Pax Judaica - The Putin Spiral

The bear has awoken from his slumber [pun intended; Russia is often depicted as a bear] and it seems now that 2012 issues are again in full bloom by us here and now in 2014. Can I say that somehow the stage seems more [sur]real in our current location? Logic dictates that this game can't be played much longer, so one must assume there is "bang" to this firecracker, or the whole ensemble was one big dud; a political joke where not many spectators would have even caught the punchline.

Somehow I still think there is more drama to be played out from this World scene, one of Syria, Russia, America, Israel, Gog Magog [more like it, should it culminate within prophetic terms]? - Which brings us into prophetic boundary set up by King David himself:

In Tehillim, many of the Psalms speak of exile, Gog Magog, the coming of the Messiah, etc. all from a unique lens of the Psalmist. There is a penetrating theme in these Psalms, and it isn't necessarily a frequency of Armageddon, rather one of Hashem judging the World, and as such with Noahide laws being the tool with what to judge.

We may may not be gazing at drumbeats of war at all, really, rather this may be [under terms of mazal - a spiritual reality that we just aren't fully aware of in the physical realm; what we see, really isn't - and there actually is an "IS"] a unique tribunal, one that is indigenous to a true End of Days, one that is heavily prophesied [and misunderstood; taken out of context] and only serves to glorify God. One could surmise, that if there is a peaceful resolution, nations [already have] will fall, judgment will be at the forefront of all paradigm shift, and Hashem will be realized as the true judge, while Noah and his enter entourage will consummate as the scepter grasped by the hand of God.

We may be closer than we think, yet at the same time, man may be utterly confused. In any rate, "that's not what I was told" - will be the mantra of all outcomes led by God. This is simply God's story, we are along for the ride as spectators, and as King David says, one day there will be a show, and through that show the Nations will see the hand of God. There was a season for the Creation of Israel, and there will be a season for the [final] Creation of the World.



American Thinker:





In a column analyzing Russia’s recent threat to rethink its position on Iran, Walter Russell Mead and his staff at The American Interest postulated, “Linking the Ukraine crisis with the Iran negotiation is an American nightmare; it might just be a Russian dream come true.” Mead is on to something; however, he stops short in his analysis. Russia’s threat could also be quite helpful to Israel.

Obama entered into the Iran negotiations in order to avoid a military confrontation, as well as to constrain the “true barrier” to peace in the region – Israel. His hope was to bide time, notwithstanding that Iran’s centrifuges would continue to spin, bringing its nuclear capability to the brink or to fruition.

If Iran does in fact go nuclear on Obama’s watch, so be it; he will proceed to sell containment to the American public for the little time left in his term. The carnival salesmen in the White House are quite talented at selling the American people a bill of goods – just look at ObamaCare. While Russia invades a European country and threatens all-out war, the administration spends $52 million of taxpayer funds in just three months on advertising this debacle. One can only imagine what they will spend to convince Americans that a nuclear Iran poses no threat to our national security.

Alas, since reality has yet to penetrate the White House bubble, Obama has likely never lost sleep thinking about Iran’s nuclear capabilities (his Baracketology, next vacation, and golf game, perhaps, but national security, not so much) – that is, until Vladimir Putin stepped into the picture. Obama's failure to realize that he is now unmasked as a fool on the world stage does not mean that the rest of the world’s leaders have not noticed. It is not a coincidence that just six months after Putin manipulated Obama out of bombing Syria despite its having crossed Obama’s disingenuous red line, Putin took to annexing Crimea from Ukraine. And Putin did so despite a U.S. promise to protect Ukraine. As one Ukranian parliamentarian stated, "[e]veryone believed that for good or bad the United States would be the world's policeman. Now that function is being abandoned by President Obama, and because of that Russia invaded Crimea."

So Mead is correct that linking Ukraine with Iran is good policy for Russia while thrusting Obama into a nightmarish situation. It will cause Obama to quake in his mom-jeans and further diminish American power. Obama has already stated that he will not act militarily in response to the Ukrainian situation. What are his choices if Russia acts on its threat and allies with Iran? Cancel Putin’s Netflix account?

But linking Ukraine and Iran just might be an Israeli dream come true as well. Mead stated, “The Obama strategy has always been a risky one; if Russia shifts into active cooperation with Iran, it is hard to see how the White House can keep hope alive.” True enough. But if Russia moves into Iran’s camp, Israel has the perfect excuse to move ahead with a military strike on Iran’s nuclear installations and will likely have the support of the entire Western world (in addition to America’s Mideast allies like Saudi Arabia), all of which will be relieved that at least someone is standing up to the bad guys.

Middle East and foreign policy experts have vacillated for years analyzing Israel’s capability to conduct a successful unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, guessing when it might proceed, and wondering whether the United States is holding Israel back from doing so. Some ask why U.S. support is a necessary prerequisite to an Israeli strike that is in Israel's own national security interests. One need only look at a map of the region and the fact that the country, the size of the state of New Jersey and only nine miles wide at its narrowest point, is surrounded by 21 Arab nations, the vast majority of whom are adversaries, to understand Israel’s need for supportive friends.

When the most powerful nation on earth, the one that provides Israel with the most support both militarily and diplomatically, orders its ally not to attack another country, Israel is left with little choice but to listen. That is why Obama, Kerry, Clinton, and Panetta have been able to publicly abuse Israel with little backlash. But it is also why the administration’s threats of international isolation and abandonment have left Israel with little choice but to loudly proclaim her legal right to take all measures necessary in order to ensure the safety and security of her people – to defend herself, by herself.

And there are many signs that Israel is prepared to do so. In the sixth year of Obama’s administration, Israelis know full well that the American president who promised, “The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security” has no intention of actually following through on that assurance. The U.S. may have been “shocked” (just shocked!) at the statements of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon this week when he opined that Israel must “behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves,” in part because:

... [w]e had thought the ones who should lead the campaign against Iran is the United States. But at some stage the United States entered into negotiations with them, and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian baazar, the Iranians were better.

But Ya’alon was certainly speaking truth to power. And speaking of power, let us turn to a real superpower. Not the type that we reminisce about from the pre-Obama glory days of the Pax Americana that kept stability in the world, but the superpower that presents itself in the form of a democratic dynamo – the economic and military powerhouse known as Israel. As reported in the Times of Israel this week:

Israel’s security forces have the capability to carry out military operations in virtually every part of the globe, including Iran, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said Wednesday, adding that Israel had already conducted dozens of covert operations in foreign and enemy countries….

