There’s big news in the US this week with Donald Trump announcing his re-election bid for the Presidency in 2020. Israel’s elections are heating up to the point that some careers may end.
I’ll continue looking at the religion vs State issue in Israel along with some Russian’s involvement in the elections.
The US and Iran continue their escalation toward war. Hear what Russia had to say to the US this week and find out what is anticipated for the Israel-US-Russia security meeting next week in Israel.
There will be some news about the Trump peace plan, too.
DISCLAIMER! WHEN I SAY THE WORD “JEWS”, I MEAN THE CHABAD CABAL AND OTHER JEWISH LEADERSHIP AND THOSE FROM THE HOUSE OF JUDAH WHO SUBSCRIBE TO CHABAD’S EVIL DOCTRINES. I DO NOT MEAN ALL JEWISH PEOPLE!
Thank you for listening!
Kimberly Rogers-Brown
BeastWatchNews.com
Theme music by Mishkanim.
These stories and my comments are forthcoming, but…
Before the news begins, I have a point to make so that you will understand why I concentrate on some issues in the news and not others.
The Jerusalem Report focuses on the two end times players and their leaders – The United States of America, end times Babylon headquarters, and Israel, and their leaders the US President and the Israeli Prime Minister. At the moment, these are Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. These are the critical nations and their leaders that must fulfill prophecies leading up to the Great Tribulation and the arrival of our King of Kings and LORD of Lords, Yeshua the Messiah.
Some may have wondered why I don’t report news from other nations, such as South Africa, where critical conditions that point to the coming global upheaval, don’t make it into the weekly Jerusalem Report broadcast. And where once I reported a lot of US and global economic news, even following European political upheavals, that is no longer the case. By the wayside has gone reporting on unexplained phenomena such as UFOs, government leaks from men like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and watching for the enforcement of martial law in the US that we know will happen during the end of days, along with earthquake, dangerous weather and anomalous animal deaths and their critical decreasing populations.
The fact is that the increase in the details of the two major areas of Bible prophecy – war and Antichrist – have increased exponentially to the point that I can’t fit everything in. However, the website does continue to carry these stories, so be sure to check the headlines on the right side often.
The Jerusalem Report, by necessity, is now concentrated on the House of Israel and the House of Judah’s struggles as they move toward the endgame.
I have often pointed out how the US and Israel’s problems seem to parallel each other. From border problems to the political scandals of Trump and Netanyahu to war with the same enemy to drawing together toward a peace deal that I believe will start a war – the Gog-Magog war – in the West Bank. The US and Israel are moving toward their end time chastisement from YHVH and their greatest treasure, His Spirit poured out on them.
The Jerusalem Report presents the fluctuations in the politics and social orders of the US and Israel according to the prophecies, not according to what is politically important in the mainstream media. You can get that politics from Fox and CNN.
Right now, the sisters are going through elections. These are pivotal elections for both nations. Will YHVH keep Trump and Netanyahu in their offices? If so, will that mean that our God and King is ready to move forward with fulfilling the end of days and returning to the earth to rule for a millennium? If not, will that mean that YHVH is delaying Yeshua’s return?
We can only wait and see, but it is the watching, not the knowing, that we are called to do. Yes, YHVH shares with His prophets His plans, but He never provides all the details of how He intends His plan to work. Why is that? It is because He has called us to watch and sound the alarm when we see danger coming. He wants us focused on the coming Kingdom from moment to moment doing what will bring the harvest in for the Kingdom rather than wasting our time nonchalantly, as some would, or frantically preparing, as others would. Neither of these activities forward the return of the Kingdom. However, our continual watching does, especially when we sound the alarm and those that hear the alarm take action to repent and begin living as law abiding, Torah-keeping, citizens of the Kingdom of Israel.
There are two wars that are more important in their approach than either of the elections. The Gog-Magog and King of the North wars. However, we will first look at the Israeli election in which the Jews are struggling over the separation of rabbinic halacha and State – the Jewish version of separation of church and state – and also understand why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the fight of his political career, a fight that could end his time in office.
