Israel, Lone Light in a Dark Region

FrontPage Magazine ^ | August 30, 2013 | P. David Hornik

[SJackson]

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com -

Israel, Lone Light in a Dark Region

Posted By P. David Hornik On August 30, 2013 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments

As the Obama administration keeps weighing whether and how to act in Syria, one wonders if Israel is looking good—or at least better—to the administration these days. Seemingly, if there was ever a time, now would be the time to start taking note of Israel’s strengths in a bad region.

1. Some ways in which Israel differs from other countries of the region.

No chemical-weapons attacks. In the Middle East this can hardly be taken for granted. Along with Bashar Assad’s use, there was Iraq’s against the Kurds in 1991 and Egypt’s against Yemeni tribesmen in the mid-1960s. Egypt and Iraq are, of course, countries with which the U.S. has been allied or heavily involved, and for decades U.S. diplomats kept coming to Damascus to try and get President Hafez and then Bashar Assad to “make peace” with Israel.

Israel, of course, will never use WMD of any kind except to save itself from annihilation.

No intercommunal bombing campaigns. Along with the carnage in Syria, such campaigns are now being waged in Iraq and, to a lesser but growing extent, Lebanon; they’re basically spirals of reciprocal mass murder.

Israel too, even within its Jewish population, has had intense animosities between groups. The right and left were at loggerheads particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, and there are ongoing tensions between secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews. But violence, of course, has been small-scale and rare. Differences get settled at the ballot box.

No church burnings or other persecution of Christians. In fact, Israel is the only country in the region whose Christian population is steadily growing rather than fleeing.

No mass rapes in public squares.

No bigoted slanders of other countries by national leaders. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey recently pulled that one off when he declared that Israel was behind the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt. Although President Obama has in the past called Erdogan a great friend, this was too much even for the administration, which “strongly condemn[ed]” Erdogan’s words.

Israeli leaders, of course, do not engage in public defamation and conspiracy-mongering.

No journalists in prison. In that category Turkey now takes the lead in the world, surpassing Iran and China. In Israel even Uri Blau, a Haaretz journalist convicted last year of holding thousands of classified military documents that were passed to him by a soldier who filched them, was sentenced to all of four months’ community service.

This is, of course, a very partial list, but it’s enough to point to an essential difference between a democracy and countries very far from democratic standards.

2. Some ways in which, nevertheless, Israel is treated differently from other countries in the region.

No recognition of its capital city. The U.S. embassy is in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, and the official position of U.S. administrations (though not of Congress) is not to recognize even “West” Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. No such problem, of course, arises regarding Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Ankara, and so on.

People told where they can and can’t live. Though the Obama administration made a particular point of it during its first term, U.S. administrations have long objected—often with public vehemence—to Israelis living in lands captured by Israel in the 1967 war, including even “East Jerusalem.” No such problem arises, for instance, regarding Turkish building in Northern Cyprus, even though that really is a case of an illegal occupation stemming from a belligerent act. Israel’s presence in “the territories,” by contrast, is entirely legal.

Constant pressure to retreat from territory. The obsession with Israeli land giveaways, ostensibly to “make peace,” has marked U.S. administrations since the 1967 war. At present Israel is engaged in yet-more U.S.-orchestrated “peace talks” with the deeply hostile Palestinian Authority, the chief Palestinian negotiator claiming a U.S. written guarantee that the talks are based on Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible pre-1967-war borders. This is, again, unique treatment—even though it is Israel that faces ongoing animosity and security threats from the other countries in the region.

This too, of course, is only a partial list, but representative of U.S. exploitation of Israel’s isolation in the region and dependence on U.S. support.

One hopes for a day when a U.S. administration will, instead, show greater respect for Israel’s autonomy, security concerns, rights, and loyalty—and for its unique achievements in an inhospitable part of the world.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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[Entropy Squared]

Israel is a first world gem afloat in a massive third world Islamic sewer. The sewer rats don’t want to raise themselves to Israeli standards, they instead want to destroy that which they themselves cannot achieve.

