Hamas blocks pilgrims from leaving Gaza NOV 29,08
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hamas, which controls Gaza, prevented scores of Muslims wanting to attend the annual pilgrimage to Mecca from reaching the Rafah border with Egypt on Saturday, witnesses and would-be pilgrims told AFP.Police from the Islamist group set up checkpoints several kilometres (a mile or two) from the border between the city of Khan Yunis and the Rafah crossing to stop anyone passing through, the witnesses said.Around 10 people were lightly injured when the police used sticks and batons to turn people back, the witnesses added.Egypt had announced on Friday that the Rafah crossing would be open for three days from Saturday to allow the passage of some 3,000 Palestinian pilgrims who hold visas for Saudi Arabia.An Egyptian security official told AFP buses were waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, but that no pilgrims had arrived.This year's hajj has become embroiled in the deepening chasm that has cut through Palestinian politics since the Hamas seizure of Gaza in June last year.Hamas refuses to recognise the authority of the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank which Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas installed in response to the Gaza takeover.
In Gaza, the administration continues to be run by Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister whom Abbas ousted.Last week, Haniya's religious affairs minister Talep Abu Sher said he would not allow would-be pilgrims who had obtained their Saudi visas through the government in the West Bank to join the hajj unless the Hamas administration too is given a quota to allocate to the faithful.
Settlers clash with Palestinians in WBank city NOV 29,08
HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – Jewish settlers and Palestinians hurled stones at each other in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday before Israeli soldiers separated the two sides, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.Two Palestinians and two settlers were injured in the clashes, they said. One of the Palestinians is a researcher with the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.An Israeli army spokeswoman said the clashes erupted near a building whose ownership is disputed. Jewish settlers have been defying a November 16 ruling by Israel's High Court that they must leave what they dubbed the House of Peace or face eviction.About 150 settlers, some armed, moved into the building, on the boundary line of Palestinian neighborhoods, in March 2007, saying they had bought it from its Palestinian owner. The man denies having sold the building.The Israeli Defense Ministry said it was negotiating with the settlers to leave the building voluntarily within a 30-day period allowed under Israeli law.Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has been a flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Some 650 settlers live in fortified enclaves guarded by Israeli troops in the heart of the city of 180,000 Palestinians.
(Reporting by Mustafa Abu Ghaniya; Writing by Joseph Nasr, editing by Tim Pearce)
Hamas claims mortar attack on Israeli army base Sat Nov 29, 4:08 am ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – The Islamic militant group Hamas on Saturday claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on an Israeli army base that injured eight Israeli soldiers.The mortar shells were fired from Hamas-ruled Gaza late Friday at an army base along Israel's border with territory. The Israeli military said eight soldiers were hurt, including two who were in serious condition.Immediately after the attack, another militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility. Some militants belong to both groups, and it is common for rival militant groups to claim responsibility for the same attack.It was not immediately possible to confirm either claim.The attack came after more than three weeks of renewed cross-border fighting. Israel and Hamas had agreed to a cease-fire in June, but the truce started to unravel in early November, following an Israeli cross-border raid. Israel has kept Gaza's borders closed since Nov. 5 to try to pressure militants to halt the attacks.
Israeli court rebukes state over illegal outposts By Joshua Mitnick Joshua Mitnick – Fri Nov 28, 3:00 am
Tel Aviv – An Israeli government effort to make good on a five-year-old commitment to the US and Palestinians to rein in settlement expansion in the West Bank is coming under legal fire at home.Under the 2003 road map peace plan, Israel promised to remove about two dozen or so unauthorized hilltop outposts as a way to build confidence in Palestinian peace talks, but has so far avoided dismantling the outpost communities for fear of violent clashes with settlers.This week, the government revealed a compromise reached with the settler leadership aimed at avoiding conflict: Migron, a flagship outpost of 40 families living in mobile homes near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, would be relocated to an already existing settlement.But at a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday, justices sided with Palestinians who own the land at Migron. Their lawyers argued that the deal allows the government to avoid evacuation during the minimum three years it could take to build new homes.I don't believe that Migron will be moved, says Michael Sfard, a lawyer for the settlement watchdog group Peace Now, which represented the Palestinians. All of these statements are only made to enable more extensions by the courts.Clashes over settlement evacuations will carry extra political weight in the run-up to a Feb. 10 general election, especially for Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose Labor Party is sagging in the polls and desperately needs votes from left-wing Israelis. Mr. Barak, who oversees Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, is already embroiled in a standoff over a house in Hebron that settlers moved into illegally in 1997 and which the Supreme Court last week said must be cleared.
The legal system is closing in on the government, says Hebrew University political science professor Yaron Ezrahi. And so is public expectation that the government will do something about it. Things are moving finally, maybe because of the election.
The case of Migron highlights nearly three years of Israeli dissonance on settlements as the administration of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert draws to a close. The government admits that the outpost was erected on Palestinian land, but has repeatedly requested delays in court proceedings to avoid a clash.Though Mr. Olmert came into office promising a unilateral withdrawal from some parts of the West Bank and new settlement evacuations, the number of Israelis has grown unabated in territories claimed by the Palestinians as a part of a future state.With a February election approaching, Olmert has said Israel will have to return roughly to the 1967 border with the West Bank in a peace deal left for his successor, but has managed little progress on the unauthorized outposts.The failure to tamp down settlement growth is a sore spot with the Palestinian Authority, which argues that the ongoing expansions undermine public support in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for peace talks.Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish, who Peace Now says leveled pointed criticism of the government deal during the proceedings, gave the state 45 days to explain why it doesn't evacuate Migron.Mr. Sfard argued that it would take three to seven years for new homes to be prepared for Migron residents, and that even though the new location is within the legal boundary of the settlement of Adam, it would represent a violation of the road map commitment to halt settlement expansion.
Settler leaders said they negotiated the compromise with the government to avoid a rift among Israelis over an evacuation. Any future settlement removal is almost certain to be more violent than the 2005 Gaza Strip withdrawal.We reached an agreement with the prime minister and the defense minister to lower the flames, says Pinchas Wallerstein, a former head of the settlers' council. If the government of Israel can't make good on the agreement, it understands well the price it will pay. We tried to avoid conflict.
Israel's Livni calls on Olmert to step down By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer NOV 27,08
JERUSALEM – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday called on the country's embattled prime minister to step down immediately in light of growing signs that he will soon be indicted on corruption charges.The announcement came a day after Israel's attorney general said he was considering filing charges against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for allegedly double billing Jewish groups for trips abroad. He wants Olmert to appear at a special hearing before making a final decision on whether to prosecute and put Olmert on trial.Olmert has already said that he will step down after elections scheduled in February. But at a meeting of the ruling Kadima party Thursday, Livni said he should go before that. His departure would clear the way for Livni to become acting prime minister until the election.The prime minister, like any other person in Israel, is innocent until proven guilty. But the citizen Ehud Olmert must wage his battle to prove his innocence from his home and not from the chair of the prime minister, Livni said, at special party meeting she called.The prime minister has to go on vacation, there is no other option, she said.
Olmert's office did not react, but has said that the prime minister plans to stay in office until the elections.Livni was recently elected to succeed Olmert as Kadima leader. After initial polls showed her running neck-and-neck with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Livni has recently dropped far behind him.Her attack on Olmert, who is widely unpopular, may have been an attempt to jump start her faltering campaign.The double billing scandal is one of a half-dozen corruption affairs Olmert has had to face during his nearly three years in power. Olmert also has been accused of improperly taking tens of thousands of dollars from a U.S. businessman, involvement in questionable real estate deals and making controversial political appointments.If Attorney General Meni Mazuz decides to file charges, Olmert would become the first Israeli prime minister to ever be indicted.Olmert has denied all wrongdoing. But the turmoil has hampered Olmert's Mideast peace efforts.Mazuz's announcement on Wednesday came just hours after Olmert returned from a trip to Washington to meet President George W. Bush.In a radio interview, Olmert spokesman Amir Dan said the prosecution set up an ambush.Olmert's office said the announcement had no legal significance and there was no reason for him to step down.
IAEA chief baffled over lack of Syria nuclear info By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Nov 27, 2:32 pm ET
AFP VIENNA, Austria – The chief U.N. nuclear inspector said Thursday that his agency's Syria probe has been hampered because key satellite images of an alleged nuclear reactor bombed by Israel are inexplicably unavailable on the market.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei did not point any fingers in the baffling failure of his agency's efforts to obtain the images of the Syrian site immediately after it was bombed by Israel last year.But diplomats familiar with the IAEA's Syria investigation said agency officials were considering several scenarios, including the possibility that Syria or other nations with an interest in a cover-up had bought the photos and all rights to them from commercial satellite companies.ElBaradei's comments at the start of a two-day full meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board partially reflected the focus of the gathering — suspicions about Syria's and Iran's nuclear activities.On Iran, ElBaradei told the meeting that he cannot exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program.The U.S. and the European Union both expressed alarm at Tehran's defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions meant to curb its suspected nuclear activities. And Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's IAEA representative, accused Washington and its allies of dragging it before the Security Council as part of a hidden agenda.In the case of Syria, ElBaradei noted that his agency was unable to obtain commercial satellite imagery of the site immediately after the bombing, adding: It is regrettable, and indeed baffling, that imagery for this critical period ... was not available.Syrian nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman was dismissive, telling The Associated Press: The theory that we bought all the photos is nonsense.
The IAEA often turns to commercial images beyond any spy satellite photos shared by governments.But the two nations most likely to have satellite intelligence were unlikely to have provided it with immediate information. Israel still has not confirmed it was behind the strike, while the United States waited for more than six months before sharing knowledge with the IAEA.The possibility that commercial companies simply did not know where to look immediately after the bombing was raised by David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security closely tracks suspected secret proliferators.The United States and Israel went to great lengths to prevent others from finding out where the site was, said Albright, whose institute was the first to publish commercial satellite images of the site more than a year ago and identify it as a likely North-Korean-model nuclear reactor.No one knew where the site was immediately after the bombing, said Albright, whose institute published photos taken nearly a month before the Sept. 6, 2007, Israeli strike.Albright also noted that ElBaradei was initially skeptical of the U.S. assertions, which could have led to Washington and Israel to withhold satellite photos.Why would U.S. intelligence give photos to ElBaradei if he was predisposed not to believe that they showed a secret nuclear reactor, Albright said in an interview.Meanwhile, a senior diplomat familiar with the Syria probe suggested that the comments by ElBaradei were at least partially out of date. He said the agency had very recently been able to locate commercial images showing the site after the Israeli strike.IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency would not comment on the issue.All of the diplomats asked for anonymity in exchange for speaking to The Associated Press because their information was privileged.
While the agency was unable to find satellite images immediately after the bombing, it acquired photos showing the building at other stages. An IAEA report said those images and other information showed the bombed building had the features of a reactor, adding that agency inspectors had found traces of processed uranium on location. The U.S. says the target was a nearly completed reactor that would have produced plutonium, a possible fissile warhead component. Syria has signaled it will not permit IAEA inspectors to return to the country after their initial visit to the bombed site in June, or permit initial visits to three other suspicious locations. Such a ban would make satellite images become even more important in the IAEA probe.
US Jews urge Obama to move embassy to Jerusalem Thu Nov 27, 12:43 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A group of American Jews urged president-elect Barack Obama on Thursday to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which the international community does not recognise as the capital of the Jewish state.The move would make the United States the only country to have its main diplomatic mission in Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital.
The Jerusalem Embassy Act requires the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem by 1999, but both President George W. Bush and his predecessor Bill Clinton have deferred its implementation every six months.Some 100 members of the US Jewish Orthodox Union gathered on Thursday near the site which Congress earmarked in a 1995 bill as the location of the future US embassy in west Jerusalem.They sang American national anthem and held banners reading President Obama: The US embassy belongs in Israel's capital, as well as a petition addressed to Obama, who takes office on January 20.President Obama likes using the word change. It is time for change. Now is the time to show support for Israel by moving the embassy here, Orthodox Union President Stephen Savitsky told AFP.Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon said that if the US embassy were moved to Jerusalem, other countries would follow suit.When it moves its embassy to Jerusalem, other civilised states will move their embassies here, Ayalon said.Israel occupied and annexed Arab east Jerusalem and the Old City in 1967 and considers the city its eternal, undivided capital.But the international community refuses to recognise it as Israel's capital while the Palestinians wish to make east Jerusalem the capital of their future state.There are no embassies in Jerusalem. They are in the commercial capital Tel Aviv.
Israel's Olmert under pressure to quit by Catherine Dupeyron Catherine Dupeyron – Thu Nov 27, 9:30 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced pressure from his own party on Thursday to step down following a decision to indict him in one of several graft cases over which police questioned him.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni led the call for Olmert to quit.The prime minister has to take a leave of absence; there's no other choice, said Livni, who hopes to become premier after February 10 elections.Israel cannot tolerate a situation where he is acting as prime minister after a decision to indict him. This is a moral test; this is a question of values and a practical test, Livni said at a meeting of the governing Kadima party in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.The centrist party's parliamentary faction said it unanimously approved Livni's statement.Should Olmert declare himself incapacitated, party head Livni would take over as head of the caretaker government until a new government is formed after the elections.Several other officials urged Olmert to quit the caretaker government.Olmert presented his resignation in September but remains acting prime minister.Attorney General Menachem Mazuz had notified Olmert on Wednesday that he envisages pressing criminal charges over suspicions of wrongdoing.
The charges relate to allegations of multiple-billing for foreign trips at the time when Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and then trade and industry minister.Olmert, who took office as prime minister in 2006, is alleged to have used the ill-gotten gains to pay for private trips.It is a tragic day for the state of Israel, Labour MP Ophir Pines Paz told journalists. It is not acceptable that a person accused of a crime against the state should continue to hold the post of prime minister.Olmert's office made it clear he did not intend to step down as head of the caretaker government, stressing he already quit as prime minister.In these circumstances, there is no legal reason to announce a further resignation, a statement said.Mazuz's announcement came just two months before the snap elections that were called after Livni failed to garner enough support in parliament to form a government following Olmert's resignation.Olmert's camp was furious over the timing of the announcement, which came just as the caretaker premier was getting off his plane following a farewell visit to US President George W. Bush in Washington.This is a planned ambush under the auspices of the law enforcement authorities, Olmert spokesman Amir Dan said.Olmert's lawyers described the prospect of charges in the case as strange and even unreasonable.
Olmert could face charges of fraud, abuse of confidence, falsification of documents and making ill-gotten gains but no date has yet been set for him to be charged, the attorney general's office said. He has faced police questioning 10 times since May over a number of different allegations. In September, police recommended that Olmert face charges in the multiple billing case as well as in another case in which he allegedly accepted tens of thousands of dollars of illegal funds from US businessman Morris Talansky. The prime minister is also suspected of steering tens of millions of dollars worth of state funds towards a company owned by his former law partner, Uri Messer, while he was trade minister. The allegations, all of which Olmert denies, only surfaced earlier this year even though they concern events that took place in the 13 years before he became premier. The political turmoil that followed Olmert's resignation in September and Livni's inability to form a new governing coalition has dealt a major blow to the already slow-moving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that were relaunched one year ago.
