DAILY ALERT

In-Depth Issues:

Thousands of Palestinian Prisoners May Be Freed - Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff (Ha'aretz)
    The number of Palestinian prisoners Israel is officially saying will be released in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit: 980, in two stages: 450 heavy-duty prisoners whom Hamas wants freed, and another 530 terrorists whom Israel will select "as a gesture to the Palestinian people."
    This figure doesn't include the hundreds of prisoners Israel is likely to release in a bid to furbish the image of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.
    In other words, if the Shalit deal goes through, more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will be released in the coming months, possibly close to 2,000.

Swiss Vote to Ban Minarets in Backlash Against Islam - Alexander G. Higgins (AP)
    Swiss voters Sunday approved a constitutional amendment to ban the construction of minarets, projections by the respected gfs.bern polling institute showed.
    The nationalist Swiss People's Party, the country's largest party in terms of popular support and membership in parliament, describes minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political and religious power that could eventually turn Switzerland into an Islamic nation.
    Muslims make up about 6% of Switzerland's 7.5 million people. Many Swiss Muslims are refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Fewer than 13% practice their religion, the government says, and Swiss mosques do not broadcast the call to prayer outside their buildings.
    The Cabinet that heads the Swiss government has spoken out strongly against the initiative, and rights defenders objected to campaign posters showing minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman.
    See also A Sharp Challenge to Islam in Europe - Robin Shepherd (Robin Shepherd)
    The move is likely to provoke the kind of mass confrontation that followed the publication of cartoons in Denmark in 2005 which linked the Prophet Mohammed to terrorism.
    In the months that followed, more than 100 people died in unrest across the Muslim world; Danish embassies and shops were burned to the ground.
    It looks as though a backlash against Islam in Europe by nationalist forces energized by the failures of multiculturalist orthodoxies is now really starting to take hold. There's more of this to come. You can rely on it.
    The writer is director of international affairs at the Henry Jackson Society in London.
    See also Switzerland and the Minaret - Editorial (Wall Street Journal)
    The construction of new minarets is banned, but the building of mosques is unaffected, and the vote does not affect the four existing minarets in the country. Nobody's freedom of worship is threatened.
    The ban seeks merely to hide from view the problems that gave rise to the fear of the minaret in the first place.

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

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

Observations:

The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding - Fouad Ajami (Wall Street Journal)

• In the Arab-Islamic world, Barack Obama has come down to earth. He has not made the world anew, history did not bend to his will, the Indians and Pakistanis have been told that the matter of Kashmir is theirs to resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the same intractable clash of two irreconcilable nationalisms, and the theocrats in Iran have not "unclenched their fist," nor have they abandoned their nuclear quest.
• Obama's election has not drained the swamps of anti-Americanism. That anti-Americanism is endemic to this region, an alibi and a scapegoat for nations, and their rulers, unwilling to break out of the grip of political autocracy and economic failure. It predated the presidency of George W. Bush and rages on during the Obama presidency.
• In an effort to resolve the fight between Arab and Jew over the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean, the Obama diplomacy had made a settlement freeze its starting point, when this was precisely the wrong place to begin. Israel has given up settlements before at the altar of peace - recall the historical accommodation with Egypt a quarter century ago.
• The right course would have set the question of settlements aside as it took up the broader challenge of radicalism in the region - the menace and swagger of Iran, the arsenal of Hamas and Hizbullah, the refusal of the Arab order of power to embrace in broad daylight the cause of peace with Israel.

  The writer, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.