Israel is prepared to handle this week’s “Global March to Jerusalem,” officials said on Sunday, as organizers plan a multi-pronged rush on the country’s borders to mark the 36th anniversary of Land Day on Friday.

Organizers of the event – known as “GMJ” – say they are planning peaceful marches on the Israeli border in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, at checkpoints in the West Bank and at entrances to the Gaza Strip.

 “Our aim is to end the Zionist policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Judaization, which all harm the people, land and sanctity of Jerusalem,” they wrote on the event’s official homepage. “The GMJ is comprised of a diverse coalition of Palestinian, Arab and international activists who are united in the struggle to liberate the holy city of Jerusalem (the city of peace) from illegal Zionist occupation.”

Organizers said processions would also be organized in Arab and Muslim capitals worldwide, and in front of Israeli embassies in a number of unspecified countries.

Friday marks 36 years since the first Land Day, when tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs – and Palestinians marching in solidarity in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon – rallied against government plans to take control of hundreds of hectares of land in the Galilee and the Negev. Six Israeli Arabs were killed and around 100 were wounded in the protests.

On Sunday, officials said security forces had been given refresher training on non-lethal crowd dispersal techniques. They said border police have been put on alert in Israel and the West Bank, and additional officers deployed to the northern borders to reinforce IDF units.

“We’ve been through this before,” a security source said of Friday’s planned marches. Last May, 13 people were killed while trying to breach the Syrian and Lebanese borders with Israel on “Nakba Day,” the annual date when Palestinians mourn the Jewish state’s creation in 1948. The following month 12 people were injured on the Syrian frontier on “Naksa Day,” marking Arab defeat and territorial losses in the 1967 Six Day War.

Another official said all necessary precautions were being taken, and that Jordan and Egypt had an interest in keeping their borders quiet.

The situation in Lebanon is less clear. One Israeli official said marchers would likely proceed as far as Beaufort – a Crusader castle several kilometers north of the border – while another warned that Iranian involvement in Lebanon’s south means no scenario could be ruled out.

Earlier this week, the Israel-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported that Iran is the primary force behind the initiative, both directly and through proxies such as Hezbollah. In February, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described the Global March as an expression of Iran’s policy to strengthen “resistance operations” against Israel.

This month, the GMJ website claimed a Jewish-Iranian umbrella group had thrown its support behind the marches. “We the Iranian Jewry alongside the strata of Iranian people, under the guidance of the leadership, announce that we shall fight against imperialism and Zionism until all the lawful rights of the valiant nation of Palestine are met,” the Society of Iranian Jews was quoted as saying.

“We the Iranian Jewry would also like to show the disassociation of the anti-humanitarian works committed by the occupying Israeli regime and their usurping army with the commandments of divine laws of Prophet Moses (P.B.U.H). We would like to show our support with all those who desire the lawful rights of the valiant nation of Palestine,” the group said.

The statement was signed by Ciamak Mordesadegh – who holds the one Iranian parliamentary seat reserved for Jews – and Rabbi Mashallah Golestaninejad, a Jewish leader in the country.

DEBKAfile reported on Friday that Hussein Sheikholeslam – an Iranian parliamentarian it describes as one of the march’s organizers – instructed Jewish leaders to provide 10 men aged 18 to 22 to be given “the honor” of acting as the vanguard in breaking through the Lebanese-Israeli border fence. The report – which could not be independently verified – quoted Iranian sources as saying authorities may have demanded the inclusion of Jewish marchers so Israeli soldiers would be constrained from opening fire.

In January, the GMJ’s International Central Committee held its first and only meeting in Beirut. The committee consists of anti-Israel activists from the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and several other Arab, Muslim and Western states.

The panel includes one Israeli citizen – Muhammad Zeidan, chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, a nongovernmental organization representing Israeli Arabs at the national level. Zeidan sailed on the Mavi Marmara in the 2010 Gaza protest flotilla, in which nine people were killed by Israel Navy commandos while trying to run the Israeli blockade.

One of the GMJ’s major themes is what it describes as Israel’s “Judaization” of Jerusalem.

“Over the last several years Zionist efforts to ‘Judaize’ the city have quickened pace in an attempt to erase Jerusalem’s physical, cultural and spiritual characteristics,” organizers wrote, adding that such efforts have been aimed at changing the city’s demographics “from a Palestinian to a Jewish majority.”

The GMJ website refers to all of Israel as occupied land.

“Massive marches will be organized in Palestine (the 1948 seizures, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) towards Jerusalem or to the nearest point to it,” it says.

