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Two years ago, American Jewish community relations groups were busy patting themselves on the back for achieving a signal victory in turning back the attempt by anti-Israel radicals to hijack the Presbyterian Church USA.
After the Presbyterians became the first Protestant church to embrace divestment from companies doing business in Israel in 2004, Jewish groups worked hard to overturn the decision. When the church voted to back away from this stand in 2006, it was rightly seen as a triumph not just for friends of Israel, but for the tactic of outreach itself as years of tenacious diplomacy paid off.
The celebrations seem to have been premature.
The release of a document by the church last month titled “Vigilance Against Anti-Jewish Bias in the Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace” was supposed to help its members guard against anti-Semitic rhetoric when discussing the Middle East.
Instead, it is a compendium of charges aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State. The church release avoids discussing Arab support for terrorism and, rather than serve as a warning against bias, it serves as a justification for anti-Israel invective since it places the sole blame for the conflict on Israel, rather than on those attempting to destroy it. If anything, it should serve to reinvigorate those who have been pushing for divestment, which is nothing less than a declaration of economic war on Israel and the Jewish people.
In itself, this should justify the outrage and the feelings of betrayal that have been voiced by a wide spectrum of centrist and liberal Jewish denominations and organizations that worked to reverse the previous Presbyterian stand on Israel.
But also buried in the document is a strand of thought that is relevant not only to this battle for the soul of a powerful mainline liberal Protestant church, but to the mindset of American Jews themselves.
Amid a laundry list of anti-Israel measures in the Presbyterian statement – including opposition to the security fence that effectively ended the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign – was the assertion that “Christian faithfulness, as well as the policies of our church, demands that we maintain our commitments … to criticize forms of Christian Zionism.”
That meant that in the same document in which they urged its members to avoid couching their attacks on Israel in ways that could be labeled anti-Semitic, the Presbyterians specifically attack fellow Christians who have lent their support to the idea that the Jewish people have a right to sovereignty over their historic homeland.
In particular, they singled out Evangelicals such as Pastor John Hagee, who was flogged out of the camp of Republican presidential candidate John McCain for saying the Holocaust was caused by the Jewish sin of failing to make aliya.
To support the contention that Christian Zionists are wrongheaded, the Presbyterian document cited Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the Union for Reform Judaism, who in a December 2007 speech warned Jews to avoid alliances with the pro-Israel Christian right.
Yoffie, whose Reform movement joined the coalition of Jewish groups that condemned the Presbyterian reversal, is not happy about this. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he is “infuriated” about the Presbyterians “embedding” his words in a “doctrine that is so hostile to Israel.”
While some of Yoffie’s criticisms of Hagee are not completely off-target – particularly his reaction to Hagee’s foolish talk about the Holocaust, for which the pastor has since apologized – the Reform leader is right to be embarrassed.
But rather than merely being annoyed by the church’s chutzpah, he ought to be rethinking his own bashing of right-wing Christian Zionists.
Indeed, the Presbyterians’ renewed flirtation with anti-Zionism should serve as a wake-up call for the vast number of American Jews who have clung to their prejudices about Evangelicals, despite the sea change in the Protestant world that has occurred in the last generation.
In the past, Jews instinctively looked to mainline liberal Protestant churches, like the Presbyterians, the Methodists, Lutherans and Anglicans, who have all been debating divestment measures against Israel in recent years, as allies. At the same time, Jews generally assumed that Evangelicals, who generally lived outside the coastal urban enclaves where Jewish life has thrived in America, were liable to be anti-Semitic.
But in the America of 2008, it is precisely the Evangelicals of the Christian right who are instinctively supportive of Israel, while our traditional allies on the Christian left are flirting with a theology that demonizes Israel and the Jews.
Though the gap between the Christian right and most Jews on domestic issues is still vast, when it comes to the life-and-death questions of Israeli survival and opposition to terror, it is the people who look to the Hagees of the world for leadership, rather than to the Presbyterians, who stand with Israel.
