The Time to Prevent a New Holocaust is Now!

 

We just commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day and there were special services where a special Kaddish may have been recited and the names of the relatives of Congregants’ families are read. If the town or city has a Holocaust Memorial, then a flower lying may also be held. There are numerous and varied commemorative activities as there are congregations and memorials. There are also many contribution drives correlated with Holocaust Remembrance Day hoping to work on people’s consciences and memories to loosen their grip on their wallets. We figure these drives are more successful than similar such attempted during other weeks of the year as their supposition is likely correct. But all these services, prayers, flower lying, listing of names and all the other means of attempting to give relevance in our time to the memory of the Holocaust such that we can prevent a reoccurrence are less likely to serve that purpose as would taking an active role in strengthening Israel and rebuking the false Arab claims of an independent peoples who are owed over twenty percent of the lands which were left for Israel. The world ignores the fact that Jordan occupies over three-fourths, which is over seventy-five percent, of the original British Mandate which was originally meant to be reserved for the Jewish State. The Arabs are currently targeting to make claims to over ninety percent of the original British Mandate in order to place the Jews in an indefensible box sitting underneath the Judean Heights where they could rain rockets down using line of sight and destroy the Jews while the world commemorates the last Holocaust and ignoring the Holocaust about to be perpetrated right before their eyes. The saddest part is that they will choose another date and have a Second Holocaust Remembrance Day complete with services, prayers, flower lying, listing of names and all the other means of attempting to give relevance and to console their souls for their lack of action when it was required.

 

Often we have called for people to awaken their fellow human beings and bring to them the reality of what the entire set of actions against Israel are all about, the removal of the Jewish State and the burying of the millions of Israeli Jews in one mass unmarked grave. All those accepting the “Two State Solution as the final closure of Arab claims, are naïve. The memories of the demands by the Arabs in the 1920’s are long forgotten and people’s knowledge of the history is shaky at best. It was the demand for an Arab state as well as any Jewish State which brought on the not so fair solution of dividing the British Mandate along the Jordan River giving the 78% east of the Jordan River to the Arabs and the 22% west of the Jordan River for the Jewish State. The Arab League represented by King Faisal accepted this compromise and all was well until time came in 1947 to declare the Jewish State. The Arabs demanded that the Jews be granted the right to reside under Arab rule in the remaining 22% of the British Mandate promising they would care for the Jews and grant them all the rights given to the Muslims. Fortunately, the Zionist Congress refused this offer knowing that what was intended was they would give the Jews exactly the rights to be Muslims, not to be Jewish. Finally, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution, which adopted the plan for the partition of Palestine dividing the remaining 22% of land evenly between the Arabs and the Jews because the Arabs demanded this land because they had not received their lands. This does beg the question of what does one call Jordan if not Arab Land? Well, they divided the land equally in amount and “completely fairly” as far as desert and arable lands (you be the judge with the map below). The Zionist Congress and the Provisional Israeli government accepted the partition and the Arab League refused the partition claiming that they could not accept any Jewish State demanding that all the land be under Arab rule as explained above. The patrician included making Jerusalem an International Zone protected and run by a United Nations Security Force. With Jerusalem entirely surrounded and in the center of Arab controlled lands and all access roadways completely under Arab control, anyone care to guess how long that United Nations Security Force would remain on station? We guessed maybe forty-eight hours before slipping out in the dead of night praying to get away, and the Arabs would allow them to leave and never return and Jerusalem would be under Muslim Rule and no other religion permitted any rights unlike today under Israeli rule where everyone including Christians, Jews, Muslims (Shia and Sunni) anyone else is permitted rights in Jerusalem with Jews the most restricted, but that is a different argument. Also on the map it can be noted is that nearly two-thirds of the lands reserved for the Jews are in the Negev Desert and much of the remainder of the lands are underneath Arab guns with the Arabs holding all the heights, the Judean Hills, the Golan Heights and the Galilee Ridge. Even the eastern ridge of the Galilee sits beneath and well in range of artillery or sniper fire from the Golan Heights as Jewish farmers in the Northern Galilee found out the hard way until the Six Day War where Israel took control of the Golan Heights from Syria. The reason the Arabs refused this offer became obvious on the morning of May 15, 1948, the first hours of the existence of Israel when six Arab armies from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt with additional assists from forces sent by Yemen and the Sudan plus the Palestinian Brigades under the Mufti of Jerusalem and other militias and irregulars. During this war there were orders intercepted which were determined to have come from military officers who had fought in World War II on both sides assisting the Arab forces from behind the lines. That was then, back to now.

