Tag: Israel

Wait For a Coup?

Recently there was a shake-up in the line of ascension to the throne in Saudi Arabia….came as a surprise to many…especially the ousted uncle in favor of a prince….

Source: A Royal Shake-Up – In Saner Thought

Maybe the Saudi  monarchy has more problems than Qatar……

And since no one is really watching this I feel I need to keep my readers up to date…..

The is report is not one that I have confirmed but it is a turn that needs attention…..there seems to be some concern that there could be a coup aimed at the existing king because of this shake-up….and an unlikely ally has stepped forward……

While according to the official narrative, the Saudi power transition on Wednesday, when King Salman bin Abdulaziz announced his decision to replace Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz with his own son, Mohammed bin Salman, went smooth and by the numbers, what took place behind the scenes is more interesting.

Here, events were decidedly more interesting, because as Fars News reports (so take it with a grain of salt), after the decision was announced, the Israeli air force sent 18 of its fighter jets, including F16-I, F15-CD and F16-CD, along with two Gulfstream aircraft, two tanker airplanes and two C130 planes, special for electronic warfare, to Saudi Arabia at the demand of the new crown prince bin Salman to block his cousin (bin Nayef)’s possible measures.

On the surface, such close ties between the existing Saudi regime and Israel would appear a stretch, although it is far more plausible after this week’s WSJ report that when it comes to the Saudi proxy war, Israel and Saudi Arabia had been alligned from the onset of the Syrian conflict, with Israel secretly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with cash as well as food, fuel and medical supplies for years, “a secret engagement in the enemy country’s civil war aimed at carving out a buffer zone populated by friendly forces.”

Source: Israel Deployed 18 Fighter Jets To Saudi Arabia To “Prevent A Coup”: Fars

As I said earlier…I have no confirmation of this turn…but I will continue to watch for more info to pass on as it becomes available.

USS Liberty–The 50th Year

This day’s posts are dedicated to the memory of 34 US sailors that died at the hands of a betraying ally……

Today, 08 June, is the 50th anniversary of the cowardly attack by Israel on a naval vessel, USS Liberty, in 1967…the attack killed 34 American sailors and wounded 170 others.

Below is an archive of all the posts I have done over the years about this attack….please take the time and learn about this event….I know it is a lot to take in but 34 dead Americans would appreciate your time……

Source: The USS Liberty Must Not Be Forgotten – The Unz Review

https://lobotero.com/2015/07/09/still-waiting-for-uss-libertys-truth-by-ray-mcgovern-antiwar-com/

https://lobotero.com/2015/06/08/uss-liberty-end-of-the-day/

https://lobotero.com/2015/06/08/leaving-the-uss-liberty-crew-behind-by-ray-mcgovern-antiwar-com-2/

https://lobotero.com/2015/06/08/the-case-of-the-uss-liberty-anatomy-of-an-israeli-provocation-world-socialist-web-site/

https://lobotero.com/2015/06/08/uss-liberty-israeli-pilot-speaks-up/

https://lobotero.com/2015/06/08/dead-in-the-water-the-sinking-of-the-uss-liberty-must-watch-uprootedpalestinianss-blog/

https://lobotero.com/2015/06/08/uss-liberty-incident-in-saner-thought/

https://lobotero.com/2013/06/08/uss-liberty-incident-2/

Source: Two important lessons from Israeli attack on the USS Liberty – In Saner Thought

Source: USS Liberty Veterans Association | Letter to Bibi – In Saner Thought

Source: Liberty Survivors Say US Still Downplays Israel’s Attack on Ship – In Saner Thought

To this day Israel has NOT been held accountable…..to this day Americans still think Israel is some sort of ally and friend…..to this day these brave Americans go not avenged…..

To me these attackers are despicable cowards and in NO way deserve our friendship or our help…..let alone any respect. Period!

Not Remembering the USS Liberty

I will be dedicating today’s posts to the attack on 08Jun1967…..

It is June and everywhere there are celebrations of the victory in the 6 Day War….nowhere in all this is there ever much mention of the deadly attack by Israel on a US naval vessel, USS Liberty, and the death and injuries that it caused.

If Trump were this “America First” dude then why did he NOT bring up this attack that the world knows about but the US and Israel choose to forget?  Why?

