“Syria was planning to acquire the weapons systems a long time before the negotiations between Israel and Syria were resumed. [The Syrians] have been trying to do so for a very long time as part of their policy, and this is not something new,” said Shalom.
Syria’s announcement last week that it plans to purchase arms from Russia, including long-range missiles and fighter jets, is aimed at getting the United States involved in a new round of Israeli-Syrian peace talks, according to Israeli sources.

Prior to last Thursday’s talks in Russia between President Dmitry Medvedev and Syrian President Bashar Assad, the latter hinted that he would consider a deal with Moscow to place Russian missiles on Syrian soil as a countermeasure to U.S.-made NATO missiles recently installed in Poland. On the first day of the talks, Russian officials were quoted as saying that the sale of a wide array of advanced weaponry, including long-range missiles and MIG-31 fighter jets, was a key item on the agenda.

In Israel, senior defense officials reacted on Saturday by saying that, to the best of their knowledge, Russia has no plans to sell the arms to Syria. According to the sources, Assad requested Russian weapons in an attempt to pressure the White House to become more involved with the ongoing peace talks between Israel and Syria. Israel recently concluded its fourth round of indirect talks with the hostile Arab regime, in the mediating country Turkey.

Russians Promised No Balance-Changing Weapons Sales
The Israelis said that Russia had promised not to sell any weaponry to Syria that would violate the regional balance of power in the Middle East. That "promise" perhaps referred to a statement by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, that his country was considering arms sales to Syria, but that Russia was “indeed prepared to sell only defensive weapons which do not violate the regional balance of power.” The acting Russian ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Yurkov, was also quoted as saying that Russia had no intention of installing the advanced Iskander missile system in Syria. 

"The Syrians are making noise about the weapons deals to pressure the U.S. to provide sponsorship for the talks," said one of the Israeli defense sources. He explained that "[t]he Syrians are hoping to use the talks with Israel to gain more credit and strengthen ties with the U.S."

The Iskander: A Considerable Threat
Among the weapons that were claimed to be under discussion, the S-300 surface-to-air (SAM) missiles and the Iskanders worried Israeli officials most.

The export version of the Iskander missiles have a range of 280 kilometers, and if fired from Syria’s border at the Golan Heights, could hit almost every major population center and military target in Israel. Each such missile has the capability to destroy critical civilian infrastructure facilities, such as roads, bridges and large buildings; enemy rocket and missile equipment in the air or on the ground, including missile defense systems; and it can wreak havoc on civilian and military aircraft on the ground. It is classified as a quasi-ballistic missile, a recent innovation allowing for a lower flight trajectory, making it much harder to predict where it will hit.

Israeli MKs: Syria Does Want Those Missiles
MK Silvan Shalom (Likud) told IsraelNationalNews on Sunday that he believes Syria’s attempts at acquiring missiles is genuine, and dismissed the theory that Assad is feigning in order to alarm and pressure the United States  to intervene in the Israel-Syria negotiations.

“Syria was planning to acquire the weapons systems a long time before the negotiations between Israel and Syria were resumed. [The Syrians] have been trying to do so for a very long time as part of their policy, and this is not something new,” said Shalom.

“So I cannot accept it…. I cannot really buy it,” said Shalom about the coercion theory. “This is their policy: On the one hand, to support axis of evil countries like Iran in their terrorist activities and to get more missiles.” On the other hand, said the Israeli parliamentarian, the Syrians are striving to “show themselves as willing to move toward a peace treaty with Israel, and [convince the world] they in fact accept it already,” while Israel is still weighing its options.

MK Shalom said earlier that Israel should demand that Moscow refrain from "arming its enemies."

"Arming Syria would lead to a strategic change and could destabilize the Middle East and the world," he noted.

Fellow Likud member MK Yuval Steinitz echoed the doubts of his colleague. “This is over-sophistication,” he said. “You have to take it as it is. Syria is trying to rearm not just itself but the entire Middle East against Israel, and we are now facing the possibility that the axis of evil stretching from Iran through Syria to Lebanon, which is now dominated by Hizbullah, will now gain Russian military assistance.

