Middle East Update

GPL MIDDLE EAST UPDATES FROM DEC 3 NO. 146

MUMBAI JEWISH VICTIMES TORTUREDl: by Tzvi BMen Gedalyahu
Mumbai doctors who examined the bodies of the victims of the Muslim terror massacre said the victims were tortured before being slaughtered. “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks,” a doctor who performed a post-mortem told the Indian news website Rediff.com.

HIZBULLAH TO HELP OVERTHROW ASSAD IF SYRIA REACHES PEACE WITH ISRAEL: (Media Line)
Lebanon’s Hizbullah has planted clandestine cells across Syria since it began indirect peace talks with Israel ten months ago, the Kuwaiti daily A-Siyasa reported, citing Lebanese security sources. The cells have been ordered to help in an “imminent coup against the Syrian regime” in case it signed a peace agreement with Israel, the report says.

IRAN HOLDING NAVAL MANEUVERS NEAR THE PERSIAN GULF :
Iran on Tuesday December 2, launched a large-scale, six-day naval maneuver in the Sea of Oman, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which will involve about 60 warships and numerous aircraft, Tehran has repeatedly warned that it would close the narrow strait if the US or Israel attacked its disputed nuclear program. Israel’s former deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, said on Tuesday that “Iran’s unprecedented naval activity is actually a drill for taking over the Gulf all-important oil route. “

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . NOV 27.. NO. 145

EGYPT PARLIAMENT: POLICE UNABLE TO CONTROL SMUGGLING TUNNELS: (AP/MSNBC)
The Egyptian parliament’s defense committee says the situation at the border with Israel is dangerous because of increased smuggling operations through the tunnels and the unrestricted spread of weapons among the Bedouin, the state-owned Al-Gomhuria daily reported Wednesday November 26

JORDAN SEALS NUCLEAR DEAL WITH CHINA : (Medialine-Jerusalem Post)
Jordan signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with China on Monday November 24. China will help Jordan mine and enrich uranium, as well as assist in training and studies to build a nuclear station, said Khalid Tuqan, head of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission Jordan is said to have large reserves of uranium, and a nuclear plant could supply nearly a third of the country’s energy requirements by 2030..

IRAN’S AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI ; UNITE AGAINST ISRAEL :
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told visiting Lebanese President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday November 25, that the Lebanese people should unite to confront Israel.

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . NOV 21.. NO. 144

IRAN SAID TO HAVE NUCLEAR FUEL FOR ONE WEAPON : (New York Times)
Iran has now produced enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors

US REMOVED 550 TONS OF NUCLEAR PRECURSOR FROM IRAQ - Carter Andress (Washington Times)
A few months ago the U.S. military removed from Iraq 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium, a necessary precursor to the development of nuclear weapons. With this radioactive material, all that was needed to create up to 140 nuclear bombs was the centrifuge equipment Pakistan stole from Europe and then re-exported to Libya and Iran.

U.S. ARRESTS IRANIAN ARMS AGENT IN IRAQ : (AP)
The U.S. military said Wednesday November 19, it had arrested a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds force suspected of funneling weapons into Iraq. The suspect was using a job repairing religious sites as a cover to smuggle weapons into Iraq in shipments of building materials.

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . NOV 15.. NO. 143
GAZA CITY ‘POWERLESS’ AFTER ISRAEL ORDERS CROSSINGS CKLOSED AGAIN :
Gaza City was without power on Thursday evening November 13, after the only power plant in the Gaza Strip was shut down due to fuel shortages. The blackout came when Israel cut off fuel and food shipments to the Hamas-ruled area because of renewed rocket attacks on Israeli border communities. Israel canceled plans to ship in diesel fuel for the plant as well as 30 trucks full of humanitarian supplies after Gaza militants fired at least eight rockets and several mortar shells at Israel on Thursday.

ISRAEL APPROVES ALIYA FOR 150 BNEI MENASHE :
Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit has approved aliyah requests for a new batch of 150 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe in northeast Indian seeking to move to Israel. There are currently another 7,200 that claim to descend from the “lost tribe” of Menashe, but the Ministry of Interior has not decided whether to allow all of them to make aliya.

THE PA SENTENCES A ‘COLLABORATOR’ TO DEATH FOR SPYING FOR ISRAEL :
A Palestinian Authority military court in Bethlehem on Wednesday November 12, sentenced a PA security agent to death by firing squad after finding him guilty of “collaboration” with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post.