It is safe to assume that when President Donald Trump lands in Israel Monday, he will not have been briefed on the irrefutable evidence that, nearly 50 years ago – on June 8, 1967 – Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 U.S. sailors and wounding more than 170 other crew. All of Trump’s predecessors – Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – have refused to address the ugly reality and/or covered up the attack on the Liberty.

Source: Not Remembering the USS Liberty by — Antiwar.com

Every American should be outraged at this dismal of American deaths….the US should sack up and confront Israel over this betrayal…instead of cowering to them like well beaten mutts…..only COWARDS allow this to go unanswered……

Then we remember the day……

There has been a lot of media coverage mostly written by Israelis or American Jews regarding Israel’s “victory” fifty years ago during the so-called Six Days War directed against its Arab neighbors but I have yet to see an account that mentions the fate of the U.S.S. Liberty. Nevertheless, the Liberty is not forgotten. This Thursday at noon at Arlington National Cemetery there will be a small gathering for the annual coming together with the survivors and friends of the most decorated ship in the history of the U.S. Navy, a victim of a particularly brutal and unprovoked attack by Israel that has been covered up for half a century by the powers that be in Washington. The moving service will include reminiscences by surviving crew members plus the ringing of a ship’s bell for each one of the thirty-four American sailors, Marines and civilians that were killed in the deliberate Israeli air and sea onslaught that sought to sink the intelligence gathering ship and kill all its crew. Present will be a number of veterans like myself and other Americans who are committed to ensuring that the story of the Liberty will not die in hopes that someday the United States government will have the courage to acknowledge what actually happened on that fateful day.

Source: Remembering the U.S.S. Liberty – The Unz Review

Source: Infamy at Sea: Israel’s Attack on the USS Liberty 50 Years Later

Source: The Day Israel Attacked America – Al Jazeera English

Source: USS Liberty crew member recalls fatal ’67 US-Israeli skirmish – News – Stripes

Source: 50 Years Ago: NSA’s Deadliest Day | Observer

The Nuke That Never Was

50 years ago today the Six Day War began…..all that Americans know about it is that the Israelis won…the total extent of their knowledge.

But there was so much more that happened during the course of that war…..like the Israeli attack on the US Naval vessel, USS Liberty (topic to be covered later)….and the plan to use a nuke by the Israelis if their army was not winning the conflict….

Israel has never officially admitted that it developed nuclear weapons. But in interviews recorded nearly two decades ago, a former Israeli brigadier general describes a “doomsday operation” to detonate an atomic weapon on top of a mountain near Egypt during the Arab-Israeli war. Avner Cohen, an expert on Israel’s nuclear history, tells the New York Times the plan is “the last secret of the 1967 war.” Cohen interviewed Itzhak Yaakov—a “key organizer” of the plan, code-named “Samson” after the super-strong biblical hero—multiple times in 1999 and 2000. Those interviews—and other documents related to the plan—will be made public this week on the 50th anniversary of the start of the Arab-Israeli war.

Yaakov, who died in 2013, told Cohen the plan was to detonate an atomic bomb on a mountain on the Sinai Peninsula if it looked like Israel was going to lose the war. This would either scare Egypt and other Arab forces enough to rethink things, or it would cause world powers to intervene in the conflict. Yaakov said the only way to stop an enemy who was “going to throw you to the sea” was to “scare him.” The casualties that would have resulted from the plan are unclear. The US considered a similar plan in regards to Japan during WWII before deciding to bomb the country directly. Israel’s atomic weapon was never moved to the mountain due the speed at which Israel won the war, and the plan was never carried out. Read the full story here.

Two points….Israel refuses to admit that they possess nukes to this day…..second…what would the Middle East look like if they had gone through with the plan?

Then there was the plan by the USSR to destroy Israel……..

Abstract: The Soviet warning to Egypt about supposed Israeli troop
concentrations on the Syrian border in May 1967 has long been considered a
blunder that precipitated a war which the USSR neither desired nor expected.
New evidence from Soviet and other Warsaw Pact documents, as well as memoirs
of contemporary actors, contradicts this accepted theory. The author
demonstrates that this warning was deliberate disinformation, part of a plan
approved at the highest level of Soviet leadership to elicit Egyptian action
that would provoke an Israeli strike. Soviet military intervention against
the “aggressor” was intended to follow and was prepared well in advance.

Source: IMRA – Wednesday, September 10, 2003 Excerpt – How The USSR Planned To Destroy Israel in 1967

During that war there were so many plans within plans that most people do not know…..but it is the Middle East….there are ALWAYS plans within plans.