 

November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly
partition of Palestine dividing the remaining 22%
of land evenly between the Arabs and the Jews

 

These Arabs demanding a Two State Solution are the same Arabs who fought with the Palestinian Brigades under the Mufti of Jerusalem, the man who assisted the Nazis during World War II spending most of the war in Berlin meeting with the high brass of the Nazi command and some credit with pressing for the final solution to the “Jewish problem” and pleading that the Nazis carry out the same when they would take control of the Middle East and beyond. Their leaders have stated that the Two State Solution is not the end; it is but one-step towards their attaining their final solution. Their use of those words is no accident of language as they have explained numerous times. Their efforts and claims will never end until there is no Jewish State and no Jew permitted to live on Palestinian Arab lands. All the lands are Palestinian Arab Lands according to the Arab leadership and must be cleansed as they take what they claim is theirs and a place where no Jew has ever lived. They discount the existence of the First Temple, the Second Temple and all of Jewish history and the history of the Bible claiming that the people of the Bible were Arab Palestinians who have lived here anywhere from five to nine thousand years. A little trip back to reality and we realize that during the British Mandate the Palestinians were the Jews according to the British and when they referred to the Jews they used the world Palestinians while when referring to the Arabs they called them Arabs. The idea of Palestinians actually meaning Arabs was actually in 1964 when Yasser Arafat initiated the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), with the assistance of the KGB in Moscow, and they declared their intent to liberate all of the rest of the Palestinian lands. As Judea and Samaria, the areas the Arab Palestinians currently claim, were illegally occupied by Jordan as they held half of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, the PLO made no claims to these lands whatsoever. Their claim was they would drive the Jews from the remainder of Arab lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as noted in Article 24 of the PLO Charter before it was altered after the Six Day War to include Gaza and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Their target then was Israel and their intent was that once they had driven the Jews from the lands, they would then turn these lands over to Jordan and then all would be happy. This declaration had nothing to do with the “Occupation” or “Settlers” as this was June 2, 1964, three years and three days before the start of the Six Day War when during the days of June 5-10, 1967, the Israelis responded initially to an imminent threatened attack by Syria and Egypt and then an actual unprovoked assault out of Judea and Samaria and across the entirety of Jerusalem by Jordan; Israel repulsed these attacks and liberated Gaza, Judea and Samaria and took the areas that included the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. So the basis for the whole idea of the Two State Solution is to simply finish negating the safety Israel took in measure by taking the remainder of lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, in simpler worlds, retook and liberated the lands which were originally denoted as belonging to the Jews to build their homeland according to all solutions as determined at San Remo Conference and numerous following conferences, treaties and agreements. Does anyone believe after the initial determination at the founding of the PLO, the precursor for the Palestinian Authority (PA) and every other Arab Palestinian effort including the Gaza independence and coup by Hamas which allows Gaza to fire rockets into Israel while the PA claims innocence as if an unrelated group, that once they are granted their demanded state that will be the end and there is no means by which the PLO will return to their original declaration of driving the Jews from the remainder of Arab lands? The next important map is below which we ask that you take close note of the shaded area in the center of map inside the trapezoid and then understand that along the Green Line the heights above sea level rise from less than five hundred feet to well over a thousand feet (noted in the cutaway below with the rise actually being more dramatic than shown).

