Fair Weather Friends

[Condi Rice] made 22 trips to Israel during the Bush Administration’s eight years, and she has little to show for it. Israeli TV announcers coined her name as a verb, meaning to go endlessly around in circles, accomplishing nothing.

On Sunday, Rice just passed through Jerusalem again. Ghosted through might be a better description since this time there was no fanfare, no motorcades snarling up the city’s traffic, and the lady couldn’t even book a room in her usual hotel, the David Citadel. She had to settle for a less grand hotel, though admittedly it wasn’t one of those pilgrim fleapits in the Old City. But for me, that’s a sign of how far how far her superpower status has fallen in the dwindling days of Bushdom.

  Time

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Israel Is Appeasing Syria, George

Israel and Syria on Wednesday said they were holding indirect peace talks through Turkish mediators — the first official confirmation of contacts between the longtime enemies.

  Yahoo

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Meanwhile, In the Middle East

Bush is trying to get an Israeli/Palestinian agreement for his legacy, sending Condi again and again in his stead (presumably because they can at least understand what she's saying), and on the other hand, sending warships to the Gulf to "remind Iran of US power".

Source

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

New Meaning to the Word 'Cockpit'

The air force in Israel is considering giving pilots Viagra after seeing results of a study done by Israeli doctors: Doctors learned mountain climbers in Africa had benefited by taking Viagra, as it improved their performance at high altitudes. The air force thinks they can get similar benefits with pilots.

  Digital Journal

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Mission Accomplished

George takes a jaunt around the Middle East playing with swords and spouting about knocking heads together and how he’s sure there’s going to be great progress toward peace now that he’s there to get everybody in line. And immediately….

JERUSALEM, Jan. 18 -- Israel blocked shipment of food, fuel and all other supplies into the Gaza Strip on Friday and intensified airstrikes on the Palestinian territory, calling the steps a response to increasing rocket attacks into Israel.

  WaPo

Nice work, George.

Pompous Pissant Goes to Jerusalem

Irris Makler reports tonight for Free Speech Radio on Bush’s visit to Israel, which has been scaled back, cancelling the original plan to have Bush, Olmert and Abbas meet.

Makler reports that Bush says (in his downhome trademark style) he’ll “knock heads together and keep local leaders on the straight and narrow.”

Because, he is the cowboy in charge of the whole wide world.

The arrogance of the man knows no bounds. I wonder why the three-way meeting was cancelled, don’t you? It would be nice if they’d gather the biggest baddest local leaders they can find to meet with him and ask him whose heads he’d like to try to knock together first.

What a dick.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Meanwhile

Meanwhile, a little noticed report in the UK press gives new fears to those who believe the US is still considering mounting an attack on Iran.

Israel security officials are set to brief President Bush on their "Iran file" regarding the country's alleged nuclear weapons program "and how it could be destroyed - when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week," the UK Times Uzi Mahnaimi reported Sunday.

"Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations," the paper added. "A range of military options has been prepared."

Despite a US National Intelligence Estimate last month which asserted that Iran abandoned a secret nuclear weapons program in 2003, Israel believes the program has been restarted.

  Raw Story

Despite not having any evidence to dispute the US NIE which said Iran has given up its nuclear weapons program, Israel, and George Bush, believe that Iran is a threat that needs to be nipped in the bud.

"In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot this weekend, Bush argued that in spite of the US intelligence assessment, Iran still posed a threat."

Yediot interviews idiot.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Everywhere He Goes It's the Same Expensive Fairy Tale

Tourists to Jerusalem have had their hotel reservations at the King David Hotel bumped to accommodate the Bush entourage and security (including some 10,000 Israeli police). So he won't have to see anything real, grafitti is being scrubbed from walls, American flags are being hung all around the place, and roads around the hotel are being blocked off.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Fear: The Great Motivator

Another follow-up on the NIE about Iran's nuclear situation conveniently ignored by Bush:

McClatchy reports that "Probably no country felt more blindsided than Israel," but a Ha'aretz article said that "Israel has known about the report for more than a month," and a former Clinton administration ambassador speculates that Bush kept a lid on the NIE before Annapolis to help attract participants by playing on the fear of Iran.

  Cursor

Oh, surely not. It would be so out of character for him to play on people’s fears. (The former ambassador is Wendy Sherman: here with Keith Olbermann. Olbermann’s assessment of it all is “unmitigated crap”.)

