Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
END OF DAYS
End of Days
E-mail me: Click on "View My Complete Profile" or try dovbearbarleib@gmail.com. For Most Recent Post: Click on "End of Days" immediately above.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Point Man for the Fourth Beast
I thought that I would post my opinion of the Tony Blair nomination as the new negotiator for the Quartet as its own post. It is from the comments of my previous post:I believe that it is possible that Tony Blair is the spokesperson for the fourth beast in Daniel's vision of Daniel chapter seven. His appearance on the scene as the new point man, a.k.a Chief Prosecutor, for the Quartet during the 40 day period of the Wandering of the Spies sent by Moshe is no accident. The Quartet is an undisguised fourth beast, representing the Kingdom of Edom. It has the pieces of the previous three beasts in its makeup. The lion with the eagle's wings is the Anglo-American Empire even though in ancient times it was Babylon. The bear is Russia even though in ancient times it was Persia/Media. The leopard with four heads is the European Union although in ancient times it was Alexander's Empire broken up amongst his four generals. I do not know who the four heads are today. (Could these heads possibly be the four leaders represented in the Quartet, itself?! In short does the fourth beast "borrow" the heads of the third beast because Greece is the Face of Rome according to Chazal?) I do know this, though. The ancient empire of Nimrod is a favorite of the EU. They speak in their literature of building a modern Tower of Bavel. Nimrod broken up stands for Namer rod (The leopard rules.)
The ten horns in Daniel's vision are the ten economic powers that the CFR wants to break up the world into. Each one would have its own currency. Europe has the Euro. NAFTA will have the Amero. MEFTA including Israel within its pre-67 borders will have its own currency. Tony Blair has been sent to enforce this vision of reality upon the Mideast. I believe G-d has a different scenario.
6/28/2007 11:50 PM
Dov Bar-Leib said...
One last thought. This does not mean that Blair is necessarily the small horn that pulls three horns from the crown on the fourth beast. Yet, he might become that little horn. We will wait and see. Consolidation for the ten economic kingdoms is set for 2010.
6/29/2007 12:26 AM
Thursday, June 28, 2007
"SHARON"
G-d Punishes
The Traitor Sharon
The Traitor Sharon
 Ariel Sharon courts disaster, for himself and the Jewish people, by signing the February 2005 order approving the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza District and northern Samaria |
The massive stroke which Israeli Bolshevik dictator Arik Sharon suffered last week was the latest example of the divine punishment that G-d always brings upon Israeli leaders who dare to retreat from any part of the sacred Land of Israel.
JTF predicted that G-d would remove the traitor Sharon from office one way or the other when Sharon first announced his evil plan to expel 10,000 Jews from the Gaza District and northern Samaria in order to create an independent PLO terrorist state in the heartland of Biblical Israel.
G-d punished the Jewish people by allowing the traitor Sharon to carry out his monstrous expulsion of thousands of Jewish families from the holy Jewish lands of the Gaza District and northern Samaria. The Jewish people were punished for supporting and tolerating Sharon's wicked policies.
 Israel's grossly corrupt governing tyrant Ariel Sharon was struck down by divine vengeance while at his enormous ranch in the Negev desert - The Sharon ranch was bought with illegal political campaign contributions and profits from a PLO terrorist casino in Jericho, which also supplied funds to Israel's Arab Muslim terrorist enemy |
G-d often allows self-hating Jewish traitor leaders to carry out their horrific policies of surrender, expulsion and retreat when He wishes to punish the Jewish people.
Thus, G-d allowed former Israeli Bolshevik dictators Golda Meir and Yitzchak Rabin to retreat from portions of the sacred Jewish Sinai and the Golan Heights after the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s.
 Knesset (Israeli parliament) member Omri Sharon, Ariel's equally grotesque son, recently pleaded guilty to a plethora of political racketeering charges |
And G-d allowed former Bolshevik dictator Menachem Begin to retreat from the entire sacred Jewish Sinai in the 1980s.
And G-d allowed Rabin - who again became the Bolshevik dictator of Israel in the 1990s - to retreat from portions of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District.
 Ariel Sharon's insane and suicidal policies forced heroic young Jewish soldiers like Avi Bieber to go to prison for refusing to obey orders to expel their fellow Jews |
And G-d allowed Bolshevik dictator Shimon Peres to make further retreats in Judea and Samaria in 1996.
And G-d allowed Bolshevik dictator Binyamin Netanyahu to retreat from most of the holy Jewish city of Chevron (Hebron) and from other areas in Judea and Samaria in the late 1990s.
And G-d allowed Bolshevik dictator Ehud Barak to make further retreats in Judea and Samaria in 1999, and from southern Lebanon (which is also part of the G-d-given Land of Israel) in 2000.
And in the latest punishment, G-d allowed Sharon to expel every last Jew from the Gaza District and northern Samaria this past summer.
 in action |
However, once a retreat is completed, G-d then removes from office the traitor Israeli leader who committed the abominable crime of surrendering Jewish land that was miraculously given to the Jewish people as an eternal inheritance:
* Literally within months of surrendering Jewish land, Golda Meir was forced out of office as a result of the scandalous crimes that she committed in the Yom Kippur War;
* Yitzchak Rabin was also forced out of office in the 1970s as a result of a personal scandal;
  Every prime minister of Israel who surrenders sacred Jewish land has been laid low by divine retribution - Months after surrendering sacred Jewish land, Golda Meir was forced out of office by her scandalous conduct in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. (Meir is shown with Major General Ariel Sharon, who - heedless of the lesson which he might have drawn from Meir's fate - would later provoke G-d's wrath with suicidal policies of his own.) |
* Menachem Begin had a stroke in 1983 and was forced to resign shortly after he handed over the entire vital Sinai to Muslim Nazi Egypt;
* Yitzchak Shamir was defeated in the 1992 elections after he agreed to negotiate with the PLO Nazi mass murderers in Madrid;
* Rabin was assassinated in 1995 after he carried out the insane retreats of the Oslo accords;
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* Shimon Peres was defeated in the 1996 elections after he made further retreats under the Oslo accords;
* Binyamin Netanyahu was forced to call early elections in 1999 within weeks of agreeing to surrender another 13% of Judea and Samaria in the Wye Plantation talks, and in those early elections, Netanyahu was defeated overwhelmingly;
* Ehud Barak was forced to call early elections in 2001 after offering to surrender virtually all of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem to the Arab Muslim Nazis, and in those early elections, Barak was defeated overwhelmingly;
| A heroic Jewish pioneer woman is manhandled by an Israeli policeman |
* Sharon suffered a severe stroke within months of expelling the Jews of the Gaza District and northern Samaria.
