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Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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To contact the Presidents Conference: [email protected]
In-Depth Issue:
Shin Bet: Palestinians Want Chemical Weapons, Artillery - Nina Gilbert (Jerusalem Post)
Why is Belize at The Hague? - Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post)
Useful Reference:
White Paper on
the International Court of Justice and the Israeli "Fence" - Ruth Wedgwood (Foundation for the Defense of Democracies)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
George Tenet, director of central intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday that the radical anti-American sentiments and destructive expertise used by al-Qaeda have spread to other Sunni Muslim extremists who are behind a "next wave" of terrorism that will endure "for the foreseeable future with or without al-Qaeda in the picture." Despite the killing and capture of many senior leaders in the last year, al-Qaeda enjoys considerable support, has enlisted new recruits, and has created "chilling plots," including possible poison attacks, training pilots for suicide missions, and strong indications that it is singling out the White House, the Capitol, and the American transportation system for possible attacks. The network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was an example of how bin Laden's message and tactics had infected Sunni Muslim extremists around the world. "These far-flung groups increasingly set the agenda and are redefining the threat we face. They are not all creatures of bin Laden, and so their threat is not tied to his. They have autonomous leadership. They pick their own targets. They plan their own attacks," Tenet said. He said more than 24 terrorist groups are pursuing chemical, biological, and radiological and nuclear weapons. (New York Times) See also Terror Attack on UK "Inevitable" Home Secretary David Blunkett said he had been told it was inevitable the UK would face a terrorist attack. On Wednesday he will detail the expansion of MI5, with 1,000 new staff, many of them Arabic and Urdu speakers. (BBC) More than two months after President Bush signed a bill permitting sanctions against Syria for its support of terrorist groups, administration officials are still debating what penalties - if any - to apply to the Arab nation. Pressure from Congress is growing for the administration to take a tough stand, with Republicans and Democrats imploring Bush not to waive the sanctions. A waiver "would send the wrong signal" to Syrian President Assad and the "terrorists who find safe haven within Syria's borders," Sens. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said in a letter last week to Secretary of State Colin Powell. (AP/Washington Post) The White House on Tuesday delayed plans to lift U.S. travel restrictions to Libya after Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem denied his country's guilt in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and said Tripoli had only agreed to pay compensation to bombing victims in order to "buy peace." (Reuters) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Israeli security forces Wednesday raided at least three bank branches in Ramallah to locate accounts used to transfer millions of shekels to terror groups in recent years. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew) The IDF on Tuesday told Palestinian security forces in Bethlehem not to carry their weapons any longer as they patrol the city. "They were not performing any kind of security work to prevent attacks on Israelis, so we told them they can't carry weapons any more," said a military source. The 500-strong Palestinian police force in Bethlehem did nothing to prevent the city from becoming a haven for terrorists. Sunday's suicide bomber who killed eight people on a Jerusalem bus came from the Bethlehem area. (Jerusalem Post) See also Palestinian Gunmen Target Border Police in Southeast Jerusalem - Margot Dudkevitch and Etgar Lefkovits Two Border Police jeeps patrolling the edge of Jerusalem's new southeastern neighborhood of Har Homa came under Palestinian gunfire Tuesday from the village of Beit Sahur near Bethlehem, police said. The policemen returned fire; there were no injuries. (Jerusalem Post) The route of the separation fence has been shortened to 640 kilometers, 80 km less than the government approved last October, the head of the Technology and Logistics Branch in the IDF, Brig. Gen. Eran Ophir, said Tuesday. 37 km - 5% - will be concrete walls because the topographic considerations in densely populated urban areas required a wall; 29 km of those walls will be in the Jerusalem envelope area. (Ha'aretz) What entity will take responsibility for affairs in the Gaza Strip? The current possibilities range from the PA to Mohammed Dahlan as a semi-independent leader to Hamas - or the possibility of general anarchy. Many Israeli security officials pin their hopes on Dahlan, even though he failed to deliver the goods and promote security during the hudna last summer. Israeli security officials are impressed by the way Dahlan and his men have turned his native Khan Yunis into "the independent republic of Dahlan." Officers in the IDF Central Command say that Dahlan is once again sending armed followers to assess control in Bethlehem and Hebron. (Ha'aretz) Prime Minister Sharon Tuesday rejected ideas about transferring Israeli Arab villages to the control of a future Palestinian state, in a land swap agreement incorporated within a peace deal. "The Arab population should view itself as an integral part of Israel's population," Sharon said, during a visit to Kafr Qasem. "All sorts of ideas about separating from this population should be scrapped - we need to live together here." (Ha'aretz) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
