JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian last week near Israel’s security barrier in the Gaza Strip. The man killed south of the Karni crossing reportedly was trying to set off a bomb.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel may build a train line for Palestinians that would link the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli sources said last week that the project is being considered by Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who fears Israel will be accused of choking off Gaza economically when it withdraws from the coastal strip later this year. Under the plan, the train would run from Gaza City to Ashdod, an Israeli port where Palestinians could receive cargo, and end up in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. It was not immediately clear how much the 100-mile line would cost, but a report in Ma’ariv said Israel expects the international community to foot half the bill. Under the Oslo accords, the Palestinians were granted use of a road connecting the West Bank and Gaza, but this was halted when the Intifada began in 2000. A train line would be more secure than a road, since Israel could more easily ensure that Palestinian terrorists do not get off inside Israeli territory.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – The top US State Department official for the Middle East is visiting the region for the first time since Palestinian Authority elections earlier this month. William Burns has left Brussels for meetings with Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders. Burns was in Brussels for meetings with representatives of the diplomatic “Quartet” – the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia – that is guiding Middle East peace efforts. Burns is due to step down soon as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and is expected to be nominated as ambassador to Moscow.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Yeshiva University graduates will have their degrees recognized in Israel. Following a Ha’aretz exposé on the longstanding refusal by Israel’s Education Ministry to accept degrees from foreign universities that include a year of study in Israeli yeshivas, the ministry said it would end the policy Jan. 30. “Everyone who has attained a degree in an honest way from a recognized university, especially a premier university like Yeshiva University, will be recognized,” the newspaper quoted Israel’s deputy education minister, Rabbi Michael Melchior, as saying last week.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel will disband separate army companies that mix military service with yeshiva study. Instead, soldiers from the “hesder” units will be merged into regular companies. Hesder soldiers serve in the army for a year and a half and study for more than three years in yeshivas. The Israeli army official announcing the decision, Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, said the religious Zionist community supported the decision, but some of the community’s rabbis said they opposed the move.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli military action will be scaled back to encourage Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to win a truce from terrorist groups, Israel’s national security adviser said. “I think that in the next few days everything that it is not absolutely essential to carry out” right away “can be delayed,” Giora Eiland told Army Radio. Israel refuses to deal directly with Hamas and other terrorist groups, which want Israel to pledge to end all military action before they agree to call off attacks. But recently Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has managed to secure an informal truce.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – An Israeli Arab who escaped a suicide bus bombing after being tipped off by the terrorist was cleared of complicity charges. Nazareth Magistrate’s Court acquitted Yasra Basri of failing to prevent a crime, finding that she had no way of knowing that the August 2002 attack was going to happen. According to Basri, a young Palestinian man wearing a backpack sat next to her on the bus in northern Israel. When he heard her speak Arabic to a friend, he urged her to get off. Feeling personally threatened, she did so – but said she didn’t realize the man was about to set off a bomb in his bag, killing nine people. “The defendant could not have known what thoughts were going through that man’s mind, nor what plots were hatching in his heart,” the ruling said.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Iran will be able to build its own nuclear bomb by the end of the year, the Mossad chief said. Despite promising the European Union it would suspend uranium enrichment, Iran was still pursuing the process so it can make nuclear weapons independently, Meir Dagan told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee last week. “The assessment is that by the end of 2005 the Iranians will reach the point of no return from the technological standpoint,” Dagan said, adding that thereafter the Islamic republic could be nuclear-armed within two years. Israel, which bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981, has hinted it could similarly attack Iran to prevent it from getting the bomb.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Israeli birthrate dipped for the first time in the country’s history. Officials said that there were 1 per cent fewer births in the general population in 2004 than the year before. According to Ha’aretz, the drop-off was far more significant among Israeli Arabs – 3.4 per cent. The newspaper quoted unnamed officials as attributing the change in growth statistics to Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to trim subsidies to large families. The official added that this specifically targeted the Israeli Arab minority, where couples not infrequently have up to 20 children.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli forces uncovered a terrorist rocket factory in the West Bank. Speaking after a gag order was lifted about the weekend raid on Nablus, security sources said last week several Hamas terrorists had been arrested at the secret laboratory in the city, where they were preparing Kassam rockets using methods learned from terrorists in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have not been able to stockpile weapons in the West Bank, thanks to Israel’s military sweep of the territory in April 2002 and regular patrols since.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – A top settler rabbi backed a call to resist to the death the Israeli government’s settlement withdrawal plan. Asked whether he agreed with a recent pro-settler slogan, “Better to die than disengage,” Rabbi Dov Lior, the Yesha Council’s chief rabbi, said, “Yes, why not? It is easy to understand these people. For them, to destroy the land and give over the Strip to the terrorists is against the Torah of Israel.”
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Some people may be genetically programmed to do good, Israeli researchers believe. According to a study conducted by a team of psychologists from Herzog Memorial Hospital and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a link exists between selfless behaviour and a gene variant on chromosome number 11. The chief researcher, professor Richard Ebstein, said surveys indicate that people with this gene variant get a good feeling from doing good, according to the Web site Israel21c.org.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Gaza Strip enjoyed a relatively violence-free weekend. Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz credited the lack of rocket or mortar fire aimed at Israel from Gaza to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to win an internal truce. But the Islamist groups were quick to issue denials, saying they would not accept a cease-fire formally unless Israel simultaneously undertakes to scale back military operations in Gaza and the West Bank and frees Palestinian security prisoners.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – A teen-aged girl who shielded her brother from a rocket attack in Sderot died of her wounds. Ella Abuksis, 17, died a week ago Friday at a Beersheba hospital. She threw herself atop her 10-year-old brother Tamir on Jan. 15 when a rocket launched by Gaza Strip terrorists landed in the southern Israel city. Tamir also suffered shrapnel wounds in the attack.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Accusing Syria of ties to terrorism is counterproductive, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said. “It’s well known that slapping labels on countries and unilaterally describing certain states as part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ has not improved anyone’s security,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Interfax news agency in a report carried by Reuters. “Syria is one of the key players in the region and resumption of talks with Israel on the Syrian question is important in the context of the Middle East peace process.” Syrian President Bashar Assad is visiting Moscow this week. Russia has denied reports that it is planning to sell Syria shoulder-launched missiles more accurate than those now in its possession. In a telephone call last week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin Israel’s intense opposition to the deal.
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Iran accused Israel of orchestrating the tough US stance against its nuclear program. “Iran has always said that Tel Aviv decides US policies and that the Zionist lobby is so powerful in the United States. Therefore we were not surprised by such remarks,’’ Hamid Reza Asefi, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, said last week. He was referring to Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion that Iran is a top security priority for the United States, and that Israel could attack Iranian nuclear sites if they are not opened to international inspection. President George W. Bush also has said the United States does not rule out the option of military action against Iran.
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