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JPost Middle East- Analysis: Why has the West Bank been quiet? January 6, 2009
- Lebanon doubts Hizbullah will open second front January 6, 2009
- UNSC to meet on Gaza resolution January 6, 2009
- Hamas opens hospital for gunmen January 6, 2009
- Sarkozy urges Assad to press for truce January 6, 2009
- ynet - Updates for RSS
- Rice says US supports Mubarak proposal on Gaza January 7, 2009
- Saddam wouldn't have allowed Israel's Gaza raid, says aide January 7, 2009
- UK voices support for Egyptian ceasefire initiative January 7, 2009
- France, Turkey willing to give monitors for Gaza January 7, 2009
- US says supports Egyptian initiative on Gaza January 7, 2009
- Haaretz.com - News
- Abbas says supports Egyptian ceasefire proposal January 7, 2009Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday he supports a proposal by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for an immediate truce between ...
- Olmert to set up 'humanitarian corridor' for Gaza StripIsrael will set up a "humanitarian corridor" to counter a crisis caused by its offensive in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office ...
- IDF shell kills 30 in Gaza UN school; Israel mulls appeal over Hamas fire from UN facilitiesIsrael is considering submitting a complaint to the United Nations of Hamas' use of the world body's facilities for terror purposes, after 30 people were killed when an Israeli army artillery shell struck a UN school in Gaza. Israeli troops say that they were fired on from the building. ...
- French TV claims photos from 2005 showed damage from Israel's Gaza operation January 6, 2009French public television network France 2 on Tuesday revealed they had aired photographs that allegedly showed destruction caused by the Israel Air Force during Operation Cast Lead, which were in fact taken during a different incident in 2005, one in which Gaza civilians were killed by an explosion caused by militants in the Strip. ...
- Obama breaks silence on Gaza, calls civilian deaths 'a deep concern' January 6, 2009Barack Obama, who takes over as U.S. president from George W. Bush on January 20, broke his silence about the violence in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, calling the loss of civilian lives in Gaza and in Israel a "source of deep concern for me." ...
- Abbas says supports Egyptian ceasefire proposal January 7, 2009
Tehran wants death penalty for three more “Israeli spies”
DEBKfile Special Report
Amid rising Iranian-Israel tensions, state prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi charged Tuesday, Nov. 25 that the three accused spies had been trained in Tel Aviv and three other Middle East countries “in assassinations, explosions, professional motorbike riding and working with special cameras, computers and satellites.”
DEBKAfile: The mounting spymania in Tehran is part and parcel of Iran’s escalating intelligence and propaganda war against Israel.
The Mossad was said to have contacted the first member, a former member of the basij (popular militia of the Revolutionary Guards) “through an Israeli consulate in the region.” He was arrested five to six months ago with a satellite telephone, a GPS, a laptop and an oscilloscope.
He said the alleged spies had been caught before they began operating and said he would seek the death sentence for all three.
The officers said to have trained the trio were named as “Peter, Sami, Zaki and Khosrow.”
DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources note that the Iranian prosecutor made a point of mentioning “professional motorbike riding. Revolutionary Guards special forces are especially trained to liquidate enemies of the Islamic regime by using motorbike for assassinations. Monday, Revolutionary Guards chief, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said his intelligence unit had a spy ring gathering information on Iran’s nuclear program and military and security officials.
The first “Israeli spy” depicted by Tehran’s propaganda channels was Ali Ashtari, an electronics salesman, alleged Saturday to have been executed six days earlier as an Israeli spy.
His “case” was “exposed” the day after the UN nuclear watchdog affirmed that Iran had stocked enough enriched uranium to begin assembling its first A-bomb.
Israel expects Iran to make big strides in nuclear program
Weakening international pressure on Iran will embolden Teheran to make major strides next year toward developing a nuclear bomb, according to assessments from Israeli intelligence officials obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
Delays in activating Iran’s nuclear reactor will not hold up its development of nuclear weapons, because Teheran’s main focus is enriching uranium, the officials said. The intelligence officials agreed to be interviewed only on condition of anonymity because the information is classified.
Meanwhile, the chief US delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the change in administrations in Washington would be a good opportunity for Iran to enter new negotiations to end its uranium enrichment program.
