January 30, 2010

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Abbas: Palestinians Will Accept Only Jerusalem as Our Capital

By Haaretz Service
January 28, 2010

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared on Thursday that Palestinians would not accept any alternative to Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, despite other proposals.

Abbas told Russian television that Jerusalem should not be divided and that there should be free passage for people of various faiths. The Palestinian leader added it must be made clear what belongs to the Palestinians and what belongs to Israel.

Abbas said that he could only recognize Israel as a Jewish state in the framework of a conclusive peace agreement that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Abbas also said that he could not agree to resume the stalled peace negotiations with Israel as long as construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem continue. The peace process would collapse after the first meeting of such negotiations, said Abbas.
"If Israel says in the meeting that it will not accept the 1967 borders and that it is not prepared to discuss Jerusalem and the refugee situation, what is there to talk about?" Abbas said in the interview.

"If I enter negotiations with them and the building in East Jerusalem continues, Israel will be saying that Jerusalem is theirs. So why would I agree to negotiate while building in East Jerusalem continues?"
Israel has already turned down two initiatives formulated by the Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan to re-launch talks, Abbas said. Those proposals would have Israel agree to freeze all settlement building for at least a short period and recognize international resolutions. Also, the negotiations would be renewed from the point where they left off during the Ehud Olmert administration.

Abbas said that U.S. had asked Israel to make gestures to the Palestinians, including transferring additional territories in the West Bank to Palestinian control, halting Israeli military incursions, releasing prisoners, dismantling checkpoints and allowing building materials to enter the Gaza Strip.

According to Abbas, Israel said it would consider these gestures but had not yet responded.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Thursday there was no agreement yet to resume talks with Israel, and Palestinians would have no faith in a process which failed to halt Israeli settlements.

A Palestinian official said this week President Mahmoud Abbas was studying a U.S. proposal for talks at a level below full-scale negotiations between leaders, which have been frozen for 13 months.
"We heard about low-level, mid-level, high-level (talks)," Fayyad told Reuters. "I don't think there is anything yet that has been crystallised in terms of going forward."
U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell has been trying to bring about a resumption of negotiations but Abbas has insisted first on a full halt to Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

He has rejected a 10-month, partial Israeli freeze, announced in November, as insufficient.
"We Palestinians stand to lose the most from a stalled peace process, but we would still like to see the process resumed in a way that would give us confidence that it can actually deliver what it should be able to deliver," Fayyad said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"I don't know when the process will be resumed."
He said Palestinians could not have any faith in peace talks if they failed to deliver "something as basic as requiring Israel to completely stop settlement activity".

January 27, 2010

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

Report: Al-Qaeda Aims to Hit U.S. with WMDs

By Joby Warrick, Washington Post
January 26, 2010

When al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called off a planned chemical attack on New York's subway system in 2003, he offered a chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for "something better," Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers.

The meaning of Zawahiri's cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon.

The report, by a former senior CIA official who led the agency's hunt for weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda's leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kind of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.

The former official, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, draws on his knowledge of classified case files to argue that al-Qaeda has been far more sophisticated in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction than is commonly believed, pursuing parallel paths to acquiring weapons and forging alliances with groups that can offer resources and expertise.
"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now," Mowatt-Larssen writes in a report released Monday by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The report comes as a panel on weapons of mass destruction appointed by Congress prepares to release a new assessment of the federal government's preparedness for such an attack. The review by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is particularly critical of the Obama administration's actions so far in hardening the country's defenses against bioterrorism, according to two former government officials who have seen drafts of the report.

The commission's initial report in December 2008 warned that a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction was likely by 2013.

Mowatt-Larssen, a 23-year CIA veteran, led the agency's internal task force on al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later was named director of intelligence and counterintelligence for the Energy Department. His report warns that bin Laden's threat to attack the West with weapons of mass destruction is not "empty rhetoric" but a top strategic goal for an organization that seeks the economic ruin of the United States and its allies to hasten the overthrow of pro-Western governments in the Islamic world.

He cites patterns in al-Qaeda's 15-year pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that reflect a deliberateness and sophistication in assembling the needed expertise and equipment. He describes how Zawahiri hired two scientists -- a Pakistani microbiologist sympathetic to al-Qaeda and a Malaysian army captain trained in the United States -- to work separately on efforts to build a biological weapons lab and acquire deadly strains of anthrax bacteria. Al-Qaeda achieved both goals before September 2001 but apparently had not successfully weaponized the anthrax spores when the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan forced the scientists to flee, Mowatt-Larssen said.
"This was far from run-of-the-mill terrorism," he said in an interview. "The program was highly compartmentalized, at the highest level of the organization. It was methodical, and it was professional."
Mowatt-Larssen said he has seen no evidence linking al-Qaeda's program with the anthrax attacks on U.S. politicians and news outlets in 2001. Zawahiri's plan was aimed at mass casualties and "not just trying to scare people with a few letters," he said.

Evidence from al-Qaeda documents and interrogations suggests that terrorists leaders had settled on anthrax as the weapon of choice and believed that the tools for a major biological attack were within their grasp, the former CIA official said. Al-Qaeda remained interested in nuclear weapons as well but understood that the odds of success were much longer.
"They realized they needed a lucky break," Mowatt-Larssen said. "That meant buying or stealing fissile material or acquiring a stolen bomb."
Bush administration officials feared that bin Laden was close to obtaining nuclear weapons in 2003 after U.S. spies picked up a cryptic message by a Saudi affiliate of al-Qaeda referring to plans to obtain three stolen Russian nuclear devices. The intercepts prompted the U.S. and Saudi governments to go on alert and later led to an aggressive Saudi crackdown that resulted in the arrest or killing of dozens of suspected al-Qaeda associates.

After that, terrorists' chatter about a possible nuclear acquisition halted abruptly, but U.S. officials were never certain whether the plot was dismantled or simply pushed deeper underground.
"The crackdown was so successful," Mowatt-Larssen said, "that intelligence about the program basically dried up."

Israeli-Iranian Conflict

Israeli Leaders Visit Europe as EU Foreign Ministers Dump Iran Sanctions

DEBKAfile
January 26, 2010

Israel's president, prime minister and foreign minister are visiting Berlin, Warsaw and Budapest this week, apparently impervious to the European Union foreign ministers' decision in Brussels Monday, Jan. 25, to back away from sanctions for Iran's nuclear program outside the UN Security Council.

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle signed off on the motion, the day before Israeli president Shimon Peres' Hebrew address to the German parliament in Berlin.

