JERUSALEM, Sept. 17, 2007
Israel Silent On Alleged Syria Attack
Top Government Official Given Gag Order; Bolton: Could Have Targeted Syrian Nuke Plant
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An Israeli woman walks at an observation point on Mt. Bental in the Golan Heights, close to the border with Syria, in a Friday Sept. 7, 2007 photo. It's been a quarter-century since Syria and Israel turned their guns on each other in outright war. But tensions are high since an alleged Israeli airstrike on Syrian territory. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
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A Palestinian man crosses through the Kalandia checkpoint near the West Bank town of Ramallah, as an Israeli soldier stands guard, Friday, Sept. 14, 2007. (AP)
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The Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Sept. 14, 2007. (AFP/Getty)
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An Israeli soldier stands near Palestinian worshipers who wait to cross through the checkpoint near Bethlehem on their way to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Friday, Sept. 14, 2007. (AP)
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Muslims pray in the al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, Sept. 14, 2007. (AFP/Getty)
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With Israel's usually talkative government maintaining an uncharacteristic silence, information on the mysterious incident has come almost exclusively from abroad.
Discussing the incident on an Israeli TV station Sunday, an outspoken former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. said he thought Israel might have been attacking a nuclear installation, "a message not only to Syria, but to Iran."
Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, told reporters he instructed military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin to avoid any mention of Syria at a committee meeting on Sunday. Panel members regularly report to journalists during and after committee meetings.
In a statement some participants took to be an oblique reference to the success of the alleged Syria raid, Yadlin told the meeting, "Israel's deterrence has been rehabilitated since the Lebanon war, and it affects the entire regional system, including Iran and Syria," according to a lawmaker who was present. Yadlin was referring to the inconclusive results of Israel's campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer.
The lawmaker spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the meeting's contents to the media.
Foreign news reports have suggested that Israel struck a Syrian site designed to make non-conventional weapons, possibly a nuclear installation built with North Korean help. (More on N. Korean angle).
"I think it would be unusual for Israel to conduct a military operation inside Syria other than for a very high value target, and certainly a Syrian effort in the nuclear weapons area would qualify," the former U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, told Israeli Channel 10 TV in an interview broadcast Sunday.
"I think this is a clear message not only to Syria, I think it's a clear message to Iran as well, that its continued efforts to acquire nuclear weapons are not going to go unanswered," Bolton said.
CBS News correspondent Robert Berger reports that if Bolton's assessment turns out to be true, then Israel risked going to war to send a clear message - that nuclear weapons in Syria will not be tolerated.
In other developments:
Bolton, who has long called for a hard line against the Syrian and Iranian regimes, did not indicate that he had first-hand information about the incident.
Other hypotheses have posited that Israel was on an intelligence-gathering mission, testing Syria's air defenses, scouting an air corridor for a future strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, or hitting a shipment of arms destined for the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, a close ally of both Syria and Iran.
In the past, Israel often has been swift to announce such operations. This time, Syria cryptically announced the incident, announcing its air space had been entered and that Israel had "dropped munitions." Syria has offered no evidence of any Israeli attack.
Syria and Israel fought each other during both the 1967 and 1973 Mideast wars. Their last direct military confrontation was in neighboring Lebanon in 1982, when Israel's air force shot down dozens of Syrian warplanes and Israel destroyed Syrian tanks.
Israel has dismissed recent calls by Syria to restart peace talks, citing the Damascus regime's continued support for Palestinian militant groups and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 283 Comments- Pals got to be crippled or dying to access the holy shrines if they are under 45... right?
Suicide Bombers killing innocent people spoil things for everybody!
Posted by grazinggoat at 11:48 AM : Sep 14, 2007
Bingo. Just like Bush''s proclamation last night that the US will stay in Iraq indefinitely, which will surely embolden Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The west is so stupid.
Posted by grazinggoat at 11:48 AM : Sep 14, 2007
Bingo. Just like Bush''''s proclamation last night that the US will stay in Iraq indefinitely, which will surely embolden Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The west is so stupid.
