Lord George Weidenfeld Repays Debt of Life and Other News

 

With all of the threats of war, nuclear proliferation and other threats to Israel and the rest of the world, especially in the Middle East, it was absolutely refreshing to read a story in the Times of Israel titled Holocaust survivor repays ultimate debt via rescue of Syrian Christians about life and the repayment of the gift of life from World War II and a Jew, Lord George Weidenfeld, who was saved from Nazi tyranny and certain death by groups of Christians repaying that debt by rescue of forty-two Syrian Christian families. Under a veil of utmost secrecy, the one-hundred-forty-nine people were taken from lands under the control of the Islamic State’s tyrannical oppression and threat to all Christians and even other Muslims found to be of other than their strict Sunni doctrines, even other Sunni found to be lacking or deficient in their devoutness by any act whether intentional or merely singular lapse, and taken to Poland via Lebanon in a rescue of which hopefully further such are planned. The short version reads more like a Hollywood script where starting in 1938 Austria a group of Christians saved nineteen-year-old George Weidenfeld whisking him out of Vienna to the United Kingdom. Obviously the young lad made good, after all he has been knighted and thus the title Lord George Weidenfeld (pictured below). He is now repaying that debt and the first installment was the saving of these forty-two families. Please visit and read the even at the expense of reading on here as the Times deserves the hits and I am but an unworthy messenger. The specifics which could be made public are to be found in the Times telling.

 

 

Lord George Weidenfeld Holocaust survivor spearhead rescue forty two Christian families from Islamic State territory repaying debt of life with lives

 

 

Quoting 95-year-old Lord George Weidenfeld, who is spearheading the venture, from the article reporting his statement explaining the actions his group initiated with valuable assistance by the British branch of the Jewish National Fund, “We have been deeply moved by the plight of Christians in conflict-torn Middle East countries, and we are supporting the transfer of Christian families to safe havens where they can lead normal lives,” Lord Weidenfeld stated further, “In the 1930s thousands of Jews, mainly women and children, were helped by Christians who took enormous personal risks to save them from certain death. We owe a debt of gratitude.” There is far more including comments from leaders of the British branch of the Jewish National Fund as well as from Sir Charles Hoare, who has advised the Barnabas Fund not to mention the rest of the story.

 

I wanted to take a reprieve from the constant drumbeat of largely discussing the horrors which are the news of the world today as it has always been. The old adage of “If it bleeds, it leads” still holds true today. Take a quick glance at the newsstand and read a few above the fold headlines and it is almost always the same, death, injury, horrific events and worse. Stories such as the above seldom make it into Section A of print media. Perhaps that is the one advantage of the online experience, you search the news and you usually get what you were seeking and it is as if it was the lead on page one as to view the rest you need click the news logo to see the actual front page, but why ruin the idea that the feel-good story, the heroic story, the repayment of life with life story as the front page in your version of the news. But unfortunately we need talk about the threats, the world that we are leaving for our children, grandchildren and for the very fortunate to have lived long enough, the great-grandchildren. Sure we take relief every now and then for a story like the above or to talk of great achievements in medicine which make horrific disease treatable or completely preventable or those developments that enhance and prolong life as well as youth and the ever fascinating exploration of space, the final frontier unless you are talking to a marine biologist, then the last frontier is the Mariana Trench and especially the Challenger Deep at the southern end of that trench which is approximately one mile deeper than Mount Everest is above sea level, simply put; if Mount Everest sat placed in the middle of the Challenger Deep you would need to dive over one mile down to reach the summit of Everest and continue the near six miles further to the deepest point of Challenger Deep. The first explorers to descend to the deepest part of the oceans, the Challenger Deep, were U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer and engineer Jacques Piccard aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960 and were the only two men to view literally the bottom of the world any time before the twenty-first century. Now one more intrepid explorer has joined the names of humans to reach and view the Challenger Deep when in March of 2012, Cameron, diving solo in Deepsea Challenger, replicated the U.S. Navy’s Bathyscaphe Trieste’s 1960 dive of nearly 11 kilometers (7 miles) into Challenger Deep. Now both the Deepsea Challenger and the Trieste are now on display at the Navy Yard housed in the National Museum of the United States Navy, a fitting tribute.

