Israel will study the US decision to pull its forces from Syria and will ensure its own security, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Netanyahu in a statement said he had spoken over the past two days with US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about their intention to withdraw troops from Syria.
“They made clear they have other ways to have influence in the area,” Netanyahu said.”We will study the timeline, how it will be done and of course the implications for us. In any case, we will make sure to maintain Israel’s security and protect ourselves from this arena,” he said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said the US decision to withdraw creates prospects for political settlement to the years-long, bloody Syrian civil war, according to the TASS news agency.
TASS also cited the ministry as saying that an initiative to form a Syrian constitutional committee had a bright future with the US troop withdrawal.
Russia is a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support is believed by many to have turned the tide of the war in Assad’s favor.
Russian President Vladimir Putin with Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad (Photo: Reuters)
Trump tweeted that the troops would be leaving as the US had defeated ISIS, which he said was his sole reason for being in Syria.
But in the UK, minister in the Defense Ministry Tobias Ellwood used Trump’s favored means of communication to express his disapproval of the decision.”I strongly disagree,” Ellwood tweeted in response to Trump’s claim that Islamic State had been defeated. He warned that the organization “has morphed into other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive.”
In the US, senior members of Trump’s own Republican Party denounced the decision as having a far-reaching, negative impact.
Withdrawing the troops, said Senator Lindsey Graham, a recent staunch supporter of the president, would be “a big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Russia.”
Fellow GOP Senator Marco Rubio also condemned the move, saying that a full, rapid withdrawal would be a “grave error” that had implications beyond the battle against Islamic State.
An American military base in Syria (Photo: AFP)
The Pentagon said Wednesday that the process of withdrawing had already begun, while a US official said that the full redeployment would take between 60-100 days.
“The Coalition has liberated the ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement, using an acronym for Islamic State.
“We have started the process of returning US troops home from Syria as we transition to the next phase of the campaign,” she said.
“For force protection and operational security reasons we will not provide further details. We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates.”
Turkey’s Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice is planning to organize an “International Islamic Union Congress” every year until 2023, to address the “Islamic confederal state” it aims to establish across the Muslim world.
“Go to Syria, Iraq, North Africa, the Middle East or the Balkans, and ask the people there what they think of Turkey and Turks. You will never hear words such as colonialism, invasion, persecution or massacre. Instead, you will hear expressions of thanks that have become a symbol, such as, ‘The loyal Turk was here.’ … Yes, it has been a century since we left those lands but the waiting and the hope of the people there has never ended…. You know I say, ‘The world is bigger than five’ [referring to the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council]. And Turkey is bigger than Turkey; just know this. We cannot be trapped inside 780,000 kilometers [Turkey’s total area].” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, November 10, 2016.
As demonstrated by the annual International Islamic Union Congress, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems determined to bring back the Ottoman Empire and a Sharia-governed caliphate. Pictured: Erdogan addresses the Turkish parliament on October 23, 2018 in Ankara. (Photo by Getty Images)
Turkey appears to be accelerating its endeavor to establish an Ottoman-style Islamic government encompassing several Muslim nations. One such effort was apparent in early November at the second “International Islamic Union Congress,” in Istanbul. The conference is sponsored mainly by the Strategic Research Center for Defenders of Justice (ASSAM), headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief military advisor, Adnan Tanrıverdi, a retired Islamist lieutenant general.
Other organizers of the congress — the next one of which is to be held in December 2019 — include the Association of Justice Defenders (ASDER), Istanbul’s Üsküdar University (ÜÜ), the Union of NGOs of the Islamic World (UNIW), the International Muslim Scholars Association (UMAD) and the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS).
The self-described aim of the congress is “to make determinations on an academic and political ground with regard to current problems in world politics, particularly in Islamic world geography, and to offer solutions to decision-makers.”
At the November event, Tanrıverdi and other prominent supporters of Erdoğan promoted the creation of a common Muslim economic market. Participants declared their aim to create an Islamic “superpower of the future on Islamic lands owned by 60 Islamic countries, inhabited by 1,6 billion Muslims, on 19 million km2,” constituting “55.5% of world oil reserves and 45.6% of its production, 64.1% of natural gas reserves, and 33% of its production.”
Bemoaning the fact that the “Muslim world is in disarray,” Turkish Deputy Finance Minister Nurettin Nebati suggested in his address to the conferences that Erdoğan — to whom he referred as the “leading imam to the ummah [Islamic nation]” — would preside over this planned Islamic confederation.
“Is there anyone whose power would be enough to defeat the one who relies on Allah?” he asked rhetorically.
The Egyptian theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked International Union of Muslim Scholars — known for his advocacy of suicide-bombings — expressed similar sentiments:
“Turkey is facing plots by those who don’t like to see this nation [rising] and by the West. They would have succeeded [in their plots] but for Allah’s support for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his brothers. Allah will help Erdoğan to emerge victorious as long as true Muslims are standing by him.”
At the first ASSAM conference in November 2017, participants endorsed the aim of “unity of Islam” through establishing the “Confederation of Islamic Countries.” Its declaration was approved by ASSAM and 109 NGOs – seventy of which were from Turkey – from 29 countries.
“Islamic countries have to unite under one common will and an ‘Islamic Countries Parliament’ which will conduct permanent activities has to be established urgently. [The confederation aims to include] sixty-one Islamic countries… in the Unity of Islam provided they decide in free will and accept the unity terms and conditions.”
In addition, a model constitution was drafted, according to which the capital of the Islamic confederation is Istanbul; sovereignty “belongs to Shariah [Islamic law]”; and four of the member states — mainly Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia — are expected to be European Muslim-majority countries.
The first congress also concluded that “each Islamic country should create a ‘Ministry of Islamic Union’ within its Council of Ministers.”
