Moshe Dayan’s widow: Israel doesn’t know how to make peace
By Gideon Levy

She turned 93 last Friday, according to the Hebrew calendar. On Thursday, Herzliya awarded her honorary citizenship. Ruth Dayan doesn’t rest for a moment. In the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom and in the Palestinian village of Kharbata, she founded an arts and crafts workshop for women. Once every week or two she drives to these places by herself. She’s also busy with countless humanitarian issues in the territories. A few months ago she flew to Malta to meet the daughter of Yasser Arafat, the granddaughter of her soulmate, Raymonda Tawil.

During the interview her son, the filmmaker Assi Dayan, emerges from his room in Ruth’s apartment in north Tel Aviv. She sends him off to rest some more. The day before the interview, Maariv published a heartrending poem written by her. She greatly admires the book “The End of Conflict” by Avinadav Begin, the grandson of the former prime minister, and she is busy helping her biographer, Anthony David, get on with the job. (David also wrote a biography of Salman Schocken, who bought Haaretz back in the 1930s.)

She shows me the first picture ever taken of her; she’s a baby in her mother’s arms. On the back of the fading photo is scribbled: “Ruth. Three months. 1917.”
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Ruth Dayan, are you proud to be an Israeli? Are you ashamed?

It depends. I’m proud to be an Israeli on a limited basis. Every person has his own inner Israeli.

What is your Israel?

My Israel is the country, the landscape I see when I travel from north to south. The mountains, the ocean – just like it was back then. For a moment I even enjoy myself. I remember when we would pick anemones of various colors in the hills that surround Nahalal. I’m from Jerusalem, and there they had red anemones. I miss the old Israel, when there were still ideals, when we settled the land.

And we expelled?

We didn’t expel. During my childhood, we didn’t expel. We bought those tracts of land. Since then, however, many things have happened and today Israel is not the same. It’s cliche to talk about how we’re in a state of occupation and we’re trying to occupy more and more. I’m at that age where I don’t even talk about peace anymore. We don’t know how to make peace. We go from war to war and this will never end.

Whose fault is it?

Ours, mainly. Are we, with all our power, incapable of taking a step?

Moshe Dayan was there when this occupation started.

No. The occupation was the only remaining option. Nothing else could have been done. Moshe was the one who actually led the policy of building bridges.

Perhaps this perpetuated the occupation?

That could be. I don’t think it did. Even Arafat, the man who would kiss me when we met, told me he admired Moshe. Even the Jordanian chief of staff told me in 1948: “What a pleasure it is having your husband as an enemy.” His behavior toward the Arabs was positive even after the Six-Day War. He would travel alone to Nablus; he liked being with them. He had a dialogue with them. Today, who talks with them? For the current government, peace is just a word.

Have you lost hope for peace?

I think Zionism has finished its work. I’ve endured many wars and I can’t ignore the fact that they didn’t want us. When I go to the territories, I don’t even bother instilling hope in them. Out of courtesy, I tell them that I hope something will change, but the deterioration is just awful. Particularly the fence. This is something I can’t tolerate.

People say it stopped terrorism.

Oh, please. “It stopped terrorism.” Nothing will be able to stop terrorism except dialogue.

Shimon Peres admired Dayan. What was Dayan’s attitude toward Peres?

Moshe didn’t admire anybody. Maybe Ben-Gurion. He was a lone wolf.

What is Peres’ contribution to peace?

I think he can still contribute a lot. Though a president doesn’t have to intervene, he must intervene. He must make an impact, even on the people. The people are dispersed across a number of different viewpoints and groups and even religions within our religion. My grandfather graduated from the Sorbonne, my mother was a secular woman, and it’s not like I hear anybody speaking to me from behind the clouds.

Are you Jewish?

I’m just an Israeli. It was a great honor to be Israeli, even when I was still a Jewish Palestinian during my childhood in London. I’m the first daughter of graduates of the Herzliya Gymnasium after Yehudi Menuhin was the first son. In London, I went to pray with the gentile girls.

What did you think would be here?

We lived the moment. In Nahalal, 17 children were killed during the War of Independence. We only thought about today and nothing else.

Two states or one?

There was a time when I thought one state for two peoples. Now I see that we have to have two states because we really are different and it would be best if everyone takes care of his own business. We’re a mob that can’t even get along internally. So we’re going to get along with them?

Is there a politician you admire today who sparks hope in you?

