December 22, 2012: Weekly 5 minute update (Audio Only)

You may view the 5 minute update this week via audio:

1) Listen to the audio

In this week’s 5 minute update, we focused on:

1) The current status of the Israel / PLO peace process
2) The prospects for war with Syria and Iran

After receiving recognition to upgrade their status at the UN from being an ‘observer’ to a ‘non-member state’, the Palestinians have been posting signs throughout the West Bank which say, ‘State of Palestine: internationally recognized – November 29, 2012.’ In response to the Palestinians upgrade at the UN General Assembly, Israel initially announced that they would build 3,000 homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem.  This has now been followed by an announcement to build an additional 1,500 homes.

Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas, said the PA was about to take “important and necessary measures against Israel’s settlement building, including recourse to the UN Security Council, to prevent implementation of these decisions.” At the Security Council, 14 of the 15 current members of the UN Security Council issued statements which condemned Israel’s announcement to build Jewish homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Only the US didn’t make a statement through the Security Council. Instead the US condemnation came from the US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland which called the decision a ‘provocation’. British foreign secretary, William Hague, called all Israeli settlements “illegal under international law.”

France, Britain, Germany and Portugal issued a joint statement, which was read out after a meeting of Security Council members. The statement said that “the viability of a two-state solution is threatened by systematic expansion of settlements,” and that “all settlement activity, including in east Jerusalem, must cease immediately.” Vitaly Churkin, the Russian permanent representative to the United Nations said after the Security Council meeting, “Of special concern are the settlement activities of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem and the decision to suspend transfer to tax and duty revenues for the Palestinian National Authority.” Wang Min, China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN said, China supports the endeavor of the Palestinian people to establish, on the basis of the 1967 border, an independent state of Palestine with full sovereignty and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Addressing the press after the various condemnatory statements from the countries on the Security Council were read out, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor rejected the notion that the settlements were the major obstacle to peace  but rather terrorism, incitement, the Palestinians’ insistence on the “so called right of return” and their refusal to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Separately, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton released a statement condemning Israel’s decision to go forward with plans to build thousands of new homes in two Jerusalem neighborhoods by saying, “The EU has never been clearer than it was on 10 December in voicing its strong opposition to settlement expansion,” she said. “The EU particularly opposes the implementation of plans which seriously undermine the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. Furthermore, European Union foreign ministers strongly stated that all of the EU’s agreements with Israel only applied to the pre-1967 lines, as they spoke out against Israeli settlement plans including the development of E1. The EU said all of its agreements with Israel “must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, namely the Golan Heights; the West Bank, including east Jerusalem; and the Gaza Strip.” The EU in its statement said it was “deeply dismayed by and strongly opposes Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem, and in particular plans to develop the E1 area,” it said. Building up E1, the council warned, would “undermine the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states.

In a joint statement issued after the talks by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, they said the EU  and Russia “are deeply dismayed by and strongly oppose Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank and in particular plans to develop the El area.” “These plans if implemented, would jeopardize the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. The European Union and the Russian Federation reiterate that settlements are illegal under international law and constitute an obstacle to peace,” the statement said. The EU and Russia also said they “will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties”.

Earlier this month, Hamas marked its 25th anniversary with a gala event in Gaza City. In attendance was overall Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who usually resides in Damascus. Speaking before hundreds of thousands of Gazans, Mashaal declared: “Palestine is our land and nation from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river, from the north to the south, and we will not cede even one inch of it.” Mashaal went on to insist that political, diplomatic and legal efforts to achieve control of the land must be coupled with violence. He explained that all non-violent methods are “senseless in the absence of resistance,” which is how the Palestinians define their acts of terrorism against Israelis.

In addition, leaders of the rival Palestinian movements Hamas and Fatah called for fresh attempts to cement a reconciliation process that has been stalled for more than a year. In Gaza, the exiled head of the Hamas movement Khaled Meshaal said it was time for the bitter opponents to make good on the deal they signed in Cairo in 2011. “We want national unity in the armed resistance and popular resistance. I urge you towards reconciliation and national unity of the Palestinian ranks,” he said. In a sign of unity, the Hamas and Fatah leadership said it would allow the other to hold rallies in their respective territories for the first time since the groups violently broke in 2007. Two days after Hamas held its Gaza rally, Fatah announced that it, too, would hold celebrations in the city. According to a statement issued by the Fatah office in Gaza Sunday, the celebrations will highlight “the Palestinian principles”: the Palestinian refugees’ right of return; independence; Jerusalem; the right to use [armed] resistance; and the release of prisoners.

