posted
An liberal isolationist could win in Mexico...Cuba, Venezuala as allie's ?.......What kind of government would evolve....3 antagonists in the same strategic nest...
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
This just might explain why Bush has been Bud light on the border....Geez, whole new ball game if the isolationist wins....
This is 4th of July week-end , hitting the fan in the middle East, hate to say it, but what if!
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Hope of peace is gone in Gaza...Israel has more and more Heavy Armor moving up. If they go ? They will sweep like a broom this time.
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
yep.. will be waiting to see who comes the the plestinians aid.. probably Syria.. I think we are about to find out just what happened to Iraq's WMD's...
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posted
Trifecta down south? More reason to start building fortifications right now.
And I agree with your thoughts on the Middle East. Any day now. 4th o July fireworks I have no interest in seeing.
Where's your bunker R.D.?
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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GAZA (Reuters) - Israel's prime minister said on Sunday he had ordered the army to "intensify" operations in Gaza to free a captured soldier after aircraft attacked the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.
The pre-dawn strike on Haniyeh's empty office in the Gaza Strip followed warnings from Israel that no one in the Hamas-led government was immune from attack.
"I have given instructions to intensify the strength of action by the army and security services, to hunt down these terrorists, those who send them ... and those who harbor them," the Israeli leader, Ehud Olmert, said at a cabinet meeting.
"I have said, and will repeat, nobody will be immune."
Hamas' armed wing responded to the helicopter missile strike on Haniyeh's office by threatening to attack Israeli power plants, institutions and schools if Israel carried out more air strikes against government offices and infrastructure.
Israel, which pulled out of the Gaza Strip last year, sent troops and tanks into the south of the territory on Wednesday after Palestinian gunmen, some from the Hamas armed wing, seized Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid a week ago.
It has kept on hold a threatened push into northern Gaza.
Internal security chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the crisis might take months to resolve.
"We have to take a deep breath ... There is no magic solution," said Diskin, head of the Shin Bet.
Surveying his wrecked office, Haniyeh found shattered furniture and windows, and a portrait of late president Yasser Arafat blown off the wall.
"This is the policy of the jungle and arrogance," Haniyeh told Reuters. "Nothing will affect our spirit and nothing will affect our steadfastness."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah faction was defeated by Hamas in a January election, condemned the attack.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called it "inadvisable."
One Hamas member was killed in a second Israeli attack on an office used by forces loyal to the Islamic militant group, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction. There have been few casualties in the overall Israeli operation so far.
DEADLOCK
Palestinian officials said Egyptian-led diplomatic efforts to free Shalit were continuing but making little progress because of Israel's Gaza assault.
"I'm not hopeful," senior Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said.
A Palestinian official has quoted mediators as saying 19-year-old Shalit was alive after being treated for wounds.
Olmert ordered the armed forces "to make sure no one sleeps at night in Gaza," Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio.
A U.N. official said widening an Israeli offensive to the northern Gaza Strip, where militants have been launching rockets at Israel, could displace up to 25,000 Palestinians.
With a Palestinian humanitarian crisis looming and under international pressure, Israel reopened Karni, the main commercial crossing into the Gaza Strip. Israel, which had said Gaza's borders would be sealed indefinitely after Shalit was abducted, opened fuel pipelines.
After Shalit's abduction, Israel launched air strikes against Gaza's main power plant and road bridges.
It also detained eight members of the Hamas cabinet and nearly two dozen lawmakers in the occupied West Bank.
Justice Minister Haim Ramon said they would soon be tried for membership of Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organization.
Hamas's armed wing warned Israel to end its offensive.
"If the occupation continues aggression and terrorism ... it will drag the region into a sea of blood and the consequences will be terrible," said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman.
Hamas has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings in Israel since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.
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Israel has not ruled out the possibility of releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, Hamas legislator Salah al- Bardaweel said on Sunday.
But Bardaweel's comments stand in stark contrast to the unequivocal comments made Sunday in the weekly cabinet meeting by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen Dan Halutz, and head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, who all said that Israel would not release prisoners for Shalit because this would only encourage more and more kidnapping attempts.
