US, EU seen as enablers to long-lasting Iranian expansion in Middle East, Central Asia and Southern Caucasus

Riccardo Dugulin, YNET

On December 16, an article published on the New Yorker quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as follows: “If our centrifuges do not continue to turn, no other wheel shall turn for our dignity, independence, power and security.”

Such a stance has to be understood as part of the Persian wider revolutionary strategic positioning. While many analysts argue that Tehran is not a rational player due to the apocalyptic messages a majority of its leaders have been pronouncing since 1979, it may be possible to speculate that the Islamic Republic has a set of clear foreign policy objectives.

In addition, due to the current show of weakness by the Western world it is likely that Iran’s establishment considers these political, military and economic objectives highly attainable. To put it in a simpler way, Iran feels it is a step closer to winning a war that has been lasting for almost three decades.
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Leaders, political or religious, do not always have our best interest at heart. In many cases there are no hidden factors other than personal, political or financial gain.

Dr. Zeev Shemer, INN

When politicians behave illogically, we tend to assume there are reasons that we simply do not understand which determine the policy that in our limited perspective seems, well, ludicrous. We are nothing but conspiracy theorists when it comes to our political leadership.
We assume the military knows what they’re doing.

We assume that there are political and financial pressures kept from the public that drive our leaders to endanger our lives.
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Leibler believes that the reason that Netanyahu speaks out of both sides of his mouth is that he is trying to be all things to all people. He is unable to create an Israeli position that his coalition would embrace. Either it is too right or too left to result in consensus. Instead he is hoping to achieve a deal that the people would accept. Or he could opt to change the coalition by election is necessary so that a consensus position will be at the core of the coalition. This core position should reject ’67 lines and swaps and reassert Res 242 with its demand for defensible borders. And of course, an undivided Jerusalem.

Since no one believes that the Arabs would accept Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Jerusalem, Israel’s position won’t be viewed as a red line. But we must convince the world that we will not only, not agree to ’67 lines, but we will not negotiate at all if negotiations are based on such a preconceived result. That we will only negotiate a solution based on Res 242.

Can he get Livni and Lapid to accept at least this? That’s the first challenge. Included in this consensus must be the embrace of the Levy Report. We must assert our legal right to these lands and reject the narrative that the settlements or the occupation are illegal. Ted Belman

By ISI LEIBLER, JPOST

Netanyahu faces ceaseless pressure from the Americans and Europeans, and is often intimidated by a rabidly hostile media and unduly influenced by fickle public opinion polls.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu enjoys enormous public support. Most Israelis, including many of those who generally oppose his policies, supported his singlehanded global campaign against a nuclear Iran and the delicate diplomacy he employed in resisting unreasonable demands from US President Barack Obama, while retaining the support of the American people and Congress.
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By DAN ILLOUZ, JPOST

“Why does Harper support Israel in such a bold way?”

By Ted Belman

The world, increasingly has been imposing its will on Israel by ostracizing it, isolating it, deligitimating it, denying it equal treatment among the nations of the world and denying it the right of self-defense. In effect the world has made Israel into a ghetto, no different from the ghettos they created in Europe to deal with their Jewish problem. The Jew had to be constrained and ostracized. Israel has to be constrained and ostracized. The world cannot accept an independent, sovereign Israel. Israel must be subjugated just as the Jews had to be subjugated.

Giulio Meotti writing in Arutz Sheva has a different take when he refers to Israel’s Ghetto Mentallity

It is this ghetto-like thinking that leads Israel’s government ministers to seriously advocate uprooting Jewish towns and villages in the Jews’ ancestral homeland; that they speak of exiling thousands of Jews in order to curry favor with Arab potentates and US coteries; that they make pacts with unrepentant terrorists whose anti-Semitism matches anything in the pages of Der Stürmer; that they allow for Jewish blood being shed in all parts of the country; that they tell their citizens to surrender more to the Palestinian Arabs so that they will control terrorism; that they ask the Jews to be prepared to suffer the loss of precious lives, for peace too extracts a bloody price.
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By Martin Sherman, JPOST

[We need] to create a continuous stretch of new settlements; to bolster Jerusalem and the surrounding hills, from the north, east, south and west, by means of the establishment of townships, suburbs and villages – Ma’aleh Adumin, Ofra, Gilo, Bet El, Givon – to ensure that the capital and its flanks are secured, and underpinned by urban and rural settlements. These settlements will be connected to the Coastal Plain and Jordan Valley by new lateral axis roads; the settlements along the Jordan River are intended to establish the Jordan River as [Israel’s] de facto security border; however it is the settlements on the western slopes of the hills of Samaria and Judea which will deliver us from the curse of Israel’s “narrow waist.” – Shimon Peres, Tomorrow is Now, 1977.

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With Geneva, Military Force Only Remaining Option to Stop Iranian Nukes By Mort Klien and Daniel Mandel

From Hy Drusin,

Dear Friends,

According to Wesley Clark, America has had a plan to overthrow all dictators formerly supported by Russia since 1991. Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Iran. So this policy didn’t start with Obama. The execution has been problematic.

