Monday, September 28th, 2009
Preparing the Way for an Antichrist By-Pass
September 28, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I have contended for 35 years when Israel is attacked by the 10 toes of the Daniel 2 statue, which are the 10 horns of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 & 17, that Jordan will not be one of the 10, yet the Antichrist will not attack Jordan. Instead, he will by-pass Jordan, drive Israel in to the Negev Wilderness, then swing west
to conquer the land of Egypt.
If you will take the time to use any reference map from any source showing the location of the Kingdoms of Ammon,
Moab, and Edom during the time Daniel wrote his prophecies around 600 B.C., you will discover, by comparing it with a modern day map of Jordan, that all three of these kingdoms fit perfectly into its present borders. The kings of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia will be killed or replaced during the attack by their own internal enemies and, after the conquest of Egypt, will be a part of a massive Caliphate. After his conquest of Egypt individual kingdoms, with majority Islamic populations from Morocco in Africa to Pakistan to Indonesia, will quickly join his massive Caliphate in fear of being overthrown.
Most of the former southern satellites of the Soviet Union will also join his new immense Caliphate.
Daniel 11:41 – He shall enter also into THE GLORIOUS LAND, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these SHALL ESCAPE out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief
of the children of Ammon.
The ancient boil of conflict between the descendants of Jacob, Ishmael, and the six sons of Keturah, with all its internal blend of impurities, is finally coming to a head in the Middle East. In league with Syria will be Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Morocco, and Turkey. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran will move rapidly southward through the “glorious land” of Israel like a fast moving thunderstorm, bypassing the land where the people of Moab, Ammon, and Edom were settled when Daniel wrote his prophecies in about 600 B.C. The descendants of Edom (Jacob’s brother), and Ammon and Moab (the sons of Lot), as found on every published map for this time period, were settled immediately to the southeast, east, and northeast of the Dead Sea, precisely in the country we know as Jordan today. Hence, we can know that the antichrist will bypass Jordan as he moves south through Israel. Why would he bypass Jordan? She has no strategic, political, or economic advantage to offer him, but the Suez Canal and Egypt do, so he will head southwest toward that area after having driven the woman Israel into the Negev Wilderness south of Beersheva.
Revelation 12:6 – And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
Daniel 11:42 – He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
The political, geophysical, and military positioning of Syria, Iran, and Iraq, from a prospective of having world influence, literally stinks. But the position of Egypt’s Suez Canal, and Cairo, her capital, is outstanding. The antichrist is supposed to be a man of genius in all areas. That being the case, he would be worse than a military academy dropout were he not to take the Suez Canal, and then make Cairo his empire’s capital.
Daniel 11:43 – But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and
the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
The three most “precious things” in Egypt are: the Suez Canal, the Nile River and its Delta, and Cairo, its capital. He will conquer the Suez Canal zone and all of Egypt. So just what is Egypt? Many are inclined to establish it as the land bordered on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the west by Libya, on the south by Sudan, on the southeast by the Red Sea, and on the northeast by its Sinai border with Gaza and Israel’s Negev. And, geographically, that is quite correct. However, in reality, that is not Egypt. The real Egypt, where her people live, is much, much, smaller. Egypt is the land along her north and east coastlines up to about two miles inland, the Nile Delta, and the land along the Nile River extending about fifteen miles either side of its banks.
The antichrist will send messages to leaders of two of the original 10 nations confederated with him, namely Libya and Sudan, requesting them to mass their troops along the northern coastal border with Libya, and along the border where the Nile enters Egypt from Sudan. This will cause the diversion of some Egyptian troops away from Cairo and the Suez Canal in order to protect their western and southern borders. And this will allow the antichrist to rapidly push across the Suez Canal into Cairo and along her western and eastern coastlines, then to quickly progress southward down the Nile with little resistance. I believe he will control Egypt within two weeks after he reaches the Suez Canal.
Begin Excerpt from Arab News via World News
Abdullah-Bashar talks ‘reflect warn relations’
September 26, 2009
JEDDAH: The talks between Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar Assad in Jeddah on Wednesday were distinguished for their warmth and positive results, high-level Syrian sources said.
They said the talks, which continued for two hours, focused on ways of strengthening bilateral relations and the roles of Saudi Arabia and Syria in the region.
The two leaders, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, had also discussed major regional and international developments.
