Con Game: Turkey's Faux Pose Of Restoring Ties With Israel

There has been a great deal of speculation about Turkey restoring ties with Israel, based on leaked details of initial meetings between representatives of the two nations that were held at Islamist Turkish leader Tayyip Erdoğan's request.

For those of you who need a quick recap, Israel and Turkey had very close ties until Erdoğan and his Islamist AKP Party took over in 2002, after which they deteriorated rapidly. The end came in 2010 when the Turkish government sponsored a 'humanitarian aid' fleet designed to break the Israeli blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. When the Israeli navy intercepted the ships and instructed them to proceed to an Israeli port so their cargoes could be examined, they all complied without incident except one, the Mavi Marmara.

That ship was loaded with IHH terrorists who were deliberately seeking a confrontation. After refusing repeated orders to put into port, the ship was boarded only to find that the crew of the Mavi Mamara had planned an ambush and attacked the unarmed sailors with knives, iron bars, clubs and firearms.



The Israelis sent Naval commandos to board the ship to rescue the injured sailors and take over the ship. This time the results were different, with 9 of the crew of the Mavi Mamara ending up getting themselves killed when they attacked the commandos. Out of the entire flotilla of ship attempting to run the blockade, only two were found to have small amounts of what could be called 'humanitarian aid. Most of them, like the Mavi Mamara carried nothing and were simply seeking to run the blockade.

In spite of Israel's attempt to placate Turkey and resolve the matter, Erdoğan used this as an excuse to break relations completely. Even an apology to Erdoğan that US President Barack Obama arm twisted out of Israeli PM Netanyahu didn't change anything, and Erdoğan subsequently proved on many occasions that he dislikes Jews and Israel almost as much as he hates Kurds.

So what's behind the sudden attempts to kiss and make up?

Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter on November 24th that was in Turkey's air space for something like 17 seconds was a major overreach. Vladimir Putin made it quite clear that he regarded the attack as unprovoked aggression and that there would be significant consequences. So Erdoğan has now come scurrying back to his former friends - NATO, and Israel. Ankara is also concerned about Iran's growing power and feels it shares a common enemy with Israel there.

The original negotiations, carried out in Switzerland went something like this. Israel tentatively agreed to set up a compensation fund - unconfirmed reports put it at around $20 million (I personally doubt it was anything like that much) for the families of the 9 killed on the Mavi Mamara. Turkey would bar Hamas from Turkey, and the two countries would also exchange ambassadors.

Even more important, Turkey and Israel would collaborate on a gas pipeline to supply gas to Turkey and Europe from Israel's massive Mediterranean gas strikes.

While Israel's Hebrew press went wild over this, reality has now reared its ugly head.



Instead of distancing itself from Turkey's friends Hamas, the first thing Erdoğan and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu did was to invite Hamas politburo chief Khalid Mesha'al to Ankara for a nice cozy chat over the weekend. And then Davutoğlu gave a press conference which spelled out clearly that whatever occurred in Switzerland, the AKP's attitude towards Israel hadn't changed one bit.

“No one is more sensitive on Gaza, Palestine, than us. Our sole goal is to bring solutions to the problems of our Palestinian brothers. This is the main objective behind our talks for the normalization of our relationship with Israel. We will not take any steps that would sadden Palestine and Gaza but we won’t hesitate to take every step that would be to their benefits, no matter what they say,” Davutoğlu told his parliamentary group on Dec 22. He also exchanged views with Hamas official Khaled Meshal about Turkey’s process with Israel in a meeting over the weekend. {...}

“Turkey has become the first state to ever enjoy the honor of making Israel formally apologize over such an incident. We have not given concessions to anybody while defending our rights,” Davutoğlu said, adding that no final agreement had been reached but talks were continuing positively with Israel.

in classic Middle East bargaining style, the Turks, you see,now want something else to finalize the deal. They want Israel to break the blockade of Gaza and allow Turkey to have what some sources referred to as 'a foothold in Gaza', and to be the intermediary between Israel and Hamas.

As Netanyahu made clear, that isn't going to happen, especially since Turkey has made no move to oust Hamas, who now have their headquarters in Istanbul. The only tangible sign of that was the expulsion of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior figure in Hamas’ military arm who operated terrorist cells in Judea and Samaria from there. There's no indication that this is anything but a temporary measure, since he could return any time. In fact, at least one of my sources tells me there's a decent amount of evidence that this particular move was even arranged in advance with Mesha'al and al-Arouri. The Hamas headquarters haven't been closed down and there are still plenty of Hamas figures still in Turkey.

Even without getting rid of the Gaza Blockade, the deal is a good one for Turkey but not nearly so good for Israel. The AKP and Erdoğan are not to be trusted one iota when it comes to Israel because they will always return to their Islamist love affair with the likes of Hamas, and their innate hatred of Israel. It's in their DNA. And siding with them against Russia and Putin is a bad idea, not to mention the Israel-friendly Kurds. Additionally, the idea of a pipeline running through Turkish territory could leave Israel open to blackmail and even sabotage in the event Erdoğan decides to turn the screws. There are other customers for Israel's gas and other ways of getting it to them.

The Iran factor shouldn't be counted on too much either. Turkey was notorious for violating the sanctions on Iran, and given Turkey's poor economy, there's no guaranty they could be trusted there either. As a matter of fact, Turkey hasn't exactly been much of an ally to NATO since the AKP took over, and there's no reason Israel should expect anything better from Erdoğan's Turkey at this point.

Far better to just agree to limit this to the exchange of ambassadors and see if Erdoğan is actually serious or if he simply wants to get whatever he can out of Israel before torpedoing relations like he did the last time.

Personally, I'd bet it's the latter.

I've Read the Nuclear Deal, Mr. President, and It's Awful

 


By David Gerstman

In his combative press conference last week to defend the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama issued the following challenge:

So to go back to Congress, I challenge those who are objecting to this agreement, number one, to read the agreement before they comment on it; number two, to explain specifically where it is that they think this agreement does not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and why they’re right and people like Ernie Moniz, who is an MIT nuclear physicist and an expert in these issues, is wrong, why the rest of the world is wrong, and then present an alternative.

First off it’s worth noting that Energy Secretary and MIT nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz said back in April that to be effective the deal would have to include “anytime, anywhere,” inspections, so Obama’s explanation about why 24 days notice is now good enough fails to convince me.
I want Moniz to explain why he changed his position on this AND why 24 days is now acceptable. I would like Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to explain why he walked back his comments on requiring “anytime, anywhere” inspections.

And I want a more convincing explanation than negotiator Wendy Sherman’s excuse that the term was just a “rhetorical flourish.” (If that was a rhetorical flourish, I’m curious how many other administration comments about the nuclear deal were rhetorical flourishes.)


But in that paragraph, Obama limits the grounds of questioning the deal to whether the language of the deal is insufficient to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear breakout over the course of the deal.
Here’s where I have problem. Even if the agreement was airtight, and I doubt that it is, there’s a matter of the administration’s behavior during the Joint Plan of Action, which was agreed to in November 2013. The problem is that the Obama administration has acted as “Iran’s attorney” covering for Iran’s violations of the previous agreement.

In a notable episode last month, administration officials attacked The New York Times for reporting that Iran would likely fail to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by the June 30 deadline. In the end Iran did reduce its stockpile but not by the method prescribed and not to the form that it was required to.

