GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM . NOV 15.. NO. 143
GAZA CITY ‘POWERLESS’ AFTER ISRAEL ORDERS CROSSINGS CKLOSED AGAIN :
Gaza City was without power on Thursday evening November 13, after the only power plant in the Gaza Strip was shut down due to fuel shortages. The blackout came when Israel cut off fuel and food shipments to the Hamas-ruled area because of renewed rocket attacks on Israeli border communities. Israel canceled plans to ship in diesel fuel for the plant as well as 30 trucks full of humanitarian supplies after Gaza militants fired at least eight rockets and several mortar shells at Israel on Thursday.

ISRAEL APPROVES ALIYA FOR 150 BNEI MENASHE :
Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit has approved aliyah requests for a new batch of 150 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe in northeast Indian seeking to move to Israel. There are currently another 7,200 that claim to descend from the “lost tribe” of Menashe, but the Ministry of Interior has not decided whether to allow all of them to make aliya.

THE PA SENTENCES A ‘COLLABORATOR’ TO DEATH FOR SPYING FOR ISRAEL :
A Palestinian Authority military court in Bethlehem on Wednesday November 12, sentenced a PA security agent to death by firing squad after finding him guilty of “collaboration” with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post.

EXPERTS SAY NEW IRANIAN MISSILE IS AN OLD VERSION :
Washington denounced the claim by Tehran on Wednesday Novemeber 12, that it had test-fired a new solid fuel surface-to-surface missile with a range of 2,000 km., capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf. Andrew Brookes of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said: “I think the Iranians just keep on rejigging the same missile and putting a new logo on it. It’s basically the Shahab 3 with a different name,”

PALESTINIAN COLUMNIST CRITICISES PERSECUTION OF ARAB CHRISTIAN:
Palestinian commentator Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar wrote an article in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam in late October 2008 in which he decried the treatment of Arab Christians throughout the Middle East, particularly those living under the Palestinian Authority.

MORE KASSAM BARRAGES FROM GAZA SIGNAL TRUCE UNRAVELLING :
140 rockets in past week has Israel, Hamas calculating next moves
With Palestinian terror militias launching a torrent of Kassam rockets from Gaza again on Friday November 14, both Israel and Hamas are calculating whether the recent escalation along the Gaza border means their fragile five-month truce is essentially over. As well Israel estimates there are now about 1,000 smuggling tunnels bring all kinds of supplies from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

U.S. CLOSES CHARITY SUSPECTED AS A ‘FRONT’ FOR HAMAS :
The US Treasury Department took action on Wednesday to freeze the assets of the Union of Good, an Islamic charity suspected of helping to fund the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which the US officially lists as an international terrorist organization. The Union of Good facilitates “the transfer of tens of millions of dollars a year to Hamas-managed associations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” according to The Treasury Department.

ISRAEL CHANGES TACTICS TO PREVENT TERROR INFILTRATIONS FROM GAZA: - Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff
In the past two weeks, IDF units have crossed into Gaza several times to strike at terrorists and foil potential attacks. On Wednesday November 12, Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed four Hamas gunmen approaching the security fence. The militants were trying to lay an explosive device near the fence, the army said. Defense sources said the army is now authorized to act against clear threats within a “security perimeter” - a several-hundred-meter strip beyond the border fence. (Ha’aretz)

ARAB LEADERS STAY TO LISTEN TO ISRAEL : - Betsy Pisik
A UN conference on religious tolerance broke new ground Wednesday November 12, when a half-dozen Arab leaders - including Saudi King Abdullah for the first time ever - stayed in their seats while an Israeli president spoke. Lebanons deputation left.(Washington Times)

ISRAEL DEVELOPING UAV THAT CAN DETECT MISSILE WARHEADS FROM DECOYS:
Israel is developing a high-flying, long-endurance unmanned infrared sensor to assist in those white-knuckled minutes when it may be forced to spot incoming nuclear warheads amid dozens of decoys sent to confound national missile defenses. A prototype of the long-range, high-resolution target-discrimination sensor has already been tested aboard a business jet under a closely held Israeli-German program called “Bluebird.”

RUSSIA TO BUY PILOTLESS AIRCRAFT FROM ISRAEL : (RIA Novosti-Russia)
The Russian General Staff has decided to buy unmanned planes from Israel over the next two to three years, a lawmaker said Thursday November 13.

EGYPTIAN LAWYER, ARAB MEN SHOULD SEXUALLY HARASS ISRAELI WOMEN :(MEMRI)
Egyptian woman lawyer Nagla al-Imam, interviewed on Al-Arabiya TV on Oct. 31, 2008, has proposed that young Arab men should sexually harass Israeli girls wherever they may be as a new means in the resistance against Israel.

