Tuesday, October 07, 2008

HUMMUS WAR LOOMS

Hummus war looms between Lebanon and Israel By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 7, 1:42 PM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The latest conflict simmering between Lebanon and Israel is all about food: Lebanese businessmen accusing Israel of stealing traditional Middle Eastern dishes like hummus. Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association, said Tuesday his group plans to sue Israel to stop it from marketing hummus and other regional dishes as Israeli.It is not enough they (Israelis) are stealing our land. They are also stealing our civilization and our cuisine, said Abboud.He said his group also seeks to claim the eggplant spread baba ghannouj and tabbouleh, a salad made of chopped parsley and tomatoes, as Lebanon's own.Hummus — made from mashed chickpeas, sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic — has been eaten in the Middle East for centuries. Its exact origin is unknown, though it's generally seen as an Arab dish.But it is also immensely popular in Israel — served in everyday meals and at many restaurants — and its popularity is growing around the globe.While Abboud cites a history of complaints by Lebanese businessmen about Israel exporting and marketing Lebanese dishes as Israeli, it's not clear where the Lebanese might file suit since the two countries are officially at war.

Israel's Food Industries Association and the Foreign Ministry both declined comment.

Abboud compares his suit to the one over feta cheese in which a European Union court ruled in 2002 the cheese must be made with Greek sheep and goats milk to bear the name feta. That ruling is only valid for products sold in the EU.Abboud acknowledged an uphill battle, particularly over hummus — which Palestinians also claim as their own.Hummus might be debatable, in any case we will be happy if the Palestinians win... But nobody can even discuss whether tabbouleh or baba ghannouj are Lebanese, Abboud added. We don't have to win. The important thing is to try.

Medvedev vows constructive Mideast role to Olmert: reports Tue Oct 7, 1:23 PM ET

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev assured outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday that Moscow wants to play a constructive role in the Middle East, news agencies reported. Our relations are developing well and consistently and this is one of the key factors of settlement in the Middle East, Medvedev told Olmert during the Israeli leader's visit here, according to Itar-Tass and RIA Novosti agencies.Russia will continue in the future to play a constructive and active role in this process, the Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.

Olmert, who stepped down on September 21 but remains at the helm of a transitional government, invited Medvedev to make an official visit to Jerusalem.Russia is a world power and its voice on both regional and global issues is in the view of Israel very important, said Olmert, quoted by the agencies.Besides the Middle East peace process, Olmert was expected to touch on the Iran nuclear crisis and possible Russian weapons sales to Syria during their talks.Russia's arms-export monopoly Rosoboronexport on Monday denied Israeli claims it plans to deliver S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran or Syria, the Interfax news agency reported earlier.Olmert's defence minister, Ehud Barak, on Sunday urged Russia not to upset the strategic balance in the Middle East with arms sales to Muslim countries.During a telephone conversation last month, Olmert told Medvedev it would be a waste for Syria to spend billions of dollars on buying weapons that Israel would eventually destroy, Israeli media reported.

Hamas delegation in Egypt for Palestinian unity talks by Adel Zaanoun
Tue Oct 7, 1:08 PM ET


GAZA CITY (AFP) - The Islamist Hamas movement sent a delegation to Egypt on Tuesday for talks aimed at restoring Palestinian unity amid a dispute over the presidency that could sharpen internal divisions. The delegation headed by Musa Abu Marzuk, the number two official in Hamas's Damascus headquarters, also includes Mahmud al-Zahar, Said Siyam and Khalil al-Hayya, all senior leaders of the movement in the Gaza Strip.

We will arrive in Cairo today, and tomorrow we will begin meetings with our Egyptian brothers, Zahar, who is widely considered the most influential leader in Gaza, told AFP before he crossed into Egypt with the Gaza delegation.The talks are expected to focus on repairing the bitter Palestinian divisions left by Hamas's seizure of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 that split the Palestinian territories into hostile rival camps.Cairo plans to host a meeting on November 4 that will bring together all the major Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the secular Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, which was driven from Gaza in the takeover.

Zahar said his movement will do everything to ensure the success of the dialogue while ruling out any unilateral concessions.The purpose of these meetings is to return to the geographic, political, and administrative situation that prevailed (before June 2007) but not at any price, he said.The head of Fatah's parliamentary bloc meanwhile told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah that his movement supported a transitional government of national consensus but refused to form a national unity government with Hamas.Such a (unity) government can only be formed after presidential and parliamentary elections are held, Azzam al-Ahmed said, adding that Hamas had every day put a new condition in the way of dialogue.Salam Fayyad, a politically independent former World Bank economist who was appointed prime minister by Abbas after the Gaza takeover, also called for a non-factional transition government.What must happen is an agreement to reunite the country, that's our top priority, Fayyad said during a visit to Brussels.Such a solution would help the international community, which shuns Hamas, to deal with the transitional unity government until new elections are held, Fayyad said.But in a sign that the divisions may be growing deeper with time, Hamas MPs announced on Monday they will no longer recognise Abbas as president after his term expires on January 8.According to Palestinian law, presidential elections must be held every four years, meaning that Abbas's term officially ends in January 2009.

Abbas's supporters, however, have pointed to another provision of the constitution that says presidential and parliamentary elections must be held at the same time, which they say extends his term to January 2010.Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and has 74 MPs in the 120-member assembly, 30 of whom are currently jailed by Israel.Although Abbas severed all contacts with the movement after the Gaza takeover, Hamas still recognises him as the head of the Palestinian Authority.Israel and the West consider Hamas a terror organisation and in the past have refused to have any contacts with a Palestinian government that includes the group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Palestinian PM calls for 'non-factional' unity government Tue Oct 7, 11:02 AM ET

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Talks between Egypt and the Islamist Hamas movement on Wednesday must work towards a non-factional unity government for the Palestinian territories, Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said. What must happen is an agreement to reunite the country, that's our top priority, Fayyad said Tuesday in Brussels after talks with Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme.He called for a non-factional national consensus government... that everybody agrees to but a government of individuals without party affiliations, at least transitionally.Such a solution, Fayyad agreed, would also help the international community, which shuns Hamas, to deal with the unity government.It would be transitional in the run-up to general elections both presidential and legislative.The Cairo talks must also address taking advantage of offers to help oversee our efforts to rebuild our security services and law and order services, again transitionally until our own capacity is restored, said Fayyad.If the issue is approached this way I would say the prospects are good that there would be an agreement and that this dialogue would lead to a conclusion, he added.In June international donors committed millions of dollars to security projects they hope will help pave the way to a viable Palestinian state.The money will be passed to the Palestinian Authority over the next three years for measures like putting more police on the beat and building police stations and courthouses, according to sources.

As for the wider peace talks with Israel, Fayyad asked, how are we going to implement a peace deal unless our country is united? Hamas is to begin talks in Egypt on Wednesday aimed at restoring Palestinian unity amid a dispute over the presidency that could sharpen internal divisions.The delegation is headed by Musa Abu Marzuk, the number two official in Hamas's Damascus headquarters and includes senior leaders of the movement in the Gaza Strip.The talks are expected to focus on repairing the bitter Palestinian divisions left by Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 that split the Palestinian territories into hostile rival camps.Cairo plans to host a meeting on November 4 that will bring together all the major Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Fatah party of secular Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, which was driven from Gaza in the takeover.In a sign that the divisions may be growing deeper with time, Hamas MPs announced on Monday they will no longer recognise Abbas as president after his term expires on January 8.The Palestinian leader was paying a friendly visit to Brussels, with no scheduled talks with EU officials.He was to attend a major exhibition of Palestinian art in the evening.

Russia's Jerusalem land claim worries Israelis By TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 7, 6:59 AM ET

JERUSALEM - The Russians are coming to downtown Jerusalem, reclaiming ownership of a landmark with the approval of the Israeli government, just as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visits Moscow to try to iron out serious policy differences between the two countries. After years of contacts, Olmert's Cabinet agreed Sunday to hand over the small tract known as Sergei's Courtyard. The area, which once accommodated Russian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, now houses offices of Israel's Agriculture Ministry and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.The property includes a lush garden and the massive buildings around it — a turret-like structure at the intersection of two downtown streets and the sand-colored fortress-like wings leading from it.The timing of the gesture is clear. After years of relatively smooth relations, serious problems have cropped up between Israel and Russia. One concerned Russia's summer invasion of Georgia, which has become a close ally of Israel in recent years. More importantly, Israel is concerned about Russia's role in helping, or not stopping, the nuclear program of Israel's archenemy, Iran.Olmert hopes to talk through those issues during his two-day trip to Moscow. He was scheduled to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday before returning to Israel.

