US Warship Heads To Persian Gulf For War Against ISIL In Syria And Iraq
Showing posts with label usa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label usa. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Assyria Revived
Chapter 1: Assyria Revived
Assyria was one of the great historical enemies of Israel. Their brutal takeover of the lands within the land, the land promised to Abraham, forms the basis of many prophecies of the latter day invasion of Israel. Just as Assyria conquered the lands around Israel, so the latter day Assyrian will do. Assyria took the ten tribes into captivity, and then came to take Jerusalem. Due to Judah’s last minute repentance before their God, Jerusalem did not then fall. But out of Assyria came Babylon (Is. 23:13 “Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it”). And Babylon did come and destroy Jerusalem and take the Jews [the remaining two and a half tribes of Israel known as ‘Judah’] into captivity. This is why Assyria and Babylon are at times used interchangeably in the Old Testament.
Our expectation of a revived latter day Assyria is being realized before our eyes. The Islamic State are led by theologians, deeply aware of the historical context in which they stand, seeking to be the reincarnation of such historical forces who have dominated the land promised to Abraham, or Al-Sham as they call it. Staring at maps of ancient empires and current nations, we can get the impression that all states and empires have clearly defined boundaries. But the ancient empires weren’t really like that. When you enter the European Union, there’s a sign up which says ‘Welcome in the European Union’, and a flag next to it. But the Assyrian empire wasn’t like that. And neither is the Islamic State which is developing. The nature of boundaries in our global village have changed. It’s who your friends are on Facebook, which chat groups you frequent, which news portal you read… which defines who you are, rather than which geographical area you live in. And so it is with the entity known as the IS. The entity is defined by ideology and common enemies, rather than hard lines drawn in the literal sand with entry posts. The Islamic State have internet sites and ample media channels through which to explain to us their intentions. One of the battle songs of the IS fighters goes like this [when translated into English]:
Oh soldiers of Truth, let's go.
Repeat the tune of endurance.
A light has illuminated Shaam [the Levant, the Assyrian empire, the land promised to Abraham],
so rally all the soldiers.
The Islamic state has been established,
so wipe out all the borders.
Break the crosses [of the Christians] and destroy the lineage of the grandsons of monkeys [the Jews].
The state of monotheism will remain in spite of the lies of the hateful people.
Repeat the tune of endurance.
A light has illuminated Shaam [the Levant, the Assyrian empire, the land promised to Abraham],
so rally all the soldiers.
The Islamic state has been established,
so wipe out all the borders.
Break the crosses [of the Christians] and destroy the lineage of the grandsons of monkeys [the Jews].
The state of monotheism will remain in spite of the lies of the hateful people.
[Commentary is mine].
You can see it being sung in Arabic at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/4296.htm , with English transcript athttp://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/4296.htm . Notice: “The Islamic state has been established, so wipe out all the borders”. This feature of the IS has struck commentators. Ben Hubbard writing in the New York Times, August 22, 2014 (‘Progress of ISIS puts Obama to test’) is an example: “The brutality of ISIS… has seized the world’s attention… ISIS has erased borders and upended alliances across the region… its vision of a stateless Middle East under the black flag of jihad terrifies the region’s governments… ISIS is one creature with two heads that can see here and see there”. Note the Biblical language of a beast with heads. Indeed, media reports and official statements about the IS often use Biblical and apocalyptic language.
Under its vision of an Islamic Middle East "the land of Israel would be incorporated as part of Greater Syria," as it once was considered during its time under Muslim occupation. And the IS has been very open about its final intentions; in areas under its control, the group has erected billboards saying 'our eyes are on Al Quds (Jerusalem)' [as reported at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180622#.U7gANrHAA5saccessed August 2014].
Under its vision of an Islamic Middle East "the land of Israel would be incorporated as part of Greater Syria," as it once was considered during its time under Muslim occupation. And the IS has been very open about its final intentions; in areas under its control, the group has erected billboards saying 'our eyes are on Al Quds (Jerusalem)' [as reported at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180622#.U7gANrHAA5saccessed August 2014].
Consider another battle song of the IS jihadist fighters, publicized by the group’s media officer, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who believes that the current fighting of the IS is towards the final struggle “in the battle on the day of resurrection with al-Dajjal” (“the false Messiah,” roughly in the role of the Anti-Christ of Christian eschatology):
“So rush O Muslims and gather around your khalīfah [Caliph], so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war.
soldiers that do not see
hardship as being difficult,
And lions [ frequent symbols of Assyria] that are thirsty in battle,
Having greedily drunk the blood of kufr [apostates]”.
soldiers that do not see
hardship as being difficult,
And lions [ frequent symbols of Assyria] that are thirsty in battle,
Having greedily drunk the blood of kufr [apostates]”.
The Bible uses the word eretz in the Old Testament to refer either to the entire planet, or specifically to the land / earth promised to Abraham, from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt. The “kings of the earth” therefore refer to the kings or ‘knights’ within the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham, making them "kings of the earth (land)". This term is used in the Bible to describe those who will finally come up against Jerusalem, to be destroyed by the second coming of Christ (Ps. 2:2; 76:12; Is. 24:21; Jer. 50:41 kings from the borders of the earth / land- which fits the IS; Lam. 4:12 the nations who assisted Babylon take Jerusalem; Dan. 7:17 the beasts represent the kings of the earth; Rev. 16:14; 17:2,18; 18:3,9; 19:19). So we cannot but be excited when an Islamic state acts like Assyria and calls its fighters “the kings of the earth”!
The despiteful, aggressive attitude of the latter day Assyrian matches the behaviour of the IS. And there are stern prophecies predicting their end:
"Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger And the staff in whose hand is My indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation, And against the people of My wrath I will give him charge, To seize the spoil, to take the prey, And to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Yet he does not mean so, Nor does his heart think so; But it is in his heart to destroy, And cut off not a few nations… Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did” (Is. 10:5-7,24).
“And He (the Lord Jesus) will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD His God. And they will remain, because at that time He will be great to the ends of the earth. This One will be our peace when the Assyrian invades our land, when he tramples on our citadels… And He will deliver us from the Assyrian when he attacks our land and when he tramples our territory” (Mic. 5:4-6). The visible manifestation of Israel’s Messiah is thus associated with ‘the Assyrian’ invading the land of Israel.
"Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger And the staff in whose hand is My indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation, And against the people of My wrath I will give him charge, To seize the spoil, to take the prey, And to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Yet he does not mean so, Nor does his heart think so; But it is in his heart to destroy, And cut off not a few nations… Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: “O my people, who dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrians when they strike with the rod and lift up their staff against you as the Egyptians did” (Is. 10:5-7,24).
“And He (the Lord Jesus) will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD His God. And they will remain, because at that time He will be great to the ends of the earth. This One will be our peace when the Assyrian invades our land, when he tramples on our citadels… And He will deliver us from the Assyrian when he attacks our land and when he tramples our territory” (Mic. 5:4-6). The visible manifestation of Israel’s Messiah is thus associated with ‘the Assyrian’ invading the land of Israel.
Geographically, Assyria was located in what is now parts of modern Iran and Iraq, although in reality both Assyria and Babylon coerced, or operated in tandem with, a number of the other smaller powers around Israel (Is. 29:7,8; 30:28; 33:3; 34:1,2; 2 Chron. 22:22; Ps. 83). Thus Herodotus called Sennacharib "king of the Arabians and the Assyrians". We are seeing this scenario develop as various smaller powers are either coerced by or willingly cooperate with the IS.
The Assyrian is to be “broken in pieces” (Is. 30:31 RV), just as the whole image of Daniel 2 is to be, by the return of Christ as the little stone. The Assyrian confederacy which came against Jerusalem is described as being the foes of Israel who will be swept away as chaff (Is. 29:5 RV). This was fulfilled in Sennacherib’s destruction outside Jerusalem. And yet the language of being swept away as chaff refers without doubt to the image of Dan. 2 being swept away as chaff. The conclusion surely is that the Assyrian attack against Jerusalem, comprised as it was of a confederacy of local nations from within the land promised to Abraham, is typical of the final destruction of a similar confederacy by the Lord’s return.
