Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu joined Defense Minister Ehud Barak on a tour of the Kerem Shalom area Monday where a terrorist infiltration was thwarted Sunday night.
Netanyahu, near the burned out stolen Egyptian armed jeep, praised the soldiers and officers at the scene for their preparedness for the attack.
Netanyahu said the failed attack proved once again that when it comes to the security of Israeli citizens, Israel "can and must rely only on itself. There is no one except the IDF and security forces of Israel that can do this, and we will continue to do so."
After a week in which security officials past and present explained why they strongly oppose an Israeli attack on Iran, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has clarified why he is seriously considering taking action against the Iranian nuclear facilities.
Netanyahu made the remarks in a closed meeting and was quoted on Sunday in a report on Channel 2 News.
“Khamenei is not a rational leader, just like the leaders of North Korea who are totally unpredictable,” Netanyahu was quoted in the report as having said. He added that when Iranians speak of the destruction of Israel they may really mean it.He also addressed the possibility of American involvement in the attack and said, “I am not messianistic. I too wish that the United States will do the job.” He stressed, however, that under the conditions that the United States is placing and given the pace at which Iran enriches uranium, American involvement is not certain.
Iran is sending thousands of fighters to help the Bashar Assad regime in it’s ongoing conflict with rebel forces, according to a Syrian opposition leader.Col. Abdul-Jabbar Mohammed Aqidi, the commander of rebel forces in Aleppo province, was quoted in Al Arabiya on Saturday saying that 3,000 Iranians had already passed through Damascus International Airport in the last week.
Israel Radio reported that more than 140 people were killed in Syria on Friday, mostly in Aleppo. The commercial hub along with the capital, Damascus, have become the recent focal points for the Bashar Assad regime in its 17-month bloody crackdown on dissenters.
Iran warned on Sunday against foreign intervention in Syria and said the conflict there could engulf Israel.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani accused the US and regional countries he did not name of providing military support to rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“The fire that has been ignited in Syria will take the fearful [Israelis] with it,” Larijani said on Sunday, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)One Israeli government official said that since the beginning of the unrest in Syria last year, both Syria and the Iranians “have been trying to bring Israel into it because they think it serves their interests.”
The initial Egyptian and Israeli accounts of the attacks in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed and the Israeli border crashed Sunday night, Aug. 5, don’t match up: Egypt points the finger at the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip; Israel at Sinai Salafits. DEBKAfile postulates a third option: Tehran put Gaza Strip Islamists and/or Palestinian proxies together with a Sinai al Qaeda cell for a coordinated attack on Egyptian and Israeli military targets to avenge the presence of al Qaeda in the anti-Assad revolt in Syria under the Western-Arab aegis. That would signal the spillover of the Syrian crisis into two more Middle East countries.If that is what happened, it would be the first time Tehran has harnessed al Qaeda to lash out out against Egyptian and Israeli military targets as a riposte for the presence of al Qaeda fighters in the revolt against Bashar Assad.
Just a few hours earlier, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani declared: "The fire that has been ignited in Syria will take the fearful (Israelis) with it.”That was also the first time Tehran had explicitly threatened that the Syrian conflict would spill over into Israel.
Israel is closely tracking Russian naval movements in the Mediterranean Sea amid reports that several ships are heading to Syria to secure the Tartus Port and possibly military assets Moscow maintains in the country.
On Friday, Russian news agencies quoted a top military source as saying that Russia was sending three naval vessels and up to 360 marines to Syria. The reports claimed that the vessels, which are already in the Mediterranean, will arrive in Tartus this week or early next week with supplies for Russia’s only permanent port outside the former Soviet Union.
For Israel, Moscow is something of a weather vane for gauging what is happening in Syria. A similar situation happened on the eve of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when Russia pulled its diplomats and military advisers out of Egypt shortly before the war.“Russia has a better feel for what is happening in Syria, and by following what it does it is possible to better gauge when President Bashar Assad might fall,” a defense official explained.
The 2012 U.N. General Assembly will convene in New York next month and for Barack Obama it could prove to be a minefield.
Just over a month before the U.S. elections, the U.N. gathering will draw friends and foes of the White House.
First on the list, is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In what has become a ritual annual pilgrimage, the Iranian leader will arrive in the Big Apple on September 24 and remain till Friday Sept 28.
The visit will come at a time when the U.N. is being pressured by the White House to increase the political/economic sanctions on Iran and its nuclear “research” program which Washington insists is a cover for a nuclear bomb project.
The failure to contain Iran has been a glaring problem for Obama, and Ahmadinejad’s New York visit is intended to grpahicaaly high-light it just weeks before election day.
Another problem for Obama is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who intends to pursue his quest for statehood when he speaks on September 29.
Washington and Jerusalem are strongly against the Palestinian strategy insisting that only direct bi-lateral negotiations between
Israel and P.A. is the way to eventual statehood.While not U.N. a member, Abbas is nonetheless being treated as an “unofficial” head of a defacto state and has been given a speaking position along side established, recognized nations.
Sensing political controversy, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu will avoid the U.N. this September, sending Defense Minister Ehud Barak to fill in.
Power grids, communications and satellites could be knocked out by a massive solar storm in the next two years, scientists warn.
Experts say the sun is reaching a peak in its 10-year activity cycle, putting the Earth at greater risk from solar storms.
Mike Hapgood, a space weather specialist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Didcot, Oxfordshire, said: "Governments are taking it very seriously. These things may be very rare but when they happen, the consequences can be catastrophic."
A human rights organization is issuing an alarm over the number of Christians who have been locked up in Eritrea, where government officials have given them the ultimatum, “Renounce your faith or stay in prison.”Citing data from the U.S. State Department,International Christian Concern says Christians have been arrested and held without charge, and conditions are deteriorating.Sources report more than 3,000 have been put behind bars, the report said.
Saudi Arabia deported 35 Ethiopian Christians last week after incarcerating them for over seven months for praying in advance of the Christmas season in December 2011, according to Christian media outlets and NGOs.International Christian Concern wrote on its website that “Saudi Arabia deported the last of the 35 Ethiopian Christians who were detained for holding an all-night prayer vigil.Saudi security officials assaulted, harassed and pressured the Christians to convert to Islam during their incarceration.”“The Saudi officials don’t tolerate any other religions other than Islam. They consider non-Muslims as unbelievers. They are full of hatred towards non-Muslims.”
Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other and threatening to rip Europe apart, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has warned.
The current prognosis is bleak.Greece remains tens of billions of euros short of staying financially afloat, Spain is back in the danger zone, and Hollande’s promises of higher income and business taxes combined with earlier retirement risk digging France further into a fiscal hole. Dutch elections next month are fuelling anti-bail-out rhetoric, while 200 German economists have warned Chancellor Merkel against “socialisation” of bad European debts.
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