DAILY ALERT

In-Depth Issues:

IDF: Over 700 Rockets, Mortars Fired at Israel from Lebanon - Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
    Over 700 Katyusha rockets and mortar shells have been fired on northern Israel from Lebanon, a senior IDF official reported Friday.

Hizballah Targets Israeli Civilians - Anthony Shadid and Scott Wilson (Washington Post)
    In the seaside city of Nahariya, on the fifth floor of an apartment building whose plate-glass balconies carried the glamour of Miami, Monica Lehrer, 50, sat on her balcony with her breakfast Thursday morning when a Hizballah rocket fired from Lebanon knocked her off the balcony and onto the floor below.
    "We tried to look for her when the firemen arrived, but we couldn't find her," said Moshe Arad, the woman's visibly shaken neighbor, who had entered the apartment to find a Katyusha rocket in the living room.

Israelis Take Cover as Rockets Rain Down on North - Inigo Gilmore and Rory McCarthy (Guardian-UK)
    At Nahariya hospital the loudspeakers erupted: "Go to the bunkers, go to the bunkers." Dark smoke was swirling through the hospital grounds.
    As a precaution, many of the patients, including women and children, were taken to the underground hospital - a reinforced basement which can hold 250 patients. It was completed in 2003 and was being used for the first time.
    Inside the hospital, Mano Cohen, a Holocaust survivor, was locking up the canteen, much against his will. "The management told us to do it but I think they're wrong," he said angrily. "I feel it's important to stay here and to serve the people."
    Cohen admitted he had sent his children and grandchildren to Tel Aviv in the south, but he was going nowhere. As a child he had survived by hiding from the Nazis in underground basements in Poland and vowed never to do so again.
    See also Hizballah Rains Rockets on Israel - Greg Myre (New York Times)

Israeli Cities on the Firing Line - Hagai Einav (Ynet News)
    Katyusha fire reached the city of Safed on Thursday. For 15 minutes, from 2:30 pm, five neighborhoods in the city were attacked simultaneously. About 30 people were injured and heavy damage was caused.
    A short while after that, Katyushas fell in Majdel Qrum, an Israeli Arab town where 20 people were injured - and also in Ghajar, Kfar Yuval, and Hatzor Haglilit.

Opening of Second Front Leaves Israelis Both Fearful and Defiant - Ken Ellingwood and Tami Zer (Los Angeles Times)
    The kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers inside Israel near Gaza and Lebanon represents for many Israelis a test of their nation's resolve in the face of a threat by Islamist militants.
    "These are the first three cases where Israelis are kidnapped inside Israel and taken to outside Israel. This is a new step. This is why Israel can't tolerate it," said Mordechai Kedar, a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
    Uri Dromi, of the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, said few Israelis favor a return to Lebanon, but there probably would be wide public support for tough military reprisals, including airstrikes against Lebanon.
    "It's like a bad neighborhood. You're in a bad neighborhood, but you're not moving."

Reuters Cameraman Wounded by Hizballah Rocket in Israel (Reuters)
    Reuters cameraman Rami Amichai was filming in the coastal city of Nahariya on Thursday when a rocket fired from Lebanon struck nearby, sending shrapnel into his leg.
    Hizballah has fired scores of rockets into towns across northern Israel in their heaviest bombardment in a decade.

Israelis Take Cover From Militant Rockets - Delphine Matthieussent (AP/Washington Post)
    Hotels in northern Israel sent guests packing, schools shut down, and residents of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, were warned to stay near bomb shelters.

U.S. Ship Leaves Haifa Port Amid Conflict (Stars and Stripes)
    The U.S. Navy fleet ocean tug USNS Apache left Haifa port Thursday as a precaution following the escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon, a U.S. Navy official said.

Saudis Criticize Hizballah Action (Saudi Press Agency-Saudi Arabia)
    An official Saudi source issued the following statement Thursday:
    "Viewing with deep concern the bloody, painful events currently taking place in Palestine and Lebanon, the Kingdom would like to clearly announce that a difference should be drawn between legitimate resistance and rash adventures carried out by elements inside the state and those behind them without consultation with the legitimate authority in their state and without consultation or coordination with Arab countries, thus creating a gravely dangerous situation exposing all Arab countries and its achievements to destruction with those countries having no say."
    "The Kingdom views that it is time that these elements alone bear the full responsibility of these irresponsible acts and should alone shoulder the burden of ending the crisis they have created."

