This time, Turkey didn’t take the bait and wisely so, because this time Russia has the most advanced aerial defence system in the world on standby, itching to prove itself to the world.
As Russia and Turkey face off, we are reminded that we are sitting on the verge of the return of Christ.
Putin has said that he cant guarantee that it wont happen again.
Is this second airspace violation our last reminder?
A large Hezbollah force has entered the southern Syrian town of Daraa, a critically dangerous event for Israel’s security.
The way to the town, which lies near the Jordanian border and across from the Israeli Golan, was opened before Hizballah by none other than Russian forces. This was a blatant violation of President Vladimir Putin’s commitments to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Jordanian King Abdullah not to permit Iranian and Iran-backed forces, such as Hizballah and Iraqi and Afghani Shiite militias, reach their borders in consequence of Russia’s military intervention in the Syria war.
Daraa is just 32 km from the southern Golan and 12 km from the Jordanian border. Hizballah forces in this town are therefore within easy striking distance from northern Israeli and Jordan.
What happened Wednesday was that a sizeable Hizballah contingent made it into Daraa, the day after a Syrian unit under the command of Russian officers captured the town of Sheikh Maskin, cutting off rebel forces east of Daraa from their comrades to the west. Control of Sheikh Maskin is the key to the crossroads leading to Damascus in the north, the Druze Mountain town of es-Suwaida in the east, and Quneitra on Golan opposite Israel’s northern defenses.
The battle for Sheikh Maskin was the first in the Syrian conflict to be directly fought under Russian command. Its fall sparked accounts of Russian officers commanding Syrian troops in different parts of Syria.
So far, Israel has not reacted to the Hizballah force’s advance, notwithstanding public statements by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon that this would never be allowed to happen.
DEBKAfile’s military sources explain this reticence by a persistent misreading of the Syrian crisis in the higher ranks of the Israeli defense establishment. Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi, who has a good grasp of its complexities, is a lone voice against the defense minister and IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkot
In Amman, however, King Abdullah and his generals signified both alarm and fury. DEBKAfile’s sources report that Wednesday morning, the king shot off an urgent message to President Putin demanding an explanation for the Russian officers’ action in opening the door of Daraa to hostile Hizballah fighters.
Jordan has fought Hizballah and its conspiracies for three years, ever since its security forces seized an arms cache that Hizballah had smuggled into the kingdom for a terror cell to mount attacks in the northern province of Irbid. Amman is now concerned that Hizballah is close enough to make a grab for Al-Ramtha, the only border crossing between Syria and Jordan. That would be a feather in the cap of Iran’s Lebanese proxy, as the first Arab border crossing to fall to a Hizballah force outside Lebanon, and one, moreover, located athwart a main regional water source, the Yarmouk River.
As of Thursday morning, Jan. 28, Abdullah had not received a reply to his missive from Putin, but a message did come through to Amman from Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Using a back-door intelligence channel, he sent a notice in the name of Gen. Bahjat Suleiman, former Syrian ambassador to Jordan until he was expelled in May 2014, that King Abdullah must now face the consequences of his long support for the rebels of southern Syria.
The monarch was also advised to prepare for the influx of thousands of fleeing rebel fighters whom the combined Syrian and Hizballah forces were pushing towards the Jordanian border.
The next hours will be critical for the development of a similar crisis on the Israel-Syrian border in the Golan region.
The risk of a confrontation on the Golan is already high – click here to find out about the context behind this crisis.
This article was originally published on DEBKA
Europe is currently in search of a new nation state model.
In the following video, Yanis Varoufakis (former Greek finance minister) is interviewed by Bloomberg on the anniversary of the election of Syriza:
“God and his angels could not fix Greece”
“Greece is collateral damage in a broader game of brinkmanship between Paris and Berlin who have not worked out what they want to do with the Eurozone: the Eurozone is not sustainable.”
“The obvious conclusion one must draw from this is that either you argue for a dissolution of the monetary union, and then you can talk about national politics again quite sensibly. Or you should be talking about a pan-European movement for change throughout the eurozone.”
With the emergence of both Russia, and the Papacy, one wonders if we are about to see a change in Europe which will bring about the ten toes of Daniels image, bound together by the Iron. Truly amazing times.
Sam and Eliza Johnson’s youngest daughter was Jessie, my grandmother. Jessie was born in 1887, and of course I only knew her in the last 20 or so years of her life, and the first 20 or so years of my life. Nevertheless, she had a great influence upon me in those formative years.