The logo on the homepage features all of Mandatory Palestine, and is set against a banner showing Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock and Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Muslim and Christian holy places are set against the backdrop of the Mount of Olives, but the sprawling 3,000-year-old Jewish cemetery with its 150,000 tombstones is absent, replaced by a barren hillside.

Following the deadly clashes last year during the Naksa and Nakba marches to its northern border, Israel issued a stern warning to Arab countries and Palestinians to refrain from approaching the border.

London based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Friday that the warning was issued in reference to the “Universal Jerusalem March” planned for next Friday to commemorate “Land Day.”

According to sources, Israel reiterated it would treat anyone who approaches the border as an infiltrator, and will act against them decisively. The report said Israel claims the march is organized by hostile elements. In a message to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Hamas government in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority, Israel called on Arabs not to allow escalation in the area by allowing marches to the borders.

Security sources confirmed such a message was delivered to the Palestinian Authority. According to them, coordination talks were held with Palestinian security services, with the purpose of avoiding violent riots. Similar talks were also conducted last year before the Nakba day events. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to comment.

The organizers plan to send convoys of vehicles to approach Israel’s borders simultaneously from Arab countries and from PA-controlled territories. More than 700 institutions from 64 states are involved directly or indirectly in planning the rally, said the organizers. At the same time of the march, protests are planned outside Israeli embassies in Europe and Arab countries.

It is estimated that due to the fragile political situation in Egypt and Syria, these countries will not authorize marches to the border, but preparations in other countries are underway. In recent days the organizers are using social networks to recruit more protesters to the march.

One of the Facebook pages promoting the event claimed that the purpose of the march is to reach Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque. Later it was amended to Jerusalem or “any point closest to it”.

One of the event organizers, Palestinian Said Yakin, said the event is meant to be a non-violent protest that will include parliament members, citizens and religious figures from all over the world – including Jews.

“We will not protest violently” Yakin told Ynet earlier this week. “We don’t expect the IDF to shoot at protesters, just as it didn’t open fire at a million Israeli protesters during this summer’s social protest.”

In order to maintain Israel’s energy security for the foreseeable future, the government must refrain from exporting its newfound natural gas supply, as well as ensure that these reserves are not the country’s sole source of electricity, experts said at a forum on Sunday.

The conference, titled “Energy Security and Energy Strategies in Europe and Israel,” was held on Sunday at the Sde Boker campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, organized jointly by the university’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research and German political foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Researchers from both Israel and Europe gathered to discuss ways to guarantee that both will be able to maintain sustainable electricity supplies in an era in which oil resources are being depleted – and are increasingly expensive. Some of the key elements suggested were renewable energies, nuclear energy and with regard to Israel in particular – natural gas and oil shale.

“For many, many years we were almost totally dependent on importation,” said Dr. Shlomo Wald, chief scientist of the Energy and Water Ministry. “Now we are facing a new era – where for the first time we have the chance to get some energy independence, which is a crucial element in the energy security.”

Wald was referring specifically to natural gas, of which 750 billion cubic meters have already been found in the Tamar and Leviathan basins, with an expected 450 more in the vicinity.

“All the people say we are the new ‘natural gas princess,’” Wald said. “Are they right?” Not entirely, he argued.

Russia, for example, has around 44,000 billion cubic meters of natural gas and Iran has about 29,000, while Algeria, Egypt and Qatar all have in the thousands or tens of thousands.

”So first of all, be modest,” Wald said. “We have only 1,200 billion cubic meters, we shall never be a player of the global market.”

Therefore, he argued, rather than exporting the gas so that sellers can make money faster, the gas should stay within Israel and help maintain the country’s energy security for the next few decades. By 2040, the country will consume about 600 billion cubic meters, and even if explorers locate the rest of the 1,200 billion cubic meters, it will be exhausted completely by 2060, according to Wald.

“If we do not export, we should at least have a time to develop industry and get some security of supply for half a century,” he said.

Exporting the gas would be nothing less than a “disaster,” in Wald’s opinion “It’s a mistake, it’s against energy security,” he said. “It’s against energy independence.”

Wald explained that within Israel, natural gas will need to make up a significant chunk of the energy market at this point – as renewables will never exceed 30 percent of the total energy market in the near future. Israel’s current electricity usage is 60 terawatt-hours per year, with demand increasing at 2 terawatt-hours per year.

While the prospective amount of renewable energy available is about 75 terawatthours per year, its conceivable installation rate is only about 0.9 terawatt-hours per year, he said.

Although the newly abundant natural gas supply will be crucial to maintaining Israel’s energy independence and security, certain precautions must also be taken, particularly if the government intends to supply 80% of the country’s electricity through natural gas by 2020, according to Dr. Amit Mor, CEO of the Eco Energy consulting firm.

