RUSSIA MOVES IN SUPPORT OF SYRIA, IRAN, HAMAS-LED PA
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Russia’s announcement Tuesday that it would work to promote international support for the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, its intention to supply missiles to Syria and its opposition to sanctions against Iran present a worrying trend for Israel.

Russian officials said that the agreement reached between the leaders of Hamas and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to incorporate the latter’s Fatah terrorist organization in the PA governing coalition is sufficient cause to end the international boycott of the PA. The Western nations imposed the financial boycott of the PA in January of last year, when the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas organization swept the majority of the seats in the PA parliament in a landslide election victory.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the agreement reached in Mecca earlier this month between Fatah and Hamas shows “wisdom, reason and responsibility before the Palestinian people.” He made the statement prior to meeting with Damascus-based Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal. The agreement has not yet been implemented.

According to information received by Israel, Russia is set to transfer thousands of advanced anti-tank missiles to Syria.

“We are pushing for all members of the international community to support this process and make it irreversible, including efforts to lift the blockade,” Lavrov added.

Speaking to Russian reporters on Tuesday, Mashaal reiterated the Hamas position that it does not recognize the State of Israel, saying, “First of all, Israel should stop the occupation of Palestine territories and put an end to the suffering of Palestinians.” The Hamas charter, as well as all of its official statements and documents, defines all of Israel, in both its pre- and post-1967 borders, as “occupied Palestine.”

The Russian move towards funding the Hamas regime found an echo in a report issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which suggested that that the Western-led economic boycott of the PA must be lifted in order to fight poverty in the Gaza area.

BACKING SYRIA AND IRAN
The Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority is not the only entity hostile to Jews and Israel behind which Russia has been throwing its support.

According to information received by Israel, Russia is set to conclude a deal, worth several hundred million dollars, to transfer thousands of advanced anti-tank missiles to Syria. Such missiles were used by Hizbullah during Israel’s war in Lebanon this past summer and caused a large proportion of Israeli troop casualties during the 34 days of military confrontation.

Russian nuclear fuel deliveries to Iran’s Bushehr plant are set to begin in March 2007.

Syria’s ally, Iran, is also a beneficiary of Russian support. The ongoing assistance Russia provides for construction and operation of the Bushehr nuclear plant in southern Iran is soon to take a dangerous turn, with the start of nuclear fuel deliveries in March 2007.

Russia has continued to oppose increasing UN Security Council sanctions against Iran. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has continued to insist that the Security Council confine its attempts to limit, not end, Iran’s nuclear development activities.

In protest over Russia’s assistance to Iran, the Magshimey Herut (Freedom Makers) organization will be holding a protest on Thursday afternoon in Jerusalem’s Paris Square. The group is demanding that the Israeli government cut off diplomatic and economic ties with Russia.

“Israel must take a moral stand and send a clear message to the global community that we will not pursue diplomacy or commerce with nations working towards our annihilation,” a statement from the group said.

“The Jewish People must find the moral courage to stand up to super-powers in such situations!”

“SYRIA, HIZBULLAH WILL ATTACK IF IRAN IS HIT!”
by Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) Israeli security officials said if any war breaks out involving Iran, they expect Syria, Hizbullah and terrorist groups in Judea, Samaria and Gaza to join the fray and attack Israel. This assumption is echoed by terrorist leaders from several groups.

The security officials told WorldNetDaily.com that the greatest threat Syria poses to the Jewish state are the country’s missiles. They noted that Syria recently test-fired two Scud-D surface-to-surface missiles, which have a range of about 400 km., covering most Israeli territory. The officials said the Syrian missile test was coordinated with Iran and is believed to have been successful. It is not known with what type of warhead the missiles were armed, but Syria is known to possess weapons of mass destruction.

In addition to longer-range Scuds, Syria is in possession of shorter-range missiles such as 220mm and 305mm rockets, some of which have been passed on to Hizbullah.

