BACK TO THE FUTURE: WILL TURKEY RULE SYRIA AND LEBANON? WILL EGYPT RULE GAZA? WILL JORDAY RULE JUDEA-SAMARIA? AGAIN???

AN ALL TOO LIKELY CONSEQUENCE OF THE SO-CALLED "ARAB SPRING" IS A "BACK TO THE FUTURE" SCENARIO IN TERMS OF MIDDLE EAST POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY.

Until the Brittish occuppied "Palestine" circa World War One, it was the Turks who ruled and called the territory inclusive of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria by the name "Syria".

In 1948 Jordan invaded and occupied Judea-Samaria, preventing a UN sanctioned call for a "State of Palestine" from being realized into existence alongside the newly recognized State of Israel. Also in 1948 Egypt invaded and occupied Gaza, some of which at the time was the legal property of Jews.

Egypt remained in Gaza until Israel kicked out the Egyptians in the 1956 Sinai Campaign, and Jordan remained in Judea-Samaria until Israel defeated the Jordanians in 1967 in the Six Day War.

If Assad and Alawite power (however cruel) should fail in Syria, then it must be considered that Turkey -- even while Turkey itself is in the midst of a Sunni shakedown/reformation of it's famed secular military -- could step in to stabilize the situation in Syria.

If Hamas and the various Gaza terrorist groups continue to terrorize Israel (simultaneously placing Egypt itself at risk, and using Egypt so blatantly and embarrassingly as an uncontrolled terrorist operations base), then it must be considered that Egypt -- even as it seeks to reform it's own Government amidst internal unrest -- could step in to stabilize the situation in Gaza.

If unrest causes the Palestinian Authority to lose it's grip in Judea-Samaria, then Jordan -- even while already struggling with it's own population's unrest, which includes two-million Iraqi refugees -- could step in to stabilize the situation in Judea-Samaria.

Is it "Back to the Future" for Israel -- a Turkish border to the north/northeast, an eastward inwards-denting Jordanian border including East Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria, and an expanded Gaza-inclusive Egyptian border to the south?

Will Israel be faced with Western pressure to surrender the Golan and the Sheva Farms in order to make a peace deal with an expanded Turkey?

Will Israel be faced with Western pressure to see Gaza completely under Egyptian domain?

Will Israel be faced with Western pressure to surrender East Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria to Jordan? There are already Israeli's. who favor such a deal with Jordan.

Today marks Five-Years-and-FIfty-Two-Days in the Captivity of Gilad Shalit.

EREV ROSH HASHANA 5771

PROMISES AND UNCERTAINTY ON DAY 1559 OF GILAD SHALIT'S CAPTIVITY. WILL ROSH HASHANA MARK DAY 1560?

Gilad Shalit is not yet free, remains unseen and unheard, there is no trustworthy witness to his being alive nor promise of his freedom....

Prime Minister Netanyahu now speaks of "The West Bank" and not of JUDEA-SAMARIA, and he shakes hands with Mahmud Abbas....

Hamas fires rocket after rocket into Israel and dances joyously en masse in the streets of Gaza (literally, not figuratively!) as five Jewish souls (two men and two women, one pregnant) fall victim to a rain of terrorist bullets in "The West Bank"....

Under Israeli protection the PAL prospers and the ghost of Yassir Arafat sits across the table from Prime Minister Netanyahu and is spoken to as a legitimate "partner in peace"....

This "spirit of reconciliation" occurs against the backdrop of the sounding of the morning Shofar throughout the month of ELUL, the month in which we seek to draw closer to HaShem, a month in which we recite Selichot, the month in which we examine ourselves in regards to the year that is nearly gone, the month in which we seek to transcend self-absorption and participate in acknowledging His Creation. We stand poised to ask HaShem that we be inscribed in the Book of Life for a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, enlightened New Year. Will this Rosh HaShana mark captive day 1560 for Gilad Shalit?

