Netanyahu envisions 'three more Israels' in Mideast, N. Africa?

Started by rmstock, December 02, 2015, 03:19:51 PM

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rmstock

Netanyahu envisions 'three more Israels' in Mideast, N. Africa?

  "Outlining vision for countering Iranian conventional threat, prime
   minister curiously suggests 'Israels' near Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen.

   
   By Gil Ronen
   
   First Publish: 11/11/2015, 8:34 AM
   http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/203220#.Vl9AWHrNFC0
   
   In a somewhat cryptic remark in an interview hosted by the American
   Enterprise Institute (AEI) Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
   raised the imaginary possibility of the establishment of two or three
   more "Israels" throughout the Middle East and North Africa, which he
   said would be located in or near present-day Libya, Afghanistan and
   Yemen.
   
   

   
   He made the curious statement in the course of a long reply to a
   question by the host, AEI Senior Vice President of Foreign and Defense
   Policy, Danielle Pletka, about the implications of the deal signed with
   Iran. Netanyahu laid out three things that need to be done – presumably
   by the US and the West – which he said he had discussed earlier in the
   day with President Barack Obama.
   
   The first of these, he said, is to "keep Iran's feet to the fire and
   make sure it doesn't violate the deal."
   
   The second thing, he continued, is to prevent Iran's conventional
   aggression. "Remember," he said, "Iran is arming Hezbollah, trying to
   build second front in Golan, supplying Hamas in Gaza and Islamic Jihad
   with the technology of attack drones, acting in Yemen, trying to
   undermine Jordan, you name it. Also building an arms industry
   50,000-man strong that produces submarines, satellites, precision
   rocketry advanced weapons."
   
   Iran can pursue this conventional-arms aggression, he warned, if it's
   not met with countervailing force. And to this end – the US needs to
   support its allies and "the most important ally, the most important
   countervailing force for Iran is the state of Israel. Support Israel!"
   
   This was the point at which he laid out the "additional Israels"
   scenario. "The president and I discussed today an MOU, a memorandum of
   understanding for American military support for Israel for the next ten
   years," he said.
   
   At the 33:00 minute mark, he then asked his audience: "Imagine a Middle
   East without Israel. What do you think would happen in our immediate
   vicinity? I'm the foreign minister so I have to be diplomatic," he
   answered. Netanyahu is currently also acting foreign minister.
   
   "I'll leave it to your imagination. Now imagine a Middle East with
   three Israels: one in Afghanistan, one in Libya, one near Yemen. It'll
   be a far different situation. The support for Israel that I'm talking
   about. Well – the United States supports Israel to the tune of 3
   billion a year.
   
   "You spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a trillion and a half.
   So that's five centuries' worth of support for Israel... We're an ally
   that doesn't ask for any American troops... We can defend ourselves, we
   just want to have the tools. So I think the second thing in fighting
   Iran is getting Israel the tools to defend itself and deter Iran."
   
   The third thing that needs to be done against the Iranian threat, he
   said, is to bring down its global terror network.

   Tags: Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, US-Israel relations
   "

``I hope that the fair, and, I may say certain prospects of success will not induce us to relax.''
-- Lieutenant General George Washington, commander-in-chief to
   Major General Israel Putnam,
   Head-Quarters, Valley Forge, 5 May, 1778

rmstock


``I hope that the fair, and, I may say certain prospects of success will not induce us to relax.''
-- Lieutenant General George Washington, commander-in-chief to
   Major General Israel Putnam,
   Head-Quarters, Valley Forge, 5 May, 1778