Is This the Season For Recognition? Statehood

Nadene Goldfoot
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.    A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot the planted; A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to wreck and a time to build; A time to weep and a time to laugh.  (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

"This is not the time for making peace with the Palestinians.  In fact, it's impossible" said former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Israel from the Yisrael Beiteinu Party.  Why?  Look what's going on right now in the Muslim world..

1. The Arab Spring :Rebellion from a monarchy and its replacement by the Muslim Brotherhood Dictum
2.. Tunisia's opposition leader was just assassinated
3. Iraq's murder of dozens of people by terrorists
4. Syria with the killing of 117 more people on Friday, now over 60,000.

Liberman said it was not  realistic to think it possible in this environment to reach a comprehensive peace accord with the Palestinians.  "It is impossible to solve the conflict.  It needs to be managed."  Lieberman also said that he was in favor of negotiations with the Palestinians "at any time and in any place in the world, without preconditions.   However, these negotiations should be over "a long term interim agreement."  He feels it all rests with the Palestinians.  "The ball is in  President Mahmoud Abbas alias Abu Mazen's  court." Abbas will be 78 years old on March 26th, when Obama may be speaking with him  as Obama plans to talk to Abbas as well as Netanyahu.

Danny Liberman's former deputy, Danny Ayalon,also of Yisrael Beiteinu Party who was not included in his party's Knesset slate, said Saturday at a cultural event in Holon, that Israel should recognize Palestine as a full member of the UN.  Israel will give the Palestinians sovereignty and independence and in return, they will recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and will guarantee security arrangements," he recommended.  Ayalon continued with wanting Abbas to state in Arabic, rather than in Hebrew or English.

This is a big if.  Has it suddenly become the season for Palestinians to recognize Israel?  If so, what has brought that about?   The Palestinians have been holding out on this one premise;  to recognize Israel.  They, however, have been most vocal about wanting the UN to recognize them.

Remember the book, "The Celestine Prophecy" by James Redfield?  The book centers on something called synchronicity.  Things happen not by coincidence or accident but by plan.  There is a big plan in this world that people are just starting to discover.  In Judaism, things have always thought to be synchronistic..Events that continually  happened on the date when the Temple fell, a time we remember called Tisha b'Av,  is a good example.  David Klinghoffer, with the Intelligent Design movement,  wrote, "I believe in synchronicity, the idea that juxtapositions of time and events not only may seem meaningful but do in fact convey real meaning. See Jung on that."  Carl Jung is a Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist.  

So it is a coincidence  or a planned event that Obama is coming to visit Israel around March 20th, making way for the USA's new US Secretary of State John Kerry to come and continue negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.    Of course Obama is saying that he is not coming with any plans, and that's not the point of his visit.

At this point, Netanyahu has to select a new Foreign Minister, and it might be Lieberman, who is going through a trial.  Danny Ayalon left his position as deputy foreign minister on Tuesday, said he expects there will be an attempt to jump-start the diplomatic process with a 3-way summit meeting with Netanyahu, Abbas and Obama, or even a 4-way meeting with  Jordanian King Abdullah II.  Ayalon feels that if Obama's visit doesn't produce results in the peace talks, it will raise a lot of doubts and criticism.

So we have both Israelis and Palestinians expecting more out of Obama's visit than just a first time tourist visit.  Will this be a time for more from him?  Is this the season for recognizing each other?

Ecclesiastes is in the Tanach and is a part of Writings.  It's thought that King Solomon wrote them.  In the Tanach are the 5 Books of Moses, Prophets and Writings.  

Resource: Jerusalem Post: Liberman says peace with Palestinians impossible by Herb  Keinon.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Abbas.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Ayalon
http://blog.beliefnet.com/kingdomofpriests/2009/07/synchronicity-and-tisha-bav-amid-record-breaking-heat-for-seattle.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Klinghoffer

President Obama's Upcoming March Visit to Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
President Obama, in his 2nd term of office, is planning to visit Israel in March.  This will be his first visit as a president.  He plans to talk with the Palestinian Authority, Abbas as well and Jordan's King Abdullah II.   He had visited once when he was a candidate for the presidency in 2008.  On June 4, 2009 as a new president he visited Cairo, Egypt  and made an important speech at Cairo University called "A New Beginning."  That was almost a prophesy.  He chose Egypt, he said because it was the heart of the Arab world.  .

