WEEK OF MARCH 29 THROUGH APRIL 4

Iran, Six World Powers Reach Understanding over Nuke Program

April 3….(Ha Aretz)   Iran and six world powers have reached an understanding in the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland over Iran's nuclear program and the parties are now busy writing the joint announcement to be released later this evening, a Western diplomat told Haaretz. The foreign ministers of Iran, the European Union, and the six powers are holding a meeting, before a joint statement will be made by European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at 8PM Israel time. US Secretary of State John Kerry will hold a press conference after the joint statement.

Obama Touts 'Historic' Iran Nuclear Deal

    US President Barack Obama made a public address at the White House on Thursday after Iranian and world negotiators announced that a framework deal had been reached over the Islamic regime's nuclear program. According to the president his negotiating team, led by US Secretary of State John Kerry, "has reached an historic understanding with Iran which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from a nuclear weapon." "I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal it will make our country, our allies and our world safer," he asserted. The Iran negotiations have “succeeded exactly as intended,” Obama said at the White House as soon as the broad terms were released. “It is a good deal.”

    Obama dismissed the option, advocated by Israel, among others, of ramping up sanctions to increase pressure on Iran to capitulate. "Every time we have done so Iran has not capitulated but instead advanced its program," he insisted. "Iran isn't going to simply dismantle its program because we demand it to do so," he claimed in brushing aside the military or sanctions options. Addressing the Iranian people, he called for engagement on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect. "Iran's Supreme Leader issued a fatwa (Islamic ruling) against the development of nuclear weapons," said Obama, calling this an "opportunity" to verify that the program is peaceful. If Netanyahu is looking for the most effective way to ensure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon "this is the best option," claimed Obama. The parameters outlined of the agreement would be as follows:

• Iran's enrichment capacity and stockpile would be limited, and Iran's sole enrichment facility would be at the Natanz nuclear facility. Other nuclear facilities would be converted to other uses.

• The nuclear facility at Fordo would be converted to a nuclear physics and technology center and the facility at Arak would be redesigned as a heavy-water research reactor that will not produce weapons-grade plutonium.

• The European Union would terminate all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions against Iran, and the United States would do the same once Iran's implementation of the agreement is confirmed.

• The United Nations would terminate all previous resolutions sanctioning Iran, and would incorporate other restrictions for an agreed-upon period.

The Most Important Quote from Obama's Iran Deal Speech

April 3….(VOX) There is one quote, buried in the middle of Obama's Thursday address on the new Iran nuclear deal, that really captures his approach to what has become one of his key foreign policy priorities. It explains both why Obama wants this deal so badly, and how he's planning to tackle the inevitable political fallout now that a basic framework for an agreement has been struck. Here's the passage: When you hear the inevitable critics of the deal sound off, ask them a simple question: do you really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented backed by the world's powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?

     The question, for Obama, isn't whether this deal is perfect (though he clearly thinks it's pretty good). It's whether there are any alternatives that might be better. And the president, quite fundamentally, believes there aren't. As he said in the speech, Obama thinks there are only two possible alternatives to the deal that's shaping up if the US wants to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Either America could go to war with Iran, or it could withdraw from negotiations and hope sanctions would force Tehran to give up its hopes for a bomb.

    The second option hasn't worked so far. "Is a deal worse than doing what we've done for almost two decades with Iran moving with its nuclear program and without robust inspections?" he asked. "I think the answer will be clear."

    That leaves only one real alternative: war. Obama (along with most military experts) believes that war would delay Iran's nuclear program at best. He believes, deeply and in his bones, that international inspections are a more effective way of stopping Iran from getting nukes, and that the consequences of war would be severe. This is, after all, a president who was elected on the basis of his opposition to the Iraq War.

    This argument, that all of the alternatives to the deal are worse, also explains how Obama plans to handle the political challenges to the deal. At home, Republicans will vociferously oppose the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of America's closest ally in the Middle East, will do the same. Both believe Iran can't be trusted, and appear to believe that terms of this agreement aren't enough to ensure Iran won't get a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu and the Republicans are perhaps the most important of the "inevitable critics" Obama mentioned in his speech. His response to them is clear: what do you have that's better? What is the credible alternative to what I'm doing, and how, specifically, could it prevent Iran from getting a bomb without taking us to war? Or is it war you want?

FOJ Note: Mr. Obama’s theory on securing a deal with Iran is miscalculated, and foolhearty. How so, you may ask? When you are dealing with a terrorist state, TRUST cannot be substantiated. (certainly not via the UN) The DEAL only serves Iran’s interest, in enabling them to acquire a Nuclear Bomb. And then what happens? Time will be LOST, (deterrence will be lost) and they (IRAN) will be the ones ready for and wanting WAR.

    Obama’s great fear, war, is inevitable, and his deal is only guaranteeing that the coming war with Iran is going to be much more catastrophic!

Netanyahu: Outraged that Nuclear Talks go on While Iran Vows to Destroy Israel

April 2….(Times of Israel) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday excoriated world powers over their dogged pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran, pointing to recent statements by officials in Tehran, notably their calls to eliminate Israel, as evidence of the Islamic Republic’s unwillingness to compromise on its nuclear ambitions and campaign of “terror, subjugation and conquest.

    In tones of moral outrage, he issued a brief, infuriated statement to camera, protesting that the talks were continuing in Lausanne even as Iran reiterated its insistent goal of destroying the Jewish state. “Yesterday an Iranian general brazenly declared, and I quote, ‘Israel’s destruction is nonnegotiable,'” Netanyahu began, referring to a statement by Mohammad Reza Naqd, the commander of the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. “But evidently, giving Iran’s murderous regime a clear path to the bomb is negotiable,” he said. “This is unconscionable.”

    Netanyahu’s comments came as diplomats from Iran and a group of six world powers, led by the United States, resumed negotiations over the terms of a nuclear deal, hours after a deadline for such a deal elapsed. He charged that Iran’s actions and ongoing “aggression” across the Middle East proved it did not intend to give up its nuclear and regional ambitions. “I agree with those who have said that Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes doesn’t square with Iran’s insistence on keeping underground nuclear facilities, advanced centrifuges, and a heavy water reactor,” he said. “Nor does it square with Iran’s insistence on developing ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles], and its refusal to come clean with the International Atomic Energy Agency on its past weaponization efforts. “At the same time, Iran is accelerating its campaign of terror, subjugation and conquest throughout the region, most recently in Yemen,” he continued.

    Netanyahu’s reference to “those who have said” Iran does not require such capabilities marked the second time in two days that he has obliquely referred to comments made by President Barack Obama at the Saban Conference in December 2013, without citing Obama by name. The two leaders are bitterly at odds over strategies for thwarting Iran.

    The prime minister claimed that “the concessions offered to Iran in Lausanne would ensure a bad deal that would endanger Israel, the Middle East and the peace of the world. He called on world powers to ensure that Iran “stop its aggression in the region, stop its terrorism throughout the world, and stop its threats to annihilate Israel.” “That should be nonnegotiable. And that’s the deal that the world powers must insist upon,” he concluded.

FOJ Note: Why would any conscientious freedom loving nation cooperate with an endless negotiating game with a known and proven terrorist sponsoring rogue regime that boldly claims that it intends to use its newly acquired nuclear weapons to annihilate another? When Iran says that the “destruction of Israel” is non-negotiable, negotiations should end, and war declared on that nation!

Iran is Placing Guided Warheads on Hezbollah Rockets

April 1….(Jerusalem Post) Iran is placing guided warheads on its rockets and smuggling them to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a senior Defense Ministry official said Tuesday. Speaking at the Israel Air and Missile Defense Conference in Herzliya, Col. Aviram Hasson, who is involved in preparing IDF air defenses, said Iran was converting Zilzal unguided rockets into accurate, guided M-600 projectiles by upgrading their warheads.

    Hasson, who is in charge of upper-tier missile defenses at HOMA, part of the Defense Ministry’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure, described Iran as a “train engine that is not stopping for a moment. It is manufacturing new and advanced ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. It is turning unguided rockets that had an accuracy range of kilometers into weapons that are accurate to within meters.” Hezbollah, he continued, “is getting a lot of accurate weapons from Iran. It is in a very different place compared to the Second Lebanon War in 2006.”

    For Israel, the “ultimate defense is a combination of counter-attack, active defenses, and passive defense [civilian compliance with Home Front Command safety instructions],” he argued.

    Riki Ellison, founder and chairman of the US Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, also spoke at the conference, which was organized by the IHLS defense website and the Israel Missile Defense Association. The alliance is a nonprofit organization advocating for the deployment and development of missile defenses. Ellison said the US always kept at least one warship in the Mediterranean with an Aegis naval missile defense system to ensure that Israel was protected against long-range Iranian ballistic missiles. “It can stand off the coast and shoot long-shots coming in from Iran,” he said.

    The US is keen to see Israel complete its multi-layered blanket of missile defenses, which would enable it to defend against Iranian missiles without the Aegis and thereby free up the US Navy’s ships for deployment elsewhere, he added. Ellison told the delegates that the US remained firmly committed to Israel’s security, irrespective of recent disagreements between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He added that the US could deploy its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries “if necessary, to come into Israel to support your country’s defense.” America is “fully supportive” of Israel getting fully capable Arrow 3 and David’s Sling defense systems, Ellison said.

Iran Sends its Navy to Red Sea in Support of Yemeni Rebels

(strategic positioning of Iranian Navy pits Iran squarely against Saudi-Egyptian Forces)

April 1….(DEBKA) Control of the Red Sea Bab el-Mandeb Straits passed Tuesday, March 31 to pro-Iranian Yemeni forces when the Yemeni Army’s 117th Brigade loyal to the former Yemeni President Ali Saleh handed positions guarding the waterway to two Houthi commando battalions trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. This is revealed by debkafile’s military and intelligence sources.

    In another development Tuesday involving Iran’s spreading tentacles, debkafile’s military sources reveal that unidentified aircraft bombed Burak, a small military base in the Fezzan province of southwestern Libya, which serves Iran as a transit store for arms purchased in Sudan for the Palestinian Hamas.

    The weapons, which recently reached the Libyan base through Chad, were destroyed. They were scheduled to be smuggled through Egypt and Sinai and onto Gaza. Western military sources attributed responsibility for the bombardment to the Egyptian or Israeli air forces. Both Israel and Egypt have declined to comment on the report.

