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Solana: Stage being set for 'comprehensive peace'
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST    Mar. 31, 2007

Developments in the Middle East are pointing toward a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Arab world for the first time in decades, the European Union's foreign policy chief said Saturday.

"The Arab League for the first time in many years has assumed the responsibility to be more active in the peace process," Javier Solana said.

"If you put that together with the reaction of (Israeli) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the two things ... are beginning to construct the dynamic that could lead to the settlement of a crisis that has been with us for many years."

Solana, who attended last week's Arab League summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, praised the hosts for assuming a leadership role in reviving a 2002 Arab peace initiative.

"The moment in which we are living is a moment of hope that we may be able to move the process of a comprehensive peace forward," Solana told reporters at the end of a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

Solana: Stage being set for 'comprehensive peace' (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879219792&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

While I don't wish to minimize the gravity of "the covenant with many" and it's importance, consider that like "wars and rumors of wars" and that we are admonished to "be not troubled" we should also be mindful of the time that "when they cry peace and safety" that "peace and rumors of peace" shall also abound.

But the end is not yet...

And on the same day as Solana's report, the exact opposite:

Israeli military intelligence chief predicts Iran-Hizballah-Syria attack on Israel in summer

April 2, 2007, 12:56 PM (GMT+02:00)
      
   

   

In his briefing to the Israeli cabinet Sunday, April 1, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, AMAN chief, reported that Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas expect the United States to attack Iran in the summer and they are preparing to retaliate by going to war with Israel. In Yadlin’s view, a proliferation of players and the many imponderables could ignite a conflict, which none of the parties wants – as happened in the Six Day War of 1967.

DEBKAfile analysts note five salient points in Gen. Yadlin’s briefing:

1. His comments came one day after Iran’s chief of staff, Gen. Hassan Fayrouz Abadi, urged the Arabs to hurry up and join Iran in a defense treaty because, he claimed, Israel threatened a war offensive in summer, two months hence. According to the Iranian general, Israel was bent on a “suicide assault” against a number of Arab states to save the Americans from having to pull their troops out of Iraq (sic).

1. Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas may be presumed to be acting on some piece of intelligence that point to a forthcoming US attack some time between April and early September 2007. Therefore, the Middle East faces at least five months of incendiary military instability during which everyone will be braced for the axe to fall.

2. A coordinated Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah-Hamas attack would lay Israel open to four warfronts and the common weapon to them all: missiles - anti-tank, short-range surface, medium range ballistic and surface-to-air.

3. Hamas threatens to launch the third Palestinian uprising (intifada) against Israel within three months unless the international blockade is lifted and funds are released to the Palestinian Authority.

The cabinet was informed that the IDF would start operating behind Gazan lines against the massive Palestinian military build-up.

For five months, the Olmert government’s policy was one of military restraint at the behest of US and European governments. This week, Israel’s leaders watched British discomfiture as the United States, the UN and the Europeans turned aside when asked for help to free 15 sailors seized by Iran in the Persian Gulf. It is obvious that Israel must be ready to stand alone and defend itself if attacked on four fronts.

4. Neither the chief of AMAN nor the ministers discussed the state of Israel’s armed forces’ preparedness. Asked about this, DEBKAfile’s military sources said their readiness was only partial as yet: The air force, some of the combat divisions are ready; other parts of the military, such as some reservist brigades, the Navy and the home front are not.

Israeli military intelligence chief predicts Iran-Hizballah-Syria attack on Israel in summer (http://www.debka.org/headline.php?hid=4001)