The Palestinians have rejected Trump’s attempts at negotiating a peace plan and have called for an alternative. The problem is that the PA has also announced that no other nation is interested in putting forward a peace deal. So, what is their alternative?
Turkey is pushing further into Syria and risking its friendship with Russia.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a public announcement this week that could potentially set the Middle East on fire!
Read while you listen!
Thank you for listening!
Kimberly Rogers-Brown
BeastWatchNews.com
Theme music by Mishkanim.
US-ISRAEL-SAUDI ALLIANCE
Netanyahu Confirms Anti-Iran Alliance With Arab Countries
Netanyahu confirmed this week that an Israeli alliance with Arab nations does exist as an anti-Iran front with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as crucial players. Netanyahu called the alliance an “extraordinary thing” and also said, “I never saw anything like it”.
This is while the Tel Aviv regime has been accused of colluding with terrorist groups that are currently losing ground against the Syrian army and has frequently attacked military targets in Syria and provided weapons to anti-Damascus militants as well as medical treatment to the Takfiri elements wounded in the war-torn Arab country.
The hand of friendship was extended by Israeli minister of military affairs Avigdor Lieberman last November, calling on them to form an alliance against the Islamic Republic. The new alliance was in the making before November with secret meetings happening between the Israelis and Saudi Arabian officials, but it became a more formal arrangement in November despite there being no formal diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Israeli military Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eizenkot expressed the Israeli’s readiness “to exchange experiences and intelligence with moderate Arab countries to confront Iran”.
Recall that last Fall the Saudis announced that they are moving toward being a more moderate Islamic nation. This is the reason, and not because they’ve seen the light about being extremists, that they are moving toward being more moderate. They also need to be more moderate if they are to lead the other moderate Arab nations which outnumber them.
The Israeli-Arab alliance is widely believed to have set the stage for US President Donald Trump’s recent policy shift on Jerusalem which drew condemnations and protests worldwide.
Netanyahu explained, “It is an extraordinary thing — it starts with a common concern, a common enemy, which is extremist Islam and terrorism, both Sunni and Shia extremism,” Netanyahu said. “Also,” he said, “our common stance against Iran”. And there was another source of this closeness, the prime minister said. “It’s the desire (of Arab states) to make USe of the civilian technology in Israel has — in health, agriculture, water, energy — to better the lives of their citizens. I view that as a great promise of peace,” he said. “We see the beginning of changes in the attitudes toward Israel of (Arab) publicly — not all of it, but a significant minority. That is hope, that is the future of peace, and that could mean the Palestinians too.”
More on the Palestinians in a moment, but first, let’s take a look at Iran’s reaction to this alliance being admitted to and made public since this is another step in the fulfillment of Daniel 11:40’s prophecy that the King of the South will provoke the King of the North.
IRAN
Iran reacted this week by seeking its own regional alliance against Israel, Saudi and US, according to XinhuaNet. But, Iran already has a coalition in place, the 4+1 Coalition which consists of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah backed by Russia. This coalition is a natural military alliance which has resulted from Iran’s support of the three other nations against ISIS and the US. However, this coalition is not a formal arrangement nor does it include any other Arab nations. So far, the coalition is a Shi’ite-oriented grouping, but Iran has its eyes on Qatar which is in an ongoing diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates. Iran may attempt to add other Arab nations that are not diplomatically close to Saudi Arabia, one of which includes nuclear nation, Pakistan.
“Years of fighting against terrorist groups backed by the US and some of its regional allies were costly for Syria and Iraq”, said Iran’s Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi. “This is what the United States, Saudis and Israel wanted,” he added.
He also stated that the US announcement on Jan. 14 of its decision to form a 30,000-strong force to work with its Syrian militia allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and the intent to operate along the borders with Turkey, Iraq and Syria is aimed at reinforcing US regional interests, which requires continued conflict.
“The US main strategy in the current year is retaining and even expanding the zones of conflict in the region to serve its political, economic and military interests,” he noted.