The Netanyahu government clings to the anchor of supposed international sanctions for halting Iran's advance on a nuclear weapon. Monday, before traveling to Poland, prime minister Netanyahu said at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum:

"Today there are new Jew haters with new reasons to destroy the Jewish people. This is a test for humanity, and we will see in the coming weeks how the international community will stop the evil before it spreads."
Well, he had his answer than same afternoon, yet this eloquence vanished on the plane trips to Europe.

None of the Israeli travelers have commented on the decision by the European foreign ministers to dump the sanctions option in the laps of Russia and China, knowing their vetoes are committed in advance and that both stand out for more diplomatic engagement plus concessions to Tehran. The EU foreign ministers stated:
"With Iran, [sanctions] will work out only if all the UN Security Council permanent members agree."
Every one of those ministers was fully aware that this proposition was a fantasy.

If Israel counted on Washington staying the course, there too are signs of cold feet. Obama has reduced the target of possible unilateral measures to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is responsible for Iran's nuclear program, in order to avoid harming the Iranian people.

As debkafile has stressed before, the Revolutionary Guards have umpteen mostly criminal ways of beating sanctions:
They run a vast network of straw companies worldwide and move money around through international crime, smuggling, terror and drug conduits out of America's reach rather than the banking system.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi are undoubtedly Israel's best friends on the European continent, but they too conduct a dual policy on Iran. They sternly denounce Iran, while at the same time hundreds of German and Italian companies do business with the Islamic Republic, some even selling components for its missile and nuclear programs. Indeed, German and Italian firms are in tight competition over the Iranian market, with the latter reportedly gaining the edge this year.

No German transaction with Iran has been cancelled under Israeli pressure contrary to reports to this effect.

The most realistic European leader is French president Nicolas Sarkozy who Tuesday, Jan. 26, called for new and different steps to be pursued to halt Iran's dash for a nuclear bomb. Still, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner did not hold out against his colleagues consensus in Brussels.

Iran Crosses Red Line, Can Enrich Uranium Up to 20 Percent

DEBKAfile
January 25, 2010

Attaining the ability to enrich uranium up to 20 percent grade brings Iran dangerously close to "break-out" point for a nuclear weapon capability, debkafile's intelligence sources report.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised the "good news" would be announced during the Feb. 1-11 celebrations of the Islamic Revolution. The "news" was the subject of an urgent cabinet meeting in Jerusalem last week.

His announcement is a provocative mark of contempt for the six world powers and their offer to trade Iran's low-grade uranium for 20 pc enriched product overseas. By going public on the banned process and abandoning concealment, Iran's rulers are throwing down the gauntlet to them and Israel.

debkafile's Iranian sources report that the hawks of the Islamic regime led by Ahmadinejad and spiritual ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have won the day for their tactics of jumping ahead of any possible US-led or Israel steps against their nuclear program by pursuing its own aggressive initiatives.

The Iranian president's enrichment announcement at a time that the Obama administration is pondering tough sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards was part of this policy; so were the Syrian and Hizballah declarations of military preparedness for a purported Israeli attack last week, taking advantage of an IDF war game to raise the alarm.

Our political sources predict that Tehran's provocative move will be met with more of the five months of foot-dragging with which Washington and Jerusalem have met Iran's contempt for one deadline after another for ending nuclear enrichment. Both will continue to dither and pretend that stiff sanctions will scotch the Iranian nuclear threat. The Netanyahu government will keep up the pretence that the world and its sanctions can do the job. Tehran has meanwhile made good use of those five months to go forward and achieve a 20 pc enrichment capability.

The only straight talk from any Western leader has come from French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Saturday, Jan. 23, he told visiting Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri that France has evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons contrary to its claims. He warned that Israel "would not stand by while Iran develops nuclear weapons.

Sarkozy Warns Israel May Strike Iran Over Nuke Threat

Haaretz Service and Reuters
January 23, 2010

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Israel will not sit idly by while Iran continues work on its nuclear program, Israel Radio reported Saturday quoting London-based newspaper Al-Hayat.

According to the report, Sarkozy, who recently met with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, reportedly told him that France has proof Iran is working to develop an atomic bomb.
"Israel might take action to prevent the Iranian regime, which wants to wipe it off the map, from obtaining a nuclear bomb," Sarkozy reportedly said.
Sarkozy also reportedly said that if he had to choose between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he would prefer the Israeli leader despite some diplomatic differences they may have.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Sarkozy said the European Union should also "assume its responsibilities" in putting pressure on Tehran to enter into negotiations.
"To hesitate or to prevaricate in the face of such an issue would carry with it a great weight of responsibility," Sarkozy said while addressing EU diplomats. "The only aim of sanctions is to lead Iran to the negotiating table," he added.
Iran has ignored U.S. President Barack Obama's end of 2009 deadline to respond to an offer from six world powers of economic and political incentives in exchange for halting its uranium enrichment program.

However, UN security council members, Russia and China, both appear reluctant to impose more sanctions on Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Friday that world powers should beware of pushing Iran into a corner.

But Sarkozy said the time had come for the international community to draw the consequences of Iran's refusal to talk.
"Despite all our efforts, and a new engagement by the United States, and despite our ambitious proposals for cooperation, the Iranian authorities are blocked in a one-way street of proliferation and radicalism," Sarkozy said.

"Today, they have added to that the brutal repression of their own people," he added.

"France wants the [UN Security] Council to adopt strong measures and for the European Union as well to assume its responsibilities," he said.

He added that North Korea should be treated in similar fashion.

January 22, 2010

Israel-U.S. Alliance

Activist: Watch Out for IDF Stealing Organs in Haiti



By Paul Joseph Waston, Prison Planet.com
January 20, 2010

Black rights activist T. West of AfriSynergy Productions warns that people need to be aware of the tragedy in Haiti being exploited by nefarious groups for their own gain, including Israel, who have admittedly stolen organs from dead Palestinians in the past.

West highlighted a CNN news clip as evidence of how the media is promoting the Israeli relief efforts in Haiti as second to none. Though praising the Israelis for their support for the victims and outstanding medical facilities, West warned that there were “personalities who are out for money” operating in Haiti with no monitoring of their activities.

“It is good that the IDF and others are helping there, but everywhere there is death, there are exploiters. There needs to be transparency in Haiti,” West told YNet News in an interview.

“The Haitian people must watch out for their citizens,” said West, highlighting past cases of IDF stealing organs from Palestinians.

