MATTHEW 24:15-22
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,(AT THE 3 1/2 YR MARK OF THE 7 YEAR PEACE TREATY) stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:(ISRAELIS)
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
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PETRA VIDEOS
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OPEN LETTER TO NETANYAHU AND OBAMA AND AMERICA.BENJAMIN NETANYAHU YOU MUST HAVE IN THE FINAL 7 YEAR TREATY LAND FORCE GRAB OF ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM THAT ISRAEL MUST BE ALLOWED TO REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE AND GET PETRA JORDAN IN THIS FORCED LAND GRAB BY AMERICA AND THE ARABS OF EAST JERUSALEM.I BELIEVE IN THE FUTURE PETRA WILL BE THE PLACE WERE ISRAELIS FLEE THE FUTURE EU DICTATORS PERSECUTION,SO NETANYAHU SINCE AMERICA OWNS PARTS OF PETRA JORDAN,TELL THEM THE ONLY WAY THE ARABS GET EAST JERUSALEM IS IF ISRAEL GETS PETRA AND THE 3RD TEMPLE REBUILT ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT TO THE NORTH OF THE DOME OF THE MURDERERS. NETANYAHU PETRA IS IMPORTANT TO USE IN THE FUTURE,YOU MUST MAKE A DEAL FOR PETRA JORDAN IN THIS SCAM LAND FOR PEACE FALSE PROCESS.OR JUST USE YOUR ARMY TO TAKE PETRA AS YOUR CITY.
Far-right Jewish group eyes Jordan property Mon Jul 20, 7:05 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – An extreme-right Israeli organisation plans to coordinate the purchase of dozens of properties in Jordan by European Jews, the group's head said on Monday.The Israel Land Fund, which has bought land and dozens of houses in occupied Palestinian territory in east Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, is now eyeing property once owned by Jews in neighbouring Jordan, its chairman Arieh King told AFP.
Although the plan is still in its early stages, it is likely to stoke tensions between Israel and Jordan, which signed a peace treaty in 1994.There are thousands of Jewish properties in Jordan which were purchased during the Ottoman era and under the British mandate which ended when Jordan became independent in 1946, King said.We have records of the ownership, he added. Jordan sequestered most Jewish-owned land following the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.We are trying to bring Jews from European countries to purchase property which we locate in Jordan, King said, explaining that Jordan's authorities would not allow Israeli citizens to buy property there.King's organisation has angered Palestinians by purchasing property in the West Bank which Israel seized from Jordanian administration in the 1967 Middle East war and which far-right Jews are determined to retain as part of what they deem Greater Israel,a concept that historically also included Jordan.
50 million US Christians back Israel
Sunday, 26 July 2009 04:34 Christian support for Israel
Christian supporters of Israel who gathered in Washington last week did not just sit through policy briefings and lobbying sessions; they danced the hora, blew a shofar, sang Hatikva and celebrated all that they love about Israel.Whether repeatedly standing up to cheer for speakers or dancing to Israeli tunes, the over 4,000 animated attendees of the fourth annual Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Washington conference made their passion for the State of Israel absolutely clear.For two days, the participants learned about Israel, its history, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, how to effectively defend Israel, what America's government should do, how to deal with Iran and how to lobby elected officials. On Wednesday participants met with their elected officials in Congress to voice their support for Israel.We're here to tell you and the people of Israel that there are 50 million Christians in this nation who support you and the State of Israel, said CUFI founder John Hagee to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who joined the conference via satellite.Your unwavering friendship strengthens us,said Netanyahu, noting that CUFI is helping open a new chapter in Jewish-Christian relations.And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
—Genesis 12:3
Within the Jewish community, there has been disagreement over how to deal with this vocal support.The most common concerns expressed are that CUFI supports Israel in order to bring about Jesus's second coming; that the organization is too right-wing politically and that allying with a group with controversial views on a range of other issues might hurt the community.In response to The Israel Project's Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi's decision to speak at the CUFI conference, left-wing Israel advocate J Street, on its blog, asked, Does allying the pro-Israel community further with Pastor John Hagee by appearing at his conference hurt or help [Israel's cause]? Laszlo Mizrahi said that in her quest to form an effective Israel coalition, she does not rule out allies because of their views on other issues.The fact that I am speaking at a CUFI event doesn't mean that I endorse every thought all their leaders ever had,she said in an e-mail, echoing the sentiments of other Jewish organizations who cooperate with CUFI on Israel advocacy while setting aside other differences.For their part, CUFI agrees that groups should join it in support of Israel, even of their views on other issues do not line up. Leaders did make clear, however, that CUFI has no conversion goals.
As for the end of days theory, Western Regional Coordinator Randy Neal said that while some people do believe that the second coming will occur when all the Jews inhabit the land of Israel, That's not what drives us.What drives us is the biblical mandate to stand with Israel and the Jewish people,said Neal.Speakers at the conference also acknowledged that the Jewish community is justified in being initially skeptical of Christians suddenly forming a strong coalition in support of Israel.Christians have brought it on themselves,said Florida Director Pastor Scott Thomas, referencing historical Christian violence towards Jews.Founded in 2006, CUFI now claims over 220,000 followers throughout the US.Recurring themes brought up by most of the conference speakers were the many aspects of Israel's right to exist and expand, a sense that the Obama administration was unfairly pressuring Israel to stop expanding and an urgent need to address Iran.Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, joined in criticizing Obama's Middle East policy. He said he did not believe in Obama's theory that sowing some discord between America and Israel will give America legitimacy to negotiate with Arab states.While CUFI is still confident of its ability to advocate for Israel under the Obama administration and a heavily Democratic Congress, some experts and CUFI leaders expressed concerns that with the current political climate, advocating CUFI's position might become slightly more difficult. However, there was no doubt that Congress remains a strong ally of Israel.Support for Israel in America I think has been so strong largely because Americans have been so pro-Israel, and we dare not let that erode,CUFI Executive Director David Brog said.
To continue advocating for Israel, CUFI's newest frontiers are establishing CUFI chapters on college campuses and pioneering the first CUFI trip to Poland and Israel, to take place this year.We want to broaden our base in three ways: We want to broaden it theologically, demographically, and politically,Brog said.At the Night to Honor Israel, Sen. Joseph Lieberman was given the Defender of Israel Award.This [convention] is a miracle, said Lieberman, who has previously spoken at the conference. It is all of you... who are the most important defenders of Israel.Ambassador to the US Michael Oren and Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov expressed similar sentiments in their remarks.Israel is also trying to reach out to the Christian community, establishing the Prime Minister's Task Force on Global Christian Relationships, on which Hagee will serve.jpost.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
NETANYAHU-GAZA WILL OVERTHROW HAMAS
Netanyahu says people of Gaza will overthrow Hamas JULY 28,09
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday predicted the people of the Gaza Strip will one day overthrow the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the enclave of 1.5 million inhabitants.By making the Palestinians of Gaza wear a veil, the Hamas regime is not doing much to make itself popular,Netanyahu said at the National Security Academy's graduation ceremony.If the Palestinians could, they would overthrow Hamas and believe me one day they will, Netanyahu was quoted by YNetnews website as saying.He also predicted: Eventually, radical Islam will be defeated by the global information revolution, the freedom to spread ideas and with the help of technology.This won?t happen immediately, but it will happen. The only thing that could delay or disrupt radical Islam's demise is the possibility that (radicals) will obtain nuclear arms,he said.Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after splitting with the more secular Fatah movement of Palestian president Mahmud Abbas.On Sunday, Palestinian officials said Hamas has ordered women lawyers to wear a headscarf in court.
Analysis: Israel-Palestinian calm could ease talks By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer – JULY 28,09
JERUSALEM – In the four months since hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, West Bank Palestinians have enjoyed an economic recovery and Israel has experienced a period of relative calm.That progress is the backdrop for a fresh round of U.S. diplomacy aimed at getting Palestinian-Israeli peace talks started again.But there is a major sticking point. Palestinians are refusing to resume negotiations unless Netanyahu heeds the U.S. demand to stop all construction in Israeli settlements on lands they claim for their future state.Netanyahu grudgingly accepted the idea of Palestinian statehood last month only under heavy U.S. pressure and with conditions attached. And he is still balking at President Barack Obama's demand to stop building Jewish settlements.But on the ground, the Israeli leader is pursuing his own idea of how to best achieve lasting calm. His so-called economic peace aims to create the conditions for a settlement by building up the West Bank's economy.He has focused only on the West Bank, the Palestinian territory run by a moderate leadership, as opposed to Gaza which is controlled by the rival government of the militant Hamas.Netanyahu's plan has gotten off to a pretty good start. In the West Bank, military checkpoints have been lifted, permits for importing raw materials are being granted. Shopping centers and movie theaters are popping up and concerts and sporting events are other signs that life there is taking on a semblance of normality.
The International Monetary Fund recently predicted the West Bank economy could grow by 7 percent this year, its first optimistic forecast in three years.We are not waiting. We are doing. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,Netanyahu said Tuesday while presiding over the extension of trading hours at the crucial Allenby crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.The Palestinian demand to stop all settlement building before they will resume peace talks is not a condition they placed on Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who brazenly expanded settlements even as he talked peace.But two things have changed since Olmert left office: a new administration in Washington has shown less tolerance for settlement activity, and Palestinians are more distrustful of Netanyahu.
Palestinians doubt Netanyahu, who leads a coalition of rightists opposed to territorial compromise, would ever do what it takes to make peace, including uprooting tens of thousands of Jewish settlers to make room for a Palestinian state.
The Israeli leader attached so many conditions to his acceptance of Palestinian independence last month as to render it meaningless in the eyes of many Palestinians.
And some wonder whether his decision to ease Israel's chokehold on the West Bank is more about getting Obama off his back — and deflecting attention away from settlements — than any precursor to historic compromise.Netanyahu is offering real and serious improvements in the West Bank, much more than his predecessor Olmert did,said Khalil Shahen, a commentator for the al-Ayyam daily. The only explanation for this is that Netanyahu is seeking an economic peace rather than the political peace.The West Bank's economic revival sharply contrasts with the misery of Hamas-controlled Gaza, where an Israeli and Egyptian imposed blockade is stifling most economic activity.Of all the obstacles to achieving peace, perhaps none is as large as Hamas militants' violent takeover of Gaza two years ago.But even on that front, there is some improvement. The rockets that Gaza militants had been firing into southern Israel for the past eight years have all but stopped, after a punishing war at the start of the year that killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. For now, Palestinian leaders seem to be savoring the tensions brewing between the conservative Netanyahu and the liberal Obama — despite historically close ties between Israel and the U.S.I don't think that the Palestinians would resume talks with Israel before freezing settlement expansion,said Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. Every time we had the negotiation track beside the settlement expansion track, the settlement track killed the negotiation one.
Israel captured the West Bank, now home to some 2.5 million Palestinians, in 1967. The number of Israeli settlers there has more than doubled since the mid-1990s and now stands at around 300,000, in addition to another 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built by Israel in east Jerusalem, also captured in 1967. Gaza has about 1.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians hope to establish a future state in both the West Bank and Gaza.Israeli leaders say they expect to reach an agreement with Washington over Obama's demand for a settlement freeze. But Netanyahu's public rejection of Washington's demand that it drop plans to build new apartments in east Jerusalem — which the Palestinians claim as a future capital — show that his simmering disputes with Obama are far from over.A fresh point of contention emerged on Monday on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, standing beside visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, suggested three times that Israel is not ruling out military action against Iran, despite Washington's clear preference to keep the focus on diplomacy. Obama's top Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, wrapped up a new swing through the area on Tuesday, announcing progress in his attempts to resolve the settlement dispute but with no word of a breakthrough.Obama's attempts to persuade Arab nations to begin normalizing relations with Israel, perhaps by opening up trade offices, could make it easier for Israel to compromise.Bahrain's crown prince, Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, wrote an unusually conciliatory op-ed piece in the Washington Post calling on Arabs to engage the Jewish state. Mitchell met with the crown prince Tuesday in Bahrain and praised his initiative, the official news agency reported.But Saudi Arabia — the country whose participation most matters to Israel — is refusing to heed Obama's call.Steven Gutkin is The Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories. AP correspondent Mohammed Daraghmeh in the West Bank contributed to this report.
U.S. envoy sees progress with Israel on peace push By Jeffrey Heller – JULY 28,09
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. envoy George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not agree on a Jewish settlement freeze in talks Tuesday but said negotiations were advancing.We are making progress,Netanyahu told reporters.I think we held a very important and productive talk and we will continue with the effort which, I believe, in the end will succeed in advancing peace and security between us and our Palestinian neighbors and the region in general.After more than two hours of talks with Netanyahu, Mitchell told reporters: We have made good progress.Mitchell said he looked forward to continuing discussions with Netanyahu and moving toward a comprehensive peace envisioned by U.S. President Barack Obama. He did not say when he would next meet the Israeli leader.Obama's demand, in line with a 2003 peace plan, to freeze Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem has met stiff resistance from Netanyahu, the most serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations in a decade.Neither Mitchell nor Netanyahu, who in his public comments has played down the dispute with Washington, mentioned settlements in their public remarks.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks with Israel, suspended since late last year, could not resume unless Netanyahu stopped all settlement activity.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has publicly raised the possibility of a deal under which Israel would halt construction in settlements but complete projects under way in return for steps by Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.
SETTLEMENT GAP
Arab moves toward commercial or diplomatic ties with Israel could help Netanyahu persuade partners in his right-leaning coalition to accept a compromise on settlements.But there has been little indication Arab countries in the region would make such gestures without a settlement freeze.At a meeting in the West Bank Monday, Mitchell informed Abbas there was still a gap between us and the Israelis on the settlements issue,a Palestinian official told Reuters.After seeing Mitchell, Netanyahu visited the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. He has ordered its opening hours to be extended to ease the movement of Palestinian commercial goods.We are not waiting, we are doing. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,Netanyahu told reporters.Separately, the Israeli leader called on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to topple Islamist Hamas rule there. Some 1,400 Palestinians and 14 Israelis died in fighting during an Israeli offensive in Gaza this year.Netanyahu said Hamas was not endearing itself to the Palestinians in Gaza,Israeli media reported.Were it possible for them (Palestinians) to cast off the regime they would do so, and I tell you, they will someday be capable of doing so,he added, the reports said.Mitchell has praised Israel for removing some of its military checkpoints in the West Bank in a declared bid to bolster the Western-backed Abbas and the Palestinian economy. But Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Monday that moving a handful of roadblocks changed little. Netanyahu is to hold talks Wednesday with U.S. national security adviser Jim Jones and other Middle East specialists sent to the region by the White House. (Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Jon Boyle) (For blogs and links on Israeli politics and other Israeli and Palestinian news, go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)
Palestinian not amused over Bruno terrorist cameo JULY 28,09
BEIT SAHUR, West Bank (AFP) – A Palestinian man presented as a terrorist in Sacha Baron Cohen's new hit movie Bruno said on Tuesday he was not amused at the gay fashionista mockumentary and plans to sue.Ayman Abu Aita said he intends to take the outrageous British comedian to court after a scene in the movie portrayed him as a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the main armed Palestinian groups.I am not a member of Al-Aqsa,said the 44-year-old Abu Aita, a member of a regional committee of Fatah, the ruling Palestinian party to which the militant group is loosely affiliated.It's a lie, the whole thing was a lie. We were betrayed by this guy when he said that he was a journalist,said Abu Aita, a Christian.We thought he was a foreign journalist and we hoped he would speak about our cause.Abu Aita joins a long line of unwitting victims hoodwinked by the comedian, both during the filming of Bruno and his previous smash hit Borat, which generated scores of lawsuits.In Bruno, Cohen poses as a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter who in one scene goes to interview a terrorist in his quest for fame.We thought: what could people see that they've never seen before on film,Cohen said on the Late Show with David Letterman recently.And we thought one thing would be a comedian interviewing a terrorist.During his interview with Abu Aita, Bruno asks to be kidnapped and suggests he and his colleagues shave their beards because your king Osama looks like some king of dirty wizard or a homeless Santa referring to Osama Bin Laden.Asked by Letterman whether he thought Abu Aita and his associates would go see the film, Cohen said: I hope to God not.But Abu Aita said he has seen the full movie: I didn't like any of it.Neither did the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.A senior official with Al-Aqsa told AFP the group has no official stance on the matter. But he dismissed the whole story as rubbish.
In Israel, no settlement deal for US envoy – just more settlers By Ilene R. Prusher – Tue Jul 28, 5:00 am ET
Jerusalem – US Mideast envoy George Mitchell wrapped up three days of talks here on Tuesday, heralding good progress in his meetings with Israeli officials. But he made no mention of a much anticipated agreement on the most visible point of contention in recent weeks and a key issue for Arabs: freezing settlement construction in the West Bank.One of the main goals of Mr. Mitchell's visit, part of a regional trip that includes stops in Arab Gulf states later this week, had been to get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to stop the expansion of settlements – a move President Obama sees as a jumping-off point to getting Israeli and Palestinian leaders to agree on a two-state solution. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that he will not return to talks with Israel unless such a freeze is instituted.Figures released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week indicate that settlements grew at a rate of 2.3 percent for the first half of this year, pushing the total number of Israelis living in West Bank settlements above 300,000 for the first time.The Israeli media have been abuzz with reports that the IDF is preparing to implement a government order to evacuate 23 illegal settlement outposts to fulfill a long-standing promise to Washington.But in the midst of Mitchell's three-day visit, right-wing activists set up 11 new outposts in defiance of Netanyahu's engagement with the Obama administration on the settlement issue.
