Israel and PA Discuss Man-Made Gaza Island for Air and Seaports
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu MAR 29,11
Israel and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority have discussed building air and seaports on a man-made island off Gaza which would exclude Hamas, according to Israel television Channel 2. The government has not commented on the report.The idea has been discussed for the past two months among senior officials and has won wide support, Channel 2 added. The proposed two-acre man-made island would give PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas complete control over land and sea imports and exports, while keeping Hamas-controlled Gaza out of the picture. How that control would be defended was not mentioned.The idea of man-made islands in the Mediterranean Sea was proposed by President Shimon Peres four years ago.We must invest in the sea, and stretch our western border in that direction by building artificial islands, he said at a 2007 conference.Separate ideas proposed by other officials were to build an international airport a quarter-mile offshore from north Tel Aviv and to build between one and five islands along the central Israel coast between Bat Yam and Netanya as a way of alleviating central Israel's land shortage problem.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Israel considering annexing West Bank settlements
By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press – Tue Mar 29, 3:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel is considering annexing major West Bank settlement blocs if the Palestinians unilaterally seek world recognition of a state, an Israeli official said Tuesday — moves that would deal a grave blow to prospects for negotiating a peace deal between the two sides.Israel has refrained from taking such a diplomatically explosive step for four decades. The fact that it is considering doing so reflects how seriously it is concerned by the Palestinian campaign to win international recognition of a state in the absence of peacemaking.The Palestinians launched that campaign after peace talks foundered over Israeli construction in West Bank settlements. On Tuesday, the Israeli Interior Ministry said it would decide next month whether to give final approval to build 1,500 apartments in two Jewish enclaves in east Jerusalem. Israel captured both east Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan in 1967.Israel annexed east Jerusalem, home to shrines sacred to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, immediately after seizing it. But it carefully avoided annexing the West Bank, where 300,000 settlers now live among 2.5 million Palestinians.Although it is widely assumed that under any peace deal, Israel would hold onto major settlements it has built in the past 44 years, any decision to formally annex West Bank territory would be a precedent-setting move that could increase Israel's already considerable international isolation. The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, in addition to the Gaza Strip, for a future state.
The government official who disclosed the possible annexation said he did not know how seriously authorities were considering the option. He said that adopting unilateral measures is not a one-way street and added that other options were also being considered.These could include limiting water supplies beyond agreed-upon amounts and restricting Palestinian use of Israeli ports for business purposes, he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was aware of the moves being discussed, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity because no final decisions have been made.Netanyahu's office had no comment. Nimr Hamad, an aide to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said these threats are not new. ... But we are continuing (our campaign) and are convinced our position is right.In a related development, the Israeli Transportation Ministry is working on a plan to build an island off the coast of Gaza, where an Palestinian-run airport and seaport would be located. Ministry spokesman Ilan Leizerovich said this would allow Israel to cut all ties with Hamas-ruled Gaza.At present most goods and people enter and exit Gaza through Israeli land crossings.Leizerovich said the island would be built about three miles (4.5 kilometers) off the Gaza coast and would be connected by a bridge. He said it would take about six years and cost more than $5 billion to build. The grandiose scheme would need additional government approval, Palestinian acceptance and funding.
Although peace negotiations have taken place since Netanyahu came to power two years ago, they have been sporadic and largely mediated by the U.S. Three weeks of direct talks broke down in September over Palestinian objections to continued Israeli settlement construction.Palestinians say they won't talk peace with Israel unless Israel freezes all construction in both the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands they claim along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for their hoped-for state. Israeli officials fault Palestinians for the peacemaking impasse, saying a construction moratorium should not be a condition for peacemaking, because it never was in the past.Israeli building in east Jerusalem is especially contentious because the Palestinians want to create their future capital there. Because of the annexation, Israel does not consider the Jewish enclaves housing 200,000 Jews there to be settlements, but the rest of the international community does.Roi Lachmanovich, a spokesman for Interior Minister Eli Yishai, said officials would decide the fate of the 1,500 new apartments on April 14. The homes would be built in two existing Jewish enclaves in east Jerusalem.Major Western powers have not given up on the concept of a negotiated solution. But with talks deadlocked, Palestinian leaders plan on seeking international recognition of a state, with or without an agreement with Israel, at the United Nations in September.Their campaign has received a boost from Latin American countries that have lined up in recent months to offer recognition. It hasn't received crucial U.S. or Western European support.Although international recognition wouldn't immediately change the situation on the ground, it would isolate Israel and put additional pressure on it to withdraw from occupied territories.Additional reporting by Associated Press writer Ian Deitch in Jerusalem.
Israel and The Occupation Myth
by MK Danny Ayalon, Dep. Foreign Min.MAR 29,11
The hatred and violence that killed five members of the Fogel family existed before the Jewish state did.The recent murder of a family of five in Itamar shocked Israelis to their core. A terrorist broke into the Fogels' home before stabbing and garroting to death the two parents, Udi and Ruth, and their children Yoav, 11 years old, Elad, 4, and almost decapitating Hadas, who was only three months old.
There has since been very little outcry from the international community. Many nations who are so used to condemning the building of apartment units beyond the Green Line remained silent on this sadistic murder. Meanwhile, the few international correspondents to have covered the massacre have placed it in the context of ongoing settlement-building and Israel's so-called occupation.However, regardless of one's views on which people have greater title to Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, it is a historically inaccurate distortion to claim that the occupation that breeds this type of violence. If this mantra were true, then it must be the case that before the occupation there was no violence. This defies the historical record.In 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron—which stretches back millennia, long before the creation of Islam and the Arab conquest and subsequent occupation of the area—was brutally attacked. The Jews who had been living peacefully with their Muslim neighbors were set upon in a bloody rampage, inspired by Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who later became notorious as Hitler's genocidal acolyte during the Holocaust. In two days, 67 Jews were hacked or bludgeoned to death. Jewish infants were beheaded and Jewish women were disemboweled. Limbs were hacked off the dead as well as those who managed to survive.
On visiting the scene shortly after the massacre, Britain's High Commissioner for Palestine John Chancellor wrote to his son I do not think that history records many worse horrors in the last few hundred years.This and other similar pogroms happened, not only before the occupation of Judea and Samaria, but even two decades before the state of Israel was reestablished. From 1948 to 1967, Judea and Samaria were illegally occupied by Jordan, which renamed the area the West Bank, in reference to the East Bank of the Kingdom of Jordan that fell beyond the Jordan River. Not one Israeli was allowed into this area, yet nor did Israel know one day of peace in that time, during which it saw brutal attacks launched from the West Bank against Israeli civilians.Further evidence against the mantra that the occupation breeds violence can be culled from Palestinian sources. Take Hamas's founding charter, for instance, which does not mention occupation or settlements. What is does contain are calls for the complete destruction of Israel, down to its last inch, such as: Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. The charter goes even further, aspiring to a point in time when there will be no Jews left anywhere in the world.Meanwhile, the Palestine Liberation Organization, currently headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, notes in its founding charter that this organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank, while still calling for a liberation of its homeland. This was written in 1964, fully three years before Israel conquered the West Bank during the Six Day War.It's safe to say that the violence and terror visited upon Israelis has little connection to occupation or settlements. This myth has no historical foundation, but is easy to proclaim for those who have little understanding of the conflict.Yet these fatuous canards only make our conflict harder to solve. The recent massacre in Itamar highlighted the Palestinian Authority's ongoing incitement to violence through its media, mosques and educational system. At this point, the basic parameters of the peace process need an overhaul. If our aim is to reach a peaceful resolution, then merely ending the occupation would far from guarantee that, as history has shown.
Israel was assured in the past by the international community that if it just retreated from Gaza and Lebanon, peace would flourish and violence would come to an end. In both cases, this hope proved deadly wrong, and millions of Israelis have been subjected to incessant attacks from these territories since the retreat.This is not about occupation or territory; it is about meaningful coexistence. Only when the root ideological causes of our conflict are solved can Israelis and Palestinians make the painful concessions necessary for peace.(reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, sent to INN by the dep. minister's advisor, Mr. Ashley Perry)Adar Bet 23, 5771 / 29 March 11
DANIEL 7:23-24
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast(THE EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADE BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise:(10 NATIONS) and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.(BE HEAD OF 3 KINGS OR NATIONS).
Klaus warns euro pact will lead to full political union
LEIGH PHILLIPS 29.03.2011 @ 18:26 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Vaclav Klaus, the Czech Republic's famously eurosceptic president renowned across Europe for holding up passage of the Lisbon Treaty for months, has launched an attack against a fresh EU target: the Euro-plus-pact.The Brussels summit on 25 March was not about anything else but the further integration of Europe towards fiscal ... union, he wrote in an opinion piece in Czech daily newspaper Pravo on Monday, referring to the meeting of EU premiers and presidents where 23 out of the bloc's 27 member states signed up to a pact that aims to boost European competitiveness.It was a radical reduction of the sovereignty of other EU countries.However, while trade unions and the left criticise the pact for its institutionalisation of fiscal retrenchment, limits to public spending and demands for wage constraint, Klaus, an ardent free-market liberal, attacked the document for delivering the opening steps towards a redistribution union between rich and poor states.The pact, along with other far-reaching measures endorsed by the summit last Friday, intends to deliver ever closer economic governance where the economic polices of each member state are co-ordinated centrally and supervised by Brussels.
The hair-shirt approach to fiscal policies contained in the pact are the quid pro quo demanded by Germany in particular in return for boosting the size of eurozone rescue funds. Klaus believes this is the beginning of large-scale financial transfers between states.The Czech president, the last EU leader to sign on to the Lisbon Treaty on 3 November, 2009, after months of stonewalling, accused EU leaders of using the economic crisis as an excuse to push for deeper integration. A few years ago when these people managed to pass the Lisbon Treaty - a European constitution - they knew that at the time this probably moved forward too fast and that there should now be a pause,he said.They even told me personally when trying to convince me to sign up to the Lisbon Treaty that there would now be a pause [from further integration moves] for an interval of at least ten years.By using the economic and financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the subsequent crisis of the euro in 2010 - still continuing - it gave them a wonderful excuse to get back to pushing forward with the further deepening of European integration.He worries that the fiscal integration that is occurring today will inevitably be followed by full political integration.He wrote that the European Economic Community later became just the European Community, then along came European Monetary Union and the European Union.Sooner or later, this will be followed by other developments, he wrote, saying that a European fiscal union, or EFU as he terms it, will be followed by an EPU.Where an EFU has been agreed in Brussels agreed ... an EPU is the final stage - the European Political Union.
Softer position from prime minister
The Czech government for its part has said, similar to the position of the UK, Sweden and Hungary, that it does not intend to join for the time being. It has said that while it has little problem with most of what is contained in the pact, there are two reasons why Prague could not join at the moment.The government is wary that language contained in the document encouraging consistency among national tax systems is the first step towards tax harmonisation across the bloc. Ireland and Slovakia, already in the eurozone and signatories to the euro-pact, as well as Hungary, which lies outside both, also have strong reservations about a shake-up of tax policies.The second concern is more easily resolved, in that the government being outside the eurozone had only had a few days to glance at the document before being pressured to sign on.Government sources say that a consultation with other coalition members and the full parliament will be required before any endorsement can be given.Once this consultation is completed and should sufficiently mollifying language on tax issues be found, Prague, like Budapest, could well join.Sweden has also indicated that it would like to join but cannot so long as there is no majority in parliament in favour.It is unlikely, say analysts, that the Czech Republic will choose to be left out in the cold for long.The prime minister welcomes the opportunity to still be able to join at a later stage, said one Czech source.Klaus however indicated he will resist pressure on his country to sign up to the pact.
The position of [Czech] Prime Minister Necas - I wish this was the attitude of the whole of the government - in not entering the EFU, is certainly right and we should support him in it, he wrote.On 18 March, Klaus gave another speech in the Italian Tyrol attacking fiscal integration.In the first historical phase of European integration, liberalisation trends prevailed. In the second phase, especially in the last twenty years, unfortunately, centralisation, harmonisation, standardisation and regulatory trends have dominated.A source close to the president said he is unlikely to drop his campaign against the pact any time soon.Czech diplomats stress however that the president was speaking in a personal capacity and that his arguments may not be the official position of the government.
Bulgarian central bank, finance ministry oppose euro-pact
In related news, EUobserver has learnt that Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov spurned advice from his finance minister and the head of the central bank last week, who recommended against the country joining the euro-pact.Bulgaria has a flat income and corporate tax rate of 10 percent, the lowest taxes in the EU. Like the Czechs, Hungarians and Irish, it hopes to retain its ultra-low tax burden.But the prime minister felt that if he signed on despite the opposition of his colleagues, he would guarantee entry to the euro for his country.A government spokesperson confirmed the negative stance of the finance ministry and the central bank, adding however: The whole of the government participated in analysis of the pact, and all opinions were considered, but the final decision was taken by the prime minister.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
BAHRAIN WANT SAUDIS-IRAN OUT
Bahrain opposition head wants Iran, Saudi out
by Mohammed Fadhel – Wed Mar 30, 3:50 pm ET
MANAMA (AFP) – Bahrain's Shiite opposition head Ali Salman on Wednesday warned Iran and Saudi Arabia against using his country as a battlefield in a proxy war.Salman urged Iran to keep out of the Sunni-ruled state's affairs and called on Saudi troops to leave the country.Bahrain's foreign minister, meanwhile, renewed accusations that Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Tehran, was training regime opponents in the Shiite-majority country.We urge Iran not to meddle in Bahraini internal affairs, opposition head Ali Salman said, also demanding the withdrawal of Saudi-led troops in a joint Gulf force deployed in Bahrain since mid-March to help quash the protests.We demand Saudi Arabia withdraw the Peninsula Shield forces, he told a press conference. We do not want Bahrain to turn into a battlefield for Saudi Arabia, which is predominantly Sunni, and Shiite Iran, its arch-foe.Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said last week that bringing in Gulf troops was a strategic and political blunder that would cost the Bahraini regime its legitimacy.A teenager was killed when a police patrol opened fire with live rounds west of the capital Manama, the main Shiite-led parliamentary opposition group, Al-Wefaq, said.
There was no immediate confirmation from police of the circumstances of the death of Ahmed Sayyed Said Shams, 15, in the village of Sar.Twenty-four people, four of them police, were killed in a month of unrest, Bahrain's Interior Minister Rashed bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa said on Tuesday, linking the troubles to Hezbollah.Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa, in an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper, said Manama had proof of plotting with Hezbollah and of training in Lebanon on how to organise mass protests.But authorities in Bahrain have no intention of taking steps against Lebanese expatriates living in the kingdom, he said.The foreign minister said his country, which has been widely condemned over the use of deadly force to crush unrest, had feared its Shiite-led protests could spark sectarian conflict in other Gulf states.There have been sectarian tensions everywhere for centuries, he told Al-Hayat. Bahrain was afraid sectarian confrontations would break out not only in Bahrain but in all other regions.Sheikh Khaled argued that unrest in Bahrain was fired not so much by political opposition but rather a sectarian division.We want to affirm to the world that we don't have a problem between the government and the opposition ... There is a clear sectarian problem in Bahrain. There is division within society, he said.At Wednesday's news conference, Salman who heads Al-Wefaq, accused the government of using "the security option to shut the door to dialogue.
Last month, Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman, with the encouragement of Washington, offered to start an open dialogue with all parties on the issues which sparked the protests.But the opposition says it refuses to be coerced into talks.
Salman said opposition supporters were not being called on to stage fresh protests or to confront security forces. On Saturday, a day of mourning is to be held for the martyrs of the protests, he said. On March 16, security forces drove the pro-democracy protesters out of central Manama's Pearl Square and demolished their camp under a state of emergency put in place for three months.Bahrain's 40-member parliament on Tuesday accepted the resignation of 11 out of 18 MPs from Salman's Wefaq, exposing them to possible legal action, after a news blackout om the arrests of top activists.Al-Wefaq MPs resigned en masse in February in protest at the use of deadly force against demonstrators.
UN chief urges end to peace talks deadlock
– Wed Mar 30, 11:14 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for intensified efforts to break the impasse in Israel-Palestinian peace talks, saying resolution of the conflict is long overdue.We must intensify efforts to break the deadlock, he said in an address to Latin American and Caribbean delegates in Uruguay, the text of which was released by the UN spokesman in Jerusalem on Wednesday.The status quo is untenable, particularly at a time when so many throughout the region are pursuing freedom and dignity through non-violence -- a re-awakening also being felt among the Palestinians.Direct talks resumed at the beginning of September with the aim of securing a peace deal within a year but collapsed just weeks later after the expiry of an Israeli ban on new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.President Mahmud Abbas has refused to return to the negotiating table while Israel continues to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state.Ban said settlement construction was illegal and must stop, and he criticised Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and the forced transfer of residents there.
Israel's occupation, which began in 1967 was morally and politically unsustainable, and must end, he said, adding:Time is of the essence.A way must be found for Jerusalem to emerge as a capital of two states, Israel and Palestine, with arrangements for holy sites acceptable for all, he said.And there must be a just and agreed solution to the prolonged plight of the Palestinian refugees.He also condemned the surge in violence in and around the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.I am very concerned at continued violent tensions that put civilians in danger. I condemn escalating rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel, which indiscriminately targets civilians, and the killing and wounding of Gaza civilians, including children, by Israeli fire.And he also reiterated his condemnation of last week's deadly bomb attack in Jerusalem, which killed one and injured nearly 40 people.
US senators press Clinton on anti-Israel incitement
– Tue Mar 29, 7:04 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Twenty-seven US senators pressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday to make clear to Palestinian leaders that any incitement to violence against Israel or Jews is not tolerable.We would like to know what specific steps you are taking to press for an end to this dangerous incitement, the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Clinton urging action after the grisly stabbing slayings of a family of five Israelis, including three children.The Itamar massacre was a sobering reminder that words matter, and that Palestinian incitement against Jews and Israel can lead to violence and terror, the group, which included Democrats and Republicans, said in their message.We urge you to redouble your efforts to impress upon the Palestinian leadership that continuing to condone incitement is not tolerable. We also urge you to consider focusing adequate training and educational programs in the West Bank and Gaza that promote peaceful coexistence with Israel, they said.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has denounced the early March attack at the Itamar settlement in the West Bank near the northern city of Nablus as abominable, inhuman and immoral.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian incitement for creating an atmosphere that led to the killings -- widely believed to have been carried out by Palestinians -- and Abbas has flatly rejected the charge.
In the wake of the Itamar attack as well as a bomb attack on a crowded Jerusalem bus stop last week, US lawmakers have stepped up appeals for President Barack Obama's administration to do more against Palestinian incitement.The 27 US senators told Clinton they had serious concern over continuing incitement directed against Jews and Israel within the Palestinian media, mosques and schools, and even by individuals or institutions affiliated with the Palestinian Authority.
Intelligence on Libya rebels shows flickers of Qaeda
By Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwell – Tue Mar 29, 6:42 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Intelligence on the rebels battling Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has shown flickers of al Qaeda or Hezbollah presence, NATO's operations commander said, but U.S. officials said there were no indications militant groups are playing a significant role in Libya.We are examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders of these opposition forces, Admiral James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, said in testimony to a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday.But several national security officials quickly and firmly denied that al Qaeda or Hezbollah were significantly involved.If anyone thinks there are vast numbers of al-Qaeda terrorists running the rebel movement in Libya, then Churchill never smoked a cigar in his life, one of the officials said.No one's saying there isn't a relative smattering of bad guys in Libya. After all, there always have been goons in the country, the official told Reuters.But let's get real here. This is, at its core, an anti-Gaddafi uprising rooted in major opposition to a repressive regime that has brutalized its own people for decades.U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice agreed that any al Qaeda involvement with the rebels was limited.Asked whether she had seen any evidence to support Stavridis' assessment, Rice told Fox News: I would like to think I'm reading much of the same stuff and no.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made clear the wisps of information on al Qaeda and Hezbollah that Stavridis had alluded to were not based on hard intelligence.We do not have any specific information about specific individuals from any organization who are part of this, but of course, we're still getting to know those who are leading the Transitional National Council, she said in London after a conference on Libya.Gaddafi's troops on Tuesday reversed the westward charge of rebel forces as world powers met in London more than a week after the United States and other nations launched a military campaign aimed at protecting Libyan civilians.
SMALL NUMBERS
Think in terms of very small numbers of Libyan rebels being affiliated with al-Qaeda,a U.S. official familiar with internal government reporting told Reuters. While there are some limited connections, don't think that the rebels are somehow being led by al Qaeda. That's just not the case.Even as the rebels struggle against Gaddafi's better-armed, better-organized troops, Stavridis said the Libyan leader was likely to go if the coalition brought a range of military power to bear against him.If we work all the elements of power, we have a more than reasonable chance of Gaddafi leaving, because the entire international community is arrayed against him, he said.Two national security officials and a former White House counterterrorism expert said they could not confirm, and were puzzled by, Stavridis' assertion that intelligence showed possible involvement of Hezbollah with Libyan rebels.Juan Zarate, a former counterterrorism advisor on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, said he had no information to confirm Hezbollah involvement and it would be incongruous with what U.S. experts generally understand to be the makeup of Libyan rebel forces.I would find it unlikely at this stage that we have hard and fast evidence that these groups are involved in a significant way in Libya, Zarate told Reuters.
