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Page added on October 2, 2013
Israelis Prepare Themselves Regardless
Mindful of news of the U.S. delaying its military action on Syria to pursue the Russian plan for international monitors to take control and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons, Israelis continue to collect their gas mask kits at Home Front Command distribution centres.
“Nothing’s sure in this country. There’s tension, then there’s relief, then tension again,” explains a woman as her daughter puts on a mask. “We must always be prepared for any emergency alert.”
On top of a hill near Jerusalem, an Iron Dome anti-missile battery inspects the sky for incoming rockets. Yet all is quiet on the Israel-Syria ceasefire line on the occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maintained a discreet silence over his U.S. ally’s threats of military strikes against Syria in retribution for the poison gas attacks allegedly perpetrated by forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad, which killed hundreds on Aug. 21.
The Israeli leader now chooses to remain circumspect amid talks about the Russian plan. “It must be ensured that the Syrian regime will be disarmed of its chemical weapons,” he urged the international community on Wednesday during the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) naval cadets’ graduation ceremony.
The devil is in the details of an effective chemical disarmament process, cautions Shlomo Brom, a former director in the Strategic Planning Division of the IDF General Staff and now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies. The launching of the Russian plan will determine the fate of the U.S. military plan on Syria.
“The whole purpose of the punitive action is to deter Syria from further use of chemical weapons. If these weapons will be denied, then it’s even a greater achievement than the purpose of the U.S. attack,” Brom tells IPS.
Israelis form an orderly queue at gas mask distribution centres – in stark contrast with scenes of panic and chaos when U.S. strikes seemed to hang over Syria’s embattled regime.
During the early stages of the crisis, Netanyahu sought to assuage his compatriots’ fears, urging them to maintain their daily routine. “We’re not involved in the civil war in Syria,” he cautioned, stressing the low probability of Syrian reprisal attacks on Israel.
“The decision to do whatever is needed to project this perception that Israel isn’t intervening was a very right decision,” comments Brom. “A perception in the U.S. that Israel is pushing and dragging the U.S. into a war in the Middle East is basically not good for Israeli-American relations.”
Besides, the use, production and proliferation of chemical weapons is not an Israeli issue, stresses Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and long-time Netanyahu advisor who presides over the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs think tank.
“Behind this entire crisis between Syria and the U.S. is a world problem, a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The U.S. entered this struggle with global considerations in mind, and despite everything you read in the press, Israel is not at the centre of this,” Gold tells IPS.
Inversely central to the Israeli public’s considerations is the lack of trust in President Barack Obama’s management capabilities during the three successive phases of the crisis.
First, as the U.S. President expressed outrage at the chemical attack while urging military intervention on Syria; then, as he sought congressional legitimacy for the use of force; and now, as the momentum of a limited action dissipates in favour of the Russian initiative.
“If he wanted to go to Congress, he should’ve gone there from the beginning, not after he declared he wants to go to war,” is the reasoning of a physician who came to a distribution centre to pick up kits for his family. “How he managed the crisis is a show of weakness.”
“If what hides behind this Russian initiative is only a bluff, a trick, a delaying tactic,” Brom says, “then it may imply that the Obama Administration was weak, hesitant and incapable of using force to advance its political objectives.”
“It’s not for us to say whether Obama operates well or poorly,” counters Gold. “Israel cooperates with the U.S. in areas of mutual security interests and will continue to do just that.”
Noteworthy in this respect, Netanyahu has refrained from commenting on Obama’s leadership and performance during the crisis – although obliquely, on Wednesday, he did. Trust only yourself is his motto.
“The rule that as Prime Minister I adhere to carefully is perhaps more valid than ever: If we’re not for ourselves, who will be for us? We are for us,” he declared.
“The practical translation of this rule is that Israel will always defend itself by itself against any threat. President Obama said today [during the 9/11 anniversary], ‘Israel can defend itself with overwhelming force.’ This is true. This is the basis of our security.”
“The perception,” Brom says, “is that the U.S. is withdrawing from the Middle East and that, as superpower, it’s weakening and losing the will to use its power and serve its interests, which is an essential element of being a superpower.
“Because of that, Israel cannot trust the U.S. when it comes to decisions that are essential for its survival – for example, what to do with the Iranian nuclear programme.”
The world’s most dangerous regimes must not be allowed to possess the world’s most dangerous weapons, is a common Netanyahu warning.
The taxing question is whether Obama’s acceptance of the Russian plan to disarm Syria of its non-conventional weapons conventionally answers Netanyahu’s concerns.
“The world needs to make certain that those who use weapons of mass destruction will pay the price for it. The message that Syria receives will be received loud and clear in Iran,” he declared.
9 Comments on "Israelis Prepare Themselves Regardless"
BillT on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 2:01 am
With an insane leader, Nutenyahoo, running things you never know when he will cause a nuclear exchange. Those masks won’t be much help when they are overrun by millions of Muslims. But then, O seems bent on starting that war, egged on by the above Israeli leader.
