WarSclerotic

YouTube Censors Israel Gaza Flotilla Video We Con The World As WeJew.com Provides Hosting.

According to the Israel News Agency, after this past week, no one can say that the Jews control the media. After more than 3 million views on YouTube, the Israel produced satire We Con The World, illustrating the facts and truth of the Pallywood and Turkey staged Gaza Freedom Flotilla, was removed from YouTube. As Iranian ships close in on Israel, the pro Israel, pro democracy video is now being hosted on WeJew.com and MetaCafe.com.

“We must remember that the world stood quietly during the Holocaust as the 6 million walked into gas chambers,” says Leyden. “We will no longer be silenced.”

New York, NY (PRWEB) June 16, 2010 — “After this past week, no one can say that the Jews control the media,” says Joel Leyden, publisher of the Israel News Agency.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad “peace activists” as portrayed in the video ‘We Con The World’

Leyden states that after more than 3 million views on YouTube, the Israel produced satire We Con The World, illustrating the facts and truth of the Pallywood and Turkey staged Gaza Freedom Flotilla, was removed from YouTube.

Israel which suffers from both a lack of budget and PR professionals finally got in the last word with this Web viral marketed video, after the Israel Defense Forces were accused of killing “humanitarian peace activists”. The so-called peace activists were actually caught on video attacking IDF soldiers who came to inspect a vessel for weapons. The IDF, which were carrying paintball guns, were attacked with gunfire, knives, metal poles, chains and metal balls made for slingshots.

“We Con the World,” which was sung to the tune of “We Are the World,” the 1980’s fund-raising song for African poverty and recorded again last year to help the people of Haiti following a devastating earthquake, was removed from YouTube over a copyright claim by Warner / Chappell Music, Inc.

The video was created by Latma, an Israel group that normally produces political satire in Hebrew. A Washington, D.C. think tank, the Center for Security Policy, funded the project.

A link to the video was circulated by the Israel Government Press Office and several Web 2.0 PR professionals through Facebook and Twitter. When the Israel News Agency received the video it had only a few dozen views but within 24 hours the video had blasted off into cyberspace, with over 100,000 views.

Carolyn Glick, a Latma editor and contributor to the Jerusalem Post stated that copyright attorneys had told the group that the use of the song for the parody falls under the Fair Use Doctrine.

Fair Use is a doctrine in US copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship. Transcending this, the use of the We Con the World video was protected by the additional facts that it emerged from a non-profit group – no one was making any money from the distribution of this anti Islamic Jihad Hamas video.

When searching for the video today on YouTube one gets a disclaimer stating: “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Warner/ Chappell Music, Inc.”

Please notice the word “claim”.

Leyden asks: “Are we missing something in this picture? Does this mean that all free speech on YouTube can come tumbling down with a simplistic “claim”. Anyone can make a claim. My cats can make a claim. But to prove the claim is an entirely different matter.”

Leyden, one of the pioneers of the Internet who co-created the first Web site in Israel and was the first to integrate public relations with search engine optimization SEO, says that Israel has been subjected to so many false claims that one would believe that Israel hands out poison candy to Palestinian children and eat Palestinian babies. In fact today, one so called claim stating that a Palestine boy named Al-Dura who was supposed to have been killed by the IDF was actually killed by Palestinians who created a faked death and has been proven as a hoax by a French court. The French government TV channel originally broadcast staged scenes from segments of film that slandered the IDF.

“We in Israel may want to think that the world is changing in a positive manner, becoming more democratic and open to free speech,” says Leyden. “While in fact, a heavy and potent accent of Islamic Jihad is now being illustrated by the creation of electronic Jihad and legal Jihad – holy war against all Jews and Christians. This Jihad is having a devastating effect everywhere – from London and Paris to Turkey and the White House.

“As Iranian ships close in on Israeli waters, attempting to provoke a war, Israel needs to remember what it learned in 1948. Never rely on others. Never take any nation’s or corporate support for granted. Just listen to the prophetic words of the video: “the truth will not find its way to your TV.”

“YouTube, which is owned by Google and was created by Jews, has turned her back to Israel during these days of severe crisis with Islamic Jihad, Turkey and Iran. We can only hope that YouTube learns that it made a mistake and abides by law and not succumbs to “claims” in the future.”

In the meantime, Israel will once again distribute ‘We Con The World’ through other medias such as MetaCafe.com, WeJew.com and JewTube.com.

