The Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law of 1950 exempted the members of the Judenräte, the senior accomplices with the Nazis, those who organised, rounded up, registered, collected and handled the Jews en route to the trains which transported them to Auschwitz and Treblinka, and targeted the kapos, the minor Jewish “aides” in the camps, who slapped or hit other victims in the food allocation line, in the bunks, or during roll call. Judenrät members, only a few of whom survived to reach Israel, were often closely associated with the establishment and major political parties. Some, a handful, later held public and political positions in the young state. They were not targeted by the law, nor perceived as Nazi “accomplices”. In fact they were granted a kind of immunity.

Hannah Arendt suggested that the complicity of the Judenräte actually increased the Holocaust’s death toll. She wrote:

The whole truth was that if the Jewish people had really been unorganized and leaderless, there would have been chaos and plenty of misery but the total number of victims would hardly have been between four and a half and six million people.

The same political parties are still in power. That is why Arendt, and now Zertal, are unpersons. And to connect directly with the article below, let me give you this from Zertal:

This message could not be tolerated by a nation that teaches its children about the Holocaust only through its direct link with the state, and sends its sons and daughters on death camp pilgrimage so that they will return as fortified Jews and Israelis with a reinforced national identity, and readiness to face imminent holocausts and the evil they themselves will have to commit in defense of the state and to ward off a future Holocaust or the ghost of a Holocaust.

- RB

Israel’s never-ending Holocaust
Merav Michaeli, Haaretz, Jan 30 2012

Haaretz appeared to be gripped by panic after the Guttman Center-Avi Chai Foundation poll on religion came out last week, as could be seen in the frenzied front-page headline in Friday’s paper: “Survey: record number of Israeli Jews believe in God”. But the newspaper wasn’t panicking about the right thing. Yes, there has been an increase in Israelis’ attachment to Judaism over the past decade, but that means the situation has more or less returned to what it was two decades before that. This same poll was first conducted in 1991, and its results were similar to those of the latest survey. A second one was done in 1999, after the bulk of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union had arrived in the country, but had yet to completely assimilate; this explained the dip in Israeli Jews’ attachment to religion at the time. A decade later, those immigrants have internalized the cultural codes of Israeli society. Throw in an enlarged Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox population that has counterbalanced the secularism the Russian-speaking immigrants brought with them, and the proportion of Israelis who subscribe to traditional Jewish beliefs remains virtually unchanged over the past 20 years.

The issue that should have sparked panic in the survey is the total consensus among Israeli Jews, regardless of religious, ethnic or political differences, that the “guiding principle” for the country and for Judaism itself is “to remember the Holocaust.” 98% of the respondents consider it either fairly important or very important to remember the Holocaust, attributing to it even more weight than to living in Israel, the Sabbath, the Passover seder and the feeling of belonging to the Jewish people. The Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself. And that definition is narrow and ailing in the extreme, because the Holocaust is remembered only in a very specific way, as are its lessons. It has long been used to justify the existence and the necessity of the state, and has been mentioned in the same breath as proof that the state is under a never-ending existential threat. The Holocaust is the sole prism through which our leadership, followed by society at large, examines every situation. This prism distorts reality and leads inexorably to a foregone conclusion, to the point that former Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau announced at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony three years ago that Moses was the first Holocaust survivor. In other words, all our lives are simply one long Shoah.

As a country, as a nation, Israel has never confronted the trauma of the Holocaust. The shock from the terrible tragedy and the guilt feelings of the pre-state Yishuv leadership for not being able to save the Jews of Europe, plus the presence of the men and women who survived and were constant reminders of both traumas, prompted Israel to repress the Holocaust at first, and then to turn it into a placard in the service of the national trauma, to reinforce the constant existential fear and the aggressiveness that comes with it. The survivors themselves have never been treated right. Just yesterday it was reported, once again, that half of Israel’s Holocaust survivors are dependent on welfare stipends and that the government has once again reduced its support of them. At the same time, the “Hitlers” are always there: Just a week ago, Netanyahu said for the nth time that there is no shortage of those who want to exterminate us completely. In other words, there is no lack of reasons to continue to reinforce the fear of the Holocaust, which according to his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, has never ended.

So it is that we don’t have any rivals, adversaries or even enemies. Only Hitlers. This is how the Holocaust is taught in school, this how it is that Israeli students are taken to visit death camps, and how it came to be that, as Haaretz reported on Friday, just 2% of Israeli youth feel committed to democratic principles after studying the Holocaust and 2.5% identify with the suffering of other persecuted nations, but 12% feel committed to “significant” service in the IDF. That’s the way it is with traumas. Because of our human limitations, a trauma that is not dealt with makes us constantly see yet another trauma approaching, even when whatever is coming has no connection to the previous trauma and may even be a good thing. Trauma leads to belligerence and a strong tendency to wreak havoc on one’s surroundings, but first and foremost on oneself. What we consider rational is actually a frightened, defensive, aggressive pattern. Our current leaders have made Israeli Judaism just a post-traumatic syndrome, while they lead us to self-destruction.

