The Day In Israel: Thursday Feb 4th, 2010
Syrian dorktator Bashar Assad has responded to recent statements by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak by stating Israel is pushing the region towards war.
Israel is pushing the Middle East toward a new war, Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Wednesday.
“Israel is not serious about achieving peace since all facts point out that Israel is pushing the region towards war, not peace,” the official Syrian news agency SANA quoted Assad as saying during a meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.
Earlier Wednesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem warned Israel that if war were to break out between Syria and Israel, it would be fought “inside your cities.”
“Israel must stop being the neighborhood bully. Don’t test our determination,” Moallem said during a press conference in Damascus where Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos was also present. “One day you threaten Gaza, the next day you threaten Lebanon, then Iran and now Syria.”
Moallem warned that if a war between Syria and Israel breaks out, it would be “total and take place inside your cities.”
His words were a reaction to a statement by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who said at the Herzliya Conference on Tuesday that if an agreement with Syria was not reached, the two countries might be dragged into a “forceful confrontation that may deteriorate into all-out war.”
“In the reality of the Middle East, we will conclude such a war and then sit and negotiate, talking about the exact issues we have been debating with the Syrians for the past 15 years,” said Barak.
Moallem said Syria “assesses that such a war will break out, we must not rule out such a possibility. I would say it would be a total and expansive war, whether it begins in South Lebanon or in Syria.”
Meanwhile, I may have to bring out the flying pig, because the leftist Ha’aretz has reported the Syrian statements as a threat and Barak’s statements as they were – a call for renewed peace talks.
The defense establishment is pushing for a peace deal with Syria, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is cool to the idea – and Syrian leaders responded Wednesday to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s call for renewed peace talks by threatening total war.
Two days ago, addressing a group of senior Israeli officers, Barak said it was vital to resume peace talks with Syria because otherwise war was likely to break out. Then, “immediately after such a war, we’ll sit down to negotiate and discuss exactly the same things we’ve been discussing with the Syrians for 15 years already.”
Barak’s statement was not meant to threaten Syria, but to persuade Israelis of the urgency of resuming peace talks. However, based on their response, it is not clear that Syrian leaders interpreted it that way.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
11:18PM: Jon Stewart takes on Hamas’ anti-Semitic cartoons (hat tip: Michael)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Story Hole – Children’s Cartoons From Hamas | ||||
|
||||
11:05PM: An explosive device was detonated near a Red Cross convoy in the Gaza Strip earlier today.
Hamas’ response is entirely predictable.
A spokesman for the Hamas group which runs the Gaza Strip suggested the blast was caused by an unexploded Israeli shell.
8:10PM: Dork of the day:
8:06PM: Dubai has threatened to issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli Prime Minister if it turns out that the Mossad bumped off terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to assassinate [Mahmoud] al Mabhouh in Dubai. We will issue an arrest warrant against him,” Halfan told the U.A.E. site The Natioanl.
The Dubai police chief also said that the method used to kill al Mabhouh, was a ?Mossad method,? but did not elaborate further.
On Wednesday, Dubai’s police chief warned international intelligence agencies from working “behind our back,” saying anyone who did so “should be wary of his own back.
Halfan added that that threat was also applicable “to any intelligence organization around the world, whether Mossad, Hamas or any other agency.”
Meanwhile, it looks like Ha’aretz borrowed someone from the Jerusalem Post to edit this report.
5:56PM: Ice hockey on the Israeli-Lebanon border?
Yeah, why not.
1:12PM: The war of words has continued with Syria, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman entering the fray.
(Syrian President Bashar) Assad must realize that if he “provokes” Israel his regime will collapse, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday.
Speaking during a business conference at Bar-Ilan University, Lieberman said, “Whoever thinks (Israeli) territorial concessions will separate Syria from the axis of evil is mistaken. Syria must be made to understand that it has to relinquish its demand (that Israel cede) the Golan Heights.”
On Wednesday Assad accused Israel of “pushing the region towards war”. During a meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos in Damascus, Assad said that the Jewish state “is not serious about achieving peace”.
Assad spoke just hours after his foreign minister, Walid Moallem, said that “Israel knows that if it declares war on Syria, such a war will reach its cities as well.”
The Syrian minister was responding to remarks made by Defense Minister Ehud Barak earlier this week. Speaking at a forum of senior IDF commanders, Barak said a full-blown war with Syria was possible in case a peace agreement is not reached.
Lieberman said Moallem’s remarks constitute a “blatant threat against Israel,” adding, “(Syria) has crossed a red line; and we cannot ignore this.”
6:05AM: Israeli President Shimon Peres watches Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi embrace Israeli singer Rita.
Filed Under: General
About the Author: An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.
At least, Berlusconi has better taste in women.
Who is Berlusconi kidding? That's one of the worst dye jobs I've ever seen. Makes me want to chuck a small figurine at his head.
