Soul Mazal

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Rocket From Hell

Double "Oy" out of the North Korean front.

North Korea has finally launched their intercontinental missile, one that can potentially reach American soil.
This has implications as the Korean peninsula is home to Seoul, which is said to be the place of "Hell." Bill Clinton was famous for saying that once he laid eyes on North Korea, he said it was literally hell on Earth.

In the blogosphere, there is a well-hashed idea that Gog v' Magog would erupt out of North Korea, based on the hell concept along with the fact that they are completely Meshugah, i.e. this rocket launch. [which has been anticipated for what seems like forever]

Will the Koreans finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back? It is also ironic that South Korea is filled with Love of Israel, shown in many ways, especially in their desire to learn Talmud, in hopes of achieving a status of being "Jews of the East." It would be symmetrical then if North Korea would represent the exact opposite, in which case, perhaps they want to push Gog's buttons - Obama anyone?

YonhapNews:

North Korea's apparent success of a multi-stage rocket launch will deal a blow to U.S. President Barack Obama's "strategic patience" of waiting for Pyongyang to change its course first, experts said Wednesday.

On the other hand, an emboldened North Korean leader Kim Jong-un now holds more cards, they added.

"This success will likely affect the way other countries view the North," said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist for the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The mysterious communist nation's previous launch of a long-range rocket fizzled out about 90 seconds after lift-off, fueling doubts over its missile capability.

The North conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The question is whether its missile can reach the U.S. mainland and whether it can mount nuclear warheads on that.

With the success of the North's latest rocket launch, confirmed by the U.S. military's initial assessment, it became hard for the U.S. officials to dismiss Pyongyang's claim of its missile technology as just a bluff.

Criticism is expected to grow in Washington over Obama's strategy on Pyongyang.

The launch is "the latest alarming chapter in a decades long story. U.S. policy toward North Korea is a long running failure," said Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), who will become the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee next month.

An informed diplomatic source said Washington is likely to come under more domestic pressure, while Pyongyang has to up the ante.

"The threat of North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile has become really serious," the source said. "This may prove to be a game changer Bruce Klingner, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, agreed, saying, "It would represent a significant new security threat to the United States."

The fresh security situation came at a politically sensitive time for Obama, who is set to begin a second term as he faces the daunting task of harmonizing with the winner of South Korea's presidential elections on the North Korea policy.

Although Obama will have to keep focusing on Iran, Syria and Afghanistan issues on the diplomatic front, it will be difficult for him to leave North Korea on the back burner.

The initial U.S. reaction will be seeking to ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang through the U.N. Security Council.

Following the North's April launch, the council issued a chairman's statement expressing "its determination to take action accordingly in the event of a further North Korean rocket launch or nuclear test."

Few expect tougher sanctions will be possible, given China's reluctance to push its communist neighbor too far so as to trigger regional instability.

China has a new leadership, which may take a different gesture on North Korea's provocation, but it is unlikely to change its approach fundamentally.

"The United States, South Korea and Japan will be forced in this situation to demand major sanctions against North Korea," Bruce Bennett, senior defense analyst at RAND Corp., said. "China will have to decide whether it will continue to allow North Korea effectively dictate Chinese policy on such issues."

Bennett stressed that Pyongyang's rocket launch appears to have been attributable to internal factors linked to Kim Jong-un's attempt to solidify his control in his first year in power.

In that sense, he expected further provocations such as another nuclear test.

Ken Gause, a senior analyst at CNA Strategic Studies, pointed out that with the successful rocket launch, the young leader's rule got off to a good start.

"The regime seems to have achieved its goal of ending the first year of Kim Jong-un's rule on a major up note," he said.

Donald Gregg, the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, called for Washington and Seoul to explore new ways to deal with North Korea.

"We need to work together to forge a new policy toward North Korea, based on serious, patient negotiations," he said. "We should not rush to a hostile reaction. It could be counter-productive to our long-range interests."

Fuel for Gog?

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The Eagle Has Landed: Siyum of Shir HaShirim

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Leave Me Alone Bazza!

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The essence of Bazza strikes back.

