blog.Tribulationperiod.com

Herald of Local or Widespread Middle East War? Answer – Local!

Removal of 1967 Forty Year Checkpoint is a Sign of a local Hizbullah-Lebanon War occurring before a greater Middle East War occurring later on!

July 10, 2007

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

I have listed in several previous blogs my reasons for believing Syria and Iran have no desire for a widespread Middle East war this year.

I selected a window of opportunity for such a conflict as being at the very earliest 2008, with the odds having increased dramatically by the end of 2012. I do expect a local war in Lebanon between the legitimate elected government and Hizbullah to occur before the start of the final war of the age of the Gentiles in the Middle East. This local war is likely to break out before this year ends or before 2009 begins. I suspect it will end either in a coup by Hizbullah taking over the present government of Lebanon, or by a divided Lebanon into two states.

After Israel’s lack of success in last year’s war against Hizbullah they, along with Syria and Iran, are gambling that Israel will stay out of the war on their southern side of the Lebanon border. I believe it is a good gamble on their part. Syria’s removal of its military checkpoints in the Golan, described in the article which immediately follows, as well as other actions it has recently been taking, are being taken defensively in the event Israel does get involved in the local Lebanese war, and decides to attack Syria.

I do agree with the assessment of Article 2 regarding the unlikelihood of Iran developing nuclear capabilities before 2009, and I doubt if it can develop an arsenal of mounted nuclear warheads on Shihab missiles before 2011. So, as we progress into the 2008 through 2012 window, the likelihood of an all out Middle East war increases along a logarithmic scale, with each passing year showing a greater likelihood, until my guesstimate of it occurring before 2013 is likely to become a reality.

In the wild and wooly Middle East, the actual time can never be more than a guess.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1

Report: Syria removing military checkpoints in Golan

JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST

July 7, 2007

The London based Al-Hayat reported Saturday that Israel was “concerned” that Syria’s decision to remove military checkpoints on the road to Kuneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights could be a preparation for war.

According to the report, the checkpoints in question had been in place for 40 years, ever since the Six Day War.

Al-Hayat also claimed that that foreign journalists were barred from covering IDF maneuvers conducted on the Golan Heights.

The newspaper also reported that Israel had blocked access to areas on the Golan Heights from which villages and towns were visible. The report also listed the equipment the IDF had left in place, which included bulldozers and 70 tank outposts.

The report came two days after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni addressed Syrian concerns that Israel planned to attack the country.

Livni said that the IDF was conducting exercises and nothing more.

Speaking at a meeting with her Danish counterpart, Per Stig Moller, Livni said that Israel wanted to live in peace with its neighbors.

“Israel, unfortunately, has to be constantly prepared.

The IDF’s job is to protect Israeli citizens, and for this it must train, and for this exercises were created.

It would be a shame… to interpret this otherwise,” Livni said.

Also on Saturday, Dr. Ibrahim Suleiman – a Syrian-American who appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee several months ago reiterated what he told Channel 10 news at the time, saying [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert is too weak politically to achieve peace with Syria.

In an interview to the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabiye, Suleiman said that officials in Israel who opposed peace with Syria had leaked reports of his meetings with former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel in order to “torpedo” any possible talks.

“If [Syrian President] Bashar Assad repeats that he’s interested in peace with Israel, he means it,” Suleiman said. He added that peace between Israel and Syria was the key to stabilizing

the Middle East, including Iraq and Lebanon, and would renew contact between Israel and

the Palestinians.

Following Suleiman’s visit, sponsored by Meretz MK Zehava Gal-On and much publicized in the Israeli media, Syrian sources were quick to dismiss Suleiman as a “non-entity,” saying that he represented “no one but himself” and that he was “not speaking for the Syrian people.”

The Syrian regime contradicted both Suleiman’s statements and itself by alternating statements of a will to negotiate peace and threats to take back the Golan by Mukawama – resistance in Arabic – a phrase that can mean anything from a limited terror campaign to all-out war. Threats of Mukawama by the Syrian foreign minitstry and other top Syrian officials sometimes arrived within days from declarations that Syria seeks nothing but peace.

The constant factor in Syrian foreign policy remains its arming of Hizbullah, a violation of UN resolution 1731 from August 2006, which prohibits any country from rearming the terrorist Shi’ite Organization

Farid Ghadri, president of the Reform Part of Syria, based in Washington DC, visited Israel in June and also appeared the FADC. In his address there, Ghadri urged Israel to avoid making peace with a totalitarian Syrian regime, as this would constitute “Betrayal of the Syrian people.”

Last week, the Golani Infantry Brigade held its training-concluding drill in the Golan Heights. The drill summarized 70 days of training which focused on practicing for battle against a Syrian-Lebanese c

onstellation.

The drill was widely covered in the Syrian media, even prompting a Syrian radio analyst to say that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was lying in his statements that Israel seeks peaceful relations with Syria. The analyst said it was clear the Golani drill constituted preparation for an Israeli attack.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article 2

IDF: Syria not looking to start a war with Israel

JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST

July 10, 2007

“Syria was not interested starting a military conflict with Israel this summer, but has taken many steps that has greatly improved its readiness for such a scenario,” read the IDF’s intelligence assessment, quoted by Army Radio Tuesday.

