Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
If your email program has difficulty viewing this page, see web version.

DAILY ALERT

December 31, 2004

To contact the Presidents Conference:
[email protected]

In-Depth Issue:

Israelis Braced for New Tunnel Attacks - Tsafriri Abayov (Scotsman-UK)
    The Israeli army is digging trenches around Gaza Strip outposts amid fears Palestinian militants are excavating explosives-laden tunnels under military installations, suspicious that Hamas - which killed six Israeli soldiers by setting off explosives in tunnels under Gaza bases this year - is planning more such attacks, officials said Thursday.


The Chemical Threat: An Easier, but Less Deadly, Recipe for Terror - Joby Warrick (Washington Post)
    Last year, Texas gun enthusiast William Krar legally purchased materials to make a highly lethal gas called hydrogen cyanide, which he stored at home.
    Krar might have killed hundreds of people, but a botched package delivery exposed his plans and led to his arrest.
    Weapons experts describe a widespread availability of raw materials for chemical terrorism, leading them to believe the odds for a chemical attack are relatively high, compared with biological or nuclear terrorism.
    "A crude chemical attack is within the reach of any reasonably professional terrorist group," said Jeffrey Bale, a senior researcher at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif.
    Somewhat comforting, experts say, is the fact that assembling and dispersing deadly chemicals remain complicated and dangerous for amateurs.


Documents Show Citigroup Managed Arafat Investments - Vernon Silver (Bloomberg/Houston Chronicle)
    Citigroup, which has denied handling accounts for Yasser Arafat, managed equity fund investments for Arafat's Palestine Commercial Services Co., newly disclosed PA financial records and interviews show.
    The investment funds were held in PCSC's "Citibank Account 7/306579/007" and were worth $6.8 million on Jan. 1, 2003, according to a valuation by Standard & Poor's.
    The Palestine Investment Fund posted an 18-page S&P report on the Citigroup account on its Web site this month.


Vatican Paper Raps Sri Lanka on Israeli Aid (Correction) (Catholic World News)
    The following is a corrected version of a story that appeared earlier this week, in which a crucial error in translation caused a serious misinterpretation of the news.
    CWNews apologizes for the error.

    The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has denounced a decision by Sri Lanka for putting unnecessary restrictions on an Israeli offer to furnish medical help.


Number of Muslim, Christian Arab Volunteers in IDF Growing - Amos Harel (Ha'aretz)
    While five soldiers from the IDF Desert Reconnaissance Unit (the so-called Bedouin unit) were killed in an attack on an army outpost near Rafah earlier this month, most of the dead were not Bedouin: Three of the soldiers were Muslim Arabs who had volunteered for military service.


One Dead, Two Injured in Egyptian Muslim-Christian Clash (Reuters)
    One man died and two others were injured in southern Egypt, a police source said on Thursday, in the latest in a series of clashes between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.
    On Wednesday dozens of Muslims threw stones at a private building in Damshaw Hashim village, which they believed a Christian resident was turning into a church without state permission.
    Members of the Christian Coptic minority, who make up 5-10% of Egypt's 70 million people, say they face restrictions on building churches, among other problems.


Israeli Economy Picking Up Pace (BBC News)
    Israel's economy is forecast to grow by 4.2% in 2004 as it continues to emerge from a three-year recession.
    The main driver of the faster-than-expected expansion has been exports, with tourism seeing a strong rebound.
    The economy is benefiting from a quieter period in Palestinian-Israeli violence and a pick-up in global demand for technology products.


Israel Military Industries Wins Tender for Five Chemical Plants in India - Amnon Barzilai (Ha'aretz)
    Israel Military Industries has won a tender to set up five chemical plants to develop explosive materials in India as part of a $140 million deal with the Indian Defense Ministry, IMI announced Tuesday.


Israeli Nano-Lubricant Could Mean No More Oil Changes (NanoTechwire.com)
    NanoLub is the world's first synthetic lubricant to be based on spherical inorganic nanoparticles.
    NanoLub dramatically outperforms every known commercial solid lubricant marketed today.
    Its creator, Rehovot-based ApNano Materials, has been selected by the U.S. investing journal Red Herring as one of the top 100 innovators that will drive global markets in 2005.


