|
Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
| |||||
To contact the Presidents Conference: click here In-Depth Issues:
Iranian Daily Affiliated with Khamenei Calls for Political Change in Lebanon to Favor Shi'ites - H. Varulkar (MEMRI)
British Muslims Fighting in Iraq Sent Back to UK as Al-Qaeda "Sleeper" Agents - Sean Rayment (Sunday Telegraph-UK)
Requests for IDF Combat Service at All-Time High - Hanan Greenberg (Ynet News)
Thousands of Palestinians Leave the Territories - Mark MacKinnon (Globe and Mail-Canada)
Search Key Links Media Contacts Back Issues Fair Use
|
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
German authorities, investigating an alleged plot to hide an explosive device aboard a passenger jet in Frankfurt last summer, detained six men on Friday on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group. All but one of the men was released the following day, but German authorities said they are investigating additional people whom they believe sought to bribe an employee at Frankfurt Airport to place a bomb aboard the plane. German news sources, citing police officials, said the men were from the Middle East, possibly Jordan. Die Welt said the target was the Israeli airline El Al. German terrorism expert Rolf Tophoven said: "This is a new tactical development, because they tried to infiltrate the security infrastructure by hiring a person who had access to the airfield and aircraft....You can protect an airfield with electronic fences and X-rays, but you can’t protect against human weakness." (New York Times) Iraq's President Jalal Talabani has accepted an invitation from his Iranian counterpart to discuss ways of tackling the violence in Iraq. Talabani's office said he would meet President Ahmadinejad in Tehran on Saturday. Some reports say Syria's President Bashar al-Assad may attend. The Iraqi government has also said Syria and Iraq are planning to restore full diplomatic ties, cut in 1982. Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem paid a visit to Iraq - the highest-ranking Syrian official to travel to Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 - and promised his country's support in helping Iraq restore security. (BBC News) See also Syria, Iraq Restore Diplomatic Ties (VOA News) Australia must set an example in the West by its continued refusal to appease Israel's enemies, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told a Jewish audience in Melbourne earlier this month. Downer said Australia must continue to actively oppose, rather than merely abstain from, anti-Israel resolutions at the UN. "We are always being told the best thing for diplomacy is to...abstain....And I say, Let's vote against it because it is wrong. The more we and other countries stand up to this sort of behavior, the more we stand a chance of success; the more we try to appease, the more [anti-Israel resolutions] we will encourage." (Australian Jewish News) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
A worker at a Sderot factory was critically injured Tuesday morning by a Kassam rocket as four rockets hit the town. More than 12 rockets landed in Israel on Monday. On Monday evening a rocket hit an office building in a kibbutz in the western Negev. (Ynet News) Since Israel's disengagement from Gaza last summer, 1,201 of the over 1,500 Kassam artillery rockets fired by the Palestinians against Israeli population centers adjacent to the Gaza Strip have landed in Israeli territory (as of 15 Nov. 06). Seven Israelis, one foreign worker, and two Palestinian civilians have been killed in Palestinian artillery attacks from Gaza, and over one hundred people have been injured. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 20Nov06) The fear of a powerful "Shiite bloc" has reached almost fever pitch across the Middle East and some of America's crucial allies are among the most worried. The violence in Iraq and the growing power of Shiite Iran are the main factors, while the Shiite Hizballah's new influence, after the summer war with Israel, is also key. Together, the trends are prompting a backlash from Sunni Arab governments, says Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in the U.S. In Saudi Arabia, newspapers are full of warnings from Sunni Muslim clerics who contend that Sunni Muslims across the Mideast are converting to become Shiite Muslims. In Jordan, authorities have rejected plans for a new Shiite mosque, while Sunni clerics speak darkly of Shiite plots to convert Sunnis and overtake the region. (Kuwait Times) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
On Sunday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem paid a visit to Baghdad to pledge his cooperation with the Iraqi government and urge a timetable for American withdrawal. On Friday, the New York Times reported that Moallem had met in New York with James Baker's Iraq Study Group to explain why it is in Syria's "national interest to try to help stabilize the situation in Iraq." Who is Walid Moallem? Would the U.S. be wise to "engage" him and his government in the cause of Mideast peace? According to last year's Mehlis Report, which details the preliminary findings of the UN investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others, Moallem met with Hariri two weeks prior to his assassination. Their exchange was secretly taped: Hariri: "I cannot live under a security regime that is specialized in interfering with Hariri and spreading disinformation about Hariri and writing reports to Bashar Assad....Lebanon will never be ruled from Syria." Moallem: "We and the [security] services here have put you into a corner. Please do not take things lightly." Moallem later falsely described the meeting to UN investigators as "friendly and constructive." He would thus seem to be guilty of obstructing an ongoing criminal investigation, if not actually of conspiracy to murder. (Wall Street Journal, 21Nov06) See also Don't Let Syria Get Away with Killing Rafik Hariri - Michael Young Syria never accepted its forced withdrawal from Lebanon last year, and has worked tirelessly since then to reimpose its writ there. Now there is new hope in Damascus: It was music to Syrian President Bashar Assad's ears to hear James Baker, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, advocating dialogue with Syria and Iran in an interview last month. Syria's Lebanese foes fear they will pay if the U.S. and Damascus cut a deal. In 1990, Baker was a leading light in President George H.W. Bush's administration, which ceded Lebanon to Syria in exchange for President Hafez Assad's agreement to be part of the international coalition against Iraq. (Wall Street Journal) Iran has already achieved its goal. It wields deterrence because it has the technology and potential to manufacture nuclear weapons and everyone believes it will indeed produce them. Iran also has one more "advantage": a president who looks like a poet and sounds like a lunatic, whose words swell like a radioactive cloud. His threatening rhetoric even makes one forget that he is not the one responsible for the nuclear development. Rather, it was his predecessors, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, presidents who were considered moderate in the West. (Ha'aretz) Observations: The Root of Palestinian Misery - Editorial (National Post-Canada)
To subscribe to the Daily Alert, send a blank email message to: [email protected] To unsubscribe, send a blank email message to: [email protected] |
||||