Not everyone is happy about Israel's Jerusalem goodwill gesture. Hardline groups bridle at any transfer of control in Jerusalem, because they oppose Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts that would require sharing the city.Israel TV described the transfer as Russian autonomy in downtown Jerusalem. The Cabinet decision says no major changes can be made at the site without approval of both governments.The official transfer may be delayed because of an appeal filed by the nationalistic Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, which said the deal is a breach of Israeli sovereignty.Nachi Eyal, the group's director, warned the deal could set a precedent for other land claims.A Russian official denied accusations it seeks greater influence in the Middle East through the acquisition of Sergei's Courtyard, calling its desire to own the place a matter of historical significance.This has nothing to do with what is being called imperial ambitions because it's not a military base or something that can serve those purposes, said Alexei Skosyrev, a political counselor at the Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv. He said the building will be used as a Russian cultural center to promote bilateral relations between the two countries.The site, named for Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, a son of Czar Alexander II, was built in 1890 and is part of the larger Russian Compound, most of which Israel purchased 45 years ago. It paid in oranges because it lacked hard currency.Negotiations over the site began in the 1990s. In 2005, after years of lagging progress on the deal, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised former Russian President Vladimir Putin the land would be returned.

Hamas blames US Jewish lobby for financial crisis Tue Oct 7, 6:46 AM ET

GAZA CITY (AFP) - The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip on Tuesday blamed what it called a Jewish lobby in the United States for the global financial crisis. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement that the crisis was due to bad administrative and financial management and a bad banking system put into place and controlled by the Jewish lobby.While pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a rescue package, US President George W. Bush has remained silent about the Jewish lobby that put the US banking and financial sector into place, he said.

He said the lobby controls the US elections and defines the foreign policy of any new administration in a manner that allows it to retain control of the American government and economy.The Anti-Defamation League said last week that the US financial crisis has provoked an outpouring of anti-Semitism on the Internet, with Jews being blamed for the debacle on Wall Street.The age-old canards about Jews and money are always just beneath the surface, said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the US group which fights anti-Semitism.

Hamas lawmakers: Abbas term ends in January By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 6, 5:55 PM ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas will cease to recognize Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president after Jan. 8 and replace him with one of its own leaders, according to a resolution approved by the Islamic movement's legislators Monday. The Hamas resolution demands that Abbas issue a decree by Wednesday to hold new presidential elections within three months, to coincide with what Hamas says is the end of his term.Abbas aides said the resolution appeared aimed at stepping up pressure on the president, a political moderate, ahead of a new attempt by Egypt to mediate a power-sharing deal between the rival camps and is certain to deepen the split between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement.I believe Hamas is coming to this point just to undermine the national dialogue before it starts in Cairo, said Abbas aide Nimer Hamad referring to the Egyptian-brokered talks expected to begin next month.If Hamas does withdraw recognition from Abbas, it would sever another link between the two sides and also undermine Abbas' legitimacy in the eyes of many Palestinians.

Abbas, the leader of the Fatah movement, was elected president in January 2005. A year later, Hamas defeated Fatah by a landslide in parliamentary elections.Hamas has been in control of Gaza since its violent takeover of the territory in June 2007, leaving Abbas only in charge of the West Bank.The Basic Law, a forerunner to a Palestinian constitution, says both president and parliament are elected to four-year terms. Before leaving office, the Fatah parliament passed a law stipulating that future presidential and parliamentary elections be held simultaneously.However, the Hamas-controlled parliament never amended the Basic Law to include this new clause. As a result, Hamas argues Abbas' term ends in January, while Fatah says he can stay in office an extra year.The Hamas resolution demands Abbas issue a decree by Wednesday to hold new presidential elections within three months, to coincide with what Hamas says is the end of his term.If Abbas does not step aside in January, Hamas says it will install deputy parliament speaker Ahmed Bahar of Hamas as Abbas' temporary successor until elections are held.The job would normally go to the parliament speaker, Abdel Aziz Dueik, but he is in an Israeli jail, along with scores of other Hamas lawmakers from the West Bank. Bahar said Monday he would accept the job, if asked.The resolution left a loophole, suggesting that Abbas' term could be extended by parliament if deemed to be in the national interest.

Reconciliation appears increasingly unlikely, since neither side appears to have a compelling interest to share power.Hamas has consolidated control of Gaza and kept the territory afloat despite a virtual blockade of its borders, while Abbas would risk Western support if he agreed to a partnership with the militants. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the U.S. and European Union.

Terror case: Top court won't hear ex-prof's appeal Mon Oct 6, 1:19 PM ET

McLEAN, Va. - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a former Florida professor once accused of being a top Palestinian terrorist. The high court's decision Monday means that Sami Al-Arian, who once taught at the University of South Florida, is a step closer to facing trial in northern Virginia for refusing to testify to a grand jury.Al-Arian struck a plea bargain in 2005 admitting that he conspired to assist the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He argued that the terms of the deal barred the government from demanding his testimony in other terror cases.But a federal appeals court disagreed, and now the U.S. Supreme Court is refusing to intervene. A judge in Virginia had wanted the appeal to be resolved before trying Al-Arian for contempt of court.

Hamas blames Israel for stalled Schalit talks Mon Oct 6, 11:16 AM ET

PARIS - The exiled leader of Hamas says talks with Israel over the possible release of an Israeli sergeant are at a standstill.Khaled Mashaal blames a lack of reliability of Israeli negotiators in the discussions toward the possible release of Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit.Le Figaro newspaper quoted Mashaal on Monday as saying that Israeli negotiators continue to rehash issues already agreed. The daily said he gave the interview from a residence in Damascus, Syria.Schalit was captured by Gaza militants two years ago. Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Schalit.

Israel's Livni in coalition talks Mon Oct 6, 6:05 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni pressed ahead with efforts to secure a ruling coalition on Monday, a day after delivering her first foreign policy speech since being named to form a new government. Elected on September 17 to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the head of the Kadima party, Livni needs to put together a governing coalition if she is also to take over as premier while averting a snap election.She planned to meet on Monday with leaders of two religious parties -- the Shas, which has 12 mandates in the 120-seat parliament, and the United Torah Judaism, which has six MPs -- media reported.On Sunday, she held talks with Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who leads the Labour party, the main ally in the governing coalition, with 19 seats in the Knesset. Kadima has 29 mandates.Livni, 50, a former Mossad spy, was formally asked by President Shimon Peres on September 22 to form a new government, after she took over as Kadima chairman from Olmert who stepped down as police recommended he be indicted over graft allegations.At a conference organised by her ministry on Sunday, she delivered her first foreign policy speech since the Kadima election.Israel wants to achieve peace with all its neighbours, including the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese. Israel wants to achieve peace and normalisation with all the Arab countries, she said.

She also said Iran, which Israel considers a strategic threat, is an issue that should be dealt with at the international level.Iran is not just a problem for Israel, it is not just a problem for the region, she said. We must act together ... We must fight it.Israel, widely considered to be the only nuclear armed state in the Middle East, believes Iran is seeking to build a nuclear arsenal.Tehran insists its nuclear drive is entirely peaceful but has been under international sanctions and the threat of more over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment work.

Gaza smugglers boast of heaps of tunnels by Mehdi Lebouachera
Sun Oct 5, 7:14 PM ET


RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Smuggling is so rife across the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt that the number of tunnels along which traffickers bring in contraband has swollen into the hundreds, their operators claim. The ground at Rafah is a real Swiss cheese. If there were an earthquake the whole lot would cave in, the boss of one of the tunnels told AFP.People come from everywhere to find work: Gaza, Jabaliyah, Deir al-Balah ... This tunnel alone keeps 15 families alive, he said.

The exact number of tunnels is impossible to verify but the rapid growth of excavation work is plain for all to see.At 10 in the morning in Rafah, the only sounds come from the nearby border, where the grinding of motors draws attention to smugglers busy digging more passages beneath this sandy frontier.The presence of scores of tunnels is revealed by plastic huts camouflaging their entrances and by the heaps of earth visible along the 14-kilometre (8.5-mile) demarcation line.It is a growth industry because of the blockade of Gaza and the closure of frontiers, said Abu Khaled, in charge of one of the sites, where tunnelling began 10 days ago.Around his tent alone, three more tunnels are under construction.Not very long ago it was difficult to meet smugglers or talk to them, but now they operate openly and with everyone's knowledge and they are not bothered by anyone except, they say, when it comes to paying taxes to the Hamas government, which controls Gaza.

