An air of crisis descended on the world Tuesday, Aug. 9 as markets continued to tumble steeply and in London, large parts of the city  succumbed to uncontrolled violence. Far East stocks leveled out at 3 percent, Europe fell 3.5-5 percent Tuesday after Wall Street slid 5-7 percent Monday. More than $70 billion were wiped out in global trading Monday hours after US President Barack Obama said America will always be a Triple A country. Israel could join world crisis if all protest demands are met.

The presence of the many-faceted political campaign strategist Ron Weber behind the spreading Israeli street campaign for "social equality" raises suspicions in Jerusalem that alien hands are stirring the pot to overturn the Netanyahu government.

The motley group which two weeks ago set up a "tent city"to protest the unavailability of affordable housing has assumed attributes of the Arab uprisings: It enjoys backstage foreign political support - some from certain circles in Washington; it exploits genuine popular grievances for political capital; it wants regime change, namely, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's head - and is building up to achieve this as the UN votes on Palestinian statehood. A new government will then recognize Palestine within 1967 borders.

The News of the World hacking scandal hanging over Rupert Murdoch's global empire and British Prime minister David Cameron could conceivably erupt in Israel where tycoons with media holdings also aspire to determine who rules the country. Tabloid methods are just as dodgy in Israel, but the difference lies in the influence the British media have over the voter thanks to their high professional standards which attract huge audiences. Murdoch is already in the UK to stem the damage to his empire.
 

American Jewish leaders visiting Jerusalem this summer are giving the Israeli prime minister all kinds of advice – some say quietly back Republican hopeful Jon Huntsman but both advise him to stay clear of the presidential race because the odds still back Barack Obama.

Wednesday, July 6, the Palestinian Authority notified the Obama administration that early next week it would file a request with the UN Security Council for admission to the UN as a full member recognized as an independent state within the 1967 borders. But debkafile reports the US got in first, having agreed with European powers and Russia to have the request put on ice by the Security Council consenting to discuss it behind closed doors - without setting a date.

President Barack Obama has shelved any serious effort to generate Israel-Palestinian negotiations for at least two years, debkafile's exclusive sources report from Washington. "It's a second term issue," he is quoted as telling his advisers. Only in November 2012 will he know if he is returned for another term as president and then too is unlikely to get back to the Israeli-Palestinian issue for several more months – "depending largely how the Arab Revolt" goes.

Five years after the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas in a cross-border raid from Gaza, members of his family Saturday, June 25, chained themselves to the fence outside the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's residence in desperate protest.  debkafile: Their protest is misdirected to the wrong address: Even if Israel bowed to every Hamas demand, its leaders backed by Iran and Syria would set a new price as the pretext for holding on to this prime asset.
 

Prime Minister Netanyahu has dropped his long-time ally and partner-in-policymaking Defense Minister Ehud Barak and turned to hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as his only adviser. But essentially, Bibi has dispensed with a circle of advisers and taken over the solo lead in all defense affairs and important foreign relations.

The final touches on US President Barack Obama's push to revive Israel-Palestinian negotiations are being put in place by his Middle East advisers David Hale and Dennis Ross and the legal adviser to the National Security Council Jonathan Schwartz who arrived in Israel Tuesday, June 14. After tying up arrangements in Jerusalem, the group is to meet Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Thursday.
debkafile reports the Israeli and Palestinian leaders have dropped pre-conditions and agreed to sit down and talk.

Two scandals are rocking the Israeli government: One arises from the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan's deadly attacks on the Netanyahu government; the other from US sanctions suddenly landing on Israel's richest plutocrats, the Ofer Brothers. Both have their roots in the Gulf oil emirate.

After the Americans drove Israel security contractors and the Mossad out of Abu Dhabi, the Ofer Brothers thought their business dealings through Palestinian middlemen were safe. US sanctions opened their eyes to this miscalculation.

The White House is going full steam ahead with preparations for an early summit between US President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to restart the peace process, debkafile's Washington sources report exclusively. While Obama is satisfied with extracting from Netanyahu three major concessions, Israeli sources call on the US president to shift ground on "land swaps" and security provisions or the peace talks will end amid an Israel-US crisis as soon as they begin.

With a new strategic partner in hand after losing Turkey and Mubarak's Egypt, the Israeli prime minister was in a position to underline Israel's continued adherence to its military option against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Secret Saudi-Israeli intelligence parleys are now joined by Jordan.

In his address to the US Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu indicated  Israel may act against a nuclear-armed Iran, ruled out return to the 1967 borders, stressed Israeli troops would stay on the Jordan River and agreed to negotiate the status of Jewish settlements, while retaining Israeli troops on the Jordan River. US senators and congressmen on both sides of the aisle rose thirty times to give him cheering ovations.

By rejecting US President Barack Obama's proposal for Israel and its troops to pull back from the West Bank to behind the indefensible 1967 lines, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu lands in the company of eleven Middle East and North African rulers who spurned Washington's Middle East policy in the six months of the unfolding Arab uprising.
In his speech Thursday, May 19, Obama strengthened those Arab rulers' determination to oppose his policy and increased the prospects of an Israel-Arab war.

Israeli intelligence reports that young West Bank Palestinians are fired up by the Arab Revolt in other countries and preparing riotous disturbances against Israel. They may be timed to coincide with the next round of mass incursions planned by Syria, Hizballah and Hamas across Israel's borders.

US President Barack Obama's declaration in his policy speech Thursday, May 19, that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed territorial swaps drew forth a sharp rejection from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Before flying to Washington, he stated: The 1967 lines are indefensible. Israeli security demands an IDF presence on the Jordan River. Israel appreciates the US president's commitment to peace but a Palestinian state cannot rise at the expense of Israel's existence.

On Sunday, May 15, Israel's enemies breached three of its borders – Syrian, Lebanese and Gazan - in an operation that caught its government, army and intelligence napping. Their reaction showed them to be muddled and incapable of an organized, rational tactical response to a multiple security crisis. The blanket directive to exercise "maximum restraint,"  a weakness which Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah will have noted, paves the way for the next Syrian step – a military and terrorist offensive to "liberate the Golan."

Israel celebrates the 63rd anniversary of its independence in good cheer. Neither by word nor hint have its leaders referred to the next challenge facing the country:  Barack Obama, president of Israel's best friend and ally, has picked the Muslim Brotherhood as his chosen partner for promoting American interests in the Arab world. His courtship of this organization, which he regards as moderate, was the rationale, say debkafile's sources, behind his bold decision to get rid of Osama bin Laden.