Sometimes Things Don't Fit

US troops protect Iran from Israel?
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:05:18 GMT


Washington will not allow an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities while US troops are in Iraq, Israeli diplomatic sources claim.

According to a Monday report on Israel's Channel 10, unnamed Israeli sources said the presence of US troops in Iraq spoils chances of an Israeli strike on Iran, arguing that any military action would leave US forces stationed in Iraq vulnerable to Tehran's retaliation.

Tel Aviv has threatened to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear installations under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans to develop nuclear weaponry.

This is while, in its latest report on Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that it could not find any 'components of a nuclear weapon' or 'related nuclear physics studies' in the country.

In response to war threats, Iran has warned that it would not hesitate to target 'Israel and 32 US bases' in the region, should the country come under attack.

An Israeli official accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a visit to Moscow, however, declined to comment on the Channel 10 report. According to a senior Israeli official, Olmert is in Russia to persuade the country into not selling S-300 missile defense system to Iran.

Late in September, The Guardian quoted EU diplomatic sources as saying that US president George W. Bush in a one to one meeting with Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert on May 14 rejected the idea of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Bush not only ruled out the idea but insisted that his view would not change, according to The Guardian.

The Monday report comes as several Israeli military and Mossad officials, in an unexpected move on Sunday, endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Democrat Barack Obama has vowed direct talks with Iranian leaders over its nuclear activities. The Arizona Senator has also declared that he would remove US combat troops within 16 months of taking office in January, 2009.

However, Republican John McCain, a staunch supporter of the Iraq war, has refused to provide a timetable and has said that troops could remain in Iraq for 'a hundred years.'

Former Gaza Sector Commander, Brig.-Gen. Shaul Arieli said, "Obama is the right man for the job [of stopping Iran]."

The former Mossad agent, Alpher, said Republican candidate John McCain would continue the failed policies of the current US President.

"Four more years of indecisiveness would harm Israel," added former chief of the Army Central Command, Amram Mitzna.

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Israel will have to reinstate pre-1967 border for peace deal, Olmert admits

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 30 September 2008

The outgoing Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, has publicly acknowledged for the first time that "almost all" of the territory seized during the Six-Day War in 1967 will have to be given back in return for peace with the Palestinians.

In an interview with Israel's biggest-selling newspaper, Yedhiot Ahronot, in which he underlined the urgent need for an agreement to be reached while the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas remains in office, Mr Olmert warned that the alternative was "the very great danger that there will be a bloody clash, which will thwart any possibility of continuing negotiations".

Declaring that "what I am saying ... has not been said by any Israeli leader before me", Mr Olmert also went further than any member of his government in laying down some of the minimum requirements he believes he, or his successor will need to fulfil if there is to be a deal with Mr Abbas.

The Prime Minister, who has already announced his resignation in the face of a police inquiry into fraud and corruption allegations, insisted he would continue working for an agreement for the weeks or, if his successor as leader of the ruling Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni, fails to form a workable coalition, months before he has to stand down.

For the first time, Mr Olmert also told an interviewer that a "similar percentage" of territory would have to be given to the Palestinians in return for the most populous Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank which Israel aims to keep in any "final status" deal. He declared: "We face the need to decide but are not willing to tell ourselves. Yes, this is what we have to do."

He added: "In the end, we will have to withdraw from the lion's share of the territories and, for the territories we leave in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the State of Israel at a ratio that is more or less one to one."

An infuriated Knesset member in the right-wing Likud Yuval Steinitz, a former foreign and defence committee chairman, told Israeli Army Radio: "The Prime Minister's concession of the essential borders of defence is a gamble on the bone of existence and the future of the state of Israel".

But Mr Olmert's remarks also drew fire from the left. Yossi Beilin, the former leader of the doveish Mertez party, said: "Olmert has committed the unforgivable sin of revealing his true stance on Israel's national interest just when he has nothing left to lose."

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From The Sunday Times
October 5, 2008
Britons accused over roadside bomb network
Paul Henderson and Robert Watts

Two Iranian-born British men are accused of being part of a network supplying components for the roadside bombs which are killing coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The network, uncovered by American investigators, is alleged to have illegally shipped more than 30,000 electronic components from the United States to Iran via other countries.

The components are said to be identical to those used in some of the hidden bombs which have killed 2,000 coalition soldiers, including more than 200 British servicemen.