Avishay [Braverman, a Labor MK and minority affairs minister]. No one is like him. I was impressed by his work at Ben-Gurion University. He can very well be prime minister, and he wants to be.

What would you do if you were prime minister?

Just like how we started. Like when we met with [Jordanian King] Abdullah and when [Yitzhak] Rabin tried. Rabin could have delivered peace.

So far only Likud has made peace.

Let’s have Likud. Let’s have whoever. Currently I’m in a trance from Avinadav Begin. He says that there are no Jews, there are no Muslims. This is the foundation. This I really like. The more I read this book, the more floored I am. He is very Beginesque, just like his father and grandfather. He believes in something. He doesn’t go to Bil’in just to be seen there. He goes there because he believes in it.

I want to read you a passage from his book: “Do we need words to observe the developing buds, to observe our children, to observe the droplets of dew that sparkle in the morning sun? How are we to love if the word love is nothing but a tool used to tighten our grip on our most dear?”

Moshe Dayan always used to say I was a romantic. In letters he wrote to me from prison, he always wrote that one day we would reach a state of tranquillity and that I would sit nearby and knit for him. And I would wear my Scottish kilt. People always used to say I was an extreme leftist, but I love this country.

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Moshe Dayan’s widow: Israel doesn’t know how to make peace

Israel Air force trains for rapid refueling In preparing for Iran Strike
Exclusive: Long-range destinations such as Iran would necessitate risky procedure.

In preparation for long-range missions and possible conflict with Iran, the Israel Air Force has expanded its training programs to include rapid refueling operations on runways.It’s a dangerous practice since the aircraft’s engines are running while the fuel nozzle is still connected to the jets. The training is for both pilots and ground crews and it is being done to enable the aircraft to carry as muchfuel as possible for long-range missions.

Fuel nozzles are traditionally disconnected from fighter aircraft while they are still parked in hangers and before they are rolled out to the runway, where they usually wait for several minutes before takeoff and while burningfuel. The new protocol includes keeping fuel trucks on the runway, having ground personnel reattach the nozzle and fuel the aircraft to the maximum fullness, disconnecting seconds before takeoff.

“We understand that many of our threats and challenges require us to develop a long-range capability,” one senior IAF officer explained. “Part of our preparation includes knowing how tofuel our aircraft so they can have as much fuel as possible.”

Last week, the IAF inaugurated a new unmanned aerial vehicle called the Heron TP. With the same wingspan as a Boeing 737, the Heron TP is Israel’s largest and most sophisticated drone, weighing 4,650 kg. and capable of flying for 36 hours while carrying a payload of hundreds of kilograms. The Heron will increase the IAF’s long-range capabilities, mainly in intelligence and surveillance, and according to foreign reports could also have missile strike capabilities.

Meanwhile on Saturday, The New York Times reported that Iran recently moved almost its entire stockpile of low-enriched uranium to an above-ground facility. According to a recent report by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, close to two tons of low-enriched nuclear uranium was moved all at once from storage deep underground to a facility where it can be enriched to a 20-percent level, putting the material just a jump away from the 80-to-90% that is required for nuclear weapons.

Iran’s action, which according to the report has confused Western officials, exposes the material to an air strike or even to ground-based sabotage.

The Times quoted one official as saying the move was tantamount to painting a bull’s-eye on the stockpile.

The paper raised several possible explanations, primarily that Iran might have run out of suitable storage containers for the radioactive material and was forced to move it all at once. It would, however, not require the entire two tons to enrich uranium for the aging reactor in Teheran where it makes medical isotopes.

Other explanations raised by the paper include the possibility that the Islamic Republic actually wants Israel to attack, since that would likely unite the Iranian people behind the regime and silence the opposition Green Movement and the demonstrations protesting against the results of June’s presidential election.

Teheran, the Times said, might be using the move as leverage against the West and as part of a threat to further enrich its entire stockpile if the international community did not reduce its pressure on the Islamic Republic.

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IAF trains for rapid refueling

Zvi Bar’el / Let’s calm down on Syria and Hezbollah
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz Correspondent

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited Syria four times, twice during the past year. Bashar Assad has visited Tehran four times since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. If reciprocal visits by the presidents of Iran and Syria are cause for panic, let’s calm down: the balance between the two has been preserved. Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has also visited Tehran many times, most recently in December, so his meeting with Ahmadinejad last week is not unusual. If Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are planning a war against Israel, they don’t need showcase meetings. But why not panic when you can panic? Why not see every meeting as a threat?