It might not take an entire year before Daniel eleven’s prophecy is fulfilled. Then again, we don’t know the timing which means it could take many more years. This is why Yeshua told US to watch these symptoms of Jacob’s troubles leading up to the Great Tribulation also called Jacob’s sorrows.
Iran’s Ally, Lebanon
Iran has every intention of spreading its military might across the northern Middle East all the way from Tehran to Beirut. Israeli defense officials said this week that they believe that Iran has resumed building a precision weapons factory in Lebanon. The article written by Israeli Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis was published on several Lebanese-owned websites and other Arabic publications – including Voice of Beirut, Sputnik and Israeli radio’s public Arabic broadcaster.
Last year, senior Israeli officials stated that Iran had begun to build plants to manufacture arms in Lebanon and Israel and had threatened on a number of occasions to bomb the plants. According to the Israeli assessment, Iran has now stepped up its efforts to improve the accuracy of Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets. Israel has recently attacked some of the convoys smuggling precision weapons from Syria to Lebanon. As a result, the Iranians have been seeking to get around this obstacle by transferring production facilities to Lebanon itself.
Gen. Manelis’ article was directed at the residents of Lebanon, but it is apparent that it was also directed to the attention of the governments of Lebanon and other countries in the region, particularly Iran and Syria. Israeli defense officials have been making USe of this direct channel more often lately.
The increased USe of direct channels to speak to the enemy nations and their citizens is not only an escalation toward, but an actual warning of impending war. Israel has a habit of warning civilian populations when they are in danger. Maj. General Yoav Mordechai, the IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, often addresses Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip directly through his Facebook page and in interviews to Arabic-language media outlets. Now Manelis, the IDF spokesman, is putting the spotlight on several Israeli messages, notably the danger posed to the citizens of Lebanon if the IDF is required to act again Hezbollah’s efforts to become stronger militarily.
The warnings are a prelude to what could turn out to be the shot heard throughout the Middle East that will trigger the King of the North to ride south, sweeping through Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Ethiopia.
Manelis wrote, “If I had to choose my picture of the year on the Lebanese front, I would go back to the joint tour by the commander of the southern Lebanon front of Hezbollah and his friend, the commander of one of the Shi’ite militias loyal to Iran, Qais al-Khazali”. “The picture expresses, better than anything else, Iranian involvement in Lebanon and lifts the curtain over the increasing reality of closer Iranian control in Lebanon. It’s clear that ‘terrorist tourism’ is the tangible expression of the danger to the future of Lebanon and of the entire region – the danger of a takeover by those doing Tehran’s bidding.”
“The year 2017 was relatively quiet on the Lebanon front, as were the previous eleven years since the Second Lebanon War ended. This quiet has served people on both sides [of the border]. The fact that northern Israel and southern Lebanon both have children in the sixth grade who never heard a [missile] warning siren is the most significant achievement of the Second Lebanon War and the best proof of the stability of Israeli deterrence, and of the memory etched into Lebanese minds of the magnitude of the mistake made last time by [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah.”
Manelis enumerated the Israeli army’s operational and intelligence preparations ahead of another possible war in Lebanon, and accused Hezbollah of involvement in terrorism and subversive activity throughout the Middle East. “Wherever there has been instability, we have discovered Iran’s fingerprints, and we have discovered Hezbollah’s involvement everywhere,” he wrote.
Manelis continued: “It sent thousands of fighters to Syria, stepped up the battles in Yemen with hundreds of advisers, and Nasrallah has even boasted of sending anti-tank missiles to Gaza and also met with representatives of the Palestinian terrorist organizations, who this year also became his neighbors in Dahiya in Beirut.”
“Hezbollah members continue to patrol the border with Israel, wearing civilian clothing. In addition, Hezbollah is trying to recruit and operate officers and soldiers from the Lebanese army to achieve its aims,” Manelis wrote. “Shamelessly, Hezbollah even invited journalists for a special tour [of the border] to show its ‘scorn’ for Lebanon sovereignty and UN Security Council resolutions. These violations do not threaten US. On the contrary, the distance between a violation that ends in a report to the United Nations and a violation that leads to a security deterioration is first and foremost, an Israeli decision,” he wrote.
