GPL M/ EAST UPDATES FROM FEB 5……. NO. 152

AL-QAEDA CALLS FOR WAR AGAINST “ZIONIST-CRUSADER COALITION” : (Reuters)
Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri dismissed U.S. President Barack Obama’s expression of concern over deaths in Gaza as an empty gesture on Tuesday and said Washington remains a main enemy of Muslims. “I remind our mujahideen brothers that our enemy in Gaza is not only Israel but the Zionist-crusader coalition, with America, the leader of evil…at its head,” he said in an audio recording posted on Islamic websites. “The Zionist-crusader campaign against Islam and the Muslims cannot be defeated without warfare,” Zawahri said, calling the devout to join a jihad.

REHABILITATED SAUDI TERRRORISTS RETURN TO JIHAD : - Robert F. Worth (New York Times)
Eleven Saudis who were released from Guantanamo and then passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists have fled the country and joined terrorist groups abroad, Saudi officials said Tuesday

THE GAZA WAR : A STRATEGIC ANALYSIS : - Anthony H. Cordesman (Center for Strategic and International Studies)
This analysis reveals impressive improvements in the readiness and capability of the Israel Defense Forces since the fighting against Hizbullah in 2006. It also indicates that Israel did not violate the laws of war. It did deliberately use decisive force to enhance regional deterrence and demonstrate that it had restored its military edge.

MRS CLINTON: MITCHELL VISIT BEGINS “DIPLOMATIC FORCE PROJECTION” :
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday February 3, called special envoy George Mitchell’s visit to the Middle East “diplomatic force projection” and “the first of what will be an ongoing, high level of engagement by Senator Mitchell on behalf of myself and the President. We are looking to work with all of the parties to try to help them make progress toward a negotiated agreement that would end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, create an independent and viable Palestinian state in both the West Bank and Gaza, and provide Israel with the peace and security that it has sought.”

ISRAEL RESPONDS TO GAZA ROCKET FIRE , TARGETS SMUGGLING TUNNELS : - Yanir Yagana
Israel Air Force aircraft bombed smuggling tunnels connecting Gaza with Egypt on Tuesday February 3 after a rocket launched from Gaza struck the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Residents of the Gaza border town of Rafah said on Tuesday they had received telephone messages warning them to leave their homes ahead of the impending air strike. (Ha’aretz)

HAMAS ‘POLICE’ STEAL UNRWA AID : by Hana Levi Julian
Hamas police raided an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) warehouse in Gaza Tuesday evening, stealing thousands of blankets and hundreds of food parcels from local staff at gunpoint. “It’s a very serious incident,” Jerusalem-based UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Israel National News. “We condemn it in the strongest terms and we demand that the items be returned immediately.” Hamas police grabbed 3,500 blankets and 407 food parcels, according to Gunness, who said his staff was present at the time of the heist. “We were there, and we tried to stop them, but they were armed and we were not,” he said.

MITCHELL MAY SETTLE IN JERUSALEM : by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
United States Middle East envoy Sen. George C. Mitchell has suggested he wants to set up shop in Jerusalem in his attempt to help Israel and the Palestinian Authority reach an agreement. Eleven predecessors have failed, and The New York Times’s Thomas Friedman says he will be the 12th.

MUBARAK BLAMES HAMAS FOR SPILLING ARAB BLOOD :
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak voiced unusually harsh criticism against Hamas on Wednesday February 4, accusing the radical Islamist movement of being responsible for the shedding of Arab blood. “How long will Arab blood continue to be spilled, only to hear those who admit to miscalculating the scope and scale of Israel’s response?”

ISRAEL OFFERS TO LIFT GAZA BLOCKADE IN EXCHANGE FOR SCHALIT :
Israel has offered to allow in 75 percent of the goods it currently bans from entering the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, Hamas leader Salah Bardawil said Tuesday. The remaining 25 percent are goods such as concrete, steel and glass, that could be used to build rockets, smuggling tunnels and bunkers.

