Gaza Conflict Will Lead to Armageddon - Mideast Prepares for Retaliation Against Israel with a Strategic Alliance of Iran, China and Russia

"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the 'agentur' of the 'Illuminati' between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue, will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization. And the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity — whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration — will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." - Albert Pike, 33° Mason, Pike's 1871 Letter to Giuseppe Mazzini

For thousands of years there was no conflict in Palestine. In the 19th century, the land of Palestine was inhabited by a multicultural population of Palestinian Arabs – approximately 86 percent Muslim, 10 percent Christian, and 4 percent Jewish. For centuries these groups lived in harmony.

In the late 1800s, a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as "Zionists," this group consisted of an extremist minority of the Jewish population who wanted to create a Jewish homeland. They considered locations in Africa and the Americas before settling on Palestine, where the Jewish State of Israel was established in 1948.

Largely due to one-sided special-interest lobbying by AIPAC, the U.S. has given more funds to Israel than to any other nation: $85 billion in grants, loans and commodities since 1949, with an additional $50 billion in interest costs for advance payments, for a total cost of $135 billion or $23,240 per Israeli. During Fiscal Year 2011, the U.S. provided Israel with at least $8.2 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians... Continue Reading -->

Egypt Negotiates Cease Fire Between Palestine and Israel

August 10, 2014

Reuters - Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Sunday to an Egyptian proposal for a new 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza starting at 1700 ET, officials from the warring sides said.

"Israel has accepted Egypt's proposal," a senior Israeli government official said, adding Israeli negotiators would return to Cairo on Monday to resume indirect talks with the Palestinians if the truce held.

The Israeli team had flown home on Friday before a previous three-day truce expired and hostilities in the month-old conflict broke out again.

A Hamas official said Palestinian factions had accepted Egypt's call and that the Cairo talks would continue.
In a statement, Egypt's Foreign Ministry urged "both sides to exploit this truce to resume indirect negotiations immediately and work towards a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire agreement".

Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "Israel will not negotiate under fire" and warned of a protracted Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip if rocket salvoes continued.

Hamas has demanded an end to Israeli and Egyptian blockades of the coastal territory and the opening of a Gaza seaport - a project Israel says should be dealt with only in any future talks on a permanent peace deal with the Palestinians.

Israeli air strikes and shelling on Sunday killed five Palestinians in Gaza, including a boy of 14 and a woman, medics said, in a third day of renewed fighting.

Since the previous ceasefire expired, Palestinian rocket and mortar salvoes have focused on Israeli kibbutzim, or collective farms, just across the border in what appeared to be a strategy of sapping the Jewish state's morale without triggering another ground invasion of the tiny Gaza Strip.

A month of war has killed 1,895 Palestinians and 67 Israelis while devastating wide tracts of densely-populated Gaza. But international pressure for a ceasefire has been weaker than in earlier rounds of Israeli-Palestinian conflict given other international security crises, notably in Iraq and Ukraine, distracting major powers.

Men salvage belongings from the ruins of a home that residents say was hit by an Israeli air strike

However, the violence over the past three days has been less intense than at the war's outset, with reduced firing on both sides. Israel withdrew ground forces from Gaza on Tuesday.

BLOCKADES

Before the truce ran out, Israel said it was ready to agree to an extension. Hamas did not agree, calling for an end to the economically stifling blockade of the enclave that both Israel and Egypt, which regards the Islamist movement as a security threat, have imposed.

Israel has resisted easing access to Gaza, suspecting Hamas could then restock with weapons from abroad.

A sticking point has been Israel's demand for guarantees that Hamas would not use any reconstruction supplies sent to Gaza to build more tunnels of the sort that Palestinian fighters have used to infiltrate the Jewish state.

A Palestinian protester hurls stones towards Israeli troops during clashes at a protest

Egypt is meeting separately with each party, given that Hamas rejects Israel's right to exist and Israel regards the group as a terrorist organization.

Gaza hospital officials say the Palestinian death toll has been mainly civilian since the July 8 launch of Israel's military campaign to quell Gaza rocket fire.