 

Now, catching up, we return to that horrific front page story we had not yet talked about, the Chattanooga, Tennessee shooting rampage which left four Marines killed and three others wounded as well as a police officer shot in the ankle during the attack. The four Marines were identified as Carson Holmquist, Thomas Sullivan, Skip Wells and David Wyatt. Their Islamist murderer, Kuwaiti-born, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, age 24, and not a year more, reported to have initially shot at the Armed Forces Career Center off Lee Highway from his convertible around 10:45 that morning then drove to the Naval Reserve support center, where he killed the four Marines and wounded another three. Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez was killed after police intervened and shot him dead. We would like to thank police officers who assisted in ending this saga taking the appropriate steps to protect the community and further to save the nation from what would have been a mockery of the memory of the four upstanding pillars of their communities, these four marines, as during a trial we would have been subjected to the news about the unfortunate, troubled, conflicted and complicated life which the perpetrator tuned soulful and reflective victim of the pressures and discords of being a follower of Islam in the intolerant community replete with often unnecessary hatefulness shown their community oft appearing to ostracize its members. We would have faced attempts to explain the twisted logic that the Marines represented the force, often disproportional force the United States projected during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan adding to the uncomfortable influence American military members who spent downtime resting in Kuwait either incoming or leaving the theater making the clash of cultures unnecessarily displayed. There would have been numerous articles in the mainstream media attempting to justify the unjustifiable. Meanwhile, these Marines leave behind families, loved ones and numerous others whose lives they have graced. Pictures of these people and the Marines who loved them and are still loved by them can be viewed here as well as some additional information.

 

This story links to the ramifications of the recently completed negotiations that formulated the path to nuclear parity with the United States and other members of the nuclear arms capable nations for Iran. This agreement which dare not be perceived in any way as being an actual bonafide treaty has numerous provisions which will slowly leak into the public discourse be it a little too late to afford changes. While the Congress has sixty days in which to review the one-hundred-fifty-nine pages that we edited removing much of the superfluous formatting which we are sure was a part of the confusion interjected in order to mask some of the more immediately threatening as well as down the road allowances and impositions on the United States and Europe which can be reviewed at link below:

Entire Edited for ease of Reading Transcript of Iran Nuclear Agreement with the P5+1 Group

Some of the more detrimental giveaways included in the agreement we pointed out but need repeating as well as additional revelations. There is the offer by both the European Union and the United States to provide expert assistance in removing any detrimental software which the Iranian systems may still have on their control networks and even individual computers. Included in some of the detrimental software, some refer to them as viruses and other have more descriptive names for them, is the Stuxnet invasive software which permitted cyber-attacks repeatedly and potentially still provided these options if remnants of the code remained after Iran supposedly cleansed their software. Additionally this will include updating the Iranian systems with anti-virus and other protective software some of which was likely written in Israel and adopted by the United States cyber-security governmental institutions. The United States has promised to also assist Iran with designing superior centrifuge technology bringing them on par with United States enrichment capabilities. Further security systems and protocols will be provided by the P5+1 nations to Iran as well as other wondrous enhancements to the Iranian uranium refinement systems. But wait, there’s more.

 

Within five to eight years the Iranians will be freed from restrictions on buying and selling military systems and hardware. Since the Iranians firmly believe that the agreement meant to say these releases from all restrictions are immediate, we can assume that Iran will at a minimum use some discretion in their procurement of arms as if they found it necessary to avoid direct signs of ignoring presumed restrictions, something they have had ample practice and become quite accomplished at putting in practice. Then there is the one-hundred-fifty-billion signing bonus as I am sure President Obama thought for a moment he was signing a new forward for the Chicago Bulls. Further into the maze where items are often written in officialese for lack of clarity, which is actually quite specific and clear when compared to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the United States agreed that all efforts are to be taken to protect Iranian military secrets, to avoid actions which might be interpreted as being too invasive, especially on sites which have been determined by Iran to be limited access points beyond which military activities take place.

 