ASSAM is planning to organize an “International Islamic Union Congress” every year until 2023, to address the “Islamic confederal state” it aims to establish across the Muslim world. Next year, participants will discuss “defense industry cooperation”; in 2020, they aim to determine a “common defense system”; in 2021, they will focus on a “joint foreign policy”; in 2022, the agenda is a “joint justice system”; and in 2023, the plan is to determine “common assistance and security” for the Islamic Union.
Ironically, 2023 will be the centennial of the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Given Erdoğan’s past statements in praise of the Ottoman Empire, it appears that the goals of the ASSAM congresses are perfectly in line with his vision of the future.
At a public speech in 2016, for instance, Erdoğan made a distinction between Turkey’s “physical borders” and the “borders of our [Turkish] heart”:
“Our ancestors made wherever they went thrive and prosperous. We have a state tradition that established an environment of safety and peace in a wide geography, ranging from central Europe to Africa for centuries.
“The efforts of those trying to portray this body of knowledge as Western-style invasion are futile. Go to Syria, Iraq, North Africa, the Middle East or the Balkans, and ask the people there what they think of Turkey and Turks. You will never hear words such as colonialism, invasion, persecution or massacre. Instead, you will hear expressions of thanks that have become a symbol, such as, ‘The loyal Turk was here.’
“Let me tell you a true story. A team of TIKA [the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency] goes to a mountainous village in Macedonia after long efforts and challenges. A very old person with a walking stick approaches the team. When he sees the Turkish flag on the vehicle, he pokes the TIKA official with his walking stick and asks: ‘Why are you so late?… We have been waiting for you for 100 years.”
Referring to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the withdrawal of Turkish forces from other nations, Erdoğan said:
“Yes, it has been a century since we left those lands but the waiting and the hope of the people there has never ended. Yesterday, we were there as a state. Today, we are there with our charitable, educational and health organizations as well as our projects of development. You know I say, ‘The world is bigger than five’ [referring to the veto power of the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council]. And Turkey is bigger than Turkey; just know this. We cannot be trapped inside 780,000 kilometers [Turkey’s total area]. For our physical borders are different from the borders of our heart. Our brothers in Mosul, Kirkuk [in Iraq], in Al-Hasakah, Aleppo, Homs [in Syria], Misrata [in Libya], Skopje [in the Republic of Macedonia], Crimea [in the Russian Federation] and the Caucasus might be outside our physical borders, but they are all inside the borders of our heart. They are right inside our heart.”
In short, as the ASSAM congresses demonstrate, Erdoğan seems determined to bring back the Ottoman Empire and a Sharia-governed caliphate.
Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist born and raised a Muslim, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute and currently based in Washington D.C.
Syria will adopt a new rule of engagement with Israel now that Russia has taken a tougher and clearer stance on the conflict between Israel and the “Axis of the Resistance”. Henceforth, Damascus will be responding to any Israeli strike. If it damages a specific military target it will reply with a strike against a similar objective in Israel. Decision makers in Damascus said “Syria will not hesitate to hit an Israeli airport if Damascus airport is targeted and hit by Israel. This will be with the consent of the Russian military based in the Levant”.
This Syrian political decision is based on a clear position taken by Russia in Syria following the downing of its aircraft on September 18 this year. In 2015 when the Russian military landed in Syria, it informed the parties concerned (i.e. Syria, Iran and Israel) that it had no intention to interfere in the conflict between them and Hezbollah and that it would not stand in the way of Tel Aviv’s planes bombing Hezbollah military convoys on their way to Lebanon or Iranian military warehouses not allocated to the war in Syria. This was a commitment to remain an onlooker if Israel hit Iranian military objectives or Hezbollah convoys transporting arms to Hezbollah from Syria to Lebanon, within Syrian territory. It also informed Israel that it would not accept any attacks on its allies (Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies) engaged in fighting ISIS, al-Qaeda and its allies.
Israel respected the will of Moscow until the beginning of 2018, when it started to attack Iranian bases and Syrian military warehouses, though it never attacked a Hezbollah military position. Israel justified its attack against the Iranian base, a military facility called T4, by claiming it had sent drones over Israel. Tel Aviv considered violation of its neighbours’ sovereignty as its exclusive prerogative. Damascus and Iran have responded with at least one confirmed shooting down of an Israeli F-16. Israel started to attack Syrian warehouses, mainly where Iranian missiles were stored. Iran has replaced every single destroyed warehouse with other more sophisticated precision missiles, capable of hitting any objective in Israel.
However, Russia’s neutrality towards Israel in the Levant turned out to be quite expensive. It has lost more than Iran, especially after the downing of its IL-20, and with it, 15 officers highly trained to use the most advanced communication and espionage systems.
Russia then brought to Syria its long-awaited advanced S-300 missiles and delivered them to the Syrian army while maintaining electronic coordination and radar command. The S-300 poses a danger to Israeli jets only if these violate Syrian airspace. Tel Aviv has kept its planes out of Syria since last September but launched long range missiles against a couple of targets.
For many months, the Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to receive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Only through real harassment by the latter did Putin finally accept to briefly meet with Netanyahu over lunch or around the dinner table during a large Summit or meeting of Heads of State, without however accepting any compromise or reconciliation. Russia has now taken a clear position and has no intention of extending its embrace or pardon to Israel. Russia felt that its generosity (by closing its eyes to Israel’s activities in Syria) was neither recognised nor sufficiently appreciated by Tel Aviv.
This week, Moscow agreed to receive an Israeli military delegation led by Major-General Aharon Haliva, following Israel’s insistence on breaking the ice between the two countries. However, Russia’s position is not expected to change in Syria and no Israeli bombing of Syrian or Iranian targets will be tolerated.
According to these sources, “Russia has informed Israel that there are Russian officers present at every Syrian or Iranian military base and that any strike against Syrian or Iranian objectives would hit Russian forces as well. Putin will not allow his soldiers and officers to be struck down by Israel’s direct or indirect bombing”.