I've long said that the best way to kill America [as Obama has shown us to be effective] is to just let it die [i.e. don't nurture it]. Obama has shown that neglect is the best device for genocide. As such, welcome to Obama 2.0, just leavin' it alone.

Now Obama wants to take his "vision" [of international shutdown] on the road, going from micro to macro. The new platform for dealing with Israel is - surprise! - neglect.

He is going to let Bibi dig his own grave [just like he has done in America]. Israel w/o America spells doom in the Gog-matic eyes of Obama. So far so good for Bazza, the jury will be out on Bibi 3.0.

The Daily Beast:

The last week of November 2012 was a big one on the Israeli-Palestinian front. On the 65th anniversary of the partition resolution that created a Jewish state, the United Nations recognized a Palestinian one. Israel retaliated with the West Bank equivalent of sequestration: announcing it would move toward building settlements in an area east of Jerusalem called E1, which many observers believe would kill the two-state solution. European governments responded by threatening to withdraw their ambassadors.

And the United States? It mostly watched. In 2011, when the Palestinians first sought a U.N. status upgrade, the Obama diplomatic corps lobbied so hard against it that one State Department official joked that “sometimes I feel like I work for the Israeli government.” This time, by contrast, the U.S. largely went through the motions. It was “half-assed,” observes a Middle East insider close to the administration. “They didn’t really lobby hard ... [The attitude was] if Israel ends up with a big embarrassment, who gives a s--t.”

Then, when Israel responded by going nuclear on settlements and the Europeans responded with fury, the administration was similarly passive. Contrary to reports in the Israeli press, Team Obama didn’t mastermind the angry European response. But neither did they tamp it down. Even though E1 has long been an American red line. And even though the Israelis alerted the White House mere hours before they announced the decision, the Obama administration’s response was pro forma and bland. Publicly, Obama himself said nothing. It was the first sign of what senior administration officials predict may be a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Obama’s second term: benign neglect.

Consider the view from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On the one hand, Benjamin Netanyahu keeps doing things—like expanding settlements and refusing to accept the 1967 lines as the parameters for peace talks—that U.S. officials consider bad for America and catastrophic for Israel. On the other, every time President Obama has tried to make Netanyahu change course—in 2009 when he demanded a settlement freeze and in 2011 when he set parameters for peace talks—the White House has been politically clobbered. Administration officials might like to orchestrate Netanyahu’s defeat in next month’s Israeli elections, as Bill Clinton did when he sent political consultants to convince Israelis to replace Netanyahu with Ehud Barak in 1999. But they can’t because Netanyahu has no serious rivals for power. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert isn’t running; the centrist party he once led, Kadima, has largely collapsed, and the head of the center-left Labor Party is advertising her willingness to be a junior partner in another Netanyahu government.

So instead of confronting Netanyahu directly, Team Obama has hit upon a different strategy: stand back and let the rest of the world do the confronting. Once America stops trying to save Israel from the consequences of its actions, the logic goes, and once Israel feels the full brunt of its mounting international isolation, its leaders will be scared into changing course. “The tide of global opinion is moving [against Israel],” notes one senior administration official. And in that environment, America’s “standing back” is actually “doing something.”

Administration officials are quick to note that this new approach does not mean America won’t help protect Israel militarily through anti-missile defense systems like the much-heralded Iron Dome. And they add that the U.S. will strongly resist any Palestinian effort to use its newfound U.N. status to bring lawsuits against Israel at the International Criminal Court. America will also try to prevent further spasms of violence: by maintaining the funding that keeps Mahmoud Abbas afloat in the West Bank and by working with Egypt to restrain Hamas.

What America won’t do, however, unless events on the ground dramatically change, is appoint a big-name envoy (some have suggested Bill Clinton) to relaunch direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The reason: such negotiations would let Netanyahu off the hook. Senior administration officials believe the Israeli leader has no interest in the wrenching compromises necessary to birth a viable Palestinian state. Instead, they believe, he wants the façade of a peace process because it insulates him from international pressure. By refusing to make that charade possible, Obama officials believe, they are forcing Netanyahu to own his rejectionism, and letting an angry world take it from there.

