Dear Pastors:

I am in a Marriott near Pacolet, South Carolina, where I am in meetings with Dr. Bill Pickel and the good people of Calvary Hill Baptist Church.  We had very good meetings yesterday AM and PM where the LORD gave me strength to speak three times.  It has been quite some time since I have been impressed with the spirituality of a people, as I was yesterday with these folks.  It is a church which has a ‘great emphasis’ on soul winning and standards.  I like both those traits!

I am up early this AM.  I read my Bible and prayed, but miss the Bride of my youth.  Pray for her physical condition so we can get something resolved on her  knee-hip-back problem!

Now, let me mention the news this morning from the Mediterranean on the side of Israel down by Egypt’s border.

The Associated Press says, "Egypt deployed helicopter gunships to the Sinai Peninsula on Monday to hunt for the militants who killed 16 soldiers at a checkpoint along the border with Israel, according to security and military officials. Israel meanwhile stepped up pressure on Egypt to clamp down on the lawless border zone.

The officials said two attack helicopters had been sent and more were expected to arrive in the border town of El-Arish as Egyptian security forces prepared to sweep the region, which has experienced a surge of violence since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak’s regime last year.

Suspected Islamists attacked the checkpoint on Sunday, killing the soldiers before stealing two of their vehicles and bursting through a security fence into Israel. Israeli officials say the attack was quickly spotted, hit with an airstrike, and at least eight militants were killed.

Egypt and Israel say both Islamist militants from the Sinai and Palestinian allies from the neighboring Gaza Strip are active in the northern Sinai, attacking both Egyptian security forces and staging raids across the border into Israel. This attack was one of the deadliest in years.

"The unrest in the Sinai poses a daunting challenge to Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who since coming to office a little more than a month ago has warmed up to Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Hamas officials have condemned the killing of the Egyptian soldiers, but Morsi may still come under pressure to back down from plans to end Egypt’s cooperation with the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

He vowed on Sunday night to make the killers pay for their crime and to restore security to Sinai, home to several of the most popular Red Sea resorts in Egypt. On Monday, he declared three days of mourning for the victims, according to state television.

The Sinai border has been largely quiet for most of the three decades since Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement, although security forces have for years combated a low-level insurgency in El-Arish and nearby areas. The 1979 treaty restricts the number of troops and the type of weapons Egypt can deploy there.

The peninsula has experienced a security vacuum since Mubarak’s overthrow in February 2011, and both cross-border and other insurgent attacks have increased. Israel has agreed in the past to Egypt sending reinforcements to bolster its forces there, but the Egyptian officials did not say whether Israel had signed off on the helicopter deployment.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday paid an unannounced visit to the site where the militants broke through, praising Israeli security forces for their swift and effective response and expressing regret for the loss of the Egyptian lives.

"Israel and Egypt have a shared interest in maintaining a quiet border,’’ Netanyahu said. ‘‘But when talking about the security of Israeli citizens, Israel must and will rely only on itself,’’ he added.

Other Israeli officials gave more details of the attack and their response.

Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai told Army Radio that after killing the soldiers, the militants seized a truck and an armored car, then blew up one of the vehicles to punch a hole through a security fence to enter Israel. He said the gunmen were armed with explosive devices, submachine guns and grenades.

He said that Israeli intelligence services had reports of impending infiltration and sent aircraft to strike as the militants broke through. ‘‘We were prepared for it, so there was a hit,’’ he said. The military ‘‘averted a major attack on southern Israel,’’ he added.

In a video clip released by the military, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz said the incident was over within 15 minutes on the Israeli side. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told parliament that eight militants were killed by Israeli forces who struck from the air, as well as with tanks and artillery.

The attack was the third cross-border infiltration since Mubarak’s overthrow.  In one, in August 2011, eight Israelis were killed. Israel is building a fence along the border to block militants as well as illegal African migrants, but also wants Egypt to crack down harder on the border region.

"We hope this will be a fitting wakeup call for the Egyptians to take things in hand on their side more forcefully,’’ Barak told parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee on Monday.