Assyria took power over what is now known as Syria. And in the last days, “the riches of Damascus... shall be taken away before (by) the king of Assyria" (Is. 8:4). We can see Syria being either taken over by or forced into submission to the IS. Is. 9:12 speaks of the Syrians and Philistines [Palestinians] as being the mouth of a huge beast, closing around Israel: "The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth". In this lies the connection between the growing intifada against Israel on one side, and the uprise of the latter day Assyria, the IS, on Israel’s other side. This image of an Arab beast devouring Israel is repeated in Joel 1:6 concerning the later day Assyrian invader.
The Assyrian Style Revived
Assyria was renowned for taking captives and abusing and selling them into captivity. Such a fate is predicted for latter day Israel: "You shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you" (Dt. 28:68). Until recently there was no entity likely to do this to Israel. But now, with the emergence of the IS, there is. Here's a picture of Yezidi girls captured by the IS being sold for $10 each:
Assyria and Babylon had a policy of taking away local conquered people into exile, and using people from other parts of the conquered territories to then govern or police the conquered areas. One IS defector said it was a deliberate ISIS strategy to use outsiders to police the towns it took over: "The Islamic State have brought in people from other countries, different nationalities who are quite young in age so that they can brainwash or indoctrinate them with their Isis ideology… And so they control the areas, not through the local people but with their own forces and their own men whom they prepare for this task"- quotes from Paul Wood, ‘Isis defector speaks of life inside brutal jihadist group’, first published athttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28269596
The IS will be a strictly religious entity, keen to take the predictions and commands of the Koran and Hadith as literally as possible- including “When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely; then bind the prisoners tightly,” (Sura Chapter 47). The world today is indeed shocked at reports of ISIS' gruesome sweep into northern Iraq. The UK Daily Mail reported of ISIS: “They lined the streets with the decapitated heads of police and soldiers”. Beheading is now a well-known method used by the IS, popularized by their YouTube videos of beheading Western hostages. We note that it is the fate of those who do not worship the beast or accept his mark in Rev. 20:4.
The IS has seized billions of dollars worth of gold kept in the banks in the cities they have overrun, especially in Mosul; again in keeping with Assyria seizing gold and precious stones from its occupied territories. That certainly sounds like the behaviour of the aggressive King of the North during his invasion of eretz Israel in Dan. 11:43: "He shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things".
The Religious Dimension
The religious dimension of the invasion is also to be found in Dan. 11:44, albeit masked by translation. The King of the North will invade eretz Israel "to destroy and utterly to make away many" (AV). The Hebrew word charam translated 'to utterly make away' specifically means to consecrate, to make something over to another, specifically their god or religion. And this is the stated motive of the IS and other jihadist groups- to sanctify Israel as a spoil of war to Allah and the Prophet. This is the predicted call found in Joel 2, to sanctify war against Israel- the very language of jihad, holy war. The King of Assyria “came up” throughout the land promised to Abraham (2 Kings 17:5). The Hebrew word used is alah, meaning to ascend up- and this is the very battle cry of the Islamic State, Allah ahbar. The Assyrians were persuaded that the one true God, Yahweh, had sent them against Israel (2 Kings 18:25)- just as the Islamic State are today. “Hear [shama] the word of the great King, the King of Assyria” (2 Kings 18:28) is a conscious imitation of the shema to Israel from their King, Yahweh. “The great king” is a title of Yahweh. The king of Assyria was parodying the giving of the Law to Israel, implying his commandments were a new Torah for Israel; and the leadership of the Islamic State has spoken of producing a new Torah, making him the one mentioned in Daniel as changing laws.
The religious dimension of the invasion is also to be found in Dan. 11:44, albeit masked by translation. The King of the North will invade eretz Israel "to destroy and utterly to make away many" (AV). The Hebrew word charam translated 'to utterly make away' specifically means to consecrate, to make something over to another, specifically their god or religion. And this is the stated motive of the IS and other jihadist groups- to sanctify Israel as a spoil of war to Allah and the Prophet. This is the predicted call found in Joel 2, to sanctify war against Israel- the very language of jihad, holy war. The King of Assyria “came up” throughout the land promised to Abraham (2 Kings 17:5). The Hebrew word used is alah, meaning to ascend up- and this is the very battle cry of the Islamic State, Allah ahbar. The Assyrians were persuaded that the one true God, Yahweh, had sent them against Israel (2 Kings 18:25)- just as the Islamic State are today. “Hear [shama] the word of the great King, the King of Assyria” (2 Kings 18:28) is a conscious imitation of the shema to Israel from their King, Yahweh. “The great king” is a title of Yahweh. The king of Assyria was parodying the giving of the Law to Israel, implying his commandments were a new Torah for Israel; and the leadership of the Islamic State has spoken of producing a new Torah, making him the one mentioned in Daniel as changing laws.
The historical Assyria ‘destroyed utterly’ the nations around Israel (2 Kings 19:11); but the Hebrew word used specifically means to consecrate or dedicate. It has a distinctly religious sense. And this is precisely the idea of jihad- taking land in a holy war in order to dedicate that land to Allah. In practice, the Assyrians did this by ‘destroying’ or ‘drying up’ these lands. Charab¸ ‘to dry up’, is used about their scorched earth policies (2 Kings 19:17), and Assyria threatened to ‘dry up’ Judah (2 Chron. 32:11), just as he boasted “with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places” (2 Kings 19:24); and the metaphor continues with the idea of Assyria being like a river gushing forth over the land they had dried up (Is. 8:7). This is why God’s answer to the Assyrian threat to Judah is expressed in terms of His reminding Judah that it is He who has ultimate power to dry up rivers and nations (Is. 44:27; 50:2; 51:10- every time, the same Hebrew word charab is used).
Saturday, 3 May 2014
UNITED STATES of AMERICA ~ UNDER DIVINE ASSAULT . . . WHY ?!?!?
UNITED STATES of AMERICA ~ UNDER DIVINE ASSAULT . . . WHY ?!?!?
A week of ' freak & extreme ' weather events has battered the United States . . . devastating tornados & twisters that killed over 35 people ; terrential rainfall & hail in many regions on a biblical scale ; epic flooding that swept away roads & homes ; raging wildfires in California ; apocalyptic sink-holes swallowing up entire streets & even colossal moving ice-waves described as ' ice-tsunamis '. Is it just co-incidence ?? These cascading events come just as America's top international diplomat , Secretary of State , John Kerry has been caught describing long-standing ally Israel , as an ' apartheid state ' further confirming the Obama Administration's rising hostility towards God's people. As these forces ' of nature ' continue to punish the USA for its abandonment of Israel , we know it's merely a foretaste of greater judgments to come as the Holy One of Israel unleashes his judgments on mankind , before establishing His righteous & eternal kingdom on earth. Keep looking up . . . it is coming !!!
Isa 66v15-18 - Behold , the LORD will come with fire & with his chariots like a whirlwind , to render his anger with fury & his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire & by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh & the slain of the LORD shall be many. ForI know their works & their thoughts : it shall come , that I will gather all nations & tongues & they shall come & see my glory
A week of ' freak & extreme ' weather events has battered the United States . . . devastating tornados & twisters that killed over 35 people ; terrential rainfall & hail in many regions on a biblical scale ; epic flooding that swept away roads & homes ; raging wildfires in California ; apocalyptic sink-holes swallowing up entire streets & even colossal moving ice-waves described as ' ice-tsunamis '. Is it just co-incidence ?? These cascading events come just as America's top international diplomat , Secretary of State , John Kerry has been caught describing long-standing ally Israel , as an ' apartheid state ' further confirming the Obama Administration's rising hostility towards God's people. As these forces ' of nature ' continue to punish the USA for its abandonment of Israel , we know it's merely a foretaste of greater judgments to come as the Holy One of Israel unleashes his judgments on mankind , before establishing His righteous & eternal kingdom on earth. Keep looking up . . . it is coming !!!