What is the GCC up to in Syria?
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, Jan 30 2012

The Arab League has a new draft UNSCR (pdf) to “solve” the Syrian saga. World public opinion may be fooled into believing this is an altruistic Arab solution to an Arab problem. Not really. First of all this is a draft resolution of NATO/GCC. By now, after their “success” in blasting regime change into Libya, NATO/GCC should be well known as the axis between the European poodles of the Pentagon and the six monarchies that compose the GCC. This draft UNSCR goes one step beyond the so-called Arab League transition plan laid out over a week ago. Now the spin is of a “political roadmap” that essentially means Assad stepping down, his vice president installed in power for a transition, the formation of a national unity government, and free and fair elections with international supervision. According to the Foreign Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani:

The president will delegate his first vice president the full power to work with the national unity government to enable it to perform its task in the transitional period.

It sounds very civilized but it hides the real agenda of UNSC-imposed regime change. A quick look at the draft resolution also reveals a two-week deadline for Assad to get out of Dodge; if not, expect hell, “in consultation” with the Arab League. “Arab” League is now a fiction; what’s really in charge is the Arab Gulf league, or GCC league; in practice, the House of Saud. Even aspiring regional superpower Qatar plays second fiddle. And everyone else, they are just extras. So here we have the House of Saud and its Gulf minions detailing a road map for regime change followed by full Western parliamentary democracy, and places like the UAE and Kuwait defending human rights in Arab lands. It’s as if this whole thing was a joint plan concocted by dadaist Tristan Tzara and surrealist Andre Breton with a Monty Python twist. Not surprisingly, the Syrian government rejected the draft resolution as a “blatant intervention in its internal affairs”, according to the SANA news agency. Syrian ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari was even more graphic:

Syria will not be Libya. Syria will not be Iraq. Syria will not be Somalia. Syria will not be a failing state.

Russia, which alongside China had already vetoed a previous Western-redacted resolution, has already buried this one. For starters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov couldn’t understand why the Arab League suspended its monitoring mission in Syria this past Saturday. Instead, Lavrov would “support an increased number of observers.” Russia, which in no time learned the lessons of the open-ended UNSCR on Libya, has its own draft resolution, which according to Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin privileges a “Syrian-led political process,” not “an Arab League-imposed outcome of a political process that has not yet taken place,” or worse yet “regime change” à la Libya. Russia, unlike the West, ascribes the now non-stop violence in Syria to both the Assad regime and the “rebels”. Even the GCC League has somewhat admitted that there are shabbihah on both sides, those on the “rebel” side affiliated with the already discredited Free Syrian Army. Even though there are no objective conditions whatsoever for a NATO bombing of Syria, the NATO/GCC/Israel geopolitical axis will pursue its objectives relentlessly. The objectives are vast: exercising total control over any Arab Spring-related transition (as in the case of Yemen); preventing any changes to the status quo (as in pre-emption in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco); outright repression (as in the case of Bahrain); and preferably getting their cake and eating it too (as in the case of Libya).

But Syria is infinitely more complex: because of the Iranian connection; because BRICS members Russia and China will block any regime change scheme; because there have been no significant cracks among the Syrian military (well, one general at least has defected – RB); and because the Assad regime is expert in navigating the divisions between a Sunni majority and the Alawite minority. So the GCC League was successful in Yemen, controlling the “transition” and even having Saleh sent to the US. It has been relatively successful in Egypt; even though Mubarak was kicked out, the military establishment is very much alive and kicking, and to top it off, the new parliament boasts a huge Islamist majority. Our heart goes out to the youngsters who actually started everything in Tahrir Square and are left with nothing. Even the venerable stones in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus know that the Syrian National Council (conveniently exiled in NATO members Turkey and France) is being financed by the House of Saud and Qatar. So expect more GCC-financed weapons to continue raising hell in Syria, now even in some Damascus suburbs. No wonder the GCC League had to pull out its “monitors”; they would have to roundly denounce the very people they are arming. Even King Abdullah of Jordan, who was the first Arab potentate on the record to want to topple Assad, has been forced to admit:

I don’t see Syria going through many changes. It’s a very complicated puzzle and there is no simple solution, if you can imagine Iraq being a simple solution. And it’s different in Libya, so it has everybody stumped, and I don’t think anybody has a clear answer on what to do about Syria.