Agencies seek $462 million in aid for Palestinians By SHAWNA OHM, Associated Press Writer Shawna Ohm, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 26, 9:43 am ET
JERUSALEM – The U.N. and other aid agencies appealed to the international community Wednesday to send $462 million in emergency assistance to address what they said is a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories.Most of the money will be used for food and cash handouts, said Maxwell Gaylard, local head of the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. A total of 159 emergency programs are planned in areas such as health, education, food, water and sanitation.The request for funds in 2009 comes from the U.N. and its partner aid organizations. It is the seventh annual request for emergency funds, besides hundreds of millions of dollars in normal operating budgets.Little, if anything, has been achieved since the beginning of 2008, said Filippo Grandi, deputy commissioner of the U.N. Reliefs and Works Agency, the main U.N. body caring for Palestinian refugees. Little, if anything, has been felt by the people with whom we work.Grandi lamented the need to spend funds on emergency responses instead of long-term development projects. He said the situation was especially dire in the Gaza Strip, which is stifled by Israeli and Egyptian border closures and where half the population lives below the deep poverty line.Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since the violent Islamic Hamas movement seized control in June 2007. It tightened the already stringent closure earlier this month after a truce with Gaza militants began to unravel.In the West Bank, the U.N. said Israel's construction of a separation barrier and restrictions on Palestinian travel have hurt the local economy. Israel says the measures are needed for security.Last year, the U.N. asked for a similar amount of emergency aid. Officials said they raised nearly 70 percent of the funds they sought. Kuwait, the European Union and the United States were last year's largest donors, staff said.Grandi said he feared the global economic crisis would lead to cuts of as much as one-third in operating funds for U.N. agencies in the Palestinian areas next year.He said the Israeli closure has prevented U.N. agencies from delivering even the minimal amount of aid needed to meet basic needs in Gaza.A growing number of U.N. officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have urged Israel to ease the blockade.Foreign journalists have also been barred from entering the territory and have filed suit with Israel's Supreme Court demanding that the ban be rescinded.
Fatah would win Palestinian elections: opinion poll Wed Nov 26, 7:24 am ET
NABLUS, West Bank (AFP) – The Fatah faction of Mahmud Abbas would defeat the Hamas movement at the polls, said a survey out on Wednesday, as the Palestinian president threatened to call snap elections in the new year.The opinion poll by An-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus found that the secular Fatah would take 31.4 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections against 14.4 percent for the Islamists Hamas.The remainder of those who specified a choice were shared among smaller parties.In a presidential election, 31.4 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Fatah candidate and 13.4 percent said they would vote for the Islamist.A full 15.9 percent of respondents said they did not know how they would vote in either presidential or parliamentary elections.A total of 19.9 percent of respondents said they would not vote in a presidential election and 19.4 percent said they stay away from parliamentary elections.The opinion poll was published three days after Abbas warned that he will call snap parliamentary and presidential elections if Hamas does not rejoin reconciliation talks aimed at healing the rift in Palestinian ranks sparked by the Islamists' seizure of Gaza in June 2007.But the research on which it was based was undertaken before the Palestinian president made his threat in a televised speech on Sunday.Opinion polls conducted before the last Palestinian parliamentary elections, held in January 2006, consistently underestimated the Hamas vote and none predicted the Islamists's upset victory.Hamas has rejected Abbas's threat to call snap parliamentary elections, insisting he has no right to dissolve the legislature before its term ends in January 2010.
But the An-Najar poll found that 51 percent of respondents said it would still be possible to go ahead with the elections regardless, while 44.1 percent thought it would not. The rest ventured no opinion.A full 61.8 percent of respondents blamed Hamas for the rift between the two largest parties with 22.2 percent blaming Fatah.
The poll was conducted among a representative sample of 1,365 Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. The pollsters gave a margin of error of three percentage points.
US has never advised Israel against Iran strike: Olmert Tue Nov 25, 2:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States has not pressured Israel to rule out military action in order to halt Iran's nuclear program, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday after talks with President George W. Bush.The outgoing prime minister, who ends what is probably his last visit to Washington in office, said he had spoke at length with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the president on Iran.There is a basic, deep understanding about the Iranian threat and the need to act in order to remove threat, he told reporters.Israel considers Iran its greatest threat, because of Tehran's accelerating nuclear program and repeated statements by its leaders predicting the Jewish state's demise.Israel -- the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear power -- and the United States accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Tehran has insisted its program is entirely peaceful.The Jewish state has refused to rule out military response to the nuclear standoff and Olmert said on Tuesday that the Bush administration has never advised them against such action.I don't remember that anyone in the administration, including in the last couple of days, advised me or any other of my official representatives not to take any action that we will deem necessary for the fundamental security of the state of Israel, and that includes Iran, Olmert said.As Bush prepares to leave the White House on January 20 and with Olmert set to step down amid a corruption scandal after February elections, the premier wanted to clinch new US commitments on Iran before president-elect Barack Obama takes office.
Officials said Olmert would press Bush and Congress to allow Israel to purchase dozens of F-35 stealth fighter jets, which would considerably boost the Israeli air force's ability to carry out long-range strikes.The Pentagon has announced that Israel had asked to buy up to 75 jets, but Congress has yet to give the 15-billion dollar (12-billion euro) deal a green light.Over the past year, the United States has considerably increased its already tight defense ties with its ally, giving the Jewish state an unprecedented 10-year, 30-billion dollar defense aid commitment.
Jordan newspaper rejects peace ad over Israeli flag Tue Nov 25, 1:46 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – An independent Jordanian newspaper said on Tuesday it has refused to publish a Palestinian advertisement promoting an Arab peace initiative with Israel because it contains the Jewish state's flag.We refused to publish the paid advertisement because the source, the Palestine Libration Organisation's negotiations department, refused to remove the Israeli flag, a senior editor at the Arabic-language Al-Arab Al-Yawm told AFP.We also rejected the advertisement because it seeks to promote the idea that Israel accepts the peace initiative, although Israeli officials have rejected the initiative.The advertisement shows the flags of all Arab and Muslim countries, in addition to the Israeli Star of David, saying all these states have accepted the Arab peace initiative.But Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the paper had made no contact the negotiations department about the advertisement.Nobody contacted us about the issue and we did not receive any request about removing the Israeli flag, Erakat told AFP.The Saudi-sponsored initiative, first proposed in 2002, offers Israel normalisation of relations and comprehensive peace agreements with Arab countries in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the occupied territories.Israel, which had rejected the peace plan out of hand when it was first adopted but has voiced renewed interest as a basis for talks.Jordan signed a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, becoming only the second Arab state after Egypt to make peace with the Jewish state.
Bush, Olmert leaving with no Mideast peace deal By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 25, 12:51 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel and the Palestinians could reach an agreement on the core issues of their century-old conflict very soon, despite time running out on both his and President George W. Bush's tenures.Speaking to reporters a day after his final meeting with Bush, Olmert said the sides were very close on the central issues and that it was time to make decisions.I think we are in a situation where we can reach that point, and I want to reach that point, he said. I am ready and I hope the other side is ready too.
Regardless, Bush and Olmert's lofty Mideast peace goals are ending with a whimper. A year ago, almost exactly to the day, the leaders announced the resumption of peace talks to great fanfare, after a seven-year hiatus, at a Mideast summit hosted in Annapolis, Md. Summit participants set an ambitious target of concluding a final peace deal by the end of 2008.Despite frequent negotiating sessions, Olmert and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have little to show for their efforts and seem no closer to a peace agreement than they were before the summit.Olmert said it could be done relatively soon. To make decisions, you don't need months, he said.But time seems to have run out on the leaders. Bush leaves office on Jan. 20 and Olmert's successor will be selected three weeks later. The prime minister announced plans to resign in September amid corruption charges.In brief comments to reporters before their hourlong talk in the Oval Office, both gave off an air of nostalgia, thanking each other profusely for their friendship and dedication to peace, and pledging to leave behind a productive peace process for their successors when they leave office.
We've been through a lot together during our time in office, Bush said. We strongly believe that Israel will benefit by having a Palestinian state, a democracy on her border that works for peace.Turning to Olmert, he said: I want to thank you for the friendship, and thank you for your vision. And I just want you to know that I believe that vision is alive.Speaking Tuesday, Olmert reiterated his commitment to the two-state solution and said he expected progress to continue after both he and Bush leave office.Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said The Bush administration leaves its Arab-Israeli diplomacy certainly in better shape than they got it, when President Bill Clinton departed and a violent Palestinian uprising raged.President-elect Barack Obama now inherits the reins, but with hardline opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly poised to win Israeli elections in February, and the Hamas militant group's continued control of the Gaza Strip, the future of peace talks appears murky.Besides the peace process, Olmert said the ongoing threat from Iran's nuclear program was a central topic of his discussions with Bush.Israel sees Iran as its biggest national security threat, because of its development of long-range weapons and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. It believes Iran will be capable of building a bomb by 2010.The U.N. Security Council has imposed three rounds of economic penalties on Iran, which insists its nuclear program is peaceful and designed to produce energy. Both the U.S. and Israel say they hope diplomatic pressure resolves the standoff, but they have not ruled out military action.I can say there is a deep, basic understanding between us about the Iranian threat and the need to act in order to remove that threat, Olmert said. I don't remember anyone in the administration, including the last couple of days, advising me or any of my official representatives not to take any action that we deem necessary for the fundamental security of Israel, and that includes Iran.
Olmert, who did not speak with Obama during his three-day visit to Washington, said Obama's stance against Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons was fundamentally no different from that of Bush, and he expected U.S.-Israeli relations to remain unchanged in the next administration. (This version CORRECTS last graf to correct by saying that Olmert did not speak with Obama. Moving on general news and financial services.)
Iran urges Lebanese to unite against Israel Tue Nov 25, 10:18 am ET
AFP TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran, a main backer of Lebanon's Shi'ite group Hezbollah, urged the Lebanese people Tuesday to unite to confront Israel, the Islamic Republic's arch foe.Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comments to Lebanese President Michel Suleiman during a visit to Iran that included touring an exhibition by the Defense Ministry, Iranian media reported.Iran believes the capability of all Lebanese groups should be at the service of (Lebanon's) power and unity to confront the danger of the Zionist regime, Khamenei told Suleiman, the official IRNA news agency reported.Iranian officials often call Israel the Zionist regime.Suleiman, a Maronite Christian, was elected president in a May parliamentary vote after an 18-month standoff between the U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition.Under Lebanon's power-sharing system the presidency is held by a Christian while other top posts are taken by Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims and members of the Druze sect.
Holding talks among different Lebanese groups that are now led by the president is considered positive because Lebanon's bright future depends on national unity, Khamenei said.Suleiman, a former army chief, was elected as part of an agreement brokered by Qatar in May to defuse the political crisis that had pushed Lebanon to the brink of civil war.Tehran has often praised Hezbollah, which has formidable guerrilla army, for fighting Israel in a 34-day war in 2006. Israel has accused Iran of supplying weapons to Hezbollah but Iran insists it only provides moral and political support.Lebanon as a friendly and brotherly country in the region will always enjoy Iran's spiritual support, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani told Suleiman, Iran's ISNA news agency reported.Suleiman's trip included touring an exhibition showing off the Defense Ministry's capabilities, ISNA also said.Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar announced Iran's readiness to deepen and expand defensive ties between two states in line with the strengthening of Lebanon's security and increasing Lebanon's national and defensive capabilities.ISNA reported that Suleiman expressed interest in expanding defensive cooperation and emphasized the need to strengthen the Lebanese army's defensive power in confronting any kind of threat, foreign aggression and terrorism.Khamenei said Iran would always be on Lebanon's side and said he hoped talks during the visit would strengthen ties.
Suleiman, who left Tuesday, also met Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his two-day visit.(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Bush, Olmert bid farewell but say Mideast talks will continue by Ron Bousso –Mon Nov 24, 11:58 pm ET
WASHINGTON, (AFP) – President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Middle East peace process which has so far failed to yield results will continue after the two lame-duck leaders leave office.The close allies spoke at the start of a farewell meeting Monday before Bush leaves the White House on January 20 and as Olmert prepares to step down amid a corruption scandal after February 10 elections.Although president-elect Barack Obama has vowed to continue to support the talks to end the 60-year conflict, the prospects of the process launched almost exactly a year ago at an international conference in Annapolis, Maryland remain shrouded in uncertainty.I believe that vision is alive and needs to be worked on, Bush said. We strongly believe that Israel will benefit by having a Palestinian state, a democracy on her border that works for peace.Olmert, on his part, said that the Annapolis process will continue because a two-state solution is the only possible way to resolve the conflict in the Middle East.Bush and Olmert, who wish to end their time in office with proof of some success, will use the talks to take stock of their work over the past three years, officials said.But it remained unclear if they were to seek to draw up a document summarizing the latest round of talks.The peace talks have made little apparent progress despite intensive meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and strong US backing, as all sides have acknowledged they would not meet their declared goal of inking a peace treaty before Bush leaves office.Chances of a breakthrough seem dim as Israel heads for elections and the Palestinians remain deeply divided between Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas and the Islamist Hamas movement.Olmert earlier met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney as well as Democratic Congressman and Obama confidant Robert Wexler.Another meeting with Rice has been set for 1600 GMT Tuesday.
Rice said on Sunday the peace talks were in pretty good shape and that the failure to reach a deal was largely because of the political situation in Israel following Olmert's resignation.White House spokesman Tony Fratto also defended the state of the talks.There has been a great deal of progress. We're much further along than we would otherwise be were it not for the start of the Annapolis process, Fratto said.
Although they were unlikely to make any major decisions, the two were expected to discuss international efforts to halt Iran's controversial nuclear drive, which Israel and the US suspect is aimed at developing an atomic bomb, a claim denied by Tehran.Olmert wants to clinch new commitments on Iran from his staunch ally before Obama, whose policy towards the Islamic republic has raised some concern in Israel, enters the White House, officials said.Olmert will press Bush and Congress to allow Israel to purchase dozens of F-35 stealth fighter jets, which would considerably boost the Israeli air force's ability to carry out long-range strikes.Over the past year, the United States has considerably increased its already tight defense ties with its ally, giving the Jewish state an unprecedented 10-year, 30-billion dollar defense aid commitment. The aid comes amid growing US and international concern about Iran's missile and nuclear programs and statements by Iran's leaders predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear. Israel, the region's sole, if undeclared, nuclear armed state, considers Iran its main strategic threat because of its nuclear program. Olmert has repeatedly said Israel would prefer to use diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Iran to abandon its program, but he has refused to rule out a military strike. Monday's summit also served as an opportunity for both Bush and Olmert to reaffirm the close ties between the two allies that were considerably tightened under Bush's administration. I'm sure that we will continue our friendship for many years to come, Olmert told Bush.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
CHARITY ISLAM GROUP CONVICTED
Charity convicted in terrorism financing trial By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer NOV 24,08
DALLAS – A Muslim charity and five of its former leaders were convicted Monday of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, finally handing the government a signature victory in its fight against terrorism funding.
U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis announced the guilty verdicts on all 108 counts on the eighth day of deliberations in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the nation's largest Muslim charity. It was the biggest terrorism financing case since the attacks of Sept. 11.Money is the lifeblood of terrorists, plain and simple, U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said. The jury's decision attacks terrorism at its core.The convictions follow the collapse of Holy Land's first trial last year and defeats in other cases the government tried to build. President George W. Bush had personally announced the freezing of Holy Land's assets in 2001, calling the action another step in the war on terrorism.After Monday's verdict, family members showed little visible reaction until the jury left. Several women sobbed loudly.My dad's not a criminal! one nearly inconsolable woman said loudly. Court personnel told the family to calm her down, and as family members rushed her out of the courtroom, she said, They treated him like an animal.Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud.Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization. Holy Land itself was convicted of all 32 counts.I feel heartbroken that a group of my fellow Americans fell for the prosecution's fear-mongering theory, Elashi's daughter, Noor, said outside the courthouse late Monday. This is truly a low point for the United States of America, but this is not over.She said that she was proud of her father and that he was paying the price for saving lives.My dad was persecuted for his political beliefs, she said. It's as pure and simple as that.
Attorneys for the defendants said an appeal is planned.
