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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:
Al-Qaeda Tactics Expand in Gaza - Ilene Prusher (Christian Science Monitor) Israel HighWay - May 10, 2007 Issue of the Week: 40th Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem
Fifteen Smuggling Tunnels Currently Active in Gaza - Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel (Ha'aretz)
Syria Sets Condition for Hariri Tribunal - Zeina Karam (AP/Boston Globe)
Syrian Dissident Gets 12 Years in Prison - Zeina Karam (AP/Washington Post)
Palestinian Moms Becoming Martyrs - Tim McGirk (TIME)
U.S. Airport Chiefs Study Israeli Security - Ben Winograd (AP/Business Week)
Search Key Links Media Contacts Back Issues Fair Use
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate subcommittee Thursday, "Syria continues to be a major funder of terrorism; a major harborer of those elements of the Palestinian political elite, for instance, who are opposed to a two-state solution, who are the ones who continue to perpetrate violence in the Palestinian territories and to attempt to do it in Israel. And so, in terms of Middle East peace, the Syrians are a real problem for leaders like Mahmoud Abbas who want to take a different course toward a two-state solution." "Syrian behavior is such that, particularly in the support that it gives to elements of Hamas that are preventing a two-state solution, it's not exhibited an attitude that suggests that it's ready for or intending to try and pursue peace," she said. "Syria is a significant problem, not just for American policy in the Middle East, but for democratic forces that are trying to take hold in the Middle East," Rice concluded. (Ynet News) Iran blocked UN atomic experts on a first unannounced test inspection of an underground nuclear site where it enriches uranium, despite a pledge to allow such visits, diplomats told AFP Thursday. A first test on April 21 of the agreement "was a total failure," said a diplomat in Vienna, home to the IAEA. (AFP/Yahoo) Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American academic who is director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, was imprisoned Tuesday in Tehran after being barred from leaving the country four months ago. Ms. Esfandiari had endured repeated interrogations since December and was taken to Evin prison. Esfandiari, who left Iran at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution, had returned twice annually over the past decade to visit her ailing 93-year-old mother. (New York Times) Robert Brinkley, the British high commissioner to Pakistan, said Thursday that his government was greatly concerned about the continued ability of leaders of al-Qaeda hiding in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region to direct terrorist operations across the world. He said that although the Pakistani government had made praiseworthy efforts to find and detain terrorists, "the fight is not finished." Of particular concern was that extremists in Britain were still communicating with terrorist leaders in the tribal areas, looking to them for "guidance, ideas and, in some cases, training for operations." Such contacts were believed to have been a factor in the deadly London transit bombings in July 2005, he said, adding, "It's top priority to ensure it does not happen again." (New York Times) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams said last week that the efforts the U.S. is now investing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is aimed at lessening the pressure from "Arabs and the Europeans, who weren't happy with the United States" in its past approach. Abrams explained that the talks are sometimes not more than "process for the sake of process." Abrams has long been seen by Americans and Israelis as the more skeptical member of the team responsible for Middle East diplomacy. (Ha'aretz) The Syrians are adjusting their armed forces according to what they saw in the Second Lebanon War. According to Israeli intelligence experts, the Syrian army is busy raising the level of readiness, stepping up training and arming itself with up-to-date weapons, especially anti-tank missiles. "They're arming themselves with all the weapons that Hizbullah successfully used against us," one source said. The Syrians have also deployed more forces in the area of the buffer zone near the Israeli border, and have improved their positions. But according to the same sources, the Syrian preparations are defensive in nature. (Ha'aretz) A coalition of Jordanian opposition parties and trade unions Thursday condemned a planned visit by 50 Israeli peace activists for a meeting with Jordanian opinion leaders. The Executive Committee for Confronting Normalization with Israel urged a cessation of all forms of normalization of ties with Israel (Ha'aretz) Palestinians in Gaza fired two Kassam rockets that landed in the western Negev on Friday morning. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Much of the continued violence in Iraq is due to the interference of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy agents in the internal affairs of its western neighbor. Iran, through its support of the Shiite fundamentalist parties - Moqtada al-Sadr's Al-Daawa and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim's SCIRI (the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) - and their respective militias (Jaish al-Mahdi, and the Badr and Wolf Brigades) and through the deployment of its Sepah al-Qods (the Iranian regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' most secretive, elite, and skilled unit, responsible for all terror attacks abroad), has effectively gained significant influence and control over Iraqi society, especially in the south around Basra. So too, through monetary and logistical support of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Iran has managed to keep Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis at each others throats. (Global Politician) It's only a matter of time before something dreadful happens in Sderot or elsewhere within the range of Gaza's Kassam rockets. On Monday, a rocket barely missed a kindergarten, though it did slam into a home next door. On Sunday, two people were wounded by a Palestinian rocket that exploded alarmingly near a gas station. A day earlier, another Sderot home took a direct hit. Ordinary folks cannot acquiesce to having their homes wrecked or their lives put on the line in an ongoing game of Palestinian roulette day after tense day. No democracy anywhere would abide the daily rocketing of its noncombatants. (Jerusalem Post) Moderate Muslims are no myth. In Pakistan, an estimated 100,000 people demonstrated in Karachi on April 15 to protest plans to establish a parallel court system based on Islamic religious law. In Turkey, more