Dumb, Duh - Duh, Dumb

The Yetzer Hara i.e. the one who comes from "Ego" is dumb. In fact, King David says that the more we sin from ego led inclinations, eventually we become immersed in sin such that we will eventually stumble in supremely foolish ways. This is why King David anguished over his yetzer, for he feared that God Forbid he do something so utterly foolish before God that he should become blind to his own madness and folly.

King David won out, and merited the seed of Moshiach; The Sitra Achra is the anti-David in this matter.

Behold just how dumb it may get. By this thinking [along with World Precedent in these issues - Bavel anyone?] - we may be entering an unprecedented era of stupidity that simultaneously declares utter genius.

God Help Us All [as Rome falls over its own brittle feet (Daniel)]


YahooNews:

European leaders united in anger as they attended a summit overshadowed by reports of widespread U.S. spying on its allies — allegations German Chancellor Angela Merkel said had shattered trust in the Obama administration and undermined the crucial trans-Atlantic relationship.

The latest revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency swept up more than 70 million phone records in France and may have tapped Merkel's own cellphone brought denunciations Thursday from the French and German governments.

Merkel's unusually stern remarks as she arrived at the European Union gathering indicated she wasn't placated by a phone conversation she had Wednesday with President Barack Obama, or his personal assurances that the U.S. is not listening in on her calls now.

"We need trust among allies and partners," Merkel told reporters in Brussels. "Such trust now has to be built anew. This is what we have to think about."

"The United States of America and Europe face common challenges. We are allies," the German leader said. "But such an alliance can only be built on trust. That's why I repeat again: spying among friends, that cannot be."

View gallery."The acting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle … The acting German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle speaks after his meeting with the US ambassador … The White House may soon face other irked heads of state and government. The British newspaper The Guardian said Thursday it obtained a confidential memo suggesting the NSA was able to monitor 35 world leaders' communications in 2006. The memo said the NSA encouraged senior officials at the White House, Pentagon and other agencies to share their contacts so the spy agency could add foreign leaders' phone numbers to its surveillance systems, the report said.

The Guardian did not identify who reportedly was eavesdropped on, but said the memo termed the payoff very meager: "Little reportable intelligence" was obtained, it said.

Other European leaders arriving for the 28-nation meeting echoed Merkel's displeasure. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called it "completely unacceptable" for a country to eavesdrop on an allied leader.

If reports that Merkel's cellphone had been tapped are true, "it is exceptionally serious," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told national broadcaster NOS.

"We want the truth," Italian Premier Enrico Letta told reporters. "It is not in the least bit conceivable that activity of this type could be acceptable."

View gallery."US Ambassador John Emerson, right, gets into his car … US Ambassador John Emerson, right, gets into his car as he leaves after a meeting with German Foreig … Echoing Merkel, Austria's foreign minister, Michael Spindelegger, said, "We need to re-establish with the U.S. a relationship of trust, which has certainly suffered from this."

France, which also vocally objected to allies spying on each other, asked that the issue of reinforcing Europeans' privacy in the digital age be added to the agenda of the two-day summit. Before official proceedings got under way, Merkel held a brief one-on-one with French President Francois Hollande, and discussed the spying controversy.

After summit talks that lasted until after 1 a.m. Friday, Herman Van Rompuy, European Council president, announced at a news conference that France and Germany were seeking bilateral talks with the United States to resolve the dispute over electronic spying by "secret services" by the end of this year.

"What is at stake is preserving our relations with the United States," Hollande told reporters at his own early-morning news conference. "They should not be changed because of what has happened. But trust has to be restored and reinforced."

"It's become clear that for the future, something must change — and significantly," Merkel said. "We will put all efforts into forging a joint understanding by the end of the year for the cooperation of the (intelligence) agencies between Germany and the U.S., and France and the U.S., to create a framework for the cooperation."

View gallery."Artist A. Signl, of the artist group Captain Borderline … Artist A. Signl, of the artist group Captain Borderline paints the mural 'Surveillance of the fittes … The Europeans' statements and actions indicated that they hadn't been satisfied with assurances from Washington. On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama personally assured Merkel that her phone is not being listened to now and won't be in the future.

"I think we are all outraged, across party lines," Wolfgang Bosbach, a prominent German lawmaker from Merkel's party, told Deutschlandfunk radio. "And that also goes for the response that the chancellor's cellphone is not being monitored — because this sentence says nothing about whether the chancellor was monitored in the past."

"This cannot be justified from any point of view by the fight against international terrorism or by averting danger," Bosbach said.

Asked on hursday whether the Americans had monitored Merkel's previous communications, White House spokesman Carney wouldn't rule it out.

"We are not going to comment publicly on every specified alleged intelligence activity," he said.

View gallery."French President Francois Hollande, right, speaks with … French President Francois Hollande, right, speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as they arriv … But while the White House was staying publicly mum, Carney said the Obama administration was discussing Germany's concerns "through diplomatic channels at the highest level," as it was with other U.S. allies worried about the alleged spying.

Obama adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism Lisa Monaco wrote in an editorial for USA Today that the U.S. government is not operating "unrestrained."

The U.S. intelligence community has more restrictions and oversight than any other country, she wrote. "We are not listening to every phone call or reading every e-mail. Far from it."

Monaco noted that a privacy and civil liberties oversight board is reviewing counterterrorism efforts to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are protected.

"Going forward, we will continue to gather the information we need to keep ourselves and our allies safe, while giving even greater focus to ensuring that we are balancing our security needs with the privacy concerns all people share," she wrote.

View gallery."German Chancellor Angela Merkel, second left, and French … German Chancellor Angela Merkel, second left, and French President Francois Hollande, second right, … In the past, much of the official outrage in Europe about revelations of U.S. communications intercepts leaked by former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden seemed designed for internal political consumption in countries that readily acknowledge conducting major spying operations themselves. But there has been a new discernible vein of anger in Europe as the scale of the NSA's reported operations became known, as well as the possible targeting of a prominent leader like Merkel, presumably for inside political or economic information.