TOP ISRAELI DEFENCE OFFICIAL WARNS OF COLLISION COURSE WITH SYRIA :
A military confrontation with Syria is likely to occur in the near future, top defense official Amos Gilad said Tuesday February 3, warning that Israel should not place its faith in the relative calm observed on the Syrian border. “We’re on a collision course with Syria,” Gilad told the ninth Herzilya conference for national policy. “We need to try and reach a peace agreement with Syria,” or face “rockets in large numbers targeting Tel Aviv.”

ISRAEL NAVY STOPS LEBANESE AID SHIP BOUND FOR GAZA :
Israeli naval forces boarded and took control of a cargo ship carrying activists and supplies from Lebanon to Gaza on Thursday January 29 , bringing the vessel to port in Ashdod After arriving in Ashdod, it was discovered that Hilarion Capucci, a former Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem who had been convicted of smuggling weapons for the PLO back in 1974, was on board. Sentenced to 12 years in prison, Capucci was released at the Vatican’s request after serving only three years, but he then violated the release terms by taking up a position as the PLO’s ambassador to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad.

EXPERTS ADVISE OBAMA ‘TIME NOT RIPE’ FOR MIDEAST PEACE DEAL ! :
Satloff: ‘Don’t pursue peace for illusionary, romantic reasons’ US President Barack Obama met on Wednesday February 4, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his special envoy for the Middle East, George Mitchell, to discuss ways to bring stability to the Mideast, even as a gathering of foreign policy experts in Washington concluded conditions are not ripe at present for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

WANTED TERRORIST ‘COMMANDER’ KILLED IN OVERNIGHT RAID :
A top Islamic Jihad terror commander believed to be planning an attack on Israeli civilians was killed by IDF special forces in the northern West Bank town of Kabatiya on Wednesday February 4. Allah Abu-Rov was killed while exchanging gunfire with troops during a raid of his home. A search of the property yielded an explosive device, firearms, a flak jacket, and ammunition. Security officials said that the operation was a result of intelligence gathered from the arrest of five of the members of the cell Abu-Rov commanded in Jenin.

IRAN’S SATELLITE LAUNCH SHOWS AMERICA ITS NUCLEAR INTENT : - Editorial (Telegraph-UK)
Tehran’s claim that it has put its Omid satellite into orbit should raise concerns about the regime’s ultimate objectives.
Launching a satellite involves fixing a spherical object to the head of an advanced missile system, a procedure that is not dissimilar to launching an atom bomb.

US DEPENDENCE ON MIDDLE EAST OIL IS EXAGGERATED : - Nimrod Raphaeli (MEMRI)
Alleged U.S. dependence on Middle East oil is greatly exaggerated. With the help of its oil strategic reserves, its national production of oil and the availability of oil from two friendly neighbors, Canada and Mexico, coupled with the drive for developing alternative energy sources, the U.S. could muddle through with reduced Middle East oil for a long while. With world oil prices at their lowest level since 2004, the sharp decline in oil revenues will lessen the threat of pressure on U.S. foreign policy by oil producing countries as well as the threat of acquiring vital U.S. assets by foreign sovereign wealth funds.

IDF PRESENTS ENQUIRY INTO DEATH OF GAZA DOCTOR’S DAUGHTERS : - Amos Harel
The IDF on Wednesday February 4 presented the conclusions of an inquiry into the deaths of Gaza doctor Ezzeldin Abu Elaish’s three daughters during the recent Gaza operation. The IDF explained that troops had been fired upon by snipers situated in the house adjacent to Abu Elaish’s home. The troops identified suspicious figures on the upper levels of the doctor’s building, and deduced that they were serving as observers, directing the sniper fire from their vantage point. Following long deliberations and assessments of the situation, the unit commander decided to fire tank shells at the building, and when the soldiers heard the screams and realized civilians had been hit, they helped evacuate them, the investigation revealed.
The army argues further that the residents of the neighborhood were urged to evacuate the area prior to the attack via thousands of leaflets that were disseminated in the area, and that the doctor was personally asked by phone to evacuate his family from the neighborhood due to the fighting. The IDF spokesman’s office issued a statement extending condolences over the incident, but maintained that the IDF operated within reason in light of the sniper fire directed at the troops and the heavy fighting in the region. (Ha’aretz)

