Watching the watchmen.

 

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Retorted Cain after murdering Abel. The biblical creation narrative in Genesis 4:8 doesn’t explain how that first nuclear family (4-1) managed to get house-help at a time when they were the only humans on the planet.

In the King James version (KJV) the word keeper is nuanced to mean guard or watchman "For the keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps." Psalm 121:4.

That being said, Israel is obsessed with the need to keep an eye on the keepers, guards and assorted watchmen.

The Israel Defence Ministry’s decision to designate six Palestinian NGOs as arms of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) last week, triggered a fierce response with the US, the UN and the EU raising objections and questioning the validity of the move. 

Admittedly, the statement issued by the US State Department was couched in diplomatic language claiming that it had not been told in advance about the terrorist designation and that it would ask Israel to explain its reasoning.

However, on Tuesday, US spokesman Ned Price said: "We believe that respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, and a strong independent civil society are critically important to democracy," in what was interpreted by some as a rebuke.

UN and EH representatives were far more critical of the designation.

On Monday, European Union Representative to the Palestinians Sven Kühn Von Burgsdorff visited the six Palestinian NGOs Defence Minister Benny Gantz had targeted. On Wednesday, representatives of 25 Israeli nongovernmental groups paid a solidarity visit to the Al-Haq office in Ramallah to voice their opposition to the designation.

 “Are the people employed by Palestinian NGOs human rights workers or agents of terror?” Asked Michael Starr, desk manager at the Jerusalem Post.

 

“Two divergent narratives emerged in the wake of the defence ministry’s decision. In one reality resides Gantz, the defence ministry and pro-Israel NGOs   claiming that long-ignored terrorist activity cynically cloaked in the guise of human rights has finally been unmasked.

The other narrative considers the six NGOs to be human rights organisations and considers the designation to be a draconian attack on Palestinian civil society. 

On one side, you have Professor Gerald M. Steinberg, president and founder of NGO Monitor, who says: “There’s no justification for not considering or ignoring or overlooking the terrorist connections. These are not trivial accusations, Israelis have been killed by the PFLP.

On the other side, there’s Samer Sinijlawi, chairman of the Jerusalem Development Fund and Fatah activist from Jerusalem, who says: ‘It’s just a blind war against all voices that are criticising the occupation and the abuse of the human rights of the Palestinians.’ 

Which reality is true? Is Israel trying to suppress Palestinian civil society, or is it a legitimate grievance against terrorist organisations? After reviewing the importance of the NGOs and their terrorism connections, where one falls seems to be a matter of priorities.

The NGOs have rejected the accusations, but groups like NGO Monitor assert that there is enough open-source documentation to prove that the only thing under attack is terrorism.

The open-source evidence against the Palestinian NGOs that Professor Steinberg presents should suffice, but if it is not presented by professional public relations specialists, it falls on deaf ears. Israel has a long history of PR failures.

Defence ministry spokespersons, diplomats, politicians, especially our prime ministers barely manage to convince the convinced. Call it propaganda, information dissemination or any other name, we need it!!

Let’s consider one of the banned NGOs: Established in 1979 and based in Ramallah, Al-Haq is arguably the most prominent NGO with connections with dozens of international human rights bodies, which describes itself as a human rights NGO that ‘documents violations of the individual and collective rights of Palestinians.’ 

Al-Haq was the first NGO that drew Steinberg’s suspicion of PFLP connections, “and in many ways is the most significant.” he said.

“Al-Haq is headed by Shawan Jabarin, who sat in an Israeli jail for a while, was convicted of being an active member of the PFLP. At Jabarin’s trial the court ruled that he is a human rights worker by day and a terrorist official by night.” Steinberg said.

According to NGO Monitor, in 2018, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express shut down online donations to Al-Haq due to PFLP ties.

Al-Haq asserted in a statement that the “baseless allegations” seek “to delegitimise, oppress, silence” Palestinian NGOs. It argued that the decision is not based on security concerns, but comes due to “the opening of an International Criminal Court investigation.”

Sinijlawi finds it suspicious that “these organisations are leading the procedure in the ICC, where Gantz himself is the main target because he was the IDF chief of staff in 2014.”

