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Twenty-First Century Israel!

Israel is Now Facing a Hostile 21st Century PA Government.

The PA is led by the Terrorist Organization Hamas, Godfathered

by Saudi Arabia, Armed by Iran, and there is a very real possibility that Welfare Payments to it will once again be started by Several Western Powers!

March 19, 2007

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The changes in the geopolitical structure of Israel’s dominance in the Middle East power scenario have been phenomenal since the time of the Oslo peace conference.

A change in Arab confidence in their ability to succeed against the Big and Little Devil, the U.S. and Israel, began at the turn of the century, and it has steadily increased since that time in the overall mindset of radical Islam.

Begin DEBKAfile Article

New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel’s Middle East positions

March 18, 2007, 10:10 AM (GMT+02:00)

The Hamas-Fatah government taking office Sunday, March 18, is more than a policy failure by prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni; it is another milestone on the road to the collapse of Israel’s Middle East positions at large, on a scale comparable to the setback to its deterrence from the mismanaged war against Hizballah last summer.

This fiasco is reflected in the horrified outcry across the board,

from members of the Olmert government coalition and the opposition alike, as Israelis woke up Sunday, March 18, to face a hostile Palestinian government led by a terrorist organization, godfathered by Saudi Arabia, armed by Iran, and blessed by Western powers.

Exactly a week ago, on March 11, the Israeli prime minister said he was positively reviewing sections of the Saudi Arabian 2002 “peace plan.” He did

not waver when Riyadh declared the hard-line text would not be modified when it is re-launched at the Arab summit in ten days’ time.

That afternoon, Olmert had his second interview with Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader

of Fatah. He stressed the importance of “staying in touch with positive Palestinian elements.” This was also Livni’s mantra during her recent travels to the US and European capitals.

They both fell into the Palestinian trap, effectively sanctioning the seal of moderation with which Abbas and Fatah stamped a Palestinian government dominated by the Hamas terrorists.

Even more dangerously, the two Israeli leaders failed to question the covert Yalta-type understanding reached by Riyadh and Tehran.

They ought to have grasped that when the Saudis and Iranians stuck their deal to preserve the Siniora government in Lebanon, as DEBKAfile revealed in late February, they must also have come to terms on the Palestinian issue.

And so they did.

It was a package: Tehran called off the campaign led by its patsy Hizballah against the anti-Syrian Lebanese government, gaining stronger representation – at Syria’s expense, while the rival Palestinian factions were told in Mecca to share power – at Israel’s expense.

Olmert and Livni forgot a permanent Middle East axiom: Israel’s neighbors can always set aside their differences for common action against the Jewish state. Therefore, Sunni princes and Shiite clerics easily agreed on a Palestinian formula that would imperil Israel’s most vital interests.

They figured that, just as Syrian president B

ashar Assad is too isolated to challenge his dependence on Tehran, so too Israel is too dependent on Washington to complain about Saudi under-the-table transactions with Iran for the sake of a deal on Iraq.

In the past year, Olmert-Livni policies have been so closely synchronized with Washington’s, that many of Israel’s vital interests have gone by the board.

It was their vain hope that Arab governments in fear of Iran’s ambitions would come to terms with Israel and move the Middle East closer to peace. This misreading was shared by opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. What happened instead was that the so-called moderate Arab camp stood aside when Tehran focused its attention on building up the menace to Israel on the backs of the now-kosher Palestinian radicals.

Iran not only gave them arms, ordnance, cash and training, but also strategic depth. Its Revolutionary Guards have spread their wings into Gaza through Sinai up to the Suez and Mediterranean, and built up a war menace to Israel from the south, as well as the north. The realistic prospect is theref ore closer to war rather than peace, the culmination of a process which the prime minister, his f

oreign minister and their advisers consistently missed or misread.

Addressing the Washington pro-Israel lobby AIPAC’s annual conference last week, Olmert and Livni both came out in support of the Bush administration’s military strategy in Iraq. Since that strategy hinges largely on covert Saudi-Iranian diplomacy in Washington’s name, Israeli government spokesmen implicitly gave America a blank check to pay for an Iraq accommodation at Israel’s expense.

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Dialog Dancing with the Demons!

