Is This The Last Generation?

On August 1, 2009, Elliot Avrams wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal: “Why Israel is nervous”.He wrote: “The tension in U.S.-Israel relations was manifest this past week as an extraordinary troupe of Obama administration officials visited Jerusalem. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Advisor James Jones, special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and new White House adviser Dennis Ross all showed up in Israel’s capital in an effort to…well, to do something.” He went on to explain that the Obama administration has managed to win the mistrust of most Israelis, not just conservative politicians: “Despite his great popularity in many parts of the world, in Israel Obama is now seen as no ally. A June poll found that just 6% of Israelis called him “pro-Israel,” when 88% had seen President George W. Bush that way.”

Three years after Israel fought a bloody war in Lebanon against Hezbollah; there are growing fears that hostilities could erupt again this time with the militant group better armed than ever. According to Israeli, United Nations and Hezbollah officials, the Shia Muslim militia is today stronger than it was in 2006 when it took on the might of the Israeli army in a war that cost the lives of 1,191 Lebanese and 43 Israeli civilians. Hezbollah has stockpiled up to 40,000 rockets and is training its forces to use ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv and anti-aircraft missiles that could challenge Israel’s dominance of the skies over Lebanon.

There is also a new reality on the ground in Gaza; al-Qaeda has become so strong that they are now threatening Hamas over leadership of the Gaza Strip. In the past few days al-Qaeda assailants calling themselves “Jaljalat” attacked a wedding celebration in Gaza in the area of Khan Younes- one of the last strongholds of Fatah. In fact the wedding was within the family of Fatah strong man Mohammad Dahlan. There was shooting and throwing of grenades - wounding or killing over 70 of this family. What makes it so notable is that this is the largest operation al-Qaeda has perpetrated against the “Palestinian” people in Gaza. Keep in mind that in this Islamic environment the people are ruled by fear and the terrorist group that can instill the most of that is the one which will take control.
Again, don’t be confused. Although different Islamic groups may have strange names, but they all have the same goal: “To eliminate Israel and to kill you!”

In order to tighten their grip, the Hamas leaders in Gaza have now started what is known as “Modesty Patrols” and have passed a new law requiring that all women in Gaza keep their head covered with the “hijab”. No women can be seen in public with a man who is not a member of her family. These Islamic 'Modesty Patrols' are even stopping cars to check if a woman is with an unrelated man. - We are witnessing the takeover by Hamas and al-Qaeda of the minds and souls of the Arabs in Gaza - forcing them to accept Sharia law whilst establishing another Taliban society. And in all areas of public education the indoctrination of the young, inspiring them to become suicide bombers, continues apace - teaching that to kill a Jew reveals the highest form of love toward Allah.

Yet one US President after the other continues to insist that Israel must surrender its land to these evil people who hate them, and want to control the world.

The Islamic US President Hussein Obama even bowed before the Saudi prince and finds it convenient to accept the Saudi Peace Plan. These are the same Saudis who are promoting and financing the teaching of their brand of Wahhabi Islam in new mosques across the US. In doing so they are putting in place a “plan” that they believe is essential to the next stage in their terrorist scheme.

What Obama really wants is to finish what Bush started, which is to hand Israel over to the Islamic World.

As the world spins into total insanity, the only sane place to be is in God’s Kingdom.

"Hear O peoples and listen O earth!" (Micah 1:2)

Micah begins his message scroll with a divine warning to the whole earth. He ends it with a prediction of God's judgment on the nations (7:10, 13, 16-17). In both cases HaShem is calling the nations to focus in on what He is doing with the Jewish people – to bow the knee in humble recognition of their amazing and irrevocable calling, their tragic failures, and their earth-shaking last days restoration.

Today the world's largest Jewish community outside of Israel supports the official peace process and Middle Eastern policies of a serving American President, while less than 6% of Israeli Jews feel that this President's policies are good for the Jewish state (see Micah 3:5). Unless Israel's leaders back down from God's covenant promises regarding the Land of Israel in Genesis 12 and 15, they will face political pressure, shakings and times of trouble from Western governments.

It is biblically true that God has used worldwide anti-Semitism and the hatred of the nations to purify and restore Israel (as He did with Assyria in Isaiah 10:5-19; see also Micah 2:3). Yet the same Bible warns us that God judges those nations severely and by no means leave them unpunished in the process (see Amos 9:8).

