'Brotherhood turning Middle East into Islamist bloc'

By BEN HARTMAN, YONI DAYAN

Dichter warns revolutions in could threaten Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Gulf states; Gilad: Hezbollah aiming 60-70 rockets at Israel.

The Middle East is on the path to becoming a single Islamist bloc run by the Muslim Brotherhood, Home Front Defense Minister and former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter said Monday.

Speaking at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s World Summit, Dichter said “the Arab world in general and in particular the countries neighboring us have begun a long journey that will end with the Middle East being a bloc run by the Muslim Brotherhood, and possibly a single Islamist bloc.”

He also spoke about the civil war raging in Syria, saying that it is a question of when and not if the Assad regime will fall, adding that a massacre of the Alawite sect should be expected in such a case.
Dichter added that of great importance will be whether or not the new regime will be a liberal, secular leadership, or another regime based on the Muslim Brotherhood model.

In addition, he asserted that if Iran attains nuclear weapons it can be expected that Egypt and Saudi Arabia will follow suit.

Closer to home, Hezbollah has between 60,000 and 70,000 rockets aimed at Israel, Defense Ministry policy director Amos Gilad said Monday, speaking at the same conference.

Gilad said the Lebanese terrorist organization has stockpiled rockets of various types, and its arsenal is far more robust than the one it had prior to the Second Lebanon War.

“The next war will be aimed against the home front,” Gilad warned.

Gilad also blamed Hezbollah for a number of successful and unsuccessful terrorist attacks abroad.
Though admitting that the threat from Lebanon is growing, Gilad was largely optimistic about Israel’s security situation, citing positive developments in Syria, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

“In Syria, there is good news,” Gilad said. “The Golan Heights remains the quietest region in the entire Middle East. Our deterrence capabilities are sufficiently, for the time being, keeping out warring parties in Syria.”

Gilad also warned that alQaida is starting to rear its head in Syria, with a view that the fall of Assad will allow it to open a new terror front against Israel.

Turning to Egypt, Gilad said that though there are many terrorist groups actively trying to strike Israel from Sinai, recently elected President Mohamed Morsy and his officials remain committed to peace.

Gilad called the situation in Gaza “relatively restrained,” with Hamas generally holding other Palestinian terror groups back from striking Israel.

Gilad also said that Israel is not facing a conventional military threat, a massive improvement over Israel’s historical security situation.

Focusing on Iran, Professor Uzi Arad, former national security adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and head of the National Security Council, spoke of the coming year as being critical to the future of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear question.

“The first half of 2013 is when things must take place. There must be determination on the part of the Americans to act,” Arad said, adding that Israel reserves the right to turn to its allies for help, but also has the obligation to do what is necessary and that “one way or another, the Iranian nuclear program will be stopped in 2013.”

Arad said that the issue of “red lines” regarding Iran must be worked on between the US and Iran, but not through a public debate via the media.

The Arab Spring was a common theme at the conference, largely for bringing what speakers portrayed as ongoing disarray and instability to the Middle East.

Eitan Ben-David, director of Israel’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said that as a result of the Arab Spring, Israel can expect increased terrorism directed at its military and civilians “with an emphasis on [terror from] Sinai.”

“The threat faced to Israeli citizens traveling in Sinai is severe, as well as the threat posed by global jihad, cyberterror and unconventional terror,” Ben-David added.

Nitzan Nuriel, former director of the Counterterrorism Bureau said, “Gaza and Sinai present an operational threat from Eilat to Kerem Shalom and the Gaza Envelope, and this is increasing.”

Nuriel described Sinai as awash in widely available, cheap firearms and advanced weaponry, and home to a large number of terrorists looking to strike Israel.

Nuriel added that the threat could justify Israel launching the type of security on the southern border that it has on the northern border against the Hezbollah threat.

At the same time, he sounded an optimistic tone, saying that in Gaza and Egypt, there is a government and address to which Israel can potentially reach.

Alongside the usual Iran and Arab Spring talk, a number of speakers described the dangers facing Israel closer to home, namely, the dangers posed by a failure to reach a diplomatic solution with the Palestinians.

Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz went as far as to say “the threat to Israel of a future bi-national state is greater than the Iran threat,” while former Shin Bet chief Ya’acov Peri said that if a breakthrough doesn’t happen with the Palestinians, Israel is on the way to a bi-national state.”

Iran: Zionists spread homosexuality to control world

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

Journalist slams report in state-controlled Iranian paper as Nazi propaganda; experts say it shows "how desperate Iran actually is."

