Syrian Rebels Admit Chemical Attack Responsibility To Associated Press Reporter (Video)

Friday, August 30, 2013 4:37

(Before It's News)

The lies being told by US government agencies and the mainstream media over in Syria continue to unravel as a Free Syrian Army Rebel has come out and admitted to the Associated Press that the rebels were responsible for the chemical attack in Syria blamed upon Syrian government forces. If this information isn’t bad enough, the rebels also admit that the weapons were supplied to them by US ally Saudi Arabia. Is Barack Obama now going to attack Saudi Arabia and the FSA rebels or will this be overlooked by the globalists and the White House and Syria attacked anyways? A video report is also below.

Syrian rebels in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta have admitted to Associated Press journalist Dale Gavlak that they were responsible for last week’s chemical weapons incident which western powers have blamed on Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, revealing that the casualties were the result of an accident caused by rebels mishandling chemical weapons provided to them by Saudi Arabia.

“From numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families….many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the (deadly) gas attack,”writes Gavlak.

Rebels told Gavlak that they were not properly trained on how to handle the chemical weapons or even told what they were. It appears as though the weapons were initially supposed to be given to the Al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra.

“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” one militant named ‘J’ told Gavlak.

His claims are echoed by another female fighter named ‘K’, who told Gavlak, “They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them. We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”

Will Barack Obama continue to attempt to start WW3 now that this information has come out and if so, will TPTB and their propaganda specialists attempt to portray this report as false? Infowars has more answers to these questions which will show anyone who doubts the validity of this report only needs to learn who the original source of this story is, below.

If accurate, this story could completely derail the United States’ rush to attack Syria which has been founded on the “undeniable” justification that Assad was behind the chemical weapons attack. Dale Gavlak’s credibility is very impressive. He has been a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press for two decades and has also worked for National Public Radio (NPR) and written articles for BBC News.

The website on which the story originally appeared - Mint Press (which is currently down as a result of huge traffic it is attracting to the article) is a legitimate media organization based in Minnesota. The Minnesota Post did a profile on them last year.

Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in providing rebels, whom they have vehemently backed at every turn, with chemical weapons, is no surprise given the revelations earlier this week that the Saudis threatened Russia with terror attacks at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi unless they abandoned support for the Syrian President.

also HERE... UPDATE: Associated Press contacted us to confirm that Dave Gavlak is an AP correspondent, but that her story was not published under the banner of the Associated Press. We didn’t claim this was the case, we merely pointed to Gavlak’s credentials to stress that she is a credible source, being not only an AP correspondent, but also having written for PBS, BBC and Salon.com.

Also watch Ron Paul:  This is a false flag.

The Difference Between Candidate Obama and President Obama

Defeating the Nemesis Within

By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh (Bio and Archives)  Tuesday, August 27, 2013 Comments | Print friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

“The Elephant does not have a spine right now.” - Trevor Loudon

Trevor Loudon, on a U.S. tour to promote his new book, “The Enemies Within,” began his speech to a packed crowd in Fairfax, Virginia, with the relevant question, “Why does a New Zealander from Christ Church care about America?”

The bestselling author encapsulated his answer into two reasons. First, it was simple gratitude to Americans, our fathers, brothers, and uncles, who sacrificed to save his country during WW II. Secondly, it was a selfish reason. “If America goes down so does the West.” Loudon echoed other patriotic editors like Judi McLeod, and her online publication, Canada Free Press, “… Because without America there is no Free World.”

Loudon, a conservative, knows that a socialist, left leaning country like New Zealand would be an easy target if America pulled out from the Pacific region. China would fill the vacuum and New Zealand would become a Chinese protectorate. He realizes that, if the evil Marxist forces at play succeed, Russia would dominate Europe, China would dominate the Far East, the Near East, and the Pacific regions, and Iran would dominate the Middle East.

America has been strong militarily in the last sixty years but that will change in the not so distant future considering all the cutbacks on military expenditures, equipment, personnel, nuclear arsenal, training, and readiness.