Unfortunately, that isn’t good enough for many Jews who never tire of making unsupported and utterly false accusations that the Evangelicals actually hate Jews and want to destroy us. It is little surprise that this has only encouraged the Presbyterians to use this issue to bolster their own attempt to isolate Israel.
The point here is not to claim that the Christian right has become Israel’s only American friends, though they are among the most active and effective.
The fact is, most of the rank-and-file members of the mainline churches who are dabbling in anti-Zionist rhetoric and considering divestment don’t support the campaign against Israel. Indeed, it is doubtful even after all of the controversy of the past few years, that most are even aware of the fact that their spiritual home is being hijacked by radical left-wing elements.
As frustrated as many Jews are with the Presbyterian betrayal, the outreach campaign carried out by Jewish community relations councils across the country must continue.
Most American Protestants rightly see Israel as sharing common democratic values with the United States and want nothing to do with the sort of anti-Zionism that has won a foothold among mainline church activists. They need to understand that their silence will be taken as complicity with the actions of these radicals. They must understand that their churches cannot pretend to be friends with their Jewish neighbors while supporting an economic war on the Jewish state. And they must be prodded to take action to rescind such measures enacted in their names.
But, at the same time, American Jews must cease living in the past when it comes to understanding the contemporary religious and political landscape of America. At a time when Hamas, Hizbullah and their Iranian sponsors are plotting a new Holocaust for Israel and its six million Jews, treating those Protestants who actually love Israel as hateful pariahs is a strategy devoid of truth or sense.
The overriding considerations that will determine if and when Israel attacks Iran are these: whether to strike before George W. Bush’s exit, whether Iran’s strategic ties with Syria and the Palestinian Hamas can be severed in advance and the identity of the Israeli prime minister chosen to manage the war.
These are the determinants, rather than “the red lines” cited by senior Pentagon officials to ABC News Monday as triggers for an Israeli offensive.
DEBKAfile cites the reality behind the key decision:
1. Contrary to most reports, Iran is lagging behind its target date for producing a sufficiency of weapons-grade uranium. Technical hitches dog activation of the high-grade centrifuges.
2. Moscow has suspended all sales of sophisticated air defense systems to Iran and Syria alike – so that Israel has no cause for haste on that score.
Jerusalem would prefer to strike straight after the America’s November 4 presidential election – except that military experts warn that weather and lunar conditions at that time of the year are unfavorable. If Israel does opt for an attack, August and September would be better, they say – or else hold off until March-April 2009.
Towards the end of September, the ruling Kadima party holds a primary for choosing a prime minister, whose identity is anyone’s guess.
In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd wandered the hills of Qumran in search of a missing sheep.
He threw a stone into a cave, hoping to drive the lost animal outside. Instead, the sound of shattered pottery drew the shepherd inside the cave.
There he stumbled on the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century: the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Copper Scroll
In the years that followed, archaeologists found eleven caves and more than 900 documents here at Qumran. But one scroll was different from all the rest.
Instead of leather or parchment, it was made entirely of copper, and it could be the greatest treasure map in history.
The Copper Scroll describes a hidden cache of gold and silver buried in more than 60 locations throughout Israel.
The monetary value is close to $3 billion, but the historical value – is priceless.
The only place in ancient Israel with that much wealth was the Jewish Temple.
Stephen Pfann is one of the editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“This is a tremendous witness to history. To actually have a list of treasures from the temple itself from the first century is just amazing. We have nothing better than the Copper Scroll now for telling us what was really there,” Pfann, one of the editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls said.
Pfann took CBN News’ Chris Mitchell up to cave number 3 at Qumra, where the Copper Scroll was hidden for nearly 2,000 years.
“You can actually see the place where the Copper Scroll was found,” Pfann said.
The Purpose of the Scroll
“Well, the copper scroll had to be written just immediately before the destruction of the temple,” Pfann explained.