BERLIN – A report in a state-controlled Iranian paper last week asserting that the “Zionist regime” “spreads homosexuality” across the globe in order to pursue its goal of world domination has sparked fierce criticism from experts on Iran because of its homophobia and anti- Semitism.

Mashregh News, an outlet affiliated with radical Islamists in Qom, wrote that the US and the UK are using money from Jews to spread homosexuality throughout the world. The article blasted Israel for promoting demonstrations for gay rights and specifically decried Tel Aviv as the gay paradise on earth. It also ridiculed Conservative Judaism for accepting gay rabbis, and urged Western governments to stop people from engaging in gay – and therefore immoral – actions, and provide medical treatment for homosexuals in order to stop their conduct.

Writing on Monday on the gay website GGG, Chris Karnak said the Mashregh item “reads like an article from the Nazi agitation paper Der Stürmer.”

Dr. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, an expert on minority groups in Iran, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the article is “against gays, against the West and anti-Semitic.” He added that “the text legitimizes the execution of gays in Iran; they made a text not only to ridicule the West but to provide a reason why Iran executes gays.”

The Iranian report also attacked Hollywood for depicting gays in positive terms on the silver screen. Moreover, according to the article, schools in California include homosexuality in their education plans because of a recommendation of a Jewish university.

Saba Farzan, a German-Iranian expert in the field of human rights in the Islamic Republic, wrote the Post via email on Tuesday: “This recent attack on human decency by the Iranian regime is tragically not surprising, but these vicious words continue to hurt. Once again this barbaric dictatorship has revealed its hatred towards gays and lesbians as well as towards the State of Israel and Western countries.”

“This is especially ridiculous as in the Middle East, Israel is the only state where the gay community is safe and protected,” she continued. “The Islamic Republic shows with this uncivilized world view how desperate it actually is.”

Iran rapidly gaining new capabilities to strike at U.S. warships in Persian Gulf: analysts

U.S. and Middle Eastern analysts say Iran is rapidly gaining new capabilities to strike at U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, amassing an arsenal of sophisticated anti-ship missiles while expanding its fleet of fast-attack boats and submarines, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The new systems are giving Iran’s commanders new confidence that they could quickly damage or destroy U.S. ships if hostilities erupt, the analysts say.

Iran’s advances have fueled concerns about U.S. vulnerabilities during the opening hours of a conflict in the Persian Gulf.

Increasingly accurate short-range missiles - combined with Iran’s use of “swarm” tactics involving hundreds of heavily armed patrol boats - could strain the defensive capabilities of even the most modern U.S. ships, current and former military analysts say.

In recent weeks, as nuclear talks with world powers have faltered and tensions have risen, Iran has repeated threats to shut down shipping in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. Its leaders also have warned of massive retaliation for any attacks on its nuclear facilities.

Last week, Iran’s Foreign Ministry declared that the presence of U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf constituted a “real threat” to the region’s security.

Pentagon officials have responded by sending more ships, urged on by Congress as well as U.S. allies in the region. This month, the Navy announced that it would deploy the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis to the Middle East four months ahead of schedule. The shift will keep two carriers in the Persian Gulf region.

The United States also has announced new military exercises in the region, including a mine-sweeping drill in the Persian Gulf, and has moved to add new radar stations and land-based missile-defense batteries in Qatar.

Iran’s increased power to retaliate has led some military experts to question the wisdom of deploying aircraft carriers and other expensive warships to the Persian Gulf if a conflict appears imminent.

A 2009 study prepared for the Naval War College warns of Iran’s increasing ability to “execute a massive naval ambush” in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway dotted with small islands and inlets and perfectly suited for the kind of asymmetric warfare preferred by Iran’s commanders.

Since 2009, analysts say, Iran has added defensive and offensive capabilities. Some of them have been on display in recent months in a succession of military drills, including a missile exercise in early July dubbed Great Prophet 7.

In April Pentagon assessment noted that Iran’s arsenal now includes ballistic missiles with “seekers” that enable them to maneuver toward ships during flight.

Modern U.S. warships are equipped with multiple defense systems, such as the ship-based Aegis missile shield. But Iran has sought to neutralize the U.S. technological advantage by honing an ability to strike from multiple directions at once. The emerging strategy relies not only on mobile missile launchers but also on new mini-submarines, helicopters, and hundreds of heavily armed small boats known as fast-attack craft.

These highly maneuverable small boats, some barely as long as a subway car, have become a cornerstone of Iran’s strategy for defending the Persian Gulf against a much larger adversary. The vessels can rapidly deploy Iran’s estimated 2,000 anti-ship mines or mass in groups to strike large warships from multiple sides at once, like a cloud of wasps attacking much larger prey.

