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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in association with Access/Middle East by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar Denounces Former Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold Over Terrorism Funding Charges
- Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
See also Saudi Royal Family Gave $4 Billion to Palestinian Groups Fighting Israel (MEMRI)
Oil for India Flows Through Israel (Sify - India)
Useful Reference:
The Seam Zone (Ministry of Defense)
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News Resources - North America and Europe:
The Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers emerged from a tense two-hour meeting in Jerusalem Sunday at loggerheads. Rebuffing Palestinian demands for immediate troop withdrawals and the release of prisoners, Ariel Sharon of Israel said Mahmud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart, must first dismantle militant groups. (New York Times) See also Sharon, Abbas Meet for Fourth Time (Prime Minister's Media Adviser) below. According to a congressional report set for release this week, Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers, may have been a Saudi-government agent. In January 2000, al-Bayoumi had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles - and then went directly to a restaurant where he met future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, whom he took back with him to San Diego. (Al-Bayoumi later arranged for the men to get an apartment next to his and fronted them their first two months rent.) The report is sure to reignite questions about whether some Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the hijackers - or even facilitating their conduct. (Newsweek) Iran equipped its elite revolutionary guards Sunday with a locally made ballistic missile - the Shahab-3 - capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces stationed in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey. The missile was inaugurated during a military parade before Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is in charge of the country's armed forces. U.S. intelligence officials have said Iran can probably fire several Shahab-3s in an emergency, but that it has not yet developed a completely reliable missile. (AP/MSNBC) UN nuclear inspectors have detected traces of enriched uranium at an Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, south of Tehran, where the Iranian government is constructing a massive uranium processing plant - a finding that intensified concerns that Iran is secretly pursuing technologies that could produce nuclear weapons. But Western diplomatic officials familiar with the discovery urged caution, noting that the enriched uranium apparently was found only in a single sample and that other explanations were possible. Weapons experts agreed that the discovery will only increase pressure on Iran to make its nuclear program fully transparent. "Iran's clandestine nuclear program represents a serious challenge to regional stability, to the entire international community, and to the global nonproliferation regime," an administration official said. (Washington Post) U.S. military commanders plan to train and arm thousands of Iraqis to conduct military missions alongside U.S. and British troops, Gen. John Abizaid, the new head of Central Command, said Sunday. Initial U.S. plans call for raising about 10 battalions of about 350 Iraqis each in the coming weeks. There are now 3,800 Iraqis in detention, of whom about 1,200 are believed to be hard-core Baathists or die-hard elements of the old Iraqi military, a Central Command official said. (Washington Post) See also U.S. Creating Iraqi Militia to Relieve GIs (New York Times) News Resources - Israel, the Mideast, and Asia:
Simyon Itkin, 64, was stabbed in the chest and back Sunday night in Jerusalem's central Yemin Moshe neighborhood near its landmark windmill, by an assailant thought to be an Arab. The attack comes less than a week after an Israeli was stabbed to death by a knife-wielding Palestinian assailant in Jaffa. In recent weeks, Israeli security officials have voiced concern over the renewal and increase of such "low-level attacks." (Jerusalem Post) An IDF patrol jeep was the target of a roadside bombing and sniper attack near the Jewish community of Kadim in the West Bank, a military source said. "The roadside bomb went off before the jeep was within striking distance, killing the terrorist who had planted the bomb," the source said. "After the bomb was detonated, Palestinian snipers took aim at the jeep," he said. (Jerusalem Post) Over the past week, IDF forces and the Shin Bet security service seized three Hamas suicide bombers from Hebron who planned to carry out attacks within Israel, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet on Sunday. Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim said Monday that while the hudna "exists in fact and has manifested itself in a drop in violent terrorist activity...there is no question that under the patronage of this hudna, the extremist groups are building their infrastructure anew." (Ha'aretz) On Saturday night, "Palestinian terrorists opened fire at a civilian car carrying two passengers near the Taibe checkpost" east of Netanya, a military source said. While there were no injuries, "the car was heavily damaged with bullet holes." In nearby Tulkarm the same evening, Palestinians detonated a powerful roadside charge targeting an IDF jeep. (Jerusalem Post) Palestinian militants beat and briefly held Haider Irsheid, the acting Palestinian governor of the Jenin district, Saturday, accusing him of being an Israeli collaborator. He was released five hours later following the intervention of Arafat. Eyewitnesses said gunmen pulled 50-year-old Irsheid from his van and beat him with their hands and gun butts before bundling him into another vehicle and driving off toward the Jenin refugee camp. A Palestinian security source said the militants were angered when Palestinian security forces in Jenin were sent to arrest an Al-Aqsa gunman in the camp. (Ha'aretz) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Life is finally improving for thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since Israel allowed them to return to work in Israel two weeks ago, says Kasem Al Khur, 40, of Gaza City. Under a new security deal, 10,000 men are allowed to cross into Israel after their former bosses apply for a permit on their behalf. "Over the past three years, I sat home jobless, blew my savings, and started borrowing from relatives and neighbors," said Khur. "I really hope quiet lasts and we all can go back to work in Israel....We need Israel and Israel needs us because we are hard workers and what we spend goes back to the Israeli economy," he said. (AFP/Jordan Times) The UN's Human Rights Commission in Geneva, chaired by a Libyan "judge," Najat al-Hajjajia, from the country that was behind the Lockerbie bombing, will hear Israeli officials defend their country's record on human rights this week. The commission barred the non-governmental body, Reporters Without Borders, from attending its meetings as a punishment for criticizing Libya's record on human rights. Reporters Without Borders said of al-Hajjajia: "Censorship, arbitrary detention, jailings, disappearances, torture; at last the UN has appointed someone who knows what she's talking about." A 129-page Israeli report to the commission states that its actions in the West Bank and Gaza are "part and parcel of the context of armed conflict as distinct from a relationship of human rights." As a result of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement of 1995, "the overwhelming majority of powers and responsibilities in all civil spheres, including economic, social and cultural, as well as a variety of security issues," have been transferred to the Palestinian Authority. "Israel cannot be internationally responsible for ensuring the rights under the [Human Rights] Covenant in these areas," Israel's report says. (Scotland on Sunday-UK) In an interview, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas argues that it is in the Palestinians' interest to halt violence, respect Israelis as neighbors, and pursue a state only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (New York Times) Observations: Sharon, Abbas Meet for Fourth Time (Prime Minister's Media Adviser/IMRA)
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