Middle East briefs
By JTA
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Bounty FOR Barak
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A radical Iranian student group placed a $400,000 bounty on Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The Islamic Student Justice Seekers made the announcement March 9, according to the Iranian News agency IRNA.
It also placed $300,000 bounties each for the killing of two other senior members of the Israeli security establishment, Mossad chief Meir Dagan and the head of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin. The action was taken as revenge for last month’s assassination of Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mughniyeh, which the student organization blames on Israel. The organization has asked supporters to donate a kidney to increase the bounties.
McCain to visit Israel
JERUSALEM (JTA)—John McCain is expected to visit Israel soon. Israeli media reported this week that McCain, the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential race, will visit at month’s end in a bid to shore up his American Jewish support base. The U.S. senator from Arizona is popular in Israel and the Diaspora for his hard-line views on foreign policy.
Israel trims Gaza ops
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli forces have dramatically scaled back operations in the Gaza Strip in what appears to be a bid to secure a de facto truce with Hamas. While Israel’s ground and air forces stationed around Gaza remain on standby to retaliate for any cross-border Palestinian attacks, military chiefs have been ordered to obtain government approval for any proactive operations such as raids or aerial assassinations, Army Radio reported March 10. The move comes as Jerusalem officials consider Egypt’s efforts to talk Hamas, which has also largely held its fire since last week’s Israeli offensive against Gazan rocket crews, into declaring a truce. Israel denies being in direct or indirect cease-fire negotiations with Hamas, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has also said there will be no attacks on Gaza if the cross-border rocket fire ceases.
U.S. UNRWA aid nearly at 2007 level
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The U.S. contribution for 2008 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has reached $148 million. The total, less than three months into 2008, is just $6 million shy of the overall 2007 spending. In a notice March 4, the State Department broke down its contributions to the U.N. agency administering relief to Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The contribution to the UNRWA general fund has barely increased, from $90.65 million in 2007 to $97 million this year, but contributions to UNRWA emergency appeals have already reached $57 million, compared to $63.5 million for all of 2007. UNRWA conducts emergency appeals during crises, such as Israel’s current blockade of Gaza, launched in January in a bid to end rocket attacks on Israel’s South. The United States is the largest single donor to UNRWA.
Jordan curbs Yeshiva terrorist’s mourners
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Jordan blocked relatives of the terrorist who carried out the Jerusalem shooting spree from publicly mourning him. Ala Abu Dhaim, the Palestinian gunman who killed eight students at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva March 6 before being shot dead, had family in Amman who tried to set up a traditional Muslim mourning tent in his honor. Jordanian police closed down the tent, however, deeming the ceremony inappropriate, Israel Radio reported March8. Israeli authorities allowed Dhaim’s family in east Jerusalem to hold mourning rites for him, even overlooking Hamas and Hezbollah flags hung outside their home by local Palestinians. But the family took down the flags late Friday. According to Israeli media, they had been warned by the security services that flying the colors of the Jewish state’s enemies could invite vigilante attacks.
U.S.,French, Ethiopian nationals among dead
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The dead in a terrorist attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva included U.S., French and Ethiopian citizens. The Israel Project reported that Avraham David Moses, 16, was a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen; Segev Peniel Avihai, 15, was a French citizen; and Doron Meherete Trunoch, 26, held dual Ethiopian-Israeli citizenship. Among those listed in serious condition from the attack were Naftali Sheetrit, a U.S. citizen, and Nadav Eliahu Samuels, a Canadian citizen. Eight students were killed in the attack on the yeshiva in Jerusalem’s western outskirts. A gunman from Jebel Mukaber in eastern Jerusalem who reportedly had once worked as a driver for the yeshiva entered the cafeteria Thursday and opened fire before being gunned down in retaliatory fire.
ADL rips U.N. body
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Anti-Defamation League said it is “shocking” the U.N. Security Council did not condemn this month’s yeshiva attack in Jerusalem. While many world leaders have deplored the killings of eight students March 6 at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva as an unconscionable act of terror, the council could not reach a consensus on its own statement. Libya, a nonpermanent member, obstructed a unanimous vote. ADL National Director Abraham Foxman called the shooting spree by a lone gunman a “heinous terrorist attack on Israeli teenagers. “Where are all the calls for U.N. resolutions condemning the murderous acts of terrorism against civilians?” Foxman asked.
Peres: Israel won’t take on Iran alone
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel will not attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear program on its own, Shimon Peres said. The Israeli president was quoted as saying March 8 that international sanctions could still be effective in getting Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment projects. “It’s a problem that the rest of the world must resolve,” Peres told France’s Le Figaro newspaper ahead of a visit to Paris. “With the long-range missiles developed by Iran, the problem is not only Israeli. “I would prefer to stop the development of the bomb without recourse to war. Sanctions have proved their efficacy in the past,” he said, offering Libya, South Africa and North Korea as examples. Asked if Israel could take unilateral action against Iran as a last resort, Peres said, “Under no circumstance.”
Hamas details Iranian, Syrian training
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Hamas gave a rare account of the military training its fighters receive in Iran and Syria. Britain’s Sunday Times ran an exclusive interview with an unnamed Hamas commander in which he revealed that the radical Palestinian Islamist group has been sending men abroad for training since Israel quit the Gaza Strip in 2005. Hundreds of Hamas’ “best brains” have left Gaza for Egypt, and from there have flown to Damascus, the commander said. Some stayed in Syria for training and others went on to neighboring Iran, with border authorities waiving visa requirements so as to avoid a paper trail. At Iranian-sponsored camps, the Hamas men learn guerrilla tactics such as sniping and bomb building, as well as how to improve improvised rockets produced at Gaza’s underground arms factories.