The Defense Minister was in Berlin yesterday…

Israel, U.S. disagree on Iran timetable

…Barak said that 2012 is a “highly important” year for a possible strike and speculated that the timeframe for a “surgical intervention” — a precision hit on Iranian targets — is not a matter of weeks, but it is not a matter of years either.

Iran denies it is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and insists its nuclear program is meant for peaceful uses such as generating electricity and producing medical isotopes.

Barak said Israel and the U.S. agree on preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons, but that “the difference between us and the U.S. is the perspective on timetables.”

“America has more abilities than Israel,” Barak said. “You can think of a time when Israel would be very limited in its ability to act.”

Why was he there ya might ask…?

…Ehud Barak’s office said the minister signed the contract Wednesday in Berlin at a ceremony held at the Israeli ambassador’s home.

Germany’s Parliament approved the purchase in November and agreed to pay some €135 million ($180 million) of the costs — about 1/3 of the submarine’s price.

Israel already has three Dolphin submarines from Germany — one half-funded and two entirely funded by Berlin — and two more are currently under construction.

Barack said in a statement the submarine will “substantially increase the capabilities and the strength of … Israel in the face of ever-increasing challenges.”

Here’s another Minister…‘If you want to shoot – shoot’: Israeli minister on Iran strike…

Ain’t this cool… ? Iran’s UN Mission complains of harassment by US…

Now, Richard Silverstein penned another must-read…

Terror and the Murder of the Good

…There can never be justification for killing children, whether those children are French Jews or Palestinian Muslims. If we want the world to believe in the justice of our cause, whether it be Israel or Palestine, we have to denounce the murder of both.

That’s why the pro-Israel supporters who are clucking about this latest round of Islamist terror are dead wrong. They are hypocrites because they only care about children with Jewish blood in their veins. You never heard any of them cry for the two Palestinian children killed in Israelis attacks against Gaza. Nor did they cry anything but crocodile tears, if that, for the 300 children killed during Cast Lead.

The EU’s foreign minister, Catherine Ashton Taylor unleashed “fury” in Israel with her apt analogy (though much less forcefully made than I have) between the child terror deaths in Gaza, Toulouse, Norway and elsewhere. She said:

…When we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world — we remember young people and children who lose their lives.”

Israelis of course refuse to concede that the children they kill in Gaza are killed in anything other than a pure and just cause. Listen to this rhetorical flatulence from Netanyahu:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier that he was “infuriated” by what he called “the comparison between a deliberate massacre of children and the defensive, surgical actions” of the Israeli military that he said were “intended to hit terrorists who use children as a human shield.”

Calling an attack that kills children “defensive” and “surgical” seems to absolve it or any of the moral considerations that enter into other acts of war and terror which kill children. The fact that the children killed in Gaza were NOT being used as human shields by any militants is also deliberately obfuscated by the pro-Israelists. Will no Israeli leader ever cry for any child he kills? Of course not. He’s too busy orchestrating the hasbara to mute the moral opprobrium of his next attack…

Speaking of Toulouse… Toolooz…?

Meanwhile, Bibi’s pissed at the UN, not just the EU… UN body to probe Israeli settlements…

So naturally… Netanyahu says UN rights council ‘hypocritical’…

…”This council has an automatic majority hostile to Israel and is hypocritical,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying in a statement released by his office.

The Israeli premier added that the UN Human Rights Council “should be ashamed of itself.”

The 47-member council approved earlier a resolution ordering a first probe into how Israeli settlements may be infringing on the rights of the Palestinian people.

Thirty-six members voted in favour while 10 abstained. Only the United States voted against it…

And hot off the press…

…A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said that Israel would not cooperate with the United Nations Human Rights Council’s probe of Israel’s West Bank settlement policies.

The source described that investigation as biased, adding that Israel did not want to give it legitimacy.

In summing up, Philip Giraldi, wrote a must read too…

The No-Fault March to War

…Under the current “progressive” administration in Washington, accountability has taken several steps backward. CIA torturers are not responsible for what they did, soldiers who massacre foreign civilians are protected or slapped on the wrist if they are punished at all, American citizens are assassinated, and drones kill suspects living in countries with which we are not at war. Recently, the president declared that he can take control of “all national resources” in case of an emergency, a sweeping dismissal of the right to property guaranteed by the Constitution. And if anyone challenges any of these abuses in court, the proceedings will be stopped by the government’s declaration of state-secrets privilege….

All the while… Today in Gaza…

*gah*