***The Truth About Israel***

Speaking to dozens of participants in a terrorism and security program run by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Ayalon said the “time is not yet lost” to stem Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but added that “it is of the essence.”

During a question and answer session at the Interdisciplinary Center’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Ayalon warned that Iran could try to sabotage sanctions by inflating international oil prices and raising energy costs for China, which is dependent on Iranian crude oil, and which is a permanent member of the UN security council. At the same time, he added, alternative energy providers to China, like Saudi Arabia, were available.

“The only way to stop Iran is through a unified diplomatic position,” Ayalon said. “Iran is a big and vulnerable country, that will use psychological warfare and divide and conquer. Calling their bluff is the only way,” he added.

During his speech, Ayalon said Iran “is the source of instability in the Middle East. For Iran, the nuclear program is not a means but an end.”

Addressing attempts by the pro-Palestinian lobby abroad to have senior Israeli army figures and politicians arrested on war crimes charges, Ayalon said, “Terrorism has become sophisticated. It is trying to gain victory by exploiting the legal system. International law is suitable for wars between armies, not for combat between an army and a terrorist organization hiding within a population. To win, the legal system must be configured to match the new type of warfare.”

Former IDF chief of staff and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon told the audience of two main terrorist fronts, one led by Sunni al-Qaida and the second managed by Shi’ite Iran, which included Hizbullah and Hamas.

While the US and its allies were the targets of the former entity, Israel was the main target of the latter, Ya’alon said.

He argued that the Iranian-backed axis had access to more weapons and resources than al-Qaida due to the existence of two state sponsors of terrorism in the coalition – Iran and Syria.

Ya’alon said added that any future peace agreement with the Palestinians would have to be based on an insistence on an end to terrorism and indoctrination to hatred among schoolchildren.

“Without these changes, any peace will be a temporary cease-fire,” he added.

Ya’alon described the Goldstone Report as “the most clear example of a new blood libel whose purpose is to deprive Israel from defending itself.”

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, former CIA agent Dr. Jay Le Beau, trip leader and instructor of the Marshall Center, addressed the differences in perception of the Iranian threat among western security circles.

“I would argue that the US views Iran differently than a lot of European friends and colleagues, primarily due to a history that is particular to us. American security officials… regard Iran as having a long history of rogue state behavior. That was particularly the case at the start of the Islamic Revolution, because it was American hostages who were held and mistreated for a long period of time,” Le Beau said.

“European countries by and large, while surely objecting [to Iran’s conduct], did not have it directed at them. I would argue that their view is fundamentally different,” he added.

Le Beau described efforts by US President Barack Obama to engage Iran diplomatically as “prudent,” but added, “today, a lot of observers see this has not demonstrated results. Iran seems to be impervious to any sort of approach.”

Le Beau, who served in the CIA for 26 years as a clandestine service officer, spent most of his service time outside of the US. He is leading a five week program for more than 80 students from around the world, including Israel, comprised of intelligence officers and government members which includes a one-week visit to Israel in this year’s course, and four weeks of study at the Marshall Center’s campus in Garmisch, Germany.

“We believe our program helps create a global network of practitioners who know each other and who have learned of each other’s solutions,” he said.

Ashkenazi will attend a Friends of the IDF fund-raiser at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan and hold talks in Washington with his US counterpart, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The two last met in Israel in mid-February.

Ashkenazi will also meet with US National Security Adviser James Jones and other senior government and military officials.

As reported on Sunday in The Jerusalem Post, a large protest sponsored by more than 25 left-wing organizations will be held outside the hotel starting at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

An online article announcing the planned protest called Ashkenazi the “Butcher of Gaza.”

Groups sponsoring the protest include American Jews for a Just Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, Progressive Democrats of America, Women in Black Union Square, Codepink and Gaza Freedom March.

IDF sources said on Sunday that Ashkenazi would be surrounded by two layers of security at all times. The first layer will be of American security guards and NYPD officers. The second layer will be made up of members of the General Staff security team that is responsible for the army chief’s routine security.

“Naturally, Ashkenazi is under threat,” one officer explained.