The TV report asserted that Gantz’s comments represented a first “definitive” acknowledgment that Israel is capable of military intervention in Iran and constituted a hint from the chief of General Staff that this kind of activity was already happening.

And according to a report in Ha’aretz, despite the ongoing talks with Iran and P5+1, Netanyahu and Ya’alon have ordered the IDF to begin preparations for a possible 2014 Iranian strike, earmarking at least $2.89 billion for the operation. (As an aside, think about that dollar amount in the context of the $52 billion that Obama has spent on three months of ObamaCare advertising and try not to throw something at the television the next time you see him joking around with Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, Zach Galifianakis, Kobe Bryant, and the rest of his adoring entourage.)

Many Israel-supporters had hoped that Netanyahu would attack Iran prior to Obama’s 2012 victory, believing that Obama would have been forced to support Israel for fear of reprisal from the electorate if he failed to do so. That is why now, when the world’s good guys are shirking their responsibilities and shrinking in stature in the face of ever more powerful bad guys enabled by the U.S. president, is the time for Israel to act.

Putin has given Netanyahu the gift of a second window. In the lead-up to the 2014 midterm elections, in which Obama must keep the Senate in control of the Democrats, Obama would have no choice but to stand behind Israel if she attacks Iran. If Russia stands with Iran, Obama will be forced to stand with Israel or lose the American people to the Republican Party. He cannot risk that happening. And Netanyahu cannot afford not to act on that knowledge.

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Welcome to Pax Judaica

Read carefully what this guy is saying; Israel is the only power [aligned with America, i.e. not Russia or China] that is willing, able, and has [done] struck down "evil regimes" in recent memory. This by definition is the foundation for the Pax Judaica model.

Note the unfolding: Pax UK - Pax Americana - and Pax Judaica.


Jpost.com:

The agreement reached between the US and Russia for the destruction of chemical weapons in the possession of the Assad regime is fraught with difficulty and danger and, in the best case scenario, would likely end up with a token show of disarmament, Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Speaking to the Post by phone, Kemp, who also served in the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee and Cabinet Office Briefing Room, said: “I think it’s extremely difficult to do something like this during an active conflict, during a war. I think it’ll take a very large amount of time, with a significant amount of military protection, so that the inspectors can be as safe as they can be. That aspect will present huge challenges. Which country, first of all, will provide the scientists who will take these risks and the military forces to back them up? It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Kemp observed that there is a wide variety of factions in Syria, including regime forces and jihadists, meaning that it would be difficult to send weapons inspectors to the country.

“Secondly, to get verification in this kind of situation, I would say, is impossible,” he stated. “It would be very easy for President Assad to hide or remove out of the country significant quantities of chemical weapons.

Crisis in Syria - full JPost.com coverage

What we might end up seeing is a token show of disarmament. I don’t think it is realistically feasible.”

In turn, it would end up harming regional – and global – security, the former military commander warned.

Assad’s position would be strengthened by a more positive international stance towards him, “combined with very active Russian support and American collusion with that support,” Kemp said. Iran’s position, too, would be strengthened significantly, he continued, as the value of American deterrence “appears to be degraded as a result of this, and Iran’s own position is obviously strengthened by what will be its closer relations with Russia.”

This spells bad news from Israel’s perspective, Kemp said, adding nonetheless that “Israel appears to be the only reliable power in the region. America’s power and American deterrence is reduced. Israel remains the one reliable power that the world can count on to intervene if the situation gets too dangerous.”

He noted the three times that Israel, according to foreign media reports, intervened in Syria to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons, and the alleged 2007 Israeli air strike on Syria’s nuclear project.

“It’s that sort of action we need to be prepared to do,” Kemp said. “If Israel hadn’t struck Syria’s nuclear project, the situation now could be very different. We could be trying to deal with nuclear-armed Syria, which would be an impossibility. Israel is showing itself to be the only reliable power.”

The UK and the US have, over the past few weeks, “demonstrated their complete lack of resolve to do the right thing when it’s needed. It’s all very well speaking and posturing, but when the chips are down and it’s time to put their money where their mouth is, both the UK and US have shown there’s no will,” he said, pointing to a negative effect on world security.

Public opinion in the UK and US is too focused on what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, “particularly, Iraq,” he added. “Many people are not able to look at this situation as a different situation to Iraq.”

In the UK, a wide part of public opinion is influenced by a fear of militant Islam and the desire to pursue short-term, low-risk goals, at the expense of ignoring wider risks, Kemp said.

This means Israel has rulership in its Land. From Erev Rav yes, and they shall yield to God in the end, but in this point in history, only Israel has the God given ability to be Pax Judaica [Pax anything] in this dor. The Geulah begins on this premise; all we can do is live each day with emunah that this is indeed it, the alternative would be an evil unheard of. The pieces are there, we are to read the mazal of each moment - the mazal being the kabbalistic perfection coming into our world which goes 100% in- face of "non-Jewish" mazal.

For context of Israel today and the imprecations  for the Church, read what the Pope has to say about Israel.

Pope Francis has praised Jews for keeping their faith despite the Holocaust and other “terrible trials” throughout history, and reaffirmed Judaism as the “holy root” of Christianity. In a letter, published on the front page of La Repubblica Italian newspaper, the Pope writes that "since Vatican Council II, we have rediscovered that the Jewish people are still for us the holy root from which Jesus germinated". 

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio had celebrated Rosh Hashana in local synagogues, he had voiced solidarity with Jewish victims of Iranian terrorism and co-written a book with a rabbi, Avraham Skorka. He attended a commemoration of Kristallnacht, the wave of Nazi attacks against Jews in November 1938. But as this new letter shows, one of the grave dangers in the Vatican's dialogue with Judaism is the Church's attempt to drive a wedge between the “good” and docile Jews of the Diaspora and the “bad” and arrogant Jews of Israel. Pope Francis has never addressed the Israelis in his messages, nor has he openly defended the Jewish State since he was elected by the college of the cardinals. It seems that there is no room for stubborn, faithful Zionists in the Pope's lenient smile.

 In his speeches, Jewish national aspirations are ignored, if not denigrated. The definitive proof is in Washington. It seems that there is no room for stubborn, faithful Zionists in the Pope's lenient smile. While the Pope was distributing that letter, in a new event co-sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic University of America was hosting a special conference about “religious freedom and human rights issues in the Holy Land”. 

