Watchman Newsletter

Barak: We'll deepen and widen operation as much as needed

The Jerusalem Post (Link) (December 27, 2008)

In the heaviest military strike against the Gaza Strip since the 1967 Six Day War, the Israel Air Force bombed over 170 targets on Saturday, killing more than 230 Palestinians, as Israel launched "Operation Cast Lead," aimed at putting a stop to Hamas rocket attacks against the South. In two waves, over 100 fighter jets and attack helicopters dropped dozens of smart bombs and hundreds of tons of explosives on Hamas training camps, headquarters, weapons storehouses, underground missile silos and command-and-control centers scattered throughout the Gaza Strip.

In response, 80 Kassam rockets, Grad-model Katyushas and mortar shells pounded southern Israel throughout the day. One rocket scored a direct hit on an apartment building in Netivot, killing 58-year-old Beber Vaknin and wounding several others.

As ground forces amassed outside Gaza ahead of a possible ground operation, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that Saturday's aerial bombardment was just the opening salvo of a long operation that defense officials told The Jerusalem Post would likely last several weeks. "There is a time for a cease-fire and a time to fight," Barak said. "Now is the time to fight."

Defiant Hamas leaders threatened revenge. Hamas "will continue the resistance until the last drop of blood," vowed spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal called on West Bank residents to rise up against Israel in a renewed intifada.

Beirut, Lebanon Demonstration- Hezbollah say Gaza is not alone

The Earth Times (Link) (December 27, 2008)

Followers of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and others from Hamas gathered Saturday in Beirut's southern suburbs, a hotbed of Hezbollah, to show support for the people of Gaza after Israel launched a massive attack on the strip. "The people of Gaza are not alone...the coming days will show you this," said Hezbollah politburo member Sheikh Hashem Safieddine.

He criticized Arab leaders and called on them to take urgent steps against Israel's attack on Gaza. He also urged Arab people to pressure their leaders. "It is an American-Israeli war supported by Arab regimes aimed at pressuring the Palestinian people to extinguish their cause," said Safieddine, a first cousin of Hezbollah's Secretray-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah had already held several rallies in Lebanon earlier this month protesting the Gaza Strip blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt.

Hamas spokesman in Lebanon, Ousama Hamdan, who was attending the Hezbollah rally, called on the people of Gaza to stay in their steadfastness, declaring they will witness "a new victory soon."

Arab foreign ministers were scheduled to meet in Cairo on Sunday or Monday to take a common position on Israeli raids, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said. Lebanon's premier Fouad Seniora also expressed the lebanese government's condemnation of the Israeli air strikes, and called on the Arab League and Arab leaders quickly to form a united Arab stance to respond to the Israeli attacks. Seniora also called on the United Nations and its Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to take international measures to halt Israel's actions. Seniora called for a broad Lebanese, Arab and international campaign of solidarity with the Palestinians, in order to stop the attacks, rescue the victims and take defensive measures against Israel.

EU Calls For Immediate Ceasefire In Gaza

The Post Chronicle (Link) (December 27, 2008)

The European Union called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Saturday. "We are very concerned at the events in Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire and urge everybody to exert maximum restraint," a spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said. "Everything must be done to renew the truce," he said.

Israeli war planes and helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 155 people and prompting rocket fire from Palestinian militants that killed an Israeli, medics said. The EU's executive body, the European Commission, also called for "utmost restraint." EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement both sides must stop the escalation of violence which endangers the civilian population and called for an immediate return to the ceasefire.

Egypt slams Israeli 'murder' in Gaza, summons ambassador

Yahoo! News (Link) AFP (December 27, 2008)

Egypt condemned as "murder," Israel's Saturday air raids on Gaza that killed at least 205 Palestinians, opening its Rafah border crossing with the territory to allow the wounded through for treatment. "We call for an immediate end to Israeli military operations. We cannot allow these attacks to continue. We cannot permit the murder of Palestinians," Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on state television.

Egypt, the only Arab state along with Jordan to have signed a peace deal with Israel, summoned Ambassador Shalom Cohen to demand an end to the bombardment that has also left hundreds wounded. "We summoned the Israeli ambassador and we said we refuse this aggression and we demanded an immediate end to it," foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told AFP. Abul Gheit telephoned his US, Russian and French counterparts -- Condoleezza Rice, Sergei Lavrov and Bernard Kouchner -- and urged them to call for an end to Israeli operations that should be "reciprocal" with Hamas, a statement said.

