265 Military links between Israel and Singapore - Roy Tov

(1) Journalist on the run from Israel is hiding in Britain
(2) Vatican lashes out at The New York Times over Sex Abuse coverage
(3) A deaf and defiant Israel is gambling with its future
(4) Military links between Israel and Singapore - Roy Tov
(5) Dutch court upholds UN immunity: UN cannot be called before any court of law

(1) Journalist on the run from Israel is hiding in Britain

From: Kenneth Rasmusson <rasken@kulturservern.se> Date: 02.04.2010 02:07 AM

2 April 2010

'Haaretz' writer fled to London fearing charges over exposé on Palestinian's killing

by Kim Sengupta, Diplomatic Correspondent

An Israeli journalist is in hiding in Britain, The Independent can reveal, over fears that he may face charges in the Jewish state in connection with his investigation into the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/journalist-on-the-run-from-israel-is-hiding-in-britain-1934015.html

Uri Blau, a reporter at Israel's liberal newspaper, Haaretz, left town three months ago for Asia and is now in London. Haaretz is understood to be negotiating the terms of his return to Israel with prosecutors, according to an Israeli source, who declined to be identified, because of the sensitivity of the situation.

The news of Mr Blau's extended absence comes just days after it emerged that another Israeli journalist, Anat Kam, has been held under house arrest for the last three months on charges that she leaked classified documents to the press while completing her military service.

Although no media outlet or journalist has been specifically named as the recipient of the classified information, there is speculation on Israeli blogs that Ms Kam gave documents to Mr Blau that formed the basis of a story he wrote in November 2008.

In his article for Haaretz, Mr Blau reported that one of two Islamic Jihad militants killed in Jenin in June 2007 had been targeted for assassination in apparent violation of a ruling issued six months earlier by Israel's supreme court. While not outlawing assassinations in the West Bank altogether, the ruling heavily restricted the circumstances in which they were permissible, effectively saying that they should not take place if arrest was possible.

In an unusual move, Israel has placed a gagging order on national media, preventing them from reporting any aspect of the Kam case. Israel's Channel Ten and Haaretz are expected to challenge this order on 12 April.

According to the court order, Ms Kam, 23, is being held on "espionage" charges. It alleges that she passed classified documents to a male journalist while working as a clerk in the Israel Defence Forces Central Command during her military service.

She was arrested more than a year after Mr Blau's report, which was cleared by military censors at the time of publication, when she was working for the news service Walla, until recently owned by Haaretz.

Ms Kam denies all the charges. Her trial has reportedly been set for 14 April and she could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted. Mr Blau did not respond to requests for comment; his friends and colleagues refused to discuss the case in detail.

Dov Alfon, Haaretz's editor-in-chief, said in an emailed statement: "Haaretz has a 90-year-long tradition of protecting its reporters from government pressures, and Uri Blau is getting all the help we can provide him with."

The move to gag Israel-based media has sparked fevered debate on Jewish blogs, which have freely reported the story. Bloggers have railed against the blackout, saying it represents a critical challenge to the freedom of the press.

"I do not believe that a citizen can be arrested and tried for suspected security offences right under our noses without anyone knowing anything about it," wrote former Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmari in an eloquent cri de coeur on the Seventh Eye website.

"Trials do not take place here in darkened dungeons, nor do we have show trials behind glass or chicken wire. I have no doubt that such a strange, terrible and baseless scenario cannot take place in such a sophisticated democracy as our own."

(2) Vatican lashes out at The New York Times over Sex Abuse coverage

VICTOR L. SIMPSON | 04/ 1/10 04:08 PM |  

The Huffington Post

APRIL 1, 2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/vatican-lashes-out-at-new_n_521544.html

VATICAN CITY — Cardinals across Europe used their Holy Thursday sermons to defend Pope Benedict XVI from accusations he played a role in covering up sex abuse scandals, and an increasingly angry Vatican sought to deflect any criticism in the Western media.

The relationship between the church and the media has become increasingly bitter as the scandal buffeting the 1 billion-member church has touched the pontiff himself. On Wednesday, the church singled out The New York Times for criticism in an unusually harsh attack.

