Jerusalem News (3 September, 2014, 8 Elul, 5774)
Contents:
1. Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine
2. Hamas was Defeated, Until the Next Time by Efraim Inbar
3. ISIS Extremism is the Same as that of Saudia and Iran
 The Religion of War by Rachel Ehrenfeld
 ===============================
===============================
To Read Text Plerase Scroll Down
1. Putin Threatens Nuclear War Over Ukraine
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/31/putin-threatens-nuclear-war-over-ukraine.html
Raising the spectre of nuclear war over Ukraine, Russia's Vladimir Putin is playing a new, and dangerous, game.
On Friday, as Russian Federation tanks and troops poured across the border into eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin talked about his country's most destructive weaponry. 'I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations,' he said. 'This is a reality, not just words.' Russia, he told listeners, is 'strengthening our nuclear deterrence forces.'
That same day, Putin used a term for eastern Ukraine meaning 'New Russia.' So when he refers to repelling 'any aggression against Russia' and speaks of 'nuclear deterrence,' as he did on Friday, the Russian president is really warning us he will use nukes to protect his grab of Ukrainian territory.
For more than a generation, nuclear weapons were considered defensive only. In a few short sentences on Friday, however, Putin made these devices offensive in nature, just another tool to be employed by an aggressor. And to highlight his threat, on Aug. 14 at Yalta, the Crimean city he had seized this year, Putin mentioned 'surprising the West with our new developments in offensive nuclear weapons about which we do not talk yet.'
Also in Yalta, where the Duma was meeting, the Russian leader spoke about renouncing the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The treaty outlaws ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles and is a foundation of the post-Cold War peace.
'I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations. This is a reality, not just words.
It is one thing to talk about withdrawing from the pact, Putin has been doing that since 2007, it is another to violate it, which Putin has apparently been doing since 2008, when Russia began testing cruise missiles again. And when the State Department's Rose Gottemoeller raised the concern in May of last year, Russian officials tried to shut down the dialogue. According to The New York Times, they said that they had looked into the matter and consider the issue to be closed.
'Administration officials said the upheaval in Ukraine pushed the issue to the back burner,' the paper reported of the INF violation. Putin, with his comments Friday, just moved it to the front of the stove.
And not just in the European kitchen. If Putin manages to intimidate the West with his not-so-veiled promises to incinerate Ukraine's defenders, other aggressors may think they too can employ his threatening tactics. For instance, both North Korea and China have recently talked about unleashing Armageddon.
Perhaps we can ignore the ranting of the Kim regime, but Chinese nuclear threats are particularly worrisome. China's flag officers have, for two decades, been issuing belligerent warnings about Beijing's willingness to use nukes to seize Japan's outlying islands or Taiwan, but the threats took on an especially belligerent tone last October.
With no apparent provocation, the main outlets of Chinese state media 'People's Daily, China Central Television, and PLA Daily, among others ran identical articles that month about how Chinese submarines launching ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads could kill tens of millions of Americans in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland in Maine, and the Navy towns of Annapolis and Norfolk. Those Chinese reports also talked about radiation deaths in Chicago.
On Thursday, a nuclear exchange was, at least for most people, inconceivable. Yet now that a reckless Putin has raised the stakes on Friday by making nukes just another appliance of aggression, an incident of mass slaughter looks dangerously real and perilously close.
===============================
===============================
2. Hamas was Defeated, Until the Next Time
by Efraim Inbar
BESA Center Perspectives
September 1, 2014
http://www.meforum.org/4789/hamas-was-defeated-until-the-next-time
Extracts:
Hamas was clearly defeated by Israel in "Operation Protective Edge,' but not destroyed. Its destruction was not a goal of Israel's military campaign. What Israel wanted was a weakened Hamas to continue to rule Gaza. The separation between Gaza and the West Bank serves Israel's interest in weakening the Palestinian national movement, which has been and remains a mortal enemy (not a peace partner), at least for the foreseeable future.
About one third of Hamas' missile arsenal and most of its missile production infrastructure was destroyed. Most of the attack tunnels (32) were probably demolished, and almost one thousand Hamas fighters and a few of its leaders were eliminated. More targeted killings and an earlier removal of some of the self-imposed constraints on the use of airpower might have speeded Hamas' acceptance of a ceasefire and might have spared Gaza much destruction.