 

The average Americans don’t believe that communism exists. To them, communism is a fashionable Che Guevara t-shirt, with no real comprehension of the horrors it wrought to millions around the globe who had to live under the crushing boot of tyrannical dictatorships.

Communism is like a Phoenix bird rising from its hammer and sickle ashes, drenched in the blood of millions of innocents. In order to succeed this time, after having gone underground since 1989, “Marxists must get rid of America.”

We are witnessing a multi-front assault on the American Constitutional freedoms

We are witnessing a multi-front assault on the American Constitutional freedoms.  Loudon explained that there are two main Marxist Groups, the Communist Party USA (about 5,000 members) and the Democratic Socialists of America. Both organizations draw inspiration from Antonio Gramsci, the founding member of the Communist Party of Italy, imprisoned by the Benito Mussolini regime, one fascist getting rid of another emerging tyrant.

According to Loudon, Marxists have infiltrated the American institutions of education, churches, and the military in order to bring about the revolution that is currently taking place in the United States. “Marxists have formulated policies for cap and trade, card check, Obamacare, and immigration reform.” Communists now control all the major labor unions, including the National Education Association (NEA). Unions influence and support the Democrat Party in elections through donations via forced dues, organized protests, sits-ins, boycotts, intimidation, strikes, and intense lobbying. The Democrat Party promotes and supports the labor unions through favorable legislation.

In 1984, an elected socialist labor government banned in New Zealand nuclear warships from its harbors. Overnight, the U.S.A/New Zealand military alliance was destroyed by keeping U.S. Navy warships away. This is an example of the stealth of communists. Before the ban, New Zealand was a pro-American country. The former relationship between the two countries has not been revived to this day.

According to Loudon, for a long time, hand-picked communist operatives from around the world were trained at the Lenin Institute for Higher Learning in the fine art of communist leadership and infiltration of capitalist countries, learning how to destroy them from within. As many as 6,500 students from every country in the world were studying “agitation, union organizing, propaganda techniques, how to be a labor union member, community organizer, how to influence the political process in their own countries and how to get Moscow’s policies implemented as law.”

Loudon’s source was a friend who infiltrated the school in 1993 and experienced firsthand the Lenin Institute’s activities. There were 200 South Africans there, 3 were members of Nelson Mandela’s government, himself a Communist Party member and “useful idiot.”

During the massive anti-NATO marches, the Soviets were encouraging and supporting the protesters because they wanted NATO broken up – the Soviet Communist Party elite apparatchiks wanted to control Europe.

Loudon continued, “The Soviets were so influential, powerful, and stealthy that New Zealanders had no idea that their very liberal, socialist, pro-union, anti-nuclear, labor party policies of 1984 were actually designed in Moscow.”

Could this happen in the U.S.? It already is happening and Trevor Loudon gave three examples.

Obamacare is a classic example of a communist designed and written law

Obamacare is a classic example of a communist designed and written law. If we don’t defund Obamacare, Loudon said, we will have the kind of socialized medicine that forced his wife in New Zealand to wait 2 years for an operation, gave her blood poisoning, and many life-threatening issues; she had to wait 2 years for a simple infected hernia. “Rationing is the only way that socialized medicine works. You are a liability. There’s a limited budget and you have to be fitted into that. If you are old, don’t work, don’t pay taxes, you die.”

Doctors are paid so low in New Zealand that, upon graduation, “50 percent of them leave the most beautiful country in the world” to work elsewhere. “There are 6 bureaucrats for every doctor or nurse.” This mirrors the National Healthcare in the U.K. where nationalized medicine is the largest employer.

“The father of the single-payer healthcare, Obama’s personal Chicago physician, Quentin Young, has worked his entire life for socialized medicine to move bills forward. He is a 40-year veteran of the Communist Party USA.” The aim of the communists is to get control of the middle class through healthcare.