“The founder of WeJew.com, Shlomo Wolllins, has extensive journalistic experience and media exposure both in Israel and abroad,” Avi Abelow, CEO of WeJew.com told the Israel News Agency.

“From his experiences covering the Sderot terror missile crisis in 2007, and the 2006 Lebanon war on-the-scene as a video journalist and interacting with the global media – it became clear that there was and would be a critical need for an alternative video platform that has a pro-Israel, facts-based editorial policy and approach. The flotilla incident which resulted in perhaps the most pressing PR crisis for Israel in years came as solid reinforcement of this need as YouTube was flooded with anti-semitic videos and comments simply overwhelming any factual or pro-Israel video content.”

Abelow adds: “The banning of the “We Con The World” viral video by YouTube on June 12th, 2010 provided a flashpoint for the Jewish world’s growing perception that we are facing a media onslaught of unprecedented proportions – and the approaching Iranian ships will provide the anti-Israel forces with another unique opportunity to use social media to attack Israel’s right to defense and even right to exist.”

“We must remember that the world stood quietly during the Holocaust as the 6 million walked into gas chambers,” says Leyden. “We will no longer be silenced.”

“It’s not as if a clip that has been seen by 3.5 million viewers is just going to disappear,” said Glick.
“We see a double standard here, ours is the only one that has been attacked. If anybody thinks that this is going to intimidate us, then they’re sorely mistaken,” she said.

Time for another reassessment.

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Photo by: AP

By ARYE ELDAD
06/15/2010 23:36

In light of the recent NPT Review Conference results, Israel should rethink the value of all US promises, regardless of how or where they were made

The term “reassessment” entered the diplomatic discourse between Israel and the United States in 1975. Secretary of state Henry Kissinger sought to pressure prime minister Yitzhak Rabin into an “interim agreement” with Egypt, by which IDF forces would withdraw from the Yom Kippur War cease-fire lines to the Mitla and Gidi passes in Sinai. Kissinger froze US arms shipments and hinted that more drastic measures would follow. Rabin was unfazed and took his case to the Senate. President Gerald Ford and Kissinger relented.

Even at the height of that crisis, the US did not dare to endanger the heart of its strategic understanding with Israel: its ambiguous nuclear policy. President Lyndon Johnson and prime minister Golda Meir set the policy in 1969 that has been followed by all the presidents and prime ministers since. This policy has often been articulated in written agreements between them, but occasionally simply by mutual understanding.

“Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East,” said prime ministers Levi Eshkol and Shimon Peres, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, and all who followed. US presidents have come and gone; sometimes they had questions, sometimes they asked for clarifications, but ultimately they all accepted the formula and agreed to abide by it. Until Barack Obama.

After his election, Obama promised Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to maintain the ambiguity. Two weeks ago he betrayed that promise.

On May 28, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, which meets once every five years, called unanimously – with America’s support – for Israel to sign the treaty and open its nuclear installations to external supervision. Israel is not a signatory to the treaty; Iran is a signatory, yet Iran is rushing toward production of nuclear weapons. Syria and Libya are signatories, but their signatures have not prevented them from building uranium enrichment plants for military purposes.

North Korea built a bomb and tests nuclear weapons, mocking the entire world supposedly opposed to it. Pakistani scientists, led by the “father of the Pakistan’s nuclear bomb” Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold nuclear secrets and technology necessary for the building of nuclear weapons to Iran, Syria, Libya and possibly North Korea. In the face of this burgeoning industry, the US gave in to an Egyptian initiative and agreed to single out Israel as the country the world should be worried about. Israel alone was mentioned in the NPT Review Committee’s report. Apparently only its installations need to be examined.

THE TIME has come for a reassessment of US-Israeli relations. Israel may want the billions of dollars it receives in military aid from the US, and in the event of a long war, it may need the US munitions reserves currently stored here and resupply lines for the IDF; the US market is also of great importance for the economy; and US intervention often limits our international isolation. But the fact is, we can no longer rely on US support.

We must reassess the value of all American promises, whether they be in writing, made ceremoniously at public festivities or whispered privately in a room of the White House. He who, without batting an eyelash, betrayed us on the nuclear issue, a matter whose existential importance to the Jewish state is obvious given the Iranian dash for a bomb, will not hesitate to deny other commitments.

Obama is currently pressuring Israel to accept dictates that would lead to a Palestinian state in the heart of its country. In return, he offers to guarantee our security, preserve our technological advantage and ensure the Palestinian state will be demilitarized. Why would anyone be willing to take existential risks while relying on the commitment of an American president who has betrayed and denied the commitments of his predecessors and forgotten even his own?