    To strengthen Iran’s grip on the key Red Sea gateway, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered two naval task forces to sail to the Red Sea. They are to fend off a Saudi-Egyptian offensive to dislodge the Houthi battalions now holding a point linking the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. The naval task forces are being sent to draw a sea shield around the Houthi forces to defend them against Saudi-Egyptian assaults. This maneuver was orchestrated by the Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Iran Nuclear Talks Extended by One Day

(Kerry / Obama are literally begging Iran to make a deal)

April 1….(Arutz) United States confirms that nuclear talks with Iran and will continue beyond the self-imposed Tuesday night deadline. The United States has confirmed that nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers will continue beyond the self-imposed Tuesday night deadline and will be extended by at least a day. Officials had said earlier they are ready to extend the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, if needed. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said enough progress had been made to warrant an extension, although there still were "several difficult issues" to bridge, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Secretary of State John Kerry who had planned to leave the talks on Tuesday will remain until Wednesday, she said. An Iranian negotiator, meanwhile, said his team could stay "as long as necessary" to clear the remaining hurdles, according to AP.

    In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest suggested that talks meant to produce an outline that would allow the sides to continue negotiations until the June 30 final deadline had not bridged all gaps. But he said that the sides were working to produce a text with few specifics, accompanied by documents outlining areas where further talks were needed. "If it's necessary, and, when I say if it's necessary I mean if it's midnight and a deal has not been reached but the conversations continue to be productive, we'll be prepared to continue the talks into tomorrow," he was quoted as having told reporters. "If we are making progress toward the finish line, than we should keep going."

     It has been charged that President Barack Obama is "desperate" to seal a deal and score a foreign policy "achievement," even as Israel and other sources warn the deal threatens to leave the Islamic regime with the ability to rapidly produce a nuclear arsenal at the time of its choosing.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday the framework Iranian nuclear agreement being sought by international negotiators will leave Iran with the capability to develop a nuclear weapon in under a year. For nearly a week, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China have been trying to break an impasse in talks aimed at keeping Iran from just that in exchange for easing international sanctions that are crippling its economy. "It appears the deal being formed in Lausanne will leave Iran with underground facilities, the nuclear reactor in Arak and with advanced centrifuges," Netanyahu said at a parliamentary ceremony. "The breakout time for Iran to obtain fissile material for nuclear bombs will not take years as was said at the beginning, in our estimation it will be reduced to under a year and perhaps far less than that," he said.

    Israel, believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal and which has in the past threatened Iran with military attack, sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat.

UN Says Israel, Not Iran, North Korea or Syria Worst Violator of Human Rights In the World

March 30….(Fox News) What country deserves more condemnation for violating human rights than any other nation on earth? According to the UN’s top human rights body, that would be Israel. Last week, Israel was the UN’s number one women’s rights violator. This week it is the UN’s all-round human rights villain.

    The UN Human Rights Council wrapped up its latest session in Geneva on Friday, March 27 by adopting four resolutions condemning Israel.  That’s four times more than any of the other 192 UN member states.

     There were four resolutions on Israel. And one on North Korea, a country that is home to government policies of torture, starvation, enslavement, rape, disappearances, and murder, to name just some of its crimes against humanity. Four resolutions on Israel. And one on Syria. Where the death toll of four years of war is 100,000 civilians, ten million people are displaced, and barrel bombs containing chemical agents like chlorine gas are back in action.

    Four resolutions on Israel. And only one on Iran, where there is no rule of law, no free elections, no freedom of speech, corruption is endemic, protestors are jailed and tortured, religious minorities are persecuted, and pedophilia is state-run.  At last count, in 2012 Iranian courts ordered more than 30,000 girls ages 14 and under to be “married.” And what did that one resolution on Iran say? Co-sponsored by the United States, it was labeled a “short procedural text,” consisting of just three operative paragraphs that contained not a single condemnation of Iran.

    The Israel resolutions, on the other hand, were full of “demands,” “condemns,” “expresses grave concern,” and “deplores,” along with orders to “cease immediately” a long list of alleged human rights violations.

    Ninety percent of states, inhabited by 6.6 billion people, got no mention at all. Countries like China, Qatar, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.  For the UN, there was not one human rights violation worthy of mention by any of these human rights horror shows. Why not? For starters, China, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia are all members of the UN Human Rights Council. Actually protecting human rights is not a condition of being elected to the Council, and thereby transforming into a UN authority on what counts as a human rights violation. As a result, what counts fast becomes unrecognizable. Subverting human rights principles for all turns out to be the other side of the coin from subverting human rights for Jews.

    Thus at this session, “death to America” an Iran sponsored Council resolution of same name, called “Enhancement of international cooperation in the field of human rights.” It was adopted by consensus, and with US blessing. 

    The Cubans successfully engineered a Council resolution on protecting “cultural rights,” minus any free expression.

    The Palestinians, whose unity government includes the terrorist group Hamas, co-sponsored the resolution “effects of terrorism on the enjoyment of human rights, and yet do not allow any rights to its citizens.” 

    The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, representing states where converting to Christianity is subject to the death penalty, sponsored a resolution called “combating intolerance of persons based on religion or belief.”

    Playing at caring about human rights is the UN game. And no state does it better than Iran. Iran’s human rights record happened to come up at the March session in the context of what the Council calls a “universal periodic review” (UPR). Touted as its leading human rights innovation, the same process is applied to every state every four years.  That means Iran and Syria get treated the same way as, say, the United States and Canada.  At the end of the UPR, a report is summarily adopted containing a bunch of recommendations that the former cast of characters summarily dismiss. It was suggested to Iran, for instance, that it stop peddling little girls as sex slaves for old men. The recommendation received this reply: “in light of Islamic teachings, a person that has reached the age of maturity and is of sound mind has the possibility of marrying.”

    The Council created a human rights investigator on Iran, but Iran has never let him into the country. Recommendations made to Iran during the UPR that it cooperate, were simply ignored. On March 19, 2014, the US representative mustered all her courage and countered with this: “we note with disappointment that Iran has not addressed the issue of allowing the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran to visit the country.”

    There is an alternative conclusion. We note with disappointment that the United States legitimizes this travesty and empowers the real enemies of human rights, and sides with all those nations in condemning Israel. The UN is a travesty!

     Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a dire warning Sunday about a possible nuclear accord with Iran as talks in Switzerland towards the outline of a deal intensified days before a deadline. "The dangerous accord which is being negotiated in Lausanne confirms our concerns and even worse," Netanyahu said in remarks broadcast on public radio. He said the "Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis" was "dangerous for all of humanity" and that combined with Tehran's regional influence, a nuclear deal could allow Iran to "conquer" the Middle East. “After the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad axis, Iran is maneuvering from the south to take over the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, one of the last for his outgoing government. “The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is dangerous for mankind and must be stopped.”

    Netanyahu told ministers that he had spoken with Republican leaders in the US Senate and “conveyed our serious concern regarding the arrangement with Iran at the nuclear talks. This agreement confirms all our fears and exceeds them. “While world powers convene to sign this deal, Iran’s proxies in Yemen are conquering large swaths of land in an effort to overtake the Bab al-Mandab straits, so that they can change the balance of power in shipping oil,” he said, referring to recent unrest in Yemen. If, God forbid, it happens, Israel will also be required to reassess the whole resulting security situation.”

     Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, a confidant of Netanyahu, said that the deal was “full of holes,” and that he hoped US President Barack Obama would keep to his word that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” Israel, widely assumed to have nuclear weapons itself, is concerned that a deal that six powers are trying to agree the contours of by midnight on March 31 will fail to stop Iran from getting the bomb. Ironically, last week President Obama leaked to the world secret information regarding Israel’s nuke program.

     Meanwhile, an Iranian journalist writing about the nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran has defected. In an interview Amir Hossein Motaghi, had some harsh words for his native Iran. He also had a damning indictment of America's role in the nuclear negotiations. “The US negotiating team are mainly there to work on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal," Motaghi told a TV station after just defecting from the Iranian delegation while abroad for the nuclear talks. The P 5 + 1 is made up of United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, plus Germany.

        A close media aide to Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, has sought political asylum in Switzerland after travelling to Lausanne to cover the nuclear talks between Tehran and the West. Amir Hossein Motaghi, who managed public relations for Mr Rouhani during his 2013 election campaign, was said by Iranian news agencies to have quit his job at the Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA).

    He then appeared on an opposition television channel based in London to say he no longer saw any “sense” in his profession as a journalist as he could only write what he was told. There are a number of people attending on the Iranian side at the negotiations who are said to be journalists reporting on the negotiations,” he told Irane Farda television. “But they are not journalists and their main job is to make sure that all the news fed back to Iran goes through their channels. “My conscience would not allow me to carry out my profession in this manner any more.”

Arab Leaders Agree to Form Joint Military Force

March 30….(AFP) Arab leaders agreed on Sunday to form a joint military force after a summit dominated by a Saudi-led offensive on Shiite rebels in Yemen and the threat from Islamist extremism. Arab representatives will meet over the next month to study the creation of the force and present their findings to defence ministers within four months, according to the resolution adopted by the leaders. "Assuming the great responsibility imposed by the great challenges facing our Arab nation and threatening its capabilities, the Arab leaders had decided to agree on the principle of a joint Arab military force," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told the summit in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

    The decision was mostly aimed at fighting jihadists who have overrun swathes of Iraq and Syria and secured a foothold in Libya, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said ahead of the summit. On Sunday, Arabi told the meeting the region was threatened by a "destructive" force that threatened "ethnic and religious diversity", in an apparent reference to the Islamic State group. "What is important is that today there is an important decision, in light of the tumult afflicting the Arab world," he said. Egypt had pushed for the creation of the rapid response force to fight militants, and the matter gained urgency this week after Saudi Arabia and Arab allies launched air strikes on Huthi rebels in Yemen. Arabi, reading a statement at the conclusion of the summit, said on Sunday the offensive would continue until the Huthis withdraw from regions they have overrun and surrender their weapons.

    Several Arab states including Egypt are taking part in the military campaign, which Saudi King Salman said on Saturday would continue until the Yemeni people "enjoy security". emeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi at the start of the summit called for the offensive to end only when the Huthis "surrender", calling the rebel leader an Iranian "puppet".

Putin Letter to Arab Summit Triggers Strong Saudi Rebuke

(Saudi Foreign Minister accuses Russian president of hypocrisy for urging peaceful resolution in Mideast while supporting Syria's Assad.)