Hezbollah’s actions are turning Lebanon into a “powder keg” that its people are living around, Manelis warned. “One of every three or four homes in southern Lebanon is a command post, position, weapons warehouse or hiding place for Hezbollah. We know these assets and will know how to attack them accurately if necessary. The future of the people of Lebanon is to be pawns in the hands of the dictator from Tehran. Those same heads of villages, towns, cities and government institutions who see what is going on and say nothing are also to blame.”
He warned the Lebanese that Iran “is playing with their safety and future” and added that 2018 will be a test when it comes to how Lebanon is shaped — as a stable and economically prosperous country or an arm of Lebanon and Hezbollah. Manelis made mention of Lebanese hopes for developing offshore Mediterranean natural gas fields and contrasted that with the possibility that Iran would send more armed Shi’ite militias into Lebanese territory and that the region would sink into war.
“The battle depends on two parameters,” Manelis wrote, “Whether Lebanon and the international community will permit Iran and Hezbollah to exploit the naivete of the Lebanese leaders and set up a precision missile plant, as they are currently trying to do; and whether Hezbollah, under the auspices of the new election system, will manage to elbow out the Sunni camp in the upcoming May 2018 elections and officially turn the country into an Iranian client state. The Israeli army”, he wrote, “is ready and prepared for any scenario and will be improving its readiness this year.”
“As we have proved in recent years, and as those who need to know do know, our red lines regarding our security are clear, and we prove it every week,” he wrote.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Russia on Monday for talks about the situation with Lebanon and warning that Israel will not accept Iran’s growing military presence there nor its attempts to become a site for precision missiles against the state of Israel. Netanyahu talked about Iran’s relentless efforts to establish a military presence in Syria, which he strongly opposes and is taking action against.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin responded by taking Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center to see an exhibition about a 1943 uprising at the Nazis’ Sobibor camp in occupied Poland. In an effort to increase the friendly atmosphere between the two, Netanyahu noted that the uprising was led by a Jewish Red Army officer and praised the heroism of the Red Army in defeating the Nazis. Putin expressed his appreciation, saying that the Israeli attitude contrasts with the removal of monuments to Red Army heroes in some European nations. Putin also noted that Russia and Israel are “cooperating closely in resisting attempts to falsify history and revise the results of WWII, deny Holocaust and downplay a decisive role the Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazis.”
Putin meant “unlike Poland” who is making changes to the USe of certain words having to do with concentration camps.
“The main lesson from the rise of the Nazis and later the defeat of the Nazis is the need to stand up powerfully to murderous ideology in time,” Netanyahu said. “That is our mission today as well.”
His statement is a clear warning that Israel will not allow Lebanon to become Iran’s outpost.
According to Netanyahu, the Russians “fully understand our position” and the seriousness with which we view such threats.” He added that Israel’s ties with the Kremlin are important for security coordination between the countries: “The Russian army is on our border and we have managed to preserve our interests and freedom to act [by] coordinating expectations.”
Ah! There’s the crux of what appears to be a desperate plea for help from Moscow by Netanyahu. Russia is sitting right on Israel’s border! And, no quotes or responses by Putin were reported in any news outlets to Netanyahu, aside from their little jaunt to the museum. Putin is not a silent man, but cases where one is not in agreement, one is better off saying nothing, especially if the news would be not particularly good… As in Russia will back Iran and Hezbollah if Israel attacks Lebanon.
Let me remind you how Russia came to be on Israel’s border. It happened because of that nasty deal Trump negotiated with Putin last June, doing so without any advice from his cabinet or military experts. The deal backfired, though he would not admit it, because Russia took up positions on Israel’s border when the Shi’ite militias began moving out. Trump says he negotiated for Russia to be a security force on Israel’s border, but Russia is no more a security for Israel than Iran is for Israel.
So, to that end, Israel raised the level of its hostile threats against Lebanon on Tuesday after Netanyahu returned from Russia. That, more or less, provides an insight on the response – or non-response, as it were – by Putin to Netanyahu on Monday. Netanyahu said that if Lebanon’s missile production does not stop, Israel will put a stop to it. And start a bigger war in the process, I suspect.
