Does the Middle East stand on the brink of a great war? - http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/does-the-middle-east-stand-on-the-brink-of-a-great-war
Instability in the Middle East and the Arab world has given way to speculation about whether the region stands at the dawn of a great war, a battle for power that will change the regional order.
Weakened by the upheavals of the Arab Spring, the region finds itself facing the rising threat of extremism, which can only be fought back through unity, wrote Nagi Sadeq Sharab in the Sharjah-based daily Al Khaleej.
"If one had to summarize the history of the region over time, it would be described as a region of wars and conflicts," he said.
"It has always been a target due to its strategic location, its economic resources and particularly its oil resources."
The region became a battlefield during two great wars, with grave repercussions from a geographic perspective due to the Sykes-Picot Agreement and due to American imperialism, with the Russians coveting the region's wealth from the East, he explained.
He wrote that the recent rise in terrorism and the collapse of Arab unity have left the door wide open to Islamist terrorist organizations that use the facade of Islam to reach their goals.
"It looks as though the features of a great war are beginning to form. It is a great war because it is multipartite, embroiling regional and international powers and involving non-state entities," he wrote.
"It is multilateral and annihilating because it aims to get rid of Arab nationalism and re-divide the region by spreading total chaos, one that would enforce a new map that is agreeable with the interests of all the parties and powers.
"The final aspects of a great and universal war are embodied by the formation of the first international coalition that includes a number of Arab countries to face ISIL and other terrorist groups."
The editorial of Dubai-based daily Al Bayan noted that the world "is up against ISIL, so as to bring an end to the group that has spread terror among people.
"Reliance on military force alone will not eradicate the phenomenon of terrorism, which appears to be the most serious threat in the 21st century," it stressed.
"The ongoing conflict in Syria, Libya's internal instabilities and tensions in Iraq leave the door wide open to these extremist groups, whether ISIL or others, to expand and spread like wildfire."
There must be a comprehensive vision for the fight against terrorism. It involves joint governmental efforts within each country, which will then expand into an effective international partnership, it concluded.
In the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat, Mashari Al Thaidy noted that "there is an international will to curb terrorist activity on social networking sites [that] only began when the blades of ISIL touched westerners and when the group began recruiting members in the suburbs of Paris and London.
"Such a war is not fought with good intentions and a few military strikes based on the naive philosophy that thinks war is based on the concept of 'hit and run'. The wheel has turned and a few days back, the European Union requested the assistance of giants of the internet (namely Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube) to fight extremism to prevent such groups from recruiting online and broadcasting propaganda videos."
This is an emergency and an exceptional situation, requiring "commensurate rationality, men and action", concluded Al Thaidy.
Is rebuilding Gaza more important than halting Ebola? - By Michael Freund - http://jewishworldreview.com/1014/gaza_more_important_than_ebola.php3
This past Sunday, some 50 nations from around the world gathered for a major donor conference aimed at raising billions of dollars to tackle what organizers described as an urgent humanitarian predicament.
A host of prominent figures, including UN Secretary- General Ban Ki Moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende all set aside time in their busy schedules to attend the gathering, underlining its importance to much of the international community.
And just what, you might be wondering, was the pressing issue that prompted such extensive and concerted action? Well, it wasn't the mounting Ebola crisis, which has already killed thousands in western Africa and threatens to take the lives of many more. Nor was it the growing disaster confronting Syrian refugees, over 2.3 million of whom have fled to other countries to escape fighting at home.
Believe it or not, the vital topic on the agenda was to raise money to rebuild parts of Hamas-controlled Gaza.
That's right, despite the Islamist terrorist group's cynical use of the area as a launching pad for thousands of rocket attacks against Israel, Western powers and others have rushed to open their checkbooks to help with reconstruction.
This is morally obtuse, politically obscene and strategically oblivious behavior, and Israel should loudly and forcefully protest against it.
Consider the following. At the Gaza donor conference, which was held in Cairo, a whopping $5.4 billion was pledged, half of which will go towards rebuilding efforts while the rest will be used to sustain the budget of the Palestinian Authority, which now includes Hamas, through 2017.
In other words, even though the Palestinians siphoned off previous aid and used it to prepare for war with Israel, they are once again becoming recipients of Western largesse.
Needless to say, the funds pledged are not contingent on Hamas disarmament, nor will any demands be made of the terrorist group to cease building tunnels to try and burrow into Israel and murder innocent civilians.
