Tag Archives: Israel

International news

Hezbollah leader killed … good! Let there be more

BBt0udt

Mustafa Badreddine was a bad actor.

He’s now dead. Who killed this terrorist? Hezbollah, the terror organization he helped lead, thinks the Israelis are responsible for the bomb blast that killed Badreddine in Syria.

Israel isn’t commenting. Officials there usually stay mum about these incidents.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-hezbollah-commander-kille-in-syria/ar-BBt07l2?li=BBnb7Kz

If the Israelis indeed are responsible for the death of Hezbollah’s top military leader, my initial reaction is this: Good deal … now let’s go after the rest of them!

I am one who strongly backs Israel’s effort to defend itself against the terror threat the nation’s existence every day.

I’ve had the honor and the pleasure to travel throughout the country. It was seven years ago this week, in fact, that I ventured to Israel for a month with four dear friends as part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange.

One of the places we visited was in Nahariyah, on the country’s northern border with Lebanon. We could see the fortified border — complete with barbed wire and watch towers — along the ridgeline where we toured. Just on the other side of that border is a nation where Hezbollah runs wild.

Just as Hamas has launched rockets into Israel from Gaza, Hezbollah has done the same from Lebanon and Syria. They send their missiles into neighborhoods, targeting civilians. The Israelis are forced into a constant state of alert against these terrorist organizations.

Do the Israelis make any apologies for the measures they take to eradicate terrorist leaders? Absolutely not … nor should they.

As Reuters reports: “Israel deems Hezbollah its most potent enemy and worries that it is becoming entrenched on its Syrian front and acquiring more advanced weaponry.”

It wouldn’t surprise any observer of this ongoing conflict to learn that Israeli agents detonated the bomb that killed Badreddine.

Will the Israelis own up to it? Probably not.

That’s all right with me.

 

International news, military news

Women play key role in defending Israel

female pilots

This picture showed up on my Facebook news feed today and it brings to mind something I witnessed six years ago during a four-week tour of Israel.

Yes, more women fly F-16s than drive cars in Saudi Arabia. I’m not going to thrash Saudi cultural norms. I am, though, going to remember one of the major takeaways from my tour of Israel.

It is that the country must rely on every single able individual — men and women — who are able to serve in the armed forces.

Israel has a mandatory conscription law. If memory serves, men must serve three years in the military; women are called up for two. And, yes indeed, women areĀ ordered to perform dangerous duty in defense of their country, such as flying high-performance tactical jet aircraft; for that matter, so are American women.

I arrived in Israel in early May 2009 as part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team. One of the first sites we visited was a military museum in Be’er Sheva, a modern city on the edge of the Judean Desert.

It was at that museum where we were told that enemy jets can cross the width of Israel in less than five minutes. The individual who told us that was a young woman who was serving in the Israeli air force.

Later on our tour, I stayed in the home of a family in Karmiel. One of my hosts was a young woman, the daughter of the couple who owned the home, who had just gotten out of the Israeli military. She informed me of her country’s insistence that all young people don the uniform of their country. Israel does grant religious exemptions toĀ Hasidic Jews — which I also learned is a source of some tension among less-observant Israelis.

But the women of that small but mighty country are asked to step up and to do their part. Who should doubt that the entire country is on notice to serve? It comprisesĀ slightly more thanĀ 8,000 square miles; it is home to around 7 million residents. It is surrounded by nations with which it has gone to war multiple times since Israel’s founding in 1948.

Israel has peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. However, it holds the Golan Heights, which once belonged to Syria … and we all know what’s happening there.

It’s good to put some things in perspective as we consider the cost of war and whether we’re asking everyone to commit to its defense.

In Israel, such a commitment becomes essential forĀ the embattled nation’s very survival.

International news, military news

Special forces to Syria? What’s next?

islamic-state-syria759

It’s been said many times that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, is our enemy. So is the Islamic State, which also is Assad’s enemy. Thus, Assad becomes our “friend” because the United States and Syria oppose the Islamic State?

