Russian forces sent out a warning to the Israeli Air Force after Israeli jets were detected near Russian controlled airspace near the Syrian–Lebanese border, Lebanese media outlet As Safir reported Friday.
Russia sent out a warning to the Israeli Air Force: We will shut down Israeli fighter jets if they intervene in Syria war
http://www.awdnews.com/political/russi-sent-out-a-warning-to-the-israeli-air-force-we-will-shot-down-israeli-fighter-jets-if-they-intervene-in-syria-war
08 December 2016 -
Russian forces sent out a warning to the Israeli Air Force after Israeli jets were detected near Russian controlled airspace near the Syrian–Lebanese border, Lebanese media outlet As Safir reported Friday.
The warning was issued after a Russian radar system spotted Israeli jets approaching Russian-controlled airspace two weeks ago, a Lebanese diplomatic official said, according to the report.
Russia's defense ministry said Thursday that its forces in Syria had set up a "hotline" with Israel's military to avoid clashes in the sky over the war-torn country.
An "information-sharing" mechanism "has been established through a hotline between the Russian aviation command center at the Hmeimim air base (in Syria) and a command post of the Israeli air force,we will not tolerate Israel intervention on Syria and we will shot down Israeli fighter jets if they intervene in Syria war" the ministry said in a statement, adding that the two sides were undergoing training on how to cooperate.
According to As Safir, the Lebanese source said that Russian aircraft immediately blocked the Israeli jets' path while they flew above the Akkar region in northern Lebanon. "The Russians immediately sent a clear warning to the Israelis that entering Syrian airspace would be a pretext for opening fire," the source added.
According to the paper, which is considered loyal to Hezbollah, the Israeli aircraft quickly heeded the warnings and changed their course.
Russia and Israel have been working to find a way to avoid unintended collisions between their aircraft over Syria since President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to set up a "mechanism" at talks in Moscow last month.
Russia launched a bombing campaign in Syria on September 30 at the request of its long-standing ally Bashar Assad that Moscow says is targeting Islamic State jihadists and other "terrorist" groups.
Israel has reportedly launched air strikes in Syria against Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah and Israeli officials are believed to fear that Russia's intervention could limit their room for maneuvre.
The United States and its allies involved in a coalition bombing IS have sharply criticised Russia's air campaign and say that the majority of its strikes have hit more moderate rebel groups fighting Assad.
Moscow has blasted the accusations and says Washington has rebuffed calls to cooperate more closely.
TENSIONS in war-torn Syria have escalated even further after President Bashar al-Assad warned Israel that his troops would respond to air strikes and implied that he was now in possession of Russian anti-aircraft missiles.
Syria's Assad threatens Israel with Russian S300 missiles:We will destroy Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa
http://www.awdnews.com/political/syria-s-assad-threatens-israel-with-russian-s300-missiles-we-will-destroy-israeli-cities-of-tel-aviv-and-Haifa
11 December 2016 - The threat came in a TV interview with Lebanon's Hezbollah-linked al-Manar station, which was also broadcast on Syrian state media. In it Assad warned that his government, which is already waging a bloody civil war, would "respond to any strike [in Syria] with a similar strike".
It remains unclear whether the batch of S300 missiles, which were ordered from Moscow in 2007, had finally been delivered. But Assad cut a confident figure and claimed to have scored significant victories over rebel forces in the country's civil war. He said the Syrian army now held "the balance of power" in that conflict.
Assad also appeared to aim another threat at his neighbour Israel, which has launched airstrikes against Syria to stop them arming Hezbollah in Lebanon. He claimed there had been calls in Syria to open a military front against Israel on the border they share. "There is clear popular pressure to open a new front of resistance in the Golan," he said.
According to The Guardian, Assad's threats are "likely to dramatically increase tensions in the region... which could provoke the Israelis to launch a future strike against the weapons". It even warns that the arms deal could trigger a new war between Syria and Israel.