One of God's last-days strategies is the regathering of the Jewish people to their own Promised Land. Though this restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Israel will incur the hatred of the nations in general and the military onslaught on the part of the Arab nations in particular (see Ezekiel 36:2-7; Psalm 83:2-12; Psalm 2),

Micah saw in a vision that at the end of days Israel will become the center of the world – spiritually and governmentally. Zion will become the world's capital city. The Moshiach will reign from a united Jerusalem as the ultimate Davidic King, and all nations will recognize these facts, coming in worship and blessing to the Mountain of Adonai. Divine patience counsels us that true peace will not be a Middle Eastern reality until that day.

In the meantime, we should remember that all Gentile peace plans, treaties and strategies (be they ever so well intentioned) will fall by the political roadside on the way up to Jerusalem.

"The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations … like a young lion among flocks of sheep” (Micah 5:8-9)

The prophet says that, at the end of days, military victory will be granted to Israel. She will be the unchallenged international superpower in the Middle East. At what exact point-in-time this will happen may not be crystal clear in Scripture (see Zech. 13:8-14:2 etc), but it this future reality is the prophetic word of the Lord. Israel as God's victorious army is a mighty theme in the Bible, and it is the pinnacle of Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones (Ezek. 37:9-11; Psalm 110:3; Micah 4:11-13). "Do not gloat over me, my enemy!" (Micah 7:8)

Micah warns those who believe that God has abandoned His Jewish people – or even those who do not believe that the God of Israel exists – that Israel's present problems will not last forever. God will soon rescue His people from the anger and hatred of the nations. At that point there will be a major reversal of historical roles – Israel's enemies will experience the fate they had tried to inflict on the people of Jacob, while the Jewish people will finally see their enemies defeated forever.

In this Video Rabbi Lazer Brody brings down that we are right here @ the end of the exile! All the great Rabbi's from Every Sect of Judaism are in agreement about one thing; the Moshiach is here & just waiting to reveal himself - get your affairs in order while you still have a chance!

http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/video/video.php?v=111702003417&ref=mf

The Great Solar Eclipse of 2009 - July 22!

On Wednesday, July 22, 2009, the moon will hide the face of the sun in the longest total solar eclipse in this 21st century. "It will be a monster, with a totality lasting more than 6.6 minutes at maximum," say Fred Espenak and Jay Anderson, writers for Sky & Telescope magazine.

It is interesting that three solar eclipses occur on each of three annual calendar dates introducing the Jewish month of Av for the years 2008, 2009, and 2010. The first eclipse occurred on August 1, 2008. The second solar eclipse is coming up this month — on July 22, 2009, and the third will happen on July 11, 2010. These dates vary in the Gregorian calendar, but occur on the same calendar date in the Jewish calendar — Av 1.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon travels across the face of the sun, thus blocking out its sunlight. A "total" solar eclipse means that the moon is large enough (closer to Earth) to completely cover the surface of the sun, whereas, an "annular" solar eclipse means that the moon is farther away from Earth and appears smaller than the sun’s disk. A "partial" solar eclipse means that the moon only crosses part the sun’s surface, but does not completely block out its light. These three solar eclipses are "total" eclipses — last year in the far north, this year across the middle of Earth’s surface, and next year in the far south.

The solar eclipse last year (August 1, 2008) was seen in parts of the Arctic, Siberia, and central Asia. The second of these three solar eclipses will be coming up this month on July 22, 2009. Sky & Telescope magazine (December 2008) had a story about this solar eclipse, saying that it would be the longest eclipse of the century and would not be seen in this configuration again until 2132.

Fred Espenak and Jay Anderson, writers for Sky & Telescope said, "A total eclipse of the sun will cross China next summer. Unlike the eclipse last August, the one on July 22, 2009, will darken major cities, densely populated countryside, and a vast expanse of tropical ocean."

"The third total solar eclipse will happen on July 11, 2010, almost entirely over the South Pacific. Easter Island and southern Chile (at sunset) offer the only landfalls. The South Pacific is again the site of the next one, on November 13, 2010."

November 13, 2012 ... hmmm ... that’s in the fourth year of this Sabbatical cycle, near December 12, 2012, the final day in the Mayan calendar. Could these be heavenly signs?

The total solar eclipse this month will have a magnitude of 1.080 that will be visible from a narrow corridor through northern India, eastern Nepal, northern Bangladesh, Bhutan, the northern tip of Myanmar, central China and the Pacific Ocean, including Ryukyu Islands, Marshall Islands and Kiribati. Totality will be visible in many cities such as Surat, Varanasi, Patna, Thimphu, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shanghai. A partial eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon‘s penumbra, including most of South East Asia and north-eastern Oceania.

