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Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in association with the Fairness Project by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Who Controls Islamic Jihad?
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News Resources - USA and Europe:
The White House questioned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's relevance to the Middle East peace process Wednesday after the latest suicide bombing in Israel. U.S. diplomats are hoping to find new Palestinian leaders willing to curb terrorism, officials said. "In the president's eyes, Yasser Arafat has never played a role of someone who can be trusted or who was effective," said presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer. (Washington Post/AP) If there is one thing that the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad does not fear, one of its leaders said in Gaza, it is Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority. "Let's be serious," said Islamic Jihad leader Sheik Abdallah al-Shami of the PA's efforts to restructure its security forces and make other reforms. "This is all a lot of nonsense....The military units have to rebuild themselves in order to return to the resistance." (New York Times) Forty-two governors of both political parties have signed declarations expressing their solidarity with Israel. The initiative by California Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican, had the support of Republican Governors Association Chair John Rowland of Connecticut and Democratic Governors Association Chair Parris Glendening of Maryland. (SF Gate/AP) A Harvard-MIT petition calling for those universities to divest from Israel has attracted 533 signatures, vs. 5,832 for an antidivestment petition. The pro-Israel side, in other words, is winning by nearly 11 to 1. (Opinion Journal) For more, see "Chomsky�s Immoral Divestiture Petition" by Alan Dershowitz (The Tech - MIT) Daniel Ayalon, 47, an economist by training and a career diplomat, has served under Prime Ministers Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon. (Washington Post)
News Resources - Israel and Mideast:
Wednesday's homicide bombing near Megiddo took the lives of 17 Israelis; 13 were soldiers aged 19-22, including 3 young women. 519 Israelis have been murdered by Palestinians since September 2000. (Maariv) The IDF blew up several buildings inside Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah Thursday morning in retaliation for Wednesday's bus bombing, and then withdrew from the area. (Jerusalem Post) The State Department's latest draft for a regional peace initiative includes the establishment of a Palestinian state along the June 4, 1967, lines, with some minor border corrections, and a three-year timetable for its implementation. Other sections of the administration have reservations about the initiative, and President Bush has yet to receive it. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is slated to meet with Bush on Monday. (Ha'aretz) Calls for reform by Palestinian leaders have focused on the establishment of a new government, separation of authorities, holding elections, reducing the number of security apparatuses, improvement of supervision over PA funds, and fighting corruption. (MEMRI) The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has expanded and restructured its National Committee for Tourism to Israel to assist Jewish and non-Jewish groups in organizing travel and missions. (Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think Tank Analysis
(Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Speaking at West Point on June 1, President Bush said: "Our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." Let's stop waiting for terrorists to do us harm and start doing them harm. We should be planning to wipe them out, starting now (Jewish World Review) Israel should accept UN peacekeepers -- within Israel itself. Let thousands come and circulate randomly among Israelis in Jerusalem's cafes, Netanya's hotels, Haifa's buses. If Arafat and Hamas wanted to kill more Israelis, they'd have to risk killing representatives of their beloved international patron. (New Republic) Prior to any decision to renew its mandate, which expires on June 30, 2002, UNRWA must be asked to enforce the ban, required under both international law and UN policy, against using Palestinian refugee camps for military and terrorist purposes, and to draft a rehabilitation program which will build new neighborhoods for refugees outside the camps, wherever they are located. (Ha'aretz) From the time of Muhammad till the second siege of Vienna in 1683, Islamic civilization regarded the Christian West as a benighted backwater. Then things changed. (National Post ) The new anti-Semitism is gathering strength from long-repressed theological hatreds suddenly given license to emerge, from all sorts of misplaced social resentments that have nothing to do with the Jews, and (to judge from the Left-Arab coalition) from broader ideological agendas in which Israel is a mere stand-in, a conveniently vulnerable target for those not yet willing or able to take on the mighty United States. (Commentary)
The Megiddo Bombing
- Ze'ev Schiff (Ha'aretz)
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