Israeli news and conflicts

India and Pakistan are making their first moves towards war.  India has placed its air and missile forces on a war preparedness footing and Pakistan is moving armored units from the Afghani border towards India.  What is behind these latest developments is that the Indian government is sure that Pakistan was involved in the Mumbai terrorist attack (that resulted in 174 deaths at the time of writing) and domestic pressure is forcing New Delhi to deal with the situation decisively.

Azam Amir Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive, has implicated the Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar e-Taiba as being behind the attack.  This organization has links with both al Qaeda and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.  This isn’t the first time Pakistani intelligence has been tied to outrages against India.  They were also tied to the attack against the Indian embassy in Kabul five months ago that resulted in 60 deaths, including the Indian military attaché.  Another link to Pakistan, the Indians believe, is the trawler Kubar, discovered floating in the Arabian Sea with its crew missing and its captain with his arms and legs bound and decapitated.  A satellite phone and GPS found on it are currently being analyzed, but the ship is believed to have delivered at least part of the terrorist assault teams to India from Karachi.

To make matters worse, Kasab stated that one of the goals of the terrorist attack was to kill 5000 people.  His unit, for example, was told to ‘keep killing to the last breath.’  The final blow for India is that this attack was in its financial heart and it targeted foreigners.  Not only will prestige and confidence in India be lost, but the long-term economic damage, which is already huge, could be incalculable.

Domestic Indian politics is also playing a part in this game.  The next general election is in May and it would be political suicide for the Manmohan Singh government to react weakly now, especially in light of the poor performance of the Indian police and special forces commandoes who took 60 hours to eliminate the terrorist groups and failed to rescue many of the hostages.  The extent of the damage and carnage is still on every TV and in every newspaper around the globe for all to see, and the world is waiting to see how India will respond to this devastating attack.  There have already been some political casualties as India’s Home Minister and National Security Advisor have resigned.

The final factor is a lack of stabilizing political forces.  The UN and EU are not likely to get too involved in a potential conflict between these two traditional enemies, and the US is not in any position to help because the country is pretty much between administrations.  It probably wouldn’t matter anyway because at the moment neither India nor Pakistan seems to be in the mood for any form of mediation.  A small scrap or even a full-scale war appears to be in the cards.  The blood shed in Mumbai may only be a prelude to the oceans that may follow.

We recently wrote about a Muslim lawyer who wants bigamy legalized in the UK (see The Islamization of Britain, Part One), but now there are two more developments that leave one wondering about the future of Britain.

The first is that Stephen Hockman, QC (Queen’s Council) and former chairman of the Bar Council, speaking at a meeting organized by a group from the website Islam4UK, said that it was inevitable that Sharia law would become a part of the British law and, consequently, work should be started at once to incorporate it into the British legal system.  He was quoted as telling the Daily Express, ‘Given our substantial Muslim population, it is vital that we look at ways to integrate Muslim culture into our traditions.  Otherwise we will find that there is a significant section of our society which is increasingly alienated, with very dangerous results.  There should perhaps be a standing committee comprising Parliamentarians, lawyers and religious leaders to consider how this could be achieved and what legal changes might be framed.’

What Mr. Hockman is really saying is that instead of immigrants assimilating themselves into British life and culture, which is what would normally be expected, Brits should assimilate into theirs.  Muslims make up only 2.7% of the UK, but somehow the entire British legal system should be changed to accommodate them.  Hindus are another 1% of the population.  Why isn’t Mr. Hockman advocating the integration of their belief system into British society?  Why are only Muslims getting this special attention?

The second development is taking place at the Polmont Jail in Scotland.  There, the jail’s managers are forcing all inmates to eat halal (food prepared in compliance with Islamic law) chicken just so they won’t upset the seven Muslim inmates in the facility.  What is even better is that these managers are doing this even though the Inspector of Prisons issued a report last year that forced them to stop buying only halal meats because the small number of Muslim prisoners did not justify the cost.  However, Scottish prison officials claim that halal chicken is about the same price as regular chicken, so they continue to purchase it in defiance of the order.

What is going on there?  Is this political correctism running rampant or something worse?  Is there such a fear of Muslims in the UK now that the people there are being reduced to such actions just so they won’t offend a few Muslims in some prison?  What is going to be next?  Enforcing the strict fast of Ramadan on all prisoners?  I mean, isn’t it awful that non-Muslims can eat and drink during the day when the Muslims can’t due to their religious beliefs during the month of Ramadan?  Shouldn’t we be accommodating with this too?

