WarSclerotic

Israel on Cyber Warpath as Iran Races for Nukes – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IDF computer operations room

Israel news photo: Flash 90

The Israeli Air Force is pioneering new methods in cyber war for gathering intelligence as Iran races ahead towards nuclear capability.

We must pioneer in taking on these new methods,” IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nechushtan said on a recent army conference on the use of cyber warfare in IAF missions.

He made no reference to Iran, where one of its nuclear plants was disabled last year by a Stuxnet virus that is suspected of having originated in Israel.  However, successful cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities could help cripple the country’s nuclear ambitions and preclude the need of a military attack, which most observers think will be difficult if not impossible to succeed without engulfing the Middle East or even the world in a deadly war.

Concerning intelligence gathering capabilities through cyber warfare, Commander Nechushtan said, “I cannot further elaborate. Some things are better left to the imagination.

“This is a new intelligence language and we are quickly learning how to incorporate it as part of traditional intelligence gathering methods.”

Air Force intelligence personnel at the conference explained that many operational events would not take place without network use. Most of the topics discussed at the conference are classified.

Maj. Gen. Nechushtan said, “The IAF has been a computerized, high-tech power for years, and this will remain true as we incorporate these new fronts. We must see how this new field consolidates with the air force’s missions.”

Syria army clashes with defectors near Damascus – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Activists says dozens of tanks, armored vehicles reinforce troops loyal to Assad in suburbs. Arab League seeks UN support for latest plan to end crisis

Associated Press

The Syrian military launched an offensive to regain control of suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus Sunday, storming neighborhoods and clashing with groups of army defectors in fierce fighting that sent residents fleeing and killed at least three civilians, activists said.

Six soldiers were also killed when a roadside bomb detonated near the bus they were traveling in several miles south of the capital.

Activists said government forces dispatched dozens of tanks and armored vehicles to reinforce troops in a belt of suburbs and villages on the eastern outskirts of Damascus where armed defectors have grown increasingly bold, staking out positions and setting up checkpoints in recent days.

The area on Saturday witnessed some of the most intense fighting yet so close to the capital as President Bashar Assad‘s regime scrambles to try to uproot protesters and dissident soldiers who have joined the opposition.

The 10-month uprising against President Assad, which began with largely peaceful demonstrations, has become increasingly militarized recently as more frustrated protesters and army defectors have taken up arms against the regime.

The assault on the suburbs seemed to be a sign of the growing presence of dissident soldiers closer to Damascus, and the regime’s rising concern about the situation. Although the tightly controlled capital has been relatively quiet since the uprising began, its outskirts have witnessed intense anti-regime protests and army defectors have become more visible and active in the past few months.

The military has responded with a withering assault on a string of Damascus suburbs in a bid to stamp out the resistance, leading to a spike in violence has killed nearly 100 people since Thursday.

The rising bloodshed has added urgency to new attempts by Arab and Western countries to find a resolution to the violence, which according to the United Nations has killed at least 5,400 people as Mr. Assad seeks to crush persistent protests demanding an end to his rule.

The UN is holding talks on a new resolution on Syriaand next week will discuss an Arab League peace plan aimed at ending the crisis. But the initiatives face two major obstacles: Damascus’s rejection of an Arab plan that it says impinges on its sovereignty, and Russia’s willingness to use its UN Security Council veto to protect Syria from sanctions.

Anti-Assad rally (Photo: Reuters)

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told reporters in Egypt on Sunday that contacts were under way with China and Russia.

“I hope that their stand will be adjusted in line with the final drafting of the draft resolution,” he told reporters at Cairo airport before leaving for New York with Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim.

The two will seek UN support for the latest Arab plan to end Syria’s crisis. The plans calls for a two-month transition to a unity government, with Mr. Assad giving his vice president full powers to work with the proposed government.

The Arab League announced Saturday it was halting the work of its observer mission in Syria immediately because of the increasing violence, until the league’s council can meet to decide the mission’s fate. Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in Cairo to discuss the Syrian crisis in light of the suspension of the observers’ work and Damascus’s refusal to agree to the transition timetable, the league said.

Mr. Elaraby said the observers won’t leave Damascus, pending a decision on the mission’s fate.

While the international community scrambles to find a resolution to the crisis, the violence on the ground in Syria has continued. On Sunday, activists said three civilians including a 16-year-old died in fierce fighting in the suburb of Kfar Batna. There was heavy shelling there and in the nearby suburbs of Saqba and Arbeen, they said.

