WarSclerotic

Loud explosions heard in Eilat | The Times of Israel.

( Heard nothing.  My son Zohar and I were riveted to an episode of “Elementary.” – JW )

No injuries reported; source of blasts unknown; Security forces dispatched to comb for rocket debris

A panoramic view of the southern Israeli city of Eilat. (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Two explosions were heard near the southern resort city of Eilat shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday night.

There were no reports of injuries. Security forces were dispatched to the area to determine the source of the explosions.

It is not clear if the explosions were the result of missiles being lobbed at the city from the Sinai Peninsula.

Eilat, which sits on the Red Sea, is wedged between Jordan and Egypt. Islamist terrorists based in Sinai have shot missiles at the city several times in past years, though most land in the sea, or open areas.

In 2010, a Katyusha rocket shot from Sinai overshot the Israeli city and hit a taxi in the Jordanian resort town of Aqaba, killing the driver and wounding five more people.

Russia, Turkey criticize Egyptian democracy | The Times of Israel.

Turkish officials call Morsi’s ousting anti-democratic, ‘backward’; Russian lawmaker suggests democracy may not come easily to non-Western states

A military helicopter files over the presidential palace as opponents of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi celebrate, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, July 3 (photo credit: AP/Khalil Hamra)

The removal of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi from power demonstrates that democracy does not take hold easily, particularly in non-Western states, an influential Russian parliamentarian close to the Kremlin said on Thursday.

“The events in Egypt show that there is no quick and peaceful transition from authoritarian regimes to democratic politics,” Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Alexei Pushkov said, according to AFP.

“This means that democracy does not work as a panacea, especially in countries that are not part of the Western world,” he said.

Hüseyin Çelik, spokesman for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, was more emphatic, saying Morsi’s ousting was also a sign of “backwardness.”

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Çelik insisted Morsi had “deservedly won by his own efforts the elections organized by a bureaucracy inherited from Hosni Mubarak’s era and that took weeks to come to a conclusion,” Hurriyet Daily News reported.

“This coup has also received foreign support. Some Western countries have not accepted Muslim Brotherhood’s arrival to power. They have mobilized the streets, then issued a memorandum, and are now staging the coup,” Çelik said.

Çelik called on the sides to avoid bloodshed. “Can Morsi resist against tanks and artillery cannon? We don’t know that. If Morsi’s supporters fight with his opponents, blood will be spilled. We will not approve that.”

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ also chastised the military for defying democratic elections.

“The ballot box is the only way to change the governments in democracies,” Bozdağ said.

Turkey’s EU Minister Egemen Bağış concurred. “We should appreciate Morsi’s position against coup supporters and object to any kind of coup anywhere,” he said.

Officially silent, Israel privately upbeat over Morsi’s ouster | The Times of Israel.

Jerusalem sees reduced likelihood of war, and a weakening of Hamas, while its ties with military strongman el-Sissi are robust

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi meets Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in Cairo, July 26, 2012 (photo credit: Mohammed al-Ostaz/Flash 90)

While Israeli leaders have refrained from commenting on the ousting of Egypt’s president Mohammed Morsi by the army, political and military sources privately indicated Thursday that they considered the turn of events potentially beneficial to Israel, if also largely unpredictable.

Asked directly about the unrest in Israel’s southern neighboring state earlier this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said blandly in an Italian newspaper interview, “Like everybody, we are watching very carefully what’s happening in Egypt… Remember that for 30 years now we have had an anchor of peace and stability in the Middle East, and that was the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. We hope that peace will be kept.”

In similar vein, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told Channel 2 on Monday that she had “no intention” of being drawn into a discussion of the fast-moving crisis there.

Privately, though, Israeli officials indicated Thursday that, viewed from an Israeli perspective, Egypt’s internal divides and economic challenges render it less likely to constitute a conventional military threat to Israel in the short or medium term. Jerusalem sees “a reduced likelihood of war with Egypt,” a Channel 2 report stated on Thursday afternoon.

