DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s experts offer the first published exposéof the real extent of Iran’s military capabilities with some surprising answers.

Don’t miss this and more up-to-the minute exclusives in the comingDEBKA-Net-Weeklyissue out next Friday.

To subscribe toDEBKA-Net-WeeklyclickHERE.

Iraq's national security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, said Tuesday, July 8, his government will not accept the security accord under negotiation with the United States unless it contains specific dates for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

DEBKAfilereports: President George W. Bush has consistently opposed any such timetable, as has the Republican presidential nominee John McCain. His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, once pledged withdrawal within 14 months if he were elected to the White House, but has since changed his position on the Iraq War and the US military role there.

On June 27,DEBKA-Net-Weekly354 first revealed the existence of secret US-Iranian diplomatic ad hoc understandings, including a $150 ceiling on the price of oil, reached under the cover of leaked“reports”alleging the US or Israel were preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. The understandings also covered cooperation in lowering the flames of the Iraq war and accommodations on Syria and Lebanon.

But in case those understanding break down in the volatile climate generated by hard-line elements of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, both nations retain their military options.

Read exclusive disclosures fromDEBKA-Net-Weekly’updated byDEBKAfilebelow.

To subscribe toDEBKA-Net-WeeklyclickHERE.

The string of explosions in Karachi Monday, July 7, came a day after a suicide bombing left 19 dead and more than 70 wounded most of them police officers in Islamabad. They were attacked 15 minutes after thousands of Islamic extremists who had gathered for the Red Mosque siege anniversary had dispersed. The siege in which 100 people were killed sparked a wave of suicide attacks across Pakistan which left more than 1,000 people dead.

Is this an Israeli version of Ingrid Betancourt’s long agony as the hostage of terrorists?

An unnamed man, saying he was chief of the Galilee Liberation Brigades, claimed in an interview Sunday, June 6, to have carried out the last two terrorist attacks in Jerusalem–the bulldozer rampage and the yeshiva massacre. He then said his group has been holding an Israeli girl soldier from Tiberias hostage for five years.

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources are convinced he is referring to Dana Bennett, 18, who disappeared after her late-night shift as a waitress in Tiberias on Aug. 1, 2003, and was never heard of since.

The accord signed secretly in Tehran June 27 belies the contention of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and prime minister Ehud Olmert, accepted also by Washington, that the Syrian regime is about to desert its close alliance with Tehran and embrace the West.

DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that, during his two-day visit to Israel, Adm. Mike Mullen Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed interest in the Israel Aviations Industries’long-range Heron unmanned aerial vehicles, which support IDF’s counter-terror and counter-missile operations in the Gaza Strip.

The demonstration took place on June 29 at the forward Israeli UAV base near its main operating arena in the South.

Our military sources describe the Heron as capable, in addition to intelligence-gathering and communications support, of delivering missiles (which Israel has never admitted).

DEBKAfileintelligence sources report that Jamal Hassan Neba’a was sentenced to 20 years in jail this week by Syria’s Supreme Court for State Security on the charge of spying for the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency. He was arrested in Damascus on July 23, 2006, eleven days into the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hizballah.

Chief of staff Maj. Gen. Hasan Firuzabadi said Saturday, July, 5, Iran’s strategy is to keep the Strait of Hormuz in“southern Iran”open, but“if the country’s interests are jeopardized in the region, we will not let any ship pass through.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this statement enlarges on earlier threats by adding Iran’s“strategic interests in the region,”namely Syria, Hizballah or Hamas. It is in keeping with Iran’s refusal to give up uranium enrichment in its reply to the six-power proposals for ending the nuclear standoff.

Defense officials: UN Resolution 1701 on the verge of collapse
Jul. 9, 2008 Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330903869&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, passed to stop the Second
Lebanon War, is on the verge of collapse as Syria continues to rearm
Hizbullah, senior defense officials warned Tuesday night ahead of a
scheduled security cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will convene the cabinet to discuss the
rearmament of Hizbullah since the Second Lebanon War and to discuss ways to
curb the flow of weapons from Syria to the guerrilla group.

During the meeting, the ministers will be briefed by Military Intelligence
on Hizbullah's rehabilitation and preparation for another round of violence
with Israel.

Defense officials said Israel's only course of action at present was to
attempt to place pressure on diplomatic officials from European countries
that contribute to UNIFIL.

"Syria is rearming Hizbullah at a rapid pace and this is proof that 1701 has
completely failed," one official said.