Assad was in the Kingdom to attend the inauguration of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal at the invitation of the Saudi leader. Other regional leaders, including Turkish President Abdullah Gul and former Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, also attended the ceremony.
The Syrian sources said the participation of Assad in the KAUST opening would strengthen the relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria.
“The two sides have expressed their happiness over the level of coordination and consultation between the two countries,” the Syrian news agency, SANA, said.
SANA added that the two leaders reviewed the developments at Arab and international levels and expressed their cooperation to realize the interests of the two countries and the Arab world.
The Saudi-Syrian summit talks in Jeddah were attended by Prince Abdul Aziz bin
Abdullah, who previously held talks with Assad in Damascus on a number of occasions.
The Syrian sources expected King Abdullah to visit Damascus to take the Saudi-Syrian relations to new heights.
The Lebanese leaders were happy over the talks between King Abdullah and Assad.
“President Assad’s visit to the Kingdom is an important step upon which we must build,” said Siniora, who is Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and a member of Saad Hariri’s Future Movement, in remarks to reporters in Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister-designate Hariri began talks on Thursday to form a new unity government in Lebanon, with his chances of early success seen tied to the outcome of the Saudi-Syrian summit.
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Sunday, September 27th, 2009
AN EXPOSITION OF EZEKIEL 37 – PART 1
September 27, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The activities of nations in the past often determine their future conduct. We will take a look at one of Ezekiel’s prophecies from about 592 B.C. which has been, to a large extent, fulfilled in the last century, but still has future applications. In Ezekiel 37:1 we are told: “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.” And, in Ezekiel 37:11, we are advised: “Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.” These two verses describe Ezekiel being carried to the approximate center of a valley filled with disarranged bones of countless men and women. The valley represents the world, and the bones represent “the whole house of Israel.”
In Ezekiel 37:2 he writes: “And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley, and, lo, they were very dry.” In this verse Ezekiel is led to make an inspection tour of the bones.
He discovers two things as he passes through the valley representing the whole world: (1) the bones are “very many” (whole house of Israel); and (2) they are not just dry, they are “very dry.” This verse, coupled with verse 11, represents a prophecy that the day would come when the nation of Israel would not just be dead, but would be very dead, without hope, cut
off from all its parts. Ezekiel made this prophecy in about 592 B.C. It was fulfilled more than 600 years after it was written, during the period A.D. 70 to 135. In A.D. 70 the Roman General Titus led an Army of Romans, Syrians, and Arab Mercenaries against Israel, and the destruction was almost complete.
What was left of Israel as a nation was finished totally by the Roman Hadrian and his armies in about A.D. 135. From than time until May 14, 1948, there was no recognized nation of Israel in the great open valley of the world. For more than eighteen hundred years, the dead nation of Israel existed only as very dry bones scattered across the great Gentile valley known as the world.
In Ezekiel 37:3 the Lord poses a very interesting question to Ezekiel, as he asks: “And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.” I appreciate Ezekiel’s honesty. It is apparent he does not have the foggiest notion, so he shifts the answer back to the Lord as he states, “O Lord God, thou knowest.” “As I am repeatedly faced with questions of life I cannot answer, I simply say, O Lord, thou knowest.
In Ezekiel 37:4,5 God answers his own question: “[4] Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
[5] Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:” The answer is Yes! God is going to transform these disarranged, very dry, dead bones in an open valley into a living nation of Israel recognized by most of the world’s nations. He speaks His Word to the bones, and as He
speaks they hear and obey.
Verse 5 gives a preview as to what the end result will be – a living, breathing nation of Israelites gathered home to the land he gave their father Abraham – the promised land of Israel. But this transformation from dead bones (a dead nation) to a living nation of flesh, blood, and breath was not to be done instantly, but rather in a series of stages as one would perform in building a human body over a skeleton frame
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust, that o’er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind’s breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain’s base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Rivera interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
“Blessed be God! for he created Death!”
The mourners said, “and Death is rest and peace;”
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
“And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease.”
Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,
No Psalms of David now the silence break,
No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain,
And not neglected; for a hand unseen,
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,
Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
How came they here
? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o’er the sea — that desert desolate —
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind
?
They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire;
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and the death of fire.
All their lives long, with the unleavened bread
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears,
The wasting famine of the heart they fed,
And slaked its thirst with marah of their tears.