“It actually fits the glove perfectly for these people known as the Zealots, who were the priestly group, who were holding down the temple, who were keeping it from the Romans in the best way possible. Before they were massacred, they left things behind in caves here in Qumran,” he said
Some of their hiding places are easy to find on a modern map like Jericho, the Valley of Achor, and Mount Gerizim.
Others are more cryptic like “Solomon’s Canal,” which contains a stash of silver coins, a well in Milham where garments for the high priest were hidden, or Matia’s Courtyard, where more than 600 gold and silver temple vessels were buried.
“The instruction on the scroll is like a kids’ treasure map in a way; They’re talking about caves, they’re talking about tombs, they’re talking about aqueducts and pools that were known to them at the time – probably with aliases of names applied to these places so that only those people who are part of the inner circle would know where to go, how many steps to go away and where to find the temple treasure that was buried in that spot.” Pfann said.
The scroll’s language is a mystery in itself.
Some passages use a style of Hebrew that’s 800 years older than the scroll itself. Adding to the puzzle is a series of random Greek letters.
Pfann said, “It kind of freezes in time the language to around 70 AD to what the Hebrew language looked like among the common people of that time.
The Fate of the Lost Treasure
Pfann says anyone looking for it today is about 2,000 years too late.
“In my mind, most if not all of these were actually found by the Romans under the point of the sword … And we do know that Titus used the booty to build the Colosseum in Rome. It says so on the Colosseum. You can actually see the impression of the letters, ‘this was built with the booty,’” Pfann said.
“If there’s any treasure left, there would have been small parts that might not have been found that still lie out there ready for people to find today. We don’t know,” he said.
The scroll’s last line hints at an even greater treasure, “In a dry well at Kohlit… a copy of this document with its explanation…and an inventory of each and every thing.”
“What’s interesting is that there were actually two treasure maps that were made,” Pfann said.
“Line 64 of the copper scroll is the most fascinating of all – hard to decode but quite compelling,” said author Joel Rosenberg.
The Discovery of all Discoveries
Rosenberg hit the New York Times bestseller list with his novel on the Copper Scroll.
He believes the second scroll is still out there and it could be the key to the greatest archaeological prize in history.
“What if finding the treasures of the Copper Scroll did in fact lead to the Ark of the Covenant being found?” he asked.
Rosenberg may be on to something.
Ancient Jewish writings say the ark and other first temple treasures were hidden by priests before the invasion of the Babylonians.
Their locations were inscribed on a tablet of copper.
Rosenberg said, “The Key Scroll has never been found, nobody has any idea where it is.”
“What would be most dramatic is if in fact the treasures that are described by the Copper Scroll -and perhaps revealed more fully in the Key Scroll – are in fact from the second temple. Finding them would in fact be the most dramatic archeological discovery of all time.”
Israel has become concerned that its large Palestinian work force is being infiltrated by Hamas.
Officials said authorities have determined that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were identifying and contacting Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who work for the Israeli government or security forces. They said the Palestinian insurgency groups were trying to pressure these workers to exploit their access to facilitate plans for mass-casualty strikes.
“Hamas has a very large presence in Jerusalem as well as in several Israeli cities and they conduct intelligence operations regarding where Arabs work and their potential for damage,” an official said.
On Wednesday, at least three Israelis were killed and 40 others were injured when a Palestinian contractor for the state’s light rail project commandeered a huge bulldozer and plowed into cars and buses in downtown Jerusalem. The Palestinian, a 30-year-old from Jerusalem with a criminal record, was killed by an off-duty Israeli soldier.
“To our regret the attackers do not cease coming up with new ways to strike at the heart of the Jewish people here in Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski said.
Officials said they were uncertain whether the Palestinian, a convicted rapist and drug dealer, was recruited by Hamas to conduct the attack. Hamas did not claim responsibility, but praised the killing of Israeli civilians.