Mashaal Calls for 'Third Intifada,' Israeli Arabs Declare Strike

Israel National News (Link) - Gil Ronen (December 27, 2008)

Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal called Saturday night for a "third intifada" against Israel, speaking from Damascus following the IAF attack on Gaza earlier in the day. According to Channel 2's Arab affairs correspondent, the strategy of the terrorist group is to ignite rioting in Judea and Samaria as well as inside Israel, with the aid of the Islamic Movement.

MK Yitzchak Aharonovich (Yisrael Beiteinu, "Israel Our Home"), a former Deputy Commissioner of the Israel Police, said Saturday evening that "the Israeli nation has a new opportunity to find out on which side the leadership of Israel's Arabs rests and to whom they owe their allegiance. The police must react with an iron fist against any kind of provocation on their part," he added.

Syria calls for urgent Arab summit

Kuwait News Agency (Link) (December 27, 2008)

Syria called on Saturday for holding an emergency Arab summit to discuss possible action regarding the dangerous situation in Gaza in light of today's Israeli aggression. The state-run TV said President Bashar Al-Assad made the call in telephone contacts with Arab leaders. Al-Assad is the chairman of the current regular Arab summit, held in Damascus last March.

Israel launches air strikes on Gaza, 155 dead

Yahoo! News (Link) - AP (December  27, 2008)

Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing at least 155 and wounding more than 310 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in recent memory. Hamas said all of its security installations were hit and responded with several medium-range Grad rockets at Israel, reaching deeper than in the past. One Israeli was killed and at least four people were wounded.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said "the operation will last as long as necessary," but it was not clear if it would be coupled with a ground offensive. Asked if Hamas political leaders might be targeted next, military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said, "Any Hamas target is a target."

The strikes caused widespread panic and confusion in Gaza, as black clouds of smoke rose above the territory, ruled by Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as children were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.

Report: Russia selling missiles to Syria, Egypt

YNet News (Link) - AFP (December 26, 2008)

Russia has begun to fulfil a 250-million-dollar contract to deliver surface-to-air missiles to seven countries including Libya, Syria and Venezuela, the Vedomosti business daily reported Friday. Russia will also deliver the S-125 Pechora-2M missile batteries to Egypt, Myanmar, Vietnam and Turkmenistan under the contract, the newspaper said, citing a source in the state-owned Russian Technologies corporation.

Contacted by AFP, a spokeswoman for the company declined to comment. Russian Technologies includes arms exporter Rosoboronexport among its holdings. The paper did not say which parties had signed the contract.

The Pechora-2M - known as the SA-3A Goa in NATO parlance - is an upgraded version of a surface-to-air missile originally developed in the 1960s that was widely shared with the Soviet Union's allies around the world. Under the contract, 200 missiles are to be delivered including 70 for Egypt, an unnamed manager at a Russian defence-industry factory told Vedomosti. He added that most would be built at the Obukhov factory in Saint Petersburg. "It is a simple but effective system, like the Kalashnikov assault rifle," he said of the Pechora.

China and U.S. bound themselves with linked addictions

International Herald Tribune (Link) - Mark Landler (December 26, 2008) Related charts here and here

"Usually it's the rich country lending to the poor. This time, it's the poor country lending to the rich." — Niall Ferguson

In March 2005, a low-key Princeton economist who had become a Federal Reserve governor coined a novel theory to explain the growing tendency of Americans to borrow from foreigners, particularly the Chinese, to finance their heavy spending.

The problem, he said, was not that Americans spend too much, but that foreigners save too much. The Chinese have piled up so much excess savings that they lend money to the United States at low rates, underwriting American consumption.

This colossal credit cycle could not last forever, he said. But in a global economy, the transfer of Chinese money to America was a market phenomenon that would take years, even a decade, to work itself out. For now, he said, "we probably have little choice except to be patient."

Today, the dependence of the United States on Chinese money looks less benign. And the economist who proposed the theory, Ben Bernanke, is dealing with the consequences, having been promoted to chairman of the Fed in 2006, as these cross-border money flows were reaching stratospheric levels.

Taleban 'will kill school girls'

BBC News (Link) (December 26, 2008)

Taleban militants in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan have threatened to kill girls who attend school. A local Taleban commander ordered parents to stop sending their daughters to school by 15 January. In comments broadcast on an illegal radio station, he threatened to blow up schools which enrolled female students.

This year alone, Taleban militants have destroyed more than 130 schools in the Swat valley. They want to bring in Islamic sharia law in the region. Militant attacks on schools in the region have deprived more than 17,000 students of education.

