Netanyahu Threatens to Retaliate if Palestinians Declare Statehood

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to retaliate if Palestinians declare a unilateral state, saying such a move would unravel existing agreements with the Israelis.

Netanyahu’s stern comments come the same day that a senior Palestinian official told Fox News they are considering a U.N. resolution to declare a Palestinian state. Palestinian officials had said Sunday they were preparing to ask the United Nations to endorse an independent state without Israel’s consent because they were losing faith in the peace talks.

But Netanyahu, speaking at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem, said there is “no substitute” for negotiations.

“Any unilateral action would only unravel the framework of agreements between us and can only lead to one-sided steps on the part of Israel,” he said. He did not elaborate further.

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Israelis Prepare for War with Iran

The postcard from the Home Front Command that recently arrived in my mailbox looks like an ad from the Ministry of Tourism. A map of Israel is divided by color into six regions, each symbolized by an upbeat drawing: a smiling camel in the Negev desert, a skier in the Golan Heights.

In fact, each region signifies the amount of time residents will have to seek shelter from an impending missile attack. If you live along the Gaza border, you have 15 seconds after the siren sounds. Jerusalemites get a full three minutes. But as the regions move farther north, the time drops again, until finally, along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, the color red designates “immediate entry into a shelter.” In other words, if you’re not already inside a shelter don’t bother looking for one.

The invisible but all-pervasive presence on that cheerful map of existential dread is Iran. If Israel were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, Tehran’s two terrorist allies on our borders—Hezbollah and Hamas—would almost certainly renew attacks against the Israeli home front. And Tel Aviv would be hit by Iranian long-range missiles.

via Israelis Prepare for War with Iran.

If Israel Strikes Iran, U.S. Will Likely Join

The United States would find it difficult not to join an Israeli air strike in the event that Jerusalem decides to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, a former top-ranking U.S. Air Force officer told participants at a conference this weekend organized by a Washington think tank.

Charles F. Wald, former deputy commander of United States European Command, said a military strike on Iran could set back the Islamic Republic’s alleged nuclear weapons program by several years, but cautioned, “I don’t think Israel can do it alone.”

The former commander’s remarks were made at an annual gathering of financial backers of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who were joined by diplomats, journalists and analysts.

“They have a fantastic military, but not big enough for weeks or months of attacks – hundreds of sorties per day,” he said.

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The Demise of The Dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading.

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs.

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Mideast’s Christians Are Losing Numbers and Sway

Christians used to be a vital force in the Middle East. They dominated Lebanon and filled top jobs in the Palestinian movement. In Egypt, they were wealthy beyond their number. In Iraq, they packed the universities and professions. Across the region, their orientation was a vital link to the West, a counterpoint to prevailing trends.

But as Pope Benedict XVI wends his way across the Holy Land this week, he is addressing a dwindling and threatened Christian population driven to emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is about 5 percent today and dropping.

Since it was here that Jesus walked and Christianity was born, the papal visit highlights a prospect many consider deeply troubling for the globe’s largest faith, adhered to by a third of humanity — itsmost powerful and historic shrines could become museum relics with no connection to those who live among them.

“I fear the extinction of Christianity in Iraq and the Middle East,” the Rev. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, the Catholic archbishop of Baghdad, said in a comment echoed across the region.

The pope, in a Mass on Tuesday at the foot of the Mount of Olives, addressed “the tragic reality” of the “departure of so many members of the Christian community in recent years.”

He said: “While understandable reasons lead many, especially the young, to emigrate, this decision brings in its wake a great cultural and spiritual impoverishment to the city. Today I wish to repeat what I have said on other occasions: in the Holy Land there is room for everyone!”

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IDF Map Confirms Every Israeli is Under Missile Threat

The IDF’s Home Front Command has begun distribution of a color-coded map that divides Israel into regions based on the residents’ distance from the nearest terror army. The map provides graphic confirmation of the fact that every Israeli is under missile threat from either Hizbullah in the north or Hamas in Gaza, or from both.