A sentencing date hasn't been scheduled, but the punishments could be steep. Supporting a terrorist organization carries a maximum 15-year sentence on each count; money laundering carries a maximum 20 years on each conviction.Solis ordered the Holy Land leaders detained, citing the long prison terms they may face and their ties to the Middle East.Holy Land was accused of giving more than $12 million to support Hamas. The seven-week retrial ran about as long as the original, which ended in October 2007 when a judge declared a mistrial on most charges.Holy Land wasn't accused of violence. Rather, the government said the Richardson, Texas-based charity financed schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by Hamas in areas ravaged by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The U.S. designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995 and again in 1997, making contributions to the group illegal. Government officials raided Holy Land's headquarters in December 2001 and shut it down.Prosecutors labeled Holy Land's benefactors — called zakat committees — as terrorist recruiting pools. The charities, the government argued, spread Hamas' violent ideology and generated loyalty and support among Palestinians. It was a womb to the tomb cycle, prosecutor Barry Jonas told jurors during closing arguments last week. Holy Land supporters told a different story. They accused the government of politicizing the case as part of its war on terrorism, while attorneys for the foundation said Holy Land's mission was philanthropy and providing much-needed aid to the Middle East. They reminded jurors that none of the zakat committees are designated by the U.S. as terrorist fronts, and that Holy Land also donated to causes elsewhere, including helping victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
No one here is engaging in acts of terrorism, Theresa Duncan, attorney for Baker, said during closing arguments. A chaotic courtroom scene ended last year's original trial, which lasted nearly two months and kept jurors deliberating for 19 days. But they deadlocked on many counts, and when a judge polled the panel about other verdicts, some disavowed their vote. The confusing finish led U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish to declare a mistrial, and leaders of the defunct charity rushed outside to celebrate. Observers last year panned the government for presenting a bloated case too complicated for jurors to follow. Prosecutors responded this year by dropping nearly 60 charges in the trial and tightening their narrative to jurors, even offering a kind of road map to help the panel follow the money. But nearly 15 boxes of evidence wheeled into court on a flatbed still impressed the size of the case, as did the more than one hour that Solis needed to read aloud the indictment. Two other high-profile terror-financing trials in Chicago and Florida ended without convictions on the major counts. Associated Press writers Schuyler Dixon and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
Bush insists vision of Palestinian state lives By Jeffrey Heller and Matt Spetalnick – Mon Nov 24, 8:00 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush declared in farewell talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday that the vision of a Palestinian state remained alive, despite failure to achieve their goal of a peace deal this year.With two months left in office, Bush reiterated that the eventual creation of a democratic Palestinian state alongside Israel -- an objective he now leaves to President-elect Barack Obama -- would help end decades of Middle East conflict.I believe that vision is alive and needs to be worked on, Bush told reporters as he and Olmert, who will also step down early next year, held a final meeting at the White House.The United States, Israel and the Palestinians have all acknowledged they will not have a peace accord in place before Bush vacates the White House on January 20, missing a target date set at an Annapolis peace conference a year ago.
Most analysts were skeptical from the start, saying Bush's peace bid was too little, too late, after much of his two terms largely disengaged from Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.Despite that, Olmert -- who will leave under a cloud of corruption charges after a February 10 parliamentary election -- showered Bush with praise for setting the Annapolis process in motion and reaffirmed a two-state solution as the only possible way to achieve peace.Obama, who visited Israel and the occupied West Bank in July, pledged at the time -- in an apparent swipe at Bush's last-minute peace efforts -- not to wait a few years into my term or my second term if I'm elected to press for a deal.
LAME-DUCK POLICIES
Although Olmert has vowed to pursue peace until his last day in office, little progress has been made in negotiations and public interest in Israel in the lame-duck leader's policies is waning as an election campaign gathers speed.Opinion polls in Israel show former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party leading the ruling centrist Kadima faction in the election.Netanyahu has said he would focus peace efforts on shoring up the Palestinian economy rather than on territorial issues, a policy that could spell the end of the Annapolis process.
Olmert has been increasingly vocal about what he sees as the need for Israel to relinquish nearly all the land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war in return for peace, while retaining major Jewish settlement blocs.Palestinian officials said the commitment came too late and Olmert's successor as Kadima leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has not voiced support for his position.It's not easy to try to change the paradigm, Bush said, alluding to the obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Bush had been looking for an end-of-term foreign policy success to boost a legacy burdened by the unpopular Iraq war.But peace talks launched after Annapolis have been hobbled by Israeli political upheaval, disputes over Israeli settlement expansion and violent flare-ups in and around the Gaza Strip.Iran's nuclear program was also on the agenda, but neither leader mentioned it when reporters were allowed briefly into the Oval Office at the start of the meeting.
Gazans using tattered notes because of cash crunch By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 24, 4:18 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Desperate Gazans crowded into banks Monday, jostling to get to the front of lines as they sought to withdraw money amid a worsening currency shortage caused by Israeli sanctions.Israel has refused to allow cash to enter Gaza in recent weeks to ratchet up pressure on the ruling Hamas militant group. With the supply of currency dwindling, banks have limited withdrawals over the past two weeks, and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money.The United Nations halted cash handouts to 98,000 of Gaza's poorest residents last week, and economists and bank officials warn that tens of thousands of civil servants won't be able to cash their paychecks next month.No society can operate without money, but that's the situation we are reaching in Gaza, said Gaza economist Omar Shaban.Israel and Egypt have restricted movement through Gaza's border crossings since the Islamic militants of Hamas violently seized control of the coastal territory in June 2007.Since then, closures have been eased or tightened, depending on the security situation. But even in quiet times, when Gaza militants refrained from firing rockets at Israeli border towns, only limited shipments of food, medicine and commercial goods were allowed in.
Israel has not permitted currency shipments into Gaza since October. Earlier this month, it tightened the trade blockade in response to rocket fire, bringing widespread power blackouts, disruptions in water supplies and severe shortages of cooking gas and flour.On Monday, Israel allowed in 30 trucks of food and medicine and it also let diesel fuel reach Gaza's power plant. But European Union officials said it was just enough oil to keep the plant running for a day, and aid officials said the food and medicine deliveries would have little impact on dire shortages of basic goods.Israeli officials decided late Monday to close the crossings again Tuesday because a rocket was fired at Israel during the evening, the Defense Ministry said.Israel has said it keeps out currency because it fears Hamas will use the money to finance attacks.But the cash shortage has little effect on Hamas, which sneaks money into Gaza through smuggling tunnels from Egypt and does not deal with the formal banking system. The group pays out its cash to its loyalists and the thousands of people employed in its network of social services.The Israeli shekel is a widely used currency in the Gaza Strip, and the territory needs at least 400 million shekels, about $100 million, each month in new currency to replace aging notes and to pay salaries, economists say.The main source of currency is the moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank, which normally sends cash each month to pay 70,000 civil servants. The government still claims authority over Gaza, despite losing control of the territory to Hamas.Israeli defense officials said they had not ruled out further cash transfers, but said nothing could be delivered while fighting persists.Shlomo Dror, an Israel Defense Ministry spokesman, questioned the seriousness of the currency shortage. We are used to the Palestinians inventing things and we are looking into their claim, he said.In Gaza, some people go to banks almost daily to withdraw their salaries in installments.I'm begging the bank to give me shekels, said civil servant Shawkat Othman, who had to stand in line four hours last week. His bank informed customers they could withdraw only 700 shekels ($175) a day.
Israel, settlers reach outpost compromise By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 24, 2:36 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's government and West Bank settlers have reached a compromise that will avoid the immediate evacuation of an unauthorized West Bank outpost, both sides said Monday.The outpost of Migron, north of Jerusalem, will be moved near another West Bank settlement, according a document the government submitted to the Supreme Court. But the government says that won't happen in the near future, because it will take time to plan a new site and build homes. That process is likely to take years, and in the meantime the some 45 families at Migron will stay where they are.
The government was responding to a Supreme Court appeal submitted by the Palestinian owners of the land on which Migron sits.Migron was built without government authorization on privately owned Palestinian land, beginning in 1999. But the government has provided electricity and water grids, a road and security. It is one of about 100 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank.The dovish Israeli group Peace Now harshly criticized the compromise, saying the settlers and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose ministry arranged the deal, were merely buying time.Yishay Hollender, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the settler umbrella group that struck the deal with the government, said the compromise was in the settlers' best interests and would avoid a violent evacuation. The new site was to the east of the existing settlement of Adam, near Jerusalem, he said, and was in effect a new settlement.
Hezbollah now three times stronger than in 2006 war: Israel Mon Nov 24, 1:25 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told parliament on Monday that the Shiite militant group Hezbollah is three times stronger now than it was during the 2006 Lebanon war.The firepower of Hezbollah has grown threefold since the Second Lebanon War, he told MPs.It has missiles that can reach the towns of Ashkelon, Beersheba and Dimona (in southern Israel more than 200 kilometres or 125 miles from the Lebanese border). Today Hezbollah has 42,000 missiles.Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at communities across northern Israel during the 34-day war in the summer of 2006, killing more than 40 civilians and sending another million fleeing south.Barak renewed warnings issued by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert earlier this year that in any new war Israel would take tougher action against civilian infrastructure than it did in 2006, when a power station and Beirut airport were hit and in all more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.The integration of Hezbollah into the Lebanese state exposes Lebanon and its infrastructure to in-depth attacks in the event of a new conflict, he said, referring to the formation earlier this year of a national unity government in Beirut that includes Hezbollah and its allies.
The Israeli defence minister also renewed his support for an extension of the six-month Gaza truce with the Islamist Hamas movement that went into force on June 19.I do not regret any of the months of calm, he told MPs.In the months preceding the entry into the force of the truce, we were recording as many as 500 mortar or rocket attacks a month in southern Israel against just a dozen in the months since the truce.Barak rejected calls by cabinet colleagues, including Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon and Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai, for a major ground offensive into Gaza to topple the Hamas administration there.To all the warmongerers I say: you have nothing to teach me about war or peace or my duties, said Barak, a reserve general and former army chief.I am defence minister, not war minister, and my job is to maintain as far as possible the maximum of security for Israeli citizens.In any case, if a pre-emptive operation proves necessary, the army will act.Barak also reiterated Israel's refusal to rule out any option to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.We have said that Israel will leave no option off the table and we advise others to do the same, the minister told MPs.We think what we say but I would advise that we should not elaborate, particularly at the moment, as it would do nothing but harm to Israel.Israel and its US ally suspect Iran of seeking to develop an atomic bomb under cover of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran strongly denies.
Rice defends Bush's record on Mideast peace, lack of deal Sun Nov 23, 4:40 pm ET
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended President George W. Bush's administration's failure to help bring off a Mideast peace deal by year's end.The administration had made the goal of a deal by the end of the year an important target.Even though there was not an agreement by the end of the year it is really largely because of the political situation in Israel, Rice told reporters en route home from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima.Israel's parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 10 next year.Referring to the peace process she stressed: It is in pretty good shape.
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Washington early Sunday for talks with Bush on Monday, ahead of his handover to Barack Obama.For Ehud Olmert, it is a farewell visit to a close friend and an ally, an Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP before Olmert's departure. He wants to solidify the promises made to Israel by the Bush administration.During his three-day stay, Olmert hopes to get commitments from Bush on Iran's nuclear programme, after Obama indicated during the election campaign that he might be open to talking with Tehran.
Israel, the only nuclear power among Middle East nations, suspects Iran of covertly developing nuclear weapons -- a claim that Tehran rejects.Olmert's trip is likely to be his last, as he is stepping down amid suspicion of corruption.
Israel military urges contingency plan for Iran strike Sun Nov 23, 4:15 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A security assessment drawn up Israeli defence chiefs calls for contingency plans to be drawn up for military action against Iran, the Haaretz daily reported on Sunday.The assessment, to be presented to ministers next month as part of the National Security Council's annual review, also calls for Israel to prevent new Palestinian elections at all costs, even at the expense of a row with its US ally, the paper said.Defence chiefs put Iran's threat to Israel's survival at the top of the list of challenges they face, followed by the strategic threat of long-range missiles and rockets from various countries in the region.Israel faces these threats almost alone, Haaretz quoted the report as saying.It is imperative to mobilise the international community and obtain regional cooperation. The new American administration is an opportunity to do this.Defence chiefs warn that Israel has a limited window in which to act before Iran obtains nuclear arms and regional hegemony.They call for Israel to establish a military option against Iran, in case other countries abandon the struggle, and advise the cabinet to work discreetly on contingency plans to deal with a nuclear Iran.Their assessment also recommends close cooperation with the United States to prevent a deal between Washington and Tehran that would undermine Israeli interests.The leaking of the report came as outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due in Washington for talks with US President George W. Bush which were expected to be dominated by the perceived threat from Iran.
The two governments suspect Tehran of seeking to develop an atomic weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge Iran strongly denies.Washington is installing an advanced radar system in Israel to boost defences against any ballistic missile threat from Iran. It will go operational in mid-December, army radio reported on Saturday.Defence chiefs also warn that Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas might disappear from the political arena when his term ends on January 9, undermining prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.They say there is a risk of the Islamist Hamas movement repeating the upset victory it won in 2006 parliamentary elections, and recommend preventing elections in the Palestinian Authority, even at the cost of a confrontation with the United States and the international community.Abbas's supporters insist that the Palestinian constitution allows the president to remain in office until new parliamentary elections are held in 2010, but Hamas insists it will not recognise his authority beyond January.Defence chiefs want plans drawn up for a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip in the event of the collapse of the Egyptian-brokered truce with Hamas which went into force in June.If the truce collapses and conflict is resumed in the Gaza Strip, Israel must act to topple Hamas's rule there, Haaretz quoted them as saying.Defence chiefs also urge the government to press ahead with direct peace talks with Syria, in the expectation of a more supportive position from the new US administration.An agreement with Syria must be advanced, despite the heavy price Israel would have to pay, Haaretz quoted the assessment as saying.
Withdrawal from the entire Golan Heights right down to the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main water source, is a price worth paying for removing Syria from the Middle East conflict and weakening the radical axis between Syria, Iran, Hamas and Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, the defence chiefs advised. They also urged Israeli vigilance about US arms supplies to its Arab allies, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, warning that they could undercut Israel's edge, especially in the air.
Abbas calls on Obama to implement Arab peace plan By ALI DARAGHMEH, Associated Press – Sat Nov 22, 1:42 pm ET
NABLUS, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday urged Barack Obama to get involved in Mideast peacemaking efforts immediately after becoming the U.S. president in January.Abbas, who spoke at an economic conference in the West Bank town of Nablus, also asked Obama to endorse a pan-Arab peace initiative that offers full peace with Israel in return for its withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.The Arab Peace Initiative was first proposed in 2002 by dozens of Arab countries that do not have ties with Israel. It requires Israel to leave the lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast War.We ask Obama to become immediately involved in the peace process, and to adopt the Arab initiative, Abbas said.Abbas' call to Obama came after he appealed directly to Israelis by taking out full-page Hebrew-language newspaper ads Thursday that said the Arab initiative would bring peace to the region.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the chief negotiator with the Palestinians over the past year, has welcomed the plan as a positive gesture, but says its positions on key issues such as final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are unacceptable.Instead of living in an island of peace it will live in an ocean of peace, he said.However, a year of negotiations between Palestinians and Israel has not brought tangible results.Abbas said Saturday that Israel's actions, such as continued construction of settlements and the West Bank separation barrier, contradict Israel's declared willingness to make peace.These acts truly make one wonder whether they (the Israelis) mean peace or not, he said. Those who want peace don't do this. They don't build a wall or a settlement in our throats ... We are ready to stretch out our hands in peace, but all of these acts leave hatred in one's soul.
Solana hopes Obama tackles Mideast peace from day one Fri Nov 21, 2:42 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Friday that he hoped that US president-elect Barack Obama tackles the Arab-Israeli peace process as soon as he assumes office on January 20.I think that that process will require much more of a dynamic, Solana told reporters on a visit to Washington following a meeting the previous evening with Obama's representative Madeleine Albright.It will be very difficult to do it before the election in Israel but I think that this new administration should get much more engaged from the very first day and try to create a dynamic in this process, Solana said.After assuming office in 2000, President George W. Bush's administration put the Middle East peace process on the back burner.And since the administration in November 2007 relaunched the first serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in seven years, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have refused to pressure the two sides into an agreement.
I think this is one of the key issues that the president elect has to take on and I hope very much that he moves very fast on that, said Solana.The European Union works with the United States, Russia and the United Nations on the Middle East diplomatic quartet.The (Palestinian-Israeli) negotiation has to be bilateral -- there has to be an agreement between the parties -- but that does not mean that you have to be withdrawn, Solana said.So I do think they have to let them talk between themselves but be ready to play the catalytic effect that would be necessary. If not, it may drag, he warned.