The speakers included Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., Jessica Montell, executive director of B’Tselem anti-Israel group, and Mustafa Barghouti, the prominent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Cardinal McCarrick said that “the expansion of Israeli settlements into occupied territories provokes violence”, in a self-evident justification of Arab terrorism. Montell, who accepted money from BDS, added that “settlement expansion is a primary source of human rights violations for Palestinians” and that “human rights violations are inherent to a prolonged military occupation”. "When you live under occupation, you come to accept things you shouldn't accept,” Lubna Alzaroo, a Muslim graduate of Bethlehem University and Fullbright scholar studying at the University of Washington, said at the D.C. event of the Catholic Church. Among the organizations invited by the Catholic bishops there was also the Society of St. Yves, which charges "Israeli colonization, occupation and apartheid" and works for "the Palestinian refugees’ rights to return to their homes and places of origin". 

The Society of St. Yves shares also the "Nakba” ideology, the “catastrophe”, as the Arabs call the date of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. While the Pope was penning his letter about Jesus, the US' highest Catholic political body was giving a platform to the boycotters of Israel, it was calling for the indefensible-for-Israel partition of the holy land and it was exculpating the Palestinian Arab for their jihad. 

 The Vatican, as always happened in the past, will be silent during the next "terrible trials" for the Jewish people, if they occur, should it be Iranian nuclear or Arab terrorism. When Pope Francis was elected, a media outlet asked me to comment. 

My reply was: "I hope the next Pope will avoid the ecumenical mistakes of his predecessors, he will address the challenge of political Islam and understand the Jewish revolution of returning to the land after Auschwitz. Otherwise, any Jewish-Catholic dialogue will be empty, or worse, it will be a show for hypocrites". 

 Was I right to be skeptical?

Torah says Hashem takes over in the End of Days. Couple that with our old friend "novelty" - Things are seeming ever novel, no?

last moments of '73 anyone?

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The Voice of the Turtledove WAS/IS Heard In The Land: Pollard Speaks

Pollard. [bechinah of] Moshiach ben Yosef is Heard.


JPost.com:


When tragedy strikes anywhere in the world, the State of Israel is always among the first to offer help, sending experienced rescue teams, portable hospitals and world-class medical experts to the scene. Israel is a world leader in medical research, farming technology, and military innovation. The country that made the desert bloom is the undisputed champion of hi-tech innovation, all of which it generously shares with the world.

Unfortunately, when it comes to morale, the State of Israel has the distinction of holding a number of world records which no other country would want.

Over the last six decades, Israel’s leaders and its judiciary have practiced the art of political expedience to such a degree that Israel is now the first and only country in the world to hold the following dubious “honors”:

• Israel is the only country in the world ever to voluntarily expel its own citizens from chunks of its homeland in order to hand over the land to its enemies.

• It is the only country in the world ever to voluntarily destroy the homes and businesses of its own citizens, leaving them with shattered lives and broken promises.

• Israel is the only country in the world ever to voluntarily dig up and transport the graves of its dead so that the land could be turned over to its enemies.

The State of Israel also holds unenviable world records for betraying those who serve the state, including the following:

• Israel is the only country in the world to restrain its military from rescuing a wounded soldier, for fear of provoking the enemy and risking its approval ratings with the world. The soldier, injured by enemy gunfire at a Jewish holy site, slowly bled to death needlessly while the IDF stood by and watched.

• Israel also remains the only country in the world ever to voluntarily cooperate in the prosecution of its own intelligence agent, refusing him sanctuary, turning over the documents to incriminate him, denying that the state knew him, and then allowing him to rot in a foreign prison for decades on end, cravenly forgoing its right to simple justice for the nation and for the agent.

• Additionally, Israel is still the only country in the world ever to violate its own system of justice by repeatedly releasing dangerous, unrepentant murderers and terrorists back into the civilian population with impunity. No other country in the world has ever done this! In summary, Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world so befuddled by moral ambiguity that it is willing to dishonor its dead, betray its bereaved, and disgrace its citizens for the sake of political expediency.

Earlier this week, the State of Israel began the staged release of some of the worst murderers and terrorists the world has ever seen. Twenty-six out of the 104 murderers scheduled for release went free on Tuesday. Many are serving multiple life sentences for their heinous crimes and their many victims.

The blood of their victims cries out from the grave at this affront to human decency. Their cries go unheard.

The bereaved families of the victims beg and plead not to free the savage murderers of their loved ones. Their entreaties are ignored.

All the polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens are opposed to the release of the murderers. It is a strange kind of democracy that pays no heed whatsoever to the will of the people.

No Israeli official has advanced a single compelling reason in support of the wholesale release of these murderers and terrorists. The claim that it “serves national interests” is spurious. There is no national interest that supersedes morality.

The second-most touted excuse is that the government of Israel was given three existentially threatening choices by its best ally, and the least damaging choice of the three was the release of murderers and terrorists.

Did anyone at the helm ever consider that given three life-threatening choices, the only response is: “No, no and no!”?

Overriding all objections, the government of the State of Israel is bound and determined to release the murderers, whose victims are not all dead. Some have been maimed, crippled and disfigured for life. Others show no external scars but have had parents, children and loved ones amputated from their lives. No one sees the broken hearts that will never stop bleeding for their loss.

Authentic Jewish tradition teaches in great detail how to relate to the dead with honor and reverence. The dead are not only keepers of the past; they are our teachers, our moral guides and our inspiration for the future. A country with no respect for the dead has no respect for the living.

A sovereign state which is capable of dishonoring its dead by freeing their murderers and tormenting their bereaved loved ones has, in essence, discarded all of the moral underpinnings of its own existence.

Nor should it come as any surprise – as any student of history knows – that no country can survive without a clearly defined moral infrastructure.

The Land of Israel is eternal and the State of Israel has temporal stewardship over the land. The corrosive moral ambiguity that has brought us to this dreadful day is relentlessly eating away at the legitimacy of the state’s continued role as legal guardian of the land. The prognosis is dire.

Only a reawakening of national resolve and a rebirth of ethical politics rooted in national selfrespect, moral rectitude and courage of conviction can guarantee the future. No political process devoid of these fundamental values will ever end the agony or the fear for the State of Israel.

It is clearly time for an historic restoration.

Yehuda Matzil es Yosef: Judah saves Joseph [Kol Hator]

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The Golden Age That You Never Knew: Return of The Sp-y!

Welcome to the golden age of spying.

