Both the housing construction and the talks will likely go ahead…

Saeb Erekat, said by telephone on Thursday that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had asked Mr. Biden for help in stopping the housing project but made no threat about pulling out.

Here is what Haaretz reports as the actual Palestinian position:

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said earlier Thursday that Palestinians would not begin indirect peace talks unless the Israeli government annuled the decision to build in East Jerusalem.

“We want to hear from [United States envoy George] Mitchell that Israel has canceled the decision to build housing units before we start the negotiations,” Erekat said.

His remarks follow comments by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who told Biden Wednesday that it was not enough for the Israeli decision to be condemned, it also had to be canceled.

So here you have Bronner claiming Saeb Erakat told him on Thursday that Abbas would not be pulling out and Haaretz reporting that Abbas told Biden on WEDNESDAY that he would pull out unless the decision was cancelled.  Something’s gotta give and it looks like Bronner either misinterpreted what he heard (given his predilection to hearing and seeing things from the Israeli point of view) or simply misreported.

As I noted yesterday, a cosmetic compromise would involve the Israelis temporarily rescinding approval until a suitable interval after the talks were underway.  This would allow the Palestinians to save face and the Israelis to do what they always intended to do.  But of course, this IS merely cosmetic and does nothing to alleviate the underlying problem which is that any settlement building in East Jerusalem is simply impermissible if there is to ever be real peace.

It’s rather laughable that Bibi has made a show of hauling his Interior Minister in for a verbal tongue-lashing, all the while insisting that he, the prime minister, knew nothing about the impeding announcement.  It’s like Capt. Renault in Casablanca telling Rick that he’ll bring in the “usual suspects” for questioning.  It’s all a big show.  Of course, Bibi knew of the units.  Why wouldn’t he?  Of course he did it to convey a message to Biden and Abbas that no Jew allows himself to get kicked around.  On the contrary, the Israelis will be setting the agenda in the talks as in everything else.  And you know what?  He’s right.  And he’ll continue to be right till someone has the guts to call him on it.  No one does.  Nothing changes.  Until the next war which is inevitable.

For anyone who wishes to understand how little can be gained from negotiations given the current Israeli attitude, read this passage in which Bronner conveys Israel’s understanding of what these peace talks should achieve:

…The Israelis want them to serve as a procedural corridor leading to direct negotiations…

I don’t know about you, but when I read those italicized words my heart just skipped a beat with excitement and I saw peace just around the corner.  What the hell does it mean anyway, “procedural corridor?”  I understand that Israel wants direct talks with the Palestinians rather than proximity talks.  That’s why they seek something called a procedural corridor.  But the entire point is that direct talks have failed in the past with a more moderate Israeli government than this one.  So the Palestinians see no reason to agree to direct talks when there is seemingly less to talk about than even there was before.

Bibi is prepared to put even less on the table than Olmert.  So the Palestinians say: why talk?  What is there to gain?  From Bibi’s vantage, he is willing to engage in direct talks that lead to Palestinians accepting his diktat of a settlement.  And if they refuse, he can always point to them as the reason and blame them.  For the Palestinians, it’s a trap.  And though Abbas is little more than a lackey, even he knows not to step into that one.

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Ramat Shlomo, site of proposed 1,600 new housing units (David Silverman/Getty)

Thanks to the Netanyahu government’s finger-in-the-eye announcement of 1,600 new housing units to be built in occupied East Jerusalem, Mahmoud Abbas told a hastily convened emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo that he was prepared to ditch the Israeli-Palestinian “proximity” peace talks even before they begin.  Sheera Frenkel writes in the Times of London:

Fresh attempts to revive peace talks in the Middle East were on the verge of collapse last night as the Palestinians threatened to pull out before the negotiations began.

At an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, announced that he would boycott the US-mediated talks because of Israel’s refusal to halt construction on the occupied territories.

