With Trust Broken Trust Renewed Again?

 

Thursday evening there was a nonevent taken place with Egypt again as the intermediary. Israel and Hamas signed an agreement for an end to the balloon and kite terrorist attacks as well as ending rockets, mortars and presumably all other forms of terror attacks utilized by Hamas. In return Israel extended the fishing distance into the Mediterranean Sea and other considerations. One might ask why Israel would enter once more into such an empty agreement knowing full well that as soon as Hamas or Islamic Jihad are ready or receive directions from Iran, the attacks will start anew. That is presuming that the attacks actually are terminated at all. The nice thing about this round of trust given-trust broken was that we did not have to wait all that long before the lack of reality of the treaty was revealed. Within twenty-four hours of signing the truce, there were approximately seven-thousand rioters launching balloons and setting numerous fires across the southern border with Gaza. Hamas will inevitably claim that these were ground swell demonstration which they are unable of preventing as they are an expression of the unease amongst their population. This is an unease promoted and paid for by Hamas and their sponsors in Iran. These attacks have grown beyond the ability and probably beyond the desire of Hamas to control. Hamas instigated these attacks as a means of employing the restless youth who seeking employ were unable to find anything in Gaza. This is due to the Gazan economy all but in total collapse.

 

It is well known that Hamas has made one of their main concerns to be fomenting attacks on Israel. This is what led to the last war over the launching of hundreds of rockets daily for over a week before Israel responded militarily. Since that confrontation, Israel has deployed the Iron Dome missile defense systems which have made rocket attacks almost harmless. The Iron Dome is capable of intercepting multiple rockets at a time. Their remarkable interception rate and ability to project where a projectile will land has permitted Israel to all but nullify rocket attacks from Gaza. Hamas initially responded with border riots and terrorist infiltration tunnels. Israel developed a system which was capable of detecting the tunnels and the ones beneath Israeli territory were destroyed. This led to the launching of incendiary kites. These fire-kites worked well but their range was limited, thus the next phase was launching these devices using balloons. These carried the explosive charge further into Israel and spawned additional fires away from the former fires still being extinguished.

 

Hamas has already claimed after the last treaty that they could no longer control these fire launchings as they had grown beyond their ability to control. Hamas had absolutely no difficulty in suppressing the large scale riots and protests against their misrule of Gaza but are unable to prevent a group of youths and young adults launching balloons. This will be their excuse behind the several thousands of rioters who flocked to the border launching incendiary laden balloons into Israel sparking a record number of fires for a single day’s protests on Friday after the truce was signed. Hamas has allowed these rioters to continue with their assaults on Israel leading to the end of the last truce which did not last twenty-four hours and this time is proving to be no different. Hamas signs truces with Israel not intending to alter their violence against the Jewish State but to use as an additional bludgeon to beat Israeli resistance to a halt. They have no intentions for slowing or stopping the arson attacks on Israel and will, with time, return to their tunneling beneath the border with infiltration tunnels intended for the murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians and to launching rockets at Israeli communities including Haifa, Tel Aviv and other cities over time.

 

Negotiations with Hamas have proven ineffective in preventing or ceasing their violent activities targeting southern Israel. Time and again these conflicts have escalated until a larger and more encompassing Israeli interventions is launched. With Israel heading for elections again in September, Hamas believes this is the time to take advantage of Israeli avoidance of large-scale operations in Gaza or elsewhere. Their feeling is that Israel will remain vulnerable at least until the elections as Bibi Netanyahu is not anxious to have to explain to the public his actions when the majority of Israelis are not affected by the Hamas escalation of attacks. This will, unfortunately, merely act to encourage Hamas to escalate the situation climaxing the week before the elections. Their hope is that the Israelis will react by electing a government more conducive to granting them even further concessions. Concessions are a reward and will never act as an inhibiting factor for a deterrence curbing the violence and rioting. The unfortunate reality is that Hamas, like all of Palestinian Arab society and too many of the Middle East region, only understand strong military actions designed not to retaliate but as a preventive measure which had removed their ability to strike at Israel. Their current form of attack with balloons and kites would be impossible to inhibit unless Hamas has an interest in preventing their taking place. That has proven something elusive to the Israeli leadership as if they have forgotten every lesson of past dealings with Hamas.