Maybe you have heard of WikiLeaks? The UK's latest great spy network? Julian Assange?

How about your latest superstar, and the whistle blower on this great era before us, Edward Snowden?

Yes, we are here and witness to espionage that the world has NEVER seen before.

Now how about some irony and chutzpah to boot:

If you want cause of the geulah, and should you be in denial to the magnitude of what we are beholding, consider this:  we are going through an unprecedented phase of espionage, while a yid who was a spy, sits and terminates his life over such matters.

I don't care what one may say of Jonathan Pollard, the grandiose secrets he knew/knows, etc. Even if he made Snowden look like an amateur [which I highly doubt!] - eizeh chutzpah achi, Nu! 

Seriously, all this spy network goes on with fiber optics and such, and they want to kill him and for what he stood for - when the world literally stands on his head! For that alone, Rav Eliyahu was correct about Pollard, and the geulah WILL COME  on his merit, even if in the negative - at least now it has major context!

News.com:

The Guardian cited British intelligence memos leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to claim that UK spies were tapping into the world's network of fibre optic cables to deliver the "biggest internet access" of any member of the Five Eyes - the name given to the espionage alliance composed of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. That access could in theory expose a huge chunk of the world's everyday communications - including the content of people's emails, calls, and more - to scrutiny from British spies and their American allies. 

How much data the Brits are copying off the fibre optic network isn't clear, but it's likely to be enormous. The Guardian said the information flowing across more than 200 cables was being monitored by more than 500 analysts from the NSA and its UK counterpart, GCHQ. "This is a massive amount of data!" the Guardian quoted a leaked slide as boasting. The newspaper, whose revelations about America and Britain's globe-spanning surveillance programs have reignited an international debate over the ethics of espionage, said GCHQ was using probes to capture and copy data as it crisscrossed the Atlantic between Western Europe and North America.

It said that, by last year, GCHQ was in some way handling 600 million telecommunications every day - although it did not go into any further detail and it was not clear whether that meant that GCHQ could systematically record or even track all the electronic movement at once. 

GCHQ declined to comment on Friday, although in an emailed statement it repeated past assurances about the legality of its actions. "Our work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary, and proportionate," the statement said. Fibre optic cables - thin strands of glass bundled together and strung out underground or across the oceans - play a critical role in keeping the world connected.

A 2010 estimate suggested that such cables are responsible for 95 per cent of the world's international voice and data traffic, and the Guardian said Britain's geographic position on Europe's western fringe gave it natural access to many of the trans-Atlantic cables as they emerged from the sea.

The Guardian said GCHQ's probes did more than just monitor the data live; British eavesdroppers can store content for three days and metadata - information about who was talking to whom, for how long, from where, and through what medium - for 30 days. The paper quoted Mr Snowden, the leaker, as saying that the surveillance was "not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight ... They (GCHQ) are worse than the US"

Mr Snowden, whose whereabouts are unknown, faces the prospect of prosecution in the United States over his disclosures, and some there have called on him to be tried for treason. Mr Snowden has expressed interest in seeking asylum in Iceland, where a local businessman said he was prepared to fly the leaker should he request it. 

and as for the U.S. - just read about Edward Snowden and/or NSA operations:

TimesofIndia:

Fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said the US National Security Agency operates broad secret spying partnerships with other western governments now complaining about its programmes, in an interview published on Sunday. Snowden said in comments made before his exposure of US espionage practices came to light last month and printed in German news weekly Der Spiegel that NSA spies are "in bed together with the Germans and most other western states". 

In remarks published in German, Snowden said an NSA department known as the foreign affairs directorate coordinated work with foreign secret services. The partnerships are organised so that authorities in other countries can "insulate their political leaders from the backlash" if it becomes public "how grievously they're violating global privacy," he said. The interview was conducted by US cryptography expert Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras using "encrypted emails shortly before Snowden became known globally for his whistleblowing", Spiegel said. 

 On cooperation with Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, Snowden said the NSA provides "analysis tools" for data passing through Germany from regions such as the Middle East. The US government has revoked the passport of Snowden, a former NSA contractor who is seeking to evade US justice for leaking details about a vast US electronic surveillance programme to collect phone and internet data. 

 He has been stranded at a Moscow airport for two weeks but three Latin American countries have now offered him asylum. His claims about widespread US spying on Western partners have sparked uproar among European allies in particular and threatened to derail talks on the world's largest free-trade zone due to start on Monday. German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday and agreed to a "high-level meeting" between US and German security officials in the coming days to address intelligence matters. 

The Key To Understanding Geulah: The Pollard - Eliyahu Key

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Happy Birthday Big Boy!

Shimon Peres. Just how deep does the Erev Rav Erev Katan definition bleed? I think we are watching our present incarnation of Bilaam and his curses that become Blessings - against his will.
The literal engineer to the State may become transformed into the ultimate setup man.
Shimon Peres - worth the admission  ticket to see what he does from here on out on his farewell tour.

We are finally starting to see the fruits of Novelty; it's called Shimon Peres. I understand Pollard now in a whole new light.


Al-Jazeerah:

When the gods Laugh

IF THE life of Shimon Peres was a play, it would be difficult to classify. A tragedy? A comedy? A tragicomedy?

For sixty years it looked as if he was under a curse of God, much like the curse of Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll an immense boulder up a hill, and every time he approached his goal the rock would roll down again to the bottom.

Disclosure: our lives have run somehow on parallel lines. He is one month older than I. We both came to Palestine as boys. We have both been in political life from our teens. But there the similarity ends.

We met for the first time 60 years ago, when we were 30 years old. He was the Director General of Israel’s most important ministry, I was the publisher and editor of Israel’s most aggressive news magazine. We disliked each other on sight.

He was David Ben-Gurion’s main assistant, I was Ben-Gurion’s main enemy (so defined by his security chief.) From there our paths crossed many times, but we did not become bosom friends.

ALREADY IN his early childhood in Poland, Peres (still Persky) complained that his mates in (Jewish) school beat him up for no reason. His younger brother had to defend him.

When he came to Palestine with his family, he was sent to the legendary children’s village Ben Shemen, and joined a kibbutz. But already as a teenager his political acumen was evident. He was an instructor in a socialist youth movement. It split and most of his comrades joined the left-wing faction, which looked more young and dynamic. Peres was one of the few who remained with the ruling party, Mapai, and thereby drew the attention of the senior leaders.