By the way, there are pro-democracy protests in GCC member Jordan virtually every day; but not a peep will be heard about it in Western corporate media. “Liberated” Libya totally disappeared from the Western triumphalist narrative, even as Amnesty International now has evidence of systematic torture in makeshift mini-gulags, and Médecins Sans Frontières decided to leave Misrata for good after being asked by those formerly known as “rebels” to treat victims of torture, so they could be tortured again. Which leads us to the ghastly equivalence between the “transitional councils” in both Libya and Syria. Their undisguised masters were and are NATO/GCC. Russia may have its own agenda in Syria, but at least the Russians know hardcore violence is being served as much by the Assad regime as by the Syrian National Council and the Free Syria Army. King Playstation at least got one thing right: no one has a clue on what to do about Syria. So it’s Assad on one side against NATO/GCC on the other, with average Syrians covering a wide spectrum of opinion squeezed in the middle. Rumors swirl about a possible plan C: a bazaar-style deal, over endless cups of green tea, between Assad and the House of Saud. That’s unlikely; the GCC League wants the whole tray of sweets, and to eat them too.

The peace doves are taking to the skies above the Hindu Kush in droves. So many have appeared that it is becoming difficult to tell which are the clay pigeons. The NYT says talks have begun in Qatar between US and Taliban diplomats. Yesterday’s news was that talks would commence in a few weeks. US AfPak rep Marc Grossman, whom Pakistan embargoed and who therefore chose to travel to Qatar via Delhi, has apparently met with his Taliban counterparts. I wonder whether Grossman told the folks in Delhi what was on his mind. It’s unlikely. Even after Grossman’s consultations in Delhi, India still regards the Taliban as forces of darkness. Never mind. India is peripheral and its opinions are of no consequence to Washington, which is already working out the modalities of transfer of the Taliban POWs in Guantanamo Bay to Qatar, as demanded by Grossman’s Taliban counterparts. Grossman apparently finalised the POW deal while in Qatar. Now, when everything seems to be going honky dory, Karzai abruptly muddies the waters. His aides have revealed that on yet another track, Kabul government is also planning to engage the Taliban, but in Saudi Arabia. A senior aide said:

Even if the Taliban office is established in Qatar, we will obviously pursue other efforts in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

What one can make out from this bizarre development is that although the US twisted Karzai’s arm to such an extent that it really would have hurt like mad and might have forced him to sit on the floor and cry ‘Da, da, da, da, da‘ repeatedly to Qatar, he probably didn’t have his heart in it and his distaste for Qatar lingers like a foul smell in the mouth. Evidently, Karzai sees that the US and the Qataris get along like a house on fire and may strike a secret deal at some point over finessing the Taliban, which would be at his expense. So, he is likely ensuring he too has an act of his own where he is in command. Karzai is smart enough to capitalise on the suspicions Saudis too harbour about these Qatari upstarts who think no end of themselves as the new regional powerhouse in the Persian Gulf, usurping the House of Saud.

But that isn’t all. Karzai is also looking hard at the Pakistani offer lying on his table to resuscitate their bilateral civil-military commission for engaging the Taliban in reconciliation talks. The only hitch is that he insists that before he visits Islamabad again, a Pakistani VIP should first travel to Kabul and formally invite him. Protocol is protocol, after all. Accordingly, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is travelling from Islamabad to Kabul on Wednesday to meet up with Karzai. However, the real stunner is that Afghanistan and Pakistan are also preparing the next session of their trilateral forum with Iran. Yes, the very same Iran which is besieged currently by 3 US aircraft carriers and British destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz. It seems Ahmedinejad may travel to Islamabad to meet up with Karzai and Zardari at a summit meeting in February. Clearly, the peace process is mutating uncontrollably. Some expert surgical intervention will be needed at some point, and that is going to be messy since the mutation is happening so rapidly. The crucial challenge for the oncologist is going to be to determine which one is the real, genuine, benign Taliban and which one is the malignant pretender: the one in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, or the one in Quetta and North Waziristan. It all boils down to making out the real clay pigeons. Only a seasoned falconer can tell. Pakistan knows, for sure, but it won’t tell; at least, not until 2014.

Pak-Afghan peace initiative kicks off
M K Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline, Jan 30 2012

The high probability is that the real Taliban are to be found in the upcoming Afghan peace talks in Saudi Arabia. It now emerges that the peace talks in Saudi Arabia will have the participation of the Afghan and Pakistani governments and the Taliban. If so, it can be guaranteed that Pakistan would make sure that the real Taliban show up for the talks. The Pakistani and Afghan governments both feel slighted by the US. In a candid commentary in measured tone, Xinhua used the word ‘ignored’. Obviously, the US are keen on retaining their leadership role, while professing that the talks will be ‘Afghan-led’ and that Pakistan will play a key role. Neither Kabul nor Islamabad accepts that. Nor would they allow the US to get away with its monopoly over the peace process. In short, they have a congruence of interests in inserting themselves into the locomotive of the peace process as co-pilots alongside Uncle Sam.

