DAILY ALERT

In-Depth Issues:

"Updated" U.S. National Intelligence Estimate Expected on Iran Nukes - Mark Hosenball (Newsweek)
    U.S. intelligence agencies are quietly revising their widely disputed assertion that Iran has no active program to design or build a nuclear bomb.
    Three U.S. and two foreign counterproliferation officials tell Newsweek that, as soon as next month, the intel agencies are expected to complete an "update" to their 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.
    U.S. analysts now believe that Iran may well have resumed "research" on nuclear weapons - theoretical work on how to design and construct a bomb - but that Tehran is not engaged in "development" - actually trying to build a weapon.
    The update is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the White House's Iran policy. The administration already bases its cautious diplomatic approach on the assumption that Iran has, in fact, been pursuing a bomb.

Report: Syria Training Hizbullah to Use Advanced Anti-Aircraft Missiles - Jack Khoury (Ha'aretz)
    An American source says that Syria allowed Hizbullah operatives to train within its territory in the use of advanced SA2 anti-aircraft missile batteries, the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai reported Sunday.
    In an interview, the senior U.S. official warned that if Syria supplies Hizbullah with this missile, Israel will bomb Damascus and a war will likely ensue. According to the official, Israel has warned Syria not to transfer SA2 missiles to Hizbullah, and views the transfer of such missiles as the crossing of a red line.

Islamist Teacher in London Groomed Suicide Bomber for Tel Aviv Attack - Tim Ross and Rashid Razaq (London Evening Standard-UK)
    Reza Pankhurst, a senior member of the hardline Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir and currently a postgraduate teaching assistant at the London School of Economics (LSE), is alleged to have played a key role in radicalizing Omar Sharif, the British suicide bomber who died after an attempted attack in Tel Aviv in 2003.
    According to Sharif's former university friend, Zaheer Khan, Pankhurst acted as Sharif's mentor and had "a big hand to play" organizing the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir on campus.
    See also Islamist Teacher Led Secretive "Brothers' Circle" - Sean O'Neill and Alex Ralph (Times-UK)
    Pankhurst led a secretive "Brothers' Circle" at the university at which he espoused his hardline views.
    A series of terrorist trials have featured graduates, some of whom have been indoctrinated by al-Qaeda supporters at British universities.
    Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Detroit plane bomber, was president of the Islamic Society at University College London in 2006-07.
    See also UK's Universities Offer Conducive Environment to Islamic Extremists - Douglas Murray (Wall Street Journal Europe)
    Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was the fourth former head of a British university Islamic Society to be charged with a serious terrorism offense.
    Just before Christmas, the al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki was the subject of an airstrike on his Yemen home that killed many al-Qaeda operatives. Only last April, my organization [London's Center for Social Cohesion] was trying to explain to London's City University why he was not a suitable person to address, by video-link, their Islamic Society.
    Despite already having been known to be spiritual mentor to two of the 9/11 hijackers, he has been advertised as the "distinguished guest" speaker at the UK's Federation of Student Islamic Societies' annual dinner in 2003, and at Westminster University in 2006.
    Awlaki is now thought to be the connection between Abdumutallab and the people who gave him the bomb with which he intended to bring down the Detroit flight.
    It was a graduate of the London School of Economics who kidnapped and beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.
    It was two undergraduates from Kings College London who carried out a suicide bombing in a bar in Tel Aviv the following year.

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

Observations:

What Happened to the Jordan Valley? - Dore Gold (Jerusalem Post)

• Prime Minister Netanyahu has explained that to create effective security arrangements for Israel and safeguard the demilitarization of the West Bank in the event of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement, it was vital for the IDF to maintain a military presence along the points of entry to the territories from the east, in order to prevent these areas from being penetrated and flooded by smuggled weaponry - alluding to the critical importance of the Jordan Valley for the future security of Israel.
• One month before he was assassinated, Yitzhak Rabin outlined to the Knesset on Oct. 5, 1995, how he viewed the country's future borders. He first declared that "Israel will not return to the lines of June 4, 1967" and then stated that "the security border for defending the State of Israel will be in the Jordan Valley, in the widest sense of that concept." He sought to exploit the steep eastern slopes of the West Bank hill ridge that rise to a maximal height of 3,000 feet from the river bed which is below sea-level. In an interview in Ha'aretz on April 14, 2005, Ariel Sharon explained that Israel must control the Jordan Valley from the hill ridge above the Allon Road.
• Yet in the public discourse over Israel's future borders, it seems as though the question of the Jordan Valley has been forgotten. Once prime ministers started talking about giving up 88, 93 or 97% of the West Bank, they stopped talking about the Jordan Valley. After all, the whole area is approximately 33% to 40% of the West Bank. A diplomatic strategy of holding on to the Jordan Valley contradicted their peace proposals, which became increasingly motivated by the question of what would be acceptable to the Palestinians rather than what was necessary for Israel's security.
• It is now well-understood by the Israeli public that the most crucial error of the Gaza disengagement was abandoning the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egyptian Sinai, which allowed Hamas to build a vast tunnel network and smuggle a huge arsenal into Gaza. It does not require much imagination to understand what would happen in the West Bank if Israel left the Jordan Valley - which should be seen as the Philadelphi Corridor of the West Bank.
• Up until now, Israel has not had to deal with SA-7 shoulder-fired rockets that could be aimed at aircraft over Ben-Gurion Airport, because it is difficult to smuggle them into the West Bank as long as the area is blocked by the IDF in the Jordan Valley. Nor has Israel had to face Islamist volunteers because Israel can deny them access to the West Bank.

  The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and served as Israel's ambassador to the UN.