“I fear this looks like a civil war”, one Libyan rebel commander from Misrata told the Associated Press, in the wake of a fierce firefight between rival militia factions using heavy weapons in broad daylight in Tripoli on Tuesday.  Four fighters were reportedly killed and five wounded in the clash ignited by the attempts of a Misrata-based militia to free a comrade detained by the Tripoli Military Council on suspicion of theft. But such clashes have become increasingly common in the Libyan capital over the past two months, as rival militias stake out turf in the power vacuum caused by the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. And while leaders on both sides of Tuesday’s clash were eventually able to broker a cease-fire, the deep fissures of tribe, region, ideology and sometimes even neighborhood that divide rival armed groups persist —and there’s no sign yet of the emergence of a central political authority with the military muscle to enforce its writ.

The residents and militias of Tripoli have been trying for months to persuade the Misrata and Zintan fighters who stormed the capital to topple the regime to go back to their home towns, but those fighters are staying put—and are accused of harassing the locals. They see themselves as the ones who shouldered the greatest burden in the battle to drive out Gaddafi, and they are suspicious of edicts by the National Transitional Council (NTC), which they see as self-appointed interlopers from Benghazi (the NTC’s recognition by the West and Arab governments as Libya’s legitimate government notwithstanding). The fighters of Zintan and Misrata are in no hurry to subordinate themselves to a national army led by returned exiles and a government of which they’re wary; nor are they willing to accept the authority of the Tripoli Military Council headed by the Islamist Abdel Hakim Belhadj, despite his endorsement by the NTC. Mindful of the political power that flows from being armed and organized, and determined to leverage that into a greater share of power and resources for the regions and towns they claim to represent, the regional militias are in no rush to give up their control of prized political real estate. They’ve ignored the Dec. 20 deadline to leave Tripoli. And, when NTC-backed armed groups tangle with them, as happened with the New Year’s Eve arrest of some of their men, they’re willing to fight.

“Freedom is messy”, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously offered as an explanation for the chaos that beset Baghdad in the weeks that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein. The difference, of course, is that in Iraq, the U.S. military had established a monopoly of force —Rumsfeld was simply clinging to the hope that it wouldn’t have to be used to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq, and could be brought home pronto. But Libya, as we know, was a different kind of operation— an aproach hailed by U.S. and NATO officials as a new model of ‘intervention-lite’ in which Western powers and Arab allies could help indigenous populations oust odious dictators with minimal commitment of blood and treasure. While months of air strikes and a few hundred Qatari special forces troops on the ground proved to be enough to shatter Colonel Gaddafi’s regime, it could not—nor did it intend to—fill the resultant security void. NATO and its partners simply recognized the Benghazi-based NTC and its allied armed formations as the legitimate authority, supplied it with aid and resources, and hoped for the best.

The problem, of course, was that the Libyan rebels were never an army; they were patchwork of small local militia units, deserters from the regular army, and a smattering of former exiles with military experience. Moreover, the recognition extended by foreign powers to the NTC was far in advance of the extent to which Libyans, even many of those in the forefront of the battle to oust Gaddafi, were willing to accept its lead. The fact that the rebel leadership had not established an alternative power center meant that the collapse of Gaddafi also meant an effective collapse of state authority. The challenge now facing the rebels is to build a new state on the ruins of the old, and the first order of state-building business is establishing a monopoly on military force within its borders. The NTC is struggling to meet that challenge.

Residents of the capital complain of being menaced by the militiamen from out of town.  The situation is particularly grim for residents of towns and neighborhoods thought to have supported Gaddafi, which are routinely subject to abuse by fighters . The NTC may talk of “national reconciliation,” but it has precious little control over fighters whose actions imperil that objective. Instead, the NTC is forced to accommodate them.

Even as tribal and regional schisms intensify the sometimes violent contest among the different militia formations, the alienation of communities that had supported Gaddafi’s regime also creates fertile soil for an insurgency. There are certainly plenty of men of fighting age out there (many of them armed) who fought for the old regime. In some Tripoli neighborhoods, pro-Gaddafi graffiti still reportedly goes up nightly. And British officials warned late last month that a number of top al-Qaeda leaders have left Pakistan for Libya, looking to take advantage of the security vacuum to set up shop.