He had to make a much more momentous choice in the 1948 war, a war all of us considered a life-and-death struggle. It was the decisive event in the life of our generation. Almost all the young people hastened to join the fighting units. Not Peres. Ben-Gurion sent him abroad to buy arms – a very important task, but one that could have been carried out by an older person. Peres was considered a shirker at the supreme test and was never forgiven by the 1948ers. Their contempt plagued him for decades.

At the early age of 30 Ben-Gurion appointed him director of the Defense Ministry – a huge advancement, which assured him a rapid rise to the top. And indeed, he played a major role in pushing Ben-Gurion into the 1956 Suez war, in collusion with France and Britain.

The French were struggling with the Algerian war for independence and believed that their real enemy was the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser. They got Israel to spearhead an attack to topple him. It was a complete failure.

In my opinion, the war was a political disaster for Israel. It dug the abyss separating our new state from the Arab world. But the French showed their gratitude – they rewarded Peres with the atomic reactor in Dimona.

Throughout this period, Peres was the ultimate hawk, and a central member of a group which my magazine, Haolam Hazeh, branded as “Ben-Gurion’s youth gang” – a group we suspected of plotting to assume power by undemocratic means. But before this could happen, Ben-Gurion was kicked out by the old party veterans, and Peres had no choice but to join him in political exile. They formed a new party, Rafi, Peres worked like mad, but in the end they garnered only 10 Knesset seats. Peres and the boulder were back at the bottom.

Redemption came with the Six-day War. On its eve, Rafi was invited to join a National Unity government. But the big prize was snatched by Moshe Dayan, who became Minister of Defense and a world idol. Peres remained in the shadows.

The next opportunity arose after the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Golda Meir and Dayan were pushed out by an incensed public. Peres was the obvious candidate for Prime Minister. But lo and behold, at the last minute Yitzhak Rabin appeared from nowhere and snatched the crown. Peres was left with the Defense Ministry.

The next three years were a continuous story of subversion, with Peres trying by all available means to undermine Rabin. As a part of this effort, he allowed right-wing extremists to establish the first settlement in the heart of the West Bank – Kedumim. He has rightly been called the father of the settlement movement, as he was earlier called the father of the atom bomb.

Rabin coined a phrase that stuck to him: “Tireless Backstabber”.

This chapter ended with the “dollar account”. Upon leaving his former job as ambassador in Washington, Rabin had left an open account in an American bank. At the time, that was a criminal offense, generally settled with a fine, but Rabin resigned in order to protect his wife.

It was never proved that Peres had a hand in the disclosure, though many suspected it.

AT LONG last, the way was clear. Peres assumed the leadership of the party and ran for elections. The Labor Party was bound to win, as it always had before.

But God only laughed. After 44 years of continuous Labor Party dominance, in the Yishuv and the state, Peres managed to achieve the unthinkable: he lost.

Menachem Begin made peace with Egypt, with Moshe Dayan, Peres’ competitor, at his side. Soon afterwards, Begin invaded Lebanon. On the eve of that war, Peres and Rabin visited him and urged him to attack. After the war went wrong, Peres appeared at a huge peace rally and condemned the war.

In the election before that, Peres had a shattering experience. In the evening, after the ballots were closed, Peres was crowned on camera as the next Prime Minister. On the following morning, Israel woke up with Prime Minister Menachem Begin again.

The elections after that ended in a draw. For the first time Peres became Prime Minister, but only under a rotation agreement. When Shamir assumed power, Peres tried to unseat him in a dubious political plot. It failed. Rabin, caustic as ever, called it “the Dirty Exercise”.

Peres’ unpopularity reached new depths. At election rallies, people cursed him and threw tomatoes. When, at a party event, he posed the rhetorical question: “Am I a loser?” the audience shouted in unison: “Yes!”

To change his luck, he underwent a cosmetic operation to alter his hangdog look. But his lack of grace could not be remedied by a surgeon. Neither could his oratorical skills – this man, who has delivered many tens of thousands of speeches, has never expressed a truly original idea. His speeches consist entirely of political platitudes, helped along by a deep voice, the dream of every politician.

(This, by the way, disproves to me his pretense of having read thousands of books. You cannot really read so many books without a trace of it showing up in your writing and speeches. One of his assistants once confided to me that he prepared resumes of fashionable books for him, to save him the trouble of actually reading before quoting them.)

IN THE meantime, Peres the hawk turned into Peres the peacenik. He had a part to play in achieving the Oslo accord, but it was Rabin who garnered the glory. The same, by the way, had happened before with the daring Entebbe raid, when Peres was Minister of Defense and Rabin Prime Minister.

After Oslo, the Nobel committee was about to award the Peace Prize to Rabin and Arafat. However, immense world-wide pressure was exerted on the committee to include Peres. Since no more than three persons can share the prize, Mahmoud Abbas, who had signed the agreement with Peres, was left out.

The assassination of Rabin was a turning point for Peres. He had been standing near Rabin when the “peace song” was sung. He came down the stairs, when Yigal Amir was waiting below, the loaded pistol in his hand. The murderer let Peres pass and waited for Rabin – another crowning insult.

But, at long last, Peres had achieved his goal. He was Prime Minister. The obvious thing to do was to call immediate elections, posing as the heir of the martyred leader. He would have won by a landslide. But Peres wanted to be elected on his own merit. He postponed the elections.

The results were disastrous. Peres gave the order to assassinate Yahya Ayyash, the “engineer” who had prepared the Hamas bombs. In retaliation, the entire country blew up in a tsunami of suicide bombings. Then Peres invaded South Lebanon, a sure means to gain popularity. But something went wrong, artillery fire caused a massacre of civilians in a UN (Qana) camp, and the operation came to an inglorious end. Peres lost the elections, Netanyahu came to power. (See more information below)*

Later, when the feared Ariel Sharon was elected, Peres offered him his services. He successfully whitewashed Sharon’s bloody image in the world.

IN ALL his long political life, Peres never won an election. So he decided to give up party politics and run for president. His victory was assured, certainly against a nondescript Likud functionary like Moshe Katzav. The outcome was again a crowning insult: little Katzav won against the great Peres. (Causing some people to say: “If an election cannot be lost, Peres will lose it anyway!”)

But this time God seems to have decided that enough was enough. Katzav was accused of raping his secretaries, the way was clear for Peres. He was elected.

Since then he has been celebrating. God showered him with favors. The public, which detested him for decades, enveloped him with their love. International celebrities anointed him as one of the world’s great.