Meanwhile, Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, on Sunday threatened to attack infrastructure facilities inside Israel, including schools, hospitals and universities. The threat, the first of its kind since Hamas won the parliamentary election last January, was issued in response to continued Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip.
"If they continue with these attacks, we will strike at targets in Zionist territory that we have not struck until now," said the organization's spokesman.
The latest threat came as Egypt continued its efforts to resolve the crisis.
It also came as sources in the Gaza Strip revealed that the Palestinian Authority's security forces had, for the first time, begun searching for Shalit in Rafah and Khan Yunis.
The sources said that members of the Preventative Security Service and the General Intelligence Force had secretly deployed hundreds of their men in the streets to try to track down the whereabouts of the solider. They added that some of the security officers had been disguised as Fatah and Hamas militiamen.
Yadlin, however, told the government that the Palestinian Authority security services are doing nothing to look for Shalit.
A top Egyptian diplomat involved in the talks with Hamas over the case of Shalit said Egypt was still waiting to hear from Hamas leaders in Syria and the Gaza Strip about its initiative to resolve the crisis.
The initiative, according to the diplomat, calls for the immediate release of Shalit in return for an Israeli promise to release several hundred Palestinian prisoners in the near future. It also calls for an end to Israel's military action in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and for the release of most of the Hamas ministers and legislators who were arrested last week by the IDF.
The diplomat told The Jerusalem Post that Egypt was expecting to hear from Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Syria, in the coming hours.
"Mashaal has promised to study the initiative with the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip and to give a response by Monday," the diplomat said. He said Mashaal made the promise over the weekend during a phone conversation with a senior Egyptian security official.
"Egypt is determined to resolve the crisis as soon as possible," the diplomat added. "We want a solution that will prevent further violence and bloodshed." He also expressed cautious optimism about the prospects of ending the crisis peacefully. "It's premature to talk about the failure of the negotiations," he said. "There is still room for optimism, although one has to be very careful in such sensitive issues."
Bardaweel, one of the prominent Hamas representatives in the Gaza Strip, claimed that Israel had informed the Egyptian mediators that it did not rule out the possibility of releasing Palestinian prisoners. "Israel wants to release prisoners, but it does not want that to be directly linked to the case of the Israeli soldier," he said.
Bardaweel also praised Egypt's mediation efforts, saying the Egyptians were doing their utmost to avoid more destruction in the region.
Ahmed Bahar, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the soldier would not be handed back unless Israel accepted the conditions of the captors. "These are the conditions of all the Palestinians, including the families of prisoners and martyrs," he said.
Bahar said Israel's dilemma is that it is facing only two scenarios either to suffer humiliation by accepting the conditions or to launch a military operation that could result in the death of the soldier.
PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemned Israel's air raid on the office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday night as a "real crime." Abbas, who was speaking to reporters during a tour of the destroyed office in Gaza City together with Haniyeh, said: "The world should understand that the destruction of the institutions of the Palestinian people is a real crime."
Following the attack, Abbas and Haniyeh held an urgent meeting in Gaza City to discuss the latest developments surrounding the case of the IDF soldier.
Haniyeh, who later inspected the ruins of his office, said the attack would not influence Hamas's standing.
"This is a policy of arrogance that resembles the rule of the jungle," he told reporters. I call on the international community to intervene to stop the Israeli aggression."
Also on Sunday, Hamas called on the Palestinians to boycott July 4 celebrations planned by the US Consulate General in Jerusalem. Farhat As'ad, a Hamas spokesman, said the Palestinians should boycott the event because of US bias toward Israel. He also urged Palestinian journalists not to cover the celebrations.
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Asefi: Zionist regime will burn in the fire started by itself
Tehran, July 2, IRNA Iran-Asefi-Zionists Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi here Sunday said that the Zionist regime will eventually burn in the flame of the fire started by itself.
Asefi made the remark while speaking to domestic and foreign reporters in this week's briefing session as he pointed to the recent attacks launched by the Zionists on the Gaza Strip, during which they kidnapped a number of Palestinian officials.