The peacekeeping force's mandate will be up for renewal next month and
Israel is looking to see if it will be possible to make changes that will
give the force more freedom to prevent Hizbullah's rearmament.

Our World: The media and its enduring narrative
Jul. 8, 2008 Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330891500&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Last Wednesday's terror attack in Jerusalem was unique. Due to the fact that
Husam Taysir Dwayat bulldozed his victims outside of Jerusalem Capitol
Studios where many of the foreign television networks have their offices,
his was one of only two attacks to have been caught live on camera.

The only other attack which was filmed was the lynching of IDF reservists
Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche at a Palestinian police station in
Ramallah on October 12, 2000. That attack, which showed the mob basking in
the blood of the two men, was filmed by an Italian camerawoman from the
privately owned Mediaset television station. The attack last Wednesday was
filmed by the BBC whose correspondent Tim Franks witnessed the carnage from
the outset through his office window.

Their film documentation is not the only thing those two attacks share. The
lynch in Ramallah and the attack last Wednesday are also the only attacks
that elicited abject apologies by otherwise arrogant media giants. In the
aftermath of the lynch, Riccardo Cristiano, Italy's state-owned RAI
network's correspondent in Israel, wrote a groveling apology to the
Palestinian Authority in which he went to painstaking lengths to explain
that it was not his network, but his competitor that published the footage.

In the letter which the PA published in its Al Hayat al Jadida daily,
Cristiano fawned, "We always respect the journalistic procedures with the
Palestinian Authority for [journalistic] work in Palestine and we are
credible in our precise work. We thank you for your trust, and you can be
sure that this is not our way of acting. We will not do such a thing."

ON FRIDAY, the BBC published an apology for broadcasting the footage of
Wednesday's carnage. The film showed an unarmed, furloughed IDF commando
climb onto Dwayat's bulldozer just after Dwayat murdered Batsheva Unterman
by crushing her car. It showed the soldier grabbing a gun belonging to a
security guard who was unsuccessfully trying to restrain Dwayat and shooting
Dwayat three times in the head. The film did not show Dwayat or any of his
victims dying. What it showed was the terror of the wounded, Dwayat's
murderousness and the soldier's heroism.

Yet, the network declared, "It's not normally the BBC's policy to show the
moment of death on screen. These are always extremely difficult decisions to
make. However, on reflection, we felt that the pictures featured on
Wednesday's News at Ten did not strike the right editorial balance between
the demands of accuracy and the potential impact on the program's audience."

At first glance, it is not at all clear what the BBC was talking about. Its
film was a journalistic achievement. Through it, tens of millions of people
worldwide were able to see for themselves what a terror attack against
innocents looks like from a fairly sterile angle. What did the BBC have to
apologize for?

In this case, as in the case of the lynching eight years ago, the reason the
BBC apologized is not because the film's images were too gruesome, but
because it strayed from the accepted narratives of the Palestinian war
against Israel. To maintain the narratives, "the right editorial balance
between the demands of accuracy and the potential impact on the program's
audience," is one that engenders the belief that Israel is either morally
indistinguishable from the Palestinians, or that Israel is morally inferior
to the Palestinians.

The metaphor for the first narrative is the so-called "cycle of violence."
The BBC itself spelled out this narrative in the aftermath of the lynching
in Ramallah. In a program called, "When Peace Died," broadcast in November
2000, the BBC explained, "Two images captured the hatred that has destroyed
the peace process in the Middle East. Mohammed al-Dura, the boy from Gaza,
shielded by his father but still dying under a hail of bullets fired by
Israeli soldiers and the lynching and brutal murder of two Israeli
reservists by a Palestinian mob."

The metaphor for the second narrative is the Holocaust. It was used most
explicitly early on by Catherine Nay, a well-known news anchor from Europe1
network. In late 2000 Nay declared, "The death of Muhammad [al-Dura] cancels
out, erases that of the Jewish child, his hands in the air from the SS in
the Warsaw Ghetto."

THE STORY of Muhammad al-Dura plays a central role for both narratives. On
September 30, 2000, France 2 public television network's bureau chief in
Israel Charles Enderlin aired a 57-second, heavily edited film which he
proclaimed portrayed then 12-year-old al-Dura being killed by IDF forces at
Netzarim Junction in Gaza. France 2 distributed the film for free to the
global media and al-Dura's image became the icon of the Palestinian war
against Israel. It directly incited anti-Jewish violence in Israel and
throughout the world.

