Middle East Update

Hamas leaders are boosting their personal security over “fears that certain Palestinians will try to assassinate them,” the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported on Monday September 17. Reports indicate that former Hamas foreign minister Mahmoud Zohar and deposed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh are gunning for each other in an internal [...]

Both the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian governments denied entry recently to Khaled Mashaal, head of the Hamas office in Damascus, saying the Islamist faction Hamas must first reverse its coup in Gaza, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jareeda reported on Friday. Saudi Arabia is alledgedly outraged with both Hamas and Fatah for their lack of adherence to [...]

After Olmert downplays talk of agreement on major issuesPalestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas will not attend Washington’s regional peace summit in November unless Israel agrees to a reach an agreement with the Palestinians there, Abbas’ associates told Haaretz on Sunday, adding the summit could “prove dangerous.”

A new virulent strain of the old anti-Semitism is spreading worldwide. This hate - of a magnitude not seen in over 70 years - is not just espoused by Iran’s loony president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or radical jihadists. The latest anti-Semitism is also now mouthed by world leaders and sophisticated politicians and academics. Their loathing often [...]

Michael Sheridan
Syria possesses the biggest missile arsenal and the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the Middle East, built up over the last two decades with arms bought from North Korea. North Korea, which exploded a nuclear device in October last year, has become critical to Syria’s plans to enhance and upgrade its weapons.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran’s nuclear program.

“We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war,”

Philip Sherwell and Tim ShipmanSenior American intelligence and defense officials believe that President Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran.

The official Syrian daily Al-Thawra warned that more “false accusations” against the Assad regime could well be on their way from the US and Israel [...]

Y. Mansharof and A. Savyon
In a speech about Iran’s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad declared that Iran has become a global power, and that it would place its nuclear technology at the service of those determined to confront the U.S. and other Western countries. The history of the West, he said, had reached its end, [...]

The division of Jerusalem into Jewish and Arab cities, and the removal of Israeli sovereignty from the Temple Mount. (As Mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s, Olmert earned much political capital when he accused his political rival, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, of wanting to divide Jerusalem.)
The establishment of a Palestinian state on approximately 95% of [...]

Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
A series of attacks by Palestinian Authority terrorists late in the day on Sunday Sept 16, led to light injuries and caused extensive damage. The Sunday incidents continued a recent upswing in the number of attacks by PA militias and their affiliates.