In-Depth Issues:
WikiLeaks: U.S. Memo Says Israel Bombed Syrian Reactor (Ynet News)
A confidential cable sent on April 25, 2008, by then-U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice to State Department representatives worldwide
states that "on September 6, 2007, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor
built by Syria secretly, apparently with North Korea's help."
The document is a first official and detailed confirmation of the attack.
"Our intelligence experts are convinced that the site targeted by the
Israelis is in fact an atomic reactor of the same type built by North
Korea in Yongbyon," she wrote.
"The American intelligence
community engaged in intensive efforts for many months to confirm the
information provided to us by Israel about the reactor and collect
additional information through our sources and methods."
"We have
good reason to believe that the reactor was not built for peaceful
purposes," she wrote. "First of all, we estimate that it was not
designed as a power station, was isolated from populated communities and
was not suitable for research purposes."
"Second, Syria took far-reaching steps to keep the real nature of the site secret."
"The hiding and lies spread by Syria in the months after the attack are clear proof that it has something to hide."
Did Stuxnet Take Out 1,000 Centrifuges at the Natanz Enrichment Plant? - David Albright, Paul Brannan, and Christina Walrond (Institute for Science and International Security)
In late 2009 or early 2010, Iran decommissioned and replaced about
1,000 IR-1 centrifuges in the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz,
implying that these centrifuges broke.
The crashing of such a
large number of centrifuges over a relatively short period of time could
have resulted from an infection of the Stuxnet malware.
PA Police: Hamas Cell Planned Attack on Ramallah (AFP)
Palestinian police said Wednesday they uncovered a Ramallah-based
Hamas cell that stockpiled weapons intended for use against Palestinian
security forces.
Maj.-Gen. Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for the PA's
security forces, said the cell had been discovered two months ago. "We
seized their weapons, which were intended to target the (Palestinian)
national authority and were not intended for use against Israel."
"The [PA] security establishment considers the actions of Hamas in Gaza
and Damascus to be very dangerous...and their language contains a
direct call to murder and a direct call to civil war," he said.
Israeli Population in U.S. Surges - Sue Fishkoff (JTA)
According to newly released U.S. Census Bureau figures, 140,323
people living in the U.S. today were born in Israel, up from 109,720 in
2000.
Of those, 90,179 have U.S. citizenship and 50,144 do not.
But Israeli expatriates and Israeli government sources say the true figure is actually much higher.
One discrepancy could be in how Israelis are counted. Israel
considers as Israelis children born to Israelis, even if they've never
been to Israel. Those children would not show up as Israelis in the U.S.
Census figures.
From 2000 through 2009, 23,640 U.S. citizens made aliyah to Israel, according to the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Israel and the Innovative Impulse (Wharton-U. of Penn.)
Israel has developed a global reputation for its cutting-edge
high-tech industry. This special report explores the drivers behind
Israel's innovative impulse and looks at the partnerships Israeli firms
have forged with U.S. companies.
Chelm Awards Reveal the Quirkier Side of Israel - Daniella Ashkenazy (JTA)
A roundup of some of the best odd news stories from Chelm-on-the-Med Online,
an Israeli Internet news outlet in English that features snippets of
daily life gleaned from the Hebrew press, reveals the lighter side of
Israeli life.
Take Israeli innovation. Advances include naturally
dehydrated tomatoes for spreading on bread to end the bane of soggy
sandwiches.
Or a lifelike motorized plastic Nile crocodile to
convince 70,000 pelicans to stop feeding at kibbutz fish ponds when
migrating between Europe and Africa.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Israel Did Not Refuse to Extend Settlement Freeze - Gary Rosenblatt
I
wrote on Tuesday of "Jerusalem's refusal to accept a U.S. deal,
including military and diplomatic perks, in return for a 90-day
extension of the freeze on building in the settlements." The next day a
senior Israeli official contacted me to say that "contrary to widespread
conventional wisdom, Jerusalem did not refuse Washington's offer." The
official said Netanyahu was "willing and ready to bring it to a vote"
when "the U.S. informed us, much to our surprise, that they did not want
to move forward on that path."
Sources in Washington confirm
that scenario, noting that the administration, after much bargaining,
concluded that extending the freeze on building in the settlements for
another 90 days was not likely to produce any diplomatic results. (New York Jewish Week)
- Wide Saudi "Loopholes" Let Charity Funds Slip to Terrorists - Shaun Waterman
Despite
some success in disrupting funding for al-Qaeda, "there are still
loopholes," said a Saudi official. "It is still possible for [extremist]
groups to use the system for their own advantage with impunity." A
charities commission that Saudi officials promised to establish as long
ago as 2002 "hasn't started functioning yet," the official said.
"Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of
funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," said a U.S. diplomatic
cable from December 2009 posted by WikiLeaks, adding that the groups
"probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often
during Hajj and Ramadan," major Muslim festivals. (Washington Times)
- Seattle Rejects Bus Ads Alleging "Israeli War Crimes" - George Tibbits
The
outcry over a proposed bus ad to protest Israeli actions in Gaza
prompted King County Executive Dow Constantine on Friday to order the
county's transit system not to accept it or any other new noncommercial
advertising. Metro Transit officials received hundreds of e-mails and
other messages objecting to the ad. Two organizations also sought to buy
bus ads to counter it. "Given the dramatic escalation of debate in the
past few days over these proposed ads, and the submission of
inflammatory response ads, there is now an unacceptable risk of harm to
or disruption of service to our customers should these ads run,"
Constantine said. (AP-Seattle Times)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- U.S. Criticizes PA Bid to Take Settlement Construction Issue to UN - Shlomo Shamir and Barak Ravid
The
U.S. responded with criticism to the Palestinian Authority's
circulating a draft resolution to the members of the UN Security Council
condemning Israeli construction in the settlements. A senior U.S.
official told Ha'aretz: "Final status issues can only be resolved
through negotiations between the parties, not by recourse to the UN
Security Council. We, therefore, consistently oppose any attempt to take
final status issues to the council as such efforts do not move us
closer to our goal of two states living side by side in peace and
security."
Since President Carter in the 1980s, no U.S.
administration has supported a Security Council resolution that stated
that the settlements are illegal. The traditional U.S. position has been
that the settlements are an obstacle to peace. The Americans have made
clear to Israeli diplomats that they oppose the Palestinian circulation
of the draft resolution to the members of the Security Council, but they
did not state clearly that they would veto it. The Palestinians
reportedly intend to call for a meeting of the Security Council to vote
on the resolution only in January, when Bosnia and Herzegovina replaces
the U.S. as president of the council. (Ha'aretz)
See also U.S. Policy on Israeli Settlements - Dore Gold (ICA-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
- Netanyahu: Israel Ready for Substantive Negotiations, Palestinians Refuse - Herb Keinon
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel is ready for
substantive negotiations and has taken significant steps to launch them,
but the Palestinians have simply refused to engage. Israel wants to
make progress on the Palestinian track because it wants peace, Netanyahu
said, but the idea that this needs to be done to tackle Iran has been
proven as a non-starter by the WikiLeaks cables.
Netanyahu also
stressed that any final accord must include an Israeli security presence
on the Jordan River to prevent the type of arms smuggling from Jordan
into the West Bank that Israel has seen from Sinai into Gaza, or from
Syria to Hizbullah in Lebanon. He said international forces are not
effective in places where there is an attack on the force, or where they
have to deal with ongoing hostilities. It is clear, Netanyahu said,
that any force designed to prevent the smuggling of arms to terrorists
would come under attack by terrorists who wanted to get those arms. Only
Israelis, he said, could be counted on to effectively do the job. (Jerusalem Post)
- Report: Syria Uncovers Israeli Spy Networks with Egypt's Help
A
security official was arrested and three "spy networks" were found in
Syria, allegedly gathering intelligence for the Mossad, UK daily Al-Quds al-Arabi
reported on Friday, days after four were arrested in Egypt Monday on
suspicion of espionage for Israel. Tarek Abdel-Razek, a Kung Fu coach,
reportedly bribed a senior Syrian security official "for a huge sum of
money" to give him security-related files. Egypt reportedly shared
intelligence with Syria that led to the arrest. (AP-Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
- A Suggestion to Promote Middle East Peace - Jennifer Rubin
Andrea Levin, president of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting,
offered an addition to the list of suggestions for productive actions
that the Obama administration could take in the wake of the breakdown of
the Middle East "peace process." "Israel and the U.S. should
continually and relentlessly insist on the cessation of
anti-Israel/anti-Jewish bigotry pouring out of [Palestinian Authority]
media, mosques, public discourse. This has to be stated and re-stated
and made central to achieving peace. Because it IS central to achieving
peace. Unfortunately, much of the media have no interest in reporting
this."