New Israeli Gel Promotes Healing by Gluing Bone Pieces Together (News-Medical.Net)
    A new material that fuses biological and synthetic substances at the molecular level speeds bone and cartilage repair, say its creators at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
    A report on the work, authored Dror Seliktar of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, was published online in the November 2004 Biomaterials journal.


Israel Tourist Entries Up 44% - Zeev Klein (Globes)
    Tourist entries rose 44% in January-November 2004, averaging 123,500 a month, compared to 2003, which included the war in Iraq.
    Tourist overnights at hotels were up 51%, averaging 396,400 a month.


Santa Feans Volunteer in Israel - Yasmin Khan (New Mexican)
    Ben Morrow spent his last vacation painting gas cans on a military base. He slept in barracks, dined on olives and hummus, and was locked in with other "vacationers" every night when the base's gates closed.
    Morrow, 76, the rabbi emeritus of Santa Fe's Temple Beth Shalom, has volunteered for this working vacation for 14 consecutive years through Sar-El Volunteers for Israel.
    Since 1973, the organization has allowed thousands of people to volunteer in hospitals, military bases, food-producing gardens, and work in other non-combatant positions to provide manpower to replace Israeli soldiers.
    The volunteers pay air fare and transportation, but food and lodging is provided by Sar-El.


Search

Key Links

Media Contact Information

Back Issues


Related Publications:
Israel Campus Beat Israel HighWay
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

  • Abbas Embraces Leading Palestinian Gunman
    Zakaria Zubeidi, the leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin, carried a smiling Mahmoud Abbas on his shoulders Thursday, endorsing the presidential candidate. Zubeidi, who is idolized for his swagger and wanted by Israel for organizing attacks and sending suicide bombers into Israeli cities, and other gunmen hoisted aloft Abbas, who smiled and waved to about 3,000 Palestinians gathered around. "When we demand security," Abbas said, "we demand it for all our citizens, including our wanted brothers," in a reference to Zubeidi and his group.
        Israel has been quietly backing Abbas, considering him a moderate who has called attacks against Israelis a mistake. However, with Abbas constantly referring to Arafat as his guide and associating with militants like Zubeidi, some Israelis are having second thoughts. Israeli analyst Dan Scheuftan warned that Abbas' embracing of Zubeidi might backfire. "If he believes that by associating with Zubeidi, he gets control of him," Scheuftan said, "this is not the case."  (AP/San Francisco Chronicle)
        See also A Warning and a Welcome for Abbas in Jenin - Matthew Gutman
    When the 20 Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades gunmen popped off dozens of rounds from their M-16s, the audience at Abbas' campaign stop in Jenin Thursday first flinched, then hoped the arcing bullets would land elsewhere. "That is our greeting to Abu Mazen (Abbas)," crowed Zakaria Zubeidi. Then his men loosed another ear-splitting fusillade directly over Abbas' silver-haired head. Zubeidi's version of the 21-gun salute was as much a warning as a welcome to the Palestinian leader. When the rally and the ballistic fireworks ended, it was Zubeidi's name, and not Abbas', that the crowd chanted.
        After the rally Zubeidi said, "Let us be clear. I do not support the political path of Abu Mazen. I support him because I support the Fatah candidate." Zubeidi and other Fatah men who switched their allegiance from jailed Fatah boss Marwan Barghouti to Abbas now "understand that Fatah needs to unify in order to survive," says Palestinian analyst Iyad al-Malki. Also at stake are jobs. "I only look forward to taking a role in the next Palestinian leadership, where I will continue to fight for the Palestinians," Zubeidi said. (Jerusalem Post)
        See also IDF Thwarts Shooting Attack by Zubeidi's Brother - Margot Dudkevitch
    Fatah Tanzim commander Jibril Zubeidi was one of three fugitives arrested near Jenin Thursday. Jibril, who has been wanted for his involvement in a number of shooting attacks, is the brother of Zakariya Zubeidi, leader of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin. An IDF officer said that Jibril Zubeidi was en route to perpetrate a shooting attack when he was caught. Troops later retrieved his M-16 rifle with a telescopic sight. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Abbas Says No Peace with Israel Barrier
    Campaigning in Kalkilya, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday there would be no peace until Israel tore down its West Bank security barrier. Israel says the barrier is meant to keep suicide bombers out of its cities. (Reuters)
  • Insurgent Groups Warn Iraqis Against Voting
    The militant group Ansar al-Sunna and two other insurgent groups issued a statement Thursday against voting in the Iraqi election scheduled for Jan. 30. "Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit," the statement said. "This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God - Muslims' doctrine." Ansar al-Sunna had earlier posted a manifesto on its Web site saying democracy amounted to idolizing human beings. The statement Thursday reiterated that "anyone who accepts to take part in this dirty farce will not be safe." The statements by the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgent groups seemed aimed at countering Shi'ite leaders' declarations that voting in the election was every Muslim's duty. (AP/New York Times)
  • Top Kofi Annan Aide Insults Israeli Leader - Benny Avni
    Israel's UN ambassador Dan Gillerman Wednesday urged that Secretary-General Annan fire his top adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, for his anti-Israel tirades. "We've had enough," Gillerman said. Speaking on Belgian radio and to the Belgian senate last week, Brahimi, an Algerian national, compared Sharon to an assassin, urged Europeans to increase their pressure on Israel, and said that the world is too accepting of "cynical and ridiculous" Israeli positions on peace with the Palestinian Arabs, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. America has urged the UN to be more even-handed in its approach to the Middle East; it is seen by Washington as heavily pro-Arab. (New York Sun)
  • News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

