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Newsletter : 0fax0407.txt
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>JN April 7, 2000, Vol. 8, No. 65
Tel Aviv Vying to Host 2012 Olympics
By IsraelWire
Haaretz reports that the Tel Aviv municipality would submit a bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. During the next two years, a "preparations survey" will be conducted to determine the feasibility of the proposal. The project's estimated cost of over $10 billion will require financial support from the Government. The International Olympics Committee will announce its decision in 2005.
Northern Israeli Towns Could be Attacked
By Meredith Buel (VOA-Jerusalem)
Israeli defense officials are warning that the government's plans to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon could lead to attacks on Israeli towns that border Lebanon.
Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh says in an interview with Israeli radio that fighting along the Lebanese border is inevitable unless a peace agreement is signed with Syria or a United Nations peacekeeping force protects the border.
Sneh says "there are two possibilities -- either a deal or fighting." In the absence of a peace deal with Syria, Sneh says Israel is trying to rally support for the United Nations to - as he puts it - "fill the vacuum" created by the departing soldiers. When asked if the situation could deteriorate into war, the deputy defense minister said "a confrontation is possible - definitely."
Israel set up a nine-mile-wide buffer zone in south Lebanon in 1985 to protect northern communities from cross border attacks. Since then Iranian-backed Hizbullah terrorists have fought a war of attrition against Israeli soldiers and the South Lebanon Army - a militia financed and trained by Israel.
Sneh's remarks come on the same day an Israeli newspaper (Ma'ariv) reported that most of the army's military commanders are opposed to a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. The report says many senior army officers are severely criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's plan to pull Israeli soldiers out of south Lebanon by July of this year, with or without a peace agreement with Syria. The newspaper says the officers are concerned Barak is leading the army and the country into a trap.
Syria has 35,000 soldiers in Lebanon and is considered the major power broker in the country. Peace talks between Israel and Syria are currently stalled and both sides have been pessimistic about the chances for a peace agreement before the July deadline. Damascus is demanding that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war. Barak has reportedly offered to pull out of the Golan but wants to keep the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee under Israeli sovereignty - an offer rejected by Syria.
Earlier this week, Barak played down prospects for cross-border violence and said he sees no need for a large multinational buffer force in south Lebanon.
Bodies Mixed Up: Orthodox Jew Buried in Muslim Cemetery
By IsraelWire
The Italian Hospital in Nazareth is being blamed for what officials are calling an "embarrassing mix up," leading to the burial of an Orthodox Jew in a Muslim cemetery in a Galilee village.
A Jewish man, 83, who arrived in Israel from Hungary several years ago, died Monday morning. Family members worked to determine how the body of their late father could have disappeared from the hospital. After over two hours, a hospital official called the family to inform them that the body of their father was mistakenly interred in a cemetery in a local Arab village and the hospital was now involved in plans to have the elderly man exhumed and then reinterred in the Upper Nazareth Jewish Cemetery.
The family contacted Nazareth Chief Rabbi Herzl Yishayahu, who ordered to open the Jewish cemetery and bury the man as quickly as possible. The family then filed a complaint with police and an investigation was launched. It was learned that a hospital employee switched the bodies inadvertently after family members had already identified the deceased Arab man.
Security Failure: Passenger Accompanied to Plane By Friend
By IsraelWire
Officials are investigating the latest reported security foul up at Ben-Gurion International Airport which occurred on Sunday night when a person without a ticket decided to accompany his 18-year-old friend who was flying to the United States, to the plane.
The accompanying friend, without a ticket or boarding pass managed to bypass all security stations and make his way to the entrance to the TWA flight on the runway. As a result of the preliminary investigation, two airport security agents were dismissed from their positions Monday.
Security officials acknowledge the friend should not have been
permitted past the gates which are for passengers with valid
passports and tickets. Nevertheless, the escort was not questioned
or stopped when he decided to accompany his friend who was carrying
the necessary documentation.
The two entered the jumbo jet waiting to lift off to New York City,
and the passenger sat in his assigned seat. A flight attendant then
asked the friend for his ticket and it was learned that he was not
a passenger. He explained he only intended to escort his friend to
the plane. Security officials were summoned immediately and the
friend was questioned.
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