Senators' questions at the hearing about the make-up of the Libyan opposition reflected skepticism in Congress about the Obama administration's preparedness for a campaign that came together quickly after weeks of speculation about whether the United States would intervene. It also underscores worries about who might take over in Libya if Gaddafi does go. It's premature to say what is our exit strategy until we have a little more clarity moving forward, Stavridis said.The Libya campaign has also intensified fears in Congress about the high cost of military activities overseas.The war in Afghanistan, for example, costs the United States around $9 billion a month. Stavridis said the Libya mission had cost hundreds of millions of dollars so far.(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball. Writing by Missy Ryan; editing by Christopher Wilson)
Arab League could host Palestinian unity talks
– Tue Mar 29, 1:42 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – The Arab League is willing to host Palestinian reconciliation talks, Secretary General Amr Mussa said on Tuesday after a meeting with Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar in Cairo.The Arab League is willing to host any Palestinian meetings to push forward national reconciliation efforts, Mussa told reporters.There is no justification whatsoever for the continued Palestinian division, he said, stressing the need to unify Palestinian ranks ahead the current challenges.Officials from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement and its rival Islamist group Hamas held talks on Saturday in a bid to restart reconciliation talks.The two have been at loggerheads since 2007 when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, routing Abbas loyalists.In Cairo, Zahar said that another meeting would be held in Gaza in the coming two days with Fatah members.Egypt has in the past hosted several rounds of Palestinian reconciliation talks but with no success.Egypt does not want to sponsor talks that would end in failure and we understand that,Zahar said.
The Arab League will therefore host the talks for a defined time period until an agreement is reached, which will be announced in Cairo, Zahar said.Gaza has been effectively cut off from the West Bank, which is under the control of Fatah, and repeated attempts at reconciliation have led nowhere.The disunity of the Palestinians has prevented them from taking a common stance in peace talks with Israel, which are now off the table.Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and the West Bank last week to demand that the two factions end their long-running rivalry.
Israel warning over Palestinian statehood bid
– Tue Mar 29, 12:04 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's foreign ministry has told its envoys to warn UN members that the Palestinians could face retaliatory steps if they unilaterally declare independence, the Haaretz newspaper said on Tuesday.The newspaper quoted unnamed ministry officials as saying Director General Rafael Barak sent classified cables to more than 30 embassies last week directing them to lodge protests against Palestinian efforts to gain recognition of statehood at the United Nations General Assembly in September.The embassies were those in the 15 member states of the UN Security Council and in key European capitals, Haaretz said.Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor would not comment directly on the Haaretz report, although he hinted that Israel could reciprocate with its own unspecified unilateral action.We are deeply disappointed by the deliberate choice of the Palestinian Authority to abandon negotiations, Palmor said. We think that taking the route of unilateral measures is a very dangerous mistake because it is not a one-way street.The paper did not specify what measures Israel might take, but National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau has said the proper response would be to annex land in the occupied West Bank.But public radio quoted officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office as saying he was unaware of any annexation plan.On March 20, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP the Palestinians were planning to ask the UN to recognise their state within the 1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital.No date has been set for that bid, but it is widely expected to take place in September.Israel is fiercely opposed to such a move, arguing that negotiations are the only way to end the conflict and establish a Palestinian state.
Israel president: Great hopes for Arab revolutions
– Mon Mar 28, 2:49 pm ET
GENEVA – Israeli President Shimon Peres expressed hope Monday that popular revolutions in the Middle East could improve relations between his country and its Arab neighbors, if they end up becoming more democratic and prosperous.Changes in government would need to be accompanied by greater economic freedom and development, he said, as poverty and oppression in the region had fed resentment against Israel.
We hope the better our neighbors will have it, we shall have better neighbors, Peres told reporters in Geneva after a meeting with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey.
Israel was watching protests in Syria particularly closely.Clearly this changes the status quo in Syria, he said, without elaborating.A weeklong series of anti-government demonstrations has rocked Syria, considered one of Israel's biggest enemies in the region.
Israel deploys rocket defense system against Gaza By ARON HELLER, Associated Press – Sun Mar 27, 3:40 pm ET
BEERSHEBA, Israel – Israel deployed a cutting-edge rocket defense system on Sunday, rolling out the latest tool in its arsenal to stop a recent spike in attacks from the neighboring Gaza Strip.Israel hopes the homegrown Iron Dome system will provide increased security to its citizens, but officials warned that it can't do the job alone. The system went into operation shortly after an Israeli aircraft struck a group of militants in Gaza, killing two. Israeli said they were about to fire a rocket.The Iron Dome system has raised hopes that Israel has finally found a solution to the years of rocket fire from Gaza. The primitive rockets have evaded Israel's high-tech weaponry, in part because their short flight path, just a few seconds, makes them hard to track.The government approved Iron Dome in 2007. Its developers have compared the effort to a high-tech start-up, working around the clock in small teams to perfect its weapons, radar and software systems. The developer, local defense contractor Rafael, declared the system ready for use last year.Iron Dome uses sophisticated cameras and radar to track incoming rockets, determine where they will land, and intercept and destroy them far from their targets. If the system determines the rocket is headed to an open area where casualties are unlikely, it can allow the weapon to explode on the ground.Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of Israel's air defense corps, said Iron Dome has passed a series of tests and has now reached its evaluation phase in the field. It is expected to be fully operational in a matter of months.He added that it was only supposed to be deployed later in the year, but it was put into operation earlier because of the recent rocket attacks from Gaza.Obviously, after what we saw in the last few weeks, we accelerated the phases, he said, standing before the brown, box-like battery on the outskirts of Beersheba, southern Israel's largest city with a population of nearly 200,000.
After two years of relative calm, tensions along the Israel-Gaza border have heated up in recent weeks with Gaza militants firing deeper and more frequently into Israel, and the military striking back hard. Beersheba, more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Gaza, has been struck several times.Although Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas militant group have both said they have no interest in escalating the situation, the renewed hostilities have fed concerns of another large-scale Israeli military operation.In December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza in response to years of rocket and mortar barrages on its southern communities, killing 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, and causing widespread destruction. Thirteen Israelis also died.Israel believes that Hamas, which suffered heavy losses in the fighting, has recovered from the fighting and restocked its arsenal with more powerful weapons.Gaza militants, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, said over the weekend that they would halt their fire if Israel did.But early Sunday, Israeli aircraft struck a Palestinian rocket squad in the Gaza Strip, killing two militants from Islamic Jihad, a smaller rival of Hamas. It was not clear whether Islamic Jihad was reneging on its commitment to the cease-fire, or whether the airstrike hit a rogue group of militants.Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu urged all militant factions to halt their fire as agreed.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had no interest in escalating things.But we won't hesitate to employ the might of the military against those who would attack our citizens, Netanyahu told his Cabinet.
Netanyahu also gave a sober assessment of Iron Dome, saying he didn't want to create the illusion that the system would offer Israel 100 percent protection from rocket attacks.The Iron Dome system is still in an experimental stage, and at any rate, we cannot deploy batteries that can protect every house, every school, every (military) base and every facility, he said. A second anti-missile battery will be deployed in another large southern city, Ashdod, the military said, without specifying a date.
Officials refused to say how many batteries would be deployed altogether, what their range was, or how much the system would cost. Analysts have estimated the cost of shooting down a rocket could be tens of thousands of dollars, compared to just a few hundred dollars to produce the rocket.The real test is not the price of knocking down the rocket, but how much damage the rocket would cause, and the price in human life, if it hits, said Gavish, the air force officer.Uzi Rubin, an Israeli missile defense expert, said the system is bound to suffer initial malfunctions as operators learn how to use it.Unfortunately, Israel is writing the book, Rubin said.That includes doing some things right and sometimes making some mistakes.Associated Press writers Josh Lederman contributed to this report from Jerusalem, and Ibrahim Barzak from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.
Israeli air strike kills two in Gaza
by Adel Zaanoun – Sun Mar 27, 8:45 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – An Israeli air strike killed two Gaza militants on Sunday, threatening to prompt more tit-for-tat attacks a day after militants committed to calm if Israel reciprocated.Two Palestinians were killed and another wounded Sunday morning in an Israeli air raid on targets east of Jabaliya, said Gaza emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya.Islamic Jihad's armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, claimed the men as its own and said it would respond to the crime against them.The lives of our martyrs will not be wasted, a statement said. We will answer this crime against our mujahedeen in the right time and place.An army spokeswoman said an air force plane attacked on Sunday morning a terrorist cell that was preparing to fire a rocket at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip.On Saturday, after a week of clashes with Israel that killed eight Palestinians, militants led by Gaza's Hamas rulers declared they wanted to restore calm in the coastal enclave.
Hamas official Ismail Radwan told reporters after a meeting with Islamic Jihad and other factions that we are committed to calm as long as the occupation (Israel) commits to it.At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "Israel won't accept this (rocket) fire and will continue to act to foil it with whatever means are needed.This morning, too, we hit a cell that was preparing a launch against Israel. We have no interest in escalating the incidents and it is important to allow (Israeli citizens) to live their normal lives.Beforehand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not tolerate an attack on its civilians.In the past two weeks there have been elements that have been trying to violate the calm and security. We have no interest in escalating the situation, but will not hesitate employing the (army) against anyone who attacks our people.On Friday, Netanyahu had said Israel was ready to act with great force in response to rocket and mortar attacks.Following Saturday's meeting, Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader, told AFP that everybody confirmed that they respect the national consensus by calming things with the Zionist enemy.But he said this depends on the nature of Israeli behaviour, and we insist on the need to respond immediately to each escalation by the occupiers.Just before the Gaza meeting started, the army said, a rocket was fired from Gaza on the Israel town of Sderot, causing no casualties or damage.
And Gaza militants fired two rockets into Israel on Friday night, with one damaging a house where Israeli media said eight sleeping people were unharmed.Visiting the site, Israel's southern front commander Major General Tal Russo said it appeared Hamas was unable to impose calm on Gaza.There is currently anarchy on the other side, the Ynet website quoted him as saying.Hamas is finding it difficult to turn the clock back.Meanwhile, Israel's military confirmed it began deploying Sunday its multi-million-dollar Iron Dome missile defence system in the south, with a first battery at Beersheva. In Israel last week, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Washington firmly backed Israel's right to respond both to the rocket fire and to a deadly Jerusalem bus bombing on Wednesday, which he described as repugnant acts.But he suggested Israel should tread carefully or risk derailing the course of popular unrest sweeping Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East. Israel's leaders have appeared reluctant to be dragged into another bloody war with Hamas, especially as they lack international support for any new offensive on Gaza.Reacting to persistent attacks from Gaza, Israel launched a three-week assault on the strip over New Years 2009, in which some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died.
Syrian port city rocked by unrest; tensions widen By ZEINA KARAM and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press – Sat Mar 26, 6:49 pm ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – A scenic seaside city echoed with gunfire Saturday as protesters defied government forces in Syria's second day of nationwide unrest, burning tires, attacking businesses and setting the offices of the ruling party aflame.At least two people were killed by rooftop snipers in the religiously mixed Mediterranean city of Latakia, officials said, and President Bashar Assad's government of minority Alawite Muslims blamed a major Sunni cleric in Qatar for inciting the unrest.The government also said demonstrators had attacked a police station and offices of the Baath party in the town of Tafas, six miles (10 kilometers) north of the southern border city of Daraa, the epicenter of more than a week of anti-government protests.Sectarian divisions are a deeply sensitive topic in Syria, where Assad has used increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes, while punishing dissenters with arrest, imprisonment and physical abuse.Assad has placed his fellow Alawites, adherents of a mystical offshoot of Shiite Islam, into most positions of power in Syria. He has built a close relationship with Iran, allowing the Shiite powerhouse to extend its influence into Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, where it provides money and weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah militants.The surge of anti-government unrest in the Arab world has until now threatened almost exclusively regimes seen as allies of the U.S. and Western powers. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain have maintained warm relations with Washington, and even Libya had growing ties with Britain, Italy and the rest of Europe.
The unrest in Syria, which exploded nationwide Friday after roiling Daraa for a week, is a new and highly unpredictable element of the Arab Spring, one that could both weaken a foe of the West and cause dangerous instability in one of the more fragile and potentially chaotic countries of the Mideast, experts said. On Friday, Syrian troops and soldiers opened fire in at least six cities, towns and villages, killing some 15 protesters, according to witnesses, activists and footage posted on social networking sites.We are in for a long, grueling civil conflict, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who worked on Mideast peace negotiations in six U.S. administrations. The black box in Syria, once you open it up, has some very nasty stuff inside.Dozens of people protested in Latakia before attacking the Baath party's offices in Syria's main Mediterranean port — a tourist draw renowned for its sandy beaches and resorts, said Ammar Qurabi, an exile in Egypt who heads Syria's National Organization for Human Rights.Home to some half a million people, Latakia is a mix of Sunnis in its urban core, Alawites living in villages on the outskirts, and small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.A Syrian activist in touch with protesters in Latakia said hundreds had been demonstrating there since Friday evening, burning tires and shouting Freedom! A few protesters were attacking cars and shops, the activist said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.Syrian presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban said Qatar-based Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi had incited Sunnis to revolt with his sermon in Doha on Friday. Al-Qaradawi, who has millions of followers around the world and is seen as one of most influential voices in Sunni Islam; told his audience that,Today the train of revolutions arrived at a station that was inevitable it would reach: the station of Syria.
Syria is like the others — and it is more deserving than others of these revolutions, he said.When there are those who are killed, know that the revolution has been victorious! Shabaan said those words were responsible for the unrest in Latakia.There was nothing (in Latakia) before Qaradawi's sermon on Friday, she told reporters in Damascus. Qaradawi's words were a clear and honest invitation for sectarian strife.Shaaban said that a group of Palestinians had come into Latakia from a refugee camp with weapons and opened fire, killing a policeman and two protesters.These are not peaceful protests demanding accelerated reforms ... what is happening in Syria now is an attempt to sow civil strife, she said.A resident of Latakia who spoke to The Associated Press from home reported hearing gunfire Saturday evening. A Syrian official told The Associated Press that two passers-by were killed and two others wounded in Latakia by sniper fire from rooftops. He denied that the army had opened fire on protesters.A hospital official in Latakia also said there were two dead and two wounded. He declined to give any other details.Footage on a Facebook site run by Syrian activists showed what it said were the dead and wounded in Latakia. Young men carried one man by his limbs through a street, then another. They laid the second man limp in the street. It's the military police! one shouted.
Footage from an opposition Syrian news agency uploaded onto YouTube claimed to show another man killed in Latakia.Men screamed, Oh God! Oh God! as they laid the body of the young man on the floor, his face smeared with blood and a gaping hole close to his jaw.The authenticity of the footage could not be independently confirmed. During the week of unrest, Syrian authorities have detained two Americans, a Vermont student and a dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen accused of selling photos and videos of demonstrations.The state news agency Sana alleged that the man had confessed to selling the footage to a Colombian woman. He was later identified by relatives as Mohammed Radwan, 32, of Austin, Texas.Radwan's cousin, Nora Shalaby, said she last heard from him on Friday when he tweeted that he was at a mosque in Damascus where security forces were clashing with anti-government protesters.A Vermont man said his 21-year-old son Pathik Root, who had been missing since March 18, has been found to be in Syrian custody. Tom Root said his son, who had been studying Arabic in Damascus, was detained during a demonstration in the capital. He said he believes his son was watching, and not participating, in the demonstration.Assad appeared to be trying to appease demonstrators in mostly Sunni Daraa, pulling back police and soldiers. His government also released hundreds of political prisoners in an attempt to appease demonstrators furious about the violent government crackdown on dissent.
A resident told The Associated Press by telephone that more than 1,000 people were holding a silent sit-in the al-Omari mosque, at the center of the protests there. A human rights activist said authorities had released 260 political prisoners in another apparent attempt at appeasement. Abdul-Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian Human Rights League, said most of those released on Saturday were Islamists and 14 Kurdish detainees were also let free.Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Steven R. Hurst in Washington and Michael Weissenstein and Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to this report.
Diplomats: New European proposal on Mideast peace
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press – Fri Mar 25, 8:05 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Britain, France and Germany want the United Nations and the European Union to propose the outlines of a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, U.N. diplomats said.The three European countries, all members of the U.N. Security Council, are pressing for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union to propose a settlement text at a meeting in mid-April of the Quartet of Mideast mediators, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks are taking place in private. The quartet includes the U.N., EU, U.S. and Russia.The aim is to get a basis for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to resume.Putting the job in the hands of the EU and the U.N. would sideline the United States, Israel's closest ally which has tried unsuccessfully for months to get face-to-face negotiations going, as well as Russia, an ally of the Palestinians.
The big question mark is whether the United States would allow the Europeans and U.N. to take the lead in trying to resolve the standoff, and that is likely to depend on whether the Israelis give a green light, the diplomats said.The Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to President Barack Obama's target date of September 2011 for an agreement, but negotiations collapsed weeks after they restarted last September because Israel ended its moratorium on settlement construction. The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel halts settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war which the Palestinians want for their future state.The U.S. veto on Feb. 18 of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned illegal Israeli settlements and demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building spurred Britain, France and Germany, who supported the measure, to issue a joint statement expressing serious concern about the stalemate in the Middle East peace process.
Since the U.S. efforts have been unsuccessful, diplomats said the three European powers decided to try a new approach in hopes of breaking the deadlock.The diplomats said the three European countries have delivered the message in key capitals — including Washington and Jerusalem — that if the parameters of a final settlement are endorsed, the Palestinians will return to the negotiating table.
by Mohammed Fadhel – Wed Mar 30, 3:50 pm ET
MANAMA (AFP) – Bahrain's Shiite opposition head Ali Salman on Wednesday warned Iran and Saudi Arabia against using his country as a battlefield in a proxy war.Salman urged Iran to keep out of the Sunni-ruled state's affairs and called on Saudi troops to leave the country.Bahrain's foreign minister, meanwhile, renewed accusations that Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Tehran, was training regime opponents in the Shiite-majority country.We urge Iran not to meddle in Bahraini internal affairs, opposition head Ali Salman said, also demanding the withdrawal of Saudi-led troops in a joint Gulf force deployed in Bahrain since mid-March to help quash the protests.We demand Saudi Arabia withdraw the Peninsula Shield forces, he told a press conference. We do not want Bahrain to turn into a battlefield for Saudi Arabia, which is predominantly Sunni, and Shiite Iran, its arch-foe.Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said last week that bringing in Gulf troops was a strategic and political blunder that would cost the Bahraini regime its legitimacy.A teenager was killed when a police patrol opened fire with live rounds west of the capital Manama, the main Shiite-led parliamentary opposition group, Al-Wefaq, said.
There was no immediate confirmation from police of the circumstances of the death of Ahmed Sayyed Said Shams, 15, in the village of Sar.Twenty-four people, four of them police, were killed in a month of unrest, Bahrain's Interior Minister Rashed bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa said on Tuesday, linking the troubles to Hezbollah.Foreign Minister Khaled bin Ahmad Al-Khalifa, in an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper, said Manama had proof of plotting with Hezbollah and of training in Lebanon on how to organise mass protests.But authorities in Bahrain have no intention of taking steps against Lebanese expatriates living in the kingdom, he said.The foreign minister said his country, which has been widely condemned over the use of deadly force to crush unrest, had feared its Shiite-led protests could spark sectarian conflict in other Gulf states.There have been sectarian tensions everywhere for centuries, he told Al-Hayat. Bahrain was afraid sectarian confrontations would break out not only in Bahrain but in all other regions.Sheikh Khaled argued that unrest in Bahrain was fired not so much by political opposition but rather a sectarian division.We want to affirm to the world that we don't have a problem between the government and the opposition ... There is a clear sectarian problem in Bahrain. There is division within society, he said.At Wednesday's news conference, Salman who heads Al-Wefaq, accused the government of using "the security option to shut the door to dialogue.
Last month, Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman, with the encouragement of Washington, offered to start an open dialogue with all parties on the issues which sparked the protests.But the opposition says it refuses to be coerced into talks.
Salman said opposition supporters were not being called on to stage fresh protests or to confront security forces. On Saturday, a day of mourning is to be held for the martyrs of the protests, he said. On March 16, security forces drove the pro-democracy protesters out of central Manama's Pearl Square and demolished their camp under a state of emergency put in place for three months.Bahrain's 40-member parliament on Tuesday accepted the resignation of 11 out of 18 MPs from Salman's Wefaq, exposing them to possible legal action, after a news blackout om the arrests of top activists.Al-Wefaq MPs resigned en masse in February in protest at the use of deadly force against demonstrators.
UN chief urges end to peace talks deadlock
– Wed Mar 30, 11:14 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for intensified efforts to break the impasse in Israel-Palestinian peace talks, saying resolution of the conflict is long overdue.We must intensify efforts to break the deadlock, he said in an address to Latin American and Caribbean delegates in Uruguay, the text of which was released by the UN spokesman in Jerusalem on Wednesday.The status quo is untenable, particularly at a time when so many throughout the region are pursuing freedom and dignity through non-violence -- a re-awakening also being felt among the Palestinians.Direct talks resumed at the beginning of September with the aim of securing a peace deal within a year but collapsed just weeks later after the expiry of an Israeli ban on new settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.President Mahmud Abbas has refused to return to the negotiating table while Israel continues to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state.Ban said settlement construction was illegal and must stop, and he criticised Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem and the forced transfer of residents there.