With the US diplomats and their ‘good Taliban’ counterparts in Qatar making haste, Kabul and Islamabad sense the urgency of moving in tandem. Pakistani FM Hina Rabbani Khar’s mission to Kabul on Wednesday can be expected to do the groundwork for the revival of the AfPak joint commission for reconciling the Taliban talks. Needless to say, Khar will carry with her to Kabul the assurance that the Pakistani military leadership is on board. Indeed, Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani and ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha can be expected to participate in the AfPak joint commission in Islamabad. Presumably, ISI would have got through to the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani network as well by now about the gravitas of the joint commission. Saudi Arabia, of course, would have far more compelling credentials than Qatar (which is new to the Afghan problem) to be the facilitator of talks with the Taliban. Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki Al-Faisal was virtually the Taliban’s mentor in the 1990s almost up until 9/11. Saudi Arabia was one of the three countries that accorded diplomatic recognition to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 1996. The Saudis also have varied relationships with the Afghan Mujahideen as well as the religious parties in Pakistan. Thus, the Saudi peace track is destined to gain traction in no time, unlike the Qatar track that is struggling to take shape.

Yet, how far all this is going to lead to a substantive peace process remains far from clear. Kabul and Islamabad happen to have a common grouse at present against the US. But then, they also have longstanding mutual antipathies, which are waiting to erupt again. Unless the US-Pakistan tensions ease significantly, the peace talks won’t get very far and the Pakistani public mood is quite “anti-US”. If there is a conflagration in the Persian Gulf involving the US and Iran in the coming months, all bets are off. There could be adverse fallouts in all Muslim countries as anti-US sentiments would cascade. Tehran is highly unlikely to torpedo the AfPak track, but having said that, it also has its legitimate interests to safeguard. Again, at the moment, the climate of Saudi-Iranian ties is very poor. Amidst all this gloom, however, the good thing is that the US’s game plan to prescribe the trajectory of the peace talks and to retain its monopoly of conflict resolution in Afghanistan is coming under serious challenge. The crux of the matter is that the US military presence in Afghanistan is increasingly becoming untenable.

Interestingly, while on a visit to Paris on Friday, Karzai and Sarkozy made a joint appeal to NATO and the US to bring forward the troop drawdown schedule by an year and to end the combat mission by end-2013 instead of end-2014 (as declared by Obama). Karzai demanded that the western alliance should leave Afghanistan by end-2013. Brussels refused to react to the demand. Conceivably, Pakistan would concur with Karzai’s stance. That would give impetus to speed up the commencement of talks in Saudi Arabia. Read the AFP report featured in Dawn newspaper.

US anticipates May as tentative date for clash with Iran
DEBKAfile, Jan 30 2012 (extract)

A hurried decision not to decommission the helicopter marine carrier Ponce after duty in Libya, but to refit it for deployment by May in the Persian Gulf as a floating base for commando teams, was confirmed by the US Pentagon and Navy on Dec 29. The US Defense Dept aims to get the Ponce ready for its new mission as a floating commando base with all possible speed. To save time, the US military published one no-bid contract for the engineering work, waiving normal procurement rules on the grounds that any delay presented a “national security risk.” The contract carries pointers to the timeline expected in Washington for a military confrontation to erupt between the US and Iran, as well as the form it may take, say DEBKAfile’s military sources. The target date for deploying the commando platform in the Persian Gulf in four or five months indicates Washington is preparing for military clashes to blow up with Iran in the late spring or early summer.

Netanyahu began calling Likud central committee members personally over the weekend, urging them to get out the vote in Tuesday’s party primary, sources close to the prime minister said Sunday. Netanyahu made a point of calling key central committee members in Jerusalem, where a political deal could end up helping his competition, Likud activist Moshe Feiglin. There are 8,700 Likud members in Jerusalem, which is the party’s largest branch. About 1,400 Likud members in Jerusalem were recruited to the party by Feiglin’s Manhigut Yehudit organization. Netanyahu’s allies expressed concern that due to the deal, the Feiglin supporters who vote could outnumber the rest of the Likud members in the capital who show up at the polls. Mishael Ben-Ami, current head of the branch, said:

Netanyahu needs to make sure there are 3,000 people who come to vote in Jerusalem. Even if he wins the election nationwide by a landslide, it would be a real blow if he loses in Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s enemy is not Feiglin, who is not taken so seriously. Netanyahu’s main enemy is complacency.

No Manhigut Yehudit members from Jerusalem were elected to the central committee the last time an election was held for the committee nearly a decade ago, due to deals that were made and broken. This time, Feiglin’s supporters have made sure they will be well represented. Feiglin’s representative in Jerusalem, Dr Nitza Kahane, worked out a deal with a group of Jerusalem vote contractors led by Dudu Amsalem, Yisrael Yehoshua, amd Yitzhak Kaufman. Some smaller ideological groups in the Jerusalem branch are also part of the deal. If the deal is honored, Manhigut Yehudit and their ideological allies will control half of the Likud central committee slots from Jerusalem and 45% of the Jerusalem branch council. Netanyahu’s allies said it was possible the members signed up by the vote contractors would not bother showing up to vote knowing the deal made their votes in the central committee election superfluous. This would harm Netanyahu in the leadership race. Ben-Ami said:

I am out of the deal and against deals. I want people to come and vote Netanyahu. There are central committee members in Jerusalem who considered riding on Netanyahu’s back in the election but instead, they made a deal and put a knife in his back.

