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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001 / Elul 28, 5761 ------------------------------------------------ Delivered Daily via Email, Sunday thru Friday --- See below for subscription instructions ---
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. RETURN TO ROUTINE 2. SHARON OK'S PERES-ARAFAT MEETING - IF IT FOLLOWS 48 HOURS OF QUIET 3. YA'ARI: NEGOTIATIONS TO END VIOLENCE 4. SEE THE ARABS CELEBRATE 5. IRAQ BEHIND ATTACK? MYLROIE, ZYCHER, OLMERT 6. P.A. CONFISCATES FILM OF PRO-BIN LADEN RALLIES
1. RETURN TO ROUTINE Despite the cataclysmic attacks in New York and Washington five days ago, it's "terrorism as usual" in Israel. Two Israelis from central Shomron were very lightly hurt when Arabs hurled an explosive at their car. The attack occurred just south of Shavei Shomron, on the road from Kedumim. At least 15 grenades were thrown at an IDF outpost on the Israeli-Egyptian border near Rafiach, and an anti-tank grenade was fired at the Gush Katif town of Netzer Hazani. Palestinians fired at IDF positions near N'vei Dekalim, Ganei Tal, and Netzer Hazani.
2. SHARON OK'S PERES-ARAFAT MEETING - IF IT FOLLOWS 48 HOURS OF QUIET Prime Minister Sharon informed Foreign Minister Shimon Peres yesterday that there would be no Peres-Arafat meeting tonight. However, despite Peres' disgruntlement, Sharon told the Knesset today that he is willing to make a deal. He said that if Palestinian terrorism stops totally for the next 48 hours, he would not only allow Peres to meet with Arafat, he would also call off all IDF offensive activity against the Palestinian Authority. A careful perusal of Sharon's speech shows that the new 48-hour cooling-off period does not replace the seven-day period that had been demanded until now. The Prime Minister specified that it would merely enable Peres to meet with Arafat to discuss the seven-day quiet period that is a necessary condition for the implementing the Mitchell Report. Labor party officials are upset at Sharon for having made the offer without consulting with Peres.
Earlier in his Knesset speech, Sharon took a much tougher stance against Arafat, saying, "Arafat has chosen terrorism against the citizens of Israel, and this is no different than the terrorism practiced by Bin Laden against the citizens of the U.S." The Prime Minister said that a meeting with Arafat at this point would grant him a "good guy" image in the eyes of the world.
3. YA'ARI: NEGOTIATIONS TO END VIOLENCE Channel Two television's Arab affairs commentator Ehud Ya'ari told Arutz-7 today that intense negotiations regarding the end of the current warfare in Israel has been underway for the past several weeks. "Many people are involved," he said, "including Europeans, Americans, and even the offices of Sharon and Arafat... They are discussing the exact conditions necessary for the cessation of violence. Arafat has been signaling for some weeks now that he is willing to significantly reduce the violence - not stop it altogether - because things are not working the way he wanted. He is facing some very significant problems: Egypt and Saudi Arabia are telling him to stop, and he's lost much international support and trust. In addition, the intifada has lost much of its public support, and he's had to rely more and more on his organized forces to make attacks, as opposed to people in the street... All his aides have been telling him that the intifada is not working; it's true that he doesn't always listen to them, but still, he's beginning to understand." Ya'ari said that Arafat very much wants to have the meeting with Peres "as a certificate of kashrut."
4. SEE THE ARABS CELEBRATE Many Arab residents, past and present, of the areas now under the control of the Palestinian Authority and Israel reacted with joy to the news of the destruction of the World Trade Center. Because reports of this nature were often hurriedly removed from the world media, Arutz-7 provides the following links (compiled by honestreporting.com) as a public service:
>BBC - <news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1538000/1538861.stm> >Beirut Daily Star - <www.dailystar.com.lb/12_09_01/art31.htm> >Boston Globe - <www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/255/nation/Leaders_deplore_but_people_rejoice+.shtml> >Chicago Tribune - <www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-010911world.story> >The Guardian (UK) - <www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,550498,00.html>
Finally, only two hours after the second World Trade Center tower crumbled to the ground, Reuters published the following article by correspondent Joseph Logan, entitled,
"Palestinians Celebrate Attacks with Gunfire:"
"Palestinians in Lebanon met news of devastating attacks on American targets Tuesday with jubilant gunfire, dancing and cheering, saying Israel's chief backer deserved such a punishment. "This is the result of American policy. America and Israel are one,'' one Palestinian gunman said. "This is the reaction required to confront the American and Israeli arrogance,'' said Mohamad Hallak, a 40-year-old Palestinian refugee from the southern Rashidiyeh camp in Tyre. Firing rattled across Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and the West Bank as soon as television stations broke the news, carrying live footage of buildings on fire and collapsing and terrified Americans fleeing the stricken areas. Jubilant Palestinians took to the streets of refugee camps of Lebanon and the West Bank, waving Palestinian flags and distributing sweets to celebrate the attacks on major U.S. landmarks and government offices."
