DEBKAfile Exclusives in Week Ending May 20, 2009

An American military withdrawal from the emirate, especially the big Al Odeid air base and Central Command headquarters, would be a crushing blow to Al Thani. It would leave Qatar and the rest of the Gulf unprotected in any military conflagration in the region over Iran’s nuclear program.

It alarmed Emir al Thani enough for him to takes steps, one of which was to direct the news editors of al Jazeera TV station, which he owns, to moderate the anti-American line of its English and Arabic language broadcasts.

May 15 briefs: – Egyptian security officers uncover big arms cache near Israeli border in Sinai.
It contained 260 rockets, 40 mines, 50 mortar shells, anti-air missiles.
They were bound for Hamas in Gaza Strip.
– Pope winds up five-day visit to Israel, Palestinian territories Friday noon.
– Tony Blair to US Congress: Neither Israelis nor Palestinians want to resume peace talks.
They must be pushed.
Israel will never accept a Palestinian state without a stability guarantee.
– US Federal court refuses Palestinian Authority appeal against $116 m compensation for couple stabbed to death in 1996 terror attack.

US upholds Israel’s nuclear position as long as Iran enriches uranium 16 May: This statement by a senior American official in Vienna paves the way for an Israeli request to extend the 40-year old “ambiguity” arrangement approved by Obama’s predecessors for its nuclear program.

The senior US official, addressing preparatory talks for a nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference in 2010, made it clear that US arms control negotiator Rose Gottermoelle did not break new ground last week when she urged presumed atomic powers India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea to join the nuclear non-proliferation pact. He said: The four presumed nuclear nations were unlikely to join the NPT “until there is a change in the overall political and security context.” He added: “In the particular case of the Middle East, Israeli adherence to the NPT is only going to be possible in the context of… full compliance with [the treaty in the region].”

Establishing a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone “depends on Iran fully complying with its NPT obligations and suspending uranium enrichment.”

Jordan’s Abdullah appoints his 9-year son crown prince, sacks Hazme
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report 17 May: Jordan’s King Abdullah II has been hyperactive on the Palestinian issue in the last few days to draw attention from a highly controversial decree which has taken Amman by storm: the appointment of his 9-year old son, Hussein, as crown prince, after summarily sacking from the post his 27-year old half-brother Prince Hazme, son of King Hussein and US-born Queen Noor, who lives in America.

This decision has aroused a major to-do in the royal court as well as opposition in Jordan’s government and military elite. They fear Abdullah’s his appointment of a young child as first in line to the throne will plunge the kingdom into a period of instability. They also accuse him of breaking a deathbed promise to his father.

When King Hussein knew he was dying of cancer in 1999, he pulled the post of crown prince from his brother, Prince Hassan, and passed it to his own son, Abdullah, against a pledge to appoint Prince Hamze next in line to the throne.

May 17 briefs: – Hatred of Jews intensifies among Israeli Arab community, according to a new poll.
Increased numbers – 40% – deny Holocaust and the Jews’ right to a state.
– Israel registers 3.4 percent negative growth in first quarter.
Exports drop 48 percent as recession begins to bite.
– Netanyahu to visit Sarkozy in Paris in two weeks.
– Al-Shabab militia captures key Jowhar town north of Mogadishu from Somali government troops. – Netanyahu arrives in Washington for talks with Obama Monday.
He will also meet Gates, Clinton, Jones and national American-Jewish leaders.
– First women elected to Kuwait parliament.
Sunni parties lose 10 of 21 seats, Shiite minority doubles representation to nine.
– Egypt finds half-ton Hamas weapons cache near Gaza border – second Egyptian haul in a week.
– Peres meets Jordan’s Abdullah in Amman.
– Arab League Secy Amr Musa: Main ME concern is nuclear Israel not Iran.

US-Israel summit shadowed by Obama’s soft stand on Iranian enrichment
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report 18 May: DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that the gap between US president Barack Obama and Israel prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Iran was wider even than on the Palestinian issue.

Overshadowing their outwardly easy conversation was the US president’s growing inclination to meet Iran halfway on uranium enrichment. He is seriously considering taking up the Anglo-German proposal for an international monitoring mechanism strict enough to preclude Iran’s attainment of weapons-grade enriched uranium after being advised by US intelligence and nuclear experts that this is feasible.

Israeli intelligence and military experts take the opposite view. They believe the Anglo-German plan gives Iran the perfect cover for concealing its race for a nuclear bomb, a misgiving shared by the political and military establishments of the moderate Arab governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

It is their view that if Obama adopts this plan, Iran can be sure of arriving at a nuclear weapon capability by the end of 2010, after winning six clear months for moving forward.