The Home Front Command launched a public campaign centering on the map and the slogan “protect yourself right on time.” The campaign will culminate in the largest-ever nationwide emergency drill, dubbed “Turning Point 3,” which is scheduled for late May. The campaign includes TV and radio spots, magnetic maps for home refrigerators and information on the Command’s website.

The map divides Israel into 27 regions that are grouped into five ‘belts,’ based on the distance from Hizbullah’s missile array. The ‘belts’ are differentiated by the amount of time residents will have to scurry for shelter after a warning siren sounds. While the northernmost areas like Kiryat Shemona or the Golan Heights must find shelter immediately, the residents of Tel Aviv have the “luxury” of a two-minute interlude between the siren and the expected crash of missiles. Residents of Jerusalem and the south – all the way to Eilat – have three minutes.

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Peres: Sooner Or Later World Will Realize Iran’s Intentions

“Sooner or later, the world will realize that Iran wants to rule the Middle East and that it has colonial ambitions,” President Shimon Peres said as he left for a meeting with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger today.

Peres added, “The collision between an Arab-Sunni Middle East and the Iranian minority that is seeking to control it is inevitable.”

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Iran Has 7,000 Centrifuges

Iran is now running 7,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges,a senior official said on Thursday, an announcement likely to increase Western concerns about the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear plans.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, also said it had obtained the technology to produce more “accurate” centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium.

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Abbas: No Mideast Peace Without Jerusalem as Palestinian Capital

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday called Jerusalem “the key for peace” and said justice and peace would not come to the Middle East without “an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

Addressing an audience at the opening of an event celebrating Jerusalem’s role in Arab culture, Abbas reiterated calls for Israel to accept a two-state solution, vowing not to resume negotiations with Israel without an explicit Israeli recognition of previously signed agreements.

Abbas said that “any new Israeli government should reaffirm anew its commitment for peace by clearly accepting the two-state solution, the road map peace plan and all commitments reached in previously signed agreements.”

He also stressed that “without (Israel) halting all settlement activities, in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories, there will not be serious and productive negotiations.”

Abbas stressed that the Palestinians want to reach “an effective truce” with Israel that would end bloodshed and hardships.

He called on Israel to stop the destruction of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, describing this policy as one of “ethnic cleansing.”

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Iran Nuclear Threat

A top Israeli general says Iran is capable of producing a nuclear bomb.

Israel’s military intelligence chief told the country’s Cabinet that Iran has crossed the “technological threshold” of nuclear capability. Major-General Amos Yadlin said this does not mean that Iran actually has an atomic bomb, but that it has the expertise and materials needed to build one.

So how long would it take Iran to acquire the bomb? Israeli analyst Barry Rubin says time is running out.

“There is a big gap between material and bomb,” said Barry Rubin. “But basically, people who are well-informed estimate that Iran will need between 15 months to over three years.”

Rubin says that is a significant timetable considering there is a new administration in Washington, and in a few weeks, there is due to be a new government in Israel.

“We are entering a period in which we can assume that during the administration of this president of the United States and during the term of this prime minister of Israel, Iran will obtain nuclear weapons and those governments will have to make major decisions,” he said.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But Israel has grown increasingly alarmed about Iran’s intentions since 2005, when the Iranian president threatened to wipe the Jewish state “off the map.”

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EMP Attack: Overlooked Catastrophe

When Iran successfully launched its first domestically made satellite into orbit on Feb. 1, U.S. State Department official Robert Wood said Iran’s activities could “possibly lead to the development of ballistic missiles” and were of “great concern.”

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said France was “very concerned” about the launch.

UK Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said the launch underlined the UK’s “serious concerns about Iran’s intentions.” Then they resumed their focus on their various economic implosions where “concerned” had been elevated to “alarmed.”

What continues to astonish me is how little Western nations seem to grasp the tremendous danger that Iran is signaling in plain view. I have produced at least two television shows and as many articles in which I sought to warn of Iran’s intention to use its rapidly developing nuclear warheads in an EMP attack against Israel, the EU and the U.S.

In an article I wrote for WorldNetDaily in July 2007, I noted a 1998 Iranian missile test that “failed, detonating some 40 seconds after launch after reaching an altitude of 180 miles. This is the approximate ideal altitude to detonate a nuclear warhead for an EMP attack on a country.”

