GPL… MITTLERE OSTEN-UPDATES VON. 11. MAI…. NR. 111

P.M. OLMERT VERMUTET VOM ANNEHMEN DER BARGELD-BESTECHUNGSGELDER: durch Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Premierminister Ehud Olmert ist unter Polizeiuntersuchung für das Annehmen der Bargeldbestechungsgelder von den wohlhabenden Freunden, einschließlich einen weithin bekannten amerikanischen Geschäftsmann. Die Details des Misstrauens gegen den Premierminister wurden Donnerstag Nacht 8. Mai freigegeben, als ein Tel Aviv Amtsgericht teilweise einen Gagauftrag auf Details des Falles anhob.

BARAK ADJUTANTEN: OLMERT' S AUSGANG IST EINE ANGELEGENHEIT VON TIME-THEN, WAS? : durch Hana Levi julianisch
Kabinettsminister und Koalitionpartner beeilen sich, um ihre Enten in der Linie zu erhalten, während die Sturmwolken in der neuesten Untersuchung gegen Premierminister Ehud Olmert. erfassen. „Barak läßt wenig bezweifeln, daß Olmert auf seinem Ausweg ist, aber die Frage ist: Wahlen jetzt oder später?“ die Quelle Reuters erklärt. Wenn Arbeit, die zweite größte Partei in der Koalition, von der Regierung und neuen den Wahlen der Kräfte auszieht, ist Likud Parteivorsitzender Binyamin Netanyahu wahrscheinlich, seine Partei zu einem Sieg zu führen. Solch ein Drehbuch würde wahrscheinlich eine nationalistische/fromme Koalition bedeuten und lassen würde Arbeit aus der Regierung heraus.

WAS ist SO SPEACIAL ÜBER UNABHÄNGIGKEIT-TAG? :
Rabbiner Eliezer Melamed - der Rabbiner der Shomron Stadt von Har Brachah, hat eine kurze Arbeit die historische und fromme Bedeutung des Tages erklärend veröffentlicht.
Die Einrichtung des Zustandes von Israel erleichtert, für Einzelpersonen und die Nation als Ganzes, die Erfüllung des Torah Gebotes, um das Land von Israel zu vereinbaren. Die Einrichtung des Zustandes entfernte die Schande des Exils und die angeschlossene Schändung des Namens G-d, als innen Ezekiel 36, Verse 4, 20 und andere. Die Einrichtung des Zustandes, unmittelbar nach Jahrhunderten der Pogrome, die mit dem Holocaust kulminierten, viele jüdische Leben speicherten und Strebepfeiler der jüdischen geistige Zustand der Leute halfen. Es ist ein positives Gebot, zum von G-d für seine Wunder und Bevorzugungen zu danken, und von Feiertagen zu diesem Zweck zu verordnen. Wort G-d, wie in so vielen Plätzen in der Bibel geprophezeit, war, daß er uns zum Land zurückbringen würde.
So wird Israel Unabhängigkeit-Tag folglich mit drei Schichten Heiligkeit verziert: die Heiligkeit des Gebotes des Vereinbarens des Landes; die Heiligkeit des Sanctification des Namens G-d und der Anfang der Abzahlung; und die Heiligkeit der körperlichen und geistigen Rettung der jüdischen Leute.

ITALY HONOURS ISRAEL IN TURIN BOOK FAIR, IGNORING HOWLS OF PROTEST: by Gil Ronen
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano opened the prestigious Turin book fair Thursday May 8 amid opposition from Muslims and the Italian Left over the choice of Israel as the event’s guest of honor. “No dialogue is possible if there is a refusal to recognize Israel,” Napolitano said at Israel’s stand at the fair, the European Jewish Press reported. Napolitano added that there can be no “rejection of the reasons for [Israel's] birth or of its right to exist in peace and security.”

CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER CONDEMNS CRITICISM OF ISRAEL AS THINLY-VEILOED ANTI-SEMITISM: - Mike De Souza (Ottawa Citizen-Canada)
Some of the criticism in Canada against the State of Israel is similar to the attitude of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned Thursday May 8. “We learned in the Second World War that those who would hate and destroy the Jewish people would ultimately hate and destroy the rest of us as well, and the same holds today”.

ISRAEL’S CONTRIBUTION TO BRITAIN: - Stephen Pollard (Spectator-UK)
Israeli companies own £734 million of direct investments in the UK, employing an estimated 14,000 people and creating £630 million in gross value added in the UK.
U.S. PUSHING HARD FOR BORDER AGREEMENT: - Herb Keinon
Israel and the Palestinians need to “draw a map and get it done,” according to U.S. Secretary of State Rice, using language conveying a degree of impatience a week before President George W. Bush is scheduled to visit the region.

HAMAS HOLDING GAZA POPULATION HOSTAGE:
Hamas is targeting the border crossings between Israel and Gaza in order to prevent the transfer of humanitarian aid to the civilian population, thus cynically depriving its own population and causing an artificial humanitarian crisis in order that international pressure will be placed on Israel.

ISRAEL’S PSYCHE AT 60! : - Walter Reich
As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, there’s a remarkable spirit and courage here. Despite the rising tide of Islamism that surrounds the country and the constant threats to destroy it, Israel bustles with energy, commerce, science and the arts. And, most of the time, its people display a convinced optimism that Israel is here to stay.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, is open about its intention to destroy Israel, however long it takes. And it, like its ally Hizbullah in south Lebanon, has adopted a military strategy that’s strikingly effective in this age of television and the Internet: launching rockets at Israeli cities from places inhabited by civilians, provoking Israelis to strike back, and waiting for images of the resulting casualties to inflame world opinion. If Israeli leaders don’t strike back, they fail to protect their own people; if they do, they receive global condemnation for using disproportionate force. And the threats from Hamas and Hizbullah pale in the face of the possibility that, after a peace deal, the West Bank, lying alongside the length of Israel’s population centers, will become a launching pad for still more rockets.

ISRAEL CELEBRATES 60 YEARS: - Zalman Shoval
The rebirth of the Jewish state, against extreme odds, was perhaps the greatest victory of the human spirit over adversity. On the very day it declared independence, Israel was invaded by seven Arab armies while it had no regular army, air force or navy - with all the major powers - sadly including the U.S., clamping an arms embargo on a people fighting for its life. In spite of it all, Israel did survive. Indeed, it is still fighting, as its enemies (presently led by a genocidal Iran that is quickly going nuclear) still dream that maybe “next time” they will be successful in exterminating the Jewish state.

1948, ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS- THE TRUE STORY: - Efraim Karsh (Commentary)
The “original sin” of Israel’s founding “on the ruins of Arab Palestine,” achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population, is advanced not only by Israel’s Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West. The recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British Mandate (1920-1948) and Israel’s early days paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record, revealing that the claim of dispossession is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. By early April 1948 some 100,000 Palestinians had fled, though the Jews were still on the defensive and in no position to evict them. None of the 170,000-180,000 Arabs subsequently fleeing urban centers, and only a handful of the 130,000-160,000 villagers who left their homes, had been forced out by the Jews.

LEBANON TEETERING ON CIVIL WAR:
Saniora: ‘Even Israel didn’t act like Hizbullah’
Lebanon remains on the brink of civil war as of Monday May 12, as Hizbullah has responded to last week’s challenge from the Western-backed Saniora government by taking over parts of west Beirut and engaging in clashes with Christian, Druze and Sunni Arab elements across the country over the past six days, leaving more than 80 dead and scores wounded. Hizbullah’s withdrawal from Beirut was agreed upon after the Lebanese Army gave in to the group’s demand to keep a Hizbullah loyalist in charge of the airport and continue to operate its own communications network. “As for the telecommunications network, the army will look into the issue in a manner that is not harmful to the public interest or the security of the resistance [against Israel],” read an official statement from the army. “We had thought that Israel is the source of the imminent threat to our country… but the present experience shows that our homes and democratic system are gripped by brethren who believe in armed violence,” said Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

