In this issue:

Shin Beth Assesses Threat from Rightwing Extremists

Israeli Knesset Passes Killer Austerity Budget

One in Three Israeli Children Living in Poverty

Road Map Postponed Major Israeli Military Offensive

Israelis Fired on Diplomatic Convoy—Again

Did Powell Push Sanctions Against Israel?

OIC Presses Implementation of Road Map

Turkish General Threatens Coup

Organized Looting of Iraqi Archaeological Sites Continues

U.S. Losing the Peace in Iraq

UN Schedules Talks on Iraqi Reconstruction

Egypt Offers Cautious Support to Bush Peace Initiative

Syrian President: Does al-Qaeda Really Exist?

Did Republican Guard Generals Send Troops Home?

From Volume 2, Issue Number 22 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published June 3, 2003
Mideast News Digest

Shin Beth Assesses Threat from Rightwing Extremists

The Israeli Shin Beth security services are to reevaluate the threat of an attack on Israeli politicians by rightwing extremists, Ha'aretz reported May 28. The Shin Beth is evaluating the threat to Israeli politicians now that the Road Map is expected to be implemented.

The same day, Ha'aretz reported that The Temple Mount Faithful fanatics have drafted architectural plans for the construction of a $3-million synagogue they want to be built next to the Dome of the Rock Mosque on the Al Haram al Sharif/Temple Mount. The plans were drafted by Gideon Harlap, an architect and president of the Temple Treasury Fund. The announcement is obviously a provocation coming precisely at the point when the Road Map is supposed to be implemented.

The Jordanian government warned Israel gravely against such provocations. Abdullah Kana'an, chairman of the Jordanian Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, said "The hectic campaign being waged, with backing from officials of the Israeli government, to open al-Aqsa Mosque to the Jews is in fact tantamount to laying the foundation for a destructive religious war, the consequences of which nobody knows."

Israeli Knesset Passes Killer Austerity Budget

May 29, the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) passed the killer austerity budget proposed by Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a vote of 51 to 1, after the entire opposition walked out. The opposition has been conducting a filibuster by demanding separate votes on all the amendments (which number several hundred). The opposition walked out because the Likud Party Speaker of the House blocked these actions by procedural means.

Meanwhile, the workers of the electricity corporation restarted their job action protesting the government's privatization plans.

Two days before the vote, tens of thousands of pensioners, trade unionists and the Electric Corporation Unions took to the streets in Jerusalem to protest the policies of Netanyahu. The demos are being organized by the Histadrut labor federation. The government is trying to pass legislation that would unilaterally take over the pension funds now managed by the Histadrut and invest them in the stock market. It also wants to cut pension benefits and raise the retirement age to 67.

The electrical workers warned that their job action could expand to the point where blackouts could occur throughout the country. The workers are protesting plans to restructure and privatize parts of the company. On May 27, Netanyahu met with the electrical workers' representatives, agreeing to delay submitting the restructuring proposal to the Knesset, to allow them to present their objections to the plan, and the union agreed to a 24-hour break in their strike.

One in Three Israeli Children Living in Poverty

Yossi Sarid, Israeli Knesset member from the Meretz Party, wrote a commentary in Ha'aretz May 29, reporting that the Joint Distribution Committee has a campaign to raise funds to help deal with the problem of hunger in Israel, where they report one in three children lives under the poverty line. The JDC's program, "Hunger Forum," and wants to raise enough money to open a soup kitchen in every town in Israel.

Sarid expressed outrage that under Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu, Israel has been transformed from a "light unto the nations," into begging for help as "les miserables, a social case, a Third World country, seeking hand-outs as we expose our handicaps. Israel no longer expects proud identification, but pity...."

He wrote that Sharon and Netanyahu speak of Israeli military deterrence based on the strength of the Israeli army whose biggest asset is that it is based on a "strong society, on solidarity and progress," but now it looks like the Arab armies which everyone said were weak because they reflected "societies that were weak, poor, deprived, corrupt, non-progressive and lacking solidarity."

Road Map Postponed Major Israeli Military Offensive

On May 28, Ha'aretz, quoting Israeli military sources, reported that the Israeli military had postponed a major military operation in the Occupied Territories. The operation was to have been "an unusually large scale one, aimed at substantially changing the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinian Authority...." Security sources said the operation might still be launched if there are more serious Palestinian attacks.

