Egyptian of a 1967 War Gamal Abdul Nasser Rides Again
But this time he is the Turk PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Verbal flames of Islamic Jihad now rise once Again
A greater war that 1967 will begin prior to 2015!
June 10, 2010
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I was four years away from my retirement from the USAF Branch of the National Security Agency when the 1967 War between the Arabs and Israel broke out. It is forever engraved in my memory as is Vietnam. I am now watching another Nasser arise in the Arab World in Turkey who, like Nasser, is verbally blowing on the flames of a bonding of the Arab and Persian elements into a united Islamic Jihad war against Israel.
It will take time for this unification to occur, but it is coming.
I have been crying out for years that the ten toes and ten horns of Daniel 2 and 7 are not European, but Islamic. And I have repeatedly named them. I believe they will consist of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
Begin Excerpt from Wikipedia
THE SIX DAY WAR
In early 1967, Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin sent Nasser a warning through Sadat, who was visiting Moscow, that Israel was about to carry out a large-scale assault against Syria. More warnings followed in the next few months, and King Hussein, aware of the intelligence situation, cautioned Nasser in April not to be dragged into a war. That same month, pressure on him to act by Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the PLO, as well as the general Arab populace, mounted after an aerial battle between Syria and Israel resulted in the downing of six Syrian planes. Convinced that Israel was determined to attack Syria, he asked UN Secretary-General U Thant to withdraw UNEF forces from Sinai. On 23 May, Egyptian troops moved into Sharm el-Sheikh and Nasser ordered the Straits of Tiran closed to Israeli shipping. After the blockade, he gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 29 May saying, “the issue was not UNEF or closing the Strait of Tiran; the issue is the rights of the Palestinian people.” This was the same message delivered a week earlier during a visit to an air base in the Sinai.
The speeches signaled that Nasser believed war was inevitable.
King Hussein arrived in Cairo on 30 May and committed Jordan to the United Arab Command—an alliance which also included Egypt and Syria—under the command of Egyptian general Muhammad Sidqi. Amer anticipated an Israeli attack and advocated Egypt launch a preemptive strike. He was backed by former Syrian prime minister Amin al-Hafiz. Due to assurances, however, from the American administration and the USSR that Israel would not attack, Nasser refused Amer’s suggestion, insisting that Egyptian forces in the Sinai should only act defensively. In addition, he questioned the Egyptian military’s readiness since the air force lacked pilots, the army reserve lacked training, and Nasser doubted the competence of Amer’s hand-picked officers. Simultaneously, Egypt was facing a financial crisis leading him to believe that the country could not afford a war that would last even a few days.
Nonetheless, Nasser eventually began changing positions from acting to avoid war to giving speeches claiming war was inevitable.
On the morning of 5 June, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck Egyptian air fields, destroying much of the Egyptian Air Force. Before the day ended, Israeli armor had cut through Egyptian defense lines, capturing the town of el-Arish.
According to Sadat, it was only when they captured el-Qantarah el-Sharqiyya, cutting off the Egyptian garrison at Sharm el-Sheikh, that Nasser became aware of the gravity of the situation. After hearing of the attack, he rushed to the army headquarters to inquire about the military situation.
It was here that the simmering conflict between Nasser and Amer came into the open when, according to present officers, they burst into “a non-stop shouting match.” Nasser accused Amer of giving unsatisfactory answers to his questions, while Amer asked Nasser for more time to launch a counterattack against the Israelis.
The Supreme Executive Committee, set up by Nasser to oversee the conduct of the war, attributed the repeated Egyptian defeats to the Nasser-Amer rivalry and to Amer’s overall incompetence. Despite the extent of Israel’s quick military gains, for the first four days the general population in the Arab states believed the fabrications of Arab radio stations which claimed victory near. On 8 June, Nasser appeared on television to inform Egypt’s citizens of their country’s defeat.
Begin Excerpt from New York Times via Global Viewpoint/Tribune Media Services and World News
I.H.T. OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Egypt’s Waning Influence
By Alastair Crooke
Published: June 9, 2010
BEIRUT — “This is language that we have not heard since the time of Gamal Abdul Nasser.” Thus wrote the influential chief editor of Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, referring to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fiery response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza flotilla — adding that such “manly” positions and rhetoric had “disappeared from the dictionaries of our Arab leaders.” He lamented that “Arab regimes now represent the only friends left to Israel.”
There is no doubt that it is President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Nasser’s successor, to whom the editor, Abdel Bari Atwan, principally refers. There is no doubt, too, that the “flotilla affair” marks a watershed for Egypt — and to a lesser extent for Saudi Arabia.
Even the notoriously tin ear of President Mubarak to his own people’s sympathy for the Palestinian cause in Gaza could not fail to hear the grinding of the tectonic plates of Middle East change. He ordered the immediate opening of the Egyptian crossing into Gaza.
What we are witnessing is another step — perhaps crucial — in the shifting strategic balance of power in the Middle East: The cause of the Palestinians is gradually passing out of the hands of Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
It is the leaders of Iran and Turkey, together with President Bashar Al-Assad of Syria, who recognize the winds of change. Mubarak appears increasingly isolated and is cast as Israel’s most assiduous collaborator. Here in the region, the Egyptian embassies as often as not are the butt of popular demonstrations.