Israel's occupation, which began in 1967 was morally and politically unsustainable, and must end, he said, adding:Time is of the essence.A way must be found for Jerusalem to emerge as a capital of two states, Israel and Palestine, with arrangements for holy sites acceptable for all, he said.And there must be a just and agreed solution to the prolonged plight of the Palestinian refugees.He also condemned the surge in violence in and around the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.I am very concerned at continued violent tensions that put civilians in danger. I condemn escalating rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel, which indiscriminately targets civilians, and the killing and wounding of Gaza civilians, including children, by Israeli fire.And he also reiterated his condemnation of last week's deadly bomb attack in Jerusalem, which killed one and injured nearly 40 people.
US senators press Clinton on anti-Israel incitement
– Tue Mar 29, 7:04 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Twenty-seven US senators pressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday to make clear to Palestinian leaders that any incitement to violence against Israel or Jews is not tolerable.We would like to know what specific steps you are taking to press for an end to this dangerous incitement, the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Clinton urging action after the grisly stabbing slayings of a family of five Israelis, including three children.The Itamar massacre was a sobering reminder that words matter, and that Palestinian incitement against Jews and Israel can lead to violence and terror, the group, which included Democrats and Republicans, said in their message.We urge you to redouble your efforts to impress upon the Palestinian leadership that continuing to condone incitement is not tolerable. We also urge you to consider focusing adequate training and educational programs in the West Bank and Gaza that promote peaceful coexistence with Israel, they said.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has denounced the early March attack at the Itamar settlement in the West Bank near the northern city of Nablus as abominable, inhuman and immoral.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed Palestinian incitement for creating an atmosphere that led to the killings -- widely believed to have been carried out by Palestinians -- and Abbas has flatly rejected the charge.
In the wake of the Itamar attack as well as a bomb attack on a crowded Jerusalem bus stop last week, US lawmakers have stepped up appeals for President Barack Obama's administration to do more against Palestinian incitement.The 27 US senators told Clinton they had serious concern over continuing incitement directed against Jews and Israel within the Palestinian media, mosques and schools, and even by individuals or institutions affiliated with the Palestinian Authority.
Intelligence on Libya rebels shows flickers of Qaeda
By Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwell – Tue Mar 29, 6:42 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Intelligence on the rebels battling Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has shown flickers of al Qaeda or Hezbollah presence, NATO's operations commander said, but U.S. officials said there were no indications militant groups are playing a significant role in Libya.We are examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders of these opposition forces, Admiral James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, said in testimony to a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday.But several national security officials quickly and firmly denied that al Qaeda or Hezbollah were significantly involved.If anyone thinks there are vast numbers of al-Qaeda terrorists running the rebel movement in Libya, then Churchill never smoked a cigar in his life, one of the officials said.No one's saying there isn't a relative smattering of bad guys in Libya. After all, there always have been goons in the country, the official told Reuters.But let's get real here. This is, at its core, an anti-Gaddafi uprising rooted in major opposition to a repressive regime that has brutalized its own people for decades.U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice agreed that any al Qaeda involvement with the rebels was limited.Asked whether she had seen any evidence to support Stavridis' assessment, Rice told Fox News: I would like to think I'm reading much of the same stuff and no.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also made clear the wisps of information on al Qaeda and Hezbollah that Stavridis had alluded to were not based on hard intelligence.We do not have any specific information about specific individuals from any organization who are part of this, but of course, we're still getting to know those who are leading the Transitional National Council, she said in London after a conference on Libya.Gaddafi's troops on Tuesday reversed the westward charge of rebel forces as world powers met in London more than a week after the United States and other nations launched a military campaign aimed at protecting Libyan civilians.
SMALL NUMBERS
Think in terms of very small numbers of Libyan rebels being affiliated with al-Qaeda,a U.S. official familiar with internal government reporting told Reuters. While there are some limited connections, don't think that the rebels are somehow being led by al Qaeda. That's just not the case.Even as the rebels struggle against Gaddafi's better-armed, better-organized troops, Stavridis said the Libyan leader was likely to go if the coalition brought a range of military power to bear against him.If we work all the elements of power, we have a more than reasonable chance of Gaddafi leaving, because the entire international community is arrayed against him, he said.Two national security officials and a former White House counterterrorism expert said they could not confirm, and were puzzled by, Stavridis' assertion that intelligence showed possible involvement of Hezbollah with Libyan rebels.Juan Zarate, a former counterterrorism advisor on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, said he had no information to confirm Hezbollah involvement and it would be incongruous with what U.S. experts generally understand to be the makeup of Libyan rebel forces.I would find it unlikely at this stage that we have hard and fast evidence that these groups are involved in a significant way in Libya, Zarate told Reuters.
Senators' questions at the hearing about the make-up of the Libyan opposition reflected skepticism in Congress about the Obama administration's preparedness for a campaign that came together quickly after weeks of speculation about whether the United States would intervene. It also underscores worries about who might take over in Libya if Gaddafi does go. It's premature to say what is our exit strategy until we have a little more clarity moving forward, Stavridis said.The Libya campaign has also intensified fears in Congress about the high cost of military activities overseas.The war in Afghanistan, for example, costs the United States around $9 billion a month. Stavridis said the Libya mission had cost hundreds of millions of dollars so far.(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball. Writing by Missy Ryan; editing by Christopher Wilson)
Arab League could host Palestinian unity talks
– Tue Mar 29, 1:42 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – The Arab League is willing to host Palestinian reconciliation talks, Secretary General Amr Mussa said on Tuesday after a meeting with Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar in Cairo.The Arab League is willing to host any Palestinian meetings to push forward national reconciliation efforts, Mussa told reporters.There is no justification whatsoever for the continued Palestinian division, he said, stressing the need to unify Palestinian ranks ahead the current challenges.Officials from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement and its rival Islamist group Hamas held talks on Saturday in a bid to restart reconciliation talks.The two have been at loggerheads since 2007 when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, routing Abbas loyalists.In Cairo, Zahar said that another meeting would be held in Gaza in the coming two days with Fatah members.Egypt has in the past hosted several rounds of Palestinian reconciliation talks but with no success.Egypt does not want to sponsor talks that would end in failure and we understand that,Zahar said.
The Arab League will therefore host the talks for a defined time period until an agreement is reached, which will be announced in Cairo, Zahar said.Gaza has been effectively cut off from the West Bank, which is under the control of Fatah, and repeated attempts at reconciliation have led nowhere.The disunity of the Palestinians has prevented them from taking a common stance in peace talks with Israel, which are now off the table.Tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and the West Bank last week to demand that the two factions end their long-running rivalry.
Israel warning over Palestinian statehood bid
– Tue Mar 29, 12:04 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's foreign ministry has told its envoys to warn UN members that the Palestinians could face retaliatory steps if they unilaterally declare independence, the Haaretz newspaper said on Tuesday.The newspaper quoted unnamed ministry officials as saying Director General Rafael Barak sent classified cables to more than 30 embassies last week directing them to lodge protests against Palestinian efforts to gain recognition of statehood at the United Nations General Assembly in September.The embassies were those in the 15 member states of the UN Security Council and in key European capitals, Haaretz said.Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor would not comment directly on the Haaretz report, although he hinted that Israel could reciprocate with its own unspecified unilateral action.We are deeply disappointed by the deliberate choice of the Palestinian Authority to abandon negotiations, Palmor said. We think that taking the route of unilateral measures is a very dangerous mistake because it is not a one-way street.The paper did not specify what measures Israel might take, but National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau has said the proper response would be to annex land in the occupied West Bank.But public radio quoted officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office as saying he was unaware of any annexation plan.On March 20, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP the Palestinians were planning to ask the UN to recognise their state within the 1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital.No date has been set for that bid, but it is widely expected to take place in September.Israel is fiercely opposed to such a move, arguing that negotiations are the only way to end the conflict and establish a Palestinian state.
Israel president: Great hopes for Arab revolutions
– Mon Mar 28, 2:49 pm ET
GENEVA – Israeli President Shimon Peres expressed hope Monday that popular revolutions in the Middle East could improve relations between his country and its Arab neighbors, if they end up becoming more democratic and prosperous.Changes in government would need to be accompanied by greater economic freedom and development, he said, as poverty and oppression in the region had fed resentment against Israel.
We hope the better our neighbors will have it, we shall have better neighbors, Peres told reporters in Geneva after a meeting with Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey.
Israel was watching protests in Syria particularly closely.Clearly this changes the status quo in Syria, he said, without elaborating.A weeklong series of anti-government demonstrations has rocked Syria, considered one of Israel's biggest enemies in the region.
Israel deploys rocket defense system against Gaza By ARON HELLER, Associated Press – Sun Mar 27, 3:40 pm ET
BEERSHEBA, Israel – Israel deployed a cutting-edge rocket defense system on Sunday, rolling out the latest tool in its arsenal to stop a recent spike in attacks from the neighboring Gaza Strip.Israel hopes the homegrown Iron Dome system will provide increased security to its citizens, but officials warned that it can't do the job alone. The system went into operation shortly after an Israeli aircraft struck a group of militants in Gaza, killing two. Israeli said they were about to fire a rocket.The Iron Dome system has raised hopes that Israel has finally found a solution to the years of rocket fire from Gaza. The primitive rockets have evaded Israel's high-tech weaponry, in part because their short flight path, just a few seconds, makes them hard to track.The government approved Iron Dome in 2007. Its developers have compared the effort to a high-tech start-up, working around the clock in small teams to perfect its weapons, radar and software systems. The developer, local defense contractor Rafael, declared the system ready for use last year.Iron Dome uses sophisticated cameras and radar to track incoming rockets, determine where they will land, and intercept and destroy them far from their targets. If the system determines the rocket is headed to an open area where casualties are unlikely, it can allow the weapon to explode on the ground.Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of Israel's air defense corps, said Iron Dome has passed a series of tests and has now reached its evaluation phase in the field. It is expected to be fully operational in a matter of months.He added that it was only supposed to be deployed later in the year, but it was put into operation earlier because of the recent rocket attacks from Gaza.Obviously, after what we saw in the last few weeks, we accelerated the phases, he said, standing before the brown, box-like battery on the outskirts of Beersheba, southern Israel's largest city with a population of nearly 200,000.
After two years of relative calm, tensions along the Israel-Gaza border have heated up in recent weeks with Gaza militants firing deeper and more frequently into Israel, and the military striking back hard. Beersheba, more than 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Gaza, has been struck several times.Although Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas militant group have both said they have no interest in escalating the situation, the renewed hostilities have fed concerns of another large-scale Israeli military operation.In December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza in response to years of rocket and mortar barrages on its southern communities, killing 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, and causing widespread destruction. Thirteen Israelis also died.Israel believes that Hamas, which suffered heavy losses in the fighting, has recovered from the fighting and restocked its arsenal with more powerful weapons.Gaza militants, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, said over the weekend that they would halt their fire if Israel did.But early Sunday, Israeli aircraft struck a Palestinian rocket squad in the Gaza Strip, killing two militants from Islamic Jihad, a smaller rival of Hamas. It was not clear whether Islamic Jihad was reneging on its commitment to the cease-fire, or whether the airstrike hit a rogue group of militants.Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu urged all militant factions to halt their fire as agreed.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had no interest in escalating things.But we won't hesitate to employ the might of the military against those who would attack our citizens, Netanyahu told his Cabinet.
Netanyahu also gave a sober assessment of Iron Dome, saying he didn't want to create the illusion that the system would offer Israel 100 percent protection from rocket attacks.The Iron Dome system is still in an experimental stage, and at any rate, we cannot deploy batteries that can protect every house, every school, every (military) base and every facility, he said. A second anti-missile battery will be deployed in another large southern city, Ashdod, the military said, without specifying a date.
Officials refused to say how many batteries would be deployed altogether, what their range was, or how much the system would cost. Analysts have estimated the cost of shooting down a rocket could be tens of thousands of dollars, compared to just a few hundred dollars to produce the rocket.The real test is not the price of knocking down the rocket, but how much damage the rocket would cause, and the price in human life, if it hits, said Gavish, the air force officer.Uzi Rubin, an Israeli missile defense expert, said the system is bound to suffer initial malfunctions as operators learn how to use it.Unfortunately, Israel is writing the book, Rubin said.That includes doing some things right and sometimes making some mistakes.Associated Press writers Josh Lederman contributed to this report from Jerusalem, and Ibrahim Barzak from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.
Israeli air strike kills two in Gaza
by Adel Zaanoun – Sun Mar 27, 8:45 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – An Israeli air strike killed two Gaza militants on Sunday, threatening to prompt more tit-for-tat attacks a day after militants committed to calm if Israel reciprocated.Two Palestinians were killed and another wounded Sunday morning in an Israeli air raid on targets east of Jabaliya, said Gaza emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya.Islamic Jihad's armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, claimed the men as its own and said it would respond to the crime against them.The lives of our martyrs will not be wasted, a statement said. We will answer this crime against our mujahedeen in the right time and place.An army spokeswoman said an air force plane attacked on Sunday morning a terrorist cell that was preparing to fire a rocket at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip.On Saturday, after a week of clashes with Israel that killed eight Palestinians, militants led by Gaza's Hamas rulers declared they wanted to restore calm in the coastal enclave.
Hamas official Ismail Radwan told reporters after a meeting with Islamic Jihad and other factions that we are committed to calm as long as the occupation (Israel) commits to it.At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "Israel won't accept this (rocket) fire and will continue to act to foil it with whatever means are needed.This morning, too, we hit a cell that was preparing a launch against Israel. We have no interest in escalating the incidents and it is important to allow (Israeli citizens) to live their normal lives.Beforehand, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not tolerate an attack on its civilians.In the past two weeks there have been elements that have been trying to violate the calm and security. We have no interest in escalating the situation, but will not hesitate employing the (army) against anyone who attacks our people.On Friday, Netanyahu had said Israel was ready to act with great force in response to rocket and mortar attacks.Following Saturday's meeting, Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader, told AFP that everybody confirmed that they respect the national consensus by calming things with the Zionist enemy.But he said this depends on the nature of Israeli behaviour, and we insist on the need to respond immediately to each escalation by the occupiers.Just before the Gaza meeting started, the army said, a rocket was fired from Gaza on the Israel town of Sderot, causing no casualties or damage.
And Gaza militants fired two rockets into Israel on Friday night, with one damaging a house where Israeli media said eight sleeping people were unharmed.Visiting the site, Israel's southern front commander Major General Tal Russo said it appeared Hamas was unable to impose calm on Gaza.There is currently anarchy on the other side, the Ynet website quoted him as saying.Hamas is finding it difficult to turn the clock back.Meanwhile, Israel's military confirmed it began deploying Sunday its multi-million-dollar Iron Dome missile defence system in the south, with a first battery at Beersheva. In Israel last week, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Washington firmly backed Israel's right to respond both to the rocket fire and to a deadly Jerusalem bus bombing on Wednesday, which he described as repugnant acts.But he suggested Israel should tread carefully or risk derailing the course of popular unrest sweeping Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East. Israel's leaders have appeared reluctant to be dragged into another bloody war with Hamas, especially as they lack international support for any new offensive on Gaza.Reacting to persistent attacks from Gaza, Israel launched a three-week assault on the strip over New Years 2009, in which some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died.
Syrian port city rocked by unrest; tensions widen By ZEINA KARAM and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press – Sat Mar 26, 6:49 pm ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – A scenic seaside city echoed with gunfire Saturday as protesters defied government forces in Syria's second day of nationwide unrest, burning tires, attacking businesses and setting the offices of the ruling party aflame.At least two people were killed by rooftop snipers in the religiously mixed Mediterranean city of Latakia, officials said, and President Bashar Assad's government of minority Alawite Muslims blamed a major Sunni cleric in Qatar for inciting the unrest.The government also said demonstrators had attacked a police station and offices of the Baath party in the town of Tafas, six miles (10 kilometers) north of the southern border city of Daraa, the epicenter of more than a week of anti-government protests.Sectarian divisions are a deeply sensitive topic in Syria, where Assad has used increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes, while punishing dissenters with arrest, imprisonment and physical abuse.Assad has placed his fellow Alawites, adherents of a mystical offshoot of Shiite Islam, into most positions of power in Syria. He has built a close relationship with Iran, allowing the Shiite powerhouse to extend its influence into Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, where it provides money and weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah militants.The surge of anti-government unrest in the Arab world has until now threatened almost exclusively regimes seen as allies of the U.S. and Western powers. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain have maintained warm relations with Washington, and even Libya had growing ties with Britain, Italy and the rest of Europe.
The unrest in Syria, which exploded nationwide Friday after roiling Daraa for a week, is a new and highly unpredictable element of the Arab Spring, one that could both weaken a foe of the West and cause dangerous instability in one of the more fragile and potentially chaotic countries of the Mideast, experts said. On Friday, Syrian troops and soldiers opened fire in at least six cities, towns and villages, killing some 15 protesters, according to witnesses, activists and footage posted on social networking sites.We are in for a long, grueling civil conflict, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who worked on Mideast peace negotiations in six U.S. administrations. The black box in Syria, once you open it up, has some very nasty stuff inside.Dozens of people protested in Latakia before attacking the Baath party's offices in Syria's main Mediterranean port — a tourist draw renowned for its sandy beaches and resorts, said Ammar Qurabi, an exile in Egypt who heads Syria's National Organization for Human Rights.Home to some half a million people, Latakia is a mix of Sunnis in its urban core, Alawites living in villages on the outskirts, and small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.A Syrian activist in touch with protesters in Latakia said hundreds had been demonstrating there since Friday evening, burning tires and shouting Freedom! A few protesters were attacking cars and shops, the activist said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.Syrian presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban said Qatar-based Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi had incited Sunnis to revolt with his sermon in Doha on Friday. Al-Qaradawi, who has millions of followers around the world and is seen as one of most influential voices in Sunni Islam; told his audience that,Today the train of revolutions arrived at a station that was inevitable it would reach: the station of Syria.
Syria is like the others — and it is more deserving than others of these revolutions, he said.When there are those who are killed, know that the revolution has been victorious! Shabaan said those words were responsible for the unrest in Latakia.There was nothing (in Latakia) before Qaradawi's sermon on Friday, she told reporters in Damascus. Qaradawi's words were a clear and honest invitation for sectarian strife.Shaaban said that a group of Palestinians had come into Latakia from a refugee camp with weapons and opened fire, killing a policeman and two protesters.These are not peaceful protests demanding accelerated reforms ... what is happening in Syria now is an attempt to sow civil strife, she said.A resident of Latakia who spoke to The Associated Press from home reported hearing gunfire Saturday evening. A Syrian official told The Associated Press that two passers-by were killed and two others wounded in Latakia by sniper fire from rooftops. He denied that the army had opened fire on protesters.A hospital official in Latakia also said there were two dead and two wounded. He declined to give any other details.Footage on a Facebook site run by Syrian activists showed what it said were the dead and wounded in Latakia. Young men carried one man by his limbs through a street, then another. They laid the second man limp in the street. It's the military police! one shouted.
Footage from an opposition Syrian news agency uploaded onto YouTube claimed to show another man killed in Latakia.Men screamed, Oh God! Oh God! as they laid the body of the young man on the floor, his face smeared with blood and a gaping hole close to his jaw.The authenticity of the footage could not be independently confirmed. During the week of unrest, Syrian authorities have detained two Americans, a Vermont student and a dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen accused of selling photos and videos of demonstrations.The state news agency Sana alleged that the man had confessed to selling the footage to a Colombian woman. He was later identified by relatives as Mohammed Radwan, 32, of Austin, Texas.Radwan's cousin, Nora Shalaby, said she last heard from him on Friday when he tweeted that he was at a mosque in Damascus where security forces were clashing with anti-government protesters.A Vermont man said his 21-year-old son Pathik Root, who had been missing since March 18, has been found to be in Syrian custody. Tom Root said his son, who had been studying Arabic in Damascus, was detained during a demonstration in the capital. He said he believes his son was watching, and not participating, in the demonstration.Assad appeared to be trying to appease demonstrators in mostly Sunni Daraa, pulling back police and soldiers. His government also released hundreds of political prisoners in an attempt to appease demonstrators furious about the violent government crackdown on dissent.
A resident told The Associated Press by telephone that more than 1,000 people were holding a silent sit-in the al-Omari mosque, at the center of the protests there. A human rights activist said authorities had released 260 political prisoners in another apparent attempt at appeasement. Abdul-Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian Human Rights League, said most of those released on Saturday were Islamists and 14 Kurdish detainees were also let free.Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Steven R. Hurst in Washington and Michael Weissenstein and Diaa Hadid in Cairo contributed to this report.
Diplomats: New European proposal on Mideast peace
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press – Fri Mar 25, 8:05 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Britain, France and Germany want the United Nations and the European Union to propose the outlines of a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, U.N. diplomats said.The three European countries, all members of the U.N. Security Council, are pressing for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union to propose a settlement text at a meeting in mid-April of the Quartet of Mideast mediators, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks are taking place in private. The quartet includes the U.N., EU, U.S. and Russia.The aim is to get a basis for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to resume.Putting the job in the hands of the EU and the U.N. would sideline the United States, Israel's closest ally which has tried unsuccessfully for months to get face-to-face negotiations going, as well as Russia, an ally of the Palestinians.
