Monday, February 23, 2015
Iran Threatens Tel Aviv, Netanyahu: Iran Entrenching Along Israel's Border 'Biggest Emerging Security Threat' Facing Israel
A senior figure in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps warned Saturday that should Israel launch an attack on his country, Tel Aviv would be destroyed instantly.
“If the Zionists were certain that they could win a war against us, they’d have initiated one by now, but since they don’t have the strength to do so, they do nothing but threaten,” said Mojtaba Zolnour, who represents Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the IRGC.
Should Israel nevertheless decide to strike Iran, the Islamic Republic’s missiles will fall in the heart of Tel Aviv, “even before the Zionists’ missiles will reach us,” he claimed, according to Iranian media.
Zolnour’s comments were reportedly a response to Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who said Friday that Israel was doing too much talking about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, and that “if you want to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”
Netanyahu has long threatened to attack Iran in order to destroy, or at least hobble, its nuclear program, although such threats have largely tapered off since the West launched nuclear negotiations with Tehran.
The prime minister is resolved to take on the Obama administration with a speech that he is scheduled to deliver to the US Congress on March 3, in which he will likely warn against an deal with Iran that doesn’t do away with its uranium enrichment program.
Tehran’s chief negotiator in nuclear talks with the US and other world powers threatened to walk away from the table, Iranian media reported Monday, as a second day of high-level negotiations were set to get underway in Switzerland.
Abbas Araqchi said Iran would leave the talks if “other parties impose their wills,” Iran’s Press TV reported Monday morning.
The comment came days after US Secretary of State John Kerry warned US President Barack Obama was “fully prepared” to pull the US out before accepting a deal leaving Tehran with potent nuclear arms-making ability.
On Sunday, senior Iranian official Ali Akbar Velayati responded by saying staying or leaving “depends on the Americans.”
Kerry arrived in Geneva on Sunday for the latest round of talks with Iranian counterpart Mohamed Javad Zarif, after warning “significant gaps” remain ahead of a key deadline.
There is a heightened sense of urgency as the clock ticks down toward a March 31 deadline to agree on a political framework for the deal.
But Kerry warned in London Saturday that “there are still significant gaps, there is still a distance to travel.”
Iran is seeking to open a "third front" against Israel using Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian Golan Heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
Netanyahu said Tehran's attempts to entrench itself along Israel's borders was one of the biggest emerging security threats facing the Jewish state.
"Alongside Iran's direct guidance of Hezbollah's actions in the north and Hamas's in the south, Iran is trying also to develop a third front on the Golan Heights via the thousands of Hezbollah fighters who are in southern Syria and over which Iran holds direct command," he said.
Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said his ministers were to be briefed on "the security challenges developing around us, first and foremost Iran's attempt to increase its foothold on Israel's borders even as it works to arm itself with nuclear weapons."
[We should never forget what happened when Gaza was evacuated]
Late in January, Efrat Tawil sat in her mobile home in the large northern West Bank city-settlement of Ariel, amidst piles of bed linens and boxes of books. She and her husband, Rabbi Zion Tawil, were preparing to move into their newly built home on a hill overlooking Ariel University. Moving day had come in the nick of time; the roof of the trailer in which they had been living with their large family for the past nine years had collapsed due to a recent heavy snowfall.
Zion Tawil is the rabbi of Netzer-Ariel, a community of some 100 religious Zionist families — 20 of whom were evacuated from the Gush Katif settlement of Netzarim during Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza in the summer of 2005. For the past decade, the group has been living in temporary dwellings. With their current move to the comfortable, spacious and permanent homes they have built for themselves in Ariel, these families have become the only community evacuated from Gaza to resettle permanently — as a community — over the Green Line in the West Bank.
Welcoming news that the Department of Homeland Security is circulating an intelligence assessment on the threat posed by “right-wing sovereign citizen extremist groups,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it’s now time for security agencies to release a report on violence against American Muslims and others of Middle Eastern or South Asian heritage.