If a war would break out between Israel and Syria, it would be characterized by a relentless barrage of rockets and missiles fired to the Israeli home front, ten times as powerful as the barrage Israel endured during the Second Lebanon War against Hizbullah in the summer of 2006, said the assessment.

IDF intelligence also reported that Iran could achieve nuclear capability during the second half of 2009.

Presently, said the IDF, the Islamic Republic was making great efforts to camouflage its nuclear facilities and transfer them to underground bunkers, as part of a preparation for a military attack against them.

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Hail, Hail, the Gangs all Here – On Land, On Sea, and in the Air!

July 10, 2007

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

The two Articles which follow, the first advising of the greatest armada of U.S. Naval sea, air, and marine concentration ever deployed against Iran, and the second describing the gradual withdraw of U.S. troops from the interior of Iraq, while leaving a semi-permanent contingency in the north and south, leads me to believe that Syria and Iran will not attempt to start a major Middle East War this year or in 2008.

As I have stated previously, the most likely time for such a war to begin will be in the latter part of the “2008 to the end of 2012 window,” with the odds for it steadily increasing after 2009 until it actually begins.

Begin DEBKAfile Article 1

Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise departs Norfolk for 6-month Mediterranean-Persian Gulf tour, a deployment DEBKA-Net-Weekly 300 first revealed exclusively on June 1

July 8, 2007, 11:48 AM (GMT+02:00)

Four warships in the carrier’s strike group depart Norfolk Naval station Monday, July 9: the guided missile destroyers Arleigh Burke, Stout, James E .Williams and Forrest Sherman, as well as three more ships – with 7,500 sailors in all aboard. DEBKAfile’s military sources reported June 29 that the Enterprise CVN 65-Big E Strike Group will join the USS Stennis and USS Nimitz carriers, building up the largest sea, air, marine concentration the US has ever deployed opposite Iran.

Begin DEBKAfile Article 2

In the Middle East, America’s Exit from Iraq Attracts Less Interest than Gathering War Clouds

July 9, 2007, 10:09 PM (GMT+02:00)

Since April 2007, George W. Bush has had on his desk an exit plan from Iraq, built around the phased pull-back by early 2008 of a little more than half of the 170,000 or so troops there at present. Around 50-70,000 soldiers are to be redeployed to large strategic fortified enclaves in the south and the north as a semi-permanent US presence. They will be backed by four naval and aerial strike groups in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea and a chain of giant air bases, some expanded, others built from scratch, in Oman, Qatar and Jordan.

The military sources of DEBKAfile and DEBKA-Net-Weekly have been tracking the evolution of this White House master plan since April 27.

Building up in Persian Gulf waters as a key element of this post-withdrawal military plan are three American carriers and their strike groups. The USS Enterprise CVN 65 Big E Strike Group departed for the region Monday, July 8, to join the USS Stennis and USS Nimitz carriers which are already there.

A clue to the coming American deployment can be seen in the Basra Province of southern Iraq where British troops have shut themselves away in a well-fortified compound south of the oil city. It is blasted daily by mortars and other heavy weapons.

From time to time, British commando patrols emerge to hit enemy assault concentrations.

In short, even after the Americans quit Iraq, the Iraq War will continue – with one difference: it will no longer rage in the main cities such as Baghdad, but in wide open spaces.

It is already apparent that the US army’s main enemy, certainly in the initial phase after withdrawal, will be al Qaeda, as it is today.

From the end of 2005, Iraq watchers realized there was no way of preventing Iraq fragmenting into sectarian or ethnic segments: an independent Kurdish state in the north and one, or even two, independent Shiite entities south of Baghdad.

The Americans campaign today focuses mainly on rooting the jihadist terrorists out of Baghdad, Baqouba, Ramadi and Falluja in order to determine the identity and character of the third segment, an independent Sunni Muslim enclave in central Iraq.

This task cannot be finished within the timeframe dictated by political realities in America.

There is no way therefore of saying for certain which Sunnis will rule that part of the country – indigenous Iraqi Arabs or al Qaeda, or even, by remote control through a surge of cash, Saudi Arabia.

Therefore, the outcome of the current US-al Qaeda showdown in Iraq will bear long-term consequences for American positions in the Persian Gulf, especially in relation to Iran.

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that on three points the Bush administration has not yet made final decisions:

1. Whether to launch a military operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and cripple its strategic-economic infrastructure.

2. How to respond if Iran decides on a pre-emptive attack on US Middle East interests by fomenting local assaults against Israel by Syria, Hizballah and Hamas and a civil war in Lebanon. Some Middle East military and intelligence sources say this decision is already in the bag in Tehran

.

Will President Bush seek to avert these flare-ups of violence? Or use them as the starting shot for his military strike against Iran?

3. The timeline for beginning the US military pullout from Iraq, the third decision in abeyance, hinges heavily on the White House’s actions regarding the first two.

The optional exit dates for now are September 2007 or January-March 2008. The latter is seen as the more realistic by American commanders and soldiers serving in Iraq.

Amid the furious political controversy over the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war, most Americans find it hard to imagine the US army capable of even contemplating taking on another conflict with Iran.

It is seen by many as a nightmare scenario.

But Tehran sees nothing far-fetched about it. Quite the reverse, Iranians are all but certain an US attack is inevitable this summer or, at latest, in the fall.

They note that the President Bush has never taken the military option off the table for dealing with Iran’s strongly suspected nuclear weapons program.

The overriding importance of removing this threat is not in dispute between Bush and Democratic Party leaders.

The Middle East is therefore on the move, in readiness for the worst:

– Monday, July 9, Damascus called on Syrian civilians to depart Lebanon to avoid “an eruption” expected next week.

– US defense secretary Robert Gates cancelled a planned four-nation Latin American tour – officially to help complete the Pentagon’s “benchmark” report due in September. However, as perceived in Middle East capitals, Gates can see a conflagration building up in the region and decided his place was in Washington.

– Israel, Syria and Hizballah have prepared their armies for a war contingency entailing a possible clash on Golan and the Lebanese-Israeli frontier regions.

– Iran has imposed gasoline rationing on civilian vehicles. An Iranian official admitted in Tehran two days ago that the country was preparing for an emergency and stocking up on fuel

for the military.

– The Turkish army has 140,000 troops poised to invade northern Iraq’s Kurdistan. Notwithstanding denials in Ankara and Baghdad, Turkish units are operating in northern Iraq against Turkish Kurdish PKK rebels.

– The American carrier, the USS Enterprise, is on its way to the Middle East with a powerful strike group.

Two months ago, military high commands in the Middle East stopped asking when the American army would leave Iraq. They took for granted that a major pull-back is in the works and not far away. The question exercising most minds these days is which of the two leading antagonists in the current regional contest will be first to assemble all the pieces of the war puzzle and gain the advantage over his rival, the Bush administration in Washington or Ali Khamenei’s mullahs in Tehran?

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Birds of a Feather will get back Together for the Final Jihad!

July 9, 2007

http://www.tribularionperiod.com/

For a brief moment in history, with his Fatah buddies being taken out of their homes in the Gaza Strip by Hamas to be executed before their families in the street, his Fatah headquarters and offices destroyed, and a plot revealed where Hamas was going to assassinate him, it appeared that Abbas might break the fanatical Islamic bond between Hamas and Fatah for quite a while. However, the only real difference between the Hamas and Fatah is not the goals they both have, but that Fatah lies about their goals, and Hamas does

not. In reality, neither will ever be satisfied until the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and all the rest of the land identified as Israel on world maps, is both occupied and owned by the descendants of Ishmael and the six sons of Keturah.

When a group of thugs in Fatah drops the lies and two-faced character of Fatah, it splits off it, and becomes just like Hamas, as in the case of the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which Fatah is now trying to graft back into the main body of Fatah. The Middle East has no choice in direction left – it is headed for an eventual jihad war, which will engulf all of the Islamic states from Morocco to India, and Turkey to Yemen. Any effort by the US, UN, or EU to bring “TRUE” peace to the turbulent Middle East is doomed to failure.

The only real question remaining, from a Biblical standpoint, is WHEN a widespread war finally begins, to end at Armageddon and the Second Advent of Christ some three and one-half years later.

Olmert and Assad may get together on some sort of a false peace plan on the Golan Heights, but if any such agreement is reached for political reasons that would benefit them both, it will be brief and false, only to be broken by Syria in a lightning jihad with 10 Islamic nations waiting in the wings to join it.

Any peace agreements between Israel and the Islamic nations, with the exception of Egypt and Jordan, have been as counterfeit as a four dollar bill.

If such agreements are finally made now, after these 60 years of turmoil, cunning, and deceit between the Islamic and Jewish sons of Abraham, who have never had peace during that period, other than what has amounted to truce after truce, these agreements will only be a brief interlude before the final war of this Gentile Age begins.

So, eventually Hamas and Fatah will get back together, and whatever military hardware, money, or equipment Israel, Europe, and America have given to Fatah during their spat will end up in Hamas’ hands.

The two articles, the first dated July 6, and the second dated today, July 9, are clear proof that the two birds of a feather will get back together. The entire structure of their goals is the same as Iran’s – the eventual destruction of the nation of Israel. We are not dealing with any form or type of terrorist that could ever change their purpose, and to think that actions on the part of Israel to help them become “normal,” is sheer madness.

Begin EARTHtimes.com Middle East World Article 1

Arab Parliament stages reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah

July 6, 2007

EARTHtimes.com Middle East World

Amman – The Speaker of the Arab Parliament, Mohammad al- Saqr, arrived in Amman Friday saying he was planning to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday as part of a reconciliation bid between Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah. “In my capacity as Speaker of the Arab Parliament, I feel it is our duty to stage an initiative” to bridge the gap between Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah movement, al-Saqr told reporters on his arrival.

He said he had held a meeting in Damascus last week with Hamas’ Politburo chief Khalid Mishaal, “who expressed desire in a reconciliation” with Fatah.