Egypt-Israel relations have always been cool but since Mubarak was overthrown and Islamists rose to power, Israeli officials have expressed concern that ties would further deteriorate. Israel is particularly concerned that Egypt will ease restrictions on entering and leaving the Gaza Strip."

Now, Brethren, if  America had paid attention to its Ambassador to Germany back in 1934, William E. Dodd, a great historian [who was not in the "inner club" of State Department Ambassadors, because he was not a wealthy man], possibly six million Jews’ lives could have been saved; although, at the time, the little Austrian Paper-hanger and his cutthroats were already killing Jews.

 Saturday  June 30, 1934, was a fateful day in Germany’s history - a blistering hot, drought filled day, much like the Southwestern US is today.  Captain Ernst Rohm, a homosexual and head of Hitler’s Sturm Abteilung [Stormtroopers, abbreviated SA], was intent on knocking Hitler out of power, using President Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, who was officially in charge of its military.

But, Ambassador Dodd’s detractors in the State Department in D.C. worked against his reports.  So, on that fateful Saturday, Hitler with his driver Kempka and armed men in two large black cars arrived at the Hotel Hanselbauer where Rohm and his SA boys lay asleep in their beds from a night of ‘sodomite frolicking’ and arrested all of them.

New York Times correspondent Frederick Birchall was awakened early that Saturday morning with the news that "Apparently a lot of people are being shot."  Massed volleys of gunfire came from the courtyard of the old cadet school where the SA were based in the otherwise peaceful enclave of Gross-Lichterfelde.

Hermann Goring, creator of the rival Gestapo needed no order from Hitler to gather discriminating evidence against Captain Rohm.  At Goring’s palace, an SA man sat quaking with fear, having just been told by Goring that he was to be shot.  Goring’s instructions were "Shoot them!....Take a whole company...Shoot them...Shoot them at once" 

At a press conference later that fateful Saturday Goring stated that Rohm was under arrest [it isn’t clear whether they had actually executed him at that moment, or not], and that "For weeks we have been watching; we knew that some of the leaders of the Sturm Abteilung [SA] had taken positions very far from the aims and goals of our Nazi movement, giving priority to their own interests and ambitions, indulging their unfortunate and perverse tastes.  The Supreme Leader [Hitler] and I as his deputy in Berlin have struck with lightning speed without respect for persons."

So ended what might have been the SA revolt to overthrow Hitler.  Had it happened, ole jav in 2012 thinks President Hindenburg and the military would have taken over the government and the European involvement in the Second World War thwarted.  You cannot sell any potatoes, remember, on my opinions.

But, it is all interesting to me, in light of what we see this August coming out of Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood’s attacks on Southern Israel.  Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem and the security of the Jews in Israel.

JIM VINEYARD    
YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL

Yitzhak Shamir

Dear Pastors:

Yesterday, I was thinking about the death of the great Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, whom I never met, but ‘got to know’ through my good friend, Shamir’s former Chief of Staff, Dr. Yossi Ben-Aharon. I told my grandson Kale, Deacon Bill Johnson and Associate Pastor Joe D. Finn, "One of my biggest problems always has been ‘to think I am somebody,’ when I know down deep in my soul that I am just a nobody."


Menachem Begin, who is also a former Prime Minister became PM during the presidency of Baptist Jimmy Carter. Begin believed Carter to be a ‘truly born again Christian,’ as ole JAV does too.  Begin wrote as he was first coming to America to meet Carter: "I believe Jimmy Carter to be a decent man, and his impulse is entirely sincere. He is a truly religious Southern Baptist. I’m told that he prays privately several times a day and that each night, before retiring, he and his wife study the bible together in Spanish, to lend scope to their learning. As a genuine born-again Christian he lives by the conviction that God has placed him on this earth to fulfill a destiny. He sees himself as a healer,  and as a healer he wants to bring peace to the Holy Land. Yet, as much as I respect his religious conviction, I doubt, as [former PM] Rabin did, his grasp of the complexities of the Middle East. Certainly, he shows little comprehension of the Jewish right to Eretz Yisrael, nor of our genuine security concerns. But since I believe him to be an honest man I have to believe he can detect the truth when he sees it, and is, therefore, open to persuasion."

