SWI NEWS: Monday, October 11 2010 3 Heshvan,5771
Al Qaeda threatens Ahmadinejad's Lebanon visit, US citizens urged to be vigilant
DEBKAfile Special Report October 11, 2010, 6:31 PM (GMT+02:00)
debkafile reports: More fuel was thrown on the bubbling brew surrounding Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit toLebanon - and the coming spectacle of his joint appearance in the south Thursday, Oct. 14 with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah - by an armed Al Qaeda-linked group.
"The whole of Lebanon will tremble if Ahmadinejad sets foot in Lebanon," said the Abdullah Azzam group, named for Osama bin Laden's Palestinian mentor who was al Qaeda's original founder. "We will do the impossible to thwart this conspiracy."
The embassy in Beirut has warned Americans in Lebanon "to be vigilant, monitor news reports, avoid large gatherings of people, and carefully consider their safety and security before choosing to visit popular gathering spots or places where large numbers of people are commonly found."
US citizens were reminded that "even peaceful gatherings can turn violent and spread over neighborhoods with little or no warning."
According to debkafile's intelligence sources, this warning appeared to cover Beirut international airport, over which Hizballah's militiamen have taken control, public transport and popular eating places.
As Lebanese citizens snapped up every weapon on sale, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri suddenly took off Monday for Cairo - ostensibly to consult with Arab League Secretary Amr Mussa on the crisis unfolding over the Iranian president's visits. More discreetly, debkafile's Middle East sources disclose, he met with Egyptian intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman.
In his absence, Nasrallah's deputy Sheik Naim Qassem declared the Ahmadinejad visit was a success even before his arrival. That view is not shared by other Lebanese. A Sunni Islamist group in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli posted large banners and pictures of the Iranian president with large crosses and the slogan: "You are not welcome in Lebanon." Qassem did not forget to once again pin the blame for the 2005 Rafiq Hariri murder on Israel.
debkafile's counter-terror sources report that the Abdullah Azzam Brigades threat to the Iranian president is taken seriously because of its track record. Its Ziad al-Jarrah Battalions took credit for the Katyusha rocket attack on the Israeli town of Nahariya in September. This branch of "Al Qaeda in the Levant" is currently resurgent in Palestinian refugee camps in southern and northern Lebanon, Syria and in Iraq, with active offshoots in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula.
The Lebanon that does not want him
Ancient Hebron Site, Closed to Jews Since 1999, Greets Visitors
by Hillel Fendel
As the public Torah weekly readings reach the story of the Patriarch Abraham, a rare Jewish visit is paid to Avraham's home in Elonei Mamre.
The site is mentioned three times in Gensis, in chapters 13,14, and 18. There Abraham settled after separating from his nephew Lot, there he built an altar to G-d, and there G-d sent him three angels to inform him that his son Isaac would be born the following year.
It was also here that Abraham established the first Hebrew army, for the purpose of rescuing Lot, who had been kidnapped by the Four Kings during their war against the Five.
Glass Junction: Permitted to Jews Only on Paper
The site is remembered by many old-timers from Hevron and nearby Kiryat Arba as very close to the Glass Junction, the old entrance to Hevron and Kiryat Arba along what was then the main Jerusalem-Hevron highway. The Hevron Agreement of 1999 stipulated clearly that Jews would be allowed to visit it, but in practice, after the Israel Defense Forces retreated from most of Hevron, Jews have barely ever been allowed to do so.
Just a few days ago, a group of Jews did in fact visit the site. They found it to be preserved as before, though encompassed by several apartment buildings. The Jewish Community of Hevron hopes the ancient Jewish site will not only soon be opened to Jews, but will actually be returned to Jewish hands.
The Oaks of Mamre
During the Second Temple period, the site of Elonei Mamre was identified as just three kilometers north of the city of Hevron, and a similar distance from ancient Tel Hevron, today's Admot Yishai neighborhood of Hevron. Geographic historians explain that Abraham chose not to settle in the Hevron Valley, but rather on the hills north of the city, which were covered by oak forest; oak in Hebrew is "elon," giving the area its name. (Mamre was the name of a man whom the Bible mentions several times in Genesis as having lived in the area.)
The name was carried down through the generations, losing only one letter in the Arabic name of a hill that towers above the Hevron valley: Jabel Namre, just west of the Machpelah Cave.
Herod's Wall
Today, Elonei Mamre is one of Israel's most important archaeological sites. A two-meter-high, 70-by-30-meter wall has been found there, built apparently by King Herod 2,000 years ago. The wall's construction has similar characteristics to that in the Machpelah Cave and the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Remains of two towers from an earlier period have also been found in Elonei Mamre.
The early Christians built a large church there in the 4th century C.E., as part of their desire to reconnect with their Jewish roots – and especially with the Patriarch Abraham, who introduced faith to the world. Jews and Gentiles would gather here on market days and argue about religion, and many coins have been found there. The church was destroyed in the Moslem conquest three centuries later. The Talmud refers to the site, known then as Botnah, as one of the three most important "fairs" (markets) in the Holy Land, though it notes that there were many idol worshipers there.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
New government issued tenders for settlement building is the best response to the Palestinian Authority's rejection of Israel as a Jewish state, said settlers leaders on Monday night.
“We call on the prime minister not just to stand behind the fact that the freeze has not been extended but to issue new tenders ,” Efrat Local Council Chairman Oded Revivi said.
