Netanyahu’s choices: Strike Iran before or after Israeli elections

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are facing another of the periodic opposition campaigns to unseat them – this time by pressure for an early election a year before its October, 2013 date. New faces have joined the opposition lineup. They are focused on challenging the current government’s credentials for leading an Israeli attack to preempt a nuclear Iran. These two goals are interchangeable. However, before the campaign peaks, debkafile’s analysts report it has begun to backfire.

The newcomer to the anti-government ranks is the party registered Sunday, April 29, by ex-broadcaster Yair Lapid as “Yesh Atid” (There is a Future). His potential partners are former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former chief of staff Gaby Ashkenazi. They are all casting about for a political base, together or apart, from which to tip over the current government. Incumbent President Shimon Peres cheers them on from the wings.

Diskin’s assault on Netanyahu and Barak as not to be trusted to lead a war and guided by “messianic” feelings was launched Friday, April 27, directly after Independence Day celebrations, at the same time as two leading opposition parties, Labor and Kadima, set the stage for an early election to stem the right-of-center government’s constant gains in opinion polls.

The ex-Shin Bet chief sounded the drum for them all by his assault on Netanyahu’s competence for leading any wars, least of all, a major conflict against Iran. Captions suddenly blossomed in foreign publications on the lines of “Israel’s Generals in Revolt,” implying that Israel’s security establishment was solidly against an attack on Iran.

This is far from the truth. The vocal opponents are a group of disaffected ex-security officials. There are questions about why they did not resign on the grounds of the views they are now voicing instead of fighting to have their tours of duty extended.

Now they are casting out lines for careers in politics.

Ehud Olmert, one of the Yesh Atid founding fathers and a member of its inner leadership, set the new party’s security agenda in New York Sunday with this comment: “I think that fundamentally, Israelis believe that a nuclear Iran imperils their existence. That is not in dispute. Nor that we must do everything it takes to defend ourselves against this peril. The question is what should be done, who should do it and when. My answer is this: It is being done and continues to be done by the international community led by the United States.”

With this agenda, Olmert sought to place the question of an Israeli solo attack on Iran versus reliance on US President Barack Obama front and center of the election campaign to come.
He appeared to be drawing on Diskin’s words, that the Israeli public is “stupid” or “ignorant,” leading to his belief that the Israeli voter would swallow a straight black-and-white choice between the “good guys” and the “bad guys.’

The good guys would be Barak Obama and his advisers, who have worked so hard to hold Israel back from a military offensive against Iran, and the baddies are Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak who are making trouble for the US president.

On April 26, Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz tried to fracture this distorted picture: He reported that other armies stand alongside Israel ready to attack Iran and prevent its acquisition of a nuclear weapon.

He did not name those armies, but debkafile’s military sources disclosed he was referring to the United States.

In their drive to discredit Netanyahu and Barak, President Peres, Olmert, Dagan, Diskin and Ashkenazi failed to take note of Gen. Gantz’s words or what they portended – namely: In the past week, the United States has brought forward its operational preparations for an attack on Iran.
Instead, in Jerusalem, Israel’s opposition parties gathered for the push to corner Netanyahu into announcing an early election.

They got their wish sooner than they expected.

The prime minister, after turning the situation over for 48 hours, assented. He figured that the key weapon adopted by his rivals to knock him over was not in fact in their hands but in his: It is up to him and him alone to decide whether to attack Iran. In fact, if an election was forced on his government, he could defeat their scheme by bringing the attack forward.

So the impression of Netanyahu and Barak fighting with their backs to the wall against a body of generals is totally misleading.

Their opponents are beginning to realize that their anti-government offensive has missed its mark and may well blow up in their faces. The pressure for an election may therefore dissipate in the coming days - or not. That too is up to Netanyahu. He may decide that a successful operation against Iran would assure him of an election victory and wipe out his rivals. For now, he's got his foes guessing.
President Obama was far from happy with the exes’ anti-government maneuvers because he realized that they offered Prime Minister Netanyahu his strongest incentive yet for bringing forward an attack on Iran, an eventuality which the US president had made every effort to prevent before he himself faces the American voter in November.

Is America Embracing the 10 Tenets of the Communist Manifesto?

