Obama regime pledges more support for Israel’s Iron Dome
Press TV – November 30, 2012
The US defense chief has vowed to continue enhancing the Israeli regime’s so-called Iron Dome missile shield which proved ineffective in face of Palestinians’ retaliatory rocket in the recent war on the Gaza Strip.
In a Pentagon press conference with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak on Thursday, American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, however, praised the system, adding, “Today, I assured the minister (Barak) that our strong commitment to Iron Dome will continue into the future.”
Despite Panetta’s repeated insistence during the press event about Iron Dome’s “success rate,” some American experts have questioned such claims by top US and Israeli officials, pointing to many Hamas-launched missiles that made it through the system, mounting intense pressure on the regime’s authorities to quickly agree to a ceasefire.
“We will obviously continue to work together to seek additional funding to enable Israel to boost Iron Dome’s capacity further and to help prevent the kind of escalation and violence that we’ve seen,” Panetta emphasized.
He added, according to the report, that the US granted USD70 million in fiscal year 2012 to fund the system, in addition to another USD205 million previously given to the Tel Aviv regime to develop the shield.
Barak, meanwhile, expressed his gratitude over the American pledge of total support while further insisting that “the needs are much larger than what we have right now, and we are determined to complete the system, besides the operational offensive capacities of the Israeli armed forces.”
Also at the event, Panetta pinned the Defense Department’s Medal for Distinguished Public Service on Barak, who declared on Monday that he plans to quit politics following national elections planned by the Israeli regime in January 2013.
US Gives Israel an Immediate $70 million for “Iron Dome” Systems
By Heidi Williams | IMEMC & Agencies | May 18, 2012
The Arab 48 News Agency reported today that US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, announced on Thursday that the United States will provide Israel with $70 million in immediate aid for the purchase of additional Iron Dome rocket defense batteries. This was needed for Israel to meet its fiscal requirements for 2012. In addition, he said that the US was in talks with Israel about the possibility of establishing a multi-year budget plan to assist Israel in purchasing additional batteries.
Panetta made the announcement following a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Pentagon. Barak was in Washington for talks aimed at coordinating strategy with the US ahead of the second round of talks between western powers and Iran scheduled to open next week in Baghdad.
Since the deployment of the system last year, Iron Dome batteries have intercepted over 90 Katyusha and Kassam rockets fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
The new aid package comes after the Obama administration gave Israel $205 million in 2011 and comes on top of the $3 billion Israel receives in annual foreign aid from the United States.
Barak thanked the US for its support and said that Israeli-US defense ties had never been as strong as they were today under the Obama administration. “The US decision to support further enhancing Israel’s security is an important demonstration of the unbreakable bonds between the United States and Israel,” Barak said.
In an interview late Wednesday, Barak told CNN the United States and Israel are essentially “on the same page” over the Iranian nuclear program. “We say loud and clear, the Americans say the same, the president says the same – a nuclear military Iran is unacceptable,” he said. “We are determined to prevent them from turning nuclear. And that no option except for containment, no option should be removed off the table in order to achieve this objective.”
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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