Middle East Update

The West Talks to Syria - Graham Bacon
During most of 2008 attempts have been made to establish better relationships with Syria, firstly by Israel using Turkey as intermediary, and then by France through a state visit to France by Syria’s president and his wife. Israel is interested in preventing a Syrian takeover of Lebanon and [...]

Earlier this month, North Korean experts secretly met with Syrian officials to give advice on how to develop and load chemical weapons into Syria’s medium-range “Scud C” missiles. Since July, missile testing has been halted in Syria after a surface-to-surface missile exploded at a military complex near the northern City of Aleppo during a joint [...]

David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall The U.S. provided Israel with information about Syrian air defenses before Israel attacked a suspected nuclear site in Syria on Sep. 6. The main attack was preceded by an engagement with a single Syrian radar site at Tall al-Abuad near the Turkish border.

The London-based Arab daily al-Hayat reported Thursday November 22, that for the time being, Syria has decided not to attend Annapolis because the Golan Heights is not on the table. This news comes after the US apparently indicated that they will allow Syria to raise the Golan Heights issue at Annapolis, and earlier predictions [...]

Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post)
Former federal prosecutor and the head of the non-governmental International Intelligence Summit, John Loftus, has released a report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, based on a private study of captured Iraqi documents.

Assad still insists on talks about Golan Heights
Amid reports that Syria plans to attend the upcoming Annapolis conference, Syrian President Bashar Assad reiterated on Thursday November 15, that any Middle East peace initiative that did not include talks on the Golan Heights “would not be serious” and could not achieve a just peace in [...]

(Ha’aretz)The U.S. has promised Syria that the issue of the Golan Heights will be brought to the agenda of the upcoming regional meeting scheduled for later this month, the head of Israeli military intelligence said on Sunday. Briefing the weekly cabinet meeting, Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said that the [...]

by Hana Levi Julian
The missile defense system at Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor is on high alert due to concerns that Syria might target it in an attack. Israeli officials say the Dimona facility is “on the top of [Syria's] list.”
According to a report published in the British Sunday Times, the Dimona nuclear reactor was [...]

David Brooks
This peace process is unlike any other. It’s not really about Israel and the Palestinians; it’s about Iran. There is a feeling among Arab and Israeli leaders that an Iran-Syria-Hizbullah-Hamas alliance is on the march and that the nations that resist that alliance are in retreat.

Syria supplying Shi’ite militia with weapons
A new report to the United Nations Security Council on southern Lebanon shows that Hizbullah has “rebuilt and even increased its military capacity,” to a level higher than before the Second Lebanon War.