The security challenges would be more manageable if a political consensus existed on the terms for building a new democratic state in Libya, but that too remains elusive. The NTC has been beset with challenges over its less than transparent composition and process of selection—in December it even faced a tent-city protest established outside its headquarters to demand that it disclose its membership and make public its decisions. The Misrata and Zintan militias don’t trust the Benghazi rebel leadership, and they shamelessly use their military muscle to demand a greater share of the political pie—for example, refusing to hand over high-value detainees, such as Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, until their political demands have been met. Last month, an umbrella group claiming to represent 70% of militia fighters demanded that the NTC granted them 40% of its seats.

The conflict among the militia is inherently political: It’s the form in which rival tribal and regional groupings are staking their claim to power and resources in the post-Gaddafi order. And it’s far from clear how the formal political system being put in place to regulate such competition will ease tensions. Yet, the criteria by which the NTC selects its own members has not been made public. And the draft law setting rules for elections to be held in June that the Council released for discussion last Monday suggests that the promise of elections may not resolve the emerging schisms. The draft evades the highly-charged issue of districting, meaning that there’s no clarity on how many seats in a new legislature will be allocated to each town and region, a decision that will shape the distribution of oil wealth in the new system. The draft law also plans to exclude as candidates those who hold positions in the current interim government and its local and military councils, officials of the former regime and those deemed to be late adopters of the revolutionary cause.

Thus the downside of intervention lite: It’s a lot easier to take down a regime, as the U.S. learned in Iraq, than it is to establish a new order. And yet in Libya, the forces trying to establish that new order are far weaker, in security terms, than the U.S. had been in Iraq, even if some of their leaders —most notably NTC President Mustafa Abul Jalil—enjoy the advantage of a legitimacy never accorded to the U.S. in Iraq. Given the mounting threat of chaos, Jalil’s authority may not be enough. Just as those Bush Administration Kool Aid merchants who insisted that most of the U.S. forces sent into Iraq could be brought home almost immediately suffered a nasty rebuke from reality, so might the advocates of Libya-style intervention-lite find themselves forced to reconsider their prescriptions in the months ahead.

When I first saw the sea of blue panels amid the scorched desert sands, driving along Highway 90 this June, I knew that Ketura Sun was a crucial – albeit late-coming – addition to the uniform landscape of the Arava.

At 4.95 megawatts, the medium-sized solar field was the first of its kind in sunny Israel. The field is capable of powering a supply equivalent to seven percent of Eilat’s energy needs and aims to fulfill one of David Ben-Gurion’s original visions, Arava Power Company president, Yosef Abramowitz, had told me during a Jerusalem Post visit to his company’s field. The visionaries behind the gleaming field – which is made up of 18,500 photovoltaic panels from Chinese company Suntech – were, along with Abramowitz, Ketura resident Ed Hofland and US businessman David Rosenblatt.

But it took way too long – and quite a great struggle on the part of Arava Power – to get this field going, leaving Israel trailing far behind cloudy Germany and several other European nations in its efforts to harness the sun’s light, and transform it into usable, clean energy. Abramowitz, dubbed “Captain Sunshine” by kibbutz residents, and his partners fought a five-year, uphill battle with 24 government offices to get the permits necessary to start building the field. Yet despite the ever-present bureaucratic challenges, the company plans to press on with its solar ventures.

Next in Arava Power’s plans is to construct Israel’s first large-sized solar field, at 40 megawatts, directly across Highway 90 from the current photovoltaic oasis.

And with the government’s July decision to approve a widespread increase in renewable energy allocations – with specifically 460 megawatts for large solar fields, in addition to the 300 megawatts total available for medium fields – it is the hope of clean energy entrepreneurs that more fields like Ketura Sun will be popping up across the country’s deserts sooner, rather than later. The hope among industry experts is that solar energy and other renewable sources, combined with natural gas, will eventually be able to power the country and minimize its reliance on “dirty” sources, like coal, jet fuel oil and diesel.