On Friday, August 1, 2008, a total eclipse of the Sun was visible from within a narrow corridor that traversed half the Earth. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow began in Canada and extended across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia, and China. A partial eclipse was seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which included northeastern North America, most of Europe and Asia.

On Sunday, July 11, 2010, a third total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses Earth’s southern hemisphere. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow will cross the South Pacific Ocean where it will make no landfall except for Mangaia (Cook Islands) and Easter Island (Isla de Pascua). The path of totality will end just after reaching southern Chile and Argentina. The Moon’s penumbral shadow will produce a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering the South Pacific and southern South America.

What is remarkable about these solar eclipses is the unusual way they occur on the Jewish calendar. There are several Scriptures that predict signs in the Sun and Moon around the time of the Tribulation Period. Isaiah wrote:

"Behold, the day of the L- RD cometh, ... the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”

"And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible" (Isa. 13:9-11).


It is possible that solar and lunar eclipses over the next few years hold heavenly messages for mankind. They may be the biblical signs predicted for the Sun and Moon.

Bravo, Mr. Netanyahu !

Netanyahu flatly rejected US demand to halt Jerusalem housing project.

Jerusalem is the "unified capital of Israel and the capital of the Jewish people, and sovereignty over it is indisputable," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday, responding to an American demand to put an end to a housing project to be built in east Jerusalem.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the US demand was "odd."

"Thousands of Arab families build houses in Jerusalem, in the neighborhoods of Neve Yaakov and French Hill, and I've never heard any comment on the matter from the United States or Europe," Lieberman said. "I'm trying to put this delicately: It would be very strange if Jews were discriminated against in Jerusalem of all places, especially in light of the fact that it is not an isolated site; this is the heart of the city, very close to the Government Compound and Israel Police Headquarters."

According to the Torah, Israel is G-D's Land and Jerusalem His place of dwelling. What utter arrogance of an American President to tell the Israeli Prime Minister what to do.

This is not a difference of opinion between presidents of two different countries; it is a difference of opinion between Obama and the Almighty.

America, I fear for you! - Lilo

Poverty Of The Soul

Author: Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis



In our society, we tend to associate poverty with financial depravation.

But there is another poverty that is by far more devastating, and that is poverty of the soul, when a person doesn’t know who he is or from whence he has come.

When he lacks self esteem because he feels rootless and empty, he is suffering from poverty of the soul. In vain is such a person heir to a great fortune - his ignorance of his inheritance renders him a pauper. Such is the condition prevalent among many of our brethren nowadays. Descendants of Mamlechet Kohanim, a Kingdom of Priests; Goy Kadosh, a Holy Nation that stood at Sinai, they have no memory, no recollection of their past. Their G-d-given inheritance is unknown to them.

This spiritual deprivation holds sway throughout the world, but it is especially visible among our secular government leadership in Israel. The stakes are high, for if they live in ignorance of their Divine heritage, of the fact that it was G-d Himself, who granted them this land, then the very presence of our people in the land is at risk, and alas, that is exactly what has been happening.

But even those of us who are aware very often remain unaware. As dichotomous as this may sound, it is part of the reality of the machinations of the yetzer hora. We became oblivious of the obvious and take for granted that which is readily available. We no longer wonder at the miracle of having returned to the land, of standing in places where for centuries, our forefathers could only have dreamt of standing.

I remember interviewing many years ago for my TV program, Yosef Mendelovitch, a prisoner of conscience who had just been freed from the notorious Soviet prison system.

“Tell me,” I asked, “while you were sitting in the horrible darkness of solitary confinement, did you ever dream that you would be free again?”

“I never gave up hope, I never stopped dreaming,” came his immediate reply.
“Did you ever try to imagine the very first place that you would visit upon being
granted freedom?”

“Yes, I knew exactly where I would ask to go,” he answered without hesitation.”

“Could you tell me?”

“Hebron.”

“Hebron...” I repeated. The words shot out like a bolt of lightening, pierced the walls of the studio, spanned the centuries, and took us thousands of years back to our roots, to the cradle of our existence, to our patriarchs and matriarchs. Today, we can all go to Hebron - we can all pray at the grave sites of our holy ancestors...

Today we can all stand in the presence of the shechina, before the Wall in Jerusalem. Today, we can all breathe the air of our holy land, but somehow, we’ve lost it. We don’t feel the magic - We no longer have the vision. We have forgotten our royal past. As for our secular leadership, regarding them you can’t even say they forgot - they just never felt it.

