Arab Spring Winter
• Benjamin Netanyahu wants to meet with Mohammed Morsi, but the US isn’t keen on assisting that now. More at the Times of Israel.
• IDF officer to Reuters: Every time the Syrian army fires shells southward, the IDF has mere seconds to determine that Israel isn’t the true target.
“Syria’s batteries are in a high state of operability, ready to fire at short notice. All it would take is a few degrees’ change in the flight path to endanger us,” he told Reuters in an interview at his base in Palmachim, south of Tel Aviv.
On a related note, see Matt Gurney’s must read column in the National Post:
But the Russians need to understand that this isn’t purely about the balance of power for Israel. At this very moment, Israeli soldiers are watching the skies, knowing that if war breaks out, they’ll have only seconds to react. This is the daily reality for Israeli decision makers. They’ll do everything they can to prevent it from getting any more dangerous, Moscow be damned.
• Bashar Assad claims Syria already received Russia’s first shipment of S-300 missiles:
He added that the Syrian government will not stand in the way of any Syrian groups that would attack Israel in order to liberate the Golan Heights.
• AFP: Gulf states may designate Hezbollah a terror organization.
• The sorry state of Syrian propaganda: Assad welshes dumb blondes, reports the Times of London.
Sixteen Italian models have begun legal action after allegedly being hired to stage a sit-in in Rome in support of President Assad of Syria, but not being paid for their efforts.
The women say they were employed by an agency to attend various events with Middle Eastern customers. For one of the assignments they were allegedly promised €166 (£142) each to attend a pro-Assad sit-in and chant slogans in Arabic that they didn’t understand . . .
“These woman were exploited for political ends,” said Valerio Vitale, their lawyer.
• The Islamist takeover of one Syrian province has sparked a “second” civil war between rebels: Islamists vs. moderates. The Wall St. Journal (via Google News) describes the fragmented opposition in Raqqa:
Riddled with shrapnel, Mr. Daher withdrew to Turkey to recover and regroup. In a cafe-turned-safehouse serving as his new home, on a recent day, he paced the floor in a gray sweatsuit.
“The future is war,” he said. “I see a wide-scale war. The Free Syrian Army will fight the Islamists.”
• Jordan’s foreign minister discussed the Syria situation and its impact on the Hashemite kingdom in a Q&A with the Washington Post‘s Lally Weymouth.
• NY Times: Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria find overcrowded squalor in Lebanese camps.
• For commentary/analysis, see Aaron David Miller, Dr. Reuven Berko, a Daily Telegraph staff-ed, the Christian Science Monitor, and YNet.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• CBC: Tightening sanctions, Canada banned all imports and exports with Iran.
• Israel and Cyprus inked a deal to lay an underwater electrical cable between the two countries. AFP explains the significance:
Additional underwater cables are to connect Cyprus and mainland Europe via Greece, which was also part of the agreement signed in the Jerusalem bureau of Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau.
“Israel will be able to receive backup (electricity) from Cyprus and Europe, and in the future, we will be able to provide them with energy,” Landau said.
(Image of Nisman via YouTube/Diario Judio de forojudio, S-300 via Wikimedia Commons/RIA Novosti)
For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