One might think that as our military and political situation worsens, our ability to maneuver opposite the US decreases. But with our back to the wall and knowing full well that we have no one to rely on, we can turn this lack of maneuverability into resoluteness and the dearth of options into strength. When doubts are resolved, fortitude may emerge. The knowledge that American promises are without value is of itself quite valuable. Even a pauper will not agree to give the little he has in exchange for a guarantee openly declared to be worthless.

Obama is no more frightening than Ford. Hillary Clinton dislikes us no more than Kissinger did. The sea we are threatened with being thrown into is the same sea. The Arabs are the same Arabs. But the wall our backs are up against is much closer and more dangerous. The depth of Obama’s betrayal must be made known to the American public today. As the November elections approach in the United States, Netanyahu has the opportunity to replicate Rabin’s achievement of 1975.

The writer is a National Union MK.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: IDF Sinai Terrorists

Mt. Harif, a desolate MidEast flashpoint

A band of armed terrorists carrying explosive devices was intercepted by an Israeli border patrol as it crossed the Egyptian border of Sinai opposite the Israeli Negev desert town of Mitzpe Ramon early Wednesday, June 16, debkafile‘s military sources report. One of the intruders was killed in the firefight, the rest fled back to the Egyptian side of the border, some of them apparently wounded.
The assailants were challenged and put to flight at their crossing point near Mt. Harif, 139 kilometers northwest of Eilat and opposite Mitzpe Ramon, indicating this Israeli town or the military facilities in the vicinity were their destination.  The arms and explosive devices left by the fugitives pointed to a plan to split up for a multiple operation against several targets in southern Israel.
debkafile‘s military sources add that the investigation will try and determine whether the terrorists were Palestinians from Hamas-ruled Gaza or al Qaeda cells which Egyptian forces are battling in Sinai. Egypt and Israel work together to purge their long desert border of terrorist activity.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Gaza blockade Hamas missiles Yuval Diskin

Shin Beit Director Yuval Diskin

debkafile‘s military sources report: The Shin Beit (internal security) director Yuval Diskin sternly warned Tuesday, June 15, that the steps embarked on by prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak to ease the blockade on Gaza gravely imperiled Israel’s security.
He raised the alarm at the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee after not a single security cabinet minister, including retired generals, had raised a hand to halt those steps.
Diskin said a “gigantic security breach” would open up for Israel if the Israeli Navy were forced to leave inspections of Gaza-bound freighters to international monitors or foreign ports.

He delivered his briefing the day after the prime minister and defense minister decided to allow international teams to inspect cargoes bound for Gaza on the high seas or in Greek or Cypriot ports (as debkafile disclosed Monday, June 14) . It was clear from Diskin’s words, that foreign inspections could not be relied upon to detect weapons or strategic materials in the ships’ holds – as abundantly proven in Lebanon, where in four years, international monitors and peacekeepers have had not the slightest effect in diminishing arms smuggling to Hizballah by land and sea.

Now the Israeli government was letting itself be squeezed into letting world powers, spearheaded by the European Union and Turkey and cheered on from Washington, grant Hamas the same indulgence they give Hizballah and its Syrian and Iranian munitions suppliers.
The Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas ruling the Gaza makes no bones about continuing its implacable war against Israel. The Shin Bet chief noted that Hamas and Jihad Islami continue to pile up missiles and rockets with no other target than their Israeli neighbor. The have 5,000 in stock – many homemade (from raw materials smuggled through tunnels). Most have a range of 40 kilometers, which is enough to menace the towns and villages of southern Israel, with a few capable of reaching the Tel Aviv region.
debkafile‘s military sources identify the long-range missiles as Iranian Fajr-5.
Their strategists still promote suicide killings as a method of war against Israel, said Diskin, although Hamas often relegates such attacks to its smaller allies.

The alarm raised by the Shin Bet chief reflects the extreme disquiet spreading through Israeli military and strategic circles over what they see as a prime minister and defense minister letting themselves be pushed around and guided in their decisions by an overwhelming urge to please the Americans and Europeans at the expense of concern for the fundamentals of Israel’s security and its defense forces’ capabilities.
debkafile quotes members of these circles as warning that Israel is falling back on its national goals – even those promoted public by Netanyahu himself – with no sign of the enemy in Gaza relenting by an iota on its designs. For instance –

1. The prime minister insists he is safeguarding the IDF’s freedom of action, whereas he is doing the very opposite: By giving up the siege of Gaza, he is depriving the Navy of its operational leeway and curtailing the IDF’s freedom to defend the South against attacks mounted from Gaza. Once this Palestinian enclave is rebuilt with outside help, Israel will have lost the option of proactive deterrence against terrorist attack.
2. Netanyahu has vowed an Iranian port must never be established in Gaza, whereas what he is doing is relinquishing Israel’s ability to prevent Iranian and Turkish ships from docking there.

