DE UPDATES VAN GPL HET MIDDEN-OOSTEN VANAF 26 MAART…. Nr 102

BESPREKINGEN ABBAS BIJ TWEE LIJSTEN: door Hana Levi Julian
Terwijl de Palestijnse Voorzitter van de Instantie en Fatah de leider Mahmoud Abbas koffie nipten en met de V.S. Ondervoorzitter Dick Cheney in Ramallah Zondag 23 Maart babbelden, deed één van zijn dichtste afgevaardigden het zelfde in Yemen met zijn tegenhanger Hamas. Jeruzalem gaf een waarschuwingsZondag uit dat Israël zijn eigen besprekingen met PA zou sluiten als Abbas op de weg aan een verzoening met Hamas verdergaat

NASRALLAH NOG IN HET VERBERGEN, „WIJ ZULLEN ISRAËL“ KRIJGEN: door Hillel Fendel
Ondertussen, Hizbullah blijft de leidersSjeik Hassan Nasrallah voor vrees voor Israëlische represailles verbergen - bedreigt nog Israël met wraakaanvallen voor de recente moord van Imad Mughniyeh. In een geregistreerde videotoespraak ter ere van de 40ste dag na de moord, bovengenoemde Nasrallah, „kan Israël worden gewist? Ja! 1.000 keer ja! … Wij zullen in Israël voor de moord tegelijkertijd en plaats van onze het kiezen“ - taal terugkeren die vaak door Israëlische ambtenaren wordt gebruikt.

Al-QAEDA: DE „JODEN EN AMERIKANEN VAN DE KLAP“ (Reuters)
Tweede-in-bevel Ayman al-Zawahiri van al-Qaeda verzocht aanvallen op Israëlische en Westelijke doelstellingen in een audioband die op Internet op Maandag 24 wordt gepost Maart. „O Moslims. Vandaag is uw dag. Raak de rente van de Joden en de Amerikanen en die allemaal die aan de agressie tegen Moslims deelnamen,“ bovengenoemde Zawahiri. De „monitor de doelstellingen, verzamelt nauwkeurig voor het geld, bereidt de hardware, plan en dan aanval….Niemand kan vandaag zeggen dat wij de Joden in slechts Palestina zouden moeten bestrijden.

ISRAËL O.K.' S 25 RUS MAAKTE GEPANTSERDE VOERTUIGEN VOOR PA: (AFP)
Israël op Vrijdag 21 Maart machtigde de Palestijnse Instantie om 25 Russisch-Gemaakte gepantserde voertuigen in Cisjordanië, een Israëlische bovengenoemde Zaterdag van het defensieministerie in te voeren ambtenaar. De levering, die voor maanden hangend is geweest, werd goedgekeurd tijdens een bezoek aan het gebied door Russische Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Sergei Lavrov. Moskou heeft voorgesteld voorziend de Palestijnen van 50 gepantserde voertuigen meer dan twee jaar, maar Israël kan de tweede verzending weigeren als het vreest dat de voertuigen in de handen van militanten kunnen vallen

CHENEY WAARSCHUWT PALESTIJNEN OVER GEWELD ANTI-ISRAËL:
Ondervoorzitter Dick Cheney op Zondag 23 Maart, waarschuwde de Palestijnen tijdens een bezoek aan Ramallah dat de aanvallen op Israël hoop voor hun „lange achterstallige“ staat doodden. “

PERES WAARSCHUWT VOOR HET TERUGKEREN VAN GOLAN:
Israel will not agree to a deal with Syria involving the return of the Golan Heights, President Shimon Peres said Sunday March 23. “If the Golan is given back, it will boost Iran’s influence in Lebanon and the territory will effectively be under Iranian-Syrian control,” Peres told visiting U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney. (J Post)

HALF OF ARAB LEAGUE LEADERS PLAN TO SKIP DAMASCUS SUMMIT: - Yoav Stern
The leaders of at least 12 Arab countries will not attend the Arab League summit in Damascus on March 29-30, Arab sources said Monday. The Arab world has not been this fragmented for a very long time. “The real decision-makers are not coming since there is no progress on the Lebanon issue,” said one source. Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are demanding that Syria allow the election of a new president in Lebanon. (Ha’aretz)