The S300 deal is certainly significant. If and when the missiles do arrive it could "change the balance of power in the region," according to The Times.
"Assad's boast comes days after the European Union lifted an arms embargo on Syria — paving the way for individual countries of the bloc to send weapons to rebel fighters, and raising fears of an arms race in the region that could draw in outside powers," the paper adds.
The Daily Telegraph agrees. "The S300, seen as a game-changer in any potential conflict with Mr Assad's potential enemies, would be a major obstacle to a no-fly zone and shows Russia's determination to defend Mr Assad at all costs," it says.
The BBC notes that Assad has also said he would "in principle" attend a peace conference backed by the US and Russia in Geneva. However, rebel groups within Syria say they will not attend until government massacres come to an end.
Screenshot of an IDF Spokesperson tweet from December 6, 2016, of a fake map of Hezbollah military positions in Lebanon.
The picture in question is a visual illustration,' IDF says in response.
Israeli Army Tweets Fake Map of Hezbollah Positions in Lebanon
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.757921
Dec 08, 2016 - On December 6, the IDF Spokesperson tweeted in English a photo of a map described as “declassified,” showing Hezbollah military positions scattered among Lebanese villages.
Eighty-five villages appear on the pictured map along with thousands of sites tagged as military sites of combat equipment, launch sites, anti-aircraft and infantry positions.
“This is a war crime,” the tweet said. It was retweeted hundreds of times.
But an investigation by Twitter account holder @JudgeDan48 found that the map is not “declassified” that in effect this is not a map of Hezbollah military positions in Lebanon, but a map prepared by the IDF Spokesman.
The fabricated map contains points of interest for sites that were glued onto a map of southeastern Lebanon. Even a check of the points listed on the map found conflicts with the map that was tweeted.
The IDF confirmed that the map is inaccurate and is in effect only an illustration of what is going on in Lebanon.
The tweet came during a period when aerial attacks that were blamed on the Israeli Air Force were reported in Syria. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman hinted at the attacks and said “we will not permit any harm to Israeli sovereignty and we will not permit the smuggling of qualitative sophisticated weaponry or chemical weapons from Syria to Lebanon for Hezbollah’s benefit.”
The IDF has been trying to fight against Hezbollah in recent years via Twitter as well as quizzes on Playbuzz. A half a year ago the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit published a quick in English and Spanish on Playbuzz headlined, “How well do you know Hezbollah?”
The military propaganda doesn’t end here. In 2013 the IDF Spokesperson published a fabricated Facebook page of Hezbollah under the heading of “If Hezbollah had a Facebook account this is what it would look like.”
The army has also opened a web site called “The Terrorist Army of Hezbollah” updated from time to time
The IDF said the site was launched “in light of the knowledge gap in the international community about the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
The army said that “the information appearing on the site was gathered from internet sites and various sources, and were verified before publication by the Intelligence Corps.”
The IDF Spokesperson said in response: “The picture in question is a visual illustration of threats posed by Hezbollah, which has intentionally deployed inside a civilian sector of Lebanon, and is exploiting the population as a human shield.”
If reports on the recent bombings in Syria are true, it would appear that Israel considered the target urgent enough and believed Moscow wouldn't object.
Strike in Syria: Is Israel Playing Russian Roulette?
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.757573
Dec 08, 2016 -
The air strike early Wednesday morning near the Damascus airport is the second attack in Syria attributed to Israel within a week.
In addition to the reports to this effect in the Arab media, there have been official claims by the Syrian regime and Hezbollah, although these didn’t have a particularly emotional tone.
Most of the attention on Wednesday was generated by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s address to EU diplomats only hours after the attack. He explained that Israel always seeks to protect its citizens, and also to prevent the smuggling of sophisticated weapons and weapons of mass destruction from Syria to Hezbollah.
