Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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DAILY ALERT

Tuesday,
September 23, 2008

To contact the Presidents Conference:
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In-Depth Issues:

Washington:
International Conference on State-Sanctioned Incitement to Genocide
(Conference of Presidents, Genocide Watch, Jerusalem Center)
Tuesday, Sep. 23,
9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

View the live broadcast


PA Daily Portrays Israeli Foreign Minister with Blood-Stained Knife - Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook (Palestinian Media Watch/IMRA)
    The PA's official newspaper published a caricature Monday showing Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni with a dagger and blood-stained hands next to a white peace dove with its head in a noose.
    View the Cartoon (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida-PA)
   


Poll: Palestinians Reject Two-State Solution (An-Najah University-PA/IMRA)
    A poll conducted by the Center for Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at An-Najah University during 18-20 Sep. 2008 asked:
    Do you support or reject the creation of two states (a Palestinian state and Israel) on the historic land of Palestine?
    Support - 43%; Reject - 54%


Egyptian Ministry of Health Bars Israeli Drug - Roee Nahmias (Ynet News)
    An Egyptian father whose young son suffers from cystic fibrosis had a letter published in Al-Ahram Saturday slamming the Egyptian Ministry of Health for its refusal to cooperate with Israel to help his ailing son.
    According to the father, Israel is the only country in the world that produces a drug called Creon 1000 which serves as a substitute for one of the enzymes missing in those suffering from cystic fibrosis.
    Though doctors recommended he obtain the medicine for his son, the Health Ministry said the drug cannot be imported from Israel as there is no direct cooperation between the two countries.
    "This involves the life of a little boy, who suffers every day, and everyone is evading responsibility," wrote the father.


U.S. Aims to Boost Aid to Jordan (AP)
    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jordanian Foreign Minister Salaheddine Al-Bashir on Monday signed an agreement that would extend until 2013 a 48% rise in U.S. assistance to Jordan that the administration announced in January.
    Jordan is to receive $660 million in aid each year - $360 million in economic support and $300 million in military assistance.


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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:

  • Wiesel Urges UN to Indict Iranian President - Claudia Parsons
    Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel urged the UN on Monday to indict Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide rather than allow him to speak at the UN General Assembly. Wiesel spoke to thousands of people at a rally to urge world leaders to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is a threat to world peace and he should not be here in New York. His place is in...a United Nations prison cell," Wiesel said. "He's not Hitler, nobody is Hitler, but he wishes to follow in Hitler's footsteps and that makes him an arch criminal."  (Reuters-International Herald Tribune)
        See also Anti-Iran Rally Urges the Defeat of an "Evil Empire" - Bari Weiss (New York Sun)
  • IAEA: Iran Hasn't Answered Questions on Nuclear Program - Julia Damianova and Borzou Daragahi
    International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said Monday that his inspectors failed to get Iranians to clear up questions related to documents allegedly showing that Iran engaged in a series of experiments and studies consistent with the operation of a clandestine nuclear weapons program. "Unless Iran provides such transparency...the agency will not be able to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," he said. Documents show that Tehran conducted secret uranium experiments, tested explosives, and pondered bomb designs suitable for nuclear weapons. (Los Angeles Times)
  • Egyptian Dissident Lobbies for Conditions on U.S. Aid - Nora Boustany
    Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Egypt's most prominent exiled dissident, is lobbying members of Congress to attach conditions to America's $1.5 billion annual aid to Egypt to force the Cairo government to foster greater political and media freedoms and a more independent judiciary. In December, Congress passed a bill to withhold $100 million in military aid until Egypt stopped the smuggling of weapons into Gaza from Sinai, implemented judicial reforms and curbed torture by the state police. President Hosni Mubarak was enraged by the conditions. (Washington Post)
  • News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