“Troops this morning stormed Kfar Batna, Hammouriyeh and Ein Tarma,” said an activist who identified himself as Mohammad Doumani, based in the Damascus suburb of Douma. “It looks like the regime has launched an operation to regain control of those areas.”

Mr. Doumani said dozens of families were fleeing Ein Tarma and nearby areas, headed to Damascus. Amateur videos posted on the Internet showed residents, including women and children, fleeing on foot carrying bags stuffed with belongings as the crackle of gunfire resonated in the background.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed in Kfar Batna as well as an army defector near the Damascus suburb of Zabadani. It said one person was killed in the central city of Homs, and another in the capital, when troops fired on a funeral procession for a victim of Saturday’s’ fighting.

The Local Coordination Committees activist network said 13 people were killed on Sunday.

Syria’s state-run news agency said “terrorists” detonated a roadside bomb by remote control near a bus carrying soldiers in the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya, killing six soldiers and wounding six others.

Among those killed in the attack some 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of the capital were two first lieutenants, SANA said.

Ahmadinejad: West implanted Isra… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Iranian president accuses world powers of meddling in region as UN inspectors arrive to check military aspects of nuclear program; Tehran warns EU oil embargo could cause crude prices to rise to $150 a barrel. Photo by: REUTERS By JPOST.COM STAFF AND REUTERS 29/01/2012

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report January 29, 2012, 12:53 PM (GMT+02:00)

USS Ponce – future SEALs Persian Gulf platform

A hurried decision not to de-commission the USS Ponce helicopter marine carrier after duty in Libya – but to refit it for deployment by May in the Persian Gulf as a floating base for commando teams – was confirmed by the US Pentagon and Navy Sunday, Dec. 29. This transportable floating base will expand the commandos’ range in coastal areas, support counter-measure against mines which Iran has threatened to plant in the Strait of Hormuz in reprisal for the US-EU oil embargo. The SEALs will also take on Iran’s menacing fleet of military speedboats. debkafile reports Tehran operates four different kinds of these craft in the Persian Gulf:
1. Small, fast vessels, each armed with a small missile for striking tankers and coastal oil targets around the Gulf region, such as export terminals. Earlier this month, Tehran claimed to have developed stealth cruise missiles capable of disabling aircraft carriers with a single shot.
2. Small, extra-fast boats armed with torpedoes. Iranian publications claim several such boats are capable of stealing up on US aircraft carriers and large warships from several directions without being detected and cause serious damage.
3. Floating bombs for kamikaze missions. These fast boats cannot be deflected after locking in on target, whether on sea or shore, and explode on contact.
Iran used these floating missiles piloted by suicide squads to attack oil tankers in the Gulf in November 1987. Since then, their naval tacticians have upgraded this fleet with the technology gained from the British Bladerunner 51, a model of which Iran purchased some years ago.
Since early January, the Pentagon has reported four cases harassment by Iranian military boats sailing close to American warships in the Persian Gulf.
4. Boats carrying teams of Iranian marine frogmen trained for secret suicide underwater missions: One member of the boat’s three-man crew dives close to the targeted ship and attaches a magnetic bomb to its hull.
Iran has scattered hundreds of speedboats of different types around uninhabited islands off the Iranian mainland, tucking them out of sight in well-hidden inlets and bays. The US commando teams based on the Ponce platform will have the task of ferreting out and destroying this fleet.
The US Defense Department aims to get the Ponce ready for its new mission as a floating commando base with all possible speed. To save time, the US military published one no-bid contract for the engineering work, waiving normal procurement rules on the grounds that any delay presented a “national security risk.”
The contract carries pointers to the timeline expected in Washington for a military confrontation to erupt between the United States and Iran, as well as the form it may take, say debkafile‘s military sources.
The target date for deploying the commando platform in the Persian Gulf in four or five months indicates Washington is preparing for military clashes to blow up with Iran in the late spring or early summer.
But according to debkafile‘s Iranian and military sources, the Iranian administration has expressed its determination to respond instantly to any diplomatic or military move or action of an offensive nature against the Islamic Republic. And so confrontation may come earlier than anticipated.
Sunday, the Iranian parliament was due to vote on a motion to cut off oil supplies to Europe in response to the EU embargo declared last week. Tehran has made it clear it has no intention of standing idle until US and European oil sanctions go fully into effect on July 1 and is fully aware that EU nations are not set up to forego 400,000 barrels of oil a day right now.
Saudi Arabia, which pledged to make up the shortfall arising from oil sanctions against Iran, will not have the missing quantities on stream until around May – at about the same time as the Ponce and its complement of SEAL commandoes are due to take up position in the Persian Gulf. Tehran may decide not to wait until then and opt for letting its speedboats loose to try and pre-empt American and European plans.

