Middle East Update

Spain recently hosted its first international conference on the Holocaust, as Spanish schools prepare to introduce the Holocaust into their national history curriculum in the near future. Although Spain’s involvement in the Holocaust was limited - on the one hand, Spain refused to shelter Jews who had escaped via the Pyrenees Mountains, while [...]

Jochen BittnerBy the skin of their teeth, German security services, with the help of their U.S. colleagues, prevented earlier this month what might have been the worst terrorist attack in European history. The amount of explosives 28-year-old Fritz G., 22-year-old Daniel S. and Adem Y., a 28-year-old Turkish-German, had prepared in an inconspicuous vacation home [...]

Only two weeks after allegations of Israel’s bombing of a nuclear facility in Syria, the UN’s atomic watchdog agency voted Syria deputy chairman of its General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that began Monday September 17, In Vienna. Sana, a Syrian news agency, boasted on Tuesday’s election and said that Syria [...]

New York police authorities on Wednesday turned down on security grounds a request from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit “Ground Zero” in lower Manhattan, the site of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, as part of his visit to the US for the opening of the UN General Assembly. Ahmadinejad [...]

DPA/Ha’aretzThe EU has resumed direct financial aid to the Palestinian government of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner confirmed on Saturday September 8.

Glenn R. Simpson (Wall Street Journal)
Multimillionaire Saudi businessman Yassin Qadi, a close friend of Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan, is a major financier of Islamic terrorism with close business associates who are members of al-Qaeda, according to the U.S. Treasury and the UN Security Council. At Washington’s request, the Security Council ordered Qadi’s [...]

Libya, Iran, Cuba lead Durban II plan committee in Geneva
The “International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace”, a UN conference hosted by the EU Parliament in Brussels, called on August 30 for a boycott of Israel in order to promote “Middle East peace.” Clare Short, Member of the UK Parliament [...]

A UN-sponsored conference on the rights of Palestinians opens this week (early September)at the European Parliament, despite protests by Israel and European Union lawmakers who say the meeting’s organizers have an anti-Israel agenda. Israel views the committee as a legacy of the 1975 UN General Assembly resolution - revoked in 1991 - that equated [...]

Islamist faction calls for reunification with Fatah
Recent reports suggest that Hamas is willing to concede to certain demands by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in return for a ‘national unity’ parliament and PLO reforms. Furthermore, there have been reports that Hamas has been secretly meeting with EU officials. Both moves seek to lift [...]

Preparations are underway for the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism, and groups such as NGO Monitor and UN Watch are warning that the 2009 conference will be a repeat of the disastorous 2001 conference held in Durban, South Africa, which labeled Israel an “apartheid state” and equated Zionism with racism.