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . NOV 9.. NO …142

RICE CONCEDES MIDEAST PEACE UNLIKELY THIS YEAR :
There is little hope for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the 2008 deadline, Condoleezza Rice finally conceded on Thursday November 6 while en route for possibly her last trip to the Middle East as US secretary of state.

OLMERT TO VISIT WASHINGTON WITH LAST LIST OF REQUESTS TO BUSH :
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will travel to Washington later this month with a long list of topics to discuss with US President George W. Bush, who will also be leaving office early next year. Ha’aretz reports that Olmert’s agenda is comprised of four main issues: 1.. Peace talks with the Palestinians and Syria; 2. dealing with Iran and its allies; 3. the future of U.S. military aid and cooperation; and 4…cancellation of visa requirements for Israelis who want to visit the U.S.

OBAMA TABS EMANUEL AS CHIEF OF STAFF :
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a Jewish congressman whose father is an Israeli citizen, is said to want the job of White House chief of staff offered to him by president-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday November 5. He has yet to accept the position as of press time. A source close to the representative told Ynet on Wednesday, “Emanuel is pro-Israeli, and would not be willing to consider accepting the job unless he was convinced that President-elect Obama is pro-Israel.” Emanuel speaks Hebrew and often travels to visit friends and family in Tel Aviv.

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by Graham Bacon
In the last few months (prior to November 2008), the world has experienced at least three major history making events, all inter-related with Bible prophecy. These three events are the world’s financial collapse, the election of a new and different USA president, and the collapse of Israel’s government.

The election of Barack Obama as president of the USA signals a turning point in world history and the place of USA in it. It signals the end of the Kennedy-Nixon-Reagan-Clinton-2xBush era of superpower muscle, world policeman, we-know-it-all arrogance, bully boy diplomacy. We are now entering an era of the reduction of American influence, end to the war in Iraq and a return to more isolationist policies. These effects will be the influence of Obama and his administration.

Two major reasons emerge. US behaviour has been bordering on reckless and it can no longer afford to continue in it. No nation can afford a war at a cost of a billion dollars a week. Which brings us to the financial collapse. Together, both of these feature in Bible prophecy. The current financial crisis was triggered in the USA by totally irresponsible financiers and has its biggest effects in the USA economy, but reflects the utterly immoral practices round the world. Irrational oil prices, artificial food shortages, cartels, rebel armies, terrorists, civil wars, mafias, gambling, drugs, corruption, money laundering are some of the world’s evils out of control. Sooner or later, the basics of civilisation disintegrate, this time under the enormous weight of artificially created money sloshing round the world. It’s all gone up in smoke.

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . NOV 1.. NO …141

OLDEST HEBREW TEXT DISCOVERED : by Gil Ronen
Archaeologists have discovered what they say is the oldest Hebrew text ever found, at a site they believe was King David’s front line fortress in the war against the people of Pleshet, also known as the Philistines. The site overlooks the Elah Valley, where the young David slew Goliath, the Philistine giant, with a well-aimed shot from a sling. The text is written in ink on a pottery shard. It is made up of five lines of text in Proto-Canaanite characters separated by lines. The discovery, by archaeologists Prof. Yossi Garfinkel and Sa’ar Ganor of Hebrew

EGYPT : EIGHT MISSILES FOUND IN SINAI by Maayana Miskin
Egyptian officials quoted in daily newspaper Maariv said Thursday that Egyptian security forces had found eight ground-to-ground and ground-to-air missiles in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. The missiles were intended to be smuggled into Gaza, they said. Egyptian security forces uncovered a similar weapons cache last month, the officials said. That cache was found in central Sinai and included anti-tank missiles and grenades. Forces have found a total of 171 mortar shells, 212 anti-tank missiles and 29 explosives in special operations targeting Gaza-bound weapons and drugs in recent weeks

TERRORISTS FIRE MISSILES FROM THE GAZA STRIP : by Maayana Miskin
Terrorists in Gaza fired two anti-tank missiles at IDF soldiers on Friday morning October 31. The attack took place near the Kissufim crossing in southern Gaza. The soldiers were unhurt in the strike, the first of its kind since Israel agreed to a ceasefire June 19. The attack took place shortly after soldiers spotted a group of terrorists attempting to plant explosives along the Gaza security barrier. Terrorists have often used missile attacks at the separation fence as a cover for planting bombs, sniper fire and other forms of attack.