Israel in new bid to strip Arab ex-MP of nationality by Jean-Luc Renaudie Jean-luc Renaudie – Fri Nov 21, 2:01 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit launched proceedings on Friday to revoke the citizenship of Arab former MP Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel last year amid claims he had spied for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, a ministry spokesman said.The move came less than three months after the Israeli High Court rejected a previous bid to strip Bishara of both his nationality and his parliamentary pension and drew an angry reaction from the ex-MP's political party.
The minister asked in a letter addressed to (internal security service) Shin Beth chief Yuval Diskin and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to give their advice on the case as soon as possible, the spokesman said.In his letter, Sheetrit said the move was necessary as Bishara had visited enemy states (Lebanon and Syria), assisted the enemy in exchange for money and had contacts with the Lebanese terror organisation Hezbollah.On September 1, the High Court rejected a petition filed by Danny Danon, a senior member of the right-wing opposition Likud party, for Bishara to be stripped of his nationality and pension rights for treason.The court argued it had no legal standing to revoke Bishara's citizenship or to block his pension benefits.Bishara's party, the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), described the new proceedings launched by Sheetrit as vindictive, racist and in violation of international law.
The Jewish state has never and will never strip any of its Jewish citizens of their nationality whatever they do, said Balad MP Jamal Zahalka.Even Yigal Amir, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, was not stripped of his nationality as the legal provisions for revoking citizenship are aimed solely against Arabs.In June, the Israeli parliament endorsed in a preliminary vote a bill that would make it possible to revoke the nationality of any MP suspected of harming state security, sparking outrage among the 10 MPs from Arab-led parties who described the bill as racist.But the draft legislation still has to pass three more votes before it becomes law.
Bishara fled Israel in April 2007 amid allegations he advised Hezbollah and directed its rocket fire against Israel during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets against communities across northern Israel during the 34-day war, killing more than 40 civilians and sending another million fleeing south.
Bishara has repeatedly denied spying for Hezbollah and has highlighted his criticism of the Shiite militant group during the war for rocketing Arab villages inside Israel.He has accused the Israeli authorities of conducting a witchhunt against him because of his virulent criticism of their policies.Before leaving Israel, Bishara had campaigned vigorously for the rights of the 1.4 million-strong Arab minority who account for 20 percent of Israel's population and are descended from those who remained in Israel after the 1948 war.In 2006, the Israeli High Court threw out legal proceedings against him for backing popular resistance against Israel while on a visit to Syria in June 2001, ruling that his statement was not an incitement to violence.In April 2003, another court dismissed charges against him for organising illegal trips to Syria, given his then parliamentary immunity.
DALLAS – A Muslim charity and five of its former leaders were convicted Monday of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, finally handing the government a signature victory in its fight against terrorism funding.
U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis announced the guilty verdicts on all 108 counts on the eighth day of deliberations in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, once the nation's largest Muslim charity. It was the biggest terrorism financing case since the attacks of Sept. 11.Money is the lifeblood of terrorists, plain and simple, U.S. Attorney Richard Roper said. The jury's decision attacks terrorism at its core.The convictions follow the collapse of Holy Land's first trial last year and defeats in other cases the government tried to build. President George W. Bush had personally announced the freezing of Holy Land's assets in 2001, calling the action another step in the war on terrorism.After Monday's verdict, family members showed little visible reaction until the jury left. Several women sobbed loudly.My dad's not a criminal! one nearly inconsolable woman said loudly. Court personnel told the family to calm her down, and as family members rushed her out of the courtroom, she said, They treated him like an animal.Ghassan Elashi, Holy Land's former chairman, and Shukri Abu-Baker, the chief executive, were convicted of a combined 69 counts, including supporting a specially designated terrorist, money laundering and tax fraud.Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh were convicted of three counts of conspiracy, and Mohammed El-Mezain was convicted of one count of conspiracy to support a terrorist organization. Holy Land itself was convicted of all 32 counts.I feel heartbroken that a group of my fellow Americans fell for the prosecution's fear-mongering theory, Elashi's daughter, Noor, said outside the courthouse late Monday. This is truly a low point for the United States of America, but this is not over.She said that she was proud of her father and that he was paying the price for saving lives.My dad was persecuted for his political beliefs, she said. It's as pure and simple as that.
Attorneys for the defendants said an appeal is planned.
A sentencing date hasn't been scheduled, but the punishments could be steep. Supporting a terrorist organization carries a maximum 15-year sentence on each count; money laundering carries a maximum 20 years on each conviction.Solis ordered the Holy Land leaders detained, citing the long prison terms they may face and their ties to the Middle East.Holy Land was accused of giving more than $12 million to support Hamas. The seven-week retrial ran about as long as the original, which ended in October 2007 when a judge declared a mistrial on most charges.Holy Land wasn't accused of violence. Rather, the government said the Richardson, Texas-based charity financed schools, hospitals and social welfare programs controlled by Hamas in areas ravaged by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The U.S. designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995 and again in 1997, making contributions to the group illegal. Government officials raided Holy Land's headquarters in December 2001 and shut it down.Prosecutors labeled Holy Land's benefactors — called zakat committees — as terrorist recruiting pools. The charities, the government argued, spread Hamas' violent ideology and generated loyalty and support among Palestinians. It was a womb to the tomb cycle, prosecutor Barry Jonas told jurors during closing arguments last week. Holy Land supporters told a different story. They accused the government of politicizing the case as part of its war on terrorism, while attorneys for the foundation said Holy Land's mission was philanthropy and providing much-needed aid to the Middle East. They reminded jurors that none of the zakat committees are designated by the U.S. as terrorist fronts, and that Holy Land also donated to causes elsewhere, including helping victims of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
No one here is engaging in acts of terrorism, Theresa Duncan, attorney for Baker, said during closing arguments. A chaotic courtroom scene ended last year's original trial, which lasted nearly two months and kept jurors deliberating for 19 days. But they deadlocked on many counts, and when a judge polled the panel about other verdicts, some disavowed their vote. The confusing finish led U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish to declare a mistrial, and leaders of the defunct charity rushed outside to celebrate. Observers last year panned the government for presenting a bloated case too complicated for jurors to follow. Prosecutors responded this year by dropping nearly 60 charges in the trial and tightening their narrative to jurors, even offering a kind of road map to help the panel follow the money. But nearly 15 boxes of evidence wheeled into court on a flatbed still impressed the size of the case, as did the more than one hour that Solis needed to read aloud the indictment. Two other high-profile terror-financing trials in Chicago and Florida ended without convictions on the major counts. Associated Press writers Schuyler Dixon and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
Bush insists vision of Palestinian state lives By Jeffrey Heller and Matt Spetalnick – Mon Nov 24, 8:00 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush declared in farewell talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday that the vision of a Palestinian state remained alive, despite failure to achieve their goal of a peace deal this year.With two months left in office, Bush reiterated that the eventual creation of a democratic Palestinian state alongside Israel -- an objective he now leaves to President-elect Barack Obama -- would help end decades of Middle East conflict.I believe that vision is alive and needs to be worked on, Bush told reporters as he and Olmert, who will also step down early next year, held a final meeting at the White House.The United States, Israel and the Palestinians have all acknowledged they will not have a peace accord in place before Bush vacates the White House on January 20, missing a target date set at an Annapolis peace conference a year ago.
Most analysts were skeptical from the start, saying Bush's peace bid was too little, too late, after much of his two terms largely disengaged from Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.Despite that, Olmert -- who will leave under a cloud of corruption charges after a February 10 parliamentary election -- showered Bush with praise for setting the Annapolis process in motion and reaffirmed a two-state solution as the only possible way to achieve peace.Obama, who visited Israel and the occupied West Bank in July, pledged at the time -- in an apparent swipe at Bush's last-minute peace efforts -- not to wait a few years into my term or my second term if I'm elected to press for a deal.
LAME-DUCK POLICIES
Although Olmert has vowed to pursue peace until his last day in office, little progress has been made in negotiations and public interest in Israel in the lame-duck leader's policies is waning as an election campaign gathers speed.Opinion polls in Israel show former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party leading the ruling centrist Kadima faction in the election.Netanyahu has said he would focus peace efforts on shoring up the Palestinian economy rather than on territorial issues, a policy that could spell the end of the Annapolis process.
Olmert has been increasingly vocal about what he sees as the need for Israel to relinquish nearly all the land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war in return for peace, while retaining major Jewish settlement blocs.Palestinian officials said the commitment came too late and Olmert's successor as Kadima leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has not voiced support for his position.It's not easy to try to change the paradigm, Bush said, alluding to the obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Bush had been looking for an end-of-term foreign policy success to boost a legacy burdened by the unpopular Iraq war.But peace talks launched after Annapolis have been hobbled by Israeli political upheaval, disputes over Israeli settlement expansion and violent flare-ups in and around the Gaza Strip.Iran's nuclear program was also on the agenda, but neither leader mentioned it when reporters were allowed briefly into the Oval Office at the start of the meeting.
Gazans using tattered notes because of cash crunch By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 24, 4:18 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Desperate Gazans crowded into banks Monday, jostling to get to the front of lines as they sought to withdraw money amid a worsening currency shortage caused by Israeli sanctions.Israel has refused to allow cash to enter Gaza in recent weeks to ratchet up pressure on the ruling Hamas militant group. With the supply of currency dwindling, banks have limited withdrawals over the past two weeks, and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money.The United Nations halted cash handouts to 98,000 of Gaza's poorest residents last week, and economists and bank officials warn that tens of thousands of civil servants won't be able to cash their paychecks next month.No society can operate without money, but that's the situation we are reaching in Gaza, said Gaza economist Omar Shaban.Israel and Egypt have restricted movement through Gaza's border crossings since the Islamic militants of Hamas violently seized control of the coastal territory in June 2007.Since then, closures have been eased or tightened, depending on the security situation. But even in quiet times, when Gaza militants refrained from firing rockets at Israeli border towns, only limited shipments of food, medicine and commercial goods were allowed in.
Israel has not permitted currency shipments into Gaza since October. Earlier this month, it tightened the trade blockade in response to rocket fire, bringing widespread power blackouts, disruptions in water supplies and severe shortages of cooking gas and flour.On Monday, Israel allowed in 30 trucks of food and medicine and it also let diesel fuel reach Gaza's power plant. But European Union officials said it was just enough oil to keep the plant running for a day, and aid officials said the food and medicine deliveries would have little impact on dire shortages of basic goods.Israeli officials decided late Monday to close the crossings again Tuesday because a rocket was fired at Israel during the evening, the Defense Ministry said.Israel has said it keeps out currency because it fears Hamas will use the money to finance attacks.But the cash shortage has little effect on Hamas, which sneaks money into Gaza through smuggling tunnels from Egypt and does not deal with the formal banking system. The group pays out its cash to its loyalists and the thousands of people employed in its network of social services.The Israeli shekel is a widely used currency in the Gaza Strip, and the territory needs at least 400 million shekels, about $100 million, each month in new currency to replace aging notes and to pay salaries, economists say.The main source of currency is the moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank, which normally sends cash each month to pay 70,000 civil servants. The government still claims authority over Gaza, despite losing control of the territory to Hamas.Israeli defense officials said they had not ruled out further cash transfers, but said nothing could be delivered while fighting persists.Shlomo Dror, an Israel Defense Ministry spokesman, questioned the seriousness of the currency shortage. We are used to the Palestinians inventing things and we are looking into their claim, he said.In Gaza, some people go to banks almost daily to withdraw their salaries in installments.I'm begging the bank to give me shekels, said civil servant Shawkat Othman, who had to stand in line four hours last week. His bank informed customers they could withdraw only 700 shekels ($175) a day.
Israel, settlers reach outpost compromise By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 24, 2:36 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's government and West Bank settlers have reached a compromise that will avoid the immediate evacuation of an unauthorized West Bank outpost, both sides said Monday.The outpost of Migron, north of Jerusalem, will be moved near another West Bank settlement, according a document the government submitted to the Supreme Court. But the government says that won't happen in the near future, because it will take time to plan a new site and build homes. That process is likely to take years, and in the meantime the some 45 families at Migron will stay where they are.
The government was responding to a Supreme Court appeal submitted by the Palestinian owners of the land on which Migron sits.Migron was built without government authorization on privately owned Palestinian land, beginning in 1999. But the government has provided electricity and water grids, a road and security. It is one of about 100 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank.The dovish Israeli group Peace Now harshly criticized the compromise, saying the settlers and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose ministry arranged the deal, were merely buying time.Yishay Hollender, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the settler umbrella group that struck the deal with the government, said the compromise was in the settlers' best interests and would avoid a violent evacuation. The new site was to the east of the existing settlement of Adam, near Jerusalem, he said, and was in effect a new settlement.
Hezbollah now three times stronger than in 2006 war: Israel Mon Nov 24, 1:25 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told parliament on Monday that the Shiite militant group Hezbollah is three times stronger now than it was during the 2006 Lebanon war.The firepower of Hezbollah has grown threefold since the Second Lebanon War, he told MPs.It has missiles that can reach the towns of Ashkelon, Beersheba and Dimona (in southern Israel more than 200 kilometres or 125 miles from the Lebanese border). Today Hezbollah has 42,000 missiles.Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at communities across northern Israel during the 34-day war in the summer of 2006, killing more than 40 civilians and sending another million fleeing south.Barak renewed warnings issued by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert earlier this year that in any new war Israel would take tougher action against civilian infrastructure than it did in 2006, when a power station and Beirut airport were hit and in all more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.The integration of Hezbollah into the Lebanese state exposes Lebanon and its infrastructure to in-depth attacks in the event of a new conflict, he said, referring to the formation earlier this year of a national unity government in Beirut that includes Hezbollah and its allies.
The Israeli defence minister also renewed his support for an extension of the six-month Gaza truce with the Islamist Hamas movement that went into force on June 19.I do not regret any of the months of calm, he told MPs.In the months preceding the entry into the force of the truce, we were recording as many as 500 mortar or rocket attacks a month in southern Israel against just a dozen in the months since the truce.Barak rejected calls by cabinet colleagues, including Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon and Trade and Industry Minister Eli Yishai, for a major ground offensive into Gaza to topple the Hamas administration there.To all the warmongerers I say: you have nothing to teach me about war or peace or my duties, said Barak, a reserve general and former army chief.I am defence minister, not war minister, and my job is to maintain as far as possible the maximum of security for Israeli citizens.In any case, if a pre-emptive operation proves necessary, the army will act.Barak also reiterated Israel's refusal to rule out any option to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.We have said that Israel will leave no option off the table and we advise others to do the same, the minister told MPs.We think what we say but I would advise that we should not elaborate, particularly at the moment, as it would do nothing but harm to Israel.Israel and its US ally suspect Iran of seeking to develop an atomic bomb under cover of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran strongly denies.
Rice defends Bush's record on Mideast peace, lack of deal Sun Nov 23, 4:40 pm ET
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday defended President George W. Bush's administration's failure to help bring off a Mideast peace deal by year's end.The administration had made the goal of a deal by the end of the year an important target.Even though there was not an agreement by the end of the year it is really largely because of the political situation in Israel, Rice told reporters en route home from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima.Israel's parliamentary elections are scheduled for February 10 next year.Referring to the peace process she stressed: It is in pretty good shape.
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Washington early Sunday for talks with Bush on Monday, ahead of his handover to Barack Obama.For Ehud Olmert, it is a farewell visit to a close friend and an ally, an Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP before Olmert's departure. He wants to solidify the promises made to Israel by the Bush administration.During his three-day stay, Olmert hopes to get commitments from Bush on Iran's nuclear programme, after Obama indicated during the election campaign that he might be open to talking with Tehran.
Israel, the only nuclear power among Middle East nations, suspects Iran of covertly developing nuclear weapons -- a claim that Tehran rejects.Olmert's trip is likely to be his last, as he is stepping down amid suspicion of corruption.
