1. The situation in Egypt is increasingly tense. No information has been released about the attempt to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal, who is being groomed for the succession, and the incident was played down in the Egyptian press leaving the public in the dark about the possible perpetrators. Relations with Israel are strained by the underground tunnels in the divided town of Rafah, through which explosives and arms have been smuggled to the Palestinian terrorist movements in the Gaza strip. A major Israeli operation to destroy the tunnels discovered that their number was far greater than previously believed and that all the tunnels ended in buildings on the Palestinian side, which often had to be razed. The Egyptian authorities had done little or nothing to stop this smuggling, which did not make them popular in Jerusalem. The mass demonstrations of Egyptian students demanding the renewal of the war to "eradicate the Zionist entity" also appear to have been treated with becoming leniency. And no normalization of relations appears likely in the foreseeable future. The treatment of Egyptians desiring it speaks for itself.

2. The discovery that Syria received $3 billion of Saddam Hussein's money, presumably for safekeeping, has not hitherto prompted any US action against the Damascus regime. Nor has the disastrous situation in Lebanon, where the economy is in ruins, the middle class is disappearing, poverty is greater and more extensive than at any time since the country achieved independence, and the Hezbollah terrorists do as they please (see the Lebanon section above). Syria is the key to victory in the war with terrorism and most certainly possesses weapons of mass destruction. Yet it seems to enjoy permanent immunity from any sort of effective American reprisals ever since the US Embassy in Beirut was bombed and Hafez Assad's agents killed some 250 U.S. marines in the 1980s. The then Secretary for Defense, Caspar Weinberger, reacted by ordering the withdrawal of American forces from Lebanon, seriously damaging U.S. prestige in Syria and much of the Arab world. The time has come to reassess this policy.

What threat does Islam pose on an international level? How should the West respond to the Islamic threat? Is a 'Palestinian' state within the borders of Israel inevitable? These and other questions were recently posed to Yohanan Ramati, Director of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense . Mr. Ramati is an expert on global affairs, including the threat of Islam. This video will provide an eye-opening view of what is happening in the world today. [Taken from the Tzemach television program. 27 min.]

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