“We consider it as a natural reaction to the daily aggression and crimes committed against our people in the West Bank and all over the occupied lands,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
The Fatah militia, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was among three Palestinian groups that claimed responsibility. Al Aqsa has been formally under the leadership of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
“It looks as if it was a spontaneous act,” Israeli police chief Dudi Cohen said.
But officials said the Palestinian bulldozer driver, who appeared to have been headed for the crowded Mahane Yehuda market, carefully planned his attack. They said the driver was probably under pressure from Hamas regarding debts or accusations that he had collaborated with Israel.
“The way these things start is that Arab employees of the government, particularly if they are Palestinians, come under pressure to prove that they are not working for the Israeli security services,” the official said. “This can sometimes lead to a terrorist act.”
Israel has signaled the U.S. and other allies that air operations to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities are not imminent.
Israeli leaders have sent messages to several Western countries that ruled out an attack on Teheran in 2008. Israel told the governments of Britain, France and the United States that the Jewish state would allow for yet another diplomatic effort to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
“There has been alarm in some capitals that Israel will attack Iran over the next few months or even weeks,” an Israeli official said.
The official said the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to wait until France assumes the presidency of the European Union in July. France, he said, was expected to lead a European drive to expand sanctions on Teheran.
Over the last few weeks, the United States has raised the prospect of an Israeli air strike on Iran in 2008. Bush administration officials, particularly those from the Defense Department, said an Israel Air Force exercise in the Aegean Sea in June was meant to practice a massive air strike on Iran. The exercise, conducted with Greece, was said to have included more than 100 Israeli aircraft, including F-15s, F-16s and KC-130 air refueling tankers.
“The international community must not allow Iran to go nuclear,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.
The U.S. intelligence community was said to have assessed that the Israeli air exercise concluded basic preparations for an attack on Iran. The intelligence community determined that the exercise demonstrated the feasibility of a massive Israeli air strike at a range of about 1,600 kilometers.
But the Israeli official said the air force exercise did not reflect plans to attack Iran. He said most of the exercise focused on search-and-rescue as well as mid-air refueling.
“There will not be any operation in 2008,” the official said. “An operation such as this must be coordinated — at least with the United States.”
Britain and France have become concerned over the prospect of an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran. Britain has issued an alert to its embassy in Bahrain of an imminent U.S. confrontation with Teheran.
On June 30, U.S. Fifth Fleet commander Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff warned that Iran would not be allowed to block Gulf shipping. Cosgriff, responding to Iranian threats to halt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, said this would constitute an “act of war.”
“I cannot imagine, given the critical nature of that body of water, that the international community would not be outraged should Iran or any entity move to restrict the freedom of navigation,” Cosgriff told a news conference at Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama. “They are not going to be allowed to do so. It would be an act of war. In a tight oil market, the international community would respond vigorously to that.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. television network, ABC News, reported that Israel could strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in late 2008. ABC quoted a senior Pentagon official as reporting an “increasing likelihood” that Israel would attack Iran once it produced enough highly-enriched uranium to assemble a nuclear weapon.
“The Israelis are interested in such publications,” Israel Television military analyst Yoav Limor said. “It tells the international community: ‘Stop me.’”
A senior Israeli security source said the military was not ready to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. The source told the Israeli daily Maariv that the military, weakened by an inadequate budget, was incapable of a sustained strike.
“Years of neglect, and cancellation of projects and budgets, have left us without strategic ability for effective attack,” the Israeli source was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
ABC quoted the Pentagon official as saying that Israel also wants to stage the operation before Iran acquires the SA-20, or S-400 air and missile defense system from Russia. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran could acquire the S-400 Triumf over the next few months.
“The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point,” the official was quoted as saying. “We are in the window of vulnerability.”
Wearing a turban and a light blue tunic threaded with silver, a man stands in a workshop in Jerusalem’s Old City beside spools of white thread affixed to sewing machines. A painting of high priests performing an animal sacrifice beside the First Temple illustrates the function of the room.