Begin had his Military Aide, General Poran, whom he called "Freuka," prepare three maps: 1st, showing PLO concentrations in southern Lebanon; 2nd, showing Israel’s minute size compared to their 22 Arab neighbors; and 3rd, the tiny distance between the old 1967-border, and the Mediterranean Sea, which he had marked —telling Freuka with a cheeky look, "INSM." "Which stands for?" asked Freuka. "Israel’s National Security Map, of course," Begin replied.  

                                                                                                                                        

In 2004, we brought a number of Israelis to Washington, D.C. There we tried to petition the U.S. Congress in an effort to keep Condi’s "Road Map to Peace" plan from being implemented, or what I call the ‘giving land for peace.’ It was a failed effort when the Gush Katif’s beautiful 21 communities and 4 of the Shomron were given to the so-called "Palestinians." Dr. Yossi Ben-Aharon, Shamir’s Chief of Staff was one of the affected Israelis.

Yossi told me much about his former boss, Yitzhak Shamir. I can remember Yossi telling how Shamir lived very modestly, and had a perspective devoid of panic. Following is a Jerusalem Post article written about former Prime Minister Shamir.

Shamir had seen what the Jews went through in Europe before statehood prior to 1948 and also took an active part in Israel’s rebirth.

More than any other Israeli politician I have covered over the last quarter century, Yitzhak Shamir – who was buried in Jerusalem on Monday – embodied the steely resilience of his people.

He came squarely out of the "we survived pharaoh, we can survive this as well" school of thought.  Nothing fazed him, at least outwardly. Nothing daunted him, nothing took him aback.

That was one of the two qualities that stood out when thinking of Shamir. The other was his lack of pretension; the modesty of his lifestyle. Both qualities are praiseworthy; both needed by today’s leaders.

Regarding his modest lifestyle, a family friend rented an apartment in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighborhood in the early 1980s when Shamir was the foreign minister and a major political force in the country.

He was shocked to learn a few days after moving in, that the quiet, unpretentious couple in the modest flat across the hall was none other than the Shamirs.

This simplicity of lifestyle is an admirable trait especially when leaders ask the Country to make sacrifices. Not in Shamir’s file can there be found stories about luxury apartments, lavish trips abroad, a post- or pre-premiership chase after wealth. Shamir, like Menachem Begin who preceded him, disdained opulence and lived in simple surroundings.

"Ah, but those were different, less materialistic times," the counterargument goes. "Everybody had less."

True, but societal values are impacted from the top. The example leaders set, the way they live their personal lives, filters down to the people. And the example Shamir set – little, tough, proud Shamir who walked briskly a few paces in front of his security guard on his daily walk – was one where simplicity, not rampant materialism, was to be esteemed....

[Dr. Lee Roberson, former Pastor of the great church Highland Park Baptist in Tennessee, would always state, "Everything rises and falls on leadership." Leaders who let their "egomania," get in the way,as Obama does, won't go out of their way to make themselves available to their people as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir did.]

[Shamir went against President George H.W. Bush when he] oversaw the great waves of Russian-speaking and Ethiopian Jews into Israel in the early 1990s.

Once in early 1992, while the administration of George H. W. Bush threatened to withhold badly needed loan guarantees if construction in the settlements continued, Shamir went to a school in Jerusalem for some kind of ceremony. There he was asked about the impending crisis with the U.S....

[His reaction to George H. W.] was very similar to the gist of all his reactions to the reporters’ breathless questions of impending doom during those days – be it from the first intifada, the crisis with the US or scuds from Iraq during the first Gulf War.

"Tov," he would say, "things are not so bad; they’ve been worse; relax, keep things in proportion. We’ve had to deal with worse in the past, we can handle this."

This perspective was not religiously based, it was not of the put-your-faith-in- God-because-he-will-take-care-of-things variety, but rather based on his historical perspective and a faith, as his son said Monday at his funeral, in the eternity of the Jewish people.