Anathema maranatha! was the cry
That rang from town to town, from street to street;
At every gate the accursed Mordecai
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet.
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where’er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
They saw reflected in the coming time.
And thus forever with reverted look
The mystic volume of the world they read,
Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book,
Till life became a Legend of the Dead.
When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “The Jewish Cemetary at Newport,” he concluded it with these lines:
“But ah! What once has been shall
be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore, And the dead nations never rise again. “
Longfellow penned these words in 1852, at a time when it seemed impossible that the dead nation of Israel could ever rise again. Little did Longfellow realize that among the lifeless Jews scattered around the world there was to be thrown the eternal spark of life. It was the spark of rebirth kindled by the message of Theodor Herzl in 1896 – the message of “The Jewish State.” For more than 1800 years the chosen people of God, the dead nation of Israel, wandered as forsaken corpses in the great wilderness of the Gentile nations. But the same God, who allowed this punishment of a rejecting nation to occur, has now caused a dead nation to be resurrected from its Gentile graveyard. Longfellow was wrong; God has lifted up a scattered corpse into a living nation – the risen nation of Israel. When the Great Tribulation Period begins on this planet, both unbelieving Jew and Gentile will personally feel the wrath of Almighty God.
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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Diplomatic Dialog on Nukes is an 11 year Flop!
Diplomatic Dialog on Nukes has a Duel Problem,
Diplomatic Dialog is a Day Late and a Dollar Short,
Diplomatic Dialog Delay is the strong suit of Iranians,
They’ve played numerous hands of strip poker with E.U.,
And Guess Who ends up naked at the End of Poker Game!
Using diplomatic dialogue on Iran will also end up a day Late!
An American dollar is lower in value now than its been in years,
We’re Printing Money Faster Than They did After Mexican Revolts,
So I think it could be stated at this time we are truly a dollar Short!
Iran may respond now its secret uranium enrichment Site is Known,
But it will all be a part as a tale from the Persian delaying diplomacy!
September 27, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Too late to stop Tehran, Obama aims to stifle an Israeli attack
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
September 26, 2009, 2:44 PM (GMT+02:00)
Maestro Barack Obama’s histrionics in New York and Pittsburgh Thursday and Friday, Sept. 24-25 – and his threat of “confrontation” for Iran’s concealment of its nuclear capabilities – were water off a duck’s back for Tehran, whose nuclear weapons program has gone too far to stop by words or even sanctions.
The Islamic regime only responded with more defiance, announcing that its second uranium enrichment plant near Qom would become operational soon.
The US president’s tough words and willingness to step out of his axiomatic insistence on dialogue and turn to economic warfare against Iran may be impressive but it is no longer effective. Tehran is too close to its goal of a nuclear weapons capability to be deterred by offers of engagement or economic penalties.
Obama certainly knows this. He also understands that Iran is now unstoppable except by force. His performance was therefore directed at another target: Israel, whom he is determined to dissuade from resorting to military action against Iran’s nuclear installations.
Defense secretary Robert Gates hit the nail on the head when he said Friday: “The reality is there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so.”
Iran was allowed to reach the point defined by Gates thanks to the permissiveness of two US presidents George W.
Bush and Bill Clinton and two Israeli prime ministers, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.
They had no illusions about the deterrent value of the three sets of UN Security sanctions imposed to punish Iran, but held back from pre-emptive action on the pretext that there was still plenty of time before Iran was in a position to destroy Israel.
In any case, Israeli leaders argued, Iran’s nuclear ambitions were a threat to the whole world and it was therefore incumbent on the “international community” to take care of them.
This of course did not happen. Iran carried on exploiting international inaction, finally capitalizing on Obama’s foot-dragging in his first nine months in office.
By now, Iran has used the gift of time to process enough enriched uranium to fuel two nuclear bombs and is able to produce another two per year.
Its advanced medium-range missiles will be ready to deliver nuclear warheads by next year.
Detonators for nuclear bombs are in production at two secret sites.
And finally, a second secret uranium enrichment plant – subject of the stern warning issued collectively in Pittsburgh Friday by Obama, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British premier Gordon Brown – has come to light, buried under a mountain near Qom. Its discovery doubles – at least – all previous estimates of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Caught red-handed yet again in massive deceit, the Iranian president Mahdmoud Ahmadinejad had only more defiance to offer. America owes his government an apology, he told interviewers in New York Friday, because the new plant would not be operational for 18 months, and Tehran had therefore not violated International Atomic Energy Agency rules requiring notification.