The big question mark is whether the United States would allow the Europeans and U.N. to take the lead in trying to resolve the standoff, and that is likely to depend on whether the Israelis give a green light, the diplomats said.The Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to President Barack Obama's target date of September 2011 for an agreement, but negotiations collapsed weeks after they restarted last September because Israel ended its moratorium on settlement construction. The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel halts settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war which the Palestinians want for their future state.The U.S. veto on Feb. 18 of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned illegal Israeli settlements and demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building spurred Britain, France and Germany, who supported the measure, to issue a joint statement expressing serious concern about the stalemate in the Middle East peace process.
Since the U.S. efforts have been unsuccessful, diplomats said the three European powers decided to try a new approach in hopes of breaking the deadlock.The diplomats said the three European countries have delivered the message in key capitals — including Washington and Jerusalem — that if the parameters of a final settlement are endorsed, the Palestinians will return to the negotiating table.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
MY COMMENT ON LIBYA - ISRAEL CONNECTION
RELATED STORIES
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/03/iran-mahdi-near-israel-destroyed.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/03/israel-backstabbed-by-obama.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/03/obama-libya-speech-nwo-eu-lead-nato.html
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
BIBLES WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS
CHINA MILITARY PARADE(KING OF THE EAST)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9164005727480680563#docid=-8916004936135366443
RUSSIA ARMY PARADE(KING OF THE NORTH)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReGqS3TDYRM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWn3T5XIbNk&feature=related
EGYPT ARMY PARADE(KING OF THE SOUTH)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_KT4irRTM&feature=related
EUROPEAN UNION MILITARY PARADE(KING OF THE WEST)(NOT THE USA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NEyheTDyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzLjhsRrZYw&feature=fvw
ISRAEL MILITARY-GUARENTEED BY EU TO SECURE THEM THE BIBLE SAYS(2 MAIN ENDTIME PLAYERS)(NEXT TO GOD HIMSELF FUULFILLING THE PROPHECIES ON EARTH)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TDlvIRIMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhdalQdtzfY&feature=related
ANGEL 2 TO DR DOCTORIAN
The angel showed me that the United Nations shall be broken in pieces because of the crisis in the Middle East. There shall be no more United Nations. The angel with the sickle shall reap the harvest.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
ONE THING WE MUST REMEMBER.OBAMA MONTHLY TALKED WITH THE EU ON THE PHONE.SO THIS ACTION WAS SETUP MONTHS OR YEARS AGO ALREADY.THE EU IS TAKING THE LEAD ROLE LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS AND THE MOTIVE IS OIL AND JUST ATTACK RICH MIDEAST LEADERS WITH LOTS OF MONEY TO SEASE TO PAY FOR THE MISSON WITH THE MONEY CONFISCATED FROM THAT LEADER,THEN USE AL-QUIDA AGENTS TO GO AGAINST THE LEADER OF THAT COUNTRY,FORCE HIM OUT,CONTROL THE OIL IN THAT COUNTRY,AND THEN PUT THE AMERICAN PUPPET IN POWER.THEN AMERICA WILL DO A FALSE FLAG OR 3 IN THAT COUNTRY.BLAME IT ON THE AL-QUIDA PUPPETS THAT TOOK THE ORIGINAL LEADER OUT(BACKSTAB THEM OR PAY THEM OFF TO PUT UP A FALSE FRONT).THEN THE U.S.A AND NEW WORLD ORDER ARMY NATO CAN GO AFTER THE AL-QUIDA PUPPETS OR BACKSTAB PUPPETS AND CLAIM THAT AL-QUIDA DONE THE BOMBINGS AND WE HAVE A 911 SETUP ALL OVER AGAIN.WITH AMERICA AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER,ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CONTROL FREAKS STEAL PEOPLES RIGHTS OF THE WORLD UNDER THE QUISE OF TERRORISM.THE ONLY DIFFERENCE THIS TIME THE NWO NOW HAVE THE EU ARMY TO ATTACK WHICH EVER COUNTRY DOES NOT AGREE WITH THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT IDEAS.THEY CAN SANCTION THAT COUNTRY,THEN ATTACK WITH THE NATO RAPID REACTION FORCE LEAD BY THE EU.THIS WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD TO THE EU AND ARAB COUNTRIES COMPLAINING ABOUT ISRAEL USING FORCE ON THE PALESTINIANS AND TELLING THE USELESS U.N. TO MAKE A RESOLUTION AGAINST ISRAEL IF THEY DO NOT DIVIDE JERUSALEM WITH THE PALESTINIANS,GIVING THEM THEIR OWN STATE,WE THE WORLD GOVERNMENT LEADER EU WILL SANCTION ISRAEL AND USE OUR NATO WORLD GOVERNMENT RAPID REACTION TROOPS AGAINST YOU.OR WE WILL GIVE YOU A 2ND CHOICE:WE THE EU WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY BY PUTTING OUR NEW WORLD ORDER TROOPS IN ISRAEL AND GAZA TO PROTECT YOU FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS FROM THE PALESTINIANS.LET YOU REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT BUT NOT AT THE DOME OF THE ROCK BUT BY THE DOME OF THE SPIRITS.WE WILL PLACE OUR NATO TROOPS ON THE MOUNT TO GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY SO USE CAN SACRIFICE TO GOD.BUT YOU MUST GIVE THE PALESTINIANS THE EASTERN HALF OF JERUSALEM AND THE LAND FROM THE 1967 TAKIN.WE WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY FOR A 7 YEAR PERIOD SO WE CAN FINALISE THE JERUSALEM HASSLE AND DIVIDE THE LAND BETWEEN YOU AND THE PALESTINIANS PROPERLY.
I BELIEVE WHEN NATO AND THE NWO TRY TO TAKE OVER SYRIA LIKE LIBYA.IT BACKFIRES AND NATO ENDS UP TOTALLY DESTROYING DAMASCUS BEFORE THEY FINALLY PUT THEIR PUPPET IN.OBAMA AND NATO WILL PROBABLY DO THIS WITH A FEW MIDEAST COUNTRIES TO GET THE BUGS OUT.MAYBE GO AFTER IRAN.BUT THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO TRAP(FORCE) ISRAEL INTO DIVIDING ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM UNDER THE NEW WORLD ORDER-EU'S CONTROL.AND THE MUSLIMS, RUSSIA, CHINA WILL ALL BE WORKING TO THIS END ALSO.
WELL NOW WE HAVE AND IDEA WHY THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CREW WANTS THIS CHAOS IN THE MIDEAST UNDER THEIR NATO TROOPS TO RAPIDLY ATTACK COUNTRIES,END UP WITH THE OIL,PAY FOR THE ATTACKS WITH THE MONEY CONFISCATED FROM THE LEADER OF THE COUNTRY.GET RID OF THE COUNTRIES LEADER BY FORCE(FALSE FLAG)AL-QUIDA ARMIES AND INSTALL THEIR PUPPET LEADER.THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS CONTROL OR DESTROY ISRAEL LIKE GLENN BECK MENTIONED.
Abbas would give up US aid for Palestinian unity
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press – Mon Mar 28, 3:33 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is making a heavy push for reconciliation with Hamas and is willing to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid if that's what it takes to forge a Palestinian unity deal, a top aide said Monday.The comments were the latest sign that Abbas is giving up on stalled peace talks with Israel and prefers to pursue unity with Gaza's Hamas rulers as he makes a push toward independence.Of course we need the American money. But if they use it as a way of pressuring us, we are ready to relinquish that aid, said Azzam Ahmed, an Abbas aide.The U.S. and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group. The U.S. administration, the largest single donor to the Palestinians, withheld funds when Hamas was a part of a short-lived unity Palestinian government. The Palestinian Authority is heavily reliant on foreign aid and forgoing the funds could easily spark its own crisis.The Palestinian unity government, isolated internationally because of Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, collapsed during a five-day civil war in 2007 that ended with the Islamic militant group seizing power in the Gaza Strip.Since then, the Palestinians have been divided between rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza, the two territories they hope to turn into an independent state.With peace talks stalled since September, Abbas has begun an effort to win international recognition of Palestine, with or without an agreement with Israel. That effort is to culminate at the United Nations in September.
Speaking in Jerusalem Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that reconciliation with Hamas could spell the end of peace talks.You can't have peace with both Israel and Hamas. Choose peace with Israel, Netanyahu said.
Israel, the U.S. and the EU consider Hamas a terror group because of its rocket attacks and suicide bombings aimed at Israeli civilians.Palestinian officials acknowledge that they must solve their differences with Hamas before they can go to the United Nations. Abbas has made repeated overtures toward Hamas in recent weeks — including an offer to visit Gaza to lay the groundwork for national elections. Over the weekend, he met with local Hamas officials in the West Bank.The president is working hard in order to bring about a unified Palestinian territories before he goes to the U.N., Ahmed said.Hamas leaders say they want a full power-sharing deal before meeting with the Palestinian president — including a deal on how to divide security responsibilities.This visit should be for the sake of achieving progress on the ground and not only for photos and media coverage," said Mushir al Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. The problem is not in forming the government, it's in reaching an agreement.Hamas is demanding further gestures from Abbas before considering unity, such as a release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners locked up in the West Bank, re-opening closed Hamas charities and the removal of a ban on Hamas activities in the West Bank.Palestinian analysts say Hamas has hardened its negotiating positions recently and is feeling empowered by the recent upheavals in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, where its ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, is expected to play a key role in the new regime.Ayman Hussein, a West Bank Hamas member who recently met Abbas in Ramallah, said Abbas appeared serious in his efforts to reach out to Hamas and was pessimistic about the peace process with Israel.
Hanna Amerah, a member of the PLO executive committee, said Abbas is waiting for an official response from Hamas about his initiative to go to Gaza and expects an answer within a few days.He claimed Abbas has support for his move from the European Union, the U.N. and the Arab League. But giving up on the U.S. and Israel could come at a heavy price.The Palestinians receive more than $470 million a year in direct financial assistance from the U.S. The U.S. hasn't said what it will do if Hamas returns to power in the West Bank, but it will likely cut off the funds unless Hamas agrees to renounce violence and recognize Israel. Hamas has given no indication it is prepared to do either.
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/03/iran-mahdi-near-israel-destroyed.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/03/israel-backstabbed-by-obama.html
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2011/03/obama-libya-speech-nwo-eu-lead-nato.html
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
BIBLES WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS
CHINA MILITARY PARADE(KING OF THE EAST)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9164005727480680563#docid=-8916004936135366443
RUSSIA ARMY PARADE(KING OF THE NORTH)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReGqS3TDYRM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWn3T5XIbNk&feature=related
EGYPT ARMY PARADE(KING OF THE SOUTH)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_KT4irRTM&feature=related
EUROPEAN UNION MILITARY PARADE(KING OF THE WEST)(NOT THE USA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3NEyheTDyo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzLjhsRrZYw&feature=fvw
ISRAEL MILITARY-GUARENTEED BY EU TO SECURE THEM THE BIBLE SAYS(2 MAIN ENDTIME PLAYERS)(NEXT TO GOD HIMSELF FUULFILLING THE PROPHECIES ON EARTH)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TDlvIRIMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhdalQdtzfY&feature=related
ANGEL 2 TO DR DOCTORIAN
The angel showed me that the United Nations shall be broken in pieces because of the crisis in the Middle East. There shall be no more United Nations. The angel with the sickle shall reap the harvest.
EUROPEAN UNION ARMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded
DANIEL 7:23-25
23 Thus he said, The fourth beast (EU,REVIVED ROME) shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth,(7TH WORLD EMPIRE) which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.(TRADING BLOCKS)
24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings(10 NATIONS) that shall arise: and another shall rise after them;(#11 SPAIN) and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.( BE HEAD OF 3 NATIONS)
25 And he (EU PRESIDENT) shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.(3 1/2 YRS)
DANIEL 8:23-25
23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king (EU DICTATOR) of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences,(FROM THE OCCULT) shall stand up.
24 And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power:(SATANS POWER) and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes;(JESUS) but he shall be broken without hand.
DANIEL 11:36-39
36 And the king (EU DICTATOR) shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.
37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,(THIS EU DICTATOR IS JEWISH) nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.(CLAIM TO BE GOD)
38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces:(WAR) and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
39 Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god,(DESTROY TERROR GROUPS) whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many,(HIS ARMY LEADERS) and shall divide the land for gain.
REVELATION 19:19
19 And I saw the beast,(EU LEADER) and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse,(JESUS) and against his army.(THE RAPTURED CHRISTIANS)
ONE THING WE MUST REMEMBER.OBAMA MONTHLY TALKED WITH THE EU ON THE PHONE.SO THIS ACTION WAS SETUP MONTHS OR YEARS AGO ALREADY.THE EU IS TAKING THE LEAD ROLE LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS AND THE MOTIVE IS OIL AND JUST ATTACK RICH MIDEAST LEADERS WITH LOTS OF MONEY TO SEASE TO PAY FOR THE MISSON WITH THE MONEY CONFISCATED FROM THAT LEADER,THEN USE AL-QUIDA AGENTS TO GO AGAINST THE LEADER OF THAT COUNTRY,FORCE HIM OUT,CONTROL THE OIL IN THAT COUNTRY,AND THEN PUT THE AMERICAN PUPPET IN POWER.THEN AMERICA WILL DO A FALSE FLAG OR 3 IN THAT COUNTRY.BLAME IT ON THE AL-QUIDA PUPPETS THAT TOOK THE ORIGINAL LEADER OUT(BACKSTAB THEM OR PAY THEM OFF TO PUT UP A FALSE FRONT).THEN THE U.S.A AND NEW WORLD ORDER ARMY NATO CAN GO AFTER THE AL-QUIDA PUPPETS OR BACKSTAB PUPPETS AND CLAIM THAT AL-QUIDA DONE THE BOMBINGS AND WE HAVE A 911 SETUP ALL OVER AGAIN.WITH AMERICA AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER,ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CONTROL FREAKS STEAL PEOPLES RIGHTS OF THE WORLD UNDER THE QUISE OF TERRORISM.THE ONLY DIFFERENCE THIS TIME THE NWO NOW HAVE THE EU ARMY TO ATTACK WHICH EVER COUNTRY DOES NOT AGREE WITH THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT IDEAS.THEY CAN SANCTION THAT COUNTRY,THEN ATTACK WITH THE NATO RAPID REACTION FORCE LEAD BY THE EU.THIS WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD TO THE EU AND ARAB COUNTRIES COMPLAINING ABOUT ISRAEL USING FORCE ON THE PALESTINIANS AND TELLING THE USELESS U.N. TO MAKE A RESOLUTION AGAINST ISRAEL IF THEY DO NOT DIVIDE JERUSALEM WITH THE PALESTINIANS,GIVING THEM THEIR OWN STATE,WE THE WORLD GOVERNMENT LEADER EU WILL SANCTION ISRAEL AND USE OUR NATO WORLD GOVERNMENT RAPID REACTION TROOPS AGAINST YOU.OR WE WILL GIVE YOU A 2ND CHOICE:WE THE EU WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY BY PUTTING OUR NEW WORLD ORDER TROOPS IN ISRAEL AND GAZA TO PROTECT YOU FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS FROM THE PALESTINIANS.LET YOU REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT BUT NOT AT THE DOME OF THE ROCK BUT BY THE DOME OF THE SPIRITS.WE WILL PLACE OUR NATO TROOPS ON THE MOUNT TO GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY SO USE CAN SACRIFICE TO GOD.BUT YOU MUST GIVE THE PALESTINIANS THE EASTERN HALF OF JERUSALEM AND THE LAND FROM THE 1967 TAKIN.WE WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY FOR A 7 YEAR PERIOD SO WE CAN FINALISE THE JERUSALEM HASSLE AND DIVIDE THE LAND BETWEEN YOU AND THE PALESTINIANS PROPERLY.
I BELIEVE WHEN NATO AND THE NWO TRY TO TAKE OVER SYRIA LIKE LIBYA.IT BACKFIRES AND NATO ENDS UP TOTALLY DESTROYING DAMASCUS BEFORE THEY FINALLY PUT THEIR PUPPET IN.OBAMA AND NATO WILL PROBABLY DO THIS WITH A FEW MIDEAST COUNTRIES TO GET THE BUGS OUT.MAYBE GO AFTER IRAN.BUT THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO TRAP(FORCE) ISRAEL INTO DIVIDING ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM UNDER THE NEW WORLD ORDER-EU'S CONTROL.AND THE MUSLIMS, RUSSIA, CHINA WILL ALL BE WORKING TO THIS END ALSO.
WELL NOW WE HAVE AND IDEA WHY THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CREW WANTS THIS CHAOS IN THE MIDEAST UNDER THEIR NATO TROOPS TO RAPIDLY ATTACK COUNTRIES,END UP WITH THE OIL,PAY FOR THE ATTACKS WITH THE MONEY CONFISCATED FROM THE LEADER OF THE COUNTRY.GET RID OF THE COUNTRIES LEADER BY FORCE(FALSE FLAG)AL-QUIDA ARMIES AND INSTALL THEIR PUPPET LEADER.THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS CONTROL OR DESTROY ISRAEL LIKE GLENN BECK MENTIONED.
Abbas would give up US aid for Palestinian unity
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press – Mon Mar 28, 3:33 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is making a heavy push for reconciliation with Hamas and is willing to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid if that's what it takes to forge a Palestinian unity deal, a top aide said Monday.The comments were the latest sign that Abbas is giving up on stalled peace talks with Israel and prefers to pursue unity with Gaza's Hamas rulers as he makes a push toward independence.Of course we need the American money. But if they use it as a way of pressuring us, we are ready to relinquish that aid, said Azzam Ahmed, an Abbas aide.The U.S. and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group. The U.S. administration, the largest single donor to the Palestinians, withheld funds when Hamas was a part of a short-lived unity Palestinian government. The Palestinian Authority is heavily reliant on foreign aid and forgoing the funds could easily spark its own crisis.The Palestinian unity government, isolated internationally because of Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, collapsed during a five-day civil war in 2007 that ended with the Islamic militant group seizing power in the Gaza Strip.Since then, the Palestinians have been divided between rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza, the two territories they hope to turn into an independent state.With peace talks stalled since September, Abbas has begun an effort to win international recognition of Palestine, with or without an agreement with Israel. That effort is to culminate at the United Nations in September.
Speaking in Jerusalem Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that reconciliation with Hamas could spell the end of peace talks.You can't have peace with both Israel and Hamas. Choose peace with Israel, Netanyahu said.
Israel, the U.S. and the EU consider Hamas a terror group because of its rocket attacks and suicide bombings aimed at Israeli civilians.Palestinian officials acknowledge that they must solve their differences with Hamas before they can go to the United Nations. Abbas has made repeated overtures toward Hamas in recent weeks — including an offer to visit Gaza to lay the groundwork for national elections. Over the weekend, he met with local Hamas officials in the West Bank.The president is working hard in order to bring about a unified Palestinian territories before he goes to the U.N., Ahmed said.Hamas leaders say they want a full power-sharing deal before meeting with the Palestinian president — including a deal on how to divide security responsibilities.This visit should be for the sake of achieving progress on the ground and not only for photos and media coverage," said Mushir al Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. The problem is not in forming the government, it's in reaching an agreement.Hamas is demanding further gestures from Abbas before considering unity, such as a release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners locked up in the West Bank, re-opening closed Hamas charities and the removal of a ban on Hamas activities in the West Bank.Palestinian analysts say Hamas has hardened its negotiating positions recently and is feeling empowered by the recent upheavals in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, where its ally, the Muslim Brotherhood, is expected to play a key role in the new regime.Ayman Hussein, a West Bank Hamas member who recently met Abbas in Ramallah, said Abbas appeared serious in his efforts to reach out to Hamas and was pessimistic about the peace process with Israel.
Hanna Amerah, a member of the PLO executive committee, said Abbas is waiting for an official response from Hamas about his initiative to go to Gaza and expects an answer within a few days.He claimed Abbas has support for his move from the European Union, the U.N. and the Arab League. But giving up on the U.S. and Israel could come at a heavy price.The Palestinians receive more than $470 million a year in direct financial assistance from the U.S. The U.S. hasn't said what it will do if Hamas returns to power in the West Bank, but it will likely cut off the funds unless Hamas agrees to renounce violence and recognize Israel. Hamas has given no indication it is prepared to do either.
