Israeli Warships Make Rare Suez Canal Crossing

AFP ^ | July 14, 2009

[jpl]

It’s awfully nice of France to pass this info along to their buddies...

[Dan Middleton]

Uh...what does France have to do with this, exactly? I must be missing something in the article.

[aegiscg47]

Might be positioning ships in the Persian Gulf in case any returning aircraft from a strike need to ditch. That's a long way for their ships to go, wonder what the cruising endurance is?

[buccaneer81]

AFP = Agence France Press.

[Dan Middleton]

I see. I hardly think this was top secret information that could have been reasonably expected not to get out, though.

[buccaneer81]

I hardly think this was top secret information that could have been reasonably expected not to get out, though.

I've been reading the same story for over a week. You're right. Anyone can watch a ship transit the Suez. No need for satellite surveillance.

[101voodoo]

It’s funny how a (long forgotten) memory is triggered. When I read the headline I was immediately reminded of a joke I heard my family tell each other in the very early 1950’s, when I was just about 9 years old. At the time I had no clue what they were talking about.

It went like this:

QUESTION-What’s the fastest thing in the world?

ANSWER-Two Jews paddling up the Suez Canal in a canoe

[hosepipe]

France is always on guard for anyone they can surrender to..
France is sensitive to all troop movements..

[Diogenesis]

"When the Nazis threw the children into the trucks, where were the French police?"

[AU72]

Does Isreal have a Navy Base in Eliat, or is it to exposed?

[SunkenCiv]

One of the ships, the Hanit, already crossed the canal both ways in June, in what the source said was the first case of a large Israeli warship using the strategic waterway, although this was not possible to confirm officially.

This (and last week's submarine transits) constitutes a warning to the various Islamofascist despots (the Saudis, the Syrians, the Iranians, various Shi'ite faces) that Egypt won't reprise the Nasserite attacks on Israeli ships which triggered three wars in less than twenty years.

[neocon1984]

I think the Sunni Arabs are giving tacit support to Israel against the Shi’ite Persians because of Arab fears of Persian hegemony.

When Israel takes out the Iranian nukes, they will be roundly condemned by Sunni Arabs (and the rest of the world). However, the Sunnis will also be smiling in relief.

[SunkenCiv]

Definitely. Shia in the Kingdom have declared independence. No shooting yet, but that’s because the Shia tend to be the armed forces in the country. By the end of the 1980s/early 1990s, Saudi Arabia had accumulated more weapons than there was reasonable expectation they could ever scrape up enough soldiers to even use. The country is such a bunch of bone-idle bums (P.J. O’Rourke’s phrase) that nearly a fifth of the population of the Kingdom is guest workers, who do the actual work of the society while all the bills get paid for the citizens by people in the United States and other countries which import petroleum.

[Cheburashka]

All you need is an apartment that overlooks the canal, a camera, and a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships.

Another way to find out is to have someone on the payroll at the Suez Canal Authority.

In short, this is hardly something that is a secret.

[Jewbacca]

Helping, of course.

What is that photo from?

[Jewbacca]

“All you need is an apartment that overlooks the canal, a camera, and a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships.”

Don’t even need that. There is a website that logs the who, what, when, and where of Suez crossings in real time:

http://www.lethsuez.com/

[Cheburashka]

Don’t even need that. There is a website that logs the who, what, when, and where of Suez crossings in real time:

---

Point taken, but you might want to rely on your own personnel just to be sure.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

Second time in as many weeks. The message being sent is that Egypt, like Saudi Arabia is on board. The US, no, we'll be talking to the mullahs.

[Ready4Freddy]

That's the young Hannibal Lechter from Hannibal Rising.