OLMERT REJECTS EGYPT’S PROPOSED CEASE-FIRE WITH HAMAS:
Israeli Prime Minister hosted Egypt’s Chief of Intelligence Omar Suleiman on Monday May 12 and informed him that he could not accept Cairo’s proposed truce with Hamas because it does not include the cessation of weapons smuggling from Sinai into Gaza and the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.

IRAN’S AHMADINEJAD CALLS ISRAEL A ‘STINKING CORPSE’ :
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marked Israel’s 60th anniversary late last week by calling the Jewish state a “stinking corpse” that will soon disappear. “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken,” Ahmadinejad said to IRNA, Iran’s official news agency. “The very existence of the Zionist entity is questioned. It is headed for annihilation… [Israel] has reached the end, like a dead rat.

BARAK: ISRAEL PREPARED FOR ANY ATTACK:
Barak: Israel is prepared for any attack
During a Yad Vashem ceremony in Jerusalem on Sunday May 11, marking the Allied Forces victory over the Nazis in World War II, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had some sober comments about the military threats facing Israel at present. “Upon reaching 60 years of independence, there are still those who have not yet accepted [Israel's] existence here as a solid fact. We must not rest on our laurels…. In this day and age, really, we have one eye following the goings on in the Gaza Strip, and another following the situation in Lebanon and Syria, and of course we have both eyes following Iran…. We are trying to achieve peace, but we, the IDF and security forces, are ready for every challenge and every test that is likely to be forced upon us,”

IRAN TO RIDE OUT WESTERN SANCTIONS:
Iran is developing its Azadegan oil field, located in southwestern Iran, as part of a national effort to increase self-sufficiency and thereby withstand increasing economic pressure from Western sanctions. Azadegan will be the first major field that is exclusively developed by Iranian companies, with pumping beginning last February. According to the Associated Press, this oil field, symbolic of Iranian self-sufficiency, is a test to see if Iran can indeed survive Western sanctions. It also opens up the potential of billions of dollars in revenue, and would allow Iran to pursue its renegade nuclear program.

SHAS UPGRADES THREATS TO QUIT GOVERNMENT: by Hillel Fendel
As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert increasingly hints that a final agreement with the Palestinian Authority is close, the Shas party steps up its threats to quit the government. As the agreement progresses, so does Shas possible march out of the government. Leading rabbis have written to Bush himself, asking him not to meet with the Israeli premier. “The Prime Minister is prepared to betray his country and homeland in order to save himself from the law,” the Yesha Rabbis Council writes in a particularly strong letter. “Do not let yourself be engraved in history as Nebuchadnezzar or Titus [who destroyed Jerusalem 2,500 and 2,000 years ago, respectively].”

HAMAS ROCKET NEARLY HITS BUSLOAD OF STUDENTS IN SDEROT: by Hillel Fendel
Following a weekend of over 20 mortar shells and rockets, Hamas fired a rocket Sunday afternoon May 11 that narrowly missed a busload of students in the parking lot of Sapir College in Sderot. A second rocket fell in an open area in the western Negev, causing a fire . Hamas terrorists also fired two mortar shells late Sunday, north and northeast of Gaza, causing no damage. Over the weekend, terrorists in Gaza fired 22 Kassams and five mortar shells at Israel’s western Negev areas. The tally: One man was killed by a shell on Friday night, two people were lightly wounded by shrapnel, others were treated for shock, and a house suffered a direct hit. Over the course of Friday night May 9, five Hamas terrorists were killed in an Israel Air Force anti-terrorist operation.

