Israel

“The REAL enemy that we have is not Iran…is not Hezbollah….is not Hamas... it's from within, the messianic, crazy, extreme groups of Israelis that think that they can kick out the Palestinians and annex the territories. Netanyahu depends on them… he allows them to do things which are totally intolerable and unacceptable.” Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last night.

'Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi are gambling with Israel’s very existence… they never think for a moment about the day after. They are disconnected from reality and exercise no judgment … When the catastrophe strikes, it will already be too late … These three megalomaniacs imagine that they are capable of destroying both Hamas and Hizbullah and ending the ayatollahs’ regime in Iran … They want to accomplish everything through military pressure, but in the end, they won’t accomplish anything. They have put Israel on the brink of two impossible situations [–] the outbreak of a full-fledged war in the Middle East, [and secondly] continuing the war of attrition. In either situation, Israel won’t be able to survive for long. Only a diplomatic agreement has the power to extricate us from the quagmire into which these three men have dragged us.' IDF (retired) Major General Itzhak Brik

'The consensus in the defense establishment over the progress of the war is surprisingly broad. All senior officials, from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on down, have been speaking in near-unison for a week. After a dizzying series of military and intelligence successes in the past three months, the war in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon has just about exhausted itself, with only a few necessary measures remaining. Once these are completed, it would be best to try to reach agreements that will end the fighting in the north and south and include the release of all hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.' Ha'aretz two days ago

“I met many [neocons] at the Hudson Institute, where [I] had worked for five years in the mid ‘70s; some of them, or their fathers, were Trotskyists. They picked up Trotsky’s idea of permanent revolution. That is, an unfolding revolution – whereas Trotsky said what began in Soviet Russia was going to spread around the world: The neocons adapted this and said, No, the permanent Revolution is the American Empire. It’s going to expand, and expand, and nothing can stop us – to the entire world”. Profesor Michael Hudson quoted by Alistair Crooke