With the new administration, Iran should not expect a drastic change in the US position, said Gregory L. Schulte, who was in Berlin to meet with German officials before the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors’ meeting in Vienna on Thursday and Friday.
But Schulte expressed hope Iranian leaders would view the change in leadership at the White House as a new chance.
“We’ll see if they take advantage of this - I mean, it would be good if they said, ‘Okay, now is an opportunity for us to get into negotiations and to take concrete steps that the world expects,’ to give us assurances of the peaceful nature of their nuclear program,” Schulte told reporters.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already sent congratulations to US President-elect Barack Obama, the first time an Iranian leader has offered good wishes to a US president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Obama has also indicated his willingness to talk with leaders such as those in Iran, Syria and North Korea.
But Schulte underlined that Obama has echoed President George W. Bush’s stance that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable.
“The president-elect has also talked about the need for reinforced diplomacy, the need for direct tough diplomacy, and the need for that diplomacy to be sustained, to be backed by the prospect of economic sanctions and political isolation,” he said.
At this week’s IAEA meeting, Schulte said a major focus would be on a report about Syria’s Al Kibar facility, which said satellite imagery and other evidence showed it had the characteristics of a nuclear reactor.
Syria allowed the IAEA to visit the site near the desert town of Al Kibar in June but has since turned down requests for more inspections.
“It’s very clear to us that Syria has a lot of explaining to do,” Schulte said, but added that “Syria is not Iran, and we don’t want to make Syria into Iran.”
He also said he hoped Syria would take the approach Libya did when the country renounced its efforts to make nuclear weapons in 2003.
“Libya was caught with an illicit nuclear weapon’s program - Libya admitted that program, and at our last board meeting we actually passed a resolution where we welcomed the full cooperation by Libya,” Schulte said.
We must consider killing Ahmadinejad
Ex-IDF Chief Ya’alon: We must consider killing Ahmadinejad
By Haaretz Service
Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon told an Australian newspaper this week that the West must consider all options necessary to stop Tehran’s nuclear program, including assassinating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately,” Ya’alon said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, published Monday morning Australia-time. “There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped.”
When asked whether “all options” included a military deposition of Ahmadinejad and the rest of Iran’s current leadership, Ya’alon told The Herald: “We have to consider killing him. All options must be considered.”
Ya’alon, who served as IDF chief from 2002 through the final year of the Palestinian Intifada in 2005, also told The Herald that a military strike on Iran would be welcomed by regional elements as quelling the most divisive conflict in the Middle East today.
“Any military strike in Iran will be quietly applauded by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states,” he told the paper.
“It is a misconception to think that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most important in the Middle-East. The Shiite-Sunni schism is much bigger, the Persian-Arab divide is bigger, the struggle between national regimes and jihadism is much bigger,” he was quoted as saying. “And I can’t imagine the U.S. will want to share power in the Middle East with a nuclear-armed Iran.”
The former army chief told the paper he has long seen Iran as the source of regional terrorism and was surprised the United States chosen to invade Iraq in its stead.
“I was chief of staff during Operation Iraqi Freedom and I was surprised the US decided to go into Iraq instead of Iran,” The Heral quoted him as saying. “Unfortunately, the American public didn’t have the political stomach to go into Iran.”
Ya’alon made headlines last week when he announced that he would be running for the Knesset on hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud list, after weeks of being courted by the opposition leader. 
Iran has enough nuclear material for a single A-Bomb
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
This is the conclusion contained in the report leaked by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna Wednesday, Nov. 19, for submission to the agency’s board Nov. 27-28. This alarming development is headlined by the New York Times and Bloomberg website Nov. 20, but does not rate Israeli official comment or a mention in the its media.
In the last few weeks, Iran has doubled or even trebled the pace of its uranium enrichment process. Nuclear watchdog sources report that in October, Iran was known to have accumulated 480 kilos of low grade 5 percent enriched uranium, a short step from “break-out” to weapons grade (90 percent) material.
By mid-November, the Iranians topped this up to 630 kilos, adding 150 kilos in six weeks. By the end of 2009, Iran will have enough enriched uranium for 2-3 nuclear bombs.