G-d, in His eternal mercy, has made it so obvious that Jewish retreats from His sacred land is something that He will not tolerate. But Jews refuse to learn their lesson no matter how many times it is repeated.
There is a limit to how long G-d will tolerate such wicked behavior. If the Jews retreat from the rest of Judea and Samaria after the March 28, 2006 Knesset (Parliament) elections, and create the ultimate Satanic abomination of an independent PLO Muslim terrorist state in the Biblical heartland of Israel, these horrific acts may lead to another holocaust against millions of Jews, G-d forbid.
 A half-dozen Israeli soldiers and police drag a heroic Jewish pioneer out of a home in the Gaza District |
And since America has wickedly been pressuring little Israel to make these suicidal retreats, if this Satanic defiance of G-d's Biblical laws continues, G-d will destroy America. G-d is already destroying America gradually through massive emigration from the Third World, which is quickly transforming this once great nation into a banana republic.
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The only Jews who can save both Israel and America from this catastrophe are JTF's heroic allies, the Hilltop Youth and Jewish dissident leaders Noam Federman, Itamar Ben Gvir and Baruch Marzel. If JTF's allies have enough support, they will mobilize 100,000 Jews to block any further expulsions or retreats with their bodies.
 A poster for Sharon's Kadima (Forward) party, dedicated to continuing the expulsions of Jews from their sacred homeland - In the photograph, Sharon's image is juxtaposed against a scantily dressed, tattooed female model and her suggestively posed male companion. (Sharon proceeded with the Gaza District-northern Samaria expulsion to save his skin from criminal prosecution for gross political and fiscal corruption.) |
JTF supports the political activities of the Hilltop Youth, and therefore is not tax-deductible.
The Voice of Jewish Activism (VJA) is strictly non-political. It supports the educational efforts and the humanitarian needs of the Hilltop Youth and right-wing Jewish dissidents and therefore is tax-deductible.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
"NEW GUN CONTROL" - MUST READ
WEAPONS OF CHOICE
New gun control: Shut down shops
Store says feds confiscating licenses for inadvertent trivia
Posted: June 26, 2007
9:26 p.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
The government is using paperwork errors as small as the abbreviation of a city name to shut down some of the nation's longest-serving gun shops, and 2nd Amendment advocates fear the right to bear arms will mean little if there's no way to obtain a gun.
"No good deed goes unpunished," Larry Pratt, of Gun Owners of America, told WND while confirming that as recently as 15 or 20 years ago, there were 250,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States.
Today, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told WND, there are 108,381, and if more cases involving dealers such as Red's Trading Post of Twin Falls, Idaho, develop, that number will plummet quickly.
Ryan Horsley, a spokesman for Red's, which has been in business 71 years, said the store has been battling over its license because of rules infractions such as a missing poster for more than six years.
 Red's manager Ryan Horsley |
He's launched an online petition asking Congress to intervene and halt the "blatant targeting of law abiding dealers." It also seeks a "fair, constitutional and speedy appeals process" and has attracted thousands of signatures.
His company also has a federal lawsuit pending against the ATF over its announcement that Red's firearms dealership license was being withdrawn.
Attorney Mark Geston said the case asks the court to review the statute and the "propriety" of the decision that was made.
Horsley said the reason Red's is facing a revocation is – at most – insignificant paperwork mistakes.
"Imagine having your driver's license revoked because you did not completely spell out the word 'no' when answering a 'yes' or 'no' question on your application five years ago," his petition asks.
He told WND the inspectors begin with efforts to locate any petty violation they can, usually clerical mistakes. "They list these errors as 'willful' which Congress set in the wording to protect FFL dealers," he said. "The dealer's Federal Firearms License is then revoked and the dealer must enter an appeals process which is extremely unfair."
He said essentially the appeal of a ATF decision goes directly to the people who originally made the decision.
"This is the equivalent of being in court and having the prosecuting attorney act as an adviser to the judge," Horsley said. The result forces the business, if owners want to continue operating, to sue in federal court.
Pratt told WND, "the power that has enabled ATF to take away people's licenses to do business" continues unabated.
Pratt said many gun dealers were closed down when Congress allowed local municipalities to recommend denial depending upon the location of the gun dealership.
 The founder of Red's, "Red" Kinney, and son Jesse |
And he noted a family gun business that had been operation in Baltimore, Md., for years was attacked because of the "wanton, repeated crime" of abbreviating Baltimore as "Blto" on the "teeny, tiny spaces on the forms provided by the teeny, tiny little minds."
The agency holds, he said, a "continuing animas against gun owners and dealers."
The inspectors have no handbook under which to operate, and the absence of such written procedures allows them to be arbitrary and capricious.
Horsley described to WND his experiences with those very actions.
The ATF inspection of Red's in 2000 discovered various paperwork violations, he said, just shortly after he arrived to take over the store, mistakes such as a customer failing to write down the county in which he lived.
In 2001, "they couldn't find any violations," he told WND. A few other minor problems were found later, including a failure to put up a poster.
"I wasn't alarmed because this agent � had told us we were one of the best small gun shops he'd ever see," Horsley told WND.
Then early in 2006, "We get a letter that 'We're [ATF] revoking your license,'" Horsley said. "I just came unglued. I couldn't believe it."
After an expensive appeal process within ATF, he ended up with the same result, and sought out a lawyer for the federal court challenge.
During the appeal process, the penalty had been delayed, so the store could continue its business. But once the federal court challenge was filed, the ATF announced that the story now was a "threat to public safety" and no longer would be able to acquire firearms.
Horsley told WND he still was allowed to sell whatever he had, but couldn't purchase more stock. His stock plummeted from 1,000 guns to 160 and two workers were laid off before an emergency run to federal court obtained a ruling from U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge that allows the store to continue operations – for now.
The judge found "the ATF speaks of violations found during the inspections of 2000 and 2005, but fails to reveal that additional investigations in 2001 and 2007 revealed no violations or problems."
The judge also noted the ATF was exaggerating the situation by "double counting" some violations.
