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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DAILY ALERT

 August 19, 2002
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In-Depth Issue:

EU Subsidizes Middle East Terrorism - Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff (Die Zeit)

    Stephen Bloomberg was driving home on August 5, 2001, when Palestinian terrorists opened fire at his car. His wife Techiya was killed and he and his 14-year-old daughter Tzippi were seriously injured.
    The Israelis have in custody the purported shooter, Farid Azouni, a Palestinian policeman, as well as the one who sent him, Samar Abu Hania, the chief of police in Kalkilya.
    Bloomberg has filed suit in Tel Aviv district court, demanding 20 million Euros in damages from the European Union which transfers 10 million Euros a month to pay the salaries of Arafat's civil servants.
    "My parents pay taxes in England and look on as their money goes to sponsor an organization that helped kill my wife and injure my child and me," he says.
    Nasser Awis, a public servant in the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence service, planned three attacks that left a total of 20 dead and 120 injured. Suicide bomber Mohammad Hashaikh was a policeman from Nablus. Suicide attacker Abdel Karim Abu Nafa was a policeman from Jericho. All civil servants, all subsidized by Europe, all isolated incidents?
    Everyone involved within Arafat's circle are officials and draw part of their salaries from Europe. They're not stopping terrorism, they're bragging about it. [Trans. S. Sharkansky]

Uzbekistan: Muslim Ally in the War on Terrorism - Robert Mott

    Secular Muslim Uzbekistan has become a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, allowing U.S. forces to use a military base not far from the Afghan border as a staging base, and giving the U.S. a foothold in Russia's backyard in a region with ample reserves of oil and natural gas.
    In return, Washington is providing generous aid - $160 million last year.
    While the regime has jailed thousands of Muslim extremists, it also has maintained and restored mosques and other artifacts of the country's past, and provides support for, and control of, the country's religious establishment. (Sacramento Bee)

Nablus' Al-Najah University: Breeding Ground for Homicide Bombers

    See 18 photos of Al-Najah University students rallying in support of jihad (holy war). (Israel Defense Forces)

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News Resources - USA and Europe:

  • Trial Ceasefire Set for Gaza, Bethlehem
    Israeli troops will start a trial withdrawal from reoccupied territory in the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem on condition that the Palestinians take responsibility for reducing tensions in those places, according to an agreement reached on Sunday in Tel Aviv between Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Palestinian Authority Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyehat. (New York Times)
  • Al Qaeda Videotape Library Found
    A large archive of al Qaeda videotapes obtained by CNN in Afghanistan sheds new light on Osama bin Laden's terror network, revealing images of chemical gas experiments on dogs, lessons on making explosives, and terrorist training tactics. (CNN)
  • Students Brave Terrorism in Israel
    On Aug. 2, the State Department renewed a special advisory warning U.S. citizens to defer travel to Israel, two days after a bomb attack in a cafeteria at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Yet the killings and the advisory did little to dampen the enthusiasm of other American students in the holy city. (Insight - Washington Times)

    • News Resources - Israel and Mideast:

  • Palestinians Showing Signs of Fatigue
    In recent days, numerous Israeli decision-makers have adopted the assessment - based on secret conversations with Palestinian sources - that after nearly two years, the Palestinians are tiring of the violent conflict and are seeking a respite. This view is supported by IDF officers in the field, who were able to reconquer the Palestinian cities without opposition. "The Palestinians are tired," said one senior officer. "They no longer want to fight and don't really understand what they're fighting for. Except for a group of terrorists that continues to plan attacks, most of the population wants to return to normal life....They dream of turning the clock back two years." (Maariv)
  • IDF Denies Using Palestinians as "Human Shields"
    On August 14, Ahmed Abu Mohsan, 19, was killed by Palestinian gunfire after IDF soldiers had him knock on the door of a neighbor they sought to arrest in the West Bank village of Tubas. According to the IDF, the "neighbor procedure" has been in use for 20 years and the death of Mohsan was the first of its kind. More often, the fugitive surrenders, which in some cases saves the lives of innocent people inside the house as well. (Jerusalem Post)
        See also Use Relatives, Not Neighbors
    Deputy Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said Monday that the army should use family members instead of neighbors for this purpose. (Ha'aretz)
  • Former PLO Treasurer Says Arafat Stole Aid Funds
    The PLO's former treasurer, Jaweed al-Ghussein, 71, was held under house arrest in Gaza for a year and a half until two weeks ago, and then spirited out of the country with Israeli help. Now in London for medical treatment, al-Ghussein charges that Arafat "took aid money and contributions that were earmarked for the Palestinian people to his own account." (Ha'aretz)
        See also Helping Ghussein Escape a "Humanitarian Act" (Jerusalem Post)
  • American Jews Defend Israel's Image
    In recent months there has been some erosion in support for Israel and an increase in the number of those taking a neutral position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to a new American Jewish Committee poll, the American public is simply starting to tire of both Israelis and Palestinians. In response, U.S. Jewish organizations are about to launch a nationwide television advertising campaign. (Ha'aretz)