Time and again, through this column and my speeches, I have posed a simple question to those who are our policy makers: If we have no right to Hebron, then by what right are we in Tel Aviv? This question has become especially poignant since the ill-fated Oslo accords, but amazingly, no one wakes up. No matter how many terrorist attacks Israel is subjected to our leadership continues to make suicidal concessions (and it doesn’t seem to matter who is in office, from the far left to the far right, they all fall prey to it).

On the very day that the horrific bus bombing took place in Jerusalem and innocent people were killed, seriously wounded and maimed, on that very day our leadership continued to negotiate with the murderers, releasing hundreds upon hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands.

“What should Israel do?” you might ask. “After all, Israel has no option but to face reality and recognize a Palestinian state.”

We are a nation that lives by the laws of a different reality. Our reality stems from the Torah - from our G-d given destiny. But I’m not even going to discuss that, for our secular brethren scoff at such truths, so may I suggest that they deal with what they consider to be reality and heed the advice of a former PLO terrorist, Walid Shoebat. Through independent study of the Bible, Mr. Shoebat came to realize the error of his ways and now lectures to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. In a recent address at the campus of the University of Toronto, he said, “Most Jews believe in a two-state solution. I do not believe in this. A Palestinian state will concoct its own rules and laws to continue the killing of Jews.” He suggested instead, that “Israel wake up and smell the Hummus. Israel must return to the status quo - the occupation. There were jobs then, people went to work and supported their families, and whoever got involved with terrorism was exiled or imprisoned. - like in any modern country in the world. I think Israel should stand strong and fight - dismantle Hamas and take away all the weapons, and return to the way it used to be. The introduction of weapons into Palestinian society by Israel (under the Oslo accords Israel gave assault rifles to Arafat’s police force) was a disaster and they must be confiscated. (The latest tragic bus bombing in Jerusalem was executed by one of these PLO policemen).

In describing what life in Judea and Samaria was prior to 1967, he said, “We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then, all of a sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all of a sudden we had a Palestinian flag.”

Shoebat feels very strongly that the ongoing war against Israel has nothing to do with an Arab desire for a Palestinian state. “Never in history was there a Palestinian state,” said Shoebat, “we’ve never wanted a Palestinian state - even today the Palestinians don’t want a Palestinian state”

“Then what do they want?” he was asked.

“They want the destruction of the Jews, period. It’s a religious holy war. It’s in the tradition, the culture. Arafat is a chip off the same block as Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Ahmed Yassin - they are all birds of a feather, they have a small difference, but are birds of a feather.”

Asked what his message to the Jewish people today is, Shoebat thought for a moment and responded: “Your G-d is an awesome G-d and your land and your people are awesome. Hold tight and be strong. Do not be weakened by the nations of the world and all those trying to weaken you and take your land.”

Amazing words from a Muslim, and his story is equally amazing. Shoebat was a religious Muslim who grew up hating Jews. The first song he learned in school was, “Arabs are our beloved and Jews are dogs.” ‘I used to wonder who the Jews were,’ he confided, but he repeated the words with the rest of the kids without any knowledge of the meaning. As a Muslim, he was imbued with the prophecy of Mohamed, which foretold a battle in which the Holy Land would be recaptured and the elimination of the Jews would take place in a massive slaughter. ‘The day of judgment shall not come to pass until a tribe of Muslims defeat a tribe of Jews,’ it said, ‘in Jerusalem and the surrounding nations’.”

Shoebat became involved in various terrorist activities including Arafat’s Fatah group. He was indoctrinated to believe that the way to get to heaven and atone for his sins was to die fighting and killing Jews, and if he did, Allah would grant him a special place in heaven with beautiful women to fulfill his most secret wishes. He had been imprisoned in Israel for his terrorist activities, following which he came to the U.S. where he continued to be a PLO activist. His change of heart occurred when he married his Christian wife who challenged him to prove his Islamic belief that Jews corrupted the Bible and were prophet killers. In response, he obtained his first copy of the Bible to demonstrate to his wife the lies and corruptions for which the Jews were responsible. It was then that he saw the light and realized that it was he who had been fed a pack of lies, and the land was the G-d given inheritance of the Jewish people.