On Monday, the Temple Institute started preparing to build a Third Temple on Jerusalem’s Mount Moriah, the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Aksa mosque, by inaugurating a workshop that manufactures priestly garments.
After Efrat Chief Rabbi Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a Kohen himself, gets measured for his own set of Kohanim garments, Aviad Jeruffi, the clothing’s designer, strums “To Ascend to the Temple Mount” on his guitar in celebration.
Priestly garments have not been worn since the destruction of the Second Temple by Rome in 70 CE and cannot be functional until a Third Temple is constructed.
Kohanim, priests directly descended from Moses’s brother Aaron, are recognized by the Institute as such if their paternal grandfather observed the tradition. Today, they have special religious responsibilities; in days of yore they performed the most significant duties within the Temple.
Approximately one-third of the commandments in the Torah cannot be accomplished without a temple, including the obligations of the Kohanim.
But a Third Temple seems a flighty dream with nightmarish political implications to many, as both a shrine, the Dome of the Rock, and the Aksa mosque, Islam’s third holiest structure, currently stand on the Temple Mount.
Rabbi Yehuda Glick, director of the Temple Institute, says he assumes Muslims will be supportive when the Temple is ready to be built:
“We already have some Muslims who are secretly in touch with us,” he says.
When the Temple is rebuilt, Kohanim must wear the proper outfit to perform their obligations, Glick continues.
Each set has a turban, tunic pants and belt and is individually tailored at a cost of NIS 2,500.
“If it were a bathrobe for watching SNL [Saturday Night Live], it would not be worth it. But we’re talking about people who have a very strong yearning for working in the Beit Hamikdash [Temple],” says Glick.
Years of diligent research was needed to create the garments in conformance with Jewish law.
Special flaxen thread was imported from India and overseas travel was necessary to obtain the correct colors for the clothes, including to Istanbul, to purchase mountain worms from which the correct shade of crimson is derived.
The secret of the correct shade of blue has been lost since the destruction of the Second Temple, as the identity of chilazon, the snail from which it was extracted, was uncertain until the Ptil Tekhelet nonprofit organization identified it as the murex trunculus, aka hexaplex trunculus, the banded dye-murex found near the Mediterranean Sea.
“The Temple is not a message just for the Jewish people. It reunites the world all around one central prayer house. All the prophets say that at the End Times all the nations will be coming to Jerusalem and take part of building the Temple,” Glick says.
One can learn many things from the new PEW study on religion in America, but my interest is mostly the things one can learn about the Jews. What I like about the way this new study is presented, is that one can compare the different religions on various matters. Here are some of the things I found:
American Jews do not have as many children as believers of other religions. 72% of Jewish homes do not have children at all according to this study. This is probably due to the fact that many of them marry late. And anyway, Jews are older: 22% are 65+, the second highest percentage of all religions, 29% are 50-64, again, second highest of all religions. At the ages 30-49 the Jewish community has the lower percentage of all: 29%.
We know that Jews make more money than people of other religions, and the extent to which this is true is quite impressive. 46% of Jews make more than $100,000 a year, Hindus are a close second (43%) but the next group (Orthodox) is well behind (28%). If one looks at education, it is Hindus first (48% with post graduate degrees) with Jews second (35%), Buddhists third (26%) and the rest well bellow.
The number of Jews who are absolutely certain that there’s a god is fairly low, 41%. Only Buddhists and Unaffiliated have even less certainty. 10% do not believe in god, the third highest percentage (also third, following the unaffiliated and the Buddhists). Only 31% say that religion is very important to them, the lowest percentage except for the unaffiliated.
28% say religion is not important to their lives (again, only the unaffiliated rank higher). No wonder that Jews rank low on attendance of religious practices and frequency of prayers. Amusingly, Jews are like Buddhists in the sense that only few of them believe that their religion is the only true religion.