The nonproliferation think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security, earlier this month, explained why the administration’s behavior in this case was troubling:

The reason is not that somehow one form or other of LEU oxide is harder to turn back into hexafluoride form for use in a breakout. This is almost irrelevant to the debate. Unfortunately, these main forms of LEU oxide are straightforward to convert back and use during a breakout. That is a principal reason that in a final deal the United States wants all but 300 kilograms (kg) of Iran’s near 10,000 kg of LEU shipped out of the country or blended down to natural uranium. The United States is now making a very narrow interpretation of this provision in the JPA, and an interpretation that is at odds with its previous positions and common sense. It is also an interpretation that appears to favor Iran and not the United States. Reaching this interpretation seems overly driven by the administration’s fear of Congress. The administration appears to have lost sight of the true adversary in its on-going battle with Congress.

This weakening of interpretations is a bad precedent for the future. This case signals a U.S. willingness to legally reinterpret the deal when Iran cannot do what it said it would do, in order to justify that non-performance. The United States should have said, like we do, that Iran has not met its commitment in the JPA on this issue and fully explained the status of the stocks and what the future remedy will be. It should have used that position as leverage to gain additional concessions from Iran. Experts and Congress may have noted the discrepancy with concern but few would have advocated walking away from the JPA as a result of a frank discussion of this issue last winter or even now.

So President Obama made a point of appealing to science or scientific expertise as proof that his deal is solid, but when science said that a previous deal wasn’t being observed, the administration attacked the science!

President Obama insists that the fear of “snapback sanctions” (probably unworkable) will keep Iran from cheating. But if the administration’s past performance is any indication, Iran has nothing to fear. There will be no “snapback’s” if no violation is declared. If the administration papered over Iranian violations to keep negotiations going, what are the chances it will declare Iran in violation now that a new agreement has been reached?

So Obama’s challenge doesn’t work on two levels. The science might not be right and the problems with the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), extend to more than just what’s written in the deal.

 

But there’s another aspect to the deal that’s disturbing. I will quote a few non-contiguous items from the deal:

18. The UN Security Council resolution endorsing this JCPOA will terminate all provisions of previous UN Security Council resolutions on the Iranian nuclear issue – 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008), 1929 (2010) and 2224 (2015) – simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation of agreed nuclear-related measures by Iran and will establish specific restrictions, as specified in Annex V.

26. The EU will refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions that it has terminated implementing under this JCPOA, without prejudice to the dispute resolution process provided for under this JCPOA. There will be no new nuclear related UN Security Council sanctions and no new EU nuclear-related sanctions or restrictive measures. The United States will make best efforts in good faith to sustain this JCPOA and to prevent interference with the realisation of the full benefit by Iran of the sanctions lifting specified in Annex II. The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from re-introducing or re-imposing the sanctions specified in Annex II that it has ceased applying under this JCPOA, without prejudice to the dispute resolution process provided for under this JCPOA. The U.S. Administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions. Iran has stated that it will treat such a re-introduction or re-imposition of the sanctions specified in Annex II, or such an imposition of new nuclear-related sanctions, as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part

36. If Iran believed that any or all of the E3/EU+3 were not meeting their commitments under this JCPOA, Iran could refer the issue to the Joint Commission for resolution; similarly, if any of the E3/EU+3 believed that Iran was not meeting its commitments under this JCPOA, any of the E3/EU+3 could do the same. The Joint Commission would have 15 days to resolve the issue, unless the time period was extended by consensus. After Joint Commission consideration, any participant could refer the issue to Ministers of Foreign Affairs, if it believed the compliance issue had not been resolved. Ministers would have 15 days to resolve the issue, unless the time period was extended by consensus. After Joint Commission consideration – in parallel with (or in lieu of) review at the Ministerial level – either the complaining participant or the participant whose performance is in question could request that the issue be considered by an Advisory Board, which would consist of three members (one each appointed by the participants in the dispute and a third independent member). The Advisory Board should provide a non-binding opinion on the compliance issue within 15 days. If, after this 30-day process the issue is not resolved, the Joint Commission would consider the opinion of the Advisory Board for no more than 5 days in order to resolve the issue. If the issue still has not been resolved to the satisfaction of the complaining participant, and if the complaining participant deems the issue to constitute significant nonperformance, then that participant could treat the unresolved issue as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part and/or notify the UN Security Council that it believes the issue constitutes significant non-performance.

37. … Iran has stated that if sanctions are reinstated in whole or in part, Iran will treat that as grounds to cease performing its commitments under this JCPOA in whole or in part.

Item (18) quoted above means that all of the resolutions involving Iran’s failure to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will be erased. These resolutions were passed because Iran pursued an enrichment program outside of its NPT obligations and failed to account for all of its past nuclear research.

Iran has maintained its enrichment program, and will be allowed to continued it under the terms of the JCPOA. It still has not come clean about its past nuclear work, and for the sanctions relief to take hold, Iran apparently only has to commit to admitting its past nuclear work to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The JCPOA, in effect, legalizes Iran’s years of violations and rewards them for limiting their level of violations in the future.

The best analogy I could think of would be a corporation having been found in violation of emission standards for years agreeing to a deal that would absolve them of all fines accumulated over the years, have the violations expunged from government records and allowing the corporation to continue polluting at 50% over the standards instead of 100%.

Item (36) is curious too. I know that Iran’s Foreign Minister started off these negotiations with a presentation calling the crisis over its nuclear program an “unnecessary crisis.”
All along Iran called the sanctions “illegal.” So part of its goal was not just to get the sanctions removed, but to rewrite history so that Iran becomes the aggrieved party. By agreeing to cancel all the relevant Security Council resolutions about Iran’s nuclear program, the P5+1 nations are effectively rewriting history to Iran’s benefit. Worse, the Joint Commission empowers Iran to bring complaints against the other nations involved.

If the IAEA detected a violation and, say, France initiated an action against Iran in the Joint Commission, (another reason “snapback” is a fantasy), what would stop Iran from bringing some arbitrary action against France, and offer to drop it if France drops its action? I’m not a lawyer, maybe this is addressed elsewhere, but based on Iran’s behavior they will take advantage of any opening it is afforded in the deal.

And this brings us to (37) and the end of (26). If the process of finding Iran in violation is completed and an effort is made to reimpose sanctions, what is to stop Iran from saying, “okay we’re leaving the JCPOA.” Obama has said that this negotiation process has kept a rein on Iran’s nuclear development, but doesn’t this mean that an attempt to re-impose sanctions if Iran is found in breach of its obligations could mean that Iran could then legally “cease performing” its JCPOA obligations?

I see that (26) has language about the dispute resolution process, but if Iran loses that process and still maintains that it committed no breach, what’s to stop Iran from saying it was framed? Remember that the JCPOA rewrites history saying that Iran committed no violations in the past, what’s to stop Iran from doing that again,especially when there’s language that seems to preemptively gives them the means to do so?

So yes, Mr. President I have read the deal. Given the combination of your administration’s behavior and what’s written in this document, it is awful.

Obama explodes When Asked why American Hostages in Iran Weren't Released

President Obama went ballistic when CBS News' Major Garrett asked him during a scheduled White House press briefing on the Obama administration's Iran deal about four Americans still held hostage by the Iranian regime.

"As you well know there are four Americans in Iran. Three held on trumped-up charges, according to your administration, and one whereabouts unknown," he said, referring to Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, retired U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian and former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran years ago.

Garrett continued, "Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content with all the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscience of this nation, the strength of this nation, unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?"

President Obama, of course, didn't actually answer the question. Instead, he lashed out at the reporter:

"I got to give you credit, Major, for how you craft those questions. The notion that I am content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails — Major, that's nonsense and you should know better," Obama said.

"I've met with the families of some of those folks. Nobody's content," he added.

So, with the Obama regime basically giving the Iranians everything they wanted that meant anything, they couldn't include freedom for four hostages as part of the deal? The prisoners are languishing in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. There are credible reports that at least one of the hostages has been tortured, and in fact all four may have been.
And John Kerry couldn't spare the time to insist on them being released? After the Bowe Bergdahl fiasco?