No agreement on Iran, Palestinians in Obama-Netanyahu talks 18 May: US president Barak Obama stood by his demand for a Palestinian state while Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu continued to avoid this formula in their talks at the White House Monday, May 18, their first since both took office.

They agreed that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat not only to Israel and the US but a destabilizing factor for the world and the region. However, Obama said he is in the process of reaching out to Iran and is confident he can persuade its leaders that a nuclear bomb is not in their interest either. These talks can’t go on forever,” he said: “At the end of the year we’ll see where we stand.”

Netanyahu was less sanguine: “A nuclear-armed Iran which calls for Israel’s destruction is unacceptable and would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella.”

The US president called on Israel to stick to the road map as “ratified at Annapolis” (which Netanyahu has rejected) and stop settlement activity. The Palestinians must fight terror. Obama pledged US involvement in peace talks as a strong partner.

Netanyahu said he was ready to start talks with the Palestinians immediately. He wanted the Palestinians to rule themselves, but peace means they must recognize Israel as a Jewish state with the right to defend itself and live in security.

Both agreed that Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be constructively involved in the Israel-Palestinian peace track and do more to develop relations with Israel at the outset.

Nasrallah places his Hizballah on war preparedness
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report 18 May: During a videotaped speech haranguing Israel for staging threatening military maneuvers, Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah Monday night, May 18, ordered a call-up of reserves and placed his terrorist militia on war preparedness.

Our military sources reported that Hizballah was exploiting the alleged flight of suspected Israeli spies from Lebanon across the border into Israel to wind up border tension.

On May 18, Elie al-Hayek, 49, a mathematics professor from Qleia, who walks on crutches, fled to Israel with his wife and three children after being accused of spying for Israel along with 13 other Lebanese nationals. Hizballah’s Al Manar TV claimed that two more suspected spies escaped Monday and several last week. Beirut has lodged a complaint with UNIFIL headquarters at Naqoura and demanded the escapees’ extradition.

The spy mania gripping Beirut is exploited by the different parties campaigning for election on June 7.
Hizballah is it and the escape of suspects to inflame border tension, and lift its image as the true custodian for the south after government and UNIFIL forces proved incapable of guarding the Lebanese-Israeli border.

18 May: Damascus has ordered Syrian intelligence to permit Saad Uwayyid Ubayd Mujil al Shammari aka Abu Khalaf – named by Washington as the senior leader of al Qaeda’s Syria-based support network – to step up the flow of suicide bombers into Iraq to 20-30 a month.

Abu Khalaf is a threat to “the safety of Coalition forces and the stability of Iraq,” said Stuart Levey, US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial intelligence.

In the early stages of its diplomatic exchanges with Washington, Syrian president Bashar Assad ordered the al Qaeda facilitator to slow down the traffic of foreign al Qaeda terrorists into Iraq. But when US presidential envoys started visiting Damascus on a regular footing, he lifted these restraints. As a result, al Qaeda reactivated its smuggling route for suicide bombers, weapons and explosives through the Euphrates River into Iraq’s Anbar province.

In April, therefore, the US military death toll in Iraq shot up to 18 – double the March figure.

Special US Marine forces patrol the river by boat to intercept them. On May 1, a patrol was ambushed in Anbar by al Qaeda suicide killers, who left two US marines and a seaman dead after a firefight.
Assad is not expected to heed the renewed US sanctions over his backing for terrorists. Since last year, Abu Khalaf has also been recruiting North Africans for al Qaeda’s Iraq networks.

Diskin: Hamas will not give Mid East peace a chance, can be toppled 19 May: US president Barack Obama’s planned Middle East initiative is a non-starter as long as the extremist Hamas rules the Gaza Strip, said Shin Bet (internal security agency) director Yuval Diskin Tuesday, May 19.

Israel must decide once and for all whether to topple the Hamas regime, which can be done without conquering the Gaza Strip, in his view. Hamas will not let go of the Gaza Strip or its fundamentalist ideology, Diskin warned, while the Palestinian Authority is equally determined to hold on to the West Bank. But if elections were held on the West Bank today, Hamas would win.

Until Egyptian special forces clamped down on smuggling through Sinai, Hamas had managed in four months to smuggle 46 anti-air missiles, 330 mortars, 37 short-range ground missiles and 17 tons of explosives into Gaza. It is aiming for missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv, 63 kilometers away, although there is no evidence it has succeeded.”