Isa 66v15-18 - Behold , the LORD will come with fire & with his chariots like a whirlwind , to render his anger with fury & his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire & by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh & the slain of the LORD shall be many. ForI know their works & their thoughts : it shall come , that I will gather all nations & tongues & they shall come & see my glory
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Ukraine Standoff. Russia Seeks a Federal Ukraine Rather than an Invasion
Ukraine Standoff. Russia Seeks a Federal Ukraine Rather than an Invasion
Debka 11-Apr-14
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sternly rebuked Russia Wednesday April 9 for not doing enough to defuse tensions in Ukraine. She told German lawmakers that "unfortunately, in many places it is not evident how Russia is contributing to the easing of the situation," and called for an international monitoring mission to be strengthened
Germany will continue to "use channels of communication," she said, but also made clear that "the Ukrainians must decide themselves on their fate.”
Merkel's comments came just one day after US Secretary of State John Kerry said in the Senate:
“No one is fooled by what could potentially be a contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea," Kerry said. "These efforts are as ham-handed as they are transparent, and quite simply what we see from Russia is an illegal and illegitimate effort to destabilize a sovereign state and create a contrived crisis with paid operatives across an international boundary."
The State Department did not offer evidence to back up Kerry's claim.
Moscow seeks a Ukrainian federation with empowered provinces
An effort is meanwhile going forward to convene four-way talks next week between representatives of Russia, the United States, Ukraine and the European Union - preferably at foreign ministerial level.
Moscow wants more information about the agenda and insists on dialogue being fostered “among Ukrainians rather than bilateral relations among the participants.”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered this message in a telephone conversation with John Kerry this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Russia defended itself against the US Secretary’s allegations of a “contrived pretext for military intervention” by placing the blame for the unrest in East Ukraine on the Kiev government and its refusal to address the legitimate rights and interests of Russian speakers.
The remedy for the crisis, in Moscow’s view, is not necessarily a Russian invasion but a new constitution that would give the regions strong powers and respect for minority rights as part of a federation, as well as a voice for keeping Ukraine out of NATO.
High rhetoric to distract from Kiev’s hopeless state
The provisional rulers of Kiev meanwhile poured their own fuel on the fire: On Monday April 7, they accused the pro-Russian protesters who seized government buildings and downtown Luhansk, north of Donetsk, of taking 60 hostages and tying explosives to their bodies for detonation in the event of an attack by the Ukrainian army or security forces.
This was a transparent attempt to paint the pro-Russian protesters of east Ukraine in the colors of the Muslim extremists who terrorize Russia, but most of all to aggravate the friction between Moscow and Washington.
Ukraine’s rulers find that inflammatory rhetoric directed at their foes can serve as a substitute for an army that is too weak to take on the pro-Russian militias in the east, or the 40,000 Russian troops massed around their borders.
Such talk may also offer a distraction from the hopelessness of their empty coffers and bankrupt economy. The Americans and Europeans have despaired of anyone in the provisional government coming up with measures that would qualify Ukraine for the International Monetary Fund and European Union funds promised Kiev (totaling $33 billion).
Every million dollars that happens to trickle in gives the Kiev regime a temporary shot in the arm, but falls way short of covering government payrolls or feeding the army, the security forces and the people at large.
The slightest spark could ignite out-of-control flames.
Ukraine is in the jaws of an international military crunch. In addition to the 10 large warships and 10 missile ships of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Moscow has deployed to date, another 10 Russian ships in the Mediterranean, include its largest battleships and only working aircraft carrier.
The US and NATO cannot match Russian naval might in these waters. Neither do they command the rapid deployment forces in numbers comparable in size to the 15,000 Russian rapid response troops stationed along the Russian-Ukraine border.
In other words, the US and NATO have no equivalent for Russia’s military punch anywhere near the troubled arena at this stage. Sanctions threats leveled against Moscow are their substitute – so far with little impact.
The four-way conference tentatively scheduled for next week is also unlikely to stem the events rushing forward in the eastern provinces of Ukraine and Kiev itself. The danger is that in this incendiary situation, the slightest incident or incautious word could act as the spark for uncontrolled flames.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, albeit a canny and cautious politician, may also find himself pushed into situations over which he has no control.
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Israel at a Point of No Return - In the Right Direction
Israel at a Point of No Return - In the Right Direction
by David P. GoldmanPJ Media 12-Feb-14
I should like to advance a conjecture which I lack the qualifications to adequately develop: The global Left, and the Israeli Left most of all, perceives that the clock is running out, and has worked itself up into a froth of hysteria against Israel. The world of John Lennon's "Imagine," where there are no countries and no religions, is about to dissipate like last night's marijuana fumes. The demographic time bomb that worries the Left is not the relative increase of Arab vs. Jewish populations between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, speciously cited by John Kerry and a host of other errant utopians: it is the growth of the Jewish population itself, and Israel's transformation into the world's most religious country.
Israel now has a religious majority, as Times of Israel blogger Yoseif Bloch observes:
"According to our Central Bureau of Statistics, 43% of Israeli Jews are secular, 9% are haredi, and the remaining 48% are somewhere between masorti (traditional) and dati (religious): 23% the former, 10% the latter, and 15% smack in the middle. These five groups do not parallel the five groups identified by Pew, e.g. Orthodox is a denomination, while dati is a declaration."
So 57% of Israelis practice a form of Judaism that for the most part Americans would call "Orthodox," in that it recognizes normative Judaism in the rabbinic tradition (the presence of the "progressive" Reform and Conservative movements is almost imperceptible and largely limited to transplanted Americans). Many Israelis who are dati are far from completely observant, but there is a great gulf fixed between a semi-observant Jew who knows what observance is, and a "progressive" who asserts the right to reinvent tradition according to personal taste.
This majority seems to be expanding fast. I spent the second half of December in Jerusalem promoting the Hebrew translation of my book How Civilizations Die and was struck by the increase in commitment to religious observance, including among people who were steadfastly secular. Almost half of Israel's army officers are "national religious" and trained in pre-army academies that teach Judaism, Jewish history, as well as physical training and military subjects. The ultra-Orthodox are going to work rather than studying full time, little by little, but the little adds up to a lot. Naftali Bennett's national-religious party "Jewish Home" has created a new political focus for the national-religious. Outreach organizations like Beit Hillel are bringing once-secular Israelis back to observance. Beit Hillel's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, was in New York recently lecturing about Israel's religious revival.
Anecdotally, I see this in my own small circle of Israeli acquaintances. A musician friend told me that he attends a Talmud class every Shabbat — he can't stand praying, but he is hungry for Torah. A journalist friend dresses her young boys in the tallit katan, the fringed undergarment of the very observant. It is becoming normal in Jerusalem restaurants to wash hands before bread and to recite the Grace after Meals.
This is a crucial, counterintuitive story: Israel is swimming against the secular current, becoming more observant as the rest of the world becomes more secular. Perhaps the explanation lies in the observation of the Catholic sociologist Mary Eberstadt, who argued in a brilliant 2007 essay that it is our children who bring us to faith. Last year Mary expanded the essay into a book which I had the honor to discuss in Claremont Review of Books. It is a commonplace of demographers' correlation that people of faith have more children: Mary argues that the causality goes both ways, that having children reinforces our faith. Israeli is a standpoint in the modern world with a fertility rate of 3.0 children per woman (the closest second is the U.S. with just 1.9). Excluding the ultra-Orthodox the number is 2.6 children per woman, still outside the range of the rest of the industrial world. Secular Israelis are having three children. Not only does that defuse the much-touted "demographic time bomb." It ultimately changes the character of the country. It validates the hundred-year-old argument of Rabbi Isaac Kook, one of the founders of religious Zionism, that identification with the Jewish people eventually will lead Jews back to Judaism.
