WEEK OF NOVEMBER 29 THROUGH DECEMBER 5

Israel: Europe’s Blind Spot

Dec. 4….(In The Days) I recently met with a group of Australian journalists, including editors of some of the leading dailies. They impressed me as a fair and open-minded group. In the course of discussions, one elegantly phrased question, not intended to offend, was put to me, which I have been mulling over. “Did I ever take into account that if virtually the entire world has concluded that Israel is the principal cause for the Middle East impasse, perhaps they are right?” The question is particularly pertinent in relation to Europe, which has turned so dramatically against Israel. In these “enlightened”, postmodernist secular societies, which shun all manifestations of nationalism, Israel is no longer considered a revival of Jewish nationhood, but as a colonial implant that many would be happy to see somehow disappearing as a national entity. And, of course, there is the “new antisemitism,” in which demonization of Israel has become the surrogate for traditional Jew hatred, just as Jews in the middle ages were blamed for all the ills of mankind, so today the Jewish state is increasingly held responsible for the principal woes facing humanity. In this environment, the left and many liberals now focus their rage against Israel and have succeeded in hijacking human rights groups to serve as vehicles to undermine the Jewish state. On the international arena, the automatic majority of Islamic and other radical states guarantees the passage of all anti-Israeli resolutions initiated at the UN, no matter how absurd. The so-called UN human rights council (UNHRC), which includes some of the worst tyrannies among its leading members, is just one example. Simultaneously, the realpolitik imposed by oil-producing countries when securing energy has become the national priority for most nations, together with the growing empowerment of radical Islamic groups throughout Europe, has resulted in many countries siding against Israel, rather than confront the jihadists within their own borders. It is in this context that Israel remains the only country in the world whose very right to exist is challenged. It also highlights the dilemma facing Israel: the more concessions Israel has made over the last decade in order to reach an accommodation with its neighbors, the greater has been the terror unleashed against it and the more its international standing has eroded. Yet, Israel remains the only democracy in the region; 20% of its inhabitants are Arab citizens, who enjoy equality of rights, freedom of expression and elect their representatives to the Israeli parliament. In contrast, Israel’s despotic neighbors are autocracies or dictatorships, which deny freedom of religion and many other basic human rights. They also include the only countries in the world that deny Jews the right of domicile. But it is Israel that is depicted as a racist apartheid state. Even under a rightwing government, a broad consensus in Israel supports a two-state solution and is desperate not to rule over the Palestinians. Two Israeli prime ministers offered to cede virtually all of the territories gained in wars initiated by Israel’s enemies seeking to destroy it. The offers were rejected both by Yasser Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. The Sharon government unilaterally disengaged from Gaza and dismantled long-standing settlements. Yet the moment the settlements were evacuated, they were converted into launching pads for intensified missile attacks that culminated in the Gaza conflict. Israel is confronted by two Palestinian entities. Hamas, ruling Gaza, unequivocally demands the total destruction of the Jewish state and unashamedly calls for the physical extermination of Jews. The other is the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, whom we are told represents a moderate partner for peace. Yet Abbas still honors suicide bombers as martyrs and provides their families with state pensions. The PA-controlled media, education system and mosques continue to promote rabid antisemitism and demand the rejection of the Jewish state. Fully aware of these realities, most European states nevertheless apply double standards against the Jewish state. Many either applauded or stood by while the Arabs and their allies accused Israel of committing war crimes. This, despite the fact that the conflict against Hamas was only launched after thousands of missiles had been directed at Israeli civilians for years, and the submission to the UNHRC by the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, who stated that “the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any army in the history of warfare”. It is frequently alleged that Israel is responsible for the world turning against it. We are told that Israel’s military superiority has created sympathy for the Arab underdog. There is no disputing Palestinian misery and suffering, but it is rarely pointed out that this is a consequence of the intransigent policies adopted by their leaders. Israel is admonished and told to negotiate with Hamas; would anyone seriously suggest that the United States negotiate with al-Qaida? Any objective evaluation would morally validate Israel’s broad efforts to achieve peace in the face of Palestinian intransigence. It would also demonstrate how the false Islamic narrative of the conflict and constant portrayal of Israel as a rogue state by the UN and other purportedly reputable international organizations controlled by Arabs and their supporters, became embedded in the public consciousness. This has been facilitated by the realpolitik, bias and cowardice of much of the “enlightened” world

EU: We Will Ensure Division of Jerusalem

Dec. 3….(Stan Goodenough)  European leaders plan to publicly demand next week that Israel's capital be cut in two, to be divided between the Jewish state and the non-existent state of "Palestine." The EU will issue its call newly empowered by the Lisbon Treaty, which came into affect Tuesday, and which Europeans regard as placing them on a par with the United States. While the Palestinian Arabs have never had a state, Jerusalem became the capital of the Jewish people in approximately 1000BC. In the three millennia since, no other nation has designated the city as their capital. Nonetheless the EU, along with the rest of the international community, is keeping relentless pressure on the Israeli government to give the Arabs sovereignty over half the city, and over half of their historic land. According to reports running in the Israeli press Tuesday and Wednesday, a Swedish-drafted statement will be read out on December 7 after approval by the EU Commission. It will be the "first official EU articulation of a solution" for the issue of Jerusalem in the Middle East peace process. Ha'aretz reported that the draft "refers directly to the situation in East Jerusalem, calling on 'all parties to refrain from provocative actions' and stating the EU Council 'has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as capital of two states. The Council calls for the reopening of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem in accordance with the road map. It also calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.'" The statement furthermore applauds Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's proposal of a unilateral declaration of statehood, and commits the EU to "at the appropriate time, recognize a Palestinian state." Israeli officials have slammed the EU for ITS provocative meddling. But Europe is resolved to interfere in a way it believes will intimidate Israel into wilting under the pressure.

Europe Agrees to Recognize Palestinian State

(The EU is planning to call for the division of Jerusalem between Israel and a future Palestinian state)
Dec. 2….(Israel Today) Israel's Ha'aretz daily newspaper reported on Tuesday that a resolution to be discussed and probably approved at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers next week calls for the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital of "Palestine," and grants recognition to a Palestinian state declared unilaterally outside the framework of a peace deal with Israel. The controversial wording is being pushed by Sweden, though many EU representatives are believed to support it. Palestinians lauded the report, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman also lobbied the UN General Assembly on Monday to likewise recognize a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority. The official was addressing the General Assembly on the anniversary of the 1947 vote on the UN Partition Plan, which recognized Jewish and Arab states west of the Jordan River. Israel accepted the vote, but the Arabs did not, and instead invaded the nascent Jewish state. Despite that fact, the UN marks the day as a day of mourning, and uses it to blast what it calls Israel's "illegal occupation." Meanwhile, Israeli officials cried foul over the international community's willingness to accept dangerous unilateral Palestinian declarations just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a settlement freeze in order to get peace talks going again. "After the important steps taken by the government of Israel to enable the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, the European Union must now exert pressure on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table," read a statement released by Israel's Foreign Ministry.

EU Joins PA’s Diplomatic War on Jerusalem

Dec. 2….(IsraelNN.com) The Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday morning that a Swedish-led attempt to have the European Union recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Authority will backfire. The draft proposal, expected to be placed on the EU table next week, would damage efforts to reach peace with the PA and damage the EU’s standing as a trusted entity, ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said. “The Europeans must pressure the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table," he added. "Such moves like the one being led by Sweden lead to the opposite outcome." The Swedish proposal also omits any recognition of the rest of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Government officials estimate that several EU members will oppose the proposal by Sweden, which retains the rotating presidency of the European body until next month. Likud Knesset Member Tzipi Hotovely blamed her own government for the EU move, saying, “This is more proof that the erosion of legitimacy for residents of Judea and Samaria is the direct cause for the erosion of the status of Jerusalem.” The draft proposal of the EU will include its readiness to recognize the PA as a “democratic” and independent entity if PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas carries out his plan to unilaterally declare statehood. Abbas has asked the United Nations to recognize the PA as an independent state based on the 1949-1967 borders of Israel, a move which in effect destroys the Roadmap plan and American efforts for a negotiated agreement with Israel.

EU Inviting The Curse of God

Dec. 2….(JNEWSWIRE) “May God curse the European Union.” This was my instinctive, furious response to the news that broke in Israel today, that Europe plans to call next week for the redivision of Jerusalem. According to Ha’aretz: EU foreign ministers are expected to issue an official call next week for Jerusalem to be divided, in order to serve as the capitals of both Israel and a Palestinian state. The paper said it has obtained a draft document authored by the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Sweden, and implying that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood. December 1 saw EU member states celebrate with fireworks, music festivals etc., the official coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty. The recently-ratified agreement, which will effectively turn the EU into the United States of Europe, is not yet fully in play, and already the Continent’s leaders are flexing their muscles and making it clear just which way things will go if they have their way. As Spanish Prime Minister Luis Zapatero insisted in an interview with Der Spiegel on November 23, when asked whether he “truly believed that this new Europe can be a player in the same league as the United States and China:” “But we are already playing in the top league.” Europe has long vied with the America for a more influential role in the Middle East land-for-peace process. Tuesday saw it muscling its way right on in there. It will start by putting its weight behind the Palestinian Arab effort to steal Jerusalem from the Jews; and it stands poised to recognize the Arab theft of Israel’s historical and biblical land. In the draft statement obtained by the Israeli paper, the EU Council calls on “all parties to refrain from provocative actions,” even as it, with extreme prejudice, emphasizes that is has “never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem,” and demands that Israel “cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem” and permit them to reopen their institutions in the city. The EU, it continues, welcomed PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s recently floated proposal to unilaterally declare the establishment of “Palestine” and would “be able, at the appropriate time, to recognize” this state. It’s been spelled out countless times before: The Palestinian Arabs have never had a state in any of this land, whereas the Jews’ claims to and history in all of it stretches back thousands of years. Before being held at terrorism’s gunpoint and hijacked by states that hate Israel, many in the international community recognized that this land in its entirety, was rightfully the Jews’. And when it comes to Jerusalem: No other nation, least of all the non-nation called the Palestinians, has ever had this city as a capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab state or of any Muslim state. It is not mentioned once in the Quran and exhaustive historical records show that the founder of Islam himself literally turned his back, and ordered his followers to turn their backs on Jerusalem. Those parts of the city that suffered under Arab occupation did just that, suffered. When Arabs were in control Jerusalem was a run-down, dilapidated slum, its Jewish quarter vandalized and left to rot. Since the reign of the Jewish King David, who established his throne in Jerusalem in around 1000 BC, Israel has considered this city the capital of the nation. Since their forced expulsion from Jerusalem 2000 years ago, every Jew who has ever prayed in accordance with his faith has daily petitioned the Almighty for the return of the Jewish people to the city and the return of the city to the Jewish people. There is no contest here. The Bible and History concur: This land and this city belong to the Jews. The Arabs have no claim or right to either. Those supporting this “Palestinian” piracy are accessories to the crime of land theft and worse, because they are aiding and abetting the Arabs in their genocidal goal, which remains the destruction of Israel. They are calling the wrath of Heaven down on themselves: And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it. (Zechariah 2:3)

Fear and Loathing in PA over Temple Mount Link to Jews

Dec. 1….(IsraelNN.com) An Arab university lecturer and writer is hiding underground out of fear for his life after shocking the Palestinian Authority with a book that links Jews with the Temple Mount. The Arab world has been conducting a campaign, including removal of tons of dirt containing archaeological evidence, to try to eliminate historical Jewish links with the Temple Mount. Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, of Birzeit University in Ramallah, threw acid on the propaganda campaign that tries to convince Arabs that the First and Second Temples never existed. He wrote in a book, “The legendary Temple of Jerusalem may be the place of the Presence of the Almighty and where the High Priests served Him.” PA officials are furious with Nusseibeh, a scion of a distinguished Arab family, who now is in hiding and cannot be contacted even by mobile phone. However, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Middle East expert at Bar-Ilan University, told Arutz 7 that Nusseibeh actually is “small potatoes” compared to a Muslim grand mufti, in the days of the British Mandate, who wrote in 1929 that the Holy Temples on the Temple Mount were Jewish. According to Dr. Kedar, Nusseibeh already had made enemies in the PA after declaring he is not interested in returning to his former home of Ramle, located near Ben Gurion Airport. He also was threatened with death several years ago after urging Arabs to stop suicide bombings and to abandon their claim to a "right of return" to Israel. Dr. Kedar frequently has been interviewed by the Al Jazeera television network, where he boldly charged Muslims with lying and trying to make Jews a punching bag,

Palestinians to Ask UN for State Based on 1967 Borders

Dec. 1….(Jerusalem Post) Palestinian statehood is a "vital" component necessary for regional peace, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, in a message to mark Monday's annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. But amid criticism of Israel's settlement activities during the two-day solidarity event, Israeli officials were bracing for Palestinian diplomats to declare new diplomatic strategies during a General Assembly debate on Monday. Specifically, officials were expected to use the platform to ask the Security Council to declare a Palestinian state along 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as the state's capital, according to reports published in recent weeks. Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev, slated to address the assembly on Tuesday, is expected to reject the concept of a one-sided establishment of a Palestinian state, emphasizing that the only way to achieve peace is through negotiations, Israel officials said. Shalev also planned to remind the assembly of the 1947 vote that led to the creation of the State of Israel and to stress the misguided focus in targeting Israel by various UN bodies. The two-day solidarity event has taken place every year since 1977. This year it includes speeches in the General Assembly, an exhibit on Palestinian refugees, and a feature film about East Jerusalem. The debate in the General Assembly is expected to generate six resolutions that will criticize Israel. Until recently Israel boycotted the annual debate, but for the past two years has sought a platform to defend itself. his message marking the solidarity event, the UN's Ban expressed concern over stalled peace talks. "It is vital that a sovereign State of Palestine is achieved," he said. "This should be on the basis of the 1967 lines with agreed land swaps and a just and agreed solution to the refugee issue, a state that lives side-by-side in peace with Israel, within secure and recognized borders." He further called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity, and said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's announcement of settlement restraint falls short of Israel's obligations under the road map. Asked during a press briefing if the secretary-general had a position on the nature of a two-state solution, spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban would not "venture into what each state will be." "We do recognize the need for two states living side by side," she said. Last week, the European Union said it was "premature" to recognize a Palestinian state. "I don't think we are there yet," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, according to published news reports. "We would be ready to recognize a Palestinian state, but conditions are not there as of yet."

Iran Earmarks $20 Million to Support Terror Groups Against US

Nov. 30….(Jerusalem Post) Iran's parliament passed a law on Sunday earmarking $20 million to support terror groups opposing the West and investigate alleged US and British plots against the Islamic republic. The text of the legislation says the money is to "support progressive currents that resist illegal activities by the governments of the US and Britain." Iranian officials often use such terms to describe terror groups. The bill also taps funds to "confront plots and unjust restrictions" by the Washington and London against Tehran and to disclose "human rights abuses by the two countries." It was not immediately clear which groups would receive funding from Iran, but Teheran already backs Hizbullah and Hamas. The legislation is widely seen as a response to Western criticism of Iran's violent crackdown against protesters following the disputed June presidential election. Lawmakers started debating the outline of the bill in August when Iran's hardline leaders were fending off allegations that security forces had tortured opposition activists detained during the demonstrations.

Chavez: 'Israel Aims to Wipe Out Palestinians'

Nov. 30….(Jerusalem Post) In a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday night, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Israel of aiming to "exterminate" the Palestinians. Standing beside Abbas at the presidential palace, Chavez saluted the Palestinians for what he called their "fight against the Yankee empire, and against the genocidal state of Israel, which attacks, which kills, which attempts to exterminate the Palestinian people." Abbas thanked the Chavez government for its support and said: "We're all on the same path." Chavez made similar remarks on Wednesday, denouncing Israel as "a murderous arm of the Yankee empire" during a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Earlier Friday, the Abbas dismissed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's plan to temporarily halt new construction of West Bank settlements as insufficient, saying Palestinians do not accept Israel's tack in trying to restart peace negotiations. During his first visit to Venezuela, the PA president said, "We can't accept the current Israeli government's concept for the negotiations." "We don't have any condition to restarting negotiations except the commitment of the two sides to the foundations of the peace operation according to the road map, and especially stopping the expansionist activities of the Israelis," Abbas told lawmakers, speaking through an interpreter. He said Wednesday's announcement by Netanyahu of a 10-month halt to new construction in West Bank Jewish settlements "didn't bring anything new because the occupation is going to continue in the West Bank and in Jerusalem." "The Israeli prime minister had to choose between peace and occupation." Abbas said. "Lamentably, he chose occupation." Abbas earlier visited Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay to build support for efforts toward a Palestinian state. Latin American leaders backed his calls for Israel to halt settlement construction and also to guarantee that future borders are based on 1967 lines. Netanyahu says such matters must be resolved in negotiations. Chavez has been strengthening ties with Russia and with Israel's adversaries. Chavez broke diplomatic ties with Israel in January to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. In April, Palestinian officials opened a diplomatic mission in Venezuela, saying it would be a diplomatic hub in South America. Abbas told Venezuela's National Assembly that the long history of Mideast negotiations has shown in the past that Israel "doesn't want peace." He compared the barrier of walls and fences separating Israel from Palestinian areas to the Berlin Wall. "The Palestinian people, like the rest of the peoples of the world, want to live free, peacefully, independent," Abbas said. "When is the world going to hear us?" Chavez has repeatedly condemned Israel as a "genocidal" government.

