Report: US Pushing Israel to Free Barghouti

The Obama administration wants Israel to release arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti so he can run for election.

By Gavriel Queenann, INN

The Obama administration is trying to convince Israel to release arch-terrorist and mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti.

According to the Hamas-aligned Al Quds daily, Washington views Barghouti as its preferred candidate for Fatah to field against Hamas in Palestinian Authority (PA) elections in May 2012.

“A high-profile US delegation has regularly discussed with officials in Tel Aviv the option to free Al Barghouti to lead Fatah against Hamas in the next elections,” the sources that the daily did not identify, said.

The Al-Quds report comes as Arab capitals are abuzz with the news that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas will not seek re-election, leaving Washington concerned Fatah has no one to field against Hamas.

However, the release of Barghouti, who was sentenced to five life sentences for as many terror related murders in Israel, and who security services say is responsible for at least 21 other murders, is widely opposed in Israel.

Indeed, even the suggestion that Barghouti might be released as a part of a deal to free 1,027 terrorists in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit created a firestorm of outrage in the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has reportedly refused to Washington’s request he release the 52-year old Barghouti, who is called the “Prince of Resistance” in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria due to his pivotal role in both Intifadas.

“Netanyahu believes that Barghouti is an extension of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and that the pair had been involved in the death of dozens of Israelis during the second intifada (uprising),” the sources said.

According to security sources, several Israeli officials, including Binyamin Ben Eliezer, former defense minister Amir Peretz, and top leaders from the security agencies do not object to releasing Barghouti, saying he is “committed to peace.”

But observers note that Washington’s push to crown Barghouti king in Ramallah in the belief that secular Fatah is a “moderate” party willing to make peace is out of touch with the hard intransigent shift in the PLO ranks.

In recent weeks the PLO has openly proclaimed a strategy based on “continuous efforts along with the international community to secure full recognition and full United Nations membership, pursuing internal reconciliation, and keeping up the popular resistance.”

It has also moved to induct Hamas and its Gaza terror confederates into its ranks as they surge in the polls leading to a prediction that, even with Barghouti in the race, Hamas will win a sweeping victory in may.

Nor are the ideologies of Fatah and Hamas divergent. The PLO charter continues to state ‘armed resistance’ is the only path to an ‘indivisible Palestinine’ – which leaves no room for the Jewish state.

December 30, 2011 | 23 Comments »

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  1. There are no innocents when dealing with nation states.

    You sound as bad as some Muslim extremists.

    You sound like a liberal humanist wuss.

    You feel that there are no innocents when dealing with nation states. How is that different than what the terrorists say?

  2. You are the one who admired my rationality. I agree with you on that one.

    But you are exalting your own irrantionality.

  3. It is not acceptable to go after innocent parties.

    There are no innocents when dealing with nation states.

    You sound as bad as some Muslim extremists.

    You sound like a liberal humanist wuss.

  4. yamit82 says:

    January 3, 2012 at 2:05 am

    The problem I see is that as a rational being you seek rational methods to change, influence and reverse irrational behavior and thinking.

    Are you admitting to insanity?

  5. The problem I see is that as a rational being you seek rational methods to change, influence and reverse irrational behavior and thinking.

  6. Bill Levinson says:
    January 2, 2012 at 5:09 am

    I doubt Israel is second or third. The U.S. and USSR have far more nuclear weapons and men, while China has far more men than anybody. None of these countries has any plans to attack Israel, though, so their strength versus Israel does not matter. (Recall that in 1914, the UK was not very worried about the U.S. Navy but it had a big problem with Germany’s High Seas Fleet, because that might actually be used against England.) Israel is stronger than all its musloid enemies put together, though, which is good enough.

    If numbers and ordinance were the sole criteria in determining relative strengths, then you are probably correct. In every major conflict Israel has been involved in we were out-manned and out-gunned and according to your understanding we should have lost each war.

    Jewish resistance of a few thousand fighters actually kicked the great British Empire out of Palestine. The Irish couldn’t do it in 700 hundred years.

  7. yamit82 says:

    Israel owes the world and so called humanity nothing. In our most critical periods the world turned their collective backs to us.

    If for no other reason the world should pay collectively for the conclusions of the Evian conference.