Israel military urges contingency plan for Iran strike Sun Nov 23, 4:15 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A security assessment drawn up Israeli defence chiefs calls for contingency plans to be drawn up for military action against Iran, the Haaretz daily reported on Sunday.The assessment, to be presented to ministers next month as part of the National Security Council's annual review, also calls for Israel to prevent new Palestinian elections at all costs, even at the expense of a row with its US ally, the paper said.Defence chiefs put Iran's threat to Israel's survival at the top of the list of challenges they face, followed by the strategic threat of long-range missiles and rockets from various countries in the region.Israel faces these threats almost alone, Haaretz quoted the report as saying.It is imperative to mobilise the international community and obtain regional cooperation. The new American administration is an opportunity to do this.Defence chiefs warn that Israel has a limited window in which to act before Iran obtains nuclear arms and regional hegemony.They call for Israel to establish a military option against Iran, in case other countries abandon the struggle, and advise the cabinet to work discreetly on contingency plans to deal with a nuclear Iran.Their assessment also recommends close cooperation with the United States to prevent a deal between Washington and Tehran that would undermine Israeli interests.The leaking of the report came as outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due in Washington for talks with US President George W. Bush which were expected to be dominated by the perceived threat from Iran.
The two governments suspect Tehran of seeking to develop an atomic weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear programme, a charge Iran strongly denies.Washington is installing an advanced radar system in Israel to boost defences against any ballistic missile threat from Iran. It will go operational in mid-December, army radio reported on Saturday.Defence chiefs also warn that Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas might disappear from the political arena when his term ends on January 9, undermining prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.They say there is a risk of the Islamist Hamas movement repeating the upset victory it won in 2006 parliamentary elections, and recommend preventing elections in the Palestinian Authority, even at the cost of a confrontation with the United States and the international community.Abbas's supporters insist that the Palestinian constitution allows the president to remain in office until new parliamentary elections are held in 2010, but Hamas insists it will not recognise his authority beyond January.Defence chiefs want plans drawn up for a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip in the event of the collapse of the Egyptian-brokered truce with Hamas which went into force in June.If the truce collapses and conflict is resumed in the Gaza Strip, Israel must act to topple Hamas's rule there, Haaretz quoted them as saying.Defence chiefs also urge the government to press ahead with direct peace talks with Syria, in the expectation of a more supportive position from the new US administration.An agreement with Syria must be advanced, despite the heavy price Israel would have to pay, Haaretz quoted the assessment as saying.
Withdrawal from the entire Golan Heights right down to the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main water source, is a price worth paying for removing Syria from the Middle East conflict and weakening the radical axis between Syria, Iran, Hamas and Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, the defence chiefs advised. They also urged Israeli vigilance about US arms supplies to its Arab allies, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia, warning that they could undercut Israel's edge, especially in the air.
Abbas calls on Obama to implement Arab peace plan By ALI DARAGHMEH, Associated Press – Sat Nov 22, 1:42 pm ET
NABLUS, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday urged Barack Obama to get involved in Mideast peacemaking efforts immediately after becoming the U.S. president in January.Abbas, who spoke at an economic conference in the West Bank town of Nablus, also asked Obama to endorse a pan-Arab peace initiative that offers full peace with Israel in return for its withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.The Arab Peace Initiative was first proposed in 2002 by dozens of Arab countries that do not have ties with Israel. It requires Israel to leave the lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast War.We ask Obama to become immediately involved in the peace process, and to adopt the Arab initiative, Abbas said.Abbas' call to Obama came after he appealed directly to Israelis by taking out full-page Hebrew-language newspaper ads Thursday that said the Arab initiative would bring peace to the region.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the chief negotiator with the Palestinians over the past year, has welcomed the plan as a positive gesture, but says its positions on key issues such as final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are unacceptable.Instead of living in an island of peace it will live in an ocean of peace, he said.However, a year of negotiations between Palestinians and Israel has not brought tangible results.Abbas said Saturday that Israel's actions, such as continued construction of settlements and the West Bank separation barrier, contradict Israel's declared willingness to make peace.These acts truly make one wonder whether they (the Israelis) mean peace or not, he said. Those who want peace don't do this. They don't build a wall or a settlement in our throats ... We are ready to stretch out our hands in peace, but all of these acts leave hatred in one's soul.
Solana hopes Obama tackles Mideast peace from day one Fri Nov 21, 2:42 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Friday that he hoped that US president-elect Barack Obama tackles the Arab-Israeli peace process as soon as he assumes office on January 20.I think that that process will require much more of a dynamic, Solana told reporters on a visit to Washington following a meeting the previous evening with Obama's representative Madeleine Albright.It will be very difficult to do it before the election in Israel but I think that this new administration should get much more engaged from the very first day and try to create a dynamic in this process, Solana said.After assuming office in 2000, President George W. Bush's administration put the Middle East peace process on the back burner.And since the administration in November 2007 relaunched the first serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in seven years, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have refused to pressure the two sides into an agreement.
I think this is one of the key issues that the president elect has to take on and I hope very much that he moves very fast on that, said Solana.The European Union works with the United States, Russia and the United Nations on the Middle East diplomatic quartet.The (Palestinian-Israeli) negotiation has to be bilateral -- there has to be an agreement between the parties -- but that does not mean that you have to be withdrawn, Solana said.So I do think they have to let them talk between themselves but be ready to play the catalytic effect that would be necessary. If not, it may drag, he warned.
Israel in new bid to strip Arab ex-MP of nationality by Jean-Luc Renaudie Jean-luc Renaudie – Fri Nov 21, 2:01 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit launched proceedings on Friday to revoke the citizenship of Arab former MP Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel last year amid claims he had spied for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, a ministry spokesman said.The move came less than three months after the Israeli High Court rejected a previous bid to strip Bishara of both his nationality and his parliamentary pension and drew an angry reaction from the ex-MP's political party.
The minister asked in a letter addressed to (internal security service) Shin Beth chief Yuval Diskin and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to give their advice on the case as soon as possible, the spokesman said.In his letter, Sheetrit said the move was necessary as Bishara had visited enemy states (Lebanon and Syria), assisted the enemy in exchange for money and had contacts with the Lebanese terror organisation Hezbollah.On September 1, the High Court rejected a petition filed by Danny Danon, a senior member of the right-wing opposition Likud party, for Bishara to be stripped of his nationality and pension rights for treason.The court argued it had no legal standing to revoke Bishara's citizenship or to block his pension benefits.Bishara's party, the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), described the new proceedings launched by Sheetrit as vindictive, racist and in violation of international law.
The Jewish state has never and will never strip any of its Jewish citizens of their nationality whatever they do, said Balad MP Jamal Zahalka.Even Yigal Amir, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassin, was not stripped of his nationality as the legal provisions for revoking citizenship are aimed solely against Arabs.In June, the Israeli parliament endorsed in a preliminary vote a bill that would make it possible to revoke the nationality of any MP suspected of harming state security, sparking outrage among the 10 MPs from Arab-led parties who described the bill as racist.But the draft legislation still has to pass three more votes before it becomes law.
Bishara fled Israel in April 2007 amid allegations he advised Hezbollah and directed its rocket fire against Israel during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets against communities across northern Israel during the 34-day war, killing more than 40 civilians and sending another million fleeing south.
Bishara has repeatedly denied spying for Hezbollah and has highlighted his criticism of the Shiite militant group during the war for rocketing Arab villages inside Israel.He has accused the Israeli authorities of conducting a witchhunt against him because of his virulent criticism of their policies.Before leaving Israel, Bishara had campaigned vigorously for the rights of the 1.4 million-strong Arab minority who account for 20 percent of Israel's population and are descended from those who remained in Israel after the 1948 war.In 2006, the Israeli High Court threw out legal proceedings against him for backing popular resistance against Israel while on a visit to Syria in June 2001, ruling that his statement was not an incitement to violence.In April 2003, another court dismissed charges against him for organising illegal trips to Syria, given his then parliamentary immunity.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
ISRAEL BOYCOTT UN ANTI-RACISM MEET
High in the Holy Land, a Biblical view of peace By Douglas Hamilton Douglas Hamilton – Wed Nov 19, 5:22 am ET
ELI, West Bank (Reuters) – When God ordered Abraham to slaughter a son, the angel of the Lord stepped in at the last minute to stay his hand. Was it a test of faith, or had Abraham's imagination simply run away with him? Scholars may differ, but to many Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, the story is as real as the airy heights and rocky slopes where Hebrew and Philistine armies clashed in biblical times, and where they live today.This makes it hard to discuss rationally a resolution of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel over its occupation of West Bank land since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.That's Highway 60. It's been there since Abraham, says Eliana Passentin, pointing to the road in the valley beneath her home in Eli on an 850 meter (2,700 foot) mountaintop, where on a clear day you can see all the way to Tel Aviv.Passentin, a 34-year-old former Californian with 6 children, did not build her spacious villa here for the stunning geography or the government subsidies. Every view from every window, she says, looks onto a piece of recorded biblical history.There's room here in Israel for everyone, she insists. But I don't believe we're on the way to peace. There's a lot of hatred toward us. She teaches her children to respect but suspect, she says. If my children hear Arabic here on the hill, maybe they should be scared.The 250,000-strong settler community is not monolithic and not all take the bible literally. But those who do believe they are following God's word, and have His blessing for recovering the holy land of Israel for its chosen people.Settlers deny their towns are an illegal obstacle to peace. On a tour they organized this week to redress a negative image in foreign media, they cited scripture going back 3,500 years to explain why a land-for-peace swap was out of the question.Yehudit Tayar talked about what we did in ancient times, as if recalling recent family history. When we were crossing the desert, she says. When we first came back to Shilo to worship the Holy Tabernacle which our families did three times a year back in the Iron Age.It's as if the intervening 3,000 years never happened.
DREAM TOWNS
Visitors to divided Jerusalem, only a half hour drive away, see checkpoints, watchtowers, teenagers with combat rifles and other daily manifestations of the occupation that might be removed almost overnight, if there was a peace deal.But looking at the reality of the settlements, their tended gardens and schools, and listening to the passions that gave rise to them, makes it plain that persuading -- or even forcing -- Jews to give these up will be a far bigger challenge.The red-tiled, stone houses of Kokhav Yaakov and nearby Psagot, a 20-year-old settlement, look like the 1950s suburbs of the American Dream, as drawn by Madison Avenue advertisers.You can almost see a new Buick in the driveway. Kids' bikes litter the watered lawns and wide sidewalks. Mom is baking apple pie in the kitchen. There's no need to lock your door...This is the innocent, idyllic gloss some put on settler life. But just beneath lies a hard bedrock of scripture.It was a tremendous rout for the Philistines and a tremendous victory for the Hebrews, says Rabbi David Feld, a former American who sees the stark hillsides through a biblical prism and talks passionately, as if it all happened yesterday.The ancients had chariots, they were like our tanks, he says with animation. He looks no further than the Book of Samuel to justify his place on occupied land. Israel has made peace with all the Arabs that want to make peace, says Feld. This is the biblical land of Israel.
CENTURIES-OLD TERRACING
Yovram Cohen of the nearby Ofra settlement is a self-taught winemaker and native-born Israeli whose parents came from Tunisia. He produces his Tanya Vineyard Merlot and Cabernet reds, keeps parakeets, and ignores religious politics. I'm not living here for political reasons. It's just where I live, and I bought this land, says the former paratrooper. Pressed about the threat of a land-for-peace swap, he says finally: If ever it comes, I will face it, when I have to.Cohen is not a typical settler. Most of the 38 settlements of Israel's Benjamin municipality are classified as religious.Seen from the heights, they look like real-estate brochure images of neatly landscaped new towns -- apart from adjacent trailer camps which the settlers call young communities but Israel classifies as illegal outposts. They crown rocky slopes terraced for centuries by Arab cultivators whose history the settlers want everyone to ignore. Illegal or not, they are all the homes of Jews whom Israel would have to remove, if ever it opts to trade land for peace. And now the settlers feel under threat, anxious that an election in February could vote in an unsympathetic majority. In an unprecedentedly frank stand by an Israeli leader, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert advocates withdrawal from almost all land taken in 1967 -- a hard idea to swallow for settlers cajoled and subsidized by successive governments.
Olmert also warns that Israel cannot tolerate vigilantes in the settler movement who undermine Israel's position by trying to drive out Palestinian neighbors and even fight its police. Former San Francisco Bay resident Passentin, whose house like Joshua's has the flat roof that Arab construction favors rather than the gabled, red-tiled settler model, says she feels a strong feeling of connection to this land.We are not bloodthirsty fanatics, she says. Unlike Feld and his wife Tamar, who described militant settler youth gangs as patriotic kids, she condemns violence and says her neighbors feel the same. If ever ordered to leave, she says, she will resist by legal means, not violent, and would never hurt any of our soldiers.Others say the day of abandoning the land will never come. We are here to stay, says Benjamin council head Avi Roeh. We are people who believe we are here for a mission. It's an act of Zionism, an act of patriotism.(Editing by Dominic Evans)
Syria site hit by Israel resembled atom plant: IAEA By Mark Heinrich Mark Heinrich – Wed Nov 19, 5:27 pm ET
VIENNA (Reuters) – A Syrian complex bombed by Israel bore multiple features resembling those of a nuclear reactor and U.N. inspectors found significant traces of uranium at the site, a watchdog report said on Wednesday.But the International Atomic Energy Agency report said the findings from an inspectors trip to the site in June were not enough to conclude a covert reactor was there. It said further investigation and greater Syrian transparency were needed.Obtained by Reuters, the nuclear safeguards report said Syria would be asked to show to inspectors debris and equipment whisked away from the site at Al-Kibar in the country's eastern desert after the September 2007 Israeli air raid.The United States gave intelligence to the IAEA last April that Washington said indicated the site was a reactor that was close to being built with North Korean assistance and designed to produce plutonium for atomic bombs.Syria, an ally of Iran whose disputed uranium enrichment program has been under IAEA investigation for years, says the site destroyed was a conventional military building and the uranium traces must have come from munitions used to bomb it.Damascus has dismissed as fabricated the satellite imagery, ground pictures of the site taken before Israel's attack and other intelligence underpinning the investigation.While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use, the features of the building, along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water, are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site, said the IAEA report, sent to its 35-nation board of governors ahead of a November 27-28 meeting.It said photographs also revealed a containment shield similar in dimension and layout to those of atomic reactors.It said Syria had not provided requested documentation to back its declarations about the nature of the building nor granted repeated IAEA requests for visits to three other sites seen as harboring possible evidence linked to Israel's target.Satellite pictures show Syria carried out landscaping of these sites to change their look and took away large containers after the IAEA asked for access to those areas, the report said.Other aerial imagery revealed Syria swept the Al-Kibar site clean after the attack and erected a new building on the spot. The IAEA will ask Syria to let inspectors take swipe samples from rubble, shrapnel and any equipment removed from Al-Kibar.
SYRIAN TRANSPARENCY NEEDED
It said IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei had urged Syria to provide the necessary transparency including allowing visits to the requested locations and access to all available information for the agency to complete its assessment.U.N. officials said the uranium contamination that turned up in soil samples collected at the site was a chemically processed form of the mineral that was not the enriched variety used to run nuclear power plants or as fissile bomb material.But the element found was not depleted uranium either, the type used to boost the penetrating power of munitions.
There's enough uranium here to raise questions. The onus of this verification is on Syria, said a senior U.N. official, who like others asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities.The uranium element in question was not in Syria's declared nuclear inventory. Syria's only official nuclear site is an old research reactor. It has no known nuclear energy capacity.The IAEA also intends to ask Israel for information addressing Syria's remarks about the origin of the uranium. Israel has remained silent on the matter since the air raid. ElBaradei said on Monday the uranium traces could have come on clothing of workers who had been in contact with nuclear materials somewhere, or from stored equipment. The report said Syria had told inspectors the site could not have been a nuclear facility because of unreliable, insufficient electricity supplies locally, limited available manpower and the lack of large quantities of treated water. But the report said inspectors saw enough electrical grid to power reactor pumps. Another senior U.N. official said the investigation had urgent need of high-resolution pictures of the site he said must have been taken in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. He said eight countries, which he declined to identify, had access to such imagery but had not turned it over to date. The report complained that the investigation had been severely hampered by (Israel's) unilateral use of force and by a U.S. failure to hand over relevant intelligence until seven months after the bombing. In light of (that), the agency's verification of the situation has been made more difficult and complex, as well as more time- and resource-consuming, the report said. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Israel spurns UN plea to ease Gaza blockade By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 19, 4:27 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel stood fast Wednesday by its decision to clamp shut cargo crossings at the Gaza Strip, brushing off pleas to ease the blockade from United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.Israel sealed the passages two weeks ago after a 5-month-old truce between Israel and Gaza militants started unraveling in an effort to halt rocket and mortar fire at Israeli border towns.The crossings, a main source of imports to Gaza, have been cracked open occasionally to allow in fuel and vital supplies. But the closures have drastically reduced the amount of goods entering the already impoverished seaside territory of 1.4 million people, causing shortages of many basic goods.On Tuesday, Ban called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express his deep concern over the consequences of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, the U.N. said in a statement.He strongly urged the prime minister to facilitate the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of concerned United Nations personnel into Gaza, the statement said.Olmert said Israel was not to blame for the deterioration of conditions in Gaza, according to the prime minister's office. Gazans have only Hamas' regime of terror to blame, he said.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group committed to Israel's destruction, has ruled Gaza since violently overrunning the territory in June 2007.Israel's Gaza blockade has led to frequent blackouts throughout Gaza and resulted in shortages of food, supplies and even cash.Gaza's largest flour mill halted operations Wednesday, saying it had run out of wheat, and the United Nations said it was being forced to suspend cash grants to 98,000 of Gaza's poorest people because of a shortage of Israeli currency.The Israeli closure also prompted major international media organizations, including The Associated Press, BBC, Reuters and the New York Times, to send a rare protest letter to the prime minister, requesting that foreign journalists be allowed into Gaza. Israel has barred reporters from entering the area for the past two weeks. There was no immediate comment from Olmert's office.Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio on Wednesday that there has to be quiet for the crossings to open.At nightfall Wednesday, Palestinians reported a large explosion east of Gaza City. Hamas officials said the blast was caused by a shell, but it was not clear if it was an Israeli or Palestinian device. No one was hurt. Often homemade rockets and mortars fired by Palestinians at Israel fall short and explode in Gaza.Israel and Hamas have been observing a truce since June. The cease-fire has largely held until Israeli troops entered Gaza early this month to destroy a tunnel they said militants had dug to attack Israel. At least 17 militants have been killed since, and militants have fired about 150 rockets and mortars at Israel, by the military's count.Both Israeli and Hamas officials have said they hope to restore the calm, though Barak has said the military is ready for a large-scale operation if necessary.
The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, met with leaders of other Palestinian factions Wednesday. He said they support maintaining the truce as long as the occupation (Israel) commits to it.Before the truce was reached, militants pelted Israel with near-daily rocket attacks, provoking sometimes harsh military retaliation that killed hundreds of Palestinians, including many civilians.U.S. President-elect Barack Obama called Abbas on Tuesday to tell him he would spare no effort to facilitate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday.In the West Bank, meanwhile, a court-ordered deadline expired for Jewish settlers to leave a four-story building in the volatile city of Hebron. The settlers ignored the ruling, which also said they must be evicted within 30 days if they don't leave voluntarily. Barak said the government would comply with the court order, but added defense officials would first try to persuade the settlers to leave. About 500 of the most extreme Israeli settlers live in Hebron in heavily guarded enclaves among 170,000 Palestinians. If Israeli security forces evict them from the building, violent clashes are likely. Media reports Wednesday said about 600 people have gathered around the building to prevent its evacuation. Settlers moved in early last year after claiming they bought the building from a Palestinian. The Palestinian denies the claim, and Israeli authorities have not recognized the sale as legal.
Syria must choose between peace or belligerence: Peres by Prashant Rao Prashant Rao –Wed Nov 19, 1:46 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Syria must choose between peace or belligerence in its dealings with Israel, and between relations with Iran or the Jewish state, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Wednesday.They cannot escape the choice... they are under the impression that they can do both, the former prime minister and Nobel peace prize winner said during a visit to London.They have to make up their mind. It's either peace or belligerence, Peres told reporters at a briefing.If they think they can make the peace with Israel and maintain their close relations with Iran and (Lebanese militant group) Hezbollah, they will discover that is not possible, he said.No potential American mediator -- which Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has called for -- would agree to Syria negotiating peace with Israel while maintaining close relations with Iran, said Peres.I don't see an American (mediator) that will agree to do the two things -- to help the Syrians on agreeing the land (issue), and keep a very close relationship with the Iranians.The Syrian president last week called on Israel to prove it was interested in forging a peace deal, six months after the long-time foes relaunched indirect negotiations.Talks between the two countries needed international patronage, chiefly from the United States, he said.
Direct negotiations were frozen eight years ago after Israel baulked at Syrian demands for the return of the whole of the occupied Golan Heights, right down to the Sea of Galilee, its main water source.Israel seized the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war, annexing it in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.Later on Wednesday, Peres addressed both houses of Britain's parliament for the second time -- he previously gave a speech to the House of Commons and House of Lords in January 1986.Addressing both houses is a rare honour that has only been conferred on 34 individuals, including Peres, since 1939, including Nelson Mandela, Mikheil Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, Ronald Reagan and, most recently, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Other highlights of Peres's visit to Britain include an audience with Queen Elizabeth II plus talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband Thursday.Earlier on the trip, he addressed students at the prestigious Oxford University, though protesters attempted to shout him down, according to British media.
Israel says it will boycott UN anti-racism meet Wed Nov 19, 1:18 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel will stay away from an international anti-racism conference next year, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday, saying the meeting was certain to become an anti-Israel tribunal.Israel will not participate and will not legitimise the (Durban) Review Conference, which will be used as a platform for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity, Livni told a conference of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.The April 2009 meeting in Geneva was called by the UN General Assembly as a follow-up to a controversial conference held in Durban in 2001 which ended in acrimony amidst accusations of anti-Semitism.Livni said there was no indication things would go better at the 2009 gathering than they had in Durban.
Despite our efforts and those of friendly countries, for whose position we are grateful, the conference appears to be heading once again towards becoming an anti-Israeli tribunal, which has nothing to do with fighting racism, she said.She cited a paper the Asian Group submitted to the preparatory committee which she said reproduces, almost word by word, the rhetoric of the Tehran Planning Meeting in 2001, a meeting which led to the Durban 1 farce.Once again extremist Arab and Muslim states wish to control the content of the conference and derail it from its original mission, she said.UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanetham Pillay in September urged Israel, the United States and other countries not to boycott the conference, saying the hopes of many victims of intolerance could be dashed should differences be allowed to become pretexts for inaction.But Livni on Wednesday urged the international community not to participate in a conference which seeks to legitimise hatred and extremism under the banner of the fight against racism.
Miliband hopes 2009 year of change in Mideast by Jocelyne Zablit – Wed Nov 19, 9:33 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Visiting Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday he hopes 2009will usher in changes around the globe that will bring about a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement.I think 2009 is going to be a very important year, Miliband told reporters as he wrapped up a brief visit to Lebanon that included meetings with President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.It is the year of change globally because there is a new American president, there will be a new Israeli government, there will be elections in Lebanon and ... in Iran as well.He urged countries in the region to work seriously toward peace through dialogue rather than violence.Instability in the Middle East has spread and will spread if it is not contained, he warned.Miliband said he had discussed with Lebanese leaders legislative elections planned next spring and the importance of going through with these polls.The world will be watching to see all parties respect the democratic process and ensure that politics and not violence are the basis for the decisions about Lebanon's future, he said.So often in history Lebanon has been the victim of other people's conflicts and we will know that there is a true prospect of lasting peace in the Middle East when Lebanon is no longer the victim of other people's conflicts.Miliband arrived in Beirut on Tuesday following a stop in Damascus where he held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the first British politician to do so since 2001.He said there was no reason for alarm among anti-Syrian parties in Lebanon over Britain's apparent rapprochement with Damascus.I don't think people should be concerned about dialogue when it is conducted on an honest and serious basis, he said. What I say publicly about the choices that Syria and other countries face and the responsibilities that Syria and other countries have is what I say privately to President Assad and to other leaders.
Syria has faced diplomatic isolation since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri in a massive car bomb. It denies any role in the killing.It has also been shunned by the West because of its ties with Iran, the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organisation by the US and Britain.Miliband said Britain made a distinction between the military and political wings of Hezbollah, which has one minister in the current government.
It is right to draw that distinction and to emphasise that those who use violence for political ends cannot expect to have the support of the international community, he said.Earlier in his tour of the region, Miliband also travelled to Israel and the West Bank, holding meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.He last visited Beirut in June following the election of Sleiman and the formation of a national unity government which put an end to an 18-month crippling political crisis that had brought the country close to civil war.
Israel's Netanyahu pushes economic peace plan by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 19, 5:59 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's hawkish opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday a Palestinian state should only be created once the economy is strengthened, adding that this would be at the heart of his peace plan if he wins February elections.Economic development does not solve problems, it mitigates them and makes them more accessible for solution, and creates a stronger political base, the former prime minister and head of the rightwing Likud party said.He went on to say that his government would continue US-backed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority in an effort to reach an agreement on agreeable issues.Polls project that Likud would gain a slight lead in February 10 elections that were called after Ehud Olmert stepped down as prime minister in September.Netanyahu rejected the current format of the peace process, saying he would not hand over the Palestinians occupied territories before strengthening the West Bank economy, fearing that radical Islamists backed by archfoe Iran would seize power there.Any area that we withdraw from will be taken over by Iran, Netanyahu said in a speech before the General Assembly of North American Jewish communities. All we are doing is creating an additional base for militant Islam.Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, where the Islamist Hamas movement violently ousted forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas less than two years later.Netanyahu said that while continuing talks with moderate Palestinians, he would seek to weave an economic peace alongside the political process that gives a stake in peace for the moderate elements in the Palestinian society.The plan will include creating thousands of jobs and the development of infrastructure and the removal of Israeli roadblocks across the West Bank in order to allow Palestinian movement "without impeding Israeli society.
He would also seek to develop three or four joint Israeli-Palestinian economic projects along the West Bank border area with the support of Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has peace agreements.This is a definite change I intend to introduce into the peace negotiations, the hawkish MP said.But Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad has rejected Netanyahu's proposals for an economic solution to the Middle East conflict.Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund economist, said the conflict was a political one that required a political solution.I am interested not in redefining the occupation but in ending the occupation, he said in an interview published by the Israeli daily Haaretz on Tuesday.
Obama calls Palestinian leader, says peace vital Wed Nov 19, 5:53 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – A Palestinian negotiator says U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has called the Palestinian president and told him that peace is a vital interest for Israelis and Palestinians.Negotiator Saeb Erekat says the phone call took place Tuesday.Erekat says Obama told President Mahmoud Abbas that he will spare no effort to facilitate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.A year of U.S.-backed talks has not yielded tangible results and the fate of the negotiations is uncertain.Israel is holding elections in February. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not continue peace talks in the current format. Also, Abbas faces a new political showdown with rival Hamas in January when the Islamic militants say his term expires.
UN seeks 160 mln dlrs from Gulf Arabs to meet budget deficit Tue Nov 18, 1:43 pm ET AFP – Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.
AMMAN (AFP) – The cash-strapped UN agency for Palestinian refugees appealed on Tuesday to oil-rich Arab states in the Gulf to help meet a 160-million-dollar projected budget deficit next year.We are making special appeals to our Arab partners in the Gulf, said Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.We have had very good experiences with Gulf contributors in the past for major projects ... and we hope we will get the same kind of support.Abu Zayd was speaking to reporters after an UNRWA meeting in Amman, but she did not elaborate.According to the agency's website, UNRWA's original budget for 2008 was 504.1 million dollars.In January, the agency appealed to Gulf Arab states to provide nearly 10 million dollars in aid for the besieged Hamas-run Gaza Strip.UNRWA cares for some 4.2 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Israel to free 250 Palestinian prisoners by Ezzedine Said Ezzedine Said – Mon Nov 17, 2:35 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that 250 Palestinian prisoners would be freed in a goodwill gesture, as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas urged Israel to maintain the Gaza truce.The pair met in Jerusalem for the first time in two months, amid rising tension in and around the besieged Gaza Strip where Israeli forces and Palestinian militants have engaged in almost daily tit-for-tat attacks since November 4.Abbas had asked him to free Palestinian prisoners and Olmert told him of the decision to release 250 at the beginning of December, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.In a similar move in August, Israel freed 198 Palestinian prisoners. More than 11,000 Palestinians are still held in Israeli prisons.A senior Israeli official said that none of the prisoners to be freed belongs to radical Palestinian movements such as Hamas, the Islamist movement which seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007.Since the Hamas takeover, the secular Abbas has held sway only in the West Bank.But he said that during his talks at Olmert's official residence in Jerusalem, Abbas stressed the need to maintain the truce in Gaza because it eases the suffering of the Palestinian people.He also urged Palestinian militants not to shatter the fragile truce that went into effect in and around Gaza on June 19. In other words, stop the futile rocket firings that don't help the Palestinian cause in any way, Abbas said.Abbas also met British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who said it was vital the ceasefire be maintained. The discussions you have had today (with Olmert) seem to me to be a very important contribution to that, Miliband told the Palestinian leader.Miliband earlier toured Sderot, an Israeli town which regularly comes under rocket fire from neighbouring Gaza.A flare-up in violence last week prompted Israel to further tighten its blockade and completely seal off the aid-dependent Gaza Strip, though it allowed the delivery of humanitarian supplies on Monday for the first time in almost two weeks.
Olmert told Abbas that Hamas is to blame for violations of the truce in and around the Gaza Strip, and warned that if violence escalates, Israel will have to respond, a senior Israeli official said.On Monday, several rockets fired from Gaza hit southern Israel without causing any casualties.Each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire in the latest flare-up of violence in which volleys of rockets and mortar rounds have been launched at Israel and 15 Gaza militants killed since November 4.Israel generally responds to the Gaza attacks by tightening the blockade it imposed after the 2007 Hamas takeover, but said it allowed 33 truckloads of humanitarian supplies into the coastal strip on Monday.A UN spokesman said that many more deliveries will be needed in the impoverished and overcrowded territory.
We cannot have another period when people are not getting their food assistance. We cannot allow people to get punished in that way, said Chris Gunness of the UN Works and Relief Agency, which distributes food to 750,000 Gazans -- half the population.
The violence as well as the political and geographical division of the Palestinian territories between Hamas-ruled Gaza and the West Bank under Abbas have complicated the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinians and the international community say continued Jewish settlement activity in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is major stumbling block in the talks that were relaunched at a US conference in November 2007 after a seven-year hiatus. I called for a halt to all settlement activity, Abbas said after his talks with Olmert.
Analysis: Hamas, Israel trying to rewrite truce By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 17, 3:04 am ET
JERUSALEM – A June truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers comes up for renewal next month and it looks like both sides are trying to dictate more favorable terms.
That would explain why Israel and Hamas have been trading rocket fire and air strikes for two weeks, even as they keep saying they're interested in a continued cease-fire. But the attempt to establish new ground rules could easily spin out of control, especially if there are civilian casualties.Domestic concerns further complicate the situation.Israel is holding general elections Feb. 10 and the cross-border violence has become campaign fodder.Over the weekend, the hard-line opposition party Likud predictably portrayed the government as weak for not responding more harshly to the rockets. Put on the defensive, the leaders of the ruling Kadima and Labor parties delivered tough speeches, warning Hamas that Israel would strike a punishing blow if necessary.Yet a high-risk Israeli offensive in Gaza seems unlikely ahead of the election. And at a time of political transition in the United States, Israel might not want to start its relationship with Barack Obama in crisis mode.Yet continued rocket fire from Gaza would hurt the election prospects of Kadima and Labor and could turn the public mood against a key election promise of both parties — to keep trying to forge a peace deal with the Palestinians.Hamas, meanwhile, is trying to fend off criticism at home, particularly from smaller militant factions, that it accepted a bad deal and that the cease-fire hasn't improved life in Gaza. The territory has been under an international blockade since the violent June 2007 takeover by Hamas.