Shoebat expressed deep regret over his past which caused him to be branded a traitor among his own people and compelled him to go into hiding. Nevertheless, he is on a mission, determined not only to warn the Jewish people against the dangers of negotiating with Arabs, but he also feels the urgency of speaking out among his own people. “My dream is to go to the prisons where I used to be - Ramallah prison, Muskavit prison - whatever prison - to go there and say ‘hey, there is a different way you can live from the way Yassir Arafat and Ahmed Yassin are brainwashing you to believe. I want to debate them and tell them why there are not 72 virgins waiting for them in the heavens, or any of the other garbage that is being taught in their schools.”

Shoebat urges his Jewish audiences to take back the Land. “You are G-d’s people. It belongs to you.”

How sad it is that it is strangers who have to remind us of that - alas, poverty of the soul.

Israel and the Axis of Evil

- By Caroline B. Glick

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | North Korea is half a world away from Israel. Yet the nuclear test it conducted on Monday has the Israeli defense establishment up in arms and it its Iranian nemesis smiling like the Cheshire Cat. Understanding why this is the case is key to understanding the danger posed by what someone once impolitely referred to as the Axis of Evil.

Less than two years ago, on September 6, 2007, the IAF destroyed a North Korean-built plutonium production facility at Kibar, Syria. The destroyed installation was a virtual clone of North Korea's Yongbyon plutonium production facility.

This past March the Swiss daily *Neue Zuercher Zeitung* reported that Iranian defector Ali Reza Asghari, who before his March 2007 defection to the US served as a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and as deputy defense minister, divulged that Iran paid for the North Korean facility.

Teheran viewed the installation in Syria as an extension of its own nuclear program. According to Israeli estimates, Teheran spent between a billion and two billion dollars for the project.

It can be assumed that Iranian personnel were present in North Korea during Monday's test. Over the past several years, Iranian nuclear officials have been on hand for all of North Korea's major tests including its first nuclear test and its intercontinental ballistic missile test in 2006.

Moreover, it wouldn't be far-fetched to think that North Korea conducted some level of coordination with Iran regarding the timing of its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests this week. It is hard to imagine that it is mere coincidence that North Korea's actions came just a week after Iran tested its solid fuel Sejil-2 missile with a range of two thousand kilometers.

Aside from their chronological proximity, the main reason it makes sense to assume that Iran and North Korea coordinated their separate tests is because North Korea has played a central role in Iran's missile program. Although Western observers claim that Iran's Sejil-2 is based on Chinese technology transferred to Iran through Pakistan, the fact is that Iran owes much of its ballistic missile capacity to North Korea. The Shihab-3 missile for instance, which forms the backbone of Iran's strategic arm threatening to Israel and its Arab neighbors is simply an Iranian adaptation of North Korea's Nodong missile technology. Since at least the early 1990s, North Korea has been only too happy to proliferate that technology to whoever wants it. Like Iran, Syria owes much of its own massive missile arsenal to North Korean proliferation.



Responding Monday to North Korea's nuclear test, US President Barack Obama said, "North Korea's behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia."

While true, North Korea's intimate ties with Iran and Syria show that North Korea's nuclear program, with its warhead, missile and technological components, is not a distant threat, limited in scope to faraway East Asia. It is a multilateral program shared on various levels with Iran and Syria. Consequently, it endangers not just the likes of Japan and South Korea, but all nations whose territory and interests are within range of Iranian and Syrian missiles.



Beyond its impact on Iran's technological and hardware capabilities, North Korea's nuclear program has had a singular influence on Iran's political strategy for advancing its nuclear program diplomatically. North Korea has been a trailblazer in its utilization of a mix of diplomatic aggression and seeming accommodation to alternately intimidate and persuade its enemies to take no action against its nuclear program. Iran has followed Pyongyang's model assiduously. Moreover, Iran has used the international - and particularly the American response - to various North Korean provocations over the years to determine how to position itself at any given moment in order to advance its nuclear program.

For instance, when the US reacted to North Korea's 2006 nuclear and ICBM tests by reinstating the six-party talks in the hopes of appeasing Pyongyang, Iran learned that by exhibiting an interest in engaging the US on its uranium enrichment program it could gain valuable time. Just as North Korea was able to dissipate Washington's resolve to take action against it while buying time to advance its program still further through the six-party talks, so Iran, by seemingly agreeing to a framework for discussing its uranium enrichment program, has been able to keep the US and Europe at bay for the past several years.