    It is not acceptable to go after innocent parties.

    You sound as bad as some Muslim extremists.

  8. Israel owes the world and so called humanity nothing. In our most critical periods the world turned their collective backs to us.

    If for no other reason the world should pay collectively for the conclusions of the Evian conference.

    The Evian Conference – Hitler’s Green Light for Genocide

    Conclusion

    ‘Nobody wants them’ claimed the German newspaper Völkischer Beobachter after the Evian Conference in July 1938 and Hitler gloated, saying, ‘It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them…..’

    After the annexation of Austria, and the Evian Conference, Hitler seemed to throw caution to the winds while the world stood by and allowed it to happen. As Martin Gilbert comments, “It was a neutral stance, not a hostile one, but this neutral stance was to cost a multitude of lives.”2 Murders, killings, torture and forced labour in concentration camps continued after Evian. In October Hitler marched into the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and four months after the Conference Kristallnacht, or ‘Night of the Broken Glass’ took place when thousands of Jewish shops and businesses were destroyed and many people arrested and killed. Although protest was again made in many parts of the world, the appeasement of Hitler and governments’ own agendas were paramount over helping the Jews. Humanitarian considerations were sacrificed to self-interest and after war was declared, the allies’ main thought was that of victory and the refugee problem was sidelined.Holocaust After war against the Nazis was eventually declared Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ to the Jewish problem resulted in the loss of around six million Jewish lives in the Holocaust.

    Hitler’s words to Major Hell in 1922 were, “Once the hatred and the battle against the Jews are really stirred up, their resistance will inevitably break down in short order. They cannot protect themselves and no one will stand forth as their defenders.” became ominously true. The Jews were unable to protect themselves as their leaders in various countries of the world were afraid to speak up too loudly for the fear of stirring up an anti-Semitic backlash. Governments, whither with or without foundation, were also afraid that refugees would be unwelcome at a time of unemployment, as, although the public were sympathetic to their cause, there was a general feeling of alarm in many countries that immigrants would “take local jobs.”

    As has been shown there was also an element of anti-Semitism among government ministers and officials at the highest level. Although they did not condone Hitler’s deportations, killings and atrocities against Jews, they did not want to offend the Reich government. For example, at Evian the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Germany’ were never used. Von Ribbentrop, now Germany’s Foreign Minister, had also threatened to retaliate against German Jewry if anti-German propaganda was made at the conference.3 Presidents and Prime Ministers were constrained by and accountable to Congress or Parliaments and their administrations and unwilling to take a stand against them. Some elements of the media also played a role in stirring up anti-Jewish feeling.

    Although it was known that Jews were being put into concentration camps, it could never have been envisaged in 1938 at the time of the Evian Conference that six million Jewish men, women and children would be horribly murdered, experimented on, tortured and suffer the worst atrocities that human beings could perpetrate in their evil and warped minds. This however cannot excuse the lack of willingness of fairly prosperous and democratic countries to help these refugees whom they knew were in desperate need. Although not always an easy task, if there had been the will, attempts could have been made by Governments to try to bring public and press opinion onto the side of the refugees and assuring native populations regarding jobs and the erroneous belief that Jews did not assimilate into their country of refuge. Although Jewish people had their own kosher food, religious laws, customs and festivals, they obeyed the laws of their country of adoption. They did not demand special treatment or legal exemptions for their religion but tried to live quietly and peacefully in spite of false accusations made against them, persecution and anti-Semitism. Much was made of the fact that Jews were an urban people who would not do well working in lands where agriculture was the main industry but Palestinian Jews proved this to be a false assertion as they had transformed desert land into fertile and vast crop growing areas. In fact Lord Winterton congratulated the Palestinian Jewish agriculturalists for their excellent work.4 Like every other group of people, some Jews could work successfully on the land while others were unsuitable for such work.

    Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, of Canada, did little, as he did not want to upset the province of Quebec but the anti-Semitic views of Quebec should not have influenced or shaped Government policy for the whole of Canada. The Australians also made the excuse of unemployment and an anti-Semitic backlash in a vast country that could have housed many new immigrants. British colonies could have taken many thousands of refugees and a greater attempt could have been made to negotiate with the Arabs regarding immigration to Palestine declared as a Homeland for the Jewish people in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. As Chaim Weizmann says of Britain, “Elegant parties were given by von Ribbentrop in the German Embassy and British society was falling over itself to attend. It was a social distinction to receive an invitation and Jewish blood which stained the hands of the hosts was ignored though it cried out to heaven.”5 Holocaust

    It appears, therefore, that for various reasons, no country was willing to offer sanctuary to large numbers of Jewish refugees. Sympathy abounded in most countries but when it came to helping refugees, each county looked to another to take them. Even although the harassment and killing of German and Austrian Jewry was well known, and caused public outcry, it was still considered an internal affair of the German government. As Adler-Rudel points out, “The Germans soon realised that no matter how they behaved it did not prevent foreign statesmen from shaking hands or dining with Nazi leaders.”6 The threat to jobs was cited as one reason, but unemployment, for example, in America, Britain and Australia was falling and even when immigrants do get jobs in their new country, they may be ones which are not being filled by the native population. After the annexation of Austria and Adolf Eichmann’s violent attempts to clear it of its Jewish population came the threat of expulsion of Polish and Rumanian Jewry. There was a great fear that a further large number of refugees would continue to flee Germany, and when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, the number would become a torrent. However, difficulty in finding places for refuge for those forced to emigrate is no excuse for giving up and leaving these refugees to the fate de

    creed by Nazi Germany.

    Those who spoke up for the Jews such as James Macdonald, Sir Neill Malcolm and Sir John Hope Simpson, who was very critical of restrictive policies towards refugees, were considered disloyal and a nuisance. They might cause trouble and problems for Governments and were therefore unsuitable for jobs that would enable them to speak out for refugees. Other individuals such as Eleanor Rathbone, a British MP, also tried to help the Jews, befriending many and helping them to immigrate to Britain. British diplomat Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, wrote from Berlin that the treatment of Jews and political opponents in concentration camps made the “Germans unfit for decent international society.”7 A senior colleague in the Foreign Office in London agreed. “The Germans”, he minuted, “are out to eliminate the Jews at any cost to the latter and nothing we can do or say will stop them.”8 In this air of futility very little was done to relax immigration laws. The Germans made things extremely difficult by refusing to allow Jews to take their money and possessions with them when they were expelled and most countries did not want to give refuge to penniless immigrants.

    While it is true that it is sometimes hard to assimilate people of a different faith and culture it is also true that it was ‘Christians’ who marginalized the Jewish people from before medieval times. They killed and expelled many who entered their land and those who were allowed to settle in many cases were forced into ghettos and separated from the rest of the population.

    Jewish leaders themselves had to stand by as their people were excluded from one country after another and their voluntary organisations did not have the funds to sponsor all the penniless refugees fleeing from the Nazis.

    As Chaim Weizmann said to Anthony Eden, “The fire from the synagogues may easily spread from there to Westminster Abbey and the other great English cathedrals. If a government is allowed to destroy a whole community which has committed no crime save that of being a minority and having its own religion, if such a government, at the heart of Europe, is not even rebuked, it means the beginning of anarchy and the destruction of the basis of civilization. The powers which stand looking on without taking any measures to prevent the crime will one day be visited by severe punishment.”


    Some wits who attended the Conference pointed out that Evian spelled backwards is NAIVE but for the Jewish people it was an extremely costly naivety.

  9. Yamit82 wrote:

    In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter in which he wrote:

    “Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow — it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away–unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans–have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?”

    This is the action of madness. I would not blame Israel for evaporating the Arab world should their country be overrun; but large sections of the planet have no real history of anti-semitism.

    North and South American have no real histories of anti-semitism. You will find isolated cases; but certainly America and Canada are not anti-semitic peoples.

    Most of South America, by virtue of its Latin history, may not have been a paradise for Jewry, but Argentina was at one time populated by 300,000 Jews who rose to be 2% of the population.

    Even Juan Peron has a Jewish advisor, José Ber Gelbard. At one point, Argentina was a haven for Jews. (The Jewish Gauchos).

    Yes, people got beat up and arrested from time to time, and that was wrong; but overall, the Western Hemisphere has been very tolerant of Jews.

    Leo Frank was a tragedy, but let’s us remember that there were 4 Jews on his jury.

