Ya’alon: Europe attacks are ‘World War III’

Defense minister says Israel and European nations are on same side in ‘a clash of civilizations’

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Thursday that the deadly bombings in Brussels are evidence of a new world war, which Israel and other countries must fight together.

“We’re in the same boat,” he told Army Radio in an interview. “The world finds itself at the moment in a third world war, or as it has been called, ‘a clash of civilizations’. We must face it together.”

Obama Starts Mid-East Nuke Race As Israel Says Gulf States Pursuing Bombs

Back in October, we asked the following: “Did Obama Just Set Off A Global Nuclear Arms Race By Signing The Iran Deal?”

On the surface that seems like an oxymoronic headline. After all, the nuclear accord is supposed to be about curbing nuclear proliferation, not setting off an arms race.

Israel extremely nervous over Russian operations on its Golan border

On the outside, Israel is all smiles and full of praise for way the coordination with Moscow is working for averting clashes between its air force and Russian warplanes over Syria. This goodwill was conspicuous in the compliments Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Vladimir Putin traded when they met on the sidelines of the Paris climate summit Monday, Nov. 30.

But the first disquieting sign appeared Tuesday, Dec. 1. Senior Russian and Israeli officers were due to meet in Tel Avid [sic] to discuss strengthening the cooperation between the two army commands. But no word from Moscow or Jerusalem indicated whether the meeting had taken place.

Russia plane entered Israel control zone from Syria: minister

A Russian warplane recently entered Israeli-controlled airspace from Syria but the intrusion was resolved without incident, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Sunday.

Yaalon’s comments come amid deep concern over the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey, which claims it strayed over the Syrian border into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings to change course. Moscow denies the allegations.

Netanyahu warns he will not allow use of Syria as Iran base to threaten Israel

Israel will never allow Syria to become a base for Iran to launch attacks against the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

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Iran is said to be coordinating its operations in Syria with Russia. Teheran terror proxy Hizbullah has been fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces for much of the four-year civil war.

​Ya’alon: Israel is not coordinating its Syria operations with Russia

Israel, a nation roughly as large as New Jersey (the 5th-smallest U.S. state), is the only one at the moment truly not afraid of the Russian bear.

 

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday that Israel is not coordinating its operations in Syria with Russia, as Moscow ramps up its buildup in that country. He spoke after DEBKAfile reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had warned Israel against attacking Iranian targets in Syria, after a Syrian shell landed on the Golan. “

Israel is working at speed to convert Boeing 767 into a long-flight refueling tanker

American sources point out that if Israel wants to retain the option of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities when Barack Obama exits the White House in January 2017, it can’t wait for the brand-new US Pegasus tanker, which doubles as a military transport plane, to come off the Boeing production line and be delivered to its air force. The Boeing 707 in current service, after a multibillion investment in its conversion to a long-flight refueling tanker, no longer meets the fluctuating conditions in the Middle East. Work is therefore going ahead on the conversion of the Boeing 767 as its replacement.

Ya’alon: Israel ‘not responsible’ for Iran nuke scientists’ lives

The point of no return has now been reached because of the nuclear deal and Israel is now left with no choice. What should be interesting to see in the near future is how the United States will defend Iran, as it’s now obligated by terms in the ‘deal’ to do so. A hostile Obama administration has also reportedly threatened to shoot down Israeli fighter jets to prevent a strike in the past.

 

Defense minister hints assassinations may resume, says Israel considering air strikes against nuclear facilities

Israel is not responsible for the lives of Iranian nuclear scientists, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in an interview published Friday, making a less-than-veiled threat that covert assassination missions blamed on Israel could resume.

As the world moves closer to ratifying a nuclear deal that Jerusalem says won’t keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear arsenal, Ya’alon told German newspaper Der Spiegel that Israel would do anything necessary in order to assure Tehran does not get atomic weapons, including taking military action.

