* Inside Look at Advanced Hamas Arsenal Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization has managed to amass an advanced arsenal as it prepares to wage war against Israel, despite the best efforts of the Jewish State to prevent the entry of materials that would allow the group to manufacture the advanced weapons.

* Giant Brazilian Temple Replica Panned as ‘Mockery’ Temple Institute in Jerusalem says plan by a controversial Brazilian Pentecostal church to build a mammoth $200 million Holy Temple replica is “self-aggrandizement.”

* Egyptian minister calls on Muslims to flood J’lem Arab pilgrims seen as more effective than the failed boycott.

* US to sell Saudis F-15 fighter jets Long-range weaponry reportedly not included in proposed $30b. deal.

* Russian textbook seen as anti-Semitic Russian Ministry of Education approved the book on country’s history.

* Germany closes jihad-linked mosque Sept. 11 attackers once frequented Taiba prayer house.

* Turkey names new military chiefs after row Turkey’s government has appointed generals to two top posts, ending a stand-off with the military.

* India Asks, Should Food Be a Right for the Poor? Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds.

* Gaza Arabs Get Second Chance on Greenhouses The U.S. will be giving Gaza Arabs a second chance, providing them with new greenhouses to replace the Gush Katif originals they demolished.

* Israeli PM: Turkey looked for a fight on ship Israel’s prime minister defended the deadly commando raid on an international flotilla protesting the Gaza blockade before an internal inquiry commission Monday, suggesting that Turkey had sought the violent confrontation on the high seas.

Space, the final frontier. The day that astronauts clad in blue-and-white space suits are launched beyond planet Earth to conduct research will be an occasion of great national pride. Make no mistake: The dream may be a distant one, but it is on the agenda.
Israel’s space program isn’t in orbit just yet. It’s sitting on the desk of Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz. Treasury officials are studying its targets and suggestions for achieving them.

