News for December 7, 2005

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Israel kills top Gaza militant after suicide attack - Israel killed a senior Gaza militant in an air strike on Wednesday and wounded 10 other people, after it vowed to avenge a suicide bombing in central Israel. The violence put a new strain on a shaky Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and distanced further the chances of resuming peace efforts that were already largely on hold as Israel readies for a national election in March. Leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees, whose senior field commander, Mahmud el-Arqan, 29, died when two missiles fired from an Israeli aircraft struck his car in the Gaza town of Rafah, said they would avenge his slaying. “Our reaction will be painful,” Abu Abir, a spokesman for the militants, said. Medics said 10 other people were wounded in the blast, among them three children younger than 10, struck by shrapnel from the vehicle in a residential area as it rounded a bend on a road crowded with pedestrians. Islamic Jihad, a separate militant organization from el-Arqan’s group, had claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing of a shopping mall that killed five in the Israeli town of Netanya. Israeli military sources said el-Arqan was targeted for having collaborated with Islamic Jihad in a series of recent attacks on Israeli troops and in weapons smuggling into Gaza. In the West Bank, witnesses said Israeli forces had raided a village near the town of Jenin, where they surrounded a building in search of militants suspected of hiding inside. more...

Israel shuts door to Gaza, West Bank (December 7, 2005) - Israel clamped an open-ended closure on the West Bank and Gaza yesterday, banning virtually all Palestinians from Israel, and arrested at least 15 militants in a first response to a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis outside a shopping mall. Israeli officials also said the army would target Islamic Jihad operatives in the West Bank, both through arrest raids and assassinations, and renew air strikes in the Gaza Strip in response to any Palestinian rocket attacks. “We decided to operate in a much broader, much deeper and more intensive manner against the Islamic Jihad infrastructure, and I hope that we will be able to prevent such attacks in the future,” Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Army Radio after a late-night meeting of security officials. The army said the 15 arrests took place throughout the West Bank, with eight Islamic Jihad members rounded up in Tulkarem, near the village of Monday’s bomber. The attack, in the coastal city of Netanya, was the fifth since Israel and the Palestinians forged a ceasefire in February. Islamic Jihad has claimed all of them, saying its attacks are in response to Israeli violations of the truce. The closure, which the army said would remain in effect indefinitely, prevented thousands of Palestinian merchants and laborers from reaching jobs in Israel. Gaza's main cargo crossing, however, remained open. more...

Tehran shut down amid unprecedented smog alert (December 7, 2005) - Residents of the smog-choked Iranian capital were told not to go to work or school for two days in an unprecedented government effort to stop Tehran from suffocating. With offices in the urban sprawl of 10 million people effectively shut down through the weekend until Saturday, police were also out in force Wednesday to prevent motorists from entering a large part of the city without a permit. Officials hope that will help clear a hideous blanket of brown-yellow haze -- denser than usual this week due to a total lack of wind. “The air situation is really acute, but it is expected to get better after the shutdown,” Tehran city council member Amir-Reza Vaezi-Ashtiani told AFP. “We’ve spelled out our complaints in the city council, and the officials concerned have to deal with this dangerious issue. No institution has done enough and each blames another. That’s why Tehran is suffering.” The government has proposed various steps to resolve the worsening public health menace, such as phasing out the old cars, mandatory emissions checks and restricting vehicle use on certain days of the week. So far, no measure has been effectively enforced. But with the city choking on its own fumes, Tehran’s traffic police chief General Sajedinia said attitudes were changing. more...

It’s called Apophis. It’s 390m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years time (December 7, 2005) - Scientists call for plans to change asteroid’s path Developing technology could take decades. In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness. A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outer space. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it. NASA has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometers would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere. And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide. At a recent meeting of experts in near-Earth objects (NEOs) in London, scientists said it could take decades to design, test and build the required technology to deflect the asteroid. Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said: “It’s a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth’s atmosphere and have no impact. However, a NEO larger than 1km [wide] will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6km, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one.” more...

Strong Earthquake Strikes Kenya (December 6, 2005) - A strong earthquake struck the Lake Tanganyika region of east Africa on Monday, sending workers in tall buildings in downtown Nairobi fleeing their offices in panic. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, struck at 2:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. EST) and was centered near the Congo-Tanzania border, about 600 miles southwest of the Kenyan capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The USGS said the quake was located about six miles below the surface, and shook the ground in at least three Kenyan towns, including Nairobi. It also was felt in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa. more...