The DHS report – which has not been publicly released – was leaked to CNN at a time when some U.S. Islamic groups are questioning the administration’s “countering violent extremism” (CVE) initiative. Some of those critics, who have called for a greater focus on non-Islam-related terror threats, declined to attend last week’s White House CVE summit as a result.
“We welcome this new intelligence assessment on the threat posed by domestic right-wing violent extremists,” CAIR said in a statement, citing a CNN news story on the subject.
“We now call on the DHS and FBI to release an intelligence assessment addressing the spike in hate crimes targeting Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, Sikh, Hindu, and South Asian communities throughout the United States,” CAIR said.
The CNN report on the threat posed by so-called “sovereign citizens” – Americans opposed to all federal government authority and prepared to break the law in resisting it – quoted Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division.
“We’ve been talking about the international terrorism threat, but there’s also domestic groups that are just as concerning, that we worry about here in the United States,” Steinbach said.
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Sunday, February 22, 2015
Iran Prepares To Attack Northern Israel
Isaiah 17 and Ezekiel 38/39 can't be far off now - with everything we are seeing in the Middle East recently. This interesting article below comes from American Thinker. Once again - the specificity and accuracy of biblical prophecy is beyond amazing and points to an omniscient God. There are imminent wars being mentioned, but we know exactly what these wars will involve and who will participate. This has all been specifically described in the prophetic scriptures. The only question is "when?" and the answer appears to be "soon".
Take an old-fashioned iron bar magnet and a flat piece of white paper with hundreds of scattered iron filings. As soon as the paper is placed on the magnet, all the particles align around the two separate poles of the bar’s magnetic field. Every iron particle becomes polarized around one of the two extremes.
This is what Obama and Jarrett have managed to achieve in the Middle East. It is not an accident. We know that the two-person cult of Obama-Jarrett have been secretly “negotiating” with the mullahs since the beginning of the Obama years. But time is running out, and everybody over there is planning for the post-O years.
For the Iranians that means moving as fast as possible to capitalize on a historic moment of Western weakness, collusion, and accommodation. The mullahs remember what happened when Ronald Reagan won over Jimmy Carter. They have less than two years to grab whatever they can.
That is why Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops are now moving through Syria into high mountain positions to attack the Golan Heights, the northeastern tip of Israel. Syrian Army forces and Shi’ites recruited in Pakistan and Afghanistan are working under the command of Iran’s Guards.
“Even in stormy winter conditions, the Syrian army continued Wednesday to press forward with Iranian, Hizballah and imported Afghani and Pakistani Shiite forces towards the Golan and Israeli lines. Their immediate objective appears to be the lofty Tel al-Hara mountain fortress, which the Syrian army lost to rebel forces. … Our military sources report that the fall of Tel al-Hara would lay Quneitra (on the Goland Heights) open to attack. …(In) Quneitra… Tehran plans to establish a major military outpost and forward command center up against Israel’s Golan deployment. This is the first instance of Syria’s Bashar Assad agreeing to pass a warfront to Iranian command.”
In response, Israel has conducted a successful decapitation strike across the border, killing half a dozen top Guard officers and half a dozen Hizb’allah planners. Syrian artillery has reportedly killed 200 Guards in a “friendly fire” accident -– but Israel probably knows how to penetrate Syrian battlefield electronics.
Of all the extremely dangerous events that are now gathering momentum in the region, the Iranian-Syrian drive against northern Israel is the most dangerous.
The mullahs are now trying to push Israel to the wall –- which is when a Western-style deterrent doctrine comes into force. Ayatollah Khamenei, the “Supreme Guide,” has obviously decided this is the moment when America will not defend its former allies.
Maybe Obama and Jarrett have actually told him so; maybe Iran has penetrated this supremely foolish and malignant administration. Whatever the case may be, Iran is moving military forces through Syria toward Israel. Iran is also winning power in Yemen (which controls the narrow entrance to the Red Sea). All these moves directly threaten Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Israel and U.S. naval and air force assets in the region.
This is an enormous Iranian gamble, maybe a martyrdom gamble, following Khomeinist war theology.
This is therefore the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It is a moment of unpredictable confrontation, with nuclear weapons in the offing.
