Levitt Letter Extra News

By Roy Eitan, www.jta.org

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The long-awaited resolution to the Lebanese hostage crisis has cast a pall over efforts to retrieve the Israeli soldier held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Gilad Shalit was abducted to Gaza shortly before Hezbollah snatched Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev to Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Unlike the two army reservists, who suffered fatal wounds during their abduction and were repatriated for burial last week, Shalit is known to be alive.

That, Israeli security sources say, has hindered Egyptian-mediated negotiations on Shalit’s return. Having freed jailed Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar and four captive Hezbollah gunmen in exchange for two Israeli corpses, Israel is likely to face troubles bargaining down Hamas when it comes to a living hostage.

Citing senior Palestinian sources, the Ha’aretz newspaper reported that “Hamas isn’t willing to be flexible about Shalit at this time due to the recent prisoner swap with Hezbollah.”

“Israel set a precedent with its release of Samir Kuntar, considered a ‘prisoner with blood on his hands,’ in return for two bodies,” Hamas supreme leader Khaled Meshaal said. “In our case we have a live prisoner, and we have no plans to retract our demands — quite the opposite.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has long balked at the asymmetry of the swap proposed by Hamas, which seeks the release of some 1,100 prisoners, at least a third of them serving life sentences for deadly attacks.

Olmert successfully held out against a similar opening demand by Hezbollah, which had wanted many Arab prisoners, as well as the five Lebanese, freed from Israeli jails as a condition for returning Goldwasser and Regev.
But as Shalit enters a third year of captivity in conditions that are widely believed to be primitive, Olmert faces mounting pressure even from within his own Cabinet to compromise on the ransom.

At least three ministers have publicly backed the idea of releasing at least some prisoners “with blood on their hands,” a reversal of long-standing Israeli doctrine. One Cabinet member, Ami Ayalon, warned that failing to retrieve Shalit could risk losing him forever.

In several media interviews Ayalon, a former navy admiral and Shin Bet chief, compared Shalit’s situation to that of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman who bailed out over Lebanon in 1986. For the first two years, Arad was held in Lebanon by various militias while Israel deliberated over if and how to bargain for his return. Then he disappeared — to Iran, Israel assumes — and the trail went cold.

Shalit’s family has argued that Hamas eventually could decide to smuggle Shalit out of Gaza through the Egyptian Sinai and on to Lebanon or Iran.

“The similarities between the cases of Shalit and of Arad are terrifying,” Ayalon said.

Olmert has given no indication of how he might now pursue the Shalit issue, though recently he offered public reassurance.

“I phoned the Shalit family and promised, in all of our names, that we will do everything to bring Gilad Shalit back home — alive, healthy, in one piece, and as quickly as possible,” he told his Cabinet in broadcast remarks.

“I don’t have to tell you that it’s not simple, it’s not easy. Just as we labored for two whole years, day in and day out, to bring back Udi and Eldad, may they rest in peace, we are doing the same thing for Gilad Shalit. We will not be still or silent until he comes back.”

Freeing Shalit would be an enormous morale booster for Israel after the dispiriting sight of Goldwasser and Regev returning in black coffins earlier this month. It also could distract from a corruption case dogging Olmert and free up Israel’s armed forces to invade Gaza should there be a major resumption of cross-border rocket fire.

Israeli officials have hinted that the military was being kept in check at least partly out of concern that Shalit could be executed as a reprisal.

But while Hamas in Gaza might suffer from losing its bargaining chip, in the West Bank it would reap major strategic rewards.

The release roster filed by Hamas includes scores of its senior West Bank terrorists, including the planners of suicide bombing campaigns. Returned home and free to operate, they could undermine Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has tried to build on his split with Hamas last year by reviving peace talks with Olmert and instituting a law-and-order drive in the West Bank.

“We are talking about creating a ‘general staff’ for Hamas in the West Bank,” said Amram Abramovitch, a senior commentator for Israel’s Channel 2 television. “That would basically eliminate Abu Mazen,” he said, using Abbas’ nickname.

