Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in association with the Fairness Project by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Syria and Israel: The Quietest Border? (Yediot Ahronot)
PLO Constituent Group, DFLP, Describes Palestinian West Bank/Gaza State as First Stage to Elimination of Israel (IDF)
CIA: Libya, Syria Seek WMD - Maxim Kniazkov
(Middle East Online)
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News Resources - North America and Europe:
An armed Syrian infiltrator opened fire on Israeli soldiers Wednesday near the Syrian border east of Kibbutz Meitzar in the southern Golan Heights. The Syrian was killed in an exchange of fire with the IDF. Israeli soldiers arrested a second Syrian infiltrator. An hour later, several Syrian soldiers stationed at an outpost opened fire on Israeli troops. (Guardian-UK/Ha'aretz/Maariv) The IDF later said the two infiltrators were Syrian soldiers, based on the interrogation of the one who was captured. (Jerusalem Post) Nearly 4 billion barrels of oil are in emergency stocks worldwide, including nearly 600 million barrels in a U.S. reserve. If withdrawn at 2 million barrels a day, the U.S. stocks could counter a disruption of 286 days, the administration told Congress this past summer. Other producers have up to 5.5 million barrels of excess capacity and have signaled they will increase production to replace lost Iraqi oil. (AP/San Francisco Examiner)
News Resources - Israel, the Mideast, and Asia:
National Security Council head Ephraim Halevy met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and veteran presidential adviser Osama el-Baz in Cairo on Wednesday. One diplomatic source said the visit is significant because Halevy was once head of the Mossad and has a close relationship to Sharon. "They send us Omar Suleiman," the official said, in reference to the Egyptian intelligence chief who has come to Jerusalem on several occasions over the last year as Mubarak's personal emissary, "and we send them Ephraim." (Jerusalem Post) Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement is falling apart as different factions act on their own, former Gaza Preventive Security chief Muhammad Dahlan said Wednesday. To reorganize the movement and regain control of activists on the ground, Fatah must hold elections for a new leadership, he said. "There haven't been elections for over 12 years." Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian security officer in the West Bank said Islamic Jihad, which has money from Iran, has been financing Fatah cells in the northern West Bank. (Jerusalem Post) See also Palestinian Dissension Confounds a "Martyr" Khalid Idris, 36, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, sleeps in a different house each night to avoid the Israeli army patrols searching for him. (Baltimore Sun) A panel of 11 Supreme Court justices on Thursday overturned the Central Elections Committee's decisions to disqualify Arab MKs Ahmed Tibi, Azmi Bishara, and the Balad party from running in the January 28 election. The CEC had disqualified Balad and Bishara for rejecting Israel's character as a Jewish state, in violation of the Basic Law on the Knesset. The CEC also contended that in speeches delivered in Syria and Umm al-Fahm, Bishara supported armed resistance by terror groups. (Ha'aretz)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis
(Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Jackal-nations are circling, eager to subvert liberation and make off with the coming freedom of the Iraqi people. Some Iranian theocrats, observing American troop movements, want friends at the table when Saddam's power is divvied up. While providing a black-market conduit for Iraqi oil and a land passage for Hizballah weapons, Syria has been touting its cooperation with the U.S. in tracking other terrorists. The Saudis and Egyptians, sensing Saddam's demise, are devising Saddamism without Saddam. Jacques Chirac has suddenly taken to threatening Saddam with "war of unimaginable consequences" unless he disarms right away, and France will soon dispatch an aircraft carrier to the gulf. (New York Times) In 30 years, the Moslem population of Great Britain rose from 82,000 to two million. In Germany there are four million Moslems, mostly Turks, and over five million across the Rhine in France, mostly North Africans. There are a million Moslems each in Italy and the Netherlands, and half-a-million in Spain. Almost a tenth of all babies born in EU countries are Moslem. (FrontPageMagazine) See also Islam's Immigrant Invasion of Europe - Serge Trifkovic (FrontPageMagazine) Long before 9/11, Daniel Pipes was one of the very few Middle East experts to warn of the danger posed by Islamism. In scandalous violation of America's traditions of free speech and open debate, Pipes was recently disinvited from two important speaking engagements at American universities because of claims by his academic enemies that he practices "McCarthyism" on his Campus Watch website. Who are the real "McCarthyites"? The folks at Campus Watch, or the people who have blacklisted one of the most important voices in our national debate over the war on terror? (National Review) The Palestinians average more than 10 attacks on Israelis every day. However, many signs point to a realization among Palestinians that adopting violence has been a monstrous mistake. What the Associated Press calls a "slowly swelling chorus of Palestinian leaders and opinion-makers" is expressing disillusion with the poverty, anarchy, detention, injury, and death brought by 27 months of violence. The sooner Palestinians realize how counterproductive their violence is, the sooner they will end it. (New York Post) The UN Nurtures Terrorists and Lets Real Refugees Fend for Themselves - Claudia Rosett (Wall Street Journal)
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