than 1 million moderate Muslims gathered for four marches to protest the bid of the ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, to take over the Turkish presidency. The marches chanted slogans such as: "We don't want an imam as president." Developments in Pakistan and Turkey confirm that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution. Ignorant non-Muslim busybodies should get out of the way of those moderate Muslims who are determined to relegate radical Islamism to its rightful place in the dustbin of history. (New York Sun) See also Finding Partners in Islam - Lorenzo Vidino Throughout the Muslim world many courageous intellectuals, clerics, and activists are struggling to make their message heard, campaigning for the diffusion of the values of tolerance and democracy within Islamic societies and among Muslims in the West. They preach a reformation through which Muslims, while remaining loyal to its key tenets, would be able to reconcile Islam with modern life. Yet moderate voices, while still representing the majority of the Muslim world, are often overshadowed by aggressive and well-organized radicals. It is in the West's best interest to support these voices of reason, as they represent the best antidote to the radical ideology that is generating most of the terrorism and violence throughout the world. (Boston Globe) The Fort Dix six seem to have taken to heart Abu Musab al-Suri's advice to create a decentralized global Islamic resistance. Al-Suri - a key member of the al-Qaeda leadership before his arrest last year - argued that the proper way to conduct a global guerrilla campaign was to inspire men ideologically, give them training through the Internet, and then allow them to carry out attacks whenever and wherever they deemed appropriate. Most of the men were Muslims (and Albanians) from the former Yugoslavia. Extremist Islamic preachers have remained in Bosnia and Albania, winning converts to radical Islam and to jihadism. Finally, reports describe a video showing "ten young men" firing weapons, yet only six were arrested. This is not over. The writer is associate professor of strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. (National Review) Three generations of the Hamdallah family have lived in Lebanon, where not a single member of the family has been allowed to graduate from school, legally marry, or hold a job. The UN estimates that more than 400,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon - refugees, their children, and their children's children - all denied many basic rights. Palestinians have been denied citizenship in Lebanon for years, and they are prohibited from practicing more than 70 professions. "This is a problem [that is] not going to go away on its own; now is the time to solve it," said Richard J. Cook, director of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East. (New York Times) In reality, UNIFIL in Lebanon gives diplomats an excuse to do nothing about Hizbullah's rearmament, and its presence on the ground complicates Israel's ability to engage the terrorist army in battle.. The new UNIFIL force is afraid to confront Hizbullah, unwilling to interrupt the easy flow of arms across Lebanon, and prohibited from patrolling the border with Syria. No serious observer of southern Lebanon today believes that the new, "robust" UNIFIL will prevent another round of warfare. (National Review) The Israeli "file" at the European Commission is a difficult one. In recent years Israel has undoubtedly lost the publicity battle, due to the intifada and to perceptions about the security fence. Another factor is that people bow to numbers. There are hundreds of millions of Arabs and seven million Israelis. There is the issue that Arabs have much oil and could again some day impose an embargo. The fact that there are so many European Muslims, with their electoral power, has an influence on foreign policy. Finally, there is anti-Semitism which in Europe often dresses up as anti-Israelism. Frits Bolkestein is a former leader of the Netherlands' Liberal Party. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Weekend Features
Harriet and I stood on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, looking at the village where our two sons fought during last summer's war between Israel and Hizbullah. During combat, Harriet's son, Michael, was hit by sniper fire. My son, Shlomie, a medic, also received shrapnel wounds. Shlomie did everything he could to save Michael - but Harriet's son died in my son's arms. Both of our sons were American-born Jews who had enlisted in the Israeli Army. (International Herald Tribune) Barbara Preusch, 76, vividly remembers the day the Nazis searched her Berlin home for hidden Jews - and left without finding Rachela and Jenny Schipper, the mother and daughter her family sheltered from 1943 to 1945. Sixty-two years after the end of World War II, people like Preusch are being honored with a museum in Berlin. Israel has recognized non-Jews who helped Jews escape the Holocaust and honored 443 Germans at the Yad Vashem Memorial as "Righteous among the Nations." But similar honors have been long delayed at home. The "Silent Heroes" museum is to open in 2008 in an old tenement building in the center of Berlin. It will be based in Otto Weidt's former workshop for the blind, where several Jews survived in a secret room during the war. About 1,700 Jews survived in Berlin, and an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 non-Jewish Germans actively hid them, according to historian Johannes Tuchel, the head of the German Resistance Memorial Center which is in charge of the museum. (AP/Washington Post) The Ottoman occupation of Jerusalem in the 16th century until the early 20th was often marked by peaceful coexistence: Twice a year, Jews, Muslims, and Christians celebrated together at the shrine of Simon the Just, a popular biblical figure. Trying to pinpoint the moment when he realized that that the Israel-Arab conflict was inevitable, David Ben-Gurion, who became Israel's first prime minister, said it was the day in 1915 that he sat on a train waiting to leave Jerusalem at the order of Ahmed Djemal, the city's Ottoman ruler, who banished many known Zionist activists from the city. Ben-Gurion had tried to turn himself into an Ottoman - studying Turkish, attending law school in Constantinople, trying to organize a Jewish legion to fight on behalf of the Ottoman Empire in the war, and even donning a red fez. But all these gestures had been to no avail, for at the end of the day, Djemal had looked at him and seen not an Ottoman but an advocate for a future Jewish state, and had him jailed in Jerusalem. - from Jerusalem 1913. (Wall Street Journal) Observations: Dissidents Unite! - Sonny Bunch (Weekly Standard)
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