Garret responded to the president's criticism after the briefing, explaining that he intended to be "provocative."

"Sometimes you have to take a scolding from a president to get to an answer," he said during a CBS News live report. "That's part of my job."

"Politics, especially those elected as president, are very adept at creating straw men … that's exactly what the president did," he added. "Clearly it struck a nerve. That was my intention. Was it provocative? Yes. Was it intended to be as such? Absolutely."


I personally doubt this president actually met with their families, certainly not recently. But regardless of that it is singularly disgraceful that while giving away the store to a terrorist regime, this administration refused to insist on redeeming its American hostages. It sounds suspiciously four other Americans who were left to die in a place called Benghazi.

Kudos to Major Garrett for actually practicing journalism. And being willing to stand up to the inevitable retaliation from the Obama Regime for speaking truth to power.

Breaking - The Sordid Details Of Munich II Leak Out

 

Some of my sources have given me an outline of some of what's in the coming Iranian nuclear agreement, and it's even worse than I thought it would be. The blather we heard about 'no deal being better than a bad deal' and 'hard choices' from Secretary of State John Kerry turned out to mean a deal at any price, and the hard choices being made not by Iran but by John Kerry and the Obama Administration.

For starters, remember how we were told that Iran would be required to allow inspections to verify they were keeping their agreement? Well, in this new agreement, there are no real inspections involved, and the IAEA has been totally castrated. Any inspections that do take place will be prearranged with the Iranian regime at a time and place of their choosing. Since the Iranians have already said repeatedly that no inspections will be allowed in any of their military facilities under any circumstances, that essentially means no inspections at all and no ability to verify if Iran is keeping its word.

Considering the sort of regime we're dealing with, backing down on inspections is unbelievable.

Another red line the Iranians have been able to get President Obama to back down on was the insistence that Iran detail all activities it conducted regrading weaponization in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it signed prior to the this new agreement. This was important because the whole idea of this farce was supposedly to keep Iran within one year of 'breakout' - the time when the Iranians can develop a nuclear weapon.

Since the Obama Administration backed off on this condition, we now will have no idea how close they are to breakout, there will be absolutely no way to tell if they're a year away, six months away of one month away..especially as there will also be no meaningful inspections.

Originally, the position of the P5+1(the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany)was that Iran would be allowed only 500 to 1,500 centrifuges and they were all supposed to be IR-1s, Iran’s first generation centrifuge. That number is now 6,500, and the Iranians have actually been offered more up-to-date centrifuges by the P5+1 as an incentive. To give you an idea of the realities involved, contrary to President Obama's own assurances about 'freezing Iran's enrichment', Iran has actually increased its nuclear stockpile in violation of the framework agreement. This is 20% enriched uranium, 90% of the way toward weaponization, which can be reconverted into material suitable for further enriching to weapons-grade levels in only  a few weeks at most. Just as we have no idea of exactly what or where all of Iran's nuclear facilities are, we have no clue as to exactly how much enriched uranium they have...nor will we, based on the current agreement being finalized.

Another important concession Iran won is their 'right' to continue what Iran's President Rouhani called 'all forms of nuclear research and development.' That includes Iran's plutonium producing heavy water reactor at Arak, which has no peacetime application. You might remember that when John Kerry originally presented the framework agreement back in November 2013, he claimed that the Iranians had agreed to shut Arak down. The Iranians said in no uncertain terms that Kerry and President Obama were lying, and the end result was that the Obama team signed off on Arak, where Iran will continue to produce plutonium.

I could be charitable and say it was an error in translation, but in view of all the other differences between what our president and his  secretary of State told the world and what the Iranians claim they agreed to, I'll call it willful deception.

Keep in mind that none of this has anything to do with a peaceful nuclear power or medical uses because nuclear enrichment isn't needed for that. Canada, Sweden, Argentina and other countries all have peaceful nuclear programs without enrichment capacity. It's only needed if you're building nuclear weapons. President Barack Obama himself admitted this, back in December 2013.

But wait, there's more.

 

President Obama made a point of using the term 'snap back sanctions' last April to describe what the consequences for Iran would be if they cheated on the agreement. As our president knew full well, this term meant nothing when he used it and is even more meaningless now.

The sanctions regime took years to assemble in a form where at least most of the international community would go along with it. The sanctions have now been almost totally undone since the president's Iranian-born consigliere Valerie Jarret's secret, back channel negotiations with Iran for most of 2013 were concluded. President Obama actually watered down many of the sanctions with waivers prior to and after the initial framework agreement, and when he spoke to the American people last April, he knew that the sanctions regime was history.

Moreover, he also knew that Russia and China, whom were never that keen on the sanctions to begin with had already announced that they won't participate in future sanctions, something Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov recently repeated. And of course, with verification now entirely gutted, any attempt at revising the sanctions for cause is going to be difficult if not impossible to get through the UN. I'm informed that there may be a face saving plank moving sanctions relief to 2016, but that's fairly meaningless because it's not going to be observed anyway.

You see, not only did President Obama invalidate the sanctions, the one thing that brought Iran to the table. He rewarded the fascist Iranian regime with billions in badly needed cash for the privilege of talking to them. In fact, the Iranian regime's central bank just received 13 tons of gold with a value of $11.9 billion as part of a package of sanctions relief before signing or agreeing to anything. Any idiot knows that money changes hands when a deal is concluded, not before. The Iranians will keep that money regardless, and it's surprising to me that John Kerry left the conference room in Vienna still retaining his pants and shoes.

 

And there's even more. The Iranian regime came up with yet another demand at the last minute. As a major supporter and enabler of Islamist terrorism worldwide, Iran is under a UN arms embargo. And Iran is insisting that it be lifted as part of this deal. No word yet, but according to the Iranian Official News source Fars, the Obama Administration is going to go along with that too. And why not? They've given the Ayatollahs everything else they wanted.

And don't be surprised if the US provides some of those weapons, In fact, right now in Iraq, US advisers are sharing bases with Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops, and some are surprised to see Hezbollah troops flaunting US weaponry. They shouldn't be.

Having created ISIS, President Obama wants Iran to do the dirty work on the ground to clean up the mess he created. To get that, he's willing to allow Basher Assad to survive, return Iraq to Iran as a Shi'ite colony, and allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. The arms race this will set off in the region is of no concern to him. Neither is the security threat to the US of a nuclear armed Iran, or the Second Holocaust the Iranians continue to promise to unleash on Israel as soon as they're able to do so.

So to sum up, this deal does not provide for any real verification of Iran's breakout capacity, nuclear facilities or IBCMs, does not stop Iran from proceeding towards developing nuclear weapons, does away with what's left of the sanctions, and will reward the Iranian regime with billions in cash beyond what they've already received. In exchange for that, there's a worthless piece of paper President Obama can figuratively wave in the Rose Garden.


 

Would you like to know how President Obama is going to try to sell this to the American people? Here's a sneak preview:



Why yes, it's Mr. Bill, whom some Americans still see a a great president. The North Korean deal he and Marilyn Albright cooked up with the Kims led directly to Pakistan's nuclear weapons and Iran's clandestine nuclear weapons program. President Obama will attempt to use the same sort of turgid prose to tell us all lies about what a wonderful deal this is. After all, he'll almost certainly be out of office when the damage he did to this nation becomes evident, just like Bill Clinton. And rest assured, that damage will likely be profound.

Because of the way President Barack Hussein Obama has set this up, congress is entirely out of the loop on a major security issue because this is agreement is being done via the UN Security Council. The Senate can vote for a motion of disapproval, which would keep some US sanctions in force. But when the president vetoes it, the chances of getting 12 Democrats senators to vote to override that veto are very slim, given the pressure being put on them.