Posted by socrates392
So, let us spend another 50 years negotiating with insincere parties such as Fatah and Hamas. Bush is right not to waste his time negotiating with such insincere people. Look how Arafat strung the world along for so many years. Peace is possible only when the Palestinians turn peaceful.
Killing civilians, collective punishment, and hiding behind "human shields"- Israel''s top three exports.
The Israelis have truly become their own worst oppressors. There is no need for anyone to "wipe them off the map", as has been widely misquoted. They are self-wiping.
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Posted by FeelFree1 at 04:03 PM : Sep 14, 2007
+ report abuse
*******
misquoted????!!! why what do YOU arabs mean who you guys ask allah to give you strenght to ''wipe the jews off the face of this planet?
do you mean relocatting them from this planet and into hell?
libsluvsuvs,
Re: "misquoted????!!! why what do YOU arabs mean who you guys ask allah to give you strenght to ''''wipe the jews off the face of this planet?"
I am not Arab, I have no idea what you are basing your claim upon, and most Jews do not live in Israel. As I mentioned before, the Israelis are largely self-wiping, due to their own non-stop war crimes and endless atrocities, and their own horrendous policies.
Those EUROPEAN INVADERS IN PALESTINE (I don''t care about their religious belief), who were brought into PALESTINE after WWII to occupy the land of those PALESTINIANS by force who had nothing to do with the actions of HITLER, are forbidding PALESTINIANS to move in their own country.
Should we continue giving more then $3 Billions a year for the illegal occupation of the PALESTINIAN LAND to buy HATRED, TERRORISM and 9/11 against our nation?
Am sick and tired of this sloppy reporting and am not going to watch cbs any more...until they start to show both sides of a story.
rezasantorin,
You sound like an Israeli- falsely attributing your own criminal behavior to your adversaries, as if this would somehow justify your own known atrocities, even if claims were not fabricated and unfounded.
BIZES816,
Re: "Did you ever hear a Jewish person say "DEATH TO THE ARABS"?"
I see Israeli Jews say this kind of thing all the time. Just visit www.jpost.com
Usually they just murder them though, and then talk about it afterwards.
Let''s give both sides though. The Israelis are illegally squatting on, and occupying, stolen land, and running an apartied terror-State, while the Palestinians are being illegally occupied by Israeli squatters, regulary murdered, tortured, and imprisoned by the Israelis, and used by the Israelis as "human shields".
There you go. Both fair AND balanced.
Posted by BIZES816
-No need to say it, (not all Jews!) but many governing Israelis do it, by mean of the best trained Defense Army, in the Middle-East. Fresh Israeli attack on Lebanon in July 2006 and the massive Lebanese civilian casualties are one heck of a proof... undeniable!
Hi ''grazinggoat'',
Re: "Fresh Israeli attack on Lebanon in July 2006 and the massive Lebanese civilian casualties are one heck of a proof... undeniable!"
This is a very good example.
spoken like a true Nazi - a typical moveon.org stooge, an acolyte of KKK Byrd, Carter, and David Duke - and funnily enough, NOT a veteran of the U.S. military at all.
Interesting how all the clowns who blast our intervention in Iraq also blast Israel - which used to deal forcefully with terrorists. Not so much any more under the coward Olmert.
But nary a word about Cliton''s bombing of civilians in Belgrade, the corruption by democrats of the War Powers Act during the ILLEGAL war in Kosovo, and our allowing the rape and murder of Serbs thanks to Wesley Kahane Clark, Hillary''s boyfriend.
No references to Wes Clark as a betray-us...Only someone who speaks the truth like Petreaus.
Veteran71 is a vet all right - of the champipple bottle and the lie - just like the rest of his supposed fellow "vets" who scream like hyenas here - like Raffie boy. If they served anyone, it was either Mickey Mouse or Yasser Arafat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/16/wiran116.xml
Part 2:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411419433&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Part 3:
WWIII ???
What a bunch of ***! Israel and oil is behind all the middle east mess up we have committed in the last 60 years.