Turning to the extremely bitter incidents in the occupied lands, he said that the inefficient and wrong policies of the Zionist regime accounted for them.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the Zionist regime is enraged seeing `the free elections in Palestine and taking charge of affairs by the popular government-elect', after which it has taken `insane measures'.
He said that the new crisis started after innocent individuals were kidnapped and taken hostage by the Zionist regime.
Stressing that `the moves of the Zionist regime are against any international criterion', he dismissed the pretext for such measures and said that the regime itself took inhuman measures.
He referred to `the growing isolation of the Zionist regime on the international scene' and `the continuity of resistance of the Palestinian people as other reasons for their fury.
Asefi said that given the Zionists intend to damage the economy and infrastructure of Gaza Strip, the international community should pressurize them to avoid disrupting the flow of relief aid to the Palestinian people, including food, medicine and fuel.
The official pointed to the discussion of the issue by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki with the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and said, "Iran seeks mediation of the UN Security Council and Annan himself in this respect." Asefi also called on the Human Rights Council to approach the issue and violation of the human rights by the Zionist regime.
He pointed to the Zionist regime's continuous abuse of the silence of international bodies towards Zionist measures and called on these bodies and Islamic states not to let them take such moves any more.
The Foreign Ministry official said that Iran has discussed the issue with Islamic countries and that the matter will be on the agenda of the next meeting of the countries neighboring Iraq, adding that Majlis has also been working on it.
Addressing reporters, he welcomed formation of the Foreign Relations Strategic Council last week according to the decree of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who appointed Kamal Kharrazi as the council head.
Based on the decree, Ali Akbar Velayati, Ali Shamkhani, Mohammad Shariatmadari and Mohammad-Hossein Taromi were appointed to serve as council members for a five-year term.
Asefi pointed to establishment of the Foreign Relations Strategic Council as a step in favor of the foreign policy system.
-------------------- Spend word for word with me and I shall make your wit bankrupt Posts: 977 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Are they double talking there?? Trying to mix up the series of events?
Or is the Israeli soldier a retaliation kidnapping for kidnapping Israel did previous to this?
If so then that gives a different spin to this whole standoff.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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Israel took some terrorists prisoner.. they have been for some time.. The kidnapping of the soldier was a rettaliation for that.. That's why Hamas is demanding 1000 prisoners be released in exchange for the soldier...
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posted
Were they kidnapping out of Palistine without approval?
funny how I missed that part.
-------------------- No longer eligible for government service due to lack of tax issues. Posts: 5178 | From: Up North | Registered: Dec 2005
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Asefi said that given the Zionists intend to damage the economy and infrastructure of Gaza Strip, the international community should pressurize them to avoid disrupting the flow of relief aid to the Palestinian people, including food, medicine and fuel.
in other words? why'd they stop the welfare?????
what have the Palestinians ever done for themselves? except martyr themselves? i mean that as a serious question.... i don't have clue.... they just happened to be living in land captured by the Israelis in a war that somebody else started....
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A Hamas operative was killed in an IAF air strike in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza late Monday night, according to Palestinian sources.
The Hamas man, Ismail al-Masri, 19, was a member of the Izzadin al-Kassam, the group's military wing.
A short while later, IAF aircraft hit a building at the Islamic University in Gaza city early Tuesday, Palestinians said. Black smoke rose from the building, set on fire in the attack. No one was hurt.
The military had no comment. The university is considered a Hamas stronghold. The building, where the Hamas-dominated student council meets, was heavily damaged.
Earlier Monday the IDF stepped up its offensive on against Hamas terror infrastructure and sent ground forces into the northern Gaza Strip and troops into the terror group's charity offices in the West Bank in moves aimed at escalating the pressure on the kidnappers of Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
Senior officers said the military operations to rescue Shalit would continue as planned despite an ultimatum issued Monday morning by Palestinian terror groups behind the abduction of the soldier last week. On Monday, two Palestinian gunmen were killed in separate incidents in northern Gaza.
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Israel would not tolerate kidnappings and would not allow any harm to come to Shalit. He said Israel would continue to allow moderate elements in the Palestinian Authority to try to diplomatically solve the crisis.
[For Jerusalem Online video coverage of the day's events click here.]
