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SEVEN M’s ON THE SECURITY FENCE!

Massive Mobile Monday Morning Muslim Mob Mayhem!

February 25, 2008

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When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert landed Sunday night in Tokyo, he was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying: “The possibility that a Palestinian mob will storm the border of the Gaza Strip with Israel like it did in Rafah is of low probability, but Israel is prepared to deal with any situation that arises as Palestinians prepare to form a ‘human chain’ along the border with Israel on Monday morning.”

The two articles which follow, one from the Jerusalem Post and the other from DEBKAfile, give an assessment of the Hamas plan to storm the security fence barrier border between the Gaza Strip and Israel on Monday, February 25. The civilian mass will be used by Hamas for the assault.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article

Massive forces sent to prevent Gazans from storming border

Rebecca Anna Stoil, THE JERUSALEM POST

February 24, 2008

In preparation for a large-scaled Palestinian protest march planned for Gaza on Monday, security forces mobilized along the security fence Sunday night in an effort to head off a replay of last month’s Rafah border-storming at the Erez or Kissufim crossings.

An artillery battery was moved to the Gaza border for the first time in months, and rules of engagement were reviewed as troops prepared for the demonstration Hamas is calling a “human chain.”

A joint statement issued by the Foreign and Defense ministries blamed Hamas for fanning the flames and endangering Gazan civilians.

“Hamas, not for the first time, is orchestrating a premeditated effort to put civilians on the front line. Israel does not get involved in demonstrations that occur within the Gaza Strip, but Israel will defend itself and prevent incursions into its sovereign territory. Israel is working to prevent an escalation, but has made it absolutely clear that if there is an escalation, the responsibility will be entirely on Hamas’s shoulders,” the statement read.

The IDF was unwilling to confirm or deny a Channel 2 news report saying soldiers would be instructed to fire at protesters’ legs should they approach the security fence, in order to prevent a recurrence of what happened at the Gaza-Sinai border on January 23.

Hamas announced Sunday that it would mobilize the mass demonstration along the Salah-a-Din Route from Rafah on Gaza’s Egyptian border to Beit Hanun in the north, to protest the continued embargo placed on the Strip.

The protest is geared to attract more international attention than previous protests against the sanctions, due to its size and the photographic value of a chain stretching more than 60 kilometers along the entire length of the Gaza Strip.

But security forces are concerned that the protesters – or organizers – will not be satisfied with the symbolic imagery and might try to make good on threats issued by a Hamas leader last month that the Erez crossing would become the next Rafah.

In a worst-case scenario, Hamas activists could motivate the crowds to storm the Gaza security fence, particularly at “weak spots” where Israeli communities or army bases abut the strip. Areas such as the Erez crossing, Kissufim, Nahal Oz and Netiv Ha’asara are considered to be particularly at risk.

IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi held a situation assessment with officers on Sunday night, including representatives of the Home Front Command, to finalize preparations for Monday’s IDF response.

Israel Police chief Insp.-Gen. David Cohen also held a late-night assessment, in which police decided to raise the national alert level. Some 6,500 police officers, one senior officer said, would be deployed to the Southern District on Monday morning to maintain order.

While some Hamas officials have denied organizing an attempt to breach the border, others have hinted that such a human surge – involving women and children – might in fact occur.

The next time Gazan residents protest the ongoing siege, they will do so on the border with Israel, and not on the border with Egypt,” Israel Radio quoted one senior Hamas official as saying on Sunday.

Over the weekend, the IDF was already rushing large forces to the Gaza border in anticipation of civilian unrest after gasoline supplies in the territory ran out on Saturday for all but emergency service vehicles.

Immigration Absorption Minister Ya’acov Edri (Kadima) said Sunday that the government was ready for any scenario resulting from Palestinians trying to breach the border crossings.