One of the top priorities of Prime Minister Netanyahu in his new term is to resume talks with the PA. The PA has been refusing to talk with Netanyahu unless certain conditions they are demanding are met first.

1. A full construction freeze everywhere east of the 1949 armistice line, including much of Jerusalem.  I believe they have upped the ante here from the last time they left the table.
2. The release of terrorist prisoners.
3. Allow weapons imports.
4. Agree in principle to giving the PA all of Judea and Samaria with possible land swaps for their Palestine.

For a group who fought against Israel in 1967, 1973, 1982 and consistently have been shooting missiles, mortars and rockets into southern Israel since 2001 and having just recently agreed to a cease fire, they certainly are demanding.

 The fact remains that Israel was created legitimately and followed all the legal procedures but that the Palestinians have never accepted them.  They have made it quite plain that they plan to drive Israel into the sea for the past 64+ years.  Israel has in the past given up land for peace which has just whet the Arab's  appetite to take a piece more, and another piece of teeny Israel.  The truth is that they want to create a state 65 years later than when they were first offered land, and that the land Israel was promised has already been chopped up so that it was only created on 20% of their original piece.   What gives the Palestinian Arabs the right to be so persnickety?  They're not the ones who have yearned or needed their own state for the past 2,000 years.

Obama said he is not coming to present any new proposals for peace talks, though these issues are bound to come up.  It is to be John Kerry, the new Secretary of State who will be working on that.  Obama is just coming on a visit being both Netanyahu and Obama are starting their new terms and that this is a Presidential visit, being he didn't come in the past 4 years. Obama  and  Netanyahu  will "try to move past the friction of the last four years now that both have won re-election. The relationship between the two leaders has been edgy for years over issues like Israel’s settlements in Judea and Samaria and ways to stop Iran's Nuclear program, but Obama wants to show support for Israel by visiting.  I see a change in the makeup of the government has something to do with it as well which is why Abbas has wanted to talk with the newly elected Knesset members.  .

Exactly when he is coming and for how long is not known yet. He is to come in the Spring, which starts on March 20th.   Palm Sunday falls on the 24th of March and Passover begins at sundown on the 25th of March which is a Monday.  Good Friday is the 29th. Easter is on March 31st.   The 8th and last day of Passover is on April 2nd.  This is a very busy and important month for both Christians and Jews.

He will visit with Abbas and the King of Jordan and their officials.  The PA has high hopes that this visit will lead to the establishment of Palestine on lands "occupied since 1967."  Since his first term started in January 2009, he has visited 35 different countries, but not Israel.  The USA still does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Resource: Arutz Sheva news@israelnationalnews.com Obama won''t present new peace initiative during Israel trip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidential_trips_made_by_Barack_Obama
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/obama-to-visit-israel-in-spring.html?_r=0
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/07/mitt-romney/romney-says-obama-has-not-visited-israel-president/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/opinion/the-truth-about-obama-and-israel.html?_r=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Beginning

Is Al Gore the Icon of the Democratic Party? Selling Out to Al Jazeera

Nadene Goldfoot
Al Gore, former Democrat backed Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001, owned a TV station, Current TV. Talk about the Republicans out to make money with big investments, Al just made a huge bundle of $500 million by selling out to a foreign Arab company, Al Jazeera, whose Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani,  bought it with his oil revenue.  His Current TV was extremely leftist, which is pretty much the way the Democrat Party has gone and must have been a reflection of his own philosophy.   Now," Al Jazeera tends to ascribe the worst imperialist motives to any U.S. foreign policy move." Qatar will be able to  break into American media markets with news from an Arab point of view. We all realize what that is; Israel is the evil empire that must be squashed.  I was having fits that Al Jazeera could broadcast into universities and colleges already where anti-Israel activities already have been taking place, but now?  The whole United states can be brainwashed.

