Beyond the Cusp
October 4, 2015
Ruins and Remains of Peace Process After General Assembly
The speeches given at the General Assembly are said, recorded and hashed out in the press with Abbas having the biggest implications while Netanyahu used some serious drama unveiling the reality and truth behind the Obama surrender to Iran on their nuclear drive to weapons status. The Iranian aim is not just atomic bombs but thermonuclear hydrogen bombs with all the sophistication of Russia, China or the United States. Netanyahu then followed his brilliance with a complete and worthless ending addressing the moribund peace process which had already been nullified by Abbas in his speech. Abbas basically felt secure enough with the backing of the United Nations, European Union and the United States, European Union plus numerous other nations, NGOs, and political commentators backing his claims to at the very least being gifted all of the lands beyond the Green Line including all of the Temple Mount, the Old City of Jerusalem and even possibly all of Jerusalem should he demand such from an angry world fed up with the entire process and willing to demand every concession and then some from Israel knowing that the Arabs are immovable in their claims and refuse to reason or compromise on any items and only to demand more. So, after these diatribes and commentaries by two diametrically opposed views, what will be the outcome as well as what should be the outcome as the two are not necessarily the same.
Mahmoud Abbas grabbing for everything within his reach including all of Israel given half the chance
Let us look at Mahmoud Abbas and his supposedly bombshell announcement that the Palestinian Authority and Fatah and any other entity he was the leader of would no longer recognize the Oslo Accords. Abbas tied to this a demand that the United Nations and all of its member states immediately recognize Palestine and to even leave the boundaries as a fluid, ephemeral and inconclusive, undefined, inexact, set line open to further clarifications in the future but at a minimum set along the Green Line and all of Eastern Jerusalem including the Temple Mount and the Kotel (Western Wall and its plaza) over which they would be permitted to forcefully evict every last Jew or genocidally slaughter them in the process of purifying the Islamic lands as commanded by Allah. Mahmoud Abbas has taken a chance by separating himself and the proposed forces waging a terror war with genocidal expectations from their agreement to recognize a change from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) into the respectable Palestinian Authority and the PLO transformed into a political entity known as the Fatah Party. By casting off the Oslo Accords there now does not exist such an entity as the Palestinian Authority, the Fatah Party is now remerged with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PLO terrorist force. Abbas is betting everything right down to the kitchen sink that the world will no longer require the so-called Arab Palestinian entities under any name to hold viable claims against Israel for the Jewish State to provide them with their own lands and all other needs such as water, electricity and natural gas as well as anything else which proves to be necessary as there will be only Palestine and the Jewish State of Israel will have been subsumed.
Needless to point out that the current deficit amount by the Palestinian Authority and all parties to that body already owe in excess of $15.2 million in unpaid electric bills over at least 10 years, part of an all-consuming Palestinian power debt of $430 million that is at the core of the last official breakdown which was resolved by increasing the rates paid by Israeli companies and though not excusing the Arab debt, ameliorating the slow bleeding financially of the Israeli electric companies. There exist similar debts for water and numerous other commodities as well as taxes. Unfortunately the world has always demanded that Israel simply suck it up and absorb this debt repeatedly ever since the existence of Arabs claiming rightful ownership of lands in the heartland of ancient Israel despite most of the land owners being recipients of grants from the Jordanian government when they illegally occupied the land west of the Jordan River. This situation initially came about during the Arab War to Annihilate the nascent State of Israel between 1948 and the Six Day War in June of 1967. The Jordanian capture and annexations, recognized solely by Pakistan and Britain, occupied most all of Judea and much of Samaria as well as a piece of Benjamin and all of the Old City in Eastern Jerusalem. This occupation by Jordan, as a result of the 1948-9 War of Annihilation which placed a half dozen armies and more at the Israeli borders in all directions, piled into Israel on its first day of existence swearing to annihilate ever last single Jews and do so within a few days, a week at most. After two years of war and the loss of around one to two percent of their entire population, the Jews were finally granted a peace, or at least an arbitration which still left the State of Israel technically at war with a number of her neighbors, especially after the Arabs decided to implement the Khartoum Resolutions after a meeting in Khartoum by the Arab League. This meeting led to the infamous “three no’s” which were 1) no peace with Israel, 2) no recognition of Israel and 3) no negotiations with Israel. Netanyahu used the podium well including a prolonged forty-five seconds of complete and total silence and a stern look, which some claim can boil or freeze water pending Netanyahu’s intentions, to represent the lack of rejection of the path Iran has had cleared for them to attain nuclear standing after ten to fifteen years and potentially destroy far more than Israel and the United States as they are far more likely to take upon themselves the destruction of the Saudi Arabian oil fields and whatever other actions they may find to serve their interests before taking on the United States or Israel.
In the interim, Israel needs to defend herself and the Jewish People from slanderous anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism, what we think should be made into the three anti’s which every school child needs to be educated where that path leads once a people begin to tolerate even the slightest intolerance. Former Rabbi to the United Kingdom Rabbi Sachs wrote an article titled The hate that starts with Jews never ends there where he discussed the spread of anti-Semitism despite a society which prides themselves on their tolerance, the Europeans. In another more recent article by Giulio Meotti titled Anti-Semitism devours Europe he described a number of anti-Semitic acts originating, amongst other places, in Denmark from which I would like to quote one of his finds as he reports,
“Something is rotten in the state of Norway, as Marcello of Shakespeare’s Hamlet would have put it.
A few days ago an image was imprinted as a background on a credit card issued by Dnb Bank, the largest financial institution in the country. You see a Jew with a hooked nose, a yarmulke on his head, a prayer shawl and a cascade of gold coins.”