Nineteen injured in southwest China earthquakes

China View (Link) (December 26, 2008)

Nineteen people were injured and thousands were affected in two earthquakes measuring 4.3 and 4.9 on the Richter scale in China's southwestern province of Yunnan early Friday, local authorities said. A 4.9-magnitude earthquake hit Ruili, a city of 100,000 people on China-Myanmar border in Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Dehong at 4:20 a.m., the provincial seismic network reported.

Three people, including the parents of a child called Ai Han in Shunha Village, were seriously wounded. Another 16 suffered slight injuries, according to the quake-relief headquarter of Ruili City. "It's still unclear who these people are and how they were injured," said Yang Yueguo, the city's Communist Party chief. "Nearly 50,000 people in the city were affected, about 10,000 of whom have been evacuated to safer places."

Pakistan Moves Troops To Indian Border Amid Rising Tensions

Nasdaq (Link) - AFP (December 26, 2008)

Pakistan has redeployed thousands of troops to the border with India, officials said Friday, in a dramatic escalation of tensions with New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned his military chiefs to review New Delhi's "defense preparedness" while his foreign ministry advised Indians not to travel to Pakistan, saying it was unsafe for them to be in the country.

The developments sent relations plummeting to their lowest point since late 2001, when Kashmiri militants staged a brazen attack on the Indian parliament - an attack New Delhi blamed on the Pakistan-based extremist group Lashkar-e- Taiba. India has blamed the same group for the Mumbai attacks and has repeatedly said Islamabad isn't doing enough to rein in militant groups - a claim Pakistan rejects. Both sides have said they don't want war but warn they would act if provoked.

Ashkenazi: IDF prepared for Gaza

The Jerusalem Post (Link) (December 25, 2008)

The IDF is prepared to act with all its might in order to restore security to the South, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi said Thursday. "Just a few kilometers away, the Hamas terror organization is disrupting the daily routine of southerners by firing dozens of rockets and trying to instill fear into our citizens, our women and our children," Ashkenazi said at an IAF pilots graduation ceremony in Hatzerim. "The current situation cannot continue and we will need to use all our might to hit the terror infrastructure and to create a new secure situation around the Gaza Strip," he continued.

He said that the IDF, together with the IAF as a central component of its might, "are ready and prepared" to carry out any operation that will be required to defend Israel against terror. "We will act with wisdom, the correct considerations and responsibility…until calm and quiet are restored," he said.

The chief of staff spoke a day after some 80 rockets and mortar shells fired by Gaza terrorists hit the western Negev. Rocket attacks continued Thursday with four Kassams and a mortar shell hitting the South, causing damage but no casualties.

Katyushas Found in S. Lebanon Ready to Launch at Israel

Israel National News (Link) - Hana Levi Julian (December 25, 2008)

Seven Katyusha rockets were discovered in southern Lebanon Thursday less than five kilometers, or three miles from Israel's northern border, primed and ready to fire. Lebanese Army sappers were called to defuse the missiles, according to the Lebanese Naharnet news website, which quoted a "reliable source".

The 107-mm missiles, which were fitted with timing devices, were deployed in the Naqoura region, across the border from the central and western Galilee regions, and were set up to be launched at Israel. The source, which spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Katyushas were found in the area between the border towns of Naqoura and Teir Harfa, "a short while before the time set for their launching."

No details were made available as to which specific type of Katyusha missile was discovered. There are several different versions; during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the Hizbullah terrorist group used Iranian-modified RAADD Katyushas equipped with warheads carrying 100 kilograms (220 lb) of explosives.

The area in which the missiles were found is supposed to be under the control of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), but is considered a Hizbullah stonghold. According to the terms of ceasefire agreement set forth in the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the presence of the force was established specifically to prevent such an occurrence.

Hamas terrorists in Gaza began launching medium-range Grad-type Katyusha rockets at the port city of Ashkelon more than a year ago, after receiving advanced munitions and guerrilla training from the Iranian-backed Hizbullah guerillas. One of those missiles was launched at Ashkelon Thursday evening.

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This is a great example of the effectiveness of the UN related to support of Israel. As time goes on, I think this is the reason Israel will act on its own to preserve itself. Right now the focus is on Iran and its nuclear capabilities. The question is, will Israel find closer threats to its North and follow through on her promise to hold Damascus responsible for Hamas and Hezbollah's actions? Syria has been a major part of passing and allowing the passing of weapons such as these rockets through to the forces launching them. Time will tell, keep watching...

Former MK Sneh: Hamas Headquarters in Damascus a Target

YNet News (Link) (December 24, 2008)

Former Knesset Member Ephrain Sneh, chairman of the "Yisrael Hazaka" (A Strong Israel) party, said that "as long as Israel's citizens are under fire, Hamas' headquarters in Damascus are the target of an operation of deterrence." According to Sneh, "Syria must restrain Hamas or expel it. Any agreement with Syria must include restraining Hamas in Damascus."

