Not that I want to take one side or another, but I think it’s significant to point out today’s news coming from inside Iran that may corroborate such a viewpoint. Even more striking is the report that those responsible (whether part of the resistance, or perhaps others within the regime seeking to seize power) may include elements of Iran’s military and even the Ayatollah’s own son.

It’s not at all for certain at this point, and tales of intrigue coming out of Iran are nothing new, but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on—especially in view of the things Glick had written.

Can you say stay tuned?

But then a few days ago someone called my attention to an analysis by columnist Caroline Glick which presents detailed information suggesting the attacks could be internal sabotage by the anti-regime “Green” movement. Now wouldn’t that be something!?

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Meanwhile, it’s hard to keep up with all the shifting alignments in that part of the world occasioned by events blithely referred to as “the Arab Spring.” The biggest sore spot right now appears to be Syria, and it’s not looking like dictator Bashar al-Assad is going to be there much longer. Europe is against him, the US is pretty sure it’s against him, and significantly the Arab League has also turned against him. Even the UN has finally decided the situation there is outright civil war. (Think Libya a few months ago.)

But don’t write him off just yet. Russia has recently given indications via diplomatic statements backed up by military moves that they intend to support the present regime, with muscle if necessary, and Iran (weren’t we just speaking of them?) continues to stick by its old buddy. Russia and Iran are major players, whether we like it or not.

But then there’s also Turkey. You’d think Turkey would look at a map & see it’s not in a good position to simultaneously take on most of its neighbors, but it’s just not that simple in this part of the world. Turkey has been jockeying for prime influence among the Arab states for quite a while now (the Turks knowing full well that they themselves are not Arab) and therefore is acting prudently in seizing an opportunity to squeeze out Iran. I don’t know what it thinks it will do with Russia if push comes to shove, but the two were never buddies in the first place.

And don’t forget Hezbollah. Now there’s an interesting situation. Hezbollah owes its existence to Iran, and its continued well being to Syria, so it can neither afford to buck the trend nor relax in place. And for all its bluster, it still knows it’s the little guy. Simply put, it’s in the hot seat, and can’t do much but talk.

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Now south of the border, down Egypt way, we have another major concern. Last week’s elections have made it clearer than ever that what was not long ago one of the few more-or-less pro-Western states in the Middle East is now heading down hill fast into becoming another Islamist enclave. Kind of like Iran, but Sunni.

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So let’s step back and look at the major pieces. In one corner, you have a sort of Russia-Syria-Iran axis (or sickle) going it alone against not only Europe and the US but also against the Arab states in general. But if Syria is taken out of the picture, you have just Russia and Iran. (Forget, for the time being, North Korea and China–I’m trying to keep this simple. And sadly, Lebanon just doesn’t have any say in the matter.) What do they want with each other? Plenty, no doubt, but that has to await another chapter.

You have Turkey all by itself, trying to pretend to be friends with whoever suits its purposes for the moment, but not actually knowing who that is.

You still have a reasonably stable region consisting of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States, who are also for the moment OK with having Turkey for a friend.

Iraq is too busy sorting itself out to have much influence right now, but don’t expect that to last forever.  Yemen is also presently trying to get its bearings, and once it does, it will likely fade back into the recesses of world consciousness.

Lastly (for the sake of this discussion) you have the emerging Islamist states of North Africa—what we’ve been calling Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and which still go by those names, if only because they themselves don’t yet know who they really are.

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So with all this going on, you’d think that nobody would want to bother with itty-bitty non-Arab, non-Muslim, non-Islamist Israel, wouldn’t you?

You’d think.

Reports have been swirling in the media for a while now that Israel may soon go after Iran’s nuke sites. Israel isn’t saying much, but what they are saying is tantalizing, quite possibly on purpose.

A couple of months ago Mideast authority Professor Barry Rubin posted several reasons why he thinks it’s not likely to happen, but nobody I know really knows, or will say they know.