  • Three Israelis Dead, Seven Missing as Tsunami Toll Soars
    The Foreign Ministry Thursday identified three Israeli tourists killed in Sunday's tsunami in Thailand. Seven other Israelis are still missing, five in Thailand and two in Sri Lanka. In Thailand alone, 713 bodies have thus far been identified as foreigners. One of the tsunami victims, 11-month-old Matan Nesima, was buried Thursday in Jerusalem by his parents, Belgian Jews. An IDF cargo plane that flew to Sri Lanka earlier this week with food and medicine returned to Israel Thursday with 43 Israelis who survived the tsunami. (Ha'aretz)
        See also Families of Missing Couple Send Out Rescue Team (Ha'aretz)
        See also Thankful Survivors Return Home - Tovah Lazaroff (Jerusalem Post)
  • Palestinians Fire Rockets, Mortars at Gaza Settlements
    Palestinians fired two Kassam rockets and three mortar shells at a southern Gaza settlement Friday. The mortars landed near a school. Two mortars fired at a northern Gaza settlement on Friday landed near a greenhouse. There were no injuries. (Jerusalem Post)
        See also IDF Continues Action Against Gaza Missile and Mortar Fire
    IDF activity against mortar and missile fire from the Gaza Strip continued Friday in Khan Yunis. Palestinian sources report four killed Thursday night as a missile fired from an Israeli pilotless plane hit them. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