He concluded this article noting that the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe was akin to “comparing it to the dog rage syndrome or mad cow disease.”
Both of these articles speak of a vile hatred which overtook Germany leading into World War II and has been at the center of so numerous numbers of examples it is beyond accuracy to define any actual cause for the origin of such hatred. The hate of the Jews traced back even beyond those tales often used when making every knight “bloodied” before entering into battle in the Holy Lands by slaughtering the Jews in a stretch of villages which often was referred to as a pogrom against the Jews and such upticks in anti-Semitism almost invariably became a part of Jewish history, a long and tortuous history. The Bible, in the Old Testament, spoke of the origins of the hatreds to any morality, something the Jews had always been at the forefront fighting to defend righteousness and refute all the other false claims of idolatry and multi-deistic religions. Many charismatic leaders using deceit mixed with charms expounded deviant behavior but if one could only reveal the dark underbelly and shine the light of truth on such cults and reveal the hatreds which lay under the same rocks festering and idolatry and often human sacrifice, particularly child sacrifice, the humanity of Hashem and the truths demanded moral and ethical behavior such as equality and nobility of the individual, things not tolerated in the hedonistic practices of the false religious cults. The origins of anti-Semitism began as a defense against the abolition of idolatry, multi-deistic faiths and the large clerical corps of priesthoods devoted to their own enrichment feeling the challenge which Judaism and faith in Hashem placed their hierarchal structured societies and lives of privilege. The reasoning has changed but the core of moral behavior and a supreme creator with all men created equal in worth, potential and love from Hashem are still seen to be threatening to many modern cultural hierarchies and power structures.
Both of these articles speak of a vile hatred which overtook Germany leading into World War II and has been at the center of so numerous numbers of examples it is beyond accuracy to define any actual cause for the origin of such hatred. The hate of the Jews traced back even beyond those tales often used when making every knight “bloodied” before entering into battle in the Holy Lands by slaughtering the Jews in a stretch of villages which often was referred to as a pogrom against the Jews and such upticks in anti-Semitism almost invariably became a part of Jewish history, a long and tortuous history. The Bible, in the Old Testament, spoke of the origins of the hatreds to any morality, something the Jews had always been at the forefront fighting to defend righteousness and refute all the other false claims of idolatry and multi-deistic religions. Many charismatic leaders using deceit mixed with charms expounded deviant behavior but if one could only reveal the dark underbelly and shine the light of truth on such cults and reveal the hatreds which lay under the same rocks festering and idolatry and often human sacrifice, particularly child sacrifice, the humanity of Hashem and the truths demanded moral and ethical behavior such as equality and nobility of the individual, things not tolerated in the hedonistic practices of the false religious cults. The origins of anti-Semitism began as a defense against the abolition of idolatry, multi-deistic faiths and the large clerical corps of priesthoods devoted to their own enrichment feeling the challenge which Judaism and faith in Hashem placed their hierarchal structured societies and lives of privilege. The reasoning has changed but the core of moral behavior and a supreme creator with all men created equal in worth, potential and love from Hashem are still seen to be threatening to many modern cultural hierarchies and power structures.
Europe will have chosen where they shall stand with the coming invasion of their culture, already almost devoid of faith their traditional faith, replacing it with the doctrine of the human as the supreme being, about to be overrun by Islamic refugees whose faith is rising and will swell further in the furtive but spiritually barren slate before them in Europe. Behind these refugees in a generation or possibly immediately come the demands of Islam imposed through Sharia. The anti-Semitism coupled as it already is with anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism will only grow overrunning any opposition. European Jews will be fortunate to be free from Europe as the change will occur almost overnight. In the United States, and potentially Canada afterwards, this transition will take a while longer because of distance and a great deal of angry waters preventing any hordes of refugee entering its borders, but the change will come. The sole hope for Judeo-Christian ethics will be dependent on a reformation of Islam, a remote possibility at best. Israel will thus be the last and only stand for the Old testament and the remnants who follow the New Testament, the Christians will be residing possibly in South America and Southern Africa and potentially carving a nation out of the southern central states along the Mississippi River, Missouri River, Ohio River and between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains but excluded from the great lakes region. That will be the remnant and with any good fortune and the help of Hashem these areas may remain free with a world otherwise ruled by Islam. Some Christians have already slowly gravitated to support of Israel and the Jews and these Christians will be the leaders of the remnants of Christianity which by necessity will ally with Israel. Those who refuse will likely be lost in a sea of green and black. That will be the fate of those opposing Israel and their worship of Hashem and the keepers of the original Covenant and the Commandments. It is not promising, but if one knows the situation they face and makes plans accordingly, they may find their salvation; the rest will either surrender their will to Islam or die believing that mankind is the true master of their fate and will reap exactly that fate.
Beyond the Cusp
October 3, 2015
Final Palestinian Israel War Declared at United Nations
Yesterday Arab Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave a screed at the United Nations General Assembly opening ceremonies, which have been going on all week, filled with invectives and pure bile and hot hatreds against Israel, civility and the general decency which differentiates the human race from the base beasts of the wilds. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave his response today and fortunately spent little precious time addressing Abbas and his inflammatory speech simply stating that Israel was prepared to meet and negotiate with no precondition for the formation of an Arab state which would be demilitarized living beside Israel immediately and hoped that Abbas would take this opportunity. The video and the transcript for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s United Nations speech can be viewed on our special page. Much of the rest of the Prime Minister’s speech entailed the problems which will hatch as a result of the ill negotiated Iranian nuclear deal and impressed that Israel would take whatever steps deemed necessary to protect the Israeli population of Six Million Jews as well as its one-million-seven-hundred-thousand Arabs and the remainder of just over one-third a million other peoples. Where the Prime Minister spent but a small section of the ending of his speech to address the situation with the Arab Palestinians and the refusal since the signing of the Oslo Accords that is the refusal of Mahmoud Abbas, and Yasser Arafat before him, to reach any peace deal as doing so would require them to rule. This would bring to an end the gravy train of funds siphoned off from every Euro, Pound and Dollar received into their foreign accounts. Even this was a waste of time and needless as any recognition given Abbas and his grandstanding only further serves his aggressions against all of Israel. So, what has been the main development between the speeches by Abbas and Netanyahu?
Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered, as usual, an excellent speech but accomplished little by doing so. The forty-five seconds of silence may have been the most effective use of his time. Mahmoud Abbas may have delivered the most important address of which the initial effects may have already been felt. The Arab Palestinian Chairman delivered, to find the essence of his speech and deliver it in as short a set of terms as possible and as succinctly as possible, he delivered a declaration of war. There is no other way to interpret what Abbas’s speech was about. With the PA disbanded, as it was a construct of the Oslo Accords, we are left with Fatah which is synonymous with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which was originally founded in 1964, a full three years before there existed any “occupied territories” and the charter read as their mission to complete the tasks necessary to erase Israel and replace Israel with another Arab and Muslim State. This PLO terror instrument never altered their aims of eradicating the Jewish State but had tabled any mention of such while under the guise of the PA, thus the PLO went dark. Still there were those who supported the far more belligerent struggles who eventually either joined Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda or even Islamic State and if remaining attached to Mahmoud Abbas, though he would regularly claim otherwise, he still listed himself as their commander. There was the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which would every so often claim responsibility for a terror attack but found their survival more easily maintained if they just kept quiet about their operations. Well, perhaps the sole advantage is that now the leadership can declare their ownership of violent events and potentially take credit for their dastardly deal. Abbas and the rest of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Islamic State and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades can proudly exclaim and praise their “brave warriors” when they assault unarmed Jews with lethal projectiles such as bricks, boulders and anything else, even bullets. The bullets were scarcely used as the projectile of preference as they immediately conveyed the concept that any such attack was attempted murder. Rocks the size of basketballs hurled into a windshield from a pickup truck with five or six youths riding in the bed each with such a rock as well as some softball or croquette size rocks as secondary ammunition and these projectiles were fired from a truck speeding in the opposite direction often at speeds over one-hundred KPH. Below are a collection of rocks that were hurled and a rare few had articles with actual pictures of these projectiles, though usually they simply report that rocks struck a vehicle. Such reports were always a bit strange and would leave one scratching their head and wondering to oneself how in all that is holy did rocks just leap out of nowhere to strike Israeli licensed vehicles.
What Israel, her people and especially her rulers must realize, internalize, and refuse to rationalize and instead proceed to actualize is this new information and new situation between Israel and the PLO is an actual declaration of war upon Israel. The very first item is no Zionist should ever mutter the Arab Palestinian Authority or PA as that institution was murdered by Abbas at the United Nations. The next step is to form a near immediate change in policy where any Israeli citizen, which includes the Arabs residing in East Jerusalem, throwing rocks or setting off pyrotechnics should be immediately arrested while any Arab noncitizen committing a similar act should be given a ticket on an El Al aircraft and flown to either the nation they chose or the closest such nation willing to accept them until their flight on an additional ticket boards to complete their transport to wherever they desire outside all of Israel permanently. The only other option is to build extremely large detention centers and in one section hold those who as Israeli citizens assaulted others in a nationalist terror manner under current definitions to keep them imprisoned for the duration of the conflict and the rest of complex built to hold those who are not Israeli citizens who will simply commit an act of war and been captured and must now serve their term until the war is finished and a permanent peace has been established. Abbas declared war and the leader of the nation which was named in the Abbas’s declaration of war, Israel, offered to sit and work out a peace agreement which could also lead to making peace with and having all Arab States agree to end their incitement as well. That is not going to happen anytime soon.
Israel is at war with the Iranians who have made it evidently clear that one of the first endeavors for their nuclear weapons within the next decade will be to eradicate Israel wiping it from the face of the Earth. Israel is at war with the Islamic State though that front will likely not become an active front for a number of years. Israel is at war with Bashir al-Assad and Hezballah along with any others including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, in particular their al-Quds force which is dedicated to conquering Jerusalem, in Syria fighting for al-Assad or even a fair number of the other factions. Then there are others with whom Israel is still technically in a state of war such as Lebanon, Syria and other Middle Eastern nations from all the way back to the initial war to destroy Israel and slaughter every last Jew they could find from May 15th of 1948 where the war broke out before the ink could have dried on the speech read by David ben Gurion declaring Israel to be born with borders being between the Sinai Peninsula and the Negev Desert including Gaza as within Israel, the Lebanese northern border pretty much exactly as it is with a few small and minor areas to be debated and a border with Syria which gave Israel within her rights but the fence they erected was done inside Syrian borders and lastly Jordan with whom the original border was the Jordan River. These should be the borders Israel demands as a sovereign nation amongst the fellowship of nations. But the immediate war is the one which is taking place within our border. It would not surprise me that if allowed the latitude to control and area of the now defunct authority that Mahmoud Abbas may attempt to parlay his membership and recognition in a number of United Nations committees and call for Iran to come and assist in defending the Temple Mount and al-Aqsa Mosque. The danger of such an eventuality must produce actions of purpose and heightened reality and the brotherhood prevented entrance into any of these fronts.
