JN-1140

Jerusalem News (24 March, 2015, 4 Nisan, 5775)

Contents:
1. Netanyahu pollster: Obama role in election larger than reported by Jesse Byrnes
2. Is Saudia Backing ISIS? Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country
by Patrick Cockburn
3. Yemen:  Huthi threat to Key waterway
4. Middle East Nuclear Arms Race Intensified Thanks to Obama? Saudi Says Iran Should Not Get 'Undeserved' Nuclear Deals
5. South Syrian rebels say Assad foes are supplying more arms
Rebels says foreign states stepped up weapon supplies since Damascus launched offensive to regain frontier zone near Jordan and Israel.
 The USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey versus Assad of Syria and Iran! 
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1. Netanyahu pollster: Obama role in election larger than reported
 https://thehill.com/policy/international/236565-netanyahu-pollster-obama-role-in-election-larger-than-reported
By Jesse Byrnes - 03/22/15 03:21 PM EDT
Extracts:

President Obama's role during the Israeli elections was larger than reported, according to a pollster for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.

"There was money moving that included taxpayer U.S. dollars, through non-profit organizations. And there were various liberal groups in the United States that were raising millions to fund a campaign called V15 against Prime Minister Netanyahu," McLaughlin said.

V15 was viewed as part of a broader campaign to oust Netanyahu. The group was linked to Washington-based nonprofit OneVoice Movement, which reportedly received $350,000 in State Department grants. Money to OneVoice stopped flowing in November, officials said, before the Israeli elections.

McLaughlin also cited an effort "to organize the [Israeli] Arabs into one party and teach them about voter turnout."

"The State Department people in the end of January, early February, expedited visas for [Israeli] Arab leaders to come to the United States to learn how to vote," McLaughlin said.

"There were people in the United States that were organizing them to vote in one party so they would help the left-of-center candidate, Herzog, that the Obama administration favored," he added.

"They were running an ACORN, Obama Organizing for America-type campaign over there with the digital ads, the billboards, the phones. They were targeting Israeli voters," Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) said Saturday on Fox News's "Justice with Judge Jeanine."

"I think the president, Tuesday night, felt like he lost," said Zeldin, who along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has questioned the Obama administration over OneVoice's funding and nonprofit status.
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2. Is Saudia Backing ISIS?
Sunday 13 July 2014
Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country
by Patrick Cockburn
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html
Extracts:

A speech by an ex-MI6 boss hints at a plan going back over a decade.

How far is Saudi Arabia complicit in the Isis takeover of much of northern Iraq, and is it stoking an escalating Sunni-Shia conflict across the Islamic world? Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: "The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally 'God help the Shia'. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them."

The fatal moment predicted by Prince Bandar may now have come for many Shia, with Saudi Arabia playing an important role in bringing it about by supporting the anti-Shia jihad in Iraq and Syria. Since the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on 10 June, Shia women and children have been killed in villages south of Kirkuk, and Shia air force cadets machine-gunned and buried in mass graves near Tikrit.

In Mosul, Shia shrines and mosques have been blown up, and in the nearby Shia Turkoman city of Tal Afar 4,000 houses have been taken over by Isis fighters as "spoils of war". Simply to be identified as Shia or a related sect, such as the Alawites, in Sunni rebel-held parts of Iraq and Syria today, has become as dangerous as being a Jew was in Nazi-controlled parts of Europe in 1940.

There is no doubt about the accuracy of the quote by Prince Bandar, secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council from 2005 and head of General Intelligence between 2012 and 2014, the crucial two years when al-Qa'ida-type jihadis took over the Sunni-armed opposition in Iraq and Syria. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute last week, Dearlove, who headed MI6 from 1999 to 2004, emphasised the significance of Prince Bandar's words, saying that they constituted "a chilling comment that I remember very well indeed".

He does not doubt that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities may have turned a blind eye, has played a central role in the Isis surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said: "Such things simply do not happen spontaneously." This sounds realistic since the tribal and communal leadership in Sunni majority provinces is much beholden to Saudi and Gulf paymasters, and would be unlikely to cooperate with Isis without their consent.
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3. Yemen:  Huthi threat to Key waterway
Agence France Presse
SUBJECT: Huthi threat to Key waterway
Extracts:

