UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) organized a panel of Israeli and Palestinian women rights activists through the membership of the International Women’s Commission. The International Women’s Commission is a global organization that fights for a just and sustainable peace between Israel and Palestine. The panel of women activists and experts will meet with the Security Council today to promote United Nations Resolution 1325, on women’s peace and security. Women have long held a strong role in conflict resolution and the panel of women from several prominent activist organizations based in the region will ask the Security Council to 1) put on the agenda of the monthly briefings the progress of women’s issues, 2) organize a thematic mission and visit women’s programs to see what women are doing in the region, 3) establish a monitoring mechanism for stability with the guidance of UNIFEM and UN organizations underscoring the experiences of women in both the Israeli and Palestinian territories.

Former UN Secretary John Bolton said that military action against Iran by Israel is a possibility that must be considered by the next administration.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that Israel has the political will to use military force against Iran’s [nuclear] program,” said Bolton during remarks at a Heritage Foundation discussion on Iran and the next administration.

“We know from the bombing of the Osirac reactor outside of Baghdad in 1981 and we know from last September when Israel destroyed that North Korean reactor being built on the banks of the Euphrates river, that confronted with the prospect of a nuclear neighbor Israel, a nuclear enemy nearby, that Israel won’t hesitate a strike.”

Bolton said that Iran’s ability to reach this state portrayed the drawbacks of diplomacy, explaining that the five years Europe spent in negotiation with Iran bought Iran time to develop their nuclear capabilities.

“Negotiation is no different than any other human activity. It has costs as well as benefits and I don’t mean monetary costs, I mean opportunity costs.”

The former UN Secretary also discussed the risks surrounding the politicization of intelligence and said that the revision of data based on political bias has been a common occurrence. According to Bolton, the 2003 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that concluded Iran suspended its nuclear program suffered from such bias.

“It was written in a way that was designed to be leaked…the fact that the White House was weak and succumbed to it is no justification for the way that report was put together.”

Bolton raised the possibility of ceasing future publication of NIEs.

“If intelligence agencies have data and have analysis that’s persuasive, they ought to be willing to put it out in the community of policy makers, not in the New York Times and other publications, but in a classified setting.”

The U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are the “worst foreign policy blunders in American history,” said Senior Fellow at the Nation Institute and keynote speaker of the annual Palestine Center Conference Chris Hedges.

Hedges added that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has created “atrocity producing situations” because of the human nature of those fighting to “lash out” when someone they fight with gets shot or killed.

Hedges said that Israel has separate national lines around the Gaza Strip in order to “create ghettos.” He said that Israel is trying to drive middle-class Christians out of the West Bank.

Hedges claimed that right-wing Christians’ language is “toxic.” He said that if evolution and creationism are given equal time in any educational forum, “We’ve already lost.” He stated that atheists have similar hateful language calling them “secular fundamentalists.” He is concerned that this atheism rhetoric “has seeped into the universities.”

Talking about America’s possible future involvement in the Middle East, Hedges said “If we go to war with Iran, I will no longer pay my income taxes.”

Hedges has spent over two decades as a war correspondent for organizations such as the New York Times. He has reported on American involvements in the Middle East.

Israeli president Shimon Peres discusses the distraction of Iran, as well as Israel’s goals in relation to the General Assembly: peace, poverty, and handling the dangers of environment. “Our enemies are not the Iranians but [the Iranian] system of government is the enemy of everyone,” Peres said. Israel would not capitulate to “sensational and empty speeches.”

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Radio host Dennis Praeger emceed the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Salutes GOP Governors reception atop the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis this afternoon. Governors Jon Huntsman (R-AR), Sonny Perdue (R-GA) and Linda Lingle (R-HI) along with Praeger made the case for a McCain-Palin office and why they’d serve – especially Jewish Americans – best.

The RJC favors strong support of Israel. “I don’t know if there are two nations on earth who share more than the American people, the Jewish people and the people of Israel,” Israeli ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor said.

The major challenges facing America and Israel include Iran, terrorism and promoting peace Meridor said. As Praeger opened the program he said, “Auschwitz was not liberated by peace activists. Peaceful resistance against evil does not [work].” Praeger said the Democrats may have good intentions, but they lack the wisdom to resolve the issues of the day.

Gulf Coast governors Haley Barbour (R-MS), Charlie Crist (R-Fla.), Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Rick Perry (R-TX) and Arnold Schwarzenneger (R-CA) all were scheduled to attend prior to Hurricane Gustav, Praeger said. Republican Jewish Coalition national chairman David Flaum will still speak at the Republican National Convention on Thursday evening as planned.

Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor gives an interview to the Talk Radio News Service on Radio Row at the 2008 RNC.

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Minister of Defense of Israel, H.E. Mr. Ehud Barak, discusses his brief meeting with United Nations Secretary-Generalregarding the “wider situation in the middle east,” including the “changes, threats and opportunities” that face the security of Israel. (1:39)

 

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U.S. should not preemptively attack Iran

At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a discussion was held on the implications of relations between the United States and Iran. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, said that Iran must make a concession before the U.S. will negotiate them, the hostility of the region and the “clumsiness” that the problem has been handled has been a problem.

The U.S. has lived with a nuclear armed Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Israel for many years, deterrence will work with Iran as well, but preemptive war will not work, Brzezinski said. Iran is looking to build up its nuclear program to be secure in the region, but it is incorrect to say that they will use nuclear weapons to attack Israel or give them to Hezbollah, he said. The Iranian government is not very popular among the Iranian people and they will not support military action against other nations, they are only building up nuclear weapons to ensure security and safety in a volatile region, Brzezinski said.

The U.S. needs to be willing to lower sanctions on Iran, if the Iranian government promises not to use their uranium for nuclear weapons, Brzezinski said. However, the U.S. should not back down on nuclear proliferation and thereby unintentionally legitimizing the use of force to gain respect and power in the Middle East, he said.

David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, talks about the Israeli-an attack on Syria’s supposed nuclear facility. Albright says that the U.S. needs to pay more attention to illicit nuclear trading to prevent nations like Syria from being able to create nuclear facilities. He also says that diplomacy is very important, explaining that Syria probably wouldn’t have been able to complete construction of the facility due to what was being said at the Six Party talks. (0:42)

 

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The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) held a discussion on “Israel’s Airstrike on Syria’s Nuclear Reactor: Preventive War and the Nonproliferation Regime.” In September of 2007, Israel attacked what was rumored to be a partially constructed nuclear facility in Syria, and this facility has remained a subject of speculation in the months following the attack. Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, explained that there was very little information pertaining to this Syrian site immediately after the raid. Now, seven months after the fact, Kimball said U.S. intelligence believes that the site was a small nuclear facility under construction for Syrian military purposes. (more…)