“I think that Syria is eager to get longer-range missiles, both ground-to-ground Iskander missiles, and also long-range anti-aircraft and long-range anti-ship missiles that will enable Syria not only to threaten every military target inside Israel, but also to threaten Israeli airspace and Israeli waters from Syria. And this is of course the real threat.”

Dozens of police and intelligence personnel swooped down on Al Aqsa offices of the Islamic Movement in the Lower Galilee city of Um el Fahm Saturday night and seized money, computers and documents that linked the organization with Hamas.

The money was intended for activities in Jerusalem, which were sponsored by the movement's leader, Sheikh Raad Salah. He has accused Israel of building a synagogue under the Temple Mount's Al Aqsa mosque.

Um al Fahm is a large Arab city located several miles east of Hadera, southeast of Haifa, and has increasingly become a hotbed of anti-Israeli incitement.

The Al Aqsa branch of the Movement is suspected of working with Hamas's charity coalition," which is a front for "extremist Muslims throughout the world," Israeli intelligence officials said. Authorities are investigating if Al Asqa is coordinating activities with the outlawed Hamas group Dawa, which helps finance terrorism. Islamic Movement leaders charged that the raid signaled the "bankruptcy" of Israeli institutions.

The Al Aqsa mosque on Friday staged a "festival of the endangered Aqsa" in which Sheikh Salah charged that Israel is desecrating the mosque.
 
Exactly one year ago, Jerusalem police broke up a meeting of 30 Islamic Jihad and Hamas leaders in Jerusalem and threw stun grenades after the participants refused to leave.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D – DE), whom Barack Obama has picked to be his running mate in the race for the U.S. presidency, called Israel "the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East" in a 2007 interview and proclaimed that he is a Zionist.

In an interview he gave Shalom TV when he was still running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden also said that since the 9/11 terror attacks, "Americans can taste what it must feel like for every Israeli mother and father when they send their kid out to school with their lunch to put them on a bus, on a bicycle or to walk; and they pray to God that cell phone doesn't ring."

In that interview Biden also mentioned his family connection to the Jewish people: "My son married a young woman whose mother… [is from] a very prominent Jewish family in the state of Delaware, the Bergers," he said.

Leniency, Not Pardon for Pollard
"I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist."

On the subject of Jonathan Pollard, who is languishing in a U.S. jail after being convicted of spying for Israel, Biden said Pollard deserves leniency but not a pardon. "There's a rationale, in my view, why Pollard should be given leniency," he explained. "But there is not a rationale to say, 'What happened did not happen and should be pardoned.'"

He also said: "When I was a young Senator, I used to say, 'If I were a Jew I'd be a Zionist.' I am a Zionist. You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist."

The veteran Democratic senator called the attempts to link between the conflict over the Land of Israel and the Iraq war "bizarre."

He said: "When the Baker Commission filed its report saying peace in Israel is related to Iraq, I was the first and only person in Congress to point out [that] if, tomorrow, peace broke out between Israelis and Palestinians, does anybody think there wouldn't be a full-blown war in Iraq? And, conversely, if Iraq were transported to Mars, does anyone think there would not be terrorism visited upon the Israelis every day?"

Republicans warn he's na?ve
Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Executive Director Matt Brooks Saturday warned against voting for Obama and Biden.

"With the selection of Senator Joe Biden as Senator Obama's vice president, the Democrat's ticket has now become an even greater gamble for the Jewish community," he said. "Throughout his caree
Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act
r, Senator Biden has consistently been wrong on Iran and his voting record on Israel has been inconsistent. Like Obama, Biden fundamentally misunderstands the threat posed by an Iran determined to obtain nuclear weapons."

"In 1998," Brooks noted, "Sen. Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, a bill that punished foreign companies or other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise. Biden was one of the few senators to oppose the bipartisan 2007 Kyl-Lieberman Amendment labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. In a December 2007 debate, Biden said 'Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America.' On MSNBC's 'Hardball,' Biden said he ’never believed’ Iran had a weapon system under production."

The lame-duck Olmert government continues its hours-long debate of the 2009 budget.  Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened, at the start of the meeting, to fire ministers who do not accept the final vote.  A Labor Party minister, for his part, said his party would quit the government if the budget is accepted as is.

Olmert explained to the ministers that the government could not and would not increase either its budgetary spending framework or the deficit, and that the 2009 expenditures would have to be allocated within those restrictions. Labor Party members, led by former Economics Professor MK Avishai Braverman, say this is not true, and that the economic "pie" can easily be enlarged.

Finance Minister Bar-On has presented the ministers with two alternative budget proposals. One includes a sharp cut in defense spending, and one diverts the cut to national welfare needs.  The ministers were reportedly not enthusiastic at having to choose between the two.

Hint from Uncle Sam
The economic weekly Calcalist reports that the US State Department recently reminded the Israeli Finance Ministry that a condition for receiving the US loan guarantees is that Israel not deviate from its budgetary framework.

Adding to the tensions at the meeting were Olmert's threats to fire ministers who do not accept the government's vote, and counter-threats by Labor - expressed by Minister Raleb Majadele - that Labor would quit the coalition if the budget is passed.  Majadele said that the program is "racist" and that it is unfair to the Arab periphery.

Olmert's Warnings
"Some of those blabber-mouths and shouters who speak dramatically of the plight of the lower classes and the like are simply detached from economic data that have been formulated over the past half-year," Olmert said at the start of the Cabinet session.

He continued: "I want to say in the most friendly and correct matter: There will be a debate today, and it will certainly involve different voices and different opinions, until the matter is decided. Once it is decided, there will be a government stance - and whoever then wages a struggle against the government's stance will no longer be able to be a member of this government. I want this to be perfectly clear."|

Budget Must Also Pass Knesset - and New Government
Commentators and analysts noted that the tensions may be for naught, as the chances of today's vote being truly significant are not great. For one thing, the budget is certain to undergo many changes before being passed in the Knesset - if it passes at all.  In addition, the next government, which is to be formed in a matter of weeks or months, is not certain to follow the present government's current economic policies. 

Joining Labor in its opposition to the proposed budget are the Shas and Pensioners parties, as well as Kadima ministers and Olmert-allies Ze'ev Boim and Eli Aflalo. Housing Minister Boim says the budget does not provide for the acute need for low-income housing, and Aflalo bemoans the lack of a program to improve the sorry state of the Ethiopian immigrant community.

The Cabinet is not expected to vote on the budget before late this afternoon (Sunday).

An international survey has listed Hebrew University of Jerusalem as the one of the world's top universities.

According to the report issued by China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Hebrew University is 65th among the world’s top 100 universities in the new Academic Ranking of World Universities. The Jerusalem campus is the only Israeli institution included in the list, joining such top names as Harvard, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)and Britain's Cambridge University. 

The annual survey evaluates more than 2,000 universities around the world and ranks the top 500 among them. Other Israeli universities fell into ranking categories below the top 100. Tel Aviv University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology were ranked at 151.  The Weizmann Institute came in at 200. Bar Ilan University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev were ranked at 401.

Rankings are based on a combined scale of academic criteria that include awards won by alumni and staff, articles published in leading scientific journals, and the number of highly cited researchers. The list is considered an authoritative mark of quality in the academic world. 

Hebrew University President Prof. Menachem Magidor said the institution's inclusion on the exclusive list was an impressive achievement, but warned that higher education needs additional funding to remain competitive.

"The fact that six Israeli universities are listed among the top 500 universities in the world with the Hebrew University ranked among the top 100 is most impressive, (especially) when we take into account the size of Israel," he said. "However, without a solution to the acute crisis in which higher education in Israel is currently enmeshed, it will be impossible to maintain the status of Israeli academia in general and that of the Hebrew University in particular."