    To advocate that the whole world, much of whom is innocent, be taken down is madness.

    Scandanavia, Ireland, Japan, the Western Hemisphere, India, Australia, New Zealand … have no real history of ogranized, official anti-Semitism for centuries. You might find Inquisitional crimes in pre-Independence Latin America, but that ended after 1810.

    Argentina let in Nazis, but chiefly because Peron erroneously thought he would be getting technical expertise instead of thugs. In any event, the Jewish community was so large in Argentina that they would have outnumbered the Nazis let in by an order of 10 to 1 or more. Peron recognized Israel in 1949. He was a strongman, not a Nazi. Even the Jewish Virtual Library admits this.

    Argentina did have a million German (3 million today) but these were old stock dating back decadeds before WW2.

    Official anti-semitism ended in the Anglophonic world after Cromwell.

    Ireland’s history of anti-semitism barely rose above the level of a few fistfights. A street brawl in 1904 in Cork, where no one was killed or seriously injured. And that might have been the booze talking.

    Outside of George Galloway , I am not aware of any real history of anti-semitism is post-Reformation Scotland.

    And the so called riots of 1948 in England occurred right after two British sargents were hung by the Irgun in Israel.

    To damn the whole world is madness.

  10. Israel’s enemies are currently engaged in trying out various forms of “asymmetrical” warfare.

    When Israel used cluster bombs in Lebanon 2, condemnations came from the Jewish left. Rob Eshman the editor of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles wrote an editorial condemning Israel for this use. An associate of mine wrote a detailed letter to the Jewish Journal and provided extensive documentation. Among his points were that the US required Israel to buy US manufactured cluster bombs which had a much higher percentage of duds than the Israeli design. Israel, at 1st tried precision weapons. However, the Hezbollah mode of fire and run made these precision weapons ineffective. Israel then tried an air dominated campaign. That too, did not suppress the weapons. After several attempts the only weapon that would be effective was an area suppression weapon. Hence, the use of cluster bombs. Unfortunately, a high percentage of the US manufactured cluster bombs were duds. Also unfortunately, children were attracted to these bombs and this resulted in child casualties. Here Israel (the IDF) rather than releasing the reconnaissance photographs showing that the Hezbollah was firing from courtyards within residential areas, from schools, from mosques, etc. withheld the footage until the Hezbollah story of wanton Israeli “misbehavior” was accepted as a world view. Then, when it was too late, the reconnaissance films were released.

    The message of Jenin was equally distorted by the Palestinians, by the UN, and by the world press. The accounts of hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian casualties turned out to be false. Again ,by the time the Israeli authorities released the documented facts, the world story had accepted the Palestinian Authority propaganda.

    2 lessons:

    1. Israel should do what is most effective since no matter what it does to face criticism. Israel may as well concentrate on saving IDF lives rather than vainly seeking the title of “the most humane army on earth.”

    2. Get your story out early. While the Arabs repeatedly make unfounded accusations which get the headlines, the Israeli responses “we will investigate and get back to you.”coed The propaganda victory by default to the Arabs.

    The father of a wealthy Armenian friend of mine told the story about the antthat said he would destroy the elephant. The ant crawled in the elephants rectum and started biting him. The elephant thrashed around in discomfort and finally beat his head against a stone wall. The Arabs are looking for the same asymmetrical advantage. In this they are aided by numerous Israeli NGOs, the urge of certain Israeli politicians to bring down the Netanyahu government, a world media who accepts the idea that the Palestinians are an underdog, and world public that wants to avoid anything that might be unpleasant and just go about worrying about gasoline prices, student loans, extended vacations, etc.

    Many of the entries and discussions on this site are quibbles among believers. The task should be to get on sites like the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Jewish Journal Los Angeles, Haaratz etc. and being informed and convincing discussants. While you may feel that this is like casting pearls before swine ,it is a job that is needed and so far has not been done as much as it should be done.

    Please be assured thas this a needed effort. These sites have more than their share of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel comments. When I review Haaratz I wonder how many of these people can exist with themselves.

