Middle East Update

by Hillel Fendel and Maayana Miskin
Sources are now saying that the Middle East peace conference in Washington sponsored by US President Bush might be pushed off by two weeks, until late November. The delay would give Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas extra time to agree on a joint statement.

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Ellen Knickmeyer (Washington Post)
After imprisoning or prodding into exile Egypt’s leading secular opposition activists, the government is using detentions and legal changes to neutralize the country’s last surviving major political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, ahead of the end of the 26-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who is 79.

Uzi Mahnaimi (Sunday Times-UK)
The Russians have sent technicians to upgrade Syria’s air defense system after Israel foiled it using stealth technology to remain invisible during an airstrike. The Israeli air force used a sophisticated electronic warfare system operated by F-15I jets and a fleet of specialist electronic warfare aircraft over the Mediterranean during the attack on a suspected nuclear facility near Dayr az-Zawr on September 6. They transmitted signals that jammed the Russian-made radar and the Syrian army’s communications.

Reuben F. Johnson
The Sa’eqeh (Lightning), the first military aircraft to ever be designed and produced in Iran, is not a modern-age weapon system.
It is based almost entirely on the old Northrop F-5 fighter, the chief U.S. export fighter of the 1960s and 70s, 166 of which were sold to Iran before the revolution.

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James Meikle
The prospect of an academic boycott of Israeli universities receded sharply Friday September 28, as leaders of the lecturers’ union contemplating the move were told it would be illegal.

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
In an address to the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday October 1, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made reference to the Bible, the festival of Sukkot and democracy. She also warned against appeasing those she called extremists.

“Three thousand years ago, the people of Israel journeyed from slavery in Egypt to independence in the land of Israel. The Bible tells us that on their voyage to liberty they made a crucial stop: the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. As the General Assembly gathers this year, the Jewish people recall that historic journey by marking the festival of Sukkot.”

With this Biblical interpretation, she framed the Israeli conflict with its neighbors as fomented by “those who reject these core values - those who seek power without responsibility; those whose aim is not to realize their own rights, but to deny those rights for others.

by Gil Ronen
Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Conservative Party delegates in Britain on Sunday September 30, that UN efforts to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country. Influential conservative thinker Norman Podhoretz told a British paper that he has advised U.S. President George W. Bush to do just that.

by Hillel Fendel
Delayed by a few hours, Olmert’s gesture to Abbas - the release of 87 terrorist would-be murderers from Israeli prisons - has begun, ON October 1. The 87 terrorists, none of whom actually succeeded in their attempts to murder Jews, are being released in keeping with a good-will “propping-up” gesture on the part of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government towards Fatah/Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

According to Arab residents of Gaza, Egyptian authorities temporarily opened the Rafiah crossing on Saturday September 29, in order to allow dozens of Hamas terrorists to enter Gaza. Over 80 Hamas terrorists were reportedly allowed to enter Gaza after being stranded in Egypt by the closure of the Rafiah crossing after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June.

Arab terrorists threw Molotov cocktails at an Israeli driver on Saturday September 29. The attack took place near an Arab village northeast of Ramallah. The driver was not injured. IDF soldiers arrived at the scene and apprehended four of the attackers.

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