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Newsletter : 9fax1008.txt
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>JN Oct. 8, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 186
GSS Chief Warns of Impending Terrorist Attack
By IsraelWire
In his meeting with PLO Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat, the director of the General Security Service stated intelligence reports indicate that the Jihad Islamic organization is likely to attempt an attack to mark the anniversary of the death of its late leader, Dr. Fatchi Shkaki.
Arab MKs Call for Abolition of WJC, JNF and JA
By IsraelWire
Arab MKs Azmi Beshara and Mohammed Barakei announced their intentions to introduce legislation to abolish the World Zionist Congress, the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Agency.
The MKs propose the JA cease functioning at the turn of the century and JA registered properties be turned over to the Israel Lands Administration. The MKs explained there was a need for the organization during the time period of the establishment of the state but today, they are not compatible with the character of the nation. They added the organization mentioned were established to meet the needs of the Jewish population but this was deemed unacceptable today since they ignore the growing non-Jewish populations in Israel.
Jerusalem and Three Religions
By Ed Warner (VOA-Washington)
The question of Jerusalem may be the most difficult issue to resolve in the Middle-East peace process. Israelis, who have controlled the city since the 1967 war, want it to be the undivided capital of their country. Palestinians, who are reluctant to recognize any Jewish claim to the city, insist on East Jerusalem being the capital of their new state. As the millennium approaches, Jerusalem is threatened by Christian extremists seeking to hasten the end of this world and the arrival of a new one by destroying Islamic shrines.
Every third person is talking directly to God, who seems to be issuing some imperious and contradictory commands. That is how Jeffrey Goldberg describes present-day Jerusalem in an article in the New York Times Sunday magazine. Jews, Christians, and Muslims regard the ancient city as fundamental to their faith and never to be abandoned, come what may.
Among these faiths are extremists willing to resort to violence to realize their religious dreams. Particularly endangered is the Dome of the Rock, the magnificent Islamic mosque rising above Jerusalem's Old City.
Goldberg says Jewish groups might want to destroy it to derail the peace process. Some Christians believe the Second Coming of Jesus will follow the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple on the ruins of the Dome.
If anything happens to that Islamic shrine, it will set back the peace process a hundred years, says Jerome Segal, director of the Jerusalem Project at the University of Maryland's Center for International and Security Studies.
"Are there individuals or small groups that if they were able to, would in fact blow up the mosques? Yes, there have been attempts to do just that. The implications, were it to happen, are absolutely horrendous and unthinkable."
Segal says whatever can be done to protect the Dome is probably being done. He has confidence in Israeli security forces, but they admit they cannot forestall every possible attack.
While some splinter Christian groups threaten Jerusalem, its Christian population continues a steep decline, according to Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan, a Palestinian who spoke recently in a U.S. Senate Building in Washington.
"Out of the population of 27,000 in 1967, there are now only approximately 8.000 Christians in the city. If this trend continues, our churches will become museums. The very city that witnessed the birth of Christianity will have become a place devoid of a viable Christian presence."
Younan said a combination of Israeli pressure and lack of economic opportunity has driven Christians out of Jerusalem. They will not be lured back by apocalyptic groups threatening Islam.
"These groups abuse or misuse the Bible for their own political interests. Jerusalem cannot afford such tensions. The Jerusalem we know is the Jerusalem of dialogue, the place of mutual acceptance and reconciliation."
The director of research at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Mohammed Nimer, thinks Jerusalem should be an international city open to all people.
"You have hundreds-of-millions of Jews and Muslims and Christians around the world who are attached to the city. And their sympathies and the religious visits they do, and hope to do, should not be held hostage to nationalistic negotiations."
Majority opinion in Israel, reinforced by Jewish organizations in America, wants Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. But Jerome Segal says compromise is possible. His research indicates Israelis are mainly concerned with areas of Jerusalem where they live, along with the Old City and religious sites. The same is true of Palestinians.
"It turns out that the old city, where the most important religious sites are, only constitutes geographically 1 percent of the city. It is of intense value to both (Palestinians and Jews), especially the Temple Mount, but the vast bulk of the city is much more important to one people or the other."
Segal says much negotiation will be needed to get to this point. But he thinks Jerusalem can be subsumed in the peace process as long as Israelis are convinced a genuine peace is possible with the Arab world.
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