Where will this all end?  The UK is sliding down a slippery slope that is going to be extremely difficult to claw up again when it finally wakes up to the danger this presents.  The thing is that some of these actions are unnoticeable and insidious.  The halal food in the prison hardly touches the life of the average British citizen but what it does do is set a precedent which opens the door to all manner of other and bigger precedents.  Pretty soon, if the Brits aren’t too careful, they are going to wake up one morning to the Brave New World of Sharia law where they will be told what they can and cannot do by a foreign legal code that is now their own.

Why is Russia now willing to cooperate with OPEC over oil production and quotas (see Russia to Work with OPEC on Output Cuts) when it spurned such collaboration in the past?  Moscow was happy to pump out as much crude as suited its purposes regardless of what OPEC or anyone else had to say about it.  Why the big change of heart now?

Quite a lot is happening inside the largest country on earth to force it to alter a lot of its decisions and attitudes.  As much as Putin and Medvedev say and pretend otherwise, the world economic crisis has come to Russia and hit harder than anyone there wants to admit.  Many banks are in trouble and have needed assistance, businesses are having great trouble getting credit (even the gas and oil companies!), foreign investment is still fleeing the country and the ruble is being allowed to fall in a controlled devaluation. 

The latter action is most indicative of the severity of the problem.  Russia has recently taken a lot of pride in the strengthen ruble and Moscow has even suggested that it become a benchmark currency.  Putin recently proposed that oil and gas contracts between China and Russia be denominated in rubles instead of dollars, an idea the Chinese cooled on as soon as the dollar strengthened 20% against the ruble.  The Russian government broke its promise not to devaluate the ruble because it had spent $57 billion in the last two months propping it up and it quickly became obvious that this couldn’t go on forever.  In addition, when the dollar starting gaining on the ruble, Putin laughably urged Russian citizens not to buy dollars; advice pretty much ignored by everyone because the average Russian views dollars as a safer financial instrument, plus a quick profit could be made playing the exchange rates.

Everyone knows that oil prices have fallen precipitously, but other things are happening that are just as bad for Russia.  Metal prices, another big source of earnings, are also in freefall.  Some of the biggest enterprises in the country are cutting back production and getting ready to lay off large numbers of workers.  Even worse, natural gas prices are based on the price of oil so now another huge source of revenue is sinking fast.

One of the biggest signs that the Great Bear is almost on its knees is the 180 degree turn it took on its planned wood export tariffs.  Earlier this year, Russia decided to drastically increase its wood tariffs in total contravention to promises to and an agreement signed with Finland, one of its key wood buyers.  Putin felt confident enough to openly thumb his nose at Helsinki and the Finns were already calculating how much their GDP was going to fall as a result (2%).  Two weeks ago, Putin suddenly had a change of heart and suspended the tariff for 9 to 12 months.  He certainly didn’t do this out of any sympathy for the Finns.  Finland was preparing to switch its supplier and in the current economic climate, Russian simply could not afford to lose the business.

When one looks at all of these factors together, it is no mystery why Moscow is now willing to cooperate with OPEC.  With virtually every source of income shrinking and a currency in danger of collapsing, Russia has to do something to try and reverse the situation.  Whether the Russia/OPEC tag team can manage to raise the price of oil significantly remains to be seen.  We may find out soon enough when OPEC meets again in three days (on November 29).  Personally, I think that Russia is more nervous than any of the oil-importing countries.  Its economy is in more trouble and it has far more to lose.

Oil prices have just gone up and it isn’t because there has been a sudden increase in demand.  The prime reason for this rise, among other smaller factors, is that the Russian Energy Minister has announced that his country is going to coordinate its production activities with OPEC in order to defend its state interests.  This is understandable.  Since oil prices have tanked by nearly two-thirds from their recent historical highs, the major oil-exporting countries that depend on this resource to fuel their economies have been getting more and more desperate.

Last month, OPEC had already cut its output by 1.5 million barrels a day and it is meeting in Cairo again on November 29 (in three days) to decide on further cuts.  Since the last round of production cuts failed to stem the fall in prices, it is almost certain that another cut is in store to try to revive the market.

One of the main problems is that the major oil exporters have national budgets that are based on the assumption that oil will sell for much higher prices than they are going for now.  For example, Iran needs at least $75 a barrel to break even on its budget and Russia’s current budget has been calculated based on the same $75 a barrel supposition.  With today’s price at $52, both countries are facing huge budgetary nightmares and a potential fiscal disaster down the road.