(As a life-long Democrat and a professional Bush hater, I hereby declare that I wish Bush were President today rather than Obama.  I worked to get Obama to run for office.  As the aphorism goes, “The road to hell…etc.”)

Bush Compares Obama To Nazi Appeasers.

President Bush has said repeatedly that he would not insert himself into the presidential race, but that stance changed dramatically today during his trip to Israel. After likening Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Osama bin Laden, Bush compared Barack Obama to Nazi appeasers:

Our World: Hamas rises in the West.

Photo by: Associated Press

By CAROLINE GLICK
06/15/2010 06:34

By backing the terrorist group against Israel, western countries are backing Hamas against Fatah and Islamist states against ME moderates.

To Neo-Ottomanism through Terrorism – Comments – Panorama | Armenian news.

From early June and especially in the past days Turkey is much spoken about in international media and, specifically, Western press. Though it is the result of international political processes passivity due to summer season, nevertheless, in all cases the main factor of intensive discussions is the activity of Turkish authorities.

The Tagesspiegel German newspaper in its review briefed the situation and the questions in that aspect: “A crisis in the relations with Israel, voting against the UN Resolution on Iran as well as a decision to create a free trade zone with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan which is perceived as the core of the Middle East Union considered to be an alternative to the European Union: is Turkey separated from the West?”

We will mention at once that the very newspaper in its review touching upon Turkey’s foreign policy and the situation formed in the region concludes: “In the years of cold war Ankara was a loyal ally to NATO on the south-eastern front. Turkey pursues its own purposes today. Nevertheless, Turkey’s being number one country in the region is in Europe’s and U.S’ interests.
The Western political figures have formed vacuum, specifically, with the Iraqi war and U.S. mediatory efforts’ obviously pro-Israeli orientation in the Middle East conflict. Egypt and Bay’s oil countries are very weak politically to fill up that gap. And not only the West but just most of the regional countries are scared of Iran having a monopoly position. Only Turkey remains. It is the very geostrategic possibility that Erdogan’s government tries to hold with both hands. The West and the East should submit to it.”

In principle, this review covers all points about the essence of the past day events. However, it needs to be rendered in detail. We will start from the incident on Freedom Flotilla.

One might think that everything possible has been said on the subject already. However, it is not so since emotional responses cut off from reality keep on so far. To save time we offer our readers reading renowned Russian publicist Yulia Latinina’s article under the title “PR-Terrorism.”

The author analysing the incident draws attention to a number of circumstances. In spite of assertions that the flotilla was carrying foodstuffs to Gaza as humanitarian aid, it was found out that it was carrying cement and armature. And, most importantly, persons represented by the Turkish authorities and propaganda as peaceful law defenders replied to Israeli servicemen’s orders with shouts – “Get Away To Your Oswiecim!” and “Remember Haibar, Oh, Jews, the army of Muhammad will return!” (Haibar is the place where Mohammedans killed the Jews).

However, another circumstance throws light on the Turkish provocation. We present that fragment of article author’s observations completely, by keeping the style:

“Let’s analyse the flotilla composition. Six vessels carrying 10 thousand tons of cargo (as much as one vessel can carry).

Question: why do six vessels carry 10 thousand tons of cargo, especially cement?
An answer to the question can be found by casting a glance on the flotilla flagman, Navi Marmara. It is not a cargo vessel, but a yacht intended for 1080 passengers who would eat more than were able to carry. And who traveled by that vessel? 700 human rights activists – minus 100 well-prepared storm troopers disguised among them.
The very fact – yacht, 100, 600 idiots, gives us a key for conclusion. What had been planned? A massacre.
We repeat: 600 helpful idiots (foolish kafirs only good for burning or Mohammedans who, inshallah, will become shahids) and 100 excellently-prepared storm troopers who did not intend to be killed. They wore bullet-proof vests, night glasses, communication means – everything they needed to stay alive. A common storm trooper takes a sub-machine-gun but no bullet-proof vest with him. These were strange storm troopers: they had a bullet-proof vest but no sub-machine-gun.

The matter is clear: an Israeli soldier goes down to the deck, it is night, one hundred persons armed with knives and armatures attack him, and there are another seven hundred nearby. Their goal was Israeli soldiers’ opening fire at all of the seven hundred. Not killing but provoking a massacre was most important.

The organizers were mistaken in a single issue: they had decided that the helicopter attached to the vessel and the soldier stabbed in his side would open irregular fire. However, it came so that the fourth person going down to the deck, sergeant S., noticed that all his commanders who were the first to go down were injured or taken hostages. At that moment he did not start firing irregularly, neither he shouted “kill everybody!” but took up the command.

Many say that the Israeli defense army failed this operation and did not manage to do something in a well-organized way. I think the army performed this operation excellently, thanks to its soldier training system. It is that well-preparedness and training that helped the sergeant going down to a blood-stained deck, without commanders, armed with a pistol only, facing 600 sheep and 100 terrorists to keep his head and not to start firing.
Navi Marmara was needed for organizing a massacre, with hundreds of provokers hidden behind hundreds of targets.”

In essence, no counter-argument can be brought to the above mentioned. Therefore we can consider it proved that Freedom Flotilla that was heading for Gaza by Turkish authorities’ order and got support by the Turkish state – from the President up to the last official, for further PR and propaganda, had professional storm troopers aiming at provoking a massacre.

As we have already reported, the action was organized by the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief of Turkey. This structure, which, according to some information, was established on the initiative and with the assistance of Turkish state in the early 90s, provided storm troopers to Bosnia, Chechnia, Pelestine, Africa and other hot spots. Therefore we can have no doubt that the very structure recruited professionals for the “peaceful action.” In any case, according to Israeli Foreign Ministry report, there were hireling terrorists not only from Turkey but also from Lebanon, Syria, Sudan and other Mohammedan countries among those arrested.

In its turn, it is evidence that Turkey carries out terrorist activity at state level to serve the political interests.

Let us return to the incident. It is beyond any doubt that Turkey took an excellent advantage of the incident, irrespective of its outcome, to ensure serious progress in taking up leadership in the Islamic world. Excessive indignation of Turkey in the public sphere perceptible for mass consciousness and almost for the same reason the inert position of Western countries and bureaucratized international structures helped Ankara gain all necessary dividends from this incident.

To fortify and increase its achievements official Ankara took already the next opportunity – the situation over the Iranian nuclear problem…

The American Spectator : Cuba 1962 and Iran 2010: Will There Be a Mideast Nuclear Castro?.

By John C. Wohlstetter on 6.15.10 @ 6:08AM

In the euphoria the Obama administration feels upon attaining final agreement with Russia on the New START Treaty, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of how American and Russian strategic arms reductions have set an example for others to follow. Yet shortly after that announcement, Iran aired one of its own: The regime plans to build additional nuclear plants. Our latest national intelligence adjustment anticipates that with “sufficient foreign assistance” Iran could field an ICBM by 2015. Iran’s rocketry program is quite sophisticated, and the regime may not even need assistance. Finally, a UN report concludes that Iran already has enough enriched uranium to make two atomic bombs. Iran it seems, is responding to the example we have set by running all nuclear engines full speed ahead.

Team Obama has jettisoned sanctions against Iran that would prevent the regime, a crude oil producer with a shortage of refinery capacity, from importing refined oil, as part of American concessions to win passage of a fourth weak UN sanctions resolution. In testimony to Congress, Secretary of State Clinton likened the confrontation with Iran to diplomacy during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis:

[We] are engaged in very intensive diplomacy. My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it’s exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy. It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons. That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I’m engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran.

As to high stakes, Secretary Clinton has a point indeed. But her analogy applies beyond diplomacy. Other factors played a huge role in 1962, and bid fair to play an even bigger role in possible future confrontations in a nuclear Mideast. Specifically, consider four: (1) vulnerability to nuclear first-strike; (2) short warning times; (3) lack of communication channels; (4) lack of leader impulse control.

Vulnerability to Nuclear First-Strike. In the 1950s and early 1960s the two superpowers faced each other with strategic forces that were primarily above ground and small in number. As Peter Huessy, president of the defense consulting firm GeoStrategic Analysis notes, Iran’s nuclear forces may not be readily identifiable as such; conversely the Gulf States, lacking nuclear missile capability, must use readily identifiable aircraft as their delivery systems, making them vulnerable to a nuclear first-strike. Given far fewer military installations and few cities with populations above 100,000 in tiny countries of the Gulf (plus Israel), countries could face, if not national extinction, devastation beyond recovery if caught in a surprise salvo of Hiroshima-size bombs.