OLMERT: ‘WE’LL GIVE UP A LARGE PART OF THE TERRITORIES’:!!! by Hillel Fendel
Newsweek’s Lally Weymouth talked with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about important issues facing Israel in an exclusive interview published on Thursday May 8, Israel’s Independence Day. Sweeping Concessions to PA
Asked about attempts to reach a final-status agreement with the Palestinian Authority, Olmert said that the final borders “will be closer to what they were in ‘67 than what they are today.” Olmert explained that this is “because we will give up a large part of the territories … in the context of full, comprehensive peace.” Olmert said that the final borders “will be closer to what they were in ‘67 than what they are today.” Speaking of Iran, Olmert reiterated that Israel would “not tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of people who say openly, explicitly and publicly that they want to wipe Israel off the map,”

OLMERT TRIES TO BLOCK TALANSKY TESTIMONY: By Hana Levi Julian
Attorneys for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his former bureau chief, Shula Zaken, are fighting to keep state prosecutors from questioning American businessman Morris (Moshe) Talansky in the investigation against their clients. Talansky is one of two pivotal witnesses in the investigation that alleges the Prime Minister unlawfully received millions of shekels in campaign funding that was raised over a period of 15 years. The other major witness in the case, Olmert’s long-time associate and former partner in their Jerusalem law firm, attorney Uri Messer was the go-between who allegedly handled the transfer of cash between Talansky and Olmert. During questioning last week, Messer confirmed to police, according to Maariv newspaper, that he gave Olmert large quantities of cash in envelopes. He said, “I did not act for myself or on my own. I acted with Ehud’s knowledge and on his behalf.”
ISRAELI HIKERS RETURN FIRE AND KILL ARAB TERRORIST: by Hillel Fendel
Five youths hiking through the fields north of their hometown Beit El on Friday afternoon May 9 were attacked by two armed Arab terrorists. The Jews, following military procedure, called for them to identify themselves. However, when the terrorists continued to advance and shot directly at them, the hikers returned fire, killing one terrorist

TEL AVIV MORE CROWDED THAN GAZA: - Joseph M. Hochstein
Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab and others have written that Gaza is “one of the most densely populated places on earth, with 3,823 people per square kilometer.” The Tel Aviv metropolitan area has a density of more than 5,000 people per square kilometer, which is considerably more crowded than Gaza.

HIZBULLAH REDRAWING MIDEAST MAP: - Joshua Mitnick
Hizbullah’s dramatic gains in Lebanon are just part of a regional process that began last year in Gaza and will continue in Jordan and Egypt, Sheikh Yazeeb Khader, a Ramallah-based Hamas political activist and editor, said in an interview. “What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement; now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon. It’s going to happen in 2009 in Jordan and it’s going to happen in 2010 in Egypt.” “We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground.” His remarks highlight a growing alliance linking Hamas, Iran and Hizbullah. The notion of new countries falling under Islamist influence reflects a goal of Hamas’ parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, of replacing secular Arab regimes with Islamist governments. (Washington Times)

HIZBULLAH CAPTURE OF LEBANESE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE SEEN AS THREAT TO ISRAEL: - Hugh Macleod
Hizbullah Monday May 12 took control of the Druze village of Niha in the Chouf mountains, 25 miles southeast of Beirut, after fierce fighting. Analysts said the village provides Hizbullah with a crucial supply route between its stronghold in the eastern Bekaa Valley and the coastal highway that leads to Hizbullah’s bases in Beirut’s southern suburbs. “Hizbullah will very soon spread all over,” said Ahmad Moussali, a professor at the American University of Beirut. (Guardian-UK)

LEBANON TURNS INTO IRANIAN COLONY: - Alex Fishman
The events in Lebanon are a painful reminder that in a year Iran will be officially situated on Israel’s northern border. Barring any surprises, in the next parliamentary elections Lebanon will fall into the hands of Hizbullah and turn into an Iranian colony. Hizbullah’s siege on government offices was meant to remind everyone who the master of the house is. An Iranian base in Lebanon is a base for eliminating the State of Israel.