Last month, the London Guardian reported on the admission of Dr Yehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel’s forensic institute, who stated that the organs of Palestinians were harvested without consent from family members. This followed a controversy after a Swedish newspaper reported that Palestinians were deliberately being abducted and killed by Israeli Defense Forces so their organs could be harvested and sold.

“The U.S. media are quick to talk about people who are stealing, people who are looting in Haiti… So be aware of this, be aware and be cautious of international groups and certainly individuals within those groups who are out for money and to earn money off of your tragedy,” said West.


West also said that musician Wyclef Jean was being demonized by the media because he was promoting methods of donating to charity where the money actually goes to victims and doesn’t get swallowed up by giant transnational charities who have been caught stealing money before.
“Jean Wyclef’s name, as is so often done with Black people, is being maligned in the media. Wyclef is a native of Haiti and is using his influence in the entertainment industry to bring assistance to the Haitian people,” wrote West.


In subsequent videos, West addressed those who attacked him for warning about the potential misdeeds of the IDF, saying:
“These individuals are of the Zionist persuasion, they will go all out to defend Israel and the dirty things that the IDF do.”


Haiti: Obama’s Katrina, Many post-quake deaths could have been prevented
Traffickers targeting Haiti’s children, human organs, PM says
Harvesting Haitian Organs

India-Pakistan Conflict

Gates: Al-Qaeda Aims to Start India-Pakistan War

By Jason Ditz, AntiWar.com
January 20, 2010

While praising India for not attacking Pakistan immediately following the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned India could not be expected to show such restraint if another attack happened.

Which led Secretary Gates to conclude that al-Qaeda is attempting to spark a war between India and its long-standing rival Pakistan. Tensions have continued to grow between the two nations since 2008, with India’s Army Chief declaring his nation ready to fight both Pakistan and its ally China at the same time: a three-way war which would involve 40 percent of the worlds population.

Moreover, Secretary Gates claimed that al-Qaeda secretly exercises control over every militant group in the region, and that a “victory for one is a victory for all.” The US certainly has shown difficulty distinguishing between militant factions, but Gates provided no evidence that they were actually all part of a single “syndicate,” as he put it.

The Mumbai attack was blamed on the Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT), a militant group of Kashmiri separatists. LeT was quick to deny the charges. Links between LeT and al-Qaeda are unclear at best, and officials have used the fact that both groups operated in Afghanistan before the 2001 US invasion as evidence of ties.

U.S. Defense Secretary Says Al Qaeda Seeks to Trigger India-Pakistan War

By Yochi J. Dreazen, The Wall Street Journal
January 20, 2010

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said al Qaeda is working with an array of local militant groups to destabilize South Asia and trigger a war between India and Pakistan, an indication of growing U.S. fears about new terror attacks throughout the volatile region.

Mr. Gates said al Qaeda had formed alliances with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as well as with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based group that carried out the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that left more than 160 dead.

The American defense chief, who is in the middle of a three-day visit to India, said the al Qaeda-led "syndicate" is trying "to destabilize not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region."

Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Gates said the Islamist groups were focusing particular attention on India and Pakistan, regional rivals who have fought three major wars since 1947. He said that Pakistani-based militants were trying to carry out strikes within India in hopes of provoking an Indian counterattack that could escalate into a new conflict between the two nations.

Mr. Gates said the groups also posed an "existential" threat to Pakistan and warned that India's government—which refrained from reprisal attacks on Pakistan after the Mumbai assault— wasn't likely to exercise similar restraint if new attacks occurred on its territory.
"I think it's not unreasonable to assume that Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks," he said.

January 13, 2010

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

Iran: We Had Information Israel, U.S. Intended to Attack Us

By Yossi Melman and Barak Ravid and Reuters
January 13, 2010

Iran received information days ago that Israeli and U.S. intelligence intended to carry out terrorist acts in Tehran, the country's parliament speaker said on Wednesday, one day after the assassination of a university scientist.

Washington has rejected Iran's allegations of U.S. involvement in Tuesday's bombing that killed professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi near his home in the Iranian capital as absurd. Israel has not commented on the incident.

Mohammadi was killed in a powerful bomb blast as he was leaving home in northern Tehran for work.

Iranian officials and state media described the slain scientist as a nuclear physicist, but a spokesman said he did not work for the Atomic Energy Organization at the center of Iran's disputed nuclear program.

Iran's influential parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, said a U.S.-based pro-monarchy group had claimed responsibility for the attack, adding it was controlled by the CIA. Iran's Fars News Agency on Tuesday said such an exile group had claimed the bombing in a statement, without saying how it obtained it.
"An American-based monarchy group...claimed responsibility for this terrorist act," Larijani said, the state broadcaster reported. "Maybe the CIA and the Zionist regime [Israel] thought they can mislead us with such an absurd statement."

"We had clear information several days ago that the intelligence apparatus of the Zionist regime and the CIA wanted to implement terrorist acts in Tehran," he said.
Using such a "rootless group" as a cover was a new "disgrace" for U.S. President Barack Obama, Larijani said.
"Why do you host this terrorist group in America?" he asked.
Israel refused Tuesday to react to Iranian accusations that it or the United States was behind a mysterious explosion that killed an Iranian nuclear physicist in Tehran Tuesday.

Iran blamed Israel and the U.S. Tuesday for the death of Dr. Massoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, a nuclear physics professor who is believed to have publicly backed opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Both the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the explosion or the Iranian accusations. U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner denied the charge the United States was behind the blast yesterday, calling accusations "absurd."

But the Iranian foreign ministry had a different take on the bomb blast.
"One can see in preliminary investigations signs of the triangle of evil of the Zionist regime, America and their mercenaries in Iran in this terrorist incident," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

"Such terrorist acts and the physical elimination of the country's nuclear scientists will certainly not stop the scientific and technological process but will speed it up," he added.

"Given the fact that Massoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, the CIA and Mossad services and agents most likely have had a hand in it," Iranian prosecutor general Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said.
Iran's state-run Arabic-language television Al-Alam identified Mohammadi as a "hezbollahi" teacher -- a term used for staunch supporters of the Iranian regime. However, opposition Web sites described Mohammadi as an outspoken supporter of Mousavi.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Ali Mohammadi was involved in a regional research project that also involved Israeli scientists. The project, called Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, or SESAME, is based in Jordan and operates under United Nations auspices.

Iranian and foreign scientists told the Washington Post the project has applications in industry, medicine, nanotechnology and other fields unrelated to nuclear power.

Palestinians also participate in the project, whose last meeting was held in November in Jordan.

