Saturday, February 27, 2010

OLMERT HAS HERNA OPERATION

Dubai, Britain probe Israelis over Hamas murder
Sat Feb 27, 5:12 pm ET


DUBAI (AFP) – Most suspects linked to the murder of a senior Hamas militant are in Israel, Dubai police said Saturday as their British counterparts were in the Jewish state to probe the killers' use of fake passports.Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan pointed the finger at Meir Dagan, the head of Israel's secret service Mossad which is widely suspected of carrying out last month's Cold War-style hit on Mahmud al-Mabhuh in his Dubai hotel room.Khalfan's force has published details of 26 suspects together with passport photographs, and has revealed it has DNA proof of the identity at least one of the killers.What is sure right now is that the majority of the murderers whose names have been announced... are to be found in Israel, he said in comments published in the Arabic-language daily Al-Khaleej.Dagan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will head the list (of an international arrest warrant) if it is proven that Mossad is behind the murder, the police chief said.

Khalfan said Dubai police had succeeded in identifying the suspects from closed circuit television footage, even though some of the suspects wore wigs during the operation.Israel has sought to play down the row, saying there is no evidence of its involvement. It has rejected the calls for Dagan's arrest as baseless and absurd.A spokesman for the British embassy in Tel Aviv said meanwhile that two of its police officers were in Israel to investigate the use of fake British passports by Mabhuh's killers.Two British police officers arrived a few days ago to interview British passport holders on the use of false passports bearing their identities in the case, Rafi Shamir told AFP on Saturday.The officers were preparing to meet six dual nationals whose British passports were used in the assassination, Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency said.We are arranging to speak to the six genuine passport holders who are resident in Israel as potential witnesses to a crime, Britain's Press Association news agency quoted a SOCA spokesman as saying.The murder of Mabhuh, regarded by Israel as a key link in a weapons smuggling chain into the Gaza Strip that is controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas, has mounted international pressure on Israel.Twelve British, six Irish, four French, one German and three Australian passports were used by the suspects, according to Dubai police.The revelation of stolen identities being used by suspected Israeli agents has caused a diplomatic outcry, with Australia threatening it would not be silent on the matter.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Saturday his centre-left government had an absolutely hard line on defending the integrity of its passport system and took seriously allegations that suspected Mossad assassins had stolen Australian identities.That is why the foreign minister has called in the Israeli ambassador and asked for an explanation,Rudd told reporters.Thus far we are not satisfied with that explanation.Canberra summoned ambassador Yuval Rotem on Thursday and warned that friendly ties were at risk if Israel was found to have sponsored or condoned the tampering of three Australian passports, linked to the Dubai killing. The Israel-based Australians caught in the passport scandal -- Joshua Daniel Bruce, Nicole Sandra McCabe and Adam Korman -- were among 15 named in connection with the murder of Mabhuh. The real McCabe, a 27-year-old mother to be who has lived in Israel for two and a half years, said she first learned of her passport's link to the crime from a radio news bulletin. I have no idea how they got hold of my passport. Obviously it's not my photo,she told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.I don't know any of these people, I don't know the other Australians. I'm terrified, I haven't slept and I'm shaky. I'm worried for my health and I'm worried for my baby's health,she added. Israeli ambassadors in four European countries have been summoned for talks and the European Union has also voiced outrage over the use of fake passports after an earlier list of 11 people was released.

Ex-Israel PM Olmert undergoes hernia operation: reports
Sat Feb 27, 3:34 pm ET


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert underwent a hernia operation under full anaesthesia but left hospital hours later, media reports said on Saturday.Olmert, 64, underwent the surgical procedure on Friday, a day after he was back in court on charges of corruption. Last year he had surgery for prostate cancer.In December, Olmert pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption linked to three separate cases. He resigned under pressure in September 2008 after police recommended he be indicted.If found guilty, Olmert could face time behind bars, although it is unclear how long.All the charges concern actions which Olmert allegedly took before he became prime minister in May 2006, first as mayor of Jerusalem and later as trade and industry minister.He has denied any wrongdoing.

In U.S., Barak signals Israeli autonomy against Iran By Dan Williams – Fri Feb 26, 5:45 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel's perspective on Iran's nuclear program differs from that of the United States, and the two may part ways on what action to take, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday.Washington's clout over its Middle East ally is under scrutiny after Israel's veiled threats to attack Iran preemptively if international diplomacy fails to rein in Tehran's uranium enrichment, a process with bomb-making potential.The United States this week said it did not want to hurt the Iranian people with crippling sanctions against Iran's energy sector, measures Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described as the only viable diplomatic solution.There is of course a certain difference in perspective and a difference in judgment and a difference in the internal clock, a difference in capabilities, Barak told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank, when asked about Israeli-U.S. discussions about Iran.I don't think that there is a need to coordinate in this regard. There should be understanding on the exchange of views, but we do not need to coordinate everything, said Barak, who was in Washington for strategic talks.Barak, a centrist in Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition government, reiterated Israel's argument that an Iranian bomb would destabilize the region by sparking an arms race and emboldening Islamist guerrillas sponsored by Tehran.Probably from this corner of the world it (Iran's nuclear program) doesn't change the script dramatically, he said, speaking in English. From a closer distance, in Israel, it looks like a tipping point for the whole regional order, with quite assured consequences for the wider world.While he played down the specter of Iran -- which denies having hostile designs -- trying to wipe out Israel in a nuclear strike, Barak urged the United States and other powers to keep all options on the table including preemptive force.Israel bombed Iraq's atomic reactor in 1981 and launched a similar strike against Syria in 2007. But many analysts believe it lacks the means to deliver lasting damage to Iranian nuclear facilities which are numerous, distant and well-defended.

Yet Barak hinted at Israel's willingness to go it alone, saying: We felt very proud that we never asked the Americans to come and fight for us. We basically ... to paraphrase Churchill, we said, Give us the tools and we will do the job.He praised the Obama administration for making the utmost effort" to resolve the standoff with Iran diplomatically.Voicing reluctance to see a new Middle East war, the United States has boosted support for Israel's strategic defenses. That has led some analysts to speculate that Israel, which is assumed to have the region's only atomic arsenal, could eventually be forced to enter a U.S.-led containment policy on Iran.
(Editing by Vicki Allen)

Israel approves 600 new Jerusalem settlement homes
Fri Feb 26, 3:14 pm ET


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has given the green light for 600 new homes in a Jewish settlement in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, the Haaretz daily reported on Friday.The development in the Pisgat Zeev neighbourhood, which has been planned for some years, was approved with modifications by the interior ministry's Jerusalem district urban planning committee on January 12, a document obtained by AFP showed.Interior ministry spokeswoman Efrat Orbach told AFP: It's an old project, the principle of which was approved several years ago.The original plan had been for 1,100 housing units but it was scaled back, Haaretz said.A start date for construction has not yet been approved, according to the documents.The Palestinians reacted angrily to the disclosure.We strongly condemn the Israeli decision and call on the US administration to make a clear statement on this policy of Israeli settlement in east Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories in general,chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.This decision is part of an Israeli policy aimed at aborting any international effort to relaunch the peace process, especially the American efforts.Israel's continued expansion of settlements is one of the biggest obstacles to the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, now suspended for more than a year.

The Palestinians insist they will only return to the negotiating table if Israel agrees to a complete freeze on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem.Israel announced a 10-month moratorium on new building permits for settler homes in the occupied West Bank in late November but it excludes east Jerusalem.Israel insists that the entire city is its eternal, indivisible capital, but the Palestinians are determined to make the city's eastern sector the capital of their promised state.About 200,000 Jewish settlers live in east Jerusalem alongside 270,000 Palestinian residents.

UNESCO worried about Israel heritage plan in West Bank
Fri Feb 26, 2:30 pm ET


PARIS (Reuters) – The United Nations' culture and education body said on Friday it was concerned about Israel's plan to rehabilitate Jewish religious shrines in the occupied West Bank in a heritage program.The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said the Israeli decision could derail attempts to reopen peace talks.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he intended to include the Tomb of the Patriarchs and several other Jewish religious shrines in territory Israel captured in a 1967 war in a $107 million plan to restore Jewish heritage sites.The decision has led to violent Palestinian protests and drawn international criticism.UNESCO said that Director-General Irina Bokova expressed her concern at the announcement that the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb would be included in the plan. She also expressed concern at the resulting escalation of tension in the area, the statement said.

Ashton said in a statement: The High Representative regards the recent decision by the Government of Israel... as detrimental to attempts to relaunch peace negotiations. The European Union calls on Israel to refrain from provocative acts. Palestinians are calling the move an attempt to seize land and holy sites on Israeli-occupied land where they hope to build a future state.The Tomb of the Patriarchs, which Muslims call al-Ibrahimi mosque, is sacred to Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of biblical figures Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.Hebron and the shrine itself have long been flashpoints of violence in the West Bank, territory Israel's government calls by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.(Reporting by Anna Willard; Additional reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Lebanon arrests at least 5 Israel spy suspects
Fri Feb 26, 12:05 pm ET


BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon has arrested at least five more suspected spies for Israel as it presses on with a crackdown on espionage rings, local media reported on Friday.
The reports said military intelligence suspected that the five men, including retired security officials, were working for two separate espionage networks in northern and southern Lebanon.A security source, requesting anonymity, confirmed new arrests had been made but would not give details.More than 70 people have been arrested in the crackdown launched in April 2009, some of them policemen and security officials equipped with sophisticated surveillance and communication gear.

Israel has made no public comment on the arrests.Lebanon and Israel remain technically in a state of war, and convicted spies face life in prison with hard labour or the death penalty if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.
A retired member of the security services was sentenced to death last week for having spied for Israel and for his involvement in the murder of two Palestinian militant leaders.Mahmud Qassem Rafeh, 63, was convicted of collaboration and espionage on behalf of the Israeli enemy,according to the verdict handed down by a military tribunal.He was also convicted of involvement in the 2006 car bomb murder in the southern coastal town of Sidon of brothers Mahmoud and Nidal Mazjoub, members of the Islamic Jihad group.On Wednesday, a military prosecutor called for the death penalty for two other men allegedly spying for Israel, including a fugitive believed to be living in Israel, a judicial source said on condition of anonymity.The two are suspected of having given Israel information on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, the source said.And a Lebanese citizen arrested earlier this month on suspicion of spying for Israel has confessed to collaborating with the Jewish state, police chief Major General Ashraf Rifi told AFP on Thursday.The man now faces trial in a military court.

Palestinian PM prays at mosque in Israel heritage row by Majeda El Batsh – Fri Feb 26, 10:58 am ET

HEBRON, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad on Friday prayed at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank on the fifth day of clashes amid mounting international concern over Israel's addition of the shrine to its national heritage list.Dozens of Palestinian youths hurled rocks and set up burning barricades in running battles with Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, an AFP correspondent reported. There were no reports of casualties.

Meanwhile, Fayyad joined the main weekly Muslim prayers at the contentious holy site in Hebron on the occupied West Bank, vowing that it would one day be controlled by a future Palestinian state.The Palestinian people understand extremely well that this decision has a political dimension, and that it is aimed at Israel expropriating sites that are part of an occupied territory, he added.These sites belong to a future Palestinian state,he said, reaffirming the inalienable right of the Palestinian people on their soil.

