IRIS Blog

Israel's Foreign Ministry has published the text of prime minister Netanyahu's Independence Day message to Diaspora communities:

Today, Israel celebrates its 61st birthday. Each year that we mark the rebirth of the Jewish state after long centuries of exile is a great cause for celebration.

After centuries of powerlessness, the Jewish people returned to the stage of history and to their rightful place among the nations. With the rebirth of Israel, we were once again able to chart our own destiny and determine our own future.

The past 61 years show just what a free and independent Jewish nation can achieve. With scarce resources, we brought a barren land back to life and absorbed millions of immigrants. Through innovation and determination, the genius of our people has made us a leader in agriculture, medicine and science, while our creativity spawned a high-tech industry that continues to amaze the world. We have achieved peace with Egypt and Jordan...

All this has been achieved even though Israel has lived under constant
threat for 61 years. Unfortunately, Israel remains under threat. An Iranian regime that is feverishly pursuing nuclear weapons brazenly calls for our destruction. Terror organizations on our southern and northern borders grow stronger by the day. And a rising tide of anti-Semitism is sweeping the civilized world.

To address these challenges in the years ahead, unity among our people, both inside and outside Israel, will be more important than ever. That is why it is vital that we continue to strengthen the bonds between Israel and the Diaspora. These bonds are a source of mutual strength and a powerful reminder of the unique role that Israel plays in the world and in the history of our people.

On this Independence Day, let us take pride in all we have accomplished and let us look forward to a time of security, prosperity and peace. If we stand together as brothers and sisters, if we stand together with courage and conviction, that time will surely come.

Chag Sameach!
Sincerely,
Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel National News published this piece written by Marc Prowisor, a former head of security for the Shilo region, honoring and commemorating those who have fallen in defense of Israel:

Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) in Israel is not just a day for Jews in Israel, but a day for all of our people. Many of us in Israel served and lost friends and family throughout the years; and once a year we think back and try to remember the good times and smiles that were shared, even as we realize the loss of the present.

I had the privilege and honor to be the Security Coordinator for the town of Shilo until 2006, years that included the last Intifada. Each Yom HaZikaron, as I drive the roads between memorial ceremonies, I recall the attacks and the victims. Many of those killed I only got to know after the fact. It was pretty much always the same story - people just like you and I, fathers, mothers, children, everyday people who simply were on their way to somewhere. The fact that we all shared a similar life was added motivation for me to, G-d willing, do the best I could as a security professional to keep people safe. I admit that, every year, I wonder if I could have done better, more; maybe someone else would have gotten home. This has always been the curse of those who work in security: What if I had...?

Despite the memories of loss and recollections of the many attacks that I experienced, and the "what ifs", I remember many "we dids" as well. I remember how many times we did get there in time to stop attacks, how we were able to return fire in time, to bring our neighbors home. How we stood up to those evil beings who found pleasure in targeting those who can't fight back, and we let them know just who we were. We grew stronger with every incident and our motivation only increased.

It was then the intent of our enemies, as it is today, to throw us out of our land. They used terror and fear as their main tool, and they were met with courage and dedication - two concepts that are foreign to their world. When our own government failed to crush the enemy threat, the government too was shown the same courage and dedication on our part, as we continued to grow and flourish.

A number of Jews from outside of Israel, who realized that this wasn't just our fight here in Israel, joined in making efforts to strengthen us and to be part of us. They were with us as we returned fire against the terrorists; they sat in the ambulances providing vital equipment; they brought kids to playgrounds; and comforted us in the sad times also - all this from thousands of miles away. We were (and are) one.

The outlook was supposed to be different, a future that had us deserting our heartland; however, by remaining strong and dedicated to each other, the results brought a different reality to our land and our people - the growth of our people in our land.

Lately, we are seeing an increase in attacks, and we have had to bury more of our people. We in security are once again thinking, "What if we...? How can we...?" and so on. We learned from the past that we can take action that will have an effect, but we cannot do this alone; it must be done together. The same effort, dedication and courage that was displayed during the heat of battles and attacks must appear again, and it must appear before and not after the coming struggle. We must, G-d willing, prevent and not have the need to respond. We must celebrate and not mourn.