Glen Beck, who is on the right of politics, offered to buy Current TV at Gore's price, but he turned it down.  No, he'd rather go with a foreigner who advocates the fall of Israel with the USA right after them.  After all, from October 2009 to January 2010, the Qatar Foundation began PR campaigning on both the Al-Jazeera Arabic and English channels to promote itself.  These commercials were also airing on CNN.  He must have been swayed.  Financially, he did quite well for having bought Current TV for $71 million in 2004.  I wonder  what his profit was for inventing Internet?

While serving with President Bill Clinton, I see that Bill's wife, Hillary Clinton, who just resigned from being our Secretary of State, participated in an official Al-Jazeera town hall interview at the Carnegie Mellon University branch campus in Qatar's Education City.  She was introduced by Sheikh Abdallah Al-Thani, who praised the 6 American universities based there.  So there is a close connection already to Qatar and their philosophy.  The heads of state in Qatar are mostly all related to each other.

And who is a regular on Al Jazeera TV?  Why, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi:  the favorite one and only theologian and best friend of the Emir; known as the theologian of Terror.  He just happens to be the radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue who  was kicked out of Egypt in the days of Morsi and found a haven from the Emir of Qatar.  Through his speeches and writings, he shows consistent support of terrorist groups that have undermined a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Qaradawi has expressed his desire to see a "conquered" Jerusalem  in his January 24, 2011 fatwa.  In it he said that Jews had no connection to this city and that it was the duty of Muslims to "defend" Jerusalem with their lives, money and all they possess or else they would be subject to Allah's punishment."  He of course refuses to dialogue with Jews and endorses Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.  He would like to kill Jews with his bare hands, he has said, even though he is in a wheel chair.  Qaradawi has also given support for targeting American forces and civilians in Iraq, and has been banned from entering the USA since 1999 for his extremist views.  Even Britain kept him out in February 2008 when he was denied a visa to enter for medical treatment.  This man, born in 1926 in Egypt, is pure evil.

The Al Jazeera TV show, "Shariah and Life"  is his media empire for spreading  hatred by supporting terror. An April 2004 show, credited Allah with providing Palestinians  "human bombs" instead of the planes, missiles and weapons that Zionists have.  (Note: no regard for human life.)    He has a worldwide following through this TV and the use of Internet.  He is the spiritual guide for the Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood, even though he has declined the head position of General Guide.  He also airs on this TV station his Friday sermons at the Umar bin al-Khattab mosque, which is a government-sponsored mosque in Doha.  In a 2005 sermon, he spoke about notable Hamas leaders killed by Israel.  He said of the terrorists that their fate was paradise and that they died martyrs.  He went on to say that they met the death that every Muslim wishes for himself, which is martyrdom in the cause of God.

Qaradawi's influence reaches into the USA as well as in Qatar.  In the USA he is the chairman (in abstenia) of the Michigan-based Islamic American University (IAU), a subsidiary of the Muslim American society (MAS).  He's also listed as a faculty member.  Despite being banned from coming into the USA, his messages still reach the American public via satellite TV and the internet, and now it will be even easier to do so being  Al Jazeera owns a company here in America.

"While Al Jazeera’s English network, started in 2006, reaches 250 million households in 130 countries, the U.S. represents only a small fraction of that audience. Al Jazeera said it will replace Current TV’s shows with its own this year."  Of Course they will.  They have their own agenda.

