‫בס׳ד‬

‫כ ו ״ ת ש ר י ת ש ע ו׳‬ October 9, 2015

News Reports and Commentary from and about

Israel and the Jewish World

‫שבת מברכים‬ ‫פרשת בראשית‬

Published by the ✡ TORONTO ZIONIST COUNCIL ✡ Tel: 416-781-3571- e-mail: [email protected]

The Palestinian terror onslaught now raging against us is not spontaneous. Abbas has incited it and is directing it. To stop it, Israel must finally take action against Abbas and his war machinery. Anything less can bring us nothing more than a temporary respite in the carnage that Abbas will be free to end whenever he wishes. (Caroline Glick) COMMENTARY: Abbas M ust Be Stopped Column One, By Caroline Glick All the Palestinian terror attacks that have been carried out in recent weeks share one common feature. All the terrorists believe that by attacking Jews they are protecting the Temple Mount from destruction. And why shouldn't they believe this obscenity? Everywhere they go, every time they turn on their televisions, read the paper, go to school or the mosque they are told that the Jews are destroying al Aksa mosque. Al Aksa, they are told is in danger. They m ust take up arm s to defend it from the Jews, whatever the cost. One man stands at the center of this blood libel. The man who propagates this murderous lie and orchestrates the death and mayhem that is its bloody harvest is none other than the W est's favorite ‘Palestinian m oderate’: PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairm an Mahm oud Abbas. On September 16 Abbas gave a speech. It was broadcast on PA television and posted on his Facebook page. In it, he incited the Palestinians to kill Jews. In his words, "Al Aksa mosque is ours. The Jews have no right to desecrate it with their filthy feet. We won't allow them to do so and we will do everything in our power to defend Jerusalem." Abbas added, "W e bless ever drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem. This is clean and pure blood, blood that was spilled for God. It is Allah's will that every m artyr will go to heaven and every wounded [terrorist] will receive God's reward." Two weeks later, Abbas opened his address before the UN General Assembly with the same lies, threats and incitement. Almost exactly a year ago, Abbas spewed the same bile in a speech, with the same murderous consequences. In a speech before Fatah's executive committee last October Abbas said, "W e m ust prevent them [the Jews] from entering the holy site in every possible way. This is our holy site, this is our al Aksa and our church [the Church of the Holy Sepulcher]. They have no right to enter them. They have no right to desecrate them. We must prevent them from entering. We m ust block them with our bodies to defend our holy sites."

In subsequent weeks, Abbas's words were rebroadcast 19 times on Palestinian television. During that period, Arab terrorists massacred rabbis in prayer at a Jerusalem synagogue, attem pted to assassinate human rights activist Yehuda Glick and murdered Jews standing at light rail stops in the capital. Eleven Israelis were butchered in that terror onslaught. Then as now, Abbas and his lieutenants not only incited attacks, they incentivized would be perpetrators to kill Jews. Every year, the same PA that claim s perpetual poverty pays m ore than $100 m illion to terrorists im prisoned in Israeli jails. Their salaries range between four to seven times the average PA salary, depending on the lethality of the attacks they carried out. Popular awareness of the financial benefits of terrorist activities has played a critical role in motivating Palestinians to attack Jews. This is made clear by the actions in recent weeks of several of the supposedly "lone wolf" attackers in the hours before they struck. Several of them – like their predecessors in last year's onslaught – announced their intention to become martyrs to protect al Aksa from the Jews on their Facebook pages immediately before they carried out their attacks. Money may be the greatest incentive Abbas and his PA provide for potential terrorists. But it isn't the only one. There is also the social status they confer on terrorists and their families. Every would-be terrorist knows that if he succeeds in killing Jews, he will be glorified by the Palestinian media and his family will be embraced by the PA establishment – first and forem ost by Abbas him self who has m ade a habit of m eeting with terrorists and their fam ilies. Presently, Israel's security brass is embroiled in a bitter dispute with our elected leaders regarding the nature of the current terror offensive. The dispute bubbled to the surface Wednesday night when the generals used military reporters to criticize Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for blaming Abbas for the violence. The generals insist that Abbas is a good guy. He's trying to calm the situation, they argue, and Israel needs to support him.