DEFENCE MINISTRY’S AMOS GILAD : WE WON’T LET IRAN GO NUCLEAR : - David Horovitz
Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, has stressed to the Jerusalem Post in an interview. Asked about the complexities of any resort to military action, particularly since Iran has built its facilities to withstand a repeat of the 1981 destruction of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor at Osirak by the Israel Air Force, Gilad replied that critics said the Osirak raid “couldn’t be done. And the fact is, it succeeded.”

HAMAS ROCKET ATTACKS TARGET ASHKELON :
Hamas Islamists fired their longest-range rockets at a southern Israeli city on Friday November 14, in the 11th day of skirmishes threatening a five-month-old truce. Hamas said it fired five Soviet-made Grad rockets at the city of Ashkelon. The Grad has a maximum range of 25 km. (Reuters-Financial Times-UK)

HAMAS INTRODUCING NEW LEGAL CODE BASED ON ISLAMIC LAW;
The Hamas administration’s Legal Advise and Legislation Office in Gaza announced on Nov. 5 that it was drafting penal codes according to the “noble Islamic religious law.” The bill will be submitted to the administration which will order the Hamas-controlled Legislative Council to approve it.

INTERFAITH MEETING A SAUDI FRONT : by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The widely publicized Saudi-backed interfaith meeting held at the United Nations this week was a front to promote a global law against blasphemy, two religious freedom leaders wrote in the Christian Science Monitor. The proposed law would “crush religious freedom,” according to Donald Argue and Leonard Leo “The lofty-sounding principle is, in fact, a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion,” they wrote in the Monitor. Saudi Arabia does not permit the public practice of any religion except for Islam. A government agency, called the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, patrols the country with whips to enforce the law.

POLL : AMERICANS CONTINUE TO BACK ISRAEL : (UPI)
According to a poll of Americans released Sunday Novembar 16, 66% said the U.S. should back Israel while only 6% said it should support the Palestinians. Some 72% agreed that even with U.S. domestic problems, the country must work to prevent a nuclear Iran.

NEW GAZA JIHADIST GROUP VOWS LOYALTY TO AL-QAEDA : (MEMRI)
On Nov. 6, the Islamist forum Al-Fallujah posted two communiques by a new jihadist organization called Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin (”The Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine”). The first communique announced the establishment of the organization, and declares that it was vowing loyalty to al-Qaeda, after having “received the messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.”

REPORT : IRANIANS TRAIN SYRIANS, HIZBULLAH TO FIGHT SUNNIS : (Jerusalem Post)
Iranian Revolutionary Guards have established intelligence cells in Lebanon, comprised of Syrian agents and Hizbullah members, to track down and annihilate extreme Sunni armed cells. “Approximately 200 IRGC agents, who were based in Iraq, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have arrived in Lebanon via Syria since late July, and began forming cells comprising members of Hizbullah and Amal, as well as Syrian intelligence officers”. The cells have already begun to operate. Last week several Sunnis were kidnapped and others were killed inside Palestinian refugee camps.

ISRAEL: HAMAS TO BLAME FOR GAZA PLIGHT : - Roni Sofer
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called on the international community on Sunday November 16, to make clear to Hamas that it is responsible for the predicament of Gaza’s residents. During a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Livni said: “Israel cannot just sit by and watch as its citizens are attacked….The Israeli government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, and it is the world’s responsibility not to turn a blind eye and use all of the means at its disposal to stop terror….Just as Hamas is to blame for the attacks on Israel, the group is also responsible for the situation in Gaza.” (Ynet News)

REPORT: OBAMA FABOURS 1949 BORDER : by Maayana Miskin
United States President-Elect Barack Obama will support the Saudi Initiative for peace between Israel and Arab nations, the British Sunday Times reported Sunday November 16. Obama told P A Mahmoud Abbas, “The Israelis would be crazy not to accept this initiative,” according to the Times. The initiative calls on Israel to withdraw completely to its 1949 borders in exchange for normalized relations with Arab League countries. It includes a full retreat from the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, and from the strategic Golan Heights in northern Israel.

IAF ENDS 4 ROCKET LAUNCHERS : by Hana Levi Julian
I A F fighter pilots attacked a rocket-launching terrorist cell near Gaza City on Sunday November 16 immediately following an early morning Kassam attack on the western Negev. Four senior members of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) terrorist group’s Salah al-Din Brigades were killed and six people were wounded in the air strike. PRC spokesman Abu Mujahed confirmed the kill in a statement, saying, “The occupation has harmed us and is killing our people, and we realize that the war has been reopened and that the enemy must prepare for a response.” An IDF spokesman said pilots had attacked terrorists as they were placing rockets on launchers. In a 12-day period more than 130 mortar shells, Kassams, and Grad Katyusha rockets had been fired at southern Israel

GAZA TRUCE DEAD, NEGEV BOMBARDED : by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
At least a dozen rockets rained on the western Negev Monday morning hours of Novemeber 17, after the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), which worked with Hamas to kidnap IDF soldier Gilad Shalit two years ago, announced that the ceacefire is officially over. Israel largely has restricted retaliation to closing Gaza crossings, but last week’s discovery of a planned terrorist operation to kidnap soldiers prompted a counterterrorist operation. Terrorists responded with a barrage of rockets and mortars that has continued for more than a week.

