US Generals Flood Israel for Exercise Against Specific Threats

An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at “specific threats.” Public affairs officials interrupted the naval commander in order to divert the conversation from the scenario of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and defending itself from a counter-attack.

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Israelis Prepare for War with Iran

The postcard from the Home Front Command that recently arrived in my mailbox looks like an ad from the Ministry of Tourism. A map of Israel is divided by color into six regions, each symbolized by an upbeat drawing: a smiling camel in the Negev desert, a skier in the Golan Heights.

In fact, each region signifies the amount of time residents will have to seek shelter from an impending missile attack. If you live along the Gaza border, you have 15 seconds after the siren sounds. Jerusalemites get a full three minutes. But as the regions move farther north, the time drops again, until finally, along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, the color red designates “immediate entry into a shelter.” In other words, if you’re not already inside a shelter don’t bother looking for one.

The invisible but all-pervasive presence on that cheerful map of existential dread is Iran. If Israel were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, Tehran’s two terrorist allies on our borders—Hezbollah and Hamas—would almost certainly renew attacks against the Israeli home front. And Tel Aviv would be hit by Iranian long-range missiles.

via Israelis Prepare for War with Iran.

If Israel Strikes Iran, U.S. Will Likely Join

The United States would find it difficult not to join an Israeli air strike in the event that Jerusalem decides to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, a former top-ranking U.S. Air Force officer told participants at a conference this weekend organized by a Washington think tank.

Charles F. Wald, former deputy commander of United States European Command, said a military strike on Iran could set back the Islamic Republic’s alleged nuclear weapons program by several years, but cautioned, “I don’t think Israel can do it alone.”

The former commander’s remarks were made at an annual gathering of financial backers of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who were joined by diplomats, journalists and analysts.

“They have a fantastic military, but not big enough for weeks or months of attacks – hundreds of sorties per day,” he said.

via Read Full Article.

Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War

Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along?

At July’s G-8 summit in Italy, Iran was given a September deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs. Last week, Iran gave its answer: No. Instead, what Tehran offered was a five-page document that was the diplomatic equivalent of a giant kiss-off. It begins by lamenting the “ungodly ways of thinking prevailing in global relations” and proceeds to offer comprehensive talks on a variety of subjects: democracy, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, “respect for the rights of nations,” and other areas where Iran is a paragon.

Conspicuously absent from the document is any mention of Iran’s nuclear program, now at the so-called breakout point, which both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boss Ali Khamenei insist is not up for discussion.What’s an American president to do in the face of this nonstarter of a document? What else, but pretend it isn’t a nonstarter. Talks begin Oct. 1.

via Bret Stephens: Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War – WSJ.com.

2 IDF Warships Cross Suez to Red Sea

In a new signal to Iran, two Sa’ar 5-class Israeli Navy ships crossed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea on Tuesday to beef up Israel’s naval presence near Eilat.

The passage of the ships comes several weeks after a Dolphin-class submarine passed through the international waterway for the first time.

One of the ships, the INS Hanit, already crossed the canal in June, in what an Egyptian source said was the first time a large missile ship used the strategic waterway, which is the fastest route to get Israeli Navy vessels from the Mediterranean, where they are based, to the Red Sea and beyond.

The other ship to cross on Tuesday was the INS Eilat.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said that under a long-standing treaty, warships can freely sail through Suez as long as they have no hostile intentions against the state that owns the canal. He declined to say whether the maneuver was aimed at sending a message, saying, “I don’t want to analyze an issue that I am not fully aware of.”

The significance of the move is debatable, but could be interpreted as a message to Iran and a demonstration of a strengthening of ties between Egypt and Israel. Iran has recently deployed several of its navy ships in the Gulf of Aden and near Eritrea.

In the event of a conflict with Iran, and if Israel decided to involve its three Dolphin-class submarines – which according to foreign reports can fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and serve as a second-strike platform – the quickest route would be to sail them through the Suez Canal. Going through the canal would also be the only way to get to the Gulf of Oman without refueling.

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Report: Saudis Would Let IAF Jets Fly Over Kingdom to Iran

Mossad head Meir Dagan assured Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Saudi Arabia would allow IAF jets to fly over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Sunday Times reported.

The British paper reported that Dagan held talks with Saudi officials earlier this year on the topic.

However, the Prime Minister’s Office issued an official denial on Sunday morning, saying the report was “completely false and baseless.”

The Israeli media has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including former prime minister Ehud Olmert, held meetings with Saudi officials, but the kingdom has denied the reports. “The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source was quoted in the Times as saying.

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Biden Says US Will Not Stand In Way of Israel Attack On Iran

Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

[...]

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Biden also said the U.S. offer to negotiate with Tehran on its nuclear program still stands. Some thought the administration’s approach might change in light of the Iranian government’s harsh crackdown on protesters after the June 12 presidential election. Opponents of the ruling authorities claimed the vote was rigged against them.

