Israel

I can assure you of two things. Israel is definitely planning a strike on Iran, which I’m told may happen this Summer. The country has been having large simulated chemical attack drills, and even my small town has had its own drills (which I’m sure were ordered from above). Number 2 is that I am also hearing that Israel will not attack w/o the OK of the US. Israel needs to fly over Iraq to reach Iran, and it can’t do this w/o US attack codes. I’m not sure what the solution is, but, as someone once said – “a Jew who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.” - Chashmonaim, Israel (West Bank)

Are things between Israel and Egypt about to get really heated?

From BNO News:

JERUSALEM (BNO NEWS) -- Israel's anti-terror bureau warned on Tuesday that a terror attack in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula is imminent and all Israelis must leave the region. The warning message said, quoting intelligence sources, that a terror attack in which Israelis could be kidnapped is imminent, Israeli media reported.  "We call on all Israelis now in Sinai to leave at once and return to Israel," the warning said. "Families of Israelis now in Sinai are requested to make contact and update them of this travel warning."

Who would have thought that Obama's fate would be decided not by his passage of the "historic" healthcare reform, or his pathological inability to disengage from the kleptos on Wall Street, or even the exponential growth in the US debt, but by what is shaping up to be a November (potentially Nuclear) D-Day out in the middle east. Pakistani newspaper The Nation, quotes former Israeli defense minister Ephraim Sneh, who in an Op-Ed in Haaretz, says that "Israel will be compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities by this November unless the US and its allies enact crippling sanctions that will undermine the regime in Tehran." It appears that Israel is not taking the recent deterioration in its relations with the US lightly. If China and the whole botched CNY issue is any indication of just how incompetent and impotent US foreign policy has become, Obama has about 6 months before the defense/war complex sounds the victory horn (and the president gets to experience first hand just how much better unemployment in this country really is getting) in the shadow of the mushroom cloud.

The Middle East peace talks are at a deadlock. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to move ahead with the plan established by the so-called Quartet – the US., U.N., EU and Russia -- have faltered and come to a complete standstill. Continuing with this inertia will have a long-term negative effect on the future of the region both from a political point of view as well as from a business perspective. With the exception of a few risk-takers, what company or business executive would be willing to invest in the Middle East once the region plunges onto the abyss amid renewed violence?

And whenever trouble brews in the Middle East it tends to spill over into other parts of the world. The risk that Mideast violence could spread to nearby Europe might have been one of the reasons that pushed Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to say that Israel should be admitted into the European Union earlier this week. Berlusconi made the statement during an official state visit to Israel. Berlusconi, of course, is one of Israel’s strongest supporters.

Does anyone even watch daytime soaps anymore? CNBC reporting... More to come

********** UPDATE ***********

Bloomberg reports Debbie Ryan, girlfriend of Sam, is pleading not guilty in helping him escape. She entered her plea before Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith at federal court in White Plains. Turns out she had been arrested January 9th. She is barred from any contact with Sam and is out on $75,000 bail. She faces a 10 year prison sentence if convicted.