They're building a new caliphate says Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu has just delivered an important address to a policy conference of some 400 European lawmakers and dignitaries. In his address the Israeli Prime Minister warned of several serious threats to world peace and Western civilization.
 SPEAKING at a policy conference on Monday, 7 February, 2011 Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of the ambitions of radical Muslims of both Sunni and Shia persuasion to build a new Islamic kingdom of global dimensions.
Addressing the gathering in Jerusalem organised by the European Friends of Israel, Israel's Prime Minister spoke of:
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The expressed ambition of Shia and Sunni radical muslims to build a Islamic kingdom or “caliphate” that will encompass the Middle East and North Africa, and then Europe, and then North America, and then the entire world. Netanyahu did not say the caliphate would be achieved, but he rightly warned that this is what the Radicals want to achieve.
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The rise of an Iranian regime with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that can not only reach Israel but more and more of Europe.
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An Egypt that doesn’t develop into a peaceful, moderate, secular democracy with a prominent role for the military to provide stability and security but into one of two other scenarios: A) one in which “the Islamists exploit the[ir] influence to gradually take the country into a reverse direction, not towards modernity and reform but backward; or B) one in which “Egypt would go the way of Iran, where calls for progress would be silenced by a dark and violent repression that subjugates its own people and threatens everyone else.”
Netanyahu did not say these threats would inevitably come to pass. To the contrary, he stated clearly, “The good news is that nothing is inevitable. We have the power to protect our common civilization, to roll back the forces of radicalism and to advance a secure peace. One of the keys to defeating this fanaticism is to be able to distinguish friends from enemies.”
Excerpts from PM Netanyahu’s address:
“Our commitment, our goal is the maintenance and the expansion of peace. But as we think about the dramatic events that are taking place in Egypt, let’s not lose sight of an even greater earthquake, greater than everything that I described, that could rock our region and rock the world and rock each of your countries and Europe if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons.
“Here’s what Iran is doing today. It’s in Afghanistan; it’s in Iraq; it’s in the Yemen; it’s pretty much taken over Lebanon; it’s taken over Gaza; it’s in the Horn of Africa; it’s even sending its tentacles to the Western Hemisphere, penetrating Latin America. This is what Iran is doing today without nuclear weapons. Imagine what they will do tomorrow with nuclear weapons. Iran already has missiles that reach well beyond Israel.
The reach and aim of long-range missiles
"They’re not developing these long-range missiles for us; they can reach us. They’re developing it for you, to reach you. With each passing day, those missiles bring more of Europe into range. And I have some bad news for you: Jose Maria, you’re in the caliphate. They talk about a new caliphate. There’s anyone here from Romania? Borderline. Sweden? You’re out of it for now.
"They say they can’t possibly mean this, it cannot be that in the 21st century people speak of caliphates, of new-found empires, of an ideology that is suited not for the 21st century but for the 9th century. I urge you not to underestimate this threat to our common civilization. It’s hard for people to understand, especially for Westerners. It’s hard for them to understand fanaticism – especially if sometimes it wears a suit and a tie, or a suit without a tie. It’s very hard to understand that. But it’s there.
“You ask yourself, for example, what was the Taliban thinking when they enabled the dispatch of al-Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they thinking that the United States would not send an army to bring down their regime? Could they have been that crazy, or that stupid? They weren’t stupid. They were totally irrational.
Sunni/Shia hostility
“Today there’s a competition between the militant Sunnis and the militant Shiites. The militant Shiites have a state. That state is developing nuclear weapons, with unbridled ambitions for power and dominance. They see the United States as the great Satan, we’re the little Satan, and you’re somewhere in between. You’re a middle-sized Satan. That’s how they view us. And there’s no room in the world, in their world, for us and for our societies.
A conjunction of threats
“I believe that the greatest threat facing the world today is the possibility that a militant Islamic regime will meet up with nuclear weapons, or that nuclear weapons will meet up with a militant Islamic regime. The first is called Iran, the second is called Pakistan. Given the events that are unfolding in our region, there are other possibilities as well. This cannot be allowed to happen.
“The good news is that nothing is inevitable. We have the power to protect our common civilization, to roll back the forces of radicalism and to advance a secure peace. One of the keys to defeating this fanaticism is to be able to distinguish friends from enemies. In this battle between the 21st century and the 9th century, between freedom and despotism, between progress and primitivism, Europe and Israel stand squarely on the same side…..”
Footnotes: The full text of Netanyahu's address can be read here.
A report this morning speaks of Saudi Arabia "stepping in" to Egypt if the US withdraws military aid. This reflects the concern that is being generated in the region by the current upheavals in Egypt.
Iran is a Shia country and the expansionist regime is exploiting the instability in Iraq and Egypt to 'surround' the Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The question of oil supplies is never far from the surface as one of the new 'weapons of choice' and there are key 'choke points' in the distribution of the liquid gold. And this is why such a bloody fight is going on in Yemen with Shia-funded rebels seeking to take control of that country in order to control the Bab-el-Mandeb (Gate of Tears/Scars) shipping lane.
Control over the other vital sea route (the Straits of Hormuz) coupled with Shia influence on the pipelines from the Caspian sea via Azerbaijan (93% Shia) would give Iran a strangle hold over the world's oil supplies.
Saudia Arabia: we've got your surrounded.......
Sunni - Shia distribution. Shia darker green
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