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Posts Tagged ‘Lebanon’

IDF general: Likelihood of regional war growing

September 6, 2011 1 comment

ynetnews

Iranian missile (Photo: Reuters)

Iranian missile (Photo: Reuters)

Recent revolutions in the Arab world and the deteriorating ties with Turkey are raising the likelihood of a regional war in the Middle East, IDF Home Front Command Chief, Major General Eyal Eisenberg warned Monday.

“It looks like the Arab Spring, but it can also be a radical Islamic winter,” he said in a speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“This leads us to the conclusion that through a long-term process, the likelihood of an all-out war is increasingly growing,” the IDF general said.

“Iran has not abandoned its nuclear program. The opposite it true; it continues full steam ahead,” he said. “In Egypt, the army is collapsing under the burden of regular security operations, and this is reflected in the loss of control in the Sinai and the turning of the border with Israel into a terror border, with the possibility that Sinai will fall under the control of an Islamic entity.”

“In Lebanon, Hezbollah is growing stronger within government arms, but it has Read more…

Categories: Coming Events, Middle East Tags: , , , , , ,

Vice Premier: Iran, Hezbollah behind Lebanon protest over Israel sea border

July 11, 2011 Comments off

haaretz

The Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said at a meeting of cabinet ministers on Sunday that Iran and Hezbollah are behind the government of Lebanon’s petition to the United Nations concerning the maritime border with Israel.

martime border - Haaretz - July 10 2011 Schematic diagram of Northern Maritime Border.
Photo by: Haaretz

Ya’alon said that Iran and Hezbollah are purposefully trying to create a new source of friction with Israel.

“We signed an agreement with Cyprus that is in keeping with its agreement with Lebanon,” said Ya’alon. “When we announced our gas drilling, the Iranians and Hezbollah decided that it would be a good excuse for conflict with us.”

“They decided to sketch a new border south of the line that was agreed to in talks between Lebanon and Cyprus, and basically entered Read more…

Categories: Iran, Israel, Lebanon Tags: , , ,

Riyadh will build nuclear weapons if Iran gets them, Saudi prince warns

June 30, 2011 1 comment

guardian

Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador

Prince Turki al-Faisal: he said that if Iran came close to developing nuclear weapons Riyadh would not stand idly by. Photograph: Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images

A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device “would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences”.

He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.

“We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don’t. It’s as simple as Read more…

Categories: Iran, Saudi Arabia, WMD Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Israeli forces open fire at Palestinian protesters

May 16, 2011 Comments off

bbc

Israeli soldiers confront protesters near the northern Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights
Israel’s army said it faced a “serious” incursion at Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights, where a number of people were reported killed and injured.

Jon Donnison in Ramallah: “Palestinians are feeling emboldened and inspired by the uprisings elsewhere [in the Middle East]”

Israeli forces have fired on groups of protesters at borders with the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon.

Reports say that at least 12 people have died and dozens more have been injured.

In one incident, thousands of Palestinian supporters from Syria entered the Golan Heights, Israel says.

Palestinians are marking the Nakba or Catastrophe, their term for the founding of the Israeli state in 1948.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes in fighting after its creation.

Responding in a televised address to Sunday’s violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped “calm and quiet will quickly return, but let nobody be mistaken, we are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty”.

Impetus

Clashes have been taking place at four separate borders or crossing points – at Erez in Gaza, near Ramallah in the West Bank, on the Golan Read more…

Categories: Palestine, Protests Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why the world is quiet as Syria crackdown continues

May 10, 2011 Comments off

csmonitor

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, pictured here at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome Friday, also spoke in Italy about the US plan to keep pressure on Syria for political reforms.

The United States on Monday suggested it is using the current weak position of the Syrian government on the world stage to try to pressure it into dropping its support for Hezbollah, the extremist organization in Lebanon.

In an interview with the US-funded Radio Sawa, US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said the US is demanding from the Syrian government that it immediately cease its assistance to Hezbollah and treat Lebanon as a friendly and sovereign country.

Aside from that development, however, the US – like much of the international community – appears to have adopted a muted response to Syria in the wake of its continuing crackdown on dissidents.