Loudon explained that the Massachusetts government is controlled by the Democratic Socialists for America and they pushed through socialized medicine. “Mitt Romney tried to push back but they reached a compromise. A Marxist designed Romneycare and Obamacare, is a successful attempt to control your life and your death.”

Illegal immigration “reform,” a.k.a. amnesty

A second example of how public policy is run in the U.S. by Marxists (through dirty and underhanded deals, infiltration to affect large numbers of people) is the illegal immigration “reform,” a.k.a. amnesty.

For 15 years, AFL-CIO lobbied Congress heavily to stop illegal immigration and to secure our borders. But in 1995 the Marxists engineered a coup and took over the leadership of the AFL-CIO and they changed the union’s stance on illegal immigration. “All unions are now controlled by the hard left.”(Medina, Gutierrez) AFL-CIO and SEIU now lead the charge for legalization of illegals because they need new Democrat voters and new dues-paying members.

California is already Democrat; the Marxists are going after Texas now. Eight million more votes from the illegal rank means “A governing majority for the future, a one party Democrat state.” Loudon explained that “It is mathematically impossible for a Republican to ever win the Presidency again.”

Even churches are infiltrated by Marxists. The Catholic Church leadership goes along with Marxists because they need to fill the pews with new parishioners.

Loudon continued, “If you think how arrogant they are now, with the IRS scandal, the victimization of their enemies, think what they’ll be like with 8 million illegal voters, they’ll be on steroids. There will be no stopping them.”

Taking over a country from within is not hard to do. “The Democrats are in the Marxists’ pockets.” You just need patience and the right slogans. In Russia, “2,000 Bolsheviks took over a country of 2 million people.”

Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange reparations

Loudon’s third example of public policy run in the U.S. by Marxists is our President’s meeting with Vietnamese officials who, with the help of Congressmen like Tom Harkin, Sheila Jackson Lee, and John Conyers are lobbying Congress to pass Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange reparations. Three hundred Congress members are already on board. Loudon expressed his outrage. “Vietnam invaded another nation (our ally) which we defended. The true victims of agent orange are our American veterans.” Trying to repair Ho Chi Min’s reputation by saying that he was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson is a stretch and a Marxist ploy, in Loudon’s opinion.

“We have a serious problem because the 60s generation are now running the media and academia, labor unions, the Democrat Party; they want their revolution and they are not going to die without it.”

“If America goes down, we all go down.”

If we manage to take our country back from the clutches of Marxism, said Loudon, freedom movements will be inspired around the world. “If America goes down, we all go down.” To do this, Americans don’t have 20 years, we have 2 election cycles; we must abolish the Department of Education, avoid a third party, stand for the Constitution, unite the conservative GOP to take over and get rid of K Street, RINOs, and Karl Rove. The traditional GOP has been taken over by Marxists. “Stand behind people like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and John Bolton.”

Loudon continued that voters in this country do not understand the four Marxist goals:

1.    Take out your military

2.    Take your guns

3.    Destroy your borders

4.    Destroy your economy

The Marxists’ number one goal, said Loudon, is to destroy your military. Once that is accomplished, Russia, China, and Iran will be powerful enough to take the U.S. out. There is a reason why Japan is rearming itself. It can no longer count on its allies to defend it in such close proximity to China.

During the question and answer session, one astute former cryptologist made the comment that unless we restore the paper ballots, conservatives will not win another election until the electronic voting is stopped. “A ninth grader can create a hacking device to change the outcome of the electoral process.”

Loudon concluded his speech to thunderous applause following the last remarks that we still have freedom of speech; we must exercise it because voters do not understand the crisis this country is experiencing and the assaults on many fronts, including the threat of jihad and Sharia Law. “Be the lions; do not lie with the lambs! Take over the GOP!”

