That indeed is what CNN is reporting.
The United States believes Israel has conducted an airstrike into Syria, two U.S. officials tell CNN.
You know, I remember a time when the Israelis would simply tell us if they had or not. Of course, there’s a whole lot of other things I remember as working more smoothly before… oh, say, 2009 or so.
Moe Lane
PS: On the bright side, they should start doing that again in… oh, say, 2017 or so.
As in, he’s suddenly discovering that believing in shadowy Jewish conspiracies – pardon me: the ‘Jewish lobby’… wait, no, that’s not really better – anyway, Chuck Hagel is right now getting a spotlight put upon him in response to the rumor that he’s being considered for Secretary of Defense. A spotlight, in fact, that perhaps Chuck Hagel has not had to date. Along those lines, Wall Street Journal op-ed writer Bret Stephens notes:
…[W]hatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state, winning over the state’s Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100 Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol lobby.
Continue reading QotD, Chuck Hagel’s REAL Jewish Problem edition.
Just some things to keep in mind:
Continue reading A handy checklist for the rumored Chuck Hagel appointment.
Particularly since we kept getting told that SDI/missile defense was a hopeless boondoggle.
“Run” is sufficient. This is the big leagues, kids: and the one problem with being hidden in the shadows is that nobody notices when you disappear.
Moe Lane
PS: Google “Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh” some time, folks. And note what happened to the core team involved there. Spoiler warning: not a damned thing.
Seriously, what the heck was Mother Jones thinking? Were they thinking? It’s hard to tell.
Continue reading #rsrh Romney should report this Mother Jones video as an in-kind contribution.
I’m a little surprised that Allahpundit (I’m guessing) didn’t write that headline himself: it’s so blatantly obvious, right? Anyway, heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Tom Friedman!
I’ll make this quick. I have one question and one observation about Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel. The question is this: Since the whole trip was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political whims of the right-wing, super pro-Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn’t they just do the whole thing in Las Vegas? I mean, it was all about money anyway — how much Romney would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear and how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney campaign in return. Really, Vegas would have been so much more appropriate than Jerusalem. They could have constructed a plastic Wailing Wall and saved so much on gas.
Continue reading #rsrh The Chinese want us to be harder on Israel.
Walter Russell Mead, on why the Israel portion of Mitt Romney’s trip is the most important one.
Americans by and large like both Britain and Poland but they don’t think about them very much, and they don’t think of either country as requiring a lot of help from the United States — though most Americans would be ready to stand by either of these countries should trouble come.
But Israel is a different matter. Large numbers of Americans perceive that Israel is in more danger than either Britain or Poland, and that the United States is the only real friend Israel has. They also think that Israel’s most bitter enemies are also deadly enemies of the United States. After the Iraq and Afghanistan wars there is not a lot of American appetite for launching new wars in the Middle East, but if anything that heightens the degree to which many people want the government to support what they see as the one real ally we have there.
Foreign policy experts can — and do — dispute many details of this vision of Israel’s situation and America’s interests, but the idea that Israel needs us and that it is both our moral duty and a strategic interest to support it to the hilt has sunk so deeply into the American public mind that Governor Romney can hardly go wrong in standing up for it.
Weirdly, there are people who get bothered by the above. Sad, really.
Which it is, of course. Although possibly the more important event from Romney’s Israel remarks was that “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before the speech that “all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota.”” Which they haven’t, of course.
Back at home? Well, the Democrats haven’t been exactly covering themselves in glory on this one. President Obama did best, with his ever-so-sudden $70 million funding of Israeli missile defense (that’s about .14 solyndras*); meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi’s telling the world that the real reason why the GOP supports Israel is because Republicans want lower taxes (don’t ask me; she’s the one who said it). And then there was this profile in courage: Continue reading Romney calls Jerusalem capital of Israel.
Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds notes – not publicly gleefully – that Glenns Greenwalds are very upset. It seems that Greenwalds are bothered by the fact that while it was apparently OK to call Reynolds evil for endorsing a targeted assassination program against Iranian nuclear weapons engineers and terrorist-enabling mullahs, it’s apparently not OK for Obama to be criticized for effectively signing off on such a program. It’s apparently even worse to publicly approve of Ron Paul’s Israel views when compared to Barack Obama’s. Poor Greenwalds are feeling aggrieved. And betrayed. And scorned.
In order: Continue reading #rsrh Glenns Greenwalds are whining again.