The real joke is that even if the Iranians don't sign on to this deal, they still got everything they wanted - 17 months to continue their nuclear weapons development and to further protect their nuclear facilities from attacks, billions in cash and the destruction of the sanctions regime. And if they do sign on, nothing changes.After all, what's one more UN resolution to cheat on? They don't even have to make a pretense of changing their hostility to the west or their ultimate objective towards the nation they call The Great Satan as they move towards the day they announce their successful test of a nuclear device.

The Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's President Rouhani and Iran's Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif sized up early the weak, craven and self-obsessed men they were dealing with quite some time ago,and played them thoroughly.

This is the post-American presidency indeed, when the practitioners of what my friend calls wifebeater patriotism have taken over our Republic and are doing their very best to loot it, damage it, and weaken it for their own purposes as they attempt to remake it to conform to the distorted mirror of their own image.

UPDATE: The Iranian nuclear deal was announced today, and once again my notorious Little Birdies came through - the deal as presented was pretty much what they said it would be, with a few last minute minor changes, none of which mean much in practical terms. The name of this new agreement is a dead giveaway - the 'Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.' Note the word 'plan.'

The details are here.

Breaking: Obama Hid North Korean Rocket Component Transfers to Iran

US intelligence officials have now revealed that during the Iran nuclear negotiations, North Korea has sent several shipments of advanced missile components to the Iranian regime in violation of UN sanctions - and that the Obama Administration hid the violations from the UN.

Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Details of the arms shipments were included in President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings and officials suggested information about the transfers was kept secret from the United Nations, which is in charge of monitoring sanctions violations.

Critics of the U.S.-led nuclear framework agreement reached in Switzerland earlier this month have said one major deficiency of the accord is its failure to address Iran’s missile program, considered a key nuclear delivery system for the Islamist regime.

CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani declined to comment on the missile component shipments, citing a policy of not discussing classified information.

But other officials said the transfers included goods covered by the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary agreement among 34 nations that limits transfers of missiles and components of systems with ranges of greater than 186 miles.

One official said the transfers between North Korea and Iran included large diameter engines, which could be used for a future Iranian long-range missile system.

President Barack Obama was given details of the shipments in his daily intelligence briefings (assuming he read them), but the officials said the information was hidden from the UN by the White House so that it would not take action on the sanctions violations.

This was confirmed by a spokesperson for Spain's mission to the UN, (which now overseas the UN's sanctions committee)who said the committee was not been told about the shipments by the US since Spain took over in January, 2015.

According to award winning reporter Bill Gertz, who broke this story, this is nothing new:

A classified State Department cable from October 2009 reveals that Iran is one of North Korea’s key missile customers.

The cable, made public by Wikileaks, states that since the 1980s North Korea has provided Iran with complete Scud missiles and production technology used in developing 620-mile-range Nodong missiles.

Additionally, North Korea also supplied Iran with a medium-range missile called the BM-25 that is a variant of the North Korean Musudan missile.

“This technology would provide Iran with more advanced missile technology than currently used in its Shahab-series of ballistic missiles and could form the basis for future Iranian missile and [space launch vehicle] designs.”

“Pyongyang’s assistance to Iran’s [space launch vehicle] program suggests that North Korea and Iran may also be cooperating on the development of long-range ballistic missiles.”

A second cable from September 2009 states that Iran’s Safir rocket uses missile steering engines likely provided by North Korea that are based on Soviet-era SS-N-6 submarine launched ballistic missiles.

That technology transfer was significant because it has allowed Iran to develop a self-igniting missile propellant that the cable said “could significantly enhance Tehran’s ability to develop a new generation of more-advanced ballistic missiles.”

“All of these technologies, demonstrated in the Safir [space launch vehicle] are critical to the development of long-range ballistic missiles and highlight the possibility of Iran using the Safir as a platform to further its ballistic missile development.”

Among other things, this could be setting the U.S. up for an EMP attack.

No wonder the Iranians insisted that their ballistic missiles program was off the table in any negotiations. Why the president agreed to it is another matter entirely, especially since he had to have known the sanctions he kept boasting about were being grossly violated.

U.N. sanctions imposed in 2009 on North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests prohibit the export of missiles and related technology, and obviously the president didn't want to make an issue of that either, even if it meant deceiving the UN and the P5+1.

There's no telling how far Iran is with its ballistic missiles, but they're obviously a lot farther along than they were since Barack Hussein Obama took over the White House in 2009. This president was simply willing to look the other way.

 

According to Gertz, both White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan and State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined to comment on this story.

Small wonder.

Munich II

President Barack Hussein Obama announced yesterday that a deal - ooops, a 'framework for a deal' had been achieved with Iran on its illegal nuclear program.

Here's what the president said the components of this unwritten, unsigned framework were.

First of all, he claimed that the reactor at Iran's heavy water facility at Arak will be dismantled so the Iranians cannot produce plutonium, a second route to nuclear weapons.He also claimed that nuclear material from Arak would be shipped out of Iran, that Iran would not build a new heavy water reactor and that Iran will not reprocess fuel from its existing reactors ever.

Second, he claimed that the Iranians agreed that its centrifuges would be reduced by two thirds, and that Iran will not enrich uranium with its advanced centrifuges for at least the next 10 years. He also said that Iran would no longer enrich uranium at its top secret military facility at Fordow. and that there would be severe limits on Iran's stockpiling of the materials needed to build a nuclear weapon.

He said there would be limits on Iran's nuclear program, research and development for a decade and that Iran would never be allowed to build a nuclear weapon.

He also claimed that current sanctions would be gradually phased out in accordance with Iranian compliance, that Iran would face intense inspections and scrutiny, and that if if was found cheating, the UN would slap massive sanctions back on Iran.

There's not a single statement in the above four paragraphs that's true, and that comes from no less than Iran's own Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who supposedly agreed to all this in the last minute negotiations at Lausanne:

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people and Congress in a fact sheet it released following the culmination of negotiations with the Islamic Republic.

Zarif bragged in an earlier press conference with reporters that the United States had tentatively agreed to let it continue the enrichment of uranium, the key component in a nuclear bomb, as well as key nuclear research.

Zarif additionally said Iran would have all nuclear-related sanctions lifted once a final deal is signed and that the country would not be forced to shut down any of its currently operating nuclear installations. [...]

Zarif, echoing previous comments, said the United States has promised an immediate termination of sanctions.

“Iran/5+1 Statement: ‘US will cease the application of ALL nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions.’ Is this gradual?” he wrote on Twitter.

He then suggested a correction: “Iran/P5+1 Statement: ‘The EU will TERMINATE the implementation of ALL nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions’. How about this?”


On Thursday evening, Zarif told reporters the latest agreement allows Iran to keep operating its nuclear program.

“None of those measures” that will move to scale back Iran’s program “include closing any of our facilities,” Zarif said. “We will continue enriching; we will continue research and development.”
“Our heavy water reactor will be modernized and we will continue the Fordow facility,” Zarif said. “We will have centrifuges installed in Fordow, but not enriching.”

The move to allow Iran to keep centrifuges at Fordow, a controversial onetime military site, has elicited concern that Tehran could ramp up its nuclear work with ease.

The scrutiny and inspections, of course, can be relied on to tell us everything we need to know about Iran's nuclear program, right? Because the Iranians would never try to hide that sort of thing from us, and can be relied on not to cheat

As for the president's threat of renewed sanctions, just like his promises on ObamaCare he is knowingly lying to the American people. It took two years to put together the sanctions regimen in the UN. Now that Obama has essentially dismantled it, it isn't going to happen again, certainly not in time to be of any use. Russia will see to that.

