Aaron Klein is a careful journalist. If these reports are true, one must ask, why would Israel place missiles near Jerusalem? Is it because of the elevation or because Jerusalem is the most eastern part of Israel proper? Ted Belman
JERUSALEM — Multiple eyewitnesses reported seeing Israeli military trucks in recent days transport and station large missiles at the periphery of Jerusalem and in locations inside the West Bank.
The descriptions of the projectiles are consistent with the Jewish state’s mid-to-long range Jericho ballistic missiles.
The missile movement, if confirmed, would be considered unusual.
One of the eyewitnesses was a member of the Palestinian Authority security services. He claimed to me that a large missile was stationed five days ago near Neve Yaacov, a Jewish neighborhood in northeast Jerusalem. That neighborhood is adjacent to several Palestinian-inhabited towns.
Four other eyewitnesses, Israeli and Palestinian, reported seeing similar sights during the past week – large missiles being transported by the Israeli military at the periphery of Jerusalem and in the West Bank.
Reached for comment, the spokesperson’s unit of the Israel Defense Forces could not confirm the information, referring me instead to Israel’s national police.
Mickey Rosenfeld, the national police spokesperson here, told me today he has no information on any such movements.
Apparently, I’m not the only reporter to receive such reports.
Rosenfeld said another foreign correspondent contacted him earlier today for comment on the same matter.
The PA security member, speaking on condition of anonymity, speculated the missiles were related to a possible Israeli offensive against Iran. He commented that such missiles were offensive in nature, and usually not meant to serve as defensive posture.
While the possibility of an attack on Iran cannot be immediately discounted, there are several other scenarios that make some sense:
1) It’s possible such missile transport is part of an internal military drill or to test various locations for the future deployment of projectiles.
The drill, however, would not include test firings. Such testing is almost always conducted at a military base and usually involves one missile fired from one location. Any such test is difficult to keep under wraps.
Earlier this month, the IDF did test fire a long-range ballistic missile, believed to be a Jericho III, at the country’s Palmachim Air & Space test center. Israel’s Ministry of Defense confirmed the test was successful, indicating the purpose of the launch was the testing of a new advanced propulsion system.
Jericho III’s are believed to be guided by radar and reportedly give Israel nuclear strike capabilities within the entire Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and almost all parts of North America, as well as within large parts of South America and North Oceania.
2) Any missile placement could be related to the unstable situation in Syria, including fears of a future NATO military campaign there that could have ramifications for Israel, such as firing of missiles into the Jewish state by Syria or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Just yesterday, in an unprecedented move against a fellow Arab nation, the Arab League approved economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against Assad’s regime.
Arab League diplomats, speaking last week to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said that if Syria does not adhere to its demands for immediate reform, the organization will work to unify Syrian opposition groups into a coalition similar to that of Libya’s National Transitional Council.
A next step, the diplomats said, would be to recognize the opposition as the sole representative of the Syrian people in a move that would symbolically isolate the Assad’s regime.
The moves mimic the diplomatic initiatives taken to isolate Muammar Gadhafi’s regime before the NATO campaign in Libya.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned in an interview with a U.K. newspaper earlier this month that foreign intervention in Syria would cause an “earthquake” across the region and create another Afghanistan, while directly threatening the Jewish state.
Assad reportedly made similar comments in a meeting in early October with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmad Davutoglu.
He was quoted stating, “If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv.”
Assad also reportedly warned that “all these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and the U.S. and European interests will be targeted simultaneously.”
To: BlandOatmeal
I am ROFLMAO with tears of joy streaming from my eyes. B”H.
Hmmm!
The reader should note, that from the US, Jerusalem is practically due north: Missles that can barely reach NYC can easily reach Boston. I’m sure the Israelis can also stack another stage on the Jericho to reach further, if needed.
This ought to put a new dimension on things. “The fear of God” comes to mind. Some men fear God; others fear only missles. God seems to be providing both options.
Some distances from Israel I would like to report.
The nuclear capable Jericho III recently tested from Palmachim, is reported to have a range of 9200 km.
To Teheran is 1600 km
To Moscow is 2600 km
To Pakistan is 3200 km
To NY is 9200 km
Hi, Arnold
You have more than a passing acquaintance with the “Guinea temper”. I am only half Slovenian; and at that, only my maternal great-grandmother (and also the ggm’s maternal gm) had Slovenian names. My grandfather, who was a locksmith in Maribor, had a Croatian name; and his mother, who lived in Slovenska Bistrica, had what seems to have been a Czech name. His contact when he came to America was his “cousin”, according to the ship’s manifest, with a German (Austrian) name. My grandmother had a Jewish name. Outside of her family and some cousins, everyone with that name came from a shtetl in Galicia.