“Winds of war” was the headline Israeli newspapers used to describe these meetings, even though the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence assessment was that no preparations are being made for war. All we need to get that pleasant war sensation is the arrival to the region of the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, or for Hassan Nasrallah to give one of his speeches about Tel Aviv, or for a Christian Lebanese politician to charge for the 100th time that Hezbollah seeks to draw Lebanon into a war, or for Ahmadinejad to return to Damascus and for the umpteenth time say the Zionist entity will disappear. Could anything be clearer proof that we are being pushed toward war, or at least that “something is happening”?

On the face of it, each of the leaders meeting in Damascus last week has his reason for war with Israel. Israel, too, has a reason to go to war against each of them, as a group or individually. But a reason for war is insufficient for war. The fact is, Israel is not going to war against Hezbollah, and Syria is not moving its tanks into the Golan Heights. Armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah consider the menace they pose a strategic asset – not only against Israel.
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Hezbollah is basing its control over Lebanon on that menace, but it realizes that war may destroy its political legitimacy. Hamas, cut off from Egypt and the West Bank, cannot allow itself to suffer a Cast Lead II while it is still trying to recover from the effects of Cast Lead I. Syria can attack Israel, but the price it will have to pay is likely to be much higher than what Hamas or Hezbollah will have to pay.

Moreover, Iran is not very keen for its allies to suffer a severe blow whose political implications will echo clearly in Tehran. As far as Iran is concerned, the threat of war is preferable to actual war. The balance of terror is its most effective restraint against an Israeli attack – a view shared by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

This balance can only be overturned by a peace agreement between Syria and Israel. It will not prevent Iran from going nuclear and will not sever the ties between Syria and Iran or Hezbollah. But it will remove an essential element from this four-pronged threat.

However, it appears that we get along much better with threats than wars or real “operations.” We’re thrilled when Assad ridicules U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that he distance himself from Iran; proof that the axis of evil exists and the threat is alive and kicking. But when Assad repeatedly calls for the resumption of indirect negotiations with Israel, the list of preconditions is ready: The Golan Heights will not be returned, we will not agree to Turkish mediation, and we demand the dismantling of the Syria-Iran alliance.

When the United States tries to convince us that the talks with the Palestinians may weaken Iran’s influence in the region – regardless of whether this assessment is valid – we create new areas of friction with the Palestinians. There is little left of the freeze in settlement construction, and declaring the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb national heritage sites may lead to a third intifada. The fact that Hamas has not fired Qassam rockets for more than a year is perceived as obvious, but the blockade of the Gaza Strip has continued for more than three and a half years. In Israel’s eyes this is something natural that should have no effect on the Palestinians’ positions.

Israel cannot honestly talk about external threats when it does not pose an alternative to the public. President Shimon Peres may extend his hand of peace to Syria, but the Israeli government extends its finger in a lewd gesture.

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Let’s calm down on Syria and Hezbollah

Partners against Iran
By JPOST EDITORIAL
16/02/2010 23:03

Mullen’s visit underlined Washington’s intensifying effort to keep closely coordinated with Israel.
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The visit to Israel this week by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, underlined the growing urgency of the Iranian nuclear challenge, and the Obama administration’s intensifying effort to keep closely coordinated with Israel while grappling with that threat.

Mullen’s visit coincided with the announcement that Vice President Joe Biden will also come to Israel in the near future, again for high-level talks largely focused on the Iranian issue.The visit also came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured Qatar and Saudi Arabia in order to shore up support for American diplomatic and military efforts in the region, ahead of visits by three of her top deputies and a reported upcoming trip by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.

The rhetoric from Washington is firm: Clinton declared to Iran that the US would “not stand idly by while you pursue a nuclear program that can be used to threaten your neighbors and even beyond.” Mullen was more curt still: Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon, [or] nuclear capability,” he said here.

At the same time, however, there is profound concern in Israel that the fine words, even backed up by a new seriousness in seeking more effective economic sanctions, will prove insufficient to deter the ayatollahs.

Clearly, the flurry of visits by high-level US officials marks a heightened era of dialogue between Washington and Jerusalem, as the US steps up its campaign to resolve the Iranian crisis without a resort to force.

Mullen warned Israel tellingly of the “unintended consequences” of a military strike. Biden, the former head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, will doubtless also stress the administration’s conviction that there are still effective ways, and sufficient time, to force the Islamic Republic’s hand before we arrive at the stark choice: a nuclear Iran, or military intervention to prevent it.