Resource: http://blog.heritage.org/2013/01/16/al-gore-al-jazeera-and-the-remaking-of-current-tv/
ADL: http://www.adl.org/NR/exeres/788C5421-7OE3-4#4D-BFF4-9BE14EA2#58,DB7611A...
MEMRI  ssheikh Al-Qarradawi & Qatar's Education City Hosting American University Branches
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-03/al-jazeera-news-network-acquires-current-tv-to-expand-in-u-s-.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore

Why Hezbollah is a Terrorist Organization

Nadene Goldfoot
Hezbollah is not a part of Lebanon's government.  They are supported by Iran and Syria.  After 1982 when Israel had to go into Lebanon to stop the PLO who were stationed there and had been blasting Northern Israel with rockets, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards stepped in and took these Shi'a Islamic militants that wanted to fight and trained them. Hezbollah has pretty much  taken over Lebanon, however.

In 2006, Hezbollah shot 4,000 rockets into Israel when they had a war that lasted for a month.  They had the range of 45 miles.  More than 24 cities were hit.  900 rockets landed in urban areas.  43 Israeli citizens were killed and 2,015 were injured.  Haifa suffered from 54 rockets that hit causing 16 deaths.  Karmiel, which is settled mainly by American Jews, suffered from 176 rockets. Kiryat Shmona, the city I drove to from Safed because they had a department store that reminded me of Meir & Frank, was hit by over 1,000 rockets.They were close to the border.   My city of Safed (Tzfat), which is on top of a mountain,  was hit by 471 rockets and Nitzan Rubin died from it.   July 13: Nitzan Rubin, 33, died from wounds sustained during the  Hezbollah rocket attack.  Tiberias, which is below the mountain,  was hit with 81 rockets.   The UN brought out a peacekeeping force, but it is thought that Hezbollah had stockpiled more, possibly 28,000 rockets since then.

By 2008 they were shooting Iranian rockets with the range of 185 miles, which would be able to hit Dimona.  This has all been done with the backing of Iran. By "early March, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported Israeli claims that Hezbollah's arsenal includes 10,000 long-range rockets and 20,000 short-range rockets in southern Lebanon."  At the same time, Hamas from Gaza was raining down rockets and by 2008 had killed 13 Israelis that way.  Hamas even then had strong ties with Iran.

The Lebanese army has been working against Hezbollah.  On December 11, 2011 a rocket was shot only 6 miles from the border towards Israel but hit a Lebanese home in Hula and injured the woman inside. The next year on November 20, 2012, "A Lebanese army patrol discovered two ready-to-launch 107mm Grad rockets between the villages of Halta and Mari, about 2 miles from the Israeli border. The forces defused the rockets. IDF official Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said Palestinian factions in Lebanon were probably behind the plot."  It's figured they were Hezbollahs being they were in Lebanon.  The next day "Two rockets fired from Lebanon at Israel landed within Lebanon, according to Beirut officials." The terrorists didn't give up.  The very next day "The Lebanese army disarmed an additional rocket aimed at Israel, in Marjayoun, again, about 6 miles or 10 kilometers from the border."  

Last July,  5 Israeli tourists were killed in a bus that was bombed in Burgas, Bulgaria, a Black Sea resort.  It was Hezbollah who were the terrorists.  They had a suicide bomber planted on that bus.  The bus driver was also killed in the explosion.

Tel Aviv was threatened by Lebanon's Shiek Hassan Nasrallah in 2012's battle with Gaza after a cease fire was declared.   Hezbollah had fired a Fajr-5 rocket then, and the threat is of thousands of them landing on Tel Aviv.  He was speaking to a crowd of thousands "attending an annual Shiite commemoration of the 7th-century death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson." Lebanon is populated by half Sunni and half Shi'a Muslims..  Hezbollah also threatens to invade Israel's Galilee since they sit on the border. This would be the cities of  Haifa, Acre, Safed, Tiberias and Nazareth  while at other times have threatened cities from Kiryat Shimona to Eilat, which is the whole length of Israel.  The message is that if Israel hits Iran's site where they are making uranium for atomic weaponry, Hezbollah will hit Israel with about 60,000 missiles and rockets and can now reach the whole country.

Israel has repeatedly asked countries to brand Hezbollah a terror organization.  The US and Canada have agreed.  The European Union has not  and they have taken no action to do so.  Evidently it takes more for the Europeans to learn about the true character of Hezbollah.