Also Sunday, an all-day IDF operation in the southern Gaza Strip, near the defunct Dahiniye airstrip, bore fruit in the afternoon, when Givati infantry, Armored Corps units and combat engineers uncovered five tunnels used to smuggle arms from Sinai into Gaza. In the course of the operation, 50 Palestinians were detained for questioning on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist organization.

Six Kassams were fired Sunday at the Negev.

Begin DEBKAfile Article

Palestinians plan mass rush on Gazan-Israeli border Monday

February 24, 2008, 6:46 PM (GMT+02:00)

Beefed-up Israeli military and security forces prepared to repulse thousands of Palestinians planning to crash the full length of the Gazan-Israeli border and its crossings at 10:00 a.m. IT Monday, Feb. 25.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report Hamas is engineering a “popular” protest to be much more violent than the Jan.

23 Palestinian surge into Egypt through the border wall smashed by its bulldozers.

Behind the human shield of women, children and elderly leading the assault on Monday, Hamas, Jihad Islami and Fatah are expected to shoot, send in suicide bombers and unleash a Qassam barrage. If Israeli forces are goaded into opening fire, civilian casualties may be heavy enough to draw international condemnation.

If they hold back, the Palestinian terrorists will capture the border fence and knock it over.

By preventing a full-scale military operation against the Palestinian missile and terror campaign from Gaza and imposing a siege instead, prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak have left the initiative with Hamas which exploits it to the hilt.

DEBKAfile reports “human chain which will “demonstrate” along the border from the Rafah terminal in the south to Erez in the north is organized by the Committee for Breaking the Israeli Siege headed by Hamas, although the terrorist group’s spokesmen claimed it is a “spontaneous” protest against the Israeli blockade.

Israel’s military and security chiefs are conferring urgently Sunday night with chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi.

The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem told reporters that non-lethal measures for dispersing crowds are ready to ward off the massive assault on the border fence in an effort to avoid civilian casualties.

After weeks, Egypt finally cracked down on the Palestinian invasion of Sinai when its foreign minister threatened to “break the arms and legs” of infiltrators. Even then, they were defied by the Palestinian invaders.

It looks now as though the long-delayed big confrontation between the IDF and Hamas will not take place inside the Gaza Strip but on Israeli soil.

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REMEMBER THE ATTACK ON THE USS LIBERTY

BY ISRAELI AIR & NAVAL FORCES

FOR SPYING!

SHADES OF THE 1967 PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE WAR

A GREAT BEAR NATION HAS REVIVED ITS SHIPS,

HERE A SHIP – THERE A SHIP – EVERYWHERE A

SPY SHIP————————– E – I – E – I – O!

February 24, 2008

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Russia continues to move into place for her eventually role in the final battle of Armageddon.

We first reported the Russian Navy was beginning to use the two Syrian seaports for military purposes in an article we posted from YNet News on August 6, 2007. Israelis indicated at that time one of the military objectives would be the launching of Russian spy ships against Israel.

Begin YNET NEWS Article from 2007

Russian Navy to Operate from Syria

August 6, 2007

Aryeh Egozi and Alex Fishman

(Ynet News)

For the first time since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia plans to operate the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean using Syrian ports as permanent bases.

According to Western media reports, Syria plans to let the Russians use its ports as part of the large arms deal signed between the two countries in the past year after they resolved their financial differences.

The Russians conceded more than 70% of Syria’s $11 billion debt.

Theremaining debt will be returned by Syria partly through permanent
port services to Russian Navy ships in Latakia and Tartus.

Israeli officials estimated on Sunday that renewed bases in Syria will help the Russians carry out spy missions also against Israel, particularly electronic spying.

Begin DEBKAfile Article

Heavy storm exposes Russian Syria-based spy ship off Israel shore

February 22, 2008, 2:27 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that the Russian Amur 1 Class PM 138 naval boat, caught up in the heavy storm raging across the Middle East and Mediterranean last week, flashed a distress signal Tuesday Feb. 19. The vessel was on its way from a Syrian port to Sevastopol on the Black Sea when it was thrown off course by the high seas. A Greek Navy frigate responded to the call and escorted

the PM 138 to the island of Chios.