A Middle Eastern intelligence official who helps coordinate strategy for the Persian Gulf with U.S. counterparts said some Navy ships could find themselves in a “360-degree threat environment,” simultaneously in the cross hairs of adversaries on land, in the air, at sea, and even underwater.

“This is the scenario that is giving people nightmares,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in discussing strategy for defending against a possible Iranian attack.

The Iranian naval buildup is described by U.S. officials as part of an effort by the Islamic Republic to bolster its military credibility in the region.

The Pentagon’s April assessment said Iran was making steady progress in developing ballistic missiles capable of striking targets in Israel and beyond.

“Iran has the capacity to attack, from Argentina to Venezuela, in Asia, in Europe and throughout the Middle East,” Danielle Pletka, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said Wednesday in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It seems naive to believe it does not have the capacity to launch attacks in the United States.”

If Damascus falls, Israel and its gas fields feared threatened

DEBKAfile  Exclusive Report

Syrian military forces were gathered in Tuesday, July 17, to save Damascus.

Tanks and armored vehicles were positioned in strength in the capital’s center and around government buildings. However, the noise and fury of battle in the Syrian capital Tuesday, July 17, were produced, debkafile’s military sources report, by six battalions of Bashar Assad’s loyal Allawite militia in clashes with the rebels who captured the two southern suburbs of Meidan and Tadmon Monday. They are trying to pound the enemy into extinction before its forces reach central Damascus.

The two beleaguered districts are home to a quarter of the capital’s 1.8 million inhabitants.

The Syrian general staff has withdrawn its command headquarters to a well-fortified complex on Shuhada Street in the capital’s center.

If Damascus falls and Assad is cornered, the entire region stands in peril of wider repercussions, because neither he nor Tehran will take defeat lying down.

debkafile’s military sources report their campaign will be paced and scaled according to the momentum of the Syrian rebels’ advance on Bashar Assad’s door-step, which could be drawn out and bloody.

On the Iranian-Hizballah list are Middle East oil installations as well as Israeli, US, Turkish, Saudi and Jordanian strategic targets.

Saturday, the Cypriot police captured a Hizballah terrorist before he could blow up an Israeli El Al flight and tourist buses in Limassol.

Tehran is feared to be focusing on the Mediterranean island as part of a plot to set Israel’s Mediterranean gas field Tamar on fire. The field is 80 kilometers west of Haifa
It would be a spectacular curtain-raiser for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and for strikes against Gulf oil installations.

Navy Commander, Maj. Gen. Ram Rothberg called last week for an extra five warships and submarines to safeguard Israel’s burgeoning gas fields at the cost of a billion dollars.

The Syrian ruler has stoked up the menace by moving out of storage missiles and shells armed with mustard gas, sarin nerve gas and cyanide stockpiled for years.

They are on operational readiness at Homs, Latakia and Aleppo and, according to Nawaf Fares,
Syrian ex-ambassador to Iraq who defected to the opposition, may already have been used against rebel concentrations.

The longer the battle for Damascus goes on, the greater the danger that the Syrian ruler will release his poison-tipped missiles against Israel, Turkey and Jordan.

U.S. moving submersibles to Persian Gulf to oppose Iran

WASHINGTON — The Navy is rushing dozens of unmanned underwater craft to the Persian Gulf to help detect and destroy mines in a major military buildup aimed at preventing Iran from closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the event of a crisis, U.S. officials said.

The tiny SeaFox submersibles each carry an underwater television camera, homing sonar and an explosive charge. The Navy bought them in May after an urgent request by Marine Gen. James Mattis, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East.

Each submersible is about 4 feet long and weighs less than 100 pounds. The craft are intended to boost U.S. military capabilities as negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program appear to have stalled. Three rounds of talks since April between Iran and the five countries in the United Nations Security Council plus Germany have made little progress.

Some U.S. officials are wary that Iran may respond to tightening sanctions on its banking and energy sectors, including a European Union oil embargo, by launching or sponsoring attacks on oil tankers or platforms in the Persian Gulf. Some officials in Tehran have threatened to close the narrow waterway, a  choke point for a fifth of the oil traded worldwide.

The first of the SeaFox submersibles arrived in the Gulf in recent weeks, officials said, along with four MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopters and four minesweeping ships, part of a larger buildup of U.S. naval, air and ground forces in the region aimed at Iran.

The U.S. already has sent two aircraft carriers and a squadron of F-22 fighters to the Persian Gulf, and is keeping two U.S. army brigades in Kuwait. Though much of the buildup has been publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon, the deployment of the submersibles has not been publicly disclosed, apparently to avoid alerting Iran.