And here perhaps is the most chilling statement Zarif made:

Zarif also revealed that Iran will be allowed to sell “enriched uranium” in the international market place and will be “hopefully making some money” from it.

Can you imagine whom a regime that is the major supporter of Islamist terrorism like Iran is likely to sell nuclear materials and know how to? Iran itself obtained quite a bit from Pakistan's notorious AQ Khan when he was running what amounted to a cash and carry supermarket for this sort of merchandise. What Iran is obviously planning will make what Khan did look minor.

President Obama claims that this 'framework' agreement is a good deal. In reality, all it does is give Iran another three which gives Iran another three months to work on its nuclear weapons technology in exchange for...absolutely nothing specific. Instead of leading to reduced nuclear proliferation, it will increase it, since countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are under no illusions as to what this means.

This goes beyond mere appeasement. President Obama and John Kerry are enabling a nuclear armed Iran.

All other things aside, this president and his team are allowing a murderous regime that has sworn to destroy Israel on numerous occasions the tools to attempt a second Holocaust. And there's no question in my mind that this is deliberate.

The moron prog think tank response to this is that the Iranians are rational actors whom would never do this, because of the risk of retaliation by Israel. Let's see what the founder of the regime, the Ayatollah Khomeini had to say about that:

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

The Iranians have continued to promise to destroy Israel since 1978 when Khomeini took over. That goal has never changed.

Neither has their goal of destroying America. In fact, during the Lausanne negotiations, Iran's Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Khamenei once again led crowds in the old chant,"death to America."



He means it, and so does Iran. For those of you whom think this is just Israel's problem and you couldn't care less, guess again. Once the Iranians attack what they refer to as the Little Satan, the Great Satan is next on the list.

These things only start with the Jews. They don't end there.

Barack Obama and John Kerry were so desperate for a deal that they were willing to take a position of strength and turn it into a position of weakness.  In fact, they became the Iranians' community organizers lobbying the other P5+1 countries to accept more and more concessions. Kerry at one point said, “Simply demanding that Iran  capitulate makes a nice sound bite,but [a sound bite] is not a policy, it is not a realistic plan.”

Actually, giving Iran a choice between having its nuclear weapons program and having an economy  was an extremely realistic plan. So was telling the Iranians that if negotiations failed, they wouldn't even have a nuclear program any longer, because we would seek other means to solve the problem.

Instead, Barack Obama and John Kerry capitulated on virtually every major point the Iranians wanted, while rewarding them with  billions in badly needed funds simply for continuing the process. It was like two hookers paying a john for deigning to partake of their services rather than the other way around.

President Obama wants some kind of deal with Iran at whatever cost. And he'll get it any way he can.

What he has in mind is not that hard to figure out.From the beginning, his goal was to promote and empower Islamists at home and abroad while distancing America from Israel. After this backfired in Egypt and even more horrendously in Libya, his next attempt was in Syria. Islamic State was originally armed and trained by the Obama Administration, with the help of Qatar and Turkey. after which it promptly attacked and defeated the corrupt Shi'ite regime in Iraq.

Having pounded his chest repeatedly about how he ended 'Bush's war' successfully, President Obama can't ignore Iraq. Islamic State has been far too blatant for that. But politically, he can't do anything meaningful about it beyond a few air strikes, and certainly not in the in the way of putting boots on the ground, The radical Leftist  anti-war base he and the other leaders of the Democrat party created as a political weapon after 9/11 now controls that party for the most part, and the last thing Barack Obama  wants is to awaken the beast on his watch.

So his solution is to have Iran and its proxies do the dirty work on the ground in Iraq, while the U.S. helps out with a few desultory air strikes. In exchange, the Iranian will be allowed to return Iraq to its status as an Iranian colony, and President Obama will see to it that there's an end to sanctions and wink at Iran's  obtaining nuclear weapons.

The president sees this as 'a good deal' for a number of reasons. He wants to exchange Israel and the Gulf States for Iran as our chief ally in the region, and he feels that this will all lead to a lessening of tension in the region and to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. And above all, he and his Secretary of State really seem to believe that the Iranians are not interested in nuclear weapons.  In fact, he even quoted, again, a  religious fatwa against the use of nuclear weapons by the Ayatollah Khamenei.

This is sheer madness.

Iran has been in a state of war with us  since 1979. They were complicit in 9/11,  and they have no interest in an alliance with 'The Great Satan,'  This 'good deal' President Obama is pimping will feverishly ramp up the tension in the Middle East as Egypt, the Saudis and the GCC countries all scramble for their own nukes in the face of the Shi'ite threat, and an attack on Iran's facilities using tactical nukes by Israel becomes a distinct possibility. And finally, the Fatwa against nuclear weapons the president keeps babbling about is a myth. It doesn't exist.

Of course, when things spiral out of hand President Obama will likely be safely out of office, and it can be conveniently blamed on someone else, the same way 9/11 was blamed on a hapless President George W. Bush by the usual suspects. The huge cost of this folly will be paid by America, by Israel and by anyone else the Iranians target in ways we can't even begin to imagine, just as the French and British couldn't imagine the aftermath of Munich in 1938.

This is Munich II, and it will be far worse than the original in terms of destruction and lives lost unless this foul, craven sell out is stopped cold. If this stands it will be an unmitigated defeat for the West, and knowing whom was responsible and cursing their names in the annals of history will be cold comfort in the aftermath.

Kerry's Talks With Iran Deadlocked As Iran Calls For Israel's Destruction

 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry chaired a four hour meeting with an Iranian delegation that included Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif.

Secretary Kerry's 'agreement that was never and agreement' on Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program continues to fall apart at the seams.

The Iranians have flat outrejected any limits on their enrichment program (and let's remember, a nuclear energy program doesn't require enrichment). The Iranians have also refused to consider reducing the size and output of their centrifuges that can enrich uranium both to levels needed for reactor fuel or for nuclear warheads.

 

According to the Associated Press Kerry caved and promptly put a new U.S. proposal on the table that is based on removing piping connecting the centrifuges...as if that piping can't be reconnected in between inspections!

The Iranians are also adamant about any inspection of their military base at Parchin where there's substantial evidence that nuclear weapons research has gone on, nor will Iran make any concessions on its fortified nuclear facility at Fordo or on its heavy water reactor at Arak. The Arak reactor has no peacetime application whatsoever, and the reactor can be used to produce plutonium, an alternate path to nuclear weapons.

You may remember that last November, Secretary Kerry was claiming that the Iranians had agreed to suspend operations at Arak.The Iranians were quite prompt to reply they said no such thing, just one of the many details Kerry and President Obama claimed the Iranians agreed to that they absolutely didn't, and something Iran said it wouldn't ever make concessions on. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime got over $12.5 billion in badly needed funds and the dismantling of what was left of the sanctions that was years in the making for this faux 'agreement' anyway. As I said at the time, it's a wonder Secretary Kerry returned with his pants and shoes on after that bit of negotiating....

The next topic of conversation was the Islamic State. As I reported earlier, the Iranian response to Kerry's attempt to get them on board as part of President Obama's coalition was pretty much along these lines:

 

Deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi refused the idea of any coordination of efforts with the Great Satan, he did say that his government was in agreement with Western powers on the evil  nature of Islamic State, saying,  “we couldn’t agree more that ISIL [Islamic State] is neither Islamic, nor a state.”  Most Sunnis, not just Islamic State feel the same way about Shi'ites, of course.


But they did have a unique suggestion for Kerry.

Araghchi said that Israel’s actions in Gaza can “only be called genocide,” and said that Israel's existence was a rallying cry for Islamic State. So Islamic State's destruction and demise must thus be tied to “an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab lands.”