The Russian Navy spokesmen said the ship’s crew numbered 99.

It was unarmed and was heading for home port after a long stay at one of the Syrian Navy’s Mediterranean bases.

Certain facts were accidentally disclosed as a result of the storm, DEBKAfile’s military sources point out:

1. Russian naval vessels are spending long periods running into months at the Syrian military bases of Latakia and Tartous.

2. Witnesses in Greece say the vessel, described officially as an auxiliary repair craft, boasted an unusual number of antennas for gathering intelligence.

Its mission was clearly to gather information on Israeli military and naval movements while cruising oppo site

the Israeli coast.

Our sources add that, in recent months, the Russian Admiral Kutznetsov carrier with 47 Su-33 fighter-bombers and 10 helicopters on its decks visited one of

the Syrian naval bases, along with the huge Moskva missile cruiser.

Israel officials prefer to ignore this mounting Russian naval presence to the north so as not to mar relations with the Russian president Vladimir Putin.

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the included information for research and educational purposes.

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Between the Ups and Downs,

The U.S. Recession Doth Abound.

Each Troubled Face Doth Bare a Frown,

As Stocks and Bonds go Round and Round.

A World of Mammon has Built Many Great Towns,

That after Great Tribulation will No Longer be Found!

February 24, 2008

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Luke 17:28-30 – Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; [29] But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

[30] Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

Great Inflation – Women take a wheelbarrow of cash to the grocery store and get a handful of groceries.

Great Depression – Women take a handful of cash to the grocery store and get a wheelbarrow of groceries.

Great Tribulation Period – Women go to the grocery store and there is nothing there to get.

Great Vials of Wrath – Women do not go to the grocery store because it is not there anymore.

Haggai 1:5,6 – Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. [6] Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

Following Reprinted from MoneyNews.com

Inflation Gathers Steam, CPI Up 0.4 Pct.

MoneyNews

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008

NEW YORK — U.S. inflation accelerated in January in a worrying sign for the Federal Reserve’s campaign to bolster the flagging economy, while a separate report on Wednesday showed more troubling signs for beleaguered housing market.

Annual consumer price inflation increased to an unexpectedly strong 4.3 percent in January from an already elevated rate of 4.1 percent in December, according to the Labor Department.

On a monthly basis, rising food costs helped push consumer prices up for a second straight month in January by 0.4 percent, more than offsetting a moderation in energy price rises.

Excluding volatile food and energy items, growth in core consumer prices accelerated to 2.5 percent from 2.4 percent in December, a level that is likely to make Fed policy-makers uncomfortable.

The bad news on inflation was coupled with more grim news from the housing market, with permits to break ground on new U.S. homes in January decreasing 3 percent to the lowest rate in more than 16 years.

With the housing market’s problems now well publicized, financial markets focused on the inflation, which could complicate the Federal Reserve’s efforts to shore up the economy through a continuation of aggressive interest rate cuts.

“The concern is on the inflation side. We are seeing an elevated trend, especially in the core,” said Kevin Flanagan, fixed income strategist for global wealth management at Morgan Stanley in Purchase, New York.

Wall Street opened lower in the wake of the unexpectedly strong consumer prices but the dollar rose. Government bonds, which usually wilt at the prospect of infl

ation, fell in the wake of the consumer price release.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a monthly rise of 0.3 percent in consumer prices for an annual inflation rate of 4.2 percent.

The core readings were also above market forecasts of a 0.2 percent increase month-on-month and 2.4 percent year-over-year rise.

In the housing market, permits slipped to a 1.048 million annual rate, the weakest since a 984,000 rate in November 1991.

Permits are an indicator of builder confidence in future housing activity.