Yediot Achronot reported that Olmert would convene his security chiefs to think of a new approach to the Shalit negotiations while dispatching envoy Ofer Dekel to Cairo with orders to appeal to the Egyptian regime to apply pressure on Hamas.

Various stopgap ideas include bringing in French or German mediators, or holding simultaneous shuttle talks between Israeli and Hamas delegates in Cairo along the model of the indirect Israeli-Syrian talks under way in Turkey.

But according to an unnamed senior Egyptian official quoted in Yediot, even the Egyptians are not hopeful of a breakthrough.

“After your prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, we have to let things calm down,” the official said.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. —

A man wielding a shotgun entered a church and opened fire as congregants watched a youth performance Sunday, July 27 2008, killing two people and injuring eight others, police said. The gunman was tackled by church members and eventually taken into police custody. No children were injured. A hospital spokeswoman said five of the wounded were in critical condition.

A church member who arrived moments after the shooting said the gunman fired three times and was tackled. Officials wouldn’t say exactly how many people helped subdue the gunman. “It was a large group and we are thankful for them for without it, this situation could have been even worse,” Mayor Bill Haslam said.

Jeff Seif’s comment:
My heart and prayers go out to the victims and their families. I’m publishing this article to commemorate them and solicit prayers on their behalf, and to extol the virtues of those who bravely subdued the gunman. I have long advocated that the world would be a much safer place if men would stand up and act decisively and bravely in defense of life and property. “Bravo!” I say, and may we see more and more heroes like them here, in Israel, the Middle East, and elsewhere!

By Ryan Jones, www.IsraelToday.co.il

Palestinian officials from the Gaza Strip have distributed a set of carefully-staged photographs they say are evidence that the smuggling tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border are for milk and other essential goods, not weapons.

The photographs show masked Palestinian militants lifting jugs of milk and sacks of baby food from the entrance to one of the tunnels on the Gaza side of the border.

Israel insists that the tunnels, of which intelligence estimates indicate there are hundreds, are used to import small arms and advanced weapons like heavy mortar shells, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles. The tunnels are also said to be the conduit via which the Palestinians receive the material used to build their Kassam rockets.

Hamas has acknowledged Israel’s position by insisting during ceasefire negotiations last month that it would not agree to halt smuggling efforts as part of the truce.

“We cannot talk about stopping smuggling because it is something beyond our ability as a government and we did not give a commitment in this regard,” Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told worshippers at a Gaza City mosque on June 25 as the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire was being finalized.

Egypt, too, has never tried to claim the tunnels were for anything other than arms smuggling, and has even made a show of closing a handful of tunnels and confiscating the weapons found inside for public consumption.

Also backing up the Israeli assertion that the smuggling tunnels could only exist for nefarious purposes are weekly and sometimes daily summaries published by the Israeli government of the quantities of humanitarian aid entering the Hamas-controlled territory. The Palestinians, say Israel, have no need to smuggle essential goods into Gaza because there is no shortage.

Between 100 and 150 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Israel and international aid organizations enter Gaza on a daily basis. Out of that number, the 50 or so daily shipments that enter via Gaza’s central Sufa Crossing contain milk and baby food, according to the manifests.

The Palestinians, and in particular the Hamas regime in Gaza, have been accused of manufacturing a dire humanitarian crisis to elicit international criticism of Israel. So far it has worked, as mainstream international media outlets today routinely refer to the situation in Gaza as a disaster of epic proportions. Some have even gone so far as to parrot the Palestinian line that the situation in Gaza is a “holocaust.”

Hamas and its supporters were briefly called out on their lie when in April they claimed that a shortage of industrial fuel had shut down Gaza’s only electrical plant and plunged the area into darkness. Israeli officials immediately pointed out that Gaza receives the vast majority of its electricity from Israel.

Further betraying the Palestinian deception were a series of news photographs that showed Hamas leaders covering the windows of their offices with heavy curtains and lighting candles to give the impression of a blackout during press conferences.

