Solsticewitch13's BOS

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2843/russia-icbm-missile-defense

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Centuries of persecution before Israeli "occupation."

In the voluminous commentaries on the Middle East today very little attention has been given to the sad fate of Christians in the Arab and Muslim countries. Even less attention has been paid to the contrast between the treatment of Christians in Israel and their treatment in Arab countries. In Israel Christians have religious freedom and their numbers have increased. In Arab countries the religious freedom of Christians is restricted and their number has been reduced because of harassment, fear, and persecution. It is well to remember the words of Martin Luther King: "In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."

Christians have been a presence in the Middle East for two millennia. Hundreds of churches and monasteries were built after Constantine legalized Christianity in 313. Yet after the Islamic conquest in 638 Christians have been subjected to Arab and Muslim rule for centuries. Their status in the Ottoman Empire was that of dhimmis, non-Muslims who were protected but who were second-class citizens. In this millet system based on religious affiliation, Christians were tolerated but they were also in a state of perpetual humiliation, even of subjugation.

Population statistics today are questionable and census is difficult in the various countries of the Middle East, and demographic trends and accuracy of religious affiliation are political issues and must be treated with caution. However, it is evident that under Muslim rule Christians became a minority in the area of Palestine. In recent years the Christian population has declined not only numerically, but also as a proportion of the overall population. This decline has been due to a number of factors: Christian emigration, a higher Muslim birthrate, poor economic conditions, the rise of Islamist groups especially Hamas and Islamic Jihad, growing insecurity, the use made of Christian towns such as Beit Jala as a base by Palestinian fighters for sniping against Israeli areas in Jerusalem, and Christian concern about their fate in the political future.

Critics of Israel have argued that the departure of Christians from the area of Palestine is due to the "Israeli occupation." No doubt measures taken by Israel for security reasons have caused some economic difficulties and led to some departure. But the general accusation ignores the reality that two-thirds of Christian Arabs left the areas between 1949 and 1967, the period when Jordan occupied and annexed the West Bank, and Egypt controlled Gaza, years before Israel controlled those areas.

The discriminatory treatment of Christians by the Muslim majority and the consequences of continuing Arab hostility towards the state of Israel have led to increasing migration from the West Bank and Gaza, the areas controlled by Muslims. Christians in those two areas now account for only about 40,000, 1.5 per cent of the total. The towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem, which depended on the Christian tourist and pilgrim trade, both lost their Christian majorities. In 1995, the number of Christians in Bethlehem was two-thirds of the population; today it is now less than 20 percent. According to the1947 census held by the British there were 28,000 Christians in Jerusalem; in 1967 after 19 years of Jordanian rule there were 11,000. By contrast, the number of Christians in Israel has increased from 34,000 in 1949 and 120,000 in 1995 to over 150,000, now numbering about nine percent of the Israeli Arab population, and two percent of the total population in all of Israel.

The Christian community in the West Bank and Gaza has a median age of 32 compared to, the Muslim median age of 16. By comparison with the Muslims, its members are older when they marry, have a lower fertility rate, are better educated, are twice as likely to have a university degree, have a higher income, and are more likely to be in white collar and business professions.

Discrimination against, hostility towards and intimidation of Christians by Palestinians has taken a number of forms. From 1949 to 1967 Jordan occupied the West Bank; its laws forbade Christians from buying land and houses in the Old City of Jerusalem; all schools were closed on Muslim holidays; mosques were deliberately built near churches. The Palestinian Authority formulated a Constitution in 2003 that declared that Islam was "the official religion. " The Constitution also declares that in a Palestinian state the principles of Islamic Sharia law are to be the main source of legislation. The statement that "respect and sanctity of all other heavenly religions shall be maintained" is contradicted in practice by the attacks and condemnation of Christians in mosques, sermons, and publications of Islamic groups. Furthermore, the Palestinian legal and judicial system does not provide protection for Christian land owners, and enforces discrimination in educational, cultural, and taxation policies.

More drastically, Christians have suffered direct harassment. They have been intimidated and maltreated; money has been extorted, land and property confiscated, and Christian women have been abused, raped, abducted and been subjected to forced marriages. Attempts have been made to impose the Islamic women's dress code on them.

The Palestinian Authority has denied Christian, as well as Jewish, ties to Jerusalem. Christian holy sites have been disparaged or insulted. The Palestine Liberation Organization in July 1997 evicted monks and nuns from the Holy Trinity Monastery in Hebron. Palestinian gunmen positioned themselves in or near Christian homes, hotels, and churches during fighting against Israel. The most notorious example of Palestinian insult was the takeover on April 2, 2002 of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem by over 150 gunmen who used the Church to fire against Israeli soldiers who out of respect for the Church did not return fire. Priests, monks, and nuns were essentially hostages of the Palestinians, who apparently stole gold and other property including prayer books.

