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Do any of you understand why this administration
insists upon a "full fledged PLO state" dividing Israel? jt
NEWS REPORT FROM JERUSALEM
* News and digest on Israel and Middle East affairs
compiled by FOR ZION'S SAKE MINISTRY (Is 62:1). For out of Zion shall
go forth the law, and the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem (Is 2:3).
* For Zion's Sake's Immigrant Outreach at: http://www.forzion.com
February 2, 2005 ~ Shvat 23, 5765
** 1. RICE: ISRAEL MUST WITHDRAWAL FROM MORE THAN JUST GAZA
** 2. HAMAS WINS LANDSLIDE VICTORY ** 3. IRAN AT THE POINT OF NUCLEAR NO RETURN ** 4. LAST OF ETHIOPIAN JEWRY TO RETURN TO ISRAEL ** 5. ATTACKS AGAINST JEWS AT RECORD HIGH IN UK ** 6. U OF TORONTO PERMITS ISRAEL APARTHEID WEEK ** 7. ISRAELI SCIENTISTS DEVELOP NEW EXPLOSIVES DETECTOR 1. RICE: ISRAEL MUST WITHDRAWAL FROM MORE THAN JUST GAZA
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says that disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron is fine, but only as a first step towards a full-fledged PLO state. Rice met with Prime Minister Sharon's top aide Dov Weisglass in Washington on Monday. She explained to him the U.S. position that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is acceptable only as a prelude to the full Road Map plan proposed by President Bush. The Road Map plan calls for a "viable" - i.e.,
territorially-contiguous - Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Rice, as well, emphasized this point to Weisglass. This means that Gaza must be
connected with a land-line to Judea, effectively dividing Israel in
half, north and south of the Gaza-Hevron connection. {
Editors note: I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the
Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there On account
of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations;
They have also divided up My land. (Joel 3:2)}
Rice's statements that the disengagement is only a first step
further erodes Israeli hopes that the international
community will approve extensive Israeli presence in the Biblical homeland areas
it liberated in the Six Day War of 1967. (Arutz 7)
2. HAMAS WINS LANDSLIDE VICTORY
Hamas, the militant political party sworn to destroying Israel, has stormed to victory in the first local elections to take place in Gaza. The party, which is against restoring talks with Israel in the current intifada, won seven out of 10 councils. Muhir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman, said: "Our people have a consensus on
the choice of jihad and resistance and the election has underscored that
concept." Hamas candidates won 75 of the 118 council seats compared to 39 for
members
of Mr Abbas' Fatah movement and their allies. MEANWHILE: HAMAS, HIZBULLAH VOW TO FIGHT ON
Islamic terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas have agreed to uphold the resistance option against Israel despite U.S. pressure on the militant Lebanese and Palestinian groups, a Hezbollah statement said Sunday. The agreement came in a meeting between Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah at the latter's office in south Beirut.
Describing Hamas' relationship with Hezbollah as "strong," Mashaal told
reporters
after meeting Nasrallah, "We are partners in this march of confronting a common enemy. In the same way south Lebanon was liberated, we have hope that all of Palestine will be liberated." (Israel Insider ) 3. IRAN AT THE POINT OF NUCLEAR NO RETURN
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has told French lawmakers that Iran is at �the point of no-return� on building nuclear weapons, according to a transcript of his remarks to the National Assembly made public on Friday. Mofaz, who warned openly in London this week that Iran would not be
permitted to build a nuclear bomb, has in the past said that Israel has
operational plans in place for a strike against Iranian targets. Mofaz told the
French National
Assembly�s defence commission that �he ardently hoped that a recourse to military action would not be necessary� in Iran, according the transcript of the Tuesday meeting. But he said that to avoid this, there would have to be careful inspections
aimed at removing any ambiguity about the existence of a military nuclear
project. Even if Iran recognised Israel�s existence, Mofaz said �the
possession of
a nuclear weapon by an extremist regime is not acceptable.� �The danger is great,� he said. �The possession of non-conventional weapons could allow Iran to carry out terrorist actions with complete impunity and destabilise the free world.� Iran�s Revolutionary Guards warned earlier this week that any attack against the country would be met with an �astonishing� retaliation... http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-1-2005_pg4_15 MEANWHILE: IRAN WORKING ON LONG-RANGE MISSILES
Iran was said to have been developing a ballistic missile with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers. The Iranian opposition has asserted that the Teheran regime was developing a surface-to-surface missile that could strike any European capital. The National Council of Resistance of Iran told a briefing in London that the new Iranian missile would be fitted with weapons of mass destruction payload. The council identified the intermediate-range missiles as Ghadr 101 and
Ghadr 110. The missiles were said to be comparable to the advanced Scud E and
was being developed at the Hemmat Missile Industries Complex. The Ghadr 101 was
said to have a range of 2,500 kilometers, the council said. The Ghadr 110 has
planned for a range of 3,000
kilometers. (MENL) 4. LAST OF ETHIOPIAN JEWRY TO RETURN TO ISRAEL
Israel has decided to bring the last 20,000 members of the Ethiopian Falash Mura tribe to the Jewish state by the end of 2007. "We're talking about 600 people a month, over 7,000 people a year, for this year and the next two years after that," said Michael Rosenberg of the quasi-governmental Jewish Agency, which is responsible for immigration. The Falash Mura will join the 90,000 Ethiopian Jews already in Israel. The
so-called "Black Jews" were brought here in secret airlifts in 1984 and 1991.