Short Warning Times. A Russian ICBM launched from the Ural Mountains will travel the roughly 6,000 miles to America’s Atlantic coast in about thirty minutes. With flight distances between potential targets in the Mideast often less than 1,000 miles, a high-speed jet can cover the distance in little more time than an ICBM can traverse oceans. Factor in missiles that fly several times the speed of sound. While far slower than ICBMs hurtling through space at twenty times the speed of sound, they are fast enough over short ranges; in some cases times from launch to impact will be less than ten minutes. Also, Iran’s solid-fuel models can be rapidly launched.

Lack of Communication Channels. Start with numbers. Between Washington and Moscow the only functioning channel was commercial telegraphy in 1962. Imagine a Mideast with a nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey and Egypt and Israel. With six nations there are 64 possible two-way interactions, with all the attendant prospects for misunderstandings during a crisis. Israel has used hot-line telephonic communications with adversaries, including the Palestinians, with mixed results. If with a single channel results are mixed, how will the result be with many diplomatic channels, and hours — perhaps minutes — to Mideast Armageddon? Add in that these countries do not trust each other, making communication problematic at best. Assurance that a single unintended missile launch was in fact accidental may easily fail to convince a nervous target.

Leader Impulse Control. Which brings us to perhaps the most important personality of the 1962 crisis, one whose impulse control was, to put it charitably, weak: Fidel Castro, flush with his improbable revolutionary triumph and seething with rage at the United States, partly borne of ideological Marxist fervor and partly due to the efforts of the Kennedy administration to get rid of him. Fidel wanted the Russians to incinerate the United States and was willing, even eager, to sacrifice his six million subjects in a nuclear holocaust.

It is today’s Islamic Castro who should worry us the most. Religious messianism and secular militarism can be as lethal as romantic revolutionary fervor. Compound this with several new Mideast nuclear powers and the recipe for accidental nuclear war is cooking in the regional pot. Fidel’s reckless abandon may well be the future augury of nuclear wars to come. It should be noted that although Israel has been a nuclear power (albeit undeclared) for over forty years, its status has not ignited a Mideast arms race. And when Israel took out Iran-backed Syria’s North Korea-supplied nuclear plant in September 2007, the silence in the Mideast was deafening.

A Mideast arms race can rapidly be ignited if Iran crosses the nuclear weapons threshold. The Gulf States will not start a 25-year development program. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar can simply call Pakistan and ask how many atomic bombs the Pakistanis will part with for how many petrodollars. With dozens of nuclear weapons plus in-place weapons production capability, cash-strapped Pakistan can easily afford to sell part of its arsenal or make A-bombs to order. The current Pakistani government might decline, but this could change should a militant Islamic government seize power.

The advanced jets that the Gulf States purchased from the United States can carry nuclear bombs. Then parties would be armed fully, without the extended learning curve that enabled America and the former Soviet Union to learn how to safeguard their weapons from accidental or unauthorized use, and to base forces securely protected from surprise attack. In the face of an apparent surprise attack indicator — which could be a flock of geese on a radar screen — countries with a “use or lose” launch alert posture (known in the strategic community as “launch on warning”) could feel compelled to launch. Even a small-scale attack can extinguish tiny states, unlike the United States and Russia, whose huge territories and vast, dispersed populations make only a large-area attack capable of ending national life.

Put simply, an arms race in the Mideast will be a collection of nuclear accidents waiting for places to happen. Just as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was then the lesser danger, so today Russia’s leaders, though dangerous adversaries, pose less of an immediate nuclear first-strike threat than do Iran’s leaders. The 21st century Castro most likely to unleash a nuclear war likely lives in the Mideast, not Moscow. Setting an example by reducing our nuclear arsenal further than the vast reductions we have already made will only embolden the world’s most dangerous leaders.

Mention should also be made of Iran’s other delivery mode: terror proxy Hezbollah. Hezbollah has implanted several dozen terror cells within the United States. The group was nicknamed by Colin Powell’s State Department deputy, Richard Armitage, “terrorism’s A-Team” — this coming after 9/11. If Iran gives Hezbollah nukes to set off in one or more American cities, tracing the devices definitively back to Iran could prove beyond the current state of nuclear forensics.

Nuclear crises arise suddenly, take novel forms and impose immense stress on leaders, with little margin for error. With survival at stake, the temptation to strike first could well prove irresistible. The result would be global catastrophe.

