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Reports: Iraq De-Judaizing Ezekiel's Tomb - Jewish World - Israel News - Israel National News 28

Jan 05, 10

www.israelnationalnews.com/...135343 Iraq Jews Ezekiel Ezekiel-Tomb Al-Kifl mosque Muslims Islam Iraq-govt Yechezkel repairs concern Israel
- Published: 01/04/10, 1:02 PM / Last Update: 01/04/10
- Reports: Iraq De-Judaizing Ezekiel's Tomb
- by Hillel Fendel
- Early reports that Iraq plans to retain the Jewish nature of the Tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel are apparently false. Sources in Baghdad say that the government plans to turn it into a mosque and erase all Jewish markings.
- Iraq announced earlier this year that it would revamp the ancient burial site, which is located in Al-Kifl, a small town south of Baghdad.
- The U.S.-backed government announcement implied that its Jewish nature would continue to be emphasized.
- Since then, however, reports have surfaced that the government is actually planning to build a mosque there, including removing the ancient Hebew inscriptions that adorn the site.
- Some reports say that all or some of the lines of Hebrew script have already been erased.
- Ezekiel (Yechezkel, in Hebrew), lived in the sixth century BCE, having accompanied the exiled Judeans to Babylon.
- His prophecies include the Vision of the Dry Bones, as well as the future return of Jewish People to the Land of Israel even if they are not deserving (Chapter 36: 22-25).
- Thousands of Jews often visited the site of his tomb annually before Iraqi Jewry came to an abrupt end in the middle of the 20th century,
- and Moslems and Christians continue to visit it even today.
- Shelomo Alfassa, Director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, reports that Islamic political parties have pressured the government to remove the Jewish inscriptions.
- He quotes the Iraqi news agency Ur News as reporting that the writing and ornamentations “are being (or have been) removed… under the pretext of restoring the site.”
- Alfassa quotes sources to the effect that Iraq’s Antiquities and Heritage Authority “has been pressured by Islamists to historically cleanse all evidence of a Jewish connection to Iraq - a land where Jews had lived for over a thousand years before the advent of Islam.”
- Professor Investigates
- Four months ago, a German-based Iraqi journalist tipped off the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq in Israel (AJAII) that plans were afoot to build a mosque on the site of Ezekiel’s Tomb. AJAII asked Dr. Jabbar Jamal al-Din, a lecturer in Jewish Thought at Kufa University in Iraq, to investigate these reports – and he said that he believes them to be untrue.
- Baghdad Sources: Room for Concern
- Sources in Baghdad, however, feel otherwise.
- Prof. Shmuel Moreh - Israel Prize Laureate in Arabic Literature and Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University of Jerusalem -
- told Israel National News that he had received worrisome phone calls from non-Jewish friends in Baghdad. Prof. Moreh, who serves as the Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq, said that the plans are to turn the holy site into a mosque, and “some told me that they are taking off the Hebrew inscriptions.”
- “The officials of the Department of Antiquities and Heritage say that their restoration programme will continue until 2011 and is designed to carry out essential maintenance and prevent the dome and roof from collapsing.
- Alfassa provides the following translation of the relevant report in Ur News:
- But their hidden purpose, sources say, is the removal of features that emphasize a historical connection with the Jews who built the shrine and lived in the city for hundreds of years after the Babylonian exile.”
- Though well over 100,000 Jews lived in Iraq a few decades ago, this number has now been decimated to no more than eight, Prof. Moreh said.
- “There are others,” he added, “but they barely know that they are Jews; in many cases, their parents did not tell them.”
- Alfassa concludes: “Iraq - the Biblical Mesopotamia -is almost as rich in Jewish history as the Land of Israel.
- The tomb of the prophet Ezekiel dates back to the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. It was there in Iraq that Abraham discovered monotheism, and it is where the prophets Ezra, Nehemiah, Nahum, Jonah and Daniel are all buried.”
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Asia Times Online :: Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China 68

Jan 09, 10

Page 1

www.atimes.com/...LA09Ak02.html Yemen Aden US-Military China Iran Saudis Shiites terrorists Russia Obama strategy al-Qaeda ports Israel Israeli-Intelligence Indian-Ocean
- Page 1 of 2
  Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China
- By M K Bhadrakumar
- A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made the startling revelation that his country's security forces apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli intelligence forces.
- "A terrorist cell was apprehended and will be referred to the courts for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," he promised.
- Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold.
- Saleh added, "You will hear about the trial proceedings."
- Welcome to the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the Arabian Nights were played out.
- Combine Yemen with the mystique of Islam, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Israeli intelligence and you get a heady mix.
- The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, dropped in at the capital, Sana'a, on Saturday and vowed to Saleh
  