Tehran has thus jumped three months ahead of US and Israeli intelligence estimated timeline of February 2009 as the timeline for a sufficiency of enriched uranium to build a bomb. The experts ask how long until Iran has the know-how for further purifying the fuel and perfecting the design for an atomic warhead. DEBKAfile’s sources report that Tehran acquired this technology some years ago from the Pakistani nuclear smuggler Dr. A.Q. Khan.
Iran using ‘fraud and evasion’ to promote nuclear agenda
Foreign Ministry warns international community against complacency, says recent IAEA report on Islamic republic’s nuclear program does nothing to lessen concern over Tehran’s nuclear program
Israel accused Iran of continued “fraud and evasion,” pursuant to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and said that “there is nothing in Iran’s response that should lessen the concern of the international community vis-à-vis its nuclear program.”
According to the IAEA report, the Islamic republic was continuing to defy United Nations demands to suspend uranium enrichment - a process used to make both nuclear fuel and the fissile material for an atom bomb.
“Regrettably, as a result of the lack of cooperation by Iran in connection with the alleged studies and other associated key remaining issues of serious concern, the agency has not been able to make substantive progress on these issues,” said the restricted report.
“This report emphasizes again that Iran is repeatedly violating UN Security Council decisions. It underscores the military elements in Iran’s nuclear activities,” the Foreign Ministry said in an official statement.
“Despite the fact that the IAEA takes the information presented to it at face value, Israel once again calls on members of the international community to increase the pressure on the Iranian government in order for it to abandon its threatening program to achieve nuclear energy,” the statement read.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , who will set out for Washington on Sunday, is expected to spend much of his time discussing the issue of a nuclear Iran. He hopes to be able to convince the American administration to advance sanctions against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.
Senior Israeli officials believe there is still time to stop the Iranian nuclear program in its tracks and are exploring all options to do so. In addition to diplomatic appeals to the US and European nations, including Russia, they hinted that non-diplomatic options are “still on the table.”
Iran admits to blocking millions of websites
In unprecedented speech, Islamic Republic’s prosecutor general says regime has censored over five million sites due to ‘unethical content’; bloggers concerned over new bill that would allow execution for publishing anti-Islamic material online.
Five million internet websites are currently being blocked by the Iranian government, a progressive site called ‘Rooz’ reported Wednesday, quoting the Islamic Republic’s prosecutor general as its source. The report added that a few million additional sites were being censored as a “preemptive measure” by the regime. The report is the first ever in which a legislative source from Iran has divulged information about the regime’s censorship policies.
During a conference in the country Prosecutor General Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi explained that most of the sites were blocked because they “contained unethical content”, a reference to pornography and other anti-Islamic entertainment.
Ismail Radkani, a spokesman for the company responsible for the blocking of websites in Iran, also spoke during the conference. He said over a thousand such sites were being “automatically” withdrawn from the public eye every month, according to legislature passed down from the government.
“Every day 200-300 unethical sites are being automatically blocked,” he said.
Iran’s population currently stands at 71 million, and the number of web-surfers, currently estimated at about 20 million, is steadily rising. The Islamic Republic ranks second only to Israel in its percentage of web-surfers of any country the Middle East.
Most of the internet-savvy Iranians have devised methods of circumventing the censorship imposed upon them, and make use of different proxies and alternate addresses when publishing their online blogs.But the Iranian government has insisted on battling the “westernization” of its younger population, and the internet is considered a major culprit in this scheme.
Abadi estimated the internet as a more imminent danger than satellite dishes, “because of the fact that the internet is more accessible”. Thus, he called for the establishment of an “internet police” in his country.
Distorting Khameini’s words illegal
Two years ago President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government approved an “internet and blog registration plan”, which ordered that every site and blog originating in the country seek an approval stamp from a nominated committee. However many bloggers decided to boycott the plan, and only 850 sites and blogs have registered.
Bloggers and sites that place “unethical content” online are subject to penalties by law. A website is deemed illegal if it contains content “weakening Islamic values, insulting the Islam and its martyrs, inciting harm to security and the interests of the Islamic Republic, or distorting the words of (Ali) Khamenei” among other things.