Al-Saqr pointed out that he had also called the Palestinian president and proposed a meeting between him and an Arab parliamentary delegation to discuss the “prospects of forging a reconciliation.”

The deputy speaker of the Jordanian lower house of parliament, Nayef al-Fayez, expressed the Jordanian chamber’s backing for al- Saqr’s drive.

“We urge the Palestinian brethren to close ranks so as to be able to regain their rights, foremost the setting up of an independent Palestinian state,” al-Fayez said as he welcomed al-Saqr at the airport.

Abbas has vowed not to enter into dialogue with Hamas after it drove out his Fatah forces from the Gaza Strip two weeks ago, prompting the Palestinian president to sack the Hamas-led government and appoint an emergency cabinet led by the US-educated economist Salam Fayyad.

However a reconciliation move launched recently by Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak seemed to gather momentum over the past few days.

Amman-based Arab diplomats believe that the Palest inian dialogue drive will receive a push when Abbas meets K

ing Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh in mid-July.

As brokers of the February Mecca deal between Hamas and Fatah the Saudis stand a good chance of healing the Palestinian rift again, an Arab diplomat said.

Begin DEBKAfile Article 2

Abbas Double Deals on Two Tracks – Overtly with West, Covertly with Hamas

July 9, 2007, 3:12 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s Iran sources reveal that Fatah and Hamas representatives have launched secret talks to patch up their quarrel. Their first session took place in Stockholm Sunday, July 8, under the guiding hands of the Iranian and Saudi ambassadors.

Hamas sent operations chief Imad al Alami from Damascus to face Eugine Makhloof ,the PLO ambassador in Sweden, who is acting on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah.

But before sitting down to the talks, the Hamas official first checked in with Iranian leaders in Tehran

to make sure their agendas dovetailed.

Our sources report that Al Alami met foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki to voice his movement’s determination to hold on to the gains it achieved in its coup against Fatah in the Gaza Strip last month.

However, the Iranian official responded that, with its own crisis in the offing – fear of an American attack palpable enough to impose emergency benzine rationing for private vehicles to keep the military supplied – the Islamic Republican regime could not afford to underwrite all the Hamas Gaza government’s economic needs long term.

Mottaki strongly advised Hamas to rebuild its collapsed power-sharing deal with Abbas’ Fatah faction and work together for stability.

With war clouds hanging over the region this summer, said the Iranian foreign minister, Palestinian unity is the order of the day, essential to the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah bloc as a strategic asset in its coming conflict with the US and Israel.

The same advice came from UAE president Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan to visiting Mahmoud Abbas when they met Sunday. The Fatah leader was persuaded to lose no time in mending Palestinian factional fences.

DEBKAfile’s Palestinian sources note that Abbas’ approval of the Stockholm track does not interfere with his appeals to the US and Israel to prop up his West Bank government and persevere in their economic and diplomatic boycott of Hamas.

DEBKAfile’s sources in Tehran report Iran’s attitude on the Hamas takeover of Gaza has evolved from celebration over its protégé’s victory into caginess lest Hamas’ takeover was rashly undertaken and hurt Tehran’s bid to fight off new and harsher international sanctions for its nuclear program.

Tehran showed similar vacillations over the outcome of Hizballah’s attack on Israel last summer. While the setbacks Israel suffered in the ensuing war were seen as a success for Iran’s pawn, Tehran had to spend a whole year topping up Hizballah’s rocket stocks to prepare the Lebanese Shiite group for a second front in the event of an American attack on Iran this summer. In retrospect, Iran regarded Nasrallah as having prematurely squandered a war option and an expensive arsenal.

Tehran is now determined to keep a restraining hand on the Palestinians and time any attack on Israel to suit its own interests. Iran’s rulers therefore turned to Riyadh to bring its influence to bear on Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip to engage Fatah in peace talks; the Iranians, for their part, undertook to persuade the Damascus-based hardline Khaled Meshal to send an envoy to Stockholm.

Saudi leaders were more than happy to join in the effort to rescue the Palestinian power-sharing deal which they had brokered in Mecca in February, only to see it crash in the civil strife which overtook the Gaza Strip soon after.

With both arms twisted by the Iranians and the Saudis, Hamas agreed to turn the clock back and restore the Palestinian Authority institutions they had overrun in the last two weeks. But they drew the line at handing back the Fatah weapons they had seized in the fighting or letting Fatah share in the control of security in the Gaza Strip.

One sign that Fatah is upbeat about the prospects of the Stockholm talks is their demand for Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to include a number of Hamas prisoners in the list of 250 Fatah members whose release he promised as a goodwill Israeli gesture for Abbas.

If this covert diplomatic track works, Saudi Arabia and Iran stand to emerge from it as the dominant sponsors of the Palestinians and so sideline Egypt’s central role in Palestinian affairs.

Later this week, the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers Ahmed Abul Gheit and Abdel Ilah al-Khatim are due in Jerusalem and Ramallah on an Arab League m ission

to restart the Palestinian-Israel peace process.

In view of the fast-moving events in Stockholm, their mission is not exactly timely or apt, especially as it is no longer backed by Saudi Arabia. The royals of Riyadh have gone to Stockholm to fry their own fish in partnership with Iran.