On winning the Post’s poll for top environmental story of the year, Arava Power echoed these sentiments.

“Arava Power is gratified to share the excitement of The Jerusalem Post readers in naming the launch of Ketura Sun, Israel’s first commercial solar field, the most important environmental story of the year,” said Rosenblatt, co-founder and vice chair of the Arava Power board. “Ketura Sun is both proof of concept and a down payment on the solar revolution that is expected in Israel in 2012 and in which Arava Power expects to continue to play a meaningful role.”

Rosenblatt emphasized his hope that the successful launch of Ketura Sun would be a catalyst for similar such ventures all over the country.

“Hopefully next year, Jerusalem Post readers will have to make the tough choice for top environmental story of the year between launch of first Beduin commercial solar field, the groundbreaking on Israel’s first large field (40 megawatts at Ketura) or increasing Israel’s renewable target by 2020 from a low 10 percent to the European Union standard of 20%,” he added.

The Jordan News Agency has published an unusually inciting report that the monthly recital of Psalms in the Old City was a “storming of the Temple Mount.” Similar allegations often are reported by Palestinian Authority and other Arab media, but Jordanian media is normally more restrained.

The recital of Psalms at several closed gates to the Temple Mount is performed by thousands of Jews, under close police guard, around the beginning of every new Hebrew month, and the eve of the month of Tevet this week was no exception.
Its coincidence with the Chanukah festival gave Jordan News Agency’s Ramallah correspondent an opportunity to report, “Jewish extremists on Monday stormed al-Aqsa Mosque compound by crossing Bab al-Magharibe bridge [the entrance used by non-Muslims to the Temple Mount].

“Settlers roamed the compound’s yard under the protection of Israeli police and soldiers.”
The report also alleged that rabbis urged “their supporters to storm al-Aqsa Mosque in the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah to perform religious Talmudic rituals in its yard.” The reporter wrote that the Jews were “drumming and chanting…racist slogans against Arabs and Palestinians.”

The Jordanian report carried an illustrative picture from its archives of the Al Aqsa mosque covered by smoke, presumably from rifle fire or grenades thrown by Jews “attacking” the holy site. 

In fact, Jerusalem police keep the monthly recital of Psalms far from the entrance to the Temple Mount and delivered a briefing to the participants before the procession to the closed gates, warning them not to stray from the prescribed route and not to engage in any incitement. There rarely is any trouble, the worst usually being a rock or bottle thrown by an Arab resident from a home overlookng the procession route.
Drums and music accompany the participants who recite several Psalms at several gates before dispersing. The last stop usually is an area generally closed to Jews and facing the Temple Mount.

Jordan News Agency editor Abid Bambra told Arutz Sheva Tuesday morning, “We are not responsible for the accuracy the correspondent’s article.”
Questioned abut the incitement, she said that any complaints could be directed to the agency’s office.

David Ha’ivri a long time activist for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount said, “The account by Jordan News is ridiculous. The Temple Mount is closed to Jewish visitors asides for highly restricted visits, which are monitored by both Israeli police and Islamic Walkf. Jews are not even allowed to utter a prayer on the Mount which is Judaism’s most holy place. Recently I was detained by the police and taken in for questioning on suspicions that I had bowed down there.”

The “City of David” neighborhood, home to a major archaeological dig and located across the road from the Western Wall, plans a new tourist center that is likely to arouse anger at the United Nations, the Obama administration and the Palestinian Authority.

The planned center and parking lot over the excavations is years away from construction, and the plans are to be discussed in a Jerusalem committee Wednesday. The Associated Press already has reported the plan and referred to the center’s sponsor, the Elad Foundation, as a “hard-line Israeli group.”

Elad, similar to other nationalists, has urged Jewish development in the area in accordance with its being an official part of Jerusalem. The international community, however, does not recognize Israel’s right to all of Jerusalem that was restored to  the country in the Six-Day War in 1967.