Starts rose to a 1.012 million annual rate, but it was only a slight rebound from the revised 1.004 million pace in December, which was the lowest pace for starts since May 1991.

In more dour housing news, U.S. mortgage applications plunged last week, and demand hit the lowest level since

the start of the year as interest rates surged, an industry group said.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications for the week ended Feb.

15 fell 22.6 percent to 822.8, the lowest level since the week ended Jan.

4.

Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.09 percent, up 0.37 percentage point from the previous week, the highest since late December.

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SANCTIONS ARE DOOMED TO FAILURE

EVEN AFTER THEY PASS THE VOTE IN THE UN!

ONLY AN ATTACK ON FACILITIES WILL SLOW IRAN

AND IT’S 50/50 AS TO WHETHER AN ATTACK WILL OCCUR!

February 23, 2008

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

Begin Jerusalem Post Article

‘New sanctions on Iran are imminent’

Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST

February 22, 2008

The latest UN report on Iran’s nuclear program should pave the way for passage next week of a new UN Security Council resolution tightening sanctions on Teheran, the US ambassador to the UN said Friday.

The report released Friday by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran has continued to enrich uranium in defiance of repeated UN Security Council resolutions demanding that it suspend the uranium centrifuge program, which could produce both civilian nuclear fuel and the material for a nuclear bomb.

“They’re increasing their capabilities,” US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad noted.

“Not only have the number of centrifuges increased, but they’re working on a second-generation, if you like, a more capable centrifuge.

“Things are getting worse in terms of the enrichment part.”

Britain and France introduced a council resolution on Thursday – with support from the United States, Russia, China and Germany – to expand and toughen travel bans and the freezing of assets for more Iranian officials linked to the nuclear effort.

For the first time it would also ban trade with Iran in so-called dual-use items, those with both nuclear and other applications, and authorize inspections of shipments to and from Iran that are suspected of carrying prohibited goods.

Meeting with reporters over lunch at a Manhattan hotel, Khalilzad said the major Security Council powers planned early next week to discuss the resolution with four council members that have expressed reservations about further Iran sanctions – Libya, Vietnam, South Africa and Indonesia.

Sounding confident of approval, he said a vote would be scheduled for next Friday.

He said he believed “some were hoping the IAEA report would eliminate the need for the next resolution” – by assessing Iranian cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog more positively.

“The IAEA report does give us very important points to make,” Khalilzad said. “They (Iran) did not come clean.”

He was referring to Teheran’s dismissal of information supplied by the US and its allies said to show Iranian work on a missile re-entry vehicle, high explosives testing and conversion of uranium compounds, all of which might indicate nuclear weapons development.

The Iranians rejected the purported evidence as fabrications.

Meanwhile, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Iran failed to cooperate fully with UN investigators and left key questions about its nuclear past unanswered.

Burns said he will meet Monday with diplomats from world powers that have twice punished the oil-rich nation over its nuclear drive, and wants the UN Security Council to approve new penalties soon afterward.

“We find Iranian performance to be lacking,” Burns told reporters at the State Department. “As a result of this it’s our firm belief that there is all the more reason now for the Security Council to pass a third sanctions resolution.”

The US wants the Security Council to begin debate next week. Burns would not predict how long debate would last, and would not rule out that the current package of proposed punishments could change.

The proposed package slightly expands and strengthens previous penalties, but is weaker than the United States had wanted.

Begin DEBKAfile Report

Iran’s “covert efforts to weaponize nuclear work” cited in new IAEA report

February 22, 2008, 6:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran was avoiding meaningful responses to intelligence pointing to covert efforts to “weaponize” nuclear work by linking uranium processing, high explosives tests and design work on a missile warhead, the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog said Friday, Feb. 22, in a report on which a decision on a third round of UN Security Council sanctions depends.

According to Reuters, the agency said the (weaponization) studies are a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program. “Iran had shown new openness” about earlier nuclear advances, said the report, “but not enough to prove its program is not geared to making bombs.”