"Nobody in Germany will be able to say any longer that NSA surveillance — which is apparently happening worldwide and millions of times — is serving solely intelligence-gathering or defense against Islamic terror or weapons proliferation," said Hans-Christian Strobele, a member of the German parliamentary oversight committee.

Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said Europe's undermined confidence in the U.S. meant it should suspend negotiations for a two-way free-trade agreement that would account for almost half of the global economy. The Americans, Schulz said, now must prove they can be trusted.

"Let's be honest. If we go to the negotiations and we have the feeling those people with whom we negotiate know everything that we want to deal with in advance, how can we trust each other?" Schulz said.

European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said for many Europeans, eavesdropping on their phone calls or reading their emails is particularly objectionable because it raises the specter of totalitarian regimes of the recent past.

View gallery."German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and French President … German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and French President Francois Hollande, right, arrive for a r … "At least in Europe, we consider the right to privacy a fundamental right and it is a very serious matter. We cannot, let's say, pretend it is just something accessory," Barroso told a presummit news conference.

Referring to the former East Germany's secret police, the feared Stasi, Barroso said, "to speak about Chancellor Merkel, in Germany there was a part of Germany where there was a political police that was spying on people's lives every day. So we know very recently what totalitarianism means. And we know very well what comes, what happens when the state uses powers that intrude in people's lives. So it is a very important issue, not only for Germany but for Europe in general."

In Berlin, the German Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador to stress how seriously it takes the reported spying on Merkel. Germany's defense minister said his country and Europe can't return "to business as usual" with Washington, given the number of reports that the United States has eavesdropped on allied nations.

A German parliamentary committee that oversees the country's intelligence service met to discuss the spying allegations. Its head, Thomas Oppermann, recalled previous reports to the panel that U.S. authorities had denied violating German interests, and said, "we were apparently deceived by the American side."

Meanwhile, two Western diplomats told The Associated Press that U.S. officials have briefed them on documents obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that might expose their respective countries' levels of intelligence cooperation with the U.S.

The diplomats said the briefings came from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Washington Post said some of the documents Snowden took contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries including Iran, Russia and China. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence briefings publicly.

In this Generation, to label it the "genius's" [like neo-gaonim] would an insult to their intelligence [by dictations of ego]; all that leaves is the Generation of the gods'?

It truly fits...and with that said [as King David and Zohar also qualify] - we may have entered an era of unprecedented Avodah Zara among Men - fitting to the imagery that the Torah illustrates us with as Man will sin in those days by the workings of their hands/fingers. This "i generation" is certainly that, and their Messiah was Steve Jobs [consciousness] that ushered in the blanket permission slip for Man to do as he pleases [against his fellow man]. Today, the dumber it gets, the more genius the ego claims to be. 

It is sure to get interesting, as we have just returned to the proverbial sandbox and are being held captive by the kids who eventually cried uncle over their own misery.

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Let Mazal Decide

Americans say they need a crisis. Perhaps the World needs World Crisis I instead of the WWIII. As Rahmbo says, never let the opportunity of a good crisis go to waste. This is political engineering that I can actually look forward to; Mazal-nomics 101 - letting fate decide [i.e. God] could actually be the trump card this transition needs. I'm game if this is in fact the game.

JPost.com:

The US government began a partial shutdown on Tuesday for the first time in 17 years, potentially putting up to 1 million workers on unpaid leave, closing national parks and stalling medical research projects.

Federal agencies were directed to cut back services after lawmakers could not break a political stalemate that sparked new questions about the ability of a deeply divided Congress to perform its most basic functions.

After House Republicans floated a late offer to break the logjam, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected the idea, saying Democrats would not enter into formal negotiations on spending "with a gun to our head" in the form of government shutdowns.

The political dysfunction at the Capitol also raised fresh concerns about whether Congress can meet a crucial mid-October deadline to raise the government's $16.7 trillion debt ceiling.

With an eye on the 2014 congressional elections, both parties tried to deflect responsibility for the shutdown. President Barack Obama accused Republicans of being too beholden to Tea Party conservatives in the House of Representatives and said the shutdown could threaten the economic recovery.

The political stakes are particularly high for Republicans, who are trying to regain control of the Senate next year. Polls show they are more likely to be blamed for the shutdown, as they were during the last shutdown in 1996.

"Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose," said pollster Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University poll. "Going in, Obama and the Democrats have a little edge."

The dollar held steady on Tuesday even though much of the US government was due to start shutting down. S&P stock futures inched up 0.2 percent, unchanged from earlier price action after the cash index fell 0.6 percent on Monday, while US Treasury futures slipped 5 ticks.

Most Asian markets were trading higher on Tuesday.

POLITICAL POLARIZATION

The shutdown, the culmination of three years of divided government and growing political polarization, was spearheaded by Tea Party conservatives united in their opposition to Obama, their distaste for Obama's healthcare law and their campaign pledges to rein in government spending.

Obama refused to negotiate over the Republican demands and warned a shutdown could "throw a wrench into the gears of our economy."

Some government offices and national parks will be shuttered, but spending for essential functions related to national security and public safety will continue, including pay for US military troops.

"It's not shocking there is a shutdown, the shock is that it hasn't happened before this," said Republican strategist John Feehery, a former Capitol Hill aide. "We have a divided government with such diametrically opposed views, we need a crisis to get any kind of results."

In the hours leading up to the deadline, the Democratic-controlled Senate repeatedly stripped measures passed by the House that tied temporary funding for government operations to delaying or scaling back the healthcare overhaul known as Obamacare. The Senate instead insisted on funding the government through Nov. 15 without special conditions.

Whether the shutdown represents another bump in the road for a Congress increasingly plagued by dysfunction or is a sign of a more alarming breakdown in the political process could be determined by the reaction among voters and on Wall Street.

"The key to this is not what happens in Washington. The key is what happens out in the real world," said Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis. "When Joe Public starts rebelling, and the financial markets start melting down, then we'll see what these guys do."

A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed about one-quarter of Americans would blame Republicans for a shutdown, 14 percent would blame Obama and 5 percent would blame Democrats in Congress, while 44 percent said everyone would be to blame.

An anticipated revolt by moderate House Republicans fizzled earlier on Monday after House Speaker John Boehner made personal appeals to many of them to back him on a key procedural vote, said Republican Representative Peter King of New York.