Crackdown on bailed out banks

The Straits Times (Link) - AP (December 24, 2008)

Lawmakers are turning up the heat on banks that have received money from the Treasury Department's $700 billion (S$1 trillion) rescue fund after the Associated Press reported that they wouldn't say how they are using the money.

Sens Dianne Feinstein and Olympia Snowe said on Tuesday that they will propose legislation next month to force companies that receive money from the fund to report how they have spent it. The legislation would also prohibit them from spending the taxpayer dollars on lobbying or political contributions. It would also apply to some recipients of the Federal Reserve's emergency lending programs. The legislation was introduced earlier this year, but the Senate did not take it up.

The sponsors have long said they plan to pursue it when the 111th Congress convenes Jan 6. 'At present, we don't know whether these companies are using these funds to fly on private jets, attend lavish conferences or lobby Congress,' Ms Feinstein, a Democrat, said in a statement. Ms Snowe, a Republican, said the bill would ensure that taxpayer money would be used only for the intended purposes: to shore up America's financial institutions and step up lending to consumers and businesses to help revive the economy.

Significant Climate Anomalies in 2008

Steve Quayle (Link) - NOAA (December 23, 2008) Full-size image at link

See for 2007 and 2006 and 2005

Diplomats: Assad says he won't restrain arming of Hezbollah

Haaretz (Link) (December 21, 2008)

Syrian President Bashar Assad has told a number of European foreign ministers and senior diplomats this month that he would not lift a finger to restrain Hezbollah's arming in Lebanon. "I am not Israel's bodyguard," he reportedly said.

The future of Syria's relations with Iran and Hezbollah is one of the main subjects Israel has raised in its indirect negotiations with Syria. Assad's remarks show no willingness for a concession to Israel on this issue, let alone an overall change of policy.

Israel claims that Iran is smuggling rockets and other weapons to Hezbollah through Syria, and that the Syrian army is even arming the organization. Both front-running candidates for prime minister, Tzipi Livni and Benjamin Netanyahu, say Syria must show a willingness to act against the smuggling.

Withdrawing From The Golan Talks

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Emmanuel Navon (December 21, 2008)

Reuters reported this week that Syria has drafted a document defining boundaries on the Golan Heights, placing Syria on the northern shore of the Kinneret. Damascus is waiting for an Israel reply through Turkish mediators.

There is something absurd about the current talks between Israel and Syria and about Turkey's alleged role as a peace broker. Turkey is basically telling Israel to relinquish territories to Syria to achieve peace, while Turkey itself achieved peace with Syria as a result of its obstinate refusal to give in to its territorial demands over the Hatay (or Alexandretta) Province.

Historically, the Hatay Province is more Syrian than Turkish. European maps from the 18th century show this region as being part of Syria. With the end of World War I and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, Hatay became part of the French Mandate over Syria. Turkey, however, claimed that it should have been granted sovereignty over the province because of the high percentage of ethnic Turks living there. In 1921, France and Turkey signed a compromise granting a special autonomy status to the province, but this compromise was basically canceled in 1925 when France fully reestablished its sovereignty over Hatay.

Rare first century half shekel coin found in Temple Mount dirt

Haaretz (Link) - Nadav Shragai (December 21, 2008)

A rare half shekel coin, first minted in 66 or 67 C.E., was discovered by 14 year-old Omri Ya'ari as volunteers sifted through mounds of dirt from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The coin is the first one found to originate from the Temple Mount.

For the fourth year, archaeologists and volunteers have been sifting through dirt dug by the Waqf, the Muslim authority in charge of the Temple Mount compound, in an unauthorized project in 1999. The dig caused extensive and irreversible archaeological damage to the ancient layers of the mountain. The Waqf transported the dug up dirt in trucks to another location, where it was taken to Emek Tzurim.

40,000 volunteers have so far participated in the sifting project, in search of archaeological artifacts, under the guidance of Dr. Gabriel Barkay and Yitzhak Zweig. The project is sponsored by Bar Ilan University and funded by the Ir David Foundation with the assistance of the National Parks Authority.

The half shekel coin was first minted during the Great Revolt against the Romans. The face of the coin is decorated with a branch of three pomegranates and ancient Hebrew letters reading "holy Jerusalem." On the flip side, the letters say "half shekel". The coin that was found in the sifting project, though it was well preserved, showed some damage from a fire. Experts believe it was the same fire that destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E.