Horsley said the key issue is that the inspectors make the determination that any errors were "willful." He said the first inspection results in a warning for whatever clerical errors are found; then the next inspection makes the assumption any errors are willful, even if none of the original mistakes was repeated.
Horsley said one inspector told another – in front of a store worker who noted the exchange, that, "We're going to keep doing this until we find something."
He said the number of gun dealers dropped from 1994-2005 by nearly 80 percent and revocations are up nearly six times from 2001-2006. The ATF declined to share information on cases with WND, citing the confidentiality required in an open investigation.
But on a blog on his store's website, Horsley described one situation that happened just a few weeks ago:
The ATF came in yesterday at about 10 a.m. and stayed until around 6 p.m. attempting to find violations to submit to the judge. They did give us a pass on one of the violations. A customer wrote his middle initial instead of a full middle name. We let them know that the customer does not even have a middle name and only an initial. They still told us they would let that pass. So, I am overflowing with gratefulness right now.I questioned Linda Young (the Area Supervisor) on the last violation that we did not have our records in PERFECT alphabetical order, stating that if you wanted to read the policy literally then we should have to keep all of our records in full alphabetical order and not separated by year despite this being the way nearly all records are kept by dealers. She agreed and then stated that she had the authority to overrule procedures and policies. When I brought up the issue that [an] ATF Inspector ... advised us to keep them in the previous order that we were cited for, she then stated that inspectors did not have the authority to overrule procedures and policies.
Why was [the inspector] not cited or suspended for providing us incorrect information? We were cited for a violation on incorrect information.
He continued: "This is not just happening to us though and is becoming a common trend throughout the United States � Why would we honestly put our license, reputation and over 70 years in business in jeopardy? We would never condone of illegal activity, we have always gone above and beyond what is asked of us and will continue to do so."
Horsley's store, meanwhile, has paid about $70,000 in legal fees so far to avoid his only other option – to lock the doors and go away.
And Pratt said such actions – and expenses – are common.
One dealership in Texas already has paid about $600,000 in fees and expenses to fight to retain its license. That case started with the complaint that bullets from a shooting range near the store were polluting groundwater – even though no test ever had been done to confirm that.
Meanwhile, the publicity campaigns and stunts arranged by high-profile activists opposed to guns continue to muddy the water by making unsubstantiated allegations about gun dealers, they noted.
Jesse Jackson recently appeared at an anti-gun rally outside a gun shop in the Chicago area, a shop that has been targeted multiple times. The protesters have claimed weapons sold at the store have been used to commit murder.
"We must turn our mourning into marching," Jackson said. He was joined by the mother of Blair Holt, 16, who died in a gunman's rampage on a bus.
"To all those people watching me: It could be your child next. So, you better stand up and do something now," said Annette Holt.
Jackson compared gun retailers to the insurgency in Iraq.
"These guns are killing police, civilians, they're killing our children," he said. "In Iraq, they'd call that an insurgent's base."
Rebecca Hazen, however, had a different view. She and her husband for years had run Blue Lakes Sporting Goods, also in Twin Falls, and competed with Red's. They shut down after their firearms license was revoked just a few months ago.
"No government agency should have the right to take away our right to do business," she wrote. "Without a gun license, we had no reason to continue our business� I believe government has been unable to take guns from the hands of citizens or sue gun manufacturers out of business, so they will use government agencies to revoke licenses one at a time until there are no stores to buy guns."
"I encourage every gun owner to step forward and let their senators and congressmen know how we feel about the ATF's power to revoke licenses and close up businesses. The ATF should be stopped before there are no guns left to buy. Let your voice be heard," she wrote.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
GIULIANI LAW FIRM GIVES $$$ TO DEMOCRATS
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/06/21/audio-mark-levin-thrashes-trent-lotts-long-and-undistinguished-record/
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Giuliani's law firm also donates to Democrats
politicsBy CARLA MARINUCCI
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is partner in a law firm with a generous political action committee -- one that gave nearly 40 percent of its contributions to Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections, including $5,000 to then-Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.
The 2006 donations from the political action committee of the Houston-based law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani -- known as Bracepac -- included $3,000 to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco.
Bracepac contributed to 53 Democratic candidates and 50 Republicans in the 2006 election cycle, federal records show.
Some Republican insiders said the campaign contributions by Giuliani's firm will have no influence on the former New York City mayor's attempts to woo conservative and grassroots voters away from the other leading GOP presidential candidates, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"If the donations were in Rudy Giuliani's name, or his wife's name, that would be a problem," said Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution research fellow and former speechwriter to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. "But it's the reality of modern-day politics ... and under the larger category of doing business. He's a partner in a law firm that wants to do business on both sides of the street -- so you give to Republicans and Democrats."
Giuliani is among a group of 2008 presidential hopefuls who are in California this week for fundraising and public events including Democrats John Edwards of North Carolina, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Republican McCain.
As the already busy presidential campaign gathers speed, the hopeful candidates are certain to face increasing scrutiny on their lives inside and outside of politics including issues such as the political contributions by the former mayor's law firm.
Giuliani already has faced questions about his income from the law firm, as a security consultant and as a public speaker, a field in which he reaped $11.3 million last year, federal records show.
The Houston Chronicle reported this month that Giuliani has been paid at least $1.2 million by Bracewell & Giuliani. Texas Lawyer reported that he also received $690,000 in partners' profits last year.
Scott Segal, a partner in Bracewell & Giuliani, said Tuesday in response to questions that the firm's "approach to government relations is bipartisan and bicameral."
Indeed, the firm's political donations are controlled entirely by its political committee. Insiders point out that Giuliani is not a member of that committee and makes no decisions related to its political contributions.
Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Giuliani's campaign, said in an e-mail Tuesday that "the PAC is not representative of the mayor's beliefs," adding that "people donate to Mayor Giuliani based on their belief in his candidacy, not the other way around."
Bracewell & Giuliani has also been a high-profile lobbying firm, receiving nearly $6 million in lobbying fees last year with a client list that included the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association _ which fought regulations to reduce greenhouse gases _ and the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an industry group formed in part to fight pollution controls for coal-fired plants.
Giuliani's chief policy adviser, Bill Simon _ a former Republican candidate for California governor _ said he expects Giuliani will be subject to examination by the public in the campaign and believes voters will fairly judge the former mayor's experience and long record of public service.
"I think any presidential contest is going to involve a lot of scrutiny, and the mayor has been a very, very successful individual on a number of different activities," Simon said. Opponents and the media "will look hard at the mayor's record and occasionally distort it."