Netanyahu: ‘Dark Days Ahead’ – Inside Israel – CBN News – Christian News 24-7 – CBN.com.

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said difficult days lie ahead for the Jewish state.

“Dark forces from the Middle Ages are raging against us,” Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting on Monday.

“The [Turkish-led] Gaza flotilla was not a one-time thing. We find ourselves in the midst of a difficult and continuous battle against the State of Israel. The flood is being led by Israel’s enemies all over the world,” he said, people who are trying “to revoke Israel’s right to defend itself, as well as the rights of IDF soldiers to protect their own lives.”

According to Hamas, new flotilla initiatives are underway in Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, Britain, Germany, Norway, and Turkey. They’re anticipating at least 10 more flotillas between now and October.

By the weekend, two more flotillas may attempt to break the Gaza naval blockade.

Iran is sending two ships this week. The first, which set sail on Monday, will make a stop in Istanbul, and the second will sail directly from Iran to Gaza.

“The ship is named “Toward Gaza” and will be dispatched to the region from [the Iranian port city of] Bandar Abbas [in the south],” Deputy Chief of the Iranian Society for Defending Palestinian Rights Mohammad Ali Nourani told the Fars News Agency on Monday.

“They [Israel] will confiscate our ship or martyr our people at most. Otherwise, the ship will reach Gaza safely and the humanitarian aid will be delivered to the people there. Either way, we will be the winner,” Nourani said.

On Monday, Egypt approved the entry of Iranian parliamentarians into Gaza.

Yasser Kashlak, head of the Lebanese-based Free Palestine Movement, said the two-vessel flotilla he is organizing is not connected to any terrorist group.

“There is no connection between my boats and Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran,” Kashlak said. “Israel’s threat to use force against the two vessels will not prevent us from achieving our legitimate goal, which is to break the savage Israeli blockade on Gaza,” he said.

“Israel’s claim that the two vessels belong to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas is a cheap attempt to distort the facts and is merely an excuse to attack the boats and kill the activists on board,” Kashlak said.

At a press conference 10 days ago in Beirut, the Free Palestine Movement and Reporters without Borders called on “anyone who sees himself as a free man” to sail with them on the Naji el-Ali “to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.”

“The ship will leave the Beirut coast on the weekend with 50 journalists and 25 European activists aboard…and several European parliament members,” a spokesman for Reporters without Borders said.

The second vessel, the Miryam, is said to be carrying medicines and humanitarian aid.

Meanwhile, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday morning that “a port in Gaza would pose a major security threat to Israel.”

“There is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip,” Diskin said. The problem is not “a loosening of trade restrictions from Israel to Gaza,” he said. “The smuggling that endangers Israeli security is coming from the [arms smuggling] tunnels in the Sinai,” Diskin said.

The Shin Bet chief said Hamas and Islamic Jihad have accrued about 5,000 medium-range rockets, some of which can reach Tel Aviv.

Iran’s threats & Arab states’ al-taqiyya stances .

Iran annually spends billions of dollars on its both armed proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza

By Elias Bejjani Sunday, June 13, 2010

In spite of the actual odious Iranian military, religious, economic, territorial, cultural and existential threats, and the ongoing abhorrent internal interferences in their domestic affairs on all levels and domains, the rulers and officials of the majority of the Arab states that Iran is aggressively and openly targeting in its evil contrivance of expansionism, denominational and hegemony schemes, are in general not yet publicly and officially addressing these serious, fatal Iranian problems or dealing with them appropriately.

Sadly, like the ostrich, these rulers and officials have been hiding their heads in the sand, consciously denying the seriousness of the imminent Iranian danger, and scared to unveil courageously the vicious Iranian plot that aims to destabilize, disintegrate and topple their regimes in a bid to erect on its ruins the Persian Empire.

Because of fear of confrontation they have been handling the problem in a double standard and taqiyya* (dissimulation) mentality. Their overt stances are exactly the opposite of the covert ones. Overtly they cajole and appease the Iranian mullahs and officials while covertly they appeal to the Western countries and beg them to protect their regimes and to attack Iran militarily and topple its mullahs’ regime as was the situation with Iraq’s Saddam regime.

Meanwhile, Iran’s intelligence and its notorious Revolutionary Guards have successfully infiltrated many fragile and poor communities in numerous Arab states, recruited from them sleeping terrorist cells, and armed militias. They bought through bribery and fanaticism high standing Arab officials, politicians, political parties, clergy, and fully controlled tens of educational, health, and social services.