After Boehner made his appeal, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer called on him to permit a vote on a simple extension of federal funding of the government without any Obamacare add-on. "I dare you to do that," Hoyer roared.

THE FALLOUT

The potential fallout has some Republican Party leaders worried ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections and the 2016 presidential race, particularly given the Republican divisions over the shutdown.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who commandeered the Senate floor for 21 hours last week to stoke the confrontation and urge House colleagues to join him, sparked a feud with fellow Republicans who disagreed with the shutdown and accused the potential 2016 presidential candidate of grandstanding.

"Whether or not we're responsible for it, we're going to get blamed for it," King told reporters on Monday. "They've locked themselves into a situation, a dead-end that Ted Cruz created."

It was unclear how long the shutdown would last and there was no clear plan to break the impasse. The Senate on Tuesday planned to recess until 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT), at which time Democrats expect to formally reject the House of Representatives' latest offer for funding the government.

The shutdown will continue until Congress resolves its differences, which could be days or months. But the conflict could spill over into the more crucial dispute over raising the federal government's borrowing authority.

A failure to raise the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling would force the country to default on its obligations, dealing a potentially painful blow to the economy and sending shockwaves around global markets.

Some analysts said a brief government shutdown - and a resulting backlash against lawmakers - could cool Republican demands for a showdown over the debt limit.

"A lot of this is political theater. It's not about real policy. Part of this is taking a stand for their constituents," said Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University.

"If there is fallout from a shutdown and there is a big enough shock, maybe they will be willing to move on to other issues," he said.

Obama says negotiating over the demands would only encourage future confrontations, and Democrats are wary of passing a short-term funding bill that would push the confrontation too close to the deadline for raising the debt ceiling.

"The bottom line is very simple - you negotiate on this, they will up the ante for the debt ceiling," Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said.

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Welcome to Pax Judaica

Read carefully what this guy is saying; Israel is the only power [aligned with America, i.e. not Russia or China] that is willing, able, and has [done] struck down "evil regimes" in recent memory. This by definition is the foundation for the Pax Judaica model.

Note the unfolding: Pax UK - Pax Americana - and Pax Judaica.


Jpost.com:

The agreement reached between the US and Russia for the destruction of chemical weapons in the possession of the Assad regime is fraught with difficulty and danger and, in the best case scenario, would likely end up with a token show of disarmament, Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Speaking to the Post by phone, Kemp, who also served in the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee and Cabinet Office Briefing Room, said: “I think it’s extremely difficult to do something like this during an active conflict, during a war. I think it’ll take a very large amount of time, with a significant amount of military protection, so that the inspectors can be as safe as they can be. That aspect will present huge challenges. Which country, first of all, will provide the scientists who will take these risks and the military forces to back them up? It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Kemp observed that there is a wide variety of factions in Syria, including regime forces and jihadists, meaning that it would be difficult to send weapons inspectors to the country.

“Secondly, to get verification in this kind of situation, I would say, is impossible,” he stated. “It would be very easy for President Assad to hide or remove out of the country significant quantities of chemical weapons.

Crisis in Syria - full JPost.com coverage

What we might end up seeing is a token show of disarmament. I don’t think it is realistically feasible.”

In turn, it would end up harming regional – and global – security, the former military commander warned.

Assad’s position would be strengthened by a more positive international stance towards him, “combined with very active Russian support and American collusion with that support,” Kemp said. Iran’s position, too, would be strengthened significantly, he continued, as the value of American deterrence “appears to be degraded as a result of this, and Iran’s own position is obviously strengthened by what will be its closer relations with Russia.”

This spells bad news from Israel’s perspective, Kemp said, adding nonetheless that “Israel appears to be the only reliable power in the region. America’s power and American deterrence is reduced. Israel remains the one reliable power that the world can count on to intervene if the situation gets too dangerous.”

He noted the three times that Israel, according to foreign media reports, intervened in Syria to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons, and the alleged 2007 Israeli air strike on Syria’s nuclear project.

“It’s that sort of action we need to be prepared to do,” Kemp said. “If Israel hadn’t struck Syria’s nuclear project, the situation now could be very different. We could be trying to deal with nuclear-armed Syria, which would be an impossibility. Israel is showing itself to be the only reliable power.”

The UK and the US have, over the past few weeks, “demonstrated their complete lack of resolve to do the right thing when it’s needed. It’s all very well speaking and posturing, but when the chips are down and it’s time to put their money where their mouth is, both the UK and US have shown there’s no will,” he said, pointing to a negative effect on world security.

Public opinion in the UK and US is too focused on what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, “particularly, Iraq,” he added. “Many people are not able to look at this situation as a different situation to Iraq.”

In the UK, a wide part of public opinion is influenced by a fear of militant Islam and the desire to pursue short-term, low-risk goals, at the expense of ignoring wider risks, Kemp said.

This means Israel has rulership in its Land. From Erev Rav yes, and they shall yield to God in the end, but in this point in history, only Israel has the God given ability to be Pax Judaica [Pax anything] in this dor. The Geulah begins on this premise; all we can do is live each day with emunah that this is indeed it, the alternative would be an evil unheard of. The pieces are there, we are to read the mazal of each moment - the mazal being the kabbalistic perfection coming into our world which goes 100% in- face of "non-Jewish" mazal.

For context of Israel today and the imprecations  for the Church, read what the Pope has to say about Israel.

Pope Francis has praised Jews for keeping their faith despite the Holocaust and other “terrible trials” throughout history, and reaffirmed Judaism as the “holy root” of Christianity. In a letter, published on the front page of La Repubblica Italian newspaper, the Pope writes that "since Vatican Council II, we have rediscovered that the Jewish people are still for us the holy root from which Jesus germinated". 

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio had celebrated Rosh Hashana in local synagogues, he had voiced solidarity with Jewish victims of Iranian terrorism and co-written a book with a rabbi, Avraham Skorka. He attended a commemoration of Kristallnacht, the wave of Nazi attacks against Jews in November 1938. But as this new letter shows, one of the grave dangers in the Vatican's dialogue with Judaism is the Church's attempt to drive a wedge between the “good” and docile Jews of the Diaspora and the “bad” and arrogant Jews of Israel. Pope Francis has never addressed the Israelis in his messages, nor has he openly defended the Jewish State since he was elected by the college of the cardinals. It seems that there is no room for stubborn, faithful Zionists in the Pope's lenient smile.

