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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: click here In-Depth Issues:
Hamas' "Executive Force" Gains Strength in Gaza - Nidal al-Mughrabi (Reuters)
Al-Qaeda Affiliate Burns Coffee Shop in Gaza - Ali Waked (Ynet News)
Palestinian Islamic Extremist Shot Dead in South Lebanon (AP/Ha'aretz)
Pro-Palestinian Protesters Attack Israeli Ambassador in Ireland - Itamar Eichner (Ynet News)
Evangelical Christians Flock to Israel - Etgar Lefkovits (Jerusalem Post)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
In a defiant speech delivered to thunderous applause from tens of thousands of supporters, many waving green Hamas flags, at the Yarmouk soccer stadium in Gaza City, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, insisted on Friday that his Hamas movement would not recognize Israel despite the cutoff in Western aid. (New York Times) Hizballah is a guerrilla army that has gone quiet, but not gone away. Its choice of a discreet location north of the Litani River is no accident - far from the busy crossroads and strategic bridges where the Lebanese Army, supported by a newly strengthened peacekeeping UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), is taking up positions near to the Israeli border. Few believe that Hizballah will create problems in the short term because it cannot afford to challenge the Lebanese Army. But they point out that south Lebanon's future remains mortgaged to the wider regional agendas of Hizballah's backers, Iran and Syria. "The south is a vital area for Hizballah. The fact that it can't conduct any sort of military operations in this area is a very big handicap, as it is for Iran and Syria," said Michael Young in the Beirut Daily Star. But there is no doubt who is the real power in what unquestionably remains Hizballah's rural stronghold. Everywhere Hizballah's Jihad al-Bina (reconstruction wing) vehicles are visible among the international aid agencies helping to rebuild homes. Israel says it expects UNIFIL to carry out its "very specific" mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to create an area free of armed Hizballah personnel south of the Litani River. "We are not expecting them to protect Israel, or to defend Israel. They are there to implement a UN resolution that is designed to help the Lebanese government implement its sovereignty over all parts of Lebanese territory," said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman. (Times-UK) Lt.-Gen. David Richards, the British general commanding NATO troops in Afghanistan, will fly to Islamabad Monday to try to persuade President Musharraf to rein in his military intelligence service, which Richards believes is training Taliban fighters to attack British troops. He will request that key Taliban leaders living in Pakistan be arrested. The evidence compiled by American, NATO, and Afghan intelligence includes satellite pictures and videos of training camps for Taliban soldiers and suicide bombers inside Pakistan. Captured Taliban fighters and failed suicide bombers have confirmed that they were trained by the Pakistani intelligence service. The information includes an address in Quetta where Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, is said to live. After 30 British servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan, "I feel real vitriol seeing our boys dying because of Pakistan," said one British officer. A senior U.S. commander added: "We just can't ignore it any more. Musharraf's got to prove which side he is on." (Sunday Times-UK) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
The Defense Ministry's chief official for diplomatic affairs, Amos Gilad, responding Sunday to statements by Bashar Assad that the Syrian military was preparing for war with Israel, said that there had been no changes to the security situation, but that Israel must take the Syrian president's words seriously for the long term. "There is no warning of higher intentions and there isn't a concrete threat," Gilad told Army Radio. (Ha'aretz) See also IDF Prepares Response to Possible Attack by Syria - Yaakov Katz Israel's response to a Syrian attack will be nothing like its reaction to the cross-border Hizballah attack of July 12. Defense officials say the retaliation would be harsher, fiercer, and far deadlier. The Syrian bank of targets would not only include military infrastructure, such as bases, rocket launchers and silos, but also government buildings, headquarters, power plants, electricity grids, and water reservoirs. "We will shut down the entire country" was how one defense official described the potential response. The Syrian military has built up a strong array of missiles including some that are capable of carrying warheads filled with nerve gas, such as Sarin and VX. Damascus is currently in a race to build up its army and has recently drastically increased its defense budget after some $14 billion in loans it owed were erased. According to the Middle East Military Balance, published by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Syria has several hundred Scud missiles and close to 100 missile launchers. (Jerusalem Post) A Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza fell Saturday evening next to the house of Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal. In the past few days, rockets have been fired frequently at Sderot. "I sat at home in the living room and I was thrown from my chair from the force of the explosion," Moyal said. "If the rocket had landed another 10 meters in, we would have had to bury people tonight....This embarrassment of rocket firings at Sderot needs to be stopped." (Ynet News) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
In speeches and iconography, Hizballah has cast the war as a "divine victory." But a reconstruction of the period before and soon after Hizballah's seizure of the Israeli soldiers reveals a series of miscalculations on the part of the movement that defies its carefully cultivated reputation for planning and caution. Hizballah's leadership sometimes waited days to evacuate the poor, densely populated neighborhood in southern Beirut that is its stronghold. Only as Israeli warplanes began reducing the headquarters to rubble did they realize the scope of what the Israeli military intended. Hizballah fighters were still planning to train in Iran the very month that the soldiers were seized; Hizballah leaders in Beirut had assured Lebanese officials of a relatively uneventful summer. (Washington Post) The Russian bear has awakened after 15 years of hibernation. Under the leadership of former KGB commander President Vladimir Putin, Russia is reasserting its traditional hostility towards Israel. Last Tuesday, Russian military engineers landed in Beirut, the first time that Russian forces have openly deployed in the Middle East. The Russian forces, which will officially number some 550 troops, are tasked with rebuilding bridges and will operate outside the command of UNIFIL. The engineers will be protected by commando platoons from Russia's 42nd motorized rifle division permanently deployed in Chechnya. According to reports, these commando platoons are part of the Vostok and Zapad Battalions, both of which are commanded by Muslim officers who report directly to the main intelligence department of the Russian Army's General Staff in Moscow. The Vostok Battalion is commanded by Maj. Sulim Yamadayev, who Mosnews refers to as a "former rebel commander." (Jerusalem Post) The siege imposed by Israel and countries throughout the world, as well as by Arab nations and Fatah - Hamas' Palestinian rivals - has been unable to change Hamas' ideological positions, which are based on an infrastructure of radical Islam. Public opinion surveys in the West Bank and Gaza have recently shown a weakening of Hamas, and the Palestinian public seems to be sending the message: We elected you in order to lead reforms in the government and demonstrate pride and determination vis-a-vis Israel, but not to transform Palestine into a branch of Iran. Hamas will not surrender easily, and it is hard to see a political Palestinian element that will face down Hamas and replace it in the government. The Fatah leadership is dismembered, and there is not an inkling of the start of reforms in the movement that were promised some time ago. (Ha'aretz) Observations: Egypt, Israel, and the Cold Peace - Christopher Dickey and Zvika Krieger (Newsweek International)
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