The outcome of Israel’s September election will open the door for the appearance of the Antichrist. This will be true whether or not Israel becomes a religious State. Let me explain.
If the Haredi lose, expect them to rise up to show their strength in Israel by bringing forward the Jewish messiah that will enforce the religious State on those who don’t want it. They can do this, if they choose, because the religious Rabbinate has more control in Israel than is suspected by many people.
Or if they win, the Haredi will not hesitate to solidify Israel’s religious State status by introducing their Jewish messiah to the world.
Either way, and whether I am right or wrong, the Jewish messiah is coming, but in the meantime, Israelis are fighting over religion vs State.
That’s my prophecy focus announcement for this week.
A Haaretz op-ed reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently tweeted a promise that Israel wouldn’t be a state of Jewish law. The public doesn’t believe him. Avigdor Lieberman doesn’t believe him, either.
In Israel there’s a clear trend of an increasing presence of religion and religious coercion in matters such as marriage, divorce, conversion, burial, Shabbat observance, the exclusion of women and gender segregation. All these things have been increasing under Netanyahu, who forged an alliance with the ultra-Orthodox.
This trend relies entirely on the political power of the religious community, and on Likud’s surrender to its partners in the governing coalition …and Lieberman has now said he and his Yisrael Beytenu Party would only join a unity national government of Likud and Blue and White, without the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties and the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party, in a statement made last Saturday night.
Because Blue and White leader Benny Gantz would only take his party into a government led by anyone in Likud other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Liberman’s promise was seen as an attempt to oust him. The significance of his threat is that if the Right does not end up winning 61 seats without Yisrael Beytenu, Netanyahu’s career could be over.
Even if the Union of Right-Wing Parties ultimately receives the education and transportation portfolios, ministerial appointments are just a small part of a much deeper process that includes draft exemptions for the Haredim, larger budgets for yeshivot and rabbis, and strengthening the Rabbinate’s and the Orthodox establishment’s monopoly on matters including kashrut, Shabbat and conversion.
Some in Israel believe the Rabbinate is weakening, not strengthening, in the areas of governing public spaces, culture and the media, free and liberal Israel is winning, to the delight of the large and free segment of Israelis who wish to live normal lives without coercion, discrimination or segregation.
Two examples of the weakening of the Haredi in the secular viewpoint are, first, the Eurovision final was held in Tel Aviv on a Saturday night, after Shabbat was over, but the staging of the entire competition entailed a tremendous amount of Shabbat violations. And, second, this month brought the Jerusalem [Gay] Pride Parade into the heart of the holy city. Tens of thousands of people took part, and the event enjoyed broad public support. These are two important events that drew extensive media coverage and were much discussed.For the most part, the Haredim chose to keep quiet and shun large protests and threats. They chose restraint, which makes one wonder how the Haredim, who can bring an entire country to a standstill over the transport of a transformer for the electric company on Shabbat, could remain silent amid what they consider abominations.
The Eurovision production involved major violations of the sanctity of Shabbat, and the [Gay] Pride parade is viewed by the Haredim as an abomination. What happened in these instances was something else – Haredi surrender. It was a marking of the limits of the Haredim’s power and evidence that even now, a time of success at the polls, and euphoria and confidence in the religious community, they realize their limitations and fear the power of free culture to penetrate their world.
Here’s my opinion. It is a mistake for secular Jews to think the Haredim are weakening. They may simply be biding their time in this heightened time of division between non-religious, non-Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Jews. If the non-Orthodox fail to overturn the Netanyahu coalition in September, Israel may be in for much more upheaval than they are having right now.
Returning to the Haaretz article, the coalition structure of government in Israel, combined with Likud’s willingness to surrender to Haredi demands, gives [them] disproportionate power over legislation, the running of government ministries, the military draft and the budget. But they can’t obscure the fact that in Israeli society a majority still exists unwilling to live in a state governed by religious law. This majority, which hasn’t successfully converted its numbers into political power, can still make itself felt in the street, in the free market and in culture and leisure activity. Here we still have power, the power we lack in the Knesset.