 

Cutaway View of Tactical Advantage and Necessity
of the Jordan Valley and Judean Hills for Defending
Coastal Plains and Israel Alongside the Mediterranean Sea

 

 

The Real Truth About Israel in Stark Relief and Graphically Displayed

 

The drive to defeat the Jews and remove them from what the Muslim and Arab worlds consider their lands given them through conquest by Allah will not end as long as Israel exists. The Arabs in Lebanon under Hezballah are claiming the Galilee as presumably their sacred trust which Israel has stolen and to which the Jews have no rightful claim. We should not feel alone in this as the Arabs and Muslims still claim that the Christians illegally removed the rightful Islamic forces from all of Andalusia and they will reconquer these stolen lands in time. Oh, you have never heard of Andalusia? Well let us draw you a map of Andalusia next to another map you might find easier to recognize (see map below). There are claims to be made in Eastern Europe one of which you might recall which was a conflict where Kosovo was decided by NATO forces not to be a part of Croatia or Slovakia but its own nation and was to be Islamic so its name was changed and is now Kosova. If you had to look back, don’t feel bad as you likely had company, as the change was not quite as shocking or drastic as one might have expected, but then it might say something about the original claim of Kosovo not being actually part of any Christian nation. There are areas in India and Pakistan and India currently are clashing and have been for decades over who gets what parts of what was formerly Kashmir (I think I had a sweater from there once). Then there is the fighting in the Philippines where the Island of Mindanao is claimed by Islamic forces which carry out strikes in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, as well as on the island of Mindanao itself. There are the Boko Haram terror forces (yellow area in referenced map further below) who are claiming more and more lands in central Nigeria and along with forces from the Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia are striking into the entirety of areas often referred to as the African Transition Zone (shaded area in referenced map further below). And there are the wars being fought currently against Israel. Many people believe mistakenly that Israel has only the Palestinian Arabs as a problem and that is limited to the PA and Hamas (read on please).

 

Andalusia Compared to Portugal and Spain

 

 

African Transition Zone

 

Well, partnering with Hamas there is also Islamic Jihad, and some IRGC forces sent by Iran as well as various other groups, small bands and clan forces all of which contribute to the war out of Gaza and provide Hamas with other entities who they can claim launched unapproved rocket or sniper attacks despite nothing actually happening in Gaza (aka Hamastan) which they have not allowed even if through passivity. Then there are units from al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Islamic State and smaller groups throughout the PA semi-autonomous regions. Many of these, especially Hamas, desire taking over from the PA and know if they removed Mahmoud Abbas from power forcing elections that Hamas would likely win handily. It is this threat which has Mahmoud Abbas allowing the IDF to operate within Area A, despite it being against the Oslo Accords, because their operations prevent numerous Hamas and other entities strikes both against Israel, which would force him to explain and possibly actually act, as well as against his person and other PA resources which saves his risking his security forces starting a revolution fighting against Hamas. Imagine his having to explain why PA Security Forces were shooting other Arabs. Abbas would have a revolt demanding his head on a pole and that would cause inter-Arab fighting on a scale which might have the world demanding that Israel step in and protect Abbas and assist the PA Security Forces. Imagine what a mess would result from such. Also, Israel has that little problem in Lebanon called Hezballah. Here there is another little secret. Hezballah now also commands the Lebanese Army which means all the weapons given to the Lebanese Army by the Russians and the Americans (Article covering this problem with inclusive list of American hardware and weapons systems), including Abrams Main Battle Tanks and various aircraft, are now available to Hezballah should they press for another war with Israel. This would mean any Hezballah war with Israel has now become a Lebanese war with Israel. This would not be much of a stretch as Israel and Lebanon currently are at war with a shaky armistice which any Hezballah incursion would easily cause that armistice to be considered broken. Israel is also still at war with a few other Arab nations stemming from the Arab League declaring war on Israel in May of 1948. These nations include but may not be considered a complete list; Syria (what’s left of it), Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, Libya (also what’s left of it), Yemen, Pakistan, Morocco and Cuba (yes, Cuba). Iran also has declared a war on Israel but thus far, attacks have yet to be detected. Also there are numerous smaller groups supporting Hezballah such as Amal and Jammoul plus whatever aid in armaments and personnel including trainers and strategists which are provided from Iran often coming through Damascus, Syria, another Iranian ally relying heavily on Iran as well as Russia to survive. Iran has provided Hezballah with over one-hundred-fifty-thousand rockets and missiles of various sizes, ranges and warhead capabilities many of which are capable of striking anywhere in Israel and possibly into Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. This is the entirety of the Arab-Israeli conflict which the world tends to ignore but which Israel must remain vigilant and prepared for any and all possible contingencies.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

