RUTHFULLY YOURS

TEL AVIV—Meir Dagan, who as chief of Israel’s intelligence agency was widely credited with disrupting Iran’s nuclear program, died Thursday, the Israeli government said. He was 71.

Mr. Dagan served as director of the agency, the Mossad, from 2002 until his retirement in 2011. During that time, Israel is believed to have carried out deadly assaults on Iran’s nuclear scientists and cyberattacks against its nuclear enrichment facilities. As a matter of policy, Israel neither confirms nor denies such operations.

In retirement, Mr. Dagan became a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ultimately unsuccessful efforts to stop the nuclear deal between Tehran and the U.S. and five other world powers. He said Mr. Netanyahu exaggerated the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons for political gain.

In a statement, Mr. Netanyahu called the former spy director a “great fighter” who had devoted his life to Israel and the Jewish people.

“He led the organization in daring, pioneering and groundbreaking operations,” the Israeli premier said.

Mr. Dagan’s died from complications of cancer, said a spokesman for the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. He underwent a liver transplant in Belarus in 2012.

Mr. Dagan was appointed to head the Mossad by Ariel Sharon, then prime minister. When he stepped down nine years later, in 2011, he was praised by Israeli officials for restoring the daring image of the spy agency. CONTINUE AT SITE

KERRY’S RESPONSE ““We call again on North Korea to refrain from actions that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations.” That’ll learn em…..rsk
SEOUL—North Korea fired a midrange ballistic missile into the sea early Friday as it continues annual military exercises and protests new U.S.-led sanctions.

The missile was launched from an area northwest of Pyongyang at 5:55 a.m. local time and flew about 800 kilometers (500 miles) before crashing off the Korean Peninsula’s eastern coast, a spokesman for Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Military officials said that the projectile was likely one of North Korea’s Rodong-type missiles and appeared to have been fired from a mobile launcher. The last test firing of a Rodong missile was in 2014, they said.

North Korea fired another projectile from the same area around 20 minutes later but it disappeared from radar screens shortly after launch, the officials said. Further analysis is needed to conclude whether it broke up or there was an error in the radar system, they said.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry issued a statement condemning the launches.

“We call again on North Korea to refrain from actions that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations,” he said.

North Korea is barred from testing ballistic missiles and nuclear explosives under United Nations’ resolutions, but leader Kim Jong Un recently pledged to continue testing both. CONTINUE AT SITE

HAVANA, Cuba—About 30 antigovernment protesters gathered at this city’s Mahatma Gandhi Park on Sunday and unfurled a banner in anticipation of President Barack Obama’s groundbreaking visit next week. “Obama, Cuba has a dream,” it read. “Cuba without Castros.”

They were soon surrounded by an angry crowd, followed by Cuban security officers who tore the banner from their hands, hustled them into police cars and took them away.

Some arrested demonstrators said they were kicked, hit, pushed to the ground and stripped naked before being released hours later. Their treatment was part of a more general crackdown on dissidents as the U.S. president prepares to arrive in Havana on Monday.

‘The Cuban government keeps trying to stop us, to demonize us, and we all live in fear.’
—Berta Soler of the dissident group Ladies in White

Since the U.S. began normalizing relations with its long-standing political foe in December 2014, tourism here has flourished, making central Havana bustle with new restaurants, hotels and gift shops. But in crumbling neighborhoods outside the elegant tourist areas, residents say the repression by President Raúl Castro’s government hasn’t let up for those daring to speak out.

“Here in Cuba nothing has changed,” said Berta Soler, a member of a dissident group calling itself the Ladies in White, moments before she was arrested with those carrying the banner. “The Cuban government keeps trying to stop us, to demonize us, and we all live in fear.”

Ladies in White, whose members wear white to symbolize peace, are among the dissidents targeted in a wave of arrests around the island in recent days, say human-rights activists here and abroad. That comes in part because the dissidents have stepped up their activities as they strive to be noticed ahead of Mr. Obama’s visit. CONTINUE AT SITE

Turkey’s attempts at “normalizing relations with Israel” apparently do not actually aim to normalize the relations.

“We do not forget Gaza and Palestine even in our dreams, let alone in negotiations. … Whatever is wrong for Palestine is also wrong for us. We discussed these issues in detail during our meetings with my dear friend, Khaled Mashaal [leader of Hamas]. This is the main objective behind the talks of normalizing ties with Israel.” – Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey.

Do Turkish government representatives also tell their Israeli colleagues that Khaled Mashaal is their “dear friend”? Do they also divulge that the only aim of the negotiations is to get compensation for the Mavi Marmara incident and to remove the “blockade” on Gaza, possibly again so that weapons to be used against Israel can come in?