Terrorist leaders are saying openly that an attack on Iran will lead to a coordinated counterattack on Israel and US interests. A senior leader of the Islamic Jihad group says that during any attack on Iran, his organization has been directed by Iran to “wreak havoc” on Israel with suicide bombings, rocket attacks and “special surprises.” He said rocket attacks would be launched from both the Gaza Strip and from Judea and Samaria.

The Islamic Jihad leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the topic was “very sensitive,” told WND that Iran has been providing terrorist groups and hostile nations surrounding Israel with contingency plans for attacks against the Jewish state and American regional interests in the event of war.

Tehran is expecting its nuclear installations to be attacked, he said. He threatened that his terror group will target American interests in the Middle East whether any purported strike against Tehran is carried out by Israel or the U.S. “The Zionists and the Americans are coordinated 100 percent. It doesn’t matter who attacks Iran, we are planning to hit them both,” the terrorist said.

He said Islamic Jihad’s leader Ramadan Shallah has been coordinating war plans with Iran, Syria and the Iranian-backed Hizbullah Lebanese militia. Shallah resides in Damascus and travels frequently to Tehran.

Abu Ahmed, who heads the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Samaria, told WND that all major local terrorist organizations are preparing to work together in the event Iran is attacked. “Our strategy is not to leave the Islamic alliance [Iran] alone against the enemy,” he said. “All Palestinian organizations will work together in shooting rockets, suicide bomb attacks and other steps and actions decided closely.”

Abu Ahmed said that in his terror group’s estimation Iran will indeed be attacked. “It’s not a question of if, but when. The campaign now in the American media is just like the campaign before the invasion of Iraq,” he charged.

A senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror group, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND his group has also been preparing for what he called “the upcoming war.”

The Committees is a coalition of terror organizations operating in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip which is responsible for hundreds of anti-Israel rocket and shooting attacks. “We are preparing the tomb that Allah is digging for the Zionists and Americans,” said the Committees leader.

“The war will be a war on more than one front. It will be everybody against everybody. Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and the Palestinian organizations will work together. War with Iran is coming and it means the Middle East will not remain the same after it,” the Committees leader said.

Syria and Iran signed a military agreement in which either will respond if the other is attacked.

Major world powers agreed Monday to begin work on a new UN Security Council resolution on Iran’s nuclear program but were still committed to seeking a negotiated solution, British officials said.

The five permanent United Nations Security Council members — the United States, France, Russia, China and Britain — as well as Germany, met as Tehran’s nuclear project appeared to be going ahead at full throttle.

“We had a productive first discussion of the next steps,” said John Sawers, political director of the British Foreign Office, Monday. “We began work on a new Security Council Resolution. We also considered how best to re- engage with Iran,” he added. “We are all committed to seeking a negotiated solution.”

No other details were immediately available from the London meeting, but the major powers had been considered quite likely to discuss imposing a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.

In Washington, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said, “I would expect the nature of the resolution to be incremental. This is designed to proportionally increase pressure on Tehran.”

McCormack said limited economic sanctions against Iran implemented in December had produced surprising results, noting, “It started a very public discussion in Iran about the wisdom of their current course of defying the international system.”

According to the Associated Press, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced a new round of sharp criticism at home Monday after he said Iran’s nuclear program is “an unstoppable train without brakes.” Reformers and conservatives said such tough talk only inflames the West as it considers further sanctions, and the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei voiced rare criticism of the domestic performance of Ahmadinejad’s government last week.

February 8, 2007 by Ricki Hollander (reported at www.camera.org)

A Feb. 5, 2007 Time Magazine article by Jerusalem bureau chief Tim McGirk on Israeli settlements in the West Bank was not so much a news report as anti-settlement agitprop. The premise of the article is that “300,000 Israelis” living “on Arab territory” will need to vacate their homes in order to accommodate the wishes of the area’s allegedly rightful Palestinian owners.

But this premise is false. The territory in question is disputed. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 requires negotiations between Israel and her Arab neighbors to determine the location of an internationally recognized border. And since final status talks have not yet taken place, the territory is still undesignated.

By referring to this territory as “Arab” or “Palestinian,” McGirk abdicates his role as an objective journalist, and presents partisan advocacy as fact.