March 18, 2007

HTTP://WWW.TRIBULATIONPERIOD.COM/

The Tehran Times article, which follows our lengthy heading, describes what they term as “positive dialog” between the U.S. and Syria.

The only thing positive about the U.S. – Syrian Dialog is that it brings us one small step closer to setting the stage for the deceit necessary to lead the U.S., the E.U., and Israel one inch closer to being set up for a Jihad

by the Arab nations.

This evil thought is already hatched, and we are not going to do anything to stop it. The deceit is already in place for a surprise Jihad.

The Jihad is a certainty, but the exact time is not. As you well know, my guesstimate for the date of the Jihad attack from the north

against Israel is that it will occur at some point in time between 2008 and 2012.

I consider the dialog positive only because it will precede the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, an event I have been looking forward to for a very long time.

Revelation 16:13-15 – And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. [14] For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. [15] Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

Ezekiel 38:7-12 – Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. [8] After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and

they shall dwell safely all of them. [9] Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. [10] Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: [11] And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, [12] To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.

Ezekiel 38:7 — “Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.”

This is a specific warning to Satan and his antichrist to get set, to be ready, and to be prepared to protect his armies as a guard or big brother. This is the showdown between God and Satan at the end of the age of the Gentiles, and God is literally saying, “ This is it!

You had better be ready.”

Ezekiel 38:8 – “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.” The “after many days” have piled up to some twenty-six hundred years since Ezekiel wrote these words.

“Thou” refers to Gog, the anti-Christ.

“Be visited,” means to muster, or to be called to arms. The rest of the verse identifies the general time, the place of the battle, and the people he will attack. The time (latter years) represents the closing years of the age of the Gentiles. The land is the restored nation of Israel that has been “brought back from the sword” (that has been restored from war). “And is gathered out of many people” refers to the residents of the land that is “brought back from the sword,” which have been gathered out of many nations across the face of the earth. “Against the mountains of Israel, which have always been waste” gives a topographical description of the land of Israel into which the anti-Christ will plunge southward.

“Which has always been waste” refers to the hundreds of years between A.D. 135 and 1948 that the land of Israel was, compared to her former years of productivity, virtually a barren wasteland. “But is brought forth out of the nations” is exactly how the present nation of Israel was formed – by Jews brought forth from virtually every Gentile nation on this planet. Thus far, I am confident that all this has already been fulfilled. However, the last expression in verse eight has yet to be fulfilled, but I guesstimate it is very likely to occur before 2012.

The last phrase in verse eight, “And they shall dwell safely all of them,” has not happened since the temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. Israel has not had a single year, since she became a nation in 1948, that she has not had the constant possibility of war, or a conscious awareness of a terrorist act at any given moment. They have most assuredly not dwelled “safely all of them.” In many of my previous Prophecy Updates, I have detailed what I believe will cause peace to finally come to the Mid-East, in spite of what is currently going on in the region. But it will be a false peace, and of short duration. It will abruptly end with the forces of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran pulling off a surprise blitzkrieg attack from the north. The Palestinians will attack Israel from within

at the same time, and Israel will be forced to withdraw into the Negev. There will be five other Islamic nations involved in the peace of deceit, but the five aforementioned nations will provide the initial bulk of the force.

Ezekiel 38:9 – “Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.”

This describes the suddenness of the blitzkrieg attack of Gog the antichrist against Israel from the north. It compares the attack with the rapid development of a cumulonimbus cloud when it first comes quickly toward the observer as a rumbling thunderstorm, and then rapidly covers the land where he or she stands from horizon to horizon. This will be the manner the bands and many people supporting Gog will abruptly spread southward across Israel.

Ezekiel 38:10-12 – “Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: [11] And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, [12] To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.”

Verse 10 – Take a look back at the last phrase in Ezekiel 38:8, which is: “And they shall dwell safely all of them.” This phrase is directly tied to the “evil thought” that comes into the mind of the antichrist concerning the purpose of the false peace he has led them into by deceit.