The main thrust of the program is to encourage corporate Israel to join the space race before it’s too late to jump onto the orbiting bandwagon, and to do so in an organized fashion. The bottom line is that the treasury is mulling a proposal to invest NIS 300 million a year in the Israeli aerospace industry. The National Economic Council’s two cents on the matter is that the sum is insufficient, but more on that later.
Not a week goes by that Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser doesn’t call the treasury chieftains to inquire about their progress. It’s not a private obsession of Hauser’s. The program, catalyzed by President Shimon Peres, also sparked the imagination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and both men would like to post some progress toward outer space in 2011.
Israelis involved in space warn, however, that the program is doomed to failure without the involvement of the corporate sector. Crumbs from the defense industry won’t send rockets into space or satellite parts to customers.
However it’s achieved, the space program will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of shekels a year, but the Finance Ministry expects to gain more than just national pride from the investment. If the areas of the local aerospace industry that show potential are developed the economic rewards could be huge, and along the way Israeli education, technology and society in general could receive a tremendous boost.
Israel won’t be drifting in space alone. In the next decade, thousands of companies around the globe will be vying for a slice of the growing outer-space economic market. To name just one example, robots will one day receive marching orders for their routine, Earth-based task via satellite. Satellites, meanwhile, are already being used to provide early warning of natural disasters from storms to locust swarms, as well as being employed for communications, defense and a host of other purposes.
Terrestrial war will be augmented by war in space. Countries will seek to blind each others’ military and civilian satellites, or to intercept and destroy them. In parallel, they will need to protect their own satellites from enemy intervention.
All these activities, from scanning the surface for trouble to neutralizing an enemy’s spy satellite to safeguarding one’s own, have strategic, social and economic implications. The upshot is that in the next 50 years outer space is expected to come closer than ever to all of our lives. Visionaries anticipate the discovery of new metals that will revolutionize industry and look forward to the day when a plane can fly from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles in three hours by leaving behind the Earth’s atmosphere, lessening friction and the pull of gravity. (A direct flight on that route today takes around 16 hours. )
Israelis are already experts on satellite technology, products for satellites and ground stations, all red-hot areas that are expected to stay that way in the years to come.
U.S. President Barack Obama demonstrated his commitment to the American space program by allocating $6 billion more for NASA over the next five years. The money is supposed to be used, in part, to outsource to the private sector work that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had customarily done in-house in order to free the agency’s resources for more additional scientific research and experimentation. One option is for the near-earth region to pass from the space agency’s fief to that of private business concerns.
We’re No. 8
Back in our neck of the woods, Israel is considered the eighth biggest source of space-related sales, according to Futron, a research company, in a survey of the competitiveness of space companies around the world.
Israel’s goal is humble enough, ostensibly – it’s to propel itself into fifth place by honing its competitive edge. That’s the vision of Israel Space Agency Chairman Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel and Science and Technology Ministry Director General Menachem Greenblum.
The ISA isn’t exactly NASA. It’s been around for decades, is located at Tel Aviv University and is thinly staffed. Its main job is to advise the government on space-related issues.
It is, however, an office of experts, and it recently issued a report that concluded that Israel is gradually losing its competitive edge because investment is insufficient.
Spending on the Israeli space program is a function of Israel’s defense priorities, and is also fed by the defense budget. But the defense budget alone can’t support an advanced space program staffed by skilled, creative people, warns the agency.
“The way to save the Israeli space industry from its crisis is to develop a civilian space program,” the agency said in its report, “whose purpose would be to develop national infrastructures, with an emphasis on economic leverage. Without a strong civilian space program, soon enough there will be no military space program either.” Certainly in the United States, private enterprise is gaining a foothold in space-related endeavors, thanks to NASA’s outsourcing. Shimon Peres’ people, pushing the space agenda in government corridors, say that if Israel comes late to the table it will get only crumbs.
The upshot of the ambition to realize Israel’s potential is the national space program sitting on Steinitz’s desk. It sets goals and discusses government funding to achieve them. Appended to the report is a paper on the topic by the National Economic Council in the Prime Minister’s Office.
One might wonder why the government has any interest in boosting a civilian space industry. The report’s authors address that question: There are fundamental areas of research in which the government should intervene. Sometimes governments need to support applied research to enable it to achieve critical momentum. The financial risks inherent in aerospace endeavors are tremendous, while the private sector cannot grasp their “positive or external ramifications.” Government subsidy is crucial, they conclude.
Over the years Israeli companies engaged in space, in whatever capacity, have received about $2.5 billion in funding, estimate industry sources. (These companies are the likes of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries ). About a fifth of that amount derived from the Israeli government and the rest from foreign sources, notably governments that sought to collaborate with Israel. The report advises that Israel forge collaborations in space with Russia, India, Singapore, the European Union and Brazil. Some on this list have expressed interest in the past.
Google Israel in space? But for anything to happen, the report emphasizes, Israeli investment must ramp up. The developed nations invest between 0.05% to 0.1% of their GDP in space-related ventures. If Israel’s GDP is about $200 billion, then an investment of 0.1% would translate into $200 million. Yet all the report’s authors are asking for, at this stage, is NIS 300 million a year for five years, aside from any defense-related investments in the field. They project that sales of civilian space-related products could reach $5 billion to $10 billion a year.
The program lays out priorities for the money: 70% would be earmarked for the establishment and development of made-in-Israel space endeavors, and for the establishment of international collaborations. Ten percent would be earmarked for basic research, for instance developing new materials and technologies, and 20% would be reserved for applied research – again, in materials, technologies and methodologies.
The National Economic Council has rather different figures.
In its paper appended to the National Space Program sitting on Steinitz’s desk, the council estimates that initial investment to jumpstart an Israeli space industry would cost $500 million a year for seven years. It says the government should contribute one tenth ($50 million a year ), while the rest should come from the private sector.
Sales to commercial entities, not including the Amos satellite project, are estimated at $550 million over five years. Part of the funding for space endeavors would derive from dividends paid to the government by Rafael and IAI, suggests the council. It also proposes that $50 million over a period of seven years- half from the state and half from donations – be earmarked for academic space-related research.
The council also proposes the establishment of what boils down to a venture capital fund that would invest in space-related startups. It would be a joint venture between government and the business sector. It’s early days but feelers, have been sent out to the likes of Google, Siemens and Cisco Systems. It would be modest enough: The council suggests pledges of $75 million over seven years, of which the government would pony up $50 million.
What would Israel get out of all this? Proponents say it could jumpstart civilian industry and the country’s educational system and even lead to social change. Sound farfetched? Maybe the view from space will make it look less so.