Frankly, I don’t even know why Joe Biden didn’t turn right around and come home after he learned this news.  What else do you have to talk to talk about when your own client state gives you the finger like that?  Frenkel also notes that the U.S. didn’t even tell Israel to cancel the construction.  It merely denounced it.  While Biden’s statement was unusually blunt, it was more of the same.  There have been U.S. condemnations of such announcements going back decades.  They build, we condemn.  They act, we talk.  If just once we ACTED, instead of talked the Israelis’ jaw would drop in disbelief.

It appears, with this president, at least at this time, there’s almost no likelihood of any such revolutionary changes in the offing regarding our relationship with Israel.  Just more of the same.  Bibi and the lobby have won temporarily.  But what they don’t realize is that events will not allow them to enjoy this victory.  There will be another war.  It may be in Gaza or Lebanon or Teheran.  And whatever advantage Israel enjoys will slowly erode.  Time, despite the Israeli right’s belief, is not on Israel’s side in this.

If Abbas, not known for this, has any balls perhaps he will call Israel’s bluff and stay home.  That would call for some heavy-lifting from George Mitchell to get this locomotive back on track.  He would have to pull a rabbit out of his hat.  Perhaps he will get Bibi to delay the new construction for a time until after the talks begin.  Abbas could save face and yet continue being little more than the puppet he is by returning to the table.  It still would amount to very little.  The only thing Israel could do to really change the tone and allow peace talks to begin and proceed is a full settlement freeze.  And that’s not in the offing.  So Abbas, Bibi and Obama will fiddle while the conflict burns.

And lest anyone linger under the misimpression that this 1,600 is it, Haaretz tells us of government plans to build a total of 50,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem.  This ain’t goin’ away any time soon, folks.  So if Obama & Co. think they can finesse this, they’ve got another thing coming.

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“The war could be long,” Vered warns, “its length could be measured in years.”  The cost that the war will exact from Israel raises a question mark as to the decision to go to war.

The relatively light scenario speaks about an Israeli bombing, after which Iran will fire several volleys of surface-to-surface missiles at Israel.  Due to the limited number of missiles and their high cost, the war will end within a short time.  The missiles may run out, the study states, but the war will only be getting started.

“The means that may be most effective for the Iranians is war by proxies—Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas,” Vered writes.  “(There will be) ongoing and massive rocket fire (and in the Syrian case, also various types of Scud missiles), which will cover most of the area of the country, disrupt the course of everyday life and cause casualties and property damage.  The effect of such fire will greatly increase if the enemy fires chemical, biological or radiological ordnance… massive Iranian support, by money and weapons, will help the organizations continue the fire over a period of indeterminate length… due to the long-range of the rockets held by Hizbullah, Israel will have to occupy most of the territory of Lebanon, and hold the territory for a long time.  But then the IDF will enter a guerrilla war, a war the end of which is hard to predict, unless we evacuate the territory, and then the rocket fire will return…”

This is not all.  “Another possibility,” Vered writes, “is the activation of Iranian expeditionary forces that will be located in Syria as part of a defense pact between the two countries, or sending large amounts of infantry forces to participate in the war alongside Hizbullah or Syria.  Iran’s ability to do so will increase after the United States evacuates its troops from Iraq.  If the current tension between Turkey and Israel rises, Turkey may also permit, or turn a blind eye to, arms shipments and Iranian volunteers that will pass to Syria through its territory and airspace.  Israel will find it very difficult, politically and militarily, to intercept the passage of forces through Iraq or Turkey.  The participation of Iranian forces will make it very difficult for the IDF to occupy areas from which rockets are being fired.

“Along with these steps, Iran may launch a massive terror campaign against Israeli targets within Israel and abroad (diplomatic missions, El Al planes and more) and against Jewish targets.”