FOJ Note: Mr. Chavez is quite a deceiver isn’t he. I guess it is Israel sending all those suicide bombers into the West Bank to kill Palestinians that belies their intent to destroy the Palestinians, and they are simply giving away territory to the PA to mask their intentions. What a joke!

Russia Vows Quick Completion of Iran Nuke Plant

(Russian energy minister quoted as saying Moscow will complete Islamic republic's first nuclear power station 'at the earliest possible time')

Nov. 30….(YNET) Russia's energy minister pledged on Sunday a quick completion of Iran’s first nuclear power station, Iran's state broadcaster IRIB reported, weeks after Moscow announced the latest delay to the Bushehr plant. The reported statement, which did not give a specific time for the launch of Bushehr, came as Iran's government announced plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, in a major expansion of its disputed nuclear program. Russia said in mid-November that technical issues would prevent its engineers from starting up the reactor at Bushehr by the end of the year as previously planned. Moscow, which is under Western pressure to distance itself from Tehran over its nuclear activities, stressed at the time that politics had nothing to do with the decision. "Russia will complete the Bushehr nuclear power plant at the earliest (possible) time," IRIB quoted Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko as saying after talks with Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi in Tehran. "The quick completion of the Bushehr power plant is the most important issue for both the Iranian and Russian atomic energy organizations and technical steps in this regard are under way based upon the scheduled plans," he said. Shmatko, who also held talks with other senior Iranian officials, said the Bushehr project had become "a symbol of cooperation between Iran and Russia and nobody dares to hurt it," IRIB added. Earlier Sunday, the Iranian government defiantly snubbed the world, announcing approval of a plan to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, in a dramatic act of non-cooperation with UN demands that it halt its nuclear program. The decision comes only two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog agency, censured Iran, demanding it immediately stop building a newly revealed enrichment facility near Qom, and freeze all uranium enrichment activities. The rebuke angered Iran, raising demands from lawmakers Sunday to cut back cooperation with the UN. The White House responded by saying that if Iran really did plan to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, the move "would be yet another serious violation of Iran's clear obligations under multiple UN Security Council resolutions and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself." Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that what made the IAEA's decision on Friday significant was that this time it included the support of both Russia and China, who until now have counseled against sanctions or harshly worded censure of Iran. "Efforts need to continue in order to bring real pressure, real sanctions on the regime in Iran, which is very vulnerable economically," Netanyahu said, during a speech in Eilat. Netanyahu said the Iranian regime was highly vulnerable now because it has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.

FOJ Note: Russia continues to fulfill Bible prophecy by arming their anti-Israel and anti-American allies, and “guarding” their allies against all diplomatic sanctions and inspections.

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 22 THROUGH NOVEMBER 28

The Spirit of the Antichrist

Nov. 28….(Charles Stanley) In the church, the word antichrist usually calls to mind the prophesied leader in power during the earth’s last days. But in the Bible, it more often refers to an anti-Christ spirit, in other words, demonic forces opposed to truth. Examples include false teachers (I Timothy 4:1) and the negative influence of the world (I Corinthians 2:12). John urged his readers to stand against enemies of the faith by using scriptural principles to evaluate their words and actions. We are living in an “enlightened” age—or at least people think we are. Anyone with an opinion and a platform is welcome to share his or her version of truth. Subtly false messages come from unlikely places, such as the business world, the entertainment industry, or the media. We might be tempted to think that these venues are separate from our faith. But just as our beliefs are to impact every aspect of our being, so a bit of poison injected into our professional life or leisure pursuits can contaminate other areas. Believers, therefore, must be aware of the type of information and attitudes that enter the mind. We need a discerning spirit to look past speakers’ charisma and eloquence and assess their message. But we will recognize an anti-Christ attitude only if we have a heart full of Scripture against which to compare. Your local bank teller knows when a counterfeit bill passes through her hands because she has memorized the feel of a real dollar. In the same way, believers with sound biblical knowledge will recognize and discard an anti-Christ message or attitude when it reaches their ears.

Iran Threatens IAEA, Quit NPT

Nov. 28….(DEBKA) Tehran may well break off cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA and withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty after the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors Friday, Nov. 27 approved a resolution voicing serious concern about its failure to comply with international obligations and referring the issue to the UN Security Council. The resolution carried by 25:3 called on Iran to halt the construction of its second enrichment site at Fordo near Qom and declare its other covert nuclear sites. All five UN Security Council permanent members supported the censure, including Russia and China. The White House commented that time is running out for Iran. A US official spoke of a "package of consequences" if Iran's non-compliance continues. Capping his 12-year tenure, the retiring IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei was forced to admit Thursday, Nov. 26 that his efforts to work with Iran had reached "a dead end." He told the agency's board of governors: "There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program." Therefore, DEBKAfile's sources report, by entering into negotiations with the big powers this summer, which led nowhere, then signaling its acceptance in principle of his proposal to send 70 pc of its enriched uranium overseas to be reprocessed for medical research, then backing off, Iran gained most of 2009 for developing its nuclear weapon program in peace and quiet. Tehran will most likely make its response typically ambivalent. But by quitting the NPT, Iran would free itself of international obligations with regard to its nuclear activities. Our sources note that this will not change much. Anyway, while holding talks on its program with six world powers and throwing an occasional bone to IAEA inspectors, Tehran does as it pleases and conceals most of its nuclear activities heedless of world censure. In his parting words to the IAEA governors, ElBaradei said that in his view, "the proposed agreement (for overseas enrichment) presented a unique opportunity after many years of animosity and hostility to create a space for negotiation. This opportunity should be seized," he said in a last appeal to Tehran, "and it would be highly regrettable if it was missed." This was his final admission that the agency had failed in all its efforts to open up the Iranian program to controls and inspection, just as it failed to prevent North Korea from building its nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, the United States and most other world powers connived with Dr. ElBaradei to blind the world to the true state of Iran's rogue program. They even gave up clamoring for a halt in uranium enrichment as a precondition for negotiations. For weeks now, they played along with director's obfuscation tactics and insisted Iran had accepted the enrichment proposal, the sole outcome of the latest rounds of talks with Iran in Geneva and Vienna, even after Tehran deliberately missed the Oct. 23 deadline for its acceptance. The IAEA director's "dead end" statement applies equally to the six powers' bid to engage Iran in negotiations on its nuclear program and the wholesale concealment of its activities. Israeli leaders, including president Shimon Peres, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak, presented an equally false face when they reiterated that Iran's nuclear aspirations are the business of the international community rather than Israel. They knew all the time that world powers were spending more time fabricating a false picture of Iran's nuclear attainments the facts than dealing with them. The IAEA director has finally come clean for them all

Iraq to Sign EU Union Partnership Agreement

Nov. 28….(Breitbart) Iraq will sign a strategic partnership agreement with the European Union next month, Baghdad's al-Sabbah newspaper reported Thursday. The agreement would cover more than a dozen sectors and is the product of nine rounds of negotiations stretching over two and a half years, the daily said. "The draft agreement between the two sides has been completed and is currently being considered by the Iraqi cabinet and European experts," al-Sabbah reported. The agreement would cover trade, oil, electricity, as well as scientific and cultural exchange, the newspaper said. It would also contain provisions on human rights, organized crime, money laundering, illegal immigration, and the theft of antiquities. Al-Sabbah hailed the agreement as likely "to ensure the integration of Iraq into the global economy," to contribute to the country's economic recovery, and "its gradual transformation to a market economy."

Israel Readies Arms For Confrontation With Iran

Nov. 26….(In The Days) With cutting-edge anti-missile systems and two new submarines that can carry nuclear weapons, Israel is readying a new generation of armaments designed to defend itself against distant Iran as well as Tehran’s proxy armies on its borders. Having failed to crush Hamas’ firepower in its Gaza offensive last winter, or Hezbollah’s in its 2006 war in Lebanon, Israel is turning to an increasingly sophisticated mix of defensive technology. A system that can unleash a metallic cloud to shoot down incoming rockets in the skies over Gaza or Lebanon has already been successfully tested, according to its maker, and is expected to be deployed next year. The army is developing a new generation of its Arrow defense system designed to shoot down Iran’s long-range Shihab missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It has three German-made Dolphin submarines and is buying two more. They can be equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles which analysts say could be stationed off the coast of Iran. Israel says Iran, despite its denials, is trying to acquire atomic weapons. It has never confirmed its Dolphin fleet has nuclear capabilities, but senior officials acknowledge that commanders are fast at work devising a strike plan in case diplomacy fails. The missile projects have their critics in Israel, who question their effectiveness and say they are too costly. And many Israelis would probably agree with US former President Bill Clinton’s recent warning to an Israeli audience that the country could achieve true security only by making peace with its enemies, who he said would always be able to improve their ability to attack. “The trajectory of technology is not your friend,” he said. “You need to get this done.” Under their overarching fear of nuclear annihilation by Iran, whose regime has repeatedly called for Israel’s extinction, the more immediate threat is seen as coming from Iranian-backed Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel’s military believes Hezbollah has tripled its prewar arsenal to more than 40,000 rockets, some of which can strike virtually anywhere in Israel, a dramatic improvement over the short-range missiles fired in 2006. Hamas has also increased its rocket arsenal since last winter’s fighting, said a senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with army regulations. Hamas recently test-fired a rocket that can travel up to 60 kilometers (40 miles), putting the Tel Aviv area within range for the first time, according to Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, Israel’s military intelligence chief. Israel’s defense industry says it is close to deploying Iron Dome, a system that will use cameras and radar to track incoming rockets and shoot them down within seconds of their launch. The system is so sophisticated that it can almost instantly predict where a rocket will land, changing its calculations to account for wind, sun and other conditions in fractions of a second. Shooting down a missile is a bit like stopping a bullet with a bullet. But Eyal Ron, one of Iron Dome’s developers, said his system will fire an interceptor that explodes into a cloud of small pieces which make it unnecessary to score a direct hit. “It’s a great advantage because to bring an interceptor to a target flying at incredible speed to an exact point is very hard,” said Ron, a specialist at mPrest Systems Ltd., an Israeli software firm developing the system along with local arms giant Rafael. He said recent tests in Israel’s southern desert were successful, and a final dress rehearsal is expected in December before the system goes live next year. While Israelis who have endured years of rocket fire from Gaza are sure to welcome Iron Dome, the system does not have wall-to-wall support. “Maybe it will be good during times like this when you have 10 rockets, but not for a war. If you invest in such a system, I think you’re going to go bankrupt,” said Gabriel Saboni, the head of the military research program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. Iron Dome is one part of a larger strategy that includes more tanks and dozens of new armored personnel carriers equipped with technology to repel anti-tank missiles.

The ultimate trump card is a nuclear arsenal Israel refuses to acknowledge but which no one doubts exists. The strategy that became obvious in the Lebanon and Gaza wars was simply one of overwhelming force to deter further attack. This policy appears to have bought Israel a fragile calm on both its northern and southern borders, but it has come at a heavy price. The military brass are deeply concerned that international criticism of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, including allegations of war crimes contained in a high-profile UN report, will tie their hands in the future. Military officials speaking on condition of anonymity said large resources are going into developing increasingly accurate weapons, such as bombs that cause damage over a smaller area and noisemaking explosions that scare away civilians before real bombs are dropped. Few expect the current quiet to last indefinitely, and muscle-flexing on all sides attests to the elusiveness of a peaceful Middle East. Iran is conducting large-scale air defense war games this week designed to protect its nuclear facilities from attack. Israel recently moved warships through the Red Sea toward Iran, and three weeks ago the Israeli navy captured a ship, the Francop, that it said was carrying a huge cache of Iranian weapons bound for Hezbollah. Last week Netanyahu boarded a Dolphin submarine and then the missile ship that led the capture of the Francop. He thanked crew members for seizing the haul and told them that Israel is Iran’s first target, “but not the last,” reflecting his contention that Iranian ambitions are not just an Israeli problem.

The Criminal Conspiracy of Global Warming

Nov. 26….(Prophecy Today) This is what they did, these climate "scientists" on whose unsupported word the world's classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen. An unelected global government with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights. The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the "global warming" fraud, and fraud is exactly what it has now been shown to be, tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. One of the thousands of emails recently circulated by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia, where one of the world's four global-temperature datasets is compiled, reveals that data were altered so as to prevent a recent decline in temperature from showing in the record. In fact, there has been no statistically significant "global warming" for 15 years, and there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years. Worse, these arrogant fraudsters, for fraudsters are what we now know them to be, have refused, for years and years and years, to reveal their data and their computer program listings. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their US counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset, the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century. Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and "global warming" profiteers, for that is what they are - have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists, they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and US taxpayers. I am angry, and so should you be. What have the mainstream news media said about the Climategate affair? Remarkably little. The few who have brought themselves to comment, through gritted teeth, have said that all of this is a storm in a teacup, and that their friends in the University of East Anglia and elsewhere in the climatological community are good people, really. No, they're not. They're criminals. With Professor Fred Singer, who founded the US Satellite Weather Service, I have reported them to the UK's Information Commissioner, with a request that he investigate their offenses and, if thought fit, prosecute. But I won't be holding my breath: In the police state that Britain has now sadly become, with supine news media largely owned and controlled by the government, the establishment tends to look after its own. At our expense, and at the expense of the truth.

Obama's Approach to Radical Islam Puts US on 'Dangerous Trajectory'

Nov. 25….(Newsmax) President Barack Obama is engaged in a dangerously naive, ignorant policy of trying to engage radical Islam rather than confront it militarily in both the United States and abroad, a leading scholar of Islam, terrorism and foreign policy tells Newsmax.TV. "I think the president has put us on a very dangerous trajectory and one that is surely going to embolden our enemies and put us at greater peril,'' says Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. Obama isn't connecting the dots between incidents like the Fort Hood attack, a recent plot to blow up New York City's subway system, and other incidents around the world. What they share is not so much a conspiracy, Gaffney says, as a belief system and ideology that is spreading dangerously around the world. Simply put, that ideology is sharia, or Islamic religious law, which demands violent jihad, or holy war, against nonbelievers wherever they are found. The ultimate goal, Gaffney says, is to bring the world under one Islamic ruling body, the caliphate. Even more dangerous, Gaffney says, is that sharia teaches its adherents to engage in stealth where violence isn't practical. Examples of this "stealth jihad," he has written, include efforts to bring Islamic banking to the West. Once Middle Eastern-based banks insinuate themselves into Western finance, a ready stream of financing can be used to fund terrorism and deplete efforts to stop it. Obama's naïveté stems from his belief that "submitting" to what many view merely as a harmless religious belief system will win over our enemies. It won't, Gaffney says. "They're all animated by the same thing, an adherence to this theo-political framework of authoritative Islam," Gaffney says. "Sharia. It is sharia that obliges its adherents to engage in jihad. "Either the violent kind, preferably, where possible, or the stealthy kind, where violence is not practical," Gaffney explained to Newmax TV's Kathleen Walter. “It is that kind of shared belief that Allah must be satisfied by engaging in violent jihad. I think it's the true connection between all of these incidents, including the actual attack at Fort Hood." Obama ignores the mounting evidence of the enemy's true nature, Gaffney says. "I think the president's determination to lowbrow all of them and to insist that they're isolated events, to diminish the obvious implications that this is part of a jihadist sharia-driven program is all indicative of an attitude that is not only inaccurate but dangerous," Gaffney says. "It emboldens our enemies and leaves the American people ill informed to deal with the true character of the threat we're facing." Gaffney distinguishes between sharia or salafism, a system to return Islam to its 12th Century roots, the practice of mainstream Islam in the United States and other countries. In fact, he says, Obama should make clear that the enemy is not Islam, but it's radical core. By doing that, many Muslims would buy into an effort to take out the terrorists using sharia around the world. Sharia is a "seditious, totalitarian ideology at its core," he says. "It's important to make the distinction between sharia, and Islam," Gaffney adds. "There are likely hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who neither practice sharia nor wish to live under its rule. "That enables us to say to those muslims we're not at war with you no more than you are at war with us,'' he explains. "In fact we both have an interest in making common cause against those adherents to sharia who want to press their misogynistic, horrible, barbaric program on sharia adherent musliams and the rest of us alike." But to do that, Gaffney says, Obama needs to speak in bold, frank terms. The problem is that many people label such frank talk as racist. "You have to first understand what the threat is if you are to defeat it," Gaffney says. "We have to get away from what is often called political correctness that is usually driven by people saying if you don't behave in a politcally correct fashion by talking about Islam and its relationship to jihad, sharia and terror, you're a racist and a bigot."

