-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
TZEMACH NEWS SERVICE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A weekly update of news and events regarding the nation and the people of Israel. Week Ending: 9 February 2002/27 Shevat 5762 "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the L-rd!" Isaiah 31.1 This Week's Headlines: :: SHARON RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED :: CHENEY AND TENET TO VISIT MIDDLE EAST :: SHARON EXPECTS CREATION OF PALESTINIAN STATE; EU HAS THE PLAN :: TERRORISTS INFILTRATE JEWISH COMMUNITY :: SETTLEMENT SITE OF THE WEEK :: IRAN STIRRING AGAINST ISRAEL :: US PLANNING TO BOMB IRAQ? :: ANTI-SEMITISM INCREASING :: WINDS OF WAR :: LATEST ISSUE OF MEIB :: MYTH AND FACT :: SHARON RETURNS EMPTY-HANDED: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returns to Israel on Sunday after a three-day visit in the United States. Sharon obtained US President George Bush's promise at a White House meeting on Thursday to keep pressuring Arafat to crack down on terrorists, although Bush stopped short of cutting ties with the Palestinian leader as Sharon had hoped. Sharon's visit to the White House, his fourth since taking office a year ago, underscores the extent of Arafat's estrangement from Washington. Once a frequent visitor during the Clinton administration, Arafat has been refused an invitation by Bush. But the president's harsh rhetoric and diplomatic snubbing of Arafat fall short of making the Palestinian leader "irrelevant," as Sharon has sought. In addition, Sharon asked Bush for $800 million in special aid to Israel, government sources in Jerusalem said Saturday. The $800 million in special aid was promised by former president Bill Clinton as compensation for Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. However, it was never approved by Congress. The sources said that in addition, Sharon asked Bush to speed up the transfer of the regular American aid payment, which was supposed to have arrived at the end of 2001. They said the Americans promised to look into both requests. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Arafat must make a decision: to turn towards peace or continue down a path of violence. Powell stated that Arafat cannot expect the US to continue efforts towards a compromise agreement while he continues attacks. [I thought that was the initial requirement of the Oslo Accords--ed] ............................ :: CHENEY AND TENET TO VISIT MIDDLE EAST: US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Israel and eight other countries in the Middle East in the next few weeks, HA'ARETZ reported. Cheney's full itinerary is not yet known. The trip will follow a visit by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet. US officials said that Tenet's trip is part of his routine duties and is not designed to broker a new cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians. Tenet is the author of the "Tenet Cease-Fire Plan" <http://www.tzemach.org/fyi/docs/tenent.htm>. ............................ :: SHARON EXPECTS CREATION OF PALESTINIAN STATE; EU HAS THE PLAN: PM Sharon said Thursday that he expected to see a Palestinian state at the end of the Middle East peace process. Although Sharon has said in the past that he envisioned a Palestinian state, Thursday marked the first time that he had done so from the powerful stage of the Oval Office, with the American president at his side. American and Israeli officials said that Sharon's words in that context were a sign of his willingness to move toward negotiations with the Palestinians, and reflected a slight warming in his hard-line approach. In another report, European Union (EU) foreign ministers backed the outlines of a new Mideast peace plan Saturday calling for Palestinian elections and the creation of a Palestinian state to be immediately recognized by Israel and admitted to the United Nations. Creation of a Palestinian state must be the "starting point of a negotiating process," French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said as he presented a blueprint of the plan, drawn up by France, to his 14 colleagues from the European Union. The plan won broad support, with none of the ministers expressing any criticism. The Europeans have in the past come out in favor of a Palestinian state, but the move to present a detailed plan involving elections and quick entry of a Palestinian state into the United Nations was unprecedented. ............................ :: TERRORISTS INFILTRATE JEWISH COMMUNITY: Miri Ohana, 50, her 11-year-old daughter Yael and Israel Defense Forces soldier [IDF], Staff-Sgt. Moshe Mekonan, 33, were murdered on Wednesday by Palestinian terrorists who infiltrated Hamra, a community in the Jordan Valley. Four other Israelis were wounded in the attack and one terrorist was killed. Arafat's Voice of Palestine [VOP] opened its news broadcasts Thursday morning by labeling as "istish-haad" -- as an act of "heroic martyrdom" -- the terror attack on Hamra. The VOP account did not mention that the two settlers who were killed were Miri Ohana and her 11-year-old daughter who opened their door to the terrorist who was wearing an Israeli army uniform and carrying an M-16 assault rile like the kind used by Israeli soldiers. Pretending to be one's enemy or trying to pass as someone else is part of the Islamic tradition of "takeeya" or "concealment" employed by certain Islamic sects over the centuries during periods of emergency. A similar act of concealment was carried out early last week by Wafa Idris, a 27-year-old woman who entered Jerusalem in a Palestinian ambulance belonging to the Palestinian Red Crescent and later set off a huge bomb on Jerusalem's busiest street, killing one man and wounding 150. Arafat himself, in an American TV interview, justified the terrorist attack carried out by Idris. An Israeli woman was killed Saturday night and her son was lightly wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire at their vehicle near the Tapuah junction, south of the PLO-occupied city of Shechem. Her son, who was in the driver's seat, managed to continue driving for several more kilometers, where rescue services attempted to resuscitate the woman, but to no avail. ............................ :: SETTLEMENT SITE OF THE WEEK: Yesha [ http://www.moetzetyesha.co.il/index-eng.htm ] - Judea, Samaria, and Gaza - {aka "The West Bank") is comprised of 144 Jewish communities which are concentrated in 15 local authorities and seven regional councils. Most of the areas are villages or urban communities with a number of kibbutzim (cooperative settlements), plus two cities; Ma'aleh Adumim, and Ariel. The majority of the population (over 65%) is religiously non-observant. The re-establishment of a Jewish presence in these vital areas came about after the 1967 Six-Day War. For only nineteen years, from 1948 until 1967, these lands were under total Arab control. During this period the Jewish people had no access to the most important places to them - not to the Old City of Jerusalem, nor the Tomb of the patriarchs in Hebron, nor the Tomb of Rachel in Beit Lechem, nor Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (which has since been cut-off again by the PA/PLO). ............................ :: IRAN STIRRING AGAINST ISRAEL: Iran has stationed members of its elite Revolutionary Guard in south Lebanon and has supplied Hizb'Allah with 10,000 rockets, some with a 70-kilometer [43.5 miles] range, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres charged in New York on Monday. Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh, an ex-general, said Tuesday that Iran's goal was to "wipe Israel off the map." The present regime in Teheran, he told Israel Radio, believes that "from a religious point of view, Israel has no right to exist. It's army, the rockets in south Lebanon are all meant for this purpose. This is the regime's ideology and strategy." Sneh added that Israel had "no intention of attacking Iran." Meanwhile, according to a story in the London-based ASHARQ AL-AWSAT, Jordan's King Abdullah recently told Bush that Iran has a large-scale plan to carry out terror attacks against Israel from Jordanian territory, HA'ARETZ reported. Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, trained in Iran and in Hizb'Allah camps in Lebanon, have tried to attack Israel 17 times with rockets and mortar shells from inside Jordanian territory. The paper said that Jordanian and US officials confirmed this information. US officials said that some of the weapons used for the attempted attacks were smuggled into Jordan through the port of Aqaba. According to the report, Abdullah presented evidence of these attacks to Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell, during his recent trip to the United States. The revelation of the plan to orchestrate attacks on Israel, was one of the reasons Bush listed Iran, during his recent State of the Union address, as one of the countries belonging to the "Axis of Evil." ............................ :: US PLANNING TO BOMB IRAQ? The US is preparing an offensive against Iraq, possibly in May, according to Israeli security sources on the basis of American political and military assessments. The US CENTCOM command started in recent weeks to mobilize forces for a possible confrontation with Iraq, and US Administration elements informed Israel that the Pentagon has given the green light to start preparing for a military move against Baghdad, as part of the second stage in the war against terror. Within this framework, the Americans have also started to conduct political coordination, resume the coordination with the Iraqi opposition, and conduct a long series of actions meant to serve the offensive. According to American sources, the question at the moment is not whether the offensive against Iraq will be implemented, but when. Meanwhile, Israel and the US held a large joint exercise last month deploying the Arrow and Patriot missile defense systems. The exercise played the "Iraqi scenario" in which the rogue state fires surface-to-surface Scud missiles at Israeli population centers. Hundreds of soldiers from the US Army's anti-aircraft units based in Europe came to Israel for the drill -- similar exercises have been held in the past, once every year or so, but this one was important, given developments in the Gulf area. In a related report, the Israeli Union of Local Authorities (ULA) on Thursday ordered the heads of the local municipalities to prepare public bomb shelters. The move came following re-assessment talks with security forces, which were held in light of the current tension between the US and Iraq, and the possibility that Israel will be the target of an Iraqi retaliatory strike in response to an American invasion. The municipalities were also ordered to ensure that they have adequate gasoline reserves, that the backup systems are in working order, and that they had adequate numbers of staff. In another report, US and British planes patrolling a no-fly zone over northern Iraq bombed Iraqi air defense systems Monday in response to anti-aircraft fire, US officials said. The bombs were dropped after Iraqi forces northeast of Mosul fired on a routine air patrol, the US European Command said. [Allow me to reiterate the question I asked back in August (TNS, 11 August 2001): The distance from Washington, D.C. to Iraq is approximately 6,200 miles. However, the distance from Jerusalem to Ram'Allah is only a few miles. Why, then, is it acceptable for the US, who is not in any danger from the Iraqis (except for the troops in the area), to bomb Iraqi military installations; yet Israel is condemned for acting in self-defense against a sworn enemy whose only goal is the complete destruction of Israel?--ed] ............................ :: ANTI-SEMITISM INCREASING: Anti-Semitism in Russia, which decreased during the late 1980's and 1990's with the fade-out of Communism, is on the upswing again - possibly a result of the country's economic difficulties. The Jewish Agency's Global Jewish Agenda reports that there have been assaults against Jews in towns throughout the country, and that "dozens of newspapers throughout Russia continue undisturbed to publish articles condemning Jews." The report specifies newspapers published by the Russian Orthodox Church in Yekterinburg as having "published direct calls for pogroms for some time." An anti-Semitic play was performed at Moscow's Miakovsky Museum two weeks ago, and anti-Semitic tapes on sale were bought up with enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the number of violent incidents against British Jews is on the rise, says a survey published Thursday by the Community Security Trust. The CST provides security and defense advice for the Jewish community throughout the United Kingdom. Data from the CST shows that following the 11 September terror attacks, anti-Semitic incidents in Britain rose by 150 percent compared to August, with September and October constituting the second and third highest monthly totals ever recorded. Not only have the number of incidents risen, but they are also becoming more serious, according to the survey. A number of MPs sent a message to Home Secretary David Blankett this week, calling on the government to prosecute extremist Muslims who incite to kill Jews after the state prosecution closed a case last month against five youths charged with calling for the assassination of Jews. The British prosecution closed the case due to "lack of evidence." The British media reported extensively this week on four Muslim preachers who have been charged by Andrew Dismore, a Labor MP, of distributing anti-Semitic material. Dismore said he did not know why "measures have not yet been taken against these people, their groups and the material they are distributing." ............................ :: WINDS OF WAR: Iran seeks to complete a project for the indigenous production of nerve gas. A CIA report released on Wednesday said Teheran is obtaining help for the project from China and Russia. Iran is also seeking dual-use equipment from Western Europe to produce nerve agents as part of Teheran's nonconventional weapons program. The report, which reviewed weapons of mass destruction and missile developments during the first half of 2001, said Iran already manufactures chemical weapons, nerve agents as well as such delivery systems as bombs and artillery shells. The Bush administration has approved the sale of anti-tank ammunition to Egypt's military. The Pentagon has awarded a $13.4 million contract to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems for the delivery of KEWA-1 cartridges for Egypt. The KEW-A1, or kinetic energy anti-tank ammunition, is a 120 mm tungsten penetrator anti-tank cartridge. The product is compatible with all standard NATO 120 mm smoothbore tank cannons and is meant for use with Egypt's Abrams tank fleet. Egypt has nearly 600 M1A1 tanks fitted with a 120 mm cannon. The Bush administration has approved the sale of the Maverick missile to Abu Dhabi (UAE) in a sale estimated at more than $10 million. The Maverick is a tactical, air-to-surface guided missile designed for close air support, interdiction and defense suppression mission. The missile is capable of destroying armor, air defenses, ships, transportation equipment and fuel storage facilities and can be deployed on the A-10, F-15E and F-16. Sources inform GLOBES that Israel will this week seek US approval for selling the Arrow missile to third countries. The US finances a third of $2.1 billion project and has the right of veto on the sale of the system to countries other than Israel. The Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) wants to sell the Arrow to countries such as Turkey, Japan, India, Britain and South Korea, which have expressed an interest in protection against countries like Libya and Iran, which may obtain nuclear weapons from former Soviet republics that still own nuclear missiles. ............................ :: LATEST ISSUE OF MEIB: The latest issue of Middle East Intelligence Bulletin is now accessible online at <http://www.meib.org/issues/0201.htm>. It includes "Special Report: The Assassination of Elie Hobeika", "Hizb'Allah's Global Finance Network: The Triple Frontier", "Syrian Military Intelligence Officers in Lebanon", and other articles as well. ............................ :: MYTH AND FACT: MYTH: "Israel has no right to be in Yesha (Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, aka "the West Bank"). Israeli settlements are illegal." FACT: Jews have lived in Yesha since ancient times. The only time Jews have been prohibited from living in the territories in recent decades was during Jordan's rule from 1948 to 1967. This prohibition was contrary to the "Mandate for Palestine" adopted by the League of Nations, which provided for the establishment of a Jewish state, and specifically encouraged "close settlement by Jews on the land." Numerous legal authorities dispute the charge that settlements are "illegal." International law scholar Stephen Schwebel notes that a country acting in self-defense may seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Schwebel also observes that a state may require, as a condition for its withdrawal, security measures designed to ensure its citizens are not menaced again from that territory. According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in Yesha. The resolution "allows Israel to administer the territories" it won in 1967 "until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved," Rostow wrote. ............................ [Sources: Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, Ha'aretz, AP, Reuters, The Media Line, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, Globes, MENL, defense-aerospace.com] :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::: "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest." Isaiah 62.1 Lee Underwood *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! 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