She was always staunch and determined in her attendance at all Christadelphian meetings. Although she was a Berean Christadelphian, she always made a point of attending all Central and Unamended gatherings within driving distance. After all, she had known many of the brothers and sisters, of all fellowships, before the divisions had even happened. Later on, when I had a driver’s license, she enlisted me to drive her to all the gatherings. As my grandmother’s chauffeur, I met and listened to the best of visiting Central Christadelphian speakers, as well as the best of visiting Unamended speakers too — including several generations of the Zilmer clan, considered by many to be the first family of North American Christadelphians.
Grandma was also a voracious reader, a fierce defender of the faith, outspoken in all her opinions. I remember as a child, being somewhat embarrassed during lectures and exhortations, because Grandma would speak up and audibly recite along with the speaker whatever Bible verse he was quoting. And occasionally she would interject a loud “Amen!” as well. I still have, today, many of her Christadelphian books, with her name in the front, and her notes in the margins, and various passages boldly underlined. And when Grandma underlined something in her books, she never underlined it lightly. It was always boldly underlined!
After Lyndon’s mother, Rebekah Johnson, died in 1958 and his Aunt Frank died in 1961, Lyndon drew particularly close once again to my grandmother, his “Aunt Jessie”. She had been near him, and taken care of him often, in his very earliest years, when she was still a young single woman living practically next door to her brother Sam, Jr., Rebekah, and Lyndon. Also, because Rebekah was a city girl when she married Sam, and unused to the life of a farmer’s wife, her sister-in-law Jessie (single at the time) was nearby and often available to help her. Jessie would do chores around the farmhouse, and also teach Rebekah what she needed to know in her new role — things like caring for a garden and farm animals, and all the intricacies of running a household in a Hill Country community and a country with no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and few modern conveniences. As Grandma would tell us, “When you feed a little kid, bathe him, change his diapers, and put him to bed, all that sort of thing — it’s hard to think of him as anything more than a barefoot Hill Country boy — no matter what else he grows up to be!”
Even in his years as President, when he was perhaps the most powerful man in the world, Lyndon would often talk with his “Aunt Jessie”. He would tease her playfully about her unwillingness to vote for him, but she always said, “Lyndon, I love you very much, but I will only vote for Jesus Christ, and you know it!” For her part, she would still continue to remind him — vigorously — of what he had learned as a child and a young man: “Always take care of the Jews; they are God’s people!”
His fondness for her was shown when he became President upon the death of John Kennedy. Soon thereafter, Lyndon invited his Aunt Jessie to come to Washington, D.C., and live with him and his family in the White House. But she declined, and chose to live very close to her only child, my mother Ruth, and her family — Dad, myself and my younger brother Wesley. Of course, this kept her close to her beloved Christadelphian brothers and sisters in Texas also.
Grandma did accept invitations to visit the White House, as well as an invitation that came her way to visit Israel and meet Prime Minister Golda Meir, the first (and only) woman to lead the State of Israel. But she was always eager to get back home, so she could go the Christadelphian meetings, and not lose touch with her real family and her faith.
Grandma died in 1973, at the age of 86, only a month after her nephew Lyndon died. She was buried in the Johnson Family Cemetery, near him, but also near her own parents and the other Christadelphians now buried there. By now, these include my father, mother and brother also. Many Christadelphians now rest there, awaiting the resurrection. It is a mile or so down the road from the old Christadelphian campground, still in use after more than a century. The old cemetery is the nearest thing I know to holy ground. I visit it often, and listen in hopes of hearing the familiar voices again.
Note: There is a little-known episode in the life of Lyndon Johnson, now called “Operation Texas”, in which he worked diligently to save many European Jews out of a Nazi-threatened Europe before World War II began. This is discussed in some detail in my book, A Bible Journal, in the chapter entitled “Lyndon Johnson and the Jews”, pages 167-173. A Bible Journal may be ordered from The Christadelphian Tidings, http://www.tidings.org.
To be continued.
This post is part of a series authored by brother George Booker. Click here to see all previous posts in the series.
Over the last few months, you may be aware that large parts of Libya have rapidly fallen under the control of ISIS.
If you haven’t already seen it, Debkafile has published some amazing news: an allied assault has begun in Libya.
Here are some extracts:
“The first step in this campaign took place this weekend: A group of US, Russian, French and Italian Special Forces quietly landed at a point south of Tobruk near the Libyan-Egyptian frontier. Standing by after preparing the ground were some 1,000 British SAS troops.”
“At the peak of the assault, large-scale US, British and French marines will land on shore for an operation first billed as the largest allied war landing since the 1952 Korean War.”
Bible Prophecy & Current Events 