5. IRAQ BEHIND ATTACK? MYLROIE, ZYCHER, OLMERT With all fingers pointing accusingly at arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, some voices wish to remind us that Iraq, too, likely has a large, if not larger, role in the attacks against the U.S. In an article entitled "Bin Laden Isn't Only One to Blame," published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Laurie Mylroie, author of "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America," writes,
"[Even if] Osama bin Laden was involved in Tuesday's terrorist assault... it is extremely unlikely that he acted on his own. It is far more likely that he operated in conjunction with a state - the state with which the U.S. remains at war, namely Iraq. Firstly, bin Laden's Afghan-based al-Qaeda organization does not really have the organizational capabilities to carry out such well-coordinated attacks. Someone had to understand how to smuggle weapons through U.S. airport security and which airports and airlines to choose..."
After bringing several paragraphs of evidence indicating Iraq's involvement, Mylroie concludes,
"It is time to take a new look at the major terrorists acts of terrorism directed against the U.S. in recent years. Are they, perhaps, more complicated than they seem? Indeed, are they acts of war, with all the complexity that wartime activities regularly involve?"
A compelling article by Dr. Benjamin Zycher, Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, follows this line of reasoning, and writes that much of the problem lies with the U.S. intelligence community's point of departure:
"The facts of this week can be summarized as follows. Notwithstanding a budget of $30 billion or more, our intelligence services, using incredible technological tools of signals intelligence, were able to intercept every false electronic transmission issued by the Iraqis and others, while remaining utterly oblivious to the real plot that actually unfolded... Within minutes, and certainly hours, of the events of Tuesday, our learned intelligence officials began to assure us that Bin Laden is the most likely culprit; but it is wholly unclear as to precisely how this conclusion has emerged, since little or nothing could have been learned in those minutes and hours that was not known before and that could have been examined for veracity...
"What this means is that the events of this week were orchestrated by a modern state intelligence service, with substantial resources, bureaucratic, expert, and financial, and with the requisite political will and internal controls. The argument that the central responsibility lies instead with an amorphous "network" run by a bitter Moslem living in the mountains of Afghanistan is, to be blunt, simply not plausible. Nonetheless, the argument that Bin Laden is the villain, however dubious, will be encouraged in the coming days by the "discovery" of an amazing series of false clues pointing to him. planted by the Iraqis. And a substantial part of our intelligence services and public officials will believe them.
"And that is the core of the problem... As appalling as it is, our intelligence services have evolved intellectually to a point at which they really believe that they cannot be fooled. [But] the interpretation of intelligence requires dispassionate objectivity rather than a bureaucratic need to justify past and future budgets and bureaucratic turf. An intelligence service that genuinely believes that it cannot be fooled, that finds it excruciating bureaucratically and politically ever to admit that it has been fooled, that does not bear adverse consequences when it is fooled, and whose budget rises when abject failure occurs, in reality will be fooled again and again, with horrendous consequences for our people. The Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, must be fired immediately. The head of the CIA counter-terrorism bureau must be fired. The same is true for the head of the Federal Aviation Administration security service, and the head of the FBI counter-terrorism unit..." He concludes that the correct policy now is to use overwhelming military force to remove Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Baathist regime from power and install Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress in their place.
Arab affairs expert Dr. Yossi Olmert says that though he assumes Bin Laden could not have planned this attack alone, this does not mean that U.S. intelligence is wrong. "What the U.S. says publicly is not necessarily an indication of what it truly believes," he said. "In my estimation, it's very likely that Bin Laden was aided by Iraq or Iran - although Iran is a long-shot, because of the long-standing hostility between the Shiites (Iranians) and the Taliban (Sunnis)." Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson asked Olmert if the U.S. plans to include Israel in its international anti-terrorism coalition. Olmert:
"It will probably be a repeat of the 1991 coalition, in that Israel will not be officially in. But this is OK - as long as the U.S. doesn't bother us from fighting our own anti-terrorism war here..." Olmert further said that U.S. State Secretary Powell's statements in favor of a Peres-Arafat meeting should not be overrated.