An Israeli scientist present at the meeting told the Washington Post that he talked to Ali Mohammadi during an informal group meeting.
"We did not discuss politics or nuclear issues, as our project is not connected to nuclear physics," Rabinovici told the paper.
An Iranian scientist involved in the project denied that there had been any direct meetings between his delegation and the Israelis.
"They are present in the same room, but there are no direct meetings," Javad Rahighi, a nuclear researcher, told the Washington Post. "We are all shocked," he said. "I couldn't imagine anybody wanting to kill him. He was a scientist, nothing more."

January 8, 2010

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

U.S. Preparing Forces for Possibility of Conflict with Iran

Jerusalem Post
January 8, 2010

The US does not want to see confrontation with Iran but is still preparing its military for that possibility, America's top uniformed officer said Thursday.
"We've looked to do all we can to ensure that conflict doesn't break out there, while at the same time preparing forces, as we do for many contingencies that we understand might occur," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during an appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Mullen had been asked whether the US military was stretched too thin to take further action in trouble spots beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We're very hard-pressed right now" because of the two wars, he noted, but added that it is primarily ground troops that have been deployed, and "the likelihood that our ground forces would have to go somewhere in these kinds of numbers in some other part of the world, or even in the same region, I think is pretty low."
Many experts assess that any American military engagement with Iran would most likely rely on air and naval power.

Mullen was even more definitive when asked to assess whether Teheran was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

"I believe that they're on a path that has a strategic intent to develop nuclear weapons and have been for some time," he said.
Mullen's words were echoed by a report in The New York Times this week that US President Barack Obama's top advisers say "they no longer believe the much disputed National Intelligence Estimate" from 2007, which assessed that Iranian scientists ended all work on designing a nuclear warhead in 2003.

Israel had long objected to that finding, and questioned the intelligence evaluation behind it. Mullen's comments and those of other US officials bring the two countries more in line.

"I think the Obama administration now fully acknowledges that Iran intends to conduct a nuclear weapons capability program," Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday. "We agree with the administration on the intent of the Iranian regime to acquire nuclear military capability."
The Times also reported that technical challenges and potential Western sabotage have significantly hurt Iran's production of low enriched uranium, a necessary component for a nuclear bomb. That has set back the American estimated timeline for production of a weapon, according to the Times.

Oren indicated that Israel remains focused on the low enriched uranium still being produced.

"In spite of some reported breakdown in centrifuges, Iran still has something in the vicinity of 4,000 centrifuges that are operating and they are churning out significant quantities of LEU," he said.
Mullen called any attainment of a nuclear weapon by Iran "incredibly destabilizing," particularly because it could set off an arms race in the region and because of Teheran's support for terrorism.
"On the other hand," he added, "striking Iran, that also has a very, very destabilizing outcome. What I worry about in most of the cases are the unintended consequences."
He said that to prevent such scenarios, the US needed "to continue to aggressively address the nuclear weapons issue," to stress international discussions of additional sanctions and to continue "where possible to engage and have a dialogue."

Jim Hoagland, who has written extensively about foreign policy for The Washington Post and participated in Thursday's event, described Mullen's remarks on Iran as vague.

"That does reflect a lack of a clear policy within the administration about what to do on Iran," he said.

January 6, 2010

The Battle Over the Temple Mount

To Whom Does the Temple Mount/Dome of Rock Really Belong?

Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade
Yad Ben-Zvi Press and the University of Texas Press, 411 pages, NIS 149 / $75

Book Review by Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, Haaretz

What does it mean, this sacred esplanade, one of the smallest and most contested pieces of real estate on earth? How did it come to symbolize the past, present and future and the divergent traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam?

These are questions that "Where Heaven and Earth Meet," the first-ever volume to be sponsored by Israeli Jewish, Palestinian and Christian research centers in Jerusalem, attempts to answer, say its editors in their introduction.

Hebrew University historian Benjamin Z. Kedar and Islamic art historian Oleg Grabar of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, invited 21 scholars who are leaders in their fields and represent all three faiths to survey the history, architecture and religious traditions connected to what Jews and Christians call the "Temple Mount" and Muslims call "Haram al-Sharif."

The result is a lavishly illustrated volume with scholarly but readable essays that, more than putting the sacred esplanade under a microscope, succeed in presenting it in a kaleidoscope. The authors review the history of the mount, beginning with the biblical period (the 10th century to 586 BCE ) and the two Temples, and ranging through Jewish, Roman, Byzantine, Muslim, Crusader, Ottoman and British Mandatory control, as well as the current stormy conflict for sovereignty over the site. Thematic essays by such scholars as Grabar, Oxford University's Guy Stroumsa, Hebrew University's Rachel Elior and Mustafa Abu Sway of Al-Quds University add greater depth to the historical chapters by examining the meaning of the Temple Mount in Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions, and, in Grabar's case, looking at "Haram al-Sharif as a work of art."

Its beautiful dust jacket, font and photos may lull the reader into thinking this is merely a coffee-table book, which it certainly is not; the numerous endnotes attest to its scholarly bent. But those endnotes can also be a distraction, like listening to a lecturer who makes every fifth point in a whisper. Lay readers who don't like to constantly flip back and forth will miss information that should have been included in the text. In the space devoted to the endnotes and the glossary, I would have preferred an index, to keep track of the many interesting quotes and concepts.

'Who is right?'

At least twice in the past, I have personally come face to face with the question of the meaning of the Temple Mount, and each time I have been struck with the multiplicity and fluidity of possible answers.

The first time was during Sukkot week in the early 1990s. I had been posted at the Western Wall as a volunteer helping the police keep a knot of Haredim separate from a group of determined ultra-nationalist Jews who were attempting to lay a symbolic cornerstone for the Third Temple near the Mughrabi Gate. The former, who believe it's wrong to attempt to do this before the Messiah comes, were shouting their disapproval of the latter's efforts.

A new immigrant from Russia approached us and, with her grandson interpreting, inquired about the ruckus. Reverting to our tour guide personas, my patrol partner and I tried to explain the perceptions of each group regarding the Temple Mount. After listening to his grandmother, the young man turned to us again: "Pardon me, but my grandmother wants to know: ?Who is right?'"

Later, in early 2003, I was leading a group of evangelical Christians visiting the Western Wall. Just as I was explaining that they would not be able to set foot in the Temple Mount because tour groups had not been allowed there since the beginning of the second intifada, a police officer approached and asked me whether we would like to go up to the mount. He explained that the authorities had decided that tourist visits would no longer be barred. The group applauded. And so, leaving Bibles with the Border Police at the Mughrabi Gate to be picked up later, they became the first Christian tourists to visit the Temple Mount in three years.

