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Newsletter : 2fax0624.txt
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Air Force on Alert for Attack from the Air
By IsraelNationalNews.com
Army intelligence is warning of a planned terror attack from the air. Air Force Chief Major-General Dan Halutz confirmed Sunday that since the attacks against the World Trade Center, Israel has redeployed ground-to-air missiles and is taking other steps against an attempted attack. Air force officials add that measures have been taken to enable the scrambling of jets in less time than in the past.
Al Qaeda Threatens U.S. & Jews
By IMRA (Copyright 2002 by Michael Widlanski)
Osama Bin-Laden's terror group Al-Qaeda issued a series of threats Sunday against the United States and Jews, proclaiming that Bin-Laden and the other leaders of the organization were alive and well.
The threatening message enunciated by Al-Qaeda spokeman Suleiman Abu-Gheith was the first major Al-Qaeda message in many weeks, specifically mentioning President George Bush and other key members of his Administration such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"Sheikh Osama Bin-Laden is in good health, praise Allah," said the Al-Qaeda spokesman, "and so it is with Dr. Ayman Zawahri and Mullah Omar," he continued referring to the organization's three key leaders who were believed to have been wounded in the Tora Bora battles in Afghanistan.
Abu-Gheith promised that Al-Qaeda was getting ready for new attacks on the United States and on Jews around the world to protest America's "anti-Muslim tendency."
However, at least one intelligence source in Israel told The Media Line that the Bin-Laden group may be trying to harass the American security community into making erors of judgment that will reveal areas of weakness and readiness.
While there was no clear indication of the terror group's continued operational capabilities, the message was a strong sign that the terror group continued in its hatred from America and its desire at least to harass it on the eve of its Independence Day celebration.
The Al-Qaeda threats came in an apparently new, seven-minute long audio tape message delivered to Al-Jazeera Arab satellite television:
Al-Qaeda took responsibility for an attack on an ancient synagogue and tourist site in Tunisia in which 17 people were murdered, including 11 German tourists; Bin-Laden and his organization were planning on initiating new terror attacks on the United States beyond the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks of last September in which more than 2,000 people were murdered.
"While the Palestinians bleed in their land, the Jews will scream in their city, as they saw in their synagogue in Djerba (the island community in Tunisia)," proclaimed Abu-Gheith.
(Widlanski is senior analyst at The Media Line and lecturer at The Rothberg School of the Hebrew University.)
Israel Calls Up 2,000 Reservists
By VOA News & IsraelNationalNews.com
Israel has called up an estimated 2,000 reservists as its forces
tightened their grip on five major Palestinian towns in the West
Bank. Israeli troops, backed by 60 tanks and armored vehicles,
moved into the town of Qalqilyah Sunday after occupying Bethlehem,
Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarm.
The IDF began calling up reservists on emergency orders, as the country eagerly and anxiously awaited the possible beginning of Operation Defensive Shield II.
U.S. Army Maj. Bob Bevelacqua, formerly of the Green Berets, told Fox News: "What Israel has to do is to take the areas controlled by Hamas, cordon them off, and then start going house to house. If they find someone with a gun, he's a bad guy and should be arrested, and if he resists arrests, they should shoot him."
Palestinian officials said a Palestinian police officer was killed and at least five people were wounded by Israeli tank shell in Tulkarm. The Israeli army said it was responding to Palestinian gunfire.
Israel's mobilization followed last week's decision by its security cabinet to re-occupy major Palestinian cities in the West Bank until attacks on Israelis stop. Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel would not take over administrative responsibilities in the cities.
Ben-Eliezer said he wants the troops to be deployed for no longer than six months and that the soldiers mission is to search for Palestinians involved in terrorism. Meanwhile, Israel's cabinet is considering a plan to expel families of suicide bombers from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
Muslims and Jews Co-Exist in Brooklyn
By Adam Phillips (VOA-Brooklyn, N.Y.)
The traditional clothes one sees on both religious Muslims and Jews in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, near Coney Island, N.Y., easily recall the Middle East for many visitors. However, the two groups co-exist and even flourish there in a way that might seem almost utopian in Israel and Palestine.
To judge merely by the low-lying brown and stucco buildings and the vibrant street traffic, the 10 square blocks of Midwood are typical of Brooklyn, one of New York's larger boroughs. But the throngs of shoppers in flowing Muslim dress and orthodox Jewish garb lend an exotic tinge to this scene.
There are also important business relationships between Muslims and Jews in Midwood. Mustaffa Rasbee, who runs a Pakistani variety story called the Urdu Bazaar, says "all of my wholesalers, most of them are Jewish wholesalers and they are good friends of mine. And they are great people to work with."
Still, Rasbee acknowledges that there is some mutual apprehension between the two groups. "If you take the traditional dress code for the Muslims let's just say, and you go into a Jewish neighborhood, people will look at you. Just as if a Hasidic Jew comes into a Muslim community, they are going to look at you funny. There is animosity. I've seen that. It's not a majority. There is, I'd say, close to 50-percent suspicion on both sides," he says. "Maybe they're just reacting to what they see on the news. It happens, that's all I'm saying. There is never a perfect society. But it's good. I like this."
John Higgins, a mail carrier who serves both Muslims and Jews on his route through Midwood, offers his view on why the two groups get along better here than in some other parts of the world. "Well, this is America and this is everybody's land," he says. "So they are sharing it. The controversy isn't over here except what you get in the papers. I am sure they [Midwood's Muslims and Jews] have their views. But this is America. It's not the Middle East. So that's why it's pretty nice over here."
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