US mimics Netanyahu’s cartoon bomb to sell nuke deal

 

In apparent jab at Israeli leader, White House revamps PM’s famous diagram to point out merits of agreement with Iran

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With diplomatic sparring between Israel and the US over the worth of last week’s Lausanne deal in full swing, the White House published a sketch of a cartoon bomb listing the advantages of the agreement — a text-heavy lookalike of the prop used by Netanyahu in his 2012 address to the UN General Assembly.

Report: Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

Following Obama’s threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack.

According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel’s back.

‘Iran Sends Arms of Ruthless Terror All Over the World’

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon threw his own opinion on Iran into the mix Monday night, warning of the dangers the emerging agreement between Iran and Western powers poses to Israel’s security.

“The agreement with Iran, as it is being formulated now, is a great danger to world peace and threatens Israel’s security,” Ya’alon stressed. 

Ex-Israeli Security Chief Diskin: ‘All the Conditions Are There for an Explosion’

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Yuval Diskin, former director of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet, speaks of the current clash between Israel and the Palestinians, what must be done to achieve peace and the lack of leadership in the Middle East.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Diskin, following 10 days of airstrikes, the Israeli army launched a ground invasion in the Gaza Strip last week. Why now? And what is the goal of the operation?

Diskin: Israel didn’t have any other choice than to increase the pressure, which explains the deployment of ground troops. All attempts at negotiation have failed thus far. The army is now trying to destroy the tunnels between Israel and the Gaza Strip with a kind of mini-invasion, also so that the government can show that it is doing something. Its voters have been increasingly vehement in demanding an invasion. The army hopes the invasion will finally force Hamas into a cease-fire. It is in equal parts action for the sake of action and aggressive posturing. They are saying: We aren’t operating in residential areas; we are just destroying the tunnel entrances. But that won’t, of course, change much in the disastrous situation. Rockets are stored in residential areas and shot from there as well.

Epic US-Iran military cooperation in Iraq coincides with Israel’s war on Tehran’s Palestinian ally, Hamas

The US and Iran took the first steps for their military cooperation in Iraq on June 16, at the same time as Israel declared war on Tehran’s Palestinian ally, Hamas, in the wake of a fruitless four-day sweep of the West Bank Hebron region for the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped on June 12, and the detention of hundreds of Hamas activists – which Israel leaders said was just the beginning.

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Overnight, President Obama informed Congress that up to 275 troops could be sent to Iraq to provide support and security for US personnel and the American Embassy in Baghdad,which with a staff of 5,000 is the largest in the world. About 170 of those forces are already in Iraq.

debkafile: That is only the first step, to be followed by more. US naval, air and Marine forces are assembling in the Persian Gulf ready to go in.

New Syrian-Iranian chlorine bombs make mockery of US-Russian chemical accord and UN monitors

The household cleaning agent chlorine, in heavy concentration is purchased by Iran and and fitted with  detonators, to provide President Bashar Assad with a vehicle for cheating on his undertaking to surrender Syria’s chemical arsenal under the year-old US-Russian chemical disarmament accord. And Assad is indeed getting away with using chlorine bombs, with crippling effect, especially on children, every few days.

Nonetheless, Sigrid Kaag of the UN Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said Saturday, April 19, that Syria had destroyed approximately 80 percent of its arsenal as agreed under the Kerry-Lavrov accord. At this rate, she said, Syria will have got rid of 100 percent of its chemical arsenal by the April 27 deadline.

The French President Francois Hollande admitted April 20, however, that the Syrian leader had continued to use chemical weapons on the front line, but he denied that definite proof had not been established.

Dempsey claims Israel satisfied the US will use military option against Iran. DEBKAfile: Israel doesn’t say this

Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, flew out of Israel Wednesday, April 2, from three days of talks with Israeli leaders, asserting: “I think they are satisfied we have the capability [to use a military option against Iran]. I think they believe we will use it.”

debkafile sources tracking his talks did not receive that impression from Israeli officials. They did not subscribe to his statement that “Israel and the United States are in broad agreement about the threat that Iran poses to the region and how to deal with it.”