As Gaza front cools, Iran and Syria move on their next flashpoint – Quneitra

 

Hours after the Palestinians paused on Wednesday, May 30, in their broadest rocket/mortar assault on Israel in four years, their Iranian backers were already moving on the Golan. Under cover of the deafening Gaza clash, Iran, Syria and Hizballah began marching military units on the road to Quneitra opposite Israel’s Golan border.

Report: 83 Percent of Palestinians Killed in Gaza Border Riots Were Terrorists

Palestinian boy holding national flag looks at clashes with Israeli forces near Gaza-Israel border / Getty Images

 

About 83 percent of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the recent violent demonstrations at the Israel-Gaza Strip border were terrorist operatives or affiliated with terrorist organizations, according to a new report.

The Israel-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) found that at least 112 Palestinians were killed during the Hamas-led riots from March 30 through May 15, and that at least 93 of them were identified as terrorists or associated with a terrorist group.

Turkey urges Islamic world to unite against Israel, calls summit

A protester holds a placard reading “Al-Quds (Jerusalem) belongs to the Muslims” as he shouts slogans among people holding Palestinian flags while they all take part in a protest march at the Istikilal avenue in Istanbul on May 14, 2018 (Photo by AFP)

 

Turkey has urged Islamic countries to review their ties with Israel after dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire on the Gaza border.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told his ruling party in parliament that Ankara would call an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

“Islamic countries should without fail review their relations with Israel,” Premier Yildirim said, adding, “The Islamic world should move as one, with one voice, against this massacre.”

Yildirim said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the body, called the OIC summit on Friday.

Hamas Leader Warns War With Israel Will Erupt “Within Days”

Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar

 

Next week a significant war drill will be conducted across Israel by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) together with the American military, as part of the biennial Juniper Cobra military exercise, which this year will imitate a simultaneous missile attack on Israel from both its northern and southern fronts.

Meanwhile, as Israel prepares for armed conflict, Al Hayat, an Arabic-language London-based newspaper, writes that Hamas’ chief Yahya Sinwar has ordered the Gaza-based Islamist militant group on high alert, indicating that war is a “95 percent probability” and it could erupt in hours or within days.

Israel on high alert, deploys Iron Dome batteries against missile attack

 

Israel remained on high alert Tuesday, Nov. 14, after deploying Iron Dome batteries in the center of the country as well as the south, against threatened Jihad Islami and Hamas missile attacks on towns in southern and central Israel.

Turkey: Erdogan’s Obsession to Take Jerusalem

Jerusalem, with the Temple Mount in foreground. (Photo by Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images))

 

• Simply put, Jerusalem’s Judaic history dates back to thousands of years before the birth of Islam, only in the seventh century CE.
• As an American friend delicately asked: “Isn’t Turkey supposed to be investing millions to help rebuild Gaza?”
• Not, it seems, when Islamist ideology is involved.

Less than a year ago, Turkey and Israel agreed to end their six-year-long diplomatic stand-off and officially “normalized” their relations. They appointed ambassadors Kemal Okem to Israel and Eitan Na’eh to Turkey, two prominent career diplomats, who, since then, have been struggling actually to normalize formally normalized ties. As some observers, including your humble correspondent, cautioned in 2016:

“Erdogan had pragmatically agreed to shake hands with Israel, but his ideological hostility to the Jewish state and his ideological love affair with Hamas have not disappeared; so the Turkish-Israeli ‘peace’ would not be easy to sustain”.

U.S. Sent $221 Million to Palestinians in Obama’s Last Hours

FILE – In this Jan. 15, 2017 file-pool photo, Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with the media in Paris. Defying Republican opposition, officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking. The official said John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool, File)

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking.

A State Department official and several congressional aides said the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning. The official said former Secretary of State John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time Thursday. The aides said written notification dated Jan. 20 was sent to Congress just hours before Donald Trump took the oath of office.

Israeli Defense Minister: Next Gaza war will be the last

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman: “The next war in Gaza will be the last.” He said this in an interview with the Palestinian East Jerusalem paper Al Quds to be published Monday. He also reiterated his view that the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute should be based on two states with major land and population swaps between them and the settlement blocs remaining in place under Israeli control. 

Paramilitary: China Replaces Soldiers With Droids

A Chinese firm has designed and are offering for sale a new security robot. Called Anbot, it joins dozens of earlier, similar designs and apparently tries to learn from and improve earlier efforts. Anbot weighs 78 kg (172 pounds) is cylindrical and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) high. It can operate eight hours on its internal batteries and automatically use a recharging station if it is available. Anbot can be programmed easily to patrol a specific area and has software which enables it to automatically respond to a wide range of situations. This includes being cut off from a human operator (that is normally used to decide what to do if the video and sound sensors on Anbot detect something requiring the attention of human operator). Anbot can be equipped with a weapon or, rather, non-lethal devices (like a Taser) to deal with unruly people or animals. Anbot is also equipped with two-way video and audio communication via a remote operator and someone near Anbot. Using three wheels to get around, Anbot can move up to 18 kilometers an hour (five meters a second, faster than most people can run) but is not very useful unless it is on a flat surface (preferably an indoor floor). What makes Anbot unique is that it is designed to deal with people, mainly to observe and communicate with. Devices like Anbot free a lot of soldiers from security duties and have growing more capable and popular since the 1990s.