In Gaza City, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum forbade the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations with the “Zionist enemy.”

May 19 briefs: – US denies training “terrorists in Iraq’s Kurdish region” as charged by Iran, accuses Tehran of meddling in Iraq.
– Abbas forms new Palestinian cabinet in Ramallah headed by Salam Fayyad.
It is recognized by foreign governments but not by most of Abbas’ own Fatah party or Hamas.
– Brown unveils major UK parliamentary reform in light of scandal over MPs’ income, allowances.
UK Commons speaker Michael Martin forced to resign.
– Ethiopian troops return to Somalia after Islamists seize towns from transitional government —
– Israel’s High Court orders government to extend equal support to orthodox and non-orthodox Jewish religious bodies —

Israeli air force hits Hamas-Gaza hard amid Lebanon border tensions
DEBKAfile Special Report 20 May: In response to a twin Qassam missile attack from Gaza Tuesday, May 19, the Israeli Air Force went into action early Wednesday against a range of Hamas positions in Rafah, Khan Younes, Zeitun and Tufah suburbs of Gaza city and, Deir Balakh.

DEBKAfile’s military sources also that several Sinai-Gaza smuggling tunnels, missile foundries and three Hamas command posts in Gaza City were struck in Israel’s most extensive Gaza raid since its major offensive ended in January. The Palestinians reported casualties.

Tuesday night, the Palestinians fired a twin Qassam volley at Sderot. One missile injured a man and damaged his home.

That morning, Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin told the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee that Hamas has cut back on its attacks because it needed a respite for rearming and regrouping after the Israeli offensive. Hamas loosed the missiles to prove him wrong and show US president Barack Obama and the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu in Washington who really called the shots in the Gaza Strip.

After Sderot was hit, defense minister Ehud Barak and Netanyahu decided on powerful aerial retaliation.

This was all the more necessary as Hamas was deemed to be testing the new Israeli government’s military reflexes and resolve. Another factor was the Hizballah leader’s decision of May 18 to raise border tension with Israel ahead of Lebanon’s June 7 election.

US Vice President Biden consigned urgently to Beirut 20 May: The White House has urgently consigned vice president Joseph Biden to Beirut. He arrives May 22 to back the pro-Western government parties’ bid for re-election against Iran’s Hizballah and pro-Syrian factions, led by Gen. Michel Aoun. Lebanon’s fall into Iranian-Syrian hands would be a damaging setback for Washington.

Senators call on Obama to take into account the risks Israel runs from a peace accord 20 May: Seventy-six US senators have called on President Barack Obama to continue to support Israel and “take into account the risks it will face in any peace agreement,” Tuesday, May 19, after meeting Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

In a letter signed by 76 of 100 senators, Obama is told that “without a doubt, our two governments will agree on some issues and disagree on others, but the United States’ friendship with Israel requires that we work closely together as we recommit ourselves to our historic role of a trusted friend and active mediator.

“We must also continue to insist on the absolute Palestinian commitment to ending terrorist violence and to building the institutions necessary for a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side, in peace with the Jewish state of Israel,” they wrote.

Israel has no adequate interceptor for Iran’s new long-range missile
DEBKAfile Special Report 20 May: DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israel, the US and Europe were floored by Iran’s successful launch Wednesday, May 20, of a two-stage, solid-fueled 2,000-kilometer range missile, but most of all by the accuracy of its aim in destroying its target, as proudly claimed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

US missile tracking systems confirmed the Iranian President’s boast of Sejil-2’s precision. Sounds of concern came from the Obama administration.
Western military sources say Iran is at least two or three years ahead of Israel’s missile defenses.

The Arrow 2 anti-missile missile system is no match for the Sejil, while Arrow 3 which would be, is still under development. Until now, the Americans and Israelis were confident that any incoming Iranian missile would veer off target and be easily intercepted. This assumption was nullified by the Sejil-2 launch.

Iran’s feat comes at a critical time for its efforts to build a nuclear arsenal of at least 10-12 nuclear warheads. It obviates the strategic value of any understandings reached by President Obama and prime minister Netanyahu on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

Israel marks annual Jerusalem Day

21 May: At a national ceremony for the soldiers who died in the Battle for Jerusalem in 1967, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared at the Ammunition Hill Memorial site: “I say here what I said in the United States this week: Jerusalem will never be divided and it will remain forever under Israeli sovereignty.”

President Shimon Peres said: “Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other nation except for the Jewish people.”

Under foreign rule, Jews were denied access to their holy places. Today, members of all faiths are free to worship at their shrines in Israel’s capital.