March 30….(YNET) Saudi Arabia accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy on Sunday, telling an Arab summit that he should not express support for the Middle East while fuelling instability by supporting Syrian leader Bashar Assad. In a rare move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi announced that a letter from Putin would be read out to the gathering in Egypt, where Arab leaders discussed an array of regional crises, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya. "We support the Arabs' aspirations for a prosperous future and for the resolution of all the problems the Arab world faces through peaceful means, without any external interference," Putin said in the letter.

    His comments triggered a sharp attack from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Faisal. "He speaks about the problems in the Middle East as though Russia is not influencing these problems," he told the summit right after the letter was read out. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia have been cool over Moscow's support for Assad, whom Riyadh opposes. The civil war between Assad's forces and rebels has cost more than 200,000 lives in four years.

    The Saudi rebuke may have been awkward for summit host Egypt, which depends heavily on billions of dollars in support from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab allies, but has also improved ties with Moscow. In February, Putin received a grand welcome in Egypt, signalling a rapprochement. "They speak about tragedies in Syria while they are an essential part of the tragedies befalling the Syrian people, by arming the Syrian regime above and beyond what it needs to fight its own people," Prince Saud said. "I hope that the Russian president corrects this so that the Arab world's relations with Russia can be at their best level."

Obama/Kerry Surrender on Breakout Time to a Bomb Leads to a Nuclear Iran

March 30….(DEBKA) President Barack Obama and John Kerry promised that the nuclear deal to be signed with Iran in Switzerland this week will give the world powers a year’s warning after the Islamic Republic’s breakout up to an operational weapon. debkafile’s intelligence sources disclose that, to clinch the framework deal in Lausanne, even this concession, which imperils Israel, the Gulf and the Middle East at large, was not enough. In a further surrender, the president authorized the US delegation to fall back again on the space granted the world powers for reacting to breakthrough, dropping it from a year to six or seven months: Our nuclear experts explain why even that grim arithmetic does not do full justice to the advantages Iran has gained for its push to a nuke:

1.  Because Iran is permitted to continue running up to 6,500 elderly IR-1 centrifuges for enriching uranium to a low 3.5 percent grade, even if it is permitted to keep only 500 kilos of its stock of 7.5-8 –tons, Tehran would still be able to build a bomb in 7-8 months, i.e. a lot faster than Obama and Kerry have promised.

2.  But if Tehran activates secret facilities undetected by US intelligence, it can produce a larger quantity of enriched uranium and so shrink the time between breakout and bomb to three, at most, four months, totally insufficient for the world powers to detect, step in and abort the bomb’s manufacture, in view of the following considerations: To obtain proof that Iran is cheating on its accord with the world powers, “environmental” samples would have to be obtained and tested in laboratories outside Iran. Results would be available only after two months, further slashing the time line for stopping Iran building a weapon. But that is not all. If Iran is shown by the first round of tests to be in violation of the accord and enriching uranium to a higher grade than 3.5, a second batch of “environmental” samples must be collected to analyze the exact quantities of uranium illicitly enriched and grade of purity. There goes another month of valuable time for action, cutting it down to 10-12 weeks.

3. And, finally, the US President, Secretary of State and International Atomic Energy leaders have affirmed Iran’s faithful compliance with the first interim nuclear accord, known as the Joint Plan of Action, JPOA that was signed in Geneva November 2013. That information is equally false. It is a fact which is known to intelligence agencies that Iran never complied with its commitment to reduce its UF6 stocks below 7.5 tons and convert added amounts to harmless oxides. Indeed, they estimate that Iran has enlarged its approved amount of stock to 8.5 tons or more, by means of the “creep-out” strategyit has repeatedly pursued in the past to conceal its nefarious nuclear activities.

3.  A final concession which Iran has managed to wring out of the six world powers led by Washington allows Tehran to keep an extra 9,000 IR-1 centrifuges Tehran idle, though not dismantled, and permission to continue research and development on high-speed IR-8 or IR-5 centrifuges. This mans that the Islamic Republic will not only keep its nuclear infrastructure under the accord the six powers plan to sign, but add improvements along with the freedom to shorten at will the critical time lapse between breakout and bomb. The tons of spoken and printed verbiage poured out on the Iranian nuclear issue and ongoing diplomacy year after year have exposed, rather than disguised, President Obama’s willingness to sign a nuclear deal with Iran, however bad and whatever the price.

    The inescapable conclusion is that the US president has come around to accepting the reality of a nuclear-armed Iran. As seen from Washington, America never stopped India, Pakistan and North Korea from becoming nuclear powers, and has therefore decided it can live with a fourth - Iran.

Today, 25% of Americans Don't Believe in God

(Lack of Trust in Local Churches Cited as a Reason Why Adults Are Leaving the Faith)

March 30….(Christian Post) Barna Group has released its 2015 study on the state of atheism in America, and has revealed that one in four unchurched adults in the country now identify as atheists or agnostics. The study also found that rejection of the Bible and lack of trust in the church are two main reasons why people are turning away from faith.

    The study was focused on those who have not attended church within the past six months, and found that the majority of such people identify as non-practicing Christians. One in four, or 25 percent, however, were classed as skeptics, which Barna defines as people who "either do not believe God exists (atheists) or are not sure God exists, but are open to the possibility (agnostics)." Of that number, nearly one-third said that they have never attended a Christian church service in their lives.

    Barna found that the three main reasons people decide not to believe in God stem from rejection of the Bible; lack of trust in the local church; and the "cultural reinforcement of a secular worldview." "Skeptics dismiss the idea that the Bible is Holy or supernatural in any way. Two-thirds contend that it is simply a book of well-known stories and advice, written by humans and containing the same degree of authority and wisdom as any other self-help book," the report said. It added that the other one-third believe that the Bible is either a historical document that contains "the unique but not God-inspired accounts of events that happened in the past," or do not really know what to make of the Bible.

    David Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, said: "The data show that some cities, and younger generations, are more Gospel-resistant than others. It is increasingly common among millennials to dismiss religion, God, churches, authority and tradition. For years, some observers have claimed colleges and universities are a breeding ground for anti-God sentiment. The data does lend support to the notion that college campuses are comfortable places for young people to abandon God and assume control of their own lives." The group explained that today's skeptics, much like their counterparts two decades ago, are defined by their denial and doubts about God's existence. Their demographics have been changing considerably, however. As other studies have also found, younger people are more likely to be skeptics than older people. Barna says that today, 34 percent of all skeptics are younger than 30. The statistics also showed that half of all skeptics have a college degree, and that many more women today are joining their ranks, only 16 percent of skeptics in 1993 were women, but by 2013 that number grew to 43 percent.

    Kinnaman added in his statement: "Figuring out how to effectively engage skeptics is difficult. One of the unexpected results we uncovered is the limited influence of personal relationships on skeptics. They are considerably less relational and less engaged in social activities than the average American. Christians for whom 'ministry is about relationships' may be disappointed when they find that many skeptics are not as enamored of relational bonds as are those who are already a part of church life." "But in giving his followers the Great Commission, Jesus didn't mention anything about doing what is easy. New levels of courage and clarity will be required to connect beyond the Christianized majority."

    Other polls, such as the 2014 General Social Survey conducted by NORC and the University of Chicago, which was released in March, also found that the number of Americans leaving organized religion is at a record high, at 21 percent.

As Obama Lets Yemen Fall, Israeli Ire Pales Next to Arab Fury

(Jerusalem is worried by the Iran-backed Houthi takeover of Aden, but Saudi Arabia is burning with anger, and not at Tehran, but at the US)

March 30….(Times of Israel) A few months ago, when Yemen’s Houthi uprising was still in its infancy, Israel was already worriedly watching over the progress of rebel forces making advances in the peninsula. It’s little surprise the group got Jerusalem’s attention. In almost every demonstration held by Houthis in recent months, the slogans heard may as well have been taken straight out of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran: “Death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.”

     The Houthi Zaidiyyahs belong to a Shia school of Islamic thought which is distinct from the beliefs held by Shiites in Iran, but they act in accordance with the regime in Tehran, which supplies the Yemenite rebels with advanced equipment that allows them to wage battle on the forces of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

    As the rebels have managed to sack much of the port town of Aden, pushing Hadi out of his home Wednesday and sparking Saudi-led airstrikes, the concerns on the Israeli side are clear. Firstly, an Iranian takeover of the strategic Bab el Mandeb Strait and the possibility of a Israeli ships coming under fire with no one officially taking responsibility for such attacks would not bode well for the Jewish state. But aside from the threat of assaults on ships, the Iranian-Houthi takeover of Yemen raises another serious concern for Israel, namely, the potential rising influence of Iran in the region, which will allow the Islamic Republic to improve its position during negotiations on the country’s nuclear program.

    As Iran’s involvement in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen grows, so it increases its ability to bargain with the Americans and the Europeans on the number of centrifuges it may possess and the nature of inspections by UN officials at its nuclear facilities. Decision makers in Israel have come to an understanding that the Americans have no intention of imposing demands on Iran with regards to halting military operations and even terrorist attacks in other countries as part of the agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program. But Israel’s concerns regarding the Houthi takeover of Yemen are nothing compared to the profound discontent of Riyadh and other Arab countries, in light of Iran’s rampage throughout the Middle East and the blatant inaction on the part of the US.

     The outcome of the Saudi military operation may not be decisive, but reflects much Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian frustration. The anger of these regimes is not directed at Iran, which is more or less engaged in the kind of hostile activity expected of it, but mainly at Washington. It is slightly hard to believe, but at a time when the White House is intensively negotiating with Iran in an attempt to reach an agreement on the nation’s nuclear program withing the next five days, the Shiites in Tehran have helped topple a majority Sunni regime and made significant territorial advances. Yemen is a state with a long and unmanned border with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s number one regional rival. Yet Washington remains silent.

    Yes, Saudi Arabia and the US claimed the overnight operation in Yemen was carried out with intelligence assistance by the Americans, but Arab leaders and decision makers in Israel are still struggling with the White House’s insistence on demonstrating exceptional weakness in its ongoing talks with Tehran.

    The expectation by Sunni Arabs and Israel is that the world’s major powers will at least try to pressure Tehran to halt its military operations in a variety of destinations in the Middle East, as part of any future agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Such pressure against Tehran over its involvement in Yemen or Iraq, such as leaving economic sanctions in place, could inspire the ayatollahs to reconsider their advances in the region. But for now, under the White House’s zero action policy, Iran can continue doing whatever it wants without having to miss a beat.

