Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday slammed the international community and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for failing to speak out against explicit calls for Israel’s destruction by Hamas leaders on Saturday.
Speaking at a Hanukkah ceremony with the foreign press, Netanyahu contrasted Europe’s condemnations of Israel for approving construction plans in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with its lack of response to Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal’s weekend speech in Gaza, in which he said the Palestinians would “not give up an inch of Palestine,” and that “Jihad and armed resistance is the only way.”
Said Netanyahu: “This weekend, the leaders of Hamas openly called for the destruction of Israel. Where was the outrage? Where were the UN resolutions? Where was President Abbas?”
The prime minister drew a direct parallel to the outcry in the international community over Israeli plans to expand settlements beyond the Green Line. Numerous countries have deeply criticized plans to develop the sensitive E1 area east of Jerusalem, and the Israeli ambassadors in Britain, Brazil, France, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, Egypt and the European Union were summoned for sharp dressing-downs late last week.
“Why weren’t Palestinian diplomats summoned in European and other capitals to explain why the PA president not only refused to condemn this, but actually declared his intention to unite with Hamas?” Netanyahu asked. “There was nothing. There was silence. And it was a deafening silence. Well, we can’t accept that. We can’t accept that, when Jews build homes in [Israel's] ancient capital, the international community has no problem finding its voice, but when Palestinian leaders openly call for the destruction of Israel, the one and only Jewish state, the world is silent.”
A former top general in Syria's chemical weapons program said on Monday he doesn't doubt for a moment that President Bashar al-Assad will deploy his chemical weapons arsenal as he tries to hold onto power and crush the uprising that started almost two years ago.
"The regime started to fall and deteriorate. It's coming to its end," retired Major General Adnan Sillou told ABC News from a hotel near Antakya, on Turkey's southern border with Syria.
"It's highly possible that he'll start using [chemical weapons] to kill his own people because this regime is a killer," he added.
"The regime started to fall and deteriorate. It's coming to its end," retired Major General Adnan Sillou told ABC News from a hotel near Antakya, on Turkey's southern border with Syria.
"It's highly possible that he'll start using [chemical weapons] to kill his own people because this regime is a killer," he added.
There is growing concern that some of the chemical weapons the Assad regime has been pushing out of the Damascus area in the last few days were sent across the border to Hizballah strongholds in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley to keep them out of rebel hands. Syrian army officers who recently defected report that containers were last week removed from Syrian bases at Jabal Kalamon and loaded on vehicles camouflaged as commercial trucks. On the Lebanese side, the consignment is thought to have been split up and hidden at different Hizballah bases to make them harder to attack.
Israel’s US Ambassador Michael Oren, asked by a FOX TV interviewer Saturday Dec. 8, if he could confirm this, said he could not, but warned that any evidence of chemical weapons being passed from the Assad regime to extremist groups like Hizballah would be a "game-changer," and a "red line" for Israel. "We have a very clear red line about those chemical weapons passing into the wrong hands. Can you imagine if Hizballah and its 70,000 rockets would get its hands on chemical weapons? That could kill thousands of people."
Syria has accused the United States of seeking to frame the country for using chemical weapons, Syrian state-run media reported.
"The U.S. administration has consistently worked over the past year to launch a campaign of allegations on the possibility that Syria could use chemical weapons during the current crisis," the Foreign Ministry wrote in letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
"What raises concerns about this news circulated by the media is our serious fear that some of the countries backing terrorism and terrorists might provide the armed terrorist groups with chemical weapons and claim that it was the Syrian government that used the weapons," SANA quoted the letters as saying.
"The U.S. administration has consistently worked over the past year to launch a campaign of allegations on the possibility that Syria could use chemical weapons during the current crisis," the Foreign Ministry wrote in letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
"What raises concerns about this news circulated by the media is our serious fear that some of the countries backing terrorism and terrorists might provide the armed terrorist groups with chemical weapons and claim that it was the Syrian government that used the weapons," SANA quoted the letters as saying.
The head of National Police counter-terrorist intelligence, Commissioner-General Enrique Baron, told a strategic security conference in Barcelona that it was believed that the self-styled Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb - AQMI - could have acquired such arms in Libya or elsewhere during the Arab Spring last year. He also warned that the group was encouraging attacks against Spain.
Addressing the conference organised by the Foundation for Techniques for Defence and Security, Commissioner Baron told his audience: "The Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb has acquired and used very powerful conventional arms and probably also has non-conventional arms, basically chemical, as a result of the loss of control of arsenals."
The most likely place where this could have happened was in Libya during the uprising which overthrew the Gaddafi regime, said Commissioner Baron.
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