Female Fighter Pilot Hits Target in Gaza - Yossi Yehoshua (Ynet News)
    Capt. Roni, the pilot of an F-16 fighter jet and the first female fighter pilot in the Israel Air Force, took part last week in an attack on a tunnel in Gaza through which terrorists could infiltrate and attack Israel. The bomb she launched hit the target.

China's Islamic Frontier - Robert T. McLean (FrontPageMagazine)
    The Xinjiang Autonomous Uighur Region in China's northwest is home to approximately eight million Uighur Muslims; there are several million Hui, Kazakh, and Tajik Muslims as well.
    The East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) has ties to al-Qaeda.
    Constituting one-sixth of China's total landmass, Xinjiang's expanding importance to China's economy, the Islamic presence in the region, and the threat of separatist and terrorist organizations have led Beijing to conclude that the country's northwestern frontier must be tamed.
    Under the "Strike Hard" campaign begun in the mid-1990s, those who have studied in madrassahs abroad are monitored by Chinese authorities, and all material considered subversive is confiscated at the border from those returning from Central Asia or the Middle East.
    Last year more than 18,000 were arrested in Xinjiang for what Beijing classifies as "endangering state security," and executions of suspected terrorists are frequent.
    The writer is a research associate at the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

The Politics of "Transmigration": Why Jewish Refugees had to Leave Switzerland from 1944 to 1954 - Simon Erlanger (Jewish Political Studies Review)
    The effort to prevent Jewish immigration was central to the Swiss authorities long before the rise of Nazism in Germany.
    Special regulations were enacted to prevent "foreign infiltration," making it increasingly difficult for Jews to settle in Switzerland.
    Instead, the aim of Swiss policy was "transmigration" or onward migration; permanent asylum was to be denied.
    The transmigration policy was suspended during the war. However, most of the Jews who managed to reach Switzerland were interned to prevent them from striking roots in the country.
    Transmigration was resumed in 1944, and subsequent improvements in Switzerland's treatment of the refugees were made in this context.
    By 1954, Switzerland had succeeded in compelling almost all the Jewish refugees to leave.

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News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

Observations:

International Community Must Condemn Attacks and Support Israel's Self-Defense - Harold Tanner and Malcolm Hoenlein (Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations)

• Israel has been attacked across an international border. The international community must speak out, clearly and collectively, in support of Israel's right to self-defense and to assure the security of its citizens.
• The Lebanese government has the sovereign responsibility for what occurs within its borders and for attacks emanating from its territory. UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and subsequent resolutions demanded that the Lebanese government disarm the terrorist group Hizballah, but no steps toward that end have been taken. To the contrary, Hizballah is part of the Lebanese government, represented at the ministerial level.
• The international community cannot expect Israel to accept these barrages of rockets and kidnappings, either from Lebanon or Gaza. There can be no justification or rationalizing for such outrages. Having failed to implement the disarmament of Hizballah, the international community should press the government of Lebanon to act immediately and secure the release of the hostages. All those who aid and abet the terrorists operating from Gaza and southern Lebanon, particularly Iran and Syria, must be held accountable
• The American Jewish community is being mobilized to support Israel's right to self-defense, including measures taken to end the more than 1,000 rockets fired from Gaza, the repeated missile and other attacks across the Lebanese border, and all other acts of terror.
• These attacks are part of the global war on terror. Israel has been on the front line of that war for decades and cannot and must not allow the terrorists any respite or sanctuary. Like all other states, Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens and should take all necessary actions to fulfill that responsibility.
• We also offer our prayers for the well-being and safe return of the three hostages - Gilad Shalit, abducted by Hamas in Gaza, and Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, abducted by Hizballah - and offer our condolences to the families of those brutally murdered in these barbaric attacks.

  Harold Tanner is Chairman and Malcolm Hoenlein is Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents.