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May 15th Strategy to invade Israel posted on Facebook
wnd.com

Social-networking sites, specifically Facebook, are being used to promote a campaign that appears to target the very existence of Israel, with hundreds of thousands worldwide seeking to join in a plan to "return" to and take over the original homes of their families in "Palestine" on May 15.

According to an in-depth report by L. Barkan, a research fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and analyzes media reports throughout the Middle East, the idea being circulated is "for millions of Palestinian refugees to march en masse in return to the original homes of their families in Israel."

The movement's plans call for this to be much more than just a visit, however.

"All the families of Jewish settlers in the Galilee area, including in the areas of Safed, Tiberias, and all the way down to Acre, must proceed to the port of Haifa and board ships back to their countries of origin in Europe," explained one posting that is part of the campaign.

One of the Facebook pages soliciting participants in what apparently would be an invasion and attempted overthrow of the region's existing government has been removed by the Facebook administration, but not before collecting some 350,000 endorsements from readers. Other pages remain.

According to MEMRI, some of the Facebook pages "stress that the activities are meant to be peaceful and unarmed, while others hint at violence and armed resistance."

"It also has gained the support of Palestinian officials, through the PLO Department of Expatriate Affairs … which has called on Palestinians living abroad to participate in the march and to publicize it among the Palestinian communities and organizations worldwide," the MEMRI report said.

Timetables to coordinate the events have been posted by administrators who explain it is the moral and legal right of refugees to return to their homes.

One page, "The 2011 March of Return," said, "The goal of [the Facebook] group … is to organize a march of millions, who, on May 15, 2011, will realize the Right of Return to Palestine in deed as well as in word."

It explains marchers will come from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

"The Right of Return is a legal, political, human, moral, and religious right that is irrevocable and unlimited in time, and all must work toward realizing it. We call for the realization of this right through the mass return of millions of Palestinians to historical Palestine, such that every refugee and displaced person will return to his land and to the home from which he was expelled. This will be the first step toward implementing … Resolution 194, which will be followed by further steps, such as awarding reparations to the returned refugees and recognizing heir rights," the site advocates.

MEMRI documents that a page titled, "The Palestinian Refugees' Revolution (The Advance of the Millions)," warned, "We will reach out our hand and build a bridge that will bring us to our green land, to our territorial waters, to the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, to our desert ... to the beautiful Galilee, to Jerusalem, our proud capital, to the neighborhoods of Nablus, Ramallah, and Jenin, to the hills of Lod and Ramla, and to all the [other] places ... We will return, and soon. Long live our cause. May the state of the sons of Zion fall."

Also, on the page called "The Third Palestinian Intifada" was the warning there could be violence.

"After the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan intifadas, the time has come for the Palestinian intifada. The first Palestinian intifada was in 1987 and the second in 2000, but the third Palestinian intifada [will commence] on May 15, 2011," it said, according to MEMRI's documentation.

"It should be noted that, while urging the public to join the mass demonstrations on May 15, the page administrators also hinted at a coming war on the Jews and called on the readers to prepare for martyrdom," Barkan's report confirmed.

"For example, they posted a well-known hadith, which states that the Day of Judgment will only come after the Muslims fight the Jews and vanquish them: 'The hour [of Judgment] will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.'"

Another message on the page states, "Paradise calls you. I ask everyone to come out on May 15. Do not say 'I can't.' For once [in your life], at least, do something to help the Muslims ... martyrdom calls you."

Another site warned against using slogans such as "Destroying the Zionist Entity" and instead talked about returning "to the homes from which we were expelled, nothing more.

"That is a human and moral slogan that can rally all the people of the world to our assistance."

Another page posted the plans: "On Sunday, May 15, after the noon prayers, 'the holy advance will start and the Intifada will be ignited... On this day, all the returning [refugees] will set forth, and the Third Palestinian Intifada will commence, with the support of all the free people in the world.'"

The page lists the destinations of the march: In the West Bank, participants will march on the checkpoints and settlements; in Gaza, on the checkpoints and border crossings; within "the 1948 territories," toward cities and villages destroyed in the 1948 war; in Lebanon, toward Palestine by land and by sea; in Jordan, toward three areas on the border; in Syria, towards the Golan border; in Egypt, toward the Rafah border and toward the coast of Palestine by ship.

May 15 was picked, the pages explain, because it is the 63rd anniversary of the founding of Israel in 1948.

Warned another page, according to MEMRI, "We will have a single slogan: 'End the occupation.' We will put up our tents everywhere, and operate a radio station of the sit-down demonstration, broadcasting national songs not associated with any political faction. We will use pots and spoons to make a racket at night, and when we grow tired, we will blow whistles. We will not leave until the occupation leaves."

Recommended tools to be used?

"A cloth and some vinegar and lemon as protection from tear gas; an aluminum pot and goggles to protect from tear-gas bombs and rubber bullets; an olive branch to signify the peaceful character of the protest; cans of spray paint for spraying on the faceguards of the soldiers' helmets in case of a confrontation; a sleeping bag and a first aid kit; water and soap for pouring on the tires of military jeeps to make them skid."

Israel threatens unilateral steps if UN recognizes Palestinian state
haaretz.com

Israel informed the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council last week, as well as several other prominent European Union countries, that if the Palestinian Authority persists in its efforts to gain recognition in September as a state within the 1967 borders, Israel would respond with a series of unilateral steps of its own.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said the ministry's director general, Rafael Barak, sent a classified cable last week to more than 30 Israeli embassies, directing them to lodge a diplomatic protest at the highest possible level in response to the Palestinian efforts to gain international recognition for statehood at the UN General Assembly session in September.

The Israeli diplomatic corps conveyed the message that support for international recognition, particularly by most of the members of the European Union, encouraged the Palestinians to forgo negotiations with Israel and to move more quickly toward recognition at the UN of Palestinian statehood. Israeli diplomats stressed that such a move violates the Oslo Accords and will not lead to a Palestinian state even if the General Assembly grants recognition, but could lead to violence on the ground.

European diplomats have confirmed to Haaretz that such a message was conveyed several days ago. One diplomat said his country did not receive a serious response when asked what unilateral steps Israel might take. Another diplomat, from a European country, said in light of the current deadlock in negotiations, international recognition of Palestinian statehood appeared unavoidable in September.

Foreign Ministry sources said no decision has been taken at this stage over a possible Israeli response to UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not held any major discussion of such a response on a formal level among his cabinet colleagues. Ideas have been floated on the right wing of the political spectrum in recent weeks, suggesting, for example, that Israel might apply Israeli law to the West Bank or annex major settlement blocs to Israel.

September is expected to be pivotal for several reasons. Last September, U.S. President Barack Obama told the General Assembly that he wished to see a Palestinian state become a member of the UN within a year. In addition, Israel and the Palestinians had agreed that the talks they undertook last September 2 in Washington would last for about a year. Thirdly, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's program of establishing institutions for a future Palestinian state is due to be wrapped up this coming September.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met on Sunday in Ramallah with former Knesset member Yossi Beilin and told him that the Palestinian Authority would not engage in further negotiations with Israel after September. Senior Palestinian sources added, however, that if negotiations are resumed before September and make progress, the Palestinians would be prepared to defer efforts to gain UN recognition of statehood.

Abbas told Beilin that it would be possible to engage in three months of talks in an effort to achieve progress before September, but Netanyahu would have to suspend construction in the West Bank settlements during that period. The PA leader added that the Palestinians would not renew violence against Israel, but hinted at his possible resignation or the breakup of the PA, telling Beilin that there is no October 2011 on his schedule.

There are currently no contacts between representatives of Netanyahu and Abbas's advisers, and Netanyahu appears to have backtracked on his intention to deliver a major policy speech to jump-start the peace process.

Poll: Young Israelis moving much farther to the right politically
haaretz.com

Young Israelis are moving much further to the right politically, according to a survey to be released Thursday.

The study found that 60 percent of Jewish teenagers in Israel, between 15 and 18 years old, prefer "strong" leaders to the rule of law, while 70 percent say that in cases where state security and democratic values conflict, security should come first. A similar picture emerges in the 21 to 24 age group.

The comprehensive survey was conducted on behalf of Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in cooperation with the Macro Center for Political Economics, by the Dahaf Institute.

According to the authors, the report shows a strengthening of Jewish-nationalist beliefs among Jewish youths, and a clear weakening of the importance given to the state's liberal-democratic base.

Among Jewish youths, support for the definition of Israel as a Jewish state as the most important goal for the country grew from 18.1 percent in 1998 to 33.2 percent last year, the survey reports. At the same time, there has been a consistent drop in those who back the importance of Israel's identity as a democratic country - from 26.1 percent in 1998 to 14.3 percent in 2010.

Support for Israel to eventually live in peace with its neighboring countries also fell significantly, from 28.4 percent 12 years ago to 18.2 percent last year. This is the third such survey of young people conducted by the two organizations in the past 12 years.

The study was carried out in July 2010, among a representative sample of Jewish and Arab youth. It included 1,600 participants, 800 aged 15-18 and 800 21-24, which is considered a relatively large group.

The right wing enjoyed a clear majority of support among the young people surveyed. Among Jews, the numbers stood at 57 percent and 66 percent for the two age groups respectively, while those who said they considered themselves to be left wing made up only 13 percent and 10 percent of those respondents.

The support for the right rose overall from 48 percent to 62 percent during the study's 12-year period, while support for the left fell from 32 percent to 12 percent.

As to the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, 755 of the Jewish respondents said they do not believe negotiations will lead to peace, and most prefer that the present situation continue.

IDF prepares for multi-front war in war games
foxnews.com

In the face of a changing Middle East, the IDF held a set of war games this week aimed at preparing the military for all-out war against Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas.

The exercise did not include soldiers or live-fire exercises, but was held to drill commanders and their decisions in the event of a large-scale war on multiple fronts.

The exercise was the first overseen by new Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz. It was organized by Maj.-Gen. Gershon Hacohen, head of the IDF Colleges.

The IDF stressed that the drill was part of the military’s routine exercise program and included all of its various branches – ground, air and navy – with an emphasis on interoperability and operational continuity.

The scenarios simulated during the drill included a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, sparked by a terrorist attack overseas as well as the involvement of Syria, Hamas and Iran.

“The drill is part of our need to retain a level of readiness,” Gantz said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee visited the base where the exercise was held, even though the political echelon did not play an active role in the war games.

Hacohen said the exercise was meant to prepare the IDF for a future war in light of the recent changes in the region.

“The IDF is utilizing this opportunity to drill itself and to formulate new understandings,” he said.

Meanwhile Thursday, Barak visited the site of the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system outside of Beersheba, vowing that Israel would deploy additional batteries in the coming years. Barak decided last week to deploy the first battery, which is still undergoing operational tests, outside Beersheba after 100 rockets and mortars hit Israel in the recent round of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

“This is not a 100-percent solution, and we still do not have it on all of our other fronts. It will take us several more years before we are equipped with more batteries,” Barak said.

The Iron Dome, developed by Rafael, constitutes the lower tier of Israel’s multilayered missile defense architecture and will be supplemented in a few years by David’s Sling, which is under development to intercept medium-range rockets.

For the upper tier, Israel already operates the Arrow-2 and is currently developing the Arrow-3, which is slated to become operational in 2015.

Hezbollah Preparing for War on Israel

cbn.com

The Israeli Defense Forces released information Thursday documenting that Hezbollah is preparing for war.

Since the end of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the terrorist group has entrenched itself deeply in 270 villages throughout southern Lebanon.

Uzi Rubin, Israel's foremost missile expert, told CBN News the threat to the Jewish state was "severe."

"Those bunkers are not in population centers just by mistake," Rubin said. "The idea here is to attack Israeli population centers from Hezbollah population centers, to attack our population centers in order to terrorize and discourage us and to fire from their population centers in order to use them as a human shield."

IDF intelligence estimates the Iranian proxy has constructed some 550 bunkers stocked with a variety of weapons, 300 underground facilities, and 100 weapons warehouses for missiles, rockets, and other war materiel.

Like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has constructed its terror infrastructure adjacent to schools, hospitals, and private residences.

The IDF Northern Command reports that the number of Hezbollah terrorists has doubled since 2006.

Since the end of the war nearly five years ago, Hezbollah has acquired more than 40,000 rockets from Iran and Syria. In the southern Lebanese village of al Khiyam, hundreds of missiles, rockets, and mortar shells are being readied for the next war with Israel.

About 100 Hezbollah terrorists work in al Khiyam, where Special Forces are training for combat with IDF troops.

All of Hezbollah's terror activities in southern Lebanon are in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, issued on August 12, 2006 with the U.N.-brokered ceasefire.

Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets on northern Israel in the Second Lebanon War, which began on July 12 and ended on August 14, 2006.

New European Push To Divide Israel
haaretz.com

Isaac Molho, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser and top negotiator on the Palestinian channel, made a secret trip to Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The purpose of the visit was to dissuade Russia from supporting the European Union’s intention to present in two weeks’ time a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Molho was accompanied on the trip by the Foreign Ministry’s legal advisor, Daniel Taub, and spent over an hour with Lavrov. Taub and Molho also met with the Russian envoy to the Middle East, Sergei Yakovlev, and other senior Russian officials. A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that Taub and Molho used the visit “to present new Israeli ideas for re-launching the peace process with the Palestinians.”

The visit comes just two weeks before the foreign ministers of the Quartet − the United States, Russia, the European Union and the UN − are to meet. France, Germany and the United Kingdom are pushing for announcing a new international peace initiative. The principles of the initiative known so far include setting up two states on the basis of the 1967 borders with territorial swaps; a fair, realistic and agreed-upon solution to the predicament of the Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as a capital for both states and security arrangements that would protect Israel but not infringe on Palestinian sovereignty.

Hague rules out interim agreements

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday that interim arrangements alone cannot end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and progress must be made in the peace process before September. He also called on the United States and the rest of the Quartet to present clear principles for the process, based on the new initiative, as soon as possible.

The European initiative is strongly supported by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is lobbying all members of the Quartet to have it officially endorsed in the upcoming meeting. However, Abbas has yet to confirm whether he will return to the negotiating table if the lobbying succeeds.

The U.S. administration has yet to comment on the initiative, but it has already won the support of the UN and, it would seem, Russia.

Last week, Netanyahu planned to dispatch Molho to a round of talks in London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels to persuade the Europeans to postpone the initiative’s launch. That trip was canceled at the last moment, after the prime minister understood Molho was unlikely to persuade the European governments to withdraw from the plan without new diplomatic statements on the peace process coming from Israel itself.

Molho’s Moscow trip appears to indicate that Netanyahu thought the Russians would prove more attentive to Israel’s objections, and could be persuaded to oppose or at least stall the move.

The results of Molho’s mission remain to be seen, but Lavrov’s statements during the meeting may mean Russia will be reluctant to block the initiative. Lavrov told Molho that continued efforts to find a way out of the impasse were important, and that trust between Israel and the Palestinians needed to be restored. Quartet envoys are expected to visit Israel next week, to prepare the foreign ministers’ summit. They will meet Molho and the Palestinian negotiators. Netanyahu is expected to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday in Berlin.

Israeli Military Strikes Gaza Militants Following Bus Attack
foxnews.com

Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing two Hamas gunmen and wounding seven other Palestinians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

Israel's ongoing retaliation for the bus attack has killed five militants, a policeman and a civilian. An Israeli Cabinet minister said the strikes will continue.

In Thursday's attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with an anti-tank rocket, badly wounding the driver and a 16-year-old boy. Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that controls Gaza, claimed responsibility for the attack. The boy remains unconscious in the intensive care ward of an Israeli hospital.

"We see Hamas as responsible for everything originating in Gaza, and we expect that Hamas will understand what is allowed, and of course, what is forbidden," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attacks, saying it "crossed the line."

"Whoever tries to hurt and murder children: the blood is on his hands," he said during a meeting with the Czech president, according to the Jerusalem Post.

At around midnight Thursday, with Gaza rocked by explosions, Hamas announced a cease-fire. The Israeli strikes continued, hitting Hamas facilities and smuggling tunnels.

An Israeli airstrike Friday morning near the town of Khan Yunis killed two Hamas gunmen and wounded a third, according to Hamas. Gaza's Health Ministry said three civilians were wounded.

Palestinian rescue services reported that three other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli tank fire in a separate incident in southern Gaza. It was unclear if they were armed men or bystanders. Electricity lines and transformers were damaged, causing power blackouts in some parts of the territory, according to Jamal Dardsawi, a spokesman for Gaza's Electric Distribution Company.

In Israel, studies at some schools near Gaza were canceled Friday because of concerns for the students' safety.

Matan Vilnai, the Israeli Cabinet minister in charge of the home front, told Army Radio that Israel was engaged in a "war of attrition."

"We are acting as we see fit so that this type of fire will not continue, and so that the people behind the fire will regret it," Vilnai said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned the bus attack and expressed concern over civilian casualties in Israel's strikes in Gaza. He called for "de-escalation and calm to prevent any further bloodshed."

The new round of fighting saw a potentially significant strategic breakthrough.

After years of development by an Israeli defense contractor, the Israeli military activated a new cutting-edge missile-defense system for the first time Thursday. The Iron Dome system scored a direct hit on an incoming Palestinian rocket aimed at an Israeli city, shooting it down, Israel said.

Thousands of rockets from Gaza have hit Israeli towns and cities since 2001. Israel's attempts to stop the rockets have included military incursions -- including a three-week assault than began in late 2008.

Hamas: We'll broaden attacks if IDF strikes continue
By JPOST.COM STAFF
04/09/2011 17:32

Spokesman: "It wasn't known that bus targeted was carrying kids"; group's political wing distances itself from al-Kassam Brigades cmmdr.
Hamas said on Saturday it would escalate it attacks against Israel to include a wider range of targets deeper into Israeli territory if the IDF failed to halt its aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri blamed Israel for an escalation in violence. "If the Israeli escalation continues, amid international silence and complicity, the reactions by resistance factions will broaden," he told Reuters, saying such actions would be necessary to protect Palestinians in Gaza.

At the same time as it made the threats, however, the group seemed to be attempting to deescalate the situation in the Gaza Strip, which has left more than a handful of its commanders dead.

Abu Zuhri also said that Hamas operatives did not intend to target Israeli schoolchildren when they fired a guided missile at a school bus two days ago, critically wounding a teenager and sparking the latest round of border fighting.

"It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried schoolchildren," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the road where the bus was travelling was often used by IDF vehicles.

Officials in Jerusalem said that the government received a request from Hamas' political wing asking for a cease fire Saturday afternoon, Israel Radio reported. The request was reportedly delivered through intermediaries, according to the officials.

Additionally, an Israel Radio report quoted Palestinian security officials as saying that the decision to escalate the situation by Hamas was made by the commander of its armed wing, Ahmed Jabari, against the wishes of its political leadership in Gaza and Damascus.

According to the Palestinian source, Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh accused Jabari of "megalomania" for his actions in escalating the situation, according to the report. He added that Jabari's decision to escalate the situation was partly motivated by the assassination of his close friend, Ismail a-Lobed, who was the organization's point man for smuggling weapons into Gaza from the Sinai Peninsula.

Lobed was apparently Hamas' contact person with Beduin smugglers and his assassination presented a huge loss of smuggling routes for the organization, Israel Radio quoted the source as saying.

The current escalation began on Thursday when Hamas fired an anti-tank missile against a school bus in the Gaza border region. A 16-year-old boy was critically injured in the attack.

In the following 48 hours, the IDF forcefully attacked terrorists and Hamas commanders in Gaza. Over 20 Palestinians, including Hamas members have been killed in the strikes so far.

Early Saturday morning, three Hamas commanders were killed in an IAF air strike on a car in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Palestinian news agencies reported a fourth Hamas man was killed in an IDF strike a few hours later.

Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Strip have fired dozens of Grad rockets and some 100 mortar shells into Israel since Thursday. At least five of the Grad rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system outside Beersheba and Ashkelon.

Several Gaza rockets fired at Ashkelon, western Negev
By JPOST.COM STAFF
04/09/2011 17:40

Total number of rockets, mortars launched from Gaza into Israel rises to over 70; Iron Dome intercepts 1 more missile; 15 Grads fired overnight; Hamas commander killed in IDF strike on Gaza.
Over five rockets were fired Saturday afternoon from Gaza towards Ashkelon and the western Negev. No injuries were reported.

One rocket exploded in an industrial area south of Ashkelon, and another exploded near a town in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council. Another three rockets fell in open areas.

The Iron Dome system was able to intercept one of the rockets, bringing the total number of intercepted rockets since Thursday to eight.

Overnight Friday, 15 Grads were fired from Gaza into Israeli territory. The Iron Dome rocket-defense system intercepted five of them in the Beersheba and Ashkelon areas, Israel Radio reported.

Saturday morning two additional Grad rockets were fired at Ofakim and 25 mortar shells were fired into the Eshkol Regional Council. No injuries were immediately reported. Dozens of mortar shells were fired overnight.

Including shorter-range Kassams and mortars, over 40 projectiles were fired from the Strip since the escalation began on Thursday.

Five Israelis were reportedly injured when scrambling to enter bomb shelters as rockets were being fired into their areas.

Three Hamas commanders were killed in an IAF airstrike early morning Saturday on a car in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Palestinian news agencies reported a fourth Hamas man was killed in an IDF strike late Saturday morning. The IDF said it was looking into the reports.

Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported that other IDF strikes took place overnight in Gaza City, a Hamas training base in the northern Strip and a neighborhood in Khan Younis.

Artillery strikes were reported in the Rafah area along the Strip's southern border with Egypt.

Sa'ar: Hamas has sustained heavy damage in recent days
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND BEN HARTMAN
04/09/2011 17:44

Former nat'l security adviser Eiland says if quiet can't be reached, J'lem should consider "Defensive Shield" type operation in Gaza.
Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar told Israel Radio on Saturday that Hamas has sustained heavy damage from IDF operations in recent days. The IDF continue to strike Hamas, he added, "we will not permit sporadic shootings or the disruption of life" inside Israel.

While deflecting questions about a new IDF operation in the Gaza Strip similar to Operation Cast Lead, Sa'ar said: "We won't give up our right to defend ourselves," and will continue to operate, under full consideration, to implement a principle of defending our citizens".

On Friday, Sa'ar said that the recent escalation in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza do not pose a danger to school children in the western Negev.

In a conference call with the foreign press, Sa’ar stated that the western Negev “is an area that over the past years we have worked systematically to establish protection for it and these schools are built up to security standards. In farther away places like Ashkelon the situation is different.”

Sa’ar said the real danger that would be faced by school children in the western Negev is on the way to and from school, a day after a 16-year-old student was critically injured when his school bus was hit by an anti-tank missile. No other children were on the bus at the time it was hit.

Sa’ar said there won’t be any mass school cancellations after Thursday’s incident, in that “today [Friday] was the last day of learning before the Passover vacation and this was the last day for primary schools, kindergarten and high schools. We are trying to do the utmost so that children will continue to study, and only to make changes in the most extreme circumstances.” Sa’ar added that earlier on Friday he sent a letter to a number of former Education Ministries in other countries around the globe in which he criticized “terror that is aimed to hurt and kill kids.”

Also Saturday, former national security adviser Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland said in an interview with Israel Radio that if quiet cannot be reached in the Gaza Strip, Israel needs to consider a more extensive operation similar to the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank.

Acknowledging the possibility that both Israel and Hamas want to avoid a serious escalation, Eiland said that if such a calm does not prevail, Israel should conduct a more extensive operation in the Strip.

There are two options for such an operation, he explained. One is to strike Hamas with the goal of establishing deterrence against the continued firing of rockets and mortars. The second option, he said, is to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza. He warned, however, that whatever regime replaces Hamas may very well be worse than the current situation.

If a more extensive operation is embarked upon, Eiland said, the most important thing is that Israel needs to define its goals, specifically what it wants to achieve and to plan how it can accomplish it. He pointed to the Second Lebanon War as an example of an operation where such an approach was not taken.

He added that if such an operation embarked upon, that there will no doubt be a heavy price paid by Israel. If it results in quiet, however, then it would be worth stopping the current situation of constant fire that we have today.

Eiland said that the best situation Israel can expect from Hamas is a quiet similar to that enjoyed on the Lebanese border in the past five years since the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

Israelis launch global war on Hamas
washingtontimes.com

Israel’s security agencies are stepping up targeted attacks throughout the world on Hamas‘ leadership in what one Israeli official called “intelligence-based prevention.”

In the past two months, Israeli operatives have intercepted a German ship in international waters, fired a missile at a suspected Hamas leader in Sudan, and captured a Hamas engineer in the Ukraine, according to Israeli and Western officials and press reports from the region.

“Israel defeated the wave of suicide bombing attacks against it in 2002 by identifying the leadership that was behind it and making it clear to them that they would pay a price,” said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and specialist on international terrorism.

“Presently, the effort to cripple Hamas‘ military capabilities is no longer confined to the Gaza Strip alone, but to the entire Hamas global network and that of its allies.”

On Thursday, an anti-tank rocket hit an Israeli school bus near the Gaza border and wounded two people. Israeli planes and tanks fired at Hamas positions in Gaza on Thursday in retaliation.

After a day of Israeli attacks that reportedly killed five Palestinians, Hamas issued a statement offering a cease-fire. The Interior Ministry told reporters in Gaza that militant groups had agreed to stop firing rockets.

The Israeli military had no immediate public comment.

But the overt warfare might end there for now; still, the security services will keep up their secretive work.

“This is a policy of intelligence-based prevention, which has stepped up in recent months,” an Israeli national security official, who asked not to be named, told The Washington Times. “One part of the strategy is prevention.”

While Israelis have conducted intelligence operations throughout the world for years, these kinds of direct actions have become more central to Israel’s war policy against Hamas under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Our security requirements are fundamental … for the achievement of peace,” Mr. Netanyahu said after talks Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

“But they’re particularly important now in this uncertain period that we’re going through.”