Israel does not have the manpower to match Iran, Syria, and Hizb’allah at the Golan border. If the Iranians stage a blitzkrieg against the Golan, using a force of fifty or more tanks now located in Syria, Israel may resort to unconventional weapons. These can range from massive electronic warfare to arming the Syrian Sunni rebels, to a wide range of WMD’s.
If the Golan becomes the flashpoint, a likely outcome is a huge regional war, pitting Shi’ite Iran against Sunni Arabs. Israel has long had contacts with the Saudis and Egyptians on how to respond to Iranian aggression. If Israel is drawn into regional chaos, it is likely to support the Sunni powers, who will need all the help they can get.
Iran has a Shi’ite martyrdom creed, which suggests it is trying to provoke an Israeli strike that will predictably enrage Obama and Western liberals, so that Iran can play the aggrieved victim. The Muslim world, which is 80% Sunni, may then back Shi’ite Iran.
The most intelligent form of preemption on the Golan is therefore the most invisible one. Big nuclear bangs are self-defeating. Silent strikes may work. There is now a range of unconventional weapons available to technically advanced nations. However, any local war can spread unpredictably around the Middle East.
Obama has brought us to the nuclear brink. It is vital to understand that this is not an accident. It is purposeful. It is a continuation of the Carter-Brzezinski strategy that put Ayatollah Khomeini into power forty years ago -- the first Islamic Caliphate. The Obama-Carter strategy makes no rational sense at all, except perhaps in some drunken faculty lounge. The risks are enormous, and the potential for a major violent backlash against the United States and Europe is very great. Iran now has ICBMs that can reach Europe and soon, the United States.
The single biggest factor in this crisis is the vacuum of American power. For decades the United States was trusted to keep the peace in the Persian Gulf, where Persians and Arabs have been staring at each with implacable hatred for a thousand years, across fifty miles of water.
Obama has destroyed any trust in America. We have “community disorganized” the Middle East.
When Netanyahu comes to Washington in defiance of Obama, the Iranians and ISIS will cheer for Obama.
But maybe the American people will come to their own conclusions.
Also see:
Netanyahu 'Astonished' Over Continuing Nuclear Talks
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the international community for negotiating with Iran while taking no steps to curb its sponsorship of global terrorism, as top American and Iranian diplomats attempted to hammer out a deal in Geneva.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, the prime minister said that it was “astonishing that even after the recent IAEA report determined that Iran is continuing to hide the military components of its nuclear program, the nuclear talks are proceeding."
"Not only are they continuing, there is an increased effort to reach a nuclear agreement in the coming days and weeks,” Netanyahu said. The deadline for the six world powers and Iran to reach a political agreement about Tehran’s unsanctioned nuclear program is March 31.
On Thursday, an IAEA report stated that Tehran is being evasive and ambiguous in its dealings with the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, preventing the organization from launching a thorough assessment of the country’s nuclear program.
In the wake of the report, Netanyahu called on world leaders to stop “wooing Iran” over a nuclear deal.
Netanyahu also panned the international community for continuing to negotiate despite Iran’s sponsorship of international terrorism.
“The fact that Iran is continuing its murderous terrorism that knows no borders and which embraces the region and the world has, to our regret, not prevented the international community from continuing to talk with Iran about a nuclear agreement that will allow it to build the industrial capacity to develop nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said Sunday.
Netanyahu said the emerging deal was “dangerous for Israel,” and defended his planned speech about the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program in Washington next month. In a jab at the executive branch, he said the US Congress “would appear to be the body that will affect the fate of the deal.”
There is a heightened sense of urgency as the clock ticks down towards the March 31 deadline for a political framework for the deal.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday was astonished that even as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) once again acknowledges in its latest report that Iran is likely building a nuclear bomb, the West, led by the Obama Administration, remains mired in fruitless diplomatic talks with Tehran.
...the report emphasized that there are many suspected facilities and programs that Iran is keeping concealed or otherwise denying access to, and that among them are facilities and programs that are strongly believed to be military in nature.
“The Agency remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” read the report.