Expert: Saudis have radicalized 80% of US mosques (December 6, 2005) - Mainstream US Muslim organizations are heavily influenced by Saudi-funded extremists, according to Yehudit Barsky, an expert on terrorism at the American Jewish Committee. Worse still, Barsky told The Jerusalem Post last week, these “extremist organizations continue to claim the mantle of leadership” over American Islam. The power of the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam in the United States was created with generous Saudi financing of American Muslim communities over the past few decades. Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States “have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence,” Barsky said. Before the 1970s, she explained, “Muslim immigrants who came to the United States would build a store-front mosque somewhere. Then, since the 1970s, the Saudis have been approaching these mosques and telling them it wasn't proper for the glory of Islam to build such small mosques.” For many Muslims, it seemed the Saudis were offering a free mosque. However, Barsky believes for each mosque they invested in, the Saudis sent along their own imam (teacher-cleric). “These [immigrants] were not interested in this [Wahhabi] ideology, and suddenly they have a Saudi imam coming in and telling them they’re not praying properly and not practicing Shari’a [Islamic law] properly.” This Saudi strategy was being carried out “all over the world, from America to Bangladesh,” with the Saudis investing $70-80 billion in the endeavor over three decades. Barsky, who heads the AJC's Division on Middle East and International Terrorism and is the executive editor of Counterterrorism Watch, said this means that “the people now in control of teaching religion [to American Muslims] are extremists. Who teaches the mainstream moderate non-Saudi Islam that people used to have? It’s in the homes, but there’s no infrastructure. Eighty percent of the infrastructure is controlled by these extremists.” The same is true, Barsky said, of many of the mainstream Muslim organizations in America. Many of them are “pro-Saudi and pro-Muslim Brotherhood organizations.” more...

An absence of morality (December 6, 2005) - It is hard to imagine a people for whom blowing oneself up in a crowd of innocents is not considered an act of barbarism. Yet it is hard to escape the impression that the Palestinians, even today, remain such a people. This clearly was the case at the height of the terror offensive against Israel, during which suicide bombings were officially and unofficially lionized by Palestinian society. But how else is one to interpret the antiseptic Palestinian response to yesterday’s atrocity in Netanya, in which five were murdered and 55 wounded? “I believe that this harms Palestinian interests and is another act to sabotage efforts to revive the peace process and to sabotage the Palestinian elections,” said Saeb Erekat, giving the official reaction to the attack. But is it wrong? Is there anything morally wrong with slaughtering innocent Israelis? The recent Palestinian political jockeying has, unfortunately, only reinforced the sense that the relative lull in terrorism is not related to any second thoughts as to its morality. Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life terms in an Israeli jail for his direct involvement in specific terrorist attacks, and who is widely considered a key architect of the “militarization” (a term that itself reflects the Palestinian sanitization of terrorism) of the attacks against Israel, was the big winner of the first Fatah primaries. Similarly, Hamas is expected to do so well in the parliamentary elections scheduled in January that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is widely expected to postpone them indefinitely. It is certainly possible that the political tailwind Barghouti and Hamas are enjoying has more to do with the unpopularity of the PA, either because of corruption or the general chaos, than it does with popular support for terrorism. But we Israelis can hardly ignore the fact that the most popular Palestinian groups and individuals seem to be those most associated with terror against Israel. In the rest of the world, particularly since the withdrawal from Gaza, there seems to be a slight increase in sympathy for Israel’s position. But even in our current post-9/11 day and age, after suicide terrorism has proven not to be just Israel’s problem, there is a barely-veiled acceptance of the equation of “occupation” and terror, and therefore of the right of the Palestinians to “resist” as they wish. There are many realities that should have broken this equation long ago. Israel has repeatedly proven its support for a two-state solution, while the Palestinians have repeatedly demonstrated - signed agreements aside - their refusal to accept their own state if that means accepting Israel’s right to exist. But even more fundamentally, the Palestinian refusal to break with terrorism is not just an assertion of a right to oppose Israel but an expression of the true objective of that struggle. more...

