The Third Intifada, what our Arab peace partners call the Stabbing Intifada, has been planned as the introduction to what they are plotting will be so much more. Their allies will gather over the coming months from places expected and some unforeseen. One of the first gatherings came this past week and instigated the abrogation of one of the few peace accords Israel has with her neighbors. Numbering over fifty, Bedouin leaders published a joint statement calling on Jordanian King Abdullah II to take on the task of building an army readying them to stand as the vanguard to take back Jerusalem. Arabi 21 news site quoted the statement accordingly, “Arab regimes in general, and the Jordanian regime in particular, have shirked their religious, national, and ethical responsibility towards the most important Arab and Muslim problem, the Palestinian problem. The events in the occupied land and at the al-Aqsa Mosque would not have happened if it wasn’t for the incompetence of governments and their actions in the service of the Zionists, Americans, and national enemies.”
The statement proposed the Jordanian King assemble the “Return Brigade” from within the Arab refugee camps and displaced persons, a combination of the refugees grandchildren from the First Failed War to Annihilate Israelis both Jewish and Arab of 1948-9 with further candidates drafted from the camps of Syrian refugees augmented with new supporting brigades of Jordanian nationals and fully supported by the Jordanian military. Together the force should be applied to attack and conquer Jerusalem and the holy sites in the city, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque, Dome of the Rock and the remainder of the holy places on al-Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount). The reason for building these brigades was to assure Israeli understanding that the campaign against them, the “Zionist enemy”, is truly ongoing and rather than a conflict over borders, it is a religious struggle for the restoration of Islamic Arab hegemony over all the lands and the complete defeat of the Zionist impostors who infect these Arab lands. The entirety of the struggle which has been continuous since before the turn of the last century and now covered over a century without end and will continue, according to many an Imam, Arab leaders and amongst many Muslims throughout the Middle East and beyond into Africa, until the Zionist Entity has been eradicated. One wonders how many of the over fifty Bedouin leaders will be sacrificing their tribespeople to this cause or are they demanding this task to be imposed only upon others. It would be nice to have a full understanding of exactly who and how many and from where the adversaries will be drafted and gathered once more on Israeli borders with the promise of extinction for the Jewish People even if only in Eretz Yisroel.
Many will see this story and pass it off as another stand alone and singular item not part of a greater whole, but in the end there are no stand-alone incidents in the end, just a series of chains of events that all too often become interwoven into a massive chain driving events which make for pivotal moments in history. Some of these events are unalterable and others are where mankind makes their own path. In the end we can only strive and pray that our efforts are towards that which we can change and often it is best to pretend that all is within our power to effect, after all, everything else will be as will be and all we could have done was our best. There will need to be far more events, some which will make the news but most will be hidden from view until, as it is always stated in Hollywood movies, too late.
Today was a blue ribbon day as another little piece of the puzzle came from Mahmoud Abbas as he and Jordanian King Abdullah II met with John Kerry to attempt to find ways of diffusing the ongoing violence on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem and throughout Israeli territory, within and outside the Green Line. Channel 10 in Israel reported Saturday night that the Arab Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is demanding Israel provide him significant political concessions in exchange for any efforts to stem the ongoing wave of Arab Palestinian terror. This all came about as a result of a series of meetings between Mahmoud Abbas with both United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Jordan’s King Abdullah Saturday on calming the tensions in the region. His first demand is the low hanging fruit and most obvious demand as Abbas has made this demand almost incessantly since the last set of steps of negotiating fell apart once the news that Abbas and the PA delegation were planning on terminating all contact with Israel immediately after the fourth and last set of prisoner releases which is now his opening demand even before discussing the rest of the list of coming demands. Abbas made a secondary demand that he absolutely must receive an official statement from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu admitting to and willing to meet the reopening of talks, of mediations, under agreed upon conditions. Exactly what the remainder of the agreed upon conditions is not entirely defined at this point in time.
This all assumes that Abbas can even defuse the current situation, something many believe, yours truly included, sincerely doubt Abbas actually has such influences. Making such an assignment even more dubious is the threat by Hamas to torpedo any chance of talks in the region. Arab Palestinian sources have revealed that Hamas plans to increase levels of the incitement as well as perpetrating their own attacks in Jerusalem and throughout other areas within Israel wherever possible. Additionally, there have been reports of new insertions of new IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) trainers and supplemental forces to augment Hezballah frontline units, train new Hezballah units for the fight in Syria as well as potentially opening a new front against Israel from within Syria and potentially from within Lebanon as well. Some believe that the stationing and equipping new Hezballah units is being made possible by the recent or coming infusions of funds as well as the riches to be gained through the dropping of all sanctions. There is such a high probability, such as to be next to certainty, that Iran will use funds they receive in the coming year as the recently reached nuclear agreement is implemented, will be restocking Hamas supplies elevating the probability of yet another offensive out of Gaza launching hundreds or thousands of rockets with ever increased range and lethality. Fortunately Israeli-Egyptian relations, where frosty, are peaceful and actually have some beneath the board agreements and security coordination concerning the Sinai Peninsula and even Gaza. Egypt has also spent the time, treasure, manpower, planning and execution of steps to all but obliterate the network of smuggling tunnels under the border between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula. As long as Egyptian President Sisi remains in power, then tranquility bordering on coordination and joint actions will largely continue in place.
There are other situations which hold threats for Israel going forward. There is always the danger of a large scale attack with well beyond acceptable losses, not that any loss should be viewed as a mere statistic, as should that day befall us, and let us all pray such never becomes valid, then the entire idea of status-quo will be blown apart possibly never to return as it is claimed currently. There will be the ever growing threat of rockets or missiles from Iran, an all on invasion by Islamic State launched across Jordan and on to the Arab Palestinian lands giving the Islamic State a beachhead against Israel. Then there is the constant verbal bludgeoning Israel receives from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. There is little doubt that given half a chance to defeat the Jews, Erdogan would dedicate whatever troops he felt would be required. The real problem is that there are Arabs and a few others around this globe who see nothing wrong regarding their defeating of the Jews, all of the varieties from the least religious, universalistic Jews or the uber religious Jews. To reach this end the Arabs may never be required to accept the Jews, Christians, Buddhist, and many others who have already been swallowed partially by Islam and know that it is about the particular uniqueness of Islam which demands as a holy act that it erase all which preceded them and conquer and convert those who claim to have come after them as they claim to be the sole repository of truth and the final word on all faith and thus all must either be preceded by Islam and thus an offshoot who has lost their way or beseeching forgiveness if they hold to religious beliefs which preceded Islam. Theirs is the ultimate and final end of self-aggrandizement claiming to be the final rendition of replacement theology thus they believe there can be none other.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 