He could not get enough of it. Hungry for love all his life, he swallowed flattery like a barrel without a bottom. He talked endlessly about “Peace” and the “New Middle East” while doing absolutely nothing to further it. Even TV announcers smiled when they repeated his edifying phrases. In reality he served as a fig leaf for Netanyahu’s endless exercises in expansion and sabotaging peace.

The culmination came this Tuesday. Sitting alongside Netanyahu, Peres celebrated his 90th birthday (two months before the real date), surrounded by a plethora of national and international celebrities, basking in their glamor like a teenager. It cost a lot – Bill Clinton alone got half a million dollars for attending.

Happy B-Day Shimon

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Umm, Pax Judaica?

Once America pulls back [i.e. riding Obama Admin.] - and the dust settles, [hypothetically, as Moshiach is in the cards as well] - you will have the next version of Pax Britannica - Americana in Pax Judaica. Within 10 years max - Israel is the ruling state.


The Telegraph:


A revanchist Russia ships arms to her allies. Iranian revolutionary guards arrive along the eastern Mediterranean seaboard.

The world, it seems, can be a dangerous place. The escalating conflict in Syria is not merely a reminder of what nasty regimes can do. More ominously, it illustrates what can happen when America – still the world’s great power – sits back. Tyrants are emboldened. Regional bully boys, hemmed in by the international order, start to push and to probe. Perhaps it is just Barack Obama. Maybe it is the 44th president who has been sitting back, and his successor will be swifter to respond to local conflagrations. I hope so. But what if it is not? What if America’s post-Iraq blues, combined with that massive mountain of debt run up by successive White House administrations, make “sitting back” more normal for Washington? Are we ready for a world with less of the Pax Americana? The week that Tehran starts to move revolutionary guards around the Middle East, Britain contemplates yet more defence cuts.

Our aircraft carriers will be without any aircraft until at least 2018. Our navy has 13 frigates, and six destroyers in service – almost as many vessels as Venice had during the last days of that once-great maritime republic. Si vis pacem, para bellum, advised the Roman military strategist, Vegetius. If you want peace, prepare for war. Britain’s problem is not that we lack the resources to defend ourselves. We are the fourth-largest defence spender in the world.

Our trouble is that we are just not very good at converting what financial muscle we do have into military punch. And Whitehall seems to have an over extended idea of where our national interest lies. Successive governments have deliberately consolidated Britain’s defence industrial supply base, in the belief that it will deliver efficiencies. Yet in any market, when you constrain the supply, the seller sets the terms of trade. So, too, in defence.

For years, defence contractors have been able to run up higher costs in the knowledge that they can simply pass them on to the taxpayer. Even after the latest changes to defence procurement announced last week, contractors will still have guaranteed profit margins.

Despite all that the defence lobbyists tell us, there is nothing patriotic about “sovereignty of supply” if it leaves Britain unable to muster the military kit we need, when we need it. Too often the defence budget seems to be spent in the interests of a few powerful contractors, rather than in the interests of statecraft.

Before we ask whether Britain should arm Syrian rebels, we need to ask if we are doing everything we should be doing to properly arm ourselves.

From Druids to Masons to Neo Erev Rav

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Bow to Zion

Everything is on the internet. The goal of NWO factions would to be own everything, and by association, the internet. Once that happens, its lights out and game over. The race is against the clock; Israel vs. Iran [all those who are against Pax Judaica Americana-ism off the French cuisine British temPLATE; daniel's prophecy of 1739-Ketz]

This dream is realized through fiber optics.

Israel will be the world's first fiber optic state; consider that to mean check mate, whereas every other regime will need over a hundred years to upgrade their infrastructure. Consider Israel to have the ultimate field position [by the grace of God] in this contest, one that was obviously engineered to win [in both Kedusha and klippah].

This would be Iran's red line on Israel. Unfortunately its God's too, and Moshiach is to stand against this reality; antithetically. The flip side is the end game to the already implemented Libertarian Paternalism; fiber optics are the gateway to endless control to the digital universe.

The clock is ticking; Paradigm Universal clock vs. Iranian nuke clock vs. the Fiber Optic clock.

Right now God's clock reads 12:31-ish P.M. - time to pray Mincha - which it might not be a bad idea, as we now stand in the first rays of light of Shabbat.

A pity if Hashem has to turn off the electronics for Shabbat, for Shabbat is already upon us - if we can just connect the dots.

JPost.com:

Israel will be the first end-to-end digital nation, Cisco CEO John Chambers said on Wednesday in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Chambers agreed earlier in the day to establish a working group to explore how Cisco can help upgrade Israel’s digital infrastructure.

Whereas most countries upgrade one area at a time, Israel is moving to connect homes with fiber-optic networks and infrastructure in businesses, education, healthcare and security all at once – with cooperation from the networking giant, of course.

“It’s a risk that Cisco is very much committed to and proud to do,” Chambers said. “This is going to be the first digital nation, if we’re successful.”

The importance of having strong technological infrastructure in place is necessary to achieve the stunning growth potential expected in the coming years. Over the course of the next decade, private companies will be able to generate $14 trillion in profits from the ever-increasing connectivity of devices known as “The Internet of Everything.”

According to Chambers, the next wave of network technology that connects not only computers but appliances, objects, processes and data will integrate fields as far-flung as healthcare and education. Based on Cisco’s estimates, in 2013 alone the “Internet of Everything” profits will reach $613 billion.

“If I were a start-up in Israel that’s the direction I would go,” he said.

Cisco announced three initiatives in Israel: a research and development lab on cyber security; building security consulting services; and launching a pilot training program on information security. The focus on security is paramount to the future of business, he noted.

“There’s not a company I’m aware of that hasn’t been attacked with complexity,” he said.

Cisco is to invest $15 million in Venture Capital funds in Israel.

Chambers said he was impressed that despite some sharp difference in political parties, the various ministers with whom he met all supported pushing technological infrastructure forward.

“When your country decides to move, you move together,” he said.

“It’s unusual that you get that kind of alignment across multiple political parties,” he said.

Asked about potential risks of tinkering with Israel’s capital investment policy, Chambers advised not to drive investment away.

“I’d be very careful in tax policy not to kill your golden goose in the process.” While fiscal responsibility were very important, he said, “the best way to get tax policy up is growth.”

