 |
 |
Newsletter : 7fax0314.txt
Directory | Previous file | Next file
Iranian Spokesman: Tehran Working to Get US Visa for Ahmadinejad
By VOA News
An Iranian official said his government is working to get a U.S. visa for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad so he can address the U.N. Security Council.
Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters in Tehran Tuesday that Iran's foreign ministry is working on the visa but the trip depends on when the Security Council will meet. Ahmadinejad has said he wants to explain Iran's nuclear program to the Security Council.
And Israel's vice premier Shimon Peres said he hopes a peaceful solution to Iran's nuclear standoff can be found. Speaking in Japan, he said he hopes the problem can be solved "economically, politically and psychologically."
Saudi Arabia: `Take It or Leave It' on 2002 Peace Plan
By IsraelNationalNews.com & VOA News
Saudi Arabia has taken a "take it or leave it" stance on the 2002 Arab peace plan authored by Saudi King Abdullah.
Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Saud Al-Faisal said in response to comments by Israeli officials that some of the language of the proposal was "problematic" that there was nothing to talk about. "This is not a good way to do business," commented Al-Faisal.
"We have no desire to negotiate over this. They accept the resolution and then they talk about putting preconditions that should be accepted before negotiations or discussions or even the acceptance of the proposal," he said.
Israel is signaling a new willingness to open peace talks on the basis of that Saudi Arabian initiative. The Jewish sees the plan as a starting point, while the Arabs see it as the end game.
In a political turnaround, Israeli officials said the Saudi Arabian peace initiative of 2002 can be an important step toward reviving the peace process. "As an Arab position, it is progress, and we would like to continue and negotiate," said Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres. "But this is the opening position."
The Saudi initiative calls for a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In exchange, Israel would receive full diplomatic recognition from the Arab world.
Israel rejected the plan five years ago because it would require the Jewish state to relinquish Jerusalem's sacred Old City as well as all the settlements it has built in the West Bank since the Six Day War in 1967.
Israel says it would never give up Jerusalem or dismantle all settlements. But since direct talks with the Palestinians are going nowhere and in light of the growing regional influence of Iran, Israel wants to open a dialogue with moderate Arab countries. Those countries are also concerned about Iran's support for radical elements in the region, so there is a mutual interest in reviving the peace process.
Nevertheless, the right-wing opposition in Israel deeply opposes the plan. "The Saudi initiative, or the Arab peace initiative, in its present form is a recipe for the destruction of Israel," said Zalman Shoval of the hawkish Likud Party. He says the 1967 borders are indefensible. "Israel cannot accept the matter of returning to the Green Line, the 4th of June 1967 border, as a precondition."
GSS Warning: PA's Gaza-Based Rockets Aiming Further North
By IsraelNationalNews.com
The city of Kiryat Gat, 35 miles south of Tel Aviv, is likely to come into the range of improved Palestinian Authority rockets being developed in, or smuggled into, Gaza. That was one of several warnings issued by General Security Services (Shabak) Director Yuval Diskin during a briefing he delivered on Tuesday before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Hundreds of Kassam rockets have been fired at western Negev communities in Israel since an Israeli-PA ceasefire went into effect last November. The rocket developed by the Hamas terrorist organization, the Kassam, has already struck the southern city of Ashkelon a number of times so far this year.
However, senior IDF sources have expressed the view that the range and explosive power of the Kassam could not be extended much further, leading PA terrorists to seek to obtain Katyusha rockets, such as are deployed by Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Israeli officials revealed recently that dozens, if not hundreds, of Hamas terrorists have traveled to Iran - which supplies Hizbullah with its Katyusha arsenal - for training. The phenomenon of PA terrorists training in Iran, Diskin said, is more worrisome than weapons smuggling, "because in training the personnel, the knowledge level increases…
"Hundreds of Hamas members have been sent to Iran for training, and not training periods of a week, two weeks or a month, but for long-term, high-quality training," committee member MK Zvi Hendel (National Union) quoted Diskin as saying.
As of now, however, one of the "great achievements" that the PA groups see in rocket
terrorism, according to Diskin, is "that they have been able to create a feeling of
normalcy in rocket attacks."
Diskin further explained that PA terrorist organizations across the board are taking advantage of Israel's promise not to carry out military operations in Gaza, smuggling tons of explosives and weapons across the border with Egypt. In 2006, PA terrorists and smugglers brought 31 tons of explosives into Gaza, six times as much as in 2005.
As for the Judea and Samaria areas, Diskin said that PA terror groups - especially the Fatah-controlled Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) - "are making great efforts to build rockets and to hit the Bat Hefer area. Thus far, thanks to our penetration in the field, we are able to prevent that, but nevertheless, there is a competition [among the PA groups] to be the first to fire a rocket."
As more time passes, it will be harder and harder to take action in Gaza. Hamas and Fatah terrorist organizations will most likely succeed in forming a unity government. However, he characterized the relationship between Fatah and Hamas as "a ticking time bomb, despite the Mecca agreement" that established the power-sharing principle in the PA.
"[The] tension is still there and will continue to be there even after a government is formed.... Both sides see the period of calm as a chance for strengthening and getting organized in order to revive their movement's various institutions and militias, which creates an arms race between the parties," Diskin said. In any event, the joint PA government will not include the PIJ, Diskin explained, as it "is only controlled by the Damascus-based leadership and by the Iranians."
The GSS director also warned of an underground network being created in Gaza, "as a result of which the IDF will encounter significant difficulties if it wants to take action in Gaza. As more time passes, it will be harder and harder to take action, not just because of the underground network, but also because of the smuggling [from Egypt].... It is not a large area that will become a fortified base without a lot of military options there," Diskin explained.
