July 14, 2015-Netanyahu calls Iran deal ‘historic mistake for world’

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“The implications of the agreement in the foreseeable future are very bad. Iran will continue sending terror cells in all directions, will continue to inflame the Middle East and worst of all – will take a huge step toward becoming a nuclear threshold state,” Hotovely said.

She said that Israel would use any diplomatic means necessary to prevent the confirmation of the agreement by the US Congress.

According to diplomats, the deal, which seeks to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief, will place limits on the amount of nuclear work Iran can do over the next 10 to 15 years in exchange for the easing of economic sanctions.

It will still need to be ratified by Congress in Washington, and Israeli officials have indicated they will continue to fight for a stronger deal.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Army Radio the “details of the agreement matter little, so long as they [the Iranians] can ultimately acquire nuclear weapons.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-calls-iran-deal-historic-mistake-for-world/

• Netanyahu Slams 'Bitter Mistake of Historic Proportions'
• Israeli Officials Livid Over Final Iran Nuclear Deal
• Israel's Lapid: Concessions to Iran 'Incomprehensible'
• Iran's Supreme Leader Posts Photo of Himself Trampling Israeli Flag
• White House: 'Tough Sell Is Going to Be on the Part of Republicans' If They Try to Kill Iran Deal

Courtesy of AREWELIVINGINTHELASTDAYS.COM

Hal Lindsey Report 3-14-14

Hal Lindsey Report (3.14.14): http://youtu.be/LSQrk5TtBvU

Iran elected to UN disarmament committee post

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Panel deals with all matters regarding disarmament — including nuclear weapons; Iran official will report to General Assembly on ‘challenges and threats’ to global peace

Members of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday elected Iran as rapporteur for the committee responsible for Disarmament and International Security, a body that deals with all matters regarding disarmament — including nuclear weapons. 

 

Replacing Norwegian diplomat Knut Langeland, the Iranian representative will relay information relating to the committee’s proceedings during the UN’s 68th session, spanning 2013-14, to the General Assembly.

 

In July, when Iran applied for the rapporteur position, Israel’s UN Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a statement that “allowing Iran to be on the UN committee dealing with nuclear disarmament and weapons proliferation is like inviting Assad, the Syrian dictator responsible for the death of 100,000 of his own people, to be the head of the population census bureau.”

In addition to appointing Iran as rapporteur, the committee gave the position of chair to Libya and vice chairs to Germany, Ecuador and Montenegro. More

White House: Obama shares Netanyahu’s goal on Iran

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Concerns over Tehran’s true intentions are ‘justifiable’ but there is a ‘window of opportunity’ for diplomacy, spokesman says

While avoiding any direct comment on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, the White House expressed understanding of the Israeli leader’s doubts over Iran’s recent diplomatic overtures toward the West.

“We’ve said all along, as the president has said, we understand, and it is entirely justifiable, that Israel is skeptical about Iran and Iran’s intentions,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a press briefing hours after Netanyahu’s speech. “After all, this is a country [Iran] whose leadership, until recently, was pledging to annihilate Israel.” 

Responding to questions about Netanyahu’s aggressive rhetoric during his speech, in which he denounced Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s conciliatory statements as a ruse, Carney asserted that the US, like Israel, was unwavering in its determination to thwart a nuclear-armed Iran. More

Erdogan: Fatah must cooperate with Hamas en route to Mideast peace

End Of Days News

Joel 3: 1: For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,

2: I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

Visiting Washington, Turkish prime minister slams Netanyahu government for oppposing Palestinian state, calls on Israel to ‘retreat to 1967 lines’

Without an internal Palestinian reunification deal, there is little chance Israeli-Palestinian peace talks can lead anywhere, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday during a visit to the US.

Speaking to reporters at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, Erdogan said, “There will be no negotiations without Hamas, therefore Fatah must cooperate with it.”

Palestinian unity talksstalled after the last set of meetings, held in Cairo in February, failed to mend the rift between Fatah and Hamas and send the Palestinians to parliamentary elections. The two parties signed a reconciliation deal in 2011, but it has yet to be implemented, and the particulars of the agreement remain undefined. The two parties were split on issues regarding the Palestine National Council, the PLO parliament, and legislative and presidential elections in the Palestinian territories. In recent days, Palestinian officials have again spoken of a possible unity deal within three months.

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/erdogan-says-palestinian-unity-critical-for-mideast-peace/

‘Obama policy will lead region to war,’ warns ex-Iraqi MP who’s paid heavy price for dissent

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“Obama has handed Iraq over to Iran and said ‘do what you like’,” Alusi, a former Iraqi member of parliament who hails from the tribal Sunni province of al-Anbar in western Iraq, told the Times of Israel in a telephone interview from his home in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

Ten years after freeing Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, the Obama administration has allowed a no less dictatorial regime to emerge, and then handed it over to its avowed enemy Iran, Alusi said.

Hugging the current Iraqi regime, Alusi holds, is the last thing the Obama administration should be doing right now

On March 24, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Iraq during a tour of the region, expressing “the strong US commitment to Iraq,” a state department message read. The US completed its military withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011, but continues to closely cooperate with the predominantly Shiite coalition led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. As part of the Strategic Framework Agreement, the US will provide nearly $300 million in aid to Iraq in 2013.      

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-policy-will-lead-region-to-war-warns-ex-iraqi-mp-whos-paid-heavy-price-for-dissent/

One Jerusalem. Undivided. Open to all. Controlled by Israel

End Of Days News

One Jerusalem. Undivided. Open to all. Controlled by Israel

Nir Barkat says he doesn’t know who’ll be running against him for the Jerusalem mayoralty in October, but he’s confident he can defeat all-comers. That’s because, he says, he’s turned the city round — economically, educationally, culturally, and even politically — reducing tensions between different sectors, and gradually impressing upon all residents of the city, emphatically including East Jerusalemites, that he seeks to improve the quality of life for all.

