May 24, 2009-IDF Unveils Missile Defense Plans

The President of the Palestinian Authority, Machmoud Abbas, met with President Obama on Friday. The word from Prime Minister Netanyahu's office: "the sky is falling". News commentators have characterized it, saying, there is a "great deal of tension in the Prime Minister Office". In an unprecedented step, Netanyahu, himself, was attributed as having been critical of requests from Obama for a settlement freeze. The feeling was that Obama was much warmer toward Abbas. I find this absurd, on so many levels. First, I am missing the warmth between Abbas and Obama. It is possible that the connection between Obama and Netanyahu was so icy, that in comparison Obama's reception of Abbas could be considered warm. You can check out the meeting yourself at the What House website (scroll down the page) and watch the full interchange. In my opinion, Abbas does not look all that happy and Obama is friendly, but very serious. If you read the transcript, you can see the first thing Obama states is that Israel is a close ally of the US and all the US is asking it asks as a friend. Now if I was Netanyahu I would be worried by what Obama stated in response to the following questions:

Q: (Question asked in Arabic.) Mr. President, if Israel keeps declining to accept the two-state solution and to freeze the settlement activities, how would the U. S. intervene in the peace process?

“We'll, I think it's important not to assume the worst, but to assume the best. And in my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu I was very clear about the need to stop the settlements; to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts; to work with the Palestinian Authority in order to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce, so that we can initiate some of the economic development plans that Prime Minister Netanyahu himself has said are so important on the ground.

And that conversation only took place last week. I think that we don't have a moment to lose, but I also don't make decisions based on just the conversation that we had last week because obviously Prime Minister Netanyahu has to work through these issues in his own government, in his own coalition, just as President Abbas has a whole host of issues that he has to deal with. ”

I am not sure what Netanyahu expected. He came to Washington with no plan, last time he was in office, by all accounts, he turned off President Clinton and his administration by lecturing to them about Israel’s needs and history instead of presenting concrete plans. I thought he might have learned, but I fear he is clueless. If he intends to make his stand on the issue of the settlements, he is going to find Israel totally isolated, probably losing American Congressional support and receiving only lukewarm support from the American Jewish community over the issue. I fear the Israel government is disconnected from reality, certainly the reality of American politics at the moment.

There is an interesting panel discussion on Fox News Special Report Panel on Israeli -Palestinian Conflict

Palestinian Authority military forces killed two top leaders of Hamas today in Kalkilya. This is part of the ongoing efforts by the newly trained force called "the Dayton force" that has been trained by the US army. By all accounts, they are a professional force who has been very successful in rounding up Hamas operatives, thus Netanyahu is going to have a very hard time pointing to the roadmap and saying the Palestinians are not doing their part fighting terror.

A new and rather sad technological development was unveiled in Israel today as part of the largest civil defense drill ever. To overcome the problem of people not hearing the sirens in case of missile or other attack, the army has developed a system to have all the cell phones in an affected area go off like sirens in case of an attack.