    For its part, Saudi Arabia is issuing statements that could have been written in Jerusalem. "Iran is an aggressive state that is intervening and operating forces in the Arab world," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said this week at a joint press conference with his British counterpart, Philip Hammond. "Its nuclear weapons are a threat to the Gulf and the entire world." He then went on to convey a message to the Obama administration, saying: "Striking a deal that Iran doesn't deserve is not right. Think, too, about the dangerous ramifications of the Iranians' 'second plan.'" This "second plan", about which Israeli intelligence officials have been warning for the past five years, involves Iran's desire for Shiite control over the Arab world, with the ultimate objective being control over the Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

Obama-Iran Nuke Deal Prompts Arabs to Create Regional Force

(Saudi Arabia concluding it can no longer rely on Washington, and even acquire nuclear weapons as entire Middle East descends into a giant Islamic civil war)

March 30….(WND) With the Obama administration holding out for a nuclear deal with Iran, Saudi-led air strikes by 10 coalition members against Iranian-backed al-Houthi targets in neighboring Yemen have won broad US congressional backing as Arab leaders move closer to creating a joint Arab military force. The Saudis want to intervene more aggressively against ISIS jihadist fighters and the spread of Iranian influence in the region.

    Creation of a joint force, which has been discussed in recent years but never implemented, comes as the Saudis and close ally Egypt sees the United States moving toward a nuclear deal with Iran. The imminent deal has caused Riyadh to conclude it can no longer rely on US security guarantees and must take the security initiative. Broad bipartisan congressional backing of the Saudi initiative comes as prospects rise over Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran becoming increasingly engaged in a proxy sectarian conflict, such as in Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and now Yemen.

   Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi endorsed the creation of a joint military force to defend Arab nations. Sisi said the Arab world was at a critical crossroads and facing unprecedented difficulties.

    In addition to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other Sunni countries willing to participate in the joint military force are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan and Pakistan.Oman, which borders Yemen, is in a quandary since it also has a close relationship with Iran. Sources say its preference is to stay out of the fight and remain, as it has been recently, a back channel for talks between the US and Iran.

    Over the weekend, foreign ministers assembled in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh at an Arab League conference to come up with a plan for such a joint force. From this joint force, the airstrikes now occurring in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthis could be followed for the first time by ground troops assembled from some 10 Sunni countries, including Gulf Arab nations. The intention of the ground forces will be to compel the Houthis to negotiate a resolution of the Yemeni crisis. The joint force would be headquartered either in Cairo, Egypt, or the Saudi capital o Riyadh and would be comprised on an initial 40,000 elite troops. The force would be backed up by jet fighters, warships and light armor. “The resolution sends a clear message that Arab nations can agree on a plan to defend themselves,” Arab League head Nabil Elaraby said in Sharm el-Sheikh. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri said the proposed joint force would undertake “quick and effective missions.”

    The Egyptians recently took it upon themselves to attack Islamic State positions in Libya following the mass beheadings of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptians. Similarly, the Jordanians initiated combat missions against ISIS positions in Syria following the execution of a Jordanian pilot. In addition, Egypt and the Gulf Arab countries have held joint war games over the past year leading to closer coordination of command and control of military forces of their armed forces. These events have led to the decision that any future actions can be carried out under the auspices of the Arab League.

Bomb Iran Before It Gets the Bomb

March 30….(Newsmax) There is only one way to block the Iranians from building a nuclear bomb, according to former ambassador John Bolton: Bomb them first. "The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program," Bolton wrote in an opinion piece for The New York Times on Thursday. "Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure."

    The "inconvenient truth," Bolton insists, is that "only military action like Israel's 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed." Such an attack would not need to destroy Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure, but instead, Bolton said, would break key links in the nuclear fuel cycle and set back Iran's program by at least three to five years. "Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities," said Bolton. "So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan."

    The United States could thoroughly destroy the targets, he said, but Israel, acting alone, could also take the necessary steps. He also called for the action to combine with US support for regime change in Iran. Meanwhile, Bolton said, President Barack Obama's fascination with striking a nuclear deal with Iran could trigger a wave of nuclear programs throughout the Middle East. "The president's biggest legacy could be a thoroughly nuclear-weaponized Middle East," said Bolton.

    Experts have been worried for years that it would happen, said Bolton. As in other cases such as India, Pakistan and North Korea, the West should have been vigilant, he says, "but failing to act in the past is no excuse for making the same mistakes now." Obama, like his predecessors, inherited the effects of past presidents' decisions, but is responsible for what is happening on his watch, Bolton said, and his "approach on Iran has brought a bad situation to the brink of catastrophe."

    Meanwhile, comprehensive international sanctions have crippled Iran somewhat but have not stopped the nuclear program's progress. "Even absent palpable proof, like a nuclear test, Iran's steady progress toward nuclear weapons has long been evident," said Bolton. "Now, the arms race has begun." He noted that Saudi Arabia is expected to move first, as "no way would the Sunni Saudis allow the Shiite Persians to outpace them in the quest for dominance." Analysts believe that Saudi Arabia is able to get nuclear weapons from Pakistan, and Bolton said Egypt or Turkey would not be far behind. Israel's nuclear capability, though, is mainly seen as a deterrent, not as an offensive measure, and has not brought on an arms race, but Iran is different.

    The evidence is mounting that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are quickening their pace for nuclear weapons of their own, said Bolton. "Saudi Arabia has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with South Korea, China, France and Argentina, aiming to build a total of 16 reactors by 2030," said Bolton. Western intelligence agencies believe that the Saudi monarchy paid for up to 60% of Pakistan’s nuclear program in return for the ability to buy warheads for itself at short notice.

Was Mass-Murdering Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz a Muslim?

March 30….(Now the End Begins) Just as the horror of that thought was settling in, reporters began to question what the religion of Lubitz was. Yes, he was German by nationality, but that does not mean he was a Christian. In Germany live many non-Christians such as Jews and Muslims. Germany, in recent years has experienced a huge spike in Islamic extremism and in Muslim immigration. Is it possible that Lubitz had been radicalized at some point in the past few years? Internet chat rooms burned up today discussing it, and experts in Germany say it’s quite possible.

    Back in January, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that German citizens “must accept Islam” or pay the price. The chancellor used unusually direct words in her New Year’s speech for the rallies organized by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA which have been attended by thousands. When the protesters chant “we are the people,” they actually mean to say “you don’t belong, because of your religion or your skin color,” Merkel said.

    When a reporter asked French Prosecutor Brice Robin of Marseille, during a news conference Thursday, whether he knew Lubitz’s religion, Robin said he did not know and added, “I don’t think that’s where the answer to this lies.” The question suggested that Lubitz’s religious background was relevant to the investigation behind the pilot’s alleged deliberate downing of Germanwings Flight 9525 on Tuesday. Robin said the crash did not show any signs of terrorism. Some were appalled by the reporter’s inquiry.

    Prosecutor Brice Robin gave a disturbing account of the data extracted from black box which records sounds in the cockpit. He said Lubitz locked his captain out after the senior officer left the flight deck. At that point, Lubitz used the flight managing system to put the plane into a descent, something that can only be done manually – and deliberately. He said: ‘The intention was to destroy the plane. Death was instant. The plane hit the mountain at 430 mph. ‘I don’t think that the passengers realized what was happening until the last moments because on the recording you only hear the screams in the final seconds’. This is what we know for sure at this point:

•     The co-pilot intentionally crashed the plane

•     He was very calm in the moments preceding the crash

•     He killed all 150 passengers on board

•     He committed this mass murder with an airplane

•     His religion remains unknown at the time of this publication

•     Muslim terrorism cannot be ruled out. We will keep you updated as more is learned.

Obama Administration Flooding America  With Muslim Immigrants

March 30….(WND) Muslim immigration from dangerous nations is dramatically higher in recent years, and government assurances that immigrants are being properly screened is “a farce,” according to accomplished author and columnist Paul Sperry. “It’s a huge surge under Obama. In the last three years, he’s averaged 100,000 new immigrants from Muslim nations a year. That is very alarming. It’s more than we’re importing both from Central America and Mexico combined. This is a big shift in immigration flows,” said Sperry, who is the author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington” and co-author of “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” “It’s really insane what we’re doing. No one’s really talking about it, but this mass immigration from Muslim countries poses a serious national security threat,” said Sperry, who is also a Hoover Institution media fellow and former Washington bureau chief of WND. Sperry frequently writes for the New York Post and Investor’s Business Daily. The stated reason for the influx in recent years is the rise in refugees from war-torn nations like Syria and Iraq. The number of people accepted from Syria in particular baffles Sperry, who said there is a long standing policy of keeping Syrians at bay. “Syria has always been on our terrorist list,” he said. “We have had very strict restrictions on Syrian immigration. Since Syria’s become a failed state, Obama’s increased the number of refugees. By the time he leaves office, we will be importing over 10,000 Syrians into this country. This is a concern because Iraq and Syria are now controlled by the Islamic State.” “We have no idea if they’re going to come into this country to escape terrorism or to carry out terrorism. We have no idea, and they admit as much. For all we know, they could be joining a sleeper cell here,” said Sperry, who noted that Obama has also greatly increased the number of Saudis in the US on student visas.

    According to Sperry, the US should be feverishly dialing back its acceptance of Muslims from questionable nations. He said Western Europe is a glaring example of what happens when more scrutiny is not paid to who enters the country. Sperry cites recent terror attacks and plots in Paris, Copenhagen and Brussels as proof that liberal immigration standards and refusal to demand assimilation is a breeding ground for disaster. “They opened the floodgates for North African Muslims,” he said. “Now they regret it, of course, but it’s too late. Europe regrets doing what we’re doing now. We’re the ones who are rolling out the welcome mat for Muslims from these hostile nations.”

    Sperry said it’s time to stop pretending America is not at war and take concrete measures to keep out people from suspect nations. He believes there’s an obvious place to start. “They have a list of Muslim countries who are most hostile to the US and the West,” Sperry said. “They rank them. We can start with those countries for a moratorium, putting some curbs on immigration from these countries.”

Kerry and Iran Close on Nuclear Deal

March 30….(Reuters) Iran and major powers are close to agreeing a two- or three-page accord with specific numbers as the basis of a resolution of a 12-year standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Kerry and Zarif have been in Lausanne for days to try to reach an outline agreement by a self-imposed deadline of March 31 between Iran on the one hand and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on the other. "The sides are very, very close to the final step and it could be signed or agreed and announced verbally," a senior Iranian official familiar with the talks told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Other officials echoed the remarks while warning that several crucial issues were still being hotly debated.

