GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . OCT 5 NO … 137

DISPROPORTINATE FORCE TO BE USED AGAINST TARGET S IN LEBANON :
Reports surfacing in France and Israel indicate that disproportionate (overwhelming) force will be used by Israel in any future war against Hizbullah and indeed, all of Lebanon. Israel makes it plain than any area launching strikes against Israel will be totally destroyed.

OLMERT HEADS FOR MOSCOW FOR TALKS ON IRAN THREAT :
Israel to hand over Jerusalem’s Russian Compound
Still acting as Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert landed in Moscow on Monday afternoon October 6, to discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Russia’s weapon sales to the Islamic Republic as well as to Syria.

NATO CHIEF DOUBTS IRAN CAN BE STOPPED :
Cites Iranian missiles as also worrisome
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said over the weekend that he doubts the international community can prevent Iran from getting an atomic bomb.

FRENCH F.M : ISRAEL WILL ‘EAT’ IRAN BEFORE IT GETS THE BOMB :
During a regional visit over the weekend, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Ha’aretz that “I honestly” don’t believe it [acquiring a nuclear bomb] will give any immunity to Iran. First, because you [Israel] will eat them before. And this is the danger. Because Israel has always said that it will not wait for the bomb to be ready.” Kouchner said he knows Israel is preparing for pre-emptive military action.

‘SYRIAN OFFICER INVOLVED IN HARIRI DEATH KILLED IN DAMASCUS CAR
BOMBING’ :
According to Israel Radio on Sunday, Syrian intelligence officer Abed al-Karim Abbas, who was linked to the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, was among the seventeen people killed in the car bombing on September 27 in Damascus, said Syrian opposition leader Sheikh Abdullah Hamidi. Abbas drove the booby-trapped truck to Beirut to be used to kill Hariri along the Beirut waterfront, said Hamidi.

‘U.S. CONSIDERS LIFTING SYRIAN SANCTIONS’ :
According to Israel Radio on Sunday Ocober 28, the United States is contemplating a shift in policy towards Syria in the future that would include lifting sanctions against Damascus but not returning the US ambassador to Syria, said top US officials. Talks are taking place on how Washington could best influence Damascus, in the midst of Syria’s recent warming of relations with France, marked by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to Damascus last month, said US officials.

ISRAELIS WOULD RATHER BE ISRAELI : by Hana Levi Julian
A new poll shows that the benefits of living in Israel far outweigh the threat of Palestinian Authority terrorism, economic hardship and political uncertainty for the vast majority of Israelis. According to a survey of Jews in the Land , 92 percent of the respondents answered affirmatively to the question as to whether they would actively engage in a military battle for Israel. The same number expressed pride in their Jewishness. Ninety percent characterized themselves as “patriotic,” and 85 percent said they were opposed to dividing Jerusalem in order to gain peace with the Palestinian Authority. An overwhelming majority of Israel’s Jews also prefer to live in the Jewish State than anywhere else: 87 percent said they would rather be Israeli citizens than citizens of any other country.

HIGH PRIEST’S GRAVE DISCOVERED : by Hillel Fendel
Archaeologists excavating north of Jerusalem have found a piece of a sarcofagus - a stone coffin - belonging to a son of a High Priest. The visible inscription reads, “the son of the High Priest” - but the words before it are broken off. It thus cannot be ascertained which High Priest is referred to, nor the name or age of the deceased. Many other findings in the excavation are from the late Second Temple period, and archaeologists assume that the High Priest in question lived between 30 and 70 C.E.

PA WARNS, HAMAS ON THE DOORSTEP : by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
“Annapolis will continue,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told a conference Sunday October 5, in her first foreign policy speech since being elected to head the ruling Kadima party. Her Palestinian Authority (PA) counterpart Riyad al-Malki spoke at the same conference and said that talks without action by the end of the year will explode with a PA headed by Hamas. Livni is trying to put together a new coalition government while the clock keeps ticking away on her early November deadline to succeed or face elections.