In closing, Diskin told the Knesset committee that the tax revenues released by Prime Minister Olmert to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas "were transferred to salaries for the security militias... and not used for humanitarian matters."
GSS: Israeli-Arabs are Existential Danger to Israel
By IsraelNationalNews.com
An internal Shabak document has revealed that Israel's Arabs are a long-range strategic danger to Israel's character and very existence.
Though many believe that Iran is currently Israel's greatest danger, the General Security Service believes that the worst threat may actually come from within. An internal GSS document said that Israel's Arab population is a "genuine long-range danger to the Jewish character and very existence of the State of Israel."
A recent meeting in the Prime Minister's office presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with worrisome data in various spheres, including increasing Israeli-Arab solidarity and identification with terrorist elements, Hizbullah and the Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority.
The GSS has found that in 2006, 21 Israeli-Arab terror cells were uncovered, involving 24 Arab citizens. In 2005, the numbers were 17 terror cells involving 22 Arabs.
Arabs of Israel are generally recruited into terrorist gangs based on their family or business ties with Arabs of Judea and Samaria (Yesha), usually those of Samaria. The terrorists in Yesha find it easier to transport weapons using the services of Israeli-Arabs who are not bound by restrictions at checkpoints and the like.
For instance, in November 2006, a smuggling cell of 10 Israeli-Arabs was found to be active in smuggling weapons from pre-1967 Israel to Judea and Samaria. In the Negev, as well, Bedouin Arabs help out in smuggling weapons - to Gaza. Six such smuggling gangs were cracked open in 2006.
Involvement of Hizbullah in Israeli-Arab terrorist initiatives has also been long noted. In July 2006, an Israeli-Arab was arrested who admitted to his interrogators that during the recent war with Hizbullah, he transmitted information to a Lebanese Hizbullah drug-dealer regarding IDF forces, military plans, and location of rocket hits.
Some 40 percent of the Israeli-Arabs involved in terrorism originated in Yesha, but were permitted to come to pre-1967 Israel and receive Israeli residency after marrying Israeli-Arabs. They are then permitted to travel freely throughout the country.
And on Tuesday morning, six Israeli-Arabs from a Galilee village were indicted on charges of four brutal rapes over the past two years. The rapes were apparently another form of anti-Israel terrorism, as one victim told investigators that the rapists had told her that he was "avenging" IDF operations in Gaza. This was echoed by one of the Arabs during police questioning.
Shas Seeks Harsher Punishment for Missionaries
By YnetNews.com
A war on missionaries was declared Tuesday when Shas Knesset faction head Yakov Margi proposed a bill stating that Israel's laws against proselytism should be aggravated.
Backed by six other faction members and in concordance with Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's instructions, Margi proposed the sentence for preaching conversion should be one year imprisonment.
"Every time he (Rabbi Ovadia Yosef) hears of a case where someone falls into missionary hands, he feels great sadness and asks us to try and save at least one soul in Israel," said Margi. "Whether it's Christians coming from abroad or Jewish converts working in Israel, they all have the same agenda – to destroy every trace and memory of the people of Israel, and they plan to do this by converting Jews. These bodies are operating mainly among the Jewish population which is under physical, social and spiritual distress," said the proposal.
Currently, Israeli law deals with conversion on two levels. Firstly, anyone offering money or material products in exchange for conversion faces five years in prison or a monetary fine. The person on the accepting end of the offer also faces a certain punishment.
On the second level, regarding minors, anyone acting in favor of or conducting a conversion ceremony on a minor, faces six month in jail. The law does not address attempts to convert adults over the age of 18, making it completely legitimate.
Shas members claim that the current law does not deter proselytizers and even though many complaints are filed in the matter, very few of them actually turn into indictments.
The proposal claimed that the weaker populations, such as Ethiopians and new immigrants, were more susceptible to missionary persuasion. "There is no choice but to adopt the rules applying to forbidding proselytism among minors, for all matter relating to adults as well. In other words, completely forbidding preaching and proselytism," said the proposal.
Shas was also sure to defend the bill from accusations of violating Israel's freedom of
religion principal, saying that "we do not mean to violate freedom of religion or freedom
from religion. We mean to allow everyone to believe in their own religion, and prevent
harassment by any source trying to harm the basic democratic right according to which
'every man may live in his religion.'"
The proposal pointed out that the law does not specify which religion it applies to and therefore also forbids the proselytism of non-Jews to Judaism. "The law also applies to Jewish sects bringing Muslims from the Old City to convert to Judaism," it said.
Second Temple Jewish Town Uncovered in Jerusalem
By IsraelNationalNews.com
In the course of preparing tracks for the new light-rail system in Jerusalem, remains of an ancient Jewish community just north of the Holy Temple have been uncovered.
Rescue digs, required by law before any major construction work in Jerusalem and environs, have found a major set of remains of a Jewish town from post-Second Temple times. A long strip of land, 400 dunams (100 acres) in size, has been uncovered in which can be seen roads, alleys, houses, public buildings, a mikveh (ritual bath) and more.
The community was located east of the old Roman highway leading from Jerusalem to Shechem (Nablus) - roughly along the same route as today's Shechem Way, or Highway 60.
Evidence shows that the community - the largest from that period yet uncovered in the Jerusalem vicinity - was inhabited by a well-to-do and religiously observant populace. In addition to the mikveh, many stone utensils were found - popularly used because they could not become ritually defiled, according to Jewish Law.
Many coins were also found, including a rare gold one depicting Trainus Caesar (98-117 CE). Trainus began his reign 30 years after the Second Temple was destroyed. Antiquities Authority dig manager Rachel Bar-Natan said that this was only the second coin of its type found in Israel, and the first one within the Green Line.