Israel has imposed a limited embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza, but has repeatedly stressed that the sanctions only limit the import of non-essential goods and some building materials that had previously been used to manufacture rockets. Exports from Gaza have also been curtailed to combat the terrorists’ practice of hiding bombs in shipments of agricultural produce.

www.IsraelToday.co.il

Israel has already deployed several units of an advanced solid-based laser system with Israeli forces stationed near the Gaza Strip. The new laser is being used to detonate terrorist-planted bombs along the Gaza security fence without putting the lives of Israeli soldiers at risk.

The laser is an eventual complementary system to the “Iron Dome” anti-missile system, also being developed by defense contractor Rafael. Working in tandem, it is hoped that the laser and the Iron Dome will be able to protect communities in southern Israel from Palestinian rocket attacks.

www.israeltoday.co.il

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday (July 28) met with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to urge the latter to keep all options for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, including the military option, on the table.

Barak said that Israel is in favor of first trying more stringent economic sanctions to convince Iran to halt its nuclear program, but stressed that the West’s position must be backed up by the threat of military force.

Barak’s visit follows last week’s trip to the Pentagon by Israeli army chief General Gabi Ashkenazi, who raised similar points to that of the defense minister when he met with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen.

Israel has expressed a degree of concern over recent statements by both Gates and Mullen suggesting that the US is no longer considering a military option against Iran, and would not support an Israeli strike on the Islamic Republic.

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann, www.JewishWorldReview.com

The most important primary for our 2008 election may be yet to come: the Kadima Party primary in Israel in mid or late September. It pits liberal-leaning Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni against hardliner and former Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz. (Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to sit out the contest and concentrate on staying out of jail.)

The polls are neck and neck; in the most recent, Livni’s once-formidable lead has shrunk to 2 points. Hanging over the battle is the Iranian nuclear program.

Livni is thought unlikely to attack Iran precipitously; she largely sees eye-to-eye with advocates of diplomatic solutions to the various problems her country faces. But Mofaz has openly said he’d resort to bombing Iran if it were necessary to stop the mullahs from getting the bomb.

So if Mofaz wins, military action becomes much more likely. But when?

By most accounts, the Israel Defense Forces would need considerable American cooperation to pull off such a strike. No top-level Israeli politician has much confidence that Barack Obama would be forthcoming. But most are confident that President Bush or John McCain would give Israel the help that it needs.

So if Obama wins here, a Mofaz government would feel great pressure to attack before Bush leaves office. If McCain wins, Israel would have more time.

But Mofaz might not want to wait for our election. Why risk antagonizing a President-elect Obama by taking military action that he might vigorously oppose? If Obama, having won, were to counsel patience, what Israeli prime minister could ignore him?

Before the US election, on the other hand, Obama might be reluctant to take a position ‘ and the Israelis need feel no compulsion to conform to any advice from a man who isn’t yet be president-elect.

Surely, an Israeli attack on Iran would bring a sharp and instant response from Iran and from its satellites, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as its pawns in Iraq. It would presage war in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank along with an air war of Israeli missiles and bombers against Iranian missiles.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states would criticize Israel in public but probably breathe a sign of relief in private that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were thwarted or at least postponed.

The ensuing crisis would probably militate in McCain’s favor if it erupted before the US election. The more a foreign crisis intrudes on our politics, the more voters are apt to trust a seasoned hand like him and not to give an ingénue like Obama his shot.

Polls show that voters trust McCain much more than Obama to handle a foreign crisis. An unavoidable national-security threat would give McCain a huge boost. Just as in 2004, if the issue is terrorism or foreign crises, the Republican will prevail. If the issues are domestic policy, the Democrat will win.

Of course, Mofaz would need other parties to form a governing coalition. The dovish Labor Party might not lend itself to any aggressive purpose ‘ but a Mofaz determined to bring down Iran’s nuclear program might reach across to Likud and bring in hardline ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a war politically possible.