UN Economic and Social Commission Declares Israel Apartheid

 

According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; after careful, deep, serious and intensive deliberations calmly released their verdict that Israel is an Apartheid nation. In a new report published recently it was claimed after examinations based on key instruments of international law that Israel has established an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinians. The basis for their determination rested on the fact that Israel has had repeated wars. This was stated without any reference to the fact that none of these wars were initiated by Israel and every war had as its cause actions by Arab forces, nations, terrorist groups or other forms of hostility including kidnapping, murder of civilians, cross border violence, weeks of ever increasing rocket assaults across the border and other casus belli for war. Instead the implication is that Israel has initiated these wars in order to enslave the Arab people and subjugate them while stealing their lands. They point to the presumed fact that Israel has annexed lands claiming the lands were not originally denoted by numerous legal treaties, conferences, mandates and even the United Nations Charter was Israeli to start with.

 

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

 

They noted expulsions of Arabs from their homes, businesses and lands presumably because of Israeli violence or threats thereof. There is a small problem here as the only large scale or even documented expulsion or dispossession of Arabs from their property occurred immediately before six Arab armies attacked Israel in May of 1948. This dispossession was caused by the Mufti of Jerusalem who insisted that the Arabs should leave their homes, farms, businesses and lands and escape to safety behind the Arab armies poised on the border of Israel so that their invasion could be simplified and all they need do is murder every person between them and the Mediterranean Sea. That story ended with them losing, not erasing all of Israel. The Arab forces did manage to wrest Judea, Samaria, Gaza and half of Jerusalem from the lands which were rightfully Israeli and because they did not slaughter every single last Jew and the Jews began to actually push the Arab armies back, they had the rest of the world preserve their gains by demanding an end to the war and threaten Israel that their further assaults would be viewed dimly. Israel, the Jews, winning has always resulted in the world demanding Israel cease their belligerence ignoring the small factor that the Arabs began each round of violence. With Israel still in existence, the Arabs decided to retain the Arabs whose lands remained under Israel control and demanded the world recognize these Arabs as refugees of the Israeli war because Israel refused to surrender everything to the Arabs who claim that all of Israel is rightfully theirs.

 

The final point is so ridiculous it is almost an embarrassment to mention. They state the Arabs they have labeled as Palestinians, since the invention of such a people in 1964, have been divided into groups which are treated differently. There are four groups which Israel treats differently and when we list the groups you might notice a particular peculiarity. These groups are the Arabs who are citizens of Israel (they leave out that they are full citizens but why argue over particulars); the Arabs in East Jerusalem; the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; and the Arabs dispersed outside of these areas.

 

Let us take them in reverse order; it will work out shorter this way. The Arabs who once lived within what is today Israel within the Green Line and are now refugees were requested (read demanded) to leave their properties to allow the Arab armies to destroy the Jews and then they could return and enjoy the spoils of the Jew wealth and have been prevented from returning by the Arab nations themselves or the Palestinian authority and Hamas governments in Judea and Samaria, and Gaza respectively. These Arabs were placed into camps and imprisoned there by their own people are not and never have been under Israeli occupation, control and Israel has absolutely no responsibility for the fact that they have never been permitted to settle in the nations where they are presumably refugees. The world is complicit in making these refugees a separate definition and the only refugees whose status is hereditary and passed from father to son and mother to daughter adinfinitum. There are approximately fifty-thousand original refugees left alive from the first Arabs who listened to the Mufti of Jerusalem and suffered for their obedience. The remaining five to six million are their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and so forth. None are in any way caused or the responsibility of Israel. Originally these refugees numbered about seven-hundred-fifty-thousand while the Jews forced from their homes in the Arab and Muslims nations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) numbered in excess of eight-hundred-fifty-thousand. This should have been an exchange of populations in a similar manner as the exchange between Pakistan and India or Germany and France and other refugee exchanges throughout recent history.

