Red lines.

A rebel spokesman, who spoke from a “liberated area” held by the opposition in Damascus, told NBC News there were huge explosions just before 2 a.m. Sunday local time (7 p.m. Saturday ET) in the Qaysoun mountains on the edge of Damascus… “Secondary explosions continued for about four hours. They shook all of Damascus. There [...]

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War

You’re to be forgiven if you’ve opened your browser to good ole’ Hot Gas this morning and think you’ve stepped into a scene from Groundhog Day. Israel bombed Syria? Didn’t we just cover this yesterday? Yes… yes we did. But this is the other bombing that happened overnight. BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes bombed the outskirts [...]

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Jordan "alarmed" at Syrian opposition control near its borders.

As Barack Obama prepares to send lethal arms to a Syria opposition that the New York Times reports has no secular armed forces within it, another terrorist group made their plans to get involved explicit.  Hezbollah had been quietly assisting their sponsor, Bashar al-Assad, in reasserting control in areas adjacent to their Lebanon positions.  Last [...]

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Action?

Not just once, either. Repeatedly. That makes not one but two close U.S. allies whispering that Assad’s gone and done the thing that the leader of the free world said he Must Not Do. It’s intervention time. Israel’s senior military intelligence analyst said Tuesday there was evidence the Syrian government had repeatedly used chemical weapons [...]

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Plus, a gamechanger for Israeli energy independence?

After an unusually long break from rocket attacks and military responses from a five-month cease-fire, rockets again began shelling southern Israel from Gaza the last few days. Israel didn’t wait long to deliver a response, attacking “two extensive terror sites” with air attacks of their own. Gaza answered back with two more rocket launches, once [...]

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“He’s a very complex man."

Via Mediaite. Remember, this guy is supposedly thinking of running for Senate. In the tri-state area. In a Republican primary. Second look at staying at Fox forever?

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Influence.

You can thank Obama for this. Fresh off his visits to Theodore Herzl’s tomb and Yad Vashem, he decided to broker a detente between Netanyahu and a guy who told a UN conference less than a month ago that Zionism is a crime against humanity. But it’s okay: Erdogan later walked back the charge by [...]

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Concessions.

To be scrupulously fair, the tone of the clip isn’t true to the tone of the entire speech. The Standard has the transcript. Most of what preceded this was as florid a valentine to Israel and Zionism as a U.S. president has ever delivered. It had to be in order to prepare his audience for [...]

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Pals.

None of that “frosty relationship” stuff for these guys this afternoon, at least not to the public eye; at their joint press conference kicking off President Obama’s three-day visit, he and Prime Minister Netanyahu were all kinds of friendly while Obama sought to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support. Via NRO: On a more serious [...]

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"You're incorrigible."

Drudge has been having fun all day with minor embarrassments from O’s trip to Israel, from the presidential limo breaking down to Israel deciding it’ll have to dig up the tree he planted to this, in which he allegedly “berates” Chuck Todd. I wouldn’t call it that; even when he’s annoyed, Obama’s adept at not [...]

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Box checked.

As Joe Biden wings his way to Rome to celebrate the installation mass of new Roman Catholic pontiff Pope Francis at the Vatican, his boss will make a pilgrimage — of sorts — to Jerusalem. Despite his high-profile visit to Israel in 2007 as a candidate with little foreign-policy experience, Barack Obama never bothered to [...]

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Timelines.

The AP headlines this story, “Obama says Iran a year away from nuclear weapon.” Read the excerpt below. Is that what he’s saying, or is he saying that it would take them a year to build one if/when they get eventually cracking full-bore on weaponization? Prediction: When 2013 comes and goes without any resolution, diplomatic [...]

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Just in time?

Talk about timing.  With the first-ever visit to Israel by Barack Obama coming in just days, the Israelis have finally formed a government behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud Party didn’t win enough Knesset seats to easily create a coalition.  Now, with three parties backing him, Netanyahu can look forward to dealing with his [...]

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Okay.

How can he be sure? Hagel always looks like he’s been crying. To believe that a professional politician needed it explained to him that the term “Jewish lobby” is problematic, you’d have to believe he’s an abject imbecile. So … yeah, this is actually plausible: “He struck me as sincere, and you know, you have [...]

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Change.

If he was qualified for the Nobel Peace Prize despite having accomplished nothing, I suppose he’s “qualified” for this. Next year’s honoree, presumably: Chuck Hagel? From the Times of Israel: “Barack Obama is a true friend of the State of Israel, and has been since the beginning of his public life,” Peres and the award [...]

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Hope.

I’m skeptical, but if a guy who’s been reporting on foreign affairs for 30 years (with a Pulitzer to his name) is willing to go out on a limb like this, he must have good reason. I don’t think that a Hagel exit would hurt President Obama much. SecDef nominees have blown up on the [...]

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Trouble?

There is a way to spin it, actually. You could throw a tantrum over how mean Republicans were to poor Chuck, like Chris Matthews did. But evidently, and uncharacteristically, the White House isn’t going that route. Why not? They’ll never admit that Hagel was a terrible choice by yanking the nomination; there’s also no evidence [...]

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"Name one person, in your opinion, who's intimidated by the 'Israeli lobby' in the United States Senate."

You’ve already seen a bunch of video of Hagel today. Get ready to see a bunch more. As I’m writing this, I’m hearing on Twitter that Ted Cruz is destroying him over America supposedly being the “world’s bully.” This isn’t a confirmation hearing, it’s target practice. The beauty of this clip isn’t just the spectacle [...]

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Containment.

Just putting this on your news radar in case it’s a prelude to something much bigger. Haaretz and the JPost can’t independently confirm that anything more specific than a “target” was hit, but AFP says it was a convoy of some kind: Israel forces carried out an air strike overnight on a weapons convoy from [...]

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Distance.

Allahpundit wrote Wednesday that Rand Paul is working hard to differentiate from his father’s brand, but … wow. Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro asked Paul the Younger about aid to Israel, which Paul says he’d like to eliminate only after eliminating all foreign aid — and that the effort should start with nations where the people “burn [...]

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War powers.

Excellent, and not just the Libya stuff. Stick with it for Paul’s questions about how smart it is to be arming the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt when Morsi is already wheezing about Jews controlling the media in official diplomatic sessions with the U.S. If you’re wondering why it fell to Paul to ask this question [...]

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"Coons stressed that the rest of the meeting was constructive."

The only silver lining in having the Muslim Brotherhood run Egypt is the grim amusement we’ll get from watching American diplomats forced to continuously polish this guy’s rhetorical turds. This latest one was dropped at the same meeting where McCain et al. supposedly gave him a talking-to about his anti-semitic comments in 2010 before they [...]

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Yup.

To repeat a point made previously, U.S./Egyptian codependency is such that this guy could start wearing an S.S. uniform around Cairo and American diplomats would find a way to downplay it. “He’s just pandering,” “he’ll moderate in time,” “we’ll talk to him” — anything we can say to preserve this relationship and what little leverage [...]

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Election season.

Israelis are set to hit the polls for parliamentary elections on January 22nd, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking a third term in office, and his prospects for reelection are looking fairly solid. His campaign is touting the rise of a nuclear Iran as priority numero uno, even over conflicts with the Palestinians, [...]

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Trust.

Via the Washington Free Beacon. Question: Why is the White House only now, on January 15, responding to Morsi’s 2010 comments about confronting the “bloodsuckers” and “warmongers” in Israel? The video of those comments appeared fully 12 days ago and made a stir online. How come it took nearly two weeks for Carney to formulate [...]

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