MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Or, maybe the title should read that Israel will act to “prevent more” of Syria’s chemical weapons from reaching Hezbollah …

By Phoebe Greenwood – “Tel Aviv has expressed grave concerns about the fate of Syria’s weaponry should Bashar al Assad fall, saying they pose as great a threat to Israeli security as Iranian nuclear development.

As the violent government crack down on Syrian civilian protestors enters its eleventh month, Israeli intelligence now regards the fall of the Assad regime as inevitable.

Syria’s massive stockpile of weapons includes surface-to-air missiles, high-trajectory long-range rockets and missiles, biological and chemical weapons, which are currently under the watchful guard of government troops.

An Israeli defence official was quoted last week in free Israeli daily Israel Hayom, a paper closely affiliated with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning that the transference of chemical weaponry to Lebanon would be tantamount to a declaration of war by the Lebanese government, adding that Israel would act to prevent such a move.

Air Force Command Major General Ido Nechushtan has stated baldly that the volatile situation in Syria may lead to a conflict on Israel’s northern border…

Incoming Air Force Chief Major General Emir Eshel told a recent press conference: ‘The question is when, not if [Assad will fall]. And the big question is what will happen the following day.’

‘What has been passed on to Hezbollah so far? What will be passed on in the future?'” Read more.

Flashback: Hezbollah may be receiving weapons of mass destruction from Syria – “French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Saturday that Israel has asked Western countries to stop their diplomatic campaign against the Syrian regime for fear that the weapons of mass destruction of the Syrian regime will fall in the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas. The newspaper said the chief of military intelligence in the Israeli army, Major-General Aviv Kochavi has relayed the Israeli position during his visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York a few weeks ago. According to a French diplomat Kochavi warned that the Syrian arsenal of weapons will be directed at Israel if the regime of Bashar al-Assad falls.” Read more.

Flashback: Nasrallah: Next War with Israel Will Start in Tel Aviv, Says Hezbollah Has ‘Many Surprises’ That Will Change the Face of the Region in a Future War – “The next war with Israel will start in Tel Aviv, not on the northern border, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Friday, the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper reported. ‘If Israel decided to wage a war against Lebanon, we will not only break the Israeli soldiers’ bones, we will smash them,’ Nasrallah was quoted as saying during a meeting with Hezbollah members. ‘The war would be waged without any red lines, and [Hezbollah] would in return commit to the new equations,’ Nasrallah said. ‘[Hezbollah] has many surprises that will change the face of the region,’ he added.” Read more.

In December 2011 we learned that Israel appointed an ‘Iran Command’ chief to head a new army formation and secretly completed a significant two-year-long upgrade to (at least) one of its submarines. Now we’re learning of a highly-esteemed new IAF chief chosen to create the ‘perfect attack plan’ against Iran. Meanwhile, as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls for the death of all Jews and the annihilation of Israel, a political pundit like Charles Krauthammer can digest and analyze perfectly well what is taking place, while Barack Obama — the ‘leader of the free world’ — still doesn’t seem to get it …

By Jeff Poor – “Last week in his Washington Post column, David Ignatius wrote that Israel was preparing to attack Iran to prevent it from being able to build a nuclear bomb.

According to his Post opinion page colleague Charles Krauthammer, based on the source behind Ignatius’ claim it is likely an attack will occur.

On this weekend’s broadcast of ‘Inside Washington,’ Krauthammer explained his thought process.

‘I think it’s fairly certain the Israelis are going to attack or you would not have had this leak, deliberately coming this week from secretary of Defense through David Ignatius of The [Washington] Post saying that he thinks there is a high likelihood Israel is going to attack, and then he went ahead and specified when. He said three months, April, May or June. And you don’t say that unless there is obviously indications from the Israelis that they are going to do this even if they get and they are getting a signal from the United States not to do it.’

Krauthammer doubted Israel was factoring what impact a strike against Iran might have on upcoming U.S. presidential election.

‘No, I think the calculation is what Ignatius reported as Panetta said: The Israelis think that the problem is that Iran is about to enter the zone of immunity. And that means the trigger is not the assumption that Iran now has the know-how to make a bomb. That is later down the road. What comes earlier is when Iran has put enough uranium in completely untouchable, protected sites, like the mountain outside of Qom where you cannot touch it, meaning that at that point, Iran has the wherewithal, the facilities, the material that it can build a bomb unmolested, and then it can never be attacked again. If Israel thinks it is approaching the point of immunity, it will attack.'” Read more.

Incoming IAF chief Amir Eshel ‘will prepare perfect attack plan’ – “Hours after it was announced that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz’s decision to appoint Major-General Amir Eshel as the next IAF commander, colleagues congratulated the decision, saying he is the right man for the job. ‘He’ll put all the cards on the table – good or bad,’ said a senior officer that served with Eshel. Referring to the possibility that Eshel would be the one overseeing an IAF military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, the officer said: ‘He’ll know how to prepare the forces in the most meticulous and perfect manner, and lay out all the possible scenarios and chances of success.'” Read more.

Netanyahu Says Only Military Strength Guarantees Security in Middle East – “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who yesterday announced plans to visit the U.S. in March, said turmoil in neighboring Arab states and threats from Iran show that Israel must build up its military. ‘In such a region, the only thing that ensures our existence, security and prosperity is our strength,’ Netanyahu told his Cabinet in Jerusalem in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio. ‘We are obligated to continue to develop the military, economic and social strength of the state of Israel.’ Israeli leaders have been warning publicly that time is running out for a military strike that could stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.” Read more.

The Prophet Isaiah, in describing the condition of the world leading up to the Second Coming of Christ, says that “the curse [alah] has devoured the earth, And those who dwell in it are desolate” (Isa 24:6). Yes, the word here for “curse” is the Hebrew word “alah” …

By Reza Kahlili – “The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.

Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove ‘this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification’ to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.’

The article, written by Alireza Forghani, a conservative analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned conservative sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.

Because Israel is going to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran is justified in launching a pre-emptive, cataclysmic attack against the Jewish state, the doctrine argues.

On Friday, in a major speech at prayers, Khamenei announced that Iran will support any nation or group that attacks the ‘cancerous tumor’ of Israel. Though his statement was seen by some in the West as fluff, there is substance behind it.

Iran’s Defense Ministry announced this weekend that it test-fired an advanced two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic missile and boasted about successfully putting a new satellite into orbit, reminding the West that its engineers have mastered the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles even as the Islamic state pushes its nuclear weapons program.

The commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Seyyed Mehdi Farahi, stated in August that the Safir missile, which is capable of transporting a satellite into space, can easily be launched parallel to the earth’s orbit, which will transform it into an intercontinental ballistic missile. Western analysts didn’t believe this would happen until 2015. Historically, orbiting a satellite is the criterion for crediting a nation with ICBM capability.

Forghani details the Islamic duty of jihad as laid out in the Quran for the sake of Allah and states that ‘primary jihad,’ according to some Shiite jurists, can only occur when the Hidden Imam, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, returns. Shiites believe Mahdi’s return will usher in Armageddon.

In the absence of the hidden Imam, Forghani says, ‘defensive jihad’ could certainly take place when Islam is threatened, and Muslims must defend Islam and kill their enemies. To justify such action, Alef quotes the Shiites’ first imam, Ali, who stated

The leader of Turkey may be no spring chicken, but even he believes what all radicals believe: “The minarets are our bayonets; the domes are our helmets. Mosques are our barracks, the believers are soldiers. This holy army guards my religion. Almighty, Our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom.” What better political model is there for the “Arab Spring” regimes to follow other than one which promotes the pro-Caliphate aspirations of Islamist revolutionaries, denies that murdering hundreds of thousands of Christians should be considered genocide, impedes freedom of the press and freedom of speech, promotes jihad, and makes verbal attacks against Israel “a central feature” of its political discourse? Yes, Turkey is a useful model for the new Arab regimes indeed …

By Michel Sailhan – “For many in the Arab world, Turkey embodies something of an elusive ideal: an Islamist-based democracy with a strong economy.

A survey published Thursday by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, a non-governmental think-tank, found almost 80 percent of respondents in the Middle East had a favourable view of Turkey, and three out of five considered the country a model for a modern Islamic state.

Following last year’s Arab Spring uprisings, an unprecedented wave of popular revolt that swept the Arab world and led to the ouster of a string of dictators, many analysts are wondering if Turkey serves as a useful example of what a moderate Islamist democracy looks like.

The country is seen as having ‘reconciled two dynamics: economic growth and a democratic system put in place by an Islamist-derived party,’ Turkish foreign policy expert Sinan Ulgan said.

Turkey, a secular Muslim-majority country that straddles Europe and Asia, is viewed especially favourably by many in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, countries in which Ankara backed the sprawling Arab Spring protest movements which led to the toppling of their dictators…

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP party, the Islamist-based party that has been in power since 2002, won a broad victory in June parliamentary elections, gaining 50 percent of the votes.

But some analysts temper the notion of Turkey as a model democracy, pointing to clampdowns on journalists and ongoing problems with the country’s sizable Kurdish population.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey Acts as Mentor for Emerging Islamists in Middle Eastern Region – “The media spin doctors and minions of the willingly ignorant continue to paint a positive face on ‘moderate’ Turkey and the popular Islamist goverment of Prime Minister Erdogan, yet these rose-colored spectacle-wearing ‘journalists’ remain conspicuously silent when it comes to the fact that the popularity which Turkey’s ‘moderate’ AKP party now enjoys would not have risen to the level it has had it not been for Erdogan’s very public anti-Israel vitriol.  Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel are now at an all-time low as a result and show no signs of improving any time soon, if ever.  If the new Islamist governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and potentially even Syria (and perhaps others) are inspired by Turkey’s so-called ‘Justice and Development’ politics, who in their right mind can reasonably expect anything different from Islamist governments inspired by Turkey’s example?  If anything, this is nothing but another indication in a long list of many that we are continuing to see a ‘bad crescent-moon rising‘ …” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey: Secular Opposition Laments the Rise of Islamism in Turkish Government and Society, Christians Under Increasing Pressure – “In a Turkey with a secular constitution and a government and population of the Muslim faith, the social-democrat opposition has denounced an attack by the government and the presidency on the tradition of Ataturk festivities, symbol of the state’s secular nature. The alarm has come on a day in which a daily paper provided details on a report by the Association of Protestant Christian Churches noting numerous ‘attacks’ on Christian communities.” Read more.

By Gil Ronen – “The Iranian parliament’s official website has published an article calling on the government to attack Israel before the end of the year.

According to Israeli TV Channel 2’s veteran Middle East expert, Ehud Yaari, the article cites three reasons for the call.

First – a religious fatwa allowing such a strike. Second – threats from Israel regarding a planned strike on Iran. And third – Iran’s alleged military capability to carry out such an attack.

The article specifies that the area between Lod and Jerusalem should be targeted, as well as Tel Nof Air Force Base.

The article seems to be part of a recent trend in Iran to step up the rhetoric regarding a possible attack on Israel. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Friday that Israel is a ‘cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.’

‘We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hizbullah against Israel in 2006, and in the 22-day war’ between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, Khamenei was quoted as saying.

He added, ‘From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this.’

On Saturday, press outlets in Iran also widely quoted a blog post by Alireza Forghani, a computer engineer, who called upon Tehran to ‘wipe out Israel’ by 2014.” Read more.