Moreover, Russia has given Syria the green light – said the source- to strike Israel at any time if and when Tel Aviv’s planes launch raids against Syrian military targets or launch long-range missiles without flying over Syria (for fear of the S-300 and to avoid seeing its jets downed over Syria or Lebanon).
The source confirmed that Syria – contrary to what Israel claims – now has the most accurate missiles, which can hit any target inside Israel. The Syrian armed forces have received unrevealed long and medium-range missiles from Iran. These operate on the GLONASS system – the abbreviation for Globalnaya Navigazionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema, the Russian version of the GPS. Thus, the delivery of Iran and the manufacture of missiles inside Syria (and Lebanon) is now complete. Israel, however, claims it has destroyed Syria’s missile capability, including that of the missiles delivered by Iran. According to the source, Damascus controls a very large number of precision missiles, notwithstanding those destroyed by Israel. “In Iran, the cheapest and most accessible items are the Sabzi and the missiles”, said the source.
The new Syrian rule of engagement – according to the source – is now as follows: an airport will be hit if Israel hits an airport, and any attack on a barracks or command and control centre will result in an attack on similar target in Israel. It appears that the decision has been taken at the highest level and a clear “bank of objectives” has now been set in place.
The rules of engagement are changing and situation in the Levant theatre is becoming more dangerous; regional and international confrontations are still possible. The Middle East will not be quiet unless the Syrian war ends—a war in which the two superpowers, Europe, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have played essential roles. The final chapters have not yet been written.
Iranian airline affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards reportedly continues transferring to Hezbollah advanced weapon systems meant to convert inaccurate projectiles into precision-guided missiles, conducting for the first time a direct flight from Tehran to the Lebanese capital.
A Boeing 747 belonging to Iranian airline Fars Air Qeshm, reportedly used by the country’s Revolutionary Guards to smuggle weapons to Tehran’s allies, conducted a direct flight from the Iranian capital to Beirut for the first time on Thursday.Last month, Fox News reported that a Fars Air Qeshm flight from Tehran to Damascus, which later continued to Beirut, was carrying weapon systems—including GPS components—intended to convert inaccurate projectiles into precision-guided missiles.
Hassan Rouhani and Hassan Nasrallah
The 27-year-old Jumbo jet, registered as EP-FAB, took off on Thursday morning at 8:02am from Tehran to Beirut on flight QFZ9964, and landed in Lebanon at 10:19am. In the past, the jet has been in service of Japanese, Afghan, Armenian and Russian airlines.
Suspicions first arose that Iran uses the cargo airline to smuggle advanced weapons two months ago after reports emerged that the Israel Air Force (IAF) carried out an attack on targets at the Damascus airport.
“The Iranians are trying to find new ways to smuggle weapons to their allies in the Middle East … They are exploring the West’s ability to locate the smuggling sites,” said a Middle Eastern intelligence source, who chose to remain anonymous.
The route of Fars Air Qeshm’s Boeing 747 (Photo: FlightRadar24)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed two months ago, during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), that over the past year, Hezbollah—guided by Iran—has attempted to build an infrastructure for the conversion of surface-to-surface missiles into precision-guided missiles near an airport in Beirut.
“I have a message for Hezbollah today: Israel also knows what you’re doing. Israel knows where you are doing it and Israel will not let you get away with it,” Netanyahu stressed during the speech.
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very very
Mad world, mad world
The haunting Gary Jules version of the Tears for Fears’ Mad World speaks to me in these tumultuous mad times. It must speak to many others, as the music video has been viewed over 132 million times. The melancholy video is shot from the top of an urban school building in a decaying decrepit bleak neighborhood with school children creating various figures on the concrete pavement below. The camera pans slowly to Gary Jules singing on the rooftop and captures the concrete jungle of non-descript architecture, identical office towers, gray cookie cutter apartment complexes, and a world devoid of joy and vibrancy.
The song was influenced by Arthur Janov’s theories in his book The Primal Scream. The chorus above about his “dreams of dying were the best he ever had” is representative of letting go of this mad world and being free of the monotony and release from the insanity of this world. Our ego fools us into thinking the madness of this world is actually normal. Day after day we live lives of quiet desperation. Despite all evidence our world is spinning out of control and the madness of the crowds is visible in financial markets, housing markets, politics, social justice, and social media, the level of normalcy bias among the populace has reached astounding levels, as we desperately try to convince ourselves everything will be alright. But it won’t.
The opiate of the masses is not just religion, but the propaganda, misinformation, lies and technological distractions designed by the invisible government ruling class to provide the masses with pleasant illusions about their country, society, and material situation. If the masses were to wake up and realize they are being manipulated, oppressed, and corralled like sheep, revolution would sweep the land. People are being driven mad by an overwhelming feeling of cognitive dissonance.
The mental masturbation required by a vast swath of the population who see the evidence of decline, created by excessive use of debt and systematic corruption of government, finance, and the media, has created a society of mentally stressed zombies. They know things aren’t right, but to admit the truth would shatter their delusions and require them to act. It’s easier to self-medicate with drugs, alcohol and losing themselves in their technological fantasy world of social media. They would rather believe comforting lies than deal with uncomfortable truth. They go along with the lies because to do otherwise would produce tremendous mental discomfort.
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
The lyrics can be interpreted differently by different people, but the lyrics above paint a clear panorama of our mad world for me. We are running in circles, getting up early every morning, following the same routine, dutifully going to our work cubicles, seeing the same people, doing the same thing, and pretending it matters, for a paycheck worth less each day. We do this because we are trained like animals to believe buying shit we don’t need on credit is the way to get ahead in life.
Materialism, consumerism, greed, and keeping up with the Joneses has been embedded in our brains through years of government school indoctrination and media propaganda. Very few people succeed in getting ahead. They are just running on a hamster wheel and going nowhere. This is why there is so much depression, anger, and misplaced priorities in our lives.
