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.

TU B'AV - A SOLITARY SIX-DAY "WAR" SINCE TISHA 'B'AV WITH NO VICTORY OF RELEASE FOR GILAD SHALIT.

THE GOOD NEWS IN THE PAST FOUR WEEKS IS, THAT ON 17 TAMMUZ, ISRAEL'S NAVY TOOK CONTROL OF THE SOLITARY SEA-GOING VESSEL OF THE SO-CALLED "GAZA FLOTILLA 2". It seems that the world has come to understand and find fault with such provocative propaganda exercises as the "Gaza Flotilla". Even the Turks, Greeks, and Cypriots have cooperated in restraining the "Gaza Flotilla 2", so that only the symbolic passage of one vessel has taken place, and that vessel has been peacefully intercepted. And within the next week it is anticipated that the U.N. report on the "Mavi Mamara" incident (Gaza Flotilla 1) will favor Israel's action in self-defense.

No doubt the "Arab Spring" is making "waves" of a different kind. Uprisings throughout the Arab world, the downfall of Egypt's Mubarak, NATO's effort at Libyan regime change leading to the apparent alliance of Libya's Qadaffi with Al-Quaeda, repression in Assad's Syria and calls for Syrian regime change -- all of this is occurring widely and on such a large scale that the world must realize that there are more causative factors in the world of the Arabs than tiny Israel. Europe has seen horror in Norway (a "Christian" fascist massacre), the end of Holland's liberal attitude towards "multiculturalism", and a similar reconsideration of "multiculturalism" in France. It seems that Europe has had enough of "multiculturalism" (read: "Islam").

May this month of Menachem Av bring harbingers of peace to the world. May this coming month of Elul bring reconciliation between man and man and between man and HaShem. May Rosh HaShana see Gilad Shalit home, healthy, safe, and secure in the arms of his mother, father, sister, and brother. V'omerim, "Amen".

ROSH CHODESH ADAR 2 5771 IN THREE MORE DAYS AND GILAD SHALIT IS STILL CAPTIVE AND ALONE IN THE HANDS OF HAMAS..

TODAY IS DAY 1738 IN THE KIDNAPPED, ISOLATED CAPTIVITY OF GILAD SHALIT.

Tu B'Shevat has come and gone, and Israel has lost a precious forest to a fire set by carelessness under environmental conditions of extended severe drought, depletion of fresh water resources, and lack of preparations to cope with such an event in an already arid part of the world, where each and every drop of water, tree, and blade of grass is precious.

Rosh Chodesh Adar 1 has come and gone, as has Purim Katan. Once again the World via the United Nations Security Council has ganged up on Israel such that once again the USA has been the only "protection" of Israel by virtue of the power of the veto vote against the resolution regarding Israeli Settlements. The pressure on Israel is profound to cave in to World demand that Israel curtail it's rights life and freedom. This pressure is not limited to political pressures. Russia has contracted to provide Syria with cruise missiles even as Hamas has renewed rocketing activity against Israel and as Iran, another military client of Russia, has with Egyprian permission sent a pair of heavily armed naval vessels through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel.

May Adar 2 commence and extend the hidden miracles of this season to bring true peace to the World and to bring Gilad Shalit home safely to his family.

AVI MAMARA INCIDENT MAY BE PLANNED PRETEXT FOR TURKEY-SYRIA-IRAN AXIS TO WAGE REGIONAL WAR ON ISRAEL.

ISRAEL DEFENDED ITSELF AGAINST A MILITARY ATTACK DISGUISED AS HUMANITARIAN AID; THE INCIDENT MAY WELL HAVE BEEN PLANNED BY HAMAS AND THE TURKISH-SYRIAN-IRANIAN AXIS AS A PRETEXT TO JUSTIFY A BREAK BY TURKEY OF IT'S FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL AND TO JUSTIFY A REGIONAL WAR AGAINST ISRAEL.

The decision of the Avi Mamara to run the Israeli blockade rather than to accept humanitarian escort by the Israeli Navy proves that the Avi Mamara never truly had an humanitarian mission, only a military mission, to publicly attempt to run the blockade and thus provoke an inevitable military response with Israel.

Five of the six ships of the so-called "Peace Flotilla" accepted Israel's promises to accept and deliver the humanitarian aid brought by these ships and to be escorted by the Israeli Navy to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where the unloading and distribution of the humanitarian aid would commence.

The sixth ship, the Avi Mamara, chose instead to run the blockade and to provoke violence.