 

The next groups mentioned were the Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. The Arabs living in Gaza are living under Hamas governance which we can safely assume is not about to change despite elections. The Arabs residing in Judea and Samaria live under Palestinian Authority rule as a form of semi-autonomous rule. Currently their leader is a gentleman named Mahmoud Abbas who is in the eleventh or twelfth year of his four year term. The Palestinian Authority has apparently had some degree of difficulty in arranging the overdue election which has nothing to do with Israel. Sorry to upset the theory that Israel refuses to allow them to vote as Israel has nothing to do with the Palestinian Authority’s election schedule, that remains the domain of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party. The sole Israeli responsibility is to protect the Palestinian Authority government from outside attacks and the Israel Defense Force has arrested numerous Hamas teams whose assignment very well could have been to overthrow Mahmoud Abbas forcing elections which they believe they are assured to win. Should they ever succeed and Hamas take over, things still would not be the Israeli’s responsibility.

 

The final two are actually to varying degrees Israeli responsibility. There are two areas which Israel has annexed, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. The Golan Heights, which the Israelis annexed to prevent the Syrians from murdering Israelis farming or people walking in the Galilee using snipers and occasionally artillery fire, was uninhabited; as it was entirely a military zone under the Syrians. With the current situation in Syria and having the Islamic State often taking border areas as a result of the multifaceted civil strife, civil war, the Israelis annexing the Golan Heights now looks like brilliance. Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, thus reuniting the city, should have been a no brainer as it had been formerly illegally held by Jordan whose annexation had been universally rejected even by the United Nations with only Pakistan and Great Britain recognizing the annexation, was performed simply to reestablish and making the Israeli capital city whole once more. The challenge was what should be done with the Arab citizens who previously had been citizens of the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority rejected these former citizens demanding that Israel accept them whole. Israel gave the East Jerusalem Arabs citizenship receiving the benefits of healthcare and free movement in Israel and the right to vote in Jerusalem elections. The remaining right to vote in national elections has been left to be addressed at some future time presumably after final status talks have been completed.

 

That leaves one final groups and the easiest group to explain. These are the Arabs who remained in their homes, farms, businesses and land in 1948 refusing to obey the demands of the Mufti of Jerusalem demanding they abandon their homes so the invading Arab armies could slaughter all they met as everyone remaining was to be considered a Jew, even the Arabs and some might claim especially the Arabs as punishment for not obeying the Mufti. After the war they retained their homes, farms, businesses and land plus were granted full Israeli citizenship along with everyone who remained in Israel during the war. This was regardless of religion, race or any other descriptor imaginable. They have equal rights including healthcare, voting, free access to travel, driving privileges with a driver’s license as well as serving as judges, Ministers in the Knesset, doctors, nurses, salespeople or any other profession. The one right the Arabs were not required to fulfill was mandatory military service. They may enlist, do not get us wrong, it is just they are not required to either serve in the military or do community service. But the majority of the Arabs that this group was all torn-up over their treatment are actually honestly mistreated either by being denied proper, free and open elections as the Arabs in Gaza under Hamas and the ones under the Palestinian Authority or are being held in camps within barbed wire and guarded to prevent escape despite many having direct relatives living just on the other side of the barbed wire and fencing.