The Arab world has been in turmoil since January, with the Libyan civil war the latest in the unrest that has Israel nervous.

“We can’t be sure … if this is [like] an 1989 change in Europe or the 1979 revolution in Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said, referring to the fall of communism in Europe and the rise of the Islamic terrorism in Iran.

The renewed Israeli approach is in some ways a response to the international condemnation of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli air-and-ground offensive against Hamas positions in Gaza launched in December 2008.

Operation Cast Lead claimed between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian casualties. Israel says Hamas deliberately interspersed its military positions in civilian neighborhoods in hopes that Israeli attacks would kill civilians and that Hamas could wage a propaganda war against the Jewish state.

The 2008-09 Gaza war prompted the U.N. Human Rights Council to appoint Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist, to investigate the war. He at first concluded that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians.

Mr. Goldstone recanted that charge last week in an Op-Ed for The Washington Post.

Because the covert campaign targets leaders and is often done in secret, the diplomatic damage to Israel for these actions tends to be muted.

The first example of this new tactic against Hamas happened in January 2010, when a Mossad team killed Mahmoud al-Mahbouh, a senior Hamas operative, in a Dubai hotel.

More recently, Israeli operatives in February captured Dirar Abu-Sisi, a Hamas engineer Israel accuses of designing military rockets for the group, aboard a train in the Ukraine, according to Israeli court documents unsealed Monday. Mr. Abu-Sisi told Israeli reporters he was innocent Monday.

On Tuesday, an unidentified aircraft fired a missile at a car carrying two men in Sudan. Israeli officials publicly neither confirmed nor denied any role in the operation.

However, a Hamas member of parliament, Ismail al-Ashqar, said this week that the attack was aimed at his nephew, Abdel Latif al-Ashqar, a Hamas commander, according to the Gaza based Safa news service. The government of Sudan has also said Israel was behind the missile attack.

In March, Israeli commandos boarded the Victoria, a German ship carrying Chinese-made land-to-sea rockets. Mr. Netanyahu said the ship was from Iran and headed eventually to Gaza.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman, said, “We are not looking only for Hamas leaders, we consider Hamas accountable for any rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. If we find a three-man rocket team, they will be targeted whether or not they are leaders. This is to prevent rockets from coming down on Israeli civilians.”

Col. Leibovich added that every attack in Gaza is authorized by a military lawyer and is “accordance with international law.”

“We are not looking for any escalation,” she said. “We do have operational plans in our drawers. Hopefully, we won’t have to pull them out, but we will not tolerate these kinds of attacks against Israeli civilians.”

The Israeli national security official, however, said there would be a steep price Hamas will pay if Israel determines that Hamas deliberately fired at an Israeli school bus.

“If this turns out this was a premeditated attack, that this was a planned decision to fire a rocket on a school bus, this is something we will have to not only counter but also make Hamas understand this action’s consequences,” the official said.

New Rules As Gaza War Intensifies
debka.com

More than 60 Hamas and Jihad Islami mortar shells and missiles hit Israeli towns, villages and farms on the Israeli side of the Gaza border Friday April 8 and injured a civilian. This heightened Israeli fury over Hamas's attack on a school bus Thursday, April 7, using a sophisticated Cornet anti-tank missile for the first time. A 16-year old boy was critically wounded. This attack was followed by 50 Palestinian rockets and mortar rounds, a blitz which had not abated by Friday night despite constant Israeli counteraction.

debkafile discloses a less obvious motive behind the mounting violence: Hamas is trying to establish new rules for the conflict on advice and directives coming from its Lebanese ally, Hizballah, to step up its barrage on Israel by 25 percent. The IDF is forced to respond to the resulting escalation in kind.

Our intelligence sources report that Hamas was advised by Hizballah to blitz Israel into relinquishing the 500-meter deep security strip the IDF established inside the Gaza border when Palestinian fire on Israel continued after it was temporarily reduced by the 2009 Cast Lead operation.

Hizballah leaders are telling Hamas they should be able to bring their forward and firing positions right up to the Israeli border, a convenience enjoyed by HIzballah on the Lebanese-Israeli frontier ever since 2000 when Israel quit southern Lebanon.

The IDF is fighting to hold on to this buffer zone to keep Palestinian terrorists back from breaching the border for direct attacks in Israel. The soldiers keep Palestinian gunmen from accessing this strip of land and impose restrictions on Gazan farmers seeking to till their fields in a strip which covers 15 percent of the enclave's arable land. (Farmers of the Eshkol district on the other side of the border are regularly targeted for attack.)

Hamas is threatening to raise the cross-border violence until Israeli troops pull back to the border. Its anti-tank missile attack on the school bus Thursday was the opening shot of its battle for the buffer zone.

The IDF's tactics for countering Hamas aggression remain unchanged, except in scale: In the last 48 hours, Israeli helicopters, mortars, tanks and naval units have been pounding the Gaza Strip while Hamas releases barrages of dozens of missile and mortar attacks on villages and towns - practically without pause. Israeli civilians were told to stay close to bomb shelters in the days to come. Schools, road traffic, public transport and businesses will function intermittently.

Israeli military planners are still playing the familiar tit-for-tat game which never in the past stopped the aggression from Gaza. Nevertheless, debkafile's military sources point to some notable differences in the current round.
The Iron Dome system designed in Israel to intercept short-range rockets was experimentally deployed in the important towns of Beersheba and Ashkelon this week. Friday, the system intercepted three missiles aimed at Ashkelon, although it caught only one of several Thursday.

The IDF importantly demonstrated it is fully capable of launching another major military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The broad scale of its land, sea and air reprisals since Thursday, April 7, was intended to remind Hamas and its allies, especially the Iranian-backed Jihad Islami, of the devastation wrought the enclave they rule by Israel's 2009 Cast Lead operation.

A possible Cast Lead II was in the air after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday during a visit to Prague: Attacks on children cross a red line. Those who carry out such attacks should know that their blood is on their heads."

On the other side of the ledger, the new rulers of Egypt are in the process of unraveling Hosni Mubarak's peace relations with Israel – as debkafile has reported – and engaging in rapprochement with the Gaza and Damascus centers of the two radical Palestinian organizations.

Since the Israeli government has not adjusted its policies to the new developments, its military tactics are operating in a vacuum and will have little deterrent effect. The current upsurge of Hamas-Jihad aggression will therefore go on.

debkafile's military experts maintain that the tactics of massive firepower without ground operations have run their course. There is no way to wipe out the increasingly sophisticated heavy weapons arsenal Hamas has been allowed to amass from the air. So the half a million Israeli civilians of the Western Negev and the southern coastal towns must continue to live under their shadow instead of having normal lives. Often, many cannot make it to work and schools, places of business and traffic can operate only intermittently.

Since Thursday, IDF operations have been sweeping across a broad front in the Gaza Strip from the old air field at Dahaniyeh in the south up to the northern fringes of Gaza City.

In the south, Khan Younes and Deir al Balakh took the severest beating. The former went dark Thursday night after Israeli airborne and surface missiles knocked out the local electricity grid. In Deir Balakh, a Hamas base built deliberately near a hospital took an airborne rocket, a signal that all such facilities would no longer be immune from attack.

In the Gaza City region, Israeli helicopters, tanks and naval ships bombed two main Hamas military installations – Abu Jerad and Rantisi.

The Palestinians reported 10 killed, including the commander of missile operations at the Shati refugee camp, and scores wounded, thereupon loosing off 50 missiles and mortar rounds – as usual, against civilian locations. In Ashkelon, Iron Dome intercepted its first missile Thursday, but missed the rest – scoring a partial success

For the first time in three years, Hamas appealed to Cairo to broker a ceasefire. Israeli did not bother to respond since the rulers of Gaza have violated every agreed ceasefire in the past. Hamas reached out to the new Egyptian regime following its moves towards a rapprochement and a Palestinian diplomatic initiative.

debkafile's intelligence sources disclose that last week, the head of Egypt's intelligence services Maj. Gen. Mourad Mowafi visited Damascus. He obtained permission from Syria's beleaguered president Bashar Assad to meet Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshaal and Abdullah Ramadan Salah of the Palestinian Jihad Islami and hand them an invitation to visit Cairo.

He then informed them that the new Egyptian leaders are willing to help negotiate Hamas' reconciliation with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah on the following basis: Hamas would accept the two-state solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but Egypt would not press for the second part of the formula endorsed by Washington and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, namely that "the two states live alongside each other in peace and security."

This amended formula would leave Hamas and the other radical Palestinian organizations free to continue their violent campaign of "resistance" against Israel while making peace with the rival Fatah and gaining a Palestinian state on the West Bank.

These days, Hamas is sure it is on a win-win course and has little to fear from stepping up its war on Israel until it gets what it wants.

Will The World Declare War on Israel This Fall?
ynetnews.com

In all likelihood, the Palestinians are going to unilaterally declare statehood in Judea and Samaria within the coming year. This is not a ploy or a desperate attempt on their part but rather a clear, rational decision. By correctly gauging the stark contrast between the massive international support for their cause as opposed to the steadily increasing de-legitimization of Israel the “apartheid state,” the Palestinians have wisely decided to bypass direct negotiations since there is no point in paying for something when you can get if for free.

Thus, with country after country pledging its support, the Palestinians are going to take their case to the United Nations.

There, the Palestinians have nothing to lose for even if the Security Council rejects their bid for statehood, it will most likely be approved by the General Assembly. Although this is less significant than an endorsement by the Security Council, an approval by the General Assembly does nonetheless have some teeth. Most notably, as many commentators pointed out, there is something known as UNGA Resolution 377 that allows the General Assembly to call for sanctions or even military force against a country that fails to implement its recommendations.

If the “civilized world” helps bring the Palestinian plan to fruition then a very likely result of such actions will be the outbreak of war. Thus, in a world turned upside down it will be the UN, a body formed to help foster peace throughout the world, which will be directly responsible for bringing the next great Arab-Israeli war to the Middle East.

Notably, more than 60 years ago the Palestinians rejected a similar state that had been allotted to them by the UN. A few months later when Israel had the "chutzpa" to declare a state, rather than reject one, in the portion they were granted by the UN, several Arab countries attacked the new Jewish state. That was the first war of independence, a result of Arab refusal to receive anything less than 100%.

In the following years, nothing has fundamentally changed in this respect, the only difference being that the Arabs have finally learned how to achieve their goal. Thus they're ready to accept what they formally rejected as a means for eventually getting it all.

War is coming

This brings us to today and the quickly approaching second war of independence. Unlike 60 years ago, this time around nearly the entire international community will be aligned with the Palestinians against Israel, making Israel the sole villain.

The war will not break out immediately, but rather, it will slowly escalate. First there will be calls for sanctions against Israel for failing to immediately remove its military and citizens from the new Arab state in Judea and Samaria. Then there will be the predictable eruption of terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria, making life hell for the Jews living there. The attacks will then spill over into the rest of Israel, bringing back memories of the horror of a decade ago. Next up will be rocket attacks from Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north. Thanks to a porous border with Egypt as well as other regional changes, Iran will have no problem constantly rearming its proxies.

As the attacks intensify, Israel will be routinely chastised for retaliating and not showing proper restraint, as such Arab attacks will be viewed as somewhat understandable in light of continued Israeli noncompliance. Moreover, Israeli reprisals will probably draw some neighboring countries into the fray as they all begin to sense Israel’s imminent downfall.

If Israel is still obstinate following the sanctions and Arab attacks, then the UN may call for military intervention in order to enforce the will of the international community. Consequently, they will do to Israel what they will never do to Iran. After all, Israel's continued presence in Judea and Samaria - and not Arab violence, terrorism, hatred, anti-Semitism and intransigence – will be considered, like it is today, as being the main reason that peace and harmony is lacking in the region.

Following the isolating effect of sanctions and de-legitimization, together with incessant terrorist attacks and missile showers, the threat of military intervention will probably do the trick. Having been cowered by the cumulative effect of all the actions, Israel will be sufficiently pliable to give in on everything – the removal of all Jewish presence from Judea and Samaria, the acceptance of the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, the division and internalization of Jerusalem. Thus, the Palestinian War of Independence, the first stage in the total elimination of the State of Israel, will come to a conclusion.

Is this scenario an exaggeration? Perhaps, although one should keep in mind that before the Gaza Disengagement there were those who warned that the Israeli pullout from Gaza would result in missiles landing in nearby Ashkelon. As expected, such voices were ridiculed and ultimately ignored. History of course showed that these "right-wing hawks" erred. They were far too conservative with their predictions as missiles not only exploded in nearby Ashkelon but even reached Beersheba, nearly 50 kilometers to the east.

Israel, the war is coming.

Rabbi calls for resumption of Passover sacrifice on Temple Mount
ynetnews.com

The annual attempts to resume the Passover sacrifice received a first significant rabbinical backing recently. Safed's Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a prominent religious Zionism leader, has called on the public to perform the sacrifice mitzvah on the eve of the Jewish holiday, in about two weeks.