(E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci(at)sfchronicle.com)
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PREMEDITATED MERGER
Rudy Giuliani tied to 'superhighways'
Law firm represents consortia funding NAFTA-related routes
Posted: May 15, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
 Rudy Giuliani |
Questions are being raised over Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's policy on terrorism, after a report revealed he has strong ties to two foreign investment consortia working to own or lease U.S. toll roads, including the Trans-Texas Corridor 35, which is identified as part of the I-35 "NAFTA Superhighway."
Although he opposed NAFTA in 1993, Giuliani recently declined to call for building a fence on the United States border with Mexico, and he has supported a guest-worker program.
Columnist Michelle Malkin also has documented that while mayor of New York City, Giuliani kept the municipality a sanctuary city for illegal aliens, adhering to a policy first established by Mayor Ed Koch in 1989.
Now comes a new report about Giuliani's involvement with public-private-partnership projects that include NAFTA Superhighway funding and his open borders record on immigration questions, all of which could undermine his otherwise tough policy on terrorism that has resulted from the 9/11 role Giuliani played in managing New York City's response to the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Giuliani's Houston-based law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, is identified by the Texas Department of Transportation as the sole law firm representing Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., the Spanish investment consortium that has joined with Zachry Construction Company in San Antonio on the TTC project.
WND previously reported that TTC-35 is the new four-football-fields-wide car-truck-train-pipeline corridor to be built parallel to the existing I-35 as the Texas segment of the emerging Mexico-to-Canada I-35 NAFTA Superhighway.
Bracewell & Giuliani also has advised Cintra on the completion of the Comprehensive Development Agreement negotiated with Texas to develop State Highway 121 into a toll road through Collin and Denton counties.
The state highway department also gave Cintra a 50-year concession to operate SH 121 as a toll road, with Cintra agreeing to pay $2.1 billion upfront and annual lease payments totaling $700 million.
In addition, Bracewell & Giuliani successfully negotiated a $1.3 billion deal with TxDOT for Cintra-Zachry to build the remaining 40 miles of State Highway 130 as a toll road.
WND also has reported that Giuliani Capital Advisors was acquired in March by Macquarie, an Australian investment consortium which has also been involved in leasing and operating U.S. toll roads.
Further, the Federal Highway Administration has created a public-private-partnerships website on which both Cintra and Macquarie are featured as joint venture partners in the 2005 deal involving $1.83 billion paid to the City of Chicago to operate the Chicago Skyway under a 99-year lease.
The FHWA website also discloses that Cintra and Macquarie partnered in the $3.85 billion 2006 deal to operate the Indiana Toll Road on a 75-year lease.
WND has previously reported EuroMoney Seminars, a UK-based company, is holding seminars to teach state and local governments in the U.S. how to lease a wide range of public assets – from highways to water departments, to prisons and schools – to international and foreign investment groups.
Just this month, independent journalist Diane Grassi first broke the story of Giuliani's involvement with the NAFTA Superhighway, writing that, "All negotiations for Cintra were and are presently handled by the law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, LLP, of which Republican Presidential candidate, Rudolph Giuliani, has been a senior executive partner since March 2005. His law firm is the exclusive legal counsel for Cintra."
The New York Sun also earlier reported that an October 2002 contract between Mexico City and Giuliani Partners, a Giuliani consulting firm, to reduce crime was a failure.
Giuliani began the project in January 2003 with a fanfare initial tour of Mexico City that included a motorcade of a dozen bulletproof SUVs, 400 officers, and a helicopter.
Still, the Sun reported that Giuliani Partners ended up being paid less than the full $4.3 million contract price tag, despite some 20 trips to Mexico City booked by Giuliani associates over a 10-month period.
In December 2004, Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, resigned as CEO of Giuliani-Kerik, a law enforcement-oriented subsidiary of Giuliani Partners, amidst the various scandals that developed following Kerik's nomination by President Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security.
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Giuliani campaign chairman indicted
State treasurer indicted on drug charges
State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to possess with the intent distribute cocaine, federal and state authorities said at a news conference at SLED headquarters this afternoon.
According to the indictment, beginning in 2005 — before he was elected state treasurer — Ravenel conspired with Michael L. Miller to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.
If convicted, Ravenel faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million.
The Charleston Republican raised millions of dollars to unseat long-term Democratic incumbent Grady Patterson in November. He ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Ravenel in April was named the state chairman for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s presidential campaign.
Ravenel, 44, is a multi-millionaire real estate developer and the son of Arthur Ravenel Jr., a powerful South Carolina politician who formerly was a member of the General Assembly and the U.S. House.
As treasurer, Ravenel is responsible for handling the state’s finances and investments. He also holds a seat on the powerful State Budget and Control Board, which controls much of the state bureaucracy. His salary is $92,007.
Check back throughout the evening and in Wednesday’s editions of The State newspaper for updates on this story.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
REPUBLICAN BASE RUNNING AWAY FROM BUSH
Republican candidates begin snubbing Bush
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A president with dismal approval ratings and a bitter intraparty rupture over immigration are obvious problems for Republican politicians.
In recent days, however, the combination is emerging as something less obvious: an opportunity.
Recent polls have shown Bush's popularity -- which has long been in the tank with independents -- suffering significant erosion even among GOP base voters, largely due to a backlash over the president's stance on immigration.
The decline, according to some Republican strategists, has flashed a green light for lawmakers on Capitol Hill and presidential candidates to put distance between themselves and an unpopular president -- a politically essential maneuver for the 2008 general election that remained risky as long as Bush retained the sympathies of Republican stalwarts.
Now that those sympathies have somewhat cooled, the effects are visible: Republican House members upset about immigration policy have spoken of Bush in disparaging terms. And presidential contenders like Rudy Giuliani are striking change-the-course themes in their rhetoric, even while continuing to back Bush over the Iraq war.
The change, say GOP operatives, is the absence of fear about being perceived as something less than an ardent Bush backer. "What's the penalty now, Karl being mad at you?" Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio asked with a laugh, referring to Bush political adviser Karl Rove. "Who cares? Even his former chief strategist (Matthew Dowd) walked away from him and pissed all over him."