The City of David is at the entrance to the Silwan Valley, a hotbed of contention and frequent terrorist attacks by Arabs objecting to a Jewish presence in the area. Silwan is also the site of the underground water tunnel built by Judean King Hezekiah during the first Temple period. In the “City of David” excavations, a signet ring from the time of Jeremiah with a Hebrew inscription was found.

There has been a steady growth in the number of Jewish families living in the City of David, and there is a long line of people on the waiting list for homes that are often bought from neighboring Arabs.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Ministry announced on Tuesday it is investing more than $5 million in 2012 to maintain and conserve Jewish sites in the Old City, Rachel’s Tomb at the southern edge of Jerusalem and the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) on Mount Meron.

The refurbishment and rehabilitation plan of the National Center for the Development of Holy Sites of the Ministry of Tourism also includes new projects at the grave of Samuel the Prophet (Neve Samuel) in northern Jerusalem and  the grave of Rabbi Akiva in Tiberias.

“Israeli and international Jewish tourists visiting the Jewish holy sites are important anchors in the Ministry of Tourism’s activities both in Israel and abroad,” said Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov.

“If Jesus were to come this year, Bethlehem would be closed’, the London Guardian reported this week. And what if Abraham were to visit?
The Guardian article painted a bleak picture of an “Apartheid wall” and military checkpoints that supposedly have stagnated the city of Bethlehem, located immediately south of Jerusalem. This idea was also used by anti-Israel NGO’s (see NGO Monitor’s “The NGO’s that Stole Christmas” posted on Arutz Sheva for details.)
The writer, Phoebe Greenwood, also details the nearby Jewish communities that are “strangling” the city and quotes a Catholic priest bemoaning the exodus of Christians from the ancient city. He neglected to mention that the reason is mistreatment by the Muslim PA.
Many businesses in the communities employ neighboring Arabs, who are able to travel freely while Jews are not allowed into Bethlehem and other “Apartheid” areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Foreign media headlined the alleged problems of Bethlehem – until Christmas Eve, when suddenly there were reports of nearly 100,000 visitors who apparently were able to pass the “Apartheid wall.”
All of the reports from foreign news services, such as the Associated Press, routinely traced Christians’ problems to Israel. “Like the rest of the West Bank, the town fell on hard times after the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation broke out in late 2000,” according to AP.
Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer who teaches at Hebrew University, in an interview by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld posted on Arutz Sheva recently, says that Christians lost their majority status in Bethlehem soon after Yasser Arafat assumed control of the Palestinian Authority.
Weiner added that “under these regimes, the resident Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses including intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycott, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion”.
“And Muslims who have converted to Christianity are the ones in the greatest danger”.
In the previous years under Jewish control, the economy in Bethelhem, as in all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, flourished after being suffocated under Jordanian rule, until the Intifada under Arafat. Under Jordanian occupation between 1948 and 1967, all holy sites were barred to both Christians and Jews, except for visiting dignitaries, until Israel opened up the sites after the Six-Day War in 1967.
Neither the Guardian nor foreign news services noted what would happen to the Biblical Abraham if he were to return today for a visit to the Temple Mount, where he sacrificed a ram after G-d told him not to sacrifice his only son, Yitzchak (Isaac).
After the Six-Day War, Israel recognized Muslim claims to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s most sacred site, but Muslim authorities have used their de facto control to haul out tons of earth containing artifacts dating from the First and Second Jewish Temple, whose existence has been increasingly denied by the Palestinian Authority in specific and the Arab world in general.
Jews are barred from praying on the Temple Mount and are not even allowed to carry any holy articles with them. With Muslim observers supervising visits, police have frequently arrested or removed Jews for various violations, such as singing or reciting a prayer even in a whisper.
The Palestinian Authority has been insistent in claiming that the Temple Mount, as well as all of the Old City, is sovereign PA territory and will be the seat of a country it wants to establish. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has stated that in a Palestinian Authority country, no Jews would be allowed, which would preclude a visit by Abraham to the place that is the foundation of the belief in one G-d.

Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the first archeological find to confirm written testimony of the ritual practices at the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

An Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeological survey at the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount yielded a tiny tin artifact, the size of a button, inscribed with the Aramaic words: “Daka Le’Ya,” which the excavation directors on behalf of the IAA, archaeologists Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, explain means “pure for God.”