THE NEW ISRAEL GUARDSMEN OF THE GALILEE: - Caroline Glick
Jewish farmers and ranchers in the Galilee have had their livestock and crops continuously plundered by local Arab criminal gangs, unless they agree to pay protection money. In response, more than a hundred young volunteers - soldiers, college students, and high school students from moshavim in the Lower Galilee - have formed the Hashomer Hayisraeli Hahadash - the New Israeli Guardsmen. The original Hashomer was established in the Galilee in 1909 for the same purpose - protecting Jewish farming communities from Arab marauders who demanded protection money. In just a few months, the volunteer guards have reduced theft by 80%. (Jerusalem Post)

ABDULLAH TO CONVENE INTERFAITH CONFERENCE:
Saudi King Abdullah plans to convene a major international conference between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious communities to promote interfaith dialogue, the official Saudi Arabian News Agency reported on Tuesday. “I invite representatives of all the monotheistic religions to meet with their brothers in faith,” the king was quoted as saying. “With Allah’s help we will meet our brethren from other religions, including those who believe in the Torah and in the Gospel, in order to find ways to defend humanity.”

CHENEY VISIT TO ISRAEL FOCUSES ON IRANIAN THREAT:
Israeli officials were not very forthcoming about the topics of discussions held with US Vice President Dick Cheney during his two-day stopover in Israel over the weekend, though one official in Jerusalem confirmed that the focus was on how to deal with the growing Iranian nuclear threat.

RUSSIA SET ON MIDEAST PARLEY, WHETHER ISRAEL LIKES IT OR NOT!
Moscow ‘motivated’ by fear of Iran’s growing influence in region
In the wake of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s terse visit to Israel last week, Russian government sources say Moscow is determined to host an upcoming Middle East conference tentatively set for June regardless of whether Israel approves of it or not.

IDF FINALLY CATCHES PASSOVER BOMBING MASTERMIND:
Israeli security forces finally caught up to a highly-wanted Palestinian fugitive on Tuesday night March 25, capturing a local Hamas commander in Tulkarm who has spent the past six years on the run after dispatching the suicide bomber that carried out the horrific Passover Seder attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya in late March 2002. Omar Jaber, 54, has been an active Hamas terrorist operative since his release from an Israeli prison in 1994, with the Park Hotel blast being his most notorious attack, killing 30 Jews and wounding 140 others as they sat down for the traditional Passover dinner

GAZA: 6 KASSAMS AT ISRAEL: by Hillel Fendel
Hamas terrorists in Gaza continue firing rockets at Israel practically unabated. Israel presents its case to UN. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Gillerman, summed up the situation by telling the Security Council on Tuesday night….”During the last month, Hamas fired more than 300 rockets at Israel, at least 23 of them Iranian-made Grad missiles that hit the city of Ashkelon… Hamas’ new weapon of choice means that a quarter of a million Israeli civilians now live in constant danger of rocket fire. We can all thank Iran for adding another weapon to the Hamas arsenal. Israel allows humanitarian convoys into Gaza - more than 1,600 trucks and over 20,000 tons of aid in recent weeks alone - Hamas cynically fires on those same crossing points, so it can fabricate a pretext for inciting the Palestinian public against Israel.”

EGYPT TO SIGN NUCLEAR PACT WITH RUSSIA: - Victoria Loguinova
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met Tuesday March 25 with Russian leaders to close a deal allowing Moscow to join a tender for Egypt’s first civilian nuclear power station. President Vladimir Putin’s successor, Dmitry Medvedev, who takes over the Kremlin in May, told Mubarak that he expected a “productive partnership” in the nuclear sphere.

SHIFTING THE BLAME IN GAZA:
Israel’s attacks on Gaza over the last month have been far from unprovoked. Since 2001, there have been more than 6,000 rockets and mortars launched from Gaza into Israel. In just the first two months of this year, there were nearly 900 attacks (15 per day) aimed at Israeli men, women and children. For Israel every dead Palestinian child is a horrible mistake and tragedy, for the terrorists every dead Israeli child is a victory and a cause for celebration.

CHRISTIANS IN THE HOLY LAND: - David Pryce-Jones (National Review)
On a visit to Israel, someone likely to know told me that there are in fact only 14,000 Christians in Jerusalem, including native Arabs and the international religious community. Not so long ago, there were many more. In Bethlehem, a town once 80% Christian, Christians are now a disappearing minority. Islamist radicals talk about Christians as “Crusaders” as though fighting to the death the wars of the Middle Ages.