There is no work anywhere and I need money
The smugglers' brazenness compares with the continuing secrecy around tunnels operated by Islamists, which Israel suspects of being used to bring in weapons.We work every day, round the clock, six people by day and six people by night, said Abu Khaled, a former member of Force 17, the elite Palestinian group in charge of protecting president Mahmud Abbas.From time to time, Hamas passes by to tell us it is forbidden to traffic in weapons or hashish, he said as he helped an earth-spattered young worker to fill in a 20-metre (67-feet) deep pit.Abu Khaled says Hamas also takes its percentage on the products that enter the Gaza strip, where crossings with Israel remain closed since the Islamists took power in June last year.

As the blockade has continued, the number of tunnels has multiplied, with the blessing of Hamas, which sees them as a way of breaking the Israeli siege.Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, in an unsourced report, said this week that a team of American and Egyptian soldiers located 42 tunnels in less than a month thanks to state-of-the-art detectors.With unemployment at record levels in Gaza, tunnel owners have no difficulty finding workers despite the danger of death at any moment from the collapse of a passage, lack of oxygen or operations by the Egyptian army. In the shed of Majid Arbi'a, formerly director of a cement works that has closed for lack of raw materials, most of the labourers are students. In other places they might fund their studies by being waiters or beach attendants. In Gaza, they dig tunnels at 500 dollars for 100 metres completed. There is no work anywhere and I need money, said 29 year-old Yussef, a photography student at the University of Deir al-Balah, in the centre of Gaza. Everyone who works here is at university like me. Some are even working on their doctorate, Yussef said.

Israelis see delay in Iran-Russia missile deal By Dan Williams
Sun Oct 5, 1:13 PM ET


TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Iran has not received Russia's advanced S-300 anti-aircraft system yet though the countries are still discussing a purchase, Israeli defense sources said on Sunday, revising earlier statements that a deal was imminent. The S-300 would help Tehran fend off any Israeli or U.S. air strike against its nuclear facilities. Analysts believe a purchase of the system by the Iranians could accelerate the countdown to military action designed to deny them the bomb.Israeli defense sources said last July that Iran was set to take delivery of the S-300 by year's end, and possibly as soon as September -- assessments not supported by the United States, which has led a diplomatic drive to rein in Iran's atomic plans.

Iran's Defense Ministry, which already has Russian TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missiles, said in December the S-300 was on order. On Sept 1, Iran's Foreign Ministry said there was no such order.We know that, as of now, nothing has been shipped, an Israeli defense source said on Sunday. There seems to be some kind of hold-up. The Russians and Iranians are discussing this, but we have also been speaking to Russia about our concerns.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert flies to Moscow on Monday for talks in which he is expected to ask Russia to curb defense sales to Iran and Syria, another of the Jewish state's enemies.Russia has denied intending to sell Iran the S-300, the best version of which can track 100 targets and fire on planes 120 km (75 miles) away. The system is known in the West as the SA-20.A second Israeli source who has access to intelligence briefings said Iran appeared to be vacillating on whether to buy the newest version of the S-300 or a less advanced model.Delivery schedule will greatly depend on which version they eventually settle on. If the new one, then it's years away. The other version is readily available, the source said.

Neither source agreed to be identified given the sensitivity of the subject. Olmert told his cabinet that his Moscow visit would address both the supply of weapons to irresponsible elements, the actions of which greatly disturb us, and the Iranian problem, in which Russia has special weight.Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, describes Iran's nuclear programme as a potential threat to its existence.Iran says its nuclear work is a peaceful project to generate electricity, but has stirred war fears by predicting the Jewish state's destruction.

Like Israel, the United States has alluded to military force as an option against Iran. Yet the allies have often differed on when Iran's uranium enrichment plants might yield enough fissile material for warheads. Israel's timeline is routinely shorter.(Editing by Dominic Evans)

Israel's Livni says committed to peace talks By Jeffrey Heller
Sun Oct 5, 12:38 PM ET


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, in her first policy address since being nominated to form Israel's next government, voiced her commitment on Sunday to press ahead with peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Annapolis will continue, Livni said, referring to a U.S.-sponsored peace conference last November that restarted talks on a Palestinian state that have shown few signs of progress.

Let us not allow dates or political changes to stand in our way, she said in an address at a policy conference at Israel's Foreign Ministry also attended by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki.Israeli and Palestinian leaders have expressed doubts they could meet Washington's goal of reaching a peace deal by the end of the year, before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office.We see that the next months are maintaining a level of uncertainty and that level of uncertainty is getting higher and higher, Malki said in his English-language address to the forum at the Israeli Foreign Ministry.We are waiting to see who will be the next president, (Barack) Obama versus (John) McCain, and believe me there is a big difference between the two vis a vis the situation in the Middle East ... the Middle East peace process and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Malki said.He did not elaborate on the Palestinian view of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.Livni was asked by President Shimon Peres on September 22 to form a government in 42 days following the resignation, under a cloud of corruption allegations, of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.Olmert, who launched the current peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, remains prime minister in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed, either through a coalition deal or an early election.We hope that (Livni) will succeed (to form a new government) because this will also show continuity and commitment to the peace process and to the negotiations (for) a Palestinian state, Malki said.Commenting on a key issue that has blocked progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, Malki described Israel's settlement activity in the occupied West Bank as a timebomb.But he said the Palestinian Authority remained committed to the talks as a strategic choice and to pursuing an internal dialogue to reconcile with Hamas Islamists who seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr, Editing by Dominic Evans)

Saturday, October 04, 2008

FRANCE FM - NO PEACE 2008

TRAIL OF TERROR Islamic takeover of U.S. already under way,Expert warns mainstream media providing talking points of Arab countries October 03, 2008
8:31 pm Eastern 2008 WorldNetDaily


AUDIO OF STORY
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76936

An expert on terrorism is warning the United States should be fighting Islamization, which she believes already is under way. And author Brigitte Gabriel should know: She watched it happen in her native Lebanon.Lebanon used to be the only majority Christian country in the Middle East, Gabriel told radio talk show host Andrea Shea King in a recent hour-long interview Most people today do not know that. We were the majority, the Muslims were the minority, but as the years went by, the Muslims became the majority because of their birth rate, but also because of our open-border policy.We welcomed everyone into our country, Gabriel said, and people didn't realize that the minority, the Muslims in the society, was not tolerant and did not believe all people were equal.They tried to impose their way of thinking on us, and they succeeded, she said.An excerpt of her interview can be heard here: The result, Gabriel said, was that a radical terrorist organization tied to Islam, Hezbollah, now rules in Lebanon.As WND reported, Gabriel is fearful that terrorists believe now is the time to strike at America, while it is distracted by financial tension and election turmoil. She expressed the concerns during an interview with KSFO's Barbara Simpson, when she also discussed her new book, They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It.Gabriel's new interview with King is available on BlogTalkRadio.

She noted it's been seven years since the Sept. 11, 2001, act of war on U.S. soil by Islamists, but America is falling to Islam's attack, and the battle already is far advanced.They do not need to fire a single bullet to destroy us, she said. They are taking over our country culturally, just like they have taken over Europe.She said Islam is being taught across the U.S. as part of world history courses for seventh graders.A three-week course is teaching students to memorize and recite Islamic prayers and verses from the Quran, she said. Students have to adopt Islamic names, fast for a day to experience Ramadan, the holiest of Islamic religious holidays, and write about their experience as a Muslim at the end of the program. The exercises during the class include encouraging students to incorporate Arabic phrases such as Allahu Akbar in their speeches, and for students to imagine they were meeting disciples on a pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a state-approved curriculum, using state-adopted textbooks that have been part of the instructional program in California for over a decade.WND reported this week that a new study shows U.S. textbooks provide information such as that Jesus was a Palestinian and the nation of Israel imposes terrorism on others but is not a victim a terrorism.Now it is being rolled out nationwide. One book I discuss in particular is Across the Centuries, published by Houghton Mifflin. The Muslim Council on Education has been busy working with the State Department of Education and America's top three publishers who …are literally rewriting history, Gabriel said.Across the Centuries' is a staple in the State of California. This textbook is at best, a well of misinformation. It is 558 pages long and covers the 1500 years from the fall of the Roman Empire and the French Revolution. The text includes 55 pages devoted to Islam, seven pages noting the Middle Ages in Europe, and six pages of Christian history. The chapter on the Byzantine Empire received only six pages. The chapter on Islam accounts for 10 percent of the text, while Christianity and Judaism are almost entirely absent, she said.This is public education approved by the State Board of Education nationwide! Our students are being indoctrinated into Islam in our public schools and we don't even have a clue! How can this be allowed to be taught in public schools in America? Most people do not know about it because it is flying under the radar! she said.