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Push, Pull, Click, Click, Change Governments that Quick!

July 9, 2007

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

I have stated in numerous previous blogs I believed a wide scale Middle East war would break out at some point in time between 2008 and the end of 2012. At some point in this time period, I expect the two major facets blocking the likely possibility of war, to be removed. The two blocks to an all out war are: (1) The presence of large numbers of U.S. forces in Iraq, and (2) Iran does not yet possess an array of deterrent nuclear warheads mounted on Shihab missiles, ready to launch.

When these two major blocks are out of the way, a widespread Middle East war will soon break out.

Block Number (1) should be out of the way

by 2009, and Block Number (2) should be out of the way before 2012. The most likely time for such a war to start will increase steadily after 2009, and the most likely time for it to begin

will be the two year slot from late 2011 to 2013.

I do expect a local war to break out between the legitimate government of Lebanon and Hizbullah this year or in early 2008.

I believe that a coup of the government will allow Hizbullah to take over the existing Parliament, or at least the southern half of Lebanon, where they would set up a new Middle East State.

Begin DEBKAfile Article

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Iran, Syria Hizballah feared stoking major conflagration in Lebanon to forestall Security Council reprimand on July 16

July 8, 2007, 12:11 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile cites Western, Saudi and Lebanese intelligence, as sighting hectic preparations by Iran, Syria and the Hizballah, to foment major trouble in Lebanon up to and after mid-July.

They intend the eruption to throw off track the July 16 UN Security Council session called to castigate their non-implementation of its Resolution 1701, especially their defiance of the clauses banning the continued arms smuggling to Hizballah from Iran and Syria.

Our W ashington sources report th

at ahead of the session, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealed to a number of European and Asian governments for contingents to bolster the UN force patrolling South Lebanon.

None refused outright, only explaining they were short of military manpower.

This would also apply to the United States.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources expect the ructions already gripping Lebanon to escalate from mid-July and climax in the first week of September, when the pro-Syrian president Emil Lahoud ends his tenure.

Damascus, Tehran and Hizballah are aiming to bring down the pro-Western Fouad Siniora’s government in Beirut or at least shrink its jurisdiction to a number of neighborhoods in the capital similar to Nouri al Maliki’s adm inistration

in Baghdad.

Word has reached Riyadh from Damascus, indicating that president Bashar Assad means to use the showdown in Lebanon to ignite war clashes in all of Lebanon, and against Israel on two fronts, the Golan and the Gaza Strip.

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The Straight Skinny in Two Articles followed by a Vietnam Number 10!

July 8, 2007

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

The proof that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East can be clearly seen in its news releases. No other Middle East country will allow complete freedom of expression in its full media spectrum.

The three articles presented in this lengthy blog are living examples of a true democracy at work. Our country has fought several wars to protect the right of free press and speech from opposite ends of a far right

to far left spectrum.

No one can ever legitimately accuse the Jerusalem Post of failing to present a “fair and balanced” newspaper. When one reads the articles that follow, the first expressing what I would certainly classify as a right wing viewpoint, being offered by former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya’alon, and, since I am a right winger, one with which I am in complete agreement. The second article is written by Carolyn Glick, my favorite Jerusalem Post writer. The third article by Naomi Chazan I must classify as a classic left wing viewpoint, and, in my way of thinking, it is sadly out of sight in reality of the Palestinian objectives, but well written and straight forward. I read articles expressing what are labeled as being both conservative and liberal.

I found myself wondering if Caroline Glick and Naomi Chazan ever discuss the policies they would like to see Israel follow. Carolyn Glick is a classic example of a right-winger and Naomi Chazan is a classic example of the far left.

The Jerusalem Post is quite good at presenting both the “left” and “right” viewpoints.

Article 1 – A Right Wing Viewpoint

Ya’alon: Land for Peace Concept Failed

Etgar Leftovits, THE JERUSALEM POST

July 4, 2007

The concept of land for peace has proven a failure in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and any future IDF withdrawal from the West Bank will create a second “Hamastan,” which would threaten both Israel and Jordan, former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya’alon said Wednesday.

Ya’alon said Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip and the creation of “the first jihadist Arab entity” on Israel’s doorstep last month was “the last nail in the coffin” in a string of faulty conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that had characterized Israeli and Western policy for decades.

“The strengthening of Hamas after the Israeli pullout from Gaza and the Hamas takeover of Gaza necessitate a renewed examination of Israeli and international conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that, to my mind, are no longer relevant,” he said in an address organized by the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute, on the consequences of the Hamas power grab.

Ya’alon said the faulty conceptions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict included the beliefs that the Palestinians want – or were able – to establish an independent state within the pre-1967 armistice lines, that the creation of two states within those boundaries would solve the conflict, that land for peace was the basis for any peace agreement, that peace would bring security, and that the key to stability in the Middle East was the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He s aid the violent P

alestinian rejection of the peace proposal offered to them at Camp David seven years ago, which would have given them a state on the Gaza Strip and some 95 percent of the West Bank, and the refusal of both Hamas and Fatah to recognize the existence of a Jewish state negated the essence of Israeli and international policies – that the Palestinians want an independent State alongside Israel on the pre-1967 borders.