Israel Air Force deployments in various European states are always classified. The host country never knows what hides behind the training sessions held in its territory. Such sessions may take place in Hungary, Romania, Greece, Italy, Germany, Canada, and certainly in the US. In most cases, these training sessions do not include joint drills between Israel’s Air Force and the hosting Air Force; rather, the host country provides our Air Force with a training platform for two weeks or longer.

While the host country always deploys observers and participates in joint briefings, no details hinting to an operational Israeli plan are ever revealed the exercise model or the flight profile. Israel also does not use classified weapons and special electronic warfare means that could hint to our intentions or capabilities.

The recent helicopter crash in Romania drew attention to the Air Force’s activity in the country, yet beyond that, it exposed the fact that heavy transport choppers are an inseparable part of the Air Force’s strategic, long-range doctrine. Until now, foreign reports focused on training sessions held by fighter jets that were reportedly meant to prepare us for a possible Iran strike. The helicopters somehow remained in the shadows, yet the Romania disaster brought them to light.

The Israeli helicopters were not dismantled and sent to Romania to be reassembled. They flew there, navigating through thousands of kilometers and unfamiliar routes while refueling in midair. The equipment needed for the Romania deployment apparently arrived on board Hercules planes, which can also transport gunships. If you connect the dots, you get a potential deployment aimed at special commando operations deep in enemy territory.

If you also take note of the ground crews deployed in the field and Israeli controllers cooperating with local control tower officials, you get a force that can theoretically embark on a significant military operation from a foreign airport, or carry out a rescue operation of Israeli forces or pilots far away from Israel.

Painful American lesson
In order to understand why Israeli choppers fly all the way to Romania for training, we would do well to take a glimpse into the past – April 25, 1980 was one of the low points in the US military’s history. Special Forces transported by air embarked on an operation meant to secure the release of American hostages in Iran. Months of planning and training matured into a highly complex operation – the main problem was crossing large distances under unfamiliar conditions, while using improvised landing sites.

Yet the lengthy training sessions proved futile when pilots discovered that what was happening in real-time was nothing like what they prepared for. This prompted a withdrawal, improvisation, and disaster. The Americans ended up leaving behind whole planes (both intact and burned out) in the Iranian desert; eight airmen were killed in the operation, which failed before it even started.

Now, the Air Force is flying to Romania so this won’t happen to us too.

Crafting operational plans and practicing future flights is insufficient. The skills required for such operations are acquired through hundreds and thousands of long-range training flights under real-life conditions, while facing diverse weather conditions that may not be familiar in the Middle East.

Our new generation of pilots is being trained differently and thinks differently. We are no longer talking about domestic flights or south Lebanon sorties. It’s a whole new ballgame. A flight plan for a range of thousands of kilometers is wholly different than the preparations needed for flying in the “old wars”: Communication procedures, fuel and logistics, routes, altitudes, and flight speed. The contingencies are wholly different as well: There’s a huge difference between rescuing a pilot from the shores of Beirut and from a site located thousands of kilometers away.

In the mid-1990s, the Air Force embarked on organizational and mental changes in order to shift from being a tactical force to becoming a strategic one that operates in broad theaters. Yet this cannot be done alone. In September 2007, according to foreign reports, Israeli jets struck a nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert. Needless to say, the jets that carried out the operation would not pass through the skies of a political and military power like Turkey secretly and with no interference in the absence of close ties with Ankara.

As opposed to common perception, Israel’s Air Force deployments in Turkey were not terminated in the past two or three years because of deteriorating ties between the two states. The Air Force itself concluded that it exhausted all benefits inherent in the Turkish training sessions. Turkey was attractive for the Air Force as long as it developed no ties with other states that allowed us to engage in training sessions at longer ranges more commensurate with Air Force combat scenarios.

