-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eGroups eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/6/_/1406/_/971842615/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> E - V E N T H O R I Z O N . N E T A R T I C L E S global political/socio-cultural commentary and analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . October, 2000 - g l o b a l g o v e r n m e n t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PRECARIOUS PROSPECTS FOR GLOBAL PEACE: Containing the Top Ten Most Intractable World Crises by Brett Daniel Wills October 16, 2000 PDT "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against it. I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it." - Zechariah 12: 2-4 As we enter the closing season of the 20th century, nearly a dozen regional crises still burn across the globe. In order to convey the semblance of international peace and stability, these firestorms must be restrained. Some crises have long plagued the nations with repeated flair ups; others are too recent to determine their potential for long-term volatility. Nonetheless, they all have reached breadths of intractability that, in the eyes of the world community, demand concerted, multinational efforts to extinguish if trans-institutional mandates for socio-political integration are to be effectively implemented worldwide. In the dawning days of the official millennium, 2001, the top ten most intractable issues that threaten to overturn the precarious balance of global stability today, in order of importance, are: 1. The imminent founding of a Jewish Temple in Israel 2. The possible creation of an American anti-missile defense shield 3. Terrorist organizations acquiring "mini nucs" 4. The danger of the collapse of world stock markets, a la the depression era 5. A global outbreak of new, antibiotic-resistant strains of disease 6. Global superstorms, creating a new meteorological category: the F6 7. The civilizational clash between the Industrial Era and its multifaceted successor 8. Worldwide famine hastened by topsoil erosion and a population explosion 9. A re-ignited Korean War sparked by the collapse of unification procedures 10. Nuclear war between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir enclave THE YUGOSLAVIA CONFLAGRATION REDUCED TO SMOLDERING EMBERS The crisis in Yugoslavia, now in its tenth year, could justifiably claim a position among the top two or three major issues in the list above between 1991-1998, when the scourges of genocide and civil war erupted. American warships were drawn to the Aegean sea in preparation for a regional outbreak of war and the possibility of a massive exodus of refugees from Croatia and Bosnia. The danger of drawing in Macedonia, Albania and Greece, causing a domino effect that could have spilled across the rest of Eastern Europe, stirred the Western Alliance into gradual but continued maneuvering for eventual military intervention. And the catalyst that kindled the move, of course, was Serbian aggression against Kosovo. Yet in the ashes of that assault in the Spring of 1999, the Yugoslav crisis downshifted, the media's attention turned elsewhere, and the power of Serbian President Milosevic, while remaining steadfast and tenacious, ebbed. The current radical changes now in play in Belgrade have significantly altered the prospects for spreading into a Balkan War, and thus bump it entirely from consideration as a current global crisis point. The crushing defeat of the Serbs by NATO's airforce has substantially decreased the potential for Milosevic to rattle the region with further instability. As tens of thousands of protesters marched on the Capitol in Belgrade and stormed the Parliament Oct 4, the prospect of either a nationally contained civil war, or Milosevic's long-anticipated dethronement, is now much more likely. The scenes of mass rallying, black and gray smoke streaming from buildings, riot police resolute to defend legislative grounds, yet hesitant to fire on the people - all is reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall in '89, and as such, bodes well for democratization in Yugoslavia. The preliminary electoral results, which showed a 10% percent edge given to opposition candidate Kostunica, were rescinded by Milosevic, sparking the present revolt. Endorsed by V. Putin of the Russian Federation, a Contact Member with considerable influence and ethnic camaraderie with the Serbs, Kostunica's swift resurrection from sudden political demise cast the final die. Not to be outdone, some 200 of Milosevic's family cronies, according to former NATO commander Wesley Clark, are sure to tighten their monetary fists around the socialist economy, and keep the nepotism tent cast over the populace in the short term. Nonetheless, the impetus of political change is now almost irreversible, with Milosevic likely to follow that most quiet path of departure last traveled by former Indonesian Prime Minister Suharto, stalked not by vengeance at home, but by the International Tribunal hawks hovering round about. With these revolutionary changes, one of a dozen post-Cold War conflagrations around the globe appears to have nearly been snuffed out, or at least repressed to the point of smoldering embers of subtle disquiet. THE PENDING ESTABLISHMENT OF A THIRD TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM Since Britain relinquished it's 30-year control of Jerusalem in 1948 just prior to the Balfour Declaration and subsequent War of Independence that formed the Jewish State of Israel, the fate of the Temple Mount has sparked international concern. And ever since, the tension over that sacred area has gradually increased. In 1951, King Abdullah of Transjordan was assassinated in the Temple area. In the Six-Day War of June 1967, Israel regained control of the Temple Mount after a 1,900-year hiatus. In 1969 riots exploded across the Middle East, when Christian cultist Denis Rohan set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque, and Arab nations accused Israel of deliberately setting the blaze to clear the area in preparation to rebuild the Temple. Strikes and Wakf protests in response to court rulings over the Mount followed in '76, '79 and '80. By 1981, the conflict exploded when Yeshivah students, under Rabbinical orders, broke down the Arab wall-seal, convinced that the Ark of the Covenant and other Temple treasures were hidden within a lower chamber. In '82, American Immigrant Alan Goodman opened fire on the Mount, sparking