Israelis Ordered to Leave Sinai Immediately, Terror Alert

Via INN:

The National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a warning Tuesday afternoon to Israeli citizens to avoid traveling in the Sinai Peninsula. According to the report, intelligence sources received a credible terror alert of an immediate threat of attack by a terror cell operating in Sinai.

"Activity by terrorist elements in the Sinai Peninsula, who are working in order to abduct Israelis raises the possibility that they intend to perpetrate such an abduction in the very near, even immediate, future," said the warning.

Officials emphasized that the intelligence sources for the report were extremely reliable.

This warning is the latest in a host of other alerts warning Israelis against travel in the Sinai Peninsula, where terrorists from Gaza and elsewhere often gather.

Middle East envoy Tony Blair also faced credible threats to his life by Arab terrorists Tuesday morning, suddenly changing his plans to visit Gaza after receiving an intelligence warning from the Israeli government.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) told Associated Press it had received “pinpoint information that Palestinians were planning to attack Blair in Gaza, so the relevant services alerted him to the fact.”

The threat, said the agency, was “specific” and “credible.”

The former British prime minister has been largely responsible for the wealth of economic development funds that have been funneled to the Hamas terrorist-run region since the group seized control of the area in June 2007.

The Golan Heights and the Syrian-Israeli Negotiations

By Dore Gold

1) Israeli negotiators will quickly discover three core areas in their discussions with the Syrians that they will not resolve easily: delineation of an agreed boundary, security arrangements, and the Syrian-Iranian alliance.
2) Just prior to the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syria deployed 1,400 tanks along the border against a total Israeli force of 177 tanks (a force ratio of 8 to 1 in favor of Syria). Should Syria's considerable missile forces be used to delay Israel's reserve mobilization, then the importance of the Golan terrain will increase as Israel's small standing army will have to fight for longer without reserve reinforcement.

3) When Israel reached its Treaty of Peace with Egypt in 1979, it agreed to fully withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula to the international border. Syria illegally occupied Israeli territories during the 1950s that were within Israel's international borders: the southern demilitarized zone at al-Hamma, the Banias area, and the strip of coastal territory along the northeast shoreline of the Sea of Galilee.

4) If Israel were to agree to the June 4, 1967, line, as Syria demands, it would be rewarding Syrian aggression. Moreover, it could compromise Israel's control of its largest fresh water reservoir. Israel should not have to be arguing with the Syrians over the question of whether a future Israeli-Syrian boundary should correspond to the June 4, 1967, line or to the older international border, for neither of these lines is defensible.

5) The U.S. has given Israel repeated diplomatic assurances in the past that Israel will not have to come down from the Golan Heights, beginning with a September 1, 1975, letter from President Gerald Ford to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It was renewed prior to the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference by Secretary of State James Baker. During the Clinton administration, Secretary of State Warren Christopher renewed the Ford commitment in a letter dated September 19, 1996.

6) Even if, by prior agreement with Tehran, the Syrians took steps that appeared to be downgrading relations, Israel's concession of the Golan Heights would be irreversible, while the political orientation of states in the Middle East is notoriously changeable. It would be a cardinal error for Israel to put into jeopardy its own security by agreeing to come down from the Golan Heights.

Go to http://tinyurl.com/6qxgmz to read the full article.

Egypt: Gazans Used Counterfeit Money in Sinai

From Egypt: Gazans Used Counterfeit Money in Sinai:

About $1 million in counterfeit bills, apparently originating in Gaza, were seized in Sinai in the past few days, Egyptian security sources told the Palestinian news agency Ma'an on Thursday.

According to the sources, the Egyptians received warnings regarding counterfeit bills making their way into Sinai immediately after Hamas gunmen breached the Gaza-Egypt border, and these warnings were delivered to the merchants, most of whom made sure to examine the money.

Less than a week ago, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Hamas was seriously contemplating severing the Gaza Strip’s economic ties with Israel, quoting a senior advisor to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The advisor, Ahmed Yousef, was asked whether Hamas was also considering abandoning the use of Israeli currency in the Strip. Yousef indicated that this “might be possible in the future. Residents of Gaza can always trade in American Dollars, Jordanian Dinars or Egyptian Pounds at a later point.”

Eisenhower Regretted He Pushed for Sinai Withdrawal in 1956

From Eisenhower Regretted He Pushed for Sinai Withdrawal in 1956:

In Israel's 1956 joint military undertaking with Britain and France, President Eisenhower warned Israel of severe consequences were it not to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and Sinai. Israel complied. Peter Golden in his "authorized biography" of Max M. Fisher, Quiet Diplomat (1992), relates that in October 1965 Fisher met with Eisenhower in Gettysburg. Toward the end of the visit Eisenhower "wistfully commented, 'You know, Max, looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressured Israel to evacuate the Sinai.'" Eisenhower's remark astonished Fisher. Nixon also told Golden: "Eisenhower...in the 1960s told me - and I am sure he told others - that he thought the action that was taken (at Suez) was one he regretted. He thought it was a mistake."

For Israel, There Was No Peace Before The Land

From the great Charles Krauthammer:

There has hardly been an Arab peace plan in the past 40 years -- including the current Saudi version -- that does not demand a return to the status quo of June 4, 1967. Why is that date so sacred? Because it was the day before the outbreak of the Six Day War in which Israel scored one of the most stunning victories of the 20th century. The Arabs have spent four decades trying to undo its consequences.

The real anniversary of the war should be now, three weeks earlier. On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser demanded the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force that had kept Israel and Egypt at peace for 10 years. The U.N. complied, at which point Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel's only outlet to the south, the port of Eilat -- an open act of war.

How Egypt came to this reckless provocation is a complicated tale (chronicled in Michael Oren's magisterial history "Six Days of War'') of aggressive intent compounded with fateful disinformation. An urgent and false Soviet warning that Israel was preparing to attack Syria led to a cascade of intra-Arab maneuvers that in turn led Nasser, the champion of pan-Arabism, to mortally confront Israel with
a remilitarized Sinai and a southern blockade.

Why is this still important? Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel's 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of the Six Day War -- the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza -- in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez War, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.

All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser's hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson tried to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel's south. The effort failed dismally.

It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel's every frontier,
jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants,'' declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, "and as for the survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them.''

For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel's citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance.

We know the rest of the story. Rabin recovered in time to lead Israel to victory. But we forget how perilous was Israel's condition. The victory hinged on a successful attack on Egypt's air force on the morning of June 5. It was a gamble of astonishing proportions. Israel sent the bulk of its 200-plane air force on the mission, fully exposed to antiaircraft fire and missiles. Had they been detected and the force destroyed, the number of planes remaining behind to defend the Israeli homeland -- its cities and civilians -- from the Arab air forces' combined 900 planes was ... 12.

We also forget that Israel's occupation of the West Bank was entirely unsought. Israel begged Jordan's King Hussein to stay out of the conflict. Engaged in fierce combat with a numerically superior Egypt, Israel had no desire to open a new front just yards from Jewish Jerusalem and just miles from Tel Aviv. But Nasser personally told Hussein that Egypt had destroyed Israel's air force and airfields and that total victory was at hand. Hussein could not resist the temptation to join the fight. He joined. He lost.

The world will soon be awash with 40th anniversary retrospectives on the war -- and on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only return to June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that unbearable May when, with Israel possessing no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel's imminent extinction. And the world did nothing.