They always act as if they are the victim. They aren''t. They committ aggression against Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and others. They expect the US to support them AND they are the reason there has been no peace treaty with Palistine.
The only good thing about the Iraq debacle is that the Israel lobby is going to be exposed as the trouble maker it has always been, and lose some of its strangle hold on us.
Posted by BIZES816 at 10:41 PM : Sep 14, 2007"
Yes. Many times. Try this, for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1270038.stm
BBC 10 April 2001
The spiritual leader of Israel''s ultra-orthodox Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has provoked outrage with a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs.
"It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable," he was quoted as saying in a sermon delivered on Monday to mark the Jewish festival of Passover.
You claim the "Israel lobby" has a "strangle hold on us".
Jews are out-numbered by about 50-to-1 in the US.
So, why are Gentile-Americans like yourself so weak and ineffective at presenting your case to Congress and the President?
This is because the administration and Israel have no desire to make peace with the current leadership in Syria. If Syria were willing to come to the table and pledge cooperation in the war against terror the Israeli''s would still not agree.
Israel and this administration want a govt in place in Syria and Lebanon that will give Israel unfettered access to N. Iraqi oil fields via pipelines. Syria as it is now may be willing to work for peace but would never allow pipelines to run through their country into Israel, nor would Lebanon allow pipelines off of their coast. As soveriegn nations this is their right.
Israel sits on land with no natural resources under it that we know of. Therefore they should not become a player in the oil industry. There are plenty of people sitting on top of the oil fields that should derive the profits from it. If they discover oil under Israel one day then more power to them. Until then they should not make one cent off of middle eastern oil.
Funny though how you accuse me of hating America and treason when I criticize Bush in Iraq, but you have no problems with doing it with Clinton in Kosovo. By the way, how many US soldiers died in Kosovo? Also, I have to aks, but do you have a thing for me? You know, since you mention me in almost every post of yours. Do you have fantasies of Craig reaching under your stall, except you imagine me in his place? Sorry, but if you''re a guy, I don''t swing that way.
Still confused by the idea that even liberals serve in the military? Or is you mind too narrow and one dimensional to comprehend that? But of course libs serve. After all, someone has to since most of you neocon chickenhawks won''t do it.
Because they are not as motivated, nor as passionate as the Jews.
But, the time is coming when the Jews are going to lose the power they now wield.
First of all, most of the recent generation of Jews are losing the idea that Israel is somehow of paramount importance to them. They are Americans first, Jews second.
Second, as you mentioned, the percentage of Jews is really minor. Once the rest of America wakes up to the fact that our troubles are caused by this minority it is good-bye lobby influence.
Thirdly, thanks the jewish neo-con influence that got us mired in Iraq and are pushing war with Iran, we are going to be in a financial crisis and no one is going to care about Israel, jews or not.
The Israel lobby weilds way more power than you believe. I suggest you check out this book review site
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
It is about a new book by 2 respected reporters that chronicles the rise and influence of the Israel lobby on American politics. It is enough to make you see red. Our whole foreign policy has been highjacked for the last 50 years by jews. But their influence in on the decline.
There is a huge ourcry over it. They tried to keep it from being published and then attacked it as anti-Semitic, their usual claim when someone takes them to task.
===Second, as you mentioned, the percentage of Jews is really minor. Once the rest of America wakes up to the fact that our troubles are caused by this minority it is good-bye lobby influence.===
Maybe the rest of America isn''t waking up to the fact that Jews are causing our problems is because it isn''t true. Jews have always been a convenient scapegoat throughout history. Ever wonder, if they are such a small percentage, how they can be such a controlling influence? No one who subscribes to the "blame Jews" hypothesis can ever explain that to me. For instance, in Nazi Germany, if the Jews were so powerful and causing all the problems, according to Hitler, then how did the Germans manage to exterminate 6 million of them so easily? Doesn''t sound to me like Jews had that much power, now does it?
You checked out that site I mentioned. Do so and then come back and tell me they have no influence.