Avigdor Lieberman may have begun to grasp this. In Israel as a whole, not just among immigrants from the former Soviet Union, there is a majority against closing down the country on Shabbat, against discrimination against women and the LGBT community, against religious coercion and exemptions for Haredi young men regarding the draft and the job market.
Neither religious nor non-religious Jews obey the Law of Moses. While religious Jews appear to obey the Sabbath, the truth is that they have added to the Torah to the tune of millions of laws on the Sabbath alone. The Shulchan Aruch is a 3-volume set of laws governing the Sabbath, laws that range from how to close a refrigerator door when the light was not turned off before the Sabbath started to how to pick your nose to an injunction against brushing your hair.
Israel is seeing, and showing the world, the problem with religion in this election and the reason Yeshua must return to rule as King. His Kingdom is not religious. YHVH did not create a religion; He created a nation from people He selected from among all the peoples of the earth. His is a nation of laws as given in the Torah. Simple laws that are easy, not difficult, and that are designed to show His character and conform our character to His.
The religious controversy, no matter its outcome, will shape Israel’s future in ways that are difficult to imagine in their fullness.
The Haredim are planning a push back to Lieberman to “tell the Israeli public about their cooperation with Lieberman” and demonstrate that despite his attacks, he has helped and supported the haredi factions for years.
“Lieberman is picking a fight with the haredim,” one official of a haredi faction told Israel Hayom on Sunday.
“We won’t give him one. He wants us to attack him, to drag the discourse to the issues of supermarkets [opening on Shabbat], and all those other disputes. He wants to become a sort of defender of the secular against the haredim, but Lieberman is a liar. All these years, he has worked with the haredim on a lot of issues. He is lying to his public and we’ll expose that,” the official said.
The haredi factions claim that Lieberman cooperated with the haredim on a number of legislative initiatives, and one haredi official even described Lieberman as a “friend.”
“He worked with us against [secular mayoral candidate Ofer] Berkovitch in Jerusalem, and on a lot of other projects. When necessary, he also knew enough to join a government that said it would not promote civil marriage. With him, it’s all talk,” the haredi official said.
RUSSIA AS PLAYER IN ISRAEL’S ELECTION?
Forasmuch as Russia interfered in US elections, Russia is doing the same in Israel except with this caveat: Russia – or at least Russian Jews – have been invited into the Israeli elections.
Al-monitor.com reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s son, Yair, tweeted on May 29th, “My brothers from the Soviet Union, Liberman is spitting on you. The Likud is your home.”
What appeared to be an off-handed and inappropriate tweet looks now be just the beginning.
About a week ago, Netanyahu appointed Likud Central Committee member Attorney Ariel Bulshtein as his “special adviser on Russian immigrants.” Avigdor Lieberman derided the appointment, claiming that “Netanyahu is in a state of hysteria from all the pressure.” In response, the Likud party released statements and posted on social media in the Russian language.
Coalition coordinator Miki Zohar of the Likud told Al-Monitor that the Likud’s election campaign in the Russian sector will start soon, and that it is quite possible a prominent Russian-speaking Israeli will join the party.
“Immigrants who arrived from the former Soviet bloc countries make up a wise, intelligent community,” he said. “They know that what really matters is who becomes prime minister, and not some party or other. Liberman moved to the left while we are working to make sure that Benjamin Netanyahu will be prime minister. He is very popular among Russian speakers, so I am sure that they will make the right decision and come over to us. Our party already has quite a few representatives of this community, such as [Knesset speaker] Yuli Edelstein and [Minister] Ze’ev Elkin, and it is possible that one or even two more will join us”.
So, it’s not the Russian government that Likud wants, but the Russian Jews that Israel’s Rabbinate has been sidelining for years.
Before we leave discussion of Israel, here is one of Netanyahu’s latest successes in his steps forward in Golan and the West Bank: Welcome to Trump Heights.