    The negotiations, under way for nearly 18 months, aim to hammer out an accord under which Iran, which denies any ambition to build nuclear weapons, halts sensitive nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, with the ultimate aim of reducing the risk of a war in the Middle East. Ahead of another meeting with Zarif on Saturday, Kerry said he expected the discussions to run late. Zarif added that the meetings would run through "evening, night, midnight, and morning".

WEEK OF MARCH 22 THROUGH MARCH 28

Obama Declassifies Document Revealing Israel's Nuclear Program

(Obama’s revenge for Netanyahu's Congress talk? 1987 report on Israel's top secret nuclear program released in unprecedented move.)

March 27….(Arutz) In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

    But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, Obama has breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.

    The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu's March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.

    Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel's sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document. The 386-page report entitled "Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations" gives a detailed description of how Israel advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s. Israel is "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level," reveals the report, stating that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.

    The revelation marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs. The report also notes research laboratories in Israel "are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories," the key labs in developing America's nuclear arsenal. Israel's nuclear infrastructure is "an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories," it adds. "As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the US was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960," the report reveals, noting a time frame just after America tested its first hydrogen bomb. Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally funded agency operating under the Pentagon, penned the report back in 1987.

    Aside from nuclear capabilities, the report revealed Israel at the time had "a totally integrated effort in systems development throughout the nation," with electronic combat all in one "integrated system, not separated systems for the Army, Navy and Air Force." It even acknowledged that in some cases, Israeli military technology "is more advanced than in the US."

     Declassifying the report comes at a sensitive timing as noted above, and given that the process to have it published was started three years ago, that timing is seen as having been the choice of the Obama government. US journalist Grant Smith petitioned to have the report published based on the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the Pentagon took its time answering, leading Smith to sue, and a District Court judge to order the Pentagon to respond to the request. Smith, who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, reportedly said he thinks this is the first time the US government has officially confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power, a status that Israel has long been widely known to have despite being undeclared.

Obama's 'jihad against Jews' spills Israel's nuke secretss

White House declassifies details of Middle East democracy's defenses

March 27….(WND) In a move blasted by commentators as part of President Obama’s “jihad against Jews,” the White House has abruptly declassified details of Israel’s nuclear program. ccording to Israel National News, the Obama administration declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document with details of Israel’s assets, “a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race.” The report said until now, the US has respected that effort by remaining silent. “But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth,” the report said. It openly questioned, “Obama revenge for Netanyahu’s Congress talk,” and other commentators were more direct.

    At Shoebat.com, started by a former Muslim terrorist turned Christian, was the blunt headline “Obama’s evil revenge on Netanyahu continues.” Pamela Geller, on her Atlas Shrugs blog, called it “Obama’s jihad against the Jews.” “Obama is sick, sick with Jew-hatred, unbalanced, unhinged, a danger to this this country, our allies, the world. Israel’s nuclear program, whatever it may be, is purely existential insurance. If they have a nuclear weapon, they have had it for 50 years and have never used it, despite the decades-long Muslim wars against the Jews,” she wrote. “Israel has shared its secrets with the US for decades. They never imagined a jihadist in the White House.”

    Israel National News said the “timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.” The speech to Congress was at the invitation of Congress, and Obama reportedly went, according to one published headline, into a “pout” because he was not consulted on the plans. Obama’s relations with Israel’s elected leader have never been better than rocky during his White House tenure..

    Obama later publicly said he didn’t pay much attention to the speech and insisted there was nothing new in it. Just days later, Netanyahu won a sweeping victory in a national election, despite the reported organized opposition from the Obama administration. WND reported extensively on a non-profit that had been given US taxpayer money to defeat Netanyahu. The OneVoice Movement at one point featured and promoted a link to the State Department and featured its logo, which later was removed. OneVoice is a US-UK non-profit sponsoring V15, a new Israeli political action group that led a get-out-the-vote-organizing drive aimed at replacing Netanyahu’s government with a center-left coalition.OneVoice’s offices in Tel Aviv were used as the campaign headquarters for V15′s anti-Netanyahu effort, as WND was first to report. It was OneVoice that reportedly hired 270 Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior leadership is comprised mostly of former top staffers for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. 270 Strategies has been consulting in V15′s campaign. When the links were revealed, Fox News quoted a source saying a bipartisan US Senate committee with subpoena powers had started investigating the possibility the Obama administration may have aided OneVoice’s efforts to defeat Netanyahu via grants from the State Department. OneVoice received a State Department grant for $350,000.

    Israel National News noted another “suspicious aspect” of the US government’s decision was that “while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.” The report, called the “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations,” describes how Israel advanced its technology and obtained a “nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s.””

    INN said the revelation “marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs.” The report describes Israel’s facilities that “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,” where the US developed its nuclear program. According to INN, the report by the Institute for Defense Analysis in 1987, said that “as far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the US was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960.”

Egypt Seizes Bab el Mandeb Ahead of Iran. Saudis Bomb Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis,

While US launches Helps Iran Take Over Tikrit

March 27….(DEBKA) In a surprise step, Egyptian marine naval and marine forces seized control of the strategic Bab El-Mandeb Straits to foil Tehran’s plans to grab this important energy shipping gateway between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal, Debkafile’s military sources report from the Gulf. Egypt disguised the raid as a counter-piracy operation. It rounded off the Saudi-led air strikes launched the same morning against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. These operations signaled the start of a major Sunni Arab revolt against Iran’s approaching takeover of Yemen, through its Houthi proxy, and advances in other strategic positions in the Middle East, with Washington’s support.

    Meanwhile, the US launched its first air strikes against Islamic State positions in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, rallying to the aid of the Iranian-commanded Iraqi operation, which had failed to dislodge the jihadis in two weeks of fighting. The separate operations in Yemen and Iraq attested to the widening breach between the Sunni Arab camp and the Obama administration and the former’s resolve to thwart US strategy for buying a nuclear deal with Tehran by empowering Iran to attain the rank of leading Middle East power.

    Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) are now leading war action in four Mid East arenas: Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon, while building Shiite “popular” armies deferring to Tehran in three: Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The formal announcements coming from Riyadh and Washington attempted to gloss over the open breach. The Saudis Wednesday indicated that their military buildup on the Yemeni was “purely defensive,” while Washington subsequently declared support for the Saudi-Gulf-Egyptian air strikes after they began..

    According to our Washington sources, President Obama decided Wednesday to accede to the Iraqi premier Haider al-Abadi’s request for air support to de-stall the Tikrit operation against ISIS. Iran’s Al Qods Brigades chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who commanded the operation from the start has departed the scene. Nothing has been said to indicate whether the Iranian forces, including Revolutionary Guards officers, remain in the area. It appears that the Obama administration prefers as little as possible to be mentioned about US-Iranian battlefield coordination in Iraq versus the Islamists, especially since it was not exactly a big success. At the same time, US air strikes launched to support ground forces are bound to be coordinated with their commanders, who in this case happen to be mostly Iranian. In the last two weeks of the Tikrit operation, liaison between the US and Iranian military in Iraq was routed through the office of the Iraqi Prime Minister in Baghdad.

     Early Thursday, Riyadh reported that the Saudi Royal Air Force had taken out Houthi air defenses, destroyed numerous Houthi fighter planes and were imposing a wide no-fly zone over Yemen. Egypt is providing political and military support for Saudi-GCC operation against Houthi fighters in Yemen, the Egyptian state news agency said Thursday. Egypt's Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying this support could involve Egyptian air, naval and ground forces, if necessary.

    Debkafile’s military sources add: The Saudis declared Yemeni air space a no-fly zone to achieve to goals: (1) To deny the Yemeni forces advancing on the key port city of Aden access to air cover which would undoubtedly have been forthcoming from mutinous elements of the Yemeni air force. Without it, the rebel advance would be severely hobbled, and, (2) to prevent Iranian warplanes from landing at Yemeni air bases with deliveries of military equipment and ammunition  their Houthi proxies. Gulf sources disclose that Saudi Arabia has placed 100 warplanes and 150,000 troops with heavy weapons at the disposal of the operation against Iran’s Yemeni proxy, the Zaydi Houthis, as well as pressing into service Pakistani, Moroccan and Jordanian military units. This force is a sign that Riyadh intends of following up its air action with a ground invasion across the border into Yemen to crush the revolt in its backyard.

Obama Caves to Key Iranian Demands as Nuke Deal Comes Togetherr

(Limited options for Congress as Obama seeks to bypass lawmakers)

March 27….(Free Beacon) The Obama administration is giving in to all Iranian demands about the scope of its nuclear program as negotiators work to finalize a framework agreement in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the administration’s position in the negotiations.

    US negotiators are said to have given up ground on demands that Iran be forced to disclose the full range of its nuclear activities at the outset of a nuclear deal, a concession experts say would gut the verification the Obama administration has vowed would stand as the crux of a deal with Iran. Until recently, the Obama administration had maintained that it would guarantee oversight on Tehran’s program well into the future, and that it would take the necessary steps to ensure that oversight would be effective. The issue has now emerged as a key sticking point in the talks.

    Concern from sources familiar with US concessions in the talks comes amid reports that Iran could be permitted to continue running nuclear centrifuges at an underground site once suspected of housing illicit activities. This type of concession would allow Iran to continue work related to its nuclear weapons program, even under the eye of international inspectors. If Iran removes inspectors, as it has in the past, it would be left with a nuclear infrastructure immune from a strike by Western forces. “Once again, in the face of Iran’s intransigence, the US is leading an effort to cave even more toward Iran, this time by whitewashing Tehran’s decades of lying about nuclear weapons work and current lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency,” said one Western source briefed on the talks but who was not permitted to speak on record.

    With the White House pressing to finalize a deal, US diplomats have moved further away from their demands that Iran be subjected to oversight over its nuclear infrastructure. “Instead of ensuring that Iran answers all the outstanding questions about the past and current military dimensions of their nuclear work in order to obtain sanctions relief, the US is now revising down what they need to do,” said the source.  “That is a terrible mistake, if we don’t have a baseline to judge their past work, we can’t tell if they are cheating in the future, and if they won’t answer now, before getting rewarded, why would they come clean in the future?”

    The United States is now willing to let Iran keep many of its most controversial military sites closed to inspectors until international sanctions pressure has been lifted, according to sources. This scenario has been criticized by nuclear experts, including David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security. Albright told Congress in November that “a prerequisite for any comprehensive agreement is for the IAEA to know when Iran sought nuclear weapons, how far it got, what types it sought to develop, and how and where it did this work.” “The IAEA needs a good baseline of Iran’s military nuclear activities, including the manufacturing of equipment for the program and any weaponization related studies, equipment, and locations,” Albright said.