Since Professor Rubin’s column, the International Atomic Energy Commission released a report saying that—surprise, surprise—Iran may be closer than we think to getting its bomb. But that report doesn’t seem to have changed the strategic situation much, if any–maybe because it isn’t really new information.

Meanwhile the US is a little miffed that Israel might not let us in on it beforehand if they do go. It’s not like we’d actually be a help—especially considering the current US administration’s Islamist associations.

Then again, America is a truly complex entity, so I’m not altogether surprised that we may, in spite of opposite indications, be making our own preparations. This report of the USAF taking delivery of new, more potent “bunker buster” bombs may be taken as one indication of that.

Speaking of which, why would the United Arab Emirates be getting these huge bombs from us also, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, if not for a similar purpose?

Meanwhile one of Iran’s top military officers—said to be behind Iran’s missile program–was killed in a massive explosion over the weekend. Iran officially says it was an accident, but there are some who say Israel did it. You think?

And let’s not forget Duqu, Son of Stuxnet. Iran now admits the new computer virus is bedeviling their computer systems in a way similar to the one that temporarily shut them down last year. They say they have a handle on it, though. Yeah, right.

Given all this, I’m not at all sure Israel can’t keep Iran’s nuclear weapons program at bay without a massive strike. But it’s not up to us, is it? Sometimes all we can do is watch.

Watch with me, will you?

lineman

So what’s the “cool idea” in my title? An item in today’s Israel National News quoted the Palestinian Authority “Communications Minister” as claiming Israel was behind a widespread DoS attack directed against PA computers, coming from “more than 20 countries.” (Don’t ask.)

And what justification might I have for yelling that we should just shut the Palestinian Authority down? Well, aside from the obvious benefits to Israel and to world peace, they negated their own legal basis when they applied for UN membership last September. So if the world (and in particular, the UN) were to adhere to international agreements, the PA would be thereby dissolved. So if Israel is sabotaging their computer networks – so what? Just – shut – the – PA – down. Get it?

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While we’re on the subject of the UN, the latest circumvention of its own reason for existing (that’s French for raison d’etre) has been to admit the non-existing state of Palestine to UNESCO. At least in this case the US deserves acknowledgement for withdrawing its funding of that non-august entity. You see, it’s not allowed under US law to give money to any UN agency which admits that particular terrorist organization. So the US is abiding by one of its own laws at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the international mob. It’s a start, anyway.

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And oh by the way, how many of us realize that Israel itself has a solid basis, not only in history, but in international law, predating the UN itself by three decades? I’ve mentioned it before, but look again at the San Remo Agreement.

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And is Israel getting ready for a pre-emptive strike on Iran? More than usual, I mean. Maybe, maybe not, but there have been a slew of media reports to that effect over the past couple of days. Some reports even fantastically suggest the UK may be planning something. Now wouldn’t that be fantastic!? I don’t mean to disappoint, but Barry Rubin gives several good reasons  to take it all with more than a grain of salt.

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And the ships of fools (“flotillas”) keep trickling out of Turkish ports. As always, they represent more noise than substance. This one says they can disprove the Palmer Commission findings on the 2010 flotilla fiasco. Or something like that.

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Now back to the subject of computer attacks—remember Stuxnet? (Did you think I’d never get back to that?) There has been a new computer virus making the rounds that some folks are speculating may be Son-of-Stuxnet. Maybe, maybe not.

There’s a whole lot more happening than I’ve been able to touch on here, but for the moment I have to stop writing go back to watching. TTYL.

lineman

I just finished reading the Ha’aretz transcript of Abbas’ speech, and I can’t quite bring myself to believe that anyone in their right mind and with the right information could take what he said seriously.

But there’s a saying I’ve heard that sometimes folks will throw mud at the wall to see if some of it sticks. Translation: people will sometimes make outrageous, unbelievable, unjustifiable claims against someone else, and just maybe there will be somebody gullible enough to buy it. Well, it’s true—mud happens.

And right now there are great globs of mud stuck to the walls in the UN.