“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Biden said.

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Israeli Sub Said Armed With Nuclear-capable Torpedoes Navigates Suez Canal

The Dolphin-class attack submarine is reported to be the first Israeli naval vessel to transit the Suez Canal in four years on its way from Haifa to Eilat last month. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the move indicates a strengthening of the informal Israel-Egyptian-Saudi pact forged in recent months against Iran and first revealed by our sources. The three Middle East nations have opted for an Iran policy which is separate from the track pursued by US president Barack Obama.

According to foreign military sources, the Israeli Dolphins are stationed in the Mediterranean, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean opposite Iran’s shores. They are said to be armed with torpedo tubes capable of launching nuclear-capable cruise missiles.

To transit the Suez Canal, the armed submarine would have required Egyptian permission at the highest level, possibly even President Hosni Mubarak. An official in Cairo told Reuters that its passage would not be problematic as Egypt and Israel are not at war.

This noncommittal response indicates that Egypt has no objection to Israeli military craft passing through the canal on their way to the Red Sea and on to the Persian Gulf in case of a decision to strike Iran. The alternative would be a voyage of weeks around the Horn of Africa.

Our military sources report that since the Israel Navy lost the Dakar submarine near Greece in 1968, all Israeli subs are armed when they move out of harbor. Disclosure of the Israeli sub’s passage through the Suez Canal last month is rated by our sources as of high regional significance, over and above the Middle East diplomatic moves afoot.

via DEBKAfile – Israeli sub said armed with nuclear-capable torpedoes navigates Suez Canal.

Israel Must Attack Iran, Insists Bolton

Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton told The Washington Post on Thursday that the only way left to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is to support an Israeli military strike on the Islamic Republic.

Bolton said the soft approach taken by US President Barack Obama had only hastened the Iranian nuclear threat, and that today the only options that remain are to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons or intervene militarily.

With Obama almost certain to never order a military strike on Iran, that leaves only Israel.

Bolton urged Israel to decide quickly whether or not it will strike.

“Israel’s decision of whether to use military force against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever,” said Bolton, adding that he is confident new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully grasps the gravity of the situation and will respond accordingly.

via Source

Hillary Clinton Warns Iran, Attack On Israel Is Attack On US

Despite its decision to pursue diplomatic negotiations with Teheran over its nuclear program, the United States would view an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel as an attack on itself, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday, asserting that there would be retaliation for any such attack.

Speaking to ABC News “This Week,” Clinton described the prospect of engagement with Iran as a great opportunity, saying that a diplomatic process “means that for the first time, we would actually be sitting at a table across from Iranians authorized by the supreme leader to talk with us about a whole range of issues. That gives us information and insight that we don’t have.”

Such talks, she said, would help determine the real goals of the Iranian nuclear program. “We understand the legitimate right of nations to have access to peaceful, nuclear energy,” Clinton said. “If that is at the core of what they want, there are ways of accommodating that do not lead to a nuclear weapon.”

However, she continued, negotiations would not negate the primary goal of the engagement, “which is to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.”

Clinton’s interviewer, George Stephanopoulos, went on to ask whether the Obama administration’s policy currently echoed her own campaign statements regarding a nuclear umbrella that Washington would provide Israel.

“I think it is US policy to the extent that we have alliances and understandings with a number of nations. They may not be formal as it is with NATO, but, I don’t think there is any doubt in anyone’s mind that were Israel to suffer a nuclear attack by Iran, there would be retaliation,” Clinton said.

The secretary of state, however, did not rule out the possibility of a preemptive strike on Iran. Alluding to Israel’s reported possession of nuclear arms, she said that the US did not want another arms race triggered by a nuclear-armed Iran. Teheran, Clinton said, would perhaps be better persuaded to drop its nuclear ambitions if it were faced by the prospect of a preemptive strike by either the US or Israel.

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Jordanian King Says US Pushing 57 State Peace Plan

The United States is promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a “57-state solution” in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel, Monday’s Times of London quoted Jordan’s King Abdullah as saying.

“We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms,” the king said. “The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.” But he warned: “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months.” The newspaper said the king had hatched the plan with President Barack Obama in Washington in April. Details are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, including Obama’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington next week. “What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese,” said the king. While Palestinians seek a state in their long-running conflict with Israel, Syria wants the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in a

via Jordanian king says US pushing new peace plan.

Iran Deploys Missile Batteries Fearing Israel, US Attack

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has deployed mobile ground-to-air and ground-to-sea missile batteries in the Strait of Hormuz and other areas in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian source was quoted by Al Watan as saying on Tuesday.

The source told the Saudi-based newspaper that the move was made after Iran received reports that the US and Israel were preparing to attack the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities.