Friday, March 25, 2011
11 IN HOSPITAL YET IN JERUSALEM BOMBING
THERES ONE THING I CAN NOT STAND ABOUT ALEX JONES.HE CLAIMES HES A CHRISTIAN BUT WHEN ANYTHING COMES UP FOR ISRAEL HES AGAINST IT.FOR THE LAST 2 SHOWS(6 HRS)OF HIS SHOWS,THERE HAS BEEN NO SYMPATHY OR EVEN MENTION OF THE JERUSALEM BUS BOMBING THAT KILLED ONE AND INJURED 30 OR 40 ISRAELIS.I ON PURPOSE HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO SEE IF HE WOULD SAY:PRAY FOR THE PRECIOUS ISRAELIS HURT IN THIS ARAB TERRORIST ATTACK ON ISRAEL,SINCE AS CHRISTIANS WE ARE COMMANDED TO PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM AND HELP THE ISRAELIS IN EVERY WAY WE CAN.WHAT HAVE I HEARD ON JONES IN THE LAST 2 DAYS.THAT THE ARABS AND HAMAS HAVE BLOTTED ISRAELS NAME OUT ON THEIR MAPS HE MENTIONED YESTERDAY.NOTHING ABOUT THE JERUSALEM BOMBING OF INNOCENT ISRAELIS.NOTHING ABOUT THE 100 OR MORE ROCKETS THAT HAVE HIT ISRAEL BY HAMAS-ARABS IN THE LAST WEEK ALONE.BUT WHEN ISRAEL TRYED TO STOP THE FLOTILLA,ALL YOU HEARD OUT OF THE MOUTH OF JONES WAS ISRAEL IS KILLING ARABS WHO CAME TO GIVE AID TO GAZA.HOW HYPOCRITICAL FOR A SO CALLED CHRISTIAN.IF YOUR AGAINST ISRAEL,YOUR AGAINST GOD(KING JESUS)HIMESLF.BECAUSE JESUS WAS BORN A JEW AND STILL IS A JEW WHO WILL RULE AS A JEW IN THE FUTURE FROM JERUSALEM FOREVER.CHRISTIANS LET THIS SINK INTO YOUR MINDS.AND STICK UP FOR ISRAELIS AND HELP THEM IN EVERY WAY WE CAN.DON'T BE HYPOCRITES AND CLAIM WE BELIEVE THE BIBLE BUT HATE ISRAEL.BECAUSE IF WE HATE ISRAEL WE HATE GOD WHO CHOSE ISRAEL AS THE APPLE OF HIS EYE AND THROUGH ISRAEL ALL PROPHECY WILL BE FULFILED.OH BY THE WAY JONES SAID ONE TIME THAT HE WISHES THE ISRAEL THING WOULD JUST GO AWAY SO HE WOULD NOT HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT ANY MORE,MEANWHILE HIS WIFE IS PART JEWISH IS WHAT AMAZES ME,WHEN HE COMES OUT SO STRONGLY AGAINST ISRAEL AND STICKS UP FOR THE ARAB MURDERERS WHO WANT TO DESTROY ISRAEL AND STEAL THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND FROM THEM.JUST MY THOUGHTS.
[UPDATED] Bombing at Jerusalem bus station 1 dead – 30 hurt
23 March 2011:,NORTHEAST INTELLIGENCE NETWORK.
An explosive device inside of a bag placed at a telephone pole adjacent to the Jerusalem Convention Center went off earlier today, injuring at least two dozen people, including four seriously. The explosion was reportedly caused by an explosive device left inside of a bag in close proximity to a busy bus stop near the city’s main bus station. Police in Jerusalem are reporting that the explosion in central Jerusalem destroyed a bus and shattered windows in nearby vehicles. The blast also shook nearby buildings.It was the first apparent terrorist attack in the city of Jerusalem in seven years. The terrorist group HAMAS is suspected of the bombing, according to our sources in Israel. Developing…http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143084
Eleven People Still in Hospital After Jerusalem Terror Attack
by Elad Benari MAR 25,11
Wednesday’s terror attack in Jerusalem left as many as 50 people wounded from physical injuries as well as from trauma.At present, eleven of them are still in the hospital and two are in still listed in serious condition. On Thursday, the One Family Fund issued a call to pray for their quick and complete recovery:
•Odelia Nechama bat Michal suffered serious head injuries and is in intensive care. Her life is still in danger.
•Natan Daniel ben Shulamit, a 17-year-old student, suffered massive internal injuries and has had a number of internal organs removed.
•Leah Bracha bat Shoshana, a 19-year-old seminary student, suffered burns to her legs and arms as well as serious shock.
•David Amoyal, the owner of the snack stand next to the bus stop who told the people who were in the area to run away and then called the police, and was on the phone with them when the bomb exploded. Amoyal suffered injuries to his legs, feet and lower body and is listed in moderate condition.
•Sasson ben Shulamit suffered lower body injuries and serious post-traumatic symptoms.
•Ad Shapira, an 18-year-old who is about to complete high school, suffered light orthopedic injuries and is in good condition in hospital.
•Shilo ben Ofra, 15 years old, suffered burns and fractures to his legs and lower abdomen. He is sedated in intensive care.
•Daniel ben Nurit, 13 years old, suffered lacerations and shrapnel injuries to his lower extremities, and is likely to be released from the hospital before Shabbat.
•Elchanan ben Alona, 14 years old, suffered serious injuries to his feet. One ankle and three of his toes were crushed. He has had one operation and will require more surgery. He will likely be in the hospital at least 2-3 weeks.
•Netanel ben Shlomit, an 18-year-old who works as a security guard at the bus station, was injured in the abdomen had surgery. He is now recuperating in the hospital.The four-pound bomb exploded across from Jerusalem's Central Bus Station on Wednesday afternoon and killed one person. The explosive charge was placed at a public telephone booth and was detonated as two packed buses passed by.The terrorist or terrorists who planted the bomb fled the scene, but Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested two members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in connection with the blast.The two, Khaled Jaradat and Tarek Ka'adan, were picked up in Jenin on Wednesday night, and the Islamic Jihad claimed the PA forces had been working in coordination with Israeli security personnel.(Israel NationalNews.com)
Forget Libya – Let’s talk real horror and murder under Sharia law
Posted on March 24, 2011 by LAURIE ROTH
While Obama plays fast and lose trying to deal with his upset liberal base and congress about going to war with Libya, real abuses, violations and murders are happening all over Muslim countries. What will Obama do about those? I imagine, he will continue to ignore them like everyone else does. I am talking about abuses, human rights violations and murders that affect hundreds of millions of Muslim women through out the Middle East on a daily basis because of the use of the evil and racist Sharia law.Just a few of the millions of rights violations regularly include: Get your puke bag ready. Remember Hena, the 14 year old girl who went out side her home at night to relieve herself in Bangladesh and was raped. She was sentenced to 100 lashes. She fell unconscious and died after 80. You guessed it…. Sharia law. Then there was a 16 year old raped by a 20 year old at her village. She was ashamed and scared so she didn’t report it. Her plan didn’t work because she became pregnant and was exposed. She was sentenced to 101 lashes. This was carried out 8 months after her rape…..another gift of Sharia Law. This very same district reported 3 other cases who were lashed for illegal intercourse.
The blessings of Sharia continue…………A 45 year old woman was whipped 40 times for having intercourse with her stepson. The local imam decided this punishment which killed her. Then there was the 17 year old who was accused of having an affair. She was tortured by the village arbitration council until she confessed. Naturally after that she was whipped 101 times.The gift that keeps on giving as we talk about the rights of freedom fighters in Libya.These encounters regarding rape and sex go on daily all over Muslim countries. We haven’t even talked about the regular beatings that occur, sanctioned by the imams and the Koran. Sharia not only is hateful and violates Muslim women, but calls for the execution of gays, execution of those who convert to another faith, cutting off of limbs and more. It is beyond brutal, discriminatory, evil and makes the rules of the Nazi party look mellow. Where are the REAL freedom fighters and leaders who will stand against this evil and for women??? Democrats where are you? Hillary Clinton, NOW, ACLU and other women’s rights groups are simply AWOL. Obama, Republican leaders, media, anyone??? Where was Bush on this? AWOL.I have screamed about these abuses for years on my radio show and in my articles. It is high time our leadership and someone in the White House screams about this. No one has the right to just pick little pockets of human rights problems while ignoring millions of Muslim women in a rape infested, Sharia sea of horror.
[UPDATED] Bombing at Jerusalem bus station 1 dead – 30 hurt
23 March 2011:,NORTHEAST INTELLIGENCE NETWORK.
An explosive device inside of a bag placed at a telephone pole adjacent to the Jerusalem Convention Center went off earlier today, injuring at least two dozen people, including four seriously. The explosion was reportedly caused by an explosive device left inside of a bag in close proximity to a busy bus stop near the city’s main bus station. Police in Jerusalem are reporting that the explosion in central Jerusalem destroyed a bus and shattered windows in nearby vehicles. The blast also shook nearby buildings.It was the first apparent terrorist attack in the city of Jerusalem in seven years. The terrorist group HAMAS is suspected of the bombing, according to our sources in Israel. Developing…http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143084
Eleven People Still in Hospital After Jerusalem Terror Attack
by Elad Benari MAR 25,11
Wednesday’s terror attack in Jerusalem left as many as 50 people wounded from physical injuries as well as from trauma.At present, eleven of them are still in the hospital and two are in still listed in serious condition. On Thursday, the One Family Fund issued a call to pray for their quick and complete recovery:
•Odelia Nechama bat Michal suffered serious head injuries and is in intensive care. Her life is still in danger.
•Natan Daniel ben Shulamit, a 17-year-old student, suffered massive internal injuries and has had a number of internal organs removed.
•Leah Bracha bat Shoshana, a 19-year-old seminary student, suffered burns to her legs and arms as well as serious shock.
•David Amoyal, the owner of the snack stand next to the bus stop who told the people who were in the area to run away and then called the police, and was on the phone with them when the bomb exploded. Amoyal suffered injuries to his legs, feet and lower body and is listed in moderate condition.
•Sasson ben Shulamit suffered lower body injuries and serious post-traumatic symptoms.
•Ad Shapira, an 18-year-old who is about to complete high school, suffered light orthopedic injuries and is in good condition in hospital.
•Shilo ben Ofra, 15 years old, suffered burns and fractures to his legs and lower abdomen. He is sedated in intensive care.
•Daniel ben Nurit, 13 years old, suffered lacerations and shrapnel injuries to his lower extremities, and is likely to be released from the hospital before Shabbat.
•Elchanan ben Alona, 14 years old, suffered serious injuries to his feet. One ankle and three of his toes were crushed. He has had one operation and will require more surgery. He will likely be in the hospital at least 2-3 weeks.
•Netanel ben Shlomit, an 18-year-old who works as a security guard at the bus station, was injured in the abdomen had surgery. He is now recuperating in the hospital.The four-pound bomb exploded across from Jerusalem's Central Bus Station on Wednesday afternoon and killed one person. The explosive charge was placed at a public telephone booth and was detonated as two packed buses passed by.The terrorist or terrorists who planted the bomb fled the scene, but Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested two members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in connection with the blast.The two, Khaled Jaradat and Tarek Ka'adan, were picked up in Jenin on Wednesday night, and the Islamic Jihad claimed the PA forces had been working in coordination with Israeli security personnel.(Israel NationalNews.com)
Forget Libya – Let’s talk real horror and murder under Sharia law
Posted on March 24, 2011 by LAURIE ROTH
While Obama plays fast and lose trying to deal with his upset liberal base and congress about going to war with Libya, real abuses, violations and murders are happening all over Muslim countries. What will Obama do about those? I imagine, he will continue to ignore them like everyone else does. I am talking about abuses, human rights violations and murders that affect hundreds of millions of Muslim women through out the Middle East on a daily basis because of the use of the evil and racist Sharia law.Just a few of the millions of rights violations regularly include: Get your puke bag ready. Remember Hena, the 14 year old girl who went out side her home at night to relieve herself in Bangladesh and was raped. She was sentenced to 100 lashes. She fell unconscious and died after 80. You guessed it…. Sharia law. Then there was a 16 year old raped by a 20 year old at her village. She was ashamed and scared so she didn’t report it. Her plan didn’t work because she became pregnant and was exposed. She was sentenced to 101 lashes. This was carried out 8 months after her rape…..another gift of Sharia Law. This very same district reported 3 other cases who were lashed for illegal intercourse.
The blessings of Sharia continue…………A 45 year old woman was whipped 40 times for having intercourse with her stepson. The local imam decided this punishment which killed her. Then there was the 17 year old who was accused of having an affair. She was tortured by the village arbitration council until she confessed. Naturally after that she was whipped 101 times.The gift that keeps on giving as we talk about the rights of freedom fighters in Libya.These encounters regarding rape and sex go on daily all over Muslim countries. We haven’t even talked about the regular beatings that occur, sanctioned by the imams and the Koran. Sharia not only is hateful and violates Muslim women, but calls for the execution of gays, execution of those who convert to another faith, cutting off of limbs and more. It is beyond brutal, discriminatory, evil and makes the rules of the Nazi party look mellow. Where are the REAL freedom fighters and leaders who will stand against this evil and for women??? Democrats where are you? Hillary Clinton, NOW, ACLU and other women’s rights groups are simply AWOL. Obama, Republican leaders, media, anyone??? Where was Bush on this? AWOL.I have screamed about these abuses for years on my radio show and in my articles. It is high time our leadership and someone in the White House screams about this. No one has the right to just pick little pockets of human rights problems while ignoring millions of Muslim women in a rape infested, Sharia sea of horror.
ISRAEL READY TO USE FORCE(HEAVY) ON GAZA
Israel ready to react with great force: Netanyahu
by Dan de Luce - MAR 25,11 12:00PM
CAESAREA, Israel (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday that Israel is ready to act with great force in response to a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants and a deadly bus bombing in Jerusalem.Israel had been subjected to bouts of terror and rocket attacks, Netanyahu told reporters before going into a meeting with Gates.We stand ready to act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it, he added, with officials saying Israel had not been hit by any projectiles Friday morning.Any civilised society will not tolerate such wanton attacks on its civilians, he said.However, as Netanyahu spoke, Defence Minister Ehud Barak toured the Gaza border with army chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, saying that the situation seemed to be calming down.In the last 24 hours there has been no fire into our territory, but we continue to monitor the situation, Barak said, according to a statement from his office.And Barak indicated that if the rocket attacks stopped, Israel would also halt its strikes into Gaza.
We don't intend to let the terror organizations again disturb the order but we will do all we need to to return the (military) activity to the border line itself, he said.Gates, a former CIA director with years of experience in Washington, said US-Israel security ties were as strong as they had ever been at a time when the region was in turmoil.On Thursday, he said in Tel Aviv that Washington firmly backed Israel's right to respond both to the rocket fire and the Jerusalem bombing, which he described as repugnant acts.But he suggested Israel should tread carefully or risk derailing the course of popular unrest sweeping Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East.The US defence chief is pressing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take bold action for peace despite soaring tensions, saying political upheaval in the region offered an opportunity.After his meeting with Netanyahu, Gates travelled amid heavy security to the West Bank city of Ramallah to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the first such visit by a US defence chief.Before their meeting, Fayyad told Gates it was a time of great challenge throughout the region but also a time of opportunity, requiring a redoubling of the effort in pursuing the cause of peace, and justice and security.Gates said he looked forward to discussing prospects for a two-state solution.Neither man made any statement following their roughly 45-minute meeting.Israel's leaders have appeared reluctant to be dragged into another bloody war with Hamas, especially as they lacked international support for any new offensive on Gaza.
Several regional powers have already urged Israel to show restraint amid fears in some quarters that Netanyahu would order another ground invasion of Gaza. And speaking to reporters Thursday night, a senior Israeli official said: We have already given Hamas some heavy blows in recent days but there will not be a hasty response. We will not proceed without carefully considering our options.Barak had said earlier that Israel had no choice but to respond a day after the bombing in Jerusalem and as Gaza militants rained rockets on southern Israel. Hours later, Israeli aircraft attacked four targets in the Gaza Strip, lightly wounding three people, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.No one was wounded in the Grad attacks, which came a day after a bomb ripped through a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing a British tourist and wounding more than 30 people, in the first such attack in the Holy City since 2004.Since the weekend, dozens of rockets have hit southern Israel. The vast majority of them were fired by Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al-Quds Brigade.Thursday's rocket fire on Ashdod came a day after the Al-Quds Brigades vowed to fire more at cities deep inside Israel as it entered a new phase of resistance.And despite Hamas's pledge to rein in militants firing on Israel, Islamic Jihad's leadership insisted it would not stop its resistance unless Israel did the same.
Bahrain forces quash small protests in Day of Rage
By Lin Noueihed and Frederik Richter - MAR 25,11
MANAMA (Reuters) – Small protests broke out in Bahrain's capital for a planned Day of Rage on Friday despite a ban under martial law imposed last week, but were quickly crushed by security forces fanned out across Manama.Helicopters buzzing overhead, extra checkpoints erected on major highways and a large troop presence prevented any major demonstration from kicking off in the small Gulf Arab island kingdom, where a security crackdown last week quelled a month of protests by the mostly Shi'ite Muslim demonstrators.Bahrain has great strategic importance because it hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet, facing non-Arab Shi'ite power Iran across the Gulf, and is situated off-shore from Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.Confronted by mass protests demanding constitutional reform, Bahrain's ruling Al Khalifa family, from the minority Sunni population, declared security their priority, called in troops from neighboring Sunni-led Gulf states and imposed martial law.But a few hundred protesters managed a short rally in the Shi'ite village of Diraz on Friday, shouting down with the regime as women swathed in black waved Bahraini flags and held up copies of the Quran. But they fled when around 100 riot police fired tear gas and tried to chase them down.
In the village of al-Dair, police fired rounds of tear gas to disperse around 100 protesters who had marched toward a main road next to a runway at Bahrain International Airport.Residents in nearby streets rushed women and children into their house as police continued to loose tear gas. They said police had also fired birdshot ammunition at protesters.After so many deaths, so many sacrifices, we will continue to protest. We just want a new constitution but they're not prepared for democracy, one resident said anonymously.More than 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shi'ites and most are demanding a constitutional monarchy. But calls by hardliners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed Sunnis, who fear the unrest helps Iran on the other side of the Gulf.
TENSIONS HIGH
In signs of rising tensions in the oil-producing region, Bahrain's government has responded sharply to any signs of what it considers to be interference over its crackdown.Bahrain expelled diplomats from Iran, just across Gulf waters, when it criticized the clampdown last week. Its foreign minister has formally complained to the Lebanese government over expressions of support from the Shi'ite movement Hezbollah.Bahrain's social development minister accused demonstrators on Friday of harboring a foreign agenda, but stopped short of blaming Iran. We found out that those people who were doing it were instigated by a foreign country and by Hezbollah, Fatima al Beloushi told a news conference in Geneva.We have direct proof. Hezbollah has provided training for their people. They were serving a foreign agenda and that is why it was not something for having a better livelihood,she said.
Internet activists and Shi'ite villages tried to organize marches in different parts of Bahrain on Friday, dubbed the Day of Rage. But Wefaq, the mainstream Shi'ite opposition movement which draws tens of thousands when it calls protests, distanced itself from the demonstrations.Wefaq affirms the need to protect safety and lives and not to give the killers the opportunity to shed blood, it said.So far the largest crowds on Friday were at the sermon of a top Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Issa Qassim. Thousands gathered but did not seek to protest after prayers.A funeral in the Shi'ite suburb Balad al-Qadim also drew thousands, with crowds carrying Bahraini flags and pumping their fists. They shouted: Down, down (King) Hamad and the people want the fall of the regime.Bahrain has banned all marches. But security forces have not broken up the funeral processions of civilians killed in the crackdown -- most of which turn into anti-government rallies. Hani Abdulaziz, 33, died after being hit by rounds of bird shot fired by police near his home. His neighbors said he was left to bleed for an hour after he took shelter in a building.People have gotten to the stage where they don't want dialogue, they want these people out,said Zahra, a woman from Abdulaziz's village.(Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Gates first U.S. defense chief to visit Palestinians
By Phil Stewart – Fri Mar 25, 8:47 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Robert Gates on Friday became the first U.S. Defense Secretary to visit the West Bank, meeting Palestinian leaders keenly aware of every little nod to their hopes of achieving statehood.Children in Ramallah stared as the long motorcade of U.S. cars wound through the streets of the city north of Jerusalem.
With U.S. diplomacy fully stretched over revolts in the Arab world and the air war with Libya, Gates was looking to revive stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, before another war fills the vacuum they have left for six months.It is a great pleasure for me to welcome Secretary Gates to Palestine, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said.This is a time of great challenge throughout the region. But also a time of opportunity, requiring a redoubling of the effort aimed at pursuing the cause of peace, justice and security Gates noted that he was the first American secretary of defense to visit Ramallah,the Palestinians' de facto capital and seat of Palestinian Authority ministries and the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas.I look forward to our talks ... obviously the political developments around the region, but also the prospects for a two-state solution, he said, referring to the elusive treaty that would end the 62-year-old conflict and create a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
US-ISRAEL TIES STRONGEST
The visit to Ramallah was another milestone for Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration who is expected to step down later this year. The former CIA director marked the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq last year and oversaw a buildup in the war effort in Afghanistan.Following the route often used by his Obama administration colleague and peace envoy Senator George Mitchell, Gates first had talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of America's closest ally in the turbulent region.Netanyahu said Gates, who later went to the Jordanian capital Amman, had been a champion of peace and security and our partner seeking to bolster our common security and defense interests in this area.These days, security challenges were legion, the Israeli leader said, referring to armed threats from Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the political uncertainties over much of the Arab world.Referring to a week of rocket attacks from Gaza and a deadly bomb planted near Jerusalem's central bus terminal, Netanyahu noted expressions of support from President Barack Obama, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and other leaders.I think this says that civilized countries have a common stake in fighting terrorism and we want to make sure that we make it clear to the terrorists that any civilized society will not tolerate such wanton attack on its civilians, he said.