Considering how small a minority they really are, they have to keep a low profile with American people in general or they lose the advantage of working behind the scenes. It is much like Cheney. You don''t hear or see much of him because he prefers to do his dirty work out of sight. Much more effective that way.
Trust me, the people who are in Washington DC know exactly how much influence they have. They COUNT on the general ignorance of politics most Americans have. You mention William Kristol to 100 Americans and only 4, if that many, know who he is.
There is a huge ourcry over it. They tried to keep it from being published and then attacked it as anti-Semitic, their usual claim when someone takes them to task.
Posted by clestes
What a boat load of horse manuer!! Your hate mongoring freaks dont have anything to do but to point fingers at the Jewish people because you folks are not quite intelligent enough to figure out what the truth is.
Big business has motivated you to lie to yourself, isnt America wonderful!!
I just finished the article. But I do not see cause-effect. For example, the article says in one part how Israel does not offer the US much of anything in return for all this support we give it, yet still doesn''t explain HOW a small number of Israelis can have such influence if they offer little in return. They mention campaign donations for one thing, but since Jews are bound by the same limitations to campaign contributions that everyone else is, 3% of the US population does not seem to be able to generate 60% of Dem donations, as the article suggests. The numbers don''t add up. So, as I said, if there is an effect (US is influenced), where is the cause (what does Israel give in return for these favors?). I saw a lot of AIPAC wanted this, AIPAC pressured that, but little proof other than an conclusion based on the end result of what happened. The article does not consider other possible reasons why the US took a certain course of action. An interesting read that confirms that Israel has one of many powerful lobbies in Washington, but not conclusive proof of a boogeyman pulling all the strings in my opinion.
===What a boat load of horse manuer!! Your hate mongoring freaks dont have anything to do but to point fingers at the Jewish people because you folks are not quite intelligent enough to figure out what the truth is. Big business has motivated you to lie to yourself, isnt America wonderful!!===
Thanks pwrslm for your usual concise arguments. That''s sarscasm by the way. How about trying to refute some of the arguments instead of trashing the messenger? I don''t agree with the article''s conclusion, but I gave it a shot. Or is your response an example of you Repub''s noted tolerance I keep hearing about?
OK, you don''t think they way we favor them financially, giving them billions more than any other country, money up front, no checks on how they spend it does not influence our foreign policy??
As to the campaign contributions, there is more than one lobby. As they stated, they are not just AIPAC.
But what particularly bothers me is the way they have insinuated themselves into the universities. The kids that will one day make policy themselves are being influenced at the most crucial time.
They have been allowed to work themselves into the very fabric of our political system and like a cancer they have eaten away any other competing foreign policy ideas.
There has been no peace agreement with Palistine because THEY, not the Palistinians, don''t want it. They want the Palistinian''s land and are determined to get it.
Let''''''''s elect someone who will be GOOD FOR AMERICA.
Posted by CitizenUSA
will inform everyone of who contributes what and to whom from presidential races to congressional races.
Lawyers and law lobbyist have contributed the most to the presidential election with Edwards taking the lions share of the donations.
Now to the article itself, Israel if it attacked a "suspected non conventional weapons site" did so with full US knowledge.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp?cycle=2008
dnc are like john adams and want to give the jihadist their lunch money hoping they will leave us alone....
gop are like thomas jefferson and want to spend their lunch money on weapons and go kick the jihadists in their arses.....
What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
Thomas Jefferson knew about fascist nazi islam..... he killed plenty of them....
In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli''''s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay, and to the Congress:
The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
muslim justifies slavery and piracy%u2026
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?6bdec278-6a71-4436-bc4d-29d1c54b0ad7
Pay a visit to the Harry S Truman Institutes site and Near East Consulting site, the majority of Israelis and Palestinians want to live in peace with one another and the Camp David Accords to become a reality.