Biden is scheduled to meet twice with Netanyahu on Tuesday, once in the morning with staff, and then again at a dinner in the evening, with both men accompanied by their wives.

US Mideast envoy George Mitchell, who announced the indirect talks, will not be at the Biden-Netanyahu meetings, an indication that the Palestinian issue, although sure to be a topic of discussion, will not be the main agenda item.

Biden is expected to add his weighty voice to the cavalcade of top US officials over the last six weeks who have come to coordinate positions on Iran, assure Israel that the US is working aggressively to impose sanctions that could impact Teheran, and urge Israel not to take unilateral military action.

“I can promise the people in Israel that we will confront as allies every security challenge that we will face,” Biden said, in a written interview with Yediot Aharonot that appeared Monday. “An Iran armed with nuclear weapons constitutes a threat not only to Israel, but also constitutes a threat to the US.”

Biden, in the interview, did not answer the question of when significant sanctions would be leveled against Iran, saying only that consultations were continuing.

The vice president would not speculate regarding a timeline for the sanctions, but said the US efforts were “serious,” and that the US was approaching the matter with a sense of urgency.

Netanyahu, who has called for crippling sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector, is expected to tell Biden that the current international efforts are “too little” and “too weak.”

Biden, the highest-ranking US official to visit Israel since the Obama administration took office in January 2009, arrived Monday afternoon, accompanied by his wife Jill, for a three-day visit. He did not make a statement when he arrived and was met at the airport by Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon.

In addition to his meetings with Netanyahu, Biden is also scheduled to meet President Shimon Peres and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni on Tuesday. The following day he will travel to Ramallah for meetings with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The laconic statement issued by Mitchell on Monday night about the agreement to indirect talks, a statement that revealed remaining gaps between the sides on the framework of the talks, precluded any expectation that Biden would formally and ceremoniously launch the start of the talks during his visit.

“I’m pleased that the Israeli and Palestinian leadership have accepted indirect talks,” Mitchell’s statement read. “We’ve begun to discuss the structure and scope of these talks and I will return to the region next week to continue our discussions. As we’ve said many times, we hope that these will lead to direct negotiations as soon as possible. We also again encourage the parties, and all concerned, to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks.”

Mitchell, who arrived Saturday night and met twice with Netanyahu before meeting Abbas on Monday, is scheduled to leave Tuesday morning.

Netanyahu, in a Jerusalem speech Monday night, “welcomed the renewal of the peace process,” and said he hoped these talks would in the near future lead to direct negotiations.

He said that the two principles that would guide him during the talks were the need for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and the need for real security arrangements on the ground that would ensure Israel’s security.

Abbas, meanwhile, voiced skepticism regarding the prospects of the indirect talks during his meeting with Mitchell in Ramallah, saying that Israel’s latest decision to build 112 housing units in Betar Illit showed that the Netanyahu government was not serious about achieving peace with the Palestinians.

According to chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, “The president told Mitchell that if every visit by the US envoy would be accompanied by more settlement construction, unilateral measures, creating facts on the ground and the continuation of assassinations, detentions and closures of Palestinian lands, then this raises a question mark over all our efforts.”

Erekat said that Abbas was particularly concerned about the decision to build the new homes in Betar, “despite the big deception called settlement freeze.”

He said the decision was at the top of the agenda of the Abbas-Mitchell talks.

Israeli media on Monday reported on a Defense Ministry okay to build 112 housing units in Betar, a decision a Defense Ministry spokesman said was made because of “safety issues.”

These units are part of a larger project, and not building them, while the others are in various stages of construction, constituted a safety risk, according to the ministry.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Israeli officials had explained that the construction was approved before the moratorium.

“On the one hand, it does not violate the moratorium that the Israelis previously announced,” Crowley said. “On the other hand, this is a the kind of thing that both sides need to be cautious of as we move ahead with these parallel talks.”

Erekat said Abbas received a letter from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week in which she promised that Washington would play an “active and productive” role in the upcoming negotiations.

Mitchell’s talks in Ramallah came less than 24 hours after the PLO Executive Committee gave Abbas a green light to resume indirect negotiations with Israel under the auspices of the US.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior Abbas aide, revealed that the Palestinians have made it clear that if the two sides failed to produce agreement over the borders of the future Palestinian state after four months of the indirect negotiations, there would be no point in pursuing the talks.