Walking along a street in any crumbling urban area in this country you see miserable faces staring blankly as they trudge through their lives on the road to nowhere or wasting time absorbed by trivialities and bullshit emanating from their iGadgets. The lives of so many are a meaningless march of misery and mindless repetition of daily chores. There is an overwhelming cloud of sadness permeating the lives of the masses as our repulsive culture, built on fulfilling desires, consumerism, selfishness and greed, ultimately results in delusional, disappointed and desperate human beings.
This dysfunctional culture has resulted in soaring levels of suicide, drug overdoses, depression, and the formation of mentally unstable people who periodically go on shooting rampages for no foreseeable reason. Turn on the 24 hour news and try not realizing the world has gone mad.
Children waiting for the day, they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher, tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
Our society did not become so ludicrous, misguided and defective overnight. It has been decades in the making. And it can be attributed to the purposeful effort by those in control of the government in destroying our educational system and replacing it with a social indoctrination system. Children are no longer taught how to think, but how to feel. Children are being raised by the state as nothing more than cogs in the machine.
The family unit has self-destructed as millions of children are raised in fatherless households, broken households, or dysfunctional households. They are not taught how to act and think by loving parents at home, so they are easily susceptible to the social justice dogma jammed down their throats by low IQ government robots inhabiting the classrooms of our public schools. As Frank Zappa pointed out years ago, you need to educate yourself and not let government schools rot your mind. We didn’t heed his advice.
“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.” ― Frank Zappa
Children who question authority or do not act in a subservient manner are immediately diagnosed with ADD and drugged into submission. The public-school system doesn’t want high performers, critical thinkers or anyone questioning their government mandated orthodoxy. The ruling class (aka Deep State) wants controllable, malleable, non-thinking automatons to do the menial low paying jobs, buy cheap foreign crap with their credit cards, and be dependent upon the state for their miserable existence. George Carlin figured it out many years ago:
“They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.It’s a big club. And you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe — what to think — and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care.”
Unhappy, drugged up, deluded children, who have been treated like a number, grow up to be unhappy, overly medicated, easily manipulated adults, creating the mad world we are experiencing. Children are waiting for the day they will feel good – like their birthday – but the day will never come. They grow up and do as they are told – going into massive debt to get a worthless college education – learning how to be offended – graduating as special snowflakes seeking safe spaces. After being protected and propagandized during their entire youth they are entirely unprepared for the real world of low wages, menial labor, and thinking for themselves. Multiple generations have experienced this despicable process, implemented by those in power.
They enter adulthood just as their keepers desire – enslaved in debt, dependent upon the mass media to tell them how to think – and dependent upon the state for their health and welfare. They don’t know how to think critically as their technological toys and endless absorption of trivialities on social media platforms makes them dumber by the minute. Frank Zappa understood the danger of mass media 45 years ago with his song “I’m the Slime”.
He realized the government and mega-corporations used TV as a tool for their propaganda, molding the minds of our youth, manipulating them into conforming to the ideas, opinions, habits and tastes desired by those pulling the strings of society. Zappa had no idea how much more control the corporate fascists could seize once the internet and social media proliferated around the world. Combining the power of the surveillance state with the devious underhanded methods of Google, Facebook and Twitter has created a social concentration camp with government armed guards and social justice warrior corporations providing the propaganda.
“I’m vile and perverted.
I’m obsessed and deranged.
I’ve existed for years but very little has changed.
I’m the tool of the government and industry too.
For I’m destined to rule and regulate you.
You may think I’m pernicious, but you can’t look away.
I’ll make you think I’m delicious with the stuff that I say.
I’m the best you can get… have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozing out of your TV set….”― Frank Zappa
The detrimental impact of social media has been documented in a recent study at an Ivy League university. Those who reduced their usage of social media saw a significant decrease in depression and loneliness. The data proved spending hours per day on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media is damaging to the mental health of college students.
Social media is nothing more than virtue signaling and peacocking by people trying to pump up their own egos. The incessant narcissism broadcast by the “beautiful” people results in others comparing their lives to these shallow egocentric elitists. When normal people spend their days comparing their plain lives to the fake awesome lives of strutting egomaniacs, they become depressed and unhappy with their own lives.
Until people put down their gadgets, spend time living in the real world with real people and stop idolizing shallow faux icons, they will become even more mentally unstable. This seems unlikely, as young children are handed tech gadgets while they are still in their designer cribs. The masses will never willingly put down their addictive devices and deal with real issues in a real way.
Until this selfie society undergoes a drastic reversion to reality, likely spurred by a debt implosion and civil or global conflict, people will continue to mindlessly wander the earth staring down at their smart phones, getting dumber by the minute. This madness will stop when daily survival becomes more important than Kanye and Trump’s latest tweet. Until people are more concerned with where they are going to obtain their next meal than the number of likes they are getting from posting a picture of their latest trendy restaurant meal, the madness will continue.
If you think the general public and our youth are acting madly, the supposedly brilliant Ivy League educated financial minds are saying “hold my beer”. The Intellectual Yet Idiot central banker academic puppets of Wall Street have done what they do best – blow bubbles and create madness in the markets. Their debt creation (aka money printing) since the crisis they created in 2008, due to their easy money/no regulation policies, has created the largest debt bubble in world history.
When you create the biggest bubble in history you will ultimately have biggest bust in history. They created the Dot.com bubble and the housing bubble in the space of eight years. They have triple downed and created a stock, bond and real estate (aka Everything Bubble) bubbles. It boggles my mind watching the feckless financial world go mad, believing they’ve made billions based on their investing prowess when it has clearly been handed to them by recklessly incompetent corrupt central bankers and government apparatchiks.
As Charles MacKay found throughout history, men go mad in herds, and will only regain their sanity individually based upon their ability to grasp reality when it clubs them over the head with a baseball bat. The recklessness of the highly educated is built upon a false belief they are smarter than markets and have rigged the system in a way that insures they will never lose.