Comments

Listen to Dr. Paugh on Butler on Business (WAFS 1190), every Wednesday to Thursday at 10:49 AM EST

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, (Romanian Conservative) is a freelance writer (Canada Free Press, Romanian Conservative, usactionnews.com), author, radio commentator (Silvio Canto Jr. Blogtalk Radio, Butler on Business, The Liberty Express, Free Market Radio, and Republic Broadcasting Network), and speaker. Her book, “Echoes of Communism, is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Short essays describe health care, education, poverty, religion, social engineering, and confiscation of property. A second book, “Liberty on Life Support,” is also available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle. A third book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” is a best seller at Amazon.com under Globalism, Politics, and Environmental Policy.

Her commentaries reflect American Exceptionalism, the economy, immigration, and education.Visit her website, ileanajohnson.com.

Dr. Johnson can be reached at: ileana@canadafreepress.com

Intelligence insider: Syria, World War III & the hidden objective

By Doug Hagmann (Bio and Archives)  Monday, August 26, 2013 Comments | Print friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

“Pay attention! You are seeing the opening acts to a global war, to World War III. Refer to the information I gave you right after the attacks in Benghazi, specifically to the information contained in‘Lemmings…at the precipice of WW III’ and you will see that everything I divulged to you was precisely correct.

World War III will begin in Syria, and no one on the planet (and Americans in particular) will be left untouched by what is about to take place. This has been planned for some time, and we are now seeing it happen right in front of us.” Those are the words of a trusted source with deep ties to the intelligence community, before providing more insight into what we might expect as this ‘crisis’ escalates and “Syria explodes.”

As I wrote in that article published on October 8, 2012, “All that is needed now is for a dutiful media to present one image, a video, or some other proof that Assad or someone else is using, or has their hands on, unconventional weapons. This will provide the necessary pretext for the U.S. and NATO, to intervene and ramp up the war against Assad. The UN will assist, and the red line will then have been crossed.” That will be the trigger event for U.S. involvement, and the escalation into a global conflict.

We are now at that critical moment, as the images of the use of chemical weapons are all over the news, and all fingers are pointing to Assad as the culprit. Just as predicted, The Guardian among other media outlets reported that “David Cameron and Barack Obama moved the West closer to military intervention in Syria on Saturday as they agreed that last week’s alleged chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime had taken the crisis into a new phase that merited a ‘serious response.’” But it’s a lie, a magic show, to keep people’s attention away from something much bigger on the horizon.

Syria through the lens of the Arab Spring & Benghazi

“The entire scenario we are seeing is one big magic act that began long ago, and Syria is just the ‘flash-bang’ diversion of the act, albeit a vital one. To understand how we got here is critically important, as it identifies the larger agenda or the big picture too few are seeing and too many are attempting to hide.

Consider the blatant continuity of agenda that has spanned several American presidential administrations, both Republican and Democrat, Progressive and Conservative. This transcends political parties and the ‘political theater’ that has been designed to keep Americans occupied. Both political parties, however, are unified under a much larger globalist agenda, which explains why the policies of the Bush ‘dynasty’ have been exponentially increased under the Obama ‘regime.’

“Think about it. The anti-Assad ‘rebels’ are losing, they’re in retreat, because the exposure to the arms and weapons running from Benghazi caused the architects of this conflict to lay low for awhile. That gave us some time, but it did not change their objective of overthrowing Assad and taking Syria for the Muslim Brotherhood. The anti-Assad rebels cannot survive without Western assistance. Considering that, what sense would it make for Assad to use chemical weapons, especially as international observers were getting in position to investigate the situation, against rebels in retreat? It makes no sense, unless you understand the larger objective and the ‘big picture.’”

“Okay, so explain the big picture,” I asked my source. “And please do it in a way that I can explain it to my neighbor, or my family, so they too can understand what we’re seeing.” What follows is an uninterrupted monologue from my intelligence insider.

The big picture explained

“Here’s the global picture. When you see it, it will make sense. This is about reshaping the entire power structure of not just the Middle East, but of the world.”