  • The Year the Civilized World's Romance with Terrorists Ended - Editorial
    It is fitting that this was the year Yasser Arafat died. When the history of the war on terror is written, 2004 will be remembered as the moment when the romance of the terrorist finally faded away. Arafat was the romantic terrorist par excellence, the man who was given the podium of the UN General Assembly in 1974, just months after Palestinian gunmen had murdered 26 Israeli schoolchildren in Ma'alot. Arafat's rejection of Israel's partition offer at the 2000 Camp David talks should have finished this romance, but it did not. Nor, really, did the attacks of Sept. 11. For some people, terrorism directed against Israel or the U.S. will always have some justification.
        Last week, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas kicked off his presidential campaign by saying "the use of weapons is unacceptable because it has a negative impact on our image." It's an instructive choice of words: Abbas does not reject terrorism because it is immoral, but because it no longer sells the cause abroad.
        Another way in which 2004 witnessed the fading of the romance has to do with the myth of terrorist invincibility. In March, Israel killed Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin, a measure immediately condemned as certain to incite Palestinians to new heights of retributive fury. Instead, Israel experienced the first sustained lull in suicide attacks since the intifada began, demonstrating that countries that take tough action against terrorism get results. (Wall Street Journal)
  • Abu Mazen's Two Faces - Editorial
    Yasser Arafat's heir apparent, Mahmoud Abbas, was fetched up in Jenin on the shoulders of Zakaria Zubeidi, the local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The Brigades has been designated a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department, which reports, "Al-Aqsa has carried out shootings and suicide operations against Israeli civilians and military personnel and has killed Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel. At least five American citizens - four of them dual American-Israeli citizens - were killed in al-Aqsa's attacks. In January 2002, al-Aqsa claimed responsibility for the first suicide bombing carried out by a female."
        In his campaign speeches, Abbas has called for a "right of return" for Palestinian Arab "refugees" to Israel, code for the destruction of the Jewish state. He vowed to follow Arafat's line. Mr. Bush is expected to invite Abbas to the White House in February after his leadership is ratified in a sham election scheduled for Jan. 9. Intimidation by Abbas' PA is such that Arab voters are afraid even to be seen with the campaign literature of Abbas' rivals. (New York Sun, 31Dec04)
  • Can the UN Be Redeemed? - Dore Gold
    The UN was born in 1945 at a moment of extraordinary moral clarity. To become a founding member, states had to declare war on one of the Axis powers. There was no doubt then that Nazi Germany stood for evil and the Allies for good. But within a few years, UN standards became muddied with the addition of new members, who sought to alter the organization's ethos to serve their own authoritarian agendas.
        The change from the original 51 members to today's 191 member states meant a UN that had been dominated by democratic values became a tool of Third World authoritarians, who quickly raised the value of "noninterference" above that of human rights. This dramatic distortion came to roost in the UN failures of the 1990s, which were characterized by confusion between aggressor and victim. One reason the Oil for Food scandal went on for so long, according to former UN official Michael Soussan, was that the UN had more sympathy for Iraq's predicament than its own mandate to root out Iraq's WMD programs.
        With respect to Israel, the UN systematically condemned Israeli defensive measures, without addressing the terrorism that forced Israel to act. When the General Assembly improperly activated the UN's judicial arm, the International Court of Justice, to stop Israel's security fence, Annan's office sent reams of supporting documents to The Hague, without touching on the suicide attacks that had forced Israel to build the fence.
        The UN certainly has a role to play in giving out food and tents in an emergency. But in the critical field of international peace and security, there may be no substitute for the kinds of "coalitions of the willing" used by Bill Clinton in Kosovo and by George W. Bush in Iraq, outside of the formal authorization of the UN Security Council. These coalitions have a clear sense of who their allies and adversaries are; therefore, they are not crippled by the moral confusion that characterized the judgments of the Security Council in failed interventions over the last decade.
        The writer, Israel's former ambassador to the UN, is the author of Tower of Babble: How the UN Has Fueled Global Chaos, and is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Peace with Israel Will Take Courage, Vision, and Goodwill - Editorial
    For 5,000 years, the Jews have been tied to the Land of Israel. The dream of a return to Zion has been a perennial dream of the Jewish people in exile. The Jews in Israel and in exile have felt an affinity with the oppressed. They have been central to the struggle for justice in many lands. Thus, it is ironic that many so-called "progressives" view the Middle East through the prism of Israel as an occupying power.