Since the Iranians (and the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians) have said many times they consider all of Palestine 'occupied Arab lands' and Iran funds and arms genocidal groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, there's no mistaking what Aragchi meant. It's a reprise of the old Iranian call to wipe Israel off the map.And keep in mind, Aragchi isn't just speaking on his own. That doesn't happen in a regime like Iran's. This is official policy.



In fact, if the 'Palestinian Authority’s ambassador' to Iran, Salah Al-Zawawi is to be believed, Iran has already begun shipping weaponry and missiles to Fatah as well:

“I would like to reiterate my gratitude to the Islamic Republic of Iran for the training, financing, and weapons it has provided us, as well as for its political and diplomatic positions regarding Palestine. Iran has helped us to attain our great victory,”

“I am not saying that Palestine will be liberated tomorrow, but we have made real strides on the path to liberation. A missile with a 200 kilogram warhead will carry a warhead of 100 tons in the future, because weapons change as men change. We just need to cross the scientific threshold to get to our goal.”

Ah yes, the old goal of pushing the Jews into the sea. And perhaps later after the missiles are developed, a spare nuke, once the Iranians develop one? Just for the record, a top Iranian military commander recently confirmed that the Islamic Republic is sending weapons to Fatah.

Israeli PM Netanyahu may one day be sorry he didn't defy President Obama and take out Hamas when he had the opportunity. A three front war with Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah as adversaries is not out of the question at all.

And Secretary Kerry? There's no indication that he voiced any objections to this call for Israel's ethnic cleansing by Iran. Not that he agrees with it per se, but he appears to be far more focused on what concessions he can make to Iran to get some kind of piece of paper signed before November 24th, the new deadline that was agreed to after the Iranians ran out the clock on July 20th, the official deadline. Iran received an additional bribe of a mere $2.8 million to keep these 'talks' going after that fiasco.

Meanwhile, the centrifuges are turning and Iran hasn't given up anything. Nor will they. They know whom they're dealing with.

 

Netanyahu Caves In On Gaza Reconstruction

 

The Hamas/Fatah Unity government  and the UN have apparently come up with a formula for Gaza reconstruction, and Israel has apparently agreed to it.

According to the agreement, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority will be in charge of ensuring that the construction materials sent into Gaza for reconstruction will not be diverted to Hamas’s military efforts. 

Coordinating the plan from the UN side was none other than Hamas money-launderer Robert Serry, whom Israel should have declared persona non-grata and kicked out of the region a long time ago.

“The crisis in Gaza is far from over and the window of opportunity to address critical needs and stabilize the situation is short,” Serry warned.

The envoy appealed for action to “change fundamentally the dynamics in Gaza,” warning that “if we do not, Gaza could implode — or, yet again, explode — possibly with a new and even more devastating round of violence.”

Israel agreed to the UN proposal to put the PA in charge of overseeing Gaza’s reconstruction under the auspices of the UN.

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who's in charge of the IDF’s interaction with Palestinian authorities, was quoted as saying that this new agreement would allow Gaza’s reconstruction to go forward while securing the security interests of Israel.

'Securing the security interests of Israel?' How, exactly? Ironically, on the day the Israelis agreed to this, a mortar shell was fired from Gaza into the Eskol Council area in southern Israel.

Abbas and his PA thugs are almost guaranteed to look the other way while their Hamas partners purloin whatever they need to rebuild the tunnels and the rest of their terrorist infrastructure.

PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya'allon have just given up their prime bargaining chip for Israel's main strategic goal with Hamas.

Here's how this should have worked.

 

"Oh hello Mr. Serry, have a seat. Oh, so this is what you and Mahmoud Abbas came up with? Let's have a look."

"Hmm, this seems OK..but there's something missing. When is Hamas going to disarm and turn its missiles and mortars over to us? I don't see anything here about that."

"Oh that's to be negotiated later? Ummm, no, sorry. When we find out when the Hamas disarmament happens, then we can talk about the reconstruction.In fact, I just sent off a query to your boss, Ban ki-Moon to find out how that's coming along. I'm surprised he didn't mention it."

"The rubble and destruction? Well, I understand it's upsetting to you Mr. Serry. We didn't like the damage done to our people's homes either. But it serves a purpose you know, especially if Hamas isn't going to disarm. When they start to look around them, maybe they'll think twice about attacking us again."

"But since Hamas isn't willing to disarm and since we're not getting any UN or donor aid to help our people anyway and have to pay for that ourselves, the disarmament thing is our primary goal here. We'd rather just let things sit until this disarmament question gets settled. After all, wasn't the Hamas disarmament in that UN resolution anyway?"

"Now no need to get red in the face, Mr. Serry. After all, you're on such good terms with Hamas, and I have confidence in your abilities. Why don't you talk to your Hamas friends and work out a schedule for disarmament, and then we can talk about getting that reconstruction moving right along."

"I believer you know your own way out. Keep me posted on how you're doing with Hamas, and have a nice day."

Instead of that, the Hamas/Fatah entity gets what it wants, and Israel gets..what? The right to fight the next round?

This needs to stop.Israel was never intended to be a nation of friers.

Hamas Violates Ceasefire - Again

Hamas fired rockets from northern Gaza into Israel 2 hours before the cease fire was supposed to end. One rocket struck open territory in the Sha'ar Hanegev area and exploded without causing injuries or damage. Another was launched at the Ashkelon area.

This will be the seventh cease fire Hamas has violated.

A Hamas spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhri said Hamas "denies there was any rocket fire at the occupation this evening".

Since the rockets didn't appear by magic, either Hamas is lying or they don't have complete control over their forces. If either is true, there's no sense in Israel making any kind of deal with them at this point.

The Hamas/Fatah delegation was supposed to give a press conference at 9:30 p.m. to reply to the Egyptian proposal to extend the truce by another 72 hours. That press conference has now been postponed.

Hamas sources are reporting that instead, the Palestinian delegation is preparing to leave Cairo. The Israelis left earlier in the evening.

Hamas is insisting that all its demands be met in order for any long term cease fire to be put in place. They want the Egyptian/Israeli blockade lifted, an airport and seaport to be constructed, the Egyptians replaced as mediators with someone more Hamas friendly, the crossings between Egypt,Israel and Gaza opened with the Palestinian Authority in control and a number of Hamas terrorists released from Israeli jails. They are offering no concessions in return.

Neither Egypt or Israel is prepared to fully open the borders and allow Hamas to simply rebuild its terrorist structure and re-arm.

 

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Hamas’ Aqsa TV station that “The sacrifices of our people don’t allow for compromises on the rights and demands of the Palestinians.”
He expressed support for the Palestinian team in Cairo and urged its members not to “succumb to blackmail.”

Israel has reacted to the breach of the ceasefire by moving more troops into position.

 

Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyau received a call from President Barack Obama today, reportedly pressuring him to make a deal with Hamas that would end the fighting, even if it was just an extension of the short term truce. That phone call was made before Hamas broke the ceasefire.

There was an announcement by Egypt before the rockets were fired that the two sides had agreed to extend the ceasefire for another 72 hours,apparently what President Obama was pushing for.  We'll see how things go.

A Holdup In Gaza Negotiations - Hamas and PA Refuse To Return Dead Soldier's Bodies

Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oron Shaul were killed in action during attempts to kidnap them, and their remains were taken into the tunnels by Hamas.

The Israelis have requested that their remains be returned as part of any long term ceasefire...but Hamas and The Palestinian Authority have refused to do so, and will not discuss the issue.

The talks are at a dead end. Israel made several concessions as far as easing the passage of Gaza residents, goods and money in and out of Gaza. But Hamas and the PA are insisting on an airport and seaport, the replacement of Egypt as a mediator and the release of a number of convicted terrorists in Israeli hands...without giving up anything, not even the bodies of two dead Israeli soldiers.