For much of the world, blinded by compassion for the residents of Gaza, all it sees is "disproportionate use of force". At best, much of the world naively seems to think that, if Israel ceases to blockade Gaza, then there will be no reason for the residents of Gaza to make war on Israel. At worst, there are many in the world, who support Hamas and it's goal of utter destruction of Israel. This incident is a profound example whereby the naivety of the former is abused by the latter, the latter having an agenda totally opposite to the former. The former need to see past their naivety and realize that, when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the residents of Gaza did not make peace with Israel and instead waged war, which is why the Israeli blockade became necessary and was not even instituted until 2007, a year after Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is still captive today (if he is even alive, as he is refused all visits, not even the Red Cross may visit him).

The world should remember that it was the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit that was the first in a chain of events that led to the 2006 Lebanon-Israel War. If war breaks out again this summer, the world may well regard the provocation of the Avi Mamara as the first of a new chain of events leading to war. Given the increasing realignment of Turkey towards a Turkish-Syrian-Iranian Axis, the potential for war this summer takes on a scope much larger than Hamas to Israel's south and Hezbollah to Israel's north.

As well, given the increasing realignment of Turkey towards a Turkish-Syrian-Iranian Axis, and given the choice by Muslim Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey to use the Avi Mamara Incident to vilify Israel (he could have chosen instead to inspire calm), the event of the Avi Mamara Incident may well be interpreted as a deliberate event planned with Turkey's knowledge as pretext to regional war with Israel or to severance of Turkish relations with Israel or both and also to consequence not yet imagined perhaps involving Iran and nuclear weapons.

CHOICE OF LANGUAGE, PART TWO: OF WAR CRIMES, COLLATERAL DAMAGE, HOLOCAUST, AND MARTIN LUTHER KING

Today is Martin Luther King Day in the USA, as well as it is the eve of the inauguration of Barak Obama as President of the USA. On the eve of the terrible day of his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King called out to the world, saying, "I may not get there with you; but, I have been to The Mountain Top and I have seen The Promised Land...." May we all hope and pray that President Barak Obama does not suffer the same fate of assassination that met Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy, and many other leaders of our nation in historic times.

Repeatedly in his life Martin Luther King spoke of equality for all people, be they "Christian, Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, or Gentile...." One expects, or at least hopes, that President Obama shares Martin Luther King's view. President Obama can take office tomorrow, knowing that the current Gaza crisis is not likely to demand his immediate or priority attention amidst the panorama of world affairs crises that he will face. President Obama will have a unique opportunity to give new ear to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, one hopes from a genuine, objective, egalitarian view.

It can be no coincidence that Israel has chosen today as the day to commence cessation of it's recent incursion into Gaza, to commence withdrawal from Gaza, and to commence it's unilateral ceasefire - unilateral in that Hamas has declared it's own unilateral one-week ceasefire "to give Israel a week to get out of Gaza". It is good politics and good timing of that politics in that the IDF has devastated Hamas and has set their terror clock back at least a year or two, if not more. Israel has defended itself and Sderot in particular. The suffering in Sderot has no longer been in vain.

It is now up to the Palestinian Arabs to again decide their future: Hamas and Hamas ideology, or an alternative of Palestinian Arabs accepting of Israel's right to a peaceful coexistence?

Where one would hope that the United Nations would keep a neutral stance, reality shows the same face of the UN on the ground that it shows in the General Assembly and to a large degree as well in the Security Council: an anti-Israel bias that is pervasive, obvious, unhidden, public, and disgusting to anyone with conscience, clarity of mind, and knowledge of history.

The likes of Christopher Gunness -- by no means restricted to Christopher Gunness -- waste no time, neither from the commencement of Israel's defensive incursion till now, and no doubt as well in the days ahead, to accuse Israel of having committed war crimes. This is a profound UN failure on two counts. Firstly, the UN and it's representatives and agents on the ground in Gaza ought not to be choosing sides or acting as an outlet of propaganda and demagoguery for terrorist groups such as Hamas. Secondly, even in appropriate venues, to assign language such as "war crimes" to the actions of the Israeli army is incendiary and biased and reflects no conscience in choice of language.

There is a difference between "collateral damage" and "war crimes". Although, for those living in a fantasy world in which they presume to speak for the "underdog" (e.g. in their view, Hamas is the underdog) there is no difference between war crimes and collateral damage, and the latter in their view is merely a euphemism for the former.

These types will never see suicide/homicide bombings, the imprisonment of Gilad Shalit, nor the incessant rocket terror of Sderot as the War Crimes that they are; like a mule wearing blinders, they will see narrowly, viewing such violence as the righteous outrage of "revolutionary" groups such as Hamas.

