Mideast quartet, G8 call on Israel to freeze settlements JUNE 26,09
TRIESTE, Italy (AFP) – Pressure grew on Israel Friday to take concrete steps for peace as both the diplomatic quartet and the Group of Eight called for the Jewish state to halt West Bank settlements.We are urging Israeli authorities to stop settlements including natural (demographic) growth,UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference.This will be the first beginning to make sure all our proposals are implemented,he said.The quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations -- met in the northeastern Italian city of Trieste to try to jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.Just hours earlier the Group of Eight leading world powers, also meeting in Trieste, made the same appeal, calling on both parties to fulfill their obligations under the roadmap, including a freeze on settlement activity.The international community considers the settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day war, to be illegal.The Palestinians have said they will not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until Israel halts all settlement activity.
But while Netanyahu has vowed not to build new settlements, he insists on allowing for natural growth within existing settlements.The Israeli leader for the first time earlier this month endorsed the two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, which is the cornerstone of international Middle East peacemaking efforts for years.In recent weeks the United States, Italy and France have all called for a settlement freeze.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who attended both talks in Trieste, said:We want to achieve full-fledged resumption of direct negotiations between the parties themselves on all tracks.Tony Blair, the quartet's Middle East envoy, called for major change on the West Bank... transformative progress beyond the easing of access and movement for Palestinians in the occupied territory.What is necessary at the same time as we make a big push politically for the two-states solution is that that push... is supported by what is happening on the ground,the former British prime minister said.The quartet's declaration also called for an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism,calling on the Palestinian Authority to continue to make every effort to improve law and order and to fight violent extremism.Ban, noting the change of government in both Israel and the United States this year, said:We are trying very hard to seize on the very favorable political atmosphere following US President Barack Obama's Cairo speech, which he described as "quite a historic and powerful statement.Obama, who has made relaunching the Middle East peace process a priority since taking office in January, bluntly called for Israel to halt settlement activity while urging Arabs to move closer to making peace with Israel in the speech on June 4.
Blair, noting that investment in West Bank development has already produced positive results, urged a parallel strategy for Gaza said You can never separate the politics and the security and the economics -- they go together.Ban said Middle East peace sponsors were looking for meaningful signs of progress in the coming few months and reiterated the quartet's support for an international peace conference to be held in Moscow this year.
U.S. hopes to start Mideast talks soon: envoy Fri Jun 26, 10:12 am ET
TRIESTE, Italy (Reuters) – U.S. envoy George Mitchell said Friday that the United States hoped Israelis and Palestinians would soon begin meaningful and productive peace negotiations.We believe we are making progress in these efforts and we hope very much to conclude this phase of the discussions and to be able to move into meaningful and productive negotiations in the near future,Mitchell told a news conference.Mitchell was speaking after a meeting in Italy of the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators which includes the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia.It was its first formal meeting since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January.(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Adrian Croft)
Israel plays down reports of imminent Gaza deal By Alastair Macdonald and Adam Entous - Fri Jun 26, 7:19 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli officials played down reports on Friday that a deal was close with Hamas that would include the release of an Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.Israeli and Palestinian political sources and Western diplomats confirmed, however, that Egyptian mediators were still working on a package of measures that could combine exchanges of prisoners, ceasefire agreements, an easing of Israel's blockade on Gaza and rapprochement between rival Palestinian factions.A July 7 deadline set by Egypt for Islamist Hamas and the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to ease a schism that has divided Gaza from the West Bank, as well as this week's third anniversary of Hamas's capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, has fueled speculation of a deal.Responding to Israeli press reports citing European diplomats that Shalit was about to be sent to Egypt, Israeli officials and European diplomats in the region said on Friday they knew of no new concrete developments in negotiations.Hamas officials have also played down earlier reports.Nonetheless, diplomats said negotiations were in train.The family of Shalit, who also has French citizenship, has stepped up pressure on new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal. The government has long baulked at Hamas's price for Shalit's release, notably the freeing of leading Hamas militants responsible for attacks on Israelis.Netanyahu is also under pressure from the United States and its European allies to ease a blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza that has prevented billions of dollars in foreign reconstruction aid from reaching the enclave since Israel's offensive in January.Israel, which is also under U.S. pressure to renew peace talks with Abbas, has tied the blockade to the fate of Shalit.An Israeli government official said Netanyahu wanted the international community to pressure Hamas, not Israel: Hamas has held Gilad Shalit for some three years. He hasn't even been given one visit by a representative of the Red Cross.The international community should be pushing for his release and should be pushing for such a visit.
PACKAGE DEALS
Hamas, which seized control of Gaza two years ago in fighting with Fatah-led forces, is keen to bolster its support among the 1.5 million Gazans by improving supplies.
Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament elected in 2006, told Reuters on Thursday, two days after he was released himself from an Israeli prison:The Egyptians are behind the package deal which is expected to speak about the truce, to speak about opening all the crossings to (the) Gaza Strip and to speak about Shalit.We would like (it) to be accomplished in the very few coming days because I left ... almost 11,000 prisoners in Israeli jails,Dweik added, speaking in English.During a European tour this week that included talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy which touched on the Shalit case, Netanyahu said on Tuesday: We are making efforts on various levels. We are now testing various possibilities.One possibility, cited by an Israeli political source, was that a step-by-step deal could begin with Hamas moving Shalit to Egypt, where he would stay with access to his family. Israel, in turn, would begin to open Gaza's border crossings. The two sides would then hammer out a final agreement on Hamas prisoners.
The possible complexity of any deal is daunting, however: Israel wants Shalit back and an end to threats from Hamas, which has peppered southern Israel with rockets from Gaza; Hamas wants hundreds of its own prisoners released, both by Israel and by Abbas's Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, as well as promises from Israel not to renew attacks on Gaza; Abbas wants Fatah prisoners released in Gaza and an accord that will restore his authority in the Hamas-run enclave.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Hebron and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem)
Lebanon rivals discuss shaping new government Fri Jun 26, 6:16 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – The leader of the Western-backed alliance that won this month's Lebanese parliamentary election, Saad Hariri, has held talks with his defeated rival, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the makeup of a new government, an aide said on Friday.The discussions focussed on the political situation ... following the elections,the two men said in a joint statement following the Thursday night meeting.
They discussed different options for a new government and agreed to continue their talks.They hailed the calm and diplomatic atmosphere reigning in the country and underlined the importance of dialogue, cooperation and dialogue.The meeting was Hariri's first with Nasrallah since October.The aide declined for security reasons to say where it was held. Nasrallah has been Israel's most wanted man since the devastating 2006 war his Shiite militants fought with the Jewish state.Hezbollah and its allies want a continuation of the government of national unity formed last year after deadly clashes between the rival blocs brought Lebanon to the brink of a new civil war.But Hariri's majority bloc insists it will only accept a unity government if the Hezbollah alliance surrenders the veto powers it enjoys in the outgoing cabinet.Later on Friday, President Michel Sleiman is due to begin consultations with the rival blocs before naming a new prime minister.The premiership could go to Hariri four years after the assassination of his father Rafiq, a five-time premier, in a Beirut bombing that propelled him onto the political stage.In an interview with AFP on Thursday, Hezbollah number two Naim Kassem declined to say whether the movement would support Hariri's nomination.
Hamas leader welcomes Obama's new Mideast approach By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 25, 4:50 pm ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – The top Hamas leader on Thursday welcomed what he said is new language by President Barack Obama toward the Islamic militant group — part of Hamas' cautious outreach to Washington in recent weeks.In a televised speech, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal avoided any mention of the recent turmoil in Iran, even though the Islamic militant group is backed by the Tehran regime.Earlier Thursday, Iran's hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused Obama of meddling because of growing U.S. criticism of Iran's clampdown on opposition protesters. Iran's other militant ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah group, has sided with Iran's ruling clerics.Hamas has been trying to reach out to the Obama administration in hopes of breaking out of its international isolation and prying open the borders of blockaded Hamas-ruled Gaza.The U.S. and Europe consider Hamas a terror group and have said they will only engage if Hamas recognizes Israel and renounces violence. Hamas has rejected those conditions, saying it cannot make such concessions up front.In a speech to the Muslim world earlier this month, Obama insisted that Hamas meet the conditions, but also suggested the group could play a political role in the future.Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities,Obama said at the time.To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist.Mashaal on Thursday praised what he described as Obama's new language towards Hamas.It is the first step in the right direction toward a dialogue without conditions, and we welcome this,he said.
However, he said the U.S. must respect the Palestinians' democratic choice; Hamas overwhelmingly won Palestinian parliament elections in 2006.The Hamas chief-in-exile also said Obama remains too sympathetic toward Israel, despite the president's pledge to work hard for the establishment of a Palestinian state.Obama spoke widely about the suffering of Jews and their Holocaust in Europe but ignored the talk about our suffering and Israel's Holocaust that has been going on for decades against our people,he said.Mashaal also railed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in a recent speech that Israel would retain sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, keep building in Jewish settlements and demand Palestinians recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.The enemy's leaders call for a so-called Jewish state is a racist demand that is no different from calls by Italian Fascists and Hitler's Nazism, Mashaal said.Mashaal said his group will keep working on a prisoner exchange with Israel to win the release of hundreds of Palestinians in return for Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, who was captured three years ago near Gaza.
So far, the Israeli intransigence has stopped all efforts but we are still ready to reach a prisoner exchange, Mashaal said.Netanyahu's only choice to get back Schalit is a serious deal.Mashaal called on Obama to pull out Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator in the region, who is supervising the training of Palestinian forces in the West Bank.Hamas overran Gaza two years ago, leaving Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas only in control of the West Bank. Abbas has been clamping down on Hamas in the West Bank since the Gaza takeover, and some 2,100 U.S.-trained Palestinian forces play a key role in that effort. Mashaal said Dayton's force is the main obstacle to the success of Palestinian reconciliation talks that are being sponsored by Egypt.Mashaal said a Hamas delegation will be flying to Egypt to take part in Sunday's talks with representatives of Abbas' Fatah movement. Associated Press Writer Hadeel al-Shalchi contributed to this report from Cairo.
Israeli Leader Avigdor Lieberman Criticizes U.S. on Iran By TIM MCGIRK AND ROMESH RATNESAR / JERUSALEM – Thu Jun 25, 3:20 pm ET
For a man who has a reputation for being blunt and confrontational, Avigdor Lieberman has kept uncharacteristically silent since taking over in March as Israel's Foreign Minister. His boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had reportedly asked him to muzzle his hawkish views for fear of riling the Obama Administration. But in his first major interview, which he gave to TIME, the burly Foreign Minister, who says he shrugs off political correctness,came out swinging. He lambasted the West for not giving more support to Iranian reformists. This really fanatic extremist regime is still in power, and the young people who are ready to fight and die for change are not getting any real support from the West,he said.The fact that this regime continues to be an acceptable partner for dialogue is really a bad message. It shows the bad guys are winners.Lieberman also criticized the Obama Administration for demanding that Israel halt construction in Jewish settlements inside the Palestinian territories, saying it is a mistake.He added,We are trying to formulate some understanding with the U.S. We don't speak [with the Americans] of building new settlements. We don't speak of expansion. We try to build only within existing construction lines.In quiet but forceful tones, Lieberman said,We cannot suffocate our own people. You know, babies are born. People get married. We cannot stop life. People want to build a synagogue or a kindergarten.Lieberman also claimed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was part of a broader clash of values between civilizations,and that it was not the key for bringing peace to the Middle East, as many believe.With 9/11 and terrorist acts in London, Madrid, Bali, in Russia, I can't see any linkage with the Israeli-Palestinian problem,the Moldava native told TIME, speaking in Russian-accented English.He said that Israel is ready to start talks without preconditions with Arab leaders, despite an earlier remark he made before taking over as Foreign Minister that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could go to hell.He told TIME,Even today, I'm ready to start talks with any country in our region. We agree with President Obama's approach to a regional settlement of historical disputes. I'm ready to take a jet to Damascus to meet President Bashir al-Assad.(Read When Bibi Met Barack: Tough Talk on Middle East Peace.)
Lieberman said he is also willing to talk openly with the Palestinians. So far, he said, the Palestinian leadership has failed to contact the Israelis after Netanyahu reversed his earlier opposition to a Palestinian state and said in a major foreign policy speech earlier this month that he now advocates a two-state solution. Lieberman said that previous peace efforts floundered because it's impossible to impose peace, only to create it.And for that, he said,We must start with practical issues, like getting rid of roadblocks and illegal outposts [inside the Palestinian territories]. You must understand that we used to have 41 roadblocks and now only have 16 roadblocks.But a U.N. agency disputes Lieberman's count, saying there are 69 roadblocks in the West Bank manned by Israeli security services and another 521 unmanned roadblocks restricting Palestinians' travel.Before taking over as Israel's foreign policy point person, Lieberman earned the epithet racist among Palestinians and liberal Israelis for advocating that the borderline of a future Palestinian state be redrawn so that large Arab communities inside Israel would lose their citizenship and be carved out. It's a notion that many Israeli-Arabs resist, and they proclaim sarcastically that it's better to remain second-class citizens inside Israel, with its better schools and clinics, than join a Palestinian state that, judging by the current mayhem inside the territory, would be riddled with corruption and appalling services.Better an Israeli hell than a Palestinian paradise,is one popular saying.But Lieberman seems to have tempered his views, saying that today the transfer of populations is neither acceptable nor possible.He said that even if a Palestinian state were created, Arabs would still be welcome inside Israel, where they currently account for 18% of the population.Maybe some Arabs would prefer to go to a Palestinian state, but if some want to be Israeli citizens, that's their right,he said.Lieberman sees himself as an outsider in Israeli politics. He still marvels at the fact that he came to Israel as a 20-year-old immigrant - his first job was hauling luggage at Ben Gurion Airport - and now he's the country's Foreign Minister. It's a great land of opportunity,he said, smiling. In his spare time, he writes film screenplays. It's a hobby, he said, refusing to reveal the plot to his current work. This is something for the next stage in my life.Hollywood will have to wait.
Israel reduces control of 4 West Bank towns By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 25, 2:11 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Bowing to pressure from Washington, Israel granted U.S.-trained Palestinian security forces greater autonomy in four main West Bank towns, Israeli and Palestinian defense officials said Thursday.The ability of Palestinian security forces to maintain law and order is key to Mideast peacemaking because Israel needs to be convinced that a future Palestinian state won't threaten its security.Israel already has turned over limited security control to Palestinians in three other West Bank towns, but the military said that forces in Qalqiliya, Bethlehem, Jericho and Ramallah would be the first to operate around the clock without Israeli clearance.In a statement, the Israeli military said Palestinian security forces will be able to extend their hours of operation in the towns but emphasized that Israeli forces would continue to operate in the West Bank in order to thwart terrorist operations.
The move stops short of a full withdrawal from these towns.
The Israeli military doesn't routinely patrol West Bank towns and cities, but frequently conducts nighttime and occasional daytime arrest raids.Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the step does not go far enough.What is required a full cessation of military raids into Palestinian areas,he told reporters in Ramallah.
Israel pulled out of major West Bank population centers in the 1990s but re-entered them after the Palestinian uprising against Israel reignited in late 2000. Palestinians have long sought an Israeli pullback from those towns as a reassertion of sovereignty.The U.S. has been training thousands of forces in the West Bank in preparation for future Palestinian statehood. U.S. officials involved in the training have been pressing Israel to allow the Palestinian forces more freedom.The European Union has contributed about $55 million (40 million euros) for equipment and training, said Jose Vericat, an EU official.We are doing our job protecting our people and there is no need for Israeli forces to enter our territories under the pretext of security needs,said Adnan Dmeiri, a spokesman for the Palestinian security forces.Another apparent result of U.S. pressure has been the recent removal of some of the hundreds of Israeli roadblocks, including major obstacles near the city of Nablus and town of Jericho. Israel insists it needs the checkpoints to stop attackers but has also said it is committed to making life easier for Palestinians.Israel, however, has been wary of a complete handover to Palestinian security.During the Palestinian uprising, some Palestinian forces turned their guns against Israeli targets. And police loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, were unable to hold back the onslaught of Islamic Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in 2007. Abbas now only controls the West Bank, while Gaza remains under Hamas control.Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal called on President Barack Obama to withdraw his advisers from the West Bank. Speaking in Damascus, Syria, Mashaal said,Building an oppressive authority over the heads of our people strongly contradicts with the principle of democracy you are calling for,an apparent reference to the Fatah-led security forces.
Also Thursday, an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants marked his third anniversary in captivity in Gaza, with no news on his plight.Sgt. Gilad Schalit, 22, was captured on June 25, 2006, by Hamas-affiliated militants who tunneled under the Gaza-Israel border and attacked a military post. Two other soldiers were killed.
Schalit has not been seen since and the Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him, though Hamas has released two recorded statements from him and exchanged letters between him and his family. Hamas has demanded the release of hundreds of prisoners, including people convicted in deadly attacks on Israelis, in exchange for the soldier.Israeli media reported again Thursday that the soldier would be transferred to Egypt soon as part of an exchange. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor noted there have been several rumors in recent days. We will only know when he is released. Until then I can't comment,he said.Egyptian-mediated attempts to arrange a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas have been unsuccessful. A Hamas spokesman, Osama Almuzeini, said Thursday that there were no new developments in the negotiations.He refused to confirm whether the soldier was alive or dead, saying Hamas would not give any information for free.
Israel marks third anniversary of soldier's capture by Patrick Moser – Thu Jun 25, 1:52 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israelis marked the third anniversary on Thursday of the capture by Hamas of soldier Gilad Shalit, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) called his continued detention cruel and inhumane.Family, friends and several thousand supporters gathered in front of the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on Thursday evening to call for his release.We are standing here tonight to be a mouth for Gilad, in order to express the plight of Gilad, who cannot speak and of course cannot shout from the hole in the ground where he has been for the past three years,said his father, Noam.He is asking only one thing from you, the decision makers -- his freedom,he told the crowd.The soldier's mother, Aviva Shalit, made an emotional plea to Israelis in an open letter published in newspapers.Please help us to get the current leadership to do what needs to be done and bring Gilad home ... I turn to you knowing that Gilad has become the son of an entire people,she wrote.Then a 19-year-old corporal, he was snatched by militants from Hamas and two smaller groups who had tunnelled out of Gaza on June 25, 2006, and attacked an army post, killing two other soldiers.Shalit, who has since been promoted to staff sergeant, is believed to be held somewhere inside the Gaza Strip, which has been run by Hamas since the Islamist movement seized power in the Palestinian enclave two years ago.The Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel recently received information via Egyptians involved in mediation with Hamas that Shalit is in reasonable health.Hamas authorities should immediately allow Sergeant Gilad Shalit of Israel to communicate with his family and to receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),New York-based HRW said.Hamas?s prolonged incommunicado detention of Shalit is cruel and inhumane and may amount to torture,a statement said.
Punishing Shalit for grievances against Israel is unjust and unlawful,HRW said, adding that the laws of war prohibit cruel and inhuman treatment of persons in custody.The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem called for Shalit's release and also said he must be allowed family and ICRC visits.The circumstances of Shalit?s capture three years ago and the behaviour of his captors clearly indicate that he is legally a hostage. Hostage taking is absolutely prohibited under international humanitarian law,B'Tselem said.The east Jerusalem-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds printed a B'Tselem advertisment calling for the soldier's immediate release, but the Gaza daily Palestine refused to run it, the group said.Israel and Hamas have held months of indirect talks through Egyptian mediators on a prisoner swap that would see hundreds of Palestinian detainees set free in exchange for Shalit, but no deal has been struck.
Hamas has rejected requests by the ICRC to visit Shalit.
HRW also said Israel has deprived Palestinian prisoners of family visits.An ICRC programme that allowed Gaza relatives to visit Palestinian prisoners held in Israel was suspended when Israel imposed a tight blockade on the coastal strip following Hamas's seizure of the territory in June 2007. The watchdog also said Israeli authorities have detained Hamas members without charge in the West Bank in arrests related to the Shalit case. It?s time for both Israel and Hamas to stop destroying lives and families by using the other side?s detainees as bargaining chips,said Sarah Leah Whitson, who heads HRW's Middle East section. Abu Mujahid, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups that seized Shalit, insisted the soldier will not be released as long as the demands of the resistance are not met.In a statement on the Hamas website, Abu Mujahid said he had arranged his wedding for Thursday, to mark the anniversary of the historic day when Shalit was captured. Meanwhile, an opinion poll found that 69 percent of Jewish Israelis support the release, as part of a prisoner swap deal, of Palestinian prisoners who have been directly involved in violent attacks, one of the sticking points in the negotiations.
Netanyahu, French officials discuss peace efforts By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 25, 8:10 am ET
PARIS – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met France's prime minister and foreign minister Thursday, wrapping up a trip marked by differences with Washington and Paris over Jewish settlements.Netanyahu has been pressing his bid for a demilitarized Palestinian state in his meetings in Italy and Paris, and says the idea is gaining international ground.He held closed-door meetings Thursday with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Fillon's office provided no details of the discussions.Kouchner planned to remind (Netanyahu) of France's expectations concerning the peace process, which we want quickly restarted, according to a statement from Kouchner's office ahead of the meeting. Kouchner was heading later Thursday to a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Trieste, Italy, where Mideast tensions and Iran's postelection unrest were expected to be high on the agenda.Netanyahu had another meeting planned in Paris that fell through: He had planned to see the top U.S. Mideast envoy, but called it off in an apparent sign of growing friction over President Barack Obama's call for a halt to construction in Jewish settlements.The U.S. position could spell political trouble for Netanyahu, whose government depends on patrons of the settlers.A statement from Netanyahu's office said the meeting with George Mitchell, which had been scheduled to take place in Paris on Thursday, would be put off while Israeli Defense Minster Ehud Barak meets Mitchell in Washington next week and tries to bridge the gaps. An aide traveling with Netanyahu said Jewish settlements were one of the issues which needs to be worked on.