To some outside observers, it all sounds too clever by half. Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel, notes that as long as the administration still protects Israel from prosecution at the International Criminal Court, Netanyahu won’t suffer enough internationally to reconsider his ways. Others are harsher, suggesting that behind the administration’s supposed strategic jujitsu lies cowardice: a fear of confronting Netanyahu and his American allies. One problem with outsourcing the job of pressuring Israel to Europe, they note, is that since many Israelis already doubt Europe’s affection for the Jewish state, that pressure may not hurt Netanyahu domestically. It could even strengthen him.

If the administration’s new Israel approach sounds familiar, it’s because it fits the broader Obama strategy of “leading from behind.” Critics mock the phrase as reflecting an abrogation of American leadership, but what it really reflects is an understanding that the unipolar world of the 1990s is gone, and America must adjust. Nowhere is this truer than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For years, other powers let the U.S. control the Israeli-Palestinian peace process because they believed that only America, with its unique relationship to Israel, could broker a deal. But the Obama administration’s failure to restart serious talks has gravely undermined that conceit. And partly as a result, other players, both in Europe and the Middle East, no longer defer to Washington in the same way.

Rather than reversing that phenomenon, Team Obama is trying to make it a strength. It’s hoping that when faced with international isolation, Netanyahu will shift course and embrace the kind of Palestinian state supported by his predecessor, Olmert. But that may be a bad bet. Israeli politics have swung so far right that some of Netanyahu’s strongest rivals are now ultra-hawks who consider him too soft. In that environment, resisting global pressure by pushing forward with settlement growth may actually help him in the polls.

Team Obama had better hope its hands-off strategy for saving the two-state solution works. Because at this rate, by the time they’re ready to try something else, it will be too late.

Why Can't Obama Dissolve?

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Method To The Madness

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Apparently Gaza was a bigger deal and much more drawn out than we were led to believe. So what comes next in the Obama - Bibi screenplay?

FoxNews:

Hundreds of Iranian-made, long-range missiles already smuggled into Gaza provided a secret sense of urgency behind Israel's recent campaign against Hamas, and the the Jewish state acted with the Obama administration's full knowledge, intelligence experts told FoxNews.com.

Jonathan Schanzer, a former counter-terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said the real agenda behind Israel’s assault last month on Hamas’ munitions stockpiles and smuggling tunnels was not simply to end the daily barrage of relatively primitive rockets that have become part of daily life in Israel. The real mission was to eliminate as many as 100 Iranian-built Fajr5 missiles - with the power to reach Tel Aviv - that had been sneaked into Gaza through Egypt. The Obama administration knew in advance of the operation and agreed that the missiles, built in a Sudanese factory, had to be neutralized to protect millions of Israeli citizens who were now within range of the deadly Iranian weapons, according to Schanzer.

“The U.S. was fully aware of what was going to come in Gaza,” Schanzer, now vice president of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told FoxNews.com. “They said nothing for the first few days of the operation; there was dead silence from [Obama]."

Israel essentially achieved its main aims within the first few days, said Schanzer, noting that Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., said as much when he remarked on Day Three of the campaign: "We have run out of good targets.” Rocket attacks from Gaza were commonplace in Israel prior to the campaign, dubbed "Operation Pillar of Defense," with at least 750 projectiles falling on the area close to the border since January. The attacks were ratcheted up in early November, which seemed to prompt Israel's move and the deployment of its vaunted "Iron Dome" defense system. But behind the scenes, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) had a more pressing need to launch their intense bombardment on Hamas’ weapons stores. Israel's elimination of senior Hamas figure Ahmad Jabari as he drove in broad daylight in Gaza also fits into Schanzer's narrative.

“Ahmad Jabari, along with another major Hamas figure, Mahmoud al Mabhouhk, [who was assassinated in Dubai in 2010], was a key part of the procurement network for the Fajr missiles and there is little doubt that Israel was keen to take out the man responsible,” Schanzer explained.