Iran will not attack immediately, Vered’s scenario states.  First it will launch intensive diplomatic activity, which could lead to an American embargo on spare parts to Israel.  Along with this, the Iranians will secretly move troops to Syria.  Israel will not attack the troops, for fear of international pressure.  The IDF will have to mobilize a large reserve force to defend the Golan Heights.  After the Iranians complete the buildup of their force, Hizbullah and Hamas will launch massive rocket fire against all population centers.  The IDF will try to occupy Lebanon and will engage in a guerrilla war with multiple casualties.  Hamas will renew the suicide bombings and Iran will target Israel’s sea and air routes by terrorism.  The Iranians will fire missiles at population centers in Israel, and will rebuild the nuclear facilities that were bombed, in such a way that will make it very difficult to bomb them again.

Vered bases his assessment mainly on the regime’s ideology and on the lessons of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988.  He writes: “Half a million dead, a million wounded, two million refugees and displaced persons, economic damage estimated by the Iranian government at about $1-trillion—more than twice the value of all Iranian oil production in 70 years of pumping oil—none of this was sufficient to persuade Iran to stop the war.  Only the fear of the regime’s fall led the leadership to accept the cease-fire.

“The ramifications are clear and harsh—like the war against Iraq, the war against Israel will also be perceived by the Iranians as a war intended to right a wrong and bring justice to the world by destroying the State of Israel.  Only a threat to the regime will be able to make the Iranian leadership stop.  It is difficult to see how Israel could create such a threat.”

The United States would be able to shorten the war if it were to join it alongside Israel.  Vered does not observe American willingness to do so.  He predicts the possibility of pressure in the opposite direction, by the US on Israel….

The military card

…The game is now approaching the critical stage, the “money time.”  Netanyahu and Barak are waving the military card.  “All the options are on the table,” they say, accompanying the sentence with a meaningful look.  There are Israelis, in uniform and civilian clothes, who take them seriously…

The following is perhaps the most important portion of this column since Barnea posits a startling theory to explain Bibi’s posturing and bellicosity concerning Iran.  If he is right then I would feel a whole lot more confident that war is not in the offing.  But if he is wrong…

I find it difficult to believe that Netanyahu will undertake such a weighty and dangerous decision.  It is more reasonable to assume that he and Barak are playing “hold me back.”  On the day they will be called upon to explain why Iran attained nuclear weapons, they will say, each on his own, what do you want from me, I prepared a daring, deadly, amazing operation, but they—the US administration, the top IDF brass, the forum of three, the forum of seven, the forum of ten—tripped me up.  They are to blame.

Netanyahu and Barak know: there is no military operation more successful, more perfect, than an operation that did not take place.

Netanyahu has upgraded Ahmadinejad to the dimensions of a Hitler.  Against Hitler, one fights to the last bunker.  This is what Churchill did, and Netanyahu wants so badly to be like Churchill.  His credibility—a sensitive issue—is on the table.  If he retreats, the voters will turn their back on him.  Where will he go?  In his distress, he may run forward.

Below, Barnea continues with his entirely reasonable, pragmatic and even cynical theories that the Israeli public neither believes, nor wants Bibi to go to war.  While he may be right, I’m afraid that many polls of Israeli opinion show a population resigned to confrontation and possible war. So who do you believe?

The fascinating side of this story is that very few Israelis would appear to believe their prime minister.  If they believed him, they would not run in a frenzy to buy apartments in the towers sprouting like mushrooms around the Kirya.  In the event that Iran should be bombed, the residents of the towers would be the first to get it.  If they believed [Netanyahu], the real estate prices in Tel Aviv would drop to a quarter of their current value, and long lines of people applying for passports would extend outside the foreign embassies.  What do the Israelis know about Netanyahu that Ahmadinejad does not know, what is it that they know.

Of course, this eminently reasonable interpretation omits the fact that many other pragmatic Israeli leaders, equally cynical in their way, have been sucked into disastrous wars for far less reason.  Most recently Ehud Olmert in Lebanon and Gaza.  Menachem Begin in Lebanon.  Do we really believe that even if he doesn’t mean to go to war that something could not suck him into it against his better judgment?  History is full of examples of precisely such things, World War I being perhaps the foremost example.

Returning to Vered’s war game, there will be Iran haters in Israel who read this who pooh-pooh this scenario claiming it overstates the negatives and overlooks Israel’s prowess and past success in similar ventures like Osirak and the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor.  But I say if even 1/10 of the complications Vered outlines happen, that disaster may be in the offing for Israel.  Israelis tend to have a “can do” attitude towards wars with their Arab neighbors.  As such, they often overestimate themselves and underestimate their adversary.  Iran, once provoked, will make a much more formidable adversary than most Israelis imagine.  Israelis should remember, but won’t, that the IDF is no longer the vaunted invincible force it was after the 1967 War.  It cannot work miracles.  Think Lebanon, 2006.  Think Gaza, 2008.  To delude yourself that bombing Iranian nuclear plants will be a surgical operation with short-term consequences alone is beyond foolish.  That is why Vered’s exercise, no matter how accurate it turns out to be, is salient.

H/t to Didi Remez.

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I’m going to give the Hot Hasbara Award to the reader who comes up with the best caption for this image. It’s simply too priceless to go uncaptioned. You wonder what the hell these two old geezers were actually saying when they made these gestures and faces. What makes this even funnier and slightly touching is that both of them are professional politicians with decades of service to their country (though Biden isn’t quite a dotty as Peres tends to get at times).

To be clear, I’m not saying that anything either one of them stands for is touching. But there’s a touch of something a bit balmy, sweet and perhaps over the top about their poses…something of comic opera about this image. Shimon’s doing an Al Jolson Jewish cantor routine. Or a Broadway version of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof:

Shimon: “If I was the PM, deidle deidle deidle dum.  All day long I’d deidle deidle dum, if I was the PM.”

Hey seriously Joe, im yirtzeh ha-Shem, I’ll see you in Davos next winter.  We’ll check out the ski bunnies before I trash the Goldstone Report on the panel, How to Give Good Hasbara.

Joe looks like he’s a character out of opera bouffe.  But go at it. Let’s see how good you folks are.

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Can Israel devise an Iranian crisis like the Cuban missile crisis?

Now, Didi Remez offers a translation of a Maariv story that unmasks Israel’s intentions.  You remember Cuba?  That country whose government we’ve been trying to overthrow for 50 years without success?  The one we invaded in the Bay of Pigs disaster?  The one about whom Kennedy and McNamara almost got us into a war?  Yup, that’s what Bibi wants–to turn Iran into the next Cuba.  And you know how well our Cuba policy’s turned out, don’t you?

You see, Israel is concerned that Russia and China will turn out to be wusses and either water down or torpedo the sanctions proposal being considered by the Security Council members:

Israel is concerned that the UN Security Council decision on intensifying sanctions against Iran will be postponed, and the Foreign Ministry is already taking steps to prepare an alternative, based on the model of the sanctions imposed by the US administration on Cuba…

If indeed it becomes clear that it will be impossible to impose harsh sanctions by means of the UN Security Council, the idea is that urgent steps will be taken against Iran, similar to those that the White House imposed on Cuba…

So if the west drops out of this plan, Israel wants a fallback.  Maybe Bibi has a thing for ‘59 Chevys (like the ones you see driving around Havana thanks to the U.S. embargo).  Or maybe he’s thinking about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when John Kennedy and Robert McNamara came within a hair’s breath of war with the Soviet Union over its missiles in Cuba.  Maybe Bibi is thinking that we would create the same type of embargo around Iran and attack it for attempting to import equipment needed for its nuclear program.

Chief fantacist on behalf of this bold new plan is none other than the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who reveals he knows even less about U.S.-Cuba relations than he knows about Israel-Palestine relations:

We must ask the US to adopt toward Iran the model of embargo on Cuba, which proved to be effective, and which is strong enough to choke Iran and bring down the regime.”