He was soon caught in another lie.
Saturday, the Iranian news agency was informed by an aide of supreme leader Ali Khamenei that “the new plant would become operational soon.”
Iran’s published concealments and deceptions are disquieting enough. But a whole lot more are undoubtedly buried in fat intelligence dossiers on Iran’s nuclear program – plutonium production, for instance. The progress made in its plutonium-based weapons program was never mentioned in the stern condemnations of the last few days, except indirectly in a quiet comment from an anonymous Israeli official Friday night.
He said Iran operates on two hourglasses and both were running out fast. He was referring obliquely to the enriched uranium and the plutonium tracks.
Sarkozy was clearly thinking about those undiscovered Iranian secrets and evasions when he declared in Pittsburgh:
“Everything – everything must be put on the table now” (at the October 1 meeting of the Six Powers with Iranian negotiators). Obama too urged Iran “to come clean.”
All the powers concerned – the US, Russia, France, Germany the UK and even China – have the same information as Israel and are fully aware that Iran has already crossed a number of red lines this year and will cross more in 2010. The more time allowed for diplomacy and engagement, the greater Tehran’s defiance. Meanwhile, world powers will argue – not over futile sanctions, but on how to stop Israel, so wasting several more months.
DEBKAfile’s sources note that the Gates assessment and the cooling note he injected into the US president’s oratory came after Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak visited the Pentagon. The visit clearly did not change Gates’ view that the Iranian nuclear program was now too advanced to stop, while the use of force would only gain an interval of up to three years, after which Tehran would pick itself up and start again.
Therefore, according to Gates, diplomacy remained the only viable option.
The answer to this argument is simple: It is exactly this approach which gave Iran 11 quiet years to develop its weapons capacity. For Israel and Middle East, a three-year setback is a very long time, a security boon worth great risk, because a) It would be a happy respite from the dark clouds hanging over the country from Iran and also cut back Hamas and Hizballah terrorist capabilities, and b) In the volatile Middle East anything can happen in 36 months.
But the US defense secretary believes Israel, like
the rest of the world, must accept life under the shadow of a nuclear-armed Iran and make the best of it.
This view is shared by the Kremlin. It was advanced by prime minister Vladimir Putin to Binyamin Netanyahu during his secret trip to Moscow on Sept. 7.
According to DEBKAfile’s Russian sources, when the Israeli prime minister tried to counter Putin’s thesis and explain what restraint meant for Israel, the Russian prime minster became impatient and told his guest to leave.
After that interview, the Israeli government can no longer avoid appreciating that Gates and Putin talk the real talk for Washington and Moscow, while their leaders’ moralistic condemnations of Iran are mainly hot air for public consumption and for maneuvering Israel into a position where a military strike would be hard to conceive.
Netanyahu’s Sphinx-like silence on the nuclear to-do in the US this week was apt.
But it is hard to tell what he is hiding.
Will he succumb to the world powers’ pressure to sit tight while Iran goes all the way to a military nuclear capability – or face up to it and act
?
This is the most important decision of Netanyahu’s political life as two-time prime minister of Israel. It will also determine Israel’s future.
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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Dive,
on:absolute;top:-200px;left:-200px;’>buy zithromax non-prescription
Dive, Dive Israeli NAVY SUB!
This would be a good Blog to Keep,
To Refer Back To When A Submarine
Is discussed in articles on Israeli Subs.
I’ve kept close watch on them for Years,
Since They’ll Play a Large Part in the War!
This is a very long Blog that is primarily sent to give you a partial history of the development of the Israeli submarine fleet. I am going all the way back to 2002 to provide you with information that will be useful when war breaks out in the Middle East, which I believe could occur as early as 2010 to 2012, but is more likely to begin at a point in time between 2012 and 2015. The latest article is dated September 24, 2009, but it has many previous articles on the same subject before it.
Sorry for its length, but I do think it will be useful in the future.
September 26, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Israel Continues to Add to its Underwater Nuclear Deterrent!