The arrogance and hubris of these delusional masters of the universe during their mad pursuit of riches always leads to their downfall. These are truly mad times when millions of people can fix their minds on provably ridiculous conspiracy theories of Russians throwing a presidential election to the candidate of their choice. So many people are so easily convinced of the most ridiculous ideas (aka socialism works), that folly has become the national sport. This level of idiocracy will surely end badly for this nation.
“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” ― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
As a born skeptic, I feel uncomfortable living in this land of delusions, illusions and confusions. I don’t fit in. I don’t want to fit in. Does that make me abnormal or normal? I don’t want to be part of any team. I will not blindly cheer for Democrats or Republicans. I intensely dislike the worldviews and ideas of Obama, McCain, Romney, and Clinton. I have found Trump to be endlessly entertaining and agree with his pushback on the press, the GOPe, and left wing open border lunatics. The only politicians I’ve ever had any real respect for were from the Paul family.
I’m all for lower taxes, but Trump’s tax cuts for mega-corporations and the rich did little for the plight of the average American, while allowing corporations to buy back billions of their stock at market highs to keep the market bubble inflating. Cutting taxes while drastically increasing government spending nine years into an economic recovery is pure lunacy. Trump created a one year reprieve on the recession with this debt financed adrenaline injection, making this Potemkin economy appear strong, when in fact it is on the verge of collapse.
Driving deficits past the trillion dollar level at this point in the economic cycle is a recipe for disaster, but talking heads on the TV screen act like it is perfectly normal. Keeping real interest rates below zero nine years into a supposed economic recovery is insane, but the intellectual yet idiot central bankers and their criminal banking cartel owners, who profit from this insidious policy, act as if this is normal. It’s not normal. It’s about as abnormal as you can possibly get.
This madness and abnormality is clear to me. I can’t understand why it isn’t clear to others. Am I mad? Am I the one who is abnormal? How can so many millions of people be oblivious to the facts and reality of our situation? They just seem to sleepwalk through life believing what they are told, thinking the way their keepers want them to think, doing what they are told to do, not questioning authority figures, and fulfilling their infinite appetite for distractions with their technological gadgets. As Huxley predicted in the late 1950s, the fact people have adjusted to this profoundly abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. Being normal today is considered abnormal.
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited
I refuse to accept the ideology perpetuated by the Deep State and their collaborators in the media, financial industry, academia and corporate board rooms. I would rather be estranged from the general population than sacrifice my integrity by adapting my thinking to a pathology of lies, delusions, and denial. I already feel like an outcast among family and friends. Meeting old friends for drinks and seeing how they have been brainwashed by the media and political class is depressing.
Sometimes I’ve doubted my own sanity when watching the stock market soar, year after year, to the most overvalued level in history. Shouldn’t I have gone along with the crowd and ignored facts and reality? Groupthink has enriched millions of lemmings. But, I’m a stubborn bastard and will never go along with the crowd. I believe my facts are right and expect to watch millions of lemmings get slaughtered over the next year or so. It’s already begun, but they are too brainwashed and will be paralyzed as their faux wealth evaporates once again.
I feel I’ve psychologically and emotionally suffered from being a sane man in an insane world. I’ve been alienated and shunned, but I’ve retained my dignity and self-respect. I’ve got my family and preserve my ability to think critically, question everything, and refuse to go along with the crowd. It’s a sometimes lonely position, but I’ve made this decision with my eyes wide open and a willingness to accept the consequences.
I will not adapt myself to a sick society where vices are considered virtues, lies are considered truth, feeling overrides thinking, fiction passes for fact, enemies are created to instill fear, and insanity is considered sane. It’s a mad mad world, but I choose not be overcome by the madness. What is your choice?
“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.” ― Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
Bennett, Shaked stay in the government despite threats to resign
Despite threats to quit if Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn’t give him the defense portfolio, the Bayit Yehudi leader decides to remain in the coalition; ‘There’s no apocalypse on the way. If the prime minister is serious in his words, I tell him: we remove all of our political demands and will aid you so Israel returns to winning,’ Bennett says.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked announced Monday morning that they are not resigning, allowing the current government to live out its days.
The Bayit Yehudi party threatened to leave the coalition if leader Naftali Bennett doesn’t receive the defense portfolio, a position
vacated by Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who resigned last week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening announced he intends to keep the defense portfolio, leading many to believe Bennett would make good on his threat and leave.Moreover, both Bennett and Shaked have complained the government has lost its right-wing character and asserted it would be hard to govern with only a one-vote majority in the Knesset.
Ministers Bennett and Shaked (Photo: Reuters)
But Bennett claimed on Monday that he did not set an ultimatum to Netanyahu. “During our conversation on Friday, I made it clear to the prime minister that I was not, in any way, shape or form, giving him an ultimatum, and accepted with appreciation his statement that he saw me as a worthy candidate for the defense minister position,” he said.
Explaining his about-face, Bennett said he drew assurances from Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday night. “In his speech, (Netanyahu) promised the Israeli public to change paths, to lead to a dramatic change in security, to change his direction from the past ten years towards strength,” he said.
“If the prime minister is serious about his intentions, and I want to believe his words last night, I hereby notify the prime minister—we are removing all of our political demands at this time and stand with you, ready to offer assistance,” Bennett declared.
“I assume this announcement will take its political toll, but we’ll survive. It is better to let the prime minister win in a political battle than let (Hamas leader Ismail) Haniyeh defeat the State of Israel,” he added.
Bennett asserted this is a political price he was willing to pay. “If the government goes on the right back, leads as a true right-wing government—it’s worth a try. The ball is in the prime minister’s court. In the coming weeks, the dramatic change to defense will be put to the test,” he continued. “This test will be in actions, not words… and we won’t stand as spectators examining the prime minister, we will of course help out and do our best to assist.”
Describing the changes that need to happen, Bennett determined that “The State of Israel is facing a crisis of confidence in the defense establishment.”