 In his speeches, Jewish national aspirations are ignored, if not denigrated. The definitive proof is in Washington. It seems that there is no room for stubborn, faithful Zionists in the Pope's lenient smile. While the Pope was distributing that letter, in a new event co-sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic University of America was hosting a special conference about “religious freedom and human rights issues in the Holy Land”. 

The speakers included Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., Jessica Montell, executive director of B’Tselem anti-Israel group, and Mustafa Barghouti, the prominent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Cardinal McCarrick said that “the expansion of Israeli settlements into occupied territories provokes violence”, in a self-evident justification of Arab terrorism. Montell, who accepted money from BDS, added that “settlement expansion is a primary source of human rights violations for Palestinians” and that “human rights violations are inherent to a prolonged military occupation”. "When you live under occupation, you come to accept things you shouldn't accept,” Lubna Alzaroo, a Muslim graduate of Bethlehem University and Fullbright scholar studying at the University of Washington, said at the D.C. event of the Catholic Church. Among the organizations invited by the Catholic bishops there was also the Society of St. Yves, which charges "Israeli colonization, occupation and apartheid" and works for "the Palestinian refugees’ rights to return to their homes and places of origin". 

The Society of St. Yves shares also the "Nakba” ideology, the “catastrophe”, as the Arabs call the date of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. While the Pope was penning his letter about Jesus, the US' highest Catholic political body was giving a platform to the boycotters of Israel, it was calling for the indefensible-for-Israel partition of the holy land and it was exculpating the Palestinian Arab for their jihad. 

 The Vatican, as always happened in the past, will be silent during the next "terrible trials" for the Jewish people, if they occur, should it be Iranian nuclear or Arab terrorism. When Pope Francis was elected, a media outlet asked me to comment. 

My reply was: "I hope the next Pope will avoid the ecumenical mistakes of his predecessors, he will address the challenge of political Islam and understand the Jewish revolution of returning to the land after Auschwitz. Otherwise, any Jewish-Catholic dialogue will be empty, or worse, it will be a show for hypocrites". 

 Was I right to be skeptical?

Torah says Hashem takes over in the End of Days. Couple that with our old friend "novelty" - Things are seeming ever novel, no?

last moments of '73 anyone?

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Your Move Bibi - Bluffa

In the hearts of man this is about Iran; In the heart of Hashem this is about Geulah.

From the Mouth of God I heard two. [מפי הגבורה]


YahooNews.com:

If President Barack Obama has disappointed Syrian rebels by deferring to Congress before bombing Damascus, he has also dismayed the United States' two main allies in the Middle East.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have little love for each other but both are pressing their mutual friend in the White House to hit President Bashar al-Assad hard. And both do so with one eye fixed firmly not on Syria but on their common adversary - Iran.

Israel's response to Obama's surprise move to delay or even possibly cancel air strikes made clear that connection: looking soft on Assad after accusing him of killing hundreds of people with chemical weapons may embolden his backers in Tehran to develop nuclear arms, Israeli officials said. And if they do, Israel may strike Iran alone, unsure Washington can be trusted.

Neither U.S. ally is picking a fight with Obama in public. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the nation was "serene and self-confident"; Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal simply renewed a call to the "international community" to halt Assad's violence in Syria.

But the Saudi monarchy, though lacking Israel's readiness to attack Iran, can share the Jewish state's concern that neither may now look with confidence to Washington to curb what Riyadh sees as a drive by its Persian rival to dominate the Arab world.

Last year, Obama assured Israelis that he would "always have Israel's back". Now Netanyahu is reassuring them they can manage without uncertain U.S. protection against Iran, which has called for Israel's destruction but denies developing nuclear weapons.

"Israel's citizens know well that we are prepared for any possible scenario," the hawkish prime minister said. "And Israel's citizens should also know that our enemies have very good reasons not to test our power and not to test our might."

That may not reassure a U.S. administration which has tried to steer Netanyahu away from unilateral action against Iran that could stir yet more chaos in the already explosive Middle East.

Israel's state-run Army Radio was more explicit: "If Obama is hesitating on the matter of Syria," it said, "Then clearly on the question of attacking Iran, a move that is expected to be far more complicated, Obama will hesitate much more - and thus the chances Israel will have to act alone have increased."

Israelis contrast the "red line" Netanyahu has set for how close Iran may come to nuclear weapons capability before Israel strikes with Obama's "red line" on Assad's use of chemical weapons - seemingly passed without U.S. military action so far.

"HEAD OF THE SNAKE"

Saudi Arabia, like Israel heavily dependent on the United States for arms supplies, is engaged in a historic confrontation with Iran for regional influence - a contest shaped by their leading roles in the rival Sunni and Shi'ite branches of Islam.

Riyadh is a prime backer of Sunni rebels fighting Assad, whose Alawite minority is a Shi'ite offshoot. It sees toppling Assad as checking Iran's ambition not just in Syria but in other Arab states including the Gulf, where it mistrusts Shi'ites in Saudi Arabia itself and in neighboring Bahrain, Yemen and Iraq.

Saudi King Abdullah's wish for U.S. action against Iran was memorably contained in leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, including one in which a Saudi envoy said the monarch wanted Washington to "cut off the head of the snake" to end Tehran's nuclear threat.

Disappointment with Obama's hesitation against Assad came through on Sunday in the Saudi foreign minister's remarks to the Arab League in Cairo, where he said words were no longer enough.

Riyadh and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) risk ending up empty-handed in their latest push for U.S. backing in their campaign to rein in Iran, said Sami al-Faraj, a Kuwaiti analyst who advises the GCC on security matters:

"The idea of a punishment for a crime has lost its flavor. We are on the edge of the possibility that military action may not be conducted," he said. "Congress, for sure, ... will attach conditions to what is already going to be a limited strike. At the end, we as Gulf allies, may end up with nothing."

