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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:
CIA Says Qaeda Militant Decapitated American - Douglas Jehl (New York Times)
See also Iran and Syria Aid Zarqawi - Niles Lathem (New York Post)
See also Iraq's bin Laden? Zarqawi's Rise - Peter Grier and Faye Bowers (Christian Science Monitor)
U.S. Media Shuns Horror Video - Verity Murphy (BBC News)
Abuse Photos Were Faked in Britain - George Jones and Michael Smith (Telegraph-UK)
Want a Different
Abu Ghraib Story? - Daniel Henninger (Wall Street Journal)
Egyptian Parliamentarian Silenced After Visit to Israel (AFP/International Herald Tribune)
Useful Reference:
1,004 Israelis Killed Since September 2000 (Jerusalem Post)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
President Bush says the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq shows the true nature of the terrorists who want to block the drive to freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people. "Nicholas Berg was an innocent civilian who was in Iraq to help build a free Iraq. There is no justification for the brutal execution of Nicholas Berg," he said. The Bush administration has vowed that the killers will be brought to justice. (VOA News) Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday he would not expel Palestinian militant groups as demanded by the U.S., in response to sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Tuesday. Syria hosts Palestinian militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and is on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist-sponsoring countries. Hamas head Khaled Mashaal has been living in Damascus since 1999. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who heads the Islamic Jihad, moved to Syria in the 1990s. (AP/USA Today) See also U.S. Sanctions Not Enough to Deter Syria, Israeli Analyst Says Syrian expert Dr. Yossi Olmert said he did not believe that the sanctions against Syria would have a big impact. Some analysts have said that Syria could skirt the sanctions altogether since goods flow freely across the Syrian-Lebanese border. America needs to take a "three-pronged" approach, Olmert said, which would include encouraging opposition elements in Syria, anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon, and indicating to Syria that if it gets caught "red-handed" in involvement in terrorism, the U.S. will not stop Israel from responding militarily against Syria. (CNSNews) UN atomic energy inspectors see a pattern in Iran of radiation contamination that could indicate attempts to enrich uranium to bomb-grade levels, diplomats close to the agency said. Reflecting the current thinking of investigators, one diplomat said particles of highly enriched uranium have been found in specific sites, hinting that "someone brought material or equipment and then removed it." IAEA inspectors have reported two such concentrations - at a Kalaye Electric Company workshop in Tehran and at the Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant. Traces found at "one room in the Kalaye Electric Company workshop" were particles of "uranium enriched to 36%," according to an IAEA report in February. Iran has been asked to explain this "particularly in light of its declaration that it has not enriched uranium to more than 1.2%," the report said. (AFP/Yahoo) The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom heavily criticized Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt for discrimination and recommended threatening the Saudi government with sanctions unless its record improves. "The government of Saudi Arabia engages in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief," the congressionally mandated panel said in its annual report. "The commission continues to recommend that Saudi Arabia be designated a 'country of particular concern,'" which would open Riyadh to possible U.S. sanctions. The panel noted with concern that Saudi Arabia continued to export an extreme form of militant Islam despite pledges to rein in radical, anti-Western imams. "The sponsorship by a close ally of the United States around the world of extremist intolerant religious views or views that incite to violence seems to be something that the American people must know more about," said Michael Young, the commission's chairman. (AFP/Yahoo) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Prime Minister Sharon, Defense Minister Mofaz, and other top officials on Thursday approved an IDF plan to widen the Philadelphia corridor in southern Gaza along the Egyptian border, political sources said on Friday. "It's a measure that we are taking to provide better protection for armored personnel carriers and the soldiers, and to reshape that theater of war so we will enjoy an advantage and not the Palestinians," one Israeli official said about the corridor, where five troops were killed on Wednesday. Palestinians carry out daily attacks against Israeli positions and soldiers in the area adjoining Rafah refugee camp. (Ha'aretz) Widening the corridor will require demolishing abandoned as well as populated dwellings adjacent to the border area on the Palestinian side. Some of the buildings have been used by Palestinians as bases of