So, the area where weapons are being produced, potentially nuclear weapons are being fashioned can be made off-limits to weapons inspectors thus shielding such production. This production could include all or part of this sequence to a modern thermonuclear device. Such an undertaking begins with taking raw uranium ore dissolving the uranium into Yellowcake also known as Uranium Hexafluoride ( UF6 ), then placing the gaseous mixture into the first centrifuge in a sufficiently long cascade such that at the end of the process the gas contains highly-enriched uranium (HEU) of around ninety-five-percent, also known as weapons grade. A few steps more and one has sufficient HEU to manufacture a fissile core which is useable as is for a simple fission bomb or with a small amount more and other rarified such as lithium deuteride fuel for the secondary core, the polystyrene foam or other material which can be transformed into a plasma with great expansive properties for surrounding the secondary core and the special metals used to focus the forces by having exacting specifications and tooling. Getting all the components tooled to tight specifications and virtually no room for error and then when detonated the high explosives the primary uranium bombards the core while the heat transforms the polystyrene into a plasma providing additional compressions where the lithium deuteride fuel is highly compressed and heated to temperatures approaching those of the core of the sun. The lithium-6 atom splits into one tritium atom and one alpha particle when heated and bombarded by protons released from the primary atomic bomb detonation. Finally the fusion reaction is instrumented forcing the produced tritium and the deuterium to fuse producing more neutrons and a great amount of additional neutrons which causes the Uranium 238 to undergo fusion causing even more energy and energy here means explosion.

 

Just as the invasion of Iraq on the intel that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear program despite sanction placed on his regime after the first Gulf War caused several regimes to come clean and actually assist IAEA and others to remove their related weapons sites, the surrender in-Toto by President Obama will now have the opposite affect causing nuclear programs to sprout throughout the world, especially in the third world where might still makes right and they live more in the strategies of Machiavelli than Sun Tzu or Clausewitz where the sublime ruled over the direct fist-in-the-face tactics of the Prince. This will be dangerous enough should even drug cartels find and re-appropriate nuclear weapons from a national armory to their personal armory but the spread of nuclear arms in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will mean the next time some terrorist group lights the fuse on an additional conflict that the result may be far more civilian casualties than the United Nations ever could ignore. Despite the possibility coming to fruition that Hamas, Islamic State or Hezballah procure or be gifted a nuclear device, or worse, a thermonuclear device, and manage to detonate it from the top of a Tel Aviv eight layer parking garage in center city at two-thirty in the afternoon, exactly what would constitute a disproportional response from Israel. Would Israel dropping one of their weapons over Tehran should the bomb be traced back from Hamas or Hezballah to Iran be considered disproportional? Would a dull coordinated assault on, should the bomb come from Gaza and Hamas, a full on assault from the north to the southern end of Gaza pushing every man, woman, child, goat, sheep, dog, cat, puppy and kitten until the final two-hundred meters were all that was left and then offer to pay every family or individual cash willing to relocate somewhere outside the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River never to return, or if it be Hezballah a full on assault pressing every living soul with minimal exception across the Litani River, would these be disproportional? My bet is immediately after such a calamity the entire world would be threatening Israel to be calm and not to overreact and to wait until the United Nations had addressed the situation. Are there any takers on a bet that this would be the immediate response from the world? Let us first pray that such a scenario ever comes to pass or a nuclear device ever find its way into being used ever again. The horrors and devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the second most disturbing results of World War II with the death camps being the most horrific of horrors.

 

