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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected] In-Depth Issues:
Arafat Robs the Palestine International Bank
- Issam Abu Issa (Middle East Forum)
French Jewish Families Demand Arafat Interrogation
(AFP/Expatica)
U.S. Congressmen Urge Sanctions on Lebanon - Janine Zacharia (Jerusalem Post)
Utah County Sheriffs Get Security Tips in Israel - Justin Hill (Provo Daily Herald)
Israel Raises $750M in U.S. Bond Issue - Mati Wagner (Jerusalem Post)
New Ben-Gurion Airport Terminal Opens - Zohar Blumenkrantz and Zafrir Rinat (Ha'aretz)
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Arafat was flown to Paris for medical treatment on Friday via Amman, Jordan. Israeli officials promised Thursday that he could return to the West Bank after going abroad for treatment. His abruptly declining health raised immediate questions about a successor and the stability of the West Bank and Gaza because he controls the various Palestinian security services. In recent years Arafat has been sharply criticized by a younger generation of Palestinians for his refusal to share power, groom a successor, or promote government institutions. But as long as he lives, it is unlikely that there will be a visible succession struggle. (New York Times) The working assumption among Israeli officials is that Arafat is terminally ill. Senior Palestinian officials said Arafat's mind was not functioning and he was unaware of his surroundings. (Ha'aretz) Few tears will be shed for the ailing Arafat in Washington, which has long seen the Palestinian icon as an obstacle to peace. U.S. officials believe Arafat's death, or removal from the scene, would create new dangers but also opportunities to end the conflict with Israel. "There is definitely going to be a battle for the future Palestinian leadership," one administration official said. (Reuters) Satellite photographs "documented the movement of long convoys of trucks from various areas around Baghdad to the Syrian border" from several weapons sites in Iraq in the weeks before U.S. military operations were launched, an official of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) said Thursday. The official said the convoys are believed to include shipments of sensitive armaments, including equipment used in making plastic explosives and nuclear weapons. (Washington Times) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Sergeant Michael Chizik, 21, was killed by a Palestinian mortar shell Thursday near Morag in southern Gaza. Palestinian gunmen hit an IDF position with mortars and sniper fire, wounding six additional soldiers, three of them seriously. (Ha'aretz) Senior Palestinian figures decided Thursday that the Palestinian Legislative Council would convene shortly after Arafat's departure and speed legislation to transfer power to Abu Mazen by virtue of his role as secretary-general of the PLO's Executive Committee, the highest ranking position in the PLO after Arafat. (Ha'aretz) See also No War of Inheritance - Amira Hass The name of Abu Mazen (former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas) was brought up in every consultation as the man who could fill the vacuum in the Palestinian political system. Abu Mazen resigned from his duties in Fatah institutions after its central committee turned its back on him as prime minister. However, Fatah's grass-roots activists made it clear in unofficial consultations Thursday that they want to see Abu Mazen return and assume authority as head of the movement. Until Arafat's condition is cleared up and/or elections are held, Abu Mazen will assume all of Arafat's duties. (Ha'aretz) "It appears that Arafat's condition is serious, and if he dies, it will mark the end of an era of blood, murder, and violence, an era in which violence was viewed as the supreme objective," Maj.-Gen (res.) Amos Gilad, who heads the Defense Ministry's foreign policy department, told Channel 2 TV. Gilad said he hopes a responsible leadership will take over if Arafat dies, one that will be able to ensure that law and order prevail. "This is a possibility, as Arafat won't be there to interfere," he said. "The real test is in the long term, and whether a new Palestinian leadership will be able to curb terrorism. Meanwhile, we should be patient and prepare for another era in which the PA won't be involved in terror." (Jerusalem Post) Very few people gathered outside Arafat's headquarters Wednesday to express their concern for their leader's health. Large segments of the Palestinian public felt remote from their leader. In the past four years, and also during the Oslo years, it has been more and more difficult for Fatah activists to find in Arafat the statesman they once believed in. More and more people could be heard saying in the past months that there will be no changes as long as Arafat is alive. (Ha'aretz) Hamas terrorist Ibrahim Mohamad Faid Issa, 47, was an expert bombmaker for various terrorist organizations in Kalkilya. In addition, Issa planned a number of attacks on civilian targets within Israel which were thwarted when he was killed during IDF activity. Issa regularly wore an explosive belt and was constantly armed with weapons and grenades in order to avoid an arrest by Israeli security forces. (IDF) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Sharon's spokesman Ra'anan Gissin said, "For now, nothing is going to hinder disengagement....If indeed, as the result of developments there will arise a new leadership that will institute reforms and eradicate terrorism and stop incitement and fulfill its obligations under the road map, then we will reconsider [the disengagement plan]. We always preferred a bilateral agreement over a unilateral movement. We did it by default. We will have to gauge the new situation and then make our assessments," said Gissin. (Jerusalem Post) See also If Arafat Dies - There Will Be No Disengagement - Atila Shumpalvi Some political observers predict that if Arafat dies, one direct result could be the shelving of the unilateral disengagement plan - on the assumption that a new partner may arise. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew) The prime minister put the disengagement plan into play based on the assumption that there was no partner on the Palestinian side. If Arafat leaves the arena now, the basis of the process will change completely. Two developments may temper the extent of the violence in the event of Arafat's death: his decreased popularity in the territories (despite the fact that residents still see him as a symbol), and the fact that Israel was not portrayed as attempting to harm him. According to Brigadier General (res.) Shalom Harari, a senior military analyst of Palestinian affairs, the PLO's old guard is expected to take initial control of the leadership, but the key to the future will rest in the hands of those who lead the Palestinian security apparatus: Mohammed Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub, Tawfik Tirawi, and Mohammed al-Hindi. Harari expects that a more profound power struggle between the PLO and the Hamas will take place. "There will be two governments: the Fatah leadership against the Islamic organizations." (Ha'aretz) Efforts to renew American involvement between Israel and the Palestinians will be significantly boosted with the passing of the man who has been described as the obstacle to any settlement or compromise. Without Arafat in the arena, pressure on Israel will mount to coordinate the withdrawal from Gaza and the northern West Bank with the PA. Sharon will try to stick to his plan and delay political dialogue with the PA until it becomes clear whether there is a stable leadership on the Palestinian side that both wants and is able to fight terrorism. (Ha'aretz) See also Good and Bad Scenarios - Ze'ev Schiff (Ha'aretz) For more than 30 years, Yasser Arafat has symbolized the Age of Immobilism in Arab politics. This week's news that Arafat is seriously ill is a reminder that Arabs are entering a new era. The icebergs that have frozen Arab political life are breaking up. I first interviewed Arafat in 1981 at his headquarters in Beirut. Summarizing that interview, I wrote that Arafat had learned an unfortunate lesson: "It is much easier to stand still than to try to move forward." That could be the epitaph for a whole generation of Arab leaders. With the connivance of the U.S., and with the permanent excuse of the Arab-Israeli conflict, they clung to the status quo year after year, decade after decade. (Washington Post) See also Middle East Movement - Editorial For the Gaza withdrawal to jump-start the Bush road map, moderate Palestinians must be coaxed into setting up a responsible administration in the territory that will curb violence against Israelis both before and after the withdrawal and demonstrate a capacity for statehood. Arafat's illness might make that job more complicated in the short term, but if his departure from the scene proves permanent, a major opportunity will open. U.S. diplomacy will be needed to encourage the election of new Palestinian leaders, orchestrate support from other Arab and European governments, and stimulate fresh negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. (Washington Post) Today, the central forum for the terrorists' discourse is not covert phone communications but the Internet, where Islamist Web sites and chat rooms are filled with evaluations of current events, discussions of strategy, and elaborations of jihadist ideology. Radicals who were downcast in 2002 about the rapid defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan now feel exuberant about the global situation and, above all, the events in Iraq. Moreover, the radicals see themselves as gaining ground in their effort to convince other Muslims around the world that jihad is a religiously required military obligation. Daniel Benjamin was a director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff under President Bill Clinton. Gabriel Weimann is professor of communications at the University of Haifa in Israel. (New York Times) Safe in their mountain mausoleum at Qardaha lie the bodies of Syria's former strongman, president Hafez Al-Assad, alongside his beloved son and intended political heir Basel, who died in a car crash a decade ago. Dead, but far from forgotten, the cult of the two Assads overshadows today's president, Bashar Al-Assad, the old leader's second son. Pictures and posters of Hafez gazing benignly over his country are still omnipresent four years after his death, as are gigantic statues of the man, poised in city squares or on strategic hilltops. Basel is also constantly depicted, his face shown bearded and with dark shades on the windscreens of cars and trucks, on signs along the highways, at the entrance arches to factories and military bases across the nation. (The Australian) Weekend Features
A remarkable and previously unpublished wartime work by an emigre Russian Jew in France has taken the world of publishing by storm. Irene Nemirovsky, considered one of the most talented and celebrated authors in Paris in the 1920s and 30s, died in Auschwitz on August 17, 1942. Her daughter Denise took with her into hiding the thick leather binder that had never left her mother's side. In the mid-1970s Denise began to transcribe what she found inside. Written in minuscule letters of barely a millimeter, on cheap wartime paper, were two completed novels. Storm in June is a series of vital, vivid, and often cruel tableaux of families and individuals during the panic-stricken exodus of June 1940 that saw half of France take to the road to flee the Germans. Dolce is a more studied and literary portrait of a small village, Bussy, at the very beginning of the occupation, and of the first tentative complicities of collaboration. (Guardian-UK) The Jews' situation in France is indicative of the condition of French society. Substantial anti-Semitic violence in recent years underscores several of the country's major problems. The government affirms its determination to combat anti-Semitism while at the same time continuing to feed the anti-Semitic discourse at its origins. The ongoing anti-Jewish aggression has created a trend toward mental and behavioral ghettoization of the French Jewish community, as many Jews now feel secure only in a Jewish environment. For the same reason, the enrollment in Jewish day schools has increased. In a 2003 poll, almost 20% of French Jews said they intend to leave France. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Jewish and pro-Israel organizations are demanding that Columbia University in New York fire a Jordanian professor of Palestinian origin who allegedly expressed anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic views in class and displayed a hostility toward Israeli and Jewish students. Joseph Massad, assistant professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, compared Israel to the Nazis and argued that the Jewish state has no right to exist. Massad asked one Israeli student who had served in the army, "How many Palestinians did you kill?" (Ha'aretz) When Roman Greenberg boxes, his expression hardly ever changes. His boxing trunks are emblazoned with a huge Star of David, and you can see the tautness and purpose in his eyes. The goal of Roman Greenberg, the Israeli boxer from London, is clear and ambitious: to become the World Heavyweight Champion within two years. Greenberg's record as a professional now stands at 16 victories in 16 bouts. Respected experts, including Muhammad Ali's trainer Angelo Dundee, as well as other observers, believe that Greenberg could be the real thing. (Ha'aretz) Observations: The Post-Arafat Scene - Barry Rubin (Jerusalem Post)
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