March 2 2010 Lieberman in New Scandal- Remote Systems Protect Gaza Border

Today's news from Israel was dominated by a new scandal relating to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. This time, Lieberman is accused of interfering in the ongoing investigation against him. Lieberman has been under investigation for ten years, for a series of various crimes that include tax evasion and bribery. The police have presented the Israeli equivalent of the attorney general with the case against Lieberman. The last Attorney General, Benny Mazuz, left it to his successor, Yehuda Weinstein, who is new to the job, to decide what to do. I’m amazed every day that Avigdor Lieberman remains Foreign Minister. It's bad enough Lieberman operates under the shadow of corruption, but he is without doubt, the least competent foreign minister in Israel’s history. He and his assistant, Danny Ayalon, continually seem to be insulting the world, while at the same time not doing absolutely anything to improve Israel’s standing in the world. Luckily, today, Prime Minister Netanyahu proved he is not completely deaf to world perceptions of Israel’s actions. Netanyahu convinced Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, to call off his immediate plans for redevelopment in East Jerusalem's Silwan area.

Israel is relying with greater and greater success on a high tech security system on the border with Gaza. There are a series of towers with high capacity long range machine guns along the border, all controlled remotely from an operations center. When terrorists are spotted nearing the border the remote operators can immediately open fire. This system was used successfully last week to stop an infiltration.

A lot of noise, but very little action, continues to take place regarding Iran. It seems less and less likey that any sanctions that are stong enough to have an effect are likely to be enacted.