Western news organizations, including The Associated Press, have reported extensively on the burgeoning scandal, and new details have emerged on an almost daily basis.

On Holy Thursday, Benedict first celebrated a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica dedicated to the union between the pope and the world's priests. In the late afternoon, he washed the feet of 12 priests in a ceremony symbolizing humility and commemorating Christ's Last Supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.

Although there were expectations by some that the pope would address the crisis, Benedict made no reference to the scandal at either ceremony.

Venice's Cardinal Angelo Scola expressed solidarity with Benedict in his Holy Thursday homily in the lagoon city, describing him as a victim of "deceitful accusations." He praised the pope as seeking to remove all "dirt" from the priesthood.

Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz said the church should take notice of individual tragedies and treat sex abuse cases very seriously, but at the same time, he criticized the media for "targeting the whole church, targeting the pope, and to that we must say `no' in the name of truth and in the name of justice."

And Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, speaking of Benedict's long years as head of a Vatican office that investigates abuse, said the future pope "had a very clear line of not covering up but clearing up."

He had also reflected on the issue at a Wednesday evening service:

"I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn't there also abuse elsewhere? ... And then I'm tempted to say: 'Yes, the media just don't like the church! Maybe there's even a conspiracy against the church?' But then I feel in my heart that no, that's not it."

The church on Wednesday presented its highest-level official response yet to one of the most explosive recent revelations regarding sex abuse – a story in the Times on the church's decision in the 1990s not to defrock a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf boys.

It was the latest in a series of attacks on the press. Last week, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaper denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" by the media to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

On Thursday, the newspaper carried a story on its front page on German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcoming efforts to stem sex abuse, headlining "German chancellor praises the Catholic church."

In the article posted Wednesday on the Vatican's Web site, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote: "I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, The New York Times, as a paragon of fairness."

Levada, an American, said the newspaper wrongly used the case of the Rev. Lawrence Murphy to find fault in Benedict's handling of abuse cases.

A Times spokeswoman defended the articles and said no one has cast doubt on the reported facts.

"The allegations of abuse within the Catholic church are a serious subject, as the Vatican has acknowledged on many occasions," said Diane McNulty. "Any role the current pope may have played in responding to those allegations over the years is a significant aspect of this story."

The Vatican newspaper also carried a front-page commentary to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of Benedict's predecessor, the much beloved Pope John Paul II.

The article said John Paul wanted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to work by his side from the early years of his papacy. John Paul brought the archbishop of Munich to Rome to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful office that among other things investigates clerical sex abuse.

(3) A deaf and defiant Israel is gambling with its future

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 03.04.2010 02:24 PM

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/970ba026-390e-11df-8970-00144feabdc0.html

By Max Hastings

Published: March 26 2010 22:46 | Last updated: March 26 2010 22:46

A storm of international criticism has this week fallen upon Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Yet, rather than expend ink on the moral shortcomings of Israeli expansionism on the West Bank, it seems more useful to address the only issue of interest to Mr Netanyahu’s constituency: can he get away with it?

Some Israeli nationalists note that history is replete with nations that have adjusted borders to their own advantage after winning wars. The Soviets did so on a grand scale in 1945, displacing millions of unwanted people from eastern Europe. Who today remembers that the Russian city of Kaliningrad was East Prussian Konigsberg? Who has any serious appetite for recovering the eastern lands Stalin took from the Poles?

Israel’s pre-1967 frontiers reflect only the 1948 ceasefire lines. Likud supporters say: since the Arab world refuses to recognise any legitimate existence whatever for Israel, where lies the advantage in restricting its overcrowded population within arbitrary old limits?

The phrase “Middle East peace process” is constantly misused. If such a thing existed before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, it has not done so since. Israel has pursued an uninterrupted programme of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where there are now 177,000 Jewish settlers.