If ever the attitude that Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh describes in the book as the "ethos of mutual denial" were at work, it's in these two anecdotes, especially when taken together. Both my scuffling Jewish brethren and the watchful Muslim guards of the Waqf religious authority who monitored the Christian group's visit see the Temple Mount as their sacred ground alone, and neither would be able to fathom why my group of evangelical Christians was so thrilled to have the chance to circumnavigate the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine.

When and why did the Temple Mount become sacred in the first place? For Jews, it's where Abraham offered Isaac and Solomon built the First Temple (and Herod the Second) after David purchased it from Araunah the Jebusite. It's also where a rebuilt sanctuary is to rise in a future messianic age. Over the generations, the piece of bedrock now covered by the Dome of the Rock began to be revered as the "foundation stone" on which the world was made, and the source of all its water. Some scholars believe that this "high place" served for religious ritual as far back as Canaanite times.

For Christians, the Temple is a site Jesus visited and whose destruction he foretold, and for some Christians today, of eschatological significance since the Third Temple, a crucial ingredient in the coming of the messianic era, will stand there, albeit briefly.

For Islam, Haram al-Sharif is the "first direction of prayer," Islam's third holiest site after Mecca and Medina, and Mohammed's destination on his mystical Night Journey and Ascension; the magnificent Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock mark those events.

The views of Christians regarding the Temple Mount have changed over the centuries. My enthusiastic evangelical Christian group would not understand why, as Stroumsa relates, when the Crusaders came to Jerusalem in 1099, they had so thoroughly replaced the Temple ritual in their theology with the sacrifice of Jesus that the tomb of Jesus (the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ) "became" the Temple in their cry: "Up to the tomb of the Lord, hence, up to the Temple!" Christians today might find more akin to their own view of the mount the vision of the second-century Christian eschatologist Irenaeus that the Antichrist would establish his throne in Jerusalem in a rebuilt Temple on the Mount, reigning there for three-and-a-half years until being defeated by Jesus.

Sense of entitlement

Since believers of the different faiths cannot agree even on basic historical facts (if one needs to have this driven home, one need only recall the reports from Camp David in 2000, when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators discussing Jerusalem's future clashed over the question of whether a Jewish Temple ever stood on the site ), perhaps we should not be surprised that that, as the editors concede, they were not able to "induce our authors to agree on a single narrative" regarding the post-1967 period. Indeed, there was no single narrative that emerged from the more distant past, either. The editors also seem to have failed, for the most part, to generate among the contributors the empathy they say they worked to "evolve" for "sentiments we share, as well as for those we do not share at all."

Perhaps that failure is a good thing, since the presentation of the usually conflicting claims over the past, present and future of the Temple Mount is one of the most salient aspects of this book. It recalls the Arabic folktale of Joha (in a footnote to an article by Nazmi Al-Jubeh, of the Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation in Ramallah ) who asks to hammer a nail in the wall of a house that he sold, and then insists on entering every day to visit "my nail." However, in that story, Joha just wanted to visit his nail, while proponents of a faith in whose name a monument has been built on the Temple Mount tend to feel it entitles them to ownership -- sole ownership, notwithstanding Isaiah's prophecy that "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."

To judge by a seemingly incidental description of leading Israeli archaeologists in his article surveying the history of the Temple Mount from 1917 to the present, Al- Jubeh seems to be one of many of the authors, and many devotees of the mount of all faiths, who are "visiting my nail." Writing about the construction during the past decade of the subterranean Marwani Mosque, which was roundly criticized as having been undertaken without regard for preserving the archaeological findings in the area, Al-Jubeh notes that the Israeli government "enlisted Knesset members, ?antiquities experts' and clerics" to claim that the Waqf was destroying Second Temple remains. The reader is led to understand that Al-Jubeh is referring to the prominent archaeologists who reportedly joined the September 2007 High Court of Justice petition to stop the work on the underground mosque. The list includes Ephraim Stern, Amihai Mazar, Ehud Netzer, Israel Finkelstein, Moshe Kochavi, Gabriel Barkai and Eilat Mazar. One may disagree with these archaeologists, but their status as experts is fairly secure. Are there other scholars from whom we have not heard in this controversy? If so, Al-Jubeh would have done a great service to his readers had he directed them to reports by Palestinian archaeologists on their finds as they dug through the rubble on the Temple Mount.

Al-Quds University's Islamic scholar Mustafa Abu Sway does do his readers a service by presenting Islamic sources to which Jewish and Christian readers might not otherwise have access and illuminating for them what Israeli presence on the Mount means to Muslims.

However, any hope the reader might have that commonality of belief in the site's sanctity -- the premise with which Abu Sway opens his article -- could lead to cooperation, is rather dashed by his discussion of varying interpretations of the koranic verse stating that after the Israelites left Egypt they angered God, who punished them by putting the Holy Land "out of their reach," either for a period of 40 years (as Abu Sway understands the verse ) or permanently, as he says others believe. That, and his explanation that submission to God's will is the "absolute" criterion for inheriting the land, not necessarily "genetics," are important for readers to know as they digest Abu Sway's explanation that the religious duty of Muslims worldwide to maintain the Al-Aqsa Mosque and pray there "is impaired as long as the Aqsa Mosque remains under [Israeli] occupation!"

In this light, we can understand why the efforts by the head of the northern branch of Israel's Islamic Movement to "save Al-Aqsa" have borne fruit, as Hebrew University's Yitzhak Reiter and Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Jon Seligman discuss in their chapter on the site from 1917 to the present. They also talk about why the second intifada, which began in 2000 after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, is known in Arabic as the "Al-Aqsa Intifada."

'There is no Mount Moriah'

While Muslim contributors like Al-Jubeh and Abu Sway seem disinclined to recognize a Jewish claim to the Temple Mount, a Jewish scholar, and the editors themselves, despite their stated interest in empathy, take aim at what the editors call the "Israeli lunatic fringe" -- right-wing Jews seeking to build a Third Temple.

Is this epithet helpful in increasing the reader's understanding, or is it even accurate? The doctoral dissertation of Sarina Chen, a Hebrew University scholar who did not contribute to the book, points out that interest in building a Third Temple has increasingly become part of the nationalist ultra-Orthodox ideology, indicating that this is no longer a marginal trend that can so easily be dismissed. The editors also write that they attempted to avoid "oblique references to the present in chapters dealing with the past," an objective they were less than successful in reaching. But the editors never pledged to stay away from controversy, and indeed, they do not and should not, if their book is to perform a true service.

Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, gives a succinct definition of the ancient notion of "sacred geography" that might apply to all faiths' view of the Mount: "the singling out of a place in mythological, cultic or literary contexts linked to divine revelation ... whose sacred importance transcends time and space." But while that seems in keeping with the editors' goal of empathy, she then sallies forth controversially into a reference to the present that is anything but oblique, making a statement that many would view as inaccurate: "Today, there is no mountain bearing the name Mount Moriah." She herself concedes the dispute over this issue, noting in a dismissive aside reminiscent of the "lunatic fringe" remark in the editors' introduction: "The only circles in which the Temple Mount is today referred to as Mount Moriah" are those seeking to build the Third Temple.

Cutting Through Complexity

One of the most clearly structured articles is a piece by Hebrew University scholar Miriam Frenkel on the changing meaning of the Temple Mount in Jewish thought. She surveys the development over the ages of the Jewish prohibition on being present on the mount -- from a time shortly after the Bar-Kochba Revolt (135 CE ) when Jews still conducted mourning ceremonies there, to an eighth-century Muslim prohibition against Jewish prayer at the site, to Maimonides' eventual prohibition of Jewish presence there because all Jews have been considered impure since the destruction of the Temple (a position with which other sages disagreed ).

But perhaps the article that best cuts a swath through the complexities of the esplanade's past is that of Islamic history expert Andreas Kaplony of the University of Zurich. He demonstrates how each of the monotheistic faiths has successively and sometimes concurrently reinterpreted beliefs held by the other faiths vis-a-vis parts of the mount to accord with its own doctrine. Kaplony begins with the Umayyad period, with the Muslim association of the Haram with events involving the Temple, for example, the "Chamber of David" in the north part, where David sat in judgment, or, a Christian association, the "Chamber of Zechariah," where the latter was standing when he learned of the birth of his son, who would become John the Baptist. Later on, in the Abbasid period, a Christian tradition focused on the East Gate of the Temple Mount as the point at which Jesus entered the Temple.

As far as Jewish tradition is concerned, Kaplony cites the reference to the Temple Mount as the foundation stone of the world, identifies the Temple Mount gates as those mentioned in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and describes the Jewish practice of circumambulating the gates on Sukkot. Kaplony also informs us that while the Christianization of the Mount persisted inexorably under the Crusaders in the 12th century, they left the original koranic inscriptions inside the Dome of the Rock."For the four and a half centuries of the Early Muslim period, the Haram of Jerusalem ... was a place of mutual adaption and distinction, i.e., a place of interaction, as shared holiness is a characteristic of Jerusalem," he writes.

Hebrew University archaeologist Yoram Tsafrir's "The Temple-less Mount" also presents evidence that the various faiths, with divergent views of the Temple, crossed paths in or near the esplanade. He notes how the early-fourth-century Christian traveler known as the Bordeaux Pilgrim associates the Temple Mount with biblical traditions, a far cry from the total absence of the mount in the late sixth-century Madaba Map mosaic of Jerusalem, which reflects the lack of significance of the Temple for Byzantine Christians at that time. Meanwhile, in the second half of the fourth century, Julian the Apostate's efforts to restore paganism, Tsafrir explains, involved inviting the Jews to rebuild the Temple. This might have led a Jewish pilgrim at that time to incise the hopeful Hebrew inscription of Isaiah 66:14 on the Western Wall. The inscription, pictured in Tsafrir's chapter, can still be seen by visitors on the portion of the Western Wall in the Jerusalem Archaeological Park.

Speaking of present-day visitors, the photographs and diagrams illustrating the article on the esplanade under Mamluk rule, by Michael Hamilton Burgoyne of the Scottish government agency Historic Scotland, is a good reason to take this book up to the mount and tour the sites with it. Sections by Kedar, Donald P. Little, of McGill University, and archaeologist Denys Pringle, a Crusader expert from Cardiff University, could also be helpful for a self-guided tour. The details to which Burgoyne directs our attention, like the Crusader columns outside the Gate of the Chain or the magnificent red and white second-story facade of the Utmaniyya college, built in 1437 and housing the tomb of a woman from Anatolia, are the heart and soul of Jerusalem's complex heritage.

Abu Sway's translation of various priceless inscriptions in the Al-Aqsa Mosque is another good reason to have the book with you on a visit there, if ever non-Muslims are permitted to enter it again, as they were before the events of 2000.

Despite the multiple, interfaith/intercultural authorship, one does not feel that on an individual level most of the writers are struggling with the meaning of the mount. Rather, they seem quite comfortable in their various niches. But while the book cannot be considered "ecumenical" in terms of the individual writers' conclusions, meaning-seeking readers would not want this book without its juxtapositions of often conflicting views. Such juxtaposition may be precisely what we need to allow us to compare and contrast what the various scholars have to say, ultimately coming away from the accumulation of perspectives educated and enriched.

But though few of the individual essays embrace a pluralistic acceptance of the other, that of Menachem Magidor, former president of the Hebrew University, is a notable exception. Deeply affected by the beauty of the Temple Mount, the self-described agnostic writes that history had "superimposed the dreams and imaginations of other cultures," and said it was the site's attraction for multiple cultures, rather than his specific heritage, that gave "depth and meaning to my collective memory."

Sari Nusseibeh, in a poetic allusion to Mohammed's miraculous Night Journey to the Far Place ("al-Aqsa" ) asks whether, despite "mutual denial" of what is sacred to each others' faiths, this spot can "still celebrate that which is noblest in Man: the yearning to discover, to fly out in one's imagination to the farthest corner of the universe."

Perhaps this yearning is key to our search for meaning. Perhaps we should give ourselves over to an appreciation of the sublime aesthetic beauty of Haram al-Sharif/the Temple Mount as a work of art, as discussed by Oleg Grabar, in which hopefully all people can find some common ground. Grabar states in his portion of the epilogue, written with Benjamin Kedar, that this approach might "overcome cultural antagonisms." That would be true, of course, if we define the issues surrounding the Temple Mount as cultural rather than religious -- rather than embodying, as Kedar writes, "first and foremost the extremes of humankind's frenzy."

Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, a member of the editorial staff of Haaretz English Edition, is the author of several books and articles on faith, history, archaeology and heritage in Israel and a tour educator specializing in Christian heritage.