This is the same policy and the same red lines that Israel marked with regard to the Syrian civil war five years ago. But Lieberman’s forceful wording led to headlines that practically had Israel taking official responsibility (something Israel prefers not to do with regard to attacks of this kind). In addition, it looked like a direct reference to the smuggling of chemical weapons, although nothing of this nature has been reported since the dismantling of most of Syria’s arsenal of such weapons in 2013.
Another question relates to the degree to which Russia knew of or was involved in the attacks. Hezbollah and of course the Syrian army are part of the Russian-led military alliance defending the regime in Damascus. At the same time, the Russians have a mechanism for preventing confrontations with the Israeli air force in the Syrian arena. If the claims by Syria and Hezbollah that it was Israel which hit the weapons warehouses are correct, did Russia know about the strikes in advance and turn a blind eye, or was it as surprised by the bombings as the others?
Reports on the two attacks came after a long break from similar reports from Syria. The apparent lull in the bombings probably stems from a combination of two things: the deployment and intensified activity of the Russian air force in northern Syria (recently accompanied by the positioning of air defense systems that cover a wide range), together with the increased tension between Moscow and Washington before the U.S. presidential election. It could be that given these circumstances, Israel decided to restrain itself for a time.
The victory of Donald Trump, who has often expressed his admiration for Russia and shows no interest in American military activity in Syria, could signal a cooling off of the bilateral hostility.
According to the official data about the Russian air defense systems, their radar is capable of identifying the movement of Israeli planes deep in Israeli territory, all the way to the northern Negev. Therefore it’s unlikely that Israeli air activity could go unnoticed by the Russians. But the last attacks in Syria have a lot in common. According to the reports, they took place in the Damascus area in southern Syria, at night (when the Russian air force is barely active) and the planes that fired the missiles did not penetrate Syrian airspace, but worked from afar.
It could be that Moscow is less concerned about attacks that take place outside its immediate area of interest and which are not close to its airbase at Tartous. Arabic media have reported that at least some of the weapons destroyed during Wednesday’s bombings were Russian-made weapons systems. Loss of these weapons is liable to lead to additional procurement from Russia, i.e., more revenues.
All this doesn’t mean that Israel is telling Russia about its activities in Syria in advance. Lieberman denied this explicitly at the beginning of last week, after the bombing of an Islamic State base in the southern part of the Syrian Golan Heights. The most reasonable assumption is that Israel has analyzed Russia’s regions of interest and decides to act if the target is urgent enough – one that threatens to cross a red line, as the defense minister put it – and if it believes that attacking will not lead to a direct confrontation with the Russians.
Still, after two strikes and official aggressive Israeli remarks, it seems there's a thin line Israel's decision-makers must toe very carefully. The last thing Israel needs is a showdown with Russia, certainly when America’s withdrawal from dealing with Syria leaves Russia as the main player calling the shots.
Fake News Versus No News
How Russia is pilloried while real news about Israel goes unreported
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45985.htm
December 07, 2016 - The drama surrounding allegations that the internet is awash with “fake news” is being promoted by the so-called mainstream media which certainly has a lot to answer for when it comes to producing material that does not pass the smell test. Does the name Judith Miller ring any bells? And the squeaks of rage coming from the U.S. Congress over being lied to is also something to behold as the federal government has been acting in collusion with the media to dish up falsehoods designed to start wars since the time of the Spanish-American conflict in 1898, if not before.
The fake news saga is intended to discredit Donald Trump, whom the media hates mostly because they failed to understand either him or the Americans who voted for him in the recent election. You have to blame somebody when you are wrong so you invent “fake news” as the game changer that explains your failure to comprehend simple truths. To accomplish that, the clearly observable evidence that the media was piling on Donald Trump at every opportunity has somehow been deliberately morphed into a narrative that it is Trump who was attacking the media, suggesting that it was all self-defense on the part of the Rachel Maddows of this world, but anyone who viewed even a small portion of the farrago surely will have noted that it was the Republican candidate who was continuously coming under attack from both the right and left of the political-media spectrum.