November 21, 2005
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Israel already has three submarines carrying nuclear warheads in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf – Soon there will be five! This is one of the reasons I have long been convinced there will not be a nuclear war in the Middle East. There will be a Jihad fought with large arsenals of sophisticated conventional weapons. Neither Israel nor the nations of Islam want, or would profit from, a nuclear war, no matter how fanatical the Islamic terrorists are in their religious practices. In the case of Saddam Hussein it was a horse of a different color. He was far from being a genuine religious fanatic – He was a megalomaniac. If he had ever developed a nuclear arsenal, he would assuredly have used it.
The article which follows, by Yossi Melman in Haaretz, is the outcome of negotiations between Germany and Israel in 2004 for the purchase of two additional submarines to add to their defense structure. The article follows:
BEGIN EXCERPT FROM HAARETZ
Germany to Sell Israel Two More Subs at Major Discount
By Yossi Melman
November 20, 2005
Germany will provide Israel with two more Dolphin class submarines, the German weeklies Der Spiegel and Focus reported yesterday.
According to the magazine reports, the outgoing government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder acceded to the Israeli government’s requests, and even agreed to pay about a third of the cost of the submarines. Construction of the submarines, which will take place at the shipyards in Kiel, will cost around 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion), of which a third will be financed by the German government.
If these reports are correct, then the two submarines would join three Dolphin class submarines supplied to the Israeli navy in the past. Two of the three submarines, built to Israeli specifications, were given to Israel gratis following the Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War after it turned out that German companies had aided Saddam Hussein’s weapons program.
In recent years, Israel tried to persuade the German government to provide additional submarines, but the Germans were hesitant. German media reports said the reason was concern that Israel would outfit the submarines for missiles with nuclear warheads. However, Israeli sources said the primary dispute was over whether Germany should charge the full price. Der Spiegel and Focus said yesterday that Germany had indeed long resisted Israel’s request to help finance the cost of the submarines.
According to foreign media reports, the growing concern over Iran acquiring nuclear weapons has led Israel to develop nuclear “second-strike capability,” and submarines, which cannot be detected and targeted, constitute an effective means to that end. That conclusion, according to foreign media reports, was also drawn from the fact that the torpedo hatches on the Dolphin submarines supplied to Israel have been substantially widened – which ostensibly indicate they are intended for launching nuclear missiles.
Second-strike capability is a country’s ability to respond with nuclear weapons even after a nuclear attack. Second-strike capability requires nuclear missiles concealed underground or installed on submarines.
END HAARETZ ARTICLE
I first announced this purchase of two submarines last December in a supplement to Special Prophecy Update 141C. The supplement follows.
BEGIN SUPPLEMENT TO 141C
Supplement to Archive Special Prophecy Update 141C
December 12, 2004
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Please take a look at Prophecy Update 141C in our Archives. Israel is building a fleet of the best non-atomic subs available, and then modifying them to carry missiles with nuclear warheads. This is an excellent article by Arieh O’Sullivan for the Jerusalem Post. It came from the Jerusalem Post OnLine.
BEGIN EXCERPT FROM JERUSALEM POST
Israel to buy 2 more German Dolphin subs
By Arieh O’Sullivan, The Jerusalem Post
December 12, 2004
Navy Adm. David Ben-Bashat has reportedly confirmed that Israel is to purchase two more Dolphin-class submarines from Germany and
that the contract will be signed this coming spring.
Speaking at a gathering of the Navy’s friendship association, Ben-Bashat said that the time was ripe for winning German approval for the submarines, which each cost some $350 million, according to the IDF weekly Bamahane.
Last year, the German government reportedly turned down a request for two more Dolphin-class submarines. Berlin was reportedly against the sale because of reports that Israel was equipping them with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Sensitive armaments deliveries need approval from Berlin’s secretive security council.
“Next year a wonderful window of opportunity will be opened because of the political situation with Germany and Europe,” the weekly quoted Ben-Bashat as telling the gathering. “I hope that then we will sign a contract with Germany that will allow the addition of two more submarines to the Navy’s fleet.”
Israel received three diesel/electric U-212 Dolphin-class submarines from Germany in the late 1990s.
The two new submarines would reportedly be built at the Kiel-based Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG, the world’s biggest builder of non-nuclear submarines.
The Dolphin-class submarines are the most expensive platforms in the IDF’s arsenal. Germany donated the first two submarines to Israel as a gift after the first Gulf War and split the cost of the third.