Do you know who Douglas Feith is? If you don''t, he was the one in charge of Office of Special Plans under Rumsfeld when he was Defense Secretary. The office that ALL raw intelligence data was filtered through and then passed on to the Whitehouse. No CIA intelligence was allowed to go to the Pentagon or the Whitehouse without his approval.
He was the one that was in charge of the Iraq war day to day at the Whitehouse. General Franks called his the "stupidiest man on earth" for making the mistake of ordering the disbanding of the Iraqi army. Only one of his many stupid decisions about the invasion.
He left the Whitehouse in 2005 and the OSP was disbanded. He had HUGE influence on foreign policy and he is a tried and true member of AIPAC.
He is only one of the many Jews who have wielded influence on our foreign policy.
I do not doubt that. The problem is, the people in charge do not. If the will of the people was done, here and in Israel, I have little doubt that the Iraq war would never have happened and there would have been a peace agreement signed under Clinton.
Sure it does. Any time you give aid, it influences policy and Israel gets a lot of aid. But it seems like we would be influencing them more, not the other way around as it is suggested. Again, the cause-effect is reversed.
===But what particularly bothers me is the way they have insinuated themselves into the universities. The kids that will one day make policy themselves are being influenced at the most crucial time.===
This I can speak on. I went to the same University I work at now (State University of New York at Buffalo), so that''s 14 years (4 college, 2 graduate and 8 working (and part time phd study)), so I''ve been around, both as staff and student. I have seen little influence, in classes or the work environment by the "Jewish Lobby". Other than the fact that there are Jewish groups on campus and the lobby just like everyone else, I cannot say I''ve seen any kind of propaganda program going on. Maybe at other schools, but not ours, with 28,000 students, including a decently larger than average Jewish community.
CONT
Seems to me, neither side wants peace. The UN Partition plan gave both sides land, but both wanted it all. I also don''t buy the argument that''s it''s "Palestinian land". Both Palestinians and Jews have ancestral claims to the land. The European Jews that settled in Israel after WWII themselves came from Europe, but the Jews as a people lived alongside Arabs in ancient times. It''s not like Jews just showed up in Australia or somewhere and claimed the land there. They should get a piece of the ME just as the Palestinians should.
And just for the record, I''m not a Jew :)
This is no surprise.
The top known talents of the IDF:
- killing civilians
- occupying stolen land
- threatening and attacking their neighbors
- hiding behind "human shields"
Some think that this provocative Israeli act was mean as a dry-run, for the pending illegal war of aggression against Iran.
The problem is they put a small number of people in key positions, ie Feith or Eliot Abrams who is Deputy National Security Advisor and a pro-Israel hardliner, and they push foreign policy to follow their specific agendas. That is how they wield influence.
The fact that American is much bigger than Israel and SHOULD be leader of the two, is completely undercut by the strategic placement of key people.
Also, they count on the ignorance of the American people. We are, by far, the most politically ignornant people in the civilized world. And I am using ignorant here as the dicionary defines it which is unknowing not stupid.
As a people, we go along in our lives with the policy of live and let live and therefore are a bunch of *** sheep!
- occupying stolen land ---Land stolen from Jews? Nobody ever debated the fact the Israel and Judah existed in the same place Israel exists today....
- threatening and attacking their neighbors since 1963, the Arabs have sworn to wipe Israel off the map, and drive them into the sea...Arafats uniform shows a map of the entire region under his PA, totally excluding Israels existence.....
- hiding behind "human shields" ----Hamas and Fatah have been using thier own families and society to launch attacks at Israel, the human shields referred to by this accusation is peanuts compared to the truth...
Some think that this provocative Israeli act was mean as a dry-run, for the pending illegal war of aggression against Iran. --------No, an illegal war has no justification, a war against an avowed enemy building weapons to destroy your people is "NOT" illegal, and as small as Isreal is, they have to be sure that it doesnt happen....Syria was attacked for cause, nothing illegal about it.
Posted by FeelFree1 --------you are free to lie, just as I am free to defend the truth.
Posted by FeelFree1
You continue to prove how simpleminded people are easily influenced by repeatedly telling them lies....
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