Verse 11 – In the terminology of the people of Ezekiel’s day, painted a picture of people at peace with the other peoples around them. Believe it or not, in spite of what is currently going on around, and in, Israel, I guesstimate before 2012 you will see Israel lulled into a false sense of security by agreements with the Palestinians, Lebanon, and Syria. The arrangements, whether by voluntary free will choice, or by force, or by hudna, or by a combination of all three, will cause Israel to have false security agreements with all the nations that touch her borders, and the one that exists within her. But they will be agreements of deceit by Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians.

The Islamic leaders, and the leaders of the terrorist groups they support, are now becoming aware they can never defeat Israel by their present tactics, and that what is going on now, and what has been going on since 1948, can never accomplish their objective of driving Israel out of the choice northern part of her domain.

In order for Israel to believe they have what every leader of Israel since 1967 has said they must have, that is, “A PEACE WITH SECURITY, PEACE WITH SAFETY,” the terrorist groups will temporarily cease their activities for an agree period of time, and a coordinated plan of blitzkrieg attack will be formulated between Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq behind closed doors. Verse eleven describes his evil plan to attack a nation he has deceived with a false peace agreement.

Verse 12 tells us he will break or betray the agreement (“turn thine hand”), and that he will take t

he spoils of war from the nation of Israel. The “spoils” are identified in terms that the readers of Ezekiel’s day would understand (“cattle and goods”), but to us they are to mean the national wealth and high tech resources of modern Israel. I firmly believe that in spite of what appears to be a state of never ending conflict between Israel and the other descendants of Abraham in and around her, soon a false peace will come to exist between them. And it will be followed by an attack against Israel, a nation in unbelief, as a sudden blitzkrieg from the north. When Israel is driven into the Negev, God will finally get her attention drawn to her true Messiah. Romans 11:25,32 + I Thessalonians 5:3,4: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. [32] For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. [3] For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. [4] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.”

Begin Tehran Times Article

Syrian VP: Dialogue with U.S. positive

Tehran Times

March 17, 2007

CAIRO (AP) — Syrian dialogue with the United States has gotten off to a positive start, the Mideast country’s vice president said Tuesday, following a weekend meeting involving officials from the U.S. and Syria.

The exchange with the United States “is just a beginning. We can’t predict where and how it will end,” Farouk Al-Sharaa told reporters in Cairo. “We hope that the coming steps will be as positive as the beginning.”

Al-Sharaa’s comments, made after he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, follow an international conference was held in Baghdad that brought together Syrian, Iranian and U.S. delegates to discuss security in Iraq.

On Monday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad voiced similar sentiments after speaking with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey in Damascus, saying that Syria was willing to engage in “serious” dialogue with Washington on all Mideast issues.

Al-Sharaa said Syria does not want to put a lot of emphasis on the Baghdad meeting but also should not ignore it.

He said developing improving ties between Syria and the U.S. would need a “deep dialogue over a long period for it to eliminate mutual suspicions.”

Syria has frequently called for dialogue with the U.S., but President Bush had previously rejected any direct talks with officials from Syria, accusing it supporting an influx of foreign fighters into Iraq.

U.S.-Syrian relations have also been strained in recent years because of Damascus’ support for Palestinian militant groups and the Lebanese Hezbollah. The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Syria to protest the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which many Lebanese blame on Damascus. Syria has denied being involved.

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Full Moon Madness Dealings with the New PA Government!

March 18, 2007

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With each passing day I see Israel following the same Old Testament pattern of relying on friendship with a strong nation to join with her in battle against her enemies, rather than repenting toward her God and trusting in him for deliverance. But just as Israel was let down by her alliances with other nations time after time, it is beginning to look like the same thing will happen to her again in these last days.

It is madness to believe that diplomacy is going to work with Syria, Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah, al Qaeda, or any other terrorist group or nation. We need to turn Israel loose on their in-country terrorist groups in Gaza and the West Bank,

on Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, and on Syria NOW, before Iran gets an atomic warhead. The United Nations, Europe, China, and Russia, would not do anything about it but scream bloody murder.

If this happened today, Israel would clean up the mess in short order.

But, of course, this is not going to happen. And at some point in time between 2008 and 2012 the enemies of Israel will have acquired sufficient high tech weaponry, training, and expertise to defeat Israel.

It seems we are determined to do the same thing that Europe did with the rise of power in Nazi Germany in the early thirties.