 

Hamas Demands Arming Terror with Money

 

Further, Hamas is demanding that Israel permit their monthly payments of millions of shekels be permitted by Israel. These are the funds which Hamas required in order to pay their people, this according to Hamas. What Israel need learn from Mahmoud Abbas and apply to Hamas is that the first and most important payments on their payrolls are those willing to harm Israel and potentially murder Israelis. None of the payments will be used to prevent violence against Israel but rather to pay for additional violence against Israel and the stockpiling of rockets for future wars on Israel. This has been their exact modus operandi and will continue as such for as long as Israeli leadership is willing to play the patsy to Hamas. There are two tactics which would prove far more effective but which apparently Bibi Netanyahu is unprepared to use. The easiest which would simply cause Qatari money to find a new route into Gaza. They would likely be required to bribe Egyptian authorities and even then, such would be an unlikely path as Egypt has caught Hamas assisting with attacks on Egyptian personnel in the Sinai Peninsula. The other tactic is straight forward, military might to be used to smash their tools of war. There exists another means of deterrence which would work which has yet to be applied, targeting the areas where the leadership of Hamas reside and the stores, restaurants and other entertainment facilities such that the leadership finally pays a price. The main reason for the temerity in this area is because they would not desire to open up such an area where Hamas terrorists might target them. The final means of ending the problems arising from Gaza, be it Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other terror entity would be to drive all of Gaza from Israel depositing them in the Sinai Peninsula. Such an operation would require making preliminary arrangements with the Egyptian government so they could be prepared to arrest or otherwise detain the Hamas leadership and military commanders. What is so ridiculous is that were Israel to follow such a path, the world would condemn Israel and blame Israel for the incarceration of the Hamas top leaders, both military and political, as if there is any real difference. The difference is that were Israel to incarcerate the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership, the world would be screaming for their release. By having Egypt do so, the world would scream for Israel to arrange their release and Israel could simply claim that no such plan has proven acceptable to Egypt. The world would not bother attempting to force Egypt to release these terror leaders as they know it would have no effect. But the Israeli leadership refuses to escalate the conflict to such a level.

 

The honestly sad reality is that eventually the depopulation of Gaza will be the final result of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad et al terror war against Israel. Their education system, summer camps and their entire education system is geared to the production of future terrorists rather than educating for a normative society. Their emphasis is not on Mathematics, sciences, language and other areas which are required for a productive and normal society. This is not the aim of Hamas and their allies. They are interested in producing armies of terrorists ready for that day when they will be capable of bring down Israel. Their dream is to reach a similar state which Hezballah has assembled in southern Lebanon and is using to assist Bashir al-Assad in Syria where Hezballah has well over one-hundred-thousand rockets and missiles with many capable of striking anywhere in Israel. This is partly why Hamas has allied with Iran as it was Iran who armed Hezballah. This is partly why Hamas continually demands that their region allowed for their fishing fleets be expanded. They know that by increasing their area for fishing, they increase the area for smuggling in such weapons making Israeli deterrence and preventive measures far more difficult to apply. Their dream is to be gifted an international airport through which tons of such military provisions could be transferred without the opportunity for Israel to prevent such. The same applies to their insistence to have their ports open and is the essential demand of the flotillas which regularly attempt to run the blockade which permits Israeli inspection of provisions before passing them on into Gaza. Currently, these inspections usually take under twenty-four hours with most provisions passed through the same day as they arrive. Stopping the so-called humanitarian supplies is another means of harming Hamas as any provisions which the terrorists do not have to expend funds on is simply more money for terrorism. Israel has permitted on several occasions for building supplies to be permitted into Gaza which should have rebuilt all the damages from the wars. Almost nothing has been rebuilt as these building provisions have been used for building bunkers, tunneling networks, underground rocket firing positions and infiltration tunnels. It has been figured that Hamas could have build several schools and apartment buildings with the materials used in a single infiltration tunnel. Multiply that by the dozens of tunnels and all of Gaza could have been made immaculate instead of remaining in ruins. There are literally two Gaza’s, the one where Hamas leadership lives and the one where they place their rockets and mortar positions knowing that return fire will destroy the area surrounding the position (see images below). This is why we have often suggested that instead of return fire solely on the launch site, but also lobbing a small artillery round at a single target in the thus far pristine regions and start allowing the difficulties caused by this constant state of war to be shared by those responsible. The reality is that each rocket fired into Israel, every balloon launched into Israel, every kite carrying explosives into Israel and every tunnel dug under the border into Israel all originated with the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We may find that some rounds of violence from Gaza may have been ordered even further away in Iran which opens up a plethora of future possibilities.