“We are talking about [a Palestinian Authority which is] a gang authority and not a political authority,” he said.

Ya’alon said regional stability was not dependent on the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as many Western leaders argue, but on the defeat of jihadism, led by the Iranian regime.

“Any Israeli concession will not only not reduce the threat, but will increase it,” he said.

“The result of Israeli concessions today will hurt not only Israel’s interests and those of the West, but those of moderate Arab regimes in the region,” he added.

Ya’alon, who is expected to be a top contender in the political arena in the future, said Israel must treat the Hamas-run Gaza Strip as an “enemy entity” and should “disengage” from providing water, electricity and other supplies to the volatile coastal strip where an estimated 1.4 million people live.

At the same time, he said Israel should give the Fatah-run PA in the West Bank a chance to establish autonomous rule, while Israel stayed in charge of security.

He said he opposed the deployment of any foreign troops in the West Bank, including from Jordan, calling it a fruitless idea that has been ineffective in the past.

Ya’alon’s tenure as IDF chief from 2002 to 2005 was marked by both a successful crackdown on terrorism, and his very overt falling out with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon over his opposition to the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

In a separate address, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eil and, a former head of the National Security Council, said Israel was missing

an opportunity following the Hamas takeover of Gaza last month.

Eiland said Israel had not used the Hamas conquest of Gaza to pressure the Islamist group to stop Kassam attacks and to free Cpl. Gilad Schalit, and was instead serving the Palestinian interest by releasing security prisoners and easing movement in the West Bank.

Neither Israeli nor Palestinian leaders were interested in reaching a peace agreement, Eiland said, since such an accord would not be practical, given the political realities on the ground, and would only lead to an escalation of violence.

Begin Article 2 – A View from the Right

Column One: Don’t worry, be happy!

Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST

July 5, 2007

Any doubt that Hamas is an Iranian proxy was dispelled this week by a snippet on the Middle East Media Research Institute’s blog.

MEMRI reported: “An article in the Iranian weekly Sobh-e Sadeq, circulated among the Revolutionary Guards, states that Fatah documents captured by Hamas have revealed that Egypt played a role in instigating the clashes which led to the Hamas takeover of Gaza. The article added that this is the second time Egypt has betrayed the Palestinians, the first being [the slain Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat’s betrayal at the Camp David summit.”

So Hamas is sharing the treasure trove of intelligence it captured during its takeover of Gaza with Iran. In the greatest intelligence victory ever accomplished by a jihadist organization, Hamas (and Iran) now possess the files of all of the Palestinian security apparatuses, and the personal papers of Fatah leaders such as Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Dahlan.

Hamas sources claim that Fatah’s abject surrender of the information should come as a surprise to no one. They brag that in the months leading up to their putsch, Fatah operatives were happy to sell them all the weapons and intelligence information they asked for.

Iran’s use of the Fatah files against Egypt demonstrates that the emergence of Hamastan in Gaza endangers not only Israel, but regional security as a whole. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, the US and Israel can all expect reports to surface that will, in the best case, cause them deep embarrassment. Their governments may be destabilized and their security operations may be compromised.

No doubt this state of affairs was central in causing the Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians to all tell Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah chief Abbas not to clash with Hamas but to try to forge a new accord with it.

And so Hamas’s position improves by the day.

On Sunday, just after Israel made its first payment of $120 million to Salaam Fayad’s Fatah government, Fayad announced that the money will go to pay salaries of PA employees in Gaza.

This tells us two things.

First, it shatters the illusion of two distinct PAs – one that is bad and one that is good. By paying PA employees in Gaza, Fayad showed that from Fatah’s perspective, there is only one PA, not two.

Second, his move exposes as a lie Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s claim that the money was going only to Fatah. Indeed, it showed that Israel is funding Hamas. After all, if Fayad weren’t using Israeli money to pay the Gazans, Hamas would have to pay them out of its own pocket.

BBC reporter Alan Johnston’s release on Wednesday was another win for Hamas. After Johnston’s release, Britain’s new Foreign Secretary David Miliband – whose mother, a Holocaust survivor, is a member of the radical anti-Zionist organization “Jews for Justice for Palestinians” and whose late father was a Communist – gushed over Hamas. Miliband said that Hamas leaders “denounced the hostage-takers and demanded Alan’s release. I fully acknowledge the crucial role they have played in securing this happy outcome.”

In comments to Parliament, Miliband left the door wide open to the possibility of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government recognizing the Hamas government.

Rather than chide the British for their embrace of a movement driven by barbaric hatred for Jews and bent on Islamic global domination, the Israeli government lavished praise on the British for successfully negotiating Johnston’s release and tried to make nice with Hamas. Olmert coyly suggested, “As is known, Hamas members holding [IDF soldier Gilad Schalit] are – in effect – preventing the release of Palestinian prisoners as has been agreed upon.”

By thus framing the issue of Schalit’s release, Olmert signaled to Hamas that Israel is interested in cutting a deal and has already accepted the Iranian-proxy’s control over the outskirts of Ashkelon and Ashdod.