Theft of Christian land and property as well as desecration of Christian institutions and disparagement of the religion has occurred. There are allegations of Christians being forced off their land by gangs upheld by a corrupt judiciary. Businesses have had to pay protection money to maintain their existence. Individuals who have converted to Christianity have been threatened. After a Christian man dated a Muslim woman from a neighboring village in September 2005, armed Muslims crying "Allahu Akbar" attacked the Christian city of Taibe, setting fire to homes and businesses and destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary. The woman had already been poisoned by her own family in an "honor killing."

Christian graves in the Gaza Strip have been dug up. Anti-Christian graffiti has appeared, and Christian cemeteries and statues have been defaced. A Muslim mob in February 2002 attacked churches and Christian shops in Ramallah. The First Baptist Church of Bethlehem was firebombed on at least fourteen occasions, and the pastor, Naem Khoury, was shot. In Gaza in June 2007 a leader of the Baptist Church, one of the oldest in the area and which contains Gaza's only Christian library, was kidnapped and murdered. The Sagrada Familia school in Gaza was torched, and the nuns' building in the Convent of the Sisters of the Rosary in June 2007 was looted, and holy images and sacred books were burned.

In a speech in Paris, reported in L'Osservatore Romano on September 17, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI, concerned about developments in Muslim Middle East countries, suggested considering the concept of "positive laicity," a term he borrowed from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The term refers to societies in which various religions should be allowed to exist, all of them separate from the state, and all treated in a positive fashion. The Pope was conscious of the danger facing Christianity if Islamic fundamentalism is successful and theocratic Arab regimes are created. Unlike the Palestinian Muslim treatment of its Christian minority, Israeli policy is built on a separation of religion and state in a society that is pluralistic and upholds freedom of religions and human rights.

In view of the comparative records of Palestinian Muslim and Israeli actions towards their Christian minorities, Israel comes closer to the positive laicity suggested by the Pope and President Sarkozy than Muslim Palestinians.

Michael Curtis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Rutgers University, and author of the forthcoming book, Should Israel Exist? A sovereign nation under assault by the international community.

Related Topics: Michael Curtis

Russia Wants to Build New Missiles to Hit the U.S.

by Taylor Dinerman
February 15, 2012 at 4:30 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2853/iran-hitler-talk

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The US has the nerve to have missile defenses that actually defend it?

Get this: The General commanding Russia Strategic Rocket Forces, Lieutenant General Sergei Karakayev, said in December that the new Russian Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) are needed -- because the existing ones are vulnerable to US missile defenses.

This is apparently the result of all that nice goodwill generated by the Obama administration's "reset" of relations with Vladimir Putin's Russia and the ratification of the New Start Arms Control Treaty. It should come as no surprise: nuclear weapons, along with oil and gas exports, are just about the only thing that still qualifies Russia as a "Great Power."

If Russia's leaders still resent their loss of superpower status and feel they have a strategic need to challenge the US wherever possible, then spending the money to build a new type of nuclear missile aimed at the US makes sense.

On December 23, the Russian navy completed the test firing of their "Bulava" submarine-launched ballistic missile; and the Russian Navy's high command says that it is ready to be entered into service. This missile has an 8000 kilometer range and can carry 8 to 10 nuclear warheads. Though similar to the older land-based "Topol" ICBM, the Bulava went through a long and painful development process and experienced a relatively large number of test failures -- indicating that Russia's once formidable ability to build and deploy powerful missiles such as SLBMs, ICBMs and technologically similar space launch vehicles is nowhere near as well financed as it was during the Soviet era.

In December 2010, Russia's top-of-the-line space launch vehicle, the Proton, failed to put a number of Glonass navigation satellites into orbit. In February 2011, a Rokot launch vehicle, put together from recycled ICBMs, failed. In August 2010, both a Proton and a Soyuz, carrying a Progress cargo capsule to the International Space Station failed; and last month, the launch of another Soyuz rocket , carrying a military communications satellite, ended in disaster.

While not directly related to the space launch vehicle involved, the failure of Russia's Phobos/Grunt Mars probe which crashed back to Earth on January 15, 2012, indicates that Moscow's space industry, which is embedded in their military industrial complex, has serious problems.

This string of failures seems to reveal that the December 16, 2011, announcement by General Karakayev of the Strategic Missile Forces that Russia will build a new heavy ICBM , to replace the older SS-18 missiles aimed at the US, was probably motivated by the need to demonstrate that Russia's missile-building abilities have not been affected by these accidents. Moscow's nuclear missile forces are just about the only major military asset that Russia has left.

Even more significant is that, according to a story published by Russia press agency RIA Novosti, is the admission by General Karakayev that "Russia's solid propellent ICBMs may be unable to penetrate missile defenses." There can only be one missile defense system that the General was talking about ,and that is the Ground Based Missile Defense (GMD) system, based in Alaska and California that provides at least a minimal protection to the US homeland.

