Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

U.S. Defense Report: Iran Could Strike U.S. With Missiles in 2015
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Gil Ronen
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

 
Iran may be able to build a missile capable of striking the United States by 2015, according to an unclassified US Defense Department report on Iran's military released on Monday.

"With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015," said the April report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

A classified version of the report was also submitted to Congress.

The new report also included an assessment of Iran's support for insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as its anti-Israel proxies Hamas and Hizbullah. "Iran, through its long-standing relationship with Lebanese Hizbullah, maintains a capability to strike Israel directly and threatens Israeli and US interests worldwide," it said.

In May 2009, a US National Intelligence Estimate estimated that Tehran was unlikely to have a ICBMs until between 2015 and 2020, according to US officials who saw the report at the time.

A threat to the entire world

Israel has urged the US to take drastic measures against Iran, which has repeatedly threatened and cursed the Jewish state. However, Israeli leaders and experts have noted that Iran is not only a threat to Israel – but to the rest of the world as well. 

Experts are unanimous in estimating that at present, Iran's military cannot possibly win a war against the US. In 2007, the US's defense budget was 85.2 times larger than Iran's, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. However, if Iran possesses nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to US soil, it could pose a threat to US civilians.

The US military failed to shoot down a simulated Iranian missile strike on the United States in January, in a botched exercise over the Pacific Ocean.

Rising Muslim Hopes from Obama’s Outreach May Backfire
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning

 
U.S. President Barack Obama is continuing his “reaching out to Muslims” approach by consulting more with Muslim advisors. In June, he will visit Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation. Several analysts question whether the moves are more symbolic than real, and one warns they might help terrorists topple the kingdom in Saudi Arabia.

President Obama dramatically appealed to Muslims around the world in a speech in Cairo last June. At home, after distancing himself from Muslims in his campaign for president, he appointed the White House’s first Muslim advisor, Egyptian-born Dalia Mogahed, who supports and has defended the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), both of which expressed views in support of Hamas and the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Other moves to embrace Muslims include the president’s invitation to Kenyans, the native country of his father, to an entrepreneurial summit next week. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year overturned a Bush administration ban against the entry into the United States of the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan. Mogahed was among those who welcomed him and also appeared in public with him.

The New York Times last week reported that President Obama is working behind the scenes to build closer ties with Muslims while avoiding the limelight through actions such as attending a mosque.

However, a writer for the Jakarta Post states, “It is not totally wrong if Indonesian Muslims greet him, when he visits Indonesia next June, as a Muslim brother. Indonesian Christians also can do the same. What is in his website that he has never been Muslim is correct in the sense that he never voluntarily and officially registered himself, when he was adult, as Muslim….

“Islam is more than a religion and is a way of life…. The arrival of Obama can be used as a good opportunity for Indonesian Muslims to embrace the fact that Islam is a peace-loving religion.”

While Muslim expectations rise, pro-Israel columnist Daniel Pipes discounts President Obama’s moves as anything more than window dressing. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute told the Times, "For the first time in eight years, we have the opportunity to meet, engage, discuss, disagree, but have an impact on policy,” but Pipes responded that former President George W. Bush also bent over backwards for Muslim support.

“One can find inconsistencies and exceptions, but the overall Bush record showed great concern for Muslim opinion,” Pipes wrote. He pointed out that Bush added a Koran to the White House library and called Islam a “religion of peace.”

Middle East think tank analyst Barry Rubin goes one step further than Pipes and warns that President Obama’s “reaching out to Muslims approach” is based on naïve thinking.

Rubin wrote on the Blitz.com web site, “What is Obama thinking? … For him, the bow to the Saudi king (and others) symbolizes Obama's commitment to show that America is ‘just one of the guys’ among countries… Once he shows he can hang out with the Third World, Obama seems to reason, why would anyone hate America anymore?”