[Standing Wolf]

The sewer rats don’t want to raise themselves to Israeli standards, they instead want to destroy that which they themselves cannot achieve.

Well said, Entropy Squared! My father told me when I was about eight some people build themselves up, and some people try to tear other people down. I believe he'd have been disappointed had he lived long enough to see our nation degenerate into the latter kind.

[Former Fetus]

We know that at the end, Israel will stand alone. It has been prophesied and we see it starting to happen!

[CaptainAmiigaf]

Truly Ultra Orthodox Jews look down on Orthodox Jews who look down on Conservative Jews who look down on Reform Jews who return the favor. However, one does not hurl bombs, missiles or injurious things at other groups. What is hurled back and forth is words, maybe unkind but not dangerous.
Further, without the existence of a strong and secure Israel, the two parts of the Islamic world would rapidly explode into a genocidal violence against each other. Sunni would fall upon the Shia, and the favor would be heartily returned.
The very existence of Israel is the SOLE unifying cement that keeps the Islamic world from coming really apart.

[lurk]

Rough days ahead for Israel. But when the dust clears, the Israelis will be the survivors.

[Yosemitest]

EXCLUSIVE: Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack
Rebels and local residents in Ghouta accuse Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan of providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaida linked rebel group.
By Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh | August 29, 2013

This article is a collaboration between Dale Gavlak reporting for Mint Press News and Yahya Ababneh.

Ghouta, Syria — As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last week’s chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit.

Interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital, where the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said at least 355 people had died last week from what it believed to be a neurotoxic agent, appear to indicate as much.

The U.S., Britain, and France as well as the Arab League have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for carrying out the chemical weapons attack, which mainly targeted civilians. U.S. warships are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to launch military strikes against Syria in punishment for carrying out a massive chemical weapons attack. The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad’s guilt was “a judgment … already clear to the world.”

However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”

Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.

“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”

“When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.

A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material,” he said.

“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.

Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault.

The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders added that health workers aiding 3,600 patients also reported experiencing similar symptoms, including frothing at the mouth, respiratory distress, convulsions and blurry vision. The group has not been able to independently verify the information.

More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government.

Saudi involvement

In a recent article for Business Insider, reporter Geoffrey Ingersoll highlighted Saudi Prince Bandar’s role in the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war. Many observers believe Bandar, with his close ties to Washington, has been at the very heart of the push for war by the U.S. against Assad.

Ingersoll referred to an article in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks alleging that Bandar offered Russian President Vladimir Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad.

“Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” Ingersoll wrote.

“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Bandar allegedly told the Russians.

“Along with Saudi officials, the U.S. allegedly gave the Saudi intelligence chief the thumbs up to conduct these talks with Russia, which comes as no surprise,” Ingersoll wrote.

“Bandar is American-educated, both military and collegiate, served as a highly influential Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and the CIA totally loves this guy,” he added.

According to U.K.’s Independent newspaper, it was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first brought allegations of the use of sarin gas by the regime to the attention of Western allies in February.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the CIA realized Saudi Arabia was “serious” about toppling Assad when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar to lead the effort.

“They believed that Prince Bandar, a veteran of the diplomatic intrigues of Washington and the Arab world, could deliver what the CIA couldn’t: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one U.S. diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout,” it said.

Bandar has been advancing Saudi Arabia’s top foreign policy goal, WSJ reported, of defeating Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.

To that aim, Bandar worked Washington to back a program to arm and train rebels out of a planned military base in Jordan. The newspaper reports that he met with the “uneasy Jordanians about such a base”:

His meetings in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah sometimes ran to eight hours in a single sitting. “The king would joke: ‘Oh, Bandar’s coming again? Let’s clear two days for the meeting,’ ” said a person familiar with the meetings.

