Middle East Update

Israeli defense officials have disclosed that the IDF is at a heightened state of alert due to threats that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will try to sabotage the upcoming Annapolis summit through violent means. There have been ten specific warnings which all indicate that the Palestinians are planning large-scale terror attacks.

The Israeli government approved the release of 441 more Palestinian prisoners on Monday November 19, as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority ahead of the Annapolis summit. The prisoner release is just one step in several that the US is pressuring Israel to take in a final effort to make the Annapolis conference [...]

The Shin Bet security agency has recommended that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert need not make any more goodwill gestures to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas until after the Annapolis summit. Officials believe that the Palestinians could somehow manipulate pre-summit goodwill gestures as leverage against Israel, as they have in the past, by blaming any [...]

Sanctions reduced, but not complete cutoff of power
Israel’s Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz has okayed a strategy of reducing Gaza’s electricity supply in response to the constant firing of Kassam attacks, the Justice Ministry confirmed on Thursday November 15. Mazuz’ decision was contained the limitations that the supply of electricity would never be completely cut off [...]

Olmert insists needed for post-Annapolis negotiationsIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish State was met with intense opposition Wednesday November 14, during a meeting between the two negotiating teams to draft a joint statement of principles to guide peace talks at the upcoming Annapolis summit and beyond.

A Kassam rocket landed in Sdero ON November 14, damaging two cars and, according to some reports, a house. An hour later, yet another rocket was fired at the Negev, sending some people into shock and causing damage to a potato processing plant. Two other Kassams were fired at the Negev [...]

According to a top Palestinian official on a visit to Turkey, the Annapolis conference may not take place due to difficulties the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams are having in forging a joint statement, which they have been negotiating for the last few weeks. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ senior advisor Nabil Abu Rudaineh [...]

Negotiating teams preparing for Annapolis
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday November 12 that Israel and the Palestinians have settled on a new plan that will bypass the road map’s first stage that requires the Palestinians to fight terror and Israel to freeze settlement building.

Thanassis Cambanis
This month’s legislative elections were supposed to be a watershed in Jordan’s slow but committed march to democratic change. But Hamas’ rise to power in the Palestinian Authority and its violent takeover of Gaza in June have cast a heavy shadow over politics in Jordan, where a Hashemite monarch maintains a tight, authoritarian grip [...]

The UN is beginning an investigation of an incident where Gaza gunmen are accused of using a UN-run school in the Gaza Strip to fire mortar shells into Israel last month. It is unacceptable that UN premises be used in this fashion.” The school in question is run by the UN Relief and Workers [...]