What Is This World Coming To?

The London Daily Telegraph claims that it has evidence that the world’s most dangerous anti-Semite may well have a Jewish background.

“A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots. A close-up of the document reveals he was previously known as Sabourjian – a Jewish name meaning cloth weaver.”

Wonderful.  A Persian self-hating Jew with an Islamic messianic complex and a nuclear bomb.

Iran said it successfully test-fired short-range missiles during drills Sunday by the elite Revolutionary Guard, a show of force days after the U.S. and its allies condemned Tehran over a newly revealed underground nuclear facility that was being secretly constructed.

English-language Press TV reported the Fateh-110, Tondar-69 and Zelzal were test fired in a missile defense exercise, but did not give specifics on range or other details. All are short-range, surface-to-surface missiles.

Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, told reporters Iran tested a multiple missile launcher for the first time. Press TV showed pictures of at least two missiles being fired simultaneously and said they were from Sunday’s drill in a desert in central Iran. In the clip, men could be heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” as the missiles were launched.

“The message of the war game for some arrogant countries which intend to intimidate is that we are able to give a proper, strong answer to their hostility quickly,” the Web site of state television quoted Salami as saying. He said the missiles successfully hit their targets.

Salami told reporters Iran had reduced the missiles and their ranges so they could be used in quick, short-range engagements. He also said Iran would test medium-range Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 missiles on Sunday night and long-range Shahab-3 missiles on Monday, during the drill set to last several days. The Revolutionary Guard controls Iran’s missile program.

As news of the previously unknown Iranian nuclear facility has everybody re-evaluating Iran’s nuclear point of no return, the Israelis are reporting that Syria is caching heavy weapons along its shared border with Israel.

They said the Syrian Army was using civilian assets to conceal the rearmament operation.

“They are using civilian trucks to bring weapons near the border,” Ground Forces Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrachi said.

In an address to a military conference on Sept. 2, Mizrachi said the Syrian Army was storing massive amounts of weapons in villages near the Israeli border. He said unmarked trucks were transporting a range of weapons to villages in the Golan Heights.

“This is why we need to split up our capabilities between a conventional war scenario to one that we are fighting against a non-conventional force,” Mizrachi said.

“The Syrians have learned from [the Iranian-sponsored] Hizbullah on how to use a civilian shield,” a senior officer said. “We expect Syria to do the same thing in any next war.”

by Georgia Miller

Well, I have wondered about posting my personal notes about our trip to Israel. I took many pages of notes!   Our group was only 15 people. Most of us didn’t know each other at the beginning of the trip, but by the end of the trip, there was a special bond among us.

I would invite others who went to Israel to also share their stories. Each would have a different perspective, and our experience would be very different perhaps.

We arrived in Tel Aviv at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 22. We boarded our very large tour bus, the Nazarene Express, which seats 55. After being so cramped in airplanes for a day and a half, each of us takes a full seat and I smile to myself as I realize everyone on the bus is sitting separately. It’s nice to have space!! (I chuckle about our little trip coordinator at the airport who quipped — “we have camels waiting for you outside.”)

Boaz takes the microphone and welcomes us to Israel. He and our driver will be with us all week long.

I am amazed to look out the window to see sights I never expected to see. I enjoy the scenery from our bus. There are hills and stone buildings and different landscape, and traffic (just like home). We were on Highway 6. Boaz points out many things that bring income to Israel and he states that tourism is not a major source of income these days.

After dark we pass the lights of Nazareth in the distance, and we also pass Armageddon. Finally we reach Nof Ginosar where we will stay. We must rush to remove our bags from the bus and then hurry to the dining room for dinner. We are told we could see the Sea of Galilee if it were daylight, and we long to see the Sea! Read the rest of this entry »

The United States under President Barack Obama has switched sides and is now joining Russia in opposing international economic sanctions against Iran.

Former US President George W. Bush was the international community’s chief proponent of strong economic sanctions against Iran, but Obama has doggedly stuck with a much softer approach since being elected last year, despite continued Iranian defiance and provocation regarding its nuclear program.