 

But perhaps we should take a glance at who are the nations making up the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. These nations are Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, The Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. There are a few items of interest. First thing we noted was that Israel is obvious in its omission despite being located centrally within the area. The next item of interest was the inclusion of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and the Sudan as none of these are in any part of Asia; they are all located in Northern Africa. The last thing we noticed, well, all right, the first thing, actually, was that none of these nations are exactly on the best of terms with Israel. Jordan and Egypt both have a cold peace with Israel with over eighty percent of Egyptians polled desire for Egypt to go to war and destroy Israel breaking the treaty which they find demeaning. Almost every, if not every, nation on the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia are also signatories to the Khartoum Conference where the “Three No’s” were established: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.” In reality all of this is simply another declaration by the same mouths from across the Arab world as those at Khartoum. This is the actual truth of this declaration and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia is that it will be similar in nature regarding Israel and will simply be a paper mill grinding out more and more useless denunciation of Israel with nary a dissenting opinion in similar manner as the General Assembly. Simply ask Ban Ki-moon.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Weeds in the MENA Garden

 

 

If one were to ask the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and the world media who is responsible for the unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) the resounding echoes would continue to scream Israel for likely the rest of eternity, but is that an honest assessment or simply a knee jerk automatic programed response spurred by anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic hatreds? The easiest way to tell would be to take a quick whirl around the MENA nations and see what the truth is. Let us start our excursion at the western edge and head to the east and see what we will see.

 

A map of MENA nations is almost up to date and is only missing the Sudan, and as the Sudan was split after years of tribal and religious violence, South Sudan; and some go so far as to include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eretria, and Somalia.

 

Coming into the North of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean the first country we would visit would be Western Sahara where we would find Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in violation of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and International Court of Justice ruling. Any efforts to dislodge Morocco from Western Sahara have been blocked directly by the United States whose full support of the Moroccan occupation shows no sign of relenting. The conflict reemerged as the “Independence Intifada” in 2005 which has remained as depicted in map below. Despite numerous efforts to defuse the situation the standoff remains.

 

Occupied Western Sahara
by Morocco Shaded Area
and Western Sahara Unshaded

 

Continuing on from the Morocco-Western Sahara conflict we next visit Mauritania which has had a rocky recent history including two military coups, the first was in 2005 followed eventually by elections for a new president in 2007 followed by the second coup in 2008. General Abdul Aziz took power after the coup but found the nation had few supporters amongst them predominantly were Morocco, Libya and Iran while the United States and European nations rejected the legitimacy of the coup continuing to refer to Abdallahi as the legitimate president of Mauritania. After the resignation of Abdallahi there were elections which allowed Abdel Aziz to become the civilian president. In February 2011 there were waves of unrest as the Arab Spring spread to Mauritania demanding President Mohamed Abdel Aziz institute political, economic, and legal reforms. The unrest culminated in April of 2012 as thousands of people in Mauritania attended demonstrations in the capital calling for President Mohamed Abdel Aziz to resign. Currently the nation is under military rule with the legal system based on Islam and Sharia.

 

Heading across the southern end the picture in Mali, Niger and Chad is the constant internal strife between Christian governments and Islamic uprisings with much of the major horrific attacks conducted by the terrorist group Boko Haram which literally means Western education is forbidden. Boko Haram follows Saudi Wahhabism and has pledged their loyalty to the Islamic State. Along the north there has been steady unrest in Algeria and especially Libya since the NATO backed coup where President Obama declared that the United States was leading from behind in the ouster of and eventual execution (murder) of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In Libya the nation is in fractious rule of numerous terror groups and tribal armies with some having declared alliance with the Islamic State. In the south east there is the Sudan which bled in the south especially in the Darfur area. Eventually the Sudan was force to divide allowing South Sudan to become independent. In October of 2015, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir issued a decree establishing twenty-eight states in place of the ten constitutionally established states. The decree established the new states largely along ethnic lines. He took it to the parliament for approval as a constitutional amendment in November and the South Sudanese parliament empowered President Kiir to create new states.