The analyst reasoned that the Obama’s administration of being “tough on Israel by not being tough on the radicals” may result in Muslim fanatics succeeding in bringing down the Saudi kingdom, which Rubin pointed out “is on the front line with Iran and dependent on U.S. protection [while] the Jewish state…can take care of itself.”

Ranking Senator: ‘Highly’ Likely That Hizbullah Has Scuds
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel;Warning

U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Senator Diane Feinstein warned Tuesday, "There is a likelihood that there are Scuds that Hizbullah has in Lebanon – a high likelihood.”  She added, “The rockets and missiles in Lebanon are substantially increased and better technologically than they were and this is a real point of danger for Israel."

She spoke several hours after the State Department said it still is investigating reports that Syria transferred the deadly long-range missiles to Hizbullah terrorists although officials summoned the Syrian deputy chief of mission in Washington over the issue.

"This was the fourth occasion on which these concerns have been raised to the Syrian Embassy in recent months, intended to further amplify our messages communicated to the Syrian government," stated State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid.

Last week, President Shimon Peres confirmed reports that first appeared in a Kuwaiti newspaper that the missiles were transferred and American officials later agreed until the State Department began to backtrack Tuesday.

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters at the daily press briefing that, “We are still looking into it.  We haven’t reached any particular judgment at this point as to whether any transfer has taken place.”

It is widely accepted that Lebanon has not stopped Hizbullah from smuggling tens of thousands of Katyusha missiles into Lebanon, in violation of United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The resolution, accepted by Israel and Lebanon, banned foreign armies from being armed in the country, but United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL) said at the outset they could not and would not enforce the clause.

Crowley ignored a pointed question by one reporter Tuesday, who asked, “Do we have proof that Syria is providing arms to Hizbullah, not SCUD missiles?”

Other reporters pounced on the United States for not accepting Lebanese and Syria denials that Scuds have reached Hizbullah and tried to put the blame on Israel for escalating tensions. “You are blaming a coalition that is taking place between Syria and Lebanon to defend their existence against aggressive Israel, when at the same time an Israeli minister…has threatened that Israel was going to bomb Syria to take it back to the stone age,” one reporter told Crowley. 

When asked about the credibility of Israeli reports, the spokesman was noncommittal, saying, “There have been reports.  It’s one of the reasons you people have been asking this question.  And – but this is the context behind the meeting we had last night” with Syrian officials.

Resolution 1701 includes a clause that foreign armies can arm themselves with Lebanon’s permission. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has raised the fear that the increasing alliance between Beirut and Hizbullah has eroded any difference between military forces.

One reporter raised the possibility that Lebanon would acquire Scud missiles from Syria, but Crowley answered, “Let’s not get into hypothetical.”

Netanyahu: Less Time to Act on Iran With Each Passing Day
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Gil Ronen
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues;Warning

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sounded an urgent note regarding the Iranian threat in a Monday interview on America's ABC network, saying that “we have a lot less time with each day that passes.”

“And the crucial thing,” he said, “is to use the time available for forceful international action led by the United States. If you can, go through the [UN] Security Council. If you can't, go outside the Security Council.”

“I spoke with President Obama when he was Senator Obama,” he said on the morning news show, Good Morning America. “He visited Israel. And I was the leader of the Opposition at… that time. And I said… if he gets elected President... all the issues that will flood his desk will one day be pushed aside by one overriding issue. And that is if Iran attempts to develop atomic bombs. Because they could very well either use it or threaten to use it or threaten to give it to terrorists or even give them a crude device with fissionable material that can be put in a container ship. And this could come to Manhattan or to any port in the United States or in Europe or, for that matter, in Israel.”

'A minimal requirement'

The international community can deliver “crippling sanctions” against Iran, he said. “If you stop … Iran from importing refined petroleum, that's a fancy word for gasoline,” Netanyahu explained, “then Iran simply doesn't have refining capacity and this regime comes to a halt. I think that's crippling sanctions. Now if the UN Security Council doesn't pass it because they'll dilute the resolution to get acquiescence of their members, then certainly the United States and other willing partners in the international community can... enforce these sanctions outside the Security Council. There is a way to deliver these crippling sanctions. This should be done now.”