ARAB FOREIGN MINISTERS RE-ENDORSE SAUDI PEACE PLAN:
A meeting of Arab foreign ministers held on Thursday to prepare for this weekend’s Arab League summit decided to re-endorse the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, which offers Israel broad diplomatic recognition in exchange for a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem. The proposal was ratified despite heavy lobbying by some Arab elements to rescind the initiative.

OLMERT HINTS AT REVIVING SYRIAN TRACK:
Comments may signal impasse in Palestinian talks
In his annual stakeout with the foreign press corps in Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday March 26, expressed renewed interest in pursuing the Syrian peace track, a possible sign that talks with the Palestinians have stagnated.

ISRAEL ENRAGED OVER NEW UNHRC APPOINTMENT:
American Jewish professor compared Israel to Nazis
Known for likening Israel to the Nazis, American Jewish law professor Richard A. Falk was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday March 26, to six-year term as the body’s primary investigator of Israeli human rights abuses in the “occupied territories.”

HIZBULLAH ROCKETS CAN NOW REACH DIMONA:
Hizbullah has significantly increased the range of rockets within its arsenal, posing an even greater threat to Israel now that it can reach the nuclear plant in Dimona, according to top IDF officials. The Shi’ite terrorist militia in Lebanon has received new rockets from Iran that can strike up to 300 kilometers (180 miles) away, meaning they can hit any of Israel’s most populated areas as well as the nuclear reactor just outside the southern desert town of Dimona.

IDF CHIEF: “CONSIDER ALL MEANS TO STOP IRAN”:
According to IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashekenazi on Wednesday March 26, Iran is a danger not only to all of the Middle East but the entire world and all means to stop Tehran’s nuclear drive should be ‘considered.’ Ashekenazi said in a meeting with US Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the US delegation on Defense, that Israel and the Middle East’s greatest threat is Iran’s nuclear program and its long-range missile capability.

ISLAMIC JIHAD MAKING LONG-RANGE ROCKETS:
According to the IDF, the Islamic Jihad terror militia in Gaza has started producing longer range rockets that can strike up to 12.5 miles, similar to the imported Iranian-made Grad rockets recently fired by Hamas at Ashkelon. The new rockets are also loaded with double the amount of explosives as Kassam rockets. The terrorist group has fired the new rocket at least three times since the IDF’s most recent incursion ended in Gaza. The new rockets indicate that Palestinian terror militias in Gaza are getting outside help in making their own weapons inside the Strip. An IDF official said, “”The fact that they are able to produce their own long-range rockets… is disturbing and worrying

TWENTY KASSAMS ON SDEROT, 3 LIGHTLY INJURED: by Hana Levi Julian
Palestinian Authority terrorists launched some twenty Kassam rockets on the western Negev community of Sderot Wednesday night March 26. A total of 20 Kassam rockets had been fired at Jewish communities in the south of Israel by PA terrorists in northern Gaza by 10:00 p.m. Wednesday night.

ISRAEL: HIZBULLAH INCREASES ROCKET RANGE: - Matti Friedman (AP)
Senior Israeli defense officials said Thursday that Hizbullah has dramatically increased its arsenal of rockets and their range. The officials said Hizbullah has acquired new Iranian rockets with a range of 186 miles that can hit anywhere in Israel’s heavily populated center

MOVIE PORTRAYS ISLAM AS VIOLENT AND BLOODTHIRSTY: by Hillel Fendel
The long-awaited and controversial movie Fitna, which graphically portrays Islam as a religion seeking to dominate the world and slaughter non-believers, finally debuted on the internet on Thursday night March 27. Fitna includes graphic footage of Moslem terror attacks around the world, including beheadings, disfigured bodies, destroyed buses, and the like. The scenes are accompanied by the relevant verses in the Koran, such as, “Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies.” This particular verse is followed by clips of a plane slamming into the World Trade Center and setting the building afire, and imams calling for the annihilation of all infidels. One Moslem cleric is seen calling for the murder of Jews; he unsheathes a sword and cries out in nearly uncontrollable frenzy, “By Allah, we shall cut off the Jew’s head” !