From the looks of things, the IDF seems to have the upper hand in this fight. This is the only way to read Netanyahu's announcement W ednesday night that he is barring government ministers and members of Knesset from visiting the Temple Mount until further notice. Netanyahu's move is nothing less than a signal that he accepts Abbas's premise that there is something wrong with Jews exercising their right to visit Judaism's holiest site. The generals' rationale for defending Abbas is fairly straightforward. Throughout the current Palestinian terror onslaught they have continued to cooperate with the Abbas-controlled Palestinian security forces in Judea and Samaria. These forces cooperate with the IDF in seeking out and arresting terrorists from Hamas and other groups that are not subordinate to Abbas. The fact that Abbas has ordered his men to work with the IDF has convinced the generals that he is a positive actor. So as they see it, he m ust be protected. In their view, Israel must limit its counterterror operatio ns to tac tical operations against trigger pullers and their immediate commanders and ignore the overarching cause of the violence. In behaving in this manner, our security brass is being willfully blind to the fact that Abbas is playing a double gam e. On the one hand he orders his forces to be nice to IDF commanders in Central Command when they fight terror cells from Hamas and other groups not loyal to Abbas, and so wins their appreciation. But on the other hand, Abbas works with those same terror forces, incites them to attack and rewards them for doing so. Perhaps the most outrageous aspect of the IDF's insistence that Abbas is critical to its counterterror eforts is that the IDF's own data demonstrate that Abbas has played an insignificant role in quelling terrorist attacks against Israel. As Jerusalem Post columnist Evelyn Gordon showed in an article in Commentary this week, according to official data, from 2002 when Palestinian terrorist activities in the areas were at their peak until 2007, when Israel began transferring security control over some Palestinian cities to Abbas's forces, levels of terrorism went down 97 percent.

Even after Israel began permitting Abbas to deploy his security forces to Nablus and Jenin, the IDF has continued to operate at will in these areas, often on a nightly basis. As Gordon noted, the only place Abbas has exercised sole security control was in Gaza. From September 2005, when Israel removed its military forces from Gaza until Hamas expelled Fatah forces from the areas in June 2007, Abbas's forces had full control over Gaza. During this time, his forces did nothing to prevent Hamas – and Fatah forces – from attacking Israel with thousands of mortars, rockets and missiles. His forces did nothing to prevent the massive transfer of advanced weaponry to Gaza from Egypt. True, since his forces were routed in Gaza, Abbas has ordered them to work with the IDF in Judea and Samaria to prevent Hamas from overthrowing him. But at the same time, he continuously seeks to form a unity government with Hamas. He funds Hamas. He glorifies its terrorists. And he refuses to condemn their attacks against Israel. Moreover, while ordering his men to help the IDF to protect him from Hamas, he leads the diplom atic w a r a g ain st Isra el internationally. The goals of that war are to harm Israel's economy and deny Israel the right to self-defense. Our political leadership's reluctance to stand up to the army is understandable. It is nearly impossible to order the IDF to take an action it opposes. At some point though the government is going to rein in our insubordinate generals. Fortunately, the government doesn't need the IDF to deal with Abbas and destroy his capacity to foment and direct attacks against Israel. Our elected officials have the authority to go after the twin foundations Abbas's terror offensive on their own. Those foundations are the incitement and the financial incentives he uses to motivate Palestinians to attack Jews. On the financial end, the Knesset should pass two laws to dry up the wells of terror finance. First, the Knesset should pass a law stipulating that all property belonging to terrorists, and all property used by terrorists to plan and carry out attacks will be seized by the government and transferred to the victims of their attacks. Moreover, all compensation paid to terrorists and their relatives pursuant to their attacks will be seized by the government and transferred to their victims. The second law relates to Israel's practice – anchored in the Oslo accords that Abbas revoked last month at the UN – of transferring tax revenues to the PA. The Knesset should pass a law prohibiting those transfers unless the Defense Minister certifies that the PA has ceased all terror related activities including incitement, organization, financing, directing and glorifying terrorist attacks and terrorists.