Turkey’s attempts at “normalizing relations with Israel” apparently do not actually aim to normalize the relations.

As often happens in the Middle East, there are two sound-tracks going on — one perhaps in English to Israel, and one in Turkish to Turkey’s citizens. Both sound-tracks cannot be right.

On July 1, 2010, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu addressed his parliament:

“Jerusalem is our issue. Contrary to what you assume, it is not a territory of Israel. According to the international law, East Jerusalem is a part of the state of Palestine and is one of the territories under occupation. Al-Aqsa Mosque is in East Jerusalem, too. Al-Aqsa Mosque is not Israeli territory and will not be. If peace happens one day, — and that is what I mean — East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine and a meeting of the Arab league will be held there, as well. We are giving a message of peace here. Yes, there will be peace and East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine.”

“Everything that happened made us look weak in the world,” Argentinian President Mauricio Macri said in an interview with AP on Thursday, the 24th anniversary of the Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires, which came two years before the attack on the city’s Jewish center. “But now we are determined to bring what happened to light.”

Macri, who has reached the 100-day mark of his administration –characterized by its total about-face in relation to the policies of the previous government, led by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — was referring to an investigation surrounding a case that rocked Argentina and garnered international notoriety.

The case in question is the death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found shot dead in his apartment last year. Though police surmised it was a suicide, it occurred mere hours before Nisman was to provide evidence to back up his accusation that Kirchner had been in cahoots with Tehran in its attempt to deny involvement in the 1994 car-bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish center, which left 85 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

Earlier this month, as The Algemeiner reported, Antonio Stiuso, former operations chief of Argentina’s spy agency, was questioned in a closed-door hearing about his relationship with Nisman and the days leading up to the latter’s January 18, 2015 death. Stiuso had been helping Nisman with the investigation into the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), believed to have been carried out by Hezbollah with Iran’s backing.

Stiuso’s arrival from abroad, where he fled in April 2014 amid claims he was receiving death threats, came on the heels of another development — the publicly stated belief of a top prosecutor that Nisman’s death was a homicide, the first such declaration on the part of a judicial official in Argentina.

JNS.org – Parliamentarians from 13 Latin American and Caribbean nations have signed a resolution in support of Israel and against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The lawmakers met last week in Miami for the the Israel Allies Foundation’s Second Annual Latin America Summit on Israel, according to a document obtained by the Jerusalem Post.

The resolution, written in Spanish, states that the signatories “unequivocally declare, personally, our support for the Jewish people to live in peace, safety and security in the Land of Israel” and that “strong relations between the Western Hemisphere and Israel are crucial to the spread of freedom, democracy and justice around the world.”

“Boycotts and sanctions against the State of Israel and its products contribute to an antisemitic attitude inspired by antisemitism and opposition to the Jewish State…[and] are detrimental to a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and must be rejected by all actors that seek peace,” it also states.

The resolution also affirms that “the eventual existence of countries with nuclear weapons in the Middle East poses and existential threat to Israel and for peace around the world.”

A few days ago, a visiting friend and I walked through Jerusalem’s Mamilla Mall, up some steep stairs and through the Old City’s Jaffa Gate. We both had some gift shopping to do, and we had decided to pick up some pottery and other items in the Christian Quarter’s shops.

Of course, thanks to the present wave of stabbings, we thought twice about our destination. But we went anyway.

One of the first things we noticed was the rather thin array of tourists and the unusually quiet walk along the usually bustling David Street. There were few hucksters, and several shops were shuttered.

We turned left on Christian Quarter Road and went into a couple of shops that we’d been to before; both of the shopkeepers are longtime friends of the woman who was shopping with me. And their stories were rather heartbreaking.

Although neither of them had faced a terrorist’s knife directly, the ripple effect of the stabbings – and particularly those in and around the Old City – had deeply wounded each of them.

Israel’s Ministry of Tourism continues to report only a slightly decreased number of tourists in the country, but that wasn’t what we heard from these two men. And their lack of customers underscored their plight.

“I’ve been using the free time to do some remodeling of my shop,” an elderly Arab Christian merchant told us.

Granted, with so few people around, it was easier for him to tear out shelves and make some long-delayed repairs. “But it’s so expensive and there’s no income to offset the costs,” he lamented.

This man was born and raised in the Jerusalem’s Old City Christian community. He has seen his share of wars and terrorism. And he is infuriated by the present attacks.

His voice rose as he described an incident. “A 50-year-old woman tried to stab a policeman this morning. Fifty years old! How ridiculous is that?”

By then, he was almost shouting, and he furtively glanced out the door of his shop to see if anyone was listening.

“The police shot her dead,” he concluded more quietly. “What else could they do?”