A Cold War Hot Victory: The Meaning of Assad’s Fall – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

The writer affords us convincing and compelling reasons to pray even harder for Assad’s fall at the hands of Saudi supported rebels. Whether Syria democratizes or not is secondary to what is analyzed below.

In the Syrian “Revolution,” we are witnessing the beginnings of the greatest “hot” military victory the world has ever seen in a “cold” war.  As we speak, in Syria, the dark evil forces of Iran are, hopefully, in the process of being militarily defeated by the bright, good forces of Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, the strategic importance to the West of what will be an inexorable Iranian Shiite defeat and a Saudi Sunni victory in Syria is not even partially understood by the mainstream narrative.

A Sunni victory in Syria may very well spare the world from a looming World War which is casting Iran as the new Nazi Germany bent on world military domination. It is as if in 1938, instead of the West’s Munich’s appeasement, an anti-Hitler Italian revolution crushed the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and turned Italy into enemy of Hitler and forward base of operations against Hitler for allied forces.  Such a “1938 anti-Hitler Italian” revolution would have likely dealt a catastrophically fatal counter-stroke to Hitler’s world-wide ambitions.  In a heartbeat, Hitler’s entire order of battle calculus, which had otherwise enabled Hitler to confidently start World War II and invade Poland, would have been reversed against the Third Reich.

Similarly, the immediate consequence of the liquidation of Bashar Assad and his Shiite Alawite clan from its minority tyrannical and sectarian rule of Syria, would clearly be a catastrophic sui generis defeat for Iran, Syria’s Senior Partner in the, until-now, waxing Pan-Shiite crescent.

But that’s only the beginning of the fall of Iran’s “House of Cards.”   This Iranian Shiite defeat in Syria will have many second and third order immediate consequences that are already beginning to be felt like an earthquake throughout the entire region.

First, the Iranian “sphere” of Iraq will no longer be an Iranian sure-thing walkover, let alone an Iranian “sphere.”  With the new Sunni Syria as an Iranian enemy instead of an Iranian puppet-state to the West of Iraq, all of a sudden, Iraq will have the ability to stand up to Iran in the East in ways that Iraq never had before when it was bookended to the West and East by two long-standing Iranian military powerhouses.

Also, to the Iraqi Sunnis in Western Iraq, a Sunni-Ruled Syria gives them a real Sunni “Big Brother” to the West that can defend them against the Iraqi Shiite Central Government.  In fact, if the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Central Government doesn’t begin to show respect the Western Iraqi Sunnis, Western Iraq could very well secede from Iraq, and form a “Greater Sunni Syria” as a counterweight to al-Maliki pipe-dreams of being a Shiite Saddam Hussein.  All of this would leave al-Maliki’s anti-Sunni tactics as a one-way ticket to nowhere in a hurry unless he quickly changes his anti-Sunni, pro-Shiite sectarian course and douses the flames of the rampant sectarian suicide explosions.

Second, without the Iranian Syrian puppet-state weapons candy-store, the Iranian “Mini-Me” Hizbullah will be without any land access to the Iranian weapons supply-line. Without that guaranteed land-based Iranian weapons pipeline through Syria, Hizbullah can, and will, be rolled up by the Lebanese government and the Western-allied Sunni Cedar revolution forces that want to take back their hijacked country from the Iranian Hizbullah “Resistance” crazies.

Without the Syrian weapons supply train, Hizbullah’s initiating any war with Israel, for any reason, would be suicidal.  Lebanese voices are already being loudly and brazenly raised that Hizbullah had better “see the writing on the Syrian wall” and voluntarily disarm before they are forcibly disarmed once Assad turns to dust.  Such a Cedar Lebanon will escape from the “Iranian Resistance Camp,” and seek safe refuge in the Saudi anti-Iranian camp.

Third, with Syria and Lebanon out of Iran’s axis of evil, and militarily allied with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the beginnings of a natural indigenous anti-Iranian Sunni military counterweight to Iran will have been sparked. Such a Pan-Arab Sunni force could form a vast and strategically formidable defense of the Sunni and Western World against a waxing nuclear armed Iran.  In such a Sunni Arab military counter-weight, the West will have a natural Sunni ally against Iran which will serve as the tip of the West’s spear against Iran.