  11. Thank you thank you very very interesting reading. The following did not link Israel and weapons of mass destruction

    Try these:

    Israel and weapons of mass destruction

    It is believed that Israel had possessed an operational nuclear weapons capability by 1967, with the mass production of nuclear warheads occurring immediately after the Six-Day War.[2] Although no official statistics exist, it has been estimated that Israel possesses from 75 to as many as 400 nuclear weapons, which are reported to include thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range. Israel is also reported to possess a wide range of different systems, including neutron bombs, tactical nuclear weapons, and suitcase nukes. Israel is believed to manufacture its nuclear weapons at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, a highly secretive nuclear installation located near Dimona.

    Delivery mechanisms include Jericho intercontinental ballistic missiles, with a range of 11,500 km, and which are believed to provide a second-strike option. Israel’s nuclear-capable ballistic missiles are believed to be buried so far underground that they would survive a nuclear attack. Additionally, Israel is believed to have an offshore nuclear second-strike capability, using submarine launched nuclear-capable cruise missiles, which can be launched from the Israeli Navy’s Dolphin-class submarines. Although the Israeli Air Force lacks strategic bombers to deliver nuclear weapons over long range, its F-15I and F-16I Sufa fighter aircraft are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

    190 liters of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a CWC schedule 2 chemical used in the synthesis of Sarin nerve gas, was discovered in the cargo of El Al Flight 1862 after it crashed in 1992 en route to Tel Aviv. Israel insisted the material was non-toxic, was to have been used to test filters that protect against chemical weapons, and that it had been clearly listed on the cargo manifest in accordance with international regulations. The shipment was from a U.S. chemical plant to the IIBR under a U.S. Department of Commerce license.

    In 1993, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment WMD proliferation assessment recorded Israel as a country generally reported as having undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities. Former US deputy assistant secretary of defense responsible for chemical and biological defense, Bill Richardson, said in 1998 “I have no doubt that Israel has worked on both chemical and biological offensive things for a long time … There’s no doubt they’ve had stuff for years.”

    Israel is believed to have developed an offensive biological warfare capability. The US Congress Office of Technology Assessment records Israel as a country possessing a long-term, undeclared biological warfare program. Israel is not a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). It is assumed that the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona develops vaccines and antidotes for chemical and biological warfare. It has not been possible to conclude whether Israel currently maintains an offensive biological weapons program: it is speculated that Israel’s retains an active ability to produce and disseminate biological weapons.


    ISRAELI WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION An Overview Anthony H. Cordesman Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy
    acordesman@gmail.com 1st Working Draft: June 2, 2008

  12. Thank you thank you very very interesting reading. The following did not link Israel and weapons of mass destruction

  13. From your “Wikipedia” link:

    The Jericho III ICBM, became operational in January 2008 [114][115] and some reports speculate that the missile may be able to carry MIRVed warheads.[116] The maximum range estimation of the Jericho III is 11,500 km with a payload of 1000–1300 kg (up to six small nuclear warheads of 100 kt each or one 1 megaton nuclear warhead),[4][117] and its accuracy is considered high.[118] In January 2008 Israel has carried out the successful test launch of a long-range, ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead from the reported launch site at the Palmachim air base south of Tel Aviv.[119] Israeli radio identified the missile as a Jericho III and the Hebrew YNet news Web site quoted unnamed defence officials as saying the test had been “dramatic”[120][121] and that the new missile can reach “extremely long distances,” without elaborating.[122] Soon after the successful test launch, Isaac Ben-Israel, a retired army general and Tel Aviv University professor who is now an MP, told Israeli Channel 2 TV:

    “Everybody can do the math and understand that the significance is that we can reach with a rocket engine to every point in the world

    The test came two days after Ehud Olmert, then Israel’s Prime Minister, warned that “all options were on the table to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons” and few months after Israel bombed Syrian facility that was suspected as nuclear plant, built with extensive help from North Korea.[123] At the same time, regional defence experts said that by the beginning of 2008 Israel has already launched a programme to extend the range of its existing Jericho II ground attack missiles.[115] The Jericho-II B missile is capable of sending a one ton nuclear payload 5,000 kilometers.[111] The range of Israels’ Jericho II B missiles is reportedly capable of being modified to carry nuclear warheads no heavier than 500 kg over 7,800 km, making it an ICBM.[124] It is estimated that Israel has between 50 and 100 Jericho II B missiles based at facilities which were built in the 1980s.[125] However, the number of Jericho III missiles that Israel possesses is unknown.

