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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in association with the Fairness Project by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Bin Laden Escaped to Pakistan
- Arnaud de Borchgrave (Washington Times)
Pakistan is the new Afghanistan, a privileged sanctuary for hundreds of al Qaeda fighters and Taliban operatives. Some estimates go as high as 5,000. Most al Qaeda fighters slipped out of the Tora Bora trap last December and into the mountainous Pakistani tribal areas.
Learning to be a Martyr in Elementary School (IDF)
A program broadcast on Palestinian television featured young Palestinian girls describing the central role of the armed struggle (against Israel) in their lives.
Zam Zam Cola Challenges Coke and Pepsi
Iran's Zam Zam Cola is fast capturing the beverage market in the Gulf region and
could quench the thirst of the 2 million Muslims expected next February on their annual pilgrimage to Mecca, following a Saudi boycott of U.S. giants Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola.
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News Resources - USA and Europe:
Israeli Defense Minister Ben Eliezer announced a plan on Aug. 19 aimed at pulling IDF troops out of Bethlehem and from parts of the Gaza Strip. Since the announcement, attacks on the road that runs from Kissufim checkpoint in the middle of the Gaza Strip have increased, officials said. The Israeli army contends that more troops, not fewer, are now necessary in Gaza. According to Col. Halutzi Rudoy, commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, "In Bethlehem, the army went in, got inside, and drove most of the bad guys out. Here, the bad guys haven't gone anywhere. All of them are still inside." (Chicago Tribune) "Iraq continues to possess several tons of chemical weapons agents, enough to kill thousands and thousands of civilians or soldiers," said Jon Wolfsthal, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. UN weapons experts have said Iraq may have stockpiled more than 600 metric tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, VX, and sarin. (CNN) New York's WNET public television station is marking September 11 with a documentary whose website is being lambasted by Israelis and American Jewish groups for offering an inaccurate and one-sided history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The website includes a map portraying all of Israel as "Palestine," a time line that blames Ariel Sharon for provoking the recent wave of violence by Palestinian Arabs, and links to websites of Arab-American organizations that have defended groups like Hamas and Hizballah, which the American government considers terrorist organizations. WNET receives $9 million a year in government funding. (New York Sun) Financial officers of al Qaeda and the Taliban have quietly shipped large quantities of gold out of Pakistan to Sudan in recent weeks, transiting through the United Arab Emirates and Iran. The move highlights the growing role of Iran in aiding al Qaeda, the potential reemergence of Sudan as a financial center for the organization, and the ability of the terrorist group to generate new sources of revenue despite the global crackdown on its finances. Just before the Taliban and al Qaeda were driven from Afghanistan last year, the two groups shipped large amounts of gold to Dubai, and from there to other safe havens. (Washington Post)
News Resources - Israel and Mideast:
A special nine-judge panel of Israel's High Court of Justice unanimously approved on Tuesday the relocation for two years from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip of a brother and sister of a suicide bomb mastermind. "They not only knew of the intention of the terrorists, they were involved in the attack," Israel Radio summed up the justices as saying. (Jerusalem Post) See complete text of Court decision (IMRA) The new PA interior minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, who is overseeing the security reform demanded by the United States, told Reuters on Monday that "All forms of Palestinian violence have to stop....All resistance acts that are characterized by violence, such as using arms or even stones...are harmful. I call for civil resistance within the framework of the political struggle," he said. (Ha�aretz/Reuters) See also Palestinian Militants Reject Call to Halt Attacks On Tuesday, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - an armed group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, and the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine all rejected Yehiyeh's call. (Washington Post/Reuters) Pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with police in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the wake of a speech by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Peres said he couldn't understand the demonstrators: "If the Palestinians want independence, we offered independence. If the Palestinians want a Palestinian state, we offered them a Palestinian state....why violence? What for?" (Ha'aretz/AP)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis
(Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Maj. Gen. (res.) Ami Ayalon believes that as long as the Israeli peace camp has not reached an understanding with the Palestinians, it has no chance of winning an election. That's why he regards the document he formulated with Prof. Sari Nusseibeh, the PLO's representative in Jerusalem, as so important. (Ha'aretz) Invade Iraq and we own Iraq. And once we own it, we will have to rebuild it. We are talking about nation-building from scratch. Iraq has a lot of natural resources and a decently educated population, but it has none of the civil society or rule of law roots that enabled us to quickly build democracies out of the ruins of Germany and Japan after World War II. (New York Times) The values and aspirations of Saudi society are fundamentally at odds with the values and aspirations of our own. Virtually everything our civic culture venerates - religious and political tolerance, freedom of speech and expression, constitutional self-government, liberal democracy, sexual equality - Saudi culture abominates. There may be no country on earth with which we have less in common. (Boston Globe) The 1979 Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini is now crumbling. Iran is a country with two faces: the public face of conformity with Islamic rules and the private face, which as often as not shuns, ignores, or even despises those strictures. Iran is in the throes of a new revolution: a social and cultural revolution every bit as powerful as the one that toppled the shah. According to the Ayande polling firm , 66 percent of Iranians say they want reform, and 23 percent want radical change. Only 11 percent say the system is fine as is. (New York Times Magazine) Talking Points: Israel, Jordan Join to Save the Dead Sea - Michael Belling (JTA)
Announcement of the project at the summit in Johannesburg triggered the walkout of the Palestinians and drew a negative reaction from Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. (Beirut Daily Star)
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