Still, he cautions, the renaissance of Israel’s capital is a work-in-progress, and it would be a dreadful retrograde step if he was not re-elected to complete it. “We want to put a lot of gas on the pedal. For me, the next term is crucial,” he says. “Don’t stop the momentum. Let us continue the positive momentum,” he urges.

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/one-jerusalem-undivided-open-to-all-controlled-by-israel/

Obama phones Netanyahu over ‘regional security issues’

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US President Barack Obama spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone Wednesday to discuss regional security issues and Middle East peace, the White House said.

A brief statement said the two leaders agreed to continue their “close coordination.”

The call came amid a renewed peace push by the Americans and days after Israel reportedly carried out a number of airstrikes on weapons transfers within Syria, a move US officials said Washington backed.

The Obama administration has said it is considering providing weapons to vetted units in the armed opposition, among other military options, following last week’s revelation of a US intelligence assessment suggested chemical weapons use by the Assad regime. The US also is looking for ways to halt the violence that has killed more than 70,000 people.

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-phones-netanyahu-over-regional-security-issues/

Al Qaeda’s Nusra fights to seize Syrian Golan in time for Obama visit

End Of Days News

Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, led a Syrian rebel operation Wednesday, March 13, to occupy Golan and cleanse it of every last Syrian troop loyal to Bashar Assad. The Islamists had two more objectives:

1. To be in position for cross-border attacks on Israel and Jordan – possibly in the course of US President Barack Obama’s March 20-22 visits to those countries.
2.  To use the “liberated” Syrian Golan as launching pads for a war of attrition against Israel and Jordan - like Taliban’s campaign against NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their deadline for achieving this objective is March 15.
Jabhat al-Nusra kicked off its Golan operation Wednesday, DEBKAfile’s military sources report, by murdering Gen. Nour e-Din Habib, commander of the Syrian Army’s 90th Brigade, parts of which remain on the Golan. He was struck down from a well-planned ambush against his convoy. Also killed in the attack was Col. Radouan Rifai, the brigade’s senior liaison officer with the Syrian 3rd Extended Division.
The purpose of the attack was to disable the brigade by wiping out its top command.
Our military sources add that, in the course of the fighting Wednesday, the Nusra front uncovered a secret network of large tunnels running from different points on the Golan up to the Israeli border. They are big enough for the passage of entire Syrian units with their tanks and heavy trucks, allowing them to pop up without warning against Israeli border units and use their surprise to mow them down and advance into the Israeli sector.
DEBKAfile reported earlier Wednesday: 

US President  Barack Obama’s first engagement upon landing in Israel on March 20 will be a quick tour of the Iron Dome missile interceptor stationed at Ben Gurion international airport. After a round of handshakes, the officers and men operating the system will explain how it works.

The innovative counter-missile weapon is to be deployed there, not just as a spectacle to honor the US president for his contribution to its development, but out of necessity for his safety. Air Force One might be seen as fair game for the ground-to-ground missiles wielded by Al Qaeda units fighting Assad in Syria and its affiliates in the Sinai Peninsula at the very moment that the US President steps down to the strains of the IDF welcoming band.
 In normal circumstances, personal security arrangements for a US presidential foreign visit are kept under close wraps and rarely visible to the public.

This time, DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources report, the visit’s planners made an exception. They decided there was no option but to visibly install an Iron Dome battery inside the airport, because the first battery plus a Patriot interceptor stationed for more than two months north and south of Tel Aviv were not sufficient guarantee of security against rocket attack for President Obama’s arrival.

Read More: http://www.debka.com/article/22819/Al-Qaeda%E2%80%99s-Nusra-fights-to-seize-Syrian-Golan-in-time-for-Obama-visit

The devils puppet Barak Hussein Obama meets with anti-Israel Arab groups ahead of Israel trip

End Of Days News

Obama is paving the way for Sharia Law! Wake up You scoffing FOOLS!

President Barack Obama met with several controversial anti-Israel Arab groups ahead of his visit to the Jewish state on March 20.

Obama held an “intimate” gathering Monday with Arab American leaders and others to solicit advice and ask questions in preparation for his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week.

Included in the meeting was Haris Tarin, D.C. director of the controversial Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a Muslim-American group that has falsely accused Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs and has asked for Hamas and Hezbollah to be removed from the list of United States-designated terror groups.

MPAC’s founder, Salam al-Marayati, has come under fierce criticism for suggesting that Israel should have been added to the “suspect list” for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Also in attendance was the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a group that has called Israel an “apartheid state” and once presented an award to the author of an essay titled, “Zionism is a Form of Racism.”

The Arab groups offered Obama specific policy recommendations regarding the Israel-Palestine peace process.

“Haris Tarin, the director of MPAC’s Washington, D.C., office, attended the intimate meeting with the president, as he prepares his agenda for this visit to Palestine, Jordan and Israel,” MPAC said in a statement.

Tarin and others pushed Obama to engage the Palestinians, many of whom have been holding violent protests in the lead up to the president’s visit, according to MPAC.

“The group discussed with the president and his senior advisers how his trip can be a catalyst for restarting the dialogue that will lead to the implementation of a comprehensive peace plan in the coming months,” according to MPAC’s statement. “Ideas were also presented on how to engage the Palestinian people, especially the burgeoning youth population.”

“Tarin and others shared with the president some of the important work being done by the Palestinian people in achieving their aspirations for an independent and viable Palestinian state,” the statement continued.

The inclusion of these controversial groups in the meeting drew criticism from congressional sources and Jewish observers who questioned why Obama would meet with a group that has been cited as explicitly anti-Israel.

“It is truly disturbing,” said one congressional aide upon reviewing the list of those groups invited to brief Obama.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) cited MPAC in late 2009 after itpromoted a false article claiming that Israel harvested Palestinian organs. The reports that MPAC prominently promoted were quickly rebuked and debunked as anti-Semitic by the ADL.

MPAC did not respond to a request for comment about whether it still endorses the article’s claims.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has also taken controversial anti-Israel positions.

ADC officials have accused Israel of “high-tech ethnic cleansing” and have complained that the “American taxpayer is footing the bill for Israel’s criminal activities.”