According to Bamahane, the newer Dolphins will be able to stay submerged for longer than the present Dolphins
END JERUSALEM POST EXCERPT & SUPPLEMENT TO 141C
Since 141C plays such a major roll in understanding how and why the Israelis are developing an underwater nuclear deterrent, rather than just referring you to it, I am including an extract from it in this Blog.
BEGIN EXTRACT FROM 141C
SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 141C
October 13, 2002
Conventional to Nuclear – Israel Shifting Military Focus
I have known for 35 years that Israel possessed nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capabilities. In Prophecy Updates 4 and 17A, issued in early 2001, I shared the history of their nuclear development program. In the last year of the twentieth century, Israel received three Dolphin class diesel submarines form Germany. They are the best diesel subs in the world, able to stay at sea for more than four weeks with a range of some 2800 miles. In the late nineties I included a transparency of the first sub Israel received in my lecture series, and pointed out a section of the sub where a modification of the craft could be made such that a cruise class missile could be launched from beneath the surface of the sea. I told the audiences where I lectured during this period that I was certain it would soon carry a nuclear warhead. The submarines were first designed to carry the U.S. made Harpoon missiles, but I told listeners it was a sure thing that Israel would modify the existing launch mechanisms to send missiles carrying nuclear warheads. I also told them the three subs would patrol three areas, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel made sure that public announcements of their acquisition of three German submarines reached all the Islamic nations, particularly Iran.
Recent news sources are now quoting senior U.S. and Israeli military officials as saying that Israel has done exactly this, modified American cruise missiles to launch from beneath the sea. Israel is now able to launch nuclear weapons from on land, in the sea, and from the air.
Please read Special Prophecy Update Number 129C in our Prophecy Archives, titled “Atomic War in Israel – Yes or No?,” before continuing. My major purpose in writing this update is not to show the buildup or might of Israel in its WMD arsenal, and Update 129C will advise you why this is the case. I am writing this to advise you that recent things stated by prominent Israeli war hawks, are making it plain that Israeli officials have no fear of a convention war, but are developing a fear of a WMD conflict. They are convinced they could militarily defeat all the Islamic nations in a conventional war. And this, along with their daily anticipation of a completed security fence giving them an internal peace scenario they could control, added to their belief they could defeat the Arab nations handily in a conventional war, is causing them to be drawn into a false peace sense of security. When they believe they have gained sufficient control of their internal conflict with the Palestinians, they will begin to say: Now! At Last! We have generated our own “peace and safety!” The WMD’s, which they are starting to shift their resources to counter, will not be launched against them, but a Pearl Harbor type of lightning conventional jihad will, and Israeli will again discover to trust in the power of their Messiah, rather than their own expertise.
END EXTRACT FROM 141C
Begin Excerpt from THE JERUSALEM POST
Aboard the ‘INS Dolphin’
September 24, 2009
yaakov katz, reporting from the mediterranean sea , THE JERUSALEM POST
‘Dive, dive, dive,” yells Cmdr. M. into a loudspeaker that rattles throughout the navy’s Dolphin submarine. A second later, the helmsman pushes hard on the vessel’s steering system as the submarine dips into a 45-degree angle and descends to almost 300 meters below the choppy Mediterranean.
The submarine is on a routine training exercise a few dozen kilometers off Haifa and the 40-man crew is extinguishing fake fires that erupt in the engine room while searching for leaks among the thousands of pipes that crisscross the sub’s ceiling.
In the meantime, after bringing the boat up to periscope depth, Cmdr. M., captain of the INS Dolphin, dashes from one side of the combat information center to the other while monitoring the almost-20 plasma screens that portray everything a submarine commander needs to know – from sonar readings and weapons systems status to fuel and fresh water quantities.
As he turns, a periscope swings up from a hole in the floor in the middle of
the CIC. Peering through the binocular-like goggles to inspect the surface, M. ensures that the submarine is a safe distance from other ships loitering around the Haifa Port.
Israel keeps its submarines secret and refuses to divulge details regarding their capabilities or operations. Nevertheless, The Jerusalem Post and three other reporters were given the rare opportunity earlier this month to join the Dolphin crew on a routine training exercise. Just how rare is press access to a sub? Only two other journalists have been allowed on board in the past decade.
The Dolphin, Leviathan and Tekuma – the navy’s three Dolphin class submarines – were built in Germany in the mid-1990s according to specifications which reportedly make them the most advanced diesel-electric submarines in the world. They replaced the 23-year-old Gal class submarines.