Researchers believe the artifact, dated to the first century, towards the end of the Second Temple period, is a seal similar to those described in the Mishnah. If they are correct, this is the first time physical evidence of the temple ritual was found to corroborate the written record.

The team believes the tiny seal was put on objects designated to be used in the temple, and thus had to be ceremonially pure.

In this vein, and in the spirit of Hanukkah, Jerusalem District archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said: “It is written in the Talmud that the only cruse of oil that was discovered in the Temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, “lay with the seal of the High Priest” – that is: the seal indicated that the oil is pure and can be used in the Temple. Remember, this cruse of oil was the basis for the miracle of Hanukkah that managed to keep the menorah lit for eight days”.

In addition to this artifact, the dig also yielded other Second Temple artifacts, some older from the time of the Hasmonean Dynasty rule, including oil lamps, earthenware pots, and containers filled with oils and perfumes, as well as coins bearing Hasmonean kings such as Alexander Jannaeus and John Hyrcanus

A new era of increasing instability is opening in East Asia.

The death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Jong is only adding another, if explosive, element to an already volatile equation:

    China enters a period of substantially slower economic growth, if not a crash, on the eve next autumn of a takeover by a new generation of undistinguished Communist Party leaders.
    Japan wrestles with efforts to remake its domestic politics, but buoyed by its always magnificent; if constipated; bureaucracy, pursues a security buildup despite, ironically, a left-leaning governing party precariously clinging to power.
    South Korea’s miraculous ascendancy to world economic leadership and prosperity is imperiled by its export-led strategy now facing world economic shrinkage, and with the prospect of continued harassment from the North.
    North Korea attempts continuance of its highly leverage Communist monarchy but its balancing act could well succumb to both internal rivalries and Western pressure to halt its profitable foreign arms sales.
    Taiwan goes to another democratic election in January under the evil eye of Beijing that fears recent increasingly binding economic ties may be countered by “nationalists” intent on maintaining de facto independence.
    The Obama Administration has made new commitments, particularly in Southeast Asia, of resistance to aggressive Chinese claims despite rapidly reducing the navy as it backs out of two, long and inconclusive wars.

Beijing’s high growth rate — despite its majority largely left out of the Coastal Cities boom — is dropping precipitously, because of inherent weaknesses built into its state capitalism and the world economic downturn. Having abandoned Maoism two decades ago, conventional wisdom held such rapid growth essential to sustain one-party, elitist rule. While there is no organized national opposition, there are increasing signs local Communist cadre have lost control. Massive infrastructure overexpansion, declining export prospects and untenable internal debt levels could produce a breakdown.

Furthermore, Pyongyang provides new concern for Bejiing’s conflicted view of North Korea. China’s aid supports Pyongyang at the same time North Korea rejects “the China model”, the Kim leadership believing — after a failed trial — it could not maintain control were widespread private initiative permitted.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, refugee flows from an implosion resulting from the burden of one of the world’s largest militaries and developing weapons of mass destruction would not be the principal threat. What Beijing fears most would be Korean reunification, which led the young Communist China to risk intervention in the stalemated Korean War for control of the peninsula.

Again, conventional comparisons of Korean reunification to Germany are inappropriate. Assuming China could not prevent an internal crackup which might come suddenly — as it did to once seemingly impregnable East Germany and model Communist dictatorship Romania — South Korea could absorb a North Korean colony, and, in fact, longer term turn it to economic advantage.

To the consternation of Japan and the U.S., too, as well as China, the world might suddenly face a strong, new nuclear armed power.

As it has for a century, much will depend on China’s relationship with Japan, always uppermost in Beijing’s calculations. Beijing has rejected Tokyo’s proposal for defusing the Japan [East] Sea flashpoint by joint development of gas. Meanwhile, despite the leftwing careers of many now serving cabinet members and its declining population, Tokyo continues to move to quality manufacturing, heightened industrial R&D, and consolidating defenses with purchase of F35s from the U.S. [As always, Tokyo sees joint manufacturing arrangements enhancing Japan’s technology.]