Mubarak’s motives for his dogged support for Israel are well known in the region: He is convinced that the gateway to obtaining Washington’s green light for his son Gamal to succeed him lies in Tel Aviv rather than Washington.
Mubarak enjoys a bare modicum of support in the United States, and if Washington is to ignore its democratic principles in order to support a Gamal shoe-in, it will be because Israel says that this American “blind eye” is essential for its security.
To this end, Mubarak has worked to weaken Hamas’s standing in Gaza, and to strengthen that of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, he has pursued this policy at the expense of Palestinian unity — his regular “unity” initiatives notwithstanding. Egypt’s one-sided peace “brokering” is viewed here as part of the problem rather than as part of any Palestinian solution.
Paradoxically, it is precisely this posture that has opened the door to Turkey and Iran seizing of the sponsorship of the Palestinian cause.
But standing behind this sharp Turkish reaction to Israel’s assault on the Turkish ship is a deeper regional rift, and this divide stems from the near-universal conviction that the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” has failed.
Its structural pillars have crumbled: The Israeli public no longer believes that “land for peace” — the Oslo principle — will bring them security. Rather, Israelis believe those who tell them that further withdrawal will only bring Hamas rockets closer.
The other Oslo pillars also lie broken: The hitherto presumed “reversibility” of the Israeli settlement project and the hypothetical possibility of last-resort American imposition of its own solution are now understood to have been no more than chimeras.
Yet Egypt refuses to budge in these changed circumstances even as the shift in the balance of regional power toward the northern tier of Middle Eastern states — Syria, Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Lebanon — gathers pace.
Egypt increasingly has only its memory of past grandeur on which to stand. In contemporary terms its influence has been on the slide for some time.
Egypt’s one card is that it is Gaza’s other neighbor. It has been Egypt’s acquiescence to the siege of Gaza — encouraged by President Abbas in the West Bank, who shares Mubarak’s desire to see Hamas weakened — that has given Mubarak his stranglehold over Palestinian issues.
But the Islamic and regional tide will be flowing ever stronger against him after Israel’s action against the flotilla.
Already the Arab League is talking of supporting Turkey in any legal action against the Israeli assault on the aid convoy to Gaza. The Arab League has also issued a call to other states to break Israel’s siege on Gaza.
It is too early to say that such talk marks any turning point in Arab League politics. The Arab League, as such, is not taken seriously in the region, or anywhere else. But it is rather the shifting of the regional strategic balance that marks the locus from where real change may become possible.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia may conclude that the price of seeing the baton of leadership on such a key and emotive issue pass to non-Arab hands, Iran and Turkey, is too high, and too shameful. The near-universal skepticism directed toward the “peace process” among their own peoples has already left these leaders exposed internally.
For nearly 20 years these leaders have used their involvement in the “process” as justification to curb internal dissent; but it is now a tool that has lost its magic. They are already paying the price of popular cynicism.
This is Mubarak’s dilemma: stay with the siege and hope America will reward him with Gamal’s succession; but flouting the winds of change may imperil Gamal’s very survival. In any event, Egypt’s control of the Palestinian “file” will never be the same again.
Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer in the Middle East, is author of “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution.” He runs the Conflicts Forum in Beirut.
Global Viewpoint/Tribune Media Services
Begin a series of Excerpts from the Middle East Flotilla Fallout
Turkey, Hamas, the United States, Israel and the Flotillas Episode
A great maize of political chaos, deceit, conspiracy, and Confusion
A Series of Excerpts from The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Dailey Alert
June 9, 2010
Excerpt 1 – UK Financial Times
Turkey-U.S. Ties Face “Breaking Point” over Iran Sanctions Vote
Daniel Dombey and Delphine Strauss
The turbulent relationship between the U.S. and Turkey – allies for more than half a century – is about to reach a decisive moment when the UN Security Council votes on whether to tighten sanctions on Iran. Turkey, a member of the Security Council, is leading the case against sanctions. “The moment when the Turkish ambassador at the UN fails to raise his hand in support of the Iran sanctions vote may be a breaking point,” said Bulent Aliriza of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
On a trip to Turkey last year, President Obama hailed the country’s potential as a bridge to the Muslim world, as well as its status as a democratic, secular NATO ally. Since then, the U.S. has grown uneasy over the direction taken by the government of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, who has strengthened relations with Iran and Syria, and echoed some of their criticisms of Western foreign policy.