Until he so certifies, all revenues collected should be used to pay PA debts to Israeli institutions and to compensate victims of Palestinian terrorism. As for the incitement, the government needs to go to the source of the problem – Abbas's blood libel regarding Jewish rights to the Temple Mount. As things stand, Abbas is exacting a price in human lives for his obscene anti-Jewish propaganda about our "filthy feet defiling" the most sacred site in Judaism. By barring elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, not only is the government failing to exact a price for Abbas' obscene propaganda. It is rewarding him and so inviting Abbas to expand his rhetorical offensive. To remedy the situation an opposite approach is required. Rather than bar elected officials from visiting the Temple Mount, Netanyahu should encourage them to do so. Just as he sent a letter to Jordan's King Abdullah telling him that Israel is preserving the status quo on the Temple Mount, so he should write a similar letter to our lawmakers. In his letter, Netanyahu should say that in keeping with the status quo, which protects the rights of members of all religions to freely enter the Temple Mount, so he commits the government to protect the rights of all believers of all religions to ascend the Mount. The Palestinian terror onslaught now raging against us is not spontaneous. Abbas has incited it and is directing it. To stop this assault, Israel must finally take action against Abbas and his machinery of war. Anything less can bring us nothing more than a tem porary respite in the carnage that Abbas will be free to end whenever he wishes. [1 st published in the Jerusalem Post] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Palestinian Violence on the Rise, Again By Rachel Ehrenfeld, October 7, 2015 Following in Yasser Arafat's footsteps, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas used an international stage to unleash yet another round of terror attacks against Israel. As international criticism against his personal corruption mounted, Arafat used the conclusion of the Camp David meeting on July 25, 2000, to launch the Second Intifada. Earlier that month, Imad Faluji the Palestinian Authority's communications minister told a PLO rally in the Ein Hilwe refugee camp in South Lebanon, that as part of that plan all the PLO "military action groups of the 1960s 1970s and 1980s are returning to work to escalate the fighting against Israel." His successor Abbas, used his speech at U.N. General Assembly on September 30, 2015, in which he declared his intention to unilaterally establish a Palestinian state, thus abandoning the Oslo Accord, to instigate escalation in the deadly attacks against Jews in the W est Bank, Jerusalem and even among Israeli Arabs. Abbas probably hopes that the violence and political chaos would

mask Hamas harsh criticism against him and his government. Abbas may be also relying on international condemnation of Israeli efforts to stop the terror attacks. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, acted accordingly, announcing he was " "profoundly alarmed by the growing number of deadly incidents in the W est Bank, including east Jerusalem." True to form, the U.S. Department of State called "on all sides to take affirmative steps to restore calm and avoid escalating the situation." And the BBC — as usual — portrays Palestinian terrorists killed after murdering Jewish pedestrians as victims. At the U.N. Abbas has set the stage for supporting Palestinian violence, claiming stoning, stabbing and shooting are acts of " peaceful resistance" b y desperate individuals protesting against "Israeli occupation." He did not mention, however, that the Palestinian Authority that he leads — as Arafat has done before him — glorifies those who attack Israel, as national heroes, and financially rewards them and their families. In a latest development the Palestinian news agency W afa quoted Abbas as telling officials: "W e are telling our security forces, our political movements, that we do not want an escalation, but that we want to protect ourselves." This came after the Israeli police — despite growing Palestinian violence — lifted restrictions on Muslims to attend prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. If past Palestinian terror attacks against Israel are of any indication, Abbas, the PLO, Hamas, and the Palestinian Jihad will increase their violence to "liberate" Jerusalem. And John Kerry who no longer frequents Geneva and Vienna, may be traveling to Ramallah instead, to once again put more pressure on Israel to give in to the Palestinians and give up its territory and the security of its people. [About ACD; American Center for D e m o cra c y is a N e w Y o rk-base d not-for-profit organization, which monitors and exposes the enemies of freedom and their modus operandi, and explores pragmatic ways to counteract them.] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New York Times; No Israeli Victims of Palestinian Terrorism Welcome to a world where only Palestinian victims have names, ages, and sympathetic eyewitnesses. By Phyllis Chesler, October 7, 2015 W hy-oh-why do I still read the New York Times? Am I that much of a masochist? Here’s why. Because those who rely upon it run media/entertainment/publishing empires, corporations, and governments. These Masters of the Universe do not understand that the articles about Israel and the Muslim world in ‘the Paper of Record’ are all – essentially – toxic propaganda; to them, it is mother’s milk, God’s own word. Verily, it is The Atheist’s Bible.