“The Israel partnership with Egypt in the past year or so “was not with Morsi but with [Abdel-Fattah] el-Sissi” — the military chief who oversaw the president’s ouster, the TV report noted, so relations “may even improve.”

Indeed, The Times of Israel has been told that senior Israeli defense officials consider relations with el-Sissi’s military establishment to have been close and robust, with ongoing cooperation between the two military hierarchies, including in regard to confronting terrorist threats in the Sinai.The hope and expectation is that these ties will be maintained.

Netanyahu had been concerned by the prospect of the Muslim Brotherhood and its various partners rising to ever-greater power in the Middle East. Now, after an 80-year battle for control in Egypt, “it has failed after jut one year,” the Channel 2 report noted.

Still, Arab affairs analyst Ehud Ya’ari warned Thursday that Egypt might now deteriorate into a failed state, with no effective central government. That could present Israel with escalated terror threats from an anarchic Sinai, Ya’ari said. (The former Labor defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a long-time friend of deposed president Hosni Mubarak, had warned on Tuesday that Egypt was headed for civil war.)

Israel also regards the fall of Morsi as a blow to Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hebrew media reports underlined Thursday. The Egyptian authorities have warned Hamas not to seek to intervene in the Egyptian crisis, bolstered their military presence on the Gaza border, and arrested several Hamas members in Egypt.

Hamas spokesman Ahmad Yousef told the Ma’an news agency Wednesday that Hamas was not concerned by Morsi’s fall, but said, “We fear the dramatic changes that could cause things to get out of hand and lead to bloodshed… We only care about stability in Egypt regardless of who is in charge. Egypt is a lifeline to us; it’s a major factor in the stability of the internal Palestinian situation — it is our backbone,” he said.

In Ramallah, meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday applauded the Egyptian people for their revolution, congratulated Adly Mansour on taking over as Egypt’s interim president, and praised el-Sissi and the Egyptian army for “preserving security in Egypt,” Ma’an reported.

Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas, which ousted Fatah from Gaza in a 2007 coup, are bitter rivals, and some in the West Bank PA leadership hope that the fall of the Brotherhood in Egypt “might just be the first step” toward the demise of Hamas in Gaza, Channel 2 said.

Fatah calls on Palestinians to overthrow Hamas in wake of Morsi’s fall | JPost | Israel News.

( Wow! – JW )

Morsi ouster: Meet Egypt’s newest leaders – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Chief justice turned interim president, young activist who signed 22 million on ouster petition, dentist leading Salafi party – these are the men behind Egypt’s second revolution

Roi Kais

Though they may have more differences than similarities, they posed a united front against their common enemy – Mohamed Morsi.

On Thursday, Egypt’s Constitutional Court President Adli Mansour was sworn in as Egypt’s interim head of state, but his achievement will be shared by several figures who became prominent critics of the ousted president in the past year.

Founder of the young protest movement, leader of the Islamist party and a former presidential candidate attempting a comeback – these are some of Egypt’s newest leaders:

Adli Mansour

Egypt’s judiciary, which has been at loggerheads with Morsi on many occasions during his short term, has the most to gain from his ouster – with Adli Mansour as the direct beneficiary.

Adli Mansour

Masses celebrating Morsi ouster (Photo: Reuters)

(Photo: EPA)

Mansour, who was appointed president of the Constitutional Court only last Monday, is considered by the Egyptian media as a “mysterious figure,” and few of his photographs can be found online.

However, it’s clear he is a committed technocrat, and is hailed by colleagues as a “first rate jurist.”

Mansour, 68, spent most of life pursuing a career in law, and his term as judge is one of the longest in Egypt’s history. He finished his studies in Cairo University and was admitted into the bar in 1967.

After slowly moving up the ranks, in 1992 he was appointed deputy chairman of the State Committee, one of Egypt’s judicial branch’s three bodies.

That same year he was also appointed as deputy president of the Constitutional Court.