    One policy expert familiar with the concessions told the Washington Free Beacon that it would be difficult for the administration to justify greater concessions given the centrality of this issue in the broader debate. “The Obama administration has gone all-in on the importance of verification,” said the source, who asked for anonymity because the administration has been known to retaliate against critics in the policy community. “But without knowing what the Iranians have it’s impossible for the IAEA to verify that they’ve given it up.” A lesser emphasis is also being placed on Iran coming clean about its past efforts to build nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic continues to stall United Nations efforts to determine the extent of its past weapons work, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    By placing disclosure of Iran’s past military efforts on the back burner, the administration could harm the ability of outside inspectors to take full inventory of Iran’s nuclear know-how, according to sources familiar with the situation. It also could jeopardize efforts to keep Iran at least one year away from building a bomb, sources said. On the diplomatic front, greater concessions are fueling fears among US allies that Iran will emerge from the negations as a stronger regional power.

The Coming Iranian Nuclear Bomb

(The Islamic regime could produce a nuke in a matter of months)

March 25….(Washington Times) It has been known in the nuclear arms community for the last six years that the Iranians had secured enough enriched U-235 for the creation of a first-generation implosion bomb. Further to this point, the construction of an actual bomb small enough to be dropped from a transport plane, or carried by a fishing trawler or small freighter, has been judged to be available since 2010.

    Using International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports, the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control tracked the availability of Iran having nearly 8,000 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium through February 2015. This figure points to the ability to create seven original implosion-type bombs if the enrichment was brought to 90 percent. The usual time element for such enrichment is calculated at three to 12 months. There is no reason to believe this minimal time element has not been accomplished.

    This information is not hard to obtain, so what is the real mission that Secretary of State John Kerry is so steadfastly pursuing and to which President Obama is so committed as a March 31 deadline for an agreement looms? It’s been obvious for some time that the Iranians have invested billions in cash and materiel in building a string of heavily protected nuclear development facilities. It is accepted internationally that these variously clandestine installations are, among other tasks, capable of enriching U-235 to weapons-grade and marrying the detonation mechanism appropriately reduced in size with an intercontinental missile capability. Tehran has already announced it has succeeded in creating such intercontinental missile hardware, as indeed so have their grateful friends, the oil-needy North Koreans.

    US government nuclear strategists have long agreed that Iran’s use of nuclear material to fuel its powerful electricity producing power plant at Bushehr has in no way hindered the accumulation of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) enriched to 3.5 percent U-235. Adding to this information is the last IAEA report that at just the Natanz fuel enrichment plant, 9,000 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges were “being fed with UF6.” Theoretical estimates have been made that this means only 1.7 months would be necessary “to produce enough enriched uranium for one bomb,” Valerie Lincy and Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control wrote on Feb. 24 in “Iran’s Nuclear Timetable.”

    Apparently, the White House is willing to overlook these obvious and publicly available facts in order to arrive at some form of entente with the leadership in Tehran. The Persian proclivity for calculated prevarication has been well reviewed previously in discussion of the Shia concept of “taqiyah,” defined as “dissembling for the protection and extension of the faith.”

    Somehow Mr. Obama and his national security team have lost sight of the basic elements of intelligence analysis in order to seek a treaty with a country under radical Islamic clerical control. For an American administration to say that it seeks a broad-ranging accord that “will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” borders on the absurd. The rest of the world knows well the substantial extent to which Tehran already has gone in order to acquire that capability. The question, therefore, arises: What exactly is the Obama White House’s aim?

Obama Kept Netanyahu in The Dark About Iran Nuke Talks

March 25….(DEBKA) Yet another Obama administration thrust in its campaign to stigmatize Binyamin Netanyahu and the newly elected Israeli government came Tuesday, March 24, in the form of a pejorative leak to The Wall Street Journal. "Israeli intelligence was eavesdropping on closed-door nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US and other world powers, then passing the classified information along to the US Congress to try and preemptively scuttle the deal, The WSJ reported, adding from its unnamed sources: "It’s one thing for the US and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal US secrets and play them back to US legislators to undermine US diplomacy.”

    Citing the spy-versus-spy rivalry often operating behind the scenes of US-Israel relations, the paper reports that, in fact, the White House discovered Israel had an inside track on the talks by snooping on communications among Israeli officials. "They carried details the US believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks." "These allegations are utterly false," a senior official in the Israeli Prime Minister's office said. "The state of Israel does not directly conduct espionage against the United States or its other allies."

    Debkafile’s sources say that the WSJ “allegation” was timed for the trip to Paris by Israel’s Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz’s and national security adviser Yossie Cohen with a warning to France and later other European leaders that the nuclear deal shaping up between the US and Iran enables Iran to preserve its capabilities and remain a threshold nuclear state. Monday, they met the senior French negotiator, National Security Adviser Jacques Audibert. They were able to hand him information at variance with the data the US had given out including how far the bilateral talks with Iran had progressed. The WSJ story raises three points.

1. The Obama administration repeatedly promised to keep Israel informed on the content of the Six Power negotiations with Iran led by the United States and make them “transparent.” The WSJ story demonstrates that Washington violated this commitment, by revealing that Israel needed to activate its spies to get at the facts. It is also possible alternatively that the data from the closed door sessions was leaked to Israel by other participants such as Russia, France, Germany or the UK, who too were aghast at the extent of American concessions to Iran for a deal.

2.  Did the Obama administration seriously expect Israel to sit back and wait calmly for its diplomats to make concession after concession to the Iranians, knowing that Iran was being allowed to come closer step by step to a nuclear threshold state to the peril of Israel, its Gulf neighbors and Middle East security at large?

3.  Why did Israel need to snoop on the talks when Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, all of which strongly oppose the deal taking shape, believed they should have been partners to talks that determined their fate, alongside the six external world powers? If Iran objected, the Middle East nations most concerned might have been given a role on the sidelines, instead of being left out of decision-making in the way that the old Colonial powers determined the boundaries of the region among themselves.

    In this regard, Debkafile notes that the Obama administration continues its vendetta against Binyamin Netanyahu day by day, as though he was not elected in far and honest elections which permitted every Israeli citizen to make his or her will known through the ballot box. This campaign is strongly echoed by the left-wing camp which lost the election and refuses to accept its outcome, as though nothing has changed.

Obama Warns Netanyahu that 'Occupation Must End'

March 25….(AFP) The Obama White House on Monday bluntly warned Israel that its occupation of Palestinian land must end, dismissing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to take back controversial campaign pledges. In unusually tough language that underscores the fracture in relations between Washington and Israel, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said "an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end." McDonough criticized Netanyahu's pre-election pledge to block the creation of a Palestinian state, the supposed end goal of decades of fruitless peace talks, and he questioned Netanyahu's efforts to undo the damage. "We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don't raise questions about the Prime Minister's commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations," he said. "The Palestinian people must have the right to live in and govern themselves in their own sovereign state," he added. McDonough is one of President Barack Obama's closest advisors, and his speech to the liberal pro-Israel lobby group J Street was followed closely in Washington.

    Netanyahu's pledge deepened a long-running disagreement with Obama but his top aide said, the row was not based on "personal pique." "America's commitment to a two-state solution is fundamental to US foreign policy," McDonough said. "It's been the goal of both Republican and Democratic presidents, and it remains our goal today." On Monday, Netanyahu apologized for election day comments claiming Arabs were voting in "droves," comments which also brought US criticism. He has also tried to downplay his pledge to oppose a two-state solution, insisting Israel's policy has not changed.

Obama left PM ‘with Impression US Will Abandon Israel at UN’

March 25….(Times of Israel) President Barack Obama’s supposed congratulatory call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, two days after the Likud leader triumphed in Israel’s elections, was actually a bitter 30-minute conversation, Israel’s two main TV news stations reported Friday night.

    Quoting unnamed Israeli sources, they said the president made clear he didn’t believe Netanyahu was genuinely supportive of a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, and that he (Obama) indicated that the US would no longer automatically support Israel at the United Nations. ccording to a Channel 10 read out on the call, indeed, Obama left Netanyahu with “the impression that he intends to abandon Israel at the UN.”

    The United States has actually been considering a reevaluation of ties with Israel, including its automatic support for the Jewish state at the United Nations Security Council, for at least four months, the Israeli sources also told Channel 2. Although the White House claims the reassessment was prompted by Netanyahu’s remarks on Monday in which he rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state, and which he walked back Thursday, that is not the case, according to the officials. The threat to reassess relations was reported widely this week and, according to the TV reports, was issued directly to Netanyahu on Thursday by Obama in the call.

     During the 30-minute conversation, described as “difficult” by Channel 2, Obama made clear to the prime minister that the US was reconsidering its support for Israel at the UN as well as its approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace in light of Netanyahu’s pre-election comments rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state. Channel 10 also said Netanyahu was adamant about keeping his ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, in the job despite heavy American criticism. The president’s skepticism and criticism were clearly evident during the Obama-Netanyahu conversation, according to Channel 2. Obama told Netanyahu the US was reconsidering its policies because Netanyahu had changed his position on Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu retorted that he hadn’t changed his position, still supporting a two state solution, but that the Middle East realities had changed in recent years. Obama responded that his clarification was insufficient, according to Channel 2.

     The Channel 2 report said the US, in the least drastic scenario, might now refrain from vetoing resolutions relating to settlement building and Palestinian statehood. In a more drastic scenario, it might engage in drafting and support resolutions setting out the parameters for a Palestinian state, based on the 1967 lines and with a divided Jerusalem. In a still worse scenario, deemed unlikely, it might support sanctions against Israel for failure to comply with such resolutions.

Obama: Chances of Peace Under Netanyahu Slim

(US president says his disagreements with Israeli leader 'can't be redacted)

March 25….(YNET) US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that his disagreement with Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over how to pursue a Middle East peace deal was substantive. President Obama also said the US will work to keep Israel safe, but reiterated his intention to reassess US policy on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations after Prime Minister Netanyahu questioned the two-state solution during his election campaign. Mr. Obama further said he won't be commenting on reports that Israel spied on closed-door negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, but offered assurances that Israel and other partners in the region have been briefed about progress in the negotiations.

    Following Binyamin Netanyahu's election victory last week, Obama raised eyebrows by being the last world leader to congratulate him. But while Obama was apparently reluctant to congratulate Netanyahu, he wasted no time criticizing him over comments he made rejecting the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state given the current turmoil in the region. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Obama even hinted the US could reconsider defending Israel from the Palestinian Authority's hostile moves at the UN.