At first I thought I might try taking Abbas’ diatribe apart lie by lie, but I soon saw that really the whole thing was one big lie. He starts out by making the broad false statement that there actually is a nation called “Palestine”  acknowledged by various existing UN agreements and resolutions, and that he, as the president thereof, is merely coming to solidify the standing of that nation as a full member in the United Nations organization.

There is no such thing as a nation of Palestine, and there never has been. There is an entity known as the “Palestinian Authority”  which is correctly characterized as an “interim administrative body” having limited administrative authority over defined territories which have been successively occupied over the past 100 years by the Turkish Empire followed by the British Mandate for Palestine under the auspices of the League of Nations, followed by military occupations by the Kingdom of Jordan and by Egypt, followed by Israel, but never a Palestinian national entity.

There have been many documents issued by the UN which have addressed matters of conflict between various parties involving Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon and other legitimate nations, but never any acknowledging the existence of a Palestinian national entity.

One point worth noting here is that the standing legal document acknowledged by the UN Charter which establishes legal right to the territories in question was generated in San Remo, Italy in 1920 and specifies that the area being claimed by “the Palestinians” be designated and recognized as the Jewish National Homeland. The group which Abbas claims to represent has absolutely no historical or legal right, under UN agreements or any other stipulation of international law, to the areas they are attempting to usurp.

Oh, and for the extent of Abbas’ legitimate representation, it is correct that he was appointed “president” of the “Palestinian Authority” in 2005—but his term has long since expired.

So you have a charlatan posing as a representative of a “nation” that doesn’t exist coming to the United Nations with a bucket of mud hoping to foist off the fantasy that it’s time for the UN to acknowledge and instate his imaginary domain.

But you know what—the UN is full of gullible leaders of state who want nothing more or better than to do just that. A whole gallery of dignified men and women who are even now gazing at the muddy walls of their institution and admiring the dirt.

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On top of the overreaching falsehood of Abbas’ basic assertion are a few more outrageous claims that are too astounding to let go.

One is that the whole source of the problems he is (ever so humbly) attempting to correct is what he calls the “Al-Nakba,” or the forced expulsion of the Arabs living in the area in 1948. Well, OK, there was an expulsion of the Arabs, but not by the Jews—it was the Arab leaders themselves who forced their peons (including, apparently, Abbas’ family) to leave. Which fact Abbas himself admitted in 1976(!) The Jews actually entreated the Arabs to stay and help build a new country with them. But we don’t want to look at facts now, do we?

I’d almost be ready to think that Abbas believes his own lies, but he’s just too smug about it.

There’s another term Abbas introduces which is more of an obfuscation than an outright lie. Twice he calls the security fence (which has dramatically reduced terrorist attacks from the territories over which Abbas claims authority) the “annexation wall.” Excuse me, but what is an annexation wall? To annex is to join something to something. A wall separates. So how do you join by separating? Or separate by joining? Or—oh, never mind! Up is down, down is up, right is wrong, wrong is right, mud is truth, in Abbas La-la-land.

By the way, on the topic of annexation, it’s really not a bad idea. There’s even a move currently in US Congress to encourage Israel to consider just that. See Caroline Glick’s cogent comments on the matter here.

But perhaps the biggest, saddest whopper of the day was when Abbas claimed that they (his party Fatah, the competing party Hamas, and who knows what other “peacemaking”—yes, remember up is down–terrorist groups he meant) were just (cough! gag!) “defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope and slogans.”

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Ah, but this brings us to the one bright spot in the whole affair—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s follow up speech. His tone was, as always, conciliatory, continuing to extend Israel’s hand of peace to its mortal enemies (OK, maybe I don’t completely agree with this approach, but I’m not here to argue against it, either), however he also proceeded to address at least a couple of the more blatant falsehoods put forward by Abbas. One of which was the aforementioned denial of anything but peaceful means on the Arabs’ part. The PM graciously acknowledged their “hopes and dreams,” but went on to point out what everyone knows but many are loath to admit, that those dreams are augmented by “10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.” Way to go, Bibi!