Generally, it seems Mansour’s star shone during deposed President Hosni Mubarak‘s reign.

In May 19, 2012 the Constitutional Court’s general assembly decided to appoint Mansour as president of the Court, replacing Judge Maher al-Bahiri, who retired on June 30. His election was a precedent, since in the last 22 years no constitutional court’s president served as one of the institution’s judges.

As noted, Mansour only officially started this role when a new title was hoisted on him – that of Egypt’s interim head of state.

It should be noted that Mansour is the second to hold the title, after Sufi abu-Taleb, who served at the same role after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Mohamed Bader

Another figure who can rest on his laurels after Wednesday’s events the founder of the Tamarod (“rebellion”) movement, which ran the campaign for Morsi’s ouster – sometimes with the aid of creative measures.

Mohamed Bader

Army in Cairo streets (Photo: AP)

Mohamed Bader is a well-known activist for the opposition, starting in the Mubarak period when he worked for the Kafaya (“enough”) opposition movement, which also objected to any normalization of relations with Israel.

He later became a member of the political coalition of the Youth of the Revolution, which actively participated in the January 25 revolution which deposed Mubarak, and was dismantled after the presidential elections.

Bader represents a significant portion of young Egyptians who feel that the Muslim Brotherhood movement has robbed them of the revolution, and have now returned to center stage.

Younes Makhioun

A perhaps surprising winner, affiliated as he is with the Islamist camp, is the leader of the Salafi Al-Nour party, which came in second after the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2012 parliamentary elections.

Makhioun, a trained dentist from the city of Abu-Homs to the west of the Nile delta, was also active in the January 25 revolution. In 2012 he served as a lawmaker, and when Al-Nour’s last chairman, Imad a-Din Abd a-Rafur, left the party’s ranks last January – Makhioun stepped in.

Over recent months the Al-Nour party quarreled with the Muslim Brotherhood, especially over Morsi’s policies, and Makhioun joined the opposition’s calls for early presidential elections when the army presented Morsi with the 48 hour ultimatum on Monday.

On Wednesday, he and his party found themselves on the winning side, and they now have the opportunity to rebrand themselves as the alternative to the maligned Muslim Brotherhood.

Mohamed ElBaradei

Morsi’s ouster also benefits the opposition’s leader and previous contender for the presidency. Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAAE), returned to Egypt in February 2010, after a long residency in Austria and the United States, and took an active part in the wide-scale unrest which lead to Mubarak’s ouster.

Mohamed el-Baradei (Photo: AP)

Following the revolution he was an outspoken critic of the Muslim Brotherhood, and on April 2012 he formed a new party, through which he intended to unite the Egyptian people and preserve the revolution’s achievements .

So far, ElBaradei stood at the helm of the opposition to Morsi, and slammed many of the latter’s contested moves. After the ouster, he announced that the roadmap formed with the army for a transition of power will correct the faults which resulted from the previous revolution.

“The roadmap supplies the Egyptian people’s basic and true demand which is presidential elections,” he said, adding: “During the interim, the constitution will be mended and a national reconciliation will take place.”

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

The man most recognized with Wednesday’s revolution is the one who presented Morsi with the ultimatum, and later won the honor of declaring his ouster. Al-Sisi, 58, was appointed as the army chief of staff and defense minister in August 2012, while his detractors’ claimed that he is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Sisi announcing ouster

When appointed, al-Sisi was the youngest of the High Military Council, and compared to his colleagues he avoided the press, maintaining relative anonymity. He was mostly known after the revolution which ousted Mubarak due to his determined objection to the violent treatment of protestors and detainees.

But Wednesday evening he was crowned a hero by the masses after announcing on the Egyptian state TV channel that “Morsi is no longer president.”

Hearing the news, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square the crowds rejoiced, and many drivers honked their horns in support of the chief of staff.

“Come to us, Sisi, Morsi isn’t our president,” the protesters calls. The chief of staff returned their love in the form of army helicopters which hovered over the Cairo sky, hanged with the republic’s flag – as befitting the second revolution new face.