FOR NOW, President Barack Obama has yet to add Israel to his travel plans. And eight months after his landmark visit to Cairo, and his outreach address to the Muslim world, his absence is keenly felt here. Obama the candidate received the usual rock-star treatment when he visited – and took time to tour Sderot – in 2008. Obama the president is a more suspect commodity – a friend of Israel and guardian of the strategic partnership, to be sure, but also a leader who has been publicly at odds with ours over the dimensions of a building freeze beyond the ’67 lines and over his assessment that progress on the Palestinian front can produce leverage on Iran rather than the other way round.

A presidential visit in the near future would certainly prove reassuring to many Israelis, and would disarm those critics who assert that our well-being is not a sufficiently high priority for hisWhite House.

But whether their face-to-face meetings take place here or in Washington, there can be no doubting that further direct consultations between Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be vital in the coming months – as the US president strives to force Iran to change course, and the possibility of this effort failing raises ever-greater concerns in Israel.

Israel has been publicly supportive of the American effort at engagement with Iran, even as it has privately complained about the lack of firm parameters guiding that engagement, the fudging of deadlines, the apparent capacity for Iran to exploit a well-meaning president’s desire for a diplomatic solution in order to buy time and close in on the nuclear weapons goal.

Ultimately, Israel must and will take the decisions it feels necessary to safeguard its basic security interests. Ultimately, Israel will gauge the risks, assess the consequences, and act accordingly.

Today, in mid-February 2010, the US and Israel remain shoulder-to-shoulder in seeking biting sanctions against Teheran, to obviate the recourse to the use of force. It is encouraging to see the succession of candid, straight-talking, high-level visits bolstering that coordination. It is a partnership that needs to be maintained at the very highest level as well.

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Partners against Iran

TEHRAN, Iran – From the deck of Iran’s new guided-missile destroyer, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized the U.S. military presence in the Gulf Friday and said Washington was trying to frighten Iran’s Arab neighbors into buying its weapons.

Khamenei made the comments after taking a tour of the destroyer Jamaran, which was launched at a Gulf port Friday. State television, which broadcast the event, said the warship was the country’s first domestically built destroyer and a major technological leap for Iran’s naval industries.

Using the backdrop of military might, Khamenei declared that America and Israel were trying to sow divisions between Iran and Arab nations.

“The U.S. and the Zionist regime are trying to spread divisions to distract the attention of Islamic nations from the main enemies of the Islamic world, which are the U.S. and Israel,” Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state TV.

Khamenei also insisted his country is not seeking nuclear weapons, saying Islam forbids weapons of mass destruction.

“Because of this reason, we don’t have any belief in the atomic bomb and don’t pursue it,” he said.

The denial came as France and Germany threatened to seek fresh sanctions against Iran, a day after the U.N. nuclear agency suggested that Tehran has either resumed working on a nuclear weapon or never stopped in 2007, as concluded by a U.S. intelligence assessment. Iran maintains its nuclear work is only for peaceful purposes like energy generation.

Germany’s leading insurance companies — Munich Re AG and Allianz SE — also announced they would quit doing business in the Islamic republic after the International Atomic Energy Agency report.

Iran already is weathering three sets of Security Council sanctions meant to punish its refusal to freeze its uranium enrichment program. Its recent rejection of a plan meant to strip it of most of its enriched stockpile plus its belated acknowledgment that it had been secretly building a new enrichment facility has increased sentiment for a fourth set.

“This report confirms with precision the international community’s very serious concerns,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said. “It shows how urgent it is to act with determination to respond to the absence of cooperation by Iran.”

Khamenei, wearing clerical robes and a turban and walking with a cane as he inspected the ship, said the presence of foreign forces in the Persian Gulf “disturbs security” in the region but Washington will fail to achieve its goals.

U.S. military officials said last month that Washington was deploying upgraded Patriot missiles in Arab nations in the region and more U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf capable of destroying missiles in flight.

The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is also based in the Arab nation of Bahrain, just across the Gulf from Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week to discuss Iran, warning that Tehran could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East if it chooses to develop atomic weapons.

The predominantly Sunni Arab Middle East — and Gulf nations in particular — have been wary of the growing influence of Shiite Iran, especially because of international suspicions that its nuclear program has a military dimension.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters and is the commander in chief of Iran’s armed forces, said accusations by President Barack Obama and other American officials about Iran’s nuclear ambitions were made out of anger.