European and other industrialized nations recognize how dangerously close Iran is coming to acquiring nuclear weapons, and what the recent post-election crackdown in Tehran says about the mentality of its government, and want to introduce new sanctions at Wednesday’s G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

But US officials have said Obama will actively oppose any new sanctions, and an Italian newspaper cited Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as saying he wholeheartedly backs the US president in that endeavor.

Meanwhile, Israeli government officials told The Washington Times on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly hesitant about asking Obama for a green light to strike Iran, fearing that an outright rejection of the request could put an end to the military option.

London’s Sunday Times reported earlier this week that ultimately, Israel may not need America’s go-ahead to strike Iran. According to the report, Saudi Arabia, which stands to lose nearly as much as Israel if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, is willing to turn a blind eye to Israeli aircraft passing through its airspace.  From Israel Today Headlines

Israel scrambled Tuesday to sidestep President Barack Obama’s demand for a West Bank settlement freeze with a diluted counteroffer to Washington.But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s compromise—to take down some squatter camps in exchange for permission to keep building in established settlements—was quickly rejected by hard-liners in his own coalition.

The dispute underscored Netanyahu’s difficult juggling act. He’s trying to avert a crisis with the U.S. over settlements, while keeping his pro-settlement governing coalition intact and forging ahead with construction, such as the rows of apartment blocks going up in this rapidly expanding Israeli city in the West Bank.

However, Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have spoken in recent days about halting all settlement activity without exception, suggesting Netanyahu may have little room to bargain.

More from Reuters

Iran tested its longest-range solid-fuel missile Wednesday - a launch that displayed Tehran’s reach and burnished President Ahmadinejad’s hardline reputation ahead of next month’s election.

The missile was said to be capable of striking Israel, U.S. Mideast bases and Europe.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed the test, which was announced by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The launch raised concerns about the sophistication of Tehran’s missile program and Pentagon officials cautioned that it leaves Iran at a crossroads.

“They can either continue on this path of continued destabilization in the region or they can decide that they want to pursue relationships with the countries in the region and the United States that are more normalized,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

More from the AP

Iran is trying to replicate Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jewish people, Israeli deputy prime minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday ahead of a Holocaust ceremony at a former death camp.

“What Iran is trying to do right now is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago,” Shalom told reporters before a ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Read the rest of this entry »

US envoy George Mitchell kicked off a fresh round of Middle East shuttle diplomacy on Thursday with a somewhat tense meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

In response to Lieberman’s earlier declarations that Israel is not bound by previous land-for-peace understandings that the Palestinians have consistently violated, Mitchell insisted that the final outcome of the Middle East peace process must be a sovereign Palestinian Arab state.

The Foreign Ministry released a statement reporting that Lieberman reminded Mitchell that the land-for-peace process has been going on for 15 years, under numerous Israeli governments prepared to surrender most of the demanded territories.

Lieberman concluded: “Thus far, the traditional approach has not brought any results or solutions.”

via Israeli ministers tell US envoy ‘NO’ to Palestinian state.

Noted CBS News, (of all sources)

In a swift about face from her views as New York’s senator, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now hammering Israel over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.

As First Lady, Clinton raised eyebrows when she kissed Suha Arafat. 

On Thursday, as Secretary of State she had yet another about face in the form of angry messages demanding Israel speed up aid to Gaza. Jewish leaders are furious.

“I am very surprised, frankly, at this statement from the United States government and from the secretary of state,” said Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News and member of the NYC Jewish Community Relations Council.

“I liked her a lot more as a senator from New York,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, said. “Now, I wonder as I used to wonder who the real Hillary Clinton is.”

Clinton’s decision to hammer Israel comes as the Clintons and President Barack Obama are planning to give the Palestinians $900 million toward the rebuilding of Gaza in the wake of the Israeli offensive that was sparked by Hamas rocket fire.

Apparently,  the Obama administration’s dedication to rewarding bad behavior isn’t limited to domestic n’er-do-wells.   If robbing widows and orphans earns a bailout for Wall Street, then the indiscriminate firing of rockets into  Israeli towns and villages ought to rate at least $900 million for Hamas.