The report also confirmed Iran was testing technology that “could give it the means to enrich uranium much faster – in further defiance of demands to halt all sensitive nuclear activity or be hit with wider U.N. sanctions.

Without some clarity on the nature of the alleged (weaponization) studies, and without implementation of the Additional Protocol (wide-ranging, snap inspections)…” there could be “no confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the program, the agency concludes.

Wednesday, Feb. 20, Mohammad Mohaddessin, of the exiled Iranian National Council of Resistance, warned that the Iranian regime had accelerated its nuclear weapons program, including the production of nuclear warheads.

He told a news conference in Brussels that Tehran had established its first command and control center to work on a nuclear bomb and was setting up a center to produce warheads southeast of the capital.

DEBKAfile: The council’s previous allegations of Iran’s covert nuclear activities, including the Natanz site, have been borne out.

Begin Excerpts from Jerusalem Center for Public Information – Daily Alert

February 22, 2008

Excerpt 1 – New York Times

Security Council Weighs New Sanctions on Iran – Warren Hoge
The UN Security Council on Thursday began formal consideration of a new resolution introduced by Britain and France on Iran’s nuclear program that imposes restrictions on cargo to and from Iran, travel bans, the freezing of assets for people involved in the program, and tightened monitoring of Iranian financial institutions.

The Council has twice voted unanimously to impose sanctions

to stop Iran from enriching uranium, in December 2006 and March 2007.

This third measure tightens and extends earlier ones but does not significantly broaden them.

The text has the backing of the five permanent members of the Council. Dan Gillerman, the Israeli ambassador, said, “The assessment is that this is the best you can get, given the present composition of the Security Council.” (New York Times)

Excerpt 2 – Der Spiegel – Germany

Iran Could Have Enough Uranium for a Bomb by Year’s End

Markus Becker

New simulations carried out by European Union experts come to an alarming conclusion: Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb by the end of this year. When the U.S. released a new National Intelligence Estimate last year, it seemed as though the danger of a mullah-bomb had passed.

The report claimed that Tehran mothballed its nuclear weapons program in autumn 2003.

As part of a project to improve control of nuclear materials, the European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, set up a detailed simulation of the centrifuges currently used by Iran in the Natanz nuclear facility to enrich uranium. The results look nothing like those reached by the U.S. intelligence community. For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100% efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year.

Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency – just 25%. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010. (Der Spiegel-Germany)

Excerpt 3 – Associated Press

Iran Says God Protects Nuclear Program

Nasser Karimi

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday that God would punish Iranians if they do not support the country’s nuclear program, state radio reported. (AP)

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WILL THE U.S. DEFEND ISRAEL IN A WAR

IF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS THE PRESIDENT?

CONSIDER THE JERUSALEM POST ARTICLE BELOW

BEFORE YOU ANSWER SUCH A PROPHETIC QUESTION!

February 23, 2008

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

I do not believe America is going to directly commit ground troops or combatant air support to defend Israel,

regardless of who is President, but Obama’s election would make my belief much stronger I am right.

I have taught for more than 30 years the United States will not commit ground support or direct combatant military air support engagement, when Israel is initially attacked by the forces of Islam, nor will Russia and China provide the same kind of support for Islamic forces during the initial attack. The initial attack by Islamic forces will be a success. It will be strictly an Islam versus Jew war, and Israel will be driven into the Negev. Israel will storm back out of the Negev some three and one half years later to drive north and east to claim Abraham’s land grant in Genesis 15:18.

Many of the nations of the earth will provide logistic and humanitarian assistance to one or both sides, depending on their national interests, for three and one half years.

The final battle of Armageddon will occur at the end of the three and one half years, and the nations of the known world, (at the time John wrote the Book of Revelation in about 96 A.D.), will join the Islamic nations in a final attempt to destroy the Jews forever. It is at that time the Lord Jesus Christ will return at His Second Advent to destroy the armies of Islam and those nations joined with them, killing most of them by the greatest geological upheaval in the great Jordan Rift Valley the world has known since God placed man on this earth.