Questions about the veracity of the France 2 account arose immediately. An
IDF investigation launched by then OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yom Tov
Samia proved through ballistic evidence that it was physically impossible
for IDF forces to have shot - much less killed - al-Dura. Over the ensuing
years, a handful of journalists and researchers produced a wealth of
evidence demonstrating that Enderlin's story was false.

One of the researchers was a media critic named Philippe Karsenty. He
asserted that the film was a hoax on his Web site Media Ratings and dared
Enderlin and France 2 to sue him for libel while demanding that they release
the 27 minutes of film they claimed they had of the September 30, 2000
incident at Netzarim Junction.

While refusing to release the footage, Enderlin and France 2 did sue
Karsenty for libel. In late 2006, after receiving a letter of recommendation
for Enderlin from then French president Jacques Chirac, and in spite of the
reams of evidence supporting his claim that Karsenty presented at the trial,
the court convicted Karsenty. Karsenty appealed the ruling.

The appellate court ordered Enderlin and France 2 to produce the unedited
footage. Although he refused to show the footage in its entirety, from the
19 minutes of rushes that Enderlin did present, three things became obvious.
First, the IDF could not have killed al-Dura. Second, the footage showed
Palestinians staging scenes of fighting with imaginary IDF forces. And
third, the footage showed no evidence that al-Dura had been shot or that he
died that day at Netzarim Junction. On May 22, the appellate court
overturned Karsenty's conviction.

IT MIGHT have been thought that the French, Israeli and international media
which had for seven years supported Enderlin against the small band of
independent investigators would finally abandon him. So too, it might have
been thought that after seven years of defending an indefensible piece of
journalistic malpractice Enderlin would finally own up to his misdeed. But
the opposite occurred.

In Israel, leading left-wing commentators like Gideon Levy, and Tom Segev
from Ha'aretz, Arad Nir from Channel 2 and Larry Derfner from The Jerusalem
Post accused Karsenty and his allies of waging a witch hunt against
Enderlain to advance their political agendas. In France, the media initially
ignored the story.

Then, less than a week after the verdict, the Who's Who of the rather large
anti-Israeli branch of the French media published a petition in the
left-wing Le Nouvel Observateur decrying Karsenty's exhaustively documented
dossier against the al-Dura story as a "seven-year hate-filled smear
campaign." In all, some 300 reporters and hundreds more notables signed the
petition. For their part, France 2 and Enderlin announced their intention to
appeal the ruling to the French Supreme Court.

In her account of the court case and its aftermath in the Weekly Standard,
French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet attributes the French media's
reaction to what she sees as a uniquely French practice of never apologizing
for misdeeds.

There is doubtlessly some truth to this. But arrogance is not the unique
trait of the French media and elite. And given the near universality of
media arrogance, how can one explain the BBC's quick apology for its
broadcast of its footage from the attack in Jerusalem last week? And how can
one explain Cristiano's obsequious letter to the PA in 2000?

THE ANSWER of course is that arrogance alone cannot account for the media's
defense of Enderlin. If Enderlin had been caught broadcasting a libelous
report about the Palestinians, the media and France 2 would have cast him
off immediately. But here there is more at stake than one man's reputation.
Enderlin didn't create the narrative of Palestinian innocence or at least
moral equivalence. In filing the clearly false story of al-Dura, Enderlin
was advancing a cause that all his anti-Israel colleagues in France, Israel
and worldwide have embraced. If he goes down, their indispensable narrative
is liable to go down with him.

Over the past eight years of the jihad against Israel, among countless
examples, three instances of open media collusion with Israel's enemies
stand out for their strategic impact on the course of events. First there is
the al-Dura affair. It was followed by the mythical "Jenin massacre" in
April 2002. That in turn was followed by the fabricated "massacre" at Kafr
Kana in Lebanon in July 2006.

The al-Dura story solidified the Palestinian narrative of victimization by
Israel just months after they rejected statehood and peace at Camp David.
When the so-called Jenin massacre was reported in April 2002, the IDF was in
the midst of Operation Defensive Shield. Just before the Palestinians began
making allegations of an Israeli massacre, IDF forces uncovered documentary
evidence proving that the Palestinian war against Israel was run by the PA
and Yassir Arafat. By fabricating the massacre, the PA was saved from being
delegitimized as an actor in Washington. The Israeli peace camp was also
resuscitated from its death throes.