6. P.A. CONFISCATES FILM OF PRO-BIN LADEN RALLIES Associated Press reported that film taken by its reporters, and by those of other agencies, of a Hamas demonstration in Gaza was confiscated by PA policemen - because the film showed Arabs carrying a large poster of Osama bin Laden. About 1,500 Palestinians, many of them supporters of the Islamic terrorist group Hamas, marched on Friday, burning Israeli flags and showing support for Bin Laden. After the rally, plainclothes Palestinian policemen questioned several journalists, and confiscated videotape, film, and camera equipment. An AP video was among the materials taken, and an AP photographer was warned by officials not to publish pictures of the Bin Laden poster.
Israel's Foreign Press Association Board released a statement on Thursday expressing "deep concern" over similar harassment of journalists by the Palestinian Authority. The statement noted that "[PA] police forces and armed gunmen tried to prevent photo and video coverage of Tuesday's rally in Nablus where hundreds of Palestinians celebrated the terror attacks in N.Y. and Washington." The members of the Board "strongly condemn the direct threats... by local militia members and the attitude of Palestinian officials who made no effort to counter the threats, control the situation, or to guarantee the safety of the journalists and the freedom of the press... We hold the PA fully responsible for the safety of each and every journalist operating within their areas, especially those who were filming and covering Tuesday's events in Nablus."
It has been noted that the PA is acting wisely, from its point of view, in preventing the broadcast of news of Palestinian celebrations of the destruction of the World Trade Center, while disseminating photos of Arafat donating blood, Palestinian students in moment of silence, and the like.
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News Brief: Friday, Sept. 17, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Friday, Sept. 17, 2001 / Elul 29, 5761 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
1. P.A. CONTINUES WAR AGAINST ISRAEL
2. SHARON IMPLIES THAT TEMPLE MOUNT VISITORS HAVE A LONG TIME TO
WAIT
3. MOSSAD WARNED U.S.
4. TALIBAN MAY SENTENCE CHRISTIANS TO DEATH
1. P.A. CONTINUES WAR AGAINST ISRAEL Prime Minister Sharon's latest call to Arafat to order and implement a ceasefire has gone the way of previous ones: unheeded. Although Israel Radio broadcast several times yesterday Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's claim of indications that Arafat had ordered a cease-fire, there was in fact heavy Arab shooting in several places throughout Judea, Samaria, and Gaza last night. There was a particularly intense battle in Psagot, north of Jerusalem, and shooting against IDF forces in the Jewish Gaza towns of Kfar Darom, Morag, and others. Near the PA-controlled town of Rafiach last night, the Palestinian Authority reported three of their men killed in a battle with the IDF; three Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded.
2. SHARON IMPLIES THAT TEMPLE MOUNT VISITORS HAVE A LONG TIME TO WAIT Today, one year after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's dramatic visit to the Temple Mount, he refrained from directly answering a question as to when Jews would again be allowed to visit the site. "It is the right of every Jew to visit the Temple Mount," the Prime Minister told Army Radio today, "and the day will come when our relations [with the Arabs] will be such that everyone will be able to visit."
When asked if he would agree to evacuate Yesha communities in the event of a total ceasefire, the Prime Minister said that he would not reveal his diplomatic plans earlier than necessary, lest the Palestinians relate to them as the opening Israeli position for future negotiations. Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane reports that since becoming Prime Minister, Sharon has not repeated his campaign pledge not to dismantle even one Jewish community in Judea and Samaria.
3. MOSSAD WARNED U.S. In light of increasing reports that the U.S. intelligence community ignored warnings of a coming major terrorist attack, supporters of Israel noted the following in the London Daily Telegraph. The paper reported that officials of the Mossad, Israel's equivalent of the CIA, traveled to Washington last month to warn the CIA and the FBI that a cell of up to 200 terrorists was planning a major operation on the American mainland. They offered no specific information about targets, but they did link the plot to Osama bin Laden, and added that there were "strong grounds" for suspecting Iraqi involvement. The Telegraph quoted a US administration official as saying that it was "quite credible" that the CIA did not heed the Mossad warning, as it "has a history of being over-cautious about Israeli information."
4. TALIBAN MAY SENTENCE CHRISTIANS TO DEATH Eight foreign aid workers on trial in Afghanistan for allegedly preaching Christianity could be hanged if found guilty, according to Taliban Chief Justice Mawlawi Noor Mohammad Saqib. Agence France-Presse/Associated Press reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, that the Taliban leader said, "We will punish them according to the laws they have broken. If they have broken the law and should be hanged then we will punish them like that. Diplomats from the defendants' countries - the U.S, Australia, and Germany - were not allowed in the courtroom during the trial.