Obama Spending America into Debt at Record Rates

Nov. 25….(Fox News) President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents, spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other US president in history. In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion, $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush's term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama's. That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush's for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office. That's a big increase. But compared with other presidents' first years in office, Obama is running circles around them. Bush spent $1.8 trillion in 2001, according to government budget figures that have been adjusted for inflation based on 2000 dollars. Using the same formula, former President Bill Clinton spent $1.6 trillion in 1993. The last president to clock in under $1 trillion was Gerald Ford, who logged a $982 billion budget in 1975. Post-war Dwight Eisenhower even brought Uncle Sam's tab down to $556 billion in his first year, 1953. Obama's first-year budget, adjusted for inflation, is about five times that. His 2009 budget is also close to 21 percent of that for Clinton's eight years in office, Clinton's spending added up to $13.5 trillion over his two full terms. Bush spent $16.8 trillion from 2001-2008.

Iran: We'll Bomb Tel Aviv if Attacked

(Iranian cleric says ballistic missiles would be fired at heart of Tel Aviv should Israel strike Islamic republic; Iran army official charges Russian delay in supplying advanced missile system to Tehran result of pressure by 'Zionist lobby')

Nov. 23….(YNET) Iran's military said it will begin large-scale air defense drills on Sunday, and a cleric in the Revolutionary Guards warned that the Islamic Republic would fire missiles at "the heart of Tel Aviv" if attacked. "If the enemy should want to test its bad luck in Iran, before the dust from its missiles settles in this country, Iran's ballistic missiles would land in the heart of Tel Aviv," said cleric Mojtaba Zolnour, IRNA news agency reported. The war games, due to last five days, are intended to help protect Iran's nuclear facilities, Iranian media reported, citing Brigadier General Ahmad Mighani. Mighani also suggested Iran could itself produce an advanced missile defense system which Russia has so far failed to deliver to the Islamic state and which Washington and Israel do not want Tehran to have. Iran believes Russia's delay in supplying high-grade S-300 missiles is due to pressure by Israel, not technical problems as cited by Moscow, Mighani said. "They have declared technical problems as the underlying reason for this delay, but we think it has been due to the Zionists' pressure," Mighani said, Fars reported. "We are hopeful the Russians will ignore the pressure of the Zionist lobby." A senior lawmaker, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, earlier this month also said Iran would be able to produce the S-300 system itself, appearing to refer to missiles with similar capabilities. The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the row over Iranian nuclear work that the West suspects is aimed at making bombs. Iran, which says its nuclear program is solely to generate electricity, has threatened to hit back at Israel and US bases in the Gulf if it is attacked.

'2009 First Year of Global Governance'

Nov. 23….(WND) In accepting his appointment as the first president of the European Union, Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy announced that "global governance" is only way to address the crises that beset the planet. "We're living through exceptionally difficult times, the financial crisis and its dramatic impact on employment and budgets, the climate crisis which threatens our very survival, a period of anxiety, uncertainty and lack of confidence," he said in his maiden press conference. "Yet these problems can be overcome through a joint effort between our countries. Two-thousand and nine is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step toward the global management of our planet." Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, previously warned of the danger of a UN treaty proposal promoted by Barack Obama leading to a global government. Now, the new leader of the EU has seemingly affirmed that as a goal. The climate change conference in Copenhagen is scheduled to begin Dec. 7. The EU summit established under the Lisbon Treaty held a meeting attended by heads of state and government from 29 EU member countries and unanimously chose Van Rompuy as president. Van Rompuy told reporters after the meeting that he will make EU unity a priority, adding that the most urgent issues are environmental protection and a stable job market. He will resign as Belgian prime minister and assume the 30-month presidency from Jan. 1 next year. Former EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton of the United Kingdom was also chosen as the EU's new foreign affairs chief.

Islam is not Compatible with a Republic

Nov. 23….(Ellis Washington) Every Muslim is not a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim.

~ Dr. Zakir Naik, president, Islamic Research Foundation. When I first started writing for WorldNetDaily, almost three years ago, I wrote “Is Islam a republic? My thesis then was to use the American Constitution, reason, history and philosophy out of the Judeo-Christian traditions of intellectual thought, including Natural Law, to state authoritatively why Islam is not compatible with a republic. Why? Because Islam contains none of the essential components of what philosopher Booker T. Washington called the "fundamentals of civilization." What are some of the fundamentals of civilization?

-Belief in God (the moon god, Allah, is a very different entity);

-veneration of the intrinsic value of all life;

-the rule of law;

-A written constitution based on truth, equity, liberty and morality;

-laws that don't discriminate based on race, creed, wealth, gender or national origin;

-Freedom of religion.

These are just a few of the fundamentals of civilization Islam under Shariah law has no conception of, but possesses utter contempt for. Islam is not compatible with a republic. Last Monday I drove down to Columbus, Ohio, to attend a rally for the 17-year-old Christian convert, Rifqa Bary, who was tricked to come back from Florida where she had fled in mortal fear. She returned to her native Ohio to attend a juvenile court hearing that may force her to move back with her family, who are devout Muslims from Sri Lanka. Rifqa fears that her father will perform an honor killing upon her for "blasphemy against Islam" because of her conversion to Christianity. One of the speakers, Nonie Darwish, also a Christian convert from Islam, made this profound statement: Islam is not a religion. It has nothing to do with religion. Religion is a relationship with God. Islam is a relationship with the State. Islam is a one-party, totalitarian system. It's a one-party State that will not allow you to speak. And it will kill anybody who challenges or questions. Islam is not compatible with a republic. Last Tuesday the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ordered Lynne Stewart, a convicted terror-coddling civil-rights lawyer, to begin serving her prison sentence Stewart, 69, was convicted over four years ago, in February 2005, of conspiracy and providing and concealing material support of terrorism for her actions in smuggling messages from "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman to his followers in the Islamic terror group Gama'a al-Islamiyya. As irony would have it, last week President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, brought five terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be tried in a criminal court in New York. This act is tantamount to treason and is essentially overturning 230 years of American constitutional law and over 400 years of common-law traditions by permitting enemy combatants caught on foreign territory waging war against American soldiers to have full constitutional rights rather than being speedily tried by a military tribunal. Last year I wrote a book, The Nuremberg Trials: the Last Tragedy of the Holocaust,” on this very issue of coddling extreme war criminals and clogging up our criminal courts with people as irredeemably wicked as the Nazis, who, after World War II, should have all been tried by a military (not an international) tribunal and summarily hanged in the public square as a lesson to future would-be dictators that the civilized world means business. They didn't. Instead, in November 1945 the civilized world at the Nuremberg Trials miserably failed to dispense swift, comprehensive justice against Hitler's Nazis. Now, their anti-Semitic allies then and now, the Muslims, seek to finish what Hitler started. Obama and Holder's decision to bring these religious fanatics to New York is an insane policy that no constitutional lawyer worth his salt could tolerate, but instead of a unified front against this double-crossing policy from the American Bar Association, the National Trial Lawyers Association and the ACLU, all I hear is the sound of shekels jingling in moneybag of Judas as legions of shyster lawyers from NYU, Columbia and Harvard are lining up to become the next Lynne Stewart, the next traitorous terrorist lawyer who will get 24/7 media coverage and a king's ransom for defending these murderers. Islam is not compatible with a republic. The Obama administration at every opportunity is bending over frontwards and backwards to convince the world that America is a nice country since GWB left office and Obama is in charge. Conversely, this Neville Chamberlain policy of appeasement has only demonstrated to the world our societal decadence, our duplicity and our utter lack of moral resolve to fight an avowed enemy like radical Islam with the same passion and merciless tactics they have leveled against the civilized world. As Nonie Darwish said, Islam is a totalitarian political ideology feigning as a religion; indeed, Islam is anti-religion. It has no belief in a God of love, but in Allah, the pagan moon god that predates the prophet Muhammad and the Quran. Islam has no respect for the intrinsic value of all life, but is a cult of death that celebrates death by promoting homicide bombers and "killing the infidel where you find him." America's republic respects a written Constitution based on God, Natural Law, liberty and truth; therefore, truly just laws should not discriminate based on race, creed, gender or wealth (within biblical traditions, of course). However, Shariah law under Islam openly discriminates against others based on every conceivable difference. In other words, according to the Quran, everyone not a Muslim is considered a second-class citizen or worse, can be abused, sold into slavery or even summarily killed. The Quran commands: "A Muslim must not enslave another Muslim but is free to do so with a non-Muslim." And that's why, in my opinion, Islam is not compatible with a republic.

FOJ Note: The United States was founded as a Christian Republic, and not as a political Democracy. A Republic is established upon absolute and unchanging truths. These truths were outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Although Mr. Washington alludes to Islam not being a republican from of governance, it actually can be, as in the case of Iran. Albeit, an Islamic republic bases its truths on Allah’s word and interpretation of truth, whereas the US Reoublic was rooted in Jehovah’s word, the Holy Bible for its truth.

EU Elects A President of European Union

(FOJ Note: Former Belgian Prime Minister Van Rompuy was actually selected to head the EU in secret by the recent Bilderberg Group. His selection over Britain’s Tony Blair was a surprise, but is owed largely to his Marxist ideology, and that he will better pave the way for the rise of a later Super President.)

Nov. 23….(Joel Rosenberg) On Thursday, I was sitting in a hotel room in Turkey watching the live press conference in which the European Union made an “historic” decision to create a “President of Europe.” They chose Belgium Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy over Britain’s Tony Blair. If you’re thinking, “van who?”, don’t worry, you’re not alone. In one of the most undemocratic developments in recent history, the new leader of a half-billion Europeans is a name only 12% of them have even heard of. He was chosen unanimously by a council of other EU leaders, not by popular vote, and will take office January 1, 2010. Now that I’m home, I’m contemplating how quickly an unknown can rise to a position of great power. All this comes quickly on the heels of the historic passage of the EU “Lisbon Treaty” earlier this month. Noted the New York Times: (“A landmark agreement aimed at giving the European Union a global stature on par with major powers like the United States and China cleared its last major hurdle on Tuesday. The treaty’s supporters contended that it was vital because the union’s rulebook was drawn up before the bloc began to expand, taking in 12 new nations since 2004. Its critics, however, contend that the document encroaches on national sovereignty and threatens to turn the European Union into a monolithic superstate.”) We are watching the emergence of an increasingly unified and powerful Roman empire continue unabated, just as Bible prophesy tells us to expect in the “last days.” Van Rompuy’s “election/selection” will accelerate Turkey’s dramatic shift from NATO ally to ally of Iran, Syria and Russia. Why? Van Rompuy is an avowed opponent of Turkish entrance into the EU and the Turks are furious. Some US and European analysts are horrified by the selection of van Rompuy, ridiculing him as a bland dolt and claiming EU bureaucrats missed a great opportunity to select Blair and make the new presidential post truly a global game-changer. Such analysts are missing the point. EU leaders didn’t bumble into this appointment. They are determined to create an unrivaled superpower. They are determined to create the world’s most powerful political position in the presidency. But they want an EU-fanatic, not a British lone ranger. I’d never heard of van Rompuy until Thursday, but I have no doubt the EU leaders who chose him unanimously knew exactly what they were doing. I expect this guy to be a problem for the US, for freedom, and for Israel.

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 15 THROUGH NOVEMBER 21

US AID Helping Facilitate Palestinian Terrorism

Nov. 20….(Israel Today) Billions of dollars of US taxpayers' money have been used to advance the cause of Palestinian terror groups against Israel by raising a new generation of young Arabs ready to be recruited for "martyrdom." In an interview with Arutz 7 Radio, journalist David Bedein said his recent investigations had revealed that Palestinian school textbooks continue to praise the use of terrorist violence against Jews and to deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel. Those textbooks and the schoolhouses where they are used have been largely paid for by USAID, an American government-funded international aid program that has pumped $2.4 billion into the Palestinian Authority over the past decade. According to USAID, those funds have been used to "reduce poverty, improve health and education, create jobs and advance democracy." But a USAID official admitted to Bedein that his agency does not check the PA school curriculum it is funding to make sure it complies with the terms of the US-backed peace process. Incitement to hatred and the encouragement of violence in school textbooks is a violation of Israel's existing agreements with the Palestinians and the US-authored "Road Map" to peace. Several high-ranking US congressional leaders as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have chided the Palestinians in the past over the venomous textbooks, but have thus far failed to take any punitive action, or to at least reduce pressure on Israel until the Palestinians comply with their peace commitments. USAID says it plans to invest another $153 million in US taxpayers' money into the Palestinian education system in 2010.

Gen. Paul Vallely: Islamists Infiltrating US Military

Nov. 20….(Newsmax) US Army Gen. Paul E. Vallely tells Newsmax that the Obama administration made a "terrible decision" in planning to move terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay to New York City for trial. He also declared that the administration's refusal to call the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist is "absolutely ridiculous," warned that radical Islamists have infiltrated the Defense Department and other agencies, and said the US needs to take down "the center of terror," Iran. Maj. Gen. Vallely retired from the Army in 1993 as Deputy Commanding General, Pacific, and was a senior military analyst for Fox News. He is the co-author of the book "Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror," and chairman of the Military Committee at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC. Regarding what he calls the Obama administration's "terrible decision" to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terror suspects in New York, Gen. Vallely told Newsmax. I've been to Guantanamo Bay three times. It is the perfect location to keep radical Islamist terrorists for two reasons: Number one, to be able to secure them in a facility, and two, to do the proper interrogation that needs to be done for these individuals. "I think it needs to be kept open and also available for any of these radical Islamists that we capture anywhere, whether it's in this country or overseas. They're a threat to the United States, so I think it's a bad decision. It's going to be a show, a theater. The people in New York should absolutely rebel against this happening there. It should be done by a military tribunal." Walter asked the general about the refusal of President Obama and other administration officials to call accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan a terrorist. "It's absolutely ridiculous. It's like they're in a closet all by themselves in Washington and don't realize what radical Islam is all about," Vallely declared. "It was the same thing in the Bush administration, senior military people, senior political appointees, elected officials, members of Congress not realizing what the enemy is here and what their ambitions and goals are. "This definitely was a terrorist attack. This was a radicalized Islamist American." Walter asked who is to blame for what happened at Fort Hood. "I think it is the state of mind of our leadership, not only the politicians but at the senior military level, to be political correct," Vallely responded. "We have hundreds that are being radicalized in the mosques in the United States alone. I said when this happened at Fort Hood, believe me, this will track back to a mosque. And it has tracked back to the mosque outside Washington DC. So political correctness has gone just completely astray." Vallely said he "absolutely agrees" with Sarah Palin's assertion that accused shooter Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, should have been profiled. "I've always been for profiling and profiling can be a very positive thing," Vallely stated. "It's part of the vetting process. This is a case where political correctness overcame proper vetting." Vetting is necessary, Vallely said, because "we know we've been infiltrated. We had a situation with a soldier with the 101st Airborne who threw a grenade. We've had many instances of Islamic infiltration into our system even at the Department of Defense level. "We've been infiltrated not only at the department of Defense but also the State Department and other agencies. And this is the plan of the radical Islamists. It's a slow takeover, a slow movement to what we call the Caliphate, Sharia law." Turning to Afghanistan, Vallely told Newsmax that Obama "really doesn't know what to do and the people around him don't know what to do, so they're hesitating whether to commit 40,000 troops that the general over there has requested. "But on the other hand the strategy in my opinion hasn't been right for a long time. This is an unconventional war and it should be fought unconventionally. We should have learned from Vietnam. There's a way of taking down these radical Islamists. You can do it unconventionally. So I'm not convinced that putting in more troops is going to achieve victory over there." Unconventional strategy involves "covert operations, taking out the leadership, penetrating into their lairs where they train, and destroying them," Vallely said. "But I think the Obama administration has got to at least be decisive on where they are going because they're the executive branch of the government. He's the commander in chief. "Now we have reports that the morale of the troops, the morale of the leaders, is going down because it's like sitting on a fence: Are we going to go in and win this war? Is it going to be victory? Or do we continue to nation build, which is not the job of the army in the first place as far as I'm concerned. "Let's go to battle, let's win and let's get our troops back home." Vallely said the US needs to deal with the fact that Iran is delivering explosives and weapons to jihadists in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East. "You've got to go where radical Islam is funded, how it's supported, how it's fed, how it's armed. And the center of terror in the world today is Tehran. So unless we're willing to take the regime down in Tehran, it's going to continue to infect the entire Middle East.

