Oren: Israel has wanted Assad ousted since outbreak of Syrian civil war

By HERB KEINON, JPOST

“Bad guys” backed by Iran are worse for Israel than “bad guys” who are not supported by the Islamic Republic, Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the US Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post in a parting interview.

Oren, in the interview that is to be published in full on Friday, traced the evolution of Israel’s message on Syria during the three weeks of the chemical weapons crisis.

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“The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran,” he said.

This was the case, he said, even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated to al-Qaida.

“We understand that they are pretty bad guys,” he said, adding that this designation did not apply to everyone in the Syrian opposition. “Still, the greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc. That is a position we had well before the outbreak of hostilities in Syria. With the outbreak of hostilities we continued to want Assad to go.”

Amid reports that Assad may be moving some of his chemical weapons arsenal out of the country, Oren reiterated Israel’s position that it will not tolerate attempts to transfer these arms – or game changing weapons – to Hezbollah.

“The chemical weapons were an American redline, it wasn’t an Israel redline,” Oren said. “Our redline was that if Iran and Syria try to convey chemical weapons or game changing weaponry to Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations, that Israel would not remain passive. We were prepared to stand by the redline, and still are.”

Oren, who said he could not verify reports Assad was already moving his arsenal, stressed that “he is not moving them out to Hezbollah.”

On other issues, Oren – who has contact in Washington with some ambassadors from Persian Gulf countries – said that that “in the last 64 years there has probably never been a greater confluence of interest between us and several Gulf States. With these Gulf States we have agreements on Syria, on Egypt, on the Palestinian issue. We certainly have agreements on Iran. This is one of those opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.”

Also, calling “overblown” reports that young American Jews were becoming distant from Israel, Oren sounded an upbeat and optimistic note about the future of American Jewry.

“Certain physicists say that the universe is expanding and contracting at the same time, the same thing is true of the American-Jewish community,” he said. “This means that it is contracting through assimilation, but there is a core of the American-Jewish community coming out of day schools, Orthodox environments, Jewishly educated and deeply connected to Israel and the Jewish people. And that core is expanding.”

“I am actually optimistic about the future of American Jewry,” he said. “I don’t know whether American Jewry will be the same size as it is now in some 30 years, but it will be more Jewishly educated, committed and attached to Israel.”

September 17, 2013 | 11 Comments »

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  1. 16/9/2013
    Syrian Opposition: Chemical Weapons Moved
    A member of the Syrian National Coalition claimed during a conversation with the Saudi newspaper Al Wattan that the Assad regime moved some of its chemical weapons to Hezbollah and to Russian ships docked at Syrian coasts.

  4. bernard ross

    Israel operates the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US

    ‘One of NSA’s biggest threats is from friendly intelligence services, like Israel,’ states a leaked document

    A new document leaked by Edward Snowden sheds new light on the famously close relationship shared by the US and Israel. The document reveals that Israel is one of the nations that spy most aggressively on the United States.

    In 2008, a formal evaluation by the top US intelligence analysts from every agency, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, concluded that Israel was “the third most aggressive intelligence service against the United States,” according to one document reported the Guardian on Wednesday.

    “On the one hand, the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems,” the document states. “One of NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel. There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended, it added.”

    “A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US,” concluded the cocument.

    A different document published yesterday exposed that the National Security Agency has routinely made Israel privy to sensitive intelligence data without filtering it to remove information about US citizens, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. The London-based publication gathered the sensitive information from a top-secret document provided by former CIA contractor and fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    The shared intelligence reportedly included intercepted telephone conversations and email correspondence of US citizens.

    The 2009 intelligence-sharing agreement between the two countries, details of which are laid out in a five-page memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart ISNU, places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

    According to the Guardian, the revelation contradicts assurances by the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards in place to protect the privacy of US citizens whose data is accessed. In the intelligence community the process is known as “minimization”, yet the information shared with the Israelis was clearly in its pre-minimized state.

    The Israeli embassy in London is quoted by the Haaretz newspaper as saying in response that “we don’t comment on leaked documents.”

  5. bernard ross

    I can understand what they want from us but what do we get in return?

    The same radicals that they support will turn on them sooner than later.

    Shia Iran will not go quietly into the good night. Seems neither will the Russians now aligned as never before with China.

  6. bernard ross

    I can understand what they want from us but what do we get in return?