But perhaps Putin was listening, after all. A large delegation of senior Russian security officials arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday for talks on Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and Lebanon.
A senior Israeli official said the talks were to focus on the same issues discussed by the leaders in Moscow, including Iran’s attempt to increase its influence in Syria; Tehran’s attempts to build rocket factories for the Hezbollah terrorist group in Lebanon; and efforts by Israel and the US to change the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.
SYRIA AS A THREAT TO ISRAEL
Lebanon is not Israel’s only concern. Israel now claims that 82000 fighters are under Iranian control in Syria.
In a session that was meant to be a discussion of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, focused exclusively on Iran, sharing classified information that shows the extent of Iran’s military build-up in Syria. He told a UN Security Council meeting that he was revealing classified information about Iran to convey what he claimed are Iran’s plans to dominate Syria, destroy Israel and “terrorize the entire free world.”
This sounds strangely like the Daniel 11:40-45 prophecy.
“Iran is turning the entire country of Syria into the largest military base in the world. In fact, Iran is trying to destabilize all aspects of Syria,” Danon said.
Danon also criticized the international agreement that eased sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear program, and implied that European nations now doing business with Iran are enabling its aggression.
“Iran’s goals”, Danon said, are, “first, destroy Israel … second … destabilize the region.” But after that, Danon said, “it is aiming for the entire world. The entire international community should be concerned about Iran.”
Even though Iran is targeting Israel first, the Israeli envoy said, “it is you who are next.”
Iran’s ambassador to the UN pushed back, alleging that the US and Israel are responsible for the region’s destabilization (he has a point because Daniel’s prophecy says that the King of the South is who stirs up the conflict, but it will be the King of the North who settles it) and saying that the US and the Israeli regimes prefer to promote and spread Iran-phobia. This hysteria, so says Iran, is “being actively perpetuated by those willing to sell or spend their dollars on American ‘beautiful weapons.’ It has nothing to do with peace and security in the Middle East.”
“There are 82,000 fighters “directly under Iranian authority in Syria,” Danon said, “including 3,000 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, 9,000 members of Hezbollah and 10,000 members of “violent Shia militias recruited from across the Mideast, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said.
In addition, Danon said that Iran “directly commands” 60,000 local Syrian fighters. Iran’s military is actively training these militant extremists and it’s USing Syria as its strategic base and is not just building missiles in Lebanon, but also in factories in Syria”.
Remember, I said earlier that Iran’s 4+1 coalition is an informal one, but it is a stronger one because Iran controls the militaries of Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah. So, the defacto reality is that those nations are under the sovereignty of Iran now.
Danon said that Iran has only increased its military spending since the pact was signed in 2015. “In 2014, seventeen percent of Iran’s government spending went to its military expenditure,” he said. “This past year, in 2017, this number ballooned to twenty-two percent. That’s $23 billion spent on missiles, arms and other weapons of war.”
Danon said, “The Iranians themselves claim that ISIS in Syria is on the run. So why does Iran keep recruiting these extremists to be killed in the battlefields of Syria? Why is Iran building bases to house these fighters for the long run? The answer is clear: to further destabilize Syria and our region, to further threaten Israel and to further terrorize the entire free world.”
Here is where we need to give the Israelis a different perspective. It isn’t destabilization that Iran is seeking. No, Iran is seeking to coalesce itself into a very stable military that can address the entire planet to cause Islam to become the earth’s only religion. This will bring the entire earth under the Caliphate that Iran is trying to set up.
A number of Caliphates are in the making – the one in Saudi Arabia, the one in Istanbul, Turkey and the one that Iran is creating. It will be Iran’s Caliphate that will win the day until Yeshua comes.
Danon also implied that Europe is enabling in Iran’s growing military presence by engaging in trade with Tehran, one result of the international nuclear deal reached by the Obama administration and the governments of the United Kingdom, Russia, France, China, Germany and the European Union. Iran has nearly doubled its trade with Europe this year … this is a mistake. While you are making a profit, Iran is building an empire,” he said.