Continue reading our story » Page: 1 2 3
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SEN. KENNEDY IGNORING US LAWS
by Michael Cutler
June 17, 2007
NewsWithViews.com
An article "Senate OKs Amnesty for Deportees" appeared in Washington Times. It is an extremely important story because it makes it perfectly clear how Senator Kennedy feels about the laws of our nation and the need to abide by the laws. He has been one of the prime movers behind providing amnesty to the many millions of illegal aliens who are present in the United States today. He was a prime mover behind the Amnesty of 1986 that was an utter disaster. Back then he assured the American people as well as his colleagues in the Senate and, indeed, the United States Congress, that the "One time" measure of providing amnesty to illegal aliens would bring roughly 1.1 million illegal aliens out of the shadows to finally enable our country to create an effective immigration system.
It is obvious that he crafted the trash known as the Senate immigration bill (S. 1348) in a closed door session because the light of truth would have killed it! Democracy demands transparency and we are not dealing with a democratic process here! Kennedy will leave quite a legacy in our nation's history books. The brother of two highly regarded men, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General and New York Senator Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy is utterly ignoring President Kennedy's clarion call to service for all Americans when he famously implored us to "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!" Perhaps Ted Kennedy thought his brother said, "Ask what you can do to your country!"
My parents raised me to believe that a man (or woman) is only as good as his or her word. Obviously Kennedy's word is worthless. He is at it again, demanding that our nation not only provide the millions of illegal aliens who are present in our country in violation of law with a path to United States citizenship, but he wants to make it possible for all aliens to participate in this outrageous give away program so that even aliens who violated not only our nation's borders but also failed to appear for immigration hearings when ordered to do so. Kennedy would reward those who thumb their noses at our borders, our laws and our law enforcement efforts with the most valuable honor a nation may bestow upon an alien, citizenship in that country!
What is truly amazing is that Kennedy was able to find enough ethically challenged "leaders" in the Senate to get that insane measure passed!
This absolutely takes my breath away! As a former INS special agent I am quite familiar with how bail decisions are made by magistrates and judges. Essentially the factors are the severity of the crime being charged, the risk that the defendant poses to the community and the risk of flight demonstrated by the defendant. Here we have the legislators of the highest legislative body of the United States ignoring these basic, commonsense principles. Could an individual who has violated our laws possibly show greater contempt for our laws than by failing to show up for a court hearing? Yet Kennedy and his cohort puppets masquerading as "leaders" in the Senate, voted to allow absconders (fugitives) to still have the right to become citizens of the United States!
There was a time when aliens needed to demonstrate that they possess GMC (Good Moral Character) in order to qualify for naturalization. Kennedy and his gang apparently think that this is too much to ask for! In a way I understand this. Kennedy is not a man of his word; consider his promise when he pushed the first amnesty in 1986. Apparently he could care less if aliens who enter our country illegally refuse to play by the rules even after they are caught. The message that this sends to the world is quite obvious. Kennedy and those senators who voted for this provision are telling people all around the world that if they come to the United States by violating our laws we are happy to have them here. If they fail to appear for a hearing, this is just fine with these senators as well! Apparently Kennedy does not believe that immigration laws should be enforced at all. Consider his rationale and the rationale expressed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, in this quote taken from the article:
But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said they were only guilty of "common, garden-variety immigration offenses" that should not disqualify them. "Our employers beg them to come back and our broken borders make that possible," he said. Other Democrats, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, said Mr. Cornyn's amendment would remove due process rights for illegal aliens.
Apparently Kennedy believes that immigration laws are merely an impediment to the movement of aliens across our borders including those who are involved in criminal activities. Kennedy apparently has little use for our nation's immigration laws. He claims that the illegals enter our country because our borders are broken, but then he would do nothing to repair those same borders across which illegal aliens including drug traffickers, violent gang members and terrorists enter our country with great facility. Senator Whitehouse talks about due process but due process does not mean that individuals can violate laws at will. Due process is defined by the on-line Merriam-Webster Dictionary as:
Main Entry:
due process Function: noun
1: a course of formal proceedings (as legal proceedings) carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles -- called also procedural due process
2: a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual -- called also substantive due process
When an individual takes it upon himself to ignore a lawful order to appear for a court hearing that individual is violating the due process of the immigration courts. Yet these members of the United States Senate seem to be unconcerned about the nature of the legislation that they are passing and the damage that this would do to our nation and our citizens especially at a time when our nation is confronting the threat of international terrorists, criminals and drug dealers. By rewarding those who not only violate our borders but contumaciously ignore a lawful order to appear for a hearing before an immigration judge, our nation's hobbled efforts of border security will simply collapse under the pressure of the stampede of aliens who will have been given a clear message should the substantive measures contained in the Senate immigration bill S. 1348 that I have come to refer to as the "Terrorist Assistance and Facilitation Act of 2007," become the law of the land.
Consider another quote I have taken from the article:
During the action some senators cast votes that may come back to haunt them.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who ran in last year's election on getting tough on illegal immigration, voted to preserve citizenship rights for alien absconders. So did Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, who during last year's debate co-sponsored the same amendment with Mr. Cornyn.
Mr. Kyl is the key senator in the "grand bargain" underlying the immigration bill, and he could be overheard by spectators in the gallery marveling to other senators at the sacrifices he's made to keep his compromise alive: "I voted against my best friend -- an amendment we wrote together." It is clear that there are senators whose word is meaningless. Obviously Senators Kyl and McCaskill are among those who achieve elected office by blatantly lying to their constituents. What is the point to taking a position in a debate if you turn around and vote against the position you take when you participate in a debate to purportedly provide voters with an understanding of your position?
I do commend Senator Cornyn for defeating a confidentiality provision that would have made it impossible for law enforcement to have access to the applications that are filed for amnesty and then denied. This is a small but significant issue. Under the similar confidentiality provisions of the Amnesty of 1986 I was not allowed to share information contained in Amnesty applications even if the alien in question was wanted for mass murder, drug trafficking or other serious crimes that I suspect Kennedy would call "Garden variety felonies!"
I suspect that the senators who voted to allow illegal alien absconders to be put on the path to citizenship did so because they identified with those who have disdain for our laws and our nation.
"We the People" need to pay attention to how those who allege to represent us truly represent us. We must become involved in the political process and make the politicians accountable.