Russia has embarked on a wide variety of projects, both civilian and military, that require a constant heavy flow of cash that is quickly drying up.  Already, there are signs of trouble in Russia’s heavy industries and in its business world.  Companies are having trouble securing credit, more and more layoffs are taking place and several high-profile projects have been delayed indefinitely.  For example, the construction of the Russia Tower in Moscow, which was designed by Norman Foster and was to be the tallest building in Europe, has been halted for a lack of funds.  Gazprom has recently shelved plans to build a $1 billion monstrosity in St. Petersburg for the same reason.

Times are tough, and no matter what Prime Minister Putin says, the world economic downturn has most definitely come to Russia and the pain is being felt everywhere.  You can even see the change in the Kremlin.  There is much less swagger and arrogance today as opposed to just a couple of months ago.  It seems as if the realization that the current economic situation is a universal problem has finally hit home with the leadership in Moscow.  Unfortunately, this latest announcement will do little to alleviate the overall problem no matter how hard OPEC and Russia wish that it would do so.

Egypt is feeling the heat these days and it isn’t the sirocco that is causing them to sweat.  Revenues from the Suez Canal are declining and may soon go into freefall if the current situation off of the coast of Somalia isn’t gotten under control.  Piracy is running rampant there (see Somali Pirates Grab 2 Million Barrels of Oil and Somali Pirates Grab 2 More Ships) and shows no sign of abating in the near future.

The first problem is the global economic downturn, which has caused a fall in overall shipping due to decreased demand for shipped goods worldwide.  Egypt receives about $5 billion a year in fees from the Suez Canal.  These revenues declined by $5 million in September and even more in October because of the world’s financial crisis.  Then the pirate problem hit home.

So far this year, nearly 100 ships have been attacked off of Somalia (nearly one-third of all pirate attacks worldwide) with 36 captured, including the 319,430 ton supertanker Sirius Star.  A multinational naval force is currently present to patrol and escort merchant ships in a tight safety corridor but it has only been of limited effectiveness overall. 

The result on business for Egypt has been negligible so far but there are ominous signs on the horizon.  So far for November, only one less ship has transited the Suez Canal than the month before; however, this is about to change.  Europe’s largest shipping company, A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, has ordered its smaller ships to avoid the Canal and sail around the Cape of Good Hope instead.  Norway’s Odfjell SE ordered its 90+ tankers to do the same.  This move will increase shipping costs by at least 30% as well as simultaneously reducing fees paid to the Egyptian government for use of its Canal.

What is amazing about this situation is that even though the Egyptian government is facing a fiscal disaster, it isn’t willing to lift a finger to help solve the problem beyond demanding the rest of the world tackle the pirate menace for them.  So far, the Egyptians aren’t willing to commit any of their ships or men to the anti-piracy effort. 

The shipping companies aren’t being so shy.  They are resisting suggestions to arm their crews or mount security forces on their ships because it could lead to injuries or even death to their employees as well as damage to their vessels.  Instead, they are demanding a blockade of the Somali coast to choke off the pirate bases and are already beginning to react proactively by rerouting some of their ships.

Even as this article is being written, reports of another ship being captured by the pirates is in the news.  To date, only India has been willing to deal decisively with a suspected pirate ship.  What will it take for others to do the same?  The rerouting of ships around the Cape of Good Hope will make their journeys safer, but with the rise in shipping costs, we will all pay for it in the end.  Unfortunately for Egypt, its people will pay more than the rest of us.

The US has a $410 million military aid program designed to modernize the Lebanese army.  It was set up after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 to strengthen the national army against internal (Hezbollah) and external (Syria) enemies.  As part of that program, reports indicate that several dozen M60A3 MBTs (Main Battle Tanks) are part of the deal.

The M60 is an old, reliable tank design that first entered service in 1960.  However, don’t let age fool you.  This tank, though aged, is still a remarkable piece of war machinery in its latest variants.  The A3 variant in question actually had some notable advantages over the earlier M1 Abrams tanks, such as a more reliable engine, better thermal imaging and a wider variety of ammunition for the main gun.  It has proven itself superior to the Soviet/Russian T-55, T-62 and T-72, as well as the Chinese Type 69s, in actual combat.

While the M60A3 will be a valuable addition to the Lebanese army, its acquisition is not going over well with Israel.  Jerusalem fears that they can eventually fall into the hands of Hezbollah, which means that they can end up being used against the Jewish state.  There are some grounds for this fear; namely, that a high percentage of the soldiers in the Lebanese army are Shiites.  In some eyes, this makes their loyalty to the national government a dubious matter at best.