        Israel cannot be defeated by conventional military force. This realization has been the basis of the peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt. Every state has an inherent right to self-defense and self-preservation and the Israelis cannot be expected to commit national suicide. Being assured that a peace agreement will be honored is something the Israeli public must be confident of. (China Post-Taiwan)
  • When Minorities Rule in the Middle East - Historical Realities - Martin Kramer
    Minority rule has a long tradition in the Middle East, where it has never had the same stigma that the modern West attaches to it. We have seen Alawi rule in Syria (where Sunnis are a majority), Sunni rule in Iraq (where Shi'ites are the largest group), Hashemite rule in Jordan (imported from Arabia, over a Palestinian majority), and dynastic rule throughout the Persian Gulf (where foreigners outnumber natives). Americans see democratization as a process that will loosen the grip of tyrannical rule. Middle Easterners see it as a lever to shift power among different ethnic and sectarian groups, overturning social hierarchies established by a thousand years of internal struggles.
        More important than democracy is the principle of self-determination for sub-national groups, majorities and minorities, the guarantee of autonomous control of their daily lives. The writer, the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute, is senior research fellow and former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
  • Time to Pull the Plug? - Amir Taheri
    Most Arab satellite networks, especially Al-Jazeera, which is owned by the ruler of Qatar, are not really interested in news. They have a message to relay, based on the claim that Arabs are victims of a plot hatched by the Western powers, especially the U.S., that wish to re-colonize the Arab world, steal its natural resources, notably oil, and impose their corrupt culture on Muslim nations.
        The most dramatic symbol of that conspiracy is Palestine where Israel, presumably acting on behalf of the U.S., is engaged in wanton killing of innocent civilians. In Iraq, "the resistance" - meaning terrorists who seize hostages, chop heads, and kill Iraqis as well as Americans - are seen as upholding "Arab honor." These themes are hammered in on a 24-hour basis and in countless so-called news bulletins, plus talk shows and long monologues, including some by Osama bin Laden, Abu-Musaab al-Zarqawi, and other terrorist leaders. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Iran: The Other Middle East Frontline - Editorial
    With the U.S. and Europe fixated on Iraq, where insurgents are trying to stop the masses from adopting democracy, next door in Iran a parallel struggle for democracy remains largely unnoticed. Young Iranians, who make up more than half the population and are restless from massive unemployment, have been pushing for Western-style political and social reforms for nearly a decade. But they've been losing ground to the conservative ruling clerics, especially over the last year, and need discreet international support. (Christian Science Monitor)
  • Radical Islam in The Netherlands: A Case Study of a Failed European Policy - Manfred Gerstenfeld
    On December 23, 2004, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior published a 60-page report entitled From Dawa to Jihad. Prepared by the Dutch general intelligence service (AIVD), it describes radical Islam and examines how to meet its threat to Dutch society. Among the close to one million Dutch Muslims, about 95% are moderates. This implies that there are up to 50,000 potential radicals. The capability of Dutch society to resist the threat of radical Islam is considered low, though recently a greater desire has become apparent among the Dutch population to become more resistant.
        An earlier AIVD report dealt with Saudi influences in The Netherlands, mentioning a number of mosque organizations that originated from Saudi missions and financing. The Dutch report places the blame for the origins of the problem squarely on the deeply-rooted ideology of fierce opposition to the Western way of life among certain Muslim groups. It does not claim that the problem of radical Muslims would disappear if there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel and Jews are not mentioned in the report. (ICA/JCPA)
        See also After a Filmmaker's Murder, the Dutch Creed of Tolerance Has Come Under Siege - Ian Burama (New Yorker)
  • There is More to Be Explored in Columbia University's Middle East Studies than Israel - Nat Hentoff
    According to Ariel Beery, a student in Columbia's Middle East studies department, "They teach everything in the context of one special, small struggle, where there are 23 countries out there where minorities are being oppressed, where women are bound to their homes, where homosexuals are put in jail. They're ignoring the rest of the Middle East in favor of a small dimension of it." The answer is to provide an actually diversified Middle East studies department. It's not about bringing in pro-Israel professors, but scholars who teach - not inculcate. (Village Voice)