At this time, Italy, Romania, Germany, Greece, and the US allow our Air Force to engage in more realistic training sessions ahead of future threats; the reports about the termination of training flights in Turkey in the wake of Operation Cast Lead or the flotilla incident are yet another Mideastern myth.

Opening up to the world
Until the 1990s, our Air Force was reclusive. After the Six-Day War and during the War of Attrition, the Americans were wooing us; they sold us military equipment, but we were very secretive and shied away from sharing information with them, even though they were eager for it because of the war in Vietnam. For example, the Americans wanted to learn how we contend with Soviet equipment and doctrine. At one point, when they received films of Israeli Air Force battles, they viewed it as a priceless achievement.

Meanwhile, Israeli pilots who headed to the US to train on flying new aircraft felt the Americans were trying to get information out of them. Israeli pilots were invited to teach advanced courses in the hopes the US can learn something from them. Yet our brave heroes did not fall into the trap: The Air Force, just like the whole IDF, believed that secrets shared with foreign states will end up being leaked to our enemies. Besides, Israel required the help of no foreign country in order to defend itself. The strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 was a one-time event that did not reflect a change in the Air Force’s doctrine.

However, in the 1990s a broader, more regional mode of thinking emerged: How do we cross hostile states? It was clear to everyone that the rules of the game had changed and that we must cooperate with friendly Air Forces in the region. Israel started to shift closer to the US and aimed to break the ice. In the early 1990s, the US Air force was invited to take apart in joint tactical exercises here.

In 1993 we also experienced a diplomatic revolution that opened Israel to the world: The Oslo Accords. The commanders of Air Forces in Europe, in the Middle East, and in the Far East (for example, in India) started to tighten their ties with Israel. When the Air Force held its jubilee celebrations in 1998, the commanders of 20 foreign Air Forces arrived here to take part in the festivities. Ties with Turkey hit a zenith, while Israel learned to let go of its paranoia and realized that it’s possible to fly through the airspace of foreigners without exposing secrets.

We also learned that by sharing professional information with a friendly state we get something in return: In the process, we learned to use the same language while talking to NATO armies and other militaries. This helped in forming coordination mechanisms, sharing knowledge, and resolving problems. By now, the Americans and Canadians allow Air Force aircraft to fly directly to the US in order to hold joint drills at their most sophisticated, classified facilities.

All Air Force commanders in the past two decades have taken the path of greater openness to friendly Air Forces. Israel has drawn priceless benefits from this in terms of training sessions vital for future wars. The accident in Romania must not curb this trend.

By: Daniel Pipes – The Jerusalem Post

In all, 28 countries have come under assault from British-based Islamist terrorists, giving some idea of their global menace.

Britain’s largest and longest-running terrorist investigation ended last month with the conviction of three British Muslims. Their 2006 plot involved blowing up trans-Atlantic airliners with the hope of killing up to 10,000 people. That near-disaster offers a pungent reminder of the global danger poised by UK-based radical Islam.

The Heritage Foundation calls British Islamism “a direct security threat” to the United States and The New Republic dubs it “the biggest threat to US security.”

Officialdom agrees. The British home secretary compiled a dossier in 2003 that acknowledged his country offered a “significant base” for terrorism. A CIA study in 2009 concluded that British-born nationals of Pakistani descent (who can freely enter the United States under a visa waiver program) constitute America’s most likely source of terrorism.

Confirming, updating, and documenting these reports, London’s Centre for Social Cohesion, run by the formidable Douglas Murray, has just published a 535-page opus, Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections, written by Robin Simcox, Hannah Stuart, and Houriya Ahmed. It consists mainly of detailed biographical information on two sorts of perpetrators of what it calls “Islamism related offences” or IROs – that is to say, incidents where evidence points to Islamist beliefs as the primary motivator.