Israel does not share the Saudi enthusiasm for the Syrian rebel cause, despite its concern about Assad's role as a link between Iran and Lebanese and Palestinian enemies. The presence in rebel ranks of Sunni Islamist militants, some linked to al Qaeda, worries the Jewish state - though Riyadh, too, is keen to curb al Qaeda, which calls the royal family American stooges.

EGYPTIAN LESSONS

Saudi and Israeli support for U.S. air strikes in response to Assad's alleged use of poison gas scarcely stands out less amid a global clamor of reproach for Damascus. But the recent Egyptian crisis saw them more distinctly making common cause in lobbying Washington - since their preference for Egypt's army over elected Islamists was at odds with much of world opinion.

That, too, reflects shared anxieties about the strength of Islamic populism and about Iran, which found a more sympathetic ear in Cairo after the election of President Mohamed Mursi.

Israeli political commentators used terms such as "betrayal" and "bullet in the back from Uncle Sam" when Obama abandoned loyal ally Hosni Mubarak during the popular uprising of 2011.

While some Western leaders voiced unease at the army's overthrow of Mursi in July and bloody crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood, in Israel even Obama's mild rebuke to the generals - delaying delivery of four warplanes to Egypt - caused "raised eyebrows" of disapproval, an official there said.

A "gag order" from Netanyahu kept that quiet, however, as Israel's military kept open the communications with Egypt's armed forces, not least over militant attacks near their desert border, in a manner that has been the bedrock of the U.S.-brokered peace treaty binding Israel and Egypt since 1979.

Unusually, it was Saudi Arabia which was the more vocally critical of Washington's allies over its Egypt policy.

As U.S. lawmakers toyed with holding back aid to the new military-backed government, Riyadh and its Gulf allies poured in many more billions in aid and loans to Cairo.

And Saudi Arabia told Washington defiantly that it would make up any shortfall if the United States dared to turn off the taps: "To those who have declared they are stopping aid to Egypt or are waving such a threat, the Arab and Muslim nations ... will not shy away from offering a helping hand to Egypt," foreign minister Prince Saud said last month.

DISCREET DIPLOMACY

More quietly, Israel has been engaged in direct discussions with the White House, urging Obama not to waver in support of Egypt's military and saying it is time to act on Syria.

An official briefed on U.S.-Israeli discussions said Israeli intercepts of Syrian communications were used by Obama administration officials in making their public case that Assad was behind the August 21 gas attacks and must be penalized.

Netanyahu, whose frosty rapport with Obama blossomed into a display of harmony on the president's visit to Israel in March, has ordered his ministers not to criticize Obama publicly after the president's decision to take the Syrian issue to Congress.

A government source said the prime minister told his cabinet on Sunday: "We are in the middle of an ongoing event. It is not over and there are sensitive and delicate issues at play.

"There is no room here for individual comments," he said. "I'm asking you not to behave irresponsibly when it comes to our ally, just so you can grab a fleeting headline."

That did stop Tzachi Hanegbi, a Netanyahu confidant who sits on parliament's defense committee, complaining on Army Radio that Obama had delivered further proof to Iran - and North Korea - that "there is no enthusiasm in the world to deal with their ongoing defiance regarding nuclear weaponry".

"To us it says one thing: ... in the words of our sages: 'If I am not for myself, then who is?'"

Israel clearly hopes still that Congress will give Obama the green light for strikes against Assad but is also likely to be wary of deploying its own lobbying power among lawmakers.

That risks being counter-productive and, in any case, the president has made clear that threats to Israel from Syrian chemical weapons are among his own arguments for war.

Concern in Washington over a go-it-alone Israeli strike on Iran are still strong; Israel is unlikely to use the nuclear warheads it is assumed to possess but any strike on its distant and populous enemy would have unpredictable consequences.

As a result, U.S. leaders have beaten a path to Jerusalem - Obama himself in March but also Secretary of State John Kerry several times, relaunching talks with the Palestinians in the process, and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who made his third visit to Israel last month.

Gadi Shamni, an Israeli military attache in the United States until last year, said that on the Iranian issue, "there were times when we were in the same book, then the same chapter.

"Right now we are on the same page. There is a lot of flow of intelligence and views and understanding."

MILITANT THREAT

For all the unease that Israel has about Syria's rebels, who have at times fired into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, it is pushing hard against Assad now after learning to live with the Syrian leader and his father over the past 40 years. One Israeli official said the message from Netanyahu was clear:

"There is a man in nominal control of Syria who is using chemical weapons against civilians. That has to be stopped."

That sentiment is echoed in Riyadh. Abdullah al-Askar, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Shoura Council, said that U.S. strikes should aim to end Assad's rule.

Askar, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, told Reuters: "If the attack is just a punishment to show that the international community will not stand for chemical attacks, Assad will just remain in his place and do his bloody work.

"The second scenario is to finish the business."

Mustafa Alani, a Gulf analyst with good connections to Saudi officials, said the kingdom was also warning Washington that a failure to attack Assad would benefit their common enemy al Qaeda: "No action will boost the extremist position," he said, explaining that rebel despair at U.S. inaction on Syria would push more fighters to switch allegiance to Islamist militants.

Paraphrasing what he said was a Saudi argument, Alani said: "Without a punishment of the regime, extremists will enjoy wider support and attract more moderate fighters."

Riyadh already shares rebel frustrations with the shortage of U.S. military aid reaching Syria, despite Obama's commitment in June to step up assistance after poison gas was first used.

A senior U.S. official spoke of a "stable relationship" with Riyadh "on core national security areas". But the official also conceded: "While we do not agree on every issue, when we have different perspectives we have honest and open discussions."

As with Israel over Iran, those are likely to continue.

Robert Jordan, U.S. ambassador to Riyadh in 2001-03, said intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan and ambassador to Washington Adel Jubeir had been "very outspoken" in their belief the rebels that can be trusted and should get military backing.

Obama denies seeking the "regime change" Riyadh wants. But Jordan added: "It doesn't mean they won't keep pushing for it."

The Vilna Gaon says Geulah can be sure to come with 3 Moadim: Times, People, and Activities.