The current U.S. defense appropriation dropped funds for moving American forces from Okinawa to Guam; probably not in the strategic interests of either country given the Island’s unique geographic centrality. The Japanese are pushing a trilateral strategic relationship with India and the U.S. — which may again include Australia now that Canberra is lifting its export ban on uranium to New Delhi — in a not very subtle effort to counter China’s Indian Ocean expansion, a continuing Tibet buildup and encroachment on northern India and Pakistan, and central Asian initiatives including Afghanistan.

Moves to end Japan’s postwar ban on arms exports could be strategically significant, negotiated, possibly, as part of the Obama Administration’s Trans Pacific Partnership still running up against protectionist Japanese agricultural interests.

Whatever else, pieces are moving rapidly on the Asian chessboard. But as always, unanticipated events are likely to dictate eventual outcome of the best laid plans of mice and allies.

The Congressional Research Service has reported that U.S. aid was improving
the military of Kuwait, the Gulf Cooperation Council sheikdom.

CRS said Kuwait, deemed a major non-NATO ally of the United States, has
expanded its military since the Iraq invasion in 1990. The report said
Washington has been equipping Kuwait to counter any threat from neighboring
Iran.

“Its [Kuwait’s] military has now nearly regained its pre-Iraq invasion strength of 17,000,” the report said.

Over the last three years, Washington sold to Kuwait equipment meant to contain Iran. CRS cited the PAC-3 missile defense system, AIM-120C air-to-air missile as well as anti-tank missiles. Kuwait has not been eligible to acquire U.S. military surplus.

Authored by analyst Kenneth Katzman, the report said the United States has used Kuwait as the key exit route for American troops assigned to withdraw from neighboring Iraq. The report said Kuwait could host U.S. forces meant to respond to any emergency in Iraq after 2011.

The main U.S. staging facility in Kuwait was identified as Camp Arifjan. The report also cited Camp Buehring, which contains a desert firing range as well as serves for the overhaul of equipment shipped from Iraq.

“It is at these locations that equipment from the Iraq battlefield are
being cleaned, repaired, and packed up for return to the United States or
stored in regional prepositioning sites,” the report said.

“Over the past three years, U.S. sales to Kuwait have also comported
with the overall goals of the Gulf Security Dialogue program designed to
contain Iran by enhancing the individual and joint capabilities of the Gulf
states,” the report said.

CRS said the biggest beneficiary was the Kuwait Air Force, which
received U.S.-origin F/A-18 fighter-jets.

“U.S. officials say that the U.S.-Kuwait defense relationship, enhanced
by the small amounts of U.S. assistance, has improved the quality of the
Kuwaiti military, particularly the air force,” CRS, in a report titled
“Kuwait: Security, Reform and U.S. Policy,” said.

Some two months ago, the Prime Minister’s Office received a request to arrange a conference call with some Jewish and Christian leaders. The proposal was to sponsor an event of a routine kind – Netanyahu gets on the line, gives a short briefing about the “situation,” fires off some relevant advocacy points, and then answers questions, making a concerted effort not to supply fodder for headlines.

But, in the end, the conference call was not held. The Prime Minister’s advisers, who asked the proposers of the idea for details about who would be involved in the call, discovered that it would be a two-part conversation. During the first part, Netanyahu would speak and he would be followed immediately by Newt Gingrich, who is currently vying for the Republican nomination in the U.S. Presidential race.

In contrast to the embarrassing affair of the revised remarks declaimed at the memorial service for victims of the Carmel fire, this time Netanyahu’s aides came to their senses in a timely fashion, politely apologized to the conference call organizers, and cancelled the Prime Minister’s involvement in the call.

“We realized that were we to hold this conference call we would be seen as intervening in internal American politics, or even as supporting Gingrich’s candidacy,” explained one of Netanyahu’s advisers. “You have to be very careful and sensitive during this period, especially when some persons want to drag us into an argument.”