However, on closer analysis, Israel’s fears seem ungrounded.  Hezbollah has been effective mainly because it is an irregular force using guerilla tactics instead of a conventional mode of fighting.  Were they to acquire these or other tanks and try to take on the Israelis toe to toe, they would quickly get a very bloody nose.  With the IAF (Israeli Air Force) having complete command of the air, any tanks Hezbollah may have will be easily detected, tracked and destroyed at will.  Gulf War One proved once and for all the value of air superiority.

Another reason for the Israelis not to worry is that tanks by their nature are offensive weapons.  Hezbollah is not an offensive army in the traditional sense and it would be suicide (not that they mind that per say, but they have been clever enough until now not to waste their strength) for them to try and mount a ground force invasion of Israel.  In fact, their current strategy centers around trying to get Israel to attack them in Lebanon again so they can bleed the Israeli army white in a bloody defensive battle of attrition.  Tanks would be a waste of material, manpower and money for them.

It would be better for the Jewish State to worry about the 42,000 rockets Hezbollah current has aimed at it, many of which now have extended range and can reach further into the country than ever before.  They will be much harder to find and destroy than a few dozen tanks that the Shiites will barely know how to use properly.  And those 42,000 rockets can cause far, far more damage.

In the next few weeks a very important piece of equipment will become operational in Israel that will protect it from Iranian ballistic missiles.  The X-Band radar system will be set up in southern Israel, near the Egyptian border, and it will be integrated into its Arrow 2 theater ballistic missile defense system, thus dramatically improving its capabilities.

This is an extremely important addition to Israel’s defense because the radar system can track objects as small as a baseball up to 4800 kilometers (3000 miles) away.  This is a marked improvement over the Arrow 2’s detection range of 500 kilometers (310 miles).  Since the Arrow 2 has already been successfully tested against an accurate clone of Iran’s Shahab 3 (currently, the main ballistic missile threat from Iran), Tehran has something to worry about.

This system is so top secret that only US personnel will be operating it and its site will basically amount to a US facility in the region.  Jerusalem isn’t exactly pleased with this situation but the radar is so powerful and the Iranian threat so imminent that it had no choice but to accept US conditions.  The X-Band system has already been operational in Japan since 2006 and protects that nation as well as the US from ballistic missile launches from North Korea, which gives Israel real confidence in it.

The timing of this situation is alarming for Tehran.  The Bush administration is in its last months, it has positioned a huge amount of air and naval assets within strike distance of Iran, Israel has deployed its cruise missile-equipped submarines (potentially with atomic warheads) near the Persian Gulf, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has officially stated that Iran has enough processed uranium for one atomic bomb (US intelligence says that will increase to three by the end of 2008), and Israel has said it will not allow Iran to go nuclear.  If you put these five points together, then you get a high probability that a combined US-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is in the offing.

Once this X-Band Radar system is up and running, it will nullify one of the only effective weapon systems Iran can bring to bear on Israel in the event of an attack on the Islamic State.  There seems little that the Iranian leadership can do besides wait and pray, or is there?  See the articles Is Iran Planning a Pre-Emptive Strike on Israel? and Does Iran Have the Political Will to Attack Israel Directly?

Well, well, well.  It looks like Israel was right all along about the Al Kibar site in Syria.  All the collected evidence, including satellite pictures, shows a facility that strongly resembles a nuclear reactor.  This is in addition to soil samples that had a ‘significant number of chemically processed natural uranium particles in them.’  Of course, Syria still denies everything and has even made the statement that, ‘Collecting uranium particles from the desert doesn’t mean there is a reactor there.’ Naturally, Damascus has another explanation for how the uranium got to where no uranium should be (see Syria Blames Israel for Uranium Found at El Kibar).

Another significant development is that Syria today (22 November) confirmed that it would not allow the IAEA to make a follow-up visit to Al Kibar, nor to the other three sites that the agency requested access to.  Syria claims that they are military bases and thus are off limits to outsiders in the interests of national security.  The Syrians can’t be so stupid that they don’t understand that this makes them look all the more guilty.  The only logical explanation is that they genuinely have something to hide.

There is a larger context to all of this.  Iran is sitting on the sidelines, watching nervously.  They have seen how Israel pulled off a perfect hit against an ally and the international community is not condemning them as the final IAEA report pretty much exonerates them.  What is even worse, the Israelis have found a way to nullify the advanced Russian air defense equipment Damascus had deployed to protect their territory, the same type of equipment the Iranians are relying on at the moment.  No one knows how the Israelis managed it.  Even the Russians are still scratching their heads trying to figure it out.

