From the North Evil Will Burst Forth (Jer.1:14) מהצפון יפתח הרע על כל ישבי הארץ - ירמיה פרק א; פסוק י'ד

בס''ד

Author's note:  This was written three years ago in the aftermath of the war in Lebanon.  The European fleet stationed off Lebanon is still there, though its composition may have changed. The American administration certainly has changed, and its Leader is pursuing actively the reversal of Truman's "strategic mistake"  in 1947. In other words, the United States is pursuing the destruction of the State of Israel.   As for us here, in the absence of an aggressive policy to destroy the existential threats against us, we can only await the inevitable missile assault from the north, complete with weapons using gas, and likely dirty bombs.  

מהצפון יפתח הרע על כל ישבי הארץ - ירמיה פרק א; פסוק י'ד
From the North Evil Will Burst Forth (Jer.1:14)

On 4 September, Debkafiles reported a huge buildup of military forces off the Mediterranean that appears to be continuing as I write this two days later.

DEBKAfile’s’ editors call the article, “’Lebanese Security’ Is the Pretext for the Naval Babel around Lebanon's Shores.” Someone who lives here should pay close attention to military buildups nearby, particularly of foreign forces. So I do.

According to the article, the buildup of naval forces off Lebanon is far greater than what ought to be required for the beefed up “UNIFIL” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The article lists the following forces gathering off of Lebanon: “two carriers with 75 fighter-bombers, spy planes and helicopters on their decks; 15 warships of various types - 7 French, 5 Italian, 2-3 Greek, 3-5 German, and five American; thousands of Marines - French, Italian and German, as well as 1,800 US Marines.” Supposedly, this is for the implementation of the resolution cited above. But is it?

DEBKAfiles speculates that an assault on Iran and Syria is being prepared for with the United States and Israel working together with the international force off Lebanon’s shores. One should remember that DEBKAfiles was founded by former Israeli intelligence types and often serves as a sort of backdoor for what the Mossad (Israel’s spy organization) wants to leak to the media. DEBKAfiles is not always on the money with its prognostications, though its analyses of past events tend to be excellent. This is a prognostication.

So, this may be what the editors at DEBKAfiles believe will happen. If it is, then it would seem that it finally is happening that the United States openly is recognizing Israel as a strategic ally, and planning a joint attack with her. I am not so sure. In my opinion, this is what the editors at DEBKAfiles want to believe will happen.

The article goes into what it believes may be the weakness of the operation, a split command. According to the article, “…the NATO fleet will remain under NATO command, and Israel's air and naval units will take their orders from Israeli Navy
Headquarters in Haifa and the General Staff in Tel Aviv.”

Wow! Israel gets to command its own fleet in a joint international military attack on Syria and Iran? If I were a former Mossadnik, I’d certainly want this!

But consider. George Marshall, secretary of state in November 1947, told Harry Truman point blank that the creation of a Jewish state in the Middle East was a strategic mistake. He was so adamant on this that when Truman overruled his judgment, he quit his job. The United States state department always maintained this view and its program has been to weaken Israel over the years in order to ameliorate the error, using various stratagems to accomplish the task. In 1948-9, the stratagem was to be a “neutral non-combatant” refusing to sell arms to “either side” in the conflict, effectively boycotting Israel, as other nations were selling arms to the Arabs. In 1967 and 1973 the stratagems were the threat “you’ll be on your own.” In 1967, this didn’t work. Israel went alone and attacked – and won spectacularly. In 1973, the Israeli government quailed before American threats and waited for the attack on Yom Kippur. The Israeli government relied on the promises of a Jewish secretary of state, Kissinger, assuming that he would come through on the arms package agreed to resupply the country as it lost jets, missiles and tanks. It turned out that Kissinger, even though he was Jewish, was following the of state department handbook of weakening and desrtroying Israel. It was James Schlesinger who explained to Nixon why Israel was losing, and it was Nixon who confronted Kissinger and demanded that the arms resupply package be followed through on, Actingf separately, Alexander Haig had ordered TOW asnti-tank missiles for the Israelis and had a number of Israelis flown in to have them taught how to use them and it was he who personally went to see to it that missiles were loaded onto transport planes bound for a country being overrun by Syria in the north and Egypt in the south. John Loftus was a duty officer and was present helping to load missiles to Israel and saw this himself. The price for Israel was almost 3,000 dead, a diplomatic defeat following a hard won military victory – and the effective loss of its sovereignty.

This was followed by a peace treaty with Egypt that cost Israel the Sinai Peninsula and gave Arabs everywhere hope that they could defeat and eliminate Israel. This was followed by the “Madrid Conference” in 1991 which was the last time a sovereign prime minister of this country acted like one. Prime Minister Shamir accused the Syrian across the table of being a terrorist, and the Syrian accused him of being one in return (Shamir was involved in the assassination of Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte in Egypt in 1949). That broke up the meeting.

