Thursday, August 30, 2012

In The News: Stoking The Flames Of Conflict


There are a number of interesting articles in circulation today.




A prominent Egyptian professor of political science admitted on Egyptian TV last week that institutes of higher learning in the region are purposefully stoking the flames of conflict between young Arab Muslims and Israel.

In an interview with Al-Alam TV that aired on August 17, Professor Gamal Zahran, head of the Department of Political Science at Port Said University, openly acknowledged that promoting hatred of the Jewish state is a primary goal in classes taught by himself and other lecturers.

Providing a glimpse into how Israel is dealt with in Middle East university classrooms, Zahran insisted that "the elimination of the Zionist entity is beyond debate...the only question has to do with the circumstances."

Zahran believes the right set of circumstances may soon exist to take action on his teachings.


"I believe that the [Arab Spring] provided the people with hope that one day Jerusalem and Palestine [sic] will return to them," Zahran stated. "We are constantly keeping that hope alive among the younger generation so that they will realize that the Palestinian cause is an essential one."




Exactly as we should expect. We already know that no nation will come to the defense of Israel in these days.

A group of researchers on the moon could have produced a more accurate and balanced report on Gaza than the one the UN produced this week, Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor wrote Wednesday in a blistering letter to Security Council President Gerard Araud.

“This week, Israel’s children started their school year with the all-too-familiar sounds of sirens and explosions, as terrorists in Gaza fired six more rockets into their communities, Prosor wrote.

While Israel’s schoolchildren were taking cover in bomb shelters, the UN released yet another biased report about Gaza. Apparently, the roar of rockets flying out of Gaza has not reached the deaf ears of the UN agencies that produced this report.”

Prosor said the officials who wrote the document “conveniently failed to mention that Hamas has brutally hijacked Gaza and deliberately targets Israeli civilians in relentless rocket attacks.”

The truth, he wrote, was “plain and simple: Hamas is responsible for the suffering in Gaza.”





Saudi Aramco, a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars and the world’s largest producer of oil, came under cyber attack on August 15. A sophisticated malware weapon destroyed 30,000 of the company’s computers.

In a message on an online bulletin board the attackers called themselves the “Cutting Sword of Justice,” a group unknown to cyber security experts, and said that the attack was retribution for “oppressive measures” taken by Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. The group specifically cited Saudi involvement in Syria and Bahrain — two countries where the Saudi government has reportedly aided Sunni factions in their struggle with the Alawite regime and the Shiite majority, respectively.




Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday stated that Zionism and the rebirth of the Jewish state would not have succeeded without the backing and support of Christian Zionism.

Netanyahu was speaking at a rededication ceremony for the landmark windmill situated at the entrance to Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the first neighborhood built outside Jerusalem's Old City walls.

"I don’t believe that the Jewish State and Modern Zionism would have been possible without Christian Zionism. I think that the many Christian supporters of the rebirth of the Jewish State and the ingathering of the Jewish people in the 19th century made possible the rise of...modern Jewish Zionism. We always had the deeply ingrained desire to come back to our land and rebuild it. ...That was made possible in the 19th century, by the resurgence of Christian Zionism... It’s well represented here today by our Dutch friends."





Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he plans to serve out his full term – through the end of 2013 – but recent political developments are said to be making him reconsider, sources in the Likud said. And those sources said that in recent days, Netanyahu has become much more attentive to advisers who are telling him that the time for elections is now.




Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called the Non-Aligned summit currently taking place in Tehran “a disgrace and a stain on humanity.”

After a meeting at his office with the governor of Lower Saxony, David McAllister, Netanyahu said that the participation of representatives of over 120 countries at the conference showed that “many in the international community appear to have learned nothing.”

His words came at the same time UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on his Iranian hosts at the Non-Aligned Movement summit to stop threats against Israel.

Netanyahu referred to statements made by the regime in Tehran in denial of the Holocaust, saying that participants at the summit were “saluting a regime that not only denies the Holocaust but pledges to annihilate the Jewish state, brutalizes its own people, colludes in the murder of thousands of innocent Syrians and leads millions in chanting ‘Death to America, death to Israel’.”




Preferably, the 3D topographic raised-relief map system of Israelthat Langfan developed back in 1991, which gives viewers a perspective on Israel – and on the Middle East – that they may not have had before. Themap shows just how important Israel is to U.S. interests – how a strong and secure Israel, far from being a strategic liability, is actually the one thing that is preventing the Middle East from falling into complete chaos.

With an Israeli presence in the high ground of Judea and Samaria and on the Golan Heights, “Israel is immune to an existential attack” by ground troops from Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. In a video, Langfan lays out the case for Israel's retention of these areas; with them, Israel can defend itself and ensure a semblance of order in the region, Without them, Iran and its radical Islamist allies would have a free hand, picking through the debris of the “regimes' ancien” of the Middle East, and eventually taking over the greatest prize of all – oil-rich Saudi Arabia, thus controlling the fate of the entire Western world.


In the video, Langfan revives the idea of the “domino theory,” which was a cause for great debate in the U.S. during the Vietnam War era. But there's no debate over what a Middle East domino spill would look like; a weak Israel without its strategic land assets would be open for attack by a revitalized Islamist front, led by Egypt, Hizbullah, Hamas, and Syria (with the likelihood that Bashar al-Assad will eventually be replaced by an Islamist government, as happened in Egypt).

All this can be avoided, however, if the U.S. supports Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria and in the Golan. The video also mentions the importance of Gaza, which Israel has since abandoned – resulting of tens of thousands of missiles being fired at southern Israel by Hamas, and inspiring Hizbullah to attack Israel with tens of thousands of its own missiles from the north. If that is the result of abandoning the small territory of Gaza – which does not even have strategic defensive height and is surrounded by sparsely populated desert areas – what would be the result of Israel's abandonment of the much more important territories in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan?



Also in the news:









5 comments:

Robin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robin said...

I sincerely have the highest regard for B. Netanyahu and have often wished America could have one just like him guiding us.

I've never known him to show such indecisiveness. But this going back and fourth between early elections and not to host early elections makes me uneasy. Either this is some sort of orchestrated effort to place his opponents on guard and throw his foe into a dither, or he's losing his edge. How I pray it's the former . . .

nathan said...

Bibi's not losing his edge he's very calculating . That guy amazes me . He is exactly who God put in place to lead Israel through their new "1967" . Man would i love it if he were leading us.

Robin said...

Then am I missing the explanation for why he called for early elections, then rescheduled them for their original date and is now considering early elections again? I admit I lack a military strategist mind, but have gone over in my head, a number of possible scenarios/reasons to explain the flip flopping, but am at a loss.

Scott said...

There is no telling Robin. There is so much going on behind the scenes. I believe Plan "A" was to have an early election (if you go back a few months, before the parties were consolidated, all signs pointed to an early election) - then the consolidated, unified parties took effect....I believe that was always preferable to Bibi.

Then that spit occurred, and after that, I believe it was back to Plan A - the early elections.

I don't think its that complicated. Once unification failed, it made sense to go back to plan A.