Schanzer contends that the operation actually began three weeks earlier, when, on Oct. 23, the Iranian-owned Yarmouk armaments factory in Sudan - believed to be the assembly plant for the Fajr5 missiles that have a range of up to 45 miles - was devastated by air strikes for which the Sudanese government holds Israel responsible. Israel, and for that matter the U.S., both deny any knowledge of the attack.

Sudanese Information Minister Ahmad Bilal Osman, told Al Jazeera the day after the attack, “Israel has accused Sudan of sending arms to Hamas. These allegations are not correct. The factory manufactures ordinary, legal weapons.” When asked how Sudan would respond to the incident, Osman answered, “We definitely won’t attack Israel itself…but we have a right to tackle the interests of Israel wherever they are from now on.”

It may not have been coincidental that the destruction of the Sudanese factory occurred at exactly the same time that a joint Israeli/U.S. military exercise, ‘Austere Challenge’, involving some 3,500 U.S. troops, was taking place in Israel. Some military analysts have suggested that the exercises and the Gaza operation were part of a dry run for a potential future incursion into Iran.

The suggestion of American knowledge and approval of the alleged Israeli attack in Sudan and the subsequent offensive in Gaza, undermines the theory that Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were not on speaking terms after the elections, in which Netanyahu expressed support for Mitt Romney. The grave threat posed by the Fajr5 rockets may have been enough for both leaders to agree that something had to be done – and fast.

“The fact of the matter is that there was a significant upsurge in rocket fire from Gaza in the weeks leading up to the operation," an Israeli administration source told FoxNews.com. "Once the need to respond was there, it made sense to take the opportunity to act against the most dangerous weapons. Those (the Fajr rockets) were the first targets. There was a need to minimize their ability to target major population centers in Israel.”

The apparent coordination between Israel and the U.S. raises questions about the role of Egypt, which was credited with helping broker a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. The missiles were almost certainly smuggled into Gaza from Egypt, with the likely knowledge of President Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of Hamas.

“There’s little doubt that Iranian-built rockets came from Sudan through Egypt, and that Egypt’s security forces weren’t interested in intercepting the missiles," Eric Trager, of the Washington Institute, an expert on Egyptian affairs, told FoxNews.com. "Morsi was more interested in furthering his own internal agenda than worrying about foreign policy issues at that time.” Had Israel not acted when it did to destroy Hamas’ new and more lethal stockpile of weapons, the situation could have escalated, drawing other parties into a wider Middle East war.

“I think that Washington and the international media have been so lazy in their coverage of this conflict in terms of identifying what actually happened,” Schanzer said. “Both the Israeli intelligence community and Israeli officials referred to the presence of Fajr5 missiles in the hands of Hamas as 'game changing rockets,' a change that very nearly produced Israel’s own Cuban missile crisis.”

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Malchus Beis David! - Where Are You From?

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Put On Your Yamakah! Its Chanuka!

This Is The End My Friend

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Assad is just about done, as America is threatening invasion [warships are off the coast] due to the threat of chemical weapons being launched on the Syrian people. This has major implications if Syria goes down. What will be of Iran's proxy war tactics? America in an Iraq 2.0 position, right next door to Israel [Jerusalem anyone?]. Lebanon and Jordan are feeling it from Syria, etc. etc.

When Syria goes down, all eyes will be on two targets: Iran and Jerusalem.
Malchut Yisrael vs. Malchut Yishmael.
As foretold in the Talmud Yoma.

If America goes in there, it is a very big deal indeed; Let it be known as well that Syria is quasi-holy land, as it was conquered by King David, and is directly affiliated with Eretz Yisrael...and in regards to the End of Days: Damascus will cease to be a city.

Close we are.

LATimes:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton indicated Wednesday that Washington is as concerned about Syria’s chemical weapons falling into the hands of Syrian rebels as it is about the possibility that Syrian President Bashar Assad may decide to deploy them.

“Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons, or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria,” Clinton told reporters at the end of two days of NATO ministerial meetings in Brussels. “We have sent an unmistakable message that this would cross a red line and those responsible would be held to account.”