The enemies are the same, Bennett said, and “the security situation today is not more dangerous than what it was a few months ago, when the prime minister sought to bring down his government for political reasons, or because of the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC).”
The problem, he asserted, is internal.
Education Minister Bennett (Photo: AFP)
“For quite a few years, including over the past decade of Netanyahu governments, Israel has stopped winning,” he charged.
“I saw it with my own eyes during the Second Lebanon War as a commander in southern Lebanon. I saw the embarrassment, the confusion, the lack of determination and spirit … Following that war, I abandoned my career in high-tech, which I loved very much, and went into politics,” Bennett explained.
Bennett asserted the Israeli government, which he remains a part of, stays its hand due to fear of legal entanglement, listing several examples of instances in which the government is waiting too long to take action: the evacuation of the illegal Arab outpost of Khan al-Ahmar; legislation to stop the generous salaries paid to terrorists by the Palestinian Authority; the demolition of terrorists’ homes.
“We impose countless restrictions on our soldiers—legal as well as mental. Our fighters are more afraid of the Military Advocate General than (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar. Instead of defeating the enemy, we are containing it. Things that were crystal clear before, are suddenly questionable,” he lamented.
Education Minister Bennett (Photo: AFP)
The Israeli government, he argued, also fails in dealing with security challenges.
“After more than 530 rockets were fired at the Israeli communities along the Gaza border, and a Cornet anti-tank missile was launched by Hamas at an IDF bus near the security fence, we tell ourselves that everything is okay and that the terror organization is as deterred as it has never been,” he said critically.
“Hamas and Hezbollah are becoming more arrogant by the day, believing we are afraid to confront them. What Netanyahu describes as ‘responsibility’ is often perceived by our enemies as hesitancy—and the line between the two is thin,” he continued. “The most dangerous thing for the State of Israel is that we’ve started thinking there is no solution to terrorism and rockets, but there is!”
“When Israel wants to win, we will go back to winning. (This situation) is not predestination,” Bennett insisted. “We entered politics to create an alternative, to replace hesitancy with might, fatigue with initiative, embarrassment with confidence.”
“We proved with actions that we could change direction,” he asserted. “Before we came along, everyone thought a Palestinian state was on the verge of being established, we changed this path from the Left to the Right.”
‘We won’t add to the gift Lieberman gave Hamas’
Justice Minister Shaked said Netanyahu had promised Bennett the defense minister’s position before the 2015 election, but because Bayit Yehudi lost power, Netanyahu gave the post to Moshe Ya’alon, a Likud member at the time.
Explaining why the party joined the government anyway and why she and Bennett decided not to quit, she said “Bennett, myself and the rest of our party members are rare birds. We see politics as a calling. We believe politics is a tool to implement policy and serve the public.”
Justice Minister Shaked (Photo: AFP)
“Many urged us to resign over the last few days. After Lieberman did so, there were those who were angry at us for losing the momentum. (But) we’re public servants with a sense of responsibility. We’ll never escape responsibility. We’ll never make a political move that entails a risk,” Shaked added.
She too criticized Israel’s defense policy, saying “if such a policy exists, it conveys irresolution and hesitation. The Israeli daring was replaced with a policy of ‘sit and do nothing.’ Israeli solidarity was replaced by a policy of containment as long as it’s ‘only’ the border residents. The pursuit of victory was replaced by the disgraceful resignation of the defense minister—a gift to Hamas that will forever serve as a mark of shame.”
“We won’t increase the psychological achievement Lieberman gave the terror groups in the strip,” Shaked insisted. “They’re watching us, and not just them—the entire Middle East is looking at us.”
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,007, November 15, 2018
Palestinians drag section of ripped-down border fence in Gaza, May 2018, photo by Heather Murdock, VOA public domain via Wikimedia Commons
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent round of fighting between Israel and Hamas was seemingly sparked by the exposure of an Israeli special forces team during a covert operation in Khan Yunis. The Hamas leadership, which apparently is not interested in war, nevertheless chose to respond by escalating to the very brink. Why has the Israeli government refrained (yet again) from instructing the IDF to settle the Hamas threat?
The discourse that tends to swirl in the wake of events like this week’s sharp Gaza escalation generally revolves around a clichéd discussion about “the loss of deterrence.” But the gauge of deterrence, like a thermometer in a patient’s mouth, only measures a symptom; it does not explain the situation. Something deeper than “loss of deterrence” drove the event.
The Hamas leadership certainly knows the strength of the IDF relative to the strength of its own forces. But it bases its decisions not on that calculation but on its assessment of the constraints that prevent the Israeli government from making the decision to go to war. During the regular riots Hamas has led along the border since the spring, the group has learned its way through the Israeli strategic labyrinth. It understands how it can exploit the possibility of Israeli distress to advance its own interests.
The two-state solution as a conceptual fixation
Israel’s commitment to the “two-state solution” as a single and necessary solution is largely responsible for its refusal to update the strategic map. In explaining Israel’s duty to separate from the Palestinians, former Justice Minister Haim Ramon said: ” Our control over the territories is a cancer, and I will not let my enemy decide whether to undergo cancer removal surgery or not.” The Palestinians are well aware of their power of blackmail: the more Israel rushes to part ways, the more the Jewish state will have to pay for it. In accordance with this thinking, Hamas will naturally reject any agreement to implement separation in the direction of peace and stability. The need to preserve the separation achieved in Gaza has trapped Israel and made an attack on Gaza futile. What is there to recapture if Israel wants out of Gaza anyway? A re-conquest would put paid once and for all to the (supposed) panacea that “they are there and we are here.”
Hence the trap of both sides of the Israeli political map. The opposition attacked PM Netanyahu for abandoning security by restraining the use of military force against Hamas. Yet even as Israel is mired in the devastating consequences of the disengagement from Gaza, the Left continues to strive for another withdrawal in the West Bank – a withdrawal that could worsen Israel’s security situation to the point of rockets flying from Qalqiliya into the metropolitan Dan region.