One listing contains information on the 127 individuals convicted of IROs or suicides in IROs within Britain; the other provides biographies on 88 individuals with connections to Britain who engaged in IROs elsewhere in the world. The study covers eleven years 1999-2009.

Domestic British terrorists display a dismaying pattern of normality. They are predominantly young (mean age: 26) and male (96 percent). Nearly half come from a South Asian background. Of those whose educational backgrounds are known, most attended university. Of those whose occupations are known, most have jobs or study full time. Two-thirds of them are British nationals, two-thirds have no links to proscribed terrorist organizations, and two-thirds never went abroad to attend terrorist training camps.

Most IROs, in brief, are perpetrated by basically ordinary Muslims whose minds have been seized by the coherent and powerful ideology of Islamism. One wishes the terrorist’s numbers were limited to psychopaths, for that would render the problem less difficult to confront and eliminate.

BRITAIN’S SECURITY Service estimates that over 2,000 individuals residing today in Britain pose a terrorist threat, thereby implying not only that the “covenant of security” that once partially protected the UK from attack by its own Muslims is long defunct but that the United Kingdom may face the worst internal terrorist menace of any Western country other than Israel.

As for the second group – Islamists with ties to Great Britain who engage in attacks outside the country: the report’s authors modestly state that because their information constitutes a sampling, and not a comprehensive list, they do not provide statistical analyses. But their sample indicates the phenomenon’s reach, so I compiled a list of countries (and the number of British-linked perpetrators) in which British-linked IROs have occurred.

The center’s list includes Afghanistan (12), Algeria (3), Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium (2), Bosnia (4), Canada, France (7), Germany (3), India (3), Iraq (3), Israel (2), Italy (4), Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco (2), Netherlands, Pakistan (5), Russia (4), Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Spain (2), United States (14), and Yemen (10). I add to the centre’s list Albania, where an attack took place before 1999, and Bangladesh and Kenya, which seem to have been overlooked.

In all, 28 countries have come under assault from British-based Islamist terrorists, giving some idea of their global menace. Other than India, the target countries divide into two distinct types, Western and majority-Muslim.

An odd trio of the United States, Afghanistan, and Yemen have suffered the most Britishlinked terrorists.

This documentation prompts several questions: One, how much longer will it take for the British authorities to realize that their current policies – trying to improve Muslims’ material circumstances while appeasing Islamists – misses the ideological imperative? Two, evidence thus far tends to point to IROs on balance strengthening the Islamist cause in Great Britain; will this remain the pattern even as violence persists or will IROs eventually incur a backlash?

Finally, what will it take in terms of destruction for non-UK governments to focus their immigration procedures on that percentage or two of Britons from whom the perpetrators exclusively derive – the Muslim population? Unpleasant as this prospect is, it beats getting blown up.

The war that may be brewing is not with Israel.

Lebanese leaders referred to Israeli “aggression” — a “violation of Lebanese sovereignty” in which an Israeli patrol crossed into Lebanon to trim trees despite orders from UN peacekeepers to stop.

Israeli leaders described it as an “ambush”  — a “gross violation”, “murderous attack” and “violent provocation” initiated in response to “routine maintenance duties” and “with no provocation from our territory.”

The rhetoric on both sides of the ‘blue line’ separating Lebanon and Israel is alive and wild, and while the UN has confirmed that the tree in question was indeed on the Israeli side of the border, and that Israel coordinated its trimming with the UN, the exact series of events that triggered the deaths of an Israeli battalion commander, three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist on Tuesday is unlikely to be cleared up anytime soon.

What is clear, however, is that in a matter of weeks Lebanon is set to face what some local analysts are predicting will be the beginnings of another Lebanese civil war and which others are predicting will be the largest political crisis since the country’s former leader was assassinated five years ago.

Either way, they agree, something smelly is about to hit the fan.

On February 14, 2005, Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri and 22 others were killed by a massive 1000 kilogram TNT explosion on the Beirut seafront.

The assassination was followed by an extensive international outcry and led to massive political change in Lebanon, culminating in the withdrawal of Syrian troops after 29 years in the country.