“To base a strategic commodity like electricity on just one pipeline is a major problem,” Mor said. “That’s why there is a need to insure the supplies of electricity.”

In an area that is well within the reach of Gaza’s rockets, the pipeline to Tamar and Leviathan must have multiple entry points as well as backup fuel sources, he said. An LNG regasification unit (liquified natural gas in a floating storage and regasification system) that is currently in the works is crucial, and it should remain a permanent backup source rather than simply a temporary solution to bridge energy gaps, Mor argued.

The Israeli market’s security could also benefit from a shift in fueling transportation with natural gas and renewable energy, and in 20 to 30 years, Israel will also need to consider constructing nuclear energy facilities, he added.

Such an approach – to use nuclear power – will be necessary all over the world, and is much less dangerous than the carbon dioxide currently being released en masse by fossil fuels, said Dr. Ari Rabl, a consultant on environmental impacts and a former senior scientist at the Center Energétique et Procédés of the École des Mines in Paris.

While nuclear waste can be managed safely by future generations, they cannot do anything about the carbon dioxide being pumped into the air, Rabl explained.

The cost of a nuclear accident – a rare occurrence when proper precautions are taken – is about .22 euro cents per kilowatthour, while the cost of air pollution and global warming is about 1.40 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, he said.

Another way to help secure Israel’s energy security would be creating oil from the Shfela region’s copious amounts of oil shale, which can now be heated in situ using a process that does not harm the aquifer, according to Dr. Harold Vinegar, chief scientist of Israel Energy Initiatives – the company responsible for the current oil shale explorations.

Natural gas can also be used to heat the shale, in a process where every $1 of methane used creates $23 worth of product, Vinegar argued. Meanwhile, Israel has about 250 barrels worth of oil shale in its underground reserves, he said.

“There’s an amazing synergy between the discovery of the vast amounts of natural gas in Israel and the even more vast amounts of oil shale in Israel,” Vinegar said. “The combination of abundant natural gas and oil from oil shale can make Israel completely energy independent and we should be able to do this in this decade.”

Whichever methods are undertaken to bolster Israel’s – and the Europe’s – energy supplies and security, simple conservation methods will not be enough to satisfy everincreasing needs, Rabl argued.

“The best we can hope for is to more or less compensate the natural growth in demand and the growth in the economy [through conservation],” he said. “I don’t think we can get a dramatic reduction due to energy conservation.”

After five days of non-stop missile fire on a dozen towns and villages, Israel Thursday night, March 15, gave Egypt and Hamas two days to halt the shooting or else the Israeli Defense Forces would go into action against Gaza. debkafile’s military sources report that neither Egypt nor Hamas can be expected to go up against the missile shooters now.  The attacks have now been taken over from Jihad Islami by a small group of Salafi Palestinians calling itself Haraka Muhaheddin, which belongs to Jalalat, the al Qaeda roof organization in the Gaza Strip.
Most of the missiles are now coming from the Salafi concentrations in the southern part of the enclave –targeting Beersheba and Netivot Thursday morning and as night fell aimed at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Shear Hanegev and the Eshkol region. The firing escalated after Israel laid down its ultimatum
Egypt and Hamas don’t know exactly who is giving Haraka the missiles, except that they are smuggled from Sinai through tunnels managed by Iranian intelligence agents in conjunction with local al Qaeda networks.
It is highly unlikely that Hamas will venture to lay hands on these Salafi terrorists at a time when one of its top officials in Gaza, Mahmoud A-Zahar, is visiting Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders who are keen to keep the missile assaults going.
His visit marks the Hamas fundamentalists’ return to the Iranian fold – that is if they ever really left it. This, Israeli strategists have chosen to ignore and are treating Hamas as a non-participant in the missile offensive and available to help Cairo bring the terrorists to accept a ceasefire.
The sequence of events leading up to this week’s violence points to the opposite conclusion and, therefore, the probable escalation of the violence rather than a truce.

Five days before the missile fire began, on March 5, a Hamas Deputy Politburo Chief Mousa Abu Marzouk and Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah met in Beirut and finalized tactics for building up tensions on Israel’s borders.
Monday, March 12, Mahmoud A-Zahar was in Cairo to wind up Gaza ceasefire terms with Egyptian officials when, to their astonishment, instead of returning to Gaza, he boarded a plane to Tehran. He is still there.

And so, while the Egyptians try and reach some sort of accommodation with Hamas for a truce, Hamas itself is in close communion with the Iranians, who want to see the Israeli military stuck in a messy a showdown with the Palestinian Salafis.