Worse yet, by alleviating the humanitarian difficulties confronting Gaza residents, the international community is effectively reducing popular pressure on Hamas to refrain from sparking another conflict and mitigating popular anger against the terrorist group.
Indeed, the decision to funnel billions to Gaza is so dramatically short-sighted, and so remarkably stupid, that it makes one wonder if Europe and the Obama administration even understand what their own interests are. After all, why on earth would they want to assist Hamas, even indirectly, to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the Palestinian population? The inanity at work here is even more pronounced when one considers that the United Nations has been having difficulty raising just $1b. to fight Ebola.
Although the disease has killed more than 4,000 people and spread to at least seven countries, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said on Friday that just $250 million - a mere one-quarter of the amount needed - has been raised thus far. "I now appeal to all member states to act generously and swiftly," Eliasson said, adding that, "Speed is of the essence. A contribution within days is more important than a larger contribution within weeks."
And so, even though the number of Ebola cases is reportedly doubling every three to four weeks, billions of dollars will be lavished on Gaza rather than on the jeopardized populations of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Similarly, a recent donor conference in Washington aimed at combating cholera in Haiti, which has killed more than 8,000 people and infected 700,000 others, raised just $52.5m. out of the $400m. needed for the program's first two years.
And just last month, Ertharin Cousin, the head of the World Food Program, said that because of funding shortages, the organization has had to reduce food rations and distributions.
"We're going to need to cut rations to those people we're supporting inside Syria and to cut the size of the vouchers to those Syrians who are refugees outside Syria," Cousin told the Associated Press (September 23).
Clearly, the money that countries can afford to spend on humanitarian crises is not unlimited, so hard choices often have to be made. But no reasonable moral calculus can justify prioritizing the reconstruction of Gaza apartment buildings over preventing an Ebola epidemic that threatens millions of people.
To be fair, some countries, such as the US, are spending money to combat the disease in other ways, outside the purview of the United Nations.
But what John Kerry and others fail to appreciate is that every dollar they are pouring into Gaza is a dollar that can best be spent saving lives elsewhere.
Rather than strengthening Hamas's hand, they should be looking to rally international support to stem Ebola before it is too late.
In the meantime, however, thousands of Africans will inexplicably continue to perish while Palestinian contractors and Hamas terrorists in Gaza reap the benefits.
Netanyahu Scores Direct Hit against UN's Anti-Israel Statement on Gaza - http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=27285
Netanyahu began by noting that the entire concept of an "occupation" in Gaza has been made moot after the 2005 Disengagement.
"Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion." Psalm 129:5
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu fired at UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's insistence that the "occupation" justified Hamas's launching over 3,600 rockets on Israeli civilians on Monday, in a series of remarks before a private meeting with the international figure.
"The root cause of the violence that burst from Gaza is not Israel's occupation in Gaza, for a simple reason: Israel doesn't occupy Gaza," Netanyahu explained. "Israel left Gaza to the very last centimeter, to the very last inch. We uprooted all the settlements and vacated all the settlers. So there is no Israeli occupation of Gaza."
Netanyahu then pointed out that Ban justified Hamas's rocket barrage despite the fact that it used the UN's own facilities to break international law.
"The root cause of this summer's outburst of violence was Hamas' rocketing of Israeli cities, and these rocket attacks often exploited UN neutrality, using UN facilities and UN schools as part of the Hamas machine of terror," he thundered. "And when rockets were discovered inside UN schools, some UN officials handed them back to Hamas - that very same Hamas that was rocketing Israeli cities and Israeli civilians."
The Prime Minister then reiterated the fact that Hamas is a terror group dedicated to genocide against Jews.
"The root cause of Hamas' rocket fire on Israel is Hamas' opposition to Israel's very existence," he declared. "Hamas doesn't give a hoot for the 1967 lines. For them, Israel has no right to live, in any borders. Hamas rejects our very existence. They're committed to killing every Israeli and every Jew. You just have to read their charter - they say that very plainly."
"So Hamas is the enemy of all of us who seek peace," he continued.
Netanyahu did insist that peace, however, could "only be achieved" through peace talks - slamming as well the Hamas-Palestinian Authority (PA) unity government's pledge to prosecute Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"A real peace can only be achieved through bilateral negotiations with those who believe in peace," he said. "I believe that unilateral steps by the Palestinians at the United Nations will not advance peace. I think they'll do the very opposite. They'll bring about a further deterioration in the situation - something none of us want."
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