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Envoy says Israel ‘far from’ strike on Iran | Israel | Jewish Journal.

by Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Israel’s ambassador to the United States said his country is “far from even contemplating” a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In an interview aired Sunday on CNN, Michael Oren told host Fareed Zakaria that Israel supports President Obama’s efforts at outreach to Iran.

Asked about reports that Israel was planning to curb the Islamic Republic’s ability to obtain nuclear weapons by attacking its nuclear facilities, Oren said,  “I don’t think it’s true. I think that we are far from even contemplating such things right now.”

After Zakaria accused Oren of not being forthcoming about an imminent attack, and pointing out that Israel has been “deeply uncomfortable and nervous” about engagement with Iran, the ambassador replied that “We were, but we were greatly comforted during the prime minister’s visit here in May, when the president told him, assured him, that there would be a serious reassessment of the policy before the end of the year. We are further reassured now that the end-of-the-year deadline has been moved up to September.”

Oren added that the U.S. “willingness to consider formulating a package of serious sanctions against Iran even now in advance of the reassessment” also was reassuring.

America chooses to win wars without bloodshed – English pravda.ru.

04.07.2013 10:59

There are different methods of fighting a war. In today’s world, there is no need to grab a gun and kill the enemy. A war can be won without bloodshed, with the help of information attacks. The Americans have been particularly successful in this regard, take the Internet “Arab Spring” for example. The United States is using the same methods against Iran. Will they bring success?

A number of satellite television systems operated by European companies stopped broadcasting the Iranian channels. This was done under the pressure of sanctions by the United States.

In particular, the broadcasts of the Iranian channel Press TV via European satellite systems, Intelsat, Eutelsat, Hotbird and the Australian Optus have been suspended. Spanish-language Hispan TV, news channel al-Alam and entertainment iFilm are not broadcast either.

On June 19^th of this year, Intelsat company gave Iran Broadcasting Service a notification stating that due to the introduction of new U.S. sanctions against Tehran the company would be no longer providing the services starting July 1, 2013. Press TV broadcast was previously blocked in Germany, the UK, France and Spain.

Jose Manuel Toscano, General Director of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, in turn, urged the U.S. and Intelsat to not turn off the Iranian channels and start negotiations on the renewal of broadcasting.

This is how the Americans want to force the Iranian authorities to be more loyal to their regime. They say that in a war all means are great, so every means is used, including information warfare.

In the context of learning new techniques, forms and methods of information wars the development of the situation around Iran’s nuclear program is particularly interesting.  

The United States and its allies have repeatedly practiced the scenarios of information and psychological operations aimed at discrediting the political authorities of the countries they were not favoring. Previous armed conflicts and the “Arab Spring” have common traits because they use classic schemes. As a rule, the main objectives of this policy are:

1. Ensuring global domination and consolidation of positions in a favorable, primarily based on the availability of resources, region of the planet;

2. Raising the rating of specific political forces and certain leaders on the eve of important electoral campaigns;

3. Justification of the need to increase military spending, as well as the development of the military-industrial complex;

4. Testing of the new and utilization of the old types of weapons.

As a rule, measures of informational influence are accompanied and enhanced by economic sanctions, staged civil disobedience, mass protests, special acts of sabotage in the enemy territory, and demonstration of readiness to conduct military operations (various military exercises, as well as concealed concentration of weapons and troops).

The information war of the U.S. against Iran is carried out according to this scenario, but it has its own peculiarities. The emphasis is on the components in which the opponents of the Islamic state still have significant advantage. This is the cyber sphere, as well as special and psychological operations.

Thus, Iran’s information systems related to the nuclear program are constantly subject to highly effective virus attacks. For the first time a virus called Stuxnet was used in June of 2010. Its main task was the disruption of the Bushehr nuclear power plant as well as uranium enrichment plants. At a munitions factory in Natanz there were serious technical problems that affected the work of gas centrifuges. This led to the fact that Tehran’s nuclear programs were suspended for some time.