Speaking during a Halacha lesson in Jerusalem last week, the rabbi warned that Jews evading the mitzvah were risking "Kareth" - a supernatural punishment for transgressing Jewish Law.

According to Rabbi Eliyahu, there is a halachic, legal and public possibility to offer a Passover sacrifice these days. During the lesson, he quoted senior rabbinical authorities, adding that Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalisher – one of the founders of modern and religious Zionism – had asked the Turkish sultan to allot an area on the Temple Mount for the erection of an altar for a Passover sacrifice.

The Safed rabbi went on to say that the Passover sacrifice could be slaughtered in front of the Dome of the Rock plaza, although the Temple no longer exists and the people of Israel are defined as "tameh met" (in a status of impurity which comes from contact with a dead body).

In order to overcome the greatest obstacle, beyond the political problem, an altar must be erected, the rabbi said. He also called for the preparation of "priesthood clothes", which are the only ones in which Kohanim (priests) can perform their work at the Temple.

Mission possible

Addressing the legal aspect, Rabbi Eliyahu claimed that every person has the right to perform the commandment of his religion according to his own understanding. He added that petitions filed with the High Court of Justice against the sacrifice were accepted only because the police were unprepared to secure the ceremony.

"It's perfectly clear that if the public pressures its representatives in the government or in the Knesset, everything will change. If the judges have ruled that the police must secure simpler protests, why not the Passover sacrifice?"

Eliyahu rejected the claim that it was impossible to resume the mitzvah publicly. Addressing the international diplomatic ramifications, he said, "We are being threatened that any movement on our part on the Temple Mount will launch the third world war… (But) we can free our souls of the horror of the gentiles, just like we freed ourselves before the Exodus."

He rejected the internal opposition too. "Some fear the public echo of the Passover sacrifice – how will the seculars view it? What will the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say? The truth is that this should not even be discussed…

"We have already been scorned for the circumcision mitzvah, persecuted and condemned to death for that. Today the UN's health organization recommends that all men undergo circumcision in order to avoid illnesses."

Rabbi Eliyahu said the Torah had predicted that some would mock the sacrifice mitzvah. Such a person, he noted, is called in the Passover Haggadah, the "wicked son", who cleans his hands and says, "This doesn’t belong to me, this blood and primitiveness. I am an enlightened person. I respect animals. I don't slaughter them barbarically."

The rabbi estimated, based on the Bible stories, that those who oppose this mitzvah would eventually change their mind and join the Temple work.

'Break spiritual barrier'

In order to increase the motivation to offer a Passover sacrifice, Eliyahu noted that this is one of two "active mitzvot" (along with the circumcision), and that those evading it risk supernatural punishment and "cause great damage to themselves and to the entire world".

He added that his father, former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, wrote that this custom may still exist these days.

"These things should make us break the spiritual barrier preventing us from thinking about offering the Passover sacrifice," Rabbi Eliyahu concluded.

He said his remarks were not lip service, but laws being learned "as a real demand and real preparation for the Passover sacrifice. Although we are not used to it, and have gotten used to living without a temple, we must change our ways."

An Invasion of Israel In 2012? A look at Jewish prophecy
israelnationalnews.com

Note from Prophecy News Watch - While we don't agree with a number of interpretations given in this article we thought the scenario outlined in terms of coming potential events was through provoking and worth sharing with you as to what some Jews are expecting in terms of both prophecy and future current events.

Maimonides teaches that the Jewish Oral Tradition does not clarify the details of future events described by the Prophets of Israel in the Bible. In his words, – "and in all these things and related matters man will not know how they will come about until they come about." In other words, no one knows exactly what the Prophets are describing until it takes place.

The Jewish Oral Tradition gives us abundant guidance on matters of Halakha – for instance, the – “the fruit of the beauteous tree to be taken on Sukkot” - is defined by the Oral Tradition as the etrog – the citron. Or, the Biblical injunction to"bind them as a sign on your arms and frontlets between your eyes" we understand from the Torah she-Beal Peh refers to phylacteries – Tefillin – which are cubic black leather boxes containing parchments inscribed with very specific Biblical passages. Without the Oral Tradition, we would have no way of knowing this.

A comparable guide to understanding prophetic statements, however, is not revealed by the Oral Tradition. For instance, Isaiah 60:08, in reference to the returning of the Exiles to Israel in the Final Redemption, states: – "who are these who will fly like a cloud, and like doves to their dovecotes?"

Before the era of piloted manned flight began in the early twentieth century, classical commentators were simply unable to understand this passage. Today, when virtually all modern-era immigrants have reached Israel by flying at the altitude of clouds, and, like doves, always landing in the same place – the Ben Gurion Airport, we understand clearly the prediction of Isaiah concerning this phenomenon of airborne ingathering of Exiles.

Another example is Isaiah 26:20 - “Go My people come into your rooms and close your doors behind you, hide for just a moment until the fury passes". The Biblical commentator Radak comments that this will occur during the War of Gog Umagog and the reference to "rooms" is allegorical and refers to "taking shelter" so to speak, by doing good deeds and doing penance. Rashi states that the Jews will go to their synagogues and study halls at that time.

As we now know, this passage is a very accurate description of the seclusion in the "sealed rooms" used as a protection in Israel against chemical warfare agents in the first Gulf War in 1991 and the "fury passing" occurred when the "All Clear" sounded (the code words were "Sharav Kaved") allowing people to exit the sealed rooms after the Scud missile landed and was determined to be chemically non-threatening.

As Maimonides had said, when the prophecy comes to pass, we are able to understand the passage, and so it was.

The People of Israel have been experiencing events described as those of "Acharit Hayamim" – the "Last of the Years" [not, as often mistranslated, "The End of Days"] referred to by the Torah and the prophets, when there is to be a massive ingathering of Jews to the Land of Israel, an extensive rebuilding of the country and its communities, and a Golden Age when - "for from Zion shall issue forth Torah (Teaching = knowledge, including technological and scientific advances) and the Word of G-d from Jerusalem" Isaiah 2:3 and Michah 4:2.

It is tempting to explore prophetic and Midrashic sources to look for the context of unfolding events. This study leads to encouragement as to their salutary outcome, despite the difficulties and challenges we face at present.

Rav Saadyah Gaon related to this over one thousand years ago in his ten-part seminal philosophical work "Hanivchar Be'emunot Ve'deot" "Selected Matters of Faith and Doctrines of Dogma". In number 8 – "BaYeshuah" – "Concerning the Final Salvation" he states (according to the translation from the Arabic by Rav Yosef Kapach, page 247) - “praised be He who benefited us in that He gave us advance notice concerning these troubles so that they would not happen to us suddenly and cause us despair".

To paraphrase this idea, there is a reason the prophets provide so much detail in their accounts of future events in the Messianic Age. After all, to convey basic Jewish Faith in the Redemption concept it would be enough for the Prophets to write "trust in the Ultimate Redemption – it will surely come."

The reason for the detailed scenarios described in Biblical prophecy is so that when these events begin to take place, we will be able to recognize the patterns and context of ominous developments, and know that the final outcome is positive.

The message of Rav Saadyah is that the detail has been provided in order that the Jewish people will not despair. This foreknowledge of the outcome provided by the prophets will preclude mass despair on the part of the Jewish public when the scenario of upcoming events of the Messianic era seems threatening and foreboding.

An example of this principle at work was provided over five years ago on the occasion of the destruction of Gush Katif. At that time, the prospect of Israel destroying many rebuilt Jewish communities was considered by some to be an indication of a reversal of the אתחלתא דגאולה "atchalta de'Geula" "first stages of the Redemption" which the State of Israel embodied up to that point.

However, the Targum Yonatan ben Uziel on Deuteronomy 34:3 states:– in translation "And the exile of the students of Elisha [the Prophet] who are exiled from the Town of Dekalim by their brethren of the House of Israel – 200,000 men - . . . and the battle orders of Gog [and Magog] and in that era of great pain, Michael [the Archangel Michael – the guardian angel of the Jewish people] will arise with the [outstretched] Arm [of the Almighty] in order to redeem."

This source tells us that the evacuation of Gush Katif and its principle town Neveh Dekalim, exiling the Jewish residents, could be seen as an integral part of the upcoming scenario of Ultimate Redemption. Were it not for this source, we might have despaired of the future.

Taking it into consideration, although we do not yet understand the logic and we share the pain of the exiled pioneers, and although those who perpetrated the act chose of their own free will to cause immeasurable suffering, we can be heartened that it is part of the overall redemption scenario so that we do not "despair".

In Israel, we find ourselves in foreboding circumstances today, in Spring 2011. The State of Israel seems to have lost a major measure of its support in the non-Jewish world and is being stampeded into abandoning large parts of the Land of Israel to the tender mercies of sworn enemies who have no peaceful intentions at all – the Palestinians.

These are Arabs who constitute a "national entity" invented recently of whole cloth and which never existed in world history. Their wish is to destroy the State of Israel and kill as many Jews as possible in the process. Prime Minister Netanyahu is being pushed into formulating a plan of further concessions, beyond those already granted, lest the "World" (i.e. the Quartet - the USA, Russia, the UN, and the EU) force on Israel a "peace agreement" which would involve the abandonment of the homes of over 600,000 Israelis – including large parts of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian enemy fully expects this scenario to materialize and so, steadfastly refuses to negotiate. Since the "World", lead by US President Barack Hussein Obama whose father was a practicing Moslem, does not punish them in any way for not negotiating, they feel vindicated in this assessment.

Let us consult Jewish sources to see if there are hints as to upcoming events. First we will review a possible scenario constructed from the Palestinian declared intentions and from prophetic sources that correlate with them. Then we will quote these sources in detail so as to back up the scenario. The result is much more encouraging than currently considered.

cont.......

cont......

A Possible Scenario:
After extensive preparation of the apparatus of statehood and widespread recognition by a growing list of countries of an "independent state of Palestine with borders defined by the 1967 cease-fire lines", the Palestinians turn in September 2011 [see Note 1 below] to the UN Security Council to be recognized as an independent State within the pre-1967 armistice lines– meaning that the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood of Jerusalem, as well as many others, will be part of Security-Council-recognized Palestine.

The USA does not veto this resolution (the recent US veto of the anti-settlement Security Council resolution was a feint, and not a precedent) and it passes [see Note 2]; alternatively, if there is a veto, the Palestinians turn to the UN General Assembly, using the 1950's "Uniting for Peace" tactic which enabled the USA to engage in the Korean War although a Russian-Chinese veto had paralyzed the Security Council on this issue and receive their approval.

The Palestinians then turn to the State of Israel and request immediate evacuation of its nearly 650,000 citizens from "their state". Israel offers to discuss the matter, the Palestinians refuse any discussion [see Note 3] and refer the issue back to the Security Council, requesting that they act to remove these interlopers post haste from "their state". After a short time, the Security Council and/or Quartet decide that the festering wound of the Israel-Palestine conflict has persisted long enough and decide to settle the matter once and for all by sending an expeditionary force to Israel to carry out the evacuation forcibly [see Note 4].

The deadline for Israel acting is by January 15, 2012 [see Note 5]. On or about that date, if Israel does not begin to seriously evacuate its citizens (and it won't), an expeditionary force consisting of contingents from both Christian and Moslem countries [see Note 6] lands on the shores of Israel. The force consists of at least 185,000 combat soldiers [see Note 7], and is well-armed enough to counter the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) in whatever conflict configuration that might develop.

It has been demonstrated on the Internet that there is an elaborate US Armed Forces base in Israel, located near Shoham, and straddling the Green Line, and the force may be quartered there. This base was given to Pres. George W. Bush by Prime Minister Sharon on the occasion of the second Iraq War about five years ago.

Eight months after the initial invasion [see note 8], the force approaches Jerusalem on the Eve of Sukkot 5773 (October 2012) [see Note 8]. They cause substantial havoc, but one week later, on the night between Oct. 06 and Oct. 07, 2012 - in the Hebrew calendar Leil Hoshanna Rabbah – the eve of the seventh day of Sukkot - , the L-rd, G-d of Israel says "Enough!" and puts an end to this force by some as yet unidentified natural phenomenon, devastating all the home countries who contributed personnel to the invasion [see Note 8]. Furthermore, on this occasion, all the capitals of the historic enemies of the Jews (for example Berlin, Teheran, Cairo, Rome, London, Madrid, Mecca, Moscow) will be reduced to rubble in a natural disaster that engulfs the entire planet [see Notes 9 and 11].

On the morning of Hoshanna Rabbah, the world looks entirely different. The final end to political or military pressure exerted on Jews and their State of Israel arrives.

At the close of this scenario, the Israel-Palestinian conflict ends forever. The Jews present in the Holy Land emerge unscathed and those surviving the devastation overseas soon make a final Aliyah [see Note 10].

The Sources:

Those readers familiar with Jewish sources describing the War of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38 will recognize elements thereof in the above scenario. Let us now elaborate in detail the sources for the above account, point-by-point.

