Israel Update for October 2009

On October 14, Professor Reich escorted me and an American film crew into a narrow tunnel arching over a newly excavated portion of the main Roman road that connected the lower part of David's City with the Temple Mount during the time of Jesus-continuing on north through the Old City. The steep southern section of the road, popularly known as the Cardo, is comprised of stone slab steps heading up and down the hilly terrain. It was apparent to us that the tunnel is located considerably south of the Temple Mount, down the hill from the ornate Ottoman Turkish walls that surround the Old City. Reich assured me that despite Palestinian claims to the contrary, no Israeli digging has been taking place anywhere near the Temple Mount, which Muslims claim exclusively as an Islamic holy.

Turkey And Iran

Israel officials were shocked and saddened when their only real regional Muslim ally, Turkey, suddenly cancelled scheduled joint military exercises on October 7. Turkish leaders in Ankara informed their Israeli counterparts that the annual "Anatolian Eagle" air force drills would not be held this year since at least some of the IDF jets that would participate had undoubtedly bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip during last winter's three week conflict. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip had harshly denounced the Israeli operation as it was underway, apparently responding to widespread regional Muslim anger whipped up by what Israeli officials said were distorted media reports focusing almost exclusively on Palestinian civilian casualties, with little or no coverage of the unprecedented Hamas rocket blitz on Israeli cities and towns near the Gaza Strip.

As a result of the cancellation, the United States and Italy also dropped out of the planned military exercises. However American forces held joint military maneuvers two weeks later with Israel, which many analysts said were mainly designed to send a clear message to Iran that their longstanding alliance remains strong. This came as Recep told a British newspaper that Iran's notorious President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Turkey's "friend," and after the country's state-run television broadcast a programme depicting Israeli soldiers as brutal murderers of innocent Palestinian children.

Israeli government officials attempted to downplay the unnerving Turkish actions, saying they probably reflected Ankara's growing frustration that its decades-long attempts to join the expanding European Union have so far borne little fruit. Still, they indicated that various scheduled advanced weapons sales to Turkey might now be reviewed. Most disturbing to Israeli officials was the Turkish government announcement that it would step up relations with neighboring Syria, which is of course a vital Arab ally of Iran. Still, some analysts said this was unlikely to result in active Turkish support for Iran and Syria if Israel launches military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Meanwhile the Shiite regime in Tehran failed to respond to a UN deadline for accepting a new offer designed to increase international supervision of its uranium enrichment programme and prevent it from producing nuclear warheads. Under the UN Atomic Agency proposal, Iran would ship all the uranium from its main enrichment plant, located in the city of Natanz, to a Russian energy facility. The uranium would then be further enriched before being sent on to France, where it would undergo treatment to transform it into fuel rods for use in small reactors. Only at the completion of this process, expected to last 18 months, would the rods be delivered back to Iran to power a small nuclear reactor in Tehran, supposedly designed only for isotope research.

PM Netanyahu expressed skepticism over the UN offer, saying it would not lessen the country's nuclear threat to Israel and the world unless Iran completely halted its uranium enrichment programme. This came as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned of a "race toward confrontation" between Jerusalem and Tehran, stating that world leaders must understand that "Israel will not tolerate an Iranian bomb."

In these times of increasing violence and threats of war, it is especially worthwhile for all of God's children to heed the word delivered long ago by Moses that we "follow the Lord your God and fear Him. And you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him and cling to Him" (Deuteronomy 13:4).