 

This brings us to Egypt where the recent history has played out live and large in the Western media. The Arab Spring riots led to the removal of President and military strongman Mubarak. The elections were held fairly soon after Mubarak was forced to step down largely by the United States backing of the Muslim Brotherhood. These elections overwhelmingly approved Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi to the presidency and a large Muslim Brotherhood majority in the parliament. Within the year new rioting broke out protesting the implementation of Sharia despite warnings from Turkish President Erdogan to the Morsi government to slow their radical changes or face resistance. This led to the military removing Morsi and arresting him for election fraud. New election instated former General of the Army Sisi as President though he still had an Islamist and presumed Muslim Brotherhood controlled parliament. The Obama administration refused to recognize Sisi and demanded that Morsi be reinstated; a request which was roundly ignored. Unrest still exists between Egypt and the United States which will be resolved by the Presidential election this November in the United States. As to what either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump might choose to do is a complete mystery at the present time as neither has addressed foreign policy beyond Hillary’s claim to deep knowledge claiming her time as a Senator of New York and a stint as Secretary of State under President Obama which included the Benghazi, Libya fiasco amongst other miscues and Trump claiming to have conducted business deals with numerous foreign governments and met many world leaders though particulars remain largely unconfirmed. Egypt has also faced unrest largely from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State where both are vying for control of the Sinai from where they would presumably unseat Sisi and retake the presidency. Hamas in Gaza was seen as providing assistance to these and some Iranian backed groups in the Sinai thus earning themselves a complete sea and land embargo enforced by Egypt from their waters and land borders with Gaza. The Egyptian blockade is often ignored with the large amount of attention paid to the Israeli “blockade” which is actually an inspection of goods before allowing their delivery to Gaza usually within one or two days done to assure that weapons are not being imported by Hamas and the other terror groups which rule Gaza. Egypt too is a work in progress.

 

We will return to Israel subsequently but meanwhile on to Lebanon where the terror groups Hezballah runs the government with an opposition often afraid to act to remove the terror group as previous attempts have resulted in untimely deaths. Lebanon cannot be addressed without discussing Syria and the state of war which has more facets than hewn crystals. The main three forces are Syrian dictator Bashir al Assad who has retreated to the Alawite tribal areas along the Mediterranean coast and Lebanese border. Assad is backed by Iran and their proxy, Hezballah, out of Lebanon. These are the Shiite forces which also receive tactical support largely in the form of air strikes by the Russians who are protecting their port area along the Mediterranean coast. Inland there are Sunni groups, oft referred to as terror groups, supported largely by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Finally there are the forces of the Islamic State which stretch into Iraq where they face the Iraqi Army backed by Iran who uses mostly IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) placing Iran at either end of the Islamic State. The Islamic State has been largely self-financed though there have been rumored support from Qatar. There is another group in northern Iraq and extending into northeastern Syria which is controlled by Kurdish Militias which are opposed strongly by Turkey. The Kurdish forces were at one time rumored to be receiving training by Israeli trainers on a clandestine mission though many have refuted that this was just a means of explaining the Kurdish forces resilience and holding their own against Islamist forces considered to be better equipped.

 

This takes us to the Saudi Peninsula and Jordan which we can count as a single unit of the GCC (Gulf Coordination Council) which is a group backed mostly by Saudi Arabia which includes Kuwait and the Gulf States and to a lesser extent, Jordan. Saudi Arabia has a close working relationship with the Egyptian government of President Sisi who are jointly facing terror groups including those supported or aligned with Islamic State as well as Iranian backed terrorists and the Houthi Tribes in the Yemen civil war, a front where Iran backed and Saudi Arabian backed forces are in direct confrontation. The United States has opposed and presumably attempted to prevent, though with little success, arms shipments to the Houthis by Iran and also opposed the bombing sorties from Saudi Arabia with equal lack of success and the belligerents continue to fight on. In the southernmost areas of Yemen, the prized areas which overlook the narrow passage from the Red Sea into the Arabian Sea, called Bab el-Mandeb Strait are a group of fighters originally claiming alliance with al-Qaeda but recently changing their alliance to presumably the Islamic State. These groups have benefited directly from Saudi raids as has the currently recognized Hadi-led government.