Often described as Israel’s second-strike doomsday weapon due to their ability – according to foreign reports – to launch cruise missiles tipped with nuclear warheads, the submarines are shrouded in an aura of mystery.
But more importantly, naval officers stress, is the fact that no one really knows where the submarines are at any given time.
“The fact that you don’t know where it is and what it is doing without a doubt strengthens Israeli deterrence,” explains Capt. O., commander of Flotilla 7, which operates the submarines.
Beyond their strategic significance, the submarines fit well into standard Israeli naval operations. With a border along the Mediterranean Sea, the role of the navy is to protect the coastline and territorial waters from foreign navies and terror groups. To this end, it carries out regular patrols both in territorial waters and also up to more than 100 kilometers from the shore.
But for a country which receives a significant percentage of its military supplies by sea, defending the sea routes is an existential strategic interest. The navy has invested heavily in its three multimission, ultrasophisticated Sa’ar 5 missile corvettes, but without its submarine fleet, it says, it can’t adequately remove the threat of isolation during war.
NOT MUCH can be said about the submarines’ participation in recent IDF operations – including the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
“We do things that other platforms cannot do,” Capt. O. says vaguely. “Intelligence can be collected either by a drone or a human agent, but a submarine can bring a pool of different sensors together and collect intelligence without anyone even knowing that we are out there.”
To maintain this level of secrecy and to continue doing what the submarines have been doing, he says, it is better to avoid the specifics. “I call it covert power projection,” says O., who last year was given command of the flotilla after spending a year at Harvard University.
It is exactly this level of secrecy and mystery which attracts youth to try out for the exclusive course. “The navy markets the course as something exclusive and mysterious,” explains Lt. Amit, a deck officer responsible for navigation and communication systems. “It has without a doubt lived up to my expectations.”
Israel received its first submarine in 1959. Called Tanin, the S-class submarine purchased from Great Britain participated in the Six Day War and launched naval commandos to attack the port of Alexandria.
The submarine tried to torpedo an Egyptian ship but was severely damaged by a depth charge attack, resulting in the vessel’s decommissioning following the war.
Recognizing the strategic significance of underwater vessels, Flotilla 7 continued to grow and in the 1970s three Gal-class submarines arrived. After 23 years of service, they were decommissioned in the late 1990s following the arrival of the three Dolphin-class subs from Germany.
While production of the Dolphin program was approved in 1989 by defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, it was terminated a year later by defense minister Moshe Arens due to heavy budgetary constraints.
Several months after Arens’s decision, however, the First Gulf War broke out and Iraqi Scuds were launched into the country. Subsequent reports that Iraqi chemical warheads, which were never fired, were possibly developed with the help of German companies strained relations between Berlin and Jerusalem, leading the German government to offer humanitarian and military support in the form of two Dolphin-class submarines free of charge. The third submarine was ordered a year later, and the cost was split by Germany and Israel.
The three submarines will soon be joined by another two vessels that are currently under construction by Germany’s Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG (HDW) at a shipyard in Kiel. The new vessels are scheduled to arrive by the middle of the next decade.
WEIGHING ABOUT 1,700 tons and under 60 meters in length, the short, stout shape makes the Dolphin highly maneuverable. Its unusual design provides for three decks. While it is eight meters longer than the old Gal-class subs,
the Dolphin-class submarines pale in comparison to the US Trident-class nuclear-powered submarines, which boast a length of 166 meters. Nevertheless, the Dolphin-class vessels are totally automated and computer-integrated, with systems developed by several major Israeli defense companies, including Tadiran, Elbit, IAI and Rada.
They are equipped with both low frequency and passive sonar, and their integrated fire control system lets them track and evaluate a significantly large number of targets.
The Dolphin’s two periscopes – integrated with night-vision and thermal imaging – were specially designed for the navy and allow anything the captain sees to be relayed to a screen in the CIC.
According to Jane’s Fighting Ships, the Dolphin class has the capability of launching swimmer delivery vehicles carrying eight frogmen through its torpedo tubes. The submarines have “considerable commando capability,” since they allow swimmers to reach the shore undetected, the journal said.