This national religious revival is not occurring at the expense of Israeli or West Bank Arabs. On the contrary, the Arab population between the River and the Sea is flourishing as no modern Arab population ever did. A fifth of Israel's medical students are Arab, as are a third of the students at the University of Haifa. Ariel University across the "Green Line" in Samaria, the "settler's university," is educating a whole generation of West Bank Arabs. The campus is full of young Arab women in headscarves, and the local Jewish leadership reaches out to Arab villages to recruit talented students. Israel's expanding economy has a bottomless demand for young people of ability and ambition. The Left calls Israel an "apartheid state" the way it used to call America a "fascist state" back in the 1960s.
The Israeli Left, with its soggy vision of univeralist utopianism, may be at a point of no return. It is becoming marginalized and irrelevant. The Europeans, whose experience of nationalism has been uniformly horrific, are equally aghast. Liberal Christians who abhor the Election of Israel because they abhor Christian orthodoxy cannot suppress their rage. And "progressive" American Jews, who have been running away from Judaism for the past three generations, are upset that Israel has embraced the normative Judaism they worked so hard to suppress. American "progressive" and unaffiliated Jews, one should remember, have the lowest fertility rate of any identifiable minority in the United States. Even if most of them did not intermarry (and the intermarriage rate in the past ten years approaches 70% according to the October 2013 Pew study) their infertility would finish them off in a few generations. Meanwhile 74% of all Jewish children in the New York area live in Orthodox families. The center of gravity of Judaism will shift decisively to Israel in the next generation, and the segment of American Jewry that most identifies with Israel–the Orthodox–will set the tone for American Judaism and eventually become the majority in a much smaller American Jewish population.
It is up to the Israelis, to be sure, to draw out the implications of these trends. But I am encouraged by the perceptions of religious leaders like Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, who perceive this revival in their daily work.
This is good news for Christians as well as Jews. The secularization thesis is refuted: a country with the world's greatest record of high-tech innovation is also becoming the industrial world's most religious country. It is devastating news for Lennonists as well as Leninists. The "Imagine" world turns out to be imaginary. Israel, as Franz Rosenzweig said of the Jewish people, is there to be "the paragon and exemplar of a nation." For all its flaws, the State of Israel stands as a beacon to people of faith around the world. It is honored by its list of self-appointed enemies. Will Israel prevail against the unholy coalition against it? As we say, b'ezrat Hashem.
David P. Goldman is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
by David P. GoldmanPJ Media 12-Feb-14
I should like to advance a conjecture which I lack the qualifications to adequately develop: The global Left, and the Israeli Left most of all, perceives that the clock is running out, and has worked itself up into a froth of hysteria against Israel. The world of John Lennon's "Imagine," where there are no countries and no religions, is about to dissipate like last night's marijuana fumes. The demographic time bomb that worries the Left is not the relative increase of Arab vs. Jewish populations between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, speciously cited by John Kerry and a host of other errant utopians: it is the growth of the Jewish population itself, and Israel's transformation into the world's most religious country.
Israel now has a religious majority, as Times of Israel blogger Yoseif Bloch observes:
"According to our Central Bureau of Statistics, 43% of Israeli Jews are secular, 9% are haredi, and the remaining 48% are somewhere between masorti (traditional) and dati (religious): 23% the former, 10% the latter, and 15% smack in the middle. These five groups do not parallel the five groups identified by Pew, e.g. Orthodox is a denomination, while dati is a declaration."
So 57% of Israelis practice a form of Judaism that for the most part Americans would call "Orthodox," in that it recognizes normative Judaism in the rabbinic tradition (the presence of the "progressive" Reform and Conservative movements is almost imperceptible and largely limited to transplanted Americans). Many Israelis who are dati are far from completely observant, but there is a great gulf fixed between a semi-observant Jew who knows what observance is, and a "progressive" who asserts the right to reinvent tradition according to personal taste.
This majority seems to be expanding fast. I spent the second half of December in Jerusalem promoting the Hebrew translation of my book How Civilizations Die and was struck by the increase in commitment to religious observance, including among people who were steadfastly secular. Almost half of Israel's army officers are "national religious" and trained in pre-army academies that teach Judaism, Jewish history, as well as physical training and military subjects. The ultra-Orthodox are going to work rather than studying full time, little by little, but the little adds up to a lot. Naftali Bennett's national-religious party "Jewish Home" has created a new political focus for the national-religious. Outreach organizations like Beit Hillel are bringing once-secular Israelis back to observance. Beit Hillel's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, was in New York recently lecturing about Israel's religious revival.
Anecdotally, I see this in my own small circle of Israeli acquaintances. A musician friend told me that he attends a Talmud class every Shabbat — he can't stand praying, but he is hungry for Torah. A journalist friend dresses her young boys in the tallit katan, the fringed undergarment of the very observant. It is becoming normal in Jerusalem restaurants to wash hands before bread and to recite the Grace after Meals.
This is a crucial, counterintuitive story: Israel is swimming against the secular current, becoming more observant as the rest of the world becomes more secular. Perhaps the explanation lies in the observation of the Catholic sociologist Mary Eberstadt, who argued in a brilliant 2007 essay that it is our children who bring us to faith. Last year Mary expanded the essay into a book which I had the honor to discuss in Claremont Review of Books. It is a commonplace of demographers' correlation that people of faith have more children: Mary argues that the causality goes both ways, that having children reinforces our faith. Israeli is a standpoint in the modern world with a fertility rate of 3.0 children per woman (the closest second is the U.S. with just 1.9). Excluding the ultra-Orthodox the number is 2.6 children per woman, still outside the range of the rest of the industrial world. Secular Israelis are having three children. Not only does that defuse the much-touted "demographic time bomb." It ultimately changes the character of the country. It validates the hundred-year-old argument of Rabbi Isaac Kook, one of the founders of religious Zionism, that identification with the Jewish people eventually will lead Jews back to Judaism.
This national religious revival is not occurring at the expense of Israeli or West Bank Arabs. On the contrary, the Arab population between the River and the Sea is flourishing as no modern Arab population ever did. A fifth of Israel's medical students are Arab, as are a third of the students at the University of Haifa. Ariel University across the "Green Line" in Samaria, the "settler's university," is educating a whole generation of West Bank Arabs. The campus is full of young Arab women in headscarves, and the local Jewish leadership reaches out to Arab villages to recruit talented students. Israel's expanding economy has a bottomless demand for young people of ability and ambition. The Left calls Israel an "apartheid state" the way it used to call America a "fascist state" back in the 1960s.
The Israeli Left, with its soggy vision of univeralist utopianism, may be at a point of no return. It is becoming marginalized and irrelevant. The Europeans, whose experience of nationalism has been uniformly horrific, are equally aghast. Liberal Christians who abhor the Election of Israel because they abhor Christian orthodoxy cannot suppress their rage. And "progressive" American Jews, who have been running away from Judaism for the past three generations, are upset that Israel has embraced the normative Judaism they worked so hard to suppress. American "progressive" and unaffiliated Jews, one should remember, have the lowest fertility rate of any identifiable minority in the United States. Even if most of them did not intermarry (and the intermarriage rate in the past ten years approaches 70% according to the October 2013 Pew study) their infertility would finish them off in a few generations. Meanwhile 74% of all Jewish children in the New York area live in Orthodox families. The center of gravity of Judaism will shift decisively to Israel in the next generation, and the segment of American Jewry that most identifies with Israel–the Orthodox–will set the tone for American Judaism and eventually become the majority in a much smaller American Jewish population.
It is up to the Israelis, to be sure, to draw out the implications of these trends. But I am encouraged by the perceptions of religious leaders like Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, who perceive this revival in their daily work.