The ADL has criticized American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for sponsoring anti-Israel rallies in Chicago, California, and Washington D.C., where a speaker is reported to have declared, “from this podium I salute Hezbollah.”

Read More: http://freebeacon.com/courting-controversy/

Hundreds of UN Syrian Golan UN observers scramble to safety in Israel

End Of Days News

The flight of hundreds of UN Disengagement and Observers Force (UNDOF) soldiers - Indian, Austrian and Filipino - in trucks and APCs from the Syrian side of Golan into Israel was in full swing early Monday, March 11. debkafile quotes them as telling Israeli officers manning the Israeli side of the enclave that their commanders urged them to get out when they could because “We can no longer vouch for your safety.”

Many more UN troops are expected to make their way during the day to refuge in IDF camps across the border. Their officers, they said, had already placed their belongings aboard waiting vehicles ready to move across as soon as they received permission from their governments in Vienna, New Delhi and Manila or the UN Secretariat in New York.

Our military sources report that this mass exit signals the breakup of the 1,000-strong UNDOF which for 39 years manned the 8 sq. km separation zone between Syria and Israel. It was set up in 1974 to end the war of attrition fought  in the sequel to the Yom Kippur War between the IDF and Cuban armored brigades flown in from Angola by the Soviet Union to support the Syrian army.

The UN force’s collapse began with the Croatian government’s recall of its 100 troops last week.

As the peacemakers flee, Russia is today hardly likely to interfere with who gets to control the Golan separation zone which was split between Syria and Israel.

Read More: http://www.debka.com/article/22815/Hundreds-of-UN-Syrian-Golan-UN-observers-scramble-to-safety-in-Israel

‘Obama won’t bring peace plan or even general framework’ to Israel

End Of Days News

Multiple sources reject Israeli TV report on US president’s briefing for Jewish leaders, but one says he spoke of possible ‘policy initiative’ 6-12 months from now

 

 

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama will not be bringing any peace plan or even a “general framework” with him on his trip to Israel later this month, and he did not say he would in a briefing with Jewish leaders at the White House Thursday, according to sources in the administration and several participants in the meeting.

 

According to one participant, however, the president said: “That doesn’t mean six or nine or 12 months from now we won’t be in the midst of a policy initiative.”

 

Earlier Thursday, Israel’s Channel 10 reported that Obama planned to present a “general framework” for Israeli-Palestinian peace during his visit, quoting what it said were remarks made by the president in the White House briefing.

 

While he would not unveil a “comprehensive Middle East peace plan” during the trip, the Israeli TV report said, he told the Jewish leaders they should not rule out him doing so “sometime in the next six, nine or 12 months.”

 

A US source familiar with the White House’s plans for the trip described the Channel 10 report as “absolutely false.”

 

A senior administration official told The Times of Israel: “The president did invite leaders from across the American Jewish community to discuss and get input about his upcoming trip to Israel. He did not present a framework for peace talks.”

 

Read More: http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-wont-bring-peace-plan-or-even-general-framework-to-israel/

US withdrawal from Europe-based missile shield will impact Israel’s defense

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Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday, Feb. 10 echoed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rejection of direct talks with the US four days ago which he said were on the grounds that they “would solve nothing” because, "You are holding a gun against Iran.”

Ahmadinejad added is own rider to this dismissal: “God willing, soon Iran’s satellite will be located in orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers, next to others from four or five advanced powers and it will relay a message of peace and fidelity to the world,” he said.

The boast that Iran would soon be the world’s sixth space power came two weeks after Tehran claimed to have put a monkey in orbit around earth, although it did not report bringing back to earth either the space capsule or the monkey.

Indeed, US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, pouring a healthy dose of skepticism on the very existence of the project, commented: “The Iranians said they sent a monkey, but the monkey they showed later seemed to have different facial features.”

Tehran is again caught wandering at ease through its favorite terrain between fact, hyperbole and fiction about its achievements, whether in space or its nuclear program.

In recent weeks, reelected Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed he wants a broad government coalition for the critical objective of preventing Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The question is how does he propose to achieve this when tough US and European sanctions have not just failed to stop Iran in its tracks but accelerated its nuclear progress. Iran is now estimated to be within four months of a nuclear bomb capacity from the moment a decision is taken to build one.

Those months are critical: On February 25 the five UN Security Council’s permanent members plus Germany sit down with Iran in Kazakhstan for a fresh round of negotiations. Former rounds in this format led nowhere and no breakthrough is expected this time either beyond, at best, a date for a continuation.

On March 20, President Barack Obama arrives in Israel for the first foreign trip of his second term. The purpose of his visit is plain, except to Netanyahu’s domestic rivals: Facing a 50 percent cutback in military spending, the Obama administration cannot credibly threaten to go to war against a recalcitrant Iran. But the US president may still wave the Israeli military option in Tehran’s face.

Not that the ayatollahs are likely to be impressed. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have both dismissed talks with Washington "with a gun" at their head, meaning that they are not scared of the Israeli gun the Americans are putting to their heads.

In fact, the Islamic rulers of Tehran are reported by debkafile’s intelligence and Iranian sources to be fully confident that they are home and dry as a nuclear power after a secret US Pentagon research study was leaked that “casts doubt on whether the multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe” (originally by the Bush administration) “can ever protect the US from Iranian missiles as intended.”

Clearly the missile shield against Iran, which aroused ire in Moscow, looks like falling under the defense budget axe.

The missile shield in Europe was also designed to defend Israel and Turkey against Iranian ballistic missile attack. Leaving it unfinished because of “flaws” exposes both those countries to such attack.