Yom HaZikaron is a time of reflection and memories, but it is also a time of learning and looking ahead. Yom HaZikaron leads into Yom HaAtzmaut, and these two days show the world that we are not the victims they would like us to be, that there are Jews who will stand up and fight. Let's take the lessons learned and give honor to those who have fallen by doing the best we can, together, to make sure everybody comes home and celebrates. No more, "What if I..." - it is a time to do.

Three years ago, history and International relations professor and writer Dr. Judith Apter Klinghoffer noted the lyrics of Hatikva (The Hope) as sung in the recently liberated Bergen Belson concentration camp:

To fully appreciate the Jewish refusal to abandon "The Hope" or in Hebrew "Hatikva," You must listen to this recently discovered recording of Jewish prisoners in Bergen Belsen singing Hatkiva on the first Shabbat after hearing of liberation, April 20, 1945. The introduction is by the BBC. The Lyrics are:

As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
And forward to the East
To Zion, an eye looks

Our hope will not be lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Post outlines events scheduled to take place in Israel and internationally to commemorate Israeli Remembrance and Independence Days:

Among the Remembrance Day events scheduled throughout the country on Tuesday will be a ceremony commemorating over 200 Jews who have been killed in terrorist attacks and hate crimes around the world since the state's founding.

The ceremony is being sponsored by the Jewish Agency, together with the World Zionist Organization, Keren Hayesod, United Jewish Communities and the Jewish National Fund. It will be held in the historic courtyard of the Jewish Agency building on Jerusalem's King George Street.

The event will include the unveiling of a monument with the names of those who have been slain, including Moshe Nahari, who was murdered in late December of last year by Islamic fundamentalists in Yemen, and Norma Rabinovich, a Mexican national who was planning to make aliya but was murdered in the terror rampage at the Mumbai Chabad House in November.

Remembrance Day, followed by Independence Day on Wednesday, will be marked in events and ceremonies around the world.

Events include performances by Israeli musicians, Israeli food festivals and raffles for plane tickets to Israel. In New York, a massive Independence Day event will take place on the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier docked in the Hudson River, and is expected to draw thousands of young people.

Israel National News published this opinion piece about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Barry Rubin:

Why did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the full backing of Iran's regime, behave as he did at the Durban II conference? One reason, of course, is that he believed every word he said and that much of the Iranian Islamist regime thinks the same way. This factor should always be remembered, lest people think this was only some cynical ploy.

As the Iranian Islamist regime's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, once said, the revolution was not just about lowering the price of watermelons. That is, his was not merely a movement for materialist reasons, but one that believed it was executing God's will on earth. Ideology was central.

To explain this properly, permit me to digress a moment. People often ask: Why did Jews under Nazi rule in Eastern Europe not flee or do more to escape the Shoah (Holocaust)? After extensive research and interviewing, it is clear to me that while there were a number of factors, foremost was the disbelief that the Germans would murder them all.

Remember that these Jews were forced into slave labor. They produced goods, farmed crops and repaired roads. In effect, they were helping the German war effort. These laborers were paid nothing and fed barely enough to stay alive. Why, then, would the Germans destroy, so to speak, a goose that was laying eggs, if not necessarily golden ones, possibly losing the war in the process?

The answer is: Because they believed in their own ideology, they would not act pragmatically; rather, they would make their own defeat - and their own deaths - more likely.

The second factor that should be remembered is that of miscalculation. A leader, particularly if reckless and overconfident, will take an action he thinks is in his interest, but which turns out to be a disaster. The best internal Middle East examples are those of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser provoking the crisis that led to the 1967 Six Day War and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Nasser thought he could score points in the Arab arena and at home by threatening to wipe Israel off the map and taking at least some major steps toward war. He miscalculated. Israel attacked and inflicted a huge defeat on him.

Saddam Hussein thought he could score points in the Arab arena and at home by seizing Kuwait, making himself the Arab world's leader, plus getting many billions of dollars from that oil-rich little country. He miscalculated. A US-led coalition attacked and inflicted a huge defeat on him.

For Ahmadinejad, then, ideology and miscalculation are major factors. They will continue to be major factors if Iran gets nuclear weapons...