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  increased American aid to fight al-Qaeda.
- United States President Barack Obama promptly echoed Petraeus' promise, assuring that the US would step up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces
- and perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the region.
- Another Afghanistan?
- Many accounts say that Obama, who is widely regarded as a gifted and intelligent politician, is blundering into a catastrophic mistake by starting another war that could turn out to be as bloody and chaotic and unwinnable as Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Yes, on the face of it, Obama does seem erratic.
- The parallels with Afghanistan are striking.
- There has been an attempt to destroy a US plane by a Nigerian student who says he received training in Yemen.
- And America wants to go to war.
- Yemen, too, is a land of wonderfully beautiful rugged mountains that could be a guerilla paradise.
- Yemenis are a hospitable lot, like Afghan tribesmen, but as Irish journalist Patrick Cockurn recollects, while they are generous to passing strangers, they "deem the laws of hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal territory, at which time he becomes 'a good back to shoot at'."
- Fiercely nationalistic, almost every Yemeni has a gun.
- Yemen is also, like Afghanistan, a land of conflicting authorities, and with foreign intervention, a little civil war is waiting to flare up.
- Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1 speech outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his own canons?
- Obama is a smart man. The intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US's global hegemony.
- It is America's answer to China's surge.
- A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.
- It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates.
- In effect, Uncle Sam is "marking territory" - like a dog on a lamppost.
- Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.
- The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn't end with Yemen.
- It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya.
- With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean's western rim.
- Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region.
- The US has now foreclosed China's options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran.
- All other countries have a Western military presence.
- The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Obama will ensure he doesn't receive any body bags of American servicemen serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects from him.
- He will only deploy drone aircraft and special forces and "focus on providing intelligence and training to help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants", according to the US military.
- Obama's main core objective will be to establish an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many purposes.
- A new great game begins
- First, the US move has to be viewed against the historic backdrop of the Shi'ite awakening in the region.
- The Shi'ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have been traditionally suppressed in Yemen.
- Shi'ite uprisings have been a recurring theme in Yemen's history. There has been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of Shi'ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.
- More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they constitute the majority.
- What bothers the US and moderate Sunni Arab states - and Israel - is that the Believing Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon in all respects - politically, economically, socially and culturally.
- Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament.
- The Yemeni Shi'ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have far-reaching regional implications.
- Next-door Oman, which is a key American base, is predominantly Shi'ite.
- Even more sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of Shi'ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia's highly restive Shi'ite regions adjoining Yemen,
- which on top of it all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country's fabulous oil wealth.
- Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of political transition as a new generation is set to take over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and fault lines within the royal family are likely to get exacerbated.
- To put it mildly, given the vast scale of institutionalized Shi'ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi establishment, Shi'ite empowerment is a veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this juncture.
- Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against the north Yemeni Shi'ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia testifies.
- It is all right for Obama to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies - as he did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June.
- The US faces a classic dilemma.
- But democratization in the Yemeni context - ironically, in the Arab context - would involve Shi'ite empowerment.
- After the searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil rich-region in which it has profound interests.
- Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn't want to think about it.
- Iran's shadow over the Yemeni Shi'ite consciousness worries the US to no end.
- Simply put, in the ideological struggle going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that constitute the ruling class in the region.
- If his own memoirs are to be believed, there could be times when the vague recollections of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the White House corridors.
- Conceivably, he isn't finding it easy.
- Israel moves in
- But Obama is first and foremost a realist. Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval Office.
- With the military presence in Yemen, the US has tightened the cordon around Iran.
- In the event of a military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a springboard by the Israelis.
- These are weighty considerations for Obama.
- The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni authority.
- It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen - just as it did in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.
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Asia Times Online :: Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China 59

Jan 09, 10

Page 2

www.atimes.com/...LA09Ak03.html USA China Yemen US-Military Aden Indian-Ocean India al-Qaeda terrorism geopolitics Israel Israeli-Intelligence Arabian-Peninsula Obama Malacca-Strait Pakistan Persian-Gulf Africa
- Page 2 of 2
  Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China
- By M K Bhadrakumar
- Islamism doesn't deter Israel at all.
- Saleh couldn't have been far off the mark when he alleged last year that Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links with Yemeni Islamists.
- The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort of allegiance to whom.
- Israeli intelligence operates marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.
- Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian Peninsula.
- This is a dream come true for Israel, whose effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf region.
- The overarching US military presence helps
  
