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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:
Report: Al-Qaeda in South Lebanon - Claude Salhani (UPI)
Jordanian Islamists Accused of Plot to Assassinate Bush - Hala Boncompagni (AFP/Yahoo)
Syria Seeking New Russian Warplanes - Aryeh Egozi (Ynet News)
State Department Report Parrots Biased NGOs - Yaakov Lappin (Ynet News)
U.S. Indicts Five Men Tied to Islamic Charity (Reuters/New York Times)
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Ali Rez Asgari, a former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard, has left his country and is cooperating willingly with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hizbullah and Iran's ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official. Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005. His background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran's national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal, and ties to Hizbullah, but he was not involved in the country's nuclear program. Former officers with Israel's Mossad said Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hizbullah. (Washington Post) Four weeks after their Saudi-brokered agreement to form a coalition, Fatah and Hamas are still arguing over the details. For now, the big powers are suspending judgment, but the U.S. will be in no rush to end a political and financial boycott it imposed on the PA after Hamas won power in January 2006. The Quartet has insisted any Palestinian government recognize Israel, renounce violence, and accept past peace deals - conditions Hamas has refused to meet. "I have no expectation of a change in U.S. policy," said Mouin Rabbani, an International Crisis Group analyst. "The Europeans, despite what they might think or feel, are probably not going to get into a conflict with Washington over this." "Don't expect an immediate turning on of the tap of Western aid if a unity government is formed," a European diplomat said, adding that it might take six months for the PA's finance minister to bring donors a credible proposal. (Reuters) Israel's Foreign Ministry Wednesday criticized Egyptian media statements accusing Israel of killing 250 Egyptian prisoners of war during the 1967 War, based on an Israeli documentary film broadcast last week. Senior ministry officials viewed the documentary and concluded it "shows clearly that this was not a case of the 'murder of helpless POWs,' but rather a battle between Israeli soldiers and an Egyptian commando unit....The movie leaves no doubt that the soldiers were killed in battle and were not POWs." "Thirty years after Egyptian President Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem, and 28 years after the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and the beginning of a new era in the Middle East, it is inappropriate to dig up issues from the distant past, especially when there is no factual basis to the accusations," the ministry said. "Israel views with grave concern the campaign to slander and incite against Israel in the Egyptian Parliament and media" and hopes Egypt will "bring the facts" before its public and "restore quiet." (UPI) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
"Boosted by their newfound ability to travel abroad, Hamas militants have been going back and forth to hostile countries for training," Israel Defense Forces Head of Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said Wednesday. "They are sending activists to Syria, Lebanon, Iran. And the opposite. People from Iran come inspect the situation in the area, give them the proper training and coaching, examine them and see if they hit the target they gave them." Galant said the training and technology from Iran has enabled Hamas to grow from a ragtag militia into a well-organized group resembling an army - complete with battalions, companies, platoons and special forces for surveillance, snipers, and explosive experts. Galant also called the Gaza cease-fire a tactical move for Hamas to strengthen itself. (Ha'aretz) See also Israeli Commander: Hamas Growing Stronger (AFP/Yahoo) Anaas Subhi Hashaash, 21, a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades from Nablus, was tired of playing cat and mouse with Israel Defense Forces soldiers every night and turned himself in to IDF soldiers at the Hawara checkpoint. Hashaash's family said they encouraged him to make the decision. Salah al-Jarami, a Fatah activist from Balata, said other activists, including his own brother, have been surrendering themselves recently. (Ynet News) Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket that landed near a kibbutz in the vicinity of Ashkelon Thursday morning. Another rocket fired at Israel landed inside Gaza. (Jerusalem Post) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
In Afghanistan, married for two years to a Westernized Afghan Muslim whom I met at an American college, I saw how polygamous, arranged marriages and child brides led to chronic female suffering and to rivalry between co-wives and half-brothers; how the subordination and sequestration of women led to a profound estrangement between the sexes; how frustrated, neglected and uneducated women tormented their daughters-in-law and female servants; how women were not allowed to pray in mosques or visit male doctors (their husbands described the symptoms in their absence). I learned not to romanticize Third World countries or to confuse their hideous tyrants with liberators. I also learned that sexual and religious apartheid in Muslim countries is indigenous and not the result of Western crimes. Nevertheless, Western intellectual-ideologues have demonized me as a racist "Islamophobe" for arguing that Islam, not Israel, is the largest practitioner of both sexual and religious apartheid in the world and that if Westerners do not stand up to this apartheid, morally, economically and militarily, we will not only have the blood of innocents on our hands; we will also be overrun by Sharia in the West. I have denounced the epidemic of Muslim-on-Muslim violence for which tiny Israel is routinely, unbelievably scapegoated. The writer is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at the City University of New York. (Times-UK) Syria maintains not one but two ambassadors to Washington. Officially, Syrian president Bashar Assad's top diplomat in the U.S. is Ambassador Imad Moustapha. Assad's second, unofficial - but reliably pro-Syria - envoy is Lebanon's ambassador to Washington, Farid Abboud. Abboud, who has been in Washington for eight years, was appointed by the pro-Syria Lebanese president Emile Lahoud. As a matter of policy, the administration has treated Abboud as a Syrian official and has studiously avoided contact. The absence of a Lebanese ambassador to Washington who is accountable to his own government reflects the ongoing Syrian influence in Lebanon. The writer is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. (Weekly Standard/Washington Institute for Near East Policy) European Muslim leaders make no secret of their intent to change Europe to their tune, not to adapt to it. They demand their own school systems, in their own native languages, financed by the host state and, in the long run, to its own detriment. There are already areas in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Britain where Muslim children constitute the majority of the school population. In addition, there are a growing numbers of converts to Islam in major European countries such as France and Britain - 50,000 in each in the past decade. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) See also Islam Converts Change Face of Europe - Etgar Lefkovits (Jerusalem Post) Observations: Gall of the Hashemites - Editorial (New York Sun)
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