53% of Jews want the U.S. to be involved in world affairs (Mormons rank second with 51%, the rest well bellow). 47% are Democrats, second only to black churches, but only 38% call themselves liberals (39% are moderates, 21% conservatives). And Jews seem to be the most reluctant group when the role of government in keeping morality is discussed: 22% say government should do more to protect morality, the highest ranking group except for “other faiths”), 71% want government to do even less (again, second to other faiths).
Speaking at a Bethlehem press conference Tuesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Jerusalem should be divided, and called on Israel to dismantle the West Bank security fence.
After meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Sarkozy said that Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. “Can Jerusalem be held by one side alone? I don’t think so,” he said.
“The separation fence will not bring security to Israelis forever,” the French leader added. “The Israelis should secure themselves through a peace agreement with people who believe in peace, like the Palestinian president…there is no doubt that the best road to peace is through a diplomatic agreement.”
However, despite Sarkozy’s declarations, Palestinian sources told Ynet that neither France nor the European Union are expected to play a special role in the near future in promoting the peace process with Israel.
Still, the French president said Tuesday that France will make great efforts in order to remove the obstacles to peace between the sides. However, he noted that neither France nor the EU can make peace on behalf of Israel and the Palestinians.
A senior Palestinian source told Ynet later, “As Sarkozy said, the French and the Europeans are here to help with everything they can, particularly in diplomatic terms and in building Palestinian Authority institutions, yet not when it comes to involvement in controversial matters.”
Israel is following with interest the closer nuclear ties France is forging with the Arab world. The Foreign Ministry has declined to go on the record on the issue, but ministry officials say that though they are concerned about the matter, they do not oppose it.
They say it is better for Israel that France is supplying nuclear technology to Arab countries and not nations less friendly to Israel, such as Russia or China.
So who has what?
Morocco: Advancing a civilian nuclear program with France.
Libya: Canceled its military nuclear program in 2003. Libya and France signed an agreement to cooperate on civilian projects.
Egypt: Developing a program for an energy reactor and negotiating a cooperation agreement with the U.S. and France.
Saudi Arabia: Signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S.
Syria: Interested in developing nuclear activity within an “Arab framework,” in cooperation with Turkey.
Jordan: Rapidly advancing an energy nuclear reactor and negotiating its erection with France.
United Arab Emirates: Signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with France at the beginning of the year.
Last Saturday, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon signed a cooperation agreement on nuclear issues with his Algerian counterpart while touring the North African country. Algeria has been suspected in the past of conducting a nuclear project for military purposes.
France is also in close contact on this subject with other North African and Arab countries, as well as states in the Persian Gulf.
Officials in the government are concerned about the nuclearization, even if in most cases it is for civilian purposes and not for arms.
“The French are ready to supply this technology anywhere, as long as they are being paid. They would sell a nuclear reactor to Israel, too, if it expressed an interest,” a source at the ministry said.
The officials said France also wants to be seen as a leader in the regional developments in the Mediterranean and Europe.
France is trying to persuade Algeria to support, or at least not oppose, the Mediterranean Union set to be established in Paris next month.
Arab nuclearization began in recent years mainly in response to Iranian nuclearization. Dr. Ephraim Asculai, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, told Haaretz yesterday: “Why are Arab countries waking up all of a sudden about the nuclear issue? Clearly Arab countries are worried about Iran. This is not their response, but rather a statement: ‘We are here.’”
The sale of nuclear technology by France can provide a livelihood for many of its people. Asculai says billions of dollars are invested in the building of a single reactor, money that no country would scoff at easily.
The Arab nuclear awakening, as well as the search for alternatives to oil, has aroused the major nuclear powers to look for business possibilities. In addition to France, Russia, the United States and China, other powers such as Germany are courting the Arab countries. Iran, for its part, is trying to appear as though it is taking under its wing Muslim countries interested in moving ahead in this area.