Shamir saw what the Jews went through in Europe before statehood; he experienced, through the destruction of his family, the pain and that agony of the Holocaust.

But he also experienced and took an active part in Israel’s rebirth.  If the Jewish people could face the nightmare of the 'Shoah' and emerge in a state of its own, it could deal with such trivial issues as loan guarantees, lack of suitable employment for immigrants and even intifada violence.

Some mocked his unrealistic "Tov, we’ve seen worse, we’ll manage" approach; others saw it as a healthy, Jewish way of putting this people’s day-to-day tribulations into greater historical perspective.

Instead of panicking, Shamir radiated a supreme confidence in the Jewish people’s ability to deal with the challenges thrown in its direction.

This is a quality the country needs in its leaders today, no less than it did 25 years ago.

Now, news from Lebanon tells us that, "the Israel Air Force bombed an intelligence gathering device in southern Lebanon on Monday, according to Lebanese media reports.

One of the reports claimed that the attack was carried out by an air-to-surface missile which struck a "device" between the southern towns of Zrariyeh and Tayr Filsay.

Al Manar TV said that the attack targeted a device that had been installed on a Hezbollah telecommunications cable.

Naharnet said that Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked UNIFIL to investigate the bombing.

The reported bombing on Monday is not the first time that Israel has been accused of destroying intelligence-gathering devices it had hidden throughout Lebanon."

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=276031

PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM! 

JIM VINEYARD
YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL

PSALM 122:6

The Latest From DEBKA

Dear Preachers:

With the ‘obamessiah’  garnering Chief Justice Roberts’ switch to the left side on the Obamacare  vote, he certainly is riding high.  What a shame!

But our biggest concerns ought to be over there in the Land of Israel where the ‘obamicans’ are working against the Netanyahu government to protect the 7th Century Jihadist Revivalists in Iran with China and Russia jumping in as part of that protection.

I awoke at 1:00 a.m. this morning.  I am picking up our neighbor, then Kale, 13, Paul’s youngest boy, and taking them fishing.  I read  17 chapters in my Bible, prayed and am now trying to finish these lines before I leave at  4:30 a.m.

From DEBKA:  http://debka.com/?next=/users/library/

A Movable Timetable

Saudis Preparing for US to Strike Iran in October

The last ten days have seen a shift in US President Barack Obama’s negative position on military action against Iran’s nuclear program.

Saudi King Abdullah and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have been informed that Obama is in the process of "reconsideration." His aides amplified this with a couple of ifs: If the state of nuclear diplomacy between the six world powers and Iran remains unchanged - that is, inert; and if the Syrian crisis remains unresolved, the US president will reach a final decision on the use of force against Iran in the first half of October – three and a half months hence.

In private conversations, high-ranking Saudi princes, some connected to military and intelligence circles, were confiding last week to Western and Arab visitors to Riyadh their certainty that, at last, the US and maybe Israel would soon resort to military action against Iran, according to Saudi military and intelligence sources.

"It is already decided," one prince told a visiting European official. But what if President Obama changed his mind? The prince replied: "Anything can happen, of course. But this time we’re sure the American decision to attack is final and we are already making appropriate preparations. The question now isn’t if the Americans will attack Iran, but when," he said.

He was less sure about whether the US operation would take place before or after the US presidential election on November 6.

The pipeline bypassing Hormuz is up and running!

Saudi preparations, ME Muslim sources say, are going forward on two tracks:

1.  The defense of government, military and oil targets. These focus on guarding the two main Saudi oil exporting terminals at Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf coast and Abqaiq on the Red Sea against the contingency of Iranian reprisals for a US attack by missile strikes on the two terminals and raids by Iranian special forces trained in sabotage tactics.

2.  A Saudi counterattack on Iranian targets. Their air, naval and special operations units will stand ready to hit back at strategic targets within Iran if Saudi territory comes under Iranian attack.

Strongly tying in with these preparations was the announcement Wednesday, June 27, by Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammad al-Sharqi, ruler of Fujairah that the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline which bypasses the Strait of Hormuz goes into operation this month.