This is good news for Christians as well as Jews. The secularization thesis is refuted: a country with the world's greatest record of high-tech innovation is also becoming the industrial world's most religious country. It is devastating news for Lennonists as well as Leninists. The "Imagine" world turns out to be imaginary. Israel, as Franz Rosenzweig said of the Jewish people, is there to be "the paragon and exemplar of a nation." For all its flaws, the State of Israel stands as a beacon to people of faith around the world. It is honored by its list of self-appointed enemies. Will Israel prevail against the unholy coalition against it? As we say, b'ezrat Hashem.
David P. Goldman is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Israeli tech start-ups join London IPO wave
Israeli tech start-ups join London IPO wave
Daily Telegraph 12-Feb-14
Marimedia and Matomy part of a clutch of Tel-Aviv based businesses eyeing a London listing
Britain’s equity market is becoming a magnet for Israel-based technology companies which are considering choosing London rather than the Tel Aviv stock exchange this year for flotations.
Israeli investors and entrepreneurs raised $361m (£219m) last year via IPOs, the most since 2007, and a stark reversal of a trend which saw most companies exiting through a sale.
Israel has been dubbed the “start-up nation” due to an explosion of innovation in the region. Six Israeli technology companies are currently in discussions about listing in London this year, sources close to the process said.
Digital advertising company Matomy is understood to be working with Rothschild, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch on launching an initial public offering before the summer. The company is looking to raise £60m, which will value it at around £200m to £300m. Matomy declined to comment.
Unlike other digital advertising companies, Matomy only charges a publisher when an advert generates revenues. The company’s founder, Kfir Moyal, started programming computers aged 10 and made $100 a month pocket money by building websites at 14.
The company now has 10 global offices in Israel, Spain, Germany, Mexico, San Francisco and New York, employing 400 people. Matomy has recorded double-digit revenue growth, reporting $200m last year.
Meanwhile, Marimedia, another Israeli digital advertising company, is in the early stages of considering a London listing, sources said.
The company is understood to have met with a clutch of investment banks but has not yet given a mandate.
A Marimedia spokesman declined to comment.
Digital advertising spending has grown at three times the rate of traditional advertising revenues, leaving companies to grapple with incorporating new technologies into their business plans.
Israeli website design company Wix, which successfully floated in New York last year, is understood to be behind the resurgence in Tel Aviv-based companies looking to tap the capital markets.
Daily Telegraph 12-Feb-14
Marimedia and Matomy part of a clutch of Tel-Aviv based businesses eyeing a London listing
Britain’s equity market is becoming a magnet for Israel-based technology companies which are considering choosing London rather than the Tel Aviv stock exchange this year for flotations.
Israeli investors and entrepreneurs raised $361m (£219m) last year via IPOs, the most since 2007, and a stark reversal of a trend which saw most companies exiting through a sale.
Israel has been dubbed the “start-up nation” due to an explosion of innovation in the region. Six Israeli technology companies are currently in discussions about listing in London this year, sources close to the process said.
Digital advertising company Matomy is understood to be working with Rothschild, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch on launching an initial public offering before the summer. The company is looking to raise £60m, which will value it at around £200m to £300m. Matomy declined to comment.
Unlike other digital advertising companies, Matomy only charges a publisher when an advert generates revenues. The company’s founder, Kfir Moyal, started programming computers aged 10 and made $100 a month pocket money by building websites at 14.
The company now has 10 global offices in Israel, Spain, Germany, Mexico, San Francisco and New York, employing 400 people. Matomy has recorded double-digit revenue growth, reporting $200m last year.
Meanwhile, Marimedia, another Israeli digital advertising company, is in the early stages of considering a London listing, sources said.
The company is understood to have met with a clutch of investment banks but has not yet given a mandate.
A Marimedia spokesman declined to comment.
Digital advertising spending has grown at three times the rate of traditional advertising revenues, leaving companies to grapple with incorporating new technologies into their business plans.
Israeli website design company Wix, which successfully floated in New York last year, is understood to be behind the resurgence in Tel Aviv-based companies looking to tap the capital markets.
PA Minister: We Demand Sovereignty Over Kotel
PA Minister: We Demand Sovereignty Over Kotel
Arutz Sheva 11-Feb-14
A top Palestinian Authority official said that the PA was demanding sovereignty over all areas of Jerusalem Israel liberated in the Six Day War, including the Kotel (Western Wall).
Speaking to Channel Ten, Mahmoud al-Habbash, Minister of Holy Places in the PA, said that “there will be no peace until the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. Every piece of land that Israel conquered then belongs to the Palestinians.” That includes Jerusalem, “the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall.”
Asked what would happen if Jews wished to pray at the Wall, al-Habbash said “they will be welcome, there will be no problem. There will be no limitations on freedom of religion and worship. Religious ceremonies are one thing, and politics are another.”
Under the Oslo Accords, Israelis are supposed to have access to several religious sites in PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. In actuality, however, Jews are almost completely banned from these sites, including the Tomb of Joseph in Shechem and the Tomb of Joshua in Kifl Hares. Jews are rarely allowed to visit these sites, and then only under very strict security conditions. Several Jews, including Rabbi Hillel Lieberman h”yd, have been killed in area of Joseph's Tomb.
With that, Channel Ten quoted sources in the PA that most of the issues brought up in the negotiations being conducted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, including land swaps, have been resolved. But the Palestinians are insisting that all areas of Jerusalem liberated in the Six Day War, including the Jewish Quarter, the Kotel, and Jewish neighborhoods such as French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, and Har Homa be placed under PA sovereignty. Kerry has spent much time and effort in trying to come to a compromise on Jerusalem, but has so far failed, PA sources said.
Speaking to Channel Ten, the PA's Jerusalem Minister, Abu-Ala, said that the current round of negotiations was one of the most intense ever between Israel and the PA, thanks to the strenuous efforts of Kerry to get the two sides to agree to a negotiation framework.
But he said that effort came with a risk.
“Given the intensity with which the Americans are approaching this, there will probably be undesirable consequences if the talks fail.”
Arutz Sheva 11-Feb-14
A top Palestinian Authority official said that the PA was demanding sovereignty over all areas of Jerusalem Israel liberated in the Six Day War, including the Kotel (Western Wall).
Speaking to Channel Ten, Mahmoud al-Habbash, Minister of Holy Places in the PA, said that “there will be no peace until the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. Every piece of land that Israel conquered then belongs to the Palestinians.” That includes Jerusalem, “the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall.”
Asked what would happen if Jews wished to pray at the Wall, al-Habbash said “they will be welcome, there will be no problem. There will be no limitations on freedom of religion and worship. Religious ceremonies are one thing, and politics are another.”
Under the Oslo Accords, Israelis are supposed to have access to several religious sites in PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. In actuality, however, Jews are almost completely banned from these sites, including the Tomb of Joseph in Shechem and the Tomb of Joshua in Kifl Hares. Jews are rarely allowed to visit these sites, and then only under very strict security conditions. Several Jews, including Rabbi Hillel Lieberman h”yd, have been killed in area of Joseph's Tomb.
With that, Channel Ten quoted sources in the PA that most of the issues brought up in the negotiations being conducted by US Secretary of State John Kerry, including land swaps, have been resolved. But the Palestinians are insisting that all areas of Jerusalem liberated in the Six Day War, including the Jewish Quarter, the Kotel, and Jewish neighborhoods such as French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, and Har Homa be placed under PA sovereignty. Kerry has spent much time and effort in trying to come to a compromise on Jerusalem, but has so far failed, PA sources said.
Speaking to Channel Ten, the PA's Jerusalem Minister, Abu-Ala, said that the current round of negotiations was one of the most intense ever between Israel and the PA, thanks to the strenuous efforts of Kerry to get the two sides to agree to a negotiation framework.
But he said that effort came with a risk.
“Given the intensity with which the Americans are approaching this, there will probably be undesirable consequences if the talks fail.”
Where Is Germany’s Gold?
Where Is Germany’s Gold?