The chance of a war in the MENA area where nuclear weapons are used as the first strike weapon of choice or the immediate retaliator weapon as the assaulted nation knows their military might is absolutely insufficient to wage a war with their aggressor and that their sole chance to survive is to end the war with an immediate strike with nuclear weapons. Whatever the reason, at some point one side will see the writing on the wall and be facing a devastating takeover from a hostile force which if their main religious observances are different could mean inquisition style cleansing of the population and another massacre for religious purity. When, it is generally agreed that it has been answered by the agreement reached earlier this week, then that result will very likely be tied directly into the surrender before the Iranian path to their nuclear weapons and a signal that the United States no longer enforces the NPT (Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty) and that the road to nuclear weapons has been blown wide open. Does anybody doubt that if the Sudan had nuclear weapon amongst its arsenal that they would have delayed using it in the southlands for one minute? What if Boko Haram were to get their hands on some nuclear weapons, what would be the fate of Nigeria, Cameroon and the rest of that region. The horrific scenarios are enough to boggle one’s mind while frightening their socks off. These few little mentions in the agreement along with a release of funds almost beyond reason in amounts that when included in the added revenues now that Iran can sell oil to anybody at any time brings the totals well into trillions of Euros or Dollars, the measuring currency does not diminish the amount. Even if the terms were to freeze Iran for fifteen years, a full five years beyond the usually touted number of a decade, does anybody honestly believe that anything will have changed, that they will not be having their “Death to America rallies across the lands and led by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or even the next Supreme Leader will honestly change their positions. The only change would be their no longer chanting “Death to Israel” because their news programs had already announced Israel was destroyed. This may not mean Israel was even scratched but they were told that the news continuing as if Israel still existed was all part of a Zionist plot and just as Egypt celebrates their glorious victories over Israel in June of 1967 and October of 1973, Iran will pick an empty date where they have a prolonged break between holidays and at the opposite end of the year from Ramadan to celebrate the day Israel died. Israel still exists and not a single blade of grass was scorched but the Iranians remember the gripping coverage lasting almost three days before ultimate victory by a super-secret military group even more clandestine and more highly trained than even the Quds forces. The Iranians will immediately be allowed to import advanced missiles and the United States is promised to assist Iran in their development of anti-missile and anti-aircraft and anti-cruise missile systems in order to secure Iranian airspace from any potential attack on their nuclear sites. They will also be free to purchase tanks, aircraft, advanced fighters, advanced naval vessels, and any other weapons systems they desire with very few limitations, so few that nobody appears is aware of any. This will likely lead to Iran possessing ICBMs capable of striking anywhere on the planet within about twenty-five meters accuracy which with nuclear weapons and cluster munitions is close enough. Is there a term for this kind of complete and utter fecklessness combined with malicious intent against one’s own country and arming the enemy and releasing or easing almost to the point of release sanction and implementing the most superficial inspection routines which were tried with more vigorous implementation against North Korea which led them to nuclear weapons in under a year despite their research at that time being less advanced than is the Iranian program, is there a term for such? Of course there is. Traitorous, treason, perfidy, treachery, sedition, double-crossing, double-dealing, and I believe that name Judas Iscariot also went with such actions though Judas performed a greater betrayal than simply a nation; but going forth I am sure that when somebody betrays their country they will be able to add the name of Barack Obama to the names such as Guy Fawkes, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Mordechai Vanunu, Ephialtes of Trachis; and now history will tell if Barack Hussein Obama will be added to this list of notables.

 

Beyond the Cusp

Who Will Pope Francis Blame When ISIS Slaughters in Jerusalem?

 

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

 

Immediate Ramification of the Death of King Abdallah

 

Saudi Arabian King Abdallah died this weekend placing his half-brother Crown Prince Salman into the position as Saudi Arabia’s new King Salman and elevated his brother to the role of Crown Prince Muqrin. The new King Salman was born on December 31, 1935 making his age to be seventy-nine with less than optimal conditions of health as are all those who are in the immediate line to the throne. The new Saudi Crown Prince Muqrin was born September 15, 1945 making his age to be sixty-nine. Reports on both of the Saudi Royals’ health are poor or worse making one of their chief immediate duties to soberly choose from amongst the children and grandchildren and seek out which ones are to be groomed further and placed, once their attributes and attitudes have been referenced, cross-referenced, thoroughly parsed, dissected, itemized, examined and everything verified are they to be placed in line for grooming to be the next rulers of the kingdom. This will take a matter of years despite the evident necessity to find the likely path the leadership will take so as to make such explained and verified by the religious hierarchy and all others whose input will have been sought and those whose positions make their acceptance more important and necessary. The next generations of monarchs will need training in governing, budgeting, foreign policy, Koranic knowledge and the other necessities of ruling. They will be required to prove their worth and will likely be thrown into position to rule provinces or cities, be placed in liaison positions with the religious leaders of Saudi Arabia with an emphasis on the leading Wahhabi Imams, proper military training and service, and knowledge of the ins and outs of the oil industry and its use in international diplomacy. All of these are items which will have many in the nation concerned and a select few outside of Saudi Arabia. Still, there will be some ramifications which many will find affecting their daily lives and others which Middle East experts will dwell upon for hours if permitted the time during interviews. We will try to hit some of the immediate ramifications and hope we are sufficiently accurate or at the least no more inaccurate than the average expert despite being amateurs by comparison.

 

We can expect to expect little if any changes initially, especially the price per barrel of oil as the new monarchs were likely included in many of the planning, diplomatic events, implementation and OPEC preparations as well as the reasoning and diplomatic and foreign reasoning for keeping their production at such a high rate driving the price down below fifty dollars a barrel. We will probably witness a more conservative series of actions initially as the change in the Saudi Arabian leadership will force the new leadership to be security conscious and very concerned with intra-national as well as extra-national security with both having heavy dependence on the military. There will be the potential that Saudi Arabia will intervene should the continuing situation in Yemen threatens their southern border or should Iran move to impose their influence or should either the al-Qaeda or the Houthis take control and threaten the shipping lanes to and from the Red Sea and threaten the shipping lanes into and out of the Red Sea as well as the Suez Canal and its access with the Mediterranean Sea, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, Saudi Arabia will become more introverted and keep much of the rulings of the new Royal Family members addressing exactly what their expectations within their lands, especially concerning women and other matters which can be tied to Islam and the interpretations of the Quran and how it will affect their rule. So, what can be expected is for those outside of Saudi Arabia are similar to what the world has witnessed for the past year or so when Saudi Arabia was ruled by King Abdallah as the new monarch will not be straying far from his policies and giving some time to pass before stepping out on their own paths.