Fujairah is one of the princedoms making up the seven United Arab Emirates. The UAE has built the pipeline to pump most of its oil exports from the east coast terminals to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, away from the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint controlled by Tehran.

It has an initial capacity of 1.5mn bpd rising to 1.8mn bpd, which represents the bulk of the UAE's current production of around 2.5mn bpd, Sheikh Hamad said.

A palpable sense of anticipation was also reported this week by intelligence sources among US ground, naval and air forces stationed in the Middle East.

Iran is too rich to be deterred by new sanction!

The die is cast, the Saudis believe, because US and European oil sanctions, presented by Washington as the ultimate weapon for bringing Iran to heel by choking off funding for its nuclear program, have completely missed their aim. Iran is flush with cash and has plenty put by to keep its nuclear projects rolling forward in the face of international penalties.

Internal US administration reports reveal that the soaring oil prices of recent years were a bonanza that filled Tehran’s pockets.

Even after the recent leveling-out of prices, their revenues still stand at "only" four times the August 2002 volume.

Last August, prior to the latest rounds of sanctions, the International Monetary Fund estimated Iran would earn $104 billion from its oil exports in 2012-2013. That figure is four and-a-half times the Islamic republic’s 2002-2003 receipts of $23 billion.

Even if export volumes were to drop by half and prices plummeted to $50 per barrel, Iran’s inflation-adjusted oil earnings would still be higher than they were a decade ago. The Saudis conclude that the failure of sanctions has left only one way open to halt Iran’s momentum toward a nuclear bomb and that is a military offensive.

Will a US-Israel maneuver be a launching-pad against Iran?

The impression of an operation’s imminence was also gained by American Jewish leaders during recent visits to the White House. Obama has been inviting Jewish leaders to visit him in the Oval Office in an effort to stanch the loss of Jewish support and Jewish contributions draining away from his election campaign.

Like the Saudi princes, the Jewish leaders came away with a strong sense that the president had made up his mind to attack Iran.

Israel and the US are set to conduct their largest ever military exercise in October, according to a report published in Israel Monday, June 25, which instantly caught the eye in Tehran and Riyadh.

The maneuver will feature 3,000 American and thousands of Israeli troops, advanced anti-missile defense systems and other measures for countering simultaneous fire from Iran and Syria. The drill will simulate this fire, with tens if not hundreds of rockets and missiles filling the air.

The commander of the 3rd Air Force, Lt.-Gen. Craig A. Franklin, was in Israel to establish a joint planning committee with IDF to coordinate the details of the exercise.

Israel will test its upgraded Arrow 2 defense system, while the US will deploy the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and PAC-3 Patriot air defense platforms.

The drill is codenamed Dress Rehearsal. The Iranians and Saudis are convinced by the name that the exercise will be the opening shot of the attack on Iran in October.

What Brought the Russian President to the Middle East?

Putin Offered to Broker Israel’s Ties with Iran and Turkey - While Not Losing Sight of Oil                                           

Russian President Vladimir Putin took 48 hours off for a Middle East tour. He spent a day and a night - June 25-26 - in Israel before moving on to the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. His initiative caused wide puzzlement. What brought him to the region so soon after assuming the presidency?

The impression he left behind was that he would not be at all surprised by a US-European-Arab offensive against Syria, or a US-Israeli attack on Iran. But he sounded as though he was feeling his way past those major upsets for a useful role.   

                                                                                                                                           

Hence the odd proposal he made to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when they talked in Jerusalem. Netanyahu was quite bowled over when Putin offered him the use of Moscow as a channel of communication between Jerusalem and Tehran. 

                                                                                                                    

Revealing this, ME sources quote the fairly taciturn Russian president as using two phrases - "I will act as conduit" and "when need be."  

                                                                                                                                                       

Putting these two phrases together, the Israelis followed by the Americans deduced that Putin took into account that a US strike against Iran was approaching, opening up a new field of operation for Moscow.

When one of the Israeli officials present at the Putin-Netanyahu conversation commented that Israelis and Iranians knew exactly what messages were conveyed back and forth by public means, the Russian president remarked drily: "When need be." 