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The Last Cup of Coffee

The Great Pacification of the Armilos Kibbutz called the Zionist dream [of exploitation of its template based on a true Moshiach ben Yosef;Kol Hator], a watered down Israel, that still holds sacred the Coca Cola t-shirts branded with Hebrew script, is coming into high gear.

Naftali Bennet-ism is coming soon, a neo-Shariah Law composed in a Prime Minister's office, to convince us all that we are brothers, partners even, in High - Tech start up groups, as we binge the dividends of over-priced [American goods] pampers.

Erev Rav are making their final move:  a Judaism we can all buy into, equality, with quiet elitism shrouded beneath elitism whispering in between the coffee stands that used to be Haredi institutions of learning; now reduced to a political juggernaut, regime de la Shas.

Sadly, this is the fight Haredim should be fighting, but they are more concerned with fighting the Land of God rather than God's enemy: false religion, and instituting false religion on those w/o religion, i..e potential Garei Toshavim.

Is it still even time to say Ad Matei? If anyone forgot that it is 5773, and the Zohar imagery that comes with it, well, there is on question - which part ISN'T true and becoming more and more revealed? It's just uncanny how Hashem attacks with Mazal [revelation] that fiends on people's own baseless bias' - for to step out into an objective Universe happens upon God's domain, and today [with internet] it's right next door.

Jpost.com:

Religious Services Minister Naftali Bennett, alongside Deputy Minister Eli Ben- Dahan, unveiled a series of reforms on Sunday, calling the proposals “revolutionary.”

The objective was to improve the professionalism of religious services and make them more accessible to the general public, Bennett said, speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem.

“This is an opportunity to sanctify God’s name and to draw people closer [to Judaism],” said Bennett, emphasizing that religious services were required by the entire population “and not just one community.”

The Bayit Yehudi chairman attributed the main push for reform to Ben-Dahan, who runs the ministry.

Although various groups expressed support for some of the planned reforms, there was also widespread criticism from both secular and religious quarters, including political parties on the Right and Left.

Notable among Bennett’s comments was his assertion that “there is no competition in Judaism, although there can be and should be [competition] for serving the Israeli public.”

Non-Orthodox movements have in recent years been increasingly lobbying for state recognition and funding, and Finance Minister Yair Lapid has said on at least three occasions that he intends to bring all Jewish streams onto an equal footing in terms of funding and state recognition, while also vowing to institute civil marriage.

Ben-Dahan has said Bayit Yehudi will veto any legislation in this regard.

Meretz MK Michal Roisin told The Jerusalem Post the reforms being advanced by Bayit Yehudi amounted to “service with a smile” but with no substantial change in addressing the needs of the public.

She pointed in particular to the demands for civil marriage and divorce registration as basic requirements “of any normative state.”

“What we have here is the exchange of a black yarmulke for a knitted yarmulke, and service with a smile,” Roisin said. “But the coercive nature of the service within an Orthodox framework remains, and this is what is divisive and what distances people from religion.”

At the same time, haredi MK Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism criticized the proposals, saying they endangered traditional Judaism.

“In matters relating to the foundations of the Jewish people, we must not make changes under the guise of simplifying bureaucracy,” said Porush.

“Today we’re talking about technical issues, tomorrow, God forbid, there will be a break with Jewish tradition.”

During the press conference, Bennett and Ben-Dahan announced three main reforms that they will seek to advance in the field of religious services, relating to local religious councils.

These bodies are a primary provider for services such as marriage registration, burial arrangements and many other life-cycle events, and have frequently been criticized as unprofessional, unapproachable and inattentive to the needs and sensitivities of the general public.

The first of the planned reforms is to abolish separate marriage registration districts, so as to allow anyone from any locale to register anywhere in the country, thereby creating competition between councils for the NIS 600 registration fee, in the hope that this will lead to improved services.

Many religious groups, such as the Tzohar rabbinical association, have voiced concerns in recent years that an unwelcoming and bureaucratic atmosphere prevails in many marriage registration offices at local religious councils, which causes many couples to chose to marry abroad in civil ceremonies.

The worry for such groups is that the downturn in ceremonial Jewish marriage will create an irrevocable split in the Jewish population in Israel, since the principal tool used to prove Jewish identity is providing the Jewish marriage certificate of a person’s parents.

Tzohar welcomed the proposal on marriage registration, pointing out that it has campaigned for several years to open up the registration jurisdictions to competition.

In a particularly bitter fight with the Religious Services Ministry back in 2011, Tzohar shut down its free marriage service in protest of what it called discriminatory restrictions placed upon it by the ministry.

This incident led to legislative efforts to abolish separate marriage registration districts, including a bill submitted by Yisrael Beytenu’s MK Faina Kirschenbaum, which passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset and was stalled following the dissolution of the Knesset ahead of January’s election.

Bennett and Ben-Dahan vowed to “disconnect politics from the provision of religious services,” by creating a professional appointments process for the position of chairman for local religious councils.

Currently, council chairmen are selected by representatives of the religious services minister, the local municipal authority and the rabbinate.

By creating a professional appointments process for the position, said Bennett, “the opportunity for cronyism and the distribution of jobs will be uprooted” from local religious councils.

This proposal came in for severe criticism from the national-religious Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah lobbying group, which argued that the proposed appointment process would be anti-democratic and would deny local municipalities the ability to determine an appropriate executive for the region’s religious council.

Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah said the idea was “an unacceptable form of centralization [which] strengthens the monopoly of religious services in Israel,” adding that it contravened proposals made by at least two public committees on the issue.

The organization argued that public tenders for professional positions, such as those that would be made for the chairmanship of religious councils, are frequently skewed to favor candidates with particular qualifications – and that such tenders would ultimately put the religious services minister in control of the process.

“Just like a mayor, the chairman of a local religious council needs to be elected by the public and not appointed by a minister, and this proposal strengthens the religious services minister in making these appointments instead of strengthening communities and the wider public,” Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah said.

Hiddush, a religious freedom lobbying group, also weighed in, welcoming recognition of the problems in the provision of religious services but arguing that the reforms dealt with marginal issues and would “perpetuate Orthodox control over religious life.”

Hiddush director Reform Rabbi Uri Regev said the only solution for the provision of religious services in a democratic state was “freedom of choice in marriage and the abolition of a coercive state-run rabbinate.”

The third reform announced by Bennett and Ben-Dahan would see the number of local religious councils reduced from 132 to 80 in order to reduce unnecessary expenditure and increase efficiency.