Due to its small size, every inch of the submarine is used to the maximum. The sleeping quarters are small rooms where the walls are lined by beds maybe half a meter in height, prompting jokes from the crew about how sleeping in them is “good preparation for the grave.” There are three bathrooms, which also function as showers and storage rooms. In between meals, the eating area takes turns functioning as a bedroom and a lounge.
Not much is known about the actual operations that the submarines participate in. During the Second Lebanon War, they played a role in imposing a sea blockade on Lebanon to prevent military supplies from reaching Hizbullah. In Cast Lead the submarines were also activated.
In June the submarines made international headlines after the Post was the first newspaper to reveal that one of them had traversed the Suez Canal for the first time. The decision to send the submarine – as well as a Sa’ar 5 corvette – through the canal was a change of policy within the service and a reversal of a 2005 decision by then OC Navy Adm.
David Ben-Bashat to stop sending ships through the canal due to growing threats in the area.
The significance of the move was debatable, but it was immediately interpreted as a message to Iran and a demonstration
of strengthening ties with Egypt.
In the event of a conflict with Iran, and if Israel decided to involve its three Dolphin-class submarines, the quickest route would be to send them through the Suez Canal. With their reported 4,500 nautical mile range, taking the long way, around Africa, would require the Dolphins to make at least two stops for refueling at a friendly port, or for fuel to be replenished at sea.
“The Red Sea is an area that has significance for us and could turn into an important front for Israel,” a senior navy officer says to explain the decision to send the sub through the canal. It is important that we become familiar with it.”
THE NAVY’S presence in the Red Sea could also be aimed at the smuggling industry that transports weaponry and explosives to the Gaza Strip.
While Egypt claims that most of the weaponry is smuggled into Gaza via the Mediterranean, Israeli defense officials claim that the weaponry and explosives are smuggled into Gaza via land routes through Africa and up to the Sinai until it reaches the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi corridor.
“A submarine can be in a place without anyone knowing and can collect intelligence without anyone knowing,” the senior officer says.
But collecting intelligence is not the submarines’ only role. Their missions are also to wreak havoc to the enemy’s sea routes, blockade and mine enemy ports, deliver commandos and – according to foreign reports – provide a second-strike capability.
In June 2000, for example, the London Sunday Times reported that Israel had secretly test-fired cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons off the coast of Sri Lanka. Quoting Israeli defense sources, the paper reported that the tests were conducted by two Dolphin-class submarines and involved Israeli-made missiles equipped with conventional warheads hitting targets at sea at a range of about 1,500 kilometers. The sources were quoted as saying the launches were intended to simulate swift retaliation against a preemptive nuclear attack from Iran.
While the IDF dismissed the report, it is exactly this veil of secrecy that helps enhance deterrence.
Israel has never admitted that it has any cruise missiles; however, Jane’s Defense Weekly has claimed that it modified the Popeye Turbo into an air-launched cruise missile with a range of more than 200 km. The Popeye was developed and built by Rafael, which has a sophisticated missile development division.
Under a system of rotation, the Times continued, two of the vessels will remain at sea – one in the Red Sea, the other in the Mediterranean, while the third will be kept on standby. The missiles, said the paper, will be fired only after approval by four people: the prime minister, defense minister, chief of General Staff, and navy comm
ander.
For now, the Dolphin class’s armament includes Sub Harpoon anti-ship missiles, mines, decoys and STN Atlas wire-guided torpedoes. It has four 650-mm. and six 533-mm. forward torpedo tubes that can be quickly reloaded by six reloads located just behind each tube.
The submarines use diesel engines to power up generators which allow them to remain submerged for several days. The new vessels being assembled in Germany will be fitted with a propulsion system combining a conventional system, consisting of a diesel generator with a lead acid battery, and an air-independent propulsion system used for silent slow cruising, with a fuel cell equipped with oxygen and hydrogen storage.
“With the new German technology,” an official close to the deal says, “the new submarines will be able to remain submerged for much, much longer than the older Dolphin models.”
Israel, though, is not the only Middle Eastern country bolstering its submarine array. Last year, Egypt began talks with Berlin regarding the potential procurement of similar submarines to the ones developed for Israel. Iran has also announced plans to launch an independent production line for submarines to join the three Kilo-class Russian-made subs it currently operates.
“Militaries are always trying to upgrade their technology,” Capt. O. says. “There is a long way to go to catch up to us but we cannot be content and need to always ensure that we are a step ahead.” •
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