 Israel is not going to attack Hezbollah for the Bulgarian bus attack of last summer.  "When Israel acts, it is in order to prevent a security threat, to prevent a concrete attack.  It is not in order to punish," said Boaz Ganor, Israel's counter-terrorism expert.

Resource: Oregonian newspaper, 2/6/13,  page A5, report blames Hezbollah for bombing.
 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-03-27-israel-hezbollah_N.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/israel-seen-unlikely-to-respond-militarily-after-bulgaria-implicates-hezbollah-in-attack/2013/02/05/0d7bce2e-6fd6-11e2-b3f3-b263d708ca37_story.html
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.2905175/k.B69E/Background_Israeli_Cities_Affected_by_Rocket_Attacks.htm
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/11/25/thousands-of-rockets-will-fall-on-tel-aviv-hezbollah-issues-chilling-warning-to-israel/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/10/02/hezbollah-threatens-to-invade-israel%e2%80%99s-galilee-and-offers-interactive-infographic-on-how-it-plans-to-do-it/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

Who's Fighting Against Hizbullah in Lebanon?

                                                                               A Cedar Tree Growing in Lebanon                 
Nadene Goldfoot
Hizbullah is an Iranian army proxy and tool used by the Iranian mullahs to carry out their expansionism in the act of building their sectarian empire in Lebanon.  The Lebanese state is helpless in fighting against them with officials that are merely puppets.  Politicians and clergy are corrupt and the judiciary has broken down. Iran gives them about $200 million every year for their terrorism.  It is also the political and military force of Lebanon today.

Lebanon, the other country north of Israel referred to in the Torah as famed for their cedars that King Solomon used for the Temple.  It held an ancient Jewish population at one time in Beirut, Tripoli, Tyre and Sidon. Jewish men were involved in commerce. All 35 Jewish families in Beirut were slaughtered by the Crusaders. The Spanish Inquisition of 1492 brought in Spanish Jews.  This was when Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave.  Many could not leave and didn't want to convert so became hidden Jews.  There could be  from a handful to about 40 old Jews left in Lebanon today in Beirut from a population of 17,000 in the 60's.  .  .

Like in other countries in the Ottoman Empire, Jews were treated as dhimmis in about 634 to 1917  when Muhammed died and Islam was spreading.  Jews had to pay for protection in the form of a poll tax.  There were again 55 Jewish families in 1826 until the blood libel charges were made in 1824 in Beirut and in 1834 in Tripoli.  Jews followed the Kosher laws which meant that they did not eat any blood nor would they touch it, but were constantly being accused of doing so by the people around them in the form of somebody's missing son.  .

In the 20th century the French occupied the land.  With them around, life was better in that they only were attacked a few times in the 30's.  On November 22, 1943  Lebanon became independent from the French Mandate, and then 12 Jews were murdered in Tripoli. On December 31, 1946, the French left.   After the 1947 partition of Palestine, houses and synagogues were attacked by Muslims.  In 1948 a Beirut Jew was murdered.  In 1950 a Jewish school was bombed and the director killed by Muslim groups.  Jews were extorted money as "contributions" which was used to finance Arab Palestinian sabotage. When the state was created, the government was by the Maronite Christians, who were a minority group.  When Israel was created, 100,000 Palestinians, so they say, ran to Lebanon and were refugees, upsetting the balance, making Muslims the majority.

Lebanon had been ruled by a Christian who was assassinated.  A Christina militia remained under Major Saad Hadad who was a friend of Israel.  He patrolled the border between Israel and Lebanon from Palestinian terrorists.  In 1982 Israel went into Lebanon after being hit too often by the terrorists.  Israel had to do this before in 1978 and cleared out the PLO strongholds.  This time Hadad asked Sharon if he and his men could go in to do the job and there was a massacre at Sabra and Shatila.  From 763 to 3,500 civilians were killed by the militia's hands, but Sharon took the blame.