Hamas: Terrorism to Eliminate Israel is a 'Principle'

Nov. 20….(IsraelNN.com) In an interview published Thursday in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, a Hamas spokesman said that the jihadist movement is loyal to "Palestinian principles" in its policy of terrorism against the Jews until Israel ceases to exist. Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas claimed earlier this month that Hamas had agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state within temporary borders. Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman in Lebanon and close associate of powerful Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal, rejected the idea, however. Hamas, Hamdan explained, has never agreed and will never agree to any recognition of Israel's legitimacy as a sovereign state. An agreement to temporary borders contradicts this position, as it would constitute acceptance of Jewish sovereignty over the pre-1967 borders of Israel, he added. The Hamas plan is based on obtaining a Palestinian state by force of arms, Hamdan said, "not by way of agreements, a path that has failed." In fact, the Hamas spokesman told Al-Hayat that negotiations between his movement and Abbas' Fatah group reached an impasse over acceptance of the Quartet's call for an end to Arab "resistance" operations; i.e., terrorism. The Quartet, the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and Russia is involved in pushing for negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Hamdan emphasized further that, in fact, it is Hamas that is remaining loyal to "basic Palestinian principles" in fighting against any agreements with Israel. Meanwhile, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are formulating a new peace plan that calls for a demilitarized, temporary Palestinian state in half of Judea and Samaria. While the PA has not accepted the plan, Hamdan claimed that PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad supports the idea of a temporary state. Fayyad, claimed Hamdan, has prepared a plan to declare a Palestinian state in 2011. Saeb Erekat, a leading Palestinian Authority spokesman, said that the PA will not unilaterally declare independence. Rather, it will ask the United Nations Security Council to recognize the principle of "two states for two peoples" and affirm the right of the PA to sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Iran Advancing on Dual Nuclear Bomb: Uranium plus Plutonium

Nov. 20…(DEBKAfile Special Report) DEBKAfile's military sources report that the UN inspectors' October visit to Iran turned up dual-track progress in support of its nuclear weapons program: Feverish activity was registered in the production of plutonium at Isfahan as an alternative to the Fordo enriched uranium plant near Qom which starts up in 2011. The IAEA experts discovered 30 metric tons-IS of heavy water hidden in 600 tanks, each holding 13 gallons, according to the report they handed in last week to agency headquarters in Vienna. From the shape of the tanks and other indications, the experts concluded that this stock had not come from the heavy water plant at Arak but was imported. Metric tons-IS measure the amount of energy a given quantity can release. The force and types of nuclear bombs are gauged in kilotons or megatons. The American nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II was equal to 20 kilotons of TNT. By this standard, the amount of heavy water discovered at Isfahan would be enough to make at least one plutonium bomb when the plutonium reactor under construction near the Arak heavy water facility is finished. Other than its civilian uses, heavy water may be used to produce tritium, which intensifies the explosive force of nuclear warheads. The discovery of quantities of heavy water at Isfahan confirms the suspicions surrounding Iran's nuclear program in three respects.

1. The long concealment of the Fordo site suggested to the UN inspectors that Iran has more hole-in the-corner nuclear facilities in the country. The discovery of a stock of heavy water further confirmed that Tehran is working hard to attain a nuclear weapon capacity on more than one track and at additional covert sites.

2. The IAEA wants to know who is selling Iran heavy water in violation of Security Council resolutions banning the sale or export of nuclear materials to Iran. The very fact that some government or outside entity is willing to flout UN resolutions demonstrates that any further international sanctions would be ineffective for halting Iran's nuclear drive, even assuming that President Barack Obama gained Russian and Chinese backing for such penalties. This backing has so far been withheld.

3. The presence of the heavy water tanks at Isfahan is additional proof that the reactor at Arak is designed for military purposes, not a peaceful installation as Tehran claims.

FOJ Note: I would assert that Russia is the country that is supplying Iran with heavy water for the development of nuclear weapons. Bible prophecy explicitly indicates that Russia will “arm and be a guard” for Persia in the Last Days.

Obama's Iran Sanctions Strategy is Routed by Chinese, Russian Rebuffs

Nov. 19….(DEBKA) Chinese president Hu Jintao said clearly after meeting US president Barack Obama in Beijing Tuesday, Nov. 17, that their governments disagree on tougher sanctions for Iran - or any other issue relating to the Islamic republic. This rebuff has led Washington's efforts to round up big power endorsement of harsh penalties for Iran's continued intransigence on its nuclear program, such as an embargo on refined petrol products and gasoline, have come to a dead end. The efficacy of unilateral American sanctions, the only non-military option still left to Washington, is questionable. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton made a last-ditch bid Wednesday, Nov. 18, to scale China's negative wall, before the US president left for South Korea. She tried to talk the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo into at least issuing a Beijing statement on Iran. He refused outright. The Chinese rejection followed a rebuff from Moscow in the form of a comment by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that it was premature to say that diplomatic efforts for defusing tensions over Iran's nuclear program had failed. He said it was too soon to talk about stepping up sanctions on Iran, if at all, so contradicting the supportive message Obama received from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when they met in Singapore last week and agreed that time was running out for Iran to respond to international efforts to meet it halfway. Tuesday, before Beijing and Moscow knocked sanctions on the head, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu said optimistically that the Iranian nuclear issue should be left for the world powers and international community to deal with. In a few short hours, that option had melted away. In the last 24 hours, Israelis have been too busy discussing the expansion of the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem to notice that their former and current governments, headed respectively by Ehud Olmert and Binyamin Netanyahu, have just suffered one of their biggest foreign policy defeats. They are now confronted with a most unwelcome dilemma.

The Black Sheep of the UN

(Israel continues to find itself under the microscope at the United Nations) 

Nov. 18….(Israel Today) "What the Gentiles say is not so important; far more important is what the Jews do," Israel’s first Prime Minister David-Ben Gurion once said. According to the Gentiles, the Jewish State has no right to defend itself, and that came to light once again in the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report which accuses Israel of war crimes during the Gaza conflict last winter. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the report will harm the peace process because if Israel’s hands are tied it cannot take risks for peace. “This report is a license for terrorism because it takes away from democracies their right of self-defense,” he said. Indeed, it was not the diplomacy of the Gentiles that stopped the rain of rockets on southern Israel, but rather the actions of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). But the hostility of the nations toward Israel is a necessary component in God's plan for the Jewish State. “God is looking at all the other countries through Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel],” Messianic Jewish Bible teacher Ariel Klimer told Israel Today. “As is written: ‘a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year’ [Deut. 11:12]. The nations are God’s means of correction, to chastise Israel and direct her into His ways, as it was in biblical times

Proof that Fort Hood Shooting was Muslim Terrorism

Nov. 18….(IsraelNN.com) While the US debate continues as to whether Maj. Nidal Hassan’s murder of 13 soldiers in Texas this month was a terrorist attack, researcher Barry Rubin says the murderer himself provided the affirmative answer. Maj. Hasan, who is now facing charges of having murdered 13 and wounded 29 in the Fort Hood shooting attack of Nov. 5, delivered a lecture in June 2007. His topic was: Islam, the complete subservience demanded by Allah and Muhammed, and threats that the American military might encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting wars in Muslim countries. Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, has analyzed the slide show Hassan presented, concluding that it clearly explained his religious Muslim motives for the attack. "Yet that still isn’t enough for too many people - including the president of the United States - to understand that the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack,” Rubin laments. Hassan had been writing e-mails to a radical cleric in Yemen who advocated killing soldiers and who called the American war on terror a "war against Muslims.” In addition, he yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he began shooting the unarmed soldiers. Despite this, US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has stated, "We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this. This was an individual who does not, obviously, represent the Muslim faith." In addition, Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. said, "I'm concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers ... Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse." Rubin analyzed Hassan’s slide show, entitled, “The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the US Military,” and summed up, “All you have to do is look at the 50 Power Point slides and they tell you everything you need to know.” Rubin’s conclusion is that at the time of the presentation, Hassan was “still working out what to do in his own mind and trying to figure out if he has a way out other than in effect deserting the US army and becoming a Jihad warrior. Ultimately, he concluded that he could not be a proper Muslim without killing American soldiers. The slide show’s central theme was that Muslims cannot fight in an infidel army against other Muslims, and the Koran is quoted extensively to prove this. Another theme is that it is the duty of all Muslims to fight those who attack and oppress Muslims. As Slide 40 quotes from the Koran, “Allah forbids you from dealing kindly and justly” with those who fight Muslims, such as the US Army. Rubin noted that Hassan, an American-born Arab whose parents came from areas now under Palestinian Authority control, has never been quoted as attacking Israel or the Jews: “This is one more reminder that this struggle isn’t all just about Israel. But it also tells something important about Hassan which also applies to many Muslim radicals in Europe. Hassan is an American. As such he has no other nationality, neither Palestinian nor Arab. He doesn’t support Hamas or Fatah. But he has a religion that directs his thinking. That’s why he is an Islamist and why he supports a generalized Islamist revolutionary movement, al-Qaida.”

Obama Seeks to Cover up Jihad at Ft. Hood

Nov. 18….(Washington Times) On Saturday, President Obama urged Congress to hold off investigating the Fort Hood massacre in order to let law enforcement and military authorities do their work. Mr. Obama said the ongoing investigation "will look at the motives of the alleged gunman, including his views and contacts." But if Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan saw himself as a jihadist warrior, we may never hear about it at his trial. The defense, judge and even prosecution may have an interest in keeping the shooter's radical worldview under wraps. Maj. Hasan will be on trial, but jihadism will not. Maj. Hasan has a clear interest in not raising the issue of his motives. There is no "jihad defense" in American law. His team will instead seek to demonstrate he lacked the mental capacity to understand his actions, that he was suffering a stress disorder transferred from patients at Walter Reed, or that he could not cope with his pending deployment to fight in what he saw as an unjust war against his co-religionists. They will make the trial about "Bush's Crusade" if they can. Maj. Hasan's motives may fall under rule 403 of the Military Commission Rules of Evidence, which states that a military judge "shall exclude any evidence the probative value of which is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice or confusion of the issues." A judge could rule that Maj. Hasan's jihadist views are too inflammatory and prejudicial for a jury to hear, that they raise too many strong emotions to be considered. Evidence developed by investigators proving Maj. Hasan's radical affiliations and activities would be suppressed. Witnesses would be cautioned not to blurt out anything that might have a bearing on motive, such as Maj. Hasan shouting the jihadist battle cry "Allahu Akbar!" before he opened fire. The government might also find it expedient not to bring jihadism into the case. "The prosecution will want to have the clearest possible case with the fewest possible issues," professor Eugene R. Fidell of Yale Law School told The Washington Times yesterday. He said that addressing Maj. Hasan's motives "could raise other issues they may not want." As matters stand, the prosecution is in an excellent position. Maj. Hasan is charged with 13 counts of capital murder, the shootings took place in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, and Maj. Hasan was apprehended wounded on the scene in possession of the murder weapons. Mr. Fidell said that proving that Maj. Hasan was not only a murderer but a jihadist would be "making the rubble bounce." This underscores the problem in charging Maj. Hasan with simple murder instead of bringing him up on terrorism charges. The government effectively has established a framework in which the question of Maj. Hasan's radicalism is irrelevant to the case and could be excluded as prejudicial. It will be as though no terror attack took place. Because the full story may not come out at Maj. Hasan's trial, it is imperative for Congress to disregard Mr. Obama's request and conduct a thorough and wide-ranging investigation into the cause and consequences of the Fort Hood massacre. Congress should establish how Maj. Hasan slipped through the cracks of the counterintelligence system, what foreign and domestic contacts he had with other jihadists, what special boundaries have been imposed on authorities investigating religious radicals, and what other investigations have been dropped for fear of crossing the line. Maj. Hasan's motivations may not be a factor in proving his guilt, but they are central to understanding the reason for the attack and to preventing future such acts of terror. Legal technicalities may keep "Allahu Akbar!" out of the courtroom but they will not prevent jihadists from planning future terror attacks.

US, Israel Act to Stop Abbas Quitting for Fear of Alternatives

(Abu Maher Ghneim: likely successor to Abbas)

Nov. 18….(DEBKA) The Obama administration and Netanyahu government are bending over backward to dissuade Mahmoud Abbas from going through with his decision to retire from public life both as chairman of the Palestinian Authority and head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which he now says is final, DEBKAfile's Washington and Jerusalem sources report. In closed meetings Monday, Nov. 16, the Palestinian leader tried to impress on visiting US senators that he was serious about quitting in the coming weeks. Asked what would happen after he was gone, Abbas said he doesn't want to know. US and American intelligence experts see Abbas being succeeded by his new deputy, Abu Maher Ghneim, who acted for 38 years as head of the Palestinian terrorist groups' manpower and finances from his self-appointed exile in Tunis. Earlier this year, prime minster Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak authorized his entry to the West Bank for the Fatah convention, at Washington's behest, although they were warned that the newcomer to Ramallah was a died-in-the wool rejectionist of peace diplomacy. He even opted to stay in Tunis to defy Yasser Arafat on the 1993 Oslo accords. Now both the Americans and Israelis rue their decision, dismayed at the possibility of Abu Ghneim stepping into Abbas' shoes. Abbas himself recently reshuffled his security services and named himself supreme commander of all armed forces, which means that his successor would take over this function too, another nail in the coffin of peacemaking, as one American source glumly admitted to DEBKAfile. The Obama administration has therefore rallied to keep Abbas from stepping aside. Our sources report that Monday, he was this week promised a grant of$131 million to pay for four brigades that would double the size of his presidential security guard in Ramallah. If the Palestinian leader withdraws his resignation, US Gen.Keith Dayton will go straight into training the incremental troops. If not, the plan will be set aside. Long familiar with Abbas' great strength, i.e. his weakness, Netanyahu and Barak have often propped him up before and may be expected to chip in with a fresh batch of concessions for the Palestinians to bring him round. However, neither the US nor Israel will countenance a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence. Netanyahu has said Israel would counteract to this step in kind, including annexations of West Bank territory and the suspension of existing accords. Tuesday, Nov. 17, the European Union lined up with Washington to spurn a Palestinian request to recognize an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "premature." Speaking for the EU, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said: "I would hope we would be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state but there has to be one first. So I think that is a bit premature. We would be ready to recognize a Palestinian state but conditions are not there as of yet."

No American President Ever Bowed to Foreign Leaders — Until Obama

Nov. 17….(Newsmax) President Obama created a new presidential precedent when he bowed to the Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko Saturday. No president of the United States in the more than 230 years since the country was founded in 1776 had ever bowed to a member of royalty, or another country. That was until Barack Obama’s presidency. In April, President Obama bowed to the Saudi king during the G-20 meeting. At the time, Obama’s deferential bow was somewhat obscured, and the White House insisted that the president simply had leaned forward to shake the king’s hand. But the president's recent demonstration of royal deference to the Japanese emperor and empress suggests his earlier action was no aberration. What should we make of this? Is it trivial to worry about what on its face could easily be interpreted as nothing more than a polite gesture by our president to respect the culture of a country? America was founded on republican virtues. Like the French Republic, our nation does not recognize royalty or social rank, especially from officials of the republic. The conduct of our president when he deals with foreign leaders is a serious matter. After all, he represents the American people and our Constitution. Indeed, when President Obama bows before a foreign leader, the whole country bows with him. It is difficult to grasp what President Obama’s motives are for bowing to foreign royalty. But Obama’s motives do not really matter when we consider his behavior. What matters is how the rest of the world will interpret his actions. When it comes to bowing before foreign leaders, there is a fine line between showing politeness and servility, between respect and weakness. The United States is the leader of the free world, and it goes without saying that our president as commander in chief is duty bound to protect the nation and our allies by treaty. He should act in such a way that strengthens, not weakens, his position. If we as American citizens wonder about how our president should act with foreign leaders when he meets with them in person, let us look to the history of the United States for guidance. First, there is our cherished Constitution. When the Founding Fathers wrote it, they made abundantly clear their distaste of the hereditary forms of government that then dominated Europe. Article I, section 9 of the US Constitution states: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State." As the nation’s first constitutional leader, President George Washington set the tone. When it was proposed that he be called “His Highness the President of the United States of America and the Protector of Their Liberties,” Washington scoffed at the idea and demanded he be called simply, “Mr. President.” No president better exemplified the republican virtues of the country than Thomas Jefferson, who had a purely American disdain for the pretensions of royal power which he believed were not legitimately derived from the people. As he stated so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, power was not derived from bloodlines or royal coronations. Instead he argued that since “all men are created equal” a government should exist by “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Jefferson’s breezy indifference to the English monarchy was on display during his first days in the White House. When the monarch’s new ambassador to the United States called for the first time to present his credentials he was not required to bow in front of the nation’s sovereign. In accordance with American values, he was assumed to be an equal, not a subject. Another president who promoted this egalitarian ideal was Franklin Roosevelt. In 1939 he invited the king and queen of England to visit the United States to bolster Anglo-American unity in the face of the growing fascist threat. Roosevelt never bowed to the king or queen, or any foreign royalty, for that matter. On this special occasion, he simply demonstrated American hospitality. As the British journalist Alistair Cooke detailed: “Roosevelt took the Royal couple off to Hyde Park [his Hudson River estate] and drove his own hand-run automobile into the grounds and gave them a hot dog lunch. Well, this was a shocker to the British, but it's the thing he would do. You see, he was a natural aristocrat, Roosevelt was. He didn't have to put on airs.” Roosevelt was also an American through and through and secure in his standing as a world leader. There is a lesson here for President Obama, who appears intent on upending more than two centuries of American protocol. When he as president bows before a Saudi king or a Japanese emperor, he is sending an implicit message to millions of people around the world that the leader of the free world accepts the notion that some people are born to a higher rank than others. But when our president stands up straight and extends his hand in friendship to all civilized nations, there is no danger, there is only opportunity, opportunity to communicate the values and spirit that Jefferson so eloquently conveyed to the rest of the world, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Obama Green-Lights Palestinian Land Grab in Israel