The SeaFox is small enough to be deployed from helicopters and even small rubber boats, but it also can be dropped off the back of a minesweeper. It is controlled by a fiber optic cable and sends live video back to a camera operator.

It can be used against floating or drifting mines, which Iran has used in the past. It operates up to 300 meters deep, and moves at speeds of up to six knots. But the $100,000 weapon is on a what amounts to a suicide mission. The “built-in, large caliber shaped charge” it carries destroys the mine but also the vehicle itself.

Iran will use Strait of Hormuz as a lever if it faces danger: commander

TEHRAN – The Iranian Army commander has said that the Islamic Republic will use the Strait of Hormuz as a lever if it faces danger.

“The imposition of new sanctions by the hegemonistic countries will not affect our movement, but if a situation arises that the Iranian nation is exposed to danger, we will use all levers including the Strait of Hormuz… to defend (the country),” Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan told reporters on Sunday when asked if Iran would take advantage of the major oil transit waterway if new sanctions are imposed on the country.

Iranian military officials have said that the country’s armed forces are capable of blocking the strategic waterway if the enemy launches an attack on the country.

On the reports claiming that Iran, Russia, and Syria had planned to hold joint military exercises, Pourdastan said that Iranian armed forces have no official plan to hold joint war games with these countries “but the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran has the capability to have its units take part in such war games if it receives a request from the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, the commander said that the Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps have planned to hold more than one round of joint war games during the current Iranian calendar year, which started on March 20.

Mysterious Bones May Belong to John the Baptist



Bones claimed to be of John the Baptist that were analysed by the research team. Clockwise from top left, the
knucklebone, ulna, part of cranial bone and molar (together) and rib.

 By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

A small handful of bones found in an ancient church in Bulgaria may belong to John the Baptist, the biblical figure said to have baptized Jesus.

There's no way to be sure, of course, as there are no confirmed pieces of John the Baptist to compare to the fragments of bone. But the sarcophagus holding the bones was found near a second box bearing the name of St. John and his feast date (also called a holy day) of June 24. Now, new radiocarbon dating of the collagen in one of the bones pegs its age to the early first century, consistent with the New Testament and Jewish histories of John the Baptist's life.

"We got some dates that are very interesting indeed," study researcher Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford told LiveScience. "They suggest that the human bone is all from the same person, it's from a male, and it has a very high likelihood of an origin in the Near East," or Middle East where John the Baptist would have lived.

Flame virus most powerful espionage tool ever, UN warns

The Flame virus is the most powerful espionage tool ever to target countries, a United Nations agency responsible for regulating the internet has warned.

By Damien McElroy

This is the most serious warning we have ever put out," said Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator for the UN's Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union.

The formal warning will tell member nations that the Flame virus is a dangerous espionage tool that could potentially be used to attack critical infrastructure, he said. "They should be on alert."

Orla Cox, a security analyst at the security firm Symantec, said that Flame was targeting specific individuals, apparently Iranian related. "The way it has been developed is unlike anything we've seen before," she said. "It's huge. It's like using an atomic weapon to crack a nut."

Figures released by the Kaspersky Lab show that infections by the programme were spread across the Middle East with 189 attacks in Iran, 98 incidents in the West Bank, 32 in Sudan and 30 in Syria.

Other countries where the virus was detected include Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.

"I think it is a much more serious threat than Stuxnet," Mr Obiso said.

Unlike the Stuxnet virus that was previously used to disrupt Iranian systems, Flame does not disrupt or terminate systems.

Iran, whose nuclear facilities and oil ministry have previously been the target of virus attacks, accuses the US and Israel of trying to sabotage its programme. It denies the allegation that its programme is weapons related.

A leading Israeli politician hinted at the country's involvement in the virus. Israel rejects Tehran's claims that its nuclear programme is designed to produce energy, not bombs. It considers Iran to be the greatest threat to its survival.

"Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat is likely to take various steps, including these, to hobble it," Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon told Army Radio. "Israel is blessed with high technology, and we boast tools that open all sorts of opportunities for us."

Jesus’s language resurrected

Christian communities in the Holy Land are teaching Aramaic and reviving the ancient dialect

By Diaa Hadid

JISH, Israel (AP) — Two villages in the Holy Land’s tiny Christian community are teaching Aramaic in an ambitious effort to revive the language that Jesus spoke, centuries after it all but disappeared from the Middle East.

The new focus on the region’s dominant language 2,000 years ago comes with a little help from modern technology: an Aramaic-speaking television channel from Sweden, of all places, where a vibrant immigrant community has kept the ancient tongue alive.