operation, while others have been commandeered by Palestinian gunmen from civilians. One official noted that if and when the disengagement plan will be put into action, Israel will maintain control of the area. Widening the corridor will disrupt Palestinian weapons smuggling tunnels activity. (Jerusalem Post) Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Thursday: "The IDF's operations in Gaza are essential and unavoidable. It is also the right thing to do....The struggle includes battling hundreds of terror cells, alleyways, explosive charges, bomb-making laboratories, tunnels and hideouts - and all inside a densely populated area....Our operations both in Zeitun and on the Philadelphia route are essential. If we do not operate against the tunnels we will find ourselves being attacked in the heart of Israel. No one plans on running away from the Gaza Strip." (Maariv International) Mofaz said that Palestinians should not be given "credit" for having managed to blow up two explosives-laden armored personnel carriers in two days, killing 11 soldiers, which he called a "coincidence." (Ha'aretz) See also Mofaz: Palestinians Smuggled Body Parts in UN Ambulances - Hanan Greenberg Defense Minister Mofaz said Friday that Palestinians smuggled parts of the bodies of IDF soldiers killed in the Philadelphia corridor Wednesday into their territory using UN and UNRWA ambulances. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew) On Tuesday armed Palestinians threatened the lives of an UNRWA ambulance team (a driver and a paramedic) and forced them to transport an injured gunman and two of his armed colleagues to a hospital in Gaza City. "UNRWA condemns this action in the strongest possible terms; at no time and under no circumstances should armed men enter any UNRWA vehicle," a statement from the organization said. The army has witnessed a growing trend in the cynical use of Palestinian medical crews and ambulances by terrorist organizations that operate within populated civilian areas, use ambulances to transport weapons and fugitives, and seek refuge in hospitals in an attempt to evade inspection by IDF troops. (Jerusalem Post) Two Fatah Tanzim terrorists arrested by security forces in Nablus on Thursday planned to launch a suicide bomb attack in a supermarket or restaurant in the greater Tel Aviv region. Sources in the Shin Bet said the two received their instructions from Hizballah operatives in Lebanon. Following the arrests, the two led security forces to a bag containing 20 kg of explosives. (Jerusalem Post) Palestinians fired at an Israeli bus near Sanur in northern Samaria Thursday. The bullet-proof bus was damaged, but none of its passengers were injured. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the Jordanian militant who is reportedly responsible for the videotaped butchery of Nicholas Berg - may have inadvertently delivered his enemy from its own demoralization. Americans were feeling so shamed, dishonored, and demoralized by the repulsive images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib that even many prominent war supporters were reconsidering the effort. So in "retaliation" for the Abu Ghraib abuses, Zarqawi stages a singularly abominable execution of a private American citizen. The probable effect is to offer many Americans an exit from their own moral horror. Elemental empathy is a primary measure of civilization. The shame that Americans felt at the Abu Ghraib images is rooted in such empathy. But if this is a moment of comparative atrocity, the murder offers many of those who feel disgust and shame a different context in which to perceive those images. Zarqawi has reminded his enemies that, unlike him, they are at least capable of shame. Zarqawi's righteous snuff movie is a gift to his enemies, and, one hopes, an unwitting suicide note. (Los Angeles Times) The beheading of Berg has eclipsed the shame and failure of the U.S. and its allies over the Abu Ghraib scandal. Berg's self-appointed executioners appear to have been oblivious to the fact that a public relations disaster for the U.S.' Middle East policies was a prime opportunity for the Arab and Muslim worlds to push Washington for a new, just approach to the region. Instead, they sabotaged this unique opportunity. They have created a reactionary climate in which Abu Ghraib can be seen as a deserving punishment for an entire society, a climate which fosters the belief that Berg's killers represent the real face of Arabs and Muslims. Not only did an innocent civilian lose his life in appalling circumstances, but the Arab and Muslim worlds have been dealt a severe body blow by the same blade that ended Berg's life. (Beirut Daily Star) Anti-semitic propaganda was a marginal phenomenon in the Arab world for a long time, but unfortunately it has been gaining strength in several countries over the past three years. Ultra-nationalist and religious movements are spreading the poison of anti-semitism on fertile ground, with the connivance of the authorities. In November 2003, Robert Fisk, whose commitment to the Palestinian cause is well-known, wrote in The Independent about his disgust at finding a new edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an old Tsarist forgery, in a Beirut