AIPAC Offices Closed for Independence Day
AIPAC wishes you a Happy Fourth of July.
AIPAC offices will be closed on July 4 in observance of America’s 232nd Independence Day. Regular Web site updates will resume on Monday, July 7. In the meantime, check out the Issues page for concise analysis, feature coverage and links to special reports on key issues affecting the Middle East, Israel’s security and the U.S.-Israel relationship. In addition, see below for recent news items.
Bush: Diplomacy on Iran Remains Top U.S. Priority
President Bush urged Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities.
President Bush on Wednesday said that although all options remain on the table, multilateral diplomacy and sanctions remained the top option for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Reuters reported. "And the best way to solve it diplomatically is for the United States to work with other nations to send a focused message," Bush told reporters, "and that is that you will be isolated and you will have economic hardship if you continue trying to enrich." In recent months, Iran has accelerated its efforts to enrich uranium - a key step toward developing nuclear weapons - violating multiple binding U.N. Security Council demands that the Islamic Republic suspend its illicit atomic work.
Hamas Radicalizing Gaza's Children
Hamas instills in children its radical, violent ideology.
In a further sign of radicalization in Gaza, Hamas leaders announced Tuesday the launching of some 800 summer camps that will inculcate the Islamic terrorist group's anti-Israel and anti-Jewish worldview among Palestinian youth,
The Jerusalem Post reported. The camps, which will require all 150,000 children to wear special Hamas uniforms, have allegedly been used to train children in the use of weapons training grounds and instill in them Hamas' radical Islamist ideology. Hamas – whose charter says that Israel will exist "until Islam eliminates it" – faces international isolation until it recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism and accepts previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Palestinian Terrorist Kills Three in Jerusalem Attack
A Palestinian terrorist killed three and wounded dozens, including children.
A Palestinian terrorist on Wednesday killed at least three Israeli civilians and wounded more than 50 others when he deliberately plowed a bulldozer into a passenger bus in Jerusalem,
The New York Times reported. Television footage showed the wounded being rolled away on gurneys. The bus that had been rammed lay on its side and several cars and vans were wrecked, overturned and flattened by the bulldozer. Inside the overturned bus, a reporter saw a child's diaper and a toddler's pink jacket. All the windows in the bus had been smashed. "I saw the bulldozer smash the car with its shovel. He smashed the guy sitting in the driver's seat," said Yaakov Ashkenazi, an 18-year-old seminary student. The incident was the first major terrorist attack in the city since March, when a Hamas gunman opened fire in a Jerusalem rabbinical school, killing eight students.
U.N. Report Ignores Hizballah Arms Buildup
U.N. Secretary-General Ban ignores Hizballah's violations in a new report.
A new U.N. report, to be released by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday, ignores Hizballah's arms buildup and continued operations in southern Lebanon,
The Jerusalem Post reported. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned of Hizballah's violations of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Lebanon-based terrorist army's war with Israel and called for the group's disarmament, despite the presence of UNIFIL observers. "Rockets continue to be moved into Lebanon, Hizballah is becoming more powerful, and I think it is the Security Council's duty to convene and decide how to ensure that this resolution is indeed being enforced and carried out," Barak said. In the nearly two years since its war with Israel, Hizballah has doubled the size and scope of its rocket arsenal with weapons smuggled from Iran and Syria.
More Qassam Rockets Slam into Israel
Qassam rockets continue to terrorize Israeli civilians.
In yet another direct violation of Hamas' commitment to Egypt to halt all terror activity from Gaza, Palestinian terrorists on Tuesday continued to fire Qassam rockets at southern Israel, Reuters reported. The rocket barrage marked the fourth time since Hamas' pledge for calm along the Gaza-Israel border that Palestinian terrorists fired on Israeli civilians. Hamas leaders have stated in the past that any lull in attacks against Israel is merely a "tactic" in the group's long-term war against the Jewish state. "It is normal for any resistance… to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit... Hamas is known for that," Hamas' Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal said recently. "In 2003, there was a cease-fire and then the operations were resumed."
