[For those of us who have been watching for such developments in the context of Daniel 9:27]
Two weeks ago, the Foreign Ministry proposed to the Israeli cabinet a plan for stationing foreign troops in the Gaza Strip to monitor rebuilding and demilitarization efforts in the wake of the war there this summer, Haaretz reported Sunday.
According to the report, the forces would be empowered to confiscate weapons and contraband materials to ensure that Hamas will not be able to rearm itself.
Israel has demanded that Hamas be disarmed if it is to ease longstanding restrictions on the Strip and entertain the prospect of a seaport and airport in Gaza. Hamas, meanwhile, has vehemently rejected demilitarization.
The international force described in the report would be temporary, with an extendable mandate that would initially be set at a single year, and would preferably be composed of a European Union coalition, although the document reportedly allowed for the possibility of a NATO force, a UN force or a general Western coalition.
According to the report, the Foreign Ministry recommended that the force operate under a charter similar to UNIFIL, the UN force in southern Lebanon, which would require the approval of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt, and ideally be established under the aegis of a UN Security Council resolution.
The force, whose main tasks would be “rehabilitation and disarmament,” would function at various locations inside the Strip itself, and at border crossings, especially the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the surrounding area, the report said.
The European soldiers would be armed and given the mandate to “deal with threats from Hamas and other terror organizations,” including inspecting UN schools and other international facilities to ensure they are not being used to hide weapons or other materials deemed dangerous by Israel.
The report was given to Israel’s security cabinet on August 21, and was based on ideas floated by various EU countries, an unnamed Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas began a visit to Egypt on Saturday with a dramatic pronouncement. Meeting with Egyptian journalists, Abbas declared, “If there is not one government, one authority empowered to carry arms, and one rule of law in the West Bank and Gaza, there’ll be no partnership or discussion with Hamas.”
Abbas was sending a message to Hamas that if its military wing insists on retaining its weapons and on defying the directives of the Palestinian “unity” government headed by Abbas, the rehabilitation of Gaza will be at risk.
Abbas also said that later Sunday he intends to present to the Arab League his plans for negotiations with Israel toward Palestinian statehood. If Israel refuses to cooperate, he said, “All options will be open.” A senior PA official in Ramallah told The Times of Israel last week that if Israel does not work with Abbas on the diplomatic program, PA-Israeli security coordination will come to a halt — perhaps not in the next few months, but in the course of 2015.
No less significant a challenge for Israel is that in a little more than two weeks a month will have passed since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire took effect, and nothing is moving. This would appear to be a problem principally for Hamas, but it has significant implications for Israel.
The reconstruction of Gaza has not even begun. Hamas salaries have not been paid — and Abbas has made clear that he has no intention of paying them any time soon. Building materials are not entering Gaza in large quantities — indeed, there are new restrictions on the supplies of iron. The various crossing points are functioning in the same limited fashion as they were before the conflict. In short, the situation is just like it was two months ago, if not worse.
Furthermore, the idea of Palestinian “unity” is proving to be empty of significance. The PA security forces in the West Bank continue to arrest key Hamas activists. The victory celebrations organized by Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza after the ceasefire are proving to the Palestinian public to have been a bad joke.
What does this mean for Hamas? The former Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, gave a hint of the answer in a speech Friday in a partially destroyed mosque in the Shati refugee camp, where he lives. “Our conflict with the enemy was not the last,” he said, of the 50-day war.
According to Palestinian sources in Gaza, indeed, the Hamas military wing has made clear to the political leadership that if nothing has changed and no steps have been taken to ease the blockade of Gaza by September 25, its men will renew rocket fire at Israel — despite the fact that the Hamas political leadership opposes such a move.
It’s hard to tell if this threat by the Hamas military wing is an empty one. But given the crisis in Hamas’s dealings with Fatah, the diplomatic deadlock between the PA and Israel, and the absence of any sign of Gaza’s rehabilitation, it won’t be a major surprise if in a little more than two weeks, Hamas does indeed restart the conflict.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to break off a unity agreement with Hamas if the Islamist movement does not allow the government to operate properly in the Gaza Strip.