Do you remember that town that Trump was to receive in his name in Golan in exchange for obtaining oil drilling rights from Israel? Well, here is how this turned out so far.
In huge gilded letters (what else?), on a piece of synthetic lawn (of course), a large sign was erected in the Golan Heights. But, in actuality, no new community named for U.S. President Donald Trump was actually established on Sunday in the Golan Heights.
Jpost.com said the “Ramat Trump” sign was unveiled on a plot of synthetic grass near the existing community of Kela.
Business Insider agrees. Trump Heights does not exist. In a ceremony on Sunday, Netanyahu unveiled the community’s sign complete with interlaced Israeli and US flags, and said the move honored “a very great friend of the State of Israel.“
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman tweeted on Sunday that this was the first time Israel has dedicated a village to a sitting president since Harry Truman in 1949.
Haaretz says Trump Heights is a conceptual decision. There is no funding. There is no planning. There is no location and there is really no committed decision.
Indeed, it is unclear if the community will ever be established. Fox News outright slammed the ceremony and sign as nothing more than a PR stunt.
DebkaFile had this to say: The new community is planned to be a picturesque hill resort, located near Kibbutz Gonen on the 959 Route in beautiful natural scenery. It has a view of Mt. Hermon to the north and the Hulah Valley to the southwest. Unfortunately, Trump Heights is also within easy range of shelling or armed drone attacks from across the border and may tempt Iran and its proxies to repeat the exercise Yemen’s Houthi rebels performed last week. They targeted Abha, a Saudi holiday resort in the Assir mountains overlooking the Red Sea and embedded in the largest wild bird colony in the region. Abha is a favorite summer getaway for privileged Saudi Arabians. Still, the fate of Trump Heights at this time is irrelevant compared with the problems facing the two leaders.
And this last statement, my friends, is why I wanted you to know why the Jerusalem Report focuses on the US and Israel and their two leaders. I’m not the only one who recognizes where the focus should be. Thank you, Debka.
That last statement is right! Both Trump and Netanyahu are facing some real battles ahead. We will have to wait and see who wins the election wars.
Trump, for his part, responded to [Netanyahu’s] gesture on Twitter: “Thank you PM @Netanyahu and the State of Israel for this great honor!”
IRAN & TRUMP’S MISSION CREEP
Last week, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, administered a brazen insult to the United States when he told visiting Japanese PM Shinzo Abe that he did not consider President Donald Trump “worthy” of an exchange of messages with him. He went on to say that Trump’s promise not to seek regime change in Iran was “a lie” and he did not believe Washington’s offer of “honest negotiations” with Tehran.
This week, it looks as if Khamenei is on to something about Donald Trump and his plans for war with Iran. Pentagon sources report that CENTCOM, in line with its responsibility for guaranteeing security and free navigation in Gulf waters, applied for an extra 6,000 US troops for the region, along with more destroyers, submarines and Patriot air defense batteries. US President Trump pared this figure down to 1,000 US troops, in addition to the 1,500 he released last month.
Also, Debka reported this week that US intelligence learns from a highly credible source that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have completed preparations for a large-scale assault on an important Saudi oil facility within days. On Monday, June 17, the aides of senior US congress members were summoned to the White House for a briefing on this intelligence and informed that this time the administration is gearing up for a military response. US-Iranian tensions in the region shot up again after abating for a few days, amid spreading talk of a White House decision to resort to US military action against Iran.
It appears that the data reaching US intelligence has not named which Saudi oil facility is in Iran’s sights for the impending attack, but stressed that it will be a lot more damaging than the previous sabotage operations on six oil tankers. Saudi Arabia has placed all its oil installations, terminals, ports and oil fields on maximum alert.
Let’s take a look at theories presented by some that the oil tanker attack, which the US blamed on Iran, was actually a US false flag attack.
Jpost.com scrutinized this theory saying, Iran’s Press TV claimed that the attack might be part of a “false flag” that would enable the US to attack Iran: “US and allies use incidents like tanker attacks to wage war.”
I’ll have something to say about this in a little bit.