My head is spinning.

President Obama hasĀ just performed a major pivot on Syria. We’re sending about 50 special operations forces to Syria to assist the government in fighting ISIS. Does that mean we’re getting engaged in a ground war in Syria? The president says “no.” I’m not so sure.

We’re putting “boots on the ground”Ā in a place that’s been involved in a bloody civil war for many years now.

I don’t like this change of direction.

The issue of who’s our friend in the Middle East is complicated enough as it is. By my reckoning — and I’m sure many others — we have one true ally in that region: Israel. Many other nations’ leaders say they’re with us in the fight against ISIS. By and large, they have been — at best — not totally reliable.

So now we’re going to reverse ourselves and commit a handful of ground troops to this terrible conflict. Are they going to be frontline forces? The Pentagon says no and that they won’t necessarily be thrust directly into harm’s way.

What will the nation’s reaction be when we get word of the firstĀ person killed in action?

And … for what? To assist a brutal dictator who our own president has said should be removed from power?

 

 

International news

Iran deal is ‘approved’ by Senate … sort of

obama and kerry

It’s quite clear that President Obama cannot call his “victory” in securing the Iran nuclear deal a “mandate.”

It is, instead, a technical victory. Senate Democrats gathered up enough votes to head off a Republican-sponsored resolution opposing the deal. Thus, the president won’t have to veto the resolution.

GOP senator say they’ll keep bringing the deal up for a vote. Good luck with that.

Deal gets approved

I’m glad the deal is headed for “ratification,” if you want to call it that.

I’ll fall back to this notion in defense of the deal.

Israel is Iran’s target were it to build a nuclear weapon. The deal prevents Iran from obtaining a nuke. The United States has pledged repeatedly since the founding of Israel in 1948 to stand behind our nation’s most dependable Middle East ally. The pledges have come from presidents of both parties.

Whatever intention Iran has to wipe Israel off the planet would be met with severe force by any president who comes along in the future, regardless of political party.

It is better to talk our enemies out of doing something foolish than it is to bomb them into oblivion.

And, yes, you trigger-happy foes of this deal: Diplomacy always has its place.

national news, political news

‘Boxcars’ no more acceptable than ‘ovens’

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hillary

Admission time.

I’ve been goaded into saying something about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s remark concerning Donald Trump’s “immigration reform” idea, which is to round up 11 million or so undocumented immigrants and ship back to where they came from.

She said recently that Trump and other Republican candidates intendĀ to ship immigrants back to their homeland in “boxcars.” The remark drew understandable rebuke from those on the right who said the Democratic presidential front runner is invoking images of the Holocaust with that kind of analogy.

Clinton’s campaign has denied any connection.

You decide.

The campaign flacks are mistaken if they do not believe many Americans understood the juxtaposition of “boxcars” and “Holocaust.”

These presidential candidates need to understand that gravity of making such highly offensive comparisons.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, you’ll recall, criticized the Iran nuclear deal by declaring President Obama would march Israel to the “oven door” if the deal is approved by the Congress. That remark also drew expected — and deserved — criticism from those on the left.

A critic of this blog reminded me that I had been silent about Clinton’s nasty reference to boxcars. I took the criticism as a challenge to be as vigilant on both sides of the political divide about comments that deserve rebuke.

Clinton, Huckabee and the whole crowd of presidential candidates should declare a moratorium on comparing anything that occurs presently to what happened between 1939 and 1945.

World War II — and all its ghastly consequences — stands alone.

 

 

International news

Netanyahu says it’s ‘not my job’ to dictate Iran vote

FILE - In this March 3, 2015, file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gestures as he speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, left, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, listen. Relations between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans have hit a new low. There has been little direct communication between Obama and the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill since Republicans took full control of Congress in January. Obama has threatened to veto more than a dozen Republican-backed bills. And Boehner infuriated the White House by inviting Netanyahu to address Congress without consulting the administration first. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — I dare say — is talking out of both sides of his mouth.