Fourthly, the Iranian people themselves will see that Sunni world was able to successfully and forcibly rid itself of the cancer that is the Iranian “Reign of Mahdi Terror.”   Iran’s billions in foreign “investments” in mayhem, bedlam, and death will have collapsed before the Mullahs very eyes.  In the face of such a strategic calamity and the squandering of Iran’s precious billions in resources to foment pure bloodshed, the Iranian forces of good may be able to complete the revolution  haltingly started in the spring of 2009.

Finally, the last thing this nascent, or even full-grown, Sunni Mesopotamian Alliance will want to do is start a war with the militarily benign Israel, and put the entire Levant into play.   Israel provides the Mesopotamian Sunni Alliance with a cost-effective de facto non-hostile and indestructible logistics node for US and Western resupply of any Pan-Sunni defense against any Iranian westward attack.

If anything, the current Syrian revolution has only conclusively proved that Israel is not the cause of Middle East “instability,” but rather, the bedrock of Middle East stability.

In conclusion, the Anti-Assad Sunni Syrian revolution has the promise of forming an embryonic, indigenous Sunni Arab military counterweight capable of possibly defending itself against the waxing nuclear Iran.

Such a natural congealing of the Arab Sunni peoples may be the world’s best, and only long-term hope, of defeating the Iranian mad Mahdian march to world nuclear domination.

BBC News – Syria condemns Arab League move to suspend monitoring.

Syrian activists want the international community to help end the violence

he Syrian government has condemned a decision by the Arab League to suspend its monitoring mission inside Syria.

The Arab League said the move was prompted by a dramatic increase in violence in recent days, but Syria accused it of trying to increase pressure for foreign intervention.

The UN Security Council is considering a draft resolution on Syria.

An Arab League delegation will travel to New York this week to address Security Council members.

Syria said it was surprised that the mission had been suspended and that it was a matter of “regret”.

“This will have a negative impact and put pressure on [Security Council] deliberations with the aim of calling for foreign intervention and encouraging armed groups to increase violence,” a Syrian official told the state channel, Syria TV.

The Arab League mission was established in December to monitor Syria’s compliance with a plan to end the bloodshed during the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Arab countries voted on Tuesday to extend the mission for another month.

Since then conservative estimates say about 200 people have been killed.

‘Critical deterioration’

As the violence escalated several countries – including Saudi Arabia – decided to withdraw their observers, and on Saturday the Arab League suspended the mission altogether.

The organisation says its monitors will remain at their hotels inside Syria for the time being.

“Given the critical deterioration of the situation in Syria and the continued use of violence… it has been decided to immediately stop the work of the Arab League’s mission to Syria,” Secretary General Nabil el-Arabi said in a statement.

He said the issue would now be discussed at the league’s council.

The Syrian opposition says the monitors were being used by Damascus to buy it time.

Protest call

The diplomatic focus now seems to be switching to the UN Security Council, with speculation that it may vote on a draft resolution on Syria in the coming days – although Russia still opposes the move.

The council met earlier this week to discuss the document drafted by Arab states, the UK, France and Germany.

Those countries supported the league’s call for President Assad to hand power to a deputy, who would form a national unity government with the opposition within two months.

The draft resolution also calls for further measures if the Syrian government does not comply.

But Russia, an ally of Mr Assad, has said it will not back the text.

Mr Arabi is due to address the Security Council on Tuesday. He has also been talking directly to Russian officials to try to persuade them to drop their opposition.

Meanwhile, the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) urged Syria’s diaspora across the world to stage protests outside Russia’s diplomatic missions, the AFP news agency reports.

The UN says more than 5,000 people have been killed since protests against the government of President Assad first erupted last March.

Syrian officials say about 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed in the unrest, which has become increasingly violent as defectors from the army join the opposition.

These claims have not been independently verified.

Chabad.Info – News | Conspiracy: Another Terror Attack Thwarted?.

The conspiracy-oriented website Debka.com, has released today a DebkaFile Exclusive Report claiming that Argentina has captured a three-man Iranian terror cell which was plotting attacks against  Chabad centers in Argentina ●

PLEASE BEAR IN MIND: NO RESPECTABLE NEWS SOURCE HAS CONFIRMED THIS REPORT. DEBKAFILE HAS A REPUTATION FOR “CREATING A MOUNTAIN FROM A MOLEHILL”, THEREFORE IT REMAINS A UNCONFIRMED CONSPIRACY ●

The Islamic Domino Effect – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

Recently, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was asked whether he would support a Muslim for President. His answer reflected what many in Western societies do not understand. It may be one of the most important ideas articulated throughout the long and arduous campaign as we approach the 2012 Presidential elections.