The Obama administration's impotent response to Pyongyang's ICBM test last month and its similarly stuttering reaction to North Korea's nuclear test on Monday have shown Teheran that it no longer needs to even pretend to have an interest in negotiating aspects of its nuclear program with Washington or its European counterparts. Whereas appearing interested in reaching an accommodation with Washington made sense during the Bush presidency when hawks and doves were competing for the president's ear, today, with the Obama administration populated solely by doves, Iran, like North Korea believes it has nothing to gain by pretending to care about accommodating Washington.

This point was brought home clearly by both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's immediate verbal response to the North Korean nuclear test on Monday and by Iran's provocative launch of warships in the Gulf of Aden the same day. As Ahmadinejad said, as far the Iranian regime is concerned, "Iran's nuclear issue is over." There is no reason to talk anymore. Just as Obama made clear that he intends to do nothing in response to North Korea's nuclear test, so Iran believes that the President will do nothing to impede its nuclear program.

Of course it is not simply the administration's policy towards North Korea that is signaling to Iran that it has no reason to be concerned that the US will challenge its nuclear aspirations. The US's general Middle East policy, which conditions US action against Iran's nuclear weapons program on the prior implementation of an impossible-to-achieve Israel-Palestinian peace agreement makes it obvious to Teheran that the US will take no action whatsoever to prevent it from following in North Korea's footsteps and becoming a nuclear power.

During his press briefing with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last Monday, Obama said the US would reassess its commitment to appeasing Iran at year's end. And early this week it was reported that Obama has instructed the Defense Department to prepare plans for attacking Iran. Moreover, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen has made several recent statement warning of the danger a nuclear-armed Iran will pose to global security - and by extension, to US national security.

On the surface, all of this seems to indicate that the Obama administration may be willing to actually do something to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Unfortunately though, due to the timeline Obama has set, it is clear that before he will be ready to lift a finger against Iran, the mullocracy will have already become a nuclear power.

Israel assesses that Iran will have a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb by the end of the year. The US believes that it could take until mid-2010. At his press briefing last week Obama said that if the negotiations are deemed a failure, the next step for the US will be to expand international sanctions against Iran. It can be assumed that here too, Obama will allow this policy to continue for at least six months before he will be willing to reconsider it. By that point, in all likelihood, Iran will already be in possession of a nuclear arsenal.

Beyond Obama's timeline, over the past week, two other developments made it apparent that regardless of what Iran does, the Obama administration will not revise its policy of placing its Middle East emphasis on weakening Israel rather than on stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. First, last Friday *Yediot Ahronot* reported that at a recent lecture in Washington, US Lt. General Keith Dayton, who is responsible for training Palestinian military forces in Jordan stated outright that if Israel does not surrender Judea and Samaria within two years, the Palestinian forces he and his fellow American officers are now training at a cost of more than $300 million will begin killing Israelis.

Even more unsettling than Dayton's certainty that within a short period of time these US-trained forces will commence murdering Israelis, is his seeming equanimity in the face of the known consequences of his actions. The prospect of US-trained Palestinian military forces slaughtering Jews does not cause Dayton have a second thought about the wisdom of the US's commitment to building and training a Palestinian army.

Dayton's statement laid bare the disturbing fact even though the administration is fully aware of the costs of its approach to the Palestinian conflict with Israel, it is still unwilling to reconsider it. Defense Secretary Robert Gates just extended Dayton's tour of duty for an additional two years and gave him the added responsibility of serving as Obama's Middle East mediator George Mitchell's deputy.

Four days after Dayton's remarks were published, senior American and Israeli officials met in London. The reported purpose of the high-level meeting was to discuss how Israel will abide by the administration's demand that it prohibit all construction inside of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

What was most notable about the meeting was its timing. By holding the meeting the day after North Korea tested its bomb and after Iran's announcement that it rejects the US's offer to negotiate about its nuclear program, the administration demonstrated that regardless of what Iran does, Washington's commitment to putting the screws on Israel is not subject to change.

All of this of course is music to the mullahs' ears. Between America's impotence against their North Korean allies and its unshakable commitment to keeping Israel on the hot seat, the Iranians know that they have no reason to worry about Uncle Sam.

As for Israel, it is a good thing that the IDF has scheduled largest civil defense drill in the country's history for next week. Between North Korea's nuclear test, Iran's brazen bellicosity and America's betrayal, it is clear that the government can do nothing to impact Washington's policies towards Iran. No destruction of Jewish communities will convince Obama to take action against Iran.

Today Israel stands alone against the mullahs and their bomb. And this, like the US's decision to stand down against the Axis of Evil is not subject to change.