The second penetration occurred in April of 2011, when a virus called Stars was used, directed against the Iranian government agencies. Later, a third attack was carried out with the use of Duqu virus designed to steal confidential information.
It should be noted that the U.S. authorities take into account the fact that today Iran’s media community is rapidly evolving. The activities of the regional media, particularly electronic ones, are not left without attention. During various interviews, briefings, and other information campaigns the resources of BBC are fully utilized (primarily, BBC Persian), as well as “Voice of America”. Of great importance are social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

In particular, the BBC Persian TV channel has a million-strong audience in Iran, and online resource BBC Persian is a very popular information resource in the Middle East.

In addition, in December of 2011, the U.S. opened its own so-called “virtual embassy in Iran.” Certain websites offer information on U.S. policy towards Iran, the advantages of studying in the U.S., as well as provide an opportunity to get a U.S. visa. The resource did not last long and was blocked by the Iranian authorities. Iran’s leaders periodically block access for their citizens to various “pro-American” internet sites and satellite television channel BBC Persian.

As part of “demonizing” the current leadership of Iran, the United States and Israel keep accusing Tehran of supporting terrorist organizations and carrying out terrorist attacks against the U.S., Israel and their allies.

It should also be noted that by opposing the will of Iran to implement its national nuclear program, the U.S. government and Israel ignore the fact that it was Washington that gave the country nuclear technology. In 1967, the United States gave Iran a nuclear reactor of five megawatts set up by Israeli experts.
The U.S. has been methodically forming a negative image of Iran for the international community saying that this country represents a threat. U.S. special agents constantly disseminate scary information about the Iranian leadership.

In addition, the U.S. and Israel periodically carry out planned activities for misinformation of the population through the “leaks” from their governments about the readiness of the United States and Israel to take military action against Iran. Reputable Western publications regularly publish materials about this possible scenario. It must be acknowledged that these articles have the desired effect.

To date, the majority of the citizens of nearly every country form their own view of the events only on the basis of the information received from the media. Major news portals on the Internet are also of great importance. If we consider that in most cases they are controlled by the U.S. secret services, one can imagine the view formed by the ordinary citizens.

Among the main responses to the information influence from Iran is the demonstration of readiness to meet any possible military attacks, as well as the possibility of applying adequate strikes against the U.S. and its allies in the region, primarily Israel. Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly said that Iran’s armed forces have all the necessary means to repel possible attacks and perform a retaliatory “preemptive strike” against the enemy.

The country’s leadership is constantly filtering information flow by blocking the resources involved in brainwashing ordinary people. The Iranian authorities also attach great importance to developing relations in different directions with their longtime allies in the international arena that in fact are the opponents and antagonists of the United States. These are Russia, China, Venezuela, Ecuador, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries.

This helps the Iranian leadership to withstand such a serious economic and information pressure from the United States.

Sergei Vasilenkov

Pravda.Ru 

Read the original in Russian

Дмитрий Судаков

Syria’s Assad declares fall of ‘political Islam’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

In special interview, Syrian president battling civil war says ouster of Egyptian President Morsi ‘is fall of political Islam’. ‘You can’t fool all the people all the time, he adds

AFP

Syrian President Bashar Assad said the massive protests against his Islamist Egyptian counterpart brought the fall of “political Islam,” in statements posted on Wednesday on his official Facebook page.

“What is happening in Egypt is the fall of what is known as political Islam,” Assad said in an interview with Syrian state newspaper Ath-Thawra, excerpts of which were posted on the Internet.

“Anywhere in the world, whoever uses religion for political aims, or to benefit some and not others, will fall,” Assad said.

“You can’t fool all the people all the time, let alone the Egyptian people who have a civilization that is thousands of years old, and who espouse clear, Arab nationalist thought,” he added.