At the university level it's worse, she said.

What's been happening for the last 16 years, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states ... because of the money coming from the oil, they have been pumping millions of dollars into our universities appointing Arab professors who are anti-American, anti-Israel, who have been basically brain-washing our students into believe we are the problem, she said.The children, who have been educated in American universities for the last 16 years, have graduated and are now working ... not influenced ... by our patriotic education as Americans, but they have been influenced by Arab thinking ... [and] hatred based on revenge, she said. The writing is on the wall. Who would have thought that Shariah would come to Harvard University with regulated women-only gym hours? That an imam in Des Moines, Iowa, gave an opening prayer at the 2007 Iowa Legislature's opening session in which he called on Allah to give victory over those who disbelieve? Muslim taxi drivers in Minnesota who refuse to pick up passengers carrying alcohol? The first Islamic public school, the Kahlil Gibran Academy, that opened in 2007, funded by tax dollars! American colleges designating Islamic prayer rooms on campus for use by Muslims only! Gabriel said.Those of us who come from the Middle East and see what's happening in the U.S. ... shake our heads in amazement, she said, calling her book a warning. We are coming up to a very important election. This is the time we need to understand what is at stake, why our voice counts, why we need togo out and vote. This is the time to make a difference before it is too late, she said. She said that's why besides her book, she's launched the ActForAmerica.org website.We launched this out of American Congress for Truth as our activism and political lobbying arm because I realized talking by itself is only wasting hot air and is entertainment. Action is the only way that's going to make a difference, she said. History reveals that the apathetic give way to the passionate, the complacent are subdued by the committed. ACT for America.org is mobilizing people all over the country and giving them the tools to resist the Islamic infiltration in our society on every level: schools, governments, universities and corporations.Our work is vital in educating the American public about what is happening behind the scenes, she said.

I encourage people to go to our website Act for America.org. I know we have citizen action training seminars coming up in Kansas City and in Indianapolis within the next two weeks. Sign up and attend them if you are in those areas. And check where we have chapters across the country and either join a chapter, or if there's no chapter in your community, sign up to lead one. Organized power at the grass roots level trumps the voices of political correctness, Gabriel said.The radical Islamists promised to destroy us, and as you know from the recent war in Lebanon, that country is now nearly Islamic, she said.We are not waiting for this phenomenon to occur here in the war against Islamofascism. We are not simply hoping for spontaneous grassroots eruptions that may or may not come. We are making it occur by organizing grassroots chapters and supporters across America. We will force elected representatives to choose. To align themselves with the grassroots voices of America or the voice of political correctness.Gabriel was born and raised in Lebanon. When she was 10, her home was bombed by radical Islamists. She spent two and a half months in a hospital with injuries, and then she survived with her parents for seven years hidden in an underground bomb shelter, subsisting without electricity or heat on a meager diet of rice, lentils and tufts of grass that grew outside the shelter. She crawled beneath sniper fire for sips of water from a nearby ditch.Those who have lived through such experiences are horrified at Americans' attitudes, she said.I have two guests staying with me, also from Lebanon, who ran to Israel for their lives when Israel withdrew out of Lebanon. And this is their first trip to America. I took them to New York and to Washington, D.C., last week and we were walking around and they were stunned at the gullibility of Americans. I took them to an air show this past week and they saw Muslims in our military. They looked at me in utter shock and said, Do Americans know these same Muslims would turn their guns against their fellow Americans, military men and women in the same tents, and kill them in the name of Islam? What is America thinking? Gabriel said.We are not only fighting a military jihad, we are fighting a cultural jihad and we need to wake up. We are as much at war with the cultural jihad as we are with the military jihad, Gabriel said.

Islam is coming to America while we are asleep at the wheel and only focusing on al-Qaida attacking us militarily. The Muslims are taking us over culturally and remember, they don't even have to fire one bullet, she said.Gabriel's book, according to American Jihad author Steve Emerson, is riveting, compelling and spellbinding. This is a must read for the entire American public.A compelling and captivating personal story with a powerful lesson about threats to freedom in our time, said R. James Woolsey, director of Central Intelligence from 1993-1995.There is a threat. We must do something about it. We must stop them, Gabriel said.Earlier, in an interview with WND columnist Larry Elder published in two parts, Because they hate, and Because they hate, part 2, Gabriel said al-Qaida already is inside the U.S., as is Hezbollah.We estimate thousands have already been smuggled into America. ... Hamas is here. ... They have cells in over 40 states. ... We also need to reform our immigration and visa programs. We need to monitor who is coming into our country and why. ... We need to increase human intelligence. … I want everyone who fits the terrorist profile to be profiled. We have men between the ages of 16 and 40 who have committed terrorist acts around the world in the name of Islam. They are not little old ladies from Ohio with blue hair. They are not children going to Disney World on their Easter vacation, she said.Elder asked: What happens if a Democrat wins the 2008 election? We are doomed. Our enemies want the Democrats to win. This last election, jihadist websites were playing victory songs and declaring the Democrats are our allies in the war against America, she said.

French FM says Mideast peace deal unlikely in 2008 by Christophe de Roquefeuil OCT 4,08

JENIN, West Bank (AFP) - A Middle East peace deal is unlikely by the end of the year, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Saturday, while urging Israelis and Palestinians to continue US-backed talks. We were supposed to get the document, not a final result but something, before the end of the year. But now we all know it will take a little bit longer, Kouchner told reporters in the West Bank town of Jenin.I don't know if we will see the Palestinian state before the end of the year, but I know this is absolutely a key and necessary -- we will get the Palestinian state.Kouchner made the remarks after meeting Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad at the start of a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied territories.

Fayyad praised France, which holds the rotating European Union presidency, for its support of US-backed peace talks relaunched last November, calling Kouchner a friend of the Palestinian people.Negotiations have made little progress since they were formally relaunched to great fanfare after a seven-year hiatus, with the two sides remaining deeply divided on the thorniest issues of the decades-old conflict.On Sunday Kouchner will meet outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is seeking to form a new coalition government following her election last month to head the ruling Kadima party.Kouchner will again call on Israel to reduce restrictions on movement in the Palestinian territories, which is stifling the local economy, a senior French diplomat said.The minister also intends to stress to his Israeli hosts the importance of freezing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the official added.Paris wants the trip to be a moment of consultation and dialogue allowing pressure to be kept up on both sides, a senior French official said.Kouchner joined Fayyad on a visit to Jenin, once a hotbed of militant violence and now the focus of a widening security crackdown in the West Bank that has been praised by Israel and the United States.He was to meet with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and senior Palestinian diplomats later in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah.The visit follows a meeting in New York last week of the Mideast Quartet (Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union) in which the group urged Israel and the Palestinians to seal a peace deal this year.

In a statement released in September 21 aid agencies said the quartet was losing its grip on the peace process by not doing enough to rein in the growth of Jewish settlements and improve freedom of movement in the West Bank.Negotiators have expressed hope that if a deal is not reached the next US president will continue to encourage the talks.The current (US) administration only became involved during the last year of George W Bush's second term. This is regrettable. We hope the new administration will involve itself straight away, a member of Kouchner's entourage said.The minister also hopes to check on the results of the Paris conference on aid to the Palestinians held in December, at which more than 7.7 billion dollars in aid was pledged over the coming seven years.Since then 1.4 billion dollars in direct budgetary support has been paid to the Palestinian Authority, according to French government figures.

Olmert's concession call went too far: Kadima lawmaker Sat Oct 4, 5:02 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A senior lawmaker from the ruling Kadima party denounced outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's call for major concessions to the Palestinians, saying he went too far. Mr Olmert's remarks on the necessity of a territorial retreat from almost all the Palestinian territories go far beyond our positions of principle and are aligned with those of the extreme left, Tzahi Hanegbi, chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs and defence committee, said on public radio.He does not believe Olmert, in the time remaining to him, can reach an agreement with the Palestininians which would be binding on his successor.The party has never held a proper debate on the red lines not to cross in terms of territorial concessions but I think that they would be a long way from what Mr Olmert proposed, Hanegbi said.