But will a dab of truth clean off the mud? One can hope, but one should not hold one’s breath. An already oft-quoted line in Netanyahu’s speech rightly pegged the UN as “the theater of the absurd. It doesn’t only cast Israel as the villain; it often casts real villains in leading roles: Gadhafi’s Libya chaired the UN Commission on Human Rights; Saddam’s Iraq headed the UN Committee on Disarmament [and] …Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the UN Security Council. This means, in effect, that a terror organization presides over the body entrusted with guaranteeing the world’s security.”

Look for the mud to stay where it is for a while, and maybe even get smeared around some.

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Thanks as always are due to my friend at GIYUS for her input and photos which I’ve used here. Please read her blog entry, Leaders appear to lose faith – Is there still hope for peace in the Middle East? for some key points I did not take the time to address.

I could have taken a lot more time and space tonight to cover many additional aspects of this event and its ramifications—goodness knows I’ve been skimpy on comments lately—but  for I just now wanted to get across my sense of wonderment at the bald faced audacity of terrorist Yasser Arafat’s successor before the most important body of statesmen and stateswomen in the world.

The world is ‘way down a sad road when it honors men like that in the ways it appears to be doing.

Oh—did I mention that Abbas funded the 1972 Munich massacre and praised it’s perp?

God help us, is all I can say.

Now comes another hint from the Obama administration, not quite so subtle, but still not as blatant as it could yet become. (Not-so-cleverly hidden, by the way, in comments regarding last year’s flotilla incident.)

And PM Netanyahu just says no.

It’s slowly coming to a head-on between superpowers. (Yes, Israel is a superpower, albeit tiny in geography and population. Something to do with the backing they have from the Super Power, imho.)

Baby, it ain’t over!

Watch with me.

How do I know such things? Because the Almighty wrote a book about it.

Although, as I’ve said before, I usually try not to emphasize the “religious” aspects of the conflicts in the Middle East, sometimes I just feel that the eternal viewpoint is what needs to be expressed at the moment. I’ll still try in this post not to cite book, chapter and verse, so as to keep my tone a little more like what it has been; write to me if you want details.

I put “religious” in quotation marks because it really isn’t about religion; it’s about what God has done, is currently doing, and—as far as we can tell from the book He wrote—is going to do. And I do this also because (the way I read it), God is all about relationship, not religion. The animosity of the Arabs toward Israel is not really a religious issue (let alone a land issue, as some would have us think) but an issue of relationship.

The Jews as a nation (and Israel, like it or not, is a Jewish state) descend from Abraham son of Terah through his son Isaac and through his grandson Jacob. The Arabs in general, correctly or not, trace their descent from Abraham through Isaac’s older brother Ishmael. And therein lies the problem, at least through human eyes.

There’s a custom in many societies (European included) to reckon a rightful inheritance though a firstborn son, and then only secondarily, if at all, though younger siblings, particularly male siblings. And Ishmael, not Isaac, was Abraham’s firstborn son, so according to this custom he was the rightful heir of his father.

However, God (being God) chose to supersede this principle and pass the inheritance to the younger son. Houston, we have a problem. To make matters worse (again, from a human perspective), Abraham then tossed the firstborn son out of the house. So the firstborn son not only had his (perceived) rightful inheritance yanked from his grasp, but he became rejected, and fatherless. It’s not that Abraham didn’t love Ishmael–he truly did, and was grieved to let him go–it was just that God had other plans in mind, told Abraham about them, and… what’s poor Abe to do? When God (and He is God) tells you to do something, you’d better do it.

Now, can we expect Ishmael to understand all this, or any of it? Did anyone ask him how he felt about it? Not that we can tell from the aforementioned book.

I may be making this sound like God is being very unfair, but that’s not by intention. Actually, I don’t see anywhere in the book where God characterizes Himself as fair by our standards. He does characterize Himself as just, and whether you see the difference or not, you have to simply acknowledge that it’s His standard that counts in the end.