Since its formation in 1979 the ICC has aroused considerable controversy. It has

faced a number of complaints from both states and NGOs, including objections about its jurisdiction, accusations of bias, questioning of the fairness of its case-selection and trial procedures, as well as doubts about its effectiveness.

British barrister Karim Khan was elected to replace the court’s lead prosecutor Fatou Bensouda of Gambia. There’s good reason to believe that Karim Khan will be fairer in his case-selection and trial procedures than his predecessor.

                      International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Asad Ahmad Khan QC.

 

I doubt if the Israel Defence Ministry’s decision regarding the six Palestinian NGOs was made out of concern for the welfare of Defence Minister Gantz.

The NGO debate is by no means new. I mentioned it in a piece I wrote in 2015. Then and now the NGO activity is literally mind-boggling. Here’s an extract from what I wrote then: “The innumerable ‘Watch NGOs’ in Israel that claim they are indeed the watchmen’s watchers are cause for concern. In many instances they are more of a bane than a boon. Admittedly some definitely do a lot of good, but others are not so well-intentioned keepers' keepers. Now in order to defend ourselves from our enemies, especially the foes with subtle insidious intentions, we need to watch the keepers’ keepers.

While many NGOs perform a variety of services and humanitarian functions, others are politically motivated with well defined agendas.

A group of former Israeli soldiers claiming to expose the IDF’s alleged human rights violations is currently cause for concern. Their latest activities are in fact aiding and abetting the BDS movement.

The ex-servicemen’s group, ‘Breaking the Silence,’ says that without its work, accounts of improper or even illegal behaviour against Palestinians would remain hidden from the Israeli public.

Since its founding in 2004, ‘Breaking the Silence’ has collected the testimonies of more than 1,000 veterans in a bid to expose the IDF’s alleged illegal actions in the West Bank. It has taken those accounts to audiences in Israel and around the world. However, the NGO has an obvious political agenda.   Its uncorroborated testimonies have been lodged by veterans unwilling to reveal their identities   CTV news reported that ‘Breaking the Silence’s’ seemingly authentic narratives come at a time when Israel is confronting a growing boycott movement focused on companies doing business in the West Bank settlements.

Yediot Ahronot columnist Sever Plocker gave low points to the boycotters. ‘The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel hasn't achieved much so far. Not a single major foreign investment fund operating in Israel has left, and not a single corporation has severed its ties with Israel.’

‘Nonetheless, the risk from the BDS activity is definitely not a trivial thing: Being anti-Israel is now the dominating fashionable trend among students and young professionals in the West. Being progressive means identifying with BDS. The battle against Israel, under different slogans, replaces the other political battles for many young men and women and allows them to fulfill their rebelliousness without paying any personal price.’ Wrote Sever Plocker.

 

Viewing the BDS campaign against Israel, Cary Nelson Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said.

“BDS actually offers nothing to the Palestinian people, whom it claims to champion. Perhaps that is the single most cruel and deceptive feature of the BDS movement. Its message of hate is a route to war, not peace.” 

 At this juncture I want to add a margin note: I’m not sure if the Ben and Jerry’s episode is a case in point. It seems that the boycotters are rapidly being boycotted. Last month Arizona became the first state to pull the trigger on divesting from Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s in response to its settlement boycott.

Texas has officially added Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever to a list of companies that boycott Israel, a further step on the path to the state divesting some $100 million from the companies. The decision was made possible due to the Texas boycott law’s broad definition of Israel that includes the “territory’s that it controls” — i.e., the West Bank.

New Jersey has announced that it was on the path to follow suit, while New York, Florida, Illinois, Maryland and Rhode Island have launched formal proceedings.

 

Of course, the need to watch the watchmen and their watchers too has a positive attribute, it creates jobs!

 

Take care.

 

Beni                                                                                                    2^nd of November, 2021.

 

 

 

Saying nothing.

There was a time when friends and family who stayed with us overnight complained about the birds. Our guests were all city dwellers who managed to sleep through traffic noise and other urban clamour, but not birds chirping at dawn. For our part, we are used to the birds, they don’t bother us. However, from time-to-time other flying objects disturb our tranquil locale. I refer to the IAF jet fighters that thunder through our valley en route to somewhere north.