In talks with Netanyahu on Wednesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy echoed Obama and insisted on a complete and immediate end to construction in Jewish settlements.
The French president, who defines himself as a friend of Israel but whose country has traditionally good relations with much of the Arab world, urged faster action toward creating a Palestinian state.Netanyahu leaves France on Thursday afternoon for Tel Aviv.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
FRANCE TO ISRAEL SETTLEMENT FREEZE
Sarkozy asks Netanyahu for total freeze on settlements Wed Jun 24, 5:00 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday asked Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a total freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
However, the hawkish leader, on his first visit to Europe since taking office in April, replied that normal life goes on amid international pressure for direct talks with the Palestinians.The president of the republic called on Israel to immediately take all possible measures to encourage confidence in its talks with the Palestinians, beginning with the total freeze of settlement activities, a French presidency statement said.Netanyahu had flown into Paris from Rome for one-on-one talks with Sarkozy lasting more than an hour, amid reports of a fall-out with Washington over Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.He had been due to meet US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in the French capital but the talks were called off amid reports -- denied by Israeli officials -- of a clash over its refusal to stop building more settlements.We will not build new settlements and we will not expropriate additional lands for settlements. We know that our people are living there and, pending a final, political settlement, they have to live a normal life, said Netanyahu.Paris, like Washington, wants a complete halt to Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, but the Israeli leader has already said he will allow for natural growth within existing settlements.The international community considers all settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day war, to be illegal.The Palestinians have said they will not meet Netanyahu until Israel halts all settlement activity. The presence of 280,000 Israelis in more than 100 settlements across the territory has been a major obstacle to peace efforts.
Sarkozy, keen to act as a Middle East peace-broker, has previously welcomed as an important step forward Netanyahu's landmark endorsement of a Palestinian state, despite a set of conditions that were rejected outright by Palestinian leaders.But US President Barack Obama's willingness to talk to Iran's leaders is a source of friction with the Israeli leadership, amid tensions that could be compounded by the cancellation of talks with Mitchell in Paris.Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying Washington issued a stern message to Netanyahu concerning its demands that Israel halt all growth in settlements on occupied Palestinian land.In Paris, the Israeli leader stressed past good relations with Washington.We have, as President (Barack) Obama said, unbreakable bonds of friendship, common ideals, common values and common interests with the United States, Netanyahu said.On Iran, while Netanyahu repeated earlier praise for the courage of the Iranian people, he emphasised the key role that fluid relations with Tehran among traditional allies are now playing in broader Middle East diplomacy.He said: What is certain, a point I believe we share with President Sarkozy and responsible governments and leaders everywhere -- and responsible people everywhere -- is such a regime should not acquire nuclear weapons, because this could be a very, very grave development.What we need is a change in Iran, a change of policies, for moderation, for freedom and for peace,he added.
Netanyahu slams Iran at start of Europe trip Tue Jun 23, 5:20 pm ET
ROME (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticised Iran on Tuesday as he began his first trip to Europe since taking office, saying the country's current turmoil revealed its true nature.Something very fundamental has taken place in Iran, and the world now sees the true nature of this regime,the hawkish Netanyahu told a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi.Slamming arch-foe Iran for repressing its own people,Netanyahu said: The courage shown by the people of Iran, in facing bullets on the streets for the sake of freedom, is something that deserves the salute of free men and women everywhere.Iran on Tuesday ruled out canceling its disputed presidential vote as the world voiced increasing alarm at a crackdown on demonstrators who are posing the most serious challenge to the Islamic regime in 30 years.This undoubtedly is being assessed in every capital in the world, and I'm sure it's being assessed as well in Washington, Netanyahu said when asked about US President Barack Obama's restrained stance on Iran.
Berlusconi said he reiterated to Netanyahu his firm condemnation of the statements of the Iranian leader that Israel should be wiped off the map.He added: Italy, like other Western nations, believes Iran should not have nuclear weapons.Meanwhile, an Israeli official told AFP in Rome that a planned meeting between Netanyahu and the US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, had been cancelled.Instead, Mitchell will meet Monday in Washington with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barack, the official said.This delay will enable us to throw light on topical questions which are now hanging in the air and have not been resolved,he said, without elaborating.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently clashed over US demands for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.On May 27, the chief US diplomat said Obama had made it clear during Netanyahu's earlier visit to Washington that he wants no natural growth exceptions to his call for a settlement freeze.
Lieberman had insisted that would not be possible.
Netanyahu, on his first official trip to Europe since his election in late March, was expected to push for stiffer sanctions against Tehran in both Rome and Paris over its nuclear programme.He has repeatedly said the programme constitutes the biggest threat to Israel since the Jewish state's founding in 1948.Shortly before Netanyahu arrived in Rome, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called on Israel to declare a moratorium on the expansion of its settlements in the West Bank.We would very much appreciate a gesture on the Israeli side announcing a moratorium on the expansion of existing settlements, Frattini told reporters.Frattini said Rome would also seek clarity from Netanyahu on the growth of settlements. The Israeli side has told us it refers to development following natural demographic growth. If that means adding a floor to one's own house after the birth of a child, that is not a problem,Frattini said. If it means expanding settlements like wildfire, that is a problem.Netanyahu came under fire for adding a raft of conditions to Israel's acceptance of a Palestinian state in a speech on June 14.Israel has refused to freeze settlements as demanded by the international community, which sees building in the West Bank as undermining prospects for a Palestinian state.
Medvedev seals strategic pact with Egypt by Anna Smolchenko – Tue Jun 23, 4:04 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a strategic cooperation pact with Egypt on Tuesday, the first day of a four-nation tour aimed at bolstering Moscow's influence in Africa and the Middle East.Medvedev signed the 10-year agreement with President Hosni Mubarak, whose country has had historic political and military ties with Moscow and is Russia's largest trading partner in Africa.The two leaders said in a joint declaration they were determined to coordinate foreign policy positions and steps and stressed the importance of reaching a fair peace in the Middle East.They also said their two nations were committed to the building of a new multipolar world order, which will be more democratic, fair and safe for all states, according to a copy of the declaration released by the Kremlin.Medvedev described the pact as very important,telling reporters it would define Egyptian-Russian ties for years to come.Mubarak praised Russia's influence in the Middle East and the world, adding that Cairo and Moscow were keen to boost cooperation in energy, trade and investments.Medvedev's trip is the first visit to Africa by a Russian president for three years and comes in the wake of the landmark address to the Muslim world that US President Barack Obama gave in Cairo earlier this month.
Russia is keen to boost its diplomatic clout in the region, which used to be a stronghold of Soviet influence before the end of the Cold War and the subsequent surge of US dominance.After his two-day visit to Egypt, Medvedev will make an ambitious foray into Nigeria, Namibia and Angola from Wednesday to Friday for talks to expand the country's economic footprint in Africa.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was also high on the agenda of talks between Medvedev and Mubarak, and the two leaders reiterated the importance of securing peace in the region through diplomatic efforts.Russia has been trying for months to organise a Middle East peace conference in Moscow before the end of the year but has come up against scepticism from the United States and Israel.
Medvedev reiterated Russia's intention to host the conference in Moscow by year's end.
In an apparent effort to underscore the significance of Russia's ties with the Arab world, Medvedev was also set to address the Cairo-based Arab League and meet its chief Amr Mussa.Mdevedev was also due to have a working dinner with senior members of the Egypt-Russia Association.Russia, part of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet along with the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, is eager to strengthen its diplomatic and commercial influence abroad.Since 2000, Egypt has benefited from a sharp increase in the number of Russian tourists, reaching 1.8 million last year and outnumbering visitors from western Europe.With trade turnover of 4.1 billion dollars last year, Egypt is Russia's largest trading partner in Africa.
Russia has also expressed interest in a 1.5 billion-1.8 billion-dollar-tender to construct Egypt's first atomic power station that will resume the country's nuclear programme after a 20-year freeze.Medvedev was due to visit key sites, including the Giza Pyramids, before leaving for Nigeria on Wednesday.
Intact ancient tomb uncovered in Bethlehem By NASSER SHIYOUKHI, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jun 23, 6:34 am ET
BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Workers renovating a house in the traditional town of Jesus' birth accidentally discovered an untouched ancient tomb containing clay pots, plates, beads and the bones of two humans, a Palestinian antiquities official said Tuesday.
The 4,000-year-old tomb provides a glimpse of the burial customs of the area's inhabitants during the Canaanite period, said Mohammed Ghayyada, director of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.Workers in a house near the Church of the Nativity uncovered a hole leading to the grave, which was about one meter (yard) below ground, he said. They contacted antiquities officials, who photographed the grave intact before removing its contents.They dated the grave to the Early Bronze Age, between 1,900 B.C. and 2,200 B.C.Jerusalem-based archaeologist and historian Stephen Pfann called the find an important reference to the life of the Canaanites,adding that it could give a glimpse into life in the area before the time when the Biblical patriarchs are said to have lived.While many artifacts exist from this period, intact graves are rare, mainly because of looting, he said.Intact graves are more useful to scholars because they show how items were arranged.Every time a new tomb is found, it adds to the picture,Pfann said.The findings will be housed in the Bethlehem Peace Center, a cultural center not far from where the tomb was discovered.
Israel PM on first official European tour by Jean-Luc Renaudie – Mon Jun 22, 4:18 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads for his first official trip to Europe on Tuesday, aiming to press Italy and France to harden sanctions against arch-foe Iran over its nuclear drive.The hawkish Netanyahu will meet his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi in Rome and the following day will head to Paris, where he will meet President Nicolas Sarkozy as well as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.Above all, the prime minister is planning to bring up the Iranian dossier,a senior government official told AFP.The scenes of violence and repression of the past days have lifted the mask of the bloody regime that doesn't hesitate to fire on unarmed protesters,said the official, requesting anonymity.With what is happening now in Iran, words and condemnations are not enough, the world must decide to take much harder measures to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear arms,he said.Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Iran's nuclear programme constitutes the biggest threat to Israel since the Jewish state's founding in 1948.
Israel and main ally Washington suspect Iran of trying to acquire atomic weapons under the guise of its nuclear programme, a charge that Tehran has repeatedly denied.
The Jewish state is widely considered to be the sole if undeclared nuclear power in the Middle East and views Iran as its arch-enemy because of regular calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.In Italy, Netanyahu will ask Rome to reduce its commercial links with Iran, which have grown in recent years, according to the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot.In both countries the prime minister will seek to put across his position on the stalled Middle East peace process in the aftermath of his speech on June 14 finally accepting the creation of a Palestinian state but imposing a slew of conditions slammed as unacceptable by the Palestinians.Netanyahu will stress that any final peace deal will have to have Palestinian recognition of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people -- something the Palestinians have long rejected.The prime minister will explain that his words can be translated into acts only if the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state, which they refuse for the moment,the official said.The issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank will also be on the agenda for the talks. The United States has repeatedly demanded a halt to all Israeli activity in the settlements, regarded by the international community as illegal.Netanyahu has refused to stop construction, saying it will carry on in order to accommodate population increases.The prime minister will again say that Israel will not create new settlements, will not confiscate new lands and will insist on the fact that residents of settlements must be allowed to lead normal lives,the official said.Netanyahu will also bring up the issue of improving relations between Israel and its main trading partner the European Union.EU nations agreed late last year to enhance ties with Israel but the process stalled when Israel launched a deadly 22-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December.
Palestinian PM wants state in two years Mon Jun 22, 2:51 pm ET
ABU DIS, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on Monday called on Palestinians to target the creation of their own state in two years, without waiting for an end to the Israeli occupation.I urge the Palestinian people to rally around a programme aimed at creating a state ... so that a Palestinian state becomes a reality by the end of next year or within two years at most,he said in a speech at Al-Quds university in Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem.He called for all means to be mobilised to ensure that goal is achieved as this would place the entire world before its responsibility to end the occupation and allow our people to live in freedom in their homeland and to exercise their right to self-determination.Fayyad's keynote address was seen as a response to a June 14 speech in which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the principle of a Palestinian state but set conditions that would severely limit its sovereignty.Israeli-Palestinian peace talks restarted in November 2007 after a seven-year hiatus but halted again when Israel launched a deadly military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December last year.Fayyad said Netanyahu's speech was more ambiguous and far less committed than the positions of previous Israeli governments.We ask the international community to press Israel to fulfil its commitments in order to salvage the two-state solution to open the way to peace in the region,he said.This implies freezing settlement activity, lifting the blockade of the Gaza Strip and ending incursions into areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, Fayyad said.The credibility of the peace process will be measured by the level to which Israel respects its commitments,he added.
Israel extends mandate of Mossad chief Mon Jun 22, 2:08 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli government has extended the mandate of the head of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency by a year, the prime minister's office said.Meir Dagan, 64 took reigns of Mossad in 2002.The extension sparked criticism from some ministers who argued that the agency leadership needed new blood.Whatever qualitites Meir Dagan possesses (the agency) needs a change of leadership, said Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who once headed parliament's powerful foreign affairs and defence committee.
Ancient Holy Land quarry uncovered, team says Sun Jun 21, 1:18 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls.The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said.The cave's main hall, about three meters tall, is supported by some 20 stone pillars and has a variety of symbols etched into the walls, including crosses dating back to about AD 350 and Roman legionary emblems.
Zertal said his team from Haifa University first discovered the site three months ago while they were putting together a detailed archaeological map of the area.We saw a hole in the ground ... and went down and discovered this giant cavern, originally a quarry, built uniquely with hall after hall,Zertal told Reuters.The team believes the stones were used in buildings and churches in the region, but Zertal said further research was necessary.The site may eventually be turned into one of the largest underground tourist sites in the Holy Land, he said.(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Israel's Barak sees chance for peace progress By Cynthia Johnston – Sun Jun 21, 10:38 am ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday he saw a chance to advance peace talks with Palestinians and that a policy speech by Israel's premier, dismissed by Egypt as flawed, was a major step forward.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed -- with tough conditions -- the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state in a policy speech a week ago, but Cairo said the proposal fell short of the Palestinian state Arabs seek.He made it clear that the end result, the goal of the whole process is to have a situation where the two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, are living side by side in two states in good neighborliness, peace and security,Barak told a news conference after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.It is a really unique opportunity for the peace process because the common interest is so apparent regarding the struggle against hegemonic Iran, against radical terrorism, against proliferation of nuclear weapons, he said.Barak described Netanyahu's comments on a Palestinian state as a major step forward by Israel in helping advance peace.Netanyahu, speaking on June 14, said Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state and forego the right of return for refugees but did not promise a halt to Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.Mubarak has said Israel's call to recognize Israel as a state for the Jewish people undermined efforts to achieve peace and has said he told Netanyahu, who visited Egypt last month, that peace talks should resume where they left off.
Palestinian leaders have refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state because they believe it weakens the position of the 20 percent of Israel's citizens who are Arabs.
They also say it undermines a key demand for a right for Palestinians to return to areas in Israel from which they fled or were forced out in the 1948 war ahead of Israel's creation.An Israeli official said Barak's visit aimed to look at ways to move ahead in peace talks after Netanyahu's speech and an address by U.S. President Barack Obama from Cairo on June 4 that covered Middle East peace and other topics.
Obama, who has promised a deep U.S. role in Middle East peace efforts, has called for a full Israeli settlement freeze but said he saw positive movement in Netanyahu's speech.The fact that it (Netanyahu's speech) was well accepted by the White House ... means that the Americans are reading it the same way,Barak said.It is still clear that there are certain differences in how to implement certain practical aspects of it but I think that in the coming weeks we will try to iron it out and pave the way for moving forward.Like Egypt, Palestinian officials have voiced opposition to many aspects of Netanyahu's proposal.Arab foreign ministers meet in Cairo Wednesday to discuss Obama's address and Netanyahu's proposal, state news agency MENA reported.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Cairo and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Louise Ireland and Lin Noueihed)
Hamas says Carter offers new path to talks with US Sat Jun 20, 4:54 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Former US President Jimmy Carter presented a personal initiative to open direct talks between Washington and Hamas during a recent visit to the region, a senior Hamas official said on Saturday.We received a written letter from President Carter that presented a personal initiative aimed at opening dialogue with the Hamas movement,Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas leader and parliamentarian, told AFP.Masri, who attended a meeting between Carter and Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya in Gaza City last week, said the group would study the proposal though it would not accept the three conditions of the Mideast Quartet.The Quartet, made up of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, has demanded that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians.A source close to Hamas who spoke on condition of anonymity said Carter's initiative presented an alternative set of conditions -- that Hamas accept the vision of a two-state solution to the conflict embodied in the 2003 Roadmap agreement, and accept the 2002 Arab League peace initiative.The latter initiative offers full recognition of Israel by every Arab state in return for the Jewish state's withdrawal from all lands occupied in the 1967 Six Day war, including the West Bank and east Jerusalem.Carter told Hamas its acceptance of the two conditions would pave the way for the opening of direct talks with the US administration, the source said.Carter insisted during his visit to the region that he had come as a private citizen and did not represent Washington, but the former president is a prominent member of US President Barack Obama's Democratic party.Israel and the West have always considered Hamas a terrorist organisation because of its commitment to violent struggle and the eventual destruction of the Jewish state.The Islamist group won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after a week of street battles with loyalists of the Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas.
More Israelis see Obama as pro-Palestinian: poll Fri Jun 19, 3:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israelis increasingly view US President Barack Obama as pro-Palestinian as Washington has begun ramping up pressure on the Jewish state to halt settlement growth, a poll found.Only six percent of Israelis view the newly elected president as pro-Israel, while 50 percent believe he is pro-Palestinian and 36 percent see him as neutral, according to the poll published in the Jerusalem Post.The same poll conducted in May before Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first meeting found that 31 percent of Israelis viewed Obama as pro-Israel and only 14 percent saw him as pro-Palestinian.In the month between the two surveys Obama gave a major address in Cairo in which he called on Israel's right-wing government to halt all settlement growth in the occupied West Bank and accept the principle of a two-state solution.The blunt language from Israel's most important ally has raised concerns among Israelis that Obama may distance himself from the Jewish state to improve relations with Arabs and Muslims.The poll found that more than 50 percent of Israelis support removing wildcat outpost settlements that are considered illegal under Israeli law and freezing the growth of smaller, far-flung settlements.
But 69 percent of Israelis are against freezing the growth of major built-up settlement blocs, with only 27 percent in favour and four percent expressing no opinion.Obama has called on Israel to halt all settlement activity and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will not hold peace talks until that happens.Some 430,000 Israeli Jews live in more than 100 settlements scattered across the West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem. Their fate has been a core issue in previous rounds of negotiations.The poll by the Jerusalem Post and Smith Research surveyed 500 Israeli Jews, who make up 80 percent of the population, and had a margin of error of 4.5 percent.
US security aide in talks with Israeli FM Thu Jun 18, 11:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – National Security Advisor General James Jones met at the White House with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a day after the nations clashed over US demands for a settlements freeze in Palestinian territory.The pair had a productive, 45-minute conversation in which the officials covered a broad range of issues, National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer said in a readout of the meeting.They discussed the importance of trying to make progress towards achieving our shared goal of comprehensive peace in the Middle East, Hammer said, adding that Jones also reiterated the United States' unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.But cracks in the relationship between the allies were on display Wednesday, when Lieberman rejected Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call for an end to the settlement building, in their first meeting since the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to office in March.Israel did not have any intention to change the demographic balance of the West Bank, Lieberman, head of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, which is part of Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition government, told Clinton.Hammer did not say whether Jones and Lieberman specifically discussed the settlements issue.The focus now moves to a meeting in Paris next week between the US special envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his plans for peace with the Palestinians.
PARIS (AFP) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday asked Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a total freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
However, the hawkish leader, on his first visit to Europe since taking office in April, replied that normal life goes on amid international pressure for direct talks with the Palestinians.The president of the republic called on Israel to immediately take all possible measures to encourage confidence in its talks with the Palestinians, beginning with the total freeze of settlement activities, a French presidency statement said.Netanyahu had flown into Paris from Rome for one-on-one talks with Sarkozy lasting more than an hour, amid reports of a fall-out with Washington over Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.He had been due to meet US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in the French capital but the talks were called off amid reports -- denied by Israeli officials -- of a clash over its refusal to stop building more settlements.We will not build new settlements and we will not expropriate additional lands for settlements. We know that our people are living there and, pending a final, political settlement, they have to live a normal life, said Netanyahu.Paris, like Washington, wants a complete halt to Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, but the Israeli leader has already said he will allow for natural growth within existing settlements.The international community considers all settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 Six Day war, to be illegal.The Palestinians have said they will not meet Netanyahu until Israel halts all settlement activity. The presence of 280,000 Israelis in more than 100 settlements across the territory has been a major obstacle to peace efforts.
Sarkozy, keen to act as a Middle East peace-broker, has previously welcomed as an important step forward Netanyahu's landmark endorsement of a Palestinian state, despite a set of conditions that were rejected outright by Palestinian leaders.But US President Barack Obama's willingness to talk to Iran's leaders is a source of friction with the Israeli leadership, amid tensions that could be compounded by the cancellation of talks with Mitchell in Paris.Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying Washington issued a stern message to Netanyahu concerning its demands that Israel halt all growth in settlements on occupied Palestinian land.In Paris, the Israeli leader stressed past good relations with Washington.We have, as President (Barack) Obama said, unbreakable bonds of friendship, common ideals, common values and common interests with the United States, Netanyahu said.On Iran, while Netanyahu repeated earlier praise for the courage of the Iranian people, he emphasised the key role that fluid relations with Tehran among traditional allies are now playing in broader Middle East diplomacy.He said: What is certain, a point I believe we share with President Sarkozy and responsible governments and leaders everywhere -- and responsible people everywhere -- is such a regime should not acquire nuclear weapons, because this could be a very, very grave development.What we need is a change in Iran, a change of policies, for moderation, for freedom and for peace,he added.