One other extremely important point on which Ahmadinejad is misunderstood. It is true that he does not control the government. The most powerful man in Iran remains the supreme guide, Ali Khamenei. But Ahmadinejad, allied with powerful current and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers, is building his own apparatus. In the future, he could well emerge as the uncontested leader of Iran. For the moment, though, it is enough that he has the regime's backing.

Clearly, Iran has legitimate security concerns. But the real threats are heightened by their own behavior. If they were, in fact, so frightened, then they could change policy and reduce the threat. Some regime leaders, though not those in control right now, advocate just such a policy. Unfortunately, the West hasn't helped them enough by making that threat more credible through denunciations and effective sanctions.

So here's the bottom line. By failing to oppose Iran more effectively, the West is unintentionally encouraging it to be more extremist and dangerous. By failing to help relatively moderate Arab regimes, the West is making them more susceptible to having to appease Iran. By pressuring and criticizing Israel, the West is encouraging Iran's regime to believe it can be destroyed.

Not a pretty picture. But neither is that of the would-be fuhrer as an honored guest at United Nations meetings. No wonder Ahmadinejad and his backers believe that theirs is a winning bet.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center (www. gloria-center. org) and editor of the "Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal."

The Dallas News published an editorial piece about the United Nations' anti-racism conference in Geneva calling it a sham:

In the first session of the United Nations' anti-racism conference in Geneva, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech in which he called Israel a "totally racist government." This prompted dozens of delegates to walk out in protest, making a deserved mockery of the U.N. proceedings – and vindicated President Barack Obama's decision to steer America clear of this clownish colloquy...

After all, giving the Holocaust-denying fruitcake Ahmadinejad a platform to lecture the world about racism is like inviting Bernie Madoff to headline a global conference on business ethics.

The Geneva meeting is a follow-up to the U.N.'s 2001 anti-racism conference in South Africa, which degenerated into what many saw as an anti-Israel, anti-Western hatefest...

Interestingly, the Dutch foreign minister explained that her nation was boycotting this year's anti-racism conference not only over the Israel issue but also because Muslim nations are fighting free speech and freedom of religion – two hallmarks of human rights and liberal democracy – by trying to have the U.N. declare criticism of Islam tantamount to racism.

Is there a link? Ahmadinejad believes so. Earlier this year, he said: "The Holocaust is knitted together with liberal democracy. It is the claimants of liberal democracy who support the Holocaust logic and have sanctified it to the degree that no one dares questioning its sanctity." Think about that.

In Israel, today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Iranian president, who has repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the map, has again given the world reason to understand how the murder of 6 million Jews came to pass.

By giving respectability to this anti-Semitic fanatic's ranting, the U.N. has done its shameful part, too.

The Toronto Star reported on Sunday that charges have been filed against a Canadian for attempting to export devices to Iran for use in making enriched uranium for nuclear weapons:

A Toronto man... Mahmoud Yadegari, 38, a Canadian citizen who emigrated from Iran in 1998... is charged with attempting to procure and export to Iran 10 pressure transducers, RCMP Insp. Greg Johnson said.

That is prohibited under the Customs Act and the Export Import Permits Act as well as under the Iran regulations of the United Nations Act, RCMP Insp. Greg Johnson said. He said further charges are pending.

Pressure transducers have legitimate commercial uses, but can also be used in centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for military purposes, Johnson said.

Iran has been acquiring centrifuge and enrichment materials for years as part of its nuclear program.

The charges followed a tip to U.S. agents from a Boston-area company that sold the $1,100 devices to a Canadian.

It is legal to purchase such devices and ship them to Canada, but exporting to other countries requires a permit and export to Iran is prohibited outright.

"The police investigation shows that steps to conceal the identification specifications of these transducers were taken in order to export the items without the required export permits," Johnson said.

The devices were shipped to Toronto by truck and were bound for Dubai and then to Iran, Johnson said.

Iran is trying to obtain everything from low-end technology and equipment to more sophisticated components and devices, said Tim Gilda, special agent for U.S. Immigration and Customs.

Maximum penalty for the charge under the UN Iran sanctions is 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine. For the other charge, it is five years in prison.