This is a critically important point. The parties can sit
in conference rooms for months or years. The U.S. can give billions to
build roads, schools, courtrooms and other governmental facilities in
the West Bank. But how does Israel live side by side with a peaceful
Palestinian state so long as Palestinians are taught appalling
anti-Semitism, the Palestinian Authority honors terrorists, and
Holocaust denial is a mainstay of Palestinian discourse? (Washington Post)
- Christianity Near Extinction in the Ancient Lands of Its Origin - Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Many
Christians across the Middle East are in peril: Muslim fanatics seek to
exterminate them. After al-Qaeda gunmen stormed an Assyrian Catholic
church in Baghdad during Mass, slaughtering 51 worshippers and two
priests, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia issued a bulletin claiming that "all
Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and
followers, are legitimate targets for" jihadists. The Assyrians
are one of the oldest Christian sects in the world, going back to the
time of Christ. Some even speak Aramaic. Nearly two-thirds of the
500,000 Christians in Baghdad have fled or been killed. In Mosul, about
100,000 Christians used to live there. Now, just 5,000 remain.
In
Egypt, Coptic Christians routinely are murdered, persecuted and
prevented from worshipping. In Saudi Arabia, Muslim converts to
Christianity are executed. In Turkey, Islamists have butchered priests
and nuns. In Lebanon, Christians have dwindled, menaced by surging
Shiite and Sunni populations.
If Muslims - funded and supported
by Saudi Arabia - can build mosques and madrassas in Europe and America,
then Christians should be entitled to build churches in the Arab world.
Clearly, some Muslims cannot live in peaceful coexistence with
non-Muslim peoples - especially in countries where Muslims form the
majority. Christian minorities living in the overwhelmingly
Muslim-dominated Middle East pose no possible danger to Islamic
hegemony. Hence, why the hatred against them? (Washington Times)
- Russia Takes a New Look at the Peace Process - Zvi Magen
Russia
has recently taken a renewed interest in the Middle East peace process.
Its self-confidence is returning, and it apparently assesses that the
international standing of the U.S. is weakening and the current peace
process has reached a dead end. The Russians thus propose to revive the
idea of the multilateral channel, since the present current bilateral
track has lost its effectiveness.
To the Russians, the idea of
the Quartet is a reasonable international channel. However, it must be
upgraded to include additional players such as China and India (the
possibility of adding representatives from the Middle East has also been
raised). It is also critical to the Russians that the Quartet's current
envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, be replaced with a Russian envoy.
Russia is convinced that it would be able to act more energetically in
the Israeli sector because of its positive relations and its improving
image as a fair broker, even though it has no real leverage. The writer is a research fellow at the INSS. (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)
- The Arabs vs. Iran: What They Really Think - Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
One
of the major points raised about the recent leak of U.S. diplomatic
cables by WikiLeaks is the apparent hostility Gulf Arab leaders display
towards Iran in private. However, viewing the present Middle East as a
cold war between an Arab front and Iran is simplistic. It is more
accurate to note that the current cold war is between what Daniel Pipes
terms a "revolutionary bloc," led primarily by Turkey, Syria and Iran,
and a "status-quo" bloc, headed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it
could well be that the Arab leaders cited in the cables are simply
telling American diplomats what they think U.S. policymakers want to
hear.
As Dalia Dassa Kaye of the RAND Corporation puts it, "Arab
leaders are still resentful of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its
overturning of the regional balance of power in ways that have
strengthened Iranian influence. Despite considerable U.S. arms sales and
missile defense cooperation with allies in the region in recent years,
American credibility is in decline, and popular views of the United
States are overwhelmingly negative, most alarmingly in states that are
key U.S. partners, such as Egypt and Jordan." Likewise, popular
anti-Israel sentiment among the populations prevents the prospect of
overt cooperation with Israel against Iran. (Hudson Institute-New York)
- Hamas' Charmless PR Offensive - Editorial
Hamas
recently launched what the AP described as a "charm offensive" in Gaza,
which it controls, to celebrate the anniversary of its founding. But
all this PR is unlikely to change a fundamental fact about Hamas: It has
never been a particularly popular movement among Palestinians. Three
and a half years after Hamas won sole control over Gaza, ousting Fatah
following the dissolution of the newly elected Hamas-Fatah unity
government, the citizens there don't seem particularly thrilled about
Hamas' imposition of conservative Islamic stances on social issues, its
repression of its political enemies, or the extent to which it has
hampered the chances of a peace deal with its militant anti-Israel
rhetoric. (Boston Globe)
Weekend Features
- Israel's Emerging Energy Sector - David Wurmser and Jonathan M. Baron
Wedged
between Cyprus and the shoreline from Syria to Sinai, the Levant Basin
encompasses approximately 32,000 square miles. The first noteworthy
hydrocarbon discovery in the area was made in March 2000 offshore Israel
west of the city of Ashkelon. This find, which ultimately was
determined to contain about 1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas,
encouraged additional exploration.
