Pope Francis, during his visitation to the Holy Lands, was sure to make a very public statement over the plight of the Palestinian Arabs as he made a highly publicized stop at the exact section of the security barrier where Pope Francis claimed to make a prayer for a unified Arab Palestinian State emphasizing the proposed relationship to, as scrawled on that very section of the barrier, the similarity of the Warsaw Ghetto’s walls and the Israeli built security barrier, a separation object that is largely a fence but along certain stretches is required to be an actual wall such as within heavily built up areas so that it also keeps bullets and explosives from being easily launched into Israeli areas safeguarding both Arabs and Jews of all religions and all others from terrorist assaults on their lives and which has resulted in a highly effective tool in preventing homicide/suicide bombers, homicidal vehicle attacks and sniper attacks of various varieties bringing such attacks down to becoming a rarity compared to previous attacks before the barrier was constructed. Further, Pope Francis made it publically emphasized that his trip began with meetings with Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab Palestinians which he made sure to enter from Jordan flying initially into the Jordanian capital city of Amman specifically to avoid any possible meeting with Israeli officials. The Pope went further as he make a long procession, almost a victory parade, accompanied by numerous Arab Palestinian leadership from Bethlehem to Jerusalem emphasizing in his remarks the plight and flight from Bethlehem of its once predominant Christian population making heavy implications that such a sorry state of affairs had everything to do with Israeli ‘occupation’ and the hardships caused by the Israeli government, meaning the Jewish People, completely absolving the Arab Palestinians and their history of antagonism and persecution of the Christians causing the massive flight in fear for their lives from threats and actual terrorist aggressions.
This was followed by a visit to Israel where Pope Francis had a totally different persona becoming somewhat aggressive and antagonistic demanding the Catholic Church be granted their inalienable rights to ownership of large areas of Jerusalem with special emphasis on newly made claims to the building which houses the gravesite of King David claiming the room above King David’s tomb was a possible Christian Holy Site where the Last Supper had recently been claimed to have taken place moving it from the previous traditional spot where there were no contentious claims to this aggressively contentious place where it placed this Christian site above and over a highly Jewish site and further the Pope demanded rights to offer prayer services, a privilege granted and almost immediately abused by attempting to hold such prayers specifically on days where Jews had particularly offered up prayers from the site and taking assurances to hold these prayer before the scheduled Jewish services thus intentionally making the site void for Jewish prayer. The Pope was far from done with his assault on Judaism as well as launching additional assaults on Israel and Israeli claims within the Holy Lands in general at times appearing to insinuate obliquely that the Jews were without any religious claims as they were no longer recognized as having any religious rights having been supplanted and superseded making void any Jewish religiously made claims having been replaced by Christianity.
This particular claim made by the Pontiff has ramifications beyond the replacement theology where it is postulated that the Jews have become damned as replaced as the chosen people by the Christians, the Pope would claim the Catholic Church, and no longer favored by the L0rd and cast forth from Jerusalem specifically and without claims throughout the Holy Lands. Pope Francis has, by renewing the replacement theology of the past, set the precedent that Hashem can and has broken vows and promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David and others which identified the Jewish People as those chosen to carry His Message to the rest of the world has been abrogated and transferred to the Catholic Church which makes the supersessions claimed by Islam claiming that the Christians have themselves been cast off as were the Jews making the Muslims not only the replacement in eyes of Hashem but also the final chosen peoples to carry forth the messages of Hashem and, going one step further, the ones chosen to rule all of humanity going even further afield of a similar claim indigenous to the Christian faith as Judaism never held that the world would be their inheritance, they claimed only a rather insignificant measure of land strategic only in its central location to Europe, Africa and Asia being the region where the three continents converge and having ports which can connect the two main trade routes which have since been serviced by the Suez Canal.