NORTH KOREA’S MIDDLE EAST GAMBIT : by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz and Yishai Fleisher
Israel accused North Korea of covertly supplying six Middle Eastern countries with the means to produce weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, ignoring international non-proliferation agreements. Republican party lobby group, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, called North Korea a key player in Middle East security. Addressing a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, on Saturday, Israeli representative David Danieli charged, “At a time when the international community concentrates on North Korea’s nuclear activities and its non-compliance with safeguards agreements, the Middle East is at the receiving end of North Korea’s reckless practices.”

IDF NABS FUGITIVE IN RAMALLAH : by Hana Levi Julian
Special IDF forces disguised as Arabs arrested a terrorist on the seventh floor of a building in downtown Ramallah, the heart of the Palestinian Authority, late Monday night October 6. Rafa Ahmed Hassan al-Auna was wanted for shooting attacks on IDF security troops. In other security news, IDF soldiers arrested 19 PA Arab men accused of terrorist activity throughout Judea and Samaria late Monday night as well. The suspects were turned over to security services personnel for questioning. Ten other suspects were caught in Judea; six were arrested near Bethlehem and four were nabbed in Hevron.

FISCHER TALKS AT INTERNATIONAL MONEY MEETING : by Aryeh Haffner
Bank of Israel Governor Dr. Stanley Fischer will head a delegation of Israeli bankers to the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington D.C. next week, according to the Globes business news service. Dr. Fischer, a former deputy managing director of the IMF, will deliver a speech to one of the forums at the event. The IMF and the World Bank are set to hold their annual meetings from October 11 to October 13. The main seminar, discussing the current global financial crisis, is scheduled for October 12. Fischer will address the Per Jacobsson Foundation Forum on that day.

SYRIA REBUFFS NUCLEAR INSPECTORS : (BBC News)
The head of Syria’s nuclear program, Ibrahim Othman, has said that the country’s military sites will remain off-limits to international nuclear inspectors. Syria’s announcement comes after it dropped a bid to win a place on the board of the IAEA nuclear watchdog.

OIL DISCOVERED IN EGYPT’S GULF OF SUEZ : (AP/Forbes)
UK-based Circle Oil and Premier Oil announced Friday October 3, they had struck oil in Egypt, with initial sustained production at over 3,000 barrels per day of crude and 4 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas, 300 km. southeast of Cairo in the Gulf of Suez basin.

PA BRACING FOR A POSSIBLE HAMAS TAKEOVER : (Jerusalem Post)
Hamas may try to carry out a “hostile takeover” of the West Bank and bring down the current Fatah-led government, officials in the PA security forces warned in a report published by the London-based Asharq Alawsat on Saturday October 4. According to the report, PA security forces are doing their utmost to prevent such an event through continued arrest and interrogation operations.

IRAN DEFIANT ON URANIUM ENRICHMENT : Reuters
Iran will not stop uranium enrichment even if it is guaranteed supplies of nuclear fuel from abroad, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Sunday October 5 ..”.Iran’s uranium enrichment policy remains unchanged.” (Reuters)

OLMERT’S FINAL GIFT TO RUSSIA : by Hana Levi Julian
Cabinet ministers are to discuss on Sunday the transfer of property rights over the Sergei Compound in Jerusalem, part of the property known as the Russian Compound. Israel acquired some 90 percent of the Russian compound in 1964, paying the former Soviet Union $3.5 million in a purchase dubbed the Orange Deal because Israel, lacking hard currency at the time, paid Moscow in citrus fruit. The Sergei building, church and courtyard, however, were part of the remaining 10 percent that was not included in the deal and until the 1967 Six Day War served as the local KGB spy nook.

BOTH IRAN AND USA AIDING PA : by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
American security demands that the government waive Congressional restrictions against direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), United States President George W. Bush wrote the State Department Monday. In a message to the State Department, President Bush declared, “I hereby certify that it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive” the restrictions. The move will allow up to $75 million to be pumped directly to the cash-strapped PA, which has become increasingly dependent on international help to the point that it has been labeled a welfare state by some European leaders. Congress added the waiver clause in its stipulation that most aid be directed through non-PA organizations to prevent the money from going into PA leaders’ pockets or to terrorists.