The Jerusalem Post's David Horovitz has written a commentary noting that Israel faces security challenges requiring confident leadership and cohesion of national purpose:

Are we losing the capacity to distinguish between what we know from our own experiences to be true or credible and what others would have the world believe about us?

...Esther Wachsman, whose son Nachshon was kidnapped by Hamas in 1994 and killed in a Palestinian village not far from Jerusalem as the IDF tried to come to his rescue, describes poignantly how the family came to choose his name.

The family's third son, he was born at Pessah time in 1975, and they decided to name him in honor of Nachshon the son of Aminadav, the man who had the guts to trust God and test the waters, the man who leapt into the Red Sea confident that his people would be able to cross, the man who showed the children of Israel the path to their destiny.

Israel cries out for such a figure today... or such a mindset: the confidence to set a path of national destiny, to unify behind it, and to pursue it for our own benefit and that of like-minded nations, leaving our enemies helpless in our wake.

Israel has faced, and faced down, more daunting hostile challenges in its brief modern history than those posed today by the toxic mix of demonization and violence championed by Iran and offshoots such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Surviving the first moments of statehood in 1948, when a few hundred thousand pioneering Israelis prevailed against armies drawn from surrounding populations in the tens of millions, was only the first of many improbable victories.

It was a series maintained through the decades, notably including the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, all the way through to the second intifada, when the Palestinians dispatched suicide bombers in a calculated, strategic onslaught that was designed to terrorize our nation and encourage us to take the only sensible course of action - to flee.

Protecting Israel cannot now be achieved by walls and fences and defensive measures; the rockets have to be stopped at the source - and the source of the rockets, as ruthlessly determined by the Palestinians who manufacture and launch them, lies in the heart of the civilian populace. By cynical design, those who would kill our citizens thus ensure that their people are killed when we try to thwart the attacks - so that we are forced to fight not only to protect ourselves, but to protect our good name and our legitimacy as we do so.

We live in a region where hostility and hatred are not easily redirected... We are battling in a largely unsympathetic international climate and must defend ourselves, physically and intellectually, against those who seek our demise. Critically, we cannot afford to become the prisoners of others' distorted sense of our reality, our behavior and our challenges.

These are national imperatives and they require a cohesion of purpose that Israel has yet to achieve. Internally driven and all-too intolerant, we remain as far as ever from a consensus over what our goals should be and the means we should employ to realize them.

We have left Egypt and reached the promised land, but not yet fulfilled our destiny. We await our Nachshon.

The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick provides commentary on background behind recent Egyptian moves against Hezbollah:

Egypt's recent actions against Hezbollah operatives are a watershed event for understanding the nature of the threat that Iran constitutes for both regional and global security. For many Israelis, Egypt's actions came as a surprise. For years this country has been appealing to Egypt to take action against Hezbollah operatives in its territory. With minor exceptions, it has refused. Believing that its operatives threatened only us, the Mubarak regime preferred to turn a blind eye.

The question is what caused Egypt to suddenly act? It appears that two things are motivating the Mubarak regime.... According to the Egyptian Justice Ministry's statements, the arrested operatives were not confining their operations to weapons smuggling to Gaza. They were also targeting Egypt.

The Egyptian state prosecution alleges that while operating as Iranian agents, they were scouting targets along the Suez Canal. That is, they were planning strategic strikes against Egypt's economic lifeline.

The second aspect of the network that clearly concerned Egyptian authorities was what it showed about the breadth of cooperation between the regime's primary opponent - the Muslim Brotherhood - and the Iranian regime. Forty-one of the suspects arrested are Egyptian citizens, apparently aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. This alignment is signaled by two things. First, many of them have hired Muslim Brotherhood activist Muntaser al-Zayat as their defense attorney. And second, Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen have decried the arrests.

THROUGHOUT the region and indeed throughout much of the world, Iran's star is on the rise. Its burgeoning nuclear program acts as a second arm of a pincer-like campaign against its opponents. The asymmetric and ideological warfare it wages through its terror and state proxies are the campaign's first arm. Together, these two strategic arms are raising the stakes of Iran's challenge to its neighbors and to the West to unprecedented and unacceptable heights. Morocco is so concerned about Iranian subversion of its Sunni population that last month it cut off diplomatic ties with Teheran.