Jordan’s financial dependence on Saudi Arabia may have given the Saudis strong leverage. An operations center in Jordan started going online in the summer of 2012, including an airstrip and warehouses for arms. Saudi-procured AK-47s and ammunition arrived, WSJ reported, citing Arab officials.

Although Saudi Arabia has officially maintained that it supported more moderate rebels, the newspaper reported that “funds and arms were being funneled to radicals on the side, simply to counter the influence of rival Islamists backed by Qatar.”

But rebels interviewed said Prince Bandar is referred to as “al-Habib” or ‘the lover’ by al-Qaida militants fighting in Syria.

Peter Oborne, writing in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, has issued a word of caution about Washington’s rush to punish the Assad regime with so-called ‘limited’ strikes not meant to overthrow the Syrian leader but diminish his capacity to use chemical weapons:

Consider this: the only beneficiaries from the atrocity were the rebels, previously losing the war, who now have Britain and America ready to intervene on their side. While there seems to be little doubt that chemical weapons were used, there is doubt about who deployed them.

It is important to remember that Assad has been accused of using poison gas against civilians before. But on that occasion, Carla del Ponte, a U.N. commissioner on Syria, concluded that the rebels, not Assad, were probably responsible.

Some information in this article could not be independently verified. Mint Press News will continue to provide further information and updates .

Dale Gavlak is a Middle East correspondent for Mint Press News and has reported from Amman, Jordan, writing for the Associated Press, NPR and BBC. An expert in Middle Eastern affairs, Gavlak covers the Levant region, writing on topics including politics, social issues and economic trends. Dale holds a M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Contact Dale at dgavlak@mintpressnews.com

Yahya Ababneh is a Jordanian freelance journalist and is currently working on a master’s degree in journalism, He has covered events in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Libya. His stories have appeared on Amman Net, Saraya News, Gerasa News and elsewhere.

[Pollster1]

Don’t worry. Obama is on the job and will extinguish that final light as soon as possible.

[Impy]

No recognition of its capital city. The U.S. embassy is in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem

This bothers me, countries choose their own capital no one has any business not "recognizing" it. That's just silly.

I'm sure our diplomats don't mind living in Tel Aviv instead though, I know I'd prefer it. ;D

[BillyBoy]

>> No recognition of its capital city. The U.S. embassy is in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem This bothers me, countries choose their own capital no one has any business not "recognizing" it. That's just silly. <<

I don't give a crap what country "recognizes" another country's capitol city, but it seems ridiculous that the U.S. Congress decided to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem in 1995 (with a "deadline" of December 31, 1999), and they have yet to do so, despite both parties routinely putting useless 'pander to Jewish voters' planks in the party platform that they're gonna move the embassy to Jerusalem. What's the point after 18 years? Grow some balls and do it.

>> I'm sure our diplomats don't mind living in Tel Aviv instead though, I know I'd prefer it. ;D <<

From a security standpoint, absolutely. I wouldn't want to live in Jerusalem year-round given the political climate there. Of course, from a historical and cultural perspective, I'd much rather be in the "Christian quarter" of Jerusalem than some random place in Tel Aviv where everyone who lives there is Jewish except me. I also read somewhere that Tel Aviv is the San Francisco of the middle east and overrun with gay propaganda. Some political cartoon bashing Stephen Hawking anti-Israel position said he was a "hypocrite" since Tel Aviv is "the most progressive city in the world for gay rights". I noted that the cartoon made no logic sense (Hawking has been married twice and is obviously not gay, and since he's paralyzed from the neck down, I doubt he's going to take part in any "gay rights" festivities), and it said more about the cartoon writer's political views than it did about Hawking's.

[Impy]

From a security standpoint, absolutely.

And the beach. ;) But embassies are supposed to be in the capital.

[familyop]

"but it seems ridiculous that the U.S. Congress decided to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem in 1995 (with a "deadline" of December 31, 1999), and they have yet to do so,..."

That promise was also made in the 2004 Republican Party Platform, before the Republican Party tried for eight years to coerce Israel to evict its own people and give more land to the Arabs.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SJackson.