In my podcast today I discuss the tragic stabbing of Dafna Meir by a Muslim terrorist in front of her house as she defended her children. Otniel where the event occurred is only a 15 minute drive my community. I also discuss the comparison many candidates for the Republican nomination have made between Israel’s security wall and the need for a wall on America’s Southern border.
As I sit here writing this article a monster is being let out of the cage. All the talk of “peace in our time” too as well as changing strategic partnerships are just euphemisms for politicians who have given the regime in Iran what it needs to go from being an uninfluential terrorist sponsoring state to already on its way to becoming a regional superpower.
Already an emboldened Iran is forcing the hand of the Gulf States to decide between Saudi Arabia and themselves. It has made it clear that it will pour tons of money that is being unlocked as part of the agreement into its army and terrorist entities.
The idea that Iran needs a nuclear weapon to wipe out Israel is a farce. It does not need nukes nor an ICBM for that. These are things it needs to attack Europe and America. This what made the Iran Nuclear Deal so ridiculous. It’s as if the Western powers really believed that Iran just wanted to kill Jews, something none of them really took issue with.
Nasrallah is Coming for Jerusalem
Iran’s main weapon against Israel is Hezbollah. With Hezbollah’s hundreds of thousands of missiles covering most of Israel, Iran does not need a nuke to knock out Israel’s vital locations. Add to that Russia’s coverage of the Levant under the S-400 system, which makes a surprise attack by Israel against Hezbollah installations daunting to say the least. Hezbollah has also been receiving Russian weapons in its fight against the Syrian rebels.
With Nasrallah to Israel’s North, it is no wonder Bibi is trying his best to be on good terms with Putin. Ultimately speaking, the USA and Europe have little or no leverage on Iran, but Russia is different and so Bibi’s strategy is to woo the newest Tsar and hope that in time another solution arises.
Iran Unleashed
Now that the nuclear deal is a done and money is flowing into Iran, the stakes in the Middle East have risen. Iran’s regime is revolutionary in nature. Revolutionaries do not rest until the revolution is complete. For Iran it is simple. When the Mahdi comes the Revolution is done. For Iran, their first target is Saudi Arabia and the next is Europe and the USA. Israel, is of course a target, but one that Iran believes will and can be taken care of fairly easily.
The Mahdi or the hidden Imam will only come when the world reaches a state of chaos. The Western governments and Russia have seen no harm in enabling one of the most dangerous regimes in the History of the World. Of course their rationale seems unchanged from their counterparts over 70 years ago in relation to Hitler. Then Hitler was “only” after the Jews. Chamberlain and company saw no problem with letting a bunch of unwanted Jews die to avert war. Well, war came anyway and with it, the near destruction of the world.
This time, the global elite have made a similar judgement. War is not far off, it is moments away.
Iran Can be Stopped
The irony of Iran’s re entry into global markets is that crude oil prices stand between 29 to 31 dollars per barrel. That is far lower than needed to sustain the Iranian economy. With their oil back into global circulation the price will plummet further. This means the Ayatollahs cannot wait to pounce on their neighbors, but must move quickly before their economy implodes completely.
This makes Iran extremely dangerous in the short term with the potential for sparking global conflict by attacking Saudi Arabia and Israel. Furthermore by forcing both the USA’s hand as well as Russia’s conflict is in the offing.
If Iran balks in the coming weeks, their economic turmoil will increase. At that point the regime will be in danger. Essentially, Iran can be stopped by the regime itself.
Conclusion
Despite neoconservative warmongering against Iran and their client regime in Syria, the best choice of action at this point is to find a way to keep forcing the price of oil lower until Iran either makes a faulty step forward or waits too long to jump. Militarily speaking Israel and those seeking to defend the World from the Mullahs must be ready to fight when Iran attacks which will come sooner than expected. The rest will be up to the Almighty.
With oil prices down to $30 and falling fast Russia cannot afford to put the kind of emphasis on military campaigns it needs to in order to be counted on to defeat Islamic extremists. This leaves ISIS in a far better position than the Obama administration would have everyone believe. It also means that the transition to a multi-polar world is no where near done. One thing that is clear, Israel should not jump into any strategic alliance even if it seems helpful in the short term. In the great global shift we find ourselves in, strategic alliances are hard to come by.