BY BRIAN KOENIG

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the purported founders of communism, established in the 19th century a government paradigm that transformed Europe and other regions in the eastern hemisphere, adding to an already expansive repertoire of political ideologies. And the seemingly farfetched assertion that communism could someday take control of America seems, quite simply, unfathomable. But is it really that improbable, or furthermore, has it already ensnared certain sectors of society?

Writing for The Blaze, Tiffany Gabbay recently produced a thoughtful exposé entitled “Are We Headed Toward the Constitution or the Communist Manifesto?” that breaks down the 10 tenets of Marx and Engels’ infamous 1848 publication and describes how those 10 steps or “planks” to establish communism are slowly being woven into American society. In prefacing her piece, which was published on Saturday, Gabbay quotes the British philosopher Anthony Flew, who exploited Marx’s blatant disregard for the truth:

… the first and only volume of Das Kapital to be published in the lifetime of Marx was, in his own words, to demonstrate that “In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation at the opposite pole.” But by 1867, when that volume was first published, Marx had known for 15 or more years that this thesis was false.

In describing how the Communist Manifesto’‘s key tenets stack up against the U.S. Constitution, and society as a whole, Gabbay’s argument should provoke alarm, as the republic founded centuries ago, which was built on the concept of freedom and justice, has been tainted with characteristics of an illegal and despotic political structure.

The first ideal under the microscope is the abolition of private property, and while the complete confiscation of private assets is not fully developed here in the United States, such freedom is enjoyed not in its entirety. Eminent domain, for example, has arguably violated the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents the government from confiscating private property “for public use, without just compensation.”

Now, what the government determines to be “fair and just” is often arbitrary, and regardless of the dollar amount agreed upon, the citizen’s property is still confiscated with or without the owner’s blessing. Moreover, politicians stretch what is acceptable under the Constitution’s “public good” charge, as they often acquire land or property through eminent domain to launch public works projects designed to “improve communities,” by building such things as freeways, schools, libraries, and public utilities. And following the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London, the use of eminent domain greatly expanded in scope to include reforming “depressed areas” — meaning, a private citizen’s home could be seized by government bureaucrats to construct shopping malls and sports complexes on their land.

Another tenet included in the Communist Manifesto advocates a highly progressive income tax. This ideal is an archetype of class warfare, as Marx and Engels believed the upper echelon of society must have their wealth redistributed to establish so-called “social equality.” This progressive tax structure is evident in President Obama’s “Buffett Rule” tax plan, which would set a minimum tax rate of 30 percent on the nation’s highest earners. And the consequences of not adhering to the U.S. government’s progressive tax code are draconian, including imprisonment, the freezing of bank accounts, and the confiscation of personal property.

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Former IMF Chief Gives Eurozone Warning

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The IMF's former chief economist warns the latest bailout fund is not enough to deal with the eurozone crisis.

Speaking to Sky News' economics editor Ed Conway on Jeff Randall Live, Professor Ken Rogoff said: "Europe is in a deep governance crisis and the scale of it is really outside the bounds even of this firewall of money, especially when you consider some of the money is coming from debtors that we're worried about.

"Europe put up $200bn (£124bn) of the total. Europe is the problem so in some sense it exaggerates how big it is."

Prof Rogoff served as an economic councillor and director of the research department of the International Monetary Fund from August 2001 to September 2003.

He was also on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. Prof Rogoff is currently a professor of public policy and economics at Harvard University.

He also said: "The UK is so vulnerable to what's going on in Europe, with the UK recovering from this massive financial crisis.

"At the end of the day the UK needs to find ways for growth with or without the eurozone because it may not figure out how to grow, but I don't think this is a matter of fiscal stimulus leading to this growth, it's a matter of restructuring."

He said on the status quo of the eurozone: "I don't think the status quo, even with these tweaks and fiscal rules even the euro bond, is going to be stable so they're going to need a tighter union.
"I think that some of the countries will end up outside of that, at least for 30 or 40 years because they aren't ready to be in a tighter union. I don't think it will be preserved."

Britain has committed a further £10bn to the IMF's bailout war chest. The financial organisation has raised more than £269bn for its global bailout fund.

Swiss scientists demonstrate mind-controlled robot

(AP) Swiss scientists have demonstrated how a partially paralyzed person can control a robot by thought alone, a step they hope will one day allow immobile people to interact with their surroundings through so-called avatars.

