Mideast War Zone
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Israeli generals are planning for a possible massive invasion of
Palestinian territories if the current Mideast cease-fire fails. A
report published by the Jane?s Information Group in London
says the goal would be to destroy Palestinian armed forces
and the Palestinian Authority, forcing Chairman Yasser Arafat
back into exile, where he spent 12 years after the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The invasion plan would be
launched after another suicide bomb attack resulting in a
large number of deaths, like the one at a Tel Aviv disco last
month.
?That there is an Israeli contingency plan to re-occupy the
Palestinian areas comes as no surprise at all,? says Francis
Tusa, a defense analyst. ?That it is being pushed up the list
and that it?s a leading option ? this is coming as a bit more
of a surprise and a worrying one.?
The plan calls for air strikes by F-15 and F-16 fighter-
bombers, a heavy artillery bombardment, and then an attack
by a combined force of 30,000 men, including paratroopers,
tank brigades and infantry. Israel?s Arab neighbors, Syria,
Jordan and Egypt are expected to stay out of the fight. The
report considers the possibility that Iraq might try to
intervene with troops, which would then be destroyed by the
Israeli airforce. It also states that Egypt could invade the
Sinai peninsula, forcing Israel to call up its reserves. The
report indicates that Israel expects up to 300 of its troops to
die in such an attack, with Palestinian deaths in the
thousands.
The Jane?s report indicates that the plan was presented to
the Israeli cabinet on July 9. But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon dismissed the rumors of war Thursday, saying he has
no plans to escalate the conflict. ?There is no imminent
danger of war ? I also don?t see either a deterioration or
escalation but I definitely see a situation in which terrorism
continues,? he told reporters.
?People in the military get paid to make plans all the time,"
cautioned Hirsch Goodman, an Israeli military analyst. ?There
are plans and there are plans.?
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said no such plan was ever
submitted or discussed. ?I?m so happy to see that such an
important journal has such a fertile imagination. It simply
didn?t happen,? he told Israeli army radio.
For more on war preparations,
click here.
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Meanwhile, Hassidic rabbis are publicly proclaiming that their
Messiah will arrive soon. They claim that the Gulf War was
described in precise detail in sacred Jewish texts as the
event which occurs as the identity of Judaism?s King Messiah
is revealed. They also say they that the impact of the
Shoemaker- Levy 9 asteroid into Jupiter in 1994 was foretold
in the Kaballa, Judaism's sacred book of mysticism, as the
heavenly sign of the Messiah?s imminent arrival.
One rabbi explained, ?The Christian world needs to examine
anew why the rabbis in the days of Jesus rejected him as
being Judaism?s King Messiah. Who and what is King Messiah
has been very much misrepresented to good Christians who
have had little access to the original Hebrew texts and Laws
which solely govern this matter for Judaism.?
?This is not just a matter of Faith. This circumstance has the
highest certainty threshold in all of Jewish history,? says
another rabbi.
In 1991 Hassidic rabbis of the Chabad Lubavitch sect issued a
religious ruling stating that Rabbi Menachem Mendel
Schneerson was the Messiah. Rabbi Schneerson died in 1994,
but this has not deterred these rabbis from continuing to
make their proclamation.
Kaballistic writings teach that Judaism's King Messiah will be
revealed and become known to only a few people in the
world, and will later reappear to complete his tasks after his
perceived passing.
For more on the Messiah Watch,
click here.