"We will know how to reach everyone involved in the kidnapping and everyone who is responsible for his [Shalit's] fate," Peretz said. "The Hamas terrorist headquarters operating out of Syria, headed by Khaled Mashaal, is the main address that is responsible."
Peretz also issued a veiled threat to Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday, warning that he would hold him personally responsible if Shalit was harmed.
Last week, four Israeli F-16s buzzed Assad's summer residence in Latakia, to try to pressure him to persuade Mashaal to release Shalit. A Peretz adviser said the defense minister did not intend to threaten Assad's life, but to send him a "positive message" that he should take action.
Senior defense officials backed up Peretz's threat to Assad, hinting at the possibility that additional military steps, similar to the IAF flyover of his palace, would be taken.
"The common theme of all of the military action is to keep up the pressure on all those involved in the kidnapping, including Hamas and Assad," one defense official said.
In response, Assad reiterated his country's staunch support for the Palestinians in the face of the IDF offensive in Gaza.
Early Monday, after days of preparation, several tanks, bulldozers and armored personnel carriers carrying troops from the Givati Brigade crossed into northern Gaza and took up positions on the outskirts of Beit Hanun. While the IDF released an official statement claiming that the incursion was a "pinpointed" mission aimed at uncovering terror tunnels and explosive devices in the area, senior officers said it was possible the troops would remain in place for a longer period and would be joined by additional forces.
IDF combat engineers near Beit Hanun shot and killed one of two Palestinian gunmen who had opened fire on the military force. Later in the day, the IAF fired missiles at a terror cell in northern Gaza that was on its way to fire anti-tank rockets at IDF troops stationed nearby. One of the operatives was killed.
Before dawn Monday, IDF troops stormed Dawa charity offices in Hebron, Nablus and Bethlehem and seized documents connected to the Hamas-affiliated organizations. The Dawa charities, IDF officers said, were fronts for the transfer of funds to Hamas terror activity.
Also Monday, missiles struck a building in Gaza City that the IDF said was used by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The building, officers said, was used as headquarters for planning terror activities. A warehouse in the northern Gaza village of Beit Lahiya used to store weaponry, including Kassam rockets, was also attacked. Three Palestinians were wounded. The warehouse, according to the IDF, also belonged to the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.
Late Sunday night, IDF troops shot and killed three Hamas terrorists after they were seen crawling towards military forces while carrying explosive belts, which they allegedly planned to use in a suicide attack against the soldiers.
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The rocket was the first ever to land in central Ashkelon, a town of 120,000 residents that is home to Israel's main electric supply station and critical gas and oil pipelines. The rocket, an updated version of the Palestinian Qassam missile, was launched by militants only a fifth of a mile from Israeli ground troop concentrations stationed in Gaza.
Critics of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's evacuation last summer of the Gaza Strip had warned the retreat eventually would place Ashkelon under Palestinian rocket fire. Sharon then had stated rockets fired at the strategic town would result in an "unprecedented Israeli military response."
Terrorist leaders in Gaza told WND today their groups have the ability to regularly bombard Ashkelon. They warned longer-range Qassam missiles will be fired at Israeli towns near Gaza in the near future.
The statements follow a WorldNetDaily exclusive interview in which Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas' so-called military wing, stated his group is developing electronically guided missiles.
The Qassam rocket yesterday hit Ashkelon's Ronson High School at about 7 p.m. Jerusalem time, causing damage but no casualties even though many parents and children were in the vicinity during the attack to register for the coming school year.
Hamas took credit for the attack.
The rocket bombardment was the farthest a Palestinian projectile had ever traveled – about eight miles. Regular Qassam rockets have a range of about three to five miles.
Israeli security officials said the Qassam used in yesterday's attack was an updated version, possessing two engines instead of one.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was attending an American Independence Day party at the home of the U.S. ambassador during the attack, said the rocket fired at Ashkelon took the Palestinian terror war to a new level.
"This attack, this criminal attempt that was aimed at harming Israeli civilians living inside Israel's borders, will have unparalleled and far-reaching consequences," Olmert said. "And the Hamas organization will be the first to feel them."