On the other hand, Netanyahu, who seemingly seeks refuge from the two-state solution to which he has repeatedly committed himself, has an interest in the creation of an independent Hamas state in Gaza, as PA President Mahmoud Abbas remains entrenched in his lifelong rejection of Jewish statehood. It would therefore be desirable for Netanyahu to maintain the Hamas regime. This is where the Israeli system finds itself lost in a maze. The Hamas leadership has grasped the potential of this situation and is exploiting it to the full.
Who benefits from separation?
It is time to challenge the assumption that spatial separation benefits Israel.
Supporters of withdrawal from the West Bank, including most senior members of the former security establishment, base their thinking on the belief that the attendant risks of withdrawal and territorial separation can be mitigated by the fact that the IDF’s continuous superiority can remove, within days, any security threat emanating from the territories vacated by Israel.
But since the beginning of the Oslo process, something significant has changed in relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and in recent decades there has been a global change in the phenomenon of war. Supporters of withdrawal have not internalized the significance of these changes. Their assessment of the IDF’s relative strength is thus consistently overestimated.
Here lie the seeds of Israel’s ideological fixation: the unwillingness to examine the extent to which separation as a strategic direction mainly helps the enemy.
Looking at the Gaza Strip prior to the IDF withdrawal, we see that although there was a fence that delineated the Strip, most of the IDF forces operated within the area based on the deployment of the Israeli villages in the south of the Strip. This created flexible operational potential for the IDF forces, which could reach enemy areas from a variety of directions. For example, refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip could be reached from the north via the Netzarim enclave, from the east via the border of the Strip, and from the south via Kfar Darom and Gush Katif. The capacity for surprise, flexibility, mobility, control of the area, and freedom of action were fundamentally different from those along the current borderline of the perimeter of the Strip.
The deployment of the IDF prior to the shortening of the lines in the summer of 2005 required Hamas to focus on fragmented defense efforts. The redeployment of forces and their reliance on a security fence in linear arrays made the fence a focal point for friction, and created the conditions for Hamas to organize its forces according to battalions, brigades, firing lines, and command and control systems. In this respect, territorial separation helped Israel’s enemies and harmed the IDF’s freedom of action.
The standard argument among “security technicians” is that shortening the lines of engagement is beneficial for security. But this claim is not only fundamentally wrong but the inverse of the truth. Friction in a multi-dimensional inner space, as exists today in the West Bank through the deployment of Israeli neighborhoods, enables more efficient utilization and wider strategic freedom of action for all components of Israeli power. The strategic maze in which the State of Israel finds itself in the Gaza Strip offers a valuable lesson on how security interests should help formulate the IDF’s future deployment in the West Bank.
In the meantime, the extent of the recent Hamas firefight requires the defense establishment to reexamine the IDF’s readiness to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously. A serious change in the conditions of the Palestinian threat from the West Bank, which would in turn intensify the threat from Gaza, is liable to disrupt the inter-ministerial agenda to the point of undermining the necessary conditions for concentrating the effort on the northern front.
In these circumstances, the recently voiced aspiration of former senior defense establishment officials, including Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, to lead a further separation in the West Bank is worrisome.
Israel’s strategic navigation right now resembles wandering through a maze without a map. As the pace of change accelerates, it needs a fully updated map.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He served in the IDF for forty-two years. He commanded troops in battles with Egypt and Syria. He was formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Ten European states have created a new defense coalition. It was launched on June 25 and held its first historic meeting in Paris on Nov.7 to start thrashing out details of how the force will operate and welcome Finland as the tenth participant. All founding nations are EU members, including Great Britain, which is to leave the bloc in March, 2019. Led by France, the European Initiative Intervention (EII) comprises the UK, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Finland to cooperate in the planning, analysis of new military and humanitarian crises, and possible joint activities in response to contingencies. It is planned to have a common budget.
In a nutshell, the EII members will maintain readiness to carry out missions together independently from the United States, the EU or NATO. A streamlined decision-making process will permit a quick reaction time while the smaller number of members will give more flexibility in comparison with the North Atlantic Alliance, where the process is based on consensus among 29 nations, or the EU, which has failed to deploy the four multinational military battle groups created as far back as 2007.
French President Macron said he wanted a “real European army” because “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.” “When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty which was formed after the 1980s Euromissile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim? Europe and its security,” he told Europe 1 in his first radio interview since becoming president. Emmanuel Macron believes that “Europe can ensure its own protection against Russia and even, under an unpredictable President Donald Trump.” That’s how the US is viewed in Europe now. Not a defender but rather a threat.
“The goal: that our armed forces learn get to know each other and act together,” French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted on the occasion of launching the EII. “Thanks to exchanges between staff and joint exercises, we will create a European strategic culture. We will be ready to anticipate crises and respond quickly and effectively,” he commented on the final goal.
According to Stratfor, “the EI2’s membership reveals that France is willing to go beyond the European Union in its quest for partners (as the United Kingdom will leave the bloc in 2019) and also outside of NATO (as Finland is not a member of the Atlantic alliance).”
The EU defense integration moves ahead at frustratingly slow pace. The 2017 “Permanent Structured Cooperation” (PESCO) defense agreement brought together 25 of the 28 armed forces. The UK, Denmark and Malta have decided to opt out of the voluntary system. Focused mainly on industrial cooperation, PESCO is not a great thing in real terms. It only offers a relatively small special fund to finance operations. It does not provide the EU with real joint fighting forces but rather offers a gradual integration at slow pace. The agreement has no provision on defense expenditure hike. The EU budget does not allocate money for creation of “European Army.” Besides, there are deep divisions between EU members states with different groups formed inside the Union. What sounds good on paper, may have little relation to real life. New smaller alliances are gradually being formed inside NATO and the EU – the blocs facing the threat of partition.