    Obama said the world’s goal is to give Palestinians hope for a secure state adjoining Israel. "It's hard to envision how that happens based on the prime minister's statements," he said. "With respect to Israel's relations with the Palestinians, I think it's important to understand that the issue here is not what I believe, but it's what the Palestinians and the parties in the negotiations and believe is possible. That's the most important issue," he added.

Obama Acting Like a Child Because He Couldn’t Get Rid of Netanyahu

(FOJ) As usual, the UN human rights forum met in New York City on Monday during its annual debate on so-called violations committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories.      The US usually defends Israel at the UN, but today (thanks to Obama) the US didn’t bother to even put in an appearance.

March 24….(Israel Today) Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon this week said that President Barack Obama’s hostile response to Israel’s reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was both harmful and childish.

    Obama’s apparent desire for some kind of “revenge” against Netanyahu and a majority of Israel’s voting public began to manifest itself on Monday when the White House decided to skip an annual pro-Palestinian event at the main UN human rights forum. Until now, the US has always made a point of attending the event in order to defend Israel against unfair and unbalanced condemnation. “Following the elections, Netanyahu reached out to Obama in interviews with American media in which he reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution,” noted Ayalon in an interview with Israel’s NRG online news service. “But what did Barack Obama do?” “Instead of acting in a measured way with an understanding that there is mutual interest in maintaining good relations, Obama gave Netanyahu a slap in the face. This is inappropriate and unprecedented in international relations.”

    In short, Ayalon accused Obama of “behaving childishly, instead of as the leader of a great power. This will harm the US itself, as well as further destabilize the Middle East. And all out of a personal desire for revenge against Netanyahu.” A similar assessment was offered on Sunday by US Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain, who told CNN that Obama needs to “get over his temper tantrum” following Netanyahu’s strong electoral victory.

As Obama Slobbers Over the Mullahs, Ayatollah Calls on US Youth to Join Jihad

March 24….(Canada Free Press) Last Friday, President Barack Obama slobbered all over himself to come to the aide of the Iranian Mullahs, mostly to spite our Israeli allies. But on the very same day Obama gave the Mullahs his undying love, the Ayatollah urged our own kids to join the world wide movement of violent, Islamist jihad. Obama disgorged a “holiday” statement telling the Mullahs that he was celebrating the Muslim holiday of Nowruz. During the statement Obama slobbered all over the wonderfulness of the Mullahs and treated them as America’s true friend.

     Yeah, these are the same people who kidnapped the American hostages in 1979, the same people famed for their “death to America” rallies, the same people who have exported terrorism all around the world and helped our enemies killing hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. These are the people Obama says are his friends. I say his friends, because these Islamist terrorists are not America’s friends. Obama sure may love them, but they don’t love us. And they never, ever will. Anyway, even as Obama made such a fool of himself on this wunnerful, wunnerful Nowruz day, the very Ayatollah that Obama said is our fast friend issued a statement of his own. In his statement, the Ayatollah called for our children to join violent jihad and kill Americans.

Iran’s Islamic Jihad Gaining Strength in the West Bank

March 24….(Jerusalem Post) Palestinian Islamic Jihad is gaining strength in Judea and Samaria, representing a new terrorist threat. Senior IDF officials from the Central territorial command consider Islamic Jihad to be a small yet highly focused entity, making it a dangerous and disturbing addition to the plethora of actors in the territories. Islamic Jihad's central base is in the Gaza Strip, and it has been a loyal Iranian proxy for many years, depending on Tehran for funds, training, and weapons.

    Iran, for its part, has attempted to get money into the West Bank to spread its influence, so far with very limited success, due to Israeli security efforts and the Palestinian Authority's resistance to Iranian sponsorship. Meanwhile, Hamas in Gaza together with operatives from its headquarters in Turkey continue their efforts to try and orchestrate terrorism in the West Bank. These efforts are wide in scope, and getting wider with time. Hamas is forging growing operational ties among West Bank Palestinians and seeking to construct new networks that can carry out attacks.

     Every night, the IDF and the Shin Bet successfully thwart these efforts, by gathering accurate intelligence and quickly converting it into arrest operations. These efforts by security forces prevent deadly terrorism on a daily basis.

    In Judea and Samaria, Hamas can take more than one form. In addition to cells remotely set up and controlled from Gaza, localized Hamas cells, made up mainly of local operatives continue to pose a threat. Such cells leave a lower intelligence signature, making them harder for Israeli intelligence to detect.

    The IDF's Central Command continues to prepare for the possibility of a security escalation. Although the current situation on the ground is relatively stable, security officials assess that the diplomatic confrontation raging between Ramallah and Jerusalem could rapidly spill over into a wave of violence.

Obama Continues His Diplomatic War on Leader of Israel

March 23….(Fox News) President Obama, in his first extensive post-Israel election comments, leveled tough criticism at Benjamin Netanyahu over comments the Israeli prime minister made in the run up to his election victory, underscoring the deepening tensions between the two men.

    In an interview published Saturday in The Huffington Post, Obama said he told Netanyahu in a phone call Thursday, "it is going to be hard to find a path where people are seriously believing that negotiations are possible," after the Israeli leader rejected the idea of a Palestinian state during the elections. Critics say Netanyahu made a last-ditch attempt to spur his supporters to the polls Tuesday, after he also warned that Arab citizens were voting "in droves" and endangering years of rule by his Likud Party. The comments drew accusations of racism from Israeli Arabs and a White House rebuke. "We indicated that that kind of rhetoric was contrary to what is the best of Israel's traditions. That although Israel was founded based on the historic Jewish homeland and the need to have a Jewish homeland, Israeli democracy has been premised on everybody in the country being treated equally and fairly," Obama told The Huffington Post. "And I think that that is what's best about Israeli democracy. If that is lost, then I think that not only does it give ammunition to folks who don't believe in a Jewish state, but it also I think starts to erode the meaning of democracy in the country."

     After the election, Netanyahu appeared to walk back his comments about a Palestinian state, and indicated he could support a two-state solution if conditions improve. Obama, however, told the website that he will treat the situation as though Netanyahu is not interested in the creation of a Palestinian state. "We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn't happen during his prime ministership, and so that's why we've got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don't see a chaotic situation in the region," Obama said. The president reportedly declined to comment on wether the US would prevent a Palestinian effort for statehood though the United Nations.

     Netanyahu appeared on Fox News' "The Kelly File," and defended his comments. He said, "the conditions are that we would vacate territory instead of getting the two state solution, we could end up with a no state solution. That is a solution that would threaten the very survival in the state of Israel. I said we have to change the terms. Because right now we have to get the Palestinians to go back to the negotiating table, break their pact with Hamas and accept the idea of a Jewish state. And I think that's what the international community should be focused on."

     Republicans and pro-Israel groups have criticized the White House for its tough stance on Netanyahu after his victory and for focusing only on his pre-election remarks denouncing a Palestinian state, as opposed to his post-election comments walking it back. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in a statement earlier this week, voiced concern that the Obama administration is now rebuffing Netanyahu's efforts to mend ties. "In contrast to their comments, we urge the administration to further strengthen ties with America’s most reliable and only truly democratic ally in the Middle East."

EU Urges Sanctions Against Israel

March 23….(Jeruslaem Post) The European Union has produced an explosive report recommending sanctions against Israel over its construction policies and security measures in Jerusalem, the British daily Guardian reported on its website on Friday. The leaked report describes the capital as a city gripped by the worst “polarization and violence” since the second intifada of a decade ago. The document, which is an amalgamation of recommendations prepared by European diplomats stationed in the region, accuses the government of exacerbating tensions in the city by accelerating construction in the eastern part of the capital.

    According to The Guardian, the city has been beset by a “vicious cycle of violence, increasingly threatening the viability of the two-state solution.” The report goes on to say that Israel’s “systematic” construction of housing in “sensitive areas” has compounded the problem.

    The EU report takes Israel to task for what it describes as “heavy-handed policing and punitive measures” against Arabs in the city, “including eviction and home demolitions by Israeli forces.” More significantly, the document prescribes a series of measures aimed at curbing the distribution and sale of products manufactured beyond the Green Line. The report urges restrictions against “known violent settlers and those calling for acts of violence as regards immigration regulations in EU member states.” European government are encouraged to label settler products, while warning EU businesses of the perils of engaging in trade with Israeli firms located in the territories. News of the report emerged just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election victiory.

    The prime minister’s reelection has brought with it a flurry of speculation regarding the international community’s anticipated response to his government’s refusal to halt construction in disputed areas as well as its stance on negotiations with the Palestinians. Jerusalem is “one of the most emotive and problematic issues,” the report says, adding, “The tensions, mistrust, and violence which have accompanied developments in the city in the course of the year have reached extremely high levels.” “These developments are increasingly threatening the viability of the two-state solution and, in turn, risk precipitating further levels of polarization and violence.” The capital recently witnessed a spate of terrorist incidents in which Arabs rammed vehicles into Jewish passersby. There was also tension surrounding access of Jews to the Temple Mount, which the EU blames on extremist agitation on both sides.

Nuclear Talks Collapse as Iranian Delegation Walks Out

March 23….(DEBKA) Debkafile’s  exclusive Iranian sources report that the delegation to the nuclear talks taking place in Lausanne received orders from Tehran Friday, March 20, to break off negotiations and return home for consultations. Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif and Iran’s national security chief Ali Akhbar Salehi used the funeral of President Hassan Rouhani's 90-year-old mother as a pretext for packing their bags and leaving the deadlocked talks behind them in Lausanne. This followed the sixth round of talks in the Swiss city with US Secretary of State John Kerry that failed to break the impasse on a nuclear accord.

     The Iranians said they would return to resume the talks next week but set no date, although other sources mentioned Wednesday, March 25. Another sign of a crisis was the cancellation of briefing Friday in Brussels of British, German, French and European Union leaders on progress in the negotiations that was supposed to reflect progress toward a deal by the March 31 deadline. An hour before France, Britain and Germany were to join the talks in Lausanne, the Iranians announced they were about to leave. It was announced subsequently that Kerry would hold the cancelled Brussels briefing in France Saturday for officials rather than top leaders.

    Speaking to Western news agencies Friday, Western and Iranian officials admitted that all the sides were very far apart. “We are not close to anything resembling a draft agreement,” said a European negotiator. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the length of an agreement, the pace of sanctions relief and international monitoring remain points of contention. No draft would be circulated until closer to the June 30 deadline for technical annexes, said the Russian official. In other words, the March 31 deadline for a framework accord appeared to have gone by the board.