Netanyahu slams Iran at start of Europe trip Tue Jun 23, 5:20 pm ET
ROME (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harshly criticised Iran on Tuesday as he began his first trip to Europe since taking office, saying the country's current turmoil revealed its true nature.Something very fundamental has taken place in Iran, and the world now sees the true nature of this regime,the hawkish Netanyahu told a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi.Slamming arch-foe Iran for repressing its own people,Netanyahu said: The courage shown by the people of Iran, in facing bullets on the streets for the sake of freedom, is something that deserves the salute of free men and women everywhere.Iran on Tuesday ruled out canceling its disputed presidential vote as the world voiced increasing alarm at a crackdown on demonstrators who are posing the most serious challenge to the Islamic regime in 30 years.This undoubtedly is being assessed in every capital in the world, and I'm sure it's being assessed as well in Washington, Netanyahu said when asked about US President Barack Obama's restrained stance on Iran.
Berlusconi said he reiterated to Netanyahu his firm condemnation of the statements of the Iranian leader that Israel should be wiped off the map.He added: Italy, like other Western nations, believes Iran should not have nuclear weapons.Meanwhile, an Israeli official told AFP in Rome that a planned meeting between Netanyahu and the US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, had been cancelled.Instead, Mitchell will meet Monday in Washington with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barack, the official said.This delay will enable us to throw light on topical questions which are now hanging in the air and have not been resolved,he said, without elaborating.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently clashed over US demands for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.On May 27, the chief US diplomat said Obama had made it clear during Netanyahu's earlier visit to Washington that he wants no natural growth exceptions to his call for a settlement freeze.
Lieberman had insisted that would not be possible.
Netanyahu, on his first official trip to Europe since his election in late March, was expected to push for stiffer sanctions against Tehran in both Rome and Paris over its nuclear programme.He has repeatedly said the programme constitutes the biggest threat to Israel since the Jewish state's founding in 1948.Shortly before Netanyahu arrived in Rome, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini called on Israel to declare a moratorium on the expansion of its settlements in the West Bank.We would very much appreciate a gesture on the Israeli side announcing a moratorium on the expansion of existing settlements, Frattini told reporters.Frattini said Rome would also seek clarity from Netanyahu on the growth of settlements. The Israeli side has told us it refers to development following natural demographic growth. If that means adding a floor to one's own house after the birth of a child, that is not a problem,Frattini said. If it means expanding settlements like wildfire, that is a problem.Netanyahu came under fire for adding a raft of conditions to Israel's acceptance of a Palestinian state in a speech on June 14.Israel has refused to freeze settlements as demanded by the international community, which sees building in the West Bank as undermining prospects for a Palestinian state.
Medvedev seals strategic pact with Egypt by Anna Smolchenko – Tue Jun 23, 4:04 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a strategic cooperation pact with Egypt on Tuesday, the first day of a four-nation tour aimed at bolstering Moscow's influence in Africa and the Middle East.Medvedev signed the 10-year agreement with President Hosni Mubarak, whose country has had historic political and military ties with Moscow and is Russia's largest trading partner in Africa.The two leaders said in a joint declaration they were determined to coordinate foreign policy positions and steps and stressed the importance of reaching a fair peace in the Middle East.They also said their two nations were committed to the building of a new multipolar world order, which will be more democratic, fair and safe for all states, according to a copy of the declaration released by the Kremlin.Medvedev described the pact as very important,telling reporters it would define Egyptian-Russian ties for years to come.Mubarak praised Russia's influence in the Middle East and the world, adding that Cairo and Moscow were keen to boost cooperation in energy, trade and investments.Medvedev's trip is the first visit to Africa by a Russian president for three years and comes in the wake of the landmark address to the Muslim world that US President Barack Obama gave in Cairo earlier this month.
Russia is keen to boost its diplomatic clout in the region, which used to be a stronghold of Soviet influence before the end of the Cold War and the subsequent surge of US dominance.After his two-day visit to Egypt, Medvedev will make an ambitious foray into Nigeria, Namibia and Angola from Wednesday to Friday for talks to expand the country's economic footprint in Africa.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was also high on the agenda of talks between Medvedev and Mubarak, and the two leaders reiterated the importance of securing peace in the region through diplomatic efforts.Russia has been trying for months to organise a Middle East peace conference in Moscow before the end of the year but has come up against scepticism from the United States and Israel.
Medvedev reiterated Russia's intention to host the conference in Moscow by year's end.
In an apparent effort to underscore the significance of Russia's ties with the Arab world, Medvedev was also set to address the Cairo-based Arab League and meet its chief Amr Mussa.Mdevedev was also due to have a working dinner with senior members of the Egypt-Russia Association.Russia, part of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet along with the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, is eager to strengthen its diplomatic and commercial influence abroad.Since 2000, Egypt has benefited from a sharp increase in the number of Russian tourists, reaching 1.8 million last year and outnumbering visitors from western Europe.With trade turnover of 4.1 billion dollars last year, Egypt is Russia's largest trading partner in Africa.
Russia has also expressed interest in a 1.5 billion-1.8 billion-dollar-tender to construct Egypt's first atomic power station that will resume the country's nuclear programme after a 20-year freeze.Medvedev was due to visit key sites, including the Giza Pyramids, before leaving for Nigeria on Wednesday.
Intact ancient tomb uncovered in Bethlehem By NASSER SHIYOUKHI, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jun 23, 6:34 am ET
BETHLEHEM, West Bank – Workers renovating a house in the traditional town of Jesus' birth accidentally discovered an untouched ancient tomb containing clay pots, plates, beads and the bones of two humans, a Palestinian antiquities official said Tuesday.
The 4,000-year-old tomb provides a glimpse of the burial customs of the area's inhabitants during the Canaanite period, said Mohammed Ghayyada, director of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.Workers in a house near the Church of the Nativity uncovered a hole leading to the grave, which was about one meter (yard) below ground, he said. They contacted antiquities officials, who photographed the grave intact before removing its contents.They dated the grave to the Early Bronze Age, between 1,900 B.C. and 2,200 B.C.Jerusalem-based archaeologist and historian Stephen Pfann called the find an important reference to the life of the Canaanites,adding that it could give a glimpse into life in the area before the time when the Biblical patriarchs are said to have lived.While many artifacts exist from this period, intact graves are rare, mainly because of looting, he said.Intact graves are more useful to scholars because they show how items were arranged.Every time a new tomb is found, it adds to the picture,Pfann said.The findings will be housed in the Bethlehem Peace Center, a cultural center not far from where the tomb was discovered.
Israel PM on first official European tour by Jean-Luc Renaudie – Mon Jun 22, 4:18 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads for his first official trip to Europe on Tuesday, aiming to press Italy and France to harden sanctions against arch-foe Iran over its nuclear drive.The hawkish Netanyahu will meet his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi in Rome and the following day will head to Paris, where he will meet President Nicolas Sarkozy as well as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.Above all, the prime minister is planning to bring up the Iranian dossier,a senior government official told AFP.The scenes of violence and repression of the past days have lifted the mask of the bloody regime that doesn't hesitate to fire on unarmed protesters,said the official, requesting anonymity.With what is happening now in Iran, words and condemnations are not enough, the world must decide to take much harder measures to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring nuclear arms,he said.Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Iran's nuclear programme constitutes the biggest threat to Israel since the Jewish state's founding in 1948.
Israel and main ally Washington suspect Iran of trying to acquire atomic weapons under the guise of its nuclear programme, a charge that Tehran has repeatedly denied.
The Jewish state is widely considered to be the sole if undeclared nuclear power in the Middle East and views Iran as its arch-enemy because of regular calls by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel to be wiped off the map.In Italy, Netanyahu will ask Rome to reduce its commercial links with Iran, which have grown in recent years, according to the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot.In both countries the prime minister will seek to put across his position on the stalled Middle East peace process in the aftermath of his speech on June 14 finally accepting the creation of a Palestinian state but imposing a slew of conditions slammed as unacceptable by the Palestinians.Netanyahu will stress that any final peace deal will have to have Palestinian recognition of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people -- something the Palestinians have long rejected.The prime minister will explain that his words can be translated into acts only if the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state, which they refuse for the moment,the official said.The issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank will also be on the agenda for the talks. The United States has repeatedly demanded a halt to all Israeli activity in the settlements, regarded by the international community as illegal.Netanyahu has refused to stop construction, saying it will carry on in order to accommodate population increases.The prime minister will again say that Israel will not create new settlements, will not confiscate new lands and will insist on the fact that residents of settlements must be allowed to lead normal lives,the official said.Netanyahu will also bring up the issue of improving relations between Israel and its main trading partner the European Union.EU nations agreed late last year to enhance ties with Israel but the process stalled when Israel launched a deadly 22-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December.
Palestinian PM wants state in two years Mon Jun 22, 2:51 pm ET
ABU DIS, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on Monday called on Palestinians to target the creation of their own state in two years, without waiting for an end to the Israeli occupation.I urge the Palestinian people to rally around a programme aimed at creating a state ... so that a Palestinian state becomes a reality by the end of next year or within two years at most,he said in a speech at Al-Quds university in Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem.He called for all means to be mobilised to ensure that goal is achieved as this would place the entire world before its responsibility to end the occupation and allow our people to live in freedom in their homeland and to exercise their right to self-determination.Fayyad's keynote address was seen as a response to a June 14 speech in which Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the principle of a Palestinian state but set conditions that would severely limit its sovereignty.Israeli-Palestinian peace talks restarted in November 2007 after a seven-year hiatus but halted again when Israel launched a deadly military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December last year.Fayyad said Netanyahu's speech was more ambiguous and far less committed than the positions of previous Israeli governments.We ask the international community to press Israel to fulfil its commitments in order to salvage the two-state solution to open the way to peace in the region,he said.This implies freezing settlement activity, lifting the blockade of the Gaza Strip and ending incursions into areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, Fayyad said.The credibility of the peace process will be measured by the level to which Israel respects its commitments,he added.
Israel extends mandate of Mossad chief Mon Jun 22, 2:08 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli government has extended the mandate of the head of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency by a year, the prime minister's office said.Meir Dagan, 64 took reigns of Mossad in 2002.The extension sparked criticism from some ministers who argued that the agency leadership needed new blood.Whatever qualitites Meir Dagan possesses (the agency) needs a change of leadership, said Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who once headed parliament's powerful foreign affairs and defence committee.
Ancient Holy Land quarry uncovered, team says Sun Jun 21, 1:18 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls.The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said.The cave's main hall, about three meters tall, is supported by some 20 stone pillars and has a variety of symbols etched into the walls, including crosses dating back to about AD 350 and Roman legionary emblems.
Zertal said his team from Haifa University first discovered the site three months ago while they were putting together a detailed archaeological map of the area.We saw a hole in the ground ... and went down and discovered this giant cavern, originally a quarry, built uniquely with hall after hall,Zertal told Reuters.The team believes the stones were used in buildings and churches in the region, but Zertal said further research was necessary.The site may eventually be turned into one of the largest underground tourist sites in the Holy Land, he said.(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Israel's Barak sees chance for peace progress By Cynthia Johnston – Sun Jun 21, 10:38 am ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday he saw a chance to advance peace talks with Palestinians and that a policy speech by Israel's premier, dismissed by Egypt as flawed, was a major step forward.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed -- with tough conditions -- the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state in a policy speech a week ago, but Cairo said the proposal fell short of the Palestinian state Arabs seek.He made it clear that the end result, the goal of the whole process is to have a situation where the two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, are living side by side in two states in good neighborliness, peace and security,Barak told a news conference after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.It is a really unique opportunity for the peace process because the common interest is so apparent regarding the struggle against hegemonic Iran, against radical terrorism, against proliferation of nuclear weapons, he said.Barak described Netanyahu's comments on a Palestinian state as a major step forward by Israel in helping advance peace.Netanyahu, speaking on June 14, said Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state and forego the right of return for refugees but did not promise a halt to Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.Mubarak has said Israel's call to recognize Israel as a state for the Jewish people undermined efforts to achieve peace and has said he told Netanyahu, who visited Egypt last month, that peace talks should resume where they left off.
Palestinian leaders have refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state because they believe it weakens the position of the 20 percent of Israel's citizens who are Arabs.
They also say it undermines a key demand for a right for Palestinians to return to areas in Israel from which they fled or were forced out in the 1948 war ahead of Israel's creation.An Israeli official said Barak's visit aimed to look at ways to move ahead in peace talks after Netanyahu's speech and an address by U.S. President Barack Obama from Cairo on June 4 that covered Middle East peace and other topics.
Obama, who has promised a deep U.S. role in Middle East peace efforts, has called for a full Israeli settlement freeze but said he saw positive movement in Netanyahu's speech.The fact that it (Netanyahu's speech) was well accepted by the White House ... means that the Americans are reading it the same way,Barak said.It is still clear that there are certain differences in how to implement certain practical aspects of it but I think that in the coming weeks we will try to iron it out and pave the way for moving forward.Like Egypt, Palestinian officials have voiced opposition to many aspects of Netanyahu's proposal.Arab foreign ministers meet in Cairo Wednesday to discuss Obama's address and Netanyahu's proposal, state news agency MENA reported.
(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Cairo and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Louise Ireland and Lin Noueihed)
Hamas says Carter offers new path to talks with US Sat Jun 20, 4:54 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Former US President Jimmy Carter presented a personal initiative to open direct talks between Washington and Hamas during a recent visit to the region, a senior Hamas official said on Saturday.We received a written letter from President Carter that presented a personal initiative aimed at opening dialogue with the Hamas movement,Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas leader and parliamentarian, told AFP.Masri, who attended a meeting between Carter and Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya in Gaza City last week, said the group would study the proposal though it would not accept the three conditions of the Mideast Quartet.The Quartet, made up of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, has demanded that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians.A source close to Hamas who spoke on condition of anonymity said Carter's initiative presented an alternative set of conditions -- that Hamas accept the vision of a two-state solution to the conflict embodied in the 2003 Roadmap agreement, and accept the 2002 Arab League peace initiative.The latter initiative offers full recognition of Israel by every Arab state in return for the Jewish state's withdrawal from all lands occupied in the 1967 Six Day war, including the West Bank and east Jerusalem.Carter told Hamas its acceptance of the two conditions would pave the way for the opening of direct talks with the US administration, the source said.Carter insisted during his visit to the region that he had come as a private citizen and did not represent Washington, but the former president is a prominent member of US President Barack Obama's Democratic party.Israel and the West have always considered Hamas a terrorist organisation because of its commitment to violent struggle and the eventual destruction of the Jewish state.The Islamist group won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after a week of street battles with loyalists of the Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas.
More Israelis see Obama as pro-Palestinian: poll Fri Jun 19, 3:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israelis increasingly view US President Barack Obama as pro-Palestinian as Washington has begun ramping up pressure on the Jewish state to halt settlement growth, a poll found.Only six percent of Israelis view the newly elected president as pro-Israel, while 50 percent believe he is pro-Palestinian and 36 percent see him as neutral, according to the poll published in the Jerusalem Post.The same poll conducted in May before Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first meeting found that 31 percent of Israelis viewed Obama as pro-Israel and only 14 percent saw him as pro-Palestinian.In the month between the two surveys Obama gave a major address in Cairo in which he called on Israel's right-wing government to halt all settlement growth in the occupied West Bank and accept the principle of a two-state solution.The blunt language from Israel's most important ally has raised concerns among Israelis that Obama may distance himself from the Jewish state to improve relations with Arabs and Muslims.The poll found that more than 50 percent of Israelis support removing wildcat outpost settlements that are considered illegal under Israeli law and freezing the growth of smaller, far-flung settlements.
But 69 percent of Israelis are against freezing the growth of major built-up settlement blocs, with only 27 percent in favour and four percent expressing no opinion.Obama has called on Israel to halt all settlement activity and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will not hold peace talks until that happens.Some 430,000 Israeli Jews live in more than 100 settlements scattered across the West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem. Their fate has been a core issue in previous rounds of negotiations.The poll by the Jerusalem Post and Smith Research surveyed 500 Israeli Jews, who make up 80 percent of the population, and had a margin of error of 4.5 percent.
US security aide in talks with Israeli FM Thu Jun 18, 11:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – National Security Advisor General James Jones met at the White House with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a day after the nations clashed over US demands for a settlements freeze in Palestinian territory.The pair had a productive, 45-minute conversation in which the officials covered a broad range of issues, National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer said in a readout of the meeting.They discussed the importance of trying to make progress towards achieving our shared goal of comprehensive peace in the Middle East, Hammer said, adding that Jones also reiterated the United States' unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.But cracks in the relationship between the allies were on display Wednesday, when Lieberman rejected Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call for an end to the settlement building, in their first meeting since the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to office in March.Israel did not have any intention to change the demographic balance of the West Bank, Lieberman, head of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, which is part of Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition government, told Clinton.Hammer did not say whether Jones and Lieberman specifically discussed the settlements issue.The focus now moves to a meeting in Paris next week between the US special envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his plans for peace with the Palestinians.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
JERUSALEM DEBATE ON HOLY SITES
Jerusalem launches debate on sharing holiest site By Ari Rabinovitch – Thu Jun 18, 11:05 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Espousing a dream of harmony that may stretch credibility among even the most fervent believers in dialogue among the great religions, clerics in Jerusalem launched a project on Thursday aimed at finding a way to share the city's holiest, and most fought over, site.Even the Jewish religious scholar promoting it acknowledges it might need divine intervention before a peaceful remapping of the area where Muslims built the 7th century Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the biblical Jewish Temple.We offer this vision for a long and deep discussion, and of course want to continue with a parallel research from other religions,said Yoav Frankel, director of the project promoting a vision of God's Holy Mountain (www.godsholymountain.org).Invitations to Thursday's launch conference depict a sunlit imagined future for the area Jews call Temple Mount. Happy Muslims and harp-playing Jews mingle between the Dome of the Rock and a new Temple, as Christians walk over from the nearby Sepulchre Church, traditional site of Jesus's resurrection.The project, headed by Jewish members of the Interfaith Encounter Association (www.interfaith-encounter.org) encourages all three faiths to re-examine the complex and perhaps foster a new theological outlook, making room for all to worship there.
DIVINE INTERVENTION?
But Frankel conceded it may take more than debate of Jewish law, or halacha, to alter centuries of tradition in favor of a compromise by which Jews would agree to build a temple nearby, not in the spot traditionally regarded as the correct site -- right where the Dome has stood since the 7th century.Regular halachic discussion will not be powerful enough,Frankel said, referring to the need for a holy revelation to make such a shift possible in Jewish tradition.Known to Arabs as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, and also respected by Christians and Jews who believe that the Dome covers a rock where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son to God, the compound in Jerusalem's Old City has been the cause of bloodshed, from ancient times to today.It still lies at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sovereignty over the holy sites remains a sticking point in international efforts to draft a final peace settlement.Not even all members of the interfaith group, which is dedicated to religious coexistence, favor the new project, which does not address political issues of whether Israel or Palestinians -- or both, or neither -- should control the city.
Muslim cleric Abdullah Darweesh, who was to speak at the official project launch on Thursday, said all holy Christian and Islamic sites should be under Arab sovereignty.
Islam teaches that Mohammad rose to heaven from the rock under the Dome. Muslim clerics who run the compound have been wary of Jewish encroachment into the site since Israel captured the Old City and the rest of Arab East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
A visit there in 2000 by Ariel Sharon, a right-wing Israeli politician who later became prime minister, helped spark a Palestinian uprising that became known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.Since the Second Temple was destroyed under Roman rule in AD 70, Jews have prayed at the Western Wall, part of the ruins.Many Orthodox Jews believe they must not set foot on the Temple Mount itself for fear of treading on the now unknown site of the inner sanctum. Some groups, however, call for Israel to seize the site and rebuild the temple, a step some believe would then herald the return of the Messiah and a time of world peace.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
Mideast peace deal could happen within year: Blair Thu Jun 18, 9:40 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A Middle East peace deal is possible within the year, but only if all sides agree to peaceful negotiations, international envoy Tony Blair says in comments to be aired Friday.The former British premier said there was a great sense of hope and expectation in the region after US President Barack Obama's recent speech on relations between the West and the Islamic world.If President Obama gets the right partner, on the Israeli side but also on the Palestinian side, his determination to do this I have no doubt about at all,he told interviewer David Frost.He said Obama has made the Middle East a clear priority.I have no doubt at all of his sincerity or his determination,he said on Frost Over The World, on Al Jazeera's English-language channel.So if everyone would commit themselves to a peaceful political negotiation to a two-state solution, you could have this deal within the year. But people have got to be prepared to commit to it.Obama pledged a new beginning for Islam and America in a landmark speech to the world's Muslims made in Cairo earlier this month, fueling hopes of diplomatic progress after his predecessor George W. Bush's departure.That was followed by a major speech by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu last weekend, in which he offered a conditional acceptance of a Palestinian state, in a break with his right-wing Likud party's ideology.I think the Obama speech was really a huge event... I think this was a very big moment, a vital moment, for the region and for the wider world,said Blair, adding: I think there is a great sense of hope and expectation.But he added: The important thing is to understand that President Obama doesn?t need cheerleaders, he needs partners. He needs people who are going to help him achieve what he wants.Blair said Netanyahu's speech was a step forward,but acknowledged there was criticism.From the outside they're going to be sceptical, some cynical, some worried: Well what does this really mean? and Are we going to be able to make progress on a basis that is acceptable to the Palestinian people?, he said.And that's obviously still to be decided.So my view is, yes in that sense it is a step forward and now we've got to wait and see what actually happens.
