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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:
Hizballah Rocket Hits Israeli Hospital - Gil Solomon (Maariv-Hebrew)
Canadian Prime Minister Won't Criticize Israel for Canadian Deaths (Canadian Press)
Arab World Fed Up with Hizballah - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
The Way We War - Etgar Keret (New York Times)
Useful Reference: A Measured Response to Hizballah Missiles (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Text of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (United Nations) Search Key Links Media Contacts Back Issues Fair Use
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Hizballah sharply rejected talk of a cease-fire Monday. "The international envoys have conveyed Israeli conditions. These conditions are rejected," said Hizballah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan. Earlier, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday the fighting in Lebanon would end when Hizballah freed two captured soldiers, rocket attacks on Israel stopped, and the Lebanese army deployed along the border. (Fox News) With Hizballah firing rockets on northern Israel for a sixth straight day on Monday - including one that destroyed part of an apartment building in Haifa - tens of thousands of Israelis remained holed up in bomb shelters. In Nahariya, municipal workers in flak jackets carry food, water, medicine, and even diapers to families running low on supplies in the shelters. Singers from around the country give impromptu concerts. Artists set up craft centers for painting and woodworking. Soldiers are sent to entertain children. Since Sunday, at least 20 rockets have hit in or near Haifa, a major port and Israel's third largest city, which is about 20 miles south of the border and had never been hit until last Thursday. (New York Times) See also Civilians in Missile Range Hunker Down - Conal Urquhart The main reason for the low casualty rate was that Israelis obeyed instructions from the army and hunkered down in their homes and bomb shelters. The other reason for the low casualty numbers was the inaccuracy of the missiles. (Guardian-UK) The European Union called on Monday for an immediate halt to hostilities in the Middle East and said it would consider contributing to an international security force for south Lebanon if one came into being. EU foreign ministers agreed on a joint statement which diplomats said put greater onus on Israel to halt its strikes than a declaration by the Group of Eight major powers at their weekend summit in Russia. (Reuters) Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, Jewish leaders, and elected officials including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Frank Lautenberg rallied thousands of Israel supporters Monday near the UN. The rally was one of several being held this week. Organizers estimated the crowd at 10,000. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, said Israel is threatened "by two totalitarian movements, Hamas and Hizballah, whose unique goal is to destroy the Jewish state. Israel defends herself." (AP/Yahoo) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Hizballah fired rockets at Israel on Monday that landed in Haifa, Acre, Nahariya, Afula, Safed, Rosh Pina, Kiryat Shmona, Tiberias, Hatzor Haglilit, Upper Nazareth, Migdal Haemek, the southern Golan Heights, and the Israeli Arab towns of Sakhnin, Peki'in, Julis, Abu Snan, and Kafr Yassif. Eleven people were wounded in Haifa and four in Safed. The Israel Air Force destroyed at least ten long-range Iranian-made missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, Brig.-Gen. Ram Shmueli said. (Ha'aretz) According to political sources in Jerusalem, when the current conflict in the north ends, Israel will demand disarmament arrangements in Lebanon that will prevent Hizballah from renewing its military capabilities. Israel's principal concern is that after the fighting, Hizballah will take advantage of the cease-fire to restore its military capabilities and renew its threat to the Israeli home front. The working assumption in Jerusalem is that the Lebanese army is strong enough to enforce security arrangements, whereas a UN force would be of little value. (Ha'aretz) See also Half of Lebanese Army Is Pro-Hizballah - David Horovitz The IDF knows that even if the Lebanese army ultimately deploys in the south, up to 50 percent of those troops are pro-Hizballah in orientation - so, to some extent, Lebanon would be formalizing Hizballah's presence on Israel's doorstep again. Were pro-Hizballah forces in that army to open fire on Israel, however, Israel would hold the sovereign government in Beirut directly responsible. (Jerusalem Post) A senior Israel Defense Forces officer told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that IDF troops had leveled land inside Lebanese territory up to one kilometer from Israel's northern frontier to prevent the reestablishment of Hizballah posts along the border. Defense Minister Peretz said Israel intends to create an unmanned buffer zone in south Lebanon. A Military Intelligence official also told the committee that the Palestinians had smuggled suicide bombers through the Philadelphi Route on the Gaza-Egypt border into Sinai in order to send them back into Israel to carry out attacks. (Ha'aretz) Four Kassam rockets fired from