This week they have been more than usually active. In an attempt to account for this sudden surge, I ruled out the possibility of an attack-and-defence air force simulated exercise knowing that Israel hosted the largest-ever air force drill last week.

Israel has held these so-termed "Blue Flag" exercises every two years since 2013 at the Uvda air- force base north of Eilat.

It seems, (according to foreign sources) that the IAF was playing war games in the south and attacking live targets in Syria simultaneously.

The sites targeted are Hezbollah positions, Iranian munitions storage facilities and sometimes armaments convoys en route from Syria to Lebanon. The IDF tries to avoid hitting Syrian army personnel. Nonetheless, when provoked by Syrian anti-aircraft fire aimed at its planes, the pilots don’t hesitate to fire back destroying the Syrian positions.

Earlier this week foreign news outlets reported that IAF planes dropped leaflets, not bombs in an area in Syria bordering on the Golan Heights. The leaflets written in Arabic were intended as a warning against the Syrian Army’s continued cooperation with Hezbollah. The texts explicitly named operatives working for Hezbollah.

Syria’s SANA news agency later confirmed the “strikes” saying that “Zionist occupation forces committed a new aggression in the southern region as part of their repeated aggression against the sanctity and sovereignty of Syrian territories.”

It seems Syria is reprimanding Israel for “littering.” I wonder if Assad will lodge a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate Iran’s attempts to establish a permanent military presence in the Syrian Golan and has admitted to hundreds of strikes against targets belonging to Iran and its proxy - Hezbollah.

The “strike” was carried out a few days after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was assured that Russia wouldn’t hamper Israel’s freedom of action in Syria. Senior IDF spokespersons have confirmed the good relations with Russian military personnel in Syria.

 A number of international news outlets mentioned Iran in a different context this week.

A piece in The Washington Post told of a major cyberattack in Iran that affected all of the Islamic Republic’s 4,300 gas stations

“No group has claimed responsibility for the attack that began on Tuesday, though it bore similarities to a previous attack perpetrated months earlier that seemed to directly challenge Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”

Abolhassan Firouzabadi, the secretary of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, linked Tuesday’s attack to another cyberattack that targeted Iran’s rail system in July.

“There is a possibility that the attack, like a previous one on Iran’s railway system, has been conducted from abroad,” Firouzabadi said, but didn’t specifically accuse Israeli or US hackers of carrying out the attack.

Farsi -language satellite channels abroad published videos apparently shot by drivers in Isfahan showing electronic billboards there taunting: “Khamenei! Where is our gas?”

An Iranian gas (petrol) filling attendant at one of the malfunctioning stations.

 

Cheap gasoline is practically considered a birthright in Iran, home to the world’s fourth-largest crude oil reserves despite decades of economic woes.

Subsidies allow Iranian motorists to buy regular gasoline at affordable prices.

There doesn’t appear to be a connection between the cyberattacks and live-fire attacks on US forces in Syria last week.

Iran carried out a complex and coordinated attack using up to five armed drones to strike at the Tanf garrison, a lonely US outpost in Syria near the Jordanian and Iraqi border.

The assessment by the US is that Iran was behind this attack. It is the latest of numerous drone attacks on American forces in the region this year. Iranian-backed groups in Iraq have used drones to target US forces at other places in Syria.

The attacks are also part of the rising Iranian drone threat across the region. This means the attack on Tanf is a message not just for the US, but also for Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries facing Iran’s drones.

 Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the other regularly accuse each other of cyberattacks. Israeli cyber experts on Tuesday told Israel TV channel 12 news

that this week’s cyberattack on Iran appeared to have been carried out by serious hackers: “We’re not talking about kids, but rather professional hackers — which doesn’t rule out them being backed by a state government.”

In 2010 the Stuxnet virus — believed to have been engineered by Israel and the US — infected Iran’s nuclear programme, causing a series of breakdowns in centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

None of the serious observers, commentators and other Iranian affairs pundits have intimated so far that Israel was behind the latest cyberattack.

Even if Israel carried out the attack, why boast about it?

“Saying nothing sometimes says the most.” Emily Dickinson

 

Take care.

 

 

Beni                                                                                        28^th of October, 2021

Who watches the watchmen?