Arabs largely silent on Iran election and unrest By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 17, 4:23 pm ET
CAIRO – Key Arab nations have kept silent about Iran's political upheaval, possibly reluctant to antagonize the powerful nation that sponsors such militant groups as Hezbollah and Hamas.But there are signs the young and reform-minded have been inspired by the mass protests that followed the disputed election.It makes me feel so jealous,said Abdelmonem Ibrahim, a young pro-reform Brotherhood activist in Egypt.The scenes of hundreds of thousands in the streets of Tehran provide a stark contrast to Arab countries such as U.S. ally Egypt, where widespread allegations of election fraud to ensure victory by ruling parties are greeted with complaints but little action.Small protests in Egypt by democracy advocates after parliament and presidential elections in 2005 were quickly silenced by security forces and never caught on with the broader populace. The Egyptian reform movement — which combines secular activists with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood — has largely been silent since.We are amazed at the organization and the speed with which the (Iranian) movement has been functioning. In Egypt, you can count the number of activists on your hand,Ibrahim told the Associated Press.One Egyptian blogger, who writes anonymously under the user name Louza, posted a picture of a demonstration in Tehran, adding, Sigh, will the Arab world follow?
Iran elections are controlled by the country's ruling clerics, who can throw out candidates they don't approve of. Still, the voting has historically been among the most free in the Middle East, where authoritarian regimes prevail. U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia holds no elections at all, while some like Syria hold tightly controlled votes in which the outcome is never in doubt. Lebanon and Kuwait — which both held parliament elections that saw unexpected results recently — are among the few exceptions.Even though they are run by an authoritarian regime, (Iran) still allows for a good amount of liberalism and freedom,said Gamal Fahmy, a prominent Egyptian secular reform activist.In contrast, he said, activism in Egypt has been put in a freezer because the regime doesn't allow for the space to express any sort of opposition.I think the new generation of activists will definitely be inspired by what they see on the Iranian street. What's happening in Iran isn't happening on Mars,he told AP.So Egyptian activists will feel they can replicate it in their own country.Still, there has not been as much wall-to-wall coverage of the Iranian uproar in Arab media or Arab activists' blogs as there has been in the West — for a number of reasons.Some are not convinced by claims of fraud in the election results showing a victory for hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is popular among some in the Arab world for his tough stance against the United States and Israel. Even among Arab critics of Ahmadinejad, some don't believe his rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is a true reformer and they note that Iran's unelected supreme leader holds the real power.
Meanwhile, Arab governments — even ones that are fiercely critical of Iranian influence in the region — have remained silent, apparently afraid of angering the powerful Persian nation.The Arabs don't want to go out on a limb against the Iranian government. They don't want to be upfront,said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.It's part of this pattern of being nice to Iran and encouraging the U.S. or somebody else to be not nice.They are afraid of Iran and don't want to antagonize it themselves,he added.The easiest target for Iran are the Gulf Arabs.Tehran is a key player in the Middle East and has played a major role in the divisions splitting the Arab world. It is the main backer of Hezbollah, Hamas and — according to the U.S. — Shiite extremists in Iraq. It's also a close ally of Syria.Its foes — mainly Sunni countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt — are deeply worried that Iran is seeking to fuel Islamic radicalism, empower Shiite minorities in the Arab world and establish itself as a regional superpower by getting involved in crises they believe are none of its business, such as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and inter-Palestinian fighting. But at the same time, those countries have been careful not to annoy Iran and have, at least in public, voiced opposition to any military strike against it. Their silence today is part of the pattern they have followed for the past few years, according to analysts. Jordanian political analyst Labib Kamhawi said Arabs want somebody else to fight their battles on their behalf.
So nobody expressed any position on the Iranian elections because they think that the Americans and the Europeans will do it for them,he said.This is a very negative approach, especially with regional political issues.Since Ahmadinejad was declared the landslide winner on Saturday, several Arab countries have sent congratulatory telegrams. Others, however, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, have remained silent. Saudi officials have said the kingdom does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries. Gulf nations — always worried about the biggest military power in the vital area — may be happy to see Iran tied up in its domestic affairs. This is not bad because it weakens the rigid Iranian approach to the countries around the region,Saudi analyst Dawood al-Shirian said. Still, Gulf states do not want to see a violent power struggle in Iran for fear of the unrest spilling over,said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.AP writers Shafika Mattar in Amman, Jordan and Donna Abu-Nasr in Riyadh contributed to this report.
Hamas rejects Carter plea to recognize Israel By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 17, 3:08 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A senior Hamas official praised former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday, a day after he met with the group, but said he failed to persuade the Islamic rulers of Gaza to accept international demands, including recognizing Israel.
Carter visited Gaza on Tuesday and urged Hamas leaders to accept the demands to end an international boycott, which was imposed when the militant group overran Gaza two years ago.Carter's meeting was itself unusual because of the boycott. The United States, European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terror group and refuse to deal with it directly.Ahmed Youssef, the deputy Hamas foreign minister, said Gaza's Palestinians were pleased to receive Carter.The people think this is a historic visit,Youssef told The Associated Press on Wednesday, describing Carter as somebody very knowledgeable about the conflict and very sincere in the way he understands the conflict.But Youssef said Hamas turned down Carter's policy requests.The visit has not led to a significant change. Hamas finds the conditions unacceptable, he said.Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable.According to Hamas ideology, there is no room for a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East. The militant group has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds.Even so, some Hamas officials have indicated they could support creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, implying a form of tacit acceptance of Israel.
Youssef said the other two international conditions — renouncing violence and accepting past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians — are irrelevant. He said Israel broke a cease-fire, killing many Palestinians, and the state outlined in the partial peace accords would have no substance, no borders and nothing that a real state is.Carter has said that despite the world boycott, Mideast peacemaking efforts must include Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, expelling forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government now effectively rules only the West Bank.Though as president Carter brokered the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, the first between Israel and an Arab country, he is perceived by many Israelis as anti-Israel, siding with the Palestinians in their conflict.He antagonized many Israelis with his 2007 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,in which he argued that Israel must choose between ceding the West Bank to the Palestinians or maintaining a system of ethnic inequality similar to that of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Most Israelis strongly reject the comparison.
During Carter's visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Hamas security found what appeared to be explosives buried in a sand dune next to his route. No one was hurt, and it was unclear if the former U.S. president was being targeted.We were aware of some reports" of a threat to his safety, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.I'm sure we took appropriate security steps, but obviously President Carter was there for a few hours and returned safely.Associated Press Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report from Washington.
Mideast peace possible only if imposed: author Wed Jun 17, 3:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A Middle East peace deal is possible only if it is forced on Israelis and Palestinians by US-led efforts, one of Israel's best-known authors has written as he hit out at a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Netanyahu's speech on Sunday tells us between its contorted lines that there will be no peace here if it is not forced upon us,David Grossman wrote remarks published on Wednesday in the liberal Haaretz daily.It is not easy to admit it, but it seems increasingly that this is the choice Israelis and Palestinians face.A just and secure peace -- forced on the parties through firm international involvement, led by the United States -- or war, possibly more difficult and bitter than those that came before it.
Grossman virulently criticised Netanyahu's address, in which the premier for the first time accepted the creation of a Palestinian state, but set a slew of conditions rejected by the Palestinians.What the speech exposed ... is the standstill we have come to, we Israelis, in the face of a reality that requires flexibility, daring and vision.I saw my prime minister in his tight-lipped juggling act, a sophisticated performance of close-eyed rejection.Other than acceptance of the two-state principle, which was wrung out of Netanyahu under heavy pressure and sourly expressed, this speech contained no tangible step toward a real change of consciousness.Grossman decried Netanyahu for not saying that most Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank would have to leave their homes as part of a final peace deal and for listing conditions for Palestinians to accept without listing the risks that Israel had to take for a deal.He also hit out at the Palestinian leadership for rejecting the speech out of hand.I also observed the Palestinians who responded to the speech, and I thought that they are the most faithful partners to standstill and missed opportunities,he wrote.Their response could have been much wiser and more prescient than the speech itself if they grasped the drooping branch Netanyahu was offering and challenged the premier to an immediate restart of negotiations, he wrote.Grossman is the author of such acclaimed works as The Yellow Wind and Sleeping on a Wire.
Europe, US call Netanyahu speech step towards peace Mon Jun 15, 6:48 am ET
PARIS (AFP) – Europe and the United States said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had taken a step forward to ending the Middle East conflict by giving conditional backing to a Palestinian state.But while the key powers gave cautious approval, Palestinians reacted with fury. The Hamas movement which has controlled the Gaza Strip for two years said Netanyahu's address on Sunday reflected a racist and extremist ideology.Under pressure from the United States, Netanyahu endorsed for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state, provided it was demilitarised and that Palestinians recognise the Jewish character of Israel. He ruled out a halt to all Jewish settlement activity as demanded by the United States.In my view it is a step in the right direction, said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, speaking on behalf of the European Union presidency as he arrived at a meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg which discussed the speech.Of course, there are a number of other elements which need to be analysed, but the acceptance of the Palestinian state is there,he added.Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt echoed Kohout's caution.The fact that he uttered the word state is a small step forward, Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency on July 1, told reporters.Whether what he mentioned can be defined as a state is a subject of some debate.
The White House meanwhile issued an upbeat initial assessment.
President Barack Obama welcomes the important step forward in Netanyahu's speech,his spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.Obama believes this solution can and must ensure both Israel's security and the fulfillment of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a viable state, and he welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu's endorsement of that goal,it said.Obama has called for a freeze on all settlement building in Palestinian territories and Netanyahu's rejection is likely to arouse international criticism.While also acknowledging the step forward, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Europe and the United States wanted an immediate freeze to settlement activity and a reopening of the Gaza Strip.During a visit to the Middle East, former US president Jimmy Carter warned that the US and Israeli governments would be on a collision course if Israeli settlement activity continues in the Palestinian West Bank.
Analysts agreed such a confrontation is still possible.
For Aaron David Miller, a former adviser in both past Democratic and Republican US administrations, Netanyahu tried to strike a balance between responding to political pressures in Israel and in Washington.He said he succeeded, at least in part, by calling for a Palestinian state.Palestinians reacted with undisguised anger to Netanyahu's conditions for peace.This speech torpedoes all peace initiatives in the region,Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP.
It hobbles all efforts to save the peace process, in a clear defiance of the US administration,he said. This speech reflects the racist and extremist ideology of Netanyahu and denies all the rights of the Palestinian people,Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP.This speech is the reiteration of the policy of his government, which aims at transforming the Palestinian people into a tool to protect the occupation.
Russia, which along with the United States, European Union and United Nations makes up the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East conflict, made no immediate public comment on the speech. Australia called for new Middle East peace talks after Netanyahu endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state. I think what Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech reflects today is there is now a basis for a peace process for negotiations to commence and start,Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Australian television.
Israel left, right both deride PM's speech by Ron Bousso – Mon Jun 15, 5:22 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conditional acceptance of a Palestinian state drew criticism on Monday with many in his hawkish coalition saying it went too far, and from the left who felt it didn't go far enough.The premier's vision for ending the decades-old Middle East conflict, as presented in his long-anticipated speech on Sunday, marked a stark break from his Likud party's ideology, which claims a historic right to the occupied West Bank.Several key Likud MPs responded furiously to his unprecedented endorsement of a Palestinian state, albeit demilitarised and stripped of Jerusalem as a capital.The prime minister caved in to American pressure. He will have to explain to his coalition why he was ready to go so far,Likud MP Danny Danon told AFP.We oppose a Palestinian state and do not believe it will happen. If he moves from words to actions, he will encounter a wall of resistance.Netanyahu's speech followed massive pressure by US President Barack Obama's administration to renew negotiations with the Palestinians in order to reach a peace agreement.The premier, however, rejected in his speech a key US demand to freeze settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.Likud MP Ayoob Kara said that Netanyahu's concessions were a pain killer to stop international pressure, but at this stage there will be no movement on the ground. It is wrong to go that way because there is no (Palestinian) partner.National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, a key partner in Netanyahu's coalition government, said that accepting the principle of a Palestinian state was a grave mistake.Yet even the most vocal critics on the right did not suggest seeking to topple Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition at this stage.A senior political analyst in Israel's Maariv daily said that Netanyahu gave one of the most hardline speeches made by an Israeli premier in recent years to compensate for his ideological concession.
The speech was thirty minutes of pure right-wing rhetoric to cover up one leftist phrase,Ben Caspit said.Both the United States and the European Union welcomed Netanyahu's speech as a positive step towards the renewal of peace talks, but the Palestinian Authority slammed it as sabotaging the teetering process.The 59-year-old premier won strong backing from Defence Minister Ehud Barak who faces a mutiny within the ranks of his center-left Labour party for joining the Likud-led coalition.This is an important step in the right direction and I have to say that Prime Minister Netanyahu showed seriousness, responsibility and courage,Barak said in a statement.
Trade and Industry Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, also of Labour, told AFP that Netanyahu crossed the Rubicon and a psychological threshold... he turned his back on an ideology he backed for years and started seeing things in their true colours.But opposition left-wing MPs slammed Netanyahu's cautious peace overtures as not nearly enough.So much preparation for nothing. The prime minister proved again that he is the number one peace refusenik. Bibi chose to serve the needs of the settlers and the extreme--right rather than those of Israel,Meretz MP Ilan Gil-On said. MP Ahmad Tibi of the United Arab List said that the speech showed a mental fixation that wants a non-sovereign Palestinian state with ongoing settlement construction. I hope the White House will expose his public relations stunt.
Obama welcomes Netanyahu's two-state speech Sun Jun 14, 3:47 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The White House is welcoming Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu's call for the creation of a Palestinian state.Netanyahu said in Jerusalem that he would support a Palestinian state as long it is demilitarized and guarantees Israel's security.White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday that President Barack Obama welcomes the speech and is committed to two states: a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestinian state.Gibbs says Obama will work with all parties to see that they fulfill their obligations and head toward regional peace.Netanyahu had resisted endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a Mideast peace settlement, drawing intense pressure from the United States.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Espousing a dream of harmony that may stretch credibility among even the most fervent believers in dialogue among the great religions, clerics in Jerusalem launched a project on Thursday aimed at finding a way to share the city's holiest, and most fought over, site.Even the Jewish religious scholar promoting it acknowledges it might need divine intervention before a peaceful remapping of the area where Muslims built the 7th century Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the biblical Jewish Temple.We offer this vision for a long and deep discussion, and of course want to continue with a parallel research from other religions,said Yoav Frankel, director of the project promoting a vision of God's Holy Mountain (www.godsholymountain.org).Invitations to Thursday's launch conference depict a sunlit imagined future for the area Jews call Temple Mount. Happy Muslims and harp-playing Jews mingle between the Dome of the Rock and a new Temple, as Christians walk over from the nearby Sepulchre Church, traditional site of Jesus's resurrection.The project, headed by Jewish members of the Interfaith Encounter Association (www.interfaith-encounter.org) encourages all three faiths to re-examine the complex and perhaps foster a new theological outlook, making room for all to worship there.
DIVINE INTERVENTION?
But Frankel conceded it may take more than debate of Jewish law, or halacha, to alter centuries of tradition in favor of a compromise by which Jews would agree to build a temple nearby, not in the spot traditionally regarded as the correct site -- right where the Dome has stood since the 7th century.Regular halachic discussion will not be powerful enough,Frankel said, referring to the need for a holy revelation to make such a shift possible in Jewish tradition.Known to Arabs as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, and also respected by Christians and Jews who believe that the Dome covers a rock where Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son to God, the compound in Jerusalem's Old City has been the cause of bloodshed, from ancient times to today.It still lies at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sovereignty over the holy sites remains a sticking point in international efforts to draft a final peace settlement.Not even all members of the interfaith group, which is dedicated to religious coexistence, favor the new project, which does not address political issues of whether Israel or Palestinians -- or both, or neither -- should control the city.
Muslim cleric Abdullah Darweesh, who was to speak at the official project launch on Thursday, said all holy Christian and Islamic sites should be under Arab sovereignty.
Islam teaches that Mohammad rose to heaven from the rock under the Dome. Muslim clerics who run the compound have been wary of Jewish encroachment into the site since Israel captured the Old City and the rest of Arab East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
A visit there in 2000 by Ariel Sharon, a right-wing Israeli politician who later became prime minister, helped spark a Palestinian uprising that became known as the al-Aqsa Intifada.Since the Second Temple was destroyed under Roman rule in AD 70, Jews have prayed at the Western Wall, part of the ruins.Many Orthodox Jews believe they must not set foot on the Temple Mount itself for fear of treading on the now unknown site of the inner sanctum. Some groups, however, call for Israel to seize the site and rebuild the temple, a step some believe would then herald the return of the Messiah and a time of world peace.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
Mideast peace deal could happen within year: Blair Thu Jun 18, 9:40 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A Middle East peace deal is possible within the year, but only if all sides agree to peaceful negotiations, international envoy Tony Blair says in comments to be aired Friday.The former British premier said there was a great sense of hope and expectation in the region after US President Barack Obama's recent speech on relations between the West and the Islamic world.If President Obama gets the right partner, on the Israeli side but also on the Palestinian side, his determination to do this I have no doubt about at all,he told interviewer David Frost.He said Obama has made the Middle East a clear priority.I have no doubt at all of his sincerity or his determination,he said on Frost Over The World, on Al Jazeera's English-language channel.So if everyone would commit themselves to a peaceful political negotiation to a two-state solution, you could have this deal within the year. But people have got to be prepared to commit to it.Obama pledged a new beginning for Islam and America in a landmark speech to the world's Muslims made in Cairo earlier this month, fueling hopes of diplomatic progress after his predecessor George W. Bush's departure.That was followed by a major speech by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu last weekend, in which he offered a conditional acceptance of a Palestinian state, in a break with his right-wing Likud party's ideology.I think the Obama speech was really a huge event... I think this was a very big moment, a vital moment, for the region and for the wider world,said Blair, adding: I think there is a great sense of hope and expectation.But he added: The important thing is to understand that President Obama doesn?t need cheerleaders, he needs partners. He needs people who are going to help him achieve what he wants.Blair said Netanyahu's speech was a step forward,but acknowledged there was criticism.From the outside they're going to be sceptical, some cynical, some worried: Well what does this really mean? and Are we going to be able to make progress on a basis that is acceptable to the Palestinian people?, he said.And that's obviously still to be decided.So my view is, yes in that sense it is a step forward and now we've got to wait and see what actually happens.
Arabs largely silent on Iran election and unrest By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 17, 4:23 pm ET
CAIRO – Key Arab nations have kept silent about Iran's political upheaval, possibly reluctant to antagonize the powerful nation that sponsors such militant groups as Hezbollah and Hamas.But there are signs the young and reform-minded have been inspired by the mass protests that followed the disputed election.It makes me feel so jealous,said Abdelmonem Ibrahim, a young pro-reform Brotherhood activist in Egypt.The scenes of hundreds of thousands in the streets of Tehran provide a stark contrast to Arab countries such as U.S. ally Egypt, where widespread allegations of election fraud to ensure victory by ruling parties are greeted with complaints but little action.Small protests in Egypt by democracy advocates after parliament and presidential elections in 2005 were quickly silenced by security forces and never caught on with the broader populace. The Egyptian reform movement — which combines secular activists with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood — has largely been silent since.We are amazed at the organization and the speed with which the (Iranian) movement has been functioning. In Egypt, you can count the number of activists on your hand,Ibrahim told the Associated Press.One Egyptian blogger, who writes anonymously under the user name Louza, posted a picture of a demonstration in Tehran, adding, Sigh, will the Arab world follow?
Iran elections are controlled by the country's ruling clerics, who can throw out candidates they don't approve of. Still, the voting has historically been among the most free in the Middle East, where authoritarian regimes prevail. U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia holds no elections at all, while some like Syria hold tightly controlled votes in which the outcome is never in doubt. Lebanon and Kuwait — which both held parliament elections that saw unexpected results recently — are among the few exceptions.Even though they are run by an authoritarian regime, (Iran) still allows for a good amount of liberalism and freedom,said Gamal Fahmy, a prominent Egyptian secular reform activist.In contrast, he said, activism in Egypt has been put in a freezer because the regime doesn't allow for the space to express any sort of opposition.I think the new generation of activists will definitely be inspired by what they see on the Iranian street. What's happening in Iran isn't happening on Mars,he told AP.So Egyptian activists will feel they can replicate it in their own country.Still, there has not been as much wall-to-wall coverage of the Iranian uproar in Arab media or Arab activists' blogs as there has been in the West — for a number of reasons.Some are not convinced by claims of fraud in the election results showing a victory for hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is popular among some in the Arab world for his tough stance against the United States and Israel. Even among Arab critics of Ahmadinejad, some don't believe his rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is a true reformer and they note that Iran's unelected supreme leader holds the real power.
Meanwhile, Arab governments — even ones that are fiercely critical of Iranian influence in the region — have remained silent, apparently afraid of angering the powerful Persian nation.The Arabs don't want to go out on a limb against the Iranian government. They don't want to be upfront,said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.It's part of this pattern of being nice to Iran and encouraging the U.S. or somebody else to be not nice.They are afraid of Iran and don't want to antagonize it themselves,he added.The easiest target for Iran are the Gulf Arabs.Tehran is a key player in the Middle East and has played a major role in the divisions splitting the Arab world. It is the main backer of Hezbollah, Hamas and — according to the U.S. — Shiite extremists in Iraq. It's also a close ally of Syria.Its foes — mainly Sunni countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt — are deeply worried that Iran is seeking to fuel Islamic radicalism, empower Shiite minorities in the Arab world and establish itself as a regional superpower by getting involved in crises they believe are none of its business, such as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and inter-Palestinian fighting. But at the same time, those countries have been careful not to annoy Iran and have, at least in public, voiced opposition to any military strike against it. Their silence today is part of the pattern they have followed for the past few years, according to analysts. Jordanian political analyst Labib Kamhawi said Arabs want somebody else to fight their battles on their behalf.
So nobody expressed any position on the Iranian elections because they think that the Americans and the Europeans will do it for them,he said.This is a very negative approach, especially with regional political issues.Since Ahmadinejad was declared the landslide winner on Saturday, several Arab countries have sent congratulatory telegrams. Others, however, like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, have remained silent. Saudi officials have said the kingdom does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries. Gulf nations — always worried about the biggest military power in the vital area — may be happy to see Iran tied up in its domestic affairs. This is not bad because it weakens the rigid Iranian approach to the countries around the region,Saudi analyst Dawood al-Shirian said. Still, Gulf states do not want to see a violent power struggle in Iran for fear of the unrest spilling over,said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.AP writers Shafika Mattar in Amman, Jordan and Donna Abu-Nasr in Riyadh contributed to this report.
Hamas rejects Carter plea to recognize Israel By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 17, 3:08 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A senior Hamas official praised former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday, a day after he met with the group, but said he failed to persuade the Islamic rulers of Gaza to accept international demands, including recognizing Israel.
Carter visited Gaza on Tuesday and urged Hamas leaders to accept the demands to end an international boycott, which was imposed when the militant group overran Gaza two years ago.Carter's meeting was itself unusual because of the boycott. The United States, European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terror group and refuse to deal with it directly.Ahmed Youssef, the deputy Hamas foreign minister, said Gaza's Palestinians were pleased to receive Carter.The people think this is a historic visit,Youssef told The Associated Press on Wednesday, describing Carter as somebody very knowledgeable about the conflict and very sincere in the way he understands the conflict.But Youssef said Hamas turned down Carter's policy requests.The visit has not led to a significant change. Hamas finds the conditions unacceptable, he said.Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable.According to Hamas ideology, there is no room for a Jewish state in an Islamic Middle East. The militant group has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds.Even so, some Hamas officials have indicated they could support creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, implying a form of tacit acceptance of Israel.
Youssef said the other two international conditions — renouncing violence and accepting past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians — are irrelevant. He said Israel broke a cease-fire, killing many Palestinians, and the state outlined in the partial peace accords would have no substance, no borders and nothing that a real state is.Carter has said that despite the world boycott, Mideast peacemaking efforts must include Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, expelling forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government now effectively rules only the West Bank.Though as president Carter brokered the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, the first between Israel and an Arab country, he is perceived by many Israelis as anti-Israel, siding with the Palestinians in their conflict.He antagonized many Israelis with his 2007 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,in which he argued that Israel must choose between ceding the West Bank to the Palestinians or maintaining a system of ethnic inequality similar to that of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Most Israelis strongly reject the comparison.
During Carter's visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Hamas security found what appeared to be explosives buried in a sand dune next to his route. No one was hurt, and it was unclear if the former U.S. president was being targeted.We were aware of some reports" of a threat to his safety, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.I'm sure we took appropriate security steps, but obviously President Carter was there for a few hours and returned safely.Associated Press Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report from Washington.
Mideast peace possible only if imposed: author Wed Jun 17, 3:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A Middle East peace deal is possible only if it is forced on Israelis and Palestinians by US-led efforts, one of Israel's best-known authors has written as he hit out at a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Netanyahu's speech on Sunday tells us between its contorted lines that there will be no peace here if it is not forced upon us,David Grossman wrote remarks published on Wednesday in the liberal Haaretz daily.It is not easy to admit it, but it seems increasingly that this is the choice Israelis and Palestinians face.A just and secure peace -- forced on the parties through firm international involvement, led by the United States -- or war, possibly more difficult and bitter than those that came before it.
Grossman virulently criticised Netanyahu's address, in which the premier for the first time accepted the creation of a Palestinian state, but set a slew of conditions rejected by the Palestinians.What the speech exposed ... is the standstill we have come to, we Israelis, in the face of a reality that requires flexibility, daring and vision.I saw my prime minister in his tight-lipped juggling act, a sophisticated performance of close-eyed rejection.Other than acceptance of the two-state principle, which was wrung out of Netanyahu under heavy pressure and sourly expressed, this speech contained no tangible step toward a real change of consciousness.Grossman decried Netanyahu for not saying that most Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank would have to leave their homes as part of a final peace deal and for listing conditions for Palestinians to accept without listing the risks that Israel had to take for a deal.He also hit out at the Palestinian leadership for rejecting the speech out of hand.I also observed the Palestinians who responded to the speech, and I thought that they are the most faithful partners to standstill and missed opportunities,he wrote.Their response could have been much wiser and more prescient than the speech itself if they grasped the drooping branch Netanyahu was offering and challenged the premier to an immediate restart of negotiations, he wrote.Grossman is the author of such acclaimed works as The Yellow Wind and Sleeping on a Wire.
Europe, US call Netanyahu speech step towards peace Mon Jun 15, 6:48 am ET
PARIS (AFP) – Europe and the United States said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had taken a step forward to ending the Middle East conflict by giving conditional backing to a Palestinian state.But while the key powers gave cautious approval, Palestinians reacted with fury. The Hamas movement which has controlled the Gaza Strip for two years said Netanyahu's address on Sunday reflected a racist and extremist ideology.Under pressure from the United States, Netanyahu endorsed for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state, provided it was demilitarised and that Palestinians recognise the Jewish character of Israel. He ruled out a halt to all Jewish settlement activity as demanded by the United States.In my view it is a step in the right direction, said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, speaking on behalf of the European Union presidency as he arrived at a meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg which discussed the speech.Of course, there are a number of other elements which need to be analysed, but the acceptance of the Palestinian state is there,he added.Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt echoed Kohout's caution.The fact that he uttered the word state is a small step forward, Bildt, whose country takes over the EU presidency on July 1, told reporters.Whether what he mentioned can be defined as a state is a subject of some debate.
The White House meanwhile issued an upbeat initial assessment.
President Barack Obama welcomes the important step forward in Netanyahu's speech,his spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.Obama believes this solution can and must ensure both Israel's security and the fulfillment of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a viable state, and he welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu's endorsement of that goal,it said.Obama has called for a freeze on all settlement building in Palestinian territories and Netanyahu's rejection is likely to arouse international criticism.While also acknowledging the step forward, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that Europe and the United States wanted an immediate freeze to settlement activity and a reopening of the Gaza Strip.During a visit to the Middle East, former US president Jimmy Carter warned that the US and Israeli governments would be on a collision course if Israeli settlement activity continues in the Palestinian West Bank.
Analysts agreed such a confrontation is still possible.
For Aaron David Miller, a former adviser in both past Democratic and Republican US administrations, Netanyahu tried to strike a balance between responding to political pressures in Israel and in Washington.He said he succeeded, at least in part, by calling for a Palestinian state.Palestinians reacted with undisguised anger to Netanyahu's conditions for peace.This speech torpedoes all peace initiatives in the region,Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, told AFP.
It hobbles all efforts to save the peace process, in a clear defiance of the US administration,he said. This speech reflects the racist and extremist ideology of Netanyahu and denies all the rights of the Palestinian people,Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum told AFP.This speech is the reiteration of the policy of his government, which aims at transforming the Palestinian people into a tool to protect the occupation.
Russia, which along with the United States, European Union and United Nations makes up the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East conflict, made no immediate public comment on the speech. Australia called for new Middle East peace talks after Netanyahu endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state. I think what Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech reflects today is there is now a basis for a peace process for negotiations to commence and start,Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Australian television.
Israel left, right both deride PM's speech by Ron Bousso – Mon Jun 15, 5:22 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conditional acceptance of a Palestinian state drew criticism on Monday with many in his hawkish coalition saying it went too far, and from the left who felt it didn't go far enough.The premier's vision for ending the decades-old Middle East conflict, as presented in his long-anticipated speech on Sunday, marked a stark break from his Likud party's ideology, which claims a historic right to the occupied West Bank.Several key Likud MPs responded furiously to his unprecedented endorsement of a Palestinian state, albeit demilitarised and stripped of Jerusalem as a capital.The prime minister caved in to American pressure. He will have to explain to his coalition why he was ready to go so far,Likud MP Danny Danon told AFP.We oppose a Palestinian state and do not believe it will happen. If he moves from words to actions, he will encounter a wall of resistance.Netanyahu's speech followed massive pressure by US President Barack Obama's administration to renew negotiations with the Palestinians in order to reach a peace agreement.The premier, however, rejected in his speech a key US demand to freeze settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.Likud MP Ayoob Kara said that Netanyahu's concessions were a pain killer to stop international pressure, but at this stage there will be no movement on the ground. It is wrong to go that way because there is no (Palestinian) partner.National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, a key partner in Netanyahu's coalition government, said that accepting the principle of a Palestinian state was a grave mistake.Yet even the most vocal critics on the right did not suggest seeking to topple Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition at this stage.A senior political analyst in Israel's Maariv daily said that Netanyahu gave one of the most hardline speeches made by an Israeli premier in recent years to compensate for his ideological concession.
The speech was thirty minutes of pure right-wing rhetoric to cover up one leftist phrase,Ben Caspit said.Both the United States and the European Union welcomed Netanyahu's speech as a positive step towards the renewal of peace talks, but the Palestinian Authority slammed it as sabotaging the teetering process.The 59-year-old premier won strong backing from Defence Minister Ehud Barak who faces a mutiny within the ranks of his center-left Labour party for joining the Likud-led coalition.This is an important step in the right direction and I have to say that Prime Minister Netanyahu showed seriousness, responsibility and courage,Barak said in a statement.
Trade and Industry Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, also of Labour, told AFP that Netanyahu crossed the Rubicon and a psychological threshold... he turned his back on an ideology he backed for years and started seeing things in their true colours.But opposition left-wing MPs slammed Netanyahu's cautious peace overtures as not nearly enough.So much preparation for nothing. The prime minister proved again that he is the number one peace refusenik. Bibi chose to serve the needs of the settlers and the extreme--right rather than those of Israel,Meretz MP Ilan Gil-On said. MP Ahmad Tibi of the United Arab List said that the speech showed a mental fixation that wants a non-sovereign Palestinian state with ongoing settlement construction. I hope the White House will expose his public relations stunt.
Obama welcomes Netanyahu's two-state speech Sun Jun 14, 3:47 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The White House is welcoming Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu's call for the creation of a Palestinian state.Netanyahu said in Jerusalem that he would support a Palestinian state as long it is demilitarized and guarantees Israel's security.White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday that President Barack Obama welcomes the speech and is committed to two states: a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestinian state.Gibbs says Obama will work with all parties to see that they fulfill their obligations and head toward regional peace.Netanyahu had resisted endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a Mideast peace settlement, drawing intense pressure from the United States.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
NETANYAHU PEACE PROCESS SPEECH
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
TEXT-Full text of Netanyahu speech on peace process 14 Jun 2009 21:02:54 GMT
Source: Reuters
June 14 (Reuters) - Following is a full translation of Sunday's speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, provided on the Web site of his office:Honored guests, citizens of Israel.Peace has always been our people's most ardent desire. Our prophets gave the world the vision of peace, we greet one another with wishes of peace, and our prayers conclude with the word peace.We are gathered this evening in an institution named for two pioneers of peace, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and we share in their vision.Two and half months ago, I took the oath of office as the Prime Minister of Israel. I pledged to establish a national unity government and I did. I believed and I still believe that unity was essential for us now more than ever as we face three immense challenges the Iranian threat, the economic crisis, and the advancement of peace.The Iranian threat looms large before us, as was further demonstrated yesterday. The greatest danger confronting Israel, the Middle East, the entire world and human race, is the nexus between radical Islam and nuclear weapons. I discussed this issue with President Obama during my recent visit to Washington, and I will raise it again in my meetings next week with European leaders. For years, I have been working tirelessly to forge an international alliance to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.Confronting a global economic crisis, the government acted swiftly to stabilize Israel's economy. We passed a two year budget in the government and the Knesset will soon approve it.And the third challenge, so exceedingly important, is the advancement of peace. I also spoke about this with President Obama, and I fully support the idea of a regional peace that he is leading.I share the President's desire to bring about a new era of reconciliation in our region. To this end, I met with President Mubarak in Egypt, and King Abdullah in Jordan, to elicit the support of these leaders in expanding the circle of peace in our region.
I turn to all Arab leaders tonight and I say: Let us meet. Let us speak of peace and let us make peace. I am ready to meet with you at any time. I am willing to go to Damascus, to Riyadh, to Beirut, to any place- including Jerusalem. I call on the Arab countries to cooperate with the Palestinians and with us to advance an economic peace. An economic peace is not a substitute for a political peace, but an important element to achieving it. Together, we can undertake projects to overcome the scarcities of our region, like water desalination or to maximize its advantages, like developing solar energy, or laying gas and petroleum lines, and transportation links between Asia, Africa and Europe.The economic success of the Gulf States has impressed us all and it has impressed me. I call on the talented entrepreneurs of the Arab world to come and invest here and to assist the Palestinians and us in spurring the economy.Together, we can develop industrial areas that will generate thousands of jobs and create tourist sites that will attract millions of visitors eager to walk in the footsteps of history in Nazareth and in Bethlehem, around the walls of Jericho and the walls of Jerusalem, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee and the baptismal site of the Jordan. There is an enormous potential for archeological tourism, if we can only learn to cooperate and to develop it.I turn to you, our Palestinian neighbors, led by the Palestinian Authority, and I say: Let's begin negotiations immediately without preconditions. Israel is obligated by its international commitments and expects all parties to keep their commitments.We want to live with you in peace, as good neighbors. We want our children and your children to never again experience war: that parents, brothers and sisters will never again know the agony of losing loved ones in battle; that our children will be able to dream of a better future and realize that dream; and that together we will invest our energies in plowshares and pruning hooks, not swords and spears.I know the face of war. I have experienced battle. I lost close friends, I lost a brother. I have seen the pain of bereaved families. I do not want war. No one in Israel wants war.If we join hands and work together for peace, there is no limit to the development and prosperity we can achieve for our two peoples in the economy, agriculture, trade, tourism and education - most importantly, in providing our youth a better world in which to live, a life full of tranquility, creativity, opportunity and hope.If the advantages of peace are so evident, we must ask ourselves why peace remains so remote, even as our hand remains outstretched to peace? Why has this conflict continued for more than sixty years? In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest and forthright answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict?
In his speech to the first Zionist Conference in Basel, the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, said about the Jewish national home This idea is so big that we must speak of it only in the simplest terms.Today, I will speak about the immense challenge of peace in the simplest words possible.Even as we look toward the horizon, we must be firmly connected to reality, to the truth. And the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland.In 1947, when the United Nations proposed the partition plan of a Jewish state and an Arab state, the entire Arab world rejected the resolution. The Jewish community, by contrast, welcomed it by dancing and rejoicing.The Arabs rejected any Jewish state, in any borders.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
TEXT-Full text of Netanyahu speech on peace process 14 Jun 2009 21:02:54 GMT
Source: Reuters
June 14 (Reuters) - Following is a full translation of Sunday's speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, provided on the Web site of his office:Honored guests, citizens of Israel.Peace has always been our people's most ardent desire. Our prophets gave the world the vision of peace, we greet one another with wishes of peace, and our prayers conclude with the word peace.We are gathered this evening in an institution named for two pioneers of peace, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and we share in their vision.Two and half months ago, I took the oath of office as the Prime Minister of Israel. I pledged to establish a national unity government and I did. I believed and I still believe that unity was essential for us now more than ever as we face three immense challenges the Iranian threat, the economic crisis, and the advancement of peace.The Iranian threat looms large before us, as was further demonstrated yesterday. The greatest danger confronting Israel, the Middle East, the entire world and human race, is the nexus between radical Islam and nuclear weapons. I discussed this issue with President Obama during my recent visit to Washington, and I will raise it again in my meetings next week with European leaders. For years, I have been working tirelessly to forge an international alliance to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.Confronting a global economic crisis, the government acted swiftly to stabilize Israel's economy. We passed a two year budget in the government and the Knesset will soon approve it.And the third challenge, so exceedingly important, is the advancement of peace. I also spoke about this with President Obama, and I fully support the idea of a regional peace that he is leading.I share the President's desire to bring about a new era of reconciliation in our region. To this end, I met with President Mubarak in Egypt, and King Abdullah in Jordan, to elicit the support of these leaders in expanding the circle of peace in our region.
I turn to all Arab leaders tonight and I say: Let us meet. Let us speak of peace and let us make peace. I am ready to meet with you at any time. I am willing to go to Damascus, to Riyadh, to Beirut, to any place- including Jerusalem. I call on the Arab countries to cooperate with the Palestinians and with us to advance an economic peace. An economic peace is not a substitute for a political peace, but an important element to achieving it. Together, we can undertake projects to overcome the scarcities of our region, like water desalination or to maximize its advantages, like developing solar energy, or laying gas and petroleum lines, and transportation links between Asia, Africa and Europe.The economic success of the Gulf States has impressed us all and it has impressed me. I call on the talented entrepreneurs of the Arab world to come and invest here and to assist the Palestinians and us in spurring the economy.Together, we can develop industrial areas that will generate thousands of jobs and create tourist sites that will attract millions of visitors eager to walk in the footsteps of history in Nazareth and in Bethlehem, around the walls of Jericho and the walls of Jerusalem, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee and the baptismal site of the Jordan. There is an enormous potential for archeological tourism, if we can only learn to cooperate and to develop it.I turn to you, our Palestinian neighbors, led by the Palestinian Authority, and I say: Let's begin negotiations immediately without preconditions. Israel is obligated by its international commitments and expects all parties to keep their commitments.We want to live with you in peace, as good neighbors. We want our children and your children to never again experience war: that parents, brothers and sisters will never again know the agony of losing loved ones in battle; that our children will be able to dream of a better future and realize that dream; and that together we will invest our energies in plowshares and pruning hooks, not swords and spears.I know the face of war. I have experienced battle. I lost close friends, I lost a brother. I have seen the pain of bereaved families. I do not want war. No one in Israel wants war.If we join hands and work together for peace, there is no limit to the development and prosperity we can achieve for our two peoples in the economy, agriculture, trade, tourism and education - most importantly, in providing our youth a better world in which to live, a life full of tranquility, creativity, opportunity and hope.If the advantages of peace are so evident, we must ask ourselves why peace remains so remote, even as our hand remains outstretched to peace? Why has this conflict continued for more than sixty years? In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest and forthright answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict?
In his speech to the first Zionist Conference in Basel, the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, said about the Jewish national home This idea is so big that we must speak of it only in the simplest terms.Today, I will speak about the immense challenge of peace in the simplest words possible.Even as we look toward the horizon, we must be firmly connected to reality, to the truth. And the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland.In 1947, when the United Nations proposed the partition plan of a Jewish state and an Arab state, the entire Arab world rejected the resolution. The Jewish community, by contrast, welcomed it by dancing and rejoicing.The Arabs rejected any Jewish state, in any borders.
Friday, June 12, 2009
CARTER MEETS WITH FATHER OF SHALIT
Carter meets father of captured Israeli soldier Fri Jun 12, 10:09 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The father of an Israeli soldier held by militants in the Gaza Strip for almost three years on Friday asked former US president Jimmy Carter to deliver a letter to Hamas.At a meeting with Carter at a Jerusalem hotel, Noam Shalit asked the former president to deliver the letter to the Islamist movement when he travels to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Tuesday.Noam's son Gilad, then a 19-year-old army corporal, was captured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants in a June 25, 2007 cross-border raid.I handed Carter a letter to pass on to Gilad when he visits Gaza,Shalit told AFP. Carter told me he will continue in his efforts to bring about his release.The soldier's parents had received a letter from their son a year ago through the Atlanta-based Carter Center, two months after the former US president met the Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal in Damascus.Israeli officials have worked, so far in vain, through Egyptian mediators to secure Shalit's release in exchange for several hundred jailed Palestinian prisoners.Carter was on a tour of the region that has already taken him to Lebanon, where he monitored the election, and to Syria, where he met Hamas leaders, the Carter Center said.Throughout the visit, as part of his ongoing efforts to promote constructive dialogue, the president will hold meetings with representatives of all parties to the Israeli-Arab conflict,it said.Carter is due to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Saturday, and on Sunday he plans to visit a representative of the more than 280,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
He is also expected to hold talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres and MPs, the Carter Center said.It gave no details of his planned trip to Gaza, which has been run Hamas since it seized power there two years ago, ousting forces loyal to Abbas.Only a few US officials -- among them Senator John Kerry in February -- have visited the Palestinian enclave since the takeover by Hamas, which Washington lists as a terrorist organisation.
EU's Solana to meet Hezbollah MP Fri Jun 12, 10:15 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana began a visit to Beirut on Friday for talks with the country's leaders and, for the first time, a member of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.Solana will meet President Michel Sleiman on Friday and then hold separate talks on Saturday with Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan, an EU representative said.
The meeting with Hajj Hassan will be the first such high level contact between an EU official and Hezbollah, which has been blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington but not by the European Union, the official said.Solana's visit coincides with a trip by US envoy George Mitchell who vowed that Washington would not sacrifice Lebanon as it seeks comprehensive peace in the Middle East.The visits follow Sunday's election on Sunday that saw a Western-backed alliance increase its majority in parliament, defeating a coalition led by Hezbollah.Solana and Mitchell are scheduled to meet in Beirut before the US envoy heads to Damascus later Friday for talks with Syrian leaders.
Envoy Mitchell to visit Syria.Envoy's visit could pave the way for improved relations between U.S., Syria JUNE 12,09
(CNN) -- Syria, a country on the outs with the United States during the Bush administration, was to be U.S. envoy George Mitchell's latest stop in his trip to jump-start the idle Middle East peace process.U.S. envoy George Mitchell, right, visited with Lebanese officials, including parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri.
A former Maine senator who is President Obama's special envoy to the region, Mitchell is expected to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and other officials in a trip beginning Friday and ending Saturday.The United States has not had an ambassador in Damascus since 2005. But Mitchell's visit is part of a series of actions that could pave the way for dramatically improved relations between the two countries. The Obama administration also believes engaging the Syrian regime will weaken Syria's strategic alliance with Iran.You know that this administration is committed to a broad-based, comprehensive peace dealing with all the different players in the region, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters at a State Department daily press conference earlier this week.And we decided this was an appropriate time for Sen. Mitchell to go to Syria. And ... this is a very high priority for this administration, and we're going to pursue this vigorously in the coming months.
Kelly said the stop is in many ways a follow-up to Obama's speech last week in Cairo, Egypt, where the president laid out his stances on a variety of issues in the Muslim world. They include his views of the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an overriding conflict in the region.During this trip, Mitchell met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He made stops in Jordan and Egypt, which both have diplomatic relations with Israel.He met on Friday with officials in Lebanon, less than a week after a pro-Western coalition made strides against a Hezbollah-led bloc in parliamentary elections.The Damascus visit points to a warming up of relations between the United States and Syria.The United States and the Bashar Assad regime have had frosty relations over Syria's perceived meddling in Lebanon, its relationship with Iran and militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas and the infiltration of insurgent attackers from Syrian territory into Iraq.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Syria four years ago in protest at the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Washington accuses Syria of being behind the killing of the popular statesman in a massive bombing that also left 22 others dead. Syria denies it, but an ongoing United Nations investigation has found indications of Syrian involvement.But at the same time, Syria has wanted to have better relations with the United States, and it has engaged in indirect talks with Israel over their differences, especially the Syrian land seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. And Syria has said it wants a stable Iraq.
Mitchell's visit is the highest-profile trip to Syria by a U.S. official since 2005, and it comes on the heels of the Obama administration's diplomatic efforts to re-engage with the Assad government.The State Department has said that Mitchell's trip will be followed by other U.S. missions -- including a delegation of U.S. military commanders who will discuss joint efforts to combat the Iraqi insurgency, officials said.Jeffrey Feltman -- an assistant secretary of state who is the department's top official on the Middle East -- and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro traveled to Damascus twice in recent months in an effort to improve ties with Syria.
The talks, which have been the start of more regular contacts between Washington and Damascus through normal diplomatic channels, focused in part on getting Syria to seal its border with Iraq. Washington has criticized Damascus for turning a blind eye to foreign fighters traveling through the country into Iraq.The United States also wants Syrian support in achieving a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace agreement, and it appears willing to nurture indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel that began last year over the disputed Golan Heights. Those talks were suspended after Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip that ended in mid-January.It's our view that...Syria can play an important, constructive role in the region, Feltman told reporters in March.At that time, Feltman hit home the administration's regional approach to Middle East peace.The United States wants a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace,he said, saying Mitchell's mandate is to achieve a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.Such an effort means that there will be a Syrian-Israel track at some point, and, Feltman said, we do want to see forward momentum on the Syrian-Israeli track at the time when the parties are ready for this.Damascus wants the United States to become involved if the talks resume. And Washington is interested in getting Damascus to use its influence with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which Syria views as a legitimate resistance movement and whose leaders take refuge in Syria.In another sign of reconciliation, officials have said the United States is considering reappointing an ambassador to Syria. A charge d'affaires has been the highest-level American diplomat in Damascus since 2005.The United States also is interested in building a new embassy in Damascus, and Eric Boswell, assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, recently traveled to Syria to examine the security situation there.
After 27 years, no news on Israeli MIA's Published: June 12, 2009 at 10:30 AM
JERUSALEM, June 12 (UPI) -- Today marks 27 years since three Israeli soldiers were captured and declared missing in a battle with Syrian forces in the first war in Lebanon.On June 12,1982, in the battle of Sultan Yacoub, a Lebanese village located 3 miles (5 km) from the Syrian border, Israeli troops were ambushed by Syrian forces. Eighteen Israeli soldiers were killed and soldiers Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman and Zachary Baumel, who also has U.S. citizenship, were captured. Two weeks ago, Baumel's father, Yona, passed away without knowing whether his son is alive or dead. Since his son's capture, Baumel did everything he could to learn what happened to him, and tried to verify reports that his son and the other two soldiers were being held captive in Syria.Katz's father Yossi told the Yedioth Aharonoth Web site Friday that he refuses to give up hope, but fears he, too, will die without knowing what happened to his son.Baumel's death signaled that time does not stand still, he said. A generation goes, another generation comes. … We refuse to give up hope and believe fate in the end will return our son Yehuda alive.Eyal Ben Reuven, a general in the reserves, is with the Born To Freedom organization and maintains contact with the families of the three soldiers. He met Baumel three weeks prior to his death.
Yona was extremely angry with the security establishment who failed to provide any solutions concerning his son's fate, he told the Web site. Ben Reuven said efforts to find the trio continue and some progress has been made. But he refused to divulge further details.The Born To Freedom organization was set up for the sake of Israeli MIA's and their families. The organization has offered a $10 million reward to anyone who comes forward with information concerning the missing soldiers. 2009 United Press International, Inc.
Mediators await Netanyahu speech, hoping for change By Dan Williams JUNE 12,09
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to deliver a policy speech on Sunday to address tensions with the United States over his refusal to end settlement building and embrace Palestinian statehood.Netanyahu briefed U.S. envoy George Mitchell and other diplomats this week on his planned speech. But the steps which Netanyahu outlined to Mitchell were not adequate to satisfy Washington, a U.S. official told a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East mediators, according to participants.Netanyahu's refusal to declare a building freeze in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and to endorse the goal of establishing a Palestinian state -- both set out in a 2003 peace road map -- has opened a rare rift in U.S.-Israeli relations.Anxious to preserve the alliance but also beholden to his fractious and right-wing governing coalition, Netanyahu has spoken of stop-gap proposals such as Palestinian self-government shorn of sovereign powers like the right to set up an army.The Palestinians, having won limited autonomy under 1993 interim accords, insist on full statehood. But there are also divisions, with Hamas Islamists who reject coexistence with the Jewish state in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007.
U.S. President Barack Obama says containing Iran's nuclear aspirations -- which Israel considers a major threat -- would be helped by progress toward a Palestine deal.An Israeli official said Netanyahu was still putting final touches to the speech which would present a vision of moving forward in the peace process with the Palestinians.In the framework of that, we want to see the Arab states play an increased role,the official said.The speech will acknowledge the road map and deal with the issue of statehood.European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said during a West Bank visit: I don't know what he wants to say but what I would like to hear...is that (Israel) will stop settlements and will resume negotiations with the Palestinians.
WHAT ISRAELIS WANT
Netanyahu was sworn into office in March, replacing centrist prime minister Ehud Olmert, who relaunched peace talks with the Palestinians at a 2007 conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that reaffirmed the two sides' commitment to the 2003 road map.
Polls now show Israeli opinion is divided but one survey indicates voters have a more hard-nosed attitude to giving up land for a peace they are not sure they would have.
Tamar Hermann, a sociologist who has conducted a monthly peace index survey for years, said she found that until a month ago, between 60 and 75 percent of Israelis answered in surveys that they supported a two-state solution.But this month just 41 percent saw Palestinian statehood as a viable option, said Hermann, dean of Israel's Open University.Fewer Israelis say they are willing to yield the minimum Palestinians seek for a deal -- the eventual dismantling of most Israeli settlements built in the occupied territory.
Hermann said 53 percent now oppose removing the enclaves.
But pollster Rafi Smith finds that 55 percent of Israelis still support a two-state solution and 57 percent backed Obama's call for a halt to settlement construction. But 85 percent doubt the exercise will lead to eventual peace.The Israeli public has moved to the right because their concept of trust in the Arabs is very low. The problem is that we don't trust the Arabs and they don't trust us,Smith said. Israelis agree there should be two states, but don't believe it will ever happen.U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces have been cracking down on Hamas in the West Bank, where Israel has long demanded security assurances ahead of any territorial handovers to the Palestinians.But many Israelis regard the West Bank, captured from Jordan in a 1967 war, as a biblical Jewish birthright and the Netanyahu government intends to keep major settlement blocs under a peace accord -- a plan Palestinians rule out as a non-starter.(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Adam Entous)(Editing by Angus MacSwan)
UN chief: key Mideast peacemakers to meet Thu Jun 11, 6:46 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that key parties trying to promote Mideast peace will meet in Italy later this month.Ban gave no details on the date and place but said Thursday he expects the Quartet of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia to discuss the next steps to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.High-level Quartet meetings are usually attended by foreign ministers. Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight major industrialized nations are already scheduled to meet in Trieste June 26-27.The G8 includes the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada.Ban also says that President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo was historic and a fantastic statement.
Carter: Mideast peace not possible without Hamas By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 11, 11:57 am ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – Former President Jimmy Carter Thursday reiterated that there can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians without involving the militant group Hamas.His comments came shortly before he met with the militant group's Syrian-based leader, Khaled Mashaal. Carter met with Mashaal twice under the Bush administration, angering some in the U.S. government who said he was legitimizing a group the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.But this was his first meeting under the Obama administration, which has launched a fresh quest for peace in the Middle East, and came as Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, was less than 400 miles (645 kilometers) away in Cairo preparing to visit Syria Friday.Carter, who went to Syria after observing elections in neighboring Lebanon, stressed that he was in Damascus as a private citizen and not representing the Obama administration.Obama, also a Democrat, seems to be going in the direction that Carter has long advocated — engagement with longtime foes Iran and Syria. So far Obama, like the Bush administration, has drawn the line at meeting with Hamas. But in a speech in Cairo last week, Obama seemed to suggest some basis for believing that Palestinian militants who rule Gaza might be drawn into the peace process.As president, Carter helped broker an Israeli-Egyptian peace deal in the late 1970s and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote peace around the world. He has continued to pursue Mideast peace through his Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center foundation, and angered many Israelis for his 2006 book that compared Israel's policies toward the Palestinians in the West Bank to apartheid.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Carter said Hamas and its more moderate Fatah rivals must reconcile so they can negotiate effectively with Israel.I don't believe there is a possibility to have any peace between the Palestinians and Israel unless Hamas is involved directly in harmony with Fatah,he said.Carter said Obama's pressure on Israel to freeze construction in West Bank settlements is an essential step toward restarting peace efforts.He said Israel is very eager to avoid any serious disagreement or confrontation with the U.S. and that Obama's push for a two-state solution would be seriously considered by Israel.
Carter also plans meetings in Israel and the West Bank over the weekend.
Syria's official news agency reported that Assad discussed with Carter ways to reactivate the peace process and stressed that Damascus is committed to peace that guarantees the return of Arab rights.Syria wants Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Syrian-Israeli indirect talks through Turkey have been on hold since Israel launched an offensive on Gaza in December.
Turkey said Thursday it is prepared to restart mediation efforts but is waiting for both countries to signal their readiness to resume talks.
Israel PM told to keep silent on Palestinian state by Jean-Luc Renaudie – Thu Jun 11, 11:43 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The heat is on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from within his own right-wing party to resist US pressure and not utter the words Palestinian state in a keenly awaited policy speech.The expression Palestinian state should not be used, Likud MP Miri Regev said on Thursday, echoing the sentiment of several other members of Netanyahu's Likud party ahead of Sunday's speech.To date, the hawkish prime minister has not endorsed the concept of a Palestinian state and has defied US pressure to freeze construction activity in West Bank settlements where more than 280,000 Israelis live.Netanyahu hopes that his landmark speech will help ease the mounting tension in relations with the United States, Israel's prime ally.
But he faces a delicate balancing act if he is to avoid infuriating his partners in the governing centre-right coalition, which is split between those who reject a two-state solution, and those, like defence minister and Labour chief Ehud Barak, who support it.Regev insisted that US President Barack Obama cannot force decisions on the Israeli government.The US pressure is mainly psychological; one should not forget that the president is not the only one in the United States, there's the Congress and the Senate, which support Israel,she said.Also among those pressing Netanyahu to steer clear of the concept of a Palestinian state is Benny Begin, a minister without portfolio and son of former premier Menahem Begin.If the only solution is two states for two peoples, then there is no solution, he said.Begin insisted that the Palestinians were not after a two-state solution but wanted a two-stage solution at the end of which there would be a single PLO-Hamas state.Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau from the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party insisted that in any case Israel has no Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate.
In the Gaza Strip, there is some kind of a terrorist state in the hands of Hamas, while (Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas) does not control the Arabs in the occupied West Bank, Landau said.Netanyahu also faces pressure not to cave in to US demands to order a freeze on all settlement construction activity in the West Bank, something to which Israel committed itself to under the 2003 international peace roadmap.But President Shimon Peres, who has been discussing the planned speech with Netanyahu, said that Israel and the Palestinians should agree on a Palestinian state with temporary borders as a first step towards ending the conflict.The roadmap outlines a clear path and (the sides) should implement the second stage of the roadmap -- declaring a Palestinian state with temporary borders,said Peres, whose office is mainly ceremonial.The Palestinian Authority flatly rejected this proposal, with president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina saying it takes us back to square one.Visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged Netanyahu to commit to the concept of a Palestinian state being created alongside Israel.
I would like to hear a speech in which there's a commitment of the government to the two-state solution, a commitment of the government on the question of settlements and a commitment to re-initiate relations with the Palestinians,he told journalists. I am sure that we will hear something of that nature,said Solana, who met Peres and other Israeli government officials on Thursday. According to the Haaretz newspaper, Netanyahu will announce his government's adoption of the roadmap and the two-state solution while rejecting a settlement freeze and insisting that Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state. But parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin was not convinced.I don't believe the prime minister believes in two states for two people, the Likud MP said.
Israel warns Hamas over Gaza attack, keeps embargo Wed Jun 10, 9:18 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's powerful security cabinet warned on Wednesday it would hold Hamas responsible for any attacks from its Gaza stronghold and kept in place a crippling blockade of the Palestinian territory.In the face of US pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the cabinet to consider easing the stifling blockade that Israel slapped on Gaza after Hamas, a group pledged to the Jewish state's destruction, seized control of the territory two years ago.The cabinet decided that Israel considers Hamas responsible for any attacks against Israel from Gaza's territory,the premier's office said afterwards.The cabinet instructed the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) to respond to any attack against Israel from Gaza,it said.
On Monday, four Palestinian militants were killed in a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers along the Gaza border. The previously unknown Soldiers of Allah claimed responsibility for the attack.As to the blockade, the statement said only that the cabinet is examining further ways to ease the life of the Palestinian population in Gaza while keeping Israel's security interests.Under the blockade, only essential humanitarian goods are allowed into the impoverished territory.Ministers also discussed Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants, including from Hamas, in a deadly cross-border raid in June 2006 and who remains in captivity.The cabinet instructed the bodies dealing with the issue of Gilad Shalit to make every possible effort to bring about his release,it said.Israel and Hamas have conducted months of indirect talks through Egypt on a prisoner exchange that would see Shalit freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians detained by Israel.
No other choice for Israel but two-states: Mubarak Wed Jun 10, 4:06 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Israel was bound to agree to a two-state solution in the Middle East because there is no other choice, during a television interview to air later on Wednesday.Israel will agree to a two-state solution because it has no other choice, he told Egyptian television in an interview, trails for which were broadcast ahead of the programme.I told (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu there is no choice, the two-state solution is bound to happen, he said, adding that solving the Palestinian question was key to resolving other conflicts in the region.Any peace process for the Palestinian question means peace and stability for the entire region, he said.Netanyahu has yet to publicly embrace the principle of a Palestinian state.Over the past few months tensions between the United States and its staunchest ally have risen to levels not seen in 20 years as Washington presses Netanyahu to publicly back the principle of a Palestinian state and freeze all settlement activity on occupied land.In a speech in Cairo last week, Obama repeated his call for a complete halt to Israeli settlements and said the creation of a Palestinian state was the only solution to the conflict.
Fear of Iran, Obama's words swayed Lebanon vote By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 10, 2:05 pm ET
BEIRUT – Fears of a hard-line Iran helped swing Christian voters from the militant Shiite group Hezbollah and deliver election victory to a pro-Western coalition in Lebanon. President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims lingered in voters' minds, too.
Now the question is whether similar factors will sway Iran's own elections Friday for the presidency, considered too close to call between incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a self-styled reformist challenger.Lebanon and Iran are different in key ways, with voters in Lebanon, an Arab country, tending to vote along Shiite and Sunni Muslim and Christian sectarian lines and out of family loyalties.Iran, in contrast, which is mainly Persian and mostly Shiite Muslim, is divided by a sharp struggle between the Islamic establishment and desires for greater personal freedom and more liberal foreign and economic policies.Neither country has any accurate, independent or publicly available political polling, and no poll has attempted to substantively gauge the effect of Obama's presidency or his recent Cairo outreach speech to Muslims on either country.One recent poll done on behalf of two U.S.-based public-interest groups found that few Iranians — only 29 percent — said they have favorable opinions of the United States, and that the view had changed little since Obama's election.
The survey was conducted by telephone into Iranian households from a nearby, unidentified country in Farsi, Iran's language, but regional experts noted it could have been influenced by the fears of random Iranians who answered the phone calls, in a country where private communication is often monitored.The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow, a bipartisan group that tries to undermine support for terrorism, and for the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute, both based in Washington.In general, concerns over Iran's recent hard-line positions —and interest in Obama's call for dialogue with Iran and his outreach to Muslims overall — are intense across many parts of the Mideast, showing up often as a topic in media and conversations.In a high-profile speech in Cairo last week in the final stretches of both countries' campaigns, Obama challenged the Islamic world to confront violent extremism and find ways to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis. He has previously called for dialogue with both Iran and Syria, now at loggerheads with the West.The speech came amid high tensions between Arab allies of America and Iran in the region itself.My sense is that Iranians feel there is a window now to move in a new direction with America, and change Iran's reputation in the region,said Adbulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science at Emirates University in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.The question is can opponents of Ahmadinejad make this feeling translate into votes on election day?
I don't want to overestimate it,added political analyst Sharif Emam Jomeh in Iran. But people do think that now the world has changed. ... Obama has come to power and it's time for Iran to change.In Lebanon, Obama's effect was equally muted though still evident. Iran's effect on Lebanese Christian voters, however, was glaringly out in the open.Christians were the swing voters in Sunday's balloting and the votes in two key Christian districts helped the pro-Western coalition retain its majority in parliament over a coalition including the Shiite Hezbollah group, which is backed by Iran.A key factor was a last-minute warning against Iranian influence from Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, head of the influential Maronite Catholic Church in Lebanon. He warned that the nation's character and its Arab identity were under threat — an allusion to Iran, Hezbollah's mentor.Lebanon's large Christian minority fiercely guards its liberal lifestyle and freedoms.What the patriarch said affected the way people voted,said Edmond Samir, a Christian shopper in his mid-30s who said he backed the winning ticket.The pro-Western camp won 68 seats while Hezbollah and its allies — including one Christian faction — ended up with 57.
An estimated two-thirds of Lebanon's Christian voters had supported Hezbollah's Christian ally, former army chief Michel Aoun, in the last election in 2005. But results indicated enough turned away from Aoun this time in favor of the pro-Western bloc to make the Christian split even, and to swing the outcome toward the pro-Western bloc decisively. Aoun still emerged with several more seats to remain the largest Christian bloc in parliament.Lebanese Sunnis, supporting the pro-Western camp and fearing Shiite domination, also were mobilized to vote en mass to give their factions a majority to stop Hezbollah. Hilal Khashan, head of the political sciences department at the American University of Beirut, said Aoun's alliance with Hezbollah was extremely difficult to justify for the Christian community, describing it as most unlikely and most improbable.However, Obama's recent speech also may have been a contributor or a reinforcing statement to the voters, too, he said. It was not decisive, but did have some impact.Added middle-aged Christian shop owner Lena al-Awar of Obama: He didn't change the way I voted ... But maybe because Obama supports freedom and democracy, then that has an effect.Associated Press writers Brian Murphy in Cairo and Anna Johnson in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Abbas tries to fix Palestinian side of peace puzzle By Mohammed Assadi Mohammed Assadi – Wed Jun 10, 6:55 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Abbas chairs talks in Jordan on Thursday with factions of Fatah, seeking agreement to hold the first congress in 20 years of the fractured, weakened movement dominating Palestinian politics.Fatah needs to restore unity to overturn its shock 2006 election defeat by Islamist rival Hamas, and to ensure Abbas is firmly in the driver's seat for peace talks with Israel, which U.S. President Barack Obama wants to resume without delay.The meeting of the central committee that will take place in Amman will take the final steps in preparation for the Sixth Fatah Congress,said Fatah West Bank spokesman Fahmi al-Zarir.A senior aide to Abbas told Reuters the meeting stood a good chance of setting a final date and venue for the congress, last held in 1989 but never yet convened on Palestinian territory.The aim is to strengthen Abbas by restoring and rejuvenating Fatah, instituting reforms to bolster its democratic credentials and heal rifts in the ranks between the exiled establishment and home-based veterans of the resistance movement.
Secular Fatah is internally divided on issues of militancy, democratization, and the conduct of talks with Israel. Local and younger leaders want the old guard to grant them more say.The differences within Fatah could lead to division and fragmentation of the movement. What's happening is a recipe for the collapse of Fatah, said reformist Qaddoura Fares.Once all-powerful under the late Yasser Arafat, Fatah began to show cracks after his death, running rival slates in the 2006 election and thereby helping its opponent Hamas to a victory that led on to open division and armed hostility.A year later Fatah was forced out of the Gaza Strip by the Islamists and holds sway only in the occupied West Bank. Months of talks in Cairo to reconcile the two divergent wings of the Palestinian cause have so far made little progress.Arafat had contributed to weakening Fatah but he was the glue that held the movement together. Now everyone sees himself as leader, commented political analyst Hani Masri.
STRENGTHENING ABBAS'S HAND
Abbas, 74, wants a modern, united and tamed Fatah -- as opposed to the militant Hamas -- to prove he can deliver peace as head of the Palestinian Authority.But his Fatah movement must restore credibility with Palestinians disaffected by its corruption and cronyism, and the meager results of past peace talks with Israel.The Hamas Islamists, with a reputation for austerity, spurn talks in favor of armed resistance against Israel and now represent Abbas's most serious challenge.A strengthened Abbas could win greater U.S. and European support in pressing Israel's right-leaning government to endorse the internationally backed two-state solution to the conflict.Abbas wants the movement's 1,550 members to grant wider representation to the younger generation. Congress would chose a new Central Committee and Revolutionary Council -- titles reflecting Fatah's birth in the Cold War geopolitics of 1965.The choice would pit reformists who grew up fighting, then talking to, Israeli occupiers against veterans who stayed in the privileged diaspora until establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in mid 1990s.Five previous Fatah congresses were held in the diaspora and rarely presented leaders from the territories. Some current central committee members oppose holding the sixth congress in the territories, in case new blood challenges their hold.
They want the same old faces, said Fares.
Wherever the congress meets, rationalizing the future course of Palestinian liberation policy will be the dominant topic. Like Hamas, Fatah's existing charter does not recognize Israel and endorses armed struggle to liberate Palestinian territories. But the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Fatah is the backbone and Hamas is also a member, long ago nullified the call for Israel's destruction.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta, editing by Douglas Hamilton)
Saudis gleeful at Lebanon vote, now look to Iran By Ulf Laessing and Andrew Hammond – Tue Jun 9, 10:31 am ET
RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, which has led Arab attempts to hold back Iranian influence in the Middle East, has reacted triumphantly to the victory of its pro-U.S. allies in Lebanon's elections this week.The surprise win by the incumbent Sunni Muslim-led bloc backed by Washington and Riyadh over the Hezbollah-led opposition, which is backed by Iran, was Saudi Arabia's first foreign policy break after a string of setbacks.I think the Saudis find the outcome of the Lebanese elections very satisfying,said a senior Western diplomat in Riyadh.Saudi-controlled Arab media could hardly restrain their glee as presenters and correspondents cracked jokes on Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel and papers ran boastful headlines on the blow to Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.Nasrallah justifies, apologizes then accepts defeat, said the front page of Asharq al-Awsat daily, owned by the family of Riyadh governor Prince Salman, a brother of King Abdullah.Tariq Alhomayed, editor of the paper, declared the fall of the Iranian project in Lebanon, reflecting the sectarian language witnessed during campaigning.This is above all a victory for the Arabness of Lebanon... the important thing is that Lebanese protected their country from subject status to Iran,he wrote.
EYES ON AHMADINEJAD
A cabinet statement late on Monday congratulated Lebanon over victory for the Lebanese and King Abdullah received a call from Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad, whose relations with Riyadh have been icy over its backing for Hezbollah. State media said only that they discussed their bilateral ties.Results showed Saad al-Hariri's pro-Western bloc had won 71 of parliament's 128 seats, against 57 for an opposition alliance that groups Shi'ite factions Hezbollah and Amal with Christian leader Michel Aoun.The Saudis are very, very happy with what happened in Lebanon,said a Saudi analyst who declined to be identified.Riyadh, which sees itself as the leader of Sunni Islam, has watched with alarm as Shi'ite Iran's influence grew in the region following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which brought Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslims to power there.Hezbollah managed to survive a month-long Israeli onslaught in 2006, then overwhelmed pro-government militias in street fighting in 2008 before securing a temporary power-sharing agreement that seemed to spell failure for Saudi diplomacy.Iran's ally Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in fighting with Fatah forces loyal to U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
A defeat in Friday's Iranian election for populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has overseen Tehran's expansionist policy of recent years, would be a double-whammy for Riyadh.Analysts say Saudi leaders fear a loss of regional and domestic standing if Washington comes to a historic compromise with Iran over its nuclear energy program that recognizes Tehran as the leading power in the Gulf region.Western countries and Saudi Arabia fear Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, a charge Iran's leadership denies.Mustafa Alani, a Dubai-based analyst close to Saudi thinking, said Riyadh did not expect any major policy change on the nuclear question. They follow it but have little hope of major changes,Alani said. Saudi intelligence chief Prince Mugrin, another brother of the king, visited Lebanon this year for what Arab media reported as a deal between Syria and Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, not to finance the opposing parties in the Lebanese vote. As'ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese politics professor in the United States, said Riyadh still probably topped the list of funders.I don't have evidence and I don't have data but I can speculate that Saudi Arabia paid the most money in this election followed by Iran and the United States, he wrote on his blog (blogspot.angryarab.com).(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Six Hamas Members Arrested In West Bank, EUR1 Million Seized Official JUNE 09,09
NABLUS (AFP)--Police have arrested six Hamas members in the West Bank suspected of planning acts against the Palestinian Authority and seized more than EUR1 million from them, a senior official said Tuesday.The arrests, including those of at least two women, were carried out from Monday in the Nablus region in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Mayor Jamal Muheissen told AFP.We have seized EUR1 million and 21,000 Jordanian dinars ($29,750) from two of the people arrested, he said.Hamas confirmed that six of its members had been arrested and accused the Palestinian Authority of collusion with Israel to wipe out Hamas.Tensions between Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority have risen over the past several weeks after two deadly arrest operations of Hamas members in the West Bank.Muheissen said that among the documents seized from the detainees were records of transfers of some 38,000 dinars from abroad for arms purchases.He accused the Islamists of planning to spread anarchy in the West Bank and to overthrow the Palestinian Authority like they did in Gaza.
The bitter divide between the two groups reached a critical juncture in June 2007 when Hamas gunmen drove Abbas' forces from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly street battles that cleaved Palestinians into hostile rival entities.Since then, each movement has accused its rival of political arrests and persecution in the territories under its control.The two sides have held several rounds of negotiations in Cairo this year aimed at resolving their differences and forming a national unity government, but without visible progress.A Hamas delegation arrived in Egypt Monday for the latest round of the talks.(END) Dow Jones Newswires 06-09-091009ET
US wants Mideast talks to start soon, end quickly by Ron Bousso - Tue Jun 9, 5:13 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Washington wants stalled Middle East peace talks to resume soon and wrap up quickly, US envoy George Mitchell told Israeli leaders on Tuesday, as it was announced he would make his first visit to Syria.Mitchell, whose visit comes just days before hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to outline his cabinet's peace policy, sought to play down rising tensions between the two close allies over the US peace drive.We all share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations, Mitchell said ahead of talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres.We're now engaged in serious discussions with our Israeli and Palestinian and regional partners to support these efforts, said Mitchell, who met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.According to Netanyahu's office, a two-hour private meeting with Mitchell was amicable and positive.Israeli military radio reported that Netanyahu ran through policy proposals he plans to float aimed at creating a positive atmosphere in Washington towards these ideas.
Netanyahu has yet to publicly embrace the principle of a Palestinian state, and the Israeli press has been filled with speculation that he might finally do so in the speech he is due to give on Sunday.
The envoy quizzed Barak on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, illegal under international law and the cause of a major rift between the United States and Israel.Mitchell, who arrived in Israel accompanied by Frederick Hoff, his adviser on Syria, also pressed Barak to reopen talks with its eastern neighbour.He is to meet with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad on Wednesday.
Mitchell said on Monday that President Barack Obama had told him to work for an immediate resumption of the peace talks with the Palestinians, which restarted under US stewardship in November 2007 but were suspended during the Gaza war over the new year.He also reiterated that Washington sees the creation of a Palestinian state as the only viable political solution to the decades-old conflict.Another major bone of contention that has driven a rift between the US and Israel is that of Israeli settlements.Obama's administration has repeatedly called for a complete halt to all settlement activity, including building to accommodate population increases.
Netanyahu's largely right-wing government vigorously opposes this and would probably collapse if the premier caved in to Washington's demands, analysts in Israel say.
Tensions between the key allies have jumped to levels unseen in nearly two decades as Obama has pushed to jump-start the moribund peace process, raising fears in Israel that Washington may reduce its support as it seeks to improve relations with the Muslim world.In a speech to the Muslim world last Thursday, Obama reiterated Washington's unbreakable bond with Israel, but vowed not to turn his back on Palestinian aspirations and repeated his call for a halt to Jewish settlements.
Mitchell sought to play down disagreements on Tuesday, saying US commitment to Israeli security -- the Jewish state's top concern -- remained unshakeable and that the United States and Israel are and will remain close allies and friends.But he also reiterated that Israelis and Palestinians have a responsibility to meet their obligations under the roadmap.That was a reference to the 2003 international peace plan that called for Israel to halt settlements and Palestinians to stop violence. On Monday the White House said Obama and Netanyahu had constructive talks by phone ahead of the prime minister's expected speech. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said as part of the president's commitment to work to advance a comprehensive peace in the region,Mitchell will visit Damascus on Friday and Saturday following a stop in Beirut on Thursday.Syria expressed renewed readiness on Tuesday to resume preliminary contacts through Turkish go-betweens on relaunching US-sponsored peace negotiations with Israel.
Priest found dead at Jerusalem's Holy Sepulcher Tue Jun 9, 11:19 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A 34-year-old priest was found dead on Tuesday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where most Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried, officials said.The cleric, thought to be an Armenian, was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs and appears to have fallen, a police spokesman told AFP.The priest fell down and passed away, Micky Rosenfeld said. His death was not the result of a criminal act.The Holy Sepulchre, considered by most Christians to be their faith's holiest site, is uneasily shared by six denominations, including Greek Orthodox, Armenians and Roman Catholics.The Armenians are in a state of shock, said Father Fergus Clarke, the senior Franciscan monk at the church, who spoke with the dead man's colleagues shortly after the incident.They tried to revive him but unfortunately it was too late, he said.Tensions among the various denominations are not uncommon, erupting most recently last November when a brawl broke out between Greek and Armenian monks after a mass at the church.
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The father of an Israeli soldier held by militants in the Gaza Strip for almost three years on Friday asked former US president Jimmy Carter to deliver a letter to Hamas.At a meeting with Carter at a Jerusalem hotel, Noam Shalit asked the former president to deliver the letter to the Islamist movement when he travels to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Tuesday.Noam's son Gilad, then a 19-year-old army corporal, was captured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants in a June 25, 2007 cross-border raid.I handed Carter a letter to pass on to Gilad when he visits Gaza,Shalit told AFP. Carter told me he will continue in his efforts to bring about his release.The soldier's parents had received a letter from their son a year ago through the Atlanta-based Carter Center, two months after the former US president met the Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal in Damascus.Israeli officials have worked, so far in vain, through Egyptian mediators to secure Shalit's release in exchange for several hundred jailed Palestinian prisoners.Carter was on a tour of the region that has already taken him to Lebanon, where he monitored the election, and to Syria, where he met Hamas leaders, the Carter Center said.Throughout the visit, as part of his ongoing efforts to promote constructive dialogue, the president will hold meetings with representatives of all parties to the Israeli-Arab conflict,it said.Carter is due to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Saturday, and on Sunday he plans to visit a representative of the more than 280,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
He is also expected to hold talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres and MPs, the Carter Center said.It gave no details of his planned trip to Gaza, which has been run Hamas since it seized power there two years ago, ousting forces loyal to Abbas.Only a few US officials -- among them Senator John Kerry in February -- have visited the Palestinian enclave since the takeover by Hamas, which Washington lists as a terrorist organisation.
EU's Solana to meet Hezbollah MP Fri Jun 12, 10:15 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana began a visit to Beirut on Friday for talks with the country's leaders and, for the first time, a member of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.Solana will meet President Michel Sleiman on Friday and then hold separate talks on Saturday with Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan, an EU representative said.
The meeting with Hajj Hassan will be the first such high level contact between an EU official and Hezbollah, which has been blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington but not by the European Union, the official said.Solana's visit coincides with a trip by US envoy George Mitchell who vowed that Washington would not sacrifice Lebanon as it seeks comprehensive peace in the Middle East.The visits follow Sunday's election on Sunday that saw a Western-backed alliance increase its majority in parliament, defeating a coalition led by Hezbollah.Solana and Mitchell are scheduled to meet in Beirut before the US envoy heads to Damascus later Friday for talks with Syrian leaders.
Envoy Mitchell to visit Syria.Envoy's visit could pave the way for improved relations between U.S., Syria JUNE 12,09
(CNN) -- Syria, a country on the outs with the United States during the Bush administration, was to be U.S. envoy George Mitchell's latest stop in his trip to jump-start the idle Middle East peace process.U.S. envoy George Mitchell, right, visited with Lebanese officials, including parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri.
A former Maine senator who is President Obama's special envoy to the region, Mitchell is expected to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and other officials in a trip beginning Friday and ending Saturday.The United States has not had an ambassador in Damascus since 2005. But Mitchell's visit is part of a series of actions that could pave the way for dramatically improved relations between the two countries. The Obama administration also believes engaging the Syrian regime will weaken Syria's strategic alliance with Iran.You know that this administration is committed to a broad-based, comprehensive peace dealing with all the different players in the region, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters at a State Department daily press conference earlier this week.And we decided this was an appropriate time for Sen. Mitchell to go to Syria. And ... this is a very high priority for this administration, and we're going to pursue this vigorously in the coming months.
Kelly said the stop is in many ways a follow-up to Obama's speech last week in Cairo, Egypt, where the president laid out his stances on a variety of issues in the Muslim world. They include his views of the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an overriding conflict in the region.During this trip, Mitchell met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He made stops in Jordan and Egypt, which both have diplomatic relations with Israel.He met on Friday with officials in Lebanon, less than a week after a pro-Western coalition made strides against a Hezbollah-led bloc in parliamentary elections.The Damascus visit points to a warming up of relations between the United States and Syria.The United States and the Bashar Assad regime have had frosty relations over Syria's perceived meddling in Lebanon, its relationship with Iran and militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas and the infiltration of insurgent attackers from Syrian territory into Iraq.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Syria four years ago in protest at the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Washington accuses Syria of being behind the killing of the popular statesman in a massive bombing that also left 22 others dead. Syria denies it, but an ongoing United Nations investigation has found indications of Syrian involvement.But at the same time, Syria has wanted to have better relations with the United States, and it has engaged in indirect talks with Israel over their differences, especially the Syrian land seized by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967. And Syria has said it wants a stable Iraq.
Mitchell's visit is the highest-profile trip to Syria by a U.S. official since 2005, and it comes on the heels of the Obama administration's diplomatic efforts to re-engage with the Assad government.The State Department has said that Mitchell's trip will be followed by other U.S. missions -- including a delegation of U.S. military commanders who will discuss joint efforts to combat the Iraqi insurgency, officials said.Jeffrey Feltman -- an assistant secretary of state who is the department's top official on the Middle East -- and National Security Council official Daniel Shapiro traveled to Damascus twice in recent months in an effort to improve ties with Syria.
The talks, which have been the start of more regular contacts between Washington and Damascus through normal diplomatic channels, focused in part on getting Syria to seal its border with Iraq. Washington has criticized Damascus for turning a blind eye to foreign fighters traveling through the country into Iraq.The United States also wants Syrian support in achieving a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace agreement, and it appears willing to nurture indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel that began last year over the disputed Golan Heights. Those talks were suspended after Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip that ended in mid-January.It's our view that...Syria can play an important, constructive role in the region, Feltman told reporters in March.At that time, Feltman hit home the administration's regional approach to Middle East peace.The United States wants a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace,he said, saying Mitchell's mandate is to achieve a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.Such an effort means that there will be a Syrian-Israel track at some point, and, Feltman said, we do want to see forward momentum on the Syrian-Israeli track at the time when the parties are ready for this.Damascus wants the United States to become involved if the talks resume. And Washington is interested in getting Damascus to use its influence with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which Syria views as a legitimate resistance movement and whose leaders take refuge in Syria.In another sign of reconciliation, officials have said the United States is considering reappointing an ambassador to Syria. A charge d'affaires has been the highest-level American diplomat in Damascus since 2005.The United States also is interested in building a new embassy in Damascus, and Eric Boswell, assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, recently traveled to Syria to examine the security situation there.
After 27 years, no news on Israeli MIA's Published: June 12, 2009 at 10:30 AM
JERUSALEM, June 12 (UPI) -- Today marks 27 years since three Israeli soldiers were captured and declared missing in a battle with Syrian forces in the first war in Lebanon.On June 12,1982, in the battle of Sultan Yacoub, a Lebanese village located 3 miles (5 km) from the Syrian border, Israeli troops were ambushed by Syrian forces. Eighteen Israeli soldiers were killed and soldiers Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman and Zachary Baumel, who also has U.S. citizenship, were captured. Two weeks ago, Baumel's father, Yona, passed away without knowing whether his son is alive or dead. Since his son's capture, Baumel did everything he could to learn what happened to him, and tried to verify reports that his son and the other two soldiers were being held captive in Syria.Katz's father Yossi told the Yedioth Aharonoth Web site Friday that he refuses to give up hope, but fears he, too, will die without knowing what happened to his son.Baumel's death signaled that time does not stand still, he said. A generation goes, another generation comes. … We refuse to give up hope and believe fate in the end will return our son Yehuda alive.Eyal Ben Reuven, a general in the reserves, is with the Born To Freedom organization and maintains contact with the families of the three soldiers. He met Baumel three weeks prior to his death.
Yona was extremely angry with the security establishment who failed to provide any solutions concerning his son's fate, he told the Web site. Ben Reuven said efforts to find the trio continue and some progress has been made. But he refused to divulge further details.The Born To Freedom organization was set up for the sake of Israeli MIA's and their families. The organization has offered a $10 million reward to anyone who comes forward with information concerning the missing soldiers. 2009 United Press International, Inc.
Mediators await Netanyahu speech, hoping for change By Dan Williams JUNE 12,09
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to deliver a policy speech on Sunday to address tensions with the United States over his refusal to end settlement building and embrace Palestinian statehood.Netanyahu briefed U.S. envoy George Mitchell and other diplomats this week on his planned speech. But the steps which Netanyahu outlined to Mitchell were not adequate to satisfy Washington, a U.S. official told a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East mediators, according to participants.Netanyahu's refusal to declare a building freeze in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and to endorse the goal of establishing a Palestinian state -- both set out in a 2003 peace road map -- has opened a rare rift in U.S.-Israeli relations.Anxious to preserve the alliance but also beholden to his fractious and right-wing governing coalition, Netanyahu has spoken of stop-gap proposals such as Palestinian self-government shorn of sovereign powers like the right to set up an army.The Palestinians, having won limited autonomy under 1993 interim accords, insist on full statehood. But there are also divisions, with Hamas Islamists who reject coexistence with the Jewish state in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007.
U.S. President Barack Obama says containing Iran's nuclear aspirations -- which Israel considers a major threat -- would be helped by progress toward a Palestine deal.An Israeli official said Netanyahu was still putting final touches to the speech which would present a vision of moving forward in the peace process with the Palestinians.In the framework of that, we want to see the Arab states play an increased role,the official said.The speech will acknowledge the road map and deal with the issue of statehood.European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said during a West Bank visit: I don't know what he wants to say but what I would like to hear...is that (Israel) will stop settlements and will resume negotiations with the Palestinians.
WHAT ISRAELIS WANT
Netanyahu was sworn into office in March, replacing centrist prime minister Ehud Olmert, who relaunched peace talks with the Palestinians at a 2007 conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that reaffirmed the two sides' commitment to the 2003 road map.
Polls now show Israeli opinion is divided but one survey indicates voters have a more hard-nosed attitude to giving up land for a peace they are not sure they would have.
Tamar Hermann, a sociologist who has conducted a monthly peace index survey for years, said she found that until a month ago, between 60 and 75 percent of Israelis answered in surveys that they supported a two-state solution.But this month just 41 percent saw Palestinian statehood as a viable option, said Hermann, dean of Israel's Open University.Fewer Israelis say they are willing to yield the minimum Palestinians seek for a deal -- the eventual dismantling of most Israeli settlements built in the occupied territory.
Hermann said 53 percent now oppose removing the enclaves.
But pollster Rafi Smith finds that 55 percent of Israelis still support a two-state solution and 57 percent backed Obama's call for a halt to settlement construction. But 85 percent doubt the exercise will lead to eventual peace.The Israeli public has moved to the right because their concept of trust in the Arabs is very low. The problem is that we don't trust the Arabs and they don't trust us,Smith said. Israelis agree there should be two states, but don't believe it will ever happen.U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces have been cracking down on Hamas in the West Bank, where Israel has long demanded security assurances ahead of any territorial handovers to the Palestinians.But many Israelis regard the West Bank, captured from Jordan in a 1967 war, as a biblical Jewish birthright and the Netanyahu government intends to keep major settlement blocs under a peace accord -- a plan Palestinians rule out as a non-starter.(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Adam Entous)(Editing by Angus MacSwan)
UN chief: key Mideast peacemakers to meet Thu Jun 11, 6:46 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that key parties trying to promote Mideast peace will meet in Italy later this month.Ban gave no details on the date and place but said Thursday he expects the Quartet of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia to discuss the next steps to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.High-level Quartet meetings are usually attended by foreign ministers. Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight major industrialized nations are already scheduled to meet in Trieste June 26-27.The G8 includes the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada.Ban also says that President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo was historic and a fantastic statement.
Carter: Mideast peace not possible without Hamas By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 11, 11:57 am ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – Former President Jimmy Carter Thursday reiterated that there can be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians without involving the militant group Hamas.His comments came shortly before he met with the militant group's Syrian-based leader, Khaled Mashaal. Carter met with Mashaal twice under the Bush administration, angering some in the U.S. government who said he was legitimizing a group the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.But this was his first meeting under the Obama administration, which has launched a fresh quest for peace in the Middle East, and came as Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, was less than 400 miles (645 kilometers) away in Cairo preparing to visit Syria Friday.Carter, who went to Syria after observing elections in neighboring Lebanon, stressed that he was in Damascus as a private citizen and not representing the Obama administration.Obama, also a Democrat, seems to be going in the direction that Carter has long advocated — engagement with longtime foes Iran and Syria. So far Obama, like the Bush administration, has drawn the line at meeting with Hamas. But in a speech in Cairo last week, Obama seemed to suggest some basis for believing that Palestinian militants who rule Gaza might be drawn into the peace process.As president, Carter helped broker an Israeli-Egyptian peace deal in the late 1970s and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote peace around the world. He has continued to pursue Mideast peace through his Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center foundation, and angered many Israelis for his 2006 book that compared Israel's policies toward the Palestinians in the West Bank to apartheid.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Carter said Hamas and its more moderate Fatah rivals must reconcile so they can negotiate effectively with Israel.I don't believe there is a possibility to have any peace between the Palestinians and Israel unless Hamas is involved directly in harmony with Fatah,he said.Carter said Obama's pressure on Israel to freeze construction in West Bank settlements is an essential step toward restarting peace efforts.He said Israel is very eager to avoid any serious disagreement or confrontation with the U.S. and that Obama's push for a two-state solution would be seriously considered by Israel.