Israel has lost 64 soldiers and three civilians to the war, where losses of non-combatants in Gaza and the destruction of thousands of homes have drawn international condemnation.

Israeli tanks and infantry left the enclave on Tuesday after the army said it had completed its main mission of destroying more than 30 tunnels dug by militants for cross-border attacks.

In renewed fighting since the end of a three-day truce on Friday, Israel has killed 16 Palestinians in air strikes. Militants have fired more than 100 projectiles, mostly short-range rockets and mortar bombs, at Israel.

Though Israel's Iron Dome rocket interceptor does not work at such short ranges - a version called "Iron Beam" is being developed to shoot down mortars - there have been few casualties, largely because as many as 80 percent of the border kibbutzim's 5,000 residents fled before last week's ceasefire.

Some said on Sunday they would not return to their communities, which have long been symbols of Israel's pioneering spirit - an abandonment likely to raise pressure on Netanyahu.

China calls for new security pact with Russia, Iran

Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping review an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Xijiao State Guesthouse ahead of the fourth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) summit, in Shanghai, May 20, 2014. Reuters

May 21, 2014

AP - China's president called Tuesday for the creation of a new Asian structure for security cooperation based on a regional group that includes Russia and Iran and excludes the United States.

President Xi Jinping spoke at a meeting in Shanghai of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building measures in Asia, an obscure group that has taken on significance as Beijing tries to extend its influence and limit the role of the United States, which it sees as a strategic rival.

"We need to innovate our security cooperation (and) establish new regional security cooperation architecture," said Xi, speaking to an audience that included President Vladimir Putin of Russia and leaders of Central Asian countries.

Xi made no mention of Beijing's conflict with Vietnam over the deployment of a Chinese oil rig in a disputed portion of the South China Sea.

CICA, whose 24 member nations also include Korea, Thailand and Turkey, should become a "security dialogue and cooperation platform" and should "establish a defense consultation mechanism," Xi said. He said it should create a "security response center" for major emergencies.

The proposal marks the latest effort by Beijing to build up groups of Asian or developing governments to offset the influence of the United States and other Western governments in global affairs.

In 2001, it founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Russia and four Central Asia nations to counterbalance rising American influence in the region and to combat Islamic and separatist political movements. Beijing also is a force in the BRICS group of major developing countries with Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa.

Beijing sees common cause with other CICA members such as Russia and Sri Lanka in promoting a political model that pairs autocratic government with a market-oriented economy in defiance of the Western liberal democratic model.

CICA was formed in 1992 at the initiative of Kazakhstan but has been little more than a discussion forum. Other members include U.S. allies such as Israel, Mongolia and Uzbekistan. Japan, seen by Beijing as a strategic rival, is an observer.

The group is unlikely to produce a real security alliance, said Ross Babbage, chairman of Australia's Kokoda Foundation, a security think tank.

"Alliances are not based on a piece of paper. They're the result of real trust and interaction," he said. "There may be some agreements ahead, but in reality, I don't see an alliance emerging."

However, Babbage said Putin's presence at the meeting was significant for China-Russia relations at a time when both are diplomatically isolated -- Russia over Ukraine and China over its territorial disputes and U.S. accusations of cyber spying.

Both Putin and Xi are grappling with economic and political challenges and being assertive abroad can help to build nationalist support at home, Babbage said.

"There's an interesting synergy from shared circumstances, with large parts of the world lining up against them and expressing strong concerns over their behavior," he said.

China is embroiled in conflicts with Japan over the East China Sea and with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries over conflicting claims to portions of the South China Sea.

Washington has complained China is being provocative. Beijing says the Obama administration's effort to shift foreign policy emphasis toward Asia and expand its military presence in the region is emboldening Japan and other neighbors and fueling tension.

Xi said Asian nations need to respond collectively to mounting problems including terrorism, transnational crime, cyber security, energy security and natural disasters.

"We should have zero tolerance for terrorism, separatism and extremism and should strengthen international cooperation and step up the fight against the 'three forces'," he said.