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by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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  DAILY ALERT Tuesday,
November 17, 2015


In-Depth Issues:

Russia Is a New Front for Militant Islam - Leon Aron (Washington Post)
    A new brand of radical Islam is rising in Russia, fueled by Russian fighters eager to perpetrate acts of terror at home.
    When Moscow declared victory in Chechnya in 2009, it suggested that the threat of radical violence had been largely contained.
    But militant Islam's fundamentalist teachings have spread throughout central Russia, propagated by Russian imams trained in the Middle East.
    Today, an estimated 20 million Muslims (including 6.5 million migrants from Azerbaijan and Central Asia) live in Russia, up from 14.5 million in 2002.
    There are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Muslims in Moscow alone, making Russia's capital the largest Muslim city in Europe.
    The Russian Foreign Ministry estimates that there are 5,000 people from Russia and the former Soviet Union fighting alongside the Islamic State.
    The writer is director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute.




Hungary Opposes Labeling Settlement Goods - Itamar Eichner (Ynet News)
    Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, on a visit to Israel, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that Hungary is opposed to the decision to label products from the settlements.
    "It's not effective and will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.




Poll: 62 Percent of Palestinians Oppose Peace Negotiations with Israel - Nabil Kukali (Palestinian Center for Public Opinion)
    62% of the Palestinian public oppose the resumption of peace negotiations with Israel, according to a poll conducted on Oct. 18-Nov. 12.
    In addition, 50% favor a new intifada against Israel.




Attempt to Smuggle Rocket Fuel to Gaza Foiled - Yoav Zitun (Ynet News)
    Israeli security guards and inspectors recently foiled an attempt to smuggle hundreds of liters of a chemical used to manufacture rockets from Hebron to Gaza.
    Inspectors stopped a Palestinian truck from Hebron at the Tarqumiya crossing in the West Bank that was supposed to be carrying soybean oil.
    The material was actually TDI, used to make rocket fuel.




Russia Deploys Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missile System in Syria that Can Target Israeli, British Aircraft - Darren Boyle (Daily Mail-UK)
    The Russian military released photographs of the S-400 Air Defense System at Latakia airbase in Syria.
    The advanced missile system, with a maximum range of 250 miles, is capable of monitoring and targeting aircraft flying over much of Israel as well as the RAF's Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus.



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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
  • Pressure Grows for Global Response Against Islamic State after Paris Attacks - Carol E. Lee
    World leaders on Monday pledged to seize on the Paris attacks to deepen their involvement in a global campaign against the growing threat of Islamic State. French President Francois Hollande proposed an alliance with Russia and the U.S. to combat the extremists.
        However, the extent of the new effort depends on how many more military resources, such as troops, world leaders are willing to commit. President Obama ruled out large-scale U.S. deployments. French and U.S. officials also said both countries oppose NATO's involvement in the Syria war, arguing that the current U.S.-led coalition is a better mechanism for prosecuting the war. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Russia's Syria Intervention Makes Scant Progress on the Ground - Erin Cunningham
    More than six weeks of Russian airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Syria have failed to weaken the country's insurgency. The daily air attacks across Syria, which have killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands, have secured only minor victories for the Syrian government, according to rights groups and think tanks monitoring the conflict. (Washington Post)
  • Russia Confirms that Bomb Downed Plane over Sinai
    The Kremlin has confirmed that a bomb brought down a Russian passenger plane in Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board. "One can unequivocally say that it was a terrorist act," Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia's FSB security service, told a meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin's web site. The FSB said traces of explosives were found in the plane's debris. (Guardian-UK)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
  • Israel Outlaws Northern Branch of Islamic Movement
    Israel's Security Cabinet on Monday declared the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel to be an illegal organization. For years, the northern branch of the Islamic Movement has led a mendacious campaign of incitement under the heading "Al Aqsa is in danger" that falsely accuses Israel of intending to harm the Al Aqsa Mosque. It has established a network of paid activists to initiate provocations on the Temple Mount. A significant portion of recent terrorist attacks have been committed against the background of this incitement. Outlawing the organization is a vital step in maintaining public security and preventing harm to human life.
        The northern branch, headed by Sheikh Raad Salah, is a sister movement of the Hamas terrorist organization. It is a separatist-racist organization that does not recognize the institutions of the State of Israel, denies its right to exist and calls for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in its place. This move is not directed against the Arab and Muslim public in Israel, the great majority of which upholds the laws of the state and disavows incitement and terrorism. (Prime Minister's Office)
        See also Background Material on the Outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel (Israel Government Press Office-IMRA)
  • Israel Raps Sweden Envoy after Minister's Remarks on Palestinian "Desperation"
    The director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold, reprimanded the Swedish ambassador to Israel Carl Magnus Nesser on Monday after Sweden's foreign minister appeared to draw a connection between the Paris attacks and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Margot Wallstrom, Sweden's minister of foreign affairs, told Sweden's state television: "Once again we return to situations like that in the Middle East, especially (concerning) Palestinians who think: There is no future for us, we must accept a desperate situation or resort to violence." Gold said, "Any connection between Islamic State terror and the Palestinian issue is baseless and that [the Swedish minister's] comments may be interpreted as a justification of Palestinian terror."  (Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
  • The World Can't Choose Which Terrorists It Gets to Support - Moshe Arens
    With all current attention focused on the terror acts committed by ISIS in Paris last Friday, ISIS is not the only terrorist organization engaged in killing innocent civilians. There are not good terrorists and bad terrorists - all terrorists are bad, there is no excuse for terrorism, and all terrorist organizations need to be fought tooth and nail.
        The entire world has condemned the acts of terror committed in Paris. Is there a reason why nobody outside Israel has condemned the murder of Rabbi Litman and his son [on Friday]? The terrorist organizations that direct their activities primarily against Israelis or Jewish targets outside Israel seem to be granted a certain amount of license for their activities by many in the world. The writer served as Israel's Minister of Defense three times and once as Minister of Foreign Affairs. (Ha'aretz)
  • Paris: The New Normal? - Walter Russell Mead
    Regardless of what kind of response the West ultimately launches, military efforts in the wake of the Paris attacks will not spell an end to terrorism. Nothing we do after Paris is going to make the jihad go away. We can (and we should) crush ISIS. But we can't change the reality that jihadi ideology is alive and well, feeding off the discontent and disempowerment felt so widely in the Islamic world.
        To survive and to thrive, the West will have to become more like Israel: guarding ourselves constantly against a threat that can't be eliminated. Paris simply reminds us that, like the Israelis, we live in a dangerous world. The peace and security of the Western world all depend on the vigilance of our security forces and the competence of their leaders. (American Interest)
  • The Islamist Tantrum - Bret Stephens
    Before Friday's carnage in Paris, the world was treated to the hideous spectacle of Palestinians knifing Jews in Israel. The supposed motive of these stabbings was a rumor among Palestinians - fanned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - that the Israeli government intended to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. This was a story the Israeli government adamantly denied and every serious person knew was false. Yet no senior Western leader dared call out Abbas to correct the record. Palestinian tantrums are sanctified tantrums. The violence they breed might be condemned, but the narrative on which they rest has the status of holy writ. (Wall Street Journal)
  • The Same Fight Against Radical Islam - Judith Bergman
    Most mainstream media outlets, which usually avoid any mention of the word "terrorism" with regard to terrorist attacks in Israel, found no difficulty in calling the Paris attacks by their rightful name. Agence France Presse published a list of worldwide terror attacks since 9/11. Only one country was completely missing from the list: Israel. The world embraces France with sympathy and solidarity and declarations that this terrorism must be fought hard, even with the same kind of retaliatory airstrikes that the world so intensely deplores when Israel conducts them.
        As Israelis and human beings, we also show solidarity with the French. We only wish this solidarity was truly universal and not something reserved only for Western Europeans or Americans. Israel suffers abuse for daring to defend itself against terrorism, with everyone voicing their opinions on how Israel must "show restraint." Israel and the rest of the West are fighting the same enemy - radical Islam. Failure to acknowledge this undermines the West's own fight against it. (Israel Hayom)
Observations:

Israel Has Always Been on the Side of the Free World in the War Against Terrorism - Tzipi Livni (Jerusalem Post)

  • We must understand that the attacks in Paris will not be the last attacks. Those who seek to impose radical Islamist religion by force will not be satisfied until they are victorious; we must stop them.
  • Those who believe that these issues begin and end with the situation in Syria must understand that the struggle is about the future of the entire world. Therefore, limited solutions will not help, certainly not in the long term.
  • Now is the time to move from defense to massive offense with one clear goal: to uproot the perpetrators of terrorism at their source and eliminate them. This is the directive that international powers must adopt.
  • This is a war that the world never wanted to wage, but it must wage it now. Israel is a natural partner in this fight; our country has always been on the side of the free world in the war against terrorism.

    The writer is the co-leader of the Zionist Union party and a former Israeli foreign minister.

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