Hebron has long been a flashpoint.Dozens of Jews were killed in Hebron riots in 1929 that virtually ended the Jewish presence in the city until after the 1967 Middle East war, when a few hundred Jewish settlers established an enclave in the centre, living under heavy protection from the army amid 160,000 Palestinians.But tensions have been running particularly high this week as Thursday marked the anniversary of the February 25, 1994 killing by a hardline settler of 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the heritage plan involves only restoration work and there would be no attempt to change the delicate status quo that allows both Jews and Muslims to pray at the site, which both religions hold to be the burial place of their biblical forefathers.But his decision to include the Hebron tomb and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, also on the West Bank, in a national heritage restoration plan has drawn strong criticism.On Friday the head of the United Nations cultural body UNESCO expressed her concern at the plan and the resulting escalation of tension in the area.UNESCO chief Irina Bokova Bokova endorsed a statement by Robert Serry, UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, that the sites have historical and religious significance not only to Judaism but also to Islam and to Christianity.The director general reiterated UNESCO's long-standing conviction that cultural heritage should serve as a means for dialogue,her statement said.Her statement comes after Israel's ally the United States described the move as provocative,and the Islamic bloc at the United Nations called for international action to force Israel to rescind its decision.

Netanyahu's move also drew fire at home.Both the liberal daily Haaretz and the mass circulation Yediot Aharonot carried cartoons of Netanyahu with a box of matches, indicating how provocative they saw his proposals to be.Haaretz dubbed the prime minister a master pyromaniac for the move, recalling it was Netanyahu who during a previous term as premier in 1996 sparked bloody riots in Jerusalem by ordering the opening of a tunnel under another disputed holy site.Haaretz said the two sites deserved to be preserved as part of Jewish as well as Muslim heritage. But it asked whether it was really necessary to open such a Pandora's box at a time when the world is looking for a resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.In the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, several hundred members of the radical Islamic Jihad group protested the decision, warning it would infuriate Muslims.What is coming will be harder for the (Israeli) occupation, public anger will escalate,said spokesman Dawood Shohab.

Hezbollah chief meets Ahmadinejad in Damascus
Fri Feb 26, 3:44 am ET


DAMASCUS (AFP) – The head of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which shares Tehran's vision of a world without Israel, travelled to Damascus for talks with allies Syria and Iran, the SANA news agency said Friday.Hassan Nasrallah attended a dinner banquet in Damascus Thursday hosted by President Bashar al-Assad in honour of his visiting Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the official agency said without giving further details.But Hezbollah's Al-Manar television in Lebanon reported that Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad met to discuss the latest developments in the region, and Zionist threats against Lebanon and Syria.Iran and Hezbollah repeatedly call for the annihilation of Israel.Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchcher Mottaki also attended Thursday's meeting, the television said, adding that Nasrallah had headed an important delegation to the Syrian capital.Since the 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that devastated Lebanon and resulted in more than 1,000 Lebanese deaths, Nasrallah has seldom left his Lebanese stronghold and has made few public appearances.

With an Israeli death threat hanging over him, the Hezbollah chief has even avoided religious or political gatherings in Lebanon, and his televised speeches have been taped or broadcast from secret locations.Iran and Syria are the main backers of Hezbollah, the only militia that has kept its military arsenal since the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.Hezbollah has threatened to hit at Israel's key infrastructures if the Jewish state launches a fresh attack on Lebanon.Assad and Ahmadinejad signed a visa-scrapping accord in Damascus on Thursday, signalling even closer ties and brushing aside US efforts to drive a wedge between the two allies.

US, Israeli defense chiefs discuss Iran sanctions
Fri Feb 26, 1:24 am ET


WASHINGTON (AFP) – US and Israeli defense chiefs held talks the Pentagon said were focused on diplomatic efforts to impose robust sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.Amid rising international tension over Iran's uranium enrichment work, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met for about an hour with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told AFP.The two discussed the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions and what the international community can do to try to thwart them, to try to deter them, Morrell said.The talks touched on the need for effective sanctions to persuade Iran to comply with its international obligations, he said.Morrell told reporters earlier that both countries agreed the time had come to tighten sanctions on Iran as Tehran had spurned diplomatic efforts so far.The United States shares many of Israel's concerns on the issue, and Iran's failure to respond to a year of sustained and genuine outreach has left the international community no choice but to pursue a robust regime of sanctions, he said.He said the Israelis had been understanding, if not outright supportive of President Barack Obama's previous diplomatic overtures to Iran.And obviously we have come to a point where those efforts, that outstretched hand, has not been reciprocated -- in fact, it's been largely spurned.

The Obama administration has embarked on an intense diplomatic push to rally support for fresh UN sanctions against Iran, but Morrell said Washington remained open to dialogue if Tehran changed its stance.We keep that door open to engagement. So just because we're going down the pressure track doesn't mean the engagement track is closed off.US and Israeli officials have refused to rule out military action against Iran, but the Obama administration has stressed it is presently committed to a diplomatic strategy designed to pile pressure on Tehran.Gates and the top US military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, have both expressed deep reservations about resorting to military force to counter Iran's nuclear drive, saying it would only delay the program.Israel has called for tough international sanctions on Iran's energy sector to persuade Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment efforts, which Israel and western nations suspect is aimed at building an atomic weapon.

Iran insists the program is purely for civilian purposes.Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has viewed Iran as its greatest threat because of the nuclear issue and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated predictions of the Jewish state's demise.The talks between Gates and Barak also covered regional security issues including the role of Hamas and Hezbollah, cooperation on missile defense and the Middle East peace process, Morrell said.

US slams Israel's provocative holy sites plan
Thu Feb 25, 12:27 pm ET


WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Obama administration Thursday criticized Israel's provocative plans to renovate two deeply contested holy sites in the occupied West Bank, as fresh clashes erupted in the town of Hebron.Young Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas and rubber bullets during the fourth day of clashes in Hebron since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem would be included in a heritage restoration plan.We have asked both parties to refrain from provocative and unilateral actions that undermine efforts to resume negotiations to end the conflict,said US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley.We have raised this directly with the Israeli government.The criticism came just a day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed hope for resuming long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.We hope that that will commence shortly,she told the Senate Appropriations Committee, noting that President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, was laying the groundwork for talks between the two sides.We think it's absolutely essential that they begin to talk about the final status issues that divide them that have perpetuated the conflict over all of these years. But we're well aware of the difficulties that confront us on this.The Palestinians have refused to return to peace talks suspended during last winter's Gaza war without a complete halt to Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has agreed in principle to indirect talks with US mediation, but has demanded a number of guarantees from Washington.The United States, Russia and other members of the so-called Quartet of international mediators -- the European Union and the United Nations -- have planned a meeting in Moscow tentatively scheduled for March 19 among diplomats to try to relaunch the talks.

European court keeps West Bank out of trade deal
Thu Feb 25, 8:20 am ET


LUXEMBOURG (AFP) – A European court ruled Thursday that Israeli goods produced in the Palestinian territories cannot benefit from EU trade privileges, in a politically sensitive judgement centring on Jewish settlements.In its decision, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice maintained a clear legal distinction between Israel and the Palestinian territories, regardless of whether the Jewish state controls any of those areas.The case concerns German drinks filter and dispenser company Brita which had sought to import drinks makers and syrups from Israeli producer Soda-Club, made at a site in Mishor Adumin in the West Bank, to the east of Jerusalem.Brita contested a German court decision which refused the goods preferential duties treatment as the products were made in the Israeli-occupied territories.The EU court in Luxembourg upheld that decision, ruling that products originating in the West Bank do not fall within the territorial scope of the European Community-Israel agreement and do not therefore qualify for preferential treatment under that agreement.

The court decision, while made to settle a trade and customs dispute, touches on the controversial issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, a fraught issue at the heart of the Middle East peace process, and the status of the Palestinian territories themselves.The European Union would like to see the emergence of a fully-fledged state of Palestine, though as part of a full negotiated agreement with Israel.The EU already has its separate association agreements with Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the latter acting for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.Those agreements provide that industrial imports to Europe originating in Israel or the Palestinian territories respectively are exempt from customs duties.Under the deals the parties are expected to cooperate on determining the precise origin of the products receiving preferential treatment.The case goes back several years and came to light as suspicious German customs officials questioned their Israeli counterparts as to the exact origins of the products.The Israeli side had responded that the merchandise was made in an area under their responsibility. But it had not said whether it came from the occupied territories.That response prompted the German authorities to deny the goods the trade privileges.The Palestinian side had expected such a court decision.During a visit to Brussels on Tuesday, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas called on Europe not to invest in the settlements and to boycott products made in the Israeli settlements within the West Bank.

Syria, Iran affirm ties despite US calls By ALBERT AJI and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Writers – Thu Feb 25, 6:09 pm ET

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syrian President Bashar Assad defied U.S. calls to loosen ties with Iran on Thursday, saying his long-standing alliance with Tehran remains strong despite overtures from Washington intended to shift his loyalties.The U.S. has reached out to Syria in recent months by nominating the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since 2005 and sending top diplomats to meet with President Bashar Assad. Washington is hoping to draw Syria away from Iran and the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas.But with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by his side in Damascus, Assad said Thursday that America should not dictate relationships in the Middle East.

I find it strange how they talk about Middle East stability and at the same time talk about dividing two countries, Assad told reporters when asked about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's call Wednesday for Syria to move away from Iran.
Assad took a swipe at Clinton for making such a suggestion, saying he and Ahmadinejad misunderstood, maybe because of translation error or limited understanding.In a show of unity, the two signed an agreement canceling travel visas between the their countries.U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, speaking to reporters in Washington on Thursday, said Assad need only look around the region and recognize that Syria is increasingly an outlier.We want to see Syria play a more constructive role in the region and one step would be to make clear what Iran needs to do differently. And unfortunately, there was no evidence of that today,he said.

President Barack Obama is determined to engage with Syria, a country seen as key to peace in the region but which the State Department considers a sponsor of terrorism.
Former President George W. Bush withdrew the last U.S. ambassador to Syria in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which his supporters blamed on Syria. Syria denies any links.Assad's strong words Thursday indicate that America does not have the kind of leverage it thought over Syria, said Joshua Landis, an American professor and Syria expert who runs a popular blog called Syria Comment.America overplayed its hand,Landis said.The rest of the world is engaged with Syria — France is doing business, Turkey is doing business. Syria can survive. But it can't survive cutting ties with Iran.Still, there are signs Assad could be open to a breakthrough with America.Assad has begun to dismantle his father's socialist legacy since he rose to office in 2000. He has loosened the reins on banking, sought to attract foreign investment, and encouraged tourism and private education.He also is hoping for U.S. help in boosting the Syrian economy and American mediation in direct peace talks with Israel — a recognition that he needs U.S. help to reach his goal of winning the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.But Clinton said Wednesday that the recent decision to send an ambassador to Syria did not mean American concerns about the country have been addressed.Speaking to lawmakers in Washington, Clinton said the nomination of career diplomat Robert Ford signaled a slight opening with Syria. But she said Washington remained troubled by suspected Syrian support for militant groups in Iraq and elsewhere, interference in Lebanon and Syria's close relationship with Iran.