There are also some secondary narratives being promoted, including a pervasive argument that Hillary Clinton was somehow the victim of the news reporting due specifically to fake stories emanating largely from Moscow in an attempt to not only influence the election but also to subvert America’s democratic institutions. I have observed that if such a truly ridiculous objective were President Vladimir Putin’s desired goal he might as well relax. Our own Democratic and Republican duopoly has already been doing a fine job at subverting democracy by assiduously separating the American people from the elite Establishment that theoretically represents and serves them.
Another side of the mainstream media lament that has been relatively unexplored is what the media chooses not to report. At the present moment, it is practically obligatory to slam Russia and Putin at every opportunity even though Moscow is too militarily weak and poor to fancy itself a global adversary of the U.S. Instead of seeking a new Cold War, Washington should instead focus on working with Russia to make sure that disagreements over policies in relatively unimportant parts of the world do not escalate into nuclear exchanges. Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not in fact threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does Moscow threaten the U.S. through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a threat in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media, the Democratic and Republican National Committees and by the White House. Candidate Donald Trump appeared to recognize that fact before he began listening to Michael Flynn, who has a rather different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail.
Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington’s intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash flowing out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of the useless grifters who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill. Neoconservatives are frequently described as ideologues, but the truth is that they are more interested in gaining increased access to money and power than they are in promulgating their own brand of global regime change.
There is, however, another country that has interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America’s legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby that oddly is not subject to the accountability afforded by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 even though it manifestly works on behalf of a foreign government. That country is, of course, Israel.
And that assessment of Israel and what damage it does regarding what most Americans would regard as genuine national interests is most definitely not reported, revealing once again that what is not written is every bit as important as what is. I would note how what has recently happened right in front of us relating to Israel is apparently not considered fit to print and will never appear on any disapproving editorial page. Just this week the Senate unanimously passed an Anti-Semitism Awareness bill and also by a 99 to zero vote renewed and strengthened sanctions against Iran, which could wreck the one year old anti-nuclear weapon proliferation agreement with that country.
The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is intended to give the Department of Education investigatory authority over “anti-Jewish incidents” on America’s college campuses. Such “incidents” are not limited to religious bigotry, with the examples cited in the bill’s text including criticism of Israel and claiming that the holocaust was “exaggerated.” It is a thinly disguised assault on the Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, which is non-violent, does not criticize Jews as a religion or ethnicity, and is actually supported by many Jewish American who are concerned about Israel’s apartheid regime.
The Anti-Semitism bill makes Jews and Jewish interests a legally protected class, immune from any criticism. “Free speech” means in practice that you can burn an American flag, sell pornography, attack Christianity in the vilest terms or castigate the government in Washington all you want but criticizing Israel is off limits if you want to avoid falling into the clutches of the legal system. The Act is a major step forward in effectively making any expressed opposition to Israeli actions a hate crime and is similar to punitive legislation that has been enacted in twenty-two states as well as in Canada. It is strongly supported by the Israel Lobby, which quite likely drafted it, and is seeking to use legal challenges to delegitimize and eliminate any opposition to the policies of the state of Israel.
As the Act is clearly intended to restrict First Amendment rights if they are perceived as impacting on broadly defined Jewish sensitivities, it should be opposed on that basis alone, but it is very popular in Congress, which is de facto owned by the Israel Lobby. That the legislation is not being condemned or even discussed in the generally liberal media tells you everything you need to know about the amazing power of one particular unelected and unaccountable lobby in the U.S.