The reassertion of the policy of the Catholic Church having replaced the Jews as those having a covenant with Hashem has left the Catholic Church also subjected to being replaced as the chosen of Hashem which is exactly the claim made by Islam. Carrying the replacement and the sole holy religion has also seen both Catholicism, in the more native guise of Christianity, and Islam to thus interpret such to authorize their sovereignty over the entire planet in order for them to properly prepare for the return of Jesus which had been carried one step further by the Islamic extremists claim that their religion being the sole religion Divinely inspired as the replacement, the final replacement of both Judaism and Christianity not only should rule over all of Earth but also be the sole religion practiced by all mankind. This has been carried out to the letter by ISIS as well as being the stated end goal by Iran, Hamas, Hezballah and various other claimants to being the sole pure remaining practitioners of Islam as defined by Muhammad and is behind a very real threat being made by ISIS and a number of their adherents. The agents for ISIS in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), why that redundancy is required by all that is politically correct makes me really desire to cease the practice, and I shall endeavor to do so going forth, are requesting for a list of all the Christians residing in (East) Jerusalem and their addresses to be given to those ISIS representatives by the faithful of Muhammad, note that not all are claiming faithful to ISIS following the practice of deference when outnumbered and until gaining sufficient numbers, somewhere around twenty percent, before becoming more forceful and soon thereafter, around thirty-five percent, taking rule by force and demanding total and complete allegiance followed by choice of becoming part of the faithful as defined by ISIS to the sword, otherwise death. They want these lists as soon as possible such that they can make the necessary plans and make sure they have the necessary power and people to carry out an ethnic cleansing of the Christians residing in Eastern Jerusalem. They have not requested such a list of the Jews residing within the area as they likely believe that those entire neighborhoods are easily known and identifiable.
This list will necessarily be assembled with an assault plan in mind by which the vast majority of the Christians residing in Eastern Jerusalem will be forced from the area implied by the sword and not by choice but such will probably be a logistics driven decision. The ISIS planners will take the precaution of having sufficient deployment of forces such that each unit will have a flanking unit on either side or at a close proximity allowing the massing of forces should any resistance be mounted such that they can quickly and without sacrificing their intended missions gather sufficient force to swarm any resistance counting on numbers to turn the tide of battle. Such has been the tactic used by ISIS as well as preparing the area for their assault before-hand. Not possessing sufficient artillery ISIS instead uses vehicle bombs and homicide/suicide bombers to soften their intended targets instilling confusion and disorganization amongst their intended target before they follow-up with swarming the target neutralizing any recovery minimizing their target any time to regroup and form a coordinated counterattacks or even an organized defense with overlapping fields of fire and the other considerations usually carried out well in advance and practiced including tactics of the enemy being interjected at unannounced times to test procedures for just such scenarios. The target in this instance is basically a cleansing operation intended to either clear an area of any opposition or make clear that certain types residing within an area should necessarily depart before they too face the determined business end of an ISIS representative’s weapon. Their announced target date for this cleansing of the population for Allah is the final day of Ramadan which falls in July 16, 2015.
The first determination which must be realized by Israeli police and military forces is whether to act as an intervention in force early on and prevent the organization of ISIS forces, wait until they have gathered so as to maximize arrests, intervene as soon as the assembled ISIS forces pose a threat or to simply ignore the threat and only respond to calls in an usual manner leaving the Arab Palestinians pretty much to their own ability. The final option is actually an option not supported by Torah and Jewish Law as we are directed to protect human life as even the lowest amongst us, the beggar, the infirm, the stranger and others we might normally divert our attentions from are still lives we are commanded to care for and keep safe. The concept that each life is potentially an entire nation thus if one saves one life it is as if one has saved a world. That basically means that Israeli defense and law enforcement forces must be prepared for and the one which is most feasible resulting in there being no loss of life be the ones sent for further considerations. Another consideration should be by which of the tactics that prevents any innocent casualties would allow for the most ruinous of setbacks for ISIS and at the same time making their claims of bringing the reincarnation of the Caliphate into question. There needs to be one more principled consideration, the threat to Israeli personnel and citizens, not to claim that any one life is of greater importance than another as that is beyond our ability to reason and is best left to the Creator who knows all things, Hashem. There is one consideration which must be made initially; which is whether or not this threat posed is valid and thus worthy of making and practicing for such an eventuality. Most ISIS threats issued have proven to be real and worthy of notice, but that does not necessarily mean that this attack threat must automatically be considered valid. This threat might be being presented to gauge the level of Israeli response to threats in order to more closely study the anatomy of such a response. Whatever the reasoning behind such a threat, Israeli leadership can be assured they will be held totally responsible for any casualties outside Israeli personnel. Any other nation would be the recipient of sympathy and offers of assistance with the aftermath with support in repairing any damage, aid money to augment responses training in preparation as if there is a singular attack response which would be universally applied to every attack and resolve all problems and serious planning for special situations such as a visit and speech by another head of state.
