1. Egypt is at a dangerous crossroads and President Hosni Mubarak is trying to avoid some of the pitfalls by grooming his son, Gamal, for the succession and backing him on the crucial issues. Gamal has been virtually put in charge of the ruling party, the NDP, and for the present does not appear to be tainted by the corruption of much of its "old guard." As Egypt's huge government budget deficit is a major cause of inflation which has made the lower and lower-middle classes even poorer than they were, the NDP's first annual conference gave most of its attention to seeking ways to promote free enterprise and a market economy, while protecting the poor from their consequences. However, criticizing profiteering and even passing the legislation required to discourage it, will not help if the new laws are not firmly and impartially implemented. For any Egyptian government, this is a difficult test.

The political challenge is no less vital. The report of Gamal Mubarak's policy secretariat demands that Egypt's interests must determine its foreign policy and "rationalize its relations with the Arab world," while stressing that Egypt must maintain a strategic relationship with the United States. Sooner or later, this is likely to lead to confrontation with Saudi Arabia and Syria, which (much more than Saddam Hussein's Iraq) have been promoting Moslem terrorist movements and hatred for the US. This confrontation would be easier if Washington were capable of ditching the Saudis. We are still not sure that they are.

2. Israel's reaction to the Islamic Jihad woman, who blew herself up in the Arab-Jewish owned Maxim Restaurant in Haifa, killing 19 people including several children, was to bomb a terrorist training camp near Damascus. Syria continues to claim that no terrorists are trained in Syria or operate from there, but the lies on this subject are too transparent and confronted with too much incontrovertible evidence to be treated seriously. The raid was a warning that Islamic Jihad leaders in Syria may be eliminated if necessary. If one of its results will be to upset the proposed "exchange" of one live Israeli and three dead soldiers for a hundred or more living terrorists, this should only be welcomed. Unfortunately, the protracted US occupation of Iraq in the vain attempt to turn it into a democracy has caused the virtual suspension of the US war against terrorism and left Lebanon at the mercy of Damascus and the Hezbollah.

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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