Israel & the Middle East

First, by all accounts, Biden is a wonderful family man who has endured a terrible personal tragedy. In 1972, just before Christmas and just weeks after being elected to his first term in the United States Senate, Biden’s wife and only daughter were killed in a horrific car crash caused by a drunk driver.

“Five years after this [trauma], no one man deserves one great love, let alone two,” Biden later recalled in an interview with David Brody of CBN. “I met and married my wife of 30 years who actually put my life back together again and put my family back together again. But you know, when something like that happens to you. It’s like there’s a big black hole in your chest, and you feel like you’re being sucked in to that black hole. You feel like there isn’t anything that will ever get better again in your life. But my mom has an expression, she said God sends no cross that you cannot bear, and she said, I remember literally the week of the accident her saying ‘Joey, out of everything horrible something good will come if you look hard enough.’ And I thought that was the cruelest thing in the world someone could say, but it’s true.

“Obviously I wished it never, ever, ever happened, but my sons and I, it’s like a steel belt that runs through our chest connecting us. My family is so strong, and I really believe and my wife Jill of 30 years believes that Neilia my wife, is looking down on us. You just never, it never leaves, but there comes a time and it happens earlier than you think, there comes a time when the memory brings a smile to your lips rather than a tear to your eyes. And so many people have gone through tough stuff, but I had family.

“When I went through it I had people helping me. It has taught me that I have such intense admiration for people who are alone and these things happen to and they fight. There are so many people right outside this library, this morning got up, put one foot in front of the other, dealing with crisis that were similar to mine and they do. And they do it for their kids and they do it for their family and they do it without the kind of help I had. I was really lucky. I just had an awful lot of people to help me and they were my family. I’m not very good talking about it as you can see, but I know there is a continuum. I know that God is — there’s a giant piece of my deceased daughter, a giant piece of my deceased wife that is in me and in my children and in my wife.”

Despite such immense pain, Biden emerged as a kind, funny, friendly and personally engaging leader, who has built strong personal and professional relationships with Republicans such as John McCain, among others. To his credit, he has been a good friend of Israel over the years. He has been good on expanding democracies around the world. He was also right on the Georgia crisis, having long encouraged the expansion of NATO to include fledgling democracies.

I like Joe Biden. I like his love of family and country. I like that I can disagree with him but would still enjoy a good policy discussion over dinner. But I do disagree with him profoundly on most important issues. He is, after all, the third most liberal man in the Senate, according to National Journal. And when it comes to most epicenter issues, he is just plain wrong. He reminds me in many ways of President Jimmy Carter in the mid- to late-1970s — kind, friendly, warm, engaging, but someone who often misunderstands the nature and threat of evil, particularly in the Middle East.

Consider a few of Biden’s positions:

* Voted against the Gulf war in 1991 to liberate Kuwait

* Voted against “the surge” in Iraq in 2007 to defeat the Jihadists [Told the Boston Globe in the summer of 2007: "The surge isn't going to work either tactically or strategically."]

* Opposes “regime change” in Iran. ["Instead of regime change, we need to focus on conduct change." -- speech on Iran at the Iowa City Public Library on December 3, 2007]

* Believes in direct negotiations with Ahmadinejad

* Voted against a bill to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a “terrorist” organization

* Strongly opposes taking preemptive military action to neutralize Iran’s nuclear weapons threat and has threatened to impeach President Bush if he bombs Iran

* Does not see Ahmadinejad’s End Times theology as a serious problem. ["My concern is not that a nuclear Iran some day would be moved by messianic fervor to use a nuclear weapon as an Armageddon device and commit national suicide in order to hasten the return of the Hidden Imam. My worry is that the fear of a nuclear Iran could spark an arms race in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and others joining in." -- speech on Iran at the Iowa City Public Library on December 3, 2007]

* “In 1979, he shared Carter’s starry-eyed belief that the fall of the shah in Iran and the advent of the ayatollahs represented progress for human rights,” writes Amir Taheri, the former editor of one of the largest newspapers in Tehran and a respected analyst of the current regime. “Throughout the hostage crisis, as US diplomats were daily paraded blindfolded in front of television cameras and threatened with execution, he opposed strong action against the terrorist mullahs and preached dialogue….For more than a decade, Biden has adopted an ambivalent attitude towards the Islamic Republic in Tehran, now emerging as the chief challenger to US interests in the Middle East. Biden’s links with pro-Tehran lobbies in the US and his support for “unconditional dialogue” with the mullahs echo Obama’s own wrong-headed promise to circumvent the current multilateral efforts by seeking direct US-Iran talks, excluding the Europeans as well as Russia and China.”

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Tags: Iran, JOE BIDEN, joel, usa

Russian-Jordanian cooperation received a “very strong push” with a visit conducted by King Abdullah II of Jordan to Moscow, the London-based al-Hayat reported Saturday.

The Jordanian king arrived Friday for an official visit to Russia after being invited by President Dmitry

Medvedev meets Assad

Medvedev. During his two-day stay Abdullah met with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and discussed a number of subjects with him.