Gates said he believed that at no time in the history of our two countries has our defense and security relationship been stronger than it is today.Relations between Netanyahu and Obama were strained by the diplomatic frustrations U.S. envoy Mitchell has encountered in getting peace talks re-started.They remain stalled by a bitter dispute over Israeli settlement building in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, on land where Palestinians hope to build their state.Mitchell succeeded last September and Netanyahu and Abbas met face to face. But the process collapsed when Netanyahu's 10-month moratorium on settlement building ended. The Israeli leader refused to extend it and Abbas said he would not continue the talks unless and until the construction ceased totally.(Writing by Douglas Hamilton)
UAE commits 12 planes to Libya despite Bahrain
by Haro Chakmakjian – Fri Mar 25, 7:45 am ET
DUBAI (AFP) – The United Arab Emirates, a key US ally, said it has committed six F-16 and six Mirage fighters to help enforce the no-fly zone over Libya, despite reservations linked to unrest in Bahrain.UAE participation in the patrols will commence in the coming days, Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan announced, quoted by state news agency WAM late on Thursday.In support of UN Resolution 1973, the UAE is fully engaged with humanitarian operations in Libya, he said.As an extension of those humanitarian operations, the UAE air force has committed six F-16 and six Mirage aircraft to participate in the patrols that will enforce the no-fly zone now established over Libya.A former UAE air force commander said earlier this week that his country had delayed its military deployment because of disagreements with the West over the unrest in Bahrain.Major General Khaled al-Buainnain, quoted in Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper, said the disagreement stemmed from the conviction of Arab states in the Gulf that Iran had stirred the troubles in Bahrain.The Arab monarchies in the oil-rich region, traditional allies of Washington and the West, have been supporting Bahrain, and they were not happy at all with the European and American attitude,he told the English-language daily.
They (the West) think it?s a matter of a civil movement, a matter of democracy, he said. What?s going on in Bahrain is much beyond our Western allies to understand it. It is a complete conspiracy of the Iranians.The general said the main reason for the UAE?s reluctance over Libya was because the Europeans and Americans in particular don?t realise the amount of the threat available in Bahrain.He pointed to what he called Washington's unsteady and shifting response to the fast-moving Arab revolts.Go and see the European, and especially the American attitude, toward Tunisia. How many positions in a few days? Buainnain asked.On Egypt, how many official statements in three, four weeks.A Shiite-led revolt against the Sunni royal family which has ruled Bahrain for more than two centuries has set off alarm bells in the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf that have sent in a joint Gulf contingent.
Bahraini security forces last week demolished a demonstrators' camp set up in central Manama's Pearl Square, since when an uneasy calm has returned to the capital and its financial district.Clashes between security forces and protesters since February 14 have killed at least 15 people, most of them demonstrators.In Washington, a US official said on Thursday that his country was deeply appreciative of the contribution of its UAE ally to the international campaign in Libya.With Arab states appearing slow to contribute, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week that Washington expected more announcements of Arab participation in the days ahead.On Wednesday, five days after the United States, Britain and France launched air strikes to protect Libyans from Moamer Kadhafi's security forces, Qatar was the only Arab state to have offered warplanes for the no-fly zone.The 22-member Arab League endorsed the no-fly zone before Western warplanes under Security Council Resolution 1973 launched attacks on the air defences of Kadhafi's forces fighting an armed revolt.
Gaza rockets strike deeper inside Israel
By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Thu Mar 24, 5:08 pm ET
GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian rockets struck deep inside Israel Thursday close to the urban sprawl south of Tel Aviv, and Israel pounded targets in Gaza in a surging conflict that has raised fears of a new war.Israeli police said long-range Grad rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip hit Ashdod and an area north of the Mediterranean port. There were no reports of casualties.Violence along the Gaza border has worsened in recent days and a bomb attack Wednesday in Jerusalem that Israeli police blamed on Palestinian militants killed one woman and injured 30 people. It was the first such bombing in the city since 2004.Britain identified the dead woman as a British national, Mary-Jane Gardner, and Israeli police said she was a tourist.The Israeli military said five rockets and a mortar bomb from Gaza exploded in Israel, causing no casualties. Schools remained closed in Ashdod and in Beersheba, a city in the Negev desert struck several times in the past week.
Israel carried out a series of strikes on Gaza throughout the day and there were no initial reports of casualties.An Israeli army spokeswoman said terror targets were hit from the air in the latest attack. Hamas officials said a Hamas internal security compound in Gaza City, an adjacent training camp and a rocket launcher further north were hit.In earlier air strikes, missiles hit smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, a Hamas training camp, a rocket crew and a power transformer, causing blackouts in the enclave, Gaza residents said.The responsibility lies entirely on Hamas ... we know how to act and have proven this in the past, we will strike proportionately when needed,Israeli Civil Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio.
CONFLICT ACCELERATES
Israel says the air strikes have been a response to rocket barrages. Hamas says its attacks in the past week have been in reaction to Israeli strikes. Five Palestinian militants and four civilians, three of them children, were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza Tuesday.The upswing of violence in the past few days has led to fears of a new war between Israel and Hamas Islamists, who have ruled the small Mediterranean coastal territory since 2007, after months of relative quiet.Wednesday, militants in Gaza fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar bombs across the border.In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Islamic Jihad militant group said two of its leaders were detained by security forces of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority for questioning about the Jerusalem bombing.No group claimed responsibility for planting the bomb, which exploded near a bus stop.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned militant groups in the Gaza Strip Wednesday that the Jewish state would act decisively to defend itself.He threatened a lengthy exchange of blows with Palestinian militants, though officials from both sides have said they want to prevent a repeat of Israel's 2009 three-week war on the mainly desert enclave.Calm will be met with calm, an Islamic Jihad leader said. Israel launched the Gaza war with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket fire, and killed around 1,400 Palestinians in the conflict, drawing heavy international censure.Hamas had mostly held its fire since then.
Israel's Barak meets with US Defense Secretary
by Dan De Luce – Thu Mar 24, 3:35 pm ET
TEL AVIV (AFP) – Popular uprisings sweeping through Arab states will bring positive change in the long run, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday, despite his country's fears of instability.Accustomed to working with entrenched regimes for decades, Israel has looked on with dismay as mass protests toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the assumptions underpinning its foreign policy.But Barak struck a mostly optimistic tone, describing a stunning political earthquake that could deliver democracy and freedom to a younger generation in the Middle East.Historically speaking, it's a moving and inspiring phenomena, (which is) clearly promising for the future of the Arab people, for the young generation in the Arab world, he said at a joint news conference with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.He said the Jewish state would have to stay on guard for militants trying to exploit the unrest and that the country had to bear in mind the experience of other revolutions, in which idealism gives way to violent radicals ready to kill to take power.
I feel that we have to be careful and open-eyed in the short term to minimize negative developments and minimise risks for stability, but in the long-run it is an extremely positive phenomena, Barak said.Not since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire or the end of French colonial rule had the region seen such a dramatic upheaval, said Barak, a former prime minister and top ranking military officer.He said it was crucial that outside countries work to promote a stable transition as change sweeps the region and to minimize chances of extremist groups from coming to power.Barak spoke as tensions spiked a day after a bombing in Jerusalem left one dead and as Gaza rockets pounded Israel which responded late Thursday with air raids the Palestinians say wounded three people.Barak vowed to respond to the attacks, but Gates suggested Israel had to avoid taking action that could derail the course of the uprisings, which he said have been focused solely on calls for democracy and economic opportunity.In virtually every case the theme of those demonstrations has been directed inward at problems in those countries, he said.Israel should try to avoid anything that allows extremists or others to divert the narrative of reform, Gates said.The US defence secretary also said mounting turmoil in Syria and other countries was the result of the unmet political and economic grievances of their people.Gates, who flew to Israel after a visit to Cairo, held up Egypt as a positive example in which the military chose not to fire on protesters -- who eventually succeeded in forcing Hosni Mubarak to step down as president last month.
Some of these countries are dealing with it better than others, he said.By standing on the sidelines, the Egyptian military empowered a revolution, he said.Gates pointedly contrasted Egypt's approach with Syria, where activists say 100 protesters were shot dead on Wednesday.The Syrians might take a lesson from that, he said.
Barak suggested that turmoil in Syria and elsewhere carried risks but also potential openings for peace. And we have to be alert to be able to seize those opportunities the moment they emerge, rather let them slip out of our fingers and face the uncertainties of a deeper chaos in the Middle East,he said.Amid concerns in Israel that Islamist political groups could prevail in elections expected later this year in Egypt, Gates said he came away from his talks in Cairo reassured of Egypt's commitment to its peace agreement with Israel.He said the ruling military council and interim government take the relationship with Israel seriously.
Latest developments in Arab world's unrest
By The Associated Press – Thu Mar 24, 2:31 pm ET
Here is a look at the latest developments in Mideast political unrest on Wednesday:
LIBYA Fighter jets from a U.N.-backed alliance destroy one of ruler Moammar Gadhafi's planes and hit sites across Libya including an air base, artillery installations, arms depots and parked helicopters. NATO ships patrol the coast to block the flow of arms and mercenaries. Confusion remains about the international operation's future leadership, while the rebels who control much of the country's eastern coast remain outgunned and disorganized.
YEMEN The youth groups who kicked off a monthlong uprising calling for the president's ouster say they also want a new constitution and the dissolution of parliament, local councils and Yemen's notorious security agencies. The new demands appear to reflect the perception that President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime is staggering after unrelenting protests and the defection of powerful political, military and tribal leaders.
SYRIA Following a week of demonstrations in which security forces killed dozens of protesters, the Syrian government says it will consider lifting draconian restrictions on political liberties while raising government salaries and fighting corruption. The pledges likely won't placate the southern city of Daraa, where thousands have faced deadly police gunfire during anti-government rallies and protester funerals.
BAHRAIN About a thousand Shiite protesters defied a ban on public gatherings to hold an anti-government march in a village outside the capital Manama. At least 20 people have been killed in recent weeks as Bahrain's Sunni rulers, backed by a Saudi-led military force, attempt to crush a monthlong uprising by the tiny island kingdom's Shiite majority.
JORDAN Hundreds of Jordanians — mostly university students and unemployed graduates responding to calls on Facebook — set up a protest camp in the capital Amman's main square to press for the ouster of the prime minister and wider public freedoms. Jordan's protests, and the government's responses, have been tamer than elsewhere in the region. King Abdullah II has proposed political reforms and criticized the prime minister for not pushing them through quickly enough.
Netanyahu plays up Iran threat in Russia
by Gavin Rabinowitz – Thu Mar 24, 4:21 pm ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday played up the global danger of Iran as he sought to persuade Russia to scale down its cooperation with Israel's foes in the increasingly volatile region.The Israeli leader held separate talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a day after a bus bombing killed a British woman and injured 39 people in Jerusalem.Netanyahu went into the meetings vowing to show Israel's iron will to those who attack his country and he underscored the risk of Islamic regimes rising to power amid the turbulence now wracking North Africa and the Middle East.There is a danger to Israel, Russia and the modern world that radical regimes, possibly radical Islamic regimes, will emerge that threaten us, Netanyahu told Medvedev at his suburban Moscow residence.
One regime is already doing so. That is Iran, which threatens to torpedo all attempts at peace and to return us all to the ninth century, he said.We have an interest in stopping this evil and promoting good.Russia has been keen to repair its post-Soviet relations with Israel and was one of the first countries strongly to condemn Wednesday's attack -- the first such bombing in Jerusalem since September 2004.Medvedev repeated his personal condolences on Thursday and said Russia faced many of the same problems after being hit by two devastating suicide bombings in a little more than a year.Our meeting today shows terrorists that they will not achieve their evil goals, Medvedev said in comments that were echoed by Putin later in the day.But the united front presented against attacks was unlikely to ease all tensions in a relationship that has been frustrated by Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran and continued arms sales to nations such as Syria.One Israeli official said the controversial deliveries were a central point of the journey and that Moscow had expressed its understanding of the Israeli position.Netanyahu mainly argued that ending these ties was in Russia's self-interest.If the Tehran regime manages to create nuclear weapons, it will never fall, he told Russian reporters.
If this happens, no one -- neither you (Russia) nor anyone else -- will be safe from threats, blackmail and attacks, Netanyahu added.Russia remains a key supplier of arms to the Arab world and has recently confirmed its intention to send a large shipment of anti-ship Yakhont cruise missiles to Syria -- a country still technically at war with Israel.Israeli officials fear the shipment will ultimately land in the hands of the Syrian-supported Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.Moscow officials had also hoped to use the talks to reassert Russia's place in the Middle East peace process after ceding its role as a power broker in the post-Soviet era to the United States.But the Jerusalem bombing appeared to shatter any hopes of the long-stalled talks resuming and Israeli officials said they were now investigating whether the Gaza-based Hamas movement was behind the attack. Israeli officials said they would view confirmation of such a link as a real escalation of the current violence in the Gaza Strip.Israel is not interested in an escalation and if there is one it will be the work of Hamas, said a senior Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity.Several regional powers have already urged Israel to show restraint amid fears that Netanyahu would order another ground invasion of Gaza.
Netanyahu told reporters before boarding his flight for Moscow that those trying to test our will and our determination ... will discover that this government and the army and the Israeli people have an iron will to defend the country.
Two Palestinian rockets hit Israeli city of Ashdod
– Thu Mar 24, 10:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – At least two Grad rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza on Thursday slammed into the port city of Ashdod and just north of it, police and the Israeli army said.Medics said no one was injured in the strikes, which came a day after Gaza's Hamas rulers vowed to rein in recalcitrant militant groups who had vowed to hit ever-deeper into Israel.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that two Grad rockets had landed in Israel, saying: One landed in the city and the other landed north of the city.An army spokeswoman confirmed two Grads had hit Ashdod.
Earlier, security sources had told AFP one of the rockets landed in an area just south of Rishon-le-Tzion -- which is significantly further north, in an area around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Tel Aviv.Officials in the area had heard a loud blast but it later transpired the blast was not caused by the second rocket, which had landed just north of Ashdod.The rocket fire came a day after Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al Quds Brigades, fired three Grads at Beersheva and Ashdod and vowed to fire more at cities deep inside the Jewish state as it entered a new phase of resistance.
The Al Quds Brigade has entered a new phase of bombing targets which are further away, where thousands of Israelis live, group spokesman Abu Ahmad told AFP.Ashdod lies about 30 kilometres (18 miles) up the coast from Gaza, while Rishon-Le-Tzion is located another 25 kilometres (15 miles) further north.Grad rockets are understood to have a range of up to 50 kilometres (30 miles).
Bombing near Jerusalem bus stop kills woman, 30 hurt
By Crispian Balmer – Wed Mar 23, 3:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A bomb planted in a bag exploded near a bus stop in a Jewish district of Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing a woman and injuring at least 30 people, in an attack police blamed on Palestinian militants.No one claimed responsibility for the blast, which coincided with an upsurge of violence on the Gaza border that has led to fears of a new war between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, after months of relative quiet.Medics said three people were seriously hurt by the explosion, which hit one of the main routes into central Jerusalem in the afternoon, shattering the windows of a nearby bus. A woman in her 60s died in hospital.Police said it was a terrorist attack -- Israel's term for a Palestinian strike. It was the first time Jerusalem had been hit by such a bomb since 2004.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would take action against those groups who he said are testing the Jewish state's will to defend itself.Israel will act aggressively, responsibly and wisely to preserve the quiet and security that prevailed here over the past two years, Netanyahu said.
In the Gaza, a Hamas spokesman said the group, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, was seeking to reverse the recent rise in violence and to protect stability and to work in order to restore the conditions on ground.World leaders condemned the bombing, as well as a flurry of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel in recent days.The United States calls on the groups responsible to end these attacks at once and we underscore that Israel, like all nations, has a right to self-defense, U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement released in Washington.Palestinian Authority leaders in the West Bank, who are opposed to Hamas, also denounced the attack.I condemn this terrorist operation in the strongest possible terms, regardless of who was behind it, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in a statement.At the height of a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, but which died out in recent years, militants carried out dozens of often deadly bombings in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said the bomb weighed about one or two kilos (2 or 4 pounds). It exploded in a small suitcase on the sidewalk next to the bus stop,he told Israel's Channel Two television.Blood stained the pavement and many people had to be treated for shock. Israeli television broke into normal programing to show scores of ambulances converging on the scene, taking the injured to nearby hospitals.I saw two women lying on the ground, unconscious and covered in blood,medic Motti Bukchi, who arrived swiftly on the scene, told Channel Two.
PEACE IMPASSE
Peace talks aimed at ending the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians broke down last year after Netanyahu refused to extend a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.Israeli security officials have cautioned that the absence of any peace initiative could spark a new Palestinian revolt. Over 500 Israeli civilians died in 140 Palestinian suicide bomb attacks from 2000 to 2007. More than 4,500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the same period. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a visit to Cairo, denounced what he called a horrific terrorist attack but said he did not think the situation in Israel was deteriorating.Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby urged Israel to show restraint and said no one should give it an excuse to use violence -- an apparent reference to Palestinian militants.Netanyahu delayed his departure on a trip to Russia by several hours on Wednesday to consult with security officials, but declined to cancel the trip altogether.Earlier, the prime minister had warned Hamas over rising violence in Gaza. Hamas says its attacks this past week have been in response to recent Israeli bombings and killings.On Tuesday, Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed four Palestinian civilians, including three children playing football, and five militants, medical officials said.Netanyahu has voiced regret for the civilian deaths but said Israel could not ignore attacks on its territory.It could be that this matter will entail exchanges of blows, and it may take a certain period of time, but we are very determined to strike at the terrorist elements and deny them the means of attacking our citizens, he told parliament.Israel launched a three-week war on the impoverished coastal enclave in 2009, killing about 1,400 Palestinians and drawing heavy international censure. Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in a 2007 coup, had mostly held fire since then.
Israel will act aggressively to preserve security: PM
– Wed Mar 23, 2:55 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel will act aggressively and responsibly to preserve quiet and security after violence with Palestinians escalated over the past week.Israel will act aggressively, responsibly and wisely to preserve the quiet and security that prevailed here over the past two years, Netanyahu said before boarding a plane to Moscow where he will meet Russian leaders.Violence along the Gaza border has spiked in recent days and a bombing attack on Wednesday in Jerusalem that Israeli police blamed on Palestinian militants killed one woman and injured at least 30 other people.(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch)
Militants fire on Israeli city as Gaza violence spirals
by Adel Zaanoun – Wed Mar 23, 8:53 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Two Grad rockets slammed into the Israeli city of Beersheva on Wednesday, as Gaza militants vowed to strike deep into the Jewish state after raids killed eight Gazans.Rising violence in and around Gaza prompted a stark warning from Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who said it could take an exchange of blows to put the militants out of action.It may be that it will take an exchange of blows, and it may be that it will take some time, but we are very determined to strike at the terrorist elements' ability to harm our citizens, the premier told MPs.Following a morning in which militants fired two Grads and seven mortars across the border, Israel's response was decidedly muted, with Netanyahu locked in talks with top military and defence advisers to mull his options, public radio said.The first Grad struck the centre of Beersheva around dawn, moderately injuring one man, police said. The second, fired several hours later, struck harmlessly in an open area.Beersheva is about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Gaza, and much further away than the Israeli cities regularly targeted by Palestinian militants.
Another Grad hit the outskirts of the city on February 23, but this was the first time since the 2008-2009 war that such a projectile hit the centre of the city of 186,000 people.The Al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad's armed wing, claimed responsibility for both attacks as well as for another Grad fired on the port city of Ashdod overnight, and vowed to continue targeting cities deep inside Israel.The Al-Quds Brigade has entered a new phase of bombing targets which are further away, where thousands of Israelis live, Abu Ahmad told AFP.The stage of targeting Sderot and Ashkelon in southern Israel are behind us, he said, referring to a small town close to the border, and to a port city 18 kilometres (11 miles) to the north.From now on, there are no more red lines for the resistance as long as the enemy ... keeps killing civilians, he said.Grad rockets have a longer range than mortars or the crude, homemade Qassams normally used by Gaza militants, and can travel up to 30 miles (50 kilometres).During the morning, the Israeli air force targeted militants on the eastern side of Gaza City, but no one was injured, Palestinian medical sources said.Over the past week, there has been a significant increase in Palestinian rocket attacks and retaliatory air strikes, which has ramped up tensions between Israel and Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers and raised fears of a large-scale Israeli military incursion.
Wednesday's attacks came a day after Israel mounted a series of raids on targets in the eastern sector of Gaza City, killing eight people, including two children and four militants from the Al-Quds Brigades.Tens of thousands of Gazans flocked to the funeral of the eight victims, including Hamas premier Ismail Haniya who declared a day of mourning, an AFP correspondent said.There were also dozens of Al-Quds Brigades gunmen in the crowd. They fired into the air as the bodies of their four fellow militants, shrouded in black Islamic Jihad flags, were carried through the city. The four civilians were wrapped in Palestinian flags.The four militants were killed as they tried to fire rockets at Israel, while the other four were civilians who died when Israeli artillery opened fire on a house outside which youngsters were playing football, medics said. Two of the victims were boys aged 11 and 16.Hours later, the Al-Quds Brigades fired a Grad at Ashdod but it fell short, prompting Israel to mount an overnight air strike which injured two of their militants, one critically.The dramatic increase in tension along the Gaza border prompted warnings from Israeli officials, with Home Front Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warning a fresh war on the Islamist Hamas movement was looming.It's only a matter of time until we clash with Hamas again, and again teach them the rules, he told army radio as officials in Beersheva closed schools for the day and urged people to remain close to their bomb shelters.I have no doubt that it will happen -- they are taking all the steps leading in that direction.
