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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 Issues:
Syria Finances Insurgency War Against U.S. (Middle East Newsline)
Arafat Took $2M a Month from Gasoline Sales - Margaret Neighbour (TIME-Scotsman-UK)
See also
The Money Trail - Arafat Family Values - Christopher Dickey and Dan Ephron (Newsweek)
Rumsfeld Urges a Latin Push Against Terror - Thom Shanker (New York Times)
Israel Navy Acquires Three New Fast-Class Ships - Arieh O'Sullivan (Jerusalem Post)
Arafat TV Tribute Angers Kuwaitis - Julia Wheller (BBC News)
Search
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that he had seen information suggesting Iran had been studying ways to adapt nuclear weapons for use on missiles. (Los Angeles Times) See also Exiles Add to Claims on Iran Nuclear Arms The Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance charged on Wednesday that Iran had bought blueprints for a nuclear bomb and obtained weapons-grade uranium on the black market. Paul Leventhal, of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, said, "Everything that came out initially about the Iranian clandestine program was from this organization." (New York Times) The Bush administration notified key congressional committees on Wednesday that it plans to give $20 million in aid directly to the Palestinian Authority "to jump-start the peace process," a senior congressional aide said. American aid typically goes through international groups that bypass the PA. (Reuters) Unwilling to accept the official explanation that Arafat died of an illness, many Palestinians seem to favor the explanation that Israel, with help from a senior Arafat aide, poisoned him, a charge Israelis deny and many others have discounted. The French government went as far as it could on Wednesday to quash rumors that Arafat was poisoned. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei on Wednesday ordered an inquiry to determine the cause of Arafat's death. "In the Western media, you think this is paranoid conspiracy theories, but here in the Arab world, that is not the case at all," said Hishad Ahmed, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah. (Washington Post) See also Israel Examining Possibility Arafat Died of AIDS (Maariv International) See also The Cause of Arafat's Death The usually well informed French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine wrote that Arafat died of liver cirrhosis. Since this ailment is usually linked with heavy alcohol drinking, Arafat's family decided not to disclose the cause of his death. (Jerusalem Post) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Prime Minister Sharon apologized to Egyptian President Mubarak on Thursday after an IDF tank mistakenly killed three Egyptian policemen near the Egypt-Gaza border. "We must find ways to ensure it won't happen again," said Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim. The tank crew believed the three to be terrorists planting a bomb. (Ha'aretz) This region is characterized by frequent terrorist attacks against IDF forces and Israeli communities nearby, as well as by infiltration attempts and weapons smuggling into Israel to and from Egypt. (IDF) "We want to see the Syrian Army out of Lebanon," U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman said Tuesday in Beirut. Feltman said the U.S. wanted Lebanon to assert its sovereignty over all of Lebanese territory. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559 in September calling on foreign troops to pull out of Lebanon. Feltman said the first step in implementing the resolution "is for the Lebanese Army to start redeploying to the south to prevent further katyushas being fired across the Blue Line" border with Israel. (Reuters/Ha'aretz) NATO has suggested that the Israel Defense Forces, for the first time, take part in multinational military exercises and participate in anti-terror activities such as patrols in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. NATO is also considering sending forces to the Gaza Strip after Israel implements the disengagement plan, if Israel and the PA reach an agreement on the withdrawal and ask for NATO help. (Ha'aretz) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Israel has now dug three 100-foot-long underpasses beneath the security barrier in Kalkilya so that Palestinians can drive freely under Israeli roads to reach Palestinian villages to the north. As Israeli cars pass on the roads overhead, the Palestinians drive below them between rock walls 20 feet high surmounted by electrified fencing. It is a striking visual statement of the estrangement of the two peoples, a tangible display of the different dimensions they occupy in the same small space. Israeli officials say this separation will promote peace by permitting the two peoples to cool off. (New York Times) See also For Israelis, How Can Hope Be Restored? - Steven Erlanger While Arafat's passing may be seen as an opportunity by politicians, the bloodshed and suicide bombings of the past four years have broken Israeli optimism about peace. "It's not as simple as returning to Camp David or where we left off," said Tami Cohen. "What's lost is the basic belief that peace is attainable." (New York Times) While Arafat was seen as the champion of Palestinian nationalism, he also came to represent corruption and dashed hopes for democracy. His passing has many Palestinians expecting a better caliber of leadership. "What we disagree with is the method of government in which personality supersedes the law and isn't beholden to it," says Jaber Asfour, a senior Fatah leader in the West Bank. But the bottom line, he says, is that "the young guards want to have a bigger share of the cake." "After Arafat, we are free. We can impose on the next Palestinian leader what we want, rather than having it imposed on us," says Sattam Mubarak, a student at Bir Zeit University. "We know that Israelis have internal freedom in their society, to move around as they wish and say what they like, and we want those freedoms, too." (Christian Science Monitor) For the Guardian, Arafat was to be compared to "Moses." On CNN, he was described as a "revolutionary romantic figure comparable to Ho Chi Minh and Nelson Mandela." Much of the Western media is still being taken in by the Stalin-like cult of personality Arafat nurtured for himself over the past 40 years. In scores of reports on both BBC and CNN, acts of terrorism were left completely unmentioned. (Jerusalem Post) See also The Moral Sickness of the World - Melanie Phillips The reaction of the free world to Arafat's death, along with the opprobrium heaped daily upon his victims in Israel, illustrates the decadence that now rewards evil and punishes those whom it terrorizes. It is a horrifying indication of a world that has simply lost its fundamental understanding of right and wrong. All who value life, liberty, and justice should take careful note and shudder at this moral - and mortal - sickness. This is the way a civilization dies. (melaniephillips.com) Future historians, their view unclouded by contemporary politics, will rank Arafat in the same column as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot. They will record for posterity his deliberate misdeeds that today remain shrouded by political passions, and they will note those who assisted, covered up, and apologized for Arafat's only accomplishment: the delivery of misery to millions. He devoted his entire life to accumulating as much wealth, power, and historical importance as possible while killing anyone who got in his way and caring nothing about the negative impact on his own people. No world leader of our time has been so enthusiastically embraced by decent people while presiding over the systematic murder of so many innocents - including scores of children deliberately targeted. (Manchester Union Leader) Observations: How Britain Can Help Fight Terrorism - Rachel Ehrenfeld (National Review)
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