The Arutz Sheva News Team
1. Interior Minister: Strengthen Israeli Hold on Golan Heights
By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

With hints of Syrian willingness to "accept" the Golan from Israel, Interior Minister Roni Bar-On has proposed developing the area near the Syrian border. Syria is already doing so on its side.

Israel must strengthen its hold on the strategic region, Bar-On said. The Golan is "part of the Land of Israel" and every effort should be made to promote development there, he added. The interior minister has strongly objected to suggestions that Israel negotiate with Syria over the future of the Heights - despite reports that Syria is willing to enter into such talks "unconditionally."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office denied that it had received a letter from the Syrian President offering to enter into immediate and "unconditional" negotiations. The denial came after Arab media reported that such a letter had been sent.

Golan Heights officials told Bar-On that Syria is building civilian structures on its side of the border and is offering its citizens incentives to move to the area. In August 2006, Syria's Ba'athist government established the Popular Organization for the Liberation of the Golan. In its first communique, the group declared that "the way to restore [the Arabs'] rights has become clear, and the way [to achieve] victory and honor is the way of resistance... and Israel and the [Western] powers will be made to bear their responsibility, after they have closed off for us all [other] paths."

Speaking with the Kuwaiti Al-Ra'i Al-'Aam, a spokesman for the new Syrian organization said, "Resistance [includes] political and economic paths, and various paths of resistance alongside military action.... The organization will immediately begin its resistance actions in its general framework, and we may see, in the near future, military actions in the occupied Syrian Golan."

The Golan Heights is coming under the increasing scrutiny of Iran, as well. Iran's Ambassador to Syria said Monday, in an interview published in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, that his nation is very invested in returning the Golan to Syrian rule. Hassan Akhtari said Iran's relationship with Syria is "excellent and strategic," although he added that the two countries could not be considered "allies." Iranian weapons destined for Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon flow through Syria, while Iran and Syria have shared interests in regional conflicts, such as in Iraq and Kurdish-majority areas in the Middle East.

Alongside those moves, however, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem was quoted by The Washington Post on Saturday as saying that Syria is prepared to negotiate with Israel "without preconditions." Syrian President Bashar Assad has stated unequivocally that Israel must relinquish the Golan Heights in any diplomatic accord; yet, Moallem told interviewer David Ingnatius that he was "expressing ideas" of his president.

Both coalition and opposition parties in Israel reject negotiations with Syria as long as that state harbors anti-Israel terrorist leaders and organization. Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres said, "Removing terrorist command centers from Damascus, as well as stopping Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal from operating in Syria, are Israel's preconditions for entering into talks."

Israel's Channel 2 television news analysts said on Monday that Syria is looking for a way to conduct secret negotiations with Israel, seeking to lure Israel into cooperative projects in the areas of tourism and industry.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/19/world/printable2280067.shtml
U.S. Plans Military Buildup To Warn Iran

Dec. 19, 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(CBS/AP) The Pentagon is planning to bolster its presence in the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran's continuously defiant government, CBS News reports.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin says the U.S. military build-up, which would include adding a second aircraft carrier to the one already in the Gulf, is being proposed as a response to what U.S. officials view as an increasingly provocative Iranian leadership.

Recent Iranian naval exercises, support for Shiite militias in Iraq, and Tehran's allegedly peaceful nuclear enrichment program — which U.S. intelligence believes is designed to produce a bomb — have all lead to the planned changes, Martin reports.

Military officers say the build-up would take place after the first of the year, not with the aim of actually attacking Iran, but strictly as a deterent.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that U.N. sanctions would not stop the Islamic republic from enriching uranium.

The United States and its European allies are seeking sanctions against Iran because of its refusal to stop uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel for civilian purposes or fuel for a nuclear bomb.

A draft U.N. resolution would order all countries to ban the supply of specified materials and technology to Iran that could contribute to Iran's nuclear and missile programs. It also would impose a travel ban and asset freeze on key companies and individuals in the country's nuclear and missile programs who are named on a U.N. list.

"A nation whose youth have been able to achieve the nuclear fuel cycle with empty hands — rest assured that it will be able to capture other peaks of (progress)," Ahmadinejad told a large crowd in the western city of Kermanshah.

The hardline president spoke a day after election results indicated his allies suffered an embarrassing defeat in last week's local council elections, an apparent sign of voter discontent with his policies.

Ahmadinejad, however, has had success in gaining support among Iranian citizens by emphasizing the struggle with the West over the country's nuclear program, a source of Iranian pride.

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23267/1/
Imaginary Hugs In Palestine
Rami Almeghari in Gaza, special to IMEMC - Sunday, 17 December 2006, 21:18

I am writing this piece with tears falling from my eyes. You know I am a Palestinian, you must know my friends from the West Bank are Palestinians as well. But you also must know, we have never seen each other. You know we are from the same country, but we have not met. And you know we have just talked on the phone.

I hope you know that we have gotten to know each other and become friends over the last couple of years, and you know we have contributed many articles to IMEMC.org. You know that we have smiled, cried and sighed together.

But today, I am crying alone, you know. My friends Saed from Beit Sahour and Jenka (a very good American woman) are leaving for the States, where Jenka is living. The young couple have eventually decided to leave Palestine, seeking a new life with no military occupation, no Apartheid Wall, no checkpoints, no bypass routes, no restrictions on roads.

Saed, Jenka and Rami (Me) have never seen or met each other in person since we began working together for the past couple of years, even though we all live in the same country (Palestine). But unfortunately for our friendship, the young couple are based in the West Bank and I, Rami Almeghari, am based in the Gaza Strip.

You might ask us - why have you never met? Surely, you could have traveled by car, by bus or by train or even by airplane, so you could have met, the distance between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is really not far at all. I would answer very simply; no, neither I nor my friends could have done so. Not because we are living in a desert, no. Palestine is a beautiful place, with a beautiful landscape, a beautiful beach and beautiful mountains with snow.

It might come to your mind that perhaps we could not afford tickets for travel, I would answer simply, no, that, too, is not the case.

Then, what’s the problem with you?, you ask. I answer again very simply, the problem is the Israeli occupation that has disengaged from the Gaza Strip unilaterally and remained omnipresent at all border crossings, controlling movement of any single object, even that of a cat.

I am stuck in the world’s biggest jail, while my friends are enclaved by an Apartheid Wall that is equipped with surveillance cameras, so they cannot travel even to nearby West Bank towns unless they take hours to pass through Israeli military checkpoints.

For me as a Gazan, my movement to the other part of the occupied territories (the West Bank) is extremely restricted under the Israeli authorities’ military regulations and security measures. You know, the only outlet that I could possibly use to travel to Beit Sahour in the West Bank would be the Erez checkpoint, which would take me through Israel -- something few Gazans ever get permission from Israel to do. Erez, which used to be a busy commercial and passenger crossing, has this year become a passage only for emergency medical cases from the Gaza Strip into Israeli hospitals (and even those cases are severely restricted). I am living in a big human jail. Not only me, but also the rest of the population of Gaza, which numbers 1.4 million people.

Tonight, I had to use the phone to say farewell to my good friends in the West Bank, and I don’t even know whether the phone is also controlled by the Israeli occupation authorities. But don't worry, please don't worry. Saed and I imagined we were shaking hands and hugging. You can ask Saed

http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23293/1/
Palestine – An Open Air Prison With an Abu Ghraib Mentality
Mike Mullenix - Tuesday, 19 December 2006, 16:00

As the death toll continues to mount, between Israeli assassinations, abductions and a fledgling civil war, the mood in the West Bank and amongst Palestinians continues to degrade. In speaking with the average Palestinian, each death brings with it the ongoing fear of a wider conflict. And with the Israelis taking the opportunity to commit their own brand of terror with undercover agents assassinating Palestinians, everyone on the street has something to fear. If you are not a target, you could simply be killed as an innocent bystander.
An article on the Israeli site, Haaretz.com, confirms that today's assassinations were carried out by Israeli military agents dressed in civilian clothing. As an American in the West Bank, I have to question how a Palestinian in Israel that commits such an act, under the guise of a civilian, demands immediate retaliation in the form of artillery shells, yet Israeli agents are permitted to kill at a whim and then brag about it. It is clear, even to an untrained eye, that the Israeli's are using the Palestinian internal strife to take the opportunity to carry out acts that every civilized country in the world should decry.

In my conversations with the local citizens, it is clear that every death that occurs is a painful reminder that they are slowly losing control of their own country. As each new report of a death, as a result of infighting or Israeli aggression, blasts from the television screen or radio and jumps off the pages of the print media or the internet, it appears the situation is spiraling out of control. As Israel experiences its most peaceful period in decades, it continues to justify its own brand of frontier justice.

And while Prime Minister Ohlmert is advertising to the world that he is ready to talk peace, his cronies are carrying out acts of horror that would make Heinrich Himmler blush. In addition, while talking about returning all the land inside the 1967 green line, Israeli bulldozers continue to demolish Palestinian homes, orchards and lives and new Israeli settlements are being built. History has not seen this type of diabolical lies, deceit and misinformation, since Nazi Germany and World War II.

During my trip into the West Bank, it was obvious to me that the Palestinians do not have a country, they do not have a state, they can not even travel 10 miles without having to cross an Israeli checkpoint, the simply have an outdoor prison. Individuals who were born in this land can not even visit Jerusalem or cross the checkpoints, no matter how much identification they carry with them, simply because they are Palestinian. As an American, and growing up during the civil rights era, this is vaguely reminiscent of separate bathrooms, separate schools, separate toilets and separate drinking fountains. For a country like America to support the actions of the Israelis is tantamount to rolling back the clock and supporting the type of segregation that we declared would happen "never again."

With the support my government is providing to the criminal acts committed by Israel, and at a time when the American congress is passing legislation concerning "Palestinian Terrorism", it has become clearer and clearer how much control the Israeli lobby has over American politics. If the average American knew the truth of what was happening in Palestine, and was not bombarded with the propaganda spewed forth from the Israeli lobby and purchased American politicians, there would be an outcry, louder than any ever heard from my country. While Americans wept over the holocaust, they are now being blinded by yet another atrocity that history will prove as one of the most horrible genocides recorded. This media bombardment is comparable to the "African" Uranium connection, Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Even though all of these items were proven false, the media blitz was so great, that polls show that people still believe these lies.

As the US and Israel refuse to talk to Syrian President Basher Assad because they feel he is untrustworthy, both governments have used lies, misinformation and propaganda to promote their own personal agendas, while giving the false appearance that they are actually interested in a Middle East peace solution.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/18/opinion/courtwatch/main2278325.shtml
The Story of Prisoner 200343
Dec. 18, 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe we’ll pay better attention now. Maybe since the story was splashed Monday as a two-column lead on the front page of The New York Times. Maybe since the alleged victim in the case is a white American with an easy-to-pronounce name and not a dark "foreigner" named "Hussein" or "Mohammed." Maybe since he is an ex-Navy vet and not a foot soldier for the Taliban or some poor sap caught up in the chaos of post-Saddam Baghdad. Maybe.

The story that Donald Vance is telling is a familiar one to people who have paid attention to the way U.S. military personnel all too often have handled their detention duties and responsibilities in Iraq even since the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison there. It is both a familiar and a simple tale. Detain first, ask too few earnest questions along the way, mistreat in a way that smudges legal and moral lines, grudgingly and belatedly concede the mistake by releasing the prisoner, and then blame it all on the "fog of war," or worse, refuse to take any blame at all.

This time, apparently, there are no pictures to generate and sustain the world's scorn and the nation's shame. But it hardly matters to Vance. As Michael Moss of the Times relates, Vance went to Iraq as a security contractor but soon ended up as an informant for our government, passing along to the Federal Bureau of Investigation information about suspicious activities at the Iraqi firm at which he worked. This makes him, it's sadly not too obvious to mention, part of the solution and not part of the problem in Iraq today.

Vance should have gotten a medal for trying to stop the burgeoning arms trade in the war-torn area. Instead, reports Moss, he got three months' worth of prison time at "Camp Cropper," America’s maximum security prison site in Baghdad. Why? Because in classic bureaucratic mindlessness, one hand didn't know what the other was doing. The military in Iraq determined that Vance was connected with the very people he was "spying" on for the FBI. Of course he was connected with the bad guys in Baghdad. That was the whole point of his effort on behalf of our domestic law enforcement agency.

It's bad enough that our military initially apprehended Vance and then refused to immediately check out his story. I'm sure that every person detained in Baghdad (or Boston or anywhere else) always has a story. What is truly astonishing is that even after military officials were told about Vance's legitimate connections, even after they had reason to know from their own fellow government officials that Vance was not a security threat, they still refused to release him until over two more months had passed. And, not only that, he was treated in a manner unbecoming our military and our nation's values even after his captors knew or should have known he was not a bad guy.

Vance tells the Times that he now intends to sue the government and the individuals responsible for the way he was treated. His lawsuit isn't likely to go far –perhaps he'll get a modest settlement out of the feds – but with a little bit of luck and a stern federal trial judge the complaint may force military officials (and the FBI for that matter) to explain, formally and under oath, how it could come to pass that a U.S. citizen who was helping his own government ferret out fraud and crime in Baghdad could end up, as Moss writes, begging in vain for his freedom from the very people who would benefit from those efforts.

Here are just a few of the questions, for example, that ought to be answered through any litigation that emerges from this scrape. Why didn't the FBI act more quickly to help out its informant? And if the military did not believe the story offered in Vance's defense on behalf of the FBI, why not? What did military officials know, or thought they knew, that required them to keep Vance on ice even after the FBI corroborated his story? And why, at a minimum, after the feds told their colleagues in Baghdad about Vance's informant role, did Vance's captors not treat him better, just in case he was telling the truth?

The Vance story emerged as big news just a few days after military officials announced the release of 18 more men who had been detained for years as terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. These men no doubt are among the hundreds currently held at Gitmo who already have been determined by our own military not to have taken up arms against the United States or to have belonged to the al Qaeda terrorist organization. These men have been held as detainees in many cases more than 10 times as long as Vance was held.

They did not, like Vance, have the support of friends and family (never mind federal agents) back here in the States. Their voices will never be heard on American television and their words will never grace the front pages of the Times or any other newspaper. But surely they, and their treatment, are as much a part of the story of our country's military detentions as Vance is. The worst excesses of America's military guards may have ended at Abu Ghraib. But that doesn't mean that lesser scandals aren't happening even now. Just ask Vance. Like all the other detainees he's got a story to tell and maybe this time, because of the color of his skin and the land of his birth, we'll at last muster up the decency to listen a little more closely.
By Andrew Cohen