For more than two years, Israel has been part of the domestic political debate in the U.S. From an issue that united Democrats and Republicans, Israel has turned into a topic about which the two parties exchange barbs. Persons close to President Obama view Benjamin Netanyahu as being responsible for this change, and blame him for meddling in American politics, and for forging alliances with Republicans.

Echoes of this were sounded in a column published by Tom Friedman in The New York Times. Friedman, who is close to President Obama and reviles Prime Minister Netanyahu, played a top role in the instigation of a letter sent by Netanyahu aide Ron Dermer to The New York Times, in which he accused the paper of regularly distorting positions uphold by Israel’s government.

“I sure hope that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics,” opined Friedman. “That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” Friedman subsequently apologized for a portion of his remarks, but on a factual level, it was Republican Congressmen from Texas who proposed that Netanyahu deliver the speech and who moved the event forward. Not just Netanyahu’s welfare concerned them; they hoped also to deliver a blow to Obama.

An Evangelical Conference turned into a Republican Election Rally

When Netanyahu and his aides are asked, they insist that they make every effort to avoid meddling in domestic American politics. The speech in Congress, they say, bore witness to widespread support for Israel and for Netanyahu among both parties. Netanyahu, they insist, makes a point of meeting with virtually any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, who comes to Israel, and in every speech before an American audience, he emphasizes that Israel must remain a non-partisan issue in the U.S.

Three months ago, he even upbraided MK Danny Danon for taking part in a joint press conference with Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry in which the Texas Governor dumped a bucket of acerbic accusations at President Obama. “We try all the time not to step on such land mines,” explained one of Netanyahu’s aides.

There is some truth in such protestations voiced by the Prime Minister’s associates. More than once, Netanyahu has been the victim of Republican spin-masters who tried to gain political capital in the U.S. from meetings with him. For instance, a month ago, three evangelical pastors arrived from Florida to Israel. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who has a connection with one of the pastors, asked that Netanyahu receive them for a meeting in his office.

Netanyahu responded affirmatively, and sat with the trio for 45 minutes. At the end of the meeting Hispanic pastor Guillermo Maldonado whipped out a small video camera and asked Netanyahu to be filmed reciting a short greeting, to be broadcast at an evangelical conference he is organizing for Orlando in April. Surprised, Netanyahu assented, but asked to film the greeting at a later time.

About a week later, an invitation to the conference started to circulate on the internet, which featured Netanyahu’s photograph, alongside Republican candidates Michelle Bachman and Texas Governor Rick Perry, who are supported by the radical-right Tea Party groups. The invitation caption referred to a 2012 Awakening. Netanyahu’s office came across this invitation after it had circulated among tens of thousands of Florida residents. It can be assumed that Netanyahu won’t send a filmed greeting to the event.

Greetings for Glenn Beck, friendship with Newt Gingrich

Complaints vented by Netanyahu’s aides about how they are dragged into domestic American politics seem a bit peculiar when they are considered against the backdrop of steps taken by the Prime Minister in past months. For instance, Netanyahu unhesitatingly sent a filmed greeting to an award ceremony staged by the Zionist Organization of America in honor of controversial radio personality Glenn Beck, who devotes the bulk of his broadcasts to attacks against President Obama:

“Glenn You too have been fearless in defending Israel against the slanders that are hurled against [it]. You’ve done that with considerable personal cost, but you’ve never backed off, you’ve never flinched, and I want to tell you how deeply we appreciate this stand of courage and integrity,” commented Netanyahu.

Those who sponsored the award given to Beck were Sheldon and Miri Adelson. Adelson, a Jewish gambling mogul, is the owner of Netanyahu’s house newspaper Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) and is considered one of the main donors to his election campaign.

Alongside Glenn Beck and Bibi Netanyahu, Sheldon Adelson proffered support for leading Republican politician Newt Gingrich, the same candidate with whom Netanyahu was warily disinclined to engage in the conference call. Between 2006 and 2010, Adelson donated $7 million to Gingrich’s “American Solutions” institute.

Gingrich has known Netanyahu since his days as opposition chairman in the 1990s. The Republican politician was Speaker of the House at the time; he forged an alliance with Netanyahu, helping the Israeli opposition leader’s attempts to block assistance which President Bill Clinton gave to the Oslo process.