“I think this is a minimal requirement right now,” he added. The point was “not really to send [Iran] messages," he said, “but to actually make this regime begin to make choices. Because right now they feel they don't have to make choices. They understand that the spotlight is on them but they're not doing anything. And the critical thing is I think there's an understanding in Washington, certainly in Jerusalem and quite a few other capitals in the world, that very forceful action has to be taken to make Iran stop. I think the future of peace in the world and of stability and security is at stake.”

Asked if he was worried that war could break out this summer, the prime minister said: “If it's up to us, there won't be any war." Iran, he added, is trying to create tensions through Hizbullah, “probably to deflect the world's attention from Iran's advancement and its plan to develop nuclear weapons.”

Lieberman: Peace Cannot be Forced Upon U.S.
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Gil Ronen
Categories: Today's Headlines;Peace Process

One of the Israeli cabinet's more hawkish members, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu, told foreign diplomats Tuesday that attempts to impose a peace agreement on Israel will fail. Lieberman was delivering an Independence Day speech to the foreign diplomats in Israel, at the President's Residence in Jerusalem.

"I repeat Menachem Begin's statement – Jerusalem is our united and eternal capital,” Lieberman said, citing the late Israeli prime minister who signed the peace accords with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Israel's capital city will not be divided – “neither directly nor indirectly,” he emphasized.

"We desire peace but this can only come with a true partner,” he elaborated. “That is how it was when we signed the peace agreements with President Sadat and afterward with the late King Hussein of Jordan. These are historic peace accords that became possible because we had true partners, as well as a supportive international environment.”

Message for US?

Lieberman probably intended his message for American and European ears when he said: “Any attempt to impose a solution on the sides, without first establishing an infrastructure of mutual trust – will only deepen the conflict. Peace can be built but not imposed.”

About 800 people attended, including foreign ambassadors and their spouses, honorary consuls, military attaches, officers from peacekeeping forces and religious representatives.

While some commentators believe that US President Barack Obama wants to force Israel to accept a withdrawal to its 1948-1967 borders, Obama himself seemed to admit that he could not make the sides agree to a peace they did not want. “The PA and Israel "may say to themselves, 'We are not prepared to resolve these issues no matter how much pressure the United States brings to bear,'" he said last week, adding that it is possible that peace cannot be reached "even if we are applying all of our political capital.”

Ex - U.S. Envoy Indyk: Bibi’s Refusal to Obama ‘threatens Alliance’
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, castigated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in The New York Times and on Israel’s IDF Army Radio, saying the prime minister prefers a nationalist government over being friends with the United States.

“Netanyahu must make a choice: take on the president of the United States, or take on his right wing,” Indyk wrote in the Times. If he continues to defer to those ministers in his cabinet who oppose peacemaking, the consequences for U.S.-Israel relations could be dire.”

National Union chairman and Knesset Member Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz sharply criticized Indyk, stating that the “Diaspora has succeeded in creating a Jew like Indyk who is prepared to see the destruction of his people on the sacrificial altar of the masters whom he serves.”

“We survived Pharaoh, and we will survive Indyk.”

MK Katz charged that the former ambassador is “totally disconnected from the U.S. Congressional majority that [acknowledges] Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and has the democratic right to build in all of its neighborhoods.”

Indyk had previously called for the de facto recognition of Palestinian Authority sovereignty in Jerusalem, which Israel fears would be the effect of the American demand for a freeze on building for Jews in areas of the capital.

Under the headline “When Your Best Friend Gets Angry,” Indyk charged in the Times that “one suspects” that Prime Minister Netanyahu stayed away from U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent “nuclear summit” because “he does not have an answer to President Obama’s demand that he freeze new building announcements” in united Jerusalem.