(But Jerusalem threatens retaliation if UN approves Palestinian state)

Nov. 16….(WND) A top Palestinian Authority negotiator told WND that the Obama administration won't stand in the way of a Palestinian threat to unilaterally ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state outside of negotiations with Israel. Despite widespread assumptions the US would veto any such UN Security Council resolution, the PA negotiator said that in initial discussions, the Obama administration did not threaten to veto their conceptual unilateral resolution. "The US told us that they prefer a negotiated settlement with Israel, but if we (Palestinians) insist on a resolution, the Americans will not necessarily reject it," the PA negotiator said. "The US has a history of never before vetoing any UN move to create a new state," the negotiator pointed out. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday the Palestinians had decided to turn to the UN Security Council to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. Separately, the negotiator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the Obama administration is "totally on board" with a plan by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to create a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years. according to a top PA official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the Palestinian West Bank leadership to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. The PA negotiator WND spoke with yesterday said that his authority's primary goal now is to secure a letter of support from the Obama administration affirming the US commitment to a pre-1967 Palestinian state within two years. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday hit back at the PA plan to unilaterally declare a state, warning such a move will be met by "one-sided Israeli measures." He did not elaborate. "There is no substitute for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and any unilateral attempts outside that framework will unravel the existing agreements between us and could entail unilateral steps by Israel," Netanyahu told a high-level gathering of Israeli and American policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem. Netanyahu stressed that in order to achieve peace, "negotiations must resume immediately." He affirmed Israel was prepared to begin talks "with a generous spirit." "I want to stress that we are willing to take steps that will help in advancing the peace process, but it must begin, there is no reason to waste time," said the Israeli leader. While negotiations were not easy, Netanyahu said, "there is no other way to bring about change." In September, a senior PA official told WND that aside from supporting a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders, the Obama administration also had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley. "We understand from the US that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years," the PA official said.

The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider "sanctions" against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the US government it would consider sanctions. The PA official claimed Obama can make a "headache" for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state.

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 8 THROUGH NOVEMBER 14

Hasan Called Himself 'Soldier of Allah'

Nov. 13….(Fox News) Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan called himself a "soldier of Allah" on business cards found in his apartment after the shooting rampage at Fort Hood in which he is accused of murdering 13 people. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, reportedly obtained the business cards over the Internet. In addition to listing his profession and contact information, the cards contain a discrete reference to his religion: "SoA(SWT)." Watchdogs say the first letters are shorthand among militant Muslims to "soldier of Allah." The last letters refer to "Subhanahu Wa Ta'all," which means "glory to God." The business cards were among numerous discoveries in Hasan's apartment of interest to investigators, who also are looking into whether Hasan wired money to Pakistan before last week's massacre. Reporters including Fox News camera crews were shown inside Hasan's sparse one-bedroom apartment. Hasan, 39, who was wounded in the Nov. 5 massacre and has been talking to investigators since he regained consciousness in the hospital, was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder. Meanwhile, authorities say they're looking at whether Hasan was sending money to Pakistan, and if so, why. The Virginia-born soldier is the son of Palestinian immigrants, was raised in the United States and has some relatives still living in the West Bank. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., told the Morning News that sources "outside of the intelligence community" have information about Hasan's possible ties to Pakistan, which is battling a large Islamist insurgency movement. Hoekstra, the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican, declined to identify the sources. "They are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications, phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan, it just raises a whole other level of questions," he told the paper.

Texas Gov. Perry: Obama Hell-Bent' on Remaking America into Socialist State

Nov. 13….(Politico) Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry accused President Barack Obama on Wednesday of “punishing” Texas and being “hell-bent” on turning the United States into a socialist country. Speaking at a luncheon for a Midland County Republican Women’s group, Perry said that “this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don’t need to be afraid to say that because that’s what it is.” Perry praised the tea party movement to the Republican activists in attendance, crediting the grassroots groups with discouraging some Democrats in Washington from pushing for a public option in the health care bill. “If you all think those tea parties didn’t work, then let me tell you something,” Perry said. “When they all came home in August for those town hall meetings, they got an earful. Then they went back to Washington, DC and the Senate voted that public option down in committee with a majority of Democrats in the Senate.” Perry also accused the Obama administration of intentionally dumping illegal immigrants from other western states in Texas. “I say it’s time to make tea parties twice as big as what they were,” Perry declared. “I think it’s time for us to stand up and say to Washington, DC that we are no longer going to accept this Socialistic Communist agenda.

Erdogan Pledges Iran Turkish Intelligence Aid Against Israel

(Gomer, Togarmah, other Magog allies falling in line with Persia)

Nov. 12….(DEBKAfile Exclusive Report) In the secret part of their talks in Tehran on Oct. 28, DEBKAfile's military sources reveal that Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recep Erdogan and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck military cooperation deals which promised Iran Turkish military intelligence and air force assistance against a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear sites. Their understandings have bound Turkish to pass intelligence data to Tehran on potential Israeli preparations for a strike and on US military movements in the Middle East for providing backup. Our sources report that the details finalized in meetings between the Turkish and Iranian military specialists in Istanbul Monday, Nov. 9, were due to be sealed by presidents Abdullah Gul and Ahmadinejad Tuesday. The Iranian president is to be in Turkey as guest of the Islamic Conference. The Turkish prime minister has not only buried his country's longstanding military and intelligence ties with Israel but climbed aboard the adversarial axis confronting the Jewish state. Turkey has agreed to round out the forward surveillance outposts encircling Israel's borders: Hamas from the southwest in Gaza, Syria in the east, Lebanon in the north and now Turkey from the northwest. Tehran is banking on this encirclement for early warning of an approaching Israeli strike and any supportive American movements. According to Western intelligence sources in Ankara, heads of the Turkish army objected to their government's strategic turn to Iran and the cutoff of its ties with Israel. However its pro-Islamic leaders, which have gradually eased the army out of policymaking, have forced them to accept operational ties with the military of an anti-Western Middle Eastern nation as being in the nation's best interests. Erdogan's most compelling argument is that President Barack Obama's secret proposal for Iran to deposit 400 kilos of its enriched Iran in Turkey for safekeeping in charge of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, had elevated Turkey to an enhanced role as a broker between the US and Iran, sanctioned by Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei. If Turkey, a member of NATO, was able to gain the Iranian regime's trust, the Turkish prime minister maintained, it was only thanks to the military understandings he reached in Tehran. DEBKAfile's military sources report that word of the Turkish-Iranian military collaboration deal landed with shocking effect in Washington and Jerusalem. They had not forewarned by their intelligence services that Erdogan was willing to go as far as this to ally Turkey with the Islamic regime.

Ahmadinejad: 'Obama Must Choose - Israel or Iran'

Nov. 12….(Jerusalem Post) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the US to choose between Israel and Iran on Tuesday night, according to Iranian state media. Speaking in Istanbul at the 25th Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Iranian president said that it was up to US President Barack Obama to realize his motto of "change," and change American foreign policy. "The support of both Israel and Iran can't go hand in hand," he was quoted as saying by IRNA. "No change is made unless great choices are made. "We would welcome the changes, and wait for big and correct decisions to be made. We will clasp any hand that is extended sincerely toward us, but changes should be made in practice." Addressing the same conference a day earlier, Ahmadinejad said that capitalist excesses caused the global economic meltdown and were un-Islamic, as leaders at a Muslim forum touted their religion's banking system a way to revive battered economies. He also slammed investments that pay interest, deemed usury by Muslims, and said they had contributed to financial and social problems such as homelessness. "Usury, which is entrenched in the capitalist system, is perhaps the main reason why the system has gone bankrupt," Ahmadinejad said. "It is a way of accumulating capital without working. Usury, according to the Koran, is fighting with Allah." Ahmadinejad did not mention Iran's struggling economy, nor did he refer to its dispute with the West over its nuclear activities. The Islamic forum held its meeting in a plush hotel on the banks of the Bosphorus Strait that divides Istanbul between the Asian and European continents. Syrian President Bashar Assad and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan were also in attendance. Meanwhile, Iran's defense minister on Wednesday urged Russia to ignore Israeli pressure against selling the S-300 missile defense system to the Islamic Republic. "We have a contract with Russia to buy S-300 missiles. I don't think it is right for Russia to be seen in the world as a country which does not fulfill its contractual obligations," AFP quoted Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi as telling the IRNA news agency. "Russia has to fulfill the contract and not be influenced by Zionist pressure," he added. Russia signed a contract two years ago to sell the S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran but has not made any deliveries or given any explanation for the delay. The United States and Israel strongly oppose the deal because it would significantly boost Iran's air defense capabilities at a time of heightened tension over the country's nuclear program. On Sunday, a senior Iranian lawmaker warned Russia that its delay in delivering the anti-aircraft missile defense system to Teheran could harm relations between the two countries.

Vatican Seeks to Affirm Signs of Alien Life

Nov. 11….(Newsmax) Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church. "The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory. Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology, the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos. Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue. Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting. "Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe." Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the US, France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues "whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds." Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican's daily newspaper. The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited. Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system, including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away. "If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound," he said. This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions. In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God. "How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview. "Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom." Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation." The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe. Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter. Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species." The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species. Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life. Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy. Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science, a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair. In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations.

FOJ Note: Last month FOJ ran a story about the possibility that President Obama may reveal publicly over the next year that the US has indeed had contact with aliens, and that UFO’s are actually real. It is very interesting that the Vatican is also moving in this direction. There are indeed beings in outer space, but the Bible indicates that these beings are not extra-terrestrials, but rather celestial beings, or fallen angels. (1 Corinthians 15:39-40 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.) Jesus warned us that the Antichrist would be able to perform many signs and lying wonders in the Last Days, and that a “great delusion” would be perpetrated on the world by the “master of the mystery of iniquity” in the Last Days. This “delusion” could possibly be related to alien announcements or even mysterious appearances!

White House Blocking Investigation of Fort Hood Massacre?

Nov. 11….(Newsmax) Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, tells Newsmax that the White House intervened to keep him from obtaining critical information regarding the Fort Hood murders. The Michigan legislator also warned that "homegrown jihadism" is a real threat to the US, and said a thorough investigation of Major Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood massacre, would help authorities learn how to deal with it. Rep. Hoekstra charged in a statement on Monday that the Obama administration was withholding information and demanded that the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Director of National Intelligence preserve documents relating to the incident for use in any future investigation. "On Friday afternoon I asked the director of national intelligence Dennis Blair to get a briefing," Hoekstra said. "We were already starting to hear that Major Hasan had some connection back to the Middle East, perhaps some jihadist link, and I just asked the DNI: Would you share with me the information you have available at this time? "He indicated that he would give me a call back and let me know. He contacted me on Saturday and said, I think we're going to make this work. A couple of hours later he called back and said, between the lines, I've been overruled by the White House. There will be no briefing for you this weekend, and early next week on Tuesday we'll give you a briefing. "Well, there was no reason why we couldn't be briefed on the information they had at that time. I get suspicious when they don't give us the information that we're looking for, especially when they're going to give it to us in a very limited form, perhaps only to me and the chairman of the whole committee. That's when my suspicions were raised. "Monday night they did come back and brief my staff and some senators on what they knew about Major Hasan and when they knew it, but it was already after most of this information had somehow been leaked to the media." As to why the administration might want to withhold information, Hoekstra said: "There are serious questions about whether the FBI did everything appropriately and whether there was enough information out there, enough red flags out there, that reasonable people would have assumed Hasan should have been more closely evaluated than he was. "I don’t know if that's it or not, and I won't know or have a better idea until I've had access to all the information. "I've just made it very clear that I want them to preserve all the documents, all the information that deals with Major Hasan, because I want to make sure that we don't get to a point where, well, we can't find that information anymore. I want a full, thorough investigation. "I'm not looking to pin blame on anybody. I believe that radical jihadism, homegrown jihadism, is a real threat to the United States. We need to learn more about it, how to identify it, and how to stop it. This could be a classic case that will give us some of that information." Martella noted that intelligence officials reportedly knew months ago that Hasan attempted to contact al-Qaida. Hoekstra agreed that should have raised "a big red flag," and went on to say: "But you need to put together the whole picture. The whole picture is that it appears he had contact with overseas jihadists, including perhaps people connected with al-Qaida. He made presentations and statements to his colleagues here in the United States that would lead one to believe he might have jihadist tendencies. "Did all of this information ever collect in one place and give us a thorough insight into who he was? Or did the intelligence community have part of it, the Army have part of it, and was it stored in three or four different places so that it never came together to provide one coherent picture of who Hasan might be and who he might become?" Asked why the Army did not act against Hasan based on the information it reportedly had, Hoekstra said "what we have seen during this administration is a certain political correctness that just makes many of us uncomfortable. "It was only a few months ago that the secretary of homeland security said we're not going to use the term 'terrorism' anymore. We're going to call it 'manmade disasters.' "The bottom line here is that if we are unwilling to call terrorism terrorism, we will never be able to deal with it, confront it, contain it, and defeat it."

Palestinians May Declare Unilateral Statehood, With UN Backing

Nov. 11….(YNET) The Palestinian Authority is looking into the possibility of turning to the Security Council and urging it to adopt a resolution recognizing the Palestinian state’s borders, senior Fatah member Mohammad Dahlan said Tuesday. The PA will seek a state in line with the 1967 borders, including east Jerusalem, Dahlan said. He added that all options were open at this time, including the possibility of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence. An American veto in the Security Council would prove that the White House is uninterested in the two-state solution, he said, pledging to “continue to fight Netanyahu’s plans, politically and diplomatically.” Dahlan’s remarks came as the Palestinian Authority government announced Tuesday evening that it is determined to continue the implementation of a plan aimed at establishing Palestinian state institutions. The PA announced that it continues to work on implementing the scheme, known as “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State.” The Palestinians said the plan will be implemented on the ground, without considering the various areas (A, B, and C) enforced on the Palestinians across the West Bank. “We are continuing to build the state on all the land occupied in 1967,” the statement said, urging the international community to take urgent action and assume its responsibility for salvaging the peace process in face of the current impasse.

Obama Tells Netanyahu: More Time for Dialogue with Iran

Nov. 11….(DEBKA) President Barack Obama and prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu talked for more than an hour and a half in the White House Tuesday, Nov. 9, all but fifteen minutes without advisers. There were no cameras and the usual post-meeting press briefings, joint communiqués and interviews were cancelled. A curt White House statement said: "The president reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel's security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues. The president and prime minister also discussed Iran and how to move forward on Middle East peace." Netanyahu then headed out to Paris to see President Nicolas Sarkozy later Tuesday. DEBKAfile reported Monday: US official sources admitted Monday, Nov. 9, that Tehran had finally blocked every compromise offered by the Obama administration through backdoor channels. This and the US president Barack Obama's Middle East peace initiative have both run into the sand. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell informed him last week after their failed bid to persuade the Palestinians to sit down and talk peace with Israel. Clinton found Mahmoud Abbas in Abu Dhabi with one foot out of the Palestinian Authority leadership and exploiting Obama's misplaced reliance on a total Israeli settlement construction freeze on the West Bank and in Jerusalem to strike a rejectionist position for the sake of restoring his tattered credibility on the Palestinian street. On that score, there is nothing much for Obama to discuss with visiting Binyamin Netanyahu Tuesday, Nov. 10, although both found themselves under pressure to meet during Netanyahu's brief visit to Washington to address the General Assembly of the North American Jewish Federations. A new Palestinian leader might find a way out of the impasse, but none is in the sights of the US president, the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinians. Even if a reasonable figure was found, it would take a newcomer to the PA leadership a couple of years to find his feet and establish himself. During that period, assuming the lid stayed clamped down on Palestinian terrorist action from the West Bank - which is far from a certainty - the peace track would be frozen solid. Our Washington sources do not expect Mitchell to return to the Middle East any time soon. The situation with Iran is much more fraught because time is running out as Iran speeds toward its nuclear and missile goals. In the summer, Netanyahu gave Obama a guarantee to hold off on a military initiative against Iran until the end of the year to give his diplomatic engagement effort a chance. This deadline is now only seven weeks away. DEBKAfile's Washington sources are assuming that the US president will use the Israeli prime minister's brief Washington visit to ask him to extend this deadline a while longer to permit him a last throw at cajoling Iran to accept a deal over its uranium enrichment. Our sources do not expect Netanyahu to refuse the president, both for the sake of his good standing with the Obama administration and because he too is in no hurry to cross the Rubicon for an act of war against Iran. Procrastination in the West is Tehran's greatest boon. This past year, the Iranians have managed to keep the diplomatic ball they are playing with the world powers up in the air and hold sanctions at bay while using the space to press forward with their military nuclear and missile programs. Addressing the General Assembly of the North American Jewish Federations, Netanyahu again challenged the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to join Israel for peace talks. Obama, who called off his speech to the event to attend Fort Hood memorial ceremonies, invited a group of 60 Jewish leaders to a White House reception Tuesday and thanked them for the "countless hours of tzedakah (charity) they put in every day of the week." Defense minister Ehud Barak said after meeting defense secretary Robert Gates Monday, "the strategic understanding with the United States and the cooperation on intelligence matters are cornerstones of Israel's security."