Revelation 16:15-21 – Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. [16] And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

[17] And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. [18] And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. [19] And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. [20] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. [21] And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

Revelation 19:19-21 – And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. [20] And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image.

These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. [21] And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

Begin Jerusalem Post Article

Obama and the Jews

Marc Zell, THE JERUSALEM POST

February 21, 2008

Less than two weeks before the critical primary elections in Ohio and Texas, Democratic voters have made it very clear: Barack Hussein Obama is for real.

Leading in the popular votes cast, delegates pledged and total delegates (meaning principally the back-room machers euphemistically referred to as “superdelegates”), Obama has a decent chance to become the 2008 Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Obama has become a rallying point for millions of disgruntled voters who yearn for a new style of politics in the world’s greatest democracy.

Since the Republican race is all but over and Senator John McCain will likely win the nomination of his party in Minneapolis in early September, it is not idle speculation to consider an Obama-McCain contest in the November general election. Such a contest has potentially enormous consequences for Israel and the Jews.

It is no secret that Obama’s candidacy has been supported financially and politically by many prominent members of the American Jewish community.

Even previously outspoken Clinton-supporting spokespersons for Democrats Abroad here in Israel have been hedging their bets recently in articles and interviews, suggesting that an Obama Administration would augur well for Israel. Incredibly, citing unenthusiastic, canned pro-Israel campaign statements, these dyed-in-the-wool Democratic sycophants would urge Jewish voters to cast their fate and Israel’s with Obama rather than with the Republican candidate, McCain.

With all due deference to the Obama celebrity supporters like Steven Spielberg and George Soros, can Jews herein Israel and in America and other friends of Israel risk a vote for Obama in November? A quick look at the facts should switch on a big red light in most peoples’ minds.

First and foremost among the considerations that should trouble friends of Israel is the foreign policy team Obama has selected to advise him. The composition of a candidate’s advisory panel is usually a very good indicator of where the candidate will come out on the issues if elected.

This was the test this writer applied to George W. Bush in 2000 at a time when most pundits in Israel and in the Jewish community predicted that his Middle East policy would be a carbon copy of his father’s, meaning trouble for Israel.

But Bush, the son, had selected a blue-ribbon team of pragmatic and conservative advisors whose views on the Middle East were markedly pro-Israel and pro-democracy. Subsequently, the W. Bush Era became among the closest allies of Israel in her 60-year history.

The opposite is the case with the Obama team. Headed up by Jimmy Carter’s (“Israel is an apartheid state”) national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama’s team includes such problematic figures as Anthony Lake, Robert O. Malley and Susan Rice.

One commentator, citing an article by the staunchly left-wing Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, has noted that an Obama presidency including a foreign policy team that included the foregoing and their ideological soul-mates, “would likely have an approach towards Israel radically at odds with those of previous Presidents (both Republican and Democrat)” and is the candidate apt to be “least supportive” of Israel.

Brzezinski has been disseminating vitriol about Israel for three decades and recently publicly defended the Walt-Mearsheimer study which concluded that US policy towards Israel was the result of Jewish pressure and inconsistent with American interests.

More recently Brzezinski called for the US to initiate dialogue with Hamas, described Israel’s action in the Second Lebanon War as a killing campaign against civilian hostages and earlier this month made a trip to confer with Syria’s President Assad, ostensibly unbeknownst to the Obama campaign.

Robert O. Malley, another former Carter Administration diplomat and President Clinton’s special advisor on Arab-Israeli affairs, is an unabashed advocate for the Palestinians, co-authoring a spate of anti-Israel propaganda with former Arafat advisor, Hussein Agha, including a tract that blames Israel for the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks and another piece which blames the Bush Administration for continuing Israeli-Palestinian strife.