In response to the international rebuke of Israel, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chastised the international community for overly focusing its attention on Israel’s actions, rather than pressuring the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. “The Palestinians can afford to avoid negotiations [with Israel] because the international community exacted no price for the Palestinian failure to negotiate in good faith,” Netanyahu said. Recently, he said Hamas leaders in Gaza openly called for Israel’s destruction. In doing so, Hamas had “shown its true face,” and slammed Abbas for seeking unity with a group that will clearly never live in peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state. “Where was the outrage?” he asked. “Where were the UN resolutions? Where was [PA] President [Mahmoud] Abbas? Why weren’t the Palestinians summoned to European and other capitals to explain why the PA president not only refused to condemn this but declared his intention to unite with Hamas?” Netanyahu added that the only thing he heard was a deafening silence.

“We cannot accept that when Jews build homes in their ancient capital of Jerusalem, the international community has no problem finding its voice,” Netanyahu said. “But when Palestinian leaders openly call for the destruction of Israel, the one and only Jewish state, the world is silent,” said Netanyahu. Netanyahu also said that he rejected any attempts by the Palestinians to impose preconditions on negotiations.  Netanyahu outlined the steps he has taken to show good will, including calling for a two-state solution in his Bar-Ilan University speech in 2009. “I can tell you as a leader of the Likud this was not a simple speech to make,” he added. Israel removed roadblocks and checkpoints to facilitate the movement of people and goods, Netanyahu said, adding that his government took the unprecedented step of imposing a 10-month moratorium on new settlement building. “Still the Palestinians refused to come to the talks,” Netanyahu said. They sat down with Israel for only a few hours in the final month of the moratorium to insist that it be extended, he said. The Palestinians refused first a US initiative and then a Jordanian one for renewed talks, the prime minister said. “The facts are clear to anyone who wants to see them. Year after year, the Palestinians pile up precondition after precondition,” Netanyahu continued. First the Palestinians wanted a full settlement freeze in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the prime minister said, then a preagreement that the pre-1967 lines would be the territorial border of the two states, then they wanted the release of all prisoners. “Who knows what preconditions the future holds?” he asked. “The Palestinians avoided negotiations because they were prepared to take concessions from Israel, but they were not prepared to make concessions to Israel,” Netanyahu said. The Palestinians’ unilateral steps toward statehood at the UN, including the UN General Assembly resolution upgrading their status to that of non-member observer state, was similarly an attempt to avoid negotiations, he said. The Palestinians are not prepared to recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to seriously address Israel’s security needs, he said. Netanyahu added that the Palestinians’ UN resolution did not address these concerns nor did it speak of ending the conflict. The UN bid was “a material breach of the peace accord. It was an attempt to establish unacceptable terms of reference for negotiations,” Netanyahu said. It upgraded the Palestinians’ ability to wage legal and diplomatic war against Israel, Netanyahu said. With things as they currently stand, Netanyahu said it would be utter foolishness for Israel to consider surrendering more land to Abbas’ regime. “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Israel, and we will continue to build there.” Israel “will […] withstand the international pressure,” he pledged.

In light of all these developments, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that the Middle East peace process must be revived with the United States playing a key role.  Nimir Hamad, an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that a new initiative to bring the Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiation table was being proposed by Britain and France. They would try to get the US on board their proposal to restart talks. In the initiative there were “concrete terms of reference,” Hamad said without elaborating, and noted that there was no “specific time frame.” Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority say they have a new plan to restart talks with Israel that includes a call to end Israel settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  Palestinians chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said he would start the initiative next month with international officials in an attempt to renew talks with Israel over a status solution. Erekat said the initiative includes resumption of negotiations, along with demands to end the occupation that include releasing Palestinian prisoners and stopping settlement construction. Erekat said Palestinian leadership allotted six months for the initiative. In meetings with the Arab League, Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas said “We want to discuss with you a mechanism that would lead to an Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian and Arab territories, including Jerusalem, the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and halting settlement construction. If this happens, there could be feasible negotiations. Also, we could return to the point where we stopped during the era of Ehud Olmert’s government, when we put all the final-status issues on the table. We reached many understandings over these issues,” Abbas said. The PA will not agree to return to the negotiations from point zero, he stressed.