OLMERT PLANS GOLAN GIVEAWAY : by Hana Levi Julian
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is willing to sweeten the deal with Syria in exchange for direct talks with Damascus. According to a diplomatic source in Jerusalem quoted late Saturday night November 1, by the Hebrew-language Ha’aretz, Olmert is considering negotiations over the borders of the Golan Heights in exchange for face-to-face talks with Syrian officials. The news comes along with information that Olmert is planning to set a date for a fifth round of indirect talks with Damascus, to be brokered by Turkey, as were the prior four sets of negotiations.

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Peace Talks Are Off Yet Again - GPL BULLETIN No 183
Graham Bacon
With Israeli elections coming up in next mid February, any talk of peace negotiations with the Palestinians has evaporated until at least mid 2009. For nigh on fifteen years now, we have been saying that there will be no two-state peace agreement because the Bible only refers to wars and conflict between Israel and her neighbours until Jesus Christ returns. “Because they have seduced my people, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace” (Ezekiel 13:10)….. “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 8:11).
These elections are just another in a long series of events that seem repeatedly to postpone, yet again, hopes for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian quarrel over land ownership. But these hopes are raised by people who won’t take God’s answer for real.
The verdict of Israeli victories in four desert wars is not accepted. The beating back of Israel’s enemies a dozen times since then is not respected. The childish games of publishing Middle East maps with no Israel depicted is not ridiculed as it should be. The violence and corruption of Hamas and Fatah administrations is rewarded with more millions of dollars of support. USA, Britain, the UN, and the European Community, time after time [fourteen fruitless visits by Condoleezza Rice alone], waste effort and money chasing hopeless shadows of peace in the Middle East.

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . OCT 27 NO …140

LIVNI WILL CHOOSE ELECTIONS : by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Would-be Prime Minister Tzipi Livni announced Saturday night October 25, she would tell President Shimon Peres early Sunday morning she is throwing in the towel on trying to form a new government coalition and will opt for new elections. Her decision followed a demand by Shas chairman and Cabinet minister Eli Yishai, that she state whether she would agree to allow the Palestinian Authority to take over large areas of eastern Jerusalem and possible declare it as its capital. The precise timetable for possible elections is still somewhat unclear, but if President Shimon Peres does not ask Sha’ul Mofaz to try to form a new government, elections are expected in mid-February.

HAMAS DEMANDS RELEASE OF NOTORIOUS KILLERS : by Maayana Miskin
Hamas is demanding the release of approximately 1,500 terrorists in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Many of those 1,500 criminals have “blood on their hands,” meaning they took part in attacks in which Israelis were murdered. Channel 2 News examined the crimes committed by five of the terrorists on Hamas’ list on Saturday night

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GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . OCT 21 NO … 139

PERES GIVES LIVNI TWO MORE WEEKS TO FORM A GOVERNMENT :
Israeli President Shimon Peres on Monday October 20 granted Kadima leader Tzipi Livni a two-week extension to put together a new coalition government, the Jerusalem Post reports. According to the Israeli law the Prime Minister-elect is given four weeks to form a government. If none is reached, the law requires an additional two weeks be given. But by October 22 she was running into new difficulties in her efforts to conclude coalition deals with potential government partners before the end of the new two-week deadline granted to her

MIDDLE EAST ARMS RACE REACHES NEW HIGHS :
Iranian threat triggers record Mid East defense spending
For the first time in years and in the face of Iran’s nuclear drive, Israel surpassed Saudi Arabia in arms purchases in 2008, reaching just over $20 billion according to The Jerusalem Post. “This is the year with the greatest defense spending in the history of the Middle East,” Yiftah Shapir, an Israeli national security expert said Sunday. “

TWO 20 KG BOMBS FOUND IN WEST BANK :
A raid by Israeli security forces on the Palestinian town of Kabatiya last week led to the arrest of four suspected terrorists and the discovery of two bombs weighing 20 kilograms (approx. 45 lbs) each, an IDF spokesperson confirmed Thursday. October 18. The four men apprehended were thought to be members of the Islamic Jihad terror group.

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