Top Israeli Officer Says Tactics Are Backfiring
The military chief directed most of his complaints at restrictions imposed on the West Bank four weeks ago, after a suicide bomber from the West Bank city of Jenin killed 21 people in a restaurant in the Israeli port of Haifa. Yaalon said the current curfews and travel restrictions, some of the tightest since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, were preventing Palestinians from carrying out critical olive and other agricultural harvests, hampering thousands of children from attending school, increasing hatred for Israel and strengthening terrorist organizations.
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interests," Nahum Barnea, columnist for the Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper, quoted Yaalon as telling him.
Yaalon also said he believed the Israeli government contributed to the failure of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister because it was too "stingy" and was unwilling to make concessions to bolster his authority.
Yaalon took his complaints public after several weeks of security staff meetings in which he advocated easing the military restrictions on Palestinians. But in each session he was overruled by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and the intelligence chief, Avi Dichter, who argued that loosening controls on travel in the territories could allow Palestinian militants to slip into Israel, according to two military officers familiar with the internal disagreements. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the final arbiter in the meetings, sided with Mofaz and Dichter, the officers said.
"He felt it was his public duty to say that if we don't do something about this, then it will explode in our face," said one senior military official. "The war against terror is taking place on the backs of civilians."
Sharon and Mofaz, who both advocate stringent and wide-ranging responses to Palestinian suicide bombings and other attacks, reportedly were infuriated that the chief of staff aired his complaints publicly.
An official of Sharon's government, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that what Yaalon said "is legitimate," but that by making his case to the news media, "I don't think he said the right thing to the right people." He added that Sharon and Mofaz were "not happy" and that "it would not happen again."
But Yaalon's remarks, echoed by equally vociferous criticism from other military officers interviewed Thursday, revealed a schism between military and political leaders over the government's handling of a conflict that many officers and soldiers say they believe is not winnable through military force, incites more terrorism than it prevents and mistreats innocent Palestinians. Almost 900 Israeli citizens or foreign residents of Israel have been killed in attacks by Palestinians, and Israeli military forces have killed about 2,500 Palestinians.
"We're in a more serious situation that the U.S. was in Vietnam," said reserve Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector, one of the most decorated fighter pilots in Israeli military history. Spector was grounded as a flight instructor last month after signing a letter, along with 26 other reserve pilots, calling the military's targeted killings of militants in crowded civilian neighborhoods "illegal and immoral."
Israel's military policies in the Palestinian territories, Spector said, are "opposing everything I was raised on" during his career in the air force.
While Yaalon's staff attempted to make a distinction between his concerns and those of the pilots, military officials and analysts said frustration and disillusionment within the military -- not only over tactics that punish innocent civilians but also with the stalled peace process -- had spurred large numbers of troops, from infantrymen in the field to reserve officers to the chief of staff, to speak more openly against the policies of Sharon's government.
"We feel there's a real problem here," said one military officer, who agreed with the chief of staff's assessment. "The public should be made aware how we feel. There should be a public debate in Israel on where we're going and how far we can push the Palestinian public."
Yaalon also criticized the government's decision to expand the barrier being built between the West Bank and Israel deep into Palestinian territory to encompass more Jewish settlements and cut off tens of thousands of Palestinians from their agricultural lands and families. The Finance Ministry estimated this week that the barrier would cost about $2.3 billion, more than three times the original estimate. CLIP
###
Five Israelis were seen filming as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11
http://www.sundayherald.com/37707
Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA? THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes. Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA. Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States.
And the motive? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.
###
----------------
Iraq Is Not Another Vietnam, It Is Worse Opinion
By Naseer Alomari,
The Jordan Times, 11-4-3
The most important question concerning Iraq nowadays seems to be whether the latter is another Vietnam or not. I would mention some reason why Iraq is shaping up to be worse than Vietnam for the United States of America.
http://www.jordantimes.com/Mon/opinion/opinion3.htm
-----------------
IS HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF?
.
In 1954, Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Arabs as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring.
An excellent source on this subject is "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" by Livia Rokach. This can be read online at: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/rokach.html
See Chapter 7. This work is based on the extensive diaries kept by Moshe Sharett, who was Israel's Prime Minister at the time. The author, Livia Rokach, is the daughter of Israel Rokach who was Minister of the Interior in Moshe Sharett's government.
------------------
New US Mideast attack about to happen?
They don't even NEED a pretext any more. A cancer has gotta spread. It's in it's nature.
Israel wants Greater Israel, or has been schnooked into thinking it does. They are serious. Almost blowing up Paul Wolfowitz, who wasn't sounding bloodthirsty enough since he got a good public grilling, they got their message across.
It's one of those things reflexively blamed on Iraqis, but Iraqi patriots would not be blowing up a Red Cross station that was taking care of their kids.
History's worst antisemites were founders of Israel. There should be a lesson here someplace.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------