Furthermore, Jordan’s King Abdullah II announced in a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron that Palestinian and Israeli representatives will meet in Jordan in February to promote the peace process. King Abdullah II said that the meeting will be held under the auspices of the European Union and the United States. “2013 will see a new Palestinian political track. There will be new rules in our relationship with Israel and the world,” said Hussam Zumlot, an aide to President Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian officials say they are hopeful that a formula for restarting peace talks can be found after Israel’s election on Jan. 22, perhaps through a new initiative from President Barack Obama. The Palestinians have begun to speak of a trial, six-month negotiating period. Azzam al-Ahmed, a top aide to Abbas, said Arab diplomats will present the plan in Western capitals, Russia and China next month.

However, Mohamed Ishteya, also a member in the central committee of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party said that there will be no new peace initiative declared on the Middle East conflict before February 2013. He asserted that the Palestinians would welcome and back any initiative that focuses on the legal rights and merits, adding that “ending the military occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 in accordance to a specific time schedule and establishing a Palestinian state is our demands.” Diplomatic sources are talking about European efforts to hammer out a new initiative to resume the peace talks. “I don’t believe that there will be soon new peace initiatives because the United States is still involved in rearranging the internal situation,” said Ishteya, adding that “and also on Jan. 22 the Israeli parliamentary elections will be held and we will wait for its results.”

In spite of all the talks to renew direct peace talks,  Palestinian officials are already plotting a series of tough steps against Israel to be taken if, as polls predict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is re-elected and peace efforts remain stalled. Emboldened by their newly upgraded status at the United Nations, the Palestinians are talking of filing war crimes charges against Israel, staging mass demonstrations in the West Bank, encouraging the international community to impose sanctions, and ending the security cooperation that has helped preserve quiet in recent years.

Finally, it seems that US President Barack Obama has approved a process to diplomatically isolate Israel in the international community. In an article written by Peter Beinart that appeared in Newsweek magazine, he writes: The last week of November 2012 was a big one on the Israeli-Palestinian front. On the 65th anniversary of the partition resolution that created a Jewish state, the United Nations recognized a Palestinian one. Israel retaliated with the West Bank equivalent of sequestration: announcing it would move toward building settlements in an area east of Jerusalem called E1, which many observers believe would kill the two-state solution. European governments responded by threatening to withdraw their ambassadors.

And the United States? It mostly watched. In 2011, when the Palestinians first sought a U.N. status upgrade, the Obama diplomatic corps lobbied so hard against it that one State Department official joked that “sometimes I feel like I work for the Israeli government.” This time, by contrast, the U.S. largely went through the motions. It was “half-hearted,” observes a Middle East insider close to the administration. “They didn’t really lobby hard … [The attitude was] if Israel ends up with a big embarrassment, who cares.” Consider the view from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On the one hand, Benjamin Netanyahu keeps doing things—like expanding settlements and refusing to accept the 1967 lines as the parameters for peace talks—that U.S. officials consider bad for America and catastrophic for Israel. On the other, every time President Obama has tried to make Netanyahu change course—in 2009 when he demanded a settlement freeze and in 2011 when he set parameters for peace talks—the White House has been politically clobbered.

So instead of confronting Netanyahu directly, Team Obama has hit upon a different strategy: stand back and let the rest of the world do the confronting. Once America stops trying to save Israel from the consequences of its actions, the logic goes, and once Israel feels the full brunt of its mounting international isolation, its leaders will be scared into changing course. “The tide of global opinion is moving [against Israel],” notes one senior administration official. And in that environment, America’s “standing back” is actually “doing something.” However, Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel, notes that one problem with outsourcing the job of pressuring Israel to Europe, they note, is that since many Israelis already doubt Europe’s affection for the Jewish state, that pressure may not hurt Netanyahu domestically. It could even strengthen him. Team Obama is trying to make it a strength. It’s hoping that when faced with international isolation, Netanyahu will shift course and embrace the kind of Palestinian state supported by his predecessor, Olmert. But that may be a bad bet. Israeli politics have swung so far right that some of Netanyahu’s strongest rivals are now ultra-hawks who consider him too soft. In that environment, resisting global pressure by pushing forward with settlement growth may actually help him in the Israeli elections scheduled for January 22.