As the Winograd Commission documented in its final report on the Second
Lebanon War, the media reports of the fabricated massacre of Lebanese
civilians by an IAF bomber in Kafr Kana in South Lebanon caused US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice to end US support for an Israeli military victory
over Iran's Lebanese proxy and to pressure Israel to accept a cease-fire
leaving Hizbullah intact.

Even as analyses of the reports from Jenin and Kafr Kana like the reports on
the al-Dura affair clearly demonstrated that the IDF had committed no
atrocities, the distorted footage put out by the media made it impossible
for Israel to defend itself in the court of public opinion. Like the al-Dura
affair, the media's open collusion with the Palestinians in Jenin and
Hizbullah in Kafr Kana prolonged false narratives predicated on Israeli
aggression just as they were about to be finally laid to rest.

So it is not merely arrogance that makes Enderlin and his colleagues
unwilling to come clean anymore than it was humility that made the BBC and
Cristiano apologize. Depressingly, what all of this illustrates is that the
media will only give us the information they wish us to have. And that
information's relationship to the truth is arbitrary at best.

8 July 2008

MINISTRY OF TOURISM CONNECTS WARSAW TO EILAT
Tourism Ministry initiative: Oasis Tours, one of the largest travel agencies
in Poland, will market vacation packages from Warsaw to Eilat.
The first flight leaves in December 2008.

The increase in demand for vacations in Israel continues:
Nearly 55,000 tourists visited Israel from Poland during Jan-May 2008,
a 100% increase over the corresponding period last year.

Ministry of Tourism
www.tourism.gov.il

The Tourism Ministry continues its marketing activities aimed at the Polish
market and has notched up another important achievement: From the end of
December 2008, weekly flights will operate on the Warsaw-Eilat route for a
one year period. Oasis Tours, one of the largest travel agencies in Poland,
advised the Tourism Ministry that, following a visit to Israel, the company
had decided to market vacation packages to Eilat.

The packages, which include flights with Israir departing Warsaw on
Saturdays, will offer Polish tourists 5 day packages in Eilat and 2 days in
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv or vice versa, or 3 days in Eilat and 4 days in
Jerusalem and the rest of the country. The return flight to Warsaw departs
from Ben Gurion airport. Oasis Tours has recently launched an extensive
marketing campaign, in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism.

Director-General of the Tourism Ministry Shaul Tzemach: "The decision of
Oasis Tours, which operates primarily in Egypt and Tunisia, to fly to Israel
offers us the opportunity to compete with those destinations which attract
Polish tourists, pilgrims and vacationers. It also aligns with the Tourism
Ministry's policy of increasing the volume of flight seats from destinations
with a potential demand for visiting Israel."

The Tourism Ministry's activities recently bore fruit earlier this year with
cooperation between Polish travel wholesalers and Sun D'Or, with charter
flights from Sde Dov to Lodz and Warsaw (from March 2008) and Wroclaw (from
September). Until March 2008, only scheduled flights were in operation
between Israel and Poland (Warsaw and Krakow). As a result of this change, a
total of 60 charter flights will operate between Poland and Israel in 2008
(about 9000 seats), in addition to the 9 weekly scheduled flights on this
route.

The growth in tourism from Poland to Israel continues: About 12,700 Polish
tourists entered Israel in May 2008, a 96% increase on May 2007. In the
period January - May 2008, about 55,500 tourists arrived from Poland - an
increase of 100% over the same period last year. Poland is the fifth largest
European country of origin for incoming tourists. The Tourism Ministry is
working towards a further increase of at least 30% in the numbers of Polish
tourists entering Israel in 2008.

8 July 2008

NO MORE VISAS!
FROM 1 OCTOBER TOURISTS FROM RUSSIA
NO LONGER NEED A VISA TO ENTER ISRAEL

Ministry of Tourism
www.tourism.gov.il

Director-General of the Ministry of Tourism Shaul Tzemach: "The arrival of
hundreds of thousands more tourists each year to Israel will create
thousands of new jobs and inject hundreds of millions of shekels into the
Israel economy."

Beginning in October, Russian tourists visiting Israel no longer need a
tourist visa to enter the country. The new policy, approved recently by the
Knesset Interior Committee, officially approved the recently signed mutual
visa exemption agreement between Israel and Russia. The initiative was led
by former Tourism Minister Yitzchak Aharanovitch within the framework of a
special government committee on the matter.

Given the increased traffic from Russia during the past few months and the
expectations and interest of large tourism wholesalers as a result of the
new agreement, the number of tourists from Russia could double or even
triple in the coming years.