The importance of responding both effectively and forcefully against any initial attack while not going to an overboard approach cannot be overestimated in this instance. Should Israel present an overly cautious and overt response to this particular threat, then ISIS planners would have an effective but simple approach to fomenting fear within Israel by simply pretending to plan an attack and allow the overt, heavy-handed Israeli ramping-up of security measures. Fortunately, for actual events such as parades, speeches and other events or places where people congregate such as train and bus stations and malls; Israel does a fabulous and renowned level of successful security to meet the requirement necessary for each location and expected crowd. Since all ISIS would need to do to estimate the Israeli response to any situation would be to go study any previous similar situation and view the control of the threat level caused and they would have their answer. Pushing a threat against Israel on her own soil and thus giving her home field advantage will simply make everything that much more difficult for ISIS. In this instance Israel will be required to bring to the table an actual threat assessment and response plan as should ISIS actually follow through on a mission to slaughter as many civilian innocents, almost especially any of the numerous minority populations, as Israel is held to the highest expectation of levels possible in the world. Israel is the only nation expected to be capable of providing on a consistent and near universal level security superior to any European nation, any Western nation and even particularly the United States. Israeli security is expected to match when provided for the most insignificant of those amongst us a level of public security roughly the equivalent of that provided the Queen of England, and Israel has thus far throughout her brief but situation filled history met that challenge almost universally; Baruch Hashem. Anybody wishing an actual example of similar situations and the difference between Israeli response and another nation with proper expectations of being capable in a security situation such as a hostage crisis, simply compare the handling of the 1972 Olympic Games abduction of the Israeli team in Munich where most of the Israeli team consisting of six Israeli coaches and five Israeli athletes were taken hostage and ended up murdered along with one German police officer while five Black September members were eliminated in the regrettable failed rescue attempt where the plans for the rescue operation were poorly executed and all of the requested aid did not arrive on scene until two hours after the stand-off and siege began leading to the conflagration that murdered most of the Israelis tied up in the helicopter which was detonated with a grenade thrown by one of the terrorists compared to the Entebbe raid by an elite IDF unit responding to the hijacking of an Air France flight and the holding of Israeli and Jewish passengers and crew numbering over one hundred victims at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda, a distance of over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) in Operation Entebbe, as it came to be known, on July 4, 1976 (giving Israelis a reason to celebrate on as high a level as the people in the United States could on that nation’s bicentennial celebrations) where all but four of the one-hundred-six hostages were rescued with the IDF team suffering five injured and a sole fatality of one of the team commanders and older brother to a future Israeli Prime Minister, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, and all of the terrorists either killed or injured along with almost half of the approximately one hundred Ugandan military troops providing security for the terrorists. Israel had offered assistance and even to handle a rescue attempt with the German government who not only refused the Israeli offer but informed Israeli government officials that any Israelis sent to Germany would be refused entry at the airport and returned to Israel as this was a German operation and Israel had no right to interfere. Perhaps the Germans should have turned it over to the Israelis and thus make Israel responsible for the results.
But what is it they say about history, it is what it is and physics has not yet figured out how to alter history, only politicians and the media have such power. That is why when the history is written about the July 16, 2015 ISIS Ramadan assault intending to murder every Christian possible throughout Eastern Jerusalem the only credit or blame for this intended catastrophe in the manner of the cleansing of Mosul, the destruction of the two-thousand-eight-hundred-year-old capital of the Assyrian empire, Khorsabad, including its seven gates and the city with its most highly regarded sixty-four foot wall erected around 713 BCE by King Sargon II during his reign and nearly completely demolished in the beginning of the twenty-first century (or the fifteenth century on the Islamic calendar), parts of which have been preserved in museums in Baghdad, Paris, London and Chicago; destroyed thousands of books in libraries across the lands they have savagely rampaged with some of the books such as the rare books in Mosul are irreplaceable and singular remnants of wisdom and writings from ancient to the modern times; reintroduced slavery on a massive scale and especially the selling of woman as sexual slaves to the highest bidder, some women have been returned for receipt of a percentage of her resale price; burned, drowned, prisoners alive; shot, and beheaded people sentenced to death for even minor offences or taken prisoner; crucified Christians; blown apart prisoners shoved into a car with anti-tank missile; taken sledge hammers to ancient sculptures, vases, pottery destroying ancient displays in museums; and promised to bring this parade of horrors to every corner of the globe should they be allowed that possibility. This is the assembly of monsters across continents with fellow travelers identifying and subjugating their will all in a similar vein such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad; and other equally offensive and revolting acts all threatening to replace the comfortable lives of the decadent Western world should they be given that chance. That is their promise and where is the response from the supposed civilized world? They are either leading from behind or covering the back of the leader leading from behind all in all leaving Israel to fight the world’s war and stop the advance of those who desire a return to the tenth century, a backwards jolt on either calendar, especially the Jewish calendar which is in the fifty-eighth century.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 