Promises In The Promise Land

Leg two of Trump’s first international trip and we find our fair-haired leader in Israel and Palestine….and he did what is expected of him…..he made a speech to Israelis and then he went to the Territories to make a speech to the Palestinians…….

His speech to the Israelis is the same speech that all Americans presidents give to Israel….you are our friend….we support you….yada, yada….then he went to the PNA for his speech and I ask why?

Optimism abounds…at least in some circles……

Recent events have left Palestinians in an odd position: The absence of a clear strategy by a U.S. administration to resolve the conflict with Israel may have become the best bet for statehood they’ve had in years. This, at least, seems to be the thinking of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), who met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the West Bank city of Bethlehem today.

Source: Could Trump Be Palestinians’ Best Hope? – The Atlantic

It, the speech, was as fucking generic as could be…..and guess what?

He promised a deal….a two state deal…..soon.

Can he deliver what so many other Americans presidents promised?

Source: Will Trump’s Middle East deal work?

And just like all his predecessors he offers NO details to the plans he says he has waiting in the wings……

President Trump arrived in Israel with big ambitions for the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and as with many of his biggest ambitions since taking office,, he’s shown little real indication of having a plan, let alone being willing to articulate it.

“I have heard it is one of the toughest deals of all, but I have a feeling that we are going to get there eventually, I hope,” Trump insisted. This was the sum total of what he set out, a feeling that a deal could happen eventually, or at least so he hopes.

Source: Trump Talks Israel-Palestinian Peace, Offers No Details on Plan — News from Antiwar.com

The same bullshit that is given about the situation since 1967……it is all a lie….Trump can find NO way to work the “deal” regardless of his promises.

After he leaves the region Israel will return to normal….destroying crops, stealing land and building illegal settlements……

Nothing new….the same lies and bullshit that Israel has pulled for 60 years.

A waste of time for the country and a waste of taxpayer cash.

Is A Solution Possible?

For many years the group known as Hamas has been “fighting” the state of Israel……so hard that it is on the terror list…..in the beginning the charter that set up the group called for the eradication of the state of Israel as their goal….and has worked to that aim since the beginning…….

But just recently Hamas has updated it charter…….

Hamas has presented a new political document that accepts the formation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, without recognising the statehood of Israel, and says that the conflict in Palestine is not a religious one.

The positions were made official on Monday in Qatar’s capital, Doha, by Khaled Meshaal, the leader-in-exile of the Palestinian group that runs the besieged Gaza Strip.

“We shall not waive an inch of the Palestinian home soil, no matter what the recent pressures are and no matter how long the occupation,” Meshaal said as he revealed the document to the public after two years of work.

Source: Hamas Accepts Palestinian State With 1967 Borders | World Affairs Journal

If the reader is interested then this link will take you to the document in question……

Source: Hamas in 2017: The document in full | Middle East Eye

This is a moderate step forward for Hamas….while the document did nor call for the eradication of Israel…it still did not recognize their right to exist.  They also have agreed to accept the 1967 borders as the state of Palestine.

In the past couple of weeks, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, succeeded in making the issue of its “new political document” a major news headline. It was not just about propaganda; Hamas was also preparing its anxious supporters for the release of the document, while gauging reactions on the leaked clauses of the new document.

The controversy surrounding the movement’s former Charter, first published in 1988, is not new. It dates back to the second Palestinian uprising (known as the Second Intifada) in 2000, especially after the late Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin stated in 2003 that Hamas would accept the two-state solution as a temporary solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Source: What is next for Hamas? | Middle East | Al Jazeera

Give Israel a few days and they will condemn this as some sort of “trick”…..

I say why not explore the turn of events if peace is truly what Israel has in mind…..my thought that Israel is more concerned about the acquisition of land than in peace.

And then Abba the leader of the PA comes to DC and meets with Trump and we have a promise of a settlement of hostilities in the “Holy Land”….

President Donald Trump expressed optimism for resumed peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel at the start of his Oval Office meeting with Mahmoud Abbas Wednesday in Washington, his first direct meeting with the Palestinian leader, the AP reports. Trump, who said he’ll “do whatever is necessary” to reach a Mideast peace agreement, added he’d “love to to be a mediator, an arbitrator, or a facilitator” between the two sides and thinks “there’s a very, very good chance” of bringing Israel and the Palestinians together. In fact, he noted as a luncheon began, the solution may be just within reach. “It’s something, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years,” he said, per NBC News. He added, however, that a deal “cannot be imposed by the United States or any other nation.”