The first fatalities of this newly redeclared war, the war was initiated originally by Mohammad when he altered complete verses and declared Mecca, not Jerusalem as he first indicated, to be the holiest of cities followed by Medina where Mohammad realized his victory over the older established religion of Judaism. There are many stories and explanations as to the reasons for the enmity which existed between the Jews of Medina and Mohammad and the Muslims. The problems reached their climax with the beheading of nearly one thousand Jews from the Banu Qurayzah tribe. This supposed trial and finding of guilt leading to the execution of every single adult aged male and the sale of the women and children into slavery was but the first step. The most famous victory of Muslim forces against the Jews at the very beginning of Islam took place at the battle at Khaybar where the remainders of the Jews of Medina were slaughtered and their wealth, women and children were sold into slavery. This has led to the modern day Islamic tradition, the chant “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud,” translated means, “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning,” and is used as a battle cry when attacking Jews or Israelis. That has been the chant on many a university campus and other anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic gathering often protesting the lack of a lasting peace having been negotiated between Israel and the Arabs claiming to be from a mythical construct which has never existed called Palestine. This war has now returned full bore and charging into another attempted bloodletting of Israel be Islamic forces from near and far coming again as was the case in 1948-9, and again in 1967 for the Six Day War, and to a lesser extent in 1973 for the Yom Kippur War. The problem is that with modern weapons on both sides, and once Iran turns nuclear forcing a similar development in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and who knows who else, the potentials for destruction on an unimagined scale is staring back at us from some future date when humanity becomes a forgotten trait and barbarism rules the day and the carnage will be immeasurable.
In the meantime the initiation of war had been announced and the first casualties have paid with their lives in the latest ambush of Jews by Arabs from the Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas, the purported angel of peace. This final war over the claims that the Jews have no rights or place being in Israel, and more so Jerusalem and never ever had any claim or Temples on the Temple Mount is imminent. This war began with the riots instigated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini in the 1920s and on through the declaration of the State of Israel where he then led the local Muslim militias in the war of annihilation brought by over a half dozen Arab armies against the nascent state of Israel with genocidal aims to destroy the Jewish state in its crib. This latest and hopefully last war began in the year 2000 when Yasser Arafat declared what has rightfully become known as the Oslo War as it was as a direct result of the ill-fated desire for a civil peace where the Jews and Arabs could prosper together was the initiation of the efforts by some Pollyannish efforts to renew the moribund peace process which brought back the arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat as well as his trusted and close number two, Mahmoud Abbas. The Oslo Accords were entered into by Arafat and Abbas in order to regain a foothold that would lead to their long hoped but never quite attainable victory over the Jews and a second Holocaust would ensue, that was and still is the dream from one side of the “peace process.” This last wave of assaults has largely targeted Jerusalem and the Temple Mount as Abbas is fully aware that if he can chase the Jews from the Temple Mount, from all the Jewish holy sites in Judea and Samaria, and chase the Jews from all of the Old City of Jerusalem he will have decapitated the Jewish people and cut us from what is to us our lifeline which we have longed for for almost two-thousand years and has been the greatest joy, our strength, and our redemption. The initial threats were words which led to screaming mobs bumping and jostling IDF guards on duty hoping to capture some film or picture which could be interpreted as a frown on the face of a soldier and blow that up into an international incident. Then came the stones, then larger stones, then fireworks, then more even larger stones, then simply more stones at the ambush sites, then boulders followed by firebombs and it had to get here eventually but now it has become bullets, deadly bullets.
Pictured above are the parents so brutally murdered as explained in the caption above which reads, “Eitam and Naama Henkin and four of their children were in the car when the ambush was sprung and the shooting began. The children were unhurt in the gunfire but both parents were brutally and cold bloodedly murdered for the crime of being Jews. This was the first volley of the coming war which Mahmoud Abbas declared this past week when he told the world that any semblance of peace was over. This was the first volley as Mahmoud Abbas has thrown the Oslo Accords aside torn, tattered and burning into ashes, and Abbas has turned the clock back to 1964 and the PLO’s original Charter which called for the slaughter of the Jews in Israel, another Holocaust, another Shoah the murder of six-million Jews again to start another world at war, once again into the breach except this will be the final war which we have dread would come.” This is probably the farthest thing they could ever imagine, the being the initial victims of humanity at its most inhumane of levels and plotting for much, much more in the coming days, weeks, months and possibly the rest of the time mankind will have as an advanced species, which begs the question of how we can call ourselves advanced when we cannot even share a small square kilometer of space in what most agree is a holy city of peace, or that is what she has been named, Yerushalayim, Zion the city of peace. ירושלים, ציון עיר השלום
Taking full credit for this gruesome slaughter in a hail of gunfire was senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed who told Hamas’s Al-Quds TV, “the attack is a natural response to the crimes of the settlers and every action has a reaction.” These crimes of the settlers are nothing more than the fact that they live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the crime for which all the violence since the nineteenth century starting as early if not even further back with the 1834 looting of Safed (ביזת צפת בשנת תקצ”ד) where Jewish homes were looted and burned, synagogues were similarly looted and burned including the burning and other desecrations of the Torah scrolls and raping of the Jewish women and the murder of many of the Jews who remained in Safed as this continued for over a month. Furthermore, al-Aloul was noted by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) as having written on his Facebook page, “The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement Fatah, accepted responsibility for the Itamar operation carried out against settlers, leading to their deaths.” The Itamar operation carried out against settlers, translates to the cold blooded murder by the forces of evil this time reaching out to grasp and harm the most innocent as that way the terror is of the greatest shock value and terrorists aim for shock value as well as unarmed and unsuspecting people and seldom soldiers on duty but their war is against the innocent. We will hear from the pro-Arab Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic protesters on some university campus or at some erudite cultural poetry reading where a Fatah representative will be present to read their poem, Ode to being Odious which tells of their great victory of the brave Arab Fatah freedom fighters, they must never be called terrorists as that might hurt their feelings and harm their self-esteem, and telling the tale will win him admiration and acclaim as the latest poetic genius.