U.S. Army report: Israel can’t stop Iran nukes (December 6, 2005) - Geopolitical limitations render Israel’s air force militarily incapable of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program according to a new report published the by U.S. Army War College. The report asserts Israel lacks the military capability to locate and destroy Iranian nuclear assets. The report said the Israel Air Force cannot operate at such long distances from its bases. “The Israeli Air Force has formidable capabilities and enjoys unchallenged supremacy vis-à-vis the other Middle East air powers, but Israel has no aircraft carriers and it cannot use airbases in other Middle East states,” the report entitled “Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran,” said. “Therefore its operational capabilities are reduced when the targets are located far from its territory.” [On Sunday, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that diplomatic pressure would not stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, Middle East Newsline reported. Halutz was one of three senior Israeli officials who warned that Iran would soon be able to turn into a nuclear power.] In an article authored by Shlomo Brom, former head of air force strategic planning, the report said Israel’s deep-strike air capability was based on the F-15I and F-16C/D aircraft. At a range of more than 600 kilometers, Brom said, Israel could not sustain an air campaign. Iran is about 1,000 kilometers from Israel. “It is possible to determine that at long ranges — more then 600 kilometers — the IAF is capable of a few surgical strikes, but it is not capable of a sustained air campaign against a full array of targets,” the report said. An Israeli air attack on Iran must also include such support aircraft as air refueling, electronic countermeasures, support, communication, and rescue, the report said. The mission would also require precision intelligence. Brom said Israel’s intelligence and military community was divided over the Iranian threat. He said military intelligence regards Iran as determined to destroy Israel. The Mossad and National Security Council see Teheran as preoccupied with national defense and regime survival. more...

Iran Warns Israel After Netanyahu Attack Threat (December 7, 2005) - Iran on Monday warned Israel of “heavy consequences” if its nuclear installations were attacked by the Jewish state, after a former Israeli premier suggested Israel should take an aggressive stance toward Iran. “The Islamic republic is a tough target and there would be heavy consequences,” said Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He was speaking after former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel needed to “act in the spirit” of the late premier Menachem Begin, who ordered an air strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. “I view the development of the Iranian nuclear (programme) as a paramount threat and as a real danger to the future of the state of Israel,” Netanyahu told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper. “Israel needs to do everything to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear threat against it,” said Netanyahu. But Larijani said Iran, which maintains its nuclear programme is peaceful, was not afraid of an attack. “Comparing Iran and Iraq is an error, because Iran is not an easy target. You should not pay attention to such rude comments by Israeli officials,” he told a news conference. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said Iran’s response to such an attack would be “devastating and unbearable”. more...

Central Bankers Seek Totalitarian Power (December 6, 2005) - The “War on Terror” is a ruse by central bankers to control every aspect of your life. Rereading “The Red Symphony” recently, I was shocked to read an insider’s statement that the bankers are not content with infinite wealth, but want unlimited power. “The Red Symphony” is a 1938 Stalinist Secret Police (NKVD) interrogation of Christian Rakovsky, a Soviet ambassador who was a close associate of Leon Trotsky, Rothschild’s agent. I introduced this explosive 50-page document to my readers two years ago. It strips the veil from modern history and explains the real meaning of Revolution, Communism, Freemasonry and War. It was not intended to become public knowledge. The translator, a Dr. J. Landowsky, made an unauthorized copy. The human experiment is endangered by private interests who have usurped the function of money creation. Modern history reflects the gradual process by which they transfer all wealth and power to themselves, destroying Western Civilization and creating a world police state. Rakovsky, whose real name was Chaim Rakover, was sentenced to death in Stalin’s purge of the Trotskyite faction of the party. Leon Trotsky wrote in his autobiography, My Life, : “Christian G. Rakovsky... played an active part in the inner workings of four Socialist parties-- the Bulgarian, Russian, French, and Roumanian--to become eventually one of the leaders of the Soviet Federation, a founder of the Communist Internationale, President of the Ukranian Soviet of People’s Commissaries, and the diplomatic Soviet representative in England and France ...” Rakovsky tried to convince his interrogator that Stalin should cooperate with the bankers who “are just like you and me. The fact that they control unlimited money, insofar as they themselves create it, does not...determine the limits of their ambitions . . .The bankers, have the impulse towards power, towards full power. Just as you and me.” more...

Netanyahu Backs Pre-Emptive Strike on Iran (December 6, 2005) - Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in remarks published Monday that he would support a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program. Netanyahu’s comments, made in the heat of a campaign for leadership of the hardline Likud Party, drew criticism from rivals, who accused him of playing politics with the country’s security. Iranian leaders brushed off the threat, warning that an attack “will have a lot of consequences.” Israeli leaders have long identified Iran as the nation’s biggest threat. Israel accuses Tehran of supporting Palestinian militant groups and rejects Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in October that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Iran’s announcement Monday that it plans to build a second nuclear power plant along with a deadly suicide bombing the same day by the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group in the central town of Netanya is likely to heighten Israel’s concerns. more...