Today Olmert's security cabinet approved an Israeli Defense Forces proposal to expand military operations in the Gaza Strip in response to the Qassam attack.
IDF troops entered southern and northern Gaza following a Hamas raid June 25 against Israel's Kerem Shalom military station and the kidnapping of French-Israeli citizen Gilad Shalit.
"There will be steps taken and they will be very serious," said Cabinet Minister Isaac Herzog, who refused to elaborate on the military's plans. "There is a very broad operation here. It will continue."
Israel's objectives in the operation were defined during the meeting as targeting Hamas in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria – in particular, hitting institutions and infrastructure suspected of facilitating terrorism and restricting the movements of terrorists by tightening the division of the Gaza Strip by IDF ground forces.
An IDF proposal obtained last night by WND included a massive ground assault and anti-terror operation in Beit Hanoun, a northern Gaza town known to be a major terrorist staging grounds. The attack would be similar to Israel's Defensive Shield operation in 2002 in which the terror infrastructure of northern Samaria was badly damaged.
It was unclear if the IDF's Beit Hanoun operation was approved by the security cabinet today.
Meanwhile a senior leader of Hamas' "military wing" told WND the group has succeeded in developing a large quantity of Qassam missiles that can travel further distances.
The leader, who spoke on condition his name be withheld, said the group has the ability to regularly bombard Ashkelon and other nearby towns.
He warned more longer-range missiles will be fired "in the coming days."
New missiles would threaten most Israelis
Abu Abdullah, a senior leader of Hamas' so-called military wing last month told WND in an interview his group is developing a new, electronically guided missile that will place most major Israeli population centers within firing range.
"In the last months we accelerated the improvement operations of our missile production," Abdullah said. "Thanks to Allah we have already improved missiles and in the future we will have the fourth model of our Qassam missiles, which will be electronically guided missiles and very accurate. Our Mujahadeen fighters are receiving a high level of training on how to use the new Qassams and how to maximize their accuracy. With the help of Allah we will succeed."
Abdullah claimed the new missiles will be able to reach "every target in 1948 occupied Palestine (Israel) and that from Gaza we will be able to hit the center of Israel even if the transfer of these missiles to the West Bank (which runs alongside major Israeli cities) is for some reason interrupted."
Palestinian groups, until now, generally have fired three versions of Qassams, improvised steel rockets filled with explosives and fuel. Until yesterday, the furthest a Qassam had traveled was about five miles. Israel has noted regular improvements in Qassams, although it has not released information about Palestinian groups developing missiles with guidance systems.
A senior Palestinian intelligence officer told WND there is evidence groups in Gaza are developing guided missiles.
Israeli defense officials have warned some advanced rockets, including antiaircraft missiles, have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip.
Abdullah claimed Israel has been deliberately minimizing his group's rocket capabilities.
"It is normal that the Israelis will underestimate the capabilities of Palestinian resistance such as not admitting we are working on these new missiles," he said. "The people who made the (Gaza) withdrawal don't want to talk now about the so-called risks."
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-------------------- All my posts are based on my own opinions and not to be taken as buy/sell recommendations. Posts: 961 | Registered: May 2006
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posted
Palestine and Israel are really escalating right now....The kidnap drill, 0 soldiers Israel, 2 Palestine...Here we go! the numbers game to escalate.
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Perhaps one of the scariest things about this right now is that we are tied to Iraq (and the bills for Iraq that will be being paid for generations) and don't dare offer serious refereeing.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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"the recent acts of terrorism perpetrated by Hamas, and now Hezbolah are suicidal acts IMO..."
Well, they should be. But with the financial support of the oil-rich Arab states (supported in turn by our own republicn administration}, it may again recompose itself. Sadly, each of its reincornations is preceded by the killing or maiming or starving of millions of innocent people, mostly Arabs.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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It will never end...not even if 95% of the palestinian population was popcorned.
I think these people are being delt with in the wrong fashion. There living in biblical times over there.
Now if you got Chris Angel to go over there wearing a loincloth and towel and got him to levitate above a few refugee camps while preaching "bury your head in the sand" ....well... i think there would be alot of parking spaces for bicycles
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