 QUOTE: Yemen's Iran-linked Huthi militiamen are moving within striking distance, off stratigic strait, a vital corridor through which much of the world's maritime trade passes” FULL TEXT:As they advance south, Yemen's Iran-linked Huthi militiamen are moving within striking distance of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital corridor through which much of the world's maritime trade passes. Only about 30 kilometers (20 miles) across at its narrowest point, the strait separates the Arabian Peninsula from east Africa and links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
Nearly 40 percent of global maritime trade is estimated to pass through the strait, much of it on its way to and from the Suez Canal. As Yemen's Shiite Huthi militiamen have moved south after seizing the capital Sanaa last year, concern has been growing about their intentions for Bab al-Mandab. The militia on Sunday [22 Mar.] took control of the airport in the key central city of Taez, tightening the noose on President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in his refuge in the southern city of Aden only about 180 kilometers (110 miles) away.
Hadi fled to Aden after escaping house arrest in Sanaa last month, and the country has increasingly been divided between the Huthi-controled north and presidential loyalists in the south. Security sources say Huthi forces have been dispatched from Taez to the port of Mocha, some 80 kilometers to the west. From Mocha, a coastal road of around 100 kilometers leads to Bab al-Mandab. If the militia does make a move to take control the strait, experts say, Yemen's crisis could quickly become a global problem. The Huthis have been closely linked with Iran, which already overlooks another maritime chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz linking the Gulf with the Arabian Sea.
If the militia takes control of Bab al-Mandab, "Iran would be the main winner," said Bassem al-Hakimi, a Yemeni political expert. He said such a move would give Tehran an additional "card to play in the negotiations over its nuclear program" with world powers. There is no doubt that the seizure of coastal areas on the strait would raise international concern. Both the United States and France maintain a military presence on the other side of the strait in Djibouti, and for Egypt the strait is of crucial importance.
Egypt's ambassador to Yemen, Youssef al-Sharqawi, warned recently that threats to Bab al-Mandab would be a "red line" for Cairo. "More than 38 percent of global maritime trade passes through the strait," he told reporters in Aden. "The national security of Yemen is closely linked to the security of the Red Sea, the Gulf and Bab al-Mandab." Israel has also raised concerns, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of an Iranian threat to the strait in a speech to the U.S. Congress earlier this month.
 "Backed by Iran, Huthis are seizing control of Yemen, threatening the strategic straits at the mouth of the Red Sea. Along with the Straits of Hormuz, that would give Iran a second chokepoint on the world's oil supply," he said.

IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
 Website: www.imra.org.il
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4. Middle East Nuclear Arms Race Intensified Thanks to Obama?
Saudi Says Iran Should Not Get 'Undeserved' Nuclear Deals
www.imra.org.il
SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 23 March ’15: Saudi Says Iran Should Not Get 'Undeserved' Nuclear Deals,
Agence France Presse
SUBJECT:Saudi: No 'undeserved' nuclear deals for Iran
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Monday [23 Mar.] that Iran, which is negotiating with world powers on its nuclear program, should not get an "undeserved deal." "It is impossible that Iran should get undeserved deals," Prince Saud said at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond
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5. South Syrian rebels say Assad foes are supplying more arms. The USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey versus Assad of Syria and Iran!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4640360,00.html

Rebels says foreign states stepped up weapon supplies since Damascus launched offensive to regain frontier zone near Jordan and Israel.

Reuters
Published: 03.24.15, 11:04 / Israel News

Extracts

Mainstream rebels in southern Syria say foreign states have stepped up weapons supplies to them since Damascus launched an offensive early last month to regain the frontier zone near Jordan and Israel.
This suggests President Bashar al-Assad's Arab and Western enemies want to help preserve the last major foothold of what they call the moderate opposition, although the rebels say the equipment still falls short of their needs.

The Syrian army backed by allied militia including the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah are trying to regain territory which is vitally important to Assad and his allies in Iran; both attach great importance to the struggle with Israel, which borders Syria to the southwest.

At first they advanced rapidly through the southwestern corner of Syria. State TV broadcast from several villages captured from the insurgents, who are among the last remnants of the mainstream rebellion against Assad that has been crushed elsewhere by government forces or jihadist groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, a wing of al-Qaeda.
 
But the push then appeared to slow. Three rebel officials said foreign states had increased their help in response to the advance. "We are asking for more," said Saber Safar, a colonel who defected from the Syrian army and now heads a group called "The First Army", part of "The Southern Front" rebel alliance. He spoke via Skype from inside Syria.
 
The rebels declined to give details, or say which states had supplied the weapons. The Southern Front groups have previously received military aid via Jordan, a staunch US ally.
 
Some of the southern rebel groups have received US-made anti-tank weapons, though they have long described the quantities as small. In addition to the United States, Assad's foreign opponents include Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
 
Mainstream rebels in northern Syria suffered their most recent setback with the collapse of the Hazzm movement, a US-backed group that dissolved itself earlier this month after coming under attack from the Nusra Front.
 
The weakness of the mainstream groups is a big complication for US planners who want to arm and train rebels to fight Islamic State. The Nusra Front is also active in the south but has avoided conflict with the mainstream groups there.
 
Iranian advisers are on the ground, a senior Middle Eastern official has said. Damascus says the rebels have also received support from Israel.

Assad's foreign opponents could yet use the Southern Front to apply the kind of pressure needed to force a political compromise. Diplomatic efforts towards ending the Syrian conflict, which is in its fifth year, are getting nowhere.
 
The Southern Front groups have been trying to organise themselves politically, and have drawn up a plan for a transition of power that safeguards the institutions of state.

But they have not received the kind of weapons that would tip the battle their way, notably anti-aircraft missiles, from foreign states.