparisons to Iraq in 2003, when suspicions that Iraq was pursuing a covert nuclear program led to war.

People are conflating intelligence assessment with policy recommendation. The prospect of war with Iran is so distasteful that people are desperate to persuade themselves that the problem is not serious.

IAEA inspectors on the ground at Iran's nuclear facilities reported the following facts on Friday: Iran's inventory of centrifuges enriching uranium isotopes has been steadily expanding, along with the stockpiles of uranium enriched to 3.5% and 20%—important stages on the road to weapons-grade uranium. Iran has installed and run advanced centrifuges in the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. Iran has buried an enrichment facility under a small mountain at Fordow, installed air-defense systems around it, and brought new centrifuges online there.

Iran is developing techniques and technologies needed to turn weapons-grade uranium (which it is not yet producing) into an atomic bomb. The IAEA reported that the Iranians "dismissed the Agency's concerns [about weaponization] . . . largely on the grounds that Iran considered them to be based on unfounded allegations." The Iranians have denied inspectors access to the facilities that inspectors suspect are being used to work on weaponization.

The price of this refusal, including U.N. and international sanctions, has devastated the Iranian economy. Unemployment and popular dissatisfaction with the regime are high. Unprecedentedly harsh sanctions imposed by the Obama administration are driving off customers for Iran's oil.

What peaceful purpose could be served by accepting such damage to pursue an illegal nuclear program? The international community has repeatedly offered Iran enriched uranium for its reactors to produce both electricity and medical isotopes—and Iran has refused. Iran's behavior makes sense only if its leadership is determined to have a nuclear program that can develop and field atomic weapons.

The pressure on Iran's economy and tensions within its political elite persuade some observers that Iran's leaders are nearing a decision to trade the nuclear program for relaxed sanctions. That may be true—but there is no evidence for it. Iran's leaders continue to insist on Iran's right to the nuclear program as it is being built. No Iranian leader has suggested that Iran should comply with the IAEA or abandon the program.

Western observers are confusing internal Iranian disagreements about how to manage their economic challenges with disagreements about foreign policy. Increasing external pressure this year could fracture the Iranian leadership on this issue, but no one has adduced any convincing evidence that is happening.

Iran is, however, preparing rhetorically for war with the West. Iran's military has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, attack American naval ships passing through it, and pre-empt what it perceives to be preparations for an attack on Iran. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other political figures have seconded these threats, and no Iranian leader has denounced them.

By contrast, there has been no vocal outcry for military action against Iran in the U.S. Even Israel's threats have been muted and confused. The bellicosity in this crisis is coming almost entirely from Tehran. Why should a state seeking a peaceful nuclear program work so hard to whip up war fever?

Some say that Iran's leaders are irrational. But their statements and actions in this instance—juxtaposing bellicosity with offers of negotiations—make perfect sense if they are intended to cover the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability.

The Iranians are advancing technically as fast as they can to acquire the fuel for a nuclear bomb. They also are pursuing key elements of a weaponization program separately and covertly. At the same time, they have attempted to draw the IAEA inspectors into protracted negotiations that would buy time to reach what the Israelis call the "zone of immunity" after which Israel no longer has a viable military option.

Add it up any way you like: Iran is starting to race to reach a breakout point at which the international community will be unable to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, short of a massive American military strike. The evidence available supports no other conclusion.

This is not a recommendation for a military strike on the Iranian nuclear program. One could decide that allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities is preferable to the consequences of a military strike, or one could accept at face value President Obama's statements that the prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear arsenal is unacceptable (which implies a willingness to use military force to prevent it). But the debate must take place on the basis of a reality not skewed to support one or another policy option.

Those who oppose military action against Iran under any circumstances must say so, and must accept the consequences of that statement. Those who advocate military action must also accept and consider the consequences—regional and possibly global conflict and all of the associated perils of war. But neither American nor Israeli nor any Western interest is served by lying to ourselves and pretending the predicament will go away.

Mr. Kagan is director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Zarif is research manager at the Critical Threats Project and leads its Iran team. Mr. Zarif's new report on the Iranian nuclear program can be found at http://www.irantracker.org/nuclear-program/zarif-timelines-data-estimates-february-27-2012

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577243510484523048.html

 

 

 

US Congressmen Engel and Nadler explain the significance of having been the target of rock throwing, Friday, on the Mount of Olives. The significance? Another attempt to erase the Jewish presence, to erase the Jewish historical presence from Jerusalem.

Congressmen and Hoenlein Attacked on Mount of Olives

 

 

 

Source: 

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153149#.T0vCBXnO1jy