“Repeating absurd words about the building of nuclear weapon in Iran shows that the enemies are resorting to repeating the propaganda out of ultimate failure,” Khamenei said.

The 94-meter (308-foot) destroyer, which weighs 1,500 tons and has a helipad and modern radar, was launched in Bandar Abbas, a southern port city just at the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic point in the Gulf through which much of the world’s oil and other energy supplies pass.

The warship is equipped with anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles as well as torpedoes and naval cannons, state television said. Khamenei’s attendance was a sign of the significance that Iran attached to the event.

Iran has declared many such advances in its military industries and sciences to demonstrate self-sufficiency despite sanctions and attempts by the U.S. and its allies to isolate the country over its nuclear program.

The ship has a top speed of about 35 mph and can carry 120 to 140 personnel, state TV said, adding that a second destroyer is now under construction.
Source: yahoo news

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States on Wednesday of war-mongering and of turning the Gulf into an “arms depot,” hitting back at U.S. accusations that the Islamic state was moving toward a military dictatorship.

The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were the latest sign of growing tensions between Tehran and Washington, which are embroiled in a long-running and escalating row over Iranian nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.

The United States is leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran, which says its nuclear program is solely to generate electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.

Last month, U.S. officials said the United States had expanded land- and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Gulf — a waterway crucial for global oil supplies — to counter what it sees as Iran’s growing missile threat.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday the United States believed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were driving the country toward military dictatorship and should be targeted in any new U.N. sanctions.

In an apparent reference to Clinton’s visit to the Middle East earlier this week, Khamenei said the Americans had dispatched “their agent” to the region to accuse Iran’s Islamic system of government.

“But no one believes these lies because they know that America is the real war-mongering state. They have turned the Persian Gulf into an arms depot,” Khamenei said.

“They invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and are now accusing the Islamic Republic. Everybody knows that the Islamic Republic is for peace and brotherhood among all Islamic states in the world,” Khamenei said, state television reported.

PUNCH IN THE MOUTH

Iran faces growing Western calls for a new round of targeted U.N. sanctions against it after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week ordered the start of higher-grade uranium production.

During her three-day visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Clinton denied the United States planned to attack Iran and said Washington wanted dialogue with Tehran but could not “stand idly by” while Iran pursued a suspected nuclear weapons program.

The West accuses Iran of covertly trying to build nuclear bombs. Iran, the world’s fifth-largest crude oil exporter, says its nuclear facilities are part of a peaceful energy program and it would retaliate for any attack on them.

Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, said the Iranian people had punched its enemies “in the mouth” by turning out in large numbers to rallies last week marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

On Thursday, Iranian state television said “tens of millions of people” rallied to support the revolution across the country of 70 million, which is facing its worst domestic crisis in three decades after a disputed presidential election last June.

An opposition website said security forces fired teargas at opposition supporters staging a Tehran counter-rally on the February 11 anniversary of the revolution that toppled the shah.

Khamenei, who like other Iranian leaders accused the West of stoking post-election unrest and meddling in Iran’s internal affairs, accused “arrogant powers” of opposing the Islamic Republic because of its call for justice in the world.

“We should mourn the day when the global imperialism praises us,” he said.

Source: yahoo buzz

As mutual fear, mistrust and polarisation increases between Iran and Israel, an arms race between the two sworn enemies is gathering momentum.

Central to this is the Russian-made S-300 missile system.

It is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft missile systems in the world today and air power experts say it represents a formidable defence against conventional aircraft.

In 2005, Iran sought to buy five batteries of the S-300 from Russia in a deal believed to be worth around $800 million.

The S-300 would significantly boost Iran’s defence capability at a time when it is concerned about the US military’s presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli threats to target its nuclear facilities.

But the S-300 deal has yet to go through and Israel has been engaging in some diplomatic wrangling in an attempt to ensure that it does not.

In early June 2009, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Russian-speaking foreign minister, visited Moscow.

He was on a mission to convince Russia to put an end to its arms deals with Iran and Syria and, in particular, to halt the sale and delivery of Russia’s S-300 missile system to Iran.

Lieberman had a bargaining chip: If Russia went ahead with the sale to Iran, Israel might continue to provide hi-tec weapons to neighbouring Georgia, which engaged Russia in a war last year.

Filmmaker Abdallah el-Binni investigates this high-stakes game of brinkmanship as it threatens to spread to other countries in the region.

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Israel Countdown Against Iran – 01 October 09 – Part 1