Even though Lieberman is an utter jackass, he can’t possibly believe this shtus, which is why I believe what Israel may really want is another Cuban missile crisis, which would take the U.S. right up to the edge and over into military confrontation, in order to prevent Iran from getting the bomb (or so the Israeli scenario posits) just as Kennedy was prepared to do with the Soviets & Cuba.

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If you ever wanted to judge Bronner’s over-coziness with his Israeli government and intelligence sources, note the grounds that he accepts for anonymizing them here:

“Some have described it as a bear hug,” a senior Israeli official said of the near-daily high-level meetings [between senior U.S. and Israeli officials], speaking on condition of anonymity in order to express himself freely on a charged issue, as did three other top Israeli officials for this article.

I could perhaps concede granting anonymity to sources if they revealed new or controversial information or if they were endangering themselves in any way.  But every Israeli statement in this article is not only old news, but merely a restatement of Israel’s position on the issue of sanctions and attacking Iran.  As usual, Bronner gives away the store and gets nothing in return.  This is an egregious example of giving sources anonymity for no reason other than that they demand it.  And one thing we know about Israel and its leaders, they will demand the moon and give you nothing in return if you allow it as they have done here.

Israel as victim, this time at Iran's hands (Yehuda Raizner AFP/Getty)

Nowhere in this story does it acknowledge that an Israeli attack would be an act of aggression, and that such aggression would have consequences that would be a direct response to that aggression.  The underlying conviction, instead, seems to be that any Israeli attack would be an act of preemptive self-defense since Iran clearly means to develop a nuclear weapon to wipe Israel off the face of the map.  You can notice this thought process at work in the opening paragraph, in which Israel, the aggressor morphs into Israel, the victim:

Preparations for a strike against Iran’s nuclear program are as evident as ever: the introduction of an attack drone capable of flying hundreds of miles, the frequent open talk of a possible attack, the distribution of new gas masks to the public.

The introduction of gas masks into the story has not so subtle propaganda value and effect.  It immediately turns Israel into a victim of Iranian aggression instead of the other way around.  It harkens back to Saddam’s attacks on Israel during the 1991 Gulf war in which again, Israel was victim.  It raises in the world’s mind the entirely unsubstantiated fear that Iran would counter-attack against Israel with chemical weapons.  What is missing?  The glaring fact that Israel would be engaging in an act that would draw censure if carried out by any other nation in the world.

Note the sanitized language of this passage:

The American decision to press Israel to hold its fire stems partly from war game exercises in both countries that have raised complex questions about how effective a strike would be, how Iran would react…

In fact, one of America’s foremost military strategic experts, Anthony Cordesmann, wrote an extensive study of this subject and essentially said that an Israeli attack would likely fail and that Iran would likely react by letting loose the Furies of revenge and terror.

Here is another unexamined and suspect statement made by an unnamed Israeli official:

“No Israeli prime minister wants to make the decision to attack Iran,” commented a former official closely involved in these discussions.

The statement is preposterous.  Of course this prime minister and the previous one want and wanted to attack Iran.  We know for a fact that Olmert begged Bush to give him a green light and the latter refused.  And it goes without saying that Bibi is itching to do the same and would (and may yet) if he thought he could get away with it.

More unexamined rhetoric:

…The Israeli-American relationship has actually been improving lately over Iran.

This is shorthand for “Israel is immensely pleased that the Obama administration has abandoned its hopelessly naive policy of diplomatic engagement and come around to Israel’s position that only a punitive approach will work.”  The following passage is, besides being lame, hopelessly and self-evidently skewed:

Both countries still find it useful to note that Israel is preparing for a strike and that its government includes some real hawks.  This is a point American officials made to China recently to persuade it to join the sanctions regime.