Former Israel Ambassador to Washington Itamar Rabinovich claimed in an interview with the Jewish newspaper, the Forward, that Netanyahu encouraged Gingrich to pressure Clinton, and that Israel’s embassy had to carry out “damage control” regarding laws that Gingrich sponsored to block the conferral of assistance to the newly created Palestinian Authority.

In recent weeks, Gingrich has voiced a series of declarations whose contents and tenor make anything said by Netanyahu sound as though the Prime Minister is Yossi Beilin. Gingrich promised that if elected President, he would move America’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; he branded the Palestinians an “invented nation,” and he even stated that he would consider releasing the incarcerated spy, Jonathan Pollard. Meantime, Gingrich’s candidacy seems stalled, and he is unable, for now, to close the gap against Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

Campaign in Israel Today

Adelson backs Gingrich’s candidacy in the Presidential race not only in the U.S. He is promoting Gingrich in Israel. In May 2010, more than half a year before he declared his candidacy, Gingrich published in the Adelson-owned newspaper Israel Today an article in which he claimed that the Obama administration’s policy toward Iran and terror is completely divorced from reality; he warned that this policy could bring about a “second Holocaust” of the Jewish people.

Last January, Israel Today editor Amos Regev traveled to Washington to interview Gingrich. In the extended interview, Gingrich, described by Regev as “an Israel-supporting American patriot,” attacked Obama, and gave Israel a “green light” to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In recent months, Adelson’s newspaper has provided Gingrich the same sort of unqualified support it proffers to Netanyahu. Almost all of Gingrich’s statements, and polls which forecast his victory in Republican primaries, receive ample coverage in this freely distributed newspaper; sometimes they are splashed on the front page.

Dror Eidar, one of Israel Today’s leading columnists, wrote a few days ago that Gingrich is a “refreshing phenomenon” in America’s liberal-tainted seas. He praised Gingrich’s statement regarding the Palestinian people, and called the Republican politician “a courageous intellectual who knows history well, and doesn’t acquiesce to mumbo jumbo.”

Netanyahu’s natural allies – conservative evangelicals

Netanyahu doesn’t exactly maintain balanced relations with America’s two political camps. He is deeply rooted in the conservative camp, and shows disdain for the “naivete” of the Democratic party’s liberal wing, from which Barack Obama emerged. As with Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu, his natural allies are evangelicals and members of the Tea Party movement.

Netanyahu and his associates are close to the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) organization, which is comprised mainly of evangelicals who believe that Israel’s existence is a necessary precondition for the return of the Messiah, and the coming of redemption. In their eyes, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who threatens to destroy Israel, is nothing less than an agent of Satan on earth.

Each year, Netanyahu delivers a satellite address to thousands of participants at CUFI’s conference in Washington. “Our enemies think that we are you and that you are us,” exclaimed Netanyahu at July’s CUFI conference. “You know something? They are absolutely right.”

An example of how closely the Christian right is tied to Netanyahu could be gleaned from an email distributed among tens of thousands of evangelical supporters prior to Netanyahu’s appearance at the UN this September. These activists were asked to fill out a form, and send letters of support to Netanyahu. “Prime Minister Netanyahu will be entering a lions den,” the email declared. “When it comes to Israel, the UN is hostile territory… Join me in telling Prime Minister Netanyahu that millions of Christians stand with him.”

When it comes to Israel, Evangelical Christians represent one of the strongest lobby groups on Capitol Hill. They exert powerful influence within the Republican party, and will play a part in the selection of its next candidate for the Presidency. That is a key reason why virtually all the Republican candidates vie with one another to release flamboyantly pro-Israel statements – they know that such utterances are music to the evangelicals’ ears.

“Evangelicals in the U.S. will support any Israeli prime minister,” one of Netanyahu’s aides explained. “But they regard Netanyahu as a rock star.” Whether or not he is a rock star, Netanyahu and his people know that in all likelihood, Barack Obama is not going anywhere. For Netanyahu, a second Obama Presidency will be another story altogether, not necessarily a good one.