ROCKETS ON TEL AVIV : by Tamar Yonah
Israeli citizens in the Tel Aviv area and the coastal region may not be aware of the dangers they would face if a two state solution comes into being, according to Susie Dym, spokesperson for Mattot Arim, an Israeli grassroots Land of Israel activist movement. Israelis who support such a plan don’t understand that rockets could soon be slamming into their living rooms if a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). Such a Palestinian state would …immediately become an outpost for Iran.

HAMAS BLAMES JEWS FOR GLOBAL CREDIT CRUNCH :
According to Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum on Tuesday October 7, the “Jewish Lobby” in the United States is to blame for the current international financial crisis. Barhum issued a statement today declaring the world crisis resulted from “bad administrative and financial management and a bad banking system put into place and controlled by the Jewish lobby.”

‘RUSSIA COMMITS TO KEEP IRAN FROM ATTAINING NUCLEAR ARMS’ :
Medvedev: Moscow has important Middle East role
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s meeting in the Kremlin on Tuesday October 7 with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev produced an agreement that Israel and Russia will upgrade their strategic dialogue and use that forum to share intelligence assessments and discuss Russian arms sales to the region, a senior aide to Olmert claimed today. There is an insinuation that Russia will not sell its advanced Radar system to Iran.

HAMAS : ABBAS TO BE REPLACED IN THREE MONTHS :
Dispute over PA presidency deepens Hamas-Fatah rift
Hamas says it will no loner recognize Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Authority chairman after January 8 and will place one of its own leaders in the office, based on a resolution authorized by Hamas legislators. On October 6 they changed their mind and will accept Abbas staying in power an additional 6 months.

HAMAS ‘AIRS’ MILITARY TRAINING COURSE ON TV :
Although Israel and Palestinian terror militias in Gaza have been adhering to a fragile ceasefire since late spring, both sides are getting ready for renewed conflict. Hamas recruits are currently receiving military training via televised courses that teach them theories and actions of war and weapons handling. The TV courses are equipping militiamen for various battlefield roles, such as defending against IDF ground and air attacks on Gaza, reported Haaretz

IRAN OBJECTS TO US-IRAQ SECURITY AGREEMENT :
According to a senior Iranian military official’s statement on Tuesday October 7, a pending US-Iraqi security agreement on future troop levels will be a “disgrace” for Iraq and should not be accepted. The deal will permit the US to station 14 military bases throughout Iraq, deploy US forces in Iraq for the long-term, give US nationals judicial immunity, and will allow Iraqi land, airspace, and sea lanes to be used as launching pads to strike elsewhere in the Middle East.

VIDEO SHOWS RELEASED TERRORIST KUNTAR IN HIZBULLAH TRAINING :
A video from Lebanon has recently surfaced showing freed PLO terrorist Samir Kuntar, recently released by Israel, undergoing military training this week with Hizbullah. Samir worked with a terror cell that infiltrated Israel and killed four Israelis in 1979. Israel freed him in July in a prisoner swap with Hizbullah for the return of two dead IDF soldiers. The video shows Kuntar participating in a Hizbullah weapons training session with Hizbullah members, reported Haaretz

EFFORTS UNDERWAY TO HALT EGYPT’S GAS EXPORTS TO ISRAEL :
The former director of international treaties in the Egyptian foreign ministry, Ibrahim Yossri, went to court on Tuesday to demand that Egypt halt natural gas exports to Israel, Al Jazeera reported. A $2-3 billion agreement to supply natural gas to Israel was signed by Egypt in June 2005. The 15-year agreement, which is renewable, governs the transfer of gas at $2 per cubic foot - a price well below the market benchmark of $14. Yehya al-Gamal, an Egyptian campaigner against the deal, said: “It’s not about the price of gas, it’s whether we should export it to them [Israel] in the first place.

ISRAEL’S BOOMING HI-TECH INDUSTRY : - Julie Ball (BBC News)
Israel’s hi-tech industry contributes around 7% to the country’s GDP. “The two real fathers of Israeli hi-tech are the Arab boycott and Charles de Gaulle, because they forced on us the need to go and develop an industry,” says Yossi Vardi, known as the godfather of Israeli hi-tech, recalling the 1967 French arms embargo.