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

PeaceMaker

News sources are offering cautiously optimistic reports about the prospects for success in the Middle East peace talks. (I like that people refer to these as Middle East peace talks when Iran isn’t invited and the Mid-East countries embroiled in war – Iraq and Afghanistan – are not on the agenda.) NPR’s Daniel Shore said this morning that Israel’s Olmert has said there can be no Israel without a Palestine. (That, of course, could be interpreted in more than one way.)

Wouldn’t it be ironic if a (semi-) lasting peace between Israel and Palestine could be brokered this time when George Bush, who hasn’t seriously involved himself in the issue in his whole time as President, has finally participated? He, of course, would then walk away claiming credit.

At least one Syrian state-owned newspaper doesn’t share any of the optimism. As reported by the International Herald Tribune, the paper claims:

"While the Bush administration and Israel may consider what happened and what could happen to destroy the Palestinian cause a victory, we consider it a defeat for a just and comprehensive peace," Tishrin said. That peace, it added, can only be achieved by ending Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

Which is why if George can claim any credit for success, it will only be a quick “Mission Accomplished” type affair, and not something real and lasting.

On the other hand, if the two countries could make some lasting peace efforts, George might indeed be able to take credit, considering he has been instrumental in creating such chaos in their neighborhood that the entire region is threatened with extinction if they don’t get a handle on it.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

In an about face, the United States on Friday withdrew a U.N. resolution endorsing this week's agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008, apparently after Israel objected.

Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff informed the Security Council that the United States was pulling the resolution from consideration less than 24 hours after Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad introduced it and welcomed the "very positive" response from council members.

  Guardian

Why don’t we save time and trouble and just have an automatic “We want what Israel wants” standing resolution?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

More Dick Trails?

Allegations that a Syrian envoy admitted during a United Nations meeting Oct. 17 that an Israeli air strike hit a nuclear facility in September are inaccurate and have raised the ire of some in the US intelligence community, who see the Vice President’s hand as allegedly being behind the disinformation.

[...]

Recent news articles [...] continue to make allegations and suggest that a nuclear weapons facility was hit -- something that the Syrian government has denied, the Israeli government has not officially confirmed and US intelligence does not show.

[...]

What concerns intelligence officials is what appears to be manipulation of the press and strategic leaks to the public of false information, undercutting professional intelligence analysis, similar to what occurred before the Iraq war in an apparent effort to bolster support for engaging Iran.

  Raw Story

And just to be clear how important the disinformation is (as though you don’t already know from the experience with pre-Iraq invasion disinformation)…

An article today quotes former Administration hawk and onetime Bush United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, who links Syria's alleged action with Iran.

Even with all the nationalist screeching and administration railroading, up until the moment the official pronouncement of the Iraq invasion occurred, I had remained optimistic that reality and somebody with good sense would avert such an action. I have no such delusions this time. We will be attacking Iran.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Another Bite Out of Palestine

The Israeli army has ordered the seizure of Palestinian land surrounding four West Bank villages apparently in order to hugely expand settlements around Jerusalem, it emerged yesterday.

  UK Guardian

It’s a little hard to say we’re fighting to protect Israel and at the same time to spread peace and freedom in the Middle East when Israel keeps sucking up Palestine. But we manage.

The land seized forms a corridor from East Jerusalem to Jericho and is intended to be used for a road that would be for Palestinians only. Analysts said the road would run on one side of the Israeli security barrier, while the existing Jerusalem-Jericho road would be reserved for Israelis.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said it was necessary to build a road to link Bethlehem and the Judea region with Jericho and the Jordan valley area in order to "improve the quality of life" for Palestinians.

That’s rich. It doesn’t do much to improve the quality of life for the Palestinians whose land has just been confiscated. But of course, the road can’t be built on land that already belongs to Israel.

Adam Keller of the Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom, said the confiscation of land belonging to the villages of Abu Dis, Arab al-Sawahra, Nebi Musa and Talhin Alhamar would "rob many villagers of their sole livelihood" but would also "facilitate the big annexation plan known as E-1, which is aimed at linking the settlement of Ma'aleh Adummim with Jerusalem and cutting the West Bank in two."

[...]