Similar experiments have taken place in the United States and Germany, but they involved either able-bodied patients or invasive brain implants.

On Tuesday, a team at Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne used only a simple head cap to record the brain signals of Mark-Andre Duc, who was at a hospital in the southern Swiss town of Sion 100 kilometers (62 miles) away.

Duc's thoughts - or rather, the electrical signals emitted by his brain when he imagined lifting his paralyzed fingers - were decoded almost instantly by a laptop at the hospital. The resulting instructions - left or right - were then transmitted to a foot-tall robot scooting around the Lausanne lab.

Duc lost control of his legs and fingers in a fall and is now considered partially quadriplegic. He said controlling the robot wasn't hard on a good day.

"But when I'm in pain it becomes more difficult," he told The Associated Press through a video link screen on a second laptop attached to the robot.

Background noise caused by pain or even a wandering mind has emerged as a major challenge in the research of so-called brain-computer interfaces since they first began to be tested on humans more than a decade ago, said Jose Millan, who led the Swiss team.

While the human brain is perfectly capable of performing several tasks at once, a paralyzed person would have to focus the entire time they are directing the device.

"Sooner or later your attention will drop and this will degrade the signal," Millan said.

To get around this problem, his team decided to program the computer that decodes the signal so that it works in a similar way to the brain's subconscious. Once a command such as 'walk forward' has been sent, the computer will execute it until it receives a command to stop or the robot encounters an obstacle.

The robot itself is an advance on a previous project that let patients control an electric wheelchair. By using a robot complete with a camera and screen, users can extend their virtual presence to places that are arduous to reach with a wheelchair, such as an art gallery or a wedding abroad.

Rajesh Rao, an associate professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, who has tested similar systems with able-bodied subjects, said the Lausanne team's research appeared to mark an advance in the field.

"Especially if the system can be used by the paraplegic person outside the laboratory," he said in an email.

Millan said that although the device has already been tested at patients' homes, it isn't as easy to use as some commercially available gadgets that employ brain signals to control simple toys, such Mattel's popular MindFlex headset.

Army chief: IDF prepared for Iran strike

IDF ready to attack Tehran’s nuclear facilities if needed, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz says; military constantly engaged in covert, high-risk operations beyond Israel’s borders, he says

by Alex Fishman

Should Israel decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, the IDF will be prepared to carry out the mission, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz told Yedioth Ahronoth in remarks published Sunday.

"In principle, we are ready to act," the army chief told the newspaper in a special interview ahead of Israel’s upcoming Independence Day.

In respect to the Iranian threat, 2012 will be a critical year, Gantz said, adding that "the State of Israel believes that nuclear arms in Iran’s possession are a very bad thing, which the world should stop and Israel should stop."

"We are preparing our plan accordingly," he said.

Israel is the only country in the world facing open destruction threats by another state, which is also producing the means to do carry them out, the army chief said. However, he noted, this does not mean that he will be ordering the army’s Air Force chief to strike Iran "now."

When asked whether Israel faces an existential threat at this time, Gantz said: "The potential exists. At this time, in my estimate, this is not the case."

‘Higher chance of war’

During the interview, Gantz also addressed special operations carried out by the IDF beyond Israel’s borders, revealing that the scope of such activities has increased significantly compared to the past.

"I don’t think you will find a point in time where something isn’t happening somewhere in the world," he said. "The level of risk has increased as well. This is not something invented by Benny Gantz. I’m not taking the credit here. I’m simply accelerating all those special operations."

Regarding the likelihood of a war breaking out this year, Gantz said: "Our intelligence assessment asserts that given the strategic reality and instability in the region, the chance of deteriorating to a war is higher than in the past. There are no indications of war, but the chances of the situation deteriorating into one are higher than in the past."

The army chief added that in case of a regional war, the IDF will be able to cope with the rocket threat from Lebanon and from the Gaza Strip.
"I can’t promise no missiles will be landing here. They will be falling; many of them. It won’t be a simple war, neither on the frontlines nor ion the home front,” he said. “However, I don’t advice anyone to test us on this front."

"When (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah comes out of his bunker, he’s concerned – and rightfully so. He saw what happened to Lebanon last time, and it won’t be close to what will happen to Lebanon next time," the army chief said. "I think they understand it well."