1. August-September, 2011 Security Council approval of a Palestinian State in the 1967 lines:
This is the proclaimed intention of the Palestinian leadership, as declared repeatedly by their Prime Minister Salam Fayyad over the last 1 1/2 years. It is also the date by which the "Quartet" has determined that a final settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict be completed.

2. American non-use of the Veto at the Security Council : For the first time in history, America has a President – Barack Obama – with a sympathetic orientation to Moslem countries. He visited Cairo early in his presidency but has not yet visited Israel, and actions speak louder than words. The Palestinians’ moves would logically be made such that the entire planned process of forcing Israel militarily to do their bidding is completed before November 2012 when Obama stands for re-election.

3. The Palestinians demand evacuation of their country by the Jewish non-citizens and refuse to negotiate: This is simply a logical conclusion based on their behavior and statements to date – force Israel to vacate all territory beyond the post-1967 lines without resorting to negotiation and without conceding anything at all. They have announced clearly that their state must be judenrein.

4. The "Quartet" decides to force Israeli evacuation militarily: The entire tenor of the anti-Israeli international political atmosphere for the last two years leads directly to this outcome. It is this prospect that has Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak running scared and feeling pressured to make proposals to "advance the peace process," even though the current logjam in negotiations is entirely the fault of the Palestinians. Note the Arab League's announced plan to ask to make Gaza a no-fly zone and Obama advisor Samantha Power's suggestion to send UN forces to protect the Palestinians from the IDF.

5. The Jan.15, 2012 date: The first Gulf War in 1991 was fixed to begin on this date. Events in the solar calendar have particular significance for the non-Jewish world and those in the lunar calendar are significant for the Jewish world. (see BT Tractate Succa 29a – a solar eclipse is a bad omen for the non-Jews and a lunar eclipse is a bad omen for the Jews).

Cont......

In 2012, the interval between Jan. 15 and Oct. 07, Hoshanna Rabbah – the seventh day of Sukkot, is exactly 266 days – 38 weeks, i.e. the nine months of a human pregnancy. According to BT Yoma 10a, "Ben-David (the Messiah) will only arrive after the evil kingdom of Rome dominates the entire world for a period of nine months as it says in Micah 5:2 "therefore give them the time it takes for her to give birth." The events at the closing stages of the Redemption process will last the nine months of human gestation.

Since it is understood that the finale of G-d's victory over the nations at the close of the Gog and Magog War takes place on the seventh day of Sukkot – Hoshanna Rabbah, it is logical to seek the year when this interval is 266 days. 2012 is such a year.

In Zechariah 14, it states that in response to the nations' invasion of Eretz Yisrael, - "And Hashem will go forth and do battle with those nations as on the day of His fighting on the day of Battle." The Targum Yonatan renders this: - "As on the day that he fought the battle at the Red Sea", referring to the night of the seventh day of Passover, when the Egyptian pursuers were drowned in the Red Sea.

Since G-d's victory over the Egyptians in the Exodus culminated in the crossing of the Red Sea and the final destruction of the Egyptian enemy on the seventh day of Passover, so in the Final Redemption on the Seventh Day of Sukkot all the nations who were/are enemies of the Jews will be destroyed. As it states in Michah 7:15 – "I will show you miraculous events (at the Final Redemption) as in the days of the Exodus."

The connection with the Sukkot holiday is clearly indicated in Zechariah 14 and is the reason the chapters related to the War of Gog and Magog were chosen to be read as Haphtorot on Sukkot.

This connection is Torah-mandated. The 70 bulls sacrificed on Sukkot in the Holy Temple on behalf of the welfare of the 70-nations of the world are sacrificed not 10 per day for 7 days, but in a curious countdown from 13 on the first day to 7 on the last day. The total is 70, but the declining numbers are an ominous message to the nations that in the ultimate events to take place on Sukkot, they will not fare well (unless there is massive Teshuva – repentance - on their part; see Rashi on Numbers 29:18).

6. Christian and Moslem Contingents in the Invading Expeditionary Force: See Daniel 11:40 and following: 40 – “And at the time of the End [a synonym in Biblical terminology for Acharit Hayamim] there will be a collision with him by the King of the South and the King of the North will storm [his defences] with chariots and horsemen and many ocean-going vessels and he will sweep through and pass on”. - “And he will pitch his Royal tents between the seas and the mount of the Sacred Beauty [a synonym for the land of Israel] and he will come to his End, and there is no one to help him”. 12:1 - "And at that time, the Great Archangel Michael [the traditional Guardian Angel of the Jews], who guards over Your people, will arise and there will be a time of troubles such as never before since becoming a nation until then, and at that time, Your people will escape – all those found to be written in the book."

The above passages describe a seminal war between the King of the South and the King of the North, who then unite to invade Israel, where they will meet their end. Over one hundred years ago, the classic commentary Malbim identified the King of the South as "artzot Yishmael" the Ishmaelite countries, a clear reference to Moslem forces; the Metzudot David, another commentary, identifies the King of the North as "Romi", Rome, a reference to the Christian countries.

From these sources, it derives that the invasion of Israel at the end of the scenario involves a coalition of both Moslem and Christian forces. This invasion and its consequences – the War of Gog-u-Magog – are described in detail in Ezekiel 38 and 39. There, Persia is mentioned as part of the invading coalition, so that now Iran may be part of the expeditionary force as well. The intent of the invading force is (38:12) -"To take as booty the booty [the booty already taken--in the Six Day War?], and to despoil the spoils, to return your [violent] hand on resettled ruins and against a people ingathered from the Nations, dealing in commercial trade, and dwelling in the heartland [literally: the navel of the Land]".

This description closely suits the intent to uproot communities rebuilt in Israel [referred to as "the settlements" in the current diplomatic jargon], the intent of the Expeditionary Force. Finally, in 39:06 - "I will send fire in Magog [the home countries of Gog and his coalition] and in the dwellers of the Islands [a biblical term for overseas territories – other continents] in security and then they will know that I am the L-rd." This is a clear reference to world-wide destruction and catastrophe. In Zechariah 13:8, a reference to "two-thirds will be cut off and perish and one-third will be left over [from the destruction]" is interpreted as referring to the vast toll of this world-wide catastrophe (see BT Sanhedrin 111a – debate between R' Yohanan and Resh Lakish).

cont......

7. 185,000 Soldiers: The B.T. Sanhedrin 95b describes that the future armies of Gog Umagog will encompass 185,000 troops as did the besieging army of Sancheriv (Sennacherib) who laid unsuccessful siege to Jerusalem during the reign of King Hezekiah. The force is itemized there as 45,000 senior officers (with their camp-following consorts), 80,000 soldiers equipped with scale-equipped body-armor, and 60,000 swordsmen, in addition to various horsemen.

This analogy derives from the similarities between this account and the scenario foretold by the prophets for the Gog Umagog conflict. An expeditionary force coming against Israel has to be capable theoretically of defeating the IDF in battle, although a battle may not occur.

8. The attack on Jerusalem on Sukkot: See Zecharia 14 - the entire chapter – for the details of this invasion. The association with Sukkot is made at the end of the chapter where in the aftermath of G-d's victory over the nations, their survivors are commanded to visit Jerusalem annually on Sukkot in remembrance of this event.

This chapter is read in synagogues as the Haphtorah on the first day of Sukkot. And Chapters 38-39 of Ezekiel, mentioned above, are read on the Intermediate Sabbath of Sukkot as the Haphtorah. The two readings are associated with Sukkot because the events described there are destined to take place on Sukkot (see Rav Hai Gaon in Tur Shulhan Arukh – Orach Chaim – 490).

9.The Planet-wide Disaster on Hoshanna Rabbah: See the detailed scenario in Ezekiel 38-39 and Zecharia 14. Earthquakes, tidal waves, avnei elgavish (which I have identified as a major fall of earth-crossing asteroids on the planet that night of Hoshanna Rabbah); each of these has enough energy and destructive power to leave a crater or devastation where a city stood previously).

10. The Jews in Israel survive: In Joel 4:16: - In the context of this war, "and G-d will roar forth from Zion, and He will raise His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth will tremble [the Biblical verb for an earthquake] and G-d will be a shelter for His people and a fortress for the children of Israel".

Furthermore, by analogy with the Exodus as defined above, the concept of "hafla'ah" – contradistinction – was a dominant theme in the Exodus. Plague after plague smote the Egyptians but the Israelites were unaffected. See the account of the plague of "dever" – cattle blight – in Exodus 9:7 where Pharaoh cannot believe that the Israelites lost no cattle to this plague and sent a personal emissary to the land of Goshen to confirm this amazing contradistinction.

So may we hope that it will be in the Final Redemption, and although there will be massive perishing all over the planet, the Jews in Israel will survive unharmed, decisively demonstrating G-d's intervention on their behalf. This will serve to convince the surviving non-Jews of the globe Who orchestrated this world-wide catastrophe – and why.

Finally, in Deuteronomy 32:25, the song of Ha'azinu, it states - " literally – "outside there will be loss of life by sword, and indoors there will be great fear." The Targum Yonatan on this passage: - "The people exiled outside the boundaries of the Land of Israel will suffer the blow of the sword and those remaining in the Land of Israel in their bedrooms where they sleep will fear the fear of death."

This strongly suggests that the safest place for the Jews to be during that Sukkot will be in Israel – they will fear, but will remain alive.

11. Destruction of the Past and Current Enemies of the Jews at that time: This theme recurs in the Bible and the words of the prophets repeatedly. One quote will illustrate the point: Deuteronomy 32:43 – again from the Song of Ha'azinu: - "Nations, praise His people, for He has avenged the blood of His servants, and He will visit vengeance on His adversaries and will atone for His land and for His people."

In Conclusion:

As quoted above, Maimonides warns that no one knows for sure to what events specific prophecies refer until they come to pass. However, we live in times so replete with prophecies in the midst of fulfillment that we may be forgiven for constructing possible scenarios.

The above is one such scenario, congruent with Jewish sources. There may be others with different outcomes. If there is an armed invasion of Israel by a joint Christian-Moslem force intending to eject Jews from the historic Land of Israel, and this takes place in early 2012, there will be those who will ominously predict the imminent demise of the independent State of Israel, as there are even those who do so today.

However, as described above, the outcome may be dramatically more favorable for the Jews. There will be no room for despair, but rather for intense optimism, and that precisely is the message of Rav Saadyah Gaon above in explaining why we have been provided by Divine guidance with all this information.

Hezbollah intends to attack Western targets ahead of Hariri killing indictments
haaretz.com

Hezbollah is planning an attack on Western targets, a Lebanese news website reported on Tuesday, basing its claims on information intercepted by a Western intelligence agency.

According to the Beirut Observer article published Tuesday, Western intelligence officials believe Hezbollah intends to strike Western targets, citing the unusual movement of suspected Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards operatives.

The report said the intention of such an attack is to divert global public opinion from the indictments expected to be issued by a special United Nations tribunal dealing with the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.

Lebanese officials and Western diplomats expect the court to accuse Hezbollah members of involvement in the assassination, a prospect Lebanese politicians fear could fuel further tensions.

The Lebanon tribunal, the world's first international court with jurisdiction over the crime of terrorism, was set up to try those accused over the 2005 bombing that killed Lebanese ex-prime minister Hariri and 22 others.

The prosecutor's original indictment filed in January, the contents of which are still secret, set off a political crisis in Lebanon, where Hezbollah and its allies toppled the government of Hariri's son, Saad Hariri.

Hezbollah, has said it believes some of its members may be named, and has warned the case could spark renewed bloodshed in Lebanon.

Wednesday's Beirut Observer report came after earlier this week Israel's counter terrorism bureau warned that terrorists intended to carry out attacks against Israelis and Jewish targets abroad, specifying the Far East, Greece and Turkey as areas where an attack could occur.

The warning comes just a few days before the Jewish holiday of Passover, a time during which many Israelis go on vacation.

"Due to what is happening in the Gaza Strip, terrorists intend to carry out attacks against Israelis and against Jewish targets abroad during the Passover holiday," the bureau's notice said.

Along with Greece and Turkey, India and Thailand are also thought to be countries where an attack could take place.

Israeli traveling abroad must stay especially alert at tourist spots and entertainment venues and hotels, the bureau advised. They also advised against going to places where large groups of Israelis are known to be.

Last week, the counter terrorism bureau warned against traveling to Sinai and called on Israelis who were in Sinai to return to Israel immediately.

First panic in Assad regime: High Syrian officials evacuate families
debka.com

Damascus was alive with rumors Thursday, April 14 that President Bashar Assad and his family were preparing to flee to Saudi Arabia. They were, sparked by the discovery that several high-ranking Syrian officials and army officers were evacuating their families from the capital to Persian Gulf emirates.

US intelligence officials also disclosed that Iran was secretly helping Assad crack down on his own people, providing gear to suppress crowds and assistance in blocking and monitoring protesters' Internet and cell phones.