No world leader can possibly believe there is a snowball’s chance in the Negev desert of avoiding a major military conflict between the two alliances of the northern Middle East and the southern region, the Shi’ites and the Sunnis. It is not a matter of “if” anymore, but “when”.
The entire earth is being drawn into the 1400-year-old fray between the two Islamic factions. The fight over Muhammad’s succession is the ancient basis for this end of days conflict. The Shi’ites are led by the Persians. The Book of Daniel doesn’t tell US that the end time King of the North will be Persian, but since the other three Kings of the North have been either Persian or Greek, it is more likely that the last one will be Persian since Greece is barely a player on the world stage now, it behooves US to view Iran with suspicion – great suspicion.
TURKEY
The Turkish incursion in Syria just got a little hotter this week, too. The PKK-affiliated People’s Protection Units (YPG) terrorists targeted a Turkish military convoy heading north in the Syrian city of Idlib with a car bomb on Tuesday, killing a civilian personnel and wounding a soldier.
The military said terrorists detonated a vehicle while a Turkish military convoy deployed in Idlib as part of an international agreement to establish de-escalation zones was passing through.
The attack comes after Turkish military units and Free Syrian Army forces cleared 24 areas of YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorists from Afrin in northwestern Syria on day 11 of Operation Olive Branch, which was launched on Jan. 20.
According to the Turkish General Staff, Operation Olive Branch aims to establish security and stability along Turkish borders and the region as well as protect Syrians from terrorist oppression and cruelty.
The operation is being carried out under the framework of Turkey’s rights based on international law, UN Security Council resolutions, its self-defense rights under the U.N. Charter, and respect for Syria’s territorial integrity.
The Military Reality
The us military intends to remain in the northern Syrian city of Manbij despite an incoming offensive backed by Turkey, which, along with Ankara’s rebel allies, has launched an assault on nearby Kurdish forces sponsored by the Pentagon.
With the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) mostly defeated in the east, the focus of Syria’s nearly seven-year war has shifted west, particularly to the northwestern district of Afrin, where Turkey and the insurgent Free Syrian Army have begun attacking a Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The YPG was the primary faction behind the Syrian Democratic Forces that led US efforts to destroy ISIS on the ground, but it also was considered a terrorist organization by Turkey because of its alleged links to a Kurdish nationalist insurgency at home.
As the complex politics of northern Syria’s battlefield erupted into bloodshed between two US allies, Central Command Commander General Joseph Vogel told CNN Monday that withdrawing his troops from nearby Manbij was “not something we are looking into,” even as Turkey threatened to advance into the Kurd-controlled city.
The main problem facing the autonomous Kurdish districts in their struggle against Turkey is a lack of territorial contiguity – meaning they are unable to establish a joint military line. Their geographical dispersion along the Syrian-Turkish border has created separate buffer zones, some of which were taken over by the Islamic State, which has since been uprooted. In other places, the Turkish army has taken over, together with the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army.
The invasion of Afrin – the westernmost district – was thus intended not only to “fight the Kurdish terror organizations,” as Turkey claims, but to prevent any possibility of creating Kurdish territorial contiguity and establishing an independent Kurdish state along the Syrian border with Turkey.
But according to the strategy and ideology that unites most Syrian Kurds, they have no intention of establishing an independent Kurdish state that might threaten Turkey. They seem to have successfully persuaded the United States of this, as well as both Russia and Syria, which withdrew its forces from the Kurdish districts at the start of the war in 2011.
Russia knows the survival of Assad’s regime and his control of the entire country depends to a large extent on his ability to assimilate the Kurdish districts into Syria, with the ideal scenario being one that allows the Kurds to run their federation as part of the Syrian state under Assad’s rule. The United States also sees the Kurdish federal system in Syria and the principles of the Kurdish constitution as being no less worthy of defending than the Kurdish region in Iraq.