Rebels have been making substantial territorial gains in Syria and have overrun a number of Syrian military bases, capturing supplies of conventional weapons. U.S. officials have indicated that Syria’s chemical weapons stocks remain secure, but officials and experts have voiced concern that insurgents could seize facilities where chemical agents are stored.

Western and Israeli officials are believed to be closely monitoring known Syrian chemical weapons depots. An unanswered question is whether signs of a rebel approach on a chemical facility would trigger an international response to prevent toxic weaponry from falling into the hands of insurgent militias.

The fragmented Syrian rebel force includes many Islamist units and several brigades said to be linked to Al Qaeda. The presence of such militants is one reason why the Obama administration has thus far declined to provide weapons to the rebels fighting to oust Assad, whom Obama has called on to step down.

Assad took steps to keep chemical weapons out of the hands of militants, the news agency Reuters reported Wednesday, citing an interview with Israel’s vice prime minister, Moshe Yaalon.

"Clear messages were relayed to Assad on a number of opportunities, and in response Assad in fact gathered up the weaponry and separated the material," Reuters quoted Yaalon as telling the Israeli news website Walla.

The disposition of Syria’s chemical stockpiles is an especially sensitive issue in Israel, with its close proximity to Syria, leaving it potentially vulnerable to Syrian ballistic missiles and warplanes. “There is speculation that the chemical arsenal will fall into the hostile and irresponsible hands of the likes of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups,” Yaalon said.

In the interview, Yaalon confirmed that Washington had spotted “suspicious activity” at Syria’s chemical stockpiles, prompting President Obama to issue a stern warning to Assad this week that use of chemical weapons would not be tolerated.

The prospect of a chemical attack via ballistic missiles is one reason NATO this week agreed to Turkey’s request that Patriot anti-missile batteries be deployed at points along Turkey’s more than 500-mile border with Syria. Turkish news reports Wednesday quoted Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as saying that Syria possesses about 700 missiles and that the government in Ankara knows exactly where they are.

Small in the Face of God - Oy Moshiach!

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Uh - Oh of All Uh - Oh's???

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Everyone knows that Bazza loves a good hand of poker. But how ironic it would be, if he is Gog-ified by Bibi's love of the same game? Does Bibi even love poker?!

Well, according to Rahmbo, he does. And he lost. Majorly.

Look at how fast things are spiraling out of control: election, Gaza, Un, Jerusalem, Settlement building, ...

If this rate continues, I think it is a sure bet to say that we are in special times. The bigger miracle will be that Hashem gives it integrity from going ultra nuclear; by any law of nature this should have exploded by now [not to mention this intensity has been held since 2008].

Rahmbo knows; Rahmbo probably programs Bazza anyways - Erev Rav in motion at its best.

Let's see if Bazza can redefine arrogance and pride in 5773.

Washington Times:

Israel National News is reporting Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyuhu for supporting Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the last election. Mr. Emanuel made these remarks, according to INN, at the Saban Forum in Washington on Saturday:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over what is perceived as his public support of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the last election, Channel 2 News reported on Sunday. According to the report, Emanuel, a former White House Chief of Staff, said during a closed session at the Saban Forum in Washington that "Netanyahu supported the wrong candidate in the U.S. elections and lost."

Emanuel also said that the White House expects that Netanyahu’s treatment of President Barack Obama will be different, especially at this time. He said the President was not willing to accept degrading treatment by the Israeli Prime Minister. "It is inconceivable that the Prime Minister would behave the way Netanyahu is behaving,” said Emanuel, according to Channel 2. Managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine Blake Hounshell tweeted on Saturday: Rahm Emanuel apparently said earlier today that Netanyahu had bet on Romney winning the election and lost.

According to New Yorker Magazine, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert slammed Romney for going to a fundraiser in Israel during the campaign that was hosted by Romney donor Sheldon Adelson, who also owns a pro-Netanyhu newspaper: (bolding is mine)

Olmert, who has a legacy to defend and an ego to feed, was clear and alive, but even when he was right on the issues, he undermined himself with his bombast. He rightly slammed Netanyahu for giving Obama a “slap in the face” over the weekend and mocked the prime minister for pretending to be friends with Obama after being his “enemy” in the Presidential campaign just a few weeks ago.” Olmert called Mitt Romney’s campaign trip to Israel—which featured a fundraiser with Sheldon Adelson, who also owns a pro-Netanyahu newspaper—completely “inappropriate…It was made to create the impression among Jewish American voters that Romney was riding to the White House on the shoulders of Israel.” And yet he undermined himself in every self-intoxicated gesture and self-adoring rhetorical turn.

Olmert also violated the rules of the conference by dragging something that was off the record onto the record. He accurately, if generally, described how, earlier in the day, Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago and Obama’s former chief of staff, had spoken angrily and bluntly about the way Netanyahu has repeatedly betrayed the friendship of the United States, lecturing Obama in the Oval Office and now, after the U.S. had underwritten the Iron Dome anti-missile system, supported the operation in Gaza, and voted Israel’s way in the U.N., embarrassing the Obama Administration by taking punitive actions against the Palestinian Authority. After describing Emanuel’s remarks, Olmert went on to agree with them. Additionally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the Saban Forum, where it appeared to the New Yorker Magazine writer David Remnick that she was gearing up to run for the White House in 2016:

Hillary Clinton is running for President. And the Israeli political class is a full-blown train wreck. These are two conclusions, for whatever they are worth, based on a three-day conference I attended this weekend at the annual Saban Forum, in Washington, D.C.

A word about the scene: Haim Saban, an Israeli-American media and entertainment mogul, has for the past nine years been hosting a conference, sometimes in Jerusalem, more often in Washington, focussed on the Middle East. The attendees are mainly government officials, present and former; business people; institute-niks; a few reporters. There are very few Arabs; this year the most notable exception was Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, though he didn’t stick around long, since the Palestinian Authority, thanks in large measure to Israel, is in grave peril, losing ground all the time to Hamas. Except for a few events, Chatham House rules obtain: meaning the official events are off the record. The presumption is that the incidental meetings are more important than the panels and speeches.

Coming in 5773

Chutzpan! Jerusalem Sheh-LEE!

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We all thought we were seeing the nuclear, bomb-type of Gog v' Magog...as recently as a few weeks ago.

Now, with the flick of the wrist if you will, is Gog v' Magog a political attempt of conquest? Whatever is going on...man, was it swift! From Obama getting ~~put~~ elected into office, then onto a skirmish in ~~Western Israel~~ Gaza, now we have what looks like the real deal. All roads lead to Jerusalem, and now more than ever it seems.

ChicagoTribune:

Britain is considering recalling its ambassador to Israel to protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to expand settlement building, a diplomatic source said on Monday.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that France was also considering withdrawing its envoy.

Both embassies declined to comment on the reports, but the British issued a statement saying they had made clear they would not support strong Israeli retaliation to a U.N. vote last week that gave the Palestinians de facto recognition of statehood.

"The recent Israeli government decision to build 3,000 new housing units threatens the two-state solution and makes progress through negotiations harder to achieve," the British embassy in Tel Aviv said.

"We have called on the Israeli government to reconsider."

A diplomatic source, who declined to be named, said London would decide later in the day whether to recall its ambassador.

Such a move by both London and Paris would represent a severe diplomatic reproach to Netanyahu. Israel's Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon told Israeli Army Radio he was not aware of any recall.

"I did not hear of this, either via the foreign ministry or the prime minister's office. Therefore I have a hard time believing it is true," he said.

Netanyahu has brushed off world condemnation of his latest settlement plans, which were announced on Friday just hours after the United Nations voted overwhelming to upgrade the Palestinians' diplomatic status.

"We will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places that are on the map of Israel's strategic interests," Netanyahu said on Sunday at a weekly cabinet meeting.

Besides authorizing 3,000 new homes in and around Jerusalem, the Israeli government also agreed to expedite planning work for thousands more homes on barren land near Jerusalem that critics say would kill off Palestinian hopes of creating a viable state.

In another blow to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Israel announced on Sunday it was withholding Palestinian tax revenues this month worth about $100 million.

Israel said it was taking the money to help cover a Palestinian debt of $200 million with the Israeli Electric Corporation.