President Obama will no doubt tell Netanyahu that the system for intercepting medium-range Iranian missiles is to be scrapped. However, he will have to take into account that if the Iranians do finally manage to put a capsule in orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers, they will be able to fire a ballistic missile at any point on earth as well, including the United States. Even if they did fail to put a primate in space, they will keep on trying and advancing until they get there.

http://www.debka.com/article/22754/US-withdrawal-from-Europe-based-missile-shield-will-impact-Israel

Report: Iran, Hezbollah setting up militias to prepare for post-Assad Syria

End Of Days News

 

According to a report in the Washington Post on Sunday, Iran and Hezbollah are preparing themselves for the day when the Syrian regime led by Bashar Assad is overthrown. Quoting officials in the U.S. and Middle East, the paper reports that Iran and Hezbollah are building a "network of militias inside Syria" that will protect their interests in a post-Assad Syria.

    

Officials believe that Iran is cultivating operatives on the ground that can be relied upon in the event that Assad is no longer in power and Syrians are fragmented along religious and ethnic lines. A senior official in the Obama administration referred to Tehran's claims it was supporting up to 50,000 militiamen in Syria, the Washington Post reported.
    
"Iran’s strategy, a senior Arab official agreed, has two tracks. 'One is to support Assad to the hilt, the other is to set the stage for major mischief if he collapses.'"
    
Syrian rebel forces are comprised almost entirely of the country's Sunni majority, however they are themselves fragmented, divided along religious, political and geographic lines. There are also the relatively powerful and independent Kurdish militias and about 700,000 Druze citizens, who are increasingly siding with the rebels.
    
According to the report, it should not come as a surprise that Iran is preparing the ground for a post-Assad Syria, as it has done so with the Shi'ite population in Lebanon during its civil war in the 1970's, which led to the birth of Hezbollah and similarly in Iraq after the U.S. invasion.
    
"Tehran’s interest in preserving a Syrian base partly explains why the financially strapped Iranian government continues to lavish resources on groups such as Jaysh al-Sha’bi, an alliance of local Shiite and Alawite militias that receives weapons and cash from Iran, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials who have studied the organization. The groups are receiving military training from officers from Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," the Post reported.
    
The civil war in Syria is one of the primary topics U.S. President Barack Obama will speak about on his trip to Israel next month. "The president and I spoke about this visit and agreed that we would discuss three main issues Iran's attempt to arm itself with nuclear weapons, the unstable situation in Syria and the efforts to advance the diplomatic process of peace between the Palestinians and us," Netanyahu said on Sunday.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/report-iran-hezbollah-setting-up-militias-to-prepare-for-post-assad-syria-1.502712

‘Obama is coming to tell Netanyahu not to strike Iran’

End Of Days News

 

Barack Obama will be making his first presidential visit to Israel next month primarily in order to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in person to hold off on any military intervention in Iran, it was reported Sunday.

 

Quoting unnamed Israeli sources, Israel’s Army Radio said the president would indeed seek to host some kind of summit meeting between Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and possibly Jordan’s King Abdullah, to try to re-energize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

 

But the key reason for the visit and its timing, the report said, is that Netanyahu cited spring 2013 in his speech to the UN General Assembly last fall as a notable deadline relating to thwarting Iran’s nuclear drive, and the president wants to tell the prime minister face-to-face that the time is not yet ripe for military action. “Obama fears that the prime minister will decide to strike in Iran now, at a time when he is backed by a new government and can set up a new security cabinet in which two reported [ministerial] opponents of military intervention — Dan Meridor and Benny Begin — will no longer be present,” the Army Radio report said. Meridor and Begin both lost their Knesset seats in the January 22 elections.

 

Obama will reiterate US determination to ensure that Iran does not attain nuclear weapons, and will remind Netanyahu that the US has military “capacities” that Israel does not possess, the report added.

 

New Secretary of State John Kerry said last week that the diplomatic option remained open, but that all other options were also on the table.

 

“Obama decided to come himself and deliver to Netanyahu the direct message, ‘Don’t strike at Iran. Let me oversee the contacts with Iran as I see fit. If necessary I’ll take action against them. We have capacities that you do not have’,” the radio report said.

 

Netanyahu told Sunday’s cabinet meeting that the upcoming visit was an important reassertion of the strong US-Israel alliance. He said he and the president, when discussing the trip in a phone call two weeks ago, agreed that it would focus on “Iran’s attempt to attain nuclear weapons, the instability in Syria and its implications for regional security, and efforts to advance the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.”

 

Uzi Arad, Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, told Army Radio that the notion that the Obama visit would be focused primarily on Iran made sense since that was the most urgent regional challenge — “a race against time” — followed by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, with the Palestinian issue “the least urgent.” Arad said he did not know whether Obama was coming to say precisely what the unnamed sources were asserting, however.

 

The radio report said Obama could have discussed Iran and all other issues with Netanyahu in Washington, DC, in early March, when the prime minister is likely to attend the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. But the president preferred not to be dealing with Netanyahu amid the AIPAC gathering, the report indicated, where the White House fears that Netanyahu will deliver “an aggressive speech on Iran.”

 

In interviews last week, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said the Obama visit was a sign of unshakable US-Israel relations and an opportunity for “consultations” on key regional issues, notably including Iran’s nuclear drive, the collapse of the Assad regime, and Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-is-coming-to-tell-netanyahu-not-to-strike-iran/

THIS SPEAKS VOLUMES! Frabjous day? Obama’s coming to town

End Of Days News

 

The Israeli press is still dissecting the news of US President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit, its significance, its implications, and the White House’s announcement that Obama isn’t bringing a new peace plan with him.

 

Haaretz quotes White House Press Secretary Jay Carney saying that Obama “expects to discuss with Israeli leaders the issues of a nuclear Iran and the situation in Syria,” but not peace with the Palestinians. Israel Hayom quotes US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro saying Obama has no demands for Netanyahu during his upcoming visit, which is intended to convey the significance Obama sees in the “strong and deep connection between both countries.” Yedioth Ahronoth calls the White House announcement “lowering expectations.” Makor Rishon reports that Netanyahu has placed his national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, in charge of the president’s visit.