The Egyptian-brokered truce took hold June 19 and was to be renewed after six months. The details were never made public, but the general idea was for Israel to allow more goods into Gaza, which has suffered from chronic shortages under the sanctions.This was to be followed by negotiations on the release of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas-allied militants and by the eventual opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.The truce largely held, though Israel has closed the borders for brief periods in response to occasional rocket or mortar fire from Gaza. But even when the crossings did open, Israel never allowed in more than a trickle of goods. Negotiations over the captured soldier, Gilad Schalit, bogged down and Rafah, Gaza's main gateway, remained closed.
On Nov. 4, this uneasy balance was upset.
Israeli forces moved 300 yards meters into Gaza to destroy a border tunnel dug by militants. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said at the time that militants' had planned to abduct Israeli soldiers through the tunnel, similar to the 2006 capture of Schalit.However, defense officials acknowledged that Israel also was also trying to send a message that it would not allow Hamas militants to operate close to the border.Hamas responded with barrages of rockets and mortars on Israeli border communities. Israel, in turn, targeted rocket squads with air strikes, killing at least 15 Palestinian militants, including four on Sunday.Israel also stepped up pressure by keeping Gaza's borders closed, causing widespread power cuts, disrupting U.N. food distribution to the needy and drawing international condemnation.Hamas raised the stakes by firing several longer-range Grad rockets at the Israeli city of Ashkelon. By taking aim deeper inside Israel with the deadlier Grads, rather than at small border communities with crude homemade rockets, Hamas was trying to boost its powers of deterrence.The idea is to force the occupier to respect our people's rights and demand and stop all sorts of aggression against our people, said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. Israeli critics of the truce have repeatedly warned that Hamas is using the cease-fire to amass weapons via smuggling tunnels and that Israel is losing the ability to take the initiative. Hamas determines the rules of the game, it determines the pace, it decides when to fire rockets on Israeli citizens and how many, Gideon Saar, a senior Likud legislator, told Israel Radio. Still, both sides have an overriding interest in a cease-fire. Hamas needs calm in Gaza as it heads into a political showdown with its rival, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas contends that Abbas' term expires Jan. 8 and says it will install its own president at that time, closing perhaps the last door to the elusive possibility of restoring national unity. Israel, meanwhile, doesn't want to be dragged into a major military offensive in Gaza. Barak that would risk the lives of Israel soldiers for uncertain gains. Reoccupying Gaza would at best bring temporary calm, but more likely bog down his forces without an exit strategy. It would also distract the military from other key challenges, including the threats from Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas. Fiery rhetoric is not a policy, he told his right-wing critics Saturday. Karin Laub has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1987.
Israel urges greater force vs Iran nuclear work Mon Nov 17, 1:31 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on Sunday for a stronger international campaign against Iran's nuclear programme to thwart it with greater force.We must increase our measures to prevent Iran from achieving its devious goals, Olmert said in a speech to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it ... the free world must not accept it.We must unite our forces as part of the international community, led by the United States of America. We must confront Iran's malevolent diligence and thwart it with greater force.Israel and the West fear Iran may be using its nuclear programme to develop a nuclear weapon, which the Jewish state sees as a potential threat to its existence. Iran says its atomic programme is solely for energy purposes.Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, although it has never confirmed nor denied it.Israel has backed Western economic sanctions against Iran but has said it is keeping all options on the table in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear programme.Israeli leaders have voiced concern about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's stated readiness to seek dialogue either alongside or instead of sanctions as a method of persuading Iran to change its policies.Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Olmert said.He also accused the Islamic Republic of continuing to fund Palestinian militants and gunmen in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.Olmert called for further sanctions against Iran, saying: It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give it up.Olmert resigned as prime minister in September in the heat of a corruption investigation, but is staying on as caretaker prime minister until a new Israeli government can be formed after a February 10 election.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
ELI, West Bank (Reuters) – When God ordered Abraham to slaughter a son, the angel of the Lord stepped in at the last minute to stay his hand. Was it a test of faith, or had Abraham's imagination simply run away with him? Scholars may differ, but to many Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, the story is as real as the airy heights and rocky slopes where Hebrew and Philistine armies clashed in biblical times, and where they live today.This makes it hard to discuss rationally a resolution of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel over its occupation of West Bank land since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.That's Highway 60. It's been there since Abraham, says Eliana Passentin, pointing to the road in the valley beneath her home in Eli on an 850 meter (2,700 foot) mountaintop, where on a clear day you can see all the way to Tel Aviv.Passentin, a 34-year-old former Californian with 6 children, did not build her spacious villa here for the stunning geography or the government subsidies. Every view from every window, she says, looks onto a piece of recorded biblical history.There's room here in Israel for everyone, she insists. But I don't believe we're on the way to peace. There's a lot of hatred toward us. She teaches her children to respect but suspect, she says. If my children hear Arabic here on the hill, maybe they should be scared.The 250,000-strong settler community is not monolithic and not all take the bible literally. But those who do believe they are following God's word, and have His blessing for recovering the holy land of Israel for its chosen people.Settlers deny their towns are an illegal obstacle to peace. On a tour they organized this week to redress a negative image in foreign media, they cited scripture going back 3,500 years to explain why a land-for-peace swap was out of the question.Yehudit Tayar talked about what we did in ancient times, as if recalling recent family history. When we were crossing the desert, she says. When we first came back to Shilo to worship the Holy Tabernacle which our families did three times a year back in the Iron Age.It's as if the intervening 3,000 years never happened.
DREAM TOWNS
Visitors to divided Jerusalem, only a half hour drive away, see checkpoints, watchtowers, teenagers with combat rifles and other daily manifestations of the occupation that might be removed almost overnight, if there was a peace deal.But looking at the reality of the settlements, their tended gardens and schools, and listening to the passions that gave rise to them, makes it plain that persuading -- or even forcing -- Jews to give these up will be a far bigger challenge.The red-tiled, stone houses of Kokhav Yaakov and nearby Psagot, a 20-year-old settlement, look like the 1950s suburbs of the American Dream, as drawn by Madison Avenue advertisers.You can almost see a new Buick in the driveway. Kids' bikes litter the watered lawns and wide sidewalks. Mom is baking apple pie in the kitchen. There's no need to lock your door...This is the innocent, idyllic gloss some put on settler life. But just beneath lies a hard bedrock of scripture.It was a tremendous rout for the Philistines and a tremendous victory for the Hebrews, says Rabbi David Feld, a former American who sees the stark hillsides through a biblical prism and talks passionately, as if it all happened yesterday.The ancients had chariots, they were like our tanks, he says with animation. He looks no further than the Book of Samuel to justify his place on occupied land. Israel has made peace with all the Arabs that want to make peace, says Feld. This is the biblical land of Israel.
CENTURIES-OLD TERRACING
Yovram Cohen of the nearby Ofra settlement is a self-taught winemaker and native-born Israeli whose parents came from Tunisia. He produces his Tanya Vineyard Merlot and Cabernet reds, keeps parakeets, and ignores religious politics. I'm not living here for political reasons. It's just where I live, and I bought this land, says the former paratrooper. Pressed about the threat of a land-for-peace swap, he says finally: If ever it comes, I will face it, when I have to.Cohen is not a typical settler. Most of the 38 settlements of Israel's Benjamin municipality are classified as religious.Seen from the heights, they look like real-estate brochure images of neatly landscaped new towns -- apart from adjacent trailer camps which the settlers call young communities but Israel classifies as illegal outposts. They crown rocky slopes terraced for centuries by Arab cultivators whose history the settlers want everyone to ignore. Illegal or not, they are all the homes of Jews whom Israel would have to remove, if ever it opts to trade land for peace. And now the settlers feel under threat, anxious that an election in February could vote in an unsympathetic majority. In an unprecedentedly frank stand by an Israeli leader, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert advocates withdrawal from almost all land taken in 1967 -- a hard idea to swallow for settlers cajoled and subsidized by successive governments.
Olmert also warns that Israel cannot tolerate vigilantes in the settler movement who undermine Israel's position by trying to drive out Palestinian neighbors and even fight its police. Former San Francisco Bay resident Passentin, whose house like Joshua's has the flat roof that Arab construction favors rather than the gabled, red-tiled settler model, says she feels a strong feeling of connection to this land.We are not bloodthirsty fanatics, she says. Unlike Feld and his wife Tamar, who described militant settler youth gangs as patriotic kids, she condemns violence and says her neighbors feel the same. If ever ordered to leave, she says, she will resist by legal means, not violent, and would never hurt any of our soldiers.Others say the day of abandoning the land will never come. We are here to stay, says Benjamin council head Avi Roeh. We are people who believe we are here for a mission. It's an act of Zionism, an act of patriotism.(Editing by Dominic Evans)
Syria site hit by Israel resembled atom plant: IAEA By Mark Heinrich Mark Heinrich – Wed Nov 19, 5:27 pm ET
VIENNA (Reuters) – A Syrian complex bombed by Israel bore multiple features resembling those of a nuclear reactor and U.N. inspectors found significant traces of uranium at the site, a watchdog report said on Wednesday.But the International Atomic Energy Agency report said the findings from an inspectors trip to the site in June were not enough to conclude a covert reactor was there. It said further investigation and greater Syrian transparency were needed.Obtained by Reuters, the nuclear safeguards report said Syria would be asked to show to inspectors debris and equipment whisked away from the site at Al-Kibar in the country's eastern desert after the September 2007 Israeli air raid.The United States gave intelligence to the IAEA last April that Washington said indicated the site was a reactor that was close to being built with North Korean assistance and designed to produce plutonium for atomic bombs.Syria, an ally of Iran whose disputed uranium enrichment program has been under IAEA investigation for years, says the site destroyed was a conventional military building and the uranium traces must have come from munitions used to bomb it.Damascus has dismissed as fabricated the satellite imagery, ground pictures of the site taken before Israel's attack and other intelligence underpinning the investigation.While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use, the features of the building, along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water, are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site, said the IAEA report, sent to its 35-nation board of governors ahead of a November 27-28 meeting.It said photographs also revealed a containment shield similar in dimension and layout to those of atomic reactors.It said Syria had not provided requested documentation to back its declarations about the nature of the building nor granted repeated IAEA requests for visits to three other sites seen as harboring possible evidence linked to Israel's target.Satellite pictures show Syria carried out landscaping of these sites to change their look and took away large containers after the IAEA asked for access to those areas, the report said.Other aerial imagery revealed Syria swept the Al-Kibar site clean after the attack and erected a new building on the spot. The IAEA will ask Syria to let inspectors take swipe samples from rubble, shrapnel and any equipment removed from Al-Kibar.
SYRIAN TRANSPARENCY NEEDED
It said IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei had urged Syria to provide the necessary transparency including allowing visits to the requested locations and access to all available information for the agency to complete its assessment.U.N. officials said the uranium contamination that turned up in soil samples collected at the site was a chemically processed form of the mineral that was not the enriched variety used to run nuclear power plants or as fissile bomb material.But the element found was not depleted uranium either, the type used to boost the penetrating power of munitions.
There's enough uranium here to raise questions. The onus of this verification is on Syria, said a senior U.N. official, who like others asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities.The uranium element in question was not in Syria's declared nuclear inventory. Syria's only official nuclear site is an old research reactor. It has no known nuclear energy capacity.The IAEA also intends to ask Israel for information addressing Syria's remarks about the origin of the uranium. Israel has remained silent on the matter since the air raid. ElBaradei said on Monday the uranium traces could have come on clothing of workers who had been in contact with nuclear materials somewhere, or from stored equipment. The report said Syria had told inspectors the site could not have been a nuclear facility because of unreliable, insufficient electricity supplies locally, limited available manpower and the lack of large quantities of treated water. But the report said inspectors saw enough electrical grid to power reactor pumps. Another senior U.N. official said the investigation had urgent need of high-resolution pictures of the site he said must have been taken in the immediate aftermath of the bombing. He said eight countries, which he declined to identify, had access to such imagery but had not turned it over to date. The report complained that the investigation had been severely hampered by (Israel's) unilateral use of force and by a U.S. failure to hand over relevant intelligence until seven months after the bombing. In light of (that), the agency's verification of the situation has been made more difficult and complex, as well as more time- and resource-consuming, the report said. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Israel spurns UN plea to ease Gaza blockade By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 19, 4:27 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel stood fast Wednesday by its decision to clamp shut cargo crossings at the Gaza Strip, brushing off pleas to ease the blockade from United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.Israel sealed the passages two weeks ago after a 5-month-old truce between Israel and Gaza militants started unraveling in an effort to halt rocket and mortar fire at Israeli border towns.The crossings, a main source of imports to Gaza, have been cracked open occasionally to allow in fuel and vital supplies. But the closures have drastically reduced the amount of goods entering the already impoverished seaside territory of 1.4 million people, causing shortages of many basic goods.On Tuesday, Ban called Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express his deep concern over the consequences of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, the U.N. said in a statement.He strongly urged the prime minister to facilitate the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of concerned United Nations personnel into Gaza, the statement said.Olmert said Israel was not to blame for the deterioration of conditions in Gaza, according to the prime minister's office. Gazans have only Hamas' regime of terror to blame, he said.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group committed to Israel's destruction, has ruled Gaza since violently overrunning the territory in June 2007.Israel's Gaza blockade has led to frequent blackouts throughout Gaza and resulted in shortages of food, supplies and even cash.Gaza's largest flour mill halted operations Wednesday, saying it had run out of wheat, and the United Nations said it was being forced to suspend cash grants to 98,000 of Gaza's poorest people because of a shortage of Israeli currency.The Israeli closure also prompted major international media organizations, including The Associated Press, BBC, Reuters and the New York Times, to send a rare protest letter to the prime minister, requesting that foreign journalists be allowed into Gaza. Israel has barred reporters from entering the area for the past two weeks. There was no immediate comment from Olmert's office.Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio on Wednesday that there has to be quiet for the crossings to open.At nightfall Wednesday, Palestinians reported a large explosion east of Gaza City. Hamas officials said the blast was caused by a shell, but it was not clear if it was an Israeli or Palestinian device. No one was hurt. Often homemade rockets and mortars fired by Palestinians at Israel fall short and explode in Gaza.Israel and Hamas have been observing a truce since June. The cease-fire has largely held until Israeli troops entered Gaza early this month to destroy a tunnel they said militants had dug to attack Israel. At least 17 militants have been killed since, and militants have fired about 150 rockets and mortars at Israel, by the military's count.Both Israeli and Hamas officials have said they hope to restore the calm, though Barak has said the military is ready for a large-scale operation if necessary.
The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, met with leaders of other Palestinian factions Wednesday. He said they support maintaining the truce as long as the occupation (Israel) commits to it.Before the truce was reached, militants pelted Israel with near-daily rocket attacks, provoking sometimes harsh military retaliation that killed hundreds of Palestinians, including many civilians.U.S. President-elect Barack Obama called Abbas on Tuesday to tell him he would spare no effort to facilitate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday.In the West Bank, meanwhile, a court-ordered deadline expired for Jewish settlers to leave a four-story building in the volatile city of Hebron. The settlers ignored the ruling, which also said they must be evicted within 30 days if they don't leave voluntarily. Barak said the government would comply with the court order, but added defense officials would first try to persuade the settlers to leave. About 500 of the most extreme Israeli settlers live in Hebron in heavily guarded enclaves among 170,000 Palestinians. If Israeli security forces evict them from the building, violent clashes are likely. Media reports Wednesday said about 600 people have gathered around the building to prevent its evacuation. Settlers moved in early last year after claiming they bought the building from a Palestinian. The Palestinian denies the claim, and Israeli authorities have not recognized the sale as legal.