Trump didn’t provide any details about how the process might work, though he mentioned he’s long heard that brokering peace between the two sides was “perhaps the toughest deal” to make. He took that as a challenge, telling Abbas, “Let’s see if we can prove them wrong, OK?” Abbas, for his part, speaking through an interpreter, said that he’s hopeful for bringing about a “just and comprehensive” peace with Israel “based on the vision of two states,” using the borders of 1967 as a foundation. The Palestinian leader says it’s time for Israel to end its occupation of its land. Israel has rejected those 1967 lines as a possible border, saying it would impose security risks. Abbas said he believed he and Trump can be “true partners” in their efforts. “We are coming into a new opportunity … that would enable us to bring about peace” in the region, he noted.

How easy can it be?

Without details I am not impressed…anyone can say a settlement is coming….but the proof will be in the process…..so far I do not see one….

Did I miss something?

Keep Talking You Dumbass

Since the abstention by the US on a settlement resolution at the UN every right wing dullard has been having a stroke….of course there is always the religious overtones but that has nothing to do with this resolution….it is what is right and wrong and the stealing of land and the destruction of crops to make room for more illegal settlements is just flat out WRONG!

And of course BiBi is butt hurt and doing what most authoritarians do….he is slashing out at the countries that voted against Israel.  To the point of threatening the United States…..

PM Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel and his cabinet ministers are trying to punch above their weight. He wants to punish the UN, and apparently even the United States.

He threatens the one country that made the state of Israel possible….

He also threatens 10 other countries……These countries were Britain, France, Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Angola, Egypt, Uruguay and Spain…Israel does not have so many friends that it can afford to lose their biggest supporters….

But by all means BiBi…keep talking….

He then continued, “This is an anti-Israel resolution against Israel, the Jewish people, and the state of the Jews.”  And this is the feeling of many Americans….people who have NOT read the resolution….they do what they do best…regurgitate bullshit!

The resolution isn’t anti-Israel, doesn’t mention anything about Jews, and doesn’t challenge the Jewish state.  It just points out that Israelis are not at liberty to steal Palestinian land.  The United Nations Charter forbids the acquisition of territory by military force, so Israel’s conquest of the Palestinian West Bank in 1967 is no warrant for it to colonize said territory or to expropriate and keep in a condition of statelessness the people who live there.

Maybe read that paragraph again…..it takes time to get through those pea brains on the Right!

Only a moron would claim antisemitism….the condemnation is of the governmental actions not the people or the religion….there is a difference…look it up.

Plus he, BiBi, is injecting himself into this society…..claims of US behind the vote….

Israel has been voicing its displeasure about the United States’ abstention from a UN Security Council vote Friday that called for an end to illegal Israeli settlements. So has Donald Trump, who’s vowed “things will be different after Jan. 20th.” Now Israel is offering the president-elect what it says is proof that President Obama helped set up the resolution, the Guardian reports. “We have rather iron-clad information from sources in both the Arab world and internationally that this was a deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped create the resolution in the first place,” a rep for PM Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News. Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to DC, elaborated Monday. “It’s an old story that the United Nations gangs up on Israel,” he said, per the Hill. “What is new is that the United States did not stand up and oppose that gang up. And what is outrageous is that the United States was actually behind that gang up.”

The Guardian notes Israel making this threat to present “evidence” to an incoming president against one still in the Oval Office “appears almost unprecedented.” But the White House insists that while Obama did decide US Ambassador Samantha Power would abstain during Friday’s vote, he wasn’t involved in putting together the resolution. “We did not draft this resolution; we did not introduce this resolution. We made this decision when it came up for a vote,” Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said Friday in a statement. Meanwhile, Israel indicated it’s going to flout the UN resolution and go ahead with plans for thousands of new homes in East Jerusalem, per the New York Times. “Israel is a country with national pride, and we do not turn the other cheek,” Netanyahu said Monday.

Wait!  There is proof?  And how did you come by this “proof”?  Are you spying on your best friend?

Is that a foot sticking out of your mouth?  Need a little hot sauce for that shoe?

Please BiBi…keep talking…..