Gaza landed in Nativ Haasara, Sderot, and Ashkelon early Tuesday. (Ynet News) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Make no mistake about it: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side, and one side only. And that is Hizballah, the Islamist militant party, along with its Syrian and Iranian backers. Ever since Israel unilaterally withdrew troops from southern Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza last year, radical Islamists have stepped up their war on the Israeli state. Both Hamas and Hizballah, which have a pact to collaborate in attacking Israel, are backed by the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who himself has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." This latest conflagration in the Middle East presents a challenge for nations such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, which have long paid lip service to the desirability of moderation in the region. These nations, and the international community, should be prepared to place blame for this crisis where it belongs: on Hizballah, Hamas, and their state sponsors. (Los Angeles Times) One encouraging thing about the American reaction to the crisis in the Middle East has been the extraordinary bipartisan nature of the support for Israel. One subject on which there is, thankfully, a broad and deep American consensus is that Israel has a right to defend itself. We attribute this to the wisdom of the American people and to their understanding of both the Islamic extremist enemy and the values that we share with our small, embattled ally in the Middle East. (New York Sun) As Israel fights to break the back of one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has come up with a very bad idea. He wants to throw a lifeline to Hizballah, dispatching UN peacekeepers to Lebanon. Mr. Annan must explain how his peacekeepers would differ from the current UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has failed miserably ever since it was dispatched in 1978. UNIFIL has been unable to stop Hizballah attacks but remarkably successful in getting in the way of Israelis defending themselves. "Hizballah would launch military attacks 50 meters from a UNIFIL outpost, Israel would shoot back, and UNIFIL would protest against the Israeli response," explained Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN. For now, the Israeli military is doing more to enhance the long-term prospects for peace in Lebanon than the UN has ever done. Kofi Annan can perform a great service by staying out of the way. (Washington Times) See also UN Delegation Meets Israeli Leaders in Jerusalem (Jerusalem Post) Why did the G8 countries take such a unanimously hard line against Hizballah when framing their joint reaction to the violence? Because what Hizballah has done - what Hizballah is doing - is intolerable to sovereign governments. An autonomous heavily armed militia, working from the territory of a state, has - without agreement from its own government (of which it is a part) - launched its own attacks on the territory of a neighbor. There is a whole cottage industry devoted to the reweaving of Hizballah as a kind of unique mixture of cool guerrillismo and charity organization, and its leader Hassan Nasrallah as the turbaned love-child of Gerry Adams and Bob Geldof. The closeness between the Iranian government and Hizballah can be judged by who supplies Hizballah's munitions. But why Iran judges that a party with 14 MPs in the Lebanese national parliament might require medium-range high-explosive missiles is a matter for some serious thought. Do we think that Israel's response is "proportionate"? By the way, if it isn't, then the Falklands campaign, in which deaths actually exceeded the population of the contested area, can only be described as grossly disproportionate. (Times-UK) Nasrallah believed Israel was afraid to engage him in light of the ongoing threat of long-range missiles at Israeli cities. He was wrong. Nasrallah believed that if Israel does attack, it will do so with ground forces - and that's what he prepared for. Nasrallah miscalculated the Israeli public's staying power. Judging by a previous prisoner swap in which Israel released hundreds of prisoners in response for a kidnapped civilian and the bodies of three dead soldiers, Nasrallah figured Israelis would pester their government for a hostage-swap. He doesn't understand that he is the last person Israel is going to make a deal with. It's been many years since the Israeli public supported a war so broadly against an enemy who "deserves it." Brig.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Elad is a researcher at the Shmuel Neeman Institute at the Technion. (Ynet News) Diplomacy that preserves a status quo in which terrorists win concessions through violence ensures future bloodshed. Hizballah is not a movement whose existence diplomats should intercede to preserve. There will be a role for diplomacy in the Middle East, but it will only be successful if it commences both after the eradication of Hizballah and Hamas, and after their paymasters pay a terrible cost for their support. (National Review) Observations: Prime Minister Olmert: "This Is a National Moment of Truth" (Prime Minister's Office) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the Knesset on Monday:
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