No flying pig. Barak is their party.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-2-...
Thought that you'd find some snarky way to use this video. Jon Stewart is great!
I like Berlusconi. He's the only European leader who even tries to deal with the Islamists.
You mean like this?
Berlusconi supports Israeal. Don’t try to find an enemy where there isn’t one.
As to his supposed quote, is it wrong to feel sadness for the people of Gaza who are victims of Islam, or Hamas, or Hezbollah? Not in my book. He didn’t equate Gaza with the Holocaust nor suggest that they suffered more than the Jews in the Holocaust. He just said–let’s have some pity for them.
He did compare Gaza to the Holocaust. Are you crazy?
Even so, why should we pity people who want Israel destroyed and whose sole purpose of existence is to destroy Israel?
I kind of have to agree with both of you. Reading his statement, it would seem uncalled for from a military action where a relatively small number of civilians (no-one knows of course how many were civilians) were killed.
On the other hand, on the baisc issue, it is hard to blame the entire population. I once spoke to a young man who served in the Gaza house-to-house fighting unit (I don't believe he actually had to fight house-to-house during his service). He felt that the avarage Gazan was not necessarily hostile. As far as the polls are concerned – well, it's not like Gaza (or the PA!) is a free country.
My sanity has nothing to do with it. My reading and comprehension skills have everything to do with it. I'm judging the excerpt that is given. He does not compare the two. He simply says it's all right to show pain for victims of both. To compare is to draw a likeness or similarity between the two events. That's not what he did in that excerpt.
Israel has plenty of enemies. No need to try and invent one.
[...] I suppose a good many of us did a double take (which is a nice way of saying ‘spit our coffee all over the monitor’) today when we saw that Syria just wants Israel to “stop being the neighborhood bully.” [...]
A lot of psychological projection in those cartoon shows…
The report on ice hockey was indeed done by Arieh O’Sullivan who used to work for the Post, but he now works for The Media Line News Agency.
Anybody who wants more info on recreational hockey in Israel can go to the website:
http://www.israelhockeyassociation.org
[...] I suppose a good many of us did a double take (which is a nice way of saying ‘spit our coffee all over the monitor’) the other day when we saw that Syria just wants Israel to “stop being the neighborhood bully.” [...]
The fact that he even mentioned the Holocaust means that he was comparing them. If he wanted to talk about showing pain, he did not need to mention it.
So now you’re suggesting that no one has any right to mention the Holocaust at all. If they do, they incur the accusations and slander of people who want to act like the Holocaust is some kind of material object that you have sole copyrights to. The Holocaust was a human tragedy. It’s not something that belongs solely to one group of people, although the pain and memory of it is greater for that one group, yes. Anyone should be free to discuss it, to feel sorrow for it–no matter their nationality or creed, without constantly being judged, critiqued, analyzed, and accused over every word.
I’ll say it again and be finished: Don’t look for an enemy where there isn’t one. Be happy for the support and friendship Israel and the Jews have.
No, I am saying that there was absolutely no reason to bring it up and the only reason someone would bring it up would be to compare it. You dont see all these bleeding heart show compassion commercials on TV saying "Like the Holocaust, these poor people suffer on a regular basis."
I'm sorry, but that's just unacceptable to do something like that. Not to even mention how much anti-Israelis compare the Arab "suffering" to the Holocaust. See Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud.
Here I have to disagree strongly. Yes, the Holocaust IS the property of the Jewish people, unfortunately. The Nazis did not set out to exterminate anyone else, not even the gypsies. I think it is obscene (no offense) to call it a human tragedy, because that, in a sense, equates the persecutor with the victim – they were all human, after all.
And the holocaust was not unique, either. It was simply the culmination and concentration of thousands of years of persecution of the Jewish people – by the pagans, then the Christians, then the Moslems, and finally the ideologues, the practitioners of secular religions (not that the old fashioned kind didn’t help).
We bought it, we paid for it, and it’s ours. G-d help us.
I equated nothing to nothing. Stop reading in to things that aren't there. Stop making enemies (including fellows posters) where there aren't any. Stop seeing a persecution, offense, or conspiracy with every printed word.
The only thing "obscene" here the manufactured outrage of some posters every time the words "Jews" and "Holocaust" are used–no matter with what intention those words are used.
Why you would want to manufacture insults and offenses is beyond me. It only impedes the precious effort of non-Jews to support and defend Israel and the Jewish people. It is a dead-end street.
//You dont see all these bleeding heart show compassion commercials on TV saying "Like the Holocaust, these poor people suffer on a regular basis."//
I agree with you totally–that is disgusting. And that is not what Berlusconi did.
But by all means continue to perpetuate anger, enemy-mongering, and manufacturing outrage if you sincerely believe it makes your life more complete!
o.0