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U.S.-Israel Security Ties as Close as Ever

(Israel Hayom) Dore Gold - On the eve of Obama's upcoming visit to Israel, it is useful to take stock of the nature of the security ties between the U.S. and Israel. According to a New York Times report from Jan. 8, 2013, several months earlier senior IDF officers had received satellite intelligence that showed Syrian forces mixing chemical weapons at two sites and filling 500-pound bombs. The chemical munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases and, according to assessments, could be deployed within two hours of an order by Syrian President Assad. Israel reportedly handed the intelligence to the Pentagon. After U.S. President Barack Obama was informed, he assembled an international coalition to prevent Assad from employing his chemical weapons. The U.S. reached out to Russia, China, Turkey and several Arab states on the basis of the intelligence originally received from Israel. The former head of the research division of Israeli Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, wrote a paper for the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in 2007 on how Israel was implementing intelligence reforms. According to Kuperwasser, Israeli military intelligence was not only focusing on Israel's intelligence needs; it also was collecting and analyzing intelligence "whose main beneficiary is the U.S." The writer, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2013-03-05 00:00:00
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