The government labours tirelessly to create facts on the ground. The security wall dividing Israel from the Palestinians has curbed the terrorist threat. Mr Netanyahu – at heart what he has always been, a believer in a greater Israel embracing much of the West Bank – makes a cold calculation about US behaviour. He perceives President Barack Obama as an enemy, but judges that Congress and the American people want no breach.

The Palestinians, and indeed the Arabs at large, have few American friends outside the oil and arms businesses. The terrorist attacks of September 11 were a disaster for them. Most Americans are viscerally fearful of the Muslim world. They accept Israel, their enemy’s enemy, as their friend. It enjoys powerful, even fanatical, support from evangelical Christians.

In Israel, the popular mood is remarkably complacent. The economy, with a pre-2009 growth rate of about 5 per cent, has shrunk only slightly while those of most western nations languish. Real median income is about $37,000 (?27,800, £24,850), ahead of Singapore, Hong Kong and Ireland. Israelis even cherish hopes that their demographic problems are receding. The local Arab birthrate has fallen while that of Jews has marginally increased.

The Jerusalem Post carried a headline last year: “Let’s leverage the good demographic news”, editorialising below it: “The Jewish demographic tailwind behooves the new government to introduce a demographic road map, which would increase the Jewish majority, while respecting the rights of the Arab minority”. It urged Mr Netanyahu to prioritise further Jewish immigration. It is doubtful whether Mr Obama’s anger will change this mood, unless or until Washington imposes a tangible price.

It is left to Israeli intellectuals and strategists to voice fears for the future. The most obvious is that, if their governments persist with the policies of recent years, they condemn the country to permanent isolation, indeed war. It seems a dangerous gamble, to found a small nation’s polity exclusively upon faith in eternal military superiority. Whatever the demographic blips, a fundamental persists: Arabs in Palestine, denied rights taken for granted in every western democracy, are increasing in number faster than Jews. Israel’s notional population, including West Bank settlers and 26 per cent Israeli Arabs, is 7.5m. But many Jews who claim Israeli citizenship choose not to live in their professed country – the exact proportion is not revealed by Jerusalem, but US intelligence estimates 20 per cent.

Many thoughtful Jews, inside and outside Israel, debate philosophical issues about the entire basis on which the state, and especially such a government as that of Mr Netanyahu, conducts its policies. French historian Esther Benbassa has just published a notable book called Suffering As Identity. She argues that Jews must look to the future rather than the past and cease to define their world view in terms of the Holocaust, ruthlessly politicised since the 1950s.

“How can Israel base an entire national identity on the genocide,” she asks, “and bind its youth to this history of suffering, which turns peace with the country’s neighbours into an increasingly abstract notion?

“Do Israelis have the right to speak in the name of those who died in the genocide? Have [the dead] ever approved of the use that some make of their tragic destiny, bending it to the service of nationalist aspirations at the expense of the Palestinians, who are in no way responsible for the catastrophe that befell the European Jews?”

In the short-term it seems plausible, even likely, that Mr Netanyahu can defy Mr Obama. Israel’s tragedy is that it is an ever more inward-looking society: proud of its prosperity, deaf to foreign opinion, contemptuous of the Arabs. It wilfully ignores the prospect that its Palestinian neighbours can never forge a viable society capable of responsible behaviour on lands chequered with Israeli settlements and strategic roads.

Yet Israel’s claim upon East Jerusalem is rooted in a sense of moral entitlement, which the rest of the world increasingly rejects. Some day Americans will awaken to the heavy strategic price their own nation pays for indulging Israeli excesses. Israel may be successful in securing all of Jerusalem within its own borders. But it runs the historic risk of making itself, by a ghastly irony, a pariah state.

The writer is an FT contributing editor

(4) Military links between Israel and Singapore - Roy Tov

From: Roy Tov <roytov@live.com> Date: 26.03.2010 12:20 PM

IDF = Singapore's Defense Forces

http://www.roytov.com/articles/singa.htm

Iron Dome

Recently, I did publish an article about RAFAEL and the Israeli missiles industry. A trap set by Dow Chemical in its attempt to illegally transfer classified American technology to Israel, led to my close encounter with that industry and eventually to my fleeing Israel and becoming a refugee. The events are described in great detail in The Cross of Bethlehem . Before touching the core issue of this article, I want to remind the key points regarding the Iron Dome.