Source

Netanyahu Considering Land-For-Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly contemplating making a deal with the Obama administration in an effort to encourage a more forceful American response to the Iranian regime.

According to The Jerusalem Post Thursday, Netanyahu may agree to some form of implementation of the so-called Arab peace plan in exchange for an American pledge to more robustly oppose Tehran’s nuclear program.

This Arab plan calls for Israel to withdraw from all land it has controlled since the Six Day War – including Judea, Samaria, the Dead Sea/Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights – and the granting of blanket rights for all “Palestinian” “refugees” to “return home.”

In exchange for this abandonment of historical and biblical Jewish lands and the opening of the doors to an Arab deluge – acts which will mean national suicide – the Arab states say seductively, they will establish full, normal relations with what will be left of Israel.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has signaled Washington and Europe of the new Israeli government’s intention to revise the repeatedly-failed land-for-peace approach to the Israeli-”Palestinian” conflict.

Netanyahu is expected to face enormous pressure to change this stance when he visits Washington on May 18.

It is already in play: President Barack Obama and his state department have repeatedly if diplomatically rejected any Israeli questioning of the viability of the “two-state-solution.”

Pundits expect that Netanyahu will be accorded a frosty reception at the White House and that Obama’s gloves will come off. Administration officials answering journalists’ questions in this way, “assured” them that the president was looking forward to hosting the Israeli.

In part because of the widespread media speculation, Netanyahu’s policy review team is understood to be brainstorming ways to avoid any form of clash that could harden Obama’s heart towards Israel.

via Jerusalem Post: Bibi considering land-for-Iran.

Glenn Beck, Joel Rosenberg Discuss Iranian Threat

Glenn Beck and his guest, Joel Rosenberg, talk about Iran’s determination to trigger events that will lead to the return of their false messiah, the Mahdi, or Thelfth Imam.

GLENN BECK: Something else happened today which was our stance now on Iran has dramatically changed yet again. Just a few months ago under Bush, no talks ever. It has always been that way since 1979. Then President Obama said, “Well, let’s start with some conditions.” And now, the Obama administration is about to drop even that condition. “Well, let’s just talk, even if you have a nuclear thing, whatever. Let’s sit down and talk.” Joel Rosenberg is here. Joel Rosenberg is the author of “Inside the Revolution.” Joel, I don’t even know where to start with this one other than I guess maybe with an interview that I did with Benjamin Netanyahu about two years ago and I said, “You guys are being set up.” And he said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I think the world is going to start pushing towards, `Oh, let’s just be friends with Iran.’” This was way before Barack Obama. And I said they’re going to lose the window. Everybody is going to push for peace, and then you’re going to have to go in because you can’t let these nut jobs have these weapons. And you guys are going to be deemed the bad guys and the rest of the world will pound you. And he said, “Well, be it as it may but we have a right to survive.” Do you think that scenario is coming true?

JOEL ROSENBERG, AUTHOR, “INSIDE THE REVOLUTION”: It is coming to fruition. I think this is a very bad scenario right now, Glenn. Yet the prime minister of Israel Netanyahu understands that there is an apocalyptic, genocidal death cult running Iran right now….They are determined to get the nuclear weapons and destroy Israel. As we talked about before, Israel is only the little Satan. The United States is the great Satan. And as I quote extensively in the book, the president of Iran and top leaders of Iran want to annihilate the United States. And the idea that we will drop this pre-condition and not force Iran to stop enriching uranium before we sit down and talk is a huge mistake. I would describe it as appeasement.

BECK: How did you describe — an apocalyptic what?

ROSENBERG: An apocalyptic, genocidal death cult is running Iran today.

BECK: No, that’s weird, because I think that’s the way that NBC News the media describes my audience. I’m not really sure. You know, people don’t –

ROSENBERG: But you’re not building nuclear weapons. There’s a difference, see.

BECK: Not that you know. Joel, here is the thing that I don’t think people understand. It was about three years ago that I read someplace about the 12th imam. And I went — wait a minute. Wait a minute. Who’s the 12th imam? And I started looking into it because Ahmadinejad always ends his speeches at the United Nations with “Oh, Allah, give me the strength to hasten the return of the promised one.” When you say apocalyptic, genocidal death cult, you’re not kidding. I want you to explain that and then explain why people in our country – the state department seem to have a problem with religion except over in the Middle East with crazy people. More on that next.

BECK: Author of “Inside the Revolution,” Joel Rosenberg, is back with us. OK. We were talking about why we can’t let Iran get nuclear weapons. And most people will say, “Oh, come on. France has nuclear weapons.”

These people aren’t French. At least, the people currently running it. You say, they’re apocalyptic genocidal maniacs. Is that what it was?

ROSENBERG: Yes….death cult leaders.

BECK: Yes, that’s right. Death cult….

ROSENBERG: Death cult leaders.

BECK: Right. Explain what that means.

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