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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: click here In-Depth Issues:
Israeli Elections Set for March 28 - Ilan Marciano (Ynet News)
New Labor Party Head Backs Settlement Build-Up - Tali Caspi (Reuters) Israel HighWay - November 22, 2005 Issue of the Week: Israel's New Opening to the Islamic World
Historian Charged With Denying Holocaust - Susanna Loof (AP/Washington Post)
Trinidad Wants Closer Security Links with Israel - Stephen Cummings (Caribbean Net News)
2,000-Year-Old Palm Seed Sprouts in Israel, Sapling Is Thriving - John Roach (National Geographic)
Search Key Links Media Contacts Back Issues Fair Use
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
The U.S. and Europe will not seek a referral this week of their case against Iran to the UN Security Council, American and European diplomats said Tuesday. (New York Times) See also EU Ready for New Nuclear Talks with Iran - Louis Charbonneau and Mark Heinrich EU powers are ready to revive nuclear talks with Iran to discuss a Russian proposal that would allow Iran to continue converting uranium ore but would ship it to Russia for enrichment, a system which, in theory, would prevent Iran from producing weapons-grade uranium, diplomats said on Tuesday. (Reuters) See also Blair: Iran Would Pose "Serious Threat"' If It Had Nuclear Weapons - George Jones Iran would pose a serious threat to world stability and peace if it developed a nuclear capability, Tony Blair said Tuesday. He described as "rubbish" the claim by Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the London suicide bombers, that UK foreign policy was "oppressing" Muslims. (Telegraph-UK) The UN Security Council failed to agree on how to condemn Monday's clash between Lebanon's Hizballah guerrillas and Israeli forces, mainly because of disputes between the U.S. and Algeria. Pro-Syrian Hizballah guerrillas raided north Israel in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Israeli troops; four Hizballah fighters were killed. Algeria, the only Arab member of the council, objected to putting the blame on Hizballah, according to participants at the consultations. UN undersecretary-general for political affairs Ibrahim Gambari said in Jerusalem that the attacks showed the importance of the Lebanese government extending control over all its territory, a reference to Hizballah's domination of the south. The Beirut government has been unable to disarm Hizballah as demanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1559, adopted in September 2004. The U.S. condemned the attack as deliberately provocative, saying it had been timed to coincide with Lebanon's independence day Tuesday. (Reuters) See also Israeli Planes Drop Leaflets Over Beirut After some of the worst border clashes in years, Israeli planes dropped thousands of leaflets over the Lebanese capital of Beirut and southern Lebanon Wednesday, denouncing Hizballah. "To the Lebanese citizens, who protects Lebanon?" read the small leaflet written in Arabic. "Who is lying to you? Who is sending your children to a battle they are not ready for? Who wishes the return of destruction? Who is the tool in the hands of his Syrian and Iranian masters? Hizballah is causing enormous harm to Lebanon," and Israel was determined to protect its citizens. The note was signed "The State of Israel." (AP/Washington Post) U.S. Ambassador John Bolton accused Syria on Tuesday of "delaying and obstructing" an investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister and demanded that Damascus allow six Syrian officials to be questioned. Syria is facing separate U.S. pressure to stop Islamic radical fighters from crossing its borders into Iraq to join the insurgency. "The critical element right now is the flow of foreign fighters across the border," Ambassador James Jeffrey, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Rice, said Tuesday. "That could be largely stopped by the Syrian government if it wants to." (AP) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University presented its 2005 report on the strategic balance in the Middle East Tuesday. "The second intifada lost strength in part because Israel devised better methods to counter Palestinian terrorist activity," the center said. "This does not, however, constitute the dismantlement of the terrorist infrastructures, and Israel's deterrence of the Palestinian organizations, particularly the extremist groups, is limited and does not preclude a renewal of terrorist activity." (Ha'aretz) After Monday's Hizballah attack, Israel will ask the Europeans to delegitimize Hizballah, stop meeting with its representative in the Lebanese government, and place the group on the EU's list of terrorist organizations, a senior diplomatic official said Tuesday. (Jerusalem Post) IDF paratrooper Corporal David Markovitch, who was drafted eight months ago, killed four Hizballah terrorists carrying an anti-tank missile in the village of Ghajar on Israel's northern border on Monday. Markovitch, a trained sniper, aimed at the rocket, which exploded and killed three of the terrorists. He then shot the fourth. (Jerusalem Post) "A comrade said, 'There's a terrorist,' and I fired. It's all a matter of seconds, the entire business lasted about a minute." "I'm not the hero of the day," Markovitch said. "There were four of us there. One spotted and I shot. It's a team, with a commander. We simply ended up at the center of things....This is what we train for." (Ha'aretz) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
On November 8, the State Department released the International Religious Freedom Report, its annual survey of religious freedom across the world. "Countries of particular concern" include Saudi Arabia. "Freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia," successive reports have declared. In an interview in October, King Abdullah argued that Saudi Arabia should be likened to Vatican City, where only the Roman Catholic form of Christianity is recognized. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Six-time Academy Award winning film producer Arthur Cohn was honored on Nov. 12 at a gala banquet in Dusseldorf, Germany, with an annual award by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and he used the occasion to warn UNESCO against the breeding of future terrorists in Palestinian schools. Cohn received his biggest applause when he urged elimination of "schoolbooks, TV programs, and teaching methods that are preaching hatred and train for terror." "We must not forget that the intimidating phenomenon of suicide bombers - who in effect are genocide terrorists - has its roots in Israel and meanwhile has brought lots of mischief and mourning into the whole world, from the United States and England to Indonesia, Iraq and now Jordan, which has been bred in the schools of the Palestinian Authority. In these schools, the children are educated from the youngest age to celebrate terrorists as heroic martyrs and to emulate them. UNESCO must face the challenge to see to it that only positive human values are taught in the initiatives it supports," Cohn said. (Jerusalem Post) When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, life for the residents of the southern Israeli village of Netiv Haasara changed overnight. Bordering Gaza, Netiv was formerly neighbors with a cluster of Jewish settlements, but their disappearance meant the village now became the closest community in Israel to the Gaza Strip. The village is just 400 meters away from the edge of the Palestinian town of Beit Lahiya, and the impact on the village was felt immediately. It is this proximity which has made the village highly vulnerable to Kassam rocket attacks, a favored weapon of Palestinian militants in Gaza. (BBC News) Observations: State of the Jewish State - Michael B. Oren interviewed by Yigal Gross (Yeshiva University Commentator) Historian Michael B. Oren, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
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