One of the accused is Farshid Gillardian, a 39-year-old whose family was given refuge in Britain after the 1979 Iranian revolution. He was arrested in his mother’s north London home two weeks ago.

His fellow accused, Ali Akbar Yahya, a 48-year-old businessman, disappeared from his flat in Dubai last month and neighbours say they know nothing of his whereabouts.

Both men are named in a 45-page United States grand jury indictment which draws on a three-year investigation into the smuggling of dual-use components.

It is understood the inquiries were prompted by the discovery of American-made electronics in an unexploded roadside bomb in Iraq.

The US authorities allege the British nationals are part of a network which breached export rules and embargoes to supply this type of equipment to Iran. Officials say the Iranians have supplied the components for many of the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) used against coalition troops.

Mario Mancuso, the US undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, described the network as a “lethal international ring seeking to harm American and allied forces . . . by acquiring sensitive US technology capable of producing IEDs similar to those being used in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

This weekend Gillardian’s friends and family described the allegations as “preposterous”. Karen Todner, his lawyer, said: “This man is no terrorist. As a devout Jew he is horrified he has been linked with Islamic terror in Iraq or Afghanistan. He categorically denies these charges.”

The Sunday Times has obtained a copy of the indictment filed to the Florida southern district court in Miami earlier this month.

It claims that eight men and eight related companies were part of a conspiracy to “illegally enrich” themselves by “unlawfully exporting electronic components and other commodities from the United States to Iran”.

The network included people in Iran, Dubai, Malaysia and Germany, as well as Britain. They bought the components from America because US electronics are considered more reliable, quicker to obtain and cheaper than those produced in Iran.

It is alleged that Yahya is a central figure in the network. He is a British citizen who ran or operated four of the companies from Dubai: Mayrow General Trading, Atlinx Electronics, Madjico Micro Electronics and Micatic General Trading.

Suspicion first fell on his Mayrow company in 2005 when an unexploded bomb in Iraq was found to have contained an American-made computer circuit. It is understood that the serial numbers and sales records showed that the circuit had been bought from a California company and had made its way through to Mayrow.

According to the indictment, further investigations have linked Yahya and his companies to the shipping of thousands of components from the United States to Iran, via Dubai.

The goods included 89 computer chips, 200 Ericsson DC/DC converters and 3,400 low-pass filters. All these goods have peaceful uses, but their export is strictly controlled because they can also be essential components of bombs.

Major Chris Hunter, a senior Ministry of Defence bomb analyst until last year, said: “This reads like a checklist of what you need to produce a radio-controlled IED, especially those armed with an EFP [explosively formed penetrator] - definitely the most lethal weapon the British Army has ever faced.”

Additional reporting: Abul Taher

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Study: Economic concerns to trigger anti-Semitism in US, Germany

New research behavior tool that predicts 'feeling trends' concerning economy reveals developing wave of potentially violent anti-Semitism in US, Germany
Ynetnews

A new behavior-research tool, Affective Encryption Analysis, has uncovered a dramatic trend in both the US and Germany—a developing wave of potentially violent anti-Semitism.


Affective Encryption Analysis, which was recently used to predict the outcome of the 2008 US Presidential election, uses naturalistic research methods to measure the way in which “feeling-trends” develop over time. It then forecasts the likely behavioral outcomes.


Using Affective Encryption Analysis, media psychologist, Dr. James N. Herndon, of Media Psychology Affiliates, led an investigation to predict long-term “feeling-trends” concerning the economy.


Population samples in both the US and Germany were chosen as indicators of both US and European feelings toward economic conditions.


“Our results showed far greater feelings of dread about the economic future than we currently find in mainstream survey research,” stated Dr. Herndon. “In fact, almost 70 percent of our sample expressed a precipitously declining sense of economic stability. This was especially strong among the lower-middle-class,” he added.


'Scapegoating Israel'


“What we did not expect was a widespread association of economic problems with support for Israel. This belief appears to be growing exponentially in both the US and in Germany,” he said.


“We currently have worryingly low rates of savings and capital investment, combined with systemic unemployment and an ever-increasing spiral of debt and inflation,” said Dr. Herndon.


“If current trends are left unchecked, we believe that by late 2007, a feeling of economic desperation will begin to overtake large sectors of the lower-middle-class in the US, as well as the welfare-dependent classes in Germany,” he warned.


“Our results strongly suggest that this will provide the emotional trigger for the scapegoating of Jews, toward whom feelings in our sample were unexpectedly negative, and often violent.”