May Gilad Shalit be free. May Jerusalem never again be divided. May Judea-Samaria be formally rejoined to Israel. May the ERUV RAV seek new homes elsewhere, and may all those, who truly remember and love Zion, find their way home.

B'SHANA HABA B'YERUSHALAYIM!

DAY 1473, WEEK 9, SIGNIFICANT MINERAL DEPOSITS IN AFGHANISTAN, MESHAAL AND ABBAS, HELEN THOMAS, AND $400 MILLION TO P.L.O. FROM OBAMA (GEZINT A'HEYT)

TODAY IS DAY 1473 IN THE CAPTIVITY OF GILAD SHALIT. Week #10 has started with respect to the Gulf Oil Spill. I throw that information in here only because the Gulf Oil Tragedy will have consequences for decades to come, is tantamount in scale to a major military attack on the USA, and may be interpreted as an example of British impact. Make what analogy you will to the Middle East. And, while we are counting, let us remind the world that it should be counting the days of Shalit's Captivity, not only the days of the Gulf Oil Spill.

In different but similar expressions to Charlie Rose, Khalid Meshaal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO have essentially stated the same thing, namely that Israel must go.. Where to? They do not say. But, Helen Thomas was clear and direct, right to the face of a Rabbi: go back to Russia, Poland, Germany, and the USA! Meshaal said two things: (1) Hamas will make peace with Israel, when Israel has left the Occupied Territories (read, when Israel has left the Middle East, as according to Hamas's Charter, all of Israel and all of Palestine constitute Israeli Occupied Territory); (2) Hamas will "accept" Israel's retreat to pre-1967 borders and will then offer the Palestinian Arabs a plebiscite on the recognition of the existence of Israel. Abbas on the other hand has also stated that Israel must return to the pre-1967 borders, after which time land-swapping might be considered. For two ostensible enemies, these two sure seem to sing the same song. But, why not? They all belong to the Muslim Brotherhood! As to the Helen Thomas Affair, perhaps some good may come of it, if discussions of the matter are sufficiently widespread to educate the world as the the genuine identity of Jews and their right to Israel by dispelling the myth that Jews are European converts and not original Jewish natives by heritage.

Major mineral deposits are reported to have been discovered in Afghanistan into the billions of dollars. Now Afghanistan will have riches other than poppy seeds, hashish, and beautiful mountain scenerry. But, protected and theoretically democratic thanks to the USA and Allies, there is no requirement that Afghanistan recognize Israel, nor is there any similar requirement made of Iraq. But, whoever said that the USA and Allies were devoid of hypocrisy?

May God Bless President Obama, who is doing such a great job of seeing things the way they are and doing the right lawyerly things. Oil keeps gushing into the Gulf from the same busted pipes; but, the lawyers are filing all kinds of paperwork (printed on recycled paper, we hope?) to go after BP; but, alas, not from a mile under the ocean, where there appears to be no mouth big enough to fit over that darn pipe! And Mahmoud Abbas shall return to Judea-Samarea with a promise of $400 million from Obama for construction. How do you spell relief? O-b-a-m-a! Whew! Instead of all that concrete from the "Rachel Corrie" being delivered into Gaza for bunker building, now Obama has funded the PLO with $400 million for concrete, so that now the PLO can build bunkers in Judea-Samarea! This will ease Israeli tensions in a profound way -- that is, in a profoundly negative way!