    It’s been said, that a person shouldn’t carry a gun unless he intends to use it.

  14. ‘Never Again‘, a term coined by R Kahane HY”D, and what he meant was that in future Jewish holocausts the Jews would not like in the past go willingly like sheep to their deaths.

    In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter in which he wrote:

    “Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow — it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away–unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans–have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?”

    In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel’s existence. Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst’s “The Gun and the Olive Branch” (2003) as saying:

    “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’ I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third.

    We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under

    Project Daniel

    Summary of recommendations

    The project discussed the danger from ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (WMDs), including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, particularly as Israel has such a high concentration of population.

    The recommendations of the report were that Israel should do anything possible to prevent an anti-Israeli coalition from being formed, and from that coalition gaining control of WMDs. It suggested Israel should retain the option of carrying out preemptive strikes, describing them as ‘anticipatory self-defense’. The strikes would be a combination of air strikes and selective covert operations by ground forces at certain critical (and publicly un-named) locations.

    It also recommended that Israel should retain its current policy of deliberate ambiguity regarding its nuclear status. If, at a later date, other states in the Middle East (particularly Iran) were to acquire nuclear technology that Israel perceived as a threat, then the Daniel Project recommended limited disclosure of Israel’s nuclear weapons capacity, as a deterrent.

    The final recommendation was that Israel should provide constructive support to the United States’ War on Terrorism, particularly in counter-terrorism operations.

    Israel and Samson. Biblical Insights on Israeli Strategy in the Nuclear Age.
    Louis Rene Beres
    Professor of International Law

    Israel may learn from Samson, not to “die with the Philistines,” but to live despite its enemies. How is this possible? The biblical Samson, blinded but not powerless, could destroy the Philistines only by inflicting his own death. And Israel is not blind, nor is it powerful in the sense of a physical strength born of religious faith joined with desperation. What, then, is there for Israel to learn from this hero of the post-Pentateuchal Book, Judges?

    First, Israel can learn that it must prepare to take hold of the enemy temple pillars, not because “last resort” options are of overriding importance in themselves (they are not of such importance), but because preparations for such options could make last resort scenarios for Jerusalem less likely. By taking steps to “die with the Philistines,” Israel would do far more than prepare for the Apocalypse. Enhancing Israel’s nuclear deterrence, preemption and warfighting capabilties, such steps could even push away the Final Battle, preserving the Jewish State by demonstrating national power and resolve. Read more

  15. Oh hell NO! I’ve heard BB called all sorts of names on this blog, but ANY deal to realse Bharghouti will backfire, even if Ovomit decides to pull an October surprise on Iran. I wouldn’t trust the spoken or written word of any offal in the Ovomit regime – including the POTUS turd himself.

  16. When I was preparing an article for Time magazine Barghouti said to members of our team:”when you kill an Israeli man or boy you eliminated one soldier, when you kill Israeli woman you have eliminated seven soldiers.” Currently, the Palestinian Authority is preparing for renewed terror against Israel. They have made very explicit that violence is still in their toolkit. Releasing him is of the same mindset that Shimon Peres exhibited when he said if Israel and the United States armed the Palestinians and they resorted to violence Israel could always get the weapons back. Unfortunately, Israel did not get the weapons back. What they got back were the bullets and explosives.

    Never again should include learning and being smarter. Never again should mean never again. Israel’s margin of error grows thinner and thinner.

  17. Israel to US; “We’ll release Barghouti the day after you install Charles Manson as Michelle, Malia, Sasha and your personal valet and hair-dresser”.

  18. Before doling out advice, the US should release Pollard forthwith.

    Come to think of it, how about the US release Pollard in return for Israel letting that murderer go.

    After all, one more Arab criminal let loose will not change the balance all that much. They are a snake pit full of them anyhow. But in order to restore the balance back somewhat, Israel, in parallel should let go so-called Jewish ‘right-wing’ prisoners. At least, from that bad deal, for once, real prisoners of Zion can benefit.

    And such a deal will reflect that the US government is on the Arab side.

  19. Jews are beyond stupid. The U.S. government has become used to dictating Israeli policies and they get upset whenever Israel hesitates to grovel.