They make no distinction at all between the willful intent of Hamas to murder Israelis and to annihilate the State of Israel versus the inevitable accidental death of Gazan civilians, where the combat circumstance is such that Israel's tormentors mix in among the civililian crowds and use hospitals, mosques, schools, and homes as military bases and as arms storage and arms deployment depots. Nor does it seem to bother these self-proclaimed persons of worldwide conscience that where Israel clearly distinguishes between military and civilian targets, Hamas defines all Israelis, be they old man, woman, or child, as a combatant.

Where Israel shows grief at the suffering of it's enemy, which it defines as a human enemy, Hamas rejoices in the suffering of Israelis, whom it refers to in it's political and religious liturgy as monkeys, pigs, and dogs, seeing no common humanity with Israelis, and defining as well an ethos of cruelty to animals (Why isn't PETA crying out in defense of Israel? Oh, right, PETA is too busy expressing it's "humanistic" bigotry against Jews by decrying painless Kosher animal slaughter for food).

Hamas does not acknowledge Israel's existential right nor Jewish identity in the family of humanity. By Hamas definition, all of it's combatants are civilians; by Hamas definition, all of Israel's civilians are combatants. As the world looks on at the rubble of architecture that Israel has just destroyed in Gaza -- destruction made necessary by Hamas's misuse of civilian property for military purpose -- it is not trivial that the world understand that the hospitals, school, homes and mosques that the world funded for civilian use and humanitarian purpose was co-opted by Hamas' insane and Hitleresque agenda.

Neither is it trivial to associate the actions and ideology of Hamas with Hitlerism, so let's take a look....

World War One was not the Holocaust. Nor was World War Two the Holocaust. The Holocaust was one huge and indistinguishable aspect of WW2. WW1 and WW2 involved many of the same nations in world war, especially in Europe and Africa and the MIddle East. Yet with respect to all the horrors similar to both of those wars, the Holocaust is singled out as historically unique and historically unrivaled. Why? Tens of millions of people died horribly on a scale unrivaled in world history in both events. Why are they not also Holocausts?

The answer is that an Holocaust is defined by more than just the propagandistic demagoguery of war in which enemies are demonized and dehumanized in cartoons and in rhetoric. An Holocaust is defined by the systematic and concerted efforts of public education, national law, and boots on the ground to define a specific sub-group of humanity, be it on the basis of race, religion, or creed, to in fact not be human, to be non-redeemable as human, to be endemically evil, and to necessarily require extermination from all existence. This was the distinguishing aspect of Hitler's Third Reich, and it is the distinguishing aspect of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It is not accidental that during WW2 they were allies with Hitler (the predecessors of these groups existed then, most notably the Grand Mufti Amin Al-Husseini of Jerusalem). To see a photographic history of this relationship, see website WWW.TELLTHECHILDRENTHETRUTH.COM.

For current proof of Hitler's Legacy in the Muslim World, just look at the current reality in Muslim nations: (1) with few exceptions there are no Jews, as a million or more Jewish residents of Muslim countries were murdered, raped, robbed, and exiled contemporary to WW2, (2) in Gaza today, where Israel made a gift of Gaza to the Palestinian Arabs, there is neither Jewish Life nor sign of previous Jewish existence, as even functioning farms, greenhouses, industry, and empty Synagogues were annihilated by such as Hamas; the only sign of Jewish Life in Gaza today is the current departure of Israeli Defense Forces, they having just dismantled and stunned Hamas' capability to wage war on Israel; (3) there are more than twenty Muslim nations today that continue to refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist and in fact they are still in a 'de juree' state of war with Israel, (4) in many of these nations Christians and other minority religious groups such as Buddhist or Bahai or Druse are persecuted relentlessly. It is not at all inappropriate to suggest that The Holocaust in fact did not end with the official end of WW2, but, that it continues on today throughout the world, and the primary perpetrator of Holocaust is the world of Islam.

Israel has committed neither war crimes nor holocaust in Gaza. The UN ought to sanction these glib UN agents and representatives, who do suggest that Israel has committed war crimes. Given the level of embedding of UN agents and representatives in Gaza, these agents and representatives ought to be sanctioned as well for the many years they have provided safe cover to terrorist operatives in facilities constructed by both the UN and by other world NGO's for the provision of humanitarian relief to Gaza. Or does the UN officially or even unofficially have the same policy as Hamas -- that all Hamas persons and activities are civilian in nature, even if they are involve illegal engagement in the smuggling and storing of weapons, and in the commission of terror, murder, and destruction.

The incessant missile attacks on Sderot, the kidnapping and captivity of Gilad Shalit, the constant threat of suicide/homicide bombings, and the never-recanted Hamas policy calling for the annihilation of Israel, of Jews, of Christians, and of all non-Muslims they call Pigs, Dogs, and Monkeys -- if this is not behavior characteristic of Holocaust, then what is???