RAPE TO RECRUIT SUICIDE BOMBERS : by Hana Levi Julian
A 51-year-old Iraqi woman has been arrested for her role in a ring of terrorists who use rape as a way of “persuading” young women to become suicide bombers. Samira Ahmed Hassim, known as “the Mother of Believers,” confessed on a video released Tuesday February 3 by Iraqi police to having participated in the Ansar al-Sunnah terrorist network. Hassim explained to the Associated Press in a prison interview a week after her arrest that dozens of young women were sent to her after they had been captured and raped by the men. She would then try to persuade them to become suicide terrorists as the only means of reclaiming their honor, and as a way to escape the stigma and shame they would otherwise face in Islamic society.

CIA WARNS ISRAEL OF AL-QAEDA ATTACK IN TURKEY : - Sedat Gunec (Today’s Zaman-Turkey)
The CIA warned Israel and Turkey three weeks ago about preparations by an al-Qaeda member who infiltrated Turkey from a Middle Eastern country to carry out a deadly attack against Israeli passengers at Turkish airports. In response, Israel decided to halt its flights to the Turkish resort city of Antalya.

GREECE HOLDING SHIP WITH MISSILE COMPONENTS BOUND FOR IRAN : - Barak Ravid and Anshel Pfeffer (Ha’aretz)
The Greek paper Elefterotipia reported the detention of an Iran-bound ship, the Susanna, at a port near Athens on Dec. 10 due to suspicions that it was carrying components for ballistic missiles. A search of the ship found 80 tons of CK22 steel, which can be used to make warheads or fuel pods for surface-to-surface missiles.

ISRAELI TACTICS IN THE GAZA WAR : - Tim McGirk and Aaron J. Klein (TIME)
Several senior Israeli officers provided a detailed account of the recent military campaign in Gaza. “There was never a single incident in which a unit of Hamas confronted our soldiers,” one Israel Defense Forces official says. “We kept waiting for them to use sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles against us, but they never did.” The Israeli military reported only four attempts by suicide bombers instead of the dozens they had feared. “Hamas and Hizbullah are worried that Israel has broken the DNA code of urban fighting,” says reserve Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari. Officers say that Hamas had prepared a defensive wall using “hundreds of explosives, mines and booby-traps.” But Israeli forces, avoiding the main roads, were able to go around it, then methodically dismantled Hamas’ defenses.

AFTER US REQUEST, ISRAEL AGREES TO LET $43 (Mill) INTO GAZA FOR ABBAS:
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed on Thursday February 5, to allow the transfer of $43 million to Gaza to enable Mahmoud Abbas’ government to pay salaries there. Sources in Israel said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned Olmert to press him to release the money, describing this as the first instance of U.S. pressure on Israel since President Obama took office.

HOW TO BREAK BOTH OIL’S MONOPOLY AND OPEC’S CARTEL :
Oil’s monopoly in the transportation sector is the reason oil is a strategic commodity. Ensuring that new cars sold in the U.S. are platforms on which fuels can compete will spark a competitive market in fuels made from a wide array of energy sources, thus breaking oil’s transportation fuel monopoly and eventually stripping oil of its strategic status. For a cost of less than $100, automakers can make virtually any car a flex fuel vehicle, capable of running on any combination of gasoline and a variety of alcohols such as ethanol and methanol, and in the future butanol, made from a variety of feedstocks.

LAST POLLS BEFORE ELECTIONS SHOW LIKUD-KADIMA RACE TIGHTENING :
Israel Beiteinu eclipsing Labor for third largest party A bevy of polls released Friday February 6, the last day opinion survey results can be published, indicate Israel’s national elections next Tuesday the 10 th, will come down to a close finish between Likud and Kadima.

UN TO PROBE HAMAS USE OF CHILDREN AS HUMAN SHIELDS :
The United Nations is ready to address Hamas’s use of children as human shields during last month’s IDF offensive in Gaza, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday February 5.