Iran annually spends billions of dollars on its both armed proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza, and on many other terrorist and fundamental armed organizations in Yemen, Iraq and other Arab states. Iran and Syria openly encourage, instigate, fund, guide, train, and organize and use all the terrorist groups in the Middle East that advocate for havoc, jihad, intolerance, sectarianism and hatred.

Iran alleges that all the Arabian Gulf countries are Persian and not Arabic, and occupies since 1971 three Islands in the Arabian Gulf that belong to the Arab Emirates (Abu Musa, Tunb, and Lesser Tunb). Recently, sleeping Iranian intelligence and terrorist cells were uncovered and arrested in Kuwait, as well as in Bahrain, Iraq, Egypt, and Yemen.

Iran through its two armed proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, controls both Lebanon and Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Iranian army in Lebanon, has grown to become not only a threat to Lebanon, but also to the peace, stability and order in the whole Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran is blatantly interfering in Iraqi internal affairs and badly destabilizing its peace and democracy.

Despite all these obvious Iranian threats, plots, and dangers, the majority of Arab rulers and officials are still keeping a blind eye on the whole fiasco and hold on to al-taqiyya attitudes and stances.

In this context of the Arabic dissimulation not even one Arab country openly and officially supported UN Resolution 1929 that was issued on June 09/10 by the UN Security Council against Iran over its nuclear program. On the country, some of them either attacked the resolution or claimed that such an approach was not appropriate.

Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Ahmed Aboul Gheit instead of hailing UN Resolution 1929 and extending Egypt’s utmost gratitude to the countries that voted to pass it, rhetorically claimed that sanctions should not be the only option to deal with the Iranian nuclear case and that sanctions did not serve the peaceful means for solving the crisis with Iran. According to him, previous sanctions against Iran have always led to more tensions and more confrontations. Aboul Gheit stressed the importance of continuing diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution for Iran’s nuclear crisis.

This blurred and lukewarm Egyptian stance is harmful for both Egypt and the Middle East countries who look on Egypt, the biggest Arab country, as a leading power that is expected to face bravely Iran’s schemes, take clear stances against its nuclear ambitions and help deter its interferences and violence that lately targeted and hit Egypt itself through a Hezbollah terrorist cell. What is ironic here is that most observers are under the impression that covertly Egypt supports the sanctions and encourages the Western countries to attack Iran militarily, while overtly do and say the opposite.

Saudi Arabia, the richest and most influential Arab country, is also resorting to dissimulation in regard to Iran. According to a report The Times newspaper published on June 12/10, Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defenses to allow Israeli jets to use its airspace in a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” a U.S. defense source in the area told the paper. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the (U.S.) State Department.” Israel, which regards Iran as its principal threat, has refused to rule out using military action to prevent Tehran developing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed solely at power generation.

The Times said Riyadh, which views Iran as a regional threat, had agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance in the event of any bombing raid on Iran. A source in Saudi Arabia said the arrangement was common knowledge within defense circles in the kingdom. “We all know this. “We will let them (the Israelis) through and see nothing,” the source told The Times. (AFP). Sadly, the Saudis immediately stated that the report is fake and fabricated instead of saying loudly, yes we will help in deterring Iran and in curbing its worldwide threats. Again this dissimulated lukewarm Saudi stance is harmful for the Saudis themselves and for all the Arab countries.

There are no justifications whatsoever for the two biggest, most powerful and influential Arab countries, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not taking loud, courageous and clear cut stances against Iran’s expansionism, hegemony, sickening plots and ambitions. The painful reality that these leaders should not ignore under any given circumstances lies in the solid fact that all the Arab countries and not only Israel will be Iran’s main targets.

The more the Arab leaders procrastinate, hesitate, depend on other powers to protect them, turn their heads to the other side or put them in the sand and keep on handling the actual Iranian threats with double standard, fear and taqiyya stances, the more  Iran is going to become blatant, violent and aggressive.

If the Arab states really want to safeguard their people, sovereignty, riches, stability, peace, independence and prosperity they ought to take  definite stances against Iran and join all the other regional and world powers who are adamant to contain Iran’s recklessness, pull out its teeth of harm and to curb all its unjustified military ambitions.

Arab countries need to wake up, stop resorting to taqiyya stances, and smarten up so that they could differentiate their real friends from their enemies. Iran definitely is not among their friends.

NB: *“Taqiyya” literally means: “Concealing or disguising one’s beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of eminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury.” A one-word translation would be “Dissimulation.”