Carter also plans meetings in Israel and the West Bank over the weekend.
Syria's official news agency reported that Assad discussed with Carter ways to reactivate the peace process and stressed that Damascus is committed to peace that guarantees the return of Arab rights.Syria wants Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights it captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Syrian-Israeli indirect talks through Turkey have been on hold since Israel launched an offensive on Gaza in December.
Turkey said Thursday it is prepared to restart mediation efforts but is waiting for both countries to signal their readiness to resume talks.
Israel PM told to keep silent on Palestinian state by Jean-Luc Renaudie – Thu Jun 11, 11:43 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The heat is on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from within his own right-wing party to resist US pressure and not utter the words Palestinian state in a keenly awaited policy speech.The expression Palestinian state should not be used, Likud MP Miri Regev said on Thursday, echoing the sentiment of several other members of Netanyahu's Likud party ahead of Sunday's speech.To date, the hawkish prime minister has not endorsed the concept of a Palestinian state and has defied US pressure to freeze construction activity in West Bank settlements where more than 280,000 Israelis live.Netanyahu hopes that his landmark speech will help ease the mounting tension in relations with the United States, Israel's prime ally.
But he faces a delicate balancing act if he is to avoid infuriating his partners in the governing centre-right coalition, which is split between those who reject a two-state solution, and those, like defence minister and Labour chief Ehud Barak, who support it.Regev insisted that US President Barack Obama cannot force decisions on the Israeli government.The US pressure is mainly psychological; one should not forget that the president is not the only one in the United States, there's the Congress and the Senate, which support Israel,she said.Also among those pressing Netanyahu to steer clear of the concept of a Palestinian state is Benny Begin, a minister without portfolio and son of former premier Menahem Begin.If the only solution is two states for two peoples, then there is no solution, he said.Begin insisted that the Palestinians were not after a two-state solution but wanted a two-stage solution at the end of which there would be a single PLO-Hamas state.Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau from the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party insisted that in any case Israel has no Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate.
In the Gaza Strip, there is some kind of a terrorist state in the hands of Hamas, while (Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas) does not control the Arabs in the occupied West Bank, Landau said.Netanyahu also faces pressure not to cave in to US demands to order a freeze on all settlement construction activity in the West Bank, something to which Israel committed itself to under the 2003 international peace roadmap.But President Shimon Peres, who has been discussing the planned speech with Netanyahu, said that Israel and the Palestinians should agree on a Palestinian state with temporary borders as a first step towards ending the conflict.The roadmap outlines a clear path and (the sides) should implement the second stage of the roadmap -- declaring a Palestinian state with temporary borders,said Peres, whose office is mainly ceremonial.The Palestinian Authority flatly rejected this proposal, with president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina saying it takes us back to square one.Visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged Netanyahu to commit to the concept of a Palestinian state being created alongside Israel.
I would like to hear a speech in which there's a commitment of the government to the two-state solution, a commitment of the government on the question of settlements and a commitment to re-initiate relations with the Palestinians,he told journalists. I am sure that we will hear something of that nature,said Solana, who met Peres and other Israeli government officials on Thursday. According to the Haaretz newspaper, Netanyahu will announce his government's adoption of the roadmap and the two-state solution while rejecting a settlement freeze and insisting that Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state. But parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin was not convinced.I don't believe the prime minister believes in two states for two people, the Likud MP said.
Israel warns Hamas over Gaza attack, keeps embargo Wed Jun 10, 9:18 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's powerful security cabinet warned on Wednesday it would hold Hamas responsible for any attacks from its Gaza stronghold and kept in place a crippling blockade of the Palestinian territory.In the face of US pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the cabinet to consider easing the stifling blockade that Israel slapped on Gaza after Hamas, a group pledged to the Jewish state's destruction, seized control of the territory two years ago.The cabinet decided that Israel considers Hamas responsible for any attacks against Israel from Gaza's territory,the premier's office said afterwards.The cabinet instructed the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) to respond to any attack against Israel from Gaza,it said.
On Monday, four Palestinian militants were killed in a gunbattle with Israeli soldiers along the Gaza border. The previously unknown Soldiers of Allah claimed responsibility for the attack.As to the blockade, the statement said only that the cabinet is examining further ways to ease the life of the Palestinian population in Gaza while keeping Israel's security interests.Under the blockade, only essential humanitarian goods are allowed into the impoverished territory.Ministers also discussed Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants, including from Hamas, in a deadly cross-border raid in June 2006 and who remains in captivity.The cabinet instructed the bodies dealing with the issue of Gilad Shalit to make every possible effort to bring about his release,it said.Israel and Hamas have conducted months of indirect talks through Egypt on a prisoner exchange that would see Shalit freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians detained by Israel.
No other choice for Israel but two-states: Mubarak Wed Jun 10, 4:06 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Israel was bound to agree to a two-state solution in the Middle East because there is no other choice, during a television interview to air later on Wednesday.Israel will agree to a two-state solution because it has no other choice, he told Egyptian television in an interview, trails for which were broadcast ahead of the programme.I told (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu there is no choice, the two-state solution is bound to happen, he said, adding that solving the Palestinian question was key to resolving other conflicts in the region.Any peace process for the Palestinian question means peace and stability for the entire region, he said.Netanyahu has yet to publicly embrace the principle of a Palestinian state.Over the past few months tensions between the United States and its staunchest ally have risen to levels not seen in 20 years as Washington presses Netanyahu to publicly back the principle of a Palestinian state and freeze all settlement activity on occupied land.In a speech in Cairo last week, Obama repeated his call for a complete halt to Israeli settlements and said the creation of a Palestinian state was the only solution to the conflict.
Fear of Iran, Obama's words swayed Lebanon vote By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jun 10, 2:05 pm ET
BEIRUT – Fears of a hard-line Iran helped swing Christian voters from the militant Shiite group Hezbollah and deliver election victory to a pro-Western coalition in Lebanon. President Barack Obama's outreach to Muslims lingered in voters' minds, too.
Now the question is whether similar factors will sway Iran's own elections Friday for the presidency, considered too close to call between incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a self-styled reformist challenger.Lebanon and Iran are different in key ways, with voters in Lebanon, an Arab country, tending to vote along Shiite and Sunni Muslim and Christian sectarian lines and out of family loyalties.Iran, in contrast, which is mainly Persian and mostly Shiite Muslim, is divided by a sharp struggle between the Islamic establishment and desires for greater personal freedom and more liberal foreign and economic policies.Neither country has any accurate, independent or publicly available political polling, and no poll has attempted to substantively gauge the effect of Obama's presidency or his recent Cairo outreach speech to Muslims on either country.One recent poll done on behalf of two U.S.-based public-interest groups found that few Iranians — only 29 percent — said they have favorable opinions of the United States, and that the view had changed little since Obama's election.
The survey was conducted by telephone into Iranian households from a nearby, unidentified country in Farsi, Iran's language, but regional experts noted it could have been influenced by the fears of random Iranians who answered the phone calls, in a country where private communication is often monitored.The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow, a bipartisan group that tries to undermine support for terrorism, and for the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute, both based in Washington.In general, concerns over Iran's recent hard-line positions —and interest in Obama's call for dialogue with Iran and his outreach to Muslims overall — are intense across many parts of the Mideast, showing up often as a topic in media and conversations.In a high-profile speech in Cairo last week in the final stretches of both countries' campaigns, Obama challenged the Islamic world to confront violent extremism and find ways to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis. He has previously called for dialogue with both Iran and Syria, now at loggerheads with the West.The speech came amid high tensions between Arab allies of America and Iran in the region itself.My sense is that Iranians feel there is a window now to move in a new direction with America, and change Iran's reputation in the region,said Adbulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science at Emirates University in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.The question is can opponents of Ahmadinejad make this feeling translate into votes on election day?
I don't want to overestimate it,added political analyst Sharif Emam Jomeh in Iran. But people do think that now the world has changed. ... Obama has come to power and it's time for Iran to change.In Lebanon, Obama's effect was equally muted though still evident. Iran's effect on Lebanese Christian voters, however, was glaringly out in the open.Christians were the swing voters in Sunday's balloting and the votes in two key Christian districts helped the pro-Western coalition retain its majority in parliament over a coalition including the Shiite Hezbollah group, which is backed by Iran.A key factor was a last-minute warning against Iranian influence from Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, head of the influential Maronite Catholic Church in Lebanon. He warned that the nation's character and its Arab identity were under threat — an allusion to Iran, Hezbollah's mentor.Lebanon's large Christian minority fiercely guards its liberal lifestyle and freedoms.What the patriarch said affected the way people voted,said Edmond Samir, a Christian shopper in his mid-30s who said he backed the winning ticket.The pro-Western camp won 68 seats while Hezbollah and its allies — including one Christian faction — ended up with 57.
An estimated two-thirds of Lebanon's Christian voters had supported Hezbollah's Christian ally, former army chief Michel Aoun, in the last election in 2005. But results indicated enough turned away from Aoun this time in favor of the pro-Western bloc to make the Christian split even, and to swing the outcome toward the pro-Western bloc decisively. Aoun still emerged with several more seats to remain the largest Christian bloc in parliament.Lebanese Sunnis, supporting the pro-Western camp and fearing Shiite domination, also were mobilized to vote en mass to give their factions a majority to stop Hezbollah. Hilal Khashan, head of the political sciences department at the American University of Beirut, said Aoun's alliance with Hezbollah was extremely difficult to justify for the Christian community, describing it as most unlikely and most improbable.However, Obama's recent speech also may have been a contributor or a reinforcing statement to the voters, too, he said. It was not decisive, but did have some impact.Added middle-aged Christian shop owner Lena al-Awar of Obama: He didn't change the way I voted ... But maybe because Obama supports freedom and democracy, then that has an effect.Associated Press writers Brian Murphy in Cairo and Anna Johnson in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Abbas tries to fix Palestinian side of peace puzzle By Mohammed Assadi Mohammed Assadi – Wed Jun 10, 6:55 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – President Mahmoud Abbas chairs talks in Jordan on Thursday with factions of Fatah, seeking agreement to hold the first congress in 20 years of the fractured, weakened movement dominating Palestinian politics.Fatah needs to restore unity to overturn its shock 2006 election defeat by Islamist rival Hamas, and to ensure Abbas is firmly in the driver's seat for peace talks with Israel, which U.S. President Barack Obama wants to resume without delay.The meeting of the central committee that will take place in Amman will take the final steps in preparation for the Sixth Fatah Congress,said Fatah West Bank spokesman Fahmi al-Zarir.A senior aide to Abbas told Reuters the meeting stood a good chance of setting a final date and venue for the congress, last held in 1989 but never yet convened on Palestinian territory.The aim is to strengthen Abbas by restoring and rejuvenating Fatah, instituting reforms to bolster its democratic credentials and heal rifts in the ranks between the exiled establishment and home-based veterans of the resistance movement.
Secular Fatah is internally divided on issues of militancy, democratization, and the conduct of talks with Israel. Local and younger leaders want the old guard to grant them more say.The differences within Fatah could lead to division and fragmentation of the movement. What's happening is a recipe for the collapse of Fatah, said reformist Qaddoura Fares.Once all-powerful under the late Yasser Arafat, Fatah began to show cracks after his death, running rival slates in the 2006 election and thereby helping its opponent Hamas to a victory that led on to open division and armed hostility.A year later Fatah was forced out of the Gaza Strip by the Islamists and holds sway only in the occupied West Bank. Months of talks in Cairo to reconcile the two divergent wings of the Palestinian cause have so far made little progress.Arafat had contributed to weakening Fatah but he was the glue that held the movement together. Now everyone sees himself as leader, commented political analyst Hani Masri.
STRENGTHENING ABBAS'S HAND
Abbas, 74, wants a modern, united and tamed Fatah -- as opposed to the militant Hamas -- to prove he can deliver peace as head of the Palestinian Authority.But his Fatah movement must restore credibility with Palestinians disaffected by its corruption and cronyism, and the meager results of past peace talks with Israel.The Hamas Islamists, with a reputation for austerity, spurn talks in favor of armed resistance against Israel and now represent Abbas's most serious challenge.A strengthened Abbas could win greater U.S. and European support in pressing Israel's right-leaning government to endorse the internationally backed two-state solution to the conflict.Abbas wants the movement's 1,550 members to grant wider representation to the younger generation. Congress would chose a new Central Committee and Revolutionary Council -- titles reflecting Fatah's birth in the Cold War geopolitics of 1965.The choice would pit reformists who grew up fighting, then talking to, Israeli occupiers against veterans who stayed in the privileged diaspora until establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in mid 1990s.Five previous Fatah congresses were held in the diaspora and rarely presented leaders from the territories. Some current central committee members oppose holding the sixth congress in the territories, in case new blood challenges their hold.
They want the same old faces, said Fares.
Wherever the congress meets, rationalizing the future course of Palestinian liberation policy will be the dominant topic. Like Hamas, Fatah's existing charter does not recognize Israel and endorses armed struggle to liberate Palestinian territories. But the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Fatah is the backbone and Hamas is also a member, long ago nullified the call for Israel's destruction.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta, editing by Douglas Hamilton)
Saudis gleeful at Lebanon vote, now look to Iran By Ulf Laessing and Andrew Hammond – Tue Jun 9, 10:31 am ET
RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, which has led Arab attempts to hold back Iranian influence in the Middle East, has reacted triumphantly to the victory of its pro-U.S. allies in Lebanon's elections this week.The surprise win by the incumbent Sunni Muslim-led bloc backed by Washington and Riyadh over the Hezbollah-led opposition, which is backed by Iran, was Saudi Arabia's first foreign policy break after a string of setbacks.I think the Saudis find the outcome of the Lebanese elections very satisfying,said a senior Western diplomat in Riyadh.Saudi-controlled Arab media could hardly restrain their glee as presenters and correspondents cracked jokes on Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel and papers ran boastful headlines on the blow to Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.Nasrallah justifies, apologizes then accepts defeat, said the front page of Asharq al-Awsat daily, owned by the family of Riyadh governor Prince Salman, a brother of King Abdullah.Tariq Alhomayed, editor of the paper, declared the fall of the Iranian project in Lebanon, reflecting the sectarian language witnessed during campaigning.This is above all a victory for the Arabness of Lebanon... the important thing is that Lebanese protected their country from subject status to Iran,he wrote.
EYES ON AHMADINEJAD
A cabinet statement late on Monday congratulated Lebanon over victory for the Lebanese and King Abdullah received a call from Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad, whose relations with Riyadh have been icy over its backing for Hezbollah. State media said only that they discussed their bilateral ties.Results showed Saad al-Hariri's pro-Western bloc had won 71 of parliament's 128 seats, against 57 for an opposition alliance that groups Shi'ite factions Hezbollah and Amal with Christian leader Michel Aoun.The Saudis are very, very happy with what happened in Lebanon,said a Saudi analyst who declined to be identified.Riyadh, which sees itself as the leader of Sunni Islam, has watched with alarm as Shi'ite Iran's influence grew in the region following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which brought Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslims to power there.Hezbollah managed to survive a month-long Israeli onslaught in 2006, then overwhelmed pro-government militias in street fighting in 2008 before securing a temporary power-sharing agreement that seemed to spell failure for Saudi diplomacy.Iran's ally Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in fighting with Fatah forces loyal to U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
A defeat in Friday's Iranian election for populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has overseen Tehran's expansionist policy of recent years, would be a double-whammy for Riyadh.Analysts say Saudi leaders fear a loss of regional and domestic standing if Washington comes to a historic compromise with Iran over its nuclear energy program that recognizes Tehran as the leading power in the Gulf region.Western countries and Saudi Arabia fear Tehran is developing nuclear weapons, a charge Iran's leadership denies.Mustafa Alani, a Dubai-based analyst close to Saudi thinking, said Riyadh did not expect any major policy change on the nuclear question. They follow it but have little hope of major changes,Alani said. Saudi intelligence chief Prince Mugrin, another brother of the king, visited Lebanon this year for what Arab media reported as a deal between Syria and Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, not to finance the opposing parties in the Lebanese vote. As'ad AbuKhalil, a Lebanese politics professor in the United States, said Riyadh still probably topped the list of funders.I don't have evidence and I don't have data but I can speculate that Saudi Arabia paid the most money in this election followed by Iran and the United States, he wrote on his blog (blogspot.angryarab.com).(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Six Hamas Members Arrested In West Bank, EUR1 Million Seized Official JUNE 09,09
NABLUS (AFP)--Police have arrested six Hamas members in the West Bank suspected of planning acts against the Palestinian Authority and seized more than EUR1 million from them, a senior official said Tuesday.The arrests, including those of at least two women, were carried out from Monday in the Nablus region in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Mayor Jamal Muheissen told AFP.We have seized EUR1 million and 21,000 Jordanian dinars ($29,750) from two of the people arrested, he said.Hamas confirmed that six of its members had been arrested and accused the Palestinian Authority of collusion with Israel to wipe out Hamas.Tensions between Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority have risen over the past several weeks after two deadly arrest operations of Hamas members in the West Bank.Muheissen said that among the documents seized from the detainees were records of transfers of some 38,000 dinars from abroad for arms purchases.He accused the Islamists of planning to spread anarchy in the West Bank and to overthrow the Palestinian Authority like they did in Gaza.
The bitter divide between the two groups reached a critical juncture in June 2007 when Hamas gunmen drove Abbas' forces from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly street battles that cleaved Palestinians into hostile rival entities.Since then, each movement has accused its rival of political arrests and persecution in the territories under its control.The two sides have held several rounds of negotiations in Cairo this year aimed at resolving their differences and forming a national unity government, but without visible progress.A Hamas delegation arrived in Egypt Monday for the latest round of the talks.(END) Dow Jones Newswires 06-09-091009ET
US wants Mideast talks to start soon, end quickly by Ron Bousso - Tue Jun 9, 5:13 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Washington wants stalled Middle East peace talks to resume soon and wrap up quickly, US envoy George Mitchell told Israeli leaders on Tuesday, as it was announced he would make his first visit to Syria.Mitchell, whose visit comes just days before hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to outline his cabinet's peace policy, sought to play down rising tensions between the two close allies over the US peace drive.We all share an obligation to create the conditions for the prompt resumption and early conclusion of negotiations, Mitchell said ahead of talks with Israeli President Shimon Peres.We're now engaged in serious discussions with our Israeli and Palestinian and regional partners to support these efforts, said Mitchell, who met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.According to Netanyahu's office, a two-hour private meeting with Mitchell was amicable and positive.Israeli military radio reported that Netanyahu ran through policy proposals he plans to float aimed at creating a positive atmosphere in Washington towards these ideas.
Netanyahu has yet to publicly embrace the principle of a Palestinian state, and the Israeli press has been filled with speculation that he might finally do so in the speech he is due to give on Sunday.
The envoy quizzed Barak on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, illegal under international law and the cause of a major rift between the United States and Israel.Mitchell, who arrived in Israel accompanied by Frederick Hoff, his adviser on Syria, also pressed Barak to reopen talks with its eastern neighbour.He is to meet with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad on Wednesday.
Mitchell said on Monday that President Barack Obama had told him to work for an immediate resumption of the peace talks with the Palestinians, which restarted under US stewardship in November 2007 but were suspended during the Gaza war over the new year.He also reiterated that Washington sees the creation of a Palestinian state as the only viable political solution to the decades-old conflict.Another major bone of contention that has driven a rift between the US and Israel is that of Israeli settlements.Obama's administration has repeatedly called for a complete halt to all settlement activity, including building to accommodate population increases.
Netanyahu's largely right-wing government vigorously opposes this and would probably collapse if the premier caved in to Washington's demands, analysts in Israel say.
Tensions between the key allies have jumped to levels unseen in nearly two decades as Obama has pushed to jump-start the moribund peace process, raising fears in Israel that Washington may reduce its support as it seeks to improve relations with the Muslim world.In a speech to the Muslim world last Thursday, Obama reiterated Washington's unbreakable bond with Israel, but vowed not to turn his back on Palestinian aspirations and repeated his call for a halt to Jewish settlements.
Mitchell sought to play down disagreements on Tuesday, saying US commitment to Israeli security -- the Jewish state's top concern -- remained unshakeable and that the United States and Israel are and will remain close allies and friends.But he also reiterated that Israelis and Palestinians have a responsibility to meet their obligations under the roadmap.That was a reference to the 2003 international peace plan that called for Israel to halt settlements and Palestinians to stop violence. On Monday the White House said Obama and Netanyahu had constructive talks by phone ahead of the prime minister's expected speech. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said as part of the president's commitment to work to advance a comprehensive peace in the region,Mitchell will visit Damascus on Friday and Saturday following a stop in Beirut on Thursday.Syria expressed renewed readiness on Tuesday to resume preliminary contacts through Turkish go-betweens on relaunching US-sponsored peace negotiations with Israel.
Priest found dead at Jerusalem's Holy Sepulcher Tue Jun 9, 11:19 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A 34-year-old priest was found dead on Tuesday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where most Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried, officials said.The cleric, thought to be an Armenian, was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs and appears to have fallen, a police spokesman told AFP.The priest fell down and passed away, Micky Rosenfeld said. His death was not the result of a criminal act.The Holy Sepulchre, considered by most Christians to be their faith's holiest site, is uneasily shared by six denominations, including Greek Orthodox, Armenians and Roman Catholics.The Armenians are in a state of shock, said Father Fergus Clarke, the senior Franciscan monk at the church, who spoke with the dead man's colleagues shortly after the incident.They tried to revive him but unfortunately it was too late, he said.Tensions among the various denominations are not uncommon, erupting most recently last November when a brawl broke out between Greek and Armenian monks after a mass at the church.
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