“When we talk about the borders, we are referring to those in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley and the Gaza Strip,” he said, adding that the Palestinians were also seeking territorial continuity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Abdel Rahim said that once Mitchell manages to reach agreement on the borders, the two parties would then launch talks on final-status issues such as refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, water, security, land and prisoners held in Israeli jails.

He said that the US administration has informed the PA that the goal of the talks was to “end the occupation that began in 1967 and the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state that would live in peace and security alongside Israel.”

The new launcher, constructed near an existing rocket base in the Semnan province east of Teheran, is visible in satellite imagery, according to the report.

The defense intelligence group said the appearance of the launcher suggests assistance from North Korea, also that it may be intended to launch the Simorgh, a long-range missile unveiled in early February and officially intended to be used as a space-launch vehicle (SLV).
Both the missile and the launch pad, which according to Jane’s is large enough to accommodate it, point to cooperation from Pyongyang; SLV’s can be converted to be used as long-range ballistic missiles for military purposes.

Tal Inbar, head of the Space Research Center, Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, said shortly after the unveiling of the Simorgh that the rocket is worrisome development since the missile could one day be adapted into an ICBM, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

After analyzing images of the missile, Inbar said that it appeared to currently be powered by liquid fuel, but could one day be configured to work with a solid fuel propellant, a technology that the Iranians have already begun using in their Sajil ballistic missile, which has a range of around 2,500 km.

‘This is a major technological breakthrough and could mean that the Iranians are on their way to obtaining an ICBM,’ he said.

Israel and other Western countries suspect that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.

In August 2009, President Shimon Peres told his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to Moscow “The fact that Iran is investing billions of dollars in the development of long-range missiles, in parallel to its nuclear project, is clear indication of its intent.”
The president said there would be no point for any country to develop missiles capable of reaching targets so far and then loading them with conventional warheads. Evoking Holocaust imagery during the meeting with Medvedev, Peres likened an Iranian nuclear bomb to a “flying death camp.”

Yaakov Katz contributed to this report

Israel has crossed every red line and made prospects for peace even dimmer in clashing with Muslim worshipers on the Temple Mount, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement released Friday evening.

Abbas said Israeli security forces, which he termed the “occupation army,” were “provoking” members of other faiths in a way that could “set off a religious war in the region.” He warned that “Israeli escapades” in east Jerusalem would have repercussions not just in the city and the Middle East, but also in Muslim world.

The PA president urged the US and the international community to intervene and stop tensions from escalating further.The PA president urged the US and the international community to intervene and stop tensions from escalating further.

Syria also condemned what it termed Israel’s “desecration of Arab and Islamic sanctities” in Jerusalem on Friday, adding its voice to those opposing indirect negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel.

“The desecration … comes at a time when the majority of the Arab League Council’s memebers adopted the indirect Palestinian-Israeli negotiations,” read a statement released by the Syrian Foreign Ministry and quoted by SANA. It further noted that the clashes serve as “extra evidence on Israel’s non-seriousness about peace … and a proof of the Israeli anti-peace policy that aims at liquidating the Palestinian cause.”

Echoing Abbas’s earlier statement, Damascus called Friday’s incident a “blatant provocation to the feeling of hundreds of millions of Muslims.”

Eighteen policemen were lightly wounded in their attempt to restore order on the Temple Mount after Arab youths emerging from Friday prayers started hurling rocks down onto those worshiping at the Western Wall.

Having restored calm by use of stun grenades, and following helpful intervention by other Muslim worshipers to defuse the clash, police eventually withdrew in coordination with the Waqf to allow older worshipers to leave the Temple Mount.

Eight of the injured policemen were hospitalized in light condition. Five suspects were arrested during the riots.

Ron Krumer, a spokesman for Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, confirmed an Arab woman was wounded in the head by a rubber bullet and hospitalized in serious condition. Palestinian medics reported 13 injuries.

Police denied using rubber bullets to disperse the riot.

Najeh Btirat, a Waqf official, said the clash followed a mosque sermon on the issue.