Instead of providing readers with a balanced presentation of arguments from both sides of the debate about settlements, McGirk cites Israeli anti-settlement activists. Thus, he refers to the contention by Peace Now that 40% of Israeli settlements on the West Bank are “built illegally on private Palestinian land.”

But Peace Now’s contention is founded on Palestinian claims, many of which have been investigated and rejected by legal courts. For example, the organization alleged that 86.4% of Ma’ale Adumim (huge city just east of Jerusalem) was built on private land. But this was based primarily on the rejected claims of Bedouin squatters. According to a 1994 Los Angeles Times article, even the Bedouin tribe leader acknowledged his tribe did not have a legal right to the land it was occupying. Furthermore, the majority of the land that Peace Now labels “private Palestinian land” was uninhabited and uncultivated waste land in the public domain owned by the state, or state land on which a certain party or parties had only limited rights.

The one-sided article includes no information about the Jewish claim to the territories in question – no mention of the Jewish communities that existed there from ancient times until Arab violence drove out their inhabitants. For example, Jews lived in Hebron from biblical times until 1929 when the city’s Jews were massacred by their Arab neighbors. And the Gush Etzion area, purchased by Jews long before the State of Israel was established, was home to several Jewish communities until 1948 when an Arab massacre ended Jewish habitation there for nearly 20 years. After Jordan illegally annexed the territory, Jews were forbidden to live there. Jewish communities were re-established in the area after 1967 when Israel regained control of the territory in a self-defensive war. Instead of providing this context, McGirk wrongly refers to post-67 settlers as having “crossed into Jordanian territory after the 1967 war.”

The reporter uses false anti-settler propaganda to bolster his points. For example, he refers to “settler-only highways, guarded by army checkpoints and concrete walls” which have “turned Palestinian communities into islands.”

There are no “settler-only” highways. Rather, Israel constructed roads which are meant to bypass areas where consistent Palestinian stone throwing and shooting claimed lives of Israeli civilians. These roads are open not only to “settlers” but to all residents of pre-67 Israel– both Arabs and Jews — and to others believed not to pose a threat.

The writer also states that, “For the most part, the Palestinians in the West Bank live like ghosts on the periphery of the Jewish settlements.”

This, as well, is untrue. The vast majority of Palestinians (98%) live under self-rule, that is, in Area A which is fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority, or Area B which provides civil control by the Palestinian Authority.

In yet another overt display of partisan reporting, McGirk writes of “land purchased [by Israeli Jews] controversially inside the Palestinian territories,” indignantly adding: “And no one is stopping them.” Does McGirk advocate importing the racist laws from Jordan and those Arab countries in which it is illegal for Jews to purchase land? Is he advocating that Jews should be stopped from legally purchasing land there? Does he propose the creation of a Jew-free zone similar to that created by Jordan in 1948?

It is disturbing that Time magazine’s Jerusalem bureau chief has substituted error-filled advocacy journalism for objective, balanced reporting.

(Editor’s note: The whole discussion about “settlements” continues to ignore what the Bible teaches – that land belongs to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and the Bible calls it an “everlasting covenant” (Psalm 105:8-11) and an “everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:7-8) of the Jewish people!)

Rice on Summit: Full Steam Ahead – More or Less
(by Hana Levi Julian and Hillel Fendel)

(IsraelNN.com) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will arrive in Israel on Saturday to hold preliminary discussions with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas prior to Monday’s three-way summit in Jerusalem.

Rice has already announced that she hopes the establishment of a Palestinian Authority State will be on the agenda. She has told both Olmert and Abbas that they should begin discussing this issue.

The dangers of a Palestinian State west of the Jordan have been outlined and detailed by countless experts. Such a state would be “the world’s worst nightmare,” writes Middle East analyst Emanuel A. Winston, and “the last link in a string of terrorist states that will stretch from Algeria through Sudan, soon Egypt and then [others]… They will not only incubate new terror groups but will also increase their linkage and operational efficiency for major strikes against America – as well as Israel.”