In the last two days, it has been reported that Iran now possesses enough uranium to produce one atomic bomb, but will have enough for two or three by the end of the year.  This uranium is a low-grade of 5% enrichment, but it is expected that they will be able to enrich up to 90% in the near future.  This is a cause for concern both for the world and in Tehran.  Israel has repeatedly and more stridently in recent weeks stated that they will not allow Iran to go nuclear.  Tehran’s nuclear program is moving along at breakneck speed but the raid on Al Kibar must be on the back of the Iranian leadership’s minds.  It should be.  Israel is primed and ready to go.  Al Kibar was just a warm-up exercise as there are much bigger fish to fry.

Sheikh Faiz ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, a practicing barrister and a member of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, recently gave a lecture in Temple Church (in London) called “Family Law, Minorities and Legal Pluralism: Should English Law give more Recognition to Islamic Law?” During the lecture, he complained that while English law recognizes extra-marital affairs and same-sex marriages, it refuses to recognize polygamy.

The main thrust of his argument was that the UK is an open society that claims to be sensitive to people’s individual rights and cultures, and that today’s women have the opportunity to choose to be a mistress or being involved in a homosexual relationship, so why not give them the opportunity to choose polygamy if they want to. This is a seductive argument because it actually sounds logical and reasonable given that adultery and homosexuality were socially unacceptable and had legal consequences not that long ago. I can see more than a few liberals agreeing with this position.

Mr. Siddiqi went further and stated that only a few women would actually go through with this, implying that there is nothing to fear because it would affect only a very small part of the total population. This is another seductive angle he is trying to play. By making it sound harmless, he is saying that since it won’t affect society that much anyway, why not allow it in the name of cultural diversity and tolerance.

Finally, he made an appeal to the logical senses by asking if the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims can all be wrong in accepting polygamy (against a paltry 60 million Brits who are against it). Of course, no one present thought to mention that since there are more Christians in the world than Muslims, an equally compelling counter-question would have been to ask if all the world’s Christians can be wrong in embracing monogamy and condemning polygamy.

When you listen to Mr. Siddiqi’s position as he lays it out, his proposition to allow polygamy in the UK not only seems fair in light of legalized gay marriages and adultery without limits, but it also seems prejudicial not to agree with him. If you support the other forms of relationships, then why don’t you support this one too? What are you? A bigot or something?

I hope you can see beyond this immediate issue and recognize the actual danger this represents. Mr. Siddiqi is obviously a very clever man. His campaign for the legal acceptance of polygamy in the UK is the first step in a well-laid out foot-in-the-door scheme to legalize Sharia law. Make no mistake about it. If polygamous marriage becomes legal, other equally presented requests, then demands will follow. Slowly, over a period of time, the free land of the British will gradually descend into a dark pit of foreign religious oppression. The average Brit will only wake up to the danger when it is too late to stop it without a major convulsion in their society.

No matter how beautifully Mr. Siddiqi tries to package this, no matter how nicey-nicey he makes it sound, the UK has to decisively say no. An open and free society is not an invitation for an aggressive foreign culture to come in and impose itself on its host and change it in the name of tolerance and political correctness. Mr. Siddiqi can have the four wives the Koran allows him; just as soon as he steps off the plane in Saudi Arabia. Bon voyage, and don’t forget to take your sunscreen.

Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was captured on 25 June 2006 in a cross-border raid and has been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza ever since.  Hamas wants to trade him for 1500 Palestinian prisoners currently in Israeli jails, but Jerusalem has been lukewarm at best to the offer.  They want to exchange only a few hundred instead.  Unfortunately for Gilad, an agreement doesn’t seem possible in the near future.

Looking for other options, Israeli cyberwar specialists hacked into Gaza’s mobile phone network and sent messages offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who provides any information that leads to Gilad’s rescue.  This is another technical victory for Israel that must have left Hamas’ leadership with smoke pouring out of their beards.

To exchange such a large number of prisoners (a few hundred or the full fifteen hundred) is a twin danger for the Jewish State.  Not only will that many dangerous terrorists be free to take up arms again, it will only embolden Hamas and other anti-Israeli groups such as Hezbollah to conduct further kidnappings for similar results.  Israel needs to stand strong and not give in to this unreasonable demand.  Hopefully, an informer will soon provide the information necessary to rescue Shalit and return him safely to his family.