“The bottom line is that increasing numbers of persons at the economic margins believe that their economic interests are being ignored in favor of a foreign power, namely, Israel. Feelings about Jews and Israel are also associated with strife and insecurity, not peace and prosperity,” he explained.


Expecting violent reaction


A surprising forecast was that anti-Semitic behavior will predominate among nominally Christian, and not Muslim, groups.


“Unlike more ideologically-oriented Muslim groups, post-World War Two westerners in the so-called first-world are more driven by economic comfort and security. When their economic underpinnings are jeopardized, we can expect a violent reaction. And violence is rarely rational.”


“We believe that unrest will begin in the US Southwest. And in Germany, in areas of former East Germany. As with most emotionally-driven mob behavior, it will spread. Containing it will be difficult.”


Dr. Herndon emphasized the need to be proactive.


“Media exists to manage feelings. Our results strongly suggest that Jewish and Israeli organizations, in particular, are in the process of rapidly losing control of their PR initiatives. Opinion leaders in both the US and Europe must not stand-by passively as these trends develop.”


“I would characterize the anecdotal results of our research as frankly horrifying. A new strategy to diffuse these growing perceptions is clearly in order. This is one time where we cannot afford for history to repeat itself,” he concluded.

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ADL Reports Surge in Anti-Semitic Messages on Online Finance Sites in Response To Money Crisis

New York, NY, October 2, 2008 … In the wake of the collapse of major investment banks and the government's proposed bailout of financial institutions, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is reporting a dramatic upsurge in the number of anti-Semitic statements being posted to Internet discussion boards devoted to finance and the economy.



Hundreds of anti-Semitic posts regarding Lehman Brothers and other institutions affected by the subprime mortgage crisis have been submitted to discussion boards dealing with finance, with many more arriving by the minute. The messages rail against Jews in general, with some charging that Jews control the government and finance as part of a "Jew world order" and therefore are to blame for the economic turmoil.



Anti-Jewish invective also has surfaced on a wide variety of blogs and conspiracy Web sites, according to ADL, which monitors anti-Semitism on the Internet through its Center on Extremism. And similar messages have also appeared on neo-Nazi and white supremacist Web sites and Internet forums, which frequently seek to exploit current issues in an effort to spread anti-Semitism to potential recruits.



"We know from modern history that whenever there is a downturn in the global economy, there will be an upturn in the level of anti-Semitism and bigotry, and that is what we are seeing now," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "The age-old canards about Jews and money are always just beneath the surface. As we witnessed after 9/11, whenever there is trouble or uncertainty in the economy or world events, Jews become the scapegoats, and ugly anti-Semitic canards are given new life."



Examples of some of the more virulent anti-Semitic posts to mainstream Finance message boards include:



* "(Jews have) infiltrated Wall Street and Government and have ruined our country."
* "What is a GS Jew? Goldman Sachs? Jews are greedy, rotten slime balls."
* They (Jews) love money nothing else, no faith or religion can be so heartless to their victims."
* That's how they work they short the stock all the way making billions and then cover right it up sell and then taxpayers to the rescue and it is true all those institutions are ran by Jews …."
* More

While operators of the most popular finance message boards, including those hosted by Yahoo! Finance, have been quick to remove offensive comments, the rate at which new posts are arriving prevents them from removing all of the objectionable material before it is widely read. In many cases, other individual members of the groups have immediately responded against the anti-Semitic comments, decrying the messages as bigoted, inappropriate and categorically false. In recent weeks since the crisis started to unfold, many Internet users have reported their concerns directly to ADL.



"The good news is that providers of Internet services and moderators of message boards and even individual users are quick to react whenever anti-Semitism enters the discussion," said Mr. Foxman. "The service providers are responsive, and in most cases the offensive messages are quickly removed. But in many cases -- especially with online discussions that occur in real time and are closely followed by large groups of users -- the damage is already done."



Similar anti-Semitic sentiments about the economy are appearing with great frequency on white supremacist Web sites such as Stormfront, the largest Internet forum for white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Posts and discussions on Stormfront have included references to Jewish control of the banking industry and suggestions that Jews hold complete power over government and the financial services sector.



Wrote one poster on Stormfront of the collapse of Lehman Brothers: "No doubt many of the board of directors, which is usually composed of the major shareholders that wield power, are still largely Jewish … I would imagine the likelihood of the Fed etc. bailing the company out depends largely to what degree it is Jewish owned."