It seems we have always been plagued by bad neighbours  The annals of the ancient world describe how close and distant neighbours habitually  stormed the gates of our cities and exiled our ancestors to foreign parts. Our prophets promised retribution predicting that terrible catastrophes would befall  our not so nice neighbours. Divine justice is fine, but an ounce of prevention helps too. So our forefathers thought it wise to post a few guards at the gates, "For the keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps." Psalm 121:4 .Apparently nobody thought to check the guards till the Roman poet Juvenal asked, "Who watches the watchmen?"                                                                 

Fast forward to modern times and the innumerable "Watch NGOs" in Israel that claim they are indeed the watchmen’s watchers. In many instances they are more of a bane than a boon. Admittedly some definitely do a lot of good, but others are not so well intentioned keepers' keepers. Now in order to defend ourselves from our enemies, especially the foes with subtle insidious intentions, we need to watch the keepers’ keepers.

While many NGOs perform a variety of services and humanitarian functions, others are politically motivated with well defined agendas.

A group of former Israeli soldiers claiming to expose the IDF’s alleged human rights violations is currently  cause for concern. Their latest activities are in fact aiding and abetting the BDS movement.

The ex-servicemen’s group, “Breaking the Silence,” says that without its work, accounts of improper or even illegal behaviour against Palestinians would remain hidden from the Israeli public.

Since its founding in 2004, Breaking the Silence has collected the testimonies of more than 1,000 veterans in a bid to expose the IDF’s alleged illegal actions in the West Bank. It has taken those accounts to audiences in Israel and around the world. However, the NGO has an obvious political agenda.            Its uncorroborated testimonies have been lodged by veterans unwilling to reveal their identities   CTV news reported that “Breaking the Silence’s” seemingly authentic narratives come at a time when Israel is confronting a growing boycott movement focused on companies doing business in the West Bank settlements. The European Union also has ratcheted up measures against settlement products.

Notwithstanding the movement’s triumphant tone — and Israel’s robust reaction — BDS has not been nearly as successful as its supporters claim, nor its opponents fear. In some instances its actions have adversely affected West Bank Palestinians.

The potential stakes for boycotts became clear recently when Stéphane Richard, Orange telecom chief executive, told a Cairo business group that his company, which has come under pressure from campaigners, would leave Israel if it could. The remarks infuriated the Israeli government and many of the company’s customers in Israel. Stéphane.Richard apologized later, but Prime Minister  Netanyahu wasn’t satisfied and demanded that he come  to Israel to apologise. Richard complied, a veritable “Going to Canossa” in order to make amends for his remarks in Cairo and confirm Orange’s “commitment to Israel”.

Yediot Ahronot columnist Sever Plocker gave a different interpretation of the French cell phone company’s imbroglio,” Orange's alleged boycott appears to be a foolish verbal entanglement of a nervous CEO who is anxiously watching new cellular companies eating away at his brand and affecting his revenues.”

Plocker too gave low points to the boycotters. “The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel hasn't achieved much so far. Not a single foreign investment fund operating in Israel has left, and not a single corporation has severed its ties with Israel.”…..” Nonetheless, the risk from the BDS activity is definitely not a trivial thing: Being anti-Israel is now the dominating fashionable trend among students and the young intelligence in the West. Being progressive means identifying with BDS. The battle against Israel, under different slogans, replaces the other political battles for many young men and women and allows them to fulfill their rebelliousness without paying any personal price.

The significant support for BDS in the faculties for humanities and social sciences is particularly concerning, as it shapes the consciousness of the future intellectual-leading elite. “

According to Sever Plocker the wrong people are leading the P.R campaign against the BDS movement.”The Israeli right-wing representatives use a language and terms which the Western academic left doesn’t understand and doesn’t accept. Their appearance in front of foreign university audiences, and especially in front of BDS spokespeople, is detrimental to Israel and causes more people to support the anti-Israel movement. “

Plocker and other political analysts believe that the Israeli political left has a better chance of tackling the BDS movement. It is critical of the West Bank occupation and consistently advocates a two-state solution. Furthermore it can expose the BDS movement’s real objectives which go far beyond boycotting Israel’s settlements in the West Bank. 