Hamas has other new friends – al-Qaida for instance.

While just last March al-Qaida was condemning its fellow Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization for signing the Mecca agreement with Fatah, in the al-Qaida video disseminated this week, the group’s deputy commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, praised Hamas and called for Muslims to join the terror group.

In his words, “We tell our brothers, the Hamas mujahadin, that we and the entire Muslim nation stand alongside you, but you must redress your [political] path. Muslims must join Hamas ranks and we will back them by facilitating the passage of weapons and supplies from neighboring countries.”

The Olmert government’s refusal to take the Hamas-Iranian threat in Gaza seriously fits well with its overall refusal to forge any coherent policies for dealing with any of the mounting threats that Israel faces.

Last week, the Syrians celebrated the 33rd anniversary of the “liberation” of Quneitra on the Golan Heights, which Israel ceded to Syria in the cease-fire agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War.

In government ceremonies, ministers in Bashar Assad’s government emphasized the dictator’s commitment to “liberating” the Golan.

It was also reported that in honor of the anniversary, the Syrians opened the Damascus-Quneitra road to civilian traffic for the first time since 1967. If true, it would appear that the Syrians are setting the stage for terrorist infiltration of the Golan Heights.

Radio Damascus reported Wednesday that the Syrian regime views IDF exercises in the North as a threat. This announcement can only be seen as a Syrian bid to develop a pretext for starting a war against Israel.

And what sort of war awaits us? A missile war.

While the Olmert government argues over

the relative merits of overhauling and upgrading the National Security Council, and bolsters our national security by appointing Ruhama Avraham – the woman of many hair colors and stylish outfits – to the cabinet, the main lesson of the Second Lebanon War is being systematically ignored.

THE WAR showed that Israel’s enemies’ primary target is the home front. This understanding was supposed to propel the government to secure civilian population centers nationwide, since Syrian missiles are capable of hitting every square centimeter of the country. But one year later, not even Sderot has been re inforced and the bomb shelters

in the North remain neglected. It took the Finance Ministry 11 months to release funds to purchase gas masks for the public even though it is well known that Syria has chemical weapons.

Although Olmert said that for him the last war is but “a distant memory,” in Lebanon it is living history. Hizbullah is rearming so massively that even the UN has taken notice. Last week, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council that the Syrian-Lebanese border has been completely breached and that shipments of Iranian and Syrian arms transit the country without the slightest difficulty.

On Monday, outgoing Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh effectively told Israel Radio that the government is neglecting the security needs of Israel by starving the IDF of the funds necessary to adequately equip its forces and secure the home front ahead of a possible war with Hizbullah, Syria and Hamas. He also accused the government of mishandling the Iranian nuclear threat.

Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz all lull the public into complacency by claiming that the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran are effective, and that Israel and the US are closely coordinating their policies on dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program. In his interview, Sneh called their bluff.

Sneh argued that the sanctions have not prevented Iran from advancing its nuclear program and stated outright that “there is no coordination on the operational level between the Israeli and US militaries on Iran.”

Sneh added that the governmental underfunding has left the military bereft of good options for attacking Iran’s nuclear installations on its own.

On the other side, Teheran is mobilizing all of its resources for a war against the US and Israel. Risking its own destabilization, the regime instituted gasoline rationing last week. And this week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran will soon begin rationing electricity.

Intent on ignoring the dangers, Israel’s government has opted to attack those who warn of them. Case in point is its treatment of former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Last week Bolton told The Jerusalem Post that the Bush administration’s Iran policy has failed.

In his words, “The current approach of the Europeans and Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous. Diplomacy and sanctions have failed… So we have to look at: 1, overthrowing the regime and getting in a new one that won’t pursue nuclear weapons; 2, a last-resort use of force.”

Bolton added that there might not be enough time to bring down the regime before the Iranians acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli officials, snug in their bubble, reacted to the interview by attacking Bolton. One official dismissed Bolton by calling him America’s “Avigdor Lieberman.” Another patronized, “It is possible that his comments were meant to expedite the process. We would all like to see more aggressive diplomacy.”

But as Sneh made clear, not only were Bolton’s remarks accurate, but also, thanks to the Olmert government, Israel lacks the means to independently address the threat of its own annihilation, and has no military coordination on the matter with the US.

To their credit, the ministers responsible for dealing with Iran are very busy with pressing concerns. Last week, Lieberman took a trip to Europe, where he tried to advance his idea of bringing Israel into the anti-Israel EU. And in light of UNIFIL’s stunning accomplishments in preventing Hizbullah from rearming, Israel’s “Strategic Affairs” minister also used his time to push his idea of deploying NATO forces to Gaza.

On Wednesday, Livni met with her Moroccan counterpart. Livni praised Morocco for its participation in the Saudi Peace Plan that has been disavowed by the Saudis.

Olmert the peacemaker concluded a peace accord this week between his cronies Ronnie Bar-On and Haim Ramon. He also negotiated a temporary cease-fire with his political rival Meir Sheetrit. Most critically, Olmert ensured Israel’s long-term security by appointing Ruhama Avraham a minister-without-portfolio in his Lilliputian government.