Those officials did not refer to the Iran-backed Hizballah's active aid in the government crackdown. However, as the anti-government demonstrations pervade dozens of Syrian towns, even the second largest Aleppo, Assad is relying for survival less on the army and police and increasingly on the 10,000-strong armed Shabbiha gangs drawn from the Assad tribe of the minority Alawite community and trained in urban combat by Hizballah and Iran. In normal times, the Shabbiha are regularly employed by the Iran-Hizballah arms and drug smuggling rings.

debkafile's sources report increasing signs of desperation at the center of the Assad regime. One was a new allegation claiming that the Saad Hariri, who was ousted as Lebanese prime minister by Hizballah, was deploying armed gangs in Syrian cities to increase the bloodshed by shooting at anti-Assad protesters and security forces alike. Hariri makes an improbable scapegoat; he has neither the ability nor manpower to operate on any scale in Syria.

But the Syrian ruler is clearly at his wits' end for means to stem the onrushing threat to his regime after live ammunition failed to deter the protesters and halt the spread of their uprising.
Wednesday night, the government banned demonstrations of any kind in the country, but no one expects the decree to be obeyed. For now, Syrian authorities and opposition are bracing for Friday, April 15, when they stage their next major test of strength on the streets of dozens of cities. Bashar Assad's grip on power is clearly loosening under the constant battering of protest.

Wednesday, April 13, debkafile reported: The popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad is still spreading. Tuesday, April 12, one of the Assad family's own Alawite tribes and the key Sunni city of Aleppo joined the movement demanding the president and his kin's removal. Assad fought back against the expanding threat to his survival by mobilizing all his military and security resources, including the loyal young thugs of the shabbiha gangs. They have orders to shoot to kill and not permit ambulances to collect the wounded. Tanks seal the most restive towns of Teraa, Bania,s Latakia and Hama.

Alawite unrest centers on the impoverished Knaan tribe centered in the village of Bhamra in the mountains of northern Syria. A second immediate danger to the regime comes from Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, where for the first time more than 10,000 protesters marched. The Druze mountain inhabitants are up in arms. So too are the Kurdish towns of the north such as Kamishli and the Shammar tribes of southeastern Syria around the border town of Abu Kamal.

Damascus University has been under siege for four days, although security forces have not been able to breach it.

A grave humanitarian crisis is spreading with the unrest. Army outposts and roadblocks have cut off main roads linking the north to southern and central Syria, as well as telephone and internet services and even food deliveries in many places. Mass arrests of thousands take place nightly including, according to debkafile's sources, members of the Syrian ruling establishment for the crime of appealing to Assad to abandon his violent methods of repression and meet some of the protesters demands for reforms. Some are journalists who support the regime but who wrote articles to this effect. They were not published.

For the first time, debkafile's sources report that the protesters began returning the fire against security forces on Monday, April 11, in a number of places, especially Deraa in the south and Banias in the north. A well-laid ambush was laid on the main coastal road linking Latakia and Banias and nine Syrian officers and troops killed.

debkafile's Middle East and intelligence sources report a three-way shooting war currently in progress in Syria, in which the army and security forces, the protesters, and the shabbiha gangs are taking part. The and bloody mayhem is such that the number of casualties is almost impossible to assess.

The troops open fire at protesters as soon as a few people gather in the street without waiting for a demonstration to form. The wounded are denied medical care and allowed to die in the streets as a deterrent to protesters. Tuesday night, the White House finally issued a harsh denunciation of the Syrian "government."

The statement read: "We are deeply concerned by reports that Syrians who have been wounded by their government are being denied access to medical care. The escalating repression by the Syrian government is outrageous, and the United States strongly condemns the continued efforts to suppress peaceful protesters. President Assad and the Syrian government must respect the universal rights of the Syrian people, who are rightly demanding the basic freedoms that they have been denied."

debkafile's sources in Washington say that the language used in this statement from the Obama administration continues to skirt the protesters' most pressing demand for the Syrian president to step down, because of the still unresolved internal debate on how to handle Assad.

Despite the mounting brutality of the Syrian ruler's methods to crush the revolt against his regime, some White House circles in Washington are warning that Assad's fall would open the door for radical Muslim elements to take over, even suggesting that this would put Israel in "mortal danger."

This argument was never heard in Washington when Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt. And it by no means relates to the Assad regime's eight-year long record as primary accomplice and abettor of radical Muslim organizations such as Al Qaeda, the Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas. Starting from the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Damascus gave sanctuary and launching-pads for Muslim groups to strike American forces fighting in Iraq, including training camps and logistical aid for smuggling weapons and explosives for that purpose. Syria also facilitates the passage of arms and other support to the Hizballah radicals.

The extreme measures to which Assad has resorted as the revolt against him enters its fourth week have led to firefights within the army. Many cases are now reported of Syrian officers opening fire on other Syrian officers, killing them when they refuse to shoot protesters. There have been incidents of Shabbiha gangs shooting two ways – on demonstrators and at times on army forces. In one such incident in Ras al-Naba'a, a quarter of Banias – the irregulars appeared to be goading the soldiers into using more force to disperse the protesters. In others, these pro-Assad street gangs appear to be shooting from demonstrations to make it look as though the protesters were killing the soldiers.

Contrary to the image the Assads have always presented that "the Alawites are the ruling class in Syria," it is worth pointing out that they in fact rule Damascus, while the rest of those minority tribes, which number 1.4 million (8 percent of the 26 million population) live in abject poverty with no electricity or running water in their villages and no ties to the Assads. The paradox is that though lacking influence in the capital, their revolt against the regime could be the last straw for Asad.

These villages are now rising up for fear of being stigmatized, however unjustly, by the Sunni majority of collaboration with the Assads and targeted for revenge. In any case, they are so penurious and neglected that they have little to lose by the regime's fall.

The Shabbiha: This well-armed, roughly organized group derives most of its 9-11,000 members from Assad clans within the Alawite community and its allies. Their fighting skills were imparted by the Lebanese Hizballah or Iranian Revolutionary Guards instructors, but their loyalty to the Assad family is undivided. As smugglers, their strongholds are mostly along the coastal region, some of whose communities rely on the Shabbiha for their livelihood.

All of Israel within Rocket Range under Hamas-Fatah State
israelnationalnews.com

A new illustrated map presented by the pro-Israel Americans for a Safe Israel (ASFI) shows that a Hamas-Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority state, with or without all the borders the PA demands, would leave all of what would remain of Israel within Katyusha missile range.

The map was created by Mark Langfan, a New York attorney and expert on military and strategic issues who has frequently appeared at Congressional committees on Capitol Hill.

A Hamas-Fatah PA state would allow the Hamas terrorist organization, whose stated aim is the destruction of Israel, to deploy Iranian and Syrian-supplied Katyusha missiles near all Israel urban centers.

Seventy percent of the population of Israel, and 80 percent of the country’s industrial base is located in the coastal region that includes Netanya and metropolitan Tel Aviv, AFSI pointed out. One large PA city is Tulkarm, located only a few miles east of Netanya and overlooking the high-speed north-south Highway 6 (Kvish 6).

Jerusalem would be within easy range of Jericho, where the PA army is trained on a United States-funded base by American military officers.

Be'er Sheva already has been attacked by Grad Katyusha missiles from Gaza, as have been Haifa and the Galilee from Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon.

“Mahmoud Abbas, our supposed ’peace’ partner, has now joined forces with Hamas, the acknowledged [Hamas] terrorist group", AFSI wrote. "This is actually a declaration of war against the State of Israel since Hamas has never disguised its intentions of destroying Israel.

“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has used the diplomatic track, hoping to delude Israelis and the world with its words of peace, while pursuing its terrorist ideology. The truth is now out.”

It added that the creation of a new Arab state controlled by Hamas and Fatah would be “suicidal” for Israel.

Israel has been almost totally unified in its horror of the idea of Hamas being part of the Palestinian Authority. Even before the "unity" of the two organizations, there was the fear of a Hamas takeover in the PA's Judea and Samaria areas, as happened in Gaza.

The Obama administration has only stated that it is “studying” the new agreement between Fatah and Hamas while former U.S. President Jimmy Carter stated he thinks it is a great idea.

The Carter Center, founded in 1982 by Carter and his wife Rosalynn, commended members of Hamas and Fatah for "having the vision to begin the process of reunifying the Palestinian people.”

Carter added, “Based on my years of contacts with Fatah and Hamas, I am confident that, if handled creatively and flexibly by the international community, Hamas’ return to unified Palestinian governance can increase the likelihood of a two-state solution and a peaceful outcome.”

PA Carries out Ahmadinejad’s Threat and Wipes Israel Off Map
israelnationalnews.com

The Palestinian Authority has carried out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” and literally has done so by displaying maps of “Palestine” covering all of Israel at the same time its leaders talk about “two states for two people.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah movement that controls the PA in Judea and Samaria, has in effect established a “one-state” solution in Fatah offices and in Palestinian Authority schools and offices.

The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that professional unions and private PA groups display maps showing a rifle and a quill over “Palestine,” from the Lebanese border in the north to Eilat in the south and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

The maps have been circulated at the same time Abbas campaigns for international recognition of the Palestinian Authority based on the borders of Israel as they existed between 1949 and 1967, during which time Jordan, which had been mandated by the United Nations to rule part of Judea and Samaria, took over and occupied the entire region, including large swaths of Jerusalem, after the War of Independence in 1948.

Jordan surrendered the areas in the Six-Day War in 1967, later relinquishing all claim to it, and Egypt and Syria did the same in Gaza and the Golan Heights respectively.

The maps declare Abbas’ intentions of making what is often termed the “1967 borders” (actually armistice lines that were never recognized) the temporary outline of a would-be Palestinian Authority country, even though – as PMW noted – U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized such maps as a security threat to Israel, in the same category as the threat from terrorist groups who want to destroy Israel.

"I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2008. “Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence."

Nevertheless, the PA’s version “Palestine,” as illustrated on the map with a rifle and quill, was displayed last week at a meeting of the General Union of Palestinian Writers, PMW reported.

The Palestinian Authority has embedded in its school system the ”one-state” idea of a Palestine – without Israel – for years. As far back as 2003, school posters have displayed the Palestinian flag over a map erasing Israel.

The policy has continued unchanged despite statements by Abbas to President Obama that the PA has ceased anti-Israel incitement. Earlier this year, a map was hung in the principal’s office in a PA school which erased Israel and replaced it with "Palestine", with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag flying over Israel.

Why Is the World Expecting Israel to Make Peace With Hamas?
foxnews.com

Imagine this nightmare. Instead of sending a team of SEALs to ice Usama bin Laden, President Obama sent a team of negotiators to see if we could talk the terror lord into promises of peace. All he had to do was say the right words, and we'd say 9/11 and all the threats about destroying the Great Satan were forgiven, and gee, let's be friends.

It's a sickening scenario, yet it's not far from what the world, including the United States, is asking Israel to do with Hamas. The Israelis are expected to break bread with the people who still threaten to wipe them off the face of the earth and regularly fire rockets into towns and cities.

The Palestinian terror group, which gets its funding and weapons from Iran and its joy in murder from Al Qaeda, has signed a "unity" compact with Fatah, the main Palestinian faction. The groups have waged a low-grade civil war for years, with Hamas controlling Gaza while Fatah controls the West Bank. They now say they're joining forces and will hold winner-take-all elections in a year.

It's far from clear the truce will hold, and the jockeying for power has begun. Yet pressure is already building on Israel to make a deal that will lead to a unified Palestinian state, despite the fact that Hamas has not met the American and European demand that it renounce violence and accept Israel's right to exist.

Indeed, one top Hamas leader told Al Jazeera this week that Hamas would never recognize Israel and "the rule of Poles and Ethiopians in their land." Another denounced the killing of Bin Laden and called him "an Arab holy warrior" and martyr.

Those sentiments are hardly a surprise, but what is surprising is that the Obama administration doesn't see them as red flags. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swatted away concerns, saying, "We are going to be carefully assessing what this actually means, because there are a number of different potential meanings to it, both on paper and in practice." She said the United States has not changed its demands on Hamas, but would make a decision when "we actually see what unfolds."

That's the wrong answer. As Elliott Abrams writes on his blog at the Council on Foreign Relations, "The United States needs to be far clearer: we cannot and will not support any government where Hamas has a real influence and the security forces stop fighting terror."

A deputy national security adviser for Mideast affairs under President George W. Bush, Abrams adds that "we must certainly not fund such a government."

That's got to be the American bottom line, but by taking such a wait-and-see attitude, the White House is doing something far worse than merely kicking the can down the road. It is effectively giving a green light to letting Hamas join, and maybe run, the Palestinian government without giving up its charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel. Coming as Israelis celebrate their 63rd anniversary of independence, it's a mighty strange gift.

Alarmed by the White House approach, 27 Democratic senators wrote to Obama, reminding him that the U.S. cannot legally provide aid to any government that includes Hamas, which is a listed terror group. It also cited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warning that Fatah can have "peace with Israel or peace with Hamas" but "there is no possibility for peace with both."

The letter, signed by both New York senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, has the right tone of urgency and makes all the right points. But it is distressing that the issues needed to be spelled out for the president, because they are so obvious.