    The same radicals that they support will turn on them sooner than later.

    Shia Iran will not go quietly into the good night. Seems neither will the Russians now aligned as never before with China.

    Israel operates the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US

    ‘One of NSA’s biggest threats is from friendly intelligence services, like Israel,’ states a leaked document

    A new document leaked by Edward Snowden sheds new light on the famously close relationship shared by the US and Israel. The document reveals that Israel is one of the nations that spy most aggressively on the United States.

    In 2008, a formal evaluation by the top US intelligence analysts from every agency, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, concluded that Israel was “the third most aggressive intelligence service against the United States,” according to one document reported the Guardian on Wednesday.

    “On the one hand, the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems,” the document states. “One of NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel. There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended, it added.”

    “A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US,” concluded the cocument.

    A different document published yesterday exposed that the National Security Agency has routinely made Israel privy to sensitive intelligence data without filtering it to remove information about US citizens, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. The London-based publication gathered the sensitive information from a top-secret document provided by former CIA contractor and fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    The shared intelligence reportedly included intercepted telephone conversations and email correspondence of US citizens.

    The 2009 intelligence-sharing agreement between the two countries, details of which are laid out in a five-page memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart ISNU, places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

    According to the Guardian, the revelation contradicts assurances by the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards in place to protect the privacy of US citizens whose data is accessed. In the intelligence community the process is known as “minimization”, yet the information shared with the Israelis was clearly in its pre-minimized state.

    The Israeli embassy in London is quoted by the Haaretz newspaper as saying in response that “we don’t comment on leaked documents.”

  7. “in the last 64 years there has probably never been a greater confluence of interest between us and several Gulf States. With these Gulf States we have agreements on Syria, on Egypt, on the Palestinian issue. We certainly have agreements on Iran. This is one of those opportunities presented by the Arab Spring.”

    it’s what I have been saying for a long time, confirmed by the Israeli ambassador. therefore this is the reason that explains many mysteries. Pay special attention to the part saying that the Gulf states and Israel “have agreements on…….the Palestinian issue”

  9. Israel’s chemical and biological arsenal in the spotlight
    What weapons does the Jewish state possess? And could Assad’s apparent capitulation prompt calls for a regional cleansing?
    http://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-chemical-arsenal-in-the-spotlight/

    Israel, built on the ashes of the Holocaust and with a sense of persistent persecution etched into its consciousness, has in fact been drawn, since the earliest days of its existence, to those sorts of weapons. In April 1948, before the state declared its independence, future prime minister David Ben-Gurion, according to Michael Keren’s “Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals,” instructed a Jewish Agency official in Europe to seek out Jewish scientists who could “either increase the capacity to kill masses or to cure masses; both are important.”

    In June 1963 Egypt used chemical weapons in the Yemen civil war. The first usage was considered primitive. But in subsequent years and, most alarmingly from an Israeli perspective, in the months and days leading up to the Six Day War in 1967, Egypt fired chemical bombs on villages, killing hundreds; the last attack occurred on May 10, 1967, three weeks before the start of the war and four days before Egypt began amassing troops in the Sinai desert.

    Read Full article: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-chemical-arsenal-in-the-spotlight/

  11. Exposé on How Israel Knew It had to Bomb Syria Reactor
    The Israeli bombing of a Syrian nuclear strike began with intelligence gathered six months earlier in a daring raid on Austrian home.
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/159814#.UjjYl3_m5vU

    The Israeli bombing of a Syrian nuclear strike began with intelligence gathered six months earlier in a daring raid on the Austrian home of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission director Ibrahim Othman, The New Yorker reported in its new edition.

    David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote under the headline “The Silent Strike,” that in March 2007, Mossad agents raided the home following suspicions concerning a large building the Assad regime was building in the northeastern Syrian desert. The nuclear site was known as “Al Kidar.”

    Intelligence officials were shocked to discover nearly 40 dozen color photographs that had been taken inside the building and indicated it was hiding a uranium nuclear reactor, built with the help of North Korean scientists.

    “The photographs showed workers from North Korea at the site, and the reactor, from the inside, had many of the same engineering elements as the North Korean reactor in Yongbyo,” Makovsky wrote.

    Israel informed the White House one month later, but the Bush administration concluded there was not enough substantive evidence to justify a military attack.