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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in association with Access/Middle East by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Pentagon: Covert Force Hunts Hussein, bin Laden - Tom Shanker and Eric Schmitt (New York Times)
Yasser Arafat "Has £1.8bn Fortune" - William Tinning (Herald-UK)
PA Daily: "Collective Mutiny" in PA Military Intelligence (BICOM-UK)
Al-Qaeda Suspect Held in Northern Ireland - Thomas Harding (Telegraph-UK)
Jews Ignore Risks to Stand by Israel - Moni Basu
Institute for Counter-Terrorism
Opens Branch in Washington - Arieh O'Sullivan (Jerusalem Post)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
President Bush on Thursday challenged Iran, Syria, and two crucial Middle East allies of the United States - Egypt and Saudi Arabia - to begin embracing democratic traditions, and to view the fall of Saddam Hussein as "a watershed event in the global democratic revolution." "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe," Mr. Bush argued, "because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." (New York Times) See also Idealism in the Face of a Troubled Reality - Robin Wright The president's dream of a democratic Middle East doesn't jibe with the terror war's reliance on autocratic allies. (Washington Post) President Bush said Thursday: "For the Palestinian people, the only path to independence and dignity and progress is the path of democracy. And the Palestinian leaders who block and undermine democratic reform, and feed hatred and encourage violence are not leaders at all. They're the main obstacles to peace, and to the success of the Palestinian people." (White House) See also Text of Bush on Middle East (White House) Iran will abandon development of the Shahab-4 missile that could have carried a conventional warhead as far as Europe or threatened Israel with a heavier nuclear or biological payload, the Iranian government announced. Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said development of the Shahab-4 had not reached the point of mass production. The Shahab-4, he said, "in a lot of ways is a paper missile," in that it existed mainly in frame designs and possibly engine components. But Cordesman warned that "it doesn't mean this is something that's permanent." The missile's development could continue secretly, he said, just as a program aimed at producing atomic weapons could conceivably elude inspectors. (Washington Post) Influential Pentagon adviser Richard Perle said Thursday that Iran was "up to its eyeballs in terrorism" and the U.S. should quietly be encouraging a democratic revolution from within. "Is there any doubt about Iran's support for terrorism, about their payments to Hamas and Hizballah?" Perle said in a speech in Berlin. He later said, "I think we may well see a regime change in Iran brought about by Iranians, but they need some help. They need more broadcasting so that communications are improved. We should be prepared to help them get newspapers published in their own country," Perle said. "I think the potential is there for regime change, but we should encourage it." Perle said it was no surprise now that what he called foreign terrorists were crossing into Iraq to launch attacks against the U.S. and other foreign targets. "Success in Iraq is a threat to every tyrannical regime in the region, and they understand that," he said. (Reuters) A conference of international donors to the Palestinian Authority, due to meet in Rome on November 19, was thrown into doubt Thursday after Salam Fayyad, the PA's widely respected finance minister, said he would not participate in the present caretaker government. Fayyad was to have used the occasion to ask the international community for $1.2bn in aid for 2004. Diplomats and aid officials said that even Fayyad's temporary absence would be a blow to efforts to retain the PA's credibility with its largest donors. Donors had still to meet commitments for 2003. Diplomats say the reluctance of donors to come forward with funds partly reflected concern at the apparent state of political chaos within the PA. The PA relies on foreign assistance to pay salaries that support much of the 3.3m population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (Financial Times-UK) Members of Congress and government officials discussed their concern that a perceived lack of legitimacy is undermining the efforts of Central Asian countries to combat radical Islamic insurgencies at a hearing on Capitol Hill. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Central Asia, said religious extremism and terrorism have been among the major threats to the former Soviet states of Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991. "A brand of radical, international Islam, Wahhabism, gave birth to many radical movements including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan," she said. "The former's views are highly radical, advocating the overthrow of governments throughout the Muslim world and their replacement by an Islamic state." (VOA) Britain's opposition Conservatives united on Thursday to name a longtime lawmaker, Michael Howard, as their new leader. Howard, 62, was a member of the Conservative governments of former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Born in Wales and educated at Cambridge, he is the son of Romanian-born immigrants. He is the first Jew to lead the Tories since Benjamin Disraeli (who was of Jewish stock but was baptized in the Church of England) in the 19th century. He is known as a combative and feisty politician who was the equal of [Prime Minister Tony] Blair in parliamentary debate when he was home secretary and Mr. Blair was his opponent, or shadow, as it is known in British politics. (New York Times) See also Jewish MP Declared Tory Leader - Douglas Davis (Jerusalem Post) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
The IDF Thursday began clearing eight bombs laid by Hizballah along the Lebanese border, a day after they were discovered by an alert IDF tracker. By nightfall, three of the bombs had been dealt with in controlled explosions that caused heavy damage to the border fence. Colonel Itai Virov said, "This is a very sophisticated, high-grade, and well-concealed bomb nest that was meant to cause damage to forces patrolling the fence and to those who would come to their rescue," he said. "It would probably have been very deadly to both infantry and armored cars." (Ha'aretz) See also Israel Protests Hizballah Bombing Attempt to UN - David Rudge Israel has lodged an official protest with the UN over Hizballah's attempt to attack soldiers and civilians along the northern border by means of a sophisticated string of roadside bombs near the security fence. (Jerusalem Post) According to a new public opinion poll published on Thursday by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), 61.8% of Palestinians supported suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, while 34.9% are opposed to this form of terrorism. Another 67.9% said they supported the resumption of "military operations" against Israel "as a suitable response within the current political conditions." 42.3% said they supported the resumption of attacks inside Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as opposed to 14.1% who said the attacks should be restricted only to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In regard to the intifada, 76.8% supported its continuation, with only 21.7% saying that they want to see an end to the violence. (Jerusalem Post) A mortar shell was fired at Gush Katif settlements Friday morning causing neither casualties nor damage. Thursday night, 7 more shells were fired, damaging a house and lightly injuring a woman, Army Radio reports. Meanwhile, security forces are on the alert with 45 targeted notices on possible suicide attacks. (Jerusalem Post) Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Sydney Mayor Lucy Turnbull boycotted a gala ceremony in Sydney on Thursday in which Palestinian Authority legislator Hanan Ashrawi received the AUS $50,000 ($34,500) Sydney Peace Prize. Australia's Jewish community also protested against Ashrawi being awarded the prize by the Sydney Peace Foundation, a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Sydney, because she has not unconditionally condemned Palestinian terrorist attacks. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
The King Fahd Academy is a Saudi-run school established in 1995, when Bonn was still the seat of the German government, to educate the children of Arab diplomats. Over the past two years, some 200 Arab families have moved to Bonn from around Germany to send their children to the school. Classes are taught in Arabic and, as in Saudi schools, the curriculum is based on Wahhabism, a rigorous brand of Islam that accepts the Koran as literal truth. Concerns about the academy peaked in early October when Panorama, a popular television program, aired a video purporting to show the school's imam and teacher, Anas Bayram, telling parents how to train their children in spear throwing, swimming, and horseback riding in order to prepare for jihad. Investigators say that some of the people who frequent the mosque at the academy have had direct or indirect contact with al-Qaeda. (TIME) The American Ambassador to Egypt, David Welch, has criticized the Egyptian press several times. On the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, he published an op-ed in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram in which he criticized conspiracy theories in the Egyptian press. Columnist Jamal Fahmi wrote an article in the pro-Nasserist opposition weekly Al-Arabi titled, "The Ambassador from Hell in Cairo," saying, "'Brother' Welch has the arrogance that befits an ambassador representing that imbecile in Washington, George W. Bush." Adli Barssoum wrote in Al-Gumhuriya: "Mr. American Ambassador knows very well, just like us, that the American press...is a press carefully orchestrated from above. In contrast, the Egyptian press is guided only by the national conscience, and when it determines that martyrdom operations [suicide bombings] for the sake of liberating Palestinian territories are acts of courage - it is an historical testimonial. Al-Gumhuriya does not pretend to be the only paper describing the heroism of the Palestinian martyrs; this is the position of all the Egyptian papers because it accurately reflects the feeling of