Ahmadinejad's trip comes amid rising U.S. tension with Iran over its nuclear program. The U.S. and others believe Iran is hiding nuclear weapons development under the guise of a civilian energy program. Iran insist its intentions are peaceful.Assad called America's stance toward Iran a new situation of colonialism in the region.Despite its efforts to woo Syria, Washington has not lifted sanctions on Damascus. First imposed by Bush and renewed by Obama in May, the sanctions cite Syria's support for terrorism, its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and other activities including efforts to undermine U.S. operations in Iraq. Iran's economic and political support has enabled Syria to survive those sanctions and international isolation. Ahmadinejad stressed that Syria and Iran are partners with a long history. There is nothing that could harm these brotherly relations, he said.With each passing day, these relations will improve and deepen.Sarkis Naoum, political editor of the Beirut daily An-Nahar, who follows Iran-Syria relations, says he does not see the countries severing ties anytime soon. Syria was supported by Iran, Iran helped Syria maintain its regime,he said.Mr. Obama's engagement policy has not worked yet.AP writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy and Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

Corruption trial of Israel ex-PM Olmert resumes
Thu Feb 25, 3:45 am ET


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's former prime minister Ehud Olmert was back in court on Thursday stressing his innocence at the resumption of his corruption trial.A few months ago I came before this court as an innocent man and I believe I will leave as an innocent man, Olmert told reporters before entering the Jerusalem courtroom.A member of his legal team, Rohi Bleher, said the trial would last several months with as many as 280 witnesses expected to testify. On Thursday, the prosecutor was expected to detail the charges against Olmert.In December, Olmert, 64, pleaded not guilty to charges of corruption linked to three separate cases. He resigned under pressure in September 2008 after police recommended he be indicted.The 61-page indictment includes allegations of fraud, breach of trust, registering false corporate documents and concealing fraudulent earnings.If found guilty, Olmert could face time behind bars, although it is unclear how long.All the charges concern actions which Olmert allegedly took before he became prime minister in May 2006, first as mayor of Jerusalem and later as trade and industry minister.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

UN CONCERNED WITH PALESTINIAN TALKS

UN chief raises concern over Palestinian talks By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer – Wed Feb 24, 9:57 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon raised concern at a meeting Wednesday with Israel's defense chief that Israel's recent designation of holy sites in the West Bank as heritage sites and demolitions in East Jerusalem could hinder a resumption of stalled peace talks with the Palestinians, a U.N. spokesman said.The U.N. chief discussed prospects for reviving peace negotiations and broader Mideast issues with defense chief Ehud Barak for about an hour, including a 15-minute tete-a-tete, officials said.U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said that in the discussion on efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks, the secretary-general regretted certain recent developments on the ground, including new demolition orders in East Jerusalem and the inclusion of holy sites in the occupied West Bank on an Israeli heritage list.The Palestinians consider the West Bank as part of a future Palestinian state and want East Jerusalem as its capital.At a special Cabinet meeting Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added the Cave of Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem, to the list of some 150 national heritage sites.

Palestinian President Mahmoud warned Tuesday that the region could plunge into a religious war over Israel's plans to recognize the disputed Hebron shrine, which is holy to both Jews and Muslims, as its own.Barak's meeting with Ban was his first on a brief trip to New York and Washington. He is also scheduled to meet U.S. envoy George Mitchell, who is trying to revive the stalemated Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior U.S. officials.The United Nations is part of the so-called Quartet which has been trying to promote a Mideast peace settlement along with the U.S., the European Union and Russia. The U.S. and Russia are trying to convene a Quartet meeting and a tentative date of March 19 has been discussed, diplomats in Washington said.During his meeting with Barak, the secretary-general also expressed concern at the situation in Gaza and his disappointment that Israel has not accepted the U.N.'s proposal to kickstart civilian recovery,Haq said. He underscored the need for Israel to take positive steps on the entry of reconstruction materials into Gaza.Barak did not speak to reporters at U.N. headquarters but Mirit Cohen, spokeswoman for Israel's U.N. Mission, said the defense minister told the U.N. chief that Israel is doing the utmost to make life easier for the citizens of Gaza and to prevent a humanitarian crisis.On Lebanon, Ban expressed hope for speedy progress on a proposal by the U.N. peacekeeping force for an Israeli withdrawal from the disputed border village of Ghajar, Haq said.

Ban also urged an end to Israeli overflights of Lebanon and expressed his continuing concern at the lack of progress in disarming Lebanese militias as called for in a 2004 Security Council resolution, he said.Israel and Hezbollah militants fought a 34-day war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, and Cohen said Barak accused Iran and Syria of arming Hezbollah with over 40,000 missiles aimed at Israel like weapons of terror.The defense minister also called for enforcement of severe sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, she said.

Obama needs to get his poll numbers up -- in Israel
Wed Feb 24, 8:23 pm ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama needs to get his poll numbers up -- in Israel -- if he hopes to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a senior Israeli official said Wednesday.Obama, who has made outreach to the Muslim world a feature of his presidency, has left many Israelis skeptical about his support for the Jewish state, particularly in comparison to his predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.We are literally taking the security future of our families, our kids, and placing it in the hands of the president of the United States and that's no small thing, said the Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.Trust is an essential component of the peace process, he added, saying Israel ultimately looked to the U.S. president for support should it strike peace deals with the Palestinians or other Arab states that later unravel.A poll released in August found only four percent of Israelis viewed Obama's policies as more pro-Israel versus more pro-Palestinian or neutral. A survey made public in December gave Obama a 41 percent favorable rating among Israelis.

Either figure, the Israeli official said, was too low and the two countries are in open dialogue ... on the need to get that number up in advance of any peace agreement.He said it would not be hard to boost Obama's standing among Israelis, starting with his visiting the Jewish state and engaging with ordinary citizens.The point is to reach out to common Israelis and then showing that ... he cares about their security and he is there for them and that he understands the pain and sacrifices that Israel is going to make and understands the risks they are going to be taking and will assure us that if the peace breaks down ... he'll be there, he added.We want to be reassured.(Editing by Paul Simao)

Clinton sounds upbeat on Israeli-Palestinian talks By Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Quinn – Wed Feb 24, 8:11 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday she hoped Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would resume shortly, sounding more upbeat than usual for a U.S. official.Separately, Israel's ambassador to the United States told Reuters if negotiations resumed after being frozen for more than a year they would start as indirect proximity talks, with U.S. envoy George Mitchell shuttling between the sides.Ambassador Michael Oren also said Israelis would only make territorial concessions to Syria if they believed it would be as part of a warm and genuine peace with a free flow of goods and people.Peace talks with the Palestinians and Turkish-mediated discussions with Syria stalled after Israel launched a major offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008 that left 1,400 Palestinians dead.Despite calling the Arab-Israeli conflict a priority from the start of his administration, U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts have failed to revive negotiations.After initially demanding a freeze on Israeli construction in Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in Jerusalem, the Obama administration last year abandoned that stance, a step seen as undercutting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.U.S. officials hope Abbas can be persuaded to give up his desire for an absolute halt to settlement construction before resuming talks, particularly if he gets backing from Arab states.They hope this might be forthcoming at an Arab League summit in Tripoli in March, setting the stage for fresh negotiations.We hope that that will commence shortly,Clinton told lawmakers.We think it's absolutely essential that they begin to talk about the final status issues that divide them ... but we are well aware of the difficulties that confront us.

A WAY FROM HERE TO THERE

Even if Israel and the Palestinians agree to resume talks, many analysts believe chances of a peace agreement soon are slim because of divisions among the Palestinians and the fragile, right-wing coalition in Israel.A senior U.S. official who spoke on condition that he not be identified said Clinton had some grounds for optimism about a resumption of talks.We're not there yet, but there's a way from here to there, said the U.S. official.Oren sketched out a negotiating technique that he said would take the two sides back to the 1940s when Israeli and Arab officials would not sit in the same room.At least in the initial stage, the talks will be proximity talks with ... Senator Mitchell as the intermediary between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority, he told Reuters.The central issues in the six-decade conflict are the delineation of borders, the fate of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim, and the rights of Palestinian refugees.About half a million Israelis live in settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in territory captured by Israeli forces in the 1967 Middle East War.Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Jerusalem.

A WARM AND GENUINE PEACE WITH SYRIA?

Oren suggested Israel was open to reviving peace talks with Syria but stressed it wanted these to be direct, face-to-face encounters rather than through mediation. He also suggested Israelis would only agree to giving back lands seized from Syria in 1967 if they believed Damascus wanted truly normal relations, ended support for Palestinian militant groups and distanced itself from Iran. Israelis would not be willing to make, I think, serious territorial concessions (to Syria) unless they were convinced that this was a warm and genuine peace, Oren said. Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, brokered by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the Camp David presidential retreat in 1978, has disappointed many Israelis who feel that Egyptians have never accepted the Jewish state as a full partner. (Editing by Paul Simao)

Top-level informer affair embarrasses Hamas By KARIN LAUB and MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writers – Wed Feb 24, 3:21 pm ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Claims by the son of a Hamas founder Wednesday that he was a long-term spy for Israel exposed a new side of the Islamic militant group's vulnerability and punched a hole in its meticulously groomed image of secrecy and discipline.The spy affair comes at a time when Hamas is still reeling from suspicions that Hamas informants helped Israel assassinate a top Hamas operative in a Dubai hotel. The back-to-back scandals were sure to leave Hamas leaders fearful of their own and ever more painfully aware of how capable Israel is of reaching the inner circles of their organization.At the center of the latest affair is 32-year-old Mosab Yousef, a son of Sheik Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder serving a six-year term in an Israeli prison.Hamas, which overran the Gaza Strip in 2007, dismissed the younger Yousef's claims as a lie and said they were part of an Israeli attempt to weaken the movement. However, the man's father did not rule out that his son was an informer, contending he was blackmailed by Israeli agents as a teen.Analysts said the disclosures hurt Hamas' image and were sure to trigger new security concerns in the movement.The Israeli Haaretz daily reported Wednesday that Mosab Yousef provided intelligence to Israel's Shin Bet security service for more than a decade, preventing dozens of Hamas attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings, saving hundreds of lives. The paper said he also helped put several senior Palestinian operatives behind bars.The younger Yousef, who moved to California in 2007, declined an interview request by The Associated Press.

His memoir, Son of Hamas,is being published in the United States next week. His publicist confirmed that the information presented by Haaretz is described in the book. The author wrote on his Facebook page that his memoir will blow your minds away, it is going to be like a tsunami in the Middle East.Mosab Yousef was considered one of the Shin Bet's most valuable assets and was dubbed The Green Prince, a reference to his Hamas pedigree and the Islamists' signature green color, Haaretz said.The newspaper said it confirmed Mosab Yousef's account with Shin Bet agents, including his handler. The report said Mosab, who converted to Christianity, despised Hamas and acted out of ideological conviction.The elder Yousef said in a statement from prison that he did not rule out that his son was recruited by Israeli intelligence, but he had no access to the movement's secrets.The father said Mosab was first blackmailed by the Israeli agents as a 17-year-old, and others in Hamas were told. The cleric did not say what damaging information Shin Bet might have used against his son.Whether what Haaretz reported is true or not, Mosab was not an active member in Hamas or in any of its military, political or religious branches, or any other body,the elder Yousef said in the statement distributed by Hamas.