 

Haaretz’s op-ed argues that Obama’s visit “presumably attests to the new order of priorities of Obama’s second term,” namely, “negotiations with the Palestinians, and the close relationship he sees between the peace process and stability in a Middle East undergoing convulsions.” It also charges that Obama “seeks to influence the coalition negotiations, and to make it clear to whatever Israeli government is formed that he won’t allow it to shove the diplomatic issue onto the back burner or into the deep freeze.”

 

In Maariv, Eli Avidar contends that Obama’s decision to visit Ramallah and Amman as well as Jerusalem is all about political pressure on Israel. “President Obama is coming to fulfill his promise to the Palestinian leadership to exert greater pressure on Israel with the beginning of his second term,” he writes. The problem is that Obama seeks political leadership that the Palestinians cannot provide, he argues. “The Abbas government and its political perspective are bankrupt. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is a acceptable person, but he has no public support. Abbas’s situation is even worse, and it’s vrey doubtful if he can provide the goods that President Obama is interested in.”

 

Haaretz leads with the behind-closed-doors statements attributed to Amidror that West Bank settlement construction is harming Israel’s standing abroad.

 

“Construction in the settlements has become a diplomatic problem and is causing Israel to lose support even among its friends in the West,” the paper quotes him saying.

 

The report adds that Amidror opposed responding with new settlement construction to the November 29 United Nations General Assembly vote on upgrading the Palestinians’ status to a nonmember state. “He especially opposed the announcement that Israel would move forward with planning for the E1 corridor, which links Jerusalem with the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, warning that this would provoke an international outcry,” the paper writes.

 

Amidror’s opinion, it adds, is shared by Netanyahu’s special negotiator with the Palestinians, Yitzhak Molcho.

 

Maariv leads with the Channel 2 story reporting on satellite images of the Syrian scientific research facility allegedly struck by Israel last week. According to the report, the images taken in the last week show a blackened parking lot, which it claims is proof of the Israeli hit. The only thing missing is damage to the buildings that Syria claimed Israel inflicted when IAF planes bombed the site. It cites the report’s claims that the strike hit the convoy in the parking lot but dealt no damage to the nearby buildings.

 

It also reports on the near-completion of the fully-reinforced hospital in Haifa that can withstand nonconventional weapons — including an atomic bomb — and can treat up to 2,000 patients in case of war. Maariv also mentions that the owners of planes at a Haifa airport were ordered to remove their aircraft from the field and given no explanation why.

 

Israel Hayom reports on the ongoing coalition talks between Netanyahu and the various party leaders, and the scheduled round two of meetings between the once and future prime minister and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid.

 

“Netanyahu is expected to tell Lapid that he sees the ultra-Orthodox parties as partners in his future government, and that if Lapid wants to join the government, he must ease his positions — especially his demands concerning universal draft,” it reports. Israel Hayom adds that according to a source familiar with the coalition talks, “Netanyahu is interested in assembling the broadest possible government that includes Lapid, [Hatnua leader Tzipi] Livni and [Kadima leader] Shaul Mofaz from the center-left side of the political map, and the ultra-Orthodox factions and Jewish Home from the right side of the map.”

 

Yedioth Ahronoth also reports that Netanyahu and Lapid will meet on Wednesday to discuss forming a coalition with Jewish Home and Shas, and the article appears to quote the same source saying the prime minister “intends to try to convince Lapid to ease up on the issue of the draft,” and form a broad coalition.

 

It quotes sources in Yesh Atid, however, saying that it would be impossible to form a broad coalition because of the vast disparity in opinions between the parties Netanyahu aims to unite, and because a broad coalition would be bloated with ministers.

 

Makor Rishon, the religious-nationalist paper that acquired Maariv in November, reports on Hezbollah’s accusing Israel of launching “an international campaign” against it. According to the report, the Lebanese Shiite militia’s No. 2 told students that “Israel is trying to besmirch Hezbollah worldwide” and is conducting an “international fear campaign against Hezbollah because it failed in military confrontation against us.”

 

“We see Israel’s political expressions and the public accusations it disseminates in the international press, and we understand that it is trying to bring down the resistance in a political and international fashion, for in a military manner it cannot contend with us,” Sheikh Naim Kassem is quoted saying.

 

The same author, Assaf Gibor, writes a similar report in Maariv, except he leaves out the final accusatory statement and leads the article with European reactions to the Bulgarian statement accusing Hezbollah of carrying out last year’s bombing in Burgas.

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/frabjous-day-obamas-coming-to-town/

End Of Days News

 

President Barack Obama is to visit Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan in the next few weeks, at the heart of a wider tour of the Middle East.

 

Israeli television broke news of the trip on Tuesday night, and said the White House had confirmed it would take place next month or in April, and that the details were agreed by Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a January 28 phone call.

 

“The start of the president’s second term and the formation of a new Israeli government offer the opportunity to reaffirm the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Israel and to discuss the way forward on a broad range of issues of mutual concern, including Iran and Syria,” White House Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday. “Additional details about the trip — including the dates of travel — will be released at a later time.”

 

The prime Minister’s Office also confirmed the report on the meeting, but offered no further details.

 

Advance security teams are already in Israel and the West Bank preparing for the visit, the Channel 10 news report claimed. The trip would be Obama’s first to Israel as US president; he visited in 2008 as a candidate.

 

Emanuel Rosen, the station’s experienced diplomatic reporter, said the visit indicated that Obama believes Netanyahu is ready to try to make substantive progress in negotiations with the Palestinians.

 

 Indeed, the report said, it was likely that areas of agreement on key issues had already been reached between the American and Israeli leaderships, since Obama had indicated in the past that he would come to Israel only when he truly believed it would enable a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

 

The US, the report said, was pressing for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks “without preconditions.” That has been Netanyahu’s demand, while the Palestinians have demanded a West Bank settlement freeze.

 

The report said Obama had been considering a visit for later in the year, perhaps to coincide with an annual conference hosted by President Shimon Peres. The news that he was heading here as early as next month, the report said, underlined the sense of potential progress in the diplomatic arena.

 

The report said Obama would be making “a working visit” and would not be accompanied by members of his family. His Middle East trip would also include visits to Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

 

The upcoming visit by the newly appointed Secratary of State John Kerry will also prepare the ground for Obama’s arrival.