Israeli Anti-missiles weapons (I use this term to avoid including anti-tank and air-missiles that are also being developed by RAFAEL and others) are divided into three categories as per their interception range. The Iron Dome system is the newest and still not fully operational, it is intended to intercept short-range rockets (0–70 km). The David's Sling system is designed to intercept medium- and long-range rockets, meaning between 70 km and 250 km, while the Arrow is designed to intercept ballistic missiles from up to 500 km. Each one of them includes several subsystems and thus can be referred to with a variety of names; I'll skip the details here.

The main threats against which these weapons are being developed are Qassam rockets from Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza, Katyusha rockets from Hezbollah, the Shiite Party of God in Southern Lebanon, and Iran's ballistic missiles. The Israeli Ministry of Defense claims that around fifty thousand missiles are overall aimed at the country.

Only the Arrow is fully operational. Due to their nature, the development of these systems takes time and evolves during the process to the extent that many initial specifications are later changed. The Hebrew media reported that the Iron Dome costs soared by 40 percent over the eight months ending in March 2009. These systems never get cheaper, thus some serious control of the Ministry of Defense should be expected; after all they should protect our taxes. Thus the constant support of several Ministers of Defense on these projects is strange considering that:

* The Iron Dome is not a good solution to the Qassam rockets. The following data is public knowledge: The Qassam's speed in the air is 200 meters per second. The distance from the edge of Beit Hanun to the outskirts of Sderot is 1800 meters. A rocket launched from Beit Hanun takes about nine seconds to hit Sderot. The preparations to launch the intercepting missile at their target take up to about 15 seconds (the system locates the target, determines the flight path and calculates the intercept route in that time). The Qassam will hit Sderot a number of seconds before the missile can intercept it even if launched. Other limitations exist and are also public. Yet, the minister keeps pouring money onto the project.

* All the three anti-missiles weapons are very expensive; countering an attack of fifty thousand missiles is economically impossible. An Iron Dome final price is expected to be anywhere between forty to a hundred thousand dollars per unit. A Qassam is prepared for less than a hundred dollars. Even if the Iron Dome has a 100% success rate, it may turn out being a hundred percent hits against 0.1% of the fired missiles or less. A drop in the sea. Each interceptor costs vastly more than the low-tech Qassam rockets from Gaza and the multiple-launch rocket mortars from Southern Lebanon. In more mathematical terms, the price ratio interceptor/missile is high, thus it cannot provide a solution. Yet, the minister keeps pouring money onto the projects.

* Moreover, the firepower in interceptors may be enough to destroy sophisticated ballistic missile heads by the Arrow, but the Iron Dome may just create more polluting debris if hitting unsophisticated missiles containing just explosives or other simple, but dangerous, heads.

There are more similar points showing that this technology is of little relevance. Thus, why the massive efforts of Israel? First, the coin has two sides. If you develop an anti-missiles technology, you automatically gain the missiles technologies. If you can hit a missile in the air, you can hit also a far away and small target on the ground. But that's not all, concentrating such big budgets (hundreds of millions of dollars for each system) allows easy ways of siphoning budgets to subcontractors and related industries. The core of the anti-missiles industry belongs to the state – RAFAEL – but its profitable margins are in private hands of contractors favored by the Ministry of Defense that get smaller related projects or just provide services to the industry.

At this stage something is clearly very wrong. Israel claims it developed the Iron Dome to protect Sderot. By its technical definition, it would never be able to defend it. Wouldn't it be smarter from RAFAEL to siphon out funds using – at least – useful technical specifications? Is there something else being hidden by the Ministry of Defense?