After the Likud was defeated in 1992 and Shamir retired, came the “Oslo Accords” – a plan directed at all times by the White House, even though it feigned total surprise at its development – sealed with the infamous handshake between Prime Minister Rabin and Yassir Arafat. Part of the Oslo Accords has been a plan to delegitimize the settlement of Judea and Samaria in the eyes of other Israelis and a quieter plan to kill off the leadership of the towns and villages here. Along with the Oslo Accords came the notion that Israeli weaponry should be essentially the same as American weaponry and local development of most weapons was abandoned. Thus American “aid” became a tool to force Israel to be totally dependent on the United States for arms. Finally, on top of all this, came the Gush Qatif expulsion of Jewish citizens last year, establishing the precedent that the Israeli Army was to be nothing more than a band of Hebrew speaking Cossacks in the employ of the government.

All this was promoted by George Bush the elder, Bill Clinton and George Bush the younger and their respective secretaries of state – all of them. Against nearly sixty years of anti-Israel policy, such a radical turn-around in policy from an anti-Israel stance to one that makes us a true ally, is hard for me to believe.

Now let us consider further; the person called prime minister here these days, Ehud Olmert, led a war at the behest of the United States to weaken or to destroy HizbAllah. He was elected on a program of further weakening this country by robbing it of any strategic depth by pulling out of Judea and Samaria altogether. But what little credibility he might have had as the head of a political party of thieves hiding behind what was originally Ariel Sharon’s fat arse to avoid indictment has been blown entirely. With Sharon rotting away in a bed, incompetent fools did all the wrong things in trying to root out an enemy. And now Olmert has had to put his program of ousting Jews from their homes on hold.

If you were an American leader, would you trust this idiot? Would you trust the amateurs who led the IDF to defeat? I wouldn’t if I were. Apparently the Americans don’t. David Wilder recently wrote an article “The Bullet’s in the Chamber” dealing with his views on how Mr. Olmert will soon have to move his belongings out of the premier’s residence. Quoting DEBKAfile’s Hebrew site, he points to an article there where the American government evaluates the Israeli government as well, lacking. The last sentence of the article allegedly quotes George Bush as having said, “Those Israelis, they're not what we thought.”

So, Israel is definitely not going in on an attack of Syria or Iran. Not under Olmert and his crew of jokers – if something happened to Olmert and Peres became prime minister, maybe. Even then, I doubt it.

The original DEBKAfile article quoted here goes on at length about the French naval carrier Charles DeGaulle, and how it is equipped to hold an entire army for months on end. Would the French invade Iran? That seems hardly likely. But the ship is not off Lebanon’s waters for a vacation cruise. A Frenchman doesn’t need to go to Lebanon for a Mediterranean vacation. Besides, August, the traditional month for French vacations, is over.

So, what is going on?

In an article published at BlogCritics.org, an on-line magazine last year, I made five predictions. It’s now nine months into the year 2006, and ten months since I made my predictions. Let’s take a look at them again. Well, let’s look at the first four anyway.

In making them, I was following the ideas of the two leading m'kubalim in the country, a point I referred to in the article.

1. If the elections are held, Sharon will wind up as prime minister. Here, I'm only following the words of the two m'kubalim.
2. Whether elections are held or not, Sharon will remain prime minister. Again, I'm only following the words of the two m'kubalim. I don't take elections for granted. Too many things can happen to upset the "natural" order of events.
3. Sharon will leave office, for some reason or another, during 2006.
4. During the next year, we will see the rising visibility of American and European soldiers in this country. This only follows the trend of events here. There are five American bases, and an increasing number of EU soldiers here.

I missed the first prediction. Sharon’s stroke made it impossible that he would wind up as prime minister. But the second one was closer. Until Olmert was actually sworn in and took the oath of office, he was temporary acting prime minister, and Sharon remained prime minister. Sharon left office in 2006.

Now we come to the interesting prediction of the four, as this had no m’kubal to back up my words. This was mine, and mine alone.

And this is what I think we are seeing in this force off the shores of Lebanon. Olmert can’t effectively carry out the program he was elected on. At some point soon, he will get the brilliant idea (as someone feeds him the lines) that an international force in Judea and Samaria is just what the doctor ordered…

“Vayómer Hashem elái, mehatzafón tiftáH har’á ál kol yoshvéi ha'áretz.” And the L-rd said to me, "from the north will burst forth the evil upon all the inhabitants of the land."
(Jeremiah 1:14)