Netanyahu: We are opening the roads to peace
Netanyahu and Mitchell had their final meeting at the Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, where Netanyahu touted having extended the hours per day that the passage is open as a sign of his easing restrictions on Palestinians. In recent weeks, Israel has removed dozens of army road blocks and has eased up on checkpoints around the West Bank in a goodwill gesture meant to help create an atmosphere for peace talks.We're continuing our efforts to make life easier for the Palestinians, Netanyahu said, and this is part of the policy to work in parallel – top-down politically, bottom-up economically.He agreed to open Allenby until midnight for the next two months, after which the demand will be reevaluated with an eye towards having the key passage point open 24 hours a day. Palestinians say the limited hours and long lines constrain economic growth and freedom of movement. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,Netanyahu said.
Obama paved Mitchell's way with letters to Arab leaders
Mitchell is now scheduled to continue his Middle East peacemaking mission in the Arab Gulf states, in sync with expectations that Obama administration officials are working to broker some kind of kick-off for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. In exchange for Israel showing it is serious about stopping settlement growth and reaching a two-state solution with the Palestinians, moderate Arab states that support the peace process would undertake steps toward normalization with Israel. President Obama's vision is of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, which includes peace between Israel and the Palestinians, between Syria and Israel, and between Israel and Lebanon, and also the full normalization between Israel and its neighbors in the region,Mitchell said in a press conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday.That is our objective and it is that to which we have committed ourselves fully.Mitchell's emphasis on normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors comes amid US urging Arab states to do more to support the Arab Peace Initiative introduced by Saudi Arabia in 2002. In short, it offers Israel peace and normalization of relations with a panoply of Arab states if it reaches a statehood deal with the Palestinians.Keen to see progress, Obama has sent letters to several Arab leaders asking them to commit to steps toward Israel as well to live up to their economic pledges of support for the Palestinian Authority, according to several media outlets, including the BBC and Yediot Aharonoth, an Israeli newspaper.
Hamas dress code aims to make Gaza more Islamic By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 28, 2:55 am ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Police order a lingerie shop to hide its scantily clad mannequins. A judge warns female lawyers to wear head scarves in court. Beach patrols break up groups of singles and make men wear shirts.It's all part of a new Hamas campaign to get Gazans to adhere to a strict Muslim lifestyle — and the first clear attempt by the Islamic militants to go beyond benign persuasion in doing so.It suggests that having consolidated its hold on Gaza in the two years since it seized control by force, Hamas feels emboldened enough to extend its ideology into people's private lives.Hamas insists compliance with its virtue campaign is still voluntary and simply responds to a Gazan preference for conservative ways. But the rules are vague and there are reports of alleged offenders being beaten and teachers being told to pressure girls to wear head scarves.The campaign highlights the differing trajectories of the West Bank and Gaza — the two parts of the Palestinian state that the Obama administration hopes to midwife. Washington's efforts move into higher gear this week with visits by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and three top U.S. diplomats.While Hamas pushes its dress code and Gaza remains impoverished under international embargo, West Bankers are enjoying an economic revival fed by foreign aid. Although most are conservative, there's more tolerance for a fairly large secular minority.The West Bank's dominant party, Fatah, is making an attempt at a comeback, after suffering a stinging election defeat at the hands of Hamas in 2006.
Next week, Fatah will hold its first convention in 20 years, hoping to show that it has reformed itself, has shed its corruption-tainted image and makes an attractive alternative to Hamas.Hamas, known for its keen sense of public opinion, pledged after its June 2007 takeover to refrain from imposing Islamic ways.That is changing, says Khalil Abu Shammala, a human rights activist in Gaza.There are attempts to Islamize this society,he said. Hamas' denials contradict what we see on the street.The virtue campaign is being spread by the Religious Affairs Ministry in a list of do's and don'ts that feature on posters and in mosque sermons. It also calls for gender separation at wedding parties and tells teens to shun pop music with suggestive lyrics.We have to encourage people to be virtuous and keep them away from sin,said Abdullah Abu Jarbou, the deputy religious affairs minister.Another Gaza human rights activist, Hamdi Shakour, blamed the border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas ousted the territory's Fatah rulers. He said isolation has bred extremism and dark ideas.Gaza maintains small islands of secularism. Foreigners are rarely harassed, and Gaza women in stylish clothes and hairdos, many of them Muslims, frequent a half-dozen upmarket cafes and restaurants.But Abdel Raouf Halabi, Gaza's chief supreme court judge, this month ordered female lawyers to wear head scarves and dark robes or be barred from courtrooms when their work resumes Sept. 1.We will not allow people to ruin morals,he explained.
Only about 10 of some 150 female lawyers are affected, reflecting how deeply Islamic values already prevail. One of the unscarved is Subhiya Juma, who said the ruling is taking away our personal freedom.Juma said she would not wear a head scarf and hoped a public outcry would pressure Hamas officials to withdraw the order.In government schools, head scarves for female students are supposed to be optional. But one high school has made robes and head scarves a condition for enrollment. Teachers are now being asked to pressure the girls to put them on, said Education Ministry spokesman Khaled Radi.Police are enforcing the restrictions on mannequins and salesmen say they ripped off the tags on packages of panties and bras which showed women in underwear.
Other shopkeepers said they were told to remove the mannequins' heads so they don't violate the Islamic ban on copying the human form. Enforcement is spotty and seems restricted to working-class markets. Most traders said they moved the mannequins back after police left.Lingerie seller Mohammed Helu, 23, hid his under-clad mannequins but was allowed to display an outfit of a plunging top and miniskirt with the mannequin's head covered by a plastic bag.On a Gaza beach, Mohammed Amta, 18, said a plainclothes security man told him to put on a shirt, saying his appearance was un-Islamic, and to remove his two silver rings and woven bracelet because they were a sign of Western culture.A lifeguard said he was told to wear an undershirt and knee-length shorts. They said that's how Muslims should dress,he said. He declined to be named, fearing he would lose his Hamas-provided job. Last month, three young men walking on the beach with a female friend said they were beaten by Hamas police, detained and ordered to sign statements promising not to engage in immoral activities.
The Hamas government condemned the beatings. But it remained silent when a Hamas leader, Younis Astal, accused U.N.-run summer camps for tens of thousands of children of spreading drug use and encouraging obscene behavior for teaching swimming and folklore dance.Abu Jarbou, the deputy minister, insisted that Hamas would move gradually and not impose its views by force. Still, Islamic law is coming, he said. In the future, it's inevitable it will be implemented,he said.
Iran essential player in Middle East peace: Brazil FM Mon Jul 27, 6:18 pm ET
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Iran is an essential player in Middle East peace talks, Brazil said Monday as Israel's foreign minister continued a Latin American tour aimed at boosting pressure on the Islamic republic over its nuclear aims.The involvement of countries that have influence in the region is absolutely essential,Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said during a conference organized by the United Nations in Rio.
Iran is an essential player, he said.The top Brazilian diplomat said he believed one of the reasons that successive peace plans for the region have failed is that the players have always been the same.Brazil, which is hoping to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, has said it would be able to act as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians because it has the confidence of both parties.Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in Peru on Monday, stopped in Brazil last week at the beginning of a Latin American tour intended to counter Iran's perceived growing influence in the region.In Brazil, he sought support for pressure on Iran to stop its controversial nuclear program.But the Latin American powerhouse has growing ties with Iran, and is set to receive Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a state visit before the end of the year, despite controversy surrounding his reelection.The Iranian president recently praised his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for his courage in quickly offering Ahmadinejad congratulations on his reelection, despite the major street protests against the result that broke out after the contested June 12 vote.
Hamas threatens to derail Fatah conference By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jul 27, 12:05 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah on Monday were locked in a new dispute that threatens to derail next week's Fatah convention, seen as key to rehabilitating the corruption-stained party that has led peace talks with Israel.
Officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Monday they would only allow Fatah delegates to leave the territory and travel to the conference if Fatah's leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, releases hundreds of Hamas detainees in the West Bank, where his Western-backed Palestinian Authority is based.The convention, Fatah's first in 20 years, is to convene in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. More than 1,500 delegates, nearly one-third of them from Gaza and the rest from the West Bank and the Palestinian diaspora, are to choose dozens of new leaders and vote for a fresh political program.The convention is seen as crucial to Fatah's attempt to clean up its image, tainted by petty infighting and corruption, and present itself as an alternative to the militant Islamic Hamas. A stinging loss to Hamas in a 2006 parliamentary election and failure to establish a Palestinian state through negotiations with Israel have increasingly demoralized the once dominant party .Abbas aides were not immediately available for comment on the standoff with Hamas, but a senior Palestinian official said Abbas had asked Syria, Russia and Turkey to intervene and help soften Hamas' demands. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Nabil Shaath, a Fatah leader, said Monday it appeared unlikely the convention would be held without the Gaza contingent.There would be a massive boycott of the conference in such a case, he said in an interview.Shaath, who has been involved in Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, said his own movement had mishandled the prisoner issue and that its attempt to get foreign mediators to pressure Hamas on the subject was doomed to failure from the start.It won't work, and I told everyone that,he said.Hamas and Fatah began rounding up each other's supporters when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in 2007 from forces loyal to Abbas. Worried about a Hamas takeover of his remaining power-base in the West Bank, Abbas began cracking down on the group's activists, institutions and funding.
Shaath estimated that around 900 Hamas activists are jailed in the West Bank, while more than 200 Fatah supporters in Gaza have to report daily to Hamas offices and spend long hours there in an improvised form of detention, for lack of prison space.
Shaath said he believes many of the West Bank arrests were made without due legal process. He said Hamas in the past had been willing to accept a partial prisoner release, but that as the convention drew closer it upped the ante and now demands freedom for all the detainees.In Gaza, Hamas lawmaker Ismail Ashqar confirmed the organization's position.If Fatah wants its Gaza members to leave to the West Bank to attend the conference, they must release the leaders and supporters of Hamas in the West Bank, he said.The senior Palestinian official involved in the negotiations said Abbas has signaled he is ready to free 200 Hamas prisoners once the Fatah delegates leave Gaza.At the same time, Abbas' aides are threatening to detain more Hamas activists, including political leaders, if the standoff is not resolved, said Mahmoud Ramahi, a Hamas legislator in the West Bank.We received a clear threat from the Palestinian Authority that if Hamas does not allow Fatah members to leave Gaza, they will take harsh action against Hamas supporters, including the lawmakers, Ramahi said.
Associated Press reporter Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed to this report from Ramallah.
US calls for Arab world to normalise Israel ties Mon Jul 27, 11:38 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell called on Arab states on Monday to fully normalise ties with Israel, after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the latest leg of a regional tour.Mitchell told reporters after the talks that Washington was asking countries in the region to set the context for comprehensive peace negotiations between Israel and the Arab world.By comprehensive I mean peace between Israel and Palestinians, between Israel and Syria, between Israel and Lebanon and the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the countries of the region,he said.We're not asking anyone to achieve full normalisation at this time, we recognise that will come further down the road in this process,he said.But he added that the US administration wanted to see meaningful steps by individual countries.Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, but neither have fully normalised ties. Some other Arab countries, such as Qatar, have trade relations with Israel.After the Mubarak meeting, Mitchell headed to the occupied West Bank where he is to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. On Tuesday he will hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, likely to focus on US demands that Israel halt settlement activity in the West Bank.On Sunday, he met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Olmert in Tel Aviv.
British court nixes anti-Israel move by WBank group Mon Jul 27, 11:32 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A Palestinian human rights group on Monday failed to secure a High Court ruling against Britain's support for Israel, in the wake of the recent Gaza conflict.Al-Haq had hoped to secure a judicial review of what it said was Britain's failure to fulfil its obligations under international law by denying Israel aid and assistance.It said Britain should suspend all financial, military and ministerial assistance to Israel and called for London to halt its arms export approval system, which would prevent firms from selling arms to Israel.Al-Haq highlighted Israeli activities which allegedly breached international law including denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination (and) de facto acquisition of territory by force.But Malcolm Pill and Ross Cranston, judges at London's High Court, found the claim was beyond the competence of a domestic court.While there may exceptionally be situations in which the court will intervene in foreign policy issues, this case is far from being one of them, Pill said.The government is aware of its international obligations and it is for the government, and not the courts, to decide, in the present context, what actions are appropriate to comply with those obligations.Al-Haq said on its website that while Israel's violations of international law pre-dated the Gaza conflict in December and January, it was the distinct failure of countries including Britain to uphold international law during the conflict which prompted legal action.James Eadie, the lawyer acting for British ministers, told an earlier hearing that Al-Haq wanted the court to trespass into forbidden territory and was effectively trying to dictate foreign policy.He said the issue was the most sensitive, complex situation currently in existence, suggesting Al-Haq wanted to make the government denounce Israel's actions in whatever form the court thought appropriate.Israel launched a 22-day offensive against Gaza in late December last year. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
Gates meets Jordan king amid US peace push Mon Jul 27, 10:36 am ET
AMMAN (AFP) – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates held talks with Jordan's King Abdullah on Monday amid a push by Washington to revive Middle East peacemaking.
Finding a just solution to the Palestinian issue that would lead to the creation of an independent state is the basis for achieving peace and stability in the region,a palace statement quoted the king as telling Gates.The king, who discussed with Gates ways to boost bilateral defence cooperation said the United States plays a key role in efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in line with a two-state solution.Jordan, a key US ally, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.Gates was also to meet army chief General Khaled Sarayrah before holding a news conference.The defence secretary, who arrived in Jordan from Israel, is one of three top US officials in the region this week. The others are US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and US National Security Advisor James Jones.
Hezbollah's Nasrallah warns Israel over future war Mon Jul 27, 9:02 am ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened to attack Tel Aviv if Israel were to bomb Beirut's southern suburbs, a bastion of the powerful Shi'ite military and political group.Hezbollah fought against Israel three years ago in a 34-day war after the group captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, were killed and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died.Israel pounded Beirut's southern suburbs as well as mainly Shi'ite southern Lebanon where Hezbollah maintains a stronghold and from which Israel withdrew in 2000.Israeli bombing also hit bridges, roads, airport runways, ports, factories, power and water networks, and military installations, and the eastern Bekaa Valley.Hezbollah's daily rocket barrages caused the destruction of some 2,000 homes and apartment buildings in Israeli cities. Tel Aviv was not hit by rocket attacks.The equations that used to apply have now changed. Now it is the southern suburbs for Tel Aviv and not Beirut for Tel Aviv, al-Akhbar newspaper Monday quoted Nasrallah as telling a group of Lebanese emigrants.I tell you, and this is not muscle-flexing, the Israeli army will be destroyed in any future war. And any force from the enemy's army that steps on Lebanese land, will be destroyed, and that is a fact.
Hezbollah and Israel have not exchanged fire since the war ended three years ago. But tensions have risen recently after a weapons cache exploded earlier this month in southern Lebanon.The United Nations, which has peacekeepers based in the south, said there are signs the stockpile belonged to Hezbollah, and added that the presence of these arms were a violation of Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the war.
Israel has also said the arms cache belonged to Hezbollah. A Hezbollah lawmaker would only say the blast was a one-off accident that involved the explosion of an arms cache that had been in place before the 2006 war. He denied the explosion was a violation of resolution 1701.Lebanon has also arrested recently more than 50 people, including three Lebanese army colonels, for spying for Israel.Lebanon has described the arrests as a major blow to Israel's intelligence gathering and has formally complained to the U.N. Security Council about its findings. There has been no official word from Israel.(Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Matthew Jones)
300,000 Israeli settlers in West Bank: report Mon Jul 27, 2:20 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The number of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank now stands at more than 300,000 people, according to government figures published by the Haaretz newspaper on Monday.As of June 30, there were 304,569 settlers living in the Palestinian territory, an increase of 2.3 percent since the start of the year, it said.The issue of settlements is one of the main stumbling blocks in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.The administration of US President Barack Obama, who took office in January, has repeatedly pressed Israel to halt all settlement activity as part of its efforts to revive the stalled peace process.Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to heed the calls, sending tensions between the two allies rising to levels unseen in years.The new figures were published amid a US diplomatic push that will see three senior officials -- Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Middle East envoy George Mitchell and National Security Advisor James Jones -- hold talks in Israel this week.
Israel religious party hits out at US over settlements Sun Jul 26, 3:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The spiritual head of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which forms part of the ruling coalition, has hit out at US demands that the Jewish state halt settlement activity.What right do they have to tell us here you can build, here you can't build, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said in his weekly sermon, excerpts of which were re-aired on Sunday by Israeli radios.We are not their slaves,he said.It marked the latest swipe in Israel at US President Barack Obama's administration over its repeated demands that the Jewish state stop all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank including annexed east Jerusalem.The demands have created tensions between the two close allies not seen in years.Born in Iraq in 1920, Yosef is a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and a controversial figure who has in the past referred to Arabs and Palestinians as snakes and vipers who were swarming like ants.
He called on God to strike down then prime minister Ariel Sharon over the 2005 withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and during the Lebanon war in July-August 2006, implied that Israeli soldiers killed in battle died because they didn't follow Jewish commandments.In 2000 he sparked outrage when he said that the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust did not die for nothing,but were the reincarnation of Jews who had sinned in previous generations.