Giving jews that land was the stupidest move after WW2. They should have been given Madagascar as was proposed. Not much they could stir up among the Africans and they would have been limited in their aggression to the island.
If Israel is so great, why do most jews live elsewhere? Cowards?
Perhaps North Korea or the Pakistanis should just give Iran a nuke or two and then Israel would back off? Or, maybe they already have? Time will tell. After all, Israel’s nukes are illegal also.
LT on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 2:21 am
“Men plan…but Heaven decides…” Far-East’s ancient saying.
BillT on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 3:02 am
Off the topic but more important than Israel:
http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/fukushima-a-nuclear-catastrophe-of-epic-proportions/#more-60576
An up-to-date info list …
GregT on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 3:15 am
There is far more going on here than what meets the eye. The Zionists believe that they are the chosen ones. God’s chosen people to rule all others, in the kingdom of God on Earth.
The Muslim dome on the rock must be destroyed, before Soloman’s temple can be rebuilt. They will stop at nothing to fulfill biblical prophesy. Nothing.
Netanya
GregT on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 3:17 am
Netanyahu welcomes Armageddon. Nuclear or whatever it takes.
Keith_McClary on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 4:07 am
They took on the world two millennia ago. How did that work out?
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 9:04 am
“Giving jews that land was the stupidest move after WW2. ”
WW1 was masterminded by Britain, that wanted to see competitor Germany destroyed and cleverly used ambitions of France (Elzas-Lotharingen) and Russia (connection to the open icefree seas, that is the Bosporus) to setup an anti-German coalition to attack Germany at the first opportunity. However, it turned out that Germany was too strong for these three (like in WW2, Germany showed it could beat 3 out of 4 of {Britain, France, Russia, USA} but not all 4, giving a clear idea where the core of the white race is situated). And that was the first time in modern history where organized jewry started to act. As they already had a decisive influence in American politics at the time, they approached the British government, making a proposal the British could refuse only at the cost of losing their own war: “we the jews bring the US into the war on the side of Britain if you Britain give us Palestine” (Balfour deal). A flimsy pretext (Lusitania) was used to set up Germany for desaster. Until that moment Germany had been very hospitable to the jews, but as a little Danke Schon, they were pushed into the abyss by the jews. It was not ‘stupid’, it was vile.
“If Israel is so great, why do most jews live elsewhere? Cowards?”
Israel is the home for ‘normal jews’, those who do not run a bank or a newspaper or a lawyer firm or a think tank, but are merely average employees or own a kebap joint. The jews that want to live in a normal nation, speaking hebrew, have a flag, an anthem, a soccer team. But why would an high IQ cosmopolitan jew want to live in Tel Aviv, if he can live in Tel Aviv-West and run Wallstreet, or in London and as such, by proxy, run large parts of the world? For these people Israel comes in handy as a refuge, if the ground under their feet gets too hot after a swindle, but nothing else. They do not care about Israeli as a national state, they want the world. But now that Russia no longer has globalist ambitions, with a rising China to become another superpower and a united Europe openly advocating a multipolar world, and an America in decline, and an internet infrastructure bypassing their media, they are going to fail big time in their globalist NWO ambitions. They entered world stage with the creation of the Fed swindle, they decided the outcome of WW1, they created the bolshevik desaster in Russia, they organized WW2, they created the holo tale, they killed JFK, they organized mass immigration to the West and they organized 9/11. Good riddance to them.
bobinget on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 6:04 pm
It’s surprising to encounter as many anti-semitic
comments here as one might see elsewhere regarding US foreign wars policy.
How would you feel if you, an American traveling abroad getting teased or worse, harmed in some fashion, your only crime being of the same nationality as lets say Ted Cruz or Michele Bachman?
BTW, Jew like Christian or Muslim comes capitalized.
During the Vietnam War, in some spots worldwide, young travelers needed Maple Leaf patches on our gear. My own wife’s father converted to Catholicism
to stay alive during Poland’s Nazi ‘Jew’ WW/2 round-ups. While Israel engages in ‘collective punishment’, cruelty, as North Americans that is not our bag.
Israel might bomb Iran today. But with UN inspectors on the ground that’s highly doubtful.
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Oct 2013 10:03 pm
“My own wife’s father converted to Catholicism
to stay alive during Poland’s Nazi ‘Jew’ WW/2 round-ups”
Sure, all these round-ups happened, but not in a vacuum:
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.530857
Do you have any idea what happened in the USSR, your ally in WW2? Does that make you feel good that the US made the world safe for bolshevism? Do you realize that Germany was next on the communist todo list? What should they have done?
Why do you think that Russia’s client state Iran denies the holocaust and still denies, despite the recent lies by CNN? Because Russia knows and the moment is approaching that it will become opportune for Russia to let the cat out of the bag and pave the way for an alliance with Germany.
The alllies had no choice but to invent a holocaust to mask their own massive crimes. WW2 was forced upon Germany by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. That’s the truth. They turned an escalating conflict about the German town Danzig into a world war. And now the full truth comes out and everything is going to be reversed.