Israel kills 9 in Gaza in deadliest day in months
By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Tue Mar 22, 7:34 pm ET
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli air strikes and shelling killed nine Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical officials said, in the deadliest day of conflict in the enclave in months.Palestinian medical officials said three youths aged 12, 16 and 17 who were playing football and an adult relative were killed by Israeli shelling, and five militants were killed later in two separate air strikes elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.Tuesday's death toll was the highest for a single day in months, provoking calls from militants for revenge, condemnation by a U.N. official and a call from the Palestinian prime minister for foreign intervention to stop the violence.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the civilian casualties and said Israel had no intention of seeking a further escalation of the conflict, but would defend itself against rocket fire aimed at its citizens.Hamas has stepped up rocket fire aimed at Israel after a hiatus since the two sides fought a war two years ago, and said its fighters had fired more than two dozen mortar shells and rockets at the weekend.Israel has retaliated with air and ground assaults, saying it was targeting militants firing rockets and mortar shells at its towns and cities.In Tuesday's raids, Israel killed five militants of the Islamic Jihad group in two air strikes, one of which took place east of Gaza City, Hamas officials and medical staff said.Israel said one group of militants had been preparing to fire a rocket and the same men had shot a rocket that struck a house in the Israeli city of Beersheba last month.
YOUTHS PLAYING FOOTBALL
Earlier, Israel's armed forces said it aimed mortar fire at militants shooting at Israel. Palestinian medical officials said the Israeli shells struck a house, killing four people and wounding 12, including eight children.The owner of the house was inside and the youths were outside playing football, witnesses and medical officials said.Netanyahu issued a statement expressing regret for the mistaken strike on innocent civilians.Abu Abdallah Al-Harazeen, an Islamic Jihad leader, threatened in a statement that blood would beget more blood and by this blood we shall fight Israel again and again.Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said on the movement's website that this massacre will not pass easily and the Zionist entity should prepare itself for a tough response.Later a Grad rocket that Islamic Jihad said it fired struck near the Israeli city of Ashdod, about 40 km north of Gaza, Israeli officials said, in one of the deepest strikes at Israel since the war two years ago. There were no casualties.France's Foreign Ministry appealed to both sides to show restraint, and the U.N. coordinator for Middle East diplomacy, Robert Serry, condemned both sides and called for an urgent halt to all act of violence.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad urged immediate intervention by the international community to press Israel to curtail its strikes.Palestinian analysts linked the growing violence to calls for President Mahmoud Abbas to heal a four-year rift with Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in a bloody struggle in 2007 with Abbas's Western-backed Fatah movement.Some Hamas officials were seen as worried that Fatah could regain control of Gaza if the two groups were reconciled.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan)
Russia tells Abbas of growing Mideast concern
– Tue Mar 22, 1:02 pm ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told visiting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday that he was concerned about the fate of the Middle East peace process given the current turmoil in the region.The Russian leader told Abbas he still supported an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, the message he took with him on a visit to the West Bank town of Jericho in January.But he expressed worry that the current violence in Libya and other countries around the region could damage the fragile peace talks.Some time has passed since my visit to the Palestinian territories and unfortunately, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa has not improved, Medvedev told Abbas at his suburban Moscow residence.On the contrary, it has grown substantially more complex, he added.I expect that despite the current difficulties, we will be able to overcome the current trend.The meeting came just a day before the expected arrival in Moscow of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also under strong US pressure to resume open and productive dialogue with the Palestinians.Russia has lost much of its influence in the Middle East since the Soviet era and has been watching the revolutions and social unrest sweeping the region with alarm.Medvedev has voiced fears that the resulting power vacuum could lead to the rise of Islamists, potentially also destabilising the situation along Russia's troubled southern periphery.Sounding a more optimistic note, Abbas told Medvedev he was also tracking the developments to see how they would affect the peace process, adding that if they lead us to democracy, this should only be supported and welcomed.Besides being unable to move the Israeli peace process forward, Abbas has also been waging an uphill battle to end his secular Fatah group's split with the Gaza-based Hamas movement and form an interim government.Abbas has said he is ready to go to Gaza for talks, and he repeated that message in Moscow.I hope that the Hamas leadership accepts my initiative, Abbas said.
Canada condemns violence in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria
– Mon Mar 21, 6:08 pm ET
OTTAWA (AFP) – Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon on Monday condemned crackdowns on anti-government protesters in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.Canada vigorously condemns the increasingly frequent and violent attacks on demonstrators in Yemen, Cannon said in a statement. We urge the Yemeni authorities to immediately take measures to prevent any further violence against civilians.He said, Canada is also deeply concerned by the recent actions taken by the government of Bahrain in response to protests in that country and condemns reported human rights abuses against the Bahraini population and violations of international humanitarian law.As well,Canada deplores the multiple deaths and injuries following protests in several Syrian cities over the weekend, the minister said in urging a stop to the use of force against peaceful protesters.
Palestinians eye UN recognition of state
– Sun Mar 20, 2:45 pm ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Palestinians are planing to ask the United Nations to recognise a Palestinian state and grant them membership of the world body, a top official said Sunday.The decision to go forward with the plan had been made by the Palestinian leadership and it is the choice of president Mahmud Abbas, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.However, Erakat said no date had been set for the move, which would request the world body recognise a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital, saying only that it would happen as soon as possible.It comes after the United States in February vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned continued Israeli settlement building.The resolution, drafted by the Palestinian leadership in an attempt to pressure Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, was supported by the 14 other members of the Security Council.The United States said its veto should not be interpreted as support for Israeli settlement construction, but that it did not believe the United Nations was the best place to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Nevertheless, Erakat said he was confident this time the move would succeed.The choice of Palestine applying for to the Security Council for a full membership is a realistic one that we must work on applying as soon as possible, he said.Erakat said the Palestinians had no choice but to seek an alternative as negotiations with Israel were not going anywhere.
We are convinced that negotiation with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's government is impossible because it refuses to stop settlement activities, he said.
So the Palestinian leadership decided to start implementing alternatives to negotiations and the first of these is demanding recognition, he said.The United States secured the relaunch of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians in September 2010, after a hiatus of nearly two years.But the negotiations ground to a halt just weeks later, with the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank.The Palestinians insist they will not negotiate while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.
by Dan de Luce - MAR 25,11 12:00PM
CAESAREA, Israel (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday that Israel is ready to act with great force in response to a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants and a deadly bus bombing in Jerusalem.Israel had been subjected to bouts of terror and rocket attacks, Netanyahu told reporters before going into a meeting with Gates.We stand ready to act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it, he added, with officials saying Israel had not been hit by any projectiles Friday morning.Any civilised society will not tolerate such wanton attacks on its civilians, he said.However, as Netanyahu spoke, Defence Minister Ehud Barak toured the Gaza border with army chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, saying that the situation seemed to be calming down.In the last 24 hours there has been no fire into our territory, but we continue to monitor the situation, Barak said, according to a statement from his office.And Barak indicated that if the rocket attacks stopped, Israel would also halt its strikes into Gaza.
We don't intend to let the terror organizations again disturb the order but we will do all we need to to return the (military) activity to the border line itself, he said.Gates, a former CIA director with years of experience in Washington, said US-Israel security ties were as strong as they had ever been at a time when the region was in turmoil.On Thursday, he said in Tel Aviv that Washington firmly backed Israel's right to respond both to the rocket fire and the Jerusalem bombing, which he described as repugnant acts.But he suggested Israel should tread carefully or risk derailing the course of popular unrest sweeping Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East.The US defence chief is pressing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to take bold action for peace despite soaring tensions, saying political upheaval in the region offered an opportunity.After his meeting with Netanyahu, Gates travelled amid heavy security to the West Bank city of Ramallah to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the first such visit by a US defence chief.Before their meeting, Fayyad told Gates it was a time of great challenge throughout the region but also a time of opportunity, requiring a redoubling of the effort in pursuing the cause of peace, and justice and security.Gates said he looked forward to discussing prospects for a two-state solution.Neither man made any statement following their roughly 45-minute meeting.Israel's leaders have appeared reluctant to be dragged into another bloody war with Hamas, especially as they lacked international support for any new offensive on Gaza.
Several regional powers have already urged Israel to show restraint amid fears in some quarters that Netanyahu would order another ground invasion of Gaza. And speaking to reporters Thursday night, a senior Israeli official said: We have already given Hamas some heavy blows in recent days but there will not be a hasty response. We will not proceed without carefully considering our options.Barak had said earlier that Israel had no choice but to respond a day after the bombing in Jerusalem and as Gaza militants rained rockets on southern Israel. Hours later, Israeli aircraft attacked four targets in the Gaza Strip, lightly wounding three people, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.No one was wounded in the Grad attacks, which came a day after a bomb ripped through a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing a British tourist and wounding more than 30 people, in the first such attack in the Holy City since 2004.Since the weekend, dozens of rockets have hit southern Israel. The vast majority of them were fired by Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al-Quds Brigade.Thursday's rocket fire on Ashdod came a day after the Al-Quds Brigades vowed to fire more at cities deep inside Israel as it entered a new phase of resistance.And despite Hamas's pledge to rein in militants firing on Israel, Islamic Jihad's leadership insisted it would not stop its resistance unless Israel did the same.
Bahrain forces quash small protests in Day of Rage
By Lin Noueihed and Frederik Richter - MAR 25,11
MANAMA (Reuters) – Small protests broke out in Bahrain's capital for a planned Day of Rage on Friday despite a ban under martial law imposed last week, but were quickly crushed by security forces fanned out across Manama.Helicopters buzzing overhead, extra checkpoints erected on major highways and a large troop presence prevented any major demonstration from kicking off in the small Gulf Arab island kingdom, where a security crackdown last week quelled a month of protests by the mostly Shi'ite Muslim demonstrators.Bahrain has great strategic importance because it hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet, facing non-Arab Shi'ite power Iran across the Gulf, and is situated off-shore from Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.Confronted by mass protests demanding constitutional reform, Bahrain's ruling Al Khalifa family, from the minority Sunni population, declared security their priority, called in troops from neighboring Sunni-led Gulf states and imposed martial law.But a few hundred protesters managed a short rally in the Shi'ite village of Diraz on Friday, shouting down with the regime as women swathed in black waved Bahraini flags and held up copies of the Quran. But they fled when around 100 riot police fired tear gas and tried to chase them down.
In the village of al-Dair, police fired rounds of tear gas to disperse around 100 protesters who had marched toward a main road next to a runway at Bahrain International Airport.Residents in nearby streets rushed women and children into their house as police continued to loose tear gas. They said police had also fired birdshot ammunition at protesters.After so many deaths, so many sacrifices, we will continue to protest. We just want a new constitution but they're not prepared for democracy, one resident said anonymously.More than 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shi'ites and most are demanding a constitutional monarchy. But calls by hardliners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed Sunnis, who fear the unrest helps Iran on the other side of the Gulf.
TENSIONS HIGH
In signs of rising tensions in the oil-producing region, Bahrain's government has responded sharply to any signs of what it considers to be interference over its crackdown.Bahrain expelled diplomats from Iran, just across Gulf waters, when it criticized the clampdown last week. Its foreign minister has formally complained to the Lebanese government over expressions of support from the Shi'ite movement Hezbollah.Bahrain's social development minister accused demonstrators on Friday of harboring a foreign agenda, but stopped short of blaming Iran. We found out that those people who were doing it were instigated by a foreign country and by Hezbollah, Fatima al Beloushi told a news conference in Geneva.We have direct proof. Hezbollah has provided training for their people. They were serving a foreign agenda and that is why it was not something for having a better livelihood,she said.
Internet activists and Shi'ite villages tried to organize marches in different parts of Bahrain on Friday, dubbed the Day of Rage. But Wefaq, the mainstream Shi'ite opposition movement which draws tens of thousands when it calls protests, distanced itself from the demonstrations.Wefaq affirms the need to protect safety and lives and not to give the killers the opportunity to shed blood, it said.So far the largest crowds on Friday were at the sermon of a top Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Issa Qassim. Thousands gathered but did not seek to protest after prayers.A funeral in the Shi'ite suburb Balad al-Qadim also drew thousands, with crowds carrying Bahraini flags and pumping their fists. They shouted: Down, down (King) Hamad and the people want the fall of the regime.Bahrain has banned all marches. But security forces have not broken up the funeral processions of civilians killed in the crackdown -- most of which turn into anti-government rallies. Hani Abdulaziz, 33, died after being hit by rounds of bird shot fired by police near his home. His neighbors said he was left to bleed for an hour after he took shelter in a building.People have gotten to the stage where they don't want dialogue, they want these people out,said Zahra, a woman from Abdulaziz's village.(Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Gates first U.S. defense chief to visit Palestinians
By Phil Stewart – Fri Mar 25, 8:47 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Robert Gates on Friday became the first U.S. Defense Secretary to visit the West Bank, meeting Palestinian leaders keenly aware of every little nod to their hopes of achieving statehood.Children in Ramallah stared as the long motorcade of U.S. cars wound through the streets of the city north of Jerusalem.
With U.S. diplomacy fully stretched over revolts in the Arab world and the air war with Libya, Gates was looking to revive stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, before another war fills the vacuum they have left for six months.It is a great pleasure for me to welcome Secretary Gates to Palestine, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said.This is a time of great challenge throughout the region. But also a time of opportunity, requiring a redoubling of the effort aimed at pursuing the cause of peace, justice and security Gates noted that he was the first American secretary of defense to visit Ramallah,the Palestinians' de facto capital and seat of Palestinian Authority ministries and the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas.I look forward to our talks ... obviously the political developments around the region, but also the prospects for a two-state solution, he said, referring to the elusive treaty that would end the 62-year-old conflict and create a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
US-ISRAEL TIES STRONGEST
The visit to Ramallah was another milestone for Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration who is expected to step down later this year. The former CIA director marked the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq last year and oversaw a buildup in the war effort in Afghanistan.Following the route often used by his Obama administration colleague and peace envoy Senator George Mitchell, Gates first had talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of America's closest ally in the turbulent region.Netanyahu said Gates, who later went to the Jordanian capital Amman, had been a champion of peace and security and our partner seeking to bolster our common security and defense interests in this area.These days, security challenges were legion, the Israeli leader said, referring to armed threats from Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the political uncertainties over much of the Arab world.Referring to a week of rocket attacks from Gaza and a deadly bomb planted near Jerusalem's central bus terminal, Netanyahu noted expressions of support from President Barack Obama, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and other leaders.I think this says that civilized countries have a common stake in fighting terrorism and we want to make sure that we make it clear to the terrorists that any civilized society will not tolerate such wanton attack on its civilians, he said.
Gates said he believed that at no time in the history of our two countries has our defense and security relationship been stronger than it is today.Relations between Netanyahu and Obama were strained by the diplomatic frustrations U.S. envoy Mitchell has encountered in getting peace talks re-started.They remain stalled by a bitter dispute over Israeli settlement building in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, on land where Palestinians hope to build their state.Mitchell succeeded last September and Netanyahu and Abbas met face to face. But the process collapsed when Netanyahu's 10-month moratorium on settlement building ended. The Israeli leader refused to extend it and Abbas said he would not continue the talks unless and until the construction ceased totally.(Writing by Douglas Hamilton)
UAE commits 12 planes to Libya despite Bahrain
by Haro Chakmakjian – Fri Mar 25, 7:45 am ET
DUBAI (AFP) – The United Arab Emirates, a key US ally, said it has committed six F-16 and six Mirage fighters to help enforce the no-fly zone over Libya, despite reservations linked to unrest in Bahrain.UAE participation in the patrols will commence in the coming days, Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan announced, quoted by state news agency WAM late on Thursday.In support of UN Resolution 1973, the UAE is fully engaged with humanitarian operations in Libya, he said.As an extension of those humanitarian operations, the UAE air force has committed six F-16 and six Mirage aircraft to participate in the patrols that will enforce the no-fly zone now established over Libya.A former UAE air force commander said earlier this week that his country had delayed its military deployment because of disagreements with the West over the unrest in Bahrain.Major General Khaled al-Buainnain, quoted in Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper, said the disagreement stemmed from the conviction of Arab states in the Gulf that Iran had stirred the troubles in Bahrain.The Arab monarchies in the oil-rich region, traditional allies of Washington and the West, have been supporting Bahrain, and they were not happy at all with the European and American attitude,he told the English-language daily.
They (the West) think it?s a matter of a civil movement, a matter of democracy, he said. What?s going on in Bahrain is much beyond our Western allies to understand it. It is a complete conspiracy of the Iranians.The general said the main reason for the UAE?s reluctance over Libya was because the Europeans and Americans in particular don?t realise the amount of the threat available in Bahrain.He pointed to what he called Washington's unsteady and shifting response to the fast-moving Arab revolts.Go and see the European, and especially the American attitude, toward Tunisia. How many positions in a few days? Buainnain asked.On Egypt, how many official statements in three, four weeks.A Shiite-led revolt against the Sunni royal family which has ruled Bahrain for more than two centuries has set off alarm bells in the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf that have sent in a joint Gulf contingent.
Bahraini security forces last week demolished a demonstrators' camp set up in central Manama's Pearl Square, since when an uneasy calm has returned to the capital and its financial district.Clashes between security forces and protesters since February 14 have killed at least 15 people, most of them demonstrators.In Washington, a US official said on Thursday that his country was deeply appreciative of the contribution of its UAE ally to the international campaign in Libya.With Arab states appearing slow to contribute, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week that Washington expected more announcements of Arab participation in the days ahead.On Wednesday, five days after the United States, Britain and France launched air strikes to protect Libyans from Moamer Kadhafi's security forces, Qatar was the only Arab state to have offered warplanes for the no-fly zone.The 22-member Arab League endorsed the no-fly zone before Western warplanes under Security Council Resolution 1973 launched attacks on the air defences of Kadhafi's forces fighting an armed revolt.
Gaza rockets strike deeper inside Israel
By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Thu Mar 24, 5:08 pm ET
GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian rockets struck deep inside Israel Thursday close to the urban sprawl south of Tel Aviv, and Israel pounded targets in Gaza in a surging conflict that has raised fears of a new war.Israeli police said long-range Grad rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip hit Ashdod and an area north of the Mediterranean port. There were no reports of casualties.Violence along the Gaza border has worsened in recent days and a bomb attack Wednesday in Jerusalem that Israeli police blamed on Palestinian militants killed one woman and injured 30 people. It was the first such bombing in the city since 2004.Britain identified the dead woman as a British national, Mary-Jane Gardner, and Israeli police said she was a tourist.The Israeli military said five rockets and a mortar bomb from Gaza exploded in Israel, causing no casualties. Schools remained closed in Ashdod and in Beersheba, a city in the Negev desert struck several times in the past week.
Israel carried out a series of strikes on Gaza throughout the day and there were no initial reports of casualties.An Israeli army spokeswoman said terror targets were hit from the air in the latest attack. Hamas officials said a Hamas internal security compound in Gaza City, an adjacent training camp and a rocket launcher further north were hit.In earlier air strikes, missiles hit smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, a Hamas training camp, a rocket crew and a power transformer, causing blackouts in the enclave, Gaza residents said.The responsibility lies entirely on Hamas ... we know how to act and have proven this in the past, we will strike proportionately when needed,Israeli Civil Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio.
CONFLICT ACCELERATES
Israel says the air strikes have been a response to rocket barrages. Hamas says its attacks in the past week have been in reaction to Israeli strikes. Five Palestinian militants and four civilians, three of them children, were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza Tuesday.The upswing of violence in the past few days has led to fears of a new war between Israel and Hamas Islamists, who have ruled the small Mediterranean coastal territory since 2007, after months of relative quiet.Wednesday, militants in Gaza fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar bombs across the border.In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Islamic Jihad militant group said two of its leaders were detained by security forces of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority for questioning about the Jerusalem bombing.No group claimed responsibility for planting the bomb, which exploded near a bus stop.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned militant groups in the Gaza Strip Wednesday that the Jewish state would act decisively to defend itself.He threatened a lengthy exchange of blows with Palestinian militants, though officials from both sides have said they want to prevent a repeat of Israel's 2009 three-week war on the mainly desert enclave.Calm will be met with calm, an Islamic Jihad leader said. Israel launched the Gaza war with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket fire, and killed around 1,400 Palestinians in the conflict, drawing heavy international censure.Hamas had mostly held its fire since then.
Israel's Barak meets with US Defense Secretary
by Dan De Luce – Thu Mar 24, 3:35 pm ET
TEL AVIV (AFP) – Popular uprisings sweeping through Arab states will bring positive change in the long run, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday, despite his country's fears of instability.Accustomed to working with entrenched regimes for decades, Israel has looked on with dismay as mass protests toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the assumptions underpinning its foreign policy.But Barak struck a mostly optimistic tone, describing a stunning political earthquake that could deliver democracy and freedom to a younger generation in the Middle East.Historically speaking, it's a moving and inspiring phenomena, (which is) clearly promising for the future of the Arab people, for the young generation in the Arab world, he said at a joint news conference with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.He said the Jewish state would have to stay on guard for militants trying to exploit the unrest and that the country had to bear in mind the experience of other revolutions, in which idealism gives way to violent radicals ready to kill to take power.
