The UK Guardian reported today that Yuval Diskin, the former chief of Israel’s internal security organisation, Shin Bet, said that:
…the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Ehud Barak – the principal advocates of military action against Iran's nuclear programme – were unfit to lead the country and could not be trusted to conduct a war. The "messianic" pair were misleading the public on the merits of an attack.
The Guardian went on to report that:
The former Shin Bet chief did not confine his comments to Iran. On peace negotiations with the Palestinians, he said: "Forget all about the stories they're selling you in the media about how we want to talk but [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] doesn't, and so forth. I'm telling you, we're not talking with the Palestinians because this government has no interest in talking with the Palestinians … I know from up close what is going on in that area”.
Diskin presented the Iran issue and the Palestinian issue as though they were two separate issues that needed to be dealt with but which he considered were being handled badly by Netanyahu and Barak.
The reality, however, is that the two issues are very much related to each other; indeed, the extreme right-wing Zionist obsession with Iran is because the Zionists real determination is to not only never allow the Palestinian people to ever have a state of their own, but to occupy and eventually annex the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. Together with the Golan Heights, which they have already annexed after taking it from Syria, they hope to realise their long held dream of creating a Greater Israel. Iran comes into the picture because it is Iran that supports the two organisations, Hamas and Hezbollah, which are preventing the Greater Israel Zionists from realising their dream.
While the Israeli’s know that the world will not tolerate Israel simply marching in and taking what they want, the Greater Israel Zionists believe that if war breaks out between Israel and Iran on the pretext that Iran is a threat to Israel, then such a war would could also provide the pretext for Israel to invade and occupy the Gaza, West Bank and south Lebanon telling the world that it was necessary in order to prevent Hamas and Hezbollah retaliating against Israel for Israel’s attack against Iran.
Netanyahu is now under massive pressure. He and Barak are reliant on the US in their war against Iran. While Israel will fire the opening shots against Iran, it will need the US to finish the job on Iran while Israel deals with Hamas and Hezbollah. As the US elections approach, the timing of a war against Iran becomes critical. The fact that Israeli elections may take place at around the same time as the US elections makes the timing even more critical.
And now, with internal pressures dominating headlines in Israel, Netanyahu and Barak’s hands may be forced to take the ultimate step while in the US, Obama, under electoral pressure from the Republicans and the American right-wing and neoconservatives that support the Greater Israel Zionists, may feel obliged to take a punt knowing that a successful war against Iran will ensure him a second term.
Factors operating against this scenario which may prevent war are: Obama may resist pressure from Israel to instigate a war against Iran if opinion polls favour him right up to the election and if he knows that he is going to get over the line reasonably comfortably. That, coupled with internal pressures in Israel against Netanyahu and Barak’s push for war, may well tip the balance to avoid war.
The world can only hope that sensible heads prevail.
FOR AUSTRALIAN READERS…
No comments:
Post a Comment