In his last visit to Algeria, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed the nuclear issue extensively. But it should be remembered that not every agreement on nuclear cooperation matures into the establishment of reactors or full implementation. Declarations of intent do not necessarily obligate the parties.
Among those expressing themselves on the nuclear issue is King Abdullah of Jordan, who told the Washington Post last week at the Petra Conference that Jordan would be quicker than other Arab countries in obtaining nuclear energy.
He said that Jordan’s goals were entirely civilian. Jordan was considering placing nuclear energy in the hands of a civilian firm to decrease concerns, he said.
In Syria, which officially denies that the facility bombed in September was nuclear, Oil Minister Sufian Alao said recently that his country would move ahead on joint nuclear activities with Turkey, as reported by Turkey’s Anatolian News Agency.
The extent of Syria’s cooperation with North Korea and Iran in the nuclear realm is disturbing to many, and no single answer is forthcoming. Syrian President Bashar Assad says his country wants to develop a nuclear program “in an Arab framework,” meaning with other Arab countries under the umbrella of the Arab League.
Egypt uses the nuclear issue to prove its advanced patriotic activities, with promotion of the issue associated with President Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal Mubarak.
Saudi Arabia has raised the issue in various forums and is holding talks with the U.S. and France. The Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes most of the Arab states in the Persian Gulf, has declared that it would promote cooperation on this issue.
According to Asculai, a number of Arab states have poor scientific infrastructure that will make it difficult for them to develop independent nuclear programs. He says technical difficulties will block the Gulf states from building a nuclear reactor.
“A nuclear reactor for energy must be profitable only if it produces a great deal of electricity. For the countries to collaborate on this issue, they will have to upgrade the infrastructure for delivering electricity,” he said.
Algeria: Advancing a nuclear program for civilian purposes with France and Iran. It has several facilities that are suspected of being used in the past for military purposes.
Hamas plans to use the current ceasefire with Israel to take over the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, a report said. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs said in a report that Hamas would use the temporary ceasefire to bolster its presence in the West Bank. The report, authored by Jonathan Dahoah Halevi, asserted that Hamas wants to capture the position of chairman of the Palestinian Authority, now held by Mahmoud Abbas.
“An important objective for Hamas is winning the Palestinian presidential election, which will be held when Mahmoud Abbas finishes his term of office in December,” the report, titled “The Hamas Interest in the Tahdiya with Israel,” said. “The lull will permit Hamas to prepare the field to take over from Abbas.” [On Sunday, Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hamas plans to exploit the lull to smuggle weapons and shatter the embargo on the Islamic regime. Yadlin said Hamas would not impose the ceasefire on Palestinian militias in the Gaza Strip.] The report said Hamas could argue that according to Palestinian law, administrative authority should be relayed to the chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Hamas has an overwhelming majority in the PLC, also chaired by a Hamas member. Abbas’s term ends on Dec. 5, 2008. In contrast to the Israeli government’s assertion, the report said Hamas did not agree to a temporary lull, or tahdiya, out of distress. Halevi said despite heavy Israeli attacks, the Hamas regime maintained law and order in the Gaza Strip, suppressed the opposition, and won broad support for its policies. “For Hamas, the lull in the fighting will permit the movement to prepare the field to take over from Abbas, thereby complementing its military takeover of Gaza,” the report said. “Hamas’s challenge is also the motivation behind Abbas’s desire to talk to Hamas about reaching an understanding about new elections, and it explains why Hamas has rejected the suggestion.”
The report said the six-month ceasefire would also enable Hamas to expand its military buildup. Hamas was said to be seeking longer-range missiles to match the deterrence of the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in Lebanon. “Israel has acknowledged Hamas, albeit unwillingly, as the de facto ruling power in Gaza,” the report said. “Israel’s acceptance of the ceasefire is a blow to the international war on terror and gives immunity to Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, including Al Qaida affiliates.”
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