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
© 2007 - Michael Cutler - All Rights Reserved
Sunday, June 17, 2007
DEBKA EXCLUSIVE
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Damascus ordered Sunday's Katyusha attack on N. Israeli Kiryat Shemona, causing no casualties. But there is more to come
June 17, 2007, 11:29 PM (GMT+02:00)
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| A Katyusha rocket that did not explode in Wadi Taibeh north of Israeli border | ||
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The three 107mm rockets fired against Kiryat Shemona from Wadi Taiba Sunday, June 17, by a Palestinian radical group called Ansar Allah based in the Ain Hilwa refugee camp near Sidon was ordered by Syrian military intelligence as the first in a series, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Hizballah intelligence officers supplied the rockets and pinpointed the launching site to make sure they struck the Israeli town. Residents rushed for bomb shelters for the first time since the Lebanon War ended eleven months ago. A factory and parked vehicles were damaged.
The hit squad drove up in a rental Toyota, rigged the rockets and drove off.
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that Syria and Hizballah are preparing an escalating series of rocket barrages against norhern Israel civilian and military locations in the coming weeks. It is a stage in an overall plan orchestrated by Tehran, Damascus and Hizballah to stage attacks in Lebanon, Israel and Palestinian territory. Its objectives are to destabilize the pro-Western Siniora government in Beirut and whittle down Israel’s deterrent strength.
Rocketing Kiryat Shemona was Stage 3 of the plan. Two rockets damaged a factory and a parked vehicle in separate parts of Kiryat Shemona. A third landed near a UNIFIL position inside Lebanon.
Stage one is the five-week old radical Islamic, pro-Damascus uprising in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared, which the Lebanese army has not yet subdued. Stage two was Hamas’ just-completed capture of the Gaza Strip from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that in the name of “restraint,” Israel’s government and military leaders refrain from connecting the dots of the campaign ahead and its links to Tehran and Damascus in time to foil it, in the same way as they glossed over Hizballah’s build-up for the 2006 Lebanon war.
According to our intelligence sources, a former Fatah officer called Jamal Suleiman is Ansar Allah’s leader. He moved to Damascus in the 1980s and returned to the Ain Hilwa in Lebanon in April loaded with cash. He then began recruiting for his Ansar al Allah, working to exactly the same Damascus-designed format as the Fatah al-Islam was embedded in the northern camp of Nahr al-Bared.
If Israeli leaders refuse to call a spade a spade, Fatah leaders are more outspoken. Sunday, Azam al Ahmad declared in an interview in Ramallah that the perpetrators of the crime [against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza] are the same people who sent assassins to murder the Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri, “Both come from the same hand [Syria],” he said.
Friday, June 15, 2007
ITS TIME TO GET OUT OF FANTASY LAND AND FACE REALITY
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Casey Files:
Your Cash is Trash
and So Are Most of Your Investments
Doug Casey
The International Speculator
Jun 15, 2007
Almost everyone, probably including yourself, gets held back by inertia at one time or another. It can happen with anything, including investments.
Inertia weighs on an investor, trapping him in a state of paralysis and freezing his portfolio, almost forcing him to hold on to whatever he already owns - for no better reason than that he already owns it. He hopes that every one of his old shoes will go up, even if the reason for the purchase is long forgotten or the environment in which the investment might have prospered has vanished. People who substitute hope for cold-blooded analysis almost inevitably wind up losing money.
So, for the sake of argument, let's look at where you might best put your money for the rest of the year 2007. To keep things simple, let's assume you start by liquidating all the cats and dogs populating your portfolio, so that you have just a pile of cash. No, let's not phrase it that way... because then you're going to start wondering which of the securities you own really are cats and dogs. You might get bogged down. And then inertia will creep back in, and you'll throw your hands up and do nothing. So let's assume you sell everything, in true going-out-of-business style.
Now, what's the smartest place to put that money? Let's look at the alternatives.
Bonds? A disastrous sucker bet. Bonds, at the moment, are a triple threat to your capital. First, you have a huge risk with interest rates, which are still near historic lows; as they go up, the market value of your bonds drops proportionately. Second, no matter which of the fiat currencies you choose, you have a big currency risk; while the US dollar is on the fast train to zero, virtually every other currency in the world is being inflated along with it and is heading toward eventual oblivion. Third, you have credit risk; General Motors isn't the only large company whose bonds may go into default.
Stocks? The general market is yielding less than 2% in dividends, less than 1/3 of what you typically see at major market bottoms. And selling for more than 18 times earnings-more than 25% higher than its norm. Worse, for those who might be buyers, the bull market of the century started in 1982 and, in inflation-adjusted terms, ended in 2000. You might not want to hear it, but stocks are almost certainly early into a bear market that could last another 5 or 10 years. By all traditional measures, chances are much better that stocks will drop 50% from here than gain 50%.
Cash? You could always just stay in T-bills. But they currently yield only 5%, before taxes. And inflation (notwithstanding the highly imaginary official figures) is probably running around 6% and likely to head higher.
Real Estate? At the present, at least in the U.S., this is probably the worst choice of all. The speculative boom crested last year, and the market, burdened by an immense amount of debt and overleveraged speculation, is likely to head down for years to come. Of course, there are places in the world, two of our favorites being Argentina and Uruguay, where there isn't much of a mortgage market, so the properties aren't overleveraged and values are still available. But unless you are looking to pick up cheap land in undeveloped, exotic countries that have avoided the credit-driven bubble, real estate should be last on your list of investments.
Mutual funds? Any mutual fund you're likely to pick is just a way of buying one of the investments we've already dismissed. And paying all those fees and expenses that come with a mutual fund just makes the bet that much worse.
So What Should You Do?
Since 2001, we've been in a natural resources bull market. If you were one of the few who positioned yourself in gold, silver or pretty much any of the metals or energy commodities - either directly or through the shares in smaller resource companies, which is the preferred vehicle we have been recommending to subscribers of our International Speculator -- you've already made the easy money.
At least to us, before the bull market kicked off, the opportunity in the sector seemed obvious, with many resource companies selling for less than the cash they had in the bank. Few people even knew the sector existed, and most of them thought it was a dead duck after the 20-year-long bear market it had suffered since 1980.
The easy-money stage of the resource bull ended in 2003, at which time we entered the second stage, where the market climbs a "wall of worry." In even the most formidable of bull markets, this phase comes with inevitable corrections and scary downdrafts. Per its moniker, with each short-term setback in price, investors who were shrewd enough to get positioned early on into the long bull market fret that they might be wrong. Some are shaken out, but the smart ones buy even more on the dips.