 

The Two Gazas with One Pristine and the Other Ravaged

 

The entire Arab Israeli conflict will have only one of two eventual results. The obvious one is no more Israel, something much of the world appears not only willing but anxious to bring about, and the other is a defeat brought forth by Israel such that no Arab for a thousand years would even give a glancing evil look in the direction of Israel out of fear for their life. Such results have historic precedence. In almost every case where the Arab forces have been prevented from extending their rule further has been as the result of a military defeat which was unequivocally severe and ubiquitous for preventing their reorganization and returning to attack again. Such defeats in history include but are not limited to the Battle of Tours, the Spanish Inquisition, the ending of the Second Siege of Vienna when Polish King John III Sobieski relieved Vienna bringing his entire army south for the effort after reaching agreements with his neighboring countries to not invade while his forces performed this holy duty, and of course World War I marked the end of the Ottoman Empire. Granted, Israel will not be required to go to such extents but the world will still howl as if Israel had committed a war crime unprecedented in human history.

 

Never mind that virtually every battle and war before the modern era would have constituted a litany of war crimes committed by both sides as making warfare a more benign action is a recent insanity. This has led to the concept of proportionality, which President Trump just used to justify his recall of the strike upon Iran. There has never been any war where proportionality was utilized by either side, let alone the victorious side. The overriding use of force in warfare has been an attempt at imposing disproportional damages, casualties and defeats upon the enemy. Some small examples of such acts of disproportionality include the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II, the Rape of Nanking by Japan in World War II, the Bataan Death March during World War II, the Shoah extermination of over twelve-million undesirables by the Nazis in death camps, the use of poison gas during World War I, the entrance of the machine gun (Gatling gun) in the American Civil War, the Roman conquests, the Greek conquests, the Persian conquests and on throughout history warfare has been a contest of which side was capable of imposing the greater amount of disproportionality inflicted upon their enemies. Whenever proportionality is used, it is usually to impose severe constraints on one side preventing them from actually defeating the threat facing them. This is the main reason for its use all but exclusively against Israel. There were no intents at proportionality in the recent efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans or any of the conflicts which have taken place since World War II which brought in the modern era with concepts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and proportionality as the means of preventing wars from reaching actual conclusive endings which has served to actually prolong conflicts as since neither side was able to inflict a complete defeat using disproportional force after their enemy was defeated but refusing to surrender, their having to stop due to world pressures only led to the conflict resuming at a later date leading to far more damage and higher casualties than had the initial efforts been permitted to reach a permanent solution. The other thing which we have noted is that proportionality has only been demanded from nations considered to be Western nations. This has been applied to India in their running conflict over Casmir against Pakistan. There were some who were worried that during the period that India had nuclear warheads and Pakistan did not, that India might actually use these weapons to impose finality on their conflict with Pakistan. Unamusingly, once Pakistan also had nuclear weapons this fear of their use bringing on a disproportional end to the conflict dissolved and was never equaled by the fear of a nuclear war breaking out and both sides decimating the other’s civilian populations in many of their major cities. But evidenced by the virtual universal use of disproportionality is the United States coming in second and Israel the easy winner as virtually every action taken by Israel is condemned for being disproportional. There have been people and groups who have bemoaned the fact that Israelis are being saved by the Iron Dome and Gazans have no such system; thus, they have demanded that Israel provide Hamas with the Iron Dome systems. This is the end result of the logic of proportionality and these are the ends of ridiculousness the world has reached in their hatreds towards the Jewish State. There will be an end to this conflict some day and the world can only pray that Israel proves the victor as any other result will spell doom for the world.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Eternal Middle East Question

 

This eternal question is what will bring an end to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The question presupposes that the question has an answer and the world has been chasing this presumably illusive answer for the past hundred years. They had the first worst answer initially as the British along with many others did everything they could to prevent the Jews from reaching the critical mass for them to declare Israel’s birth. The British realizing they could no longer prevent this inevitability simply left as quickly as they could arming the Arab forces while disarming the Jews as they left in one final attempt to prevent the success of the birth of the Jewish State. The Arab war of 1948 was best described by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League at that time, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” Obviously, his expectations were not met and the nascent state of Israel survived the year and a half of war. The main reason that there has not been peace came later as a result of the Arabs to their losses in the 1967 Six Day War. September, after the war, the Arab League met in Khartoum where they passed the Khartoum Resolution which included the Three No’s, “No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, and No negotiations with Israel.” This has continued to be the driving core of the Palestinian Arabs who will refuse any peace in which Israel remains ruled by any other than the Arab Muslims. This conflict has never been altered from the original stated desire of Azzam Pasha, the complete annihilation of the Jews and the total destruction of Israel.

 

So, the question is still being at the center of the Western World in their attempts to placate the implacable. They treat the conflict as a territorial conflict rather than a conflict of annihilation, the view the Arabs still cling to despite the seeming warming by the Sunni Arab states seeing Iran as a greater threat than posed by Israel. Just because they see Iran as a greater threat, this does not mean that they are willing to accept the existence of Israel in any permanence. Should Israel face some disaster leaving it vulnerable, the Arab nations would leap at the opportunity to destroy their nemesis. This is the reality which is not well understood in America and ignored by the Europeans and the United Nations, both of which know the truth. This is the reason that the Europeans are currently warming up to Iran as they see the Iranian nuclear program as the answer which will bring the Arab-Israeli Conflict to an end. They have little problem with the Ayatollah’s declaration that Israel is a one bomb nation. Of course, Europe plays both ends dealing with Israel to gain from their technological advances and soon receiving natural gas from Israel. On the other side, they also continue to provide much of the funding for the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.