Ben-Ami said there were 50 similar deals in branches around the country. He said Jerusalem was a microcosm for the rest of the country. Kahane, who is the late Meir Kahane’s daughter-in-law, downplayed the fears of Netanyahu’s allies that the deal would harm the prime minister, saying:

We decided not to put Feiglin in the deal, because it couldn’t work. I wish it were true that only the Feiglin supporters would come and vote. But people will come and vote for whoever they believe in. The deal is intended to ensure the revival of the Likud’s Jerusalem branch, which has had almost no political activity for nearly 10 years. There is a lot of hatred and bad blood there, a lot of divisiveness. Our goal was to end the tension in the branch.

Bribes, Chinese Mob Ties Alleged at Casino
of Gingrich Money Man (extracts)
Brian Ross, Matthew Mosk, Cindy Galli,
Rhonda Schwartz, ABC News, Jan 27 2012

The casino company run by Sheldon Adelson has been under criminal investigation for the last year by the Dept of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission for alleged bribery of foreign officials, according to corporate documents. In a separate civil lawsuit, a former executive of the company has alleged that Adelson ordered him to keep quiet about sensitive issues at the Sands casinos on the Chinese island of Macau, including the casinos’ alleged “involvement with Chinese organized crime groups, known as Triads, connected to the junket business.” The triads are allegedly involved in organizing high stakes gambling junkets for wealthy Chinese travelers. In its filings with the SEC, Adelson’s company says it became aware of the investigation in Feb 2011 when it received a subpoena from the SEC requesting “documents relating to its compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” The company said it “intends to cooperate with the investigation,” which it said may have been triggered by the allegations in the lawsuit by Steven C Jacobs, a former Sands executive who says he helped run the Macau operation. The federal investigation was first reported last year by Las Vegas newspapers and the financial press. At a gaming forum last year, Adelson said the lawsuit “is not a serious case” and that the federal investigations would find no wrongdoing, adding:

When the smoke clears, I am 1,000% positive that there won’t be any fire below it.

The billionaire owns 49% of the Sands casino company and as chairman, is directly involved in its operations. Its operations in Macau have made the Sands the world’s leading gambling operation. But the company operates where corruption is described as “a major and growing problem,” according to a 2011 report from the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China. The commission found:

The growth of gambling in Macau, fueled by money from mainland Chinese gamblers and the growth of US-owned casinos, has been accompanied by widespread corruption, organized crime and money laundering.

The Venetian-Macao, a casino owned by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, was also the subject of a reported sex-trade crackdown that occurred in 2010, on the same day Adelson arrived on the island for meetings with government leaders in Macau, according to published accounts in 2010. Chinese press reported that authorities found more than 100 prostitutes inside the casino. Jacobs alleges in his lawsuit that Adelson demanded that Jacobs refrain from telling the corporate board of Sands China about issues including “junkets and triads.” He also alleges that Adelson wanted to investigate high-ranking Macau officials to provide him “leverage” to thwart any initiatives that would hurt the company. Ko-lin Chin, a Rutgers University criminal justice professor who is one of the leading experts on Chinese organized crime, said:

The triads are making a ton of money off the gambling industry. They are still there, they are still very active.

Adelson said at the gaming forum last year the lawsuit “is pure threatening, blackmailing and extortion” and said the case created a “foundation of lies” upon which the subsequent investigations have been based. He told the WSJ in March:

We have a substantial list of reasons why Steve Jacobs was fired for cause and interestingly he has not refuted a single one of them. Instead, he has attempted to explain his termination by using outright lies and fabrications which seem to have their origins in delusion.

Last year, a judge rejected a motion by Las Vegas Sands to dismiss the case.

Postponed Israel-US Drill to be Held in October
Elad Benari, Israel National News, Jan 27 2012

The largest-ever anti-missile military exercise with the US, which Israel postponed a week and a half ago, will be held in October, Ma’ariv reported on Thursday. The report said that the decision to hold the exercise in October was reached late on Thursday night, after lengthy discussions between defense officials. Austere Challenge 12 was postponed on Jan 15 for what Israel said were technical reasons. Ma’ariv reported that the postponement was initiated by Israel and was agreed upon by the US. After the drill was postponed, the report said, security officials denied that the postponement was linked to economic reasons and suggested that at this time of year we should not attract attention, but should prepare for complex challenges which lay ahead. Ma’ariv also noted that in preparation for the drill, US military officers will arrive in Israel next week. About 3,000 US soldiers are expected to arrive in Israel to take part in the large-scale exercise, the report said, and they will be joined by about 2,000 IDF soldiers.