In this narrative, the attack on the tankers is similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 that led to wider US involvement in Vietnam. It is thus linked to a long history of supposed conspiracies and false narratives that were used to push America into war, from 1898 to today. Theorists also linked the attack to a US bombing of a Chinese embassy during the war with Serbia in 1999.
The theory is that some shadowy groups may want war between the US and Iran. “They may be willing to pay both sides to fight each other,” one commentator asserted.
Part of the theory proposes that oil tankers were purposely sent into the Gulf to provoke Iran.
Trita Parsi retweeted a theory that links the Gulf of Oman incident to the Gulf of Tonkin when US warships were attacked off the coast of North Vietnam. Justin Halpen claims: “My dad was on the U.S.S. Maddox, the boat that was ‘attacked’ that started the Vietnam War. He said no one could understand why they were in the Tonkin gulf until one officer at breakfast goes, ‘they sent us here to get blown up so they can start a war they really want to start.’” The difference, as one person pointed out, is that these were tankers using an international shipping lane.
Another proposed theory was that it really was an Iranian attack because the Iranians who did it are so smart, they count on lack of public trust of the Trump administration in US to allow them to get away with it.
Ariane Tabatabai noted that “if the attack was perpetrated by Iran, it may have been banking precisely on lack of trust in the US.” She also concluded that “when you keep calling wolf, at some point you lose the credibility needed for real situations.”
Are there any good reasons, sane reasons, to believe that the Trump administration perpetrated a false flag attack on the oil tankers besides these conspiracy theories? Aside from it having become an event that allowed for more mission creep – that 1,000 more troops and weapons to the Middle East – let’s go to Bloomberg’s op-ed from last Thursday for some saner reasoning. Bloomberg suggested the attack could have been a false flag, noting it would benefit “the people who want to see the U.S. step up its campaign against Iran and move from an economic war to a military one.”
Who is likely to have been behind the false flag campaign? This Bloomberg article lists two groups who might benefit from the attacks on the oil tankers. Iran and the United States.
If Tehran is attacking tankers leaving the Persian Gulf, it sends a message that transit through the world’s most important choke point for global oil flows is not safe without its consent. If Iran is pushed to the brink economically by sanctions, it will not go quietly. Other nations in the region will bear the cost of disruptions to their own oil exports, while America and its allies will have to cope with higher crude prices and disruptions to supplies.
There is another group that will benefit from the incident: the people who want to see the U.S. step up its campaign against Iran and move from an economic war to a military one. There are plenty of those, both in the U.S. and among its allies in the Persian Gulf and wider Middle East regions.
The timing of the attacks also raises questions.
They come as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is visiting Tehran, with the blessing of Trump. On Wednesday, Abe urged Tehran to avoid conflict at all costs and pledged to do his utmost to ease tensions. The tankers damaged on Thursday were carrying cargoes related to Japan.
This would seem very clumsy timing from a country seeing the first tangible signs of any easing of the crippling sanctions imposed by the Americans. But it is absolutely understandable if you’re someone whose ultimate goal is to derail any easing of tensions between the two nations, and to effect regime change in Tehran. Whoever is behind the attacks is no friend of Iran.
This Bloomberg article suggests that the attack was not a US false flag, but a real Iranian attack for the purpose of sending the US a message and also for Iran to have bargaining chips for negotiations with the US in the future.
We have to ask ourselves is Trump trying to pull a “George Bush/John Bolton” style uptick in war? Most certainly, he is doing the mission creep by increasing the US presence in the Middle East a little at a time. Is he headed toward the 100,000 troops John Bolton requested? Well, if there are enough attacks with increasing damage requiring increasing troop deployments, then, the answer could be ‘yes’.
The probability that it really was Iran and not the US behind those attacks requires a troop increase in the Middle East. Either way, war is upticking again and the US needs to be careful because Iran does have some surprises in store for the US.
Four secret assets account for Iran’s success in pulling off half a dozen attacks on US allies in the past month, peaking in the sabotage of two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, June 13.
