via Lobe Log
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled an “October surprise” out of his hat when he announced his Likud party would form a joint list in the upcoming election with Avigdor Lieberman’s fascist Yisrael Beiteinu party. This is more of a partnership than a merger, but it has profound implications.
In [...]
via Lobe Log
Mitchell Plitnick discusses the implications of Netanyahu’s decision to repeat his call for early elections in Israel after his decision earlier this year to first call for, and then call off, such elections:
Early elections are appealing to Netanyahu in other ways. If his position is secure upon the re-election of [...]
via Lobe Log
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked Sept. 11 with “an unprecedented verbal attack on the U.S. government,” according to Barak Ravid ofHaaretz.
Netanyahu told reporters on Tuesday that “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to [...]
via Lobe Log
This weekend brought news of the latest set of inflammatory comments by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Shas — the ultra-Orthodox party that is currently the fourth largest party in Israel’s Knesset. Yosef — whose previous statements regarding Arabs and Gentiles have drawn similar controversy — said [...]
via Lobe Log
Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that [...]
This post originally appeared at Souciant.
Martin Dempsey is not a popular man in the halls of the Israeli Prime Minister’s office these days. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff incurred the wrath of Benjamin Netanyahu by pointing out the obvious: an Israeli attack on Iran would have dire consequences.
[...]
In response to a worrying trend in U.S. politics Lobe Log is launching “Iran Hawk Watch”. Each Friday we will post on notable militaristic commentary about Iran from a variety of sources including news articles, think tanks and pundits.
Mainstream Media and Pundits:
Washington Post: Neoconservative media spokesman Charles Krauthammer (who [...]
Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress
After a speech on Friday by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that implored Israel to make moves to thaw its cool relations with strategic partners and overcome its growing isolation, neoconservative commentators went bananas. Former Bush Mideast hand Elliott Abrams, speaking with neocon Washington Post [...]
Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said on CNN last night that the Obama administration is “friendly to Israel.” Amid accusations from neoconservatives and right-wing politicians that Obama has distanced himself from Israel, Barak said President Obama backs Israel even as he takes an evenhanded approach with the Palestinians to try to broker peace. [...]
Haaretz editor Aluf Benn has an interesting column in which he examines how Egypt’s revolution will impact Israel’s cost-benefit calculus of launching an air strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Benn argues that Mubarak was an important, if not crucial, ally for Benjamin Netanyahu in holding together a Sunni axis that stood against a [...]
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