Ever since Ronald Reagan gave his famous "Star Wars" speech in March1983, which lead to the rebirth of American missile defense efforts, opponents of the idea that it is not only possible but desirable to build defensive systems that can shoot down incoming nuclear missiles and their warheads have claimed that the technology cannot be developed. Yet now, a senior Russian officer has publicly admitted that America has built a system that can shoot down the solid propellent missiles that Reagan and his team thought were the most dangerous ones in the Soviet inventory. This is a major development: it proves that Ronald Reagan was right not to overestimate Soviet technological capacities.

Of course, as the US GMD system has fewer than 30 operational interceptors, the ability of Russia's missile force with its hundreds of ICBMs and SLBMs to overwhelm the US defense system is obvious. However, if the US were to chose to build a much larger number of interceptors, and to build up a "multilayered" national missile defense system, as has been promised by Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Russia would no longer have an unquestioned ability to hit a wide array of US targets with nuclear warheads. The reliability of Russia's missile strike force would be compromised.

If this is the motivation for Russia's announced decision to build a new type of nuclear missile, then Russia's commitment to "reset" its relationship with the US is based on a wildly false premise. After all, if the US does not threaten Russia's territorial integrity, why should Russia worry about America's ability to defend itself ? Or do Russia's leaders still believe that a balance of terror, based on the old doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), is necessary?

Related Topics: Taylor Dinerman

Iran's Hitler Talk
Remove "This Corrupting Material"

by Herbert I. London
February 15, 2012 at 4:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2855/ankara-divided-over-legal-shield-for-intel

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Imagine Iran with Nuclear-Tipped Missiles Pointed at Every Capital of Europe.

The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out what it considers the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of Jews worldwide. Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the website Alef, with ties to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove "this corrupting material." There is a "jurisprudential justification" to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and that "the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm." The article, written by Alireza Forghani, a strategy specialist in Khamenei's camp, is being shown on most state owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards' Fars News Agency -- a clear indication this view is embraced by the regime.

The justification for this stance is the belief Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities and, as a consequence, Iran must preempt it. Although many strategic experts described these comments as "bluster," Iran's Defense Ministry test-fired a two-stage, solid-fuel ballistic-missile, putting a new satellite into orbit; clearly, Iran has ICBM capability.

The head of Mossad recently noted that Iran has sufficient enriched uranium for four to six nuclear bombs and is continuing to enrich uranium despite four sets of U.N. sanctions. Recognizing this present state of affairs, Israeli forces have been engaged in a variety of preparations for an attack with Secretary of Defense Panetta, who stated that -- despite U.S. disapproval -- a strike may take place in the Spring.

The 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq was also criticized by the American government, notwithstanding the fact nuclear weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein would have been a game-changer in the Middle East, and have forestalled the first Gulf War.

Any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is far more complicated than the 1981 bombing at Osirak, where there were only 12 casualties. This attack would have forestalled collateral damage and significant political blowback, albeit several Sunni nations will publicly condemn and privately congratulate Israel should the Iranian nuclear program be set back or destroyed.

To avoid or control retaliation, Israel will consider a variety of secondary targets including communication infrastructures and energy resources. But this cannot be a sterile operation; retaliation has to be entertained including the firing of thousands of missiles by Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon into Israeli population centers. Israel will be under siege. How the Obama administration responds is critical. The current passive climate in Washington has given the Iranian regime encouragement and explains why Netanyahu has apparently said he will only give DC officials 24 hour notice of the impending attack.

Israel cannot allow Iran to attack first: that would constitute a second holocaust. Every Israeli pilot in his F-16 realizes he is fighting to prevent the slaughter of Jews and the survival of Israel. Iran contends its military doctrine is "defensive preemption," what the UN charter calls "anticipatory self defense." But with the development of enriched uranium and statements about the destruction of Israel from Ahmadinejad to Khamanei, it is Iran that is on the offensive and Israel that must defend itself.

Should these attacks take place, the U.S. will not be able to insulate itself. Iran will claim Israel needed the approval and assistance of the U.S. before an attack could be launched. And Israel will argue that the inability of the U.S. to constrain Iranian nuclear weapons development forced its hand.

It was assumed by the Obama intelligence team that time is on our side, which the US also thought about North Korea; one morning America woke up to find that North Korea had nuclear weapons. The moment for dreaming about time has passed. Sanctions have not had an effect in the Iranian enrichment program. Obama himself has delayed acting. hoping against reality that Iran will come to its senses. There is only a military option that remains, one that the U.S. will not consider, but one Israel cannot avoid. With the threat of Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles pointing at every capital of Europe -- the problem is global, not just Israel's -- is resulting in a year of difficult but unavoidable decisions.

Herbert London is president emeritus of Hudson Institute and author of the book Decline and Revival in Higher Education (Transaction Books).

Related Topics: Herbert I. London

Ankara Divided Over Legal Shield for Intel
And more from the Turkish Press

by AK Group
February 15, 2012 at 3:00 am