Netanyahu is expected to inform Likud ministers on Sunday that any Likud minister who votes for the Outpost Law will be fired from the government. The bill, authored by Minister Zevulun Orlev (Jewish Home), would forbid eviction and demolition orders for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that have stood for four years and have at least twenty families. It also stipulates that all petitions disputing land claims must be proven through accepted evidentiary means in a court competent to hear the case. Should such a claim be found valid, the court would be directed to order monetary compensation or alternative grant of land for the plaintiff. Netanyahu, who has pointedly refused to bring the law to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation for several weeks in fear it will pass over his objections, wishes to ensure the law fails in the Knesset plenum. Without the backing of the Ministerial Committee, laws generally fail to garner sufficient support to be passed into law. But Netanyahu and his office are painfully aware that many Likud ministers and faction heads intend to back the law, irrespective of his position.

Orlev is expected to put the Outpost Law on the Knesset agenda, even without the Ministerial Committee’s endorsement, on Monday. Observers say the Outpost Law would could then be brought to a vote in the plenum as early as Wednesday. Nor, they say, will Netanyahu likely be able to convince Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin to refuse to bring the law to a vote. Rivlin has gone on record saying that “one way or another” the community of Migron, which the bill seeks to save (among others), will be legalized. Orlev is well aware that his bill has strong support among Likud lawmakers and other MKs in the ruling coalition who see it as a way to stop further demolitions of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. According to a recent poll 67% of the Likud-base supported the Outpost Law, while only 26% opposed it and 7% held no opinion. When asked whether Likud ministers or faction members opposing the Outpost Law would cause them to vote against them in the coming Likud primaries 45% answered in the affirmative, 38% said it would have no impact, and 22% said they were unsure. However, more telling was that 32% of the Likud base said that, were Lieberman to champion the Outpost Law, they would seriously consider transferring their support to his Israel Beiteinu faction in the next elections, if Netanyahu opposes it and the threatened communities are uprooted.

Analysts say that with Likud primaries just around the corner, that Likud lawmakers find themselves faced with a double-edged sword vis-a-vis the Prime Minister and Likud base. Additionally, the faction heads who head the party’s comprising Netanyahu’s coalition and represent a majority of seats in the Knesset have demanded the Prime Minister find a way to legalize threatened Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Some rightist experts are critical of the law, saying it has no legal standing, as Israeli law does not apply to Judea and Samaria, making the upholding of the law in international circles an impossibility. However, with temperatures on the issue rising, they say there is little question that were MKs allowed to vote freely in the plenum without threats, the Outpost Law would have sufficient votes to pass. The Prime Minister’s Office refused to comment after Shabbat on Saturday evening. Netanyahu has backed moving Migron to a nearby location on land that is clearly the state’s, as was done for Ramat Gilad. In response to the threat to sack ministers who back the Outpost Law, MK Yaakov Katz (National Union) said:

The Netanyahu government has failed in its central role as a nationalist government: to save and secure the land of Israel. It not only prohibited the construction of thousands of needed homes, but has also demolished Jewish homes, and it refuses to normalize the status of neighborhoods and communities established by the governments of Israel facing destruction. MK Orlev and I brought brought this to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation to prevent the demolition of threatened neighborhoods and communities. It will be a further test of this government and perhaps its last test before it falls.

In the Syrian Revolution, we are witnessing the beginnings of the greatest hot military victory the world has ever seen in a cold war. As we speak, in Syria, the dark evil forces of Iran are, hopefully, in the process of being militarily defeated by the bright, good forces of Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, the strategic importance to the West of what will be an inexorable Iranian Shi’ite defeat and a Saudi Sunni victory in Syria is not even partially understood by the mainstream narrative. A Sunni victory in Syria may very well spare the world from a looming world war, which is casting Iran as the new Nazi Germany bent on world military domination. It is as if in 1938, instead of the West’s Munich’s appeasement, an Italian revolution had crushed Mussolini and turned Italy into enemy of Hitler and forward base of operations against Hitler for allied forces. Such a 1938 anti-Hitler Italian revolution would have likely dealt a catastrophically fatal counterstroke to Hitler’s world-wide ambitions. In a heartbeat, Hitler’s entire order of battle calculus, which had otherwise enabled Hitler to confidently start WW2 and invade Poland, would have been reversed against the Third Reich. Similarly, the immediate consequence of the liquidation of Bashar Assad and his Shi’ite Alawite clan from its minority tyrannical and sectarian rule of Syria would clearly be a catastrophic sui generis defeat for Iran, Syria’s senior partner in the until-now waxing Pan-Shi’ite crescent. But that’s only the beginning of the fall of Iran’s house of cards. This Iranian Shi’ite defeat in Syria will have many second- and third-order immediate consequences that are already beginning to be felt like an earthquake throughout the entire region.