Republican candidate Newt Gingrich responding by saying that the answer to that question really depends on whether the candidate was “a modern person who happens to worship Allah” or “a person who belonged to any kind of belief in Sharia, any kind of effort to impose that on the rest of us.”

He concluded by stating that the former would not pose a threat to America or the Western world, while the latter would be a “mortal threat.”

Newt Gingrich is absolutely right in making such a distinction. The danger facing America from the Islamic wave sweeping the Middle East and beyond arises not from the fact that people practicing the Islamic religion are Muslim, but rather from the degree to which they adhere to the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of Sharia.

Newt Gingrich has rendered a real public service by not shying away from this issue on the campaign trail and has raised a serious concern that should worry all Americans. What was perceived in the past as threat on Israel is now beginning to be understood as a problem for the whole world. This is another case of the Domino Effect.

Over the past 100 years, powerful and belligerent conglomerations of state and non-state Islamic forces have adopted the use of terror to mount a strategic threat on the continuing survival of the State of Israel. During those years, Islamic terror was considered to affect only Israel and was felt to be a consequence of the ongoing conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors.

Islamic terror was perceived in the West as a complementary Islamic tactic, intended to weaken Israel between periods of intermittent full-blown military warfare resulting in Israel’s defeat of combined Arab military forces.

Islamic terror was not understood or interpreted as a strategic threat to Western nations. Islamic terrorists enjoyed the status of celebrities and were welcome in the corridors of power and intelligentsia throughout Europe and the United States. This acceptance of Islamic terror as a genuine and justifiable expression of nationalistic aspirations provided the leaders of the state and non-state Islamic forces with the belief that the Western world must accept Islam, by force if necessary, and that they have a divine right to impose Islam on the Western world.

Current policy assessments continue to be based on obsolete principles and strategies, often in conjunction with political bias, leaving many of the Western nations unprepared for the emerging threat of a new Islamic imperialism.

The 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center changed the perception of Islamic terror from being a local Israeli problem to a threat to all the Western industrialized nations; similarly, the recent Islamic takeover of the majority of the 22 Arab nations of the Middle East may herald the transformation of the whole Middle East – ruled by Islamic parties – into a threat to all industrialized nations and not just a threat to Israel. I

ran’s recent threats backed by the deployment of naval battleships to block the Strait of Hormuz and prevent the free flow of oil to the Western World is only one  example.

Numerous reports have emerged over the past year indicating that Islamic organizations in Europe and the United States are growing at an alarming rate, creating Islamic cultures and societies within their host nations that dissociate themselves from the prevailing values, mores, constitutions, laws, and legal regulations. These groups claim that Sharia Law is above all manmade rules and regulations. These Islamic organizations have no true intention of allowing real integration, but use the freedom of Democratic societies to strengthen the message that Islam is not and will never be subservient to any other religion or political system.

Israel stands alone in the Middle East, in the midst of a sea of Islamic forces . It is a bastion of democratic stability, a regional military superpower, and a frontline defense for the Western World against the expected belligerency and imperialistic inspirations of Islamic forces who wish to conquer the West.

What may seem as a localized conflict for territory in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) will evolve into a direct territorial threat on Cyprus, on Greece, on France, on England, and on the United States of America. The seeds of this Islamic threat to the integrity of the Western World are already positioned to attack from within and from without, creating a Domino Effect that will disrupt Western societies as we know them.

The Domino Effect, beginning here in Judea and Samaria, the biblical and historical heartland of Israel,will develop into an Islamic tsunami of political and religious intolerance for religions and ideologies in the open societies of Western and industrialized nations that are not subservient to Islam and Sharia Law.

Today more than ever, we must demand that our political leaders prepare an effective response to counter this Domino Effect. They must meet the challenges and dangers inherent in Islamic ideologies’ use of Western democratic institutions to further their own fundamentalist goals ,ignoring basic concepts of democracy, tolerance, human rights and gender equality.

Israel Warns Europeans:Time Is Running Out With Iran | Globe Tribune.Info.

 Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defense Minister issued a blunt warning to European leaders assembled in Davos, Switzerland. Time is running out, and soon Iran will have entrenched its nuclear development facilities beyond the point where a single precision strike will not suffice to stop them.

The London Daily Telegraph quoted Barak as follows.

“We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear. And even the American president and opinion leaders have said that no option should be removed from the table.