Jeff Halper, an Israeli geographer who specialises in Israel's development of the West Bank, said it appeared that there was a rush to carry out as much work as possible before the US-sponsored meeting between Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, in Annapolis, Maryland, in November.

"They want to push everything as far as possible before the November meeting because that will be seen as the starting point for everything," he said. "Anything done before that meeting will be set in stone. In general this has to be seen as part of a timeline in which Israel wants to get all its development of the West Bank finished before Bush leaves office."

Just in case.

But really, I don’t think they need to worry. Nobody after Bush is going to change our policy with regards to Israel.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Redefining Success in Iraq

And this time, we can't argue.

President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying Thursday the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence.

  Houston Chronicle

We have no grounds for argument, since we've backed the Israeli model all these years.

....so hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Did Pelosi Step in a Trap?

It seems there's a question now as to why Israeli PM Olmert denied that he sent a message of hope for cooperation with Syria by way of Nancy Pelosi. And the speculation is that the White House may have put pressure on him.

Josh Marshall is feeling a little skeptical about the denial, as he says that both a respected Ha'aretz reporter and a California Representative who accompanied Pelosi have said that she gave an accurate message to Syria's President from Olmert.

And, in a little bonus, Marshall gives us this bit of info about politics within the administration.

Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked Olmert into a 48-hour cease-fire during the war with Hezbollah to allow humanitarian relief, but within hours Israeli planes were bombing again, to Rice's surprise and anger. Olmert had received a call, apparently from Cheney's office, telling him to ignore Rice.

  TPM post

Expect more, because TPM's readers form a roving band of investigators, and when Josh sends them on a mission, results roll in.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Here There Are Prophets

Everyone is afraid of mirrors, Mr. Simon said, readjusting the knitted skullcap on his nimbus of white hair. “We hate the mirror. We don’t want to look at ourselves. We don’t like photographs of us — we say, ‘Oh, that’s not a very good likeness.’ We want to be much nicer than we are. But here there are also prophets who are mirrors, who are not afraid of kings and generals. The prophet says, ‘You are ugly,’ and we don’t want to hear it, but we have to look at the mirror honestly, without fear.”

  NYT article

Israeli soldiers talk about the occupied territories at Shovrimshtika.org.

Rockets in Jordan

Attackers fired at least three rockets from Jordan early Friday, with one narrowly missing a docked U.S. Navy ship and killing a Jordanian soldier. It was the most serious militant attack on the Navy since the USS Cole was bombed in 2000.

Another rocket fell close to a nearby airport in neighboring Israel, officials said. Jordanian and Israeli authorities said militants fired the Katyusha rockets from a warehouse in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.

A group linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility in an Internet statement.

[...]

The [USS] Ashland and another vessel later sailed out of port as a result of the attacks, Brown said.

[...]

The attacks come amid a time of tension in the region marked by Israel's withdrawal from the Palestinian Gaza Strip and the Egyptian attacks. Islamic extremists have long criticized Jordan's U.S.-allied moderate government for its peace treaty with Israel and close ties with the West.

[...]

Navy Cmdr. Jeff Breslau said security measures employed by the Navy after the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 sailors were in place in Jordan.

  SF Gate article

Does that mean we're not able to protect our ships?

Bob quotes a NY Times editorial that reminds us of Gaza's history...

Without denying the genuine grief of many of the protesters, it's perhaps helpful to do a historical reality check. Gaza, a 25-mile-long, 6-mile-wide strip of land, was part of Mandatory Palestine, which was ruled by the British after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It was never part of the Zionist state intended by the United Nations partition plan that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. At that point, five Arab nations immediately attacked the new nation, but Gaza wasn't even part of the territory Israel got in signing truces in 1949. It became the home of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israel, and Israel's armistice with Egypt in 1949 put it under Egyptian rule.

In the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, Israel captured Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, along with the West Bank (from Jordan) and the Golan Heights (from Syria). Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt after making peace, but kept control of Gaza. A second agreement called for negotiating eventual Palestinian autonomy there.

Gaza represents the worst side of Israel's settlement movement. The densely populated strip is home to 1.3 million Palestinians - most of them refugees, or offspring of refugees. Each square mile of Palestinian land holds, on average, about 14,000 people. Until this week, the Jewish settlers occupied 33 percent of the land.

Spying for Israel

Gettin' bigger, folks.