One need look no further than Hamas to find real origin of War Crimes. Yet, it is necessary to look further to Hezbollah, to Syria, to Iran, to Russia, and to China to see the most prominent superstructure of War Crimes and Holocaust today. One must not rule out the twenty-some Arab nations, who have yet to officially cease their state of war with Israel and to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. And Holocaust does not end their. Look to Sudan and the Janjaweed, engaged in Holocaust against the Muslims of Darfur, who are Negro and who therefore are "not Muslim enough", and against the Christians in the south, who are not Muslims....

Let us hope that on this eve of a new Presidential era in the USA, that no assassination plunge this USA into civil war, that the ceasefire in Gaza will grow like a beautiful flower, and that Hamas will free Gilad Shalit and signal that hope and peace may be realized. Amen.

GILAD SHALIT, SDEROT, EGYPT, U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL ....

In these past three weeks GILAD SHALIT'S name has been tossed about like a cheap chip on a poker table. SDEROT and other Israeli sites in the NEGEV have been hit repeatedly by Qassam rockets. Egyptian soldiers have aided and abetted terrorists, who have tunelled into Egypt in order to obtain weapons and to smuggle terrorists. Egypt has opened it's border willy-nilly to allow thousands of HAJ pilgrims (and not a few terrorists) into Egypt on their way to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Tsipi Livni makes excuses at every opportunity for Israel's enemies, even stating that real time events such as the daily bombing, smuggling, captivities, hate propaganda, etc. should be disregarded and should be not be permitted to interfere with "peace talks". Presumably there should be no discussion of the ANNAPOLIS AGENDA until some rubber-stamp ratification time, at which time Israel would give away East Jerusalem, Golan, and Samaria-Judea.

All the while the more "peace" Israel makes, the more military necessity drives the reality on the ground. Even the air is related to the ground, if one considers that the September Israeli air raid into eastern Syria took out a facility [probably nuclear] that was located on the ground and not yet in the air. So the Syrian border is HOT, the Lebanese border remains HOT, and the GAZA border is a HEATED incessant "low-grade war" between Israel and the various terror groups operating in GAZA, including HAMAS and FATAH. The biggest money going into Israel now is less about investment in the future and more about imminent war.

Poverty and all the ills that come along with poverty are on the increase and have been for decades. National unity is on such a decline that civil war in Israel is not unthinkable. Certainly national pride has taken a tumble, as has Israeli esteem in the world. Israel should have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council; instead it is the only nation in the UN forbidden to serve on the UNSC, even while Israel's enemies rotate in and out of the UNSC. Israel should have permanent borders, which it should determine unilaterally on the basis of JUSTICE (and this means justice to the treatment of Jews for three thousand years, not the perversion of justice given to us by popular world opinion, which is largely based on ignorance, propaganda, and the romantic revolutionary fad of the moment). Israel should even consider retaking borders it has given away in the expectation of peace, having received only war and terror.

Israel must remind the world that Israel itself in our time is a nation of refugees - Jewish refugees from all over the world - and that today's so-called "Palestinian" people are not innocent in the history of the suffering of Jewish refugees. Until recently the term "Palestinian" referred as equally to Jews as to Arabs and others living in the land labelled "Palestine" by the historical Roman Empire.

Israel continues to be pushed into the Mediterranean; yet, the majority of Israeli''s today seem not to perceive this. In the media Israel has already been truncated back to 1947 borders; Israeli politics itself strokes this process! It is a process that commenced in the 1970's, when Israeli politics gave political credence and life to ideas such as a JUDENFREI state of enemy Arabs to be called "Palestine". This idea gained real flesh in 2005, when Israel abandoned GAZA. Jews can justify bigotry against Jews, even to the point of expelling Jews from their own historical land, land won once again after thousands of years of exile; yet, Jews will not expel the FIFTH COLUMN within the State of Israel that enjoys Israeli citizenship, but, which celebrates AL NAQBA ("The Catastrophe" of the creation of the State of Israel).

Israel may once have thought that, having made "peace" with Egypt and Jordan, PEACE with the remaining world of Islam would come easily by conceding to a "Palestinian" state, even a state run by such as Yasser Arafat. Israel still thinks even now that such a "peace" is so obvious that even the sworn enemies of Israel must see it too and must share the same vision with Israel, even against the tenets of the Muslim Faith! Israel, wake up! You are not at war with just a handful of Arafats; you are at war with all Islam! Islam recognizes no Israel and no Israeli border! Israel does not exist on the Islamic map of the world! It is an illusion to think the problem can be localized and dealth with locally by creating another Islamic state that will hate Israel! Enough! Enough! Enough!