This was interpreted in two ways:

1.  He wanted Israel and, more importantly, Washington to know on which side Moscow stood.  

2.  Israel as advised to think twice before turning down the offer of a Russian channel to Tehran, because in a war, it may find President Putin’s office in the Kremlin to be the only line available for transmitting and receiving secret messages to and from Tehran.    

                                                                      

Intelligence sources say that, since Prime Minister Netanyahu neither rejected nor accepted the Russian offer, and President Putin did not rescind it, it stays on the table and is ready to be activated "if need be."                                                                                                                                                                                         

Russia’s long borders with Muslim lands!   

                                                                                                                             

In another provocative comment Putin said: "We know better than the Americans what is going on in Tehran and in Iran’s nuclear program." He did not elaborate.   

                                                                                        

He not only offered Israel a back channel to Tehran but also touted his services as a broker, more effective than Washington, he claimed, for restoring the old close relationship between Israel and Turkey.        

                                                                                                                                                                            

When he expanded on Syria and the Arab Revolt, he made the following points:   

                                            

1. "Anyone who thinks that what began in Tunis will end in Damascus is mistaken."

This remark was taken to mean that Moscow will not let the US seize control of the entire Middle East coastline from Libya to Syria by bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power.    

                                                             

2.  Whether or not Syrian President Bashar Assad will fall is no longer interesting because he is obviously heading for a fall. But the way "they" are going is wrong. "It will bring Al Qaeda to Damascus." And that is why Russia is working hand in hand with Turkey for the sake of an orderly transition of power.

(When he talked to Netanyahu, Putin never mentioned "Americans" – only "they.")

3.  Putin referred to the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt and its substantial role in the Syrian uprising as "an Islamist flood threatening us all." 

                                                   

Russia is directly affected, he said. It is the world power closest to the Middle East and has the longest border of any superpower with Muslim countries.                                                                                                            

"We are witnessing in action an alliance between the U.S. and the Muslim Brotherhood", said the Russian leader!     

                                                                                                                                                                                    

We’ll help you with Erdogan if you cut us in on your oil stake!

                                                                                            

4.  Regarding Iran’s perception of the Arab Revolt, Putin said that by supporting it, Tehran was simply paying lip service to disguise the fact that it feels threatened.

                                                                                              

5.  He also had a distinctive take on the Six-Power nuclear talks with Iran, in which Russia also took part as one of the six (also the US, France, Britain, China and Germany): He criticized the West as using the wrong approach and language in addressing the Iranians. They are justified in asking the West: Are we sitting together at the negotiating table or are you threatening us (with sanctions)?    

                                   

Because it is impossible to do both at once, Tehran is not willing to talk, he explained.   

                                                 

6.  When the Russian president advocated an Israeli-Turkish rapprochement, he quickly fitted the issue into the context of Israel’s oil and gas strikes in the Mediterranean.

                                                                  

We Russians are ready to help you rebuild your relations with Erdogan, said Putin to Netanyahu, on the basis of a Russian-Israeli-Turkish-Greek-Cypriot partnership in developing those oil and gas fields.

                               

Our only condition is that Gazprom (the Russian energy giant) finance the development of those fields and be awarded the concession for laying the pipelines carrying the gas and oil to Europe.  

                                         

"Don’t wait for the American, British or Dutch oil majors to come to you," he said. "They are too heavily invested in Arab oil. We don’t have that problem."      

                                                                                                         

While some described the Russian leader as relaxed and friendly during his 24 hours in Israel, sources in Jerusalem who heard him speak say the Russian president was terse, extremely decisive and often tough.                                                                                                                                                                                  

Egyptian President-elect Muhammed Morsi won the job by a wafer-thin 800,000 votes , which means he is short of the heft for making himself ruler of the nation in deed and not just in name. 

                                               

To give the job substance, he must tackle the herculean tasks of salvaging a sinking economy, feeding more than 90 million people and restoring the average Egyptian’s sense of security after 16 months of turmoil and uncertainty. He is already being pinned to the wall by the Obama administration, the Supreme Military Council (SCAF) and his own Muslim Brotherhood movement, each angling to clip his wings and manipulate him.