Israel’s increasing vulnerability
washingtontimes.com

Although Osama bin Laden’s death has demonstrated America’s re-solve to vindicate our national security, the world is still far from safe. In the Middle East, optimistic predictions that authoritarian regimes would fall like dominoes, ushering in new democracies and greater prospects for peace, are rapidly disappearing. Not only have democratic hopes faltered, but long-time foundations of regional stability are crumbling, to our detriment and that of our friends.

While Israel has been a bystander to the Arab world’s recent turmoil, events are conspiring against it. Early, unrealistic expectations about “democracy now” increasingly resemble experiments with Israel’s security, experiments gone badly wrong. Implacable enemies, notably Iran, are strengthening their positions by exploiting the turmoil.

Israel’s security environment has steadily darkened as Palestinian leaders fritter away two decades of opportunity (since America drove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait) to engage in direct, face-to-face negotiations. Unfortunately, Palestinians have for two years taken their cues from President Obama, who has relentlessly pressured Israel to accept Palestinian preconditions, especially the complete cessation of new West Bank housing construction.

In a further regression to Yasser Arafat’s era, the Palestinian Authority has been exploring how to reinsert its preferred deus ex machina, the United Nations, into the Arab-Israeli dispute. This time, the idea is to have the General Assembly declare a Palestinian state, harking back to 1988 when the PLO declared its “statehood,” and sought membership in U.N. specialized agencies as evidence of its new, enhanced status. These efforts to create political “facts on the ground” come at Israel’s expense, no matter how ephem-eral they invariably are.

Where Palestinian propaganda campaigns do gain traction, however, is among the broader program - in both Europe and the United States - to delegitimize the state of Israel itself. By attacking Israel as racist, by accusing it of aggression and war crimes, and other means, this “law-fare” against Israel has increasingly erased the illusory demarcation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and all its ugly implications.

But it is the rapidly deteriorating prospect for near-term democratization in the Middle East that could bring the gravest security risks for Israel. Iran, despite its own internal divisions and rivalries, has moved aggressively to protect its regional allies against democratic change, and to foment trouble more widely. In Syria, the fierce, increasingly deadly resistance of the Assad regime against popular opposition undoubtedly rests on Iran’s iron determination to keep the Ba’ath party dictatorship in power. Iran has too much at stake in its Syrian satellite, perhaps including elements of its nuclear program, to allow President Bashar Assad to fall without a bloody struggle.

Similarly, Iran is determined to sustain the terrorist Hezbollah, which has subverted Lebanon’s democratic Cedar Revolution. And, sadly for Washington, Iraq’s regime of President Nouri al-Maliki seems increasingly deferential to Iran’s will, as evidenced by the recent Iran-Iraq extradition treaty and Iraq’s military attack against an Iranian opposition group’s civilian refugee camp.

Iran has also long supported Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank. Now, after Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow, Egypt’s military has effectively ended its Gaza blockade, allowing Hamas full and unrestrained contact with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Moreover, Cairo was central to last week’s reconciliation between Hamas (whose leader condemned America for bin Laden’s death) and Fatah, a match that can only increase the terrorist menace for Israel. And Egypt has recognized the ayatollahs’ government in Tehran - bad news for Israel, but also for pro-U.S. Arab governments, like Bahrain and other Persian Gulf monarchies threatened by Iran.

Moreover, as Egypt prepares for elections this fall, calls are increasing for major revisions to the Camp David Accords, not surprisingly, given Egyptian opinion polls showing widespread opposition to this bedrock of Middle East peace and stability for three decades. During the days of street demonstrations against Mr. Mubarak, the Egyptian army moved substantial forces into the Sinai Peninsula, ostensibly to protect the vital Suez Canal and the natural gas pipeline to Israel. Although those Egyptian units remain, the pipeline is still being subjected to terrorist attacks. And if the Camp David provisions ultimately challenged by Egypt’s new “democratic” government are those effectively demilitarizing the Sinai, Israel’s security fears along that highly vulnerable border will grow exponentially.

What happens in Egypt will invariably affect Jordan, the only other Arab state with a peace agreement with Israel. In effect, Israel could find itself geostrategically back in the 1950s and 1960s, although more existentially vulnerable today as Iran progresses toward a deliverable nuclear-weapons capability. And Moammar Gadhafi’s continuing survival in Libya, although still in doubt, cannot be good for anyone.

As on so many other critical national-security issues, the Obama administration’s policies in the Middle East have been either incoherent or invisible in recent months. And those failings, now combined with the deteriorating regional security environment, gravely endanger Israel’s interests as much as those of the United States itself.

Nakba Day clashes are a precursor to declaration of PA State in September
christianpost.com

Israel's current status at the United Nations is at an all-time low, Israel's former UN ambassador, Prof. Gabriela Shalev, said yesterday at a session of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Also speaking at the meeting, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy said that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are currently impossible.

"Israel has no chance of dealing with the Palestinian move in the General Assembly," Shalev said, discussing the Palestinians' expected declaration of statehood after a UN vote this September. "The United States is not interested in vetoing the UN's recognition of a Palestinian state." Shalev added that the UN is today the foremost place for activity against Israel.

Former Mossad chief Halevy said Israel's "maneuvering space is growing narrower," while the ability of the Quartet - the U.S., Russia, UN and European Union - to "affect the peace talks is diminishing.

"The existing situation is a non-starter," he added, saying that what Israel has wanted for the last two years can't now come to fruition: "We can't reach a permanent peace deal because the person who would sign the deal is not the same person who would need to carry it out," Halevy said.

Committee chairman MK Shaul Mofaz warned that Sunday's Nakba Day clashes are a precursor to the events expected in September, when the Palestinian Authority intends to unilaterally declare a state in the UN.

"Israel's government is hiding its head in the sand," Mofaz said. "Without a peace initiative, events like the one on the Syrian border will recur in September.

"The changes here are tectonic," he added. "The events are a precursor to the September events, which could come in waves against Israel's population."

Mofaz said Israel should not have waited for Sunday's clashes to understand that the reality in the Middle East has changed.

"The present government, headed by Netanyahu, isn't initiating anything," Mofaz said, adding that the Israeli government must be prepared for any situation come September.

Former head of the Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash said "the government will negotiate with any government that adheres to the two-states-for-two-peoples principle. The Quartet's principles must be applied to the continued process, building an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation." He said the Palestinians also must accept the principle of one law, one authority, and one army.

The committee said it will ask Defense Minister Ehud Barak and top defense officials to attend a meeting to "explain" the army's failure in dealing with the Palestinians who crossed the Syrian border into Israel on Sunday.

Muslim Brotherhood seeks end to 'peace' accord with Israel
wnd.com

The chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has called on the country's next parliament to review the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords with Israel, which led to the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries and the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1980, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

In addressing the issue of Palestinians who launched demonstrations on the "al-Naqba," or catastrophe, which they call the creation of Israel, Mohamed Badie urged the Egyptian parliament to review the accords, end diplomatic recognition between the two countries and cancel the natural gas agreement Egypt has with Israel.

In addition, Badie intends to work for the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing point with the Gaza Strip from Egypt in an effort to end the issue of securing the borders of the "Zionists."

The Muslim Brotherhood chairman's appeal comes just as U.S. President Barack Obama intends to give a new message on the Middle East following the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to assure Muslims that the U.S. supports democratic change across the Middle East and North Africa, although some critics question that motive.

The last time Obama gave a speech about Muslims, he presented it in 2009 at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt – where the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is based.

Just as Badie called for ending the Camp David Peace Accords, Frank Gaffney, who is president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, warned that if the Brotherhood comes to power in Egypt and in some 13 other countries, there is no chance that U.S. – and by extension Israel's – interests will be served in an Obama outreach to Muslims.

He said that the reality of reaching out to such entities as the Brotherhood can be seen in the "jihadist nature" of the Ikhwan, or brotherhood.

"While some have claimed the organization is non-violent and, in the words of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, even 'largely secular' – the most cursory examination of the Muslim Brotherhood's own words makes clear that such assertions are unfounded, and dangerously so," Gaffney said.

Badie's most recent comments seem to bear out Gaffney's observation but may have popular appeal inside Egypt.

"It represents an ideological position that may appeal to large swaths of the Egyptian population," said Emad Gad, head of the Israeli studies program at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

Badie said that the Camp David Peace Accords had lost all credibility and he described them as not complying with the rulings of Islam. He also claimed that they were prone to "disaster" since the text of the accords was "full of uncertainties."

Netanyahu's Moment of Truth is Now
israelnationalnews.com

Predictably no sooner had Barack Obama finished his speech on the Middle East, then Americans for Peace Now, via its CEO Donna Delee, endorsed it on the spot.

It is uncertain whether the greater motivation was Pavlovian salivation over the word 'peace', Obama worship, reflexive Bibi bashing or an equal combination of the three.

What Ms. DeLee overlooked was that the Obama speech went further in the direction of the Palestinians than even the extremely delusional Geneva process mounted by the Israeli left.

The position of the Israeli left at Geneva was that a grand bargain (as if a withdrawal to indefensible lines and making Jerusalem the nation's capital even more vulnerable than Sderot could be considered a bargain) would be struck:

In return for an Israeli territorial surrender of Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian side would accept closure and would sign away its demands for a "right of return " of the perpetual Palestinian refugees to the territory of sovereign Israel. Another assumption of the left was that a Palestinian state would be demilitarized, although we have already seen how effective promises of demilitarization have been in South Lebanon and in the Palestinian Authority.

Now Barack Obama has handed a posthumous victory to Yasser Arafat. Arafat at Camp David in the year 2000 spurned Ehud Barak's grand bargain of total Israeli withdrawal in return for renouncing the right of return in the belief that ultimately he could secure an Israeli withdrawal without conceding anything.

Barack Obama has now prioritized Israeli withdrawal while leaving the Arab refugee issue unresolved. If this would happen, it means that Israel will have surrendered the territories while the Arabs retain a casus belli and can still invoke dead relics such as resolution 194 from 1949 calling for the return of the refugees.

This, as any simpleton knows, is tantamount to Israel's extinction. For the Israeli and Jewish left to endorse this formula proves that the left has no red lines.

Obama's speech also includes a "creative term" that is not recognized by international law. Instead of demilitarization the Obama address speaks of non-militarization. This admits plenty of undefined room for the Palestinians even before their expected evasion of the treaty. Under Oslo, the Palestinians were already allowed a strong police force which became a de facto army of 40,000 men. This was under demilitarization, so what can we expect under the nonexistent term of non-militarization?

I normally accord a great deal of respect to Hagai Huberman's views published in the Hebrew edition and translated here on Israel National News. Huberman advises Netanyahu to wait for a Palestinian rejection because some terms will be rejected by them.

In this case I must disagree with Huberman. Hamas has already rejected the speech but Mahmoud Abbas is temporizing. I expect the Palestinians to endorse it, but even if they reject it so what?

The entire negotiations history, from UN Security Council resolution 242 on, has demonstrated two things: when the Palestinians reject a compromise proposal they are eventually offered an even more attractive deal; when Israel offers major concessions, as Binyamin Netanyahu did in his recent Knesset speech, these are damned with faint praise and the call is for further concessions.

The "price" that the Palestinians paid for rejecting the Clinton proposals in 2000 is an Obama speech that goes further in their direction and does not exact a penalty for their perfidy and launch of the Oslo war a.k.a. the Second intifada.

One should also pay attention to the subtext. "The world is tired of the conflict". It wants a fix - any fix - and since the Arabs won't budge, the obvious policy is to lean on Israel.

Netanyahu has no alternative but to respectfully but vigorously reject the terms of the address. From the roadmap on, words and Israeli policy of yes have eventually become yes with no if's or but's.

Finally, if Netanyahu, in order to create the illusion of harmony refrains from challenging the address and confronting Obama head on, he would be undercutting Israel's allies in the United States. Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have already harshly condemned the administration sellout of Israel, with Romney calling it "throwing Israel under the bus".

It would be one thing if they were wrong and were merely grandstanding for political gain. But Romney's description is dead right and Israel must back up its friends. What politician will prove willing to stick his neck out in the future, only to see Israel cave in and make him appear ludicrous.

Canada takes firm pro-Israel line at G8 summit

www.jpost.com

The Group of Eight leaders had to soften a statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to return to negotiations because Canada objected to a specific mention of 1967 borders, diplomats said on Friday.

Canada's right-leaning Conservative government has adopted a staunchly pro-Israel position in international negotiations since coming to power in 2006, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying Canada will back Israel whatever the cost.

Diplomats involved in Middle East discussions at the G8 summit said Ottawa had insisted that no mention of Israel's pre-1967 borders be made in the leaders' final communique, even though most of the other leaders wanted a mention.

"The Canadians were really very adamant, even though Obama expressly referred to 1967 borders in his speech last week," one European diplomat said.

A spokesman for Harper would not comment on the line Canada had taken, saying only that the final communique would make positions clear.

In the final communique, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, the leaders call for the immediate resumption of peace talks but do not mention 1967, the year Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt during the Six-Day War.