This and US President Trump overturning the treaties and putting into question the invocation of Article 5 prompted the formation of the new European defense alliance that is supposed to have real teeth and operate outside the EII’s control. The French-led initiative uniting EU and non-EU countries is especially attractive for Great Britain, which seeks a potential vehicle for post-Brexit defense cooperation outside the EU framework.
An independent military bloc will weaken NATO and reduce the Europe’s dependence on the United States. From this point of view, it will benefit Europe because its interests often do not coincide with that of the US. For instance, America cares little about the immigration, which is a far-flung problem for Washington, but keeping new migrants waves away is a matter of make it or break it for EU. In their turn, Europeans have nothing to do in Iraq and Afghanistan and have sent forces there only to demonstrate the transatlantic solidarity.
As one can see, Finland has found the EII preferable to NATO. But having joined the officially inaugurated new military alliance, it won’t be a neutral state anymore. It has become a member of the military organization, which openly says that Russia, its neighbor, is a threat to counter. This is a very significant change in the country’s foreign policy. Actually, the launching of the EII has attracted little media attention and undeservedly so, but the Finland’s EII membership has not gone unnoticed in Russia. Last year, Finland along with Sweden joined the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). It has allowed to use NATO forces use its territory during exercises, such as Trident Juncture-2018 – the largest NATO training event since the cold War.
The UK has always opposed the plans to create a European defense alliance, fearing it would be detrimental for NATO. Now it has done an about-face. It can continue to maintain special ties with US being a part of the new European defense alliance.
The formation of the EII shows how deep are the rifts dividing NATO and the EU into groups pursuing their own interests. These large organizations appear to have seen better days. They have become too large to be really united and strong. Like the empire of Alexander the Great, such large organizations have short lives. NATO and EU expansions were mistakes. It may never be said officially but the ten European nations have delivered a heavy blow against the US-led NATO. If the project does not gradually die away with all the ideas and initiatives swept under the rug being entangled in red tape, President Emmanuel Macron will go down in history as the architect of new large and powerful defense alliance to change the European security landscape.
The tensions and divisions between Europe and Russia are not forever and the EII and Russia don’t have to be adversaries, looking at each other through crosshairs. After all, they face common security threats. Sooner or later, cooperation in the field of security will be back on the agenda.
New waves of asylum seekers from Libya are a potential danger for Europe. Russia has influence in that country- it can help to prevent it. Joining together to restore Syria is another potential area of cooperation. The deployment of intermediate range weapons in Europe could be prevented with the INF Treaty not in force anymore if certain agreements were reached at Russia-Europe level even without US participation. The military activities can be discussed to ease the tensions. While the United States is preoccupied with the promotion of “America First” concept, the EII and Russia can talk. They could use the OSCE framework for it.
In August, President Macron called for strategic partnership with Russia. According to him, “I think that on matters like cybersecurity, defense, strategic relationships, we could envisage the outlines of a new relationship between Russia and the EU which is coherent with the direction Europe is headed in.” No improvement in the Russia-EU, Russia-NATO relationships is looming but it could be different regarding the ties between the EII and Russia. The options are a dialog and confrontation. Which of them will prevail? You never know. President Macron has said he prefers the first.
Lebanese paper Al Alkhbar reports a sea route will be established between Gaza and Cyprus, under international supervision and Israeli security supervision.
Israel and Qatar have reached an agreement the establishment of a sea route between Gaza and Cyprus, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Saturday.
According to the report, the sea route will be under international supervision in addition to Israeli security monitoring. However, it is yet unclear how and in what manner the sea route will operate.Israel has reportedly asked to have physical presence at the sea route, while Hamas has demanded the supervision to be more similar to the one at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, where monitoring is done via security cameras.
‘March of Return’ protest flotilla near the Israel-Gaza naval border (file photo) (Photo: AFP)
A $15 million Qatari cash infusion was paid out to Palestinian civil servants in the Gaza Strip on Friday. Qatari Ambassador to Gaza Mohammed Al Emadi said his country will continue transferring $15 million a month for salaries and stipends for needy families over the next six months, while $10 million will be allocated to electricity for the strip.
“We reached an agreement with Israel on the solution of the electricity problem – line 161 (the direct power line from Israel) and the naval route,” he said without going into details about these agreements.
Hamas employees in Gaza receive salary from Qatari money (Photo: AFP)
Al Emadi added that “the UN is not involved in the current Qatari grant, and it is under full supervision of the Qatari committee.”
On Friday afternoon, Al Emadi’s convoy came under attack while he was visiting one of the “March of Return” campaign protest sites on the Gaza border. A group of Palestinian rioters pelted the convoy with stones and other objects. No one was hurt in the incident.
Qatari Ambassador to Gaza Mohammed Al Emadi arriving at the March of Return protest site
Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, also arrived at one of the protest sites, where he declared that “there is no arrangement with the occupation, but with Qatar, Egypt and the UN.”
Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar at the March of Return protests
Also on Friday, a Palestinian infiltrated Israel from the strip and set alight a greenhouse in Moshav Netiv HaAsara in Hof Ashkelon Regional Council.
Greenhouse on fire (Photo: Dedi Poled)
“This is a grave incident, the likes of which we haven’t seen in many years in our community. Hundreds of thousands worth of damages were caused here,” one of the residents told Ynet.
On Friday, Al Hayat reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed to accept the ceasefire understandings reached between Israel and Hamas on the condition they are in line with the ceasefire agreement reached at the end of the 2014 Operation Protective Edge and do not include any political or diplomatic aspects.
Next week, delegations from Abbas’s Fatah and from Hamas are expected to travel to Cairo to once again discuss the Palestinian reconciliation efforts.
As demonstrated by the annual International Islamic Union Congress, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems determined to bring back the Ottoman Empire and a Sharia-governed caliphate. Pictured: Erdogan addresses the Turkish parliament on October 23, 2018 in Ankara. (Photo by Getty Images)
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