Slovenians CAN forgive. Recently, a fairly distant cousin from Slovenia wrote to me to tell me of our family connections. It was her Slovenian grandfather who died as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Her mother married a Croatian man, and the family has ex-Ustashi as well as ex-Partisans in it. The war was very brutal in Yugoslavia, on every side. Hundreds of thousands of Slovenians and others who had supported the Germans fled to Austria after the war, where future British PM Harold MacMillan was in charge. He disarmed them, then sent them back to Slovenia, where they were all brutally treated and slaughtered. After a while, people say ENOUGH! Life has to go on.
The next time you have some of that heavenly povotica, spread some butter on it and think of me.
God bless and keep you. Am Yisrael chai!
Jerusalem will be The focus of attacks by all; and yes Jerusalem need to be protected. Don’t be surprised the so-called NATO, or rather the current resident in the white house would not hesitate for one second using the ‘R2P to attack Israel; it is for that reason that it was invented by the likes of Israel hater samantha power, hillary clinton, barack o etc…
BO,
I didn’t know you are Slovene on your mother’s side of your family.
My wife Stefi (Stefanija Prasnjak Harris) is Croatian. She was born and raised in Zagreb. Her family was nominally Catholic like most of the Hrvatski, but her mother, Marija Starcevic, a peasant girl in the mountain village of Mrkopalj, had been nursing a slow burn against everything to do with Catholicism. The reason was that the village priest had beaten her one time too many for showing up at their local school quasi-barefoot, and in whatever rags her parents had available, or something like that. So when Stefi was born in 1948, her mother refused to have her daughter baptised. Marija had worked as a servant in the household of a well to do and refined Jewish family in Zagreb before World War II. They treated her very well, and Marija never forgot their kindness toward her. Stefi in turn acquired from her mother the same feelings about the Catholic Church and their priests. So when she came to the USA as on a university student visa and subsequently met me, she studied authentic Judaism and then formally converted under the orthodox Jewish rules.
Stefi and I traveled extensively through Slovenija in the early 1970s, when we lived and studied in Israel for about 18 months and spent considerable time in Zagreb and also in the small time of Garesnica in Slavonija, where her mother and father had bought small house. I don’t know how much you know about Slovenija, but there is a fantastic system of caves around Postojna which we visited in 1974. I suppose it still is a major tourist attraction. When Jugoslavija was breaking up in 1990-1995, the Slovenes got out with little trouble, compared with the Hrvati, Bosniaci and Albanci.
You never know exactly who your friends will be and under what circumstances. But one thing I have learned from all; that the tough and hardened peoples of the Balkans never forgive and never forget an injury, and they know how to take blood vengeance. I admire those people greatly, and I wish more Jews would learn to use the same kind of hardened responses to the indignities and sometimes outright viciousness that other nations have used upon them.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Hello, Andrew. You said,
First of all, I think Shy Guy has a far better sense of humor than you give him credit for.
Second of all, Jerusalem is little more than a suburb of Tel Aviv, and the SCUDs flew right over it. The cheering Arabs on the receiving end were not concerned about Jerusalem and their make-believe “Al Quds” presence on the Temple Mount. The main purpose of the mosque there, is as a site for destructive excavations to erase all evidence of Jewish history. They might want to save a piece of the mosque as a war trophy; but there can be no doubt that the Iranians will go to ANY length — even sacrificing Tehran in nuclear “work accidents” — to destroy ALL of Israel.
Thirdly, I don’t know who you think “we” is. I was raised Roman Catholic, just as rongorand was; but I think you’ll notice that we are far from being the same person. I am a goy, with a Catholic mother, grandmother and great-grandmother; and I humor the Jews here by saying I’m not Jewish; but my heart is Israel. My mother’s family still had four men in the “old country” during WWII, all of them Catholics. One died in his old age (cause unknown), two months after the Germans occupied his town. Another was sent into forced labor for the Germans, escaped to the Russians who interred him in Siberia, and escaped again to find his way, nearly dead at some 35 kg, in his home country. The third died at Auschwitz, having been rounded up with other Slovenians by the Nazis as an “example”, a few months after his son was executed by them in a reprisal for Germans getting killed. I like to needle the Jews here, and most of them hate my guts; but I can’t think of a “we” that doesn’t include them.
I have to agree with Oatmeal on this.
Yeah Bland, scuds were fired at Israel. But, correct me if I am wrong, but those scuds were aimed at, and hit, Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem.
In relation to your comment to Shy, why do you need to wave a red rag to a bull? That seems provocative for its own sake. Do you actually want all Jews to hate us?
Andrew,
Sadaam Hussein lobbed SKUD rockets at Israel, and the Pal Arabs stood on their rooftops and cheered. The Muslims would bomb Jerusalem, in a trice.
Shy Guy,
Those pointy things are Christmas trees, disguised as missles. That guy with a helmet — is he wearing a red uniform and saying, Ho Ho Ho? Be on your guard! He might be from Macy’s.
This is fascinating. Someone once said that when WWIII happens, the safest place in the world to be would be Jerusalem. Its the only place in the world that neither Jews, Christians and Muslims would ever bomb.
Hey! What’s that big pointy thing sticking out of my living room window!? You with the helmet, have we met before?!