Israel Up Date. Israeli-Syrian peace track breaks up amid shakeups in Jerusalem and Damascus

TOP STORIES
•Israeli minister concerned about direct US-Iran talks
•Israeli-Syrian peace track breaks up amid shakeups in Jerusalem and Damascus
•US X-Band radar for Israel anti-missile defense precludes role in Iran attack
•Khamenei: Iran will not step back from nuclear path
•Hizballah seizes second strategic Lebanese peak
•Diskin: Jerusalem Arab suburbs out of control
•Pakistan accuses Mossad, Indian intelligence of trouble-making, terror
•Olmert says Bush abandoned Israel on Iran nuclear threat
Iran will not step back from nuclear path – supreme ruler

Israeli-Syrian peace track breaks up amid shakeups in Jerusalem and Damascus
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
August 1, 2008, 1:23 AM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian FM Walid Mualem joins exodus of officials in Jerusalem, Damascus
DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Middle East sources reveal that not only has prime minister Ehud Olmert’s chief of staff and lead negotiator with Syria, Yoram Turbowicz, decided to resign, but Syrian foreign minister Walid Mualem, the leading proponent of talks with Israel in Damascus, is also on his way out.
Turkey, envisaging the breakdown of its initiative, has hared off in a new direction, a bid to mediate between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas.
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Mofaz in Washington protests direct US-Iranian talks and paper sanctions
DEBKAfile Special Report
August 1, 2008, 10:14 AM (GMT+02:00)
Transport minister Mofaz, who leads Israel in the regular strategic dialogue with the United States, raised strong concerns over Washington’s direct talks with Iran at a meeting of the forum and encounters with Vice President Dick Cheney and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on July 31.
Mofaz, one of the leading contenders to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, said “All options against Iran should not only be on the table, but prepared.”
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Israel’s opposition leader calls for early election
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 31, 2008, 10:08 AM (GMT+02:00)


DEBKAfile Special Report
July 30, 2008, 12:48 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
“If Iran takes one step back, the arrogant powers in the world would take one step forward,” said Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a sermon Wednesday, July 30. He spoke three days ahead of a deadline given by the six world powers for his government to give “a reasonable” answer to their incentives for suspending uranium enrichment.
DEBKAfile: Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement, broadcast by Iran’s national TV, if it represents Iran’s final position, will have the effect of breaking up the six-power front against Iran’s nuclear program. This may have been his desired effect. Russia and China are expected to take exception to the harsh economic penalties favored by the US and most of Europe.
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Israeli prime minister to quit
Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu takes issue with the manner of prime minister Ehud Olmert’s decision to leave office, because it sidesteps the voter.
Passing the premiership sideways to a successor, which Olmert’s own Kadima will elect in a primary in two months, is a form of “artificial respiration” for a failed government, he said Thursday, July 31.
DEBKAfile's political sources report: Olmert bequeaths his successor a deeply divided cabinet based on a precarious parliamentary majority of four. It faces its first major hurdle over the passage of the 2009 budget.
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