But now, in my opinion, we are about to enter the third, and most important, stage of the classic bull market: the mania stage. This will resemble the tail-end of the Internet stock bull market. It's hard to predict exactly what catalyst will set it off, but it will very likely be rising expectations for inflation. Fear will drive the foreigners who hold about $6 trillion to sell the greenback, and they'll be joined by savvy Americans. Some will buy other paper currencies, like the euro or the yen. But those units are just backed by U.S. dollars themselves, so they really aren't much in the way of an escape pod. Inevitably, much of the money now sloshing through the world will try to get into gold. While no one can say with certainty, I expect the metal to hit $1,000 within the next 12 months and go much, much higher by the end of the decade.
Is this an unreasonable prediction? No.
Most casual investors mistakenly look at gold and think it's been a leader in this bull market when, in actual fact, it's a laggard compared to the industrial metals that have been bidden up to extraordinary highs by soaring demand from China, India and other emerging markets.
To give you just a few examples, in the last five years, copper has been up 330%, nickel 560%, uranium 1,150%, zinc up 460%, molybdenum up 450%, and even lowly lead, the most basic of base metals, is up 425%. By comparison, gold is up only 100%.
That will change, however, because although gold has many and growing industrial uses, its main use is as money. It will dawn on the herd that the world is drowning in a flood of increasingly worthless paper currency, and they're going to stampede toward the high ground of gold.
The metal isn't just going through the roof. It's going to the moon.
Gold Good, Gold Shares Better
When gold really starts to move, the mining exploration stocks are going to howl. That's because gold exploration stocks are not just highly leveraged plays on the price of gold. They are capable of providing you with triple-digit gains based on exploration success alone.
Case in point, the last mining share boom from 1993-96, which occurred at the tail-end of gold's 20-year bear market and carried hundreds of stocks with it, was driven entirely by a handful of discoveries. Since gold prices turned up, starting in 2001, a lot of money has been spent on exploration, and that work will inevitably lead to major discoveries and market excitement. Several of the companies we follow in our International Speculator are already drilling into what look to be monster deposits. Confirmation of a major discovery could well ignite a mania in the market.
While most other investments, such as bonds, industrial stocks, real estate and broad mutual funds are likely to be serious losers over the coming years, the bull market in gold and gold exploration stocks has still barely entered the public's consciousness. Although the easy money has been made, the big money is waiting to be picked up.
Nothing in the investing world is ever a sure thing, but today the exploration stocks look to be as close as it gets. As for the inevitable corrections during this "wall of worry" phase, remember that the time to be timid is when everyone else is bold, and the time to be bold is when everyone else is timid. Sell-offs in the gold and gold mining sector are, to our way of thinking, gift-wrapped opportunities to buy.
Doug Casey is chairman of Casey Research, LLC., one of the nation's oldest and most respected organizations dedicated to providing independent investors with unbiased research on opportunities to earn extraordinary profits by being just ahead of the crowd. BIG GOLD, new from Casey Research, provides subscribers with actionable research on the unfolding gold bull market and on profiting from the world's best gold producers, near-producers, gold mutual funds, ETFs and more. You can try it without risk...
...To find out how, click here.
Doug Casey
Casey Archives
321gold Ltd
Thursday, June 14, 2007
"GAZASTAN"
Hamas Seizes Fatah Security HQ
Hamas fighters have overrun the headquarters of their rival Fatah's Preventive Security force, as factional fighting in Gaza continues.
One witness said security men had been executed in the street.
The capture of the Preventive Security headquarters is seen as a major step forward in Hamas' attempts to complete its takeover of Gaza.
The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered his elite presidential guard to strike back.
Mr Abbas had previously told the guard to maintain a defensive posture at his house and office in Gaza.
At least 80 people, mostly gunmen but also children and other civilians, have been killed in factional clashes over the past week.
The two factions have warred sporadically since Hamas unseated Fatah in parliamentary elections last year, but never with such intensity.
Mr Abbas is holding crisis talks and is expected to make an announcement on the future of the Hamas-led unity government.
Mr Abbas is said to be poised to dissolve the coalition that Fatah joined in March under a Saudi-brokered deal aimed at ending internal violence and easing Western economic sanctions.
The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) top body has recommended Mr Abbas declare a state of emergency and dismantle the government.
An aide for Mr Abbas said he was reviewing the recommendations and would make a decision soon.
Sky News correspondent Dominic Waghorn said Hamas forces had taken control of considerable areas of the crowded territory and were surrounding Fatah forces in several bases.
He said: "It's very unclear who's giving the orders. Hamas wouldn't be doing this without orders from the top.
"It is securing its control of the border in the south and then it is focusing its forces in Gaza."
He added that some Fatah officials have been critical of a lack of action from Mr Abbas.
"He is playing what could be his last card in Gaza, but could it be too little too late?"
Earlier, President Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas issued a joint statement calling on all sides "to halt fighting, and to return to language of dialogue and respect of agreements".
But Hamas radio denied the two had agreed to a truce, and clashes intensified in the hour after their statement was broadcast.
Meanwhile, Hamas has said it would refuse to accept an international force along the Gaza's border with Egypt and would treat it as an occupying power.
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Hamas Poised to Convert Captured Gaza Strip into Islamist Enclave
DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Log of Five-Day Blitz
June 14, 2007, 12:58 PM (GMT+02:00)
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| Abbas' Presidential Guardsmen surrender to Hamas | ||
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14 June: Hamas seizes control of strategic Philadelphi enclave on Egyptian border and all Gaza’s border crossings with Egypt and Israel. At least 35 people died in the fighting Wednesday. Any international force in Gaza will be resisted in the same way as an Israeli occupation army, said a Hamas spokesman Thursday, June 14.
Senior Israeli officers described the Hamas victory to DEBKAfile as a greater misfortune for Israel than its Lebanon War setbacks. There, Hizballah was forced by Israeli military action to accept a UN ceasefire and international peacekeepers.
Hamas has no such incentive. In the case of Gaza, the winner takes all and can dictate terms. A radical Islamic enclave with a dominant Iranian-Syrian military presence has sprung up unopposed as a hostile reality on Israel’s southwestern border. It has made the Israeli-Middle East Quartet’s boycott an irrelevance.