Rafael Israeli has edited a book entitled, “Dangers of a Palestinian State,” which features articles by Israel’s leading political analysts outlining the strategic threat of such an entity.

From the demographic angle, Michael Wise, co-author of The 1.5-Million-Arab Population Gap, writes that, “PA control of any part of the West Bank could result in the arrival of 2-2.5 million Palestinian ‘refugees’ over the course of 3-5 years.” The first to arrive, Wise feels, would be the more than 400,000 who have been living in abject poverty in Lebanon, to be followed soon after by up to millions more in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and elsewhere. “The opportunity to be resettled in Palestine with enormous global financial and political support will be very attractive and immediately accepted by those refugees.”

Though a breakthrough in PA unity government talks between Hamas and Fatah was announced in Mecca last week, the new government has still not been formed, as major issues have still not been resolved. Contrary to earlier threats, however, Hamas leader Abu Haniye did resign yesterday, partially paving the way for the new government to be installed.

Rice was careful to reiterate the American “wait-and-see” theme throughout a news conference, dodging questions about whether the U.S. would indeed recognize the new PA unity government. “We’re not going to jump the gun here,” she said repeatedly. “We’re not going to make a judgment here until we have something that’s firm.”

But Rice did not deny a report that Middle East envoy David Welch called Abbas this week to warn him that the U.S. will not recognize the new PA unity government because its leading faction, Hamas, has not recognized the State of Israel.

“You know that I’m not going to talk about what we’ve done diplomatically,” she said.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was equally cautious about commenting on the report. “Back up!” he told journalists Thursday when asked about Bush administration plans to boycott the new Hamas-Fatah PA government.

McCormack, like Rice, said no decisions had yet been made on an American response either way. “You don’t have a government of national unity,” he told reporters. “You don’t know who’s in that government. You don’t know the platform of that government… On the basis of that lack of facts, I can’t offer you an answer.”

The Quartet – comprised of the U.S., Russia, the United Nations and the European Union – has until now continued to demand that Hamas recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and uphold agreements with Israel signed by previous PA governments.

Whether they will stand by those demands in light of the new Fatah alliance with Hamas, however, remains a question. Rice ducked the issue. “I can’t begin to predict what the international reaction is going to look like right now,” she said.

Despite her efforts to put a positive spin on the upcoming summit, it is clear that Rice has begun to realize that “never” often simply means “wait a bit” in the PA. For example, Abbas long claimed that he would “never” join a Hamas government that does not meet the Quartet demands – but this quickly dissolved when he signed on to the pact in Mecca last week.

“We are going to await the formation of that government before we make any decisions about it,” she told reporters before setting out for Jerusalem. “Eventually you’re going to have to get to a Palestinian government that accepts that it is to live side by side in peace with an Israeli neighbor.”

A very shocking report was given this week in the Daily Telegraph newspaper in London, England. A Saudi-funded Islamic school in London has been accused of poisoning the minds of children as young as five years old with a curriculum of hate. The textbooks used at this King Fahad Academy in Acton, west London, describe Jews as “repugnant” and Christians as “pigs.”

A Muslim convert and father of three children heard his children saying that they wanted to “kill Americans” and that they praised the tragedy of 9/11 and idolized Osama bin Laden in the process as a “hero.” The textbooks currently being used in this school (founded for the children of diplomats in London) refer to Jews as “monkeys” and “apes” and Christians as “pigs.” Students were asked to “mention some repugnant characteristics of Jews” and in the first year students were asked to “give examples of worthless religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, idol worship and others.”

When questioned about these matters as violation of British laws, the school replied: “This is not England. It is Saudi Arabia!”

It continues to be obvious to observers that there is an agenda in Islam to spread hatred and train its children to hate Jews and Christians and be willing to kill them.

May the love of our Lord Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, capture the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims around the world who are “trapped” by a system that allows little freedom for disagreement or dissent. May millions of Muslims turn to the only One Who can save them from sin, death, and Hell – the One Who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead to guarantee our salvation forever!