Olmert told Yediot Aharonot daily in an interview published on Monday that Israel must give up almost the entire occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem as the price for peace with the Palestinians.He submitted his resignation on September 21 following graft allegations that caused police to recommend criminal charges. He will remain interim premier until a new government is formed.Hanegbi spoke on the day French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner began a two-day visit to the region with the aim of reviving the peace process ahead of the year-end deadline for an agreement.

Israeli general warns Hezbollah of harsh response By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 3, 3:27 PM ET

JERUSALEM - Israel will use disproportionate force if Hezbollah guerrillas attack Israel, a senior military commander said in published comments Friday, adding that any village used to fire missiles against the Jewish state will be destroyed. Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, who commands forces along Israel's northern border, issued a similar threat against Syria.Eizenkot spoke to the Yediot Ahronot daily more than two years after Israel fought an inconclusive 33-day war against Hezbollah. That war, in which Hezbollah lobbed some 4,000 rockets and missiles into Israel, was widely seen as a failure, and Eizenkot has been busy rehabilitating the army's readiness since taking up his post in the aftermath of the fighting.Eizenkot said Israel would show no mercy on Lebanese villages that harbor Hezbollah fighters. Israel has repeatedly complained that Hezbollah fighters used residential areas for cover, limiting Israel's ability to respond.Eizenkot stressed that this is not a recommendation, but a plan approved by the highest levels. If fire is carried out from Shiite villages in Lebanon, this is the operational plan: Very aggressive fire.

He said Israel would use what he called the Dahiya doctrine, a reference to the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah's headquarters are located. During the 2006 war, Israel destroyed dozens of buildings in Dahiya, including the offices of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.What happened in the Dahiya quarter in Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired upon. We will apply disproportionate force upon it and cause great damage and destruction there, he said. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.In the interview, Eizenkot warned Syria against launching missiles into Israel. Everything I said about Hezbollah, regarding punishment and severe harm, is all the more true for a country that has assets. He also indicated Syria could be punished for Hezbollah's actions.Syria is a key backer of Hezbollah. Despite the recent resumption of indirect peace talks with Syria, Israel believes the Damascus regime continues to help rearm Hezbollah.There was no immediate response from Hezbollah or Syria. But Nasrallah has warned in recent weeks that Hezbollah's response to a future Israeli incursion will be more fierce than what took place in 2006.The 2006 war broke out when Hezbollah fighters burst across Israel's northern border, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. More than 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 159 Israelis died in the fighting. The war ended with a U.N.-brokered truce, and in July, the bodies of the two abducted soldiers — believed to have died during or shortly after their capture — were returned to Israel in a swap with Hezbollah.The cease-fire has largely held, but Israel believes Hezbollah has replenished its arms supplies with Iranian and Syrian help.Eizenkot said dozens of rockets are concealed in homes in Shiite villages throughout southern Lebanon. He said Hezbollah has sent fighters to Iran for training, and Iranian military trainers have been spotted in Lebanon.You can see today the walls behind which the rockets are concealed, ready for launching. At the moment of truth, the walls will be knocked down — and the rockets fired.While Hezbollah has beefed up its capabilities, Eizenkot stressed that Israel has also greatly improved its training, readiness and intelligence since the war.I have great force relative to what existed then. I have no excuse for not achieving the objectives that will be assigned to me, he said.

IRAN WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH ISRAEL IN A TRADE BLOC OR GROUPING, ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS ISRAEL YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO AND DO IT QUICK BEFORE IRAN DOES.

Tehran rejects Bahrain FM's call to bring Israel in from cold Fri Oct 3, 12:58 PM ET

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran rejected the Bahrain foreign minister's call for a new regional grouping which would include Israel as well as Arab states, Iran and Turkey, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday. With all due respect that I have for my dear brother Sheikh Khaled (bin Ahmad al-Khalifa) the foreign minister of Bahrain, I believe that this suggestion cannot be executed, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told an IRNA reporter in New York.Our Bahraini friends know where the real problem lies and why this (idea) cannot be implemented, he added before leaving New York, where he attended the UN general assembly.Mottaki dubbed Tehran's regional arch foe as an illegal regime with many claims, (which) still thinks of expansion and continuing occupation.This regime is neither legitimate nor trustworthy, he added.Iran does not recognise the Jewish state and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attracted international condemnation by repeatedly predicting Israel is doomed to disappear and by branding the Holocaust a myth.The Bahraini chief diplomat unveiled his proposal for the creation of a regional bloc in an interview with pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat published on Wednesday.Israel, Iran, Turkey and Arab states should sit together in one organisation, he was quoted as saying.The tiny Gulf kingdom is a major ally of the United States and has a free trade agreement with Washington. It also hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.His comments were also not received so well back home, where lawmakers and opposition activists in Bahrain slammed them.Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa met Israeli officials during World Economic Forum summits in 2000 and 2003, while Sheikh Khaled met Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni at the United Nations last year.However, political groupings in Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni dynasty and has a Shiite majority, oppose any normalisation of ties with Israel.

Why Syria Will Keep Provoking Israel By ROBERT BAER
Fri Oct 3, 11:20 AM ET


Oddly enough, Saturday's car bombing in Damascus will serve Iran's interests. Tehran thrives on chaos, which presents it an opportunity to come to the aid of friendly regimes and causes in the Middle East that need backing. More than likely, Iranian leaders were on the phone with counterparts in Damascus all Saturday, telling the Syrians not to lose heart. The Iranian message to Damascus is simple: If Israel and the United States see any weakness in the Assad regime, they will drive a truck through it and bring it down. And, if history is anything to go by, that's a message Damascus will listen to. What we tend to ignore is why Syria has had an uninterrupted record of attaching itself to radical causes and countries like Iran. For starters, Syria is ruled by a besieged and insecure minority, the Alawites, a heterodox-Shi'ite ethnic minority. About 12% of Syria's population, the Alawites are looked at by extremist Sunni Muslims as heretics, fallen-away Muslims, usurpers who should be put to the sword. In the late 70s and early 80s, the Sunni extremists came close to getting their way. During a February 1982 Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in Hama, Syria's third largest city, Hafez al-Assad felt compelled to flatten it in order to stay in power.

But it wasn't until the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon that Syria finally beat the Muslim Brothers. By joining Iran in the so-called Islamic resistance against Israel, Assad associated the Alawites with a cause larger than themselves. It was not unlike the 60s and 70s when Syria backed radical Palestinian groups - and fought Israel head-on in 1967 and 1973. The 18-year war in Lebanon (1982-2000) decisively undercut the Muslim Brothers' charge that the Alawites were apostate traitors and dupes of Israel and the United States. Had the Muslim Brothers continued to kill Alawites, they would have been considered the traitors. There's nothing like a good war to stabilize an unstable regime. Given a choice, the Alawites would be happy to skirt the 21st century, satisfied with ruling a Third World backwater. But geography won't allow it. Syria is at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which Syria has no choice but take sides. Since the Alawites cannot settle with Tel Aviv and survive the wrath of the Muslim Brothers, it remains reliant on its alliance with Tehran. And this is not to mention that with the division between Shi'ites and Sunnis widening, the Alawites will feel they need Iran and its message of belligerence to Israel more than ever. So if, for instance, Iran suggests that Syria respond to Saturday's bombing by shipping more weapons to Hizballah, Syria will be inclined to agree. Having been embraced as honorary Shi'ites by Tehran, a regime whose survival depends on its maintaining some sort of Islamic credentials, in the face of accusations of heresy and apostasy, needs its relationship with Tehran, and to be seen to be shoring up fellow Shi'ites. To Americans, it may appear reckless for the Syrians to provoke Israel by beefing up Hizballah - especially with Israel now constrained in how it can respond to Iran's nuclear program. (The U.S. has made clear to the Israelis that getting into a war with Iran is the proverbial bridge too far, and that Washington therefore won't support or enable an Israeli military strike on the Islamic Republic.) But, again, Americans don't understand the Alawites' dark insecurity - and the fact that they will risk war with Israel if they believe their survival requires it. Time.com

Israel to install radar antennae near nuclear site Fri Oct 3, 6:20 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel will install two massive radar antennae near the Dimona nuclear plant to bolster its defence measures against Iran, the Maariv newspaper reported on Friday. The 400 metre-high (1,300 feet) antennae will be erected in the Negev desert near a top-secret military site where Israel is widely believed to have developed the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, the paper said.An Israeli army spokesman said a new installation was being constructed but would not give further details, saying only that it was a military facility serving current military activities.Maariv said work on the twin masts, which would be the largest in the region, would begin in two weeks and would be completed in three months, but did not provide details on what the system would be used for.The newspaper said the antennae were part of a massive new radar system that the United States will deploy in Israel, a project announced by the Pentagon earlier this week.The deployment comes amid heightened fears regarding Iran's nuclear enrichment programme, which the United States and Israel say is aimed at developing weapons that could threaten the Jewish state's existence.Iran insists its programme is entirely peaceful.Israel has long considered Iran its main strategic threat, both because of its nuclear programme and because of repeated statements by Iranian leaders predicting the demise of the Jewish state.