Beyond the Horn of Africa, of course, Iran has been consistently expanding its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both countries the mullahs simultaneously sponsor the insurgencies and offer themselves as the US's indispensable partner for stabilizing the countries they are destabilizing.

What is perhaps most jarring about Iran's ever-expanding influence is the disparate responses it elicits from Israel and Sunni regimes like Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and the West on the other. Whereas Israel and the Sunni Arab states warn about Iran daily, far from acknowledging or confronting this ever-expanding Iranian menace, the US and the Europeans have been alternatively ignoring it and appeasing it. If the US were taking the Iranian threat seriously, the Obama administration would not be begging Iran to negotiate with it after Teheran demonstrated that it has complete control over the nuclear fuel cycle.

The West's refusal to contend with the burgeoning Iranian menace no doubt has something to do with the West's physical distance from Iran. Whereas Middle Eastern countries have no choice but to deal with Iran, the US and its European allies apparently believe that they can still pretend away the danger. But of course they cannot.

From the Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden to Hezbollah cells from Iraq to Canada; from Iranian agents in British universities to Hezbollah and Iranian military advisers in South and Central America, the West, like the Middle East, is being infiltrated and surrounded.

Egypt's open assault on Hezbollah is yet another warning that concerted action must be taken... Unfortunately, the absence of Western resolve signals that this warning, too, will go unheeded.

A synopsis of former National Security Chairman Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland's analysis of security solutions in the north was recently prepared by Dr. Aaron Lerner of Independent Media Review Analysis (IMRA). The synopsis concludes that Israel possesses no security solution without retention of the Golan Heights:

The purpose of this analysis is to demonstrate that Israel does not possess a plausible solution to its security needs without the Golan Heights. Not only was the "solution" proposed in the year 2000 implausible at the time, but changing circumstances, both strategic and operative, have rendered Israel's forfeiture of the Golan today an even more reckless act.

This analysis is composed of seven sections:

Geography and History of the Golan Heights

• A Peace Agreement with Syria - Truth and Illusion


• Israel's Current Security Concept


• The Importance of Strategic Depth


• Security Arrangements Discussed in 1999-2000


• Changed Circumstances Since 2000


• Diplomatic and Military Implications of a Golan Withdrawal

To sum up, the present border line is the only one affording plausible
defense for the State of Israel. It creates strategic depth, albeit minimal, and, in addition, this line exerts eastward control deep into Syrian territory. Any movement westward by Israel would create a considerable depreciation of Israel's defensive capability, owing to the nature of the terrain that descends from east to west.

When the issue of a possible Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights was raised in the 1990s, the first question discussed by the Israeli defense establishment was: Can Israel begin its defensive battle in the Hula Valley? The answer was negative. There was a unanimity backed by the political echelon, led by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, that in order to defend itself, Israel had to begin its defensive battle at the line where it was presently stationed.

How could this conclusion be reconciled with the understanding that a peace agreement with Syria mandated a concession of the entire Golan Heights? The response was based on security arrangements that were intended to bridge the gap between conceding the Golan and creating a situation that would guarantee that in case of war, IDF forces could return to the place where they are currently stationed. This was an attempt to "do without but feel satiated."

The security arrangements proposed in the 1990s was flawed in a number of ways. First, it relied on five dangerous assumptions... Second, it addressed the single threat posed by mechanized Syrian divisions, while ignoring other threats whose gravity is increasing. There is no guarantee that the interpretation will be accurate. History provides countless examples of situations where an enemy action was correctly identified by intelligence, but the attacked side did not undertake the proper reaction because it granted a lenient interpretation to enemy activity. The most relevant example is from the Yom Kippur War.

...In other words, in return for the danger and the weakness that will
result from conceding the Golan Heights, Israel will not be fully or even partially compensated with an improvement in its other capabilities.

Israel National News extracts 3 additional security problems from Eiland's report:

1. The increased effectiveness of advanced anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

2. The expected urbanization of the Golan Heights, including many “policemen” who can be expected, together with many other “civilians,” to operate thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles that will be stored in those cities, thus impeding the advancement of Israeli forces.