Syria: Give us the Golan, or Face More Terror

Nov. 11….(Israel Today) Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday warned that if Israel does not negotiate away the Golan Heights, his nation may turn to more violent methods of reclaiming the territory it once controlled. Speaking at an Islamic economic summit in Istanbul, Assad claimed to still want to reach a peace agreement with Israel, but said that if such an agreement is not based on Israel full surrender of the Golan, then "resistance" is an option he is seriously considering. It was not the first time Assad has threatened war should Israel not meet his precondition for peace talks by guaranteeing a full Israeli pullout from the Golan. Israel captured the Golan during the 1967 Six Day War after Syria had used it during the previous 19 years as a launching pad for repeated invasions of and attacks on the Jewish state. In the run-up to the Six Day War, the Syrian army had massed on the Golan in preparation for yet another invasion. In 1982, Israel officially annexed the Golan returning the territory to the lands originally promised to the Jews by League of Nations, the forerunner to the UN.

FOJ Note: Doesn’t this pronouncement by the Syrian leader expose the obvious? Syria is a state sponsor and haven for terrorists.

US Army Knew of Hasan's Contacts With al Qaeda

Nov. 10….(ABC News) US intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News. According to the officials, the army was informed of Hasan's contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the US intelligence community, only to be refused. In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA). Hoekstra said he is "absolutely furious" that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan's attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News. "This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies, not the CIA, have the lead," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. " Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect."

Army Ignored Warning Signs From Fort Hood Shooter

Nov. 10….(Fox News) The warning signs were all there: the justification of homicide bombings; the spewing of anti-American hatred; the efforts to reach Al Qaeda . But the U.S. military treated Major Nidal Malik Hasan with kid gloves, even after giving him a poor performance review. And though he was on the radar screen of at least one US intelligence agency, no action was taken that might have prevented the Army psychiatrist from allegedly gunning down 13 people and wounding 29 others in the Fort Hood massacre last week. "There were definitely clear indications that Hasan's loyalties were not with America," Lt. Col. Val Finnell, Hasan's classmate at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., told FoxNews.com in an exclusive interview. He and Hasan were students in the school's public health master's degree program from 2007-2008. There were all sorts of comments made throughout the year that made me question his loyalty to the United States, but nothing was done," said Finnell, who recalled one class during which Hasan gave a presentation justifying homicide bombings. "The issue here is that there's a political correctness climate in the military. They don't want to say anything because it would be considered questioning somebody's religious belief, or they're afraid of an equal opportunity lawsuit. "I want to be clear that this wasn't about anyone questioning his religious views. It is different when you are a civilian than when you are a military officer," said Finnell, who is a physician at the Los Angeles Air Force Base. "When you are in the military and you start making comments that are seditious, when you say you believe something other than your oath of office, someone needed to say why is this guy saying this stuff. "He was a lightning rod. He made his views known and he was very vocal, he had extremely radical jihadist views," Finnell said. "When you're a military officer you take an oath to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. "They should've confronted him, our professors, officers, but they were too concerned about being politically correct." Finnell said the warning signs were clear to many, not just classmates. Faculty members, including many high-ranking military officers, witnessed firsthand his anti-Americanism, he said. Finnell recalled Hasan telling his classmates and professors, "I'm a Muslim first and I hold the Shariah, the Islamic Law, before the United States Constitution." He recalled one time when his classmates were giving presentations in an environmental health class on topics like soil and water contamination and the effects of mold. When it was Hasan's turn, he said, he got up in front of the class and began to speak about his chosen topic, "Is the War on Terror a war on Islam?" When he was challenged on his views, Hasan became visibly upset. He became sweaty, he was emotional." But despite questioning from the other students, Finnell said, the professor allowed Hasan to continue. He said Hasan's anti-American vitriol continued for two years as he worked toward his degree in public health. There were even more warning signs that might have alerted the Army in recent months:

— In the days and weeks before the shooting, Hasan voiced his objections to Muslims fighting the war on terror to members of his mosque, the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen. Congregants at the mosque said he voiced his objections to Muslims serving in the US military and to his impending deployment to Afghanistan.

— Over the summer, Hasan's comments led Osman Danquah, co-founder of the mosque, to recommend that it deny Hasan's request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood, the Associated Press reported.

— In the months before Thursday's shooting Hasan tried reaching out to people associated with Al Qaeda, and did so under the watchful eye of at least one US intelligence agency. An intelligence official told FOXNews.com that "Hasan was on our radar for months."

On Sunday Sen. Joe Lieberman announced his intention to lead a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood murders, saying there were "strong warning signs" that Hasan was an "Islamic extremist." "The US Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone," said Lieberman, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Army Shooter's Mosque Run by Muslim Mafia

(Islamic center preached violent jihad, Shariah law)

Nov. 10….(WND) The suspected Fort Hood terrorist's former mosque in Maryland is controlled by the radical Muslim Brotherhood, a Saudi-funded worldwide jihadist movement which controls many of the mosques in America. Conventional wisdom holds that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan "self-radicalized" without any help from the Muslim establishment before allegedly shooting 46 fellow soldiers and security guards, and murdering 13 of them at the sprawling Texas base. Witnesses say the devout Muslim officer jumped up on a desk and shouted, "Allahu akbar!" Allah is greatest god, before opening fire and spraying more than 100 bullets inside a crowded building where troops prepared to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. However, WND has learned that the Maryland mosque where Hasan worshiped before his transfer to Fort Hood preaches violent jihad and a harsh Saudi-style Islamic doctrine that denies women the right to individual expression. Imam Faizul Khan ministered to Hasan when he worshiped at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md. Khan has been portrayed in the media as a moderate, but he sits on the national board of directors of the radical Islamic society of North America. (ISNA) Federal prosecutors recently named ISNA as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in US history. ISNA, they say, is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, parent of Hamas and al-Qaida. "ISNA has a long and disgraceful record of promoting radical Islam," says Islamic scholar and author Stephen Schwartz, a practicing Sufi Muslim. The Brotherhood, which supports violent jihad and Islamic rule, is the subject of the bestselling new book, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret World conspiring to Islamize America” Khan recently was replaced as head prayer leader by Mohamed Abdullahi Sheikh Mohamed, who also knew Hasan. "He was not violent; he seemed calm," Mohamed said of the suspected terrorist. "I was shocked." He added: "Islam is not responsible." Mohamed studied Islam at the Muslim Brotherhood–controlled Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, world headquarters of the dangerous Brotherhood. He also holds a degree in Shariah law from the National Somali University in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Muslim Community Center has held fundraisers for Chechen jihadists, and promotes on its website a Shariah-based financial product offered by a Muslim Brotherhood front group under federal investigation. The mosque distributes a pamphlet on Islam that says "it is permissible to fight" in jihad "warfare." It also requires women to wear headscarves. "When leaving the home, a Muslim woman must at least cover her hair and body in loose and unrevealing clothing, obscuring the details of her body from the public; some also choose to cover their face and hands," the mosque pamphlet advises. "Islam forbids any sex appeal." Hasan, the American-born son of Palestinian immigrants, refused to have his picture taken with women. His longtime mosque also forbids charging any amount of interest on a loan, calling such Western transactions a "gross violation of God's law." The pamphlet, titled "Islam Is.", is authored by Abu Yunus, an officer of the Saudi-based Al-Haramain Foundation, a suspected charitable front for terrorism. He recently was indicted by the Justice Department for terror financing. Before attending Muslim Community Center, Hasan worshiped with his mother at the ultra-radical Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va. While there in 2001, he worshiped alongside some of the hijackers who attacked the Pentagon on 9/11. He reportedly came under the spell of the mosque's imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who ministered privately to the hijackers. Witnesses at Fort Hood say Hasan's eyes "lit up" when discussing al-Awlaki's teachings, which include graphic descriptions of carnal pleasures and rewards in paradise awaiting jihadi martyrs who fight infidels in the cause of Allah. Hasan, 39, was unmarried. US intelligence now believes the American-born al-Awlaki, who after 9/11 fled to Yemen, is one of al-Qaida's top spiritual advisers and recruiters. The Senate, led by Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., plans to investigate how the Army missed numerous warning signs about Hasan's radical views. "The murders of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11," remarked Lieberman, who heads the Senate's Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

Muslims: 'America's Chickens Have Come Home to Roost'

(US Islamic street preachers declare Fort Hood victims got just deserts)

Nov. 9….(WorldNetDaily) A radical Muslim group was videotaped condoning the massacre at Fort Hood by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan because it was a military target. "America's chickens have come home to roost," shouted a representative of the group. A website run by Revolution Muslim is also honoring Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, as an "officer and a gentleman," saying his actions should not be denounced. The massacre, which also left more than two dozen injured, was called a "pre-emptive attack" by supporters of the group. Hasan, a Muslim psychiatrist who reportedly had been disciplined for pushing Islam on his patients at one point in his career, had given away his furniture and handed out Qurans before going to the military post and firing on soldiers at a processing center where soldiers prepared to deploy. There were multiple reports he had objected to being placed in the position of possibly having to fight fellow Muslims by his scheduled deployment to the Middle East. The website lists as its imam Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, who in February 2003 was sentenced to nine years in jail after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred in England. According to reports in the London Guardian at the time, hundreds attended his lectures, possibly including James Ujaama, a US citizen accused of trying to help the Taliban in Afghanistan; Richard Reid, who attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe while crossing the Atlantic in a jetliner; and Zacarias Moussaoui, jailed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US. The reports said el-Faisal, who later was released and returned to his home in Jamaica, suggested Muslims attend training camps to gain the skills to wage jihad on the West. He was recorded praising Osama bin Laden and saying, "You have to learn how to shoot and fly planes and drive tanks." El-Faisal also said chemical weapons should be utilized to "exterminate non-believers" and said Muslim mothers should buy toy guns for their children to providing training opportunities. "We do NOT denounce this officer's actions. Every day is Fort Hood for the world community due to USA policies and their tyrant totalitarian puppet regimes," the activists proclaimed. "Rest assure (sic) the slain terrorists at Fort Hood are in the eternal hellfire and it is not to (sic) late for YOU to change your policies," they said. The website's mission statement states, "Revolution Muslim is a message and movement grounded in the sayings, deeds, actions and understanding of Ahlus Sunnah wal jama'ah (The collective body of those Muslims that adhere to the ways of the Prophet and the first four generations of Muslims)." It continues, "We pray that we may witness the dismantlement of western, secular dominance across the world as we hold it to be pagan and idolatrous in the majority of its presumptions. We seek a resurrection of the just example set forth by centuries of Islamic rule throughout the ages and we hold it to be self evident for the objective soul and mind that Allah is One and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah is His Prophet and that the religion offers the solution to all of the world's ills and afflictions." The post commander said soldiers reported they heard Hasan shout "Allahu akbar," or "Allah is the greatest," while he was shooting.

Palestinians Threaten to Declare Unilateral Statehood With Obama’s Blessing

Nov. 9….(Jerusalem Post) Concerns are growing in Israel's government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently asked the administration of US President Barack Obama to veto any such proposal, after reports reached Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major European Union countries, and apparently also certain US officials. The reports indicated that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over US recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Such recognition would likely transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense. In late August Fayyad presented the international community with a detailed plan for building up Palestinian Authority institutions and set a timetable of up to two years for its implementation. Senior Israeli officials said Fayyad's plan initially met with positive reaction in Jerusalem for its emphasis on institution-building and making security services more efficient. But some Israeli officials told Haaretz that alongside the clauses reported in the media, which are similar to elements of Netanyahu's call for "economic peace" between Israel and the Palestinians, Fayyad's plan also contains a classified, unreleased portion stipulating a unilateral declaration of independence. The plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a "claim of sovereignty" to the UN Security Council and General Assembly over the borders of June 4, 1967 (before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, during which Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza). Fayyad is also seeking a new Security Council resolution to replace Resolutions 242 and 338 in the hope of winning the international community's support for the borders of a Palestinian state and applying stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. Several Israeli officials told Haaretz that Fayyad had spoken to them of positive responses he had received over the plan from prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden. Fayyad added that he presented the proposal to the US administration and did not receive any signal of opposition in response. Netanyahu's "kitchen cabinet" has held a number of meetings on the matter in recent months. "It's a very dangerous move," said a senior Israeli foreign-policy official. "More and more cabinet ministers understand that diplomatic inaction on Israel's part is likely to bring international support for the Fayyad program." Israeli sources said Netanyahu discussed the proposal in meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special Mideast envoy George Mitchell and requested that the US tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad's plan.

Fort Hood Shooter is A Palestinian Muslim

Nov. 9….(Israel Today) The American soldier who opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas last week killing 13 fellow soldiers and wounding 30 others is now known to be an Arab Muslim of Palestinian decent. While Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was born and raised in the US, his parents came from the currently Palestinian-controlled areas of the so-called "West Bank." Hasan was described as a devout Muslim who on several occasions in recent years passed out Korans and tried to share the message of Islam with other soldiers. He is also suspected of having participated in several online discussions praising the use of terrorism against America and American soldiers, despite being one himself. It is interesting to note that Palestinians receive more aid per capita from the US than any other people group (roughly half a billion dollars ever year), yet the Palestinians nurture a strong hatred for the US. For example, when Muslim terrorists devastated the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, Palestinians rejoiced en masse in the streets of their cities, and even in Jerusalem. That despite the fact that for the previous eight years former US President Bill Clinton had been pumping money into the Palestinian economy and extracting far-reaching concessions from Israel.

Palestinian Leader Abbas Resigns, Israel braces for Pressure From Obama

Nov. 9….(Israel Today) Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas announced on Thursday that he will not seek reelection in the upcoming Palestinian election tentatively set for January 24. Abbas insisted his decision was not an attempt to manipulate those involved in the peace process. But that didn't stop US President Barack Obama from responding as though it was by shifting Washington's position on the future of Jerusalem to favor Palestinian demands. A diplomatic source told Ha'aretz that Obama told Abbas that the US does not view the eastern side of Jerusalem as part of Israel, and therefore rejects the presence of Jewish residents in that half of the holy city. Obama's reassurance came just a day after visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Palestinians by praising Israel for implementing a partial settlement freeze for the sake of getting peace talks back on track. Clinton also said such a settlement freeze was not a precondition for peace talks, as demanded by Abbas. But Abbas did not blame the US for his resignation. Instead, he turned on Israel, accusing the Jewish state of "ruining all attempts at peace." He also said the inability to overcome Hamas in popularity polls meant he couldn't effectively govern and would probably lose the next election anyway. With Abbas out of the running, the most likely winners of the upcoming Palestinian presidential election are Gaza-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh or jailed Fatah terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti. Both Israel and the US view both men as less than adequate peace partners, so Jerusalem is expecting heavy pressure from Washington to offer even more concessions to convince Abbas to change his mind. Israeli observers noted, however, that if Abbas is truly the only top tier Palestinian leader and representative of the people that can be viewed as a peace partner, then any peace deal made with him will be hollow since the Palestinian public's preference for more hostile candidates means it doesn't really want peace with Israel.

Secret Obama deal for Palestinian State?