 

The Arab view of the conflict, as we have seen, is easily defined, the complete and utter destruction of the Jewish State and the Jews within her. The Israeli side of the conflict is also easily defined, peace. We would very much like for the international community to keep their promises made after World War I and allow Israel the boundaries agreed upon under the British Mandate resulting from the San Remo Conference. That would give Israel an eastern border of the Jordan River and would technically include Gaza. The real problem is what is to be done with the throngs of Arabs who came after the Jews provided a thriving economy, at least under Middle East standards for a nation without large oil reserves. This problem was further exacerbated by the British importing additional Arabs in their never-ending efforts to prevent the Jews from ever reaching a majority. Then there are the Arabs from Jordan transferred from Jordan often without their agreement and the Arab land giveaways to prominent Arab Jordanians who never resided in these lands, they were assigned to provide status and to place virtually over the land Jordan occupied illegally for nineteen years under Arab titles. These land giveaways are used by NGOs currently in order to prevent Jewish building beyond the Green Line. The Arabs will continue to refuse to absorb even a single Arab making any Arabs who might be deported due to their being illegally placed in the region by Jordan would be placed into even more refugee camps which would be claimed were illegally separated from their rightful lands. Any honest history from 1800 forward would document the fact that Arab presence in Israel was a trailing fact, not a leading fact. The Arabs came to Israel after the Jews had already built irrigation and businesses making for the Israeli rudimentary economy. By the beginning of the Twentieth Century there was a burgeoning economy resulting from increased Jewish settlement despite the attempts by the British to choke Jewish immigration into Israel. This was on top of the British making a present of 78% of the British Mandate to the Arabs which is the initial and actual developing of an Arab state separate from the Jewish state. In the intervening years while all remained under British protectorate rule, Jewish settlement in the area of Transjordan (today Jordan) was absolutely forbidden which meant that Jews who owned land east of the Jordan River were robbed of their lands. On the other hand, Arab settlement west of the Jordan River within what was to be the Jewish State was encouraged and often forced upon Arabs. This is the main reason for the current conflict which presents the world with a modern Gordian Knot.

 

The problem can be easily explained using as an example recent events since the arrangement of a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas forces in Gaza. Israel used a very carefully planed and executed selective bombing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad bases and other tactical locations using roof knocking in order to clear the targeted buildings of any Gazans inside including Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants. This method minimizes civilian and combatant casualties but Israel is so intent on preserving the lives of Gazans that the IDF literally sacrifices opportunities to kill Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants as well. This is one of the tactics used by Israel that the rest of the developed world militaries are somewhat upset and claim that these Israeli tactics are beyond anything that the Western militaries are willing to employ as their intent to kill their adversaries outweighs the concern for innocents who might be caught up in their bombing. Israel is so dedicated to not harming any unnecessary individuals that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have too often protected their most important strategic buildings by placing women and children on the roofs which prevents IDF fighter jets from delivering their bombs to the target. This is also how they prevent the IDF from targeting their rocket launchers by inviting children to watch the rockets being fired and how they are reloaded and everything keeping them close to the launchers making it a safe zone free from Israeli fire. These are just a few of their tactics which they utilize and then claim that they defended these sights proudly and with great vigor and strength which prevented the Jews from being able to strike them. But these are the small things compared to what came after the ceasefire was agreed upon and the fighting ended.

 

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar (pictured below) on the Friday after the ceasefire issued threats against the Jewish State. He spoke at a memorial service for Hamas terrorists who were killed during the clash with Israel. He was quoted as having stated, “I advise Israel not to try and test us again. This time you did not have a lot of casualties and you managed to rescue your special forces. You should not try again, because next time you will have to release thousands of prisoners.” This is a reference of the Hamas strategy of holding the bodies of any IDF soldier killed which the IDF was unable to retrieve hostage demanding thousands of terrorist in Israeli prisons be released in exchange for each body. They currently hold two IDF soldier’s corpses which they are refusing even to name a price for an exchange knowing that it pains their families leaving them without closure. It is just another attempt at torturing Israelis by any means they are capable, pollution of burning tires blown into Israel by the offshore breeze, burning of crops with incendiary kites and balloons, rockets launched into Israeli residential centers in the middle of the night, rioting which is covered on news internationally and boasts of their superiority to Israel in every field of endeavor and particularly in fighting a man’s war.