"Negotiations are the only way toward a comprehensive and lasting resolution to the conflict," the communique said.

"The framework for these negotiations is well known. We urge both parties to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final status issues.

"To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011."

In his speech last week, Obama said pre-1967 borders should be a basis of talks to achieve a negotiated settlement, although he also acknowledged any agreement would ultimately involve land swaps on either side of the border.

That position was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel would be indefensible if it returned entirely to the borders that existed before 1967.

Canada's strong backing for Israel was cited by diplomats last year as one reason why Ottawa failed to win a rotating two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Harper has made is position on Israel very clear, saying last year: "When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand."

Among Israeli Jews, 20,000 embrace Christ

bpnews.net

White and blue flags rustled in the breeze, and kebabs sizzled on the grill. Ben Martin gathered the group around and offered a prayer of thanks for the food.

"Thank You for this food. Thank You for this nation. And thank You that after 2,000 years, You haven't forsaken Israel."

He hasn't forsaken it -- in fact, Jesus Christ is at work among the Jews more than ever, Martin said.

The crowd at this Israeli Independence Day party was more diverse than one might expect for a get-together celebrating the founding of the Jewish homeland in 1948.

There were Iranian Jews. Iraqi Jews. Russian Jews. American Jews.

"The face of the Jews here isn't what you'd expect," said Martin, a Christian worker among the Jews. "Because of 'the return,' it's a very diverse group."

The return of Jews after 1948 to what is Israel today brought the Diaspora -- Jews scattered worldwide -- back from different countries and cultures. But despite differences, the work among them is expanding all the time, Martin said. Baptist work in Israel started in the 1920s in an Arab town, and the Messianic work among the nation's Jews is a growing phenomenon.

Now there are an estimated 150 Jewish congregations around Israel meeting in different languages. The number of believers is estimated to be around 20,000, growing exponentially from 1948 when 12 Jews who believed in Jesus could be counted, to 1987 when there were 3,000 and 1997 where there were 5,000.

"This is clearly the work of Jesus, because it's very hard for a Jew to become a believer," Martin said.

It's fine for non-Jews to be Christians, but many Jews feel being a Jew by birth and a Christian by belief is inherently impossible, he explained. They feel the two are mutually exclusive. "It's a lie of 2,000 years that the Messianic movement [Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah] has to fight against."

In the early years of the movement, when the Messianic Jews did street evangelism, they would often find Jews who already believed in Jesus but thought they were the only ones.

"We believe Jews are becoming more open to the Gospel all the time," Martin said.

And not just in Israel itself.

David and Cindy Bufkin spent 21 years reaching out to the people of Argentina before they felt a strong pull to join the work God was doing among the Jews in the South American country. The couple was at the May 10 gathering, as part of the year they are spending in Israel to learn Jewish culture and Hebrew language before returning to work among Spanish-speaking Jews in Argentina.

"We wanted to be able to have the cultural foundation to connect with them and build relationships," Cindy Bufkin said. "It's a wide spectrum of culture among the Jews in Argentina, but they all have [Jewish tradition] in common. We want to be able to connect with them and lead them to the Messiah."

Middle East peace falls prey to politics
nj.com 5/29/2011

The late Abba Eban, the eloquent Israeli diplomat, famously said of Arab leaders they “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Today that might apply equally to Israeli leadership.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington last week to advance (it’s assumed) the cause of peace. If so, he made a hash of it, kicking sand (it’s the Middle East remember) in the face of both President Obama and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader.

Not that it bothered a bedazzled Congress; it accorded him a reception (29 standing Os) reserved for presidents or war heroes. If he were as popular all across the country, he’d be a sure bet for “Dancing with the Stars.”

He didn’t do that well in his own country. A poll conducted by Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, found a majority believe Bibi should have backed Obama’s approach.
Indeed, Netanyahu’s speech could prove a pyrrhic victory, according to Rob Malley, Middle East director for the International Crisis Group. “We’re not talking about a peace process anymore,” Malley told reporters. “We’re talking about a PR process.”

Malley’s right. But his criticism applies as well to Abbas and the Palestinians. The rhetoric on both sides is too often designed to ensure that peace, if it arrives at all, doesn’t arrive anytime soon. Both sides are hamstrung by the need to placate their extremists.

Netanyahu leads a fragile coalition that can be toppled by its ultranationalist partner if Bibi concedes too much or too early. And Abbas, in a bid for Palestinian unity, has embraced Hamas, which wants Israel’s destruction. Without concessions by each, it’s an unbridgeable gap.

Netanyahu emphasizes that return to the pre-1967 borders (cited by Obama as a starting point — not a finishing point — for peace talks) is a no-no because it would leave Israel defenseless. He’s right; it couldn’t be defended.

But in a missile and rocket age, where mere distance no longer guarantees safety, Israel would be just as vulnerable if it kept the entire West Bank. It’s why Netanyahu wants Washington to guarantee Iran never gets the bomb.

Then there’s Netayanhu’s grandiloquent claim that all the Palestinians need do to gain statehood is accept Israel as a Jewish state. Well, not quite.

There are those other conditions he mentioned: Large Israeli West Bank settlements remain part of Israel; continued Israeli military presence along the Jordon River in the West Bank; Palestinian surrender of any claim to Jerusalem; a break with Hamas.

Daniel Levy, co-director the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, labeled Netanyahu’s oratory “a point-scoring propaganda speech that raised the bar for a Palestinian state beyond the reach of an imaginable Palestinian leader.”

Abbas’ Palestinians have their own deal-breaker demands, notably the “right of return” to Israel for Palestinians driven out in the war that created Israel. It’s a demand for the end of the Jewish state, a sovereign suicide, in other words.

Israel contends it’s asked to make more concessions than the Palestinians, principally surrender of lands won in war. And that, too, is true. But Israel’s got more to give and even more to gain with peace — which it needs and soon.

Time is not on Israel’s side. It faces a demographic time bomb — Arab population growth inside Israel as well as outside. Even the so-called Arab spring looks menacing. Already, it’s toppled a friendly Egyptian regime and threatens others. And the United Nations will be asked in September to recognize a Palestinian state, something increasingly possible as much of the world turns against an isolated Israel.

The Israelis look to us to have their back at the U.N. And mostly we should because the threat to Israel is nothing less than existential. But we should not abet Israeli intransigence in the peace process, if only because our own national interests are at stake, too.

One wonders why, with so much to gain for both, peace remains so remote. The answer may lie in the old Arab fable of the scorpion who asked a turtle for a ride across the Nile, then stung him fatally in midstream, drowning both.

“Why? asked the dying turtle. “Who knows why?” replied the scorpion. “This is the Middle East.”

Israeli Military Preparing for Possible Border Clashes
foxnews.com

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military is preparing for the possibility of violent protests along its borders in the coming days, aiming to avoid a repeat of deadly unrest that erupted earlier this month, a senior military official told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Facebook-organized activists have called for demonstrations next weekend in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Mideast war, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip east Jerusalem and Golan Heights.

Israel's police commissioner said the army also is planning to counter possible unrest in the West Bank in September after an expected U.N. vote to recognize Palestinian independence.

"The Israel police is currently preparing for September, and for the possibility that various declarations regarding a nonviolent civil struggle against the background of a declaration of a Palestinian state will end up becoming a violent conflict and turn into wide-scale rioting," Yochanan Danino told the Jerusalem Post.

The commissioner tells the Post that his forces face a "new reality" in attempts to infiltrate Israel's borders.

"In this reality, we are obligated, as a security force, to expect all possibilities and various scenarios, and prepare accordingly. This is a national mission and a national challenge," Danino told the paper.

Another official said the army hopes to avoid civilian casualties but would set "red lines" for the demonstrations. That means Israel will not allow demonstrators to burst across the borders during the coming week's protests -- as they did on the Syria-Israel border on May 15 -- or to enter Jewish settlements in the West Bank in September.

He said Israel will not react to nonviolent demonstrations, including large gatherings near the settlements, but that it would be forced to take action in "life-threatening" situations.

On May 15, the day on which Palestinians mourn the anniversary of Israel's founding, hundreds of demonstrators in Syria broke through the frontier and entered the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, while in Lebanon, large crowds converged on the border. Some 14 protesters were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers, who were caught off guard by the attempts to breach the borders.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military guidelines, said the army will be much better prepared this time around. Larger numbers of troops will be deployed, he said, and they will be equipped with crowd-control tools such as rubber bullets and water cannons.

With peace talks frozen, Palestinian activists have begun to talk about holding large, nonviolent protests throughout the West Bank after a U.N. vote in September.

The official said Israel is not expecting large-scale violence at that time, but he warned it wouldn't take much to trigger an outbreak in fighting. "Unfortunately, we have seen lots of demonstrations turn violent," he said.

Israel: The Bible Is Our Ownership Deed
ynetnews.com

While facing the nations of the world, the State of Israel’s public relations officials tried everything, ranging from the security argument, through the narrow borders and all the way to the strategic threat. Yet it’s not working and remains unconvincing. When we adopt this kind of PR, the world tries to come up with solutions to the security problem: Utilizing satellites, cameras, electronic fences, multinational forces, demilitarized zones and all sorts of other creative notions.

We tried PR strategies premised on various arguments. We made use of the Holocaust, the expulsion from Spain, the Crusades and anti-Semitism. We enlisted all the blood libels to the cause in an effort to prove our righteousness, yet it hasn’t worked either. In fact, we have seen the opposite effect. Suddenly we discover that not only Turkey boycotts us, but also Scotland, not to mention the British academic boycott and all sorts of other such moves.

After trying so many ineffective PR methods, perhaps we would do well to go back to the simple approach – the Bible. After all, we are speaking to the Christian and Muslim worlds. These two religions recognize the Biblical story, the Bible’s truth and its sanctity. Both religions admit that the Jewish People is the people of the Bible. So instead of seeking security arguments to justify our right for this land and for Jerusalem, let’s go back to our roots and speak the Biblical language which the world understands.

Instead of trying to come up with theories and explanations that fail to convince the world, we would do well to go back to the basic verses of the Bible, such as: “for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.” (Genesis 13:15)

Learn from Ben-Gurion

Classic Zionism spoke at rallies and conventions during the day, while setting up communities overnight. This is how the state was built. This is how we established the reality of our life in the Galilee, on the Golan, in the Jordan Rift Valley, in the Negev, and in Judea and Samaria. We created an irreversible reality. Once this becomes simple for us, it will be simple for the world as well.

The role of leaders is to speak, explain, present arguments and produce a proper, serious PR strategy that has a chance to convince the nations of the world. Meanwhile, the role of the people on the ground is to create a reality of natural, healthy and normal Jewish life.

Does it sound naïve? Not serious enough? Good thing David Ben-Gurion didn’t think so. After the outbreak of the 1936 Arab riots, the British government established a commission of inquiry to look into the events. The Arabs repeated their usual occupation claims (and this was 1936, much before 1948 or 1967.) Ben-Gurion was summoned by the commission in order to argue for the Jewish People’s right for the Land of Israel.

When the head of the committee addressed him and wondered how the Jews can argue that they have a right for the land, as most of them were not born here, Ben-Gurion picked up the Bible and said: This is our ownership deed.

So simple and so true.

Israel eyeing reoccupation of Sinai
WND

Regional analysts say Israeli officials are thinking about reoccupying the Sinai Peninsula because of the growing prospect of infiltration by al-Qaida and other militants such as Hamas, the inability of the Egyptian military to guarantee security and the prospect of a cut-off of vital natural gas supplies flowing through a repeatedly sabotaged pipeline, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Israeli officials already have warned of a heightened terrorist threat from the Sinai. In April, Israeli aircraft attacked a car said to be carrying three Hamas operatives allegedly planning to abduct Israelis there.

In response, Israel's counter-terrorism bureau issued an instruction that told of "updated information that terrorist organizations are continuing their efforts to abduct Israeli tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula for bargaining purposes" and that "terror agents that are residing in Sinai are coordinating plans for such attacks with local Bedouin collaborators."

Since the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in January, Israel has become increasingly concerned with the security of the Sinai, a stretch of land that is three times the size of Israel's pre-1967 border area, or some 23,000 square miles.

As G2Bulletin recently reported, some 400 al-Qaida militants are known to have infiltrated into the Sinai with the help of Hamas Palestinians from bordering Gaza. There also is Israeli concern that Hamas could bring in rockets from the Gaza Strip and shoot them into Israel along the 140-mile border between Israel and the Sinai.

Egyptian authorities also claim they no longer can maintain security in the region.

Egyptian police are abandoning their remote stations and checkpoints, which are coming under increased attacks from Bedouin tribesmen in the region. Bedouin tribesmen ransacked numerous abandoned government facilities and have threatened to attack South Sinai oil installations and tourist resorts.

"The Sinai is already known as a lawless land," according to a senior Israeli official. "There is real concern that if the Egyptians don't get the Sinai back under their control, it could develop into a major threat to Israel."

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Theology => Prophecy - Current Events => Topic started by: HisDaughter on April 02, 2011, 11:02:48 AM