Haaretz Books, January 2010, haaretzbooks@gmail.com


Yemen

Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack

By Kurt Nimmo, Infowars.com
January 2, 2010

On Saturday, Obama said the Christmas day non-attack over Detroit was the work of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the latest incarnation of the perennial boogieman used by government to frighten people into accepting foreign invasions and occupations and an ever-growing police state grid at home.

“We know that [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group — Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America,” Obama said in his address to the nation.


Nassir al-Wahishi is the new Osama bin Laden. He was appointed by Ayman al-Zawahiri to run AQAP in Yemen. Al-Zawahiri is a documented intelligence asset. His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo and ran terrorist camps under NATO protection in the U.S. zone in Kosovo.

Ayman, according to January 2000 U.S. Congressional testimony, was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This is almost impossible for many legitimate immigrants to obtain but is often granted to CIA assets that need to get in and out of the country as they perform their assignments.

Ayman al-Zawahiri founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization long ago penterated and comprmised by British intelligence. The CIA funneled support to the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to overthrow Egyptian president Gamal Abddul Nasser, considered the father of Arab nationalism.

“The real Muslim Brothers are those whose hands are never dirtied with the business of killing and burning,” Robert Dreyfuss summarized in 1980. “They are the secretive bankers and financiers who stand behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab, Turkish, or Persian families whose genealogy places them in the oligarchical elite, with smooth business and intelligence associations to the European black nobility and, especially, to the British oligarchy.”
The Islamist movement and in particular the violent Jihadist movement are creations of the elite and are used for political purposes contrary to those declared by their wild-eyed adherents who are generally patsies and useful idiots.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is but the latest assemblage of fanatics to be used by the elite to further their agenda of global domination and the mass murder and suffering it requires.

If Nassir al-Wahishi is connected to Ayman al-Zawahiri, it is a pretty safe bet to say he is a tool of the CIA as well. Nassir al-Wahishi also had a close relationship to the Big Kahuna of CIA operatives, the late Osama bin Laden.

“This is not the first time this group has targeted us,” Obama continued in his weekend address. “In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies — including our embassy in 2008, killing one American. So, as president, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaeda terrorists.”
Obama’s statement came one day after Britain’s PM Gordon Brown called an “emergency summit” on “extremism” in Yemen. “Gordon Brown has invited key international partners to a high-level meeting in order to discuss how best to counter radicalization in Yemen,” a statement issued by Downing Street announced. “The prime minister will host the event on 28 January in London.”
“Yemen’s problems are many, and some are already spreading beyond its borders,” the establishment declares from the pages of The Washington Post. “Security and stability are deteriorating. The population is growing rapidly. The economy is collapsing. There are few good options today; things will look worse tomorrow. Immediate and sustained international attention is needed to at least lessen the impact of some problems.”

“While military and counterterrorism operations are critical, long-term development assistance is also necessary.”

Iranian Press TV comments:

“Concerns are growing that the same fate as those of Afghanistan and Iraq, suffering violence despite years of foreign military presence, might await Yemen’s Muslim nation.”
British MI5 told US about Detroit bomber’s terror links ‘a year ago’
Questions mount over attempt to bomb Detroit-bound jetliner

January 5, 2010

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

Israel Defense Force to Blanket Israel with Gas Masks

Haaretz
January 5, 2010

The Home Front Command is planning to begin distribution of individual protection kits, i.e. gas masks, to every citizen starting in late February, according to a cabinet decision taken last week.

Originally, just over 60 percent of the population were to receive kits, but a decision to extend that protection to the whole country means the production of the necessary equipment has been stepped-up, and another billion shekels is needed to fund to the endeavor.

The plan is to distribute protective kits to each of the nearly eight million citizens (in line with a population estimate for 2013), over a period of three years.

Debate over how to appropriately defend against chemical and biological warfare has been ongoing at both the political and professional levels for more than a decade. Both the defense establishment and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been involved in discussions.

Individual protection kits, in the form of gas masks, were used during the first Gulf War in 1991.

The country was again ordered to prepare kits for possible use during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Following that ground invasion, and as a result of the assumption that a large portion of the gas masks were no longer useful because of the amount of time that had passed since their production, a decision was made five years ago to collect them.

Two years ago, during the Olmert government, a decision was made to redistribute the gas masks, but money for the project was scarce. The Home Front Command estimated it could only provide 60 percent of the population with working gas masks, and a decision was made to provide them to the citizens of the areas most likely to come under attack: the Dan region and northern Israel, among others.

The Israel Postal Company, the national postal service, won a Defense Ministry tender to distribute the kits directly to homes starting in late February.

However, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and MK Matan Vilnai, who is manages the Home Front, argued recently that the planned distribution program - 4.5 million kits in three years - fell short. Legal advisers pointed out that it would be difficult to defend a policy that did not account for the personal safety of all citizens equally.

An additional billion shekels was needed, on top of the two already invested, to produce the necessary gas masks at the two factories. Five hundred million shekels will be provided by the Defense Ministry, by diverting funds from other projects, but it is still unclear who will provide the remainder.

Barak and Vilnai both made decisions based on strategic assessments which say there may be an escalation of tensions in the coming years, including the firing of rockets and missiles against Israel.

Extreme scenarios have Israel also being hit with chemical weapons.

Security sources told Haaretz that under such circumstances the state is obliged to behave thoroughly and address the improvement of security to the citizens seriously. Broadening the distribution network of the gas masks is part of the efforts to seriously improve the preparedness of the Home Front in emergencies.
"Many things have been done since the Second Lebanon War. The cabinet decision last week is another step in this direction," a security source said. "It is not a sign of fear but of greater preparedness. Whoever is planning to fire missiles at Israel should know that we are ready to protect our population."

January 4, 2010

Iran

Iran Gives West Nuclear Fuel Ultimatum

The Associated Press
January 3, 2010

Iran warned on Saturday the West has until the end of the month to accept Teheran's counterproposal to a UN-drafted plan on a nuclear exchange, or the country will start producing nuclear fuel on its own.

The warning was a show of defiance and a hardening in Iran's stance over its controversial nuclear program, which the West fears masks an effort to make nuclear weapons. Teheran insists the program is only for peaceful, electricity production purposes and says it has no intention of making a bomb.
"We have given them an ultimatum. There is one month left and that is by the end of January," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, speaking on state television.
However, even if Teheran started working on the fuel production immediately, it would likely take years before it can master the technology to turn uranium, enriched to the level of 20 percent, into rods that make the fuel.

