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Newsletter : 1fax0703.txt
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>JN July 3, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 111
Iranian Apprehended Trying to Cross into Israel
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Golani soldiers on Sunday apprehended an Iranian national as he was trying to get over a border fence from Lebanon.
Once in custody, the Iranian citizen explained that he ran away from the Iranian National Guard and Iranian officials currently wanted him. He requested political asylum in Israel.
The prisoner was remanded until Thursday by a Kiryat Shmona court, Authorities are planning to deport him.
Israeli Motorist Killed in West Bank
By VOA News
An Israeli motorist was killed in a shooting attack Monday, just hours after Palestinian militants claimed responsibility for setting off two car bombs in central Israel. The attacks are further straining the already fragile U.S.-sponsored ceasefire in the region.
The Israeli army said Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the motorist in the northern West Bank.
Earlier Monday, twin bombs went off in the town of Yehud, near Tel Aviv. At least four people were treated for shock. The car bombs exploded in the central Israeli town of Yehud, a few kilometers from Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv. The blasts destroyed a number of cars, and some residents were taken to the hospital and treated for shock. The radial Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the bombings.
The PFLP said the bombings were in retaliation for an Israeli helicopter gunship attack on a car in the West Bank late Sunday that killed three members of another militant group, Islamic Jihad.
Thousands of mourners attended funerals Monday for the three Islamic Jihad members. One of the men, Mohammed Besharat, was on Israel's most wanted list of militants who have allegedly planned terrorist attacks against Israelis.
In a new development, Israeli and Palestinian commanders met in Israel late Monday at the request of the United States to try to end the violence.
Separately, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah held talks in Egypt with President Hosni Mubarak on the deteriorating situation in the region. Both leaders are expected to meet later with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.
The U.S.-Saudi Deal
By Gamla News Service
The Bush administration has broken fresh ground by coupling U.S.-Saudi oil links with Israeli military strength and so building a cornerstone for its Middle East policy.
The flop of President Clinton's approach to Yasir Arafat, which he freely admits in Newsweek's July 2 issue, taught president Bush a lesson: To avoid at all costs placing his political fate in the hands of the Palestinian leader.
Added to this was the administration's failure in its first five months in office to put together a working policy on Iraq and Syria acceptable to the Europeans, Russia and China. The new Bush Middle East orientation therefore sidelines the Palestinian option in favor of centering the combination of Saudi oil and Israeli military strength.
Saudi Arabia's epic shift in orientation began to surface in a rare interview Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah granted the influential British Financial Times on June 26, in which he came out in favor of an international force to monitor the Israel-Palestinian ceasefire and touched on Israel's place in Middle East peacemaking.
Abdullah advocated the international force to prevent terrorist operations continuing and plunging the region into full-scale war. On the question of peace, he said: "Any serious peace plan requires the support of the Kingdom. We are also the one qualified to persuade all concerned to come to the peace table."
This is the first time any Saudi ruler has undertaken to deal directly with and therefore recognize Israel as a state, a commitment implicit in the phrase persuade all concerned. Coming from Abdullah this acceptance is doubly meaningful and surprising. Not only does he administer the kingdom's affairs for the ailing monarch, Fahd, but he is close to its ultra-conservative religious establishment and therefore likely to be less yielding on the Israel question than his more liberal brothers.
Having obtained Saudi understanding for the new strategy, the United States went ahead with new forms of military collaboration with Israel. In mid-June, the largest-scale air force ever staged in the Middle East took place over Turkey, with tens of U.S., Turkish and Israeli fighters, gunships and reconnaissance craft taking part.
The exercise, first disclosed by DEBKAfile, relayed a clear message to Syria and Iraq that should either or both decide to go to war or engage in any kind of belligerence, the Israeli air force would have free use of Turkish air bases to strike at both and a combined U.S.-Israeli-Turkish force stood ready to prevent any counterstrike against that base by missile or air bombardment.
DEBKAfile 's sources report from Washington that in last week's interview with Sharon, President Bush assured him that the $800 million promised Israel for its unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon 13 months ago would be delivered.
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