I do not endorse the suggestion in some parts of this that 9-11 was a US operation. But I do support the idea that the US tries to use such a crises for its over all plans.

[CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THIS?]

The proposal would require 80 MKs to vote for negotiations to divide Jerusalem; most right-wing lawmakers were no shows.

Most right-wing lawmakers on Wednesday skipped a vote on a bill that would require two-thirds of the Knesset’s approval before the government could negotiate on Jerusalem’s status.

The bill, proposed by United Torah Judaism MK Ya’acov Litzman, was voted down with 12 MKs in favor and 51 opposed.
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Gal Gadot will star as Wonder Woman in the coming film Batman vs. Superman.

Ronn Torossian

A major mazel tov is due to actress Gal Gadot. The Israeli-born brunette beauty has just been chosen to play Wonder Woman in the coming movie Batman vs. Superman.

While the former Miss Israel is no stranger to the silver screen, having been in the Fast and Furious series of movies, Entourage and more, this catapults her to another level of stardom.

Having spent time with her and her husband, I know her to be a hard-working, dedicated, sincere woman who deserves this success in a major way. She’s proud to be Jewish, having grown up in a traditional home and she served in the Israel Defense Forces. Read more…

Europe loves Israel’s high-tech economy, but hates its nature as a Jewish state that won’t yield to international efforts to undermine its very existence. Europe is conflicted about the Jews, as it always has been, argues the Director of Christian Middle East Watch

The question is whether it is better for Israel to have al Qaeda in control of Syria or Iran in control of Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. If you answer the former than what is to stop Iran from making a deal with al Qaeda at Israel’s expense.  Similarly Iran works with Hamas. TED BELMAN

by Daniel Pipes
December 19, 2013

In April 2013, I published an article with the slightly inaccurate title, “Support Assad.” Better would have been “Support Whichever Side Is Losing in the Syrian Civil War.” Back then, it seemed that the regime of Bashar al-Assad was doomed; but already a month later, that was no longer the case and eight months on, a consensus has emerged that Assad is slowly winning.

For example, Jeffrey White, a Defense Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, writes in “The Syrian Regime’s Military Solution to the War” that the Syrian civil war.
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Shlomo Cesana, ISRAEL HAYOM

“My visit to China [in May], and your visit today in Jerusalem, showcases the determination our two governments have to strengthen our friendship and improve cooperation between us,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Wang arrived in Israel Tuesday night for a three-day visit. “Our strengths complement one another,” Netanyahu said. China has massive industrial and global reach. Israel has expertise in every area of high-tech. And I think the combination could be very, very beneficial to China and of course to Israel. Especially with regards to the fields we are talking about: science and technology, water management, agriculture, green energy and health services. Likewise we want to increase cooperation between us in global transportation. I would like to talk to you about the rail road that will connect Asia and Europe, by going from the port of Eilat on the Red Sea to the Ashdod port on the Mediterranean. I believe this is important to global and Chinese commerce.”
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By Anthony Tsontakis, AMERICAN THINKER

Empirical reality seems to have little if anything meaningful to do American strategy in the Levant today. And that is a problem, because there is a causal relation between what happens in the Levant and international economic security.

A new state of affairs in the Levant has scarcely factored into mainstream discussions of foreign policy and international politics. In 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that the Levant Basin, encompassing Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus, and the Gaza Strip, holds an estimated 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas (that’s trillion, with a T) and 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Some analysts believe the Eastern Mediterranean has the potential to become as significant to world politics as the Persian Gulf — a noteworthy comparison: the Persian Gulf is not — like, say, Flagstaff, Arizona — what we might call a geopolitical footnote.
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By Elad Benari, INN

Professor Aryeh Eldad

Former MK Professor Aryeh Eldad, head of the Professors for a Strong Israel organization, said Wednesday that if the Israeli government wants to blame someone for the constant boycotts of the Jewish state, it should look in the mirror.

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Eldad said the Israeli government, by agreeing to participate in the European Union’s “Horizon 2020” scientific project despite its guidelines boycotting Judea and Samaria, was creating a snowball effect that encouraged others to boycott Israel as well.
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By Ted Belman

PM Netanyahu stressed at the Likud meeting.

1. Knesset and the people will decide on any agreement reached.

2. Israel won’t let Iran have “weapons capability” and UN past resolutions on Iran must be adhered to.

3. Our security needs must be met

4. “[I have] one goal – to ensure that the people of Israel [stay] in its historic homeland. This is what guides me.”

Does he really mean what he said in the latter point? Our “historic homeland” is Judea and Samaria.
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 18, 2013,

The European Union and Iran announced Wednesday that the talks on the technical aspects of the interim nuclear accord with the six powers – broken off in Vienna Friday Dec. 13 – would be resumed in Geneva Thursday, Dec. 19. This is a desperate attempt to enliven the dying momentum of nuclear diplomacy. Two days were assigned to this meeting, which DEBKAfile reports it is being convened to camouflage three untoward developments:

1. Iran has repudiated the Geneva nuclear deal and now maintains that it was never a real accord. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afgham put it this way: “There is no treaty and no pact, only a statement of intent.”
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