Highlights of the week

• A Hollywood production designed to divert attention from the Goldstone Report: Iranian reactions to the interception of the "Francop" cargo ship
• Different voices in Tehran over the rapprochement with Turkey
• Yet another example of the Revolutionary Guards' increasing involvement in the economy: Khatam-ol Anbiya Corporation won a railway network construction tender
• The internal security forces chief calls for stricter monitoring of web surfers 
• Picture of the week: the biggest check in the history of the Iranian economy

This past week one rocket was fired into the western Negev from the Gaza Strip, as Hamas maintains its policy of restraint and enforces it on the rogue organizations

Events this week focused on the seizure of the MV Franco, carrying a large quantity of arms (photo left--thousands of rockets, mortar shells and ammunition), apparently for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their Iranian origin was clearly shown by the ship's manifest and the labels on the containers and sacks of polyethylene pellets found on board.

by Hillel Frisch
New York: Routledge, 2008. 218 pp. $140
Reviewed by Asaf Romirowsky
Middle East Quarterly

Frisch, a senior research fellow at Israel's BESA Center for Strategic Studies and senior lecturer at the department of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, argues that it is easier to develop a terrorist infrastructure than to unite one's forces under an organized military.

Israeli naval commandos stopped an arms shipment November 3 on its way from Iran to the Lebanese terror group Hizballah by way of Syria. The weapons were being transported by a cargo ship flying the Antiguan flag. Buried amidst the vessel's "civilian" cargo were 36 shipping containers carrying 500 tons of weaponry for Hizballah.