In a letter published by Germany's Die Zeit, numerous famous and respected Germans including a former president and former prime minister write "Wieder Krieg in Europa? Nicht in unserem Namen!", or, roughly translated, "War in Europe Again? Not in Our Names!" We call upon the members of the German Bundestag, delegated by the people as their political representatives, to deal appropriately with the seriousness of the situation... Whoever is constructing a bogeyman, putting the blame on only one side, is exacerbating tensions, when the signals should be for de-escalation.

We appeal to the media, to more scrupulously adhere to their obligation to provide unbiased reporting than they have hitherto done. It is not about Putin. Heads of state come and go. What is at stake is Europe.

On October 3, 1990, the Day of German Reunification, Federal President Richard von Weizäcker said: “The Cold War has been overcome, and freedom and democracy will soon be in place in all countries... This is a challenge. We can achieve it, but we can also fail. We are facing the clear alternative to unite Europe or fall back again into painful historical examples of nationalist conflicts in Europe.”

Until the Ukraine conflict, we here in Europe thought we were on the right track. Today, a quarter of a century later, Richard von Weizäcker’s warning is more apropos than ever.

"The State of Israel is building our defensive strength from year to year, from decade to decade, with planes, submarines, air defense systems such as Iron Dome and the Arrow and with offensive systems that are among the most advanced in the world," Netanyahu said.

"Today I am pleased to announce that three days ago we added an important component to our defensive force. We purchased four new Saar vessels: this is in addition to the submarines that are being built for the navy. I would like to thank German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her commitment and constant assistance to our security."

He further added that events unfolding in the Arab world prove the need for Israel to continue bolstering itself militarily. "When one flies over the state one sees how close to us the various threats are. In our region there are endless disputes and awful, brutal violence. The fire of Islamic fanaticism is licking at our northern and southern borders. Your, and our, supreme mission is to safeguard our home, the State of Israel." The premier emphasized that the country’s military strength was the sole guarantor of its continued existence.

Germany’s gold is something that stirs peoples’ emotions. For decades the Bundesbank’s gold holdings have been kept in the treasuries of other central banks — in Paris, London and New York. There were historical reasons for this, and it did not bother Bundesbank officials at all. They had no reason to doubt that their gold was in safe keeping outside the country.

But all the same, the Bundesbank began in 2013 to bring back many tonnes of the valuable gold bars from abroad and store them in the vaults of the central bank in Frankfurt. By 2020 at the latest, half of Germany’s gold reserves are to be stored in Frankfurt. At the end of last year the volume was not even one-third. “We are proceeding completely according to plan. The gold is arriving here,” Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann recently disclosed.

This should please many Germans, who feel the country’s treasure is better kept at home than in some foreign vault. The German public in fact has become mistrustful as to whether Germany’s gold bars abroad really are where they are said to be, and whether, in an emergency, the country can get access to them. The Bundesbank has the second-highest gold reserves in the world today, behind the US. At the end of November the holdings were valued at €105 billion ($130 billion). This value however is subject to market fluctuations.

Violent demonstrations led Israel in November to briefly restrict Muslim access to a holy site in Jerusalem that includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third most sacred place, and the ancient Hebrew Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism. The move fueled accusations that Israel was secretly plotting to take over the site, despite Israeli denials.

“The Palestinians … have a common stance. We back this stance against the reduction or the elimination of Jerusalem’s Islamic character,” Davutoglu said. “Turkey will not accept any impositions concerning Al-Aqsa and will do whatever needs to be done internationally to protect Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

When Military Intelligence puts its feelers out across the borders – in the direction of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and North Africa – it sees and describes a world gripped by social decay, crumbling politically, and becoming increasingly poor.

The chronic economic crisis that is affecting the Arab Spring countries, and continues to worsen in light of the falling oil prices, is accelerating the internal disintegration of major countries such as Syria, Libya and Iraq, and could undermine stabilizing regimes like Iran and Egypt. In Saudi Arabia alone, which is seen as a stable country, unemployment among the young will reach 30 percent in the coming year. No wonder there are so many Saudis in the global Jihad organizations.

Many more young individuals will fail to find their place in the Muslim societies, resulting in the rise of many more radical movements around Israel and the spilling by Muslims of a lot more Muslim blood in relation to previous years. And this tidal wave of violence could spill over into Israel. If there is a nightmarish scenario that's going to keep MI officials awake at night in 2015 it's the possibility that they won't be able to locate this tidal wave as it begins to form.

At least two more issues will determine the face of 2015 in the Middle East – the Israeli elections and the impact the falling oil prices have on the oil exporters in the region. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are believed to have accumulated sufficient financial reserves to allow them to get through the crisis in one piece. In contrast, the price crisis could bring down the regimes in Iran, Iraq and Libya and lead to further anarchy. The Russians, too, could change their tune in the Middle East in light of the dramatic decline in oil revenues and turn more aggressive, in an effort to combat what they perceive as an American plot to destroy them.