Here we are in 5773, The players are here, and the actions are accountable.

To me, things are going on, Hashem is in control as last week's Haftorah explains, "Who is this that comes from Edom?"

Any lag in blogging should be assumed nothing is going on, to the contrary, it means everything is going on! It's just that this is the story, and I'm following as most people are. I will continue to blog moments that seem crucial to God's [apparent] Plan.

Also keep in mind what is happening on the mainland; America is taking steps to legalize marijuana as soon as Thursday - something to keep in mind.

This song [and its message] used to mean something; Now all I hear in the message is that one day this will be the message to Jews WorldWide to realize, "We're Comin' to Israel."

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The Syrian Gog Machine

My Name is General Zod Gog

Does Obama even know what a spine is anymore? It's looking all Gog-y across the Middle East; it will be very interesting to see what a fully engaged West [meets East] front looks like. Ultimately all guns point to Israel, and that is when the Mercy games begin.


JPost.com:

The US and its allies concluded months ago that, since at least Christmas of last year, Syria’s nominal president Bashar Assad has tested chemical weapons intermittently on his own people.

The attacks have been small enough that the death toll from any single incident – never more than 40 – has blended in easily with your average day in Syria, where a two-year civil war between Assad and the diverse rebel groups fighting for his ouster has led to over 100,000 deaths.

US President Barack Obama vowed throughout the first year of the conflict to act if Assad dared to use chemical weapons, which are internationally banned from all battlefields. Obama’s attitude toward chemical weapons is similar to his stated position on nuclear weapons: Their proliferation and use sets a dangerous precedent and must be curtailed.

But with reports surfacing on Wednesday that just outside Damascus, in the suburb of Ghouta, Assad’s chemical weapons may have killed upward of 1,000 in a single attack, the US president’s idealist policy, his pragmatism and his distaste for Middle East wars may be approaching an important inflection point.

Obama’s reaction to the small chemical attacks was intentionally muted, and the policy more muted still. Three months after announcing that the US had indeed verified the use of sarin gas on multiple occasions in Syria through its own intelligence-gathering, the Obama administration is only now beginning to ship small arms and ammunition to Syria’s rebels.

Small arms will not shift the tide of the war, which has swayed in Assad’s favor since Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon committed fully to his cause. And since that policy was first announced in June, Assad has only been emboldened, writing off a political solution to the conflict and charging that “there are no exceptions to any means” to end the crisis – comments read widely as an allusion to his willingness to continue chemical attacks.

If confirmed, a large-scale chemical attack like Ghouta is unlikely to change the calculus of Obama or his national security team on how best to approach Syria. Nor will the Pentagon’s assessment change: US intervention would cost a fortune, upward of $1 billion a month, and there would be no guarantee of a favorable outcome. Securing Syria’s chemical weapons sites would require tens of thousands of troops – a fullscale invasion, which no one in Washington will seriously entertain.

Obama has publicly voiced concern over conducting strategic air strikes on Syrian air bases or weapons caches. They may be stocked with chemical weapons already, he says, and the US would then be complicit in releasing their toxins.

The only change might be on the diplomatic front. Western powers might successfully appeal to the better angels of Russian and Chinese leaders, and action at the UN Security Council may finally gain traction.

But ultimately Assad may have determined that the toxicity of his war is too much for the Americans to handle. If that is the case, do not expect Wednesday’s alleged incident in Ghouta to be the last gas attack of its kind.

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Remember Libya? This Is Not Libya.

Not long ago it seemed, Obama was giving himself his annual endless praise about how he personally brought down Libya [along with Obama bin Laden, the Mormon religion, etc.] and saw Gaddafi overturned, as in miraculous fashion, this was achieved without need to fire one shot. Obama would boast that to the tune of 1 billion dollars, he brought down Libya and walked one step closer to Mahdi status. Now the arena is in Syria, the Land of Gog Magog [for Islam as well] and all of a sudden, King Obama's victories by spirit over might or not a part of the agenda...why?

Because Syria is not Libya, stuff is going on, and the times are a auspicious to practically every wisdom/religion/belief/cult etc. on the planet. The stars speak, whether through a Zohar lens, X-tian lens, or whatever; needless to say, the gearing up is ready to come out firing.

On a side note, what I find interesting, is that every "empire" is experiencing the same cracks in the armor; big problems from poor leadership, and serviced by big band-aids that come super-sized with cure-all labels, co-conspired by quack-doctors, all the while ignoring the actual cure in context of the world wide web of world wide lies, cover-ups, and conspiracies.

New York Times:

The Pentagon has provided Congress with its first detailed list of military options to stem the bloody civil war in Syria, suggesting that a campaign to tilt the balance from President Bashar al-Assad to the opposition would be a vast undertaking, costing billions of dollars, and could backfire on the United States.

The list of options — laid out in a letter from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan — was the first time the military has explicitly described what it sees as the formidable challenge of intervening in the war.

It came as the White House, which has limited its military involvement to supplying the rebels with small arms and other weaponry, has begun implicitly acknowledging that Mr. Assad may not be forced out of power anytime soon.

The options, which range from training opposition troops to conducting airstrikes and enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria, are not new. But General Dempsey provided details about the logistics and the costs of each. He noted that long-range strikes on the Syrian government’s military targets would require “hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines and other enablers,” and cost “in the billions.”

General Dempsey, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, provided the unclassified, three-page letter at the request of Mr. Levin, a Democrat, after testifying last week that he believed it was likely that Mr. Assad would be in power a year from now.

On that day, the White House began publicly hedging its bets about Mr. Assad. After saying for nearly two years that Mr. Assad’s days were numbered, the press secretary, Jay Carney, said, “While there are shifts in momentum on the battlefield, Bashar al-Assad, in our view, will never rule all of Syria again.”

Those last four words represent a subtle but significant shift in the White House’s wording: an implicit acknowledgment that after recent gains by the government’s forces against an increasingly chaotic opposition, Mr. Assad now seems likely to cling to power for the foreseeable future, if only over a rump portion of a divided Syria.