Dr. Uri Davis, who has often termed Israel an "apartheid state" and refused to serve in the IDF, converted to Islam about a week ago and married a Fatah activist in Ramallah.  The conversion ceremony involved two oaths in which Davis recognized Allah and the Muslim prophet Mohammed.  Davis said he plans to follow the laws of Islam, but not devoutly.

The conversion took place in a Moslem religious court in Baka el-Garbiye, an Israeli-Arab town just outside northwestern Samaria (Shomron).

Davis's lawyer explained that the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority know him for his great sacrifices on behalf of the "Palestinian problem" and the "realization of their rights."  He noted that the consent of the Arab woman and her family to the marriage to a Jewish activist is an "admirable social development."

Just two months ago, David took part in an Arab-sponsored "Haifa Conference," billed as "defend[ing] a secular democratic state in historic Palestine."  A summary of the conference written by Yoav Bar states that the Conference "was our moment to raise our heads from the exhausting daily struggle and promise ourselves and the world that the suffering of the Palestinian people may be brought to an end and there can be a bright future for everybody in Palestine after we get rid of the racist Zionist disorder." 

Bar himself, an initiator of the Haifa Conference, is an Israeli member of the political bureau of Abnaa el-Balad - Sons of the Land, a secular movement that seeks the return of all Arab refugees, the abolishment of Israel as a Jewish state and the establishment of a Palestinian state in its place.

Dr. Davis gave one of the three Hebrew speeches at the Conference; the others were delivered by Yehuda Kupferman of the "Committee for a Secular and Democratic state in the Whole of Palestine," and Dr. Anat Matar, a leading supporter of the rights of Palestinian prisoners and the rights of Israeli youth to refuse to serve in the IDF.

Davis, who has described himself as an "anti-Zionist Palestinian Hebrew," has been advocating support for Palestinian issues for over 40 years, and was arrested more than once on charges of illegal activities in this connection.  He is a founding member of the Movement Against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine, is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, and is actually an Observer Member of the Palestine National Council.

A Jerusalem court has ordered the police to provide the names of policemen involved in the brutality against demonstrators at the community of Amona two years ago.

Judge Anat Ziner also ruled that police must disclose the orders concerning the use of clubs and mounted police.

The incident occurred on February 1, 2006 when Israel Police were ordered to expel protestors from the site of a new neighborhood in the Samarian Jewish community of Amona, near Ofra, 12 miles north of Jerusalem. Nine homes were in the process of being built, some close to completion, at the site.

More than 200 protestors, including many youths, were injured by the police, who were filmed using excessive force during the demonstration against the evacuation. Dozens of police officers were injured as well when protestors began to fight back.

Judge Ziner issued the order following an appeal by the Yesha Human Rights group asking the court to provide information for a civil suit that involves a young girl who was trampled by mounted police and suffered wounds.

The police were given 30 days to disclose the information.

Lawyers for the plaintiff, Rivka Turgeman, stated in the civil suit that the young girl suffers 10 percent incapacitation from the wounds she sustained when she was trampled by police horses while sitting on the ground.

Last month Magistrates Court Judge Yechezkel Barclay found Police Officer David Atiya of Petach Tikva guilty of "attacking with no reason" by goring a youth in the head with his helmet during the protest at Amona.

Another lawsuit filed against the police has charged an officer with clubbing a youth as well.

A7 Radio's "The Tovia Singer Show"

Historian: ‘Israel Capitulating Further on “Red Lines” it Said it Would Not Cross’
Renowned historian, Dr. Steve Carol, author of “Middle East Rules of Thumb: Understanding the Complexities of the Middle East,” reveals astonishing strategic errors committed by the Jewish state that can potentially have existential consequences.  Dr. Carol is an associate producer of “The Middle East Radio Forum”, heard Sundays on KKNT 960 AM in Phoenix. (middleeastradioforum.org) (drcarol.net)

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