Indyk repeated his reasoning on IDF Army Radio Wednesday morning, saying that if Israel needs aid from the United States, it needs “to take into account America's interests” and distance itself from the government’s largely nationalist coalition.

In both the article and interview, Indyk tried to link an agreement with the Palestinian Authority, based primarily on demands of the Arab world, with solving the Iranian nuclear threat and the American-led counter terrorist war in what he called the “greater Middle East.” He pointed out that the United States has committed 200,000 American troops to fighting terrorism while Prime Minister Netanyahu allegedly ignores American policy that the Arab-Israeli struggle is a problem for American security.

Indyk wrote that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s absence from the nuclear summit left President Obama holding the bag to take on the task of trying to stop the Iranian nuclear program that Israel says threatens its very existence. The former ambassador claimed that President Obama succeeded in “persuading China to join in a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran,” although he did not refer to China’s outright rejection of harsh sanctions, particularly in the energy sector.

“The inability to make progress on the Palestinian [Authority] issue…gives Iran the opportunity to use Hamas and Hizbullah as proxies to provoke conflict with Israel, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seen as the hero,” according to Indyk.

The former envoy also reasoned, “Nothing could better help Obama to isolate Iran than for Netanyahu to offer to cede the Golan [Heights]. Given Israel’s dependence on the United States to counter the threat from Iran and to prevent its own international isolation, an Israeli prime minister would surely want to bridge the growing divide."

Indyk referred to Israel’s refusal to halt building for Jews in parts of Jerusalem that the United States does not recognize as under Israeli sovereignty. He called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to follow the steps of former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon, who surrendered the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and a Jewish civilian and military presence in the Gaza region.

According to Indyk, Begin and Sharon acted in order to maintain friendship with the Carter and Bush administrations and Netanyahu should do the same.

He also recalled favorably the famous handshake between former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, orchestrated by Rahm Emanuel, who now is President Obama's White House Chief of Staff. The handshake heralded the Oslo Accords, which were followed by dozens of Arab suicide bombings that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians and wounded thousands of others.

The former ambassador also made no reference to the cold peace with Egypt, whose President Hosni Mubarak has refused to visit Jerusalem except for the funeral of Rabin. In his article, Indyk did not mention the thousands of rockets and mortar shells that rained down on Israel following the expulsion of Jews and withdrawal of troops from Gaza, as well as from the smuggling border with Egypt.

Citigroup Says Only United States of Europe' will Save Euro
Apr 21st, 2010
Daily NewsEUobserver.com - LEIGH PHILLIPS
Categories: Today's Headlines;Warning;Revived Roman Empire

A Citigroup note to clients has warned that the eurozone is likely to fall apart unless the European Union's member states fuse both on the fiscal and political level.

"Europe needs to stand up and decide if it is going to be a ‘United States of Europe' or a ‘patchwork quilt' of independent states," reads a note by Tom Fitzpatrick, chief technical analyst at Citigroup in New York, first seen by Bloomberg.

The financial services firm, the largest in the world and one of America's big four banks, says that if such integration is not on the cards, the euro area is "doomed" even if the current Greek crisis is resolved.

"Without a preparedness amongst the major nations - Germany in particular - to head in this direction, we fear that the euro as a common and expanding single currency will inevitably be doomed," the analysis continued.

In February this year, hedge fund wizard George Soros also warned the eurozone was bound to break up without fiscal union.

"A makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large of a portion of the Euroland to he helped in this way…The survival of Greece would still leave the future of the Euro in question," he told the Financial Times.

"The construction is patently flawed. A fully fledged currency requires both a central bank and a treasury. The treasury need not be used to tax citizens on an everyday basis, but it needs to be available in times of crisis," he said. "When the financial system is in danger of collapsing, the central bank can provide liquidity, but only a treasury can deal with problems of solvency."

"This is a well-known fact that should have been clear to everyone involved in the creation of the euro."

The euro has slid 6.1 percent against the US dollar this year.

Art's Commentary....Here comes the Revived Roman Empire.