In February of 2008 the Iranian parliament approved part of another bill against “computer crimes”, which has caused a great uprising among web-surfers because of the severe sentences it would impose, ranging from jail time to execution.
War with Iran?
By Joel C. Rosenberg
(Jerusalem, Israel, November 17, 2008) — Israel is unlikely to launch massive airstrikes to neutralize Iran’s nuclear weapons program before the U.S. inauguration on January 20, 2009, barring dramatic new intelligence that points to an imminent Iranian attack.
That’s my sense of things here after spending nearly a week on the ground.
There is scant evidence of a nation preparing for imminent hostilities. The Israeli political system is engaged in gearing up for elections next February 10th. What’s more, senior Israeli officials are still urging the U.S. to take the lead on stopping Iran. “We must unite our forces, led by the international community, led by the United States of America,” said outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an address to some 4,000 Jewish leaders from around the world. He called for bilateral and international sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran and told American Jewish leaders: “Each and every one of us needs to play a role - lobby your government, lead your organization or identify a project that can exert additional pressure on Iran….It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give [them] up.”
Last Thursday, I had the honor of addressing the World Likud Congress (pro-Israel political activists from the U.S., Africa and Europe) here in the holy city. I was on a panel of Israeli and Iranian experts on the threat posed to the Jewish State by the Ayatollah Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the current regime in Tehran. While I agreed with much that my fellow panelists said, I was struck by their lack of urgency for Israel to take action. One said that Israel shouldn’t strike unless its leaders can be absolutely certain that by doing so Iran will not be able to build the Bomb for at least another ten years. Another suggested Israel should not infuriate the incoming Obama administration by launching attacks on Iran without a clear green light from the new President.
I respectfully disagreed. First, let’s be clear: there is almost no scenario by which the Bush administration is going to launch attacks on Iran in the next sixty days or so and thus hand an on-going war to a new American President. Second, the Obama administration has made it crystal clear that it is not going to make neutralizing Iran’s nuclear threat via military means a priority, much less a top priority. Just the opposite: Obama intends to launch “unconditional” negotiations with Tehran. So waiting for the U.S. to “take the lead” is a non-starter at this point. Third, Israel faces an existential threat from Iranian nuclear weapons and it cannot afford to wait much longer. Once Iran has the Bomb, six million Jews here will be in supreme peril. There will never be a “perfect” time to strike Iran, and Israeli leaders will never be able to be certain ahead of time just how long their attacks will push Iran back from getting the Bomb. But is not buying five more years of security - if ten are not possible - still worth it? Fourth, Israel should never surrender its national security decision-making process to Washington. Did Jerusalem wait for the U.S. to act against the enemies of the Jewish people in 1967? Did Jerusalem wait for the U.S. to bomb Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1981? Fifth, more than ever, Israel leaders like “the sons of Issachar” described in I Chronicles 12, “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”
[UPDATE: President-elect Obama now says he supports the Saudi "peace" initiative. This would require Israel to go back to its 1967 border, re-divide Jerusalem, give up the strategically vital Golan Heights, and give away all of the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria and the strategically vital Jordan Valley.]
As I’ve written previously, war with Iran will be horrific at many levels. I do not wish for it. Indeed, I am praying passionately for the peace of Jerusalem, as the Bible teaches me to do. But the notion of Iran’s genocidal, apocalyptic leaders getting weapons of mass destruction in their hands is completely unacceptable. I am, therefore, resigned to the possibility that there may now be no other option but for Israel to launch preemptive strikes, since it is increasingly clear Washington won’t.
As I have no influence on such decisions, I am focusing on helping Israelis prepare for the next war. For much of the past week I have been with my Joshua Fund team here in Israel, working with local Jewish and Christian leaders to stockpile emergency relief supplies. I have also had the privilege of preaching at two Israeli congregations to encourage local believers here to continue walking with the Lord, loving their neighbors, praying without ceasing, and girding themselves for the dark days that very well may lie ahead. More on that in my next dispatch.
[AP: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Jerusalem, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008. Olmert told the gathering that Iran is still trying to make nuclear weapons, and the world must make a concerted effort to stop the project.]
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