He told a delegation of congressional Democrats visiting him in Israel this week that it’s “not my job” to tell them how to vote on the Iran nuclear deal hammered out by Secretary of State John Kerry and representatives of five other world powers.

However, that doesn’t quite square with what he did earlier this year when, at the invitation of Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, Netanyahu stood before a joint congressional session and — yep — told them in effect how they should vote on a deal designed to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Lawmakers visiting Netanyahu said the prime minister was respectful and frank.

He doesn’t like the deal. In many ways, I understand Netanyahu’s reluctance to deal with the Iranians. Their regime has declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. The Islamic Republic of Iran isn’t to be trusted at any level, according to Netanyahu.

But President Obama, Kerry and all the participants say the same thing about the deal: It blocks “every pathway” Iran has to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Congress is going to take up the issue next month. A resolution calling for defeat of the deal is likely to pass. It’s also likely to lack the votes to overturn an expected veto from the president.

Never mind, though, that the Israeli prime minister isn’t telling members of Congress how to vote.

Wink, wink.

Actually, yes he is.

 

International news

Diplomacy ought to trump war every time

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Barack Obama could have invoked the late, great Winston Churchill at his press conference today.

Churchill once said it is better to “jaw, jaw, jaw than to war, war, war.”

So it is with President Obama’s defense of the deal struck with Iran that seeks to end Iran’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-iran-deal-defends-press-conference-120154.html?hp=lc1_4

I remain more or less undecided on the merits of the deal, but the president has posed a fascinating challenge to his critics.

Is it better to take military action to remove Iran’s nuclear capability, or is it better to use diplomacy to rid them of their nuclear ambitions?

Critics, Obama said, haven’t offered a credible alternative to the deal that struck by Secretary of State John Kerry and his team of international partners. They blast the 159-page deal with words like “appeasement,” “disaster,” and “historic mistake.”

So, what do they suggest? Do we send in squadrons of fighter-bombers to blast the nuclear plants into oblivion?Ā Let the Israelis do it? Do we risk all-out war?

The great Winston Churchill had it right: It’s better to talk than to drop bombs.

Always.

International news, media news

Too early to judge Iran nuke deal

Listen to the mainstream media on both ends — conservative and liberal — and the Iran nuclear deal is either the precursor to World War III or the agreement that will bring a comprehensive peace to a region that’s never known it.

Fox News this morning was having its usual fun blasting the “liberal mainstream media” for gushing all over the deal that seeks to block Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon. The caption on the screen as the “Fox and Friends” talking heads were blathering on noted “liberal bias” in theĀ media’s coverage of the agreement.Ā That stuff just slays me, given that Fox never recognizes its own conservative bias.

Whatever.

I’m not going to draw any firm conclusions about the deal just yet.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-team-split-over-next-steps-with-iran-120130.html?hp=lc1_4

I remain cautiously hopeful that the deal will produce the desired result. One of the Obama administration talking points is that it “blocks all pathways” for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. Israeli officials — led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — say it’s dangerous in the extreme, as it doesn’t prevent Iran from making mischief in the Middle East.

The economic sanctions? They’ll be lifted over time, giving Iran needed money to rebuild its shattered economy — which was made that way by the sanctions.

What if Iran cheats? What if the Iranians don’t do what they say? The sanctions return.

Is the deal perfect? No. Is it the disaster that congressional Republicans predict it will become? No.

The mainstream media — all of it all along the political spectrum — need to take a breath and listen intently to the debate that’s about to unfold.

Assuming, of course, that the debate isn’t overtaken by hysterical politicians.

 

International news

Iran deal struck; now the fight begins

iran nuke deal

At some level, I totally understand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suspicion of Iran.

When a country’s leader declares his mission to wipe your country off the map, you take such threats seriously. That’s what Iranian leaders have vowed to do to Israel.

Bibi doesn’t trust the Iranians as far as he can toss any of them.