U.S. FIGHTER JET PRICE SOARS:
Recent hikes in the price of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, are holding up the signing of a contract between the Israel Air Force and Lockheed Martin, a senior IDF source told The Jerusalem Post. Last month, the Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that earlier predictions that the plane would cost $50 million-$60 million were inaccurate and that the real cost of the plane would be closer to $100m.

UN SUSPENDS AID TO GAZA : by Hana Levi Julian
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) announced Friday February 6, it will suspend its humanitarian aid to Gaza until further notice due to a Hamas raid on the agency’s distribution center and a subsequent attack on an aid convoy. Hamas police attacked a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid supplies from the agency’s warehouse in Israel to its distribution center in Gaza on Thursday, stealing 200 tons of food, according to IDF Major Peter Lerner, spokesman for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

CIA : BRITISH ISLAMISTS ARE GREATEST THREAT TO USA : - Tim Shipman (Telegraph-UK)
The CIA has launched a vast spying operation in the UK to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks being launched from Britain.
U.S. officials believe that a British-born Pakistani extremist entering the U.S. under the visa waiver program is the most likely source of another terrorist spectacular on American soil. The CIA stepped up its efforts after the Mumbai massacre laid bare the threat from Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has an extensive web of supporters in the UK.

ISRAEL’S CASE IGNORED IN SECRET UK GOVERNMENT MEMO : - Leon Symons (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
An internal UK government briefing note on Israel’s recent action in Gaza prepared by the Foreign Office and the Home Office’s research and information unit is written almost entirely from the Palestinian perspective. The memo, headed: “The British government position on the situation in Gaza,” contains only two mentions of Hamas and gives no explanation or context as to how or why Israel launched its operation on Dec. 27.

UK FOREIGN OFFICE DIPLOMAT ARRESTED OVER ‘ANTI-SEMITIC’ RANT : - Ben Leach (Telegraph-UK)
Rowan Laxton, 47, an expert on the Middle East and head of the South Asia Group at the Foreign Office, allegedly shouted anti-Jewish expletives while watching television reports of the Israeli attack in Gaza in the London Business School’s gym on January. 27. He is also alleged to have said Israeli soldiers should be “wiped off the face of the earth” during the rant, which was overheard by staff and gym members. A complaint was made to police and Laxton was arrested for inciting religious hatred through threatening words and behavior.

JEWS IN SOUTH AMERICA INCREASINGLY UNEASY : - Juan Forero and Joshua Partlow
In Argentina - which has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, about 250,000-strong - Jewish leaders describe a tense climate in which swastikas have been painted on Jewish schools, and graffiti demanding that Jews leave the country have been scrawled on walls. In Bolivia, President Evo Morales expelled the Israeli ambassador over the Gaza war.

ISRAEL AIR FORCE STRIKES HAMAS TARGETS IN GAZA : - Ali Waked
Israeli aircraft struck Hamas outposts in Gaza early Monday February 9 in retaliation for Sunday’s rocket fire on Israel. (Ynet News) More than 35 Kassam rockets, mortar shells, and Grad missiles have been fired at Israel since a cease-fire ended Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza over two weeks ago, the IDF said. (Ha’aretz)

OLMERT MAY FORCE SHALIT DEAL :
National Union Knesset Member Uri Ariel said Monday February 9, that outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be trying to establish conditions in a deal for freeing kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit that will make it “very difficult” for the next government to refuse. Arab dailies in Egypt and London reported that the Olmert government has agreed to release approximately 1,000 terrorists and other Palestinian Authority Arab prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for planning murderous attacks on Israelis. The Egyptian Al-Gomhoria daily said the agreement, including a one-year truce and the re-opening of Gaza borders, will be finalized orally in 48 hours. However, all sides agree that it cannot be implemented before Election Day, a situation that could leave the next government in a bind. If the new government does not carry out a deal, it might risk Shalit’s life, but MK Ariel said that freeing murderers “will bring more terror.”