 

Formerly King Abdallah had taken a path not previously traveled and was very slowly but inexorably liberalizing the Islamic strict restrictions against women. He permitted women to leave the house and shop unescorted and to vote in some local elections provided they were escorted by a male family member. These relaxed societal laws may not be considered to be lessening restrictions for women under Western societal standards but they were very extreme for anywhere under the strict Sharia interpretations by the Saudi government. We can pretty much forget the idea of permitting women to drive in Saudi Arabia in the foreseeable future. New King Salman is considered to be quite more security conscious and libel to use force of arms rather than the subtle force of diplomacy or the using of the price of oil to bring adversaries to their knees or even play a part if bringing the Soviet Union to its timely end and thus assist in liberating all of Western Europe. Using a similar low pricing of a barrel of oil is strangling Russia and bringing many of the fracking and other costly methods from pumping because it has temporarily become unprofitable in the United States. Still, there is one more target which is being affected by this low oil price, and that entity is Iran as it is being forced to sell oil at next to no profit over taking it out of the oil fields, whether refining it or shipping it out as crude. This lowering of the price for oil by Saudi Arabia has been their only real weapon they have by which they are able to drive any competition out of business or deny an adversarial threat such as Iran of the funds to continue any development of arms or to end any adventures such a threat may have planned. This use of driving the price of oil down through production at capacity by Saudi Arabia was necessitated by the lack of resolve by the Europeans and the United States to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons or stepping up efforts to curtail ISIS as well as al-Qaeda on their northern and southern borders respectively. It will remain to be seen if the new leadership will continue this assault by way of oil prices as it also has required the Saudi Royal Family to utilize their reserves of funds to sustain efforts within Saudi Arabia to maintain funding which prevents the population from becoming unstable as well as funding the Wahhabi institutions worldwide.

 

The change of leadership through succession has been fortuitous as Iranian adventurism has not been stamped out as of yet by the Saudi Arabian oil war which has been their use of monetary sanctions by another means which they have utilized to replace the sanctions lifted by United States President Barack Obama. Iran was still capable of arming the Houthis in Yemen which just this week completed their push to topple the government. One might have expected that the United States would have been more proactive in preventing this blatant coup by the Iranian armed rebels as Yemen is one of the United States allies and refueling ports for the United States Navy despite the incident of the attack by al-Qaeda on the USS Cole in October 2000. Yemen has now become another failed state where the main governing forces are rebel groups or terrorist entities. This adds Yemen to the list of Lebanon, Somalia, and Libya.

 

Additionally there are the nations in north and central Africa which are currently fighting for their survival against terrorist entities which include but not limited to Nigeria, Mali, Kenya, South Sudan, Chad, Cameroon and Central African Republic. A number of these nations are facing threats from Boko Haram which is an entity similar to ISIS and one that had identified with al-Qaeda but has recently claimed allegiance with ISIS. ISIS is another threat which has Saudi Arabia concerned especially since recently there have been fighting between ISIS forces and the military of Saudi Arabia in the northwestern province. These assaults have been more of a test of resolve and with the recent death of King Abdallah and the ascension of Crown Prince Salman into the ruling role, his somewhat more militant attitude could be exactly what may be necessary in Saudi Arabia considering the threats on its northern and southern borders as well as the reassertion of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Sinai Peninsula and their threat against Egypt, a crucial and necessary ally of the Saudis and a traditional supporter of the Royal Family. The changes in Saudi rulers will still require a period of time to fully understand the coming changes and will need to be watched before coming to any lasting and necessary changes in policies. This was something which was expected though it still happened fairly rapidly which often makes such changes problematic but the Saudis have handled such changes in their ruling structure better than others. For the meantime any of the changes which may have been in the planning will likely be terminated until the changeover is complete and then all will see. Until then the world will need to necessarily simply wait and see and be lenient though in trying times as the present lenience is a luxury which one may not have the necessary time to wait.

 

Beyond the Cusp