In the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, an older generation of Aramaic speakers is trying to share the language with their grandchildren. Beit Jala lies next to Bethlehem, where the New Testament says Jesus was born.

And in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, nestled in the Galilean hills where Jesus lived and preached, elementary school children are now being instructed in Aramaic. The children belong mostly to the Maronite Christian community. Maronites still chant their liturgy in Aramaic but few understand the prayers.

“We want to speak the language that Jesus spoke,” said Carla Hadad, a 10-year-old Jish girl who frequently waved her arms to answer questions in Aramaic from school teacher Mona Issa during a recent lesson.

“We used to speak it a long time ago,” she added, referring to her ancestors.

During the lesson, a dozen children lisped out a Christian prayer in Aramaic. They learned the words for “elephant,” ”how are you?” and “mountain.” Some children carefully drew sharp-angled Aramaic letters. Others fiddled with their pencil cases, which sported images of popular soccer teams.

The dialect taught in Jish and Beit Jala is “Syriac,” which was spoken by their Christian forefathers and resembles the Galilean dialect that Jesus would have used, according to Steven Fassberg, an Aramaic expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

“They probably would have understood each other,” Fassberg said.

In Jish, about 80 children in grades one through five study Aramaic as a voluntary subject for two hours a week. Israel’s Education Ministry provided funds to add classes until the eighth grade, said principal Reem Khatieb-Zuabi.

Several Jish residents lobbied for Aramaic studies several years ago, said Khatieb-Zuabi, but the idea faced resistance: Jish’s Muslims worried it was a covert attempt to entice their children to Christianity. Some Christians objected, saying the emphasis on their ancestral language was being used to strip them of their Arab identity. The issue is sensitive to many Arab Muslims and Christians in Israel, who prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, not their faith.

Ultimately, Khatieb-Zuabi, a secular Muslim from an outside village, overruled them.

“This is our collective heritage and culture. We should celebrate and study it,” the principal said. And so the Jish Elementary School become the only Israeli public school teaching Aramaic, according to the Education Ministry.

Their efforts are mirrored in Beit Jala’s Mar Afram school run by the Syrian Orthodox church and located just a few miles (kilometers) from Bethlehem’s Manger Square.

There, priests have taught the language to their 320 students for the past five years.

Some 360 families in the area descend from Aramaic-speaking refugees who in the 1920s fled the Tur Abdin region of what is now Turkey.

Priest Butros Nimeh said elders still speak the language but that it vanished among younger generations. Nimeh said they hoped teaching the language would help the children appreciate their roots.

Although both the Syrian Orthodox and Maronite church worship in Aramaic, they are distinctly different sects.

The Maronites are the dominant Christian church in neighboring Lebanon but make up only a few thousand of the Holy Land’s 210,000 Christians. Likewise, Syrian Orthodox Christians number no more than 2,000 in the Holy Land, said Nimeh. Overall, some 150,000 Christians live in Israel and another 60,000 live in the West Bank.

Both schools found inspiration and assistance in an unlikely place: Sweden. There, Aramaic-speaking communities who descended from the Middle East have sought to keep their language alive.

They publish a newspaper, “Bahro Suryoyo,” pamphlets and children’s books, including “The Little Prince,” and maintain a satellite television station, “Soryoyosat,” said Arzu Alan, chairwoman of the Syriac Aramaic Federation of Sweden.

There’s also an Aramaic soccer team, “Syrianska FC” in the Swedish top division from the town of Sodertalje. Officials estimate the Aramaic-speaking population at anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 people.

For many Maronites and Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, the television station, in particular, was the first time they heard the language outside church in decades. Hearing it in a modern context inspired them to try revive the language among their communities.

“When you hear (the language), you can speak it,” said Issa, the teacher.

Aramaic dialects were the region’s vernacular from 2,500 years ago until the sixth century, when Arabic, the language of conquering Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula, became dominant, according to Fassberg.

Linguistic islands survived: Maronites clung to Aramaic liturgy and so did the Syrian Orthodox church. Kurdish Jews on the river island of Zakho spoke an Aramaic dialect called “Targum” until fleeing to Israel in the 1950s. Three Christian villages in Syria still speak an Aramaic dialect, Fassberg said.

With few opportunities to practice the ancient tongue, teachers in Jish have tempered expectations. They hope they can at least revive an understanding of the language.

The steep challenges are seen in the Jish school, where the fourth-grade Aramaic class has just a dozen students. The number used to be twice that until they introduced an art class during the same time slot — and lost half their students.