With only a small team of aides at his side, Morsi understands he has little choice for now but to bend agilely in several directions at once and hope to survive. 

                                                                                    

Twenty-four hours after he was acclaimed president, ME sources in Washington report he was confronted with a list of 10 demands from the White House in Washington, which added up to an ultimatum.            

                                                                                                                                                       

He was informed that the US desires the democratic process to continue in Egypt. The administration used its influence to make the SCAF move the process along - witness US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call to the Egyptian foreign minister to insist that there must be no delay in releasing election results.          

                                                                                                                                                           

Washington is waiting equally to see how the Egyptian president performs in the following areas:    

                     

U.S. recognition of Morsi predicated on performance!        

                                                                                            

1.  Human rights, namely women’s’ status and minority rights, especially relating to the Christian Copts.

                     

2.  The formation of a broad national unity government representing the country’s active mainstream parties - not just the Muslim Brotherhood.  

                                                                                                             

3.  The new president must act to uphold the 1979 peace treaties between Egypt and Israel. His commitment to honor all treaties signed with foreign governments was not explicit enough.

                    

4.  The Obama administration expects Morsi to make a public gesture reaffirming peace relations with Israel.   

                                                                                                                                                                         

5.  A resolute effort to curb the terrorist elements running wild in Sinai and restore Egyptian control.   

 

6.  It is also expected to put a stop to the rabid anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric suffusing Egyptian media and give up persecuting Western NGOs operating in Egypt. 

                                                  

7.  The crunch comes here: Not until all the above steps are taken, will President Morsi be welcomed in Washington as an official guest. Although President Barack Obama Sunday called him with congratulations Sunday, contrary to reports in the Cairo press, Secretary Clinton does not plan an early visit to Egypt. 

                                                                                                                                                                

"I think we need to let President-elect Morsi get himself inaugurated, pull his government together," she said Thursday.

8.  The $1.5 billion US military and economic aid package to Egypt may be tied to the incoming government’s respect for the peace treaty with Israel and respect for minority and religious rights, a White House source indicated Thursday.

9.  Furthermore, not until the Egyptian president has satisfied Washington on all these scores will the Obama administration use its influence with the World Bank to ease Egypt’s dire liquidity problems and help find the cash to buy food on world markets. That must be the new ruler’s first priority. If Morsi can’t find the money to feed the population, hungry Egyptians will be out on the streets of their cities once again - clamoring this time for his and the Muslim Brotherhood’s removal.

10.  And finally, a threat that would undermine the new president’s power to rule. Until the Obama administration is satisfied with his performance, the US will continue to do business on key matters and US-Egypt relations with the transitional rulers, the military council. And so, Morsi, to all intents and purposes, would continue to be denied US recognition as Egypt’s responsible ruler.  

                            

Morsi finds he is hassled from more than one quarter. Not only the Americans, but his own movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, is knocking at his door with even more pressing demands. He will have to stand up against the MB strongman Khairat al-Shater, who was disqualified as the Brotherhood’s candidate and whom he replaced, if he wants to save Egypt’s post-revolutionary regime from being swamped by Islamists.  

 http://debka.com/weekly/547/                                                                                                                                            

So, Preachers, on the stage of ‘end-time-events-world-wide,’ gathered around Israel is first Iran, then Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria, Hamas in Gaza , the Saudis, and all the Arab countries they can muster to their sides; Germany, France, UK, and other Euro countries, then China, and, finally, the "Obama-non-birth-place-country"--the USA, and whomever else I have left out of the equation.  All of whom are ready to go in and do a number on Israel concerning Iran’s nuclear works.                 

REQUEST:  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, MAY EVERYONE OF YOU WRITE Netanyahu’s ‘backbone’, the Vice Prime Minister, my friend Moshe Ya’alon (myaalon@knesset.gov.il), urging him to use his influence to not wait on the US in dealing with Iran — an October date will only help Obama’s re-election and might seriously endanger Israel.

JIM VINEYARD                               

YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL

P.S.  Almost time to go fishing - 3:39 a.m.!