Israel's Enemies Closing In For The Upcoming Wars

There can be no mistaking it: Israel's enemies are closing in around her and preparing for the prophetic wars which seem to be dangerously close. The sad news is the fact that the U.S. is actively facilitating many of these movements:

Study Shows Growth In European Anti-Semitism

A new government study, released annually, shows a rise in anti-Semitic attacks over the past year, especially violent attacks by radical Islamic groups.

The paper, reporting on trends in anti-Semitism in 2012, was being presented to the Israeli cabinet on Sunday morning, coinciding with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Prepared by the ministry in charge of diaspora affairs, the study found an increasing number of anti-Semitic attacks on Jews and Jewish communities worldwide, many of which were carried out by groups identifying with extremist Islamist factions or with the radical right, according to Israel Radio.

France had the most hate crimes against Jews with 114, followed by the United Kingdom with 105, Canada with 68 and Australia with 30. Numbers for the United States were only partly included, noted the Kantor center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, which presented the report.

Netanyahu Links Holocaust Lessons To Iranian Threat

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday linked the threat of a nuclear Iran to the Nazis’ attempt to annihilate the Jewish people in an address marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Anti-Semitism has not disappeared and — to our regret — neither has the desire to destroy a considerable part of the Jewish People and the State of Israel. They exist and they are strong,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. “Holocaust-denial is being spread by one of the world’s major countries, not by a group or by individual countries or by marginal elements, but by Iran which, today, from the UN or any other platform, is the leader of Holocaust-denial while preparing for what they deem to be another Holocaust — the destruction of the state of the Jews.”

“In the perspective of the almost 75 years that have passed since the Holocaust, what has not changed is the desire to annihilate the Jews. What has changed is the ability of the Jews to defend themselves,” said Netanyahu, referring to the Israeli military. “Nobody will defend the Jews if they are not ready to defend themselves; this is another lesson of the Holocaust…. Therefore, the root of the issue today, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is not what happened, but how we can prevent it from happening again and this depends on the ability and the determination of the state of the Jews to defend itself against those who would destroy it.”

Fears Grow That Libya Is Incubator Of Turmoil

Libya’s upheaval the past two years helped lead to the ongoing conflict in Mali, and now Mali’s war threatens to wash back and further hike Libya’s instability. Fears are growing that post-Muammar Gaddafi Libya is becoming an incubator of turmoil, with an overflow of weapons and Islamic jihadi militants operating freely, ready for battlefields at home or abroad.

More worrisome is the possibility that Islamic militants inspired by — or linked to — al-Qaeda can establish a strong enough foothold in Libya to spread instability across a swath of North Africa where long, porous desert borders have little meaning, governments are weak, and tribal and ethnic networks stretch from country to country. The Associated Press examined the dangers in recent interviews with officials, tribal leaders and jihadis in various parts of Libya.

Already, Libya’s turmoil echoes around the region and in the Middle East. The large numbers of weapons brought into Libya or seized from government caches during the 2011 civil war against Gaddafi are now smuggled freely to Mali, Egypt and its Sinai Peninsula, the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and to rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad. Jihadis in Libya are believed to have operational links with fellow militant groups in the same swath, Libyan fighters have joined rebels in Syria and are believed to operate in other countries as well.

Israel Vows Syria Strike At Any Sign Of Chemical Arms Transfer

Silvan Shalom confirmed a media report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had last week convened security chiefs to discuss the civil war in nearby Syria and the state of the country's chemical arsenal.

The meeting, held on Wednesday, had not been publicly announced and was seen as especially unusual as it came while votes were still being counted from Israel's national election the day before, which Netanyahu's party list won narrowly.

Should Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas or rebels battling forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad obtain Syrian chemical weapons, Shalom told Israel's Army Radio, "it would dramatically change the capabilities of those organizations".

Such a development would be "a crossing of all red lines that would require a different approach, including even preventive operations", he said - alluding to military intervention, for which Israeli generals have said plans have been readied.

"The concept, in principle, is that this (chemical weapons transfer) must not happen," Shalom said. "The moment we begin to understand that such a thing is liable to happen, we will have to make decisions."

'Regional Threats Aren't On Hold While Israel Forms Gov't'

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that in the shadow of regional security threats, he intends to form the widest coalition possible.

Speaking at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu pointed to the threat of Iran's nuclear program and suspected chemical weapons in war-torn Syria.

"We must look around us. What is happening in Iran, and the lethal weapons in Syria.. the Middle East in not waiting for the election results, and it does not stop while we form our coalition," Netanyahu warned. "There is a cluster of threats, and their reality continues to evolve."

"The whole area is stormy, and we need to be prepared, strong and determined" he stressed. For this purpose I aim to form the widest, most stable government, in order first-of-all address security threats, and I am convinced that we our capable of coping with these challenges," the prime minister asserted.

Earlier Sunday, Vice Premier Silvan Shalom said any sign that Syria's grip on its suspected chemical weapons is slipping as it battles an armed uprising, could trigger Israeli military strikes.

Syria has loomed large in Israeli rhetoric in recent weeks.

"The great danger to the world is ... from nuclear weapons in Iran, those weapons that are built in Iran. It's chemical weapons in Syria falling into the wrong hands," Netanyahu said in a Jan. 7 speech.

Two days later, Dichter told Israel Radio that monitoring Syria was "the top priority - that is, a very high priority."

An Israeli government security adviser told Reuters on Sunday that Syria had taken new prominence in strategic planning "because of the imminence of the threat. There the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) are ready and could be turned against us at short notice."