The name of "one of the [State] department's rising stars" has reportedly turned up in an indictment in the AIPAC case, as "the first higher-ranking government official to be caught up in the criminal inquiry."

  Source: Cursor

D'oh!

The indictment does not accuse USGO-2 of any wrongdoing, nor does it indicate whether he might have been authorized to talk with the lobbyist. Mr. Satterfield is not believed to be the subject of a continuing investigation. He is the first higher-ranking government official to be caught up in the criminal inquiry.

Mr. Satterfield's role in the inquiry has been known within a small circle at the State Department. Before he was sent to Baghdad, officials at the State Department asked the Justice Department whether the investigation posed any impediment to his assignment in Iraq, someone who has been officially briefed said. Officials at the State Department were advised that he could take the job.

[...]

Current and former colleagues praised Mr. Satterfield as a seasoned and careful diplomat. "I've known David Satterfield for 20 years, and he is thoroughly professional, and takes his responsibilities very seriously," said Dennis Ross, the former chief Middle East negotiator for the United States and a longtime State Department official. "He has always acted solely in American interests." Martin Indyk, Mr. Satterfield's former boss in the Clinton administration, both at the National Security Council at the White House and at the State Department, said the idea that Mr. Satterfield leaked classified information is "absurd."

  NY Times article

In which case, he might be the perfect scapegoat.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005; Posted: 2:41 p.m. EDT (18:41 GMT)

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a Pentagon analyst pleaded not guilty in federal court Tuesday on charges of unauthorized communication of national defense information and conspiracy involving such information.

The former AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis in Alexandria, Virginia.

Rosen, Weissman and Franklin will remain free until trial on personal recognizance bonds of $100,000 each. As part of the arrangement they also are required to surrender travel documents and they cannot leave the Washington metropolitan area without permission from the court. Rosen and Weissman were fired by AIPAC in April.

  CNN article

For doing nothing wrong.

A criminal complaint returned this month alleged Franklin, who once worked on the Iran desk at the Pentagon, disclosed classified information to officials from AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group. Court documents also alleged Franklin conspired to communicate classified information to the representative of a foreign government, whom sources have identified as Israel.

But wait! There's more.

Why AIPAC Indictment Is Bad News for Rove

Remember the disinformation peddled by NBC news -- the story that Iran has supplied the Iraq insurgents with sophisticated new bombs? I registered my skepticism yesterday. That skepticism has been authoritatively confirmed by Juan Cole in his latest column.

Do you notice how there are 250,000 tons of missing munitions in Iraq, such that it is not necessary for the Baath military intelligence to import very many from elsewhere?

Damn straight. I should have made that point myself.

Jerome a Paris on Daily Kos has a fine run-down on the administration's attempts to foment a new war with Iran.

So far, we're missing one key element: The personal touch. The right-wing propaganda machine has yet to direct a great deal of personal invective toward the Iranian president -- the (ulp!) elected president -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Conservatives love to demonize. When the Murdochian hordes tell us the Ahmadinejad eats babies, when the tabloids "reveal" that he wears a dress, then you'll know that war is nigh.

  Joseph Cannon post: Iran, Ledeen, Rove, AIPAC, and more

Karl Rove's only full-time foreign-policy advisor is Michael Ledeen, a rabid anti-Arab, pro-Israel activist. The FBI is investigating Ledeen for procuring forged documents (shown here) on nonexistent WMD, which George Bush used to justify his war on Iraq. When Joseph Wilson exposed the farce, Rove helped "out" Wilson's CIA wife. Did Ledeen procure the documents for Rove, and how might he have done that? The story includes multinational stool pigeon Rocco Martino, Italian spy Francesco Pazienza, wanted CIA spy Robert Seldon Lady, and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who's under charges of giving US secrets to Israel.

  Bellaciao article

Here it is:

KARL ROVE, MICHAEL LEDEEN SPIES PROCURED FORGED NIGER DOCUMENTS

I'm almost sorry I'll be gone by the time this can of worms spills all over the White House.

Or maybe that's why Georgie is on his vacation. Gettin' a little hot in the White House kitchen.