His remarks came on the eve of talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and a key address to the Arab League nearly two weeks after a ceasefire ended a major 50-day confrontation with Israel in Gaza.
“We will not accept the situation with Hamas continuing as it is at the moment,” Abbas said on arrival in the Egyptian capital late Saturday, in remarks published by official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
“We won’t accept a partnership with them if the situation continues like this in Gaza, where there is a shadow government… running the territory,” he said.
"Moderate" Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has bragged of his regime's role in aiding Hamas's terror war against Israel, even as Iran is locked in a final round of negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program.
Speaking to the Arabic-language news source Al Meyadeen, Rouhani claimed the "victory" of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge was only possible thanks to Iranian aid, reports Channel 10.
Rouhani has been presented to the world as a "moderate" following his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but many have warned that his "charm offensive" has been even more dangerous given the cover it provides for Iran's ongoing nuclear program and human rights abuses.
Regarding Iranian aid to Hamas terrorists, the Islamic regime has boasted of providing rocket technology, including "Judgement Day" missiles, to be used against Israeli civilian centers. Senior Iranian officials likewise revealed last month that Iran is arming terrorists in Judea and Samaria, and vowed to continue supporting “the resistance” against Israel.
In addition to the military aid, Iran launched an unprecedented cyber war on the Jewish state during Operation Protective Edge.
Rouhani's statements come as his nation is in likely the last round of flailing nuclear talks with world powers over its nuclear program, with talks set to conclude by a November 24 deadline.
Speaking to the Arabic-language news source Al Meyadeen, Rouhani claimed the "victory" of Gaza in Operation Protective Edge was only possible thanks to Iranian aid, reports Channel 10.
Rouhani has been presented to the world as a "moderate" following his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but many have warned that his "charm offensive" has been even more dangerous given the cover it provides for Iran's ongoing nuclear program and human rights abuses.
Regarding Iranian aid to Hamas terrorists, the Islamic regime has boasted of providing rocket technology, including "Judgement Day" missiles, to be used against Israeli civilian centers. Senior Iranian officials likewise revealed last month that Iran is arming terrorists in Judea and Samaria, and vowed to continue supporting “the resistance” against Israel.
In addition to the military aid, Iran launched an unprecedented cyber war on the Jewish state during Operation Protective Edge.
Rouhani's statements come as his nation is in likely the last round of flailing nuclear talks with world powers over its nuclear program, with talks set to conclude by a November 24 deadline.
Facing pressing demands to do something serious about the brutal Islamic State, US President Barack Obama threw together a mix of US air strikes, strengthening moderate Syrian rebel groups and enlisting friendly regional governments for the fight “to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL” A “core coalition” of nine NATO governments was put together, made up of Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark, whose leaders were assured that they were not expected to put boots on the ground.
The US President unveiled this plan at the NATO summit in Wales which ended Friday, Sept. 5
The US President unveiled this plan at the NATO summit in Wales which ended Friday, Sept. 5
No armed force capable of taking on the marching jihadis is to be found in all the vast territory of some 144,000 sq. km seized by the Islamist terrorists, between Raqqa in northrn Syria and the northwestern approaches to Baghdad.
Even in the unlikely event that President Obama was to pour out hundreds of billions of dollars to build such a force, the “core coalition” will hardly find any local governments ready to shoulder the mission, which would be potentially more daunting even that the Al Qaeda and Taliban challenge facing the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Such low-intensity warfare will never gain enough traction to reverse or repel the IS onslaught. There is no real chance of an effort, so stripped-down of the basic tools of war, loosening the clutch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on a broad domain, or deterring thousands of jihadis from flocking to the vibrant new caliphate rising there from across the Muslim world, especially the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
The next one is due Oct. 8, followed by blood moons April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015, according to NASA.
There will be a total lunar eclipse on those dates, when the moon passes into the Earth's shadow, and the moon will begin to appear bright orange or red because of the way sunlight bends through the Earth's atmosphere. The sunset hue lasts up to an hour.