However, is the deal struck with Iran by the United States and other world powers a waste of time and effort? I do not believe so.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/us-world-powers-historic-deal-iran-120076.html?hp=rc1_4

They’ve reached a deal that — on paper — eliminates Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. In return, the world powers will lift the economic sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.

That’s the deal breaker, according to critics in Washington — namely the Republican congressional leaders, who vow to kill the deal.

Hold on. There’s also language in the agreement that reserves the right to reinstate the sanctions if Iran reneges on any element of the deal. There also are inspection requirements that Iran will be forced to allow. Show us the progress you’re making, Iranian leaders, in dismantling your nuclear program … or else!

To no one’s surprise, the GOP presidential candidates vow to toss the deal into the trash if they’re elected president next year. For his part, President Obama remains confident that Congress would uphold a veto if he chooses to nix whatever moves the GOP makes to nix the agreement.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/iran-deal-got-lawmakers-react-kill-deal-120083.html?hp=t1_r

Moreover, as is usually the case with the critics, they aren’t offering alternatives. All they’re saying is that they hate the deal. Democrats are leery, too. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland said: ā€œIt is in Americaā€™s national security interest that Iran is blocked from ever having a nuclear weapon.Ā There is no trust when it comes to Iran.

Oh, and Netanyahu’s concern about his country’s security? Barack Obama has declared — for the umpteenth time — that the United States remains as committed as ever to protecting its strongest and most reliable Middle East ally. What more must the president do to persuade criticsĀ — on this issue — he means what he says?

Yes, the agreement isĀ  historic. Let’s make it stick.

International news

My heart is broken

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Menashe_01_Na

Information travels quickly — especially, it seems, when it involves a message you don’t want to receive.

I just got word from a friend of mine that another friend — someone many of us grew to love — has died.

His picture is here. His name is Menashe Livnat. He was an Israeli gentleman who served 10 foreign visitors as their guide, father confessor, counselor, troubleshooter, fix-it man. He was everything to us. He became our friend for life.

I first laid eyes on Menashe the evening of June 10, 2009. I had just traveled from Amarillo to Israel with four friends; I was team leader of a group thatĀ comprised a Rotary International Group Study Exchange team that would stay in Israel for four weeks with host families. Menashe was at David Ben-Gurion International Airport to greet us, along with another Rotary GSE team from The Netherlands.

We exchanged handshakes and greetings, along with a few gifts we brought over from West Texas.

Then we were off, on our way to enjoy the adventure of a lifetime — which I have described several times over the years on this blog.

Menashe made it happen for us.

He was coordinator for the host Rotary district that welcomed us to Israel. He made sure we got to where we needed to be. We met with professionals in Israel, exchanged ideas on how we did our jobs.

We went non-stop for virtually the entire length of the exchange tour.

Menashe was the Indispensable Man.

We grew to adore him and his wife, Miri.

My friends and I each, I’m quite sure, have countless stories of what Menashe did for us during our time in Israel. As we toured through the country with our new Dutch friends, we learned much about ourselves and each other — and about Israel. Menashe was there every step of the way, even when he wasn’t physically present.

I’ll share this particular event.

There was one time during our tour in which we hadn’t seen Menashe for several days. We had encountered some hiccups along the way. We were growing tired. Our hosts had filled our days with activity from dawn to well past dusk.

Then he appeared at the place where we were gathering. Menashe was like a vision.

Menashe and I managed to get some private time and I told him we were running out of gas. He said “no problem.” He then canceled the activities for the next day and then we spent an entire day swimming in the Mediterranean Sea at Caeserea. He found time to allow us to relax, catch our breath, soak up some sun and think of nothing but how to enjoy the relaxing day in a beautiful Middle East vacation spot.

Menashe embodied the Rotary International motto of placing “Service Above Self.” He was a big-hearted, generous man who enabled five Americans and five Dutch to take in the experiences only found in one of the world’s most exciting and intriguing regions.

The news of his passing saddens me terribly.

I will miss this good man.