Mosab Yousef was first jailed by Israel in 1996 and released in 1997.The Shin Bet routinely tries to recruit Palestinians of all factions as informers, including those in prisons, by using blackmail or promising benefits, such as work or travel permits.The spy affair comes at a time when Hamas is still smarting from the Jan. 19 assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, suspected by Israel of procuring Iranian arms for Gaza.On Wednesday, Dubai police said at least 15 more suspects using foreign passports are wanted for the slaying of the Hamas commander, raising the alleged hit squad tally to at least 26. Several names were traced to Israeli dual nationals, but all denied involvement.The violent Hamas has been in Israel's sights since its founding in 1987. Israel has killed key Hamas leaders in Gaza, most in airstrikes, though it botched a 1997 attempt to kill Khaled Mashaal, now the movement's supreme leader. Authorities in Dubai have arrested two Palestinians in the al-Mabhouh slaying. Hamas' Fatah rivals in the West Bank have alleged that Hamas moles helped the killers. Hamas officials have countered that the Syria-based al-Mabhouh was careless, booking his trip through the Internet and informing his Gaza family of the name of the Dubai hotel where he planned to stay. The family denied al-Mabhouh gave them information. Hamas also denied media reports that two al-Mabhouh aides in Damascus were sought for questioning about the assassination. Instead, Hamas has alleged that the two Palestinians in custody in Dubai had links to Fatah.
Hamas long prided itself in its secrecy and discipline, in contrast to the fractious, unruly Fatah movement. However, analysts said that as Hamas grew from a shadowy underground movement into Gaza's ruler, it became more vulnerable to infiltration.Hamas is no longer a small organization which is easily controlled by any leadership,said Khaled Hroub, a Hamas expert at Cambridge University. The al-Mabhouh assassination undermined Hamas' image as a coherent, organized group, and the exposure of Mosab Yousef as an informer was even more damaging, he added. There have been a number of stories of having some collaborators on the margins and fringes (of Hamas), but not the son of a leader,he said.It will leave a stain on Hamas' image.Mohammed Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank. Additional reporting by Rizek Abdel Jawad in Gaza City and Diaa Hadid and Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem.

Facebook looks to capitalize on Arab world growth By ADAM SCHRECK, AP Business Writer – Wed Feb 24, 6:27 am ET

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Facebook Inc. said Wednesday it is teaming with a Middle Eastern digital advertising company as the online meet-up site looks to capitalize on rapid growth in the Arab world.Facebook said it hopes the deal with Connect Ads will give it better exposure to advertisers in a socially conservative region where online marketing is in its early stages. The Cairo-based advertising booker already handles sales for Microsoft Corp.'s MSN regional portals and other local sites.They have the reach and ... they have the connections, said Trevor Johnson, Facebook's head of strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.The tie-up with an outside ad sales provider mirrors a strategy Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook has used in other emerging markets, such as Eastern Europe and Asia, Johnson said in an interview.It also signals the potential the social networking site sees for the young and growing Arab market, where it counts 10 million regular users.The company expects Mideast user numbers to shoot significantly higher in the coming months, as it has in other markets, as more members follow their friends onto the site.The opportunity is massive ... we're very much at a tipping point, Johnson said.Now is the time where there are enough people where it makes brands sit up and listen.For now though, the Middle East represents a small fraction of Facebook's business. The company has more than 400 million active users worldwide. It says about 70 percent of those are outside the United States.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The initial partnership lasts for three years.

The companies said it was too early to discuss sales targets. Connect Ads managing director Mohamed el-Mehairy said only that he expects high revenues from the deal given the site's explosive growth.Partnering with an established Arabic firm also could help Facebook find its way in a region where authorities typically maintain strict controls on the flow of online information.Censors in countries such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia routinely block Web sites based on political, religious and moral grounds. Those countries are also home to the bulk of Facebook's Middle Eastern users.It's whether or not we can continue to deliver on the local market experience people expect, but within the rules and regulations imposed by governments and society, Johnson said. That's one of the biggest challenges, is building that side of things.Other major Internet companies are also ramping up their operations in the Arab world.In August, Yahoo Inc. bought one of the region's largest online portals, Maktoob, for an undisclosed sum.Two weeks later, Google Inc. launched an online question-and-answer tool it said was designed to boost the amount of Web content available in Arabic. It already offers Arabic-language search pages, and its Blogger publishing platform is popular in the region.

US, Russia eye new Mideast peace push By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 23, 5:22 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The United States, Russia and their Mideast peace partners are hoping that a strategy session among top diplomats can prod Israel and the Palestinians to restart stalled talks and have begun organizing a gathering in the Russian capital next month.Diplomats said Tuesday that the Obama administration and Russia are trying to convene a meeting of the so-called Quartet group of peacemakers — the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — in mid-March in Moscow.A tentative date of March 19 has been discussed but is not yet confirmed, the diplomats said. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the timing has not been finalized.The meeting would bring together Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton along with other European officials, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is now the Quartet's special representative.It was not immediately clear whether Israeli or Palestinian representatives would be invited or whether Arab officials would attend.

The meeting will seek to build on the work of the special U.S. envoy for Middle East peace, George Mitchell, who has been shuttling back and forth to the region with only limited success in improving the atmosphere for a resumption in peace talks.
Clinton spoke by telephone on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about the prospect of getting together in the very near future as part of the Quartet to focus on the Middle East, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. He did not provide details or offer a potential time or venue for the meeting.If held as planned, the meeting would follow a recent flurry of U.S. diplomatic activity in the Middle East, including an upcoming trip to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden in the second week of March.Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg left Washington on Tuesday for Israel to participate in this week's U.S.-Israel Strategic Dialogue and Clinton's other two top deputies, Jacob Lew and William Burns, each returned from separate trips to the region in the past 10 days.Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is due in Washington later this week for talks with senior administration officials and will see Clinton at the State Department on Friday, Crowley said.Clinton herself just returned from a trip to Qatar and Saudi Arabia that coincided with a visit to Israel by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Opposition leader praises Hamas commander killing By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 23, 1:02 pm ET

JERUSALEM – Israel's parliamentary opposition leader on Tuesday praised the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai last month, in the first such comment from a top official.Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima Party said the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was good, but she did not indicate who was behind the killing.The fact that a terrorist was killed, and it doesn't matter if it was in Dubai or Gaza, is good news to those fighting terrorism, she said at a conference of the Jewish Agency board of governors in Jerusalem.Israel has refused to comment on assumptions that a Mossad team carried out the assassination. Dubai police have released pictures and passports with names of Israelis, saying the forged passports were used by the hit squad.The Israelis have said they were victims of identity theft. Britain, Ireland and Germany have called Israeli ambassadors in for explanations about the forged passports, but Israel has not accepted responsibility.Israel has come under withering criticism from some quarters in Europe and elsewhere in the wake of the killing of al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20. Dubai security cameras picked up 18 members of what the country's police commander said was a hit team, adding that he was virtually certain Mossad was to blame.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was grilled about Israel's alleged role in the killing when he met European foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that as long as there is no evidence beyond media reports linking Israel to the killing, the minister felt there is no need to relate to the matter.In the only Israeli government comment to date, Lieberman said last week,Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies.He added,I don't know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports.Livni, a former foreign minister, served in the Mossad in the 1980s. In her address Tuesday, she rejected criticism of the assassination of al-Mabhouh, who Israel says was behind the kidnapping and killing of two soldiers in 1989 and more recently was in charge of obtaining rockets for Hamas militants in Gaza.The entire world must support those fighting terrorism,Livni said.Any comparison between terrorism and those fighting it is immoral.

Egypt police arrest Cairo synagogue bomb suspect
Tue Feb 23, 10:29 am ET


CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian security forces arrested a 49-year-old tailor Tuesday on suspicion of trying to bomb a Cairo synagogue in retaliation for Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.Security forces believe Gamal Hussein Ahmed threw a primitive explosive device and a suitcase filled with petrol canisters at the synagogue in downtown Cairo Sunday. The device burst into flames but caused no injuries.Ahmed, a drug addict who had previously been in rehabilitation, was on his way to the American embassy to seek political asylum when police arrested him at 1 a.m. (2300 GMT on Monday), the ministry said.Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, has been rounding up youths accused of links to Islamist groups in the past few months.Political analysts say they expect isolated incidents of violence but see no sign of a return of insurgency on the scale of the 1990s, when security forces fought gun battles to quash an organized Islamist rebellion.Analysts say such incidents also aid the government's push to extend emergency laws, in place since 1981, that sanction indefinite detention and military trials. Egypt's parliament is set to discuss their extension in April.Sources cited in the ministry statement said Ahmed confessed he threw the device at the synagogue out of anger over perceived Israeli injustices committed against Palestinians in the occupied territories.A bomb in a busy Cairo tourist area in February last year killed a French tourist. That was the first fatal attack against tourists in Egypt since bombs killed at least 23 people at tourist sites in the Sinai peninsula in 2006.Egypt was once home to tens of thousands of Jews, but most left decades ago and only a few dozen live in the Arab state.(Writing by Marwa Awad; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Palestinian state a vital interest for Israel: Abbas
Tue Feb 23, 12:59 pm ET


BRUSSELS (AFP) – The creation of an independent Palestine is a vital interest for Israel, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Tuesday, while reiterating his refusal to enter talks unless Jewish settlement building ends.An independent Palestinian state is a vital interest for Israel, the Palestinian Authority head said during exchanges with Belgian senators and deputies in Brussels.We all hope that a just and durable peace... in a state living peacefully with Israel, could bring peace and stability to the whole region,said Abbas, who was set to meet EU president Herman Van Rompuy and Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme later in the day.

While seeing no alternative to negotiations, Abbas stressed that these could not begin while Israel continues the colonisation of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem through the building up of Jewish settlements.Abbas also declared that the appeal by the European Union in December for Jerusalem to become the future capital of two states, as part of a negotiated settlement, marked the start of a political role for the EU in the region.I would like the United States to adopt such a declaration, he added.The Palestinian leader singled out the very good position taken by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who has floated the idea of granting international recognition to a Palestinian state even before Israel has agreed on its borders.However I can't say that it reflects the French position, he added.French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who met Abbas in Paris on Monday, did not reprise his foreign minister's remarks, calling them an idea for the future.

War of Words: Israel attacks Palestinian rhetoric By Erika Solomon – Tue Feb 23, 9:04 am ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Concerned that its image abroad is suffering, Israel is going on the offensive to show that Palestinians, not Israelis, are responsible for perpetuating the region's cycle of violence.With the peace process at a standstill since its war in Gaza a year ago, Israel is trying to paint the Palestinian Authority as the source of incitement to violence -- a violation of Palestinian obligations under peace agreements.Citing usage of the word martyr to honor dead Palestinian militants and speeches recalling the noble heritage of armed struggle, Israel's incitement accusations put the onus on Palestinian leadership for failure to return to negotiations.In January, Israel's Center for Near East Research stepped up the anti-incitement campaign with the launch of a monthly Incitement Report. Aimed at Western legislators, it chronicles language its writers say encourages violence.Israel's Ministry for Public Diplomacy is also inviting ordinary citizens to get involved, with a program to teach volunteers how to present a positive image of Israel abroad. Palestinian incitement is included as a talking point.Palestinian officials insist their speeches do not incite violence. Their political rhetoric, however, pays homage to a past of violent resistance to Israeli occupation.Fatah, the dominant force behind the Palestinian Authority, calls its legislative body the Revolutionary Council. Its charter still does not recognize Israel, even as its leaders promote a two-state solution and peace with the Jewish state.Palestinians say rhetoric from their side about guns or bloodshed is nothing compared with the physical subjugation and humiliation they suffer at the hands of Israeli occupation troops manning West Bank checkpoints and armed patrols.