The late Al-Hariri opposed the Syrian presence in Lebanon and supported the disarming of Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shia militia more powerful than the Lebanese army. The Al-Hariri murder has been widely blamed on elements from Hizbullah and/or Syrian intelligence.

 The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in The Hague, has been investigating the assassination for years and has yet to issue any indictments. But Hizbullah’s leader, Sheikh Sayyid Hasan Na’srallah, announced last month that the tribunal was set to indict Hizbullah members in the assassination.

The Shia militia’s powerful political wing currently sits on a governing coalition along with the U.S.-backed, Sunni-led Future Movement headed by Sa’ad Al-Hariri, son of the slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri.

Lebanese analysts say the possibility of the prime minister’s governing partners being accused by an international court of assassinating his father, the country’s former leader, has created a state of a political instability and bedlam.

“I think what happened yesterday at the border is a reflection of the situation in the region,” Fadi Abi Allam, President of the Beirut-based Permanent Peace Movement told The Media Line. “We are in a state of war – both within Lebanon and outside – and everyone trying to protect themselves, so there is a real escalation of tensions.”

“The issue is not just Palestine, we are in a state of war here in Lebanon itself,” Allam continued. “The Al-Hariri assassination is a big issue. To date, there is no solution from the international community and everybody is waiting to see what will happen and how this will affect internal politics and the situation in Israel.”

“Leaders from all over the world are all coming to Lebanon because they are all afraid of what is about to happen here,” he said. “Lebanese people do not want a civil war but who knows. Nobody can say yes or no;  all I can say is there is a real risk: War could come at anytime.”

Since Na’srallah announced the probability that Hizbullah members will be indicted in the assassination, Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad; Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah; and a number of other Arab leaders have all made 11th hour visits to Beirut to try calm the situation.

“Both Syria and Saudi Arabia are trying to keep the lid on what might happen when Hezbollah is implicated,” Dr Eugène Richard Sensenig-Dabbous, a political scientist at Lebanon’s Notre Dame University told The Media Line. “Things are very tense, but it seems that nobody wants violence.”

“At the moment we have a grand coalition which includes Hizbullah,” he said. “If Hizbullah is accused of assassinating the former prime minister, then how can all the parties stay at the table with someone who assassinated our leader? It’s almost impossible.”

On Tuesday, Na’srallah attempted to deflect the potential damage of a U.N. indictment of Hizbullah members by openly accusing Israel of the 2005 assassination in a pre-recorded message claiming that Israeli agents arranged the Al-Hariri killing in order to exploit Lebanon’s Sunni – Shia tensions. Evidence to back up such claims, Na’srallah said, will be presented at a press conference on Monday.

Dr Sensenig-Dabbous argued that while most in Lebanon see the writing on the wall, and realize that Hizbullah members are likely to be indicted, they hope for the best.

“Everyone suspected from the beginning that Syria and Hizbullah knew about it and were possibly involved, but there are taboos in this country, and you don’t criticize Hizbullah,” he said. “Most people in Lebanon don’t want it to be true, so I think there is a bit of wishful thinking.”

The professor said that any attempt to blame the murder on rogue elements within Hizbullah would not work.

“If Na’srallah was responsible, that’s bad,” he said. “But if Na’srallah was not responsible that’s even worse, because it means that the leader of Lebanon’s only armed faction does not have control over his own men. It would mean that Hizbullah is not solidified and that the leadership cannot deliver in any future peace deal between Syria, Hizbullah and Israel.”

But Sari Hanafi, a political economist at the American University in Beirut, was more optimistic.

“I’m not sure what will happen,” he told The Media Line. “It will depend on the actors involved, but both main players – the Future Movement and Hizbullah – don’t want to escalate and want to put this issue into the drawer. So I am rather optimistic and I don’t think this will break the coalition — never mind cause another civil war.”

There is also the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK) a known opponent of the regime which has been responsible for a number of attacks in recent years against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It is likely for this reason that Iran officially denied that Ahmadinejad was the target of an assassination attempt in order to put on appearances that the country is united and not one is against the Islamic regime.