Sometimes the anger at the senseless slaughter of innocent people and the news coming as it did leading into the Sabbath and one must now challenge themselves to rid their mind of disturbances thinking of the poor young children and the oldest two all of which will miss the love and care only a parent can provide. Others can do the exact same things, say the exact same words, be the same in every way except they are not the child’s parent and the child will know that difference which is why this has taken away innocence and replaced it with the hard and cruel reality of the fruits of hatreds. Bat-Sheva Sadan wrote the following in Hebrew but translated hereabout the challenges and the affects and effects of the loss of both their parents on their younger siblings. The deep emotion makes this a definitive read and I would beg that you take in the depth of feelings put into what would be mere words but this combination spoke to us here. The one item I might have to say is that when they feared the youngest might not remember the parents at all, not any number of things but they included smell. That may not be correct and will be proven likely at some point when the youngest is a little older and gets solemn for no apparent reason as they are walking in a mall, to synagogue or strolling along the beach boardwalk and when asked what is wrong their answer will be, ‘Nothing, really, just the last lady’s perfume reminded me of mom’ and it will come out of the blue and all will enjoy their own little memory that day all because small is the strongest and longest lasting of impressions especially between a mother and child.
The deaths of Eitam and Naama Henkin may be the deaths which history will remember as the initial shot fired which started the final conflict. They may be the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie who were murdered which set things into motion resulting in World War I. This just may be another possible echo from history. These echoes always seem to be worrisome as they are usually repeating things we would prefer not to repeat. We must pray this Sabbath and every Sabbath as these are dangerous times where simple events can take on gargantuan meaning, and this double murder is of great enough magnitude that it receiving more is beyond the cusp and all that is safe and sane.
Beyond the Cusp
October 2, 2015
A Gauntlet Thrown at the United States Feet
Reportedly a Russian General strode into the United States Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq and demanded to speak with somebody responsible for military actions and handed the officer a letter after which some curt words were exchanged and the Russian left without further explanation. It has been further reported that there has been a Russian demand that the United States cease all air activity and cease and desist any sorties in the greater Syrian theater or risk a confrontation with Russian aircraft who have orders to defend against United States interference, or so it appears was the implication. Other rumored reports claim that the Russian bombing runs today were concentrated on the areas occupied not by the Islamic State but on the Syrian “rebels” which were trained and working with the United States. This we believe is somewhat a bit of hyperbole as the latest reports claimed that the United States efforts had produced less than two dozen fighters after two years and countless investment in time, money and equipment and that does not sound like anything that would require more than one airstrike. The likelihood is that the Russians were hitting the rebels who oppose Bashir al-Assad which would include potential strikes on United States trained fighters, especially with reports from this past week that they were trading much of their United States provided aid in exchange for free passage through other rebel groups areas in order to avoid a fight which they would likely have lost. So, with the United States continuing to fly sorties, though how few is uncertain, and the Russians presumably threatening to protect Assad and his Alawites and their coastal region from United States air attacks, the question is would the United States attack Assad troops and position or simply contain their strikes to Islamic State positions. Another problem might become a point of contention is if the United States aircraft on missions necessarily cross over Assad’s regions would the Russians attempt to down the United States flights and if such should happen, what would be the reaction from the White House and the Congress.
There are too many questions and such complete uncertainty with far too few sources of information to base any hypotheses upon with any degree of accuracy; but why not just fly off the handle and take a stab at this situation and see what we produce and judge it later down the road. Apparently the Pentagon plans to continue with their missions as assigned and ignore the Russian threats probably hoping that it was just so much bluster and sabre rattling. Putin probably feels quite certain that should he push hard enough that President Obama would back down just as he did with the red line fiasco with Assad and the use of chemical weapons which President Putin saved Obama’s bacon as he stewed in pools of indecision and slow and repeated retreats. This is what Putin is basing his boldness upon and has no reason, from the track record which President Obama has compiled, to think differently. The problem is with the Iran deal beginning to tarnish already under the microscope of public opinion, President Obama may be seeking some strong armed acts which he can rebuild some form of foreign policy and military prowess legacy. A desperate man with the clock running out might prove too irrational and unpredictable for anybody to make a safe bet on what actions might be now considered worth the risk. When President Jimmy Carter found himself looking weak he attempted a rescue of the hostages held by Iran and the mission ended in tragedy and dead United States troops including Special Forces and Navy Seals if I remember correctly. A desperate Administration still seeking an uncontested foreign policy legacy which has hung its final shot on degrading the Islamic State and forcing regime change in Syria necessarily removing Bashir al-Assad from being in contention in that process. The Iranians, Hezballah and now Russia have staked their claim to Syria and restoring al-Assad to power and then holding a Syrian election where al-Assad will win reelection by sufficient margin to remove any doubt to his authenticity no matter how unverified the election numbers might be. The Russians have made one thing very clear, despite the overt efforts of the Obama White House’s demands for Assad to be removed from power and not permitted to run in any new elections, as the United States has Assad tried and convicted for his abuses of the men and women who had remained in Syria living in rebel occupied areas and presumed to have joined or be supporting the rebels even if all they were doing was protecting their home and limit their losses, just attempting to survive and not actually backing either side, the two sides will continue to butt heads until President Obama realizes the error of his ways, or so Putin is adamant. The United States does not actually have a dog in this fight while the Russians most definitely have their own pet dog in the fray, Bashir al-Assad, along with Hezballah and Iran, and a potential route towards gaining control over Iraq and Europe and the land bridges between them. The Iranians basically told the world what was the reason and against whom his forces are fighting for and this has been further validated through their actions. The enemy in Syria are the best training facilities built by the Soviet Union back before their break-down and Assad accepted the assistance from the many different sides thus making himself largely responding to the demands and instruction of Russian forces assisting and supplying the tools required to draw Israel into the fight.
This multiple fractioned war has coalitions which can be instructive as to who sides with whom and who are the actual players. The initial two sides have all but been destroyed or subsumed by their original parent groups. The Syrian forces of Bashir al-Assad have reacted strongly but with lesser and older weapons than has the Islamic State. The forces fighting with al-Assad currently are the remainder of his military who have stood by his side and watched their power and nation be laid waste and been unable to prevent this horror story. The immediate allies for al-Assad have been Hezballah and originally Iran who are the actual puppet masters working the marionettes. Their final benefactor, forced by the precarious situation faced by Assad and his allies as they had been defeated across the boards, the Russians have jumped into the fray with both feet betting that the United States will accept Russians determining the end results in Syria or be forced to face the Islamic State with little if any assistance from the remaining forces in Iraq as well as Syria using almost universally United States fighting men and women on the ground. The opposition breaks into three distinct groups, the social-Marxists consisting of the leftist forces whose desire was to restructure Syria into a model leftist socialist state. Then there were the Islamist supremacy groups which include all the various factions of al-Qaeda to the Muslim Brotherhood fighting against al-Assad in a semi-symbiotic relationship with the social-Marxists. Then there is the breakaway force which sees itself as the sole preordained leader of all Sunni and eventually all Muslim forces under their self-proclaimed Caliphate. That is the most basic description of the breakdown of the forces before the Russians responded to the sad state of the Alawite troops losses which threatened complete bombing began to systematically strike at the anti-al-Assad forces including the rebels trained by the United States. There are also the forces known as the Islamic State which appear to be a problem to everybody not an active subscriber to their radical agenda who claim they are the core of the new Caliphate. The end result is this self-proclaimed Caliph and his forces will continue to grow unless somebody is forced into committing troops to prevent such advances. From appearances President Obama had been attempting to prevent any large contingent to coalesce around the United States enemies, as well as to force al-Assad from power, without committing any United States ground troops, a tactic which has died gloriously just as predicted and allowed, if not forced, the Russians to appear. This forced Russia to declare their interests and willingness to enforce their side by any and all means required. This will settle the situation in favor of al-Assad by default. The problem is this may not go far enough to eradicate the Islamic State which could surrender their Syrian holdings rather than contend with the Russian troops and simply continue their expansions through Iraq and potentially further throughout the region.
The big, and we mean really big, question is what steps if any will the United States take from the Russian demands they leave the area. Will President Obama press a confrontation and how will he react when any actions, especially sorties flown by United States Air Force and Navy pilots are challenged over Syrian air space and warned to retreat and never return as their assistance is not required nor desired. Will President Obama press the situation to its breaking point of the Russians shooting down an American aviator and taking the pilot prisoner which could happen today of that is the way the cards are being laid out on the table. This current situation with the direct confrontation being pressed and the game of chicken and who will blink first begins. If the glares never blink the other result is a war between Russia and the United States and all the potential ramifications of such a conflict come into play. Our bet is it will get extremely tense and at the last minute some facilitation will be found or Putin will blink first as President Obama is not calling the shots for the United States or he would have turned and run from the first threats as he has done every time he has been challenged. This situation is as serious as or more so than has been played in the media and the media may try to prevent things from boiling over but they will find that beyond their control or even influence. The media can only exacerbate the problem and send things spinning out of control even faster. That is what they must avoid at all costs.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp
October 1, 2015
Meandering Thoughts on the Israeli Front Lines
Let us start with the United Nations and before reporting on the predictably less wonderful reports refer to yesterday’s article which will be right below this or on the top of the next page and is titled Historic First Tashlich Observed at the United Nations which told about the using of a Jewish tradition for casting away sins by throwing bread upon the waters. The story related how a European Christian group called Forum for Cultural Diplomacy made all the arrangements which was something of a pleasant surprise. The service can be viewed at the article and is just under twelve minutes long. Of course this event was arranged very tactically to coincide with the opening ceremonies for the United Nations General Assembly and all the unbelievable garbage which will ensue. It is awful enough to hear Iranian President Rowhani give a speech calling for the rest of the world to support and join Iran in fighting terrorism across the globe. Never mind that Iran is or has been one of the main benefactors for Hamas and is the lifeline for Hezballah and Syrian Dictator Bashir Assad because these are not terrorists or evil dictators, they are necessary allies in fighting what is being billed as a greater terror threat, the Islamic State. Good parts of the effectiveness of the Islamic State are the weapons, particularly the Abrams heavy battle tanks and other armored vehicles and artillery and other weapons systems they were all but gifted when the Iraqi Army, and we use the word army loosely, simply dropped or disembarked from their equipment and vehicles and fled to try and remove their fatigues and melt into the civilian population. Now Russia has taken the initiative and will be the benefactor by saving the world from the Islamic State while rearming Hezballah and Assad and giving them top flight groups and front line units to assist if not carry the fight. Meanwhile President Obama is steadfastly sticking to his guns and demanding the Assad be dethroned if Russia expects the United States to assist while still maintaining that he has no coherent plan to fight the Islamic State. Maybe somebody should check with the Pentagon as I am quite sure they have a virtual plethora of plans on how to eradicate the Islamic State. Perhaps some brave soul might want to take President Obama across the Potomac River and assist him on finding that huge building which has four walls and a spare, the Pentagon; because it is obvious he has not consulted his General Staff Officers.