They simply let it build up militarily until it was strong enough to conquer Europe. We are going to keep on holding Israel back from doing what is necessary to defeat the terrorist countries and groups existi

ng internally and on their northern borders, until one day they are no longer able to do it.

Israel often follows U.S. advice involving actions taken against the PA, Hizbullah, and Syria, because of the financial and military support we give them.

Quite frankly, we should have kept our nose out of their business, and let them decide the appropriate actions to be taken against their sworn enemies. We should support Israel w ith whatever

it needs, and stand ready to defend her if she requests it to keep the Russians and Chinese off her back, but we should have let them deal with the Arabs in their own way. They understand them much better than America.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article

US, EU express willingness to deal with new PA coalition

Herb Keinon and JPost Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST

March 16, 2007

The US will maintain an unofficial communication channel with Salam Fayad, expected to be appointed to the position of finance minister in the new Palestinian Authority unity government, Israel Radio said on Friday.

US officials said they would maintain relations with Fayad even if the unity government would not recognize Israel, would not abandon its commitment to terror and would not condemn violent resistance to Israel.

Also on Friday, the future foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority Ziad Abu Amer received an invitation for an official visit in France.

French and British officials announced that their countries would hold diplomatic relations with Fatah cabinet ministers in the new Palestinian unity government with Hamas, Channel 2 reported.

Earlier Friday, Israeli officials expressed dissatisfaction with the new coalition in the Palestinian Authority.

“Israel must circumvent the new Palestinian Authority unity government and try to strike a peace agreement with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. That is the only way to drive Hamas from power,” Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said Friday morning, joining several Israeli leaders who criticized the new PA unity government which was formed the previous day.

Speaking to Israel Radio, Sneh said that Israel would boycott the coalition between Hamas and Fatah and “explain to the international community that it can’t work with a government like this.”

Sheh asserted that the Hamas-Fatah coalition did not meet international conditions, including recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

Political leaders in Jerusalem reiterated that Israel would not establish any contact with the new PA government and Jerusalem officials called on the international community to boycott the government until it fulfils the conditions of the International Quartet, Army Radio reported.

Nevertheless, among European nations, there were increased calls to negotiate with the new PA government and to be satisfied with the government’s declaration that it would honor past agreements with Israel.

The most positive reaction came from Moscow. “It is inarguably an important event in terms of consolidation of the Palestinian ranks,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement Thursday, noting that the Mecca accord “took into account” the Quartet’s conditions.

The new government, formed after months of stormy negotiations, is set to be approved by the Palestinian parliament on Saturday.

PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Thursday he hoped the new government would “launch a new era” for the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, senior government officials said that reviving the idea of unilateral withdrawal was one of the options being considered inside the Prime Minister’s Office in the wake of the formation of the new PA government whose platform Israel views as intransigent.

The officials said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not believe that Israel could afford to remain at a diplomatic standstill, and that if there were no Palestinian government with whom to negotiate a two-state solution, Israel might once more begin drawing borders on its own.

Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin said that “we won’t recognize or deal with the new Palestinian government until it complies with the Quartet’s three principles.”

“We won’t even deal with or recognize members of the government who we have dealt with in the past,” she added.

According to government officials, Olmert has always said he preferred a negotiated settlement, but that if this were not possible, then Israel would act unilaterally.

The officials said that Olmert did not say after the war in Lebanon that his realignment plan was shelved, only that the Israeli public “did not have an appetite for it” at the time.

Asked if the Prime Minister’s Office feels that the Israeli public now has regained an appetite for unilateral moves, one official asked, “Does the public have the stomach to stay forever in Judea and Samaria

? Is that a better option?”

According to sources in the PMO, Israel will continue to speak with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, but that these talks would focus on day-to-day and humanitarian issues – what one official called “small change” – not about fundamental issues.

“We can’t talk substance with Abbas, because there is a real question now about whom he represents,” one source said. He added, however, that Israel was interested in keeping the PMO officials said Olmert did not hit the phones Thursday and canvass world leaders to remain steadfast behind the Quartets’ three principles – that the new PA government must recognize Israel, renounce violence, and accept previous agreements – because Israel’s position on this has been consistent and is well known.