TOP AL-QAEDA PLANNER OF BAGHDAD BOMBINGS SLAIN :- Jay Deshmukh
U.S. forces have killed Mahir Ahmad Mahmud al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Rami, an al-Qaeda militant who planned some of the biggest bombings in Baghdad and who killed a group of Russian diplomats in 2006, the U.S. military said Saturday October 4. “His removal from the AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) network will send shockwaves through Baghdad’s terrorist bombing networks,” said U.S. spokesman Admiral Patrick Driscoll. Abu Rami was reportedly responsible for multiple car bombings and mortar attacks in Sadr City in 2006 and 2007, including the car bombings on November 23, 2006, that killed more than 200 people. In addition, Driscoll said, “In a video recording from June 2006, Abu Rami is seen shooting one of four Russian diplomats.” (AFP)

ISRAEL’S AIR FORCE JETS SCRAMBLED TO NORTHERN BORDER : - Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
The Israel Air Force scrambled fighter jets to the border with Lebanon on Thursday October 9, Yom Kippur, after a suspicious aircraft was detected approaching Israeli airspace. The plane turned around and flew back north into Lebanon.

CHINA TO EXPLORE FOR OIL IN SYRIA : - Stephen Starr (Asia Times-Hong Kong)
Syria’s key oil and gas sector, which contributes a quarter of its GDP, is suffering from declining production as oil fields dry up. State-owned companies pumped 610,000 barrels out of the ground every day in 1995. Today, that is down to 350,000 barrels a day, with slightly less than half going to export. Meanwhile, consumption is soaring. In a move that may improve output, Chinese oil giant Sinopec has bought out a Canadian firm’s oil exploration interests in Syria for $2 billion.

ISRAEL CAME TO A STANDSTILL FOR YOM KIPPUR :
Israel came to a standstill on Thursday October 9 as the country marked Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement - the most sacred observance in the Jewish calendar. Public transport and air traffic stopped, as did television and radio programming, while schools and offices - including the Tel Aviv stock exchange - were closed.

POLICE ON HEIGHTENED ALERT AFTER AKKO RIOTS : - Ayiha Raved
Severe clashes between Jewish and Arab residents of Akko in northern Israel erupted Wednesday night October 8, when an Arab resident drove through a predominantly Jewish area on the evening of Yom Kippur and local residents began hurling stones at his car. After the Arab’s relatives came to his rescue, a rumor spread that the Arab driver had been killed, prompting hundreds of Arabs to arrive at the scene. The incident quickly developed into a mass riot involving hundreds of people, during which dozens of cars and some 30 shops were vandalized.

GAZA TUNNEL OWNERS REGISTER WITH HAMAS AND GET ELECTRICITY :
Owners of the scores of tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border have registered with the Hamas authorities, pledged to pay workers’ compensation and hooked up their operations to the electricity network.

IRAN’S POLITICAL MOT IVATION FOR RIDICULING THE HOLOCAUST AGAIN : - Richard L. Cravatts Muslims want the occurrence of the Holocaust to be proven false to eliminate the cataclysmic social and political event that led the world to accept and endorse the creation of the Jewish state. It is also politically expedient to position the Palestinians as the ultimate victims among victimized peoples, and this is much easier without the inexpressible evil of the Holocaust as core element of Israel’s tragic heritage. (History News Network)

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE ARAB WORLD :
The seven stock markets in the oil-rich Gulf states shed around $150 billion of their capitalization in the course of the past week. The Arab world may well prove particularly vulnerable to the world economic downturn since a disproportionately large amount of Arab wealth is invested in global stock markets. The Kuwait Investment Authority, for example, placed a $2b. investment in Merrill Lynch last year. Merrill Lynch, of course, no longer exists. Instead of investing in education and in industry, money has been gambled on the stock markets, or invested in glittering real-estate projects, built by foreign labor and using foreign know-how. America’s opponents in the Middle East are gloating at the financial meltdown in the United States, describing it as the divinely inspired collapse of an overstretched empire. Hardline clerics across the region as well as representatives of U.S. opponents like Hamas and al-Qaida have described the plummeting stocks and frozen credit markets in the United States as a kind of retribution for American misdeeds.