And there is always Iran to worry about. If the United States can successfully avoid a war with Russia, a conflict with the Mullahs could have major consequences even if the all-powerful U.S. military successfully rolls over its Iranian counterpart in less than a week. Iran is physically and in terms of population much larger than Iraq and it has a strong national identity. An attack by Washington would produce a powerful reaction, unleashing terrorist resources and destabilizing an economically and politically important region of the world for years to come. Currently, the nuclear agreement with Iran provides some measure of stability and also pushes backwards any possible program by Tehran to build a weapon. Iran does not threaten the United States, so why walk away from the agreement as some of Trump’s advisors urge? Or violate the agreement’s terms as the U.S. Congress seems to be doing by extending and tightening the sanctions regime with its just passed Iran Sanctions Extension Act? Look no further than the Israel Lobby. Hobbling Iran, a regional competitor, is a possible Israeli interest that should have nothing to do with the United States but yet again the United States government carries the water for the extreme right wing Netanyahu regime.
Israel for its part has welcomed the Trump election by building 500 new and completely illegal settler homes in what was once Arab East Jerusalem. Trump has surrounded himself with advocates for Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s expectation that he will have a free hand in dealing with those pesky Palestinians is probably correct. I would like to think that Donald Trump will unpleasantly surprise him based on actual American rather than Israeli interests but am not optimistic.
Indeed, deference to perceived Israeli interests enforced by the Israel Lobby and media permeates the entire American foreign policy and national security structure. Congressman Keith Ellison who is seeking to become Democratic National Committee Chairman is being called an anti-Semite for “implying U.S. policy in the region [the Middle East] favored Israel at the expense of Muslim-majority countries, remarks ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt described as ‘deeply disturbing and disqualifying.’” Donald Trump and his senior counselor Steve Bannon have also both been called anti-Semites and several other potential GOP appointees have been subjected to the media’s fidelity-to-Israel litmus test.
The recently nominated Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who can hardly be called a moderate when it comes to Iran, has also been labeled an anti-Semite by the usual players. Why? Because in 2013 he told Wolf Blitzer “So we’ve got to work on [peace talks] with a sense of urgency. I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and [because of this] moderate Arabs couldn’t be with us because they couldn’t publicly support those who don’t show respect for Arab Palestinians.”
Mattis continued, referring directly to Israeli apartheid: “I’ll tell you, the current situation is unsustainable … We’ve got to find a way to make work the two-state solution that both Democrat and Republican administrations have supported, and the chances are starting to ebb because of the settlements. For example, if I’m Jerusalem and I put 500 Jewish settlers to the east and there’s ten-thousand Arabs already there, and if we draw the border to include them, either [Israel] ceases to be a Jewish state or you say the Arabs don’t get to vote — apartheid. That didn’t work too well the last time I saw that practiced in a country.”
Mattis will no doubt be reminded of his remarks when he is up for Senate confirmation. A predecessor Chuck Hagel was mercilessly grilled by Senators over his reported comment that the “Jewish lobby” intimidates congressmen. But ironically nearly everyone who is not an Israel-firster who is involved in U.S. foreign and security policy knows that aggressive Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank and its siege of Gaza contribute greatly to terrorism against the United States, since Washington is regularly blamed for enabling Netanyahu. When General David Petraeus said pretty much the same thing as Mattis back in 2010 he was forced to “explain” his comments, retract them and then grovel before he was eventually given a pass by the Lobby.
And there is considerable self-censorship related to the alleged sensitivity of “Jewish issues,” not only in the media. I recently attended a conference on the Iraq invasion of 2003 at which the role of Israel manifested through its controlled gaggle of American legislators and bureaucrats as a factor in going to war was not even mentioned. It was as if it would be impolite or, dare I say, anti-Semitic, to do so even though the Israeli role was hardly hidden. Former Bush administration senior official Philip Zelikow has admitted that protecting Israel was the principal reason why the U.S. invaded Iraq and others have speculated that without the persistent neocons’ and Israel’s prodding Washington might not have gone to war at all. That is apparently what then Secretary of State Colin Powell also eventually came around to believe.
So let’s stop talking about what Russia is doing to the United States, which is relatively speaking very little, and start admitting that the lopsided and completely deferential relationship with Israel is the actual central problem in America’s foreign policy. Will the media do that? Not a chance. They would rather obsess about fake news and blame Putin.