“Remember that the 2001 attacks against the U.S. was the catalyst for our military operations in Afghanistan, and then ostensibly Iraq under George W. Bush, a so-called ‘conservative republican.’ We could have gone into Afghanistan, cleaned up what we needed to, and come home. Instead, while still in Afghanistan, we went into Iraq after convincing the world they had weapons of mass destruction. Remember that George H. W. Bush, also a ‘conservative republican,’ engaged Iraq in ‘Gulf War I’ in 1990. Essentially, we’ve been in Iraq for the last quarter of a century! Why? Think about that.”

“And, we’ve been in Afghanistan for the last dozen years or so. Why? Oil and opium. It’s an ‘international bankers war.’ [Note that a recent report from ‘The Guerrilla Economist lays this out here, excerpted as follows]: “...[L]arge US military bases are on the very path of the purposed [Caspian Sea oil] pipeline. This as well as that some of the proceeds from the lucrative opium trade will find its way back to US banks which will launder the money in order to help fund Unocal in the purposed pipe building project. Win Win.”

“Oh, and by the way, if you mention Iran’s nuclear ambitions, why did we wait so long to really address this and keep Israel from doing so before any action would require a very protracted military campaign? Keep that in the back of your mind.”

“Now here’s another important part of the magic act. After eight years of George Bush, Americans were weary of war. So, a little known man named Barack Hussein Obama was selected to run against John McCain in 2008. Why Obama and not Hillary? Because the real power players needed a man with Muslim Brotherhood connections to accomplish what was needed in the Middle East. Think back to his Cairo speech. Consider that all of his campaign promises to end the wars were not only broken, but the wars and unrest were expanded by his policies, or the policies of those who put him into power.”

“So we’ve stayed in Afghanistan and in Iraq.” Then comes the Arab Spring, which was planned years in advance. It was not some serendipitously spontaneous movement by oppressed people longing for democracy, but a Saudi and Muslim Brotherhood plan to regain control of what was once the Ottoman Empire, this time on steroids. People must think bigger, outside of the confines of the Middle East.”

“As much as I don’t like the thought of saying this, Putin was correct in asking what sense it makes to destabilize the entire Middle East, especially Syria, a client state of Russia. In the context of regional affairs, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Now, we are going to send cruise missiles into Syria… to hit what? Chemical weapons stockpiles stored in densely populated areas? How is this going to help the Syrians? The refugees fleeing from Syria?”

“I’ve told you, and you have written that we are implementing the Saudi agenda across the Middle East. But who is behind the Saudis? It is the international banking cartel, those ‘too big to jail,’ who are behind the Saudis. It’s their war and they’re funding all sides of the conflict. No matter what, they win. But what do they win?”

“Admittedly it’s difficult if not nearly impossible to tell all the players without a scorecard, and even then, the players will change their uniforms to keep everyone confused. But here’s the important part. Syria is a proxy state for Russia, as is Iran. China has interests in Iran as well. If you look at all of the major powers, they all have interests in the Middle East. So who will we, the U.S. ultimately be fighting when Syria explodes? Russia. And what will be the blowback? That’s important to understand, for it is also the objective.”

Blowback

“None of what you are seeing is about fighting terrorism, or about helping the people of Syria. It’s about oil, energy and the global economic system. Conflict exists for the globalists to achieve their objective, and their objective is the implementation of a new economic system that will be a basket of currencies, or SDR (Special Drawing Rights). If you don’t know about SDRs, just equate it to the euro, but on a global scale.”

They will usher this in by striking at the United States much like the U.S. took down the old Soviet Union. They will target our economy through oil, cheap oil, from Saudi Arabia. Remember, Russia is the world’s largest exporter of oil, neck and neck with the Saudis. But, the Saudis’ oil wells have been damaged and their ‘lift costs’ are increasing.”

“So, what we are about to see and experience in a most painful way is the destruction of the U.S. economy, the intentional killing of the U.S. dollar, by having it replaced as the world’s reserve currency, and replaced with a basket of currencies (SDR) that is much easier to control.”