On the road to Armageddon

Likudnik Israel is Bush’s last remaining ally, or egger-on, in his war against "Islamic terrorism." Israel, which is loaded with nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the nuclear pacts, is the accuser against Iran, asserting that Iran’s nuclear energy program is just a veil behind which to produce weapons. Israel’s Likud Party fears that Iranian weapons would be a check to its plans to complete the dispossession of the Palestinians and further expand Israel’s borders.

Iran has signed the nonproliferation pact and is willing for the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the nuclear energy program.

Bush, however, dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel’s paranoia.

Bush can ignore the American public, because the Democrats, like the Tory Party in the UK, have completely collapsed as an opposition party. The Republican Party is now increasingly referred to as the Republikud Party.

That's from Sir Ronald Reagan's Ass't Secretary of the Treasury.

Plus this:

[D]o you realize the danger of having a president so disconnected from reality that he plots to attack Iran—a country three times the size of Iraq—when he lacks sufficient forces to occupy Baghdad and to protect the road from Baghdad to the airport?

Despite all the high profile "sweeps" of US forces through insurgent strongholds, US commanders report a doubling of insurgent attacks.

The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush’s impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture predictions, but World War III will please no one else.

London attack story gets murkier

The mayor of London:

I have no doubt whatsoever that this is a terrorist attack. We did hope in the first few minutes after hearing about the events on the Underground that it might simply be a maintenance tragedy. That was not the case.

   article

AP report:

British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said.

Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred, and the warning prompted him to stay in his hotel room instead, government officials said.

[...]

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he wasn't aware of any Israeli casualties.

Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy to say they had received warnings of possible attacks, the official said.

  article

Shalom is now denying the Israeli advance warning. Simply Appalling blog takes that apart.

Smells like fish to me. And the mayor of London is taking the bait, or baiting the public along with Buttie and Blair, one or the other. But, he's right about one thing:

The mayor of London:

This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at Presidents or Prime Ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever.

That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is.

   article

Operation Gladio:

"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

This was the essence of Operation Gladio, a decades-long covert campaign of terrorism and deceit directed by the intelligence services of the West -- against their own populations.

   article

Justin Raimondo comments on the conflicting stories about advanced warning to the Israelis:

So when did Netanyahu receive his warning – and who warned whom? Stratfor.com circulated an interesting analysis shortly after the first stories began to come out: Although several news reports had Netanyahu on his way to the conference, Stratfor avers that he simply stayed put. Also noted is Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's denial that Scotland Yard informed the Israeli Embassy of the attacks in advance, with the Brits echoing this "clarification," but Stratfor has the supposed scoop:

"Contrary to original claims that Israel was warned 'minutes before' the first attack, unconfirmed rumors in intelligence circles indicate that the Israeli government actually warned London of the attacks 'a couple of days' previous. Israel has apparently given other warnings about possible attacks that turned out to be aborted operations. The British government did not want to disrupt the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, or call off visits by foreign dignitaries to London, hoping this would be another false alarm.

"The British government sat on this information for days and failed to respond. Though the Israeli government is playing along publicly, it may not stay quiet for long. This is sure to apply pressure on Blair very soon for his failure to deter this major terrorist attack."

I would also point out that Stratfor, with its passion for reiterating the obvious, stated in its summary that "there has been massive confusion" over the warning – confusion generated by whom, and to what purpose, is best left to the fertile imaginations of my readers.

The Stratfor piece puts the best spin on this story, at least from the Israeli point of view. If word that Netanyahu had a warning got out, then the best way to salvage it – and even score a few brownie points in the process – is to float the story that the warning was received not minutes but days before the attacks, and that the recipient of those warnings was not Netanyahu but the British government. Taking the focus off the eternal "war on terrorism," and trying to solve the problems of world poverty and global warming, the British government deliberately downplayed the threat, even ignored it – in spite of Israel's best efforts.

And if you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn you may be interested in purchasing.

Netanyahu was no doubt a target of the bomb plot – why else would the terrorists bomb an underground station directly below the hotel where the investment conference was going to take place? If Israeli intelligence knew about the attacks days in advance, and only thought to let Netanyahu in on the secret "minutes" before the bombs went off – well, that's a little hard to believe, now isn't it? (Oh, wait … maybe not.)

I don't believe that Scotland Yard knew diddly-squat about the terror plot, either days or minutes before the bombs exploded, although what seems beyond dispute is that Netanyahu was warned beforehand. The question is, who warned him?

Background posts.