And then there is Susan Rice, foreign policy advisor to the ill-fated John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004, where she concocted the idea of solving the Middle East problem by appointing none other than Jimmy Carter and James Baker as negotiators, an idea which was later repudiated by her own boss as being unbalanced against Israel. Nor are these the only “bad apples” in Obama’s foreign policy bin…

Another problematic indicator is candidate’s close association with Jeremiah Wright, Jr., pastor of the Trinity United Community Church (a member of the United Church for Christ, which itself has been rebuked for anti-Israel bias), who is well known for his virulent anti-Israel remarks, including a call for a divestment campaign against Israel for the “injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

Nor should bring much solace to Jewish voters and friends of Israel that Reverend Wright counts among his closest friends, the nefarious anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan for whom Judaism is a “gutter religion” and Jews are “bloodsuckers.” Obama could have picked any one of hundreds of churches in Chicago’s South Side; he picked Jeremiah Wright’s parsonage, which awarded Farrakhan with the Jeremiah Wright Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer Award in 2007. And Wright’s church is the single largest beneficiary of Obama’s charitable giving. Even Jewish columnist Richard Cohen of the Washing ton Post felt compelled

to ask Obama to clarify his relationship with these anti-Jewish and anti-Israel community leaders, questioning why Obama has stayed steadfast in his allegiance to Pastor Wright over the years.

Obama is only a first-term senator and has therefore only participated in a handful of votes that bear upon Israel and the Middle East. He also has a penchant for missing controversial votes where he would have to put his personal policies in the public record. However, his public statements on a variety of issues present a number of troubling issues for Jews and friends of Israel. Here are a few samples:

1)Obama openly advocates outreach toward and diplomatic engagement of Iran even though Iran has recently referred to Israel as a “filthy bacteria” and has repeatedly called for the annihilation of the Jewish State, including recent hints that this will be accomplished by a nuclear attack

2) “Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people.”

3)”[T]he creation of a wall [referring to Israel’s security fence] dividing the two nations is yet another example of the neglect of this [the Bush] Administration in brokering peace… .”

4)”I am opposed to the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in the administration to shove their ideological agenda down our throat.” [note that only Jews are singled out despite the fact that the policies in question were promoted by the entire Administration]

5)”Reverend [Al] Sharpton is a voice for the voiceless, and a voice for the dispossessed.

What [Reverend Sharpton’s] National Action Network has done is so important to change America, and it must be changed from the bottom up.” [National Action lead a protest against the Jewish owner of Freddy’s Fashion Mart in New York in which picketers, sometimes joined by Sharpton himself, repeatedly screamed epithets about “bloodsucking Jews” and “Jew bastards.”]

Obama was the only Democratic candidate who said the onus was on Israel to change its policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians in order to achieve peace.

Barack’s problematic and unrecanted public statements

and associations raise enough serious questions that should cause Jewish voters and friends of Israel to think twice about supporting him in November.

But there is one other troublesome factor that voters in the Democratic primaries have thus far failed to credit seriously, viz.: Obama aspires to become president of the greatest democracy and still the only remaining superpower on the planet, having held a senate seat for less than five years and having had no previous administrative or national experience.

While it may have suited Democratic voters to cast their votes for Obama during the primaries as a protest against the Democratic political establishment (much as they did in 2006 to deny (now Independent) Senator Joseph Lieberman the nomination of his party for the Senate seat from Connecticut), one would like to think that the American electorate will again demonstrate its maturity and seriousness during the General Elections in November 2008, when their votes really count.

The Presidency in this day and age is no place for a neophyte, however charismatic. Those of us Americans who live in the Jewish State clearly understand what is at stake and what kind of risk Obama poses to the region and the world. There is every reason to hope that our compatriots in the United States and friends of Israel and freedom generally would agree.

The writer is Co-Chairman Republicans Abroad in Israel

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