An agreement to divide Jerusalem and establish a PLO state is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles are as follows:

1) Palestinians place signs delineating new state
2) Israel pushes on with disputed J’lem building plan
3) US, UK attack ‘provocative’ J’lem construction plans
4) State Department Rebukes Israel Over Settlement Activity
5) US will not support UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements: official
6) 14 of 15 UNSC members slam Israeli settlement plans; US mum
7) EU’s Ashton condemns Jerusalem construction plans
8) EU: Treaties with Israel apply only to pre-’67 lines
9) Russia calls on Israel to suspend settlement plans, resume peace talks
10) China urges Israel to remove obstacles to peace talks: UN envoy
11) Netanyahu vows more Israeli construction in east Jerusalem
12) PM: Settlements don’t preclude Palestinian state
13) Netanyahu: This is why true peace remains unachievable
14) Netanyahu Says Israel Will Withstand “International Pressure”
15) Fatah, Hamas in calls for Palestinian unity
16) In new boost to unity, Hamas and Fatah to allow rallies in one another’s territories
17) Hague sees urgent need to restart Mideast peace process
18) Britain, France push to renew Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
19) EU and Russia urge Israel and the Palestinians to engage in direct and substantial negotiations ‘without preconditions’ in 2013
20) Abbas sets out plan to resume talks
21) New status in hand, Palestinians will seek to restart talks next month, top official says
22) Abbas offers 6-month talks with settlement freeze
23) King Abdullah: Israelis, Palestinians to meet in Jordan
24) Interview: Palestinian negotiator rules out declaring new Mideast peace initiative soon
25) Palestinians aim to isolate Israel with new steps
26) Why Obama Will Ignore Israel
27) Is a showdown brewing between Israel and the U.S.?

France has emerged as the most prominent backer of Syria’s armed opposition and is now directly funding rebel groups around Aleppo as part of a new push to oust the embattled Assad regime. Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces.French military advisers have met Syrian rebels inside the war-torn country in recent weeks in effort to identify recipients for possible weapons supplies, a French newspaper reported. “The French experts want to know who is doing what,” the opposition leader told the newspaper. They also wanted to determine the “operational capacity of each group” and their “political colors.”  France has also suggested that Europe should allow the supply of “defensive weapons” to the rebels, once the fighters had been “properly identified.”

In addition, a British newspaper reports that a plan to provide military training to the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime and support them with air and naval power is being drawn up by an international coalition including Britain. The head of Britain’s armed forces, General Sir David Richards, hosted a confidential meeting in London a few weeks ago attended by the military chiefs of France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE, and a three-star American general, in which the strategy was discussed at length. Other UK government departments and their counterparts in allied states in the mission have also been holding extensive meetings on the issue.