NGO Monitor, which tracks the funding of Israeli rights groups like Breaking the Silence is itself an NGO and not entirely without sin. Its stated aim is to generate and distribute critical analysis and reports on the output of the international NGO community for the benefit of government policy makers, journalists, philanthropic organisations  and the general public. It has been a legally and financially independent organisation since 2007 when it  formally registered as  a non-profit oranisation.  Various critics of NGO Monitor claim it is clearly aligned with the Israeli right-wing.

Breaking the Silence and other rights groups face a formidable threat from legislation planned to limit their foreign funding by requiring senior government officials to approve the donations.

The United Nations is the biggest watchdog of all. In its investigations and reports regarding our region it has frequently shown anti-Israel bias.

Israel’s ambassadors to the United Nations have spent a lot of time and energy refuting official U.N. human rights councils/committees accusations levelled against the IDF. This week   Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, complained   to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accusing the secretary general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, of bias against Israel. It didn’t help mainly because Ban Ki-moon himself criticised Israel later in the week showing similar bias.

In the past U.N. fact-finding missions have presented very one-sided reports.

Their prejudicial findings have caused Israeli governments to forgo cooperating with them. The infamous Goldstone Report of 2011 following the 2008-2009 Gaza war is case in point. Later the investigating committee’s chairman Richard Goldstein withdrew a charge made in the report that it was Israel's policy to intentionally target civilians

Leila Zerrougui’s report contrasts sharply with the findings of a High Level International Military Group, made up of 11 former chiefs of staff, generals, senior officers, political leaders and officials from the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Holland, Spain, Italy, Australia and Colombia. The opening statement issued after the group’s visit to Israel said “We were well aware of the allegations made by some governments, the United Nations, human rights groups and the media, that Israel acted outside the laws of armed conflict in Gaza. Some have suggested that the IDF lacked restraint or even deliberately targeted innocent civilians.” ..”Our findings lead us to the opposite conclusion. We examined the circumstances that led to the tragic conflict last summer and are in no doubt that this was not a war that Israel wanted

The war that Israel was eventually compelled to fight against Hamas and other Gaza extremists was a legitimate war, necessary to defend its citizens and its territory against sustained attack from beyond its borders. The Israel Defence Force employed a series of precautionary measures to reduce civilian casualties. Each of our own armies is of course committed to protecting civilian life during combat. But none of us is aware of any army that takes such extensive measures as did the IDF last summer to protect the lives of the civilian population in such circumstances.”

Of course there is a positive aspect of the need to watch the watchmen and their watchers too etc., It creates jobs!

Have a good weekend.

Beni                                                                19^th of June, 2015.

Politics and Pyrotechnics

International affairs expert Dominique Moisi has difficulty explaining Israel's predicament, "What is wrong with Israel?" he asks, "In recent years, the Jewish state seems to have done more than all of its combined enemies to delegitimise itself in the eyes of the world. Its leaders’ apparent inability to think in strategic terms, and their indifference to the tribunal of global public opinion, is resulting in growing frustration among its citizens and, what may be more dangerous, deepening international isolation.                                           Where should one look for an explanation for this tragic evolution? Was it simply inevitable for a people who, deprived of a state for more than 2,000 years, may have lost the ability to act collectively in a 'raison d’état' manner?" Part of the problem is our dysfunctional system of government.   If Professor Moisi is right, maybe we will have an opportunity to correct matters in the forthcoming Knesset elections..   Many people claim that Israel's founding fathers committed the original sin when they created an unworkable system of government. The fragmentation of the Israeli political system based on a highly representative proportional parliamentarian structure is the root cause of nearly all our political ills. The Israeli political system, through its complex mechanisms of rigged party selection and absolute proportionality, condemns the country to weak coalition governments and escalating corruption. There is an urgent need to reform the system. One critic (I can't recall his name) complained “Government leaders cannot afford to spend 90% of their time thinking about how to survive politically at a time when the state’s right to exist is being challenged."

Well let’s vote to change the system. The recent amalgamation of the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu might just herald in a change in the electoral system.  On the other hand It might just herald in a lot of things we don't want.  Oscar Wilde's said it better, "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." The problem is we probably won't evict the Likud led coalition.