The Trumpet 07-Feb-14
You may have heard something about this story. So, here’s what we know so far:
In 2012, the Bundesbank (the central bank of Ger many) asked to visit the vault of the Federal Reserve in New York, to view the 1,536 tons of gold they have stored there
The Federal Reserve told them no. They were not allowed to see their gold
In response, Germany said that they wanted 300 tons of their gold back
The Federal Reserve said that they’d need seven years to get the gold back to Germany. (Something that should take them seven weeks, tops.)
One year later, the Fed has returned only 5 tons of gold to Germany. At this rate, it will take 60 years for the Germans to get less than one fifth of their gold back
Though I don’t know precisely what, it is very clear that something strange is going on here. … Shipping 300 tons of metal is hardly a new and difficult technical challenge. Companies involved in metal trading do this all the time. Sure, gold requires extra security, but security is also something that lots of people know how to provide. … The president of Germany’s top financial regulations group said that manipulation of gold and silver “is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal.” (The Libor scandal was and is a big deal, and lots of lawsuits are underway over it.) That’s a big accusation
Then, Deutsche Bank, the biggest German bank, dropped out of the London gold fixing pool; the group of bankers that set the official price of gold. This is also related to the investigations by European regulators into thesuspected manipulation of precious metals prices by banks
Again, this is a very significant event
Germany does not seem happy about what the Fed is doing to them. … In addition to this, the Financial Times ran an article advising investors to demand physical delivery of their gold. Bloomberg published an article on gold price manipulation
So, given what we know, the obvious question becomes, “What’s really going on?” The first answer is that we simply do not know. Most likely, however, is that all of Germany’s gold has been lent out and/or used as loan collateral multiple times and that the Fed is having a very hard time unwinding all those loans. If they just give the gold back, the collateral for hundreds (maybe thousands) of international loans goes away
And when I say “lent out multiple times,” I am not speaking loosely
There is a financial trick called rehypothecation that allows bankers to use the same stack of gold as the collateral for simultaneous loans over and over and over
So, in order to pull Germany’s gold out of the lending game (and central banks do loan out gold), lots and lots of loans would have to be rehypothecated to other piles of gold, and that requires a lot of office work. Each bar of Germany’s gold could be involved in a dozen loans, each of which must be rearranged
This would account for the slowness of the Fed returning the gold back to where it belongs
Of course, there are other possibilities. Maybe the Fed is just trying to punish Germany for some reason … or that the gold is simply no longer there—that the Fed or its friends sold it. … The one thing we can be sure of is that the Federal Reserve and the Bundesbank are at odds. What will come from that is unknown, but this is a very significant problem between giants, and it is already producing consequences.
The Trumpet 07-Feb-14
You may have heard something about this story. So, here’s what we know so far:
In 2012, the Bundesbank (the central bank of Ger many) asked to visit the vault of the Federal Reserve in New York, to view the 1,536 tons of gold they have stored there
The Federal Reserve told them no. They were not allowed to see their gold
In response, Germany said that they wanted 300 tons of their gold back
The Federal Reserve said that they’d need seven years to get the gold back to Germany. (Something that should take them seven weeks, tops.)
One year later, the Fed has returned only 5 tons of gold to Germany. At this rate, it will take 60 years for the Germans to get less than one fifth of their gold back
Though I don’t know precisely what, it is very clear that something strange is going on here. … Shipping 300 tons of metal is hardly a new and difficult technical challenge. Companies involved in metal trading do this all the time. Sure, gold requires extra security, but security is also something that lots of people know how to provide. … The president of Germany’s top financial regulations group said that manipulation of gold and silver “is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal.” (The Libor scandal was and is a big deal, and lots of lawsuits are underway over it.) That’s a big accusation
Then, Deutsche Bank, the biggest German bank, dropped out of the London gold fixing pool; the group of bankers that set the official price of gold. This is also related to the investigations by European regulators into thesuspected manipulation of precious metals prices by banks
Again, this is a very significant event
Germany does not seem happy about what the Fed is doing to them. … In addition to this, the Financial Times ran an article advising investors to demand physical delivery of their gold. Bloomberg published an article on gold price manipulation
So, given what we know, the obvious question becomes, “What’s really going on?” The first answer is that we simply do not know. Most likely, however, is that all of Germany’s gold has been lent out and/or used as loan collateral multiple times and that the Fed is having a very hard time unwinding all those loans. If they just give the gold back, the collateral for hundreds (maybe thousands) of international loans goes away
And when I say “lent out multiple times,” I am not speaking loosely
There is a financial trick called rehypothecation that allows bankers to use the same stack of gold as the collateral for simultaneous loans over and over and over
So, in order to pull Germany’s gold out of the lending game (and central banks do loan out gold), lots and lots of loans would have to be rehypothecated to other piles of gold, and that requires a lot of office work. Each bar of Germany’s gold could be involved in a dozen loans, each of which must be rearranged
This would account for the slowness of the Fed returning the gold back to where it belongs
Of course, there are other possibilities. Maybe the Fed is just trying to punish Germany for some reason … or that the gold is simply no longer there—that the Fed or its friends sold it. … The one thing we can be sure of is that the Federal Reserve and the Bundesbank are at odds. What will come from that is unknown, but this is a very significant problem between giants, and it is already producing consequences.
Australia's Woodside agrees on Leviathan gas field stake
Australia's Woodside agrees on Leviathan gas field stake
UPI 07-Feb-14
Australian energy company Woodside Petroleum said Friday it signed an agreement to buy a stake in the Leviathan gas field off the Israeli coast.
Woodside said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. and Israeli partners at Leviathan to acquire a 25 percent stake in the gas field.
Noble Energy Corp., which has headquarters in Houston, is developing the field alongside Delek Group, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration. Woodside said it aims to close the deal by March and would pay up to $2.5 billion for the Leviathan stake.
Once closed, Woodside said it would serve as the operator in any development of liquefied natural gas from the field. Noble would stay on as the field's upstream operator.
Woodside Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman said the agreement is a "compelling" opportunity for his company, which holds a stake in LNG operations in Australia.
"We look forward to the ongoing engagement with the joint venture, government and other stakeholders to move forward with the Leviathan project," he said in a statement.
Noble Energy estimates Leviathan holds as much as 18.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Its operators said it could start commercial production by 2016.
UPI 07-Feb-14
Australian energy company Woodside Petroleum said Friday it signed an agreement to buy a stake in the Leviathan gas field off the Israeli coast.
Woodside said it signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. and Israeli partners at Leviathan to acquire a 25 percent stake in the gas field.
Noble Energy Corp., which has headquarters in Houston, is developing the field alongside Delek Group, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration. Woodside said it aims to close the deal by March and would pay up to $2.5 billion for the Leviathan stake.
Once closed, Woodside said it would serve as the operator in any development of liquefied natural gas from the field. Noble would stay on as the field's upstream operator.
Woodside Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman said the agreement is a "compelling" opportunity for his company, which holds a stake in LNG operations in Australia.
"We look forward to the ongoing engagement with the joint venture, government and other stakeholders to move forward with the Leviathan project," he said in a statement.
Noble Energy estimates Leviathan holds as much as 18.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Its operators said it could start commercial production by 2016.
A Chronology of Russia's Resurgence
A Chronology of Russia's Resurgence
Stratfor 07-Feb-14
Editor's Note: As global attention turns to Russia during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi -- with questions about security and culture at the fore -- Stratfor is publishing collections of analyses that illuminate the geopolitical context of the region. The following is the first installment of this series.
Russia has come a long way from the chaotic and fractured days following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now that the country is relatively strong and stable, it can extend its influence back into former Soviet states and compete with other world powers in regions beyond. Stratfor has examined this important geopolitical trend since its inception at the turn of the 21st century. Below is a chronology of Stratfor's coverage of the most important events and drivers of Russia's resurgence.
Russia on the Edge of Change
Oct. 11, 1999: At the turn of the century, Stratfor saw Russia on the edge of a wholesale transition:
Russia's die is cast. The great post-Communist economic and political experiment has failed … Russia's current political and economic situation is unsustainable, and the country faces a choice: return power to the perestroikists -- open to Western investment but only under carefully controlled terms -- or surrender to reactionaries, who oppose Russia's kleptocrats. The reformists have had their chance; they have no legitimacy in Russia.