Unexpected Twist

Intelligence Online, a Paris-based online magazine covering intelligence and security issues published in English on a bimonthly basis, claims in its issue of March 2010 that Singapore helped finance the Iron Dome system. This explains a lot, since now it is clear the technical specifications were decided by one of the main financers and not for the sake of Sderot denizens. If the Defense Ministry had really wanted to protect the residents, it could have acquired the Vulcan-Phalanx cannon system manufactured by Raytheon. These are deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they are successfully used to protect American and NATO forces.

This link between Israel and Singapore is not new. Israel helped to create the marine commando forces of Singapore and since then keeps training them at the Shayetet 13 base in Atlit, south of Haifa. Every year during summer, foreign faces can be seen in the area. Israel's commando was created during the WWII with the massive help of the Italian marine commando, which is considered to be one of the best in the world; this is yet another example of Israel acquiring technologies from someone and then selling them around. Israel also helped build Singapore's army, Singapore's purchased IAI's Barak surface-to-air missiles, Israel upgraded Singapore's fighter planes, Rafael supplied drones for naval missions and Elbit Systems supplied Hermes drones. The cooperation is extensive. What's going on here?

Singapore's Strategy

Why does a city-state like Singapore spend so much money in defense? Why the emphasis on tactical elite-units and special weapons? Who threatens it? Actually Malaysia threw out Singapore from the union that followed colonial times. Singapore offers no land gains to the conqueror. Its industry would be destroyed if occupied by Indonesia; the place would look like Gaza Strip. The only thing the conqueror may gain is access to the Singapore Port. Statistics of ports activity ranking are tricky and change rapidly; the main point is that this port is one of the largest in the world and a strategic stop between the Pacific and the Indian oceans. That's a worthy prize for the conqueror, isn't it? Actually not.

From time to time the project to make an inland canal through Thailand connecting the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea is proposed; it would shorten significantly the travel time between the two oceans. In 1677 the Thai King Narai the Great asked the French engineer de Lamar to plan a canal connecting Songkhla with Marid (now Myanmar); being impractical with the technology of that time the project was dropped. In 1897 Thailand and the British Empire agreed not to build the Kra Isthmus Canal (also known as the Thai Canal), to protect Singapore, in exchange the British provide help in the conflict between the Thai and the French. This last agreement held along time, but it had become a leverage point in favor of Thailand in its complex relations with Singapore. A century later – in 1997 – the Thai government decided to float the baht, cutting its peg to the USD and caused what is known as the Asian Financial Crisis. One of the results was an ongoing financial help of Singapore to stabilize the Thai baht, in exchange of Thailand forgetting any plans of constructing a canal. Why do I mention this? If Singapore is conquered, Thailand would probably build the canal. Nowadays there are no technical problems. Thus, on there is no gain by conquering Singapore. Singapore has no enemies.

The city state emphasis on tactical units is part of its police state system. Walsingham would be proud on them. Gurkha mercenary forces loyal to their salary-payer inflict terror; special units capable of storming buildings from the sea and inflicting so much fear that nobody would even think of replacing the oppressive regime. These are essential for the police state survival. The only freedom is the freedom to purchase new gadgets. So much like Israel!

(5) Dutch court upholds UN immunity: UN cannot be called before any court of law

John Cameron <blackheathbooks@internode.on.net> Date: 03.04.2010 07:27 PM

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62T0TU.htm

Dutch court upholds UN immunity over Srebrenica

30 Mar 2010 10:55:53 GMT

Source: Reuters

UN immunity upheld, Dutch state immunity not decided

Massacre relatives' lawyer to go to Dutch Supreme Court

AMSTERDAM, March 30 (Reuters) - A Dutch civil court rejected on Tuesday  a challenge to the immunity of the United Nations, dealing a blow to  efforts to hold the world body accountable for the Srebrenica massacre  in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Lawyers representing 6,000 surviving relatives of the Srebrenica victims  have mounted several legal challenges in Dutch courts against the Dutch  state and the United Nations for failing to prevent the Srebrenica  killings in 1995.

But the appeals court ruling in The Hague on Tuesday confirmed a lower court's decision in July 2008 that the United Nations could not be called before any court of law. ...

Comment (Peter M.):

The Bank of International Settlements also cannot be called before any Court of Law.