I feel that we have to be careful and open-eyed in the short term to minimize negative developments and minimise risks for stability, but in the long-run it is an extremely positive phenomena, Barak said.Not since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire or the end of French colonial rule had the region seen such a dramatic upheaval, said Barak, a former prime minister and top ranking military officer.He said it was crucial that outside countries work to promote a stable transition as change sweeps the region and to minimize chances of extremist groups from coming to power.Barak spoke as tensions spiked a day after a bombing in Jerusalem left one dead and as Gaza rockets pounded Israel which responded late Thursday with air raids the Palestinians say wounded three people.Barak vowed to respond to the attacks, but Gates suggested Israel had to avoid taking action that could derail the course of the uprisings, which he said have been focused solely on calls for democracy and economic opportunity.In virtually every case the theme of those demonstrations has been directed inward at problems in those countries, he said.Israel should try to avoid anything that allows extremists or others to divert the narrative of reform, Gates said.The US defence secretary also said mounting turmoil in Syria and other countries was the result of the unmet political and economic grievances of their people.Gates, who flew to Israel after a visit to Cairo, held up Egypt as a positive example in which the military chose not to fire on protesters -- who eventually succeeded in forcing Hosni Mubarak to step down as president last month.
Some of these countries are dealing with it better than others, he said.By standing on the sidelines, the Egyptian military empowered a revolution, he said.Gates pointedly contrasted Egypt's approach with Syria, where activists say 100 protesters were shot dead on Wednesday.The Syrians might take a lesson from that, he said.
Barak suggested that turmoil in Syria and elsewhere carried risks but also potential openings for peace. And we have to be alert to be able to seize those opportunities the moment they emerge, rather let them slip out of our fingers and face the uncertainties of a deeper chaos in the Middle East,he said.Amid concerns in Israel that Islamist political groups could prevail in elections expected later this year in Egypt, Gates said he came away from his talks in Cairo reassured of Egypt's commitment to its peace agreement with Israel.He said the ruling military council and interim government take the relationship with Israel seriously.
Latest developments in Arab world's unrest
By The Associated Press – Thu Mar 24, 2:31 pm ET
Here is a look at the latest developments in Mideast political unrest on Wednesday:
LIBYA Fighter jets from a U.N.-backed alliance destroy one of ruler Moammar Gadhafi's planes and hit sites across Libya including an air base, artillery installations, arms depots and parked helicopters. NATO ships patrol the coast to block the flow of arms and mercenaries. Confusion remains about the international operation's future leadership, while the rebels who control much of the country's eastern coast remain outgunned and disorganized.
YEMEN The youth groups who kicked off a monthlong uprising calling for the president's ouster say they also want a new constitution and the dissolution of parliament, local councils and Yemen's notorious security agencies. The new demands appear to reflect the perception that President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime is staggering after unrelenting protests and the defection of powerful political, military and tribal leaders.
SYRIA Following a week of demonstrations in which security forces killed dozens of protesters, the Syrian government says it will consider lifting draconian restrictions on political liberties while raising government salaries and fighting corruption. The pledges likely won't placate the southern city of Daraa, where thousands have faced deadly police gunfire during anti-government rallies and protester funerals.
BAHRAIN About a thousand Shiite protesters defied a ban on public gatherings to hold an anti-government march in a village outside the capital Manama. At least 20 people have been killed in recent weeks as Bahrain's Sunni rulers, backed by a Saudi-led military force, attempt to crush a monthlong uprising by the tiny island kingdom's Shiite majority.
JORDAN Hundreds of Jordanians — mostly university students and unemployed graduates responding to calls on Facebook — set up a protest camp in the capital Amman's main square to press for the ouster of the prime minister and wider public freedoms. Jordan's protests, and the government's responses, have been tamer than elsewhere in the region. King Abdullah II has proposed political reforms and criticized the prime minister for not pushing them through quickly enough.
Netanyahu plays up Iran threat in Russia
by Gavin Rabinowitz – Thu Mar 24, 4:21 pm ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday played up the global danger of Iran as he sought to persuade Russia to scale down its cooperation with Israel's foes in the increasingly volatile region.The Israeli leader held separate talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a day after a bus bombing killed a British woman and injured 39 people in Jerusalem.Netanyahu went into the meetings vowing to show Israel's iron will to those who attack his country and he underscored the risk of Islamic regimes rising to power amid the turbulence now wracking North Africa and the Middle East.There is a danger to Israel, Russia and the modern world that radical regimes, possibly radical Islamic regimes, will emerge that threaten us, Netanyahu told Medvedev at his suburban Moscow residence.
One regime is already doing so. That is Iran, which threatens to torpedo all attempts at peace and to return us all to the ninth century, he said.We have an interest in stopping this evil and promoting good.Russia has been keen to repair its post-Soviet relations with Israel and was one of the first countries strongly to condemn Wednesday's attack -- the first such bombing in Jerusalem since September 2004.Medvedev repeated his personal condolences on Thursday and said Russia faced many of the same problems after being hit by two devastating suicide bombings in a little more than a year.Our meeting today shows terrorists that they will not achieve their evil goals, Medvedev said in comments that were echoed by Putin later in the day.But the united front presented against attacks was unlikely to ease all tensions in a relationship that has been frustrated by Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran and continued arms sales to nations such as Syria.One Israeli official said the controversial deliveries were a central point of the journey and that Moscow had expressed its understanding of the Israeli position.Netanyahu mainly argued that ending these ties was in Russia's self-interest.If the Tehran regime manages to create nuclear weapons, it will never fall, he told Russian reporters.
If this happens, no one -- neither you (Russia) nor anyone else -- will be safe from threats, blackmail and attacks, Netanyahu added.Russia remains a key supplier of arms to the Arab world and has recently confirmed its intention to send a large shipment of anti-ship Yakhont cruise missiles to Syria -- a country still technically at war with Israel.Israeli officials fear the shipment will ultimately land in the hands of the Syrian-supported Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.Moscow officials had also hoped to use the talks to reassert Russia's place in the Middle East peace process after ceding its role as a power broker in the post-Soviet era to the United States.But the Jerusalem bombing appeared to shatter any hopes of the long-stalled talks resuming and Israeli officials said they were now investigating whether the Gaza-based Hamas movement was behind the attack. Israeli officials said they would view confirmation of such a link as a real escalation of the current violence in the Gaza Strip.Israel is not interested in an escalation and if there is one it will be the work of Hamas, said a senior Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity.Several regional powers have already urged Israel to show restraint amid fears that Netanyahu would order another ground invasion of Gaza.
Netanyahu told reporters before boarding his flight for Moscow that those trying to test our will and our determination ... will discover that this government and the army and the Israeli people have an iron will to defend the country.
Two Palestinian rockets hit Israeli city of Ashdod
– Thu Mar 24, 10:53 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – At least two Grad rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza on Thursday slammed into the port city of Ashdod and just north of it, police and the Israeli army said.Medics said no one was injured in the strikes, which came a day after Gaza's Hamas rulers vowed to rein in recalcitrant militant groups who had vowed to hit ever-deeper into Israel.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed that two Grad rockets had landed in Israel, saying: One landed in the city and the other landed north of the city.An army spokeswoman confirmed two Grads had hit Ashdod.
Earlier, security sources had told AFP one of the rockets landed in an area just south of Rishon-le-Tzion -- which is significantly further north, in an area around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Tel Aviv.Officials in the area had heard a loud blast but it later transpired the blast was not caused by the second rocket, which had landed just north of Ashdod.The rocket fire came a day after Islamic Jihad's military wing, the Al Quds Brigades, fired three Grads at Beersheva and Ashdod and vowed to fire more at cities deep inside the Jewish state as it entered a new phase of resistance.
The Al Quds Brigade has entered a new phase of bombing targets which are further away, where thousands of Israelis live, group spokesman Abu Ahmad told AFP.Ashdod lies about 30 kilometres (18 miles) up the coast from Gaza, while Rishon-Le-Tzion is located another 25 kilometres (15 miles) further north.Grad rockets are understood to have a range of up to 50 kilometres (30 miles).
Bombing near Jerusalem bus stop kills woman, 30 hurt
By Crispian Balmer – Wed Mar 23, 3:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A bomb planted in a bag exploded near a bus stop in a Jewish district of Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing a woman and injuring at least 30 people, in an attack police blamed on Palestinian militants.No one claimed responsibility for the blast, which coincided with an upsurge of violence on the Gaza border that has led to fears of a new war between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, after months of relative quiet.Medics said three people were seriously hurt by the explosion, which hit one of the main routes into central Jerusalem in the afternoon, shattering the windows of a nearby bus. A woman in her 60s died in hospital.Police said it was a terrorist attack -- Israel's term for a Palestinian strike. It was the first time Jerusalem had been hit by such a bomb since 2004.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would take action against those groups who he said are testing the Jewish state's will to defend itself.Israel will act aggressively, responsibly and wisely to preserve the quiet and security that prevailed here over the past two years, Netanyahu said.
In the Gaza, a Hamas spokesman said the group, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, was seeking to reverse the recent rise in violence and to protect stability and to work in order to restore the conditions on ground.World leaders condemned the bombing, as well as a flurry of rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel in recent days.The United States calls on the groups responsible to end these attacks at once and we underscore that Israel, like all nations, has a right to self-defense, U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement released in Washington.Palestinian Authority leaders in the West Bank, who are opposed to Hamas, also denounced the attack.I condemn this terrorist operation in the strongest possible terms, regardless of who was behind it, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in a statement.At the height of a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, but which died out in recent years, militants carried out dozens of often deadly bombings in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said the bomb weighed about one or two kilos (2 or 4 pounds). It exploded in a small suitcase on the sidewalk next to the bus stop,he told Israel's Channel Two television.Blood stained the pavement and many people had to be treated for shock. Israeli television broke into normal programing to show scores of ambulances converging on the scene, taking the injured to nearby hospitals.I saw two women lying on the ground, unconscious and covered in blood,medic Motti Bukchi, who arrived swiftly on the scene, told Channel Two.
PEACE IMPASSE
Peace talks aimed at ending the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians broke down last year after Netanyahu refused to extend a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.Israeli security officials have cautioned that the absence of any peace initiative could spark a new Palestinian revolt. Over 500 Israeli civilians died in 140 Palestinian suicide bomb attacks from 2000 to 2007. More than 4,500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the same period. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a visit to Cairo, denounced what he called a horrific terrorist attack but said he did not think the situation in Israel was deteriorating.Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby urged Israel to show restraint and said no one should give it an excuse to use violence -- an apparent reference to Palestinian militants.Netanyahu delayed his departure on a trip to Russia by several hours on Wednesday to consult with security officials, but declined to cancel the trip altogether.Earlier, the prime minister had warned Hamas over rising violence in Gaza. Hamas says its attacks this past week have been in response to recent Israeli bombings and killings.On Tuesday, Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed four Palestinian civilians, including three children playing football, and five militants, medical officials said.Netanyahu has voiced regret for the civilian deaths but said Israel could not ignore attacks on its territory.It could be that this matter will entail exchanges of blows, and it may take a certain period of time, but we are very determined to strike at the terrorist elements and deny them the means of attacking our citizens, he told parliament.Israel launched a three-week war on the impoverished coastal enclave in 2009, killing about 1,400 Palestinians and drawing heavy international censure. Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in a 2007 coup, had mostly held fire since then.
Israel will act aggressively to preserve security: PM
– Wed Mar 23, 2:55 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel will act aggressively and responsibly to preserve quiet and security after violence with Palestinians escalated over the past week.Israel will act aggressively, responsibly and wisely to preserve the quiet and security that prevailed here over the past two years, Netanyahu said before boarding a plane to Moscow where he will meet Russian leaders.Violence along the Gaza border has spiked in recent days and a bombing attack on Wednesday in Jerusalem that Israeli police blamed on Palestinian militants killed one woman and injured at least 30 other people.(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch)
Militants fire on Israeli city as Gaza violence spirals
by Adel Zaanoun – Wed Mar 23, 8:53 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Two Grad rockets slammed into the Israeli city of Beersheva on Wednesday, as Gaza militants vowed to strike deep into the Jewish state after raids killed eight Gazans.Rising violence in and around Gaza prompted a stark warning from Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, who said it could take an exchange of blows to put the militants out of action.It may be that it will take an exchange of blows, and it may be that it will take some time, but we are very determined to strike at the terrorist elements' ability to harm our citizens, the premier told MPs.Following a morning in which militants fired two Grads and seven mortars across the border, Israel's response was decidedly muted, with Netanyahu locked in talks with top military and defence advisers to mull his options, public radio said.The first Grad struck the centre of Beersheva around dawn, moderately injuring one man, police said. The second, fired several hours later, struck harmlessly in an open area.Beersheva is about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Gaza, and much further away than the Israeli cities regularly targeted by Palestinian militants.
Another Grad hit the outskirts of the city on February 23, but this was the first time since the 2008-2009 war that such a projectile hit the centre of the city of 186,000 people.The Al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad's armed wing, claimed responsibility for both attacks as well as for another Grad fired on the port city of Ashdod overnight, and vowed to continue targeting cities deep inside Israel.The Al-Quds Brigade has entered a new phase of bombing targets which are further away, where thousands of Israelis live, Abu Ahmad told AFP.The stage of targeting Sderot and Ashkelon in southern Israel are behind us, he said, referring to a small town close to the border, and to a port city 18 kilometres (11 miles) to the north.From now on, there are no more red lines for the resistance as long as the enemy ... keeps killing civilians, he said.Grad rockets have a longer range than mortars or the crude, homemade Qassams normally used by Gaza militants, and can travel up to 30 miles (50 kilometres).During the morning, the Israeli air force targeted militants on the eastern side of Gaza City, but no one was injured, Palestinian medical sources said.Over the past week, there has been a significant increase in Palestinian rocket attacks and retaliatory air strikes, which has ramped up tensions between Israel and Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers and raised fears of a large-scale Israeli military incursion.
Wednesday's attacks came a day after Israel mounted a series of raids on targets in the eastern sector of Gaza City, killing eight people, including two children and four militants from the Al-Quds Brigades.Tens of thousands of Gazans flocked to the funeral of the eight victims, including Hamas premier Ismail Haniya who declared a day of mourning, an AFP correspondent said.There were also dozens of Al-Quds Brigades gunmen in the crowd. They fired into the air as the bodies of their four fellow militants, shrouded in black Islamic Jihad flags, were carried through the city. The four civilians were wrapped in Palestinian flags.The four militants were killed as they tried to fire rockets at Israel, while the other four were civilians who died when Israeli artillery opened fire on a house outside which youngsters were playing football, medics said. Two of the victims were boys aged 11 and 16.Hours later, the Al-Quds Brigades fired a Grad at Ashdod but it fell short, prompting Israel to mount an overnight air strike which injured two of their militants, one critically.The dramatic increase in tension along the Gaza border prompted warnings from Israeli officials, with Home Front Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warning a fresh war on the Islamist Hamas movement was looming.It's only a matter of time until we clash with Hamas again, and again teach them the rules, he told army radio as officials in Beersheva closed schools for the day and urged people to remain close to their bomb shelters.I have no doubt that it will happen -- they are taking all the steps leading in that direction.
Israel kills 9 in Gaza in deadliest day in months
By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Tue Mar 22, 7:34 pm ET
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli air strikes and shelling killed nine Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical officials said, in the deadliest day of conflict in the enclave in months.Palestinian medical officials said three youths aged 12, 16 and 17 who were playing football and an adult relative were killed by Israeli shelling, and five militants were killed later in two separate air strikes elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.Tuesday's death toll was the highest for a single day in months, provoking calls from militants for revenge, condemnation by a U.N. official and a call from the Palestinian prime minister for foreign intervention to stop the violence.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the civilian casualties and said Israel had no intention of seeking a further escalation of the conflict, but would defend itself against rocket fire aimed at its citizens.Hamas has stepped up rocket fire aimed at Israel after a hiatus since the two sides fought a war two years ago, and said its fighters had fired more than two dozen mortar shells and rockets at the weekend.Israel has retaliated with air and ground assaults, saying it was targeting militants firing rockets and mortar shells at its towns and cities.In Tuesday's raids, Israel killed five militants of the Islamic Jihad group in two air strikes, one of which took place east of Gaza City, Hamas officials and medical staff said.Israel said one group of militants had been preparing to fire a rocket and the same men had shot a rocket that struck a house in the Israeli city of Beersheba last month.
YOUTHS PLAYING FOOTBALL
Earlier, Israel's armed forces said it aimed mortar fire at militants shooting at Israel. Palestinian medical officials said the Israeli shells struck a house, killing four people and wounding 12, including eight children.The owner of the house was inside and the youths were outside playing football, witnesses and medical officials said.Netanyahu issued a statement expressing regret for the mistaken strike on innocent civilians.Abu Abdallah Al-Harazeen, an Islamic Jihad leader, threatened in a statement that blood would beget more blood and by this blood we shall fight Israel again and again.Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said on the movement's website that this massacre will not pass easily and the Zionist entity should prepare itself for a tough response.Later a Grad rocket that Islamic Jihad said it fired struck near the Israeli city of Ashdod, about 40 km north of Gaza, Israeli officials said, in one of the deepest strikes at Israel since the war two years ago. There were no casualties.France's Foreign Ministry appealed to both sides to show restraint, and the U.N. coordinator for Middle East diplomacy, Robert Serry, condemned both sides and called for an urgent halt to all act of violence.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad urged immediate intervention by the international community to press Israel to curtail its strikes.Palestinian analysts linked the growing violence to calls for President Mahmoud Abbas to heal a four-year rift with Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in a bloody struggle in 2007 with Abbas's Western-backed Fatah movement.Some Hamas officials were seen as worried that Fatah could regain control of Gaza if the two groups were reconciled.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan)
Russia tells Abbas of growing Mideast concern
– Tue Mar 22, 1:02 pm ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told visiting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday that he was concerned about the fate of the Middle East peace process given the current turmoil in the region.The Russian leader told Abbas he still supported an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, the message he took with him on a visit to the West Bank town of Jericho in January.But he expressed worry that the current violence in Libya and other countries around the region could damage the fragile peace talks.Some time has passed since my visit to the Palestinian territories and unfortunately, the situation in the Middle East and North Africa has not improved, Medvedev told Abbas at his suburban Moscow residence.On the contrary, it has grown substantially more complex, he added.I expect that despite the current difficulties, we will be able to overcome the current trend.The meeting came just a day before the expected arrival in Moscow of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also under strong US pressure to resume open and productive dialogue with the Palestinians.Russia has lost much of its influence in the Middle East since the Soviet era and has been watching the revolutions and social unrest sweeping the region with alarm.Medvedev has voiced fears that the resulting power vacuum could lead to the rise of Islamists, potentially also destabilising the situation along Russia's troubled southern periphery.Sounding a more optimistic note, Abbas told Medvedev he was also tracking the developments to see how they would affect the peace process, adding that if they lead us to democracy, this should only be supported and welcomed.Besides being unable to move the Israeli peace process forward, Abbas has also been waging an uphill battle to end his secular Fatah group's split with the Gaza-based Hamas movement and form an interim government.Abbas has said he is ready to go to Gaza for talks, and he repeated that message in Moscow.I hope that the Hamas leadership accepts my initiative, Abbas said.
Canada condemns violence in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria
– Mon Mar 21, 6:08 pm ET
OTTAWA (AFP) – Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon on Monday condemned crackdowns on anti-government protesters in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.Canada vigorously condemns the increasingly frequent and violent attacks on demonstrators in Yemen, Cannon said in a statement. We urge the Yemeni authorities to immediately take measures to prevent any further violence against civilians.He said, Canada is also deeply concerned by the recent actions taken by the government of Bahrain in response to protests in that country and condemns reported human rights abuses against the Bahraini population and violations of international humanitarian law.As well,Canada deplores the multiple deaths and injuries following protests in several Syrian cities over the weekend, the minister said in urging a stop to the use of force against peaceful protesters.
Palestinians eye UN recognition of state
– Sun Mar 20, 2:45 pm ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Palestinians are planing to ask the United Nations to recognise a Palestinian state and grant them membership of the world body, a top official said Sunday.The decision to go forward with the plan had been made by the Palestinian leadership and it is the choice of president Mahmud Abbas, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.However, Erakat said no date had been set for the move, which would request the world body recognise a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital, saying only that it would happen as soon as possible.It comes after the United States in February vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned continued Israeli settlement building.The resolution, drafted by the Palestinian leadership in an attempt to pressure Israel to halt settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, was supported by the 14 other members of the Security Council.The United States said its veto should not be interpreted as support for Israeli settlement construction, but that it did not believe the United Nations was the best place to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Nevertheless, Erakat said he was confident this time the move would succeed.The choice of Palestine applying for to the Security Council for a full membership is a realistic one that we must work on applying as soon as possible, he said.Erakat said the Palestinians had no choice but to seek an alternative as negotiations with Israel were not going anywhere.
We are convinced that negotiation with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's government is impossible because it refuses to stop settlement activities, he said.
So the Palestinian leadership decided to start implementing alternatives to negotiations and the first of these is demanding recognition, he said.The United States secured the relaunch of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians in September 2010, after a hiatus of nearly two years.But the negotiations ground to a halt just weeks later, with the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank.The Palestinians insist they will not negotiate while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.
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