3. The Syrian strategic threat. More than Syrian ground forces, the major Syrian threat involves ground-to-ground missiles and large quantities of chemical weapons. In the discussions that took place in 1999-2000, no attempt was made to reduce the presence of these two capabilities.

General Eiland's analysis of the necessity for retention of the Golan Heights to insure Israel's security was prepared for The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. To view the full analysis, click here.

On top of military training, equipment and aid which the Palestinian Authority is receiving from various other sources including the U.S. and Israel, the Jerusalem Post reports that Russia has now promised to supply military weapons, as well as vehicles and ammunition to the PA:

Moscow has promised to supply the Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank with new weapons, including two helicopters.

The Russians have also agreed to supply the PA with more than 5,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 300 armored vehicles, 100 pistols and large quantities of ammunition, a senior PA official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

The obvious questions to be asked: For what, exactly, does the disfunctional PA need armored vehicles, helicopters and (yet another) 5,000 assault rifles? Or better yet, will those weapons not be turned against Israel, as the PA's weapons have in the past? And even if one assumes that the PA are the "good guys" (we don't), isn't there a strong possibility that those weapons will one day wind up in the hands of Hamas, as happened in Gaza?

The Jerusalem Post reports that senior defense officials fear that Hamas is preparing to build mega-tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor in order to smuggle long-range rockets into the Gaza Strip in one piece:

"Hamas is working on obtaining new advanced weaponry and extending the range of its rockets... In order to get this weaponry into Gaza, it will need larger tunnels than it currently has."

Digging a smuggling tunnel is considered a complicated and sometimes dangerous operation that can take several months... The tunnels along the corridor vary in size, but some are believed to be large enough for a person to stand inside.

According to Military Intelligence, the long-range Katyusha rockets Hamas fired into Ashdod and Beersheba during the recent operation were... manufactured in Iran in a number of pieces, enabling their fairly easy transfer to Gaza.

Other rockets that Hamas would like to get its hands on include the long-range Iranian-made Fajr, which has a range of 70 km. and could reach as far as the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Unlike the Grad-model Katyusha, which is 2 meters long, the Fajr is close to 10 m. and is not easy to assemble if smuggled into Gaza in components.

Some of the reports on the alleged Israeli air strike against a weapons convoy in Sudan and bound for Gaza have claimed that the trucks were carrying Fajr missiles, a weapon that could alter the strategic balance of power between Israel and Hamas.

Last week, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that since the three-week military operation ended on January 18, Hamas had smuggled 22 tons of explosives, 45 tons of raw materials for producing bombs, dozens of rockets, hundreds of mortar shells and dozens of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles into Gaza.

Defense officials called on Egypt to increase its efforts to stop the smuggling along the Philadelphi Corridor.

"It really all depends on the Egyptians in the end, since they are deployed along the border and, if they want, can stop the smuggling," one official said.

Well, that says it all. The Egyptians can stop the smuggling, if they want. However, they have let the smuggling go on for years. So, it's obvious that they don't want to stop it. Don't expect them to change their ways any time soon. Does anyone have a Plan B, other than the obvious course of Israel retaking the Gaza border with Egypt? I didn't think so.

The New York Times has printed an Associated Press report concerning top terrorist bomb maker Abu Ibrahim:

As Pan Am Flight 830 descended toward Honolulu and passengers finished their breakfast, a blinding burst of light washed over them. And then, "BOOM".

The 747 shuddered violently. Confusion erupted as the airliner nose-dived. Screams and thick smoke filled the cabin. Oxygen masks dropped.

In the rear of the plane, 16-year-old Toru Ozawa lay on his back in the aisle. His lower abdomen had been ripped open, his intestines seeping out. The explosion had also sheered off one of his legs. He called out for his mother and father; they watched in horror as he died.

The Aug. 11, 1982, explosion was no accident. Ozawa was murdered -- killed by a sophisticated bomb, one of many that spread like a virus around the world in the 1980s, killing and injuring scores in more than two dozen terrorist attacks.

The man behind them: Abu Ibrahim, who controlled a web of dangerous operatives while living in Baghdad under the protection of Saddam Hussein.