The U.S. has signaled that it considers Turkey’s reaction to the flotilla incident overblown. The day that Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said the Israeli raid was the psychological equivalent for his country of the September 11 attacks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for “careful, thoughtful responses from all concerned.” Erdogan leads a country where anti-U.S. feeling is comparable to levels in nations such as Pakistan. A BBC World Service survey in April found that 70% of Turks held a negative view of the U.S. (Financial Times-UK)
Excerpt 2 – Ha’aretz
Israel Awaiting U.S. Green Light for Internal Gaza Flotilla Probe
Anshel Pfeffer and Barak Ravid
Israel is awaiting a “green light” from the U.S. on a proposal for how to investigate the flotilla incident. The government’s seven senior ministers agreed Monday to establish a panel of jurists to probe the raid, but a senior government source noted that if the type of panel proposed, and its mandate, is not acceptable to Washington, “there is no point in establishing it.” A senior source in Jerusalem said the panel would be comprised of top jurists with experience in international and marine law. Two international jurists – at least one of them American – would be invited to participate as observers. Talks with the Americans have gone on for two days, but Jerusalem and Washington are still at odds over both the committee’s mandate and its composition. (Ha’aretz)
Excerpt 3 – AFP
U.S. Backs International Role in Flotilla Probe
The U.S. backed calls Tuesday for international participation in Israel’s probe of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla. “International participation in investigating these matters will be important to the credibility everybody wants to see,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. “We’re in conversation with Israelis and others about how to best accomplish this,” Crowley added. (AFP)
Excerpt 4 – UK Guardian
Turkey Calling for Jihad Against Israel
Joshua Teitelbaum
The last time Turkish flags were carried through the streets of Middle Eastern capitals was during the first world war, as people took to the streets to support the Ottoman sultan-caliph against the Western entente powers. Thanks to Turkish government support of a blockade-running mission led by a group of Hamas sympathizers, no ruling Arab leader is as popular as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose discourse amounts to calls for a jihad against Israel. Israel’s relations with Ankara have been sacrificed on the altar of Turkey’s aspiration to lead the Islamic world and establish itself along with Iran as an alternative to American power.
It is difficult to imagine that Turkey would be engaging in this kind of behavior were the U.S. demonstrating world leadership and not abandoning the field to the likes of Erdogan. While the administration works to assure Israel’s security with co-operation on missile defense, it has yet emboldened Israel’s enemies by publicly pressuring Jerusalem at every turn, not taking decisive action against Iran, and singling out Israel – to the exclusion of Iran – at the nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference.
The writer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University. (Guardian-UK)
Excerpt 5 – New York Times
Turkey Goes from Pliable Ally to Thorn for U.S.
Sabrina Tavernise and Michael Slackman
Turkey’s shifting foreign policy is making its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hero to the Arab world, and is openly challenging the way the U.S. manages Iran’s nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Turkey is seen increasingly in Washington as “running around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers in the region want,” said Steven A.
Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations. The question being asked, he said, is “How do we keep the Turks in their lane?” (New York Times)
Excerpt 6 _ Hudson Institute – New York
What About Hamas’ Siege of Gaza?
Khaled Abu Toameh
As Israeli naval commandos raided the flotilla convoy that was on its way to Gaza, Hamas security officers stormed the
offices of five non-governmental organizations, confiscated equipment and documents, and ordered them closed indefinitely. Ever since it seized control over Gaza in 2007, Hamas has imposed a reign of terror on the local population in general and its critics in particular. Hamas has brought nothing to the Palestinians in Gaza other than death and disaster. Hamas’ recent decision to ban municipal elections in Gaza is yet another violation of the basic rights of its constituents.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested by Hamas security forces for daring to speak out against tyranny and intimidation in Gaza. Over the past three years, dozens of Fatah officials and members have either been thrown into prison or killed. Under Hamas, Gaza is being transformed into a fundamentalist Islamic entity resembling the regimes of the Ayatollahs in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Those who seek confrontation with Israel in the sea are only emboldening Hamas and helping it tighten its grip on the people of Gaza.
(Hudson Institute-New York)
Excerpt 7 – Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
IHH Preparations for a Violent Confrontation with IDF Soldiers Aboard the Turkish Ship Mavi Marmara (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
An initial analysis of statements taken from passengers aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara after it was towed to the port of Ashdod show that operatives belonging to the radical Islamic Turkish IHH led the violent confrontation with the IDF.
The statements confirmed that the violence met by the IDF soldiers was not spontaneous but rather an organized, premeditated action carried out by a hard core of 40 IHH operatives (among the 500 passengers).
The passengers, including the IHH operatives, stated that there were close relations between the organization and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and that the Turkish government was involved in preparations for the flotilla. The statements reinforce the original assessment that the objective of the flotilla was not merely to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, but focused on provocation and a violent confrontation with Israel.
The flotilla set sail with the full knowledge and agreement of Erdogan, who expressed personal interest in its success and his intention to exploit it to promote his status in Turkey and the Arab-Muslim world.
In files found in laptops confiscated from Mavi Marmara passengers were other indications supporting the vast amount of information concerning the linkage between IHH and the Turkish government.
Past Involvement of IHH in Supporting the Global Jihad and Radical Islam (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
According to reliable information, IHH had links to global jihad and Islamic terrorist networks in the past and assisted jihadist terrorist cells in many countries, including Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya.
IHH provided mainly logistic support for transporting weapons and funding.
IHH was mentioned in connection with the planned Millennium Attack in the U.S., when global jihad operators headed by Ahmed Ressam planned to set off a bomb in Los Angeles International Airport on the night of December 31, 1999.
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