Israel does not need American permission to strike Iran, said Shabtai Shavit, former chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, in an exclusive interview with this reporter.
Asked whether Israel must coordinate with the U.S. on any future military actions against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Shavit replied, “I don’t think that Israel needs American permission when it comes to the survival of Israel.”
“But I would expect Israel to try to coordinate such a move if push comes to shove,” Shavit said.
Shavit, who traditionally shies away from news media interviews, made these statements during a radio interview with this reporter broadcast on New York’s WABC.
Shavit posited that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s declaration last week that his country is a nuclear state “proves that the international strategy addressing the nuclear threat until today was completely wrong.”
Shavit said he doesn’t see a consensus materializing to push through the crippling sanctions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been lobbying for.
Shavit did suggest, however, strong sanctions may still work to dissuade Iran from forging ahead with its nuclear ambitions.
Asked whether Israel should strike Iran if sanctions fail and Tehran presses ahead with its uranium enrichment program, Shavit replied, “I wouldn’t like to elaborate too much about this section, but I will only say that a nuclear Iran with the present regime of the extremists’ fanaticism – this is a threat of a survival scale.”
Syria Mulled Low-Grade War Against Israel
Syria contemplated launching low-grade attacks against Jewish communities in the Golan Heights to pressure Israel into negotiations aimed at relinquishing the strategic territory, a senior Israeli security official told this column.
The official said the Syrian government was debating whether to launch guerilla warfare and possibly sporadic mortar and rocket attacks targeting the Golan. The attacks would be blamed on an “independent” group operating out of Syria, the official said.
However, Syria apparently backed down from the plan after Iran expressed interest in using the low-grade attacks as a springboard to launch a larger conflict between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah militia in Lebanon, the official said.
The official said Syria is afraid of a large conflict or an outright war with Israel.
Just last week, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, that any war with his country would topple his regime. Lieberman was responding to a Syrian threat against Israeli cities a day earlier.
Far-Left Group Behind Green Bill
The Apollo Alliance, whose board includes several far left-wing members, was instrumental in helping draft a “clean technology” bill being pushed by U.S. senators, this reporter has learned.
The Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology Act of 2009, or IMPACT, was sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. The act seeks to establish a $30 billion revolving loan fund to help small and mid-sized manufacturers retool their factories to produce “clean technologies” and become more energy efficient.
In promotional material, the Apollo Alliance has boasted that the act is based on the group’s recently published “GreenMAP” or Green Manufacturing Action Plan. When Brown formally introduced the act in June, he was reportedly joined by Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides and other notable business, labor and “clean energy” leaders.
The Apollo Alliance claims it was founded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks “to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America.”
Among its board members are:
● Van Jones, President Obama’s controversial former “green jobs czar” who resigned in September after reports that he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement accusing the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Jones also called for “resistance” against the U.S.
● Joel Rogers, a founder of the socialist New Party. This column previously reportedthat evidence suggests that Obama at one point was a New Party member. In an interview with this reporter, New Party co-founder and Marxist activist Carl Davidson recounted Obama’s participation with the New Party.
● Jeff Jones, who founded the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group alongside former Obama associate Bill Ayers. Jones spent time on the run from law enforcement agencies while his group carried out a series of bombings of U.S. government buildings.
In other news, board members and endorsers of the Apollo Alliance – which successfully promoted “clean coal” funding as part of President Obama’s $787 billion “stimulus” bill – also have endorsed a group led by Al Gore that opposes the White House’s “clean coal” efforts, going so far as to claim “clean coal” doesn’t exist, this column has learned.
The Apollo Alliance boasted in its literature of its role in helping to craft portions of the multi-billion-dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (also known as the “stimulus” bill) that Obama signed into law last year.
The Alliance helped draft “clean energy and green-collar jobs provisions” of the bill, for which $3.4 billion was earmarked to work toward making “clean coal” and reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from industrial facilities and fossil fuel power plants.
A slew of groups that support the Apollo Alliance as well as individuals on Apollo’s board endorsed what was known as the “New Apollo Program and the Apollo Economic Recovery Act,” a mock recovery act on which sections of Obama’s “stimulus” bill was partly based. That act also called for funding for “clean coal.”
However, this column has learned that many of those same Apollo endorsers and board members are also members of Gore’s lobby group, Reality Coalition, which opposes “clean coal” initiatives and actually argues “clean coal” doesn’t exist.
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com. He appears throughout the week on leading U.S. radio programs and is the author of the book “The Late Great State of Israel.” Follow Klein on Twitter under the name “AaronKleinWND.”
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