That prospect has angered advocates of intervention, including Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who had a testy exchange with General Dempsey when the general testified before the Armed Services Committee about why the administration was not doing more to help the rebels. The plan to supply the rebels with small arms and other weaponry is being run as a covert operation by the Central Intelligence Agency, and General Dempsey made no mention of it in his letter.

On Monday, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said that despite “very strong concerns about the strength of the administration’s plans in Syria and its chances for success,” the panel had reached a consensus to move ahead with the White House’s strategy, without specifically mentioning the covert arms program. Senate Intelligence Committee officials said last week that they had reached a similar position.

A Syrian opposition leader said in an e-mail Monday night that with the Congressional reservations largely addressed, American arms would most likely begin flowing to the rebels within a few weeks. “We think August is the date,” the official said.

In an interview, Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, expressed disappointment at the Congressional approval. “Arms do not make peace,” he said. “We would like to see the delivery of arms stopped to all sides.”

If ordered by the president, General Dempsey wrote, the military is ready to carry out options that include efforts to train, advise and assist the opposition; conduct limited missile strikes; set up a no-fly zone; establish buffer zones, most likely across the borders with Turkey or Jordan; and take control of Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile.

“All of these options would likely further the narrow military objective of helping the opposition and placing more pressure on the regime,” General Dempsey wrote. But he added: “Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

A decision to use force “is no less than an act of war,” General Dempsey wrote, warning that “we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control.”

Mr. Obama has shown no appetite for broad military engagement in Syria, and, if anything, General Dempsey’s letter underscores the president’s reluctance. Some analysts said they believed the administration’s more circumspect public language about Mr. Assad was meant to lay the groundwork for the long-term reality of a divided Syria.

“It’s not a shift, but it’s recognition that the administration’s policy goals will not be achieved during this presidency,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow and a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “We’re in this for a long slog.”

White House officials said Mr. Carney was not signaling a policy shift or a change in its messaging. But the cumulative effect of comments from civilian and military leaders is unmistakable. “If nothing changes, if we don’t change our game, will he be in power a year from now?” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, asked General Dempsey last week, referring to Mr. Assad.

“I think, likely so,” the general said.

In his letter, General Dempsey assessed the risks and benefits of different military options. But his tone was cautionary, suggesting that the Pentagon views all of these options with trepidation.

Training, advising and assisting opposition troops, he wrote, could require anywhere from several hundred to several thousand troops, and cost about $500 million a year. An offensive of limited long-range strikes against Syrian military targets would require hundreds of aircraft and warships and could cost billions of dollars over time. Imposing a no-fly zone would require shooting down government warplanes and destroying airfields and hangars. It would also require hundreds of aircraft. The cost could reach $1 billion a month.

An order to establish buffer zones to protect parts of Turkey or Jordan to provide safe havens for Syrian rebels and a base for delivering humanitarian assistance would require imposing a limited no-fly zone and deploying thousands of American ground forces.

In describing a mission to prevent the use or proliferation of chemical weapons, General Dempsey said the effort would require a no-fly zone as well as a significant campaign of air and missile strikes.

“Thousands of Special Operations forces and other ground forces would be needed to assault and secure critical sites,” he wrote, with costs well over $1 billion a month.

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The New Manna: A Zimbabwe Dollar - In God We Trust

Evil and Amalek don't play the game of life with logic and of course not with Torah wisdom; it's a game of odds and basic math patterns, based on sub-par algorithms. The article presented says doomsdayers [i.e. blogs about moshiach, etc.] are fear mongers who exploit the facts as he presents in his case. The hand that he tips actually says that the nature of evil is a gambler and a risk taker as long as the odds are good enough; lets call it socio-blackjack, with a cheesy Vegas dealer name Bazza at your service.

Their view is that Zimbabwe was simply under-managed, and with American brass it can be steered, righted, and brought back to prosperity; throw in a few wars for the cause [not WWIII standard as a doomsdayer would suggest] and soon we'll be back to decadence, which is a right that every American has [as per their indoctrination] while the nations abroad are sold [or told?] to endorse, worship, and push the agenda of America enjoying its eternal birthright [Esau anyone?].

There are two possible key issues here: either they lose, and welcome Moshiach, or they try to win, and, well, yes, Geulah will be extended - but the fiasco and charade that they put on display for public will be quite pathetic, as probably every prophecy in Tanach will now have an easy platform to inform the people of God's intentions. What do we say to this - have fun? Buckle up? oy vey.

By the way, I'm going on record as agreeing with him, as I think God wants this elongated as possible to allow for teshuvah, save lives, etc. as outlined by the Vilna Gaon - who says its like being decreed a big rock to crush you; only God has mercy and agrees to throw the rock on you, but only as sand pebbles - many of them - like American dollars will be.

The Geulah process has already begun in certain sectors, and this will allow people to get on board and gain merit, again, thanks to an elongated process. And at the end of the day, I think Hashem just wants in his heart that one day he should pay an Avreich in Kollel a  Billion dollar monthly check, just in principle the World must see that day, for fate must contain a sense of irony.

Forbes.com:

From all the doom and gloom about U.S. and European economics you would have thought the end of the financial world was nigh. In fact a lot of people are saying that right now. Want some good news? It is not going to happen. That is not to say I haven’t written a lot of gloomy economic stuff myself. Yet, to be honest, I’m over that now. The economic accident happened in 2007/2008. The developed world’s economy didn’t die. It is now recovering. It is only a start but we have entered a new era nonetheless.

The idea is, U.S. and Europe are on a binge of deficit spending and this has created a titanic overhead of sovereign debt that can’t be supported or repaid.

This is correct. But do not panic.

The conclusion of the doomsters is that consequently the economic world will implode and the globe will spin off its axis into outer darkness. Well, the bit about spinning out of the orbit of the sun is an exaggeration, but not by much.

The doomsters see a collapse of so called fiat money, i.e. money as we know it and an economic and social breakdown will follow. Gold and bullets are to be the only currency.

According to this line of prediction, we should all be rearing chickens in anticipation and ready to grow bean shoots in our closets for food. While you are at it, get some plans to create a stealth smokehouse. Forget zombies; the marauders of the future financial collapse are going to be real people.

Woe on us, prepare!

This prepper-view is nonsense. The view that fiat money is going to disappear is mad and silly. Fiat money is going nowhere, except down in value.