Before the four tankers were sabotaged on May 12 and 14 outside the UAE port of Fujairah, no intelligence agency, whether American, Gulf Arab or Israeli, suspected this attack was coming. Intelligence data spoke of Iran activating Shiite militias to attack US military bases near the Syrian-Iraqi border, whereas four of the six hits until now targeted Gulf oil facilities and none aimed at US military targets.
Tehran managed to keep its plans hidden from the eyes of hostile spy agencies and catch them all by surprise.
High professional standards of operation: Iranian marine and special forces units assigned to these attacks were highly proficient. Attaching limpet mines to the hulls of four tankers (in May) and detonating them in precise order, undetected by US or other forces present in the region, called for top military skills. The same applied to the rockets, which were precisely guided to explode at a point close to the US embassy in Baghdad without damaging the building. It achieved its exact purpose, which was to avoid causing harm while warning the Americans that trouble was ahead. The rockets aimed at Israeli military positions on the Hermon were likewise programed to be harmless.
The shouts of “false flag” from liberal pundits or those who dislike Donald Trump may be detrimental to the truth which is that Iran has become a formidable enemy against the US, an enemy that Americans should be viewing with seriousness instead of dismissal under the phrase “false flag”.
The article further says, the initial attacks caused no casualties and no irreversible damage to the four tankers opposite Fujairah port. The next strikes against Saudi oil pipeline pumping stations delayed the flow through the east-west pipeline but the damage was quickly repaired. However, the June 13 attack on the two supertankers which caught fire in the Gulf of Oman was a dangerous escalation. Whereas Iranian soldiers were caught on video removing an unexploded limpet mine from the Japanese Kokuka Courageous to remove the evidence, witnesses aboard the tanker denied that the explosion was caused by mines and claimed it was caused by “flying objects.”
This incident is under investigation. Military experts maintain that whether it was caused by magnetic mines or a torpedo, the explosive must have been planted by saboteurs on fast boats or mini submarines, which crept up to the tankers undetected by the US, British or French warships patrolling this key international oil route.
Herein lies the new problem with Iran: Its precise weaponry. All the weapons the Iranians have used hitherto have operated faultlessly, none missing their mark. DEBKA’s military sources note that until now, no one had appreciated that Iran was in possession of a weapon systems capable of hitting a target with only a 1.5-meter margin of error. It was first discovered on Wednesday, June 12, when Yemeni Houthi rebels fired Iran’s new Soumar cruise missile at the southwestern Saudi airport of Abha, directly hitting and destroying the control tower. This incident revealed that Iran had delivered this cruise missile to the Yemen rebels, or components for assembling it, so crossing another red line. The worry in the US and Israel now is that Tehran may now decide to arm its Lebanese proxy, Hizballah, with the precise Soumar cruise missile, which carries half a ton of explosives and has a range of up to 2,500 kilometers.
This new brazenness on the part of Iran not only spells trouble for the US, but more importantly, it spells trouble for Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia and other North African nations and any Sunni Muslim populations that exist within them.
Another source of Iran’s brazenness could be coming from its recently strained relations with Russia. Perhaps Iran’s frustration with Russia’s overtures to Israel is the reason it is willing to start a war that would necessarily bring Russia back to its side. Russia is not willing to risk losing predominance in Syria and is exactly what would be at stake in the alliance between Russia and Iran if Russia moves too close to alliance with Israel and US.
While few expect the advisors’ meeting this month in Jerusalem to produce immediate results, American and Israeli officials hope that it could prepare the ground for a deal that would further weaken Russian ties to Iran and reduce, if not terminate, Iran’s presence in Syria.
Among multiple scenarios being bounced around, some analysts believe a possible deal could involve Russia pushing Iran out of Syria, a key US and Israeli demand, in exchange for the lifting of at least some American and European sanctions against Russia and US acceptance of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a similar Russian proposal last November.
The officials [also] suggest that a recent Russian refusal to sell Iran its most advanced S-400 missile defense system was because it could fuel regional tensions, as well as tacit Russian acquiescence to Israeli military strikes against Iranian and Lebanese Shi’ite militia Hezbollah targets in Syria, that could open the door to a potential deal.