One Jerusalem

IN THE ABSENCE OF A WORLD CLIMATE RESPECTFUL OF ISRAEL AND IN THE PRESENCE OF A WORLD CLIMATE THAT ROMANCES JIHADIST TERRORISTS, NEITHER THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL COURT NOR THE U.N. MAY BE REGARDED AS PRACTICAL, MORAL, ETHICAL, NOR JURISDICTIONAL. IT IS INCUMBENT UPON ISRAEL TO ACT UNILATERALLY TO PASS HISTORICAL NEW LAW REITERATING THE ANNEXATION OF JERUSALEM AND DECLARING IMMEDIATE ANNEXATION OF JUDEA-SAMARIA, GOLAN, AND SHEVA FARMS. THIS NEW LEGISLATION SHOULD BE NAMED TO HONOR GILAD SHALIT AND ALL THE DISAPPEARED ISRAELI SOLDIERS. JERUSALEM MUST REMAIN ONE CITY, AS ISRAEL MUST REMAIN ONE NATION.

It should be noted that Netanyahu announced this week that Israel was considering legislating a severe reduction of the rights and privileges that now exist for prisoners in Israeli jails. This is not a constructive response to the Gilad Shalit matter (not to the contemporary matter of the mocking video cartoon produced and distributed by Hamas, nor to the extended horror of Gilad Shalit's continued Captivity, which today numbers Day 1432). Israel's moral stance as regards treatment of prisoners ought not fall victim to the cartooning of terrorists nor to their behavioral depravity. [In relation to this issue, please review the April 25 posting to which non-trivial after-content has been added.]

The Democratic World ought to consider the creation of an Organization of World Democracies independent of the U.N. The U.N. may be intended to foster democracy in the world eventually; however, it should be clear that it is not a democracy despite it's appearance to democracy. It is today in effect a mob of Third World Nations biting the hands of those, who feed them. The U.N. has largely been co-opted by dictatorships, including those such as the government of Iran, which is a dictatorship in democratic clothing. Their combined treatment of Israel ought to be understood by the democratic world as an harbinger. If the democratic world fails to stand by Israel and if the democratic world fails to strengthen itself and it's values, then the democratic world will fall by the wayside and party to the ushering-in of a New Dark Ages.

"WEST BANK OCCUPATION" -- THE DIFFERENCE TODAY COMPARED TO 1967.

IT IS ALMOST 43 YEARS NOW SINCE THE "SIX DAY WAR", AND 1407 DAYS SINCE GILAD SHALIT WAS KIDNAPPED. HOW ARE THESE EVENTS RELATED OR UNRELATED?

In 1967 Israel "occupied" the "West Bank" [Judea-Samaria] as a result of the famous "SIX-DAY WAR". It was then that Israel also occupied the Golan Heights (well into Syria), Southern Lebanon, and the Sinai.

As of today, most of the Golan has already been returned to Syria in fruitless peace efforts; with the exception of the Sheva Farms, all of Southern Lebanon has been returned to Lebanon, again with no peace. Neither Syria nor Lebanon acknowledges Israel nor Israel's existential right. All of the Sinai has been retuned to Egypt as part of a peace agreement that is a very cold peace, "warmed up" perhaps by Egypt's "failure" to successfully patrol the Egypt-Gaza border or to identify and destroy smuggler tunnels large enough to bring automobiles into Gaza. Israel has a similar peace with Jordan.

Contemporary to Israel's achievement of statehood, Jordan overran and occupied Judea-Samaria, then the de facto homeland of Palestinian Arabs. Post 1967 it was Israel's expectation that Israel would aid the Palestinian Arabs in creating a Palestinian Arab State, just as the UN had hoped for in 1947. If Israel were to leave Judea-Samaria ensuing the 1967 military victory, then a political vacuum would have existed in that territory, allowing Jordan to re-occupy, and exposing Israel again to greater military vulnerability.

If the Palestinian Arabs had been amenable to recognizing Israel's right to exist, there would have been a Palestinian Arab State then and there in Judea-Samaria. It is not Israel's fault that terror organizations such as Black September and the PLO of Yassir Arafat would not dance, instead choosing to wage decades of war and terror on Israel with an eye to the total destruction of the Jewish State. The world has no excuse for failing to remember this, and neither does Israel.

By now Israel should have annexed Judea-Samaria.

By now Israel should have freed Gilad Shalit.