While the Pentagon reiterated its support for Kurdish members of the Syrian Democratic Forces still battling ISIS in rapidly shrinking pockets of territory in the east, US military leadership warned that the US-led coalition would not support Kurdish efforts to reallocate resources to battle Turkey in the northwest.
This is the crux of the dispute between Erdogan and his counterparts in Washington and Moscow, each of whom – for their own reasons – regard the Kurds as allies. The question now is how far the superpowers are willing to go to stop Erdogan’s aspirations without causing an irreversible rift with him.
The Economic Reality
Turkey has an urgent need of a dependable supply of natural gas. Aside from lignite coal, Turkey has no hydrocarbon deposits. Its main sources of gas are Russia and Iran, contributing respectively 60% and 30% of the total, with the rest coming from Azerbaijan. There is a direct co-relationship between living standards and energy consumption. Because natural gas is mostly USed for cooking in Turkey, its annual consumption reflects living standards.
Obama’s insurgence into Ukraine to destabilize the Russian economy and grab control of the pivotal oil distribution hubs in Ukraine were to ensure Turkey and Europe will have adequate fossil fuel supplies in the future. Turkey needs its alliance with Russia because Russia’s state-owned Gazprom had become a supplier to Turkey and several European nations pumped through a pipeline laid across Ukraine. But Obama’s plan failed to grab the Ukrainian natural gas source to have it at the disposal of the US to dispense to Turkey and Europe.
Turkey now feels the need to diversify, as it were, away from the Ukrainian natural gas source. To reduce its almost total dependence on Ukraine for its gas exports, Moscow came up with a plan – South Stream – to transport gas to other parts of Europe. This project advanced until the Kremlin’s capture of the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine in February 2014, when the European Union imposed economic sanctions on Russia. This turn of event opened the door to Russo-Turkish economic cooperation. In December, Putin cancelled the South Stream project, replacing it with the $13.74 billion TurkStream gas pipeline that, by 2020, will carry Russian gas to southern Europe via Bulgaria. This involved laying a pipeline under the Black Sea to emerge in Western Turkey 900 km southwest to carry 15.75 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe annually. A twin pipeline was planned to deliver gas sold to Turkey.
The fact that Turkey now needs its alliance with Russia begs the question of why Turkey is now engaged against the Kurds in Syria which is risking its relationship with Russia. One answer lies in the fact that some Kurds fought against Turkey with the Armenians in the recent wars, even going back to the late 1900s.
1915 was the year of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire genocide against the Armenians. The Kurds were divided in the conflict. Those Kurds who fought against Turkey left a legacy of hatred from Turkey against their modern descendants. There is bad blood between Turkey and the Kurds. And it seems that Erdogan is not willing to let old arguments go unfinished regardless of whether his Russian ally will approve of Turkey invading Syria.
Turkey is on its own track, trying to clean up old wounds and assert to the Islamic population a sense of the return of the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan’s gambit to regain the Empire and its Caliphate for himself is behind his latest moves in Syria. Once again, this shows how the entire earth will be ensconced in Islam’s ancient internal struggle.
PALESTINIAN PEACE
The us has now leased space at a shuttered Jerusalem hotel, but disputes that the move is connected to the anticipated embassy move next year.
In Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood where the US operates its Consular Section, moving crews were spotted bringing boxes and equipment from the US Embassy into the now-shuttered Eden Hotel. Cars with diplomatic license plates were parked outside. The Eden Hotel is located a short distance from the US consulate.
The most recently available public real estate records show the Eden Hotel was last sold in May of 2009 for $2.1 million. The name of the buyer is not listed. A security guard wearing clothing that identified him as working for the US Embassy tried to stop a Fox crew from recording video.
Israel’s Channel Two reported that the US was planning to move consular facilities to the Eden Hotel as part of a plan to open the embassy nearby. But the US Consulate General’s Jerusalem spokesperson denied that was the case.
There are reactions by both sides of the issue. Prime Minister Netanyahu said this week that President Donald Trump’s decision to relocate the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem did a “great service for peace”. But the Palestinians say otherwise and are refusing to even speak with President Trump until he reverses his decision.