Russian sources were quoted by al-Hayat as saying that both sides are willing to sign a new collaboration agreement.
On Friday Abdullah toured a Russian military camp near Moscow, where he was treated to a presentation of Russia’s advanced weaponry. As part of the show, Abdullah watched the launching of a shoulder-held RPG-32 anti-missile rocket, still in experimental stages.
According to the report, the two countries plan to construct a model similar to the experimental rocket in Jordan. Jordanian officials said the rocket would provide for the country’s military needs and that Jordan would receive product marketing rights in the Middle East and other regions.
The Jordanian king also plans to travel to the Black Sea coastal town of Sochi, where a meeting with Medvedev is scheduled for Sunday. Recently Medvedev visited Sochi in order to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
During the meeting, Assad offered Medvedev the right to deploy Russian missiles within Syrian territory, in response to US military involvement in Poland.

The Syrian president may have been referring to the Russian S-300 anti-plane missiles,

King Abdullah II

which could threaten US aircrafts in the Middle East. The missiles, placed on Syrian territory, would also make an Israeli air strike more difficult.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that his country is considering fulfilling Assad’s bid for new Russian artillery, but did not specify the type of weaponry Damascus has asked to buy.
Russia’s Itar-Tas news agency reported Lavrov said the weapons were defense related, and “would not harm the region’s strategic balance.” The foreign minister spoke about the matter after a meeting with Medvedev and Assa

Tags: Israel, Joel C Rosenberg, jordan, russia, Sergey Lavrov

Western alliance says Russia’s Defense Ministry decided ‘to halt international military cooperation events between Moscow, NATO countries’
Associated Press

Russia has halted all military cooperation with NATO, the Western alliance said Thursday, in the latest sign of East-West tension over the invasion of Georgia.

NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said the alliance had received notification through military channels that Russia’s Defense Ministry had taken a decision “to halt international military cooperation events between Russia and NATO countries until further instructions.”

She said NATO “takes note” of the decision, but had no further reaction.

Rice Nato headquarters

On Tuesday, NATO foreign ministers said they would make further ties with Russia dependent on Moscow making good on a pledge to pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions in Georgia. However, they stopped short of calling an immediate halt to all cooperation.

Under a 2002 agreement that set up the NATO-Russia Council, the former Cold War foes began several cooperation projects. They include sharing expertise to combat heroin trafficking out of Afghanistan, developing battlefield anti-missile technology, joint exercises and help with rescue at sea.

Romero said she was unaware of any specific events under the cooperation agreement scheduled before early September.

NATO itself decided last week to suspend plans for a Russian warship to join NATO counterterrorism patrols in the Mediterranean Sea, deciding it was inappropriate in the wake of the eruption of fighting in Georgia.

Tags: Nato, Rice, russia

Associated Press
Published: 08.20.08, 19:55 / Israel News

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling Israel a “germ of corruption” that will be “removed soon.”

The comments were posted Wednesday on his presidential website. They appear to be part of an effort to defuse criticism by hard-liners over recent remarks made by a high-level official.
Last week, Iranian media quoted Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashai as saying Iranians were “friends of all people in the world - even Israelis.”
The comments were rare from a government official in Iran, whose president regularly calls for Israel’s destruction.
They sparked domestic criticism of Mashai, with some officials calling for his resignation.
In 2005, Ahmadinejad said he believed Israel should be “wiped off the map.”

Tags: Ahmadinejad, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, Iran, Israel, israeli, Jews

Syrian president says Russia’s conflict with Georgia underlines need for Moscow and Damascus to tighten their defense cooperation

Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Wednesday he will use a visit to Russia to expand military ties with Moscow, whose arms sales to the Middle Eastern state have angered Israel and the United States.
He told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper that Russia’s conflict with Georgia, in which Moscow says Georgia used Israeli-supplied equipment, underlined the need for Russia and Syria to tighten their defense cooperation.
Assad is expected to have talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during his visit this week.
“Of course military and technical cooperation is the main issue. Weapons purchases are very important,” he said. “I think we should speed it up. Moreover, the West and Israel continue to put pressure on Russia.”

Russia’s military said this week Israel supplied military vehicles and explosives to Georgia and helped train its army.
Israel says it does not supply arms to other countries as a government but private firms conduct equipment sales and training with the defense ministry’s approval.
Assad said Israel’s role would only encourage countries like Syria – a US foe and ally of Iran – to step up cooperation with Russia.
“I think that in Russia and in the world everyone is now aware of Israel’s role and its military consultants in the Georgian crisis,” Assad told Kommersant.
“And if before in Russia there were people who thought these forces can be friendly then now I think no one thinks that way.”
Israel has long urged Russia not to sell weapons to Syria. Damascus was a Moscow ally during the Cold War and is now key to the Kremlin’s ambitions to reviving its Soviet-era role in the region.
The West and NATO have sharply criticized Russia over its military action in Georgia this month. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Russia was turning into an outlaw in the conflict and accused Moscow of targeting civilians in Georgia.

The conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted when Georgia tried to re-impose control over the breakaway, pro-Russian South Ossetia region earlier this month. Russia responded with a counter-attack that overwhelmed Georgian forces.
Russia then moved troops beyond South Ossetia and a second separatist region, Abkhazia, and deep into Georgian territory.

Again Joel C. Rosenberg is right!
Let’s pray for Israel and his goverment

Published:     08.20.08, 10:29 / Israel News

Tags: defence, idf, Israel, russia, syria