Israel News Update

Compensation for security assets lost in peace deal with Palestinians seen as a possibility.

Israel is looking into the possibility that it will receive an arms package as compensation from the United States in the event that it reaches a peace agreement with the Palestinians that entails significant concessions, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Israel’s argument is that there is a need to compensate for security assets that would be lost under a deal that would necessitate a withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank.

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Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced his intention to continue moving forward with the second year of a two-year program of institutional capacity-building to lay the groundwork for a future Palestinian state at a cabinet meeting held in Ramallah on Monday.

A document released by Fayyad’s office forecasted that the PA would complete all the major reforms and initiatives necessary for the creation of an independent state within the coming year.

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The Palestinian Authority religious affairs minster, a week before peace talks in Washington, warned of war if Jerusalem is not “returned” to “its owners. And we are its owners.”

With PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in the audience, Mahmoud Al-Habbash declared in his Friday sermon, “Jerusalem can ignite a thousand and one wars,” according to a translation supplied by Palestinian Media Watch.

Unless Jerusalem “becomes the capital of the Palestinian people, there is no peace,” he warned. “The term ‘war’ will not be erased from the lexicon…as long as Jerusalem is occupied.

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Kuwait’s al-Rai daily says Lebanon-based group, Syrian army have created a joint military command, dividing potential war fronts.

The Lebanon-based Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah and the Syrian army have initiated a significant military cooperation in joint preparation for the possibility of a future armed conflict with Israel, the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai reported on Monday.

The report came as Syrian president Bashar Assad urged Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri earlier Monday to support Hezbollah and maintain calm in the divided country.

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Kuwait’s al-Rai daily says Lebanon-based group, Syrian army have created a joint military command, dividing potential war fronts.

The Lebanon-based Shi’ite militant group Hezbollah and the Syrian army have initiated a significant military cooperation in joint preparation for the possibility of a future armed conflict with Israel, the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai reported on Monday.

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Moscow is fully compliant in its agreements with Syria in the sphere of the military and technological co-operation, Russian presidential aide Sergey Prikhodko said.

“Some Israeli media have recently disseminated information distorting Russia’s position on honoring its commitments to Syria, including in the area of military-technological co-operation,” he told journalists on August 28.

“I would like to emphasize that the Russian Federation is fully honoring its earlier agreements with Syria,” Prikhodko was quoted by Interfax as saying.

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Excerpts:

Palestinian leaders were howling on Sunday after a prominent Israeli rabbi concluded his weekly sermon a day earlier by asking God to strike down Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and all other Palestinians who hate Israel.

The level of hypocrisy in the Palestinian reactions was astounding, considering the documented calls to murder not only Israelis but all Jews that are made in Palestinian mosques every Friday. Often those murderous Islamic sermons are broadcast on official Palestinian Authority television.

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Israel is reportedly preparing to strike arms depots and weapons manufacturing plants in Syria, claiming they belong to the Islamic resistance movement Hezbollah, a report says.

Tel Aviv has escalated its military presence in the occupied Golan Heights and the northern part of the Shebaa Farms, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz said, citing a report in the Saturday edition of the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai.

The report quoted European sources as saying that recent Israeli reconnaissance flights, which violated Lebanese and Syrian airspace, are indications that Israel is ready to start a war in the area.

The potential targets are located far inside Syrian territory, the report added.

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In an article published by the Atlantic Monthly, the author Jeff Goldberg intended to elicit an endorsement from President Barack Obama for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Yet, Goldberg undermines his case by making realistic forecasts on what the effects of an attack would be.

Media Matters reports that, “he predicts thousands of deaths – not only Iranians but also many Israelis probably American. Oil prices would skyrocket, Jews in the diaspora would come under attack, the United States would be embroiled in the worst Middle East crises ever, and Israel would become the ‘leper of nations.’”

Sounds sickening? Meanwhile, the senior fellow for Middle East Affairs at the extremely hawkish and neoconservative Heritage Foundation, James Phillips, produced a significant report that among other things, explains what Iranian retaliation to an Israeli attack would turn out to be. Here are his highlights:

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The West vacillates while Armageddon approaches

Russia turned on the switch to Iran’s first nuclear power plant on Aug. 21 after repeated delays and more than 15 years of construction. The hard-liners in Iran celebrated it as a victory over “the Great Satan,” repeating the famous phrase by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the Islamic revolution. Their message: America can’t do a damned thing.

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Israel has imposed tough restrictions on entry to al-Quds (Jerusalem), preventing many Palestinians from attending Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hundreds of Israeli troops were deployed and further checkpoints were installed in and around al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday to restrict the entry of Palestinian worshipers for the third Friday prayers of holy month of Ramadan.