 

Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar

 

But Yahya Sinwar was not done exchanging insults as he continued by stating, “Our hands are on the trigger and our eyes are open. Listen Netanyahu, and listen whoever will receive the defense portfolio. Anyone who tests Gaza will find death and poison. If we are attacked, we will let the barrage on Tel Aviv do the talking. Our missiles are more accurate, have a longer range and carry more explosives than before.” He is not bluffing on this threat as Israel knows well that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been provided with larger rocket engines allowing for greater ranges and larger payloads. The one limiting factor is the greater the range to their target, the smaller the warhead can be as it is a trade-off between the two regarding the limitations of the fuel. Still, Iran has found the means of providing ever-improved rocket engines and has started to provide Islamic Jihad and Hamas with rudimentary guidance systems just as they are providing for Hezbollah in Lebanon where they are modifying their longest range and largest payload rockets with these guidance systems in preparation for the next Lebanon offensive against Israel. This may come once the fighting in Syria has reached a point where Iran can also provide IRGC forces to attack the Golan Heights simultaneously. They may even attempt to coordinate having Hamas and Islamic Jihad attacking from the south as a preliminary front and then launch their combined attacks in the north from Lebanon and Syria. Such a conflict would inflict likely severe damages in Israel but these would be minor compared to what the response would do to Lebanon, Syria near the Golan Heights and Gaza as Israel would have little choice but to wage all-out war. In such a situation there would be no roof knocking before striking sites, this would be a war to end these threats permanently. Anything less would enrage the Israeli public who are growing impatient with responses which do little to end the threats and make the regions safe permanently, not just for a few months or possibly a year if we are fortunate.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Crossroads

 

The world is spiraling perceivably out of control. Europe is reducing itself into an echo of its once dominance. Canada has begun her graceful exit from anything more than a footnote. Russia is desperately holding on to things from her periods past. China is the bursting powerhouse without an ample provider of direction or purpose. Japan is as she most often has been outside of World War II, a region which defies definition and insulated by her restrictive immigration policies. South America is still most often between periods of economic power followed by leftist folly bankrupting once powerful nations and eventually back to productivity only to sink once again. Argentina and Venezuela are two prominent examples. Cuba is relatively impotent with only one thing to offer, proximity to the United States. Mexico has about the same situation with slightly more open governance. The Far East sits in the shadow of China simply sleeping hoping not to catch the giant to the north’s attention, except for North Korea which is led by an unbalanced megalomaniac. Still, the most they could prove to be is a small blip before being crushed if they ever did attack anyone. This leaves three main powers, one established, one growing and one for the distant future. The established is, of course, the United States, the growing are the Islamic powers and the future power is central and southern Africa. All of these are currently swirling towards a series of collisions.

 

We thought the main front would once again be Europe, but that assessment required being reconsidered. Europe will be where the initial confrontations will come, but the secular left will simply turn over and surrender. Should there be a last stand for Christianity within Europe, it will come from the nations of Eastern Europe where being under the choking hold of Communism until around 1989, their freedom brought to them a return to their former religious beliefs and a reestablishing of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Just as the remains of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, which was also known as Byzantium or Byzantine Empire, Europe is once again split along a central line where Western Europe is sliding into a coma while Eastern Europe is still awakening from a long oppression. Will the confrontation be any different this time or will Eastern Europe prove just as incapable opposition to an Islamic wave attempting to take control of Europe. The immigrant influx of Muslims from northern Africa and Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Middle East countries with oppressive governance is slowly consuming Western Europe where they are being welcomed without any controls or real opposition. The initial laying of the welcome mat was placed out by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany who promised to take up to 800,000 refugees from the Middle East and was almost immediately inundated by waves of immigrants. As has been noted by ourselves and numerous others, the vast majority of these immigrants are men between 18 and 50 unaccompanied by wives or children. Such an influx historically has been called an invasion, not normal immigration.

 

Eastern European nations have wisely closed their borders and are only allowing immigrants who board trains which pass through their territories to ride straight on through and are refused from exiting the trains. Many, even the majority are heading for Germany and Sweden as these are the two nations with the highest support structure for unemployed people with minimal requirements as these immigrants are not seeking jobs, they seek the guaranteed good life compared to their former homes and imposing Islamic rule on their new homes. This would appear to be not an advantageous change as it would bring to their new homes the exact same systems which proved so disastrous to their former nations. Still, that is what they are comfortable with living under and it would provide them with the comfort of the imposing of a system which is close to identical to their former homes. Freedom is a burdensome formula under which to live as it makes each person responsible for their own survival and allows them to choose their own path and requires effort. This is what resulted from the Judeo-Christian ethic which brought the modern democratic nations into the industrial age and beyond making them the leaders in technology, science, and weaponry allowing Europe to be the most powerful force in the world opening up much of the road to a modern existence through their spreading over the entire planet during the Age of Discovery where the European nations established empires spreading throughout the world leaving a web of commerce and bringing great wealth to the Europeans. This spread technology from Europe to the rest of the world advancing many cultures from barely beyond hunter-gatherers or early agricultural age into the modern age providing these populations with great opportunities if they were able to receive education permitting their understanding.

