2007 Summer Ends a 40 Year Jerusalem Temple Mount Generation!
April 2, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Things seem to be building up to another battle royal this summer, but I suspect the major conflict will not occur until some point in time between 2008 and 2012.
Remember the 1967 conflict
?
June 12, 1967
In the summer of 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum in response to the war, to discuss the Arab position toward Israel. They reached consensus that there should be:
No recognition of the State of Israel.
No peace with Israel.
No negotiations with Israel.
The Hamas position is pretty much the same today!
The two articles which follow, one from the Jerusalem Post and one from the DEBKAfile, have some duplication of information, but give an excellent overview of the current Middle East situation and future war potential possibilities. There has not been a question in my mind, since we entered this century, that the final war of this age was looming in the immediate future, the only question being how immediate. Those who have read my blogs know my guesstimate has been that the final war will begin at some point in time between 2008 and 2012.
I rather doubt it will begin before 2008.
However, the fact that the end of the June 1967 forty year generation will occur this summer, would cause me to not be surprised if war were to begin before the Fall.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
‘Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah preparing for Summer War’
HERB KEINON and YAAKOV KATZ, THE JERUSALEM OIST
April 1, 2007
Iran, Syria and Hizbullah are preparing defensively for a war in the summer, although they are more worried about an attack from the US than from Israel, OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet on Sunday.
Yadlin said that Israel was following these moves very carefully, and needed to pay close attention to its steps so that they were not misinterpreted and lead to a miscalculation by the other side. Yadlin stressed that the preparations were not for a military offensive against Israel, but rather were of a defensive nature.
The IDF is noticing however “an increase in potential for instability” in the Middle E ast due to
a number of processes including the United States failure in Iraq.
The IDF has also begun drawing up plans for the day after the US withdraws its forces from Iraq. The ramifications a premature US withdrawal would have on Israel are defined as “dangerous” and are a major source of concern for the Israeli defense establishment. Assumptions are that following the withdrawal, anarchy would break lose in Iraq and would spread across the Shi’ite-Sunni world.
Yadlin’s comments at the cabinet came during a wide-ranging briefing he gave the ministers following the Riyadh summit. He said that the summit was an indication that Saudi Arabia has moved from a passive to active role in the region, and were taking the diplomatic lead in the Arab world.
Yadlin said that this was the first Arab League summit in years where the leaders left feeling that there were positive results.
The over-riding feeling, he said, was that the Arabs have thrown the ball into “Israel’s court,” and that Israel now needed to respond.
The most important player at the summit, Yadlin said, was Damascus-based Hamas head Khaled Mashal. Yadlin said that everything done at the summit that had anything to do with the Palestinians was coordinated with him.
He said that this was in marked contrast to the last Arab League summit in Khartoum, where Hamas was not present, and the Palestinians were represented by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Yadlin said this was a good indication of Hamas’ changed status.
Yadlin pointed out that both Mashal and PA Prime Minster Ismail Haniyeh have taken a very strident stance since the summit, saying that if the isolation of Hamas did not end, there would be a “third intifada.”
Hamas has recently increased its involvement in terror activity and according to the IDF was behind last week’s shooting attack along the Gaza security fence in which an Israeli was moderately wounded. Due to the increase in arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the IDF has drawn up plans for an invasion into the Palestinian Authority.
Yadlin said that Hamas’ presence in Riyadh presented it with a “complex situation.” On the one hand Hamas did not want to place itself outside the Arab consensus, and as a result did not attack the resolution accepting the Arab Peace Initiative, but it also did not support this resolution.
The Arab Peace Initiative calls for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees based on UN General Assembly resolution 194, in exchange for normal relations with Israel.
Yadlin also said that Syria was satisfied by the results of the summit and feels that its isolation in the Arab world has been broken, and that its international isolation is weakening as well.
The IDF does however believe that the “greatest danger” in northern Israel currently originates in Syria where the level of alert has been raised although forces have not been beefed up in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
With the increase in the threat, the IDF does not have intelligence information indicating that Syria plans to attack Israel.
Yadlin said that there were indications of a split inside Hamas, with some believing that Mashal’s positions have become too “moderate” of late. Among those leading these line were Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, and the PA’s former foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar.
Yadlin also said that the Hams military wing has recently renewed its military activity “very carefully.” He also said that last week there were some 20 kassam attacks from Gaza, compared to about five attacks each week for the last few months. He attributed this increase partly to the Riyadh conference.
Regarding Iran, Yadlin said the UN’s recent decision to clamp additional sanctions on Iran caused concern in Teheran, but did not create the “critical mass” needed to get Iran to stop its nuclear program. Yadlin said that the economic sanctions being pushed ahead by the US outside the UN framework were proving more of a concern for the Iranians than the relatively “soft” UN sanctions.
Begin DEBKAfile Article 2
Israeli military intelligence chief predicts Iran-Hizballah-Syria attack on Israel in summer
April 1, 2007, 9:50 PM (GMT+02:00)
In his briefing to the Israeli cabinet Sunday, April 1, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, AMAN chief, reported that Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas expect the United States to attack Iran in the summer and they are preparing to retaliate by going to war with Israel. In Yadlin’s view, a proliferation of players and a many imponderables could ignite a conflict, which none of the parties wants – as happened in the Six Day War of 1967.
DEBKAfile analysts note five salient points in Gen. Yadlin’s briefing:
1. His comments came one day after Iran’s chief of staff, Gen. Hassan Fayrouz Abadi, urged the Arabs to hurry up and join Iran in a defense treaty because, he claimed, Israel threatened a war offensive in summer, two months hence. According to the Iranian general, Israel was bent on a “suicide assault” against a number of Arab states to save the Americans from having to pull their troops out of Iraq (sic).
2. Iran, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas may be presumed to be acting on some piece of intelligence that point to a forthcoming US attack some time between April and early September 2007.
Therefore, the Middle East faces at least five months of incendiary military instability during with everyone braced for an axe to fall.
3. A coordinated Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah-Hamas attack would lay Israel open to four warfronts and the common weapon to them all: missiles – anti-tank, short-range surface, medium range ballistic and surface-to-air.
4. Hamas threatens to launch the third Palestinian uprising (intifada) against Israel within three months unless the international blockade is lifted and funds are released to the Palestinian Authority.
The cabinet was informed that the IDF would start operating behind Gazan lines against the massive Palestinian military build-up.
For five months, the Olmert government’s policy was one of military restraint at the behest of US and European governments. This week, Israel’s leaders watched British discomfiture as the United States, the UN and the Europeans turned aside when asked for help to free 15 sailors seized by Iran in the Persian Gulf. It is obvious that Israel must be ready to stand alone and defend itself if attacked on four fronts.
5. Neither the chief of AMAN nor the ministers discussed the state of Israel’s armed forces’ preparedness. Asked about this, DEBKAfile’s military sources said their readiness was only partial as yet: The air force, some of the combat divisions are ready; other parts of the military, such as some reservist brigades, the Navy and the home front are not.
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