 

The news came on the day that Israel swore in its 120-member new Knesset, following elections two weeks ago which left Netanyahu poised to forge a new governing coalition.

 

In recent days, Netanyahu has spoken often of a desire to resume peace talks with the Palestinians, and directly called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to join him at the negotiating table. On Tuesday, in a speech to the new Knesset members, he vowed to steward a “prudent” diplomatic process, speaking of seeking agreements but also of maintaining Israel’s capacity to effectively protect itself against security threats.

 

Netanyahu and Obama have maintained a correct but sometimes obviously strained relationship over the years.

 

Last month, for instance, days after Obama was quoted as castigating Netanyahu for ostensibly turning Israel into a pariah nation and threatening its long-term survival, Netanyahu hit back by declaring that if he were to capitulate to demands for a retreat to the pre-1967 lines, “we’d get Hamas 400 meters from my house.”

 

According to Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama had lately begun repeating the mantra that Israel under Netanyahu “doesn’t know what its own best interests are.”

 

The key focus of Obama’s reported criticism was Netanyahu’s settlement construction policies, which recently included plans for thousands of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in response to the Palestinian Authority’s successful gambit to gain nonmember observer state status from the UN in November.

 

“With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation,” Goldberg wrote. “And if Israel, a small state in an inhospitable region, becomes more of a pariah — one that alienates even the affections of the U.S., its last steadfast friend — it won’t survive. Iran poses a short-term threat to Israel’s survival; Israel’s own behavior poses a long-term one.”

 

Goldberg added that, as regards Netanyahu’s handling of the Palestinians, “the president seems to view the prime minister as a political coward, an essentially unchallenged leader who nevertheless is unwilling to lead or spend political capital to advance the cause of compromise.”

 

Goldberg said Kerry wants to try to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but Obama “is thought to be considerably more wary. He views the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as weak, but he has become convinced that Netanyahu is so captive to the settler lobby, and so uninterested in making anything more than the slightest conciliatory gesture toward Palestinian moderates, that an investment of presidential interest in the peace process wouldn’t be a wise use of his time.”

 

A presidential visit would suggest, however, that Obama has reconsidered.

 

http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-to-visit-israel-within-weeks/

American isolationism: Obama’s unfolding signature policy

Whereas in his first term as president, Barack Obama opted for “leading from behind,” in international military operations, he enters his second term - even before being sworn in this week - by expanding this step-back precept into American isolationism proper – even when it comes to countering Islamist terrorism.

debkafile’s analysts note that this stance was heralded in December 2012 by his abrupt order to the USS Eisenhower strike group and the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group to withdraw from stations opposite Syria.

Washington had already then decided to ignore the Syrian chemical war threat, and brush aside the report from the US consul in Istanbul that the Syrian ruler Bashad Assad had already fired chemical bombs against rebels.

And so French military intervention in Mali on Jan. 12 and Al Qaeda’s massive attack on an international Algerian gas field four days later found the United States without a single carrier, landing vessel or marine force anywhere in the vicinity, to be available for aiding in the rescue of scores of Western hostages from ten countries, including the United States.

The USS John Stennis carrier is the only vessel left at a Middle East battle station. It is tied down at the Strait of Hormuz to secure the flow of Gulf oil to the West.

It is therefore hardly surprising to find Pentagon and top US military experts leveling sharp criticism at the White House’s policy of non-intervention in the Mali conflict, where France is fighting alone, or in Algeria’s In Amenas gas field, where Algerian forces are battling a multinational al Qaeda assault and multiple hostage-taking raid for the third day.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday, Jan. 20 that the sharp debate between the Pentagon and White House is over the “danger posed by a mix of Islamist militant groups, some with murky ties to Al Qaeda that are creating havoc in West Africa” and whether they present enough of a risk to US allies and interests to warrant a military response.

Many of Obama's top aides say “it is unclear whether the Mali insurgents, who include members of the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, threaten the US.”
As to the question, “What threat do they pose to the US homeland? The answer so far has been none.”

Some top Pentagon officials and military officers warn that without more aggressive US action, Mali could become a haven for extremists, akin to Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

debkafile’s counterterrorism sources report that these assertions are misleading.

Whereas the US homeland may not be in immediate peril from the Mali and Algeria episodes, it is important to remember the far-reaching interconnectivity of al Qaeda’s operations. Seven years ago, the suicidal jihads who on July 7, blew up London trains and a bus, used explosives provided by the same Al Qaeda cells of Sahel Desert which are now threatening Mali and which struck the Algerian gas field.

No US official can guarantee that such explosives from the same source won’t be used in 2013 against American targets in Europe or be smuggled into the American homeland by al Qaeda cells in Europe.

The Algerian gas field hostage siege was carried out after all by a multinational group that included Algerians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, a Frenchman and a Malian.

It is true that Al Qaeda terrorists are engaged in vast smuggling rackets – especially of drugs and cigarettes – across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as well arms trafficking through networks covering Egypt, Sinai, Arabia, the Gulf, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan – all of which are direct threats of US national security. But to write them off as criminals and smugglers is simplistic: “… some are diehard terrorists with more grandiose visions,” as Pentagon officials point out.

The way the Al Qaeda menace is being handled by Washington has a ripple effect in the wider context. Tehran and Damascus are avidly watching the Obama administration’s stand-aside stance on military involvement in external crises – even emergencies posed by the Al Qaeda terrorist threat encroaching on continental Europe and Africa and the Middle East up to and including the Persian Gulf.