 

After a pair of World Wars ravaged Europe, their age of colonization came to an end. The last remaining colonies slowly demanded and took their independence from their European masters. Since this end of the age, European society has largely refuted their Christianity and adopted the newest religion of secular humanism which places the onus for the destruction of the Earth on their own society and its use of fossil fuels. They believe in many cases that humankind is a blight on the planet and that the planet would be so much better off without people. This is represented by their negative reproduction rates which are well below replacement levels. This is the sign of a society which has entered into its death throes. This is also the main driving reasoning behind the opening of their borders to refugees in the hopes they will replace the children they never had in the work force. The problem is that a fairly large percentage of the immigrants are not coming to take jobs as much as to collect benefits while plotting to impose Islamic rule over Europe. This was what we had thought might lead to an initial confrontation between the Islamic conquerors and the European indigenous population in defending their free societies. The indigenous Europeans in Western Europe do not appear to be interested in retaining their former free society and are willing to allow the Islamic takeover of their nations providing it does not alter their life as the leaders. They are in for a great surprise as the leadership of these nations will be amongst the initial casualties when Islam versus European free society comes to a head. The struggle for retaining their freedom will be left to the small but not insignificant children, that is, providing they do not just sell out and join the Islamic push in order to go along to get along. They may be in for a surprise when their conversion reaches a point where they are tested. Our advice for those who believe this would be a wise choice, start now memorizing the Quran and attending the Mosque which is the largest within your city or area and familiarize yourselves with the teachings of the Imams.

 

Canada and the United States are just as vulnerable as is Europe to the immigration challenge. We recently read a disturbing article reporting on the progress of Islamist interests within Canada and their alignment with the far left in what will prove to be a self-defeating alliance for the far left. This same alliance exists throughout much of the free world including Europe, especially Britain and the European Union, the United States and Canada. There had been such an alliance in Israel and there are remnants of the effects of their joining in many leftist policies especially those who continue to support the “Two State Solution” which requires surrendering large portions of lands to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in exchange for promises of peace. This concept has lost much validity as many from the PA and others from within the society currently ruled by Fatah which controls the PA governance; actually, Mahmoud Abbas is the President for Life in the thirteenth year of his four-year term which began in 2005. Even the majority of those on the left and even the far leftists have realized that doing so would not bring peace and only serve to arm the Islamist interest with a permanent base from which to work to destroy Israel and murder her people through terrorism and launching rockets into Israeli cities. This was brought to the fore by Hamas after they took control of Gaza in a bloody coup replacing the PA after which they have worked steadily attempting to produce as much destruction onto any part of Israel which they could terrorize. This has led to a number of wars which Israel decided would be limited engagements which has only served to provide Hamas with the feeling of invincibility and empowered them even further. This has led to an ever-increasing support for Hamas which is reported to have topped 80% with the youth coming from their education system, more of an indoctrination system, leading the charge to destroy Israel and support the Islamist propaganda and their Islamist supremacist ideology. This has been behind the constant rioting and launching of incendiary balloons, kites and even attempted use of live birds such as the falcon in the picture below. The use and murder of such a beautiful and proud bird is just a further representation of the contempt for life held by these Islamist terrorists. One of the messages broadcast by Hamas run television includes a quote stating, “From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionist soldiers: The Al-Qassam Brigades love death more than you love life.” This broadcast is just one of the times this message has been used as it boosts the followers often giving them the needed boost to commit suicide attacks against Israelis.