Putin and the Oligarchs: The Battle for Russia
July 14, 2003: Russia in 1999 was economically, politically and socially devastated, and Western forces were encroaching on its borderlands. Something had to change or Russia would have remained broken and weak. This is what generated the rise of Vladimir Putin and his team of KGB alumni, alongside deep social and economic thinkers.
Between 2000 and 2007, Putin's first order of business was to clean house. The Kremlin recentralized the country politically under a pro-Putin political party and socially by rallying nationalism and wooing the youths under the guise of the Nashi youth movement. Economically, the Kremlin recentralized the majority of business and financial drivers in the country, mostly by creating state champions for energy transit, banking and more -- purging oligarchs who resisted. Russia also launched the Second Chechen War in order to get militancy under control and to prevent secessionist movements.
Russia Leverages Energy for Influence
Jan. 18, 2006: As the Kremlin's control over Russia solidified, Moscow turned its attention to its periphery and to the growing pro-Western movement on the edge of the Russian sphere of influence. The pro-Western Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 -- as well as those two countries' discussions on potential membership in NATO and the European Union -- set Russia in motion to start pushing the tide back.
Beyond Moscow's political relationships with the former Soviet states, Russia had two primary tools to push back Western influence and reverse the countries' pro-Western tilt: its economic and military power. Between 2006 and 2009, Russia used its massive exports of oil and natural gas through Ukraine to Europe as leverage both in Ukraine and among many other European nations -- particularly Germany -- relying on selective pricing, cutoffs and negotiations to extend Moscow's influence.
Russia Flexes its Muscles in the Former Soviet States
Aug. 18, 2008: Russia flexed its muscles in 2008 when it went to war with Georgia. Moscow's goal was to show former Soviet states seeking alliances with NATO that the West could not back up its security commitments.
The Russian Customs Union
Oct. 31, 2011: By 2010, Russia had expanded its plans to re-establish influence in former Soviet states by introducing a new alliance system called the Customs Union, which Moscow says will be transformed into the Eurasian Union by 2015. Currently only Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are members, but there are plans to expand the union to include Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Former Soviet States Choose Between East and West
July 12, 2013: The concept of a Russia club has now driven many former Soviet states to choose between closer ties with the European Union or with the Customs Union. This type of dilemma sparked the current political crisis in Ukraine. Russia's constant pressure on many of former Soviet states has led to adjustments in previously anti-Russian governments, as seen in Georgia in 2013. Russia has been able to prevent countries like Georgia and Ukraine from further integrating with the West -- though it has not yet been able to pull them into its own bloc.
Stratfor 07-Feb-14
Editor's Note: As global attention turns to Russia during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi -- with questions about security and culture at the fore -- Stratfor is publishing collections of analyses that illuminate the geopolitical context of the region. The following is the first installment of this series.
Russia has come a long way from the chaotic and fractured days following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now that the country is relatively strong and stable, it can extend its influence back into former Soviet states and compete with other world powers in regions beyond. Stratfor has examined this important geopolitical trend since its inception at the turn of the 21st century. Below is a chronology of Stratfor's coverage of the most important events and drivers of Russia's resurgence.
Russia on the Edge of Change
Oct. 11, 1999: At the turn of the century, Stratfor saw Russia on the edge of a wholesale transition:
Russia's die is cast. The great post-Communist economic and political experiment has failed … Russia's current political and economic situation is unsustainable, and the country faces a choice: return power to the perestroikists -- open to Western investment but only under carefully controlled terms -- or surrender to reactionaries, who oppose Russia's kleptocrats. The reformists have had their chance; they have no legitimacy in Russia.
Putin and the Oligarchs: The Battle for Russia
July 14, 2003: Russia in 1999 was economically, politically and socially devastated, and Western forces were encroaching on its borderlands. Something had to change or Russia would have remained broken and weak. This is what generated the rise of Vladimir Putin and his team of KGB alumni, alongside deep social and economic thinkers.
Between 2000 and 2007, Putin's first order of business was to clean house. The Kremlin recentralized the country politically under a pro-Putin political party and socially by rallying nationalism and wooing the youths under the guise of the Nashi youth movement. Economically, the Kremlin recentralized the majority of business and financial drivers in the country, mostly by creating state champions for energy transit, banking and more -- purging oligarchs who resisted. Russia also launched the Second Chechen War in order to get militancy under control and to prevent secessionist movements.
Russia Leverages Energy for Influence
Jan. 18, 2006: As the Kremlin's control over Russia solidified, Moscow turned its attention to its periphery and to the growing pro-Western movement on the edge of the Russian sphere of influence. The pro-Western Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 -- as well as those two countries' discussions on potential membership in NATO and the European Union -- set Russia in motion to start pushing the tide back.
Beyond Moscow's political relationships with the former Soviet states, Russia had two primary tools to push back Western influence and reverse the countries' pro-Western tilt: its economic and military power. Between 2006 and 2009, Russia used its massive exports of oil and natural gas through Ukraine to Europe as leverage both in Ukraine and among many other European nations -- particularly Germany -- relying on selective pricing, cutoffs and negotiations to extend Moscow's influence.
Russia Flexes its Muscles in the Former Soviet States
Aug. 18, 2008: Russia flexed its muscles in 2008 when it went to war with Georgia. Moscow's goal was to show former Soviet states seeking alliances with NATO that the West could not back up its security commitments.
The Russian Customs Union
Oct. 31, 2011: By 2010, Russia had expanded its plans to re-establish influence in former Soviet states by introducing a new alliance system called the Customs Union, which Moscow says will be transformed into the Eurasian Union by 2015. Currently only Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are members, but there are plans to expand the union to include Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Former Soviet States Choose Between East and West
July 12, 2013: The concept of a Russia club has now driven many former Soviet states to choose between closer ties with the European Union or with the Customs Union. This type of dilemma sparked the current political crisis in Ukraine. Russia's constant pressure on many of former Soviet states has led to adjustments in previously anti-Russian governments, as seen in Georgia in 2013. Russia has been able to prevent countries like Georgia and Ukraine from further integrating with the West -- though it has not yet been able to pull them into its own bloc.
Sunday, 9 February 2014
A Royal visit to Rome: Pope agrees to have 'tea time' with Queen Elizabeth II
A Royal visit to Rome: Pope agrees to have 'tea time' with Queen Elizabeth II
RomeReports 04-Feb-14
Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis on April 3rd. The queen will be accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, during their brief visit.
The royal couple is planning on having lunch with Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano. Afterward, they'll head out to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis at Casa Santa Marta.
The last time the queen meet with a pontiff was back in 2010, during Benedict XVI's visit to the UK. He was welcomed at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, which is the Queen's official residence in Scotland.
In her more than 60 year reign, Queen Elizabeth has met with three other Popes. In addition to Benedict XVI, she also met with Pope John XXIII in 1961 and John Paul II in the year 2000.
A More Assertive German Foreign Policy
:A More Assertive German Foreign Policy
Stratfor 04-Feb-14
By George Friedman and Marc Lanthemann
The Ukrainian crisis is important in itself, but the behavior it has elicited from Germany is perhaps more important. Berlin directly challenged Ukraine's elected president for refusing to tighten relations with the European Union and for mistreating Ukrainians who protested his decision. In challenging President Viktor Yanukovich, Berlin also challenged Russia, a reflection of Germany's recent brazen foreign policy.
Since the end of World War II, Germany has pursued a relatively tame foreign policy. But over the past week, Berlin appeared to have acknowledged the need for a fairly dramatic change. German leaders, including the chancellor, the president, the foreign minister and the defense minister, have called for a new framework that contravenes the restraint Germany has practiced for so long. They want Germany to assume a greater international role by becoming more involved outside its borders politically and militarily.