Some 193,000 Russian tourists visited Israel in 2007 - a 163% increase
compared to 2006. Between January - May 2008, about 128,000 tourists entered
Israel from Russia - a 135% increase over the corresponding period last
year. At this growth pace, an estimated 300,000 tourists are expected to
visit Israel from Russia in 2008.

Director-General of the Ministry of Tourism Shaul Tzemach: "The arrival of
hundreds of thousands more tourists each year to Israel will create
thousands of new jobs and inject hundreds of millions of shekels into the
Israel economy." This important achievement is of national significance and
is in line with the government's target to reduce gaps and unemployment."

Since 2007, Russia has become the second-largest source of tourism to Israel
and is one of the countries with the greatest potential for tourism growth.
With an average annual growth rate in the Russian economy of 6.7%, there is
a sizeable group among the 140 million population who are interested in -
and able to afford - a high quality vacation. The relatively short distance
between Israel and Russia, the ideal climate, the unique sites and the large
Russian-speaking population serve to encourage tourism from Russia to
Israel, where the Russian tourist can receive excellent service in his own
language.

To date, many Russian tourists would come to Israel for one day but now,
with the abolition of the visa requirement, the Ministry of Tourism expects
that many will lengthen their stay in Israel. In addition, competition is
expected with neighboring countries which also have no visa requirements,
with the focus now on quality and not the relative ease of arrival.

Nearly billion dollars in direct aid disbursed to Palestinians in six months
www.reliefweb.int:80/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/KHII-7GC5JW?OpenDocument

PARIS, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - The international community has paid out nearly
a billion dollars in direct aid to the Palestinians in six months, officials
of the International Donors' Conference for the Palestinian State said here
late Monday, while hitting out at Israeli restrictions on movement by
Palestinians.

The chair and the co-chairs of the Paris conference, which last December
came up with pledges of donations totalling 7.7 billion dollars over three
years, 'strongly welcomed' the process of disbursing the funds.

The international community has paid out more than 920 million dollars in
six months in direct budgetary support and signed for one billion dollars of
bilateral agreements with the Palestinian Authority for development
projects, according to a communique from the chair and co-chairs released by
the French foreign ministry.

'This unprecedented level and rapid disbursement of contributions
demonstrates the strong support of the international community to the
Palestinian government,' said the statement by Quartet special Middle East
envoy Tony Blair, European External Relations Commissioner Benita
Ferrero-Waldner and a Norwegian representative who met at the French foreign
ministry.

'The priority over the coming months will be to secure contributions of Arab
League members. These will be crucial to finance the budgetary gap and to
support the Palestinian institutions,' it went on.

The chair and co-chairs said it was 'essential that the Palestinian
government maintains a rigorous fiscal policy in relation with the future
disposable revenues and contributions.'

But 'restrictions by the Government of Israel on Palestinian movement and
access continue to weigh heavily on the economic outlook.

'Without a significant lifting of such barriers in the West Bank, and a
relaxation of the restrictions on humanitarian and commercial flows to the
Gaza Strip, there is a much-reduced prospect for private sector recovery,
public and private investment programmes will continue to be delayed, and
consequently any economic recovery will continue to be inhibited.'

The Paris conference was aimed at boosting still fragile hopes for peace
launched at the latest Palestinian-Israeli peace process in Annapolis,
Maryland in late November 2007, aimed at working for a Palestinian state by
the end of 2008.

abm/bm AFP 080231 GMT 07 08

July 8th, 2008

IDF SPOKESPERSON'S ANNOUNCEMENT

Israelis and Palestinians Meet to Resolve Violence in Ni'lin; Curfew and
Closed Perimeter Lifted

Following numerous outbreaks of violence in the Ni'lin area, IDF regional
officers conferred last night with representatives from the village. The
purpose of the meeting was to discuss means to end the recent violent riots
in the area.

The meeting was attended by the Binyamin Regional Brigade Commander, Head of
the Israeli Liaison Office in Ramallah and senior Palestinian Fatah
representatives from the village.

In the meeting the Palestinians committed to refrain from demonstrating for
the rest of the day, and that in the future, they will ensure that
demonstrations are non- violent. The IDF will in turn end the curfew, remove
the security perimeter imposed on the village and refrain from imposing
similar restrictions as long the agreements and understanding are withheld.

The latest meeting was held following the recent clashes between IDF forces
in the area and residents of the village during which IDF soldiers, Border
Policemen and civilian workers were injured, events that led to the
imposition of a closed perimeter and curfew on the village.