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

  • No Time for Equivocation - Mortimer B. Zuckerman
    President Bush makes the case succinctly and correctly when he calls Baghdad the "worst regime in possession of the worst weapons." Are we simply to wait while Saddam accumulates more weapons of annihilation and amuses himself in deciding which terrorist group to favor with a gift of his lethal toys? If we opt to live with a nightmare, it will only get worse. Much worse. (U.S. News)
  • Bush versus Saddam - With Israel in the Middle - Ze'ev Schiff
    There is general agreement that the Iraqis have a relatively large quantity of chemical weaponry and of jet propellants that will ensure the explosion of a chemical warhead on a missile at a certain altitude. Iraq also still has about 70 to 80 Scud and Al-Hussein missiles. The senior Iraqi command needs to know, even before the war breaks out, that if they follow orders to operate weapons of mass destruction, each of them will be considered personally responsible and will be tried as a war criminal. In any case, if Iraq hits Israel, Israel must give a military response that will make its mark in the Iraqi memory and in the Arab memory as a whole.
        Although outwardly it looks as though Washington has no partner in the war against Saddam Hussein, negotiations with Turkey are drawing to a conclusion and involve very extensive foreign aid. It appears that agreements have been reached with Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman, as well. (Ha'aretz)
  • State Department "Breaks Ranks" with the President - William Kristol
    The secretary of state allows his top aides to tell the New York Times on background that he disagrees with the president on Iraq and is desperately trying to restrain him. And according to the Washington Post, when told that previous secretaries of state had an hour alone every week to talk foreign policy with the president, Powell is reported to have asked, "But what would I do with the other 55 minutes?" What he could do is spend those minutes figuring out how best to execute the president's policy - or he could step aside and let someone else do the job. (Weekly Standard)

    • Talking Points:

    Bernard Lewis Looks at the Arab World - Michael Steinberger
          (Financial Times - UK)

    Historian Bernard Lewis, 86, is the author of the international bestseller What Went Wrong? The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East.

    • On Sept. 11: "I was surprised that they were able to do something on such a scale, and with such meaningless ferocity. I was also enormously impressed with the civilized response of the American public in general, the concern not to condemn Islam as a whole. I obviously didn't predict an atrocity like this, but I had been saying for a long time that something had gone radically wrong in the Arab world and that there was a growing hostility to the West that was likely to express itself violently."
    • The Saudis: "Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation obtained total control of Texas and had at its disposal all the oil revenues, and used this money to establish a network of well-endowed schools and colleges all over Christendom peddling their particular brand of Christianity. This is what the Saudis have done with Wahhabism. The oil money has enabled them to spread this fanatical, destructive form of Islam all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the West. Without oil and the creation of the Saudi kingdom, Wahhabism would have remained a lunatic fringe in a marginal country."
    • The subjugation of women is probably the single biggest cause of the problems besetting the Arabs. "You suppress one half of the population and you bring up the other half in this autocratic, hierarchical household. It is a culture of command and obedience."
    • Lewis supports an American attack on Iraq: "Of all the oil-producing countries, pre-Saddam Iraq made the best use of its oil revenues. It built a fine infrastructure, an excellent educational system. And I do believe that among the other Iraqi people there are those who are willing and able to initiate the development of democratic institutions."

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