That’s why I steel myself every single day Take yesterday, October 6th. One would think that the IDF’s October 4th arrest of five members of the Hamas cell responsible for the heinous murders of Eitam and Naama Henkin on October 1st would be front page news. One would be wrong. This dramatic information is contained on page A9 and takes up only a little more than half the page. The hard copy article is 1,083 words long and is divided into 22 paragraphs. Journalists Jodi Rudoren and Diaa Hadid (with additional reporters from Jerusalem, the West Bank, Ramallah, and Bethlehem), seem to be practicing “proportional” or “equivalency” journalism as opposed to “objective” journalism. Five Hamas terrorists “confessed to fatally shooting an Israeli couple in front of their children”— and in the same, opening paragraph, they tell us that “Israeli forces fatally [shot] two Palestinian teenagers — one 13.” As yet, the article does not mention the ages of the Israeli couple nor their names or the ages of their children. Rudoren and Hadid write that “four Israelis and four Palestinians have been killed in the last five days.” Everything is equal, everything is the same; it balances out, right? No. Absolutely missing is the necessary context. M issing is any fact-based understanding of the difference between Israel defending its citizens against Muslim Jihadists who are stabbing, stoning, and shooting innocent Israeli civilians at random — and the fact that we may be looking at what some are calling The Third Intifada. Lone Jihadists. Large vigilante groups. ISIS-inspired Hamasniks. How can this be? This is all that can be — given that these journalists view Israel as – by definition – engaging in an allegedly “Nazi, Apartheid, Occupation” of Arab Muslims – and view all acts of Muslim Jihad as part of freedom-fighting and justified resistance. Nothing else can explain how this piece is positioned or how many more sympathetic words are used to convey the unjust suffering of Arab Muslim victims versus the non-suffering of Israeli victims. Thus, we learn the age and name of the stone-thrower who was shot dead by Israelis — it is Abdulrahman Obeidallah; he is the boy mentioned in the first paragraph. But now, for four paragraphs, Rudoren and Hadid quote Arab Muslims who claimed that the boy never threw a stone, was not part of the rioting, was, in fact, “innocent and was shot in cold blood.” They quote a university student, Ahed Amira and Obeidallah’s classmate, Osaid Mohammad Abu Srour, who claims that “None of us were throwing stones. W e were watching other kids throw rocks at the army base… I guess this is what we get for being Palestinian and under occupation.”

If this were not enough, the next paragraph (#9) reminds us that, according to a “Palestinian medic,” earlier that day, the IDF “fatally shot Huthayfa Solim an, 18, in the stom ach.” — Still missing in action is any information about the Israeli civilian couple mentioned in the first paragraph, so long ago. W ere Israelis really murdered? If so, given the above track record, some would think that they “deserved” to die. Still, we do not learn their names until paragraph eleven or halfway into the piece. Their names — but not their ages, and not a single humanizing feature. No one is quoted who speaks for them or about them. Three paragraphs later (paragraph #14 ), we also learn about Nizar Qutri, 25, whom “relatives” said had been “shot in the chest by Israeli civilians.” The last 216 words of this article (five paragraphs or 23% of the article) is concerned totally with an event that took place on July 31st, in the “W est Bank village of Duma… [the] killing [of] a Palestinian child and his parents.” The villains represent the greatest threat known to humanity: “Jewish extremists.” Nowhere is any greater threat to the region cited. Nowhere is Abu Mazen (Abu Abbas) called an “extremist” nor are those who are throwing rocks, firebombs, fire crackers — the rioters in general — referred to as “extremists.” No matter that “Jewish extremists” are rare and are usually condemned and prosecuted — as opposed to Arab M uslims who glorify acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians (and against infidels and the “wrong” kind of M uslim). Nowhere do the authors bother to remind us that extremist, terrorist, Arab Muslims sit in Israeli jails and are paid generous stipends for their attempts to murder innocents. We never do get to learn the ages of the Henkins in this piece or the ages of their four children who were present at the execution of their parents. Please allow me to remind us about some of some of our holy martyrs in 2015. There may be more. And this does not account for the wounded, some of whom may be disabled for life. Apr 15, 2015 - Shalom Yohai Sherki, 25, was run down and killed on W ednesday night at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem in a terrorist attack. June 19, 2015 - Danny Gonen, 25, of Lod, was killed in a shooting attack along a dirt road after visiting the Ein Buvin spring near Dolev in the W est Bank. June 29, 2015 - Malachi Moshe Rosenfeld, 26, of Kohav Hashahar, critically wounded in a drive-by shooting attack near Shilo on the Alon road on M onday night, succumbed to his wounds the following day. Sept 13, 2015 - Alexander Levlovich, 64, of Jerusalem was killed while on his way home from a Rosh Hashana dinner when he lost control of his vehicle after it was struck by rocks at about 23:00. Oct 1, 2015 - Rabbi Eitam Henkin, 31, and his wife Na'ama, 30, of Neria, parents of six,