But from a natural perspective Ishmael has every reason to feel as resentful as all get-out.

Fatherlessness, as many sociologists will tell you, is one of the biggest problems we have today in Western societies, and I’m told by others that it’s seen in Middle Eastern societies as an even bigger issue than it is here. And I’m told that in Middle Eastern cultures (please correct me, anyone, if this isn’t so), that what happened to my father, or forefather, however many generations back, happened to me.

What all this boils down to is that if I’m an Arab, I may think I have every right and reason to be resentful, even homicidally so, against any and all Jews. From a human perspective, anyway. And for that matter, resentful against God Almighty, since it was all His doing in the first place.

Seeing it from this angle, it makes sense that every modern war fought by Israel has been in self defense against Arab aggression. And it goes a long way toward explaining why Israeli defense and security forces go far beyond customary standards in treating their enemies with what actually appears to be favor, or at least sympathy. Who else would do, or has done, such a thing?! And I think we all—even the Arabs–know that Israel has not “stolen” any Arab lands. Even the adopted title “Palestinian” tacitly acknowledges that the Jews were the occupants of the region thousands of years ago.

But it’s not about land, or even recent history. It’s about a relationship issue that has never been resolved by human standards, and cannot be resolved by military or political means. There is a solution which has been offered on a spiritual plane, but that’s a whole ‘nother subject.

In a little over a month, the Arabs are expected to submit a plan to the assembled nations of the world asking them to acknowledge that yes they are entitled to a piece of land in the middle of the State of Israel from which to launch further and more effective aggression against the descendants of the man who they figure stole the birthright of their forefather. I don’t think the assembled nations of the world as a whole have a clue as to what’s really going on. And that goes also for the current administration of Israel’s one remaining ally having veto rights against such a decision. So I don’t know how it will go. Maybe Abu Mazen or whoever makes the presentation will get up there and just speak gibberish? Whatever he says, you can be sure it won’t have anything to do with the real problem.

But God—being God—will ultimately have His way. If we’re smart, we’ll read that book He wrote, with an open and sincere heart, and find out just what that way is, and get on board with it.

Can I hear a “God help us,” anyone?

Of course the big thing coming up is the specter of the United Nations vote next month to officially recognize a “Palestinian” state in the territories occupied by Jordan and by Egypt from 1948 to 1967, but now under Israeli administration. Never mind the lack of a viable governmental structure on the part of the Arabs occupying those areas, or the likelihood that the whole endeavor will blow up in their faces, there exists nonetheless a “bizarre alliance against Israel” (as Michael Curtis at American Thinker puts it)–American and European observers remain blindly focused on imagined shortcomings of the only viable Middle East democracy, ignoring the obvious problems (to put it mildly) of Arab countries. (For example the ongoing slaughter of the Syrian people by their own regime.)

Israel’s ace in the hole, as it were, is a promised US veto in the UN Security Council, but there are also subtle reasons to doubt that promise.

For reasons which I have stated before, I still think it will come out all right in the end. But just how close we are to the end is a little hard to tell.

So won’t you watch with me?

lineman

Help Israel and the IDF win the next fight with the Flotilla

 

In the year that passed since the terror organization IHH tried to "break the siege" on Gaza while attacking IDF Navy soldiers, the Turkish group has been plotting a rerun of the event. This time around, IHH plans to have many more ships from all over the world all trying to set sail into Gaza.

There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel delivers all goods through regular channels. If the flotilla was about delivering aid to Gaza Israel would gladly accept the aid and deliver it to the people in Gaza. But this flotilla is not about aid – it’s about hate towards Israel and about trying to create a provocation against Israel. It’s about denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Jewish leaders across the world are pressuring European countries not to allow Flotilla ships to set sail. That pressure seems to be working as the French Flotilla group announced their ship will not sail to Gaza. Even Turkish Foreign Minister acknowledged that in light of the newly opened Rafah crossing the flotilla is not necessary and  urged the flotilla organizers to reconsider. The Turkish IHH group is scheduled to announce their decision within a few days.