"Hezbollah first came to notice outside of Lebanon in 1983, when it was blamed for the bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 240 soldiers. Now it has an armed militia more powerful than the Lebanese Army and a sprawling infrastructure that delivers welfare to its Shiite constituency, Lebanon’s largest community."  They're even into the cocaine trade and money laundering. There now exists a class distinction between Hezbollah and the rest of the Lebanese community.  The bad guys have taken over and have destroyed any human rights that may have existed by invading homes, selling weapons, stealing and killing, braking all laws, assassinating and intimidating and humiliating any opposers.  They even kidnap their own citizens and act like the Mafiosos.   Beirut used to be the Paris of the Middle East but has turned into a nightmare.

Hizbullah assassinated Pierre Gemayal, the 5th anti-Syrian/anti Hizbullah  killed in Lebanon  within a 2 year period in 2006.  He was 34 years old.  "Gemayel, Lebanon’s industry minister and a member of the Phalange Party, had just left a church and was traveling through Jdeideh when a vehicle in front of him slammed to a stop, causing his car to ram it, security officials said. Witnesses said Gemayel’s car was also struck from behind. 3 gunmen then stepped out and shot him dead.  Another of his family, Bachir Gemayel, who was president, was also assassinated on Sept 14, 1982 with 26 others when a bomb went off in their Phalange headquarters.  He was also only 34 years old.  Hizbullah was attacking Israel also, and was known to have been supported by Syria, Iran, Russia and China.

Lebanon is the 35th Muslim majority country with 4,196,453 people of which 60% are either Sunni or Shi'a. They are smaller than Israel with only 4,500 square miles.    Now they are flooded with an unknown number of Hezbollah terrorists and evidently can't fight them off.  .

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Independence_Day
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters page 65-66.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/wap/Item.aspx?type=1&item=12820 Hizbullah Ego Trip-Cancer
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hezbollah/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Lebanon
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3292543,00.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15829846/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War
http://www.lebanonembassyus.org/country_lebanon/overview.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beirut_-_Lebanon_-_The_Paris_of_the_East!_-_November_2008_-_Downtown_Beirut_is_re-constructed_mostly_thanks_to_Rafik_Hariri_--

Keeping Score on Muslim Adversaries

Nadene Goldfoot
It's hard to keep up with what Muslim faction is either friendly or enemies with other Muslims.  One big player is the Muslim state of Iran who happens to follow the Shi'a -Jafari Muslim path. They happen to have the 6th largest Muslim population in the world with more than 98% of  their 76,923,300 people.

 Some people from Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria,  Azerbaijan Lebanon, Kuwait and Bahrain have players that are either Shi'a or Sunni.  The rest of the states follow the Sunni traditions. The state religion of Egypt's 90% of a population of 79,089,650, the 5th largest Muslim population in the world, are Sunni following the Shafi'i teachings.

President Morsi went to Iran in August of last year for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.  So it's news that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad just came to Cairo, Egypt on a visit.  It's a first since the 1979 revolution,when Iran's secular Shah was replaced by the religious Ayatollah Khomeini.   Morsi and Ahmadinejad smiled, shook hands and kissed, probably because of Egypt electing a Muslim Brotherhood leader.   Ahmadinejad will meet today with the Grand Sheikh of the al-Azhar Mosque which is 1,000 years old,. one of the oldest seats of Islamic learning in the Sunni world.  Last month, Iran's foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi met the sheikh and stressed the importance of Muslim unity.

 Iran and Iraq had a war from September 22, 1980 to August 20, 1988 called the First Persian Gulf War,  so peace is not always the mode between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims.  They had some hot and heavy disputes over their borders. The attacker that time was Iraq.  Syria's ruler is not hesitant to kill its own people and neither has Iraq who gassed its Kurdish citizens on March 16, 1988 when they gassed and killed from 3,200 to 5,000 people and injured from 7,000 to 10,000.  They used bombs with chemicals.  .The idea of Iran being able to manufacture atomic weapons is making Saudi Arabia very nervous.  They are the 14th largest Sunni population with 27,601,038 people that follow Sunni's Hanbali teachings.  .  

For the past 30 years Israel and Egypt have been at peace which was started by Sadat.  Now, it looks like the only thing holding it together is the $1.3 billion in aid each year from the USA for the Egyptian military.  Morsi's government stands for wiping out Israel being that's the Muslim Brotherhood charter's goal.  They've established close ties with Hamas which is backed by Iran.  Hamas also shares that goal.  Egypt is lacking money, so that might be their first priority.

Ahmadinejad came to Cairo for Wednesday's Islamic summit.  Besides wanting to be the first astronaut in Iran, Ahmadinejad wants to visit the Gaza Strip to visit with the people on this trip.  Iran is backing Hamas financially and with weapons.   In November of last year Iran was preparing a shipment of missiles for Gaza at the same time a cease fire took place.  Sudan has been a transit site for Iranian arms to get to Gaza. They've been aiding and abetting terrorism.

One thing that bothers Egypt is Iran's support for President Bashar Assad of Syria.  An uprising that crushed the former President Mubarak and put Morsi into power is being crushed by Assad to the tune of killing 60,000 revolutionaries..  Though Egypt's revolt caused Morsi to be elected, the people are now having a change of heart and have been rebelling against him after just realizing what Sharia law is all about.  Christians are under attack.

Morsi's Egypt also maintains good relations with Gulf Arab states that supplement Cairo's finances and they are not that friendly with Iran.  Morsi also wants to remain friends with the USA in order to continue receiving their financial aid.

Hamas and Egypt have established close ties with each other that makes Iran happy but not the West as Hamas had been shooting rockets, mortars and missiles at southern Israel since 2006 and only recently stopped when Israel finally retaliated but good.  It would be a bad move if Egypt restores full relations with Iran now, the state that calls Israelis descendants of monkeys and pigs.  You can laugh off children's name calling of each other, but when a Muslim adult does it, you take their threats quite seriously.

Shi'a and Sunni are followers of different leaders.  Muhammad had a daughter, Fatima, but no son to take his place when he died, so the Shi'a are followers of his son-in-law who also happened to be his nephew.  Sunnis are followers of  Muhammad's good friend, Abu Bakr. "The fundamentals of the Islamic faith are agreed upon by all Muslims. These fundamentals include the belief in the oneness of God, the role of the Prophet Muhammad as his final messenger, prayer, the requirement to perform Hajj once in one's lifetime, and the requirement to give to charity."

Resource: http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=302186# Iran's Ahmadinejad lands in Egypt on historic visit by  Reuters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Islam/2001/02/Sunni-Shia-Differences.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=293324 Satellites show Iran moving quickly to rearm Hamas

What Syrian Government Has Been Manufacturing and the Burden on Israelis

Nadene Goldfoot

Israeli Jets Over Lebanon

In  March 1988, Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Kurdish men, women and children  in his own country of Iraq.

The entire world has been watching Syria and takes developments in the past 22 months there most seriously.  Iran can be leading Syria  in such negative directions, being they have already killed 60,000 of their own people.   Besides attacking most of their own population, they have been working on  harming Israel and the West.  "Syrian forces began combining chemicals that would be used to make deadly sarin gas for use in weapons to attack rebel and civilian populations, a U.S. official told CNN in December 2012."  Besides that, it's possible that Assad may be losing his grip on the country and its arsenal of all sorts of weapons including the non-conventional ones.  What Israel may have bombed was a "scientific research center"  which was making weapons.  The trucks outside making up the convoy were full of the Russian missiles that were hit.

Syria owns advanced anti-aircraft defense systems including the Russian-made SA-17 and possibly the Russian's S-300, which are long-range anti-aircraft missiles.  If Hezbollah got their hands onto such weapons, it would be devastating.  Then Israel would have difficulty flying over Lebanon to stop Hezbollah from wiping out Israel.