The Pentagon was scheduled to deploy the radar to Israel in the autumn of 2009 for a joint exercise but moved it up a year following high-level talks in Washington.The United States deployed a similar radar to Japan in 2006 in response to a North Korean missile test.Also known as X-Band, the AN/TPY2 radar is designed to track ballistic missiles through space and provide ground-based missiles with the targeting data needed to intercept them.Data from the system will be provided to Israel's missile defence system, but the radar will remain owned and operated by the US military.

Stunning Words from Israel's Lame-Duck Leader By Larry Derfner
Thu Oct 2, 5:36 PM ET


JERUSALEM--Lame-duck Prime Minister Ehud Olmert raised a lot of eyebrows by saying that in return for peace, Israel will have to give up virtually all the land it conquered in the 1967 Six Day War.Apparently, there is a certain liberation that comes from having a political career in tatters over allegations of having pocketed envelopes of cash and other corrupt actions.What I'm telling you now has never been said by an Israeli leader before me, Olmert told journalists from Yediot Aharonot, the country's largest newspaper, in a lengthy pre-Rosh Hashana interview.

Technically, he's right; no previous Israeli premier ever publicly stated his willingness to sign peace treaties that gave the Palestinians almost all...if not all of the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the entire Golan Heights to Syria.Yet, dramatic as his remarks sounded, there's probably less to them than meets the eye.For one thing, Olmert can't make good on his bold words because he has resigned (because of the corruption investigations against him), and will soon be replaced in a government reshuffle or elections.For another thing, it's not exactly a revelation to say that the price of peace for Israel is all or virtually all of the conquered territories. Israel first offered the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace in a 1994 message to the United States, and offered nearly all of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem to the Palestinians in closed-door negotiations in 2001. Furthermore, the peace talks that the Olmert government is now conducting with the Palestinian Authority and Syria are tacitly understood to require a full-scale Israeli withdrawal if they are to succeed.What's more, Olmert made it clear that peace doesn't require only Israel to step up; the Palestinians and Syrians have to step up as well, and they are even farther away from the plate than Israel.Unfortunately, the Palestinians do not have the courage, strength, determination, will, and urgency required, he said, adding that Syria had yet to accept Israel's demand to distance itself from Iran and Hezbollah.

Olmert's Arab interlocutors sounded unimpressed.

Palestinian negotiators said they still hadn't been given anything in writing, while the Syrians again turned down Israel's offer to negotiate directly instead of through Turkish mediators.At home, Olmert's powerful right-wing opposition attacked him for endangering the existence of the state of Israel, in the words of one Knesset member.Meanwhile, no reaction has come from Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Olmert's recently elected successor as Kadima party leader who is trying to form a coalition government that would put her in his seat. However, Livni, who heads the peace talks with the Palestinians and supports the negotiations with Syria, is widely assumed to have roughly the same map in mind that Olmert described.On Iran, Olmert didn't explicitly rule out an attack on its nuclear facilities, but implicitly, he did. The assumption that if America and Russia and China and Britain and Germany don't know how to deal with the Iranians, [but] we Israelis do know, we will deal with it, we will act--this is an example of our loss of a sense of proportion, he said.Maybe the most eye-opening part of the interview was Olmert's disparagement of Israel's supremely influential military establishment. With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop, he said. All these things are worthless.He told of being briefed once by the country's top security officials and afterward telling them, When I listen to you, I understand why we haven't made peace in 40 years with the Palestinians and Syrians, and why we won't make peace in another 40 years with the Palestinians and Syrians.Actually, coming from an Israeli prime minister, that probably does count as a revelation.

Olmert questioned for eighth time in corruption probes Thu Oct 2, 11:01 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was questioned by police on Thursday for the eighth time since May on corruption allegations that led him to resign from office last month. Investigators questioned Olmert for around two hours on the Investment Centre affair, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, adding that the outgoing prime minister was likely to be questioned again in the coming weeks.The probe -- one of several concerning Olmert -- involves allegations that as trade minister he steered tens of millions of dollars worth of state funds towards a company owned by his former law partner Uri Messer.It is one of several criminal investigations into Olmert, who resigned on September 21 to battle the charges amid a growing chorus of criticism from political allies and foes alike.All the allegations concern his dealings as Jerusalem mayor and trade minister in the 13 years before he assumed the premiership in 2006.He will continue to serve as interim prime minister until Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni forms a new governing coalition or the country holds snap elections -- a period of political limbo that could last weeks or months.Police have recommended that the 63-year-old Olmert be indicted on criminal charges in two cases where he is accused of illegally accepting large sums of cash from a US financier and multiple-billing foreign trips.

Olmert has denied any wrongdoing.

On Thursday, police again quizzed Olmert about the second of the two cases -- dubbed the Rishon Tours affair after the company that organised his travel -- and he refused to answer their questions.His adviser Amir Dan said the acting premier had refused because police had already announced two weeks ago that they had completed their investigation of the case and had recommended that charges be pressed.At the start (of the interview), surprisingly he was asked about the Rishon Tours case, Dan told army radio.Suddenly the investigators have remembered that they failed to check everything out, he complained.Olmert's resignation has dealt a major blow to already sluggish US-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks relaunched in November 2007, when the two sides vowed to try to reach a full peace deal by the end of 2008.If Livni is unable to form a government in the coming weeks, general elections would be held early next year, which polls suggest would give the right-wing opposition Likud party the most seats in parliament.

Mideast peace meet planned for November Thu Oct 2, 4:55 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel, the Palestinians and the Middle East Quartet will meet in November to review progress in US-backed peace talks launched nearly a year ago, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on Thursday. Citing a senior official in Jerusalem, the paper reported that the meeting would be held in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on November 27, the one-year anniversary of the US conference that relaunched the negotiations.The two sides formally revived the peace process after a seven-year hiatus under the auspices of the Quartet, which groups the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.The negotiations have made little visible progress since then however, despite Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's joint pledge to try to reach a full agreement by the end of 2008.An Israeli official confirmed to AFP on condition of anonymity that such a meeting was in the works.During this meeting, the date and place of which have not yet been established, Israelis and Palestinians will for the first time present a summary of their agreements and differences, the official said.At last month's UN General Assembly, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the Quartet had expressed interest in such a conference but had not yet agreed on a firm date.The two sides remain deeply divided on the core issues of the decades-old conflict, including the future status of Jerusalem, the fate of some 4.6 million Palestinian refugees, and continuing Israeli settlement activity.The talks were dealt a further blow last month when Olmert resigned amid a series of corruption allegations, plunging the Jewish state into what could be months of political turmoil and uncertainty.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has been heading the negotiations, is now struggling to cobble together a new governing coalition in a bid to avoid early general elections which could bring the right-wing Likud party to power.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

BAHRAIN CALLS FOR REGIONAL GROUPINGS

Bahrain FM calls for regional grouping of Arabs, Israel Wed Oct 1, 6:54 AM ET

DUBAI (AFP) - The foreign minister of staunch US ally Bahrain has called for the creation of a regional grouping of Arab states with historic foe Israel, as well as Iran and Turkey, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. Israel, Iran, Turkey and Arab states should sit together in one organisation, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmad al-Khalifa was quoted in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat as saying.Aren't we all members of a global organisation called the United Nations? Why not (come together) on a regional basis? This is the only way to solve our problems. There's no other way to solve them, now or in 200 years.Al-Hayat, which interviewed the Bahraini chief diplomat in New York, said he had proposed the establishment of a regional bloc in a speech to the UN General Assembly.The tiny Gulf kingdom is a major ally of the United States and has a free trade agreement with Washington. It also hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.Bahrain's crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, met Israeli officials during World Economic Forum summits in 2000 and 2003, while Sheikh Khaled met Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni at the UN last year.But political groupings in Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni dynasty and has a Shiite majority, resist any attempt at normalisation of ties with Israel.Only two Arab countries -- Egypt and Jordan -- have full fledged peace treaties with Israel. Bahrain's Gulf neighbour Qatar, another close US ally, is one of a handful of Arab countries to maintain political contacts with the Jewish state.