the Egyptian people." (MEMRI) The Conservatives have been out of power for six years and Michael Howard is by far the most successful politician they've got. Crucially, moreover, Howard's Jewish profile has always been low and he has never made much of his Jewishness. His wife, the former model Sandra Paul, is a member of the Church of England; and his son Nick not only became a Christian, but provoked controversy as a student when he started trying to convert Jews to Christianity. (Ha'aretz) The Arab Human Development Report, a survey prepared by a group of regional scholars and policy analysts under UN auspices, has been downloaded more than 1 million times from the Internet, making it one of the most popular Arab works ever produced. In a region where censorship is as universal as dysfunctional political and economic systems, the report offers a painfully honest account of the region's problems, which it groups into three "deficits": freedom, women's rights, and knowledge. The report's 26 authors argue broadly that knowledge in the Arab world is being retarded by repressive governments, a lack of resources, and extreme Islamic movements. (Washington Post) Washington should send an American aircraft carrier to the Syrian coast, summon strongman Bashar al-Assad aboard, chide him vigorously for sponsoring terrorism, meddling in Iraq and pursuing weapons of mass destruction - and take special care to confront him over Syria's occupation of Lebanon. So says the CIA's former director, James Woolsey. (Forward) Weekend Features:
Long before he became known as one of Israel's most impassioned and eloquent defenders, David Bar-Illan - then one of the world's foremost concert pianists who performed with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic - told an interviewer, "It is impossible to live in an ivory tower when everybody around you is struggling for the survival of a nation." Born in Haifa, he was a third-generation Palestinian (back when that word invariably referred to Jews). In "Eye on the Media," an often-blistering criticism of news-media coverage of Israel, he wrote, "In assuming that a Jewish state would make anti-Semitism disappear, Zionism's founding fathers were dead wrong [and]...the world media have played a crucial role in this development." (New York Post) See also A Man of the World, and of His People - Natan Sharansky (Jerusalem Post) Israeli, Palestinian, and French geoscientists have worked out a way to save Gaza drinking water while offering Israelis and Palestinians a rare opportunity to work together and solve a problem for their mutual benefit. The Mediterranean Coastal Aquifer shared by Israel and the PA is quickly becoming contaminated with salts, nitrates, and boron, explains geochemist Avner Vengosh of Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva, Israel. In a joint Israeli, Palestinian, and French/EU study of the geochemistry of the area, Vengosh and his colleagues discovered that overpumping of groundwater by the Gaza Strip's 1.3 million people has caused the groundwater level to drop, creating a slope in the groundwater table that allows the naturally saline groundwater from Israel to flow steadily westward and spoil the aquifer under the Gaza Strip. Drilling several large wells on the eastern boundary of the Gaza Strip would slow the progress of the saline water into the Gaza Strip and go a long way toward preserving what's left of the potable water under Gaza. What's more, the saline water from the same boundary wells could be desalinated and used to help offset the PA's growing demand for water. "They are already talking about desalination on the coast," said Vengosh. By investing the same money for such a desalination facility along the Israel-Gaza Strip boundary instead, not only could useable water be produced, but also an aquifer could be saved, he says. (Geological Society of America/Science Daily) When we rolled into the Israeli town of Metulla last Tuesday evening, the main streets were clogged with last-minute campaigning, and anyone who didn't defend himself was quickly decorated with T-shirts and caps proclaiming the virtues of Kobi or his opponent. The people in Israel face a relentless terrorism and do their best to put a veneer of normalcy on their lives. But the enemies they face are relentless. And those enemies are not just theirs, but ours as well. (American Spectator) We are now in our third year living in Israel (a reporter married to a Canadian diplomat). When we arrived, I noticed in our first year the equanimity with which our son Alexandre accepted the many signs that we had left our quiet little neighborhood in Ottawa so far behind. The man in front of us in the ice cream queue with a pistol jammed in his belt did not excite his interest, nor did soldiers hitch-hiking with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. At the American school where he attends kindergarten, he has never questioned the presence of the short-haired men with wraparound sunglasses and bulges in their jackets who stand silently outside each of the gates in the morning. (Toronto Globe & Mail) Observations: "Fenced In" - Yossi Klein Halevi (New Republic/Israelinsider)
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