“The Friday sermon focused on the Islamic sites that are being targeted by Israel and the need to preserve them,” he said. About 300 young men threw stones at police after prayers, he said.

Rock-throwing then spilled over into Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter. Police deployed stun grenades, restoring calm.

Throughout the afternoon, stun grenades fired by security forces could be heard exploding in the Muslim Quarter. The faces and bloodshot eyes of Arab medics, who could be seen running through the alleyways, clearly reflected the usage of tear gas. Crowds were milling around waiting for something to happen.

In the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras el-Amud, some 20 Arab youths threw rocks at security forces. They were later dispersed. Clashes also broke out at the entrance to Issawiya, near the French Hill.

From the , across the valley, smoke could be seen rising up from Ras el-Amud as the young men throwing rocks at police set garbage on fire.

Skirmishes also broke out to the south, in the West Bank city of Hebron, after Friday prayers but no serious injuries were reported. A group of about 100 Palestinians protested outside the holy site known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi mosque.

Last Sunday, Jerusalem’s Old City erupted in violence as clashes between Arab rioters and security forces broke out on the Temple Mount and spread into the alleyways of the Muslim Quarter and the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras el-Amud. Four policemen were wounded and upwards of a dozen Muslim protesters were reportedly hurt during the clashes.

The repeated clashes in Jerusalem follow Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s announcement incorporating the Cave of the Patriarch’s in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem onto Israel’s list of national heritage sites.

Meanwhile on Friday afternoon, some 250 Palestinians and left-wing activists clashed with security forces in violent protests in the Ramallah area.

No one was wounded in the demonstrations in the villages of Na’alin, Bil’in and Dir Nizam.

The incident occurred early Friday evening on Highway 60, near the West Bank settlement of Ofra.
Apparently, the Palestinian car had a flat tire, causing it to divert from its course

Five of the Palestinians were at first reported to be critically injured, but were subesequently pronounced dead at the scene. The sixth was seriously injured in the accident and succumbed to his wounds at the Ramallah hospital.

The four IDF soldiers who were inside the Hummer sustained light injuries and were transferred to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.

Police were investigating the incident, and the highway was blocked to traffic

After announcing the ban on Israelis with dual nationality, Dubai’s police chief, Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said on Monday that authorities in the Gulf emirate would be on the lookout for “Jews.”

A Channel 2 News broadcast Monday night showed Tamim pointing at his own face and saying, “We know how to recognize them.” The United Arab Emirates will “deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship,” he said, adding that Israelis with dual nationality would be denied entry.

“We will not allow those who hold Israeli passports into the UAE no matter what other passport they have,” Tamim said. Police will “develop skills” to recognize Israelis by “physical features and the way they speak,” he claimed.

Responding to the decision, the Israeli diplomatic source said, “Of course this is very unfortunate. We were in the process of getting closer to the Gulf, a region which forms an antithesis to the extreme regime of Iran. We had a dialogue going, so this is a negative development.”

“While Israelis are not supposed to go to Dubai,” he added, “this will affect businesspeople who travel there.”

Dubai has become a popular destination for Israeli business travelers with dual nationality who specialize in the fields of agriculture, trade and shipping, among other sectors.

Last month, Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer played in a Dubai tennis tournament, a year after the event’s organizers were fined $300,000 for denying her a visa to participate in the international tournament, citing security concerns.

Senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his hotel room on January 19. Dubai Police says he was killed in a Mossad assassination involving at least 27 suspects who entered the emirate on a variety of passports.

Meanwhile, British and Australian police investigators in Israel have “zero chance” of making significant progress in their investigations into the alleged use of false passports in the killing of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month, a former senior police officer told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Former National Fraud Unit investigator Dep.-Cmdr. (ret.) Boaz Guttman, who served on the police force for 21 years and who has worked with Interpol and police forces from Britain, spoke hours after Australia announced that it would send Federal Police agents to Israel this week to investigate the use of forged Australian passports in Mabhouh’s slaying.

Britain’s Serious and Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) has two officers in Israel already waiting to interview British Israelis who will arrive at the British Consulate in Tel Aviv in the coming days to collect new biometric passports.