1. The Iranian sphere of Iraq will no longer be an Iranian sure-thing walkover, let alone an Iranian sphere. With the new Sunni Syria as an Iranian enemy instead of an Iranian puppet state to the West of Iraq, all of a sudden, Iraq will have the ability to stand up to Iran in the East in ways that Iraq never had before when it was bookended to the West and East by two long-standing Iranian military powerhouses. Also, to the Iraqi Sunnis in Western Iraq, a Sunni-Ruled Syria gives them a real Sunni Big Brother to the West that can defend them against the Iraqi Shi’ite Central Government. In fact, if the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi central government doesn’t begin to show respect the Western Iraqi Sunnis, Western Iraq could very well secede from Iraq, and form a Greater Sunni Syria as a counterweight to al-Maliki’s pipe-dreams of being a Shi’ite Saddam Hussein. All of this would leave al-Maliki’s anti-Sunni tactics as a one-way ticket to nowhere in a hurry unless he quickly changes his anti-Sunni, pro-Shi’ite sectarian course and douses the flames of the rampant sectarian suicide explosions (Shi’ite ones? – RB).
2. Without the Iranian Syrian puppet state weapons candy store, the Iranian Mini-Me Hizbullah will be without any land access to the Iranian weapons supply line. Without that guaranteed land-based Iranian weapons pipeline through Syria, Hizbullah can and will be rolled up by the Lebanese government and the Western-allied Sunni Cedar revolution forces that want to take back their hijacked country from the Iranian Hizbullah Resistance crazies. Without the Syrian weapons supply train, Hizbullah’s initiating any war with Israel, for any reason, would be suicidal. Lebanese voices are already being loudly and brazenly (? – RB) raised that Hizbullah had better see the writing on the Syrian wall and voluntarily disarm, before they are forcibly disarmed once Assad turns to dust. Such a Cedar Lebanon will escape from the Iranian Resistance Camp and seek safe refuge in the Saudi anti-Iranian camp (? – RB).
3. With Syria and Lebanon out of Iran’s axis of evil and militarily allied with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the beginnings of a natural indigenous anti-Iranian Sunni military counterweight to Iran will have been sparked. Such a Pan-Arab Sunni force could form a vast and strategically formidable defense of the Sunni and Western World against a waxing nuclear-armed Iran. In such a Sunni Arab military counterweight, the West will have a natural Sunni ally against Iran which will serve as the tip of the West’s spear against Iran.
4. The Iranian people themselves will see that Sunni world was able to successfully and forcibly rid itself of the cancer that is the Iranian reign of Mahdi terror. Iran’s billions in foreign investments in mayhem, bedlam, and death will have collapsed before the Mullahs’ very eyes. In the face of such a strategic calamity and the squandering of Iran’s precious billions in resources to foment pure bloodshed, the Iranian forces of good may be able to complete the revolution haltingly started in the spring of 2009.
5. The last thing this nascent, or even full-grown, Sunni Mesopotamian Alliance will want to do is start a war with the militarily benign Israel (!! – RB), and put the entire Levant into play. Israel provides the Mesopotamian Sunni Alliance with a cost-effective de facto non-hostile and indestructible logistics node for US and Western resupply for pan-Sunni defense against an Iranian westward attack. If anything, the current Syrian revolution has only conclusively proved that Israel is not the cause of Middle East instability, but rather, the bedrock of Middle East stability.

In conclusion, the anti-Assad Sunni Syrian revolution has the promise of forming an embryonic, indigenous Sunni Arab military counterweight capable of possibly defending itself against the waxing nuclear Iran. Such a natural congealing of the Arab Sunni peoples may be the world’s best and only long-term hope of defeating the Iranian mad Mahdian march to world nuclear domination.

While the Likud primary race has been low profile, the Kadima contest is anything but. There are only four days left until the Likud leadership primary between Netanyahu and party activist Moshe Feiglin, yet it seems as if the race is being kept a closely guarded secret. There have been no headlines about it on the cover of any mainstream newspaper since Netanyahu initiated the primary on Dec 4. The JPost was the only paper that covered Feiglin’s major campaign event in Jerusalem. None of Netanyahu’s events were opened to the press until two rallies Thursday night in far-flung Beit She’an and Nesher. Looking at this week’s papers, one would think that if there is a contest going on right now inside Likud, it is between rival advisers in Netanyahu’s office, who raced to the attorney-general to deliver accusations against each other. Conspiracy theorists would blame the lack of coverage on a purported decision by the press as a whole to not grant Feiglin legitimacy. But the truth is that Feiglin has neither said nor done anything particularly controversial or interesting during the campaign like he has in the past. Both he and Netanyahu seem to have an interest in letting the race pass quietly: Feiglin because he is confident that his Manhigut Yehudit activists will bring out the vote, and Netanyahu because he wants to be seen as statesman-like and above the political fray.