The Hamas Executive Force completed the seizure of all pro-Fatah Presidential Guard border positions, including the Karni goods crossing and the Sufa, Kerem Shalom and Rafah transit points, after midnight Wednesday night, June 14. Their commander Col. Musbah Basichi and his 60 officers fled to Egypt. At least 35 Palestinians were killed in fighting Wednesday.
Hamas pounced as Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert held a belated conversation with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the deployment of an international force on the Philadelphi route. Hamas leaders flushed with victory will hardly accept such hindrance to the free flow of smuggled arms, missiles and explosives into the Gaza Strip.
Israeli military and security personnel administering the crossings on the Israeli side will have to work cheek by jowl with Hamas operators. The Israeli government, which decided to stay out of the Hamas-Fatah conflict, must now decide whether to break off ties with Hamas-controlled Gaza and seal the crossings, or interact with the new masters in order to admit emergency supplies for 1.4 million Gazans.
13 June: Overnight, thousands of Palestinian security officers loyal to Fatah were under Hamas siege at their last bastions – Gaza City’s Presidential Guard compound and the General Security command.
They are running out of food, water and ammunition. Hamas and its Executive Force had overrun some 80 percent of the Gaza Strip, while loyalists of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, including complete clans, surrendered and turned in their weapons. Hamas has set up large prisoner camps, some on the rubble of the Gush Katif villages. Wednesday afternoon, a desperate Abbas appealed to Israel to permit arms and ammunition to be transferred from the West Bank. Israeli officers said it was too late. Fatah is a lost case and any arms crossing into Gaza will be seized at once by Hamas.
Israel decides to stay out of the Palestinian internecine war in Gaza.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert led the cabinet in a decision Tuesday night, June 12, to avoid “fighting on the side of the pragmatists against the extremists.” Olmert said an international force is worth considering for securing the Philadelphi border enclave of the Gaza Strip against further arms smuggling. DEBKAfile: This would replicate the situation in South Lebanon where UNIFIL troops have been helpless to halt illegal gunrunning to the Hizballah from Syria. The UN Security voiced concern over this traffic only Tuesday, June 12.
12 June: DEBKAfile reported Hamas’ seizure of Gaza’s main south-north highway in fierce fighting with many casualties, most Fatah.
By borrowing this Israeli tactic for bisecting the territory to contain terrorists, Hamas shut in Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard, which has not yet been thrown into battle, and choked off ammunition re-supply routes to Fatah fighters. To tighten their control, Hamas units also commandeered high rise rooftops.
Hamas then gave Fatah till Friday noon to surrender their arms or become wanted men under sentence of death. Abbas called the situation “madness.”
UNWRA has cut down its personnel in Gaza after two aid workers were killed.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas’ planning and combat tactics clearly betray the professional hands of Syrian and Hizballah officers who have set up a command center in the Gaza Strip.
DEBKAfile’s Military sources: Iran and Syria are the winners of Hamas’ military coup against Fatah in Gaza Strip
It was the second triumph in a week for a Palestinian force backed by Iran and Syria, after the Lebanese army failed in four weeks’ combat to crush the pro-Syrian factions’ barricaded in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp near Tripoli.
Tuesday, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Palestinian Authority forces faced disaster. Their inevitable ejection from the Gaza Strip effectively severs Palestinian rule between Ramallah, where Fatah will have to fight to retain control of the West Bank and Gaza, dominated now by an Islamist Palestinian force manipulated from Tehran and Damascus.
The Iran-Syrian alliance has acquired by brute force two Mediterranean coastal enclaves in northern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Its momentum, launched a month ago in both sectors was unchecked. The Fouad Siniora government’s troops failed to break through to the Palestinian camp and crush the pro-Syrian uprising. The Olmert government stood by unmoved as the most radical elements in the Middle East snatched the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southwestern border.
The Bush administration is finding itself forced out of key Middle East positions, its main assets Siniora and Mahmoud Abbas trounced on the battlefield.
Israel’s technological feat of placing the Ofeq-7 surveillance satellite in orbit Monday quickly proved ineffective against the sort of tactics Tehran and Syria employ: mobile, suicidal Palestinian terrorists, heavily and cheaply armed with primitive weapons, who are winning the first round of the Summer 2007 war and preparing for the next.
11 June: DEBKAfile reported: The brutal civil strife has brought the fragile Hamas-Fatah unity government to closure. The War Crimes Prosecution Watch has condemned rival Palestinian factions fighting in Gaza for attacking civilians, prisoners and hospitals.
Senior Palestinian politician Saab Erikat warned the “Mogadishu syndrome” is overtaking Palestinian Gaza. “If war and lawlessness are not extinguished, the fire will burn us all”
The outcome generated by the civil war is the separation of Palestinian rule between Hamas-controlled Gaza and the Fatah-led West Bank.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas threw its entire 5,000-strong Executive Force armed with mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns and grenades into the final bid to conquer the Gaza Strip, whereas Fatah commanders’ desperate appeals to Mahmoud Abbas for reinforcements drew nothing but a futile call for a ceasefire.
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| Israel: The withdrawal from Gaza ... a step towards peace? |  |  |
| By Yossi Schwartz in Jerusalem | ||||||||||
| Tuesday, 23 August 2005 | ||||||||||
| For days Israelis and Palestinians have been glued to their TV For weeks the supporters of the settlers have been wearing orange The evacuation of the Gaza Strip began last Wednesday. The settlers The settlers insulted the soldiers and threw paint, stones and other For 30 years 1,500 families, altogether some 8,000 people who settled in While the settlers and many of their orange supporters took care to Some of the Palestinian workers who were busy packing the furniture, Some Palestinian children are happy for the first time in their lives. On Thursday, as expected, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Annan also repeated Sharon’s condemnation of last Wednesday’s Annan of course does not seem to know that the settlers are The Israeli government will not stop the right-wing, messianic While Sharon presents the instructions he received from Bush The actual role of the PA was described by Amira Has, a The trouble is not only isolated in Gaza. Last Thursday an The Palestinian masses are well aware of the role of the this The tension is growing both within Fatah and between Fatah and On the eve of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the leader of Another Hamas leader, Ahmad Andur, explained that Hamas would Our position against the acts of terror of Hamas against innocent Let us be clear. The evacuation of Gaza is no more than a bone that The withdrawal from Gaza will only serve to cause further division The withdrawal will also foster divisions amongst Israelis as well. There is no way that the Israelis and Palestinians can live in .................................................................................................................................................................
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