 

Believe it or not, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly tried today to "soften" his coalition partners to concessions, including that of Israel paying the salaries of Hamas officials in Gaza.

Reportedly Economics Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman are adamant against making "terrorism pay," and Liberman specifically mentioned the return of the bodies of Goldin and Shaul as essential before the end of Operation Protective Edge.

"It's unthinkable that all Hamas members, including 20,000 of the terrorists in Hamas's military wing, will receive their salaries in an orderly fashion, through the Palestinian Authority or any other way, while the bodies of IDF soldiers still have not received a proper burial in Israel," remarked Liberman.

There's likely a very good reason Hamas and the PA are refusing to return the bodies. They were almost certainly mutilated and desecrated, something Israel has seen before.


The Israeli delegation left Cairo and headed by to Israel last night for consultations but there is simply too much daylight between the Israeli and Palestinian positions, and Hamas and the PA are divided about letting Mahmoud Abbas take control again. The cease fire ends at midnight Thursday night local time. It will almost certainly end before then, with a barrage of Hamas rockets fired at Israeli civilians...probably sometime today.

 

The Israeli people and the IDF are both sick and tired of half measures, this on again, off again nonsense. They want Hamas dealt with once and for all. Netanyahu has to know that the Israeli public's patience has run out, and his popularity continues to drop the longer he hesitates.They will not tolerate a return to the status quo, where Hamas has the option on whether to attack Israel or not...and each time, with better weaponry.

There are actually indications from my sources that this message may have finally gotten through, and that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon are preparing to do a lot more than merely destroying the tunnels they can find and mounting limited air strikes when Hamas attacks again. From what I gather, this time they're preparing to target the Hamas leadership. And that means hitting Shifa Hospital in central Gaza City, where the rats are hiding.

The quicker this finishes, the better.

The Unfinished War; Israel's Master Diplomatic Stroke As Hamas Refuses To Extend The Ceasefire

 

As you may know, both Hamas and Israel are now observing a 72-hour truce and Israel has pulled most of its ground troops out of Gaza. There was obviously a huge amount of U.S. pressure on Israeli PM Netanyahu by the Obama Administration.The Iron Dome missile defense system was developed by Israel's Rafael and is made there, but the U.S. partially funded it and shared the technology. As an additional quid pro quo Israel is required to obtain the missiles from an American defense contractor, Raytheon. Netanyahu was almost certainly faced with the Israeli people being held hostage if President Obama decided not to sign the bi-partisan bill passed by congress authorizing funding to replenish Israel's Iron Dome missiles in a timely manner..especially with Iran and Hezbollah making threatening sounds to the north. Hezbollah could enter this war if Iran decides to order them in.

At any rate, Israel acceded to a ceasefire and the withdrawal of most of its ground troops from Gaza. And the bill was signed by the president just after the ceasefire was announced.

I see this as a serious mistake on Israel's part. Hamas is already crowing about their 'victory', Netanyahu's poll ratings have declined, largely because the Israeli public wanted the job finished and the Army has even been vocal about being called back prior to the finish of a war they knew they could win.

While the IDF's mission was to destroy the network of terrorist tunnels, the main damage was to the exits inside the Israeli border, at least the ones that could be found thus far. Without taking out the main nexus under the Hamas headquarters in and under Shifa Hospital, that mission simply can't be said to be accomplished.Also, we've seen a couple of instances where tunnels were thought to have been destroyed, and weren't.

However, as it turns out, Israel, (most likely with the aid of the Egyptians) has pulled off a quiet but effective diplomatic coup that has frustrated and isolated Hamas to the point that they're mouth frothing furious and have refused to extend the ceasefire past 72 hours after Israel agreed to. That also shows you the tender regard Hamas has for Gaza's civilians.

 

The first hint of what's going on is that the IDF hasn't entirely pulled out. Instead, they have set up a buffer zone between Gaza and the Israeli towns that border the strip that extends just inside the Gaza border,1/2-2 miles (1 to 3 KM) from the Hamas lines and extends from Nahal Oz about forty miles down the entire length of the strip to Kerem Shalom and the Egyptian border.

 

That line is manned by tanks and special forces on full combat alert and supplemented with drones, sensors and heavy weapons.Because of the way the forces are laid out, the troops are in position to carve up the strip with a rapid response and isolate the Hamas contingents if necessary, and there's full coordination with air cover and reserves who still haven't been demobilized yet. They're far enough away from the Hamas lines to make a Hamas attack difficult, but close enough to move in quickly, especially since there's a high percentage of mechanized units.

The next part of the story is what happened in Cairo at the truce negotiations.

After multiple ceasefire violations by Hamas, the Israeli had originally declined to send a delegation to Cairo. But they changed their minds, likely after a conversation with the Egyptians and sent one headed by Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen that includes Yitzhak Molcho, personal adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Amos Gilead, political coordinator at the Defense Ministry.

The Hamas delegation included Khalil al-Haya and Imad al-Alami from Hamas and Khaled al-Batsh from Islamic Jihad. They were assured that they were going to get most if not all of the demands U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had put in his 'draft', especially after Abbas and the Palestinian Authority endorsed them. Kerry's presumptive agreement, put together with the aid of Hamas allies Qatar and Turkey included the following: the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza would be opened as well as all of the Israeli Gaza crossings and would be policed by Mahmoud Abbas's forces under his security chief, Majid Faraj ; The Israeli forces were to be completely removed from Gaza and the blockade ended by Egypt and Israel; Hamas would receive billions in 'reconstruction aid' from President Obama,the EU, UNRWA and Qatar directly; Hamas was not to be disarmed; an airport and seaport would be built, and the range of fishing boats into the Mediterranean would be extended.




The first hit to Hamas came from Egypt. The Egyptians told Hamas and the Palestinians that the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza was going to remain closed and under Egyptian control, and that Egypt would never OK a seaport or airport in Gaza.If fact, the Egyptians said plainly that this wouldn't even be allowed to come up for discussion, and emphasized this with a firefight involving the Egyptian Army on the Gaza-Egypt border that killed an estimated 11 fighters and ended up with the destruction of three tunnels going from Sinai into Gaza.

The second hit was a master stroke by Israel that forced both the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority to distance themselves from Hamas's demands.

The Israelis cited Oslo II and the Wye Accords, both of which were signed by the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority. They restrict Palestinian security forces in Gaza to light firearms as stated:

1. 7,000 light personal weapons;

2. up to 120 machine guns of 0.3″ or 0.5″ caliber;

3. up to 45 wheeled armored vehicles of a type to be agreed on between the two sides, and of which 22 will be deployed in protecting Council installations. The use of wheeled armored vehicles in the Security Perimeter, on the Lateral Roads and on their adjacent sides, or in the vicinity of the Settlements shall be approved through the relevant DCO. Movement of such vehicles along the central North-South road (Road No. 4) in the Gaza Strip may take place only after providing notification to the relevant DCO.

4. All weapons must be listed in a register in the possession of the Palestinian police.

Not only that, but the Israelis noted that in the 2011 unity plan that Hamas had agreed to, the Palestinian Authority’s security service would be the only armed force in Gaza. This was based on Abbas’s insistence on “one government, one law, one gun.”

Similarly, the 1998 Wye River Accords requires the Palestinian Authority to seize all illegal weapons in Gaza and the territories the PA occupies in Judea and Samaria and to provide to the Israelis with a list of all PA policemen.



The Israelis also finessed this by insisting that Gaza revert to the control of the Palestinian Authority and also threw Abbas a fairly juicy bone by insisting that all reconstruction monies be channeled through the Palestinian Authority Chairman.