Nevertheless, the Foreign Ministry began a campaign on Thursday to keep the world from recognizing the new government.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said, “The Palestinian government platform shows clearly that it refuses to accept the three benchmarks of the international community. Accordingly, Israel will not deal with this government and we call upon the international community to be steadfast behind its own principles and not to give recognition to this government.”

Regev said that not only was there no positive momentum in the platform, there was “a clear regression in the language on a number of points.”

For instance, he said that on the issue of Cpl.

Gilad Schalit, the platform absolved itself of any responsibility; on the issue of terrorism, the platform doesn’t even do something that the so-called Prisoners’ Document did a few months back – distinguish between terrorism inside Israel and in the West Bank; and regarding negotiations, Hamas has given itself a veto over Abbas’s right to negotiate.

“For all these reasons,” Regev said, “when you look at the text you see a regression in the Palestinian position.”

Regev said the political platform was now the strongest weapon in Israel’s diplomatic arsenal, adding: “We believe that when we go through the document with the Quartet, they will see clearly that this is not a positive development, and that it would be serious mistake to reinforce it.”

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Diplomacy with Syria is a Complete Waste of Time!

March 17, 2007

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Middle East Countries like Syria, Iraq, and Iran understand diplomacy backed up by applied direct force. They know it will be applied when it is threatened, if it is not heeded. I regret that most Islamic nations, after they came out from under the thumb of colonial empires, came to be ruled by brutal dictators.

The only rule most of them have ever known has been a totalitarian dictatorial hard fisted ruler. They c onsider our versi

on of diplomatic negotiations as a sign of weakness on our part.

The United States and Europe keep trying to deal with them using the diplomatic methods of the West, while holding Israel on a leash, afraid to let them go whole hog in their wars with the Arabs. Well, diplomacy is giving Iran, Syria, and the multiplicity of terror groups across Israel and the Middle East, plenty of time to load up on high tech weaponry from Russia, China, and North Korea, as well as

time to generate Jihad fever throughout Islam.

Caroline Glick seems to have an excellent analysis of the diplomatic techniques employed by the Syrian government to use proposed and actual negotiations for peaceful arrangements, while they are preparing for war at the same time.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article

Column One: As Syria prepares for war

Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST

March 15, 2007

This has been a banner week for Syrian diplomacy. First, together with their big Iranian brothers, the Syrians were given a place at the table alongside US officials at the conference on Iraqi security in Baghdad last weekend.

At the same time as their underlings exchanged recriminations with the US, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and Iranian Defense Minister Mustafa Muhammad Najjar merged the Syrian and Iranian militaries at a summit in Damascus. On Sunday Najjar explained the deal to reporters saying, “We consider the capability of the Syrian defensive forces as our own and believe that expansion of defensive ties would … help deal with the threats of the enemies.” Najjar added that Iran “offers all of its defense capabilities to Syria.” The meeting was capped off on Monday when Najjar signed a memorandum of understanding on military cooperation with his Syrian counterpart Hassan Turkmeni.

Tuesday, US Assistant Secretary of State for Refugees Ellen Sauerbrey became the first senior US official to visit Syria since Damascus engineered former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005.

Following closely on Sauerbrey’s heels was the EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Like Sauerbrey, Solana was the first senior EU official to set foot in the Syrian capital s

ince Hariri was murdered. Unlike Sauerbrey, who came and left without making a sound, Solana used the occasion to drop a diplomatic bomb.

Standing next to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem Wednesday, Solana announced, “We would like to work as much as possible to see your country Syria recuperate the territory taken in 1967.” Israel should be very concerned by Solana’s statement. Seventeen years ago, an American diplomat made a similar statement to another Arab dictator. It was swiftly followed by war.

On July 25, 1990 then US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie held a fateful meeting with Saddam Hussein. It occurred against the backdrop of a massive Iraqi military build-up along the Kuwaiti border. Glaspie received a cagey and defensive reply from Saddam when she asked the meaning of the deployment. According to the protocol of the meeting which she sent that day to Washington, Glaspie told Saddam that the US took no position on intra-Arab disputes.

At the time, and since, the common view has been that Saddam interpreted Glaspie’s statement as American acquiescence to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait which took place eight days later.