Real incitement isn't just words, they say, it is actions.The Israelis keep taking Palestinian land to build settlements, their settlers provoke Palestinians by cutting their trees or taking their homes in Jerusalem. It goes on and on, says Ghassan Khatib, Palestinian Authority spokesman.Israeli behavior is the most effective incitement to the Palestinian public, he said.

SERMONS

The incitement debate stems from the Roadmap to peace, a 2003 Middle East peace plan whose first phase required Palestinian authorities to end violence, and Israel to help normalize Palestinian life and freeze settlement activity. Each side is called on to end incitement against the other.Palestinians insist they are meeting their obligations but can only do so much to muzzle individuals.A few weeks ago, a Palestinian official missed his appointment to give a sermon on non-violence at a small mosque in the West Bank village of Burin, on the frontline of skirmishes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians.While he was held by Israeli troops at a checkpoint, a replacement speaker stepped up to the minbar (dais) and delivered a blood-curdling call on Muslims to kill Jews.The PA, which has gagged the cleric, said such incidents can be hard to stop in places like Burin, where a neighboring mosque had just been attacked and Israel settlers were suspected. The Koran was burned and Hebrew graffiti scrawled on the walls, vandalism denounced by Israeli ministers and rabbis.Palestinians say some Israeli examples of incitement are unrelated to violence. In a speech last week, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon named Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as sources of incitement because they go from capital to capital to defame Israel...to vilify Israel.We need to have common definitions as to what incitement is and what it is not, said Khatib, who suggested creating a joint observation committee.

But others say no consensus is possible. Media analyst Nebal Thawabteh of Birzeit University in the West Bank recalls a joint incitement study by Israeli and Palestinian organizations a few years ago. They had completely different criteria. You can't even discuss the issue because there are no guidelines. It all depends on political views, she said. (Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Jon Boyle)

You watch too much Bond: Israeli diplomat
Mon Feb 22, 1:25 pm ET


BRUSSELS (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday made light of accusations that the Jewish state was involved in the murder of a top Hamas official in Dubai, likening the assassination to a James Bond movie plot.You see too many James Bond movies, Lieberman told journalists in Brussels, when asked whether the Israeli secret service Mossad was involved in the assassination of Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh.The comment was made after the Israel's top diplomat held talks with EU parliament president Jerzy Buzek, one of several European officials Lieberman met during a visit to Brussels which coincided with a meeting of EU foreign ministers.His visit was arranged before the outset of the furore over the Hamas official's murder, and the use of European passports by the killers.Lieberman also met up with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Irish counterpart Micheal Martin and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton among others.According to Dubai police, the hit-men who killed al-Mabhuh, a founder of Hamas' military wing, held British, Irish, French and German passports between them.Investigators in the Emirates are convinced that Mossad was behind the attack.In a statement issued by his office Lieberman said there was no evidence the Jewish state was behind the killing.There is no proof Israel is involved in this affair, and if somebody had presented any proof, aside from press stories, we would have reacted, Lieberman said in his statement.

France's Sarkozy backs viable Palestinian state By James Mackenzie – Mon Feb 22, 11:49 am ET

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy backed the creation of a viable Palestinian state on Monday but was cautious about repeating his foreign minister's support for possible recognition of a state before its borders were set.Speaking at a news conference in Paris with visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Sarkozy repeated France's support for statehood for Palestinians but added:We have always said a viable Palestinian state.What we want when we argue for a Palestinian state is a real state, which can give hope and a future for millions of Palestinians. It's not just an idea, he told reporters.In a newspaper interview at the weekend, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that to break a stalemate in Middle East peacemaking, some countries might recognize a Palestinian state before its borders were fixed.One can imagine a Palestinian state being rapidly declared and immediately recognized by the international community, even before negotiating its borders. I would be tempted by that, he told the Journal du Dimanche.Sarkozy said that Kouchner was thinking of possible ways to bring momentum to the peace process but that France's goal remained a functioning Palestinian state in clearly set borders.In Bernard's comments, there was the thought that if we don't manage that, then when the time comes, in accord with our Palestinian friends, we might underline the idea of this state politically, to lift it up a notch in a way, he said.But the objective is the idea of a Palestinian state in the frontiers of 1967, with an exchange of territory, just as we have said all along.The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership said last year it would seek U.N. Security Council backing for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, referring to the West Bank and Gaza Strip borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 Middle East war.

It said the initiative would not be a unilateral declaration of statehood but would aim to secure international support for the eventual creation of a state based on the 1967 borders.Sarkozy said that if any such initiative were launched, we would see what we would do but that it was up to the Palestinians to decide how they wished to proceed.Israel has sharply criticized the idea of any unilateral initiative and says only negotiations can produce results.But there has been growing speculation in Israel that the Palestinians are looking for ways around direct talks which have been suspended for over a year.A think-tank close to the Israeli government says the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood with serious implications for Israel.Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, said a recent paper by Dan Diker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.The EU and the United States recognized the independence of Kosovo without the support of a Security Council resolution. Palestinian leaders now believe geopolitical conditions are ripe to follow that path, Diker said.(Additional reporting by Douglas Hamilton in Jerusalem; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Gaza training camp blast kills Hamas militant
Mon Feb 22, 5:07 am ET


GAZA CITY (AFP) – A Palestinian militant was killed in an explosion at a training camp run by Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Monday, medics and the Islamist movement said.
Another fighter was seriously wounded in the blast near the southern town of Khan Yunis, according to Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.Hamas said the man was killed during a jihad mission, a phrase often used for accidental explosions.Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after driving out forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in a week of bloody street battles.

Jews force way into Jericho to pray at old synagogue: army
Sun Feb 21, 4:04 pm ET


JERICHO (AFP) – A group of Jewish faithful forced their way past an army checkpoint and into the West Bank town of Jericho on Sunday to pray at an ancient synagogue and were later arrested, the army and an AFP correspondent said.Our forces entered Jericho and apprehended 35 Israel civilians who had entered Jericho in the evening to pray at an ancient synagogue, a spokesman said, adding that they would be turned over to the police.Earlier, an AFP correspondent said the group, said to be extremist settlers, broke through a military checkpoint on one of the roads controlling access to Jericho.The synagogue, in the northern part of the town, contains a magnificent 6th century mosaic of a menorah, or seven-branch candelabra, and the words Shalom al Israel, or Peace to Israel.Israelis wishing to pray there are supposed to coordinate with the army and the Palestinian police.

France wants Middle East peace talks kick-start: PM
Sun Feb 21, 11:58 am ET


AMMAN (Reuters) – France is considering recognizing a Palestinian state before its borders have been negotiated in an effort to kick-start Middle East peace talks, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Sunday.France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told French weekend newspaper Journal du Dimanche he was tempted by the idea of international recognition of a Palestinian state even before its borders were negotiated.Kouchner's proposal showed France's willingness to accelerate the (peace) process, to take initiatives which will kick off negotiations which are taking too long to start, Fillon told a news conference in Jordan.French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Fillon plan to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris on Monday.Peace talks were halted more than a year ago over the war in the conflict in the Gaza Strip and have not resumed, due largely to a Palestinian demand that Israel first impose a complete freeze on building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Israel's refusal to do so.(Reporting by Sophie Louet; Writing by Sophie Taylor; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Sunday, February 21, 2010

LITTLE FALLOUT OVER DUBAI

Israel sees little fallout from Dubai killing
By Jeffrey Heller – FEB 21,10


JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli intelligence experts dismissed on Sunday the prospect of lasting diplomatic fallout for Israel or damage to its Mossad spy agency over the spotlight shone on the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai.The bottom line is that an important deed was done, by whomever, in the war on terrorism, Uzi Dayan, an ex-general and former head of Israel's National Security Council, said on Army Radio.However, Dubai police have said they are virtually certain that Mossad carried out the killing, and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed vowed on Sunday to bring those responsible to justice.Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman could face sharp questions from British and Irish counterparts in Brussels on Monday over the alleged use of forged European passports by a hit squad that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19.Citing a policy of ambiguity with regard to its intelligence activities, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied Hamas allegations that a Mossad team was responsible.I intend ... to underline our deep concern about the fake use of passports in Dubai and to seek reassurance and clarification on this very serious issue,Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told the Irish Times on Friday.Britain and Ireland called in the Israeli ambassadors last week to discuss the issue, but received little in the way of explanation. The ambassador in London, Ron Prosor, said he was unable to assist the British with more information.

EXPLANATION

France and Germany have also asked Israel for an explanation, but the French and German foreign ministers are not scheduled to attend Monday's foreign ministers' meeting, and it is not clear whether Lieberman will meet their deputies.Although six Britons in Israel, who said they were identity theft victims, had the same names of members of the alleged hit squad, Israel seemed confident in its no-smoking-gun approach.No one recalled his ambassador (to Israel). No one expelled anybody,Dayan said, calling for an investigation into the type of passport Mabhouh used to enter Dubai.Hamas, an Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, is shunned by the West for rejecting its calls to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Hamas acknowledged that Mabhouh smuggled weapons for it.Izzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official, told the Jordanian newspaper Al-Sabeel that the movement has formed a high-level investigation committee to try to discover how the Mossad was able to carry out the operation.Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, speaking on Saturday, said he did not expect a diplomatic crisis with Europe over the killing because there is nothing linking Israel to the assassination.Britain, France and Germany are countries with shared interests with Israel in countering terrorism,Ayalon said.