Ben-Dahan said that the money saved on employing clerks and supporting the bureaucracy of the extraneous councils would be used for the improvement of services.

Both the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel criticized the proposed reforms, arguing that preserving the provision of religious services within an Orthodox framework was divisive and restricted choice.

“The only revolution that can heal the crisis of religious services in Israel is the abolition of the Orthodox monopoly and allowing real choice for different Jewish communities and denominations,” director of the Israel Reform Movement Rabbi Gilad Kariv said.

“A cosmetic facelift will not solve the plight of hundreds of thousands of people ineligible for marriage, will not provide for a sane conversion process or give expression to the fact that a millions of Jews belong to non-Orthodox denominations,” Kariv said. 

The New Israeli Dollar

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Bring On Damascus

Like a game of domino's: Syria, Iran, Egypt, Americana-goga-bama-Putinism [in the north], Damascus...Beis HaMikdash?


YahooNews:

Israel could launch a pre-emptive strike to stop Syria's chemical weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah or al-Qaida inspired groups, officials said Sunday. The warning came as the military moved a rocket defense system to a main northern city, and Israel's premier warned of dangers from both Syria and Iran. Israel has long expressed concerns that Syrian President Bashar Assad, clinging to power during a 22-month civil war, could lose control over his chemical weapons. 

Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday that Israel's top security officials held a special meeting last week to discuss Syria's chemical weapons arsenal. The fact of the meeting, held the morning after a national election, had not been made public before.

Shalom told the Army Radio station that the transfer of weapons to violent groups, particularly the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, would be a game changer. "It would be crossing a line that would demand a different approach, including even action," he said. Asked whether this might mean a pre-emptive attack, he said: "We will have to make the decisions."

Israel has kept out of the civil war that has engulfed Syria and killed more than 60,000 people, but it is concerned that violence could spill over from its northern border into Israel.

Israel deployed its Iron Dome rocket defense system in the northern city of Haifa on Sunday. The city was battered by Hezbollah rocket fire during a war in the summer of 2006. The military called the deployment "routine."

Iron Dome, an Israel-developed system that shoots down incoming short-range rockets, was used to defend Israeli cities during a round of hostilities with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, on Israel's southern flank, last November. Yisrael Hasson, a lawmaker and former deputy head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, said Israel was closely following developments in Syria to make sure chemical weapons don't "fall into the wrong hands."

"Syria has a massive amount of chemical weapons, and if they fall into hands even more extreme than Syria like Hezbollah or global jihad groups it would completely transform the map of threats," Hasson told Army Radio. "Global jihad" is the term Israel uses for forces influenced by al-Qaida. Syria's rebels include al-Qaida-allied groups.

Syria has rarely acknowledged possessing chemical weapons. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to threats from Syria and Iran at a Cabinet meeting Sunday. Iran is Syria's main regional ally. "We must look around us, at what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart," he said.

Israel views Iran as an existential threat because of its nuclear and missile programs and support for violent anti-Israeli groups in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as repeated references by Iranian leaders to Israel's destruction. Iran denies it is seeking to build atomic weapons, insisting its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

On Friday, Israeli Channel 2 TV broadcast an interview with a former Iranian diplomat who defected to the West in 2010. He warned that if Tehran gets nuclear weapons, it would use them against Israel. He did not provide evidence. Part of Mohammad Reza Heydari's job was to draft foreign scientists to work on Tehran's nuclear program and he brought many from North Korea into Iran, the report said. Heydari spoke from Oslo, where he has received political asylum.

Follow @RabbiKSoulMazal

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21st Century Zionica Looms

Pax Judaica - A docile America while Israelica feeds her stomache? One can see that if America sedates itself in a more baseline approach to World affairs, it will be Israel who is give free reign to be Deputy Active Policeman for the Sheriff who is in early retirement.

Business Spectator:

It’s tempting to think that with the United States becoming self-sufficient in energy and needing big cutbacks in military spending, Israel is going to be increasingly alone as it faces its many risks.

After all, so much of American engagement in the Middle East has been about protecting oil supplies and keeping the price of energy low, but the International Energy Agency has recently forecast that the US will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer by 2020. Soon it will become an exporter of LNG.

The US now gets only 12 per cent of its oil from the Middle East and horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of shale oil and gas deposits has raised the real prospect of energy independence for the US, after decades of dreaming about such a thing.

And Israel’s leaders must be watching the soaring production of oil and gas in the US and the approaching fiscal cliff with growing alarm: in fact, maybe that’s why they've been coming down so hard on Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the past few days.

It’s much more complicated than that of course. It will always be in America’s national interest for it to keep the shipping lanes open and Persian Gulf oil flowing, even if, miraculously, the US doesn’t need any itself.

Energy independence for the US is still a long way off and any defence spending cutbacks coming out of the negotiations on the fiscal cliff are likely to be fairly small, but the balance of power and energy in the world is shifting nonetheless.

As American reliance for energy on the Middle East declines, China’s is increasing. China, and the rest of Asia for that matter, is counting on America to keep something resembling the peace there, to keep the oil flowing.

The key remains Iran, and increasing US oil and gas production is making the sanctions against Iran much more successful.

Iran denies supplying Hamas with Fajr-5 rockets that can get from Gaza to Tel Aviv, but they were made there. Thanks to the effectiveness of the sanctions, Iran is now risking a lot by supporting Hamas.

The other great global impact of America’s rapidly growing production of oil and gas is on manufacturing.

Once the fiscal cliff is dealt with, the focus of President Obama’s second term is going to be jobs and these days that means making the most of shale gas and oil. Already 1.7 million jobs have been created as a direct result of the US energy revolution, according to analysis by the consulting firm, IHS.

The deputy chairman of IHS, Daniel Yergin, writing in the Financial Times over the weekend, said billions of dollars of investment are now slated for US manufacturing because of inexpensive gas, and that by 2020 the number of new jobs resulting from it will be 3 million.

The effect of this on the global economy is hard to overestimate.

The technocrats now in charge of both Europe and China have a tremendous amount of work to do in reforming their economies to make them more productive and generally bring them into the 21st century.

To improve productivity, China, Japan, Italy, France and Spain all have to rapidly deregulate their economies and introduce market forces, as Australia has been doing since 1983. Failure to do so will eventually be catastrophic – and that goes for China as much as the others.

America is already deregulated (arguably too much so) and very productive. Cheap energy is likely to make it a manufacturing powerhouse once more – if not as an exporter, then certainly enough to supply itself 

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