 

Dead Falcon Found in Tree with Twine and Incendiary Device Attached

 

So, that concludes our quick and broad summary of the world which will be involved in any future conflict and now we will try to look into our crystal ball and look into the future. The threat of Islam is going to continue to grow. The world very well could be in the leading edge of their next attempt by Islam to enlarge their regions of control. Their initial conquest came from 622 AD through to 750 AD as shown in the top map reaching as far as Tours, France before being stopped by Charles the Hammer Martel. This was how their empire remained with their next evolution coming from within when a small tribe from northeastern Turkey known as the Ottomans which led to the Ottoman Empire shown in the middle map. The Spanish Inquisition was responsible for the pushing of Islam from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, the same date as Columbus making his initial voyage to the New World. The Ottoman Empire replaced the Caliphate and faced a series of wars which ate away at their empire as shown in the bottom map and which was finally destroyed when they allied with the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Germany in World War I. This led to the Mandate System and the carving up of the Ottoman Empire, Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Germany creating modern Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa including Israel which was granted their set aside in the San Remo Conference which defined the Mandate System which was adopted by the League of Nations and then taken up for enforcement by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and into Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

 

Ottoman Empire Ascending includes Golden Age of Islam

 

 

Ottoman Empire in Decline 1800 through 1914 and Start of World War I

 

Now back to the future and looking at what the next attempt at expansion of Islam will provide or what it might cost. There are a few points which need to be stated to provide more of a background which includes the United States mainly. The initial conflict began under the most isolationist President, Thomas Jefferson, who when facing ever higher tributes demands from the Barbary Pirates sent the Navy and Marines who forced an agreement ending the intercepting of United States shipping and most of the pirating and taking of sailors as slaves of European ships as well. After the war with England in 1812, the Barbary Pirates decided that the United States would be weakened and started taking sailors once more. This led to the Second Barbary Wars which again ended this practice. Then, as part of the Spanish American War, the United States faced attacks from the Moro natives in the Philippines which were Muslim. This revolt was put down by General Blackjack Pershing who was reputed, but unproven, to have used some questionable tactics. President George H. W. Bush (Bush I) engaged in a war with Saddam Hussein in Iraq War I in the 1990s. Then President George W. Bush (Bush II) engaged in wars with Islamic nations after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in Afghanistan and once again in Iraq where this time Saddam Hussein was overthrown. Then there were the attacks during President Barack Obama continuing in Afghanistan and then including Libya after the Benghazi attack on the Consulate and the urging of the overthrow of Sunni governments in what was called the Arab Spring which more resembled the Arab Winter by the time it completely failed in Syria and Egypt ended up removing the resultant Muslim Brotherhood led government after the overthrow of President Mubarak. President Trump has continued with these interventions and aided the Kurds in their fight with the Islamic State. These have awakened the Islamic nations with two centers of power within Islam which are again fighting one another. This is another conflict between the main groups in Islam, the Sunni, and their longstanding opposition which consists of approximately 10% of Islam, the Shiites. The Sunni center of power is held in a loose alliance between Saudi Arabia and Egypt while the Shiite center of power is Iran which still sees themselves as the modern Persian Empire. Iran is allied with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezballah in Lebanon and who are allied to back Bashir al-Assad in his civil war in Syria which was a result of the Arab Spring efforts of President Obama. Iran is also supporting the Houthi revolt to take control of Yemen. The Iranian aim has been to establish a Shiite Crescent across the Middle East using Iran, Syria and Lebanon so they have connections to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea shown in the map below. Part of the Iranian tactic is to envelop Saudi Arabia from Iran to the north and Yemen to the south. Iran also is attempting to take control of two vital waterways, the Straight of Hormuz and the Straight of Bab-el-Mandeb. The first controls the shipping lane for most of the oil from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait while the second would control the exit from the Red Sea controlling the Suez Canal as well as the Israeli southern port of Eilat. This would provide Iran with the ability to cut off all trade between the Middle East and Europe as well as cutting off the European and Israeli shipping lanes to Asia.

 

Shiite Crescent including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran

 

Whether Islam attempts to once again gain lands by taking control of Europe and possibly then attempting to wrest control of Africa and then being enabled to take on the Americas, specifically the United States, will depend heavily on which nation ends up calling the shots. Should it be Saudi Arabia, then the main conflict will likely be within Europe while if it is Iran there is a definite possibility that it will become a world conflict. The initial conflict will be between Iran and Saudi Arabia which will center on the oil fields in the northeast of Saudi Arabia and the control of the Two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina along the Red Sea coast in the west of Saudi Arabia. Should Iran take these two cities, they can attempt to declare that Shiite Islam is the ascending power in Islam and play themselves as the strong horse hoping to have the majority of Muslims to change from Sunni and adopt Shiite Islam. Such a conflict in Islam could deplete both sides to the point that neither would be capable of mounting any serious threat to the remainder of the world and Islam will return to rest for the foreseeable future. The Islamic leaders of Iran have an extremist and expansionist view of their place in the world which was expressed by the Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini which has been carried forward by Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Their visions of world conquest are probably considered to be insane and in the developed world, such concepts have been relegated to the trashcan of history. Unfortunately, in both Sunni and Shiite Islam, they believe the promise in the Quran that Islam must become the only religious belief held by every person on Earth. They believe that world conquest is still possible despite the complete failure to accomplish such a feat by even the most powerful empires in the past. This now viewed insane concept is not seen as such within Islam; to the believers this is the inevitable future of our world. Many an Imam in Islam is currently preaching that Islam is on the verge of their final push which will result in their finally realizing their inevitable prize, the world and every person within believing their version of Islam, be it Sunni or Shiite. For the record, there are numerous Muslims who do not believe or even care about world conquest. Many of these are at the forefront of the Islamic struggle to allow Islam to evolve and learn to coexist with others. One such leader is Egyptian President Sisi who has delivered speeches before the governing board and Imams who are the instructors at the leading university of Islamic thought, Al-Azhar University.