In a speech on Friday, Israeli President Shimon Peres made no mention of the Dubai assassination, but he highlighted the importance of cooperation among security services in what he described as efforts to stop terror.The secret relations among the security organizations are more open, and more meaningful, than the diplomatic ones,Peres said.In the United Arab Emirates, the state news agency WAM said UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammed Gargash summoned European Union ambassadors to brief them on the case seek their support in the investigation. Mishka Ben-David, a former Mossad operative, said the 11 suspected hit squad members -- some wearing beards and eyeglasses in photos released by Dubai -- could easily get back into the field after changing their look. These people can do almost anything because if you take any of the pictures you saw and make slight adjustments to their appearance, they can fly abroad under another name and no one will give them a second glance,he told Army Radio.(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels and Raissa Kasolowsky in Dubai, Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

UAE condemns abuse of passports by Hamas killers
by W.G. Dunlop W.g. Dunlop – FEB 21,10


DUBAI (AFP) – The United Arab Emirates condemned on Sunday the abuse of European passports by the assassins of a top Hamas figure in Dubai, as police said some of the killers entered the country with diplomatic passports.The Dubai police chief also called for Hamas to conduct an internal investigation into the killing, pointing to a possible mole in the Palestinian Islamist movement, a theory Hamas rejected.The UAE is deeply concerned by the fact that passports of close allies, whose nationals currently enjoy preferential visa waivers, were illegally used to commit this crime, said a foreign ministry statement, carried by the official WAM news agency.Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a founder of Hamas' armed wing, was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai on January 20.The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash, has summoned European Union ambassadors to the UAE to brief them on developments in the case and to seek their continued cooperation with the investigation, the statement said.The abuse of passports poses a global threat, affecting both countries' national security as well as the personal security of travellers,UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan said in the statement.We fully intend that those responsible are brought to account for their actions,he said.Meanwhile, Dubai police chief Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan said some of Mabhuh's killers used diplomatic passports to enter the country.There is information that Dubai police will not make public for the moment, especially regarding diplomatic passports used by some of Mahmud al-Mabhuh's killers to enter Dubai, Khalfan was quoted by Al-Bayan newspaper as saying.Dubai police last week released the names and photos of 11 suspects in Mabhuh's killing who entered the UAE on European passports -- six from Britain, three from Ireland, one from Germany and one from France.Those passports appear to have been falsified or stolen, as they belonged to what appear to be ordinary citizens shocked to learn of their being linked to the case.Khalfan had not previously mentioned any of the suspects holding diplomatic passports. However, he said last week that there were others implicated in the killing whose names have not yet been made public.The use of European passports has sparked a diplomatic furor in which Israeli envoys in the four countries have been summoned for talks.But on Saturday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon insisted there would be no diplomatic crisis with Europe over the use of foreign passports in the Mabhuh murder as Israel had nothing to do with what happened.

Khalfan, however, has said he is 99, if not 100 percent sure that Mossad was behind the assassination, and added on Saturday that Dubai had evidence, including wiretaps, of the agency's role.The UK's Sunday Times said the killing was carried out by Israel's spy agency Mossad with the green light and blessing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Khalfan said that Mabhuh's killing was no longer a local issue, but a security issue for European countries,quoted on Sunday in another Emirati daily, the Abu Dhabi-owned Al-Ittihad.Al-Ittihad said Khalfan has called for Hamas to conduct an internal investigation about the person who leaked information on Mabhuh's movements and arrival in Dubai to his killers. The source of the leak was the real killer,Khalfan was quoted as saying. Hamas, however, rejected the idea of a leak. It said on Sunday that the fact that Mahmud al-Mabhuh was followed by agents of the Mossad does not mean that the movement (Hamas) is infiltrated.However, it did say it would investigate. Hamas always carries out an investigation into the perpetrated crime and hopes to coordinate its actions with (the police force) of Dubai,the statement said. According to Khalfan, two Palestinians have been arrested in Jordan and extradited to Dubai, where they are being held in connection with the murder. A Palestinian Authority security official in the West Bank said a senior Hamas member, Nehru Massud, was also suspected of involvement in the killing.
Massud has denied he had a role in Mabhuh's death.Hamas has blamed the killing entirely on Israel and vowed revenge.

West Bank shrines on Israeli heritage list By IAN DEITCH, Associated Press Writer – FEB 21,10

JERUSALEM – Israel is adding two key West Bank holy shrines to its list of national heritage sites, the prime minister said Sunday, staking a claim that angered Palestinians, who want Israel out of the West Bank.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing a session of his Cabinet at a heritage site in the Israeli Galilee, said the two sites were late additions to the list, reflecting pressure from settlers and other nationalists to widen the heritage category to include Old Testament sites in the West Bank.One of the sites, in the city of Hebron, has been a flashpoint for decades. Jews call it the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Bible says the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried along with three of their wives.Muslims call it the al-Ibrahimi mosque, reflecting the fact that Abraham is considered the father of both Judaism and Islam.Hebron is a focus of violence because it is the only place in the West Bank where Jews live among Palestinians. About 500 Israeli settlers, some of them extremists, live in enclaves near the disputed holy site, guarded by Israeli soldiers who control part of the city where about 170,000 Palestinians live.

The other new heritage site is the traditional tomb of the biblical Rachel on the outskirts of Bethlehem, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Hebron. Israel's West Bank separation barrier juts into Bethlehem to put the site under Israeli control. The 30-foot (8-meter-) high concrete wall is a constant irritant to Palestinians there, who reject Israel's claims that the barrier is meant to keep out attackers and consider it a land grab.Altogether, about 150 sites are on the national heritage list. Netanyahu convened his Cabinet at Tel Hai, location of a legendary 1920 battle between early Jewish settlers and Arab attackers.Netanyahu, who angered settlers by agreeing under U.S. pressure to slow settlement construction, said the two West Bank sites must be preserved because they show Israel's ancient ties to the land.Our existence here doesn't just depend on the might of the military or our economic and technological strength, Netanyahu said. It is anchored first and foremost in our national and emotional legacy.Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib condemned the decision and warned it could take the Israel-Palestinian conflict in a dangerous direction.We believe that this particular violation is very dangerous because it might add to the religious nature of the conflict,Khatib said. Palestinians claim the West Bank as part of their future state.Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said the list was not meant to draw borders.The purpose of the list ... is to single out sites that are of great importance to the Jewish people,Regev said.Israeli settlers and their backers, who oppose giving up control of any of the West Bank, were pleased with the move and said they would press for additional biblical sites to be added to the list.Arieh Eldad, a lawmaker from the hardline National Union party, toured the Hebron site Sunday.There is no Israeli heritage without the Bible, there is no Zionism without the Bible,Eldad told Israel Radio.This is the real birthplace of the Jewish people, here it all began.Additional reporting by Associated Press writer Ben Hubbard in Ramallah, West Bank.

Jordan, France call for international peace conference
FEB 21,10


AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan and France called for an international conference that would support efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.The two sides welcome all efforts that back the peace process, including holding an international conference at a suitable time and in coordination with all parties,visiting French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and his Jordanian counterpart, Samir Rifai, said in a joint statement at a news conference in Amman.Fillon, who arrived in Jordan from Syria on Saturday, said Amman and Paris share the same views that the there is no other option but peace, peace that is built on clear foundation.There should be a viable, independent and democratic Palestinian state that lives side by side with Israel,he added.I will tell King Abdullah II that we share the same feelings about peace. I don't think wasting more time is in the interest of peace.The Palestinians have insisted that Israel halt all its settlement activity in the whole West Bank before they will agree to new peace talks.Jordan's main concern is to achieve peace, said Rifai, whose country signed a peace accord with Israel in 1994.

Israel rejects recognition of Palestinian state
Sun Feb 21, 3:41 am ET


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Sunday rejected the idea of foreign countries recognising a Palestinian state without a negotiated peace agreement, after France's foreign minister hinted at such a scenario.Imposing this kind of semblance of a partial solution from outside goes against the very idea of peace, a senior Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity.Granting recognition when the issues of the conflict have not been settled would add fuel to the fire. This would only push the Palestinians to be even more intransigent and thus make any compromise impossible,he added.France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said over the weekend he could envision the recognition of a Palestinian state even before its borders are drawn up.The issue before us at the moment is the building of a reality: France is training Palestinian police, businesses are being created in the West Bank, Kouchner told France's Journal du Dimanche.It follows that one can envision the proclamation soon of a Palestinian state, and its immediate recognition by the international community, even before negotiating its borders, he said.Kouchner's comments came ahead of a visit to Paris by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, meanwhile, says he is intent on building institutions for a de-facto Palestinian state, which he aims to complete by 2011 regardless of whether peace talks have advanced with Israel.Later on Sunday, Abbas is due to meet with Kouchner in the French capital and with President Nicolas Sarkozy the following day.

Abbas has agreed in principle to a US proposal that he hold indirect talks with Israel under Washington's mediation, but has requested a number of guarantees.The Palestinians broke off peace talks after Israel launched a devastating assault on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008, and they insist on a halt to Jewish settlements construction in the West Bank.

Blair: Israel-Palestinian peace talks to resume By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer – Sat Feb 20, 12:04 pm ET

ABUJA, Nigeria – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saturday that he hoped peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians will resume in the coming weeks after negotiations stalled over Jewish settlements on occupied lands.Blair, who has served as the leader of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peacemakers since 2007, spoke to The Associated Press in an interview Saturday in Abuja, Nigeria's capital.He said special U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell has made progress in attempting to resume negotiations between the two sides. However, he cautioned that bringing both sides back to peace talks depended on more than just the issue of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, including east Jerusalem.The Palestinians say there is no point in negotiating while Israel expands the settlements.Settlements are important, but they're not the only issue, Blair said. The real question is can we provide Israel with security and the Palestinians with a genuine, credible belief that they will have a viable state.Blair has served since June 2007 as leader of the Quartet, which includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. He said the early support of U.S. President Barack Obama for resuming the peace process helped.He remains deeply committed and the fact that he started the Middle East process right at the beginning of his presidency is a big help,Blair said.He's got a lot of time now to get this thing moving. I think his leadership is a very hopeful sign.Blair said that easing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians also would help Nigeria, Africa's most populous nations that's split between a Muslim north and a Christian south, by showing two faiths with a violent past can make peace with each other. Violence between the two faiths in Nigeria, often sparked by political infighting, has killed thousands in the last decade.Blair, who launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation after leaving office, attended an event Saturday highlighting a new effort between Christian and Muslim leaders to distribute mosquito nets in a country ravaged by malaria. The former prime minister pointed to that cooperation as a hopeful sign in the nation of 150 million people.In the end, Nigeria's going to have to work this out for itself,he said.But the benefit of interfaith action, such as this against malaria, is you've got Christians and Muslims sitting down and working together. It's got to be better than fighting with each other.

Palestinian state could be recognised before borders set: Kouchner
Fri Feb 19, 4:17 pm ET


PARIS (AFP) – France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he could envision the recognition of a Palestinian state even before its borders are drawn up, in an French newspaper interview to appear Saturday.The issue before us at the moment is the building of a reality: France is training Palestinian police, businesses are being created in the West Bank... It follows that one can envision the proclamation soon of a Palestinian state, and its immediate recognition by the international community, even before negotiating its borders, Kouchner told the Journal du Dimanche.Kouchner's comments come ahead of a visit to Paris by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas next week, and after Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said he could see an independent Palestinian state in 2011 regardless of whether peace talks have advanced with Israel.If by mid-2011, the political process has not ended the (Israeli) occupation, I would bet that the developed state of Palestinian infrastructure and institutions will be such that the pressure will force Israel to give up its occupation,he said in an interview published in French media on Friday.

Abbas is due to meet with Kouchner in Paris on February 21 and with President Nicolas Sarkozy the following day, a senior Palestinian official said this week on condition of anonymity.Abbas has agreed in principle to a US proposal that he hold indirect talks with Israel under Washington's mediation, but has requested a number of guarantees.The Palestinians had broken off peace talks after Israel launched a devastating assault on the Gaza Strip in December 2008.