Solana’s statement that Europe supports the reassertion of Syrian control over the Golan Heights came in the midst of a massive Syrian deployment of offensive weapons systems close to its border with Israel. Early this week, Israeli military commanders revealed that since last September, Syria has deployed between 1,000 and 3,000 missiles and rockets close to that border.

This revelation followed the apparent murder of Russian journalist Ivan Safronov. Safronov, who fell to his death from his fifth floor apartment window in Moscow on March 2, told his editors at the Kommersant newspaper just before his death that he was working on a story exposing Russian sales of advanced Iskander missiles to Syria and jetfighters to Iran.

This week, Michael Maples, the director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, announced that “Syria has a program to develop select biological agents.” Maples explained, “Syria’s biotechnical infrastructure is capable of supporting limited biological agent development.” He added that Syria is seeking to install biological and chemical warheads on its missile arsenal.

Indeed, according to opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, over the past year Syria has increased its military outlays by a factor of ten.

Syria is using the smokescreen of near weekly protestations of interest in negotiating with Israel to divert attention away from its clear preparations for war. Rather than see these statements for the psychological warfare antics they are, Israeli leftists have pounced on them. Led by the Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli Left is exerting massive pressure on the rudderless Olmert-Livni-Peretz government to force it to open negotiations with Damascus – negotiations that would lead to Israel’s surrender of the Golan Heights in exchange for a piece of paper from Iran’s Arab colony.

Due to the government’s general incompetence, it is unable to formulate a coherent policy towards Syria. The Left’s calls for surrender talk consequently dominate the public debate on Syria. This in turn has paralyzed the state bodies responsible for taking measures to prepare the IDF and the public for the prospect of war.

The IDF’s public assessment of the Syrian threat is evidence of the confusion. Last month, Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin addressed the Syrian threat at the government’s intelligence assessment meeting.

Yadlin said, “The chances of a full-scale war initiated by Syria are low, but the chances of Syria reacting militarily against Israeli military moves are high.” Yadlin’s statement was presented to the public as good news. But it was not good news. Syria will not initiate a full-scale war against Israel because it would lose a full-scale war. Syria’s comparative advantage against the IDF is found in the area of low-intensity warfare, and as Yadlin noted, there is every reason to expect that it is this sort of warfare that Syria is preparing to initiate.

Over the past several years, Syria has built up massive artillery, missile and rocket arsenals capable of causing extensive damage to the IDF and to Israeli communities in the Golan Heights and the Galilee. So too, Syria fields a highly trained commando corps capable of exacting physical losses and tactical setbacks to the IDF.

Syria has two good reasons to go to war against Israel. Since 1973, every Arab state and terrorist organization that has gone to war against Israel has benefited from their aggression. Syria no doubt expects for the pattern to continue. In all likelihood, if Syria is able to fight Israel to a stalemate as Hizbullah did last summer, the Israeli Left, the EU and the US can be expected to increase their pressure for an Israeli surrender of the Golan Heights.

Moreover, a war with Israel would shore up Assad’s dwindling support at home. Sherko Abbas, a Kurdish-Syrian exile living in the US, heads the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria. He explains that due to Syria’s economic weakness and the Assad government’s profligate corruption, the regime is widely despised by its Syrian subjects.

According to Abbas, the organized domestic opposition to the regime crosses ethnic lines and includes Kurds, Druse, Alawites, and even members of Assad’s family clan.

Three years ago, regime-sponsored Sunni thugs attacked Kurdish soccer fans in Dayz az Zawr, a Kurdish city along the border with Iraq. The attack led to three days of Kurdish anti-regime riots. Rioters destroyed regime monuments and burned government offices. Brutally quelled, the riots left 85 Kurds dead, hundreds wounded and thousands imprisoned.

Numbering between 2.5-3 million, Kurds make up some 15 percent of the Syrian population. On Monday, hundreds of thousands of Kurds flocked to cemeteries to publicly commemorate the anniversary of the riots.

As Abbas sees it, the fact that the Kurds were unafraid to publicly commemorate their uprising is proof of the regime’s weakness.

Most Israeli politicians claim that were the regime to be overthrown, it would be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The specter of an Islamist government arising in Syria is seen as sufficient reason for the Israeli government to do nothing to destabilize the Assad regime despite its strategic partnership with Iran.