(Israeli officials fear White House's 'very dangerous move')

Nov. 9….(WND) The US is considering adopting a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence in the West Bank and Jerusalem regardless of negotiations with the Jewish state, according to Israeli sources speaking to Israel's Haaretz newspaper. WND first reported in September that according to a top Palestinian Authority official, the Obama administration has largely adopted the positions of the PA to create a Palestinian state within two years based on the pre-1967 borders, meaning Israel would retreat from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. WND reported that the White House had accepted the positions of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who had quietly called for a state on the pre-1967 borders within two years. Now Haaretz is quoting reports indicating that Fayyad has reached a secret understanding with the Obama administration over US recognition of an independent Palestinian state. Haaretz quoted Israeli sources stating Fayyad's plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions, the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a "claim of sovereignty" to the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly over the 1967 borders. Israeli officials further told Haaretz that Fayyad had boasted of positive meetings about his plan with prominent EU member states, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Sweden. Fayyad also told Israeli officials the Obama administration did not oppose his plan. A senior Israeli foreign-policy official told Haaretz, "It's a very dangerous move." Israeli sources further said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington today, discussed Fayyad's proposal in previous meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama's Mideast envoy George Mitchell. Netanyahu reportedly requested the US tell Fayyad that it would not support his proposal and would veto it in the Security Council. Haaretz reported Netanyahu has yet to receive a clear response from Washington on its stance on Fayyad's plan.

'Obama can create headache for Netanyahu'

A top PA official told WND in September that the Obama administration told the PA it will support the announcement of a Palestinian state within two years. The official also said Obama had accepted the PA position that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin where they left off under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who went further than previous Israeli leaders in his concessions to the Palestinians. Olmert reportedly offered the PA not only 95 percent of the West Bank and peripheral eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods but also other territories never before offered by any Israeli leader, including parts of the Israeli Negev desert bordering Gaza as well as sections of the Jordan Valley. "We understand from the US that the Netanyahu government is not in a position to go against creating a state within two years," the PA official said. The official claimed the Obama administration was ready to ultimately consider "sanctions" against Israel if the Netanyahu government rejected negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. The official refused to clarify which sanctions he was referring to or whether he was specifically told by the US government it would consider sanctions. Obama can make a "headache" for Netanyahu if the Israeli leader does not conduct negotiations leading within two years to a Palestinian state, the PA official claimed.

Ft. Hood Gunman may have 9/11 Mosque Al Qaeda  Link

Nov. 9….(Yahoo) A key US senator said Sunday he would begin an investigation into whether the Army missed signs that the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood had embraced an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology. Sen. Joe Lieberman's call for the investigation came as word surfaced that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there. Whether Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Classmates participating in a 2007-2008 master's program at a military college complained repeatedly to superiors about what they considered Hasan's anti-American views. Dr. Val Finnell said Hasan gave a presentation at the Uniformed Services University that justified suicide bombing and told classmates that Islamic law trumped the US Constitution. Another classmate said he complained to five officers and two civilian faculty members at the university. He wrote in a command climate survey sent to Pentagon officials that fear in the military of being seen as politically incorrect prevented an "intellectually honest discussion of Islamic ideology" in the ranks. The classmate also requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wants Congress to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack. "If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the US Army has to have zero tolerance," Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on "Fox News Sunday." "He should have been gone." Authorities continue to refer to Hasan, 39, as the only suspect in the shootings that killed 13 and wounded 29, but they won't say when charges would be filed and have said they have not determined a motive. Hasan, who was shot by civilian police to end the rampage, was in critical but stable condition at an Army hospital in San Antonio. He was breathing on his own after being taken off a ventilator on Saturday, but officials won't say whether Hasan can communicate. Sixteen victims remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and seven were in intensive care. Hasan's family described a man incapable of the attack, calling him a devoted doctor and devout Muslim who showed no signs that he might lash out. "I've known my brother Nidal to be a peaceful, loving and compassionate person who has shown great interest in the medical field and in helping others," his brother, Eyad Hasan, of Sterling, Va., said in a statement Saturday. "He has never committed an act of violence and was always known to be a good, law-abiding citizen." Army Chief of Staff George Casey warned against reaching conclusions about the suspected shooter's motives until investigators have fully explored the attack. "I think the speculation (on Hasan's Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers," he said on ABC's "This Week." Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center, said he did not know whether Hasan ever attended the Falls Church, Va., mosque but confirmed that the Hasan family participated in services there. Abdul-Malik said the Hasans were not leaders at the mosque and their attendance was utterly normal. In 2001, Anwar Aulaqi was an imam, or spiritual leader, at the mosque. Aulaqi told the FBI in 2001 that, before he moved to Virginia in early 2001, he met with 9/11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi several times in San Diego. Al-Hazmi was at the time living with Khalid al-Mihdhar, another hijacker. Al-Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in early April 2001. The mosque is one of the largest on the East Coast, and thousands of worshippers attend prayers and services there every week. Abdul-Malik said it's a mistake for people to conflate regular attendance at a mosque with extremism. Hasan likely would face military justice rather than federal criminal charges if investigators determine the violence was the work of just one person. There is no time limit on charging Hasan, but once he is in pre-trial confinement, the military has 120 days to start his trial, said John P. Galligan, an attorney who has represented Fort Hood soldiers but is not involved in the Hasan case. However, defense attorneys often file motions that stop the 120-day clock. Authorities have said Hasan is "in custody" in the hospital, but it's unclear if that is considered pre-trial confinement.

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 1 THROUGH NOVEMBER 7

US Army Major of Palestinian Origin at Fort Hood Shooting Rampage

Nov. 6….(DEBKA) A US army major turns out to have acted solo in a shooting spree which left 12 US soldiers and a police officer dead and 31 injured at US Army Fort Hood base in Texas Thursday, Nov. 5. He was identified as Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan, first said to have been killed in the return fire, but later found wounded but alive. He is now in stable condition under military guard. Two other suspects of the shooting were cleared and released. Major Hasan, age 39, is a military psychiatrist born in Virginia to Palestinian parents who immigrated to the US from Jordan. Until recently, he was posted at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington DC. Hasan embarked on his murderous shooting spree shortly after being informed he was to be deployed in Iraq. Retired Army Col. Terry Lee, who said he worked with the major, told reporters that Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull the army out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Lee said he often got into arguments with soldiers who supported the wars and had tried hard to get his pending deployment cancelled. According to unnamed law enforcement officials, the major came to their attention six months ago on suspicion of posting Internet messages equating suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades. No formal investigation had been opened before the shooting. In a brief message, US president Barack Obama called on Americans to pray for the wounded men. He said it was hard enough for "our soldiers to die in action in Afghanistan and Iraq, but horrifying for them to come under fire at an army base on American soil."

Islamic Military Jihadists Inside 'Every Branch of Military'

(Ultimate 5th column penetration, warns best-selling 'Muslim Mafia')

Nov. 6….(World Net Daily) "Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor." That's what Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan said about America before he and possibly other Muslim soldiers at Fort Hood shot 43 fellow soldiers, killing 12, who were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. "He said Muslims had a right to attack" the US, said Col. Terry Lee, who worked with Hasan at the Texas post, where the devout Sunni Muslim refused deployment. "He said Muslims shouldn't be fighting Muslims," he added. "He was very clear on that." Shockingly, a growing number of other Muslim American soldiers as well as civilian contractors have put their religion before their duty. Some like Hasan have killed, or tried to kill, their fellow soldiers. Others have infiltrated the military in order to undermine it and aid and comfort the enemy. According to an explosive new book, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the secret World Conspiring to Islamize America,” Hasan is just the tip of a jihadist Fifth Column operating within the ranks of the US military, which is too blinded by political correctness to see the threat. Quoting from a classified military briefing, "Muslim Mafia" reveals that this Fifth Column has penetrated "every branch of the US military." The Islamist enemy has even infiltrated the al-Qaida detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Security officials at Gitmo have been investigating a possible new spy ring involving several "dirty" Arabic linguists who are accused among other things of:

• omitting valuable intelligence from their translations of detainee interrogations;
• slipping notes to detainees inside copies of the Quran;
• coaching detainees to make allegations of abuse against interrogators; and
• meeting with suspects on the terrorist watchlist while traveling back in the United States.

More than 75 former Gitmo detainees have returned to the battlefield or anti-American jihad. Some met with the suspect Muslim translators. Others were privately counseled by chaplains also under investigation for security breaches. Gitmo security officials recently met with FBI agents in Philadelphia to aid their investigation into one of the Muslim linguists under contract at Gitmo, according to sources quoted in the book who are familiar with the investigation. They also this summer briefed members of Congress about the prison camp's internal security breaches, according to Muslim Mafia which is co-authored by former federal agent P. David Gaubatz and investigative journalist Paul Sperry, author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington,” which is being used by law enforcement and the military. "Three years of investigations have revealed the presence of pro-jihad/anti-Western activities among the civilian contractor and military linguist population serving Joint Task Force Guantanamo," states a copy of the classified Gitmo briefing, which was prepared in May 2009 for the FBI and CIA, as well as the congressional intelligence committees. The report explains that dirty Arabic linguists have gathered classified data involving detainees, interrogations and security operations in an effort to "disrupt" Gitmo operations and US "intelligence-collection capabilities." It goes on to specifically finger the Muslim Brotherhood, which it calls a terrorist group, in the conspiracy. The Muslim Brotherhood and its US operations and front groups are the subject of Muslim Mafia "These actions are deliberate, carefully planned, global, and to the benefit of the detainees and multiple terrorist organizations, to include al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood," the briefing states, according to the bestselling book. The enemy infiltration is not limited to Guantanamo. The report strongly suggests that Islamist spies have penetrated nearly every sensitive US security agency involved in the war on terror, potentially compromising intelligence government-wide. "Persons participating in this activity move regularly between multiple contracting companies, various intelligence agencies in the US government [FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.], and every branch of the US military." The investigation comes on the heels of a major Muslim espionage ring that the FBI broke up at Gitmo in 2004. A former Army Muslim chaplain was charged with espionage, mishandling classified documents, and lying to investigators, and served hard time in the stockade. Two of his Muslim brothers at Gitmo, both Arabic interpreters, were convicted of stealing or mishandling classified documents. Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood terrorist, is a US citizen whose Palestinian parents emigrated from the West Bank. Col. Lee said Hasan complained about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had hoped President Obama would quickly end them, but when they "didn't come to a quick end, he got more agitated." This summer, Lee says he overheard Hasan praise the Muslim who shot two soldiers at a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark. "He was happy" about it, Lee said in an interview with Fox News. "He said 'Maybe we should have more of these people. Maybe people should strap on bombs and go into town squares.'" There are some 40 Muslims at Fort Hood, and an estimated 15,000 Muslims serving throughout the US armed forces. The Council on American-Islamic Relations cautioned against a rush to judgment about the shooter's motives. "The motive of the attacker is not yet known," insisted CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. (The FBI recently cut off ties to the Washington-based group after identifying it as a front group for Hamas terrorists in the largest terror finance case in US history. CAIR and its founding chairman were named unindicted terrorist co-conspirators in the case.) But other current and former Muslims, who oppose CAIR and dispute its claims to representing American Muslims, say the shooter's motive is clear: violent jihad in the name of radical Islam. "America needs to awaken from its sleep and its unwillingness to face the issue of fundamentalist Islam in our midst which undoubtedly is the cause of the tragedy in Fort Hood," said Walid Shoebat, a former Islamist terrorist. "Some very serious decisions need to be made when it comes to having Muslims protecting our country, as it is impossible to know whether they may be honorable or foxes in the hen house."

Al Qaeda Has Called For Grassroots Terror in America

Nov. 6….(STRATFOR) In the 11th edition of the online magazine Sada al Malahim, which was released to jihadist Web sites last week, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Nasir al Wahayshi wrote an article that called for jihadists to conduct simple attacks against a variety of targets. The targets included "any tyrant, intelligence den, prince" or "minister" (referring to the governments in the Muslim world like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen), and "any crusaders whenever you find one of them, like at the airports of the crusader Western countries that participate in the wars against Islam, or their living compounds, trains etc.," (an obvious reference to the United States and Europe and Westerners living in Muslim countries). That al-Wahayshi gave these instructions in an Internet magazine distributed via jihadist chat rooms, not in some secret meeting with his operational staff, demonstrates that they are clearly intended to reach grass roots jihadists, even jihadists in America. As STRATFOR has noted for several years, with al Qaeda's structure under continual attack and no regional al Qaeda franchise groups in the Western Hemisphere, the most pressing jihadist threat to the US homeland at present stems from grassroots jihadists, not the al Qaeda core. This trend has been borne out by the large number of plots and arrests over the past several years, to include several so far in 2009. When grassroots and lone-wolf jihadists plan and carry out attacks acting as lone wolves or in small compartmentalized cells without inadvertently betraying their mission by conspiring with people known to the authorities, they are not able to be detected by intel-focused systems, and it becomes far more difficult to discover and thwart these plots. When an unknown terrorist militant is going to conduct even a simple attack against some of the targets al-Wahayshi suggests, such as an airport, train, or specific leader or military site, complexity creeps into the picture, and the planning cycle must be followed if an attack is going to be successful. The prospective attacker must observe and quantify the target, construct a plan for the attack and then execute that plan. The demands of this process will force even an attacker previously unknown to the authorities into a position where he is vulnerable to discovery. If the attacker does this while there are people watching for such activity, he will likely be seen. But if he does this without being observed, there is little chance that he will become known until after terrorist attack has been completed.

Netanyahu Challenges UN on Iran to Terrorists Weapons Ship

Nov. 6….(Arutz) (IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the terrorist weapons shipment captured in an IDF raid this week constituted a war crime, and criticized the United Nations for its failure to respond to the incident. He noted the timing of the weapons shipment, which took place as the UN prepared to debate a report condemning Israel for its Cast Lead counter-terror offensive in Gaza.  “This is a war crime. This is a war crime that the United Nations General Assembly, which is gathering today to discuss the Goldstone Report, should have investigated and condemned,” Netanyahu declared. The international community should be focusing on this,” he said. “But instead, the world condemns Israel and the Israel Defense Forces and undermines our right to self defense.” The weapons were to be shipped from Iran to Syria, and from there to Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah, Netanyahu said. “The bulk of the shipment included rockets whose aim is to hurt our civilians and kill as many civilians as possible,” he charged. The shipment of weapons to Middle East terrorists is “a blatant violation of Security Council resolutions,” he added. The prime minister made his statements at a news conference in Tel Aviv, where he was joined by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, head of Military Intelligence Amos Yadlin, and Naval Commander Eli Marom. During the conference, Netanyahu thanked the military officers present for their role in stopping the ship. The ship was intercepted by a commando unit on Tuesday night after intelligence tracked it for several days. Yadlin noted that the weapons shipment served as evidence of Iranian involvement in terrorism throughout the region. Iran also provides terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hizbullah with funding and training, he said.

Saudi armored force crosses into Yemen to fight Iran-backed rebels

Nov. 6….DEBKAfile Special Report

Thursday, Nov. 5, a substantial Saudi armored infantry force and tank column crossed the border into Yemen to do battle with Iran-backed Houthi rebels the day after they killed a Saudi border guard. Saudi air force F-15 and Tornado jets have been bombing Yemeni rebel positions near the border with the southern Saudi Jizan province since Wednesday. The Yemeni Houthi rebels are the second Iranian ally to be attacked after Israel's Cast Lead operation against the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza earlier this year, DEBKAfile's military sources report. "This is not a hit-and-run, this is a sustained action" to clean out the rebel camps in coordination with the Yemeni authorities, said a Saudi source Thursday night. Sources in Riyadh report a number of Saudi casualties in the first hours of combat. The Saudis decided to send troops into northern Yemen to wipe out the Yazdi Houthi bases after the rebels crossed into Jizan Tuesday, Nov. 3, and captured three villages in the rugged Jebel al-Dukhan district. They killed a Saudi soldier and injured eleven before being driven out. At this point, the oil kingdom's royal rulers decided to draw the line lest the Yemeni revolt spill over into southern Saudi Arabia's Shiite Muslim tribes which have an affinity with the Yazdis, a branch of the Shia. Most of all, they are concerned to prevent pro-Iranian fighters from encroaching on Saudi soil. In the last two weeks, Saudi warships have helped the Yemeni navy apprehend at least three ships bringing fresh arms supplies from Iran to the Houthis, by the same method as Tehran arms supplies reach Hizballah and Hamas. Tehran denied it is sending weapons to the rebels, but the Saudi rulers decided that Iran had crossed too many red lines and it was time to go on the offensive before the throne was imperiled by Iranian proxy belligerence. For the last five months, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been providing Yemeni president Abdullah Salah with military assistance against the Yazdi Houthi insurrection, mainly military equipment and ammunition. Nonetheless, the Yemeni military has not been able to quell the rebellion. The Houthis' strength has been constantly reinforced from Tehran to the point that the Salah regime is in danger.