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  Israel politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter.
- Without doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel (and Britain).
- But the "pro-West" Arab states with their rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute spectators on the sidelines.
- Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli security presence in the region as a safer bet than the spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi'ite empowerment emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah.
- Also, at some stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known as affiliates of al-Qaeda.
- That is, if it hasn't done that already.
- Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.
- It's all about China
- Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen.
- Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia.
- Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the "great game" of the Indian Ocean.
- The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy.
- By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.
- In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming under pressure.
- India is a natural ally of the US in the Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese naval presence.
- India is mediating a rapprochement between Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese influence in Sri Lanka.
- The US has taken a u-turn in its Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the primary intent of eroding China's influence with the military rulers.
- The Chinese strategy aimed at strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to open a new transportation route towards the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting traditional Western economic dominance.
- China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia.
- The US, on the contrary, is determined that China remains vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and Malaysia.
- The US is unhappy with China's efforts to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf through the Central Asian region and Pakistan.
- An engrossing struggle is breaking out.
- Slowly but steadily, Washington is tightening the noose around the neck of the Pakistani elites - civilian and military - and forcing them to make a strategic choice between the US and China.
- This will put those elites in an unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they are inherently "pro-Western" (even when they are "anti-American")
- and if the Chinese connection is important for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances perceived Indian hegemony.
- The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from Obama.
- Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will have to learn to live?
- US-India-Israel axis
- On the other hand, the Indian elites are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the Bush days.
- Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama's political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the broad contours of the US's global strategy - of which containment of China is a core template.
- The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard to the Obama presidency.
- Delhi takes the surge of the Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the Obama presidency.
- The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers as well as successive administrations.
- And all this is happening at a time when the India-Israel security relationship is gaining greater momentum.
- United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to visit Delhi in the coming days.
- The Obama administration is reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude toward India's longstanding quest for "dual-use" technology from the US.
- If so, a massive avenue of military cooperation is about to open between the two countries, which will make India a serious challenger to China's growing military prowess.
- It is a win-win situation as the great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business for American companies.
- Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on.
- It will have significance for the security of the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.
- Last year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.
- All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda.
- The hard reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be "change", has careened away and increasingly defaults to the global strategies of the Bush era.
- The freshness of the Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the "revisionism" in his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface.
- We can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia and towards China and Russia.
- Arguably, this sort of "return of the native" by Obama was inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his circumstances.
- As someone put it brilliantly, Obama's presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a train cannot be "steered", the driver can at best set its speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.
- Besides, history has no instances of a declining world power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the sunset.
- The US cannot give up on its global dominance without putting up a real fight.
- And the reality of all such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.
- Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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Chinese soldiers headed to Middle East? 24

Jan 13, 10

www.wnd.com/index.php China Chinese-Military Middle-East Iran Persian-Gulf oil gas Chinese-Navy bases ports Prophetic Eastern-Kings Book-Revelation End-Time
- Chinese soldiers headed to Middle East?
- Chinese soldiers headed to Middle East?
- Plans for bases, deployment under consideration
- Posted: January 12, 2010
  10:21 pm Eastern
  
    © 2010 WorldNetDaily
- China is considering setting up military bases and possibly deploying forces in the Middle East over the next decade as a means of protecting its access to strategic materials, especially oil, and sizeable investments in various Arab countries, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
- Middle East expert Patrick Seale said the Chinese influence in the Middle East is rising and its trade with Arab countries, which totaled $132 billion in 2008, will increase.
- The growing cooperation between China and Iran in energy and trade is seen as leading to the prospect of increased military cooperation.
- That would come at a time when the West is considering increased sanctions against Iran, and Israel is threatening open military attack on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.
- Chinese army
- "For sure, Iran's willingness to show a greater willingness than hitherto to embrace China's naval vessels making port calls to Iran is now in the cards,
- this as a prelude to more extensive agreements up to and including provisions for a small Chinese naval outpost on one of Iran's Persian Gulf islands," according to Iranian expert Kaveh L. Afrasiabi.
- "Again, such a scenario, sure to raise the serious ire of Washington, depends on a number of intervening variables," Afrasiabi said.
- "These include future U.S. moves in the Persian Gulf, for example, whether or not the U.S. military will end up utilizing some of the man-made artificial islands set up by the (United Arab Emirates). If so, thus enhancing the U.S.'s power projection capability with regard to Iran, Tehran may be more inclined to try to offset the U.S.'s leaning so heavy on it by playing the 'China card.'"
- Until now, the role of China and its influence in the region has received little public attention, even though Beijing's influence is growing, especially toward Iran.
- China, for example, is Iran's main customer for oil.
- It plans to invest some $43 billion in Iran's oil industry, despite the fact that U.S. policymakers are adamantly opposed to this development.
- In the case of China, however, unilateral U.S. sanctions would be fruitless and would create further tensions between Beijing and Washington.
- Policymakers view Tehran's offer to give China access to its massive oil and natural gas reserves as a way of deflecting the possibility of increased sanctions for its uranium enrichment program.
- As the U.N. Security Council shortly will consider such sanctions, there are growing indications that neither China nor Russia will support the move.
- A good reason for that is China's heavy reliance on oil shipments from the Middle East, particularly from Iran and Saudi Arabia.
- Security experts say the strategy that China is developing for the Middle East is referred to as the "string of pearls."
- The strategy is designed to protect sea lanes from the oil-rich area of the Middle East to China.
- In addition to military, the strategy includes diplomatic and economic activities.
- As part of the "string of pearls" strategy, China is to develop commercial seaports that also can handle Chinese warships and provide support for alliances from Gwadar in Pakistan through the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia.
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Lee Dunn

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Updated on Jan 13, 10
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Lee Dunn's List: MIDDLE EAST

Reports: Iraq De-Judaizing Ezekiel's Tomb - Jewish World - Israel News - Israel National News 28

Asia Times Online :: Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China 68

Asia Times Online :: Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China 59

Chinese soldiers headed to Middle East? 24

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