Iran dismissed an end-of-2009 deadline imposed by the Obama administration and the West to accept a UN-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. The deal would have reduced Iran's stockpile of low enriched uranium, limiting - at least for the moment - its capabilities to make nuclear weapons.

The US and its allies have demanded Iran accept the terms of the UN-brokered plan without changes.

Instead, Teheran came up with a counterproposal: to have the West either sell nuclear fuel to Iran or swap its nuclear fuel for Iran's enriched uranium.

The UN deal has been the centerpiece of the West's diplomatic effort toward Iran.

Under the plan, drafted in November, Iran would export most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium for further enrichment in Russia and France, where it would be converted into fuel rods. The rods, which Iran needs for a research reactor in Teheran, would be returned to the country about a year later.

Exporting the uranium would temporarily leave Iran without enough stockpiles to further enrich the uranium into the material for a nuclear warhead, and the rods that are returned could not be used to make weapons.
"[The West] must decide on supplying fuel for the Teheran reactor on one of the two offers, purchase or swap," Mottaki said. "Otherwise, the Islamic Republic of Iran will produce the 20 percent enriched fuel with its own capable experts."
Enrichment is at the core of the nuclear controversy. Iran currently has one operating enrichment facility that churns out 3.5 percent enriched uranium. The country needs fuel enriched to 20 percent to power a Teheran medical research reactor. For nuclear weapons, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent or more.

The UN has demanded Iran suspend all enrichment, a demand Teheran refuses, saying it has a right to develop the technology under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran has also defiantly announced it intends to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites, drawing a forceful rebuke from the UN nuclear watchdog agency and warnings of the possibility of new UN sanctions.

January 1, 2010

We Are Living At the End of Time



Jerusalem in the Qur’an

Book Review by Malik Badri, Dean, International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Jerusalem in the Qur’an is a great book that thrilled and delighted me in a number of ways. I am surprised that such a meticulously documented book had to wait for such a long time before seeing the light.

It is now more than half a century since the Zionists began their appalling oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people whose only offense is that they happened to live in a country considered by the Jews to be their promised Holy Land.

The Zionists have continuously referred to distorted scriptures from the Torah and other Biblical material to justify their atrocious behavior and to motivate the Jews to establish a State of Israel that extends from the Nile to the Euphrates with Jerusalem as its capital.

For example, David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, is quoted to have said, The Bible is our deed to the land of Israel. Muslim scholars, on the other hand, have largely failed in refuting Zionist claims from authenticated historical and religious sources and have also failed to accomplish their religious responsibility in clearly documenting this question from the Holy Qur’an and the Blessed Ahadith of our beloved Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). As far as I know, whatever is written on this subject is rather superficial and emotionally tainted or simply stating facts in a cool manner.

May Allah Ta’ala reward Brother Imran Hosein for writing this scholarly document, which will indeed fill up this intellectual and religious gap and serve as an academic reference to Muslims in all parts of the world. As I write this introduction, this book that was published only this year is already being translated to Arabic and Bosnian. In a short time it will be rendered into other European languages and to all the other tongues of the Islamic world.

It must be reported however that the importance of writing a book about the Holy Land in the Qur’an have not escaped the vision of far-sighted and creative Muslim thinkers such as Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, Founder-President of the Muslim Institute for Research and Planning, and Professor (Shaheed) Ismail Al-Farouqi. I am surprised at the vision of the former scholar who asked Imran Hosein to write this book as early as 1974. He urged him saying that Jerusalem is the key to understanding the historical process of the Middle East and the world at large. Shaikh Imran successfully accomplished this task after 27 years. Though seemingly late, but it has come at the right time in which the whole world is being shocked by Jenin and what happened in Sabra and Shatila.

Ismail Al-Faruqi actually put this issue in writing in his book, Islam and the Problem of Israel, that the author referred to. He strongly stated that Israel poses a greater danger to Muslims than the Euro-Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages or the Euro-Colonialism of modern times. Israel, he wrote, is neither of these, but that it is both and more, much more. He therefore urged Arabs and Muslims not to accept the Jewish State as an integral part of the world nations of Asia and Africa. He also incited Muslim scholars to investigate this issue in depth. I am sure that if both of these great Muslim thinkers were alive, they would have acclaimed this classic book as what they have aspired for.

I am amazed by Imran’s style of writing. Though Jerusalem in the Qur’an is a meticulously written thesis combining religious and historical documents with recent political events and penetrating interpretations from the Qur’an and Hadith, it runs like a story. Once you begin reading it, it is hard to stop. This is the general quality of a novel. The person would read it once and throw the book away -- but not that of a serious thought-provoking dissertation like the book that Brother Shaikh Imran published. It is a reference that one needs to keep and reread whenever the subject is to be researched. I believe that this eloquence of the Shaikh must be the result of a natural gift that has interacted with his indefatigable work as a preacher and da’iyah and the Divine Blessings for his sincerity.

Finally, in spite of the seemingly depressing situation of the Muslims in general and the Palestinians in particular, reading the book would certainly give one a warm surge of optimism about our future; a bright light that shines at the end of our long dark tunnel of history.

We are living at the end of time. This is the age in which the prophesies of the Holy Qur’an and the Blessed Hadith are unfolding right before our very eyes to prove to humanity the truthfulness of our faith.

Exactly as our Prophet told us, we have seen the barefooted-poor shepherds of sheep and goats in the Arab Peninsula competing with each other in building higher and higher skyscrapers. And we have witnessed the Muslims exploding in numbers but weakening in character and subdued by their love of this dunyah and their fear of death, thus confirming the authenticated Hadith. And exactly as our Prophet told us, the strong enemies of Islam are now devouring our countries as though they were a hungry group invited to a large cauldron of food. And as Allah Ta’ala Himself told us in his Revealed Holy Qur’an, the Children of Israel, who had been scattered all over the earth during their Diaspora, have returned to the Holy Land. And as recorded in the Qur’an, they have indeed committed much corruption and have become powerful and elated with mighty arrogance.

Just as we have seen these incidents as though we were watching a horror movie, we will indeed see its imminent happy ending that was prophesized to us in the Qur’an and the Sayings of our Prophet. The Muslims will wake up from their slumber and the Jews will receive their promised Divine punishment. The Zionist State will be destroyed and whatever they have built will be raised to the ground.

The book gives a detailed beautifully written exposition of these episodes with brilliant interpretations from the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah. Though some may differ with him with respect to his interpretations of some of the Qur’anic Verses or the Blessed Prophetic sayings, no one would fail to appreciate his penetrative thought and his spiritual depth. I therefore recommend the book very much to scholars and laity.

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