Abbas disputes this view. He claims that the Muslim Bro

therhood is a spent force in Syria. “If the Brotherhood were capable of replacing the regime, it would have overthrown it when there was a chance in 2004,” he argues.

To offset his regime’s unpopularity, over the past few years Assad has imported more than 100,000 “immigrants” from Iran. These new Persian-speaking Syrians are keen to influence their adopted society. To this end, they have built new Shi’ite mosques throughout the country and are paying Syrians to convert to Shi’ite Islam.

According to Abbas, the regime has settled its new loyalists in Damascus, Latakiya, Homs and Aleppo. All these areas – in close proximity to Lebanon and Israel – are of strategic importance to the regime.

By the same token, repeated press reports from Syria over the past year indicate that Assad replaced his Syrian security detail with a new presidential protection force comprised of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hizbullah.

With Syria clearly on war footing, there are several moves Israel must make right now. Militarily, Israel must prepare for war. The IDF should be pre-positioning equipment in the Golan Heights, training its reserves and regular forces for war, and updating its doctrine for fighting in the Golan Heights. So too, municipal authorities should be readying their bomb shelters for another war and preparing contingencies to evacuate civilians from the North.

If Syria does initiate hostilities, the IDF’s goal must be to destroy the Syrian military and avoid a stalemate at all costs.

Diplomatically, Israel must work to cancel the diplomatic gains that Syria made this week. The goal must be to return Syria to the international isolation it has been relegated to since it engineered Hariri’s murder.

Israel must also identify and assist forces in Syria work

ing to undermine and topple the regime. Last week the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee invited Syria’s US-based agent Ibrahim Suleiman, who held contacts with the far-left former director-general of the Foreign Ministry Alon Liel, to address its members. That invitation should be rescinded. Rather than Suleiman, the Knesset should invite regime opponents to speak to its members.

Work ing with the Kurdish opposition, the US-based Center for Democracy

in the Middle East operates a satellite television station that runs limited broadcasts into Syria in Kurdish, Arabic and Persian. The station educates its viewers about the regime’s corruption, suppression of human rights and democracy. It calls for peaceful coexistence with Israel and the rest of Syria’s neighbors. Israel should be helping to fund, expand and run these broadcasts.

For its part, the regime itself announced this week that it is planning to launch a satellite television station that will advance the Syrian-Iranian line to the Arab world. Imagine how refreshing it would be for audiences to have the opportunity to watch something other than jihad on television.

In all its dealings with Syria, Israel must understand that today Syria is a clear enemy whose interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the Jewish state.

As a result, in all arenas and at all times, Israel should be working to weaken and destabilize the regime. There is much it can do to advance this purpose.

Unfortunately, until the current government is replaced, it is hard to imagine how this can happen.

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AMBIGUITY – Diplomatic Art of using Words to Mislead the Receiver!

March 17, 2007

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

In the early sixties I was placed in charge of a shift at the MWWC in the Federal Office building in Kansas City, Missouri. The government of an Islamic nation, who shall go nameless, sent one of their officers to us for training.

He was placed on my shift and I was assigned the task of training him for a year. I will not go into detail as to his shortcomings because I have no desire to be recalled. Let me simply say that at the end of the year there wasn’t a way I could see how it would be possible for me to write a good performance report for him.

When I finished the report, I submitted it to my immediate superior, who passed it on to his superior, both of which shall go nameless, and the fur hit the fan. I was called on the carpet by both of them, and told to write a new performance report. Neither of them had ever worked with the Arabic Officer and I had been told to treat him with kid gloves.

They were afraid of an unfavorable reaction from his home country.

It was at this point in time that I became acutely aware of how to write a diplomatically AMBIGUOUS manuscript for a performance report.

The word “ambiguous” means: having one or more possible meanings, such as, “Henry is a funny boy,” which can mean he is comical and a joy to be around, or that he is very strange.