Although I quote them a lot I don't place my trust in political analysts. A case in point is a piece  Brent E. Sasley published in the Huffington Post  referring to  the bombshell news  that  the dysfunctional nature of Israel's political system allowed Bibi to pull off what is clearly a stroke of genius. He was referring to the short-lived (70 days) coalition of the Likud and Kadima parties this summer. It turned out to be more like an apoplectic seizure than a stroke of genius. Who knows, maybe the prime minister has got it right this time.

I'm rambling; I really wanted to write about the attack on the munitions factory in Sudan, which according to foreign sources was carried out by the Israel Air Force. Permit me to ramble on a bit about our local politics before I write about what our boys allegedly did in Khartoum.

Usually I try to avoid writing about our interminable political wranglings. However, with the Knesset elections looming ahead I can’t ignore them.

“Israel’s majority Jewish sector has shifted its political allegiance sharply to the right. “Claimed  journalist Benjamin Pogrund in an article he posted in the Guardian recently.  Three weeks ago I quoted from an assessment made by Dan Ephron in Newsweek/Daily Beast hailing the           unbeatable Bibi. Now it would seem that the new merger has really made Bibi unbeatable.         Mark Weiss The Irish Times' correspondent in Jerusalem also thinks the Israeli public has         been shifting steadily to the right. According to a recent survey quoted by Weiss more than        two-thirds of the respondents said they would oppose suffrage for West Bank Palestinians if     Israel annexed the West Bank. Seventy-four per cent said they supported a system of                   segregated roads  for Israelis and Palestinians in that region.  Weiss says that the fact that      the Israeli news media largely ignored the survey is further proof of the right-wing trend.             Unfortunately he omitted to mention if the opinions expressed were from a broad cross section of the public or from West Bank residents only.     On the other hand, Benjamin Pogrund            quoting another survey said that the extent of the hostility expressed by Israeli Jews towards the country's Arab citizens shocked many people: 42% of the respondents said they don't want their children in the same school class with Arab children and 42% don't want to live in the same   building with Arabs. However, a closer perusal of the survey's findings shows that the secular    respondents, who form the majority of the country's Jewish population, expressed different        opinions: 73% did not object to having Arabs in their children's school, and 68% would live in   an apartment building alongside Arabs. Pogrund maintains that although Israel has moved to    the right, it is not an apartheid state. Furthermore, he stresses that, "The findings are                   remarkably positive views in light of the effect of the Palestinian suicide bombings during the   Second Intifada in driving many Israeli Jews to the right, plus the continuing threats to Israel's    existence by Iran and Palestinian militants and their supporters in the world. The firing of rockets and mortars at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip by Hamas and others adds to antipathy towards Palestinians." Referring to the survey quoted in the Irish Times Pogrund says, "The        survey's handling of Jewish views about the West Bank, based on a hypothetical annexation by Israel, raises questions about the way it was conducted and how the results were presented to  the public: 69% of Israeli Jews, according to the survey, would oppose giving the West Bank's 2.5 million Palestinians the vote inside Israel. The summary of the survey is headlined: "In case of annexation, most Jews will support apartheid."                                                                                The initial response to the Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu merger seemed to affirm the claim that the      two parties together would gain more seats in the upcoming elections than each party would   gain separately. I think it would be wise to wait till the voters have assimilated the full                   significance of the merger..                                                                                                                  Netanyahu could encounter problems with some Likud members who have already opposed     the merger for ideological reasons. Lower ranked Likud members fear the merger will cost them their seats in the Knesset.    There are rumours that Minister of Communications Moshe         Kahlon in the outgoing government will form a new party. On the downside of the rightwing          union some supporters are not enthusiastic about the move. Lieberman’s solid base of               immigrants from the former Soviet Union isn’t really rock solid. Some might defect to other parties championing the social justice cause. Likewise Likud supporters  fearing Lieberman’s          strong  aversion to the religious parties might opt to vote for Shas, especially now that the          charismatic Arieh Deri has returned.                                                                                                      Predicting that the merger would strengthen Netanyahu's hand with regard to a possible Israeli military strike against the Iranian nuclear programme,  Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, wrote: "With Lieberman as second in command and heir to the throne, and his supporters in    prominent spots on the joint ticket, Likud will become a radical rightwing party, aggressive and xenophobic, that revels in Israel's isolation and sees the Arab community as a domestic enemy and a danger to the state."                                                                                                                    Across the divide in the opposition ranks there appears to be little inclination to adopt the motto " United we stand, divided we fall,"   or alternatively,  "A house divided against itself cannot       stand"  Mark 3:25.                                                                                                                                  Everyone is waiting to see if Ehud Olmert and Tzippi  Livni will return to the political arena. It’s   not beyond reason to speculate that Kadima with Livni and Olmert aligned with Yair Lapid’s      Yesh Atid (There’s a Future) party could attract centre party voters. Several permutations based on the centre parties alone or together with Labour have been suggested. So far they are no  more than fantasies. Both the centre parties and Labour have been busy parading their new     acquisitions. In the past valued acquisitions were retired IDF generals and former security forces directors. Now social justice leaders and journalists are on display. Political analysts have been debating if Labour party chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich has been acting more strategically than other Israeli politicians. She’s been laser-focused on the economy, arguing that Likud and the right are destroying the country with their unbridled capitalism, and all but ignored foreign policy and the peace process on the basis that Israelis express more concern with domestic issues in opinion polls, are content with the status quo vis-à-vis the Palestinians, and feel relatively    secure.  She has been bringing a range of individuals into the party. Mostly younger figures       publicly interested in social justice, a crusading journalist and a social worker, who helps high   school dropouts.                                                                                                                                       My description of the array of forces before the battle (the elections) has probably been too     detailed. If you are unfamiliar with the parties and the personalities' "Google  them" for               clarification. The elections are more than eighty days away. "Time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions…"