Behind the scenes, both Netanyahu and Feiglin have bypassed the press by sending automated messages to Likud members urging them to vote. The same tactic has been employed by hawkish Likud activists who are calling upon Likud members to boycott the vote to protest the imminent destruction of the Migron outpost. Opponents of the Migron evacuation sent an automated message to thousands of Likud members on Wednesday pretending to represent a fictional organization called “Left Now.” The message called upon the Likud members to vote for Netanyahu. The message said:

Please come and vote Netanyahu so we can finally evacuate Migron and then destroy the rest of the settlements in the occupied territories. Only Netanyahu is good for us. So don’t stay home. Don’t listen to your friends. We know what’s best for you.

The organizers of the boycott hope that if less than 50% of the members vote, the election won’t be regarded as legitimate and there will have to be another election for head of the party. But Netanyahu’s associates are confident that enough members will come out to legitimize the vote and help him surpass the 73% he won in the last Likud race in 2007. What makes Netanyahu so confident is that he quietly passed a proposal in the Likud election committee last month promising money to contestants who bring out the vote in the race for the Likud central committee that is being held together with the leadership contest. In past elections for the central committee, if a Likud branch decided on the makeup of its representatives with a political deal, the branch received the money that the party saved from canceling the election. This time, no branch is allowed to cancel its election, even if the number of central committee memberships allotted to a branch and the number of candidates is the same. Contestants in branches that have a turnout of at least 40% of the vote will be refunded 50% of the fee they paid to run. In branches with a 65% turnout or higher, the refund will be 100%. Netanyahu’s associates believe that the higher the turnout, the greater the chance his margin of victory will be similar to that of other leaders in the Middle East.

With a race that far from being close, it is no wonder that the press is paying much more attention to the hotly contested competition in Kadima. Incumbent Tzipi Livni gained the upper hand at first by setting a Mar 27 date for the race and immediately announcing endorsements she received from half the Kadima faction. But this was the week of Livni’s bitter party rival, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee head Shaul Mofaz. Thirteen Kadima MKs announced their support for Mofaz this week, equalizing Livni’s support. Former Kadima leadership candidate Meir Sheetrit is expected to announce next week that he will support Mofaz rather than run again, tipping the faction in Mofaz’s favor. The fact that Mofaz’s support has risen from just five MKs in the last race is not a coincidence but the product of three years of hard work on his part. As part of Mofaz’s strategy for winning the election, he drafted a diplomatic plan that was praised in Washington. He wrote an economic plan before last summer’s protests began. And he devised a plan to change the political system by instituting regional elections for half the Knesset, raising the electoral threshold, giving the largest faction the automatic right to form a coalition and guaranteeing that governments would last four years. While all of those plans brought Mofaz headlines, he also worked quietly on his political plan, the first step of which was bringing respected MKs who once supported Livni into his political orbit. The endorsements of MKs Ze’ev Bielski and Yohanan Plesner gave him momentum.

Livni’s associates responded that the first week in a primary always belongs to the incumbent, who sets the agenda, and in the second week the competition tends to recover. They said all of the MKs who endorsed Mofaz did so for personal rather than ideological reasons, and that Livni maintained an advantage over Mofaz among Kadima members and the general public. But a Smith Research poll published in Thursday’s Globes newspaper found that Mofaz had also bridged the gap in the number of mandates he could bring to Kadima. While polls last week found that Livni would win the party four more seats, the Smith survey predicted that they would both win 13, destroying Livni’s main argument that she would be a more serious candidate against Netanyahu. Livni is expected to be further harmed as more negative stories come out about her management of the party. Itzik Hadad, the treasurer she fired, and MK Avi Dichter intend to make sure there will be more and more negative headlines about Livni until the election. Hadad sent all Kadima members an e-mail this week complaining about Livni.

The second step for Mofaz will be to meet with as many Kadima members as possible ahead of the election and tell them that he, unlike Livni, would bring Kadima a post-primary bounce in the polls like Shelly Yacimovich brought to Labor. He will say that Kadima keeping the same leader would not enable the party to grow. If he wins the race, Mofaz intends to use socioeconomic issues to try to bring down Netanyahu. He is well-positioned to do that because he was raised poor, unlike Livni and new politician Yair Lapid who were raised wealthy by fathers who Knesset members. The last step in Mofaz’s plan is to cast the Likud in Feiglin’s image, regardless of the result in the Likud primary. He will compare Netanyahu to his former colleague at the Boston consulting group, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. Mofaz will argue that just like Romney is perceived as centrist but his party has gone to the Right, if re-elected, Netanyahu will be constantly pressured to go rightward by the members and activists in Likud. If Mofaz succeeds in persuading the public that he could be a legitimate contender for prime minister, perhaps, despite polls predicting a landslide victory for Likud in the next general election, that race will look more like the one currently being held in Kadima and less like the one taking place in Likud.