-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
TZEMACH NEWS SERVICE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A weekly update of news and events regarding the nation and the people of Israel. Week Ending: 2 February 2002/20 Shevat 5762 "The L-rd is King forever and ever; Nations have perished from His Land. O L-rd, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror." Psalm 10.16-18 This Week's Headlines: :: SHARON, PERES IN TALKS WITH PA/PLO :: JERUSALEM PLAN PASSES FIRST HURDLE :: BUSH, MUBARAK NOT HAPPY WITH ARAFAT :: MIRACLE IN JERUSALEM :: WAS GEORGE WASHINGTON A MURDERER AND A TERRORIST? :: EUROPE: DEFENSE IS OK, BUT NOT AT OUR EXPENSE :: A 'UNITED NATIONS OF MAJOR RELIGIONS' :: FIRST FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER COMES FORTH :: 'KARINE A' FINANCIED BY SAUDI ARABIANS? :: INTIFADA MOVING TO MORE DEADLY PHASE :: HIZB'ALLAH AGAIN FIRES INTO ISRAELI AIRSPACE3 :: SYRIA MAY BE SEEKING TO UPGRADE MILITARY :: AL-QAIDA MOVING TO LEBANON? :: MIDDLE EAST HOURGLASS :: SHARON, PERES IN TALKS WITH PA/PLO: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Wednesday night with senior Palestinian Authority officials, the first such meeting since his election a year ago. The meeting at Sharon's Jerusalem residence included Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's unofficial deputy Mahmoud Abbas, and Arafat's top financial adviser, Muhammad Rashid. According to an official, the Palestinians called on Sharon to end targeted killings, stop IDF [Israel Defense Force] incursions into Area A, lift the closures and blockades around Palestinian-occupied cities, and let Arafat leave Ram'Allah. Sharon reportedly replied that these steps would be taken if Arafat takes the following actions: arrests and interrogates terrorists, including those who killed tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi; takes preventive measures against terrorism; dismantles Hamas and Islamic Jihad; confiscates illegal weapons; and stops incitement against Israel. Also present at the three-hour meeting were the prime minister's son, Omri Sharon, and Brig.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, the defense minister's military aide. Sharon has been invited to meet with US President George W. Bush in the White House on 7 February. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker and top PA/PLO negotiator Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) on Friday in New York, following an earlier meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which the foreign minister presented his plan, in an effort to garner US backing. Peres and Abu Ala are continuing to formulate a cease-fire declaration and are discussing the establishment of a Palestinian state recognized by Israel and with whom Israel would negotiate to reach a final status agreement. According to ARMY RADIO, the plan includes the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state on 42 percent of Yesha [Judea, Samaria, and Gaza] and future talks on the division of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and other issues. In an interview published in MA'ARIV on Friday, Sharon said the published plan is not to his liking. At the same time, he said that "in the final analysis, there will be a Palestinian state." "It will be demilitarized with a police force to ensure public order," Sharon said of this state. "It will have to be dismantled of the weapons it now has, but a Palestinian state will be established in the end. I am willing to make painful compromises. I am willing to give up parts of Eretz Yisrael, and that is a painful compromise." "On that day the L-rd made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates" [Genesis 15.18]; "I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you" [Exodus 23.31] ............................ :: JERUSALEM PLAN PASSES FIRST HURDLE: PM Sharon approved in principle Tuesday a plan submitted by Public Security Minister Uzi Landau and Police Chief Shlomo Aharonishki to physically separate Jerusalem from neighboring PLO-occupied areas. The program, strongly endorsed by the police, calls for 54 kilometers [33.5 miles] of physical obstacles around the city, including 11 kilometers [7 miles] of fences and a wall in the southern areas of the city. The wall would run from Gilo to Har Homa. Other features of the partition include ditches, fences, barriers, and observation points equipped with cameras and night-vision equipment. Five additional Border Guard companies will be enlisted to patrol the various areas, and Arabs would be able to cross from one side of the city to the other only through designated crossing points. Total cost of the project: 150 million shekels [$32.7 million]. Sharon ordered changes to be made in the plan to include the Arab villages of Abu Dis, Beit Iksa, Anata and Hizma, currently under Palestinian civilian control. The entire government must also approve it before implementation. ............................ :: BUSH, MUBARAK NOT HAPPY WITH ARAFAT: US President George W. Bush continues to come down hard on Yasser Arafat. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is reportedly not happy with Arafat, either; Israeli diplomatic sources said that Mubarak has not answered phone calls from Arafat, and that he views the Karin A matter "with gravity.". Meanwhile, Egypt has reportedly begun a new initiative to bring about a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israel. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met in Cairo Wednesday with Mubarak, and Minister Tzippy Livni has also been invited. She met with Mubarak's top advisor Osama el-Baz on Thursday. ............................ :: MIRACLE IN JERUSALEM: One of the victims wounded in last Thursday's [24 February] shooting attack on Jaffa St. in downtown Jerusalem was Shayna Gould, 19 -- and she was not expected to survive for even the duration of her ambulance trip to the hospital. She was unconscious, her vital signs were almost non-existent, and an operating team began working furiously on her as soon as she arrived at the hospital. Hopes were not high, and yet a week later, she is fully conscious and communicative, and her condition has been upgraded to good. Her doctors expect that she will be released within a week. Shayna graduated from high school two years ago in Skokie, a suburb of Chicago, and is now in her second year of study in a religious seminary in Jerusalem. "I will extol You, O L-rd, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my enemies rejoice over me. O L-rd my G-d, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. O L-rd, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit. Sing praise to the L-rd, you His godly ones, and give thanks to His holy name" [Psalm 30.1-4]. ............................ :: WAS GEORGE WASHINGTON A MURDERER AND A TERRORIST? This week, Arafat told some 2,000 demonstrators at his Ram'Allah compound that his struggle against Israel is like George Washington's against the British. "Did you ever accept the British occupation of the United States?" declared the Palestinian leader, adding, "Didn't George Washington fight, along with his people, until they freed the United States?" ............................ :: EUROPE: DEFENSE IS OK, BUT NOT AT OUR EXPENSE: Amidst the wave of major terror attacks that continue to hit Israeli citizens at the rate of one every 2-3 days, the European Union is engaged in formulating a condemnation of none other than - Israel. The EU is miffed at Israel for causing $17 million worth of damage to EU-sponsored projects in the course of fighting its war of self-defense against Palestinian terrorism. The Foreign Minister of Spain, which now holds the EU's rotating presidency, plans to send a letter of protest and condemnation to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. ............................ :: A 'UNITED NATIONS OF MAJOR RELIGIONS'" The World Economic Forum, meeting this past week in New York City, revived an idea that was first launched by the late King Hassan of Moroccoin 1998. The idea was to create a kind of "United Nations of major religions" with an organ like the Security Council whose task would be to prevent religion from being used for militant political purposes. The idea was to be discussed by a number of religious figures from the main monotheistic faiths. So concerned is the forum with fundamentalism that it has devoted a whole separate panel to the issue. Meanwhile, the possibility of "bringing Islam into the modern world" is the subject of yet another panel. A third panel that will examine the possibility of Muslim countries adopting a Western-style democratic system tempers the pessimism of the organizers about Islam's ability to accept modern world as shaped by Western nations over the past two to three centuries. Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman ibn Hamad Al-Khalifa will argue that Islam is not incompatible with democracy, and will present his own country as a model of Islamic democracy in the making. A similar message will come from Sheikh Hamad ibn Thamer Al-Thani, chairman of the Radio and TV Authority of Qatar. He, too, will argue that Qatar is emerging as "democratic model" in which Islam coexists with pluralist politics. A third speaker will be Shafeeq Ghabra, a Kuwaiti professor who presents Kuwait as "oldest established democracy" in the Arab world. The text of all three Arab speakers' remarks include appeals to the Western world to strengthen ties with the "emerging democracies" of the Arab world and to stand against those opposed to the process of democratization and pluralism. [The Forum's definition of "democracy" was not quite clear.