by Daniel Pipes
[With slight differences from the NY Sun version]
Barring a "catastrophic development," Middle East Newsline reports, George Bush has decided not to attack Iran. An administration source explains that Washington deems Iran's cooperation "needed for a withdrawal [of U.S. forces] from Iraq."
If correct, this implies the Jewish state stands alone against a regime that threatens to "wipe Israel off the map" and is building the nuclear weapons to do so. Israeli leaders are hinting that their patience is running out; Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz just warned that "diplomatic efforts should bear results by the end of 2007."
Can the Israel Defense Forces in fact disrupt Iran's nuclear program?
Top secret analyses from intelligence agencies normally reply to such a question. But talented outsiders, using open sources, can also try their hand. Whitney Raas and Austin Long studied this problem at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published their impressive analysis, "Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities," in the journal International Security.
Raas and Long focus exclusively on feasibility, not political desirability or strategic ramifications: Were the Israeli national command to decide to damage the Iranian infrastructure, could its forces accomplish this ...   more »

Nearly two years after they were forcibly uprooted from thriving communities, one-third of the Jewish evacuees from the Gaza Strip are still unemployed.
Ripped from their homes as part of former prime minister Ariel Sharon's “disengagement” plan, these “settlers” left behind businesses and farms that were among the most successful and productive in Israel.
The government promised to help rebuild what had been lost, but few of the Jews who once called Gaza home have today recovered financially or socially.
According to Israel's Ma'ariv daily newspaper, 500 of the evacuated families - 37 percent of those uprooted - still rely on aid from charitable organizations to feed themselves. Many more live in a state of constant depression after their tight-knit communities were torn asunder.
Nor has the situation harmed only the evacuees.
Gaza's Jewish communities once provided a highly disproportionate percentage of Israel's agricultural produce. But of the 400 farms and other agricultural businesses that once operated in Gaza's Katif Bloc, only 33 have been compensated with land inside Israel. Some warn that the situation has hastened the day that Israel will be dependent on foreign food imports.
Original Source
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I was astonished to learn that by a majority vote, the Chief Rabbinate recently promulgated a ban against Jews participating in a Christian women's conference "to promote the status of women based on biblical values" under the auspices of the Knesset Christian Allies caucus in Jerusalem.
The alleged grounds for the ban were that the two Christian evangelical groups involved - Bridges for Peace and the International Christian Embassy - were engaged in missionary activity.
Having been directly involved with these groups, I can confidently state that the accusation is absolutely false. The rabbis supporting the ban were influenced by a few misguided zealots who for years have been conducting an ongoing campaign based on the outrageously false allegation that our closest allies, the Christian Evangelicals, have merely created a facade of friendship with Jews in order to convert them.
There are Orthodox Jews closely associated with these bodies who would not countenance transgressing Jewish law. They uphold the position of Rav Joseph Soloveichik who opposed theological dialogue with other denominations, but endorsed joint activities with Christians to promote the Judeo Christian heritage in the broadest social sense, including support for Israel.
It is gratifying that the Jewish organizers immediately ...   more »

WASHINGTON — Libya has withdrawn from its commitment to destroy the nation's weapons of mass destruction program.
Officials said Libya has dropped plans to destroy its mustard gas stocks. They said the project, stipulated in a 2003 agreement, would not be conducted after Libyan complaints that the effort was too expensive.
Libya was believed to possess at least 23 metric tons of mustard gas. Tripoli was also said to have 1,300 tons of precursor chemicals.
So far, Libya has authorized the removal of more than 1,000 tons of nuclear and missile equipment and destroyed 3,500 chemical-weapons capable munitions. Officials said the remaining chemical agents were scheduled to be destroyed in 2007, Middle East Newsline reported.
Officials said the Libyan decision has been relayed to the United States, which pressed Tripoli to destroy its WMD stocks and medium-range missiles. They said the regime of Col. Moammar Khaddafy has been demonstrating greater hostility since Washington restored full diplomatic relations in 2006.
"There is a danger that Libya was consistently withdrawing from its commitments," an official said.
In December 2006, Libya and the United States signed a contract to cooperate in the destruction of Libya's CW stockpile. Under the accord, the United States ...   more »

UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen has warned that the Middle East could see full-scale war.
He said a fresh effort was needed to contain the current violence, or energetic diplomacy to try to bring peace.
"The picture which emerges is very dark, and apparently getting darker," he said.
"So there are reasons for real concerns in the international community."
Roed-Larsen, the current UN envoy for Lebanon-Syria issues who for many years was the top UN Mideast envoy, said "the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East has changed fundamentally over a few years".
"A few years ago, as it had been over many, many decades, the centre of gravity for all the conflicts were the Israeli-Arab conflicts," he said.
"Now, there seems to be four epicentres of conflict in the region with their own dynamics, the Iraqi issues, the Iranian issues, the Syrian-Lebanese issues, and of course the heart of hearts, the traditional conflict, the Palestinian-Israeli issue."
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By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET
We were in a small house in Zarqa, Jordan, trying to interview two heavily bearded Islamic militants about their distribution of recruitment videos when one of us asked one too many questions.
“He’s American?” one of the militants growled. “Let’s kidnap and kill him.”
The room fell silent. But before anyone could act on this impulse, the rules of jihadi etiquette kicked in. You can’t just slaughter a visitor, militants are taught by sympathetic Islamic scholars. You need permission from whoever arranges the meeting. And in this case, the arranger who helped us to meet this pair declined to sign off.
“He’s my guest,” Marwan Shehadeh, a Jordanian researcher, told the bearded men.
With Islamist violence brewing in various parts of the world, the set of rules that seek to guide and justify the killing that militants do is growing more complex.
This jihad etiquette is not written down, and for good reason. It varies as much in interpretation and practice as extremist groups vary in their goals. But the rules have some general themes that underlie actions ranging from the recent rash of suicide bombings in Algeria and Somalia, to the surge in ...   more »

Hundreds of Christian books are disappearing off the shelves of U.S. prisons under a federal directive intended to prevent violent inmates from receiving radical Islamic texts, prompting a lawsuit.
Instead of focusing on Muslim books, the directive restricts literature from all religions, the Associated Press reported. The post-9/11 order, which only now is being implemented, allows the prison libraries to stock only 100 to 150 books for each religion.
Three inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., have filed suit, claiming violation of their constitutional rights.
Inmate John Okon told U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain the set of books removed from the prison were used to minister to new converts.
"I have really seen religion turn around the life of some of these men, especially in the Christian community," he said, according to the AP.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Feldman explained to the judge the rule limiting books was the result of a review by the Department of Justice in April 2004 of how prisons choose Muslims providers of religious services.
The reason for the delay is unclear, the AP reported, but prison officials said they needed time to look over a long list of books.
As ...   more »

This week in Miami, representatives from nearly 30 countries have gathered to talk shop on how to combat nuclear terrorism in a first-of-its-kind international conference led by the FBI and its Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.
The "Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference"—attended by some 450 public and private sector officials from law enforcement, intelligence, border control, nuclear security, and related professions-is an outgrowth of an agreement signed by Russia and the U.S. last summer to build multinational cooperation on the issue.
Countries attending include the U.S., Russia, Canada, China, the U.K., Egypt, Morocco, Germany, France, Israel, Japan, and others.
The conference's primary objective: to build the capabilities of partner nations to investigate, prevent, and respond to sudden strikes by terrorists using nuclear devices or other radioactive materials. To make that happen, the conference will include:  
The Deputy Director of Russia's Federal Security Bureau, Colonel General Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin, talked about his country's efforts to combat nuclear terrorism and to support the growing global initiative.  
… Detailed briefings that put the latest information and best practices in the hands of the participants;
… A complex table top exercise involving fictitious characters from different countries plotting ...   more »

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned Monday that the nation's largest city needs to be prepared for a hurricane powerful enough to cause serious flooding in lower Manhattan and elsewhere.
"It's always a little odd being in New York and talking about hurricanes," Chertoff said after touring a new command center at the Office of Emergency Management in Brooklyn.
Still, he added, a hurricane "would be an extraordinarily devastating blow to the city."
Weather experts have said New York is about due for a major hurricane with 130 mph winds and a 30-foot storm surge that could cause the Hudson and East Rivers to overflow.
  Such a storm could inflict more than $100 billion in economic losses while forcing the evacuation of 3 million people - more than six times the population of pre-Katrina New Orleans.
Historically, the city has endured a hurricane roughly once every 90 years. The last major New York-area hurricane in 1938 caused 700 deaths along the Eastern seaboard.
Last year, the city unveiled a new hurricane plan to evacuate 3 million people while sheltering more than 600,000 others. Emergency management officials estimated the preparedness costs at up to $30 million.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans ...   more »

It has been 40 years since the miraculous Israeli defeat in six days of the combined efforts of the Arab world to destroy the Jewish state. It was at that time Israeli forces recaptured East Jerusalem from Jordanian control and established sovereign control of their ancient capital for the first time in more than 2,000 years.
But now, 40 years later, the battle for Jerusalem still rages.
Much of what God enabled Israel to gain by that amazing war has been lost through attempts to appease world opinion with foolish concessions. However, world opinion does not take note of the implacable enemy that is still bent on Israel's annihilation. This is proven over and over again by demanding Israel to concede land for peace to a hostile enemy that never reciprocates with the "promised peace."
I believe former Prime Minister Netanyahu correctly summed up what was gained and is now being given away: "That victory transformed Israel from a feeble and fragile country whose existence was questionable, into a state that could not be defeated. … Israel's conquest of the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula in the Six Day War actually brought the region closer to peace by convincing ...   more »