Washington should therefore not be surprised when its diplomatic efforts – overt and secret – to rein in Iran’s military nuclear ambitions run into the sand. The Iranians know they have nothing to fear from the Obama administration. The next surprise, our Middle East sources are now reporting, will come from Damascus where, according to a hint President Bashar Assad threw out this week to his intimates.

http://www.debka.com/article/22697/American-isolationism-Obama

Ahead of Chuck Hagel, John Brennan nominations, US intel official in Cairo

 

 

As Washington prepared for new appointments to the Obama cabinet, the US president dispatched US Undersecretary for Defense Intelligence Michael Vickers to Cairo Sunday, Jan. 12 on a two-day mission to try and revitalize the counter-terror war on two key fronts: post-Qaddafi Libya and Egyptian Sinai. debkafile’s Washington sources report that President Barack Obama hastened to address these fronts, because he expected the five-month old murder of US Ambassador Christ Stevens in Benghazi by al Qaeda to come up at congressional hearings and hamper the endorsement of ex-Senator Chuck Hagel as defense secretary and John Brennan as Central Intelligence Director. Their appointments were announced Monday, Jan. 7.
Hagel faced a preliminary storm over his attitudes on Israel and Iran, whereas Brennan, as counterterrorism adviser to the president, has been responsible for shaping administration policy in this sphere in Libya, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula.
The United States has still not taken steps against the Libyan Ansar al-Sharia group, which assassinated the ambassador and three US staffers on Sept. 11. 2012, and numbered Egyptian al Qaeda jihadis who came in from Cairo.
This cross-alliance still functions with impunity as the Libyan group enforces its control over large areas of Benghazi and eastern Libya, funded by the smuggling of arms from Libya and pumping them into the big smuggling pipelines running through Sinai via Egypt.
Jihadist terror is also rampant in Sinai. On Nov. 21, President Obama, in a phone call to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, pledged the immediate deployment of US troops for leading a comprehensive Egyptian campaign against the al Qaeda and Salafist Bedouin extremists who have settled in northern and central Sinai after driving the Egyptian administration out. This pledge was part of the ceasefire deal which ended Israel’s Gaza Strip operation. But so far, according to our military and counterterrorism sources, very little has been done except for a visit to Sinai by a small study group of American officers and servicemen.
The delay is accounted for mainly by the weighty challenges confronting Egyptian President Mohamed Mors in the last couple of months. Morso is practically the only office-holder in Cairo ready to endorse an covert military US operation in Sinai for eradicating the terrorist bane. Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah Al-Sissi was his only ally, but in recent weeks the Egyptian army has come out against an anti-al Qaeda expedition in Sinai.
The security situation there is constantly deteriorating as Egypt struggles to retain some grip on the territory. In mid-December, the defense minister in Cairo quietly issued an order, with made hardly a ripple outside Egypt, “restricting the right to buy property in Sinai to second-generation Egyptian citizens.”
This prohibition was made necessary, our sources disclose, by the land grab in force by partnerships of Persian Gulf tycoons, mainly Qatar, and Gazan Palestinian, mostly Hamas adherents. They were quietly snapping up choice coastal strips of Sinai to gain control of the peninsula’s Mediterranean and Gulf of Aqaba shores, as well as the western and eastern regions.
The Egyptian military passed the new law to save the territory from slipping out of its hands to Palestinian Hamas and Gulf oil interests. Hamas is also believed to be in cahoots with allies in the armed terrorist groups of Libya and Sinai.
Delayed American action in Sinai has produced three results:
1. The Sinai arms smuggling route (which also serves Iran) is thriving as never before. The expanded earnings of Ansar al-Sharia are bolstering its grip on power in Libya;
2. Sinai has been allowed to evolve into al Qaeda’s primary operational-logistical hub for Africa and the Middle East, its jumping-off base for action in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen;
3. In the absence of any resistance, al Qaeda is bringing its positions close to the Israeli border. All Egyptian military efforts to curtail the terrorist creep into the northern Sinai towns of El Arish and Rafah have had no effect.
Sunday, Jan. 6, a band of Salafist Bedouin came up to a parked car on the El Arish main street and shot the driver dead. debkafile reports that the victim, one of the top men in Egypt’s counter-terror campaign in northern Sinai, was on a surveillance mission in civilian dress. The terrorists knew who he was – indicating they have established a clandestine presence inside Egypt’s security services.

http://www.debka.com/article/22665/Ahead-of-Chuck-Hagel-John-Brennan-nominations-US-intel-official-in-Cairo



Likud loses ground over Netanyahu’s fuzzy security messages

 

 

Likud’s chief asset, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, may also be said to be its chief liability. While unchallenged as preferred prime minister in every opinion poll 17 days before Israel’s general election, his party – the joint Likud-Yisrael Beitenu ticket – is on a downward slide (34) from its first 47-seat rating.

Netanyahu’s secretiveness and ambiguity on security and peace, issues which in the last reckoning determine the outcome of Israeli elections and fate of its politicians, are leaving his party unarmed against savage opposition tactics and dividing his own camp.
While keeping his undoubted achievements in these fields under his hat, his mistakes and shortcomings are hard to miss.
Five months ago, Netanyahu was perceived as suddenly backing off plans to attack Iran’s nuclear program, after declaring for years that a nuclear-armed Iran was the most dangerous threat facing Israel. What happened was that on Sept. 5, he abruptly closed a meeting of the security-diplomatic cabinet on Iran without explanation, except for throwing in their faces that no forum competent to make policy on Iran was safe from press leaks.
For most of the country, Netanyahu lost points by failing to go through with this long-held resolve. His cartoon presentation of Israel’s “red lines” at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 27 did not change that perception. He spoke of postponing until “late spring or early summer” an action vital to Israel’s security - apparently in deference to Washington and out of consideration for Barack Obama’s campaign for reelection.
Then, after months of silence, on Thursday Jan. 3, the prime minister stood up before a gathering of Israel’s envoys in world capitals to inform them, “Iran is still our No. 1 threat. I have set out our red line and Iran has not yet crossed it. Our commitment was and is to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.”
Those words had the same ring as sentiments heard from the US president. Common to both is their distance from the facts.
In recent months, Iran has developed a strategy for sidestepping “red lines” on quantities of 20-percent enriched uranium by periodically announcing the suspension of the process or the diversion of stocks to “medical research.”
This strategy passed unchallenged although it should have been for four reasons:

1. The amounts of fissile material claimed by Tehran are unverifiable by Israeli or Western intelligence - or even the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
2. The interminable wrangling between Iran and the world powers over amounts of medium-grade enriched uranium deemed sufficient for a bomb is no longer relevant because Tehran's consent to “negotiations” with world powers has bought Iran time to acquire the knowhow for assembling nuclear weapons and making them operational. A few kilos of enriched uranium lacking here or there are easily obtainable, either by domestic production or foreign acquisitions. Netanyahu’s graphic red lines, effective at the time, have been overtaken by events.
3. And his five-month silence has persuaded Iran’s rulers that they no longer need fear an Israeli military strike on their nuclear sites.
4. Iran has used those months free of international harassment and Israeli thunder for giant steps toward developing plutonium-based weapons. Netanyahu’s boast that he placed the Iranian nuclear menace at the forefront of the world's platform has had its downside: As the preamble to lay the ground for a proactive military policy, it was effective; however the gap between rhetoric and inaction has harmed Israel’s credibility and damaged its strategic deterrence.

The same credibility gap is marked on the question of Syria’s chemical weapons and Hizballah. Prime Minister Netanyahu, his ministers and diplomats, have repeatedly pledged Israel would take steps to prevent unconventional weapons reaching terrorist hands, including the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah often declares his rockets can reach every corner of Israel - “from Kiryat Shemone to Eilat!”
A year ago, in January 2012, a number of Western and Arab sources confirmed that Syrian ruler Bashar Assad had transferred a portion of his chemical weapons arsenal to Hizballah strongholds in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley and Hizballah units had trained in their use.
Last month, the Defense Ministry’s political coordinator, Amos Gilad, firmly asserted that Syria’s chemical weapons were “under control.” But this did not amount to a denial that those unconventional weapons had come under the joint logistical control of Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
It is possible that Netanyahu has opted in some to degree to follow Obama’s lead on security matters with regard to Iran, Syria and Hizballah and Hamas. Even then, he needs to do a better job of offering consistency to the Israeli voter. Instead, he offers silence or, at best, hazy, general messages that perplex the voter and keeps his own party in turmoil.
On the one hand, he incurred popular resentment for keeping 50,000 army reservists hanging around for nothing in the November anti-terror Gaza operation. But on the other, his government and party are not cashing in on the credit for the weeks of total calm on the Gaza front since Nov. 21 – the first time Hamas has honored a ceasefire in a decade.
Neither is he coming clean on the three additional advantages gained by working with Obama and his collaborators, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, to negotiate that ceasefire. They could give his party's election campaign a badly needed shot in the arm.
One is the improvement in relations with Turkey’s Erdogan government after years of acrimony. It came out of Israel’s consent to support the US president's venture to combine those three nations - plus the Palestinian Hamas - into a new pro-American Sunni Muslim axis. Netanyahu agreed to modify Israel's attitude on Hamas in a gamble for the prizes of rapprochement with Ankara and the stabilization of ties with Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt.

Reading this map, the Palestinian Authority, under its Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, is stirring up unrest on the West Bank as a reminder to Washington and Jerusalem of his existence.

Although when he met the ambassadors in Jerusalem, Netanyahu spoke of the danger of Hamas seizing control of the West Bank like the Gaza Strip in 2007, this was contradicted by his decision to step back from vanquishing Hamas in the November operation. And last week, he opened the Gaza crossing points to supplies of building materials for the first time in six years as well as cash.

The prime minister has a long way to go to bring his right-of-center party around to a policy that embraces Hamas – even though it would help stave off opposition accusations that Israel is diplomatically isolated. Although he has invested considerable effort in thawing the iced-over peace process with the Palestinians, he is constrained from placing this squarely on the party platform because it would not gain a consensus.
All the opinion polls, show that, contrary to left-of-center opposition rhetoric, a majority of Israelis don't trust the Palestinians, including Mahmoud Abbas, as partners for negotiations or for peaceful coexistence. Neither do most Israelis subscribe to the international condemnation of Netanyahu’s policy of strengthening Jerusalem and the settlement blocs on the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
The Israeli voter tends to judge every step taken by the government in terms of his and his family's personal and financial security.
By keeping the voter in the dark, he is hurting the electoral prospects of hiss Likud-Israel Beitenu as a party. And by aligning too closely with Obama on Iran and the Middle East, he is causing the more extreme factions of his party to cross the lines to the religious nationalist Habayit Hayehudi and its new leader, Naftali Bennett. There, they find a clearly-articulated platform calling for independent Israeli stances on the core issues of security, peace with the Palestinians, borders and Jewish settlements.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the left-of-center opposition parties accuse Netanyahu and Lieberman of extreme right-wing pro-war policies that threaten the country with disaster. Their campaign is turning increasingly savage and personalized rather than issue-oriented. Even though the Likud-Yisrael Beitenu alliance is declining in the Polls (down ten seats to 34 in the 120-member Knesset since November), its rivals are battering their heads against the solid support Binyamin Netanyahu enjoys (43+ percent) as favorite for prime minister.
The contrast between the declining popularity of Netanyahu’s party and his leadership rating is striking.
The Likud bloc is followed by Shelly Yacimovitch’s Labor (16 seats), Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi (14), ultra-religious Shas and the new Yesh Atid (Future) – 11 each; Hatenua founded by former foreign minister Tzipi Livni come next with 10 seats.
Friday night, Jan. 4, Livni publicly exhorted Labor and Future leaders to join forces for building a front to prevent Netanyahu from forming the next government after the Jan. 22 election. Pundits estimate that if Hatnua, Labor and Future leaders do manage to forge a common platform, they can count on around 40 Knesset seats compared with the right-of-center bloc’s 51. However, the multiplicity of Israeli parties means that no single grouping has ever achieved a parliamentary majority without coalition partners. This situation makes for extreme mobility between the various blocs when the time comes to build a government.

 

http://debka.com/article/22660/Likud-loses-ground-over-Netanyahu’s-fuzzy-security-messages