Listen to today’s podcast for greater insight on where things are going. Hang on to your seats change starts now!
The Palestinian demand for the “Right of Return” has long been a core belief set to the broader peace narrative in relation to a permanent settlement with Israel. On the face of it, the demand seems pretty solid, that is of course if one buys into the Palestinian narrative without questioning the very basis of its claims.
Palestinians claim the following:
The main crux behind using many of the above statements lies with attaching the Palestinian Right of Return to something national.
After all, Israel has the Law of Return, which designates any Jew or a person that has 1/4 Jewish ancestry as eligible to return to his/her ancestral homeland. The Palestinians argue that if a Jew can return after a hiatus of of 1,700 to 2,00 years then they who were here in between should certainly be aloud back.
Essentially speaking the Palestinian claim and statements from international treaties that seem to support it do so because refugees and their return depend on origins within a recognized national entity.
Between the years 1917 and 1948, as the modern Nation States of the Middle East were being created by world powers, no one believed there to be unique nation called Palestine. In fact all references to Palestine connected the word to Jews and their inalienable rights to form a Nation State their. Why? Because simply speaking, the current Palestinians had no Nation in the Levant. This is not to say they were not there, they were or at least a percentage of them were, but they had no previous national claim to the Land. Some were considered Syrians and other Egyptians, but none of them used the word Palestinian or connected themselves to a distinct national heritage in defining themselves.
Ryan Bellerose, a native Metas from Canada wrote an excellent piece this week refuting Palestinian claims to being indigenous. National indigenous rights are a key component hen tackling issues connected to refugees and this is why Palestinians who formed their collective narrative as an anti-narrative to Israel and Jewish rights there are some forceful in trying to prove that themselves had some sort of national collective experience that was taken from them. If not, then their claims to deserving a right of return falls through.
One cannot build a national narrative whose sole foundation is the negation of another people’s narrative. That is not a legitimate narrative nor is it something that deserves the right of return.
It is clear that a right of return should belong to the one cultural group that exerted itself time and time again as the national sovereign in the Land of Israel and that is he people of Israel. It is true individual rights should be given to all persons that live in the Land of Israel. That does not make them a historically indigenous people nor does it give them the right to claim a return generations later.
Shortly before President Obama’s final State of the Union Address, Iranian Revolutionary Guards gunboats seized and detained 2 ships belonging to the United States military and the ten marines on board. Less than 24 hours later the marines were released. The typical chorus and rhapsody of neoconservative pundits seriously believed that this would be the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and Obama would have the guts to stand up to the Persians.
The assumption that the Obama administration works according to the same rule book that past Presidents have is a perception that just doesn’t fit. The Obama administration won’t risk war with Iran, not because it believes war is bad. Afterall they toppled Gaddafi. They won’t risk war with Iran, because Obama and team and their shrills in the media believe wholeheartedly that Iran should be seen as a future strategic partner. After all, Obama didn’t even mention the captive soldiers in his State of the Union Address. Of course for Obama, this is more to do with his world outlook than strategic positioning.
Barack Obama is a transformational President. In that regard, bridging the divide with Persia, a country he believes deserves respect because of their ancient roots, fits in with his restructuring of geopolitical partnerships.
Furthermore, it is quite probable the action Iran took was undertaken from the beginning as a means to show that they are actually reasonable. Given Obama’s rapprochement with Iran, he is more than willing to let Iran play the part of a reasonable actor.
Israel In a Corner
Bibi Netanyahu’s entire mantra is that one should not negotiate with irrational actors as was done with North Korea. Bibi has from the beginning tried to prove that Iran and North Korea are very similar. This has fed into Obama’s strategy of showing the opposite. By inculcating in the American people that Bibi and Israel are saber rattling and preventing what should otherwise we be a rapprochement, then the bad guys backed by the neocons is really Israel.
Once again the the chess match between Bibi and Obama has entered another back and forth phase. The challenge for Israel is realizing they are playing at a chessboard alone as their challenger plays with very different rules and a far more sinister goal.