--ed] ............................ :: FIRST FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER COMES FORTH: Pinkhas Totally, 81, was murdered Sunday and more than 150 people were wounded when a female Palestinian terrorist set off a huge bomb in front of a clothing store on Jaffa Road, Jerusalem's busiest street. The bomber was a member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah terrorist organization. She was also a volunteer in the Red Crescent [Muslim version of the Red Cross]. She carried out her attack shortly after working at the Red Crescent and it is believed that she may have used her Red Crescent uniform to help pass into Jerusalem. Arafat 'condemned' the Jerusalem 'operation' but called for more 'martyrs,' and blamed Israel for the violence. "To Jerusalem we will march -millions of martyrs. And, O god, master of the universe, please let me be one of the martyrs." shouted Arafat. ............................ :: 'KARINE A' FINANCIED BY SAUDI ARABIANS? As German magazine DIE WELT has learned, influential Saudi Arabian circles seem to have paid for the weapons ship "Karine A" to carry weapons to Arafat's PA/PLO. The ship was seized on January 3rd by a special unit of the Israeli navy on the Red Sea. The "Karine A" was on its way to its Palestinian addressees, fully laden with 50 tons of weapons from Iran. The CIA, Israel's Mossad, and Palestinian security services have conducted their own independent investigations. All three "investigators" have withheld their conclusions up to this point for different reasons. According to the estimates of the intelligence services, Saudi Arabian businessmen paid $10 million dollars to Iran for the weapons carried on the "Karine A." The involvement of Saudi business circles -- among them members of the royal family as well as Saudi intelligence -- in the "Karine A" affair sheds a new light on the already long-disturbed political relationship between the US and its partner in the Gulf. It also reveals domestic fault-lines and rivalries within the kingdom, in which more and more critical voices are raised against the US. The money transfer for the arms smuggling aboard the "Karine A" was completed through Islamic charity organizations in Jidda. Middle Eastern intelligence services know, however, that inside Saudi Arabia no large sum of money is transferred without the knowledge and approval of the intelligence service or higher governmental authorities -- especially not if the funds are channeled through Abu Dhabi and Beirut. In addition, these events indicate for the first time the readiness of influential figures in the royal family and the intelligence service to support Arafat's newly sealed bond with the Lebanese Hizb'Allah and its Iranian patron. Previously, the Saudis sponsored Hamas in its bases in the Israel, Jordan, and Syria. In a related story, Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi Arabia's top intelligence official, said at the end of last week that any US action to weaken Arafat would destroy prospects for a peace settlement in the Middle East. Aziz called Arafat "a man of peace." ............................ :: INTIFADA MOVING TO MORE DEADLY PHASE: The Oslo War could be moving into a deadlier phase as terrorists groups develop more sophisticated weapons and Islamic and secular factions drop their ideological differences, analysts warned Tuesday. Press reports last week that the Palestinians had, for the first time, used anti-tank weapons against Israeli armored vehicles in Yesha was the latest sign Palestinian groups are willing to up the stakes in the conflict. That Palestinian terrorists are looking to upgrade their arsenals was also indicated by the Karine A debacle. Palestinians have for some time had anti-armor weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, all of which are prohibited by the Oslo peace agreements. The addition of advanced weaponry, such as the longer-range Qassam 2 rocket, with a range of some 10 kilometers (six miles) coupled with reports that Islamic groups are experimenting with chemical warheads, could shift the conflict to a new level of urgency. Also, the frequency of joint attacks between groups such as Islamic Jihad and the secular Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Yasser Arafat's own Fatah movement, has increased in recent months. ............................ :: HIZB'ALLAH AGAIN FIRES INTO ISRAELI AIRSPACE: Hizb'Allah gunners fired anti-aircraft shells into Israel's airspace Friday afternoon, for the second time in 24 hours. While the pretext was the same as on the previous three incidents in the past month -- alleged violations by IAF planes of Lebanese air space -- security sources stressed that the only aircraft in the area of the Hizb'Allah firing -- roughly over Kibbutz Menara -- was a civilian plane flying inside Israeli airspace. As on previous occasions, some shrapnel fell inside Israel, including on Kiryat Shmona, but without causing casualties or damage. Military sources said the IDF views these incidents very gravely and is closely examining the issue and Hizb'Allah's motives. ............................ :: SYRIA MAY BE SEEKING TO UPGRADE MILITARY: Lt. Gen. Hassan Turkmani, Syria's new chief of staff, said he regarded the modernization of Syria's military as a leading goal as chief of staff. Arab diplomatic sources said Turkmani is expected to press for new weapons and upgrade of Syria's Soviet-based arsenal. This would include modernization of tanks, aircraft and air defense batteries. But most of the military's modernization plans have been stymied by lack of Syrian funding. The sources said Damascus has failed to complete a deal to purchase the S-300 anti-aircraft because of Russia's insistence on a short-term repayment schedule. They said the result is that Syria has been forced to remove from active service scores of fighter aircraft, hundreds of artillery pieces and more than 1,000 tanks because of lack of spare parts. Meanwhile, the heads of the Syrian and Lebanese armies met Thursday in Syria. Talks during the meeting dealt with the latest developments in the region, relations of cooperation and coordination between armies of the two sisterly countries and means for developing them. ............................ :: AL-QAIDA MOVING TO LEBANON? Members of the al-Qaida terrorist network routed from Afghanistan are seeking to regroup and reestablish their operational base in Lebanon, according to reports in Europe over the weekend. The LONDON TIMES reported that a senior al-Qaida official, identified as Yemeni national Salah Hajir, traveled to Beirut two weeks ago to discuss the relocation with Hizb'Allah leaders. At the same time, DIE WELT reported that Arafat has offered $5,000 to each al-Qaida fighter who is prepared to move to Yesha. According to the paper, "80 to 100 al-Qaida cadres have so far accepted Arafat's offer," adding that the men are currently based at the Ein al-Hilwe refugee camp in Sidon, where they are waiting to be smuggled into the Palestinian-occupied areas. It also reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who operate with Hizb'Allah in Lebanon, are organizing the secret transfer of al-Qaida agents and fighters into Lebanon and Syria. It added that Saudi Arabian money is funding the transportation of the men, by air and sea. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared to confirm the presence of al-Qaida terrorists in Lebanon last Wednesday. ............................ MIDDLE EAST HOURGLASS January 27 Female suicide bomber kills one, wounds 140 in downtown Jerusalem Cheney: Arafat in partnership with Hizb'Allah, Iran Seven terrorists released from Beit Lechem prison following Jerusalem attack January 28 Israel celebrates Tu B'Shvat Bush to Mubarak: Arafat missed chance to establish Palestinian state EU decides Israel needs Arafat Shekel drops to NIS 461 to the dollar January 29 Landau set to present new Jerusalem security plan EU ministers pushing for new Mideast peace conference Report: Sea of Galilee has risen two feet since end of summer Palestinian sources: Woman bomber was member of Arafat-led Fatah Sharon approves new Jerusalem security plan, with adjustments January 30 Ben-Eliezer flies to Sinai to meet Mubarak PM Sharon met with senior PA/PLO officials January 31 The heads of the Syrian and Lebanese armies meet in Syria Hizb'Allah fires into Israeli airspace February 1 Hizb'Allah again fires into Israeli airspace FM Peres meets with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in New York FM Peres meets with PLC Speaker Ahmed Qureia in New York ............................ [Sources: Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, Ha'aretz, AP, Reuters, Israel My Beloved, AFSI/MidEastWeb, SANA, MENL] :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::: "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest." Isaiah 62.1 Lee Underwood *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. 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