While we hope the next flotilla will indeed be smaller, this is an ongoing battle. The battle field is online and social media is the weapon of choice.

If you’d like to help Israel in this time of terrorists provocations and help avoid the next attack on Israel please take a few minutes to look at the individuals listed below. These people are the global support base of the Flotilla movement. Giyus.org took the time to identify those that raise funds for flotilla activities, support terror organizations like IHH and Hamas and blindly act against Israel no matter what. They use their Facebook accounts to spread heir hateful anti Israel message.

These are the faces of the new web 2.0 antisemitism – please log into your facebook account and report these users for abusing Facebook to spread hate and antisemitism.

Click on each NAME link to reach the relevant facebook profile to report. Click on the report link on the bottom left hand side of the profile page. When you click on the report link a small window opens up. Please choose the "Inappropriate profile information" option and then choose the 2nd option in the drop down menu – "contains hate speech".

Time is of the essence here – the more complaints Facebook receives the more they’ll look into the issue and make it harder for these people to spread their anti Israel hate message.

Thank you for your support and for standing up and saying no to hate and antisemitism. To act on more issues and easily support Israel please sign up to our email updates – make a difference to Israel.

Greta Berlin

Paul Larudee

Osama Alisawa

Adam Shapiro

Kevin Ovenden

Amin Abou Rashed

Gharbi Anouar

Joe Catron

Dina Kennedy

Benji de Levie

Gail Coleman

Richard Reilly

Felice Gelman

Kevin Clark

Mary Hughes Thompson

Aymeric Picot

Nina Nervestad

Ronny Kjelsberg

Georg Morland

Espen Goffeng

Thomas Lie-Gjedldslett

Dror Feiler

Ali Awaisi

Griet Deknopper

Fatima Elmo

Niamh Moloughney

Fintan Lane

Shane Cormac Dillon

Fop Beal Feirste

John Hurson

Leti Moskis

Maria del Mar

Laura Arau

Ehab Lotayef

Sandra Ruch

Vivienne Porzsolt

Raul Bassi

Andrew Muncie

In my stated purpose of blocking lies, I have several times reposted a fellow blogger’s lists of links to hate sites to take action against (and look for yet another list in my next post).

But the antithesis of hate is love, and that of lies is truth, and we are told in the Prophets to love the truth. I have a good many links in my sidebar to sites that are committed to a love of the truth and to propagating it, but it’s all too easy to just scan past blog roll links.

So here is a little more information on a few of them:

Act for Israel is (in its own words):

the leading digital platform for pro-Israel activism. We rely on the latest Internet-based technology to win the war on ideas. We believe that Israel has the right to live in peace and security, and that all people deserve the right to live in dignity. Our goal is to share this centrist position with a wide audience to correct misinformation, end demonization, stop delegitimization, and to give Israel a well-needed voice.

You can also follow their tweets here.

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Professor Barry Rubin on Pajamas Media

Prof. Rubin’s long expertise in Middle Eastern affairs mixes well with an engaging writing style. You should follows his comments regularly. See his tweets also here.

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Caroline Glick never disappoints. She drills down to the essence of things and doesn’t pull her punches. You may know her from the viral We Con the World video that parodied the phoniness of last year’s anti-Israel flotilla.

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The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America may not immediately seem as feisty as Glick, but they make up for it with breadth and with a multiplicity of resources for defending the truth on numerous fronts. See CAMERA on Twitter.

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Fresno? You’ve heard of Fresno, haven’t you? Not everybody has, but it’s a city on the West Coast that harbors an outspoken Zionist or two. Go take a look at FresnoZionism and check their tweets here.

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I’ll wrap things up for the time being by sending you to Challah Hu Akbar – “Fresh Baked Middle East Nonsense” (though anything but nonsensical). Tweet them here, and enjoy!