In January 2009, a major
natural gas discovery was confirmed at the Tamar field within 60 miles
of the northern coast of Israel. Beneath approximately 5,500 feet of
ocean and another 10,500 feet of sand and rock, Tamar holds a resource
now estimated at 8.4 Tcf, which represents the world's largest natural
gas discovery in 2009. Even at significantly greater consumption rates,
the field should supply all of Israel's domestic natural gas demand for
at least 20 years.
Tamar, however, may be only the beginning. At
this moment, drilling is underway to explore the Leviathan field,
estimated to have a 50% probability of holding nearly double Tamar, with
the results expected by the end of the month. The total, lifetime
financial value of Leviathan could exceed the entire current annual
budget of the State of Israel. Moreover, Leviathan is only one of many
prospects currently being pursued across the Levant Basin, and the
majority of those opportunities are within the equivalent of Israel's
exclusive economic zone.
An assessment of the Levant Basin
published by the U.S. Geological Survey earlier this year estimated a
total mean volume of 122 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable
gas resources. If exploration at Leviathan is successful, resulting
development would make Israel a natural gas exporter, as China and India
are experiencing explosive growth and clamoring for energy resources. (Energy Policy Information Center)
- The Roman Mosaic from Lod, Israel - Karen Rosenberg
In
1996 construction workers widening a highway in the Israeli town of Lod
stumbled on a major archaeological discovery: a Roman mosaic floor,
dating from about C.E. 300. Once part of a grand private residence, it's
now installed (temporarily) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In a short video produced by the museum, you can see workers lifting the
mosaic from the ground. You can also catch glimpses of the other
portions of the mosaic (which measures about 50 by 27 feet in all) and
of the footprints left by the Roman workmen who laid the tile. (New York Times)
View the Video (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- A British Deserter Who Joined the Jews in the 1948 War - Dalia Karpel
On
April 13, 1948, British Army Sgt. John Patrick Cooper sensed that an
attack by the Arabs in Jerusalem was imminent. He saw the Jewish convoy
ascend the road toward Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus and noticed
that, in contrast to past occurrences, there were no British armored
vehicles escorting the convoy. When Cooper asked what was going on, his
superior officer threatened to court-martial him.
The convoy was
attacked as it made its way through Sheikh Jarrah. 78 men and women,
most of them from the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and
from Hadassah Hospital, were killed. As historian Benny Morris wrote in
his book 1948, the English "were there, didn't lift a finger and
prevented others from helping." That evening, Cooper deserted his unit
in order to fight "on the side of the Jews." "I cannot serve in an army
that allows atrocities like that," he told Yohanan Piltz, the IDF
officer who received Cooper into his unit. (Ha'aretz)
Observations:
The Facts of Israeli Peace Efforts - Eric Rozenman (Baltimore Sun)
- The writer of an anti-Israel letter ("U.S. should cut Israel off," Dec. 17) erroneously charges:
- "Israel doesn't want a peace settlement with the Palestinians, today or ever."
In that case, why did Israel propose a West Bank and Gaza Strip
state, with eastern Jerusalem as its capital, to Palestinian leadership
in 2008, 2001 and 2000 - only to be rejected, with no counter-offer each
time, and with violence on the earlier two occasions?
- "All Israel wants to do is continue stealing Palestinian land and water in the West Bank and East Jerusalem."
If so, why have water sources and per capita usage among Arabs in the
West Bank and eastern Jerusalem increased under Israeli development?
Why has Israeli settlement construction taken less than 5% of the West
Bank, virtually all of it state land under the Ottomans, British and
Jordanians as well as the Israelis, and designated by the League of
Nations, upheld by the UN for "close Jewish settlement"? Should Arabs be
able to live in western Jerusalem, as some do, but not Jews in the
eastern part of the city?
- Israel maintains a "strangulation blockade of the Gaza Strip, referred to as the world's largest prison."
If so, why are plentiful consumer goods smuggled back to Egypt, where
they fetch higher prices? Why have new beach clubs and shopping malls
opened, and how do hundreds of truckloads of humanitarian goods,
including food and medicine, enter regularly?
The writer is Washington Director of CAMERA - Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.
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