bookshop: "I'm always careful about accusing Arabs of anti-semitism....But how come this vicious little tract can turn up in a sophisticated country such as Lebanon?" The current anti-semitic propaganda is retrogressive for the Arab world and will do it untold harm. (Le Monde Diplomatique) Research on the social and psychological background of terrorists show they tend to be more prosperous and better educated than most in their societies, and no more religious or irrational than the average person. A study of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide terrorists from the late 1980s to 2003 found only 13% were from a poor background, compared with 32% of the Palestinian population in general, according to a New Scientist report. Suicide bombers were also three times more likely to have gone on to higher education than the general population, Claude Berrebi, an economist at Princeton University, found. Ariel Merare, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University, said he changed his view that most suicide bombers were mentally ill after studying the background of every suicide bomber in the Middle East since 1983. (Sydney Morning Herald-Australia) Christianity's ancient stronghold of Europe is rapidly giving way to Islam. Europe is increasingly a post-Christian society, one with a diminishing connection to its tradition or its historic values. The number of believing, observant Christians has collapsed in the past two generations to the point where analysts estimate Britain's mosques host more worshipers each week than does the Church of England. In addition, indigenous Europeans are dying out due to an anemic EU birthrate of 1.5 per woman. Some 5% of the EU, or nearly 20 million persons, presently identify themselves as Muslims, a figure that will reach 10% by 2020 if present trends continue. Europeans seem to find it too strenuous to have children, stop illegal immigration, or even diversify their sources of immigrants. Instead, they prefer to settle unhappily into civilizational senility. (Chicago Sun-Times) Global terrorism is on the rise and is likely to continue unabated for the next 100 years, according to Prof. Yonah Alexander, director of the Inter-Universities Center for Terrorism Studies. He also believes it is only a matter of time before groups like al-Qaeda use non-conventional weapons as part of attempts to promulgate their ideology and undermine Western society. He anticipates that al-Qaeda's next theater of operations will be Europe, where the organization has established a widespread base and network. (Jerusalem Post) I first joined the ranks of the IDF in 1990 as a 30-year-old reservist corporal in the Military Police. "We need you to go to these prisons and be in charge of the hour-by-hour contact with the prisoners," an officer told us during basic training. "We need mature, thoughtful people who aren't going to blow up and let their emotions dictate their actions." For the next 14 years, I joined conscripts, officers, and other reservists down on the ground with Palestinian detainees, making things run. Huge shipments of food delivered daily had to be dispersed, prisoners had to be taken to doctors and to dentists. Others had appointments with their attorneys, and every day there were staggered visits from family members. Could such a travesty as in Abu Ghraib occur at an Israeli military prison? Almost certainly not. In no corner would there have been any tolerance or simply turning the other way in the event of anything remotely resembling abusive or humiliating behavior. (Jerusalem Post) Weekend Features:
Last December the Lebanese satellite television station LBC premiered "Star Academy," with contestants from around the Arab world. Prerequisites were: attractive physical appearance, knowledge of three songs by heart, and modern dress. Some 5,000 young people from Jordan alone applied to take part. The ratings for the Lebanese program were higher than any previously broadcast show. During the five months of the contest, about 18 million SMS messages were sent from Egypt, 17 million from Syria, 11 million from Saudi Arabia, and 8 million from Jordan. The show reignited the acrid debate between East and West, between religion and the modern world, between local nationalism and Arab nationalism. (Ha'aretz) The book U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis - based on FBI records, CIA files on individuals, and U.S. Army information detailing the Army's postwar relationship with former officers of the German Wehrmacht's intelligence service - was released Thursday by historians who have been reviewing the records for the government. (Washington Post) On a research visit in 2003, I was privileged to tour the old Negev battlefields with Itzhak Pundak, a brigade commander from the '48 War. He marched me from a wrecked railroad bridge, around the Jewish sniper posts, onward to Egyptian artillery bunkers, from time to time regarding me narrowly from under handsome silvery brows. "Is this too much?" asked the eighty-nine-year-old. "Do you need a rest?" - Excerpt from How Israel Lost. (USA Today) Observations: The Two-Conflict Delusion - Saul Singer (Jerusalem Post)
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