ISRAEL AND GERMANY DEVEL0PING MISSILE WARNING SYSTEM :
Israel and Germany have been secretly working together on developing an advanced infrared nuclear missile detection system. Going under the name of Project Bluebird, the system is based on aerial infrared sensors that will be able to identify nuclear-tipped missiles, and will be able to distinguish armed missiles from potential decoys.

BRITAIN’S FM MILLIBAND: KASSAM ATTACKS INTOLERABLE :
Palestinian terrorists fired at least ten Kassam rockets into southern Israel on Monday. Several homes were damaged, but remarkably no injuries were reported. The rockets fell as Britain’s foreign minister, David Miliband, accompanied Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak on a tour of the besieged town of Sderot.

ISRAELI TANKS ROLL INTO THE GAZA STRIP :
Israeli tanks came under mortar fire on Tuesday November 19, as they moved into Gaza and began leveling lands along the border from where Palestinian terror militas launch cross-border attacks. The IDF described the incursion as “a routine operation to uncover explosive devices near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip.” The tanks, accompanied by a military jeep and bulldozer moved approximately 500 meters into the Strip, according to local Arab residents.

OLMERT NPROMISES TO RELEASE 250 PALESTINIAN PRISONERS :
On Monday November 17, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas that he would release 250 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to mark the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Israel holds some 9000 Palestinian detainees in its jails.

TOURISM UP 36% IN 2008 : by Maayana Miskin
Tourism to Israel increased by 36 % between January and October of 2008 as compared to the same period the year before. . One of the biggest increases was seen in the number of one-day visitors to Israel. Approximately 55,000 people came to Israel for just one day in 2008, an increase of 80 % compared to the year before. Most of the one-day visitors were citizens of Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Chechnya. Most entered Israel via the Taba crossing. In addition, 5,400 tourists arrived in Israel via a direct flight to Eilat - an increase of 32 % from 2007. In October, Israel hit a new record as 302,000 visitors arrived.

JUSTICE MINISTER SEEKS TO CURB COURT POWERS : by Hillel Fendel
Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann is drafting a new law to curb the Supreme Court - drawing the expected ire from Knesset Members on the left, such as Ophir Pines of Labor. Minister Friedmann wishes to block the High Court from dealing with issues having to do with politics, security, the judiciary, and the national budget.

PA TO PROMOTE ARAB PEACE PLAN TO ISRAELI PUBLIC :
The Palestinian Authority has decided to reach out to the Israeli public with an advertising campaign that promotes the Arab League peace plan as the solution to their long festering conflict. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has approved plans to publish full-page ads on Thursday in Israel’s three main Hebrew dailies - Yediot Aharonot, Ma’ariv and Ha’aretz. The ads will reprint the peace plan, which offers Israel “normalization” with the Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 armistice lines, including in eastern Jerusalem, as well as a “just solution” of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN
resolutions.

AL-QAEDA DEPUTY CALLS OBAMA ‘HOUSE SLAVE FOR BETRAYING MUSLIM ROOTS :
Al Qaeda’s second-in-command urged Muslims to continue attacks on “criminal” America and disparaged U.S. president-elect Barack Obama as a “house slave” for vowing to back Israel during his campaign.

SIGNIFICANT EROSION OF GAZA LULL ARRANGEMNET :(Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
A series of events which began on Nov. 4 with the prevention of a Hamas abduction, signals a significant erosion in the lull arrangement and leaves its continuation in doubt. Theoretically, Israel and Hamas, each for its own reasons, seem interested in having it continue. However, for the first time since the lull arrangement went into effect, the dynamics of the escalation on the ground make it difficult for the parties involved to restore the status quo ante.

EGYPTIAN COURT ANNULS NATURAL GAS DEAL WITH ISRAEL : - Mona El-Naggar
An Egyptian court on Tuesday November 18 ordered the government to stop piping natural gas to Israel, saying the 15-year contract was improperly awarded because it was not approved by Parliament.

‘BRAINLESS PEOPLE PRAISE CONDO RICE’ by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A Jordanian professor, debating on Arab language television, said people who “sing the praise of Condoleezza Rice lack taste as well as brains.