The local media organs, all of which moronically ignore the emerging threats, keep promising the public that the Olmert government will fall as soon as the Winograd Committee issues its final report on the Second Lebanon War, sometime in the next few months. But there is no guarantee that this is true.

In the best case scenario, the report will merely tell us what has been clear for the past year: With or without a restructured National Security Council, our political leaders are incompetent boobs whose only concern is their personal political survival, regardless of the consequences for the nation’s security.

But really, why worry? After all, Shas is happy. Lieberman is satisfied. Olmert is rock solid. And Ruhama is moved to tears.

Perhaps we should be crying, too.

Article 3 – A Left-Wing Viewpoint

Critical Currents: Bold strategy vs. piecemeal tactics

Naomi Chazan. THE JERUSALEM POST

June 28, 2007

The emerging tactic of isolating the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip and bolstering Fatah rule in the West Bank is as shortsighted as it is simplistic. While it may serve the immediate interests of the Olmert government, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan and the Bush administration, it does not suggest a realistic plan for stabilization, let alone a workable trajectory for accommodation.

In order not to miss yet another – perhaps the last – chance for a permanent settlement, a much more refined, comprehensive, regionally-based and internationally-backed strategy to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict must urgently be designed and implemented.

The reasoning behind the current separation approach is obvious: The violent Hamas takeover in Gaza presents an imminent danger to all its neighbors and furnishes a precedent with alarming regional consequences.

It must be tackled vigorously and directly.

The logic behind the separation approach is, however, less compelling. The complete blockade of Gaza, coupled with efforts to bring about tangible improvements in the West Bank, are meant to increase popular pressure on Hamas and, ultimately, to hasten its demise. This type of thinking ignores the fact that precisely such a policy has backfired in the very recent past. More seriously, it overlooks the inherent and inviolable connection between the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. If what happened in the former is not to repeat itself in the latter, then any policy must treat both together.

The challenges now facing Mahmoud Abbas and the newly-appointed Salaam Fayad government are truly daunting. Although some voices calling for revenge for the humiliating defeat can still be heard in Fatah circles, there is a growing realization that legitimacy depends on the rehabilitation of the structures and capabilities of the Palestinian Authority.

SUCH A consolidation requires, first, a concrete and continuous amelioration of the situation on the ground. While the elimination of the rampant corruption in official bodies is in the new government’s hands, the easing of daily life is very much a joint effort. It depends not only on substantial financial injections, but also on increased mobility essential both to meet economic and social needs and to reestablish central political control. The lifting of the hundreds of internal checkpoints is therefore more than essential.

Second, a diplomatic channel must be carved out with a view to achieving a lasting agreement in the foreseeable future. No Palestinian government, however much supported by the international community, can continue to assume responsibility without the authority that comes with the promise of independent statehood.

AND THIRD, the long, tedious and absolutely vital task of institution-building must be addressed after too many years of abuse, neglect and destruction. The dismantling of armed militias and the reassertion of a monopoly over the use of force is a crucial step in this direction. But so, too, is the reconstruction of the systematically assailed civilian administration – from education and welfare to planning and taxation.

The successful pursuit of these institution-fortifying processes depends on steady progress on the immediate and diplomatic fronts. It is doubtful whether this can be achieved without the restoration of confidence in the leadership. The release of Marwan Barghouti is important for immediate stabilization. Lasting legitimacy, however, will lie in the capacity of the new government to pursue the demand of the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza for self-determination and a dignified existence alongside Israel.

This tripartite Palestinian agenda cannot be carried out without the full cooperation first of Israel, and then of regional and international actors. It is their preferred program, as well.

Ehud Olmert has clung to recent events in Palestine as a lifeline for his personal political survival. His willingness to introduce some measures to ease the situation in the West Bank is far too hesitant and partial. These lack the political will needed to promote fundamental Israeli concerns (and will hardly increase his political longevity in the face of pending corruption charges, if not the fallout from the final Winograd Committee report).

Since Israel has absolutely no desire to recapture Gaza and cannot afford any further deterioration in the West Bank, it clearly has a vested interest in leveraging current developments to achieve a sustainable resolution. The present promotion of the separation plan is consequently tragically self-defeating. A bold Israeli move, rather than yet another outright rejection of progress on final status talks – proposed this time by Condoleezza Rice – is an existential imperative.

Egypt and Jordan, not to speak of the Quartet and especially the United States, can only benefit from such a move. They must provide a convincing answer to the allure of religious militancy. The growing signs of turmoil in Lebanon and around Syria give an added sense of urgency to this quest. The unresolved Palestinian conundrum has now assumed broad regional proportions and requires collective action.

Any specific policy today must be directly linked to a common, agreed-upon goal of advancing a comprehensive settlement.

The Arab League Initiative proffers just such a framework. Violent Islamic extremism will not be subdued by a tactic of purposeful division; it will only be defeated by the solidification of a vibrant and just alternative. The promise of a physically, materially and humanly secure future rests on a holistic strategy based on the Palestinian Authority’s ability to negotiate on behalf of all the Palestinian people and partners willing to do so.

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