Long forgotten and even presumed dead by some, Ibrahim is very much alive, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ibrahim had managed to elude coalition forces... before he recently crossed into Syria, federal law enforcement and former CIA officials believe...

"He was the most capable and the most dangerous bomb maker in the world barring none during my time as a CIA officer," said Bob Baer, a former top CIA agent who worked clandestinely in the Middle East.

His infamous career stretches back decades. He has been linked to several terrorist organizations, including Black September and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine...

At his little workshop, he developed a blend of plastic explosives that he lined in suitcases or bags that used a delayed-timing device called an "e-cell"... This became his signature as a bomb maker.

With the assistance of Iraqi intelligence, Ibrahim carried out many attacks. He struck in London, Rome, Athens. In West Berlin, an infant was killed and 24 wounded after one of his bombs detonated at an Israeli-
owned restaurant.

His most well-known plans, however, involved trying to sabotage Pan Am and El Al airlines.

Denny Kline, a retired FBI explosives expert.... said the FBI was able to connect at least 21 devices to Ibrahim. Others continued to circulate in the hands of terrorists; they would be traced to two airline bombings in 1986 and 1989 that killed 174 people, including the wife of an American ambassador to Chad...

The CIA had well-sourced reporting in 1990 that Ibrahim continued to live in the Al-Mansour district of Baghdad with the knowledge and support of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. He lived a few blocks away from the headquarters of the intelligence service.

But any plan to grab Ibrahim in Baghdad was simply too risky. He had too many friends in the regime watching over him.

Here are two reports which follow-up on this blog's earlier post regarding continued arms smuggling to Gaza.

This Ynet report concerning the ramifications of the recent IAF mission in the Sudan further point out the fact that arms are pouring into Gaza despite whatever "monitoring mechanisms" the US, the EU and Egypt might have, or not have, in place:

If the reports regarding the Air Force strike in Sudan are indeed accurate, this is bad news, and the reasons for the Israeli elation over the attack are completely unclear...

It means that we failed, both during and after Operation Cast Lead, to achieve international, diplomatic, or psychological-deterrence accomplishments that would prevent the continuation of arms smuggling to Gaza.

We are talking about immense quantities of missiles that poured and are still pouring into the Strip. These may be the missiles..., anti-aircraft missiles, missiles that can reach Tel Aviv, etc.

There is a great difference between the bombing of the Syrian reactor and the strike on the arms convoy in Sudan. In Syria, it was a strategic strike, as the establishment of a new reactor is an immense project, especially when the world is watching Syria. Meanwhile, dispatching another arms convoy is a piece of cake.

This... operation makes it apparent that arms are still flooding the Gaza Strip. Under guise of the temporary calm, a major military buildup is being undertaken there ahead of the next round of fighting; meanwhile, there is still no lull as Israeli communities are being bombarded every day.

Iran, the Palestinians, and other elements are very determined to transfer the arms to Gaza and threaten Israel’s population centers. After they realized that we have the intelligence capabilities to detect ships carrying arms – for example, the ship that was stopped in Cyprus – they switched to land shipments. By now you can be sure that they no longer use one convoy, but rather, smuggle arms in several stages and more secretly.

Can’t count on Egypt

Regrettably, we ended the Gaza operation without any agreement, while the Egyptians, whom we just celebrated 30 years of peace with, did almost everything to undermine our national security. That is, they have not stopped the flow of weapons into Gaza.

The implication of the bombing in Sudan is that our security coordination with Egypt is slim. After all, if this convoy was meant to reach Egypt, why would the Egyptians have any problems seizing it, just like the Cypriots seized the arms ship that entered their territory? Apparently, we indeed have no way of counting on the Egyptians on this front, and that’s a great pity.

It was important to bomb the arms convoy in terms of taking advantage of an opportunity, yet... not be overly impressed by the accomplishment: It has nothing to do with our ability to curb the weapons flow into Gaza or create deterrence. This merely attests to what Shakespeare already wrote before: “How my achievements mock me!”