Muslim Army Officer Kills 11 Soldiers at Ft. Hood

Nov. 6….(Fox News) A Muslim US Army officer opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas today, killing 11 soldiers and wounding 31, before he was killed by a base police officer. The Army identified the gunman as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan. The Army Times said Hasan, 39, was a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, to work with soldiers at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood. A cousin, Nader Hasan, told Fox News Malik Hasan had "always been a Muslim" and was not a convert as had been reported. Nader Hasan said his cousin, of Middle Eastern descent, was born in the US, attended high school in northern Virginia and studied at Virginia Tech. Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales told Fox News the massacre did not appear to be the act of a mentally ill or extremely stressed person. "This was a deliberate act of execution," he said. Retired Col. Terry Lee, who said he worked with Hasan at Fort Hood, told Fox News he heard the gunman say at a conference that Muslims should stand up and "fight against the aggressors." Lee said that at first, he and his colleagues thought Hasan meant that Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan should join forces with the US. But, based on other comments Hasan made, it became clear he was encouraging Muslims to resist US forces, Lee said. Hasan told colleagues the US should not be in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Lee, and he expressed happiness about the shooting of two soldiers by a Muslim convert outside an Arkansas recruiting center in June. The Associated Press, quoting federal law enforcement officials, said Hasan had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.

*FOJ Note: This horrific story perpetrated at “America’s War on Terror Headquarters” must be watched closely over the next few days, and Americans need not avoid (for political correctness sake) the obvious questions pertaining to possible Islamic sleepers inside our own military, and our nation in general. (We probably even have a Muslim president, and care always must be taken to not be false accusers, for it only destroys our own credibility) Still it is a well known history that fanatical fundamentalist Muslims owe their allegiance to their religion, and not to our nation. This type of devious activity could be a strategem of Al Qaeda, or it may not. Unfortunately, we know all too well that our own government will lie and or cover up matters if they so deem necessary.

Turkey Backs Iran's 'Right' to Nukes

(Prime minister says others might need to give up theirs)

Nov. 6….(WND) Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who is steering his country toward more eastward thinking and away from reliance on the West, is backing Iran's "right to peaceful nuclear energy. But he goes further, warning the West that if it doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, then Western countries, including Israel, need to give up theirs. He accuses Western countries of hypocrisy in criticizing Iran's nuclear program while remaining silent on Israel's apparent possession of undeclared nuclear weapons. Erdogan, who is carving out a mediating role for Turkey among Muslim countries, at the same time called for a nuclear-free Middle East. In a recent meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Erdogan referred particularly to Israel, which has approximately 200 nuclear weapons, according to US intelligence assessments. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons. President Obama recently extended an agreement dating back to the Nixon administration of the 1970s recognizing Israel's possession of nuclear weapons and keeping them from being reported under the multi-lateral Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has been threatened with increasing sanctions, especially from the US and Europe, over its declared nuclear development program. The UN Security Council and the US already have imposed sanctions. However, they have threatened further, more stringent restrictions if current discussions should fail to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment efforts. UN Security Council members Russia and China, while somewhat concerned over Iran's nuclear program, do not favor more stringent sanctions, owing to their increasing military and economic relations with Iran. Tehran claims its nuclear program is to develop electricity, but Western countries believe it is a cover to produce nuclear weapons, given Iran's intensive uranium enrichment efforts. Iran has made no secret of its enrichment program and recently revealed one such facility located on a military base outside the city of Qom. US intelligence has known of its existence since 2006, despite a 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate claiming Iran had halted its nuclear weapons enrichment program in 2003. The fact that it is located on a military base enhances the concern that the enrichment facility is for nuclear bomb production. The Iranians counter that it is on a military facility deep inside a mountain to protect it from possible attack, given frequent US and Israeli threats to such facilities. Iranian officials disclosed its existence after they learned of US knowledge of the facility and its location. US intelligence also is aware of other Iranian nuclear facilities dotted across the country ostensibly to avoid attack on any central facility that could knock out the nuclear development program altogether. "Those who criticize Iran's nuclear program continue to possess the same weapons," Erdogan said. "I think that those who take this stance, who want these arrogant sanctions, need to first give these weapons up. We shared this opinion with our Iranian friends, our brothers."

Iran Has Tested Advanced Nuclear Warhead

Nov. 6….(Reuters) The UN nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting the Islamic Republic's scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian reported in its Friday edition. The newspaper, citing what it describes as "previously unpublished documentation" from an International Atomic Energy Agency compiled dossier, said Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of a "two-point implosion" device. The IAEA statement in September followed reports from the Associated Press quoting what it called a classified IAEA document saying agency experts agreed Iran now had the means to build atomic bombs and was heading toward developing a missile system able to carry a nuclear warhead. The Guardian report said that even the existence of two-point implosion nuclear warhead technology is officially secret in both the United States and Britain. The technology allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads, making it easier to put a warhead on a missile, the newspaper said. Yet UN Inspections Chief Mohamed ElBaradei has announced that there is nothing to worry about.

Clinton Promises Arabs: Israel Must Halt Settlements 'Forever'

Nov. 5….(Jerusalem Post) Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the US stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever." Still, she said an Israeli offer to restrain, but not halt, construction represents "positive movement forward" toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Clinton met for an hour with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a hastily arranged stopover in the Egyptian capital to soothe Arab concerns that Washington is backing off demands for an Israeli settlement halt. The fears were sparked on Saturday when Clinton, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at her side in Jerusalem, praised his government's offer as unprecedented. She has since tried to clarify the remarks, saying that the Israeli offer does not got far enough. Still, she has indicated that the Palestinians should resume negotiations with Israel without a full settlement halt as they demand. On Wednesday, Clinton insisted "our policy on settlement has not changed." "We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity. Ending all settlement activity current and future would be preferable," she told reporters after talks with Mubarak. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is sticking to his refusal to resume negotiations until Israel stops building settlements. He rejected the Israeli plan to complete 3,000 housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and to continue to construct public buildings and other construction in east Jerusalem, a territory Palestinians hope will be their future capital.

Palestinians Will Never Recognize Jewish State

Nov. 5….(Israel Today) One of Israel's key demands in the current peace process is that the Palestinians simply recognize Israel as the national and historical homeland of the Jews. But last week Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority punctuated its refusal to do so by claiming the Jews have no historical ties whatsoever and are aliens in the land. In a show on official Palestinian Authority TV on October 22, a leading Palestinian historian and a senior government official lectured their audience on how the Jews of Israel have no connection to any land in the Middle East, and are inventing archeological finds to support their false claims. By contrast, the two insisted that the Palestinians have 4,000-5,000 years of history in the land. Many have pointed out before that such claims run completely counter to other Palestinian claims. For example, the Palestinians say they are Arabs and therefore descendants of Abraham. However, Abraham had not yet been born 4,000 years ago. Over the past few decades, an avalanche of archeological finds and historical documentation have attested to the Jews' strong and rich history in the region, while very little has been produced to support an Arab presence dating back any further than the Muslim conquest 1,300 years ago

Israel Seizes Iranian Weapons Ship Bound for Hezbollah

Nov. 5….(In The News) Israel Navy Chief Brig. Gen. Rani Ben-Yehuda said Wednesday that an arms ship seized near Cyprus earlier in the day had been carrying hundreds of tons of weapons. Israeli commandoes seized the ship before dawn on Wednesday and defense officials said it had been carrying missiles and rockets bound for Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas, believed to have come from Iran. Israel and Hezbollah fought a bitter war in the summer of 2006 that ended with a United Nations-brokered cease-fire, but occasional flare-ups occur. Wednesday’s pre-dawn seizure in the waters near Cyprus was bigger than a similar haul in 2002, when Israeli military confiscated Karine A, a vessel with 50 tons of missiles, mortars, rifles and ammunition headed for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Ben-Yehuda said that the ship had been carrying 40 containers filled with 300 tons of weapons each, all meant for Hezbollah in order to pose a threat to Israel. During a press conference Wednesday, the navy commander described the operation, saying that the Antigua-flagged ship was first detected during a routine patrol. In coordination with NATO ships, the ship’s crew was questioned and a request for a closer inspection was presented to them. Defense officials encountered no resistance in boarding the ship. An inspection of the ship’s documents revealed that the ship was carrying several containers of weapons originating from Iran and headed for Syria. A random check of the containers revealed weapons, the navy chief explained, especially rockets hidden inside containers belonging to the Iranian commercial fleet. Ben-Yehuda refused to divulge whether Israel had any prior intelligence regarding the ship’s cargo, saying that “we have ongoing intelligence indicating that Iran is continuously supporting Hezbollah and other organizations with massive quantities of weapons.” He said that no anti-aircraft or anti-tank missiles have been found aboard the ship. After the initial search on board the ship, the navy towed the freighter to Israel, where it conducted a thorough inspection of the cargo, the IDF said. Intelligence agencies had surveilled the vessel for a number of days leading up to the raid. The decision to seize the ship was made following a recommendation by top IDF brass and was approved by the country’s most senior echelon. In addition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were kept abreast of preparations for the raid over the course of a few days. “There were Katyusha (rockets), whose purpose is to hit civilians,” Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio. He did not give any quantities, voicing doubt its crew knew munitions were on aboard. Asked if the weaponry had been earmarked for Hezbollah, Vilnai said: “Yes. It strengthens (the group) and improves its long-range firing capability into Israel.” Netanyahu released a statement Wednesday saying that the weapons found on board the ship were intended to harm Israel’s cities and town. The premier hailed the IDF and the Navy for the operation. Barak praised the capture of the ship. Barak congratulated IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Navy Commander Admiral Eliezer Marom for the ship’s seizure. “This is another success in the endless struggle against attempts to smuggle weapons and military equipment whose goal is to strengthen terrorist elements who threaten the security of Israel,” the defense minister said

Netanyahu: World must Realize Iran is Arming Terrorists

(PM calls on international community to work towards blocking Tehran's 'criminal activity,' support Israel in 'fight against terrorists, their sponsors')

Nov. 5….(YNET) "Those who needed further proof that Iran is continuing to supply weapons to terror organizations got it today," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said evening following the capture of a ship carrying large amounts of weapons destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to IDF sources, the vessel, which was seized Tuesday night just hours after it left an Egyptian port en route to Syria, carried more than 3,000 weapons, including 106 mm shells, rockets 107 mm and 122 mm in diameter, hand grenades, mortar shells, anti-tank missiles, and ammunition for Kalashnikov rifles. "Iran is sending these weapons to terror groups with the aim of hurting Israel and killing civilians," Netanyahu said in a statement. "It is high time that the international community apply significant pressure on Iran to stop this criminal activity and support Israel as it defends itself against terrorists and their sponsors," he said.

IDF claims Hamas rockets can now reach Tel Aviv

Nov. 4…. (ICEJ) Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, the head of the IDF’s military intelligence branch, informed a key Knesset committee on Tuesday that Hamas operatives in Gaza have recently test-fired Iranian supplied rockets with a range of up to 60 kilometers, meaning Tel Aviv is now within range of the Islamist terror militia. Briefing the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee today, Yadlin said the IDF has identified at least one successful test firing by Hamas of the longer range rocket out into the Mediterranean Sea. He also noted concern that Hamas has smuggled in Fajr-style rockets, an Iranian-produced missile that was also used by Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War and has ranges up to 70 kilometers. During Operation Cast Lead last winter, rockets launched from Gaza struck as far away as Beersheba, some 40 kilometers from the Strip.

 

 

PA daily accuses Clinton of taking bribes from Israel

Nov. 4…. (ICEJ) The Monday edition of the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is controlled by the office of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, accused US Secretary of State Clinton of taking bribes from Israel. "Why, Mrs. Hillary? How much did the Zionists pay you as a bribe?" taunted an article. The paper also ran a cartoon reiterating the Palestinian claim that the US is controlled by Jews. It shows an Uncle Sam figure looking into a mirror held by a caricature of a hook-nosed religious Jew, wearing a hat with a Star of David. Instead of seeing his own reflection, the American sees the Jew in the mirror, according to Palestinian Media Watch, which monitors the Palestinian press.

Mossad hacked Syrian computer to find nuke site

Nov. 3…. (ICEJ) The Israeli Mossad espionage agency used Trojan Horse computer programs to gather intelligence about a nuclear facility in Syria which Israeli air sorties destroyed in September 2007, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported Monday. According to the magazine, Mossad agents planted the malware on the computer of a Syrian official who was staying at a posh London hotel. The program copied the details of Syria's illicit nuclear program and sent them directly to the Mossad agents' computers, the report said. Israel's air raid on the al-Kabir site in Syria's eastern desert is said to have knocked out the country's nearly-completed nuclear reactor. Israel has refused from the beginning to comment on, confirm or deny the strike, but after a delay of several months Washington presented intelligence purporting to show the target was a reactor being built with North Korean help. Der Spiegel furt her reported on Monday that prior to the strike, the IDF Military Intelligence unit, 8200, listened in on conversations between officials at the Syrian reactor and North Korean experts.

Tehran still sending mixed messages on nuke deal

(Ahmadinejad likens Iran’s enemies to ‘mosquito’)

Nov. 3…. (ICEJ) Iranian officials on Monday sent mixed signals on a US-brokered deal that would have Tehran ship out 70% of its enriched uranium needed to make a nuclear weapon, with the foreign minister saying that option still exists and a senior diplomat suggesting the opposite. The contrasting messages appear designed to keep the international community off balance on how far Iran is ready to go in accepting the recently tabled proposal. They also appeared geared toward pushing the plan's main backers - the US, France and Russia - into further talks, something those nations oppose as a delaying tactic. "We are waiting for Iran to accept formally the agreement," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday. "If this answer is dilatory as it seems to be, we won't accept it." Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Sunday that his nation’s enemies have the power of a "mosquito" compared to Iran’s army, adding that Tehran now deals with the West over its nuclear activities from a position of power. "Given the negative record of Western powers, the Iranian government... looks at the talks with no trust. But realities dictate to them to interact with the Iranian nation,” said Ahmadinejad.

 

 

Turkey's Erdogan Calls for Nuke-free Mideast

Nov. 2….(YNET) Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that countries opposed to Iran's atomic program should give up their own nuclear weapons and attacked as 'arrogant' the sanctions imposed on Ankara's neighbor. He also said he wanted the Middle East, and then the whole world, to rid itself of nuclear weapons. During a trip to Iran this week, Erdogan said he backed Tehran's "right to peaceful nuclear energy" and called its approach in nuclear talks with Western powers "positive." The trip added to Western concern that NATO's only Muslim member may be shifting its foreign-policy focus towards the Islamic world and turning its back on Western allies. Iran says the sole aim of its nuclear program is to generate electricity, but Western powers suspect it of secretly planning to produce nuclear weapons and are trying to persuade it to stop enriching uranium. "Those who criticize Iran's nuclear program continue to possess the same weapons, and that isn’t right" said Erdogan. "I think that those who take this stance, who want these arrogant sanctions, need to first give these weapons up. We shared this opinion with our Iranian friends, our brothers." UN and US sanctions have already been imposed on Iran over its nuclear program, and if current talks fail to produce agreement, Western powers may push for a further round of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Israel is assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal. Turkey, a European Union candidate, has been Israel's closest Muslim ally, but relations have soured since Israel's December-January attack on the Gaza Strip. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad this week praised Erdogan for his "clear stance against" Israel. Erdogan also said Turkey wants the Middle East, and in time the world, to be free of nuclear weapons. "We want to live in a region completely purged of nuclear weapons. We want to live in a world in which nuclear weapons no longer exist," he said.

 

 

US and Israel Reiterate to Moscow: Military Option is on the Table

Nov. 2….(DEBKAfile Special Report) DEBKAfile's US intelligence sources report indications of impending war preparations against Iran after Tehran's rejections of the UN-brokered proposal to ship its enriched uranium overseas for further enrichment. These sources reveal that the administration is seeking congressional authorization to open America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Furthermore, the US-Israeli joint US-Israel Juniper Cobra ballistic exercise is in full swing. Finally, US and Israel officials have been instructed to warn Moscow that the military option is still on the table if Iran's nuclear program is not halted by diplomatic means. The US SPR which contains 727 million barrels of petroleum is only opened in time of war. Under an agreement signed with Israel in 1975, Washington undertakes to supply Israel with its fuel needs for five years in an emergency. Word of these apparent war preparations appeared Saturday Oct. 31, the day after Iran's senior nuclear negotiator delivered a counter-proposal to the UN-brokered plan to the IAEA in Vienna which excised its main object, which was to reduce the enriched uranium stocks in hand for Iran to make a nuclear bomb. The joint US-Israeli military exercise which ends Tuesday, Nov. 3, moved to the Tel Aviv arena last Tuesday with US forces drilling defensive action against a prospective Iranian missile attack or a seaborne strike from the Mediterranean on Israel's central conurbation. For the last three days, Moscow has had nothing to say about the Iranian rejection of a plan which would have sent Iranian uranium to Russia for reprocessing, although Tehran previously indicated to the Kremlin that the international plan would sail through. DEBKAfile's Moscow sources regard the rebuff as Tehran's response to the suspension of Russian S-300 missile defense batteries after they had already been packed for delivery to Iran.

 

 

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