Gee, I didn’t realize Bibi’s government includes “some real hawks,” did you?  And this will persuade China to get on board sanctions precisely how?  Will China care that Israel attacks Iran?  Well, yes the argument will be made that it will harm China’s economy.  But I think China is smart enough to realize that any harm will be short-term and that Israel and the U.S. will ultimately pay the highest price for such stupidity and adventurism if it is allowed to happen.  And for China, for Israel and the U.S. to walk into a hornet’s nest that causes both of them serious long-term damage to their international standing and global presence isn’t exactly an outcome that’d cause it to cringe.

More Israeli softballism from Bronner:

Intelligence cooperation between the United States and Israel is intensifying, and assessments regarding Iranian intentions and capabilities are closer than they were during the Bush administration.

One of the most important points I want to make here is that to the extent that U.S. policy marches in lock step with Israel is the extent of the looming failure of an independent U.S. policy toward Iran.  The closer we are to Israel’s interests and strategy the worse the failure Obama’s Iran policy will be.  I started as a critical, but enthusiastic supporter of Obama’s Middle East policy.  But I become more and more sour as time wears on and articles like this are written.

Returning to Bronner, more dubious, unexamined assumptions:

Israeli officials agree that the Iranian government and economy are weak and that harsh sanctions could pressure it into changing its nuclear policy.

What does this tell us that is useful?  Nothing.  Almost every credible Iran analyst outside Israel (and many inside it as well) actually believes precisely the opposite of what it presented here.  That is, that the Iranian economy cannot be seriously harmed by any conceivable sanction devised by the U.S. and that sanctions will never cause Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

The only new development in this story, and one that adds deeper concern to my sense of the disaster that is looming, is this:

Israeli officials are due in Washington next week to urge Congress to take a tough unilateral stand on the issue.

The idea that Israel thinks the U.S. should take a unilateral stand or pursue unilateral sanctions is yet another potential dead-end for U.S. policy.  We can’t even get all our allies to agree on sanctions, yet Israel wants us to go it alone if this policy fails.  Unilateral sanctions or whatever other unilateral policy conceived by Israel will be yet more of the same.  And it will fail just as all previous sanction regimes have failed.

But I think Israel is lobbying for unilateral positions in the same way that Bush pursued unilateralism against Saddam.  Once you are detached from your allies you are freer to pursue more extreme policies leading to military attack.  That is what Israel is aiming for in the long run.  A U.S. that either attacks Iran itself or gives Israel the green light to do so.

Yet another Bronner unexamined assumption:

Iran said it had started to enrich uranium up to 20 percent, a huge step from its current enrichment of 4 percent. This would put it much closer to the capacity to enrich at bomb-making levels.

What you won’t see explained by Bronner: that 20% is the level needed for medical research which is what Iran has claimed all along is its goal.  Second, moving from 4% is a “step” but not a huge one.  Third, achieving 20% enrichment would put it closer to achieving the 90% level needed for bomb-grade, but not “much closer.”  Getting from 20% to 90% is a very large technical feat as confirmed by Muhammad Sahimi, a USC engineering professor and expert on Iran’s nuclear program.  Why did Bronner leave all this important information out of that passage?

More pabulum from Israel passed along by its willing journalistic servant:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran attended a summit meeting in the Syrian capital with the leaders of Syria and the Lebanese group Hezbollah. His verbal attacks on Israel were harsher than usual.Israel says it is watching with enormous concern…They worry about weapons being smuggled into Lebanon and to Hamas in Gaza, and feel they [sic] may need to act.

Because Iran’s president supposedly levelled harsher attacks on Israel than usual (no evidence provided), and because Iran is smuggling weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel would justify an attack on Iran’s nuclear program.  Is there some sort of rhetorical short-circuit in this passage?  Why would an Israeli attack on Iran’s nukes follow from this?

In this entire article, the only acknowledgement of a serious policy difference between Israel and the U.S. is in this statement, and the validity of the Israeli claim is not even parsed by Bronner:

…As a top Israeli official put it afterward: “For the Americans, Iran is a strategic threat. For us, it’s an existential one.”