You'll have to be an early riser to catch the October "blood moon."
That total eclipse will begin at 6:25 a.m. Clear skies are key and people on the West Coast will have the best view.
NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak pointed out that this lunar eclipse series is unique because all four eclipses will be visible in North America, which isn't always the case.
Stephen Cohen is one of America’s top experts on Russia. Cohen is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, and the author of a number of books on Russia and the Soviet Union.
Cohen says that the West is mainly to blame for the crisis in Ukraine:
This is a horrific, tragic, completely unnecessary war in eastern Ukraine. In my own judgment, we have contributed mightily to this tragedy. I would say that historians one day will look back and say that America has blood on its hands. Three thousand people have died, most of them civilians who couldn’t move quickly. That’s women with small children, older women. A million refugees.
Cohen joins other American experts on Russia – such as former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock – in this assessment.
Cohen also says that if Ukraine joins NATO, it will lead to nuclear war:
[Intervviewer:] The possibility of Ukraine in NATO and what that means and what—STEPHEN COHEN: Nuclear war.[Interviewer:] Explain.STEPHEN COHEN: Next question. I mean, it’s clear. It’s clear. First of all, by NATO’s own rules, Ukraine cannot join NATO, a country that does not control its own territory. In this case, Kiev controls less and less by the day. It’s lost Crimea. It’s losing the Donbas—I just described why—to the war. A country that does not control its own territory cannot join Ukraine [sic]. Those are the rules.[Interviewer:] Cannot join—STEPHEN COHEN: I mean, NATO. Secondly, you have to meet certain economic, political and military criteria to join NATO. Ukraine meets none of them. Thirdly, and most importantly, Ukraine is linked to Russia not only in terms of being Russia’s essential security zone, but it’s linked conjugally, so to speak, intermarriage. There are millions, if not tens of millions, of Russian and Ukrainians married together. Put it in NATO, and you’re going to put a barricade through millions of families. Russia will react militarily.In fact, Russia is already reacting militarily, because look what they’re doing in Wales today. They’re going to create a so-called rapid deployment force of 4,000 fighters. What is 4,000 fighters? Fifteen thousand or less rebels in Ukraine are crushing a 50,000-member Ukrainian army. Four thousand against a million-man Russian army, it’s nonsense. The real reason for creating the so-called rapid deployment force is they say it needs infrastructure. And the infrastructure—that is, in plain language is military bases—need to be on Russia’s borders. And they’ve said where they’re going to put them: in the Baltic republic, Poland and Romania.Now, why is this important? Because NATO has expanded for 20 years, but it’s been primarily a political expansion, bringing these countries of eastern Europe into our sphere of political influence; now it’s becoming a military expansion. So, within a short period of time, we will have a new—well, we have a new Cold War, but here’s the difference. The last Cold War, the military confrontation was in Berlin, far from Russia. Now it will be, if they go ahead with this NATO decision, right plunk on Russia’s borders. Russia will then leave the historic nuclear agreement that Reagan and Gorbachev signed in 1987 to abolish short-range nuclear missiles. It was the first time nuclear—a category of nuclear weapons had ever been abolished. Where are, by the way, the nuclear abolitionists today? Where is the grassroots movement, you know, FREEZE, SANE? Where have these people gone to? Because we’re looking at a new nuclear arms race. Russia moves these intermediate missiles now to protect its own borders, as the West comes toward Russia. And the tripwire for using these weapons is enormous.One other thing. Russia has about, I think, 10,000 tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes called battlefield nuclear weapons. You use these for short distances. They can be fired; you don’t need an airplane or a missile to fly them. They can be fired from artillery. But they’re nuclear. They’re radioactive. They’ve never been used. Russia has about 10,000. We have about 500. Russia’s military doctrine clearly says that if Russia is threatened by overwhelming conventional forces, we will use tactical nuclear weapons. So when Obama boasts, as he has on two occasions, that our conventional weapons are vastly superior to Russia, he’s feeding into this argument by the Russian hawks that we have to get our tactical nuclear weapons ready.
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