“This is all about the conversion of world’s economic trading mechanism from a U.S. dollar based system to a SDR. The Middle East and Syria is merely the catalyst for is implementation. The ‘flash-bang’ of the magic act. And once this catalytic action is started, we cannot go back. War in the Middle East and particularly Syria is the catalyst that will disrupt transactions and commerce all over the world. And few will see it coming, or know what hit them.”

Area Near Al-Aqsa Mosque Collapses

An area collapsed near the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque late Tuesday. Arabs blamed Israel.

By Elad Benari

First Publish: 8/22/2013, 4:15 AM

Al Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem

Flash 90

An area collapsed near the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem late Tuesday, reported the Turkish Anadolu news agency.

 

An eyewitness told the agency that the collapse occurred near the Bab as Silsila, on the western part of the mosque.

 

It is the second collapse near the western wall within five years, Cum'a Usayle, an eyewitness, told Anadolu.

 

"The collapse has caused a deep hole there. It is dangerous for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It poses danger especially for children and women," he said.

 

The report claimed that no security precautions around the area have been taken by Israeli officials so far, nor has there been a statement about the incident.

 

The Al-Aqsa Foundation and Cultural Heritage Organization accused Israel, as it usually does, of paving the way for demolishing the Al-Aqsa Mosque by “building new settlements and digging dozens of tunnels.”

Arabs continuously accuse Israel of "Judaizing" the Temple Mount, sometimes resorting to ridiculous propaganda such as accusing Israel of using chemicals to erode the foundations of the mosque in order to cause it to collapse.

At the same time the Waqf, which was left in charge of the Temple Mount after Israel liberated it during the 1967 Six Day War, consistently destroys Jewish antiquities on the compound in a direct violation of a ruling by the Supreme Court.

The Waqf has removed every sign of ancient Jewish presence at the site. At the entrance to the Temple Mount, a Waqf sign says, “The Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property.”

 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas several months ago accused Israel of trying to “destroy” the Al-Aqsa Mosque by allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

 

Speaking to a Saudi-based newspaper, Abbas said that "the Al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger," claiming that Israel prevents PA Arabs from praying at the mosque, while allowing “extremist Jews" to worship there. This, he claimed, is proof that Israel has a "malicious" and dangerous plan to destroy the mosque and rebuild the “false” Holy Temple in its place, as he put it.

 

Most recently, Jordanian King Abdullah II added fuel to the ongoing debate over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, when he told visiting Muslim and Christian dignitaries from Jerusalem that he will continue his efforts to “safeguard” Islamic and Christian sites in the holy city of Jerusalem from what so-called "Judaization."

Western-Mid East military action prepared for Syria. Israel, Jordan, Turkey face up to Syrian counter-attack. Russia on war alert

DEBKAfile Special Report August 25, 2013, 7:12 AM (IDT)

Tags:  chemical weapons,  Syrian war,  Barack Obama,  military intervention,  Israel,  Russian military,

US seaborne Tomahawk cruise missile

Western and Middle East powers led by Washington began moving Saturday night and Sunday morning, Aug. 25, toward a first strike against Syria following the Assad regime’s large-scale chemical attack in eastern Damascus last Wednesday. The first targeted strike may well signal the start of a series of US-led attacks aimed at toppling the Assad regime, debkafile’s military sources report. They may consist of imposing a no-fly zone and the sealing off of sectors in northern and southern Syria against government forces.

Russian forces also went on war alert
President Barack Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron spent 40 minutes on the phone Saturday night amid the strongest indications to date from Washington that direct military intervention by the West was approaching, following a change in the US president’s posture. He has become convinced that the strike would have to be conducted outside the United Nations.