I was astonished at how little attention Western military planners gave Iran’s successful satellite launch. What little attention it did get focused on the probability that Iran could use the satellite launch technology to build an ICBM.

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Jews Facing Increased Challenges and Threats

Representatives of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) briefed the cabinet at its weekly meeting Sunday on their 2008 assessment, presenting a particularly bleak forecast.

According to the assessment, Israel and the Jewish people are facing a wide array of challenges and threats, including a new US administration, a continuing erosion in the US’s global position, the strengthening of Iran, the use of Israel as a pretext for the dissemination of a new anti-Semitism, and the economic crisis and consequent blow to Jews’ economic status.

The report pointed to the overall decline in the United States’ status during 2008 as impacting worldwide Jewry.

The simultaneous strengthening of an axis advocating the annihilation of Israel, led by Iran, is threatening the image of the Jewish state as a haven for the Jewish people, the report said.

“Israel is becoming a mainstay for the proliferation of ‘new Anti-Semitism,’” it stated. “This harms Israel’s ’soft power’ and the image of the Jewish people as a whole.”

Additionally, the report said the global economic crisis may challenge the political power of Jews in the West.

“The assessment is not particularly encouraging from the socioeconomic point of view,” the report went on to explain. It noted that “the economic crisis has dealt a serious blow to Jewish wealth and, along with the Madoff fraud, has severely damaged philanthropist activity and has exacerbated the danger of rising traditional anti-Semitism. Budgetary problems could adversely affect the ability to manage community life and education systems in various locations abroad, given intensified competition over allocations and the channeling of donations outside the community.”

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U.S. Intelligence Official – This Is Just The Beginning

Northeast Intelligence Network director Doug Hagmann interviewed a highly-placed U.S. intelligence official late yesterday who not only confirmed rumors about escalated and more intensive Israeli military operations against the Muslim terrorists in Gaza, warned of the increasing probability of abandonment of Israel by the U.S. and other Western countries based on what he termed “malicious intelligence.”

“Remember that term,” advised this well-placed intelligence official, “you’ll be hearing it again.”

“This is just the beginning,” stated this intelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous. This official stated that the possibility for a much more protracted ground war is more likely today than at any other time in the past, adding that Israel is exercising her right to protect herself from her enemies in Gaza. But there is a catch, noted this official, and a big one at that:

Israel could be about to lose the support of the United States.

“I have every reason to believe, based on what I’ve seen at my level of [security] clearance especially over the last several years, that Israel will soon be completely on their own… or worse.” When asked what could be worse than losing the support of the United States, he stated: “when our administration provides more support to Arab countries [with] financial and military aid, undercutting Israel’s defense efforts all while pushing Israel to succumb to the pressure of unreasonable demands designed to end with their political annihilation as a nation.”

According to this official, the U.S. has been slowly proceeding down this road. He cited the 2005 surrender of Gush Katif to the Palestinian Authority as one critical example of the slow dismantlement of Israel as a viable nation. “Despite critical intelligence outlining in every possible manner imaginable that this would be a disastrous move leading to the events we are seeing today, it was done anyway,” he stated.

“We are seeing the very scenario play out today that was outlined in intelligence briefs three and four years ago. Knowing that, there is something very wrong with this picture,” he stated.

via U.S. Intelligence Official about Israel: “This is just the beginning” | Northeast Intelligence Network.

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Gaza Rockets Put Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Plant In Battle Zone

There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.

Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.

In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets.

Israeli planes, meanwhile, began a new stage yesterday in their offensive on Gaza, killing Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas official. The one-tonne bomb in Jabaliya is also understood to have killed two of his four wives and four of his twelve children. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in the six days of Israeli attacks.

Despite a diplomatic mission by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, to Paris, the Israeli army continued to muster thousands of troops and scores of tanks along Gaza’s border for a possible ground offensive. Israel’s airstrikes are designed to blunt Hamas’s capacity to fire its new Grad missiles deep into its territory. The weapons are smuggled in through tunnels and by sea, replacing homemade Qassam rockets.

Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored.

via  – Times Online.

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