Let's move on to the pyrotechnics  Haaretz staff  journalist Anshel Pfeffer quoted The Sunday Times in an effort to sift facts from fantasy concerning the British paper's account of the  attack on the munitions factory in Khartoum.                                                                                                    "The Sunday Times regularly reports at length on Israeli secret operations," said Pfeffer." Sunday's piece by the paper's reporters in Tel Aviv and Nairobi is based on Israeli and western 'security sources' and claims that the attack was carried out by the Israeli Air Force and includes details of the strike-force, the stages of the attack and the target. Not all the details tally with other known facts." If we assume that the detailed account of the attack has more than a kernel of truth in it, why would the security sources want to divulge the details?. One headline explained it all – "Khartoum flames seen in Iran' wrote Ron Ben Yishai Yediot Ahronot's military analyst. Careful to preface his comments with the standard phrase- "According to foreign sources," Ben Yishai said, "However, if Israeli jets did carry out the strike, it means it took place some 1,600 kilometers from Israel, nearly the same distance between central Israel and the uranium enrichment plants in Iran …… Therefore, the attack, if it was carried out by Israel, also sent a strong message to Tehran.      "According to the Sunday Times the attack was carried out in the early hours by four F-15I fighter-bombers, each carrying two one-ton bombs and accompanied by four additional F-15s providing air-cover in case Sudanese Mig-29 fighters attempted to intercept. Along with the fighters were two CH-53 "Yasur" helicopters carrying teams of IAF search-and-rescue commandos in case air-crew from a downed fighter needed extracting from enemy territory.
The fighters were refueled en-route by a Boeing 707 aerial tanker and a Gulfstream 550 "Shavit" executive plane, adapted for electronic warfare, jammed the Sudanese radar and air-defence systems.  Israeli military analyst Alex Fishman believes the factory was actually owned and operated by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard. “One thing is certain: That factory did not belong to the Sudanese military industries,” he said. “It was a factory that belonged to the government in Tehran and which was run by Iranians. If there were any casualties in the attack, it is reasonable to assume that some of them were Iranian.”                                                                        Former IAF commander Eitan Ben-Eliyahu said, "The main difficulty in such an attack is precise intelligence. Getting to the target requires a flight of about two and a half hours, presumably on a southerly flight path along the Red Sea coast, under the Saudi and Egyptian  radar and with aerial refueling…….. There is no doubt that the explosions at the Sudanese arms factory have given elements in Khartoum, Gaza and Tehran something to think about."

Have a good weekend.

Beni                            1^st of November, 2012.