Furthermore, rebel commanders from across Syria have joined forces under a united command they hope will increase coordination between diverse fighting groups and streamline the pathway for arms essential to their struggle against President Bashar Assad. Some 500 delegates elected the 30-person Supreme Military Council and a Chief of Staff and planned to meet soon with representatives from the opposition’s newly reorganized political leadership, participants said. “The aim of this meeting was to unify the armed opposition to bring down the regime,” said a rebel commander from near Damascus who attended the meeting. “It also aims to get the situation under control once the regime falls.” The opposition’s political leadership reorganized last month, under Western pressure, into a new National Alliance that its backers hope will have broader representation and stronger links to rebel fighters. In addition, just as Obama is pondering arming the Free Syrian Army and training them to secure WMDs, the process of transforming the Free Syrian Army into a purely Islamist entity is all but complete. And it all happened under the careful supervision of Obama’s allies in Turkey and Qatar. Syrian rebel groups have chosen Brigadier Selim Idris, a former officer in President Bashar al-Assad’s army, to head their new Islamist-dominated military command, opposition sources said. The unified command includes many with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Salafists, who follow a puritanical interpretation of Islam. It excludes the most senior officers who had defected from Assad’s military. Its composition, estimated to be two-thirds from the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, reflects the growing strength of Islamist fighters on the ground and resembles that of the civilian opposition leadership coalition created under Western and Arab auspices in Qatar last month. Absent from the group is Colonel Riad al-Asaad, founder of the Syrian Free Army and Brigadier Mustafa al-Sheikh, a senior officer known for his opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The United States has now recognized that the coalition of opposition groups, rather than the government of President Bashar Assad, was now “the legitimate representative” of the Syrian people. “We’ve made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime,” Obama said.  U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for the Middle East William Burns announced that the leadership of the new coalition has been invited to see Obama in the United States. In addition, Britain, France, Turkey and several Gulf Arab nations have recognized the National Alliance, effectively considering it a government in exile. In total, 114 countries now recognize the new Syrian coalition.

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government is in its final stages and will be unable to survive as more parts of the country slip from his control.  “Armed rebels are coordinating better, which is making their fight against al-Assad more effective,” he said.  The United States decided to try to aid the effort by deploying 400 US troops, along with Patriot anti-ballistic missile batteries to Turkey. The plan calls for two Patriot missile batteries that can hit planes and missiles emanating from Syria and 400 soldiers to operate them.

Within hours after the first American, Dutch and German Patriot missiles landed in Turkey, three Russian warships arrived at Syria’s Tartus port. Aboard were 300 marines. They also delivered a fearsome weapon for Assad’s army and a game changer in the Syrian conflict: 24 Iskander 9K720 cruise missile systems, designed for theater level conflicts. So, while NATO unpacked the Patriots in Turkey, a dozen mobile batteries, each carrying a pair of Iskander missiles, were fixed into position opposite Turkey, and another dozen, opposite Jordan and Israel. At all their stations, the Russian missiles pointed at US military targets. So while the West was gripped with alarm over Assad’s poison sarin gas shells and bombs and gearing up for missile attacks on Turkey, the Russians were injecting into the Syrian war field the most sophisticated weapon of death thus far. The West and Israel have no answer for the Iskander’s hypersonic speed of more than 1.3 miles per second with a 280 mile-range and a 1,500-pound warhead which destroys targets with pinpoint accuracy. It is also nuclear-capable.

Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels are making significant progress in their war with the Assad government. Radical Islamist rebels seized large swathes of a Syrian military base west of Aleppo. In response, the Syrian government is starting to fire Scud missiles against the rebels to repel their progress. They are trying to stop the  the general offensive Syrian opposition forces from capturing the Syrian army’s military-industrial complex at Al Safira and the big chemical and biological weapons store adjoining the facility. It is there, that Scud D missiles stand ready for launching, loaded with chemical weapons.  The rebels have reached points 1-2 kilometers from the perimeter walls of the Al Safira chemical weapons stores and are being pounded by Syrian warplanes and assault helicopters as well as Scuds, in a desperate effort to halt their advance. Control of Al Safira would place the big chemical weapons stores in the hands of rebel forces in that sector, many of whom belong to Jabhat al-Nusra, the roof organization of the al Qaeda elements fighting in Syria against the Assad regime. Success in seizing control of those stores would re-tilt the balance of the war in their favor and bring President Bashar Assad face to face with a decision on whether to broach the perilous dimension of chemical warfare on the rebels or even against NATO or US targets outside Syria.

Meanwhile, there is growing concern that some of the chemical weapons the Assad regime has been pushing out of the Damascus area in the last few days were sent across the border to Hizballah strongholds in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley to keep them out of rebel hands.

We seem to be witnessing a high-stake game between the United States and Syria over the issue of chemical weapons each waiting to see who blinks first. If the US attacks Syria first, Assad will feel he is justified in releasing his poisonous gas over Turkey, Jordan and Israel. But if Assad loses his nerve and lets loose with chemical weapons inside or outside Syria, the US will come crashing down on him with the full might of the US air, sea and marine forces standing by off the Syrian coast, along with Turkish, Israeli and Jordanian strikes against targets in Syria.