Forging ties with Israel without a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is generally unpopular among ordinary Arabs.Why don't we sit together even if we disagree, even if we don't recognise each other? Let's be in a single organisation in order to overcome the difficult stage through which the Middle East is passing -- a stage that remains hostage to the past, Sheikh Khaled told Al-Hayat, referring to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.Told that his proposal might be perceived by some as a dream since it was hard to see hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting alongside Israel, Sheikh Khaled, whose country occasionally has problems with Iran, said: If this is perceived as a dream, well, many dreams have become reality.

Olmert's Lame-Duck Epiphany About Palestinian Peace By SCOTT MACLEOD
Wed Oct 1, 6:00 AM ET


He is a former leader in the rightist Likud Party who for decades staunchly believed that the West Bank and Gaza Strip belonged to the Jewish people and that the territories, along with the Golan Heights, should remain part of Greater Israel forever. Along with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert gradually came to understand that this was a fantasy. They broke away from Likud and created the centrist Kadima (Onward) Party three years ago. Now, as Olmert hands the reins to Tzipi Livni and leaves office amid a corruption scandal, he's made a series of stunning departure statements that form a swan song of historical importance. Peace advocates, Israeli dreamers, Arab skeptics and U.S. mediators in a future McCain or Obama Administration should read his words carefully and take note.The political lame duck's views expressed in interviews and public comments reveal the sweeping reversals that have taken place among some of Israel's ultra-nationalists. Olmert says Israel should withdraw from almost all of the West Bank and Golan Heights. A former mayor of the undivided capital of the Jewish state, he now advocates dividing Jerusalem with the Palestinians. He wants to keep some of the Jewish settlements that adjoin Israel's pre-1967 border but accepts giving the future Palestinian state Israeli territory in a land swap with a close to 1-to-1-ratio. The notion of a Greater Israel no longer exists, Olmert says, and anyone who still believes in it is deluding themselves.

True, these are not radical views. Former Labour PM Ehud Barak put something like this on the table at Camp David negotiations with the Palestinians eight years ago. What Olmert is saying today broadly conforms to the thinking of Israeli Labour politicians, mainstream Palestinian and Arab leaders, and U.S. officials, as well as the international community. What is important is the source, content and context of Olmert's statements.Olmert is no Arab-loving pacifist. As Prime Minister, he ravaged half of Lebanon in 2006 in a military offensive after Hizballah killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers. He has unmercifully turned the screws on Hamas-controlled Gaza. Olmert's comments reflect a profound shift toward realism among Israeli rightists, akin to what Palestinian and Arab nationalists started going through three decades ago, when Israel was in the prime of its strategic strength. The shift is evident not only in Olmert's prescription for a peace settlement, but also in his severe critique of a righteous Israeli mind-set that has turned out to be self-destructive.

Forty years after the Six-Day War ended, we keep finding excuses not to act, Olmert says. "We refuse to face reality ... The strategic threats we face have nothing to do with where we draw our borders ... For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at the reality in all its depth. Saying Israel would not attack Iran unilaterally to stop Tehran's nuclear program, Olmert scoffs, Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself.Olmert is by no means agreeing to a surrender. Yet, after Israel's failure to impose its will on Arab opponents by force over four decades, he's crying uncle. We invested our mental resources and thoughts in how to build Judea and Samaria, yet history made clear to us that the state of Israel has other realistic and viable options, he says. The state of Israel's future won't be found in intermixing with the Palestinians, but rather, is to be found in unpopulated regions that are desperate for our entrepreneurship and innovation.Palestinian demands, Olmert is acknowledging, won't go away. Recall, the Likud Party, with which Olmert made his career, always refused any dealings with the PLO or even to recognize its demands for Palestinian independence. Indeed, Sharon invaded Lebanon in 1982 with a grand vision of redrawing the Middle East map with no place for a Palestinian state. The expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank proceeded rapidly in the ensuing decades. With his about-face, Olmert effectively acknowledges that the Palestinian uprisings of 1987 and 2000 succeeded in forcing Israel to address Palestinian rights. Everybody, including Camp David host Bill Clinton, loved to blame Yasser Arafat for the collapse of the peace process. When Sharon succeeded Barak as Prime Minister in 2001, he began implementing a unilateral vision of a settlement by ending Israel's occupation of Gaza. Yet for the last year, at the tragically belated coaxing of the Bush Administration, Olmert, who replaced the ailing Sharon in 2006, has been quietly engaged in a revival of negotiations with Arafat's successor. Like Olmert's willingness to enter those talks, his swan song amounts to an admission that Israel never went quite far enough in accommodating the Palestinians' basic requirements for peace.

The realism behind Olmert's change of heart is of tremendous import, summed up by one sentence: The international community is starting to view Israel as a future binational state. In other words, forget about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threats to wipe Israel off the map. Echoing views he initially expressed in 2003, Olmert reasons that without an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, the Jewish state faces the self-inflicted, mortal danger of being destroyed by demographics, overwhelmed by Muslim and Christian Arabs demanding political representation. Olmert fears that the international community could ultimately favor a one-state solution, thus spelling the death of the two-state partition that has been at the core of an acceptable Israeli-Palestinian solution for decades. Time is not on Israel's side, Olmert says. I used to believe that everything from the Jordan River bank to the Mediterranean Sea was ours ... But eventually, after great internal conflict, I've realized we have to share this land with the people who dwell here - that is, if we don't want to be a binational state.In the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Aluf Benn disparages the Israeli Prime Minister's epiphany, saying Olmert is an excellent commentator, but he lacks the firmness to execute his ideas. Sadly, that seems to be the case. Yet Olmert, on the eighth anniversary of the second Palestinian intifadeh, has done history a valuable service by puncturing some myths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If future negotiators, as well as American mediators, abandon their fantasies as Olmert has done, a peace that truly benefits all parties is much likelier to come.

NY judge: PLO can't disguise terror as war By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer Tue Sep 30, 4:43 PM ET

NEW YORK - The Palestine Liberation Organization can't win dismissal of a lawsuit by victims of bombings in Israel by claiming the attacks were acts of war rather than terrorism, a judge ruled Tuesday. U.S. District Judge George Daniels said the 2004 lawsuit on behalf of victims and their families can proceed toward trial. It seeks up to $3 billion in damages from attacks between January 2001 and February 2004.

Daniels rejected the PLO's argument that two machine-gun attacks and five bombings were acts of war. The Jerusalem-area attacks killed 33 people and wounded hundreds, including scores of U.S. citizens.Daniels said the attacks targeted public places — not military or government personnel or interests. Two bombings were on downtown streets; others occurred at a crowded bus stop, a cafeteria at the Hebrew University and a passenger-filled civilian bus.The use of bombs in these circumstances indicates an intent to cause far-reaching devastation upon the masses, the judge said, with a merciless capability of indiscriminately killing and maiming untold numbers in heavily populated civilian areas.Such attacks upon non-combative civilians, who were allegedly simply going about their everyday lives, do not constitute acts of war, he said.Daniels also said the violence meets the legal definition of international terrorism.The lawsuit alleges that the PLO carried out the attacks to pressure the United States and Israel to submit to its demands and to terrorize, intimidate and coerce the civilian population of Israel into acquiescing to its political goals.The judge also rejected arguments that the PLO was entitled to sovereign immunity or that the lawsuit must be brought in Israel rather than the United States. It was brought under the Antiterrorism Act of 1991, which provides U.S. residents, their survivors and heirs civil remedies in U.S. courts if they are injured by international terrorism.Lawyers on both sides did not immediately return telephone messages for comment.