The Palestinians have other problems, though. Fatah officials now claim that the other Arab countries are attempting to establish a new Palestinian leadership in Israel. Arab countries recently made contact with prominent personalities and Palestinian officials who live in Jerusalem with the goal of changing the Palestinian leadership to one that would accept the Trump administration’s Mideast peace deal, an official from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party claims.
The countries made the contact “in order to build a Palestinian leadership in Jerusalem prepared to accept the American suggestion for compromise over Jerusalem like accepting the town of Abu Dis next to Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian official refused to say which Arab countries allegedly tried to establish an alternative Palestinian leadership in Jerusalem, but Palestinian sources in the city claimed that they are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
When asked if the Palestinian leadership has succeeded in its recent efforts to find an alternative to the US as a sponsor of the political process, particularly Russia, the EU or even China, Abdelkader broke out laughing and admitted, “No, no, we haven’t found anyone and I don’t think we will find an alternative to the US, so instead of an alternative to the US, we must think about an alternative to the political process.”
For Abdelkader, the alternative to the political process is a so-called intifada, a reference to violence targeting Israel. The Palestinians “must return to popular pacifistic struggle,” he said, while completing the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and making the Palestinian cause a central issue on the agenda of the international community.
Abdelkader said, “The time has come for the Palestinian leadership to understand that the Palestinian Authority must cease to exist. The Palestinian Authority needs to be dismantled and the ball should go back in the court of the PLO and the Palestinian factions because as the Palestinian Authority we turned into Israel’s employees.”
According to Abdelkader, the Palestinians need to understand that in the age of Trump and Pence, a new age has also begun in the political process “and there needs to also be a new Palestinian approach regarding Israel. 2018 will be a particularly difficult year in light of the fact that the countries of Europe are spineless and don’t dare confront the US and Israel over the Palestinian cause, and especially now that there are Arab countries cooperating with Israel and the US These countries are tired of the Palestinian cause. Therefore, we need to understand that there won’t be anyone to rely on but ourselves.”
If that isn’t enough headache for the Palestinians, now comes Netanyahu seeing a definitive end to the issue of Palestinian right of return.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s next political goal is getting the administration of US President Donald Trump to put to bed the idea that Palestinians whose families were driven into exile during the establishment of Israel have a right to return to the Jewish State, Israel’s Hadashot TV news reported on Friday. Israel’s political victories under Trump’s right-wing administration include the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, described by Trump himself as tantamount to taking Jerusalem “off the table” as a negotiating issue between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu said his US counterpart’s approach was “refreshing” and struck a positive tune about the prospects for peace and said there was no alternative to the US as facilitator. Earlier this month Netanyahu backed Trump’s criticisms of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an agency dedicated exclusively to serving Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East, and suggested that US funding to the organization be instead rerouted to the UN body responsible for all other refugees in the world.
Israel has often criticized UNRWA, accusing it of perpetuating the plight of Palestinians by allowing the descendants of first-generation Palestinian refugees — those who fled what is today Israel when it was declared an independent state in 1948 — to maintain refugee status in their host countries.
Netanyahu echoed this criticism, saying it is an “absurdity” that “there are already great-grandchildren of non-refugees” who are today treated by UNRWA as refugees. “This is a body that was established separately 70 years ago, only for the Palestinian refugees, while there is a UN Commission to deal with the problems of the rest of the refugees in the world,” Netanyahu said. The prime minister said UNRWA aims to perpetuate “the narrative of the so-called ‘right of return’ with the aim of eliminating the State of Israel, and therefore, UNRWA must pass from this world. “For the Palestinians, the right for descendants to return to homes they either fled or were forced out of is a prerequisite for any peace agreement with Israel, but it is a demand the Jewish state has rejected out of hand”.
Now we come full circle back around to Iran who is seeking to USe the Palestinian cause against Israel politically and as an excuse for war on Israel’s soil.
The US has cut aid to the Palestinians, but the political expectation is that Iran will pick up where the US left off. Iran may increase the amount of aid to the Palestinians in order to fund and fuel their alternative to the current situation, which is another intifada.