Meanwhile, a Jerusalem Post report indicates many of the rockets flooding Gaza are Chinese-made:

Supt. Kobi Preger, deputy head of the Israel Police's national bomb disposal laboratory, identified three types of Chinese-made rockets at a press conference Tuesday: "The 107 millimeter rocket, often called a 'Grad,' and two types of 122mm rockets."

One version of the 122mm rocket had a range of 40 km. and had been used by Hamas to target areas such as Yavne, north of Ashdod.

"The rockets are going farther and getting more powerful," he warned.

The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick presents her view that new Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government will work to reverse an evolving myth known as Israel's conditional legitimacy:

In the chanceries of Europe, the die has apparently been cast. The time has come to launch an all-out diplomatic war against Israel. That is, the time has come to begin to unravel EU acceptance of Israel's right to exist.

Last Friday, in anticipation of the swearing in of the new Netanyahu government, EU foreign ministers met in Prague and discussed how they would stick it to the Jews.

According to media reports, the assembled ministers and diplomats decided that they will freeze the process of upgrading EU relations with Israel until Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu explicitly commits his government to establishing a Palestinian state and accepts that the only legitimate policy an Israeli government can have is the so-called "two-state solution."

On an operational level, the assembled ministers and diplomats decided to cancel the Israel-EU summit now scheduled for late May until Israel has bowed to Europe's demand.

Europe's decision to launch a preemptive strike against the Netanyahu government even before it was sworn into office on Tuesday came against the backdrop of its growing enthusiasm for opening formal ties with Hamas.

Since entering office, and increasingly in recent weeks, the Obama administration has been both directly and indirectly signaling that it will adopt a hostile stance toward Netanyahu and his government. Unnamed Democratic congressional and administration sources have been warning Israel through the media that the administration does not accept the Israeli voters' right to set a new agenda for the incoming government that rejects the Olmert-Livni government's subordination of Israel's national interests to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The administration itself has stated through both White House and State Department spokesmen that it is completely committed to the swift establishment of a Palestinian state - regardless of Israel's position on the issue.

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the international hysteria over the Netanyahu government is its timing. The calls for Israel's international isolation, the decision to treat Israel as a beyond-the-pale-pariah-
nation far worse than Hamas, emerged even before the Netanyahu government was sworn into office. How did this foul state of affairs come about? Why is the Middle East's only democracy being treated worse than North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Hamas and Hizbullah?

THE RESPONSIBILITY for this horrendous state of affairs belongs mainly with Netanyahu's predecessors - former prime minister Ehud Olmert and opposition leader Tzipi Livni. During their tenures in office, Olmert and Livni effectively embraced Israel's enemies' view that unlike the PLO and even Hamas, Israel has no independent right to exist. Indeed, not only did they accept that view, they turned it into the official policy of the government.

Now, as Europe, the US and regional actors are all making clear, Israel must accept that its own right to exist is contingent on the establishment of a Palestinian state - regardless of its character or the identity of the Palestinian leadership. That is, if Israel doesn't accept the legitimacy of a Hamas or Fatah-ruled Palestinian terror state in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza, then it has no right to exist.

This reality, of course, was made clear by the outcry that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's official denunciation of the Annapolis formula on Wednesday induced. Lieberman.... made clear that the Netanyahu government remains committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

All Lieberman said was that the Netanyahu government will not accept a Palestinian terror state. That is, all he said was that Israel's support for Palestinian statehood is contingent on Palestinian behavior. Additionally, Lieberman correctly pointed out that Israel's own international position has been harmed rather than advanced by its willingness to compromise its positions and accept those of its Palestinian adversaries.

What the outcry at Lieberman's remarks - from both Livni and her domestic supporters, and the international community - makes clear is that it will be exceedingly difficult for the Netanyahu government to walk away from the anti-Israel positions adopted by its immediate predecessor. But it also shows how urgently those positions need to be rejected.

For the past 16 years, from Israel's first acceptance of the PLO as a legitimate actor to Israel's acceptance of the PLO's position that it is the Jewish state rather than the Palestinian state whose legitimacy is conditional, Israel's international position has become ever more tenuous as prospects for peace have become ever more remote. The Netanyahu government was elected to put an end to this disastrous trend. It is heartening to see that straight out of the starting gate, it is working to accomplish this essential task.