 

What is their struggle? There are two very different and separate streams of thought in Islam. These result because of the two very different visions written by Muhammad, with the first verses which were universalist in accepting others and coexistence written in Mecca and the supremacist and world conquest warlike writings in Medina. We give a short introduction into the reasons and there are a plethora of links within the comments including links to a Quran with the verses in chronological order all in our article and the comments at Which Quran, Mecca or Medina? Should the reformers succeed in having Islam return to the original writings in the Quran, the world will flourish and the many religions will all work in greater harmony. Should they fail, then there will be a constant state of conflict between Islam and everyone else. That may sound pessimistic, which it is, but just because it is pessimistic does not mean it is not a valid truth. Islam, as currently interpreted using what is called abrogation, where the newest verses overwrite the older verses making the Medina Quranic writings supreme over the earlier Mecca Quranic verses. This was used by the 10th century Islamic scholar Hibatullāh who listed two-hundred-thirty-seven instances of abrogation, with the verse 9:5, known as the so-called “Verse of the Sword”, which alone accounted for almost half of the abrogated verses. Later Quranic interpreters had disagreements with his findings and often with one another. If, instead of using abrogation the Muslims were to adopt instead an originalist view and interpretation of the Quran, then Islam would be able to exist in peace with the world. Until, if such is ever to be, Islam does away with abrogation adopting originalist Quranic verses, Islam will forever be at war with the rest of humankind. This actually has Biblical beginnings, which surprises many. Islam is said to be the religion founded by the generations tracing their origins to Ishmael. In Genesis Chapter 16 verses 11 and 12 we learn of Ishmael and the way he is described is how his prodigy will also be found to act, as is the way of the Old Testament. These two verses read as follows:

11 And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you will conceive and bear a son, and you shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your affliction.
12 And he will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be upon all, and everyone’s hand upon him, and before all his brothers he will dwell.”

This was the Biblical curse of a sort which was placed upon the descendants of Ishmael and it is one which has proven to have been validated by history. This also is something which does not bode well for the future. Islam, we must remember, is similar in one way to Judaism, both are religions which also have a complete political system defined for the adherents to follow. The Old Testament tells the Jews, the Israelites, that they would rule over the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Litani River to the Wadi of Egypt. These were to be our eventual final borders and we were to treat the stranger with respect as long as they lived in peace and obeyed the Noahic Code. We were to reside and serve Hashem and live our lives as an example and for as long as we lived an exemplary life, then we would live at peace. This would become possible once the Temple was built after King David’s reign with his son, King Solomon, tasked to build the Temple. Obviously, there were problems back then and everything collapsed. The rest is, as they say, history. What will be interesting is that the coming Great War, should that be the fate of the world, Israel will not be at its center and very possibly, if we are very careful and live as Hashem desires, we will not be even included in that coming disaster. Where this coming conflict will break out is difficult to predict. If we were pressed and had to choose such a point, we would think very likely the initial wars which lead to the coming horrors have already begun and surround Saudi Arabia. Then there are the infiltrations of Europe, Canada and starting in the United States. Of the Western World, the initial conflict started with the riots in Paris and across France, the terror attacks throughout Western nations, and the culture clashes which have led to an explosion of crimes against women with most being of a sexual nature. These could easily lead to vigilante actions which could escalate into a general societal state of warfare across Europe. Canada, we fear, will fall with barely a peep where the central west and northernmost territories possibly forming their own country. The United States is having its own problems currently and Islam would not be able to take over the United States through infiltration, as there would be a revolt against such politically. The so-called silent majority is a far larger section of the populace and would take control of the government to address any threat ending possibly the entrance of advents of Islam if this were required. But first, the United States must first survive its current divide between the leftist and the conservatives, particularly the Constitutionalists, often referred to as populists. Whatever the future, with any good fortune our little corner of the world will be left alone and ignored by any and all the possible violence, we have enough problems already. As for the rest of the world, well, we doubt the next great conflict will begin in China or anywhere within Asia, or at least that is our thoughts.

 

Beyond the Cusp