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Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

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DAILY ALERT

Monday,
July 12, 2010

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In-Depth Issues:

Report: Libya Preventing Gaddafi Jr. from Joining Gaza-Bound Ship - Roi Kais (Ynet News)
    Libyan authorities decided Sunday to restrict the takeoff of private flights from the country for fear that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi would try to join an aid ship attempting to reach Gaza, Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Monday.
    The Amal, sent by a charity headed by Gaddafi's son, set sail from Lavrio, Greece, and docked in Crete on Sunday.


Report: Iranian Missile, Ammo Convoy Headed to Syria via Iraq (Jerusalem Post)
    Former Israeli minister Mordechai Ben-Porat, chairman of the Center for the Heritage of Babylonian Jewry, announced Sunday that he had received information from personal contacts in Irbil in northern Iraq that a convoy of 75 heavy trucks carrying ammunition and missiles were headed from Iran to Syria by way of Iraq.


Lawyers from 60 Countries to Sue Israel (Bernama-Malaysia)
    Lawyers from 60 countries will gather in Istanbul on July 15 to prepare a legal suit against Israel for its attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla, Antara news agency reported.
    "There are a number of lawyers from 60 countries who will take legal steps to sue the attackers of the Mavi Marmara," Mahendradatta, chief of the Indonesian Muslims' Lawyer Team, said in Jakarta on Monday.
    Jose Rizal Jurnalis, chairman of MER-C (Medical Emergency Rescue-Committee) Indonesia, hoped that the legal suit against Israel could be brought to the International Criminal Court.


Iran Vows to Fight Western Influence in Classrooms - Nazila Fathi (New York Times)
    Iran's educational authorities will send 1,000 religious clerics into schools in Tehran to tamp down Western influence and political opposition, newspapers reported on Sunday.
    The deputy director of Tehran's education department, Mohammad Boniadi, said the clerics would work to make students "aware of opposition plots."
    Last month, the government reinstituted its ban against teaching music in schools. Cultural authorities have also issued guidelines for permissible male haircuts.


New Industrial Park for Israeli Arab Sector (Ynet News)
    A new industrial park is to open in Nazareth in the Galilee, the brainchild of Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer.
    Industry Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said Thursday that the project symbolizes the development of the periphery and the promotion of Jewish-Arab coexistence.
    He added, "The Arab population demonstrates much potential and ability to contribute to Israel's economy. We must know how to make the most of this potential."


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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

  • Former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Tells of Life as CIA Spy - Elise Labott
    Reza Kahlili, a pseudonym for the author of A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, spoke Friday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution, he joined the newly formed Revolutionary Guard, but said he quickly became disillusioned when he saw people being tortured and murdered and women raped in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. But rather than quit the Guard and endanger his family, he contacted the CIA and began work as an American agent.
        He said he provided critical information to his CIA handlers about Iran's role in the Iran-Iraq war, the Iran-contra affair, the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which he said was masterminded by Tehran. He predicted that Iran will eventually attack Israel, Europe and the Gulf and advocated a preemptive military strike against the regime but not against the Iranian people or infrastructure. "Stop dreaming, please," he said. "You are not dealing with rational people. Every time you extend a hand, it is not seen as sincerity, but stupidity."  (CNN)
  • Sanctions Can't Touch the Revolutionary Guards' Black-Market Empire - Babak Dehghanpisheh
    Thanks to the dwindling traffic of big container ships from Dubai to Iran, business is booming for a whole fleet of smugglers in smaller wooden ships, as well as for the group that dominates Iran's black market: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The latest UN sanctions were designed to punish the Revolutionary Guards for running Tehran's covert nuclear program. But the IRGC has spent decades mastering the art of sanctions-busting. "You're using pinpoint sanctions against the very entity that's best positioned to evade those sanctions," says Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Newsweek)
  • Lebanon Sends Troops to Its Restive South - Bill Varner
    Lebanon is sending as many as 5,000 additional soldiers to the country's south after clashes between civilians and UN troops and Israel's warning that Hizbullah is preparing for a new war there. France called a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday. "We wanted to emphasize the seriousness of the situation," said Gerard Araud, France's UN ambassador. "We cannot accept obstacles to freedom of movement" of UN troops. (Bloomberg-Washington Post)
  • Presbyterians: End Israel Aid Over Settlements - Patrick Condon
    Presbyterian leaders Friday in Minneapolis approved by an 82% vote a report that included a call to end U.S. aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansion. The 172-page report details the church's approach to issues in the Middle East. The Anti-Defamation League said the report managed to "avoid a rupture with Jewish people, but bias against Israel continues." The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the report "takes definite sides in a complex struggle."
        In 2004, the church's general assembly voted to authorize "phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel." That stance has since been softened, and this year delegates voted down an amendment that would have put divestment back on the table. "There are many longtime friends in the Jewish community who believe this report misstates Jewish theology and misquotes the Jewish voice," said the Rev. Susan Zencka. "We have come to a position of Palestine good, Israel bad. Life is not that simple."  (AP)
  • News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

  • Netanyahu: "We Can Make Peace with the Palestinian Authority" - Chris Wallace
    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told "Fox News Sunday": "I don't think we can make peace with an organization that seeks our destruction. That's Hamas. But I think we can make peace with the Palestinian Authority."
        "We should stay focused on the real problem in the Middle East. It's not Israel. It's these dictatorships that are developing nuclear weapons with the specific goal of wiping Israel away." "There's only been one time that Iran actually stopped the [nuclear] program and that was when it feared U.S. military action....The president's position that all options are on the table might actually have the only real effect on Iran, if they think it's true."
        "We had a conversation in this meeting in Washington the other day [with President Obama]. And a good chunk of it - I'd say about half of it - was devoted to a detailed discussion of Israel's security problems: the problem that when we vacate territory, Iran and its proxy terrorists walk in with rockets....[The President] understands that we need to have a solution for it...so that we can couple security with peace, because that's the only peace that will endure, peace based on security."  (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
        See also Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace - Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon et al. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
  • Former Palestinian Negotiator: Proximity Talks Seem Unnecessary - Barak Ravid
    Former chief Palestinian negotiator and prime minister Ahmed Qureia said Sunday that he saw no reason for the Palestinians and Israelis to hold indirect peace negotiations after years of direct talks. (Ha'aretz)
  • Hizbullah Has Regained Control over Southern Lebanon - Avi Issacharoff
    Four years after the Second Lebanon War, southern Lebanon is once again in Hizbullah's hands. It has rebuilt its military capabilities north of the Litani River, where it has established a network of missile launchers any army in the world would be proud to possess. Furthermore, it has repaired the infrastructure of the Shi'ite villages south of the Litani that were severely hit in the war.
        UNIFIL, which was deployed to southern Lebanon in 2006 in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 - passed at the end of the war - was supposed to prevent such activity. In recent months, however, UNIFIL has been harassed by Shi'ite villagers in the south who are apparently acting on Hizbullah's orders. UNIFIL's commander, Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta Cuevas, has asked the Lebanese government to protect his troops. Thus, one of Israel's chief accomplishments in the war - distancing Hizbullah from its northern frontier - is slowly vanishing. (Ha'aretz)
  • Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

  • Iran First, Palestinians Later - Editorial
    The Palestinian issue has been around for decades, and there is no immediate need to resolve it, even assuming that is possible. It poses no threat to the United States, and when it periodically reaches a boiling point, it can be contained. Arab states especially can live without a near-term resolution of the Palestinian issue, which does not materially affect their national interests.
        However, a nuclear Iran would pose an immediate, existential threat to states in the Gulf region. And the Iranian nuclear threat is on a rapidly diminishing timeline. It needs to be addressed urgently and decisively. (Washington Times)
  • The Anti-Israel Boycott Campaign: A Study in Failure - Robert Fulford
    Given the publicity the plan to pressure Israel with boycotts, divestment and sanctions (routinely abbreviated as "BDS") has been receiving, the program should be on the way to success. But is it working? The answer seems to be No.
        Jon Haber, who runs the website "Divest This!" (divest-this.com), reported in the Jerusalem Post that despite nearly a decade of BDS activism, not one college or university has sold even one share of a company identified as a supporter of Israel. The divesters are good at attracting crowds, writing manifestos, passing motions and getting their opinions onto TV. But they get few results.
        In May, the divesters were cheered by news that Deutsche Bank had sold its shares in the Israeli company Elbit. However, this news was closely followed by Deutsche Bank's announcement that it was untrue - the bank had no Elbit shares to sell. Curiously, during the period when enemies of Israel were doing their best to cut its economic lifelines, Israel's economy remained in much better shape than equivalent economies elsewhere. Of all the OECD nations, Israel was the last to show signs of recession and among the first to begin recovering. (National Post-Canada)
  • Observations:

    Palestinians Have to Say "The Conflict Is Over," As Sadat Did - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

    After meeting with President Obama, Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York on July 7:

    • "We don't want to govern the Palestinians and we don't want them to be either our subjects or citizens of the country. We also want to make sure that they have their own independent dignified life, but that they don't threaten the State of Israel....In addition, the Palestinians have to do something that they so far have not done. And that is to do what Anwar Sadat did - to come forward and say, 'It's over. The conflict is over. There is no more war, there is no more bloodshed and there will be no more conflict.'"
    • "One thing that unites all of us is that we all know that we are not foreign interlopers in the Land of Israel....We have nearly a four-thousand-year connection to this land and the return of the Jewish people to Zion, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland, is not just one of the great events of modern times, it's one of the greatest events of all time....For the Jews...Zion is only one place - Israel - and the connection between our people and the Land of Israel is as strong and enduring as any people's connection to any place on earth."
    • "All responsible countries say that Israel has a right to defend itself, but virtually every time we seek to exercise that right, we are nearly universally condemned....So it seems that, even after six decades, many around the world are still uncomfortable with the idea of Jewish sovereignty. Perhaps they have not internalized the fact that the Jews will no longer be passive victims of history. We are now actors on the stage of history. We now chart our own collective destiny and that requires Israel to have a secure and unchallenged right of self-defense that is accorded to other nations as well."
    • "For 2000 years, the Jews were the perfect victims. And perfect victims may be perfectly moral but they're still victims. The purpose of the Jewish state is to defend Jewish lives. And in that defense, the standard that must be applied to Israel is not perfection but a standard that is applied to any other country faced with similar circumstances."
    • "What other country has suffered thousands and thousands of rockets rained on its cities?...Britain. And yet Israel's response to the rocketing of its cities is a fraction, a fraction, perhaps a percent or less of the response in terms of casualties inflicted by Britain on those who attacked it."

          See also Video: Prime Minister Netanyahu's Address to the Conference of Presidents (YouTube)


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