The target that Israel's jets hit in around the border of Syria and Lebanon was their anti-aircraft systems, or a convoy of components for such systems such as the SA-17 anti-aircraft missile defenses.  The target also could have been called electronic radar equipment used for the GPS system of drones.  The US unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle that went down over Iran in 2011 contained such a piece of equipment.  What I saw on TV were huge missiles.

 The site was by a building which manufactured chemical and biological weapons.  The installations were 7 miles away from Assad's palace which is guarded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards.  Trucks in the convoy were also destroyed, of course.  The installation was reported to be badly damaged.  The raid stopped immensely horrible consequences for Israel but has raised the hornet's ire, mainly from Iran.  Their Deputy, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian,  is calling for significant implications for Israel.  Well, what's new?  Already Syria is adding fuel to the fire with threatening surprise retaliations, so Israel is patrolling the skies.  The White House offered advice to Syria saying they should not further destabilize the region by sending weapons to Hizbullah.  Doesn't Syria have enough problems?

Israel is facing Syria and Lebanon in the north who actively conspire with Iran to destroy her.  On the west and south Israel has Egypt with a new government in shatters that is in complete chaos with wild demonstrations.  Jordan on the east is under threat.  The only good thing is the snow that has come to Israel which people are enjoying.

It is at this point that the UN demands to come into Israel and inspect with their Human Rights Committee.  Israel is denying them entrance.  Enough is enough.  From Geneva through Reuters comes the news that the U.N. human rights investigators called on Israel on Thursday to halt settlement expansion and withdraw all half a million Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank, saying that "its practices could be subject to prosecution as possible war crimes.A three-member U.N. panel said private companies should stop working in the settlements if their work adversely affected the human rights of Palestinians, and urged member states to ensure companies respected human rights."  The UN is not the law in the world.  Their actions are always centering on Israel even while Syria's government has killed 60,000 of its own people.  They get a pass.  It's Israel that concerns the Muslims.

So what are the Iranians now doing?  On Thursday they reported that they are going to upgrade their nuclear facility at Natanz and just told the UN agency about planning to install more sophisticated equipment.  Then they will be able to accelerate the processing of uranium.  This could speed enrichment by 2 or 3 times.

I would say that Netanyahu has his plate full.  To top it off, Yair Lapid, the new popular leader in the new party of Yesh Atid, who came in 2nd in the election, is following his own agenda.  He's pushy and seemingly controlling.  Chaim Weizmann once said that he was Prime Minister of 2 million prime ministers and Netanyahu is trying to work with one of them.  Everyone feels that Lapid is more interested in becoming the next prime minister and is making it hard on Netanyahu by setting impossible demands on negotiations to form a coalition.  Netanyahu is working on forming as broad a coalition as possible.

  Lapid's strong hand is pinching out the 2 very orthodox parties from the coalition because he plans to have all men called into the draft and that means yeshiva students will all go into the army like others.  This Tal Law allowing exemptions went into affect only 10 years ago and the high court in 2012 had found it unconstitutional and expires in August anyway.  This will allow 14,000 more men to be in the army.   Arab Israelis are exempt.  Druze serve as well as other Israelis from 18.  Men serve for 3 years and women for 2. For a month out of every year they are called back in for the "milueem" period until they are 55.  .

It's enough to realize that missiles heading your way just might be also carrying biological and chemical weapons from very hateful and sick people, but to have all these other problems?  I think Israel is very lucky to have such strong people at the helm of their government.  We pray for them.

Resource: http://backchannel.al-monitor.com/index.php/2013/01/4170/israeli-jets-said-to-have-struck-alleged-weapons-convoy-in-syria/#ixzz2JWahghYb.
Arutz Sheva
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-ultra-orthodox-confident-yeshiva-students-won-t-be-drafted-to-idf-1.414219
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Israel
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/03/source-syria-preparing-chemical-weapons/
http://hnn.us/articles/862.html
Oregonian newspaper 2/1/13 page A8, Israeli air attack spurs syrian  threat by Bassem Mroue AP and Israel faulted for expansion of settlements by John Heilprin, AP, Iran to upgrade nuclear facility, wire report