Military commanders from Western and Muslim countries are meeting Sunday in the Jordanian capital of Amman to coordinate action in Syria, with the participation of the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Italy and Canada. Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff chairs the meeting. Saturday night, four American destroyers were moving closer to Syria, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are capable of precision strikes.
While Western media are reporting at length on Western, Arab and Muslim military preparations, Israel’s armed forces are moving ahead in secrecy. Its officials spread soothing statements asserting Israel’s non-involvement in the Syrian turmoil, as Israel’s military and intelligence agencies get ready for Syria to counter an attack by loosing missiles against their country as well as Jordan and Turkey. All three also expect an explosion of terrorism.
Saturday night, Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi, while denying his government was responsible for Wednesday’s poison gas attack, stated over state television that if Syria came under attack, “a mass of flames will ignite the Middle East.”
debkafile’s military sources report that Moscow has placed on war alert Russia’s Mediterranean and Black Sea fleets as well as rapid deployment forces in southern and central Russia.

Three Syrian hospitals told the humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières Saturday that they had received around 3,600 patients suffering from symptoms related to a poison gas attack. Of these, 355 had reportedly died.
According to debkafile’s sources, Western demands for proof of the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons before taking action have been countered in the last few hours by the discovery that the forensic evidence will be all but impossible to obtain in view of the special mixture contained in the gas shells. Only tiny quantities of sarin were blended in with a large quantity of riot control agents, a formula developed by Iran to camouflage the use of chemical weapons.

Abbas: A Peace Agreement Would End The Conflict

“We won’t ask to return to Jaffa or Acre,” PA Chairman tellsmembers of the Meretz party.

 

Posted on 8/23/2013 by admin

 

 

 

By: Elad Benari

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is claiming that if a peace agreement is reached with Israel, it would bring an end to his people’s demands of the Jewish state.

Abbas made the comments during a meeting in Ramallah with members of the leftist Meretz party, and they were reported byChannel 2 News.

“I know your concerns, but guarantee that at the conclusion of successful negotiations, we undertake to end all the demands. We will not ask to return to Yafo, Akko and Tzfat,” he said.

Members of Meretz said that Abbas told them a “fair agreement” will end the conflict with Israel and that a “peace agreement with Israel will be final and binding.” He did not, however, specify what is meant by a fair peace agreement and did not commit to the fact that PA would give up its demand for the “right of return”.

He added that he believes all obstacles to peace could be overcome and resolved within six months, though he said that at this point there was little progress in the talks. Abbas made it clear, however, that he would not agree to temporary borders and would only sign an agreement that would allow the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The PA chairman criticized Israel’s behavior around the resumption of negotiations, saying, according to Channel 2, “I wanted there to be daily meetings or at most every two days, because our time is limited, but Israel refused.” He also claimed that Israel had refused to allow active American involvement in the discussions.

Abbas expressed disappointment at the fact that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not met with him and told the Meretz members that he sent Netanyahu a message several times, indicating his readiness to meet with him face to face, as he had done with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (who offered Abbas an unprecedented offer to which Abbas has yet to respond).

The meeting between Abbas and the Meretz members comes several days after the latest meeting between Israeli and PA negotiators, as part of the current round of peace talks.

So far, details of the discussions between the sides have not been revealed, apparently consistent with a request from Washington last week for a strict news blackout.

At the same time, the PA’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat  revealed, in an interview with the Nazareth-based Arabic language A-Shams radio station on Tuesday, that the PA would not have returned to the negotiating table with Israel had it not received a letter of assurances from the United States, guaranteeing its main negotiating preconditions.

Erekat said in the interview that the U.S. had assured the PA in writing that talks would recognize the indefensible pre-1967 borders as the basis of a Palestinian state, would deal with all core issues (Jerusalem, refugees, borders, security and water), would take place within six  to nine months and would not allow for any interim solutions before a final status agreement is signed.

ARUTZSHEVA

Op-ed: Israel reaping sour fruits of its own ambivalent past actions and decisions regarding the beloved capital

By: Shoula Romano Horing:

 It is disgraceful that the United States, Israel’s best ally and friend, has never recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital even though it recognizes the claimed capitals of numerous brutal dictatorships and enemy nations.