As so often in the past, the Palestinian leadership has chosen to press its cause not with potentially productive steps - such as a crackdown on terrorists and the renewal of negotiations with Israel - but with pointless and inflammatory grandstanding before irrelevant international bodies. The case at The Hague-based International Court of Justice, shunned by the U.S., the EU, and almost all the rest of the non-Muslim world, will prove no more successful than previous attempts to sanction or delegitimize the Jewish state. Instead it will probably reinforce the prevailing conviction in the Israeli and U.S. governments that the Palestinian administration is incapable of participating in a constructive peace process under its current leadership. Rather than isolate Israel, the case is isolating the Palestinians from the real action in the Middle East. The Israeli government and the Bush administration have been quietly negotiating the terms of a momentous initiative that would transform the situation on the ground. Instead of working out the terms with the Palestinians, Sharon now bargains with the White House. Wary at first, the Bush administration has steadily warmed to Sharon's idea and is giving it serious consideration. Once they finish posturing before an international court with no power over Israel or its actions, Palestinian leaders would do well to think about how they can have an influence on the real decisions about to be made. (Washington Post) See also Israel Before the Kangaroo Court - Editorial (New York Daily News) Israel has approximately 170,000 people living in the 14.5% of the West Bank between the fence and the Green Line. In contrast, there are just 11,000 West Bank Palestinians in this area who will not have direct access to other parts of the West Bank. Are there hardships for those Palestinians? Yes, but they can be minimized by an array of actions now being undertaken, like Israel busing Palestinian kids to school or building new roads. And we shouldn't forget that the 170,000 Israelis living there also face a hardship: the prospect of being blown up. The writer is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Los Angeles Times) Israelis are proud of their ability to carry on in the face of terrorism. Over the past three years, since the Palestinian bombings began, Israelis have had hundreds of opportunities to perfect that skill. Whereas once the explosion of a bus or a restaurant would send the country into paroxysms of sadness and rage, with mournful music pouring out of the radio and politicians vowing revenge, today even the bloodiest atrocities recede from memory in a matter of days, if not hours. The writer is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. (New York Times) A recently intercepted message from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al-Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat, from 1997 to 2002, and is currently sitting in a Kurdish prison, says he worked for a man who was Saddam's envoy to al-Qaeda. Al-Shamari's division of the Mukhabarat provided weapons to Ansar al Islam, "mostly mortar rounds." Al-Shamari said the Mukhabarat also helped finance Ansar al Islam: "On one occasion we gave them ten million Swiss dinars [$700,000]." Al-Shamari told me he had worked for Abu Wael, the leader of a special intelligence directorate in the Mukhabarat. Al-Shamari also told me that the links between Saddam's regime and the al-Qaeda network went beyond Ansar al Islam. He explained in considerable detail that Saddam actually ordered Abu Wael to organize foreign fighters from outside Iraq to join Ansar. Al-Shamari said there were also contacts with the Egyptian "Gamaat al-Jihad," which is now seen as the core of al-Qaeda's leadership, as well as with the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which bin Laden helped create in 1998 as an alternative to Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (GIA). Abu Wael dispensed most of the funds himself, al-Shamari said, but there was also some cooperation with Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Zarqawi was al-Qaeda's link to Iraq in the same way that Abu Wael was the Iraqi link to al-Qaeda. Indeed, Zarqawi (who received medical attention in Baghdad in 2002 for wounds that he suffered from U.S. forces in Afghanistan) and Abu Wael helped Ansar al Islam prepare for the U.S. assault on its small enclave last year. The challenge now is to document the claims of these witnesses about the secret ties between Saddam, al-Qaeda, and Abu Wael. The writer is a terrorism analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (Weekly Standard) Observations: Seeing Anti-Semitism in 3D - Natan Sharansky (Jerusalem Post)
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