    Weekend Features:

  • The Ayatollah and I - Sharon Shenhav
    "Muslim women don't have a problem with the fact that their husbands have a few other wives," declared the Iranian ayatollah. I disagreed, and answered him: "I'm a woman, and I can tell you that women do not want to be one of several wives." Two chador-clad Muslim Iranian women nodded their heads in agreement. The ayatollah - a Shi'ite religious leader and professor of Islamic Law in Teheran - and I - a women's rights lawyer from Jerusalem - became old hands at sparring at an interfaith conference on Family Law and Religious Law at the Rockefeller Foundation's Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, last spring. The writer is director of the International Jewish Women's Rights Project, a joint project of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the International Council of Jewish Women. (Jerusalem Post)
  • What Really Happened in 1948 - Sarah El Shazly
    Everyone knows the Jewish version and the Arab version of what happened in 1948. But there is a third side, that of those who lived there and still do - the Israeli Arabs. Why did Arabs flee the area that became Israel? After all, the ones who remained in their homes still live there today and prosper. The fact is that the Arab world warned the Palestinians against staying with the Jews. They also warned them that Arabs were going in to fight the Zionists and that the Palestinians should leave to avoid getting hurt. Many Palestinians trusted these Arab leaders and left as instructed. Jews begged Arabs to stay and live with them, while Arabs from foreign countries told them to leave right away.
        As a Palestinian, I ask the world to please stop exploiting our issue. Where's the heroism in a small child throwing rocks at a tank? Either warn the child to stay away or just shut up! To all those invested in driving our children to die, please, stay away from us. (FrontPageMagazine)
  • Grants, Job Help, Other Incentives Draw Jews to New Lives in Israel - Mary Beth Sheridan
    Nearly 3,000 Jews from North America have put down roots in Israel this year - "a number we didn't see for a generation," said Michael Landsberg of the Jewish Agency for Israel. Many factors are behind the increase, ranging from a recent abatement in violence in Israel to a post-9/11 sense among Americans that they could be targeted anywhere, Jewish groups said. But this is also a triumph of marketing: Israelis are eagerly reaching out to North American Jews, offering everything from financial incentives to help in cutting red tape. (Washington Post)
        See also U.S. Jews Starting New Lives in Israel (New York Daily News)
  • Ralph Goldman, Honorary Director General of the Joint Distribution Committee - Interview at 90 - Yair Sheleg
    When he is in Israel, 90-year-old Goldman shows up every day at the Jerusalem office of the Joint Distribution Committee. Upon returning home, he spends another "hour or two every evening" on the phone to the Joint's New York offices dealing with issues ranging from archival matters to aid to Jews in the former Soviet Union. (Ha'aretz)
  • Observations:

    Crossing the Line of the Acceptable - Malcolm Hoenlein (Ha'aretz)

    • There have been thousands of articles in the American press regarding an FBI investigation involving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), though no charges have in fact been lodged despite the more than year-long investigation. It is still hard to discern exactly what wrong has allegedly been committed that would justify this highly publicized case.
    • I think it is safe to say that American Jews are among the most patriotic and loyal of American citizens. Certainly this is true of those who are the targets of this investigation. As a community we respect the authority of government and support the rule of law. Historical realities have loaded on us a lot of baggage, so that when a Jew is charged, particularly in such sensitive areas, it is seen as a communal, not just a personal, matter.
    • In recent months there have been repeated stories about the "neo-cons," often a code word for Jews, or widespread canards placing the onus on Jews for everything from 9/11 to the war in Iraq. The implicit references to "dual loyalty" cannot be overlooked, especially when reliable studies show that a significant percentage of Americans still believe this baseless and bigoted idea.
    • American Jews care about Israel and advocate proudly in support of the special U.S.-Israel relationship. So do many other Americans with historical or ethnic ties to other homelands overseas. The effectiveness of that advocacy has raised resentment, jealousy, and wild mythologies. These are among the factors that set the context for the reaction to the AIPAC investigation.
    • The latest revelations by investigative journalist Edwin Black and others suggested that agents took advantage of a scared, lower-level, non-Jewish Defense Department employee to set up AIPAC and others, including Richard Perle and CBS producer Adam Ciralsky.
    • If there was wrongdoing let it be exposed. We are confident that there was none and that the allegations will prove false. We want to see a conclusion to this case and that it not be allowed to "hang out there" as did the "Agent X," the "mole" and other past charges against Israel, which were without foundation but never repudiated.
    • Neither AIPAC nor the Jewish community will be cowered into silence or in any way lessen our commitment to working on behalf of the interests of the United States and its democratic ally Israel. The American people identify with Israel based on common values and world views. And no fabricated charges or allegations can undermine these fundamental bonds or commitments.

      The writer is executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.


    To subscribe to the Daily Alert, send a blank email message to:
        [email protected]
    To unsubscribe, send a blank email message to:
        [email protected]