Israelis Fired on Diplomatic Convoy—Again

Israeli soldiers fired on a diplomatic convoy that included diplomats from Switzerland, Great Britain, Greece, Sweden, and Australia, hitting the windshields of the cars. The group was touring Beit Hanoun in the Northern Gaza Strip, on May 26, where the Israelis have been conducting military operations. The soldiers fired at the cars at a checkpoint, claiming that the convoy did not stop to be checked. They even tried to claim that they thought the cars could have belonged to terrorists—a bit of a stretch, since the cars bore diplomatic plates and were most likely very expensive limousines or all-terrain vehicles not typical for refugee camps of the Gaza Strip. Two weeks earlier, the Israelis fired on a British diplomatic convoy carrying the British military attache among others.

In a similar show of intimidation, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz refused to allow entry of Labor Party Knesset members into the West Bank for a meeting with Palestinian leaders. Mofaz claimed "security factors" as being behind the action. Members of the Labor Party delegation, which included Ophir Pines-Paz, Shalom Simchon, Ephraim Sneh and Yuli Tamir, said political factors were the reason for the refusal.

Did Powell Push Sanctions Against Israel?

The U.S.-based rightwing National Unity Coalition for Israel (NUCI), has circulated an e-mail report that Secretary of State Colin Powell's State Department had prepared a list of the misuse of U.S. military equipment by Israel, that had been given to the National Security Council in April amid Secretary Powell's efforts to force Israel to comply with the Road Map.

Unnamed sources at the State Department reportedly told Independent Media News Agency (IMRA) that the State Department proposed a list of sanctions, based on evidence of illegal use of U.S.-provided weapons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip—including AH-64A Apache helicopters, the AH-1G Cobra helicopter and the F-16 fighter jet.

IMRA also reported from a Congressional source close to the Bush Administration that: "It's hard to overestimate the anger within the Administration toward Israel regarding the delays to the Road Map.... The White House doesn't regard the Road Map merely as foreign policy. It sees the roadmap as a major element toward the re-election of the President."

OIC Presses Implementation of Road Map

At last week's OIC meeting in Tehran, Iranian President Khatami said most the important issue for the Organization of the Islamic Conference is support for the Palestinian people, to restore their legitimate rights and support their resistance against "Israeli organized terrorism."

Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa rejected the brutal practices against the Palestinian people, and called for an end to occupation of Iraq. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said the Israeli nuclear arsenal and WMD are the real threat endangering international peace and security, while stressing the need to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

Turkish General Threatens Coup

Turkish General Hilmi Ozkok took offense at the government's policy of re-hiring persons who had been expelled by the military because of their pro-Islamist activities, according to reports last week in the London Guardian. Last week he met with Prime Minister Erdogan, and it was leaked to the press, that he issued warnings (which he denied). Then, on May 26, at his briefing, Gen. Ozkok was asked a question about whether or not the military would repeat what it had done in 1997, when it ousted Islamist Erbakan. "That was cause and effect," he said, "and if the cause is still there, then the effect will be there also."

Organized Looting of Iraqi Archaeological Sites Continues

Looters continue to steal artwork and relics from Babylon and other famous ruins, such as the site of the ancient city of Isin, where they were digging out and selling urns, sculptures and cuneiform tablets, the New York Times reported May 27. Reportedly, they know what to look for and how to get it out of the country. Iraqi officials, lacking power to stop the looters, as the police force has disintegrated since the U.S. invasion, now fear that Bremer's decree prohibiting most Iraqis from carrying guns in public, will disarm the Bedouin watchmen who guard the sites. The looting reflects the broader problem of lawlessness.

U.S. Losing the Peace in Iraq

That was the warning, issued May 29 by Zainab Salbi, the head of an NGO called Women for Women International, who has just recently returned from Iraq. Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center, she said that right up until she left Baghdad, one week ago, there was "absolute anarchy," and that the limited coverage in the news media doesn't even begin to give a glimpse of how bad the situation is in Iraq. There's no electricity, except for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening, the water supply is very limited, there's no gas for cooking, and people have to wait in line up to 12 hours to get gasoline for their cars. The complete lack of security means that looting continues day and night, and land and other properties are being confiscated. Nobody is even attempting to hide the level of theft, because in many cases, that's the only people can live.

The kernel of Salbi's warning was that, while most Iraqis were happy to see the U.S. military come in and take out Saddam Hussein, all they've seen since is continued chaos, and Iraqis are so frustrated that nothing is being done to restore some sense of a normal life, that there is the danger that the hatred they once reserved for the Ba'athist regime will be turned on the occupying American troops. In particular, she warned of the danger of young men, especially former soldiers, rallying around certain Islamic fundamentalist figures in the country. As for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's hand-picked opposition leader, Salbi said there is graffiti, in Arabic, all over Baghdad declaring that Ahmad Chalabi is a thief. She said that some of that ought to be in English so that it can be seen by the U.S. news media.