The Taliban regime in Afghanistan is currently harboring arch-terrorist Bin Laden, believed to be responsible for last week's cataclysmic attacks in New York and Washington. A delegation of Pakistani leaders left today for Afghanistan to encourage their neighbors to turn over Bin Laden to the U.S. within 72 hours.
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Thursday, Sep. 20, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Thursday, Sep. 20, 2001 / Tishrei 3 - the Fast of Gedaliah, 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. FUNERAL, VIOLENCE AFTER ARAFAT'S CEASEFIRE ANNOUNCEMENT 2. PERES-ARAFAT MEETING IS PROBABLY OFF AGAIN 3. RABBI TO AMERICAN JEWS: TIME TO COME HOME! 4. ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE BLAMES IRAQ 5. MAKING OUR VOICES HEARD
1. FUNERAL, VIOLENCE AFTER ARAFAT'S CEASEFIRE ANNOUNCEMENT For the sixth time this year, and the first time in Arabic, Yasser Arafat announced a ceasefire in his war against Israel this week - but it is not working. The "quiet" was slightly marred on the first day of Rosh HaShanah (Tuesday) with the hurling of some 60 grenades at an IDF post in southern Gaza, together with shooting there and at Netzarim. Shots were also fired in Hevron, at the Ayosh Junction north of Ramallah, Migdal Oz, Psagot, and elsewhere. Yesterday, firing and attacks continued in Hevron, Gaza, and elsewhere. It was around this time - 8:50 PM Israel time, to be precise - that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Washington that he had "earlier today [spoken] to both Chairman Arafat and to Prime Minister Sharon and expressed my satisfaction that the first 24 hours of the arrangement they made yesterday has resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of violence in the region."
Precisely as Powell was speaking, a patrol jeep of the Yesha community Oranit, just northeast of Petach Tikvah, was rocked by a large Lebanon-style roadside bomb. Both of the civilian guards in the jeep were wounded - one seriously, and one moderately. The "ceasefire" continued when Arabs in Gaza threw dozens of homemade grenades on IDF forces near Rafiach, and fired two mortar shells towards Israel.
This morning, Arafat's terrorists committed an infinitely more serious attack when they murdered Sarit Amrani, 25, a mother of three. She and her family, of the eastern Gush Etzion community of Nokdim, were on their way home from Jerusalem; her husband Shai was seriously wounded in the attack, but their three children, aged 4 and younger, were not hurt as they lay sleeping in the back seat. The shots were fired from a passing car that then escaped towards the PA-controlled town of Beit Sahour, south of Bethlehem. A group associated with Fatah, Arafat's original terrorist organization, took credit for the murder. Sarit's funeral set off to Jerusalem this afternoon from Kiryat Arba, where she and her husband grew up.
The Amranis' neighbor Yossi Heiman happened on the scene minutes after the murder. He told Arutz-7,
"I was driving along from Nokdim and I noticed something strange when I saw the Arab children who usually walk to school there scattering in different directions. Very shortly afterwards, I came upon my neighbors' car in the middle of the road, with Shai lying outside. I went up to him, but he directed us, with a weak whisper, to his wife whom he said was in worse condition. In the meanwhile, other people had joined, including army medics, and we went to her and tried to resuscitate her, but unfortunately we could not... Sarit was much loved by everyone in our community for her very fine and quiet nature..."
This afternoon, five Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded during an Arab attack on an IDF position near the greenhouses of Kfar Darom, just north of Gush Katif. The terrorists shot and threw grenades from a passing car, and IDF return fire killed one of the attackers. Just south of there, Arabs threw seven grenades in two separate incidents at an IDF post on the Israeli-Egyptian border.
PA senior official Marwan Bargouti of Ramallah summed up the situation when he said today that despite Arafat's call for a ceasefire, there would be none until Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 lines. Another senior Fatah figure, Amin Makbul, explained that the ceasefire ordered by Arafat was merely a political maneuver to offset the worldwide impression of the Palestinians in light of the attacks in the U.S. and the public expression of Palestinian joy. Makbul made the remarks at a gathering in A-Najah University in Shechem, and they were published in the official PA newspaper, Al Hayat al-Jadida.
2. PERES-ARAFAT MEETING IS PROBABLY OFF AGAIN Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is still hoping to meet with Yasser Arafat. Before this morning's murder near Nokdim, Peres said that Arafat "is making genuine efforts to cease the violence, and has even prevented some attacks." Around the same time, Infrastructures Minister Avigdor Lieberman - who had no idea that he would soon be eulogizing his fellow Nokdim resident at her funeral - said that Arafat is a "dangerous terrorist," and "we must not negotiate with terrorists."