  • Palestinian Terrorist Rams Car into Pedestrians in Jerusalem, Wounds 17 - Efrat Weiss
    A Palestinian terrorist ran a car into a crowd of soldiers and civilians at a busy intersection in central Jerusalem on Monday evening, wounding at least 17 people. The terrorist, from eastern Jerusalem, was shot dead by an IDF officer. (Ynet News)
  • Israeli Soldier Blinded in One Eye after Palestinian Woman Throws Acid in His Face - Yuval Azoulay
    An IDF soldier was wounded on Monday when a Palestinian woman threw acid in his face at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus. Doctors fear he may have lost vision in one eye as a result of the attack. (Ha'aretz)
  • Palestinian Teen Killed After Repeatedly Attacking Jewish West Bank Village - Jonathan Lis
    One week ago, Suhayeb Saleh, 14, from the village of Assira al-Kabaliya, stabbed a 9-year-old Israeli boy and set fire to a home in the West Bank village of Yitzhar. On Saturday, Border Policemen thwarted a second attack after seeing the youth get out of a car and advance toward Yitzhar by foot, intending to throw a Molotov cocktail. The soldiers shot and killed him, and a subsequent search of his body revealed a knife. (Ha'aretz)
  • French Justice Minister: "Don't Talk to Terrorists, Fight Them"
    French Justice Minister Rachida Dati, speaking Monday at Herzliya's Interdisciplinary Center, said: "When it comes to terrorist activity that threatens Israel's security, our stand is very clear: one does not talk to terrorists and to the ones that call for the destruction of Israel, one fights them." "The Palestinian people are entitled to have their own country, but that goes hand in hand with keeping the security of the State of Israel," she added. (Jerusalem Post)
  • Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

  • Remember Iran? - Editorial
    Tehran's scientists are getting ever closer to mastering the skills that are the hardest part of building a nuclear weapon. What is needed is a game-changing diplomatic initiative. For that, Europe and the U.S. must agree quickly on a more persuasive set of punishments and incentives. We don't know if any mix of sanctions and rewards can persuade Iran's leaders to abandon their nuclear program. But without such an effort, we are certain that Tehran will keep pressing ahead, while the voices arguing for military action will only get louder. (New York Times)
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Triumph - Bret Stephens
    A decade ago, it was former president Rafsanjani who personified the Iranian hard line. He green-lighted terrorist attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina; he refused to revoke the death sentence on novelist Salman Rushdie; a German court fingered him in the assassinations of Iranian-Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant. Now Rafsanjani is often spoken of as a "pragmatist" and a "moderate" compared to Ahmadinejad. (Wall Street Journal)
  • The Latest IAEA Report on Iran and the Options Facing the International Community - Ephraim Asculai
    If all goes well for Iran, it would be able to amass a sufficient quantity of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to enable it to further enrich it and produce a quantity of military grade uranium by the turn of the decade, sufficient for the production of a single nuclear explosive device. There is very little chance that Iran would cease its nuclear development agenda and start serious negotiations unless strongly and effectively pressured. Without strong, painful sanctions Iran will continue its game of playing for time. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)
  • Creeping Islamization in Europe - Diana West
    There are schools in Belgium that not only serve halal food to Muslim and non-Muslim alike, but, according to a recent French magazine report, no longer teach authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin.
        According to press reports, the British government has quietly elevated five Sharia courts to the level of tribunal hearings, thus making their rulings legally binding. Among the first official verdicts were those upholding the Islamic belief in male supremacy. These included an inheritance decision in which male heirs received twice as much as female; and several cases of domestic violence in which husbands were acquitted and wives' charges were dropped. (Washington Times)
  • Observations:

    Iran Slips Away - Editorial (Washington Post)

    • Amid the financial crisis and the worsening violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran's nuclear program and Western efforts to stop it have slipped down Washington's list of priorities. That's just what Tehran's ruling mullahs were hoping for.
    • The government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still stonewalling international inspectors trying to investigate evidence that Iran has secretly worked on nuclear bomb and missile warhead technology. This summer, it rebuffed the latest Western effort to open negotiations - one whose only precondition was that Iran agree to a six-week pause in adding centrifuges to the 3,800 it has already installed in a uranium enrichment plant.
    • The result, as Iran races toward accumulating enough uranium for a bomb, is that the sense of urgency about the threat it poses is lower here and in Europe than it was six months or a year ago.
    • There seems to be little prospect that the Security Council will agree anytime soon on a fourth round of UN sanctions - much less the tough measures that might command Tehran's attention.
    • The two most important measures would be an arms embargo - which would prevent Russia from supplying Iran with the advanced air defense systems it has reportedly promised - and a ban on the export to Iran of gasoline and other refined products, which could cripple Iranian transport.


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