For five months, the State Department has indicated that Iraq’s Yazidi community should be declared a target of ISIS genocide but meanwhile has been less sure about ISIS’s intentions toward Middle East Christians. Tomorrow is Secretary John Kerry’s congressional deadline for officially determining whether Christians, along with the Yazidis and possibly others, face genocide by ISIS. Insisting that department lawyers need a little more time to struggle with the evidence, Kerry promises his decision soon, if not this week.

This shouldn’t be a hard case. Few groups have publicized their brutality toward Christians in real time and in technicolor as ISIS has. Christians, among others, have been declared genocide victims by Pope Francis, the EU Parliament, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the U.S. House of Representatives, in a bipartisan, unanimous vote on March 14, in the heat of election season.

All along, the State Department has demonstrated that it is not just being abundantly cautious and slow in ruling that the atrocities against Christians is genocide but that it is simply unwilling to use that designation specifically for Christians. Rather than carefully reviewing the evidence, as it claims, it has ignored it.

For months, State officials claimed they lacked facts about the Christians and then did nothing about it. Rather than follow the precedent of Secretary Colin Powell, who collected evidence for determining genocide in Darfur, Kerry refrained from dispatching fact finders in the case of the Middle Eastern Christians. When some 30 Christian leaders wrote on December 4 to request an opportunity to brief Kerry, he failed to answer. With only a month remaining until its March deadline, State Department officials asked the Knights of Columbus, which had been running TV spots on the Christian genocide, to prepare a written report of the facts. Before it was even completed, those same officials, meeting with Iraqi Chaldean Catholic leaders, told them that a genocide determination for Iraqi Christians was not in the offing. State suggested that terms such as “persecution,” “ethnic cleansing,” or “crimes against humanity” — terms that carry less moral and legal weight — be used instead.

The American public tends to see military action as binary: all in or not in at all. Mostly we’re not in — as befits a country that is not aggressive or acquisitive. But if we’re in it, win it. In this age of transnational enemies and vacuums of governance, however, the Obama administration has created a series of half-in, half-out military and political situations that have brought chaos to the Middle East, confusing our friends and comforting our adversaries. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Somalia, fear of a Vietnam-like quagmire still drives American leadership.

Afghanistan was called “Russia’s Vietnam” for a reason, but Vladimir Putin appears to have learned a different lesson about quagmires. Setting achievable aims — both military and political — and stopping when they have been met as much as practical, is key to being able to leave third countries while maintaining influence.

The apparent beginning of a Russian pullout of some forces from Syria should not be mistaken for the end of the Syrian civil war — or for a moral foreign policy. What it suggests, rather, is that Russia has achieved its military goals there and is now content to let both the political and military processes proceed with less direct Russian intervention.

Russia’s primary goals in Syria were:

To secure its hold on the bases at Latakia and Tartus, which requires a friendly government in Damascus, and
To damage Sunni jihadist rebels, whether ISIS, al Qaeda, or simply anti-Assad.

A secondary goal was to allow the Russians to test and show off new generation military equipment and tactics, including sustained bombing and the MiG-31M aircraft. Another was to provide diplomatic achievements including opening conversations — and discussing arms sales — with American allies/clients Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan, and deepening the information exchange with Israel.

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will take a bulging schedule with him on his history-making trip to Cuba, planning to meet President Raúl Castro, tour Old Havana, meet with dissidents and deliver a speech on U.S.-Cuba relations, senior officials said, all steps designed to showcase his policy of engagement.

Mr. Obama is scheduled to arrive in Cuba on Sunday evening, accompanied by his daughters, Sasha and Malia, first lady Michelle Obama and her mother, Marian Robinson, the officials told reporters Wednesday.

He will meet with staff members of the U.S. embassy and visit the sites of Old Havana, including the cathedral, where he will be greeted by Cardinal Jaime Ortega who, along with Pope Francis, helped facilitate the president’s secret talks with the Cuban government about restoring relations.

Mr. Obama won’t see Mr. Castro until the second day of his trip. The two leaders will meet at the Palace of the Revolution after Mr. Obama and the first lady lay a wreath at the Jose Martí Memorial to honor the 19th century Cuban national hero. Mr. Castro will also host Mr. Obama for a state dinner Monday evening.

Mr. Obama’s schedule includes an event with entrepreneurs, and before moving on to Argentina, he will deliver a speech at the opulent Gran Teatro. He’ll also meet with Cuban dissidents and attend a baseball game at Estadio Latinoamericano.

The trip is part of the Obama administration’s bid to make the policy shift permanent, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama who helped negotiate the Cuba opening, said. The U.S. will discuss cooperation in agriculture, health care and educational exchange and will urge economic progress and contacts between the two countries. CONTINUE AT SITE