Meanwhile;

Khamenei Chants ‘Death to America’ as Kerry Begs Progress on Nuke Deal

March 23….(Times of Israel) Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord. Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure. “They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy,” he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure. They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy,” he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. “What is their goal? Their goal is to put the people against the system,” he said. “The politics of America is to create insecurity,” he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran and elsewhere in the region.

    Khamenei’s comments contrasted with those of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said “achieving a deal is possible” by the March 31 target date for a preliminary accord.

    John Kerry was more circumspect, as he spoke to reporters after six days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne. The talks, made “substantial progress,” he said, but “important gaps remain.

FOJ Note: Well Mr. Kerry I should think clamoring for “Death to America” should be considered a little more than an important gap. Maybe I am just a little stupid Mr. Kerry, but I don’t think America should be enabling Iran to have nuclear capabilities of any kind when they routinely call for our annihilation.

Angry at Netanyahu, Obama Administration May Start Sabotaging Israel at UN

March 23….(The Daily Signal) Obama administration officials indicated that the president was considering a fundamental shift in US policy. Instead of using its veto to block United Nations Security Council pressure on Israel in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, the administration is now reportedly considering endorsing this effort. It is hard to overstate the seriousness of such a policy change. For decades, the US has used its veto in the UN Security Council to shield Israel from undue pressure from the world body, which has historically exhibited bias against Israel.

     As affirmed by UN Ambassador Samantha Power a few weeks ago, “It is bitterly unjust that the United Nations—an institution founded upon the idea that all nations should be treated equally, is so often used cynically by Member-States to treat Israel unequally. These attacks on Israel’s legitimacy are biased. They are ugly. And the United States of America will not rest until they stop.”

    Indeed, according to UN records, the US has used its veto in the Security Council 79 times. Forty-two of those vetoes were cast to block resolutions deemed to be biased against Israel or harmful to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In fact, America’s most recent veto was cast by the Obama administration in 2011 to block a resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

    In sum, over half of the times that the US has used its veto, it has been in the defense of Israel. Now, in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory this week in the Israeli elections and his comments that cast doubt on his commitment to a two-state solution, the Obama administration is poised to reverse this longstanding policy position.

    The Obama administration appears so vexed at Netanyahu, whom it undoubtedly hoped would lose Tuesday’s election, that it is willing to consider the very imbalanced and biased approach that it condemned only three months ago. Netanyahu later clarified that he wanted a two-state solution but believed that it was “not achievable” today because terrorists could occupy any territory Israel withdraws from, and the Palestinians were unwilling to compromise on key issues, such as accepting Israel as a Jewish state.  Despite this realistic assessment, the Obama administration appeared eager to pressure Israel in the Security Council.

     For decades, the United States has advocated and facilitated efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian issue through a negotiated peace agreement as called for in Security Council Resolution 242 and the United Nations–sponsored Road Map for Peace. These and other documents outline the parameters of a peaceful resolution of the situation. Multiple Israeli governments have offered concessions in pursuit of peace only to see them rejected by the Palestinians and a return to violence. In effect, Palestinian intransigence has resulted in increasing pressure on Israel. Sadly, the recent statements by Obama administration officials that implicitly place blame for the failure of negotiations solely at the feet of Israel mirror the very bias so often demonstrated at the UN.

    Instead of threatening that the US would “reassess” aspects of its relationship with Israel, Obama should place blame where it belongs and demand that the Palestinian Authority halt its incitement campaign against Israel, fully meet its commitment to fight terrorism, abandon its diplomatic effort to gain unilateral statehood through the UN and return to negotiating directly with Israel.

Focus on Jerusalem Prophecy Ministry Note
For all Focus on Jerusalem’s Newsroom visitors, the Newsroom will be idle next week. 
Please check back in another week!

WEEK OF MARCH 8 THROUGH MARCH 14

ISIS Orders Assyrian Christian Hostages to Convert to Islam, but All Boldly Refuse to Deny Jesus Christ

March 12….(Christian Post) Two of the 200-plus Assyrian hostages kidnapped by the Islamic State during an assault on Christian villages along Syria's Khabur River in February have provided insight into their abduction in recent interviews where one revealed that the ISIS militants tried to force the Christian hostages to convert to Islam, but the captives boldly refused.

    On Feb. 23, the terrorist group raided approximately 35 different Christian villages in the Hasakah province and abducted somewhere between 263 to 373 men, women and children, according to the Assyrian International News Agency. But about a week after the raids, ISIS released a handful of hostages on March 1.  A released hostage going by the name of "Robert" told AINA that he was abducted from his village of Tel Goran, which is on the south bank of the Khabur River, along with 16 other men and four women. He explained that the terrorists corralled everybody who was left in the village and placed them all into a small room, where they waited until the fighting subsided between the ISIS fighters and the Kurdish forces, who were stationed on the north side of the river.

    Robert further explained that the fighting subsided about three hours after being placed in the room, and said the militants got upset when the local church's bell rang in the quiet of the night. Then, the Assyrian captives were transported to the Abdul Aziz Mountain, where they were placed into two rooms and spent the night. Two of the 200-plus Assyrian hostages kidnapped by the Islamic State during an assault on Christian villages along Syria's Khabur River in February have provided insight into their abduction in recent interviews where one revealed that the ISIS militants tried to force the Christian hostages to convert to Islam, but the captives boldly refused.

    Iraqi Christians say they have no intention of leaving the country despite the recent abduction of over 100 Assyrian Christians by the Islamic State. While staying at the mountain, Robert recalls that the first thing the militants did was demand that the hostages convert to Islam. "They asked us to convert to Islam. "Many bearded people spoke to us, and everyone asked us to convert to Islam." Although they were in a new location, the militants' goal was still to get the hostages to convert to Islam. "They kept pressuring us to convert to Islam. It was their constant focus. "We said we would not convert. They said you must then pay the jizya [a Christian poll tax] or leave the country. That was the option given to us. We said we would pay the jizya but we would not convert."

    Although the hostages were told they would have to pay, Robert said the militants uncharacteristically released them without forcing them to pay the tax. "They said this time they would not collect the jizya because we had not fought against them. They said that they would release use on one condition, that we not return to our village," Robert added. "They said if we returned and they captured us again they would kill us without any other option; they would behead the men and enslave the women."

    Another released hostage from Tel Goran, going by the name "Peter," told The Times he and the other hostages were tried in Shariah court, but it was ruled that they were non-combatants. The Times reports that a Sunni tribal leader helped negotiate their release.

    Graeme Wood, a writer with The Atlantic who covers the Islamic State, told CNN that ISIS' willingness to release the hostages by order of Shariah courts is an attempt to build more religious credibility. As ISIS has seized many of the region's villages, Robert said he and many other Assyrians in the region are planning to flee to Lebanon. Even though Robert, Peter and the rest of the hostages they were with from Tel Goran were released, over 200 Assyrians remain in ISIS captivity after more than two weeks. Other reports have indicated that ISIS may have executed 15 other Christian hostages.

Black Pastors Coalition Leader: Obama’s Comparison of Civil Rights and Gay Marriage Struggles a ‘Disgrace to the Black Community’

March 12….(Breitbart) The president of a black pastors coalition has expressed his anger that President Barack Obama compared the civil rights movement to that for same-sex marriage at the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march, when black American citizens were beaten while demanding voting rights they were being denied. “Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago,” Obama said in Selma, Alabama, on Saturday, as he characterized the movement for same-sex marriage as another civil rights struggle. “I marched with many people back in those days and I have reached out to some of my friends who marched with me, and all of them are shocked,” Rev. William Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) told Breitbart News. “They never thought they would see the day that gay rights would be equated with civil rights. Not one agreed with this comparison.”

    In February of 2014, CAAP issued a press release in which it announced a campaign to call for the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder on the basis that he has violated his oath of office by “attempting to impose same-sex ‘marriage’ throughout the nation.” “President Obama is a disgrace to the black community,” Owens said. “He is rewriting history. We didn’t suffer and die for gay marriage. We marched for opportunity, equality, justice, and freedom from oppression. We are the true heirs of the civil rights movement.

     CAAP has launched a new initiative called RISE, a grassroots network that unites “people of every race, creed, culture, and background,” to focus on defending faith, family, and justice. “The LGBT community hijacked our movement, a movement they know nothing about,” Owens asserted. “President Obama is delusional to compare our struggle with the struggle for marriage equality. “President Obama has benefited from those of us who did march, but for Obama to say we marched so that gays would have the right to marry today, is a disgrace and a lie.”

Netanyahu: There is a Worldwide Effort to Topple Likud

(FOJ Note: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of what he called a foreign-funded election plot to mobilize Israeli Arab voters in a bid to replace him at next week’s polls. Even President Obama has directed a State Department-financed nonprofit based in Israel to be engaged in a major effort to get young Arab citizens to the voting booths in the upcoming Israeli elections to oust Netanyahu).

March 11….(Jerusalem Post) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested Monday to a meeting of Likud activists in Kiryat Gat that there is an international effort to remove him from power. In a recording of the meeting obtained by Army Radio and aired on Tuesday, Netanyahu is heard saying of the current election campaign, "This a very close battle. Nothing is ensured because there is a great, worldwide effort to topple Likud rule."

    Netanyahu and the Likud have suggested throughout the run-up to the March 17 election that groups such as V15, an organization advertising to remove Netanyahu from power, are being funded by millions of shekels pouring in from abroad.

    Last month, the Likud asked State Attorney Shai Nitzan to probe whether V15 was breaking laws prohibiting raising too much money for parties and raising money for parties from people who are not Israeli citizens. But Nitzan did not find a connection between V15, which has raised huge sums abroad for its effort to unseat Netanyahu, and any particular party.

    The Likud held a much-publicized press conference in early February, in which four MKs, including two deputy ministers, compared V15’s fund-raising to the 1999 non-profit organizations scandal that involved current Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog.

    V15 released a statement mocking the Likud press conference after Nitzan's decision not to prosecute. “The state comptroller, attorney- general, Central Elections Committee and district court took the air out of the Likud’s spin and made a mockery out of the brown-nosing sycophants from the delusional press conference,” V15 said in a statement. The latest Jerusalem Post poll, released Friday, found that if the March 17 election were held now, the Zionist Union would beat the Likud, 24 Knesset seats to 22.