Some clues as to what was discussed at terror trio’s meeting
Last week, we told you how a troika of terror heads–Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah–had a little dinner party.
Although some Western powers, including the U.S., continue a policy of engagement with Syria (Undersecretary of State William Burns visited Damascus just a week before the dinner party and the U.S. is sending its first new ambassador in five years), ties between Assad and Hezbollah remain strong. According to the Washington Institute, since the 2006 war with Israel, Hizbullah has procured an estimated 40,000 rockets and – with Syria’s help – reportedly improved the quality of its arsenal.
Syria also may have provided the Russian-made shoulder-fired Igla antiaircraft system, which is capable of downing Israeli F-16s.
Ha’aretz writer Yoel Marcus wrote that the well-publicized banquet was “certainly in Iran’s interest, but it is unclear whether it is in Syria’s.” After all, the Syrian regime is among those Iran would like to bring down: Not only is Assad not a Shi’ite Muslim like the Iranian mullahs, but he and his government are secular — something the Iranian regime wants to stomp out.
Marcus continues, showing just how “scary” Israelis find the troika (summary: not very):
As for Ahmadinejad, he has a big mouth – he does not understand that the more he threatens us with a second Holocaust, the more he spurs Israel to build greater means of deterrence and increases its willingness to use them. The reasoning, as Ronen Bergman wrote last week in Yediot Ahronot, which won the day when former Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the bombing of the Iraqi reactor and by which the Syrian reactor was bombed, is that a country calling for the destruction of Israel must not be given the means to do so. Our deterrence is based on force and the willingness to use it in the face of a threat to our survival.
Israel’s reputation is built on deterrence. Iran, full of itself, could presume that we will not act or we will not be allowed to act. But good intelligence on their…
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Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 4:53 PM | Stand For Israel
Trio of terror has a night out in Syria…
Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall at a formal banquet hosted by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad whose guest list included Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, AFP reports.
It was a rare public outing for Nasrallah, who keeps his schedule private due to fears that he’s on the list of terror leaders Israel is looking to assassinate. According to AFP, he “has seldom left his Lebanese stronghold and has made few public appearances.”:
With an Israeli death threat hanging over him, the Hezbollah chief has even avoided religious or political gatherings in Lebanon, and his televised speeches have been taped or broadcast from secret locations.
Apparently, though, the chance to discuss “the latest developments in the region, and Zionist threats against Lebanon and Syria” was enough to lure him out of his hiding place.
Comments (0) »Iran and Syria are the main backers of Hezbollah, the only militia that has kept its military arsenal since the end of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Assad and Ahmadinejad signed a visa-scrapping accord in Damascus on Thursday, signaling even closer ties and brushing aside US efforts to drive a wedge between the two allies.
Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 7:26 AM | Stand For Israel
Bombing attempt at Cairo’s main synagogue
A clumsy attempt to bomb Cairo’s historic main synagogue failed Sunday when a make-shift explosive device in a suitcase failed to ignite fully after an assailant hurled it at the house of worship from window above it. There were no injuries or damage.
According to a police report, early Sunday morning, a man entered a hotel on the fourth floor of a building across from the synagogue, ostensibly to check in. As he was going through the process, he abruptly threw his suitcase out the window (toward the synagogue below).
The man’s suitcase held four containers of gasoline, each of which was attached to a glass bottle filled with sulfuric acid. Police theorized that the bottles of acid were meant to shatter on impact, thereby igniting the makeshift bomb. Instead, the bag fell onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel and briefly caught fire before being extinguished.
The synagogue, Shaar Shomayim (“Gates of Heaven”), was built in 1899 and was once the largest building on its main downtown street. Its style is intended to evoke the look of ancient Egyptian temples. See photos of the beautiful building and read about its history here.
Egypt was long home to a thriving Jewish community with a storied history that included some of the Jewish world’s greatest leaders, including Maimonides, the great 12th century philosopher who is still considered the premiere codifier of Jewish law. Prior to the establishment of Israel, the community numbered around 80,000 people.
The Jews were kicked out after the establishment of the modern state of Israel, however. According to Ha’aretz, only several dozen–mostly elderly–Jews remain in the country. A number of heavily guarded synagogues remain.
Comments (0) »Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 7:13 AM | Stand For Israel
There he goes again…
In keeping with the apparent preferred sport of Iranian leaders’–tossing invective toward Israel–on Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged Hezbollah’s leader to wipe out Israel “once and for all,” if a regional war “breaks out” in the near future, the Associated Press reports.
According to the Iranian state news agency, Ahmadinejad told Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah that “the preparations should be of the level that, if they (the Israelis) want to repeated the mistakes of the past (by attacking), then their case should be closed once and for all and the region delivered from their evil ways forever.”
The slight problem with Ahmadinejad’s logic is that Israel hasn’t started wars with Hezbollah (you have to love the way AP uses the neutral term “breaks out” — as if war just sort of happens). Rather, Israel went into Lebanon after repeated cross-border attacks by Hezbollah, including the July 12 attack that set off the war: Hezbollah sent a barrage of rockets into northern Israeli towns and then sent a team of terrorists into the Jewish state (some military minds might call this “an invasion”), who killed three Israeli soldiers, wounded two, and dragged the bodies of an additional two soldiers–who were seriously wounded and may have died pretty much immediately–back across the border.
The purpose of Israel’s incursion was to recover the two soldiers, about whom Hezbollah refused to provide any sort of information, including signs of life. It wasn’t until a prisoner swap two years later that the families of the soldiers–Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev–discovered that the two–their sons, brothers, and husbands–had probably been dead the whole time.
In addition to such flagrant flouting of the rules of combat, Hezbollah actively attempts to emotionally torment Israeli civilians — beyond refusing to provide any information about captives, the organization has the lovely habit of erecting billboards just inside the Lebanese border with Israel that include graphic photos of dead and dismembered Israeli soldiers, with statements taunting Israelis and Israeli leaders.
We don’t think Israel is the one with “evil ways” from which we all need deliverance.
Hezbollah receives…
Read More » Comments (4) »Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 8:00 AM | Stand For Israel
Not really a shock: 90 percent of Middle East views Jews unfavorably
A new study ”paints a worrying picture” of Middle Easterners’ attitude toward Jews, the Jerusalem Post reports.
In the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, views of Jews were overwhelmingly unfavorable. Nearly all in Jordan (97 percent), the Palestinian territories (97%) and Egypt (95%) held an unfavorable view. Similarly, 98% of Lebanese expressed an unfavorable opinion of Jews, including 98% among both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, as well as 97% of Lebanese Christians.
It’s not really that surprising. After years of being told by their own governments that Jews eat Palestinian children for breakfast and other nonsense, of course the majority of Israel’s Arab and Muslim neighbors despise Jews. Their governments can’t take responsibility for the squalor of their countries, so they blame the thuggery and corruption of their countries on Jews. It’s not a new tactic (See blood libels, Chemielnicki pogroms, Nazi propaganda, or of the other countless violent scape-goating episodes in Jewish history.)
What is really interesting about this study, though, is that among Israeli Arabs –those who have the closest contact with Jews and who are subject to much of the same propaganda, only 35 percent expressed negative opinions and 56 percent expressed positive opinions.
The lesson? Reality seems to trump propaganda.
(Incidentally, the propaganda extends outside the Middle East, according to the survey:)
Comments (0) »Negative views of Jews were also widespread in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed in Asia: More than seven-in-ten in Pakistan (78%) and Indonesia (74%) expressed unfavorable opinions.
Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 2:28 PM | Stand For Israel
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