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Whatever the political and economic rights and wrongs of the matter, what happens next is as close to the doomsters fall of the Roman Empire part 2, as a roller coaster ride is to a plane crash.

Why?

It is infuriatingly simple. Let us say the U.S. government got to a state that it owed 120% of GDP in debt. The U.S. is not there yet but it will likely get there soon enough.

What happens next? The U.S. simply engineers a 7% rate of inflation, all other things being equal and in two Presidential cycles U.S. debt to GDP is roughly halved to the old sweet spot of 60% to GDP. Of course modelling that with all the possible variables is way more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

Halving the value of money does the trick of sorting out this whole sorry mess. Now that might sound horrendous but it is not.

So okay you are a doomster and you think the end is nigh and that gold is money. Well, gold has gone up roughly 10% a year compounded since the end of Bretton Woods in 1971. This implies an average compound rate of inflation of 10%; if you believe that gold is real, inviolate, hard money, which as a doomster you most definitely do.

The world didn’t end over those 40 years as money was devalued forty fold. The fiat system didn’t implode, in fact everyone got a lot richer, even though in the meantime 2.5 cents of gold became worth a dollar or put in gold standard terms, 2.5 cents in 1971 has been inflated to $1 today.

If the dollar got devalued in real terms at 10% a year, as we have enjoyed in gold terms on average for 42 straight years, a 120% debt to GDP would hit 60% in around 6 years. This is why it is not a good idea to panic and get doomy.

The key is to be positioned for the denouement of current economic rescue attempts. The solution is the dilution of debt, through the devaluation of money. The governments of the west will not run out of money. That’s impossible. What will happen to rebalance the debts of the U.S. and Europe is what we need to focus on.

In a nutshell, bonds are going to get monetised. Sovereign debt will be turned into cash. Operation twist has put a large proportion of that mountain of debt at the short end of maturities. The economy of the U.S. is going to get very liquid indeed. That is the one thought to hold.

If you believe the developed world is going to get into a tail spin, it won’t be that fiat money will disappear. Instead there will be much more of it about.

The question therefore is how to play the outcome of cash flooding everything.

You can do worse than look back to the seventies to see what happened and use that period as a model of what to do. The answer isn’t to prepare for Armageddon. It is to invest in inflation linked assets producing index linked yield.

So perhaps buying bits of mountain desert to rent out to terrified ‘preppers’ is the way to go, because not only will the property value and rent rise with real inflation, you’ll also be paid in gold.

Forsight in Klippah?

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Bibi Cries Uncle! Take That Bazza!

Obama is scheduled to arrive in Israel very soon; the pressure is sure to be immense. This smells a lot like Iran will be served on a silver platter in exchange for a Palestinian State.

With so many issues going on [as they have been ever-increasing since basically 2008; or even 1967 for that matter!], we seem to be reaching a crescendo, and the Zohar seems to resonate loud and clear about Gog and his 2nd and 3rd visits to Israel, which lead to the fulfillment of Gog V' Magog.

JewishPress.com:

U.S. President Barak Obama intends on offering Israel more U.S. pressure on Iran in exchange for greater Israeli overtures to the Palestinians, the British publication, The Sunday Times, reported today.

Early in his first term Obama tried to similarly link Israeli peace efforts and U.S. action on Iran’s nuclear program. In testimony to Congress in April 2009, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that, “For Israel to get the kind of support its looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it can’t stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and peace efforts. They go hand in hand.”

Clinton’s statement was part of an intense push by the Obama administration, which began shortly after Obama’s inauguration, to force newly elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to endorse Palestinian statehood and make concessions to the Palestinians. In June 2009, Netanyahu endorsed the two-state solution for the first time in a major policy address at Bar Ilan University.

Obama reportedly intends to visit Israel as well as Jordan this coming March. It would be his first visit to Israel since he was first elected President.

Typically, such a presidential visit would be used to push for progress on a major issue, such as reaching a peace agreement, though almost all reports about the trip predicted that Obama would not be using the visit for such a purpose. 

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Coming To Obamastine

Well, its about time nu.

And now is appropriate to bring up the infamous Zohar: Gog will visit Israel three times; between the 2nd and 3rd times intense Din will erupt - such that it will lead to the demise of Gog.
This is Obama's 2nd visit, so he's "practically mishpacha." Let the games begin.


Jpost.com:

Both the White House and the Prime Minister's Office said Tuesday that President Obama had spoken with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in January about a presidential visit to Israel this spring, which would be the first since Obama assumed the White House in 2009.

“The start of the President’s second term and the formation of a new Israeli government offer the opportunity to reaffirm the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Israel and to discuss the way forward on a broad range of issues of mutual concern,” said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

He pointed to Iran and Syria but did not mention the Palestinians.

The trip, however, is widely seen as an effort by Obama to kick-start a moribund peace process between Israelis and Palestinians amidst other roiling regional concerns, such as the Arab Spring and Iran nuclear program.

Vietor said further details about the trip, including the dates, would be released at a later time.

Israeli media reports, however, have identified late March as the expected arrival time. Channel 10 reported that the visit will take place as part of a regional tour also expected to take Obama to Ankara, Riyadh, Cairo and Ramallah.

Obama came under a great deal of criticism for not visiting Israel during his first term, something which many believe would reassure a jittery Israeli public of his support, even though he did visit countries nearby such as Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He was last here as a presidential candidate in 2008.

Since Obama will come here, it is less likely that Netanyahu will travel to Washington for the annual AIPAC policy conference in early March, an opportunity Israeli prime minister's usually use to meet with the US president.

That visit, however, was already in doubt because of the possibility that Netanyahu may not have a new government in place by the conference, which begins March 3.

Tzipi Livni, who relentlessly slammed Netanyahu during the election campaign for poisoning ties with the US, issued a statement welcoming the visit, saying Israel-US ties were an important element of Israel's national security. Livni, whose party is currently in talks with Likud Beytenu about joining the coalition, said she hoped Netanyahu and Obama would re-start the diplomatic process which serves both Israeli and US interests.

Meanwhile, new US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to make his first visit to Israel in his new role sometime next week.

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