Iran has denied wanting to acquire the Russian system, while Russia has officially demanded that Israel halt its attacks and respect Syrian sovereignty.
Bolton’s discussions with Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s Security Council, could not come at a worse moment for Iran. The Islamic Republic is struggling to dampen the effect of harsh US sanctions following the Trump administration’s withdrawal last year from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program.
Analysts Udi Dekel and Carmit Valensi argued in a report published last month by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) that despite public statements to the contrary, Russia, like Israel, rejects a withdrawal of US forces from Syria.
After announcing a complete pullback in February, Trump has since agreed to keep several hundred US troops in the country.
Dekel and Valensi said a US withdrawal would strengthen Iran and force Russia to allow Iran to take control of oil fields in the east of the country.
Russia may be a mediator in Syria now – and that is questionable – but if it comes to war with Iran, Russia will have to choose sides. The US will choose Israel’s side. Russia will be forced into choosing Iran’s.
The Al-Monitor article continues: Writing in Haaretz, columnist Zvi Bar’el suggested that Russia and Iran differ over the endgame in Syria. “Russia has no intention of simply returning Syria to Assad’s control,” Bar’el said. He added that Russia sees Syria as a base from which to forge closer ties to the Gulf and Egypt.
Neither does Iran want Syria to be sovereignly controlled by Bashar Al-Assad. Right now, Al-Assad is controlled by the IRGC. Iran won’t easily let its influence slip, but would rather have Syria as a vassal, part of its 4+1 Coalition.
As for Russia wanting to use Syria as a base to forge closer ties to the Gulf nations and Egypt, such has been the case since the 1950s. In 1956, when Egypt’s President Nasser went to war with Britain over the Suez Canal, Russia almost went to war with Britain, too. That was going to be a nuclear war including France and Israel!
Al-Monitor: A possible litmus test of the potential of the talks between the national security advisers may be whether Russia accedes to an Israeli request not to give Syria full control of the S-300 anti-missile system, the equivalent of the US Patriot batteries, which Moscow has already sold and delivered.
Israeli officials have warned their Russian counterparts that once fully controlled by Syrian forces, the S-300 would be a legitimate target.
Israel and Russia agreed four years ago to coordinate military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally exchanging fire.
Israel, however, last year rejected a Russian offer to ensure that Iranian forces would not move within 100 kilometers of the Golan Heights, which were recently recognized as Israeli territory by the US. Accepting the Russian offer would have amounted to tacit acceptance of an Iranian presence in Syria.
Dekel and Valensi noted in their report that Israeli forces had reduced the number of attacks on Iranian targets in Syria in a bid to improve chances of exploiting Russian-Iranian strains.
“There is a window of opportunity that allows Israel to try … with Russia and the United States … to formulate and achieve shared interests that it has with the two superpowers, most importantly increasing stability in Syria and instituting governmental reforms in Syria, along with reducing Iranian influence there,” Dekel and Valensi said.
The meeting that is scheduled to take place from June 24-26, 2019.
In the meantime, Russia has asked the US to stop provoking Iran. The way Russia sees the situation is that the US increasing its troop presence in the Middle East “cannot be assessed as anything but a conscious course to provoke war”.
You decide. Was last week’s tanker attacks a US false flag or an actual Iranian attack? In the long run, it may not matter. War is coming.
LATEST PEACE PLANS PLAN
President Trump’s special envoy Jason Greenblatt said Sunday the political component to the plan for peace could be postponed until a new Israeli government is formed. The expectation is that the next date for unrolling the plan would be around Nov. 6.
In light of the turmoil in Israel’s election, and given that the Trump administration absolutely needs Netanyahu in place to make the proposed peace plan work, a delay makes sense.
Greenblatt said, however, that the Bahrain peace conference will go ahead as planned.
Elections with questionable and serious outcomes, wars and peace plans for Israel is why the Jerusalem Report keeps watching every week.