Police, protesters clash in West Bank
Fri Feb 19, 1:18 pm ET


BILIN, West Bank (AFP) – Israeli forces on Friday fired teargas at stone-throwing youths during a protest to mark five years of weekly demonstrations against the separation barrier in the West Bank village of Bilin.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and Geneva Mayor Remy Pagani were among the estimated 2,000 participants at the demonstration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.As they do every week, villagers and international activists marched to the wire fence where the Israeli forces are positioned, chanting slogans and waving Palestinian flags.And as often happens, a smaller group of Palestinian teenagers used slingshots and hurled stones at the security forces, which responded with teargas and water cannons.

Palestinians say the separation barrier aims at grabbing their land and undermining the viability of their promised state.The Israeli military said in a statement on Friday the barrier is a central factor in thwarting terrorists who operate to harm Israeli civilians.The rioters who arrive at the weekly disorders tend to intentionally attack security forces and damage the security fence, causing an accumulating damage.The protesters say they have won a partial victory as Israel last week began implementing a September 2007 High Court ruling ordering the barrier to be rerouted, returning some of the 575 acres (232 hectares) of Bilin's land that was seized to build a fence around the Jewish settlement of Modin Illit.While the rerouting is viewed as a victory, demonstrators vowed protests will continue until the occupation is over and the wall is dismantled in its entirety, organisers said in a statement.The barrier -- a network of concrete walls, fences and barbed wire -- snakes through the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel in 1967 on which the Palestinians hope to build their state.To date, Israel has completed 413 kilometres (256 miles) of the planned 709-kilometre (435-mile) barrier, according to UN figures.

When completed, 85 percent of the wall will have been built inside the West Bank, leaving 9.5 percent of the territory and 35,000 Palestinians between the barrier and the Green Line that marks the 1967 border with Israel.The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding resolution in 2004 calling for those parts of the barrier that are inside the West Bank to be torn down and for further construction in the territory to cease.Israel has ignored the ruling.

Battling PR woes, Israel asks citizens to help By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Fri Feb 19, 9:36 am ET

JERUSALEM – Israel's government has launched a campaign aiming to boost the country's image abroad even as it finds itself in the middle of an international uproar over the suspected role of Israeli spies in the assassination of a Hamas operative.Through a new Web site, TV commercials and pamphlets handed to passengers boarding planes, the campaign launched this week tries to get Israelis to promote their country when traveling.But it offers a puzzling take on what foreign attitudes toward the country really are, and appears to reflect a view that poor public relations, and not policies, lie at the root of Israel's image problem.Rather than focusing on the passions surrounding the Israeli-Arab conflict, the campaign suggests — with a touch of humor — that people abroad believe that camels are a leading form of transportation in Israel, or that Israelis like to barbecue outside because they have no gas or electricity at home.But foreign attitudes toward the country would seem to have little to do with any perception that Israel is primitive — the country's high-tech sector and military are widely recognized as among the world's most advanced — and far more to do with the intractable complexities of the Mideast conflict.Israel is still suffering the fallout from its punishing military operation in Gaza last winter, including war crimes accusations from a United Nations commission. And the new campaign kicked off precisely as Israel's Mossad was accused of killing a Hamas operative in Dubai, suggesting another way Israeli citizens might be serving their government abroad.Anat Weinstein-Berkovits, a spokesman for the newly created government ministry behind the project, said the goal is to urge Israelis to tell about the beautiful Israel you know.

In one TV ad, a faux English-speaking reporter leads a camel through the desert, explaining that Israelis use the animals for hauling water, merchandise and ammunition...in the desert where they live.An announcer intones in Hebrew: Sick of seeing how we're portrayed in the world? You can change the picture.The Web site notes that Israel has suffered through seven wars but still seeks peace. Myth: Israelis don't really want peace. Untrue,it reads.Dan Caspi, a communications professor at Ben Gurion University, said Israelis genuinely love their country and defend its actions abroad, even if they criticize those same actions bitterly at home.

But Caspi said the campaign is still unlikely to be effective.He noted that after Israel captured territories from Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War, Israel's then prime minister, Levi Eshkol, is reputed to have summoned international experts and asked them how to improve Israel's suddenly complicated image. They consulted for days and then gave Eshkol one recommendation: Get out of the territories.Little, Caspi said, has changed since then.The government would be better advised to first put its house in order,he said.

Abbas considers options on peace talks restart By Mohammed Assadi – Fri Feb 19, 8:34 am ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is considering his options on resuming indirect peace talks with Israel after meeting U.S. and European diplomats this week, a senior aide said Friday.We have asked for an official meeting of Arab ministers of the follow-up committee and have told them that our consultations, coordinations and inquiries are still ongoing with the Americans, Europeans, Russians and the United Nations,chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.Erekat dismissed an Israeli newspaper report Friday that Abbas had told Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger at a meeting this week in Ramallah that U.S.-mediated peace talks could resume in the coming days.The Haaretz report said Spindelegger told Israeli officials he had heard from Abbas of his readiness to resume talks.The one who announces the Palestinian position is the Palestinian side, not Haaretz or the Austrian foreign minister, Erekat said.An Israeli diplomatic source in Jerusalem said: There is no official word from the Americans or the Palestinians but there have been all kinds of messages from Western diplomats indicating that talks could restart.

There was no comment from Vienna.Abbas has been seeking details from U.S. officials on how a proposal that Washington would host proximity talks involving Israeli and Palestinian envoys would work.Aides say Abbas wants guarantees that any such talks would quickly move to seeking final agreements on the core issues of the conflict -- borders, settlements, right of return for Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem -- witin specific terms of reference and a set timeline.Abbas broke off negotiations with the previous Israeli government in December 2008 in protest at its offensive in the Gaza Strip and has refused to hold talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while Israel expands West Bank settlements.In November, Netanyahu ordered a 10-month building freeze in some settlements on land Israel captured in 1967. The United States and Western powers want Abbas to drop his demand for a total freeze and get back to negotiations.(Editing by Ori Lewis)

IAEA suspects Syrian nuclear activity at bombed site By Mark Heinrich – Thu Feb 18, 4:47 pm ET

VIENNA (Reuters) – Uranium particles found at a Syrian desert complex bombed to ruin by Israel in 2007 point to possible covert nuclear activity at the site, the U.N. atomic watchdog said Thursday.It was the first time the International Atomic Energy Agency lent public support to Western suspicions that Israel's target was a nascent nuclear reactor that Washington said was North Korean in design and geared to making weapons-grade plutonium.Previous IAEA reports on its two-year investigation into the affair, impeded by a lack of Syrian cooperation, said only that the uranium particles raised concern because they did not come from Syria's declared inventory.

The presence of such particles points to the possibility of nuclear-related activities at the site and adds to questions concerning the nature of the destroyed building,said the confidential report by new IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano, obtained by Reuters.Syria has yet to provide a satisfactory explanation for the origin and presence of these particles,he wrote, dismissing Damascus's contention that the traces came with munitions used by Israel to wreck the complex.In what analysts called another departure from predecessor Mohamed ElBaradei, Amano prodded Syria to adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which permits unfettered inspections beyond declared nuclear site to ferret out any covert atomic activity.

SYRIAN STONEWALL

U.N. inspectors examined the site at Dair Alzour in June 2008 but Syria has barred renewed access and also not let them visit three military sites, whose appearance was altered by landscaping after the IAEA first asked to check them.The Vienna-based IAEA has also been checking whether there could be a link between the particles uncovered at Dair Alzour and similar unexplained traces detected in swipe samples taken at a Damascus nuclear research reactor later in 2008.The report said Syria had refused a meeting in Damascus last month to address the issue. But inspectors now planned to visit the research reactor on February 23 to take more test samples and examine relevant source documents related to the experiments.Some analysts say the Damascus findings raised the question whether Syria used some natural uranium intended for the alleged reactor at Dair Alzour in tests applicable to learning how to separate out bomb-grade plutonium from spent nuclear fuel.Syria, an ally of Iran which is under IAEA investigation over nuclear proliferation suspicions, has denied ever having an atom bomb program and has said the intelligence is fabricated.Syria has not cooperated with the agency since June 2008 in connection with the unresolved issues related to the Dair Alzour site and the other three locations allegedly functionally related to it,said the U.N. watchdog report.As a consequence, the Agency has not been able to make progress toward resolving the outstanding issues.

The issue, along with the IAEA's hardening concern about a possible covert Iranian nuclear weapons program, will be on the agenda of the first of four quarterly meetings by the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors starting on March 1.(Editing by Jon Hemming)

Arabs would back Lebanon if attacked by Israel: Mussa
Thu Feb 18, 2:07 pm ET


BEIRUT (AFP) – Arab League chief Amr Mussa said on Thursday that Arab countries would stand by Lebanon if it were attacked by Israel, adding that the situation between the two countries is tense.If a new attack or aggression is in the process of being prepared, they (Israel) will not get away with it easily, Mussa said after meeting with Foreign Minister Ali Shami.We learned the lessons of 2006, and the Arab position is to stand by Lebanon.Mussa did not elaborate on what he meant by the lessons of 2006 on what he meant by the assurance of support.Israel launched a devastating air, ground and naval assault on Lebanon in July 2006 after guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.The war killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.It also devastated much of the infrastructure in southern Lebanon, just across the border and a Hezbollah stronghold.

Mussa, who was wrapping up a two-day visit to Beirut, was speaking amid growing fears in Lebanon that Israel might again attack the country. While there have been harsh words thrown in both directions, senior Israeli officials have been at pains to insist that they do not want a conflict.There are not just threats, but thousands of violations of the border zone and of south Lebanon, which demonstrate that the situation is complex and tense, Mussa said.He did not elaborate, but Israel warplanes frequently enter Lebanese airspace, despite Lebanese and United Nations protests.

Miliband demands full Israeli cooperation
Thu Feb 18, 9:14 am ET


LONDON (AFP) – Britain expects Israel to cooperate fully with an investigation into the use of fraudulent European passports by the suspected killers of a Hamas chief, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday.Speaking after Israel's ambassador was called into the Foreign Office in London, Miliband said the envoy was told that we wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident.We hope and expect that they will cooperate fully with the investigation launched in coordination with authorities in Dubai, where Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhuh was killed last month, he said.We want to get to the bottom of the issue of the fraudulent passports, or their potential use, Miliband added, after Israeli envoy Ron Prosor held talks with Peter Ricketts, the head of the diplomatic service.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowed Wednesday there would be a full investigation into the use of six fake British passports in the Hamas chief killing, widely suspected of being the work of Israel's Mossad spy agency.There's obviously been a very serious incident involving British passports, it's also involved a number of British passport holders who have woken up yesterday morning extremely worried, said Miliband.We think it's right to have the full investigation, he added, saying that Britain was not going through the motions by calling in the Israeli ambassador and seeking cooperation.That is the rightful business of government when it comes to dealing with serious issues and working with close allies,he said.He added that the six British passports involved did not have new micro-chip technology which would make it much more difficult for them to be abused.But obviously we need to make sure that the British passport remains something that everyone has confidence in, and countries round the world have confidence in as well,he said.