Activists breaking into Muslim Brotherhood Cairo HQ (Photo: EPA)

“After a whole year, reality has become clear to the Egyptian people. The Muslim Brotherhood‘s performance has helped them see the lies the (movement) used at the start of the popular revolution in Egypt.”

The full, pre-recorded interview is due to be published on Thursday, a day after massive street protests in Egypt ended with the ouster of the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi.

There is long-standing animosity between the Damascus regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, and membership in the group has been punishable by death in Syria since the 1980s.

The Syrian branch of the Brotherhood today plays a key role in the exiled opposition National Coalition, which is recognized by more than 100 states and organizations as legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Syria’s conflict broke out after Assad’s regime unleashed a brutal crackdown on a popular movement for regime change that broke out in March 2011.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria’s war, says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Saudis, Gulf emirates actively aided Egypt’s military coup, settling score for Mubarak ouster.

Egyptians celebrating military overthrow of Morsi government

The lightening coup which Wednesday, July 3, overthrew President Mohamed Morsi put in reverse gear for the first time the Obama administration’s policy of sponsoring the Muslim Brotherhood movement as a moderate force for Arab rule and partner in its Middle East policies. debkafile reveals that the Egyptian military could not have managed their clockwork coup without the aid of Saudi and Dubai intelligence and funding.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE threw their weight and purses behind Egypt’s generals aiming to put their first big spoke in the US-sponsored Arab Revolt (or Spring), after they failed to hold the tide back in Libya, Egypt and thus far Syria.

The coup leader, Defense Minister and army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, had two more Saudi-Gulf commitments in his pocket, say debkafile‘s Middle East sources:

1. Should the Obama administration cut off the annual US aid allocation of $1.3 billion, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would make up the military budget’s shortfall;

2. The Saudis, UAE and other Gulf nations, such as Bahrain and Kuwait, would immediately start pumping out substantial funds to keep the Egyptian economy running. The Egyptian masses would be shown that in a properly managed economy, they could be guaranteed a minimal standard of living and need not go hungry as many did under Muslim Brotherhood rule.

According to our sources, the Saudis and the UAE pledged to match the funds Qatar transferred to the Muslim Brotherhood’s coffers in Cairo in the past year, amounting to the vast sum of $13 billion.

This explains President Barack Obama’s caution Thursday morning, July 4, in his expression of deep concern over the ousting of the Egyptian president and the suspension of its constitution. He urged the military to restore government to civilian hands – without accusing them outright of a coup d’etat – and to “avoid arresting President Moris and his supporters.”

The US president refrained from cutting off aid to Egypt, now under military rule, only ordering his administration “to assess what the military’s actions meant for US foreign aid to Egypt.”

Thursday morning, Washington ordered US diplomats and their families to leave Cairo at once, leaving just a skeleton staff at the embassy for emergencies. debkafile: This step is only one symptom of the broad gulf developing between the Obama administration and Egypt’s post-coup administration headed by Defense Minister and coup leader Gen. El-Sisi

By means of the successful military putsch in Cairo, Saudi King Abdullah had his revenge for the toppling of his friend Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, for which he has never forgiven President Obama whom he held responsible.
The Saudi-Gulf intervention in Egypt’s change of government also ushers in a new stage of the Arab Revolt for the Middle East. For the first time, a group of traditionally pro-US conservative Arab governments has struck out on its own to fill the leadership vacuum left by the Obama administration’s unwillingness to pursue direct initiatives in the savage Syrian civil war or forcibly preempt Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb.

The removal of Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt has far-reaching ramifications for Israel. In the immediate term, it gives Israel some security relief – especially, easing the dangers posed from Sinai to its southern regions. The radical Palestinian Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot which rules the Gaza Strip, has suffered the most damaging political and military setback in its history with the loss of its parent and patron in Cairo.

The big question facing Egypt’s still uncertain future is: Will Riyadh and the UAE follow through on their backing for Gen. Fattah El-Sisi, the most powerful man in Egypt today, and release the promised funds for rehabilitating the Egyptian economy?