We will be hearing from Mahmoud Abbas who will talk about the hardships he suffers and how those mean Israelis will not surrender completely and that the entire world should assist his Fatah run Arab Palestinian Authority to murder the six-million plus Jews in Israel in order to have his whole State of Palestine built on the graves of the Israeli peoples, Christians, Jews, Baha’i, and potentially many Muslims as well. There will be the European delegates demanding financial and other assistance in handling their Muslim invaders who are not there due to anything beyond having the Quran swallow up the Bible and impose Sharia as soon as they have sufficient numbers in any area. If these Muslim ‘refugees’ can be located in various places in small numbers such that they do not have a sizeable percentage of any area in which they have been placed because if any nation takes the shorter route and simply places large numbers of these Muslims in a small area they will turn it into little Afghanistan or wee little Pakistan or even the corner that is like Syria and Libya and all of these areas will become Muslim only areas where even the police, ambulances and firefighters fear to tread. For those in the United States, do not fear because President Obama is considering taking a couple of hundreds of thousands of these displaced and destitute refugees and setting them up with their own communities outside or within any number of United States major cities. Further, we guess if they claim to be bring hundreds of thousands they will more than likely integrate anywhere from three to twenty million before President Obama leaves office and it will be done completely through the Immigration and Naturalization Service and a number of secret Executive Orders which President Obama will have sealed so they never see the light of day claiming they are of national importance and as such must not be released for general knowledge.
Then there will be the denunciation ceremonies where the United States and Israel are serially and solely sentenced for presumed serious crimes of not bending far enough thus allowing all freedoms to be abolished and many lives left unprotected from the purification of their societies by their enemies who hold a tyrannical majority in the General Assembly. The Israeli condemnations almost all have to do with findings from Human Rights NGOs and complaints from Mahmoud Abbas and the other Arab leadership of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and any others who desire jumping in. One can bet there will be a few suggestions from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and potentially Jordan about the rioting on the Temple Mount, rioting by Muslim youths directed by Hamas leadership but Jordan wants Israel to just hand over the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem otherwise the violence will continue. But there will be nothing truly new about the attempt to dismember Israel by the cutthroats from the Arab world plus Iran and a few other Islamic fundamentalist leaders. Then there are the condemnations of the United States and as usual they will all pass just as the ones condemning Israel will all pass. My favorite is the denunciation of the United States embargo on Cuba which, according to the United Nations General Assembly, is the principle and driving force behind Cuba’s sagging economy, declining wealth, shortfalls in food production and every other conceivable ill of which Cuba is the shining example of a degraded and unfree dictatorial regressive regime such as the Castro’s apply with an iron fist. The passage of this motion was such a certainty that the vote to censure the United States embargo on Cuba passed on a vote of one-hundred-eighty-eight to two. It has been intimated in reports that President Obama will direct the United States Ambassador to the United Nations simply abstain as that, according to the President, will deny the motion of any merit. Even soon to be ex-Speaker John Boehner said about the president’s plan was to point out that President Obama has a “responsibility to defend US law and that’s what {he} should do.” We should fully expect that this year the vote will register as one-hundred-eighty-eight to one with one abstention. Just in case you are wondering who is that one who defends the honor of the United States and will very likely be the only nation to stand this year and was the sole supporter voting with the United States against the sanction last year is, you probably already guessed, it is Israel. The Associated Press reported on Monday, and some congressional leaders are aghast that President Obama would consider shirking his sovereign obligation. “It is unheard-of for a UN member state not to oppose resolutions critical of its own laws,” the Associated Press reported on Monday. Americans need look no further than that vote where the European Parliaments vote against the United States and it is only Israel who will stand for the righteousness of the United States and the principles behind the Cuban embargo as the only weapon one can wield which will have any effect.
Lastly I wish to report to my readers about a situation which has been ignored by the mainstream media as they have become complacent and it is partially the fault of the Israeli government and their plan to make something which is of great import, especially to the people living with this threat, but has become the run of the mill, every day experience which has simply become an acceptable level of violence and there is the presumed retribution, what more could one demand? What I am talking about is the drip, drip, drip Chinese water treatment which is a form of torture and in this case we replace the droplets of water with a rocket fired out of Gaza aimed at Israeli cities, though restricted pretty much to no further than Tel Aviv with an occasional rocket launched towards Jerusalem. The authorities believe and have come to expect that there will be the constant need for an Iron Dome battery to be placed where intelligence believes the next rocket will be targeting. The Israeli public, especially in Ashdod, one of the favorite targets for these rockets, are furious with the lack of resolve and the business as usual and they are expected to go about their lives relying on the Iron Dome to protect them and that not even every rocket is replied to with an Israeli airstrike or artillery fire striking an empty warehouse, somebody’s barn which had stored rocket parts or other such representative target which is pretty much guaranteed to not have anyone anywhere near the target when bombed. This is intolerable for the people under such a threat and is probably made all the worse by the alarms not being sounded when the rocket launch had been detected and the target assessed and if necessary shot out of the sky by the Iran Dome systems.