It is also shameful that the Europeans still call the eastern part of Jerusalem a “settlement” and part of the “ occupied territories” when that part of the city was the location of the capital city of ancient Israeli kingdoms for over 1000 years and was home to Judaism’s two Holy Temples.

But the ultimate shame for the distorted world view of Jerusalem is on successive Israeli governments, starting with Rabin and Peres, who agreed to put Jerusalem on the negotiation table as a final status issue of the Oslo Agreement, thus, giving legitimacy to the Arabs’ revisionist history of lies and myths that Jerusalem was ever the capital of an Arab state.

Of course, Jews’ rights were jeopardized again when the governments led by Barak in 2000 and Olmert in 2008 were willing to give specific offers to Arafat and Abbas respectively to re-divide the city and waive most rights to the Temple Mount, the holiest site of the Jews. Thankfully both offers were rejected by our enemies.

The slippery slope of giving away our rights in Jerusalem began immediately after the Six Day War in 1967, in which Israel in a war of self-defense routed the Jordanian Army and captured eastern Jerusalem. Then Israeli Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan apologetically sacrificed Israeli’s sovereign and religious rights by handing total administrative control over the Temple Mount to Jordan’s Islamic Waqf. The same Jordanians who during their previous 19 year control of eastern Jerusalem, destroyed many Jewish synagogues and denied Jews access to their holiest sites, including the Western Wall and Temple Mount.

Prime Minister Netanyahu should share part of the blame, even though he also should be credited for working tirelessly for four years to slow down Obama’s obsessive pursuit of establishing a Palestinian state and dividing Jerusalem.

In 2010, Netanyahu repeatedly apologized when President Obama was personally involved in orchestrating a harsh public confrontation with Israel over its announcing of plans to build new housing units in north Jerusalem during a visit by Vice President Biden. Moreover, in June, data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics showed that not a single new project was started or planned in the Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem since the start of 2013. Jerusalem’s deputy mayor confirmed that it was on a direct order of the prime minster.

So now we reap the sour fruits of our own ambivalent past actions and decisions about our beloved capital.

The European Union on July 17 issued a new directive that its bodies and member nations will no longer be a party to any economic, social or academic cooperation and agreements with Israeli institutions operating beyond the pre- 1967 borders, which includes Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem. Thus the EU is in effect demanding that Israel deny any rights to the Western Wall or the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and erect a border in the middle of Jerusalem, which has been the Jewish capital much longer than any city has been the capital of any European nation.

On July 23rd, a US federal appellate court found unconstitutional a 2002 law that gives thousands of Americans born in Jerusalem the option of listing Israel as their birth place on US passports. The judge stated in the decision that Congress intended to force the State Department to deviate from its decades-long position of neutrality on what nation or government, if any, has sovereignty over Jerusalem. The court said that it found the State Department‘s position compelling that a reversal of US policy could provoke uproar throughout the Arab and Muslim world and severely damage relations.

Now, Netanyahu seems to have given in to Obama at the worse time, when the Middle East is more unstable and dangerous than ever. US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that Netanyahu and Abbas have reached an agreement that provides the basis for the final status negotiations which includes discussing the status of Jerusalem.

As Abbas demanded as a precondition to reviving talks that Israel release prisoners with Jewish blood on their hands and that Israel agree to start negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders, Israel should have demanded that Jerusalem will never be physically divided again and the Temple Mount will always stay under Israel sovereignty. Putting Jerusalem on the negotiating table without setting red lines first will guarantee its division.

Since the US administration was so desperate to restart the negotiations in order to claim some foreign policy success after its dismal record in Egypt, Syria, and Iran, Israel must create its own uproar and demand that the US move its embassy from Tel Aviv to western Jerusalem, which both the US and the Europeans claim they do not consider part of the “pre-1967 occupied territories.”

Historically, Jerusalem has only been the capital of a Jewish state. For thousands of years Jews swore not to forget her. What will you say to future generations when they ask you what did you do when they were negotiating to divide Jerusalem?