Middle East | Ain't Complicated

ME War Next Month?

Israel braces for July war with up to five enemies:

Israel is preparing for an imminent war with Iran, Syria and/or their non-state clients.

Israeli military intelligence has projected that a major attack could come from any of five adversaries in the Middle East. Officials said such a strike could spark a war as early as July 2007.

On Sunday, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet that the Jewish state faces five adversaries in what could result in an imminent confrontation. Yadlin cited Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and Al Qaida.

If it happens…

Will the outcome be better for Israel than last year’s Lebanon deal?
Where will the US figure into it?
How will it affect matters in Iraq?
Will it mean the end of Iran’s nuke program?
Will we surpass the $4 a gallon for gasoline that had been predicted in the US for this summer?
Which US Presidential candidate has the most to win?
Will it do anything for President Bush’s legacy?
How about that of SecState Rice?

Oh, and one other question: Will the current Israeli government fall before then?

Gaza Troubles

First, from Mission Network News:

Christians in the Gaza Strip expressed concern about their future after Islamic militants of Hamas took control of the Palestinian territory.

Open Doors’ Carl Moeller says Hamas’ takeover brought weeks of violence to an end. But having Hamas in charge may not necessarily be a good thing. The social and economic infrastructure has totally broken down. “Hamas will rule in Gaza, and if that’s the case, Gaza will be cut off from any aid from the outside world. We know that there are also Christians locked into that same place, there in Gaza. We’re praying for them, and we are asking the Christian community to provide resources.”

[…]

Moeller says there’s a few hundred evangelical believers trapped in Gaza. These people are caught in the crossfire, without supplies, unable to leave, but determined to share the hope of Christ. “They’re caught between radical Islam on the one side and Israel on the other, and they’re trying to follow after the Lord’s admonition to be peacemakers in the middle of that violent place.”

Second, a piece from WorldNetDaily:

Caught amid the infighting between Hamas and Fatah and Israel’s retaliation for rockets launched at its southern towns lies an easily overlooked segment of the population: Christians number only 2,000 among 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip â€“ less than 1 percent of the population.

Evangelical Christians are even fewer.

“We are a minority of minorities,” Hanna Massad, pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, told Israel Today. “It is really difficult. The Christian community here is 2,000 including Catholic, Greek Orthodox and evangelical Christians.”

Gaza Baptist Church, the only evangelical church in the Strip, ministers to 150 to 200 people.

[…]

Massad said living in Gaza is like being in a big prison. Many people have died because they haven’t been able get over the border in time for proper medical treatment in Israel or Egypt.

“The people are under siege from the sky, land and sea,” he said, adding that medical supplies and food are often delayed getting to the Strip. “Unemployment is 72 percent. Militant Muslims are against us, and some Christians are not with us because we are evangelical.”

Not long ago terrorists carried through on a threat to bomb the Gaza Bible Society where Massad’s wife is a director. Now the church itself has been threatened.

“There is a small militant group that hates everything Western and Christian, and in their minds, they are trying to clean up the city,” Massad said. “They are a narrow-minded group, and the government is unable to control it.”

But the Gaza church isn’t playing victim to the circumstances. Instead the Christians are running clinics, libraries, bringing humanitarian aid to the needy and carrying on meeting. They meet openly at the church.

“One thing that strikes me is that you don’t hear negative language from them,” Labib Madanat, executive director of the Palestinian Bible Society, told us. “Their language is positive, a language of mission: ‘What is my role as a believer; what can I do in this situation?'”

Gaza Baptist pastor Hanna Massad

And third, another article at WorldNetDaily:

Christians can continue living safely in the Gaza Strip only if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings, an Islamist militant leader in Gaza told WND in an exclusive interview.

The militant leader said Christians in Gaza who engage in “missionary activity” will be “dealt with harshly.”

The threats come two days after a church and Christian school in Gaza was attacked following the seizure of power in the territory by the Hamas terror group.

“I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza,” said Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamic outreach movement that recently announced the opening of a “military wing” to enforce Muslim law in Gaza.

Jihadia Salafiya is suspected of attacking a United Nations school in Gaza last month, after the school allowed boys and girls to participate in the same sporting event. One person was killed in that attack.

“The situation has now changed 180 degrees in Gaza,” said Abu Saqer, speaking from Gaza yesterday.

“Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity. No more alcohol on the streets. All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public,” Abu Asqer told WND.

“Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped,” he said. “If it goes on, we’ll attack these things very harshly.”

If you’re a Christian, do you care?

Even if you’re not a Christian, do you care?

They’re Not Offering Death?

Insurgents to Christians:

An Al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group is giving Christians in Baghdad a stark set of options: Convert to Islam, marry your daughters to our fighters, pay an Islamic tax or leave with only the clothes on your back.

I’m a little surprised “yield your head to Allah” isn’t mentioned as an option.

Perhaps it’s a given.

Everybody knows that, so why state the obvious.

It goes without saying. So it did.

Which option would I choose?

And you?

(Really?)

A Second Holocaust or Divine Protection?

This Holocaust Will Be Different:

The Germans, along with their non-German helpers, had to round up the men, women and children from their houses and drag and beat them through the streets and mow them down in nearby woods or push and pack them into cattle cars and transport them to the camps, where “Work makes free,” separate the able-bodied from the completely useless and lure them into “shower” halls and pour in the gas and then take out, or oversee the extraction of, the bodies and prepare the “showers” for the next batch.

The second holocaust will be quite different.

I believe Israel will survive till the end of time.

Our Generation’s Nazis?

You tell me:

Question: What’s the most dangerous geopolitical development in the 21st century? Answer: Iran’s emergence as the Middle East regional superpower. Why? Because it places the center of the world’s increasingly stretched energy resources more and more under the influence of an oil-rich, fundamentalist, pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic regime that has not only nuclear ambitions but the means to realize them.

The next question is….

Has the current culture (or previous culture) produced anyone in this generation that will rise to the need of the hour?

I suspect not.

Perhaps not till antiChrist rises.

Just curious.

We live in exciting times.

And perilous ones.

Beware.

Here We Go Again?

Israel on higher alert status.

Syria threat over Golan puts Israel on war alert

Israel has gone on heightened alert over a possible war with Syria amid reports that President Bashar Assad may be considering military strikes to regain the Golan Heights.

For years Israeli military intelligence has down-played Syria’s capacity to launch a meaningful attack against Israel, and the threat level has been kept “low”.

But Israeli reports have revealed that the threat level had been raised after intelligence assessments that Damascus is “seriously examining” military action.

The raised threat level comes as Israel prepares for Monday’s Day of Atonement, known as Yom Kippur, a solemn Jewish holiday when the entire country effectively shuts down as residents fast and seek forgiveness for sins.

Oh, Those Israelis!

The MSM continues exercising their right to free speech. Here's a little interpreting . . . .

Is this another anti-Israeli, pro-Hezbollah propaganda piece ~~disgusted~~ disguised as news?

Israeli commandos have struck deep into Lebanon, snatching five suspected Hezbollah guerrillas in a helicopter raid that spectacularly snubbed international pressure for an end to the three-week-old conflict.

struck deep into Lebanon = “The Israelis are really violating Lebanese sovereignty now.”

spectacularly snubbed = “The Israelis are still thumbing their nose at too many of us.”

while Hezbollah resumed raining rocket fire on Israel.

Hezbollah resumed = “They were provoked by the Israelis.”

Israel had called a 48-hour partial halt to air attacks after a raid on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday which killed 52 civilians, most of them children.

after a raid = “The Israelis did the Qana thing (and don’t bother us with what the new media is reporting about Hezbollah’s cold-blooded staged event).”

killed…civilians = “Who else but Israelis would kill non-combatants — you know, regular people like you, dear reader? These Jews obviously don’t know how to wage a war in a civilized way (and don’t harass us with the preposterous notion that Hezbollah fighters are dressing as civilians and operating from among civilians).”

children = “Killing harmless civilians living in their own homes out of their own free will is terrible enough, but this is beyond savagery. And we reject the outlandish anti-Arab idea that Hezbollah is callously using children and women as hostages, human-shields, and propaganda pieces.”

Local police said the Israelis snatched five people in the raid

people = “Just like you, these are civilians — not warriors, not terrorists, not Hezbollah. I’m telling you, someone needs to restrain these Israelis!”

That’s enough of that.

Am I being cynical or bothered or mocking or suspicious?

That seems quite likely, eh?