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday predicted the people of the Gaza Strip will one day overthrow the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the enclave of 1.5 million inhabitants.By making the Palestinians of Gaza wear a veil, the Hamas regime is not doing much to make itself popular,Netanyahu said at the National Security Academy's graduation ceremony.If the Palestinians could, they would overthrow Hamas and believe me one day they will, Netanyahu was quoted by YNetnews website as saying.He also predicted: Eventually, radical Islam will be defeated by the global information revolution, the freedom to spread ideas and with the help of technology.This won?t happen immediately, but it will happen. The only thing that could delay or disrupt radical Islam's demise is the possibility that (radicals) will obtain nuclear arms,he said.Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after splitting with the more secular Fatah movement of Palestian president Mahmud Abbas.On Sunday, Palestinian officials said Hamas has ordered women lawyers to wear a headscarf in court.
Analysis: Israel-Palestinian calm could ease talks By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer – JULY 28,09
JERUSALEM – In the four months since hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, West Bank Palestinians have enjoyed an economic recovery and Israel has experienced a period of relative calm.That progress is the backdrop for a fresh round of U.S. diplomacy aimed at getting Palestinian-Israeli peace talks started again.But there is a major sticking point. Palestinians are refusing to resume negotiations unless Netanyahu heeds the U.S. demand to stop all construction in Israeli settlements on lands they claim for their future state.Netanyahu grudgingly accepted the idea of Palestinian statehood last month only under heavy U.S. pressure and with conditions attached. And he is still balking at President Barack Obama's demand to stop building Jewish settlements.But on the ground, the Israeli leader is pursuing his own idea of how to best achieve lasting calm. His so-called economic peace aims to create the conditions for a settlement by building up the West Bank's economy.He has focused only on the West Bank, the Palestinian territory run by a moderate leadership, as opposed to Gaza which is controlled by the rival government of the militant Hamas.Netanyahu's plan has gotten off to a pretty good start. In the West Bank, military checkpoints have been lifted, permits for importing raw materials are being granted. Shopping centers and movie theaters are popping up and concerts and sporting events are other signs that life there is taking on a semblance of normality.
The International Monetary Fund recently predicted the West Bank economy could grow by 7 percent this year, its first optimistic forecast in three years.We are not waiting. We are doing. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,Netanyahu said Tuesday while presiding over the extension of trading hours at the crucial Allenby crossing between the West Bank and Jordan.The Palestinian demand to stop all settlement building before they will resume peace talks is not a condition they placed on Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who brazenly expanded settlements even as he talked peace.But two things have changed since Olmert left office: a new administration in Washington has shown less tolerance for settlement activity, and Palestinians are more distrustful of Netanyahu.
Palestinians doubt Netanyahu, who leads a coalition of rightists opposed to territorial compromise, would ever do what it takes to make peace, including uprooting tens of thousands of Jewish settlers to make room for a Palestinian state.
The Israeli leader attached so many conditions to his acceptance of Palestinian independence last month as to render it meaningless in the eyes of many Palestinians.
And some wonder whether his decision to ease Israel's chokehold on the West Bank is more about getting Obama off his back — and deflecting attention away from settlements — than any precursor to historic compromise.Netanyahu is offering real and serious improvements in the West Bank, much more than his predecessor Olmert did,said Khalil Shahen, a commentator for the al-Ayyam daily. The only explanation for this is that Netanyahu is seeking an economic peace rather than the political peace.The West Bank's economic revival sharply contrasts with the misery of Hamas-controlled Gaza, where an Israeli and Egyptian imposed blockade is stifling most economic activity.Of all the obstacles to achieving peace, perhaps none is as large as Hamas militants' violent takeover of Gaza two years ago.But even on that front, there is some improvement. The rockets that Gaza militants had been firing into southern Israel for the past eight years have all but stopped, after a punishing war at the start of the year that killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. For now, Palestinian leaders seem to be savoring the tensions brewing between the conservative Netanyahu and the liberal Obama — despite historically close ties between Israel and the U.S.I don't think that the Palestinians would resume talks with Israel before freezing settlement expansion,said Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. Every time we had the negotiation track beside the settlement expansion track, the settlement track killed the negotiation one.
Israel captured the West Bank, now home to some 2.5 million Palestinians, in 1967. The number of Israeli settlers there has more than doubled since the mid-1990s and now stands at around 300,000, in addition to another 180,000 Israelis living in Jewish neighborhoods built by Israel in east Jerusalem, also captured in 1967. Gaza has about 1.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians hope to establish a future state in both the West Bank and Gaza.Israeli leaders say they expect to reach an agreement with Washington over Obama's demand for a settlement freeze. But Netanyahu's public rejection of Washington's demand that it drop plans to build new apartments in east Jerusalem — which the Palestinians claim as a future capital — show that his simmering disputes with Obama are far from over.A fresh point of contention emerged on Monday on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, standing beside visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, suggested three times that Israel is not ruling out military action against Iran, despite Washington's clear preference to keep the focus on diplomacy. Obama's top Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, wrapped up a new swing through the area on Tuesday, announcing progress in his attempts to resolve the settlement dispute but with no word of a breakthrough.Obama's attempts to persuade Arab nations to begin normalizing relations with Israel, perhaps by opening up trade offices, could make it easier for Israel to compromise.Bahrain's crown prince, Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, wrote an unusually conciliatory op-ed piece in the Washington Post calling on Arabs to engage the Jewish state. Mitchell met with the crown prince Tuesday in Bahrain and praised his initiative, the official news agency reported.But Saudi Arabia — the country whose participation most matters to Israel — is refusing to heed Obama's call.Steven Gutkin is The Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories. AP correspondent Mohammed Daraghmeh in the West Bank contributed to this report.
U.S. envoy sees progress with Israel on peace push By Jeffrey Heller – JULY 28,09
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. envoy George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not agree on a Jewish settlement freeze in talks Tuesday but said negotiations were advancing.We are making progress,Netanyahu told reporters.I think we held a very important and productive talk and we will continue with the effort which, I believe, in the end will succeed in advancing peace and security between us and our Palestinian neighbors and the region in general.After more than two hours of talks with Netanyahu, Mitchell told reporters: We have made good progress.Mitchell said he looked forward to continuing discussions with Netanyahu and moving toward a comprehensive peace envisioned by U.S. President Barack Obama. He did not say when he would next meet the Israeli leader.Obama's demand, in line with a 2003 peace plan, to freeze Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem has met stiff resistance from Netanyahu, the most serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations in a decade.Neither Mitchell nor Netanyahu, who in his public comments has played down the dispute with Washington, mentioned settlements in their public remarks.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said peace talks with Israel, suspended since late last year, could not resume unless Netanyahu stopped all settlement activity.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has publicly raised the possibility of a deal under which Israel would halt construction in settlements but complete projects under way in return for steps by Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.
SETTLEMENT GAP
Arab moves toward commercial or diplomatic ties with Israel could help Netanyahu persuade partners in his right-leaning coalition to accept a compromise on settlements.But there has been little indication Arab countries in the region would make such gestures without a settlement freeze.At a meeting in the West Bank Monday, Mitchell informed Abbas there was still a gap between us and the Israelis on the settlements issue,a Palestinian official told Reuters.After seeing Mitchell, Netanyahu visited the Israeli-controlled Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. He has ordered its opening hours to be extended to ease the movement of Palestinian commercial goods.We are not waiting, we are doing. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,Netanyahu told reporters.Separately, the Israeli leader called on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to topple Islamist Hamas rule there. Some 1,400 Palestinians and 14 Israelis died in fighting during an Israeli offensive in Gaza this year.Netanyahu said Hamas was not endearing itself to the Palestinians in Gaza,Israeli media reported.Were it possible for them (Palestinians) to cast off the regime they would do so, and I tell you, they will someday be capable of doing so,he added, the reports said.Mitchell has praised Israel for removing some of its military checkpoints in the West Bank in a declared bid to bolster the Western-backed Abbas and the Palestinian economy. But Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Monday that moving a handful of roadblocks changed little. Netanyahu is to hold talks Wednesday with U.S. national security adviser Jim Jones and other Middle East specialists sent to the region by the White House. (Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Jon Boyle) (For blogs and links on Israeli politics and other Israeli and Palestinian news, go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)
Palestinian not amused over Bruno terrorist cameo JULY 28,09
BEIT SAHUR, West Bank (AFP) – A Palestinian man presented as a terrorist in Sacha Baron Cohen's new hit movie Bruno said on Tuesday he was not amused at the gay fashionista mockumentary and plans to sue.Ayman Abu Aita said he intends to take the outrageous British comedian to court after a scene in the movie portrayed him as a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the main armed Palestinian groups.I am not a member of Al-Aqsa,said the 44-year-old Abu Aita, a member of a regional committee of Fatah, the ruling Palestinian party to which the militant group is loosely affiliated.It's a lie, the whole thing was a lie. We were betrayed by this guy when he said that he was a journalist,said Abu Aita, a Christian.We thought he was a foreign journalist and we hoped he would speak about our cause.Abu Aita joins a long line of unwitting victims hoodwinked by the comedian, both during the filming of Bruno and his previous smash hit Borat, which generated scores of lawsuits.In Bruno, Cohen poses as a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter who in one scene goes to interview a terrorist in his quest for fame.We thought: what could people see that they've never seen before on film,Cohen said on the Late Show with David Letterman recently.And we thought one thing would be a comedian interviewing a terrorist.During his interview with Abu Aita, Bruno asks to be kidnapped and suggests he and his colleagues shave their beards because your king Osama looks like some king of dirty wizard or a homeless Santa referring to Osama Bin Laden.Asked by Letterman whether he thought Abu Aita and his associates would go see the film, Cohen said: I hope to God not.But Abu Aita said he has seen the full movie: I didn't like any of it.Neither did the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.A senior official with Al-Aqsa told AFP the group has no official stance on the matter. But he dismissed the whole story as rubbish.
In Israel, no settlement deal for US envoy – just more settlers By Ilene R. Prusher – Tue Jul 28, 5:00 am ET
Jerusalem – US Mideast envoy George Mitchell wrapped up three days of talks here on Tuesday, heralding good progress in his meetings with Israeli officials. But he made no mention of a much anticipated agreement on the most visible point of contention in recent weeks and a key issue for Arabs: freezing settlement construction in the West Bank.One of the main goals of Mr. Mitchell's visit, part of a regional trip that includes stops in Arab Gulf states later this week, had been to get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to stop the expansion of settlements – a move President Obama sees as a jumping-off point to getting Israeli and Palestinian leaders to agree on a two-state solution. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said that he will not return to talks with Israel unless such a freeze is instituted.Figures released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week indicate that settlements grew at a rate of 2.3 percent for the first half of this year, pushing the total number of Israelis living in West Bank settlements above 300,000 for the first time.The Israeli media have been abuzz with reports that the IDF is preparing to implement a government order to evacuate 23 illegal settlement outposts to fulfill a long-standing promise to Washington.But in the midst of Mitchell's three-day visit, right-wing activists set up 11 new outposts in defiance of Netanyahu's engagement with the Obama administration on the settlement issue.
Netanyahu: We are opening the roads to peace
Netanyahu and Mitchell had their final meeting at the Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, where Netanyahu touted having extended the hours per day that the passage is open as a sign of his easing restrictions on Palestinians. In recent weeks, Israel has removed dozens of army road blocks and has eased up on checkpoints around the West Bank in a goodwill gesture meant to help create an atmosphere for peace talks.We're continuing our efforts to make life easier for the Palestinians, Netanyahu said, and this is part of the policy to work in parallel – top-down politically, bottom-up economically.He agreed to open Allenby until midnight for the next two months, after which the demand will be reevaluated with an eye towards having the key passage point open 24 hours a day. Palestinians say the limited hours and long lines constrain economic growth and freedom of movement. We are opening roadblocks, we are opening ties, we are opening the roads to peace,Netanyahu said.
Obama paved Mitchell's way with letters to Arab leaders
Mitchell is now scheduled to continue his Middle East peacemaking mission in the Arab Gulf states, in sync with expectations that Obama administration officials are working to broker some kind of kick-off for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. In exchange for Israel showing it is serious about stopping settlement growth and reaching a two-state solution with the Palestinians, moderate Arab states that support the peace process would undertake steps toward normalization with Israel. President Obama's vision is of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, which includes peace between Israel and the Palestinians, between Syria and Israel, and between Israel and Lebanon, and also the full normalization between Israel and its neighbors in the region,Mitchell said in a press conference with Netanyahu on Tuesday.That is our objective and it is that to which we have committed ourselves fully.Mitchell's emphasis on normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors comes amid US urging Arab states to do more to support the Arab Peace Initiative introduced by Saudi Arabia in 2002. In short, it offers Israel peace and normalization of relations with a panoply of Arab states if it reaches a statehood deal with the Palestinians.Keen to see progress, Obama has sent letters to several Arab leaders asking them to commit to steps toward Israel as well to live up to their economic pledges of support for the Palestinian Authority, according to several media outlets, including the BBC and Yediot Aharonoth, an Israeli newspaper.
Hamas dress code aims to make Gaza more Islamic By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jul 28, 2:55 am ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Police order a lingerie shop to hide its scantily clad mannequins. A judge warns female lawyers to wear head scarves in court. Beach patrols break up groups of singles and make men wear shirts.It's all part of a new Hamas campaign to get Gazans to adhere to a strict Muslim lifestyle — and the first clear attempt by the Islamic militants to go beyond benign persuasion in doing so.It suggests that having consolidated its hold on Gaza in the two years since it seized control by force, Hamas feels emboldened enough to extend its ideology into people's private lives.Hamas insists compliance with its virtue campaign is still voluntary and simply responds to a Gazan preference for conservative ways. But the rules are vague and there are reports of alleged offenders being beaten and teachers being told to pressure girls to wear head scarves.The campaign highlights the differing trajectories of the West Bank and Gaza — the two parts of the Palestinian state that the Obama administration hopes to midwife. Washington's efforts move into higher gear this week with visits by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and three top U.S. diplomats.While Hamas pushes its dress code and Gaza remains impoverished under international embargo, West Bankers are enjoying an economic revival fed by foreign aid. Although most are conservative, there's more tolerance for a fairly large secular minority.The West Bank's dominant party, Fatah, is making an attempt at a comeback, after suffering a stinging election defeat at the hands of Hamas in 2006.
Next week, Fatah will hold its first convention in 20 years, hoping to show that it has reformed itself, has shed its corruption-tainted image and makes an attractive alternative to Hamas.Hamas, known for its keen sense of public opinion, pledged after its June 2007 takeover to refrain from imposing Islamic ways.That is changing, says Khalil Abu Shammala, a human rights activist in Gaza.There are attempts to Islamize this society,he said. Hamas' denials contradict what we see on the street.The virtue campaign is being spread by the Religious Affairs Ministry in a list of do's and don'ts that feature on posters and in mosque sermons. It also calls for gender separation at wedding parties and tells teens to shun pop music with suggestive lyrics.We have to encourage people to be virtuous and keep them away from sin,said Abdullah Abu Jarbou, the deputy religious affairs minister.Another Gaza human rights activist, Hamdi Shakour, blamed the border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas ousted the territory's Fatah rulers. He said isolation has bred extremism and dark ideas.Gaza maintains small islands of secularism. Foreigners are rarely harassed, and Gaza women in stylish clothes and hairdos, many of them Muslims, frequent a half-dozen upmarket cafes and restaurants.But Abdel Raouf Halabi, Gaza's chief supreme court judge, this month ordered female lawyers to wear head scarves and dark robes or be barred from courtrooms when their work resumes Sept. 1.We will not allow people to ruin morals,he explained.
Only about 10 of some 150 female lawyers are affected, reflecting how deeply Islamic values already prevail. One of the unscarved is Subhiya Juma, who said the ruling is taking away our personal freedom.Juma said she would not wear a head scarf and hoped a public outcry would pressure Hamas officials to withdraw the order.In government schools, head scarves for female students are supposed to be optional. But one high school has made robes and head scarves a condition for enrollment. Teachers are now being asked to pressure the girls to put them on, said Education Ministry spokesman Khaled Radi.Police are enforcing the restrictions on mannequins and salesmen say they ripped off the tags on packages of panties and bras which showed women in underwear.
Other shopkeepers said they were told to remove the mannequins' heads so they don't violate the Islamic ban on copying the human form. Enforcement is spotty and seems restricted to working-class markets. Most traders said they moved the mannequins back after police left.Lingerie seller Mohammed Helu, 23, hid his under-clad mannequins but was allowed to display an outfit of a plunging top and miniskirt with the mannequin's head covered by a plastic bag.On a Gaza beach, Mohammed Amta, 18, said a plainclothes security man told him to put on a shirt, saying his appearance was un-Islamic, and to remove his two silver rings and woven bracelet because they were a sign of Western culture.A lifeguard said he was told to wear an undershirt and knee-length shorts. They said that's how Muslims should dress,he said. He declined to be named, fearing he would lose his Hamas-provided job. Last month, three young men walking on the beach with a female friend said they were beaten by Hamas police, detained and ordered to sign statements promising not to engage in immoral activities.
The Hamas government condemned the beatings. But it remained silent when a Hamas leader, Younis Astal, accused U.N.-run summer camps for tens of thousands of children of spreading drug use and encouraging obscene behavior for teaching swimming and folklore dance.Abu Jarbou, the deputy minister, insisted that Hamas would move gradually and not impose its views by force. Still, Islamic law is coming, he said. In the future, it's inevitable it will be implemented,he said.
Iran essential player in Middle East peace: Brazil FM Mon Jul 27, 6:18 pm ET
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Iran is an essential player in Middle East peace talks, Brazil said Monday as Israel's foreign minister continued a Latin American tour aimed at boosting pressure on the Islamic republic over its nuclear aims.The involvement of countries that have influence in the region is absolutely essential,Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said during a conference organized by the United Nations in Rio.
Iran is an essential player, he said.The top Brazilian diplomat said he believed one of the reasons that successive peace plans for the region have failed is that the players have always been the same.Brazil, which is hoping to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, has said it would be able to act as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians because it has the confidence of both parties.Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in Peru on Monday, stopped in Brazil last week at the beginning of a Latin American tour intended to counter Iran's perceived growing influence in the region.In Brazil, he sought support for pressure on Iran to stop its controversial nuclear program.But the Latin American powerhouse has growing ties with Iran, and is set to receive Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a state visit before the end of the year, despite controversy surrounding his reelection.The Iranian president recently praised his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for his courage in quickly offering Ahmadinejad congratulations on his reelection, despite the major street protests against the result that broke out after the contested June 12 vote.
Hamas threatens to derail Fatah conference By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jul 27, 12:05 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah on Monday were locked in a new dispute that threatens to derail next week's Fatah convention, seen as key to rehabilitating the corruption-stained party that has led peace talks with Israel.
Officials in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Monday they would only allow Fatah delegates to leave the territory and travel to the conference if Fatah's leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, releases hundreds of Hamas detainees in the West Bank, where his Western-backed Palestinian Authority is based.The convention, Fatah's first in 20 years, is to convene in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. More than 1,500 delegates, nearly one-third of them from Gaza and the rest from the West Bank and the Palestinian diaspora, are to choose dozens of new leaders and vote for a fresh political program.The convention is seen as crucial to Fatah's attempt to clean up its image, tainted by petty infighting and corruption, and present itself as an alternative to the militant Islamic Hamas. A stinging loss to Hamas in a 2006 parliamentary election and failure to establish a Palestinian state through negotiations with Israel have increasingly demoralized the once dominant party .Abbas aides were not immediately available for comment on the standoff with Hamas, but a senior Palestinian official said Abbas had asked Syria, Russia and Turkey to intervene and help soften Hamas' demands. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Nabil Shaath, a Fatah leader, said Monday it appeared unlikely the convention would be held without the Gaza contingent.There would be a massive boycott of the conference in such a case, he said in an interview.Shaath, who has been involved in Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, said his own movement had mishandled the prisoner issue and that its attempt to get foreign mediators to pressure Hamas on the subject was doomed to failure from the start.It won't work, and I told everyone that,he said.Hamas and Fatah began rounding up each other's supporters when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in 2007 from forces loyal to Abbas. Worried about a Hamas takeover of his remaining power-base in the West Bank, Abbas began cracking down on the group's activists, institutions and funding.
Shaath estimated that around 900 Hamas activists are jailed in the West Bank, while more than 200 Fatah supporters in Gaza have to report daily to Hamas offices and spend long hours there in an improvised form of detention, for lack of prison space.
Shaath said he believes many of the West Bank arrests were made without due legal process. He said Hamas in the past had been willing to accept a partial prisoner release, but that as the convention drew closer it upped the ante and now demands freedom for all the detainees.In Gaza, Hamas lawmaker Ismail Ashqar confirmed the organization's position.If Fatah wants its Gaza members to leave to the West Bank to attend the conference, they must release the leaders and supporters of Hamas in the West Bank, he said.The senior Palestinian official involved in the negotiations said Abbas has signaled he is ready to free 200 Hamas prisoners once the Fatah delegates leave Gaza.At the same time, Abbas' aides are threatening to detain more Hamas activists, including political leaders, if the standoff is not resolved, said Mahmoud Ramahi, a Hamas legislator in the West Bank.We received a clear threat from the Palestinian Authority that if Hamas does not allow Fatah members to leave Gaza, they will take harsh action against Hamas supporters, including the lawmakers, Ramahi said.
Associated Press reporter Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed to this report from Ramallah.
US calls for Arab world to normalise Israel ties Mon Jul 27, 11:38 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell called on Arab states on Monday to fully normalise ties with Israel, after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the latest leg of a regional tour.Mitchell told reporters after the talks that Washington was asking countries in the region to set the context for comprehensive peace negotiations between Israel and the Arab world.By comprehensive I mean peace between Israel and Palestinians, between Israel and Syria, between Israel and Lebanon and the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the countries of the region,he said.We're not asking anyone to achieve full normalisation at this time, we recognise that will come further down the road in this process,he said.But he added that the US administration wanted to see meaningful steps by individual countries.Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, but neither have fully normalised ties. Some other Arab countries, such as Qatar, have trade relations with Israel.After the Mubarak meeting, Mitchell headed to the occupied West Bank where he is to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. On Tuesday he will hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, likely to focus on US demands that Israel halt settlement activity in the West Bank.On Sunday, he met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Olmert in Tel Aviv.
British court nixes anti-Israel move by WBank group Mon Jul 27, 11:32 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – A Palestinian human rights group on Monday failed to secure a High Court ruling against Britain's support for Israel, in the wake of the recent Gaza conflict.Al-Haq had hoped to secure a judicial review of what it said was Britain's failure to fulfil its obligations under international law by denying Israel aid and assistance.It said Britain should suspend all financial, military and ministerial assistance to Israel and called for London to halt its arms export approval system, which would prevent firms from selling arms to Israel.Al-Haq highlighted Israeli activities which allegedly breached international law including denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination (and) de facto acquisition of territory by force.But Malcolm Pill and Ross Cranston, judges at London's High Court, found the claim was beyond the competence of a domestic court.While there may exceptionally be situations in which the court will intervene in foreign policy issues, this case is far from being one of them, Pill said.The government is aware of its international obligations and it is for the government, and not the courts, to decide, in the present context, what actions are appropriate to comply with those obligations.Al-Haq said on its website that while Israel's violations of international law pre-dated the Gaza conflict in December and January, it was the distinct failure of countries including Britain to uphold international law during the conflict which prompted legal action.James Eadie, the lawyer acting for British ministers, told an earlier hearing that Al-Haq wanted the court to trespass into forbidden territory and was effectively trying to dictate foreign policy.He said the issue was the most sensitive, complex situation currently in existence, suggesting Al-Haq wanted to make the government denounce Israel's actions in whatever form the court thought appropriate.Israel launched a 22-day offensive against Gaza in late December last year. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
Gates meets Jordan king amid US peace push Mon Jul 27, 10:36 am ET
AMMAN (AFP) – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates held talks with Jordan's King Abdullah on Monday amid a push by Washington to revive Middle East peacemaking.
Finding a just solution to the Palestinian issue that would lead to the creation of an independent state is the basis for achieving peace and stability in the region,a palace statement quoted the king as telling Gates.The king, who discussed with Gates ways to boost bilateral defence cooperation said the United States plays a key role in efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in line with a two-state solution.Jordan, a key US ally, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.Gates was also to meet army chief General Khaled Sarayrah before holding a news conference.The defence secretary, who arrived in Jordan from Israel, is one of three top US officials in the region this week. The others are US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and US National Security Advisor James Jones.
Hezbollah's Nasrallah warns Israel over future war Mon Jul 27, 9:02 am ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened to attack Tel Aviv if Israel were to bomb Beirut's southern suburbs, a bastion of the powerful Shi'ite military and political group.Hezbollah fought against Israel three years ago in a 34-day war after the group captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Some 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, were killed and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, died.Israel pounded Beirut's southern suburbs as well as mainly Shi'ite southern Lebanon where Hezbollah maintains a stronghold and from which Israel withdrew in 2000.Israeli bombing also hit bridges, roads, airport runways, ports, factories, power and water networks, and military installations, and the eastern Bekaa Valley.Hezbollah's daily rocket barrages caused the destruction of some 2,000 homes and apartment buildings in Israeli cities. Tel Aviv was not hit by rocket attacks.The equations that used to apply have now changed. Now it is the southern suburbs for Tel Aviv and not Beirut for Tel Aviv, al-Akhbar newspaper Monday quoted Nasrallah as telling a group of Lebanese emigrants.I tell you, and this is not muscle-flexing, the Israeli army will be destroyed in any future war. And any force from the enemy's army that steps on Lebanese land, will be destroyed, and that is a fact.
Hezbollah and Israel have not exchanged fire since the war ended three years ago. But tensions have risen recently after a weapons cache exploded earlier this month in southern Lebanon.The United Nations, which has peacekeepers based in the south, said there are signs the stockpile belonged to Hezbollah, and added that the presence of these arms were a violation of Security Council resolution 1701 which ended the war.
Israel has also said the arms cache belonged to Hezbollah. A Hezbollah lawmaker would only say the blast was a one-off accident that involved the explosion of an arms cache that had been in place before the 2006 war. He denied the explosion was a violation of resolution 1701.Lebanon has also arrested recently more than 50 people, including three Lebanese army colonels, for spying for Israel.Lebanon has described the arrests as a major blow to Israel's intelligence gathering and has formally complained to the U.N. Security Council about its findings. There has been no official word from Israel.(Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Matthew Jones)
300,000 Israeli settlers in West Bank: report Mon Jul 27, 2:20 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The number of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank now stands at more than 300,000 people, according to government figures published by the Haaretz newspaper on Monday.As of June 30, there were 304,569 settlers living in the Palestinian territory, an increase of 2.3 percent since the start of the year, it said.The issue of settlements is one of the main stumbling blocks in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.The administration of US President Barack Obama, who took office in January, has repeatedly pressed Israel to halt all settlement activity as part of its efforts to revive the stalled peace process.Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to heed the calls, sending tensions between the two allies rising to levels unseen in years.The new figures were published amid a US diplomatic push that will see three senior officials -- Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Middle East envoy George Mitchell and National Security Advisor James Jones -- hold talks in Israel this week.
Israel religious party hits out at US over settlements Sun Jul 26, 3:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The spiritual head of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which forms part of the ruling coalition, has hit out at US demands that the Jewish state halt settlement activity.What right do they have to tell us here you can build, here you can't build, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said in his weekly sermon, excerpts of which were re-aired on Sunday by Israeli radios.We are not their slaves,he said.It marked the latest swipe in Israel at US President Barack Obama's administration over its repeated demands that the Jewish state stop all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank including annexed east Jerusalem.The demands have created tensions between the two close allies not seen in years.Born in Iraq in 1920, Yosef is a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel and a controversial figure who has in the past referred to Arabs and Palestinians as snakes and vipers who were swarming like ants.
He called on God to strike down then prime minister Ariel Sharon over the 2005 withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and during the Lebanon war in July-August 2006, implied that Israeli soldiers killed in battle died because they didn't follow Jewish commandments.In 2000 he sparked outrage when he said that the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust did not die for nothing,but were the reincarnation of Jews who had sinned in previous generations.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
US IN DIPLOMATIC PUSH
US in diplomatic push for Mideast peace Sun Jul 26, 3:49 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to the Middle East on Sunday as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Barack Obama to breathe life into faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, US officials said.
Gates' talks in Israel and Jordan coincide with high-level diplomatic visits the same week by the US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, and a delegation led by Obama's national security advisor, James Jones, US officials said.Mitchell held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday after arriving overnight for his second visit to Damascus since mid-June on a trip that was to take him on to Israel and the Palestinian territories later on Sunday.His talks with Assad are aimed at trying to see what Syria's prepared to do... to move towards a comprehensive process, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said on Thursday.We're also trying to develop... bilateral issues that we have with the Syrians as well. I would imagine both of those will come up.US President Barack Obama has moved to re-engage Damascus -- a key regional player -- as part of a bid to breathe new life into faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.Relations between the United States and Syria -- which were strained under the administration of US president George W. Bush -- have begun to improve since Barack Obama became president.Washington announced on June 24 its decision to send an ambassador back to Damascus to replace the envoy who was recalled in 2005 after the assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.The killing was widely blamed on Syria although Damascus has steadfastly denied any involvement.Washington has also accused Damascus of supporting terrorist groups, seeking to destabilise Lebanon and allowing transit through Syria of weapons and fighters headed to Iraq.The flurry of diplomacy also is expected to focus on Iran's disputed nuclear program, as the Obama administration had suggested any outreach with Tehran would have to wait until after the June 12 presidential elections.Jones will lead a delegation to Israel and the West Bank from July 28-30 to discuss the broad range of issues in our relationships with Israel and the Palestinian Authority,a White House official said.This trip builds on discussions special envoy Mitchell and Secretary Gates will have a few days earlier, the official said.Gates was due on Monday to meet his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, before holding talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense officials said.
Gates was scheduled to travel later on Monday to Jordan, where he was expected to discuss regional peace efforts, Iran and the US drawdown in Iraq among other issues with his Jordanian counterpart and King Abdullah II.The round of US diplomacy with Israel comes amid tensions between the two allies and criticism from an Israeli minister over Washington's stance on Iran's nuclear drive.Intelligence Services Minister Dan Meridor last week said comments from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested Washington was already resigned to Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.
But a senior defense official told reporters Washington shared Israel's concerns over Iran's nuclear program.I don't think there's distance on how serious we're taking that challenge,the official said. The Israelis were not opposed to Obama's bid to open a dialogue with Iran but were pessimistic about prospects for success, the official said.But Gates would not be discussing any contingency plans for a military strike against Iran and the administration remained focused on a diplomatic approach, the official said.The defense secretary and top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen have been very clear that we think that a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities could be profoundly destabilizing to the region,the official said.
The secretary is not going there to roll out a map and do contingency planning for some strike on Iran,he said. As part of Middle East peace efforts, Gates was expected to discuss bolstering Israel's security with better missile and rocket defenses, the defense official said.As Israel had faced mortar and rocket attacks when it pulled out of southern Lebanon and from Gaza, the official said it's a genuine security concern that they have.If they're going to be comfortable in taking the risk that pulling out of the West Bank eventually will require them to take, I think they're going to need some confidence that they have defense mechanisms against the possibility that history will repeat itself,he added. The official said Gates was not expected to raise Washington's demand that Israel freeze all settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territory, as that was an issue for US diplomats and not the Defense Department.The US demand for a settlement freeze has triggered an unusual public row between the two allies.
Lawmakers urge UK government to talk to Hamas By Adrian Croft – Sat Jul 25, 7:17 pm ET
LONDON (Reuters) – Lawmakers urged the British government on Sunday to talk to moderates within Hamas, saying the West's policy of shunning the Palestinian Islamist group was showing little sign of success.The British parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee said in a report it stood by a recommendation it first made two years ago that the government should engage politically with moderate elements within Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.Britain and other Western nations reject contact with Hamas because of its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace deals.Russia is the only member of the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers -- which also comprises the United States, the United Nations and the European Union -- talking to Hamas.We conclude that there continue to be few signs that the current policy of non-engagement is achieving the Quartet's stated objectives,the committee said.We further conclude that the credible peace process for which the Quartet hopes, as part of its strategy for undercutting Hamas, is likely to be difficult to achieve without greater cooperation from Hamas itself.The committee said it was concerned the Quartet was failing to provide Hamas with greater incentives to change its position. It said Britain should talk to Hamas moderates as a way of encouraging the group to meet the Quartet principles.Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government changed policy in March by saying it was open to talks with the political wing of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah, but it remains opposed to talking to Hamas.The committee, made up of Members of Parliament from all the main political parties, said it was dismayed that, six months after the end of fighting in Gaza, there was still no ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. There had been little change to several issues that contributed to the conflict, it said.We conclude that this situation makes for an ongoing risk of insecurity and a renewed escalation of violence,it said.Israel invaded Gaza on December 27, 2008 and fighting continued until January 18, 2009, killing more than 1,000 people.The committee said it was deeply concerned about the high number of casualties, the extent of the damage and allegations of violations of international law during the Gaza conflict.We conclude that Hamas targets civilians in its armed actions, and that Israel's military action in Gaza was disproportionate,it said.(Editing by Alison Williams)
US transfers $200 million in aid to Palestinians By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 24, 4:29 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – The United States has transferred $200 million to the Palestinian government to help ease a growing budget deficit, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been struggling in recent months to keep his government afloat, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from commercial banks just to cover the public payroll.The reasons for the shortfall include Israel's restrictions on the Palestinian economy, the border blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the failure of some donor countries to make good on their aid pledges, Fayyad said Friday, in a video conference with Clinton.With Friday's aid transfer, donor countries have given the Palestinian government $606 million in budget support this year, covering only about one-third of the estimated deficit of $1.45 billion for 2009, Fayyad said.We have received aid, but not enough to deal with our needs, and we faced sharp economic difficulties throughout the last months, Fayyad told reporters.Since 2007, donor countries have pledged more than $10 billion to the Palestinians, to help shore up the Western-backed government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost Gaza in a violent Hamas takeover two years ago. However, the aid has had little impact, largely because Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement have prevented a recovery of the Palestinian economy.Earlier this year, the Obama administration pledged $900 million in aid to the Palestinians, and the $200 million in budget support announced Friday are part of that sum. Clinton told Fayyad that the transfer of U.S. aid directly to his budget was an expression of confidence in his fiscal reforms.The ability of the United States to provide support directly to the Palestinian Authority is an indication of the bipartisan support for the effort to secure the peace in the Middle East, as well as for the fundamental reforms that the Palestinian Authority has undertaken,she said.Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle worked closely with us to make this assistance possible.Clinton was vague about prospects for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying only that she believes the Obama administration is making progress in creating the right environment for such negotiations in the near future.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is willing to resume negotiations, but not on the terms to which his predecessor had agreed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in turn, says he will not get back to negotiations unless Israel first halts settlement construction. The U.S. has also been pushing Israel for a settlement freeze, in line with its obligations under a U.S.-backed peace plan.
However, Israel has balked at halting construction. Earlier this week, Netanyahu publicly dismissed a U.S. request that Israel halt a housing project for Jews in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians as a capital.Clinton on Friday described the discussions with Israeli officials as very forthright,but also as conversations between friends.Senior administration officials are heading to the region in coming days, including Mideast envoy George Mitchell, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Mitchell has met repeatedly with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to discuss settlement construction.
Illegal Lebanon arms may have been Hezbollah's: U.N. By Louis Charbonneau Louis Charbonneau – Fri Jul 24, 3:01 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. peacekeeping chief has said there are signs an illegal weapons stockpile that exploded last week in southern Lebanon belonged to the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah.In a speech delivered behind closed doors to the Security Council Thursday, U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy also said that some of the people who tried to prevent U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from investigating the site were Hezbollah members dressed in civilian clothes.A number of indications suggest that the depot belonged to Hezbollah, and, in contrast to previous discoveries by UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition, that it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained, he told the 15-nation council in the speech, obtained by Reuters.Le Roy said the mere presence of such arms south of the Litani River represented a serious violation of resolution 1701.U.N. diplomats told Reuters it was the first time the world body has criticized Hezbollah so directly and sharply.Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, banned all unauthorized weapons between the Litani River and the Blue Line, the U.N.-monitored border between Israel and Lebanon.Hezbollah is backed by Iran and Syria.The weapons at the site of the explosion were from various countries and included mortars, AK-47s, artillery shells and 122mm rockets, Le Roy said.
ARMS IN GOOD ORDER
The weapons and ammunition dated from the 1970s to the 1990s and generally appeared to be in good order,he added.After Le Roy's speech, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff joined Israel in accusing Hezbollah of violating the U.N. weapons embargo in southern Lebanon and undermining the efforts of U.N. peacekeepers there.UNIFIL said last week that peacekeepers had been pelted with stones by a crowd of about 100 Lebanese in the village of Khirbet Selim while trying to investigate the July 14 explosion at the suspected arms dump. Le Roy said the blast site was still being investigated.A Hezbollah parliamentarian denied Friday the movement had any role in the disturbances and said it was keen to restore relations between UNIFIL and local people to normal.The baseless American accusations are a repetition of the Israeli position and an expression of the U.S. administration's support for continuous Israeli aggression against Lebanon via its violations and spy networks,Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters.He denied the blast was a violation of resolution 1701, saying it was a one-off accident that involved the explosion of an arms cache that had been in place before the 2006 war.Fadlallah said the U.N. Security Council had done nothing to stop Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, including almost daily military flights in breach of 1701. U.N. officials have repeatedly urged Israel to halt such illegal overflights.Israel's U.N. ambassador, Gabriela Shalev, said in a letter to the Security Council that the arms cache that exploded clearly belonged to Hezbollah.She said the actions of Hezbollah represented a clear violation of 1701 which gravely endanger the stability in the region ... (and) the local Lebanese population.(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut; editing by Mark Trevelyan)
British anti-Semitic attacks surged post Gaza: report Thu Jul 23, 7:30 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – The government said it was deeply concerned by a report Friday revealing an upsurge of anti-Semitic attacks this year in the wake of Israel's devastating three-week offensive in Gaza.The Community Security Trust (CST) said there were 609 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of this year including attacks on people and synagogues.That compares to 276 for the first six months of 2008 -- and even surpasses the 544 incidents reported in the whole of that year.Israel launched a 22-day offensive against Gaza in December last year. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.Explaining its findings in a report, the CST said: The main reason for this record number of incidents was the unprecedented number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded during January and February, during and after the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.The number of incidents recorded did not return to normal pre-Gaza levels until April, some three months after the fighting in Gaza ended.The charity, which works to protect the safety of the Jewish community here, said there were 286 anti-Semitic incidents in January -- up from 43 for the same month in 2008 -- and 111 in February, an increase from 52 twelve months before.A total of 77 of the incidents reported in the first half of 2009 were violent assaults, the CST said, while there were 63 instances of damage to and desecration of Jewish property.
The report also noted hate mail, graffiti and verbal racist abuse.
The CST said that while the number of anti-Semitic attacks often goes up because of events in the Middle East, the levels recorded over the Gaza conflict outstripped by far any such surge since it started work in 1984.Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said he was deeply concerned by the figures.We simply cannot tolerate those who seek to use foreign conflicts to justify racism and criminal acts against any UK citizen, he said.The UK's Jewish community... must be able to live free from fear of verbal or physical attack.This is not the first time the issue has been highlighted -- lawmakers from Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Semitism said in January that a wave of anti-Semitic incidents had hit Jews as the conflict raged.
Netanyahu calls for warm peace with Arabs Thu Jul 23, 3:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a warm peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours on Thursday in a rare speech at the Egyptian ambassador's residence near Tel Aviv.I think we can have a very warm peace, Netanyahu said, according to statements carried by the private Channel Ten television.We hope in the months and years ahead to forge peace with the Palestinians and to expand that into a vision of a broader regional peace,Netanyahu said.I think a comprehensive peace is possible,he added.Netanyahu made the remarks at the residence of Egyptian Ambassador Yasser Rida near Tel Aviv, where a reception was held to celebrate Egyptian national day.Israeli President Shimon Peres also attended the ceremony in Herzliya north of Tel Aviv and joined Rida and Netanyahu in symbolically cutting the cake.Egypt was the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Jordan followed suit in 1994.Relations between Israel and its peace partners have been lukewarm if not tense at times but in recent weeks several Israeli officials have travelled to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
Netanyahu was in Egypt in May, followed by Defence Minister Ehud Barak in June and Peres, whose role as president is largely ceremonial, was in the neighbouring country earlier this month.Several Israeli warships have recently passed through Egypt's Suez Canal for the first time, to take part in manoeuvres in the Red Sea.Netanyahu's remarks come as US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell prepares to return to the region this weekend to help push the peace process.US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that Mitchell will hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials and will also travel to Bahrain.Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa authored a column in The Washington Post on July 17 calling on Arab leaders to reach out to the Israeli people by engaging with Israeli media outlets.
Israel rejects French calls to freeze settlements Thu Jul 23, 12:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Thursday rejected calls by France to freeze Jewish settlement building and to reopen border crossings into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.A solution to the settlements can only be reached through a comprehensive and final peace agreement,foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.In order to promote peace, France would do well to persuade the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations with Israel which have been frozen since the end of last year, he added.
Palmor said Israel's blockade of Gaza was the result of the state of war imposed by Hamas as well as the detention for more than three years of (Israeli-French) soldier Gilad Shalit.Shalit was captured 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.Israel's ambassador to France Daniel Shek was summoned to the French foreign ministry on Thursday, where the head of political affairs Gerard Araud served him with the demands.Araud told the envoy that Paris wants an immediate freeze on settlement activities, including in east Jerusalem,ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.Israel must also re-open border crossings into Gaza blocked since the Islamist Hamas took power in 2007, on a regular basis to allow Gaza to rebuild itself and life to return to normal,Chevallier said.Israel has defied international criticism of plans to build 20 new apartments on the site of a former hotel in the Arab sector of Jerusalem and has rejected calls from the United States, the European Union and Russia to freeze settlements in east Jerusalem.
Israel says technical hitch halts US missile test Thu Jul 23, 8:57 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel said on Thursday it has called off tests of its Arrow anti-missile system in the United States after the launch attempt was hit by last-minute technical problems.A target missile was already in the air when the Israeli operators of the Arrow, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, decided to scrap the test on Wednesday, the defence ministry said in a statement.After the target was launched the Arrow system went into action, it said. Not all launch conditions were met and the interceptor missile was not fired.The official said faulty communications between Israeli and US military systems were behind the decision to abort.Israel's Arrow (Hetz in Hebrew) interceptor project was launched two decades ago and is aimed at countering strikes mainly from arch-foe Iran.In April, Israel reported successfully testing the system at home, intercepting and destroying a ballistic missile similar to Iran's Shahab-3, which can reach its soil.Begun in 1988, the Arrow programme is today half-funded by Israel's main ally, the United States. Israel considers Iran to be its arch-foe following repeated calls by Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Israel concerned over US umbrella on Iran By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 23, 3:14 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A series of failed tests of a joint U.S.-Israel anti-missile system raised new questions Thursday about the U.S. goal of providing an umbrella to defend its allies against an Iranian nuclear attack.The technological setbacks also drew renewed attention to Israel's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran and the possibility that it might lean further in the direction of a go-it alone strike against the country's atomic facilities.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's offer this week of a defense umbrella over its Gulf Arab allies to prevent Tehran from dominating the region once they have a nuclear weapon was widely seen in Israel as an acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran. She later tried to dispel that view, but her comments sparked criticism by Israeli officials.Israel considers Iran its most dangerous enemy because of its nuclear program, long-range missile development and repeated references by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Israel's destruction. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel and the U.S. reject that.Adding to the urgency was word Wednesday from the head of the Russian nuclear agency that Iran's new atomic power plant will be switched on later this year.For a decade, Israel has been presenting its Arrow anti-missile system, developed and jointly funded with the U.S., as an answer to medium-range Iranian missiles that might carry nuclear warheads. Tested repeatedly, the Arrow system has often succeeded in intercepting dummy incoming missiles, to great fanfare.But just as Clinton worried Israelis by speaking of an umbrella over U.S. allies threatened by Iran, word came of three test failures in the Arrow system over the past week. The latest was in California, where a test was aborted before the Arrow missile could be launched because of a communications failure, according to Israeli defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the tests.
Experts played down the importance of the failures.Arrow has had a pretty successful test program,said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.I wouldn't be overly concerned about a problem like this.Uzi Rubin, former director of the Arrow project, agreed. It's really not a very serious glitch in the system that would require going back to the drawing board,he said.But the failures underlined the complexity of the whole anti-missile concept, which has been compared to throwing a rock in the air and trying to hit it with another rock. Israeli media personalities wondered if any system could protect Israel if multiple rockets were fired together.If Clinton's umbrella offer, made in a television interview in Thailand, was meant to reassure nervous Israelis, it had the opposite effect.Dan Meridor, Israel's minister of intelligence and atomic energy, was critical of Clinton's implications.He said it appeared as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran. I think that's a mistake.He told Army Radio,I think that at this time it is correct not to deal with the assumption that Iran will obtain nuclear capability, but to prevent that from happening.Ever since President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to explore diplomatic contacts with Iran, Israeli officials have voiced concerns that talks would give Iran more time to develop nuclear weapons. Israelis have also suspected that the Obama administration was planning for a future Mideast that included a nuclear-armed Iran — something Israel would consider a threat to its existence.
Hours after Meridor spoke, Clinton clarified her remarks, saying she was not suggesting any new policy on Iran and continued to believe that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.U.S. officials have not defined what Clinton meant by her original umbrella comment.Analysts offered two contrasting explanations: a threat of retaliation for any Iranian nuclear strike, or supplying U.S. allies with defense systems aimed at preventing such an attack.The umbrella formulation did not appear to include Israel, though about 150 American soldiers have been training with Israeli soldiers in the southern Negev desert for several months on advanced radar installations that could be used in missile defense, according to Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the project. Israel has pointedly not taken the option of a military strike off the table, recalling Israel's lightning 1981 airstrike that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor. Experts doubt Israel has the capability of wiping out all of Iran's nuclear facilities, which are said to be scattered around the country, some of them hidden. But hitting well chosen targets could set back Iran's nuclear ambitions for years. Political analyst Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Israel's Bar Ilan University, said a perception that the U.S. was backing away from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons could add to Israeli decision makers' concerns that the U.S. isn't going to take action, and so Israel should.But Israel has not broadcast an urge to attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long urged concerted international action, including tougher sanctions, and hard-line Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel would not attack Iran just to do the work of others. Lieberman is visiting South America, and the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jerusalem refused to comment on the issue of the umbrella.Associated Press writers Ian Deitch and Jen Thomas contributed to this report.
Israel doesn't see U.S. limiting loan guarantees By Tova Cohen – Thu Jul 23, 7:43 am ET
TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel does not expect the United States to limit use of loan guarantees despite a dispute with Washington over building in East Jerusalem or in West Bank settlements, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Thursday.I don't see any limitations on the horizon. It's not time to be concerned about that, Steinitz told reporters.He added that Israel would prefer not to use them.I don't see any need to use them in the near future,Steinitz said.But it's good they are there.He noted that prior disputes over settlement building have led the United States to deduct rather than cancel the guarantees.In 2002, to help Israel deal with a recession caused by a global downturn and a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, the U.S. provided a package of $9 billion in loan guarantees, where Israel could sell bonds internationally with the backing of the United States.The guarantees have been instrumental in allowing Israel to raise money more cheaply and in sovereign ratings upgrades by credit rating agencies.Israel still has $3.8 billion left to use by 2011 after already issuing $4.1 billion in bonds backed by the U.S. and a $1.1 billion deduction for Israeli settlement building and concerns over a security fence in the West Bank.Palestinians are looking to set up a state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in the 1967 war.
Last month, the United States re-approved Israel's loan guarantee program, subject to Israel meeting fiscal targets. It came despite the most serious rift between Israel and its main ally in more than a decade due to Israel's rejection of U.S. demands to halt settlement building.The tensions have grown as Israel also plans to build apartments in East Jerusalem.In recent years, Israel has opted to issue bonds without U.S. backing. Its latest offering using its own creditworthiness was a sale of $1.5 billion in 10-year notes this past March at 262.5 basis points over U.S. Treasuries.
Steinitz said Israel's economy remained weak but was starting to stabilize.He pointed to positive developments in recent weeks including the first rise in the Bank of Israel's economic performance index in 11 months in June, passing of the 2009 and 2010 state budgets, Standard & Poor's affirming Israel's credit ratings and stabilizing tax collections.He also rejected demands from union leaders for a cost of living adjustment due to a spike in the annual inflation rate to 3.6 percent in June.
Steinitz mainly blamed government tax increases for the rise in the June consumer price index although he said it appeared that consumer demand was starting to improve.
I don't think inflation is starting to rear its head,he said.We need at least a half year to determine if inflation is starting to creep up.(Writing by Steven Scheer and Tova Cohen; Editing by Ron Askew)
Turkish leader presses Israel to return Golan By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 22, 1:42 pm ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – Turkey's prime minister said Wednesday his country is prepared to resume mediating in the Arab-Israeli conflict and pressed Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria.The Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan also strongly reprimanded Palestinians for the divisions between the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and Hamas militants who run the Gaza Strip.(Palestinian) brothers are living apart from each other... What kind of brotherhood is that? he asked.Erdogan helped mediate last year in four rounds of indirect peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. But Syria suspended them in December over Israel's military offensive in Gaza.
Unfortunately, with the Gaza incidents, this process was obstructed. Our wish would be that this not be obstructed, and this negativity be removed by returning Syria's rights,Erdogan said after meeting with President Bashar Assad in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.Before he left Turkey, Erdogan reiterated his country's readiness to help restart indirect talks between Syria and Israel. Turkey has also offered to mediate in other tracks of the Arab-Israeli peace process.New requests regarding this process may come up. ... In fact, they have already started to come,Erdogan told a news conference. He did not say who made the requests.Syria has said it is willing to resume the Turkish-mediated talks if they focus on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, captured in 1967. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is not willing to cede the territory Syria wants.A government newspaper, Al-Thawra, said in an editorial Wednesday that Syria wants to restore all of Golan and would not agree to start negotiations from scratch.It's not in the interest of peace to waste time or efforts or to return to point zero under the pretext of preconditions,it said in an editorial. Moving toward negotiations means an endorsement of a full withdrawal from the occupied land.Assad said in a newspaper interview in March that the Turkish-mediated talks failed because Israel would not make a clear commitment to return all of the Golan up to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.Assad said Israel wanted to keep some disputed land around the Galilee, its main water source.Israel, for its part, demands that Syria end its support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.Direct talks between Israel and Syria under U.S. auspices also failed in 2000 over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.Last month, President Barack Obama's special Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell, became the highest-level U.S. administration official to visit Damascus since 2005. He acknowledged Syria's clout, declaring Damascus has a key role to play in forging Mideast peace.Associated Press reporters Suzan Fraser and Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.
Netanyahu says West Bank barrier to stay for now Wed Jul 22, 10:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Wednesday any notion he would order Israel's barrier in the West Bank to be torn down in response to the absence of Palestinian attacks from the occupied territory.The separation fence will remain in place and will not be dismantled, Netanyahu said in a speech in parliament.I hear they are saying today that because it's quiet, it's possible to take down the fence. My friends, the opposite is true,he said.It's quiet because a fence exists.Netanyahu made the comments after Israel's Maariv newspaper said Palestinian officials had pressed Washington to push for the barrier to be dismantled because of an improved security situation in the West Bank.Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters he had approached the United States on the issue. The Israelis know that the wall adds to the complexities. It's part of the problem and not part of the solution,he said.Israeli leaders have portrayed the barrier as a temporary obstacle that could be moved once a peace agreement with the Palestinians was signed and attacks on Israel ceased.In his speech, Netanyahu said Israel welcomed a certain improvement in the functioning of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. But he added: The fence is important.Work on the barrier began in 2002, the height of a Palestinian uprising. Israel said the project was necessary to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities. Palestinians called it a land grab that could deny them a viable state.There has been a dramatic drop in the number of attacks in Israel over the past several years, a decrease security experts attribute to the barrier, Israeli and Palestinian Authority security steps and a change of tactics by some militant groups.No suicide bombers have struck this year. In 2008, one person was killed in Israel by a bomber whom authorities said infiltrated from the West Bank through an area where the barrier had not been completed.The International Court of Justice, in a non-binding decision in 2004, said the barrier was illegal and should be taken down because it crossed occupied territory.The barrier, mainly razor-wired tipped fences but also comprised of towering concrete walls, snakes through land Israel captured in a 1967 war.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)(For blogs and links on Israeli and Palestinian news, go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to the Middle East on Sunday as part of a broader diplomatic push by President Barack Obama to breathe life into faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, US officials said.
Gates' talks in Israel and Jordan coincide with high-level diplomatic visits the same week by the US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, and a delegation led by Obama's national security advisor, James Jones, US officials said.Mitchell held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday after arriving overnight for his second visit to Damascus since mid-June on a trip that was to take him on to Israel and the Palestinian territories later on Sunday.His talks with Assad are aimed at trying to see what Syria's prepared to do... to move towards a comprehensive process, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said on Thursday.We're also trying to develop... bilateral issues that we have with the Syrians as well. I would imagine both of those will come up.US President Barack Obama has moved to re-engage Damascus -- a key regional player -- as part of a bid to breathe new life into faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.Relations between the United States and Syria -- which were strained under the administration of US president George W. Bush -- have begun to improve since Barack Obama became president.Washington announced on June 24 its decision to send an ambassador back to Damascus to replace the envoy who was recalled in 2005 after the assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.The killing was widely blamed on Syria although Damascus has steadfastly denied any involvement.Washington has also accused Damascus of supporting terrorist groups, seeking to destabilise Lebanon and allowing transit through Syria of weapons and fighters headed to Iraq.The flurry of diplomacy also is expected to focus on Iran's disputed nuclear program, as the Obama administration had suggested any outreach with Tehran would have to wait until after the June 12 presidential elections.Jones will lead a delegation to Israel and the West Bank from July 28-30 to discuss the broad range of issues in our relationships with Israel and the Palestinian Authority,a White House official said.This trip builds on discussions special envoy Mitchell and Secretary Gates will have a few days earlier, the official said.Gates was due on Monday to meet his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, before holding talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defense officials said.
Gates was scheduled to travel later on Monday to Jordan, where he was expected to discuss regional peace efforts, Iran and the US drawdown in Iraq among other issues with his Jordanian counterpart and King Abdullah II.The round of US diplomacy with Israel comes amid tensions between the two allies and criticism from an Israeli minister over Washington's stance on Iran's nuclear drive.Intelligence Services Minister Dan Meridor last week said comments from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested Washington was already resigned to Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.
But a senior defense official told reporters Washington shared Israel's concerns over Iran's nuclear program.I don't think there's distance on how serious we're taking that challenge,the official said. The Israelis were not opposed to Obama's bid to open a dialogue with Iran but were pessimistic about prospects for success, the official said.But Gates would not be discussing any contingency plans for a military strike against Iran and the administration remained focused on a diplomatic approach, the official said.The defense secretary and top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen have been very clear that we think that a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities could be profoundly destabilizing to the region,the official said.
The secretary is not going there to roll out a map and do contingency planning for some strike on Iran,he said. As part of Middle East peace efforts, Gates was expected to discuss bolstering Israel's security with better missile and rocket defenses, the defense official said.As Israel had faced mortar and rocket attacks when it pulled out of southern Lebanon and from Gaza, the official said it's a genuine security concern that they have.If they're going to be comfortable in taking the risk that pulling out of the West Bank eventually will require them to take, I think they're going to need some confidence that they have defense mechanisms against the possibility that history will repeat itself,he added. The official said Gates was not expected to raise Washington's demand that Israel freeze all settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territory, as that was an issue for US diplomats and not the Defense Department.The US demand for a settlement freeze has triggered an unusual public row between the two allies.
Lawmakers urge UK government to talk to Hamas By Adrian Croft – Sat Jul 25, 7:17 pm ET
LONDON (Reuters) – Lawmakers urged the British government on Sunday to talk to moderates within Hamas, saying the West's policy of shunning the Palestinian Islamist group was showing little sign of success.The British parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee said in a report it stood by a recommendation it first made two years ago that the government should engage politically with moderate elements within Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.Britain and other Western nations reject contact with Hamas because of its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace deals.Russia is the only member of the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers -- which also comprises the United States, the United Nations and the European Union -- talking to Hamas.We conclude that there continue to be few signs that the current policy of non-engagement is achieving the Quartet's stated objectives,the committee said.We further conclude that the credible peace process for which the Quartet hopes, as part of its strategy for undercutting Hamas, is likely to be difficult to achieve without greater cooperation from Hamas itself.The committee said it was concerned the Quartet was failing to provide Hamas with greater incentives to change its position. It said Britain should talk to Hamas moderates as a way of encouraging the group to meet the Quartet principles.Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government changed policy in March by saying it was open to talks with the political wing of Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah, but it remains opposed to talking to Hamas.The committee, made up of Members of Parliament from all the main political parties, said it was dismayed that, six months after the end of fighting in Gaza, there was still no ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. There had been little change to several issues that contributed to the conflict, it said.We conclude that this situation makes for an ongoing risk of insecurity and a renewed escalation of violence,it said.Israel invaded Gaza on December 27, 2008 and fighting continued until January 18, 2009, killing more than 1,000 people.The committee said it was deeply concerned about the high number of casualties, the extent of the damage and allegations of violations of international law during the Gaza conflict.We conclude that Hamas targets civilians in its armed actions, and that Israel's military action in Gaza was disproportionate,it said.(Editing by Alison Williams)
US transfers $200 million in aid to Palestinians By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 24, 4:29 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – The United States has transferred $200 million to the Palestinian government to help ease a growing budget deficit, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been struggling in recent months to keep his government afloat, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from commercial banks just to cover the public payroll.The reasons for the shortfall include Israel's restrictions on the Palestinian economy, the border blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the failure of some donor countries to make good on their aid pledges, Fayyad said Friday, in a video conference with Clinton.With Friday's aid transfer, donor countries have given the Palestinian government $606 million in budget support this year, covering only about one-third of the estimated deficit of $1.45 billion for 2009, Fayyad said.We have received aid, but not enough to deal with our needs, and we faced sharp economic difficulties throughout the last months, Fayyad told reporters.Since 2007, donor countries have pledged more than $10 billion to the Palestinians, to help shore up the Western-backed government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost Gaza in a violent Hamas takeover two years ago. However, the aid has had little impact, largely because Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement have prevented a recovery of the Palestinian economy.Earlier this year, the Obama administration pledged $900 million in aid to the Palestinians, and the $200 million in budget support announced Friday are part of that sum. Clinton told Fayyad that the transfer of U.S. aid directly to his budget was an expression of confidence in his fiscal reforms.The ability of the United States to provide support directly to the Palestinian Authority is an indication of the bipartisan support for the effort to secure the peace in the Middle East, as well as for the fundamental reforms that the Palestinian Authority has undertaken,she said.Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle worked closely with us to make this assistance possible.Clinton was vague about prospects for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, saying only that she believes the Obama administration is making progress in creating the right environment for such negotiations in the near future.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is willing to resume negotiations, but not on the terms to which his predecessor had agreed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in turn, says he will not get back to negotiations unless Israel first halts settlement construction. The U.S. has also been pushing Israel for a settlement freeze, in line with its obligations under a U.S.-backed peace plan.
However, Israel has balked at halting construction. Earlier this week, Netanyahu publicly dismissed a U.S. request that Israel halt a housing project for Jews in east Jerusalem, the part of the city claimed by the Palestinians as a capital.Clinton on Friday described the discussions with Israeli officials as very forthright,but also as conversations between friends.Senior administration officials are heading to the region in coming days, including Mideast envoy George Mitchell, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Mitchell has met repeatedly with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to discuss settlement construction.
Illegal Lebanon arms may have been Hezbollah's: U.N. By Louis Charbonneau Louis Charbonneau – Fri Jul 24, 3:01 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. peacekeeping chief has said there are signs an illegal weapons stockpile that exploded last week in southern Lebanon belonged to the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah.In a speech delivered behind closed doors to the Security Council Thursday, U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy also said that some of the people who tried to prevent U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from investigating the site were Hezbollah members dressed in civilian clothes.A number of indications suggest that the depot belonged to Hezbollah, and, in contrast to previous discoveries by UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition, that it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained, he told the 15-nation council in the speech, obtained by Reuters.Le Roy said the mere presence of such arms south of the Litani River represented a serious violation of resolution 1701.U.N. diplomats told Reuters it was the first time the world body has criticized Hezbollah so directly and sharply.Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, banned all unauthorized weapons between the Litani River and the Blue Line, the U.N.-monitored border between Israel and Lebanon.Hezbollah is backed by Iran and Syria.The weapons at the site of the explosion were from various countries and included mortars, AK-47s, artillery shells and 122mm rockets, Le Roy said.
ARMS IN GOOD ORDER
The weapons and ammunition dated from the 1970s to the 1990s and generally appeared to be in good order,he added.After Le Roy's speech, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff joined Israel in accusing Hezbollah of violating the U.N. weapons embargo in southern Lebanon and undermining the efforts of U.N. peacekeepers there.UNIFIL said last week that peacekeepers had been pelted with stones by a crowd of about 100 Lebanese in the village of Khirbet Selim while trying to investigate the July 14 explosion at the suspected arms dump. Le Roy said the blast site was still being investigated.A Hezbollah parliamentarian denied Friday the movement had any role in the disturbances and said it was keen to restore relations between UNIFIL and local people to normal.The baseless American accusations are a repetition of the Israeli position and an expression of the U.S. administration's support for continuous Israeli aggression against Lebanon via its violations and spy networks,Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters.He denied the blast was a violation of resolution 1701, saying it was a one-off accident that involved the explosion of an arms cache that had been in place before the 2006 war.Fadlallah said the U.N. Security Council had done nothing to stop Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, including almost daily military flights in breach of 1701. U.N. officials have repeatedly urged Israel to halt such illegal overflights.Israel's U.N. ambassador, Gabriela Shalev, said in a letter to the Security Council that the arms cache that exploded clearly belonged to Hezbollah.She said the actions of Hezbollah represented a clear violation of 1701 which gravely endanger the stability in the region ... (and) the local Lebanese population.(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut; editing by Mark Trevelyan)
British anti-Semitic attacks surged post Gaza: report Thu Jul 23, 7:30 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – The government said it was deeply concerned by a report Friday revealing an upsurge of anti-Semitic attacks this year in the wake of Israel's devastating three-week offensive in Gaza.The Community Security Trust (CST) said there were 609 anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of this year including attacks on people and synagogues.That compares to 276 for the first six months of 2008 -- and even surpasses the 544 incidents reported in the whole of that year.Israel launched a 22-day offensive against Gaza in December last year. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.Explaining its findings in a report, the CST said: The main reason for this record number of incidents was the unprecedented number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded during January and February, during and after the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.The number of incidents recorded did not return to normal pre-Gaza levels until April, some three months after the fighting in Gaza ended.The charity, which works to protect the safety of the Jewish community here, said there were 286 anti-Semitic incidents in January -- up from 43 for the same month in 2008 -- and 111 in February, an increase from 52 twelve months before.A total of 77 of the incidents reported in the first half of 2009 were violent assaults, the CST said, while there were 63 instances of damage to and desecration of Jewish property.
The report also noted hate mail, graffiti and verbal racist abuse.
The CST said that while the number of anti-Semitic attacks often goes up because of events in the Middle East, the levels recorded over the Gaza conflict outstripped by far any such surge since it started work in 1984.Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said he was deeply concerned by the figures.We simply cannot tolerate those who seek to use foreign conflicts to justify racism and criminal acts against any UK citizen, he said.The UK's Jewish community... must be able to live free from fear of verbal or physical attack.This is not the first time the issue has been highlighted -- lawmakers from Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Semitism said in January that a wave of anti-Semitic incidents had hit Jews as the conflict raged.
Netanyahu calls for warm peace with Arabs Thu Jul 23, 3:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a warm peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours on Thursday in a rare speech at the Egyptian ambassador's residence near Tel Aviv.I think we can have a very warm peace, Netanyahu said, according to statements carried by the private Channel Ten television.We hope in the months and years ahead to forge peace with the Palestinians and to expand that into a vision of a broader regional peace,Netanyahu said.I think a comprehensive peace is possible,he added.Netanyahu made the remarks at the residence of Egyptian Ambassador Yasser Rida near Tel Aviv, where a reception was held to celebrate Egyptian national day.Israeli President Shimon Peres also attended the ceremony in Herzliya north of Tel Aviv and joined Rida and Netanyahu in symbolically cutting the cake.Egypt was the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Jordan followed suit in 1994.Relations between Israel and its peace partners have been lukewarm if not tense at times but in recent weeks several Israeli officials have travelled to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
Netanyahu was in Egypt in May, followed by Defence Minister Ehud Barak in June and Peres, whose role as president is largely ceremonial, was in the neighbouring country earlier this month.Several Israeli warships have recently passed through Egypt's Suez Canal for the first time, to take part in manoeuvres in the Red Sea.Netanyahu's remarks come as US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell prepares to return to the region this weekend to help push the peace process.US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that Mitchell will hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials and will also travel to Bahrain.Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa authored a column in The Washington Post on July 17 calling on Arab leaders to reach out to the Israeli people by engaging with Israeli media outlets.
Israel rejects French calls to freeze settlements Thu Jul 23, 12:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Thursday rejected calls by France to freeze Jewish settlement building and to reopen border crossings into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.A solution to the settlements can only be reached through a comprehensive and final peace agreement,foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.In order to promote peace, France would do well to persuade the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations with Israel which have been frozen since the end of last year, he added.
Palmor said Israel's blockade of Gaza was the result of the state of war imposed by Hamas as well as the detention for more than three years of (Israeli-French) soldier Gilad Shalit.Shalit was captured 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.Israel's ambassador to France Daniel Shek was summoned to the French foreign ministry on Thursday, where the head of political affairs Gerard Araud served him with the demands.Araud told the envoy that Paris wants an immediate freeze on settlement activities, including in east Jerusalem,ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.Israel must also re-open border crossings into Gaza blocked since the Islamist Hamas took power in 2007, on a regular basis to allow Gaza to rebuild itself and life to return to normal,Chevallier said.Israel has defied international criticism of plans to build 20 new apartments on the site of a former hotel in the Arab sector of Jerusalem and has rejected calls from the United States, the European Union and Russia to freeze settlements in east Jerusalem.
Israel says technical hitch halts US missile test Thu Jul 23, 8:57 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel said on Thursday it has called off tests of its Arrow anti-missile system in the United States after the launch attempt was hit by last-minute technical problems.A target missile was already in the air when the Israeli operators of the Arrow, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, decided to scrap the test on Wednesday, the defence ministry said in a statement.After the target was launched the Arrow system went into action, it said. Not all launch conditions were met and the interceptor missile was not fired.The official said faulty communications between Israeli and US military systems were behind the decision to abort.Israel's Arrow (Hetz in Hebrew) interceptor project was launched two decades ago and is aimed at countering strikes mainly from arch-foe Iran.In April, Israel reported successfully testing the system at home, intercepting and destroying a ballistic missile similar to Iran's Shahab-3, which can reach its soil.Begun in 1988, the Arrow programme is today half-funded by Israel's main ally, the United States. Israel considers Iran to be its arch-foe following repeated calls by Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map.
Israel concerned over US umbrella on Iran By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 23, 3:14 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A series of failed tests of a joint U.S.-Israel anti-missile system raised new questions Thursday about the U.S. goal of providing an umbrella to defend its allies against an Iranian nuclear attack.The technological setbacks also drew renewed attention to Israel's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran and the possibility that it might lean further in the direction of a go-it alone strike against the country's atomic facilities.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's offer this week of a defense umbrella over its Gulf Arab allies to prevent Tehran from dominating the region once they have a nuclear weapon was widely seen in Israel as an acceptance of a nuclear-armed Iran. She later tried to dispel that view, but her comments sparked criticism by Israeli officials.Israel considers Iran its most dangerous enemy because of its nuclear program, long-range missile development and repeated references by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Israel's destruction. Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Israel and the U.S. reject that.Adding to the urgency was word Wednesday from the head of the Russian nuclear agency that Iran's new atomic power plant will be switched on later this year.For a decade, Israel has been presenting its Arrow anti-missile system, developed and jointly funded with the U.S., as an answer to medium-range Iranian missiles that might carry nuclear warheads. Tested repeatedly, the Arrow system has often succeeded in intercepting dummy incoming missiles, to great fanfare.But just as Clinton worried Israelis by speaking of an umbrella over U.S. allies threatened by Iran, word came of three test failures in the Arrow system over the past week. The latest was in California, where a test was aborted before the Arrow missile could be launched because of a communications failure, according to Israeli defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the tests.
Experts played down the importance of the failures.Arrow has had a pretty successful test program,said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.I wouldn't be overly concerned about a problem like this.Uzi Rubin, former director of the Arrow project, agreed. It's really not a very serious glitch in the system that would require going back to the drawing board,he said.But the failures underlined the complexity of the whole anti-missile concept, which has been compared to throwing a rock in the air and trying to hit it with another rock. Israeli media personalities wondered if any system could protect Israel if multiple rockets were fired together.If Clinton's umbrella offer, made in a television interview in Thailand, was meant to reassure nervous Israelis, it had the opposite effect.Dan Meridor, Israel's minister of intelligence and atomic energy, was critical of Clinton's implications.He said it appeared as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran. I think that's a mistake.He told Army Radio,I think that at this time it is correct not to deal with the assumption that Iran will obtain nuclear capability, but to prevent that from happening.Ever since President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to explore diplomatic contacts with Iran, Israeli officials have voiced concerns that talks would give Iran more time to develop nuclear weapons. Israelis have also suspected that the Obama administration was planning for a future Mideast that included a nuclear-armed Iran — something Israel would consider a threat to its existence.
Hours after Meridor spoke, Clinton clarified her remarks, saying she was not suggesting any new policy on Iran and continued to believe that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.U.S. officials have not defined what Clinton meant by her original umbrella comment.Analysts offered two contrasting explanations: a threat of retaliation for any Iranian nuclear strike, or supplying U.S. allies with defense systems aimed at preventing such an attack.The umbrella formulation did not appear to include Israel, though about 150 American soldiers have been training with Israeli soldiers in the southern Negev desert for several months on advanced radar installations that could be used in missile defense, according to Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the project. Israel has pointedly not taken the option of a military strike off the table, recalling Israel's lightning 1981 airstrike that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor. Experts doubt Israel has the capability of wiping out all of Iran's nuclear facilities, which are said to be scattered around the country, some of them hidden. But hitting well chosen targets could set back Iran's nuclear ambitions for years. Political analyst Gerald Steinberg, a professor at Israel's Bar Ilan University, said a perception that the U.S. was backing away from preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons could add to Israeli decision makers' concerns that the U.S. isn't going to take action, and so Israel should.But Israel has not broadcast an urge to attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long urged concerted international action, including tougher sanctions, and hard-line Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel would not attack Iran just to do the work of others. Lieberman is visiting South America, and the Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jerusalem refused to comment on the issue of the umbrella.Associated Press writers Ian Deitch and Jen Thomas contributed to this report.
Israel doesn't see U.S. limiting loan guarantees By Tova Cohen – Thu Jul 23, 7:43 am ET
TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel does not expect the United States to limit use of loan guarantees despite a dispute with Washington over building in East Jerusalem or in West Bank settlements, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Thursday.I don't see any limitations on the horizon. It's not time to be concerned about that, Steinitz told reporters.He added that Israel would prefer not to use them.I don't see any need to use them in the near future,Steinitz said.But it's good they are there.He noted that prior disputes over settlement building have led the United States to deduct rather than cancel the guarantees.In 2002, to help Israel deal with a recession caused by a global downturn and a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, the U.S. provided a package of $9 billion in loan guarantees, where Israel could sell bonds internationally with the backing of the United States.The guarantees have been instrumental in allowing Israel to raise money more cheaply and in sovereign ratings upgrades by credit rating agencies.Israel still has $3.8 billion left to use by 2011 after already issuing $4.1 billion in bonds backed by the U.S. and a $1.1 billion deduction for Israeli settlement building and concerns over a security fence in the West Bank.Palestinians are looking to set up a state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in the 1967 war.
Last month, the United States re-approved Israel's loan guarantee program, subject to Israel meeting fiscal targets. It came despite the most serious rift between Israel and its main ally in more than a decade due to Israel's rejection of U.S. demands to halt settlement building.The tensions have grown as Israel also plans to build apartments in East Jerusalem.In recent years, Israel has opted to issue bonds without U.S. backing. Its latest offering using its own creditworthiness was a sale of $1.5 billion in 10-year notes this past March at 262.5 basis points over U.S. Treasuries.
Steinitz said Israel's economy remained weak but was starting to stabilize.He pointed to positive developments in recent weeks including the first rise in the Bank of Israel's economic performance index in 11 months in June, passing of the 2009 and 2010 state budgets, Standard & Poor's affirming Israel's credit ratings and stabilizing tax collections.He also rejected demands from union leaders for a cost of living adjustment due to a spike in the annual inflation rate to 3.6 percent in June.
Steinitz mainly blamed government tax increases for the rise in the June consumer price index although he said it appeared that consumer demand was starting to improve.
I don't think inflation is starting to rear its head,he said.We need at least a half year to determine if inflation is starting to creep up.(Writing by Steven Scheer and Tova Cohen; Editing by Ron Askew)
Turkish leader presses Israel to return Golan By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 22, 1:42 pm ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – Turkey's prime minister said Wednesday his country is prepared to resume mediating in the Arab-Israeli conflict and pressed Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria.The Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan also strongly reprimanded Palestinians for the divisions between the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and Hamas militants who run the Gaza Strip.(Palestinian) brothers are living apart from each other... What kind of brotherhood is that? he asked.Erdogan helped mediate last year in four rounds of indirect peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. But Syria suspended them in December over Israel's military offensive in Gaza.
Unfortunately, with the Gaza incidents, this process was obstructed. Our wish would be that this not be obstructed, and this negativity be removed by returning Syria's rights,Erdogan said after meeting with President Bashar Assad in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.Before he left Turkey, Erdogan reiterated his country's readiness to help restart indirect talks between Syria and Israel. Turkey has also offered to mediate in other tracks of the Arab-Israeli peace process.New requests regarding this process may come up. ... In fact, they have already started to come,Erdogan told a news conference. He did not say who made the requests.Syria has said it is willing to resume the Turkish-mediated talks if they focus on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, captured in 1967. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is not willing to cede the territory Syria wants.A government newspaper, Al-Thawra, said in an editorial Wednesday that Syria wants to restore all of Golan and would not agree to start negotiations from scratch.It's not in the interest of peace to waste time or efforts or to return to point zero under the pretext of preconditions,it said in an editorial. Moving toward negotiations means an endorsement of a full withdrawal from the occupied land.Assad said in a newspaper interview in March that the Turkish-mediated talks failed because Israel would not make a clear commitment to return all of the Golan up to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.Assad said Israel wanted to keep some disputed land around the Galilee, its main water source.Israel, for its part, demands that Syria end its support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.Direct talks between Israel and Syria under U.S. auspices also failed in 2000 over the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.Last month, President Barack Obama's special Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell, became the highest-level U.S. administration official to visit Damascus since 2005. He acknowledged Syria's clout, declaring Damascus has a key role to play in forging Mideast peace.Associated Press reporters Suzan Fraser and Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.
Netanyahu says West Bank barrier to stay for now Wed Jul 22, 10:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Wednesday any notion he would order Israel's barrier in the West Bank to be torn down in response to the absence of Palestinian attacks from the occupied territory.The separation fence will remain in place and will not be dismantled, Netanyahu said in a speech in parliament.I hear they are saying today that because it's quiet, it's possible to take down the fence. My friends, the opposite is true,he said.It's quiet because a fence exists.Netanyahu made the comments after Israel's Maariv newspaper said Palestinian officials had pressed Washington to push for the barrier to be dismantled because of an improved security situation in the West Bank.Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters he had approached the United States on the issue. The Israelis know that the wall adds to the complexities. It's part of the problem and not part of the solution,he said.Israeli leaders have portrayed the barrier as a temporary obstacle that could be moved once a peace agreement with the Palestinians was signed and attacks on Israel ceased.In his speech, Netanyahu said Israel welcomed a certain improvement in the functioning of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. But he added: The fence is important.Work on the barrier began in 2002, the height of a Palestinian uprising. Israel said the project was necessary to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities. Palestinians called it a land grab that could deny them a viable state.There has been a dramatic drop in the number of attacks in Israel over the past several years, a decrease security experts attribute to the barrier, Israeli and Palestinian Authority security steps and a change of tactics by some militant groups.No suicide bombers have struck this year. In 2008, one person was killed in Israel by a bomber whom authorities said infiltrated from the West Bank through an area where the barrier had not been completed.The International Court of Justice, in a non-binding decision in 2004, said the barrier was illegal and should be taken down because it crossed occupied territory.The barrier, mainly razor-wired tipped fences but also comprised of towering concrete walls, snakes through land Israel captured in a 1967 war.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)(For blogs and links on Israeli and Palestinian news, go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
EU PRESSURES ISRAEL ON SETTLEMENTS
Europe raises pressure on Israel to stop settlements By Allyn Fisher-Ilan – Tue Jul 21, 3:06 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Germany, France and EU president Sweden on Tuesday joined Western nations pressing Israel to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank under a U.S.-led effort to resume stalled peace talks.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted international calls to freeze building in occupied territory, seemed to show a sign of flexibility as a newspaper reported a secret plan to remove two dozen unauthorized settler outposts.Israel has long pledged to dismantle hilltop outposts that it never approved, but has continued building larger settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, land it captured in a 1967 war, and where Palestinians want to build a future state.Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would not resume peace talks with Israel, stalled since Israel elected Netanyahu, a right-wing settler champion in February, unless all settlement construction stopped.In Berlin, Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, was quoted as saying Israel ran the risk of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state if it did not stop the construction.Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, further told the Rheinische Post daily that Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem.
The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador, Daniel Shek, in Paris, to protest against a planned Israeli housing project for East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital and which Palestinians also seek to make their capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after its capture, in a move never recognized internationally.
THOUSANDS THREATENED WITH DISPLACEMENT
European Union president Sweden urged from Stockholm that Israel refrain from demolishing homes in East Jerusalem where thousands are threatened with displacement.
Jerusalem has emerged as a focal point of the settlement controversy since Israeli officials accused the U.S. State Department on Sunday of telling Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, Israel should suspend plans to build about 20 housing units in the city's eastern sector.The United States has never confirmed it made this demand, but Netanyahu rejected it in televised remarks to his cabinet, a move analysts saw as capitalizing on broad popular support in the country for Israel's continued control of the disputed city.Israel shut a hotel fair in East Jerusalem in the latest of several Palestinian cultural events it has disrupted in recent months saying an interim peace deal permits it to bar the Palestinian government from holding events in the city.They want us to leave Jerusalem, but we will not,Rafiq al-Husseini, an aide to Abbas, said.Neither Netanyahu's office nor the Israeli army would comment on a report in the respected Haaretz daily that the military was preparing to forcibly evacuate 23 illegal outposts in one day, in a plan drawn up with Netanyahu's knowledge.The same Haaretz columnist disclosed plans to remove troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip before that pullout occurred in 2005.
Separately, a report by the Macro Center of the Israeli European Policy Network said settlements were receiving a larger share of government funding than municipalities inside Israel, and the settler population was also growing three times as fast.While Israeli municipalities as a whole receive 34.7 percent of their income from (the government) and obtain another 64.3 percent from their own income, settlement municipalities obtain 57 percent from the (government) and only 42.8 percent from their own income,the report said.(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, and Douglas Hamilton and Ali Sawafta in Jerusalem)
Israeli settlements political suicide: Merkel ally Tue Jul 21, 10:55 am ET
BERLIN (Reuters) – A senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party on Tuesday urged Israel not to build more settlements, warning it risked political suicide if it continued to do so.In unusually strong comments for a German politician, Ruprecht Polenz, the head of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted as saying Israel's aim of having secure borders would only be possible with a two-state solution.If Israel did not stop building settlements it ran the risk of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state,Polenz told the Rheinische Post daily.Enjoying safe borders would only be conceivable for Israel if East Jerusalem could operate as the capital of a Palestinian state, said Polenz. But he added Israel was trying to cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank by building more settlements.
Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem,Polenz told the paper.German politicians, who feel they have a special obligation to the country due to the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed, tend to be softer in their criticism of Israel than many other countries.Separately, European Union president Sweden urged Israel to refrain from evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in Arab East Jerusalem, where thousands are threatened with displacement.A U.N. report in May said some 1,500 demolition orders were pending for homes built without a permit from Israel's Jerusalem Municipality in the east of the city.The Swedish president said such actions were illegal under international law and called for them to end.These eviction notices follow other recent orders which adversely affect Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and, combined with the increase in settlement activity in East Jerusalem, further threaten the chances of peace.Israel considers Jerusalem as its capital, including East Jerusalem which it captured in an 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, and which Palestinian want to make the capital of their own future state.(Reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Israel to declare Dead Sea shore state land: Peace Now Tue Jul 21, 5:26 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli government has decided to register as state property West Bank land that has emerged as a result of Dead Sea shrinkage, an anti-settlement group said on Tuesday.Israeli authorities have announced that they intend to declare as state land some 138,600 dunums (34,650 acres) that has appeared along the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank due to the drop in the water level,Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now group told AFP.The government published its decision in the Arabic-language press on June 28 and the public has 45 days from that date to file any objections. The land is located along the shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank.The group said that based on public announcements, the amount of land involved may go beyond the shoreline that has been exposed as a result of the drop in the sea's water level, an estimated metre (yard) every year.It would appear that the primary purpose of registering this area as 'state land' is to prevent Palestinian use of the land or any Palestinian assertion of ownership over it, the group said in a statement.The move goes against statements by hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as recently as mid-June that the state did not intend to expropriate any additional land in the occupied Palestinian territory.In the West Bank, the designation of state land -- land to be held in trust by the occupying power and to be used for the benefit of the indigenous population -- has been abused as a form of de facto expropriation,Peace Now said.
Since 1967, Israel has declared or registered huge areas of the West Bank as state land and virtually all of this land has been given over for the exclusive use and exclusive benefit of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military,it said.
Israel to Lebanon: stop border violations By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writers – Mon Jul 20, 10:19 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel urged the Lebanese government and U.N. peacekeepers on Monday to prevent Hezbollah militants and their supporters from violating its territory and jeopardizing the fragile stability along the border.In identical letters to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, Israel's U.N. ambassador also accused Hezbollah of violating a council resolution by building new military facilities and hiding arms in the zone between the Litani River and the Israeli border.The resolution, which ended the inconclusive 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, put the zone under the control of 15,000 Lebanese troops and a 13,300-member U.N. peacekeeping force. It prohibited Hezbollah from engaging in military activities in south Lebanon and banned weapon smuggling to the group.The region has been relatively quiet since the war although Hezbollah has boasted that it has returned to border areas, maintaining a clandestine presence.Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev cited three recent incidents that she said were severe violations of the U.N. resolution.In the first, on July 14, a Hezbollah arms cache exploded in an abandoned building in Khirbet Silim, about 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the Israeli border, she said. Hezbollah has remained silent.Three days later, 15 Lebanese civilians crossed the U.N.-drawn Blue Line — the unofficial boundary with Israel — and penetrated 175 meters (yards) into Israel, planting three Hezbollah and Lebanese flags before crossing back into Lebanese territory, Shalev said.The July 17 incident took place near a position manned by U.N. peacekeepers, but Shalev said the force, known as UNIFIL, refrained from taking any action to prevent the crossing of these individuals into Israeli territory.She noted that Qassem Hashem, a member of the Lebanese parliament who helped organize the illegal action, claimed it was coordinated with relevant authorities including UNIFIL.Given the proximity of the violation to a UNIFIL position, Israel would have expected that UNIFIL intervene in time to prevent this violation,Shalev said.
Israel calls upon the government of Lebanon to exercise its authority and prevent such violations of the Blue Line that endanger the stability along our mutual border, she said.In addition, Israel calls upon the secretary-general to exercise his influence and to ensure that UNIFIL will prevent any future incidents from occurring.
A third serious incident took place the following day, July 18, in Khirbet Silim, the same place where the arms cache exploded.Villagers threw stones at U.N. peacekeeping troops, lightly injuring 14 soldiers, in an attempt to prevent an investigation near the site of the arms cache explosion, the U.N. said.Shalev said the presence of arms in southern Lebanon and actions to prevent UNIFIL from carrying out its mandate must be confronted.In order to ensure that there are no Hezbollah weapons,the Lebanese army and UNIFIL must re-adapt their activity to the new reality in which Hezbollah is rebuilding its military infrastructure south of the Litani River within the civilian population,she said.
Israeli police press new case against ex-PM Olmert Mon Jul 20, 4:27 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Police in Israel have recommended that former prime minister Ehud Olmert face legal proceedings for alleged fraud and abuse of confidence in making unlawful appointments, police said on Monday.A recommendation to this effect has been passed to Attorney General Menahem Mazuz, a police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.The case relates to appointments made when the former premier was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and then trade and industry minister between 2003 and 2006.Police suspect Olmert of appointing some 260 members of his former party, the right-wing Likud, to posts in an official body for investments in small and medium-sized businesses.On Sunday Mazuz also decided to finally close another file relating to Olmert for lack of evidence.That case concerned the so-called Cremieux Street affair involving the suspected purchase below market price of a Jerusalem apartment allegedly in exchange for political favours at a time when Olmert was mayor.Police investigators said in March they had failed to find significant evidence in the case.
Mazuz has previously notified Olmert of his intention to charge him over two separate allegations that he multiple-billed foreign trips and unlawfully accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from US financier Morris Talansky.Olmert, who insists he is innocent, resigned last September 21, staying on as interim prime minister until the formation of a new government in March.
Netanyahu defies U.S. on East Jerusalem settlement Jeffrey Heller – Sun Jul 19, 3:35 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, rejected on Sunday a U.S. demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area.New friction with Washington over the project to build 20 apartments in a part of Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 war could deepen the most serious rift in relations between the two allies in a decade.Israeli officials said the State Department had summoned Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, and told him plans for the construction approved this month by Israel's Jerusalem municipality should be suspended.We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem,Netanyahu said, calling the city Israel's united capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry, he told reporters at the weekly cabinet meeting. We cannot accept this edict in Jerusalem.
The White House declined to comment.
Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are already at loggerheads over the U.S. leader's call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement on occupied land Palestinians want for a state.Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, due back in the region soon, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been trying to work out a settlement deal that would include initial steps by Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.But constraints on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem could put a heavy strain on Netanyahu's coalition, in which the future of the holy city is a red-flag issue for Jewish religious and ultranationalist partners.Responding to Netanyahu's comments, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the Israeli leader had to realize that settlements and peace are two parallels that do not go together.
ABANDONED HOTEL
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and declared all of the city its capital after the 1967 war. Palestinians say Jewish settlement on occupied land could deny them a viable state.The housing project is within a compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where the now-defunct Shepherd Hotel stands. It was bought in 1985 by an American Jewish millionaire who has been funding Jewish housing projects in East Jerusalem.
Israel's Jerusalem municipality said its planning committee, acting in full transparency, gave approval for the 20 apartments and pledged to preserve the historic structure at the site.Palestinians have questioned the legality of the acquisition, saying the compound had belonged to the former grand mufti, the leading Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. He went into exile in 1937 and died in 1974.Israel designated the plot as absentee property after the 1967 war.(Editing by Peter Millership)
Hamas and Fatah delay unity talks: report Sun Jul 19, 7:39 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian-mediated Palestinian reconciliation talks between rivals Fatah and Hamas set for next Saturday have been delayed for a month, Egypt's official MENA news agency said on Sunday.Egyptian officials decided that some issues required further discussion and efforts. The date for the last round of talks, July 25, does not leave enough time to resolve the differences,MENA quotes Palestinian officials as saying.So it was agreed to delay the talks until August 25,the officials said.The rival Palestinian factions resumed reconciliation talks in February and had agreed to begin what they said would be a final round on Saturday.Cairo has been mediating the talks between president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah party and the Islamists of Hamas aimed at healing bitter divisions between the two, aggravated when Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.Hamas and Fatah delegations have been meeting in Cairo over the last two days to discuss the talks' progress.The talks hope to seal a deal which will lay out a new electoral law as well as define the make-up of security forces and of a committee to liaise between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ahead of an election in 2010.Hamas has demanded that Abbas's Palestinian Authority release all political prisoners -- referring to the scores of Hamas members arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- or provide a timetable for their release.
Both sides have since announced the release of dozens of prisoners.
Fatah and Hamas have accused each other of persecuting their rival's supporters in the territories under their control, while human rights groups have accused both groups of making arbitrary arrests and mistreating detainees.The two groups deny they make political arrests, saying the arrests are made on security grounds.
Palestinian PM urges US to draft Mideast peace plan Sat Jul 18, 1:38 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad made a fresh appeal on Saturday to the United States for a plan and a timetable aimed at resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.I call anew on the United States to come up with a plan and a timetable for its application that will contribute to put an end to Jewish settlements and Israeli offensives, and lead to serious negotiations,Fayyad said.In a speech at the Qalandiya refugee camp he also said that the international community must bear its responsibilities in pushing Israel to respects its peace commitments.
Israel is turning its back on international legitimacy, he told hundreds of Palestinian refugees in the camp between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem.
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks relaunched at a US-hosted conference in November 2008 have been frozen since the end of 2008.During a landmark speech in Cairo in June, US President Barack Obama pledged to forge a state for Palestinians and rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to halt West Bank settlement expansion.
At the time Fayyad said he saw hope for a new era in the speech.Last week the hawkish Netanyahu invited Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to meet him to restart the stalled peace negotiations.But the Palestinians have said they will not resume talks unless Israel freezes all Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank in line with US demands.The presence of more than 280,000 Jewish settlers in communities across the West Bank and another 200,000 in mostly Arab east Jerusalem has been a major stumbling block in past peace negotiations.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Germany, France and EU president Sweden on Tuesday joined Western nations pressing Israel to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank under a U.S.-led effort to resume stalled peace talks.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted international calls to freeze building in occupied territory, seemed to show a sign of flexibility as a newspaper reported a secret plan to remove two dozen unauthorized settler outposts.Israel has long pledged to dismantle hilltop outposts that it never approved, but has continued building larger settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, land it captured in a 1967 war, and where Palestinians want to build a future state.Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would not resume peace talks with Israel, stalled since Israel elected Netanyahu, a right-wing settler champion in February, unless all settlement construction stopped.In Berlin, Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, was quoted as saying Israel ran the risk of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state if it did not stop the construction.Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, further told the Rheinische Post daily that Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem.
The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador, Daniel Shek, in Paris, to protest against a planned Israeli housing project for East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital and which Palestinians also seek to make their capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after its capture, in a move never recognized internationally.
THOUSANDS THREATENED WITH DISPLACEMENT
European Union president Sweden urged from Stockholm that Israel refrain from demolishing homes in East Jerusalem where thousands are threatened with displacement.
Jerusalem has emerged as a focal point of the settlement controversy since Israeli officials accused the U.S. State Department on Sunday of telling Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, Israel should suspend plans to build about 20 housing units in the city's eastern sector.The United States has never confirmed it made this demand, but Netanyahu rejected it in televised remarks to his cabinet, a move analysts saw as capitalizing on broad popular support in the country for Israel's continued control of the disputed city.Israel shut a hotel fair in East Jerusalem in the latest of several Palestinian cultural events it has disrupted in recent months saying an interim peace deal permits it to bar the Palestinian government from holding events in the city.They want us to leave Jerusalem, but we will not,Rafiq al-Husseini, an aide to Abbas, said.Neither Netanyahu's office nor the Israeli army would comment on a report in the respected Haaretz daily that the military was preparing to forcibly evacuate 23 illegal outposts in one day, in a plan drawn up with Netanyahu's knowledge.The same Haaretz columnist disclosed plans to remove troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip before that pullout occurred in 2005.
Separately, a report by the Macro Center of the Israeli European Policy Network said settlements were receiving a larger share of government funding than municipalities inside Israel, and the settler population was also growing three times as fast.While Israeli municipalities as a whole receive 34.7 percent of their income from (the government) and obtain another 64.3 percent from their own income, settlement municipalities obtain 57 percent from the (government) and only 42.8 percent from their own income,the report said.(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, and Douglas Hamilton and Ali Sawafta in Jerusalem)
Israeli settlements political suicide: Merkel ally Tue Jul 21, 10:55 am ET
BERLIN (Reuters) – A senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party on Tuesday urged Israel not to build more settlements, warning it risked political suicide if it continued to do so.In unusually strong comments for a German politician, Ruprecht Polenz, the head of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted as saying Israel's aim of having secure borders would only be possible with a two-state solution.If Israel did not stop building settlements it ran the risk of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state,Polenz told the Rheinische Post daily.Enjoying safe borders would only be conceivable for Israel if East Jerusalem could operate as the capital of a Palestinian state, said Polenz. But he added Israel was trying to cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank by building more settlements.
Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem,Polenz told the paper.German politicians, who feel they have a special obligation to the country due to the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed, tend to be softer in their criticism of Israel than many other countries.Separately, European Union president Sweden urged Israel to refrain from evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in Arab East Jerusalem, where thousands are threatened with displacement.A U.N. report in May said some 1,500 demolition orders were pending for homes built without a permit from Israel's Jerusalem Municipality in the east of the city.The Swedish president said such actions were illegal under international law and called for them to end.These eviction notices follow other recent orders which adversely affect Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and, combined with the increase in settlement activity in East Jerusalem, further threaten the chances of peace.Israel considers Jerusalem as its capital, including East Jerusalem which it captured in an 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, and which Palestinian want to make the capital of their own future state.(Reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Israel to declare Dead Sea shore state land: Peace Now Tue Jul 21, 5:26 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli government has decided to register as state property West Bank land that has emerged as a result of Dead Sea shrinkage, an anti-settlement group said on Tuesday.Israeli authorities have announced that they intend to declare as state land some 138,600 dunums (34,650 acres) that has appeared along the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank due to the drop in the water level,Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now group told AFP.The government published its decision in the Arabic-language press on June 28 and the public has 45 days from that date to file any objections. The land is located along the shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank.The group said that based on public announcements, the amount of land involved may go beyond the shoreline that has been exposed as a result of the drop in the sea's water level, an estimated metre (yard) every year.It would appear that the primary purpose of registering this area as 'state land' is to prevent Palestinian use of the land or any Palestinian assertion of ownership over it, the group said in a statement.The move goes against statements by hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as recently as mid-June that the state did not intend to expropriate any additional land in the occupied Palestinian territory.In the West Bank, the designation of state land -- land to be held in trust by the occupying power and to be used for the benefit of the indigenous population -- has been abused as a form of de facto expropriation,Peace Now said.
Since 1967, Israel has declared or registered huge areas of the West Bank as state land and virtually all of this land has been given over for the exclusive use and exclusive benefit of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military,it said.
Israel to Lebanon: stop border violations By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writers – Mon Jul 20, 10:19 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel urged the Lebanese government and U.N. peacekeepers on Monday to prevent Hezbollah militants and their supporters from violating its territory and jeopardizing the fragile stability along the border.In identical letters to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, Israel's U.N. ambassador also accused Hezbollah of violating a council resolution by building new military facilities and hiding arms in the zone between the Litani River and the Israeli border.The resolution, which ended the inconclusive 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, put the zone under the control of 15,000 Lebanese troops and a 13,300-member U.N. peacekeeping force. It prohibited Hezbollah from engaging in military activities in south Lebanon and banned weapon smuggling to the group.The region has been relatively quiet since the war although Hezbollah has boasted that it has returned to border areas, maintaining a clandestine presence.Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev cited three recent incidents that she said were severe violations of the U.N. resolution.In the first, on July 14, a Hezbollah arms cache exploded in an abandoned building in Khirbet Silim, about 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the Israeli border, she said. Hezbollah has remained silent.Three days later, 15 Lebanese civilians crossed the U.N.-drawn Blue Line — the unofficial boundary with Israel — and penetrated 175 meters (yards) into Israel, planting three Hezbollah and Lebanese flags before crossing back into Lebanese territory, Shalev said.The July 17 incident took place near a position manned by U.N. peacekeepers, but Shalev said the force, known as UNIFIL, refrained from taking any action to prevent the crossing of these individuals into Israeli territory.She noted that Qassem Hashem, a member of the Lebanese parliament who helped organize the illegal action, claimed it was coordinated with relevant authorities including UNIFIL.Given the proximity of the violation to a UNIFIL position, Israel would have expected that UNIFIL intervene in time to prevent this violation,Shalev said.
Israel calls upon the government of Lebanon to exercise its authority and prevent such violations of the Blue Line that endanger the stability along our mutual border, she said.In addition, Israel calls upon the secretary-general to exercise his influence and to ensure that UNIFIL will prevent any future incidents from occurring.
A third serious incident took place the following day, July 18, in Khirbet Silim, the same place where the arms cache exploded.Villagers threw stones at U.N. peacekeeping troops, lightly injuring 14 soldiers, in an attempt to prevent an investigation near the site of the arms cache explosion, the U.N. said.Shalev said the presence of arms in southern Lebanon and actions to prevent UNIFIL from carrying out its mandate must be confronted.In order to ensure that there are no Hezbollah weapons,the Lebanese army and UNIFIL must re-adapt their activity to the new reality in which Hezbollah is rebuilding its military infrastructure south of the Litani River within the civilian population,she said.
Israeli police press new case against ex-PM Olmert Mon Jul 20, 4:27 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Police in Israel have recommended that former prime minister Ehud Olmert face legal proceedings for alleged fraud and abuse of confidence in making unlawful appointments, police said on Monday.A recommendation to this effect has been passed to Attorney General Menahem Mazuz, a police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.The case relates to appointments made when the former premier was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and then trade and industry minister between 2003 and 2006.Police suspect Olmert of appointing some 260 members of his former party, the right-wing Likud, to posts in an official body for investments in small and medium-sized businesses.On Sunday Mazuz also decided to finally close another file relating to Olmert for lack of evidence.That case concerned the so-called Cremieux Street affair involving the suspected purchase below market price of a Jerusalem apartment allegedly in exchange for political favours at a time when Olmert was mayor.Police investigators said in March they had failed to find significant evidence in the case.
Mazuz has previously notified Olmert of his intention to charge him over two separate allegations that he multiple-billed foreign trips and unlawfully accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from US financier Morris Talansky.Olmert, who insists he is innocent, resigned last September 21, staying on as interim prime minister until the formation of a new government in March.
Netanyahu defies U.S. on East Jerusalem settlement Jeffrey Heller – Sun Jul 19, 3:35 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, rejected on Sunday a U.S. demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area.New friction with Washington over the project to build 20 apartments in a part of Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 war could deepen the most serious rift in relations between the two allies in a decade.Israeli officials said the State Department had summoned Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, and told him plans for the construction approved this month by Israel's Jerusalem municipality should be suspended.We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem,Netanyahu said, calling the city Israel's united capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry, he told reporters at the weekly cabinet meeting. We cannot accept this edict in Jerusalem.
The White House declined to comment.
Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are already at loggerheads over the U.S. leader's call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement on occupied land Palestinians want for a state.Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, due back in the region soon, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been trying to work out a settlement deal that would include initial steps by Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.But constraints on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem could put a heavy strain on Netanyahu's coalition, in which the future of the holy city is a red-flag issue for Jewish religious and ultranationalist partners.Responding to Netanyahu's comments, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the Israeli leader had to realize that settlements and peace are two parallels that do not go together.
ABANDONED HOTEL
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and declared all of the city its capital after the 1967 war. Palestinians say Jewish settlement on occupied land could deny them a viable state.The housing project is within a compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where the now-defunct Shepherd Hotel stands. It was bought in 1985 by an American Jewish millionaire who has been funding Jewish housing projects in East Jerusalem.
Israel's Jerusalem municipality said its planning committee, acting in full transparency, gave approval for the 20 apartments and pledged to preserve the historic structure at the site.Palestinians have questioned the legality of the acquisition, saying the compound had belonged to the former grand mufti, the leading Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. He went into exile in 1937 and died in 1974.Israel designated the plot as absentee property after the 1967 war.(Editing by Peter Millership)
Hamas and Fatah delay unity talks: report Sun Jul 19, 7:39 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian-mediated Palestinian reconciliation talks between rivals Fatah and Hamas set for next Saturday have been delayed for a month, Egypt's official MENA news agency said on Sunday.Egyptian officials decided that some issues required further discussion and efforts. The date for the last round of talks, July 25, does not leave enough time to resolve the differences,MENA quotes Palestinian officials as saying.So it was agreed to delay the talks until August 25,the officials said.The rival Palestinian factions resumed reconciliation talks in February and had agreed to begin what they said would be a final round on Saturday.Cairo has been mediating the talks between president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah party and the Islamists of Hamas aimed at healing bitter divisions between the two, aggravated when Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.Hamas and Fatah delegations have been meeting in Cairo over the last two days to discuss the talks' progress.The talks hope to seal a deal which will lay out a new electoral law as well as define the make-up of security forces and of a committee to liaise between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ahead of an election in 2010.Hamas has demanded that Abbas's Palestinian Authority release all political prisoners -- referring to the scores of Hamas members arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- or provide a timetable for their release.
Both sides have since announced the release of dozens of prisoners.
Fatah and Hamas have accused each other of persecuting their rival's supporters in the territories under their control, while human rights groups have accused both groups of making arbitrary arrests and mistreating detainees.The two groups deny they make political arrests, saying the arrests are made on security grounds.
Palestinian PM urges US to draft Mideast peace plan Sat Jul 18, 1:38 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad made a fresh appeal on Saturday to the United States for a plan and a timetable aimed at resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.I call anew on the United States to come up with a plan and a timetable for its application that will contribute to put an end to Jewish settlements and Israeli offensives, and lead to serious negotiations,Fayyad said.In a speech at the Qalandiya refugee camp he also said that the international community must bear its responsibilities in pushing Israel to respects its peace commitments.
Israel is turning its back on international legitimacy, he told hundreds of Palestinian refugees in the camp between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem.
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks relaunched at a US-hosted conference in November 2008 have been frozen since the end of 2008.During a landmark speech in Cairo in June, US President Barack Obama pledged to forge a state for Palestinians and rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to halt West Bank settlement expansion.
At the time Fayyad said he saw hope for a new era in the speech.Last week the hawkish Netanyahu invited Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to meet him to restart the stalled peace negotiations.But the Palestinians have said they will not resume talks unless Israel freezes all Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank in line with US demands.The presence of more than 280,000 Jewish settlers in communities across the West Bank and another 200,000 in mostly Arab east Jerusalem has been a major stumbling block in past peace negotiations.
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