The Israelis added stipulations agreeing with the Egyptians that no airport or sea port would be built in Gaza, and that some kind of inspection mechanism to be determined would need to be set up to monitor the security zone Israel is establishing inside the Gaza Strip to insure that no military activity takes place.There were no concessions by Israel or Egypt about lifting the blockade.

This put the Palestinian Authority and the Obama Administration in a quandary.After all, what could they say? The Israelis were merely stipulating that the PA and the United States abide by treaties it had already signed, and that Hamas abide by the unity agreement!

The Palestinian Authority was the first to cave, with visions of control of Gaza and all that lovely aid money dancing in front of them. Head PA negotiator Assam Ahmed agreed with the Israeli stipulations about PA control and about arms in Gaza, which sent the Hamas delegates into a shouting match according to my source. They threatened to walk out if all of their demands weren't met. For starters, they have rejected the extension of the cease fire Israel had already agreed to, so the shooting - as always, started by Hamas - is scheduled to start again Friday morning at 8 AM local time.

The Israelis have to know that the inept PA has no ability to disarm Hamas or take away Hamas's heavy weapons or missiles, but this puts the PA and the United States on record that this is exactly what they previously agreed to. They can hardly demand that Israel honor the stipulations in these agreements if the PA fails to do so. And that is already having repercussions, particularly for the Obama Administration.

If the PA fails to disarm Hamas, than the hammer could drop on the PA's funding.



Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee is one of th emost influential Democrats in the House.She has long been critical of the Obama Administration's stance on Hamas, especially since the unity agreement was signed  and has been insistent that this course of action will result in cutting the PA's  funding:

Lowey’s personal and legislative feelings have been made abundantly clear. “At this point, the law is clear, their actions are clear, and the path forward is clear,” Rep. Nita Lowey told the JTA news service immediately after news of the Hamas union became known in late April. Monday, June 2, after the unification ceremony finished in Ramallah, Lowey issued this short warning: “I am deeply disappointed with the announcement today of a Palestinian government that includes the terrorist organization Hamas. As long as Hamas rejects the Quartet principles and the existence of the State of Israel, United States funding for this unity government is in jeopardy.”

Early June 4, 2014, a source close to Lowey confirmed her feelings remain unchanged, Indeed, within 10 seconds of asking, he emailed this reporter the relevant section of one of several key legal bars to continued funding. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, in Section 7020, Subsection F, entitled Prohibition to Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, unambiguously declares: “None of the funds appropriated … may be obligated or expended for assistance to Hamas or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence.”

And it gets even better, as the GOP mobilizes:

House lawmakers are currently pushing a resolution to classify the newly formed Palestinian unity government as a foreign terrorist organization and cut off U.S. aid following the formation of a new ruling body that includes the terror group Hamas, according to a copy of the draft resolution obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The new resolution, sponsored by Reps. Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.) and Trent Franks (R., Ariz.), calls on the State Department to designate the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its new Hamas-backed unity government as a terrorist organization. The resolution is expected to be introduced Monday.

It additionally calls for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to be reclassified as a terror group and for the U.S. government to fully cut aid to the Palestinians, who have received around $5 billion in bilateral assistance since the 1990s.

“The Palestinian Authority has shown its true colors by forming a unity government with the terrorist organization Hamas,” Bachmann told the Free Beacon. “This nightmare scenario for the peace process means that Congress must reassert its constitutional authority and suspend foreign aid to the PA. We cannot continue to assist our enemies at the expense of our ally, Israel.”

U.S. lawmakers and Israeli officials have expressed shock in recent days that the Obama administration is willing to work with the new Palestinian unity government, which united the ruling Fatah party with the Hamas terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip.

With the midterms coming up and bi-partisan support for Israel in Congress remaining high, we could see a hold on funds for the PA, something Lowey has done before.

 

Since Hamas is never going to give up its Gaza reichlet and the PA lacks the ability to push them out, Abbas and his friends would be faced with either swallowing Hamas control of Gaza or losing their funding...and they certainly can't blame the Israelis, since Israel has already said they want the PA to control Gaza again and merely want Hamas and the PA to abide by what they agreed to, not only with Israel but with the U.S. and each other.

As for President Obama and Secretary Kerry, it's likewise going to be difficult for them if not impossible to justify funding Hamas under these conditions.

Hamas's only recourse at this point is to start firing rockets again at Israel, hope for more photogenic martyrs and sycophantic press coverage, and see if they can 'win' again by surviving.They have little choice, since they have to please their puppet masters in Iran.

You have to wonder, however how ordinary Gazans feel these days about paying the price to distract the world from Iran's rogue nuclear program.

How John Kerry 'Negotiates'

Courtesy of Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion via Carl

Yet Another 'Humanitarian Ceasefire' Announced

 

John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon have announced yet another humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to start at 8 am on Friday morning, for 72 hours.

"We urge all parties to act with restraint until this humanitarian ceasefire begins, and to fully abide by their commitments during the ceasefire," Kerry and Ban said. "This ceasefire is critical to giving innocent civilians a much-needed reprieve from violence.

"Israeli and Palestinian delegations will immediately be going to Cairo for negotiations with the Government of Egypt, at the invitation of Egypt, aimed at reaching a durable ceasefire. The parties will be able to raise all issues of concern in these negotiations."

As al-Reuters reported, Hamas has signed on. "Acknowledging a call by the United Nations and in consideration of the situation of our people, resistance factions agreed to a 72-hour humanitarian and mutual calm that begins at 8 a.m (0500 GMT) on Friday as long as the other side abides by it," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri was quoted as saying.

Hamas was forced to capitulate on something they had remained adamant about up to now, their insistence on Israeli troops being removed from Gaza and the lifting of the Israeli/Egyptian blockade. Neither of those is going to happen. Apparently Hamas, which has lost a great deal of its terrorist infrastructure and hundreds of fighters is hurting much more than they would have us believe.Hamas may actually honor this cease fire, at least until they regroup.

 

While Kerry and Ban Ki-Moon are touting this as the beginnings of negotiations on a more "durable truce", I wouldn't bet on it. Israel has said in no uncertain terms that it will continue to destroy the Hamas tunnels, regardless of any deal that might be reached, and Israel  is still insisting on Gaza being demilitarized.

Those demands are pretty much set in stone, and don't expect the Israelis to rely on the 'international community' to do the job without Israeli oversight. As I pointed out earlier, Israel has learned by experience how trustworthy entities like the UN are when it comes to disarming terrorist groups.

 

The Palestinian Authority's role here is very illuminating in destroying the fiction that Fatah and Hamas aren't working hand in glove together.

Fatah had orchestrated violent riots in Judea and Samaria as well as in Israel in support for Hamas and was also the head of the snake in pursuing lawfare and the diplomatic war against Israel. Abbas and Fatah were backing Hamas's ceasefire demands before they would show up in Cairo, to which the Egyptians responded 'fine, don't bother coming.'

Fatah, while they are still supporting Hamas's demands publicly managed to get Hamas to agree to put those demands aside right now in order to get negotiations started in Cairo.

The Palestinian delegation that's going to Cairo will include members of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and will reportedly be headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

What Abbas is hoping for here is to once again have the Palestinian Authority control Gaza, or at least the crossings on the Egyptian side so that they can thwart the blockade.

Kerry and Ban also are reportedly enlisting Hamas supporters Qatar and Turkey as intermediaries...so let's just say I'm skeptical of anything more than another humanitarian ceasefire coming out of this.It strikes me more as Kerry and the Obama Team pulling out all the stops to rescue Hamas.

Hamas will never cease trying to destroy Israel or give up its tunnels and its missiles voluntarily. And Israel can't afford to let them keep them.