UN Schedules Talks on Iraqi Reconstruction

The United Nations announced that it will hold an informal June 24 meeting for all interested parties who want to contribute to the postwar reconstruction of Iraq. The UN's Development Program (UNDP) will host the meeting hoping to get the ball rolling on an "aggressive reconstruction agenda." UNDP director Mark Brown said, "The intention is in this June meeting to organize who wishes to participate,... in order to come back in the fall, probably September, with a more formal reconstruction conference." The World Bank and interested donors are expected to attend. While useful that the UN is asserting itself, a four-month 'meet and talk' delay in getting reconstruction started will only mean an increase in the death rate in Iraq, not to mention more time for clash-of-civilizations forces to play the situation.

Egypt Offers Cautious Support to Bush Peace Initiative

Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters on May 30 that "President Bush's coming to the region to hold two summits in Sharm el-Sheik is enough evidence that President Bush is serious about working with the regional leaders to reach a peaceful settlement." The statement came right after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with U.S. envoys William Burns from the State Department and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council.

While Abrams and Burns were in Israel (before going to meet President Mubarak), they informed Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom that Bush is putting together "follow-up teams" of observers who will monitor the implementation of the Road Map. This is another pressure point on Sharon (as well as on the Washington Likudniks), who has refused to allow any outside monitors, including a U.S.-only force, saying it would "put U.S. citizens at risk."

Syrian President: Does al-Qaeda Really Exist?

"Is there really an entity called al-Qaeda? Was it in Afghanistan? Does it exist now?" Syrian President Bashar Assad asked, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anba, May 26. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic extremist who heads al-Qaeda, "cannot talk on the phone or use the Internet, but he can direct communications to the four corners of the world?" Assad said. "This is illogical."

Assad said he doubted al-Qaeda could have been behind the Saudi and Moroccan bombings, and then offered an analysis of terrorism as a sociological phenomenon. "We blame everything on al-Qaeda but what happened is more dangerous than bin Laden or al-Qaeda.

"We're talking about a certain ideological bloc. The issue is ideology, it's not an issue of organizations," Assad said. "Such an ideology cannot live without a certain social base. It has to convince people and strengthen its presence. Dealing with this issue should be through a social approach, not through security," which is only a "temporary remedy," he said.

Did Republican Guard Generals Send Troops Home?

"Senior Iraqi officers who commanded troops crucial to the defense of key Iraqi cities were bribed not to fight by American Special Forces, the U.S. general in charge of the war has confirmed," wrote the London Independent May 26. "Well before hostilities started, special forces troops and intelligence agents paid sums of money to a number of Iraqi officers, whose support was deemed important to a swift, low-casualty victory.

"General Tommy Franks, the U.S. Army commander for the war, said these Iraqi officers had acknowledged their loyalties were no longer with the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, but with their American paymasters. As a result, many officers chose not to defend their positions as American and British forces pushed north from Kuwait.

"It is not clear which Iraqi officers were bribed, how many were bought off or at what cost. It is likely, however, that the U.S. focused on officers in control of Saddam's elite forces, which were expected to defend the capital. The Pentagon said that bribing the senior officers was a cost-effective method of fighting and one that led to fewer casualties.

"The revelation by General Franks ... helps explain one of the enduring mysteries of the U.S.-led war against Iraq: Why Iraqi forces did not make a greater stand in their defense of Baghdad, in many cases melting away and changing into civilian clothes rather than forcing the allied troops to engage in bitter, street-to-street fighting.

"John Pike, director of the Washington-based military research group, GlobalSecurity.org, said: 'It certainly strikes me that this is part of the mix. I don't think there is any way of discerning how big a part of the mix it is ... but it is part of the long queue of very interesting questions for which we do not yet have definitive answers.'...

"The confirmation [revealed in the current edition of Defense News by reporter Vago Muradian] that crucial senior officers were bribed, would explain why there was so little resistance in locations where it was anticipated that better-trained troops such as the Republican Guard would make a stand."

The Jordan Times referred to an article in the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, which said that "one of Saddam Hussein's cousins, Special Republican Guard chief Maher Sufian Al Tikriti, betrayed the deposed Iraqi leader by ordering his elite forces not to defend Baghdad after making a deal with the United States." Quoting an Iraqi source close to the former regime, the report said that the general responsible for defending the Iraqi capital left Baghdad aboard a U.S. military transport plane, bound for a U.S. base outside Iraq.

All rights reserved © 2003 EIRNS