The Hamas defeat is clear, because it finally capitulated to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal that Hamas had been rejected since July 15. The unlimited ceasefire, as Egypt and Israel demanded, constituted the precondition for future negotiations, and it had no input from Qatar and Turkey, both Hamas supporters. All crossings into Gaza will continue to be controlled by Israel and Egypt, making sure that the rearmament of Hamas will not be easy. Egypt even forced Hamas to swallow a bitter pill such as the presence of the Palestinian Authority (PA) at the Rafah crossing. The Hamas "victory speeches" cannot erase the fact that Hamas eventually gave in unconditionally to Egyptian-Israeli pressure.
Despite much criticism abroad of Israel's "disproportionate" use of force, Israel was allowed for 50 days to pulverize Hamas installations and their surroundings. It was clear that a large number of Arab states tacitly supported the Israeli endeavor to administer a heavy blow on Hamas. Important international actors, such as India, China and Russia, were rather mute on the Gaza issue for their own reasons. Moreover, the US, the EU and parts of the international community demanded demilitarization of Gaza too. This is of course not attainable without collecting Hamas weaponry by force, but it delegitimizes Hamas violence, while lending legitimacy to Israel's defensive measures.
Any assessment of "Protective Edge" must also calculate the cost to Israel of this offensive. The "Iron Dome" system neutralized almost all rockets fired at Israel's population centers. Most of the country was little affected by the Gaza war, although the sound of sirens probably had a negative psychological effect. Disciplined behavior on part of the civilian public minimized the loss of lives. But the death toll was 72 (over sixty soldiers) and hundreds of wounded. Limited damage was caused primarily to property in the proximity of the Gaza. Direct and indirect costs of the war that amount to several billions of dollars are bearable for the strong Israeli economy.
Unfortunately, the military campaign against Hamas underscored tensions in US-Israel relations. The ambiguous attitudes and actions toward Israel on part of the US administration signal less willingness to back its Middle East ally. Moreover, the US was largely irrelevant in the Gaza outcome, as it foolishly tried to involve Turkey and Qatar in management of the crisis and it failed to perceive the centrality of Egypt in the Gaza equation. The Gaza war was another example of the confused Obama administration foreign policy towards the Middle East. The American misfortune is also an Israeli loss as Jerusalem needs and prefers a strong and relevant America.
===============================
===============================
3. ISIS Extremism is the Same as that of Saudia and Iran
ACD Blog
 The Religion of War by Rachel Ehrenfeld
http://acdemocracy.org/the-religion-of-war/?utm_source=The+Religion+of+War&utm_campaign=religion+of+war&utm_medium=email
Extracts:
American and European leaders are "shocked" that the Islamic State (IS) barbarians beheaded two American reporters, Steven J. Sotloff and James Foley. Their "shock" is disingenuous and troubling. They react as though such barbarism is something new among Islamists. It is anything but. And if not earlier, then certainly in the aftermath of al Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, a spike in Muslim groups' and individuals' barbaric crimes has been reported worldwide.
Â
Islamist beheading is nothing new. Open a Quran in any translation to find the instructions....
Here are a few examples: The Book of Muhammad, verse 4 (47:4) - "Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), strike off their heads; at length; then when you have made wide Slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives: thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens."
According to the Book of Al-Maeda, verse 33 (5:33) -"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."
The Book of Al-Anfal, verse 12 ( 8:12) - "I (Allah) will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off."
The IS and other jihadists are doing their best to follow the Quran's barbaric instructions, using machetes, the popular modern version of the Prophet's 7th-century sword. Indeed, a sword features in the national flags of Iran--the center of Shia radicalism, and Saudi Arabia--the center of Sunni/Wahhabi radicalism. The sword is not merely a symbol. The sword represents WAR. the most important value for this radical regimes.Â
The Saudi kingdom carries out barbaric physical punishments today as they have done since Ibn Saud founded it in 1932. Cutting off hands of thieves, stoning to death, beheading and crucifying those who violated the sharia, are carried out regularly.
Under Hassan Rouhani's, the new "moderate" Iranian president, the number of officially reported executions increased from 580 to 687 (by the end of 2013 and in a more rapid pace since), the majority of which (68%, or 458) were carried out after Rouhani ascended to power, according to Iran's Human Rights organization. The mullahs seem to prefer hanging.
When American politicians and talking-heads point out that Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and Qatar (47% Salafi/Wahhabi) are warning of the more radical Islamic State, take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind that the Saudis fear for their kingdom and Qatar has been funding Al Qaeda, al- Nusra, Hamas, and their ilk for many decades..
===============================
===============================