were killed in a drive-by shooting attack on the road between Itamar and Elon Moreh in Samaria at about 9 p.m. on Thursday night. They suffered multiple gunshot wounds to their upper bodies and were pronounced dead at the scene. Four of their children, aged 4 months to 9 years, who were in the car at the time of the attack were treated for shock. A Hamas spokesman praised the attack by the "brave resistance," calling the murderous act "heroic". Oct 3, 2015 – Rabbis Aharon Bennett, 22, of Beitar Illit and Nehemia Lavi, 41, of Jerusalem were stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist near Lion's Gate in Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday evening. Bennett's wife and 2-year-old child were wounded. October 6, 2015: A female Arab terrorist stabbed a 36-year-old man at the Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City and moderately wounded him. The man shot and critically wounded her. October 6, 2015: 38-year-old Ribi Lev-Ohayan of Tekoa esaped an Arab lynch mob which rushed her car, hurled rocks, then pulled her door open to kick and beat her. She managed to close the door and escape. October 6, 2015: Josh Hasten, a freelance journalist was a few cars behind her. The lynch mob of 50 rushed his car bearing cinder blocks and rocks. Hasten fired a warning shot and got away. October 6, 2015: An Arab terrorist stabbed and IDF soldier in Ashkelon on Lakhish Road (well within the 1949 lines), and got his weapon away from him. The terrorist rushed into a residential building, opened fire on IDF forces who subsequently eliminated him. Another Israeli was lightly wounded in this incident as well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Israel’s Lonesome Fight to Protect AmericaOp-Ed; By Jack Engelhard October 06, 2015 If you care about the safety, prosperity, liberty and security of the United States of America, it is your patriotic duty to support Israel. W e think it is far away. But it is closer than we think. Every stabbing, every firebombing, every gun shot from Palestinian Arabs against Israelis in and around Jerusalem, now happening day after day, is meant for us here in the United States, Jew and Christian alike. The jihad, the nakba, the intifada — call it what you will — it is fever, it is intoxication, it is a war of terrorism from which no one can hide. Those Palestinian knives and bullets are also meant for us in the USA, as we comfort ourselves thinking we are protected by geography. They don’t know geography. They only know how to kill. They create nothing. They produce nothing. They invent nothing. They contribute nothing. They have no heart and they choose the best, the most beautiful among us to do the most harm and spill the most blood.

They laugh and rejoice at their own deeds of depravity. It is difficult to think of them as human. There are no signs of it. Then they call us Islamophobic. But as we ask in these pages – “Can you be blamed for being a bigot if by their barbaric actions they turn you into one?” The jihadist Palestinian murderers make no distinction among man, woman or child. Borders mean nothing to them. W atch them as they swarm over one country after another. These same men intoxicated by jihad in Israel have their crazed eyes set on America. They have already taken Europe. W hat happens in Israel does not stay in Israel. It would be intelligent to consider ourselves warned. On 9/11 we were warned, but still we think it is Israel that has a problem. Its not our business, we say. No, we have the same problem and it is very m uch our business if we care about the well-being of the United States. Their debauched customs are nothing new in Israel and are becoming familiar within our own country of open borders. Schools in America now try to drop allegiance to the American flag for fear that it may offend or exclude “others”. Case in point, Jackson Hole W yoming. Elsewhere in the Heartland kids are being taught the charms of Sharia. Schoolgirls are being told to wear the Islamic veil. The FBI tells us that there are jihadist terror cells in every state. Is this enough? No, 200,000 more of them are being brought in. Are we sure they harmless? But even if only one causes us harm our government has failed its sworn duty to ‘preserve and protect’. Let’s be clear about this: If you love Israel for the sake of Israel, that is beautiful, but it is a personal choice, certainly my choice. But it is not required. If you love Israel for the sake of America, this is required. If you care about the safety, prosperity, liberty and security of the United States of America, it is your patriotic duty to support Israel with all your heart, your soul and your might. Israel and only Israel stands at our frontier to fight our fight, which it does every day. It is a lonesome fight because our leaders in politics have chosen to isolate the Jewish State because it is a Jewish State. W e know this. W e knew it when Mr. Obama enriched the mullahs of Iran with cash and bombs and when he instructed envoy Samantha Power to snub Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke at the UN. The same bigotry infests the news media from New York to London. The BBC was troubled about the “inconvenience” facing the Palestinian Arabs after Israel restricted their access to the Temple Mount for two