But the fate of the Falash Mura has sparked heated debate for years. The tribe
claims it was
forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th century, but secretly remained faithful to Judaism. Critics charge that some Falash Mura are imposters, hoping to escape. (INS) 5. ATTACKS AGAINST JEWS AT RECORD HIGH IN UK
Anti-semitic attacks in Britain rose to record levels last year, according to one of the most exhaustive analyses of abuse of Jewish people. With fears rising following a spate of attacks against Orthodox Jews in north London, the Community Security Trust (CST), which records attacks on Britain's 350,000 Jews, is completing its annual report and warns that figures will reveal an increase on 2003. The situation has become so bad that Barnet council in north London, home to some 50,000 Jews, has started keeping a record of anti-semitic attacks. Several synagogues now employ security guards. Last week the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, used his Holocaust Memorial Day
speech to warn of the dangers of prejudice. He said that the Holocaust did not
start with a concentration camp, but with a brick through the window of a
Jewish
person's house. But his speech was quickly eclipsed by a row over Labour's depiction of Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin, the Tories' two most prominent Jews, as flying pigs in a new poster campaign. Andrew Mennear, Tory candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, branded the campaign 'tasteless' and called for the posters to be withdrawn. Recently there was widespread revulsion when Prince Harry was photographed
in an Afrika Korps uniform with a swastika armband. The Prince's actions raised
concerns that Britain's youth is largely ignorant about the plight of the Jews
during
the Holocaust. Whine said there was a danger that British society could become impervious to the dangers of anti-semitism. 'The continued demonisation of Israel has meant the shock-horror aspect of anti-semitism in Britain has reduced over time.' http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1401659,00.html 6. U OF TORONTO PERMITS ISRAEL APARTHEID WEEK
The program, organized by the Arab Students' Collective, began this week with lectures about the roots of what the students call Israel's ethnic cleansing and segregation of Palestinians. "We're trying to educate people on the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and not simply a military occupier of the Gaza," said Hazem Jamjoum, a member of the student group. "Today we'll talk about the origins of the conflict, the 1948 war, when the first half of Palestine was colonized." The students set up a mock Palestinian refugee camp on campus in an attempt
to show passers-by the conditions in which they say many Palestinians have lived
since the war. The program has infuriated Jewish and human rights groups,
noting the title alone is enough to frighten thousands of Jewish students on
campus... B'nai Brith Canada, the country's leading Jewish human rights group,
has dubbed the weeklong program a "hate fest," and called on the university to
cancel the event or at least provide additional security for Jewish
students...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/534409.html 7. ISRAELI SCIENTISTS DEVELOP NEW EXPLOSIVES DETECTOR
Researchers at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology have developed a pen-sized device to detect triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive commonly used by terrorists. The device resembles a pen with three buttons on it. It dispenses chemical solutions, which change color upon contact with the material. Device inventor Ehud Keinan explains that TATP, unlike conventional explosives, does not give off heat as it is detonated. Keinan and his research partners discovered this is the reason conventional explosives-detection devices cannot recognize it. "To our surprise, we found that the detonation of this material was caused
in a way that all its molecules in a solid state are changed within a fraction
of a second to four molecules in a gaseous state," Prof. Keinan notes. The
results of this research were published on January 6 in the Journal of the
American Chemical Society. The co-authors include Yehuda Zeiri of the
Dimona Nuclear Research Center and Roni Kosloff and Yossi Almog of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, along with their research students. Keinan is the dean of the faculty of chemistry at Haifa's Technion. Keinan first revealed the findings at a national conference at the Center
for Security Science and Technology at the Technion. He was presented then with
the first prize in a competition to develop technology for defense against
terror.
TATP and similar explosives from the peroxide family are widely used by
various terrorist organizations across the world, since they are relatively easy
to prepare and difficult to detect. The substances are very unstable and
dangerous to their
manufacturers, resulting in many "work accidents" in pirate labs established by Palestinian militants. In recent years, a large number of suicide bombings have been carried out
using TATP, among them those at the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv on the
pedestrian mall in Jerusalem and attacks on many buses. ( Haaretz)
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