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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in association with Access/Middle East by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Why the Iraqis Still Seem to Support Saddam - Essam Al-Ghalib (Arab News-Saudi Arabia)
"People Have to Know the Horrors I've Seen" - Valerie Grove (London Times)
Palestinian Ambulances Used for Terror - Sami Viskin (Lancet)
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News Resources - North America and Europe:
Israel's new foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, met with top U.S. officials Monday including President Bush. Shalom said the pending confirmation of Abu Mazen as Palestinian prime minister opens a "new path" toward a renewed peace process, but efforts will go nowhere unless he launches an early crackdown against Palestinian terrorist factions. "I think that, if Abu Mazen will not take the right measures against terror when he comes into office, in his first or second month, he won't be able to do it after that," Shalom said. Earlier, White House security adviser Condoleezza Rice told the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC that the administration expects comments from the two parties on the roadmap, but said the document itself will not be renegotiated. (VOA News) See also Text of Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's Address to AIPAC (Foreign Ministry) U.S. covert teams have been operating in urban areas in Iraq trying to kill members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle, including Baath Party officials and Special Republican Guard commanders, according to U.S. and other knowledgeable officials. The covert teams, from the CIA's paramilitary division and the military's special operations group, include snipers and demolition experts schooled in setting house and car bombs. They have reportedly killed more than a handful of individuals. (Washington Post) The antiwar movement in France has turned anti-Israeli, as demonstrations against the war in Iraq have evolved into a battleground for French Arab Muslims to attack Israel and even Jews to protest Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. French Arab teenagers chanted slogans pledging war and martyrdom in the name of both Palestinians and Iraqis and against Israel. "We are all Palestinians, we are all Iraqis, we are all kamikazes!" chanted one group. (New York Times) News Resources - Israel, the Mideast, and Asia:
Iraq may be hiding forbidden long-range surface-to-surface missiles and chemical and biological weapons in Syria, Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Military Intelligence research unit, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday. Iraq had been trying to increase the number of Scud missiles at its disposal. The missile cargo captured by the U.S. in late 2002 on a ship bound for Yemen from North Korea was in fact destined for Iraq. The Americans released the ship after Yemen promised to keep the missiles itself. In addition, the Syrians at one point tried to find Scud missiles for Iraq. (Ha'aretz) Three Israeli Arab residents of Jaljulya have been arrested on suspicion that they ran an Islamic Jihad bomb-making lab. They are suspected of planning to carry out several terror attacks, including the detonation of a car bomb near a military base and a similar attack at a central bus station. (Ha'aretz) Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp have named their main square after the suicide bomber who killed four U.S. Marines in Iraq on Saturday. "We want to honor the brave Iraqi officer who carried out the first suicide attack against the American and British occupiers," a senior Palestinian official in Jenin said Monday. "We hope there will be more suicide operations in the coming days." (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
The British prime minister's repeated need to refer in the same breath as Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and especially the diplomatic road map for resolving this conflict, is perplexing, for the present Iraqi conflict has absolutely nothing to do with Israel. It is as though the war on Iraq requires that the West now balance its military activities in an Arab state by taking a harder line on Israel. If the EU, Russia, and the UN failed adequately to confront Iraq's non-compliance with UN resolutions, why should Israel expect that they will provide any fair judgment of its security situation? If the quartet were to give the Palestinian leadership a passing grade in the war on terrorism, when it still has done nothing at all to root it out, the lives of Israeli citizens would again be put at risk. The best way to help the postwar peace process is to stop the diplomacy of linkage, which undermines the credibility of its advocates and their ability to play any role in an eventual Arab-Israeli peace settlement. (Financial Times-UK) Tony Blair has very specific problems in his own Labour Party. His alliance with the Bush administration and his acquiescence in a war without a UN mandate have combined to produce a hemorrhage in the credibility of his leadership. So Blair is gambling everything on persuading the Americans to throw their full weight behind the peace process by publishing the road map for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Blair knows that taking shots at Israel is a cost-free exercise in diplomatic terms and that he will earn a reprieve, albeit brief, from his party if he can be seen to produce a tangible dividend for his unblinking support of Washington. (Jerusalem Post) Leaders of American Jewish organizations are increasingly concerned the U.S. "debt" to its allies in Europe will be repaid at Israel's expense, sooner than Jerusalem would even like to think about. "Why, at the height of a war in Iraq, does the road map have to be put on the table?" asks David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. (Ha'aretz) Coalition forces in Iraq are coming up against the same kind of problems that the IDF has faced in combating Palestinian terrorists. Television coverage of British troops searching for Baath activists in Basra could have been mistaken for pictures of the IDF conducting searches in Tulkarm. Now, they are also having to deal with suicide bombers and car bombs. Those who are hoping that after Iraq, Israel will come under pressure from the administration in Washington to make concessions to Arafat, may be in for a disappointment. The experience in Iraq is likely to bring about a better understanding, and maybe even sympathy, for Israel engaged in a battle against Palestinian terror, as well as the recognition that no progress can be made toward a reconciliation with the Palestinians until this terrorism has been subdued. (Ha'aretz) Sharon: Israel is Already Talking with the Palestinians - Gideon Alon (Ha'aretz) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday:
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