Iran vows to stand by Hezbollah against Israel By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Feb 18, 8:31 am ET

TEHRAN,Iran – Iran's president on Thursday said that if the Israelis launch a new war against Lebanon's Hezbollah, the militant group should retaliate strong enough to close their case once and for all.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments, in a conversation with Hezbollah's leader, were the latest in a heated exchange of rhetoric between Israel and Lebanon and Syria this months in which all sides have been warning the other not to start a war.Speaking by phone, Ahmadinejad urged Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to prepare his fighters to be able to retaliate strongly against any Israeli attack.The preparations should be of the level that, if they (the Israelis) want to repeated the mistakes of the past (by attacking), then their case should be closed once and for all and the region delivered from their evil ways forever, the Iranian president said, according to the state news agency IRNA.The people of Iran will stand by the peoples of Lebanon and the region in this, he said. Nasrallah dismissed any fears, saying Israeli threats will lead to nothing.Iran is a key supporter of Hezbollah, believed to funnel it weapons and millions of dollars in funding, though Tehran denies arming the Shiite group. Hezbollah, also closely allied to Syria, boasts a heavy arsenal of rockets capable of reaching deep inside Israel.The past month has seen increased sabre-rattling between Israel and Syria, Hezbollah and Lebanon — though there's been little apparent cause on the ground for the warnings of new war. Hezbollah and Israel fought a monthlong war in 2006 that wreaked destruction in south Lebanon and parts of Beirut. But since then, Hezbollah has refrained from firing rockets across the border.

In a speech aired nationally in Lebanon this week, Nasrallah vowed that if Israel attacks again, his fighters would retaliate in kind, striking Tel Aviv or Israel's international airport on the city's outskirts.Lebanon's prime minister also warned of escalating Israeli war threats and vowed Lebanon would support Hezbollah in any fight. The prime minister, Saad Hariri, is a pro-U.S. figure and longtime rival of Hezbollah, but the group is now a member of his national unity government.Earlier in the month, Syria's president Bashar Assad accused Israel of avoiding peace, and its prime minister warned that if war broke out, Israeli cities would be attacked. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman replied that if Damascus draws Israel into a war, its army would be defeated and the Syrian regime would collapse.

Netanyahu aide dismisses tooth fairy peace views By Allyn Fisher-ilan – Wed Feb 17, 5:07 pm ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Anyone who thinks the world would rally to Israel's side if it pulled out of the West Bank might as well believe in the tooth fairy, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest advisers said on Wednesday.The adviser, Ron Dermer, said the image problems Israel faced internationally, especially after criticism of its conduct in last year's Gaza war, stemmed from something deeper than opposition to its political policies.He said in a speech that core opponents -- radical Islam and the far-left -- were challenging Israel's legitimacy as part of a campaign against Western values.There are still people who say,look, if Israel gets up and leaves Judea and Samaria, returns to the 1967 lines, that the world will be on our side,Dermer said, referring to the West Bank, territory captured in a 1967 war.Dermer did not specify any position on that issue, but dismissed the idea that adopting such a policy would stop assaults by world critics on Israel's legitimacy.

But I can say that I think that my six-year-old's belief in the tooth fairy is more grounded in fact than that view, the U.S.-born adviser told the Jerusalem Conference, an annual forum that discusses Israel's national priorities.Palestinians hope to establish a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, now controlled by Hamas Islamists, in 2005, but has long ruled out, citing security concerns and historical links, a complete withdrawal from the West Bank.Echoing previous Israeli prime ministers, Netanyahu has said Israel intends to keep major settlement blocs in any future peace deal with the Palestinians, possibly trading land in Israel for the enclaves.Palestinians fear settlements, deemed illegal by the World Court, could deny them a viable and contiguous state.In his speech, Dermer said Israel must persuade the left that Islamic fundamentalism poses the greatest danger and try to draw more world attention to human rights abuse in Iran and elsewhere in the region.I believe we can put this issue on the agenda and that slowly but surely those forces working against us will shrink and shrink some more and Israel will have built a strong coalition for the defense of the Jewish state, he said.(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

Syria's Assad holds security talks with U.S. official By Khaled Yacoub Oweis – Wed Feb 17, 2:32 pm ET

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad held security talks on Wednesday with America's highest-ranking career diplomat, a day after President Barack Obama pledged to reappoint an ambassador to Syria after a five-year absence.Under Secretary of State William Burns, the architect of a deal that helped rehabilitate Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi, met with Assad along with Daniel Benjamin, a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official.I have no illusions about the challenges, Burns said after seeing the president.But my meeting with President Assad made me hopeful that we can make progress together in the interest of both of our countries, Burns added.

Benjamin, Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State, will stay in Syria on Thursday for a day of talks with Syrian officials after Burns departs. The intention was to deepen our dialogue as we move forward,Burns said.Under Obama, the United States started talking to Syria's government, in contrast to a policy of isolation under former President George W. Bush.The United States withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in 2005 after the assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. Syria's foes in Lebanon accused Damascus of involvement, a charge Syria denied.Syria announced that year that it had stopped cooperation with the United States on what it describes as terrorism suspects following U.S. criticism of Syria's role in Iraq.But Syrian officials met twice last year with a U.S. security delegation in Damascus, although Syria is on the U.S. sponsors of terrorism list and has good ties with Iran.The United States wants Syria to stop infiltration of militants to Iraq through the Syrian border, an issue that caused relations to deteriorate until Obama took office.

IRAQ QUESTION

Washington also wants Syria to rein in members of the Iraqi Baath Party who fled to Syria and are accused by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government of encouraging violence in Iraq.Relations between Washington and Damascus have improved since Obama took office 13 months ago. Diplomats say Washington is hoping to pull Syria away from Iran and get its help in stabilizing neighboring Iraq.Nevertheless Obama renewed sanctions against Syria last May, accusing it of supporting terrorism, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and destabilizing Iraq, with which it shares a long, porous border that has been a conduit for al Qaeda fighters.Syria and Iran are the main backers of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas and Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim political and guerrilla group in Lebanon that fought a war against Israel in 2006.There is heightened U.S. nervousness about the Hezbollah weapons issue, one diplomat in the Syrian capital said.Washington has muted its criticism of Syria's authoritarian system and the nomination of Robert Ford as ambassador to Damascus was seen as a major step in improving ties.Burns said the nomination of Ford, who still has to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, signaled America's readiness to improve relations and to cooperate in the pursuit of just, lasting and comprehensive peace between Arabs and Israelis.Syrian and Lebanese media have been reporting for weeks that Obama intended to appoint Ford. Now deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, he previously served as ambassador to Algeria from 2006 to 2008 and deputy chief of mission in Bahrain between 2001 and 2004.A pro-government Syrian paper said last week that Damascus had approved a U.S. request to reappoint its ambassador.

France urges Israel to exercise great restraint
Wed Feb 17, 12:41 pm ET


BEIRUT (AFP) – A senior French politician urged Israel to exercise great restraint during a visit to Beirut on Wednesday, amid a war of words between the Jewish state and Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah.The French parliament today calls on Israel to exercise great restraint, and we mean it, said Gerard Larcher, head of the French senate, or upper house of parliament.French parliamentarians of all political affiliations await ... the end of all escalating threats in the region, especially as concerns Lebanon, Larcher told a news conference.Larcher was ending a four-day official visit to Lebanon during which he held talks with top leaders and a Hezbollah delegation.Israeli officials have warned repeatedly that any attack by Hezbollah will spark a tough response against Lebanon as a whole, and they have also been locked in a war of words with Syria, a main supporter of Hezbollah.On Tuesday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to unleash his guerrilla group's military might on Israel's infrastructure, including Tel Aviv airport, should Israel attack Lebanon.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said Damascus would back the government and people of Lebanon against any possible Israeli aggression launched on Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since sought to ease tensions, saying his country wants peace with all its neighbours.But earlier this month, Netanyahu accused Beirut of allowing Hezbollah to smuggle weapons into Lebanon in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite group.

Egypt police seize explosives destined for Gaza
Wed Feb 17, 7:04 am ET


RAFAH, Egypt (AFP) – Egyptian police seized more than three tonnes of explosives set to be smuggled into the neighbouring Palestinian Gaza Strip, a security official said on Wednesday.Security officers found the TNT on Tuesday concealed in 79 large bags in Sarsuriya district near the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, the official said.Residents had tipped off police about the 3.5-tonne cache, which had been prepared for smuggling through one of the many underground tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt.Cairo has stepped up its efforts to close the tunnels, which are mainly used to send food and other goods to the impoverished Palestinian enclave, under blockade since the Islamist Hamas movement took it over in 2007.Egypt is building an underground barrier to cut them off, after repeated efforts to find and demolish them, along with Israeli air strikes, failed to end the thriving smuggling trade.

Smugglers in Sinai say most of the tunnels, which are licensed on the Palestinian end by Hamas, are used to smuggle contraband, but Hamas operates a few used solely for weapons.

Hezbollah warns of retaliation for any Israeli hit By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 16, 6:25 pm ET

BEIRUT – Hezbollah's leader warned Israel Tuesday that the militant group would fire rockets at Tel Aviv airport and other strategic targets if Israel's military strikes Lebanese infrastructure.Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war in 2006, and in recent months both sides have exchanged tough words of warning. The new threat from Hezbollah is backed up by what the group says is an arsenal of thousands of rockets and missiles, some of which it says can reach anywhere in Israel.Hassan Nasrallah said the group's rockets would also target buildings in Israel's seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv if Israeli warplanes strike buildings in Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern outskirts.During the 2006 fighting, Hezbollah slammed about 4,000 rockets into Israel, while Israel bombed the group's strongholds in Lebanon's south and east as well as its headquarters in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

The war killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel.Israel also destroyed dozens of Dahiyeh buildings, including Nasrallah's offices, and Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut's Rafik Hariri Airport. Hezbollah's retaliation deep inside Israel did not reach Tel Aviv.Nasrallah said his group does not want war but if it happens Hezbollah will strike deep in Israel.You destroy a building in Dahiyeh and we will destroy buildings in Tel Aviv, Nasrallah said via a video link from a secret location.His speech was broadcast to a rally commemorating the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah's top military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus.Hezbollah and Iran, its main backer, have blamed Israel for Mughniyeh's killing. Israel has denied involvement.If you bomb the airport of martyr Rafik Hariri in Beirut, we will bomb Ben Gurion's airport in Tel Aviv,Nasrallah said.Thousands of supporters waved their fists in the air and chanted, At your service, Nasrallah.If you bomb our ports, we will bomb your ports. If you bomb our oil refineries, we will bomb your oil refineries,said the black-turbaned Nasrallah.If you bomb our factories, we will bomb your factories. If you bomb our electricity stations, we will bomb your electricity stations.He said Hezbollah has thousands of militants ready to face any Israeli ground invasion.

During the 2006 war, Nasrallah had also warned that he had weapons that could reach Tel Aviv, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Lebanese border.Although the city was never targeted, Hezbollah's targets struck deeper inside Israel than ever before, hitting on at least one occasion the town of Hadera, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Tel Aviv.Israel is working on a defense system called the Iron Dome that is designed to knock down short-range rockets like those used by Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza. The system, which fires projectiles at the incoming rocket to blow it up in mid-air, was successfully tested in December. Israeli media say the first battery could be in position in May.However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last month that it would take years before the system is fully deployed.

In his speech Tuesday, Nasrallah also renewed a promise of revenge for Mughniyeh's killing.Our enemy is worried and let it continue to be worried,he said.