So why am I complaining about something which is apparently being addressed and the government is right on top of this situation and what do I really want, another Gaza War? I complain because the people of Ashdod are upset and have petitioned the government and the media to report and act on this plight, this curse which they must endure and be brave little citizens and soldier on, as one might have instructed the citizens of London during the blitz, but at least then their government was in a state of war, certainly you would not desire another War in Gaza. Those making this analogy are doing what President Obama did with the Iran agreement and amplifying greatly the alternative and refusing to allow for any mitigating and other paths to be compared, the debate was agreement or war. Here the Israeli government is implying that the only alternative to their current action of punishing Hamas or Islamic Jihad by exploding one of their weapons storage locations and only after assuring that nobody is at the target and if there is we wait until they depart. After all, the argument goes, these rockets are being intercepted and the people launching them may not actually be members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad and may be trying to exacerbate the situation and forcing Israel into another war where Israel wins the battle and damages the terror infrastructure. This is acceptable because the terrorists know that Iran and Saudi Arabia will build or send replacements for the destroyed infrastructure. Their actual aim is to make Israel pay such a price in the media with the pictures of Gazans whose homes were destroyed and their plight making the news, especially in left wing reports like the editorial board at Haaretz or the New York Times might write as there is always room for the human tragedy stories to pluck the world’s heartstrings and demonize Israel. The truth is there is a far more effective way to force an end to these rocket launches or at least have Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership trying to be far more effective in preventing rockets being fired as there can be a real threat to their peace and quiet should these aggressions continue. I agree there is no real reason to open a war footage over three or four rockets fired into Israel every week, there are bigger fish to fry with the Temple Mount rioting being the tragedy du jour for which Israel has been the target of a lynching by the media. A little coverage on that in a moment. The way to end this Chinese rocket treatment with a constant drumbeat of launch-intercept, launch-intercept, launch-intercept such that three or four times every week this continues and can be brought to a halt simply by targeting the leadership of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. When we respond by bombing a shed where aluminum has been stored and reserved to make more rockets, they simply import more aluminum under the world sponsored with full European and American financing and protection and continue as if nothing happened and nothing was lost, as in reality it changed nothing. Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not care if the Israeli response is an unmanned and basically empty structure as that is an acceptable price that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have decided to absorb that punishment for the privilege of shooting rockets at Israel. Target the leadership and the rockets will truly be prevented by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as each reprisal actually costs the leaders dearly as each one is wiped from the equation as a real and effective form of reaction which will prevent the next rocket. If the world cries for the poor Hamas and Islamic Jihad being targeted in response for rockets fired at Israel, then we can simply let them cry and response that if they want the targeting of jihadist leaders, all they need do is convince Hamas and Islamic Jihad to actually prevent any, and we mean any, rocket from being fired into Israel as there would be a real cost to Hamas and friends.
The Temple Mount situation has become a war zone with actual barricades constructed to give the rioters a protected and armored area from which to launch pyrotechnics and hurl rocks and bricks and to sling good sized stones at police with many of these tactics causing severe injury to the police and security personnel. Meanwhile there has been little if any response to the accusations by Jordanian King and others blaming Israel for the violence. This is a similar form of blaming the victim for having the audacity to be where the crime against them is being committed as if to cry that if only they would never go out to places where such threats are, then the threats would stop. This demand is a demand for Israel to surrender the Temple Mount and allow the Muslim behavior, the Muslim rioters and their violence to succeed and chase the Jews from the Temple Mount so that it can be claimed that the Jews do not value the Temple Mount so it must not have any significance to them proving the two Temples never existed and are just fairy tales for children which makes them proud as if such events as in the Bible are at all true. The answer they should receive is that the Bible is accurate and true and you know the two Temples did indeed stand on the Temple Mount a good twenty-five-hundred years before Islam was even founded and the Jewish People have worshipped on those holy grounds which you desecrate not only with these rioting but whenever you play soccer or other games on the Temple Mount plaza and other actions one would never see done by the Israelis to any holy grounds.
There is no easy path to treat these rioters as they are being stirred up and led by some hardcore mercenaries who assist in arming and planning the violence to make it as photogenic as possible and even take the pictures we desire ourselves and have our own stringers sell our propaganda shots to the media which is hungrily eaten-up by the European mainstream media and even at time in the United States this story is told, that the poor and victimized, they have to be victims, have been denied their holy right for respect of their holy site which covers the entire Temple Mount and not just the area around the structure. Further, the only story which must be told is how the Islamic al-Aqsa Mosque is being desecrated as the pictures depict. That is true but their state of disrepair is a direct result of their using the al-Aqsa Mosque as an armory and a fortified fallback position from which one can still attempt to fire pyrotechnics at the police. The best part is the media has taken up the rioters cause and for a simple reason, the Israeli leadership is bankrupt when it comes to opposing the violence from the many terror groups and where there is no peace plan other than the Jews cutting their own throats and allowing the Arabs to overrun the entirety of Israel, that is the sole way to quell the riots, to simple cease to exist. The Hamas charter calls for Jihad until every Jew on planet Earth has been murdered. It cannot be stated any more clearly what is driving the violence; it is the existence of Israel and of Jews on the face of this Earth. The rioters’ desire is to prevent Jewish access to the Temple Mount through violent confrontations and rioting and the authorities granting them the exact situational reward they are rioting to create so they have a means to achieve no Jews visiting the Temple Mount as long as they riot. Simply allow Jews free access to the Temple Mount from any entrance, just as any Muslim is allowed, and permit Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount, both private and group prayers led by a Rabbi giving the Jews equal rights, nothing special, just equality. The Muslims are demanding they be granted superior rights by the denying the Jews their rights, this must not be permitted to succeed. The rioting will cease once all peoples, Jews, Druze, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Baha’I, Hindus and even atheists are permitted free access to the Temple Mount and everybody is permitted to pray, visit, marvel at the holy structures and even take pictures. There should be a limit that prevents desecration of any one sight by allowing each holy place to define who is permitted into their areas and finally not permitting the playing of soccer or other similar pursuits which would detract from the decorum which must be expected and enforced at this holiest of holy places.
Beyond the Cusp
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