In a slightly different vein, Ali Abunimah has written a very interesting and important post about the former Palestinian ownership of the original portion of the residence in which Ethan Bronner lives in West Jerusalem.

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Come to Israel...for a blowjob

I’ve been covering the controversial Size Doesn’t Matter viral video campaign (watch the video here) sponsored by Canadian pro-Israel college students and several Israel lobby groups.  Lately, the student leader claiming responsibility for the website and the Israeli MFA have been heading for the hills in terms of establishing who’s responsible for the project.  I’ve staked out convincing evidence that the college students are at least in joint sponsorship with the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) and/or  Canadian Jewish Public Affairs due to the registration of the Size Doesn’t Matter Domain with the CIJA and funding for the student group from CJPA, which is confirmed on the student website.  The only question is whether the students are a front for the project or actually took some active role in it.  Right now, I’d say the jury’s out on that one.  But one thing that is clear is that the Israel lobby is taking a powder.

They’ve done something totally inexplicable and underhanded and frankly I don’t understand it.  They’ve re-registered the Size Doesn’t Matter domain.  Previously it was registered to Canadian Jewish Public Affairs.  Yesterday, it was re-registered to 3Managed. This web design company’s only four clients listed at it’s website are the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) – cija.ca, Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) – cjc.ca, and Canada Israel Committee (CIC) – cicweb.ca.  Nice try fellas.

The registrant listed for 3Managed’s own website is Stephen Verrall.  And who is listed as the registrant for Canadian Jewish Public Affairs’ website?  You guessed it, Stephen Verrall.  Here are the registration details for the various sites:

Domain name:           sizedoesntmatter.ca
Domain number:         2929497
Approval date:         2009/07/13
Renewal date:          2011/07/13
Updated date:          2010/02/23

Registrant Name:              3managed Inc.
Number:            2947274

Administrative contact:
Name:              David Bird
Postal address:    3managed Inc.
3-35 Stone Church Road Suite # 332
Ancaster ON L9K 1S5 Canada
Phone:             2892399875

**************************
Domain: 3managed.com

Date Registered: 06/02/09
Date Modified: 11/21/09
Expiry Date: 06/02/10
DNS1: ns1.easyDNS.com
DNS2: NS2.EASYDNS.COM

Registrant

Verrall Stephen
David Place
200 North Service Road West, Suite 531, Unit 1
Oakville, ON (CA)
L6M 2Y1

Administrative Contact

Verrall Stephen
Stephen Verrall
1150 Skyview Dr #79
Burlington, ON (CA)
L7P 4X5

4167273233

Where did you read the name Stephan Verrall?

Domain: gfcas.com
Date Registered: 02/06/08
Date Modified: 02/06/10
Expiry Date: 02/06/10
DNS1: dns.yourdomainhasexpired.com
DNS2: dns2.yourdomainhasexpired.com

Registrant
Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Inc.

Stephen Verrall
4600 Bathurst St #315
Toronto, ON (CA)
M2R3V3

Administrative Contact
CIJA
Stephen Verrall
1075 Bay Street
Toronto, ON (CA)
M5S 2B1
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So all they’ve done is engaged in an elaborate charade to conceal the fact that CJPA is directly involved in this disgusting project which suggests that oral sex and Israeli tourism go hand in hand. Why are they hiding like this? I always believe that transparency is the best policy. If you do something, own it, explain it, defend it. That’s not apparently the approach of CJPA.  That’s the problem with hasbara.  It’s just like the infamous Steve Rosen aphorism (first sent in a memo to my good friend, M.J. Rosenberg, when they both worked at Aipac):

A lobby [Aipac] is like a night flower, it thrives in the dark and dies in the light.

And that’s the purpose of this blog, to force the Israel lobby into the light.  Maybe it will die, maybe it won’t.  But at least it will be in a place where everyone can see what it does and judge for itself as to whether it is credible or not.

H/t to readers Robin and Surcouf for research above and beyond.

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