For Berlin, the announcement of this high-level strategic shift comes amid a maelstrom of geopolitical currents. As the de facto leader of the European Union, Germany has to contend with and correct the slow failure of the European project. It has to adjust to the U.S. policy of global disengagement, and it must manage a complex, necessary and dangerous relationship with Russia. A meek foreign policy is not well suited to confront the situation in which Germany now finds itself. If Germany doesn't act, then who will? And if someone else does, will it be in Germany's interest? The latter is perhaps the more intriguing question.
Setting Boundaries
Such a reconfiguration shows that Germany has its own national interests that may differ from those of its alliance partners. For most countries, this would seem self-evident. But for Germany, it is a radical position, given its experience in World War II. It has refrained from asserting a strong foreign policy and from promoting its national interest lest it revive fears of German aggression and German nationalism. The Germans may have decided that this position is no longer tenable -- and that promoting their national interests does not carry the risk it once did.
The timing of the announcement, as Ukraine's strategic position between Russia and Europe continues to make headlines, was not coincidental. While the timing benefited Germany, it would be a mistake to ascribe too much importance to Ukraine itself, particularly from the German perspective. That is not to say Ukraine should be discounted entirely. As a borderland between the European Peninsula and Russia, its future potentially matters to Germany -- if not now then perhaps in the future, when unexpected regional realities might show themselves.
Ukraine is an indispensable borderland for Russia, but it has little value for any modern power that has no designs against Russia. It is one of the gateways into the heart of Russia. A hostile power occupying Ukraine would threaten Russian national security. But the reverse is not true: Ukraine is not a primary route from Russia into Europe (World War II is a notable exception) because the Carpathian Mountains discourage invasion. So unless the Germans are planning a new war with Russia -- and they aren't -- Ukraine matters little to Europe or the Germans.
The same is true in the economic realm. Ukraine is important to Russia, particularly for transporting energy to Europe. But outside of energy transport, Ukraine is not that important to Europe. Indeed, for all that has been said about Ukraine's relationship to the European Union, it has never been clear why the bloc has made it such a contentious issue. The European Union is tottering under the weight of Southern Europe's enormously high unemployment rate, Eastern Europe's uncertainty about the value of being part of Europe's banking system and currency union, and a growing policy rift between France and Germany. The chances that the Europeans would add Ukraine to an organization that already boasts Greece, Cyprus and other crippled economies are so slim that considerations to the contrary would be irrational. The fact that Ukraine is not getting into the bloc makes German policy even harder to fathom.
Of course, some European countries have more of an interest in Ukraine than others, particularly those formerly in the Soviet sphere of influence. For Poland and the Baltic states, Russia remains the major geopolitical foe in a way that Western Europe cannot fully comprehend. These relatively small and new members cannot compel the EU heavyweights to commit to a plan of action that would go too far in provoking Russia, but they can still push their peers to take a more measured action.
During the Orange Revolution, U.S.-led Western powers openly funded opposition groups in the former Soviet states, threatening Russia's strategic interests to the point that it had to eventually invade Georgia to show the consequences of Western meddling. Over the past month, Germany has been behaving similarly, albeit to a smaller degree: opening partisan ties and giving relatively low-cost financial and rhetorical support to opposition groups that can irritate Russia without actually causing an immediate break with Moscow.
For the past decade, Germany could not afford to alienate Russia, which Berlin thought could be the answers to some of Germany's problems. It could reliably supply relatively cheap energy, it was a potential source of low-cost labor, and it was a potential destination market for German exporters looking for alternatives to stagnating EU markets.
Diplomatically, Moscow could have become a close ally and strategic partner as erstwhile allies appeared to be growing increasingly hostile to Germany. Relations with the United States were tense ever since Berlin refused to participate in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and Chancellor Angela Merkel's support for EU-wide austerity measures strained Germany's ties with Southern Europe and France.
But the reality was otherwise. There is a fit between Germany and Russia, but it is at best an imperfect one. Russia never industrialized or modernized as Germany and many others had hoped as it reaped the profits of high commodity prices. Under President Vladimir Putin, Moscow became increasingly autocratic and went on the political and economic offensive in Central and Eastern Europe.
This conflicts with Germany's strategic goals. Berlin's core imperative is to preserve its economic power, which is highly dependent on exports. The European economic crisis has caused consumption to falter in the European Union, leading Berlin to search for export markets further afield. While it has had some success in China and the United States for certain industries, it has not been able to shed its overwhelming dependence on European markets as a general destination for its goods. Thus, Germany's only possible course of action is preserving and eventually reinvigorating the free trade zone in Europe.
Russia's resurgence in Central Europe has concerned EU members in that region. On the surface, the Germans were prepared to live with that resurgence even though it appeared to threaten to unravel the bloc. Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are indispensable components of the German industrial supply chain and a source of relatively cheap skilled labor. That they should remain in the German sphere of influence is a non-negotiable position for Berlin.
These issues are not new, but until now Germany had been constrained in how it could establish firm boundaries with Moscow. Berlin believed its dependence on Russian energy was a vulnerability that Russia could exploit if it chose to. In addition, it was concerned about Russia's ability to wrest Central Europe from EU control. In a worst-case scenario, Germany would end up with a fragmented Europe, a distant United States and a hostile Russia.
The fact that Germany actively supported opposition groups in Ukraine, particularly in the absence of a pressing strategic imperative to do so, is a sign that something has changed in Berlin's calculus toward Russia. It seems as though the German government has determined that Russia is facing major challenges at home; that its position in Europe is weaker than it appears; that the risk of energy cutoffs are minimal; and that there are no long-term economic benefits to an economic relationship with Russia that goes beyond energy trade. That last point cannot be overstated. Russia is poised to remain the most important supplier of energy to Europe, and while the dependency runs both ways -- Europe is Russia's largest customer -- Germany will make sure the flow of energy continues unimpeded.
With the United States increasingly depending on a balance of power approach to its foreign policy, relying more heavily on regional actors to manage threats, the long-term U.S. security guarantees that had been the hallmark of European defense since 1945 can no longer be counted on in Berlin. As NATO continues to fray and the challenges posed by an increasingly volatile Russia loom, Germany seems to be taking the first step back into establishing a new national and regional security framework.
A New Element
Germany's talk of a new, more assertive foreign policy that relies more heavily on its military is, however, not solely linked to concerns over Russia or the United States. Germany has accepted that its only option is to rally Europe but as the past six years have shown, it has had limited success on the economic front. The European Union is an economic entity, but economics has turned from being the binding element to being a centripetal force. Either something new must be introduced into the European experiment, or it might come undone.
Berlin believes that holding the European Union together requires adding another dimension that it heretofore has withheld in its dealing with the bloc: military-political relations. Standing up to a weakening Russia will appeal to Central European nations, and taking a more active role overseas would endear Berlin to Paris. Germany's allusions that it would expand its international military operations, particularly in Africa, is a clear nod to France, which has consistently expressed its desire for a deeper military and political partnership with Germany.
Notably, the drive to bring Germany closer to France in the short term could create tensions between them in the long term. Last week's summit between British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande was a reminder that France and the United Kingdom may have extremely different views regarding the European Union but still see each other as a military partner and, more important, as a counterweight to Germany.
Of course, Germany is in no position to take military action. It is in a position to posit the possibility in some vague way, thereby generating political forces that can temporarily hold things together. Berlin needs to buy time, particularly in Central Europe, where Hungary has embarked on an independent course and is being watched carefully by others. With the United States unwilling to become involved, Germany either becomes the counterweight or lives with the consequences.
At first, Germany's actions seemed confusing and uncharacteristic. But they become more sensible when you consider that that Berlin is looking for other tools to hold the European Union together as it re-evaluates Russia. So far, Germany's announcement has been met positively, mainly outside Germany, but the tension that a stronger and more assertive Berlin exerts on the European continent and the global stage are sure to come to the fore again. For now, however, Merkel has no choice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)