Iranian-Hizballah Convoy Blown Up On Syrian Golan. Border Tensions Shoot Up

At least eight officers were killed in a mysterious twin-car bomb explosion Friday, Jan. 25 at Syrian regional intelligence headquarters in Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Some of the fatalities were Syrian, but Western intelligence sources disclosed to DEBKAfilethat most were high-ranking Iranian Al Qods Brigades and Hizballah officers. The blasts sent tensions shooting up on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria.  Israeli, Jordanian and US Special Forces posted in the kingdom went on high alert. Heavy Syrian reinforcements were seen streaming toward the two borders.

Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that Iran would consider any attack on Syria an attack on itself: "Syria has a very basic and key role in the region for promoting firm policies of resistance [against Israel]... For this reason an attack on Syria would be considered an attack on Iran and Iran's allies."

Iron Dome Deployed In Northern Israel To Defend Against Syrian WMDs

The Iron Dome anti-missile defense system has been installed in northern Israel, according to the IDF, due to the escalating civil war in Syria. The move comes in response to increasing concerns that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may lose control over the chemical weapons arsenal in the country.
ccur, the lethal arsenal held by Israel’s northern neighbor could be handed over, or become vulnerable to theft by a number of Islamic terrorist organizations, among them Hizbullah or Al Qaeda.

Iron Dome anti-missile batteries have been deployed in multiple locations, including in the Haifa area, military officials said.

In order to be effective, chemical weapons must be released at a range that is relatively close to their targets. The chemicals, some of which are released in gaseous form, are loaded into warheads on missiles that are fired either from the ground or from fighter planes.

GENESIS 12:3

A 'Conspiracy Theory' Based At The New York Times

The Obama Administration is facilitating the activities of foreign jihadists and al Qaeda throughout the Middle East, while claiming that it is fighting al Qaeda and that the organization has been “decimated.” This monumental deception is being carried out not only by the administration but its supporters. It is a crime that has cost four American lives in Benghazi and three in the kidnapping and hostage crisis in Algeria.

The George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) is running interference for the Obama Administration by attacking those, like Senator Rand Paul, who are trying to expose the suicidal policy.

The New York Times reported that the Obama Administration “secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar” in 2011 and that “Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants.” These rebels stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing four Americans, in a major foreign policy scandal that continues to this day. It was the reason for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing featuring the Rand Paul-Hillary Clinton exchange.

Any notion that all of this is happening by accident has been undermined by an additional report from the Times that the CIA was using Turkey and “a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood” to send weapons to Islamists fighting the regime in Syria. The weapons were being “paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” the paper reported.

In fact, the kidnapping and murder of three Americans by al-Qaeda terrorists in Mali is clearly another manifestation of this policy because the arms the U.S. helped send to the “rebels” in Libya may have been used by these same terrorists to kill the American hostages.

It is in this context that Rand Paul asked Hillary Clinton, “…it’s been in news reports that ships have been leaving from Libya and that they may have weapons. And what I’d like to know is, the annex that was close by, were they involved with procuring, buying, selling, obtaining weapons, and were any of these weapons being transferred to other countries, any countries, Turkey included?”

Clinton responded, “Well, Senator, you’ll have to direct that question to the agency that ran the annex. And I will see what information is available and…”

Paul interjected, “You’re saying you don’t know?”

Clinton: “I do not know. I don’t have any information on that.”

This is stonewalling of the worst kind. Hillary Clinton is the Secretary of State and has to be knowledgeable of the policy that she is helping to implement.

In Egypt, The Warning Signs Of Genocide

In the last half-century, Egyptian Coptic Christians (roughly 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million) have been suffering from increasing discrimination and persecution. Due to rising Islamic extremism, tensions between Egypt’s majority Muslim population and its Coptic minority have resulted in even more violence against this ancient religious minority. What is often reported as a sectarian dispute is rapidly becoming a systematic and often deadly targeting of Egypt’s largest minority.

One of the deadliest attacks against the Copts, killing 23, happened on January 1, 2011, when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb outside the St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox church in Alexandria. Prior to the attack, Al-Qaeda in Iraq announced that all Christians are legitimate targets and an Islamist website called for attacks on specific Egyptian churches, including St. Mark’s. The attack in Alexandria occurred exactly two months after an attack on a Syrian Catholic church in Baghdad, in what extremists called a response to the mistreatment of Muslim converts by Egyptian Copts.

The persecution of Coptic Christians has now gone far beyond discrimination, economic extortion, political exclusion and persecution. On December 13th, 2012 Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim openly threatened Egypt’s Copts with genocide on television:

The day Egyptians, and I don’t mean the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafis, regular Egyptians, feel that you are against them, you will be wiped off the face of the earth. I am warning you now: do not play with fire.

Shortly after, Safwat Hegazy echoed the disturbing message.

A message to the church of Egypt, from an Egyptian Muslim: I tell the church ‒ by Allah, and again, by Allah ‒ if you conspire and unite with the remnants [opposition] to bring Morsi down, that will be another matter … our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Muhammad Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him.

The explicit intimidation of these statements made publicly by religious leaders is incitement to genocide. This state-condoned incitement to violence has long been recognized as a precursor and trigger to potentially genocidal mass-atrocity crimes. The evidence and legal precedents from the Nuremberg and Rwandan trials validate the correlation between incitement and mass atrocity crimes. Direct and public incitement is criminalized in Article III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and a similar provision can be found in Article 25 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Both incitement and conspiracy to commit genocide are punishable crimes in and of themselves, neither requiring any act of genocide.