a full week of Arab riots. In '85, the disclosure of 3,000 Ethiopian Jews airlifted to Israel stirred messianic anticipation and Jewish fervor for the establishment of the Third Temple alongside the Dome of the Rock, now the Islamic world's equivalent place of worship, surpassing the importance even of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Mohammed. More riots over prayer vigils in the Temple area followed in '86. The dilemma reached continental proportions by '89, when Gershom Solomon, head of the Temple Mount Faithful, attempted to lay a cornerstone for the Third Temple during the religiously heated time of the Feast of Tabernacles, kindling the first official efforts by the nation to prepare for the eventual erection of a house of worship for the Jewish people, as the Ministry of Religious Affairs sponsored the First Conference on Temple Research at Shlomo (the Great Synagogue). The conflict proved insatiable by October, 1990, breaking out into a world crisis that, at one point, even managed to eclipse the historic Persian Gulf War with the second of three attempts to lay a cornerstone for the Temple. >From above the Western Wall, Judaism's most sacred site, 3,000 Palestinians cast stones down upon 20,000 praying Jews. Israeli police killed 17 Arabs, kindling the United Nations' condemnation, regardless of evidence revealing that the event was staged to divert attention away from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. In 1992, the first archeological research on the exact location of the Second Temple in 60 years was published in Archeology Review, raising the issue's status yet another notch. As world leaders began to sense the potential of the conflict to spark a global war, the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, Spain soon gave way to a new era of successive peace initiatives in the region, with the Palestinian-Israel Accord in September, '93, the Jordan-Israel agreement of '94, and half a dozen other official acts of d�tente with Arab emirates and nations in North Africa. Nonetheless, between 1994 and 1997, the greatest wave of Arab terrorism in the state of Israel's modern history sent tremors throughout the biblical land, convincing Jews, Christians and members of the Intifada that Jihad, or the end-time holy war, was fully underway. As if to confirm the omen, the U.N. passed a nearly unanimous resolution of worldwide condemnation against Israel, with only the sliver of a U.S. veto staving off what may well have been a Gulf War-like invasion and sanction of the nation (see Islamic Alliance Waits for Breaking of Israel Covenant). By 1998, following another murderous rampage by a lone Jewish gunman stalking near the Dome of the Rock's halls, Jewish excavations of a controversial tunnel linking the Western Wall and the Via Dolorosa - the path where Jesus walked while carrying a cross prior to his crucifixion - and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, even the formidable Jewish enemy Syria seemed ready to soften its defiance and extend an olive branch to Israel. Yet no sooner had talk of a Damascus-Jerusalem accord raised hopes of a new Middle East era, then the peace process collapsed again under the "security first" watch of militant Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu's administration. (For more information on the unfolding developments of a pending Third Temple, the book Ready to Rebuild by Randall Price and Thomas Ice offers insightful information and its companion successor, Price's In Search of Temple Treasures, which chronicles a vast array of details on the subject.) While there was a brief respite from violence in the Mideast in 1999 as the world's attention was diverted toward the Kosovo War and the early launch of the U.S. Presidential campaign, the restless region quickly reasserted its dominance as home to the most implacable conflict on earth. In the twilight of the faltered seven-year accord which passed its deadline in mid September, the worst conflict between Palestinians and Jews in four years has now erupted in the West Bank, making this issue, once again, the world's foremost crisis. Given its geopolitical importance, the Mideast's struggle for dominion over Jerusalem stands as the greatest obstacle to the steady stride toward a global government Whereas the following nine crises can, and most likely will, be subjugated or suppressed, the biblical land of Zion, long prophesied to be a stumbling block to the nations, is quickly asserting itself as the trigger most likely to rekindle another international, potentially fatal conflagration, no matter how strenuously the world community strains to prevent it. Highlighting the depth of the crisis' intractability, Clinton could boast that, the seeds of his administration's diplomatic endeavors of last week reaped three substantial foreign policy successes: 1. The resolution of China's MFN status and other trade disputes with Beijing 2. The dethronement of Serbia's strongman, Milosevic, leading to the democratization of Yugoslavia and the end of the Balkan crisis, and 3. A series of breakthroughs in summit negotiations between North and South Korea, paving the way for future national reunification and reconstruction. Yet, in contrast to the string of rapid developments on these tough long-term issues, what only 2 1/2 months ago was labeled as Clinton's greatest presidential accomplishment has rapidly transformed into a nearly fatal collapse of the peace process and the greatly heightened potential for a sixth Mideast war. With the Middle East crises in its third week of continuous conflict; the Palestinians' methodic demolition of Joseph's Tomb, an isolated site exceedingly holy to Jews; over 100 casualties and rising; more than 2,100 injured; Israeli Premier Barak's midnight ultimatum on the 9th of October unheeded; U.N. Secretary of State Annan's rush to the region; Clinton's emergency summit to stave off the fighting both proving impotent, and now the extension of the crisis to Yemen with the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Naval destroyer the Cole, killing over a dozen crew members, the elements for the fulfillment of Zechariah's prophetic warning may finally be coming into play. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Copyright � Brett Daniel Wills. All rights reserved. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To respond to this article: http://www.e-venthorizon.net/ggr/globalgov/precarious-respond.html