 

Yemen Battle Map

 

Lastly let us finally look at Israel. On the Golan Heights IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) have returned fire when fired upon by intention and otherwise has unofficial drop points for wounded individuals, civilian and combatant though no difference is noted, wounded and in need of treatment. IDF soldiers take these wounded and treat them in their field facility with the more serious cases transferred to Israeli hospitals for treatment. After treatment the individuals once sufficiently recovered are returned from whence they came at same drop points. All sides can view the individual drop points and all points are respected by other fighting factions in an unarranged agreement as all sides use this treatment method and no one side wishes to risk being cut-off from Israeli treatment and have to rely on whatever resources they have available. We have no information as to whether any Iranian forces have received treatment from the Israelis though if placed in civilian clothing they would receive the same treatment as any other individual. The Israeli border with Lebanon is currently quiet as Hezballah has sufficient on their plate with forces in the Syrian conflict and rumored even to have some fighting with IRGC or Houthis in Yemen. Intelligence believed to be accurate estimated that Hezballah has stores of rockets of varying size and capable of striking Tel Aviv, Bathsheva and even Ashkelon as well as guided missiles from Iran capable of striking anywhere in Israel including the southernmost port city of Eilat carrying warhead as large as two kilos and potentially five or ten up to one-hundred kilos warheads on their short and medium ranged rockets of which they possess as many as one-hundred-seventy-five-thousand. On their larger missiles they have warheads of as much as seven-hundred-fifty kilos on modified Zilzal-2 with a four-hundred km range and which they possess an estimated one thousand. Their Fateh-110 missile has a range three-hundred km range striking at Mach 3.5 carrying a four to seven-hundred kg warhead of which Hezballah possess more than twenty-thousand and lastly there is the Shaheen-II two stage missile which has a range of two-thousand km making able to strike anywhere in Israel and into Egypt. Each missile is capable of flight altitude of up to three-hundred km, is GPS guided, and varies a one-thousand plus kg warhead making it potentially capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and retaining it guidance hardware. It is doubtful that Iran has, let alone provided Hezballah with a deliverable nuclear warhead. Such is not far from the horizon for Iran but their providing Hezballah with such a weapon is doubtful.

 

The remaining fronts for Israel are with Jordan and Egypt which are both peaceful and with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria as well as with Hamas and ally Islamic Jihad and other terror and criminal groups in Gaza. The front with the PA is largely one where there are terror strikes which can be planned by Abbas and the his PLO terror groups or the less planned but instigated through calls for violence from PA figures, PLO figures or any of a litany of groups most of which are either headed by Mahmoud Abbas or are willful practitioners at his beck and call. The most recent round were stabbings carried out largely by Palestinian Arab and some Israeli Arab youths as well as car rammings along with rock and Molotov cocktail throwing with rioting which are carried out routinely by PA controlled terror groups, the Tamini family instigators who work closely with European Union and other European NGOs whose main aims are to cause any violent response by Israel which is filmed and the instigation causing the defensive act is edited and with careful editing and juxtaposition of stock footage, prerecorded footage or actual footage with any questionable instigations by the Arabs edited over or out completely compiled into the final product which is then transmitted throughout European news agencies within a matter of a couple of hours and they run with it unedited as if it were an actual news story followed by their governments and the European union then condemning Israel for use of disproportional force or the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Gaza front is another area where Iran attempts with some success to smuggle arms mostly containing rocket motors and rocket parts and technology. Funding for Hamas comes from UNRWA as well as from the PA making the European Union, United States, United Nations and individual European nations as well as numerous Arab countries direct or indirect financiers of Hamas terrorism and rocket attacks as well as Arab instigations and propaganda which permeates their entire society from their media to the schools, summer camps soccer leagues and every aspect of childhood and raising the children to hate Jews as well as Israel. The Hamas Charter calls not only for the annihilation of Israel but of Jews worldwide. Similar language is found in Islamic Jihad and Hezballah pamphlets and charters or constitutions. The hatred goes well beyond Israel and includes Jews everywhere as well as Western culture and societies. Hamas and their allies as well as Hezballah desire a world caliphate under Sharia and openly claim so. The main difference is whether the caliphate would be Shiite or Sunni, for the rest of us that is a minor comfort.

 

Beyond the Cusp