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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: click here In-Depth Issues:
While Saudis Host Anti-Terror Conference, Saudi TV Continues to Incite to Jihad (MEMRI)
Bedouins Lead Egypt's Hunt for Militants - Sarah El Deeb (AP/Washington Post)
U.S. Assistance to the Palestinians (State Department)
Martyr Plan of Guantanamo Briton -
Dipesh Gadher (Sunday Times-UK)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Palestinian government headquarters in Ramallah on Monday, meeting with Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas. Her entourage passed within 200 yards of Arafat's resting place. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw had laid wreaths at Arafat's burial site during their visits. (USA Today) After spending months or even years on the run, many fighters talk openly of their desire to build new lives for themselves and their families in what they hope will someday be an independent Palestinian state. But, they say, they are equally determined to redouble their attacks if they see signs that Israel is not willing to move ahead with key concessions. "If things fail at this point, we'd have absolutely nothing to lose," said the leader of one guerrilla band in Nablus who calls himself Abu Mujahed. "Everything would get out of hand very quickly, I assure you." (Los Angeles Times) Dutch prosecutors accused 12 young Muslim men on Monday of threatening to kill prominent politicians critical of Islam and said their arrest after the murder of film director Theo van Gogh had foiled other attacks. The men, mostly of Moroccan descent, are suspected of belonging to a militant Muslim network dubbed the "Hofstad" group. "The group plotted some very serious crimes including murder, possession of arms, issuing threats and causing explosions, all following extremist convictions," public prosecutor Koos Plooy told a pre-trial hearing in Rotterdam. Investigators found a letter on the computers of several suspects saying, "The blood of our Muslim brothers will be avenged by the blood of the Dutch people." (Reuters) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
According to Israeli sources, PA Chairman Abbas will announce a cease-fire at Tuesday's Sharm el-Sheikh summit, attended by Egyptian President Mubarak, Prime Minister Sharon, and King Abdullah of Jordan. Sharon will promise to end Israeli military operations in the territories if the Palestinian violence stops. He will call for "deeds, not words" in the war on terror and reiterate Israel's commitment to the road map peace plan. He will also detail Israel's planned goodwill gestures to the Palestinians, such as the release of 900 prisoners. (Ha'aretz) Secretary of State Rice's calculated absence from the Sharm el-Sheikh summit clearly demonstrates the new American policy formulated in recent days. The U.S. administration is making it clear that it is there to assist and accompany, but that it is standing on the sidelines and not on the playing field itself. Gone are the days of the Americans sitting between the two conflicting sides; the involvement now is more cautious and distant. (Ha'aretz) Palestinians fired a mortar shell Monday at Neve Dekalim in Gaza that exploded in the yard of a house. There were no injuries. (Jerusalem Post) See also Palestinians Fire on IDF Patrol in Gaza Palestinians fired at an IDF patrol driving along the Gush Katif security fence in Gaza on Tuesday. No injuries were reported. (Jerusalem Post) See also Shots Fired at Israeli Army Vehicle in West Bank - Ali Daraghmeh (AP/Miami Herald) Lt.-Gen. William Ward has been appointed America's security coordinator in the region, to assist the rehabilitation of the Palestinian security services, oversee their activities, and encourage greater Israeli-Palestinian security coordination. Ward's mandate is focused on security only, with emphasis on the Palestinian side. (Ha'aretz) Students at Egyptian universities in Alexandria and Zagazig, a Nile Delta town, led by Islamist student groups, demonstrated on Monday against their government for inviting Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to a summit with the Palestinians. "Out! Out! Sharon!" students chanted. (AP/Ha'aretz) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Commenting on the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Zalman Shoval, a foreign affairs adviser to Sharon, said: "There is a real chance but we should not overdo it. The Palestinians need to comply with the first phase of the road map which is about breaking up the terrorist infrastructure and collecting illegal weapons. Palestinian statehood is still a long way off." Yossi Alpher, an Israeli political analyst, noted: "A mutual declaration on ending the violence is the least weighty of the issues....This is the beginning of a stabilization process, not a peace process." (Guardian-UK) "Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region," said President Bush in his State of the Union speech last week. "We expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom." Let's hope the President finally means it, because this is only the latest U.S. warning to Damascus since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Colin Powell visited Bashar Assad soon thereafter - despite Pentagon objections that the Syrian dictator would consider it a sign of U.S. weakness. And sure enough, Syria has been adding to our troubles in Iraq ever since. Captured Iraqi and foreign fedayeen report being trained in small arms and explosives at camps in Syria. General George Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has said that Iraq's Baathists are "operating out of Syria with impunity and providing direction and financing for the insurgency in Iraq." Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, formerly Saddam's No. 2, moves freely between Syria and Iraq to direct the insurgency. In recent months the Baathist Regional Command has invited Sunni tribal leaders to meetings in Damascus to recruit them to the insurgency. (Wall Street Journal, 7Feb05) What adds a sharp edge to the Bush II ideological debate is the fact that the FBI is continuing an investigation of AIPAC, which, like the neoconservatives, is strongly supportive of Israel. The investigation appears to have touched some prominent neoconservatives who are friendly toward AIPAC. Journalist Edwin Black in a Dec. 31 article in the Forward described an apparent effort by the FBI to use the Pentagon official whose contacts with AIPAC triggered the investigation, Larry Franklin, in an unsuccessful "sting" operation to draw Richard Perle into passing information to Ahmed Chalabi. A prominent former government official with access to highly classified information told me this week that he was quizzed in late January by two FBI agents about his meetings with Steve Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues. He said he told the agents that he had never given Rosen classified information and that Rosen had never asked for it. The FBI investigation seemed, to this former official, to be largely a "fishing expedition." I'm told that more than a half-dozen officials in the Bush administration who are apparently suspected of leaking classified information to AIPAC have had to retain defense lawyers. (Washington Post) Those in the West who see Arabs as exporters of terrorism forget that Arabs are also its biggest victims, including the 11,000-plus lives lost in Iraq over the past 18 months, 150,000 killings over the years in Algeria, and at least 25,000 in Egypt since 1980. At least some Arab states seem prepared to admit that terrorism is threatening their very existence as organized societies. That understanding is the driving force behind the Riyadh conference on counter-terrorism. (New York Post) Observations: How This Summit Could be Different - Editorial (Jerusalem Post)
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