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Efrat is one of several settlements where new building is largely frozen without such tenders.
Revivi and other settler leaders spoke with The Jerusalem Post in the aftermath of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Knesset, in which the premier offered to impose a new moratorium on construction if the Palestinian Authority would recognize that Israel was a Jewish state.
The PA immedately rejected the offer.
“From the PA’s response we all understand that there is no partner for negotiations,” Revivi said.
Karnei Shomron Local Council Chairman Herzl Ben-Arie said, “The Palestinians are not ready for peace or negotiations.”
To Netanyahu he said, “Be brave and issue new tenders.” As in Efrat, construction in his settlement is frozen without them.
A number of settler leaders added that the prime minister’s offer was dangerous in that it strengthened the United States’s belief that Netanyahu could be swayed to curb or stop settlement construction.
“He had to know that the Palestinians would not accept it,” Ma’aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel said. But making the gesture “opened the door for the US to pressure Israel to impose a new moratorium.
“The Americans and the Palestinians have to know that it is terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah that are stumbling blocks to peace, and not the settlements,” Kashriel said.
He added that if Israel continues to make concessions, it will have nothing left to barter with when it enters negotiations.
Samaria Citizens’ Committee chairman Benny Katzover said, “I am sorry that the leader of the Right has placed a question mark on our future and has invited, with his own hand, international pressure on the government of Israel.”
But Alfei Menashe Local Council Chairman Hisdai Eliezer said that he would support a second moratorium, if it was followed by massive construction. He added that Netanyahu was correct in insisting that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“The time has come to tell the Palestinians that we are here and that they should recognize that we have a Jewish state,” Eliezer said. “If the price of that recognition is a second moratorium, then is a well-thought out, worthy and correct one.”
Naftali Bennett, the director-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, didn’t address the issue of a second moratorium, but said he applauded Netanyahu for insisting that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“I can’t understand why Israel is continuing to negotiate even a minute longer when do not even accept and recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Bennett said.
Dani Dayan, chairman of the council, said that it was forbidden for Israel to curb or stop settlement construction under any circumstances.
“The settlements are the core of Israel’s strength and should not become hostage to Abu Mazen ,” said Dayan.
He added that a second moratorium was a diplomatic trap that would destroy Netanyahu’s credibility.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday accused Israel of working against peace between the two countries.
"There are ideas being put forward by some countries. They are preliminary and we do not know if they will push the process forward for not ... the atmosphere is not positive," Assad told reporters after meeting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in the Syrian capital.
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"The Arab side really wants the peace process and the Israeli side is working in the opposite direction," he added.
Assad was referring to US and French moves to relaunch Syrian-Israeli talks which broke off in 2008 without a deal.
Assad also slammed the amendment made to the Citizenship Act. saying it "expresses Israeli fascism, which finds an outlet in killing and laws of this kind".
Erdogan also spoke at the press conference and said "Israel must issue an official apology for its operation against the Marmara vessel in international waters. It must compensate the families of the victims who were executed by short-range fire."
Abbas to Arab League: Israel has violated all agreements
Israel has effectively abrogated the Oslo Accords and other agreements that were signed with the PLO since 1993, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was quoted as saying on Monday.
Abbas’s remarks were reportedly made during the recent Arab summit in Libya.
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The PA, meanwhile, reaffirmed its opposition to a temporary freeze of settlement construction and rejected the idea of US assurances to Israel.
Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat quoted Abbas as telling Arab leaders attending the summit that Israel has also scrapped the PA’s political, legal, functional and security authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“President Abbas stressed to the Arab leaders that Israel has effectively cancelled the Oslo Accords and other agreements signed with the PLO,” Erekat told Agence France-Presse.
Erekat said that Abbas also made it clear that the first option the Palestinians would consider if the peace talks fail is seeking US and UN recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.
Abbas, who met with the foreign ministers of Spain, France and Finland in Jordan on Monday, briefed them on the outcome of the Arab League summit in Libya and his position regarding the future of the peace talks.
Abbas also sought the backing of the three countries for his intention to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state if the peace process fails.
Following the meeting, Erekat said that Israel alone would be held responsible for the failure of the peace talks if it continued to insist on building in the settlements.
He said that the Palestinians were expecting the US and EU to heighten pressure on Israel to extend the moratorium on settlement construction.
Nabil Shaath, member of the PA delegation to the peace talks, said on Monday that the PA would not return to the negotiating table unless Israel extended the freeze. He also said that the Palestinians would not accept a temporary or partial cessation of settlement construction, like the 10-month moratorium that expired last month.
“What is needed is a full cessation of settlement activities and not a temporary one,” Shaath told reporters in Ramallah. “How can settlement continue on the lands that were supposed to be traded for peace?” Shaath said that a freeze should also include Jerusalem.
He also threatened that the Palestinians would dissolve the PA and make Israel responsible for the West Bank and Gaza Strip population if the peace talks failed. This contradicts statements made by Erekat a day earlier. Erekat was quoted as saying that Abbas had no plans to resign or dismantle the PA.
Shaath said that the Palestinians were not interested in returning to the cycle of conflict, “although they maintained the legitimate right to resist the occupation.”
The PLO negotiator said that the PA also rejected the possibility that the US would give Israel assurances in return for freezing settlement construction for an additional two months
