What Is This World Coming To?

According to Israeli intelligence,  Hezbollah has added the advanced shoulder-fired SA-18 missile to its arsenal of anti-aircraft weapons.

The Lebanese daily Al Akhbar said Hezbollah intends to take measures to stop Israeli overflights. On July 31, the pro-Hezbollah newspaper quoted a militia source as saying that Hezbollah was “close to adopting practical measures that will force Israel to cease the overflights.”

The SA-18s, with a range of 5.2 kilometers, were provided to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria, officials said. They said Iran also plans to equip Hezbollah with longer-range air defense systems designed in China and Russia.

“There is a reinforcement on the other side, and it’s not by chance that we are training intensively on the Golan Heights and on a major scale,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. “There has been a very significant reinforcement of Hezbollah in recent years, and we are examining the possibility that the balance of power has shifted with the introduction of sophisticated weapons from Syria.”

On Aug. 12, Israel’s military, in a move closely monitored by neighboring Syria, held a major exercise on the Golan Heights. Officials said the exercise envisioned a Hezbollah and Syria attack on northern Israel.

One option for Hezbollah was to procure mobile SAM systems, such as the Pantsyr-S1E from Russia. Officials said Hezbollah could deploy the Pantsyr from Iranian or Syrian stocks in Shi’ite areas of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, where the militia was believed to keep heavy weapons and long-range rockets.

If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post.

The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters. Read the rest of this entry »

Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority and the alleged moderate who is the ‘last, best hope for peace’ between Israel and the Palestinians offered his congratulations to the family of child murderer Samir Kuntar on his release from an Israeli prison.

Kuntar was among those traded for kidnapped Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Kuntar had been in Israeli custody for thirty years after being convicted of murdering a four year old Jewish girl by crushing her head with a rifle butt. Read the rest of this entry »

By Isi Leibler

Sen. Barack Obama is possibly the most charismatic US presidential candidate since John Kennedy. He is young, charming, passionate and extremely bright. He has overcome the barrier of racial bias and defeated a powerful adversary considered unbeatable. He is adored by many idealistic young people, who see in him a hope for a brighter future. Read the rest of this entry »

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to announce that he will ‘not stand in the way’ of his Kadima Party beginning the process of initiating a primary to choose his replacement. Olmert made the commitment following ‘heart-to-heart’ talks with party officials.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Tzahi Hanegbi told an Israeli version of “Meet the Press” that he envisioned a national unity coalition government between Kadima, Labor and the Likud Parties. One thing he is certain of is that Olmert’s government is on the verge of collapse.

“I consulted with Olmert and senior Kadima officials on the matter and, clearly, [I think] it is impossible to hold this crumbling coalition together,” Hanegbi said. “Even if Barak does not quit, Shas will leave the coalition, and if Shas doesn’t leave, Barak will.”

A Ma’ariv poll showed that if elections were held now, a Binyamin Netanyahu-led Likud would win 30 mandates, a Livni-led Kadima would get 25 and Labor under Barak would win 18. If Mofaz were Kadima’s candidate, Likud would win 31 seats, Kadima 18 and Labor 21.

It would be nice to simply speak something into the air and, by virtue of your ‘positive confession’ for that ’something’ to become the truth.

Former president Jimmy Carter spoke into the air that he could accomplish what no sitting president could, and bring peace between Israel and her enemies.

Carter was SO certain that only he could bring this off that he traveled to Damascus, in defiance of both the State Department and Israeli Foreign Ministry. Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama accused President Bush of “a false political attack” Thursday after Bush warned in Israel against appeasing terrorists:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Obama went ballistic, and then the Democrats went ballistic en masse. For the record, Bush didn’t mention Obama or the Democrats. He mentioned an unnamed senator of no particular party from 70 years ago, the Nazis, Poland, Hitler and appeasement.

Yet the entire Democratic establishment reacted as if Bush had called them by name. It appears a case of the wicked fleeing where no man pursueth, but maybe that’s just me. But I don’t think so.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting, under the curiously-worded headline, “Palestinian factions in Gaza agree in principle to cease-fire” that about a dozen small Palestinian factions ‘agreed in principle’ to a ceasefire with Israel.

What made the headline ‘curiously-worded’ was that the report later explained that it wasn’t really a ‘cease-fire’ at all, but rather, a ‘hudna’. What is a hudna? Read the rest of this entry »