days. There would be trouble, warned the BBC, and the trouble would be Israel’s fault. The BBC was not troubled by Jewish blood running through the streets of Jerusalem. Nor was the BBC troubled by Jewish tears throughout the Land. Those images were not shown – only sullen and inconvenienced Arabs were on display. The EU is troubled. Those ministers never miss a chance to blame “both sides” when it is only one side that does the killing. In fact nearly the entire gutless world keeps shaking hands with Fanatical Islamic Terrorism in order to pretend that nothing is happening, and if it is, let someone else, let Israel – let the Jewish State stand and fight for us so that we can sit back and worry about Palestinian Arabs being so terribly inconvenienced. In America it’s getting dangerous and it’s getting late but we still have choices. Israel is the only choice if decency still means anything. [New York-based author and best-selling novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva.] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kerry Indicates US W ill Defend Iran from Israel — Kerry indirectly tells US Senate that the deal with Iran includes that the US will protect Iranian nuclear program from Israeli sabotage; [By Ari Yashar, Arutz-7 News, 9/24/2015] US Secretary of State John Kerry indirectly conceded on Thursday, that the US would defend Iran's nuclear program from Israeli sabotage, in a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he was grilled over the deal reached last Tuesday. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) put Kerry on the spot when he asked him and Secretary of E nergy E rnest M oniz whether the controversial articles in Annex III on page 142 of the 159-page deal would stipulate that the US would block Israeli attempts to scupper the Iranian nuclear threat. The articles in question state that the US, world powers and the EU obligate to "co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage." Moniz did not reject the possibility but tried to deflect the implication of betrayal of Israeli security interests, saying, “I believe that refers to things like physical security and safeguards. All of our options and those of our allies and friends will remain in place.” Undeterred, Rubio responded, "I guess that's my point. If Israel conducts an airstrike on a physical facility, does this deal ... require us ... to help Iran protect and respond to that threat?" The secretary of energy hesitatingly replied by claiming that the clause would not obligate the US to respond to an Israeli airstrike.

Kerry then got involved, saying, "the purpose of that is to be able to have longer-term guarantees as we enter a world in which cyber warfare is increasingly a concern for everybody. If you are going to have a nuclear capacity, you clearly want to be able to m ake sure that those are adequately protected.” Responding to Kerry's hint that the clause is meant to defend Iran from "cyber warfare," Rubio asked if the deal obligates the US to defend Iran from an Israeli cyber attack. "I assure you that we will be coordinating very, very closely with Israel as we do on every aspect of Israel's security," said Kerry, tellingly refusing to answer directly what the deal obligates the US to do in such a scenario. "That's not how I read this," replied Rubio. "I don't see any way possible that we will be in conflict with Israel with respect to what we might want to do there, and I think we just have to wait until we get to that point," responded the secretary of state, essentially indicating that America's actions won't be clear until the moment of truth. Coordination with or against Israel? Despite the claims of "coordination" with Israel, the Israeli response to the clause shows that the Jewish state understands it to be a prom ise to defend Iran's nuclear program from Israel's attem pts to defend itself. "The US needs to defend Iran from an attack on its march to an Iranian (nuclear) bomb, because of the excuse that the nuclear (facilities) are for civilian purposes?," a senior Israeli diplomat at the Prime Minister's Office said Monday. The clause is all the more significant given that a number of cyber sabotage attempts in recent years have successfully halted Iran's presumed march to the nuclear bomb — most famously the 2010 Stuxnet virus. Those cyber attacks have been popularly attributed to Israel, as well as US President Barack Obama. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon in May 2012 indirectly hinted that Israel may have been behind a computer virus that followed Stuxnet and was launched against Iran, known as the "Flame" malware. The cyber sabotage option is all the more important due to Iran's development of its physical defense systems potentially blocking an airstrike; a top Iranian general announced last week that Iran will unveil a new missile defense systems in September including its own version of the advanced Russian S-300 system. It has been warned that the advanced systems would be able to block an Israeli or American airstrike aiming to take out Iran's covert nuclear program that reportedly is aiming to build a nuclear arsenal. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~