Officially, the Obama administration says that unlike Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, President Bashar al-Assad still has time to reverse Read more…

Categories: Syria Tags: , , , , , ,

Leading Israelis push for two-state solution with new peace initiative

April 6, 2011 Comments off

guardian

Gaza funeral

A father weeps at the funeral of his 21-year-old son, killed on Tuesday by Israeli fire in northern Gaza. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

A group of prominent Israelis, including heads of the army and security services, hope to revive the peace initiative by announcing details of possible treaties with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.

The Israeli Peace Initiative, a two-page document, states that Israel will withdraw from the land it occupied in 1967 in both the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and pay compensation to refugees. The document has been given to Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, who has said he will read it with interest.

The authors of the document, which will be launched at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, say that it is partly inspired by the revolutions that have taken place in the Middle East. It presents an opportunity for Israelis to participate in the “winds of change” blowing through the Middle East, they say.

“We looked around at what was happening in neighbouring countries and we said to ourselves, ‘It is about time that the Israeli public Read more…

Categories: Israel, Palestine Tags: , , , , , , ,

Israel to deploy ‘Iron Dome’ anti-rocket system

March 26, 2011 Comments off

telegraph

Israel will deploy its Iron Dome multi-million-pound missile defence system in southern Israel for the first time next week in the wake of rocket attacks from Gaza, officials said on Friday.  

A rocket fired by the ‘Iron Dome’ system during a test fire in southern Israel Photo: AP
7:12PM GMT 25 Mar 2011

“I authorised the army to deploy in the next few days the first battery of “Iron Dome” for an operational trial,” Defence Minister Ehud Barak said as he toured the tense Gaza Strip border.

The order comes after a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants in recent days, some of them striking deep into Israel.

The deployment of the Iron Dome interceptor, designed to combat short-range rocket threats from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, has been delayed until now with officials saying operating crews needed more training and suggestions the system was prohibitively expensive.

The system, developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with the help of Read more…

Categories: Israel, Technology Tags: , , , , ,

As UN debates Libya, Kadhafi vows to crush rebels

March 16, 2011 Comments off

(AFP)

TRIPOLI — Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi said he was determined to crush the month-old uprising against him, while at the UN, proposals for a no-fly zone to ground his warplanes met stiff resistance.

And as Kadhafi’s army announced it would soon move against the rebel bastion of Benghazi, anti-aircraft batteries and heavy artillery opened up in the rebel stronghold.

“If this is a foreign plot, we will crush it; if it is a domestic plot, we will crush it,” said Kadhafi, who has repeatedly blamed Al-Qaeda and Western powers for the revolt against his four decades of rule.

Late Tuesday, Kadhafi’s army said it would soon move on the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) east of Tripoli, Libya’s second city.

A statement addressed to its residents said: “The armed forces are arriving to ensure your security, undo the injustice done to you, protect you, restore calm and bring life back to normal.

“This is a humanitarian operation being undertaken in your interests, and is not aimed at Read more…

Categories: Libya, Protests Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Israeli military says new weapon shot down Gaza anti-tank rocket in first combat test

March 2, 2011 Comments off

canadianpress

JERUSALEM — A new Israeli weapons system knocked down a Palestinian anti-tank rocket in its first combat test Tuesday, the military said, showing off technology that could protect the heavy vehicles that have been the mainstay of the world’s ground forces for decades.

Palestinian militants said they fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Israeli tank as it patrolled near the Gaza-Israel border, a frequent occurrence. This time, the “Trophy” system sensed the incoming rocket and fired its own projectile, blowing it up away from the tank, the military said.

Trophy is thought to be the only active defence system of its kind in the world. Up till now, tanks have relied on heavier and thicker armour plating to protect against more powerful anti-tank weapons.

Experts say the active defence concept, if it works consistently, could allow the construction of smaller, lighter and more efficient tanks.

The Israeli military did not make Read more…

Categories: Israel, Technology Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

VERY INTERESTING” LEAK”- Resurfaced-The Map of the “New Middle East”

March 1, 2011 Comments off

patriotfreedom.org

The Map of the “New Middle East”
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”
MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST

“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor
The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”

This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration Read more…

Categories: Middle East Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,