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(JTA) — Israel and the United States reportedly are attempting to prevent missile sales to Lebanon and Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, in a bid to persuade him not to sell P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to Syria, Ha’aretz reported on Friday, and Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak is set to make the same case in Moscow this week. Israel’s case is that Hezbollah used Chinese-manufactured missiles purchased by Syria to target Israeli ships during the 2006 Lebanon war.

Meanwhile, Israel and the United States want to keep France from selling the Lebanese military HOT anti-tank missiles, Asharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned, London-based newspaper reported.

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White House document reveals American preparations for Israeli-Palestinian talks: President Obama to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah, call for painful concessions; permanent agreement to be signed within one year, implemented within 10 years.

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Russia stands by its international obligations and has no plans to stop an arms deal with Syria, a Kremlin aide said on Saturday.

Sergei Prikhodko said recent reports in some Israel media outlets misrepresented Russia’s position on cooperation with Syria.

The Haaretz daily reported on Friday that Israel was working to “thwart a Russian arms deal with Syria” and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to stop the sale of advanced P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles.

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Russian submarines are hunting down British Vanguard boats in a return to Cold War tactics not seen for 25 years, Navy chiefs have warned.

A specially upgraded Russian Akula class submarine has been caught trying to record the acoustic signature made by the Vanguard submarines that carry Trident nuclear missiles, according to senior Navy officers.

British submariners have also reported that they are experiencing the highest number of “contacts” with Russian submarines since 1987.

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Israel is planning to attack Hezbollah arms depots and weapons manufacturing plants in Syria, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported (Google-translated page) on Saturday. The report is based on Western sources who asserted that Israel has increased its military force level along the northern border in the Golan Heights and Mount Dov areas.

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DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

Excerpts:

On Aug. 6, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, DSCA, informed Congress of the sale to Israel of 60 million gallons of unleaded gasoline, 284 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and 100 million gallons of diesel fuel at an estimated cost of two billion dollars. The date is significant, debkafile’s intelligence sources find.  Ten days earlier, the Japanese tanker M.Star was attacked in Omani waters of the Strait of Hormuz with 200,000 tons of oil.

…Tehran published its response through an item on the Tabanak Website on Saturday, Aug. 28. It was headlined in large capitals: ISRAEL ORDERS MASSIVE MLITARY FUEL STOCKS FAR IN EXCESS OF THAT REQUIRED FOR NORMAL OPERATIONS. Our Iranian sources report that this site belongs to Mohsen Rezaei, ex-commander of the Revolutionary Guards and much respected in the highest Iranian military and intelligence circles.
The Iranian site goes on to cite bloggers’ comments, the most quoted of which comes from an anonymous ex-US Air Force officer, who wrote on Aug. 27:
“I explained, as I have in the past, how it would be necessary for the US to supply the massive amounts of fuel need for such a [-n Israeli] strike. If Israel were to strike Iran, Israel would only require the massive amounts of jet fuel and over a billion litres of jet fuel would be more that enough to do the job in practical terms.”

According to debkafile’s military experts, the shelf life of JP-8 jet fuel is not long – no more than six to eight months.

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Report: US envoy told LAF about IDF’s plan to another border incident.

The US warned Lebanon that if it did not prevent any recurrence of the border-fire incident that occurred earlier this month, the IDF would destroy the Lebanese Armed Forces within four hours, Israel Radio cited a report by Lebanese newspaper A-Liwaa on Friday.

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Right-wing Z-Street sues IRS over claims it withheld tax breaks because campaigners’ policies clashed with Obama’s: ‘This is a clear violation of the First Amendment.’

So is America’s Internal Revenue Service discriminating against Z Street on political grounds, dragging its feet in approving tax-exempt status for the pro-Israel right-wing group?

That’s what the organization, formed by two activists, Lori Lowenthal Marcus and Allison Rowen Taylor, to counter left-wing rivals like J Street, claimed in a lawsuit filed this week against the Commissioner of Internal Revenuein a U.S. court.

Z Street says it was told by an IRS official that its application for tax-exempt status had been held back because an IRS policy requires consideration of whether a group’s views on Israel differ from those of the current White House administration.

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Netanyahu asks Putin to stop deal involving sale of advanced P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles; Israel considers this weaponry dangerous to its navy vessels in Mediterranean Sea.

Israel is trying to prevent an arms deal between Russia and Syria, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to stop the arms sale involving advanced anti-shipping missiles.

The deal involves the sale of advanced P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missiles to the Syrian military. Israel considers this weaponry capable of posing significant danger to its navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.

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