Instead of the Peres-Arafat meeting, which was scheduled yesterday by Sharon and Peres for this evening, the Prime Minister will convene the mini-security cabinet at 9 PM tonight. It was learned earlier that Omri Sharon, the Prime Minister's son and unofficial envoy, met with Arafat in Gaza on Sunday. Ministers Landau, Lieberman, Yeshai, and Ze'evi called upon Prime Minister Sharon not to allow Peres to meet with Arafat, and Shas party leader Eli Yeshai agreed, observing that the ceasefire announced by Arafat is nothing more than an illusion. Opposition party leader MK Tommy Lapid of Shinui also said today that there is no reason to meet with Arafat while the attacks continue.
Prime Minister Sharon appeared to be leaning to this position when he said, around noon today, that he regrets that the Palestinians were unable to keep the ceasefire for more than 20 hours.
Minister Dalia Itzik (Labor) had no good words to say for Arafat today, but said that Peres should meet with him so as not to give him the chance to say that Israel is the one refusing to talk. MK Sha'ul Yahalom (National Religious Party) told Arutz-7 today, "Arafat is smarter than both Sharon and Peres and is leading them along by the nose. Everyone says that his ceasefire is merely a ploy, so why are we playing along with him? Why are we falling for this bluff?" He said that it is obvious that the proper course of action now is to attack the PA and not entertain any thoughts of negotiations: "Later, if and when we have to talk with them, it will be from the position of victor. I'm not sure that we'll have to talk with them, however, as after Camp David last year, everyone now knows that the Palestinians are not ready for any peace with us, even with the thousands of concessions that Barak was willing to make."
3. RABBI TO AMERICAN JEWS: TIME TO COME HOME! Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of the Galilee city of Tsfat, made these remarks on Arutz-7 two days after the catastrophic attacks in the United States:
"We know that Eretz Yisrael is the place towards which, as the Torah says, G-d's eyes are directed 'from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.' It is simply the place of Divine Providence, and we have personally experienced so many miracles here over the past year. The Jews in America have helped us greatly over the years, and now it is our turn to help them. We have absorbed so many new immigrants over the past years, and we can do so again with American Jewry. It is time for us to tell our brothers in America, 'You have nothing to do there - come home!'"
4. ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE BLAMES IRAQ An article in the prestigious Jane's Foreign Report states that Israel's military intelligence service suspects that Iraq is the country behind the massive attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers shuttled often between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri, an Egyptian senior member of Bin Laden's organization who is named as his possible successor, and also established strong ties with Hizbullah's Imad Mughniyeh, considered by Western intelligence agencies as the most dangerous active terrorist today. Jane's quotes the Israeli source as saying, "We've only got scraps of information, not the full picture - but it was good enough for us to send a warning six weeks ago to our allies that an unprecedented massive terror attack was expected. We believe that the operational brains behind the New York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahiri, who were probably financed and got some logistical support from the Iraqi Intelligence Service."
5. TERRORISM, HEROISM, AND U.S. JEWRY
VAT founder Shifra Hoffman, who has been calling for American aliyah (immigration to Israel) for decades, expressed the hope that American Jews will see the terrorists attacks in the U.S. as a warning for them to move to Israel. "So far, though, [most of them] just don't get it," she said. "It's obvious that the U.S. is trying to isolate Israel, and then Jews there will become the scapegoat."
Along these lines, we reprint here the results of an Arutz-7 Quick Poll <www.IsraelNationalNews.com>, followed by excerpts from a letter received at Arutz-7 written in response to the results:
How will the latest attacks on America change US policy vis-a-vis the PLO?
The US will favor eliminating the PLO. 33.14 % (896 votes) The US will favor sanctions against the PLO. 24.00 % (649) US policy will not change. 34.95 % (945) The US will favor greater support for the PLO. 7.91 % (214)
Dear Arutz-7,
"It [appears] that we Jews again want to believe, though we know better, that the world will understand and help us. I find it unbelievable that a majority of more than 57% actually believes that the US will turn against Arafat and the PLO now, and that only a mere 7.9% sees what actually is going to happen, namely, that we will have to pay the price (as always) for the attempt of America to form a new world order.
"In this new world order, they need the support and cooperation of Arab countries. The price that the Arab countries will ask is Israel... It will not be too long before in America, too, the idea will spread that this horrific attack was all because of Israel... It really worries me that so few Jews seem to see that America actually will support the PLO even more after this attack."
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