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Newsletter : 1fax0309.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN march 9, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 43
Powell Slip of the Tongue?
By VOA News
Palestinian leaders are asking for clarification of a statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Palestinian officials say the statement contradicts past U.S. policy on Jerusalem. Successive American administrations have not taken a position on the status of the city, which is claimed by both Israeli and Palestinians as their capital.
Sharon Calls for Security Before New Talks
By Meredith Buel (VOA-Jerusalem)
Israel's new Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has told Palestinians that security is needed before peace talks could resume. Sharon who spent his first full day in office on Thursday conveyed the message in a letter to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.
But divisions appeared within the eight-party coalition government led by Sharon's rightist Likud party. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres from the center-left Labor party called for immediate negotiations despite the continuing violence.
In a speech before parliament, Sharon urged Israelis to unite behind his government, saying it will do everything it can to restore security and stability. But he was short on specifics about how he intended to stop the violence.
Israel Radio reported that Arafat sent a message congratulating Sharon, stressing the need to resume peace negotiations from the point they concluded. Sharon had previously rejected such a demand, and was expected to offer the Palestinians far fewer concessions than those proposed by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Palestinian militants fired two mortar shells Thursday night at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, but no deaths were reported.
Israel's Arab neighbors reacted to Sharon's installation as prime minister with immediate demands that Israel withdraw from all occupied territory. Top Lebanese officials said all Arabs want peace, but only if Israel gives up captured territory and respects U.N. resolutions and international laws.
Israel remained on high alert for possible terrorist attacks by the Hamas group in connection with Sharon's inauguration and celebration of the Jewish holiday Purim. The city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, canceled Purim celebrations Thursday and Friday for fear of such attacks.
Experts Fear Possible Mideast War
By Ed Warner (VOA-Washington)
As the violence continues between Israelis and Palestinians, there
is increasing talk of a wider regional war. Members of the hardline
Ariel Sharon government have warned that Israel might reoccupy
parts of the West Bank now under the control of the Palestinian
Authority. If that happens, analysts say the reaction of Arab
states would be explosive.
The Middle East could be on the verge of war, says Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-intelligence chief. "If there is an attempt by the Israeli military to reoccupy some of the Palestinian territories that have been self-governing, then I think not only we will be at the precipice, but we may slide right into a regional war.
"What I am afraid of is we are going to see an Algerianization of the problem, in which we have horrific violence and vendettas that spin totally out of control."
Cannistraro said Israel was clearly the strongest power in the Middle East and would prevail in a war. "But what would be the cost? Could Israel occupy a permanently hostile people?
"You can't equate victory in the traditional military sense with peace and stability within Palestine itself," said Cannistraro. "It is not going to happen. What it does is open up a path for Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis to exert much greater influence not only within the immediate area but throughout the Middle East in general."
Cannistraro said Saddam Hussein has been sending funds to Palestinians who have lost family members in the fighting. He is also threatening to send troops. That may be posturing, says Cannistraro, but it impresses the Arab world.
Saddam's Bomb
By BBC News
In the wake of the U.S, and British bombing of Iraq, investigative filmmaker Gwynne Roberts has found evidence suggesting Iraq may already have developed its own nuclear weapons.
"Leone emerged from out of the shadows outside my hotel in Suleimaniya, northern Iraq, on a bleak, misty night in January 1998 - just as the crisis between the United States and Iraq over arms inspection was reaching fever pitch."
Local Kurdish officials identified him as a nuclear scientist. He described himself as an engineer who was a member of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission - and a senior official in the secret Iraqi nuclear program.
To prove his expertise, Leone worked throughout the night drawing detailed diagrams of nuclear weapons in his hotel room. He said it worked on the principle of the Hiroshima-type bomb, in which high explosives drive pieces of highly enriched uranium together at high velocity. This triggers a nuclear explosion.
Then Leone made another staggering claim - that Iraq had actually conducted a nuclear test before the Gulf War. "Saddam threatened us with the death penalty if we told anybody about it. It was carried out on 19 September 1989 at an underground site 150 km southwest of Baghdad."
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