“They are very able and they have common sense. But this is a matter that cannot be resolved on a police level,” Guttman said, adding that the Israel Police and SOCA have enjoyed good levels of cooperation in the past.

“Without belittling their capabilities, all of this is a show put on for domestic consumption by Britain and Australia, to show that they are doing something,” Guttman said. “It is a waste of Australian and British taxpayers’ money,” he added.

“Dubai police does not have serious evidence that can be presented to a court [linking Israel to Mabhouh’s death],” Guttman continued.

“Investigators can’t march into the office of the Israel Police inspector-general and show him a copy of the Sunday Times newspaper.

“Rumors don’t count as evidence,” he said.

“If Britain and Australia are sending a few officers to Israel, it shows that this is not a serious investigation. I can’t see how they will make any progress,” he added.

Based on his past experience in working with Interpol, Guttman said, Interpol members investigating the assassination likely have access to one another’s case material.

Guttman added that foreign police officers could interview citizens of their countries within their embassies without obtaining permission from Israel’s Ministry of Interior, but said that if they wished to conduct the questioning on Israeli soil, they would require approval as well as an Israel Police escort.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Dubai Police believe at least two suspected Mossad agents travelled to the US using a British and an Irish passport.

“All of them … These are agents for the Mossad, we know this,” Dubai Police chief Lt.-Gen. Tamim said, according to the London Times. “They travelled to European countries and to the US using the same documents they used to enter here,” he added.

Also on Monday, Dubai Police revised its list of suspected assassins once again, adding a 27th suspect, though it did not name the latest addition.

To protest the inclusion of the West Bank sites the PA believes will one day be part of its future state, it moved its weekly cabinet meeting from Ramallah to Hebron on Monday.

In a statement that it released after its meeting, the PA said that this decision was against international law.

“These sites are an inseparable part of Palestinian land which has been occupied since 1967. The PA has turned to all the international bodies to demand that it oppose Israel’s decision and cause its abolishment,” said the PA.

The PA also spoke of its opposition to Israeli actions in east Jerusalem, including its construction of Jewish homes and demolition of Palestinian homes there as well as the steps it took Sunday to quell Palestinian rioters on the Temple Mount.

It also turned to the European Union to ask that it help stop Jewish construction in east Jerusalem.

On Monday the EU said that Israel was harming the peace process.

A spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the EU policy chief said in a statement that she regarded the addition of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb “as detrimental to the attempts to re-launch peace negotiations. The EU calls on Israel to refrain from provocative acts.”

Since the sites were placed on the list on February 21, Palestinians have clashed with the IDF in Hebron. Clashes were more intense for the first five days, and since then have dwindled down to small incidents of rock throwing.

According to  AP, a group of settler youths, some as young as 4 years old, threw rocks and cursed at Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has warned that placing West Bank sites on the heritage list could lead to a religious war.

But Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told AP, “We are not going to be drawn into a cycle of violence. We are fully determined, and we count on our people understanding fully well that the best response to this … is to stay focused” on state-building.

The cave where the biblical forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried is sacred to both Jews and Muslims, both of whom pray in separate sections of the complex.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, said he hoped the present tension over Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs was just a “rough moment, a hiccup” that could be overcome on the way to renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.Kerry, at a Jerusalem press conference on Monday, said that access to the sites –  which he said were important to Jewish and Moslem understanding of their “history, culture and religions” — was shared.

Saying that he thought what Netanyahu did was “understandable” within the context of trying to “preserve and renew” the Jewish components of the sites, Kerry added that “the timing and manner of the announcement needs to be taken into account in the future context of trying to move people to dialogue.”

Kerry said that the move “certainly lends itself to misinterpretation without adequate explanation, and I  think there is an explanation, and I think you have to be carful with these things. My caution as we go forward is we have to be thoughtful about everything we say and do so we keep a dialogue on track.”

Regarding that dialogue, Kerry, after meeting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday in Amman, said he was “convinced that there is a willingness in both governments to try to move forward in respect to dialogue.”

 Kerry said that he was hopeful that over the next weeks and months “the process can reach a critical point where it is possible for our administration in Washington and the government here to announce something positive.” He gave no details or timetable.