Syria must choose between peace or belligerence: Peres by Prashant Rao Prashant Rao –Wed Nov 19, 1:46 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Syria must choose between peace or belligerence in its dealings with Israel, and between relations with Iran or the Jewish state, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Wednesday.They cannot escape the choice... they are under the impression that they can do both, the former prime minister and Nobel peace prize winner said during a visit to London.They have to make up their mind. It's either peace or belligerence, Peres told reporters at a briefing.If they think they can make the peace with Israel and maintain their close relations with Iran and (Lebanese militant group) Hezbollah, they will discover that is not possible, he said.No potential American mediator -- which Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has called for -- would agree to Syria negotiating peace with Israel while maintaining close relations with Iran, said Peres.I don't see an American (mediator) that will agree to do the two things -- to help the Syrians on agreeing the land (issue), and keep a very close relationship with the Iranians.The Syrian president last week called on Israel to prove it was interested in forging a peace deal, six months after the long-time foes relaunched indirect negotiations.Talks between the two countries needed international patronage, chiefly from the United States, he said.
Direct negotiations were frozen eight years ago after Israel baulked at Syrian demands for the return of the whole of the occupied Golan Heights, right down to the Sea of Galilee, its main water source.Israel seized the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war, annexing it in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.Later on Wednesday, Peres addressed both houses of Britain's parliament for the second time -- he previously gave a speech to the House of Commons and House of Lords in January 1986.Addressing both houses is a rare honour that has only been conferred on 34 individuals, including Peres, since 1939, including Nelson Mandela, Mikheil Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, Ronald Reagan and, most recently, Nicolas Sarkozy.
Other highlights of Peres's visit to Britain include an audience with Queen Elizabeth II plus talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband Thursday.Earlier on the trip, he addressed students at the prestigious Oxford University, though protesters attempted to shout him down, according to British media.
Israel says it will boycott UN anti-racism meet Wed Nov 19, 1:18 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel will stay away from an international anti-racism conference next year, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday, saying the meeting was certain to become an anti-Israel tribunal.Israel will not participate and will not legitimise the (Durban) Review Conference, which will be used as a platform for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity, Livni told a conference of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.The April 2009 meeting in Geneva was called by the UN General Assembly as a follow-up to a controversial conference held in Durban in 2001 which ended in acrimony amidst accusations of anti-Semitism.Livni said there was no indication things would go better at the 2009 gathering than they had in Durban.
Despite our efforts and those of friendly countries, for whose position we are grateful, the conference appears to be heading once again towards becoming an anti-Israeli tribunal, which has nothing to do with fighting racism, she said.She cited a paper the Asian Group submitted to the preparatory committee which she said reproduces, almost word by word, the rhetoric of the Tehran Planning Meeting in 2001, a meeting which led to the Durban 1 farce.Once again extremist Arab and Muslim states wish to control the content of the conference and derail it from its original mission, she said.UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanetham Pillay in September urged Israel, the United States and other countries not to boycott the conference, saying the hopes of many victims of intolerance could be dashed should differences be allowed to become pretexts for inaction.But Livni on Wednesday urged the international community not to participate in a conference which seeks to legitimise hatred and extremism under the banner of the fight against racism.
Miliband hopes 2009 year of change in Mideast by Jocelyne Zablit – Wed Nov 19, 9:33 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Visiting Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday he hopes 2009will usher in changes around the globe that will bring about a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement.I think 2009 is going to be a very important year, Miliband told reporters as he wrapped up a brief visit to Lebanon that included meetings with President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.It is the year of change globally because there is a new American president, there will be a new Israeli government, there will be elections in Lebanon and ... in Iran as well.He urged countries in the region to work seriously toward peace through dialogue rather than violence.Instability in the Middle East has spread and will spread if it is not contained, he warned.Miliband said he had discussed with Lebanese leaders legislative elections planned next spring and the importance of going through with these polls.The world will be watching to see all parties respect the democratic process and ensure that politics and not violence are the basis for the decisions about Lebanon's future, he said.So often in history Lebanon has been the victim of other people's conflicts and we will know that there is a true prospect of lasting peace in the Middle East when Lebanon is no longer the victim of other people's conflicts.Miliband arrived in Beirut on Tuesday following a stop in Damascus where he held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the first British politician to do so since 2001.He said there was no reason for alarm among anti-Syrian parties in Lebanon over Britain's apparent rapprochement with Damascus.I don't think people should be concerned about dialogue when it is conducted on an honest and serious basis, he said. What I say publicly about the choices that Syria and other countries face and the responsibilities that Syria and other countries have is what I say privately to President Assad and to other leaders.
Syria has faced diplomatic isolation since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri in a massive car bomb. It denies any role in the killing.It has also been shunned by the West because of its ties with Iran, the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organisation by the US and Britain.Miliband said Britain made a distinction between the military and political wings of Hezbollah, which has one minister in the current government.
It is right to draw that distinction and to emphasise that those who use violence for political ends cannot expect to have the support of the international community, he said.Earlier in his tour of the region, Miliband also travelled to Israel and the West Bank, holding meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.He last visited Beirut in June following the election of Sleiman and the formation of a national unity government which put an end to an 18-month crippling political crisis that had brought the country close to civil war.
Israel's Netanyahu pushes economic peace plan by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 19, 5:59 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's hawkish opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday a Palestinian state should only be created once the economy is strengthened, adding that this would be at the heart of his peace plan if he wins February elections.Economic development does not solve problems, it mitigates them and makes them more accessible for solution, and creates a stronger political base, the former prime minister and head of the rightwing Likud party said.He went on to say that his government would continue US-backed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority in an effort to reach an agreement on agreeable issues.Polls project that Likud would gain a slight lead in February 10 elections that were called after Ehud Olmert stepped down as prime minister in September.Netanyahu rejected the current format of the peace process, saying he would not hand over the Palestinians occupied territories before strengthening the West Bank economy, fearing that radical Islamists backed by archfoe Iran would seize power there.Any area that we withdraw from will be taken over by Iran, Netanyahu said in a speech before the General Assembly of North American Jewish communities. All we are doing is creating an additional base for militant Islam.Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, where the Islamist Hamas movement violently ousted forces loyal to secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas less than two years later.Netanyahu said that while continuing talks with moderate Palestinians, he would seek to weave an economic peace alongside the political process that gives a stake in peace for the moderate elements in the Palestinian society.The plan will include creating thousands of jobs and the development of infrastructure and the removal of Israeli roadblocks across the West Bank in order to allow Palestinian movement "without impeding Israeli society.
He would also seek to develop three or four joint Israeli-Palestinian economic projects along the West Bank border area with the support of Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has peace agreements.This is a definite change I intend to introduce into the peace negotiations, the hawkish MP said.But Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad has rejected Netanyahu's proposals for an economic solution to the Middle East conflict.Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund economist, said the conflict was a political one that required a political solution.I am interested not in redefining the occupation but in ending the occupation, he said in an interview published by the Israeli daily Haaretz on Tuesday.
Obama calls Palestinian leader, says peace vital Wed Nov 19, 5:53 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – A Palestinian negotiator says U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has called the Palestinian president and told him that peace is a vital interest for Israelis and Palestinians.Negotiator Saeb Erekat says the phone call took place Tuesday.Erekat says Obama told President Mahmoud Abbas that he will spare no effort to facilitate a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.A year of U.S.-backed talks has not yielded tangible results and the fate of the negotiations is uncertain.Israel is holding elections in February. Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not continue peace talks in the current format. Also, Abbas faces a new political showdown with rival Hamas in January when the Islamic militants say his term expires.
UN seeks 160 mln dlrs from Gulf Arabs to meet budget deficit Tue Nov 18, 1:43 pm ET AFP – Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.
AMMAN (AFP) – The cash-strapped UN agency for Palestinian refugees appealed on Tuesday to oil-rich Arab states in the Gulf to help meet a 160-million-dollar projected budget deficit next year.We are making special appeals to our Arab partners in the Gulf, said Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.We have had very good experiences with Gulf contributors in the past for major projects ... and we hope we will get the same kind of support.Abu Zayd was speaking to reporters after an UNRWA meeting in Amman, but she did not elaborate.According to the agency's website, UNRWA's original budget for 2008 was 504.1 million dollars.In January, the agency appealed to Gulf Arab states to provide nearly 10 million dollars in aid for the besieged Hamas-run Gaza Strip.UNRWA cares for some 4.2 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Israel to free 250 Palestinian prisoners by Ezzedine Said Ezzedine Said – Mon Nov 17, 2:35 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday that 250 Palestinian prisoners would be freed in a goodwill gesture, as Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas urged Israel to maintain the Gaza truce.The pair met in Jerusalem for the first time in two months, amid rising tension in and around the besieged Gaza Strip where Israeli forces and Palestinian militants have engaged in almost daily tit-for-tat attacks since November 4.Abbas had asked him to free Palestinian prisoners and Olmert told him of the decision to release 250 at the beginning of December, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.In a similar move in August, Israel freed 198 Palestinian prisoners. More than 11,000 Palestinians are still held in Israeli prisons.A senior Israeli official said that none of the prisoners to be freed belongs to radical Palestinian movements such as Hamas, the Islamist movement which seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007.Since the Hamas takeover, the secular Abbas has held sway only in the West Bank.But he said that during his talks at Olmert's official residence in Jerusalem, Abbas stressed the need to maintain the truce in Gaza because it eases the suffering of the Palestinian people.He also urged Palestinian militants not to shatter the fragile truce that went into effect in and around Gaza on June 19. In other words, stop the futile rocket firings that don't help the Palestinian cause in any way, Abbas said.Abbas also met British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who said it was vital the ceasefire be maintained. The discussions you have had today (with Olmert) seem to me to be a very important contribution to that, Miliband told the Palestinian leader.Miliband earlier toured Sderot, an Israeli town which regularly comes under rocket fire from neighbouring Gaza.A flare-up in violence last week prompted Israel to further tighten its blockade and completely seal off the aid-dependent Gaza Strip, though it allowed the delivery of humanitarian supplies on Monday for the first time in almost two weeks.
Olmert told Abbas that Hamas is to blame for violations of the truce in and around the Gaza Strip, and warned that if violence escalates, Israel will have to respond, a senior Israeli official said.On Monday, several rockets fired from Gaza hit southern Israel without causing any casualties.Each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire in the latest flare-up of violence in which volleys of rockets and mortar rounds have been launched at Israel and 15 Gaza militants killed since November 4.Israel generally responds to the Gaza attacks by tightening the blockade it imposed after the 2007 Hamas takeover, but said it allowed 33 truckloads of humanitarian supplies into the coastal strip on Monday.A UN spokesman said that many more deliveries will be needed in the impoverished and overcrowded territory.
We cannot have another period when people are not getting their food assistance. We cannot allow people to get punished in that way, said Chris Gunness of the UN Works and Relief Agency, which distributes food to 750,000 Gazans -- half the population.
The violence as well as the political and geographical division of the Palestinian territories between Hamas-ruled Gaza and the West Bank under Abbas have complicated the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinians and the international community say continued Jewish settlement activity in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is major stumbling block in the talks that were relaunched at a US conference in November 2007 after a seven-year hiatus. I called for a halt to all settlement activity, Abbas said after his talks with Olmert.
Analysis: Hamas, Israel trying to rewrite truce By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer Karin Laub, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 17, 3:04 am ET
JERUSALEM – A June truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers comes up for renewal next month and it looks like both sides are trying to dictate more favorable terms.
That would explain why Israel and Hamas have been trading rocket fire and air strikes for two weeks, even as they keep saying they're interested in a continued cease-fire. But the attempt to establish new ground rules could easily spin out of control, especially if there are civilian casualties.Domestic concerns further complicate the situation.Israel is holding general elections Feb. 10 and the cross-border violence has become campaign fodder.Over the weekend, the hard-line opposition party Likud predictably portrayed the government as weak for not responding more harshly to the rockets. Put on the defensive, the leaders of the ruling Kadima and Labor parties delivered tough speeches, warning Hamas that Israel would strike a punishing blow if necessary.Yet a high-risk Israeli offensive in Gaza seems unlikely ahead of the election. And at a time of political transition in the United States, Israel might not want to start its relationship with Barack Obama in crisis mode.Yet continued rocket fire from Gaza would hurt the election prospects of Kadima and Labor and could turn the public mood against a key election promise of both parties — to keep trying to forge a peace deal with the Palestinians.Hamas, meanwhile, is trying to fend off criticism at home, particularly from smaller militant factions, that it accepted a bad deal and that the cease-fire hasn't improved life in Gaza. The territory has been under an international blockade since the violent June 2007 takeover by Hamas.
The Egyptian-brokered truce took hold June 19 and was to be renewed after six months. The details were never made public, but the general idea was for Israel to allow more goods into Gaza, which has suffered from chronic shortages under the sanctions.This was to be followed by negotiations on the release of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas-allied militants and by the eventual opening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.The truce largely held, though Israel has closed the borders for brief periods in response to occasional rocket or mortar fire from Gaza. But even when the crossings did open, Israel never allowed in more than a trickle of goods. Negotiations over the captured soldier, Gilad Schalit, bogged down and Rafah, Gaza's main gateway, remained closed.
On Nov. 4, this uneasy balance was upset.
Israeli forces moved 300 yards meters into Gaza to destroy a border tunnel dug by militants. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said at the time that militants' had planned to abduct Israeli soldiers through the tunnel, similar to the 2006 capture of Schalit.However, defense officials acknowledged that Israel also was also trying to send a message that it would not allow Hamas militants to operate close to the border.Hamas responded with barrages of rockets and mortars on Israeli border communities. Israel, in turn, targeted rocket squads with air strikes, killing at least 15 Palestinian militants, including four on Sunday.Israel also stepped up pressure by keeping Gaza's borders closed, causing widespread power cuts, disrupting U.N. food distribution to the needy and drawing international condemnation.Hamas raised the stakes by firing several longer-range Grad rockets at the Israeli city of Ashkelon. By taking aim deeper inside Israel with the deadlier Grads, rather than at small border communities with crude homemade rockets, Hamas was trying to boost its powers of deterrence.The idea is to force the occupier to respect our people's rights and demand and stop all sorts of aggression against our people, said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. Israeli critics of the truce have repeatedly warned that Hamas is using the cease-fire to amass weapons via smuggling tunnels and that Israel is losing the ability to take the initiative. Hamas determines the rules of the game, it determines the pace, it decides when to fire rockets on Israeli citizens and how many, Gideon Saar, a senior Likud legislator, told Israel Radio. Still, both sides have an overriding interest in a cease-fire. Hamas needs calm in Gaza as it heads into a political showdown with its rival, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas contends that Abbas' term expires Jan. 8 and says it will install its own president at that time, closing perhaps the last door to the elusive possibility of restoring national unity. Israel, meanwhile, doesn't want to be dragged into a major military offensive in Gaza. Barak that would risk the lives of Israel soldiers for uncertain gains. Reoccupying Gaza would at best bring temporary calm, but more likely bog down his forces without an exit strategy. It would also distract the military from other key challenges, including the threats from Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas. Fiery rhetoric is not a policy, he told his right-wing critics Saturday. Karin Laub has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1987.
Israel urges greater force vs Iran nuclear work Mon Nov 17, 1:31 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on Sunday for a stronger international campaign against Iran's nuclear programme to thwart it with greater force.We must increase our measures to prevent Iran from achieving its devious goals, Olmert said in a speech to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it ... the free world must not accept it.We must unite our forces as part of the international community, led by the United States of America. We must confront Iran's malevolent diligence and thwart it with greater force.Israel and the West fear Iran may be using its nuclear programme to develop a nuclear weapon, which the Jewish state sees as a potential threat to its existence. Iran says its atomic programme is solely for energy purposes.Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, although it has never confirmed nor denied it.Israel has backed Western economic sanctions against Iran but has said it is keeping all options on the table in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear programme.Israeli leaders have voiced concern about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's stated readiness to seek dialogue either alongside or instead of sanctions as a method of persuading Iran to change its policies.Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Olmert said.He also accused the Islamic Republic of continuing to fund Palestinian militants and gunmen in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.Olmert called for further sanctions against Iran, saying: It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give it up.Olmert resigned as prime minister in September in the heat of a corruption investigation, but is staying on as caretaker prime minister until a new Israeli government can be formed after a February 10 election.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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