It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them.”

The “framework of immunity” has long lurked in the background of dicussions of Iran and its nuclear capabilities, but a recent announcement earlier this month by the Iranians lent such discussions a new urgency. The Iranians announced that they will soon be enriching their uranum at a plant in Fordow. The plant is buried so deep inside a mountain that Iranians fear it may be beyond the reach of any sort of air strike, either by missile or by airplane.

Israel’s assessment of Iran’ nuclear capabilities is considerably more pessimistic from the United States, which believes that Iran is years away from being able to launch a nuclear missile. The case laid out by Barak at the international summit seems to be one designed to lay out a case for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear installations. In all likelihood, there would be pro forma denunciations of the attack and expressions of “grave concern”. Such token expresions of western disapproval would probably mask behind the scenes relief that would greet news of Iran being denuked. Whatever the norms of national sovereignty that Iran uses to defend its nuclear program, Iran is in the family of nations like the demented uncle who is not supposed to be left alone around sharp objects. Whatever Israel does will be condemned. If it does nothing, it will be taunted for is cowardice.And if it strikes Iran, it will be condemned for aggression.

Hamas in deep trouble – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Despite pompous declarations, terror group faces problems on multiple fronts

Guy Bechor

Nothing stopped Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, from making Ahmadinejad-style declarations that Israel’s days are numbered and calling for the establishment of an Arab Jihad army for Palestine’s liberation. Yet behind the pretentious slogans lies a grim reality for Hamas that can no longer be hidden.

First, Hamas’ alliance with Iran has come to an end. This pact was unnatural to begin with, given that we saw a Sunni organization endorsing a non-Arab Shiite state. Yet when Hamas refused Iran’s orders to support the fading Bashar Assad, Tehran shut its door to the group. What’s worse, the flow of money used by Hamas to pay some 50,000 officials and troops in Gaza has ended.

So where will Hamas get money? This is why the organization is engaged in bitter disputes with the Palestinian Authority and Arab League over funds supposedly owed to the group.

Hamas was also forced to leave the capital of its external leadership in Damascus. Where will it go now? There were hopes that Jordan will take in Hamas’ headquarters, until the group’s leadership was stunned last week to hear that Jordanis imposing limitations. Jordan’s prime minister made it clear that the country will host senior group figures and their families as “individuals,” banning them from any political activity. Hence, the Jordan option is no longer viable in furious Hamas’ view.

The Egypt option remains, yet with the Muslim Brotherhood aiming to portray itself as pragmatic and realistic in the eyes of the world, moving the headquarters of a terror group to Cairo would be an embarrassment. Haniyeh himself visited Egypt and spoke at length about Israel’s demise, yet Brotherhood representatives kept silent, and this silence should worry him.

The Muslim Brotherhood now needs to care not for 50,000 people, but rather, for 88 million. After all, the burden of running the state has been imposed on the Islamic movement, and should it fail to show an improvement in Egypt’s economic status, the streets’ fury will soon turn against the Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, moving Hamas’ headquarters to Gaza is out of the question, as the group’s senior figures believe that Israel could target them there.

Mashaal’s frustration

Until recently it appeared that the so-called “Arab Spring” and its Islamic parties would embrace Hamas. We certainly saw lip service, but establishing a Jihad army against Israel? Every Arab state is currently contending with deep domestic problems; this existential trouble dwarfs Hamas’ problems.

The inner balance of power within Hamas is also changing. The domestic Hamas, that is, the Gaza government, is gaining strength at the expense of the external leadership, that is, Khaled Mashaal. In the past, Mashaal was Hamas’ familiar face, yet now Haniyeh comes and goes at Arab capitals and is perceived as more authentic.

Against this backdrop, one can understand Mashaal’s frustration and his declared intention to quit the organization and possibly establish a rival group as a Muslim Brotherhood branch. This means a return to the Islamic track at the expense of Palestinian national identity.

What remains is the orphaned reconciliation with Fatah, a move that Haniyeh and his associates oppose. There is no possibility of holding elections, there is no possibility of rapprochement, and the double-headed Palestinian politics has now become tripled-headed: The domestic Hamas, external Hamas and Abbas. Each leadership has its own political agenda and its own senior figures.

On a final note, Hamas won momentary global glory as result of the so-called blockade on Gaza. Yet now, when the siege is no longer in place with the border crossing to Egypt open to people and goods, how will the organization survive on the public relations front? This may be the worst problem faced by a group that lives off anti-Israel slogans and now finds itself crashing against the rocks of reality.