Beijing's move to bail out Russia, on top of its recent aid for Venezuela and Argentina, signals the death of the post-war Bretton Woods world. It also marks the beginning of the end for America's linchpin role in the global economy and Japan's influence in Asia.

What is China's new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank if not an ADB killer? If Japan, ADB's main benefactor, won't share the presidency with Asian peers, Beijing will just use its deep pockets to overpower it. Lagarde's and Kim’s shops also are looking at a future in which crisis-wracked governments call Beijing before Washington.

China stepping up its role as lender of last resort upends an economic development game that's been decades in the making. The IMF, World Bank and ADB are bloated, change-adverse institutions. When Ukraine received a $17 billion IMF-led bailout this year it was about shoring up a geopolitically important economy, not geopolitical blackmail.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's government doesn't care about upgrading economies, the health of tax regimes or central bank reserves. It cares about loyalty. The quid pro quo: For our generous assistance we expect your full support on everything from Taiwan to territorial disputes to deadening the West’s pesky focus on human rights.

Earlier in December, China's Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng claimed that China could increase the usage of yuan in trade with Russia amid the ruble's depreciation, which falls in line with China's intention to increase the usage of national currencies in international payments in order to weaken the US dollar's dominance in global finance and promote the yuan as an alternative.

Facebook is the pinnacle of social engineering, an online operant conditioning chamber – also known as a Skinner box – that is being used to track, trace, document, and manipulate half of the entire online population. Despite users attempting to utilize Facebook to connect and communicate with individuals and organizations of interest, Facebook has turned its features against users, insidiously manipulating their timelines to show selected posts and updates while “soft censoring” others to manage public perception.

“Studies” have even been published proving the effectiveness of Facebook’s unethical social engineering. In one study, the emotions of users were successfully manipulated by selectively posting only negative or only positive posts from individuals or organizations on users’ contact lists.

Facebook’s “world plan” then, seeks to plug the entire human population into a highly manipulative Skinner box through a bait and switch campaign to lure people online to seek what interests them before Facebook takes over and displays information Facebook itself determines “interests them.”

Far from a college kid with an overgrown corporation, what Facebook is doing is the manifestation of every tyranny’s dream scenario since the beginning of human history – a means by which to completely and insidiously manipulate and control the minds of its subjects.

$4.20 – The price of ground beef just hit a brand new record high of $4.20 a pound. Exactly 10 years ago, it was just $2.21 a pound.

19.8 percent – This holiday season, nearly 20 percent of all American families are on food stamps. But since the stock market is soaring, most of the rest of the country doesn’t seem to care.

33 percent – According to the Wall Street Journal, close to one-third of all Americans have a file in the FBI’s master criminal database.

70 percent – Right now, about 70 percent of all government spending goes toward dependence-creating programs.

1979 – The United States has become the nation of the “permanent emergency”. In fact, there has been at least one “state of emergency” in effect in this country since 1979.

7,500 – The worldwide Ebola death toll has surpassed 7,500 for the first time, but most Americans seem to believe that the crisis is over. The truth is that it may just be beginning.

80,000 – Back in 1980, there were only about 3,000 SWAT raids conducted in the United States. But today, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids per year in this country.

30,000,000 – In America today, more than 30 million Americans are taking antidepressants.

110,000,000 – Approximately one-third of the entire population of the United States (110 million people) currently has a sexually transmitted disease according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

$2,000,000,000,000 – The war in Iraq cost US taxpayers more than 2 trillion dollars, but now a radical jihadist terror organization known as ISIS controls nearly a third of the entire country.

$18,031,021,541,347.52 – The current size of the US national debt.

$40,000,000,000,000 – There are five “too big to fail” banks in the United States that each have more than 40 TRILLION dollars worth of exposure to derivatives. This is a “sword of Damocles” that could destroy our financial system and our entire economy at any time.

Let’s just hope that it does not happen in 2015.

The two batteries were placed in the Be'er Sheva region and Netivot region, but according to Walla! the IDF didn't elaborate regarding the reason for placing the batteries at this particular junction in time at those particular locations - both of which were hard hit in Operation Protective Edge.

However, the general assessment is that the IDF is preparing for a possible escalation with Hamas after the Wednesday attack that could easily lead to another operation, which would make the fourth since 2008, a year after Hamas violently wrested control over Gaza.

Following the sniper attack which breached the November truce ending the last operation, a heavy exchange of fire broke out with the IDF reportedly firing tank shells and attacking with IAF jets. That strong response successfully killed Tayseer al-Ismary (33), a terrorist leader and head of the surveillance unit in Hamas's "armed wing" Al-Qassam Brigades.