Egypt and Libya to Join Iran’s Terror Network

From 2011 with relevancy for today:

 

The West still doesn’t understand how Iran rules the Middle East.

Iran, the number one state sponsor of terrorism by far, has bludgeoned its way into controlling Lebanon and Gaza, and has become the backbone of Syrian terrorism. Iran also bombed and butchered its way into the dominant role in Iraq and Afghanistan (after America thought it had won those wars), and now is empowering the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists to get control of Egypt.

Now America and the West have paved the way for another Iranian victory in Libya. We are rejoicing about the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi, while we should be mourning. Libyan chaos is now the ideal setting for Iran to bring that nation into its deadly terrorist web. The government that replaces Qadhafi will be a thousand times worse.

And you can prove this is going to happen! (More on that later.)

Israeli Drone Feeds Hacked by American and British Intelligence

In case you were wondering what side the United States (and Great Britain) now takes in regards to Israel and Iran, wonder no more:

 

See hacked images from Israel’s drone fleet

 

AMERICAN AND BRITISH INTELLIGENCE secretly tapped into live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter jets, monitoring military operations in Gaza, watching for a potential strike against Iran, and keeping tabs on the drone technology Israel exports around the world.

Under a classified program code-named “Anarchist,” the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, working with the National Security Agency, systematically targeted Israeli drones from a mountaintop on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. GCHQ files provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden include a series of “Anarchist snapshots” — thumbnail images from videos recorded by drone cameras. The files also show location data mapping the flight paths of the aircraft. In essence, U.S. and British agencies stole a bird’s-eye view from the drones.

Iran trying to set up its own terror group in Gaza

Al-Sabirin logo

 

 

Al-Sabirin (the name comes from the Arabic word for “patience”) has begun recruiting an intended initial force of 400 fighters, the TV report said, and is directly funded by the regime in Tehran.

Because it follows Shi’ite Islam — as does Iran and the Iranian proxy militia Hezbollah in Lebanon — it is having a difficult time gaining recruits among Gaza’s Sunni Muslims. Nonetheless, the report said, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is allocating funds to the nascent group, transferred through a charitable organization named after the founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Turkey’s Islamist Factory Settings

• Normalization of relations with Israel could bolster efforts to balance Iran’s growing regional clout.
• “In the Middle East, everyone at some point realizes that there is a bigger enemy than the big enemy.” – Israeli official.
• But in the Middle East, reason does not always overcome holiness.

Israel-bashing and the systematic fueling of anti-Semitic behavior have become a Turkish political pastime since Turkey downgraded its diplomatic ties with Israel in 2010. There has been, though, relative tranquility and reports of a potential thaw since June 7, when Turkey’s Islamist government lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it rose to power in 2002.

Turkey: The Hamas Safe Haven

The long, bitter chill in relations between Turkey and Israel may be coming to an end. At the end of August, it was confirmed that the two former allies held secret talks in Rome two months earlier in an effort to bridge the gap between them.

Israeli Foreign Ministry director general Dore Gold, who led the Israeli delegation at the secret meeting, told the Jerusalem Post that he was “hopeful that in the not too distant future Israel and Turkey will find a way to reestablish their relationship.”

Iran Deal Will Trigger Major War in Middle East

• The Islamic Republic of Iran, since its founding in 1979, has had an ideology that seeks to “export the Islamic revolution” — if necessary, by force.
• Despite what President Obama likes to say, it is not true that the agreement “permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” or “cuts off all of Iran’s pathways to a bomb.” This agreement means the U.S. has accepted that after 15 years, or sooner, Iran may build as many bombs as it likes.
• Iran is not a country busy trying to preserve its own sovereignty. Iran, instead, undermines other countries’ sovereignty.
• Iran’s regime is extremely pragmatic: it sees that its survival is not, threatened no matter what it does. It sees — as does everyone else – that transgressions are, in fact, rewarded.
• Why does the U.S. wish to allow a regime that wants to destroy America’s closest Middle East ally to acquire more advanced conventional — and later, nuclear — weapons? Why would anyone allow a country that gives missiles to terrorists to get hold of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)?
• If this agreement were about peace, why does Iran need more weapons? If Iran wants peace, why don’t they scrap their missile program and stop supporting terrorist organizations? If Iran wants peace, why does it want missiles that can reach other continents?
• Hitler duped Chamberlain and presented himself as a man of peace. No one has duped President Obama. The mullahs openly say “Death to America.” Does Obama not know at whom the Iranians will point their nuclear-tipped ICBMs?
• In the worst-case scenario, walking away from the deal still leaves the world in a position of deterrence that offers it better choices — before Iran becomes nuclear, not after.

If someone had asked you a year ago what would be the most efficient way to cause a major war in the Middle East, you might well have said: Giving the mullahs in Iran the opportunity to get advanced conventional weapons, ICBMs, nuclear weapons and tens of billion of dollars to fund terrorist organizations and destabilize other countries in the region. You might have argued that a regime that does not hesitate to attack targets in Washington or Berlin might not be the most prudent one to shower with gigantic quantities of money and the deadliest weapons.