DAILY ALERT

In-Depth Issues:

PA's Dahlan: Arafat Deceived the World - Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook (Palestinian Media Watch-IMRA)
    PA (Fatah) Member of Parliament Muhammad Dahlan told PA TV on July 22 that Yasser Arafat was deceiving the world when he condemned Palestinian terror.
    "Arafat would condemn [terror] operations by day while at night he would do honorable things." Dahlan said this in the context of defending the use of Palestinian terror, which he called a "legal right."

IDF: Hizbullah Has Rebuilt Arms Stockpiles in Southern Lebanon - Amos Harel (Ha'aretz)
    Senior IDF officers believe that Hizbullah has completely rebuilt its network of bunkers and arms stockpiles in southern Lebanon, but has located them almost entirely inside Shi'ite villages rather than in open areas, as in the past.
    The defense establishment is very concerned about the possibility of a serious incident on the Lebanese border, but believes that Hizbullah is more likely to try to strike Israeli targets abroad.

U.S. Aids Palestinians in Budget Crisis (AP/New York Times)
    The U.S. has transferred $200 million to the Palestinians to help ease their government's growing budget crisis. Secretary of State Clinton announced the aid with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Friday.
    The PA's budget deficit is growing, and it has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from commercial banks to cover the government payroll.

Gaza Campers Stage Abduction of Israeli Soldier - Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
    Children in Hamas summer camps reenacted the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in the presence of top Hamas officials, according to pictures obtained by the Jerusalem Post.
    More than 120,000 Palestinian children are spending the summer in Hamas-run camps. In addition to religious studies, the children undergo semi-military training with toy guns.

Bolivians Resist Iran's Search for Uranium - Martin Arostegui (Washington Times)
    "Bolivia is a peaceful nation that would never aid an effort by Iran or any other country to develop nuclear weapons," said Presidency Minister Juan Ramon Quintana.
    However, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, has exchanged state visits with Iranian President Ahmadinejad and signed up to $1.2 billion in joint ventures.
    "We need to ask what Iran's real interest is in Bolivia," said Roman Loayza, a dissident from Morales' ruling party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), who is running against Morales in presidential elections scheduled for December.
    Morales has said that Iran wants to build a radio and TV station in his home district of Chapare to "support the peasant struggle in South America."
    Iranian movies are regularly broadcast over Bolivia's state-run TV channel and a Muslim preacher even delivered services at a state-sponsored event earlier this month.

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

Observations:

The U.S.-Israeli Dispute over Building in Jerusalem: The Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik Neighborhood - Nadav Shragai (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

• The Sheikh Jarrah-Mt. Scopus area - the focus of a dispute between the Obama administration and Israel over building housing units in the Shepherd Hotel compound - has been a mixed Jewish-Arab area for many years. The Jewish population is currently centered in three places: around the tomb of Shimon HaTzadik (a fourth century BCE high priest), the Israeli government compound in Sheikh Jarrah, and Hadassah Hospital-Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus.
• During Israel's War of Independence in 1948, 78 doctors, nurses and other Jews were murdered on their way to Hadassah Hospital when their convoy was attacked by Arabs as it passed through Sheikh Jarrah. Mt. Scopus was cut off from western Jerusalem and remained a demilitarized Israeli enclave under UN aegis until it was returned to Israel in 1967. The area discussed here has for decades been a vital corridor to Mt. Scopus.
• To ensure the continued unity of Jerusalem and to prevent Mt. Scopus from being cut off again, a chain of Israeli neighborhoods were built to link western Jerusalem with Mt. Scopus, and Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital were repaired and enlarged. Today both institutions serve hundreds of thousands of Jewish and Arab residents of the city.
• Many observers incorrectly assume that Jerusalem is comprised of two ethnically homogenous halves: Jewish western Jerusalem and Arab eastern Jerusalem. Yet in some areas such as Sheikh Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik, Jerusalem is a mosaic of peoples who are mixed and cannot be separated or divided according to the old 1949 armistice line.
• In the eastern part of Jerusalem, i.e., north, south and east of the city's 1967 borders, there are today some 200,000 Jews and 270,000 Arabs living in intertwined neighborhoods. In short, as certain parts of eastern Jerusalem have become ethnically diverse, it has become impossible to characterize it as a wholly Palestinian area that can easily be split off from the rest of Jerusalem.
• Private Jewish groups are operating in Sheikh Jarrah seeking to regain possession of property once held by Jews, and to purchase new property. Their objective is to facilitate private Jewish residence in the area in addition to the presence of Israeli governmental institutions. The main points of such activity include the Shepherd Hotel compound, the Mufti's Vineyard, the building of the el-Ma'amuniya school, the Shimon HaTzadik compound, and the Nahlat Shimon neighborhood. In the meantime, foreign investors from Arab states, particularly in the Persian Gulf, are actively seeking to purchase Jerusalem properties on behalf of Palestinian interests.