The IAEA noted that its November 2011 report had “provided a detailed analysis of the information available to the Agency at that time, indicating that Iran has carried out activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” and that that assessment remains credible.
In a statement released to the press just before the weekend, Netanyahu wondered how in light of these revelations “the major powers are continuing to try and allow Iran to produce the core of such weapons, enriched uranium.”
Israeli authorities have charged that the nuclear deal currently being negotiated between the Obama Administration and Iran would permit the Islamic Republic to keep the bulk of its nuclear program intact so long as it provide guarantees that the purpose is peaceful.
Like many in Israel, Netanyahu argues that such guarantees are worthless given that even the IAEA admits Iran is concealing dangerous activities, and the Israeli leader intends to tell the US Congress as much early next month.
[Keep in mind, we are also witnessing the strengthening of the Gog-Magog alliance]
The dynamics of Russian foreign policy since the USA has forced a de facto declaration of war via financial and economic sanctions against Russia is impressive to put it mildly. Whether it will suffice to break the economic siege of Washington and open the way for a genuine global economic alternative to the bankrupt US Dollar System is not yet clear. What is clear is that Vladimir Putin and the faction of industrial barons who have decided to back him are not cowering in fear. The latest example is the recent visit of the Russian Defense Minister to Teheran, to do major military cooperation deals with Iran. The implications for both countries as well as the future of Eurasia are potentially huge.
On January 20 in Teheran, Russia and Iran signed an agreement on military cooperation. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Iranian Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Minister Hossein Dehghan signed the new agreement. Remarking on its significance, Shoigu stated, “A theoretic base of cooperation in the military sphere has been created.” He added that the two countries have agreed on “bilateral cooperation in practical regards and to promote an increase in the military capabilities of the armed forces of our countries.” The two also agreed on “the importance of the need to develop Russia and Iran’s cooperation in the joint struggle against meddling in the affairs of the region by external forces that are not part of it was framed,” Iranian Defense Minister Dehghan declared. To make sure no one mistook who he meant, he added that the reason for aggravation in the situation of the region was a US policy that “meddles in the domestic affairs of other countries."
The coming closer of the two Eurasian countries, both bordering the strategic Caspian Sea, has enormous implications for global geopolitics.
The Obama Administration has tried to woo Iran in a stick (economic sanctions) and carrot (promise of lifting same) manner over the past eighteen months to get Teheran to agree major concessions on her nuclear program. Until recently, despite US sanctions over Ukraine, Russia was willing to show “good faith” to Washington by participating in the 5-1 nuclear negotiations with Iran to persuade Teheran to make major concessions on its nuclear program, one where Russia built the just-completed Bushehr nuclear power plant, the first in the Middle East. That phase is clearly over and Iran’s hand in the negotiations with the US, France, Germany, UK has just got stronger, sanctions or not
For Washington, the nuclear pressure is part of an attempt to force Iran to abandon her ally, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, in order to open the way for Qatar, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and site of the world’s largest natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. Qatar, which has been the prime funder of the US and Israeli-trained ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq, wants to export its gas to the EU via Syria and Turkey
Iran, which holds the other part of that huge Persian Gulf gas field, North Pars, in its offshore waters, signed a strategic pipeline deal with Assad and Iraq in June 2011 to build a new Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline for 1500 kilometers from their chunk of the world’s largest gas field going from Asaluyeh, the Iranian port near the South Pars gas field, to Damascus in Syria. From there the pipeline would go via Lebanon to the eastern Mediterranean and on to the huge EU gas market. They named it the "Islamic Pipeline."
Qatar would be the loser. Qatar, a Sunni Islam country that finances ISIS as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and other such charming Jihadists, doesn’t like the idea.
Qatar approached Assad in 2009 to propose a Qatar-Syria pipeline to the EU via Turkey but was turned down flat. Assad said his relations with Russia and Gazprom were more important. It was just at the time of the Iran-Iraq-Syria Islamic Pipeline signing in June 2011 that Washington, Saudi Arabia and Qatar decided to launch a full-scale war to topple Assad and replace him with a Sunni regime friendly to Qatar and Washington. Hardly a coincidence.
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