A war with Syria where Damascus is destroyed (Isaiah 17) is a tribulation event.

The link to these articles is as follows:

1) Syrian rebels unify, create new 30-member council
2) Free Syrian Army Now Under Islamist Military Command
3) Report: French military advisers meet with rebels inside Syria
4) France funding Syrian rebels in new push to oust Assad
5) Exclusive: UK military in talks to help Syria rebels
6) Obama announces US backing for Syrian opposition
7) 114 countries back new Syrian coalition, isolating Assad regime and opening way for more aid
8) End close for Assad: German intel chief
9)  US to send troops, Patriot missiles to Turkey over Syria conflict
10) Russia arms Syria with powerful ballistic missiles
11) Assad’s deadly agenda: First, chemicals, next, Iskander 9K720
12) Syria Islamist Rebels Seize Part of Aleppo Base
13) Scuds blast big Syrian rebel push for al-Safira chemical arms store
14) Concern that Assad may have passed some chemical weapons to Hizballah
15) Assad’s last warning to rebels before using chemical weapons. West, Israel on high preparedness
16) What comes first – a Syrian chemical attack or a US-led military showdown?

A UN atomic watchdog experts arrived in Iran to renew efforts to engage Iran over its disputed nuclear program. However, Iran did not allow any visits to suspected nuclear sites. Iran will not stop higher-grade enrichment of uranium in response to external demands said a top Iranian nuclear official. Western powers want Iran to halt enrichment of uranium to a fissile concentration of 20 percent as it represents a significant step closer to the level that would be required to make nuclear bombs. Israel’s channel 10 TV station reported that the US has decided to still try to negotiate directly with Iran over its nuclear program and will resort to military force in four or five months if diplomacy doesn’t work. In recent weeks, there have been increasing indications from the US that it is willing to hold direct bilateral talks with Iran. The basic contours of any negotiated solution are clear: US, European and other international sanctions would be eased if Iran halts its enrichment of uranium that is getting closer to weapons-grade, sends abroad its existing stockpile of such uranium and suspends operations at its underground Fordo facility.

In response, a senior Iranian negotiator in the nuclear talks, Mostafa Dolatyar, said  that the diplomatic process for solving the nuclear issue with Iran was in effect going nowhere, because the demand that Tehran halt its 20-percent enrichment of uranium “doesn’t make sense.” A Wall Street Journal article suggested that Iran may have mastered the technology to produce  220 pounds of plutonium, enough to produce as many as “24 Nagasaki-type bombs” – a reference to the World War II bombing of the Japanese city on Aug. 9, 1945. DEBKA reports that if this disclosure represents the true state of Iran’s nuclear program, the game really is over. The diplomacy-cum-sanctions policy pursued by the West to force Iran to abandon enrichment and shut down its underground facility in Fordo has become irrelevant. Finally, WND reports that according to a source who served in Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and who recently defected, the Islamic regime has 170 missiles targeted at Tel Aviv from underground silos, some of which are armed with biological warheads. The source, talking to WND, confirmed that Iran has made significant advances on several fronts – chemical, biological, nuclear and electronic warfare – and that the regime is looking at the deterioration in Syria and the possibility of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities with the intent of setting Israel and the region on fire. There are more than 70 North Korean military advisers and scientists working in Iran on the country’s defense projects, including work on a plutonium bomb, the source said.

The link to these articles is as follows:

1) North Korea rocket launch raises nuclear stakes
2) UN atomic team in Iran for talks, inspections refused
3) Iran defiant on enrichment ahead of possible talks
4) Obama planning direct talks with Iran; US will strike in 4-5 months if they don’t bear fruit, Israeli TV report says
5) Ya’alon: US poised for action on Iranian nukes
6) US-Iranian nuclear talks fail. Iran has plutonium for 24 Nagasaki-type bombs
7) Iran aims biological warheads at Israel

From a Biblical prophetic perspective, the reason why the God of Israel would allow these events to happen is because it will result in the end of the exile of the house of Jacob and the reunification of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Judah).

We will to be “watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem” and we will not rest until the God of Israel makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth (Isaiah 62).

Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah,

Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int’l

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