To tell a preacher he has just “delivered a most unique message,” could mean it was the worse you had ever heard, or the best. The meaning is often crouched in what the listener wants to hear, and the writer knowing that in advance. It took me a long time thumbing through the dictionary, but I finally was able to put together a performance report that said what I said in the first one, as far as how I meant the ambiguous terms to apply, but to the Arab government would mean the opposite. When I turned it in, I will never forget the comment of the head shed – “Now! That’s more like it, Mac!”

I said all that to illustrate what represents an ambiguous document – An agreement that came out of the recent Mecca Conference between the Hamas and Fatah. The document means one thing to the Hamas, and another to Fatah, another to Israel, another to the U.S., and another to the European Union. I suppose one aspect of “ambiguous” in Arkansas terminology is simply a diplomatic way of speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth. The Mecca Conference document is so ambiguous it is as worthless as a frog would be in a punch bowl at a wedding reception.

The final Resolutions that come out of the United Nations have been filled with so many ambiguous words that each country involved in their drafting interprets them in a different way.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article

Analysis: Strategically crafted ambiguity

Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST

March 16, 2007

The political program of the new Palestinian Authority unity government, which constitutes a compromise between the relatively pragmatist policies of Fatah and the radical ideology of Hamas, contains many contradictions and ambiguities.

The wording of the program has been drafted in such a way so as to allow both Hamas and Fatah to argue that neither party had totally abandoned its traditional position.

The equivocal tone is designed to appease not only Hamas and Fatah, but also the Americans and Europeans. After all, the main goal behind the formation of the new coalition is to get the international community to resume desperately needed financial aid to the Palestinians.

With regard to the three demands of

the Quartet – renouncing terrorism, recognizing Israel and abiding by previous agreements with Israel – the program leaves the door wide open for different interpretations.

On the issue of terrorism, the program states, on the one hand, that the new government “stresses that resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people… and our people have the right to defend themselves against any Israeli aggression.” On the other hand, the program says that the new government will “work toward consolidating the tahdiya [period of calm] and extending it [to the West Bank] so that it becomes a comprehensive and mutual truce.”

The program sets a number of conditions for halting the “resistance,” ending the “occupation” and achieving independence and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, as well as an end to Israeli security measures in

the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the construction of the security fence.

In other words, Fatah and Hamas are saying that the violence will continue as long as Israel does not meet these demands.

Regarding recognition of Israel’s right to exist, the program does not mention the name Israel.

Instead, it refers to Israel as “The Occupation.” It also makes no mention of the two-state solution.

Rather, it reiterates the Palestinians’ opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders.

Although the document declares that the “key to peace and stability is contingent on ending the occupation of Palestinian lands and recognizing the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” it does not specify which “lands” – those captured by Israel in 1967 or 1948.

Fatah representatives, of course, argue that the program refers only to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Hamas, on the other hand, will be able to argue that the phrase “Palestinian lands” applies also to all of Mandatory Palestine.

Referring to the third demand of the Quartet – abiding by agreements between the PLO and Israel – the political program states that the new government will only “respect” agreements signed by the PLO.

Hamas leaders have already explained that there is a huge difference between “respecting” an agreement and making a pledge to fulfill it.
In other words, Hamas is saying that while it accepts the agreements with Israel as an established fact, it will not carry them out.

Elsewhere in the program, the new government says that it will abide by unspecified United Nations and Arab summit resolutions, leaving the door open for Fatah to claim that this is tantamount to recognizing the two-state solution and all the agreements with Israel. Fatah will cite the 2002 Arab peace plan that implicitly recognizes Israel.

Hamas, on the other hand, can always claim that among the Arab summit resolutions that it intends to abide by is the one taken in Khartoum, Sudan, in September 1967.

The resolution contains what became known as “the three nos” of Arab-Israel relations at that time: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel.

Although the program makes it clear that the PLO, and not the new Hamas-led coalition, will be responsible for conducting negotiations with Israel, it also seeks to tie the hands of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas by stating that any “fateful” agreement must be approved by the Palestinians in the PA-controlled areas and abroad through a referendum.

The program, moreover, closes the door to any potential concessions on the problem of the refugees by emphasizing their “right of return to their lands and property inside Israel.”

As far as Israel is concerned, perhaps the immediate ray of hope lies in a promise by the unity government to “encourage” and “back” efforts to release kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, who has been in the Gaza Strip since last June.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.

We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.