Israel army buys self-destruct cluster bombs: radio Tue Sep 30, 2:12 PM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli army is equipping itself with self-destruct cluster bombs in order to lower the number of civilian victims of this type of weapon, used in the 2006 war in Lebanon, military radio said. The army has reduced its purchases of US made cluster bombs, instead buying Israel-made M-85 cluster bombs, which contain a mechanism to destroy themselves if they fail to explode immediately on impact, according to the report.Cluster munitions spread bomblets over a wide area from a single container.The United Nations estimates that a million cluster bombs were dropped on Lebanon by Israel between July 12 and August 14 in 2006 in the conflict with Hezbollah.About 40 percent of these did not explode on impact and are spread among villages and orchards in the south of Lebanon.According to a UN report in June, at least 38 people have been killed and 217 wounded by bomblets exploding since the end of the fighting.The Israeli government's Winograd Commission of enquiry into the mistakes of the Lebanon war recommended the army use fewer cluster bombs in future to reduce civilian injuries.In May, delegates from 111 countries agreed a landmark treaty in in Dublin to ban the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions by its signatories.However, the agreement lacked the backing of major producers and stockpilers including Israel, China, India, Pakistan, Russia and the United States.

West Bank settler violence challenges Israel By Mohammed Assadi
Tue Sep 30, 9:19 AM ET


ASIRA AL-KIBLIYA, West Bank (Reuters) - Armed with guns, slingshots, knives and stun grenades, Jewish settlers pelted the house of Palestinian Nahla Makhlouf with stones, uprooted young trees and painted the Star of David on her walls. In Makhlouf's West Bank village of Asira al-Kibilya, Palestinians brace for possible attack by their Jewish settler neighbors from nearby Titzhar almost every weekend. But the latest attack exceeded their expectations.They sprayed some sort of tear gas through the window. It smelled strong and made our eyes run and made it hard to breath, especially for my baby, said the 33-year-old mother of four.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reacted strongly to the September 13 attack, saying he would not tolerate pogroms by Jewish extremists who are determined on religious grounds to stop Israel swapping occupied land for peace.Last week, an outspoken Israeli critic of the settlements was wounded by a pipe bomb outside his Jerusalem home, in what Olmert said was evidence of an evil wind of extremism, of hatred, of violence threatening Israeli democracy.Settlers and the Israeli army said the Asira assault was triggered by the wounding of a nine-year-old settler boy by a Palestinian whom he had disturbed in the act of setting fire to a house in the Yitzhar settlement while the family was away.But settler vigilante violence is growing, according to a recent U.N. report, which recorded 222 incidents in the first half of 2008, versus 291 in all of 2007.

HARDLINE

Some half a million Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem. Their presence, viewed by major powers as illegal under international law, is partly shielded by a 790 km (490 mile) barrier Israel has been building since 2002.In a newspaper interview on Monday, Olmert broke new ground by urging Israel's withdrawal from almost all the territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war in return for peace.But Olmert says Israel plans to keep major settlements in the West Bank in any peace deal, and would have to compensate the Palestinians for land lost.The Palestinians say they cannot have a viable country of their own if it is chopped into pieces by Israeli settlement islands and the snaking walls and fences of the new barrier.U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called the settlements an obstacle to peace which must go.Some settlers justified the attack on Asira, saying the army failed to protect them against a violent infiltration.If the Israeli army had done what it should, maybe this wouldn't have happened. They should either have prevented that infiltration or carried out a raid after, Renana Cohen said.Dani Dayan of Israel's mainstream settlers' organization says the Arabs do not want peace. A Palestinian state would be a launching pad from which they would conduct ethnic cleansing against the Israelis, he argues. Many Israelis feel the same.

Most settlers oppose vigilante violence. But most agree that withdrawal would be a sure recipe for war, as Dayan puts is, because there will no peace-loving Palestinians taking over.A younger, more aggressive breed of religious ideologues vows a violent response to any eviction threat, warning a heavy price would be exacted for any bid to close settlements down.

NO PROTECTION

Residents of Asira say the settlers need no provocation or pretext. Attacks on Asira date back three years, Makhlouf said. Palestinians complain of unremitting harassment, such as the burning of their olive trees and stoning attacks on farmers in the fields, as a prelude to land-creep and confiscation. The garden and rooftop of Makhlouf's neighbor, Ahmed Dawood, were littered by stones rained onto his house in the settler rampage. The water tank was holed by four bullet. Dawood's son and a laborer in his field were shot and wounded. The army, he said, made no effort to stop the attack. I complained to the soldiers and they shouted back Get inside and started shooting, he said. We have nothing to protect ourselves with. We just take precautions such as putting metal grids on the windows. But the solution is to have them uprooted from here.Asira's predicament is well known to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, who gave Makhlouf a small video camera in 2007 to document violence. The lens was knocked off focus by a rock in the latest attack but still provided an audio record. Yoav Gross of B'Tselem said the settlers can be heard giving the army a one-minute ultimatum to act against the Palestinians or they would do the job themselves. They started counting one, two, three..., he said. They were giving orders to the soldiers, not the other way around.One Israeli human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard, says most soldiers do not realize they have not only the right but also the duty, as the occupying power, to defend Palestinians. Settler attacks may rise in the upcoming olive harvest, when Arab farmers work the groves close to settlement perimeters. One Palestinian woman in Asira was stocking up on corrosive cleaning fluids to throw at the attackers next time they visit. They have the army to protect them even while they are attacking us, said the woman, who was afraid to give her name. But we have no one to defend us.(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Samia Nakhoul)

Israelis welcome Jewish New Year By SHAWNA OHM, Associated Press Writer
Mon Sep 29, 2:18 PM ET


JERUSALEM - Israelis ushered in the Jewish New Year on Monday with festive family dinners — and a warning from their outgoing prime minister that they'll have to return virtually all the land captured in 1967 to win peace with the Palestinians and Syrians. Ehud Olmert, who is giving up his office amid a corruption investigation, also exchanged holiday greetings with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. The Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashana, coincides this year with Eid el-Fitr, one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar.The two leaders have been meeting regularly in recent months trying to work out a peace accord that would end their long conflict and give the Palestinians their own state. But the talks have not produced tangible results, and many Israelis and Palestinians are skeptical about prospects.For many Israelis, the year that ended Monday was also disappointing in other ways. Top leaders, including Olmert, and a one-time president, Moshe Katsav, have been forced out by scandal.From the public, Israeli standpoint, the year that ends this evening should perhaps be erased from collective memory, columnist Eitan Haber wrote in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot.We are divided, skeptical, disbelieving, facing the greatest leadership crisis there has ever been here, added another Yediot columnist, Yair Lapid.Rosh Hashana, which began at sundown, ushers in 10 days of soul-searching capped by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But the New Year holiday itself is a time for festive meals, which traditionally include an apple dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year.

Israel closed off the West Bank until late Wednesday, barring Palestinians from entering Israel. It is a measure common during Jewish holidays, to deter possible attacks by Palestinian militants.The Gaza Strip, the other Palestinian territory, has been virtually sealed off since June 2007, when the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control by force. The vast majority of the territory's 1.4 million Palestinians have been trapped there since then.In his farewell interview as prime minister, Olmert said Israel will have to give up nearly all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem if it wants peace with the Palestinians, who plan their state for those areas and Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.Olmert also said Israel would have to leave the Golan Heights, a militarily strategic high ground that looks down on northern Israel, to obtain peace with Syria.The comments were the clearest sign to date of Olmert's willingness to meet the demands of Israel's longtime enemies in peace talks. But their significance was uncertain, since his days in office are numbered and negotiations will soon become the responsibility of a new Israeli leader.Palestinians, meanwhile, prepared for Eid el-Fitr, the three-day holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Eid el-Fitr will start here Tuesday.In Gaza, outdoor markets were selling nearly all the supplies needed for the holiday, but prices were up sharply, compared to the period before the start of the blockade. Gazans get many of their supplies through smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.A tunnel operator, who would identify himself only as Abu Nidal, said he had been working double time in the run-up to the holiday.

Before we used to enter 1, 2 tons a day of goods in general, he said. These days, from 5 to 6 tons. He added that the smuggled goods range from clothes and chocolate to balloons.Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics released its annual population figures to mark the New Year. It said 7.34 million people live in Israel, including 5.54 million Jews, or 75 percent of the population. There are 1.48 million Arabs, about 20 percent, and 315,000 members of other groups.The annual population growth rate held steady at 1.8 percent. The Arab population grew at a faster rate than the Jewish population, 2.6 percent compared to 1.6 percent.